USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume One > Part 21
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The education of the people received thought. The charter provided that :
"The Governor and Provincial Council shall erect and order all publick schools, and encourage and reward the authors of useful sciences and laudable inventions, in the said Province and Territories thereof."
And one of the laws reads :
"And to the end that the poor as well as rich may be instructed in good and commendable learning, which is to be preferred before wealth, all persons in this Province and territories thereof, having children, and all guardians or trustees of orphans, shall cause such to be instructed in reading and writing, so that they may be able to read the Scriptures, and to write, by the time they attain to twelve years of age; and that they may be taught some useful trade or skill, that the poor may work to live, and the rich, if they become poor, may not want : of which every County Court shall take care."
To facilitate travel and communication it was ordained that "sufficient cartways" should be opened to "the most convenient landing-places," and that there should be "ferry-boats for men and horses built within one year over the creeks com- monly called Neshaminee, Sculkill, and Cristeen at the charges of the counties they belong to."
With the adjournment of this second Assembly, the Province of Pennsylvania may be considered as having fully begun its ca- reer. Its constitutional basis had been deliberately formed by the King's grant of power to Penn, and by the charter which Penn, upon free conference with the Council and the Assembly, had de-
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fined and declared. The whole system was thus very democratic. It is true that an ultimate authority, with power to approve or re- ject, lay in the Crown, but while this might be exercised, and in some cases-as was later unpleasantly realized-be employed to
Paxton Church, Paxtang, built 1740
Photo by Mrs. Innes Henry
check or thwart the popular purpose, the general operation of the laws was such as the people themselves desired to enjoy. Penn- sylvania, from this time, experienced very little of those pains and penalties of arbitrary government which others of the American colonies had to endure. The Assembly especially, from these days of early spring in the year 1683, felt itself the repository of the people's rights and interests, and whatever of criticism or de-
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traction may have been applied to it later, in the ninety years of its life, no one can deny that it sustained throughout the cause of the Commonwealth against all comers. We shall see this abun- dantly exemplified as we proceed, and shall find the men who suc- cessively led the Assembly forming a fine example of single- minded and courageous citizenship.
On the 3rd of April, then, the members left Philadelphia for their homes. Nearly all were farmers, and the labors of the opening season called them to their places. For the men of Sus- sex and Kent it was quite time to be afield, and even those from Bucks and Chester could make some preparation for the early planting. The weather that year was fine. From March to June, Penn wrote a little later, "we enjoyed a sweet spring-no gusts, but gentle showers and a fine sky." The Governor him- self once more essayed to reach conclusions with the Maryland proprietary. This time it was Lord Baltimore's duty to return the visit paid him in December. A messenger had been sent in- viting him to name a time and place for meeting, and in May three Maryland gentlemen came riding northward to say that his Lord- ship expected to arrive presently at the head of Chesapeake Bay. As had happened the year before with Markham, Penn was just then engaged in treaties with the Indians, but he set off as soon as possible, and met Lord Baltimore "ten miles from New Castle." He invited Baltimore to return with him to New Castle, and there "entertained him as well as the town could afford, on so little no- tice." But the meeting again availed nothing. Lord Baltimore appeared desirous of conferring privately. Penn then proposed that they sit at their several lodgings, each with his council, and interchange "written memorials," so that there might be no mis- taking each other's views; but the Maryland proprietary said, "he was not well, and the weather was sultry, so he would return with what speed he could," and leave the treaty to a more convenient time and more pleasant weather. "Thus we parted at that time," says Penn's narrative.
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Lord Baltimore had evidently determined to press his claims, and not to negotiate. By an order dated May 15, at St. Mary's, the Maryland capital, he had directed the sheriffs of the several counties to compel all settlers to pay for their land and he fixed the rate within Penn's "Lower Counties" at one-half the amount re- quired in the undisputed Maryland counties. In the latter, for fifty acres the settler should pay one hundred pounds of tobacco down, and two shillings yearly rent, but "on the sea-board side or the Whorekills," he might pay but fifty pounds of tobacco and a shilling rent. Plainly this was to encourage Maryland planters on Penn's Delaware lands.
This order to the sheriffs Penn had heard of before the New Castle meeting, and shortly after that event letters reached him from two judges of the county courts that "such a proclamation was abroad," and the people disturbed by it. Thereupon he sent three members of his Council to Lord Baltimore for an explana- tion. On their way they secured a copy of the order-probably from Smithson, sheriff of Dorchester county-which they were able thus to show in their interview with his Lordship. He told them, however, that it had no special significance; "it was his ancient form, and he only did it to renew his claim, not that he would encourage any to plant there." Then, said Penn's messen- gers, if it is merely formal, why not call it in ? But this he de- clined to do.
In the letter to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, August 14 (1683), in which Penn described these events, he says in one place : "I was then ( May) in treaty with the kings of the natives for land," and in another place, near the close : "I have followed the Bishop of London's counsel by buying and not taking away the natives' land, with whom I have settled a very kind corre- spondence." These allusions bring us to the subject of Penn's Treaty with the Indians-the "Great Treaty" of our history.
The time of this treaty was long assigned to the first few days after Penn's arrival at Philadelphia. It was commonly supposed,
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and has been frequently stated in historical narrative, that the treaty made familiar by Benjamin West's painting, and, hardly less, by Voltaire's allusion to it as "the only treaty never sworn to and never broken," took place in the November days following the Governor's first landing. But this view, upon careful recent
study, has been revised. An examination of all the evidence shows it to be altogether unlikely that Penn had any such formal and important meeting with the Indians, if indeed he had any meeting at all with them, before the spring and summer of 1683. His early letters contain no account of it. They make, in fact,
little allusion to the Indians. He describes in them his several activities and occupations, but he says nothing of having met the Indians, either for the purchase of land or the negotiation of friendly relations. Moreover, we can account for his move- ments from the time of his landing until winter with such com- pleteness as to leave few days when he could have held such a treaty.
The conclusion has been formed, and undoubtedly upon the best evidence, that the Great Treaty of our tradition is that which is referred to in the deed made by Tamanen-Tammany-to Penn, on the 23d of June, 1683, and which will be found of record in the first volume of the "Pennsylvania Archives." In Penn's long and detailed letter of the 16th of August to the Free Society of Traders, he describes the Indians minutely, and then says :
"I have had occasion to be in council with them upon treaties for land, and to adjust the terms of trade. Their order is thus : The King sits in the middle of an half moon, and hath his coun- cil, the old and wise, on each hand; behind them or at a little dis- tance, sit the younger fry in the same figure. . When the purchase was agreed, great promises passed between us of kind- ness and good neighborhood, and that the Indians and English must live in love as long as the sun and moon give light ; which done, another made a speech to the Indians in the name of all the Sachamakers or Kings, first to tell them what was done; next to
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Sisters' House and Saal, Ephrata
Erected about I740. Photo by Louise D. Woodbridge
charge and command them to love the Christians, and particularly live in peace with me, and the people under my Government; that many Governors had been in the River, but that no Governor had come himself to live and stay here before; and having now such an one that treated them well, they should never do him or his any wrong. At every sentence of which they shouted and said Amen in their way."
There is no doubt that the meeting which Penn thus refers to is that of June 23. Nor can it be questioned that he here fairly describes such an occasion as that Great Treaty which is fixed in our tradition. The treaty of June 23 was for the purchase of land, and was a formal and important occasion. Some passages in Penn's description of it. not quoted above, clearly show that
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previous negotiations had led up to this as a consummation and conclusion. He says of it that : "Having consulted and re- solved their business the King ordered one of them to speak to me ; he stood up, came to me, and in the name of the King, saluted me; then took me by the hand and told me he was ordered by his king to speak to me; and that now it was not he, but the King that spoke. . . He first prayed me to excuse them that they had not complied with me the last time; he feared there might be some fault with the interpreter being neither Indian nor English; be- sides it was the Indian custom to deliberate, and take up much time in council before they resolve, and that if the young people and owners of the land had been as ready as he I had not met with so much delay. Having thus introduced his matter, he fell to the bounds of the land they had agreed to dispose of and the price."
In the years following 1683, far down into the next century, the Indians preserved the tradition of an agreement of peace made with Penn, and it was many times recalled in the meetings held with him and his successors. Some of these allusions are very definite. In 1715, for example, an important delegation of the Lenâpé chiefs came to Philadelphia to visit the Governor. Sas- soonan-afterward called Allummapees, and for many years the principal chief of his people-was at the head, and Opessah, a Shawnee chief, accompanied him. There was "great ceremony," says the Council record, over the "opening of the calumet." Rat- tles were shaken, and songs were chanted. Then Sassoonan spoke, offering the calumet to Governor Gookin, who in his speech spoke of "that firm Peace that was settled between William Penn, the founder and chief governor of this country, at his first coming into it," to which Sassoonan replied that they had come "to renew the former bond of friendship; that William Penn had at his first coming made a clear and open road all the way to the Indians, and they desired the same might be kept open and that all obstructions might be removed," etc. In 1720, Governor Keith, writing to the Iroquois chiefs of New York, said: "When Governor Penn
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first settled this country he made it his first care to cultivate a strict alliance and friendship with all the Indians, and condescended so far as to purchase his lands from them." And in March, 1721-2, the Colonial authorities, sending a message to the Senecas, said : "William Penn made a firm peace and league with the Indians in these parts near forty years ago, which league has often been re- peated and never broken."
It may be concluded from this evidence that Penn had no for- mal or important meeting with the Indians of the Delaware re- gion-or any others-prior to June, 1683 ; that on the 23rd of that month he did have such a meeting with them, Tamanen, or Tam- many, being one of the chiefs present; that in that meeting pur- chases of land were made, and declarations of friendship inter- changed : and that this occasion is the one which remained long in memory, and has become fixed in history. Even if we did not grant it the distinction of being the Great Treaty it was evidently a treaty of high significance and importance, and so entitled to be called great. The traditional place, beneath the spreading elm at Shackamaxon, on the Delaware's bank, was an appropriate spot, and the tree itself1 for a century and a quarter remained an object
1The "Treaty Tree" stood many years afterward, and finally blew down, Watson says (Vol. I., p. 237), on the 3rd of March, 1810. "The root was wrenched and the trunk broken off; it fell on Saturday night, and on Sunday many hundreds of people visited it. In its form it was remarkably wide-spread, but not lofty; its main branch, inclining toward the river, measured 150 feet, and its age, as it was counted by the inspection of its circles of annual growth, was 283 years. The tree, such as it was in 1800, was very accurately drawn by Thomas Birch, and the large engraving executed from it by Seymour gives the true appear- ance of every visible limb, etc. While it stood the Methodists and Baptists often held their summer meetings under its shade."
A slip from the old tree was planted in the grounds of the Pennsylvania Hospital. The hospital minutes, May 26, 1810, say: "A scion from the root of a tree called the Great Elm of Kensington, said to have been the same tree under which William Penn, the Proprietor of Pennsylvania, held the first treaty with the Indians, was presented by Matthew Vanduzen, and planted by Peter Brown, Esq. . .. The parent tree was blown down in a late storm." This tree at the hospital stood in the way of Clinton street, when it was opened, and was cut down in 1841, but Charles Roberts, one of the managers, planted cuttings from it on the hospital grounds, and one of these, now standing, is a large tree. There are others, from the same original source, in Philadelphia, and one or more elsewhere in Pennsylvania.
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of historic interest and affectionate regard. Benjamin West re- membered it to have been pointed out to him, as early as 1755, as the place of the Great Treaty, and he related that General Simcoe, one of the British officers in Philadelphia, in the winter of 1777- 78, told him that he had ordered his men not to cut it for fuel, and had placed a guard around it for its protection. West's painting, often criticised as to some of its details, especially as representing Penn older than he really was-a corpulent elderly gentleman, in- stead of a graceful man under forty-is in the main a consistent and reasonable picture. One point in it deserves especial notice : the trees are shown in full foliage, suggesting not a late autumn or winter day, but one in the leafy month of June, such as that when the treaty with Tammany was held.
The purchase of lands made by Penn, at this meeting on June 23, was in four parcels, and four deeds were made. Tamanen, who made his "mark" to the deed, a snake coiled, conveyed all his lands "lying betwixt Pemmapecka ( Pennypack) and Nessamincho (Neshaminy) creeks," and also all lying along the Neshaminy. He received "so much wampum, so many guns, shoes, stockings, looking-glasses, blankets and other goods as he the said William Penn shall please to give unto we." A receipt attached acknowl- edges the payment of these goods, "besides several guilders in silver." In a second deed, four chiefs, Essepenaike, Swanpees, and two others, conveyed "all our lands lying between Pemmapecka and Neshaminck creeks, and all along upon Neshaminck creek, and backward of same, and to run two days' journey with an horse up into ye country, as said river doth go." The consideration, as in Tammany's case, was left to Penn's discretion and generosity.
In a third deed Essepenaike and Swanpees conveyed their in- terests in precisely the same lands as they had sold jointly with the other chiefs in deed number two.
Finally, in a fourth deed, Tamanen and Metamequan con- veyed their lands "lying betwixt and about" Pennypack and Neshaminy, and "along" Neshaminy.
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Interior of Saal, Ephrata Cloister
Showing altar table, hour glass, and inscrip- tions on wall. Photo by J. F. Sachse
All these deeds were witnessed by several white men; the names appended include Lasse Cock, who doubtless acted as in- terpreter : John Blunston, Joseph Curteis, Philip Th. Lehnmann (Penn's secretary), Peter Cock, Nicholas More, Thomas Holme, and one or two more, with the names of a number of Indians.
Two days later, June 25, another deed was made. The gran- tee, this time, was Wingebone. He "freely" granted and dis- posed of all his lands "lying on ye west side of ye Skolkill river, beginning from ye first falls of ye same all along upon ye said river and backward of the ye same, so far as my right goeth." He was to receive "so much wampum and other things" as Penn should be willing to give him.
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July 14, Secane and Icquoquehan, who claimed to be-accord- ing to the white men's scrivenership-"Indian Shackamakers and right owners of ye lands lying between Manaiunk, alias Schulkill. and Macopanackhan, alias Chester river," conveyed to Penn all their right and title in the lands lying between these rivers, "be- ginning on ye west side of Manaiunk, called Consohockhan, and from thence by a westerly line" to Chester river. In this case the consideration was specifically fixed, and may be worth giving in full. The two sachems were to have 150 fathoms of wampum, 14 blankets, 68 yards of "duffels," 28 yards of "stroud-waters," 15 guns, 3 great kettles, 15 small kettles, 16 pairs stockings, 7 pairs shoes, 6 caps, 12 gimlets, 6 drawing-knives, 15 pairs scissors, 15 combs, 5 papers of needles, 10 tobacco-boxes, 32 pounds of powder, 3 papers of beads, 2 papers of red lead, 15 coats, 15 shirts, 15 axes, 15 knives, 30 bars of lead, 18 glasses and 15 hoes, all of which they acknowledged receiving.
It is notable that in this list no brandy or other "strong liquors" appeared. In Markham's purchase, in Bucks county. the previous year, he gave the contracting chiefs six ankers of "rumme," cider and beer. Penn was more scrupulous than his lieutenant, and doubtless realized more strongly the injury done the Indians by drink.
Another deed the same day, July 14, was made by Nenes- kickan, Malebore, and two others, for lands "betwixt Manaiunk and Pemmapecka, as far as ye hill called Conshohocken, on ye said river Manaiunk, and from thence by a northwest line to ye river of Pemmapecka."
September 10, "Kekelappan, of Opasiskunk" sold "that half" of his lands "betwixt Susquehanna and Delaware, with lieth on ye Susquehanna side," and October 18, Machaloha, who claimed sachemship on "Delaware river, Chesapeake bay, and up to ye Falls of Susquehanna river," conveyed his rights in his land.
To define exactly the extent of these purchases would evidently be impossible. That the neighboring Indians had now been
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nearly all treated with appears a fair conclusion. If we assume, as has been suggested earlier in this chapter, that the site of Phila- delphia had been bought by Markham in a treaty earlier than that (July 15, 1682), whose deed is the first one preserved in our rec- ords, we may consider that Penn had very fairly extinguished the Indian claim to southeastern Pennsylvania for twenty to thirty miles around the spot where Independence Hall now stands. That the Indians fully comprehended the effect of their bargain is hardly probable. That they were more kindly dealt with than had been usual when the white man came to take the red man's land is beyond reasonable dispute.
The importance of acquiring consent of the Indians to his pos- session of the interior country, as well as that around Philadelphia, appeared plain to Penn's mind, and in the summer ( 1683) he sent agents to confer with the Iroquois chiefs of New York. Their overlordship of the tribes on the Susquehanna was evidently known to him, and their conquest of the Susquehannocks' "fort" was an event so recent as to be common knowledge among the colonists. A letter remains, written by Penn in July, 1683, to Acting Governor Brockholls of New York, commending to his favor two agents whom Penn is sending to treat with the sachems of the Mohawks and Senecas and their allied tribes for a release of the Susquehanna lands. Their business, Penn wrote to Brock- holls, "is to treat about some Susquehanash land on ye back of us, where I intend a colony forthwith, a place so out of the way that a small thing could not carry some people to it."
The two agents thus sent were William Haige, the Pennsyl- vania surveyor, already frequently mentioned, and James Graham, a resident of New York, an alderman of that city, afterward at- torney-general. They appear to have gone to Albany in August, and their proceedings there caused great alarm, as we shall see.
A new governor at this juncture reached New York. displac- ing Brockholls. He was Colonel Thomas Dongan. He ar- rived on the 25th of August, having come over from Boston,
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where-at Nantasket-his ship had made port. Dongan is of interest to our study of Pennsylvania history, for in his service as Governor of the adjoining province from August, 1683, to August 1688, he touched at many points the life of this colony. He was the younger son of an Irish baronet, Sir John Dongan, and a nephew of the celebrated Richard Talbot, who became Earl and Duke of Tyrconnel. Born in 1634, he became a colonel in the royal army after the Restoration of Charles II., served in France, and was lieutenant-governor at Tangier in Africa. He was a Roman Catholic, like his patron the Duke of York, and an enter- prising, active and intelligent man. His acquaintance with the French and their language helped to qualify him to manage the delicate relations of New York with Canada and the Iroquois In- dians.
Charged by his instructions to be careful of the interests of the Duke of York, the new Governor heard of the negotiations of Penn's agents with concern, and directed the Albany justices to report to him on the matter. They were themselves stricken with panic. They feared that Penn would plant a strong settle- ment on the Susquehanna-a thing which in fact was not yet pos- sible, nor to be so for half a century-and that the Iroquois In- dians, instead of bringing their furs to the Hudson, would send them southward. An "extraordinary meeting" of the justices was called September 7. Five assembled. They had before them such of the chiefs as could be hastily brought in-two of the Cayugas, and "a Susquehanna." The Indians were questioned closely as to the "situation of Susquehanna river," and its geo- graphical and trade relations with the New York settlements, es- pecially that at Albany. The information elicited and minuted is still of interest. The Indians said it was "one day's journey from the Mohawk castles to the lake where the Susquehanna river rises, and then ten days' journey to the Susquehanna castles." . It was one and a half days' journey by land from Oneida "to the kill which falls into Susquehanna river," and one day thence to the
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river itself. It was half a day by land, and one day by water from Onondaga to the river. From Cayuga it was one and a half days' by land and water to the river. From the "four castles" of the Senecas it was three days' journey by land and two by water to the river, and then five days by water to the Susquehanna
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Old Trappe Church
Erected 1743 near Schwenksville; occupied in the fall of 1777 by a portion of the army under General Armstrong. Photo by D. E. Brinton
castles, making ten in all, and this trip was "very easy, they con- veying their packs in canoes."
These close questions being asked, the chiefs inquired not un- naturally the reason for such inquisition. Why did the justices want to know ? Were the white men coming to Susquehanna ? They were asked in turn how that would suit them, and candidly said very well. It would be much easier and nearer for trade than Albany offered, "insomuch as they must bring everything thither on their backs." This was a most alarming statement ! The fur trade of the Iroquois was the source of Albany's impor-
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