and the debris which remained after the retirement of their more active members, the result was the same in all parts of the country, whether Mahicans, Lenapes, or Mohawks. In considering the political relations of the LENAPES they should be regarded as the most formidable of the Indian con federacies at the time of the discovery of America, and as hav ing maintained for many years the position which subsequently to the Iroquois, rather than as having been subjugated by the

fell

latter anterior to the advent of the Europeans.

that they were

" the head of the

x

Their tradition

nations, and held Algonquin the Mengwe in subjection," is not without confirmation. The

precise time at which the latter condition was reversed, cannot

be stated ; but the causes leading thereto are now pretty cor Their long house was invaded alike rectly ascertained.

by the Europeans and the Ir&quois, with special advantages to the latter in position, and in the facility with which they could obtain arms. 3 cured.

The tradition which they gave of their subjuga-

The great error of Massachusetts

was the war which she made upon them, as she subsequently learned.

" The

primitive language which was the most widely diffused, and the most the fertile in dialects, received from

French the name of Algonquin. It was the mother tongue of those who greeted the colonists of Raleigh at Roanoke, of those who welcomed the Pilgrims at PlyIt was heard from the Bay of mouth. Gaspe to the valley of the Des Moines, from Cape Fear, and, it may be, from the Savannah, to the land of the Esquimaux } from the Cumberland river of Kentucky to the southern bank of the Mississippi."