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Beyond Penn's Treaty

A Mission to the Indians from the Indian Committee of Baltimore Yearly Meeting to Fort Wayne, in 1804

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harassed unremittingly the Powhatans

and Man-
nahoacs
. These were probably the ancestors
of the tribes known at present by the name
of the Six Nations. Very little can now be dis-
covered of the subsequent history of these tribes
severally. The Chickalaminies removed about
1661 to Mattapony river. Their chief, with one
of each of the tribes of the Pamunkies and Mat-
tahonys
, attended the meeting at Albany, in
1685; this seems to be the last chapter in their
history. The Monacans and their friends, better
known latterly by the name of Tuscaroras, were
probably connected with the Massawomics, or
Five Nations; for though we are told that their
languages were so different that the interven-
tion of interpreters was necessary between them,
yet we also learn that the Erigas, a nation for-
merly inhabiting the Ohio, were of the same
original stock with the Five Nations, and that
they partook also of the Tuscarora language.
Their dialects might, by long separation, have
become so unlike as to be unintelligible to each
other. We know, that in 1712, the Five Na-
tions
received the Tuscaroras in their confede-
racy, and made them the Sixth Nation. All the
nations of Indians in North America, lived in
the hunter's 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 po-