Sipe, C. Hale.
Fort Ligonier and its times : a history of the first English fort west of the Allegheny Mountains, and an account of many thrilling, tragic, romantic, important but little known colonial and revolutionary events in the region where the winning of the West began : based primarily on the Pennsylvania archives and colonial records
Harrisburg, Pa.: Telegraph Press, 1932, c1933, 730 pgs
Page 4:
The Unami (Turtle Clan), “down river people,” at the opening of the historic period, dwelt on both sides of the Delaware from the mouth of the Lehigh to the line dividing the states of Pennsylvania and Delaware. Their chief village and capital was Shackamaxon, likely the capital also of the whole Lenape nation, located on the Delaware River at Kingston, within the limits of Philadelphia. The principal chief of the Unami Clan was the “King” of the united Lenape nation, by immemorial custom presiding at all the councils of the tribe.
Sipe, C. Hale.
The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania an account of the Indian events, in Pennsylvania, of the French and Indian War, Pontiac’s War, Lord Dunmore’s War, The Revolutionary War and the Indian Uprising from 1789 to 1795. Tragedies of the Pennsylvania Frontier. Harrisburg: The Telegraph Press, 1929.
Page 37:
[same as above for first sentence, then the following]
Their chief village was Shackamaxon, which was probably the capital of the Lenape nation, and it stood on about the site of Germantown, a suburb of Philadelphia. The principal chief of the Unami was the “King” of the united Lenape nation, by immemorial custom presiding at all the councils of the tribe.
[this would appear to be wrong, since it was Kensington and not Germantown where Shackamaxon was located]
Pages 71-73:
Pen’s memorable treaty with Tamanend and other Delaware chiefs, of the Turtle Clan, under the great elm at Shakamaxon, within the limits of Philadelphia, is full of romantic interest. Unarmed, clad in his somber Quaker garb, he addressed the Indians assembled there, uttering the following words, which will be admired throughout the ages: “We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good-will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. We are the same as if one man’s body was to be divided into two parts; we are of one flesh and one blood.” The reply of Tamanend, is equally noble: “We will live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the creeks and rivers run, and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.”
No authentic record has been preserved of the “Great Treaty,” made familiar by Benjamin West’s painting and Voltaire’s allusion to it “as the only treaty never sworn to and never broken;” and there has been a lack of agreement among historians as to the time when it took place. Many authorities claim that the time was in the November days, shortly after Penn arrived in his Province. “Under the shelter of the forest,” says Bancroft, “now leafless by the frosts of autumn, Penn proclaimed to the men of the Algonquin race, from both banks of the Delaware, from the borders of the Schuylkill, and, it ma have been, even from the Susquehanna, the same simple message of peace and love which George Fox had professed before Cromwell, and Mary Fisher had borne to the Grand Turk.”
Other authorities, in recent times, fix the time of the treaty as on the 23rd day of June, 1863, when Penn, as has been seen, purchased the two tracts of land from Tamanend and his associates; in other words, that the purchase of land the “Great Treaty” took place at the same time and at the same place. Moreover, a study of West’s painting of the treaty scene shows the trees to be in full foliage, thus not suggesting a late autumn or winter day, as contended by Bancroft, but rather a day in the leafy month of June. Even if we should not grant the purchase of the two tracts of land from Tamanend and others on the 23rd of June, 1683, the distinction of being the “Great Treaty,” it was most certainly a treaty of great importance and entitled to a prominent place in the Indian history of Pennsylvania and the Nation.
Says Jenkins, in his “Pennsylvania, Colonial and Federal”: “In the years following 1683, far down into the next century, the Indians preserved the tradition of an agreement of peace made with Penn, and it was many times recalled in the meetings held with him and his successors. Some of these allusions are very definite. In 1715, for example, an important delegation of the Lenape chiefs came to Philadelphia to visit the Governor. Sassoonan –afterward called Allummapees, and for many years the principal chief of his people – was at the head, and Opessah, a Shawnee chief, accompanied him. There was ‘great ceremony,’ says the Council record, over the ‘opening of the calumet.’ Rattles were shaken, and songs were chanted. Then Sassoonan spoke, offering the calumet to Governor Gookin, who in his speech spoke of ‘that firm Peace that was settled between William Penn, the founder and chief governor of this country, at his first coming into it,’ to which Sassoonan replied that they had come ‘to renew the former bond of friendship; that William Penn had at his first coming made a clear and open road all the way to the Indians, and they desired the same might be kept open and that all obstructions might be removed,’ etc. in 1720, Governor Keith, writing to the Iroquois chiefs of New York, said: “When Governor Penn first settled this country he made it his first care to cultivate a strict alliance and friendship with all the Indians, and condescended so far as to purchase his lands from them.’ And in March, 1722, the Colonial Authorities, sending a message to the Senecas, said: “William Penn made a firm peace and league with the Indians in these parts near forty years ago, which league has often been repeated and never broken.” In fact, the “Great Treaty” was never broken until the Penn’s Creek Massacre of October 16, 1755.
Unhappily, then, historians are not able to agree in stating the exact date of the “Great Treaty” under the historic elm on the banks of the Delaware, - a treaty that occupies a high and glorious place in the Indian history and traditions of Pennsylvania and the Nation. Though the historian labors in vain to establish the date, the fact of the treaty remains as inspiring to us of the present days as it was to the historians, painters, and poets of the past.
On August 16th, 1683, William Penn wrote a long letter to the Free Society of Traders, in which he describes a council that he had with the Indians, - possibly the “Great Treaty.”:
“I have had occasion to be in council with them (the Indians) upon treaties for land, and to adjust the terms of trade. Their order is thus: The King sits in the middle of an half moon, and hath his council, the old and wise, on each hand; behind them or at a little distance, sit the younger fry in the same figure…
When the purchase was agreed, great promises passed between us of kindness and good neighborhood, and that the Indians and English must live in love as long as the sun and moon give light; which done, another made a speech to the Indians in the name of all the Sachamakers or Kings, first to tell them what was done; next to charge and command them to love the Christians, and particularly live in peace with me, and the people under my Government; that many Governors had been on the River, but that no Governor had come himself to live and stay here before; and having now such an one that treated them well, they should never do him or his any wrong. At every sentence of which they shouted and said Amen in their way.”
The “Great Treaty” was preserved by the head chiefs of the Turtle Clan of Delawares for generations. Chief Killbuck is said to have lost the historic document when, on March 24th, 1782, he fled to Fort Pitt to escape death at the hands of the Scotch-Irish settlers who attacked him and other friendly Delawares on Smoky Island, also called Killbuck’s Island, in the Ohio River, near the fort.
Page 73-75:
The great Delaware chief, Tamanend, (Tammany, etc) from whom William Penn and his agents purchased lands and with whom Penn made the “Great Treaty,” was head chief of the Unami or Turtle Clan of Delawares from before 1683 until 1697 and, perhaps later. He is referred to in the Colonial Records of Pennsylvania as “King” of the Delawares, owing to the fact that the head chief of the Turtle Clan always presided at the councils of the three clans composing the Delaware nation.
He is said to have died before July 1701. His grave is believed to be in “Tammany Burial Ground,” near Chalfonte, Bucks County (PA).
Page 96:
Sassoonan was head chief of the Turtle Clan of the Delawares from a date prior to June 14th, 1715 until his death in the autumn of 1747. By some very high authorities, it is claimed that he was a son of Tamanend and, as a little boy, was with his father at the “Great Treaty” at Shackamaxon. These authorities make Sassoonan identical with “Weheequeckhon, alias Andrew,” who as stated [in Chapter II] joined with his father, Tamanend, his two brothers, and his uncle, in conveying to William Penn, on the fifth day of July, 197, certain lands between the Pennypack and Neshaminy creeks, and whom Tamanend describes in the deed, as , “my son who is to be king after my death.”
Page 652:
“..the Scotch-Irish settlers on Chartiers Creek marched to attack the friendly Delawares on Smoky Island under the guns of Fort Pitt. The attack upon these friendly Indians was made on Sunday morning, March 24th. …Chief Killbuck and a few of his warriors escaped to Fort Pitt. In his flight, Killbuck is said to have lost the wampum containing the treaty which Tamanend and his associate chiefs entered into with William Penn, on hundred years before.
Page 753:
Appendix D: Principal Indian Towns in Pennsylvania
Shackamaxon. The chief town of the Turtle Clan of Delawares, located on the Delaware River at Kingston within the limits of Philadelphia.