Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/87

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SECT. II.] ALGONKIN-LENAPE AND IROQUOIS NATIONS. 51 the most active and formidable enemies of America.* The decisive victory of General Wayne (1794) dissolved the con- federacy ; and the Delawares were the greatest sufferers by the treaty of Greenville of 1795. The greater part of the lands allotted them by the Wyan- dots was ceded by that treaty, and they then obtained from the Miamis a tract of land on the White River of Wabash, which, by the treaty of Vincennes of 1804, was guarantied to them by the United States. But the Miamis having contended the ensuing year, at the treaty of Grouseland, that they had only permitted them to occupy the territory, but had not conveyed the soil to them, the Delawares released the United States from that guarantee. They did not take part with the British in the last war, and, together with some Mohicans and Nanticokes, remained on White River till the year 1819, when they finally ceded their claim to the United States. Those residing there were then reduced to about eight hundred souls. A number, including the Moravian converted Indians, had previously removed to Canada ; and it is difficult to ascertain the situation or numbers of the residue at this time. Those who have lately removed west of the Mississippi are, in an estimate of the War Department, computed at four hundred souls. Former emigrations to that quarter had however taken place, and sev- eral small dispersed bands are, it is believed, united with the Senecas and some other tribes. The appended vocabularies of the Delaware and Minsi are extracted from those in manuscript received from Mr. Hecke- welder, and which make part of Mr. Duponceau's valuable collection. Captain Smith, the founder of the first permanent British Colony in Virginia, has given us the names of six tribes on the eastern shore of Virginia and Maryland. The two most southern, the Acomack and Acohanock, spoke the Powhat- tan language. Thence to the mouth of the Susquehanna,

  • We have, in the tenth Volume of the Collections of the Massachusetts

Historical Society (1st series), two accounts of the Indians engaged in the battle on the Miami, where they were defeated by General Wayne. According to one, there were five hundred Delawares out of fifteen hundred Indians who were in the action ; according to the other, three out of seven hundred.