Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/306

292 being the principal ſeat of their reſidence was formerly called Mahatton) Long iſland and that part of New-York and Connecticut which lies between Hudſon and Connecticut rivers, from the highland, which is a continuation of the Kittatinney ridge down to the ſound. This nation had a cloſe alliance with the Shawaneſce, who lived on the Suſquehanna and to the weſtward of that river, as far as the Alleghaney mountains, and carried on a long war with another powerful nation or confederacy of Indians, which lived to the north of them between the Kittatinney mountains or highlands, and the lake Ontario, and who call themſelves Mingos, and are called by the French writers Iroquois, by the Engliſh the Five Nations, and by the Indians to the ſouthward, with whom they were at war, Maſſawomacs. This war was carrying on in its greateſt fury, when captain Smith firſt arrived in Virginia. The Mingo warriors had penetrated down the Suſquehanna to the mouth of it. In one of his excurſions up the bay at the mouth of Suſquehanna, in 1608, captain Smith met with ſix or ſeven of their canoes full of warriors, who were coming to attack their enemies in the rear. In an excurſion which he had made a few weeks before, up the Rappahannock, and in which he had a ſkirmiſh with a party of the Manahoacs, and taken a brother of one of their chiefs priſoner, he firſt heard of this nation. For when he aſked the priſoner, why his nation attacked the Engliſh? the priſoner ſaid, becauſe his nation had heard that the Engliſh came from under the world to take their world from them. Being aſked how many worlds he knew? he ſaid,