USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, from its first beginnings to the present time; including chapters of newly-discovered, Vol. I > Part 62
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Later, in the open conference, Thomas King presented Teedyus- cung with a string of wampum and saidt :
"This serves to put Teedyuscung in mind of his promises to return prisoners. You ought to have performed it before. It is a shame for one who calls himself a great man to tell lies. "
* See page :15.
+ See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VIII : 221.
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"Last Night" and Nikes, the Mohawk, in behalf of the Six Nations, promised to satisfy the English as to the return of captives, adding : "If any of them are gone down our throats, we will heave them up again." Then Takeghsatu, the Seneca, told Teedyuscung that, the Six Nations having promised to return all captives, the Delawares and Mon- seys imust do likewise.
One of the most important matters disposed of at this treaty related to the lands purchased by the Pennsylvania Proprietaries at Albany in 1754, as described on page 268. Great dissatisfaction having existed for some time among the Six Nations concerning the extent of that purchase, the Proprietaries finally authorized Richard Peters and Conrad Weiser to release and re-convey to the Six Nations all the territory lying to the northward and westward of the Allegheny Mountains which had been conveyed to the Proprietaries by the deed of July 6, 1754; "pro- vided they the said Six Nations did fully stipulate and settle the exact and certain bounds of the residue of the said lands included in the before-mentioned purchase." Proper conveyances were duly executed at Easton, and this matter, which had threatened to cause considerable trouble, was thuis laid to rest.
During the progress of the Easton conference one of the Seneca chiefs in attendance died. He was publicly interred-the Indians and a number of the inhabitants of the town attending his funeral. On October 26th-the business of the treaty having been finished, after eighteen days of speech-making-"some wine and punch were ordered, and the conferences were concluded with great joy and mutual satis- faction." The Indians were supplied with hats, caps, knives, jewsharps, powder, lead, paints and walking-sticks (by which name the Indians sometimes referred to r11111). In addition, Teedyuscung and other chiefs received each a military hat trimmed with gold lace, a regimental coat and a ruffled shirt. Evidently all the Indians from northern Pennsyl- vania and New York had come to Easton by way of Wyoming, inas- much as they desired, at the conclusion of the treaty, that they might be furnished with wagons to carry the infirm and the sick, as well as their goods, "at least as far as Wyoming, where," as they said, "we have left our canoes ; and then we will discharge the wagons."
Teedyuscung and his followers were now, at last, settled at Wyo- ming-satisfactorily to all concerned, apparently-their town being known as Wyoming, as previously mentioned .* Within a very short time after the Easton treaty Abraham (Schabash), the Mohegan chief, his family and a number of other Mohegan families erected their cabins at the site selected a long time before by Abraham, on the banks of the stream later known as "Abraham's Creek,"t near the present borough of Forty Fort. About the same time the Wanamies who had formerly dwelt at Matchasaungt renewed their settlement there, and in the course of time the level stretch of country upon which their village stood became known as "Jacob's Plains"-from the name of the then, or a later, chief of the band located there. Paxinosa and his Shawanese did not return to the Valley, but late in July, 1758, set out for the Ohio region from Seekaughkunt, where, and in the vicinity of which, they had been living since the Spring of 1756, when they forsook Wyoming. S
* See pages 317 and 371.
à, See pages 371, 372, 373 and 375.
+ See pages 194, 208 and 312.
# See pages 213, 315 and 321.
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Christian Frederick Post iniet some of these Shawanese when he visited the Indian towns on the Ohio in the latter part of August, 1758 .* In his journal he wrotet :
"We set off for Fort Duquesne, and went no farther this night than Logstown, where I met with four Shawanese who lived in Wyoming when I did. They received me very kindly and called the prisoners to shake hands with me, as their countryman, and gave me leave to go into every house to see them-which was done in no other town besides."
Miner erroneously statest that the Shawanese were represented at the Easton treaty of October, 1758; while Chapman and some later writers give a fanciful account of the final departure of the Shawanese from Wyoming. But Pearce effectually disposes of this unsubstantial story in the following paragraph § :
"Mr. Chapman and all other writers on Wyoming have given an account of what they call the 'Grasshopper War.' It is said to have occurred between the Delawares and Shawanese on the flats below Wilkesbarre, and to have been a contest of the most san- guinary character. It resulted in the expulsion of the Shawanese from the valley. As the story goes, a few Shawanese squaws, with their children, crossed the river into the territory of the Delawares, and, with a number of the Delaware women and children, were gathering wild flowers, when a Shawanese child caught a grasshopper, which was claimed by a child of the Delawares. A struggle ensued, in which the women took part. The Shawanese being worsted, returned home and reported what had taken place, when the warriors armed, and, crossing the river, a terrible battle ensued, in which hundreds on both sides were slain. We can find no record of any disagreement between the Dela- wares and Shawanese. All statements made respecting them represent these two peoples living in peace and entertaining the Moravian missionaries, from 1742 to 1756, when they all departed for Diahoga. Neither party had hundreds of warriors to lose, for the whole number from Shamokin to Tunkhannock, including the Monseys on the Lacka- wanna, did not exceed 350. We therefore conclude, if there ever was a 'Grasshopper WVar' it was a very small affair, and probably closed as it commenced-with a few blows and scratches among women and children."|
* See page 378. ¡ See "Early Western Travels," I : 201.
# "History of Wyoming," page 49.
¿ "Annals of Luzerne County," page 51.
| By the beginning of the year 1763 it was believed by those competent to judge that nearly all the Shawanese in this country were located in the valley of the Ohio. They were estimated by Sir William Johnson and Col. Henry Bonqnet to number at that time about 500 warriors, or a total population of 2,500. Early in 1763 they broke out in open hostility to the English, and, with certain Delawares, invested Fort Pitt at the forks of the Ohio. Later in the same year they joined in Pontiac's uprising. In January, 1772, Sir William Johnson wrote (see "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," X : 21) that the Shawanese, and certain other Indian tribes mentioned, "have been and are to be considered as dependents on the Five Nations, and having nothing to do with the western Indians further than in an intercourse common with all Indians in time of peace." During the Revolutionary War the Shawanese rallied under the British flag, and were fierce and cruel enemies to the Americans. Their fealty to the King's cause, it was asserted at the time, was cemented by a promise that their allies would stand by them and never consent to a peace which did not make the Ohio River the western boundary of the Colonies.
In 1795 the main body of the Shawanese nation was located on the Scioto River-another part of the nation having crossed the Mississippi, and still another having gone sonth. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the principal chief of the Shawanese was Tecumseh, declared by George Catlin as "perhaps the most extraordinary Indian of his age." He was one of three brothers-triplets-born at old Chillicothe, on the Scioto, in Ohio, in 1768. For some time prior to 1809 Tecumseh had been endeavoring to induce all the western tribes to abstain from whisky, return to the customs and weapons of their ancestors, embody themselves in a grand confederacy to extend from the Province of Mexico to the Great Lakes, and unite their forces in an army that would be able to meet and drive back the white people who were continually advancing on the Indians and forcing them from their lands towards the Rocky Mountains.
The territory of Indiana was erected in 1809, and William Henry Harrison was appointed its Governor. In the same year he held a treaty with certain Indian tribes, by which a tract of land on the Wabash above Terre Haute was ceded to the Federal Government. Tecumseh held that all the lands belonged to all the tribes, and none could be sold without the consent of all. Governor Harrison invited the chief and his followers to a friendly conference at Vincennes in 1810. During this conference (which just escaped ending in a massacre) Tecumseh, referring to the treaty of the preceding year, said : "What ! sell a country? Why not sell the air, the clouds and the great sea, as well as the earth ? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" Governor Harrison, with 2,000 men, went up the Wabash and established a post at Terre Haute in the Summer of 1811 ; and, on the 7th of the following November, having marched up the river some distance farther, fought with a large force of Indians commanded by Tecumseh, and won the battle of Tippecanoe. During the war between the United States and Great Britain in 1812-'14 Tecumseh, with the rank of Brigadier General, commanded the Indian allies of the British. He was killed fighting bravely at the battle of the Thames, in Canada, October 5, 1813.
One of Tecumseh's brothers was, in his way, almost as famous as the great warrior himself. This was Ten-squat-a-way ("The Open Door"), better known as the "Shawnee Prophet." He was an emis- sary of evil in the interest of his brother ; and his name, "The Open Door," was intended to represent him as the way, or door, which had "opened for the deliverance of the red inen from the oncoming whites." He was blind in his left eye. As a speaker he was fluent, smooth and plausible, and was pronounced by Governor Harrison the most graceful and accomplished orator he had seen amongst the Indians. But he possessed neither the talents nor the frankness of Tecumseh, and was sensual, cruel, weak and timid. The following picture of the "Prophet" is a reduced reproduction of a drawing made by George Catlin from a portrait painted by himself in 1831 on the Kansas River. The "Prophet"
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is represented "holding his medicine-fire in one hand and his sacred string of beads in the other." Quills and feathered arrows are shown thrust through shts in his ears and worn as ornaments. (See note, page 105.)
Catlin, writing of the "Prophet," said: "With his mysteries he made his way through most of the north- western tribes, wherever he went enlisting warriors to assist Tecumseh in effecting his great scheme. In the most surprising manner this ingenious man entered the villages of most of his inveterate enemies, and of others who never had heard of the name of his tribe, and maneu- vered in so successful a way as to make his medicines a safe passport for him to all of their villages; and also the means of enlisting in the different tribes some eight or ten thousand warriors, who had solemnly sworn to return with him on his way back, and to assist in the wars that Tecumseh was to wage against the whites on the frontiers. I found on my visit to the Sioux, to the Punicahs, to the Riccarees and the Mandans [see page 91. ante], that he had been there, and even to the Blackfeet ; and every- where told them of the potency of his mysteries, and assured them that if they allowed the fire to go out in their wigwams it would prove fatal to them in every case. He carried with him into every wigwam that he visited the image of a dead person of the size of life, which was made ingeniously of some light material and always kept con- cealed under bandages of thin white muslin. Of this he made a great mystery, and got his recruits to swear by touching a sacred string of white beans which he had attached to its neck. In this way, by his extraordinary cunning, he had carried terror into the country as far as TENSQUATAWAY. he went. I conversed with him a great deal about his brother, Tecumseh, of whom he spoke frankly and seen- ingly with great pleasure ; but of himself and his own great schemes he would say nothing. The "Prophet" was an extensive polygamist, having an unusual number of wives, whom he forced to work for him. After the death of Tecumseh the "Prophet" dropped to the dignity of an ordinary Indian, and quietly passed away." In 1811 Tensquataway's town on the Wabash above Terre Haute was known as the "Prophet's town."
According to a report made by the Rev. Jedidiah Morse in 1822 (see page 163, ante) there were then 800 Shawanese (or Shawnees, as they had come to be known) living at three different places in the State of Ohio, and 1,383 on the Meramec River, near St. Louis, Missouri, and at Cape Girardeau on the Missis- sippi, about eighty miles south of St. Louis. In 1825 the Shawnees in Missouri ceded their lands to the Government, and in 1831 those in Ohio did the same and went to new homes in Indian Territory. Those who removed from Missouri settled in Kansas, where, about 1840, two bands-the "White Turkeys" and "Big Jims"-seceded from the main body of the tribe and located in the northern part of Indian Terri- tory, on the southern section of the reservation now occupied by the Kickapoos. (As to the supposed relationship between the Shawnees and Kickapoos, see page 177, ante.) During the Civil War these Shawnees roamed and returned to Kansas; but in 1867 they removed to the vicinity of their old location in Indian Territory-now Oklahoma. Since then they have been officially known and designated as "Absentee Shawnees." Those of the Shawnees who enigrated direct from Ohio to Indian Territory (as previously mentioned) are designated as "Eastern Shawnees." In 1869 the Shawnees who had remained in Kansas since first settling there in 1825 became incorporated into the Cherokee Nation in Indian Terri- tory (see pages 163 and 165), under an agreement containing this clause: "That the said Shawnees shall be incorporated into and ever after remain a part of the Cherokee Nation, on equal terms in every respect, and with all the privileges and immunities of native citizens of said Cherokee Nation." In 1890 these Cherokee Shawnees numbered 694. For a minber of years the "Eastern Shawnees" have been located at the Quapaw Agency in Indian Territory. They numbered 80 in 1886; 79 in 1890; 100 in 1902. The "Absentee Shawnees," on the Pottawatomie Reservation in that part of Indian Territory which is now Oklahoma, numbered 775 in 1886; 640 in 1890; 687 in 1902.
About the year 1840 George Catlin wrote as follows concerning the Shawnees: "This tribe and the Delawares, of whom I have spoken, were neighbors on the Atlantic coast, and alternately allies and enemies, have retrograded and retreated together, have fought their enemies united and fought each other, until their remnants that have outlived their nations' calamities have now settled as neighbors together in the western wilds, where, it is probable, the sweeping hand of Death will soon relieve them from further necessity of warring or moving, and the Government from the necessity or policy of pro- posing to them a yet more distant home. In their long and disastrous pilgrimage both of these tribes laid claim to and alternately occupied the beautiful and renowned valley of Wyoming; and after strew- ing the Susquehanna's lovely banks with their bones and their tumuli, they both yielded at last to the dire necessity which follows all civilized intercourse with natives, and fled to the Allegheny, and at last to the banks of the Ohio, where necessity soon came again and again and again, until the Great Guardian of all red children placed them where they now are. There are of this tribe remaining about 1,200, some few of whom are agriculturalists, and industrious, temperate, religious people; but the greater proportion of them are miserably poor and dependent, having scarcely the ambition to labor or to hunt, and a pas- sion for whisky drinking that sinks them into the most abject poverty."
CHAPTER VI.
MORE INDIAN CONFERENCES AND POW-WOWS-ATTEMPTS AT SETTLE- MENT IN WYOMING BY THE WHITES UNDER THE SUSQUE- HANNA COMPANY-DEATH OF KING TEEDYUSCUNG- FIRST MASSACRE OF THE WHITE SETTLERS- WYOMING FORSAKEN BY THE INDIANS.
"Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations ; ask thy father, and he will shew thee ; thy elders, and they will tell thee."-Deuteronomy, XXXII : 7.
Early in the year 1759 preparations were under way in New York, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to carry out General Amherst's plans* for a simultaneous and formidable attack upon the principal strongholds of the French and their Indian allies. In March Brigadier General Stan- wix (see page 346) arrived in Philadelphia, having been ordered there by General Amherst to succeed Brigadier General Forbes in command of the King's troops in Pennsylvania and to the southward. Under date of May 31st General Stanwix suggestedt to Governor Denny "that it would be proper to send with all expedition Christian Frederick Post and Isaac Still with proper messages to the Indians; at the same time ordering them to proceed by the way of Wyoming, and to take four or five of the best disposed and inost faithful Indians with them from thence, such as King Teedyuscung shall recommend." Within a day or two thereafter Governor Denny sent Post and Still to Wyoming with a written message addressed to "Teedyuscung, the Delaware Chief, and to all the Indians at Wyomink." The message contained, among other matters, the following:
"Mr. Frederick Post and Mr. Isaac Stille wait on you to inform you of what has passed at Allegheny, in consequence of the messages sent from Easton .? Their proceed- ings have given us great satisfaction, and I hope they will be agreeable to you. I have ordered them to hide nothing from you, being desirous you should be made acquainted with all the particulars that are worthy your notice. * * * Isaac Stille chose to stay all Winter among the Indians, that he might spread far and wide the good tidings of the peace established at Easton between us. He is but lately returned. * * I re- quest you would be so good as to let all the Indians round you know that we have a most hearty love and regard for themn. * I rely much on the continuance of your zeal
* See last paragraph on page 297. + See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VIII : 341.
Į See "Pennsylvania Archives," First Series, III : 622.
2 Immediately after the close of the conference at Easton in October, 1758, Post was sent by the Pennsylvania authorities to the Indians on the Ohio and Allegheny Rivers in Western Pennsylvania, to inform them of the treaty consummated at Easton. Isaac Still was one of Post's companions on this mission, although he did not return with Post-who arrived at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on his home- ward journey, January 10. 1759.
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and service. You know you are the counselor and agent of this Government, and I choose you should say for it, on this and all occasions, what you judge proper and neces- sary to engage your and the other tribes of Indians in the interest of the English. * * You are to hear and see for us. I therefore desire to be informed of what has happened among the Indians in any place where you or your young men have been or have heard from."
Immediately on receipt of this message Teedyuscung set off for Philadelphia, accompanied by two Mohegans. Being received by the Governor on June 11th Teedyuscung said, among other things *:
"Agreeable to my engagements at Easton I have spread far and wide the news of the peace there concluded. I have given the halloo, and many distant nations have heard it and let me know that the peace was extremely to their minds. I received this string of wampum from the Unamis on and beyond the Ohio. They had heard of the good work, and it gave them the utmost satisfaction. I received another string from the Indian nations settled on the heads of the Susquehanna. They likewise expressed their joy at the conclusion of a peace with their brethren, the English. * * Ilere are two Mohiccons from the Susquehanna. They came with me from Wyoming. They brought me a string from the Mohiccons and Wapings, f assuring me that they were heartily disposed for peace, and would put themselves under Teedyuscung and join with him and the Governor of Pennsylvania in the good work of peace. * I have a sinall complaint to make. My uncles, the Mohawks, have sold lands that they have not the least pretensions to-no, not to the value of a hickory-nut! I mean the Minisink lands. These always belonged to a tribe of the Delawares, and our uncles had nothing to do with them and could not dispose of theni."
Teedyuscung's reference to the sale of the Minisink lands was based 011 what he had heard relative to the purchase made by The Delaware Company in 1755, as described on page 293; but he had, apparently, been misinformed as to all the facts in the case, inasmuch as it was not the Mohawks, but the Delawares themselves, who had executed the deed conveying these lands to the whites.
October 4, 1759, Teedyuscung, his half-brother "Tom Evans" and "Abraham Locquis,"# accompanied by several attendants, having come to Philadelphia from Wyoming, were met in conference by Governor Denny and several members of the Council-Isaac Still acting as inter- preter. Teedyuscung's visit was chiefly for the purpose of informing the Governor as to the situation of affairs among the Indians on the Susquehanna. Among other things he saids:
"Almost all the Indians are looking at us. They all see us both sitting together, and consider us as the first who began to make a Peace; are glad of it, and desirous we should finish it entirely. * In what we have done I think we have acted with so much sincerity towards each other that the Peace will be everlasting. I am a King. You are a King. Your people or my people might otherwise say that we had made a false Peace; but now, that they have been witnesses of our mutual sincerity, they must and will acknowledge that we are a good people. * * I hear from the outside of the country all that is doing in the back parts, and I always let you know what I hear, be it great or small. * * There are not above five prisoners among the Delawares on the Susquehanna River. The Monseys have a great number, but they join the Mohawks, and will deliver them together to be counted among the Delawares. The Mohawks have a great many prisoners among them. The English hold frequent conferences with the Mohawks, but I never know what passes between the English and the Mohawks."
Returning from Philadelphia to Wyoming Teedyuscung, acco111- panied by a seemly retinue, set out in a few days for Otsiningo (see note, page 219) to attend a great meeting of Indians to be held there. This meeting, it was understood, was to be preparatory to a general council which the western Indians purposed holding on the Ohio in the Summer of 1760, and to which Teedyuscung and the other chiefs on * See "Pennsylvania Colonial Records," VIII : 345.
f The "Wappingers," a small Algonkian tribe (see page 100) who, about the middle of the seventeenth century, and earlier, were located in what are now the counties of Ulster and Dutchess in New York, in close proximity to the territories of the Mohegans and the Minsis or Monseys. Where they were located in 1759 we have not been able to discover, but it was undoubtedly in New York, and probably on or near one of the branches of the Susquehanna River.
# The father of "William Locquis" mentioned on page 337.
See Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, IV : 75 (August 1, 1829).
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the Susquehanna had already been invited. Two messengers from the Ohio Indians-Tangoocqua, or "Catfish," and "Joshua"-were in attend- ance at the Otsiningo conference, and at its close accompanied Teedy- uscung to Wyoming.
July 19, 1759, Thomas and Richard Penn,* the Pennsylvania Proprietaries, appointed and commissioned the Hon. James Hamiltont
* WILLIAM PENN, the Founder, was married a second time at Bristol, England, March 5, 1696, to Hannah Callowhill (born 1664; died 1726). Three of their children were: (i) John (known as "the Ameri- can"), born January 29, 1700; died October 25, 1746. (ii) Thomas, born at Bristol, England, March 9, 1702. (v) Richard, born January 17, 1706; died 1771.
(ii) 'Thomas Penn was in his seventeenth year when his father died. He resided in London till 1732, when, setting sail for Pennsylvania, he landed at Chester on the 11th of August. The Governor of the Province, various members of the Council and a large number of citizens rode from Philadelphia to Chester to meet and welcome this son of the Founder. There was a general anxiety to see the visitor, for, since the brief stay of William Penn, Jr., twenty-eight years before, and his angry departure for home, there had been none of the family of the Founder seen here. The company of welcomers, together with Thomas Penn, dined at Chester, and then set out for Philadelphia. When they arrived near the city they were met by the Mayor, Recorder and Aldermen, with a great body of people, who extended a civic welcome.
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