USA > New York > The Pennsylvania and New York frontier : history of from 1720 to the close of the Revolution > Part 2
USA > Pennsylvania > The Pennsylvania and New York frontier : history of from 1720 to the close of the Revolution > Part 2
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No account of Shamokin is complete, without reference to the Mora- vian missionaries and their activities there. Count Zinzendorf, head of the church visited the place in September, 1742. Among the missionaries, who labored there, were Post, Pyrlaeus and Zeisberger. The first regular ones were Martin Mack and his wife, Jeanette; and Mack, in his auto- biography, (Memorials of the Moravian Church Vol. 1) notes: "In September, 1745, my wife and I were sent to Shamokin, the very seat of the Prince of Darkness. During the four months, we resided there we were in constant danger and there was scarcely a night but we were compelled to leave our hut and hide in the woods from fear of the drunken savages."
As early as 1734, the Indians importuned the colonial authorities to supply them with a blacksmith at Shamokin, but it seems nothing was done. The Moravians, who displayed more wisdom, in their work among the Indians, than any other missionaries, except the Jesuits, evidently realized, that the average Indian was more interested in saving his gun, than his soul; and accordingly they sent the Indians, a smith and thereby garnered many converts.
Shamokin was the principal Indian town in Pennsylvania, from 1728 until shortly after the death of Shikellimy. After 1750, eastern Pennsyl- vania was inhabited mostly by homeless, roving, transient bands of Indians, who with accessions of their kinsmen from the west, now and then, ravaged and plundered the frontier. The outbreak of the French and Indian War, the defeat of Braddock and the subtle influence of the French undermined the power of the Iroquois over the subject tribes. The Shawnees and many of the Delawares fled over the mountains and joined the French. The Indians abandoned and burned Shamokin in 1755 or early in 1756, leaving no vestige of their past, and no reminder there of the power and dominion of the Iroquois.
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NOTES-CHAPTER ONE
1. Pa. Archs. Vol. 1, pages 210 to 214; Col. Recs. 3, 394; Isaac Taylor's Map ; Address of John H. Carter, Vol. 5, Proceedings of Northumberland Historical Society.
2. General Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian and sachem, who was on Grant's staff, during the Civil War, wrote in 1884: "The words sachem, chief, queen, princes have been promiscuously and interchangeably used. The term sagamore has been confined wholly to New England. To use other terms, such as king, prince or princess, is preposterous and presumptuous, considering the total absence among these people of the paraphernalia, belongings and dignity of royalty." Quoted in Harvey's History of Wilkes-Barre, Vol. 1, page 124.
3. See Buckle, "History of Civilization," Chapter 2, for effects of climate, soil, food, etc., in development of races.
4. Northern mountains of Pennsylvania, so called by early map makers.
5. John Bartram, "Observations in Travels from Pennsylvania to Onondaga, pages 40, 41, reprint Rochester 1895.
6. The writer has a bow and arrows made and given him, some years ago, by a modern Seneca, living on the Alleghany reservation, which almost correspond with the ancient ones; and which the maker could shoot with great skill and with such power as to carry the arrow, with accuracy, a long distance.
7. "League of the Iroquois," Vol. 1, page 114; also Appendix B, pages 245, 248, Note 83, Wampum keeper. The writer, in 1945, while on a visit to the Onondaga Reservation, was shown five strings of reading wampum of the Oneida Nation, by Adam Thomas, an Oneida residing there, who said he was the official wampum keeper of that tribe. Mr. Thomas was unable to read it, and said the last Indian at Onondaga, who could do so, was Thomas Webster, who, in 1891, was beguiled into selling the Onondaga wampum, which resulted in a celebrated law suit for its recovery. The case is reported in 61, N. Y. Supplement page 1027; 65 N. Y. Supple- ment page 1014; and U. S. Reports, No. 189, page 306.
8. "League of the Iroquois," Appendix B, page 233 for a later view of the religion of the Iroquois, wherein a statement by Clark, in his "Indian Sign Language," that "they were limited pantheists," is quoted with approval. The writer's opinion is that they were not pantheists in any sense. They had no conception, that God is the universe or the universe is God, i.e. none of a God as conceived by the pantheists. They were like most primitive people, purely and simply, animists, believ- ing in spirits or shadows, which departed from their carnal selves at death; and sometimes entered into either animate or inanimate objects, which thus endowed, exercised a benign or evil influence. (See E. B. Tylor, "Primitive Culture," for gen- eral discussion of animism and beliefs of the Iroquois) Rev. David Brainerd, the celebrated missionary said: (Memoirs pages 344 to 351) "It is certain that those who yet remain pagans, pay some kind of superstitious reverence to beasts, birds, fishes and even reptiles; that is some to one kind of animal, and some to another. They give much heed to dreams, because they suppose these invisible powers give them directions at such times about certain affairs, and sometimes inform them what animal they would choose to be worshipped in."
9. Parkman, "The Jesuits, 247, 248; Vimont, Jesuit Relations 1642.
10. Shikellimy's face. Natural contour of the rock, resembling a human face.
11. "The Great Shamokin Path and Other Indian Trails," by Charles Fisher Snyder in Proceedings of Northumberland Historical Society, Vol. 14, 1944; Sketch of the Indian Trails of Pennsylvania by George P. Donehoo, in Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, Report, Vol. 17, 1919.
12. Pa. Archs, Vol. 1, 219.
13. Col. Recs. 3, 295; Map of Isaac Taylor.
14. Observations of Bartram, 14.
15. Memoirs of Brainerd, 162 to 165.
16. Col. Recs., Vol. 2, pages 546 to 557.
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CHAPTER TWO
SHIKELLIMY AND CONRAD WEISER
For nearly twenty years, Indian relations and land sales1, 2 were directed by Shikellimy and Conrad Weiser. In the exercise of tactful gov- ernment, in the skill of transforming hostility into obedience, and in the art of subtle negotiation, Shikellimy was the greatest representative of the Iroquois Confederacy. Little is known of his early life, save vague tradi- tions. There is, however, one contemporary record of unquestioned veracity. John Bartram, the celebrated botanist, in 1743, made a journey to Onon- daga, and noted in his diary, speaking of Shamokin, "Shikellimy, the chief man there was of the Six Nations, or rather a Frenchman born at Montreal and adopted by the Oneidas, after being taken prisoner.3 The reasonable conclusion is that Bartram's informant was Shikellimy; and Bartram's statement is corroborated by what Shikellimy told the Moravians, that he was baptized by a Roman Catholic priest in Canada.4
In the colonial records he is called : Swataney, alias Shekalleamy, one of the chiefs of the Oneidas;5 Shikellimy, alias Swantane Oneida chief of the Wolf clan ;6 and Shicalamy, Shukellimus, Chicalamy, Shikellimo. It may be presumed, he grew up in one of the lonely villages of the Oneidas, and became an Indian in manners, language and thought, if not in visage. The Great Council at Onondaga, recognized his sagacity, when it selected him, as its representative among the turbulent tribes, living along the Susquehanna.
All agree he was an honest man, a faithful friend, given to acts of hospitality and never addicted to strong drink, because as he said, "he never wished to become a fool.7
In the minutes of the Council, October 10, 1728, he is first mentioned, it being noted among those present was "Shikellima of the five nations": and on the following day, that "presents be given to Madame Montour and her husband Carandowna, and likewise Shikellima of the five Nations appointed to reside among the Shawanese, whose services had been and may yet be of great advantage to the government."8 This implies that he was then governor of the Shawnees; but it was not until 1745, he was given complete control of the subject tribes in Pennsylvania.9 Shikellimy was engaged to invite the Six Nations to Philadelphia ;10 and on delivering their answer, December 10, 1731, he formally introduced Conrad Weiser
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to the Provincial Council, as his interpreter.11 Thenceforth, 'these two men guided Indian negotiations with the Pennsylvania government.
Shikellimy first resided at what was called "Shikellimy's old town," located on the east or west side of the West Branch, below the present Milton12 but in 1738, he removed to Shamokin, where he lived in a squalid Indian cabin, until 1744, when Conrad Weiser built him a log house forty nine and a half feet long and seventeen and a half feet wide, which was covered with shingles.13 In this rather roomy and substantial house, he probably lived until he died. Shikellimy, although one of the greatest Indians, who ever lived, was always poor. He raised his patch of corn and beans and hunted and fished for a living. His wife was a Cayuga woman and they were parents of a notable family. There were daughters and a son Arahpot called "Unhappy Jake" who was killed in the Catawba war in 1744 ;14 but the famous sons were, Taghneghdoarus, known as John Shikellimy who succeeded his father ;15 and Tah-gah-jute, the celebrated Logan.16 Logan, after serving the English in many ways, removed to the Ohio region, and there in 1774, his whole family was murdered in cold blood, in an unprovoked attack by a company of white adventurers led by Captain Michael Cresap and Daniel Greathouse.
Although, Logan, never before, had lifted his hand against the whites and had befriended them in many ways, in the war which ensued, he avenged himself, in a terrible manner, ravaging the frontier without mercy. When the Indians were defeated, Logan refused to sue for peace; but instead, sent, by a messenger, to Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, a celebrated address, one of the gems of oratory and because of its excellence, it is quoted as follows :17
"I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat ; if ever, he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said 'Logan is the friend of white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have glutted my vengeance; for my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought, that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan?Not one."
The concluding years of Shikellimy's life were spent in poverty and distress. Conrad Weiser, in October, 1747, found him and his family nearly dead with the fever and in abject poverty. Due to Weiser's ministrations,18 they were relieved. Shikellimy, somewhat recovered, made his last visit to Philadelphia, the coming spring ;19 but in June, Weiser reported he was again "sick and like to loose his eye sight.'20
In December, he was able to visit the Moravians at Bethlehem ; but
10
while returning was stricken with his fatal illness, and "died at Shamokin, December 17, 1748, in the presence of a daughter and the missionary, David Zeisberger, who had attended him in his illness. Several days after his decease, his second son, Logan returned home from a far-off journey to weep over the lifeless body of the parent he so much esteemed. The Brethren, Zeisberger and Henry Fry made him a coffin, and the Indians having painted the corpse in gay colors and decked it with the choicest ornaments carried the remains of the honored chieftan to the burial place of his fathers on the banks of the winding river.'21
About 1860, in making exhumations at Sunbury and not far from the Susquehanna, what was thought to be his remains were found with a large number of trinkets and portions of a wooden coffin. There has been erected, on the site of the find, a large boulder monument with a suitable inscription to the memory of Shikellimy.22
Conrad Weiser was born, November 2, 1696, at Affstat, Wurtemburg. His father, a prosperous baker at Gross Aspach, was ruined by the French invasion ; and disheartened by the death of his wife, with eight of his chil- dren, left the stricken land and joined the Palatine refugees in London, who were being fed by Queen Anne of England.23 Accompanying four thousand other refugees, Weiser and his motherless children arrived in New York, June 13, 1710. With many others, he was sent to Livingston Manor to labor in the tar making business, established there by Governor Hunter of New York. They were nearly starved by Robert Livingston, a scheming politician, who had the contract to feed them, and rose in revolt. Many, under the leadership of John Conrad Weiser, fled to the Schoharie region, on the extreme New York frontier, where there was fertile land. The Mohawks Indians allotted them sufficient lands, there, for the estab- lishment of seven villages, one of which was called Weiser-dorf.
Exasperated by the failure of his tar business, which he attributed to the insubordination of the Palatines, Hunter granted the Schoharie lands, which they had occupied and improved, to their old task master, Robert Livingston and seven other New York land grabbers, who began to evict them. But, the Germans, with an anger engendered by despair and led by old John Conrad Weiser rose in revolt. The sheriff came to Schoharie to arrest him, but the angry women, with resolute Magdalena Zeh at their head, seized the sheriff and dragged him through the manure of their barnyards, rode him on a rail and so chastised him, that he fled in fear, rage and humiliation to the security of Albany. In 1718, the Schoharie settlers sent John Conrad Weiser as, their agent to London, to secure relief from the English government, but he accomplished nothing except to get himself in jail.
Worn out by their oppressions, the less resolute of the Palatines com- promised with the land grabbers and retained their farms at Schoharie, where their descendants remain to this day. Others removed to German Flats and Stone Arabia in the Mohawk Valley ; and in the spring of 1723, some of them built themselves rafts at the headwaters of the Susquehanna and floated down that river to the mouth of Swatara creek and located in
11
the Tulpehocken valley in Pennsylvania. As Conrad Weiser states in his autobiography, that his father did not return from England until November 1723, and the Palatines left for Tulpehocken in the spring, John Conrad Weiser, as has been thought, was not one of them. In fact, he did not come to Pennsylvania, until shortly before his death, which occurred at the home of his son Conrad at Tulpehocken in 1746.24
In the fall of 1713, young Conrad Weiser was placed, by his father, in the home of Quagnant, a Mohawk chief in order that he might learn the Mohawk language; and, during the years he remained at Schoharie, his continued intercourse with the Indians made Conrad Weiser, the greatest European master of the Iroquoian tongue. Conrad Weiser was married at Schoharie to "my Ann Eve," as he called her in his autobiography. There has been much conjecture, as to her origin, even among members of the Weiser family ; but we may rely on the statement of her son-in-law, the Rev. H. M. Muhlenburg, that she was a German maiden and Christian of evangelical parentage. Mr. Wallace, in his "Life of Conrad Weiser," says her maiden name was Feck or Feg, and that she was the daughter of John Peter Feck or Feg and Anna Maria his wife.25
During the Schoharie troubles, young Conrad was in the Albany jail, for a short time, because of his participation in the resistance. In 1729, he with his wife and four children left Schoharie and settled on the farm, where he erected the substantial stone house still standing at Womelsdorf. After his removal, he made the acquaintance of Shikellimy, who gave him his great opportunity in engaging him as his interpreter and introducing him to the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania. Like many other men of ability and common sense he seems to have possessed a vein of religious fanaticism or mysticism, which in the ensuing years led him into strange vagaries. He acted as a lay Lutheran preacher, flirted with the Moravians, and about 1740, in company with the scholar, Peter Miller, joined the religious community at Ephrata, led by Conrad Beissel. After making himself ridiculous, letting his beard grow an enormous length and attempt- ing to become one of the lay monks, Weiser discovered the imposture and in a stinging epistle severed his connection with that eccentric organiza- tion, 26
Shikellimy had already won the confidence of James Logan, secretary of the Council and brains of the Proprietary Government of Pennsylvania. At their first meeting, the fluency with which Weiser interpreted the answer of the Iroquois and the confidence Shikellimy reposed in him con- vinced Logan, that he was the ideal interpreter.
Before Shikellimy came to Shamokin, the government did not realize the extent of Iroquois control of the various tribes. Logan had sedulously courted the Delaware chief, Allummapees and his nephews, Opekasset and Saskawatlin, but found them, only rotten props of his Indian policy. Ope- kasset died and the old chief killed Saskawatlin in a drunken brawl. More- over, it was apparent, the Delawares had no power, and that their land sales were without validity. Now, Logan had two fit instruments, Weiser, a shrewd, honest German; and Shikellimy, who represented a well ordered
12
government, and whose mark of the Turtle clan carried more authority over the fickle Delawares and the treacherous Shawnees, than Pennsylvania had ever possessed.
As all men are actuated by self interest, so were Shikellimy and Conrad Weiser. The latter was enriched by the emoluments he received as agent and interpreter for Pennsylvania, whose interests he served with foresight, zeal and integrity; and yet, so that he never betrayed the trust of the Iroquois, who declared in their figurative language, that they had divided him into two parts, one part for Pennsylvania and one for them- selves. Shikellimy was always able to maintain the rights and privileges of the Iroquois and not compromise his honor by accepting the presents of Pennsylvania.
In response to the invitation, five chiefs representing the Senecas, Cayugas and Oneidas visited Philadelphia, in August, 1732, and a treaty of friendly alliance was made, whereby the Iroquois agreed they would return all escaped negro slaves and remove the Delawares and Shawnees from the Ohio region to the Susquehanna valley, and away from the French influence. The most significant provision of the treaty was the stipulation, that "the road from Philadelphia to the towns of the Six Nations should be kept clear, so that Conrad Weiser and Shikellimy shall travel that road between us and you, who will speak our minds and yours to each other truly and freely."27
How these two tactful men carried on, may be inferred from the colonial records. Whenever, Pennsylvania desired something, Weiser con- ferred with Shikellimy, who ascertained the attitude of the Council at Onondaga; and thus forewarned, Weiser was able to shape the request. It is evident, he inspired the speeches, written by James Logan and later by Richard Peters, the dominant factors in the government, and delivered at the formal conferences with the Indian chiefs. Likewise, Shikellimy, after learning the views of the Pennsylvania government, transmitted to him by Weiser, was able to mould the decisions of the Iroquois council ; but in doing so, he relied largely on the telling arguments of the constant and mutual friend of Weiser and himself, Canassatego, the great Indian orator at Onondaga.
In September, 1736, nineteen Seneca, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida and Tuscarora chiefs and many other Indians were escorted by Weiser to Logan's home at Stenton, where preliminary conferences were held. This treaty, the most important, yet, made with Pennsylvania, was resumed, in the Great Meeting House at Philadelphia, October 2nd, and the Treaty of 1732 was ratified and confirmed. The chief result, however, was the grant made, in the deed signed October 11, 1736 of all land extending east- ward to the headwaters of all branches of the Susquehanna, westward to the setting sun, and northward from the mouth of that river to the Kitta- tinny hills. This deed recited the previous grant of the Susquehanna lands to Governor Dongan of New York and the transfer of it by him to William Penn, which sale the Iroquois never recognized as valid.28
The Indian chiefs, on their way home, stopped at Tulpehocken, and
13
there, Conrad Weiser, at the instigation, of Logan, secured, from some of them, a release which has been the source of endless trouble and dis- cussion. This deed, dated October 25, 1736, released all the Iroquois right, claim and pretension to the territory beginning "eastward on the River Delaware as far northward as the said Ridge or Chain of Endless Moun- tains as they cross ye Country of Pennsylvania from the eastward and to the West." It also contained a declaration by the Iroquois, that they would sell no lands, either to white men or Indians, "within the lands of the government of Pennsylvania as 'tis bounded Northerly with the Gov- ernment of New York and Albany. But when we are willing to dispose of any further rights to land within said limits of Pennsylvania, we will dispose of them to said William Penn's children."29 This instrument con- stitutes the alleged sale of Delaware lands, and the famous deed of pre- emption.
This transaction is surrounded with suspicion. Logan wanted the release, in order to extinguish the Iroquois paramount title, that he might accomplish the Walking Purchase; and the explanation he made at the time, that he desired to forestall the claim of Nootamis, a Jersey Indian to some land along the Lehigh river, was mere pretension. He wanted the preemption, because he feared the Connecticut claim to the northern part of the Penn grant. Logan could have included all, that was released and declared, in the deed signed at Philadelphia or could have had a separate instrument executed, when the Indians were assembled in the formal conference. Why did he wait and have Conrad Weiser surreptitiously obtain it fourteen days later? Because, he feared to' have it known. The Quakers were extremely critical of all he did for the benefit of the Penn heirs, whom they now despised because they had apostatized the faith of their father and become Episcopalians. Moreover, the Quakers considered themselves the special guardians of the Delaware Indians. Had it been done at Philadelphia, they would have immediately known it; and by this sly trick, Logan for a time averted the fury of the hurricane. Later, when it was discovered, the storm broke and the rage was fanned by Charles Thomson, a teacher in the Quaker school, who wrote a paper, entitled "An Enquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the Delawares and Shaw- anese Indians." Logan hid behind the sophistry he put forth, that the Six Nations did not grant any land, saynig "they only release and quit claim there," which is strictly true of the text; and then he slyly added "it is really nothing and yet may prevent disputes hereafter." James Logan knew, that a release and quit claim, to a party claiming by invalid title, is, by estoppel, equivalent to a grant. Weiser, however, did not understand and he swallowed the sophistry bait, hook and line.
Shikellimy, who, evidently, engineered the transaction at Tulpehocken, and thereby secured, for the Iroquois, recognition of their paramount title, having no Christian conscience to appease by hypocrisy, made no apologies. The wise and honest old Iroquois, then, loved no God but the sun and feared no devils save the lightning, the winter and the wind. As a matter of fact, Logan and Weiser had no shame to hide, no wrong to explain and
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no conduct except cowardice to extenuate. They had only acquired, in a perfectly legal way, the title, which the Six Nations had won by conquest of the Delawares. The Quakers were right in asserting the Iroquois sold the Delaware lands by the Tulpehocken deed ; but in contending, they had no right to sell them, they were wrong ; and to maintain, as Walton does, that it brought on the series of Indian depredations in the following years, is an exaggeration.30
It was the determination of the boundaries, and the subsequent eviction of the Delawares from the territory, which intensified their disaffection. Many writers appear unable to accept the effects of the Iroquois conquest. One view, based on loose Indian tradition, and evidently invented to appease their pride, is that the Delawares were fraudulently induced to accept the status of women and were never conquerd.31 Anothr view is that Conrad Weiser diverted the policy of the government from treating the Delawares as an Indian power to recognition of the Iroquois as the dominant authority, and thus brought on the Indian wars.32 The policy had already shifted before the Pennsylvania Council knew there was such a man as Conrad Weiser.
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