History, Manners & Customs of Indian Nations (Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States). John Heckewelder
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By this time, the Delawares were sensible of the imposition which had been practised upon them. They saw that a plan had been organised for their destruction, and that not only their independence, but their very existence, was at stake; they therefore took measures to defend themselves, by abandoning the system of neutrality into which they had been insidiously drawn.
It was not without difficulty that I obtained from them these interesting details, for they felt ashamed of their own conduct; they were afraid of being charged with cowardice, or at least with want of forethought, in having acted as they did, and not having discovered their error until it was too late.
And yet, in my opinion, those fears were entirely groundless, and there appears nothing in their whole conduct disparaging to the courage and high sense of honour of that brave nation. Let us for a moment place ourselves in the situation of the Delawares, Mohicans, and the other tribes connected with them, at the time when the Europeans first landed on New York Island. They were then in the height of their glory, pursuing their successes against the Iroquois, with whom they had long been at war. They were in possession of the whole country, from the sea coast to the Mississippi, from the River St. Lawrence to the frontier of Carolina, while the habitations of their enemies did not extend far beyond the great Lakes. In this situation, they are on a sudden checked in their career, by a phenomenon they had till then never beheld; immense canoes arriving at their shores, filled with people of a different colour, language, dress, and manners, from themselves! In their astonishment they call out to one another: “Behold! the Gods are come to visit us!”16 They at first considered these astonishing beings, as messengers of peace, sent from the abode of the Great Spirit, and therefore, employed their time in preparing and making sacrifices to that Great Being who had so highly honoured them. Lost in amazement, fond of the enjoyment of this new spectacle, and anxious to know the result, they were unmindful of those matters which hitherto had taken up their minds, and had been the object of their pursuits; they thought of nothing else but the wonders which now struck their eyes, and their sharpest wits were constantly employed in endeavouring to divine this great mystery! Such is the manner in which they relate that event, the strong impression of which is not yet obliterated from their minds.
It was the Delawares who first received and welcomed these new guests on New York Island; the Mohicans who inhabited the whole of the North River above, on its eastern side, were sent for to participate in the joy which was felt on being honoured by such visitants. Their tradition of this event is clear and explicit. None of the enemy, say they, (meaning the Five Nations17) were present.
It may possibly be asked, how the Dutch could favour the Five Nations so much, when none of them were present at the meetings which took place on their arrival in America? how they came to abandon their first friends, and take part against them with strangers? and how the Dutch became acquainted with those strangers? I shall simply, in answer, give the traditional accounts of the Mohicans in their own words: “The Dutch Traders (say they) penetrating into our country, high up the Mohicanichtuck (the Hudson River), fell in with some of the Mingo warriors, who told them that they were warring against the very people, (the Delawares and Mohicans) who had so kindly received them; they easily foresaw, that they could not carry on their trade with their old friends, while this was the case; neither would the Mingoes suffer them to trade with their enemies, unless they (the Dutch) assisted them in bringing about a peace between them. They also made these traders sensible, that they at that time, were at war with a people of the same colour with theirs (meaning the French), who had, by means of a very large river which lay to the North, come into the country; that they (the Mengwe) were the greatest and most powerful of all the Indian nations; that if the people they belonged to, were friends to their enemies, and sided with them in their wars, they would turn their whole force against them; but if, on the other hand, the Dutch would join them in effecting a peace with them, so that their hatchet should be buried forever, they would support and protect them in all their undertakings;18 that these traders being frightened, had returned home, and having stated the matter to their chief (the Dutch Governor), a vessel soon after went high up the river to an appointed place, where meeting with the Maqua (Five Nations), a conference was held, at which the Dutch promised them, that they would use their best endeavours to persuade their enemies to give up the hatchet to be buried, which, some time afterwards, actually took place.”
These are (as they say) the circumstances which led to the league which was afterwards established between the white people and the Five Nations, which was the cause of much dissatisfaction, injustice, and bloodshed, and which would not have taken place, if the rights and privileges of the different nations and tribes had been respected, and each left to act for itself, especially in selling their lands to the Europeans.
Having seen how the Five, afterwards Six Nations, rose to power, we have next to state by what means they lost the ascendancy which they had thus acquired.
The withdrawing of the principal part of the Delawares, and the Shawanos, from the Atlantic coast, between the years 1740 and 1760, afforded them an opportunity of consulting with the western tribes, on the manner of taking revenge on the Iroquois for the many provocations, wrongs and insults they had received from them; when ten nations immediately entered into an alliance for that purpose, the French having promised to assist them.19 In the year 1756, they agreed to move on in detached bodies, as though they meant to attack the English, with whom they and the French were then at war, and then turn suddenly on the Six Nations and make a bold stroke. Though, for various reasons, their designs could not at that time be carried into effect, yet they did not lose sight of the object, waiting only for a proper opportunity.
It would, however, have been next to impossible, under existing circumstances, and while the Six Nations were supported by such a powerful ally as the English, for the Delawares and their allies, to subdue, or even effectually to chastise them. These Nations, however, at the commencement of a war between the English nation and the Colonies, were become so far independent, that such of them as lived remote from the British stations or garrisons, or were not immediately under their eye, were at full liberty to side with whom they pleased; and though the Six Nations attempted to dictate to the Western Delawares, what side they should take, their spirited chief, Captain White Eyes, did not hesitate to reply, in the name of his nation: “that he should do as he pleased; that he wore no petticoats, as they falsely pretended; he was no woman, but a man, and they should find him to act as such.” That this brave chief was in earnest, was soon after verified, by a party of Delawares joining the American army.
In 1781, when almost all the Indian nations were in the British interest, except a part of the Delawares, among whom were the Christian Indians between 2 and 300 souls in number,20 the British Indian agent at Detroit applied to the great council of the Six Nations at Niagara, to remove those Christian Indians out of the country: the Iroquois upon this sent a war message to the Chippeways and Ottawas,21 to this effect: “We herewith make you a present of the Christian Indians, to make soup of;22” which in the war language of the Indians, is saying: “We deliver these people to you to be murdered!” These brave Indians sent the message immediately back again with the reply: “We have no cause for doing this!”
The same message being next sent to the Wyandots, they likewise disobeyed their orders, and did not make the least attempt to murder those innocent people. The Iroquois, therefore, were completely at a loss how to think and act, seeing that their orders were every where disregarded.
At the conclusion of the revolutionary war, they had the mortification to see, that the trade which they had hitherto carried on, and to them was so agreeable and profitable, that of selling to the English the land of other nations, to which they had no possible claim, was at once and forever put an end to by the liberal line of conduct which the American Government adopted with the Indian Nations, leaving each at liberty to sell its own lands, reserving, only to themselves the right of purchase, to the exclusion of foreigners of every description.
In addition to this, the bond of connexion which subsisted between these Six Nations, if it was not entirely broken, yet was much obstructed, by a separation which took place at the close of that war, when a part, and the most active body of them, retired into Canada. No nation then any more regarded their commands, nor even their advice, when it did not accord with their will and inclination; all which became