with the exception of the Narraganset, is nearly extinct. Many had, it is true, removed from time to time to the westward. But the great diminution and approaching extinction are due to the same causes, which have operated everywhere else, and to which we may hereafter advert.

It is probable that the Manhattans and the other tribes, which may have been seated below the Highlands, on the easttern bank of the Hudson, within the jurisdiction of New York, were of the same stock with their eastern neighbours on the main along the Long Island Sound, and may also be included under the general appellation of Mohicans. Of this, however, we have no direct proof, as no vestige of their language remains. The Dutch purchased from them the Manhattan Island, where they erected a fort about the year 1620, and laid the foundation of New Amsterdam, now New York.* But they appear to have been in a state of perpetual hostility with those Indians.

De Laet, who wrote in 1624, and mentions the purchase, says that the eastern bank of the river was, from its mouth, inhabited by "the Manathanes, a cruel nation at war with us.” He also mentions the Delawares or Minsi, living on the opposite shore, under the names of Sanhikans and Mahkentiwomi, as a more humane and friendly nation. It was there accordingly that they made their first settlement in that quarter, about the year 1610.†

About the year 1643, the Dutch appear to have been reduced to great distress by the Manhattans and the Long Island Indians. They applied in vain for assistance to the Colony of New Haven; but they engaged in their service Captain Underhill, a celebrated partisan officer, with whose assistance and, it is said, that of the Mohawks, they carried on the war for several years. Underhill had a mixed corps of English and Dutch, with whom he is said to have killed four hundred Indians on Long Island. And in the year 1646, a severe battle took place at Horseneck on the main, where the Indians were finally defeated. ‡

* Smith's History of New York, p. 38, where is given Governor Stuyvesant's statement of the Dutch claim in 1644.

The Delaware tradition (Hecke welder's Account, chap. ii.) that they first received the Dutch, is correct.

Trumbull's History of Connecticut, passim.

It appears, from the researches of the Hon. Silas Wood, that there were not less than thirteen distinct tribes on Long Island, over which the Montauks, who inhabited the easternmost part of the island, exercised some kind of authority, though they had been themselves tributaries of the Pequods before the subjugation of these by the English. The two extremities of the island were settled about the same time, the eastern by the English, and the western by the Dutch.

The original records of the towns examined by Mr. Wood show, that the lands were in both districts always purchased from the Indians in possession. It was only in 1665, after the British had taken possession of New York and the whole of the island had been annexed to that government, that it was ordained, that no purchase from the Indians without the Governor's license, executed in his presence, should be valid. The Indians appear to have been at times, or at least with a single exception, on friendly terms with the English; and although there is some discrepancy in the accounts, it is probable that the hostilities, which had previously existed between those Indians and the Dutch, had ceased prior to the year 1655.†

The several tribes of Long Island spoke kindred dialects, of which we have two specimens; Mr. Wood's short vocabulary of the Montauks, from a manuscript in the possession of the late John Lyon Gardner; and that of a tribe called Unchagogs (by Mr. Wood), taken in 1792, by Mr. Jefferson, and in the possession of the American Philosophical Society. Mr. Jefferson states that the dialect differs a little from those of the Shinicooks of South Hampton, or of the Montauks; and that these three tribes barely understood each other. The language appears to me to differ farther in its vocabulary from those of New England, than any of these from each other. Although a reservation of land was made for those Indians, there remain only some Montauks; and the language is said to be extinct.

In the absence of the Dutch records, during the fifty years of their dominion, (1610-1664,) we have been obliged to resort to the transient notices of the English or American writers. A certain fact asserted by all of them, confirmed by eyewitnesses, and acknowledged by the Indians, is that the Mohicans or River Indians including the Wappings, had been subjugated

* Smith's History of New York, p. 54.

Wood's Account of the Settlement of Long Island.

by the Five Nations, and paid to them some kind of tribute. According to Governor Trumbull, the Indians as far east as the Connecticut River had shared the same fate.* It may be doubted whether this could properly be asserted of all of them. But it is certain that the Long Island Indians did also generally pay tribute; and we have the irrefragable evidence of an eyewitness, the late Samuel Jones, that, as late as the middle of the seventeenth century, it was collected by Mohawk deputies in Queen's County.

Judge Smith, in his "History of New York," published in 1756, says, that, "when the Dutch began the settlement of this country, all the Indians on Long Island and the northern shore of the Sound, on the banks of Connecticut, Hudson's, Delaware, and Susquehanna Rivers, were in subjection to the Five Nations, and, within the memory of persons now living, acknowledged it by the payment of an annual tribute." He gives no authority for the early date he assigns to that event. The subsequent protracted wars of the Dutch with the Manhattans. and the Long Island Indians, and the continued warfare of the Mohawks against the Connecticut Indians, are inconsistent with that account, which is clearly incorrect with respect to the Mohikander River Indians, or Manhicans. These are mentioned by De Laet as the mortal enemies of the Maquas. It was undoubtedly the interest of the Dutch to promote any arrangement, which, by compelling the Mohicans to remain at peace, would secure their own and increase their trade. If they suc¬ ceeded at any time, the peace was but temporary. We learn from the Relations of the French Missionaries, that war existed in 1656, between the Mahingans and the Mohawks, and that these experienced a severe check in 1663, in an attack upon a Mabingan fortified village. And Colden states that the contest was not at an end till 1673. "The trade of New York," he says, "was hindered by the war which the Five Nations had at that time with the River Indians ;" and he adds that the Governor of New York" obtained a peace between the Five Nations and the Mahikanders or River Indians." ‡

It is also certain that those Mohikander or River Indians, were not reduced to the same state in which the Delawares

* Vol. I. p. 56.

Page 216. He quotes the instance of a small tribe in Orange County which still made a yearly payment of about £20 to the Mohawks, Colden, chap. ii. p. 35.

were placed. It is proved by the concurring accounts of the French and English writers, that, subsequently to the peace of 1674, they were repeatedly, indeed uniformly, employed as auxiliaries in the wars of the Five Nations and the British against the French. At the treaty of Albany of 1746, which has already been quoted, they were positively invited and requested to join heartily with both for that purpose; and they acted accordingly. It may be that the Dutch or English had obtained from the Five Nations a general release of any claim they might have on the lands of the subdued tribes. But if the right was reserved, it is proved by the records of Long Island, that it was not rigidly enforced; and there is reason to believe that the same observation applies equally to the ancient settlements in other parts of the State. The whole western district has of course been purchased from the Five, or as since called, the Six Nations.

The Delawares call themselves Lenno-Lenape, which means "Original, or Unmixed Men"; perhaps originally "manly men," if Lenape is derived from Lenno, "man, homo," and паре, "male." They say that they at first consisted of three tribes, the Unami, or "Turtle" tribe, which claimed precedence over the others, the Minsi, or "Wolf" tribe, who, though still intimately connected, separated themselves from the Delawares proper, and speak a different dialect, and the Unalachtgo, or "Turkey" tribe, who remain mixed with the Unami. They were called Loups (wolves) by the French. But it was because they confounded them with the Mohicans and New England Indians, whom they designated by the general appellation of Mahingan, which means "Wolf" in the Algonkin and Chippeway dialects.

DELAWARE AND MINSI.

The Delaware and Minsi occupied the country bounded eastwardly and southwardly by Hudson River and the Atlantic. On the west they appear to have been divided from the Nanticokes and the Susquehannocks, by the height of land which separates the waters falling into the Delaware from those that empty into the Susquehanna and Chesapeake. They probably extended southwardly along the Delaware as far as Sandy

On

Hook, which seems to have belonged to another tribe.* the north they were in possession of the country watered by the Schuylkill, to its sources. The line thence to the Hudson is more uncertain. They may originally have extended to the sources of the Delaware; and it was perhaps owing to the conquests of a comparatively recent date, that, at the treaty of Easton, of 1758, the Delaware chief, Tedyuscung, who had at first asserted the claim of his nation to that extent, restricted it to one of the intervening ranges of hills, and acknowledged that the lands higher up the river belonged to his uncles of the Five Nations. East of the Delaware, the Lenape tribes were separated by the Catskill Mountains from the Mohawks. But it has already been stated that the Wappings intervened and extended even below the Highlands. The division line between those Wappings and the Minsi, is not known with certainty.

That between the Delawares proper, and the Minsi in New Jersey, is ascertained by an authentic document. Almost all the lands in that colony had been gradually purchased from those Indians respectively who had actual possession. Some tracts remained, which both tribes stated not to have been included within those sales. And at the same treaty of Easton they both made distinct releases of all their claims to that residue; the Delawares, for the lands lying south, and the Minsi for those lying north of a line drawn from Sandy Hook up the Raritan to its forks, then up its north fork to the falls of Alamatung, and thence in a straight line to the Pasequalin Mountain on the River Delaware. The line in Pennsylvania between the tribes is not so clearly ascertained. It is however known that the tract, on which Nazareth stands, was purchased by the Moravians from the Minsi.

Various tribes are mentioned by the Swedes and by De Laet, on both shores of the Delaware, from its mouth to Trenton Falls; and the same observation applies to the western shore of the Hudson below the Highlands. But these are clearly local designations; and they are all included under the name of Renapi by the Swedish writers. The Delawares proper call themselves Lenno-Lenape; and the permutations of the letters r, l, and n, are common everywhere amongst Indian tribes speaking the same language.

Quare, whether the Conois? See Alrick's Commission.