Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/111

 SECT. II.] ALGONKIN-LENAPE AND IROQUOIS NATIONS. 75 Tuscaroras, the Nanticokes and Conoys, making but one nation, and the Tuteloes.* But the Nanticokes and Conoys removed to the west not long after, and the Tuteloes do not afterwards appear as a distinct nation. The Five Nations had already acquired a decided superiority over the other Indians, before the arrival of the Europeans. They were at that epoch at war with all the surrounding tribes, with perhaps the single exception of the Andastes on the west. That in which they were engaged towards the north, with the Hurons and Algonkins, was still attended with alternate success on each side. But southwardly they had already carried their arms as far as the mouth of the Susquehanna and the vicinity of Newcastle on the Delaware, and had become an object of terror to all the Indians, from the sources of the Potomac and even farther south, to the Merrimac and the Piscataway. For this ascendency several causes may be assigned. Their geographical position was fortunate, and they had the wisdom, instead of extending and spreading themselves, to remain con- centrated even at the time of their greatest successes in their primitive seats. They were there protected against any sud- den or dangerous attack, on the south by wide ranges of mountains, on the north by Lake Ontario. What was of still greater importance, particularly in savage warfare, they were without doubt more brave and more ferocious than any of the other nations. They were also further advanced in agriculture, in the fabrication of their weapons, and in the few arts of the Indians, than those of the Algonkin-Lenape stock. On all occasions they discovered a greater degree of cultivated intelli- gence, in no instances more than in the formation and long continuance of their confederacy, and in attacking by turns the unconnected and disunited petty tribes by which they were surrounded. The superiority of the Iroquois tribes generally over the Algonkins appears indeed incontestable, and to have been part- ly due to the great subdivision of these into small independent communities. They were far more numerous, and yet, every- where, we find a prevailing Iroquois tribe, more powerful and populous than any of its neighbours of another stock ; in North Carolina, the Tuscaroras ; in Canada, the Hurons ; above all, the Five Nations. The disproportion between the population
 * Takaio's speech, at that treaty.