The state of the book trade, and the importation of books into this
country, but a few years ago, were such as to offer but scanty
advantages to the pursuit of historical letters. There were but few
libraries deserving of notice, and these were placed at remote points,
spread over a very extensive geographical area, where access became
often difficult or impossible. By far the largest number of American
libraries were limited to a few thousand volumes, often a few hundreds
only, and these were chiefly made up of common or elementary works
on arts, sciences and general literature. Writers were compelled to
consult works at second hand, and could seldom get access to scarce and
valuable originals; and the difficulties of making original inquiries
into archæology, antiquities, philology, and other more abstruse,
or less popular topics, increased at every step, and were in fact
insurmountable to men of ordinary means. This state of things will
sufficiently account for the low state of historical letters up to
within a comparatively short period, without impugning the judgment
or sagacity of early observers, on our local and distinctive history;
and offers also a rational plea why the aboriginal branch of our
antiquities, and the just expanding science of ethnology, has been
left enshrouded in so much darkness and historical mystery. We have,
in fact, not had the means of making such inquiries. The libraries at
Harvard, the public collection set on foot by Franklin at Philadelphia,
the library of Congress, and that of the New-York Historical Society,
and perhaps the growing library of the State Capitol at Albany,
are some of the chief collections yet made in the Union; and these
might be conveniently stowed away, _en masse_, in one corner of the
“Bibliotheque Royal” at Paris, without exciting notice.
[_a._] Who were the Eries?
Louis Hennepin, who was a Recollect, remarks in the original Amsterdam
edition of his travels of 1698, that Canada was first discovered by
the Spanish, alluding doubtless to the voyage of Corte-Real and that
it received its first missionaries under the French, from the order
of Recollects. These pioneers of the cross, according to this author,
made themselves very acceptable to the Hurons or Wyandots, who occupied
the banks of the St. Lawrence, and who informed them that the Iroquois
pushed their war parties beyond Virginia and New-Sweden, and other
parts remote from their cantons. They went, he says, in these wars,
near to a lake, which they called Erige or Erie.[88] Now, if they went
“beyond Virginia and New-Sweden,” they were very remote from Lake
Erie, and the assertion implies a contradiction or some ignorance of
the geography of the country. This name in the Huron language, he
informs us, signifies the Cat, or Nation of the Cat—a name, he says,
which it derived from the fact that the Iroquois in returning to their
cantons, brought the Erige or Erike, captives through it. The Canadians
softened this word to ERIE. It would appear then, that the
Eries either did not occupy the immediate banks of the lake, or else
they lived on the upper or more remote parts of it. To be brought
captives through it, they must have been embarked at some distance
from its lower extremity. This vague mode of expression leaves a doubt
as to the actual place of residence of this conquered and, so called,
extinct tribe. Whether extinct or not, is not certain. The name is only
a Wyandot name. They had others.
[88] Vide Appendix.
From inquiries made among the Senecas, they are, some believe, the same
people whom this nation call KAH-KWAHS. But we do not advance
much by changing one term for another. The inquiry returns, who were
the Kah-Kwahs? Seneca tradition affirms that they lived on the banks of
Lake Erie, extending eastward towards the Genesee river, and westward
indefinitely; and that they were finally conquered in a war, which was
closed by a disastrous battle, the locality of which is not fixed;
after which they were chased west, and the remnant driven down the
Allegheny river. [See the subsequent paper _d_.]
Cusick, the Tuscarora archæologist, who writes the word “Squawkihows,”
intimates that these were an affiliated people, and that the remnant
after their defeat, were incorporated with the Senecas. [D.]
Colden states that after the war with the Adirondacks broke out, say at
the end of the 16th century, the Iroquois, to try their courage, went
to war against a nation called Satanas,[89] who lived on the banks of
the lakes, whom they defeated and conquered, which raised their spirits
so much, that they afterwards renewed the war against the Adirondacks
and Hurons[90] on the St. Lawrence, and finally prevailed against them.
[Hist. Five Nations, p. 23, Lond. ed. 1767.]
[89] This word appears to be an English _soubriquet_, derived from the
Dutch language, and is from Satan, a synonyme for Duivel. [See Jansen’s
new Pocket Dictionary, Dortracht 1831.] The plural inflection in _a_,
if this derivation be correct, is duplicated in its meaning, by the
corresponding English inflection in _s_, a practice quite conformable
to English orthœpy, which puts its vernacular plural to foreign
plurals, as Cherubims for Cherubim, &c.
[90] Called Quatoghies by the Iroquois.
Satanas, it appears from the same author, is a name for the Shaouanons,
Shawanoes, or Shawnees, as the term is variously written; a tribe, it
may be further remarked, who are called _Chât_ by the modern Canadian
French.
A letter of the missionary Le Moyne, published in the Missionary
“Relacions,” and hereto appended, proves that the war with the Eries,
whatever may have been its origin or former state, had newly broken out
in 1653, and there are references of a subsequent date to denote that
by the year 1655, this war had terminated in the disastrous overthrow
of this people. They appear to have been then located where the
existing traditions of the Senecas place them, namely, west of Genesee
river, and at or near Buffalo. We may suppose that up to this period,
the Senecas were limited to the eastern banks of the Genesee. And it
was probably the results of this war that transferred their council
fire from the present site of Geneva or Canandaigua to the Genesee
valley.
When La Salle reached the Niagara river in 1679, but twenty-four years
after the close of this Erie war, he found the entire country on its
eastern or American banks in the possession of the Senecas. [J.] The
history and fate of the Eries was then a tradition.
We may here drop the inquiry to be resumed at a future period.
[_b._] Building of the first vessel on the upper lakes.
The enterprise of La Salle, in constructing a vessel above the falls
of Niagara, in 1679, to facilitate his voyage to the Illinois and the
Mississippi, is well known; but while the fact of his having thus been
the pioneer of naval architecture on the upper lakes, is familiar
to historical readers, the particular _place_ of its construction,
has been a matter of various opinions. Gen. Cass in his historical
discourse, places it at Erie; Mr. Bancroft in his history, designates
the mouth of the Tonawanda. Mr. Sparks in the biography of Marquette,
decides to place it on the Canadian side of the Niagara. These
variances result in a measure from the vague and jarring accounts of
the narrators, whose works had been consulted in some instances in
abridged or mutilated translations, and not from doubt or ambiguity in
the missionary “Letters.”
Literary associations in America, who aimed to increase the means
of reference to standard works, began their labors in feebleness.
The New-York Historical Society, which dates its origin in 1804, and
has vindicated its claims to be the pioneer of historical letters
in America, published Tonti’s account of the Chevalier La Salle’s
enterprise, in one of the volumes of its first series. It is since
known, however, that this account was a bookseller’s compilation from,
it is believed generally correct sources, but it was disclaimed by
Tonti. It is at least but an abbreviation, and cannot be regarded as an
original work.
In 1820, the American Antiquarian Society published in their first
volume of collections, an account of Hennepin discoveries, which is
known to bibliographers to be a translation of a mere abridgment of
the original work, reduced to less than half its volume of matter.
There was also an edition of this author, published in London in 1698;
but still clipped of some of its matter, or otherwise defective; the
tastes and wants of an English public being constantly consulted in
the admission of continental books of this cast. The original work
of Hennepin was published in French, at Amsterdam in 1698. Being of
the order of Recollects, and not a Jesuit, there was much feeling and
prejudice against him in France, of which Charlevoix, the accomplished
historian of New-France, partook in no small degree. Yet whatever
may have been the justice or injustice of these impeachments of the
missionary’s veracity, there could be no motive for disagreement in a
fact of this kind.
Hennepin was the camp missionary of the party on the way to Illinois,
and the companion of La Salle and Tonti on the occasion. By adverting
to his narrative, in the appendix, the most satisfactory and
circumstantial details on this subject will be found. The vessel,
according to him, was built “two leagues above the falls,” that is,
about three miles above the present site of fort Schlosser, on Cayuga
creek. There is no stream, at this distance, on the Canadian side.
They reached the spot on the 22d of January, set up the keel on the
26th, and, after laboring all winter, amidst discouragements, during
which the Senecas threatened to burn it, at one time, and refused to
sell corn to support the workmen, at another, it was launched in the
spring, and named the Griffin, “in allusion to the arms of the Count
de Frontenac, which was supported by two griffins.” The figure of a
griffin adorned the prow, surmounted by an eagle, the symbolic type
of the embryo power, which was destined, in due time, to sway the
political destinies of the continent. There were seven small cannon,
and thirty persons, including the crew. With great difficulty, and by
the use of the _cordelle_, they ascended the rapids, the present site
of Black-Rock, and finally, after many delays, they set sail, freighted
with merchandize, on the 7th of August, 1679, just six months and
twelve days after they had laid the keel. Thus the honor of furnishing
the first vessel on our great chain of inland lakes, above the falls,
is due to the present area of Niagara county, New-York. How this
initiatory step has been followed up, in the course of one hundred and
sixty-seven years, until these lakes are whitened by the canvass of the
republic, and decorated with its self-moving palaces of wood and iron,
under the guise of steamboats, it would be interesting to note. But we
have no statistics of this kind to turn to. As an increment in such an
inquiry, I subjoin, in the appendix, lists kept at my office, in the
west, of the various species of vessels, which entered and departed
from the remote little harbor of Michilimackinac, during the sailing
seasons of 1839 and 1840, respectively.
[_c._] Who were the Alleghans?
This is an inquiry in our aboriginal archæology, which assumes a deeper
interest, the more it is discussed. All the republic is concerned
in the antiquarian knowledge and true etymology and history of an
ancient race, to whom tradition attaches valor and power, and who have
consecrated their name in American geography upon the most important
range of mountains between the valley of the Mississippi, and the
Atlantic. But the inquiry comes home to us with a local and redoubled
interest, from the fact, that they occupied a large portion of the
western area of the State, comprising the valley of the Alleghany river
to its utmost source, and extending eastwardly an undefined distance.
Even so late as 1727, Colden, in his history of the Five Nations,
places them under the name of “Alleghens,” on his map of this river.
It is not certain that they did not anciently, occupy the country as
far east and south as the junction of Allen’s creek, with the Genesee.
A series of old forts, anterior in age to the Iroquois power, extends
along the shores of lake Erie, up to the system of water communication
which has its outlet into the Alleghany through the Conewongo. There
are some striking points of identity between the character of these
antique military works, and those of the Ohio valley, and this
coincidence is still more complete in the remains of ancient art found
in the old Indian cemeteries, barrows and small mounds of western
New-York, extending even as far east as the ancient Osco, now Auburn.
The subject is one worthy of full examination, who this ancient race
were? whence they came? and whither they went? are inquiries fraught
with interest. We should not be led astray, or thrown off the track of
investigation by the name. All the tribes, ancient and modern, have
multiform names. This one of the Alleghans, probably fell upon the ears
of the first settlers, but it is far from certain that it was their own
term, while it is quite certain that it was not of the vocabulary of
the bold northern race, the Iroquois, who impinged upon them. It has
the character of an Algonquin word. Their descendants, whoever their
ancestors were, may yet exist, under their own proper name, in the far
west. The Iroquois, who pushed their conquests down the Alleghany and
Ohio rivers after them, did not found a claim to territory further
south on the Ohio river, than the mouth of the Kentucky. They pushed
their war parties to the Catawba and Cherokee territories across the
Alleghanies, and as far west as the Illinois. They swept over the whole
region included between lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron, north. In the
latter case we know it was a war against the tribes of the Algonquin
stock, including one branch of another, and that their own generic
stock, namely, the Quatoghies or Hurons.
The following communication on this subject, addressed to the Secretary
of the Maryland Historical Society, is added in this connection.
Although written to vindicate a question of antiquarian research, in a
sister society, and partaking perhaps a little of a polemic cast, the
facts are of permanent interest, and are thrown together in a brief and
concentrated form.
_New-York, May 28th, 1845._