BOLL. 30] 



WILLI A MS WTLLOP A H 



955 



Williams interpretation of the speech as 

 "a lie from beginning to end." At this 

 time he was at Green Ba)', Wis., with a 

 self - constituted delegation of Oneida, 

 Onondaga, Tuscarora, and Stockbridges, 

 negotiating a project for the removal of 

 all the New York Indians to the country 

 between the Mississippi and Green Bay, 

 Wis., and the establishment among them 

 of an empire with a single supreme head. 

 In the furtherance of this plan in 1821 

 Williams visited New York and entered 

 into negotiations with the Ogden Land 

 Company, which then held the preemp- 

 tion riglit to most of the Indian lands in 

 w. New York, looking to the removal of 

 the New York Indians beyond the limits 

 of the state, and received sums of money 

 from time to time for the purpose of 

 advancing the interests of the land com- 

 pany. Williams also busied himself at 

 this time in enlisting the aid of mission- 

 ary societies in establishing a church 

 among the Indians at Green Bay, and 

 carried on a voluminous correspondence 

 with the War Department (under which 

 the Indian affairs were then adminis- 

 tered), in order to obtain recognition of 

 his schemes. Aided by the Ogden Land 

 Company, he finally obtained official 

 permission to lead a delegation of Indians 

 to Green Bay, representing to them that 

 the affair was "under the patronage, pro- 

 tection, and with the assistance of the 

 Government;" but when the proposal 

 was openly made to the New York In- 

 dians in council, the Seneca and the 

 other tribes, through the famous Red 

 Jacket, emphatically refused their assent 

 to the project. Nevertheless, through 

 Williams' machinations and the power- 

 ful influence behind his schemes, a treaty 

 was finally negotiated in 1832 by which 

 Williams' plan was partly realized. Most 

 of the Oneida removed to Wisconsin, but 

 the Seneca, followed by the Tuscarora 

 and the Onondaga, resolved to hold their 

 lands in New York at all hazard. 



When Williams removed to Green Bay 

 in 1823 he married Miss Mary Jourdain. 

 He had promised schools to the Indians 

 and the French traders in consideration 

 of their consent to establish the New York 

 Indians among them; but having failed 

 to redeem these pledges the missionary 

 societies disavowed their confidence in 

 Williams, and in 1827 appointed as mis- 

 sionary the Rev. Richard F. Cadle, who 

 established a school at Menomoneeville, 

 Wis. With the failure of the Green Bay 

 land scheme Williams realized that he 

 was ruined, and withdrew to his home at 

 Kaukalin. He continued to receive aid 

 from some of the missionary boards, since 

 he represented himself as the missionary 

 of the Oneida at Duck Creek, Wis., al- 

 though he did not perform the duties of 



that station. About 1832 the Oneida, 

 becoming wearied with the Williams in- 

 cubus, held a council, to which they 

 invited Col. George Boyd, U. S. Indian 

 agent, in order to show him that for 

 years Williams had failed to carry out 

 any of his many promises; that, owing 

 "to his want of good faith, his fraud and 

 deceit, they were in the wilderness, 

 utterly abandoned, without schools, 

 churches, or religious privileges of any 

 kind; and worse than all, that the little 

 fund provided by the kindness of the 

 Christian public in the East was antici- 

 pated, caught on its way to them by him, 

 and consumed for entirely contrary pur- 

 poses." At the Indians' request, the 

 agent notified the governor of New York, 

 the United States Government, and the 

 missionary societies, warning the authori- 

 ties that the Oneida had forever repu- 

 diated Williams, and asking that he 

 should not be recognized as acting for 

 them in any capacity. This indictment 

 was so disastrous to Williams that he 

 dropped out of sight until 1853, when he 

 reappeared in a new role, that of the 

 Dauphin of France, the Lost Prince, 

 Louis XVII. At once he gained many 

 credulous adherents and apologists, al- 

 though it had been shown that he was 

 "the most perfect adept at fraud, deceit, 

 and intrigue that the world ever pro- 

 duced." He so far imposed on the 

 credulity of many well-meaning persons 

 that the Rev. John H. Hanson in 1854 

 published an elaborate work, entitled 

 The Lost Prince, in support of Williams' 

 I^reposterous claim, based largely on ma- 

 terial manufactured by Williams himself. 

 Gen. A. G. Ellis (Wis. Hist. Soc. Coll., 

 VIII, 1879) and William Ward Wight 

 (Eleazar Williams Not the Dauphin of 

 France, 1903) have shown the ground- 

 lessness of his claim. For Williams' 

 published translations in the Iroquois 

 language, see Pilling, Bibliography of the 

 Iroquoian Languages, Bull. B. A. E., 

 167-168,1888. (.i. n. b. h.) 



Williams, Thomas. See Tehoragwanegen. 



Williams Lake. A Shuswap village or 

 band on Williams lake, which drains 

 westward into Eraser r., Brit. Col., about 

 lat. 52° 10^ Pop. 155 in 1910. The name 

 is applied also to a Canadian Indian 

 agency. 



Willopah ( XwiWjpax, their name for 

 the river). A Chinookan tribe on the 

 lower course of Willopah r.. Wash. They 

 have been so frequently confounded with 

 the Kwalhioqua, an Athapascan tribe 

 living on the upper course of that stream, 

 that the latter have usually been called 

 Willopah. Their villages were Nayako- 

 lole, Quelaptonlit, and Talal. Along with 

 the Kwalhioqua they ceded their lands 

 to the United States in 1864. In 1910 



