ons had over them, became an
independent nation, and in the French Wars revenged themselves on the
Six Nations as well as on the white men. The congress which convened at
Albany in 1754 was an attempt on the part of the British Government to
settle all Indian affairs in a general agreement and to prevent separate
treaties by the different colonies; but the Pennsylvania delegates, by
various devices of compass courses which the Indians did not understand
and by failing to notify and secure the consent of certain tribes,
obtained a grant of pretty much the whole of Pennsylvania west of the
Susquehanna. The Indians considered this procedure to be another gross
fraud. It is to be noticed that in their dealings with Penn they had
always been satisfied, and that he had always been careful that they
should be duly consulted and if necessary be paid twice over for the
land. But his sons were more economical, and as a result of the shrewd
practices of the Albany purchase the Pennsylvania Indians almost
immediately went over in a body to the French and were soon scalping
men, women, and children among the Pennsylvania colonists. It is a
striking fact, however, that in all the after years of war and rapine
and for generations afterwards the Indians retained the most distinct
and positive tradition of Penn's good faith and of the honesty of all
Quakers. So persistent, indeed, was this tradition among the tribes of
the West that more than a century later President Grant proposed to
put the whole charge of the nation's Indian affairs in the hands of the
Quakers. The first efforts to avert the catastrophe threatened by the
alliance of the red man with the French were made by the provincial
assemblies, which voted presents of money or goods to the Indians to
offset similar presents from the French. The result was, of course, the
utter demoralization of the savages. Bribed by both sides, the Indians
used all their native cunning to encourage the bribers to bid against
each other. So far as Pennsylvania was concerned, feeling themselves
cheated in the first instance and now bribed with gifts, they developed
a contempt for the people who could stoop to such practices. As a
result this contempt manifested itself in deeds hitherto unknown in the
province. One tribe on a visit to Philadelphia killed cattle and robbed
orchards as they passed. The delegates of another tribe, having visited
Philadelphia and received 500 pounds as a present, retur