The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada Part 16

Shippensburg, Pa., crowded with fugitives from the frontiers, 316 note.

Small-pox, proposal to infect the Indians with it, 304, 305; this disease found to exist among them, 304 note.

Smith, James, commands a body of border riflemen, 345; adopts the Indian costume and tactics, ib.; a further account of him, 345 note; heads a predatory expedition of Paxton men, 476; his narration of the affair, 478 note.

Smith, Matthew, a leader among the Paxton men, 360; conducts a party of men against the Indians at Conestoga, 361; the ma.s.sacre, 361; Smith's narration of the affair, 361 note; he threatens to fire on his minister's horse if not allowed to pa.s.s, 363; leads in the ma.s.sacre of Indians in Lancaster jail, ib.; conducts an armed rabble to Philadelphia, with a purpose to kill the Moravian Indians, 372; proceeds to Germantown, and there halts, 379; treaty with the rioters, 381. See Appendix E., pp. 543-547.

Smith, William, of New York, his account of Pontiac, 192 note.

Smollett's history of England, quoted in reference to the "Royal Americans," 297 note.

Solomons, an English fur-trader, 244.

Spangenburg, a Moravian bishop, attends the great Iroquois council at Onondaga, 21 note; his account of it, ib.

St. Ange de Bellerive, commander of the French fort Chartres, 464; keeps the Indians quiet, ib.; has a visit from Pontiac, 468; to whom he refuses aid, 468, 482.

St. Aubin, a Canadian, 165; his account of the siege of Detroit, Appendix C.

St. Ignace, mission of, 240.

St. Joseph River, a French fort there, 54, 57; taken possession of by the English, 130; the fort captured by Indians, 204.

St. Louis founded by Laclede, 463; surprising changes there in the memory of the living, 463.

St. Pierre, Legardeur de, French commandant on the waters of the Ohio, 81.

Stedman, conductor of a convoy, escapes from the Indians, 330.

Stewart, Lazarus, a leader of the Paxton men, 362; apprehended on a charge of murder, 366; escapes to Wyoming, ib.; issues a "declaration," ib.; the doc.u.ment quoted, 357 note; favorable character of him given by Rev. John Elder, 365 note.

Superst.i.tious regard of Indians for insane persons ill.u.s.trated by a curious story, 283; superst.i.tious regard for rattlesnakes, 395 note, 456 note.

Susquehanna River, its banks a scene of Indian warfare, 345 et seq.

T.

Thunder, G.o.d of, 41.

Ticonderoga, its position, 97; repulse of the English there, 98, 99; taken by General Amherst, 100.

Totems, emblems of clans, 17, 18, 21; their influence, 21.

Tracy, a fur-trader, at Mackinaw, 251.

Traders among the Indians, their bad character, 63; many of them killed, 281, 282; treacherous conduct of the Indians towards them, 283.

Treacherous conduct of Indians, 146, 250, 281, 283, 288.

Treatment of captives taken in war, 28, 61, 180 note.

Treatment of Indians by the French, 64-67; by the English, 64, 131, 132 note, 141; by William Penn, 69; by his sons, 70, 71; by the Quakers, 69, 70; by the New England people, 70.

Treaty of 1763, its probable effect on the Indians had it been made sooner, 147, 148.

Trent, Captain, occupies the site of Pittsburg, 81; obliged to leave it, 82.

Tribute exacted by the Iroquois, what, 19 note.

Tuscaroras, a later member of the Iroquois confederacy, 20; removal from North Carolina, 33.

U.

Union of the colonies proposed, 83.

Union of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, 452.

V.

Venango, on the Alleghany River, 278; destroyed by the Indians and the garrison slaughtered, 290; the remains visible many years after, 291 note.

Vincennes, a French settlement, 120, 278.

Virginia troops, their good conduct at the time of Braddock's defeat, 91; Virginia wasted by Indian war, 111; character of the settlers of Western Virginia, 333; extent of settlement, 334; ravages of the Indians, 337, 338; energetic measures taken to protect the settlers, 344.

W.

"Walking Purchase," the, a fraudulent transaction, 71; its consequences, 72.

Walpole, Horace, his low opinion of General Braddock, 86.

Wampum, of what made, 141 note; its uses, 142 note; what the spurning of it denotes, 113 note; used in making a treaty, 401 note; black wampum and its use, 473.

Wapocomoguth, an Ojibwa chief, visits Detroit with proposals of peace, 351.

War, Indian appet.i.te for it, 146; their mode of preparation for it, 27; wars of the Iroquois with other Indians, 31-33; with the French, 61, 62; war of 1755, 84-110; of the Indians of Ohio against the English, 111; war-parties of Indians, how formed, 145; Indian wars, how conducted, 146, 147; preparation for war, how made, 148-150; the war-feast, 149; prognostics of the war, 159; the war dance, 176; the war instigated by Pontiac begins, 177; end of the war, its distresses, 496.

War of 1755, its beginning, 84; its peculiar character, 85; plan formed for 1755 by the English ministry, 86; plan for 1759, 99.

Washington, George, sent to remonstrate against French encroachment, 80; his interview with the French commandant on the waters of the Ohio, 81; surprises and captures a party of French on the Monongahela, 82; sustains the attack of a superior force of French and Indians, ib.; his calm behavior at the time of Braddock's defeat, 89.

Wawatam, an Ojibwa chief, his singular friendship for Alexander Henry, 246; warns Henry of danger, 247; the warning disregarded, ib.; procures the release of Henry from those who had him in their power, 260, 261; again preserves the life of Henry, 264.

Webb, General, his dastardly conduct, 113.

Wilderness of the West described, 114; its vastness, its small and scattered Indian population, 115; estimate of the number, ib.; hunters and trappers, their character and habits, 122, 123.

Wilkins, Major, commands at Niagara, 331; conducts an expedition against the Indians, 332; meets with disaster, ib.; the failure of the expedition announced at Detroit, 353.

William Henry, Fort, its position, 97; taken by Montcalm, 97; ma.s.sacre there, 66, 97.

Williams, Colonel Ephraim, slain at the battle of Lake George, 94.

Williamson, an English trader, procures the a.s.sa.s.sination of Pontiac, 499, 500.

Winnebagoes, their location, 265.

Winston, Richard, trader at St. Joseph's, his curious letter, 205 note.

Wisconsin, first white settlers in it, 252 note.

Wolfe, General James, arrives before Quebec, 100; his character, 101; difficulties of his situation, 101, 102; repeats Gray's "Elegy," 104; occupies the Plains of Abraham, 106; the battle, 107, 108; death of Wolfe in the arms of victory, 109.

Wyandots, or Hurons, where situated, 30; their early prosperity, 31; fiercely attacked and slaughtered by the Iroquois, 31; a fugitive remnant left, 31, 38; their energy of character, 33, 117; their steadiness in fight, 33, 34; their village near Detroit, 129, 163; they join in the conspiracy of Pontiac, 142; some of them do this under coercion, 183; a body of them surprise Cuyler's detachment, 200; a party of them capture Fort Sandusky, 202.

Wyoming Valley, settled from Connecticut, 347, 366; ma.s.sacre of the settlers, 347.

FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Many Indian tribes bear names which in their dialect signify men, indicating that the character belongs, par excellence, to them. Sometimes the word was used by itself, and sometimes an adjective was joined with it, as original men, men surpa.s.sing all others.]

[Footnote 2: The dread of female infidelity has been a.s.signed, and with probable truth, as the origin of this custom. The sons of a chief's sister must necessarily be his kindred; though his own reputed son may be, in fact, the offspring of another.]

[Footnote 3: Schoolcraft, Oneota, 172.

The extraordinary figures intended to represent tortoises, deer, snakes, and other animals, which are often seen appended to Indian treaties, are the totems of the chiefs, who employ these devices of their respective clans as their sign manual. The device of his clan is also sometimes tattooed on the body of the warrior.

The word tribe might, perhaps, have been employed with as much propriety as that of clan, to indicate the totemic division; but as the former is constantly employed to represent the local or political divisions of the Indian race, hopeless confusion would arise from using it in a double capacity.]

[Footnote 4: For an ample view of these divisions, see the Synopsis of Mr. Gallatin, Trans. Am. Ant. Soc. II.]

[Footnote 5: It appears from several pa.s.sages in the writings of Adair, Hawkins, and others, that the totem prevailed among the southern tribes. In a conversation with the late Albert Gallatin, he informed me that he was told by the chiefs of a Choctaw deputation, at Washington, that in their tribe were eight totemic clans, divided into two cla.s.ses, of four each. It is very remarkable that the same number of clans, and the same division into cla.s.ses, were to be found among the Five Nations or Iroquois.]

[Footnote 6: A great difficulty in the study of Indian history arises from a redundancy of names employed to designate the same tribe; yet this does not prevent the same name from being often used to designate two or more different tribes. The following are the chief of those which are applied to the Iroquois by different writers, French, English, and German:-- Iroquois, Five, and afterwards Six Nations; Confederates, Hodenosaunee, Aqua.n.u.scioni, Aggonnonshioni, Ongwe Honwe, Mengwe, Maquas, Mahaquase, Ma.s.sawomecs, Palenachendchiesktajeet.

The name of Ma.s.sawomecs has been applied to several tribes; and that of Mingoes is often restricted to a colony of the Iroquois which established itself near the Ohio.]

[Footnote 7: Francois, a well-known Indian belonging to the remnant of the Pen.o.bscots living at Old Town, in Maine, told me, in the summer of 1843, that a tradition was current, among his people, of their being attacked in ancient times by the Mohawks, or, as he called them, Mohogs, a tribe of the Iroquois, who destroyed one of their villages, killed the men and women, and roasted the small children on forked sticks, like apples, before the fire. When he began to tell his story, Francois was engaged in patching an old canoe, in preparation for a moose hunt; but soon growing warm with his recital, he gave over his work, and at the conclusion exclaimed with great wrath and earnestness, "Mohog all devil!"]

[Footnote 8: The tribute exacted from the Delawares consisted of wampum, or beads of sh.e.l.l, an article of inestimable value with the Indians. "Two old men commonly go about, every year or two, to receive this tribute; and I have often had opportunity to observe what anxiety the poor Indians were under, while these two old men remained in that part of the country where I was. An old Mohawk sachem, in a poor blanket and a dirty shirt, may be seen issuing his orders with as arbitrary an authority as a Roman dictator."--Colden, Hist. Five Nations, 4.]

[Footnote 9: The following are synonymous names, gathered from various writers:-- Mohawks, Anies, Agniers, Agnierrhonons, Sankhicans, Canungas, Mauguawogs, Ganeagaonoh.

Oneidas, Oneotas, Onoyats, Anoyints, Onneiouts, Oneyyotecaronoh, Onoiochrhonons.

Onondagas, Onnontagues, Onondagaonohs.

Cayugas, Caiyoquos, Goiogoens, Gweugwehonoh.

Senecas, Sinnikes, Chennessies, Genesees, Chenandoanes, Tsonnontouans, Jenontowanos, Nundawaronoh.]

[Footnote 10: "In the year 1745, August Gottlieb Spangenburg, a bishop of the United Brethren, spent several weeks in Onondaga, and frequently attended the great council. The council-house was built of bark. On each side six seats were placed, each containing six persons. No one was admitted besides the members of the council, except a few, who were particularly honored. If one rose to speak, all the rest sat in profound silence, smoking their pipes. The speaker uttered his words in a singing tone, always rising a few notes at the close of each sentence. Whatever was pleasing to the council was confirmed by all with the word Nee, or Yes. And, at the end of each speech, the whole company joined in applauding the speaker by calling Hoho. At noon, two men entered bearing a large kettle filled with meat, upon a pole across their shoulders, which was first presented to the guests. A large wooden ladle, as broad and deep as a common bowl, hung with a hook to the side of the kettle, with which every one might at once help himself to as much as he could eat. When the guests had eaten their fill, they begged the counsellors to do the same. The whole was conducted in a very decent and quiet manner. Indeed, now and then, one or the other would lie flat upon his back to rest himself, and sometimes they would stop, joke, and laugh heartily."--Loskiel, Hist. Morav. Miss. 138.]

[Footnote 11: The descent of the sachemship in the female line was a custom universally prevalent among the Five Nations, or Iroquois proper. Since, among Indian tribes generally, the right of furnishing a sachem was vested in some particular totemic clan, it results of course that the descent of the sachemship must follow the descent of the totem; that is, if the totemship descend in the female line, the sachemship must do the same. This custom of descent in the female line prevailed not only among the Iroquois proper, but also among the Wyandots, and probably among the Andastes and the Eries, extinct members of the great Iroquois family. Thus, among any of these tribes, when a Wolf warrior married a Hawk squaw, their children were Hawks, and not Wolves. With the Creeks of the south, according to the observations of Hawkins (Georgia Hist. Coll. III. 69), the rule was the same; but among the Algonquins, on the contrary, or at least among the northern branches of this family, the reverse took place, the totemships, and consequently the chieftainships, descending in the male line, after the a.n.a.logy of civilized nations. For this information concerning the northern Algonquins, I am indebted to Mr. Schoolcraft, whose opportunities of observation among these tribes have surpa.s.sed those of any other student of Indian customs and character.]

[Footnote 12: An account of the political inst.i.tutions of the Iroquois will be found in Mr. Morgan's series of letters, published in the American Review for 1847. Valuable information may also be obtained from Schoolcraft's Notes on the Iroquois.

Mr. Morgan is of opinion that these inst.i.tutions were the result of "a protracted effort of legislation." An examination of the customs prevailing among other Indian tribes makes it probable that the elements of the Iroquois polity existed among them from an indefinite antiquity; and the legislation of which Mr. Morgan speaks could only involve the arrangement and adjustment of already existing materials.

Since the above chapter was written, Mr. Morgan has published an elaborate and very able work on the inst.i.tutions of the Iroquois. It forms an invaluable addition to this department of knowledge.]

[Footnote 13: Recorded by Heckewelder, Colden, and Schoolcraft. That the Iroquois had long dwelt on the spot where they were first discovered by the whites, is rendered probable by several circ.u.mstances. See Mr. Squier's work on the Aboriginal Monuments of New York.]

[Footnote 14: This preposterous legend was first briefly related in the pamphlet of Cusick, the Tuscarora, and after him by Mr. Schoolcraft, in his Notes. The curious work of Cusick will again be referred to.]

[Footnote 15: For traditions of the Iroquois see Schoolcraft, Notes, Chap. IX. Cusick, History of the Five Nations, and Clark, Hist. Onondaga, I.

Cusick was an old Tuscarora Indian, who, being disabled by an accident from active occupations, essayed to become the historian of his people, and produced a small pamphlet, written in a language almost unintelligible, and filled with a medley of traditions in which a few grains of truth are inextricably mingled with a tangled ma.s.s of absurdities. He relates the monstrous legends of his people with an air of implicit faith, and traces the presiding sachems of the confederacy in regular descent from the first Atotarho downwards. His work, which was printed at the Tuscarora village, near Lewiston, in 1828, is ill.u.s.trated by several rude engravings representing the Stone Giants, the Flying Heads, and other traditional monsters.]

[Footnote 16: Lafitau, M[oe]urs des Sauvages Ameriquains, II. 4-10.

Frontenac, in his expedition against the Onondagas, in 1696 (see Official Journal, Doc. Hist. New York, I. 332), found one of their villages built in an oblong form, with four bastions. The wall was formed of three rows of palisades, those of the outer row being forty or fifty feet high. The usual figure of the Iroquois villages was circular or oval, and in this instance the bastions were no doubt the suggestion of some European adviser.]

[Footnote 17: Bartram gives the following account of the great council-house at Onondaga, which he visited in 1743:-- "We alighted at the council-house, where the chiefs were already a.s.sembled to receive us, which they did with a grave, cheerful complaisance, according to their custom; they shew'd us where to lay our baggage, and repose ourselves during our stay with them; which was in the two end apartments of this large house. The Indians that came with us were placed over against us. This cabin is about eighty feet long and seventeen broad, the common pa.s.sage six feet wide, and the apartments on each side five feet, raised a foot above the pa.s.sage by a long sapling, hewed square, and fitted with joists that go from it to the back of the house; on these joists they lay large pieces of bark, and on extraordinary occasions spread mats made of rushes: this favor we had; on these floors they set or lye down, every one as he will; the apartments are divided from each other by boards or bark, six or seven foot long, from the lower floor to the upper, on which they put their lumber; when they have eaten their h.o.m.ony, as they set in each apartment before the fire, they can put the bowl over head, having not above five foot to reach; they set on the floor sometimes at each end, but mostly at one; they have a shed to put their wood into in the winter, or in the summer to set to converse or play, that has a door to the south; all the sides and roof of the cabin are made of bark, bound fast to poles set in the ground, and bent round on the top, or set aflatt, for the roof, as we set our rafters; over each fireplace they leave a hole to let out the smoke, which, in rainy weather, they cover with a piece of bark, and this they can easily reach with a pole to push it on one side or quite over the hole; after this model are most of their cabins built."--Bartram, Observations, 40.]

[Footnote 18: "Being at this place the 17 of June, there came fifty prisoners from the south westward. They were of two nations, some whereof have few guns, the other none at all. One nation is about ten days journey from any Christians, and trade onely with one greatt house, nott farr from the sea, and the other trade onely, as they say, with a black people. This day of them was burnt two women, and a man and a child killed with a stone. Att night we heard a great noise as if y^{e} houses had all fallen b.u.t.t itt was only y^{e} inhabitants driving away y^{e} ghosts of y^{e} murthered.

'The 18^{th} going to Canagorah, that day there were most cruelly burnt four men, four women and one boy. The cruelty lasted aboutt seven hours. When they were almost dead letting them loose to the mercy of y^{e} boys, and taking the hearts of such as were dead to feast on'--Greenhalgh, Journal, 1677.]

[Footnote 19: For an account of the habits and customs of the Iroquois, the following works, besides those already cited, may be referred to:-- Charlevoix, Letters to the d.u.c.h.ess of Lesdiguieres; Champlain, Voyages de la Nouv. France; Clark, Hist. Onondaga, I., and several volumes of the Jesuit Relations, especially those of 1656-1657 and 1659-1660.]

[Footnote 20: This is Colden's translation of the word Ongwehonwe, one of the names of the Iroquois.]

[Footnote 21: La Hontan estimated the Iroquois at from five thousand to seven thousand fighting men; but his means of information were very imperfect, and the same may be said of several other French writers, who have overrated the force of the confederacy. In 1677, the English sent one Greenhalgh to ascertain their numbers. He visited all their towns and villages, and reported their aggregate force at two thousand one hundred and fifty fighting men. The report of Colonel Coursey, agent from Virginia, at about the same period, closely corresponds with this statement. Greenhalgh's Journal will be found in Chalmers's Political Annals, and in the Doc.u.mentary History of New York. Subsequent estimates, up to the period of the Revolution, when their strength had much declined, vary from twelve hundred to two thousand one hundred and twenty. Most of these estimates are given by Clinton, in his Discourse on the Five Nations, and several by Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia.]

[Footnote 22: Hurons, Wyandots, Yendots, Ouendaets, Quatogies.

The Dionondadies are also designated by the following names: Tionontatez, Petuneux--Nation of Tobacco.]

[Footnote 23: See Sagard, Hurons, 115.]

[Footnote 24: Bancroft, in his chapter on the Indians east of the Mississippi, falls into a mistake when he says that no trade was carried on by any of the tribes. For an account of the traffic between the Hurons and Algonquins, see Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, p. 171.]

[Footnote 25: See "Jesuits in North America."]

[Footnote 26: According to Lallemant, the population of the Neutral Nation amounted to at least twelve thousand; but the estimate is probably exaggerated.--Relation des Hurons, 1641, p. 50.]

[Footnote 27: The Iroquois traditions on this subject, as related to the writer by a chief of the Cayugas, do not agree with the narratives of the Jesuits. It is not certain that the Eries were of the Iroquois family. There is some reason to believe them Algonquins, and possibly identical with the Shawanoes.]

[Footnote 28: Charlevoix, Nouvelle France, I. 443.]