Page 115 - American Stories, A History of the United States

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TiSHcoHaN tishcohan, chief of the Delaware tribe that lost much of its land in thomas Penn’s Walking
Purchase of 1737, is shown here in a 1735 portrait by Gustavus Hesselius. Although treaties and agreements with
european settlers were often detrimental to Native Americans, some alliances in the “middle ground” allowed the
tribes to play the French against the british. Alliances were often signified by tokens such as certificates, calumets
(ceremonial pipes), wampum belts, and medals.

it difficult to live in close proximity. As one Indian informed the Maryland assembly
in 1666, “Your hogs & Cattle injure Us, You come too near Us to live & drive Us from
place to place. We can fly no farther; let us know where to live & how to be secured for
the future from the Hogs & Cattle.”
Against such odds the Indians managed to survive. By the eighteenth century, the
site of the most intense and creative contact between the races had shifted to the huge
territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, where several
hundred thousand Native Americans made their homes.
Many Indians had only recently migrated to the area. The Delaware, for example,
retreated to far western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley to escape almost continuous
confrontation with advancing European invaders. Other Indians drifted west in less
happy circumstances. They were refugees, the remnants of Native American groups
who had lost so many people that they could no longer sustain an independent cul-
tural identity. These survivors joined with other Indians to establish new multiethnic
communities. Stronger groups of Indians, such as the Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw,
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