History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 5

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 868

USA > New York > Dutchess County > History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 5

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The plan of the Iroquois was to allay the enmity of the Delawares, their "most formidable oppo- nents,"# by urging them to assume the office of women, and act as mediators and umpires among their warlike neighbors, so that they might devote their entire energies to their northern enemies, the French ; for the wars between these savage nations were never terminated, except through the inter- position of the women, whose prerogative it was to demand a cessation of hostilities. The men, however tired of fighting, maintained a determined hostile attitude; for they considered it an evidence of cowardice to intimate a desire for peace, and unbecoming for a warrior with a bloody weapon in his hand to address pacific language to his enemy.§ They therefore sent the following message || to the Delawares :-

" It is not profitable that all nations should be at war with each other, for this will at length be the ruin of the whole Indian race. We have there- fore considered of a remedy, by which this evil may be prevented. One nation shall be the woman. We will place her in the midst, and the other nations who make war shall be the man, and live around the woman, no one shall touch or hurt the woman, and if any one does it, we will immediately say to him, 'Why do you beat the woman?' Then all the men shall fall upon hini who has beaten her. The woman shall not go to war, but endeavor to keep peace with all. There- fore if the men that surround her beat each other, and the war be carried on with violence, the woman shall have the right of addressing them, ' Ye men, what are ye about, why do ye beat each other ? We are almost afraid. Consider that your wives and children must perish, unless ye desist. Do ye mean to destroy yourselves from the face of the earth ?' The men shall then hear and obey the woman."

To appeal to the magnanimity of the Dela- wares and entreat them to accept such an office was

* Loskiel, Part I, Chap. X p. 124.

1 Hechewelder, 37-38.

# Marryat's Diary in America, 261.

§ Heckewelder, 39.

\\ Loskiel. Part I., Chap. A., 124-125.

to pay a high tribute to their character for probity and valor ; for it would have been folly for a weak or vacillating nation to have undertaken such a task. It implied that, since "as men they had been dreaded ; as women they would be respected and honored." Unhappily for them they yielded to the flattering proposition, not suspecting the meditated treachery of the Iroquois, who desired as well to deprive them of their power and mili- tary fame, "which had exalted them above all the other Indian nations." * They believed their object to be the preservation of the Indian race.

The Iroquois, rejoiced at the assent of the un- wary Delawares, appointed a great feast, and solemnly inducted the latter into their new and novel office of women. Addressing the Delawares, they said : "We dress you in a woman's long habit, reaching down to your feet, and adorn you with ear-rings," meaning, that they should no more take up arms ; "We hang a calabash filled with oil and medicines upon your arm. With the oil you shall cleanse the ears of the other nations, that they may attend to good, and not to bad words ; and with the medicine you shall heal those who are walking in foolish ways, that they may return to their senses, and incline their hearts to peace ; we deliver into your hands a plant of Indian corn and an hoe," by which they were exhorted to make agriculture their future employment and means of subsistence. "Ever since this singular treaty of peace," adds Loskiel, "the Iroquois have called the Delawares their cousins."} Elsewhere they are called children of the Five Nations ; } while they themselves call the Six Nations their uncles,§ a term which they also apply to the Senecas. || The Mahicans, the Iroquois called their nephews.

This treaty, which also comprised in its provis- ions the Mahicans and other connections of the Delawares, is supposed, from the traditions of the Delawares, Mahicans and Iroquois, to have been consummated at a place since called Norman's Kill, a few miles from the site of the city of Albany, "between the years 1609 and 1620,"T and was participated in by the Dutch, who united their influence with that of the Iroquois to induce the Delawares, Mahicans and their connections to bury the hatchet, and declared that they "would fall on those who should dig it up again." The Dutch also declared their intention to "forthwith

* Heckewelder, 39, 41.

+ Loskiel, Part I., Chap. X., 125-126.

+ Col. Hist. VI., 988.

§ Col. Hist. VII., 104.

|| Col. Hist. VII., 720.

T Heckewelder, 12.

THE IROQUOIS MAKE "WOMEN" OF THE DELAWARES.

erect a church over the weapon of war, so that it could no more be exhumed without overturning the sacred edifice, and whoever dared do that should incur the resentment of the white men."* The date of this treaty is definitely fixed in the copy of a proposition made by the River Indians to Lt. Gov. Nanfan, at Albany, July 18, 1701, in which it is explicitly stated that "Itt is now ninety years agoe since the Christians came first here, when there was a covenant chain made between them and the Mahikanders, the first inhabitants of this River"-the Hudson. It is further stated; "Wee have been soe happy never to have had the least flaw or crack in the chain * * * wherein the Maquase [Mohawks] and wee are linked."f From this it appears that the date was 1611. "By this treaty," says Moul- ton, "the Dutch secured for themselves the quiet possession of the Indian trade, and the Five Nations obtained the means to assert that ascend- ency which they ever after maintained over the other native tribes, and to inspire terror far and near among the other savages of North America."

Whatever may be the credence to which these traditions are entitled, certain it is that the relative positions of the Delawares and Iroquois, as to their military status, was reversed,# and the former were subsequently looked to for the preservation of peace, "and entrusted with the charge of the great belt of peace and chain of friendship."§

The Iroquois asserted, and sought sedulously to impress upon the mind of others, that the Dela- wares and their kindred tribes were fairly con- quered by them, and compelled by force to submit to the humiliation of being made women to avoid utter ruin.|| Authors have very generally assumed this to be the fact ; but a few, notably Heckewelder and Ruttenber, have earnestly striven to refute what they believe, and justly, to be an error. "It is a singular fact, too," says the latter, "that of all the nations subjugated by the Iroquois, the Lenape alone bore the name of women. While the council- fires of other nations were 'put out,' and their survivors merged in the confederacy, that of the Lenape was kept burning, and their civil govern- ment remained undisturbed.""" Says Heckewelder, "Neither Mr. Pyrlæus nor Mr. Zeisberger, who both lived among the Five Nations, and spoke and understood their language well, could obtain from

them any details relative to this supposed con- quest ;" and, he adds, "If this were true, the Lenape and their allies, who, like all other Indian nations, never considered a treaty binding when entered into under any kind of compulsion, would not have submitted to this any longer than until they could again have rallied their forces and fallen upon their enemy; they would have done long be- fore the year 1755, what they did at last at that time, joined the French in their wars against the Iroquois and English, and would not have patiently waited more than a century before they took their revenge for so flagrant an outrage."*

The Delawares discovered and resented the base treachery of the Iroquois. They "determined to unite their forces and by one great effort to destroy entirely that perfidious nation," which, they said, they might easily have done, "as they were then as numerous as the grasshoppers at particular seasons, and as destructive to their enemies as these insects are to the fruits of the earth ;" while they described the Iroquois " as a number of croaking frogs in a pond, which make a great noise when all is quiet, but at the first approach of danger, nay, at the very rustling of a leaf, immediately plunge into the water and are silent." But the rapid increase and encroachments of the white settlers "engaged all the capacity of their minds," and diverted their attention from this purpose.f

The force of Iroquois opposition, it would appear, weighed most heavily against the New England and River Indians, the former of whom, and certain of the latter, especially the Minsis, were brought under tributary subjection to them. Fierce and san- guinary conflicts prevailed between the Iroquois, especially the Mohawks, and the Mahicans, who were their "most formidable competitors," and were not terminated when the English superseded the Dutch, nor until the close of the war which terminated in 1673, when the English, who were in alliance with both, effected a permanent settlement. Being "equal in courage, equal in numbers, equal in the advantages of obtaining fire-arms from the Dutch, and in their subsequent alliance with the English, they marched unsubdued by the boasted conquerors of America."}

Judge William Smith, an early historian, says : "When the Dutch began the settlement of this country, all the Indians on Long Island, and the northern shore of the sound, on the banks of Con- necticut, Hudson's, Delaware and Susquehanna

* Annals of Albany, 1., 14. Heckewelder, 43.

+ Col. Hist. I V., 902, 903.

# Journal of New Netherland, Doc. Hist. IV., 8.

§ Loskiel, Part I., Chap. X., p. 126.

| Loskiel, Part I., Chap. X., p. 126-127.

" Indian Tribes of Hudson's River, 66.

* Heckewelder, 44-45.

1 Heckewelder, 48.

# Indian Tribes of Hudson's River, 56.

HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

rivers, were in subjection to the Five Nations; and within the memory of persons now living, acknowl- edged it by the payment of an annual tribute." Colden, speaking of the Mohawks, says: "All the nations round them have, for many years, entirely submitted to them, and pay a yearly tribute to them in wampum ;" though elsewhere the latter inconsistently admits that the contest between the Mohawks and Mahicans was not at an end till 1673,* when it was effected through the mediation of the English, but without the subjugation of the Mahicans. O'Callaghan reiterates the statement of Colden.t Bancroft says: "Like the benevolent William Penn, the Delawares were pledged to a system of peace ; but, while Penn forbore retalia- tion voluntarily, the passiveness of the Delawares was the degrading confession of their defeat and submission to the Five Nations. Their conquer- ors had stripped them of their rights as warriors, and compelled thein to endure taunts as women."}

But these statements would seem to be too broad and indefinite, and certainly incorrect with respect to the Mahicans, or Manhingans, who, the Rela- tions of the Jesuit missionaries show, were at war with the Mohawks in 1656, who experienced a severe check in an attack upon a fortified Mahican village in 1663. In 1664, the Mahicans were al- lied with four other Indian nations, including the Wappingers, in an attack upon the Mohawks,§ who were so weakened and their pride humbled, that, in 1699, they sent an embassy to Quebec to solicit the French to protect them against the Mahicans. In this the Mohawks were successful to the extent of securing the co-operation of the Jesuit mission- aries in resisting an attack made by three hundred Mahicans on the fortified village of Cahnawaga, on the 18th of August, 1669. The Mahicans were repulsed and retired after two hours of fighting, but were intercepted by the Mohawks, who descended the river in canoes and formed in ambush between the village of Cahnawaga and Schenectady. The Mohawks, though at first successful in the conflict which ensued, were eventually put to flight.|| They then called to their aid the Oneidas, Onondagas and Cayugas, and with four hundred warriors set out to surprise a Mahican fort near Manhattan. But in this enterprise they were equally unsuccess- ful. In April, 1670, Governor Lovelace visited Albany, charged, among other things, with the

* Colden's Six Nations, II., 35.

t History of the New Netherland, I., 47.

# History of the United States, II., 396.

§ Doc. Hist. IV., 83-85. History of New Netherland II, 519.

" Col. Hist. III, 250. Drake's Biography and History of the In- dians of North America.

duty of making peace between the Mohawks and Mahicans, but not until August of the succeeding year were the negotiations consummated, and, ac- cording to Colden, not until 1673 .* Subsequent to this event the Mahicans were uniformly em- ployed as auxiliaries of the Iroquois and English in their wars with the French.

At an earlier period it will appear that the Ma- hicans were less successful in their encounters with the Mohawks. Michaeluis says that in 1626, the Mahicans fled before the Mohawks and left their lands,f referring, doubtless, to a clan or chief- taincy, which, as we have previously shown, occu- pied a tract of country on the west side of the Hud- son, in its upper course. Wassenar mentions a similar reverse which occurred in 1628 .¿ That this exodus did not apply to the Mahicans as a nation is proved by subsequent deeds. As evi- dence of the sanguinary conflicts between these two nations and the reverses sustained by the Ma- hicans, tradition points to localities on Wanton Island, near Catskill and in the town of Red Hook in this county, "the bones of the slain at the lat- ter place," says Ruttenber, "being, it is said, in monumental record when the Dutch first settled there."§

The Mahicans or River Indians were strength- ened by the disasters which befel King Philip's army in New England; for after the disastrous battle of August 12, 1676, in which the great leader lost his life, the shattered remnant of his army, though pursued and attacked by the English near the Housatonic, found refuge in the friendly vil- lages of their kindred along the Hudson. But they melted away in their subsequent wars as the faith- ful and efficient allies of the English, losing between the years 1689, (when they numbered 250 warriors, ) and 1698, not less than 160.| Others were seduced from their allegiance by the Jesuit missionaries and joined the "praying Indians" in Canada. At a conference held with Lieut. Governor Nanfan, July 18, 1701, a Mahican speaker stated their number to be 200 fighting men, belonging to the county of Albany, which then embraced the entire country west of the Connecticut and north of Roelaff Jan- sen's Kill, on the east of the Hudson, and north of the Catskill Mountains, on the west side. T Many were carried off by that dread scourge, the small-pox, while great nuinbers died in conse-

* Colden's Six Nations, Chap. II, 34,

t Col. Hist., II, 371, 769.

* Doc. Hist., III, 48.

§ Indian Tribes of Hudson's River, 57-58.

Il Col. Hist. IV, 337.

T Col. Hist. IV, 902.

THE DELAWARES IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

quence of the introduction of spirituous liquors among them. The remainder removed in separate bodies to different parts and mingled with other nations. A considerable number migrated from the Hudson River in 1734, and settled at Stock- bridge, Massachusetts, where in October of that year, Rev. John Sergeant established among them a mission, under the auspices of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts. Be- tween 1785 and 1787, with diminished numbers, they removed to the country of the Oneidas, a nation of the Iroquois, and located in the town which still perpetuates their name-Stockbridge- in the present county of Madison, where they were soon after gathered into a church under the missionary labors of Rev. John Sergeant, who followed them to New Stockbridge in 1796, and continued to reside with them till his death, Sept. 7, 1824. They subsequently removed to lands purchased, in company with the Iroquois, St. Regis and Minsi Indians, on Green Bay, and the Winne- bago and Fox Rivers in Wisconsin, where they have made considerable advances in civilization and are generally sober and industrious. Upwards of one hundred of them, who lived in the colonies of New York and Connecticut, having, through the labors of the United Brethren, embraced Chris- tianity, emigrated to Pennsylvania between 1742 and 1760, and there afterwards became incorporated with the Delawares.

As early as 1762, a number had emigrated to the Ohio; and in Connecticut, where they were once numerous, there were, in 1799, in the county of New London, still eighty-four individuals of them, the remains of a once large and flourishing settlement.

The war of 1755 between the English and the French, which was but the legitimate fruit of the imperfect treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, concluded April 30, 1748, witnessed a new alliance of the Mahicans and their kindred tribes, and the active alliance of the Delawares and neighboring tribes with the French, whose early and sweeping suc- cesses allied to their interests the western Indians generally, and caused the Iroquois, then, through the assiduous labors of the Jesuit priests, about equally divided in their numerical representation in New York and Canada, to falter in their fealty to the English Crown, and increased the division in their ranks as the war progressed, with results altogether favoring French interests.

The war, which for many years threatened dis- aster to the English, finally resulted in their favor,

and left them in possession of Canada and the territory east of the Mississippi.

At the Revolution the Delawares, who, at the close of the war in 1763, numbered 600 warriors,* were divided; those living upon the Ohio, to which they removed in the early part of the eight- eenth century, and the most numerous portion, were "dragged" into the war, by which their numbers were reduced, and "they lost the desire of becoming a civilized people ; "t while the tribes east of the Alleghanies, including the Mahicans or River Indians, became the efficient allies of the colonists, though the number of the latter must have been inconsiderable. In 1774, Governor Tryon thus refers to them :-

" The river tribes have become so scattered and so addicted to wandering, that no certain account of their numbers can be obtained. These tribes- the Montauks and others of Long Island, Wap- pingers of Dutchess county, and the Esopus, Papa- goncks, etc., of Ulster county-have generally been denominated River Indians and consist of about three hundred fighting men. Most of these people at present profess Christianity, and as far as in their power adopt our customs. The greater part of them attended the army during the late war, but not with the same reputation as those who are still deemed hunters."}

In April, 1774, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts apprised the Mahicans and Wap- pingers at Westenhuck of the gathering tempest, and expressed a desire to cultivate a good under- standing with them. "Capt. Solomon Ahhannuau- waumut, chief sachem of the Moheakounuck In- dians," to whom the message was addressed, visited Boston on the eleventh of that month, and his reply on that occasion sufficiently evinces the warmth of their attachment to the colonists. Among other things he said : "Whenever I see your blood running, you will soon find me about to revenge my brother's blood. Although I am low and very small, I will gripe hold of your enemy's heel, that he cannot run so fast, and so light, as if * he had nothing at his heels. *

* We are ready to do anything for your relief." After his return from the battle of Bunker Hill, in which he and his warriors participated, at a council at Albany, he renewed this pledge in language most eloquent. " Depend upon it," he said "we are true to you, and mean to join you. Wherever you go, we will be by your sides. Our bones shall lie with yours. We are determined never to be at peace with the red coats, while they are at variance with

* Col. Hist. VII., 583.

t Heckewelder, 67, 68.

* Col. Hist. VIII., 451.

HISTORY OF DUCHESS COUNTY.

you. We have one favor to beg. We should be glad if you would help us to establish a minister amongst us, that when our men are gone to war, our women and children may have the advantage of being instructed by him. If we are conquered, our lands go with yours ; but if you are victorious, we hope you will help us to recover our just rights."* Wherever the influence of the Mahicans could reach, it was exerted among their brethren of the west. Their valor and devotion was dis- played on the field of White Plains, Oct. 28, 1776 ; and at Cortland's Ridge, in Westchester county, August 31, 1778.f

Not a representative of this once numerous aboriginal race remains in the county ; and scarcely a vestige of their former occupancy survives the obliterating agencies of the century since their departure.

CHAPTER V.

THE MORAVIANS-MORAVIAN MISSION AT SHEKO- MEKO-CHRISTIAN HENRY RAUCH ESTABLISHES THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL MORAVIAN MISSION IN NORTH AMERICA AT SHEKOMEKO-JOINED BY BUETTNER - JOSEPH SHAW SENT TO SHEKO- MEKO AS SCHOOL MASTER - THE MISSION- ARIES, PYRLÆUS, SENSEMAN AND POST JOIN THE MISSION-COMMUNION FIRST ADMINISTERED AT SHEKOMEKO-NEW CHAPEL AT SHEKOMEKO- MISSION AT PACHGATGOCH BROKEN UP-DIFFI- CULTIES AT SHEKOMEKO-EFFORTS TO BREAK UP THE MISSION-PERSECUTIONS OF THE MIS- SIONARIES AND THEIR INDIAN CONVERTS- DEATH OF BUETTNER-INDIANS DRIVEN FROM SHEKOMEKO AND WECHQUADNACH -INTEREST IN SHEKOMEKO AND WECHQUADNACH REVIVED AFTER THE LAPSE OF A CENTURY-THEIR SITES IDENTIFIED - MONUMENTS ERECTED THEREON TO THE MEMORY OF THE MISSIONARIES BUETT- NER, BRUCE AND POWELL - DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENTS.

H AVING examined cursorily the character of the aborigines of this section of country, we are prepared in a measure to estimate the qualities of those who undertook the evangelization and the difficulties with which they had to contend.

This task, so far as this county is concerned, was confined to the Moravians, whose heroism, devo- tion and self-sacrifice find their parallel only in the zeal of the Jesuits, of whom Parkman says, "No religious order has ever united in itself so much to be admired and so much to be detested." Each alike were men of culture and intelligence, who for- sook homes of luxury in Europe, and submitted with a wonderful patience and heroism to the most menial offices, the utmost hardships and privations, and cheerfully accepted missions attended with the most inconceivable danger in the zealous pursuit of their calling.

The Moravians, a name " redolent with Christian faith and hope" -- were then just emerging to promi- nence from under the cloud of religious conten- tion and persecution which, for centuries, had tinged their history with a melancholy interest ; and they entered upon their arduous and self-ap- pointed labors with the vigor of resuscitated man- hood succeeding protracted and enfeebled infancy. But, says the Moravian historian, Reichel, it was under peculiar difficulties that they commenced their labors among the nomads of this western world. Entering upon them at a time when the contending civilizations of Europe on this con- tinent, which, for nearly a century and a half had a doubtful issue, were approaching a determinate issue, and just upon the eve of those difficulties which culminated in the French and Indian war, they became an object of two-fold suspicion. They stood between the Indian and the aggressive An- glo-Saxon, but were friends of both.

They adopted as peculiarly their own the mission of converting the heathen in fields which others had not attempted to cultivate. In 1732, the first missionaries of the society were sent to the Island of St. Thomas in the West Indies, then and still under the Danish government; and in 1733, a successful mission was established on the inhospi- table coast of Greenland. In 1734, a number of brethren living in Berthelsdorf, in Upper Lusatia, under the protectorate of Count Nicolas Lewis von Zinzendorf, a son of one of the prime min- isters at the Court of Saxony, resolved to go to Georgia; but on arriving at Holland, changed their minds and removed to Pennsylvania, estab- lishing the Moravian colony at Bethlehem in that State, which became the headquarters of the Society in this country. In November, 1734, others, under the leadership of John Toeltschig and Anthony Seyffart, left Herrnhut, a Moravian settlement in Saxony, to establish a colony in Georgia, on a

* This has reference to several tracts of land claimed by the Mahicans, the principal of which was a portion of the Livingston Patent, and lands at Westenhuck, the latter of which they claimed to have leased to the whites for a term of years. The matter has several times been before the New York Legislature, but, like the claim of the Wappingers, has never been adjusted.

1 Indian Tribes of Hudson's River, 269-287.

THE FIRST MORAVIAN MISSION AMONG THE DELAWARES.

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History of Duchess county, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 5

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co. Number of Pages: 868

Author: Smith, James H. (James Hadden); Cale, Hume H; Roscoe, William E
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 868