USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume One > Part 3
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It was not only the whites who suffered, in conflicts with the Indians thus armed, it was as well the traditional enemies of the Iroquois, in all directions, including the Mohegans and the moun- tain bands of the Lenâpé. These latter demanded arms also, but the traders at Manhattan were more strictly controlled than those in the Mohawk country, and could not supply them. The Dutch law forbade the sale of arms to the Indians, "on pain of death," and with the scandals of the up-river trade discussed hotly at Man- hattan, it was scarcely possible for the Mohegans and the Minsi to obtain there the new and more deadly weapons.
The outcome of the struggle between the Iroquois and Lenapé was thus plainly to be foretold. The same fierce attacks which the Iroquois had made upon the Eries and the Susquehannocks they made, as occasion offered, upon the Algonkian tribes. Yet the subjugation of the Minsi must have proceeded slowly. It is evident that man for man they and the Mohegans were not inferior to the tribes of the Iroquois. As late as 1660, at Esopus, far up the Hudson toward the disputed valley through which the Ron- dout flows, and which separates the Iroquois and Mohegan strong- holds, chiefs of the Algonkian tribes defied a Mohawk emissary, and claimed the land on which they were standing. "This is not
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your land !" they declared, "it is our land!" The Minsi and the Senecas were at war in that year, 1660, and the latter earnestly appealed to Governor Stuyvesant for a supply of powder and ball, as if they were hard pressed. Three years later, 1663, the two tribes were still fighting, the Minsi apparently with fair success.
These facts narrow the time in which Iroquois supremacy over the Minsi could have been exercised. We are brought down, seeking the period in which it might have begun, toward the date of William Penn's first arrival. It seems most probable that it was about 1680 when the Minsi began to feel themselves not a match for their assailants. In 1727, at an Indian treaty in Philadelphia, some of the Iroquois chiefs alleged that William Penn, "when he first arrived," (1682), sent to them "to desire them to sell land to him," and said also that later he spoke to them in terms acknowl- edging their control of the Lenapé. These assertions, viewed in the light of what we know otherwise, may have a basis of truth. It is certain that Penn recognized promptly the control of the Susquehanna region by the New York tribes, and it may also be that he perceived besides that they had gained a hold upon the mountain region of the Minsi. In May, 1712, Governor Gookin met Sassoonan, and other Lenape chiefs, in council at White- marsh (near Philadelphia ), and the latter explained that they had been "many years ago made tributaries to the Mingoes or Five Nations," and were now about to send them tribute belts and a calumet. That the Minsi, or some of them, would still have resisted, later than 1680, with white help, appears from the Penn- sylvania records. In 1693, Colonel Fletcher, acting as "royal" governor of Pennsylvania during Penn's temporary eclipse, re- ceived in council at Philadelphia, "some Indians from the upper part of the river,"-Lenape certainly, and Minsi most likely. - These urged upon him that he assist them in a war with the Seneca tribe. "Although we are a small number of Indians," they said, "yet we are men, and know fighting." They were, no doubt, the remnant of an "old guard" of their tribe, who recalled
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the time before the Iroquois triumph, and who would fain have renewed the struggle, with Fletcher's help-which of course he refused to give.
If we conclude, then, that the Iroquois arms prevailed over those of the Minsi about 1680, or between that and 1700, we shall find, in reference to land treaties, indications of a deferential re- gard for the Iroquois manifested by the Pennsylvania colonial officials from about 1725 ; we shall see the arrogant claims of the Iroquois to an absolute overlordship of the Minsi country by 1742; and in 1756 we shall again find the Lenape-called then uniformly Delawares-claiming and compelling acknowledgment of their tribal independence. Thus it appears that the supremacy of the New York confederates may have lasted from 1680 to 1756, and that it was confined, as to lands, to the Minsi region. It is thus evident that it has been absurdly overestimated by many historical writers. In the face of abundant evidence that the Lenâpé were a vigorous people, capable of strong resentments and energetic ac- tion, it has been assumed that they were feeble and nerveless, a peo- ple unlike other Indians. "A long and intimate knowledge of the Delaware tribe," said William Henry Harrison, afterward Presi- dent, "in peace and in 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." This was testimony rendered them when, after many years of hard fortune, their tribe was shattered and disorganized ; it compels us to believe that in an earlier time, armed with similar weapons and meeting upon an equal field, they must have been able to contend success- fully with their Indian enemies.
We are to speak now of the explanation which the Lenâpé gave of the subjection to which they, or some of them, were re- duced. They felt, no doubt, that it was degrading, and, as has been said, when the day of opportunity came they repudiated it. In the period, however, when it was not to be denied, they ex- plained ingeniously, and perhaps with some grains of truth, how
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it had come about. By the persuasions of the Iroquois, they said, they had consented to serve as a tribe of peace, renouncing the practice of war. The Iroquois had come to them with honeyed persuasion, and had urged upon them that the dignity of ances- torship which they held among the tribes of the Algonkian family gave them great influence, and that it would be rendering a valu- able and honorable service to the whole Indian race to allay the
Spanish Hill, Bradford County
This hill is in the shape of a sugar loaf; the top level and eleven acres in extent. Un- doubtedly it was one of the palisaded Indian towns of the Andastes; it is generally supposed to be Carantouan, mentioned by Etienne Brulé, Champlain's scout, who visited it in 1615, and this is confirmed by Champlain's map, as well as by many implements of Indian manufacture found on it. The first white settlers in the locality reported that the Indians called this hill "Hispan," but there is only faint tradition to justify the name. Rochefoucauld, a French traveler, in 1795, says the whites called the hill "Spanish Ramparts," from the remains of en- trenchments; he adds, "one perpendicular breastwork yet remains, which plainly indicates that a parapet and ditch have been constructed here." Photograph by Irving K. Park
animosities and terminate the wars which consumed their strength and actually threatened their destruction. To these persuasions. the Lenape said, they finally yielded, and consented to assume the position of a "woman nation," exercising an influence for peace in the midst of the others. At a great feast the Iroquois messen- gers appeared with belts of wampum to seal the engagement, and a solemn treaty to this effect was made, which subsequently the Iro- quois perfidiously employed to subjugate and oppress the Lenâpé.
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The kernel of truth which there may be in this story relates to the likelihood that diplomatic persuasion may have been used upon the Minsi, as well as the harsher argument of force-that the subjugation may have been accomplished by both means, em- ployed at different times. Zeisberger, the Moravian, tells us that he himself saw the belts given by the Iroquois at the time the treaty was made. Heckewelder insists upon the verity of the account. Much learned dispute has been bestowed upon the subject. But, as we have seen, it is not of great importance as a feature of the case. The Iroquois supremacy over the Minsi, whether acquired by force, as is probable, from the earlier pos- session of firearms, or by craft, as is possible, or by both, as is equally possible, was a condition existing for a comparatively brief time, and in no way proving the physical or moral feebleness of the Lenâpé.
What has been said may serve to give a fair idea of those occupants of the soil of Pennsylvania whom the white men dis- possessed. The history of their expulsion will throw further light upon them. We shall see them exhibit qualities command- ing our respect and sympathy, coupled with other qualities which shock and repel us. In the struggle for life and home they dis- played faults and virtues, weakness and strength, folly and sense. We may consider, then, that as the Seventeenth Century opened, in the years when the reign of Elizabeth was closing in England, and Shakespeare was building the structure of his fame, the red people of Pennsylvania were pursuing the simple round of their primitive life. No ships had reached their waters. No whisper had come to them of the enormous change that impended over them. Paddling their canoes upon the streams, spearing fish in the shallows, hunting bear and deer in the mountains, planting and gathering their crops in their little fields, dancing and sing- ing at their festivals, or kindling their council-fires at the places long familiar to them, no thought had entered their child-like
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minds that the end of all this was at hand-that a great company of their fellow-men, living far away, had built prodigious canoes to cross the boundless waters, and were about to descend upon them, nominally in friendship, but really with plans and purposes which must ultimately mean to them destruction and death.
TRADITION OF THE LENAPE MIGRATION.
[From Rev. John Heckewelder's "History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States." Originally published by him in 1818, under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society; republished, 1876, by the Pennsylvania His- torical Society.]
The Lenni Lenape (according to the traditions handed down to them by their ancestors) resided many hundred years ago in a very distant country in the western part of the American continent. For some reason, which I do not find accounted for, they determined on migrating to the eastward, and accordingly set out together in a body. After a very long journey, and many nights' encampments1 by the way, they at length arrived on the Namae si Sipu,2 where they fell in with the Mengwe, who had likewise emigrated from a distant country, and had struck upon this river somewhat higher up. Their object was the same with that of the Delawares; they were proceeding on to the eastward, until they should find a country that pleased them. The spies which the Lenape had sent forward for the purpose of reconnoitering, had long before their arrival discovered that the country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful nation, who had many large towns built on the great rivers flowing through their land. These people (as I was told) called themselves Talligue or Talligewi. Colonel John Gibson, however, a gentleman who has a thorough knowledge of the Indians and speaks several of their languages, is of the opinion that they were not called Talligewi, but Alligewi, and it would seem that he is right, from the traces of their name which still remain in the country, the Allegheny river and mountains having indubitably been named after them. The Delawares still call the former Alligewi Sipu, the River of the Alligewi.
Many wonderful things are told of this famous people. They are said to have been remarkably tall and stout, and there is a tradition that there were giants among them, people of a much larger size than the tallest of the Lenapé. It is related that they had built to themselves regular fortifications or entrenchments, from whence they would sally out, but were generally re- pulsed. I have seen many of the fortifications said to have been built by them.
When the Lenape arrived on the banks of the Mississippi, they sent a message to the Alligewi to request permission to settle themselves in their neighborhood. This was refused them, but they obtained leave to pass through the country and seek a settlement farther to the eastward. They
1A night's encampment signifies a half of
2The Mississippi-river of fish.
a year.
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accordingly began to cross the Namæsi Sipu, when the Alligewi, seeing that their numbers were so very great, and in fact they consisted of many thou- sands, made a furious attack on those who had crossed, threatening them all with destruction, if they dared to persist in coming over to their side of the river. Fired at the treachery of these people, and the great loss of men they had sustained, and besides, not being prepared for a conflict, the Lenâpé consulted on what was to be done; whether to retreat in the best manner they could, or try their strength, and let the enemy see that they were not cowards, but men, and too high-minded to suffer themselves to be driven off before they had made a trial of their strength, and were convinced that the enemy was too powerful for them. The Mengwe, who had hitherto been satisfied with being spectators from a distance, offered to join them, on con- dition that, after conquering the country, they should be entitled to share it with them; their proposal was accepted, and the resolution was taken by the two nations, to conquer or die.
Having thus united their forces, the Lenape and Mengwe declared war against the Alligewi, and great battles were fought, in which many warriors fell on both sides. The enemy fortified their large towns and erected forti- fications, especially on large rivers, and near lakes, where they were succes- sively attacked and sometimes stormed by the allies. An engagement took place in which hundreds fell, who were afterwards buried in holes or laid to- gether in heaps and covered over with earth. No quarter was given, so that the Alligewi, at last, finding that their destruction was inevitable if they per- sisted in their obstinacy, abandoned the country to the conquerors, and fled down the Mississippi river, from whence they never returned. The war
which was carried on with this nation lasted many years, during which the Lenapé lost a great number of their warriors, while the Mengwe would always hang back in the rear, leaving them to face the enemy. In the end,
the conquerors divided the country between themselves; the Mengwe made choice of the lands in the vicinity of the great lakes, and on their tributary streams, and the Lenape took possession of the country to the south. For a long period of time, some say many hundred years, the two nations resided peaceably in this country, and increased very fast; some of their inost enter- prising huntsmen and warriors crossed the great swamps,1 and falling on streams running to the eastward, followed them down to the great Bay River, thence into the Bay itself, which we call Chesapeak. As they pursued their travels, partly by land and partly by water, sometimes near and at other times on the great Saltwater Lake, as they call the Sea, they discovered the great River, which we call the Delaware; and thence exploring still east- ward, the Scheyichbi country, now named New Jersey, they arrived at an- other great stream, that which we call the Hudson or North River. Satisfied with what they had seen, they, (or some of them) after a long absence, re- turned to their nation and reported the discoveries they had made; they de- scribed the country they had discovered as abounding in game and various kinds of fruits; and the rivers and bays, with fish, tortoises, etc., together with abundance of water-fowl, and no enemy to be dreaded. They consid- ered the event as a fortunate one for them, and concluding this to be the country destined for them by the Great Spirit, they began to emigrate thither,
1This is taken to imply the glades of the
Alleghany mountains.
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as yet but in small bodies, so as not to be straitened for want of provisions by the way, some even laying by for a whole year; at last they settled on the four great rivers (which we call Delaware, Hudson, Susquehannah, and Potomack), making the Delaware, to which they gave the name of "Lenape- wihittuck" (the river or stream of the Lenape) the center of their possessions.
They say, however, that the whole of their nation did not reach this country ; that many remained behind in order to aid and assist that great body
Axel Oxenstiern
Swedish statesman, 1583-1654. Assisted . in founding the Swedish colony on the Delaware. Photographed especially for this work from a canvas in the Historical Society of Pennsyl- vania
of their people, which had not crossed the Namesi Sipu, but had retreated into the interior of the country on the other side, on being informed of the re- ception which those who had crossed had met with, and probably thinking that they had all been killed by the enemy.
Their nation finally became divided into three separate bodies; the larger body, which they suppose to have been one-half of the whole, was settled on the Atlantic, and the other half was again divided into two parts, one of which, the strongest as they suppose, remained beyond the Mississippi, and the remainder, where they left them, on this side of that river.
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CHAPTER II
PIONEER WHITE MEN IN PENNSYLVANIA .- 1608-1638
T WO great waterways south of Pennsylvania admit ships from Europe, and by them the white men came. Their first approach was up the Chesapeake.
At the height of summer, 1608, the Susquehannock Indians, at their "town" on the east bank of the Susquehanna river, within what we know as Lancaster county, received a message, hastily brought from below by two Indians, that strangers who had come up the great bay in a boat wished to see them. How the messen- gers described these strangers we can surmise ; doubtless they gave them the character of superhuman beings-gods worthy of wor- ship-for such the white men seemed to the Indians, when first seen.
The visitors were a boat-load, thirteen altogether, of those English colonists who had begun their troublous experiences at Jamestown, in Virginia, the year before. In command of the party was that famous figure in the history of American explora- tion and colonization, Captain John Smith, hero according to his own account of many adventures by sea and land, in the Old World and the New, occasion of interminable disputes to histor- ians, author of the earliest tolerable map of the region we are now describing. Captain Smith and his party had left Jamestown on the 24th of July, and with sail and oar, encountering some dan- gers and no small privation, including fever that disabled several, had toiled up to the head of the bay. There they encountered
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sundry Indians, including a war party of "Massawomeks," whom the Jamestown captain met warily, for he had heard of them farther down the bay, from tribes on the eastern shore, the Nan- ticokes perhaps, as a "strenuous" people, greedy of spoil, delighted to shed blood.
"In crossing the bay," Smith says, "we encountered seven or eight canowes full of Massawomeks." After delay and parley, they "presented our Captaine with venison, beares flesh, fish, bowes, arrowes, clubs, targets, and beare skinnes." They had just been at war with the Tockwoghs, near by, and in evidence showed "greene wounds," which they had received in the conflict. They parted from Smith at nightfall, promising as he understood to return in the morning, then paddled away up a river on the west side of the bay, which he called Willowby's, and which is supposed to be the Bush. In the morning they did not reappear ; Smith saw them no more.
These "Massawomeks" are supposed to have been Iroquois of New York, from the descriptions which we shall have in a mo- ment, derived from the Susquehannocks. The Tockwoghs who had given them the wounds, yet "greene," were a small tribe on a river on the east side of the Chesapeake, identified now as the Sassafras. To them Smith paid a visit, and they received him in friendship. His account says: "Many hatchets, knives, peeces of iron and brass we saw amongst them which they reported to have from the Susquehannocks, mightie people and mortall ene- mies with the Massawomeks. The Susquehannocks inhabit upon the chiefe spring of these four Branches of the bays head, two days higher than our barge could pass for rocks, yet we prevailed with the Interpreter to take with him another Interpreter to per- suade the Susquehannocks to come visit us, for their language are different."
The head of Chesapeake bay Smith found "six or seven miles in breadth. It divides itself into four branches, the best cometh [from] northwest from among the mountains, but though
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canowes may goe a day's journey or two up it we could not get two miles up it with our boats for rocks." This, of course, was the Susquehanna. It is evident that he came near to, but prob- ably not over, the line of Pennsylvania. "Having lost our grap- nell among the rocks," he adds, "we were neare two hundred myles from home and our barge about two tuns." His crew were disabled; of the six sailors four were prostrated with sickness, leaving but two to help him navigate, for the other six, he says, were "gentlemen."
On the Sassafras, enjoying the hospitality of the friendly Tockwoghs "three or four days," they waited for the return of the two messengers sent to the Susquehannocks. At the end of that time they were rewarded ; the Pennsylvanians came. Smith's story proceeds :
"Sixty of these Susquehannocks came to us, with skins, bowes, arrowes, targets, beeds, swords, & tobacco pipes for presents. Such great and well proportioned men are seldom seen, for they seemed like giants to the English, yea, and to the neighbours, yet seemed of an honest and simple disposition. They were with much adoe restrained from adoring us as gods. These are the strangest people of all these countries, both in language and attire; for their language it may well become their proportions, sounding from them as a voyce in the vault. Their attire is the skinnes of bears, and wolves, some have cossacks made of beares heads and skinnes, that a man's head goes through the skinnes neck, and the eares of the beare fastened to his shoulders, the nose and teeth hanging down his breast, another beares face split behind him, and at the end of the nose hung a paw, the half sleeves coming to the elbowes were the necks of beares, and the armes through the mouth with pawes hanging at their noses. One had the head of a wolfe hanging in a chaine for a jewell, his tobacco-pipe three quarters of a yard long, prettily carved with a bird, a deare, or some such devise at the great end, sufficient to beat out ones braines : with bowes, arrowes, and clubs, sutable to their greatnesse. Five
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of their chiefe Werowances came aboord us and crossed the bay in the barge. The picture of the greatest of them is signified in the mappe. The calfe of whose leg was three quarters of a yard about, and all the rest of his limbs so answerable to that propor- tion that he seemed the goodliest man we ever beheld. His hayre, the one side was long, the other shore close with a ridge over his crowne like a cocks combe. His arrowes were five quarters long, headed with the splinters of a white christall-like stone, in forme of a heart, an inch broad, an inch and a halfe or more long. These he wore in a woolves skinne at his backe for his quiver, his bow in the one hand and his clubbe in the other, as is described."
These Susquehannocks, Smith goes on to say, "are scarce knowne to Powhatan. They can make neare six hundred able men,"-the usual exaggeration-"and are palisadoed in their towns to defend them from the Massawomeks." The adoration of Smith already alluded to they testified "most passionately," although he rebuked them. They sang first "a most fearful song," then "with a most strange, furious action and a hellish voice began an oration." When it was at last ended, "with a great painted beares-skin they covered him : then one ready with a great chayne of white beads, weighing at least six or seven pounds, hung it about his necke; the others had 18 mantels, made of divers sorts of skinnes sewed together ; all these with many other toyes they layd at his feete, stroking their ceremonious hands about his necke for his creation to be their governor and protector, promising their aydes, victualls, or what they had to be his, if he would stay with them, to defend and revenge them of the Massawomeks."
This was impossible. "We left them at Tockwogh," says Smith, "sorrowing for our departure, yet we promised the next yeare againe to visit them. Many descriptions and discourses they made us, of Atquanachack, Massawomek, and other people, signifying they inhabit upon a great river beyond the mountaines, which we understood to be some great lake, or the river of Canada: and from the French to have their hatchets and commodities by trade."
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