The history of Camden county, New Jersey, Part 3

Author: Prowell, George Reeser, 1849-1928
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : Richards
Number of Pages: 1220

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It happily remained for the more sober and prosaic clerks who came up the Delaware before and during Penn's days to temper with a regard for truth the temptation to ex- travagant writing. Easily first among these was Rev. John Campanius, Swedish chaplain of Governor Printz, who resided on Tini- cum Island, near the mouth of the Schuyl- kill, from 1642 to 1648, and was in his leisure hours much of a rover on both sides of the Delaware. Writing of what he saw of the natives in those six years, he said,-

"Their way of living was very simple. With arrows pointed with sharp stones they killed the deer and other creatures. They made axes from stones, which they fastened to a stick, to kill the trees where they intended to plant. They culti- vated the ground with a sort of hoe made from the shoulder-blade of a deer or a tortoise shell, sharp- ened with stones and fastened to a stick. They made pots of clay, mixed with powdered mussel shells burned in fire. By friction they made fire from two pieces of hard wood. The trees they burnt down and cut into pieces for fire-wood. On journeys they carried fire a great way in punk, or sponges found growing on the trees. They burned down great trees, and shaped them canoes by fire and the help of sharp stones. Men and women were dressed inskins; the women made themselves under-garments of wild hemp, of which they also made twine to knit the feathers of turkeys, eagles, etc., into blankets. The earth, the woods and the rivers were the provision stores of the Indians; for

they eat all kinds of wild animals and productions of the earth, fowls, birds, fishes and fruits, which they find within their reach. They shoot deer, fowls and birds with the bow and arrow; they take the fishes in the same manner; when the waters are high the fish run up the creeks and re- turn at ebb tide, so that the Indians can easily shoot them at low water and drag them ashore.

" They eat generally but twice a day, morning and afternoon ; the earth serves them for tables and chairs. They sometimes broil their meat and their fish; other times they dry them in the sun or in the smoke and thus eat them. They make bread out of the maize or Indian corn, which they . prepare in a manner peculiar to themselves : they crush the grain between two great stones, or on a large piece of wood; they moisten it with water and make it into small cakes, which they wrap up in corn leaves and thus bake them in the ashes. They can fast, when necessity compels them, for many days. When traveling or lying in wait for their enemies they take with them a kind of bread made of Indian corn and tobacco juice to allay their hunger and quench their thirst in case they have nothing else on hand. The drink before the Christians came into this country was nothing but water, but now they are very fond of strong liquors.1 Both men and women smoke tobacco, which grows in their country in great abundance. They have, besides corn, beans and pumpkins, a sort of original dogs with short, pointed ears. . . . When a Christian goes to visit them in their dwellings they immediately spread on the ground pieces of cloth and fine mats or skins ; then they produce the best they have, as bread, deer, elk or bear's meat, fresh fish and bear's fat, to serve in lien of butter, which they generally broil upon the coals. These attentions must not be despised, but must be received with thankfulness, otherwise their friendship will be turned to hatred. When an In- dian visits his friend, a Christian, he must always uncover his table at the lower end, for the Indian will have his liberty ; and he will immediately jump upon the table and sit upon it with his legs crossed, for they are not accustomed to sit upon chairs ; he then asks for whatever he would liketo eat of."

Smith, in his " History of New Jersey," gives in more detail and interest than

1 It is believed to be a fact, and a remarkable one too, that the North American Indians are, with the excep- tion of the Eskimo, the only people on the face of the globe who did not make for themselves some intoxicat- ing or stimulating liquor.

THE INDIANS.

any other writer, facts relating to the social life of the Indians who dwelt on the east bank of the Delaware. The subjoined description may be accepted as a faithful picture of the Armewamexes, a local name for a small. tribe who for a time inhabited the locality of the city of Camden and gave to the supposed island site of the city the name of Aquikanasra :

"It was customary with the Indians of West Jersey, when they buried their dead, to put family utensils, bows and arrows and sometimes wampum into the grave with them. When a person of note died far from the place of his own residence they would carry his bones to be buried there. They washed and perfumed the dead, painted the face and followed singly, left the dead in a sitting posi- tion and covered the grave pyramidically. They were very curious in preserving and repairing the graves of their dead and pensively visited them ; did not love to be asked their judgment twice about the same thing. They generally delighted in mirth; were very studious in observing the virtues of roots and herbs, by which they usually cured themselves of many bodily distempers, both by outward and inward applications. They be- sides frequently used sweating and the cold bath. They had an aversion to beards and would not suffer them to grow, but plucked the hair out by the roots. . Their young women were orig- inally very modest and shame-faced, and at mar- riageable ages distinguished themselves with a kind of worked mats or red and blue bags inter- spersed with small rows of white and black wam- pum, or half-rows of each in one, fastened to it and then put round the head down to near the middle of the forehead. The Indians would not allow the mentioning of the name of a friend after death. They sometimes streaked their faces with black when in mourning, but when their affairs went well they painted red. They were great ob- servers of the weather by the moon, delighted in fine clothes, were punctual in their bargains and observed this so much in others that it was very difficult for a person who had once failed herein to get any dealings with them afterward.

"Their language was high, lofty and sententious. Their way of counting was by tens: that is to say, two tens, three tens, etc .; when the number got out of their reach they pointed to the stars or the hair of their heads.

"Their government was monarchical and succes- sive, and mostly of the mothers' side, to prevent a

spurious issue. They commonly washed their children in cold water as soon as born, and to make their limbs straight, tied them to a board and hung it to their back, when they traveled ; they usually walked at nine months old. Their young men mar- ried at sixteen or seventeen years of age, if by that time they had given sufficient proof of their man- hood by a large return of skins of animals. The girls married at thirteen or fourteen, but stayed with their mothers to hoe the ground, bear burdens, etc., for some years after marriage. The marriage ceremony was sometimes thus : the relations and friends being present, the bridegroom delivered a bone to the bride, she an ear of Indian corn to him, meaning that he was to provide meat, she bread.

"Some tribes were commendably careful of their aged and decrepit, endeavoring to make the re- mains of their lives as comfortable as they conld. It was pretty generally so, except in desperate de- cays ; then, indeed, as in other cases of the like kind, they were sometimes apt to neglect them.

" The native Indians were grave, even to sadness, upon any common, and more so upon serious, occa- sions ; observant of those in company; of a tem- per cool and deliberate; never in haste to speak, but waited for a certainty that the person who spoke before them had finished all he had to say. Their behavior in public councils was strictly de- cent and instructive; every one in his turn was heard according to rank of years. Liberty in its fullest extent was their ruling passion ; to this every other consideration was subservient. Their children were trained up so as to cherish this disposition to the utmost; they were in- dulged to a great degree, seldom chastised with blows and rarely chided. They dreaded slavery more than death. Companies of them frequently got together to feast, dance and make merry ; this sweetened the toils of hunting; excepting these toils and the little action before described, they scarcely knew any."

THEIR GOVERNMENT .- A rough sort of communal system was the basis of Indian politics and government. Each tribe held its lands in common, and all its males took part in any council that was to decide ques- tions pertaining to the public weal. The ad- ministration of government was a matter far from being confided to the chiefs or sachems alone. Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress, whose fragmentary " Essay upon Indian Affairs" is invaluable,

HISTORY OF CAMDEN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

points out that a nation was composed of a number of tribes, families and towns united by relationship or friendship, each having a particular chief. These components of the nation were united under a kind of federal government, with lawsand customs by which they were ruled. Mr. Thomson adds-

"Their governments, it is true, are very lax, except to peace and war, each individual having in his own hand the power of revenging injuries, and when murder is committed, the next relation having power to take revenge by putting to death the murderer, unless he can convince the chiefs and the head men that he had just canse, and by their means can pacify the family by a present and thereby put an end to the feud. The matters which merely regard a town or family, are settled by the chiefs and head men of the town; those which regard the tribe, by a meeting of the chiefs from the several towns; and those that regard the nation, such as the making war or concluding peace with the neighboring nations, are determined on in a national council, composed of the chiefs and head warriors from every tribe. Every tribe has a chief or head man, and there is one who pre- sides over the nation. In every town they have a council-honse, where the chief assembles the old men and advises what is best. In every tribe there is a place, which is commonly the town in which the chief resides, where the head men of the towns meet to consult on the business that concerns them ; and in every matter there is a grand council, or what they call a council fire, where the heads of the tribes and the chief warriors convene to de- termine on peace or war. In a council of a town all the men of the town may attend, the chief opens the business, and either gives his opinion of what is best, or takes the advice of such of the old men as are heads of families or most remarkable for prudence or knowledge. None of the young men are allowed or presume to speak, but the whole as- sembly at the end of every sentence or speech, if they approve it, express their approbation by a kind of hum or noise in unison with the speaker. The same order is observed in the meetings or councils of the tribes and in the national councils."

LATER HISTORY OF THE DELAWARES .- The declining days of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians began with their acceptance of neutrality at the dictation of the Iroquois, as already alluded to. From thence onward they decreased in numbers and importance

until the year 1742, when, at the instance of the Governor of Pennsylvania, they were ordered by the Iroquois sachems to re- move westward from their domain in the Delaware Valley. How completely they were under subjugation to the sturdy- braves of the North, the form in which the command was issued to them attests. They were, when they ventured to remonstrate, told that they were women and had no rights in the land except by the consent of their masters, and were menaced with extermination if they re- sisted. Sadly they obeyed and removed into the interior of Pennsylvania, where they were subsequently joined by their kindred, the Shawanese, from Virginia, and by some frag- ments of Maryland and other tribes. There they recovered somewliat of their ancient spirit ; they made war upon the whites, and after the Revolution they formed a combina- with Eastern and Ohio tribes, which forced the Iroquois to remove the stigma of neutral- ity and womanhood from them.

This compulsory migration was not so thorough, however, but that it failed to in- clude some scattered bands south of Trenton, in this State. In 1749 Governor Belcher wrote that they amounted to no more than sixty families ; but three years prior qnite an alarm had been created by reports that a large number of Indians from the northeast had come into New Jersey with a view to stirring up the natives to bloodshed, or as al- lies of white insurgents who had organized to resist enforcement of the laws respecting land-titles. The panic was short-lived, it soon appearing that the errand of the stran- gers was to listen to Rev. Brainerd, the fam- ous missionary, who was then preaching in Monmouth County. Among these visitors was the Delaware chief Teedyuscung, who had come down from the Susquehanna Valley.

THE LAST INDIANS OF NEW JERSEY .- In 1755 the Indians who remained on the West Jersey side of the Delaware manifested.

THE INDIANS.

much restlessness because of impositions upou them and the occupation by whites of lands which they had not sold. In 1757 laws were passed for their protection, but were of such little effect in restoring order that from May, 1757, to June, 1758, twenty-seven murders of whites were committed in West Jersey by the Minisinks.1 In October of the latter year Governor Bernard, through the intervention of Teedyuscung, obtained a conference at Easton, Pennsylvania, with the Indians who had not sold out their lands. The whole of the remaining titles were then extinguished for the consideration of one thousand pounds, except that there was reserved to the Indians the right to fish in all the rivers and bays south of the Raritan, and to hunt on all the uninclosed lands. A reservation of three thousand acres was provided for them at Edge Pillock, Burlington County, and here the sixty individuals, who were all that re- mained of the race that once possessed the soil, were located, and there they and their descendants dwelt until 1802, when they joined the Stockbridge tribe at New Stock- bridge, New York. Thirty years later a revival of the claim that they had not been suffi- ciently compensated for their ancient hunting and fishing privileges in New Jersey led to the mission of Shawnskukhkung, a Christian Indian, who had been educated at Princeton College, and by the whites given the name of Bartholomew S. Calvin. He presented a memorial to the Legislature, which agreed to pay the Indians their full demand of two thousand dollars, although it was clear that the previous settlement had been intended to be final. In a letter to the Legislature on the passage of the bill, Calvin wrote,-

"The final act of official intercourse between the State of New Jersey and the Delaware Indians, who once owned nearly the whole of its territory, has now been consummated, and in a manner which must redound to the honor of this growing State, and, in all probability, to the prolongation

of the existence of a wasted yet grateful people. Upon this parting occasion I feel it to be an in- cumbeut duty to bear the feeble tribute of my praise to the high-toned justice which, in this in- stance, and, so far as I am acquainted, in all former times, has actuated the Councils of this Com- monwealth in dealing with the aboriginal inhab- itants.

"Not a drop of our blood have you spilled in battle; not au acre of our land have you taken but by our consent. These facts speak for themselves and need no comment. They place the character of New Jersey in bold relief and bright example to those States withiu whose territorial limits our brethren still linger. Nothing but benisons can fall upon her from the lips of a Lenni Lenape. There may be some who would despise an Indian benediction ; but when I return to my people and make known to them the result of my mission, the ear of the Great Sovereign of the universe, which is still open to our cry, will be penetrated with the invocation of blessings upon the generous sons of New Jersey."

WAMPUM. - The following quotations from works issued by the publishers of this book are of special interest :

"Wampum passed as current money between the early whites and Indians. There were two kinds of it, the white and purple. They were both worked into the form of beads, generally each about half an inch long and one-eighth broad, with a hole drilled through them so as to be strung on leather or hempen strings. The white was made out of the great conch or sea-shell, and the purple out of the inside of the mussel shell. These beads, after being strung, were woven by the wo- men into belts, sometimes broader than a person's hand and about two feet long. It was these that were given and received at their various treaties as seals of friendship; in matters of less importance only a single string was given. Two pieces of white wampum were considered to equal in value one of the purple."-" History of Montgomery County."

" There is enough concurrent testimony to war- rant the conclusion that the original purpose of wampum was exclusively mnemonic. It was a sort of memoria technica, like the knotted cords of the ancient Peruvians, and doubtless, if the Indi- ans had had intelligence to word it out, a system of written language could have been constructed of wampum bead figures as expressive as that of a single code and more serviceable than the Runic arrow-head writing of the Northmen. Wampum

1 New Jersey Historical Collections, page 61.

HISTORY OF CAMDEN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

was given not only as a present and a courteous reminder, but also as a threat and a warning. Thus, when, at Lancaster, Pa., in 1747, the chiefs of the Five Nations forbade the Lenapes to sell any more land and ordered them to remove to the interior, they emphasized the command by hand- ing them a belt. As money, its use came about in this way : It was a memorandum of exchange, of business transactions. Passyund, of the Munsis, agreed to let his daughter marry the son of Se- canee, of the Unamis, and to give with her a dowry of so many beaver skins, in return for which Secanee's son was to hunt so many days for Passy- und. How bind the bargain and prove it? By making a mutual note of it in the exchange of wampum. That particular belt or string vouched for that particular transaction. Menanee, on the Allegheny, agrees to sell to Tamanee, on the Del- aware, a dozen buffalo robes for forty fathoms of duffle, with buttons, thread and red cloth to orna- ment. A belt is exchanged to prove the transac- tion. But that cannot be completed until the goods are exchanged. The next step is easy : to put a certain fixed value on each bead, so that when Tamanee pays a belt to Menanee for his robes, Menanee can at once hand the belt over to the trader who has the goods and get from him the duffle and the trimmings. Viewed in this light, wampum takes rank as an instrument of as various and important uses as any ever employed by man. It is as if the rosary of the pious Catholic were suddenly invested with the powers of a historical monument, a diplomatic memorandum and a busi- ness 'stub' book, a short-hand inscription system which is equally understood by tribes of every variety of language and dialect, a currency of uni- form value and universal circulation in the ex- change of a continent, a bank of deposit, a jewelry and personal ornament, all in one. There is no parallel instance in all the economic history of mankind of an article so utterly useless and value- less in itself acquiring such a wide and multifari- ous range of derivative values and uses."-" His- tory of Philadelphia."

INDIAN AUTOGRAPHS .- The following are characteristic specimens of Indian autographs,

17.

EARLY COLONIAL HISTORY.

CHAPTER III.

EARLY COLONIAL HISTORY.

The First Navigators-Royal Grants-Settlements of the Dutch, the Swedes and the English-New Jer- sey Established-Division of the Province into East and West Jersey.

ENGLAND, Holland and Sweden each bore a part in the discovery and colonization of New Jersey, and their claims so overlapped each other that bloodshed and diplomatic complications marked the progress of events from the first attempt at settlement within the province, in 1623, until its final conquest by the English, in 1664. The forty years intervening witnessed the coming of people representing three different nations, the conversion of the proprietorship of much of the land from the Indians to the whites, the founding of towns on either bank of the Delaware and the laying of the foundation of the civilization and enlightenment that now prevails. The English claim to the possession of this territory grew out of the voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot, who, acting under commission from Henry VII., sailed along the coast from Newfoundland to about the latitude of Cape Hatteras in 1497- 98. They bore the royal authority to plant the banner of England on any undiscovered lands, and occupy them in the name of the crown, but as they took no steps towards planting a colony to establish English do- minion, the way was thus left open for the conflict of claims to the sovereignty of the territory that subsequently occurred, although the English position was sought to be affirmed in the New England and Virginia patents of King James I.

THE DUTCH .- The next claim in the order of time was that of the Dutch. On August 28, 1609, Henry Hudson, an English seaman in the service of the Dutch East India Company, entered the mouth of Dela- ware Bay, but did not sail up it because of finding shallow water and sand-bars, which 8

he thought rendered navigation unsafe. He was, therefore, the discoverer of this estuary of the ocean, as well as of New York Bay and the Hudson River, and it was upon his achievements that the Dutch very justly based their claim to the regions binding upon the North (Hudson) River and the Delaware, or, as they termed it, the Zuydt (South) River.1

Hudson's report of his expedition up the Delaware was not calculated to cause the. Dutch to turn their commercial eye toward this region, and all their enterprise in this direction was turned toward Manhattan. Captain Cornelis Hendrick sailed up the bay in 1615-16 and encountered some of the

HENRY HUDSON.

Minaqua Indians in the neighborhood of Christiana, from whom he purchased some furs. This was the beginning of the trade that was soon to induce the colonization of the river-shores. The Dutch States-General

1 The Dutch claim to what is now New Jersey was further increased by the voyages of Captain Block and Captain Jacobse Mey. When they rendered an account of their discoveries, the company by whom they had been employed caused a full report of the voyages, with a map of the countries that had been explored, to be laid before the States-General, with an application for the privileges allowed in the late edict of the State to all discoverers. Accordingly, on the 11th of October, 1614, a special grant was made in favor of the company. They were to have the exclusive right to visit the lands and navigate the streams described, "situate in America between New France and Virginia, the sea-coasts of which lie between the fortieth and forty-fifth degrees of latitude, and which are now named New Netherland."

HISTORY OF CAMDEN COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

in 1621 chartered the West India Company, with especial commercial privileges, aud in 1623 this corporation dispatched a ship under command of Captain Cornelius Jacobse Mey, with settlers fully provided with means of subsistence, and a large stock of articles for traffic with the red meu. He landed some of his people on the Hudson, and with the remainder entered the Delaware, and it is from him that Cape May takes its name.1

Mey fixed upon a place for a settlement at Hermaomissing, at the mouth of the Sas- sackson, the most northerly branch of the Gloucester River, or Timber Creek, " from the great quantities of curious timber," says Gabriel Thomas, " which they send in great floats to Philadelphia." (?) Here he built a stockade of logs and named it " Fort Nas- sau," in honor of a town in the circle of the Upper Rhine, in Germany. This was the first attempt to establish a settlement upon the eastern bank of the Delaware and in West New Jersey.2

A body of men remained at Fort Nassau to carry on trade with the natives, but cotem- porary records are almost a blank as to their history while there. It is probable that the fort was alternately occupied or deserted as the demands of trade required. In a legend- ary channel the information is conveyed that Mey succeeded in opening intercourse with the natives and that the communication be- tween them was such as to give rise to feel- ings of confidence and kindness.

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The history of Camden county, New Jersey, Part 3

Author: Prowell, George Reeser, 1849-1928 Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Philadelphia : Richards Number of Pages: 1220

Author: Prowell, George Reeser, 1849-1928
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Philadelphia : Richards
Number of Pages: 1220