Famous Indian Chiefs / Their Battles, Treaties, Sieges, and Struggles with the Whites for the Possession of America

by Charles H. L. Johnston

September 18th.

"The Master's Mate went on shore with an old Indian—a Sachem of the country—who took him to his house and treated him kindly."

October 1st.

"The ship having fallen down the river seven miles below the mountains (probably the site of the West Point Military Academy) came to anchor, while one man in a canoe kept hanging under the stern and would not be driven off. He soon contrived to climb up by the rudder and got into the cabin window which had been left open, and from which he stole a pillow, two shirts, and two breastplates. The Mate shot him in the chest and killed him. Many others were in canoes around the ship who immediately fled, and some jumped overboard. A boat manned from the ship, pursued them, and, coming up with one in the water, the Indian laid hold of the side of the boat and endeavored to over-set it, at which one in the boat cut off his hands with a sword and he was drowned."

October 2nd.

"The ship fell down seven miles farther and came to anchor again. Then came one of the savages that swam away from us when we were up the river, with many others, thinking that he could betray us, but we suffered none of them to enter our ship. Whereupon two canoes full of men with their bows and arrows shot at us after our stern, in recompense whereof we discharged six muskets and killed two or three of them. Then above a hundred of them came to a point to shoot at us. Then I shot a musket at them and killed two of them, whereupon the rest fled into the woods. Yet they manned another canoe with nine or ten men, which came to meet us, so I shot a ball also at it, and shot it through, and killed one of them. Then our men, with their muskets, killed three or four more of them."

This ends the record of Hudson's skirmishes with the Indians, and, as he sailed away from the newly discovered territory, he called the river Manna-hata, a name which appeared in all the early maps of this district, but which was subsequently changed to Hudson in commemoration and glorification of its discoverer.

Although the sturdy Hudson had not taken any of the natives home with him, still earlier—in 1535—the French voyageur, Jacques Cartier, met a famous chief called Donacona upon the St. Croix River in Wisconsin, and was treated in a hospitable and most kindly manner by him. But the white adventurer was anxious to exhibit the savage in France, so, partly by stratagem, and partly by force, he carried him back in his ship to his own country, where the wild chieftain died soon afterwards of an illness brought on by homesickness.

So runs the record of these early attempts of the Europeans to take the Indians to their own land and allow their own people to see what strange folk inhabited this new-found country. Many then wondered from whence these copper-colored natives had come and many have since speculated upon their probable origin. It is difficult to say where they really had their source. Some are of the opinion that they were descended from Asiatic people who crossed to the Alaskan coast, in boats, and gradually made their way south, to populate the entire country now known as the United States. In Ohio and Illinois there are vast piles of earth built by human hands, hundreds of years ago. These mounds are in various shapes and forms; some are of circular build; some round; some square; others thrown up to resemble birds, wolves, and buffalo. There are ten thousand such mounds in Ohio, and near the city of St. Louis is a single mound which covers eight acres. The people who constructed these are known as the Mound Builders, and it is believed by some that they were a different race of people than the Indians whom Columbus met with on his expedition to San Salvador. By others, it is maintained that they were of the same blood, and when the early discoverers of America were searching the seacoast for gold, pearls, and a passage to China, the Mound Builders were constructing these curious cairns in many portions of the Middle West.

Many hundreds of mounds have been carefully opened by archaeologists—or students of ancient people—and their contents have been scrutinized in order to discover what degree of civilization these Mound Builders possessed. It has been found that, although the Mound Builders were familiar with the use of copper for ornaments and tools, they hammered it from the native ore, and knew nothing whatever of smelting or of casting. Their weapons and instruments were mainly of quartz, slate, and of bone. Many carved pipes have been found in their works, and it is apparent that they cultivated tobacco, maize, or corn, and some other vegetables. Their pottery was similar to that of the Mexican Indians—although inferior to it—and the most artistic examples of it are certain small figures representing animal and human forms, which have been found broken and thrown upon funeral pyres beneath the sepulchral mounds. Besides the copper—which came from mines in Lake Superior, still operated for this treasure—the excavations showed that the Mound Builders used an abundance of mica, brought from the mountains of North Carolina, pearls from the Tennessee River, shells from the Gulf of Mexico, and obsidian from the region of the Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. It is, therefore, apparent that they had extensive commercial relations with other people who resided near by.