We have two ancient vocabularies of the Delaware, one in the description of New Sweden by Thomas Campanius, lately translated by M. Duponceau, and the other of the Sankhicans, so called, by De Laet. They are almost identical and both are clearly Delaware. The settlements of the Swedes, on the river of that name, do not appear to have extended far above the present site of Philadelphia. The Sankhicans are placed by Campanius at the Falls of the Delaware. They are mentioned by De Laet as occupying the western side of the Hudson, as living along the bays and in the interior of the country, and, finally, as the upper nation on the Delaware known to the Dutch, and living eighteen leagues from the mouth of that river. The Delawares were subdivided into numerous small tribes, distinguished by local names; and it is clear that one of those tribes named Sankhican by the Swedes and Dutch writers, lived up the Delaware where both place it; and that when De Laet speaks of them in the first passage, as inhabiting the western side of the Hudson, he extends the appellation of Sankhican to the Delawares generally.*

tion.

At the same time when William Penn landed in Pennsylvania, the Delawares had been subjugated and made women by the Five Nations. It is well known, that, according to that Indian mode of expression, the Delawares were henceforth prohibited from making war, and placed under the sovereignty of the conquerors, who did not even allow sales of land, in the actual possession of the Delawares, to be valid without their approbaWilliam Penn, his descendants, and the State of Pennsylvania accordingly always purchased the right of possession from the Delawares, and that of sovereignty from the Five Nations. The tale suggested by the vanity of the Delawares, and in which the venerable Heckewelder placed implicit faith, that this treaty was a voluntary act on the part of the Delawares, is too incredible to require a serious discussion. It cannot be admitted that they were guilty of such an egregious act of

* We learn however, from Mr. Heckewelder, that the Delawares called the Mohawks by that very name "Sankhicani." It is therefore probable that the Maquas, in the course of the war, had a fort or a settlement near the Falls of Trenton, as they afterwards had one twelve miles from Fort Christina, and that, the place being accordingly called by the Delawares Sankhican, the Dutch and Swedes mistook it for the name of a Delaware tribe. De Laet's Sankhican vocabulary is at all events Delaware.

folly as to assent voluntarily to an agreement, which left their deadly enemies at liberty to destroy their own kindred, friends, and allies, with no other remedy but the empty title of Mediators, a character in which they never once appeared. And it is really absurd to suppose, that any Indian tribe, victorious too as the Delawares are stated to have been at that time, should have voluntarily submitted to that which, according to their universal and most deeply rooted habits and opinions, is the utmost degradation and ignominy. But it is difficult to ascertain when that event took place; and it seems probable, as asserted by the Indians, that it was subsequent to the arrival of the Europeans.

De Laet, in 1624, writes that the Sankhicans were mortal enemies of the Manhattans; which proves that the Sankhicans, or Delawares, were not yet prohibited from going to war. We find also in Campanius, that the Minquas had a fort on a high hill about twelve miles from Christina; and he says that as late as 1646, the Indians (viz. the Delawares) had taken and burnt alive one of those Minquas. He adds, indeed, "that the Minquas forced the other Indians, who were not so warlike as themselves, to be afraid of them, and made them. subject and tributary to them, so that they dare not stir, much less go to war against them." Still, taking all these remarks together, it would appear that the war between the two nations had not yet terminated in complete subjugation. This is corroborated by what Evans says in the analysis of his Map; to wit, that the Iroquois had conquered the Lenno-Lenape; but that these had previously sold the lands, from the Falls of Trenton down to the sea, to Peter Menevit, commander under Christina, Queen of Sweden.

The first settlement of the Swedes was commenced in the year 1631.* Peter Menevit, or Minuit, was commander or governor, in 1638.† Their principal establishment was in the vicinity of Fort Christina, near the mouth of the river of that name. In the year 1651, the Dutch built Fort Casimir, now called Newcastle, a few miles below.‡ The Swedes soon after took possession of it. But they were expelled in 1655, by the Dutch, from all their possessions on the Delaware. The country was then governed by a director appointed by the

*Holmes's Annals. Ibid. p. 24.

+ Smith's History of New York, p. 21.

Dutch commander of New York, till the year 1664, when, together with New York, it was taken by the British. Smith has preserved, in his "History of New York," an extract from the Commission of Alrick, one of the first Dutch Directors, dated April, 1657. He was appointed " Director General of the Colony of the South River of the Netherlands, and the fortress of Casimir, now called Niewer Amstel, with all the lands depending thereon, according to the first purchase and deed of release of the natives, dated July 19th, 1651, beginning at the west side of the Minquaa or Christina Kill, in the Indian language named Suspeungh, to the mouth of the bay or river called Bompt Hook, in the Indian language Cannaresse, and so far inland as the bounds and limits of the Minquaas' land, with all the streams, and appurtenances, and dependencies."*

This appears to be the first purchase made from the Minquas; and it may be inferred from all that precedes, that the final subjugation of the Delawares took place about the year 1750. The Europeans were then too weak to have had much, if any, agency in that event.

At a preparatory conference held at Burlington, in August, 1758, prior to the ensuing treaty of Easton, John Hudson, the Cayuga chief, who attended in behalf of the Six Nations, in his speech to the Governor of New Jersey, said, "the Munseys are women and cannot hold treaties for themselves; but the invitation you gave them is agreeable to us, and we will attend, but not here; the council-fire must be held, as heretofore, in Pennsylvania." The treaty was accordingly held at Easton in October following, and was most numerously attended by deputies from the Six Nations, the Chihokies or Delawares, the Minsis, Wappings, Mohicans, Nanticokes, &c. The result has already been stated. The deeds of release to New Jersey by the Delawares and the Minsis were approved by the Six Nations, through three of their chiefs, who signed them. But, in the course of the conferences, they declared, through their speaker, Thomas King, that they had no claim to the lands of the Minsis or of their other nephews (the Delawares) on the east side of Delaware River. Nor is there any

* Smith's History of New York, p. 25. Chalmers (p. 632) mentions the purchase, and that it was effected by Hudde, a Dutch officer.

Smith's History of New Jersey.

evidence in Smith's "History of New Jersey," that the proprietaries of that province had ever before obtained deeds of confirmation from the Six Nations, for the lands purchased from the Delaware and Minsi tribes, which were in the actual possession of the same. It would seem, then, that the right to the Lenape lands was not more rigidly enforced by the Five Nations in New Jersey than in New York. The same course might perhaps have taken place in Pennsylvania, had not Mr. Penn applied to them for cessions which they never hesitated to make. It may be also that, as he introduced the laudable custom of public purchases made by solemn treaties, the Five Nations would not permit such national councils to be held by the Delawares without their approbation.

The use of arms, though from very different causes, was equally prohibited to the Delawares and to the Quakers. Thus the colonization of Pennsylvania and of West New Jersey by the British, commenced under the most favorable auspices. Peace and the utmost harmony prevailed for more than sixty years between the whites and the Indians; for these were for the first time treated, not only justly, but kindly by the colonists. But, however gradually and peaceably their lands might have been purchased, the Delawares found themselves at last in the same situation as all the other Indians, without lands of their own, and therefore without means of subsistence. They were compelled to seek refuge on the waters of the Susquehanna, as tenants at will, on lands belonging to their hated conquerors, the Five Nations. Even there and on the Juniatta, they were encroached upon by white settlers less scrupulous than the Quakers had been. Nor can it be denied that the agents of the Proprietaries were occasionally too urgent in asking for further concessions of land, and in obtaining extensive and alarming grants from the Five Nations. Under those circumstances, many of the Delawares determined to remove west of the Alleghany Mountains, and, about the year 1740-50, obtained, from their ancient allies and uncles the Wyandots, the grant of a derelict tract of land lying principally on the Muskingum. The great body of the nation was still attached to Pennsylvania. But the grounds of complaint increased. The Delawares were encouraged by the western tribes, and by the French, to shake off the yoke of the Six Nations, and to join in the war against their allies the British. The frontier settlements of Pennsylvania were accordingly attacked both by the

Delawares and the Shawnoes. And, although peace was made with them at Easton in 1758, and the conquest of Canada put an end to the general war, both the Shawnoes and Delawares removed altogether in 1768, beyond the Alleghany Mountains. This resolution had not been taken without much reluctance. At a preparatory conference held at Easton, in 1757, the Delaware Chief Tedyuscung said, "We intend to settle at Wyoming; we want to have certain boundaries fixed between you and us, and a certain tract of land fixed, which it shall not be lawful for us or our children to sell, nor for you or any of your children ever to buy; that we may be not pushed on every side, but have a certain country fixed for our own use and that of our children for ever." And, at the treaty of Easton in 1758, he accordingly applied to the Six Nations for a permanent grant of land at Shamokin and Wyoming on the Susquehanna. The Maqua chiefs answered that they were not authorized to sell any lands; that they would refer the demand to their great council at Onondago, which alone had a right to make sales. "In the mean while," they added, "you may make use of those lands in conjunction with our own people and all the rest of our relations, the Indians of the different nations in our alliance." It is proper to add that the Delawares did not lay any claim to the lands on the Susquehanna, which they acknowledged to belong altogether to the Six Nations.

The removal of the Delawares, Minsi, and Shawnoes to the Ohio, at once extricated them from the yoke of the Six Nations, and cut off the intercourse between these and the Miamis and other western Indians who had been inclined to enter into their alliance. The years 1765-1795 are the true period of the power and importance of the Delawares. United with the Shawnoes, who were settled on the Scioto, they sustained during the seven years' war the declining power of France, and arrested for some years the progress of the British and American arms. Although a portion of the nation adhered to the Americans during the war of Independence, the main body together with all the western nations made common cause with the British. And, after the short truce which followed the treaty of 1783, they were again at the head of the western confederacy in their last struggle for independence. Placed by their geographical situation in the front of battle, they were during those three wars, the aggressors, and, to the last moment,