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with the title of Grandfather, which some of them continue to apply to the present day.

The Delawares were the principal inhabitants of Pennsylvania when William Penn commenced his labors in that region, and the memory of Miquon, their elder brother, as they called him, is still cherished in the legends of all that remains of the nation. That remnant exists chiefly on the western banks of the Mississippi, to which ancient starting-place they have been gradually approximating, stage by stage, ever since the arrival of the Europeans on the coast. Their principal intermediate settlements have been in Ohio, on the banks of the Muskingum, and other small rivers, whither a great number of the tribe removed about the year 1760.

The Delawares have never been without their great men, though unfortunately many of them have lived at such periods and such places as to make it impossible for history to do them justice. It is only within about a century last past, during which they have been rapidly declining in power and diminishing in numbers, that a series of extraordinary events, impelling them into close contact with the whites, as well as with other Indians, has had the effect of bringing forward their extraordinary men.

Among the ancient Delaware worthies, whose career is too imperectly known to us to be the subject of distinct sketches, we shall mention only the name of the illustrious Tamenend. This individual stands foremost in the list of all the great men of his nation in any age. He was a mighty warrior, an accomplished statesman, and a pure and high-minded patriot. In private life he was still more distinguished for his virtues than in public for his talents. His countrymen could only account for the perfections they ascribed to him, by supposing him to be favored with the special communications of the Great Spirit. Ages have elapsed since his death, but his memory was so fresh among the Delawares of the last century, that when Colonel Morgan, of New Jersey, was sent as an agent among them by Congress during the Revolution, they conferred on him the title of Tamenend, as the greatest mark of respect they could show for the manners and character of that gentleman, and he was known by his Indian appellation ever afterwards.

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About this time the old chieftain had so many admirers among the whites also, that they made him a saint, inserted his name in calendars, and celebrated his festival on the first of May yearly. On that day a numerous society of his votaries walked in procession through the streets of Philadelphia, their hats decorated with bucks' tails, and proceeded to a sylvan rendezvous out of town, which they called the Wigwam, where, after a long talk or speech had been delivered, and the calumet of friendship passed around, the remainder of the day was spent in high festivity. A dinner was prepared, and Indian dances performed on the green. The custom ceased a few years after the conclusion of peace, and though other "Tammany" associations have since existed, they retain little of the model they were formed upora but the name.

The commencement of the revolutionary war was among the Delawares, as among their more civilised neighbors, a period of great excitement. Strong efforts were made by the British authorities on the northern frontier, and yet stronger ones by individual refugees and vagabonds in the British interest, to prejudice them against the American people, and to induce them to make common cause with their "Father" over the "Big Water," in correcting the sins of his disobedient children. Congress, on the other hand, contented itself with keeping them, as far and as long as possible, in a state of neutrality. In consequence of these opposite influences, and of old prepossessions entertained by various parties and persons in the nation, a violent struggle ensued,-for war on one side, and for peace on the other, in the course of which were developed some of the most remarkable individual traits and diplomatic manœuvres which we have yet had occasion to notice.

The leader of the peace party was Koguethagechton, called by the Americans Captain White-Eyes. He was the head chief of the Turtle tribe in Ohio; while Captain Pipe, of the Wolf tribe, living and having his council-fire at the distance of fifteen miles northward from the former, devoted his talents to promoting the plan of a belligerant union with the British. Accidental circumstances,-such as old wrongs, or at least imagined ones, from the Americans, on one side, and old favors on the other, no doubt had their effect in producing this diversity of feeling; but the ambition and jealousy of Pipe,whose spirit, otherwise noble, was of that haughty order, that he would not have served in heaven" when he might "reign" elsewhere in the universe,-are believed to have gone farther than any other cause, both to create and keep up dissensions among the Delawares, and disturbances between them and the whites. Pipe, as even the good Heckewelder allows, was certainly a great man, but WhiteEyes was still both his superior and his senior, besides having the advantage of a clean cause and a clear conscience.

Pipe, like other politicians, uniformly professed his readiness, from time to time, to join in any measures proper to "save the nation;" but the difficulty as uniformly occurred, that these were precisely the same measures which White-Eyes thought would destroy it. The former, like most of the Wolf tribe, whose temperament he had studied, was warlike, energetic, and restless. He brooded over old resentments,— he panted for revenge,-he longed for the coming of an era which should turn "rogues" out of office, and bring "honest men" in. With these feelings, his ingenuity could not be long without adequate arguments and artifices to operate on the minds of his countrymen. Their most remarkable effect, however, it soon became manifest, was to attach them to himself rather than to any particular principles. They were as ready to fight as men need be; but Pipe was expected to monopolise the thinking and talking.

For the better understanding of the principles of the peace-party, we shall here introduce the exposition made by White-Eyes and others, of the character of the contest between the English and the Americans.

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Its effect was to convince the Indians that they had no concern with either, while their welfare clearly suggested the policy, as well as propriety, of maintaining amicable terms with both.

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Suppose a father," it was said, "had a little son whom he loved and indulged while young, but growing up to be a youth, began to think of having some help from him; and making up a small pack, bade him carry it for him. The boy cheerfully takes this pack, following his father with it. The father, finding the boy willing and obedient, continues in this way; and as the boy grows stronger, so the father makes the pack in proportion larger-yet as long as the boy is able to carry the pack, he does so without grumbling. At length, however, the boy having arrived at manhood, while the father is making up the pack for him, in comes a person of an evil disposition, and learning who was the carrier of the pack, advises the father to make it heavier, for surely the son is able to carry a large pack. The father, listening rather to the bad adviser, than consulting his own judgment and the feelings of tenderness, follows the advice of the hardhearted adviser, and makes up a heavy load for his son to carry. The son, now grown up, examining the weight of the load he is to carry, addresses the parent in these words: 'Dear father, this pack is too heavy for me to carry, do pray lighten it; I am willing to do what I can, but am unable to carry this load.' The father's heart having by this time become hardened, and the bad adviser calling to him, whip him if he disobeys and refuses to carry the pack,' now in a peremptory tone orders his son to take up the pack and carry it off, or he will whip him, and already takes up a stick to beat him. So!' says the son, am I to be served thus, for not doing what I am unable to do? Well, if entreaties avail nothing with you, father, and it is to be decided by blows, whether or not I am able to carry a pack so heavy, then I have no other choice left me, but that of resisting your unreasonable demand by my strength; and so, by striking each other, we may see who is the strongest.'

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But this doctrine, however sound, did not prove wholly effectual against the exertions of Pipe, who was continually either making movements, or taking advantage of such as occurred, to disparage the influence of his rival, and, of course, to extend and establish his own. He contradicted whatever was said, and counteracted whatever was done by White-Eyes, until the whole system of intercourse of the Delawares with each other and with other nations, became a labyrinth of inconsistencies and counterplots.

About the commencement of the war, White-Eyes, with some of his tribe, visited the Americans at Pittsburg, where they met in conference with a number of the Seneca tribe, a people particularly attached to the British interest at that time. The object of their visit probably was to ascertain and perhaps influence the politics of the Delawares; and they relied much on the power of the great confederacy to which they belonged. Not only, however, did they fail to overawe WhiteEyes, politically or personally, but they could not prevent him from publicly advocating the principles he avowed. So angry were they

at a speech he addressed to the meeting at Pittsburg, that they undertook to check him by hinting, in an insolent and sullen manner, that it ill became him to express himself thus independently, whose tribe were but women, and had been made such by the Five Nationsalluding to an old reproach which had often before this been used to humiliate the Delawares.

Frequently it had that effect. But White-Eyes was not of a temper to brook an insult, under any circumstances. With an air of the most haughty disdain, he sat patiently until the Senecas had done, and then rose and replied:

"I know," said he gravely, "I know well, that you consider us a conquered nation, as women, as your inferiors. You have, say you, shortened our legs, and put petticoats on us! You say you have given us a hoe and a corn-pounder, and told us to plant and pound for you, you men, you warriors! But look at me. Am I not full-grown, and have I not a warrior's dress? Aye, I am a man, and these are the arms of a man (showing his musket); and all that country, (waving his hand proudly in the direction of the Alleghany river,) all that country, on the other side of that water, is mine."

A more courageous address was perhaps never made to any council of Indians. Indeed, it went so beyond the spirit of his tribe, apprehensive as they were of the indignation of the powerful people he had thus bearded, that, although many were gratified, many others were frightened, or, perhaps, at Pipe's instigation, pretended to be frightened, out of the ranks of the peace-party into those of the war. The Monseys took the lead in that movement, and they even humiliated themselves so much as to send word to the Five Nations that they disapproved of what White-Eyes had said. Pipe, about the same time, left off attending the councils of the Turtle tribe, which he had hitherto done regularly, probably from a conviction that his intrigues were becoming daily more manifest; and he also endeavored to circulate an impression that WhiteEyes had made secret engagements with the Americans, with the view of aggrandising himself at the expense of his countrymen.

The latter, meanwhile, was laboring, night and day, to preserve peace among the tribes, by sending embassies, and by other energetic measures. In some places, he succeeded, but in others the manœuvres of his adversary prevailed. A message sent to the Sandusky Wyandots, in 1776, was insolently answered by a hint to the Delawares, "to keep good shoes in readiness for joining the warriors." White-Eyes himself headed a deputation to a settlement of the same people near Detroit. They however refused to receive his peace-belts, except in presence of the British Governor at that station; and he, when they were tendered in his presence, seized them violently, cut them in pieces, threw them at the feet of the deputies, and then told White-Eyes that "if he set any value on his head, he must be gone within half an hour." Such indefatigable efforts were made by the war-party, and by those

*Speaking, according to common custom, in the name of the nation.

foreigners who co-operated with them, especially in circulating reports unfavorable to the American character and cause, that White-Eyes was very near being sacrificed to the hot-headed rashness of his own followers. In March, 1778, a number of tories of infamous character, having escaped from Pittsburg, told the Indians, wherever they went, that the Americans were coming upon them from all quarters; and that now was the time, and the only time, for saving themselves, by commencing active hostilities. The Delawares were filled with consternation, and, for a day or two, White-Eyes was unable to stem the torrent of popular feeling. But he recovered his influence as they recovered their composure; and well knowing that his conduct in this affair would be closely watched by his rival, he called a general council of the nation, in which he proposed to delay committing hostilities against the American people for ten days, during which time they might obtain more certain information as to the truth of the assertions of these men. Pipe, considering this a proper time for placing White-Eyes in the back-ground, construed his wise and prudent advice as though he was in the secret, and now proposed to his own council," to declare every man an enemy to the nation, that should throw an obstacle in the way that might tend to prevent taking up arms instantly against the American people.”

White-Eyes perceived that the blow was aimed at himself, but he parried it by immediately assembling and addressing his party by themselves: "If you will go out in this war," said he, observing the preparations of some of them, "you shall not go without me. I have taken peace measures, it is true, with the view of saving my tribe from destruction. But if you think me in the wrong, if you give more credit to runaway vagabonds than to your own friends, to a man, to a warrior, to a Delaware; if you insist upon fighting the Americans, go! and I will go with you. And I will not go like the bear-hunter, who sets his dogs upon the animal to be beaten about with his paws, while he keeps himself at a safe distance. No! I will lead you on. I will place myself in the front. I will fall with the first of you! You can do as you choose, but as for me I will not survive my nation. I will not live to bewail the miserable destruction of a brave people, who deserved, as you do, a better fate."

This spirited harangue had the desired effect. The assembly declared, with all the enthusiasm which a grave Indian council are ever willing to manifest, that they would at least wait the ten days, as he wished. Some added that they would never fight the Americans, but with him for a leader.

But Pipe and his party redoubled their efforts, and before the appointed term had expired, many of the Delawares had shaved their heads in readiness for the war-plume; and White-Eyes, though his request for delay was still attended to, was threatened with a violent death if he should say one word for the American interest. On the ninth day, vigorous preparations were made for sending out warparties, and no news had yet arrived to abate the excitement.

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