Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/238

218 the remnant being barely sufficient to compose a small mission at Lorette.

The pacific policy of William Penn, in his fair purchase of land and his honest covenant with the Indians, stands accredited in our popular histories and traditions with all the distinctive qualities of justice and humanity which can fairly be claimed for it. Perhaps a keen scrutiny, instituted by severer tests, of historical authorities might reduce the special and exceptional dignity and rectitude of the Quaker purchase. But it is to the point to recognize the very important fact, that the Delaware Indians, with whom Penn made his treaty, were then a vanquished and humbled remnant of several tribes, which had previously been under the harrows of the ferocious Iroquois of New York. The conquerors of the Delawares exacted tribute from them, and stigmatized them as women. Under these circumstances the white man's friendship was worth its easy cost. Nevertheless, the exceptionally pacific spirit and equitable dealing which characterized the first relations of Penn's proprietary government did not secure his colonists under the administration of his grandson, Governor John Penn, from a full share in the hostilities of the Indians in the French and English wars preceding and following the Revolution. In their dire emergency the Quakers were obliged to abandon their peace policy.

In connection with the aggression of the whites, it is natural to lay stress on the fact that there were repeated instances in the case of the earliest colonists from each of the European nationalities, when the foreign adventurers, rovers, and settlers were so weak and helpless, so reduced to absolute starvation, that had it not been for the pity and aid of the natives, as well as for the fact of their being at bitter feud among themselves, there would not have been a survivor left of them. Had the natives, with or without concert, and with a prescience of what was to be their fate from the intruders, availed themselves of their opportunity, the