The Quaker Colony: Penn's and Indian

The fact stated concerning the founding of Philadelphia is of interest, since it seems to be the only city that was planned and definitely laid out by the early settlers of America. The other ancient cities of the country grew as chance willed. The rectangularity of Penn's idea has its advantages, but its disadvantages as well, and some greater degree of chance growth would have been useful. Penn is said to have purchased the land for his city from its Swedish occupants, and to have made with the Indians a treaty, which has attained great celebrity, though very little is known about it.

The Treaty-Elm locality--the spot where stood the traditionary elm--is known, and is identified by a monument on the spot; but as to the treaty said to have been ratified there, imagination has had play, for historical information is wanting. Everybody has seen Benjamin West's picture of the treaty between Penn and the Indians, and the artist's fancy has been made the basis of historical description. So unsatisfactory was the state of the question years ago, that the Historical Society of Philadelphia appointed a committee of inquiry. They reported that a treaty did take place, probably in November, 1682 [this date does not agree with that of Penn's first visit to Philadelphia as above given], at Shackamaxon, under an elm-tree blown down in 1810. The treaty was probably made with the Delaware tribes as "a treaty of amity and friendship," and not for the purchase of territory. The speeches made, the dresses worn, and the surrounding scene, appear now to be altogether fictitious.

Materials, however, exist for forming some idea of the manner in which the treaty would be conducted. "I have had occasion," says Penn, "to be in council with them 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 has his council, the old and wise, on each hand. Behind them, or at a little distance, sit the younger fry, in the same figure. Having consulted and resolved their business, the king ordered one of them to speak to me. He stood up, came to me, and in the name of his king saluted me, then took me by the hand, and told me that he was ordered by his king to speak to me, and that now it was not he but the king who spoke, because what he should say was the king's mind. He first prayed with me to excuse them that they had not complied with me the last time. He feared there might be some fault in the interpreter, being neither Indian nor English. Besides, it was the Indian custom to deliberate and take up much time in council before they resolved; and that if the young people and owners of the land had been as ready as he, I had not met with so much delay. Having thus introduced his matter, he fell to the bounds of the land they had agreed to dispose of, and the price, which now is little and dear; that which would have bought twenty miles not buying now two. During the time that this person spoke, not a man of them was observed to whisper or smile, the old grave, the young reverent, in their deportment. They speak little, but fervently, and with elegance. I have never seen more natural sagacity, considering them without the help (I was going to say the spoil) of tradition; and he will deserve the name of wise who outwits them in any treaty about a thing they understand. When the purchase was agreed, great promises passed between us of kindness and good neighborhood, and that the English and Indians must live in love as long as the sun gave 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 to live in peace with me and the people under my government; that many governors had been in the river, but that no governor had come himself to live and stay there before; and having now such an one, who had 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."

It is stated that by the terms of one of Penn's treaties of land-purchase with the Indians, the land granted was to extend as far back as a man could walk in three days. Penn and some of his friends, and a number of Indian chiefs, started to measure this territory, and walked leisurely up the Delaware from the mouth of the Neshaminy for a day and a half, and then stopped, concluding that that was sufficient for the present, and that the remainder might be measured when needed. In 1733 the then Governor of Pennsylvania undertook to measure the remainder. He employed a walker noted for his speed, who succeeded in covering eighty-six miles in his day and a half. This shrewd and rascally trick caused the first breach in the confidence of the Indians, and it is significant that the first murder of a white man by an Indian in Pennsylvania was upon the ground of which they had been thus robbed.