Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/83

 SECT. II.] ALGONKIN-LENAPE AND IROQJJOIS NATIONS. 47 folly as to assent voluntarily to an agreement, which left their deadly enemies at liberty to destroy their own kindred, friends, and allies, with no other remedy but the empty title of Media- tors, a character in which they never once appeared. And it is really absurd to suppose, that any Indian tribe, victorious too as the Delawares are stated to have been at that time, should have voluntarily submitted to that which, according to their universal and most deeply rooted habits and opinions, is the utmost degradation and ignominy. But it is difficult to as- certain when that event took place ; and it seems probable, as asserted by the Indians, that it was subsequent to the arrival of the Europeans. De Laet, in 1624, writes that the Sankhicans were mortal enemies of the Manhattans ; which proves that the Sankhicans, or Delawares, were not yet prohibited from going to war. We find also in Campanius, that the Minquas had a fort on a high hill about twelve miles from Christina ; and he says that as late as 1646, the Indians (viz. the Delawares) had taken and burnt alive one of those Minquas. He adds, indeed, " that the Minquas forced the other Indians, who were not so warlike as themselves, to be afraid of them, and made them subject and tributary to them, so that they dare not stir, much less go to war against them." Still, taking all these remarks together, it would appear that the war between the two na- tions had not yet terminated in complete subjugation. This is corroborated by what Evans says in the analysis of his Map ; to wit, that the Iroquois had conquered the Lenno-Lenape ; but that these had previously sold the lands, from the Falls of Trenton down to the sea, to Peter Menevit, commander under Christina, Queen of Sweden. The first settlement of the Swedes was commenced in the year 1631.* Peter Menevit, or Minuit, was commander or governor, in 1638.f Their principal establishment was in the vicinity of Fort Christina, near the mouth of the river of that name. In the year 1651, the Dutch built Fort Casimir, now called Newcastle, a few miles below. J The Swedes soon after took possession of it. But they were expelled in 1655, by the Dutch, from all their possessions on the Delaware. The country was then governed by a director appointed by the Ibid. p. 24.
 * Holmes's Annals. f Smith's History of New York, p. 21.