of the Catawba or Santee, and probably of the Yadkin.  From another authority it appears, that for a time the Shawanoes had a station on the Savannah river, above Augusta; and Adair, who refers to the war between the Shawanoes and Cherokees, saw a body of the former in the wilderness, who, after having wandered for some time in the woods, were then returning to the Creek country.  According to John Johnston,[A] a large party of the Shawanoes, who originally lived north of the Ohio, had for some cause emigrated as far south as the Suwanoe river, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  From thence they returned, under the direction of a chief named Black Hoof, about the middle of the last century, to Ohio.  It is supposed that this tribe gave name to the Suwanoe river, in 1750, by which name the Cumberland was also known, when Doctor Walker, (of Virginia) visited Kentucky.

[Footnote A:  I Vol.  Trans.  Amer.  Antiquarian Society.]

Of the causes which led the Shawanoes to abandon the south, but little is known beyond what may be gleaned from their traditions.  Heckewelder, in his contributions to the American Philosophical Society, says, “they were a restless people, delighting in wars, in which they were constantly engaged with some of the surrounding nations.  At last their neighbors, tired of being continually harassed by them, formed a league for their destruction.  The Shawanoes finding themselves thus dangerously situated, asked to be permitted to leave the country, which was granted to them; and they immediately removed to the Ohio.  Here their main body settled, and then sent messengers to their elder brother,[A] the Mohicans, requesting them to intercede for them with their grandfather, the Lenni Lenape, to take them under his protection.  This the Mohicans willingly did, and even sent a body of their own people to conduct their younger brother into the country of the Delawares.  The Shawanoes finding themselves safe under the protection of their grandfather, did not choose to proceed to the eastward, but many of them remained on the Ohio, some of whom settled as far up that river as the long island, above which the French afterwards built fort Duquesne, on the spot where Pittsburg now stands.  Those who proceeded farther, were accompanied by their chief, named Gachgawatschiqua, and settled principally at and about the forks of the Delaware, between that and the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill; and some, even on the spot where Philadelphia now stands; others were conducted by the Mohicans into their own country, where they intermarried with them and became one people.  When those settled near the Delaware had multiplied, they returned to Wyoming on the Susquehannah, where they resided for a great number of years.”

[Footnote A:  The Shawanoes call the Mohicans their elder brother, and the Delawares their grandfather.]