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Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians

by Elias Johnson · English · Gutenberg #7978 · 455,332 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians

Author: Elias Johnson


        
Release date: April 1, 2005 [eBook #7978]
                Most recently updated: December 31, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7978


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LEGENDS, TRADITIONS, AND LAWS OF THE

IROQUOIS, OR SIX NATIONS

AND

HISTORY OF THE TUSCARORA INDIANS

BY

ELIAS JOHNSON,

A NATIVE TUSCARORA CHIEF.







INTRODUCTION.

"A book about Indians!"--who cares anything about them?

This will probably be the exclamation of many who glance on my little
page. To those who know nothing concerning them, a whole book about
Indians will seem a very prosy affair, to whom I can answer nothing, for
they will not proceed as far as my Preface to see what reasons I can
render for the seeming folly.

But to those who are willing to listen, I can say that the Indians are a
very interesting people, whether I have made an interesting book about
them or not.

The Antiquarian, the Historian, and the Scholar, have been a long time
studying Indian character, and have given plenty of information
concerning the Indian, but it is all in ponderous volumes for State and
College libraries, and quite inaccessible to the multitude--those who
only take up such book as may be held in the hand, sitting by the
fire,--still remain very ignorant of the Children of Nature who inhabited
the forests before the Saxon set his foot upon our shores.

There is also a great deal of prejudice, the consequence of this
ignorance, and the consequence of the representations of your forefathers
who were brought into contact with the Indians, under circumstances that
made it impossible to judge impartially and correctly.

The Histories which are in the schools, and from which the first
impressions are obtained, are still very deficient in what they relate of
Indian History, and most of them are still filling the minds of children
and youth, with imperfect ideas. I have read many of the Histories, and
have longed to see refuted the slanders, and blot out the dark pictures
which the historians have wont to spread abroad concerning us. May I live
to see the day when it may be done, for most deeply have I learned to
blush for my people.

I thought, at first, of only giving a series of Indian Biographies, but
without some knowledge of the government and religion of the Iroquois,
the character of the Indians could not be understood or appreciated.

I enter upon the task with much distrust. It is a difficult task at all
times to speak and to write in foreign language, and I fear I shall not
succeed to the satisfaction of myself, or to my readers.

My title will not be so attractive to the American ears, as if it related
to any other unknown people. A tour in Arabia, or Spain, or in India, or
some other foreign country, with far less important and interesting
material, would secure a greater number of readers, as we are always more
curious about things afar off.

I might have covered many pages with "Indian Atrocities," but these have
been detailed in other histories, till they are familiar to every ear,
and I had neither room nor inclination for even a glance at war and its
dark records.

THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE.

To animate a kinder feeling between the white people and the Indians,
established by a truer knowledge of our civil and domestic life, and of
our capabilities for future elevation, is the motive for which this work
is founded.

The present Tuscarora Indians, the once powerful and gifted nation, after
their expulsion from the South, came North, and were initiated in the
confederacy of the Iroquois, and who formerly held under their
jurisdiction the largest portion of the Eastern States, now dwell within
your bounds, as dependent nations, subject to the guardianship and
supervision of a people who displaced their forefathers. Our numbers, the
circumstances of our past history and present condition, and more
especially the relation in which we stand to the people of the State,
suggest many important questions concerning our future destiny.

Being born to an inauspicious fate, which makes us the _inheritors of
many wrongs_, we have been unable, of ourselves, to escape from the
complicated difficulties which accelerate our decline. To make worse
these adverse influences, the public estimation of the Indian, resting,
as it does, upon the imperfect knowledge of their character, and infused,
as it ever has been, with the prejudice, is universally unjust.

The time has come in which it is no more than right to cast away all
ancient antipathies, all inherited opinions, and to take a nearer view of
our social life, condition and wants, and to learn anew your duty
concerning the Indians. Nevertheless, the embarrassments that have
obstructed our progress, in the obscurity which we have lived, and the
prevailing indifference to our welfare, we have gradually overcame many
of the evils inherent in our social system, and raised ourselves to a
degree of prosperity. Our present condition, if considered in connection
with the ordeal through which we have passed, shows that there is the
presence of an element in our character which must eventually lead to
important results.

As I do not profess that this work is based upon authorities, a question
might arise in the breast of some reader, where these materials were
derived, or what reliance is to be placed upon its contents. The
credibility of a witness is known to depend chiefly upon his means of
knowledge. For this reason, I deem it important to state, that I was born
and brought up by Tuscarora Indian parents on their Reservation in the
Town of Lewiston, N.Y. From my childhood up was naturally inquisitive and
delighted in thrilling stories, which led me to frequent the old people
of my childhood's days, and solicited them to relate the old Legends and
their Traditions, which they always delighted to do. I have sat by their
fireside and heard them, and thus they were instilled upon my young mind.
I also owe much of my information to our Chief, JOHN MT. PLEASANT. I have
also read much of Indian history, and compared them with our LEGENDS and
TRADITIONS.

THE AUTHOR.




THE IROQUOIS.


NATIONAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER.

In all the early histories of the American Colonies, in the stories of
Indian life and the delineations of Indian character, these children of
nature are represented as savages and barbarians, and in the mind of a
large portion of the community the sentiment still prevails that they
were blood-thirsty, revengeful, and merciless, justly a terror to both
friends and foes. Children are impressed with the idea that an Indian is
scarcely human, and as much to be feared as the most ferocious animal of
the forest.

Novelists have now and then clothed a few with a garb which excites your
imagination, but seldom has one been invested with qualities which you
would love, unless it were also said that through some captive taken in
distant war, he inherited a whiter skin and a paler blood.

But I am inclined to think that Indians are not alone in being
savage--not alone barbarous, heartless, and merciless.

It is said they were exterminating each other by aggressive and
devastating wars, before the white people came among them. But wars,
aggressive and exterminating wars, certainly, are not proofs of
barbarity. The bravest warrior was the most honored, and this has been
ever true of Christian nations, and those who call themselves christians
have not yet ceased to look upon him who could plan most successfully the
wholesale slaughter of human beings, as the most deserving his king's or
his country's laurels. How long since the pean died away in praise of the
Duke of Wellington? What have been the wars in which all Europe, or of
America, has been engaged, That there has been no records of her history?
For what are civilized and christian nations drenching their fields with
blood?

It is said the Indian was cruel to the captives, and inflicted
unspeakable torture upon his enemy taken in battle. But from what we know
of them, it is not to be inferred that Indian Chiefs were ever guilty of
filling dungeons with innocent victims, or slaughtering hundreds and
thousands of their own people, whose only sin was a quiet dissent from
some religious dogma. Towards their enemies they were often relentless,
and they had good reason to look upon the white man as their enemy. They
slew them in battle, plotted against them secretly, and in a few
instances comparatively, subjected individuals to torture, burned them at
the stake, and, perhaps, flayed them alive. But who knows anything of the
precepts and practices of the Roman Catholic Christendom, and quote these
things as proofs of unmitigated barbarity.

At the very time that the Indians were using the tomahawk and scalping-
knife to avenge their wrongs, peaceful citizens in every country of
Europe, where the Pope was the man of authority, were incarcerated for no
crime whatever, and such refinement of torture invented and practiced, as
never entered in the heart of the fiercest Indian warrior that roamed the
wilderness to inflict upon man or beast.

We know very little of the secrets of the inquisition, and this little
chills our blood with horror. Yet these things were done in the name of
Christ, the Savior of the World, the Prince of Peace, and not savage, but
civilized. Christian men looked on, not coldly, but rejoicingly, while
women and children writhed in flames and weltered in blood. Were the
atrocities committed in the vale of Wyoming and Cherry Valley
unprecedented among the Waldensian fastnesses and the mountains of
Aurvergne? Who has read Fox's book of Martyrs, and found anything to
parallel it in all the records of Indian warfare? The slaughter of St.
Bartholomew's days, the destruction of the Jews in Spain, and the Scotch
Covenanters, were in obedience to the mandates of Christian princes,--
aye, and some of them devised by Christian women who professed to be
serving God, and to make the Bible the man of their counsel.

It is said also that the Indians were treacherous, and more, no
compliance with the conditions of any treaty, was ever to be trusted. But
the Puritan fathers cannot be wholly exonerated from the charge of
faithlessness; and who does not blush to talk of Indian traitors when he
remembers the Spanish invasion and the fall of the princely and
magnanimous Montezuma?

Indians believed in witches, and burned them, too. And did not the
sainted Baxter, with the Bible in his hand, pronounce it right, and was
not the Indian permitted to be present, when the quiet unoffending woman
was cast into the fire, by the decree of a Puritan council?

To come down to the more decidedly Christian times, it is not so very
long since, in Protestant England, hanging was the punishment of a petty
thief, long and hopeless imprisonment of a slight misdemeanor, when men
were set up to be stoned and spit upon by those who claimed the exclusive
right to be called humane and merciful.

Again, it is said, the Indian mode of warfare is, without exception, the
most inhuman and revolting. But I do not know that those who die by the
barbed and poisoned arrow linger in any more unendurable torment than
those who are mangled with powder and lead balls, and the custom of
scalping among Christian murderers would save thousands from groaning
days, and perhaps weeks, among heaps that cover victorious fields and
fill hospitals with the wounded and dying. But scalping is not an
invention exclusively Indian. "It claims," says Prescott, "high
authority, or, at least, antiquity." And, further history, Herodotus,
gives an account of it among the Scythians, showing that they performed
the operation, and wore the scalp of their enemies taken in battle, as
trophies, in the same manner as the North American Indian. Traces of the
custom are also found in the laws of the Visigaths, among the Franks, and
even the Anglo Saxons. The Northern Indians did not scalp, but they had a
system of slavery, of which there are no traces to be found among the
customs, laws, or legends of the Iroquois.

Again, it is said, "They carried away women and children captive, and in
their long journey through the wilderness, they were subjected to
heartrending trials."

The wars of Christian men throw hundreds and thousands of women and
children helpless upon the cold world, to toil, to beg, and to starve.

This is not so bright a picture as is usually given of people who have
written laws and have stores of learning, but people cannot see in any
place that the coloring is too dark! There is no danger of painting
Indians so they will become attractive to the civilized people.

There is a bright and pleasing side to the Indian character, and thinking
that there has been enough written of their wars and cruelties, of the
hunter's and fisherman's life, I have sat down at their fireside,
listened to their legends, and am acquainted with their domestic habits,
understand their finer feelings and the truly noble traits of their
character.

It is so long now since they were the lords of this country, and
formidable as your enemies, and they are so utterly wasted away and
melted like snow under the meridian sun, and helpless, that you can sit
down and afford to listen to the truth, and to believe that even your
enemies had their virtues. Man was created in the image of God, and it
cannot be that anything human is utterly vile and contemptible.

Those who have thought of Indians as roaming about in the forests hunting
and fishing, or at war, will laugh, perhaps, at the idea of Indian homes,
and domestic happiness. Yet there are no people of which we have any
knowledge, among whom, in their primitive state, family ties and
relationship were more distinctly defined, or more religiously respected
than the Iroquois.

The treatment which they received from the white people, whom they always
considered as intruders, aroused, and kept in exercise all their
ferocious passions, so that none except those who associated with them as
missionaries, or as captives, saw them in their true character, as they
were to each other.

Almost any portrait that we see of an Indian, he is represented with
tomahawk and scalping knife in hand, as if they possessed no other but a
barbarous nature. Christian nations might with equal justice be always
represented with cannon and balls, swords and pistols, as the emblems of
their employment and their prevailing tastes.

The details of war are from far to great a portion of every History of
civilized and barbarous nations, to conquer and to slay has been to long
the glory of the christian people; he who has been most successful in
subjugating and oppressing, in mowing down human beings, has too long
wore the laural crown, been too long an object for the admiration of men
and the love of women.

It seems you might be weary of the pomp and circumstance of war, of
princely banquets, and gay cavalcades. The time and space you bestow upon
King and courts, and the homage you pay to empty titles, are unworthy
your professed republican spirit and preferences, let us turn aside from
the war path, and sit down by the hearth-stone of peace.

In the picture which I have given, I have confined myself principally to
the Iroquois, or Six Nations, a people who no more deserve the term
savage, than the whites do that of heathen, because they have still
lingering among them heathen superstitions, and many opinions and
practices which deserves no better name.

The cannibals of some of the west Indies Islands, and the Islands of the
Pacific, may with justice be termed savage, but a people like the
Iroquois who had a goverment, established offices, a system of religion
eminently pure and Spiritual, a code of honor and laws of hospitality,
excelling those of all other nations, should be considered something
better than savage, or utterly barbarous.

The terrible torture they inflicted upon their enemies, have made their
name a terror, and yet there were not so many burnt, hung, and starved by
them, as perished among Christian nations by these means. The miseries
they inflicted were light, in comparison, with those they suffered. If
individuals should have come among you to expose the barbarities of
savage white men, the deeds they relate would quite equal anything known
of Indian cruelty. The picture an Indian gives of civilized barbarism
leaves the revolting custom of the wilderness quite in the back-ground.
You experienced their revenge when you had put their souls and bodies at
a stake, with your fire-water that maddened their brains. There was a
pure and beautiful spirituality in their faith, and their conduct was
much more influenced by it, as are any people, Christian or Pagan.

Is there anything more barbaric in the annals of Indian warfare, than the
narrative of the Pequod Indians? In one place we read of the surprise of
an Indian fort by night, when the inmates were slumbering, unconscious of
any danger. When they awoke they were wrapped in flames, and when they
Attempted to flee, were shot down like beasts. From village to village,
from wigwam to wigwam, the murderers proceeded, "being resolved," as your
historian piously remarks, "by God's assistance, to make a final
destruction of them," until finally a small but gallant band took refuge
in a swamp. Burning with indignation, and made sullen by dispair, with
hearts bursting with grief at the destruction of their nation, and
spirits galled and sore at the fancied ignominy of their defeat, they
refused to ask life at the hands of an insulting foe, and preferred death
to submission. As the night drew on, they were surrounded in their dismal
retreat, volleys of musketry poured into their midst, until nearly all
were killed or buried in the mire. In the darkness of a thick fog which
preceded the dawn of day, a few broke through the ranks of the beseigers
and escaped to the woods.

Again, the same historian tells us that the few that remained, "stood
like sullen dogs to be killed rather than to implore mercy, and the
soldiers on entering the swamp, found many sitting together in groups,
when they approached, and resting their guns on the boughs of trees,
within a few yards of them, literally filled their bodies with bullets."
But they were Indians, and it was pronounnced a pious work. But when the
Gauls invaded Italy, and the Roman Senators, in their purple robes and
chairs of State, sat unmoved in the presence of barbarian conquerors,
disdaining to flee, and equally disdaining to supplicate for mercy, it
is applauded as noble, as dying like statesmen and philosophers. But the
Indians with far more to lose and infinitely greater provocation, sits
upon his mother earth upon the green mound, beneath the canopy of Heaven,
and refuses to ask mercy of civilized fiends, he is stigmatized as dogs,
spiritless, and sullen. What a different name has greatness, clothed in
the garb of christian princes and sitting beneath spacious domes, gorgeous
with men's device, and the greatness, in the simple garb of nature,
destitute and alone in the wilderness.

There is nothing in the character of Alexander of Macedon who "conquered
the world, and wept that he had no more to conquer," to compare with the
noble qualities of king Philip of Mt. Hope, and among his warriors are a
long list of brave men unrivalled in deeds of heroism, by any of ancient
or modern story. But in what country, and by whom were they hunted,
tortured, and slain, and who was it that met together to rejoice and give
thanks at every species of cruelty inflicted upon those who were fighting
for their wives, their children, their homes, their altars and their God.
When it is recorded that "men, women and children, indiscriminately, were
hewn down and lay in heaps upon the snow," it is spoken of as doing God's
service, because they were nominally heathen. "Before the fight was
finished, the wigwams were set on fire, and into those, hundreds of
innocent women and children had crowded themselves, and perished in the
general conflagration." And for those thanksgivings were sent up to
heaven, the head of Philip is strung upon a pole, and exposed to the
public. But this was not done by savage warriors, and the crowd that
huzzaed at the revolting spectacle, assembled on the Sabbath day, in a
Puritan church, to listen to the Gospel that proclaims peace and love to
all men. His body was literally cut in slices to be distributed among the
conquerors, and a christian city rings with acclamation.

In speaking of this bloody contest, one who is most eminent among the
fathers, says: "Nor could they cease praying unto the Lord against
Philip, until they had prayed the bullet through his heart." "Two and
twenty Indian captives were slain, and brought down to hell in one day."
"A bullet took him in the head, and sent his cursed soul in a moment
amongst the devils and blasphemers in hell forever."

Masasoit, the father of Philip, was the true friend to the English, and
when he was about to die, took his two sons, Alexander and Philip, and
fondly commended them to the kindness of the new settlers, praying them
the same peace and good will might be between them, that had existed
between him and his white friends. Upon mere suspicion only a short time
afterwards, the elder, who succeeded his father as ruler, among his
people, was hunted in his forest home, and dragged before the court, the
nature and object of which he could not understand. But the indignity
which was offered him, and the treachery of those who insulted him, so
chafed his proud spirit that a fever was the consequence, of which he
died. And that is not all. The son and wife of Philip were sold into
slavery, (as were also about eight hundred persons of the Tuscaroras, and
also many others of the Indians that were taken captive during the
Colonial wars.) "Yes," says a distinguished orator, (Everett,) "they were
sold into slavery, West Indian slavery. An Indian princess and her child,
sold from the cold breezes of Mount Hope, from a wild freedom of New
England forest, to drop under the lash, beneath the blazing sun of the
tropics."

Bitter as death, aye, bitter as hell! Is there anything--I do not think
in the range of humanity--is there any animal that would not struggle
against this? Nor is this indeed all. A kinswoman of theirs, a Princess
in her own right, Wetamore Pocasset, was pursued and harrassed till she
fell exhausted in the wilderness, and died of cold and starvation. There
she was found by men professing to be shocked at Indian barbarity, her
head severed from her body, and carried bleeding upon a pole to be
exposed in the public highways of the country, ruled by men who have been
honored as saints and martyrs.

"Let me die among my kindred," "Bury me with my fathers," is the prayer
of every Indian's heart; and the most delicate and reverential kindness
in the treatment of the bodies of the dead, was considered a religious
duty. There was nothing in all their customs that indicated a barbarism
so gross and revolting as these acts, which are recorded by New England
historians without a censure, while the Indian's protests in his grief at
seeing his kindred dishonored and his religion reviled, are stigmatized
as savage and fiendish.

If all, or even a few who ministered among them in holy things, had been
like Eliot, who is called "the Apostle to the Indians," and deserved to
be ranked with the Apostle of old, or Kirkland, who is endeared to the
memory of every Iroquois who heard his name, it could not have become a
proverb or a truth that civilization and christianity wasted them away.

They were, not by one, but many, unscrupulously called "dogs, wolves,
bloodhounds, demons, devils incarnate, hellhounds, fiends, monsters,
beasts," always considering them inferior beings, and scarcely allowing
them to be human, yet one, who was at that time a captive among them,
represents them as "kind and loving and generous;" and concerning this
same monster--Philip--records nothing that should have condemned him in
the eyes of those who believed in wars aggressive and defensive, and
awarded honors to heroes and martyrs and conquerors.

By the Governor of Jamestown a hand was severed from the arm of a
peaceful, unoffending Indian, that he might be sent back a terror to his
people; and through the magnanimity of a daughter and king of that same
people, that colony was saved from destruction. It was through their love
and trust alone that Powhatan and Pocahontas lost their forest dominions.

Hospitality was one of the Indians' distinguishing virtues, and there was
no such thing among them as individual starvation or want. As long as
there was a cup of soup, it was divided. If a friend or a stranger made a
call he was welcome to all their wigwams would furnish, and to offer him
food was not merely a custom, for it was a breach of politeness for him
to refuse to eat however full he might be.

Because their system not being like the white people's, it does not
follow that it was not a system. You might have looked into the wigwam or
lodge and thought everything in confusion, while to the occupants, there
was a place for everything, and everything in its place: each had a couch
which answered for bed by night and seat by day. The ceremonies at their
festivals were as regular as in the churches, their rules of war as well
defined as those of christian nations, and in their games and athletic
sports there was a code of honor which it was disgraceful to violate:
their marriage vows were as well understood, and courtesy as formally
practiced at their dances.

The nature of the Indian is in all respects like the nature of any other
nation; placed in the same circumstances, he exhibits the same passions
and vices. But in his forest home there was not the same temptation to
great crimes, or what is termed the lesser ones, that of slander,
scandal, and gossip, as exists among civilized nations.

They knew nothing of the desire of gain, and therefore were not made
selfish by the love of hoarding; and there was no temptation to steal,
where they had everything in common, and their reverence for truth and
fidelity to promises, may well put all the nations of christendom to
shame.

I have written in somewhat of the spirit which will characterize a
History, by an Indian, yet it does not deserve to be called Indian
partiality, but only justice and the spirit of humanity; or, if I may be
allowed to say it, the spirit with which any christian should be able to
consider the character and deeds of his foe. I would not detract from the
virtues of your forefathers. They were at that time unrivalled, but
bigotry and superstition of the dark ages still lingered among them, and
their own perils blinded them to the wickedness and cruelty of the means
they took for defence.

Four, and perhaps two centuries hence, I doubt not, some of your dogmas
will seem unchristian, as the Indians seem to you, and I truly hope, ere
then, all wars will seem as barbarous, and the fantastic dress of the
soldiers as ridiculous, as you have been in the habit of representing the
wars and the wild drapery of the Indians of the forest.

How long were the Saxon and Celt in becoming a civilized and Christian
people? How long since the helmet, the coat of mail, and the battle axe,
were laid aside?

To make himself more terrific, the Briton of the days of Henry II drew
the skin of a wild beast over his armor with the head and ears standing
upright, and mounted his war-horse to go forth crying, "To arms! Death to
the invader!" The paint and the Eagle plume of the Indian warrior were
scarcely a more barbarous invention, nor his war-cry more terrible.

It is not just to compare the Indian of the fifteenth, with the christian
of the fifteenth century. But compare them with the barbarian of Britain,
of Russia, of Lapland, and Tartary, and represent them as truly as these
nations have been represented, and they will not suffer by the
comparison.

       *       *       *       *       *




CAPTIVE'S LIFE AMONG INDIANS.


ILLUSTRATED BY THE LIFE OF THE "WHITE WOMAN."

       *       *       *       *       *

To be taken captive by the Indians, was, among the early colonists,
considered the most terrible of all calamities, and it was indeed a
fearful thing to become the victim of their revenge. But those who were
enduring the actual sufferings of captivity, or suffering still more from
terror of uncertain evils, thought little of the provocation given by the
white people. The innocent suffered for the guilty, and however
persevering--I suppose the efforts of the government to be just--in its
infancy, in a wild unknown country it was impossible to control
unprincipled marauders. Some atrocious act was first committed by white
men, which drove the Indian to retaliation, and thinking pale faces were
all alike, he did not wait till the real offender fell into his hands.

When the white men first came, the Indian looked upon them as superior
beings. They were ready to worship Columbus and his little party, and all
others along the coast, until their simple trust was outraged beyond
endurance, they welcomed the strangers, gave them food when they were
hungry, and sheltered them when they were cold. It was not till their
encroachments became alarming, that the Indians asserted their rights,
and if in all cases they had been as justly and kindly dealt with as by
the Quakers of Pennsylvania, there would not have been so dark a record
of sins, wrongs and tortures. If none but men of principle had made
treaties with them, and all whose duty it was to observe them, had kept
their faith, revenge had not come out so prominently in Indian character.

But it was not in obedience to national policy that those who were taken
in battle, were put to the torture, burned, and flayed. The Six Nations
had never found it necessary to build prisons, and dig dungeons for their
own people. If any man committed murder, they sometimes decided that he
should die, and sometimes bade him flee far away where none who knew him
could look upon his face. But crimes were so rare that they had no
criminal code, and when they overcame their enemies, they either adopted
them and treated them as brethren, or put them immediately to death.

White people have often put Indians to death, and oftener put them in
dungeons to waste and starve, but it was not part of their practice to
adopt them and call them brethren. Had they sometimes done this, or sent
them freely back to their friends unharmed, they might have conciliated
where they were only made more desperate.

When families are bereaved, they sought to be revenged on those who had
bereaved them, and when warriors returned from battle, the prisoners were
given up to the friends of the afflicted. With them alone it remained to
decide the fate of those who fell into their hands. If they chose, they
adopt them in place of the husbands, or brothers, who were slain; and if
they so decided they were put to death, and in any way they decreed. If
the manner in which their friend had been killed was aggravating and
greatly enraged them, they were very likely to decide upon torture, and
inflicted it in a manner to produce the greatest suffering. But in such
cases, they sometimes showed great magnanimity, and "returned good for
evil."

Children were often adopted, and by a solemn ceremony received into a
particular tribe, and evermore treated as one of their own people. You
have been in the habit of listening to heart-rending stories of cruelties
to captives, but captives who were adopted were never cruelly treated.
Those who were immediately put to death experienced great suffering for a
few hours, and those who were preserved were subjected to hardships which
seemed to them unspeakable, but they were such as are necessarily
incident to Indian life. They left no written chronicles to tell to all
future generations the wrongs and tortures to which they were subjected,
but one who sits with them by their firesides, may have his blood frozen
with horror at the recitals of civilized barbarity.

And there was one species of wrong of which no captive woman of any
nation had to complain when she was thrown upon the tender mercies of
Indian warriors. Not among all the dark and terrible records which their
enemies have delighted to magnify, is there a single instance of the
outrage of that delicacy which a pure minded woman cherishes at the
expense of life, and sacrifices not to any species of mere animal
suffering. Of what other nation can it thus be written, that their
soldiers were not more terrible at the firesides of their enemies than on
the battle-field, with all the fierce engines of war at their command. To
whatever motive it is to be ascribed, let this at least stand out on the
pages of Indian history as an ever enduring monument to their honor.

A little book which professes to have been written for the sole purpose
of recording and perpetuating Indian atrocities, and dwells upon them
with infinite delight, alludes to this redeeming trait in Indian
character, but attempts to ascribe it to the influence of superstition,
as it were necessary to find some evil or deteriorating motive for
everything noble, or pleasing in Indian character. Their treatment of
captives from among Indian nations were the same. And I know not that
there has been any satisfactory solution of a characteristic which has
been found among only one other civilized christian or barbarous nation.
A wanderer among the Indian tribes once asked an Indian why they thus
honored their women, and he said "The Great Spirit taught, and would
punish us if we did not." Among the Germans I believed there existed the
same respect for woman, till they became civilized. They may have been
some superstitious fears mingled with a strong governing and controlling
principle, but it is not on this account the less marvelous that whole
nations, consisting of millions, should have been so trained, religiously
or domestically, that degree of beauty or fascination placed under their
care, though hundreds of miles in the solitudes of the wilderness, should
have tempted them from the strictest honor and the most delicate
kindness. MARY JANISON was eighty years a resident among the Senecas, and
in the early part of the time the forests had few clearings, and the
comforts and the vices of white men prevailed but little among them. She
was born on the ocean, with the billowy sea for her cradle, and the
tempest for her lullaby. Her parents emigrated from England to this
country in 1742, and settled in the unfortunate vale of Wyoming, where
date her first remembrances, which were all the woes that fell upon her
family, the wail of the sorrow-stricken and breaking of heart-strings.
The last meal they took together was a breakfast, after which the father
and eldest three sons went into the field, and Mary with the other
little children was playing not far from the house. They were suddenly
startled by a shriek, and knew it must be from their mother. On running
in they saw her in the hands of two Indians, who were holding her fast. A
little boy ran to call his father, and found him also bound by another of
the party, and his eldest brother lying dead upon the earth; the other
two fled to Virginia, where they had an uncle, as Mary afterward learned,
and those who remained were made captives and hurried into the woods. All
day they were obliged to march in single file over the rough, cold soil.
Night found them in the heart of the wilderness, surrounded by their
strange captors, and all the horrors of Indian life or Indian death
staring them in the face. They had no hope of mercy, whether permitted to
live or condemned to die. The mother said to Mary, "My daughter, you, I
think will be permitted to live, but they will deprive you of your father
and mother, and perhaps of your brothers and sisters, so that you will be
alone. But endeavor in all things to please the Indians, and they will be
more kind to you. Do not forget your own language, and never fail to
repeat your catechism and the Lord's prayer every morning and evening
while you live." This she promised to do, and having kissed her child,
the mother was removed from her sight.

Mary must at this time have been ten years of age. She was afterwards
told, when she could understand the Indian language, that they would not
have killed her parents if the captors had not been pursued, and that a
little boy, who was the son of a neighbor, and was also taken, was given
to the French, two of whom were of the party.

In the marches of the Indians it was the custom for one to linger behind,
and poke up the grass with a stick after a party had passed along, to
conceal all traces of their footsteps, so a pursuit was seldom
successful. In deviating from a direct course in order not to get lost,
they noticed the moss upon the trees, which always grows thickest upon
the north side, as the south side being most exposed to the sun, became
soonest dry. They also had some knowledge of the stars, and knew from the
position of certain clusters that were to be seen at certain seasons,
which was east and which west.

Mary was adopted in place of two brothers who had fallen in battle, and
for whom the lamentations had not died away. The ceremony of adoption is
very solemn, requiring the deliberations of a council and the formal
bestowing of a name, as a sort of baptism, from which time the captive is
not allowed to speak any other language but the Indian, and must in all
things conform to Indian habits and tastes.

It is customary among them to give children a name which corresponds with
the sports and dependence of childhood, and when they arrive at maturity
to change it for one that corresponds with the duties and employments of
manhood and womanhood. The first name is given by the relatives and
afterwards publicly announced in council. The second is bestowed in the
same way; and by this they are ever afterward called, except on becoming
a Sachem, and, sometimes, on becoming a Chief or warrior another name is
taken, and each denotes definitely the new position. Each clan, too, had
its peculiar names, so that when a person's name was mentioned it was
immediately known to what clan he belonged.

A curious feature in the Indian code of etiquette is that it is
exceedingly impolite to ask a person's name, or to speak it in his
presence. In the social circle and all private conversation the person
spoken of is described if it is necessary to allude to him, as the person
who sits there, or who lives in that house, or wears such a dress. If I
ask a woman, whose husband is present if that is Mr. B-- she blushes, and
stammers, and replies, "He is my child's father," in order to avoid
speaking his name in his presence, which would offend him. On asking a
man his name he remained silent, not understanding the reason the
question was repeated, when he indignantly replied, "Do you think that I
am an owl to go about hooting my name everywhere?" The name of the owl in
Indian corresponding exactly to the note he utters.

When Mary Jemmison had been formally named De-he-wa-mis, they called her
daughter and sister, and treated her in all respects as if she had been
born among them and the same blood flowed in her veins, or rather, they
were accustomed to be more kind to captives than to their own children,
because they had not been inured to the same hardships. There was no
difference in the cares bestowed, no allusion was ever made to the child
as if it belonged to a hated race, and it never felt the want of
affection.

Mary said her tasks were always light, and everything was done to win her
love and make her happy. She now and then longed for the comforts of her
cottage home, and wept at the thought of her mother's cruel death, but
gradually learned to love the freedom of the forest, and to gambol freely
and gaily with her Indian play-mates. When she was named they threw her
dress away, and clothed her in deer skins and moccasins, and painted her
face in true Indian style. She never spoke English in their presence, as
they did not allow it, but when alone, did not forget her mother's
injunction, and repeated her prayers and all the words she could
remember, thus retaining enough of the language to enable her easily to
recall it when she should again return to civilized society, as she
constantly indulged the hope of doing, by an exchange of captives.

But when she was fourteen years of age, her mother selected for her a
husband, to whom she was married according to Indian custom. His name was
Sheningee, and though she was not acquainted with him previously, and of
course had no affection for him, but proved not only an amiable and
excellent man but a congenial companion, whom she loved devotedly. He had
all the noble qualities of an Indian, being handsome and brave, and
generous, and kind, and to her very gentle and affectionate.

Now she became thoroughly reconciled to Indian life, her greatest sorrow
being the necessary absence of her husband on the war-path and hunting
excursions. She followed the occupation of a woman, tilled the fields,
dressed the meats and skins, and gathered the fuel for the winter's fire,
and although this seems to the whites as unfeminine labor, it was
performed at their leisure, and occupied very little of their time.

When the hunters returned they were weary and passive, and seldom were
guilty of fault-finding, and so well did an Indian woman know her duty,
that her husband was not obliged to make his wants known. Obedience was
required in all respects, and where there was harmony and affection,
cheerfully yielded, and knowing as they did that separation would be the
consequence of neglect of duty and unkindness, there was really more
self-control, and about little things, than those who are bound for
life. They did not agree to live together through good and through evil
reports, but only while they loved and confided in each other, and they
were therefore careful not to throw lightly away this love and affection.

The labor of the field was performed in so systematic a manner, and by so
thorough and wisely divisioned labor, that there were none of the
jealousies and enjoyings which exist among those who wish to hoard, and
ambitious to excel in style and equipage. And before the fire-water came
among them, dissentions of any kind were almost unknown. This has been
the fruitful source of all their woes. It was not till Mary became a
mother that she gave up all longing for civilized society, and
relinquished all hope of again returning to the abodes of the white man.
Now she had a tie to bind her which could not be broken. If she should
find her white friends they would not recognize her Indian husband, or
consider her lawfully married: they would not care to be connected by
ties of blood to a people whom they despised: her child would not be
happy among those who looked upon her as inferior, and she herself had no
education to fit her for the companionship of the white people. She
looked upon her little daughter and thought, it is Sheningee's--it is
dearer to me than all things else--I could not endure to see her treated
with aversion or neglect.

But only a little while was she permitted this happiness, her daughter
died while yet an infant, and when Sheningee was away. Again the feeling
of desolation came over her young spirit, but all around her ministered
in every way to her comfort, and became more than ever endeared to her
heart. After a long absence. Sheningee returned. She afterwards had a
son, and named him after her father, to which no objection was made by
her Indian friends, and her love for her husband became idolatry. In her
eyes he seemed everything noble and good: she mourned his departure and
longed for his return, for his affection prompted him to treat her with
gentle and winning kindness which is the spirit of true love alone.

But again the separation, and she must pass another winter alone. For
hunting was the Indian's toil, and though they delighted in it, the pangs
of parting from his wife and little one, made it a sacrifice, and spread
a dark cloud over a long period of his life. And now it became dark
indeed to Mary, for she waited long and Sheningee came not. She put
everything in order in his little dwelling. She dressed new skins for his
couch, and smoked venison to please his taste. She made the fire bright
to welcome him, hoping every evening when she lay down with her baby upon
her bosom, that ere the morning sun the husband and father would gladden
them by his smiles, but in vain; winter had passed away, and the spring,
and then came the sad tidings that he was dead, she became a widow and
her child fatherless.

Very long did she mourn Sheningee, for it seemed to her there was none
like him. But again the sympathies of his people created a new link to
bind her to them, and she said she could not have loved a mother or
sisters more dearly than she did those who stood in this relationship to
her, and soothed her with their loving words.

Not for four years was she again urged to marry, and during this time
there was an exchange of prisoners and she had an opportunity to return
to her kindred; she was left to do as she chose. They told her she might
go, but if she preferred to remain she should still be their daughter and
sister, and they would give her land for her own where she might always
dwell. Again she thought of the prejudice she would everywhere meet, and
that she could never patiently listen to reproaches concerning her
husband's people. It would not be believed that he was noble, because he
was an Indian; and she would have no near relatives and those she had
might reject her if she should seek them, so she came to the final
conclusion and never more sighed for the advantages or pleasures of
civilized life. She came with the brothers of Sheningee to the banks of
the Genesee, where she resided the remaining seventy-two years of her
life.

Her second husband--Hiokatoo--she never learned to love. He was a Chief
and a warrior brave and fearless; but though he was always kind to her,
he was a man of blood. He delighted in deeds of cruelty and delighted to
relate them. And now the fire water had become common, and the good were
bad and the bad worse, so that dissensions arose in families and in
neighborhoods, and the happiness which had been almost without alloy was
no longer known among these simple people.

She adds her testimony to that of all travelers and historians concerning
the purity of their lives, having never herself received the slightest
insult from an Indian and scarcely knowing an instance of infidelity or
immorality. But when once they had tasted of the maddening draught the
thirst was insatiable, and all they had would be given for a glass of
something to destroy their reason. Now they were indeed converted into
fiends and furies and sold themselves to swift destruction.

Hiokatoo hesitated at no crime and took pleasure in everything dark and
terrible, but this was a small trial compared to those which Mrs.
Jemmison was called upon to endure from the intoxication and recklessness
of her son. Her eldest, the son of Sheningee, was murdered by John, the
son of Hiokatoo, who afterward murdered his own brother Jesse, and came
to the same violent death himself at the hands of others. When they came
to be in the midst of temptation there was no restraining principle, and,
even after they grew up her house was the scene of quarrels and confusion
in consequence of their intemperance, and she knew no rest from fear of
some calamity from the indulgence of their unbridled passions. The Chief
of the Seneca nation, to which her second husband belonged, gave her a
large tract of land, and when it became necessary that it should be
secured to her by treaty, she plead her own case. The commissioners
without inquiring particularly concerning the dimensions of her lots,
allowed her to make her own boundaries, and when the document was signed
and she was in firm possession it was found that she was the owner of
nearly four thousand acres, of which only a deed in her own hand-writing
could deprive her. But though she was rich she toiled not the less
dilligently and forsook not the sphere of woman in attending to the ways
of her household, and also, true to her Indian education, she planted and
hoed and harvested, retaining her Indian dress and habits till the day of
her death. During the revolutionary war her house was made the rendevous
and headquarters of British officers and Indian Chiefs, as her sympathies
were entirely with her red brethren, and the cause they espoused was the
one she preferred to aid. It was in her power to sympathize with many a
lone captive, she always remembered her own anguish at the prospect of
spending her life in the wilderness. The companion of Indians, and though
she had learned to love instead of fearing them, and knew they were, as a
people, deserving of respect and the highest honor, she understood the
feelings of those who knew them not.

Her supplication procured the release of many from torture, and her
generous kindness clothed the naked and fed the starving.

Lot after lot, acre after acre the Indians sold their lands, and at
length the beautiful valley of the Genesee fell into the hands of the
white people, except the dominion of "the white woman," as she was always
called, which couldn't be given up without her consent. She refused, at
the time of the sale, to part with her portion, but after the Indians
removed to Buffalo reservation and she was left alone, though a lady in
the manor and surrounded by white people, she preferred to take her abode
with those whom she now called her own people. Most emphatically did she
adopt the language of Ruth in the days of old, "Entreat me not to leave
thee, or return from following after thee, for whither thou goest I will
go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge, thy people will be my people,
and thy God my God, where thou diest will I die, and there will I be
buried."

She as as thoroughly pagan as the veriest Indian who had never heard of
God, and she exclaimed with him that their religion was good enough and
she desired no change.

She was ninety years of age--eighty years she had been an exile from the
land of her birth. She had forgotten the prayer her mother taught her,
and knew nothing of the worship of her father, when one morning she sent
a messenger to tell the missionaries she wished to see them. She had ever
before refused to listen to them if they came to her dwelling, but they
hastened to obey the summons, glad to feel that they should be welcomed,
though quite uncertain concerning the nature of the interview she
proposed. She was literally withered away, her face was scarcely larger
than an infant's and completely checkered with fine wrinkles, her teeth
were entirely gone and her mouth so sunken that her nose and chin almost
met, her hair not silvery, but snowy white, except a little lock by each
ear which still retained the sandy hue of childhood, her form which was
always slender, was bent, and her limbs could not longer support her. She
had revived the knowledge of her language since she had dwelled among the
white people but, "Oh," said she, as the ladies entered, "I have
forgotten how to pray; my mother taught me and told me never to forget
this, though I remembered nothing else," and then she exclaimed, "Oh,
God! have mercy upon me." This expression she had heard in her old age,
and now uttered it in the fullness of her heart. There had come a gleam
of light through all the darkness and superstitions of Paganism, and this
spark was kindled at the fireside of that little cottage home, and fell
upon her heart from a mother's lips, and now revived at the remembrance
of a mother's love and her dying blessing. It was eighty years since she
had seen that mother's face, as she breathed out her soul in anguish,
bending over her in the silent depths of the wilderness, eighty years
since she listened to "Our Father who art in Heaven," from Christian
lips, and now the still small voice which had so long been silent, spoke
aloud, and startled her as if an angel called. She tried to stifle it,
and for many days after it awoke in her bosom, she heeded it not, but it
gave her no rest. No earthly voice had since reminded her that her heart
was sinful, and needed to be "washed in the blood of the lamb, that
taketh away the sins of the world," in order to be clean. The seed which
had been sown in it when she was a little child, had just sprung up; the
snows of eighty winters had not chilled it, the mildew of nearly a
century had not blighted it, and the heavy hand of hundreds of calamities
had left it unharmed. She had not been in the midst of corruptions,
therefore it had not been destroyed. The little germ was still alive, and
proving that it had not been in vain.

The aged woman sat pillowed up in bed with her children, and children's
children of three generations around her, and lifting her withered hands
and sunken eyes to Heaven, once more repeated, "Our Father, who art in
Heaven," while a new light, like a halo, overspread her face, the tears
flowed in floods down her cheeks, and in the dark eyes of every listener
there glistened tears of sympathy in her new found happiness.

When she was asked if she regretted that she had not consented to be
exchanged, she still said, "No. I love the Indians; I love them better
than the white people. Because they had been kind to me, and provided
generously for my youth and old age, and my children would inherit an
abundance from the avails of the lands, and herds, and flocks."

A few days after the new light dawned upon her spirit, in the year 1833,
Mary was numbered with the dead. She had embraced the faith which makes
no difference between those who come at the first or the eleventh hour,
and those who were present at the dissolution of her soul and body,
doubted not that Jesus had whispered to her the same consolation that
fell upon the heart of the thief upon the Cross, "This day shall thou be
with me in Paradise"

       *       *       *       *       *




CUSTOMS AND INDIVIDUAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER.

The more you read, and the better you understand Indian history, the more
you will be impressed with the injustice which has been done the
Iroquois, not only in dispossessing them of their inheritance, but in the
estimation which has been made of their character. They have been
represented, as seen in the transition state, the most unfavorable
possible for judging correctly. In the chapter of National Traits of
Character, I have in two or three instances quoted Washington Irving and
might again allow his opinions to relieve my own from the charge of
partiality. He says, in speaking of this same subject, that "the current
opinion of Indian character is too apt to be formed from the miserable
hordes which infest the frontiers, and hang on the shirts of settlements.
These are too commonly composed of degenerate beings, corrupted and
enfeebled by the voice of society, without being benefited by its
civilization."

"The proud independence which formed the main pillar of motive virtue has
been spoken down, and the whole moral fabric lies in ruins. The spirits
are humiliated and debased by a sense of inferiority, and their native
courage cowed and daunted by the superior knowledge and power of their
enlightened neighbors. Society has advanced upon them like one of a those
withering airs that will sometimes breed desolation over a whole region
of fertility. It has enervated their strength, multiplied their diseases,
and superinduced upon their original barbarity the law-vices of
artificial life. It has given them a thousand superfluous wants, while it
has diminished their means of mere existence. It has driven before it the
animals of the chase, who fly from the sound of the axe and the smoke of
the settlement and seek refuge in the depths of remote forests, and yet
untrodden wilds. Thus do we often find the Indians in the frontiers to be
mere wrecks and remnants of once powerful tribes, who have lingered in
the vicinity of settlements, and sunk into precarious and vagabond
existence. Poverty, repining and hopeless poverty--a canker on the mind
before unknown to them--corrodes their spirits and blights every free and
noble qualities of their nature. They loiter like vagrants about the
settlements among spacious dwellings, replete with elaborate comforts,
which only renders them more sensible of the comparative wretchedness of
their own condition. Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes,
but they are excluded from the banquet; plenty revels over the fields,
but they are starving in the midst of abundance. The whole wilderness
blossomed into a garden, but they feel as reptiles that infest them. How
different was their state while undisputed lords of the soil? Their wants
were few, and the means of gratification within their reach, they saw
every one among them sharing the same lot, enduring the same hardships,
feeding on the same aliments, arrayed in the same rude garment. No roof
then rose under whose sheltering wings, that was not ever open to the
homeless stranger, no smoke curled among the trees, but he was welcome to
sit down by its fire and join the hunter in his repast."

In discussing Indian character, writers have been too prone to indulge in
vulgar prejudice and passionate exaggeration, instead of the candid
temper of the true philosopher. They have not sufficiently considered the
peculiar circumstance in which the Indians have been placed, and the
peculiar principles under which they having been educated. No being acts
more rigidly from rule than the Indians, his whole conduct is regulated
according to some general maxims early implanted in his mind. The moral
laws which govern him are few, but he conforms to them all. The white man
abounds in laws and religion, morals, and manners, but how many of them
does he violate. In their intercourse with the Indians the white people
were continually trampling upon their religion and their sacred rights.
They were expected to look merely on while the graves of their fathers
were robbed of their treasures, and the bones of their fathers were left
to bleach upon the fields. And when exasperated by the brutality of their
conquerors, and driven to deeds of vengence, there was very little
appreciation of the motives which influenced them, and no attempt was
made to palliate their cruelties.

It was their custom to bury the dead with their best clothing, and the
various implements they had been in the habit of using whilst living. If
it was a warrior that they were preparing for burial, they placed his
tomahawk by his side and his knife in his shield; with the hunter, his
bow and arrows and implements for cooking his food; with the woman, their
kettles and cooking apparatus and also food for all. Tobacco was
deposited in every grave; for to smoke was an Indian's idea of felicity
in the body and out of it, and in this there was not so much difference
as one might wish, between them and gentlemen of a paler hue.

Among the Iroquois, and many other Indian nations, it was the custom to
place the dead upon scaffolds, built for the purpose, from tree to tree,
or within a temporary inclosure, and underneath a fire was kept burning
for several days.

They had known instances of persons reviving after they were supposed to
be dead, and this led to the conclusion that the spirit sometimes
returned to animate the body after it had once fled. If there was no
signs of life for ten days, the fire was extinguished and the body left
unmolested until decomposition had begun to take place, when the remains
were buried, or, as was often the case, kept in the lodge for many years.
If they were obliged to desert the settlement where they had long
resided, these skeletons were collected from all the families and buried
in one common grave, with the same ceremonies as when a single individual
was interred.

They did not suppose the spirit was instantaneously transferred from
earth to Heaven, but that it wandered in aerial region for many moons. In
later days they only allowed ten days for its flight. Their period for
mourning continued only whilst the spirit is wandering, as soon as they
believe it has entered Heaven they commenced rejoicing, saying, there is
no longer cause for sorrow, because it is now where happiness dwells
forever. Sometimes a piteous wailing was kept up every night for a long
time, but it was only their bereavement that they bewailed, as they did
not fear about the fate of those who died. Not until they had heard of
Purgatory from the Jesuits, or endless woe from Protestants, did they
look upon death with terror, or life as anything but a blessing.

They were sometimes in the habit of addressing the dead, as if they could
hear. The following are the words of a mother as she bends over her only
son to look for the last time upon his beloved face: "My son, listen once
more to the words of thy mother. Thou wast brought into life with her
pains, thou wast nourished with her life. She has attempted to be
faithful in raising you up. When you were young she loved you as her
life. Thy presence has been a source of great joy to her. Upon thee she
depended for support and comfort in her declining days. But thou hast
outstripped her and gone before. Our wise and great Creator has ordered
it thus. By his will, I am left yet, to taste more of the miseries of
this world. Thy relations and friends have gathered about thy body to
look upon thee for the last time. They mourn, as with one mind, thy
departure from among us. We, too, have but a few days more and our
journey will be ended. We part now, and you are conveyed out of our
sight. But we shall soon meet again, and shall look upon each other, then
we shall part no more. Our Maker has called thee home, and thither will
we follow."

After the adoption of the league of the Iroquois, and they dwelled in
villages, this was one of the duties enjoined by their religious teacher
at their festivals: "It is the will of the Great Spirit that you
reverence the aged, even though they be helpless as infants." And also,
"Kindness to the orphan, and hospitality to all." "If you tie up the
clothes of an orphan child, the Great Spirit will notice it, and reward
you for it." "To adopt an orphan, and bring them up in virtuous ways, is
pleasing to the Great Spirit." "If strangers wander about your abode,
welcome him to your home, be hospitable towards him, speak to him with
kind words, and forget not, always to make mention of the Great Spirit."

The Indians lamentations, on being driven far away from the graves of
their fathers, have been the theme of all historians and travelers. It
can be easily imagined how those who so loved their homes and revered
their fathers' graves, would become fierce with indignation and rage, on
seeing themselves treated as without human feeling, and the sacred relics
of the dead ploughed up and scattered as indifferently as the stones, or
the bones of the moose and the deer of the forest. It was this feeling
that often prompted them to acts of hostility, which those who
experienced them, ascribed to wanton cruelty and barbarity.

In many of the villages there was a strangers home, a house, for
strangers where they were placed, while the old men went about collecting
skins for them to sleep upon, and food for them to eat, expecting no
reward.

They called it very rude for them to stare at them as they passed in the
streets, and said that they had as much curiosity as the white people,
but they did not gratify it by intruding upon them, by examining them.
They would sometimes hide behind trees in order to look at strangers, but
never stood openly and gaze at them.

Their respective attention to missionaries was often the result of their
rules of politeness, as it is a part of the Indian's code. Their councils
are eminent for decorum, and no person is interrupted during a speech.
Some Indians, after respectfully listening to a missionary, thought they
would relate to him some of their legends, but the good man could not
restrain his indignation, but pronounced them foolish fables, while what
he told them was sacred truth. The Indian was, in his turn, offended, and
said, we listened to your stories, why do you not listen to ours? you are
not instructed in the common rules of civility.

A hunter, in his wandering for game, fell among the back settlements of
Virginia, and on account of the inclemency of the weather, sought refuge
at the house of a planter, whom he met at the door. He was refused
admission. Being both hungry and thirsty, he asked for a bit of bread and
a cup of cold water. But the answer to every appeal was, "_You, shall
have nothing here, get you gone you Indian dog!_"

Some months afterwards this same planter lost himself in the woods, and
after a weary day of wandering, came to an Indian cabin, into which he
was welcomed. On inquiring the way and distance to the settlement, and
finding it was too far to think of going that night, he asked if he could
remain. Very cordially the inmates replied, that he was at liberty to
stay, and all they had was at his service. They gave him food, they made
a bright fire to cheer and warm him, and supplied him with clean deer-
skin for his couch, and promised to conduct him the next day on his
journey. In the morning the Indian hunter and the planter set out
together through the forest, when they came in sight of the white man's
dwelling, the hunter, about to leave, turned to his companion, and said,
"Do you not know me?" The white man was struck with horror, that he had
been so long in the power of one whom he had so inhumanly treated, and
expected now to experience his revenge. But on beginning to make excuses,
the Indian interrupted him saying, "when you see a poor Indian fainting
for a cup of cold water, don't say again, 'get you gone, you Indian
dog.'" and turned back to his hunting grounds. Which best deserved the
appellation of a christian, and to which will it most likely be said,
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it
unto me."




CREATION.


ORIGIN OF THE CONTINENT, THE ANIMAL, AND OF THE INDIAN.

INTRODUCTION OF THE TWO PRINCIPLES OF GOOD AND EVIL INTO THE GOVERNMENT
OF THE WORLD.

The Tuscarora tradition opens with the notion that there were originally
two worlds, or regions of space, that is an upper and lower world. The
upper world was inhabited by beings resembling the human race. And the
lower world by monsters, moving on the surface and in the waters, which
is in darkness. When the human species were transferred below, and the
lower sphere was about to be rendered fit for their residence; the act of
their transferrance is by these ideas, that a female who began to descend
into the lower world, which is a region of darkness, waters, and
monsters, she was received on the back of a tortoise, where she gave
birth to male twins, and there she expired. The shell of this tortoise
expanded into a continent, which, in the English language, is called
"island," and is named by the Tuscaroras, Yowahnook. One of the children
was called Got-ti-gah-rah-quast, or good mind, the other, Got-ti-gah-
rak-senh, or bad mind. These two antagonistical principles were at
perpetual variance, it being the law of one to counteract whatever the
other did. They were not, however, men, but gods, or existences, through
whom the Great Spirit, or "Holder of the Heavens," carried out his
purposes.

The first work of Got-ti-gah-rah-quast was to create the sun out of the
head of his dead mother, and the moon and stars out of the other parts of
her body. The light these gave drove the monsters into the deep waters to
hide themselves. He then prepared the surface of the continent and fitted
it for human habitation, by making it into creeks, rivers, lakes and
plains, and by filling them with the various kinds of animals and
vegetable kingdom. He then formed a man and a woman out of the earth,
gave them life, and called them Ongwahonwd, that is to say, a real
people. Meanwhile the bad mind created mountains, water-falls, and
steeps, caves, reptiles, serpents, apes, and other objects supposed to be
injurious to, or in mockery to mankind. He made an attempt also to
conceal the land animals in the ground, so as to deprive men of the means
of subsistance. This continued opposition, to the wishes of the Good
Mind, who was perpetually at work, in restoring the effects and
displacements, of the wicked devices of the other, at length led to a
personal combat, of which the time and instrument of battle were agreed
on. They fought two days; the Good Mind using the deer's horn, and the
other, using wild flag leafs, as arms. Got-ti-gah-rah-quast, or Good
Mind, who had chosen the horn, finally prevailed. His antagonist sunk
down into a region of darkness, and became the Evil Spirit of the world
of despair. Got-ti-gah-rah-quast, having obtained his triumph, retired
from the earth.

The earliest tradition that we have of the Iroquois is as follows: That a
company of Ongwahonwa being encamped on the banks of the St. Lawrence
River, where they were invaded by a nation--few in number, but were great
giants, called "Ronongwaca." War after war was brought on by personal
encounters and incidents, and carried on with perfidity and cruelty. They
were delivered at length by the skill and courage of Yatontea, who, after
retreating before them, raised a large body of men and defeated them,
after which they were supposed to be extinct. And the next they suffered
was from the malice, perfidity and lust of an extraordinary appearing
person, who they called That-tea-ro-skeh, who was finally driven across
the St. Lawrence, and come to a town south of the shores of Lake Ontario,
where, however, he only disguised his intentions, to repeat his cruel and
perfidious deeds. He assassinated many persons, and violated six virgins.
They pointed to him as a fiend in human shape.

In this age of monsters, the country was again invaded by another
monster, which they called Oyahguaharh, supposed to be some great
mammoth, who was furious against men, and destroyed the lives of many
Indian hunters, but he was at length killed, after a long and severe
contest.

A great horned serpent also next appeared on Lake Ontario who, by means
of his poisonous breath, caused disease, and caused the death of many. At
length the old women congregated, with one accord, and prayed to the
Great Spirit that he would send their grand-father, the Thunder, who
would get to their relief in this, their sore time of trouble, and at the
same time burning tobacco as burned offerings. So finally the monster was
compelled to retire in the deeps of the lake by thunder bolts. Before
this calamity was forgotten another happened. A blazing star fell into
their fort, situated on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and destroyed the
people. Such a phenomenon caused a great panic and consternation and
dread, which they regarded as ominious of their entire destruction. Not
long after this prediction of the blazing star it was verified. These
tribes, who were held together by feeble ties, fell into dispute and wars
among themselves, which were pursued through a long period, until they
had utterly destroyed each other, and so reduced their numbers that the
lands were again over-run with wild beasts.

At this period there were six families took refuge in a large cave in a
mountain, where they dwelled for a long time. The men would come out
occasionally to hunt for food. This mammoth cave was situated at or near
the falls of the Oswego River. Taryenya-wa-gon (Holder of the Heavens)
extricated these six families from this subterraneous bowels and confines
of the mountain. They always looked to this divine messenger, who had
power to assume various shapes, as emergency dictated, as the friend and
patron of their nation.

As soon as they were released he gave them instructions respecting the
mode of hunting, matrimony, worship and many other things. He warned them
against the evil spirit, and gave them corn, beans, squash, potatoes,
tobacco, and dogs to hunt their game. He bid them go toward the rising of
the sun, and he personally guided them, until they came to a river, which
they named Yehnonanatche (that is going around a mountain,) now Mohawk,
they went down the bank of the river and came to where it discharges into
a great river, running towards the midway sun, they named it Skaw-nay-
taw-ty (that is beyond the pineries) now Hudson, and went down the banks
of the river and touched the bank of the great water. The company made an
encampment at this place and remained for a while. The people was then of
one language. Some of them went on the banks of the great waters, towards
the midway sun, and never returned. But the company that remained at the
camp returned as they came--along the bank of the river, under the
direction of Taryenyawagon (Holder of the Heavens).

This company were a particular body, which called themselves of one
household. Of these there were six families, and they entered into an
agreement to preserve the chain of alliance which should not be
extinguished under any circumstance.

The company advanced some distance up the river of Skawnatawty (Hudson).
The Holder of the Heavens directed the first family to make their
residence near the bank of the river, and the family was named Tehawrogeh
(that is, a speech divided) now Mohawk. Their language soon changed. The
company then turned and went towards the sun-setting, and traveled about
two days and a half, then came to a creek, which was named Kawnatawteruh
(that is pineries). The second family was directed to make their
residence near the creek; and the family was named Nehawretahgo (that is
big tree) now Oneida. Their language was changed likewise. The company
continued to proceed toward the sun-setting under the direction of the
Holder of the Heavens. The third family was directed to make their
residence on a mountain, named Onondaga (now Onondaga), and the family
was named Seuhnowhahtah (that is, carrying the name.) Their language also
changed. The rest of the company continued their journey towards the sun-
setting. The fourth family was directed to make their residence near a
large lake, named Goyogoh (that is a mountain rising from water) now
Cayuga, and the family was named Sho-nea-na-we-to-wah (that is a great
pipe). Their language was altered. The rest of the company kept their
course towards the sun-setting. The fifth family was directed to make
their residence near a high mountain, situated south of Canandaigua Lake,
which was named Tehow-nea-nyo-hent (that is possessing a door) now
Seneca. Their language was also changed. The sixth, and last family, went
on their journey toward the sun-setting, until they touched the bank of
the great lake, which was named Kan-ha-gwa-rah-ka (that is a Cape) now
Erie, and then went toward, between the midway and sun-setting, and
traveled a great distance, when they came to a large river, which was
named O-nah-we-yo-ka (that is a principal stream) now Mississippi. The
people discovered a grapevine lying across the river, by which a part of
the people went over, but while they were crossing the vine broke. They
were divided, and became enemies, to those that were over the river in
consequence of which, they were obliged to abandon the journey. Those
that went over the river were finally lost and forgotten from the memory
of those that remained on the eastern banks.

Ta-ren-ya-wa-go (the Holder of the Heavens), who was the patron of the
five home bands, did not fail, in this crisis, to direct them their way
also. He instructed those on the eastern bank the art of the bow and
arrows, to use for game and in time of danger. After giving them suitable
instructions, he guided their footsteps in their journeys, south and
east, until they had crossed the Alleghany Mountains, and with some
wanderings they finally reached the shores of the sea, on the coast which
is now called the Carolinas. By this time their language was changed.
They were directed to fix their residence on the banks of the Gow-ta-no
(that is, pine in the water) now Neuse River, in North Carolina. Here Ta-
ren-ya-wa-gon left them to hunt, increase and prosper, whilst he returned
to direct the other five nations to form their confederacy.

Tarenyawagon united in one person the power of a God and a man, and gave
him the expressive name of the Holder of the Heavens, and was capable of
assuming any form or shape that he chosed, but appeared to them only in
the form of a man, and taught them hunting, gardening, and the knowledge
of the arts of war. He imparted to them the knowledge of the laws and
government of the Great Spirit, and gave them directions and
encouragement how to fulfill their duties and obligations. He gave them
corn, beans, and fruits of various kinds, with the knowledge of planting
those fruits. He taught them how to kill and to cook the game. He made
the forest free to all the tribes to hunt, and removed obstructions from
the streams. He took his position, sometimes, on the top of high cliffs,
springing, if needs be, over frightful chasms; and he flew, as it were,
over great lakes in a wonderful canoe of immaculate whiteness and of
magic power.

Having finished his commission with the Tuscaroras at Cautanoh, in North
Carolina, and the other five families, which were left at the north, he
came down to closer terms and intimacy with the Onondagas. He resolved to
lay aside his divine character and live among them, that he might
exemplify the maxims which he had taught. And for this purpose he
selected a handsome spot of ground on the southern banks of Cross Lake,
New York. Here he built his cabin, and from the shores of this lake he
went into the forest, like the rest of his companions, in quest of game
and fish. He took a wife of the Onondagas, by whom he had an only
daughter, whom he tenderly loved, and most kindly and carefully treated
and instructed, so that she was known far and near as his favorite child,
and was regarded almost as a goddess. The excellence of his character,
and his great sagacity and good counsels, led the people to regard him
with veneration, and they gave him, in his sublunary character, the name
of Hi-a-wat-ha (a wise man). People came to him from all quarters, and
his abode was thronged by all ages and conditions who came for advice.

He became the first chief of all the land, and whomsoever he made his
companions and friends were likewise clothed with the authority of chiefs
in the tribe. In this manner all power came naturally into his hands, and
the tribe rejoiced that they had so wise and good a man as their ruler.
For in those days each tribe was independent of all others; they had not
yet formed a league, but fought and made war with each other.

Nothing that belonged to Hiawatha, in his character of Tarenyawagon, was
more remarkable than his light and magic canoe, which shone with a
supernatural lustre, and in which he had performed so many of his
extraordinary feats. This canoe was laid aside when he came to fix his
residenee at Cross Lake, and never used it but for great and
extraordinary purposes. When great councils were called, and he assembled
the wise men to deliberate together, the sacred canoe was carefully
lifted from the grand lodge; and after these occasions were ended, it was
carefully returned to the same receptacle, on the shoulders of men, who
felt honored in being the bearers of such a precious burden.

Thus passed away many years, and every year saw the people increasing in
numbers, skill, arts and bravery. It was among the Onondagas that
Tarenyawagon had located himself, although he regarded the other tribes
as friends and brothers; he had become indentified as an adopted member
of this particular tribe. Under his teaching and influence they became
the first among all the original tribes, and rose to the highest
distinction in every art which was known to or prized by the Akonoshuni
(Iroquois). They were the wisest counsellors, the best orators, the most
expert hunters, and the bravest warriors. They also afforded the highest
examples of obedience to the laws of the Great Spirit. If offences took
place, Hiawatha redressed them, and his wisdom and moderation preserved
the tribe from feuds. Hence, the Onondagas were early noted among all the
tribes for their pre-eminence. He appeared to devote his chief attention
to them, that he might afterwards make them examples to the others, in
arts and wisdom. They were foremost in the overthrow of the Stonish
Giants and the killing of the great Serpent. To be an Onondaga was the
highest honor.

While Hiawatha was thus living in domestic life quietly among the people
of the hills, and administering their simple government with wisdom, they
became alarmed by the sudden news of the approach of a furious and
powerful enemy from north of the great lakes. As the enemy advanced, they
made an indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children. The people
fled from their villages a short time before them, and there was no heart
in the people to make a stand against such powerful and ruthless
invaders. In this emergency, they fled to Hiawatha for his advice. He
counseled them to call a general council of all the tribes from the east
and west. "For," said he, "our strength is not in the war club and arrows
alone, but in wise counsels." He appointed a place on the banks of
Onondaga Lake for the meeting. It was a clear eminence from which there
was a wide prospect. Runners were dispatched in every direction, and the
chiefs, warriors and headmen forthwith assembled in great numbers,
bringing with them, in the general alarm, their women and children.
Fleets of canoes were seen on the bosom of the lake, and every inteterior
warpath was kept open by the foot-prints of the different tribes,
hurrying to obey the summons of Hiawatha. All but the wise man himself
had been there for three days, anxiously awaiting the arrival of
Hiawatha, when a messenger was dispatched after him. They found him
gloomy and depressed. Some great burden appeared to hang on his mind. He
told them that evil lay on his path, and that he had fearful forebodings
of ill-fortune. He felt that he was called to make some great sacrifice,
but he did not know what it was, it seemed to be hid from him. Least of
all did he think it was to be his daughter: ever careful of her, he bade
her kindly to accompany him. Nothing happened to hinder, or at all
interrupt their voyage. The Talismanic canoe, which held them, gllded
silently down the waters of the Seneca; not a paddle was necessary to
give it impetus, while it pursued the downward course of the stream till
they reached the point of the lake outlet. At this point Hiawatha took
his paddle and gave it impetus against the current, until they entered on
the bright and calm surface of the Onondaga, cradled, as this blue sheet
of water is, among the lofty and far-swelling hills. When the white canoe
of the venerable chief appeared, a shout of welcome rang among those
hills. The day was calm and serene. No wind ruffled the lake, and
scarcely a cloud floated in the sky above. But while the wise man was
measuring his steps towards the place designated for the council, and
while ascending from the water's edge, a rumbling and low sound was
heard, as if it were caused by the approach of a violent, rushing wind.
Instantly all the eyes were turned upwards, where a small and compact
mass of cloudy darkness appeared. It gathered in size and velocity as it
approached, and appeared to be directed inevitably to fall in the midst
of the assembly. Every one fled in consternation but Hiawatha and his
daughter. He stood erect, with ornaments waving in his frontlet, and
besought his daughter calmly to await the issue, "for it is impossible,"
said he, "to escape the power of the Great Spirit. If he has determined
our destruction we cannot, by running, fly from him." She modestly
assented and they stood together, while horror was depicted in the faces
of the others. But the force of the descending body was that of a sudden
storm. They had hardly taken the resolution to halt when an immense bird,
with long, extended wings, came down with swoop. This gigantic agent of
the sky came with such force that the assembly felt the shock. The girl
being in a nature, and embodied in the combination of the Terrestial and
Celestial nature, was beautiful and fascinating in her looks and form,
was borne away by this Celestial Bird to be seen no more upon the earth.
But Hiawatha was inconsolable for his loss. He grieved sorely, day and
night, and wore a desponding and dejected countenance. But these were
only faint indications of the feelings of his heart. He threw himself
upon the ground, and refused to be comforted. He seemed dumb with
melancholy, and the people were concerned of his life. He spoke nothing;
he made no answers to questions put to him, and laid still as if dead.
After several days the council appointed a certain merry-hearted Chief to
make him a visit, and to whisper a word of consolation in his ears to
arouse him from his stupor. The result was successful. He approached with
ceremonies and induced him to arise, and named the time when the council
would convene. Yet haggard with grief, he called for refreshments and
ate. He then adjusted his wardrobe and head-dress and went to the
council. He drew his robe of wolf-skin gracefully around him, and walked
to his seat at the head of the assembled chiefs with a majestic step.
Stiliness and the most profound attention reigned in the council while he
presided, and the discussion opened and proceeded. The subject of the
invasion was handled by several of the ablest counselors and the bravest
warriors. Various plans were proposed to defeat the enemy. Hiawatha
listened with silence until all had finished speaking. His opinion was
then asked. After a brief allusion of the calamity which had befallen him
through the descent of the great bird by the Great Spirit, he spoke to
the following effect:

"I have listened to the words of the wise men and brave chiefs, but it is
not fitting that we should do a thing of so much importance in haste; it
is a subject demanding calm reflection and mature deliberation. Let us
postpone the decision for one day. During this time we will weigh well
the words of the speakers who have already spoken. If they are good, I
will then approve of them. If they are not, I will then open to you my
plan. It is one which I have reflected on, and feel confident that it
will insure safety."

When another day had expired, the council again met. Hiawatha entered the
assembly with even more than ordinary attention, and every eye was fixed
upon him, when he began to address the council in the following words:

"Friends and Brothers:--You being members of many tribes, you have come
from a great distance; the voice of war has aroused you up; you are
afraid of your homes, your wives and your children; you tremble for your
safety. Believe me, I am with you. My heart beats with your hearts. We
are one. We have one common object. We come to promote our common
interest, and to determine how this can be best done.

"To oppose those hordes of northern tribes, singly and alone, would prove
certain destruction. We can make no progress in that way. We must unite
ourselves into one common band of brothers. We must have but one voice.
Many voices makes confusion. We must have one fire, one pipe and one war
club. This will give us strength. If our warriors are united they can
defeat the enemy and drive them from our land; if we do this, we are
safe.

"Onondaga, you are the people sitting under the shadow of the _Great
Tree_, whose branches spread far and wide, and whose roots sink deep
into the earth. You shall be the first nation, because you are warlike
and mighty.

"Oneida, and you, the people who recline your bodies against the
_Everlasting Stone_, that cannot be moved, shall be the second
nation, because you always give good counsel.

"Seneca, and you, the people who have your habitation at the foot of the
_Great Mountain_, and are overshadowed by its crags, shall be the
third nation, because you are all greatly gifted in speech.

"Cayuga, you, whose dwelling is in the _Dark Forest_, and whose home
is everywhere, shall be the fourth nation, because of your superior
cunning in hunting.

"Mohawk, and you, the people who live in the open country, and possess
much wisdom, shall be the fifth nation, because you understand better the
art of raising corn and beans and making cabins.

"You five great and powerful nations, with your tribes, must unite and
have one common interest, and no foes shall disturb or subdue you.

"And you of the different nations of the south, and you of the west, may
place yourselves under our protection, and we will protect you. We
earnestly desire the alliance and friendship of you all.

"And from you, Squaw-ki-haws (being a remote branch of the Seneca
Nation), being the people who are as the _Feeble Bushes_, shall be
chosen, a Virgin, who shall be the peacemaker for all the nations of the
earth, and more particularly the favored Ako-no-shu-ne, which name this
confederacy shall ever sustain. If we unite in one band the Great Spirit
will smile upon us, and we shall be free, prosperous and happy; but if we
shall remain as we are we shall incur his displeasure. We shall be
enslaved, and perhaps annihilated forever.

"Brothers, these are the words of Hiawatha. Let them sink deep into your
hearts. I have done."

A deep and impressive silence followed the delivery of this speech. On
the following day the council again assembled to act on it. High wisdom
recommended this deliberation.

The union of the tribes into one confederacy was discussed and
unanimously adopted. To denote the character and intimacy of the union
they employed the figure of a single council-house, or lodge, whose
boundaries be co-extensive with their territories. Hence the name of Ako-
no-shu-ne, who were called the Iroquois.

The great bird which visited them from heaven brought a precious gift to
the warriors in the white plumes which she shed at the visit. Every
warrior, as he approached the spot where they fell, picked up a feather
of snowy white to adorn his crown; and the celestial visitant thus became
the means of furnishing the aspirants of military fame with an emblem
which was held in the highest estimation. Succeeding generations imbibed
the custom from this incident to supply themselves with a plumage
approaching it as nearly as possible; they selected the plume of the
white heron.

At the formation of the confederacy Ato-ta-rho, being considered next in
wisdom and all other traits of character which constitutes the necessary
qualifications of an honored Sachem, was ordained as the head Sachem of
the confederacy, which office has been transmitted down to succeeding
generations of the Onondaga Nation to the present time.

Hiawatha, the guardian and founder of the league, having now accomplished
the will of the Great Spirit, and the withdrawal of his daughter having
been regarded by him as a sign that his mission was ended, he immediately
prepared to make his final departure. Before the great council, which had
adopted his advice just before dispersing, he arose, with a dignified
air, and addressed them in the following manner:

"Friends and Brothers:--I have now fulfilled my mission here below; I
have furnished you seeds and grains for your gardens; I have removed
obstructions from your waters, and made the forest habitable by teaching
you how to expel its monsters; I have given you fishing places and
hunting grounds; I have instructed you in the making and using of war
implements; I have taught you how to cultivate corn, and many other arts
and gifts. I have been allowed by the Great Spirit to communicate to you.
Last of all, I have aided you to form a league of friendship and union.
If you preserve this, and admit no foreign element of power by the
admission of other nations, you will always be free, numerous and happy.
If other tribes and nations are admitted to your councils, they will sow
the seed of jealousy and discord, and you will become few, feeble and
enslaved.

"Friends and brothers, these are the last words you will hear from the
lips of Hiawatha. The Great Creator of our bodies calls me to go; I have
patiently awaited his summons; I am ready to go. Farewell."

As the voice of the wise man ceased, sweet strains of music from the air
burst on the ears of the multitude. The whole sky appeared to be filled
with melody; and while all eyes were directed to catch glimpses of the
sights, and enjoy strains of the celestial music that filled the sky,
Hiawatha was seen, seated in his snow-white canoe, amid the air,
_rising, rising_ with every choral chant that burst out. As he rose
the sound of the music became more soft and faint, until he vanished amid
the summer clouds, and the melody ceased. Thus terminated the labors and
cares of the long-cherished memory of Ta-ren-ya-wa-gon.

I will now resume the history of the sixth and last family, the Tuscarora
On-gwe-hon-wa, that were left at the Neuse river, or Gan-ta-no. Here they
increased in numbers, valor and skill, and in all knowledge of the arts
necessary in forest life. The country was wide and covered with dense
wilderness, large rivers and lakes, which gave shelter to many fierce
animals and monsters which beset their pathways and kept them in dread.
Now the Evil Spirit also plagued them with monstrous visitations. They
were often induced to change their locations; sometimes from fear of
enemies and sometimes from epidemics, or some strange visitations.

I will now relate a few of the monsters that plagued them: The first
enemy that appeared to question their power or disturb their peace was
the fearful phenomenon of Ko-nea-rah-yah-neh, or the flying heads. The
heads were enveloped in beard and hair, flaming like fire; they were of
monstrous size, and shot through the air with the speed of meteors. Human
power was not adequate to cope with them. The priests pronounced them a
flowing power of some mysterious influence, and it remained with the
priests alone to expel them by their magic power.

[Illustration: Flying head and woman sitting by the fire]

Drum and rattle and enchantments were deemed more effective than arrows
or clubs. One evening, after they had been plagued a long time with
fearful visitations, the flying head came to the door of a lodge occupied
by a single female and her dog. She was sitting composedly before the
fire roasting acorns, which, as they became cooked, she deliberately took
from the fire and ate. Amazement seized the flying head, who put out two
huge black paws from under his streaming beard. Supposing the woman to be
eating live coals he withdrew, and from that time he came no more among
them.

And they were also invaded by a still more fearful enemy, the Ot-nea-yar-
heh, or Stonish Giants. They were a powerful tribe from the wilderness,
tall, fierce and hostile, and resistance to them was vain. They defeated
and overwhelmed an army which was sent out against them, and put the
whole country in fear. These giants were not only of great strength, but
they were cannibals, devouring men, women and children in their inroads.

[Illustration: Stonish giant chasing indians.]

It is said by the Shawnees that these giants were descended from a
certain family which was journeying on the east side of the Mississippi.
After some of them had crossed the river on a vine it broke, which left
the main body on the east bank of the river. Those who were on the west
side of the river went toward the northwest. Being abandoned in their
wanderings, and being vagrants, without any knowledge of the arts of
life, they forgot the rules of humanity. They at first began to eat their
game in the raw flesh, which led them finally to become cannibals, and
they practiced to roll themselves in the sand, which caused their bodies
to be covered with a hard skin, so that the arrows of the Tuscaroras only
rattled against their rough bodies and fell at their feet. And the
consequence was, that they were obliged to bide in caves and glens, and
were brought into subjection by those fierce invaders for many winters.
At length the Holder of the Heavens visited his people, and finding that
they were in great distress, he determined to relieve them of these
barbarous invaders. To accomplish this he changed himself as into one of
those giants. As you will remember, it is said that he was able to change
himself into any shape that he wished. He then joined himself with the
invaders, and brandishing his heavy war club, led them on under the
pretence of finding the other five nations, which they were also in the
habit of visiting. When they came near to the strong fort at Onondaga,
they being weary of the long journey, and the night being dark, their
leader bade them lie down at the foot of a mountain until the customary
time to make the attack, which was at the break of day. But during the
night the Indian benefactor ascended the height and overwhelmed the
slumberers below with a vast mass of rocks. At this catastrophe only one
escaped to carry the news of their dreadful fate, and he fled toward the
north.

The Tuscaroras and the other five nations were so much troubled with
giants and other monsters that they were obliged to build forts to
protect themselves. The way they built them was always by selecting an
eminence, or rocky cliff, and on the back part was dug a trench according
to the plan of the fort. Then timbers were set in the trench upright,
projecting above the ground several feet, and being adjusted together as
close as possible, and the trench being filled in again. They had two
gates, one way to get their water, the other for a sally port.

They were also molested by a terrific animal which they called Ro-qua-ho
--a variegated lizzard--a swift runner and strikes very violent blows with
its tail, which destroyed many hunters while lying in lurk for them. One
day while a party of hunters were on their journey to camp-out for the
purpose of hunting, the party consisting of four, they came to a very
large hollow tree where they noticed quite a number of great marks of
claws on the bark of the tree. Supposing it to be the lodge of bears,
they laid their bundles down and made ready for their game. One of them
bounded on the tree and climbed it, and he struck the trunk of the tree
several times. When the supposed bear appeared, to their consternation it
was found to be the enemy they so much dreaded, the Ro-qua-ho. The person
on the tree only stepped behind it and the other three ran away for their
lives. The Ro-qua-ho came down and pursued them, and while yet in sight
one was caught, killed and brought back, and he carried the body into the
tree. Then he went after the second which was brought in a short time,
after which, he went for the third; then the one on the tree came down
and ran away also. While on his way he heard a voice calling him; he
stopped, and behold, a man of stately form, with long flowing hair stood
and said, "Why run? I have seen the distress of my people, I have come to
deliver them out of trouble; now confide in me and we will prevail. I am
your benefactor, Tarenyawagon. Get behind me, the enemy is approaching."

In the twinkling of an eye this Celestial being was changed, and assumed
himself into a great white bear. When the Roquaho came a great struggle
ensued, but with the help of the man the enemy was killed.

They were again molested by an extraordinary and ferocious animal in
various places--a mammoth bear. One morning while a party of hunters were
in their camp, they were alarmed by a great tumult breaking out from the
forest. Upon going to ascertain the cause of this extraordinary noise,
they saw the great monster on the bank pawing and rolling stones and logs
in every direction, exhibiting the utmost rage. Another great animal of
the cat kind appeared, and seized the bear and a dreadful fight ensued.
In the end the bear got the worst of it and retired horribly mangled, and
never was heard of afterwards.

After a while a pestiferous and annoying creature of the insect kind
appeared in the guise of the Ro-tay-yo (a huge mosquito). It first
appeared among the Tuscaroras along the Neuse river. It flew about with
vast wings, making a loud noise, with a long stinger; and on whomsoever
it lighted it sucked out all the blood and killed them. Many warriors
were destroyed in this way, and all attempts made to subdue it were vain;
but at length it retired of itself. Next they heard that it appeared
about the fort at Onondaga, where it also destroyed many lives, until
Tarenyawagon made a visit to the ruler of the Onondagas. The great
mosquito happened to come flying about the fort as usual at that time.
Tarenyawago immediately made his attack, but such was the rapidity of its
flight, that he could scarcely keep in sight of it. He chased it around
the borders of the great lakes, towards the sun-setting, and around the
great country at large, east and west. At last he overtook it, and took
his strong bow and sent an arrow which struck him through the heart and
killed him, near Gen-an-do-a (the salt lake of Onondaga). From the blood
flowing out on this occasion were the present species of small mosquito
originated.

I have now related a few of the tragedies of the dark recesses of the
forest, from the many that our tradition relates.

There was also a little old man of singular appearance that frequented
among them at their ball plays, and did not seem to be inclined to make
acquaintance with any one, but kept by himself and appeared to be mild
and humble. At length this man became very sick with putrefying sores
from head to foot and was very loathesome. Nobody knew who he was or
where he came from: he had no home; he gave his name as Qua-ra, or
Rabbit: he went from house to house of all the different clans or tribes
in the nation, as for instance, the Eel, Snipe, Beaver, Turtle, Wolf,
Deer. When he would approach the house, seemingly to go in, they would
loathe him to enter, and when he came to the doorstep he would seem to
hear their thoughts and then return; thus he was repulsed from all the
houses of the above clans, he finally came to the house of the Bear clan.
When the mistress of the house observed him coming, she had pity on him,
and presently prepared a bed for him with the best deerskins she had;
when he came to the door he knew her hospitable heart and went in. She
immediately assured him of his welcome in her meanly hut, and that she
was ready to do everything in her power to relieve his distress, and
appointed his lodge where he had laid himself nearly exhausted. He then
told her to go and get the root of a certain kind of plant, which she
immediately did and prepared according to his direction, which he took
and readily recovered. He then went through a series of diseases,
directing her as before to get the different kind of medicines for the
different diseases. Lastly, he became sick with that fatal disease,
consumption. This he said was incurable, and he must die. He then told
her he was a messenger from Tarenyawagon, to show them the diseases that
they should be subjected to, and also the medicine to cure them. And also
to tell them the predictions of their fate and doom. Said he could not
withhold the water from his eyes, or keep from quaking when he thought of
their irrevocable doom to which they were destined, and said: "There is a
habitation beyond these great waters towards the sun-rising, which are
inhabited by beings of very pale faces, and are looking only to
themselves, have pity for nobody, and make their delight in doing
mischief. They have killed Rah-wah-ne-yo (God); they mocked him and done
all manner of bad things to him, and finally, they fastened him to a tree
until he died. But death and the grave had not power to hold him. He
arose and lives again, and he has gone to the world above, in those happy
hunting grounds where all good O-qua-ho-wa (Indians), will go when they
die, and will see him as he is.

"Now this class of pale-faces will come across the great waters and make
their abode on this island, and will bring poison to give you to drink,
which will poison the spirit and kill the body. They will kill your
husbands, brothers and sons, and drive you away to the sun-setting, and
will deprive the children that are coming behind, off their domain. They
will drive you until you are in the great salt water up to your waist.
Oh, hostess, this is the final doom of your great nation.

"And now as for you, Oh, mother, I have no words that I can utter, to
express the sincere gratitude of my inmost soul. I have nothing to give
to compensate you for all the tenderness you have given me. But my
blessings I will leave with you. I place in the midst of your clan, the
Bear, a majestic pine tree, which is ever green, and as the top reaches
above all other trees, so will your clan be. Wherever the nation will be
driven to, your clan will multiply above all others, and be the ruler of
the nation. This is all I have to deliver unto you. I now commend myself
to that Great Spirit that has made us all, who ruleth above."

Thus ended the last messenger of Tarenyawagon, who is now basking in the
pleasures of that hunting ground in the world above.




TUSCARORA.

Before the discovery, by Columbus, the Tuscaroras consisted of six towns,
and they were a powerful nation, numbering over twelve hundred warriors,
which, at a ratio according to the rule of estimating, would bring them
at about five or six thousand souls.

The Tuscaroras had many years of enjoyment and peaceful possession of
their domain, consisting of six towns on the Roanoke, Neuse, Taw and
Pemlico rivers, in the State of North Carolina. And they were also
confederated to six other nations, which were the Corees, Mattamuskeets,
Notaways and the Bear River Indians; the names of the other two nations I
have been unable to obtain. My readers will readily see why some writers
have it that they consisted in twelve towns, and other writers would have
it that they consisted in six towns. The real Tuscaroras consisted in six
towns; but with the confederate nations, altogether, were known to be in
twelve towns, and all these different nations which composed the
confederacy went under the name of Tuscarora, the Tuscaroras being the
most powerful of the several nations.

The tradition of the Tuscaroras admits of having captured Lawson and his
party, and executed some of them to death on account of their
encroachments upon their domain; but concerning the massacre of Oct. 2d,
1711, the Tuscaroras emphatically deny having taken any part in the
affair whatever, officially. The project was presented to them and in the
council of the sachems, chiefs and warriors, they emphatically declined
taking any part in such a movement, but said if the colonists made
encroachments and trespass on their domain, it is no more than right and
just that we defend our rights, and even cautioned their young men that
they should not take any part whatever in the action; but, nevertheless,
there were a few of the rash and reckless warriors that took part in the
disorder.

The Corees, Mattamuskeets, and Bear River Indians seemed to be the
instigators of the project: but there were several other nations that
took part in the massacre. These three nations being considered
Tuscaroras, on account of the confederacy, and the capture of Lawson and
his party a little previous to this time by the Tuscaroras, led the
colonists to conclude that it was the Tuscaroras who caused the disaster,
and to them was directed the feud of the colonists.

A little previous to these disorders, it seems that there were some white
men, as our tradition states, with long coats and wide brimmed hats,
visited several nations of the Indians in that neighborhood, and appeared
to be very friendly toward them, wished them success in everything, and
told them that those settlers who were on the borders of their lands and
constantly encroaching and committing depredations upon the Indians, were
not of the government, but were merely squatters, who settled there of
their own accord, and if they were cut off, there would be none to avenge
them, and were advised to do so.

It has always been a question in my mind who those white men were, to
give such rash advice. Were they Quakers? But what motive had they in
advising, from which so great a disaster was the result? Or, were they
men in disguise, from the county of Bath, in which the massacre was
committed, to make the Indians believe that they were Quakers, as the two
counties were in arms against each other at that time.

To coroborate the tradition above, I would call your attention to part of
a letter from President Pollock to Lord Craven, in the year 1712, who
attributes the calamity thus:

"Our divisions," says he, "chiefly occasioned by the Quakers and some
other ill-disposed persons, have been the cause of all the troubles, for
the Indians were informed by some of the traders that the people who
lived here are only a few vagabonds, who had run away from other
governments and settled here of their own accord, without any authority,
so that if they were cut off, there would be none to revenge them. This
with their seeing our differences rise to such a heighth, that consisting
of two counties only, were in arms one against the other, encouraged them
to fall upon the county of Bath, expecting it would have no assistance
from this nor any other of the English plantations. This is the chief
cause that moved the Indians to rise against us, as far as I understand."

The Tuscaroras never had the inclination of cutting off the inhabitance
of the pale faces. Nevertheless, they did not always remain idle or
unconcerned spectators of the feuds and dissensions that so long
prevailed among the white people, toward the red men. The successive and
regular encroachments, on their hunting grounds and plantations, which
the increase of the European population occasioned, had not always been
submitted to without murmur.

Although they were pleased with the neighbors, from whom they had trade
for their furs, and could procure spirituous liquors and other articles,
which tended to the gratification of their real or imaginary wants. And
they were required to surrender larger and larger portions of their
domain, and at last, the removal of families from the neighborhood of
their long cherished memories of the graves of their ancestors, to the
more distant and less valuable tracts of land. Other causes of animosity
and ill-will were not wanting. Their hunters were shot down like so many
beasts, at the edge of the settlement, killed in their wigwams, their
young females' chastity violated, and many other things might be related,
which their tradition shows. But I have neither heart nor inclination to
bring to a resurrection the long gone-by memories of our forefathers. I
would that all were cast into oblivion, where might not be found neither
trace nor track; but rather that the chain of friendship which has
existed for more than a century between the Tuscaroras and the United
States Government may be made brighter and brighter as time rolls on.

I have said that the Tuscaroras never had the inclination of cutting off
the first colonies, and if that were their desire, how readily would they
have excepted the advice of President Thomas Carey, through one of his
counsel--Edward Porter--in the year 1710, of which you will find in
Martin's History of North Carolina a difficulty between Gov. Hyde and the
above, to-wit: "Before any relief could be sent he attempted the landing
of some of his men under fire of his brig, but they were repulsed by the
militia of the neighborhood, which Gov. Hyde had time to collect. They
returned on board, and their Chief sought a safe retreat in the swamps of
the Tar river, where he raised his standard and endeavored to bring the
Tuscarora Indians into an alliance. For this purpose he dispatched to
them Edward Porter, one of his counsel, who endeavored by promises of
great rewards to induce them to cut off all the inhabitants of that part
of the province who adhered to Gov. Hyde. This was acceded to by some of
his young warriors, but when the matter was debated in council the old
men dissuaded them from listening to Porter."

Now, did not some of Carey's men go afterwards to some of the neighboring
Indian nations and induced them, in the year 1710, to commit the
massacre?

I suppose to the critical reader, and to the people generally, my writing
will appear to them fictitious, because of their first impression, which
has been taught them by many historians. Historians generally have given
only one side of the story, and have avoided, as much as possible, to
give the history of the wrongs done to the Tuscaroras, but they are very
scrupulous to preserve the history of the capture of Lawson, his
execution and of the massacre, which they allege to have been committed
by the Tuscaroras, and are styled by many as being inimical, haughty,
jealous, warlike bloodhounds, bloodthirsty and scarcely to be human.
These are the first impressions made by the historians upon the mind of
the world. I suppose, for the purpose of getting a general verdict, that
it was right; that they were crushed as a nation, their domain snatched
from them, driven into the cold world, and not a word has been written by
historians, or the Tuscaroras themselves, to vindicate their cause.

But with all the great tide of prejudiced feelings towards the
Tuscaroras, I have ventured to write their history as I have received it,
and think it to be true.

After the massacre, and the Tuscaroras heard it reported that they were
charged with being the author of the disaster, they immediately sent
messengers and denied the charge of having officially taken any part in
the disorder, but acknowledged that a few of the reckless and lawless
warriors did take part against their admonitions, but they were willing
to make all the restoration that was in their power to do, and would
fight for them if necessary. At different times they petitioned,
remonstrated and supplicated for peace, which was slighted and
disregarded, and only produced more violence and insult.

Notice what Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, said concerning the
Tuscaroras, to wit:

"On the first of the disaster I sent a detachment of the militia to the
tributary Indians of this province to prevent them from joining in the
war, and understanding that the Indians in some of the Tuscarora towns
had refused to march against the whites, sent a messenger to invite them,
with the rest of the friendly tribes, to a conference at the Nottoway
line, on the southern border of Virginia, where he met them on the 7th of
November."

"The Governor, after entering into some conversation with the Chiefs, had
the pleasure of finding the report which his messengers had made, from
their observations while in the Tuscarora towns, that they were very
desirous of continuing in peace, and were greatly concerned that any of
their nation should have joined in the massacre."

The Chiefs, after accounting for the delay that occurred, expressed the
desire of the Indians of their towns to continue in strict friendship
with the whites, and assist them in chastising the authors of the late
disorder.

"But now an unfortunate difference arose between the Governor and the
burgesses, the latter insisting on the passage of a bill for raising an
army in Virginia, without trusting to the sincerity of the profession of
the Tuscarora Chiefs. The Governor refusing to accede to this
proposition, and declining to co-operate in their plans, the dispute
ended by a dissolution of the assembly."

There was at one time a treaty of peace concluded between the Sachems and
Chiefs of the Tuscaroras and Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, and one of
the conditions of the treaty was to help in chastising the authors of the
late massacre. In conformity with this pledge the Tuscaroras made an
attack on the Mattamuskeets, where they obtained thirty scalps and
presented them to the authorities of the whites, of which they pretended
to be pleased. I don't doubt but that they were really pleased, but not
with any good feelings towards the Tuscaroras. I suppose the object was
to get all the other Indian nations alienated from them, so that in due
time they might be easily conquered, because they were the nation that
the whites seemed bent on destroying. The Tuscaroras had faith in the
treaty, but only to disappoint them in the thought of having the dark
cloud which hung so glowingly over them taken away. It is said by
historians that the Tuscaroras disregarded the treaty and began
hostilities. But I will relate a tradition, handed down from generation
to generation, which is as follows, to wit:

Some little time after the treaty concluded, several white men went into
one of their towns and said that they were sent by the government to
distribute among them an annuity of goods in token of friendship; and
also said, "In token of your sincerity to the treaty of peace, you will
all repair to a place where there is a cord stretched out in a straight
line, you must all take hold of the line with your right hand, and all
those that refuse to take hold will be considered as hostile and will be
omitted in the distribution of the goods." They all went to the place
designated and found the cord strung out for nearly a mile; at one end of
it was a bundle covered with cloth, which, as they supposed, contained
the goods; so the unsuspecting Indians, women and children, with eager
hearts, laid hold on the rope. When it was thought that they were in a
proper position, the white men all at once uncovered the supposed goods,
which was a large cannon, and being prepared to shoot in a line with the
cord it was at once fired and roared like thunder. In a moment the ground
along the cord was strewn with the meats of the Tuscaroras. This is one
of the effects of the treaty at that time.

I will copy a report of Governor Spotswood to the Lords Commissioners of
Trade, in the year 1711, to-wit:

"Had they," said he, "really intended to carry on the war against the
Indians, they could not have done it in a more frugal way than by the
treaty I concluded with the Tuscarora chiefs.

"Indeed, some of that house, since the dissolution, own more freely than
they would do while sitting, that most of the irregularities of their
proceedings are owing to some rash votes, passed without foresight, which
they could not afterwards get over without breaking the rules of their
house; and so they chose, rather, to let the country suffer than to own
themselves in an error.

"Some of the Tuscarora chiefs have lately been with Governor Spotswood,
of Virginia, and pretend a great inclination to peace.

"They are again to be with him on the 26th of this month; we are to send
two agents to meet them there--Mr. Tobias Knight and Mayor Christophe
Gale--not with any expectation that the Governor will make any treaty for
us, for that would be dishonorable to your lordship and make us appear
contemptible in the eyes of the Indians, but with a view to hear what
they have to propose."

I might quote many more passages similar to those above, but let these
few suffice to show how the Tuscaroras were treated. Now, finally, with a
combination of causes, they were in 1713, crushed and broken down as a
nation, to satisfy the inclinations of the white people, persecutions
being kept up by neighboring whites and southern Indians until June
following. The Oneida Indians, having heard of the disaster to the
Tuscarora Nation, invited them to come and make their dwelling among
them: so, accordingly, they left Carolina and took their journey north to
rejoin their sister nations.

Methink I can see them leaving their once cherished homes--the aged, the
helpless, the women and children, and the warriors faint and few--the
ashes are cold on their native hearth; the smoke no more curls round
their lowly cabin: they move on with slow, unsteady steps; they turn to
take a last look upon their doomed village and cast a last glance upon
the long cherished memories of their fathers' graves. They shed no tears;
they utter no cries: they heave no groans, they linger but a moment. They
know and feel that there is for them still one more remove further, not
distant nor unseen.

One bright, sunny June morning, in the year 1813, was one of the darkest
days that the Tuscaroras ever witnessed, when most of the nation took
their pace to the north until they came within the bounds of the Oneida
domain, about two miles west of Tamaqua, in the state of Pennsylvania,
where they located and set out apple trees which can be seen to this day:
some of the trees, will measure about two feet in diameter. Here they
dwelled for about two years.

In about the year 1815, the Iroquois, being the Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca,
Oneida and Cayuga nations, which were then called the five nations, had a
general council where the Tuscarora made an application through their
brothers the Oneida, to be admitted into the Iroquois and become the
sixth nation, on the grounds of a common generic origin, which was
granted them unanimously. Then the Seneca adopted the Tuscarora as their
children. Ever since that time to the present, if a Seneca addresses the
Tuscaroras, he will invariably salute them as "my sons," in social or in
council; and also the Tuscaroras in return will say "my fathers." The
relation has always been kept up to the present.

The Tuscaroras were then initiated without enlarging the frame-work of
the confederacy and formation of the League, by allowing them their own
Sachems and Chiefs, which they had as hereditary from their nation in the
south, except on which they gave, as the Holder of the Tree, to sit and
enjoy a nominal equality in the councils of the League, by the courtesy
of the other five nations. They were not dependent, but were admitted to
as full an equality as could be granted them without enlarging the frame-
work of the confederacy. In the councils of the League they had no
national designation. They were then assigned a portion of the Oneidas'
territory, which is lying upon the Unadilla river on the east, the
Chenango on the west, and the Susquehanna on the south, where they
dwelled and enjoyed their peace again for about seventy years. In 1736
they numbered 200 warriors of fighting men.

We again hear of the Tuscarora by history, concerning a massacre of the
German Flats, N. Y., in November, 1757.

A narrative communicated to the author of the Documentary History of New
York, vol. 2, page 520, viz: A few days after this massacre and
desolation had been perpetrated, Sir William Johnson dispatched Geo.
Croghan, Esq., Deputy Agent, with Mr. Montour, the Indian interpreter, to
the German Flats, where he understood several of the Oneida and Tuscarora
Indians were assembled, in order to call upon them to explain why they
had not given more timely notice to the Germans of the designs and
approach of the enemy, it having been reported that no intelligence had
been given by the Indians until the same morning the attack was made, and
as these Indians might naturally be supposed, from their situation and
other circumstances, to have had an earlier knowledge of the enemy's
design and march.

Before Mr. Croghan could get up to the German Flats the aforesaid Indians
were on their road homewards, but he was informed that the Chief Sachem
of the Upper Oneida town, with a Tuscarora Sachem (which is supposed to
be Solomon Longboard) and another Oneida Indian, were still about four
miles from Fort Harkeman, upon which he sent a messenger to acquaint them
that he was at the said fort.

The aforesaid Indians returned, and on the 3oth of November, at Fort
Harkeman, Conaghquieson, the Oneida Sachem, made the following speech to
Mr. Croghan, having first called in one Rudolph Shumaker, Hanjost Harkman
and several other Germans who understood the Indian language, and desired
them to sit down and hear what he had to say. Conaghquieson then
proceeded and said:

"Brothers:--I can't help telling you that we were very much surprised to
hear that our English brethren suspect and charge us with not giving them
timely notice of the designs of the French, as it is well known we have
not neglected to give them every piece of intelligence that came to our
knowledge.

"Brothers, about fifteen days before the affair happened we sent the
Germans word that some Swegatchi Indians told us that the French were
determined to destroy the German Flats, and desired them to be on their
guard. About six days after that we had a further account from the
Swegatchi Indians that the French were preparing to march.

"I then came to the German Flats, and in a meeting with the Germans told
them what we had heard, and desired to collect themselves together in a
body at their fort, [Footnote: A stockaded work round the church, and a
block-house, with a ditch, and a parapet thrown up by Sir William
Johnson, a year ago, upon an alarm then given.] and secure their women,
children and effects, and to make the best defence they could. At the
same time I told them to write what I had said to our brother,
Warraghryagey (meaning Sir William Johnson [Footnote: They never sent
this intelligence to Sir William Johnson.]), but they paid not the least
regard to what I told them, and laughed at me, slapping their hands on
their buttocks, saying they did not value the enemy, upon which I
returned home and sent one of our people to the lake (meaning Oneida
Lake) to find out whether the enemy were coming or not. After he had
staid there two days the enemy arrived at the carrying-place, and sent
word to the castle at the lake that they were there, and told them what
they were going to do, but charged them not to let us at the upper castle
know anything of their design. As soon as the man I sent there heard this
he came on to us with the account that night; and as soon as we received
it we sent a belt of wampum, to confirm the truth thereof, to the Flats,
which came here the day before the enemy made their attack: but the
people would not give credit to the account even then, or they might have
saved their lives. [Footnote: The Indians who brought the belt of wampum,
finding the Germans still incredulous, the next morning, just before the
attack began, laid hold on the German Minister, and in a manner forced
him over to the other side of the river, by which means he and some who
followed him escaped the fate of their brethren.] This is the truth, and
those Germans here present know it to be so. The aforesaid Germans did
acknowledge it to be so, and that they had such intelligence.

"GEORGE CROGHAN."

The Oneida being the original owner of the tract of land assigned to the
Tuscarora as aforesaid, were made party with the Tuscarora to the treaty
made at Fort Herkimer in the year 1785, by which it was ceded to the
State, and the Oneida took all the avails of the treaty. The Tuscaroras
were then again left without a home and were partially scattered among
the other nations, although they continued to preserve their nationality.
They had some settlements, at a later period, in Oneida Castle, called by
them Gaunea-wahro-hare (signifying head on the pole), and one in the
valley of the Genesee below Avon, called by them Ju-na-stre-yo
(signifying the beautiful valley); another settlement at Con-na-so-ra-ga,
on the line between Onondaga and Oneida; another in the fork of
Chattenango Creek, which they called Ju-ta-nea-ga (signifying where the
sun shines); and another on the Jordan Creek, which they called Kan-ha-to
(signifying limb in water). These several places were settled at
different periods, which I am not able to give.

In the revolutionary war between the United States and Great Britain, the
Tuscaroras then had their settlement at the place alotted them by the
league in 1715, between the Unadilla river and the Chenango. They took an
active part with the United States. Many a soldier and scout of the
United States, in their fatigue and hunger, found a rest and a morsel in
the rude homes of the Tuscaroras, which were ever hospitably open to
them.

When the other Indians which took part with the British knew that the
Tuscaroras took part with the United States, they invaded their
settlement, destroyed their property and burned down their houses to
ashes, which scattered them for a while. There was a party that settled
at Oyouwayea, or Johnson's landing place, on lake Ontario, about four
miles east of the mouth of Niagara River, which is at the mouth of the
four-mile creek, for the purpose of getting out of the centre of the
other Indians which were for the British.

About the close of the war there were two families of the Tuscaroras
hunting and fishing along the shores of lake Ontario, and then up the
east shore of Niagara River as far as Lewiston, and there left their
canoe; then traveled east and up the mountain as far as a place which
they now call the Old Saw Mill (now on the Tuscarora Reservation), above
the Ayers' farm, where they saw great quantities of butternuts and
walnuts and and a nice stream of water flowing down the mountain; there
they took their rest, and after remaining several days they concluded to
make their winter quarters at that place, which they did. After they were
missing for a time from the settlement at Johnson's landing, they were
hunted by their people and finally found at this place. A few years after
this the Oneidas and Tuscaroras ceded the tract of land that was
apportioned to the Tuscaroras; then families after families came and
located with those two families mentioned above. This is the beginning of
the settlement of the present Tuscarora Reservation.

The Tuscaroras, ever since the revolutionary war, have had their
residence within the territory of the Seneca nation, they being
considered the father of the Tuscarora by being adopted as such, at the
time of their initiation into the confederacy, in the year 1715.

I will here give the boundary of the Seneca Nation domain, according to
the treaty entitled "A Treaty between the United States of America and
the Tribes of Indians called the Six Nations":

"The President of the United States having determined to hold a
conference with the Six Nations of Indians, for the purpose of removing
from their minds all causes of complaint, and establishing a firm and
permanent friendship with them, and Timothy Pickering being appointed
sole agent for that purpose, and the agent having met and conferred with
the sachems, chiefs and warriors of the Six Nations, in a general
council, now, in order to accomplish the good design of the conference,
the parties have agreed on the following articles, when ratified by the
President, with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United
States, shall be binding on them and the Six Nations.

"Article 1. Peace and friendship are hereby firmly established, and shall
be perpetual between the United States and the Six Nations.

"Article 2. The United States acknowledge the lands reserved to the
Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga Nations, in their respective treaties with
the State of New York, and called their reservations, to be their
property; and the United States will never claim the same, nor disturb
them or either of the Six Nations, nor their Indian friends residing
thereon and united with them, in the free use and enjoyment thereof; but
the said reservations shall remain theirs until they choose to sell the
same to the people of the United States, who have the right to purchase.

"Article 3. The land of the Seneca Nation is bounded as follows:
Beginning on Lake Ontario at the northwest corner of the land they sold
to Oliver Phelps, the line runs westerly along the lake as far as O-yong-
wong-yeh creek, at Johnson's landing place, about four miles eastward
from the fort of Niagara; then southerly up that creek to its main fork;
then straight to the main fork of Stedman's creek, which empties into the
Niagara river above fort Schlosser; and then onward from that fort,
continuing the same straight course, to the river (this line from the
mouth of O-yong-wong-yeh creek to the river Niagara above Fort Schlosser,
being the eastern boundary of a strip of land extending from the same
line to Niagara river, which the Seneca Nation ceded to the king of Great
Britain at a treaty held about thirty years ago, with Sir William
Johnson); then the line runs along the river Niagara to Lake Erie; then
along Lake Erie to the eastern corner of a triangle piece of land which
the United States ceded to the state of Pennsylvania, as by the
President's patent, dated the third day of March 1792; then due south to
the boundary of that state; then due east to the southwest corner of the
land sold by the Seneca Nation to Oliver Phelps; and then northerly along
Phelps' line to the place of beginning, on Lake Ontario. Now, the United
States acknowledge all the land within the aforementioned boundary to be
the property of the Seneca Nation; and the United States will never claim
the same, nor disturb the Seneca Nation, nor their Indian friends
residing thereon and united with them, in the free use and enjoyment
thereof; but it shall remain theirs until they choose to sell the same to
the people of the United States, who have the right to purchase.

"Article 4. The United States having thus described and acknowledged what
lands belong to the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas, and engaged
never to claim the same, nor disturb them or any of the Six Nations, nor
their Indian friends residing thereon and united with them, in the free
use and enjoyment thereof, etc. Proclaimed January 21, 1785."

You will observe in the treaty above that the name of the Tuscarora
Nation is not mentioned at all, and yet speaks of the Six Nations, which
includes the Tuscarora Nation. The reason is this: In Article 2 you will
observe that all the nations that have their lands on the east side of
what is known as the Phelps line were named, and west of that line was
the land of the Seneca Nation on which the Tuscaroras resided, and were
considered as being merged into the Seneca Nation, and have the benefit
of the laws enacted for them.

There was also a contract entered into between the Seneca Nation of
Indians of the first part, and Robert Morris. Esq., of the city of
Philadelphia, of the second part. At a treaty held under the authority of
the United States, at Genesee, in the county of Ontario, State of New
York, on the fifteenth day of September, 1797, and on sundry days
immediately prior thereto, by the Honorable Jeremiah Wadsworth. Esq., a
commissioner appointed by the President of the United States to hold the
same, when the Senecas ceded the country that included the now Tuscarora
Reservation. The Tuscaroras then and there made their complaint by their
chiefs, for the first since they were initiated into the confederacy of
the Iroquois; in the presence of the commissioner and the others that are
parties to the treaty; that the Iroquois had from time to time allotted
them lands and had been ceded each time by the Iroquois, without giving
them a farthing to remunerate them for their portion of the lands so
ceded, or for the improvements that they had made, and asked if they were
to be driven in this manner from place to place all the days of their
existence, and if that is the way a father should use their children or
brothers should use their brothers, and to keep them living in
disappointment; they also alluded to a treaty concluded at Fort Stanwix
three years before this, where the commissioners of the United States
reserved to them land, which read as follows:

"Article 2. The Oneida and Tuscarora Nations shall be secured in the
possession of the lands on which they are settled."

The commissioner then inquired into the merits of the complaint of the
Tuscaroras, which the Iroquois affirmed; the commissioner then said to
them, that it is not right to make a contract, or to grant anything
without faith; it is only honorable when you adhere to your stipulation.

When Robert Morris knew that the Tuscaroras were destitute of land, he
reserved and donated to them two square miles being 1280 acres; the
Senecas also granted to them one square mile being 640 acres, which grant
was made at the convention dated above. On the 13th day of March, 1808,
the sachems, chiefs and head men of the Seneca Nation of Indians executed
a written indenture of the grant or deed to the Tuscarora Nation, of the
one square mile of land above mentioned, and was duly signed by the
sachems, chiefs and head men of the aforesaid Indians. On the 22d day of
September, 1810, it was entered and put on file in the Niagara County
Clerk's office, on page 56; and was again put on file in the Niagara
County Clerk's Office, Lockport, in book of deeds 151, page 168, March
13, 1879.

About the year 1800, Solomon Longbard and his brother held private
council between themselves, consulting how they might obtain more land to
make a permanent home for the Tuscaroras and their generation after them,
they concluded to repair to North Carolina and see if they could procure
any means from that source, whereby they might obtain more land. In
pursuance, the Tuscarora Chiefs in council appointed as delegates Solomon
Longboard and Sacarrissa, being sachems of the nation in the year 1801,
and in 1802 they effected a lease by the aid of the Legislature of North
Carolina, from which accrued $13,722; and in the year 1804, General
Dearborn, then Secretary of War, was authorized by Congress to buy land
for the Tuscaroras with the said money, by which he bought 4,329 acres of
the Holland Land Company, which is now on the south and east side of the
three square miles mentioned above, which now constitutes the Tuscarora
Reservation.

The Tuscarora Nation was once more at peace and in possession of lands
which they could call their own.




Tuscaroras at North Carolina.

In tracing the history of the Tuscaroras that migrated to the north and
joined themselves with the Iroquois, we would not forget those few who
remained with King James Blunt, a Tuscarora Chief, in North Carolina, who
had a tract of land allotted to them on Pamplico river. The smallness of
their number disabling them from resisting the attacks of the southern
Indians, Governor Charles Eden, of North Carolina, and the council, on
the 5th day of June, 1718, entered into a treaty, by which the land on
Pamplico river was abandoned by the Tuscaroras and another tract granted
to them, on Roanoke river, in the present county of Birtie, in
consideration of which they relinquished all claims of any other land in
the province, butted and bounded as follows, viz.: Beginning at the mouth
of Quitsnoy swamp, running up the said swamp four hundred and 35 poles,
to a scrubby oak near the head of the swamp, by a great spring; then
north ten degrees east, eight hundred and fifty poles, to a persimmon
tree on Raquis swamp; then along the swamp and Pacosin main course north
fifty-seven degrees west, two thousand six hundred and forty poles, to a
hickory tree on the east side of the Falling Run, or Deep creek, and down
the various courses of the said run to Morattock; then down the river to
the first station.

In the administration of the Governor, Gabriel Johnson, Esq., at a
General Assembly held at New Bern on the 15th day of October, 1748, by
virtue of an act, this same limit of land above was confirmed and assured
to James Blunt, Chief of the Tuscarora Nation, and the people under his
charge, their heirs and successors forever, any law, usage, custom or
grant to the contrary notwithstanding.

At the time the Tuscaroras migrated to the north, King James Blunt was
the Sachem of those that remained, and his successor in office, as we see
in an act of the General Assembly of North Carolina, in the year 1778,
was Whitmell Tuffdick. The last Sachem, or Chief, of that part of the
Tuscaroras--Samuel Smith--expired in the year 1802, at which time
Sacarrissa and Solomon Longboard, both being Sachems of the northern
Tuscaroras, migrated the residue of the Tuscaroras from North Carolina to
their Reservation in Niagara county, State of New York, where they were
again blended together in one nation.

Concerning the land allotted to the Tuscaroras in Birtie--they have
leased it several times; and I have selected a few of the laws of North
Carolina that are now in force, concerning the Tuscaroras in that state,
namely:

"A. D. 1748. Vol. I. Chapter 43, page 174; by Potter, Taylor and Yancy,
Esqs. Anno Regni Georgii II, Vicessinio second.

"Gabriel Johnson, Esq., Governor.

"At a general assembly held at New Bern, the fifteenth day of October, in
the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-eight."

CHAPTER 43.

"An Act for ascertaining the bounds of a certain tract of land formerly
laid out by treaty to the use of the Tuscarora Indians, so long as they,
or any of them, shall occupy and live upon the same, and to prevent any
person or persons taking up lands, or settling within the said bounds, by
pretense of any purchase or purchases made, or that shall be made, from
the said Indians.

"1. Whereas, complaints are made by the Tuscarora Indians, of divers
encroachments made by the English on their lands, and it being but just
that the ancient inhabitants of this Province shall have and enjoy a
quiet and convenient dwelling place in this their native country,
wherefore,

"_Bounds of the Indians' lands confirmed_.--2. We pray that it may
be enacted, and be it enacted by His Excellency Gabriel Johnson, Esquire,
Governor, by and with the advice and consent of his majesty's council,
and general assembly of this province, and it is hereby enacted by the
authority of the same that the lands formerly allotted the Tuscarora
Indians by solemn treaty, lying on Morattock river, in Birtie county,
being the same whereon they now dwell. Butted and bounded as follows,
viz: Beginning at the mouth of Quitsnoy Swamp, running up the said swamp
four hundred and thirty-five poles, to a scrubby oak, near the head of
the swamp, by a great spring; thence north ten degrees east, eight
hundred and fifty poles, to a persimmon tree, on Raquis swamp; thence
along the swamp, and Pacosin main course, north fifty-seven degrees west,
two thousand six hundred and forty poles to a hickory on the east side of
the falling run or deep creek, and down the various courses of the said
run to Morattock river, then down the river to the first station; shall
be confirmed and assured; and by virtue of this act, is confirmed and
assured, to James Blunt, chief of the Tuscarora Nation, and the people
under his charge, their heirs and successors, forever, any law, usage,
custom, or grant, to the contrary, notwithstanding.

"_Persons having grants to enter on desertion of the Indians_.--3.
Provided, always, That it shall and may be lawful for any person or
persons that have formerly obtained any grant or grants, under the Lord's
proprietors, for any tract or parcels of lands within the aforesaid
boundaries, upon the said Indians deserting or leaving the said lands, to
enter, occupy and enjoy the same according to the tenor of their several
grants.

"_Indians not to pay quitrents_.--4. And be it further enacted by
the authority aforesaid, That it shall not nor may be lawful for the Lord
Granville's receiver to ask, have or demand any quitrents for any of the
said tracts or parcels of land taken up within the said Indian
boundaries, as aforesaid, until such time when the Indians have deserted
the same and the patentee be in possession thereof, and only for such
rents as shall from thence arise and become due, any law, usage or custom
to the contrary notwithstanding.

"_Penalty on persons purchasing lands of the Indians_.--5. And be it
further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That no person, for any
consideration whatsoever, shall purchase or buy any tract or parcel of
land claimed or in possession of any Indian or Indians, but all such
bargains and sales shall be, and are hereby declared to be null and void,
and of no effect; and the person so purchasing or buying any land of any
Indian or Indians shall further forfeit the sum of ten pounds,
proclamation money, for every hundred acres by him purchased and bought,
one-half to the use of the public, the other half to him or them that
shall sue for the same, to be recovered by action of debt, bill, plaint
or information, in any court of record within this Government, wherein no
possession, protection, injunction or wager of law shall be allowed or
admitted of.

"_Persons settled on the Indian lands to remove, and no others to
settle there under a penalty_.--6. And be it further enacted by the
authority aforesaid, That all and every person and persons, other than
the said Indians who are now dwelling on any of the lands within the
bounds above mentioned to have been allotted, laid out and prescribed to
the said Tuscarora Indians, shall, on or before the twenty-fifth day of
March next ensuing the ratification of this act, remove him or herself
and family off the said lands, under the penalty of twenty pounds,
proclamation money; and if any shall neglect or refuse to move him or
herself and family off the said lands, on or before the said twenty-fifth
day of March next, and if any person or persons, other than the said
Indians, shall hereafter presume to settle, inhabit or occupy any of the
said lands hereby allotted and assigned for the said Tuscarora Indians,
such person or persons shall forfeit the further penalty of twenty
shillings, proclamation money, for each and every day he, she or they
shall inhabit or occupy any lands within the said Indian bounds after the
said twenty-fifth day of March next, the said penalties to be recovered
and applied in the same manner as the penalty in this act above
mentioned.

"_Surveyor's fee for laying out the Indians' lands_.--7. And
whereas, The said lands belonging to the said Tuscarora Indians have been
lately laid out and newly marked by George Goulde, Esq., Surveyor
General, at the request of the said Indians; therefore, be it enacted,
that the said George Goulde, Esq., have and receive for the trouble and
expense he hath been at in laying out and marking the Indians' lands
aforesaid, the sum of twenty-five pounds, proclamation money, to be paid
by the public, out of moneys in the public treasury.

"_Penalty of persons ranging stock on the Indians' lands_.--8. And
whereas, the Indians complain of injuries received from people driving
stock, horses, cattle and hogs, to range on their lands, for remedy
thereof, Be it enacted, That persons driving stock to range, or stock
actually ranging on the Indians' lands, shall, and are hereby declared,
to be liable and subject to the like penalties and forfeitures, and may
be proceeded against in the same manner, and subject to the same
recoveries, as by the law of this province stock driven or ranging upon
any white people's land are liable and subject to; and the said Indians
shall and may enjoy the benefit of the laws in that case made and
provided, in the same manner as the white people do or can, any law,
usage, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding."

LAWS OF NORTH CAROLINA. A. D. 1878, CHAPTER 136, PAGE 359, VOL. I. BY
POTTER, TAYLOR & YANCEY.

"An Act for quieting and securing the Tuscarora Indians, and others
claiming under the Tuscaroras, in the possession of their lands.

"_Indian lands secured to the Indians_.--1. Be it enacted, &c., That
Whitmell Tuffdeck, Chief or head man of the Tuscarora nation, and the
Tuscarora Indians now living in the county of Birtie, shall have, hold,
occupy, possess and enjoy, all the lands lying in the county of Birtie
aforesaid, whereof they are now seized and possessed, being part of the
lands heretofore alotted to the Indians aforesaid by solemn treaty, and
confirmed to them and their successors by act of assembly, in the year
one thousand seven hundred and forty-eight, without let, molestation or
hindrance, clear of all quit-rents, or any public demands by way of tax
whatever, to them the said Tuscarora Indians, and their heirs and
successors: and that they, the said Tuscaroras, and their heirs and
successors, shall forever be clear and exempt from every kind of poll
tax.

"_No purchases to be made of the Indians, nor their lands
cultivated_.--2. And whereas, the said Tuscarora Indians, by nature
ignorant, and strongly addicted to drinking, may be easily imposed on by
designing persons, and unwarily deprived of their said lands: Be it
enacted. That no person, for any consideration whatever, shall hereafter
purchase, buy or lease, any tract or parcel of land now claimed by, or in
possession of the said Tuscarora Indians, or any of theirs; nor shall any
person settle on or cultivate the said lands, or any part thereof, in his
own right, or under pretence as acting as overseer for the Indians: and
if any person shall hereafter purchase, buy or lease lands of the said
Indians, or settle on or cultivate any part thereof in his own right or
as overseer for the Indians, all such purchases, sales, leases or
agreements shall be and they are hereby declared null and void; and the
person so purchasing buying or leasing, settling on or cultivating such
lands, or any part thereof, shall forfeit and pay the sum of three
hundred pounds current money for every hundred acres by him so purchased,
bought or leased, settled on or cultivated as aforesaid, one-half to the
use of the Tuscarora Indians, the other to the use of him or her who
shall sue for the same: to be recovered by action of debt, bill, plaint
or information in any court having cognizance thereof. Provided that the
said Tuscarora Indians may sell or dispose of their lands or any part
thereof, with the consent of the general assembly first had and obtained.

"_Former purchases from the Indians under the sanction of the Assembly,
secured_.--3. And whereas, the chieftains and head men of the
Tuscarora Indians living in the county, did, on the twelfth day of July,
in the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-six, for the
consideration of fifteen hundred pounds to them paid by Robert Jones,
Jun., William Williams and Thomas Pugh, by indenture under their hands
and seals, demise, grant and to farm let, unto the said Robert Jones,
William Williams and Thomas Pugh, a certain tract of land lying in the
county aforesaid, containing about eight thousand acres, more or less,
bounded as follows, to wit: Beginning at the mouth of Deep creek,
otherwise called Falling Run; thence running up the said creek to the
Indian head line: thence by the said line south seventeen degrees east,
twelve hundred and eighty poles: thence on a course parallel with the
general current of the said creek to the Roanoke river and then up the
river to the beginning, together with the appurtenances thereto
belonging, to be held and enjoyed by the said Robert Jones, William
Williams and Thomas Pugh their executors, administrators and assigns in
serveralty for and during the term of one hundred and fifty years as may
more fully appear by the said indenture, registered in the count of
Birtie aforesaid and ratified by act of Assembly, passed at Newbern, in
the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-six: Be it enacted, That
each and every of the persons entitled to claims under the demise
aforementioned, or by grants from the persons claiming under the same, or
either of them, and their heirs and assigns, shall and may have, hold,
occupy, possess and enjoy the several shares, dividends or parcels of the
said land to them belonging, in as full, free and absolute manner, and
with the same legal privileges and advantages in every respect, and
subject to the same taxes as if the said land had been originally granted
to the said Robert Jones, William Williams and Thomas Pugh by Lord
Granville or by this State.

"_Regulations in regard to former demises_.--4. And whereas, the
said Tuscarora Indians, for good and sufficient reasons, and for valuable
consideration, have, since the twelfth day of July, one thousand seven
hundred and sixty-six, and previous to the first day of December last,
demised, granted and to farm let sundry tracts or parcels of land lying
in said county of Birtie to sundry persons, as by indentures duly
executed may more fully appear: Be it enacted. That all the land
contained in the last mentioned demises, if the said demises were fairly,
_bona fide_ and without fraud, made by and obtained from the said
Tuscarora Indians since the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-
six, and previous to the first day of December last past, shall not be
deemed vacant lands, or be liable to be entered as such in the Land
Office, unless the General Assembly shall hereafter so direct, but
nevertheless shall be subject to the same taxes as other lands in this
State are liable to.

"_Method of trial for demises alleged to have been unfairly
obtained_.--5. And whereas, it is suggested by the Tuscarora Indians,
that unfair dealings have been used in obtaining one or more of the
demises aforementioned, and that they, the said Indians have at present
no mode of obtaining redress in such cases. Be it therefore enacted, that
the commissioners herein mentioned or a majority of them, shall and may,
upon complaint of the said Tuscarora Indians, in court or meeting
assembled, that a person or persons has or have unfairly or fraudulently
obtained any grant or demise for lands to them belonging since the year
one thousand seven hundred and sixty-six, and previous to the first day
of December last, summon the person or persons so complained against, or
cause him or them to be summoned to appear before them on a certain day
on the land in dispute (giving at best ten days' notice previous to the
day in such summons appointed), then and there to answer the complaint of
the Indians for having fraudulently or unfairly obtained a grant or
demise of the land in question; and shall also summon, or cause to be
summoned, a jury of twelve men, being freeholders in the county of Birtie
and not resident on or owners of any lands purchased of the said
Tuscarora Indians; and the said commissioners, or a majority of them,
shall attend at the time and place appointed, with the jury aforesaid,
and having first sworn the jury to try and determine fairly between the
said Indians and the person or persons complained against, shall and may
cause witnesses to be examined on both sides, receive the verdict of the
jury and return the same, with the panel, to the next County Court of the
said county of Birtie, to be entered upon the record; and such verdict
shall be as good and effectual as if obtained in any court of record; and
if the same be general the said commissioners, or a majority of them,
shall and may appoint one or more persons to carry the same into
execution; but if special, then the court shall decide thereon, and cause
the Sheriff of the county to carry such decision into execution.

"_Commissioners for Indian affairs_.--6. And whereas the said
Indians are often injured by horses, cattle and hogs, driven on their
lands by white people, the said horses, cattle and hogs breaking into the
enclosure and distroying their corn and other effects, and are also
frequently deprived of their property, and abuses by ill disposed
persons; for remedy whereof, and also for recovery of suits or demands
now due, or which may hereafter become due and owing to the said
Tuscarora Indians; Be it enacted, that William Williams, Thomas Pugh,
Willie Jones, Simon Turner and Zedekiah Stone, be, and they are hereby
appointed commissioners for the said Indians, and they, or any three of
them, shall and may inquire into the complaints made by the said Indians,
summon the persons complained against, before them, and award such
restitution and redress as to them shall seem just and necessary; and may
appoint an Officer or Officers to serve subpoena as, and to execute such
awards and determinations as they shall or may make in regard of the
premises; and the court of said county of Birtie, is hereby authorized
and required to fill up, from time to time, by new appointments any
vacancies which may happen among the commissioners by death or
resignations; and upon complaint of the chiefs or head men of the nation,
and the rest of the Indians, in court or meeting properly assembled,
against any of the commissioners for misbehavior, may inquire into the
conduct of the person or persons complained against, remove him or them
if necessary, and appoint another or others in his or their stead.

"_Reversion of Indian lands_.--7. And be it further enacted, that
the lands leased by the said Tuscarora Indians to Robert Jones, Jr.,
William Williams and Thomas Pugh, and to other persons, shall revert and
become the property of the State, at the expiration of the terms of the
several leases mentioned, if the said nation be extinct; and the lands
now belonging to, and possessed by the said Tuscaroras, shall revert to
and become the property of the State, whenever the said nation shall
become extinct, or shall entirely abandon or remove themselves off the
said lands, and every part thereof. Provided, that no person shall have
any preference of entry to any of the said lands by virtue of any lease
or occupancy whatever, since December, one thousand seven hundred and
seventy-six, whenever the general assembly shall declare the said lands
to be vacant."

Read three times and ratified in general assembly, the 2d day of May, A.
D. 1778.

Signed by
WHITMILL HILL, S. S.
THOMAS BENBURY, S. C.

LAWS OF NORTH CAROLINA, A. D. 1780, CHAPTER 167. PAGE 406, VOL. I, BY
POTTER, TAYLOR & YANCEY.

"An Act to amend an act, entitled an act for quieting and securing the
Tuscarora Indians, and others claiming under the Tuscaroras, in the
possession of their lands.

"1. Whereas, By the said act there is no penalty imposed on the jurors or
witnesses duly summoned, and failing to attend.

"_Attendance of Jurors_.--2. Be it enacted, &c., That the
commissioners by the said act appointed, or any three of them, assembled
for the purpose of holding a court, shall, and may inflict fines on
jurors or witnesses so failing to attend, not exceeding one hundred
pounds, at their discretion; and unless sufficient excuse be to them
afterwards shown, cause the same to be levied and applied towards
defraying the county expenses of Birtie; and witnesses and jurors who
shall attend on the trial of any dispute between the said Tuscaroras and
others, shall have and receive ten dollars per day for their attendance,
to be paid by the party cost with all other cost: and such trials may
hereafter be had on the part of the lands belonging to said Tuscaroras,
Birtie County, which commissioners shall direct."

Read three times and ratified in general assembly, the 10th day of May,
A. D. 1780.

Signed by
ALEX. MARTIN, S. S.
THOMAS BENBURY. S. C.

       *       *       *       *      *

LAWS OF NORTH CAROLINA, A. D. 1801, CHAPTER 608, PAGE 965, VOL. 2, BY
POTTER, TAYLOR & YANCEY.

"James Turner, Esq., Governor.

"At the general assembly begun and held at Raleigh, on the fifteenth day
of
November, in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and two, and
in the thirty-seventh year of the independence of said State.

"An Act for the relief of the Tuscarora Nation of Indians.

"Whereas, the Indians composing the Tuscarora nation, have, by their
chief Sacarrissa, and others, regularly deputed and authorized, requested
the concurrence of the general assembly of this State, to enable them to
lease or demise, for a number of years, the residue of their lands
situated in the county of Birtie, in such a manner that the whole of the
said leases shall terminate at the same period.

"_Chiefs authorized to lease their lands_.--1. Be it enacted, &c.,
That the said chiefs Sacarrissa, Longboard and Samuel Smith, or a
majority of them, be and they are hereby authorized to lease and to farm
let the undemised residue of the lands allotted to the Tuscarora Nation
in Birtie County, for a term of years that shall expire and end when the
lease made by the Tuscarora Nation to Robert Jones and others, in the
year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and sixty-six, shall end and
expire; and also extend the term or terms of the leases already made or
granted for a shorter term, to a term or terms which shall expire at the
same time with the said lease made in the year one thousand seven hundred
and sixty-six, in such parcels and on such rents and conditions as may be
approved by the commissioners appointed in pursuance of this act and
which may best promote the interest and convenience of the said Indian
nation.

"And, whereas, some difficulties have arisen respecting the receipt and
payment on the rents of some of the present leases.

"_To make alterations with respect to rents_.--2. Be it further
enacted, That the said chiefs, or a majority of them, be, and they arc
hereby authorised to make such alterations, by covenant and agreement,
respecting the payment and receipt of any rents due, or that may become
due on any of the existing leases, as the commissioners appointed in
pursuance of this act, or a majority of them shall approve.

"Whereas, the said Indian chiefs are ignorant of the usual forms of
business, and may want advice and assistance in transacting the business
respecting their lands, for remedy whereof and to prevent their being
injured.

"_Governor to appoint three commissioners to carry this act into
effect_.--3. Be it further enacted, That the Governor shall appoint
three commissioners for the purpose of carrying the provisions of this
act into effect; and no lease, grant, demise, covenant or agreement made
by the said Indian chiefs as aforesaid, respecting said lands, or the
rents thereof, shall be good or valid in law, unless the same shall be
approved by the said commissioners, or a majority of them, and such
approbation shall be expressed in writing and annexed or endorsed on such
lease, covenant or agreement, and registered in the Register's Office in
the county of Birtie, together with said lease or agreement; and the said
commissioners shall receive the sum of twenty shillings per day for their
compensation and expenses, to be paid out of the monies received by the
said chiefs on leasing said lands.

"_Possessions of the tenants to be deemed the possessions of the
Tuscarora Indians_.--4. And be it further enacted. That the occupancy
and possession of the tenants under the said lease, heretofore confirmed
by act or acts of the general assembly, and such leases as may be made
under this act, shall be held and deemed in all cases whatsoever, the
occupancy and possession of the said Tuscarora Nation, to all intents and
purposes, as if said nation, or the Indians thereof, or any of them,
actually resided on said lands.

"Whereas, The said chiefs, Sacarrissa, Longboard, and Samuel Smith, being
duly and freely authorized and empowered by the said Tuscarora Nation,
have consented that the Indians' claim to the use, possession, and
occupancy of said lands shall cease and be extinguished, when the said
lease made in the year one thousand seven hundred seventy-six, to Robert
Jones and others, shall expire.

"_The land to revert to the state_.--5. Be it enacted, That from and
after the twelfth day of July, which shall be in the year One Thousand
nine and sixteen, the whole of the lands alloted to the said Tuscarora
Indians, by act of General Assembly passed at Newbern, on the fifteenth
day of October, in the year of our Lord One Thousand seven hundred and
forty eight, shall revert to, and become the property of the state, and
the claim thereto, from that time, be held, and deemed forever
extinguished.

"_If any of the lands be vacant it is not to be entered but by an
express act_.--6. And be further enacted, After the said lands shall
revert to the State, if the same or any part thereto, shall be vacant,
the same shall not be liable to the entry or entries of any person or
persons, without an express act of the legislation to that effect;
Provided always, That it shall not be lawful for any person or persons to
make any entry or entries on the said lands, after the passing of this
act. Provided always, That nothing in this act contained shall be
construed so as to effect the title of any individual; Provided
nevertheless, That no lot or parcel of lands laid off under the direction
of said commissioners, shall exceed two hundred acres; And Provided
further, That no lease shall be made but by public auction, of which due
notice shall be given in the Halifax and Edenton newspapers."

       *       *       *       *       *

ACTS OF ASSEMBLY FROM 1821 TO 1825, PAGE 13, CHAPTER 13, STATE LIBRARY.

"An act concerning the lands held under leases from the Tuscarora tribe
of Indians.

"Whereas it is represented to this General Assembly, in behalf of persons
holding lands under leases, for a long term of years from the Tuscarora
tribe of Indians, that they are subject to great inconveniences from
their estates being mere cattle interest: For remedy whereof,

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina,
and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same.

"That the estates in lands now held by certain individuals, under leases
for a term of years from the Tuscarora tribe of Indians, made in
pursuance of certain acts of the General Assembly of this State, shall be
hereafter considered real estate; shall decend to, and be devided among
the heirs of any intestate, subject to dower and tenancy by courtesy, and
other incidents to real estate, and its liabilitiy to execution, and its
conveyance and devise, shall be governed by the same rules as are now
prescribed in the case of real estate held in fee simple; Provided that
nothing herein contained, shall be so construed as to give to the
individuals holding the said term of years, a right to enjoy the same for
a longer period than is designated in the leases executed by the
Tuscarora Indians, in pursurance of acts of the General Assembly of this
state, nor as to give to said individuals any right which by the
constitution of this state, is exclusively confirmed to the freeholders."

       *       *       *       *       *

LAWS OF NORTH CAROLINA FROM 1827 TO 1831, PAGE II, VOL. I, CHAPTER XIX,
IN STATE LIBRARY. ACT OF NOV. 17TH, 1828.

"An act concerning the lands formerly occupied by the Tuscarora tribe of
Indians lying in Bertie County, on the north side of Roanoke river.

"Whereas the Tuscarora Indians have for more than a century been the firm
and undividing friends of the white people of this country, insomuch that
the people of North Carolina not only render to them full and complete
Justice, but also to exercise towards them that spirit of generosity
which their conduct has merrited: Therefore,

"I. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina,
and is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that William R. Smith
of Halifax, Simon J. Barker, of Martin and William Brittin of Bertie, be,
and they are hereby appointed commissioners for the purpose of
advertising and selling in manner hereinafter directed, the above named
tract of land bounded as follows, to wit: beginning at the mouth of
Quitsnoy swamp; running up the swamp 430 poles to a scrubby oak, near the
head of said swamp by a great spring; thence north 10 degrees east 850
poles, to a persimmon tree, on Raquis Swamp; thence along the swamp and
Pocasin main course north 57 degrees west 2,640 poles, to a hickory on
the east side of Falling Run on Deep Creek, and down the various courses
of said Run to Roanoke River; then down the river to the first station.

"II. And be it further enacted, That the title so to be sold by said
commissioners shall be understood to extend only to the reversion of the
State in said lands after the expiration of the lease from the Indians,
under which they are now held, and after the ratification of this act,
and notice thereof to the commissioners, it shall be their duty to
proceed forthwith to advertise in the newspapers most convenient to the
premises, and also in five of the most public places in the counties of
Bertie, Halifax and Martin, including the court houses in said counties,
that a sale of said lands, according to the provisions of this act, will
take place on Tuesday of the ensuing March term of the Superior Court of
Birtie county, that is, on the 17th day of March next; and it shall be
the duty of the said commissioners to attend to the aforesaid time and
place, and offer in the court house yard, at public sale to the highest
bidder, the said lands, according to advertisement, subject however to
the lease aforesaid, and the commissioners shall have power to continue
or postpone the sale from day to day until the end of the week, and
should they, by unavoidable accident or otherwise be prevented from
selling all or any part of the lands during the same week, it shall be
their duty to advertise in like manner, for two months next preceding the
following September term of the Bertie court, and to sell at said term,
as is heretofore directed, at the March term, and said commissioners
shall be empowered to put up said lands in such parcels as they may deem
most advantageous for selling, and that they shall give the purchasers a
credit of twelve months on one-half the purchase money, and a credit of
twelve months on the other half; Provided always, that the purchaser
shall deliver to the commissioners bonds with good and sufficient
security for the same, payable to the Governor of the State.

"III. And be it further enacted, That should the commissioners upon
offering said lands as aforesaid perceive that they were likely to be
sacrificed, or to sell for an amount greatly below their value, it shall
be their duty forthwith to discontinue the sale, and it shall be the duty
of the commissioners after making sale, or if no sale be made,
immediately after September next to make report to the public Treasurer
of the State of all such proceedings that they may have had under this
act and also to hand over to him all such bonds as they may have taken
from purchasers; and it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State, upon
a certificate from the Treasurer of payment of the purchase money and a
certificate from the commissioners of the boundaries of the land so
purchased, to grant a title of release from the State of North Carolina
to such persons as may be reported purchasers by said commissioners under
the act of Assembly.

"IV. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the public
Treasurer to collect the money on said lands when they shall become due
and hold the same subject to the order of the Tuscarora tribe of Indians;
and whenever such order shall be presented, properly and duly
authenticated, by said tribe or nation of Indians, it shall be his duty
to pay the same over accordingly; Provided always that upon paying such
monies, the Public Treasurer shall take from said Indians or agents, a
full and complete release of all such claim, pretence of title, as they
now make or ever may have to the aforesaid tract of lands.

"V. And be it further enacted, That the commissioners shall be allowed
each the sum of three dollars for every day that they shall necessarily
be employed in examining said lands, or in attending the sale of same, to
be paid out of the funds arising from the sale.

"VI. Be it further enacted, That if it should appear at any time
thereafter that the said Indians have parted with their claims, or
contracted for the same, so that in fact the benefit of the sale shall,
agreeable to the provisions of this act, revert to the State."

Governor John Owen, Esq., appointed as commissioners, William R. Smith,
of Halifax; Simon J. Baker, of Martin; and William Brittain, of Birtie;
to sell the Tuscarora lands in pursuance to the lease effected by the
help of the General Assembly, Nov. 17, 1823, of which they reported to
William Roberts, Public Treasurer--in bonds the sum of $2977.87, payable
in installments of one and two years from the 17th day of March, 1829,
which are on file in the Public Treasurer's Office. And on Nov. 21, 1831,
William S. Mahon, the Public Treasarer, re-reported cash in bonds for
sale of Tuscarora lands--

Principle............................... $1400.27.
Interest................................    30.74.
Total................................... $1431.01.

Another report of the same man January, 1832, that all has been
collected, and remains in the treasury, subject to the order of the
Indians. $3,220.71-1/4.

Paid on May 3ist, 1831, and found on file.

"For this amount paid Bates Cooke, being their agent to receive the same
under the Act of Assembly of 1828, $3,220.71-1/4."

In about the year 1818, the New York Indians, (which includes the
Tuscaroras), were engaged in a stipulation, to buy a tract of land from
the Menomonees and Winnebagoes, which was questioned in Congress about
the validity of a contract on purchases of lands between Indian nations.
But Congress did concur in the stipulation made between the New York
Indians of the first part, and the Menomonees and Winnebagoes of the
second part, for lands lying in Green Bay, Wisconsin, bought and paid for
by the former according to the stipulation concluded in the year 1822.

For the payment of the said land above, I can only speak for the
Tuscaroras. The precise amount paid I am unable to state. But a tax was
made on the nation; children paid twenty-five cents each, adults paid
more according to their ability; the amount obtained in this way I am
unable to state. They also gave their annuities of two years, which they
drew from the government, and also two hundred dollars in money which
they loaned from the Oneida Indians (which they afterwards refunded).

All those goods and moneys were paid to the Menomonees and Winnebagoes,
as their part of the Green Bay lands. These facts I obtained of the widow
of Jonathan Printup, an honorable chief of the Tuscarara nation, by whom
was entrusted with the goods and money for the payment of said lands,
which he faithfully performed, and was accompanied as delegates by Dr.
John Patterson and James Cusick, who were appointed to the honorable
office of purchasing a tract of land for a future home of their people. I
am indebted to the widow of Dr. John Patterson, and also his brother
Harry, for information which corroborates with that of the widow above
mentioned, and also of other old people.

In a short time afterwards, the Menomonees denied the contract in various
ways, they denied the efficiency of the Chiefs who signed the treaty, and
also denied of having received any payment, and also denied the boundary
of the land ceded. This naturally created difficulty and discord between
them, and kept growing worse from year to year. But the Winebagoes never
denied any of the denials of the Menomonees.

In a treaty of the United States and the Menomonees and Winebagoes, of
Feb. 6th, 1826, in Article 8th, it was acknowledged that there existed
some uncertainty in consequence of the cession made by the tribes upon
Fox River and Green Bay, to the New York Indians. Finally the Menomonees
made their complaint before the President, concerning the New York
Indians, which has reference to the case, in the treaty by the United
States, with the several tribes of Green Bay on Feb. 23rd, 1829, in
Article 2nd, which read as follows, viz:

"Much difficulty having arising from the negotiations between the
Menomonees and Winebago tribes and the various tribes and portions of
tribes of Indian of the State of New York, and the claims of the
respective parties being much contested, as well with relation to the
tenure and boundaries of the two tracts claimed by the New York Indians,
west of Lake Michigan, as to the authority of the persons who signed the
agreement on the part of the Monomonees, and the whole subject having
been fully examined at the council this day concluded, and the
allegations, proofs, and statements of the respective parties having been
entered upon the Journal of the commissioners, so that the same can be
decided by the President of the United States, it is agreed by the
Monomonees and Winebagoes, that so far as respects their interests in the
premises, the whole matter shall be referred to the President of the
United States, whose decision shall be final. And the President is
authorized, on the parts, to establish such boundaries between them and
the New York Indians as he may consider equitable and just."

And also in the treaty of Feb. 8th, 1838, we find, in enumerating the
several reasons for effecting a treaty at the above date, the following,
commencing at line 20,928, in the Revision of Indian Treaties, viz: "as
well as for the purpose of settling the long existing dispute between
themselves, and the several tribes of the New York Indians, who claim to
have purchased a portion of their lands, the undersigned, Chiefs and head
men of the Menomenees tribe, stipulate and agree with the United States
as follows:

"First. The Menomonee tribe of Indians declare themselves the friend and
allies of the United States, under whos parental care and protection they
desire to continue; and although always protesting that they are under no
obligation to recognize any claim of the New York Indians to any portions
of their country; that they neither sold nor received any value for the
land claimed by these tribes, yet at the solicitation of their Great
Father, the President of the United States, and as an evidence of their
great love and veneration for him, they agree that such a part of the
land described, being within the following boundaries, as he may direct,
may be set apart as homes for the several tribes of the New York Indians,
who may remove to and settle upon the same within three years from the
date of this agreement, &c." Commencing at line 20,970, the President of
the United States is hereby empowered to apportion the lands among the
actual occupants at that time, so as not to assign to any tribe a greater
number of acres than may be equal to one hundred for each soul actually
settled upon the lands, and if, at any time of such apportionment any
lands shall remain unoccupied by any tribes of the New York Indians, such
portion as would have belonged to said Indians, had it been occupied,
shall revert to the United States. That portion, if any, so reverting to
be laid off by the President of the United States. It is destinctly
understood that the lands hereby ceded to the United States for the New
York Indians are to be held by those tribes, under such tenure as the
Menomonee Indians now hold their lands, subject to such regulations and
alternation of tenure as Congress and the President of the United States
shall from time to time think proper to adopt.

"Second. For the above cession the United States for the benefit of the
New York Indians, the United States consent to pay the Menomonee Indians
twenty Thousand Dollars, &c.

"Also commencing at line 21,118, Article 6th, the Menomonee Chiefs request
that such part of it as relates to the New York Indians be immediately
submmitted to the representatives of their tribes, and if they refuse to
accept the provision made for their benefit and to remove upon the lands
set apart for them, on the west side of Fox River, that they will direct
their immediate removal from the Menomonee county, but if they agree to
accept the liberal offer made to them by parties of this compact, then
the Menomonee tribe, as dutiful children of the Great Father, the
President, will take them by the hand as brothers, and settle down with
them in peace and friendship."

SUPPLEMENTARY ARTICLES.

First. It is agreed between the undersigned, commissioners on behalf of
the United States and the chiefs and warriors representing the Menomonee
tribe of Indians, that for the reasons above expressed, such part of the
first Article of the agreement entered into between the parties hereto,
on the 8th instant, as limits the removal and settlement of the New York
Indians upon the lands therein provided for their future homes, three
years, shall be altered and amended so as to read as follows: That the
President of the United States shall prescribe the time for the removal
and settlement of the New York Indians upon the lands thus provided for
them; and at the expiration of such reasonable time, he shall apportion
the lands among the actual settlers in such manner as he shall deem
equitable and just. And if, within such reasonable time as the President
of the United States shall prescribe for that purpose, the New York
Indians shall refuse to accept the provisions made for their benefit, or,
having agreed, shall neglect or refuse to remove from New York, and
settle on the said lands, within the time prescribed for that purpose,
that then, and in either of these events, the lands aforesaid shall be
and remain in the property of the United States, according to the said
first article, excepting so much thereof as the President shall deem
justly due to such of the New York Indians as shall actually have removed
to and settled on the said lands.

"Second, It is further agreed that the part of the Sixth Article of the
agreement aforesaid, which requires the removal of those of the New York
Indians who may not be settled on the lands at the end of three years,
shall be so amended as to leave such removal discretionary with the
President of the United States; the Menomonee Indians having full
confidence that in making his decision he will take into consideration
the welfare and prosperity of their nation: Provided, That for the
purpose of establishing the rights of the New York Indians upon a
permanent and just footing, the said treaty shall be ratified with the
express understanding that two townships of land," &c. which goes on and
locates the different portion of lands to the several tribes or bands of
the New York Indians which was proclaimed, July 9, 1832.

"Whereas articles of agreement between the United States of America, and
the Menononee Indians, were made and concluded at the city of Washington,
on the 8th day of February A. D. 1831, by John H. Eaton, and Samuel C.
Stambaugh, commissioners on the part of the United States, and certain
Chiefs and headmen of the Menomonee nation, on the part of the said
nation; to which articles an addition or supplemental article was
afterwards made, on the 17th day of February, in the same year, by which
the said Menomonee nation agree to cede to the United States certain
parts of their lands: and that a tract of country therein defined, shall
be set apart for the New York Indians; all which, with the many other
stipulations therein contained, will more fully appear by reference to
the same. When said agreement thus forming a treaty, were laid before the
Senate of the United States, during their then session, but were not at
said session acted on by that body. Whereupon a further agreement was on
the fifteenth day of March, in the same year, entered into for the
purpose of preserving the provisions of the treaty made as aforesaid; by
which it is stipulated that the said articles of agreement concluded as
aforesaid, should be laid before the next Senate of the United States at
their ensuing session, and if sanctioned and confirmed by them, that each
and every article threof should be as binding and obligatory upon the
parties respectively as if they had been sanctioned at the previous
session; and whereas, The Senate of the United States, by their
resolution of the twenty fifth day of June, 1832, did advise and consent
to accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article
thereof, upon the conditions expressed in the proviso contained in their
said resolution, which proviso is as follows: Provided, That for the
purpose of establishing the right of the New York Indians on a permanent
and just footing, the said treaty shall be ratified, with the express
understanding that two townships of land, &c.," as in article second
above.

"Whereas, Before the treaty aforesaid, conditionally ratified, according
to the proviso to the said resolution of the Senate, above recited, could
be obligatory upon the said Menomomee nation, their assent to the same
must be had and obtained." Which was done after some modifications
respecting the location of the portion of land for the New York Indians.
And as the modifications so made and desired, was acceded to also by the
New York Indians, which was as follows:

"To all to whom these presents shall come, the undersigned chiefs and
head men of the sundry tribes of the New York Indians (as set forth in
the specifications annexed to their signatures), send greeting:

"Whereas, a tedious, perplexing and harassing dispute and controversy
have long existed between the Menomonee Nation of Indians and the New
York Indians, more particularly those known as the Stockbridge, Munsee
and Brothertown tribes, the Six Nations and the St. Regis tribe. The
treaty made between the said Menomonee Nation and the United States, and
the conditional ratification thereof by the Senate of the United States
being stated and set forth in the within agreement, entered into between
the chiefs and head men of the said Menomonee, and George B. Porter,
Governor of Michigan, commissioners specially appointed, with
instructions referred to in the said agreement.

"And whereas, the undersigned are satisfied and believe that the best
efforts of the said commissioners were directed and used to procure, if
practicable, the unconditional assent of the said Menomonees to the
change proposed by the Senate of the United States in the ratification of
the said treaty, but without success.

"And whereas, the undersigned, further believe that the terms stated in
the within agreement are the best practicable terms short of those
proposed by the Senate of the United States, which could be obtained from
the said Menomonees; and being asked to signify our acceptance of the
modifications proposed, as aforesaid, by the Menomonees, we are compelled
by a sense of duty and propriety to say that we do hereby accept of the
same. So far as the tribes to which we belong are concerned, we are
perfectly satisfied that the treaty should be ratified on the terms
proposed by the Menomonees. We further believe that the tract of land
which the Menomonees in the within agreement are willing to cede, in
exchange for an equal quantity on the northeast side of the tract of five
hundred thousand acres, contains a sufficient quantity of good land,
favorably and advantageously situated, to answer all the wants of the New
York Indians and St. Regis tribe. For the purpose, then, of putting an
end to strife, and that we may sit down in peace and harmony, we thus
signify by our acceptance of the modifications proposed by the
Menomonees; and we most respectfully request that the treaty as now
modified by the agreement this day entered into with the Menomonees, may
be ratified and approved by the President and Senate of the United
States.

"Proclaimed March 13th, 1835."




TREATIES OF NEW YORK INDIANS.

Treaty with the New York Indians as amended by the Senate, and assented
to
by the several Tribes 1838.

Articles of a treaty made and concluded at Buffalo Creek, in the State of
New York, the fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight, by Ransom H. Gillett, a
commissioner on the part of the United States, and the chiefs, head men
and warriors of the several tribes of the New York Indians, assembled in
council; witnesseth;

"Whereas, The Six Nations of New York Indians, not long after the close
of the war of the Revolution, became convinced, from the rapid increase
of the white settlers around, that the time was not far distant when
their true interest must lead them to seek a new home among their
brethren in the West: and,

"Whereas, This subject was agitated in a general council of the Six
Nations as early as 1810, and resulted in sending a memorial to the
President of the United States, inquiring whether the Government would
consent to their tearing their habitations, and removing into the
neighborhood of their western brethren, and if they could procure a home
there, by gift or purchase, whether the Government would acknowledge
their title to the lands so obtained in the same manner it had
acknowledged it in those from whom they might receive it; and further,
whether the existing treaties would in such a case remain in full force,
and their annuities be paid as heretofore: and,

"Whereas, With the approbation of the President of the United States,
purchases were made by the New York Indians from the Menomonees and
Winnebago Indians of certain lands at Green Bay, in the Territory of
Wisconsin, which, after much difficulty and contention with those Indians
concerning the extent of the purchase, the whole subject was finally
settled by a treaty between the United States and the Menomonee Indians,
concluded in February, 1831, to which the New York Indians gave their
assent on the seventeenth day of October, 1832: and

"Whereas, By a provision of that treaty, five hundred thousand acres of
land are secured to the New York Indians of the Six Nations and the St.
Regis tribe, as a future home, on the condition that they all remove to
the same within three years, or such reasonable time as the President
shall prescribe, and

"Whereas, The President is satisfied that various considerations have
prevented those still residing in New York from removing to Green Bay,
and among other reasons, that many who were in favor of emigration
preferred to remove at once to the Indian Territory; which they were
fully persuaded was the only permanent and peaceable home for all the
Indians. And they therefore applied to take their Green Bay lands and
provide them a new home among their brethren in the Indian Territory: and

"Whereas, The President, being anxious to promote the peace, prosperity
and happiness of his red children, and determined to carry out the humane
policy of the Government in removing the Indians from the east to the
west of the Mississippi, within the Indian Territory, by bringing them to
see and feel, by his justice and liberality, that it is their true policy
and for their interest to do so without delay,

"Therefore. Taking into consideration the foregoing premises, the
following articles of a treaty are entered into, between the United
States of America and the several tribes of the New York Indians, the
names of whose chiefs, head men and warriors are hereto subscribed, and
those who may hereafter give their assent to this treaty in writing
within such time as the President shall appoint."

GENERAL PROVISIONS:

"Article 1. The several tribes of the New York Indians, the names of
whose chiefs, head men, warriors and representatives are hereunto
annexed, in consideration of the premises above recited, and the
covenants hereinafter contained, to be performed on the part of the
United States, hereby cede and relinquish to the United States all their
right, title and interest, in the lands secured to them at Green Bay by
the Menomonee treaty of 1831, except the following tract on which a part
of the New York Indians now reside: Beginning at the southwesterly corner
of the French grants at Green Bay, and running thence southwardly to a
point and line to be run from the little Cocalin, parallel to a line of
the French grants, and six miles from Fox river; from thence, on said
parallel line, northwardly six miles; from thence eastwardly to a point
on the northeast line of the Indian lands, and being a right angle to the
same.

"Article 2. In consideration of the above cession and relinquishment on
the part of the tribes of the New York Indians, and in order to manifest
the deep interest of the United States in the future peace and prosperity
of the New York Indians, the United States agree to set apart the
following tract of country, situated directly west of the State of
Missouri, as a permanent home for the New York Indians now residing in
the State of New York, or in Wisconsin, or elsewhere in the United
States, who have no permanent homes; which said country is described as
follows: Beginning on the west line of the State of Missouri, at the
northeast corner of the Cherokee tract, and running thence north along
the west line of the State of Missouri twenty-seven miles to the
southerly line of the Missouri lands: thence west so far as shall be
necessary, by running a line at right angles and parallel to the west
line aforesaid, to Osage lands; and thence easterly along the Osage and
Cherokee lands to the place of beginning; to include one million eight
hundred and twenty-four thousand acres of land, being three hundred and
twenty acres for each soul of said Indians, as their numbers are at
present computed. To have and hold the same, in fee simple, to the said
tribes or nations of Indians, by patent from the President of the United
States, issued in conformity with the third section of the act entitled,
'An act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in
any of the States or Territories, and for their removal west of the
Mississippi,' approved on the 28th day of May, 1830, with full power and
authority in the said Indians to divide said lands among the different
tribes, nations or bands in severalty, with the right to sell and convey
to and from each other, under such laws and regulations as may be adopted
by the respective tribes, acting by themselves or by a general council of
the said New York Indians, acting for all the tribes collectively. It is
understood and agreed that the above described country is intended as a
future home for the following tribes, to-wit: The Senecas, Onondagas,
Cayugas, Tuscaroras, Oneidas, St. Regis, Stockbridges, Munsees and
Brothertowns, residing in the State of New York, and the same is to be
divided equally among them according to their respective numbers, as
mentioned in a schedule hereunto annexed.

"Article 3. It is further agreed that such of the tribes of the New York
Indians as do not accept and agree to remove to the country set apart for
their new homes, within five years, or such other time as the President
may from time to time appoint, shall forfeit all interest in the lands so
set apart, to the United States.

"Article 4. Perpetual peace and friendship shall exist between the United
States and the New York Indians; and the United States hereby guarantee
to protect and defend them in the peaceable possession and enjoyment of
their new home, and hereby secure to them, in said country, the right to
establish their own form of government, appoint their own officers, and
administer their own laws; subject, however, to the legislation of the
United States, regulating trade and intercourse with the Indians. The
lands secured to them by patent under this treaty shall never be included
in any state or territory of this Union. The said Indians shall also be
entitled in all respects to the same political and civil rights and
privileges that are granted and secured by the United States to any of
the several tribes of emigrant Indians settled in the Indian Territory.

"Article 5. The Oneidas are to have their lands in the Indian Territory,
in the tract set apart for the New York Indians, adjoining the Osage
tract, and that hereinafter set apart for the Senecas; and the same shall
be so laid off as to secure them a sufficient quantity of timber for
their use.

"Those tribes whose lands are not specially designated in this treaty are
to have such as shall be set apart by the President.

"Article 6. It is further agreed that the United States will pay to those
who remove west, at their new homes, all such annuities as shall properly
belong to them. The schedule hereunto annexed shall be deemed and taken
as a part of this treaty.

"Article 7. It is expressly understood and agreed that the treaty must be
approved by the President and ratified and confirmed by the Senate of the
United States, before it shall be binding upon the parties to it.

"It is further expressly understood and agreed that the rejection, by the
President and Senate, of the provisions thereof, applicable to one tribe
or distant branch of a tribe shall not be construed to invalidate as to
others; but as to them, it shall be binding and remain in full force and
effect.

"Article 8. It is stipulated and agreed that the accounts of the
commissioner and expenses incurred by him in holding a council with the
New York Indians, and concluding treaties at Green Bay and Duck Creek in
Wisconsin, and in the State of New York in 1836, and those for the
exploring party of the present treaty, shall be allowed and settled
according to former precedents."

SPECIAL PROVISIONS FOR THE ST. REGIS.

"Article 9. It is agreed with the American party of the St. Regis
Indians, that the United States will pay to the said tribe, on their
removal west, or at such time as the President shall appoint, the sum of
five thousand dollars, as a remuneration for moneys laid out by the said
tribe and services rendered by their chiefs and agents in securing the
title to the Green Bay lands, and in removal to the same, to be
apportioned out to the several claimants by the chiefs of the said party,
and a United States commissioner, as may be deemed by them equitable and
just. If is further agreed that the following reservation of land shall
be made to the Rev. Eleazar Williams of said tribe, which he claims in
his own right and that of his wife, which he is to hold in fee simple by
patent from the President, with full power and authority to sell and
dispose of the same, to-wit. Beginning at a point in the west bank of the
Fox River, thirteen chains above the old mill-dam at the rapids of the
little Kockalin, thence north fifty-two degrees and thirt

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