Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/94

 58 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. Indians, [n ihe year L644, they made another effort, attended with a similar massacre and terminating in the same manner. According to Mr. Jefferson, the number of warriors of the different Powhatan tribes was then reduced to five hundred. In l(>7(>. Bacon, during the insurrection which bears his name, appears to have completed their total subjugation. From that lit nt 1 they had lands reserved to them, for which they paid a nominal tribute; and they were henceforth considered as under the protection of the British Government. They gradually dwindled away, intermarried with the blacks, and have now entirely disappeared. At least it is not believed that a single individual remains that speaks the language. As soon as the British had taken possession of New York, the governors of Virginia found it convenient, if not necessary, to secure peace with those Massawomeks, or Five Nations, whose incursions have been so long formidable to the Indians living in the vicinity of the heads of the great rivers, particular- ly of the Potomac. These Indians were now under the pro- tection of Virginia, as appears by the conferences of 1677, 1684, and 1685, already mentioned, and at which Colonel Kendall, Lord Howard, Colonel Bird, &c, successively attended on the part of Virginia. Mr. Jefferson states that the whole of the upper country was obtained by fair purchases, which must have been from the native Indians taken under the protection of the colonial government. These, from their geographical position, could be no other than those mentioned by Captain Smith, under the name of Mannahoks. The loss of the colonial records of Virginia compels us to resort to conjectures, and to the notices preserved in the several con- ferences or treaties of Albany and Lancaster. About the year 1722 a treaty was concluded between the Six Nations and Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, by which it was agreed, that the high ridge of mountains, extending along the frontiers of Virginia, to the westward of the present settlements of that colony, should be for ever the established boundaries between the Indians subject to the dominion of Virginia, and the Indians belonging to and depending on the Five Nations. Whether the mountain intended was the Blue Ridge or the North Mountain does not clearly appear. But, by the treaty of Lancaster of 1774, the Five Nations recognised for a trifling consideration the British right to all the colony of Virginia. In the course of the conferences,