History of the Mingo Indians

 

History of the Mingo Indians

(Various authors)

 ARTICLE I

BY CAPTAIN WILLIAM Н. Совв Vice President of the National Historical Society Member Virginia Historical Society

The request that I prepare an article on the subject of the Mingo Indians in connection with the proposal to build a monument or marker to this tribe of the " wild man " to be located on the Huttonsville and Marlinton Pike near the mouth of Mingo Run , in Mingo district of this county , and near the old Indian village site , has been complied with and here it is well to state that it is with difficulty that actual facts concerning any Indian tribe are obtained for any long period of years , and when a period of a few centuries are to be covered it means that most of the information is traditional .

The Indian " village site " at Mingo has been regarded as the habitat of this tribe , but it is with no certainty that this is at all correct , but on the other hand it would appear that this village was the abode of some other tribe , for we have no account which would make this a Mingo home , and for the reason that the Mingoes were on the upper waters of the Susquehanna river in Pennsylvania and New York even before the founding of Jamestown , and from that date or little later , made a settlement on the waters of the Ohio and still later further west .

That there was a village once occupied by Indians at Mingo , I take it that no one doubts ; we have it handed down from the ancestors of those now living in that section that such a site existed when settlement was begun soon after the Revolution ; not a site of recent occupancy , but long decaying , yet retaining all the marks of such a village , and at this date evidences in way of flints , pottery and Indian relics are to be found on Mingo Run , and we are told that mounds on the Mingo Flats are still to be found , making it certain that in that elevated and beautiful section , overlooking the country for miles and miles , that such a village existed .

The Indian trails , over which both public roads and railroads have since followed , passed through Mingo Flats , the scenery from which appeals to the white and probably to the tribes that followed the routes , covering passes from one stream to another , some of which at this point lead Northward , an- other Southward and still another Westward . The principal route it would appear led from the North from Saint George in Tucker county by way of Leading Creek , up the Tygart's Valley River and thence to the Greenbrier , and near those Flats , one trail branched to the East and down Clover Lick to Greenbrier river , the other to the S. W. and down Williams & Gauley rivers , and just west of Mingo , at now Brady gate , the path divided , one going down Valley Fork of Elks to Elk river , the other by Point Mountain and westward to the head of the Little Kanawha ; on the Valley river between Huttonsville and Mingo , other trails reached the Valley ; one from the head of the two forks of the Greenbrier , and across the Cheat river and Cheat Mountain near the head of Becca's Creek ; and still another from the Cheat River up Fishinghawk and down Files Creek at Beverly , and still another of these paths came to the Valley River from the Buckhannon waters , across the Mid- dle Fork and down the Mill Creek to the Valley below Huttonsville .

These several trails converging around Mingo , makes this point one of rendezvous , and with the traditions we have and the relics found renders it fairly conclusive that such village existed , but with any certainty of which tribe built or occupied it , we have no positive proof and can only conjecture ; most probably not the Mingo tribe.

Among the earliest history we have of the Mingo Indian is recited by Thomas Jefferson in his " Notes " and in discussing the Five Nations of In- dians , and referring to the Mohicans , he says : "This nation had a close alliance with the Shawanese , who lived on the Susquehanna and to the west of that river , as far as the Allegheny Mountains , and carried on a long war with another powerful nation or confederacy of Indians , which lived to the north of them between Kittatinnery Mountains or highlands , and the Lake Ontario , and who called themselves Mingoes , and are called by the present writers Iroquois , by the English the Five Nations , and by the Indians to the southward , with whom they were at war , Massawemacs . This war was carrying on in its greatest fury , when Captain Smith first arrived in Virginia . The Mingo warriors had penetrated the Susque- hanna down to the mouth of it . In one of his excursions up the bay , at the mouth of the Susquehanna , in 1608 , Captain Smith met six or seven of their canoes full of warriors , who were coming to attack their enemies in the rear . In an excursion which he had made a few weeks before , up the Rappahannock , and in which he had a skirmish with a party of the Manaheads , and had taken a brother of one of their chiefs prisoner , he first heard of this nation . For when he asked the prisoner why his nation attacked the English , the prisoner said , because his nation had heard that the English came from under the world to take their world from them."

At the period that Jefferson was writing , the Mingo was in a confederacy with the Senecas in western New York ; the Mohawks to the eastward , and Onendagees between the two , and the Cayugas and Oneidas , the two latter being younger and weaker tribes , but all the confederacy having the same common language , and jointly waged war on the tribes to the south , and no definite decisive battle in their favor having been won , and finding the enemy resourceful , they took into the alliance other tribes and by this means over- came the former enemy , who asked for peace and put themselves under the protection of the Mingoes , who required the subjugated to raise corn , hunt the game for the joint use of all , and in this condition William Penn found the defeated tribe in 1682 .

The Mingo may be taken as typical of all the Indians in this , that they were in war daring , cunning , ruthless and wicked ; and in peace generous , hospitable , superstitious , revengeful and usually were on the chase , and while this does not characterize all Indians , it is the general rule among them , and from their own view point , they were religious and fairly faithful to their teachings , taking their metaphors from the sun , the clouds , the sea- sons , the birds , the beast and the vegetable kingdom . It is not understood nor agreed the source from which the Indian came ; whether from the East

ARTICLE VII

Address at the Unveiling of the Mingo Monument BY CAPTAIN WILLIAМ Н. СОВB

On a former occasion , in connection with the proposal to build a monument you are today unveiling , I was called upon to give an account of the Mingo Indians , and having paid my respects to them , and indirectly to those who made this site , in former times sacred to the Indians , I shall not , therefore , follow the line of the article which some of you honored me by reading , but will confine my remarks to an historic race that preceded the tribe we call " American Indians ."

The subject of America before Columbus is not known as it deserves to be known by our people , and thought by many not to be known by any , but in that respect you may be mistaken , for the trace of man is never lost , though it be thousands of years in the past , and when we say the past , it may mean many thousands of years , so remote that man dreams of such an age .

Some confusion among anthropologists has occurred in tracing man and his works in the past , and that for the reason that they all do not agree upon the theory of the creation of the earth and man . The scientist looks only to facts as he finds and sees them , while the biblical anthropologist keeps in mind the Mosaic theory of creation and that only six thousand years , or nearly , have transpired since man came upon the earth .

The men whom the scientific world acknowledge as authority upon the subject of the human race in America , place man here as long ago as two hundred thousand years ; some much longer ; and others probably not as long ; while those of the biblical account would place the prehistoric man upon the continent from 6 to 7 thousand years and would not yield one day more ; but it would appear that a class of civilization existed in America long centuries before any certain and definite history is recorded in the Mediterranean country or Asia Minor .

Who was the prehistoric man in America ? From whence did he come ? And of what race ? These questions have not been answered and we have no certain account and probably never shall know .

We know the Mound Builders and the Cliff Dwellers were different and distinct races , or at least , their habits and characteristics were different and they did not follow the same path at the same time .

If we recall our Bible history correctly , one of the twelve tribes of Israel was lost and unaccounted for and the Jew has undertaken to account for this tribe coming to the western hemisphere and being the ancestors of the American Indian , but I have never been able to follow their course of reason to a favorable conclusion as to the correctness of the theory .

So long ago as Plato , a few hundred years before the birth of Christ , - he gave us an indefinite description of the " Elysium fields , " or as others have interpreted it , " the Western Continent , " and not only a vivid description of the climate , the people and the glories thereof , but of a mighty race that measured favorably with the known Mediterranean country , and there can now be no doubt that his writings and those of like nature in part inspired in Columbus the ambition to discover and locate that delightful country . In this story Plato is pictured as listening at the feet of an Egyptian philosopher , who told him that Troy and her heroes in war , then ancient , was but as a child in age . Homer sang of such Elysium fields , as did many who followed him in early ancient Greece .

That a civilization existed in America along with Egypt , Greece and Babylonian civilization , I take it that no scholar denies , but accepts it as a fact , and that this civilization was equally as high , is in fact true .

In the walks of life , -in agriculture , in art , in architecture , in mathematics and in the implements of war , our greatness is largely measured by our ability to slay the most men . We see in prehistoric America nothing superior in the eastern countries of Asia , Europe or Africa .

In the line of agriculture these people raised the corn , the squash , the gourd and many of the modern vegetables of this day , including the bean , tobacco and the vine . These have been located in the Mounds , and there through ages have been planted and grown the same wheat and corn we now produce . These , in the days of which I speak , were fields of hundreds of acres scattered universally over the country and not as the recent Indian cultivated his patch of corn and tobacco or had his squaw do it , but these early people in America were farmers in fact .

In art , there has probably never been seen in the East articles of greater fineness and requiring more skill than what has been turned out by these pre-historic people . The vase they produced was an ornament of wonder , and of different shades and designs ; and their cooking vessels were of no mean design ; their cups were patterns of the present generation.   The fernery vases were the pride of the age and no less than 800 or 1000 have been taken from one mound in the state of Mississippi . Nor were they wanting in paint- ings and pictures in which all life was represented , such as the birds , the animals and the snake , the smoke - a thing that has figured the world over in religion and myths since the creation of man ; and while we look upon these early people as without vision and resources , if we only reflect , we are now practicing many of the pagan ideas that controlled them all.

In architecture , the inhabitants of Mexico and Peru were artists , and while the houses were of the one story character generally , the decorations were so splendid and gorgeous that they would have been creditable to a home in the glorious days of Rome or Greece. Curtains of the finest texture and brilliant colors fell over the doors and the stucco floors were covered with mats of exquisite workmanship , representing an artistic taste that has prob- ably not been surpassed in any age . Another work of art and industry , and now followed by the Indian , was feather work in which no people has excelled them .

We have been told that the art of embalming has been lost as practiced by the Egyptians , and while that is true , it is probable that the embalmer of the Nile had nothing on the prehistoric American in this art . These people built crypts , constructed of stone or beaten or sun dried earth , for the preservation of the bodies ; the body first having been chemically treated , and in this state , after thousands of years , the skeletons have been found in a surprisingly good state of preservation . The art of cremating was practiced , this being carried out , in a way , along the lines of the modern custom . These customs belonged strictly to the civilization of the true prehistoric races of both North , Central and South America , and like the Egyptian civilization , the fine arts were lost and the rude and rough customs took their places .

If gorgeous flowers , mourners , the lying of the corpse in state , the viewing of the body by the family and friends , and guards standing by for protection , - with the practice of sacrificing human beings , as readily as Abraham offered his only son Isaac , if this constitutes the higher civilization , then these pre- historic Americans were in the class of the earliest Egyptians , Babylonians and Jews .

In the mounds in which these bodies were placed we find that the deceased were men of renown and wealth , and a part of their belongings were buried with them . In these burial places and by their sides we find the sea shell from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mexican Gulf ; the copper from the shores of Lake Superior ; mica from North Carolina ; silver from Mexico ; lead from Wisconsin ; jade from Chili ; the skin and painting of the Rocky Mountain lion , these things representing the commercial intercourse of the people from the Arctic Ocean to Cape Horn . How this commerce was carried on is only explained by the art of the canoe and sail boat and overland travel , but certain it is that it occurred and was no more marvelous than the travel in Asia or Africa at that time .

The mound builder , who figured so extensively in Ohio , and in fact in all parts of the United States , constructed nearly 10,000 mounds alone in that state , and it is said that if these mounds were placed side by side they would give a length of over 300 miles . The swampy section of Missouri is especially noted for its mounds , and the two states and Illinois have 2500 known mounds . Canals to connect lakes in Florida were constructed and were also built in our western country for irrigation purposes , and it would seem that some of these were built prior to the extension of volcanic activities in the Rocky Mountain region .

The mummies of this age have been found wrapped in cotton , cloth and skins , with feathers as an ornament , which were rolled in mats and bound with rods strung together , resembling Japanese blinds .

The religions of this people were along uncertain lines , as has been the history of the world over , and while it was definite in a sense , and at times directed from those in authority , it was never accepted as a whole , and there were no doubt Pharisees , Sadducees , conformists and infidels , as is and al- ways has been the practice of both the civilization and the barbarian , or half civilized .

In this connection , it is upon the subject to say that in the high civiliza- tion of Mexico and Peru that priests and ministers were brought up in the faith of the day ; that boys and girls were , at an early age , specially taught for religious work , their faith being in a supreme being , which might have been worshiped through the sun , moon or stars ; or , as in some instances , there was the ancestral worship , similar to China and Japan . But in this it should be remembered that there is a faith beyond the ancestor , that is sup- posed to be reached through the parent .

It should be here stated that there is not , so far as we can get information , a great and distinct difference between the beliefs and practices of these people , and that of a similar date in the old world . They did not know and were not absolutely certain and fixed in their minds , -nor were the people of any other ancient country , -just what the life of man meant or what future awaited them , and from the teaching of our day , mixed with spiritualism and thousands of other " isms " of the day , a man who thinks is none too certain himself , -certain that he does not know .

In matters of government , these people exhibited the same disposition that has ruled man from the very earliest day , that the stronger should rule the weaker , if not by will , by force .

And if we know the history of the people from the remotest age , whether in the old or in the new world , we find the same traits and characteristics in tribes and nations , the stronger ruling the weaker , if men and implements of war can enforce it ; and under this practice history teaches us that nations have risen to their heights in Asia , Europe and Africa , and in turn been wiped out by some other great power . No matter what country we point to in the distant history , it has gone the way of the other .

Leagues of Nations and Alliances were not unknown to the prehistoric race in America and for the moment worked in theory , but in time distant races and those not in harmony with the greater would rebel and seek to live to themselves and worship God under their own vine and fig tree . This would bring down the wrath of the League upon them and in instances this has brought destruction upon the strong in waging war upon a distant tribe . The alliance with the central head in Mexico , about the center of the western hemisphere , was never able to enforce strict observance by the outer tribes and nations .

In studying these people , it is of interest to know that every color of mankind was represented in prehistoric America , and that brings us to the question as to whether all races sprung from the Adam - Eve race or whether there was a preadamite and that theory is not without interest , but time will not permit its discussion .

My reading and study upon the question of the origin of the human race has brought me to the belief that man is indigenous to America ; that is , that the prehistoric man of the western hemisphere was created or brought to being in this country , and that in no wise conflicts with the biblical story of the creation ; man could have gone from this country as well as from Asia to America and God could have started the race here as well as in Asia .

The Irish have given an interesting account of St. Brendon in the 5th century , coming to America on his two trips covering a period of eleven years , and who was , they claim , the first to plant the cross of Christ on the continent . On this point great stress is laid upon the fact or assertion that the Cross was religiously recognized by the people upon Columbus ' discovery . The cross may , and probably did eixst , at this time in America , and if so for the same reason it existed in the eastern countries before Christ .

It is also claimed by Buddhists that monks of the 5th century visited America and planted their religion and instituted their rites and ceremonies among the people , and this claim has ground to stand upon . But with all of this , I am inclined to the belief that neither Christian , Irish priest or Buddhist , before Columbus , ever planted any religious doctrines here , but on the other hand that the great God of the Universe gave , through nature , the religious beliefs they possessed and nature did this in the same way she imparts inspiration the world over .

The study of man , the race and the nation has brought the student to the conclusion that all men sprung from the same source ; that the same God created them , and you may trace the race from the original to the present time and no special characteristic appears in one from the other to any material extent . So we have to conclude that man , the world over , has been uniformly good and great and uniformly wicked and evil , in this , that at times , a great and good spirit has ruled him and that at others the evil has directed his walk . That at different times in the history of many of the races or nations of men , there has been greatness in the national and spiritual life of the nation , and following the fate of their predecessors , have fallen into the depths of depravity .

On the ruins of Troy of old , for centuries the world accepted the story of Troy as only a fancied story of Homer , and when excavations developed the ruins , they discovered the city as described by poets , they also found buried underneath the city of Trojan fame , two other buried cities of which no account of their date was obtainable . It may have been that the ray of history kept alive by repeating the story from one generation to the other , gave Plato and others of his age the key to the story of an ancient race that lived to the west of the Atlantic and that in antiquity and greatness and beauty their country was but an infant .

This may be a fancy , but there is ground for the belief . Research in the western hemisphere has developed grandeur that is not surpassed by the wonders of the pyramids of Egypt and possibly more ancient or co - equal in age . These structures fully define the use of the square , the circle , the triangle and other geometrical figures . According to competent engineers it would take thousands of workmen , well provided with modern machinery , an age to construct and build one of the great temples in Peru . The stones going into some of these structures were 37 ft . in length and 8 ft . in thickness and are estimated to weigh 200 tons , and removed from a quarry 40 miles away . In this way we can conceive how ancient our country is and what may have occurred in the whole history of the ages it has passed through .

We are prone to regard the prehistoric man of America as a barbarian , and the last of the race was largely so . Nevertheless , the man of thousands of years ago measured well with the civilization of other countries and es- pecially the countries we would refer to as having a glorious history .

It is true these people had customs we now condemn and attribute to the evil , or ignorance of the time . But when we reflect that they too had their superstitions and burned man for witchcraft , we did the same at a period not too remote in European history , and under the laws of Massachusetts , not two hundred years aog , witchcraft was a violation of both the material and spiritual laws . Witchcraft was in vogue in the time of the Jew , for Saul in distress called upon the witch of Endor to put him in communication with the departed Samuel , and if the Jew could practice it , why not in the western hemisphere , and if the good spirit led Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice , why not permit the American man to follow also his dictations from his gods.  

In conclusion , let me suggest one thought as to the age of man in America : -Bancroft in his " Native Races of the Pacific States " tells us America was peopled from Asia , but the Jesup research informs us that "A notable effort was made under the auspices of Morris K. Jesup , president of the American Museum of Natural History , to settle more definitely the question of the origin of the American Indians . Mr. Jesup , in consultation with a number of eminent anthropologists , came to the conclusion that the only satisfactory way to discover , if there were any evidences of contact between the early settlers of America and Asia , was to make a thorough investigation of the oldest remaining tribes of both countries..  

With this end in view the " Jesup North American Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History " was organized in 1897 , and for seven years it studied the characteristics, customs, traditions and languages of the Indian tribes in America from the Columbia River to Northern Alaska , and in Asia as far south as the line of civilization . By studying how long the tribes had been on the Pacific Coast , what changes had taken place in the tribal physical characteristics , and what relation the various tribes bore to one another , it was possible to trace the relationship between the Asiatic and American tribes , and probably the cause of emigration in prehistoric times . The result of the expedition points to the existence of intimate relationship between the Asiatic and American Indians , and the conclusion of the members of the expedition is that the Indian originated in America and spread into Asia . "

Taking the prehistoric man in Peru as an example of the advancement in the arts of civilization , we find them prior to the coming of Columbus with post and military roads such as Caesar built in his campaigns against the people in Western Europe and in fact as highly commendable as European roads of the first class , and such road leading from the capitol of their country to the utmost limits of the state ; with stone culverts over the small streams and ravines , and swinging bridges over the rivers , and over these roads daily postmen , guards and other officials with information for the different branches of the government passed , along which houses were provided for resting and refreshment stations , and over which the fruits and fish of the coast country was carried to the ruler and royal family .

The Spartan government of three thousand years ago was probably no wiser in its establishment than this ancient country and it might appear that the two countries had , though thousands of miles separated and a different tongue , many of the features were similar . The citizenship was divided into classes of 50 ; into 100 ; into 500 and into 1000 , over which was an officer , who ruled them in accordance with the laws provided by the king .

Judges were appointed over the people to judge of the crimes committed and injustice done the citizen , and in most cases the verdict was death , though it could be mitigated . It was a capitol offense to turn the water from a neighbors field into your own ; blasphemy against the sun was a capitol offense and so was the burning of a bridge or the crime of adultery .

The production of the whole state was divided into three parts , the first of which went to the Sun - God ( his representatives ) the second to the Inca- the king - and the third and last to the people , and in this it would seem that the Jewish idea prevailed in the observance of the sun god .

The land was divided among all the people- - every man having a certain parcel , and this was given at marriage and as the children came , extra acreage was further granted , and as the children were married off , certain acreage was deducted from the crown tenant , and at certain intervals , the whole went back to the king and another division was made , and in this way no unconditional grant was ever fixed in one party . The guano deposits of the Pacific Coast was utilized for the enrichment of the soil and enlarging the crops to maintain the dense population .

A strict registration was required of the births and deaths of the people , which is very similar of this date of all countries to take a census upon conquering a new country and keeping in touch with the whole of the population .

Another provision of the Peruvian government was to establish and main- tain a series of store houses or magazines over the country and a certain portion of all the agricultural production was therein stored , a provision in case of war , widows and orphans and lastly a famine , as was done in Egypt when the Jews visited that country .

The king, his family and the princes, as of old and as at present where they exist , were the wards of the country and this country was no exception to all others , in both good government at times and bad at others . Gold and silver ; corn , cotton , wool and the other modern productions were the staples of the date in of which we speak .

The sun , with other lesser gods were the source of worship , and this worship was required of the people , especially of the laymen , who could have but one wife , while the royalty could have all he wanted - such was the history in the western hemisphere a few thousand years ago ; times have changed many things , but the human characteristics still exist .

The characteristic government of the Inca's in Peru at the coming of Columbus is but the kindred in character of those through Central and North America , at that time long past their zenith in greatness ; their heights having been reached many centuries before . The most gorgeous temple of prehistorical times was probably in Chololu, in Mexico , where the outer walls covered acres of ground , the temple being 1400 feet long and the perpendicular walls rising 177 feet and covering more ground than the pyramids of Egypt and its antiquity records by equal centuries .

Near the city of Mexico stood the capitol , which probably represented the nations , states and empires of the western hemisphere , where slaves , criminals and captive tribes were sacrificed by the thousands for rebelliousness and to appease the gods of war . Yucatan , if we rely upon the excavation made by scientist , antiquarians and scholars , once contained a citizenship far surpassing that of any other country of equal antiquity.

In our south western country of Arizona there existed an agricultural advancement rivaling what our government and people contemplate by modern irrigation in that section and when that country is made the garden spot , agriculturally , in America , it will probably not far surpass what it was under the reign of the prehistoric America . The canal was in operation in that section when the Jew was making the sun-dried brick in Egypt and the prehistoric man , of which we speak , was making a similar one for his people ; the magazine or store house was annually supplied for a " seven year famine," and the civilization moving then in the East four thousand years ago did not surpass that of the West , and it would seem that the same spirit of advancement , both spiritually and materially moved equally for the good and evil in both .

It is not at all improbable that in our middle and western prairie states were , as has been stated by writers , once covered with a forest as dense as the eastern and western sections of our country , but cleared for agricultural purposes in order to sustain an immense population .