SITUATION AT CONTACT
ANDASTE, CONESTOGA
[Hannah somewhat confuses the two - others completely confused]
The Relation of Bagnall, Powell, and Todkill, in John Smith's
"General Historie of Virginia" gives us the earliest information about
trade being carried on by the Susquehanna Iroquois with the white
men. This account is found in the sixth chapter of Smith's book,
which relates to "what happened the second voyage in discovering the
[Chesapeake] Bay":
The 24 of July [1608], Captain Smith set forward to finish the
discovery, with twelve men. . . .
"Entering the River of Tockwogh (now the Sassafras River, on the
Eastern Shore of Maryland), the savages all armed, in a fleet of boats,
after their barbarous manner, around environed us; so it chanced one
of them could speak the language of Powhatan, who persuaded the rest
to a friendly parley. But when they saw us furnished with the MASSAWOMEKS'
(Smith's name for the Iroquois of the Five Nations and possibly
also the Eries [H. confused: MASSAWOMEKS are SHAWNEE, see below]) weapons,
and we faining to have taken them perforce,they conducted us to their pallisadoed
town, mantelled with the barks of trees, with scaffolds like mounts, brested
about with brests very formally. Their men, women,and children, with dances, songs,,
fruits, furs, and what they had, kindly welcommed us, spreading mats
for us to sit on, stretching their best abilities to expresse their loves.
Many hatchets, knives, pieces of iron and brass, we saw amongst
them, which they reported to have from the SASQUESAHANOCKS, A MIGHTY
PEOPLE AND MORTAL ENEMIES WITH THE MASSAWOMEKS [Susquehannock get European goods
from Swedess, Shawnee from French via Erie]
"The Sasquesahanocks inhabit upon the chief spring of these four branches of the
Bay's head [in other words "on the Susquehanna River"], two day's journey higher than our barge could pass for [because of] rocks; yet we prevailed with the interpreter to take with him another interpreter, to persuade the Sasquesahanocks to come to visit us {at Tockwogh], for their language[s] are different. [Note language different from Algonquin.]
"Three or four days we expected their return [two days up, two days back], then
sixty of those GIANT-like people came down, with presents of venison, tobacco-pipes
three foot in length, baskets, targets, bows and arrows. Five of their chief Werowances came boldly aboard us to cross the [Chesapeake Bay] for Tockwogh [the Sassaras River],
leaving their men and canoes, the wind being so high they dared not pass.
"Our order was daily to have prayer, with a psalm, at which solemnity
the poor savages much wondered; our prayers being done, a while
they were busied with a consultation until they had contrived their
business. Then they began in a most passionate manner to hold up their
hands to the Sun, with a most fearfull song; then embracing our
Captain, they began to adore him in like manner: though he rebuked
them, yet they proceeded until their song was finished.
"When done, with a most strange furious action, and a hellish voice, [they] began
an oration of their loves; that ended, with a great painted bear's skin they covered
him: then one ready with a great chain of white beads, weighing at
least six or seven pounds, hung it about his neck; the others had 18
mantels, made of divers sorts of skins sowed together; all these with
many other toys they laid at his feet, stroking their ceremonious
hands about his neck for his creation to be their Govemour and Pro-
tector; promising their aids, victuals, or what they had, to be his, if
he would stay with them, TO DEFEND AND REVENGE THEM OF THE MASSAWOMEKS.
"But we left them at Tockwogh, sorrowing for our departure,
yet we promised the next year again to visit them. Many descriptions
and discourses they made us, of Atquanachuck [Ottawa?], Massawomek, and other
people, signifying they inhabit upon a great water beyond the moun-
tains, which we understood to be some great lake [Lake Erie] or the River of Can-
ada [St. Lawrence]; and from the French to have their [Atquanachuck, Massawomek]
commodities by trade. These know no more of the territories of Powhatan than his name,
and he as little of them; but the Atquanachuks are on the Ocean Sea - probably
the Lenape of what is now New Jersey. [H.XXX there? - the "Ocean Sea" was most
likely Lake Erie].
It is probable, therefore, that the articles of European manufacture
which John Smith found among the tribes at the head of Chesapeake
Bay were obtained by them from the Dutch whalers, or others, who
visited the coasts of New Jersey and Delaware before 1608.
[H.xxx? More likely from the Swedes]
-------
Probably the first Trader settled among the Susquehannocks was
Captain William Claiborne, the first Governor of Kent Island, to whom
the chiefs of the Susquehanna Indians granted Palmer's Island in the
mouth of the Susquehanna River in April or May, 1637.* Claiborne
had begun trading on Kent Island in 1632, and had associated with
him as assistants or partners, George Scouell, Richard Thompson, John
Butler, and others. He built a fort and houses on Palmer's Island, but
was not permitted to remain there long, his settlement being broken
up by order of Lord Baltimore in 1638.
........
.......
When Samuel de Champlain was at the Huron village of Cahiague,
near the lower end of Lake Simcoe, in August, 1615, preparing to lead
a war party of the Hurons against the Onondagas of the Five Nations,
he found that the Hurons had "received intelligence that a certain
nation of their allies, dwelling three good days' journey beyond the
Entouhonorons [Onondagas'], on whom the Iroquois also make war,
desired to assist them in this expedition with five hundred good men;
also to form an alliance and establish a friendship with us [the French],
that we might all engage in the war together; moreover, that they
greatly desired to see us and give expression to the pleasure they would
have in making our acquaintance.
"I was glad to find this opportunity for gratifying my desire of
obtaining a knowledge of their country. It is situated only seven days
from where the Dutch go to traffic, on the fortieth degree. The savages
there (Mohawks[H. xxx]), assisted by the Dutch, make war upon them [the
Hurons' allies], take them prisoners, and cruelly put them to death; and
indeed, they told us that the preceding year [1614], while making war
they captured three of the Dutch, who were assisting their enemies, as
we do the Attigouautans (Hurons [Hxxx?:=Ottowa]), and while in action one of their
own men was killed. Nevertheless, they did not fail to send back the
three Dutch prisoners, without doing them any harm, supposing that
they belonged to our party, since they had no knowledge of us except
by hearsay, never having seen a Christian; otherwise, they said, these
three prisoners would not have got off so easily, and would not escape
again should they surprise and take them.
"This nation is very war-like, as those of the nation of the Attigouautans maintain.
THEY HAVE ONLY THREE VILLAGES, WHICH ARE IN THE MIDST OF MORE THAN TWENTY OTHERS, [these were likely Carantouannais, i.l. later Conestoga proper] ON WHICH THEY MAKE WAR WITHOUT ASSISTANCE FROM THEIR FRIENDS; for they [their friends, the Hurons] are obliged to pass through the thickly settled country of the Chouontouarouon (Senecas [H.xxx?:=Shawnee)], or else
they would have to make a very long circuit. "
.............
[Hannah has a detailed description of Andate sites and petroglyphs, ommitted here to prevent their pillage.]
"Smith, in his "Map and Description of Virginia", (Oxford, 1612), locates
the Susquehannocks as having a village on the right bank of the river
bearing their name....
The remains of one of their forts...
Another and possibly an earlier fort of the Susquehannocks........
Susquehannock Picture Writing on Rocks........
...............
The French, it will be remembered, applied the name Andastes
(a variation of Kanostoge) to the Iroquois of the Susquehanna generally.
The Jesuit Relaion, in the "Journal for 1652" states under date
of June 4th and 5th: "We picked up in the islands of Lake St. Pierre
two Algonquin women, escaped from Anniene (the Mohawk country),
where they had been captives for two years... The fugitives brought
back the news... that the Iroquois, having gone during the winter
in full force against the Atra-kwa-e-ronnans or Andasto'e-ronnans, had
had the worst of it."
On July 3, 1652, the same "Journal of the Jesuits" contains the
following entry: "As for news of the enemies: 1st. The capture of
Atra-kwa-e by the Iroquois Nation (Huron [Hxxx?:=Five Nations]) to the
number of a thousand. They have carried off 5 or 6 hundred, chiefly men.
The Annie-ronnons (Mohawks) lost, in this expedition, ten men; the other cantons, some 20,
some 30, all together, 130."
This expedition may have been against the towns of the
Carantouannais on the upper Susquehanna at and near Tioga Point;
though it is possible that it was against those of the Andastes who
haved farther down the River; because it was in that very year that the
latter applied to the Maryland government for and entered into a
treaty of peace and friendship. The carrying off of "five or six hundred men,"
however, would doubtless involve the destruction of
numerous villages, and it is very probable that some of these villages
were between Tioga Point and the mouth of the North Branch.
.......
Subsequent to this date and before 1634, Clayborne had established a trading post on
Kent Island, in the Chesapeake, and also (in 1638) one on Palmer's
(now Garrett) Island, in the mouth of the Susquehanna. In a
petition presented by him to the King, many years after the arrival
in Maryland in 1634 of the first colonists under Lord Baltimore's charter,
who attempted to dispossess Clayborne, the latter relates, that he and
his partners, while acting under a commission from under his Majesty's
hand, divers years past, discovered and planted the Island of Kent, in
the Chesapeake, which island they bought of the kings of that country;
that great hopes for trade of beavers and other commodities were likely
to ensue by the petitioner's discoveries; and that "they had (also) dis-
covered and settled a plantation and factory (forge?) upon a small island
at the bottom (top) of said bay, in the Susquehannocks' country, at the
Indians' desire, and purchased the same of them (Palmer's Island, in
1637); by means whereof they were in great hopes to draw thither the
trade of beavers and furs which the French then wholly enjoyed in the
Grand Lake of Canada."
In his disputes with the Calverts over his land titles, CLAYBOME
ENDEAVORED TO STIR UP THE SUSQUEHANNOCKS TO MAKING WAR AGAINST THE
EARLY SETTLERS UNDER BALTIMORE; AND FOR A TIME APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN
SUCCESSFUL. LATER, THE INVASION OF THEIR OWN COUNTRY BY THE FIVE
NATIONS IN 1651-52 FORCED THE SUSQUEHANNA INDIANS TO SEEK AND MAKE AN
ALLIANCE FOR DEFENSE AND OFFENSE WITH THE WHITES OF [BALTIMORE'S] GOVERN-
MENT. Accordingly, on the 5th of July, 1652, a treaty was made with
them on the present site of Annapolis, by which the Indians ceded all
their lands, extending from Patuxent River to Palmer's Island, on the
western side of the Bay, and from the Choptank River to the Northeast
Branch on the eastern side, "excepting the Isle of Kent and Palmer's
Island, which belong to Capt. Claybome." This treaty also provided
that both parties were to be permitted to build a house or fort, for trade,
on Palmer's Island.
..........
The Senecas and Oneidas made an alliance with the French in 1666, agreeing,
if the latter would send them Traders and missionaries, that they would build forts to
protect them against their common enemy, the Andastes.
.........
The Susquehanna Indians belonged to the Iroquois, racially [H.XXX] and
linguistically; though never taken into the Confederacy of the Five
Nations except as a subject people. They were claimed by the Mohawks
in 1675, however, as "their own offspring."
............
From 1661 to 1676 they again carried on an intermittent warfare with that powerful
aggregation of their kindred tribes known as the Five Nations; and though for some
years victorious,* they lost many by small-pox and were at length sub-
dued in 1673-4, and IN 1677 A LARGE NUMBER OF THEIR WARRIORS WERE CARRIED
INTO THE CAYUGA COUNTRY. [AFTER VIRGINIA ATTACK BY BACON, BEAL] Some years after
their final subjection, the old men, women, children, and the few surviving
warriors, removed from their old strongholds upon both banks of the Susquehanna River,
to a new village which they built on the east side two or three miles
inland.*
Here they lived after William Penn's arrival in Pennsylvania,
a broken and dismembered remnant, under the name of "Conestogas"
that name being a slight variation of their own tribal name Kanostoge
("at the place of the immersed pole"), and of its French form, Gan-
tastogues or Andastogues. Colonel John French, who visited a band of
Tuscarora Indians recently come from the South, at Conestoga, June 8,
1710, expressly states that the Tuscaroras were "of the same race and
language with our Senecas" (Conestogas). In 1728, the Conestoga chief
reported to the Colonial Governor of Pennsylvania that they had lost
nearly sixty of their men in a fight with the Seraws, near the Potomac.^
[A reproduction of a detailed drawing of the Susquehannock fort in the DC area my be found in
"The Only Land They Knew". Another line of Susquehannock retreat was down the path that later became US 1]
Hannah on the Andaste
Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist, JPeters