USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. I > Part 8
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The extensive literature on the subject of those com- monly called the aborigines of the northern part of the United States, particularly the Handbook of the Ameri- can Indians North of Mexico, which is Bulletin 30 of the American Ethnological Bureau, obviates any need of filling these pages with an account of the ideas or customs of that fraction of mankind, or the movements, except in a limited time and space, of the political or family divisions thereof. Various tribes or parts of tribes had relations with the Colony of the Penns dur- ing the period of this history, some of them separated by language as widely as the Latin and Teutonic Euro- peans. Most of the dialects have been grouped as Algonquian or Iroquoian, and whoever spoke one of these as his forefathers' tongue has been called an
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Algonquin or Iroquois, from the names of certain small tribes with whom the French came early into contact. It is more phonetic in English to spell the former name Algonkin, and more scientific to speak of the other group as the Huron-Iroquois, because the Hurons, al- though constantly at war with the Five Nations, were their kindred.
Between those tribes where the "untutored" of one could to some extent talk with those of another, it is hard to state the exact degree of relationship, owing to the occasional adoption of a conqueror's language, and owing to the figurative use of the titles "Fathers," "Uncles," "Brothers," "Cousins," &ct. Even when not dependent upon forefathers' tradition among such illiterate people, but set down by Europeans living near the time and place of events, Indian history presents great difficulties in the exaggeration in the talk of such poetic children of the forest, and the doubtfulness in identifying tribes migrating far, and designated by the French, Dutch, Swedes, English, Algonquins, and Iro- quois respectively by names not always the transla- tion, phonetic equivalent, or corruption of those given by others. Mere similarity of names may mean at most similarity of characteristics or of the natural features of place of residence. The variations in the following pages in the spelling of the names of individuals will show the difficulty the English scribes had in catching and representing the sound, how often soever repeated to them.
As the pioneers of Virginia had to face Algonquins forming the Powhatan confederacy, and the New Eng- landers had to face Algonquins called Pequots, Narra- gansetts, &ct., the Europeans in the intervening land, except those who contemporaneously saw the Susque- hannocks, came into contact with Algonquins first as far as known. These Algonquins were such as spoke of themselves as Lenni Lenape (in some dialects Nenni
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Nenape or Renni Renape, l and n and r being alternat- ing letters), but the English called them Delawares, after the English name of their southern river or its bay. Howard M. Jenkins, in Pennsylvania Colonial and Federal, has given quite a description of these Indians. The reader will find annotated with a translation and a vocabulary what purports to be their epic, the Wolam Olum, in Dr. Daniel G. Brinton's The Lenâpé and their Legends.
With the northernmost Delawares, the people of the stony land or mountains, spreading to the Catskills, this history has little to do, although their name, Minsi or Munsey (hence Muncy), was preserved through later Colonial times. Their totem was the wolf. The French called the Delawares who went in the 18th century to the northwestern part of Pennsylvania "Loups," either because the advance guard of the Delawares crossing the Alleghany Mountains had that animal as their totem, or because they were classified with the Mo- hicans, an Algonquin tribe, formerly of New England, but afterwards mostly dwelling near the Delawares, the name Mohican resembling the Algonquian word for wolf, although Brinton suggests a different meaning. To the middle group, the dwellers in or about south- eastern Pennsylvania, was given the name Unami, evi- dently represented in maps and records by Armewamen and Ermewarmoki; while the southernmost Lenape were called Unalachtigo, of which name some have seen Nanticokes as a form. As the Delawares have been spoken of in tradition as a confederacy, they may have been the Atquanachukes-in other words, confederates or mixed people-appearing northeast of the Chesa- peake in Captain John Smith's map, while possibly a mixture of the subdivisions of the Delawares may have been the Aquauachuques, or Aquanachuques, in New Jersey in Nicholas J. Visscher's map, published before 1660.
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There was a tradition that, some time in the 17th Century, the Delawares were tricked by the Iroquois of the Five Nations into assuming the position of women, that is acting as peacemakers, and so becoming non-combatants. Eshleman would fix the date about 1617. The evidence for the story does not necessarily cover other Delawares than the Minsi; and against it, and particularly against an early date, Jenkins shows that down to 1680 the Minsi were holding their own against the Five Nations, and he suggests that the sub- mission to the latter probably took place soon after- wards, as the result of defeat, although the form of ac- cording them an honorable rank may have been fol- lowed.
Certain small tribes which appear to have been, or have been proved to have been divisions of the Dela- wares, lived before the time of this history in what is now the state of Delaware and the Pennsylvania coun- ties of Delaware, Chester, Philadelphia, Montgomery, and Bucks. Various items concerning them seem in- consistent with their being in subjection to any Iroquois nation, or even being non-combatants. Capt. John Smith placed on the extreme east of his map, within what is now New Castle County, two villages, Chicka- hokin to the south, and Macocks to the north. The Chickahokin, or Chickelaki, have been supposed to have been then or afterwards about where Wilmington now stands. The Ockanickon Indians in 1679 (Penna. Archives, 2nd Series, Vol. VII, p. 854) claimed to be chief owners of the land near the Falls of the Delaware. Both names, Chickahokin and Ockanickon, sound like Okehocking, the name applied to certain Indians who removed from their settlements near Ridley and Crum Creeks before 10mo. 15, 1702. On that date, a warrant was issued to survey for Pokias, Sepopawny, Mutta- gooppa and others of the nation 500 acres of the Pro- prietary's land near the head of Ridley Creek, formerly
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Griffith Jones's (Willistown Township, Delaware Co.), as promised by the Proprietary before his departure in 1701, the said 500 acres to revert to the Proprietary upon said Indians leaving it. Before 1737, the tribe removed to the Swatara Creek.
On the south hook of South River Bay (land about Lewes) in 1630, there were Indians represented by Quesquaekous, Eesanques, and Siconesius, if, indeed, these were not tribal names. The three designated by those names acknowledged a sale having taken place in the preceding year to Samuel Godyn of land on the south side of the Bay from Cape Henlopen to the mouth of the South River. In 1677, the Emperor of the Nan- ticokes excused himself from delivering Krawacon, who had been called a Gassoway Indian, to the Governor of Maryland, by stating that Krawacon belonged to the King of Checonnesseck, a town on Whorekill.
The Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West Jersey, and Delaware, edited by Albert Cook Myers, give us contemporary mention from 1633 to 1638 of not only the Minquas, to be spoken of in another part of this chapter, but also the Sankitans, and the Indians from Red Hook, or Mantes, and the Armewamen, or Arme- wanninge, evidently the same as the Ermewarmoki, of which Armewamen Zee Pentor was a sachem in 1634, we being left to infer that the Minquas had caused the others to retire to the eastern side of the River and Bay; while Nicholas J. Visscher's map of New Nether- land &ct. indicates about 1655 the spreading of these others far into what is now New Jersey.
Amandus Johnson, in his Swedish Settlements on the Delaware 1638-1644, tells us, from contemporary writ- ings, that on March 29, 1638, certain peace sachems, acting for the Lenni Lenape entitled, sold to the Swed- ish Florida Company the land from Duck Creek to the Schuylkill. In 1640, Indians, undoubtedly Lenni Lenape, sold the west bank of the Delaware from the
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Schuylkill to the Falls, opposite the present Trenton. The Mantas, whom Johnson suggests to have been the Minquas, but who are called in the Maryland records Mathwas or Mattawass and "Delaware Indians," soon afterwards claimed from Wychquahoyagh, or Wicacoa (afterwards Weccacoe, about Washington Avenue, Philadelphia), to the aforesaid Falls, and two of their chiefs Siscohaka and Mechekyralames, conveyed it. The sachems at Passyunk were mentioned some years before 1654, when that locality was stated to be the principal abode of those Lenape with whom the Swedes had to deal. It was from "Pesienk" that Kekerappan, hereafter mentioned, and others dated on Oct. 8, 1681, their request for the resumption of the sale of liquor in Pennsylvania.
The Maryland records tell us that Pinna, "King of Picthanomicta in Delaware Bay," on behalf of "the Passayonke Indians, now under his command," made peace with Maryland in 1661. In 1669, a league between that Province and the Mathwas nation was expected to be renewed by Capt. Carr, then at the New Castle colony, or, as it was called, "Delaware," and said treaty was to embrace with the Maryland Province its Indian confederates on the eastern shore near Chop- tank. The records further say that in 1677 the Matta- was "or Delaware Indians"-probably only a certain tribe of the Lenni Lenape-were embraced in a treaty of peace made by the representatives of Maryland with the Five Nations.
It was from the Unami Delawares that the English bought whatever Pennsylvania land south of the Water Gap and east of the watershed they acquired from Indians. Mamarikickan, Aurichton, Sackoquewan, and Nanneckos by deed of Sep. 23, 1675, conveyed to Edmund Andros to the use of the Duke of York in fee the land on the west side of the Delaware River from a creek next to Cold Spring, somewhat above Matinicum
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Island, about eight or nine miles below the Falls, to a point equally far above the Falls, or to some remark- able point as a landmark, and all islands in front except the one commonly called Peter Alricks's Island.
By bargain arranged with Markham, a number of Indians, including two of the aforesaid four, under date of July 15, 1682, and Aug. 1, 1682, conveyed to Penn and his heirs and assigns forever the eastern end of the present Bucks County, or, as William W. H. Davis in his History of Bucks County, says, "all of the town- ships of Bristol, Falls, Middletown, Lower and the greater part of Upper Makefield, Newtown, and a small portion of Wrightstown, the line running about half a mile from its southern boundary." Part of this was in- cluded in the deed to Andros for the Duke of York, which outstanding title was assigned to Penn by the confirmation which the Duke made of King Charles's charter. In this Indian deed of July 15, 1682, were included islands in the Delaware. The consideration was not merely beads, paint, tobacco, and liquor, with some money, but also guns, axes, kettles, glasses, hoes, awls, saws, knives, scissors, needles, &ct., powder and shot, blankets and clothing-enough to make it worth the savages' while to alter the range of their roaming, enough to be a foretaste of the newcomers' fairness.
We learn from James Logan's speech to Sassoonan on Aug. 13, 1731, that, when Penn first arrived in the country, he promptly called together the chief men among the Indians, and explained his coming with a number of persons by leave of the King of England to settle among them, and that all should be brothers: a league of friendship was made, and the Indians offered their land for the settlers, but Penn insisted upon buying it. Sassoonan said that he was a little lad when Penn came, but remembered that Penn went up to Perkasie, and met the Indians, and proposed buying, and Menanget, Hetkoquean, and Tammany were pres-
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ent, and offered to give the land to him. Thus we find taking place at Perkasie (in Bucks Co.) the first of the conferences for making Penn's celebrated treaty with the Indians ; a treaty primarily for the transfer of land, but often referred to by red men, and very famous in history, for the promises then exchanged, and in Penn's lifetime unbroken, of everlasting friendship between the races. The older members of the tribe seem to have perceived the advantage of white men with their goods and utensils being introduced into the neighbourhood : but we can conclude that time was allowed to consult those not present. Instead of the treaty being com- pleted, as has been supposed, in 1682, no deeds from the Indians to Penn appear to have been made until June 23. A second, if it was not a third, conference was held in May, 1683. The date is fixed from the following evidence. The Provincial Council on May 24, 1683, ad- journed to June 6. In connection with the boundary dispute and the interviews mentioned in Chapter II between the two Proprietaries, Penn speaks in his letter of Aug. 14, 1683, to the Lords of the Committee for Trade &ct. as having been disappointed about meeting Lord Baltimore until May, when Baltimore sent mes- sengers to give Penn notice to meet him at the head of the Chesapeake: "but then," that is too late to reach the Chesapeake on the day fixed, Penn was, he says, "in treaty with the kings of the Indian nations for land:" however, three days later, he came across Lord Baltimore ten miles from New Castle, and took him back to that town, and entertained him, and on the fol- lowing day they discussed business a little, and sepa- rated. These discussions with Lord Baltimore, includ- ing that on the day when Penn met him, took place on May 29 and 30 (Considerations on Penn's Answer to Talbot's demand, in Maryland Archives) ; hence the session with the Indians must have ended a day or so before May 28, 1683, if not on that very day. On the
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20th of June, the Provincial Council adjourned until the 26th. On the 23rd, eleven Indians signed or wit- nessed deeds, apparently in pursuance of the treaty in question, the deeds perhaps having taken some time to prepare. The proceedings of the final session, which must have taken place on June 23 or within two days before, are described in Penn's letter of August 16 to the Society of Traders. He says that the Indian King asked that the Indians be excused for not complying with Penn "the last time," as it was the Indian custom to deliberate and take up much time in council, but if the young people and owners had been as ready as himself, there would not have been so much delay. The bounds and the price were then spoken of, the price being ten times what it would have been previously. When the purchase was agreed upon, Penn says, "great promises past between us of kindness and good neigh- bourhood, and that the Indians and English must live in love as long as the sun gave light." Two of the Indians present on June 23 lingered until the 25th, and were among the five witnesses when another Indian signed a deed. The deeds of July 14 indicate that those at the treaty who had bargained for a specific quantity of articles, sent four sachemakers to receive them, and make deeds on that day.
As to the place of one or both sessions of the con- ferences, it is not known how late the locality known to the Dutch and English by the Delaware name Shacka- maxung or Shackamaxon, meaning "place of the Shackamakers," continued to be a meeting-ground; but it is in that part of the present City of Philadelphia that tradition has located the making of the treaty. John F. Watson, in his Annals of Philadelphia, after other evidence, quotes Judge Peters to the effect that Benjamin Lay, who came to Philadelphia in 1731, and could have heard from those who had spoken with eye- witnesses, used to visit a certain large elm tree, in the
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district, and speak of it as at the site. A monument now marks where the tree stood, by the east side of the present Beach Street above East Columbia Avenue.
Of those Indians present at the Great Treaty, the names of seventeen are disclosed, as signers or wit- nesses of the deeds of June 23 and June 25, 1683.
The best known of the seventeen, and, in fact, of all Delawares is Tammany, or, more correctly, Tamanen (spelt also Taminent), whose virtues James Fenimore Cooper has perhaps exaggerated, and whose name with the prefix "Saint" is borne by a political organization, of which a wag may say that the totem is a tiger. It is not to be presumed, however, that Tamanen was the presiding "King," or the speaker, mentioned in Penn's account of the conference. Tamanen with Metamequan claimed on June 23, 1683, only a piece of ground on the Neshaminy towards the Pemmapecka (Pennypack) smaller than the piece of Essepenaike and Swanpees; but, by 1697, Tamanen had acquired greater authority, for in that year, he, as a sachemaker, joining with We- heeland, his brother, and Weheequeckhon, alias Andrew, who was to be King after Tamanen's death, Yaqueck- hon, alias Nicholas, and Quenamequid, alias Charles, Tamanen's sons, confirmed all land between said creeks from the River Delaware "as far as a horse can travel in two summer days," even between straight lines be- yond where the creeks forked.
Menangy, or Menanget, whose presence at Perkasie when Penn spoke there to the Indians has been men- tioned, appears as Menane, a witness to two of the deeds of June 23, 1683.
The Hetkoquean spoken of as being at Perkasie, evidently the same as Hithquoquean and Heteoquean, was an important chief, about the time of Penn's second visit. He would seem to have been the Idquo- quequon who was one of the grantors of the eastern end of Bucks County, and the Icquoquehan who joined
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Secane on 5, 14, 1683, in conveying the land lying, ac- cording to the Archives, along the west side of the Schuylkill beginning at Conshohocken and "thence by a westerly line" to Chester Creek. Hittoken, as the scribe set down the name of a witness to a deed of June 23, was clearly Hetkoquean.
Prominent as Menangy and Hithquoquean after- wards became, the most important grantors known to have been at the Treaty besides Tammany, were Esse- penaike, Swanpisse, and Sahoppe. There are several mistakes in the printing in Penna. Archives, 1st Series, Vol. I, of the deed of Aug. 1, 1682, for the eastern end of Bucks County and its endorsement. The original is preserved by the Historical Society. The name of one of the right owners, misprinted "first owners," of certain land is not Eytepamatpetts, but Essepamar- hatte, evidently the same as Essepenaike. Essepenaike and Swanpisse conveyed their share, greater than Tamanen's, on the Neshaminy on June 23, 1683; and Essepenaike came again in September to witness Kekerappan's deed, and was also one of the sache- makers and "right owners" who, in 1685, conveyed all the land from Chester Creek to Duck Creek, extend- ing in depth from the Delaware as far as a man can ride in two days with a horse. Swanpisse, or Swan- pees, was one of those who conveyed to Penn before the latter's arrival the eastern corner of Bucks County, bounded on the south by the Neshaminy, besides being so important a personage on the other side of that stream. Sahoppe, or Enshockhuppo, or Shakahoppoh, was another who joined in the deed for the eastern end of Bucks County. He witnessed deeds of June 23, 1683, and shortly afterwards his jurisdiction extended across both the Neshaminy and the Pennypack back of the Jericho and Conshohocken range; he joining in one grant from Chester Creek to the Pennypack and also in a grant from the Pennypack to the Delaware above
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the Jericho Hills, which latter grant gave rise to the notorious Indian Walk, to be mentioned in a later chapter. Richard, or Mettamicont (the Indian name being sometimes written Metamequan), joined in one deed, and witnessed two others, of June 23, 1683, and surrendered his land on the Delaware on both sides of the Pemmapecca, or Pennypack, a year later.
Kekerappamand (misprinted as Peterappamand), who joined in the aforesaid endorsement dated Aug. 1, 1682, was evidently Kekerappan (misprinted in body of deed with 1 for r), described as of Opasiskunk, evi- dently Passyunk, who made a deed on 7, 10, 1683, for the half on the Susquehanna side of all his lands be- tween the Delaware and the Susquehanna, promising to sell on returning from hunting in the following Spring the other half as reasonably as other Indians had sold "in this river." This he seems to have done, in part at least, by joining in 1685 in the conveyance of the land on the Delaware from Chester Creek to Duck Creek.
Machaloha, whose deed to Penn of October, 1683, is in bad preservation, and who also joined in the con- veyance of the land from Chester Creek to Duck Creek, rather exceeded Kekerappan in claims, being called, in October, 1683, owner of the land on Delaware Bay, Chesapeake Bay, and up to the Falls of the Susque- hanna River. He seems to have been the same person as Ocahale, or Owehela, living afterwards on the Christiana, and, if so, is one of the few Delaware sache- makers whom Penn saw who can be traced for more than about five years.
In 1685, four Indians, including some before men- tioned, conveyed to Penn by bargain with Surveyor- General Holme both sides of the Schuylkill above Con- shohocken from Chester Creek to the Pemmapecka as far northwestwardly as two full days journey, and thir- teen other sachemakers and right owners, three of
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whom have just been named, conveyed the west side of the Delaware from Chester Creek to Quing Quingas, or Duck Creek, backwards "as far as a man can ride in two days with a horse."
Apparently, such Delawares as were represented by the before-mentioned sachemakers could migrate or make peace or war as they pleased until about the time of Penn's second visit, and then bodies not small enough to be overlooked probably agreed to pay tribute to the Five Nations. Any earlier "conquest" left them quite autonomous.
A considerable number, rather from the central part of the land which had been bought by or for Penn, i.e. from nearest the capital town or its liberties, had moved up the Schuylkill to within the present limits of Berks County by the beginning of 1690, Capt. Cock and others then going thither to reassure the "chief sachem of our Indians" of the good intentions of the Pennsylvanians. Menangy, who was among the Delawares about to be mentioned as waiting upon Markham in 1694, was at the time, or became soon afterwards, the head of the In- dians on the Schuylkill.
Within a few years after the purchase of the land between Chester and Duck Creeks, Penn, writing from England, if not, indeed, his Commissioners at the time of the purchase, regranted, for at least temporary occu- pancy, a mile on each side of the Brandywine from the mouth up to the forks, and thence up the west branch to the head. On 7, 5, 1691, six Indians, of whom the names are hard to identify with those printed as sign- ing the deed of 1685, acknowledged receipt of full pay- ment for the land between Chester and Duck Creeks "according to a certain deed signed by us unto William Penn," and the minutes of 7th month 19, say that on said 5th of the month, the Indians, after being paid, desired that the Brandywine Creek might be opened in order that the fish could go up, according to the
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contract with the Proprietary, and thereupon a letter was sent to the County Court at New Castle to take course according to law. The writing which the Indians alleged to have made the grant was destroyed in the burning of a cabin, and there was no copy. In 1706, on the Indians insisting that the grant was of absolute ownership forever, the Commissioners bought from them the lower part of the strip, as far as a certain rock on the west branch in Newlin Township for 100l., paying down 73l. In 1725, Checohinican, or, Checochinican, was a leading sachem in the neighbour- hood. In that year, several of the tribe appeared before the Assembly, and claimed part of the tract formerly of the Society of Traders, bought by Newlin, and Gov- ernor Keith issued an order for the demolition of certain dams and weirs interfering with the fishing. In 1726, the Land Commissioners, on further complaint, paid the balance of the 100l., and gave Newlin some land in exchange. A law about this time was passed by the Assembly of the Lower Counties for keeping the dam of the mill on said Creek in New Castle County open during the fishing season, authorizing the Sheriff to throw down the dam: in March, 1727, on complaint of the Indians, the Sheriff was ordered to carry out the law. Up the stream, Indian privileges required atten- tion in 1729: Checochinican complained, that, contrary to a writing by Newlin agreeing not to disturb the Indians, the land had been sold, and they were forbid- den to use the timber for building some cabins, and fur- ther that the town at the head of Brandywine had been surveyed for James Gibbons and others, who were ex- pecting a conveyance from the Commissioners of Prop- erty. This would indicate that some of the tribe had gone as far as the present Honeybrook Township. J. Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope, in their History of Chester County, have located an Indian village in the present Wallace Township, where Indiantown School House
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