History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson's River, etc

Front matter

HISTORY' OF THK futon Snfctif of gttd$0n'§i |tiw; THF.1R ORIGIN, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS; 1'RIBAI \\U SUB-TRIBAL ORGANIZATIONS; WARS, TREATIES, ETC, ETC. HV E. M . R UTTENBER, Author of (he History of Newburgh, "sls good to muse on nations passed away Forever from the land we call our own j Nations as proud and mighty in their day. Who dfkmed that kverlastin*; was their throne.' Sandi. ALBANY, N. Y. : J. MUNSELL, 82 STATE STREET. 1872. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1872, By E. M. RUTTENTBEK, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

Preface

ffwjlTffiHE pioneer in new fields of historic inquiry &^3 Kæ encounters many obstacles from which those &&&&*% who follow the more beaten paths of investigation are exempt, and especially so if the inquiry involves conclusions differing materially from those which have been generally accepted. The experience of the author in prosecuting the investigations, the results of which have been embodied in the work which is now submitted to the public, have been no exception to this rule. Not'only had the history of the Indians who occupied the valley of Hudson's river never been written, but the incidental references to them, in the histories of nations more prominent at a later period — treating them as mere fragmentary bands without organization or political position among the aboriginal nations — being regarded as erroneous, the inquiry involved the rejection, to a very great extent, of the conclusions of others, and the investigation and ana lyzation of original sources of information.

To extract the truth and embody it in consistent narrative, has involved no little labor and research, and the careful weighing of words; and, although the results

PREFACE.

. IV may not be stated in the clearest terms or the most flowing rhetoric, nor entirely without error, they are nevertheless believed to fully sustain the conclusion that the tribes in question have a history which enti tles them to a high rank in the annals of aboriginal nations, and which assigns to them native abilities as distinguished, eloquence as pure, bravery and prowess as unquestionable, as was possessed by those who, preserved for a greater time in their national integrity by their remoteness from civilization, became of more esteem in their relations to the government but less noble in their purposes. It has been the object of the author to trace the his tory of the Indians from the earliest period; to show their original position in the family of nations, and that which they subsequently maintained ; the wrongs which they suffered, and the triumphs which they won ; their greatness and their decay.

In the narrative, liberal use has been made of current histories, so far as their state ments were found to be in accordance with the facts. Acknowledgment, it is believed, has been fully made, and even to an extent which is not customary. Very full notes have been introduced for the purpose of explaining the text and enabling the reader to judge of the correctness of the conclusions drawn therefrom. As far as possible the narrative has been divested of the recitation of events which do not pertain to it, and though necessarily running beyond the limits of the territory regarded as the valley of the Hudson, has been as closely confined to it as possible, too closely perhaps, as it is believed that the eastern

PREFACE.

. V Indians have the same claim to consideration as a con federacy as the western. The work is submitted to the judgment of the public, with a desire that the author may be lost in the theme which he has presented, and the truth of history vindicated in behalf of a people that have left behind no monuments to their memory save those erected by their destroyers. Newburgh, N. Y. The Halt Moon oil Yonkers, Indian Into flf puds-an's. pw*.

Chapter I

Hudson in the Mahicanituk. — His Intercourse with the Indians — Their Traditions concerning his Visit. AILING under the auspices of the Dutch West $Vs«*Sif-j India Company, Henry Hudson, an intrepid Eng 7j^|«iO lish navigator, moored his vessel, the Half Moon, on 1TCXi>j£*6 tj,e morning of September 3d, 1609, in the waters of the river which now bears his name. Lingering off Sandy Hook a week, he passed through the Narrows, and anchored in what is now Newark bay. On the 12th, he resumed his voyage, and slowly drifting with the tide, anchored over night, on the 13th, just above Yonkers, the great river stretching on before him to the north and giving to his ardent mind the hope that he had at last discovered the gateway to the Eastern seas. On the 14th, he passed Tappan and Haverstraw bays, and sailed through the majestic pass guarded by the frowning Don derberg, and anchored at night near West Point, in the midst of the sublimest scenery of the mountains.

On the morning of the 15th, he entered Newburgh bay, and reached Katskill ; on the 16th, Athens; on the 17th, Castleton; on the 1 8th, Albany. Here he remained several days, sending an exploring boat as far as Waterford, and sadly learning that he had reached the head of navigation, and that the Eastern passage was yet an unsolved problem. His return voyage began on the 23d ; on the 25th, HISTORT OF THE INDIAN 8 he anchored in Newburgh bay ; reached Stony point on the ist of October ; on the 4th, Sandy Hook, and sailed from thence Newburgh Bay. to Europe, bearing with him the information which he had collected, not the least of which in importance was that in relation to the native lords whom he had met on the banks of the river he had discovered, and who then broke the silvery surface of its waters with their light canoes and awoke the echoes of its mountain sides with their wild choruses, of whose power it was an emblem, on the waters of which, as they faded away in the north, was wafted their war shallops into tributaries that stretched on to the lakes and the great river of Canada, bearing with them the prestige of savage supremacy.

Hudson first met the Indians near the Narrows, where they came on board his vessel " clothed in mantles of feathers and robes of fur, the women, clothed in hemp, red copper tobacco pipes, and other things of copper they did wear about their necks;" of arms they brought none, their mission was peace; but he "durst not trust them." Suspicion breeds suspicion, and suspicion leads to violence. Sending an exploring boat up the river the next day, it was attacked, on its return to the ship, TRIBES OF HUDSON'S RIVER. 9 and one of the English sailors, John Coleman, was killed by an arrow shot in the throat.1 He was buried upon the adjacent beach, the first European victim of an Indian weapon on the Mahicanituk. The offense which had been committed by himself and his companions is not stated, but may be inferred.

They were far from the ship, the night came on and a thick cloud of rain and fog settled over them ; seeing their condition, the Indians sprang to their boats to rescue them, fear seized them, the savage was more dreaded then the tempest, a falcon shot was hurled at the approaching canoes, the swift arrow re plied, and "in the fight one man was slain and two more hurt." Day after day the Indians came on board, brought tobacco and Indian wheat, and oysters and beans, "making show of love," but he " durst not trust them." They brought their women and children with them, but he " durst not trust them." At Yonkers they came on board in large numbers ; here he de tained two of them, and dressed them in red coats, and though they jumped from the ports and swam away, their detention was not the less a violation of the laws of hospitality, so they regarded it, for when they had reached the shore they called to him "in scorn."

At Katskill he found a "very loving people and very old men." They brought on board " Indian corn, pumpkins, and tobacco," and used him well. At Castleton they were very sociable, and the " master's mate went on land2 with an old savage, a governor of the country, who carried him to his house and made him good cheere." " I sailed to the shore," he says, " in one of their canoes, with an old man who was chief of a tribe consisting of forty men and seventeen women. These I saw there in a house well constructed of oak bark, and circular in shape, so that it had the appearance of being built with an voyage, but is very precise in its state ments as to who visited the shore in this, and in other instances. He does not give the latitude, but from the ship's log it would seem that the place was " six leagues higher," up the river than that fixed by De Laet, and that it was at Schodac or Castleton. — O'Callaghan, I, 37 ; Brod head, I, 31 ; Collections of the New York Historical Society, zd Ser.

I, 326. 1 Coleman's point is the monument to this occurrence. a It has been assumed on the authority of a quotation alleged by De Laet to have been made from a journal kept by Hud son, that the place of this visit was in latitude 41° 18', or in the vicinity of the present city of Hudson. (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1, 300). The journal kept by Juet was not only the official record of the HISTORT OF THE INDIAN 10 arched roof. It contained a large quantity of corn and beans of last year's growth, and there lay near the house, for the purpose of drying, enough to load three ships, besides what was growing in the fields. On our coming to the house two mats were spread out to sit upon, and some food was immediately served in well-made wooden bowls. Two men were also dis patched at once, with bows and arrows, in quest of game, who soon brought in a pair of pigeons which they had shot.

They •likewise killed a fat dog,1 and skinned it in great haste, with shells which they had got out of the water. They supposed that I would remain with them for the night ; " but when they saw that he desired to return to the ship and that he would not remain, they supposed he "was afraid of their bows and arrows, and taking their arms they broke them in pieces and threw them in the fire." At Albany, Hudson repaid the old governor for his entertainment. The Indians flocked to visit his vessel, and he determined to try some of their chief men to see " whether they had any treachery in them." " So they took them down into the cabin, and gave them so much wine and aqua vita that they were all merry. In the end one of them was drunk, and they could not tell how to take it." At night they all departed, ex cept the old man who had taken the aqua vita ; " he slept all night quietly."

On the following day they came again, and when they saw that their chief had recovered from his debauch they were glad. They returned to their castle and " brought tobacco and beads " and gave them to Hudson, " and made an oration, and showed him all the country roundabout." " Then they sent one of their company on land again, who presently returned and brought a great platter full of venison, dressed by themselves," and caused Hudson " to eat with them ; then they made him reverence, and departed, all save the old man " who had found the Indian's paradise with the white man's rum. But he took his departure the next day, and two days after returned, bringing " another old man with him " from the place where " the loving people " had first been met. He too brought belts of wampum beads and gave them to Hudson, " and shewed Probably a black bear. him all the country thereabout, as though it were at his com mand.

So he made the two old men dine with him, and the old man's wife; for they brought two old women, and two young maidens of the age of sixteen or seventeen years with them, who behaved themselves very modestly." No doubt more wine was served at this dinner, but the aqua vita was evi dently omitted, for the party took their departure at one o'clock. On his return voyage " the loving people " met Hudson again, and " would have him go on land and eat with them ; " but the wind was fair, and he would not yield to their request. Very sorrowfully the old man, who had made the request in behalf of himself and his people, left the ship, although com forted with presents and with the assurance that his new friends would come again. Passing down through the Highlands, the Half Moon was becalmed off" Stony point, and " the people of the mountains " came on board and wondered at the " ship and weapons."

One canoe kept " hanging under the stern," and its occupant was soon detected in pilfering from the cabin windows. When detected, he had secured a " pillow and two shirts, and two bandeliers ; " but the " mate shot at him, and struck him on the breast, and killed him." The Indians were frightened and fled away, some in their canoes, others jumping into the water. A boat was lowered to recover the articles which they had taken, when one of them who was in the water seized hold of it " thinking to overthrow it," but " the cook seized a sword and cut off" one of his hands and he was drowned." At the head of Manhattan island the vessel was again attacked. It was here that Hudson had attempted to kidnap two young men, who, on their escape, had called to him " in scorn " at their betrayal. One of these men, accompanied by his friends, now came out to the ship in their canoes.

They were not suffered to enter the vessel, and falling behind it, discharged their arrows at it; "in recompense whereof " six muskets replied "and killed two or three of them." The Indians retreated, and from a point of land renewed the attack ; but " a falcon shot " killed two of them, and " tfie rest fled into the woods;" " yet they manned off" another canoe, with nine or ten men," through which a falcon shot was sent, killing one of its occupants. Then the sailors discharged their muskets, and " killed three or four more of them." " So they went their way," and the Half Moon was hurried down into the bay, "clear from all danger," carrying thence to Holland, in Hud son's simple narrative, an epitome of the subsequent history of the intercourse of the Indians with the Europeans ; the clash of customs, the violence, the intoxicating cup.

To most of the Indians the advent of Hudson's ship was a strange spectacle. For over an hundred years the white-winged messengers of the old world had been wafted by them ; in the further south, the white man was not a stranger, but not before had his sails been folded on the breast of their waters, nor the voice of trumpet and cannon reverberated through their solitudes. All this was new and strange; the Great Spirit had come to them ; the signals of a mighty change passed be fore their vision. Their traditions repeat that almost with the appearance of Hudson in the lower bay, they began to collect on the shores and headlands, gazing in astonishment on the strange sight ; that when they first saw the Half Moon they " did not know what to make of it, and could not comprehend whether it came down from heaven or from the devil."

Some of them " even imagined it to be a fish, or some monster of the sea, and accordingly a strange report of it soon spread over the land." It was at length agreed among them " that, as this phenomenon moved towards the land, whether it was an animal or not, or any thing that had life in it," would soon be apparent. Runners from the shore went back and forth, and messengers were sent to the chiefs of the country to send in their warriors. As the ship approached they concluded it was " a large canoe or house, in which the great Manitto himself was, and that he was probably coming to visit them." Every thing was put in order to entertain him ; " the best of victuals was prepared, and plenty of meat for sacrifice procured, and idols or images examined and put in order, to appease him in case he was angry."

Other runners soon arriving, declared it to be a " large house of various colors, full of people, yet of quite a different color from themselves, that they dressed in a different manner, and that one, in particular, appeared altogether red, which must be the Manitto himself." The crew of the Half Moon soon hailed them with a loud shout, which so frightened them that some were for running away, yet they feared to give offense and remained. Meanwhile Hudson kept on his course, and the Indians con tinued to collect on the banks of the river, expressing their curiosity in the strongest manner. Establishing intercourse at last, they ventured on board the ship, where they were saluted " in a friendly manner, and they returned the salute after their manner." " They are lost in admiration both as to the color of the skin of these whites, as also of their manner of dress ; yet most as to the habit of him who wore the red clothes, which shone with something they could not account for.

He must be the Great Manitto, but why should he have a white skin ? " Then they sat down to eat with their strange visitant, " a -large and elegant hockhack was brought forward by one of the Manitto's servants, and something poured from it into a small cup or glass, and handed to the Manitto. He drank it, had the cup refilled, and had it handed to the chief next to him to drink. The chief receives the glass, but only smells at it, and passes it on to the next chief, who does the same. The glass thus passes through the circle without the contents being tasted by any one, and is on the point of being returned again to the red-clothed man, when one of their num ber, a spirited man and great warrior, jumps up, harangues the assembly on the impropriety of returning the glass with the contents in it ; that the same was handed them by the Manitto in order that they should drink it, as he himself had done before them ; that this would please him ; but to return what he had given to them might provoke him, and be the cause of their being destroyed by him.

And that since he believed it for the good of the nation that the contents offered them should be drank, and as no one else was willing to drink it, he would, let the consequence be what it might ; that it was better for one man to die than for a whole nation to be destroyed. He then took the glass, and, bidding the assembly a farewell, drank it off. Every eye was fixed on their resolute companion, to see what an effect this would have upon him ; and he soon beginning to stagger about, and at last dropping to the ground, they bemoan him. He falls into a sleep, and they view him as expiring. He awakes again, jumps up, and declares that he never before felt so happy as after he had drank of the cup. He wishes for more. His wish is granted ; and the whole assembly soon join him, and become intoxicated.

Then the man with the red clothes distributed presents to them of beads, axes, hoes, stockings, and other articles, and made them understand that he would return home and come again to see them, bring them more presents and stay with them awhile, but should want a little land to sow some seeds, in order to raise herbs to put in their broth." But from their dream of trusting love they had a speedy awakening. Their traditions state that the promise made by Hudson to return again was fulfilled the following season, and that they " rejoiced much at seeing each other again ; but the whites laughed at them, seeing that they knew not the use of the axes, hoes, etc., they had given them, they having had those hanging to their breasts as ornaments, and the stockings they had made use of as tobacco pouches.

The whites now put handles or helves in the former, and cut trees down before their eyes, and dug the ground, and showed them the use of the stockings. Here a general laughter ensued among the Indians, that they had remained for so long a time ignorant of the use of so valuable implements, and had borne with the weight of such heavy metal hanging to their necks for such a length of time. They took every white man they saw for a Manitto, yet inferior and attendant to the supreme Manitto, to wit : to the one which wore the red and laced clothes. " Familiarity daily increasing between them and the whites, the latter now proposed to stay with them, asking them only for so much land as the hide of a bullock would cover or encompass, which hide was brought forward and spread on the ground before them.

That they readily granted this request ; whereupon the whites took a knife, and beginning at one place on this hide, cut it up into a rope not thicker than the finger of a little child, so that by the time this hide was cut up, there was a great heap ; that this rope was drawn out to a great distance, and then brought round again, so that the ends might meet ; that they carefully avoided its breaking, and that upon the whole it encompassed a large piece of land ; that they were surprised at the superior wit of the whites, but did not wish to contend with them about a little land, as they had enough ; that they and the whites lived for a long time contentedly together, although the whites asked from time to time, more land of them and proceeding higher up the Mahicanituk,1 they believed they would soon want all the country." 1 The Iroquois, it "is said, called the river the Cohatatea, while the Mahicans and the Lenapes called it the Mahicanituk or " the continually flowing waters."

The Dutch gave it the name of Mauritius river, as early as 1611, in honor of their stadt holder, Prince Maurice, of Nassau. Hud son called it the River of the mountains, a name which the French adopted in Rio de Montagne. The English first gave it the name of Hudson's river by which, and North river, the latter to distinguish it from the Connecticut or East river, and from the Delaware or South river, it has since been known. Henry Hudson.

Chapter II

Origin, Manners and Customs, etc. HE origin of the North American Indians, is a subject which has engrossed the attention of learned men for over two hundred years, and yet the question, " By whom was America peopled ? " remains without satisfactory answer. In 1637, Thomas Morton wrote a book to prove that the Indians were of Latin origin. John Joselyn held, in 1638, that they were of Tartar descent. Cotton Mather inclined to the opinion that they were Scythians. James Adair seems to have been fully con vinced that they were descendants of the Israelites, the lost tribes ; and, after thirty years residence among them, published in 1775, an account of their manners and customs, from which he deduced his conclusions.1 Dr. Mitchill, after considerable investigation, concluded " that the three races, Malays, Tartars and Scandinavians, contributed to made up the great American population, who were the authors of the various works and an tiquities found on the continent."

DeWitt Clinton held, that " the probability is, that America was peopled from various quarters of the old world, and that its predominant race is the Scythian or Tartarian." Calmet, a distinguished author, brings 1 " Observations and arguments in proof of the American Indians being descended from the Jews: 1. Their division into tribes. 2. Their worship of Jehovah. 3. Their notion of a theocracy. 4. Their belief in the ministration of angels. 5. Their language and dialects. 6. Their manner of counting time. 7. Their pro phets and high priests. 8. Their festivals, fasts and religious rites. 9. Their daily sacrifice. 10. Their ablutions and anointings. XI. Their laws of unclean ness. 12. Their abstinence from unclean things. 13. Their marriages, divorces, and punishments of adultery. 14. Their several punishments. 15.

Their cities of refuge. 16. Their purifications and ceremonies preparatory to war 17. Their ornaments. 18. Their manner of curing the sick. 19. Their burial of the dead. 20. Their mourning for the dead. 21. Their raising seed to a departed brother. 22. Their choice of names adapted to their circumstances and the times. 23. Their own traditions, the accounts of our English writers, and the testimony which the Spanish and other authors have given concerning the primitive inhabitants of Peru and Mexico." — Adair. forward the writings of Hornius, son of Theodosius the Great, who affirms that " at or about the time of the commencement of the Christian era, voyages from Africa and Spain into the Atlantic ocean were both frequent and celebrated ; " and holds that " there is strong probability that the Romans and Cartha genians, even 300 B. C, were well acquainted with the exist ence of this country," adding that there are " tokens of the presence of the Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Carthagenians, in many parts of the continent."

The story of Madoc's voyage to America, in n 70, has been repeated by every writer upon the subject, and actual traces of Welsh colonization are affirmed to have been discovered in the language and customs of a tribe of Indians living on the Missouri. Then the fact is stated that " America was visited by some Norwegians," who made a settlement in Greenland, in the tenth century. Priest, in his American Antiquities, states that his observations had led him "to the conclusion that the two great continents, Asia and America, were peopled by similar races of men." It is not necessary to add to this catalogue. Men equally learned with those whose opinions have been quoted, see no obstacle in the way of an opinion that America received her population as she did her peculiar trees, and plants, and animals, and birds.

The geologist examines the relics of the west, and where imagination fashions artificial walls, he sees but crumbs of decaying sandstone, clinging like the remains of mortar to blocks of greenstone that rested on it; discovers in parallel intrench ments a trough that subsiding waters have ploughed through the centre of a ridge, and explains the tessellated pavement to be but a layer of pebbles aptly joined by water; and, examining the mounds, finds them composed of different strata of earth, arranged horizontally to the very edge, and ascribes their creation to the power that shaped the globe into vales and hillocks.1 The mounds, it is true, may have been selected by the aborigines as the site of their dwellings, fortifications, or burial places ; but the mouldering bones, from hillocks which are crowned by trees that have defied the storms of many centuries, the graves of earth from which they are dug, and the 1 Hitchcock. feeble fortifications that are sometimes found in their vicinity, afford no special evidence of connection with other continents.1 " Among the more ancient works" of the west, says another writer,2 " there is not a single edifice, nor any ruins which prove the existence, in former ages, of a building composed of impe rishable materials.

No fragment of a column, nor a brick, nor a single hewn stone large enough to have been incorporated into a wall, has been discovered. The only relics which remain to inflame the curiosity, are composed of earth." To add force to this sweeping blow at the beautiful theories that have been woven, the learned Agassis disputes the idea of the unity of the races through Adam ; while other writers pretty clearly demonstrate that the theory of the lost tribes of Israel has no foundation in fact. Dr. Lawrence, in his Lec tures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man, sums up the whole argument by saying that, " in comparing the barbarian nations of America with those of the eastern continent, we perceive no points of resemblance between them, in their moral institutions or in their habits, that are not apparently founded in the necessities of human life."

This is apparently the reasonable conclusion of the whole matter, for to pass intelligent judgment, the aborigines of America must be taken as they were found, and not as they may have appeared after years of association with Europeans, an association necessarily producing a mingling of ancient cus toms with those learned from missionaries, or copied under the impulse of imitation. These early lessons were taught by men of all nations, the Dutch, the French, the Spanish, and the English, and, before their advent, by the Norwegians. It would be strange indeed, under all the circumstances, if the aborigines did not have grafted upon them some resembling features of all nations. Sir William Johnson, than whom no man had better opportunity to form a correct judgment, after considering the whole matter, concluded that all theories were defective for this reason ; saying, that the Indians residing next to the English settlements had lost a great part of their traditions, and had so 1 Warren in DelafieltTs Antiquities. 2 Drake's Picture of Cincinnati. blended their customs with those of the Europeans as to render it " difficult if not impossible to trace their origin or discover their explication," while those further removed had nevertheless been visited by traders, and especially by French Jesuits, who had " introduced some of their own inventions which the present generation confound with their ancient customs."1 Until many of the nations of the old world can satisfactorily explain the origin of their own race, it is hardly worth while to endeavor to make our aborigines any further kindred with them than that the same Almighty Power called them into being and endowed them with common instincts.