I can give, says Golden, in his history of the five Indian Nations, two
strong instances of the hospitality of the Mohawks, which fell under
my own observation; and which will show, that they have the very same
notion of hospitality which we find in the ancient poets. When I was
last in the Mohawk’s country, the sachems told me that they had an
Englishman among their people, a servant who had run away from his
master in New York. I immediately told them they must deliver him up.
‘No,’ they answered, ‘we never serve any man so, who puts himself under
our protection.’ On this I insisted on the injury they did thereby to
his master: they allowed it might be an injury, and replied, ‘Though
we will never deliver him up, we are willing to pay the value of the
servant to the master.’ Another man made his escape from the jail in
Albany, where he was in prison on an execution of debt: the Mohawks
received him, and, as they protected him against the sheriff and
officers they not only paid the debt for him, but gave him land over
and above, sufficient for a good farm, whereon he lived when I was last
there.