By Lewis E. Thiess.
Now I am going to go a long way back to get a little meat for this talk, In the long, long ago, the tribes of American Indians seemed to be as Cain thought his followers would be toward him after he killed Abel that every man's hand would be against him. It seems that most Indians were against most other Indians. This continual tribal warfare, with its attendant slaughter, accompanied by epidemics of disease and starvation, prevented the Indians from either multiplying or progressing, as they should have done.
But in the evolution of Indian affairs one set of Indians developed greater intelligence than any of the others about them. They saw the real bearing of this continual warfare, and they created perhaps the first League of Nations for suppressing war of which we have any record. They called their association the Great Peace, and credited it to Hiawatha. The White Men, upon their arrival in America, called this association the League of the Five Nations, and later, when a new tribe was admitted, the Six Nations. These nations were the Onondagas, the Mohawks, the Cayugas, the Oneidas, the Senecas, and later the Tuscaroras.
They occupied roughly, the territory south of the Great Lakes and from the Hudson River westward in what is now New York State. Those may not be the exact boundaries of their land. It does not matter, because they soon became overlords of all that great tract of land we now term as the Middle Atlantic States. Their league of peace gave them tremendous advantage over all the other Indians. The alliance gave them - thousands of warriors, to begin with speedily subdued tribes instituted a loose sort of government over them.
But this great peace did more than make them powerful in a military way. They developed marvelously in civilization. They became the Romans of the American continent. They developed physically and mentally until they were superior both in stature to the other Indians and abled mentally. Even before the white man came they were developing some real civilization. And they added much to that civilization by copying the whites. At the time of the Revolutionary War they had goodly villages with frame houses, extensive fields and orchards that even today we would consider large. Sullivan's expedition against them in 1779 resulted in the destruction of some forty towns, some 200,000 bushels of corn and immense quantities of beans and pumpkins, and many orchards. In one orchard alone 1,500 fruit trees were destroyed by Sullivan's soldiers.
I mention these things to show how far these particular Indians had progressed. Undoubtedly they exercised more power than any other group of Indians ever possessed. Roughly, I suppose, one might say that they were the dictators in all that vast territory south of Canada and between the Mississippi and the Hudson. Just how far south their territory extended I do not know exactly but probably below the Virginias. It is not necessary that w should know exactly. The point is that this confederation of Indians was all powerful in this middle eastern section. Not only did the warriors of the confederation obey the mandates of the league, but the fighting men of all the subject tribes, such as the Delawares and the Shawnees, who lived right here in this region, the Susquhannocks, the Eries, and other Indians all had to obey these mandates. In addition, the Iroquois as the Six Nations were called, had thousands of allies in the western region around Detroit and Lake Superior, such as the Hurons, the Wyandots and other tribes. Taken collectively, the force of men that the Six Nations could control must have numbered many thousands of prime warriors.
Naturally the struggle that made this league so powerful also gave it some deadly enemies. The Algonquins, those New England tribes and the Indians of Canada, were the traditional opponents of the Iroquois. Thus, although we have many Indian bands warring among themselves, we have these two groups, the hostility of which was deadly. - On the one hand the Indians of eastern Canada and on the other the Iroquois. Between them there was the bitterest hatred and the most unrelenting warfare Such roughly, was the condition of affairs when the white men first began to colonize America. It is obvious at a glance how this situation might have affected the fortunes of those first white settlers. Had the Indian chosen to do so they could have swept every invading white man into the ocean ,and have prevented for a long time any settlement by Europeans. But toward strangers it was their inviolable rule to be hospitable; and so our forefathers were received with open arms and assisted in their infant attempts to establish themselves in this land!. It was not until the while men began treat the Indians unfairly and dishonestly that the Indians turned against them.
Of course, these early Europeans knew nothing of this situation among the Indians, and it would have not meant much to them if they had known about it. And yet it was this very situation that was a large factor, if not indeed the largest factor, in determining that this should be a English speaking, Protestant nation instead of a French speaking Catholic nation.
You will recall that from the start the sphere of French influence in America was in the extreme north and the extreme South. Quebec and New Orleans, whereas the English sphere was in that long stretch of Atlantic coast territory that lay midway. Between English and the French there existed almost as great hatred as that which existed between Iroquois and the Algonquins. Had all the Indians united with the French against the English, it is almost certain that the French would have dominated the continent.
This might easily have happened, for the French were far better mixers with the Indians than the colder, more austere Englishmen were, and they knew how to win the affections of the Indians to a degree never reached by the English. Indeed, it seems as though all conditions were right for the French to draw themselves all the eastern Indians and overcome the hated English and win the American continent for themselves. And this they probably could and would have done, had it not been for the indiscretion of one of their very greatest captains, no less a leader than' one of the early governors of Canada the redoubtable Samuel Champlain.
Not comprehending Indian politics, he thought to please those Indians immediately about him, the Algonquins by joining them in one of their wars against their traditional enemies, the Iroquois. He did so. And thereby he won the undying hatred of the Six Nations and drove them into an alliance with his own enemies, the English. Thus, unwittingly, this great captain and partisan of France laid the foundation for English success in the years of struggle for mastery that were to follow.
For, as time passed and the whites became more numerous, the struggle between French and English for supremacy became more and more bitter. Really loved by the Indians, with whom they lived as friends and equals the more adventurous French pushed further and further into the wilder ness, while the English still clung to the coast lands. In this the French were favored both by the Indians and by the topography of the country. The English were confined to the coastal plains by what seemed an impassable barrier of mountains the Appalachian system. But the French, voyaging by the St. Lawrence, the great Lakes,, and the Allegheny, the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers, found easy access to the interior of the continent and means of communication between their settlements north and south. Before the English realized it, they found themselves girt in by a line of forts along these rivers, and an army of hostile Indians whom the French had won to themselves. In a military sense, the French had the jump on the English and were in position to crush them and) gain possession of the American continent.
It was concerning this matter of supremacy that all those early colonial wars were fought between France and England. If France was to be prevented from winning the mastery, it was necessary to dislodge her soldiers from these encircling forts. You all remember what happened when Braddock tried to win Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburgh, from the French, Way laid in the forest, his army was slaughtered like sheep. He lost his own life, and only a remnant of his army ever got back to safety when he attempted to capture Fort Ticohderoga. He lost thousands of men and had to retreat, broken and baffled. You recall what happened at Fort William Henry, when Montcalm swept down from Canada with his army of French soldiers and thousands of Indians, and captured the English fort, while his savage allies massacred hundreds of the disarmed English soldiers and civilians in cold blood. These are samples of what might have occurred endlessly and resulted in the utter defeat of the English in the struggle for this continent, had it not been for one thing, the fact that the Iroquois stood between the French and the English.
With their hordes of warriors, acknowledged as the greatest fighters among the Indians, they held the balance of power, as it were. The French appreciated this full well, and tried again, and again to win them to the French cause. By trick and barter and present and1 any other means they could think of, the French sought incessantly to win the Iroquois to them, selves. Often the Iroquis wavered for they suffered innumerable injustices at the hands of the English. Yet through all the years of struggle, they remained faithful to their ancient allies, the English. And one of the great reasons for this, if indeed not the greatest reason of all, lay in the powerful personality of the most celebrated Iroquois leader that ever if a is dwelt in Buffalo Valley and Pennsylvania the celebrated chieftain Shikellamy.
I believe he is spoken of as being both an Oneida and a Cayuga. This seems odd until we remember that Indians got their tribal allegiance thru their mothers. Thus if Shikellamy were born in the Oneida tribe of a Cayuga mother, he would, as I understand it, be reckoned a Cayuga. Or if he was born of an Oneida mother in a Cayuga tribe he would be reckoned an Oneida. Or he might be adopted into the Oneida tribe. In fact he signed at least one treaty between the Indians and Penn as an Oneida. The matter is not material here. The point is that he was in every sense an Iroquois, and an Iroquois of unusual power. He was a man of great in fluence, wise judgment, keenness of mind, and commanding personality, Thus it came about that when the Iroquois ordered the Delawares, whom they had conquered, to move from the upper branches of the Delaware River to the forks of the Susquahanna and the regions contiguous thereto, they found it necessary to send some one to rule over the Delawares, who appear to have been somewhat rebelious subjects. So they chose this outstanding leader, just as we Americans select commanding personality, like General Leonard Wood to rule the Filipinos and the Iroquois sent Shikellamy to take up his residence here and have oversight over the Delawares.
For a time- in fact during most of his vice regency here Shikellamy lived at what we called Sunbury, but what the Indians knew by the name of Shamokin. You can see at once that this was a logical place of residence. The Delawares were dwelling along each branch of the Susquehanna. The branches met at Sunbury. Furthermore, these two streams were the natural highways between the Iroquois lands in New York and the region Shikellamy had been sent to watch over. But Shikellamy did not live there during the entire period of his incumbency. For a number of years he dwelt at what was for a long time known as Shikellamy's Old Town, and what is now known as Oak Grove Heights, the summer camping ground of the Evangelical Church, on the bluffs just below West Milton. Title to the 300 acre farm containing this particular bit of land was taken out of the land office in 1796 by Michael Wieland,, the great, great grandfather of Professor William C. Bartol, of Lewisburg. The farm is now owned by Mr. George P. Miller of Lewisburg. And it was here, close to where the Evangelicals now hold their summer religious meetings that this great chieftain lived and ruled and helped to decide the fate of the American continent.
Yet Shikellamy alone would probably never have been inclined to hold the Iroquois to the English, nor would he have been able to do so, had it not been for the tremendous and effective labors of a white man, whose place in history is obscure, and yet who, more than any other single white man, in all probability, deserves the credit of making this country an English-speaking, Protestant nation. That man was an ancestor of some of the people now living in Buffalo Valley. His name was Conrad Weiser.
Conrad Weiser was born in Germany in 1696. When he was thirteen years of age he came to America with his father. The Weisers were part of that large company of German immigrants who came to America supposedly under the protection of Queen Anne of England. Whatever the good queen had to do with getting here, she died not so long after their migration suffered horribly. The landed proprietors held them in a condition of semi-slavery, for they had agreed to work out their passage. They toiled endlessly, almost starved to death and endured the most distressing hardships.
The Weisers had come to work Livingston Manor, but after a years rebelled and moved into upper New York near Schenectady where promising opening seemed to present. But they did not better themselves. The winter of 1713-4 they spent with an Iroquois -chief. And here young Weiser got his first knowledge of Iroquois tongues and manners and customs. In the spring family moved to Schoharie, where they endured terrible hardships. The following winter young Conrad went to live with an Iroquois chief, and again he almost died from cold and hunger. After eight months he returned to his family. But he seems to have been a lad of high spirit and his father somewhat of a tyrant. At any rate he soon left the paternal home for good, and for teen years lived most with the Indians. So the next fifteen years lived most of the time with the Indians. So he came know their speech, their customs, their habits their psychology as very few white men ever did. Moreover, he was adopted by an Indian tribe and was regarded by the Iroquois as one of themselves.
The time when this training helped whites and Indians alike was not long in arriving. Once more tricked and betrayed in their new home in upper New York, and oppressed by the landed proprietors there, the German immigrants turned their faces southward to Pennsylvania where Governor Keith had promised them a square deal. Though it is no essential part of this story, the tale of their migration is so significant and interesting that perhaps you will pardon a momentary digression in my talk. The mass of these oppressed Germans had settled about what came to be known as the German Flats in central New York. They were spread about that region for miles. Now they determined to band together again and flee to Pennsylvania.
The moving spirit in all these struggles the Moses who headed all these flights seems to have been Conrad Weiser's father, who was a man. of great force of character. Now this Moses got the people together again. They hewed a road straight through the forest to the upper reaches of the North Branch of the Susquehanna, cutting away and dragging aside or burning all obstructing timber. And through this stump dotted highway this brave band of pioneers marched with all their worldly goods to the river, where rafts and bateaux had been constructed. And here, no doubt with prayers for safety, and many fears and misgivings, this brave company plunged into the unknown.
Down the river they floated, past the sites now occupied by that multitude of prosperous towns that dot the shores of the North Branch, past what is Sunbury, past what is now Harrisburg, and so on to the Swatara Creek, at what is now Middletown. But in those days they floated down an interminate forest. Up the Swatara they went and thence over the divide into the valley of the Tulpehocken. And there they and many of their descendants have remained to this hour
Conrad Weiser did not accompany his fellows in this hegira. He remained in New York and in 1720 married "His Anna Eve," as he always called his wife. In 1729 he followed his kinsmen to the Tulpebocken, and there he made his home until the day of his death.
His arrival in Pennsylvania was most timely. Friction between the whites and the Indians was constantly growing. Heretofore, all negotiations between the Pennsylvania authorities and the Iroquois had been conducted at Albany, through interpreters, or were ignorant of the Indian tongues and ways. The movement of the Germans into Pennsylvania brought a new cause of strife. Only the most extraordinarily competent interpreter and negotiator could settle the matter so that trouble between the Iroquois and the Pennsylvania settlers could be avoided. But that man was on hand. He was, of course, Conrad Weiser.
The cause of the difficulty was this. As conquerors of the Delawares, the Iroquois claimed ownership of the Delaware lands. But it seems not to have occurred to the Iroqouis to sell these lands to the whites. Land selling and buying was something beyond the comprehension of the Indian mind The Indians came to possess land through conquest. They retained their rights to it by force of arms. And the land so held was tribal property. Every member of the tribe shared an equal right with all other members to go where he pleased and do what he pleased on tribal land.
Individual land holding was something that the Indians did not understand. Often when they sold land to the whites ,they had no idea that they could not continue themselves to dwell in and use these lands. I take it their idea was that they were selling right to use the lands, such as they themselves had, rather than that they were selling the land itself.
At any rate, the movement of the Germans to the Tulpehocken opened the eyes of the Iroquois to the value of the Pennsylvania lands, which they claimed by right of conquest. Apparently some subject Delawares had sold the land to the Germans. The Iroquois were angry about it. They upbraided the Deawares severely for selling what did not belong to them, and sent Shikellamy down to have authority over them.
At the same time they demanded that the Pennsylvania authorities pay them, the Iroquois, for the land sold by the Delawares. Naturally the thrifty Quakers did not wish to do this. If they didn't pay, it looked as though they might start a war be tween the Iroquois and the Pennsylvanians. But a war between the Iroquois and any single English colony, whether Pennsylvania or New York, or Virginia, or any other of the thirteen; colonies meant not a war between the Iroquois and that particular colony but a war between the Iroquois and the English. And that meants that all the forces of the Iroquois and their allies would swing over to the French.
You can see how very delicate the matter was. There were thirteen colonies, each acting independently of one another, some of them with no well defined boundaries, so that the colonies themselves were almost at war about their own land. It was so between Pennsylvania and Virginia. Each claimed a big slice of land that now includes Pittsburgh. If the Indians made an agreement with the one colony, the authorities of the other colony paid no attention to this agreement claiming it was illegal.
For instance Virginia might make a treaty with the Indians agreeing that no white should settle at Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvanians, also claiming Pittsburgh would be forced to send settlers to Pittsburgh in order to make good their claim of ownership. When the Indians protested, the reply of the Pennsylvania authorities would be, "We have not done you any wrong. These Virginians had no business to make any agreement with you about Pittsburgh for they don't own it. We own it.
Such an explanation made little difference to the Indians. They did not distinguish between Virginians and Pennsylvanians. To them whites were whites. And if one white man made a bargain and another broke it, the Indians felt aggrieved.
Now this case I have just stated is purely hypothetical. There never was any such agreement by Virginia with the Indians. I merely suggest this case to show how the situation was. For like situation did exist many times. And such situations brought the whites and the Indians again and again to the verge of war. And a war meant not a war between the Iroquois and the Virginians or the Pennsylvanians, or the Marylanders, but between the Iroquois and English. And that would of course, have meant, the end of the old allegiance between the English and Iroquois and the espousal of the French cause by the Iroquois.
So you see what a wonderfully fortunate coincidence it was that at the very time trouble was brewing an able management was needed both Shikellamy and Weiser moved into Pennsylvania. Forthus there came into close relationship again the two men who were probably best fitted of all the men then living on this continent to keep the peace unbroken between Indians and whites, and to forward the work of creating an English civilization here.
In December, 1730, Shikellamy and Weiser journeyed to Philadelphia to confer with the governor. Shikellamy reported that the Irquois council were glad to hear from the Governor of Pennsylvania and would be glad to come to Philadelphia the next spring to make a treaty. In token of good will and friendship the Iroquois had sent a bundle of dressed deer skins to the Governor. Shikellamy was given ten pounds currency in return. But the French were working so hard to wean the Iroquois away from the English that no conference took place until 1732, and then chiefs from only the Oneida, Cayuga and Onondaga tribes came to Philadelphia. An agreement was entered into. This concerned the management of the Shawnees, who had removed to the Ohio River country and were fast being won by the French. The Shawnees refused to obey the Iroquois, who ordered them to go back to their old lands along the Susquehanna. An Iroquois chief was killed by the Shawnees. Whereupon the Shawnees fled in a body to Carolina. The Iroquois, pursuant to their policy would have called their warriors together and gone to Carolina to wipe out the of. fending Shawnees, and this would surely have brought war between the white Carolinans and the Iroquois, because the latter would have had to live on their land in their war, which means, that many white settlers would have lost pigs and poultry and livestock. And they would have repaid these Indian depredations by shooting the thieves. War would certainly have followed. But Weiser, acting both directly and through Shikellamy, persuaded the Iroquois to overlook the killing of the chief, giving them presents "to wipe their tears away."
The treaty of 1732 was not regarded by the Pennsylvania authorities as satisfactory, for it was participated in by only three of the Six Nations. So Weiser was directed to use his in fluence with Shikellamy and secure another meeting. The result of all the efforts put forth was that a council of one hundred Iroquois chiefs suddenly was reported en-route to Philadelphia. This greatly troubled the Pennsylvania authorities for the smallpox was then raging in that city. Weiser solved the problem by taking the Indians to the Governor's mansion at Stenton. The Indians expressed great satisfaction with Weiser's efforts to care for their health. They told the proprietors that at the treaty of 1732, the first between the Pennsylvania authorities and the Six Nations it was agreed that Conrad Weiser and Shikellamy were the proper persons "to goe between the Six Nations and this Government," and that they were to be employed hence. forth in all treaties and conferences, "Their bodies,'" said the Indians, "are to be equally divided between the sons of Onas (William) Penn and the Red Men, half to the Indian and half to the white man." Conrad Weiser, they said, was faithful and honest, a good, true man, who had spoken their words I and not his own. Indeed at this time there was scarcely an honest interpreter in the colonies. The Indians expressed their gratitude toward Weiser presenting him with "dressed skin make his shoes and two deersekins to keep him warm."READ MORE
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