USA > New Jersey > The New Jersey coast in three centuries; history of the New Jersey coast with genealogical and historic-biographical appendix, Vol. I > Part 2
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Generally speaking, the Indians of New Jersey belonged to the great family of the Lenni Lenape, a family distinguished even in aboriginal history for their gentleness, their innate spirituality, their reverence for nature, and for their misfortune in war. In New Jersey they were split up into small tribes, and while those dwelling on the Minisink seem to have possessed considerable warlike spirit, and to have raised fortifica- tions to defend themselves from attack, those in what may still for convenience sake be called East Jersey were apparently without any such spirit, and were crushed either by forays from the wilder tribes around Kingston, or from the warlike chiefs on Staten Island.
Among the tribes may be mentioned the Weckguaesgeeks, Raritans, Tankitekes, Assunpinks, Rankokas (or rather Chichequas), Mingos, Andastaka, Neshamine, Shackamaxon, Mantas (Delaware group), Nara- ticongs (on the north side of the Raritan), Capitanasses, Gacheos, Mun- seys, Pomptons, Maquuas, Kechemeches (Cape May), Senecas and Navi- sinks.
Regarding the first peopling of the State by the Lenapes, Heckewelder wrote :
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HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY COAST.
"The hunters of the Lenape covered the Allegheney mountains and discovered the great rivers Susquehanna and Delaware. Exploring the Sheyichbi country ( New Jersey) they reached the Hudson, to which they subsequently gave the name of Mahicannittuck river. Upon their return to their nation, they described the country they had visited as abounding in game, fruits, fish and fowl, and destitute of inhabitants. Concluding this to be the home destined for them by the Great Spirit, the tribe es- tablished themselves upon the four great rivers-the Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna and Potomac, making the Delaware, to which they gave the name of the Lenape Wihittuck (the river or stream of the Lenape), the center of their possessions.
"They say, however, that all of their nation who crossed the Mis- sissippi did not reach this country; and that a part remained west of the Nameasi Sipu. They were finally divided into three great bodies; the larger, one-half of the whole, settled on the Atlantic; the other half was separated into two parts; the stronger continued beyond the Mississippi, the other remained on its eastern bank.
"Those on the Atlantic were subdivided into three tribes-the Turtle, or Unamis, the Turkey, or Unalachtgo, and the Wolf, or Minsi. The two former inhabited the coast from the Hudson to the Potomac, settling in small bodies, in towns and villages upon the larger streams, under chiefs subordinate to the great council of the nation. The `Minsi, called by the English, Muncys, the most warlike of the three tribes, dwelt in the interior, forming a barrier between the nation and the Mengwe. They extended themselves from the Minisink, on the Delaware, where they held their council seat, to the Hudson on the east, to the Susquehanna on the southwest, to the head waters of the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers on the north, and on the south to that range of hills now known in New Jersey by the name of the Musconetcong, and by that of Lehigh and Coghnewago in Pennsylvania.
"Many subordinate tribes proceeded from these, who received names either from their places of residence, or from some accidental circumstance, at the time of its occurrence remarkable, but now forgotten.
"The Mengwe hovered for some time on the borders of the lakes, with their canoes, in readiness to fly should the Alligewi return. Hav- ing grown bolder, and their numbers increasing, they stretched themselves along the St. Lawrence, and became, on the north, near neighbors to the Lenape tribes.
"The Mengwe and the Lenape, in the progress of time, became enemies. The latter represent the former as. treacherous and cruel, pursuing. per- tinaciously, an insidious and destructive policy towards their more gen- erous neighbors. Dreading the power of the Lenape, the Mengwe re- solved, by involving them in war with their distant tribes, to reduce their strength. They committed murder upon the members of one tribe, and induced the injured party to believe they were perpetrated by another. They stole into the country of the Delawares, surprised them in their hunt- ing parties, slaughtered the hunters, and escaped with the plunder. '
"Each nation or tribe had a peculiar mark upon its war clubs, which, placed beside a murdered person, denoted the aggressor. The Mengwe
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perpetrated a murder in the Cherokee country and left with the dead body a war club bearing the insignia of the Lenape. The Cherokees, in re- venge, fell suddenly upon the latter and commenced a long and bloody war. The treachery of the Mengwe was at length discovered, and the Delawares turned upon them with the determination utterly to extirpate them. They were the more strongly induced to this resolution as the cannibal propensities of the Mengwe had reduced them, in the estimation of the Delawares, below the rank of human beings.
"Hitherto, each tribe of the Mengwe had acted under the direction of its particular chief; and, although the nation could not control the conduct of its members, it was made responsible for its outrages. Pressed by the Lenape, they resolved to form a confederation which might enable them better to concentrate their force in war, and to regulate their affairs in peace. Thannawage, an aged Mohawk, was the projector of this alliance. Under his auspices, five nations, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagoes, Cay- ugas and Senecas formed a species of republic, governed by the united counsels of their aged and experienced chiefs. To these a sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, was added in 1712. This last originally dwelt in the western parts of North Carolina, but, forming a deep and general conspiracy to exterminate the whites, were driven from their country, and adopted by the Iroquois confederacy. The beneficial effects of this system early displayed themselves. The Lenape were checked, and the Mengwe, whose warlike disposition soon familiarized them with firearms procured from the Dutch, were enabled, at the same time, to contend with them, to re- sist the French, who now attempted the settlement of Canada, and to extend their conquests over a large portion of the country between the Atlantic and the Mississippi.
"But, being pressed hard by their new, they became desirous of re- conciliation with their old, enemies; and, for this purpose, if the tradition cf the Delawares be credited, they effected one of the most extraordinary strokes of policy which history has recorded.
"The mediators between the Indian nations at war are the women. The men, however weary of the contest, hold it cowardly and disgrace- ful to seek reconciliation. They deem it inconsistent in a warrior to speak of peace with bloody weapons in his hands. He must maintain a determined courage, and appear, at all times, as ready and willing to fight as at the commencement of the hostilities. With such dispositions, Indian wars would be interminable if the women did not interfere and persuade the combatants to bury the hatchet and make peace with each other.
"Their prayers seldom failed of the desired effect. The function of the peace-maker was honourable and dignified, and its assumption by a courageous and powerful nation could not be inglorious. This station the Mengwe urged upon the Lenape. 'They had reflected,' they said, 'upon the state of the Indian race, and were convinced that no means remained to preserve it unless some magnanimous nation would assume the character of the woman. It could not be given to a weak and con- temptible tribe; such would not be listened to; but the Lenape and their allies would at once possess influence and command respect.'
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"The facts upon which these arguments were founded were known to the Delawares, and, in a moment of blind confidence in the sincerity of the Iroquois, they acceded to the proposition and assumed the petti- coat. The ceremony of the metamorphosis was performed with great rejoicing's at Albany, in 1617, in the presence of the Dutch, whom the Lenape charged with having conspired with the Mengwe for their de- struction.
"Having thus disarmed the Delawares, the Iroquois assumed over them the rights of protection and command. But, still dreading their strength, they artfully involved them again in war with the Cherokees, promised to fight their battles, led them into an ambush of their foes, and then deserted them. The Delawares at length comprehended the treachery of their archenemy, and resolved to resume their arms, and, being still superior in numbers, to crush them. But it was too late. The Europeans were now making their way into the country in every direction, and gave ample employment to the astonished Lenape.
"The Mengwe deny these machinations. They aver that they con- quered the Delawares by force of arms, and made them a subject people. And, though it be said, they are unable to detail the circumstances of this conquest, it is more rational to suppose it true than that a brave, numerous, and warlike nation should have voluntarily suffered them- selves to be disarmed and enslaved by a shallow artifice; or that, discover- ing the fraud practiced upon them, they should unresistingly have sub- mitted to its consequences. This conquest was not an empty acquisition to the Mengwe. They claimed domination over all the lands occupied by the Delawares, and in many instances their claims were distinctly acknowledged. Parties of the Five Nations occasionally occupied the Le- nape country, and wandered over it at all times at their pleasure.
"Whatever credit may be due to the traditions of the Lenape, rela- tive to their migration from the west, there is strong evidence in support of their pretentions to be considered the source whence a great portion of the Indians of North America were derived. They are acknowledged as the "grandfathers," or the parent stock, of the tribes that inhabited the extensive regions of Canada, from the coast of Labrador to the mouth of the Albany river, which empties into the southernmost part of Hud- son's Bay, and from thence to the Lake of the Woods, the northernmost boundary of the United States; and also by those who dwelt in that im- mense country stretching from Nova Scotia to the Roanoke, on the sea- coast, and bounded by the Mississippi on the west. All these nations spoke dialects of the Lenape language, affording the strongest presumption of their derivation from that stock. The tribes of the Mengwe, inter- spersed throughout this vast region, are, of course, excepted. They were however, comparatively few in number."
However, more recent writers, who have also been more careful investigators, have shed more abundant light upon the Indian occupation of New Jersey. This narrative, however, concerns only the Atlantic coast region of the State, and to it we turn our attention.
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Dismissing at the outset the speculations which have been indulged in as to the primary Indian origin in some one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, the Lenape tradition that they came from the Hudson Bay region may be accepted with reasonable confidence. It may be assumed that the time of their coming was long before the Christian era, and evidence in support of this is found in the kitchen middens or kitchen leavings, traces of which are found in the shell-heaps of New Jersey. These shell-heaps were the production not only of the Indians living along the coast from Raritan Bay southward to Cape May, but of tribes living along the shores of the Lenape-Whittuck, who made periodical journeys to the seashore for the triple purpose of fishing, fowling and bathing. One of the largest of these shell-heaps was found on the marsh skirting what is known as Great Bay, about a mile from the mainland. It has been conjectured that this mound marks the site of an ancient settlement.
Here was doubtless the seat of one of the great aboriginal mints, or wampum factories, if such terms may be used in such a connection. Wampum had been the currency of the red man from time immemorial. Wampum was of two kinds-white and black. The white money was made of the stock of the periwinkle or suckauhock, and the black money was made from the purple inside of the shell of the quahaug or clam, a shellfish that buried itself in the sand and was generally found in deep water. The black money was equal in value to twice that of the wampum or white money. The crude material was transformed into cylinders, highly polished, about an eighth of an inch in diameter, and a quarter of an inch long, and strung upon hempen or skin cords. The unit of value was a "fathom," a string measuring from the end of the little finger to the elbow, and equivalent to five shillings in English colonial money and four guilders in Dutch. It used to be averred among the Dutch colonists that the Indians always sent an agent with a very long forearm or a very short forearm according to the circumstances in which the measuring was to be done! Wampum was received in payment of taxes, judgments and all court fees, and, as Weeden says, was the magnet which drew beaver out of interior forests. It passed current in contribution boxes on Sun- day, and served all purposes for which tobacco was legal tender in Vir- ginia.
It is curious that at an early day there was talk of depreciated cur- rency in wampum transactions. The Indians presented oyster shells which had no intrinsic value among themselves, but were accepted implicitly by the unsophisticated white colonists but a later generation of the latter got even with the red man by handing him wampum made in French factories.
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Wampum was also used for purposes of personal adornment, and belts, necklaces and other ornaments made of this material were regarded as indisputable evidence of personal wealth. A wampum belt was among the chiefs an emblem. "A belt," says Thompson, "was sent with all public messages and preserved as a record between nations. If a message was sent without the belt it was considered an empty word unworthy of remembrance. If the belt was returned, it was a rejection of the offer or proffer accompanying it. If accepted, it was a confirmation, and strength- ened friendships or effaced injuries. The belt with appropriate emblems worked in it was also the record of domestic transactions. The confedera- tion of the Five Nations. was thus recorded. The cockle-shell had indeed more virtue among Indians than pearls, gold and silver had among Euro- peans. Seawant was the seal of a contract-the oath of fidelity. It satis- fied murders and all other injuries, purchased peace and entered into the religious as well as civil ceremonies of the natives. A string of seawant was delivered by the orator in public council at the close of every distinct proposition to others as a ratification of the truth and sincerity of what he said; and the white and black strings of sewant were tied by the pagan priest around the neck of the white dog, suspended to a pole and offered as a sacrifice to T'halonghyawaagon, the Upholder of the Skies, the God of the Five Nations."
In all the great seals of the province of New York from 1691 to the Revolution a roll of wampum is held in the hands of one of the two Indians represented as offering tribute to the British sovereigns. As many as ten thousand shells were often woven into a single belt four inches wide.
Other points afford numerous evidences of a very early Indian occu- pation. In the vicinity of Hill's Creek, near Chelsea, there were until very recently large shell-mounds, and Indian implements of a very archaic character were found in them. Another great shell-mound occupied a part of the ground upon which now stands Atlantic City, and from it were taken thousands of bushels of shells for road making. At Pleasant- ville, also in Atlantic county, in 1890, twenty-one Indian skeletons were exhumed. The bones were found about three feet under ground, and with them several flints, many arrows, a stone knife, two flakes, and a stone mill used for cracking corn. The latter had been worn nearly in two by nse. At Chestnut Neck, a short time previously, were found two Indian skeletons beneath the branches of a large cedar, the head of one encased in a turtle-shell, indicating that it was that of an Indian who had belonged to the Unamis, or Turtle Indians, a tribe of the Lenapes, whose emblem was a turtle. Many other mementoes of the aborigines have
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been found at different times in the vicinity of Chestnut Neck and places farther inland.
Such instances could be multiplied, but sufficient has been shown to identify the Jersey coast territory as affording evidences of Indian occu- pation, and, in all, the conditions support the assumption of their great antiquity.
Robert Evelyn, who passed four years in the Jersey region, wrote a letter which was printed in 1648 by Beauchamp Plantagenet in a pamphlet entitled "A Description of the Province of New Albion" (the territory lying between the Hudson and Delaware rivers), and in this he enumerates numerous tribes, but his description of their armies of "bow-men" and of their "Kings" is more picturesque than reliable, and real information must be looked for elsewhere.
Coming down to the days really known of by white men, we find a comparatively few Indians of the Raritan tribe (of the Unamis and Unalachtgo branches of the Lenape family) in Middlesex and Monmouth counties. Those inhabiting regions of the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers were known as Navesinks. A tribe of the Unamis lived at what is now Leeds Point, another at Wills and Osborne Islands, to the north, and still another at Manahawkin. The first named were a branch of the warlike tribe of Atsionks, or Axions, who had their principal settlement near where the present village of Atsion now stands. They claimed the exclusive right to fish in and hunt along all the tributaries of the Mullica. The Tuckahoe Indians, a more peaceful tribe, dwelt along the river of that name, on the southern boundary of Atlantic county.
So far as we can determine, the general stories as to the manners, habits, customs and belief of the Indians in New Jersey have been based upon facts gathered regarding the aborigine in New Netherland gen- erally; at least, we have failed to notice anything recorded which is not fully detailed in the Dutch letters and other documents presented us. They were rather given to hunting than to fighting, and, when we first meet them, their main weapon, whether in the chase or in defence, was a flint-headed arrow. Their food, outside of the game which they sought with such splendid zeal, was maize (or Indian corn) and beans, which were grown on patches here and there, beside their dwelling, by the women. The latter were treated much as the Indian women were all over. They carried the burdens in moving from place to place, cooked the food, watched the fields, and waited on their lord and master and husband with solicitude. Divorce seems to have been easy and frequent.
As to their religious belief, quite a variety of opinion exists. Many archaeologists assert that while they believed in a future life, and even
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in disembodied spirits, they had no conception of a Divine Father or a future life at all different in its character or incidents from that which they were passing through. They believed in good spirits and evil ones, 1 but they had no conception of a hell until they listened to the preaching of the Quakers. "We have an opinion," said one, "that those who have behaved well are taken under the care of Esaugetuh Emissee, and are assisted, and that those who have behaved ill are left to shift for them- selves, and that there is no other punishment." At times, in the course of our reading, we seem almost impelled to believe that the Lenapes did believe in one who was "the soul of the world," "the Mother and Father of Life," "the Creator of all that is," but again we are almost driven to the belief that these expressions did not betoken their idea of an ever- living and ruling God and Father. Still they show that the Indians acknowledged a higher power than man, and that that power fashioned the earth and peopled it. Then, too, some authorities have mentioned as a curious circumstance that the figure of the cross was deemed sacred, and entered largely into some of their ceremonies. They had great feasts and grand council meetings, and, so far as New Jersey was concerned, lived lives of pleasant intercourse, broken now and again, it is true, by trifling feuds, but without leaving any of the terrible traditions of bloody wars and treacherous forays which mark the traditions which elsewhere serve as Indian history prior to the advent of the white man.
But it is evident that when the Quakers and Long Islanders, Dutch and English, began to descend on New Jersey, the aborigines there had already begun to dwindle in numbers and in importance. They gave little trouble to the new comers, seemed rather to welcome them, and came to terms with them promptly and easily. They were at first innocent of the wiles of the Europeans, but soon began to beware of them, but the strong religious influence which characterized the pale-faces-outside of the Dutch-prevented any violent attempts to take any advantage of the unsophisticated Indians. After all, what had they to fear? They were but a handful, and their country was boundless, giving plenty of room for all. So, with a few exceptions, they may be said to have maintained harmonious relations with the whites until 1755. To that time the story had been one of continued retrogression in wealth, in numbers and in morals. European diseases such as small-pox had made sad inroads among them, and rum was already master of the situation. Whenever they could procure liquor they went on a debauch, men and women, until the supply was exhausted. But, even in their decline, these people seemed to retain much of their original gentleness and desire to remain in friendly
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relations with their white brethren who had so soon become their superiors and their masters.
The great exception to all this was in 1754, and was mainly brought about by the disturbing influence which the defeat of General Braddock, at Fort Duquesne, had upon the entire body of Indians in the Eastern States. The movement among the Indians was first felt in Pennsylvania, where wild bands overran the northern and eastern counties, murdering and destroying as they went. People in Bucks and Northampton counties crowded over into New Jersey to escape, and a few managed to get their cattle across the Delaware. New Jersey soon became alive to its own danger. Troops were raised all over the State, forts and block-houses were erected at what might be called the portage of the Delaware, and armed scouts patrolled the river on either side to give timely warning of any advance of the aroused redskins. To this watchfulness and energy is probably due in a measure the fact that beyond a few cases of barbarity and murder in the northern part of the State, in Sussex county, the Indian excesses in New Jersey during this period of excitement amounted to very little.
But, in a much greater measure, is the practical immunity from dis- turbance to be ascribed to the wise measures taken within the colony to show the Indians, in the first place, the strength of the armed force ready to meet them should they join with their wild brethren from across the Delaware, and, in the second place, to grapple thoroughly with the entire Indian question, and to listen to whatever wrongs the red man might have to tell about, and attempt to redress those wrongs and to pacify him. A convention was held at Crosswicks, Burlington county, in 1756, at which a large number of Indian representatives were present, and the entire causes of trouble were pretty thoroughly discussed. The Indians complained that they had been wronged by individuals when intoxicated, that is to say they were inveigled into transactions, especially in the sale of land, when intoxicated, on terms to which they would never have agreed when sober; that some of the land which they had not sold had been settled upon without their consent in any form; and that their hunting privilege had been curtailed by private rather than public encroachment. In all this there was felt to be a good deal of truth. In fact the Indian had been left pretty much to slide down on the way to his inevitable end without let or hindrances.
In 1757, however, as a result of this conference, the Assembly passed a law regulating the sale of liquor to the Indians, and set aside £1,600 to be used in settlement of disputed land, and in other ways strove to smooth the pathway of the red man. Another conference at Crosswicks
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