Hi Shawn, and Cousins on the List: There were several Indian tribes around the Philadelphia area -- the Delaware Indians were the largest faction. There was really tough bunch called the Susquehannas who really impressed Captain John Smith, the first explorer of the northern Chesapeake in 1607. Up further north in Pennsylvania and New York were the Iroquoian tribes. The Delawares were not warrior Indians. They were friendly with other tribes and with the new immigrants into Pennsylvania. William Penn treated them fairly, bargained with them for land, and the Quakers continued to live peaceably among them. When other Europeans began spreading outward from Philadelphia their migrations and new settlements threatened the Indians and their life styles. The Delawares just kept moving, but utlimately the Indians all up and down the Appalachians became engaged in battling the white western encroachments. This flared into the French and Indian Wars in the mid-century 1700's. South, in Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, the Cherokees were also of Iroquoian origin, although they lived in areas where there were also Creeks, Shawnees, Catawbas, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. The Cherokees fought at first, but British-American retaliation against them was severe, wiping out villages and food supplies. After the French and Indian War ended, hostilities with the tribes continued on throughout the Revolutionary War, and into the 1790's but the Cherokees were convinced their survival depended on doing what the British and then, the Americans, wanted. When Southern lands became tempting for white American settlement, even though the Cherokees had become fairly model citizens, intermarrying with whites and emulating white customs, they were forced to go to Indian Territory which then included parts of western Missouri, southeastern Kansas, and all of Oklahoma. None of the tribespeople were officially allowed to remain, but some successfully hid in the mountains and through skirting around some of the land ownership laws, were able to obtain small patches of property in western North Carolina. Descendants of these people comprise the Eastern Cherokees, while descendants of the remainder who survived the Trail of Tears comprise the Oklahoma-centered Cherokees. Remnants of southern tribespeople also went into Florida and became the Seminoles, who never did surrender. I haven't studied the northern tribes so much. I am pretty interested in the Wyoming Massacre which happened in the late 1760's, but haven't pursued it too much yet. These are endlessly fascinating historical subjects, and are the basis of the history of all frontier settlements, which we are examining genealogically now on the website. I wish I could get pages up faster! What reservation are you near? Love, Your Cousin, Carolyn Carolyn McDaniel cmacdee@teleport.com ========================================= --- Visit American Crossroads --- http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~amxroads