548 



SHIKELLAMY 



[B. A. E. 



for him,' or 'He lights, enlightens him.' 

 The forms of the name ending in tis (see 

 below) are due to a Latinism by the 

 Moravian writers rather than to the orig- 

 inal native form of the name. Those 

 ending in o, a, or y are forms employed 

 by English writers, and probably are ap- 

 proximately nearer the original native 

 term than those ending in us. Another 

 Iroquoian name applied to this chieftain 

 is Swataney, a highly Anglicized form of 

 Oakld'swathe' ^ tanl' , signifying ' He causes 

 it to be light for us,' and, iiguratively, 

 'He enlightens it for us,' or as an appel- 

 lative, 'Our Enlightener'). An Oneida 

 chieftain. According to Eartram he was 

 "an adopted Frenchman," born in Mon- 

 treal, who had been captured and adopted 

 by the Oneida, although he claimed to 

 be a Cayuga. He was the exponent of 

 the colonial policy of the great federal 

 Iroquois council at Onondaga, and was 

 sent by it to the forks of the Susquehanna 

 in 1728 to conserve the interests of the 

 Six Nations in the vallej' of the Susque- 

 hanna and to keep watch over the tribu- 

 tary Shawnee and Delaware Indians. He 

 was a man of great dignity, sobriety, and 

 prudence, and at all times showed marked 

 kindness to the whites, especially to the 

 missionaries. In the execution of his 

 trust Shikellamy conducted many im- 

 portant embassies between the govern- 

 ment of Pennsylvania and the Iroquois 

 council at Onondaga, and he also attended 

 many if not most of the councils held at 

 Philadelphia, Conestoga, and elsewhere 

 in the performance of his duties. The 

 importance of his othce is evi<lent from 

 the fact that the valley of the Susque- 

 hanna, after the Conestoga were subju- 

 gated in 1676 by the Iroquois, was as- 

 signed by the Five Nations of Iroquois as a 

 hunting ground to the Shawnee, Dela- 

 wares, Conoy, Nanticoke, Munsee, Tutelo, 

 Saponi, and Conestoga tribes. When 

 the Mohawk sold the Wyoming region in 

 Pennsylvania to the Susquehanna Land 

 Co., although this tribe had never aided 

 in the conquests made in this valley, the 

 council at Onondaga began to realize that 

 this section, with its valuable lands and 

 many dependent tribes, was worthy of 

 careful attention; hence these tribes were 

 made to understand that in the future 

 they must transact all business with the 

 proprietary government solely through 

 their deputy. With his residence fixed 

 at Shamokin (now Sunl)ury), Pa., Shikel- 

 lamy was promoted in 1745 to the full 

 vicegerency over the tributary tribes in 

 the Susquehanna valley, and intricate and 

 important interests committed to him re- 

 ceived the care of an astute statesman and 

 diplomat. The effects of the liquor traffic 

 on the Indians led to prohibitory decrees 

 on the part of the government of Penn- 



sylvania, and later, evidently through 

 the influence of traders, when these pro- 

 hibitory measures became lax, Shikella- 

 my in 1 731 delivered an ultimatum to the 

 Pennsylvania government to the effect 

 that unless the liquor trade should be 

 better regulated with regard to its sale 

 among his people, friendly relations be- 

 tween the proprietary government and 

 the Six Nations would cease. As the 

 difficulties arising from the sale of liquor 

 had forced a large number of Shawnee 

 to migrate from the Susquehanna to the 

 Ohio r. in 1730, and as French emissaries 

 were taking advantage of this condition 

 to alienate the Shawnee from the English 

 interest, the Governor decided in 1731 to 

 send Shikellamy, "a trusty, good man, 

 and a great lover of the English," to 

 Onondaga to invite the Six Nations to 

 Philadelphia, with a view of securing the 

 friendship and alliance of the Six Na- 

 tions in order to keep the Shawnee in the 

 English interest; but owing to the mis- 

 trust the Six Nations had of the motives 

 of the English, they did not send a dep- 

 utation until August, 1732, and even then 

 there were delegates from only three of 

 the tribes, who professed to speak for the 

 others, consequently the conference was 

 unsatisfactory. In 1736 Shikellamy's in- 

 fluence was enlisted to bring about a con- 

 ference in which would be represented 

 the entire confederation of the Six Na- 

 tions, and in less than two months' time 

 Conrad Weiser was enabled to inform the 

 Governor of Pennsylvania that more than 

 a hundred chiefs of the Iroquois with 

 their retinues were on their way to Phila- 

 delphia. By this treaty of 1736 the Six 

 Nations, in consideration of a large con- 

 signment of merchandise, deeded all their 

 Susquehanna lands s. and e. of the Blue 

 mtns. Some weeks later, when nearly all 

 the leading Indians had departed, an- 

 other deed was prepared and signed by 

 the remaining Indians, which purported 

 to include the lands ostensibly claimed 

 by the Six Nations within the drainage 

 of Delaware r. s. of the Blue mtns. — a 

 treaty that, says Walton, "established a 

 precedent for an Iroquois claim to lands 

 owned by the Delaware Indians," a claim 

 that had never hitherto been advanced. 

 "No doubt," says Walton, "Shikelimy 

 was the Indian agent who accomplished 

 this, and that he used Conrad Weiser to 

 bring it to pass. Weiser helped Shikel- 

 imy sow the seed which drenched Penn- 

 sylvania in blood from 1755 to 1764. In 

 permitting this second deed Pennsylva- 

 nia started that series of events with the 

 Delawares which cost her one of the most 

 remarkable Indian invasions in colonial 

 history. And at the same time by secur- 

 ing this and thus conciliating the Iro- 

 quois, and holding the key to their future 



