[8] Of the Indians of the Five and Six Nations.
I shall now give a particular account of the Indians of the Five and Six Nations, and the reasons why they are so called, in order to enable the reader to form an idea of their consequence in a political point of view, as well as their importance on account of the fur trade; because the vicinity of the American territories from Georgia to New England, gives the United States a great command and influence from their situation, and renders them more to be dreaded than even the French were in the zenith of their American power, when it was universally known they had such an interest among the savages, as induced them to call the French their fathers, and of which so much yet remains, as to prompt them to retain a predilection in favour of the traders of the Gallic race who are settled among them.
In 1603, when the French settled in Canada, part of
the Five Nations resided on the island of Montreal, and
were at war with the Adirondacks (who lived on the
Uttawa, or grand river leading to Michillimakinac);[1]
these, considered the Five Nations as very insignificant
opponents, and incapable of serious revenge, and they
were held in as much derision as the Delawares, who were
usually called old women, or the Shawanees (who lived
on the Wabach River), who were obliged to wear petticoats
for a considerable time, in contempt of their want of courage, and as a badge of their pusillanimity and
————
- ↑ Long uses as his historical authority the work of Cadwallader Colden (whom he later cites directly), History of the Five Indian Nations (New York, 1727). Colden appears to have taken much of his material from Bacqueville de la Potherie's Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale (Paris, 1722). But Long does not blindly follow Colden, and adds other material.—Ed.
