Part 7

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.

That tribe, however, maintained its friendly intercourse with its European neighbors, and in 1652 Sawahegeh, Auroghteregh, Scarhuhadigh, Rutchogah and Nathheldianeh, in presence of a Swedish deputy, ceded to Maryland all the territory from the Patuxent river to Palmer’s island, and from the Choptauk to the northeast branch north of Elk river. (_Bozman’s Maryland_, II, p. 683).

Four years later the Iroquois, grown insolent by their success in almost annihilating their kindred tribes north and south of Lake Erie, the Wyandots, Dinondadies, Neuters and Eries, provoked a war with the Susquehannas, plundering their hunters on Lake Ontario. (_Relation de la Nouvelle France_, 1657, pp. 11, 18).

It was at this important period in their history that Alsop knew and described them to us.

In 1661 the small-pox, that scourge of the native tribes, broke out in their town, sweeping off many and enfeebling the nation terribly. War had now begun in earnest with the Five Nations; and though the Susquehannas had some of their people killed near their town (_Hazard’s Annals_, 341–7), they in turn pressed the Cayugas so hard that some of them retreated across Lake Ontario to Canada (_Relation de la Nouvelle France_, 1661, p. 39, 1668, p. 20). They also kept the Senecas in such alarm that they no longer ventured to carry their peltries to New York, except in caravans escorted by six hundred men, who even took a most circuitous route. (_Relation_, 1661, p. 40). A law of Maryland passed May 1, 1661, authorized the governor to aid the Susquehannas.

Smarting under constant defeat, the Five Nations solicited French aid (_Relation de la Nouvelle France_, 1662–3, p. 11, 1663–4, p. 33; _Charlevoix_, II, p. 134), but in April, 1663, the Western cantons raised an army of eight hundred men to invest and storm the fort of the Susquehannas. They embarked on Lake Ontario, according to the French account, and then went overland to the Susquehanna. On reaching the fort, however, they found {120} it well defended on the river side, and on the land side with two bastions in European style with cannon mounted and connected by a double curtain of large trees. After some trifling skirmishes the Iroquois had recourse to stratagem. They sent in a party of twenty-five men to treat of peace and ask provisions to enable them to return. The Susquehannas admitted them, but immediately burned them all alive before the eyes of their countrymen. (_Relation de la Nouvelle France_, 1663, p. 10). The Pennsylvania writers, (_Hazard’s Annals of Pennsylvania_, p. 346) make the Iroquois force one thousand six hundred, and that of the Susquehannas only one hundred. They add that when the Iroquois retreated, the Susquehannas pursued them, killing ten and taking as many.

After this the war was carried on in small parties, and Susquehanna prisoners were from time to time burned at Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Cayuga (_Relations de la Nouvelle France_, 1668 to 1673), and their prisoners doubtless at Canoge on the Susquehanna. In the fall of 1669 the Susquehannas, after defeating the Cayugas, offered peace, but the Cayugas put their ambassador and his nephew to death, after retaining him five or six months; the Oneidas having taken nine Susquehannas and sent some to Cayuga, with forty wampum belts to maintain the war. (_Relation de la Nouvelle France_, 1670, p. 68.)

At this time the great war chief of the Susquehannas was one styled Hochitagete or Barefoot (_Relation de la Nouvelle France_, 1670, p. 47); and raving women and crafty medicine men deluded the Iroquois with promises of his capture and execution at the stake (_Relation_, 1670, p. 47), and a famous medicine man of Oneida appeared after death to order his body to be taken up and interred on the trail leading to the Susquehannas as the only means of saving that canton from ruin. (_Relation_, 1672, p. 20.)

Towards the summer of 1672 a body of forty Cayugas descended the Susquehanna in canoes, and twenty Senecas went by land to attack the Susquehannas in their fields; but a band of sixty Andasté or Susquehanna boys, the oldest not over sixteen, attacked the Senecas, and routed them, killing one brave and taking another. Flushed with victory they pushed on to attack the Cayugas, and defeated them also, killing eight and wounding with arrow, knife and hatchet, fifteen or sixteen more, losing, however, fifteen or sixteen of their gallant band. (_Relation_, 1672, p. 24.)

At this time the Susquehannas or Andastés were so reduced by war and pestilence that they could muster only three hundred warriors. In 1675, however, the Susquehannas were completely overthrown (_Etat Present_, 1675, manuscript; _Relation_, 1676, p. 2; _Relations Inédites_, II, p. 44; _Colden’s Five Nations_, I, p. 126), but unfortunately we have no details whatever as to the forces which effected it, or the time or manner of their utter defeat.

A party of about one hundred retreated into Maryland, and occupied some abandoned Indian forts. Accused of the murder of some settlers, apparently slain by the Senecas, they sent five of their chiefs to the Maryland and Virginia troops, under Washington and Brent, who went out in {121} pursuit. Although coming as deputies, and showing the Baltimore medal and certificate of friendship, these chiefs were cruelly put to death. The enraged Susquehannas then began a terrible border war, which was kept till their utter destruction (S. F. Streeter’s Destruction of the Susquehannas, _Historical Magazine_, I, p. 65). The rest of the tribe, after making overtures to Lord Baltimore, submitted to the Five Nations, and were allowed to retain their ancient grounds. When Pennsylvania was settled, they became known as Conestogas, and were always friendly to the colonists of Penn, as they had been to the Dutch and Swedes. In 1701 Canoodagtoh, their king, made a treaty with Penn, and in the document they are styled Minquas, Conestogos or Susquehannas. They appear as a tribe in a treaty in 1742, but were dwindling away. In 1763 the feeble remnant of the tribe became involved in the general suspicion entertained by the colonists against the red men, arising out of massacres on the borders. To escape danger the poor creatures took refuge in Lancaster jail, and here they were all butchered by the Paxton boys, who burst into the place. Parkman in his _Conspiracy of Pontiac_, p. 414, details the sad story.

The last interest of this unfortunate tribe centres in Logan, the friend of the white man, whose speech is so familiar to all, that we must regret that it has not sustained the historical scrutiny of Brantz Mayer (_Tahgahjute; or, Logan and Capt. Michael Cresap_, Maryland Hist. Soc., May, 1851; and 8vo, Albany, 1867). Logan was a Conestoga, in other words a Susquehanna.

_Note_ 47, _page_ 71.

The language of the Susquehannas, as Smith remarks, differed from that of the Virginian tribes generally. As already stated, it was one of the dialects of the Huron-Iroquois, and its relation to other members of the family may be seen by the following table of the numerals:

Susquehanna or Minqua. Hochelaga. Huron. Mohawk. Onondaga.

1. Onskat, Segada, Eskate, Easka, Unskat. 2. Tiggene, Tigneny, Téni, Tekeni, Tegni. 3. Axe, Asche, Hachin, Aghsea, Achen. 4. Raiene, Honnacon, Dac, Kieri, Gayeri. 5. Wisck, Ouiscon, Ouyche, Wisk, Wisk. 6. Jaiack, Indahir, Houhahea, Yayak, Haiak. 7. Tzadack, Ayaga, Sotaret, Jatak, Tchiatak. 8. Tickerom, Addegue, Attaret, Satego, Tegeron. 9. Waderom, Madellon, Nechon, Tiyohto, Waderom. 10. Assan, Assem, Oyeri.

{122}

_Note_ 48, _page_ 73.

Smith thus describes them: “Sixty of those Sasquesahanocks came to vs with skins, Bowes, Arrows, Targets, Beads, swords and Tobacco pipes for presents. Such great and well proportioned men are seldome seene, for they seemed like Giants to the English; yea and to the neighbours, yet seemed of an honest and simple disposition, with much adoe restrained from adoring vs as Gods. Those are the strangest people of all those Countries, both in language and attire; for their language it may well beseeme their proportions, sounding from them as a voyce in a vault. Their attire is the skinnes of Beares, and Woolues, some have Cassacks made of Beares heads and skinnes, that a mans head goes through the skinnes neck, and the eares of the Beare fastened to his shoulders, the nose and teeth hanging downe his breast, another Beares face split behind him, and at the end of the Nose hung a Pawe, the halfe sleeues comming to the elbowes were the neckes of Beares and the armes through the mouth with the pawes hanging at their noses. One had the head of a Wolfe hanging in a chaine for a Iewell, his tobacco pipe three-quarters of a yard long, prettily carued with a Bird, a Deere or some such devise at the great end, sufficient to beat out ones braines; with Bowes, Arrowes and Clubs, suitable to their greatnesse. They are scarce known to Powhatan. They can make near 600 able men, and are palisadoed in their Townes to defend them from the Massawomekes, their mortal enemies. Five of their chief Werowances came aboord vs and crossed the Bay in their Barge. The picture of the greatest of them is signified in the Mappe. The calfe of whose leg was three-quarters of a yard about, and all the rest of his limbes so answerable to that proportion, that he seemed the goodliest man we ever beheld. His hayre, the one side was long, the other shore close with a ridge over his crowue like a cocks combe. His arrowes were five-quarters long, headed with the splinters of a White christall-like stone, in form of a heart, an inch broad, and an inch and a halfe or more long. These he wore in a Woolues skinne at his backe for his quiver, his bow in one hand and his club in the other, as described.”—_Smith’s Voyages_ (Am. ed.), I, p. 119–20. Tattooing referred to by our author, was an ancient Egyptian custom, and is still retained by the women. See _Lane’s Modern Egyptians_, etc. It was forbidden to the Jews in _Leviticus_, 19: 28.

_Note_ 49, _page_ 74.

“_Purchas, his Pilgrimage_, or Relations of the World, and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered, from the Creation unto this present,” 1 vol., folio, 1613. In spite of Alsop, Purchas is still highly esteemed. {123}

_Note_ 50, _page_ 75.

As to their treatment of prisoners, see _Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages_, II, p. 260.

_Note_ 51, _page_ 75.

Smith thus locates their town: “The Sasquesahannocks inhabit vpon the cheefe spring of these foure branches of the Bayes head, one day’s journey higher than our barge could passe for rocks,” vol. I, p. 182. Campanius thus describes their town, which he represents as twelve miles from New Sweden: “They live on a high mountain, very steep and difficult to climb; there they have a fort or square building, surrounded with palisades. There they have guns and small iron cannon, with which they shoot and defend themselves, and take with them when they go to war.”—_Campanius’s Nye Sverige_, p. 181; Du Ponceau’s translation, p. 158. A view of a Sasquesahannock town is given in _Montanus, De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld_ (1671), p. 136, based evidently on Smith. De Lisle’s Map, dated June, 1718, lays down Canoge, Fort des Indiens Andastés ou Susquehanocs at about 40° N.; but I find the name nowhere else.

_Note_ 52, _page_ 77.

Scalping was practiced by the Scythians. (_Herodotus_, book IV, and in the second book of _Macchabees_, VII, 4, 7). Antiochus is said to have caused two of the seven Macchabee brothers to be scalped. “The skin of the head with the hairs being drawn off.” The torture of prisoners as here described originated with the Iroquois, and spread to nearly all the North American tribes. It was this that led the Algonquins to give the Iroquois tribes the names Magoué, Nadoué or Nottaway, which signified cruel. _Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages_, II, p. 287.

_Note_ 53, _page_ 78.

The remarks here as to religion are vague. The Iroquois and Hurons recognized Aireskoi or Agreskoe, as the great deity, styling him also Teharonhiawagon. As to the Hurons, see _Sagard, Histoire du Canada_, p. 485. The sacrifice of a child, as noted by Alsop, was unknown in the other tribes of this race, and is not mentioned by Campanius in regard to this one. {124}

_Note_ 54, _page_ 78.

The priests were the medicine men in all probability; no author mentioning any class that can be regarded properly as priests.

_Note_ 55, _page_ 78.

The burial rites here described resemble those of the Iroquois (_Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages_, II, pp. 389, 407) and of the Hurons, as described by Sagard (_Histoire du Canada_, p. 702) in the manner of placing the dead body in a sitting posture; but there it was wrapped in furs, encased in bark and set upon a scaffold till the feast of the dead.

_Note_ 56, _page_ 79.

Sagard, in his _Huron Dictionary_, gives village, _andata_; he is in the fort or village, _andatagon_; which is equivalent to _Connadago_, _nd_ and _nn_ being frequently used for each other.

_Note_ 57, _page_ 80.

For the condition of the women in a kindred tribe, compare _Sagard, Histoire du Canada_, p. 272; _Grand Voyage_, p. 130; _Perrot, Moeurs et Coustumes des Sauvages_, p. 30.

_Note_ 58, _page_ 80.

Among the Iroquois the husband elect went to the wife’s cabin and sat down on the mat opposite the fire. If she accepted him she presented him a bowl of hominy and sat down beside him, turning modestly away. He then ate some and soon after retired.—_Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages_, I, p. 566.

_Note_ 59, _page_ 81.

Sagard, in his _Histoire du Canada_, p. 185, makes a similar remark as to the Hurons, a kindred tribe, men and women acting as here stated, and he says that in this they resembled the ancient Egyptians. Compare _Hennepin, Moeurs des Sauvages_, p. 54; _Description d’un Pays plus grand que l’Europe, Voyages au Nord_, V, p. 341. {125}

_Note_ 60, _page_ 96.

This characteristic of the active trading propensities of the early settlers will apply to the present race of Americans in a fourfold degree.

_Note_ 61, _page_ 96.

One who brought goods to Maryland without following such advice as Alsop gives, describes in Hudibrastic verse his doleful story in the _Sot Weed Factor_, recently reprinted.

_Note_ 62, _page_ 96.

For an account of this gentleman, see ante, p. 13.

_Note_ 63, _page_ 97.

The rebellion in Maryland, twice alluded to by our author in his letters, was a very trifling matter. On the restoration of Charles II, Lord Baltimore sent over his brother Philip Calvert as governor, with authority to proceed against Governor Fendall, who, false alike to all parties, was now scheming to overthrow the proprietary government. The new governor was instructed on no account to permit Fendall to escape with his life; but Philip Calvert was more clement than Lord Baltimore, and though Fendall made a fruitless effort to excite the people to opposition, he was, on his voluntary submission, punished by a merely short imprisonment. This clemency he repaid by a subsequent attempt to excite a rebellion.—_McMahon’s History of Maryland_, pp. 213–14, citing Council Proceedings from 1656 to 1668, liber H. H., 74 to 82.

THE END.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Original spelling and grammar have been generally retained, with some exceptions noted below. Original small caps (and also one phrase in bold type) are now uppercase. Italics look _like this_. Enlarged curly brackets, used to combine information from two or more lines of text have been discarded. The transcriber produced the cover image and hereby assigns it to the public domain. The primary source of page images was archive.org—search for “characterofprovi00alsorich”. Secondary sources, also at archive.org, were “characterofprovince00also” and “gowansbibliothec00gowaiala”

There were two series of page numbers printed on each page of the main text. One series, printed with gaps from 10 to 125, was printed at the top of each page in an ornamented header. This series has been retained, and is shown in curly brackets like this: {52}. Page one of this series, inferred by counting back from ten, is the title page of _Gowans’ Bibliotheca Americana 5_, New York, William Gowans, 1869. The other series, printed with gaps from 417 to 533, in smaller type at the bottom of each page, has been discarded. The book actually transcribed herein was a reissue of _Gowans’ Bibliotheca Americana 5_, titled _Fund-Publication, No. 15. A Character of the Province of Maryland_, The Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, 1880.

Page 106. Changed “capaple” to “capable”.

Page 117. Changed “p. II, 397” to “II, p. 397”.

Page 119. Changed “p. 7),” to “p. 7).”. Changed “1647–8. p. 58)” to “1647–8, p. 58)”. Also “p. 273. Before” to “p. 273.) Before”.

Page 121. “Waderom,” to “Waderom.”, in the last column of the table.

Page 122. Added left double quotation mark to ‘_Purchas, his Pilgrimage_, or Relations’, to match the one after ‘this present,’.

Page 124. Changed “p, 566” to “p. 566”.