Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/150

 122 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [August, "now ready, etc. Another made a " speech to the Indians in the name of " all the Sachamakers, or Kings. 1st. " To tell them what was done. Next : " To charge them to love the Christians, " and particularly, to live in peace with "me [Penn], and my government. That " many governors had been in the river; " but that no governor had come him- " self to live there before ; and having " now such a one, who treated them " well, they should never do him, or his, " any wrong ; at every sentence of " which the}' shouted ; and, in their "way, said: Amen. * * * When " the purchase [of land] was con- " eluded, great promises passed between " us of kindness and good neighborhood, "and that the Indians and English " must live in love as long as the sun "gave light." — Wm. Penn. According to Captain Civility, the interpreting chief at Gov Gordon's conference with the Indians at Con- estoga, May 26th, 1728, Penn's First Treaty was to be binding " as long as " the creeks and rivers should run, and " sun, moon and stars endure." It was an idea of the proprietary times, that the whites and Indians could live together in harmony, upon the same soil. The Indians believed it, and so did the whites, till they became thickly settled, when the inconveniences ap- peared, and the poor Indians were driven awa} THE PLACE OF THE TREATIES. In perusing any of the memoirs of this general transaction, except perhaps that of Du Ponceau and Fisher, in con- junction with the speeches of Granville John Penn, Esq., and Henry D. Gilpin, a vague feeling of unsatisfaction anno}'s the mind. Every thing that ever took place upon earth, at some time or other, in the mind of some skeptic or other, will be resolved into a myth. This is the penalty as well of singularity as of greatness ; the mere delver after facts, constantly forgetting that the changes of the divine kaleidescope must be more surprising, more amazing, than the sub- tlest human fiction. But when all the narratives and accompanying documents are weighed together, the many little half-remembered, or scarcely glimpsed circumstances, while detached of no value, fall and fit into the gaps of the neglected and supposed fatally-injured mosaic, converting the suspected tra- dition into an accepted truth. The one GREAT TREATY OF WlLLIAM PENN all the Indians and all the whites have con- stantly, and in the main consistent^', referred to in public transactions from within a half generation of the actual occurrence down to this day. But Sak- imaxing was the place of the chiefs, therefore, as certainly the place of the treaties. Though, happily, the enwo- maning of the Delawares did not occur at Sakimaxing, there, doubtless, the treaties and land sales with and to the Swedes, the Dutch and the English were held, throughout the generation be- fore Penn, and down to this veiy day. Markham, for the Pennsbury tract alone, and again, both for land and for peace- ful influence, with the three commission- ers, there sat in conference with the tribes. There Penn confirmed their pre- liminary compact. There Holme, as President of the Council, bought land in 1685 of Shakapoh and other " Saka- makers," and there William Penn also purchased land and made his two leagues of friendship and love, the first and Great Treaty of autumn, 1682, and the second treat} 7 of 1701. Both these lat- ter, in Indian tradition and common ac- ceptation, though nineteen years apart, were confounded, and considered as one. THE DELAWARES. As is shown presently, the Delaware Indians, by their own exigencies, were prepared for a life of quiet and pacific intercourse ; but the personal influ- ence and example of Penn must have been all-pervading, to so change all savage instincts and modes of thought,