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"sent word to our enemies the Mengwe, to meet "them at a great council which they were to hold with

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us at Lahauwake*, where they should take us by "the hair of our heads, and shake us well. The Mengwe came, the council was held, and in the presence of the white men, who did not contradict them, they told us that we were women, and that they had made us such; that we had no right to any land, because it was all theirs; that we must be gone; and that as a great favour they permitted us to go and settle further into the country, at "the place which they themselves pointed out at Wyomingt."

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Thus these good Indians, with a kind of melancholy pleasure, recite the long history of their sufferings. After having gone through these painful details, they seldom fail to indulge in bitter, but too just reflections upon the men of Europe. "We and our "kindred tribes," say they, "lived in peace and

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harmony with each other, before the white people came into this country; our council house ex"tended far to the north and far to the south. In the "middle of it we would meet from all parts to "smoke the pipe of peace together. When the white "men arrived in the south, we received them as "friends; we did the same when they arrived in the "east. It was we, it was our forefathers, who made

*Easton.

This actually took place at a treaty held at Easton, in July and November, 1756.

Council house here means, "Connexion District."

"them welcome, and let them sit down by our side. The land they settled on was ours. We knew not "but the Great Spirit had sent them to us for some

good purpose, and therefore we thought they must "be a good people. We were mistaken; for no "sooner had they obtained a footing on our lands, "than they began to pull our council house down* first at one end and then at the other, and at last

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meeting each other at the centre, where the coun"cil fire was yet burning bright, they put it out, "and extinguished it with our own blood +! with the "blood of those who with us had received them! "who had welcomed them in our land! Their blood "ran in streams into our fire, and extinguished "it so entirely, that not one spark was left us whereby to kindle a new fire; we were compelled to

* Pulling the council house down. Destroying, dispersing the community, preventing their further intercourse with each other, by settling between them on their land.

Putting the fire out. Murdering them or their people, where they assemble for pacific purposes, where treaties are held, &c.

Our own blood. The blood flowing from the veins of some of our community.

§ Alluding to the murder of the Conestogo Indians, who though of another tribe, yet had joined them in welcoming the white people to their shores.

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In a narrative of this lamentable event, supposed to have been written by the late Dr. Franklin, it is said: "On the first arrival of the English in 'Pennsylvania, messengers from this tribe came to welcome them with "presents of venison, corn and skins, and the whole tribe entered into a treaty of friendship with the first proprietor, William Penn, which was "to last as long as the sun should shine, or the waters run in the rivers.”

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The fire was entirely extinguished by the blood of the murdered running into it; not a spark was left to kindle a new fire. This alludes to the last fire that was kindled by the Pennsylvanian government and them

withdraw ourselves beyond the great swamp*, and "to fly to our good uncle the Delamattenost, who "kindly gave us a tract of land to live on. How "long we shall be permitted to remain in this asy"lum, the Great Spirit only knows. The whites "will not rest contented until they shall have destroyed the last of us, and made us disappear entirely from the face of the earth."

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I have given here only a brief specimen of the charges which they exhibit against the white people. There are men among them who have by heart the whole history of what took place between the whites and the Indians, since the former first came into their country; and relate the whole with ease and with an eloquence not to be imitated. On the tablets of their memories they preserve this record for posterity. I, at one time, in April 1787, was astonished when I heard one of their orators, a great chief of the Delaware nation, go over this ground, recapitulating the most extraordinary events which had before happened, and concluding in these words: "I admit there are good white men, but they "bear no proportion to the bad; the bad must be "the strongest, for they rule. They do what they please. They enslave those who are not of their

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selves at Lancaster, where the last treaty was held with them in 1762, the year preceding this murder, which put an end to all business of the kind in the province of Pennsylvania.

* The great Swamp. The Glades on the Allegheny mountains.

Delamattenos. The Huron or Wyandots, whom they call their uncle. These, though speaking a dialect of the Iroquois language, are in connexion with the Lenape,

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colour, although created by the same Great Spirit "who created us. They would make slaves of us

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"if they could, but as they cannot do it, they kill us! "There is no faith to be placed in their words. They are not like the Indians, who are only enemies "while at war, and are friends in peace. They will say to an Indian, My friend! my brother!' They "will take him by the hand, and at the same mo"ment destroy him. And so you" (addressing himself to the Christian Indians)" will also be treated

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by them before long. Remember! that this day I "have warned you to beware of such friends as these. "I know the long knives; they are not to be trusted."

Eleven months after this speech was delivered by this prophetic chief, ninety-six of the same Christian Indians, about sixty of them women and children, were murdered at the place where these very words had been spoken, by the same men he had alluded to, and in the same manner that he had described. See Loskiel's History, Part III. ch. 10.

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EVIDENCES OF GENERAL CAPACITY AND TRUE CONCEPTION OF COURTESY AMONG THE

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PRESENT INDIANS.

IN the summer of 1819, during the yellow fever at New York, I took a tour, accompanied by two of my daughters, and a gentleman, to the Falls of Niagara, and through a considerable part of Upper Canada. After stopping more than a week under the truly hospitable roof of the Honourable Colonel Clarke, at the Falls, I determined to proceed by land round Lake Ontario, to York; and Mrs. Clarke offered to give my daughters a letter of introduction to a Miss Brandt, advising us to arrange our time so as to sleep and stop a day or two in the house of that lady, as she was certain we should be much pleased with her and her brother. Our friend did not intimate, still less did we suspect, that the introduction was to an Indian Prince and Princess. Had we been in the least aware of this, our previous arrangements would all have given way, as there was nothing I was more anxious to obtain than an opportunity, such as this was so well calculated to afford, of seeing in what degree the Indian character would be modified by a conformity to the habits and comforts of civilized life.

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Proceeding on our journey, we stopped at an inn,

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