USA > Pennsylvania > Crawford County > Our country and its people. A historical and memorial record of Crawford County, Pennsylvania. > Part 3
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The Lenapes, or Delawares, were held under subjection in this manner. which gave the Six Nations, or Iroquois, semi-authority over the whole territory of Pennsylvania, and reaching out into Ohio. This humiliating vassalage to which the Delawares were subjected had been imposed upon them by the Iroquois, as claimed by the latter, but the Delawares asserted that it had been assumed by them voluntarily, that "they had agreed to act as mediators and peace-makers among the other great nations, and to this end they had consented to lay aside entirely the implements of war, and to hold and keep bright the chain of peace." It was the office, when tribes had weakened themselves by desperate conflict, for the women, in order to save their kindred from utter extermination, to rush between the contending warriors and implore a cessation of slaughter. It became thus
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the office of women to be peace-makers. The Iroquois claimed that the Delawares had assumed the title of peace-makers, not upon principle but of necessity, and hence applied to them the title of "women" as a stigma, characterizing them as wanting in the quality of the braves. The pious Moravian missionary, Heckewelder, who had spent much time among them, and knew their character well, believed that the Delawares were sincere in their claims, and from the fact that they had a great admiration for William Penn, with whom they were intimately associated, and imbibed his senti- ments of peace. it may be that they had come to hold his principles, even if they had formerly been engaged in the characteristic warfare of their race. General Harrison, who afterwards became the ninth President of the United States, in a discourse which he delivered on the Aborigines of the valley of the Ohio, observes: "I sincerely wish I could unite with the worthy German in removing this stigma from the Delawares. A long and intimate knowledge of them in peace and war, as enemies and friends, has left upon my mind the most favorable impressions of their character for bravery, generosity and fidelity to their engagements." Whatever may have been their original purposes, or their subsequent convictions, they did demand complete independence of the Iroquois in 1756, and had their claims allowed.
Of the origin of the Indian race, little is definitely known. The Indians themselves had no traditions, and they had no writings, coins or monuments by which their history could be preserved. Ethnologists are, however, well assured that they came originally from eastern Asia. Without reciting the arguments which support this theory, it is sufficient for our present purpose to state that it seems well attested that the race has dwelt upon this continent from a period long anterior to the Christian era, obtaining a foothold here within five hundred years from the dispersion of the human race, and that their physical and mental peculiarities have become fixed by ages of subjection to climate and habits of life. Mr. Schoolcraft, a voluminous writer upon Indian affairs, adduces the following considerations as proof of the fulfill- ment of that prophecy of Scripture recorded in the ninth chapter of Genesis: "And the sons of Noah that went forth of the Ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth, God shall enlarge Japheth [Europeans], and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem [Indians], and Cannan [Negro] shall be his servant." "Assuming the Indian tribes to be of Shemitic origin, which is generally
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conceded, they were met on this continent in 1492 by the Japhetic race. after the two stocks had passed around the globe in opposite directions." Finding the Indians intractable as slaves, the Hamitic, or Negro, branch was brought over from Africa. The result of three centuries of occupancy on this continent by these three races is, Japheth has been greatly enlarged, while the called and not voluntary sons of Ham have endured a servitude in the tents of Shem.
The Indian, as he was found upon this continent when first visited by the European, was very different in form, features, mental constitution and habits from the latter, and apparently unalterably different from any other race. The color of the skin was of a reddish-brown; the hair was black, straight, stiff, not plentiful, and the males had scarcely any beard; the jaw-bone was large, the cheek-bone high and prominent, and the forehead high, square and full over the eyes, showing a large development of the perceptive faculties; but narrow and sloping backward at the top, showing defective reasoning powers. The person was erect, well developed, and in movement quick, lithe and graceful.
The Indian is, by nature and life-long habit, indolent. To take up a tract of land, build himself a house with the conveniences and privacies of civilized home-life, clear away the heavy forests which encumber it, plow and cultivate the sodden acres, fence in the many fields, dig for himself a well where he may have an abundant supply of cool water in the heats of summer and the colds of winter, get and care for flocks and herds and beasts of burden, and lay up for himself and family abundant supplies of food in suitable variety, would have been to entail upon him insufferable misery, and rather than undertake the first stroke of such a life of toil, he would lie down and die. They are a people, says Dr. Spencer, that "might be broken, but could not be bent." The early Spanish colonists attempted to make slaves of them; but they utterly failed, the natives refusing to take food, and actually died of starvation rather than be reduced to a condition of servitude. They believed that the fish of the stream, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, and the land where they should stretch their wigwams were as free and open to appropriation as the air we breathe or the waters that run sparkling to the sea. They ridiculed the idea of fencing a field, and depriving any who desired the use of it. The strong dominated over the weak. The male assumed superiority over the female, and made
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her in reality his slave. His grunt was law to her, and if he started upon a journey she must trot after, bearing the infant if she have one, and the burdens. If crops were to be planted, and cultivated and gathered, it was by the sweat of her brow that it must be done. She must gather the fuel for the fire, weave the mat on which to sit and sleep, fashion the basket and decorate it with fanciful colors. She was, in short, little less than the abject and degraded slave.
Their methods of government were peculiar. If an Indian had received an injury or an insult, he took it upon himself to avenge without the forms of proof to fix the guilt, and if he was killed in the quarrel his nearest relatives felt themselves obliged to take up the avengement. Thus from the merest trifle the most deadly feuds arose by which the population was visibly di- minished. The warrior chiefs among them became such by superior skill or cunning, and not by any rule of heredity, descent or majority of voices. Matters of public interest were discussed in assemblies of the whole people. Decisions were generally in favor of him who could work most powerfully upon the feelings of his audience, either by his native eloquence or by appeals to their superstition, by which they were easily moved. It has been observed above that the Indian was naturally lazy. To that assertion one exception should be made. To carry out his purpose of revenge, the Indian would make sacrifices, endure hardships and undergo sufferings un- surpassed by the most daring of the human race. To gratify his thirst for revenge he would make long and exhausting marches with scant food, sub- sist upon the bark of trees, the roots of the forest and such random game as he might come upon, would lie in wait for his victim for hours and days together, enduring untold suffering.
It is curious to observe the impression which the natives made upon the first European visitants to these shores. Columbus, in his report to Ferdinand and Isabella after his first voyage, said: "I swear to your majesties that there is not a better people in the world than these,-more affectionate, affable, or mild. They love their neighbors as themselves; their language is the sweetest and the softest and the most cheerful, for they always speak smiling, and. although they go naked, let your majesties be- lieve me. their customs are very becoming, and their king, who is served with great majesty, has such engaging manners that it gives great pleasure to see him, and also to consider the great retentive faculty of that people,
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and their desire of knowledge, which incites them to ask the causes of things." If these were the real sentiments of the great navigator, we are forced to believe that he had never seen an Indian in his war-paint and feathers.
The adventurers whom Sir Walter Raleigh sent out for discovery and settlement, Amidas and Barlow, gave a graphic report of their impressions of the natives upon their return, which Hakluyt has preserved in his annals: "The soile is the most plentifull, sweete, fruitfull and wholesome, of all the worlde: there are above fourteene severall sweete smelling timber trees, and the most part of their underwoods are bayes and such like; they have such oakes as we have, but farre greater and better. After they had been divers times aboard our shippes, myselfe, with seven more, went twentie mile into the river that runneth towards the citie of Shicoak, which river they call Occam; and the evening following we came to an island, which they call Roanoke, distant from the harbor by which we entered seven leagues; and at the north end thereof was a village of nine houses, built of cedar, and fortified round about with sharpe trees to keep out their enemies, and the entrance into it made like a turnpike very artificially; when we came towards it, standing neere unto the water's side, the wife of Granganamo, the king's brother, came running out to meete uis very cheerfully and friendly; her husband was not then in the village; some of her people she commanded to draw our boate on shore, for the beating of the billoe; others she appointed to carry us on their backs to the dry ground, and others to bring our oars into the house for fear of stealing. When we were come into the outer room, having five rooms in her house, she caused us to sit down by a great fire, and after took off our clothes, and washed them and dried them againe; some of the women phicked off our stockings, and washed them. some washed our feete in warm water, and she herself took great paines to see all things ordered in the best manner she could, making greate haste to dresse some meate for us to eate."
"After we had thus dried ourselves she brought us into the inner roome, where shee set on the board standing along the house some wheate like fermentie; sodden venison and roasted: fish, sodden, boyled and roasted; melons, rawe and sodden; rootes of divers kinds, and divers fruits. Their drink is commonly water, but while the grape lasteth. they drinke wine, and for want of caskes to keepe it, all the yere after, but sodden with
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ginger in it, and black sinnamon, and sometimes sassaphras, and divers other wholsome and medicinable hearbes and trees. We were entertained with all love and kindnesse, and with as much bountie, after their manner, as they could possibly devise. We found the people most gentle, loving and faithfull, voide of all guile and treason, and such as live after the manner of the golden age. The people only care to defend themselves from the cold in their winter, and to feed themselves with such meat as the soile affordeth; their meat is very well sodden, and they make broth very sweet and savorie; their vessels are earthen pots, very large, white, and sweete; their dishes are wooden platters of sweet timber. Within the place where they feede was their lodging, and within that their idoll, which they worship, of whom they speak incredible things. While we were at meate, there came in at the gates two or three men with bowes and arrows from hunting, whom when we espied we began to look one towards another, and offered to reach for our weapons; but as soon as she espied our mistrust she was very much moved, and caused some of her men to runne out, and take away their bowes and arrowes and breake them, and withall beate the poor fellowes out of the gate againe. When we departed in the evening, and would not tarry all night she was verry sory, and gave us into our boate our supper, half dressed pottes, and all, and brought us to our boatside, in which we lay all night, removing the same a prettie distance from the shore; she perceiving our jealousie, was much grieved, and sent divers men and thirtie women, to sit all night on the bankside by us, and sent into our boates five mattes to cover us from the raine, using very many wordes to entreate to rest in their houses; but because we were fewe men, and if we had miscarried the voyage had been in very great danger, we durst not adventure anything, although there was 110 cause of doubt, for a more kind and loving people there cannot be found in the worlde as far as we have hitherto had trial !. "
This passage from Hakluyt shows the disposition of the Indians to- wards Europeans at the earliest date of intercourse, before their minds had been soured by injury and wrong, which careless and brutal colonists subse- quently visited upon them; and it may well be questioned whether they would not have remained friendly and loving as here described had they received loving and Christian treatment in return.
William Penn thus describes them: "For their persons, they are generally tall, straight, well built, and of singular proportion. They tread
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strong and clever, and mostly walk with a lofty chin. Their language is lofty, yet narrow; but, like the Hebrew, in signification, full. If an Euro- pean comes to see them, or calls for lodging at their house or wig- wam, they give him the best place and first cut. If they come to visit us, they salute us with an 'Itah,' which is as much as to say, 'Good be to you,' and set them down, which is mostly on the ground, close to their heels. their legs upright. It may be they speak not a word, but observe all passages. If you give them anything to eat or drink, well, for they will not ask; and be it little or much, if it be with kindness, they are well pleased; else they go away sullen, but say nothing. In liberality they excel: nothing is too good for their friend: give them a fine gun, coat or other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks; light of heart, strong affections, but soon spent. The most merry creatures that live, feast and dance perpetually; they never have much nor want much; wealth circu- lateth like the blood: all parts partake: and though none shall want what another hath, yet exact observers of property. Some kings have sold, others presented me with several parcels of land: the pay, or presents I made them were not hoarded by their particular owners; but the neighboring kinds, and their clans being present when the goods were brought out, the parties chiefly concerned consulted what and to whom they would give them."
"To every king, then, by the hands of a person for that work appointed, is a portion sent, so sorted and folded, and with that gravity that is admir- able. Then the king subdivideth it, in like manner, among his dependants, they hardly leaving themselves an equal share with one of their subjects; the kings distribute to themselves last. They care for little because they
want little, and the reason is a little contents them. We sweat and toil to live; their pleasure feeds them; I mean their hunting, fishing and fowling, and their table is spread everywhere. They eat twice a day, morning and evening; their seats and table are the ground. Since the Europeans came into these parts. they are grown great lovers of strong liquors, rum especially, and for it exchange the richest skins and furs. If they are heated with liquors, they are restless till they have enough to sleep; that is their cry, 'Some more and I will go to sleep;' but when drunk, one of the most wretched spectacles in the world."
So philosophic and careful an historian as Bancroft, sifting his facts with nnerring scrutiny. makes this statement concerning the Indians: "The
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hospitality of the Indian has rarely been questioned. The stranger enters his cabin, by day or by night, without asking leave, and is entertained as freely as a thrush or a blackbird that regales himself on the luxuries of the fruitful grove. He will take his own rest abroad, that he may give up his own skin, or mat of sedge, to his guest. Nor is the traveler questioned as to the purpose of his visit; he chooses his own time freely to deliver his message."
The opinions which we have thus presented concerning the real char- acter and condition of the native inhabitants found on the North American continent upon the arrival of Europeans are given by men of good judgment and reliability, and whose writings upon almost every other subject are accepted as veritable. Why, then, are their characterizations so different from those usually attributed to Indians? The commonly accepted judgment, during the current century, has been that the North American Indian was a savage, given up to treachery, and barbarity, whom human sympathy could not touch, as expressed by a recent annalist in portraying the rela- tions of the two nationalities: There was "the long and wasting conflict with the natives in which isolated pioneers, with their families, were exposed in their scattered cabins in the forest, to the fiendish arts of the stealthy and heartless savage, who spared neither the helpless infant, the tender female, nor trembling age."
Has the character of the Indian changed since these writers noted him. or were they mistaken in their estimate of him? Both undoubtedly are true. On the first arrival of Europeans, the natives were seen in their most favorable aspects. Penn, for example, treated them as brothers; he was bargaining for their lands: he was giving them "heaped up presents;" they were charmed with his peaceful, loving disposition; they treasured his words, and repeated them in their councils. He, therefore, reported the best side of their character, and not their traditional qualities. Besides, it is probable that their characteristics gradually changed after continued intercourse with the pale face, who had come across the ocean. The two races were entirely different in their lives and occupations, and pursuits of happiness. Manual labor to the red man was misery; to the white man it was second nature and happiness. The one cleared the forests, scattered seeds, gathered luxurious harvests, nurtured flocks and herds, dammed the streams; the other, from time immemorial, had followed with noiseless step
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the game of the unbroken forest, had tempted the finny tribes by luring baits, in streams that run unvexed to the sea.
When. therefore, the European came with his system of life radically different from that of the denizens of the forest, broke up their game pre- serves, hewed down their forests, kept destructive fires raging along all the hill-tops, and down the valleys. scaring away and driving out that which had been the support of their lives, is it any wonder that they became mnorose and vengeful, when they saw themselves despoiled of the heritage of their fathers, of those sports which had been the joy of their lives, and practically driven from the haunts where they had passed their childhood, and which had been rendered dear to them by tender associations? It may well be imagined that they would brood over their wrongs, as they gathered in their wigwams at nightfall and recounted all their woes, and realized that the manner of life which had come down to them from their ancestors and of which they had known no other, was to be taken from them, and they were to be compelled to bid good-bye to them for ever.
But there is one phase of their lives which cannot be accounted for on any other principle than that of inborn savagery. The victims of their revenge, and putting to the torture their prisoners of war, were examples of relentless cruelty unexampled in all- the history of the human race. Brebeuf has described their treatment in all its barbarity. "On the way to the cabins of his conquerors, the hands of an Iroquois prisoner were crushed between stones, his fingers torn off or mutilated, the joints of his arms scorched and gashed, while he himself preserved his tranquillity and sang the songs of his nation. Arriving at the homes of his conquerors, all the cabins regaled him, and a young girl was bestowed upon him, to be the wife of his captivity and the companion of his last loves. To the crowd of his guests he declared: 'My brothers. I am going to die; make merry around me with a good heart; I am a man; I fear neither death nor your torments;' and he sang aloud. The feast being ended, he was conducted to the cabin of blood. They place him on a mat and bind his hands. He rises and dances around the cabin, chanting his death song. At eight in the evening eleven fires had been kindled, and these are liedged in by files of spectators. The young men selected to be the actors are exliorted to do well. for their deeds would be grate to Areskoni, the powerful war-god. A war chief strips the prisoner, shows him naked to the people, and assigns their office to the tormentors.
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Then ensued a scene the most horrible; torments lasted till after sunrisc, when the wretched victim, bruised, gashed, half roasted, and scalped, was carried out of the village and hacked to pieces." From the venerable sacher to the infant in arms, the aged mother to the tender maiden, by all the tribe was this torture of the captive beheld. It was an occasion of feasting and rejoicing. The greater the power of endurance of the victim and the more fierce and terrible the torture invented, the more exquisite the enjoyment of the spectators. To add a pang to the sufferer was a subject of congratula- tion to the one who inflicted it. Often the greatest refinement of cruelty was devised and inflicted by the women. And when the last pang had been endured and all was over they feasted on the victim's flesh.
CHAPTER III.
ATTEMPTS AT COLONIZATION.
C OLUMBUS, upon his return from his voyage of discovery in 1492, gave glowing accounts of the lands he had reached and the peoples whom he had found inhabiting them; but, of the extent of those lands, their fertility, their mineral resources, or with what grasp they were held, none knew. These lands were fairly in the possession of the native in- habitants, and we may rightfully conclude that they had as good a right to hold them as any European nation had to possess its soil. But the rightful- ness of possession seems not to have been taken into consideration, doubtless believing that might makes right. The sovereigns of three European nations, at that time most puissant, encouraged their subjects to make voyages of discovery, and issued patents empowering them to take posses- sion of such portions of the mainland in the new world, and the contiguous islands of the sea, as they might visit and explore. Spain, through Ferdinand and Isabella, having patronized the great discoverer, took the lead, assuming a pre-emption right to the continent, by virtue of discovery, and Cortes and Pizzarro did their work of slaughter and extermination upon weaker and inoffensive peoples, innocent of any crimes against their oppressors.
Juan Ponce de Leon, who had been a companion of Columbus, having heard of a miraculous fountain upon the mainland, whose waters could impart life and perpetual youth, eager to bathe in the healing stream, sailed on the third of March, 1512, in quest of it. It was the season when in that far southern clime the whole land was bursting into blossom, and as he coasted along a great country presenting one mass of bloom he thought indeed he had found the land of perpetual life, and accordingly named it Flor-ida or the land of flowers. But the weather was tempestuous, and returning to the West Indies he sought and obtained from Charles V., of Spain, authority to take and govern the country; but upon his second expe- dition he found the natives hostile, and upon giving battle was mortally wounded and returned to the islands to die.
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Vasquez de Ayllon, in quest of slaves to work in the mines of Mexico, came upon this coast, and having enticed numbers of natives on board his vessels, perfidiously sailed away; but one of his ships was lost in a storm, and the natives, who survived, disdaining to work, refused to eat, and died miserably of starvation. Not satisfied with his experience, de Ayllon ob- tained authority from Charles V. to conquer and govern the country, and in 1525 again set sail with his colonists. But now he found his tactics reversed. for the natives were the enticers, and having invited the body of the visitants to a feast, gave them to slaughter and utter destruction. Again in 1528 de Narvaez with de Vacca and four hundred colonists sailed for Tampa Bay, the very grounds where recently were gathered the serried ranks of the United States in preparation for a descent upon the descendants of those same Span- iards who have provoked by their inhuman savagery inflicted upon a depend- ent race the righteous indignation of a civilized people; but after fruitless wanderings by sea and land, in which the leader was lost, de Vacca made his escape with but four of his companions alive, having spent ten years in fruit- less search for gold and booty. In his adventure he had traversed the whole southern border of what is now the United States, crossed the Mississippi, bent his steps onward to the Rocky Mountains, gladly performing the offices of a slave for sustenance and the poor boon of life, and arrived at last in Mexico, whence he returned to Spain.
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