Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/86

50 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. Delawarea and the Shawnoes. And, although peace was made with them at Easton in 1758, and the conquest of Canada put an end to the general war, both the Shawnoes and Delawares removed altogether in 1768, beyond the Alleghany Mountains. This resolution had not been taken without much reluctance. At a preparatory conference held at Easton, in 1757, the Delaware Chief Tedyuscung said, " We intend to settle at Wyoming ; we want to have certain boundaries fixed between you and us, and a certain tract of land fixed, which it shall not be lawful for us or our children to sell, nor for you or any of your children ever to buy ; that we may be not pushed on every side, but have a certain country fixed for our own use and that of our children for ever." And, at the treaty of Easton in 175S, he accordingly applied to the Six Nations for a per- manent grant of land at Shamokin and Wyoming on the Sus- quehanna. The Maqua chiefs answered that they were not authorized to sell any lands ; that they would refer the demand to their great council at Onondago, which alone had a right to make sales. " In the mean while," they added, " you may make use of those lands in conjunction with our own people and all the rest of our relations, the Indians of the different nations in our alliance." It is proper to add that the Delawares did not lay any claim to the lands on the Susquehanna, which they acknowledged to belong altogether to the Six Nations. The removal of the Delawares, Minsi, and Shawnoes to the Ohio, at once extricated them from the yoke of the Six Nations, and cut off the intercourse between these and the Miamis and other western Indians who had been inclined to enter into their alliance. The years 1765-1795 are the true period of the power and importance of the Delawares. United with the Shawnoes, who were settled on the Scioto, they sustained during the seven years' war the declining power of France, and arrested for some years the progress of the British and Ameri- can arms. Although a portion of the nation adhered to the Americans during the war of Independence, the main body together with all the western nations made common cause with the British. And, after the short truce which followed the treaty of 1783, they were again at the head of the western confederacy in their last struggle for independence. Placed by their geographical situation in the front of battle, they were during those three wars, the aggressors, and, to the last moment,