ed "women," and to surrender their tomahawks. Penn's famous treaty
was made with the Delawares as occupants of the land and also with the
Iroquois league as overlords. [30] Now the great central fact of early
American history, so far as the relations between white men and red
men are concerned, is the unshaken friendship of the Iroquois for the
English. This was the natural consequence of the deadly hostility
between the Iroquois and the French which began with Champlain's defeat
of the Mohawks in 1609. During the seventy-three years which intervened
between the founding of Pennsylvania and the defeat of Braddock there
was never a moment when the Delawares could have attacked the Quakers
without incurring the wrath and vengeance of their overlords the Five
Nations. This was the reason why Pennsylvania was left so long in quiet.
No better proof could be desired than the fact that in Pontiac's war,
after the overthrow of the French and when Indian politics had changed,
no state suffered so much as Pennsylvania from the horrors of Indian
warfare. [Sidenote: Why Pennsylvania was so long unmolested by the
Indians]

In New England at the time of Philip's War, the situation was very
different from what it was between the Hudson and the Susquehanna. The
settlers were thrown into immediate relations with several tribes whose
mutual hostility and rivalry was such that it was simply impossible to
keep on good terms with all at once. Such complicated questions as that
which involved the English in responsibility for the fate of Miantonomo
did not arise in Pennsylvania. Since the destruction of the Pequots we
have observed the Narragansetts and Mohegans contending for the foremost
place among New England tribes. Of the two rivals the Mohegans were
the weaker, and therefore courted the friendship of the formidable
palefaces. The English had no desire to take part in these barbarous
feuds, but they could not treat the Mohegans well without incurring the
hostility of the Narragansetts. For thirty years the feeling of the
latter tribe toward the English had been very unfriendly and would
doubtless have vented itself in murder but for their recollection of
the fate of the Pequots. After the loss of their chief Miantonomo their
attitude became so sullen and defiant that the Federal Commissioners, in
order to be in readiness for an outbreak, collected a force of 300 men.
At the first news of these preparations the Narragansetts, overcome wi