Penn had several meetings for conference and treaties with the Indians, besides those which he held for the purchase of lands.  But unbroken and reverently cherished tradition, beyond all possibility of contradition, has designated one great treaty held under a large elm-tree, at Shackamaxon (now Kensington)[2], a treaty which Voltaire justly characterizes as “never sworn to, and never broken.”  In Penn’s Letter to the Free Society of Traders, dated August 16, 1683, he refers to his conferences with the Indians.  Two deeds, conveying land to him, are on record, both of which bear an earlier date than this letter; namely, June 23d and July 14th of the same year.  He had designed to make a purchase in May; but having been called off to a conference with Lord Baltimore, he postponed the business till June.

The “Great Treaty” was doubtless unconnected with the purchase of land, and was simply a treaty of amity and friendship, in confirmation of one previously held, by Penn’s direction, by Markham, on the same spot; that being a place which the Indians were wont to use for this purpose.  It is probable that the treaty was held on the last of November, 1682; that the Delawares, the Mingos, and other Susquehanna tribes formed a large assembly on the occasion; that written minutes of the conference were made, and were in possession of Governor Gordon, who states nine conditions as belonging to them in 1728, but are now lost; and that the substance of the treaty is given in Penn’s Letter to the Free Traders.  These results are satisfactory, and are sufficient corroborated by known facts and documents.  The Great Treaty, being distinct from a land purchase, is significantly distinguished in history and tradition.

The inventions of romance and imagination could scarcely gather round this engaging incident attractions surpassing in its own simple and impressive interest.  Doubtless Clarkson has given a fair representation of it, if we merely disconnect from his account the statement that the Indians were armed, and all that confounds the treaty of friendship with the purchase of lands.  Penn wore a sky-blue sash of silk around his waist, as the most simple badge.  The pledges there given were to hold their sanctity “while the creeks and rivers run, and while the sun, moon, and stars endure.”

While the whites preserved in written records the memory of such covenants, the Indians had their methods for perpetuating in safe channels their own relations.  They cherished in grateful regard, they repeated to their children and to the whites, the terms of the Great Treaty.  The Delawares called William Penn Miquon, in their own language, though they seem to have adopted the name given him by the Iroquois, Onas; both which terms signify a quill or pen.  Benjamin West’s picture of the treaty is too imaginative for a historical piece.  He makes Penn of a figure and aspect which would become twice the years that had passed over his head.  The elm-tree