History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1. Frederic Shonnard
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Название: History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1
Автор: Frederic Shonnard
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Документальная литература
Серия: History of Westchester County, New York
isbn: 9783849660017
isbn:
The natives were recognized as rightful occupants, but their power to dispose of the soil at their own will to whomsoever they pleased was denied by the original fundamental principle that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it.
The ultimate dominion was asserted, and. as a consequence, a power to grant the soil while yet in the possession of the natives. Hence such dominion was incompatible with an absolute and complete title in the Indians. Consequently they had no right to sell to any other than the government of the first discoverer, nor to private citizens without the sanction of that government. Hence the Indians were to be considered mere occupants to be protected indeed while in peaceable possession of their lands, but with an incapacity of transferring the absolute title to others.
In many of the old Indian title deeds various conditional clauses appear, the savages reserving to themselves certain special rights. For example, it was at times specified that they should retain the whitewood trees, from which they constructed their "dugout" canoes. They always remained on (he lands after sale, continuing their former habits of life until forced by the steady extension of white settlement to fall back farther into the wilderness. Having no conception of the principles of civilized law, and no idea of the binding effect of contracts, they seldom realized that the mere act of signing over their lands to the whites was a necessarily permanent release of them. They were incapable of comprehending any other idea of ownership than actual physical possession, and in cases where lands were not occupied promptly after sale they assumed that no change had transpired, and thus frequently the same territory would be formally sold two or three times over. Besides, they considered that it was their natural right at all times to forcibly seize lands that had been sold, expel the settlers, and then resell them. The boundaries of sub-tribal jurisdiction were necessarily indefinite, and consequently deeds of sale by the Indians of one locality would frequently cover portions of lands conveyed by those of another, which led to much confusion.
The military power of the Indians of Westchester County was destroyed forever as a result of the war of 1643-45 with the Dutch. But it was not until after the close of the seventeenth century that the last vestiges of their legal ownership of lands in the county disappeared. In succeeding chapters of this History their relation to the progress of events and to the gradual development of the county during the period of their organized continuance in it will receive due notice, and it is not necessary in the present connection to anticipate that portion of our narrative. What is known of their ultimate fate as a people may, however, appropriately be related here.
During the Dutch Wars many hundreds of them were slain and some of their principal villages were given to the flames. It is estimated that in a single Indian community (near the present village of Bedford), which was surrounded, attacked, and burned at midnight, more than five hundred of them perished before the merciless onslaught of the whites. After the peace of 1015 their remaining villages, being absorbed one by one in the extensive land purchases and grants, were by degrees abandoned. The continuance of the Indian on the soil was entirely incompatible with its occupancy by the white man. The country, by being converted to the uses of agriculture, became unadapted to the pursuits of the natives, as it was quickly deserted by the game. The wild animals fled to the forest solitudes, and the wild men followed them, until only small groups, and finally isolated families and individuals, remained. The locality called Indian Hill, in the Town of Yorktown, is still pointed out as the spot where the last lingering band of Indians in Westchester County had its abiding place.
The historian of the Town of Rye, the late Rev. Charles W. Baird, gives the following particulars (typical for the whole county) of the gradual fading away of the Indians of that locality:
The fullest account of the condition of the Indians of Rye is that of Rev. Mr. Muirson. . . "As to the Indians, the natives of the country," he says, in a letter to the Gospel Propagation Society in January, 1708, " they are a decaying people. We have now in all this parish twenty families, whereas not many years ago there were several hundred. . . . I have taken some pains to teach some of them, but to no purpose, for they seem regardless of instruction." Long after the settlement of the town there were Indians living within its bounds, some of them quite near the village, but the greater number back in the wilderness that still overspread the northern part of Rye. This was the case in most of the Connecticut towns, the law obliging the inhabitants to reserve to the natives a sufficient quantity of planting ground, and protecting the latter from insult, fraud, and violence. The twenty families of whom Mr. Muirson speaks were reduced by the year 1720 to four or five families of Indians, writes Mr. Bridges, " that often abide in this parish, but are frequently removing, almost every month or six weeks." After this date we hear little more of Indians at Rye, except as slaves. Tradition states that in old times a band of Indians used to visit Rye once a year, resorting to the beach, where they had a frolic which lasted several days. Another place which they frequented as late, certainly, as the middle of the last century, was a spot on Grace Church Street, at the corner of the road now called Kirby Avenue. Here a troop of Indians would come every year and spend the night in a " pow-wow," during which their cries and yells would keep the whole neighborhood awake.
Removing, for the most part, northward, the remnants of the Westchester Indians became merged in the kindred tribes of the Mohican nation, whirl, stretched to the limits of the Mohawk country above Albany, and followed their destinies. The Mohicans, though vastly reduced in numbers and territorial possessions, still retained an organized existence and some degree of substantial power until after the Revolution. Having constantly sustained friendly relations with the settlers, it was naturally with the colonists that their sympathies were enlisted when the struggle with Great Britain began. As early as April 1774, a message was dispatched by the provincial congress of Massachusetts to the Mohicans and Wappingers at their principal village, Westenhuch, on the western side of the Hudson just below Cohoes Falls, with a letter requesting their cooperation in the impending conflict. The letter was addressed " To C:aptain Solomon Ahkannu-auwaumut, chief sachem of the Moheackonuck Indians." Captain Solomon thereupon journeyed to Boston, where, in reply to the communication from the congress, he delivered the following impressive address:
Brothers: We have heard you speak by your letter; we thank you for it: we now make answer.
Brothers: You remember when you first came over the great waters, I was great and you were very little, very small. I then took you in for a friend, and kept you under my arms, so that no one might injure you; since that time we have ever been true friends; there has never been any quarrel between us. But now our conditions are changed. You have become great and tall. You reach the clouds. You are seen all around the world, and I am become small, very little. I am not so high as your heel. Now you take care of me, and I look to you for protection.
Brothers: I am sorry to hear of this great quarrel between you and old England, it appears that blood must soon be shed to end this quarrel. We never till this day understood the foundation of this quarrel between you and the country you came from.
Brothers: Whenever I see your blood running, you will soon find me about to revenge my brothers' blood. Although I am low and very small, I will gripe hold of your enemy's heel, that he cannot run so fast and so light as if he had nothing at his heels.
Brothers: You know that I am not so wise as you are, therefore I ask your advice m what I am now going to say. I have been thinking, before you come to action, to take a run to the westward, and feel the mind of my Indian brethren, the Six Nations, and know how they stand; whether they are on your side or for your enemies. If I find they are against you, I will try to turn their minds. I think they will listen to me, for they have always looked СКАЧАТЬ