THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be read and
considered within the historical context in which it was composed and printed.
The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the opinions or
standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are, rather,
indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
Minutes of the Provincial
Council of Pennsylvania
(October 16, 1752)
In: Pennsylvania Provincial
Council
Minutes, Colonial Records,
Vol. V, pp. 599-600.
At a Council held at Philadelphia Monday the 16th October, 1752.
PRESENT:
The Honourable JAMES HAMILTON, Esquire, Lieutenant Governor.
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Robert Strettell, |
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Joseph Turner, |
} Esquires. |
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Richard Peters, |
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The Minutes of the preceding Council were read and approved.
Eight Members of Assembly having waited on the Governor to inform him that they were met according to Charter and had chosen their Speaker, and having desired to know when they might present him for his approbation, he had appointed them to wait on him at this time in the Council Chamber, and they accordingly coming, Isaac Norris informed the Governor that he was unanimously elected Speaker, and being approved by the Governor, he there demanded the usual Privileges on behalf of the House and himself.
Then was ready the following Letter and Paper enclosed in it, send by Express from Carlisle to the Governor:
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CARLISLE, Aug. 30th, 1752 |
May it Please Your Honour:
Last night Thomas Burney who lately resided at the Twightwee's Town in Allegheny, came here and gives the following account of the unhappy Affair that was lately transacted there: On the twenty-first Day of June last, early in the Morning, two Frenchmen and about two hundred and forty Indians came to the Twightwee's Town, and in a Hostile Manner attacked the people there residing. In the Skirmish there was one White man and fourteen Indians killed, and five white men taken Prisoners.
The Party who came to the Twightwee's Town reported that they had received as a Commission two Belts of Wampum from the Governor of Canada to kill such Indians as are in Amity with the English, and to take the Persons and Effects of all such English Traders as they could meet with, but not to kill any of them if they could avoid it, which Instructions were in some measure obeyed.
Mr. Burney is now here, and is willing to be qualified not only to this but to sundry other matters which he can discover concerning this Affair; if your Honour thinks it proper for him to come to Philadelphia to give you the Satisfaction of Examining more particularly in relation to it he will readily attend your Honour upon that occasion, or make an affidavit of the particulars here. Such (page 600) orders as your Honour pleases to send on this occasion shall certainly be obeyed by,
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May it please your Honour, |
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Your Honour's most obedient Servant, |
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ROBT. CELLENDER. |
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P. S.- Inclosed your Honour has the Twightwee's Speech to Mr. Burney, with a Scalp and five Strings of Wampum, & Beaver. Fifteen Days after the taking of the Town, Thomas Burney and Capt. Trent, with twenty Indians, went back to the Town, where they found all the Indians were fled, and on their Return met with Three of their Chiefs whom Capt. Trent delivered the Virginia Present to as he had then with him. These Chiefs informed them the Indians were gone eighty miles from thence, and there would reside till they heard further from their Brothers.
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A Message to the Governor from the Twightwees.
Brother Onas:
We, Your Brothers the Twightwees, have sent you by our Brother Thomas Burney a Scalp and Five Strings of Wampum, in Token of our late unhappy affair at the Twightwee's Town, and whereas our Brother has always been kind to us, hope he will now put us in a method how to act against the French, being more discouraged for the Loss of our Brother the Englishman who was killed and the five who were taken Prisoners, than for the Loss of ourselves, and notwithstanding the two Belts of Wampum which were sent from the Governor of Canada as a Commission to destroy us, we still shall hold our Integrity with our Brothers, and are willing to die for them, and will never give up this Treatment although we saw our great Piankashaw King (which commonly was called old Britain by us) taken, killed, and eaten within a hundred Yards of the Fort before our Faces. We now look upon ourselves as lost Peoples, fearing that our Brothers will leave us; but before we will be subject to the French, or call them our Father, we will perish here.
The Governor informed the Council that he had sent by the Return of the Express a Letter, Commanding Thomas Burney to come to Philadelphia to be examined touching the contents of the Latter and Message, but that he had not hitherto paid any Regard to his orders. The Letter, Message, and Scalp were laid before the House of Assembly. . .
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