I
The Iroquois
and
the Susquehanna
WE cannot understand the Indians of New York if we judge them only by what is seen to-day of Indian life in the Far West, among tribes who roam the mountains and plains, and who have emerged so little from the nomad state; or if we judge the Iroquois by their descendants now living on reservations. Not alone has their territorial dominion passed away, but their genius also—at least, in its manifestations. They have remained silent witnesses of the progress of civilized life on American soil—stolid, unimpassioned, proud. Before the white man came was their time of splendor; after that began their decadence.
The Iroquois, in their best days, were the noblest and most interesting of all Indians who have lived on this continent north of Mexico. They were truly the men whom a name they bore described, a word signifying men who surpassed all others. They alone founded political institutions and gained political supremacy. With European civilization unknown to them, they had given birth to selfgovernment in America. They founded independence; effected a union of States; carried their arms far beyond their own borders; made their conquests permanent; conquered peoples becoming tributary
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