tive and separate organizations were dwelling here in peace when the white man appeared among them. The Englishman claiming title under a charter from a distant king, strengthened by a treaty with the Iroquois. The Frenchman resting upon the first discovery. (That of LaSalle.)

It is useless now to inquire which had the better or worse title. Certainly it was easy enough for either claimant to find sufficient flaws in his adversary's title to excuse his resistance to it; especially in a case where only a plausible pretext was needed.

France then held extensive possessions in North America, Canada and Louisiana, belonging to her, and she was anxious to strengthen herself and circumscribe her adversary, by establishing a line of posts from her northern to her southern colony. The point at the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, at once became a commanding position in this great scheme.20

In 1749 Captain Celoron came, deposited his leaden plates, only not claiming the country, but taking renewed possession of the River Ohio, "and of all those which fall into it and of all the territories on both sides as far as the source of said rivers as the preceding kings of France have possessed or should possess them." The story could not be better told. From this act of Celoron's began the stirring history of all the region about the Forks of the Ohio, and to quote a writer of our own times, the Rev. Dr. George P. Donehoo of Coudersport, now secretary of the Historical Commission of Pennsylvania:

Historic development works out along strange lines. Had there been no migration of the Delawares and Shawanese to the Ohio, there would have been no rivalry between the French and the English traders-no French and Indian war. Had there been no French and Indian war, there would have been no tax on tea. Had there been no tax on tea there would have been no American revolution and no United States.

Consequently, when the first hardy pioneers commenced to build their cabins on the banks of the Conodoguinet Creek (at Carlisle) they were commencing the erection of the greatest empire the world has yet known.

There are no trivial events in history. The migration of a red, feather-crested warrior with his squaw and pappoose from the waters of the Susquehanna was a trivial event in itself. But it meant the closing of one period of human history, and the dawning of a new era for a great continent.

It meant the final destruction of the forest and the wild, free life of the mountains and valleys, and the beginning of the Empire of Cities, threaded by its network of steel highways.

The long silence of centuries which had brooded over the sweeping forest was to be broken by the sound of the woodsman's ax, as he cut down the trees to build his home, and later on the Indian trail was to become a trail of steel over which a nation would send its wealth to the uttermost parts of the earth.

The rhetoric here is both beautiful and appealing. We admit its truth.

This brings us to the consideration of other phases of the subject. History is not built up on hypotheses. The red feathered-crested warriors did come, and prone as we are to speculate, history must in its very definition-a record of past events-human events-pass by the fanciful and the might have been. Too often has the fate of nations hung upon a thread and oftentimes the thread has broken.

20"History of Pittsburgh," Neville B. Craig; new edition with an Introduction and Notes by George T. Fleming; 1917; pp. 3-6.

CHAPTER VII.

Indians in Petticoats.

"Disgraced Indians," our chapter head could have read. It will already have beeen noted how much the word petticoat has been used in Pennsylvania Indian history as a term of disgrace and as an emblem of subserviency. Whenever the Iroquois spoke of the Delawares they mentioned the bondage of that nation and invariably the taunt, "we conquered you," followed. The metamorphosis story is altogether a Delaware myth. While the petticoat as apparel was not actually worn-it might as well have been. The term is used only figuratively, but frequently. Hanna heads one chapter in his voluminous work, "The Petticoat Indians of Petticoat Land." Alliterative and fanciful, this does very well to call attention to the vassalage of the Pennsylvania Indians which province we may take as the Petticoat Land. The fact that the ascendancy of the Iroquois was acknowledged by the Pennsylvania authorities can be found in the early archives of the province. Thus that veteran soldier and octogenarian, Governor Patrick Gordon, in his instructions to Henry Smith and John Petty, September 1, 1728, wrote:

Tell Shakallamy particularly he is set over the Shawannah Indians. I hope he can give a good account of them. They came to us only as strangers about thirty years ago, they desired leave of this government to settle amongst us as strangers, and the Conestoga Indians became security for their good behaviour. They are also under the protection of the Five Nations, who have set Shakallamy over them. He is a good man and I hope will give a good account of them.1

Shikellimy was a white man, born of French parents in Montreal, but having been captured by the Iroquois in early childhood, was adopted by the Oneidas and grew up and could not be told from an Indian. He was a man of fine abilities and justly celebrated in the Indian history of Pennsylvania. There is evidence that Shikellimy was set over the Delawares also as vice-regent, overlord or deputy of the Six Nations. On this sachem's monument at Sunbury, Pennsylvania, his name is carved “Shikellamy." He was the father of Logan, of speech fame.

The story of the Lenape having been conquered by strategem rather than arms, as told by the Lenape themselves, finds a ready belief in Heckewelder and is accepted in good faith by Bishop Loskiel, also a Moravian historian. But these men were missionaries among the Delawares, and Heckewelder, for many years among them, as already remarked, looks at everything through Delaware eyes. Parkman ("Conspiracy of Pontiac," Chap. I) dismisses the story as absurd, that "a people so acute and suspicious, could be the dupes of so palpable a

1"Penna. Archives;" First Series, Vol. I, p. 228, quoted by Chas. A. Hanna. "Wilderness Trail," Vol. I, p. 149

trick, and it is equally incredible that a high-spirited tribe could be induced by the most persuasive rhetoric to assume the name of women, which in Indian eyes is the last confession of abject abasement."

Truly so for the woman was the Indian worker, never a warrior, though oft a mediator. In the words of Schoolcraft:

There was a reserved power in the Iroquois councils which deserves to be mentioned. I allude to the power of the matrons. This was an acknowledged power of a conservative character which might at all times be brought into requisition, whenever policy required it, and it exists today (1846), as incontestibly as it did centuries ago. They were entrusted with the power to propose a cessation of arms. They were literally peacemakers. A proposition from the matrons to drop the war-club could be made without compromising the character of the tribe for bravery, and accordingly, we find in the ancient organization there was a male functionary, an acknowledged speaker, who was called the representative, or messenger, of the matrons. These matrons sat in council, but it must needs have been seldom that a female possessed the kind of eloquence suited to public assemblies, and beyond this there was a sentiment of respect due the female class which led the tribes, at their general elections, to create this office.2

The Delaware's version is best presented, with comments by Zeisberger's biographer, Bishop De Schweinitz, who says:

After the Dutch had settled New York and the French Canada, the Iroquois became the friends of the former and the enemies of the latter. Against these they often warred. The Iroquois finding the contest with the Lenape too great for them because they had to cope on the one hand with European arms and on the other with native prowess, excogitated a master stroke of intrigue. They sent an embassy to the Lenape with a message in substance as follows: That it is not well for the Indians to be fighting among themselves at a time when the whites in ever larger numbers were pressing into their country, that the original possessors of the soil must be preserved from total extirpation; that the only way to effect this was a voluntary assuming on the part of some magnanimous nation the position of "women" or umpire; that a weak people in such a position would have no influence, but a powerful one like the Lenape, celebrated for its bravery, and above all suspicion of pusillanimity, might properly take the step; that, therefore, the Iroquois (Aquanoschioni) besought them to lay aside their arms, devote themselves to pacific employments and act as mediators among the tribes, thus putting a stop forever to the fratricidal wars of the Indians. To this proposition the Lenape cheerfully and trustfully assented, for they believed it to be dictated by exalted patriotism and to constitute the language of genuine sincerity. They were, moreover, themselves very anxious to preserve the Indian race. At a great feast prepared for the representatives of the two nations, and amid many ceremonies, they were accordingly made women and a broad belt of peace was entrusted to their keeping.

The Dutch, the tradition continues, were present and had instigated the plot. That it was a plot to break the strength of the Delawares soon became evident. They woke up from their magnanimous dream to find themselves in the power of the Iroquois. From that time they were "cousins" of the Iroquois and these their "uncles.”

This tradition is as ingenious and unique as it is fabulous and absurd. It was devised by the Delawares to conceal the fact that they had been conquered, and yet history recognizes and will ever know them as the vassals of the Iroquois, who exercised authority over them, stationed an agent in their country and would not permit their lands to be alienated without the consent of the Confederate Council. The story of the Delawares contradicts itself. Suspicious as Indians are to this day, this nation could not have been so completely duped; and brave as it was, it would never have submitted to such a degradation. The whole character of the Aborigines renders the

2Louis H. Morgan (Skenandoah) can be quoted to the same effect. See "Notes on the Iroquois;" H. R. Schoolcraft, p. 84.

thing impossible. In the figurative language of the natives, the Delawares unquestionably were "women," but they had been reduced to this state by force of arms.

At a council held near Philadelphia in May, 1712, by Governor Gookin of Pennsylvania, the chief speaker of the Delawares declared that many years before they had been made tributaries to the Mingoes, or Five Nations.3

Nevertheless, Charles A. Hanna thinks the date of the submission of the Delawares about March 13, 1677, so that Craig's date may be a typographical error or one in transcribing. Most historians agree that it was prior to the coming of William Penn, but not so early as Craig's date, 1617. Craig has practically the same story in brief both in his "History of Pittsburgh" and in the "Olden Time." He is clearly in error, for this date cannot be substantiated.

The most plausible date fixed for the complete subjugation of the Delawares is 1727, when Shikellimy took charge at Shamokin. There can be no doubt that Cannassatego knew his ground in 1742, and that as late as 1755 the Delawares acknowledged Iroquois supremacy, for in December of that year the Delawares at Tioga, the few left in that region, answered a message from Sir William Johnson stating they did not know the cause of some recent hostilities against Pennsylvania settlers. In plain words they said: "It is true, Brother, as you say; we are not at our own command, but under the direction of the Six Nations. We are women; Our Uncle must say what we must do; he has the hatchet, and we must do as he says; we are poor women and have got out of temper." Johnson, who was His Majesty's superintendent of Indian affairs in North America, sympathized with the Delawares, and it will be shown how he took away from them the invidious name of women.

The date 1727 is to be given credence only from records made of the Indian affairs in Pennsylvania. In 1732 some Shawanese chiefs on the Allegheny sent a message to Governor Gordon in which they stated that some five years before, the Six Nations had told the Delawares and themselves, that, "Since you have not hearkened to us nor regarded what we have said, now we will put petticoats on you and look upon you as women in the future, and not as men. Thence you Shawanese look back towards the Ohioh, the place from whence you came, and return thitherward, etc."5

The Iroquois always maintained that they had conquered the Delawares and Shawanese. In the Lancaster Conference of 1757 this was forcibly enunciated, and at the conferences at Easton about the same.

3"Colonial Records;" Vol. II, p. 546.

4"History Pittsburgh;" Orig. Edition, p. 16; Edition 1917, edited by Geo. T. Fleming, p. 2; O. T., Vol. I, p. 2. He got it from Heckewelder; see the latter's "Narrative of Missions," p. 139.

5"Penna. Archives;" First Series, Vol. I, p. 329.

time, to which subsequent reference will be had. All historians of the Indians tell of the conquest of the Delawares and Shawanese, rightly judging the facts from their submissive condition. The metamorphosis story is surely curious and can now awaken only a broad smile. It is unbelievable.

To quote further authority: "In the rise of the Iroquois power," says Schoolcraft, "the Delawares lost their independence and appear to have been placed under a ban. We have no date for these mutations. They were most kindly treated by William Penn in 1682." We hear of no Iroquois protests to their selling their land at that era. In mentioning the celebrated speech of Cannasatego in 1742, Schoolcraft says that orator upbraided them, speaking in a strain of mixed irony and arrogance, and told them not to reply to his words, but to leave the council in silence. "Whatever may have been the state of submission in which the Delawares felt themselves to be to the confederate power of the Iroquois, it does not appear that the right to control them had been publicly exercised prior to this time. It was, however, with this proud nation, but a word and a blow. They accordingly quitted forever the banks of their native Delaware, the scene of many memories and the resting place of the bones of their ancestors, and turned their faces toward the west."

The Iroquois coil was drawn tight around the Delawares at times. An example is furnished in the minutes of the treaty at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in June and July, 1744. The list of the attending chiefs and warriors was made out by Conrad Weiser, whose notes read in part: "The Delawares were forbid to come by the chiefs of the Six Nations; Shawanos, a chief and eight more of his countrymen; Nanticokes, ten; Conoys, eight; Saponys, late of Virginia, now settled at Shamokin, nine men;" and again this note: "All Six Nations' representatives and Conestogas that speaks the Onayuts language."

This conference is celebrated for the treaty of Lancaster, and was attended by Governor Thomas of Pennsylvania, and deputies from Maryland and Virginia and from the Six Nations. Its proceedings are reported in full in the Colonial Records (Vol. IV, p. 698 et seq.), but Weiser's roster is not included there. Cannasatego was present and chief

spokesman.

Schoolcraft attests that the Iroquois policy favored the English. Speaking of the ravishment of the borders after Braddock's defeat, he says, ("Indian Nations," Vol. VI, p. 219):

Foremost on these forays were the Delawares under Shingiss, whose ire appeared to have received an additional stimulus from the recent triumph of the Gallic-Indian forces. The Delawares had long felt the wrong which they had suffered in being driven from the banks of the Delaware and the Susquehanna, although it was primarily owing

6"Penna. Archives;" First Series, Vol. I, p. 657.