USA > Pennsylvania > Mifflin County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 7
USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 7
USA > Pennsylvania > Union County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 7
USA > Pennsylvania > Juniata County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 7
USA > Pennsylvania > Snyder County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 1, Pt. 1 > Part 7
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When we call to mind that these writers, and the people from whom they obtained their infor- mation, were not aware that the Delawares only first inhabited these empty Iroquois hunting- grounds about 1725, and that the original Stand- ing Stone people had been exterminated three- quarters of a century prior to this, it is not hard to sift out of these traditions the misunderstand- ings which time had woven into them. The story of an Oneida southern origin was suggested by the lack of knowledge concerning the ancient tribe. The story of the Tuscaroras carrying the stone away is unwarranted, from the fact that they did not come into this region until half a century after the extirpation of the Stand- ing Stone people. The substance of these tradi- tions is, however, no doubt true; and even the perversions rest upon a substratum of fact. No doubt the Juniata or Standing Stone people in their day, while roaming all over the whole Juniata Valley, had their council-fire at the stone pillar at Huntingdon ; that it was here that they were autochthons; that here the Great Spirit
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made them spring from mother earth like the trees, and theever memorable spot was marked by the monumental stone in commemoration of this important fact. It stood as a token of Divine favor, ever reminding them from whence they came. Signs and symbols were cut upon it; superstitious reverence associated it with the perpetuity of the tribe, and it was guarded with a zealous care. Its origin and the signification of its hieroglyphics were explained to their dusky sons, that they might drink in deep les- sons of Indian patriotism and devotion.
There can be no reasonable doubt that Juni- ata is derived from the Onojutta of the Dutch map, and that Achsinnink and Standing Stone are translations meaning the same thing. A few years ago the writer met an educated Wy- andot, one of the Huron stock, who speak a dialect of the Iroquois tongue. The name Onojutta-Haga was written upon a piece of paper and handed to him, and he was asked its meaning. He at once commenced : "The peo- ple of the mountain-top-the people of the high, stony place-the people of the standing rock;" then pausing, as if he wished to catch a better translation, we inquired how "Standing- Stone-people" would answer. "That's it-that is an excellent translation," said he. At first glance he had thought the first part was de- rived from onon, a mountain, and he then wrote " Onuntatte-Haga, " for mountain-top prople. This was a most striking confirmation of the meaning of the name found on the old maps, and the conclusion to which we had come after long and patient investigation.
Heckewelder confessed his ignorance; but since then several interpretations have been fruitlessly attempted. Some years ago a New England lady, Mrs. M. D. Sullivan, wrote a dlever little poem about " Bright Alfarata" on the " Blue Juniata," which was once very popu- lar, and from it the impression has become almost universal that " Juniata" means " Blue Water." This may indeed be very nice poetry, and answer well for an Indian love-song, but it contains no interpretation of the name
Several dateless French maps, running possi- bly along from 1700 to 1725, have the name of the river, as in other cases, on those maps, | Rec., iv. 648. 3
opposite the mouth of the stream, and they give it as Chemcuide and themegaide ; but as there could be no "m" sound in it, that Jetter is probably a mistake for "m" or " n."
Conrad Weiser, a German, who had lived some years among the Mohawks, gives the word several times with the prefix "Sco;" which is probably derived from " skat" or " skota," one, and that its use was to denote the stone standing alone, the pillar by itself. It is the same idea expressed in the Delaware word, of a stone standing alone where no other is near. Histor- ically, it would be the river on which this one stone stood by itself.
There was a Mingo chief called Half King, who flourished about the Ohio in 1754, whose name reminds us of Juniata. It is given as Ski- rooniatta and Seruneyattha. It probably em- braces the Standing Stone idea, with a prefix peculiar to the Conestoga or Tuscarora dialect.
It will be observed that the third syllable in O-ni-a, which was always present in the old French and English forms for the name O-ne-i da, has suffered an elision, and the vowel has become a diphthong with the one preceding it. The word Juniata retains the original sound much more correctly. The pronunciation, as determined by its origin, should be Ju-ni-a-ta, and not Ju-ni-at-a. The tendency to duplicate the "t" is owing to the accent.
In addition to the spellings already given, the following have been observed, and we ap- pend the names of the writers, the dates and references :
Soghneijadie .- N. Y. Comm's. of Ind. Affrs., 1726, N. Y. Col. ITis., v. 796.
Cheniaty .- Isaac Taylor's map, 1728 (?), Egle's " His. Dauphin Co., " p. 18.
C'honiata .- Le Tort and Davenport, Oct. 29, 1731, Pa. Arch., i. 302, and Secretary, June 18, 1733, Col. Rec., iii. 502.
Juniata .- Secretary, July 7, 1742, Col. Rec., iv. 570 (first used).
Chiniotta .- Thomas McKee, Jan. 24, 1743, Col. Rec., iv. 633, and Thomas Cookson, May 1, 1743, Col. Rec., iv. 657.
Chiniotte .- Conrad Weiser, April 5, 1743, Col. Rec., iv. 640.
Juniada .- Governor Thomas' Message, 1743, His. Reg., i, 159.
Scokooniady .- Conrad Weiser, April 9, 1743, Col.
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Chiniotto .- Thomas Cookson, April 22, 1744, Pa. Arch., i. 646.
Juneanta .- Rev. D. Brainard, Sept. 20, 1745, Wat- son's " Annals," ii. 191.
Joniady .- Conrad Weiser, June 17, 1747, Col. Rec., v. 87.
Scohonihady .- Conrad Weiser, June 13, 1748, Col. Rec., v. 285.
Schohonyady .- Conrad Weiser, June 13, 1748, Col. Rec., v. 285.
Junietto .- Col. James Burd, Sept. 22, 1755, Pa. Arch., N. S., ii. 690.
Juniatia .- Secretary, May 19, 1757, Col. Rec., vii. 540.
Junialta .- William Johnson, Sept. 22, 1757, N. Y. Doc., ITis., i. 415.
Junieta .- George Croghan, Sept. 10, 1757, N. Y. Doc. His., ii. 756.
Junitia .- George Croghan, Sept. 10, 1757, N. Y. Doc. His., ii. 757.
Juneata .- Pouchet's Map, 1758, Pa. Arch., N.S., vi. 409.
Juniatto,-James Burd, Oct. 31, 1760, Pa. Arch., N. S. vii. 428.
Juneadey .- Rough Draught, 1762, Egle's " History Dauphin Co.," p. 438.
Coniata .- Watson's " Annals," ii. 191, and Pa. Law Book, No. 6, 245, March 21, 1798.
The phonetic unity of these forms will be readily seen by the following, bearing in mind what has been said about pronunciation :
O -no -jut -ta - Hago, Che -ne -gai -de Sogh -ne -ija -die Che-ni - a -ty Cho -ni - a -ta Chi -ni - ot -ta Sco -koo -ni - a -dy Sco - ho -ni - ha -dy Scho - ho -ny - a -dy Juch -ni - a -da Ju -ni - a -dy Jo -ni - a -dy Ju -ni - at -ta Ju -ni - a -ta. '
THE TUSCARORA INDIANS .- To the Tusca- rora tribe of Indians there is attached 'a special interest, because they were once inhabitants of the Juniata region, and because they have left their melodious name upon one of its moun- tain ranges, one of its finest valleys and one of its large creeks. Hitherto no writer has ven- tured to state how the word " Tuscarora " came to be applied, geographically, in this locality.
Historians do not even tell us that the tribe of that name were ever residents of the valley. They have generally contented themselves with the statement that the Tuscaroras, after a war of three years with the white people, were driven out of North Carolina ; that they then came northward to New York and were adopted by the Five Nations, which thus formed the Six Nations. The date is variously given as about 1712, '13, '14 or '15, while one writer says, "The date (1714) is well known." An- other declares that "it is impossible to fix the date of this exodus." This variation at once proves that their history has been very imper- fectly investigated. When and how the name came here, no writer has stopped to inquire. The question why this locality, situated midway from Carolina to New York, should have this name so freely and so early fastened upon it, has led the writer into an extensive examina- tion of their history and the documentary ar- chives relating to them ; and the information thus gained, though upon the whole satisfactory, is much more meagre than would naturally be ex- pected.
David Cusick, a native chief of the Tusca- roras, has written their traditions, which, if properly interpreted, will doubtless throw some light on their prehistoric life. These legends trace a common descent from the same stock as the Hurons, Iroquois, Susquehannocks and Eries, a conclusion now amply proven by the fact that they all spoke dialects of a com- mon language. These traditions claim that the " Real People " were created and resided in the northern regions. After many years they were encamped upon the St. Lawrence. Passing through many trials and conflicts with giants and monsters, they formed a confederacy with a council-fire on the St. Lawrence, and possessed the banks of the Great Lakes. The " Real People" were on the south side of the Great Lakes. The northern nations appointed a prince who visited the great emperor at the Golden City, which was the capital of a vast empire to the south. In the course of time this emperor built many forts in his dominions, and, by ex- tending his realms, penetrated northward al- most to Lake Erie. The " Real People" began
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to fear the loss of their country south of the Lakes, and a war of perhaps a hundred years en-ued. The northern nations prevailed and totally destroyed the towns and forts. These pople were doubtless what we now call Mound- Builders. In after-years the northern nations had war among themselves. At length there were several families of the " Real People " hid in a cave near Oswego, to whom the Great Spirit, called Tarenyawagon, the Holder of the Heavens, appeared. He took them towards sunrise, and then passed down the Hudson to the sea, where a portion of them were detached and went southward. The rest returned and were successively planted as separate nations by the Holder of the Heavens, and their language was changed so as to form dialectical variations, though in a measure they could still understand each other. After establishing the Five Na- tions, the rest came to Lake Erie, and then, going between . mid-day and sun-setting,-that is, southwest, -- they came to a great river (the Ohio, or the straits near Detroit), where some crossed by means of a grape-vine, which finally broke and left some permanently on each side. The Kautanoh, since Tuscarora, in their mi- grations, went to the south, and, crossing the Allegheny Mountains, came castward to the mean.
At the time of the early settlements by the white men the Tuscaroras were found on the Neuse, Tar and Pamlico Rivers and on the head-waters of the Roanoke, Cape Fear and James Rivers, where Captain John Smith calls them Monacans, and they may have extended as far north as the Potomac, thus forming a continuous belt of Huron-Iroquois-speaking tribes from Canada to Carolina. Bricknell, an early writer (1737) on North Carolina, describes the Tuscaroras as "one of the civilized tribes amongst the English that lived near the Sea." The Chowan, the Meherrin and the Nottaway Rivers still retain the names derived from branches of this tribe,-flowing monuments of a people now long passed away. How closely these various subdivisions were leagued together, or whether any real confederacy existed, it is impossible now to tell ; but, in the early days, it seems certain that the term Tus-
carora bore the same relation to these southern tribes that the word. Iroquois did to the Five Nations of New York. The origin of the name seems to be involved in some obscurity. Mor- gan, in his " League of the Iroquois," defines Dusge-oweh-ona as meaning the "shirt-wearing people." This is unsatisfactory, because it im- plies that Europeans adopted a nick-name which other tribes had applied to them after they had been long enough in contact with the white man to adopt the shirt-wearing habit. The only interpretation that is natural and probable is that given to the writer by a Wyandot chief a few years ago. He says it is derived from " Tuskaho," and means those dis- posed to be among themselves, or those not wanting to live with others. The latter part of the name seems to be a corrupted form of "ronon," " ronu " or " ona," the Huron name for people, tribe or nation. This, then, would be the old name given them by all the Iroquois- speaking tribes, because they were isolated and lived by themselves, and as such it would be naturally acquired by the English at an early period. 1927667
When Raleigh's ships, in command of Gren- ville, in 1585, visited the Carolina coasts, there were among the colonists a philosopher and historian, named Hariot, and a painter named White. " Hariot's Virginia," published by De Bry in 1590, gives us pictures of two Tuscarora towns. The apparel, fashion, manner of living and constructing villages had probably known little change for long centuries prior to the innovations introduced by the white man. Hariot's account and the illustrations of White are the most precious pictures of unadulterated Indian life, in peace and war, and are more valuable than any made in subsequent years. One of them proves the great attention that was paid to agriculture. It is an Indian Eden. Unlike the hunting and fishing nomads farther north, they subsisted almost entirely on vegeta- bles, which they cultivated in great abundance, while labor among them was not considered de- grading or confined to the women. They cultivated corn, beans, melons, squashes, gourds, ground-nuts, potatoes and tobacco. The picture of "Secotan " shows that they were in this
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respect far in advance of any of our tribes of whom we have minute information.
Our first definite information comes from Lawson, who lived in contact with them for years and knew them well. He said, " They have many amiable qualities. They are really better to us than we have ever been to them, as they always freely give us of their victuals at their quarters, while we let them walk by our doors hungry, and do not often relieve them. We Jook upon them with disdain and scorn, and think them little better than beasts in human form ; while, with all our religion and education, we possess more moral deformities and vices than these people do." His " History of Carolina," written about 1710, published in London in 1718, says that the Tuscaroras had fifteen towns and twelve hundred warriors, making a population of about six thousand per- sons. This did not include the Virginia Notta- ways and other tribes allied linguistically. Lawson says that all the tribes were reduced to one-sixth of their original number since their intercourse with the white people, caused chiefly by rum, small-pox and deadly weapons. They were mild, kind, not warlike, but ingenious and industrious. We cannot avoid the con- clusion that, had they been properly treated, they could easily have been civilized and made a very useful part of our population. They were, however, brutalized by the white men, robbed of their lands, their youths kidnapped and sold into slavery, and their decimated remnant driven northward into an unknown interior. From the time of the first settlements there had been peace and harmony with the Tuscaroras for some sixty years. Unlike Penn and his predecessors, the Swedes and the Dutch on the Delaware, the white people of Carolina did not recognize in the Indian any right to the soil. They took possession of the lands as they wished, without purchase. These encroach- ments at length began naturally to create jealousy and distrust, and finally, with other grievances, ripened into hatred and resistance. The story of their wrongs cannot fail to awaken our sympathy.
In 1709 and 1710 there were six hundred and fifty German Palatines transported to North
Carolina under the leadership of a Swiss named De Graffenried. The proprietaries of the prov- ince assigned them large tracts of the Tuscarora domain. In September, 1711, De Graffenried and Lawson, surveyor-general, went up the Neuse River to locate these lands and see how far the stream was navigable. They were cap- tured by a band of sixty Indians, and hurried to a distant village of the Tuscaroras. Lawson was regarded by them with bitter hostility, as his duties led him to locate the grants of the proprietaries. They were incapable of compre- hending responsibility beyond the immediate agent in an act. They held him responsible for the loss of their lands. They therefore, after a discussion of two days, put him to death with cruel torments. De Graffenried was also. con- demned, but he told them he was a chief from a different tribe from the English, and promised to take no more of their land. After being kept for about five weeks he was allowed to return. While the fate of these men was yet unknown a secret conspiracy was formed among the Tusca- roras, Corees, Pamticos, Cothechneys, Metamusk- eets and Mauchapungos to cut off all the white people, each tribe operating in its own district. The Corees butchered over one hundred Pala- tines. Planters and Huguenot refugees were stricken down and hunted with pine-knot torches through the forests at night, and indis- criminate slaughter was visited upon all white intruders. This massacre took place September 22, 1711, a day and year long remembered, especially by the Germans, who observed it as a day of fasting and prayer. The survivors fled to places of refuge, and appeals for aid were sent to South Carolina and Virginia. The former sent Colonel Barnwell, with six hundred militia and three hundred friendly Yamassee and other southern Indians, and some eighty thousand dollars were voted to carry on the war. Governor Spottswood, of Virginia, met the northern sub-tribes on the Nottaway, on the 7th of November, and secured them in a treaty of peace to desert their allies in the hour of their extremity. The Tuscaroras were driven to their temporary fortifications, about twenty miles above Newbern, defeated, and a hundred of their warriors slain and the others forced to
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terms of peace. The North Carolina govern- ment did not have time to take much part in this war, as it was just then engaged in dissen- sions with the Presbyterians, Quakers and Lutherans, in an effort to establish the Church of England (Episcopal) in that province. Pres- ident Pollock wrote to Lord Craven, in 1712, that the war was caused by "our divisions, chiefly occasioned by the Quakers and some other ill-disposed persons," during which feeling ran so high that the two counties were in arms against each other, and " the Indians were in- formed by some of the traders that the people who lived here were only a few vagabonds who had run away from other colonies and settled here of their own accord, so that if they were cut off there would be none to revenge them." In fact, the province at that period sported both a " President " and a "Governor," and it is more than intimated that one of them urged the Indians to slaughter the other party. On the way home, Barnwell and his troops, in violation of the treaty terms of capitulation, seized some of the young Indians for the purpose of selling them into slavery. This crime seems, for years prior to this, to have been one of the grievances under which the Tuscaroras were suffering; and in this instance, in face of the capitulation, was a most flagrant outrage. Historical writers, while erediting the Tuscaroras with everything done by their allied tribes, usually omit this provocation ; but, as might have been expected, it caused the war to break out again. South Carolina was again called upon, and James Moore, a former Governor and a needy adven- turer, was just the man to engage in such a bus- iness, for he had been for years attempting to fill his empty purse by kidnapping Indians and selling them into slavery. He came with a small militia force and over one thousand southern Indians. The Tuscaroras were driven into a fort on the Neuse River, in Greene Coun- ty, called Naharuke, where, on March 26, 1713, after a terrible battle, beside those killed, eight hundred were made prisoners, all of whom were sold as slaves, and were even shipped to the northern colonies for a market. There was an advertisement in the Boston News-Letter of that year wanting purchasers for these southern
Indians. After a three months' campaign the remaining hostile Tuscaroras were driven from their ancient habitations, and forced to abandon the hunting-grounds, corn-fields and graves of their fathers, and seek a refuge on the Juniata, in a secluded interior, " near the Susquehanna," in Pennsylvania. Elias Johnson, a native Tus- carora historian, says this " bright, sunny June morning was one of the darkest days that the Tuscaroras ever witnessed." He says, " Me- thinks I can see them leaving their once cher- ished homes-the aged, the helpless, the women, the children, and the warriors are faint and few -the ashes are cold on their native hearth ; the smoke no more curls up from their lowly cabin; they move on with slow and steady steps ; they turn to take a last look upon their doomed village, and cast a last glance upon the long-cherished memories of their fathers' graves. They shed no tears, they utter no eries, they heave no groans, they linger but a moment, they know and feel that there is for them still one more remove further, not distant or unseen."
The story of the Tuscarora war, as here given, is gathered chiefly from the historians ; but it falls far short of the facts. The white people in Carolina made no pretense to buy the lands from the Indians. Step by step they took possession, and drove the natives back from their villages and cultivated fields. Yet all this was nothing compared with the persistent and continued practice of kidnapping the young boys and girls, and selling them into slavery in the West Indies and all along the coasts, wherever they could find purchasers. This re- mark is not intended to be limited to the cap- tives taken in time of war. Long before the war Tuscarora Indians were carried to and sold even in Pennsylvania. The enslavement of these Indians excited the greatest apprehensions on the part of the Delawares and other resident tribes. They justly feared it would soon come their turn ; and. at length, to allay the uneasi- ness, the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed an act, in 1705, that " whereas the importation of Indian slaves from Carolina, or other places, hath been observed to give the Indians of this Prov- ince some umbrage for suspicion and dissatisfac- tion," it was enacted that after March 25, 1706,
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such importation be prohibited, except such slave Indians as had deserted from their masters, and such as had been slaves for a year in the impor- ter's family.1 A man looks in vain for a parti- cle of evidence, even in the Pennsylvania _Is- sembly, that such enslavement was wrong. The quasi prohibition is based on expedieney and mercenary motives, and because " the Indians to the southward " are in " a general commo- tion." An act of June 7, 1712, passed during the Tuscarora war, to promote a better corre- spondence with the Indians, forbade their impor- tation, but provided for their sale as slaves to the highest bidder, in case any should be im- ported.
On June 8, 1710, Colonel John French and Henry Worley, in behalf of the Council, met an embassy of three chiefs of the Tuscaroras at Conestoga in the presence of the chiefs of the resident tribes. They proceeded after the Indian custom to lay down belts of wampum, and deliver the words of which the belts were tokens. "The second belt was sent from their children born and those yet in the womb, re- questing that room to sport and play, without danger of slavery, might be allowed them." The third belt came from the young men, who wanted the privilege of hunting food for their aged " without fear of slavery or death." The sixth belt came from kings and chief's, who wished a peace that would secure them "against those fearful apprehensions that they have for these several years felt." The seventh belt en- treated "a cessation of murdering and captur- ing them."2 The general purport of the mes- sage, when divested of Indian idioms, is unmis- takable. There had been so many of them, especially of their children, carried off into slavery, others of their people killed in the kidnapping forays, that they wanted to see if arrangements could not be made for a migra- tion to a more friendly province. It must be borne in mind that at this period there was no war, and that there must have been a systematic stealing of these people in order to sell them
into slavery. Their appeals were piteous, and at this juncture they seem already to have been willing to forsake the land of their fathers for the sake of peace, and in order to avoid a con- flict of which they already had fearful appre- hensions. The truth of their story impressed the agents of this province, who say that "the sincerity of their intentions we cannot in any- wise doubt, since they are of the same race and language with our Seneques (Conestogas), who have always proved trusty, and have also for these many years been neighbors to a govern- ment jealous of Indians, and yet not displeased with them." They were told that, in order to secure a favorable reception, they must bring a certificate of their good behavior from the government from which they came. A man comes to your door at midnight, saying he has been beaten and robbed. You tell him if he gets a certificate of his good behavior from the robber, you will take him in.
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