had been reared mainly by his labors. But the Five Nations, while
yielding abundant honor to the memory of Dekanawidah, have never
regarded him with the same affectionate reverence which has always clung
to the name of Hiawatha. His tender and lofty wisdom, his wide-reaching
benevolence, and his fervent appeals to their better sentiments,
enforced by the eloquence of which he was master, touched chords in the
popular heart which have continued to respond until this day. Fragments
of the speeches in which he addressed the council and the people of the
league are still remembered and repeated. The fact that the league only
carried out a part of the grand design which he had in view is
constantly affirmed. Yet the failure was not due to lack of effort. In
pursuance of his original purpose, when the league was firmly
established, envoys were sent to other tribes to urge them to join it,
or at least to become allies. One of these embassies penetrated to the
distant Cherokees, the hereditary enemies of the Iroquois nations. For
some reason with which we are not acquainted, perhaps the natural
suspicion or vindictive pride of that powerful community, this mission
was a failure. Another, dispatched to the western Algonkins, had better
success. A strict alliance was formed with the far-spread Ojibway
tribes, and was maintained inviolate for at least two hundred years,
until at length the influence of the French, with the sympathy of the
Ojibways for the conquered Hurons, undid to some extent, though not
entirely, this portion of Hiawatha's work.

His conceptions were beyond his time, and beyond ours; but their effect,
within a limited sphere, was very great. For more than three centuries
the bond which he devised held together the Iroquois nations in perfect
amity. It proved, moreover, as he intended, elastic.--The territory of
the Iroquois, constantly extending as their united strength made itself
felt, became the "Great Asylum" of the Indian tribes. Of the conquered