History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States.

by John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder

In the year 1742, the Reverend Mr. Whitefield offered the Nazareth Manor (as it was then called) for sale to the United Brethren.[260] He had already begun to build upon it a spacious stone house, intended as a school house for the education of negro children. The Indians, in the meanwhile, loudly exclaimed against the white people for settling in this part of the country, which had not yet been legally purchased of them, but, as they said, had been obtained by fraud.[261] The Brethren declined purchasing any lands on which the Indian title had not been properly extinguished, wishing to live in peace with all the Indians around them. Count Zinzendorff happened at that time to arrive in the country; he found that the agents of the proprietors would not pay to the Indians the price which they asked for that tract of land; he paid them out of his private purse the whole of the demand which they made in the height of their ill temper, and moreover gave them permission to abide on the land, at their village, (where, by the by, they had a fine large peach orchard,) as long as they should think proper. But among those white men, who afterwards came and settled in the neighbourhood of their tract, there were some who were enemies to the Indians, and a young Irishman, without cause or provocation, murdered their good and highly respected chief Tademi,[262] a man of such an easy and friendly address, that he could not but be loved by all who knew him. This, together with the threats of other persons, ill disposed towards them, was the cause of their leaving their settlement on this manor, and removing to places of greater safety.

It is true, that when flagrant cases of this description occurred, the government, before the Revolution, issued proclamations offering rewards for apprehending the offenders, and in later times, since the country has become more thickly settled, those who had been guilty of such offences were brought before the tribunals to take their trials. But these formalities have proved of little avail. In the first case, the criminals were seldom, if ever, apprehended; in the second, no jury could be found to convict them; for it was no uncommon saying among many of the men of whom juries in the frontier countries were commonly composed, that no man should be put to death for killing an Indian; for it was the same thing as killing a wild beast!

But what shall I say of the conduct of the British agents, or deputy agents, or by whatsoever other name they may be called, who, at the commencement of the American Revolution, openly excited the Indians to kill and destroy all the rebels without distinction? “Kill all the rebels,” they would say, “put them all to death, and spare none.” A veteran chief of the Wyandot nation, who resided near Detroit, observed to one of them that surely it was meant that they should kill men only, and not women and children. “No, no,” was the answer, “kill all, destroy all; nits breed lice!” The brave veteran[263] was so disgusted with this reply, that he refused to go out at all; wishing however to see and converse with his old brother soldiers of the Delaware nation, with whom he had fought against the English in the French war, he took the command of a body of ninety chosen men, and being arrived at the seat of the government of the Delawares, on the Muskingum, he freely communicated to his old comrades (among whom was Glikhican, whom I shall presently have occasion further to mention) what had taken place, and what he had resolved on; saying that he never would be guilty of killing women and children; that this was the first and would be the last of his going out this war; that in ten days they should see him come back with one prisoner only, no scalp to a pole, and no life lost. He kept his word. The sixteen chiefs under him, from respect and principle, agreed to all his proposals and wishes.

How different the conduct of the Indians from that of their inhuman employers! I have already related the noble speech of Captain Pipe to the British Commandant at Detroit, and I have done justice to the character of that brave officer, who surely ought not to be confounded with those Indian agents that I have spoken of. But what said Pipe to him? “Innocence had no part in your quarrels; and therefore I distinguished—I spared. Father! I hope you will not destroy what I have saved!”[264] I have also told the conduct of the two young spirited Delawares[265] who saved the life of the venerable Missionary Zeisberger, at the risk of their own. But it is not only against their own people that Indians have afforded their protection to white men, but against the whites themselves.

In the course of the Revolutionary war, in which (as in all civil commotions) brother was seen fighting against brother, and friend against friend, a party of Indian warriors, with whom one of those white men, who, under colour of attachment to their king, indulged in every sort of crimes, was going out against the settlers on the Ohio, to kill and destroy as they had been ordered. The chief of the expedition had given strict orders not to molest any of the white men who lived with their friends the Christian Indians; yet as they passed near a settlement of these converts, the white man, unmindful of the orders he had received, attempted to shoot two of the Missionaries who were planting potatoes in their field, and though the captain warned him to desist, he still obstinately persisted in his attempt. The chief, in anger, immediately took his gun from him, and kept him under guard until they had reached a considerable distance from the place. I have received this account from the chief himself, who on his return sent word to the Missionaries that they would do well not to go far from home, as they were in too great danger from the white people.

Another white man of the same description, whom I well knew, related with a kind of barbarous exultation, on his return to Detroit from a war excursion with the Indians in which he had been engaged, that the party with which he was, having taken a woman prisoner who had a sucking babe at her breast, he tried to persuade the Indians to kill the child, lest its cries should discover the place where they were; the Indians were unwilling to commit the deed, on which the white man at once jumped up, tore the child from its mother’s arms and taking it by the legs dashed its head against a tree, so that the brains flew out all around. The monster in relating this story said, “The little dog all the time was making wee!” He added, that if he were sure that his old father, who some time before had died in Old Virginia, would, if he had lived longer, have turned rebel, he would go all the way into Virginia, raise the body, and take off his scalp!

Let us now contrast with this the conduct of the Indians. Carver tells us in his travels with what moderation, humanity and delicacy they treat female prisoners, and particularly pregnant women.[266] I refer the reader to the following fact, as an instance of their conduct in such cases. If his admiration is excited by the behaviour of the Indians, I doubt not that his indignation will be raised in an equal degree by that of a white man who unfortunately acts a part in the story.

A party of Delawares, in one of their excursions during the Revolutionary war, took a white female prisoner. The Indian chief, after a march of several days, observed that she was ailing, and was soon convinced (for she was far advanced in her pregnancy) that the time of her delivery was near. He immediately made a halt on the bank of a stream, where at a proper distance from the encampment, he built for her a close hut of peeled barks, gathered dry grass and fern to make her a bed, and placed a blanket at the opening of the dwelling as a substitute for a door. He then kindled a fire, placed a pile of wood near it to feed it occasionally, and placed a kettle of water at hand where she might easily use it. He then took her into her little infirmary, gave her Indian medicines, with directions how to use them, and told her to rest easy and she might be sure that nothing should disturb her. Having done this, he returned to his men, forbade them from making any noise, or disturbing the sick woman in any manner, and told them that he himself should guard her during the night. He did so, and the whole night kept watch before her door, walking backward and forward, to be ready at her call at any moment, in case of extreme necessity. The night passed quietly, but in the morning, as he was walking by on the bank of the stream, seeing him through the crevices, she called to him and presented her babe. The good chief, with tears in his eyes, rejoiced at her safe delivery; he told her not to be uneasy, that he should lay by for a few days and would soon bring her some nourishing food, and some medicines to take. Then going to his encampment, he ordered all his men to go out a hunting, and remained himself to guard the camp.

Now for the reverse of the picture. Among the men whom this chief had under his command, was one of those white vagabonds whom I have before described. The captain was much afraid of him, knowing him to be a bad man; and as he had expressed a great desire to go a hunting with the rest, he believed him gone, and entertained no fears for the woman’s safety. But it was not long before he was undeceived. While he was gone to a small distance to dig roots for his poor patient, he heard her cries, and running with speed to her hut, he was informed by her that the white man had threatened to take her life if she did not immediately throw her child into the river. The Captain, enraged at the cruelty of this man, and the liberty he had taken with his prisoner, hailed him as he was running off, and told him, “That the moment he should miss the child, the tomahawk should be in his head.” After a few days this humane chief placed the woman carefully on a horse, and they went together to the place of their destination, the mother and child doing well. I have heard him relate this story, to which he added, that whenever he should go out on an excursion, he never would suffer a white man to be of his party.

Yet I must acknowledge that I have known an Indian chief who had been guilty of the crime of killing the child of a female prisoner. It was Glikhican,[267] of whom I have before spoken, as one of the friends of the brave Wyandot who expressed so much horror at the order given to him by the Indian agents to murder women and children.[268] In the year 1770, he joined the congregation of the Christian Indians; the details of his conversion are related at large by Loskiel in his History of the Missions.[269] Before that time he had been conspicuous as a warrior and a counsellor, and in oratory it is said he never was surpassed. This man, having joined the French, in the year 1754, or 1755, in their war against the English, and being at that time out with a party of Frenchmen, took, among other prisoners, a young woman named Rachel Abbott, from the Conegocheague settlement,[270] who had at her breast a sucking babe. The incessant cries of the child, the hurry to get off, but above all, the persuasions of his white companions, induced him, much against his inclination, to kill the innocent creature; while the mother, in an agony of grief, and her face suffused with tears, begged that its life might be spared. The woman, however, was brought safe to the Ohio, where she was kindly treated and adopted, and some years afterwards was married to a Delaware chief of respectability, by whom she had several children, who are now living with the Christian Indians in Upper Canada.