The Book of the Indians of North America, comprising details in the lives of about five hundred chiefs and others the most distinguished among them, etc

Front matter

SAGOYjEWl^TfflA. alias TR__E ID) -.XfVC M1E T Chief of the Senecas . Jnni-n-Jrriith ÆtAsLltJl > THE BOOK OF THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA: comprising DETAILS IN THE LIVES OF ABOUT FIVE HUNDRED CHIEFS AND OTHERS, THE MOST DISTINGUISHED AMONG THEM ALSO, A HISTORY OP THEIR WARS ; THEIR MA"NNERS ANC CUSTOMS ; SPEECHES Of ORATORS, &c, PROM THEIR FIRST BEING KNOWN TO EUROPEANS TO THE PRESENT TIME. EXHIBITING ALSO AN ANALYSIS OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED' AUTHORS WHO HAVE WRITTEN UPON THE GREAT QUESTION OF THE. FIRST PEOPLING OF AMERICA They waate us, aye, like April soow In the warm noon we shrink away And fast they follow as we go Towards the setting daVj Till they shall fill the land, and we Are driven into the western sea Bryant. BY SAMUEL G. DRAKE Member ofthe New-Hampshire Historical Snclrtv. ii o t o 11 : PUBLISHED BY JOSIAH DRAKE. AT THE ANTIQUARIAN BOOKSTORE, 56 CORNH1LL. 1833.

Preface

. Accuracy, and minuteness of detail, where the subject seemed to require it, have been our land-mark throughout this laborious performance. We say laborious ; but were all readers antiquarians, even so much need not have been said. Although we have been very minute, in numerous instances, in our lives of chiefs, yet there are many others in which we gladly would have been more so, if materials could, at the time of writing, have been had. However, we do not presume that we arrogate to ourselves too much, when we promise to give the reader a much greater amount of Indian history, than he can elsewhere find in any separate work. The merits or demerits of Indian Biography rest solely upon its author, whose various cares and avocations, could they be known to the critical reader, would cause him to be sparing of his criticisms.

We call this the second edition, although we have treated the subject under a new arrangement, and varied the title page a little. The method of books and chapters was adopted, mainly for the benefit of combining history with biography ; and it was thought it would be quite as convenient for reference. Besides containing all of the first edition, which was important, this will be found to contain, in addition, twice as much new matter. Many names of the same persons and places will appear spelt differently in various parts ofthe work ; but this our plan could not obviate, because we wished to preserve the orthography of each author from whom we extracted, in that particular. Except in quo tations, we did intend to have been uniform ; but we are aware that we have not been entirely so, from several causes, which are un necessary to be named here.

It was not expected that a work of this kind would meet with a ready sale ; but such was the case, and the very favorable reception with which the first edition met, was the cause of the early appearance of this. In general, the notes give due credit to all such as have assisted the author in any way in his work. This observation is intended for the living; and for their kindnesses they now have this public acknowledgment of thanks. As to the works of deceased authors, we have made use of them as public property, taking care always to cite them, except where the same facts were common to many. There is no work before the public upon this subject, unless, indeed, some juvenile performances be so considered, recently pub lished in New York. Those we have not particularly examined. LIST OF THE ENGRAVING& 1.

Portrait facing tbe title-page. 2. Vignette in the title, which is an accurate representation of a western warrior, taken in New York. 3. Manner in which Indians take many kinds of game... B. i. P. 21 4. Manner in which some tribes of the Mississippi dispose of their dead... ii. 1 6. Distant view of Mount Hope "• M> 6. Natives viewing the approach of an European ship ii- 19 7. Flight of an Indian family ii - 86 8. A full length portrait of Ponietacom, alias King Philip of Mount Hope. iii. 13 9. Plan of lands near Matapoiset, drawn by King Philip iii. 15 10. Seat of King Philip, from an accurate drawing... iii. 35 1 1 . Two chiefs in the act of concluding peace iii. 40 12. A Virginia chief and his squaw or wife iv. 1 13. Capture of Captain Smith by the warriors of Opekankanough iv. 9 14. Pocahontas in the act of saving the life of Captain Smith iv. 10 15.

A Seminole hunter in the act of shooting a deer iv. 25 16. Portrait of CJriuco or the Long-warrior, chief of the Seminoles iv. 31 17. Return of a hunter to his family after a successful expedition v. 1 18. Manner in which the Indians carry their game and other articles v. 20 19. Portrait of Wawnahton, a Yanktoan chief.. v. 112 20. Portrait of Ongpatonga, or Big-elk, chief of the Omawhaws v. 1 16 21. Portrait of Petalesharoo, a Pawnee brave v. 116 22. Portrait of Metea, a Pottowattomie chief. v. 118 23. Portrait of Black-liawk, or Mucatamishkakaekq, chief of the Sacs and Foxes v. 122 24. Portrait of the Prophet, or Wabokieshiek , who accompanied Black-hawk in his captivity v. 133 All of the above portraits may be relied upon as good likenesses, except that of Philip, and ttb know nothing to the contrary but that is also; but we rather believe the figure given for b», « representation of any New England chief of his times. The dress, however, corresponds wi-k ill descriptions of him which we have sees.

Introduction

.

Chapter I

Origin of the name Indian. — Why applied to the people found in America. — Ancient authors supposed to have referred to America in their writings — Theopompus — Voyage of Hanno — Diodorus Siculus — Plato — Aristotle — Seneca. The name Indian was erroneously applied to the original man of America* by its first discoverers. The hope of arriving at the East Indies by sailing west caused the discovery of America. When the islands and continent were at first discovered, Columbus, and many aster him, supposed that they had arrived at the eastern shore of the continent of India, and hence the people they met with were called Indians. The error was not discovered until the name had so obtained, that it could not well be changed. It is true that it matters but little to us by what name the indigenes of a country are known, and especially those of America, in as far as the name is seldom used among us but in applica tion to the aboriginal Americans.

But with the people of Europe it is not so unimportant. Situated between the two countries, India and America, the same name for the inhabitants of both must, at first, have produced considerable inconvenience. Therefore, in a historical point of view, the error is, at least, as much to be deplored as that the name of the continent itself should have been derived from Americus instead of Columbus. It has been the practice of almost every writer, who has written about the indigenes of a country, to give some wild theories of others, con cerning their origin, and to close his account with his own; which generally has been more visionary, if possible, than those of his predecessors. Long, laborious, and, we may add, useless disquisitions have been daily laid before the world, from the discovery of America by Columbus to the present time, to endeavor to explain by what means the inhabitants got from the old to the new world.

To act, therefore, in unison with many of our predecessors, we will begin as far back as they have done, and so shall commence with Theopompus and others, from whose writings it is alleged that the ancients had knowledge of America, and hence peopled it. Theopompus, a learned historian and orator, who flourished in the time of Alexander the Great, in a book entitled Thaumasia, gives a sort of dialogue between Midas the Phrygian and SUenus. The book itself is lost, but * So named from Vespucius Americus, a Florentine, who made a discovery of some part of the coast of Sotth America in 1499, two years after Cabot had explored the coast of North America ; but Americus had the fortune to confer his name upon both. [Book I. 4 SENECA.— ST. GREGORY— HERRERA. place in regard to some future nation, no one, perhaps, would have called him a false prophet, for the American revolution would have been its fulfilment.

This philosopher lived about 384 years before Christ. Seneca lived about the commencement of the vulgar era. He wrote tragedies, and in one of them occurs this passage : — -" Venient annis Sæcula seris, quibus oceanus Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens Pateat tellus, Typhisque novos Detegat orbes ; nee sit terris Ultima Thule." Medea, Act 3. v. 375. This is nearer prophecy, and may be rendered in English thus: "The time will come when the ocean will loosen the chains of nature, and we shall behold a vast country. A new Typhis shall discover new worlds : Thule shall no longer be considered the last country of the known world." Not only these passages from the ancient authors have been cited and re-cited by moderns, but many more, though less to the point, to show that, in some way or other, America must have been peopled from some of the eastern continents.

Almost every country has claimed the honor of having been its first discoverer, and hence the father or mother of the Indians. But since the recent discoveries in the north, writers upon the subject say but little about getting over inhabitants from Europe, Asia, or Africa through the difficult way of the Atlantic seas and islands, as it is much easier to pass them over the narrow channels ofthe north in canoes, or upon the ice. Grotius, C. Mather, Hubbard, and aster them Robertson, are glad to meet with so easy a method of solving a question which they consider as having puzzled their predecessors so much. stite^r

Chapter II

Of modern Theorists upon the peopling of America. — St. Gregory. — Herrera. — T.Morton.— Williamson. — Wood. — Josselyn. — Thorowgood. — Adair. — R. Williams. — C. Mather — Hubbard. — Robertson. — Smith. — Voltaire. — Mitchel. — M'Culloh. — Lord Kaim. — Swinlon. — Cabrera. St. Gregory, who flourished in the 7th century, in an epistle to St. Clement, said that beyond the ocean there was another world.* Herrera argues, that the new world could not have been known to the ancients ; and that what Seneca has said was not true. For that God had kept it hid from the old world, giving them no certain knowledge of it ; and that, in the secrecy and incomprehensibility of his providence, he has been pleased to give it to the Castilian nation. That Seneca's predic tion (if so it may be considered) was a false one, because he said that a new world would be discovered in the north, and that it was found in the west.f Herrera wrote about 1598, *J before which time little knowl- * " S. Gregoire sur I'epistre de S. Clement, dit que passe l'oceau, il y a vn autre ruond."

(Herrera, I Decade, 2.) This is the whole passage. t Ibid, 3. X He died 27 Mar. 1625, at the age of about 66 years. His name was Tordesillas . . , — — f,- — — —^ _,.._... ..... i. ...... noa * v, uectuas Antonio de Herrera — one ofthe best Spanish historians. His history of the voyages lo, and settlement of America is very minute and very valuable. The original in Span ish is very rare. Acosta's translation (into French) 3 v. 4to, 1660, is also scarce and valuable. It is this we cite. Chap. H.] MORTON— WILLIAMSON. 5 edge was obtained of North America. This may account for his im peachment of Seneca's prophecy. Thomas Morton, who came to New England in 1622, published in 1637 an account of its natural history, with much other curious matter. In speaking upon the peopling of America, he thinks it altogether out of the question to suppose that it was peopled by the Tartars from the north, because "a people, once settled, must be removed by compulsion, or else tempted thereunto in hopes of better fortunes, upon commendations of the place unto which they should be drawn to remove.

And if it may be thought that these people came over the frozen sea, then would it be by compulsion. If so, then by whom, or when? Or what part of this main continent may be thought to border upon the country of the Tar tars ? It is yet unknown ; and it is not like that a people well enough at ease, will, of their own accord, undertake to travel over a sea of ice, considering how many difficulties they shall encounter with. As, 1st, whether there be any land at the end of their unknown way, no land being iu view ; then want of food to sustain life in the mean time upon that sea of ice. Or how shall they do for fuel, to keep them at night from freezing to death ? which will not be had in such a place. But it may perhaps be granted, that the natives of this country might originally come of the scattered Trojans ; for after that Brutus, who was the fourth from Eneas, lest Latium upon the conflict held with the Latins (where, although he gave them a great overthrow, to the slaughter of their grand captain and many others of the heroes of Latium, yet he held it more safely to depart unto some other place and people, than, by staying, to run the hazard of an unquiet life or doubtful conquest ; which, as history maketh mention, he performed.)

This people was dispersed, there is no question, but the people that lived with him, by reason of their conversation with the Grecians and Latins, had a mixed language, that participated of both."* This is the main ground of Morton, but he says much more upon the subject; as that the similarity of the languages of the Indians to the Greek and Roman is very great. From the examples he gives, we presume he knew as little about the Indian languages as Dr. Mather, Ariair, and Boudinot, who thought them almost to coincide with the Hebrew. Though Morion thinks it very improbable that the Tartars came over by the north from Asia, because they could not see land beyond the ice, yet he finds no difficulty iu getting them across the wide Atlantic, although he allows them no compass. That the Indians have a Latin origin he thinks evident, because he fancied he heard among their words Pasco-pan, and hence thinks, without doubt, their ancestors were acquainted with the god Pan.f Dr. Williamsons says, " It can hardly be questioned that the Indians of South America are descended from a class of the Hindoos, in the southern parts of Asia."

That they could not have come from the north, because the South American Indians are unlike those of the north. This seems to clash with the more rational views of Father Venegas.§ He writes as follows: "Of all the pails of America hitherto discovered, the Californians lie nearest to Asia. We are acquainted with the mode of writing in all the eastern nations. We can distinguish between the characters of the Japanese, the Chinese, the Chinese Tartars, the Mogul Tartars, aud other nations extending as far as the Bay of Kamschathka ; and learned dissertations on them, by Mr. Boyer, are to he found in the acts of the imperial academy of sciences at Petersburg. What discovery * New Canaan, book i. pages 17 and 18. t Ibid. 18. % In his Hist. N. Carolina, i. 216. \ Hist. California, i. 60. His work was published at Madrid in 1758.

WOOD.-^IOSSELYN— BARLOW.— THOROWGOOD. [Book L 6 would it be to meet with any of these characters, or others like them, among the American Indians nearest to Asia ! But as to the Californians, if ever they were possessed of any invention to perpetuate their memoirs, they have entirely lost it; aud all that is now found among them, amounts to no more than some obscure oral traditions, probably more and more adulterated by a long succession of time. They have not so much as retained any knowledge of the particular country from which they emi grated." This is the account of one who lived many years among the Indians of California. Mr. William Wood,* who left New England in 1633,f aster a short stay, says, " Of their language, which is only peculiar to themselves, not in clining to any of the refined tongues : Some have thought they might be of the dispersed Jews, because some of their words be near unto the Hebrew ; hut by the same rule, they may conclude them to be some of the gleanings of all nations, because they have words which sound after the Greek, Latin, French, and other tongues."]: Mr. John Josselyn, who resided some time in N. England, from the year 1638, says, " The Mohawks are about 500 : their speech a dialect of the Tartars (as also is the Turkish tongue)."§ In another work,|| he says, "N. England is by some affirmed to be an island, bounded on the north with the River of Canada (so called from Monsieur Cane), on the south with the River Monhegan or Hudson's River, so called, because he was the first that discovered it.

Some will have America to be an island, which out of question must needs be, if there be a north-east passage found out into the South Sea. It contains 1152400000 acres. The discovery ofthe north-west passage (which lies within the River of Canada) was under taken with the help of some Protestant Frenchmen, which left Canada, and retired to Boston about the year 1669. The north-east people of America, that is, N. England, &c, are judged to be Tartars, called Samoades, being alike in complexion, shape, habit and manners." We have given here a larger extract than the immediate subject required, because we would let the reader enjoy his curiosity, as well as we ours, in seeing how people understood things in that day. Barlow, looking but a small distance beyond those times, with great elegance says, — 11 In those blank periods, where no man can trace The gleams of thought that first illumed his race.

His errors, twined with science, look their birth, And forged their fetters for this child of earth. , And when, as oft, he dared expand his view, And work with nature on the line she drew, Some monster, gendered in his fears, unmanned His opening soui, and marred the works he planned. Fear, the first passion of his helpless stale, Redoubles all the woes that round him wait, Blocks nature's path, and sends him wandering wide, Without a guardian, and without a guide." Columbiad, ix. 137, &c. Rev. Thomas TTiorouig-oo-publishedasmall quarto, in 1652,11 to prove that the Indians were the Jews, who had been " lost in the world for the space * The author of a work entitled New England's Prospect, published in London 163* in 4to. It is a very rare, and, in some respects, a curious and valuable work Prospect, 51.

Ibid. 112. ed. 1764. $ "is_account of lw° voyages to N. England, primed London, 1673, page 124. II N. Eng. Rarities, 4, 5, printed London, 1672. If Its title commences, " Digitus Dei : New Discoveries, with sure Arguments <• Chap. II.] WILLIAMS— MATHER.— WARD. 7 of near 200 years." But whoever has read Adair or Boudinot, has, beside a good deal that is irrational, read all that in Thorowgood can be termed rational. Rev. Roger WUliams was, at one time, as appears from Thorowgootfs work,* of the same opinion. Being written to for his opinion of the origin of the natives, " he kindly answers to those letters from Salem in N. Eng. 20th of the 10th month, more than 10 yeers since, in heec verba." That they did not come into America from the N. East, as some had imagined, he thought evident for these reasons : 1. their ancestors affirm they came from the S. West, and return thence when they die : 2. because they " separate their women in a little wigwam by themselves in their feminine seasons :" and 3.

" beside their god Kuttand to the S. West, they hold that Nanawitnawit] (a god over head) made the heavens and the earth ; and some tast of affinity with the Hebrew I have found." Dr. Cotton Mather is an author of such singular qualities, that we almost hesitate to name him, lest we be thought without seriousness in so weighty a matter. But we will assure the reader, that he is an author with whom we would in no wise part ; and if sometimes we appear not serious in our introduction of him, what is of more importance, we believe him really to be so. And we are persuaded that we should not be par doned did we not allow him to speak upon the matter before us. He says, " It should not pass without remark, that three most memora ble things which have borne a very great aspect upon human affairs, did, near the same time, namely, at the conclusion of the fifteenth, and the beginning of the sixteenth, century, arise unto the world : the first was the Resurrection of Literature ; the second was the opening of America; the third was the Reformation of Religion."

Thus far we have an instructive view ofthe subject, calculated to lead to the conclusion that, in the dark ages, when literature was neglected and forgotten, discoveries might have been also, and hence the knowledge of America lost for a time. The reader must now summon his gravity. " But," this author continues, " as probably the Devil, seducing the first inhabitants of America into it, therein aimed at the having of them and their posterity out of the sound of the silver trumpets of the gospel, then to be heard through the Roman empire."} If the DevU had any expectation, that, by the peopling of Amer ica, he should utterly deprive any Europeans of the two benefits, literature and religion, which dawned upon the miserable world, (one just before, the other just after,) the first famed navigation hither, 'tis to be hoped he will be disappointed of that expectation."§ The learned doctor, having forgotten what he had written in his first book, or wishing to in culcate his doctrine more firmly, nearly repeats a passage which he had at first given, in a distant part of his work ;|| but, there being considerable * Pages 5 and 6. t Getannitowit is god in Delaware. — Heckewelder.

X This, we apprehend, is not entirely original with our author, but borders upon pla giarism. Ward, the celebrated author of the " Simple Cobler of Aggawam," savs of the Irish, " These Irish (anciently called aiUliropophagi, man-eaters) have a tradition among lhem,that when the Devil showed our Saviour all the kingdoms ofthe earth, and their glory, that he would not show him Ireland, but reserved il for himself. It is, probably, true j for he hath kept it ever since for his own peculiar: the old fox foresaw it would eclipse the glory of all the rest : he thought il wisdom to keep the land for a Boggards for his unclean spirits employed in this hemisphere, and the people to do his son and heir (the Pope) that service for which Lewis the XI kept his Barbor Oliver, which makes them so bloodthirsty." — Simple Cobler, 86, 87.

Why so much gall is poured out upon the poor Irish, we cannot satisfactorily account. The circumstance of his writing in the lime of Cromwell will explain a part, if not the whole, of the enigma. He was the first minister of Ipswich, Mass. but was born and died in England. $ Magnalia Christ. Amer. B. i. || Ibid. b. [Book I. ADAIR.— BOUDINOT^-HUBBARD 8 addition, we recite it : "The natives of the country now possessed by the Newenglauders, had been forlorn and wretched heathen ever since their first herding here ; and though we know not when or how these Indians first became inhabitants of this mighty continent, yet we may guess that prob ably the DevU decoyed those miserable salvages hither, in hopes that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to destroy or disturb his absolute empire over them.

But our Eliot was in such ill terms with the DevU, as to alarm him with sounding the silver trumpets of heaven in his territories, and make some noble and zealous attempts towards outing him of ancient possessions here. There were, I think, 20 several nations (if I may call them so) of Indians upon that spot of ground which fell under the influence of our Three United Colonies ; and our Eliot was willing to rescue as many of them as he could from that old usurping landlord of America, who is, by the wrath of God, the prince of this world." In several places he is decided in the opinion that Indians are Scythians, and is confirmed in the opinion, on meeting with this pas sage of Julius Ccesar: " Difficilius Invenire quam interficere," which he thus renders, "It is harder to find them than to foil them."

At least, this is a happy application of the passage. Ccesar was speaking of the Scythians, and our historian applies the passage in speaking ofthe sudden attacks ofthe Indians, and their agility in hiding themselves from pursuit.* Dr. Mather wrote at the close of the seventeenth century, and his famous book, Magnalia Christi Americana, was published in 1702. Adair, who resided 40 years (he says) among the southern Indians, previous to 1775, published a huge quarto upon their origin, history, &c. He tortures every custom and usage into a like one of the Jews, and almost every word in their language into a Hebrew one of the same meaning. Dr. Boudinat, in his book called "The Star in the West," has followed up the theory of Adair, with such certainty, as he thinks, as that the " long lost ten tribes of Israel" are clearly identified in the American Indians.

Such theories have gained many supporters. It is of much higher antiquity than Adair, and was treated as such visionary speculations should be by authors as far back as the historian Hubbard. Hubbard, who wrote about 1680, has this, among other passages : " If any observation be made of their manners and dispositions, it's easier to say from what nations they did not, than from whom they did, derive their original. Doubtless their conjecture, who fancy them to be descended from the ten tribes of the Israelites, carried captive by Salamaneser and Esarhaddon, hath the least show of reason of any other, there being no footsteps to be observed of their propinquity to them more than lo any other of the tribes of the earth, either as to their language or manners."! This author is one of the best historians of his times ; and, generally, he writes with as much discernment upon other matters as upon this.

That because the natives of one country and those of another, and each unknown to the other, have some customs and practices in common, it has been urged by some, and not a few, that they must have had a com mon origin ; but this, in our apprehension, does not necessarily follow. Who will pretend that different people, when placed under similar circumstances, will not have similar wants, and hence similar actions ? that like wants will not prompt like exertions ? and like causes produce not like effects ? This mode of reasoning we think sufficient to show, that, although the Indians may have some customs in common with the Scythians, the Tartars, Chinese, Hindoos, Welsh, and indeed every other nation, still, the former, for any reason we can see to the contrary, have * See Magnalia, b. vii. t Hist.

N. England, 27. Chap. H.] ROBERTSON.— GROTIUS.— S. S. SMITH. 9 as good right to claim to themselves priority of origin as either or all of the latter. Dr. Robertson should have proved that people of color produce others of no color, and the contrary, before he said, "We know with infallible certainty, that all the human race spring from the same source,"* meaning Adam. He founds this broad assertion upon the false notion that, to admit any other would be an inroad upon the verity ofthe holy Scriptures. Now, in our view of the subject, we leave them equally inviolate in as suming a very different ground ;f namely, that all habitable parts of the world may have been peopled at the same time, and by different races of men. That it is so peopled, we know : that it was so peopled as far back as we have any account, we see no reason to disbelieve.

Hence, when it was not so is as futile to inquire, as it would be impossible to conceive ofthe annihilation of space. When a new country was discovered, much inquiry was made to ascertain from whence came the inhabitants found upon it — not even asking whence came the other animals. The answer to us is plain. Man, the other animals, trees and plants of every kind, were placed there by the supreme directing hand, which carries on every operation of nature by fixed and undeviating laws. Tins, it must be plain to every reader, is, at least, as reconcilable to the Bible history as the theory of Robertson, which is that of Grotius,\ and all those who have followed them. When it has been given in, at least by all who have thought upon the subject, that climate does not change the complexion of the human race, to hold up the idea still that all must have sprung from the same source, (Adam,) only reminds us of our grandmothers, who to this day laugh at us when we tell them that the earth is a globe.