Sep 15, 2011 - Sale 2253

Sale 2253 - Lot 116

Price Realized: $ 2,880
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
"2 OR 3 LITTLE ONES CRYED MUCH AT PARTING WITH THE INDIANS' (COLONIAL WARS--FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.) Pemberton, John. Eyewitness description of a conference with the Six Nations. Autograph Letter Signed to his future mother-in-law Sarah Zane, 3 pages and address panel, 8 x 6 inches, on one sheet; minor wear and slight separation at folds. Lancaster, PA, 21 August 1762
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During French and Indian War, the powerful Six Nations tribes were formally allied with the English, but the subordinate Delawares engaged in harsh guerilla attacks on the backcountry English settlers in Pennsylvania and Ohio. A group of Quakers attempted to help the Delawares negotiate for peace, calling themselves the Friendly Association for the Gaining and Preserving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Measures. At an important meeting in Lancaster, PA between the Pennsylvania governor and the Six Nations in August 1762, several white prisoners were returned and the Delaware chief Teedyuskung renounced any claim to land along the Delaware River.
John Pemberton, a prominent Philadelphia Quaker, wrote this letter while attending the Lancaster conference, on a day when negotiations were proceeding poorly. Tensions between the Six Nations and the Iroquois were a major factor: "Tom King [an Oneida chief] was the speaker. They do not seem so sincere as we could wish. The prisoners are delivered with reluctance. . . . They charged Tedyuscung with killing them, that he would poison the water, if they came hither that he should give them the bloody flux & cause them to dye on their return, which discouraged them much in their journey; & they feared a bag of poison was about their camp. . . . The Indians have yet more to speak. They seem to keep sober, except poor Tedy, who is much disturbed that he has not a clerk." In the end, though, several white captives were released, some of them apparently having been acculturated to Indian life: "About 10 prisoners were delivered the Gov'r yesterday. 2 or 3 little ones cryed much at parting with the Indians. These were deliv'd by the Six Nations."