[Footnote 190: Wyalusing Falls, Bradford County, Pennsylvania.]
The report is also full of valuable suggestions on the future as well as the past and present government of the province, and contains valuable statistics relating to the courts of justice, the public revenues, trade and commerce, population, the Indians, shipping, agriculture, and every other public interest.
Governor Dongan distinguished his administration in an especial manner by his attention to the relations and interests of the province connected with the Indian tribes within and adjoining it; and he is admitted by historians to have surpassed all his predecessors in this department of public affairs, and to have been held in the greatest esteem by the Indians themselves. While seeking their alliance, their trade, and their submission to his government, he ever treated them with frankness, generosity, and true friendship. The grateful savages always addressed him by the friendly name of "Corlear;" [Footnote 191] "and the name of 'Dongan, the white father,' was remembered in the Indian lodges long after it had grown indifferent to his countrymen at Manhattan." His master-stroke of Indian policy was in gaining the alliance of the Five Nations, securing their submission to the English government in preference to that of France, and carrying our northern frontier to the great lakes.
[Footnote 191: This was the name of one of the old Dutch inhabitants, who had conferred a great boon upon the Indians, and by his timely intervention saved a large number of them from a contemplated massacre in one of their wars. Whenever afterward they wished to address a person in terms of strong attachment and confidence, they called him "Corlear.">[
The Five Nations were a confederacy of the five most powerful Indian tribes of the north: the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas. They were usually called, by the French, by the name of "Iroquois." Their confederation dates back beyond the limits of their history, as known to the white race; and both, like that of other nations in their origin, are only known to us through dim traditions and fabulous exaggerations. They were united when the French came to Canada; for we are told, that, "when Champlain arrived in Canada, he found them united in a war against the Adirondacks, or Algonquins; and, as he settled in the country of the latter, he accompanied them in one of their hostile incursions, and, by the assistance of the French, a body of the Five Nations was defeated." They long felt a resentment for this act of hostility, although they received missionaries from the French, and, in a great measure, embraced the Christian faith. On the arrival of the Dutch, a trade sprang up between the inhabitants of New Amsterdam and the Indians of the Five Nations; and the latter, by exchanging their furs for fire-arms, became more powerful and more terrible to their enemies. It does not seem that the Dutch government laid any claim to their country, or to their allegiance; though Governor Dongan, in his controversy with the French, claimed that his pretensions were based upon a Dutch title. Their form of government was federal, like our own. Each nation had its own separate government, for the regulation of their local and individual affairs, and a general government in all things relating to their common interests. They were the most powerful, the most permanent, and the most capable Indian organization in America. Like the Romans, they incorporated the nations they conquered into the confederacy, with equal rights; or, if this were impracticable, they destroyed their enemies entirely. Such was their power that they exacted tribute from neighboring tribes. In 1715, the Tuscaroras of North Carolina were aggregated to the original confederacy, which was thereafter known by the name of the Six Nations.
Governor Dongan soon perceived the importance of securing the friendship and alliance of these powerful and warlike tribes. The Dutch had made a treaty of peace with the Five Nations, which had never been openly broken; but as it was necessary to keep treaties with the Indians constantly renewed, in order to prevent them from being forgotten; and, as the Indians had considered themselves, on several occasions, slighted by the English governors, they had more than once invaded the territories of the latter. The French in Canada, as the first Europeans who had visited their country, claimed it and the allegiance of the tribes. French missionaries, men of heroic self-sacrifice and profound piety, were among them, preaching the Gospel, receiving their confessions of faith, offering up the Christian sacrifice in their midst, and doing all in their power to improve their temporal and spiritual condition. It was natural, it was probably necessary, that these pious missionaries should bring their flocks in contact with their own government; and, while their mission and holy office among the Indians were utterly divested of all political or worldly motives, they could not avoid being powerful instruments, with the French government, in securing the advancement of French interests among those nations. Governor Dongan, on the other hand, had by his kindness and frankness completely gained their confidence, and was succeeding well in cementing the relations between himself and the Five Nations. He soon discovered the presence of the French missionaries in their midst an obstacle to this policy; and, at the same time, as a Catholic, he felt a profound interest in their religious enlightenment, and in their adherence to the church of which he was himself a devoted member. To avoid the conflict which might arise between the duty he owed, on the one hand, to his church and his conscience, and, on the other, to his king, he resolved on the plan of insisting upon his claim to the allegiance of the Five Nations, claiming the country to the great lakes, and upon the withdrawal of the French missionaries, and the substitution of English Jesuit missionaries in their place. Though receiving little encouragement from the home government in these measures, Governor Dongan carried them so far into effect as to secure the withdrawal of the French missionaries from three of the Five Nations, and to obtain the services of English Jesuits at New York, destined for the Indian missions, in the place of French priests. Father Harrison arrived in New York in 1685, and Father Gage arrived there in 1686. But, in consequence of their ignorance of the Indian language, they were compelled to remain in the city while studying it and preparing for the mission. War, too, soon rendered the field of their missionary zeal and labor inaccessible to them, and the sequel of events shows that it was neither their own nor the good fortune of the Indians that they should ever reach it. A Catholic writer [Footnote 192] thus alludes to Governor Dongan's position on this, to him, delicate subject:
"There can be no doubt that Governor Dongan, on coming among the New Yorkers, found that if the measures for converting the Indians were to proceed, the political interests of his own country required that English missionaries should take the place of the French Jesuits, some of whom were incorporated among the Five Nations. The historians of New York assert that no previous governor had made himself so well acquainted with Indian affairs, or conducted the intercourse between the settlers and Indians with so much ability and regard to the interests of the subjects of Great Britain; while, at the same time, he was held in high esteem by the Indians themselves. And it is mentioned, to his honor, by the same historians, who are unsparing in their condemnation of his religion, that he did not permit the identity of his faith with that of the Catholic missionaries of France to prevent him from opposing their residence among the Indian tribes in his province; their influence being calculated to promote the interests and policy of France, and weaken the authority of the English. But it was loyalty to his own government, and a just regard for the interests confided to him, and not indifference to the pious work of Christianizing the Indians, that induced Governor Dongan to oppose the missions of the French."
[Footnote 192: Campbell's Life and Times of Archbishop Carroll.]
Another Catholic author [Footnote 193] thus writes on the same subject: