1 The annotations in brac s are by the Editor.
2 Between the words “if” and “what” insert “we can credit.”
3 A figurative expression, denoting the territory claimed by them, and occupied at the time.
4 Alluding to the white people settling those countries.
5 [The book referred to here and elsewhere frequently in the course of his narrative by the author, was written by the Rev. George Henry Loskiel, a clergyman of the Continental Province of the Moravian Church, and was published at Barby, Saxony, in 1789. It is entitled “Geschichte der Mission der Evangelischen Brüder unter den Indianern in Nordamerika,” and is a faithful record of the Christian work in which the Moravians engaged chiefly among the Lenape and Iroquois stocks of the aborigines, in the interval between 1735 and 1787. The material on which the author wrought in the preparation of his history was furnished mainly from the archives of his church at Herrnhut, to which duplicates of the missionaries’ journals were statedly forwarded. In this way he was enabled to produce a narrative which is marvellously accurate, even touching minor points of topography, despite the fact that the shifting scenes of his drama were laid in another hemisphere. The preface was written at Strickenhof, in Livonia, in May of 1788. In it Mr. Loskiel acknowledges his indebtedness for valuable assistance to the venerable Bishop Augustus G. Spangenberg, who had superintended the Moravian Mission in the New World in the interval between 1744 and 1762; and to the veteran missionary David Zeisberger, at that time still in its service. It was the latter who supplied the larger portion of the material relating to the history, traditions, manners, and customs of the North American Indians, found in the ten chapters introductory to the history of the Mission. This valuable work was translated into English by the Rev. Christian Ignatius Latrobe, of London, in 1793, and published there, in 1794, by “The Brethren’s Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel.” It is now a rare book. Having been consecrated a Bishop for the American Province of his Church in 1802, Mr. Loskiel came to this country, settled at Bethlehem, Pa., where he died in 1814.]
7 For “declaring at the same time” read “and declared afterwards.”
8 [John Christopher Pyrlæus was sent by the heads of the Moravian Church at Herrnhut, Saxony, to Bethlehem, Pa., in the autumn of 1741, to do service in the Indian Mission. Having assisted Count Zinzendorf, during his sojourn in the Province in 1742, in the work of the ministry among a portion of the German population of Philadelphia, we find him, in January of 1743, prosecuting the study of the Mohawk under the direction of Conrad Weiser, the provincial interpreter, at Tulpehocken, (near Womelsdorf, Berks County, Pa.) This was in view of fitting himself for the office of corresponding secretary of the Mission Board at Bethlehem, and for the duties of an evangelist among the Iroquois stock of Indians, to whom it was purposed by the Moravians to bring the Gospel. At the expiration of three months he returned to Bethlehem, and in the following June, accompanied by his wife, who was a daughter of John Stephen Benezet, a well-known merchant of Philadelphia, set out for the Mohawk country, his destination being the Mohawk castle of Canajoharie. Here he remained upwards of two months, in which interval of time he visited the remaining Mohawk castles, and by constant intercourse with the Indians strove assiduously to perfect himself in their language. Such was his progress then and subsequently, that in 1744 he felt himself competent to impart instruction in that important dialect of the Iroquois to several of his brethren at Bethlehem, who were training for missionaries. In 1748, while settled at Gnadenhütten, on the Mahoning, (Lehighton, Carbon County, Pa.,) he rendered similar service. Meanwhile he had acquired a knowledge of the Mohican, and in 1745 there appeared his first translations of German hymns into that tongue—the beginnings of a collection for use in Divine worship in the Mission churches. Eight of the eleven years of his stay in this country were mainly spent in labors of the kind just enumerated. Having been liberally educated, Mr. Pyrlæus was well qualified for the work in which he engaged. Several of his contributions to this novel department of philology, in manuscript, are deposited in the library of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Among these are essays on the grammatical structure of the Iroquois dialects, and a collection of notes on Indian traditions. The former Mr. Heckewelder names on a subsequent page, and from the latter he makes frequent extracts. In 1751 Mr. Pyrlæus sailed for England, where he was active in the ministry of his Church until his recall to Germany in 1770. He died at Herrnhut in 1785.]
9 [The passage referred to by Mr. Heckewelder is quoted in full by way of annotation on a subsequent page.]
10 [Norman’s Kill, named after Albert Andriese Bratt De Norman, an early settler of Beverwyck, rises in Schenectady County, has a south-east course of about twenty-eight miles, and empties into the Hudson, two miles south of Albany, in the town of Bethlehem. In records of 1677 it is called Bethlehem’s Kil. The Indian name of the stream was Tawalsantha. In the spring of 1617 the United New Netherlands Company erected a fort near the banks of Norman’s Kill, and in 1621 the Dutch made a solemn alliance and treaty of peace with the Five Nations, near its mouth.—Munsell’s Collections of the History of Albany. Albany, 1870.]
11 For “Mohicans” read “Lenape.”
12 [”The History of the Five Indian Nations depending on the Province of New York in America, by Cadwallader Colden.” The first edition of this rare book was dedicated by the author to his Excellency, William Burnet, Esq., and was printed and sold by William Bradford in New York, 1727. Colden emigrated from Scotland in 1708, and first settled in Pennsylvania, engaging in the practice of medicine. Removing to New York in 1718, he was some time surveyor-general, subsequently a member of the King’s Council, and in 1761 commissioned Lieutenant-Governor of the Province. This commission he held at the time of his death at his seat on Long Island, in September of 1776.]
13 [The proceedings of these conferences and treaties with the Indians are spread upon the minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, which were authorized to be printed by the Act of Legislature of April 4th, 1837, and published subsequently in seven volumes. They are known as “The Colonial Records.”]
14 At a Treaty, at Easton, in July and November, 1756.
15 [Should be Thomson.]
16 Loskiel’s History, Part I., ch. 10.
17 The Iroquois were at that time a confederacy of only Five Nations; they became Six afterwards when they were joined by the Tuscaroras.
18 Meaning, that the Five Nations would assist the white people in getting the country of their enemies, the Delawares, &c., to themselves.
19 Loskiel, Part I., ch. 10.
20 [The Indian converts attached to the Moravian Mission, whom Mr. Heckewelder invariably designates “Christian Indians” throughout his history. The Moravian Indians at this date were settled with their missionaries in three towns on the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum (now the Tuscarawas River), all within the limits of the present Tuscarawas County, Ohio.]
21 Loskiel, Part III., ch. 9.
22 The proper name is Wtáwas, the W is whistled.
23 [In the summer of 1794, Gen. Wayne moved an army into the Ohio country, and on the 20th of August defeated the confederated Indians near the rapids of the Maumee, or Miami of the Lake. The result of this campaign was a treaty of peace, which was ratified at Greenville, the present county seat of Darke County, Ohio, in August of 1795, between the United States Government, represented by Wayne, and the Shawanese, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Potawattomies, Miamis and smaller tribes, at which treaty about two-thirds of the present state of Ohio was ceded to the United States.]
24 [The missionary David Zeisberger, in a collection of Delaware vocables incorporated in “An Essay of a Delaware and English Spelling Book for the use of the Schools of the Christian Indians on the Muskingum River,” printed at Philadelphia, by Henry Miller, in 1776, defines Lennilenape, “Indians of the same nation.”]
25 Colden.
26 La Hontan.
27 The Dutch called them Mahikanders; the French Mourigans, and Mahingans; the English, Mohiccons, Mohuccans, Mohegans, Muhheekanew, Schatikooks, River Indians.
28 “Night’s encampment” is a halt of one year at a place.
29 The Mississippi, or River of Fish; Namæs, a Fish; Sipu, a River.
30 The Iroquois, or Five Nations.
31 [Col. John Gibson, to whom Mr. Heckewelder frequently alludes, was born at Lancaster, Pa., in 1740. At the age of eighteen, he made his first campaign under Gen. Forbes, in the expedition which resulted in the acquisition of Fort Du Quesne from the French. At the peace of 1763 he settled at that post (Fort Pitt) as a trader. Some time after this, on the resumption of hostilities with the savages, he was captured by some Indians, among whom he lived several years, and thus became familiar with their language, manners, customs, and traditions. In the expedition against the Shawanese under Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, in 1774, Gibson played a conspicuous part. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, he was appointed to the command of one of the Continental regiments raised in Virginia, and served with the army at New York and in the retreat through New Jersey. He was next employed in the Western department, serving under Gen. McIntosh in 1778, and under Gen. Irvine in 1782. At one time he was in command at Pittsburgh. In 1800 Col. Gibson was appointed Secretary and acting Governor of the territory of Indiana, a position which he filled for a second time between 1811 and 1813. Subsequently he was Associate Judge of Allegheny County, Pa. He died near Pittsburgh in 1822. He was an uncle of the late John B. Gibson, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania between 1827 and 1851.]
32 Loskiel’s History of the Mission of the United Brethren, Part I., ch. I.
33 [In 1789 Mr. Heckewelder, accompanied by Abraham Steiner, (subsequently a missionary to the Cherokees of Georgia,) visited the mission at New Salem, on the Petquotting, (now the Huron,) in Erie County, Ohio, on business relating to the survey of a tract of land on the Tuscarawas, which Congress had conveyed to the Moravians in trust for their Indians. This was to indemnify them for losses incurred at their settlements during the border-war of the Revolution.]
34 The Glades, that is to say that they crossed the mountains.
35 Meaning the river Susquehannah, which they call “the great Bay River,” from where the west branch falls into the main stream.
36 The word “Hittuck,” in the language of the Delawares, means a rapid stream; “Sipo,” or “Sipu,” is the proper name for a river.
37 [The Indians of this town proved troublesome neighbors to a small company of Moravians, who, in the spring of 1740, were employed by Whitefield to erect a large dwelling near its site, which he designed for a school for negroes. The town lay near the centre of a tract of 5,000 acres (now Upper Nazareth township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania), which Whitefield bought of William Allen, which he named Nazareth, and which, in 1741, he conveyed to the Moravians. Captain John and his clan of Delawares vacated their plantation in the autumn of 1742, and in the following year, the Moravians commenced their first settlement, and named it Nazareth. Whitefield’s house is still standing.]
38 Loskiel, part I., ch. 10.
39 The Reverend C. Pyrlæus, a pupil of Conrad Weiser, of whom he learned the Mohawk language, and who was afterwards stationed on the Mohawk River, as a Missionary, has, in a manuscript book, written between the years 1742 and 1748, page 235, the following note which he received from a principal chief of that nation, viz.: “The Five Nations formerly did eat human flesh; they at one time ate up a whole body of the French King’s soldiers; they say, Eto niocht ochquari; which is: Human flesh tastes like bear’s meat. They also say, that the hands are not good eating, they are yozgarat, bitter.”
Aged French Canadians have told me, many years since, while I was at Detroit, that they had frequently seen the Iroquois eat the flesh of those who had been slain in battle, and that this was the case in the war between the French and English, commonly called the war of 1756.
At a treaty held at the Proprietors house in Philadelphia, July 5th, 1742, with the Six Nations, none of the Senecas attended; the reason of their absence being asked, it was given for answer, “that there was a famine in their country, and that a father had been obliged to kill two of his children, to preserve the lives of the remainder of the family.” See Colden’s History of the Five Nations, part II., page 52. See also the minutes of that treaty, printed at Philadelphia, by B. Franklin, in 1743, p. 7, in the Collection of Indian Treaties in the library of the American Philosophical Society.
40 Loskiel, part I., ch. 1.
41 The Rev. C. Pyrlæus, in his manuscript book, page 234, says: “The alliance or confederacy of the Five Nations was established, as near as can be conjectured, one age (or the length of a man’s life) before the white people (the Dutch) came into the country. Thannawage was the name of the aged Indian, a Mohawk, who first proposed such an alliance.” He then gives the names of the chiefs of the Five Nations, which at that time met and formed the alliance, viz.: “Toganawita, of the Mohawks; Otatschéchta, of the Oneidas; Tatotarho, of the Onondagos; Togaháyon, of the Cayugas; Ganiatariò and Satagarùyes, from two towns of the Senecas, &c.,” and concludes with saying: “All these names are forever to be kept in remembrance, by naming a person in each nation after them,” &c., &c.
42 Loskiel, part I., ch. 10.
43 Loskiel, part I., ch. 10.
44 Ibid.
45 [The following is the passage from Loskiel, which that historian copied from David Zeisberger’s “Collection of Notes on the Indians,” compiled by the missionary during his residence in the valley of the Tuscarawas, about 1778. “According to the account of the Delawares, they were always too powerful for the Iroquois, so that the latter were at length convinced that if they continued the war, their total extirpation would be inevitable. They therefore sent the following message to the Delawares: ‘It is not profitable that all the nations should be at war with each other, for this will at length be the ruin of the whole Indian race. We have therefore considered a remedy by which this evil may be prevented. One nation shall be the woman. We will place her in the midst, and the other nations who make war shall be the man, and live around the woman. No one shall touch or hurt the woman, and if any one does it, we will immediately say to him, “Why do you beat the woman?” Then all the men shall fall upon him who has beaten her. The woman shall not go to war, but endeavor to keep peace with all. Therefore, if the men that surround her beat each other, and the war be carried on with violence, the woman shall have the right of addressing them, “Ye men, what are ye about? why do you beat each other? We are almost afraid. Consider that your wives and children must perish, unless you desist. Do you mean to destroy yourselves from the face of the earth?” The men shall then hear and obey the woman.’ The Delawares add, that, not immediately perceiving the intention of the Iroquois, they submitted to be the woman. The Iroquois then appointed a great feast, and invited the Delaware nation to it; when, in consequence of the authority given them, they made a solemn speech containing three capital points. The first was, that they declared the Delaware nation to be the woman in the following words: 'We dress you in a woman’s long habit, reafilled ching down to your feet, and adorn you with ear-rings;’ meaning that they should no more take up arms. The second point was thus expressed: ‘We hang a calabash with oil and medicine upon your arm. With the oil you shall cleanse the ears of the other nations, that they may attend to good and not to bad words, and with the medicine you shall heal those who are walking in foolish ways, that they may return to their senses and incline their hearts to peace.’ The third point, by which the Delawares were exhorted to make agriculture their future employ and means of subsistence, was thus worded: 'We deliver into your hands a plant of Indian corn and a hoe.’ Each of these points was confirmed by delivering a belt of wampum, and these belts have been carefully laid up, and their meaning frequently repeated.
“The Iroquois, on the contrary, assert that they conquered the Delawares, and that the latter were forced to adopt the defenceless state and appellation of a woman to avoid total ruin.
“Whether these different accounts be true or false, certain it is that the Delaware nation has ever since been looked to for preservation of peace, and entrusted with the charge of the great belt of peace and chain of friendship, which they must take care to preserve inviolate. According to the figurative explanation of the Indians, the middle of the chain of friendship is placed upon the shoulder of the Delaware, the rest of the Indian nations holding one end and the Europeans the other.”]
46 [The Life and Times of David Zeisberger, the Western Pioneer and Apostle to the Indians, by Edmund de Schweinitz, Phila., 1870, reviews the Moravian mission among the North American Indians from its beginnings to recent times, besides very fully portraying the career of the veteran missionary, who spent upwards of sixty years of his life as an evangelist to the Indians, thirty-six of which were passed within the limits of the present State of Ohio. He died on the 17th of November, 1808, at Goshen, on the Tuscarawas, in the 88th year of his age. Zeisberger, in the course of his long life in the Indian country, mastered the Delaware and the Onondaga of the Iroquois, into the former of which he made translations of a number of devotional books, while he studied both critically, as his literary efforts in that direction, partly published and partly in MS., amply testify.]
47 Mr. Proud, in his History of Pennsylvania, relates that, some time after the establishment of William Penn’s government, the Indians used to supply the family of one John Chapman, whose descendants still reside in Bucks County, with all kinds of provisions, and mentions an affecting instance of their kindness to that family. Abraham and John Chapman, twin children about nine or ten years old, going out one evening to seek their cattle, met an Indian in the woods, who told them to go back, else they would be lost. They took his advice and went back, but it was night before they got home, where they found the Indian, who had repaired thither out of anxiety for them. And their parents, about that time, going to the yearly meeting at Philadelphia, and leaving a young family at home, the Indians came every day to see whether anything was amiss among them. Such (says Proud) in many instances was the kind treatment of the Aborigines of this country to the English in their first and early settlement. Proud’s Hist., Vol. I., pp. 223, 224.
48 [For “Easton in Pennsylvania,” read Philadelphia. Easton, the county-seat of Northampton County, was laid out in the spring of 1752.]
49 For “1742,” read “and November, 1756.” [The latter was held at Easton.]
50 [The so-called French and Indian war, the fourth and last of the inter-colonial wars, which originated in disputes between the French and English concerning territorial claims, and which, after a seven years’ contest, resulted in establishing the supremacy of the latter over the civilized portions of North America.]
51 [The Conestogas remained on their ancestral seats, near the mouth of the Conestoga, in Manor township, Lancaster County, Penna., long after the other Indians on the Susquehanna had been crowded by the advance of civilization beyond Shamokin. Here the remnant of this tribe was fallen upon by Scotch-Irish partizans of Paxton township (now within the limits of Dauphin County) in December of 1763, all that were at the settlement killed, and their cabins burnt to the ground. Ten days later, the remainder of this inoffensive people, who had been lodged in the jail at Lancaster, were inhumanly butchered by the same band of lawless frontiersmen. In Heckewelder’s “Narrative of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians,” there is a statement by an eye-witness, touching the last scene in this bloody tragedy.]
52 [White Eyes, alias Koquethagachton, a celebrated captain and counsellor of the Delawares of the Ohio country, was first met by Heckewelder at his home, near the mouth of the Beaver (above Pittsburg), when the latter was on his way to the Tuscarawas, in the spring of 1762. When Zeisberger entered the valley of that river, in 1772, and built Schönbrunn, the chieftain was residing six miles below Gekelemukpechunk, the then capital of his nation, in the present Oxford township, Coshocton County. In Dunmore’s war, as well as in the war of the Revolution, White Eyes strove strenuously to keep the Delawares neutral. Failing in this in the latter contest, and seeing himself necessitated to take sides, he declared for the Americans, joined Gen. McIntosh’s command, but died at Fort Laurens, on the Tuscarawas, in November of 1778, before the projected expedition, which was aimed at the Sandusky towns, moved. White Eyes was a warm friend of the Moravian mission, and was deeply interested in the progress of his people in the arts of civilized life.]
53 Indian chiefs, in their public speeches, always speak on behalf of their nation in the singular number and in the first person, considering themselves, in a manner, as its representatives.
54 [In August of 1779, Col. Daniel Brodhead, then commandant of Fort Pitt, moved with some troops up the Allegheny, and in the forks of that river destroyed several settlements, inhabited by Monsey and Seneca Indians. “The Delawares,” he writes in his report to the War Department, “are ready to follow me wherever I go.”]
55 Loskiel, part II., ch. 8.
56 Henry Hudson, a British navigator and discoverer in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, sailed from Amsterdam in command of the Half Moon, in April of 1609, in search of a north-eastern passage. Foiled by the ice in the higher latitudes, he turned southwards, and in September anchored in New York bay.
57 Dele “in which.”
58 Hackhack is properly a gourd; but since they have seen glass bottles and decanters, they call them by the same name.
59 These Dutchmen were probably acquainted with what is related of Queen Dido in ancient history, and thus turned their classical knowledge to a good account.
60 The Hollanders.
61 Manhattan, or New York Island.
62 For “Delawares” read “Mohicans.”
63 An Indian corruption of the word English, whence probably the nickname Yankees.
64 This word means “a cluster of islands with channels every way, so that it is in no place shut up or impassable for craft.” The Indians think that the white people have corrupted this word into Massachusetts. It deserves to be remarked as an example of the comprehensiveness of the Indian languages.
65 The Delaware river. I have said above, p. 51, that Hittuck means a rapid stream. I should have added that it means so only when placed at the end of another word, and used as a compound. Singly, it signifies a tree.
66 The Swedes and Dutch.
67 William Penn.
68 Land traders and speculators.
69 Easton, Northampton County, Pa.
70 This actually took place at a treaty held at Easton in July and November, 1756.
71 Council house here means “Connexion District.”
72 Pulling the council house down. Destroying, dispersing the community, preventing their further intercourse with each other, by settling between them on their land.
73 Putting the fire out. Murdering them or their people, where they assemble for pacific purposes, where treaties are held, &c.
74 Our own blood. The blood flowing from the veins of some of our community.
75 Alluding to the murder of the Conestogo Indians, who, though of another tribe, yet had joined them in welcoming the white people to their shores.
In a narrative of this lamentable event, supposed to have been written by the late Dr. Franklin, it is said: “On the first arrival of the English in Pennsylvania, messengers from this tribe came to welcome them with presents of venison, corn, and skins, and the whole tribe entered into a treaty of friendship with the first proprietor, William Penn, which was to last as long as the sun should shine, or the waters run in the rivers.”
76 The fire was entirely extinguished by the blood of the murdered running into it; not a spark was left to kindle a new fire. This alludes to the last fire that was kindled by the Pennsylvania government and themselves at Lancaster, where the last treaty was held with them in 1762, the year preceding this murder, which put an end to all business of the kind in the province of Pennsylvania.
77 The great Swamp. The Glades on the Allegheny mountains.
78 Delamattenos. The Hurons or Wyandots, whom they call their uncle. These, though speaking a dialect of the Iroquois language, are in connexion with the Lenape.
79 For “1787” read “1781.”
80 [These were the words of a war-chief of the Delawares, Pachgantschihilas by name, in the course of an address to the Moravian Indians at Gnadenhütten, in which he sought to persuade them to remove from their exposed position on the Tuscarawas to a place of safety among the Wyandots of the Maumee.]
81 For “us” read “them.”
82 [The massacre of Moravian Indians at Gnadenhütten was perpetrated on the 8th of March, 1782, by militia led by Col. David Williamson, of Washington County, Pa. The details of this atrocious affair are very minutely given by De Schweinitz in The Life and Times of David Zeisberger. While such of the borderers as had suffered from Indian forays sought to extenuate the deplorable transaction, it was at the same time made the subject of an investigation at the head-quarters of the department. With what result, however, is inferable from the following extract from a letter written by Gen. Irvine to His Excellency William Moore, President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, and dated Fort Pitt, May 9, 1782:—“Since my letter of the 3d inst. to your excellency, Mr. Pentecost and Mr. Cannon have been with me. They, and every intelligent person whom I have consulted with on the subject, are of opinion that it will be almost impossible ever to obtain a just account of the conduct of the militia at Muskingum. No man can give any account, except some of the party themselves; if, therefore, an inquiry should appear serious, they are not obliged, nor will they give evidence. For this and other reasons, I am of opinion farther inquiry into the matter will not only be fruitless, but in the end may be attended with dangerous consequences. A volunteer expedition is talked of against Sandusky, which, if well conducted, may be of great service to this country, if they behave well on this occasion. It may also in some measure atone for the barbarity they are charged with at Muskingum. They have consulted me, and shall have every countenance in my power, if their numbers, arrangements, &c., promise a prospect of success.” MS. in the Irvine Collection.]
[The following is a letter from Col. John Gibson, to the Right Rev. Nathaniel Seidel, senior Bishop of the Moravian Church at Bethlehem, dated Fort Pitt, May 9, 1782.
“Sir:—Your letter by Mr. Shebosh of the 11th ult., came safe to hand. I am happy to find that the few small services I rendered to the gentlemen of your society in this quarter, meet with the approbation of you and every other worthy character.
“Mr. Shebosh will be able to give you a particular account of the late horrid massacre perpetrated at the towns on Muskingum, by a set of men the most savage miscreants that ever degraded human nature. Had I have known of their intention before it was too late, I should have prevented it by informing the poor sufferers of it.
“I am in hopes in a few days to be able to send you a more particular account than any that has yet transpired, as I hope to obtain the deposition of a person who was an eye-witness of the whole transaction, and disapproved of it. Should any accounts come to hand from Mr. Zeisberger, or the other gentlemen of your society, you may depend on my transmitting them to you. Please present my compliments to Mr. William Henry, Jr., &c.
83 [For a full account of this exodus, the reader is referred to a paper entitled “Wyalusing and the Moravian Mission at Friedenshütten,” by W. C. Reichel, in Part 5 (1871) of the Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society.]
84 For “Mouseys” read “Monseys.”
85 For “1768, about six,” read “1772, a few.”
86 Loskiel, part III., ch. 12.
87 [Pilgerruh on the Cuyahoga, within the limits of what is now Independence township, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, was the seat of the mission during the time of the dispersion in the interval between May of 1786, and April of 1787.]
88 General John Gibson thinks that Sawano is their proper name; they are so called by the other Indian nations, from their being a southern people. Shawaneu, in the Lenape language, means the south; Shawanachau,89 the south wind, &c. We commonly call them the Shawanese.
89 For “Shawanachau” read “Shawanachan.”
90 The Shawanos call the Mohicans their elder brother.
91 Loskiel, part II., ch. 10.
92 While these people lived at Wyoming and in its vicinity, they were frequently visited by missionaries of the Society of the United Brethren, who, knowing them to be the most depraved and ferocious tribe of all the Indian nations they had heard of, sought to establish a friendship with them, so as not to be interrupted in their journies from one Indian Mission to another. Count Zinzendorf being at that time in the country, went in 1742 with some other missionaries to visit them at Wyoming, stayed with them 20 days, and endeavoured to impress the gospel truths upon their minds; but these hardened people, suspecting his views, and believing that he wanted to purchase their land, on which it was reported there were mines of silver, conspired to murder him, and would have effected their purpose, but that Conrad Weiser, the Indian interpreter, arrived fortunately in time to prevent it. (Loskiel, part II., ch. 1.) Notwithstanding this, the Brethren frequently visited them, and Shehellemus, a chief of great influence, having become their friend (Loskiel, ibid., ch. 8), they could now travel with greater safety. He died at Shamokin in 1749; the Brethren were, however, fortunate enough to obtain the friendship of Paxnos or Paxsinos, another chief of the Shawanos, who gave them full proof of it by sending his sons to escort one of them to Bethlehem from Shamokin, where he was in the most perilous situation, the war having just broke out. (Loskiel, ibid., ch. 12.)