Home

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.

Copyright information:

The text is in the public domain.

Fair use statement:

This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.

QUERY XI
A description of the Indians established in that State?

When the first effectual settlement of our colony was made, which was in 1607, the country from the sea-coast to the mountains, and from the Patowmac to the most southern waters of James river, was occupied by upwards of forty different tribes of Indians. Of these the Powhatans, the Mannahoacs, and Monacans, were the most powerful. Those between the sea-coast and falls of the rivers, were in amity with one another, and attached to the Powhatans as their link of union. Those between the falls of the rivers and the mountains, were divided into two confederacies; the tribes inhabiting the head waters of Patowmac and Rappahannoc, being attached to the Mannahoacs; and those on the upper parts of James river to the Monacans. But the Monacans and their friends were in amity with the Mannahoacs and their friends, and waged joint and perpetual war against [167] the Powhatans. We are told that the Powhatans, Mannahoacs, and Monacans, spoke languages so radically different, that interpreters were necessary when they transacted business. Hence we may conjecture, that this was not the case between all the tribes, and, probably, that each spoke the language of the nation to which it was attached; which we know to have been the case in many particular instances. Very possibly there may have been anciently three different stocks, each of which multiplying in a long course of time, had separated into so many little societies,1 the principles of their government being so weak as to give this liberty of all its members.

The territories of the Powhatan confederacy south of the Patowmac, comprehended about 8000 square miles, 30 tribes, and 2400 warriors. Captain Smith tells us, that within 60 miles of James town were 5000 people, of whom 1500 were warriors. From this we find the proportion of their warriors to their whole inhabitants, was as 3 to 10. The Powhatan confederacy, then, would consist of about 8000 inhabitants, which was one for every square [168] mile; being about the twentieth part of our present population in the same territory, and the hundredth of that of the British islands.

Besides these were the Nòttoways, living on Nottoway river, the Mehèrrins and Tùteloes on Meherrin river, who were connected with the Indians of Carolina, probably with the Chòwanocs. [169]

The preceding table contains a state of these several tribes, according to their confederacies and geographical situations, with their numbers when we first became acquainted with them, where these numbers are known. The numbers of some of them are again stated as they were in the year 1669, when an attempt was made by the assembly to enumerate them. Probably the enumeration is imperfect, and in some measure conjectural, and that a farther search into the records would furnish many more particulars. What would be the melancholy sequel of their history, may, however, be argued from the census of 1669; by which we discover that the tribes therein enumerated were, in the space of 62 years,

reduced to about one-third of their former numbers. Spirituous liquors, the small-pox, war, and an abridgement of territory to a people who lived principally on the spontaneous productions of nature, had committed terrible havoc among them, which generation, under the obstacles opposed to it among them, was not likely to make good. That the lands of this country were taken from them by conquest, is not so general a truth as is supposed. I [170] find in our historians and records, repeated proofs of purchase, which cover a considerable part of the lower country; and many more would doubtless be found on further search. The upper country, we know, has been acquired altogether by purchases made in the most unexceptionable form.

Westward of all these tribes, beyond the mountains, and extending to the great lakes, were the Massawòmecs, a most powerful confederacy, who harrassed unremittingly the Powhatàns and Manahoàcs. These were probably the ancestors of tribes known at present by the name of the Six Nations.

Very little can now be discovered of the subsequent history of these tribes severally. The Chickahòminies removed about the year 1661, to Mattapony river. Their chief, with one from each of the Pamùnkies and Màttaponies, attended the treaty of Albany in 1685. This seems to have been the last chapter in their history. They retained, however, their separate name so late as 1705, and were at length blended with the Pamùnkies and Màttaponies, and exist at present only under their names. There remain of the Màttaponies three or four men only, and they [171] have more negro than Indian blood in them. They have lost their language, have reduced themselves, by voluntary sales, to about fifty acres of land, which lie on the river of their own name, and have from time to time, been joining the Pamùnkies, from whom they are distant but 10 miles. The Pamùnkies are reduced to about 10 or 12 men, tolerably pure from mixture with other colors. The older ones among them preserve their language in a small degree, which are the last vestiges on earth, as far as we know, of the Powhatan language. They have about 300 acres of very fertile land, on Pamunkey river, so encompassed by water that a gate shuts in the whole. Of the Nottoways, not a male is left. A few women constitute the remains of that tribe. They are seated on the Nottoway river, in Southampton country, on very fertile lands. At a very early period, certain lands were marked out and appropriated to these tribes, and were kept from encroachment by the authority of the laws. They have usually had trustees appointed, whose duty was to watch over their interests, and guard them from insult and injury. [172]

The Mònacans and their friends, better known latterly by the name of Tuscaròras, were probably connected with the Massawòmecs, or Five nations. For though we are1 told their languages were so different that the intervention of interpreters was necessary between them, yet do we also2 learn that the Erigas, a nation formerly inhabiting on the Ohio, were of the same original stock with the Five Nations, and that they partook also of the Tuscaròra language. Their dialects might, by long separation, have become so unlike as to be unintelligible to one another. We know that in 1712, the Five nations received the Tuscaròras into their confederacy, and made them the Sixth nation. They received the Mehèrrins and Tùteloes also into their protection: and it is most probable, that the remains of many other of the tribes, of whom we find no particular account, retired westwardly in like manner, and were incorporated with one or the other of the western tribes.1 [173]

I know of no such thing existing as an Indian monument; for I would not honor with that name arrow points, stone hatchets, stone pipes, and half shapen images. Of labor on the large scale, I think there is no remain as respectable as would be a common ditch for the draining of lands; unless indeed it would be the Barrows, of which many are to be found all over this country. These are of different sizes, some of them constructed of earth, and some of loose stones. That they were repositories of the dead, has been obvious to all; but on what particular occasion constructed, was a matter of doubt. Some have thought they covered the bones of those who have fallen in battles fought on the spot of interment. Some ascribed them to the custom, said to prevail among the Indians, of collecting, at certain periods, the bones of all their dead, wheresoever deposited at the time of death. Others again supposed them the general sepulchres for towns, conjectured to have been on or near these grounds; and this opinion was supported by the quality of the lands in which they are found, (those constructed of earth being generally in the softest and most fertile meadow-grounds on [174] river sides,) and by a tradition, said to be handed down from the aboriginal Indians, that, when they settled in a town, the first person who died was placed erect, and earth put about him, so as to cover and support him; that when another died, a narrow passage was dug to the first, the second reclined against him, and the cover of earth replaced, and so on. There being one of these in my neighborhood, I wished to satisfy myself whether any, and which of these opinions were just. For this purpose I determined to open and examine it thoroughly. It was situated on the low grounds of the Rivanna, about two miles above its principal fork, and opposite to some hills, on which had been an Indian town. It was of a spheroidical form, of about 40 feet diameter at the base, and had been of about twelve feet altitude, though now reduced by the plough to seven and a half, having been under cultivation about a dozen years. Before this it was covered with trees of twelve inches diameter, and round the base was an excavation of five feet depth and width, from whence the earth had been taken of which the hillock [175] was formed. I first dug superficially in several parts of it, and came to collections of human bones, at different depths, from six inches to three feet below the surface. These were lying in the utmost confusion, some vertical, some oblique, some horizontal, and directed to every point of the compass, entangled and held together in clusters by the earth. Bones of the most distant parts were found together, as, for instance, the small bones of the foot in the hollow of a scull; many sculls would sometimes be in contact, lying on the face, on the side, on the back, top or bottom, so as, on the whole, to give the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or a basket, and covered over with earth, without any attention to their order. The bones of which the greatest numbers remained, were sculls, jaw bones, teeth, the bones of the arms, thighs, legs, feet and hands. A few ribs remained, some vertebræ of the neck and spine, without their processes, and one instance only of the1 bone which serves [176] as a base to the vertebral column. The sculls were so tender, that they generally fell to pieces on being touched. The other bones were stronger. There were some teeth which were judged to be smaller than those of an adult; a scull, which on a slight view, appeared to be that of an infant, but it fell to pieces on being taken out, so as to prevent satisfactory examination; a rib, and a fragment of the under jaw of a person about half grown; another rib of an infant; and a part of the jaw of a child, which had not cut its teeth. This last furnishing the most decisive proof of the burial of children here, I was particular in my attention to it. It was part of the right half of the under jaw. The processes, by which it was articulated to the temporal bones, were entire, and the bone itself firm to where it had been broken off, which, as nearly as I could judge, was about the place of the eye tooth. Its upper edge, wherein would have been the sockets of the teeth, was perfectly smooth. Measuring it with that of an adult, by placing their hinder processes together, its broken end extended to the penultimate grinder of the adult. This bone was white, all the others [177] of a sand color. The bones of infants being soft, they probably decay sooner, which might be the cause so few were found here. I proceeded then to make a perpendicular cut through the body of the barrow, that I might examine its internal structure. This passed about three feet from its centre, was opened to the former surface of the earth, and was wide enough for a man to walk through and examine its sides. At the bottom, that is, on the level of the circumjacent plain, I found bones; above these a few stones, brought from a cliff a quarter of a mile off, and from the river one eighth of a mile off; then a large interval of earth, then a stratum of bones, and so on. At one end of the section were four strata of bones plainly distinguishable; at the other, three; the strata in one part not ranging with those in another. The bones nearest the surface were least decayed. No holes were discovered in any of them, as if made with bullets, arrows, or other weapons. I conjectured that in this barrow might have been a thousand skeletons. Every one will readily seize the circumstances above related, which militate against the opinion, that it covered the bones [178] only of persons fallen in battle; and against the tradition also, which would make it the common sepulchre of a town, in which the bodies were placed upright, and touching each other. Appearances certainly indicate that it has derived both origin and growth from the accustomary collection of bones, and deposition of them together; that the first collection had been deposited on the common surface of the earth, a few stones put over it, and then a covering of earth, that the second had been laid on this, had covered more or less of it in proportion to the number of bones, and was then also covered with earth; and so on.1 The following are the particular circumstances which give it this aspect. 1. The number of bones. 2. Their confused position. 3. Their being in different strata. 4. The strata in one part having no correspondence with those in another. 5. The different states of decay in these strata, which seem to indicate a difference in the time of inhumation. 6. The existence of infant bones among them.

But on whatever occasion they may have been made, they are of considerable notoriety among the Indians; for a party passing, about [179] thirty years ago, through the part of the country where this barrow is, went through the woods directly to it, without any instructions or inquiry, and having staid about it for some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay this visit, and pursued their journey. There is another barrow much resembling this, in the low grounds of the South branch of Shenandoah, where it is crossed by the road leading from the Rock-fish gap to Staunton. Both of these have, within these dozen years, been cleared of their trees and put under cultivation, are much reduced in their height, and spread in width, by the plough, and will probably disappear in time. There is another on a hill in the Blue ridge of mountains, a few miles North of Wood’s gap, which is made up of small stones thrown together. This has been opened and found to contain human bones, as the others do. There are also many others in other parts of the country.1

Great question has arisen from whence came those aboriginals of Ame-[180] rica?1 Discoveries, long ago made, were sufficient to show that the passage from Europe to America was always practicable, even to the imperfect navigation of ancient times. In going from Norway to Iceland, from Iceland to Grœnland, from Grœnland to Labrador, the first traject is the widest; and this having been practised from the earliest times of which we have any account of that part of the earth, it is not difficult to suppose that the subsequent trajects may have been sometimes passed. Again, the late discoveries of Captain Cook, coasting from Kamschatka to California, have proved that if the two continents of Asia and America be separated at all, it is only by a narrow streight. So that from this side also, inhabitants may have passed into America; and the resemblance between the Indians of America and the eastern inhabitants of Asia, would induce us to conjecture, that the former are the descendants of the latter, or the latter of the former; excepting indeed the Esquimaux, who, from the same circumstance of resemblance, and from identity of language must be derived from the Grœnlanders, and these probably from some of the northern parts of the old continent. A knowledge of their [181] several languages would be the most certain evidence of their derivation which could be produced. In fact, it is the best proof of the affinity of nations which ever can be referred to. How many ages have elapsed since the English, the Dutch, the Germans, the Swiss, the Norwegians, Danes and Swedes have separated

from their common stock? Yet how many more must elapse before the proofs of their common origin, which exists in their several languages, will disappear? It is to be lamented, then, very much to be lamented, that we have suffered so many of the Indian tribes already to extinguish, without our having previously collected and deposited in the records of literature, the general rudiments at least of the languages they spoke. Were vocabularies formed of all the languages spoken in North and South America, preserving their appellations of the most common objects in nature, of those which must be present to every nation barbarous or civilized, with the inflections of their nouns and verbs, their principles of regimen and concord, and these deposited in all the public libraries, it would furnish op-[182] portunities to those skilled in the languages of the old world to compare them with these, now, or at any future time, and hence to construct the best evidence of the derivation of this part of the human race.1

I will now proceed to state the nations and numbers of the Aborigines which still exist in a respectable and independent form. And as their undefined boundaries would render it difficult to specify those only which may be within any certain limits, and it may not be unacceptable to present a more general view of them, I will reduce within the form of a Catalogue all those within, and circumjacent to, the United States, whose names and numbers have come to my notice. These are taken from four different lists, the first of which was given in the year 1759 to General Stanwix by George Croghan, Deputy agent for Indian affairs under Sir William Johnson; the second was drawn up by a French trader of considerable note, resident among the Indians many years, and annexed to Colonel Bouquet’s printed account of his expedition in 1764. The third was made out by Captain [183] Hutchins, who visited most of the tribes, by order, for the purpose of learning their numbers in 1768; and the fourth by John Dodge, an Indian trader, in 1779, except the numbers marked*, which are from other information. [184]

But apprehending these might be different appellations for some of the tribes already enumerated,1 I have not inserted them in the table, but state them separately as worthy of further inquiry. The variations observable in numbering the same tribe may sometimes be ascribed to imperfect information, and sometimes to a greater or less comprehension of settlements under the same name. [191]

END OF VOLUME III

[1 ]In the edition of 1787 and subsequent ones the words following “so many little societies” are omitted, and a paragraph inserted as follows:

“This practice results from the circumstance of their having never submitted themselves to any laws, any coercive power, any shadow of government. Their only controls are their manners, and that moral sense of right and wrong, which, like the sense of tasting and feeling in every man, makes a part of his nature. An offence against these is punished by contempt, by exclusion from society, or, where the case is serious, as that of murder, by the individuals whom it concerns. Imperfect as this species of coercion may seem, crimes are very rare among them, insomuch that were it made a question, whether no law, as among the savage Americans, or too much law, as among the civilized Europeans, submits man to the greatest evil, one who has seen both conditions of existence would pronounce it to be the last; and that the sheep are happier of themselves, than under care of the wolves. It will be said, that great societies cannot exist without government. The savages, therefore, break them into small ones.”

[1 ]Smith.—T. J.

[2 ]Evans.—T. J.

[1 ]“As far as I have been able to learn, the country from the seacoast to the Alleghany, and from the most southern waters of James River, now in the State of Maryland, was occupied by three different nations of Indians, each of which spoke a different language, and were under separate and distinct governments. What the original or real names of those nations were, I have not been able to learn with certainty; but by us they are distinguished by the names of Powhatans, Mannahoacs, now commonly called Tuscaroras. The Powhatans, who occupied the country from the sea shore up to the falls of the rivers, were a powerful nation, and seem to have consisted of seven tribes, five on the western and two on the eastern shore. Each of these tribes was subdivided into towns, families, or clans, who lived together. All the nations of Indians in North America lived in the hunter state, and depended for subsistence on hunting, fishing, and the spontaneous fruits of the earth, and a kind of grain which was planted and gathered by the women, and is now known by the name of Indian corn. Long potatoes, pumpkins of various kinds, and squashes, were also found in use among them. They had no flocks, herds, or tamed animals of any kind. Their government is a kind of patriarchal confederacy. Every town or family has a chief, who is distinguished by a particular title, and whom we commonly call ‘Sachem.’ The several towns or families that compose a tribe, have a chief who presides over it, and the several tribes composing a nation have a chief who presides over the whole nation. These chiefs are generally men advanced in years, and distinguished by their prudence and abilities in council. The matters which merely regard a town or family are settled by the chief and principal men of the town; those which regard a tribe, such as the appointment of head warriors or captains, and settling differences between different towns and families, are regulated at a meeting or council of the chiefs from the several towns; and those which regard the whole nation, such as the making war, concluding peace, or forming alliances with the neighboring nations, are deliberated on and determined in a national council composed of the chiefs of the tribe, attended by the head warriors and a number of the chiefs from the towns, who are his counsellors. In every town there is a council house, where the chief and old men of the town assemble, when occasion requires, and consult what is proper to be done. Every tribe has a fixed place for the chiefs of the towns to meet and consult on the business of the tribe; and in every nation there is what they call the central council house, or central council fire, where the chiefs of the several tribes, with the principal warriors, convene to consult and determine on their national affairs. When any matter is proposed in the national council, it is common for the chiefs of the several tribes to consult thereon apart with their counsellors, and when they have agreed, to deliver the opinion of the tribe at the national council; and, as their government seems to rest wholly on persuasion, they endeavor, by mutual concessions, to obtain unanimity. Such is the government that still subsists among the Indian nations bordering upon the United States. Some historians seem to think, that the dignity of office of Sachem was hereditary. But that opinion does not appear to be well founded. The sachem or chief of the tribe seems to be by election. And sometimes persons who are strangers, and adopted into the tribe, are promoted to this dignity, on account of their abilities. Thus on the arrival of Captain Smith, the first founder of the colony of Virginia, Opechancanough, who was Sachem or chief of the Chickahominies, one of the tribes of the Powhatans, is said to have been of another tribe, and even of another nation, so that no certain account could be obtained of his origin or descent. The chiefs of the nation seem to have been by a rotation among the tribes. Thus when Captain Smith, in the year 1609, questioned Powhatan (who was the chief of the nation, and whose proper name is said to have been Wahunsonacock) respecting the succession, the old chief informed him, ‘that he was very old, and had seen the death of all his people thrice* ; that not one of these generations were then living except himself; that he must soon die, and the succession descend in order to his brother Opichapan, Opechancanough, and Catataugh, and then to his two sisters, and their two daughters.’ But these were appellations designating the tribes in the confederacy. For the persons named are not his real brothers, but the chiefs of different tribes. Accordingly in 1618, when Powhatan died, he was succeeded by Opichapan, and after his decease, Opechancanough became chief of the nation. I need only mention another instance to show that the chiefs of the tribes claimed this kindred with the head of the nation. In 1622, when Raleigh Crashaw was with Japazaw, the Sachem or chief of the Potomacs, Opechancanough, who had great power and influence, being the second man in the nation, and next in succession to Opichapan, and who was a bitter but secret enemy to the English, and wanted to engage his nation in a war with them, sent two baskets of beads to the Potomac chief, and desired him to kill the Englishman that was with him. Japazaw replied, that the English were his friends, and Opichapan his brother, and that therefore there should be no blood shed between them by his means. It is also to be observed, that when the English first came over, in all their conferences with any of the chiefs, they constantly heard him make mention of his brother, with whom he must consult, or to whom he referred them, meaning thereby either the chief of the nation, or the tribes in confederacy. The Manahoacks are said to have been a confederacy of four tribes, and in alliance with the Monacans, in the war which they were carrying on against the Powhatans.

“To the northward of these there was another powerful nation which occupied the country from the head of the Chesapeake bay up to the Kittatinney mountain, and as far eastward as Connecticut river, comprehending that part of New York which lies between the Highlands and the ocean, all the State of New Jersey, that part of Pennsylvania which is watered, below the range of the Kittatinney mountains, by the rivers or streams falling into the Delaware, and the county of Newcastle in the State of Delaware, as far as Duck creek. It is to be observed, that the nations of Indians distinguished their countries one from another by natural boundaries, such as ranges of mountains or streams of water. But as the heads of rivers frequently interlock, or approach near to each other, as those who live upon a stream claim the country watered by it, they often encroached on each other, and this is a constant source of war between the different nations. The nation occupying the tract of country last described, called themselves Lenopi. The French writers call them Loups; and among the English they are now commonly called Delawares. This nation or confederacy consisted of five tribes, who all spoke one language. 1. The Chihohocki, who dwelt on the west side of the river now called Delaware, a name which it took from Lord De la War, who put into it on his passage from Virginia in the year —, but which by the Indians was called Chihohocki. 2. The Wanami, who inhabit the country called New Jersey, from the Rariton to the sea. 3. The Munsey, who dwelt on the upper streams of the Delaware, from the Kittatinney mountains down to the Lehigh or western branch of the Delaware. 4. The Wabinga, who are sometimes called River Indians, sometimes Mohickanders, and who had their dwelling between the west branch of Delaware and Hudson’s river, from the Kittatinney Ridge down to the Rariton; and 5. The Mahiccon, or Manhattan, who occupied Staten Island, York Island (which from its being the principal seat of their residence was formerly called Manhattan), Long Island, and that part of New York and Connecticut which lies between Hudson and Connecticut rivers, from the highland, which is a continuation of the Kittatinney Ridge down to the Sound. This nation had a close alliance with the Shawanese, who lived on the Susquehanna and to the westward of that river, as far as the Alleghany mountains, and carried on a long war with another powerful nation or confederacy of Indians, which lived to the north of them between the Kittatinney mountains or highlands, and the Lake Ontario, and who call themselves Mingoes, and are called by the French writers Iroquois, by the English the Five Nations, and by the Indians to the southward, with whom they were at war, Massawomacs. This war was carrying on in its greatest fury, when Captain Smith first arrived in Virginia. The Mingo Warriors had penetrated down the Susquehannah to the mouth of it. In one of his excursions up the bay, at the mouth of the Susquehannah, in 1608, Captain Smith met with six or seven of their canoes full of warriors, who were coming to attack their enemies in the rear. In an excursion which he had made a few weeks before, up the Rappahannock, and in which he had a skirmish with a party of the Manahoacs, and taken a brother of one of their chiefs prisoner, he first heard of this nation. For when he asked the prisoner why his nation attacked the English? the prisoner said, because his nation had heard that the English came from under the world to take their world from them. Being asked, how many worlds he knew? he said, he knew but one, which was under the sky that covered him, and which consisted of Powhatans, the Manakins, and the Massawomacs. Being questioned concerning the latter, he said, they dwelt on a great water to the North, that they had many boats, and so many men, that they waged war with all the rest of the world. The Mingo confederacy then consisted of five tribes; three who are the elder, to wit, the Senecas, who live to the West, the Mohawks to the East, and the Onondagas between them; and two who are called the younger tribes, namely, the Cayugas and Oneidas. All these tribes speak one language, and were then united in a close confederacy, and occupied the tract of country from the east end of Lake Erie to Lake Champlain, and from the Kittatinney and Highlands to the Lake Ontario and the river Cadaraqui, or St. Lawrence. They had some time before that, carried on a war with a nation, who lived beyond the lakes, and were called Adirondacks. In this war they were worsted; but having made a peace with them, through the intercession of the French who were then settling Canada, they turned their arms against the Lenopi; and as this war was long and doubtful, they, in the course of it, not only exerted their whole force, but put in practice every measure which prudence or policy could devise to bring it to a successful issue. For this purpose they bent their course down the Susquehannah, and warring with the Indians in their way, and having penetrated as far as the mouth of it, they, by the terror of their arms, engaged a nation, now known by the name of Nanticocks, Conoys, and Tuteloes, and who lived between Chesapeake and Delaware bays, and bordering on the tribe of Chihohocki, to enter into an alliance with them. They also formed an alliance with the Monicans, and stimulated them to a war with the Lenopi and their confederates. At the same time the Mohawks carried on a furious war down the Hudson against the Mohiccons and River Indians, and compelled them to purchase a temporary and precarious peace, by acknowledging them to be their superiors, and paying an annual tribute. The Lenopi being surrounded with enemies, and hard pressed, and having lost many of their warriors, were at last compelled to sue for peace, which was granted to them on the condition that they should put themselves under the protection of the Mingoes, confine themselves to raising corn, hunting for the subsistence of their families, and no longer have the power of making war. This is what the Indians call making them women. And in this condition the Lenopi were when William Penn first arrived and began the settlement of Pennsylvania in 1682.”—Charles Thomson in Appendix.

[1 ]The os sacrum.—T. J.

[1 ]In the edition of 1853 a footnote is added as follows:

“The customs of burying the dead in burrows was anciently very prevalent. Homer describes the ceremony of raising one by the Greeks.

ἀμφ’ αὐτοϊσι δ’ ἔπειτα μέγαν ϰαὶ ἀμνμονα τύμβον
χεύαμεν Ἀργειων ἱερὸς στρατὸς αἰχμητάων
ἀϰτη ἔπι προύχούση, ἐπί πλατεῖ Ἐλλησπόντᾠ
꽥ς ϰεν τηλεφαυὴς ἐϰ ποντόφιν ἀνδράσιν εἴη
τοὶς, οἴ νῦν γεγάασι, ϰαὶ οἴ μετόϰισθεν ἔσονται.

“And Herodotus VII., 117, mentions an instance of the same practice in the army of Xerxes on the death of Artachæas.”

[1 ]“From the figurative language of the Indians, as well as from the practice of those we are still acquainted with, it is evident that it was and still continues to be, a constant custom among the Indians to gather up the bones of the dead, and deposit them in a particular place. Thus, when they make peace with any nation with whom they have been at war, after burying the hatchet, they take up the belt of wampum, and say, ‘We now gather up all the bones of those who have been slain, and bury them,’ &c. See all the treaties of peace. Besides, it is customary when any of them die at a distance from home, to bury them, and afterwards to come and take up the bones and carry them home. At a treaty which was held at Lancaster with the Six Nations, one of them died, and was buried in the woods a little distance from the town. Some time after a party came and took up the body, separated the flesh from the bones by boiling and scraping them clean, and carried them to be deposited in the sepulchres of their ancestors. The operation was so offensive and disagreeable, that nobody could come near them while they were performing it.”—Charles Thomson in Appendix.

[1 ]In the edition of 1853 is a footnote:

“In the notes on Virginia, the great diversity of languages appearing radically different, which are spoken by the red men of America, is supposed to authorize a supposition that their settlement is more remote than that of Asia by its red inhabitants; but it must be confessed that the mind finds it difficult to conceive that so many tribes have inhabited it from so remote an antiquity as would be necessary to have divided them into language so radically different. I will therefore hazard a conjecture as such, and only to be estimated at what it may be worth. We know that the Indians consider it as dishonorable to use any language but their own. Hence in their councils with us, though some of them may have been in situations which from convenience or necessity, have obliged them to learn our language well, yet they refuse to confer in it, and always insist on the intervention of an interpreter, though he may understand neither language so well as themselves; and this fact is as general as our knowledge of the tribes of North America. When therefore a fraction of a tribe from domestic feuds had broken off from its main body, to which it is held by no law or compact, and has gone to another settlement, may it not be the point of honor with them not to use the language of those with whom they have quarrelled, but to have one of their own. They have use but for few words, and possess but few. It would require but a small effort of the mind to invent these, and to acquire the habit of using them. Perhaps this hypothesis presents less difficulty than that of so many radically distinct languages, preserved by such handfuls of men, from an antiquity so remote that no data we possess will enable us to calculate it”

[1 ]In the edition of 1787, and subsequent ones, the following paragraph is inserted:

“But imperfect as is our knowledge of the tongues spoken in America, it suffices to discover the following remarkable fact* : Arranging them under the radical ones to which they may be palpably traced, and doing the same by those of the red men of Asia, there will be found probably twenty in America, for one in Asia, of those radical languages, so called because if they were ever the same they have lost all resemblance to one another. A separation into dialects may be the work of a few ages only, but for two dialects to recede from one another till they have lost all vestiges of their common origin, must require an immense course of time; perhaps not less than many people give to the age of the earth. A greater number of those radical changes of language having taken place among the red men of America, proves them of greater antiquity than those of Asia.”

[1 ]“The Osweàtchies, Connosedàgoes and Cohunnegagoes, or as they are commonly called, Caghnewàgos, are of the Mingo or Six Nation Indians, who, by the influence of the French missionaries, have been separated from their nation, and induced to settle there.

“I do not know of what nation the Augquàgahs are, but suspect they are a family of the Senecas.

“The Nanticocks and Conòies were formerly of a nation that lived at the head of Chesapeake bay, and who, of late years, have been adopted into the Mingo or Iroquois confederacy, and make a seventh nation. The Monacans or Tuscaroras, who were taken into the confederacy in 1712, making the sixth.

“The Saponies are families of the Wanamies, who removed from New-Jersey, and with the Mohiccons, Munsies, and Delawares, belonging to the Lenopi nation. The Mingos are a war colony from the Six Nations; so are the Cohunnewagos.

“Of the rest of the Northern tribes I never have been able to learn anything certain. But all accounts seem to agree in this, that there is a very powerful nation, distinguished by a variety of names taken from the several towns or families, but commonly called Tawas or Ottawas, who speak one language, and live round and on the waters that fall into the western lakes, and extend from the waters of the Ohio quite to the waters falling into Hudson’s bay.”—Charles Thomson in Appendix.

[*]This is one generation more than the poet ascribes to the life of Nestor:

- Τω̂ [Editor: illegible character] [Editor: illegible character]δη δύο μὲν γενεαὶ μερόπων ἀνθρώπων
- Εϕθία[Editor: illegible character] ̈́ι ο[Editor: illegible character] ω̂ρόσθ[Editor: illegible character]ν [Editor: illegible character]μα τράϕ[Editor: illegible character]ν ἠδ’ ἐγένοντο
- Ε[Editor: illegible character] Πύλῳ ἠγαθ[Editor: illegible character]η, μ[Editor: illegible character]τὰ δὲ τριτάτοἰσιν ἄνασσεν·
- II. Hom. II. 250.
- Two generations now had passed away,
- Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway;
- Two ages o’er his native realm he reign’d,
- And now th’ example of the third remained.
- Pope.

[*]“Mattere di Amer. Vesp. 81.—Ib. 11, 12, 4. Clavigero, 21.” Note in edition of 1853.

Home

The Forum

Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

The Library

Return to Title Page for The Works, vol. 3 (Notes on Virginia I, Correspondence 1780-1782)

The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

QUERY XI A description of the Indians established in that State? - Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 3 (Notes on Virginia I, Correspondence 1780-1782) [1905]

Edition used:

Part of: The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 12 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Copyright information:

Fair use statement:

QUERY XI A description of the Indians established in that State?

QUERY XI
A description of the Indians established in that State?