Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1851-06-19


brothers, and bury such false reports in bot
tomless p;t-that the Christians should hear
ofany thing likely to be of hurt to the Indi-
ans, or the Indians hear of any thing likely
to harm the christians, they should run, like
true friends, and let the other know-that if
any son of Onas were to do any harm to any
red skin, or red skin were to do harm to a
son of Onas, the sufferer should not offer to
right himself, but should complain to the
chiefs and to Onas, that justice might be de-
clared by twenty honest men, and the wrong
buried in pit with no bottom-that the
Lenni Lenape should assist the white men,
and the white men should assist the Lenni
Lenape, against all such as would disturb
them or do them hurt-and lastly, that both
Christians and Indians should tell their chill
dren of this league and chain of friendship,
that it should grow stronger and stronger, and
be kept bright and clean, without rust or spot,
while the waters ran down the creeks and
rivers, and while the sun and moon and stars
endured.
He then laid the scroll on the ground
What King Taminent replied is not known,
except that in substance he was favorable to
the view of Penn. The sachems received his
proposal with decent gravity, and accepted
- 81, al, IL,
oaths, no seals, no official mumeries were
used; the treaty was ratified on both sides
with yea, yea-the only one, says Voltaire,
that world has known, never sworn to and
never broken.
This scene remained to the two races who
were witnesses and actors in it, and inheri-
lance of good will and honorable pride for an
entire century. From year to year, says the
venerable historian of Six Nations, Heckew-
elder. the sachems assembled their children
in the woods, in shady spot as like as they
could find to that in which the great Onas
had conferred with them, when they would
spread out his words or speeches on blank
ct or clean piece of bark, and repeat the
whole again and again to their great salts
faction.
In few years Penn, going beyond the
seas and never returning, became to them a
sort of mythical parsonage; they not only held
his memory in the greatest veneration, but
treated the whole body of white men with
more kindness for his sake. To be a follower
Of Onas was at all times passport to their
protection and hospitality.
Nor have his own countrymen been less
indebted or less grateful to the Great Treaty.
To it, and to the strctness with which its
provisions were maintained by Penn, is owing
that striking fact recorded by Bancroft-that
while every other colony in the New World
was visited in turn by the horrors of Indian
warfare, no drop of Quaker blood was ever
shed by redman in Pennsylvania.
1t is humiliating to the pride of the white
man think that one of his race should have
been the first to break this noble league OF
peace. Forty years after the famous treaty,
and five years after the death of Onas, one of
his unworthy children murdered the first red
man who lost his life in Pennsylvania. The
deed was attended with circumstances of un-
usual atrOclty; but it shows in striking light
the power of 4 noble sentiment, that the In
dians themselves prayed the murderer's life
might be spared. 1t was spared; but he died
in very short time, and they then said the
Great Spirit had avenged their brother. The
venerable elm-tree under which the meeting
took place served to mark the spot until the
storm of 1910 threw it to the ground. 1t
measured twenty-four feet in girth, and was
found then to be two hundred and eighty
three years old. A piece of it was sent home
to the Penn family, by whom it was mounted
on pedestal with appropriate inscriptions
and the remainder was manufactured into va
ses, workstands, and other relics now held
sacred by their possesors. A plain monu-
ment has since been erected on the spot, in
scribed on each face with foul short and SIM
pie sentences commemorative of the Great
Treaty.