USA > Maryland > The history of Maryland : from its first settlement, in 1633, to the restoration, in 1660 ; with a copious introduction, and notes and illustrations > Part 20
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* This seems to intimate one of the causes for their settling on the Nanticoke ; a river formerly abounding, not only in fish, but in those animals, which de- light in the morasses and marshes adjacent to rivers, and whose skins furnish the best of furs ; particularly beavers and otters. Hence Smith found them, as he states, the best traders he had met with, that is, in peltry, and hence they were subsequently called trappers.
+ The " tract of country," which they occupied when they were first visited by Smith in 1608, could not have been very " large," when considered as the hunt- ing-grounds of so large a tribe, unless we suppose, that the Cuscarawaocks, the Sarapinaghs, the Nanses, and the Nantiquaks, stated by Smith as dwelling on the Cuscarawaock river, when he saw them, were all of the Nanticoke tribe or nation; and this circumstance-the extensiveness of their "tract of country," above mentioned, corroborates the opinion, herein before mentioned, that the Cus- carawaocks and those other tribes just mentioned, were all one and the same people as those now denominated Nanticokes, inhabiting in different towns on the Cuscarawaock now the Nanticoke river. They must have occupied all the borders of that river on both sides, in Somerset as well as in Dorchester coun- ties, from the head thereof, which is now within the Delaware state, to its mouth or junction with the Chesapeake. The Nanticokes are the only numerous and warlike nation of Indians recognized by our earliest records of Maryland as in- habiting in that part of the eastern shore, and under that name alone we now see them also here recognized and known in their traditional history by Heck- ewelder.
# The white people, it is well known, first arrived in Virginia in the year 1607; but, as they first settled on the James river, they certainly did not cause the removal of any Indians from the Patowmack, until long after the arrival of the Maryland colony there. It is moreover inconsistent with the intercourse had between the Virginians and the Indians on the Patowmack, as recognized in Smith's History of Virginia, until near the period of the arrival of the Mary- land colonists. The Canai, or as they are more often called Conoys, if they ever inhabited on the shores of the Patowmack, must have had their dwelling place very high up that river, above " the tide-water" thereof, to which, Hecke- welder says in another place, the Lenape territories once extended. It would seem therefore, that the Conoys could not have removed " on account of the
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Susquehanah,* not far from where John Harris afterwards es- SEC. VII. tablished a ferry .; The main branch, or the Nanticokes proper, were then living in what is now called the eastern shore of Ma- ryland .¿ At length, the white people crowded so much upon them, that they were also obliged to seek another abode, and as their grandfather was himself, retreating back in consequence of the great influx of the whites,§ they took the advice of the Mengwe,|| and bent their course at once to the large flats at Wyoming, where they settled by themselves, in sight of the Shawanos town, while others settled higher up the river, even
arrival of the white people," until long after the settlement of Maryland, per- haps not until the eighteenth century, when the Virginians and Marylanders might have begun to press upon them.
* Mr. Heckewelder says in another place, (Historical Account, &c. p. 26.)- " The Canai I call by their proper name. I allude here to those people we call Canais, Conois, Conoys, Canaways, Kanhawas, Canawese."-Again, (in p. 108.) " The Canai or Kanhawas, who have given their name to a river in Vir- ginia which empties itself into the Ohio, are known to have been of the same stock," to wit, of the Lenape. From this it might be inferred, that the removal of the Conoys or Kanhawas from the Patowmack, "on account of the white people there," was in a retrograde direction across the Allegany mountains, where they naturally fell in with one of the two rivers, which from them took the name of the Kanhawa, probably the Little Kanhawa. A part of them, how- ever, might have settled on the Susquehanah, as above stated ; a fact, that seems to be corroborated by the record of the treaty held at Philadelphia, in July 1742, with some chiefs of the Six Nations, Showanese, and Delawares; at which treaty also are stated to have been present four chiefs, (therein named,) of the " Canoyias or Nanticokes, of Canestogo," that is, of Conostogo creek near Lan- caster in Pennsylvania .- See the Treaty in Colden's Hist. part 2d, p. 58.
t In Evans's map of the " Middle Colonies," Harris's ferry is laid down, pre- cisely on the same spot as that where the town called Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, now stands.
į As the words-" then living,"-appear to refer to the time " when the white people first arrived in Virginia," this corresponds with Smith's account of the Nantiquaks settled on the Cuscarawaock, at the time of his discovery of them in the year 1608, the year after the first arrival of the white people in Virginia.
§ This seems to refer the necessity of the Nanticokes " to seek another abode," to about the middle of the eighteenth century; when the influx of the colonists into Pennsylvania began to cause the Delawares or Lenape, the "grandfather" of the Nanticokes, to retreat back into the interior parts of the Province.
|| Why they should have taken the advice of the Mengwe, (or Six Nations,) instead of their grandfather the Lenape, (or Delawares,) is to be accounted for only by the fact, that, at the time of the first migration of the Nanticokes from Maryland, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the Lenape (or Dela- wares) themselves were subordinate to and under the direction of the Mengwe or Six Nations, whether they had " made women of them" by force or by stra- tagem.
T This appears to have been the name of an Indian town, situated on the north west side of the east branch of the Susquehanah river, in Northumberland coun- ty, Pennsylvania.
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SEC. VII. as high as Chemenk (Shenango) and Shummunk,* to which places they all emigrated at the beginning of the French war.t White's tribe resided there until the revolutionary war, when they went off to a place nearer to the British, whose part they had taken, and whose standard they joined ; White himself had joined the Christian Indians at Scheckschaquon, several years previous to the war, and remained with them.
" Nothing, said White, had equalled the decline of his tribe since the white people had come into the country. They were destroyed in part by disorders which they brought with them, by the small pox, the venereal disease, and by the free use of spiritu- ous liquors, to which great numbers fell victims.}
" The emigration of the Nanticokes from Maryland was well known to the Society of the United Brethren. At the time when these people were beginning their settlement in the forks of De- laware,§ the Rev. Christian Pyrlaus noted down in his memo- randum book, ' that on the 21st day of May, 1748, a number of the Nanticokes from Maryland, passed by Shamokin in ten canoes, on their way to Wyoming.'-Others, travelling by land, would frequently pass through Bethlehem, and from hence through the Water Gap to Nescopeck| or Susquehanah, and while they
* These were places on the highest branches of the Susquehanah river above the Pennsylvania line and within the limits of the present State of New York, and in the neighbourhood of the Six Nations.
t There were two "French wars," to which the above expression might pos- sibly apply :- the war between Great Britain and France, which commenced in 1744, and that, which commenced with Col. Washington's expedition to the Great Meadows in Pennsylvania in 1754. It is the latter, most probably, to which Mr. Heckewelder alludes.
į There is some obscurity here in Heckewelder's expression. It is uncertain, whether the relative pronoun-" they," in the expression-" which they brought with them,-refers to White's tribe or " the white people." White's tribe might have " brought with them," when they migrated from Maryland to Penn- sylvania and New York, those disorders ; but is most probable, that Heckewel- der meant it to have reference to the latter-the white people, to whom is most commonly attributed the introduction of those disorders among the aborigines of America.
§ That is, when the United Brethren were beginning their settlement there at Bethlehem. Not the Nanticokes. The Moravians, or United Brethren, began to build the town of Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, in the year 1741.
|| An Indian town called Nescopek is lald down on Evans's map of the Middle British Colonies, published in 1755, as then situated on the east side of the East Branch of the Susquehanah, about twenty-seven miles above the fork of that river, which is where the town of Northumberland now stands, and about thirteen miles below Wyoming, which was on the north west side of the said East Branch, as herein before mentioned .- Shamokin is a small creek, which empties into the Susquehanah on the east side thereof, below what is called the forks of Susque- hanah at Northumberland, and just below a place called Sunbury.
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resided at Wyoming, they, together with the Shawanese, became SEC. VII. the emissaries of the Five Nations, and in conjunction with them afterwards endeavoured to remove the Christian Indians from Gnadenhutten, in Northampton county, to Wyoming; their pri- vate object being to have a full opportunity to murder the white inhabitants, in the war which they already knew would soon break out between the French and English.
" These Nanticokes had the singular custom of removing the bones of their deceased friends from the burial place to a place of deposit in the country they dwell in. In earlier times, they were known to go from Wyoming and Chemenk, to fetch the bones of their dead from the Eastern shore of Maryland, even when the bodies were in a putrid state, so that they had to take off the flesh and scrape the bones clean, before they could carry them along. I well remember having seen them between the years 1750 and 1760, loaded with such bones, which, being fresh, caused a disagreeable stench, as they passed through the town of Bethlehem .*
* William Penn, and some other religious enthusiasts, whose minds were al- most exclusively filled with the history of the Israelites, have expressed their " belief," that the North American Indians were " of the Jewish race, that is, of the stock of the ten tribes ;"-in support of which, they have fancifully stated some of the religious "rites" of the Indians ; as that " they reckon by moons ; they offer their first-fruits ; they have a kind of feast of tabernacles ;" and some other customs. Had Penn been apprised of the above mentioned " singular cus- tom" of the Nanticokes, he certainly would have deemed it as proof positive of their Jewish origin. When the Israelites made their exodus or escape out of Egypt, under Moses their leader, they carried with them, not only the bones of Joseph agreeably to his dying order, after his body had been embalmed accord- ing to the Egyptian custom, but, as is affirmed by the Jewish Rabbins, " every tribe brought away the bones of the heads of their family with them." (See the Anc. Univ. Hist. vol. ii. p. 577.) Although Moses has not mentioned this latter circumstance, yet it seems to be corroborated by what St. Stephen said in his speech to the Jews a little before he was put to death. (See Acts vii. 15.) The other custom, just alluded to, and somewhat connected with that above mentioned, was more generally prevalent with the Indians both of Virginia and Maryland. The fact seems to be certain, as attested by both Smith and Bever- ly, in their histories of Virginia, that the Powhatans practised the custom of em- balming the bodies of their kings or chiefs, and the particular manner of their doing so is described by each of them. The author of this work himself has often heard and learned, when he was a boy, from numerous persons well ac- quainted with the latter customs of the Choptank Indians of Maryland, who were situated within the same county as the Nanticokes, and within less than twenty miles distant from them, that the Choptanks observed the custom, even as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, of embalming the dead bodies of their chiefs and great men. When thus embalmed they were kept in a building set apart for that purpose, which was denominated by them-the Quioccason house,
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SEC. VII. "They are also said to have been the inventors of a poison- ous substance, by which they could destroy a whole settlement of people, and they are accused of being skilled in the arts of witch- craft; it is certain that they are dreaded on this account. I have known Indians who firmly believed that they had people among them, who could, if they pleased, destroy a whole army, by mere- ly blowing their breath towards them. Those of the Lenape and other tribes, who pretend to witchcraft, say that they learned the science from the Nanticokes; they are not unwilling to be taxed with being wizzards, as it makes them feared by their neighbours.
" Their national name, according to the report of their chief, White, is Nentego. The Delawares call them Unechtgo, and the Iroquois Seganiateratickrohne .* These three names have the same meaning, and signify tide-water people, or the sea-shore settlers. They have besides other names, by-names, as it were, given them with reference to their occupation. The Mohicans, for instance, call them Otayáchgo, and the Delawares Tayach- quáns, both which words in their respective languages, signify a "bridge," a "dry passage over a stream;" which alludes to their being noted for felling great numbers of trees across streams, to set their traps on. They are also often called the Trappers.
"In the year 1785, this tribe had so dwindled away, that their whole body, who came together to see their old chief White, then residing with the Christian Indians on the Huron river, north of Detroit, did not amount to 50 men. They were then going through Canada, to the Miami country, to settle beside the Shaw- anos, in consequence of an invitation they had received from them."}
There are a few legislative documents among the provincial
exactly the same term, at least in sound, as that used for the same purpose by the Powhatans, as related by both Smith and Beverly. The transition from em- balming to removing the dead bodies of their chiefs or heads of families and tribes, in case of a compulsory removal of the whole tribe or nation, as was the case with both the Israelites and the Nanticokes, is natural, and rests not on re- ligious superstition. In the case of parents, it is founded in that natural and pious affection towards them discernible even among the children of savages, and in the case of their kings and chiefs it originates from their esteem and ve- neration for them when living.
* Ronoon, or as spelt above, "rohne," in the language of the Five Nations, means the same as nation or people. Colden's Hist. Five Nations, p. 61, and Tachanoontia's speech, in the treaty held at Lancaster, June 27th, 1744, in Col- den's Hist. 2d part, p. 112.
+ Heckewelder's Hist. Account, &c. p. 73-76.
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records of Maryland, which are strongly illustrative, if not cor- SEC. VII. roborative, of the preceding traditional history of the Naticokes; particularly as to the time and causes of their migration from Maryland, and somewhat of their conduct during what is called the French war of 1754-6. It is certain, that the white people on the eastern shore of Maryland began to "crowd upon" the Naticokes long before the middle of the eighteenth century, the period of their migration, as assigned by Heckewelder. It ap- pears from an act of assembly of Maryland, of 1768, ch. vii., entitled, "An act for granting to the Nanticoke Indians a com- pensation for the lands therein mentioned," that large tracts of land had been surveyed, and patents of grant obtained thereon, as early as the years 1665 and 1695, within the limits of the lit- tle territory on the Nanticoke then occupied by these Indians. These tracts so surveyed and patented, three in number, con- tained the aggregate amount of 1664 acres, about two and a half square miles. These intrusions, in all probability, occasioned the first act of assembly, which appears on the records of Ma- ryland relative to the Nanticokes, entitled "An act for ascertain- ing the bounds of a certain tract of land, to the use of the Nan- ticoke Indians, so long as they shall occupy and live upon the same,"-first passed in the year 1698, and afterwards re- newed in the year 1704. The preamble thereof does great credit to our ancestors of that period, and is as follows :-- "It being most just, that the Indians, the ancient inhabitants of this province, should have a convenient dwelling place, in this their native country, free from the encroachments and oppression of the English; more especially the Nanticoke Indians in Dorches- ter county, who, for these many years have lived in peace and concord with the English, and in all matters in obedience to the government of this province: Be it enacted, &c., that all the land, lying and being in Dorchester county, and on the north side of Nanticoke river, butted and bounded as followeth:" (as stated at large in the act, containing, as I suppose, about fifty square miles,) "shall be confirmed and assured, and, by virtue of this act, is confirmed and assured unto Panquash and Annotoughquan, and the people under their government, or charge, and their heirs and successors forever; any law, usage, custom, or grant, to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding; to be held of the lord proprietary, and his heirs, lord proprietary and lords proprietaries of this province, under the yearly rent of one beaver skin, to be paid to his said lordship and his heirs, as
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SEC. VII. other rents in this province by the English used to be paid. Pro- vided always, that it shall and may be lawful for any person or persons, that hath formerly taken up and obtained any grants from the Lord Baltimore for any tracts or parcels of land within the aforesaid boundaries, upon the Indians deserting or leaving the said land, to enter, occupy, and enjoy the same; any thing in this law to the contrary notwithstanding." In further proof of the incroachments or "crowding upon" the Nanticokes by the English about the latter end of the seventeenth and begin- ning of the eighteenth centuries, may be mentioned an act of assembly passed at the same session last mentioned, to wit, the act of 1704, ch. 39, entitled, "An act declaring that the grantees of land, lying within the Indians' land, may have action of tres- pass against such persons as cut timber off their land, on pre- tence of having bought the same of the Indians." This last act seems to have principally related to the lands then occupied by the Nanticokes and Choptanks. We here see an abridg- ment of, at least, if not an encroachment upon, the rights of these unfortunate aborigines to the full enjoyment of the lands on which they lived. They were not permitted to exercise the same act of ownership over the lands which for ages they had occu- pied, as the English, who had just intruded on their possessions : they were not permitted to sell or dispose of the natural produce of their soil-the timber of their forests. Some further informa- tion, as to the situation of the Nanticokes, in the early part of the eighteenth century is to be derived from the act of assembly of 1711, ch. 1, entitled, "An act to empower commissioners to appoint and cause to be laid out three thousand acres of land, on Broad creek, in Somerset county, for the use of the Nanticoke Indians, so long as they shall occupy the same." The preamble thereof, states-"Whereas it is represented to this present gene- ral assembly, that the land formerly laid out for the use of the Nanticoke Indians,"-(that is, the lands on the Nanticoke allot- ted to them by the preceding acts of 1698 and 1704, )-"is now much worn out, and not sufficient for them : and that it is thought advisable that some further provision be made for them." The enacting clause thereof then provides, "that these three thousand acres should be laid out where the said Indians are now settled, in Somerset county, on Broad creek, in Nanticoke river." From this the necessary inference is, that a part of the Nanticokes were in the possession of this land on Broad creek prior to the
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passage of this act of assembly of 1711. But the location of SEC. VII. this land on Broad creek answers precisely to the scite of the town of the Cuscarawaocks, as laid down by Smith on the Cus- carawaock river, evidently the same river as the present Nanti- coke. How came the Nanticokes, therefore, in possession of the ancient town of the Cuscarawaocks? This can be accounted for at this day only by supposing, that the Nantiquacks and Cus- carawaocks, of Smith, were one and the same tribe or nation, a branch of the Lenape, but, according to Heckewelder, "divided into separate bodies and distinguished by different names." When, therefore, the Nantiquacks, on the north bank of the Nanti- coke, came to be "crowded upon" by the white people, part of them removed and incorporated themselves with their brethren, the Cuscarawaocks. It may be proper to observe here, that these lands on Broad creek, thus appropriated to the Nanticokes by the before mentioned act of 1711, ch. 1, were then supposed to lie in Somerset county, in Maryland, but when the province- line, between Maryland and the three lower counties on Dela- ware, came to be settled, as it was about the year 1762, these lands fell into what is now the Delaware State; which affords a probable reason, why we see nothing more on our provincial re- cords of the Nanticokes settled on Broad creek. Further causes of the migration of the Nanticokes from Maryland appear in the act of assembly of 1721, ch. 12, entitled, "An act to empower his Honour the Governor, (for the time being,) to appoint any person or persons whatsoever, to resurvey the Indians' lands, and ascertain the bounds thereof." The preamble thereof states,- "Whereas complaint has been made by the Choptank and Nan- ticoke Indians, to this General Assembly, of some encroachments made upon the Indians' lands." In pursuance of the enacting clause of which act, commissioners were appointed, who resur- veyed the said lands, and their resurvey was confirmed by the subsequent act of 1723, ch. 18, as being agreeable to the origi- nal grant to the Nanticokes, by the before mentioned act of 1698, of their land on the north bank of the Nanticoke, the scite of which corresponded, as before mentioned, with the scite of the Nantiquacks, as located by Smith on his map.
There is no doubt, however, that, although the legislature' of the Province had thus endeavoured, by the preceding laws, to se- cure to the Indians the quiet enjoyment of the possessions and property assigned to them, many injuries to them and encroach-
VOL. I .- 23
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SEC. VII. ments upon their property still continued to be done beyond the reach of those entrusted with the administration of justice, part- ly through the ignorance of the complainants or parties grieved, and perhaps in some measure from the indifference and inatten - tion of the officers of justice to their duties in this respect. Discontents, arising from these injuries from the whites, were doubtless also, considerably excited and exaggerated by fre- quent conferences, which the Nanticokes must have held with their " grandfather" the Lenape, and with their patrons and friends, the Mengwe and Iroquois, on their interchange of visits with each other. In these consultations, we may be assured, keen resentments were often expressed of the gross violation of all human justice done to them by the whites in robbing them of their country; in which sensations the Lenape or Delawares, now retreating in like manner from their territories, could feelingly sympathise. It is possible also, that the French of Canada, about the time of the commencement of the war of 1744, might have secretly fomented these discontents, especially with the Lenape or Delawares, who subsequently within a few years openly joined them in the war against these colonies. The com- mencement of the migration of the Nanticokes from Maryland in the year 1748, as recognised by Heckewelder, is thus easily accounted for. The well known continuance of this policy of the French, on the commencement of the war of 1754, espe- cially in alienating the affections of the Lenape or Delawares from the family of the Penns and their people of Pennsylvania, completed the rivetted enmity of the Lenape, who would natural- ly draw in with them their children-the Nanticokes. During this last mentioned war we therefore find, that the Provincial legislature of Maryland were under some necessity, not only of paying a little more attention to the injuries done to the Indians of the Province, particularly the Nanticokes, but also of taking measures to guard against any of their secret plots and conspira- cies, or at least of preventing them from acting as spies or carry- ing intelligence to the enemy. They, therefore, at the session of assembly held in May, 1756, (a period of great alarm to this Province,) passed first a law, entitled, "an act for quieting the differences that have arisen and may hereafter arise between the inhabitants of this Province and the several Indian nations, and for punishing trespasses committed on their lands :"-by which a more effectual remedy against such abuses was deemed to have
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