Daily stories of Pennsylvania : $b prepared for publication in the leading daily newspapers of the state...Godcharles, Frederic Antes
History
Daily stories of Pennsylvania : $b prepared for publication in the leading daily newspapers of the state...
Godcharles, Frederic Antes
Pennsylvania -- Biography; Pennsylvania -- History
Tedyuskung was born at the present site of Trenton, N.J., about 1705,
and died April 16, 1763. Nothing is known of his life before the time he
first appears as an historic character, prior to which he was known as
“Honest John.”
When about fifty years old he was chosen chief of the Delaware on the
Susquehanna, and from that time wielded a potent influence, although he
occupied a peculiar position.
Sir William Johnson, of New York, was a zealous friend of the Iroquois,
while Conrad Weiser and George Croghan, of Pennsylvania, were strongly
prejudiced against the Delaware and Shawnee. The problem which the
Provincial Government of Pennsylvania had to solve was how to keep peace
with the Iroquois and at the same time prevent the Delaware and the
Shawnee who were then becoming independent of the Iroquois, from going
over to the French.
The Delaware were conscious they had been unjustly deprived of their
lands by the Pennsylvania authorities, aided by the Iroquois. They had
been driven from the Delaware to the Susquehanna, and many had been
forced even as far west as the Ohio, and now that France and England had
commenced to struggle for the possession of that region the Delaware
felt they were to be again driven from their home. They were revolting
not only against the English, but against their masters, the Iroquois.
At this critical time, when the border settlements in Western
Pennsylvania were being ravaged by hostile bands of Delaware and
Shawnee, and when the English were making preparations for an expedition
to take Fort Duquesne, Tedyuskung took his stand as a friend of the
English.
Christian Frederic Post had been sent on a mission to the Ohio Indians,
and Conrad Weiser and others were working to retain the friendship of
these Indians. The many squatters along the Juniata River and the
illegal sale of land at Wyoming made by the Mohawk to the Connecticut
settlers complicated the situation and made the work of these emissaries
much more difficult and trying. Then the Indians who had been in
conference at Albany in 1754, found when they returned home that lands
had been sold to the Proprietors which they did not comprehend.
Washington suffered defeat at Fort Necessity and this was followed by
the terrible Braddock disaster; which with the evil effects of the rum
traffic among the Indians and the almost total neglect by the Province
of Pennsylvania had almost entirely alienated them from the English
cause.
Then began the several attempts to win them back, but the passage of the
Scalp Act and the declaration of war against the Delaware caused this
tribe to rise in rebellion against the Province and also against their
hated title of “women,” given them by the Iroquois.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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