treaty known as the Articles of Peace of 1677, by which each Indian town agreed to pay three arrows for their land, and twenty beaver skins for protection, every year. A part at least of the Tuscarora (and it seems by far the greater part) had participated in the massacre in North Carolina in September, 1711. It was highly gratifying to the Governor therefore that he was able to dissuade so considerable a part of them from their warlike pursuits and induce them to enter into a treaty, in December of that year,1 which contemplated, among other things, the education of their children at the College. But while these were given instruction, and were treated with every reasonable consideration, they were in fact hostages to assure the peace between the two peoples. In a letter of November 17, 1711, he refers to his "progress to our Southern Frontiers to meet the Deputys of the Tuscarora Indians."2 The meeting he tells us was at Nottowaytown, where among other proposals he made was one that "they should deliver two children of the great men of each town to remain as Hostages and to be educated at our College." In a letter to the Council of Trade, December 28, 1711, he writes: "Since my last to your Lord'ps (whereof a duplicate is inclosed) the Hostages demanded of the Pamunky and Chickahominy Indians have been delivered, and even more of the former than was expected. . . . . so that there are now Hostages from all the Towns of our Tributary Indians." In a communication to the Council of Trade, dated July 26, 1712, in answer to an enquiry concerning the "Strength of our Neighbors," the Governor wrote: "I suppose to be meant of the Neighboring Indians (for there are no other foreign Nations near this Colony), in answer to which there are nine Nations of Indians Tributary to 1Spotswood Letters, Vol. I, 135. 4Spotswood Letters, Vol. I, p. 129. this Government, Vizt.: The Pamunkys, Chickahominys, Nansemunds, Nottoways, Maherins, Sapons, Stukanocks, Occoneechees and Totteros, whose number of men, women and children do not exceed 700 in all, and of these there may be reckoned 250 fighting men. These are all in an Entire Subjection to this Government and live quietly on our Frontiers trafficking with the Inhabitants their skins and Furrs for Cloathing, powder, Shott and other European Manufactures."1 He continues: "The next Nation of Indians with whom we have had frequent correspondence and who are most like to annoy us is the Tuscaruro, said to be about 2,000 fighting men. They live within the bounds of Carolina, and before the late massacre, committed there by some of them and others, had a constant trade with our Inhabitants for the like Commoditys as our own Indians, but since that time I have prohibited all Commerce with them till they give satisfaction for the murders committed in Carolina." "12 In the course of his administration the Governor decided that the Indians and the English should be further separated, that a definite frontier should be established, the trade with the Indians regulated, and the place where it should take place declared, and that forts should be built. He also concluded that it would be better to educate the Indian youth at schools established near their own towns, at these forts, than at the College at Williamsburg. With these ends in view, he secured the passage by the General Assembly on November 16, 1714, of "an act for the better regulation of the Indian trade." Among other provisions of the act was one incorporating "The Indian Company." It was Governor Spotswood's intention that trade with the Indians should be exclusively conducted through the agency of this company. The general purport of 1Spotswood Letters, Vol. I, p. 167. the act has been briefly, but well, stated by Dr. Henry R. McIlwaine1 as follows: "In the Act for the better regulation of the Indian trade, it was provided that all trade with the Indians in Virginia, both tributary and 'Foreign,' should be carried on at one place, namely, the new settlement of Christanna on the Meherrin River, in Open Market, by the agents of a company that was to have a strict monopoly of the trade for twenty years. In return for the privileges granted, the Company was to contribute toward the erection of the magazine to be built at Williamsburg as a storehouse for the ammunition and arms of the Colony, to take its supply of powder used in the Indian trade from this magazine, always putting in an equal amount of fresh powder-this to prevent the powder in the magazine from being impaired with age-to erect a schoolhouse for the Indian children at Christanna, and after the lapse of two years to assume the maintenance of the fortifications at that place and of the guard of twelve men with an officer. Some of the advantages to flow from this law were the prevention of illicit and harmful trade with the Indians, the easy suppression of trade altogether when it seemed advisable, the great extension of the trade in proper articles and under correct regulations by making it possible for the people of the country in general to subscribe to the stock of the Company, the gradual education of the Indians by means of the instruction in the school and by the trade itself and their sure conversion into friendly and civilized neighbors." This was a noble conception of policy for that day and time; the act, however, was repealed in 1717, evidently because of opposition to the monopolistic features respecting the trade, the feeling being that to confine the place of trading to one locality created undue hardship, and moreover, and possibly more important still, was the feeling that the prices, at which articles were bought and sold under such circumstances, were largely if not wholly arbitrary. 1Librarian of the Virginia State Library, in Introduction to Journal of the House of Burgesses, 1712-1726. The establishment of Christanna, the building of the fort there, and all of the attendant circumstances are important to the student of the history of Lunenburg and this general section of Virginia for they leave no reasonable doubt as to the approximate location of the frontier at that time. The fact is shown not only by the location of the settlement itself, but by the character of it, and also by the Governor's several references to the neighboring frontiers in his official correspondence. The site chosen was on the south side of the Meherrin River in what is now Brunswick County.1 It has been marked by a monument erected by the Society of the "Colonial Dames of America in the State of Virginia," which was dedicated May 22, 1924, on which occasion Honorable Edward P. Buford, of Lawrenceville, delivered a notable address, which we have had occasion several times to refer to in these pages. The site of the fort conveyed to the Colonial Dames, September 24, 1923, is described in the deed2 from T. E. Jones, N. S. Jones and W. M. McAden, as three and three-fourth acres of land, situate in Meherrin District in the County of Brunswick, "and being that portion of the tract of land known as 'Fort Hill' plantation, which includes the site of the frontier fort erected in the year 1714, during the administration of Alexander Spotswood, Governor of the Colony of Virginia, and known as 'Fort Christanna'; to have and to hold the tract or parcel of land hereby conveyed, for such uses as the party of the second part may deem proper for perpetuating the memory of historical events connected with the said fort, and of the site and location thereof." The early treatment of the Indians in Virginia was not so harsh as has been generally supposed. Reckless and irresponsible historians, in strained attempts to make invidious compari 1E. P. Buford, dedicatory address, May 22, 1924, Brunswick TimesGazette Print, Lawrenceville, Va., 3. The scholarly R. A. Brock seems to have been in error in his introduction to the Spotswood Letters, in stating that the site of Fort Christanna is in "what is now Southampton County" (p. XII). 2Deed Book 77, p. 217, Clerk's Office of Brunswick County, Va. sons, have given an altogether erroneous impression. For example, Wheeler has said: "While Massachusetts, Virginia, and others were laying the foundation of their colony on the bones of the aborigines, and cementing their structure with blood, North Carolina was quietly pursuing her course, unmolested by the Indians, and respecting their rights." This is written on a page, where he was referring to events of Governor Spotswood's administration, and on which he had quoted a letter written by him. Baron de Graffenreid testifies that one of the causes of the war which the Indians made upon North Carolina, which well-nigh exterminated the Colony, including the Swiss, "was the great carelessness of the Colony," and "the harsh treatment of certain surley and rough English inhabitants who deceived them in trade, and would not let them hunt about their plantations, and under this excuse took away from them their arms, munitions, pelts or hides, yes, even beat an Indian to death," and he declares, respecting the conduct of the war, "there was nothing to be done with these wrong-headed Carolinians." History abundantly bears testimony to the fact that while as a result of the North Carolinian policy, that Colony was in a life and death struggle with the Indians, Virginia under Spotswood was entirely at peace with them, and was educating their children at William and Mary College and otherwise treating them with the greatest consideration, generosity and justice. Conceding the right of the white man to be on these shores at all, the general course of the early Colonial Government in Virginia toward the Indians was just and humane. Bloody encounters did occur, but beginning with the great massacre at Jamestown, the Indians were the aggressors and the white Colonists did but fight for their very existence. And surely nothing appears in the Colonial history of America, more kindly, humane 1John H. Wheeler, History of North Carolina, Vol. I, 36. 2History of the de Graffenreid Family, 87. 3Id., 93. |