Note 16 — LETTER—No. 47.
Reading edition
The whole of the Six Nations have been by some writers denominated Iroquois—how correct this may be, I am not quite able to say; one thing is certain, that is, that the Iroquois tribe did not all belong to that Confederacy, their original country was on the shores of the St. Lawrence; and, although one branch of their nation, the Mohawks, formed a part, and the most effective portion of that compact, yet the other members of it spoke different languages; and a great part of the Iroquois moved their settlements further North and East, instead of joining in the continual wars carried on by the Six Nations. It is of this part of the tribe that I am speaking, when I mention them as nearly extinct: and it is from this branch of the family that I got the portrait which I have introduced above.