When the interpreter, Conrad Weiser, visited their Ohio settlements, in 1748, he reported their warriors there at 165, which was probably about one-fourth of the nation.
In the "French War," 1755, the Delawares united with the French against the Iroquois and English, and suffered considerable losses. At its close they were estimated to have, both on the Susquehanna and in Ohio, a total of 600 available fighting men.[207]
After this date they steadily migrated from the Susquehannah to the streams in central and eastern Ohio, establishing their chief fire on the Tuscarawas river, at Gekelemukpechunk, and hunting on the Muskingum, the Licking, etc.[208]
When the war of the Revolution broke out, Zeisberger used all his efforts to have them remain neutral, and at least prevented them from joining in a general attack on the settlements. Their distinguished war-chief, Koquethagachton, known to the settlers as "Captain White Eyes," declared, in 1775, in favor of the Federal cause, and renounced for himself and his people all dependence on the Iroquois. These friendly relations were confirmed at the treaty of Fort Pitt (1778), and the next year a number of Delawares accompanied Col. Brodhead in an expedition against the Senecas.
The massacre of the unoffending Christian natives of Gnadenhütten, in 1788, was but one event in the murderous war between the races that continued in Ohio from 1782 to the treaty of peace at Greenville, in 1795.
To escape its direful scenes, a part of the Delawares removed south, to upper Louisiana, in 1789, where they received official permission from Governor Carondelet, in 1793, to locate permanent homes.[209] Zeisberger also, in 1791, conducted his colony of Christian Indians to Canada, and founded the town of Fairfield, on the Retrenche river. Thus, in both directions the Delawares were driven off the soil of the United States. Yet those that remained in Ohio, if we may accept the account of John Brickell, who was a captive among them from 1791 to 1796, attempted to live a peaceable and agricultural life.[210]
Peace restored, the Delawares made their next remove to the valley of White Water river, Indiana, where they attempted to rekindle the national council fire, under the head chief Tedpachxit. They founded six towns, the largest of which was Woapikamikunk or Wapeminskink, "Place of Chestnut Trees." This tract was guaranteed them "in perpetuity" by the treaty of Vincennes, 1808.[211] Nevertheless, just ten years later, at the treaty of St. Mary's, they released the whole of their land, "without reserve," to the United States, the government agreeing to remove them west of the Mississippi, and grant them land there.
At this time they numbered about 1000 souls, of whom 800 were Delawares, the others being Mohegans and Nanticokes.[212] Their head chief was Thahutoowelent, of the Turkey tribe, Tedpachxit having been assassinated, at the instigation of Tecumseh.
They are described as "having a peculiar aversion to white people," and "more opposed to the Gospel and the whites than any other Indians,"[213] which is small matter of wonder, when they had seen the peaceful Christian converts of their nation massacred three times, in cold blood, once at Gnadenhütten, in Pennsylvania (1756); again at Gnadenhütten, in Ohio (1788), and finally at Fairfield, Canada (1813).
The Rev. Isaac McCoy, who visited them on the White Water, in the winter of 1818-19, states that they lived in log huts and bark shanties, and were fearfully deteriorated by whisky drinking.[214]