of these, and that of their enemies taken in the aggregate, is often adverted to by the contemporary writers. And we are astonished to find that, at no time, the numbers of their warriors could have amounted to five, and that about the year 1670, they were less than four thousand.*

arms.

The intercourse with the Europeans, in its beginning, increased the relative superiority of the Five Nations and gave them a decided advantage over their enemies. The western Indians were, for a long while after, altogether destitute of fireThe lower Algonkins were indeed partially supplied by the French; but in New England every precaution was taken to prevent the Indians in their vicinity from being armed; and the Delawares could not have been supplied before the arrival of the Swedes.† In the mean while, the Dutch, principally intent on trade, and who had a post at Albany as early as the year 1614, furnished the Mohawks and gradually the other Five Nations with ample supplies of firearms and am

munition.

The Five Nations, without discontinuing their warfare with the Mohicans and Delawares, soon turned their principal efforts against those nations of their own stock which were their most formidable enemies.

The destruction of the greater part of the Hurons (Wyandots) took place in 1649; the dispersion of the residue and of the Algonkins of the Ottawa River, in the ensuing year. It is probable, that the general terror inspired by those events was the immediate cause of the final submission of the Delawares, already hard pressed; and that, being no longer in need of the fort near Christina, for the purpose of keeping them in check, the Five Nations evacuated it in 1651, and sold the adjacent land to the Dutch. The capture of the principal village of the neutral nation, the incorporation of a portion of that tribe, and the dispersion of the rest, are stated as having also hap

* Relations, passim. That of the year 1660 estimates them at only two thousand two hundred; but the letters of the Missionaries for that year are not given. The Relation was written in France, and there was a motive for underrating them. The Mohawks are uniformly stated as having seven hundred warriors. And in 1654-5, the three western nations had eighteen hundred engaged against the Eries alone.

Mr. Hecke welder informs us, that the name of Sankhicans was given by the Delawares to the Mohawks, because they were armed with muskets.

pened in 1651. The war against the Eries appears to have begun in 1653, and to have ended in their destruction in 1655. That with the Andastes is first mentioned under the date of 1656, and was not terminated by their final ruin before 1672. During the same period the Five Nations were, with but short intervals of doubtful peace, at war not only with the northern Algonkins and the French, but also with the Mahingans. And they had carried their arms against the Miamis and the Ottawas of Michigan as early as the year 1657.*

The acquisition of New York by the British in a short time gave peace to the Lenape tribes of that province, and generally to those who were under the immediate protection of any of the British Colonies. But the destruction of the Susquehannocks, and probably that of the more remote western tribes of Virginia, alluded to at the conferences of Lancaster in 1744, took place before the end of the seventeenth century. It appears from Lawson, that, in 1701, the excursions of the Senecas extended southwardly to the upper waters of Cape Fear River. And from that time they had continual wars with the Cherokees and the Catawbas. Their hatred against this last nation was most inveterate and mutual. The only condition in the arrangement of Lancaster with Virginia, in the year 1744, on which the Five Nations absolutely insisted, was the continued privilege of a war path through the ceded territory to the Catawba country. The most insulting messages of defiance passed between those two nations, at the conferences of Carlisle of 1753; and to that war the ultimate annihilation of the Catawbas may be principally ascribed.

The Five Nations continued their warfare, during the same period, against the Illinois, the Miamis, and the other western nations in alliance with the French. But they followed there the same policy which they had pursued in other quarters; and, in the same manner as they had formed alliances with the Sokokies, the Mississagues, and the Nanticokes, they seized the opportunities, offered by collisions between the French and the Twightees or Miamis, occasionally to detach these from their connexion. The occupation of the intervening territory by the Shawnoes and the Delawares, which defeated those plans, was

With the exception of the subjugation of the Andastes, in 1672, which is given by Charlevoix, all the other dates in this paragraph are taken from the Relations of New France.

equally dangerous to the British interest and to that of the Six. Nations. They showed in that instance more foresight than the colonial governments. As early as the year 1742, at the same treaty in which they harshly reproved the Delawares for claiming lands in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, formerly sold by them, they remonstrated against the encroachments made north of the boundary line on the Juniatta and on the Susquehanna, which were injurious to their cousins the Delawares. Those remonstrances were several times repeated, and particularly at the conferences of Philadelphia of the year 1749; and they may be summed up in the speech delivered by the Mohawk orator at the Conferences of Harris's Ferry and Lancaster of 1757.

"In former times our forefathers conquered the Delawares, and put petticoats on them. A long time after that, they lived among you, and upon some differences between them and you, we thought proper to remove them, giving them lands to plant and hunt on at Wyoming and Juniatta. But you, covetous of land, made plantations there and spoiled their hunting. They complained to us, and we found their complaints true. You drove them into the arms of the French. It is our advice that you send for the Senecas and them, treat them kindly, and give them back some part of their lands, rather than differ with them. It is in your power to settle the difference with them if you please." The Mohawk chief then informed the government of Pennsylvania of a growing intimacy of the Senecas with the Shawnoes and Delawares.*

The conspicuous part which the Six Nations had acted during the eighty preceding years, in the contest between the two great European powers of North America, is well known; and that they almost alone were a counterpoise to the general influence of France over the other Indian nations. They gave in the course of it repeated proofs of their sagacity. But it may be doubted, whether the Senecas, on that occasion, had really anticipated the consequences that must follow the complete success of the British arms. That there was some division among the Six Nations is certain; and, notwithstanding the practice of incorporating the residue of conquered tribes, their perpetual wars had by this time considerably reduced

* Probably that portion known in the west by the name of Mingos.

their numbers. It is still astonishing, that they could, in 1756, have been reduced to twelve hundred warriors, as they are estimated in Smith's "History of New York." Whatever may have been the fact in that respect, with the expulsion of the French from Canada their importance ceased; it became the interest of Great Britain to preserve peace with the other Indian nations, and the thirst for war of the Six Nations had no longer any aliment.

With the exception of the Oneidas, they took arms against America during the war of Independence. But the Mohawks were obliged (1780) to abandon their seats and to take refuge in Canada. Those who remained in the United States have been perfectly peaceable since the treaty of peace of 1783. They were estimated in 1796 at three thousand three hundred souls; and those in Canada, at about seven hundred. But according to the late estimate of the War Department, those in the State of New York amount to four thousand seven hundred and sixteen, at Green Bay to seven hundred and twenty-five, beyond the Mississippi to four hundred and sixtyfive, in all about five thousand nine hundred; which, deducting the Nanticokes, Mohicans, and Shawnoes mixed with them, would leave five thousand. If to these we add the Wyandots and those in Canada, the remnant of all the Iroquois tribes cannot much exceed seven thousand souls. They amounted in the beginning of the seventeenth century to forty thousand. Their destruction has been almost exclusively the result of wars among themselves, or against other Indian nations. With the single exception of the Mohawks, no encroachment had been made on the native possessions of the Five Nations before the year 1783; and their number has not been diminished since that time.

The history of the Five Nations is calculated to give a favorable opinion of the intelligence of the Red Man. But they may be ranked amongst the worst of conquerors. They conquered only in order to destroy, and, it would seem, solely for the purpose of gratifying their thirst for blood. Towards the south and the west, they made a perfect desert of the whole country within five hundred miles of their seats. A much greater number of those Indians, who, since the commencement

* Report of Commissioners of the Missionary Society, 1 Mass. Hist. Coll. Vol. V.

of the seventeenth century have perished by the sword in Canada and the United States, have been destroyed by that single nation, than in all their wars with the Europeans.

But, instead of exerting their influence in assuaging the passions of the Indians and in promoting peace amongst them, the European governments, intent only on the acquisition of territory and power, encouraged their natural propensities. Both France and England courted a disgraceful alliance with savages; and both, under the usual pleas of self-defence and retaliation, armed them against the defenceless inhabitants of the other party. The sack of Schenectady, the desolation of the island of Montreal, the murdering expeditions on the frontiers of New England, are related by the respective historians with indifference, if not with exultation. No scruple was felt in inducing all the Indian tribes to carry on against America their usual warfare, and to desolate, without discrimination of age or sex, the whole extent of a frontier of twelve hundred miles during the seven years of the war of Independence.

If

The United States are at least free from that reproach. their population has pressed too fast on the natives, if occasionally they have too forcibly urged purchases of land, their government, ever since they were an independent nation, has not only used every endeavour to be at peace with the Indians, but has succeeded in preventing war amongst them to a degree heretofore unknown in America. And, at Ghent, they proposed an article in the treaty of peace, by which both nations should engage, if unfortunately they were again at war, never to employ the savages as auxiliaries. We trust that under any contingency, the two nations will act as if the article had been made a condition of the treaty.

The vocabulary of the Onondagas was extracted by Mr. Duponceau from Zeisberger's Manuscript Dictionary. That of the Mohawks was taken by Mr. S. E. Dwight, of New Haven, assisted by Mr. J. Parish. That of the Senecas was received through the War Department. Mr. Jefferson's mutilated vocabulary has supplied part of the words in the vocabulary of the Oneidas. The others, and all those in the Cayuga dialect, were taken from Sinith Barton.

The southern Iroquois tribes occupied Chowan River and its tributary streams. They were bounded, on the east, by the