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Delaware Indian
Chiefs and Leaders
Allaquippa. A
Delaware woman sachem of this name lived
in 1755 near the mouth of Youghiogheny r., Allegheny co., Pa., and there may
have been there a small Delaware settlement known by her name. (J. M.)
Buckongahelas (breaker in pieces) . A
Delaware chief who lived during the Revolutionary period; born in the first
half of the 18th century. He was the son of Wewandochwalend, apparently a chief
of a Delaware band in Ohio. Buckongahelas became the head warrior of all the
Delaware Indians then residing on Miami and White rs. Although he took part with
the English against the colonists, he does not appear to have been cruel to
non-combatants; and Drake (Biog. and Hist. Inds., 63, 1837) says he was
not only a great, but a noble warrior, who took no delight in shedding blood.
The conduct of the English at the battle of Presque Isle, Ohio, in 1794, so
disgusted him that his sympathies were diverted to the United States. He was
present at Ft McIntosh, where Beaver, Pa., now stands, when the
treaty of 1785 was made, but his name is not among the signers. He was a
signer, however, of the
treaty of Greenville, Ohio, Aug. 3, 1795; of Ft. Wayne, Ind.,
June 7, 1803, and of Vincennes, Ind.,
Aug. 18, 1804. Soon after signing the last his death occurred, probably in
the same year. His name appears in print in various forms. (C. T.)
Gelelemend (leader). A Delaware chief, born about 1722;
known also as Killbuck, the name borne by his father, one of the best educated
Indians of his time. He was chosen on the death of White Eyes, about 1778, to
succeed him as acting chief of the nation during the minority of the hereditary
sachem of the Turtle or Unami division, having in the council won a reputation
for sagacity and discretion. Like his predecessor he strove to maintain
friendship with the whites, and was encouraged in this by the Indian agents and
military commandants at Pittsburg who promised the aid of the American
Government in the uplifting and civilization of the Indians if lasting peace
could be effected. The war party, led by Hopocan, prevailed, however, in the
council. Gelelemend was therefore invited by the officer commanding the garrison
to remove with others of the peace party to an island in Allegheny r., where
they could be under the protection of the soldiery, but they were not protected
from a party of murderous white men that fell upon them when returning from the
massacre of nearly 100 Christian Delawares at Gnadenhuetten in 1782, when the
young chief and all the others except a few were slain. Gelelemend made his
escape by swimming, but the documents that William Penn had given to the Indians
were destroyed. His services were of value in bringing about a general peace,
but the Munsee held him responsible for the misfortunes that had befallen the
Delawares, and to escape their vengeance he remained with his family at
Pittsburg long after peace was proclaimed. He joined the Moravian Indians in the
end and lived under the protection of the settlement, still sedulously avoiding
his vindictive foes. He was baptized by the name of William Henry and lived till
Jan., 1811.
Glikhikan. A Delaware warrior and orator was one of the
chief captains of the Delawares, who, in an argument with the French priests in
Canada had in the opinion of the Indians, refuted the Christian doctrine.
Thinking to achieve a similar victory and win back paganism the Christian
Delawares, he challenged the Moravian missionaries to a debate in 1769. To the
dismay of his admirers he was himself converted to Christianity, and in the
following year went to live with the United Brethren. In the Revolutionary war
his diplomacy saved the Christian settlements from destruction at the hands of
the Huron under Half-King in 1777, and when the latter, on Sept. 4, 1781,
captured him and the German missionaries, their chief interfered to save
Glikhikan from the wrath of his Munsee tribesmen who were with the Huron.
Glikhikan was murdered and scalped at Gnaden-huetten on Mar. 8, 1782, by the
white savages under Col. David Williamson.
Hopocan ('tobacco' pipe). A Delaware chief, known to
the whites as Captain Pipe, and after 1763 among his people as Konieschguanokee
(Maker of Daylight). An hereditary sachem of the Wolf division of the Delawares,
he was war chief of the tribe. He was also prominent in council, having a
reputation for wisdom and a remarkable gift of oratory. In the French war he
fought against the English with courage and skill. He was present at the
conference with Geo. Croghan at Ft Pitt in 1759, and in 1763 or 1764 tried to
take the fort by stratagem, but failed, and was captured. After peace was
concluded he settled with his clan on upper Muskingum r., Ohio, and in 1771 sent
a "speech" to Gov. Penn. He attended the councils of the tribe at the Turtle
village and at Ft Pitt until the Revolutionary war broke out, when he accepted
British pay and fought the Americans and the friendly Indians, but told the
British commander at Detroit that he would not act savagely toward the whites,
having no interest in the quarrel, save to procure subsistence for his people,
and expecting that when the English made peace with the colonists the Indians
would be punished for any excesses that they committed. Col. William Crawford,
however, in retaliation for the massacre of Moravian Indians by a party of white
men, was put to torture when he fell into Captain Pipe s hands after the
ignominious rout of his regiment of volunteers near the upper Sandusky in May,
1782. Pipe signed the
treaty of Ft Pitt, Pa., Sept. 17, 1778, the first treaty between the
United States and the Indians; he was also a signer of the
treaties of Ft McIntosh, Ohio, Jan. 21, 1785, and
Ft Harmar, Ohio, Jan. 9, 1789. In 1780 he removed from his home on
Walhonding cr., at or near White Woman s town, to old Upper Sandusky, or
Cranestown, Ohio, thence to Captain Pipe's village, about 10 m. s. E. of Upper
Sandusky, on land that was ceded to the United States in 1829. He died in 1794.
See Drake, Hist. Ind., 534, 1880; Darlington, Jour, of Col. May, 94,
1873; Pa. Archives, iv, 441, 1833.
Tammany (from Tamanend, 'the affable.'
Heckewelder). The common form of the name of a noted ancient Delaware
chief, written also Tamanee, Tamanen, Tamanend, Tamany, Tamened, Taming,
Teinane. In the form of Tamanen his name appears as one of the signers of
a deed to William Penn in 1683 for lands not far north from Philadelphia,
within the present Bucks county, Pa.
The missionary Heckewelder, writing, in 1817, describes
him as the greatest and best chief known to Delaware tribal tradition.
"The name of Tamanend is held in the highest veneration among the Indians
of all the chiefs and great men which the Lenape nation ever had, he
stands foremost on the list. But although many fabulous stories are
circulated about him among the whites, but little of his real history is
known. All we know, therefore, of Tamanend is that he was an ancient
Delaware chief, who never had his equal. He was in the highest degree
endowed with wisdom, virtue, prudence, charity, affability, meekness,
hospitality, in short with every good and noble qualification that a human
being may possess. He was supposed to have had an intercourse with the
great and good Spirit, for he was a stranger to everything that was bad.
The fame of this great man extended even among the whites, who fabricated
numerous legends respecting him, which I never heard, however, from the
mouth of an Indian, and therefore believe to be fabulous. In the
Revolutionary war his enthusiastic admirers dubbed him a saint, and he was
established under the name of St. Tammany, the Patron Saint of America.
His name was inserted in some calendars, and his festival celebrated on
the first day of May in every year." Heckewelder goes on to describe the
celebration, which was conducted on Indian lines, including the smoking of
the calumet, and Indian dances in the open air, and says that similar
"Tammany societies" were afterward organized in other cities. He states
also that when Col. George Morgan, of Princeton, N. J., was sent by
Congress about the year 1776 upon a special mission to the western tribes,
the Delawares conferred upon him the name of Tamanend in remembrance of
the ancient chief and as the greatest mark of respect that they could pay
to Morgan. Haines, however (Am. Inds., 658,1888), in his chapter on the
Order of Red Men, quotes a contemporary document from which it appears
that the Philadelphia society, which was probably the first bearing the
name, and is claimed as the original of the Red Men secret order, was
organized May 1, 1772, under the title of "Sons of King Tammany," with
strongly Loyalist tendency. It is probable that the "Saint Tammany"
society was a later organization of Revolutionary sympathizers opposed to
the kingly idea. Saint Tammany parish, La., preserves the memory.
Societies
The practice of organizing
American political and military societies on an Indian basis dates back to
the French and Indian war, and was especially in favor among the soldiers
of the Revolutionary army, most of whom were frontiersmen more or less
familiar with Indian life and custom. Of several such societies organized
about the Revolutionary period the only ones still existing are the secret
Improved Order of Red Men (q. V.) and the famous Tammany Society,
originally established as a patriotic and charitable organization, but now
for many years best known as the dominating factor in the Democratic
politics of New York city. It was founded in 1786 by William Mooney, a
Revolutionary veteran and former leader of the "Sons of Liberty," and
regularly organized with a constitution in 1789 (most of the original
members being Revolutionary soldiers), for the purpose of guarding "the
independence, the popular liberty, and the federal union of the country,"
in opposition to the efforts of the aristocratic element, as represented
by Hamilton and the Federalists, to make the new government practically a
monarchy, with life tenure for President and Senate and a restricted
property suffrage. Its two main purposes were declared to be
(1) the perpetuity of republican institutions, and
(2) the care of Revolutionary soldiers, their widows and orphans, "and of
others who might be proper objects of charity."
The society-occasionally at first known as the
Columbian Order took an Indian title and formulated for itself a ritual
based upon supposedly Indian custom. Thus, the name chosen was that of the
traditional Delaware chief; the meeting place was called the "wigwam";
there were 13 "tribes" or branches corresponding to the 13 original
states, the New York parent organization being the "Eagle Tribe," New
Hampshire the "Otter Tribe," Delaware the "Tiger Tribe," whence the famous
"Tammany tiger," etc. The principal officer of each tribe was styled the
"sachem," and the head of the whole organization was designated the
kitcki okeemaw, or grand sachem, which office was held by Mooney
himself for more than 20 years. Subordinate officers also were designated
by other Indian titles, records were kept according to the Indian system
by moons and seasons, and at the regular meetings the members attended in
semi-Indian costume.
For the first 30 years of its existence, until the
close of the War of 1812, nearly the whole effort of the society was
directed to securing and broadening the foundations of the young republic,
and it is possible that without Tammany's constant vigilance the National
Government could not have survived the open and secret attacks of powerful
foes both within and without. In 1790 it was chiefly instrumental in the
negotiation of a treaty with the Creek Indians, by which the peace of the
southern border was secured.
About the same time it took steps for the establishment
of an Indian museum, the germ of the New York Historical Society. In 1808
it collected and gave suitable burial to the bones of the Revolutionary
victims of the prison ships at Wallabout bay. In the War of 1812 it
furnished three generals to the United States army, and 1,200 men from its
own membership for the construction of defenses about New York city. In
1817 it brought back from Canada and interred with fitting ceremony the
body of Gen. Richard Montgomery, killed at the siege of Quebec. In 1820,
after years of effort, it secured full manhood suffrage in the state of
New York, and in 1831 it procured the abolition of imprisonment for debt
in New York city. In 1861 it raised from its membership, equipped, and
sent to the front, under its own Grand Sachem as colonel, the 42d N. Y.
Infantry regiment. The original New York organization still survives, the
other branches having long passed out of existence, but of late years it
has devoted its energies chiefly to the control of local politics. Its
central executive body is known as Tammany Hall. Theoretically the
"Society" and the " Hall" are two distinct bodies, the one representing
the social and fraternal functions, the other the political "machine"; but
as their officership is largely identical, their meetings held in the same
"wigwam," and the names similar, the distinction is of minor importance.
Consult Heckewelder, Ind. Nations, 1876; Drake, Aboriginal Races of N.
Am., 1880; Haines, Am. Ind. (chapter on The Order of Red Men), 1888;
Davis, Tammany Hall, in Munsey's Mag., Oct. 1900; Encycl. Americana, art.
Tammany, 1904.
Black Beaver. A Delaware guide, born
at the present site of Belleville,
Ill., in
1806; died at Anadarko,
Okla., May 8,
1880.
He was present as interpreter at
the earliest conference with the Comanche,
Kiowa, and Wichita tribes, held by Col. Richard Dodge on upper Red River
in 1834, and from then until the
close of his days his services were constantly required
by the Government and were invaluable
to military and scientific
explorers of the plains and the
Rocky Mountains. In nearly every
one of the early transcontinental expeditions
he was the most intelligent and most trusted guide and scout.
Lappawinze
('getting provisions'). A Delaware chief-one of those who were induced to
sign at Philadelphia the treaty of 1737, known as the "walking purchase,"
confirming the treaty of 1686, which granted to the whites land extending
from Neshaming cr. as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. When
the survey was made under this stipulation the governor of Pennsylvania
had a road built inland and employed a trained runner, a proceeding that
the Delawares denounced as a fraud. See Pa. Archives, 1st ser., i, 541,
1852; Thompson, Inquiry into Alienation of Delaware and Shawnee Inds., 69,
1759.
Neswage. A Delaware chief who, commanding a band of 23 warriors,
about 1841, was attacked by the Sioux at a point just north of the
present Adel, Dallas County, Iowa, while on their way to visit the Sauk
and Foxes, then holding a war dance within the limits of the site of Des
Moines, The Delaware offered a brave defense, killing 26 of the Sioux
before all but one of their own number fell. This survivor bore the news
to the camp of the Sauk and Foxes, a short distance away, among whom
were Keokuk and Pashapahs. With 600 warriors they followed the Sioux,
inflicting on them severe punishment. Those who visited the scene of the
attack on the Delaware found the body of Neswage lying by a tree, his
tomahawk at his side and the bodies of four of his warriors immediately
about him.
Netawatwees, A Delaware chief, born about 1677, died at Pittsburg,
Pa., in 1776. Netawatwees was one of the signers of the treaty of
Conestoga in 1718. As he belonged to the important Unami, or Turtle
division of the tribe, he became chief of this division according to
usage and in consequence thereof head chief of the tribe, To him were
committed all the tokens of contracts, such a wampum belts, obligatory
writings, with the sign manual of William Penn and others down to the
time, that he and his people were forced to leave Pennsylvania and
retire to Ohio, where they settled on Cayuga river. He failed to attend
the treaty with Bouquet in 1763, and when this officer and Bradstreet
with their troops approached his settlement he attempted to escape, but
was captured and deposed from his chieftancy until the conclusion of
peace, when he was reinstated by his tribe. He became a convert to
Christianity in his later years and urged other leaders to follow his
example. On his death he was succeeded by White Eyes.
The books presented are for their
historical value only and are not the
opinions of the Webmasters of the site.
Handbook
of American Indians, 1906
Index of Tribes or Nations
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