Chap. I.J DELA WARES. 31 



had forced them to assume the name of Women, 

 and forego the use of arms.^ DweUing under the 

 shadow of the tyrannical confederacy, they were 

 long unable to Avipe out the blot ; but at length, 

 pushed from their ancient seats by the encroach- 

 ments of white men, and removed westward, par- 

 tially beyond the reach of their conquerors, their 

 native spirit began to revive, and they assumed a 

 tone of defiance. During the Old French War 

 they resumed the use of arms, and while the Five 

 Nations fought for the English, they espoused the 

 cause of France. At the opening of the Ee volu- 

 tion, they boldly asserted their freedom from the 

 yoke of their conquerors ; and a few years after, 

 the Five Nations confessed, at a public council, that 

 the Lenape were no longer women, but men.^ 

 Ever since that period, they have stood in high 

 repute for bravery, generosity, and all the savage 

 virtues ; and the settlers of the frontier have often 

 found, to their cost, that the loomen of the Iroquois 

 have been transformed into a race of formidable 

 warriors. At the present day, the small remnant 

 settled beyond the Mississippi are among the bravest 

 marauders of the west. Their war-parties pierce the 

 farthest wilds of the Eocky Mountains ; and the 



1 The story told by the Lenape themselves, and recorded with the 

 utmost good faith by Loskiel and Heckewelder, that the Five Nations 

 had not conquered them, but, by a cunning artifice, had cheated them 

 into subjection, is wholly unworthy of credit. It is not to be believed that 

 a people so acute and suspicious could be the dupes of so palpable a trick ; 

 and it is equally incredible that a high-spirited tribe could be induced, by 

 the most persuasive rhetoric, to assume the name of Women, which in 

 Indian eyes is the last confession of abject abasement. 



2 Heckewelder, Hist. Ind. Nat. 53. 



