As their name indicates, they came originally from the _South,_ (that being the meaning of the Delaware word _Shawaneu;_) and the oldest individuals of the Mohican tribe, their _elder brother,_ [FN] told Mr. Heckewelder, they dwelt in the neighborhood of Savannah, in Georgia, and in the Floridas. "They were a restless people," we are further informed, "delighting in wars;" and in these they were so constantly engaged, that their neighbors,--the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Yamassees, and other powerful tribes,--finally formed a league, offensive and defensive, for the express purpose of expelling them from the country. But the Shawanees were too wise to contend with such an enemy, and they adopted the more prudent policy of asking permission to leave their territories peaceably, and migrate northward. This favor being granted them, their main body settled upon the Ohio; some of them as far up as where the French afterwards built Fort Duquesne,--now Pittsburg,--others, about the forks of the Delaware, and a few even upon the site of what is now Philadelphia. * * * * * [FN] So called, because their separation from the parent stock was one of the most ancient of which the tradition was distinctly preserved. Following the same principle, the Delawares themselves have uniformly given the title of _Uncle_ to the Wyandots. Those who remained on the Ohio becoming numerous and powerful, it was not long before they crossed the Allegheny mountains, and fell upon a settlement of the Delawares, on the Juniata,--of which very people, their _grandfather,_ they had solicited peace and protection, through the interposition of the Mohicans, on their first arrival in the country. Murders were committed, plunder was carried off, and a war ensued. As soon as this could be disposed of, they engaged in the French war, which broke out in 1755, against the English. That being terminated in 1763, and the tribe being elated by its increased numbers, and by the strong confederacy now established between themselves and the Delawares, they commenced hostilities against the Cherokees. In the course of this war, the latter occasionally pursued the aggressors into the Delaware territories, and thus that nation was aroused again. The union of forces which ensued, added to the already existing hostility of the Five Nations, proved too much for the Cherokees, and in 1768, they solicited and obtained a peace. Owing chiefly to the influence of the Delawares, the Shawanees were now kept quiet for the unusually long term of six years, when they were involved in a war with the people of Virginia,--then comprising Kentucky,--occasioned by the noted murders committed upon Logan's relations and others, by white people. The burning of some of their villages had scarcely driven them to a sort of truce with mis new enemy, when the war of the Revolution commenced, in which they allied themselves