80 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. of the seventeenth century have perished by the sword in Canada and the United States, have been destroyed by that single nation, than in all their wars with the Europeans. Hut, instead of exerting their influence in assuaging the passions of the Indians and in promoting peace amongst them, the European governments, intent only on the acquisition of territory and power, encouraged their natural propensities. Both France and England courted a disgraceful alliance with savages; and both, under the usual pleas of self-defence and retaliation, armed them against the defenceless inhabitants of the other party. The sack of Schenectady, the desolation of the island of Montreal, the murdering expeditions on the frontiers of New England, are related by the respective histo- rians with indifference, if not with exultation. No scruple was felt in inducing all the Indian tribes to carry on against America their usual warfare, and to desolate, without discrimination of age or sex, the whole extent of a frontier of twelve hundred miles during the seven years of the war of Independence. The United States are at least free from that reproach. If their population has pressed too fast on the natives, if oc- casionally they have too forcibly urged purchases of land, their government, ever since they were an independent nation, has not only used every endeavour to be at peace with the Indians, but has succeeded in preventing war amongst them to a de- gree heretofore unknown in America. And, at Ghent, they proposed an article in the treaty of peace, by which both nations should engage, if unfortunately they were again at war, never to employ the savages as auxiliaries. We trust that under any contingency, the two nations will act as if the arti- cle had been made a condition of the treaty. The vocabulary of the Onondagas was extracted by Mr. Du ponceau from Zeisberger's Manuscript Dictionary. That of the Mohawks was taken by Mr. S. E. Dwight, of New Haven, assisted by Mr. J. Parish. That of the Senecas was received through the War Department. Mr. Jefferson's mutila- ted vocabulary has supplied part of the words in the vocabula- ry of the Oneidas. The others, and all those in the Cayuga dialect, were taken from Smith Barton. The southern Iroquois tribes occupied Chowan River and its tributary streams. They were bounded, on the east, by the
