Some account of the conduct of the Religious Society of Friends towards the Indian tribes in the settlement of the colonies of East and West Jersey and Pennsylvania: with a brief narrative of their labours for the civilization and Christian instruction of the Indians, from the time of their settlement in America, to the year 1843 / Published by the Aborigines' Committee of the Meeting for Sufferings.

  • London Yearly Meeting (Society of Friends). Aborigines' Committee.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some account of the conduct of the Religious Society of Friends towards the Indian tribes in the settlement of the colonies of East and West Jersey and Pennsylvania: with a brief narrative of their labours for the civilization and Christian instruction of the Indians, from the time of their settlement in America, to the year 1843 / Published by the Aborigines' Committee of the Meeting for Sufferings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/264 (page 6)
    spot on which Kensington, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, now stands. Bevond the Delaware, on the eastern shore, dwelt the Nanticokes, who disappeared, or mingled imperceptibly with other tribes. The name of Pamlico denotes that Algonquin tribes extended along the sea-coast as far south as Cape Ilatteras. It is conjectured, also, that the Corees, who dwelt to the southward of the Neuse River, spoke a similar language, thus establishing Cape Fear as the southern boun- dary of the Algonquins. In Virginia the same language was spoken throughout the dominion of Powhatan, which included the tribes of the eastern shore and all the villages west of the Chesapeake, from the southernmost branch of James River to the Pa- tuxent. The basin of the Cumberland river is marked by the earliest geographers as the locality of the Shawnese, who connected the south-eastern Algonquins with the western. A portion of this people afterwards lived in the neighbourhood of Winchester. Their principal band re- moved from their hunting-grounds in Kentucky to the head- waters of one of the great rivers of South Carolina ; and at a later day four hundred and fifty of them, who had been wan- dering in the woods for four years, were found a little north of the head-waters of the Mobile river, on their way to the country of the Muskhogees. About the year 1G98, nearly seventy of their families, with the consent of the Govern- ment of Pennsylvania, removed from Carolina, and settled on the Susquehanna ; these were soon followed by others of the same tribe, and the number of Indian fighting men in Penn- sylvania in 173*2 was estimated to be seven hundred, one half of whom were Shawnese from the south. Cadwallader Colden, in 174b, said the Shawnese were the “ most restless of all the Indians,” and that “ one tribe of them had quite gone down to New Spain.” Of the ancient territory of the Aliamis, their own traditions