![]() Along the Atlantic coast, it’s really Algonquin territory. The Pennsylvania region at the time was home to a very wide variety of people, some like the Susquehannock have been there for many generations, and others were refugees from different wars that have been happening that all gathered together to rebuild community. Philadelphia’s not a big place even now, but then it was tiny. In the records it is clear that city council members did not even know if there were any roads west of the Schuylkill River, and they did not know where the city limits actually were. But in 1722, it was only a few blocks wide, hugging the Delaware River. We might imagine founder William Penn’s green country town stretching from river to river with its gridded streets and its well-planned public squares as if it was already there. Only a few thousand colonists lived in the city of Philadelphia. What was Pennsylvania like, and who lived there? The murder you describe occurred in Pennsylvania in early 1722. ![]() The year that began with a death and ended in a treaty, Eustace says, reveals so much about different ways to define, and then achieve, justice.Įustace spoke with Smithsonian about the murder and life in 18th-century colonial Pennsylvania for settlers and Native AmericansĬovered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early AmericaĪn immersive tale of the killing of a Native American man and its far-reaching implications for the definition of justice from early America to today Buy The Albany “Great Treaty of 1722” included condolence ceremonies and reparation payments as well as the forgiveness of Sawantaeny’s killers. With vivid details and narration, in her new book, Covered With Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America, historian Nicole Eustace tells the story not only of this shocking event, but of a year of communication and miscommunication, false starts and resolution among this diverse group. His death set in motion a chain of communication to multiple tribal nations within weeks the Pennsylvania governor and council sent out emissaries, and within months emissaries from the Haudenosaunee and the Conestoga community, including the man known as Captain Civility, were coming to Philadelphia to try to learn more about what happened and how to proceed. ![]() He died the next day, inside the cabin he shared with his Shawnee wife, on a bearskin she had prepared. The clay pot hits the frozen ground.” One of the traders then struck Sawantaeny with his gun, hard. One of the traders responded by throwing something down. But whatever they offered, Sawantaeny had refused it. ![]() They were negotiating the purchase of furs and skins. ![]() Sawantaeny had welcomed two prominent settler traders, brothers from Conestago, a community that included both Native Americans and colonists, to his home near the border with Maryland along the Monocacy River. Over the years, Indigenous leaders and Pennsylvania officials carefully managed diplomatic relationships both in hopes of maintaining semi-peaceful coexistence despite aggressive colonial settlement, and to facilitate trade. The lands in the Pennsylvania colony were part of a larger northeastern Native America that included the Six Nations of the Iroquoian-speaking Haudenosaunee as well as more local tribes like the Susquehannock. Rather, they advocated for and ultimately won, at a treaty in Albany, New York, a process of acknowledgment, restitution and then reconciliation. But this English-style process was not what Indigenous communities expected or wanted. Colonial officials promised to extract “the full measure of English justice” and set about apprehending the perpetrators, organizing for a trial and ultimately for punishment, imagining this to be the height of respect and proper procedure. In 1722, the colony of Pennsylvania was roiled by the murder of a Susequehannock hunter at the hands of a pair of colonial traders. What constitutes justice after the commission of a heinous act? This question regularly anguishes American communities and indeed the nation. ![]()
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