Stories Of Shikellamy

Stories Of Shikellamy

Shikellamy (also, Swatane, Onkiswathetmi) (?-1748) 

Thought to be originally French, taken prisoner and adopted by the Oneida, later Oneida chief with oversight over the Six Nations in Pennsylvania and Ohio regions and who oversaw the area around the Confluence of the North and West Branches of the Susquehanna River at Shamokin .  Died 1748.

Shikellamy  White Man's Best Friend Among The Indians	When Shikellamy Lived Half A Mile Below Milton On The Union County Side	Shikellamy The Poem & Illustrations from Susquehanna Legends by Truman Purdy, 1888
Viewing Shikellamy's Profile	A Notable Indian & His Influence On History By Theiss [This is one of the best concise, understandable, histories of the time that I have read so far]	The Shamokin Diaries 1745-1755 The Moravian Mission To The Iroquois With Mentions of Shikellamy

  

Cultures At The Susquehanna Confluence

Katherine M. Faull was a professor of German and Humanities at Bucknell University when she translated and edited the diaries, most of which were written by hand in 18th-century German.  Written between 1745 and 1755, the diaries detail the religious activities of the missionaries but also depict daily life at both the mission and the town.

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Shikellamy, Neanoma (1695-1747). Cayuga nation; wife of Shikellamy, mother of James Logan, John Logan etc.

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FROM: An article about the Cultures At The Susquehanna Confluence

By the 1740s, Shamokin had become the residence of Shikellamy, the Oneida chief appointed by the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy to oversee the activities of indigenous people in the Susquehanna Valley and to represent the Haudenosaunee in dealing with Pennsylvania officials on diplomatic matters. Shikellamy also convinced officials to let a Moravian blacksmith live in Shamokin to repair the guns of native hunters and warriors.

Most residents at Shamokin lived in dwellings made of bark and brush — described in the diaries as “huts.” By the time Moravians from Bethlehem in the Lehigh Valley established a mission at Shamokin in 1745, Shikellamy was living in a log cabin. He had paid white workmen to build it in 1744. Conrad Weiser, who supervised its construction, described it as 49 feet long, 17 feet wide, “and covered with shingles.”

The people who lived in the town or passed through included members of the Conoy, Delaware, Nanticoke, Shawnee, Mohican, Tuscarora, Oneida, Seneca, and Mohawk tribes. The diaries report floods, drought, killing frosts late in the planting season and wintry weather too cold for the men to hunt. There were also outbreaks of smallpox.

The diaries show that food was often scarce at Shamokin. Native hunters sometimes gave meat to the missionaries, at other times the missionaries gave bread or corn to Indians.

Even Shikellamy’s relatives were occasionally short of food. In April 1749, for example, Logan told the missionaries “that he was thinking of going up the river … to fetch Indian corn for his family because they had nothing more to eat … We gave them some Indian corn for the journey.” Conversely, native hunters sometimes shared their kills with the Moravians. The diary entry for July 13, 1755, noted the Maqua (Mohawk) Indians “made us a present of some deer meat.”

To be certain, not every native made the missionaries feel welcome. In October 1745, a Shawnee visitor expressed displeasure at finding Moravians in Shamokin. The man “asked us what we wanted here,” Mack said. The Shawnee “told Shikellamy that we were like pigeons, where one of us settled, then a whole flock soon came and settled together. Shikellamy was quiet and did not answer him ...”

The French and Indian War brought the Shamokin mission to an abrupt end. On Oct. 25, 1755, Marcus Kiefer, the last of the Moravians, fled, accompanied part of the way by a Conoy friend. As they hurried, Kiefer met John Shikellamy, one of the old chief’s sons, who took him across a hundred miles of suddenly dangerous forests — all the way to Bethlehem and safety.

Just before leaving, Kiefer hurriedly buried the blacksmith tools, thinking the Moravians would retrieve them when they returned. But the missionaries never returned, and archaeologists unearthed their implements two centuries later. “The tools that the blacksmith buried at the end of the book are actually on display in the Hunter House museum,” said Dr. Faull.