USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. II > Part 12
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the doctrine of the Trinity as stated in the Thirty-Nine Articles, and that they should take or make the oath of allegiance, and declarations, as in the statutes of England, against jurisdiction of foreign princes and ecclesiastics, against the effect of papal excommunica- tion, against transubstantiation and invocation of the saints, and in favor of George I and the Protestant succession. Moreover Non-Conformist preachers were, since 1715, receiving a small stipend from the Crown, called Regium Donum.
Although the beginning of Rev. Richard Webster's History of the Presbyterian Church in America is full of the tyrannical conduct of royal officials and Anglican clergymen, the author in due course tells us, how- ever, that the immediate cause of the large emi- gration from the North of Ireland, which began, he says, about 1717, and, year after year, flowed into sev- eral colonies, including Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, is supposed to have been the refusal to re- new the leases to the tenants on the old terms, or on any terms which they judged reasonable. It is said by Rev. Dr. William Blackwood, in his introduction to the aforesaid book, that many landlords exacted a higher rental from Presbyterians than from Episcopalians, and if any Presbyterian tenants joined the Established Church, their rents were reduced! Perhaps we should commend any landlords of Ireland whose zeal carried them to such foregoing of the shillings. It is also ex- plained, that, after the Revolution, the landlords had granted leases mostly for thirty-one years; so that, after the tenants and subtenants had, by building and cultivation, made the property more valuable, they were turned off, unless they would pay the interest on that higher value. The expiration of these leases be- tween 1720 and 1730 meant the depression or exodus of the middle class. An industrious man or one with a few pounds more than the passage money, could in
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America, and particularly in Pennsylvania, be the owner in fee simple of a piece of good soil.
That the Indians of New York and the upper region of the Susquehanna in military expeditions crossed the Potomac east of the Blue Ridge, caused all the losses inflicted in pursuit of them to the borne by the Indians controlled by Pennsylvania, although few of the latter had been guilty of any overt acts. The result would have been the same, if all of them had remained neutral. It seemed as if, with the cunning and treach- ery as natural to the Five Nations as great bravery, their retreating bands chose the path through the Indian settlements on the Susquehanna with the very design of diverting to their tributaries the blood- thirsty attention of the pursuing enemy. The Lieuten- ant-Governor and Councillors of Pennsylvania, far from contemplating with satisfaction the possible ex- termination of their Indians, were imbued with humane feelings, and endeavored to guide them to peace, and, as far as possible, to Quaker non-resistance, as the best way to save them from sufferings, and to increase their numbers. Very likely there was a worldly wise appre- ciation that the Indians were a necessity: they did the hunting, which may be called one of the great indus- tries of the Province; and they were an obstruction to inimical invaders white or red.
For fear of the transfer of trade and fighting strength to Canada, court very obsequious continued to be paid by the English, and particularly by the colony of New York, to the Long House at Onondaga down to the close of the French and Indian War, even after the Southern Indians had become numerically more worthy of notice. Albany being the usual place for conferences with Northern Governors, and Lord Howard of Effingham having gone there in 1684, those who managed Indian affairs for New York saw noth- ing unreasonable in the requirement that Virginia
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Governors should take the journey of several hundred miles away from their province to dance attendance upon the arrogant sachems, who, it was said, would go themselves great distances to treat with Indians.
After several incursions into Virginia by the Five Nations, the government of New York actually for- warded the complaint of their sachems that they thought themselves slighted by the governments to the southward of that province. In a letter to Keith, giv- ing an account of the conference with the sachems, the President and Council of New York, remarking that this might be of serious consequence, said that an im- mediate answer was expected. The government of Pennsylvania sent a reply about March 3, 1719, which is omitted from the minutes of the Provincial Council, although Spotswood's answer appears there in full.
On 3mo. 16, 1720, Keith, sending to the Assembly some minutes of the Council and a copy of a letter from him to the Governor of New York, announced his own intention, in concern for the present defenceless condi- tion of the colony, to endeavor to raise a voluntary militia, adding "and I hope my care in so essential a point can not be disagreeable to you." The answer, drawn up by Norris and Clement Plumsted, was a craving of "leave to observe that whereas the majority of the inhabitants of this Province, as well as the mem- bers of this House, are of the people called Quakers, whose known principles are against war, so we can not encourage the same, yet, as we represent all the people of this Province, we do not think fit to restrict any of a different persuasion from exercising their freedom therein, but, since the Governor apprehends it to be his duty, this House therefore requests the Governor, if he shall still think fit to continue his intentions, that he will use his wonted prudence and care, not only that it be voluntary, but that the peace and quiet of the in- habitants, one amongst another, may be preserved."
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A month later, Logan, visiting Conestoga, pointed out to the Indians of that neighbourhood, that the Governors of Virginia and Carolina could not prevent the Indians within those provinces from revenging in- juries, and that the result of any warriors from Penn- sylvania participating in the injuries, would be the cutting off of the Pennsylvania Indians in revenge, while the New York Indians would be safe in their dis- tant home. Civility and the others to whom Logan spoke, agreed to send belts to the Governor of Virginia to inform the Southern Indians of an intention to keep peace with the latter. In a private interview with Civility, Logan ascertained that the Cayugas had sev- eral times expressed dissatisfaction at the large settle- ments made by the English on the Susquehanna, the Cayugas seeming to claim a right to the land there.
This being reported by Logan, the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania was convinced that the safety of his Province depended upon the strength of New York, that is of the white colony on the Hudson, and could not be left to the good will or faithfulness of the Five Nations, whom, it was likely, the French were instiga- ting to make demands upon the Pennsylvanians, as a mild and defenceless people. He therefore made to the Council, as he had to the Assembly, the suggestion of a voluntary militia, put under such good regulations by an ordinance as could give no offence to anybody. To this suggestion, those present, who all were Quakers, asked to be excused from giving their senti- ments. There are no military archives, but it is stated in several histories that Keith was successful in tempo- rarily establishing a militia. No doubt it was done at this time. Some mistakes in Evans's attempt were surely told to Keith, and avoided by him, and his arrangements in turn could not have been forgotten, although they may have been amended, when, in 1747, Franklin proposed an association for defence. It is
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likely that the Lieutenant-Governor in regard to the choice of officers, perhaps by allowing them to be elected, propitiated nearly everybody likely to enlist. There was no legislation even by the Assembly at New Castle. Apparently the organization embraced the Lower Counties, and probably drew its chief strength from that part of the dominion of which Keith was head. In 1722, there was a company of militia from New Castle ordered to proceed to Octorara.
While probably there was no formal organization among the Scotch-Irish on the frontier, whom we may suppose too poor and too remote from the towns to join in preparatory show and practice, men of the blood and religion of the Covenanters were a militant ele- ment added to Pennsylvania's population, so largely made up of Quakers and German non-resistants. There is a tradition among the Scotch-Irish families of America that William Penn introduced the race into Pennsylvania to do the fighting against the Indians, and thereby to protect his non-combatant co-religion- ists, and that, so well were the Indians repelled from the borders, that the Quakers also kept at a respectful distance, remaining in the heart of the province. The truth is that James Logan, Penn's man of business, and not Penn himself, hit upon the expedient, although Penn had counted upon similar instances of protection, but not against Indians, when he sold to resistants and non-resistants impartially. Whether the Scotch-Irish represented by the aforesaid entries of 9mo. 6, 1719, in the Penn account books were sent to the Susquehanna region in pursuance of this, the encouragement of those who soon followed them thither was from this motive. Logan's own words, in a letter of Nov. 18, 1729, to James Steel (Penna. Mag., Vol. XXIV, p. 495), are : "About this time considerable numbers of good sober people came in from Ireld who wanted to be settled, at ye same time also it happened that we were
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under some apprehension from ye northern Indians . . I therefore thought it might be prudent to plant a settlement of such men as those who formerly had so bravely defended Derry and Inniskillen, as a frontier in case of any Disturbance. Accordingly ye Township of Donegal was settled." This is not to be supposed to mean that the identical persons who were besieged thirty years before now crossed the Atlantic. Mom- bert's History gives a list of surnames as among those of the early settlers, including such as acted upon Logan's permission: only a few of such surnames appear among the signers of the address of the gentle- men of Londonderry to William and Mary, or of that sent by the inhabitants of Enniskillen, both of which are printed in Hanna's Scotch-Irish. James Mitchell, before mentioned as taking up 500 acres, and whose letter of May, 1723 (Pa. Archives, 2d Series, Vol. VII), was dated from Donegal, was probably not the person of the name signing the address from Enniskillen. Nor was there among those signing it, nor in Mombert's list, George Renick once of Enniskillen, stated in the warrant to him dated Jany. 25, 1730-1, to have arrived in the province about eleven years before with the first settlers of Donegal, but not to have obtained leave to settle on any of the Proprietaries' land, without which leave he would never attempt to do so. According to Rev. Dr. Alfred Nevin's Encyclopedia of the Presby- terian Church in the United States of America, Andrew Galbraith settled early on land adjoining on the south the lot on which Donegal's first church building stood, although the patent to him for 2120 acres was not issued until 1736. Practically none of the Donegal settlers paid for land before Thomas Penn's arrival in the province. Some of the land occupied was poor, and, at best, the gaining of a living was a hard task, and there were losses through depredations by fleeting Iroquois, for which the Assembly voted only partial
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compensation. It is to be remembered, that, in spite of the tradition making the race an army against Indians in general, the Irish except by encroaching upon lands did not molest the Pennsylvania Indians during the period of this history.
Keith wrote a letter on July 19, 1720, to the President of the Council of New York, setting forth the conduct of the Five Nations, and how groundless was any claim by any of said Nations or all of them to any land on the Susquehanna, and asking that some suitable acknowledgment be obtained from them for the in- solent expressions and behavior of the Cayugas, and that the Nations, if their young men must go to war, be induced to change their path, and not to molest the English settlements or any of the Indian friends of the English. On the day following the date of this letter, Civility and others, to carry out the promise made to Logan, delivered two belts of wampum to Keith at Phil- adelphia, expressing fear to go themselves to Virginia to take the belts, and, although engaging to follow his and Logan's advice, saying, that, when the Senecas should learn that the Pennsylvania Indians were will- ing to be at peace with the enemies, the Senecas would cut off the Pennsylvania Indians unless the latter were protected. Keith then promised to take the belts to Virginia, and thereby to arrange that the southern English and Indians should deem the friends of Penn- sylvania their friends. Keith was afterwards taken ill and obliged to postpone his journey.
He, however, set out upon it on March 23, next to the last day of the year 1720. On the way, he met a messenger from Governor Spotswood, who, in answer to message and tokens already sent, forwarded two belts from the Indians of Virginia, in assurance that they would not cross the Potomac or the high ridge of mountains along the back of Virginia, if the Pennsyl- vania Indians would not go south of the Potomac, or
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east of the said ridge. After arrival at Williamsburg, Va., Keith explained that all the Pennsylvania Indians lived east of the said ridge, but seldom or never passed the Potomac, except when fishing in the branches of the Wabash and Ohio during Winter; and he asked, that, when the Governor of Virginia had an oppor- tunity of renewing former treaties, or making new ones, with the Catawbas, Cherokees, or any other southern nation, he particularly mention and include the Penn- sylvania Indians seated on the Susquehanna east of those mountains. Spotswood expressed himself satis- fied, if the Potomac as far as its source, and thence the ridge of mountains, were observed as a boundary, and he promised in future treaties to look after the safety of the Indians of Pennsylvania.
A change came over the Five Nations, which one is tempted to connect with Keith's undertaking to raise a militia. They had found that the Southern Indians were a match for them, and that the Pennsylvania Indians were more and more under the influence of the Pennsylvania government. It was sufficient to hint that the energetic Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsyl- vania was likely to enter a combination with the southern Governors. It is possible, indeed, that the Commissioners of New York for Indian affairs made strong representations concerning the grievances of Pennsylvania. The Five Nations became sufficiently obliging towards Gov. Spotswood to send some chiefs to Virginia for a peace pow-wow. On the way thither, two deputies from each of three nations, the Senecas, Onondagas, and Cayugas, with some attendants, arrived at Conestoga in June, 1721, declaring a wish to treat with the Governor of Pennsylvania, but refus- ing to come to Philadelphia. Keith, with Hill, Dickin- son, French, and Logan, went to Conestoga. The speeches of the Iroquois deputies were sufficiently apologetic, beginning with the declaration that the
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faults or mistakes of their young men made the deputies ashamed to show their faces. In their proud oratory, acknowledgment of the robberies was covertly made in a complaint that the traders, on meeting the young men who were going to war, had treated them unkindly, refused to give them a dram of liquor, and called them dogs, whereupon the insulted young men had answered, that, if they were dogs, they might act as such, and accordingly they had seized a keg of the liquor, and run away with it! Keith plainly told the deputies that he knew that they were only saying this to excuse the follies of the Indians, which he was will- ing to forget. To a request for what was perhaps one great purpose of the savages' contrition, that the Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania arrange that the Five Nations get more for their furs and skins, which were not then producing enough for their necessaries, Keith ex- plained his inability to control such matters. His speeches left no misunderstanding, although friendly and giving advice to the red men for their own good to copy the English, who were increasing in numbers by peace, and not to go on destroying their race by war. He told those of Pennsylvania, in presence of the others, that, although, as they must know, he could bring several thousand armed men into the field to de- fend them and his own people, he had made peace for them with Virginia, and with the Indians in peace with that colony, but upon the condition of not hunting within the great mountains on the south side of the Potomac. To the Senecas, Onondagas, and Cayugas, Keith declared that the Governor of Virginia loved and would protect his Indians, and had many thousand Christian warriors under his command, whereby he was able to assist all in any league of friendship with him; and that the government of Pennsylvania on its part, as protector of the Indians within its boundaries, would no longer suffer them to go out to their destruction.
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Taking out of his pocket a gold coronation medal of King George, Keith gave it to Ghesaont, the spokesman of the deputies, to be delivered to the great head of the Five Nations, Kannygoodk, as a token of lasting friendship between those Nations and the English.
Ghesaont, talking to Logan after Keith went home, said that the principal reason for going to war was that the Indians could not, as formerly, get clothing from the English, and therefore sought to seize it from enemies. Logan assured him that the trade by the New Yorkers with Canada, whereby goods were diverted, had been prohibited, and that Albany could best supply the Indians, and that the new Governor of New York would see that it was done, if they remained faithful. Ghesaont, who was a Seneca, acknowledged Penn's right to the lands on the Susquehanna. The deputies proceeded to Virginia.
The Pennsylvania government never flinched from using violence to enforce law and domestic justice for Indians. John Grist and others, who had long persisted in occupying land without warrant on the western side of the Susquehanna, were complained of by the Indians for sundry abuses; the Lieutenant-Governor ordered John Cartlidge, as a Justice, to warn the intruders to remove, and, if they refused to do so, to raise a posse, and burn their dwellings. Some refusing, some of the cattle of such were killed by the Indians. Grist appear- ing in Philadelphia, and Keith going out of town, and leaving the matter in Logan's hands, Logan, taking advice of the Attorney-General, on Grist becoming in- solent, committed him to jail, for want of security for good behavior. The Council afterwards, taking com- passion on him, allowed him, in order to carry off his corn, to be discharged upon his own recognizance to re- move from his settlement within a month, and for twelve months good behavior and appearance on notice.
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About the beginning of February, 1721-2, a Seneca warrior, named Sawantaeny, met his death at the hands of John Cartlidge and his brother Edmund. Sawan- taeny was hunting on the Manakassy, when the Cart- lidges came to trade for the skins. They treated him to punch and rum three times, and then traded him rum. He and the Cartlidges' guide, a Conoy, got drunk that night. The next day, Sawantaeny de- manded more rum, as not having received the full quantity, and, he persisting, John Cartlidge knocked him down. Sawantaeny went into the cabin, kept by his squaw, and brought out his gun, when William Wil- kins, a servant of John Cartlidge, caught hold of it, and struggled for it. Edmund Cartlidge, coming to the assistance of Wilkins, got the gun, and broke it, beating the Indian, who, as he sat on the ground with blood running, was kicked by John Cartlidge. The Cartlidge party, after gathering up their goods, departed: the Indian died the next day. On news of this being brought, through white people, to the Lieutenant- Governor, he sent Logan and French to Conestoga to investigate and negotiate. It was impossible to view the body, which had been buried by two Indians, who found it while the squaw was away looking for help. Logan and French took the Cartlidges into custody, and sent two stroud coats to the Senecas in the north, in order, in the poetic phraseology of those to be ap- peased, "to cover our dead friend," and a belt of wam- pum "to wipe away tears." The Five Nations having previously sent word to stave in and empty all kegs of rum, the Pennsylvania traders received orders not to resist.
The Five Nations, protesting that the two stroud coats were not accepted as a pecuniary satisfaction, sent back the very justifiable message that there were no heart burnings, but that two members of the Council were not enough to smooth over the matter, but that it
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took a great number of people to answer for the whole country, and the Governor must come to the Senecas' castle, and that, on his coming, peace would be made with the Cheekaragoes, and so there would be peace with all the mainland. Keith, in reply, explained that English law did not permit a satisfaction in money or goods to be given to the relatives of one murdered, and that the Cartlidges would be treated as if the person killed had been a white man, but the English laws dis- tinguished between premeditated murder and killing in hot blood in a quarrel. Keith agreed to go to Albany, if the Governor of New York would be there at the time of the arrival of Commissioners from Virginia, Gov. Spotswood having promised to come, or send an em- bassy. Keith sent a mourning-ring off his own finger, to be worn by Sacauncheuta, the chief Seneca, a rela- tive of Sawantaeny, explaining that with such a ring the English mourned their nearest relations and friends. To the sachems of the Five Nations were sent five shirts of the best calico, five pairs of silk stockings, five pairs of silk garters, and five silk handkerchiefs.
Certain actions of Keith about this time relating to the lower Susquehanna will be mentioned in the next chapter.
Logan being, for family reasons, unable to leave Phil- adelphia, Hill, Norris, French, and Hamilton were ap- pointed Commissioners for the treaty at Albany, the Assembly giving Keith 130l. for the expenses of the trip, and Norris 100l. for presents to the Indians. Keith with French and Hamilton-for the Quaker Commissioners were lagging on the way-held a pre- liminary conference with the Governor and Council of New York and the Governor of Virginia as to the best measures to secure a general peace between the Five Nations and the Indians and the colonies. Keith there urged that the Five Nations be induced to avoid going through Pennsylvania on warlike expeditions, hoping
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for such a result from the Virginia act read to the con- ference. He mentioned the purchase from the Five Nations by William Penn, through Gov. Dongan, of all the lands on the Susquehanna, and disclaimed any de- sire on the part of Pennsylvania to take the trade with those Nations. Hill and Norris arrived in time for the meeting with the Indians, to whom, on September 7, Keith made the speech for peace drafted before he went by his Council, and also delivered the presents to in- sure that the Indians' "young men," when they travelled, would not hurt any of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, or kill their cattle and stock. The sachems answered with renewing and brightening the covenant chain, that it might shine as clear and as long "as the sun in the firmament," and also acknowledg- ing that the Governors and People of Pennsylvania had honestly and truly kept the league of friendship made by William Penn. The sachems confirmed the message sent previously that the killing of the Seneca was forgiven, and they asked that those who did it be set at liberty.
This satisfactory negotiation being finished, Hill, Norris, and Hamilton started for home, leaving Sir William, attended only by French, who, it will be borne in mind, had been a tool of every Lieutenant-Governor but Gookin, and therefore was not an independent and inquisitive witness of what subsequently took place. The chiefs having, on the 13th, notified the Pennsyl- vania interpreters of having something further to say, Keith on the next day received in his room, in the pres- ence of Philip Livingston, the New York Secretary, two chiefs of each of the Five Nations, and two other chiefs said to be Tuscaroras. Keith's report of the interview was, that, through the New York interpreter, Lawrence Claese, the Five Nations made this speech : "Brother Onas [ the name given to the acting Governor of Pennsylvania as representing the man called 'pen']
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