 their communications, and frequently imparting its
pathos or energy to their eloquence.
    For many hundreds of miles along the northern boundaries of the Lenape, was
seated another people, similarly situated as to subdivisions, descent, and
language. They were called by their neighbours the Mengwe. These northern
savages were, for a time, however, less powerful, and less united, than the
Lenape. In order to obviate this disadvantage, five of the most powerful and
warlike of their tribes, who lay nearest to the council house of their enemies,
confederated for the purposes of mutual defence; being, in truth, the oldest
United Republics of which the history of North America furnishes any evidence.
These tribes were the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Senecas, the Cayugas, and the
Onondagas. At a later day, a straggling band of their race, which had gone
nigher to the sun, was reclaimed, and admitted into a full communion of all
their political privileges. This tribe (the Tuscarora) increased their number so
far, that the English changed the appellation they had given the confederation,
from the Five to the Six Nations. It will be seen, in the course of the
narrative, that the word nation is sometimes applied to a community, and
sometimes to the people, in their most extended sense. The Mengwe were often
called by their Indian neighbours, the Maquas, and frequently, by way of
contempt, Mingoes. The French gave them the name of Iroquois, which was probably
a corruption of one of their own terms.
    There is a well authenticated and disgraceful history of the means by which
the Dutch on one side, and the Mengwe on the other, succeeded in persuading the
Lenape to lay aside their arms, trusting their defence entirely to the latter,
and becoming, in short, in the figurative language of the natives, women. The
policy on the part of the Dutch was a safe one, however generous it may have
been. From that moment may be dated the downfall of the greatest and most
civilized of the Indian nations, that existed within the limits of the present
United States. Robbed by the whites, and murdered and oppressed by the savages,
they lingered for a time around their council-fire, but finally broke off in
bands, and sought refuge in the western wilds. Like the lustre of the dying
lamp, their glory shone the brightest as they were about to become extinct.
    Much more might be said concerning this interesting people, especially of
their later history, but it is believed not to be essential to the plan of the
present work. Since
