TREATIES.
In early times, when Indian nations, after long and bloody wars, met
together, for the purpose of adjusting their differences, or concluding
a peace with each other, it was their laudable custom, as a token of
their sincerity, to remove out of the place where the peacemakers
were sitting, all warlike weapons and instruments of destruction, of
whatever form or shape. “For,” said they, “when we are engaged in a
good work, nothing that is bad must be visible. We are met together to
forgive and forget, to _bury_ the destructive weapon, and put it quite
out of sight; we cast away from us the fatal instrument that has caused
so much grief to our wives and children, and has been the source of
so many tears. It is our earnest hope and wish that it may never be
dug up again.” So particular were they on this point, that if a single
weapon had been in sight, while a treaty was negotiating, it would
have disturbed their minds by recalling the memory of past events, and
instead, (as they say) of gladdening their hearts, by the prospect of a
speedy peace, would, on the contrary, have filled them with sorrow.
Nor would they even permit any warlike weapons to remain within the
limits of their _council fire_, when assembled together about the
ordinary business of government. It might, they said, have a bad
effect, and defeat the object for which they had met. It might be a
check on some of the persons assembled, and perhaps, prevent those who
had a just complaint or representation to make, from speaking their
minds freely. William Penn, said they, when he treated with them,
adopted this ancient mode of their ancestors, and convened them under
a grove of shady trees, where the little birds on their boughs were
warbling their sweet notes. In commemoration of these conferences
(which are always to Indians a subject of pleasing remembrance) they
frequently assembled together in the woods, in some shady spot as
nearly as possible similar to those where they used to meet their
brother _Miquon_, and there lay all his “_words_” or speeches, with
those of his descendants, on a blanket or clean piece of bark, and with
great satisfaction go successively over the whole. This practice (which
I have repeatedly witnessed) continued until the year 1780, when the
disturbances which then took place put an end to it, probably for ever.
These pleasing remembrances, these sacred usages are no more. “When we
treat with the white people,” do the Indians now say, “we have not the
choice of the spot where the messengers are to meet. When we are called
upon to conclude a peace, (and what a peace?) the meeting no longer
takes place in the shady grove, where the innocent little birds with
their cheerful songs, seem as if they wished to soothe and enliven our
minds, tune them to amity and concord and take a part in the good work
for which we are met. Neither is it at the sacred council house, that
we are invited to assemble. No!--It is at some of those horrid places,
surrounded with mounds and ditches, where the most destructive of all
weapons, where _great guns_ are gaping at us with their wide mouths,
as if ready to devour us; and thus we are prevented from speaking our
minds freely as brothers ought to do!”
How then, say they, can there be any sincerity in such councils? how
can a treaty of this kind be binding on men thus forced to agree to
what is dictated to them in a strong prison and at the cannon’s mouth;
where all the stipulations are on one side, where all is concession
on the one part and no friendship appears on the other? From these
considerations, which they urge and constantly dwell upon, the treaties
which they make with the white men have lost all their force, and they
think themselves no longer bound by them than they are compelled by
superior power. Are they right in this or are they wrong? The impartial
reader must decide.