Читать книгу The History of Orange County New York - Группа авторов - Страница 7

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Among the surprises experienced by Columbus and the explorers who sailed up and down the coast of North America soon after his great discovery, were the characteristics of the newly-found race of native Indians. Their tribal differences were comparatively slight, and although uncivilized, many of them exhibited traits which indicated a remote ancestry above savagery, and caused speculation which has not yet ceased.

Hendrick Hudson, from whom the magnificent Hudson River takes its name, has given us in his journal the first information about the tribes at its mouth and along its shores. Sailing from Amsterdam in the ship Half-Moon in 1609, he first landed near Portland, [fn] Me., on July 19th. Thence he sailed south to Chesapeake Bay, thence north to Delaware Bay, and thence to Sandy Hook, anchoring, probably off Coney Island, September 3d. Here and on the New Jersey coast Indians came to the ship in canoes, and bartered green corn and dried currants for knives, beads and articles of clothing. He wrote that they behaved well, but when he sent out a boat on the 6th to explore the Narrows, his men were attacked by twenty-six natives in two canoes, who killed one of his crew with an arrow and wounded two others. On September 11th he sailed through the Narrows and found a good protected harbor. Here his ship was again visited by many natives, who brought Indian corn, tobacco and oysters for barter, and displayed copper pipes, copper ornaments, and earthen pots for cooking.

[fn] To avoid circumlocution present names will be generally used to indicate localities.

Hudson started on his voyage up the river September 12th, and began his return September 22d. His ship stopped near the present city of Hudson, but he proceeded much farther in a small boat—as far, it is supposed, as Albany. About 25 miles below Albany an aged chief entertained him hospitablv, and the Indians offered in barter tobacco and beaver skins. Here the Indians of the Hudson, and probably of all North America, first tested the white man's liquor. Hudson gave them some to see how they would act under its influence. Only one drank enough to become intoxicated, and when he fell down in a stupor the others were alarmed, but after he became sober the next day their alarm ceased, and they manifested a friendly spirit. This was on the east side of the river. Below the Highlands on the west side the natives were of a different disposition, and shot arrows at the crew from points of land. For this they were punished by Hudson's men, who returned their fire and killed about a dozen of them. Hudson's journal says that above the Highlands "they found a very loving people and very old men, and were well used." One of his anchoring places had been the bay at Newburgh, and here he wrote prophetically: "This is a very pleasant place to build a town on," and the handsome and prosperous City of Newburgh shows that he judged well. At this point many more Indians boarded the ship, and did a brisk business in exchanging skins for knives and ornamental trifles.

At several anchorages the Indians brought green corn to Hudson's ship, and it was one of the agreeable surprises of the crew at their meals. Corn was generally cultivated by the Hudson River tribes, and grew luxuriantly. Ruttenber says it was long supposed to be native, but investigation shows it was transplanted from a foreign shore. It is certain that the early explorers knew nothing of it until it was brought to them by the Indians, and that it had been cultivated by the latter from immemorial times.

Hudson wrote that some of the Indians whom he met along the river wore mantles of feathers and good furs, and that women came to the ship with hemp, having red copper tobacco pipes and copper neck ornaments. Verrazano, who sailed along the North American coast 33 years after Hudson's expedition, said the Indians were dressed out in feathers of birds of various colors. He mentioned "two kings" who came aboard his ship in Narragansett Bay as "more beautiful in stature than can possibly be described," and characterized them as types of their race. One wore a deerskin around his body artificially wrought in damask colors. His hair was tied back in knots, and around his neck was a chain with stones of different colors. The natives who accompanied the chiefs were of middle stature, broad across the breast, strong in the arms and well formed. A little later Roger Williams was welcomed as a friend by an old chief, Canonnieus, and his nephew, and he described the Indians who accompanied them as of larger size than the whites, with tawny complexions, sharp faces, black hair, and mild, pleasant expressions. The women were graceful and beautiful, with fine countenances, and of modest appearance and manner. They wore no clothing, except ornamental deer skins, like those of the men, but some had rich lynx skins on their arms, and various ornaments on their heads composed of braids of hair which hung upon their breasts. These Indians were generous in their disposition, "giving away whatever they had."

Later the Indians were classed from language into two general divisions—the Algonquins and the Iroquois—terms given them by the Jesuit missionaries. The Iroquois occupied central and western New York, including the Mohawk River, the headwaters of the Delaware, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. The Algonquins included all the Indians of Eastern New York, Eastern Canada, New England, New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, and Eastern Virginia. Several tribes in the west Hudson River counties constituted the Lenni-Lenape nation, which held its council fires on the site of Philadelphia. Some of their names were Waoranecks, Haverstroos, Minisinks and Waranawonkongs. When Hudson came the Lenapes were the head of the Algonquin nations, but wars with the Iroquois and the whites so weakened them that they became the subjects of the Iroquois confederacy for eighty years previous to 1755. Then they rebelled, allied themselves with other tribes, became the head of the western nations and successfully contested nearly all the territory west of the Mississippi. During the period of their subservience they were known as the Delawares. The Mohawks were the most eastern nation of the Iroquois, and were called Maquas by the Dutch, and a branch on the Delaware, Minquas. The Iroquois, first known as the Five Nations, later received the Tuscaroras of North Carolina, who removed to New York, and with the Cherokees and other southern Indians became the sixth nation of that great Indian confederacy, to which they also were related by language.

Both the Algonquin and Iroquois confederacies were divided into tribes and sub-tribes of families, each with a head who was the father or founder. These combined for mutual defense and the heads elected one of their number chief sachem, regarding themselves as a nation to make laws, negotiate treaties, and engage in wars, the wars being mostly between the Algonquins and Iroquois.

The Esopus Indians occupied parts of Orange and Ulster Counties, and their war dances were held on the Dans Kamer, a high promontory north of Newburgh. Their rule extended to other families east and west of the Hudson, but their territory cannot be clearly defined.

Regarding Indian character, there have been presented by our historians some contrasting but not wholly irreconcilable views. E. M. Ruttenber, in his valuable contribution to the History of Ulster County, edited by Hon. A. T. Clearwater, says:

"When they were discovered the race had wrought out unaided a development far in advance of any of the old barbaric races of Europe. They were still in the age of stone, but entering upon the age of iron. Their implements were mainly of stone and flint and bone, yet they had learned the art of making copper pipes and ornaments. This would rank their civilization about with that of the Germans in the days of Tacitus (about the year 200 A.D.). They had, unaided by the civilization of Europe, made great progress. They had learned to weave cloth out of wild hemp and other grasses, and to extract dyes from vegetable substances; how to make earthen pots and kettles; how to make large water casks from the bark of trees, as well as the lightest and fleetest canoes; had passed from the cave to the dwelling house; had established the family relation and democratic forms of government; their wives were the most faithful, their young women the most brilliant in paint and garments and robes of furs; they carved figures on stone, and wrote the story of their lives in hieroglyphics, of which some of the finest specimens in America are preserved in the senate house in Kingston; and most remarkable of all, and that which carries back their chronology to a period that cannot be defined, they had developed spoken languages that were rich in grammatical forms, differing radically from any of the ancient and modern languages of the old hemisphere, languages which were surely ingenious, and of which it was said by the most expert philologists of Europe that they were among 'the most expressive languages, dead or living.' . . . They were savages or barbarians, as you may please to call them, men who wrote their vengeance in many scenes of blood, the recital of which around the firesides of the pioneers became more terrifying by repetition; nevertheless they were representatives of a race whose civilization, though it was 1200 years behind our own, had no faults greater than were found in the races from which we boast our lineage."

In Samuel Eager's "History of Orange County," published in 1846-7, are found statements presenting a different conception of Indian qualities. It says:

"The Indian character in this State is well known, and we have no reason to believe that the character of the Indians of Orange was materially different. If you know one you know the general character of those who compose his wigwam, and knowing this you know that of his tribe. They are all alike—dirty, slothful and indolent, trustworthy and confiding in their friendships, while fierce and revengeful under other circumstances. Their good will and enmity are alike easily purchased. All have the war dance before starting upon and after returning from the warpath, and bury the dead standing, with their instruments. Their known rule of warfare is an indiscriminate massacre of men, women and children, and they are cruel to their captives, whom they usually slay with the tomahawk or burn up at the stake. They believe in a future state of rewards and punishments, and sacrifice to a Good Spirit—an unknown god. We have the testimony of Hendrick Hudson that the Indians above the Highlands were kind and friendly to him and his crew, and the more so the further they proceeded up the river. This, we presume, related to those on both sides of the river, though below the Highlands they were of a more hostile character. We have understood, as coming from the early settlers, who first located in Westchester and Dutchess and afterwards removed here, as many of them did, that the impression was very general that the Indians on that side of the river were less hostile and more friendly to the white settlers than those on the west; and this was given as a reason for settling there, which accounts in some measure for the earlier settlement of that side of the river. We infer, from the absence of written accounts of anything very peculiar or different in the habits and customs of the Indians of the county from others in the State, and from the poverty of tradition in this respect that there were no such peculiar differences, but they were similar and identical with those of the heathen Indians at Onondaga and Buffalo before modified and changed by white association."

These somewhat contradictory views of the Indian race seem to be a little too sweeping on both sides, they being neither so good nor so bad as represented. The native Indians have been both kind and cruel to one another and the whites. Their instincts are not unlike those of civilized peoples, but there are less control and restraint in savagery than civilization. Their tribal differences of conduct towards the whites depended less upon natural disposition than leadership and provocations. Vindictiveness towards real or fancied enemies seems to have prevailed everywhere among the North American tribes, and this was undoubtedly increased towards the whites by the latter's aggressions and by the former's indulgence in the intoxicants furnished them by their white neighbors. But cruelty is ingrained in the barbarian character almost everywhere, and often is manifested in communities called civilized. The tortures of the middle ages in the name of religion were as painful as those inflicted in the eighteenth century by our Indians, and both seem almost impossible to the philanthropist of to-day. Not until minds have been softened by such teachings as those of the Founder of Christianity, and extremes of bigotry have given place to tolerance and charity, is the natural disposition of the average man to give pain to antagonists dissipated.

There has been no more intellectual nation among the aborigines of America than the Senecas of Western New York—the most original and determined of the confederated Iroquois—but its warriors were cruel like the others, and their squaws often assisted the men in torturing their captives. When Boyd and Parker were captured in the Genesee Valley in the Sullivan campaign of 1779, Brant, the famous half-breed chief, assured them that they would not be injured, yet left them in the hands of Little Beard, another chief, to do with as he would, and the prolonged tortures to which he and his savage companions subjected them were horrible. After they had been stripped and tied to trees, and tomahawks were thrown so as to just graze their heads, Parker was unintentionally hit so that his head was severed from his body, but Boyd was made to suffer lingering miseries. His ears were cut off, his mouth enlarged with knives and his severed nose thrust into it, pieces of flesh were cut from his shoulders and other parts of his body, an incision was made in his abdomen and an intestine fastened to the tree, when he was scourged to make him move around it, and finally as he neared death, was decapitated, and his head raised on a pole.

Similar tortures were not uncommon among both the Iroquois and Algonquins when they made captives of the whites.

Returning to the Lenni-Lenape of the Hudson River's western lands, there is in Eager's history an account by a Delaware Indian of the reception and welcome by the Indians of the first Europeans who came to their country—on York Island—which is here condensed.

Some Indians out fishing at a place where the sea widens saw something remarkably large floating on the water at a great distance, which caused much wondering speculation among them. The sight caused great excitement, and as it approached news was sent to scattered chiefs. They fancied that it was a great house in which the Mannitto (Great Spirit) was coming to visit them. Meat for sacrifices and victuals were prepared. Conjurors were set to work, and runners were sent out. The latter soon reported that it was a great house full of human beings. When it came near it stopped, and a canoe came from it containing men, one elegantly dressed in red. This man saluted them with a friendly countenance, and, lost in admiration, the Indians returned his salute. They saw that he glittered with gold lace and had a white skin. He poured something from a gourd into a cup, drank from it, filled it again, and handed it to a chief. It is passed around, and the chiefs smell of it, but do not drink. At last a resolute chief jumps up and harangues the others, saying that they ought to drink, as the Mannitto had done, and he would dare to drink, although it might kill him, as it was better that one man should be destroyed than that a whole nation should die. Then he drank, soon began to stagger, and finally fell to the ground. He fell asleep, and his companions thinking that he was dead, began to bemoan his fate. But he awoke, and declared that he had never before felt so happy as when he drank from the white man's cup. He asked for more, which was given him, and the whole assembly imitated him and became intoxicated. After they became sober they were given presents of beads, axes, hoes and stockings. Then the Dutch made them understand that they would not stay, but would come again in a year, bring more presents, and would then want a little land. They returned the next season, began cultivating the grounds and kept bargaining for more land until the Indians began to believe that they would soon want all the country.

The scenes thus described by the Delaware Indian were probably soon after the voyage of discovery by Hendrick Hudson.

The Esopus Indians, according to early records, represented four sub-tribes—the Amangaricken, Kettyspowy, Mahon and Katatawis. In 1677 their chief deeded a large tract of land lying along the Hudson in Ulster and Orange Counties and extending back to the Rochester hills, to the English Government. The tract cannot be clearly defined. Previous negotiations and fighting led to this transfer. In 1663 Wildwijk (Kingston), where an infant colony had been started, was set on fire, and the colonists were attacked and murdered in their homes with axes, tomahawks and guns. They finally rallied and drove the Indians away, but not until twenty-five of them had been killed and forty-five made prisoners. The New Village, as it was called, was annihilated, and of the Old Village twelve houses were burned. When Peter Stuyvesant heard of the calamity he sent a company of soldiers from New Amsterdam to assist the settlers. They were commanded by Captain Martin Kregier, arrived at Wildwijk July 4, and a few days afterward Kregier had a conference with five Mohawk and Mohican chiefs who came from Fort Orange. He induced them to release some of their captives, but his negotiations with the Warranawonkongs were less successful. They were the proprietors of lands in the vicinity of Newburgh, and for some distance above and below the Lenni-Lenape confederacy. They would not agree to terms of peace unless the Dutch would pay for the land called the Groot Plat or Great Plot and add presents within ten days. Kregier would not agree to this, and on July 25th followed them to their castle. They abandoned it, and fled to the Shawangunk Mountains, taking their captives with them. They were followed, and again retreated. Kregier burned their palisaded castle, cut down their cornfields and destroyed about a hundred pits full of corn and beans which were a part of the harvest of the previous year. Then Kregier returned to Wildwijk and guarded the settlers while they harvested their grain. He resumed offensive operations in September, sending out about fifty men to reduce a new castle which the Indians were building "about four hours beyond the one burned." The Indians were surprised, but fought fiercely as they retreated, killing and wounding three of the Dutch soldiers. Thirteen Indians were taken prisoners and twenty-three Dutch captives released. The Indians fled to the mountains, the uncompleted fort was destroyed, and the soldiers carried away much spoil. Another force was sent to the same place October 1st, when the Indians retreated southward, and the Dutch completed the work of destruction, including crops and wigwams around the fort. Later the Indians solicited peace and an armistice was granted. They had suffered severely, and felt crushed, and their allies, the Waoranecks, were also subdued, although their territory had not been invaded. "The embers of their forest worship, which had for ages been lighted on the Dans Kamer, were extinguished forever." In the following May of 1664 they sought and executed a treaty with the Dutch at Fort Amsterdam, whereby the lands claimed and conquered by the Dutch were to remain the property of the conquerors, and the Indians were not to approach the Dutch settlements with arms. The ratification of the treaty was celebrated, and thus was closed the struggle of the Indians for the possession of their lands on the western slope of the Hudson from the Catskills to the ocean. The Minsis remained in the western part of Orange and some adjoining territory, and in 1692 and 1694 were strengthened by additions of large colonies of Shawanoes. For nearly a hundred years after the treaty there was but little trouble between the Indians and the settlers of Orange County.

The incursions during the French and Indian and the Revolutionary Wars properly belong to the military chapter of this history.