ppose
justly, attributed to their wandering habits and their continual wars.
Although one of their villages is said once to have contained four
thousand souls, their present number does not exceed eighteen hundred.
They have ever been considered a courageous, powerful and faithless
race; who hare claimed for themselves a pre-eminence not only over
other tribes, but also over the whites.[B] Their views in regard to
this superiority were briefly set forth by one of their chiefs at a
convention held at fort Wayne, in 1803.

[Footnote A: John Johnston.]

[Footnote B: General Harrison considers the Shawanoes, Delawares and
Miamis, as much superior to the other tribes of the west.]

"The Master of Life," said he, "who was himself an Indian, made the
Shawanoes before any other of the human race; and they sprang from his
brain: he gave them all the knowledge he himself possessed, and placed
them upon the great island, and all the other red people are descended
from the Shawanoes. After he had made the Shawanoes, he made the French
and English out of his breast, the Dutch out of his feet, and the
long-knives out of his hands. All these inferior races of men he made
white and placed them beyond the stinking lake.[A]

"The Shawanoes for many ages continued to be masters of the continent,
using the knowledge they had received from the Great Spirit in such a
manner as to be pleasing to him, and to secure their own happiness. In
a great length of time, however, they became corrupt, and the Master of
Life told them that he would take away from them the knowledge which
they possessed, and give it to the white people, to be restored, when
by a return to good principles they would deserve it. Many ages after
that, they saw something white approaching their shores; at first they
took it for a great bird, but they soon found it to be a monstrous
canoe filled with the very people who had got the knowledge which
belonged to the Shawanoes. After these white people landed, they were
not content with having the knowledge which belonged to the Shawanoes,
but they usurped their lands also; they pretended, indeed, to have
purchased these lands; but the very goods they gave for them, were more
the property of the Indians than the white people, because the
knowledge which enabled them to manufacture these goods actually
belonged to the Shawanoes: but these things will soon have an end. The
Master of Life is about to restore to the Shawanoes both