SIOUAN 

 MOONEY 



] IROQUOIS DEPREDATIONS. 13 



progress nearly three centuries ago. As early as 10U8 John Smith 

 found the Iroquois, kuowu to the Powhatan tribes as Massawomek, 

 regarded as '-their most mortall enemies" by all the tribes of Virginia 

 and Maryland. The Susquehanna (" Sasquesahanock") or Conestoga 

 at the head of the bay, who had nearly six hundred warriors, all "great 

 and well-proportioned men," he found " pallisadoed in their Townes to 

 defend them from the Massawomekes their mortall enemies" (Smith, 1). 

 Sixty-five years later these giant-like men, notwithstanding their pal- 

 isaded defenses, were forced to abandon their country to the conquering 

 Iroquois and come down upon the frontiers of Virginia, thus ])recipitat- 

 ing the Indian war which resulted in Bacon's rebellion. On the upper 

 Rappahannock he was told that the Massawomeke made war with all 

 the world, and he states that all the tribes of the interior "are con- 

 tinually tormented by them: of whose cruelties they generally com- 

 plained, and very importunate they were with me and my company to 

 free them from those tormentors. To this purpose they offered food, 

 conduct, assistance, and continual subjection" (Smith, 2). 



In 1701 John Lawson, the surveyor-general of Carolina, made a cir- 

 cuitous journey through the interior from Charleston to Pamlico sound, 

 and on every hand, alike from Indians and traders, he heard stories of 

 the ruin wrought by the "Sinnagers" (Seneca, i. e. Iroquois), who, hav- 

 ing completed the conquest or extermination of all the tribes which 

 had formerly withstood their power in the north, were now at liberty 

 to turn the full current of their hatred upon the weaker ones of the 

 south. Even on the border of South Carolina he was shown the grave 

 piles erected over the bodies of their victims. He found the larger 

 tribes living in forts and obliged to keep continual spies and outguards 

 on the lookout for better security, while smaller tribes — the Saponi, 

 Tutelo, and others of Siouan stock — .were consolidating and withdra>v- 

 mg to the protection of the English settlements. He described the 

 Iroquois as "A sort of people that range several thousands of miles, 

 making all prey they lay their hands on. These are feared by all the 

 savage nations I ever was among" (Lawson, 1) — a striking confirma- 

 tion of the statement given to Smith seventy years before, that'they 

 made war with all the world. Byrd, about 1730, says that the northern 

 Indians were the implacable enemies of these Siouan tribes, and that 

 the frequent inroads of the Seneca had compelled the Sara to aban- 

 don their beautiful home on the banks of the Dan and take refuge on 

 the Pedee (Byrd, 2). On one occasion the Iroquois themselves asserted 

 that these southern Indians had been for a long time their enemies, 

 and that they (the Iroquois) formerly had been so exasperated against 

 tliem that they had taken them prisoners even out of the houses of the 

 Christians (New York, 1). When at last, in 1722, at the urgent solici- 

 tation of the colonial government, they consented to cease their attacks 

 upon the miserable remnant gathered under the guns of Fort Chris- 

 tianna, they declared that they had cherished toward these people " so 



