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Captain John Smith described the Susquehannocks as having booming voices, being seven feet tall and treading on the earth with much pride, contempt and disdain. Although no records were kept at the time, we can assume that many homes were burned, women and children killed, etc.
Like an island in the midst of the vast Algonquin territory was the region occupied by the Huron-Iroquois family. In thrift, intelligence, skill in fortification, and daring in war, this stock stands preëminent among all native Americans. It included the Eries and Hurons, in Canada; the Susquehannocks, on the Susquehanna; and the Conestogas, also in Pennsylvania.
It is only a part of the queer game." It was now growing late in the day, and Nanking wanted some food. The Susquehannocks produced nuts, venison, fish, hominy, and succotash. Their formerly savage countenances beamed confidence and consideration. Nanking expressed his wishes by signs. He wanted a great, long-legged, long-winged bird, a stork, to carry back alive to New Amstel.
Their efforts to wipe out the English in previous wars had failed only because their bows and arrows were no match for the muskets of the English. Now that they had firearms might not their efforts be more successful? It was the Marylanders who had given firearms to the Susquehannocks, a fierce tribe living on their northern border.
"Yah, mynheers!" "He can return in safety to the land of the Susquehannocks, where no other Dutchman can go and live. Thence, down the great river of rocks and rapids, come all the valuable furs. Of these we Dutch on South River receive altogether only ten thousand a year.
Never losing heart, even when he believed himself to be dying from the sting of a poisonous fish, he discovered and entered the Potomac, the Rappahannock, and tributary creeks, fighting his way when not allowed to proceed peaceably. In July he led another party to the spot now occupied by the city of Baltimore, and made friends with a tribe called Susquehannocks, believed to be sun-worshippers.
But Berkeley did not stop to consider that the fault was basically his own. Had he not granted all the best lands in the east to his favorites, poor planters would not have had to encroach on the Indian reservations, in which case the Indians might have remained peaceful, and even fought side by side with the English against the Susquehannocks.
In self protection Maryland and Virginia organized in common an expedition against the Indian stronghold. In the deep woods beyond the Potomac, red men and white came to a parley. The Susquehannocks sent envoys. There was wrong on both sides. A dispute arose. The white men, waxing angry, slew the envoys an evil deed which their own color in Maryland and in Virginia reprehended and repudiated.
Some further notice is necessary of this first appearance of the Susquehannocks, who became afterwards so well known, by reason of their great stature and their friendliness. Portraits of these noble savages appeared in De Bry's voyages, which were used in Smith's map, and also by Strachey. These beautiful copperplate engravings spread through Europe most exaggerated ideas of the American savages.
It may have been the offer of peace from the new chief of the Susquehannocks, which Sir William was willing to accept but which the Indians themselves ignored. It may have been the fear that Chicheley's men might not discriminate between friend and foe and by attacking some of the allied Indians involve them in the war.
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