USA > New York > New York City > History of the New Netherlands, province of New York, and state of New York : to the adoption of the federal Constitution. Vol. I > Part 3
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* The five Iroquois nations were each composed of three tribes, designated by some animal, as the Mohawk nation, (whose three castles occupied the Valley of the Mohawk.) consisted of the Tortoise, the Bear and the Wolf.
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MR. GALLATIN'S MAP.
dered tributary to the redoubted confederacy of the Iroquois, with whom the Dutch, and after them the English of New York, had the most intimate and profitable intercourse. They were a sheltering frontier of warriors opposed to the French and Indians of Canada. I shall have much to say of the Algonkins, as the allies of France and enemies of the Iroquois, and of the Europeans of New York.
By the annexed sheet (for which I am indebted to Mr. Gal- latin's larger map of the situation of all the Indian nations of North America,) the student of the history of New York will see the abodes of the savage nations, with whom it is most necessary for him to become acquainted, as their friendly intercourse or hostile aggressions formed important parts of our annals, until after the war of the revolution.
The Algonkin territory extends north and west from New York to the Mississippi, and a river falling into Hudson's Bay. We are told that the word "Missi," in the Algonkin tongue, means "all," or the whole, perhaps great, and " nissi" is water. Whereas " sippi" means river, and joined to " missi" gives " the whole," or the great river-the Mississippi. The southern boundary of the Algonkins may be considered as the north shore of the St. Law- rence and the lakes, including the tract lying between lakes Erie and Michigan, and between a line drawn from the latter to the river Missouri.
The northern Iroquois in the year 1600, possessed land on both shores of the St. Lawrence and of the Lakes, to the head of Lake Erie ; and thence their territory extended beyond the Miami river to the Ohio, which last river, with such land as the Dela- wares and Mohicans could withhold from them, was their boun- dary on that part. Mr. Gallatin says, " The Iroquois nations consisted of two distinct groups," which when they were first known to the Europeans, were separated from each other by several intervening, but now extinct Lenape, i. e. Delaware tribes. It is in the northern group that we are most interested. The same writer says, " when Jaques Cartier entered and ascended the river St. Lawrence in 1535, he found the site of Montreal, then called Hochelaga, occupied by an Iroquois tribe," and " we have no further account till the year 160S, when Champlain founded Quebec ; and the Island of Montreal was then inhabited by the Algonkins." So we have reason to believe that the latter people sometimes repulsed the Iroquois, notwithstanding their general superiority both in civilization and arms.
The intelligent and philosophic writer above mentioned, gives the boundaries of the northern Iroquois thus, " on the north, the height of land which separates the waters of the Ottawa river from those which fall into the Lakes Huron and Ontario, and the river St. Lawrence. But the country north of the lakes was a
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BOUNDARIES.
debatable ground, on which the Iroquois had no permanent establishment, and at least one Algonkin tribe called Missisagues was settled. On the west, Lake Huron was the bound of the five nations ; and south of Lake Erie, a line not far from the Sciota, extending to the Ohio, was the boundary between the Wyandots, or other, now (1536) extinct Iroquois tribes, and the Miamies and Illinois. On the east, Lake Champlain, and fur- ther south, the Hudson river as far down as the Kaatskill Mountains belonged to the confederates. These mountains separated the Mohawks, (a tribe'of Iroquois) from the Lenape Wappingers of Esopus. The southern boundary cannot be accurately defined. The five nations were then (160S) carrying on their war of " subjugation and extermination, against all the Lenape tribes," (the Delawares) " west of the river Delaware. Their war parties were already seen at the mouth of the river Susquehannah ; and it is impossible to distinguish between what they held in consequence of recent conquests, and their original limits. These did not probably extend beyond the range of mountains, which form southwesterly the continuation of the Kaatskill chain. West of the Alleghany mountains they are not known to have had any settlement south of the Ohio ; though the Wyandots" ( once an Iroquois tribe by language,) " have left their names to a southern tributary of that river-the Guyandot."
The Tuscaroras are the only portion of the southern Iroquois which I have to notice as the historian of New York, and that only, because when driven from North Carolina, they were re- ceived by the Iroquois of the five nations, and constituted a sixth in 1712.
The situation of the five nations in this State, is still marked by names familiar to the citizens of New York : the river Mohawk winds from the high ground on which fort Stanwix once stood, and falls into the greater Hudson amidst islets ; while another stream from the same height runs into Ontario through the Oneida Lake and Onondaga river. Counties and towns likewise bear the names of these nations ; Cayuga Lake and river remind the traveller of a fourth, and the village of Seneca Falls with other vestiges, fast fading, show the residence of the fifth of this once great confederacy .*
* The remaining Onondagas, in 1815, residing near the council ground of the union, were sober, honest, and somewhat agricultural. They obstinately rejected teachers from the whites, answering in respect to clergymen, as the chief of the Narragansetts replied to the offers of Mr. Mayhew, who asked permission to preach to his people, "Go, and make the English good first ;" adding, " as long as the English cannot agree among themselves, what religion is, it ill becomes them to teach others." The tribe of Algonkins, said by the French to be converted to the christian religion, were . called Abenakis : these and the New England Indians, of the far east, were between
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CONFEDERATED IROQUOIS.
The Iroquois of New York were the terror of all the nations that surrounded them. By their advancement in civilization, attention to agriculture, (although committed in the practice to their women and slaves,) conduct as statesmen and warriors, general superiority in all the arts of destruction, and above all by their union into one confederated body of free and independent nations governed by a great council or congress, they had become the acknowledged lords of many tributary tribes, and appear to have pursued their course of vengeance or thirst for conquest in the persecution of those whom they chose to account enemies, with a relentless pur- . pose, and with a subtlety and courage that distinguished them as braves above all others of the red-skin species, and might entitle them to comparison with the states and heroes of ancient, or in some respects, modern Europe.
In the year 1600, the seat of the confederated Iroquois, or five nations,* was south of the river St. Lawrence and Lake On- tario, and extended from the Hudson to the upper branches of the river Alleghany, and to Lake Erie; Hochelaga, now Montreal, was founded in 1535, and the island was inhabited by Indians speak- ing a dialect of the Iroquois tongue, they were Hurons, and be- tween Montreal and Quebec the Iroquois had resided and planted,
Kenebec and the river Piscataqua. The Indians were found more populous in the vicinity of the Atlantic Ocean and its rivers than in the interior, owing to the greater abundance of food within a given district to be attained without labour. The Pe- quods (a part of the Mohicans) of New England were reputed to amount in former times to 4000 warriors; but in 1674, Gookin states them to amount to only 300. During the intermediate time they had been subjugated by the whites. The Nar- ragansetts in 1674, counted 1000 warriors ; the Wapanoags, Massachusetts and Pawtucketts, had, it is said in former times, an aggregate of 9000 men ; but at the date above mentioned they had less that 1000 warriors altogether. In 1680 Con- hecticut contained 500 Indian warriors of all the tribes within her borders. In 1774, by an actual census, there were still remaining, Indians of all ages and sexea 1363 : and in Rhode Island 1482.
. It is asserted by a writer in 1741, that the confederacy of the five nations was established, as the Indians say, one age, or one man's life before the white people settled at . Albany, or before white men came to the country : and he gives the names of the chiefs who formed the confederacy : viz : the Mohawk was Togana- wita : the Oneida Otatscherhtis ; the Onandago Tatotarpa ; the Cayuga, Toga- hajon : the Senecas had two chiefs present, Ganniatarico and Satagarureges. And further. that the Mohawks made thetfirs step towards the confederacy, and for that reason bore the name of T'gavihoga, in council. The destruction of the greater part of the Hurons or Wyandots, (who it must be remembered were of Iroquois origin, but not part of the Iroquois confederacy) took place in 1649. and the dispersion of the residue, with that of the Algonkins of the Ottowa river, was acheived by the con- federated Iroquois in 1650. The Delawares, who had resisted until this time, then submitted, and the victorious Iroquois evacuated fort Christina on the Delaware, and sold the adjacent lands to the Dutch in 1651. The neutral nations were annihilated or incorpoated with the Iroquois at this time, i. e. about 1651. From 1651 to 1653, these conquerors destroyed the Eries : and in 1672 the Andastes. During all these wars, the Iroquois carried on hostilities against the Algonkins and the French. I owe these dates to the researches of Mr. Gallatin, and they give a lively idea of the power and aggressions of the confederated Iroquois of the seventeenth century.
VOL. I. 4
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THEIR SUPERIORITY.
but had withdrawn themselves to the other side of the St. Law- rence for the purpose of concentration. The Cayugas and Oneidas were younger members of the confederacy than the other three : the Tuscaroras, who spoke the same language, were not received until 1712. The confederated five nations had acquired a decided superiority over other Indians long before they were known to Eu- ropeans ; they were then at war with the Algonkins and Hurons. They had carried their conquests to the mouth of the Susquehannah, to the present site of Newcastle on the Delaware, and were objects of terror from the sources of the Potomack to the Merrimack and Piscatawa .*
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'Their wisdom in concentrating the confederacy within the above mentioned limits, and only making distant tribes (when con- quered) tributary, is one cause of their superiority. Within these limits they were at home : they were protected on the south by mountains, on the north by lakes. Although more polished and civilized, they were more daring, ferocious, and perhaps more cruel than their neighbours; that is, more thoroughly military and heroic. But above all, they were better and more constantly supplied with food from the circumstance above mentioned, of being somewhat of agriculturists, and of course further advanced towards perma- nency and civilized life, than the wretched beings who were scattered over wood, prairie and desert, in pursuit of game, and either revelling in super-abundance, or wasting with hunger. More certain subsistence gave the Iroquois more leisure for improvement, and thus, in both council and field they had greater advantages than their neighbours. The Delawares, according to Mr. Gallatin, call themselves Lenno Lenape (Heckewelder's Lenni Lenape) meaning " original or unmixed men." But they had been conquered by the Iroquois, who stigmatized them as women. At the treaty of Easton in 1758, the Delaware chief, Tadyusacing, acknowledged that the land near the source of the Delaware belonged to his uncles, the Iroquois, and that the Delawares were bounded by the Kaatskill mountains, where the Iroquois (or Mohawks) again met them. The Delawares extended along the Schuylkill and the sea-shore of New Jersey.
It is stated by all writers, on the testimony of the Indians, that the Mohicans, Wappingers, and all the river Indians on the Hud- son, had been subjugated by the Iroquois and paid them tribute :
* When the Algonkins took refuge with the French under the walls of Quebec, the Iroquois followed and attacked them there. In such terror were they held by the New England Indians, that Gookin says, the appearance of four or five Maquas (Mohawks,) in the woods, would frighten the neighbouring Indians from home, and make thein take refuge in forts. On-Long Island, and in Connecticut the Mohawks have been known to pursue their flying enemies, or victims, into the houses of the English settlers, and there murder them. Their superiority has been likened to that of the armed knights of feudal Europe over the defenceless peasantry, or of disci- plined soldiers of modern times, over half-armed militia without military knowledge or leaders to guide them.
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FATE OF INDIANS.
yet it is certain that the Mohicans and Iroquois, were at war with each other after the settlement of the Dutch in New Nether- Jand. Colden states that their war continued until 1673; at which time the Dutch succeeded as mediators, and produced a state of peace between the belligerents.
It is worthy of remark, and has been stated by a writer of great philosophic research, that Indians, however they may have to com- plain of evils introduced by the Europeans, have, since the exis- tence of the United States as a free republic, been ameliorated in their manners.
Mr. Gallatin, the writer I allude to, remarks that for the last forty years, we know of no instance of any Indian tribes torturing and burning their prisoners.
Strange as it may now appear, we know that the French, in their Canadian wars, encouraged this abominable custom.
It is truly asserted that our prosperity has been attained at the expense of the Indian tribes ; and that we owe them a great debt, which it is from many various circumstances very difficult to pay ; but it should never be forgotten. If they had not in the first place received the Dutch and English with kindness, their colonies could not have been planted. When they found that by selling, or giving their lands, they had deprived themselves of territory necessary for their subsistence ; and that those received as gods were rapacious or encroaching men, addicted to vices and familiar with blood, men who treated them always as inferiors and often as slaves, they in vain endeavoured to regain the territory without which they could not exist in that state, and with the customs they pre- ferred. Then began wars, which resulted in defeat, loss, subju- gation and extermination, inflicted upon them for endeavouring to regain that which they had thoughtlessly parted with, or to prevent further encroachments.
'The whites increased in numbers ; forests gave way to culti- vated fields ; marshes and swamps to gardens and orchards ; mud built huts and pallisadoed castles, to palaces. cities and churches. This is not to be lamented-it could not be otherwise -it was to be wished. Men in the hunter state, who were in- cessantly stimulated to barbarous and loathsome acts of revenge, against any neighbour who crowded upon the territory necessary or imagined to be necessary, for their hunting grounds ; mer whose principle as well as practice was to return tenfold, evil for evil ; who inculcated as a duty revenge for injury and insult ; are happily more than replaced by those who look to agriculture for subsistence, and to forgiveness for happiness ; a race, whose reli- gion teaches them to return good for evil, (however feebly they may practise the lessons of divine wisdom) are infinitely prefer- rable to that whose morality was vengeance, and whose delight
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THEIR PREDECESSORS.
was blood. The agriculturist loves peace, the hunter delights in war; the first is in a state of improvement ; for in peace alone mankind can progress to the perfection they are capable of ; the second cannot improve, for war deteriorates all who are engaged in it. It would be folly or worse, to regret that thousands, nay mil- lions, of comparatively civilized beings constantly improving, and more and more influenced by the love and charity their religion inculcates, should have taken the place once occupied by a few hundreds of barbarians, whose pride made them detest that labour which is the only true foundation for improvement.
It may perhaps be expected that I should say something fur- ther of the people who preceded the red men, now melting away before the European race-those nations who, perhaps, have succeeded each other, varying in degrees of civilization, in arts, science, manners and morals, who may have occupied this vast continent, ages before the Esquimaux, Knistinaux, Algon- kins, Lenape, Iroquois, or any other of the barbarous tribes we know, or have heard of-even before the half civilized Mexi- cans and Peruvians ; but I know nothing of them except that remains and monuments are found which excite the imagination, and leave us, after every effort to penetrate into the past, in a dreamy and unsatisfactory state, thirsting for knowledge of we know not what. This we may be certain of-however far these nations had advanced in improvement, they had not attained the art of printing.
I acknowledge that no one can read the accounts we have re- ceived of the ruins of Palanque or Copan in Mexico, or of the remains of empire in Peru, or of the mounds, vestiges of fortifications and other tokens of ancient power, found in the valley of the Mississippi, and elsewhere, without conjuring , up ideas which are rather fitting for the writers of romance than history. I have visited some of the remains of fortifications in the state of New York : of them I shall say more when speaking of the military operations of the French. Mr. Gallatin remarks that all Indian works for defence were of the same kind ; that is, palisades. By Indians, meaning the race of red men now exist- ing and passing away. He further observes, that they were pro- portioned to the population of an Indian village. The regular for- tifications of earth found in this state, or to the west, indicate the work of Europeans, or of people in a more advanced state of civi- lization, than the Indians of the New Netherlands had arrived at. when first known to Europeans, not even excepting the Iroquois. The Mississippi monuments indicate a populous, and of course an agricultural people : the probability is that they were destroyed by
* See Appendix A.
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INDIAN INTERPRETERS.
barbarians, who decreased in numbers in consequence of their war ; of extermination, and desolating the country they had over- run. But all this is conjecture, not history .*
It has so happened that I have seen and conversed with three Indian Interpreters, men who had been carried away captive in childhood and adopted among the Iroquois, when all the western part of this state was uninhabited except by Indians. These men had all returned to civilized life, were possessed of landed property, and were employed by government, as qualified by their knowledge of language, and their reputation for honesty and intelli- gence, to be the channels of communication between the red and white men. Their names were Jones, Parish, and Webster. . With the last I had most frequent communication ; but a friend says that in 1819 he heard Mr. Parish testify, that it was then forty-two years since he first saw the Genesee river, and my friend re- marked that of 70,000 people then in Ontario, not one other could say the same. Mr. Webster was most conversant with the On- . ondagas, and when I knew him in 1815 cultivated land in Onon- daga Hollow, and was looked up to by the Indians as a friend and father. He testified to the arts of Governor Simcoe and the En- glish in stimulating the Indians to that war and those murders which were only terminated by Wayne's victory, and the treaty of Greenville.
The Indian tradition of the origin of the confederacy as given by him, was as follows : He said that the happy thought of union for defence originated with an inferior chief of the Onondagas, who perceiving that although the five tribes were alike in language, and had by co-operation conquered a great extent of country, yet that they had frequent quarrels and no head or great council, to re- concile them ; and that while divided, the western Indians attacked and destroyed them ; seeing this, he conceived the bright idea of union, and of a great council of the chiefs of the Five Nations : this, he said, and perhaps thought, came to him in a dream ; and it was afterward considered as coming from the Great Spirit. He proposed this plan in a council of his tribe, but the principal chief opposed it. He was a great warrior, and feared to lose his in- fluence as head man of the Onondagas. This was a selfish man. The younger chief, who we will call Owcko, was silenced ; but he determined in secret to attempt the great political work. This was a man who loved the welfare of others. To make long journeys and be absent for several days while hunting, would cause no suspicion, because it was common. He left home as if to hunt ; but taking a circuitous path through the woods, for all this great country was then a wilderness, he made his way to the vil- lage or castle of the Mohawks. He consulted some of the leaders
* See Appendix B.
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£
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ORIGIN OF THE CONFEDERACY.
of that tribe, and they received the scheme favorably ; he visited the Oneidas, and gained the assent of their chief ; he then returned home. After a time he made another pretended hunt, and another ; thus, by degrees, visiting the Cayugas and Senecas, and gained the assent of all to a great council to be held at Onondaga. With consummate art he then gained over his own chief, by convincing him of the advantages of the confederacy, and agreeing that he should be considered as the author of the plan. The great council met, and the chief of the Onondagas made use of a figurative ar- gument, taught him by Oweko, which was the same that we read of in the fable, where a father teaches his sons the value of.union by taking one stick from a bundle, and showing how feeble it was, and easily broken, and that when bound together the bundle resisted his utmost strength.
I have mentioned the defeat of the war party of the Iroquois* on Lake George by the effect of the fire-arms of Champlain and his companions, who accompanied the Algonkins at the time. We cannot but imagine the astonishment, and perhaps incredulity, which would be manifested by the chiefs of the Iroquois when assembled in council at Onondaga Hollow, they received the ac- count which the fugitives gave of the white men's thunder and lightning proceeding from the ranks of their enemies, and destroy- ing without hope the leaders and warriors who had always before returned as triumphant conquerors. They could not but assent -for an Iroquois, at that time, could not tell a falsehood-yet the tale must have appeared incomprehensible. They soon would learn the circumstances attending the visit of the French to Ca- nada, and their alliance with the Algonkins. They never forgave the aggression of Champlain, and many hundreds of Frenchmen were sacrificed to atone for the thundering of that day on Lake George.
CHAPTER II.
Discovery of Manhattocs-Henry Hudsont-Commencement of New Netherland --- Christianse and Block.
1579 To Holland, a peninsula protruding into the sea, with soil only protected from the waves by embankments, we owe the germ of New York. Holland had erected the standard of
* Mr. Moulton gives Irocoisia as the name of the country of the Iroquois. He says truly, their territorial dominion embraced an empire that might be compared to that of ancient Rome. I have elsewhere given the boundaries of their territory. Where and what are they now ?
t See Apppendix C.
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HOLLAND. HUDSON.
freedom in Zealand, the first place of the United Netherlands which defied the power of Spain; they owed to a province com- posed of islands, and depending upon the ocean for subsistence, the creation of an empire. Other dependent provinces followed the glorious example, and the foundation of a great republic was formed. It was essentially and necessarily commercial. Even while struggling for liberty, the States created a navy which traded with all the world, and established the fame of Dutchmen for na- val prowess wherever a sail was unfurled.
'T'he failure of those who had anticipated a short road by which to gain the riches of the East ; the disappointment of the eminent navigators Cabot, Frobisher, Willoughby, Davis and others, in every attempt to find the much-desired passage by the north-west to the Indies, could not allay the thirst of English merchants, who, still excited by hope, engaged Henry Hudson, a man who had already acquired reputation as a mariner of sagacity and ex- perience, to undertake the discovery of this short road to wealth.
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