PENNSYLVA NIA HISTO RY. The Livingston. InJian Records QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE ENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

Transcription

1 PENNSYLVA NIA HISTO RY - 0 The Livingston InJian Records QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE ENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION Vol. XXIII, No. 1 - January, 1956

2 PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY PAUL A. W. WALLACE, Editor Annville, Pa. DONALD H. KENT, Associate Editor MELVILLE J. BoYER, Assistant Editor Box 885, Harrisburg, Pa Liberty Street, Allentown, Pa. NORMAN B. WILKINSON, Book Review Editor Box 3942, Wilmington, Del. EDITORIAL BOARD HARRY C. HADDEN 3. ORIN OLIPHANT JOHN H. POWELL PHELPS SOULE S. K. STEVENS CONTRIBUTING EDITORS RALPH CoRUnER LILY LEE NIXON HOMER T. ROSENBERGER HENRY J. YOUNG COMMUNICATIONS regarding memberships, subscriptions, and general business of the Association should be addressed to the Secretary, Dr. Robert K. Murray, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa. CONTRIBUTIONS to the magazine should be sent to the Editor, Dr. Paul A. W. Wallace, Annville, Pa. BOOKS FOR REVIEW, and reviews contributed, should be sent to the Book Review Editor, Mr. Norman B. Wilkinson, P. 0. Box 3942, Greenville, Del. Entered as second class mail matter, June 17, 1942, at the Post Office at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, under the Act of August 24, 1918.

3 THE LIVINGSTON INDIAN RECORDS Edited by LAWRENCE H. LEDER THE PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION GETTYSBURG, PA Copyright, 1.956, by The Pennsylvauia, Historical Association

4 FOREWORD The mystery of the whereabouts of the Livingston Indian Records, which disappeared from public view 176 years ago, is at last resolved in these pages. The story of their vicissitudes is told by Lawrence H. Leder in his introductory article, "Robert Livingston ( ), Secretary for Indian Affairs, and His Papers." The records themselves fill the pages that follow. These documents, detailing Iroquois negotiations with English colonies from Massachusetts to Virginia, , are important for the illumination they give to a hitherto obscure corner of American history. They are of particular interest to New Yorkers, because the homelands of the Five Nations whose international relations are here unfolded were in northern New York. At the same time they are of special interest to Pennsylvanians, because it was under the Iroquois Tree of Peace that the Quaker colony had its birth and enjoyed so long an adolescence undisturbed by Indian wars. We are accustomed to think of the Iroquois Confederacy as the foremost Indian power on the continent, as undoubtedly it was for a time. But in when the Livingston Indian Records open, the Iroquois enjoyed no such supremacy. At that time they were engaged in exhausting wars with both the Mahicans and Susquehannocks, the outcome of which no man could foretell. It was not until nine years later, in 1675 (peace meanwhile having been made with the Mahicans), that the destruction and dispersion of the Susquehannocks fully opened the Susquehanna Valley to the Iroquois, giving them access to new hunting grounds and hegemony over distant tribes to the south and west. Thereafter the Iroquois made free use of Pennsylvania's trails and waterways for their war parties and peace embassies, by which means they established the Great Peace over a territory comparable in extent to that embraced in the ancient pax ronsana. In the Livingston Indian Records it is what happened at the far ends of Pennsylvania's war paths-in the principal Iroquois trouble centers of New York, Maryland, and Virginia-that receives the lion's share of attention. There is, however, much in these papers of special concern to Pennsylvania. For one thing there is the early map of the Susquehanna River, drawn in 1683, with comments on Indian travel. There are frequent evidences of trade rivalry among the English colonies. This was a time when New York, Maryland, and Virginia alike resented the intrusion of traders from upstart Philadelphia among the Indians of the Susquehanna and Schuylkill valleys. We learn from these pages something of the movements of the Shawnees both before and after the Iroquois gave them domicile in Penn's Woods. The picture, furthermore, of clashes between white settlers and Indians along the Appalachian border, whatever may be the immediate locale of particular incidents reported here, is as true of conditions in Pennsylvania as it is of conditions in the colonies on her borders. The Pennsylvania Historical Association is happy to present to the readers of PENNSYLVANIA HISToRY, and to others interested in the history of the Iroquois, the Livingston Indian Records, edited by Lawrence H. Leder, Penfield Fellow in History at New York University, and author of the forthcoming biography of Robert Livingston. 2 PAUL A. W. WALLACE Editor, Pennsylvania History

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD 2 ROBERT LIVINGSTON ( ), SECRETARY FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS, AND HIS PAPERS Lawrence H. Leder 5 THE IROQUOIS: A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THEIR HISTORY Paul A. W. Wallace 15 THE LIVINGSTON INDIAN RECORDS, Edited by Lawrence H. Leder 29 GLOSSARY OF SHORT TITLES CITED IN FOOTNOTES 238 GLOSSARY OF INDIAN TRIBAL NAMES 239 MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS ROBERT LIVINGSTON ( ) 4 "TDRAUGHT OF YE SUSQUEHANNES RIVER," 1683 Opposite p. 70 PETER SCHUYLER ( ) 105 "DRAFT OF THIS COUNTRY 1696/1697" 173 PICTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE FIVE NATIONS Ray Fadden (Aren Akweks)