The trade with Barbadoes, now insignificant, was in our colonial times of great importance to all the colonies. Barbadoes is densely peopled and thoroughly cultivated; its imports and exports are each about five millions of dollars annually.
Note 46, page [71].
The Susquehannas. This Relation is one of the most valuable portions of Alsop’s tract, as no other Maryland document gives as much concerning this tribe, which nevertheless figures extensively in Maryland annals. Dutch and Swedish writers speak of a tribe called Minquas (Minquosy, Machœretini in De Laet, p. 76); the French in Canada (Champlain, the Jesuit Relations, Gendron, Particularitez du Pays des Hurons, p. 7, etc.), make frequent allusion to the Gandastogués (more briefly Andastés), a tribe friendly to their allies the Hurons, and sturdy enemies of the Iroquois; later still Pennsylvania writers speak of the Conestogas, the tribe to which Logan belonged, and the tribe which perished at the hands of the Paxton boys. Although Gallatin in his map, followed by Bancroft, placed the Andastés near Lake Erie, my researches led me to correct this, and identify the Susquehannas, Minqua, Andastés or Gandastogués and Conestogas as being all the same tribe, the first name being apparently an appellation given them by the Virginia tribes; the second that given them by the Algonquins on the Delaware; while Gandastogué as the French, or Conestoga as the English wrote it, was their own tribal name, meaning cabin-pole men, Natio Perticarum, from Andasta, a cabin-pole (map in Creuxius, Historia Canadensis). I forwarded a paper on the subject to Mr. Schoolcraft, for insertion in the government work issuing under his supervision. It was inserted in the last volume without my name, and ostensibly as Mr. Schoolcraft’s. I then gave it with my name in the Historical Magazine, vol. II, p. 294. The result arrived at there has been accepted by Bancroft, in his large paper edition, by Parkman, in his Jesuits in the Wilderness, by Dr. O’Callaghan, S. F. Streeter, Esq., of the Maryland Historical Society, and students generally. {118}
From the Virginian, Dutch, Swedish and French authorities, we can thus give their history briefly.
The territory now called Canada, and most of the northern portion of the United States, from Lake Superior and the Mississippi to the mouth of the St. Lawrence and Chesapeake bay were, when discovered by Europeans, occupied by two families of tribes, the Algonquin and the Huron Iroquois. The former which included all the New England tribes, the Micmacs, Mohegans, Delawares, Illinois, Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawatamies, Sacs, Foxes, Miamis, and many of the Maryland and Virginian tribes surrounded the more powerful and civilized tribes who have been called Huron Iroquois, from the names of the two most powerful nations of the group, the Hurons or Wyandots of Upper Canada, and the Iroquois or Five Nations of New York. Besides these the group included the Neuters on the Niagara, the Dinondadies in Upper Canada, the Eries south of the lake of that name, the Andastogués or Susquehannas on that river, the Nottaways and some other Virginian tribes, and finally the Tuscaroras in North Carolina and perhaps the Cherokees, whose language presents many striking points of similarity.
Both these groups of tribes claimed a western origin, and seem, in their progress east, to have driven out of Ohio the Quappas, called by the Algonquins, Alkansas or Allegewi, who retreated down the Ohio and Mississippi to the district which has preserved the name given them by the Algonquins.
After planting themselves on the Atlantic border, the various tribes seem to have soon divided and become embroiled in war. The Iroquois, at first inferior to the Algonquins were driven out of the valley of the St. Lawrence into the lake region of New York, where by greater cultivation, valor and union they soon became superior to the Algonquins of Canada and New York, as the Susquehannas who settled on the Susquehanna did over the tribes in New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia. (Du Ponceau’s Campanius, p. 158.) Prior to 1600 the Susquehannas and the Mohawks, the most eastern Iroquois tribe, came into collision, and the Susquehannas nearly exterminated the Mohawks in a war which lasted ten years. (Relation de la Nouv. France, 1659–60, p. 28.)
In 1608 Captain Smith, in exploring the Chesapeake and its tributaries, met a party of sixty of these Sasquesahanocks as he calls them (I, p. 120–1), and he states that they were still at war with the Massawomekes or Mohawks. (De Laet Novus Orbis, p. 79.)
DeVries, in his Voyages (Murphy’s translation, p. 41–3), found them in 1633 at war with the Armewamen and Sankiekans, Algonquin tribes on the Delaware, maintaining their supremacy by butchery. They were friendly to the Dutch. When the Swedes in 1638 settled on the Delaware, they renewed the friendly intercourse begun by the Dutch. They purchased lands of the ruling tribe and thus secured their friendship. (Hazard’s Annals, p. 48). They carried the terror of their arms southward also, and {119} in 1634 to 1644 they waged war on the Yaomacoes, the Piscataways and Patuxents (Bozman’s Maryland, II. p. 161), and were so troublesome that in 1642 Governor Calvert, by proclamation, declared them public enemies.
When the Hurons in Upper Canada in 1647 began to sink under the fearful blows dealt by the Five Nations, the Susquehannas sent an embassy to offer them aid against the common enemy. (Gendron, Quelques Particularitez du Pays des Hurons, p. 7). Nor was the offer one of little value, for the Susquehannas could put in the field 1,300 warriors (Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1647–8, p. 58) trained to the use of fire arms and European modes of war by three Swedish soldiers whom they had obtained to instruct them. (Proud’s Pennsylvania, I, p. 111; Bozman’s Maryland, II, p. 273.) Before interposing in the war, they began by negotiation, and sent an embassy to Onondaga to urge the cantons to peace. (Relation, 1648, p. 58). The Iroquois refused, and the Hurons, sunk in apathy, took no active steps to secure the aid of the friendly Susquehannas.