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Rival investigations as to what occurred soon followed. The indigenous leaders and colonial leaders had fierce disputes about the best way to address the death and to re- dress the harm it created: “Word of the crime traveled north to the members of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee, sometimes still called the Iroquois, including the Seneca Nation to which Sawantaeny belonged.” The system of justice set up by the colonists, post-William Penn, was a harsh regimen which commanded the death sentence for a number of seemingly minor offenses; of course it was the penalty for murder and manslaughter. But perhaps surprisingly, the indigenous tribes’ view of justice was more nuanced, relationship based and called for reconciliation and compensation for the wrongs committed rather than for vengeance. The European view of indigenous people was that they were savages and not to be included among civilized people. The Euro- pean view permeated colonial attitudes and most colonists did not fully appreciate the indigenous people’s view of justice. “John and Edmund Cartlidge violated both English and indigenous norms of civilized behavior by attacking Sawantaeny; passing around drams of rum in a clay pot, bargaining away the winter night bar- tering for furs, they fell into a brawl when they could not come to terms. The traders cracked the hunter’s skull, then fled the scene with their horse train. Mortally wounded, Sawantaeny crawled back to his cabin where his wife Weynepeeweyta was waiting, and collapsed on a bearskin rug. ‘My friends have killed me,’ he told her. She tended him through the night, but he died near dawn, leaving her to go and seek assistance to dig his grave. By assaulting Sawantaeny, the Cartlidges exposed everyone in the region to calamity. Anxious to avert warfare, Pennsylvania leaders promised native peoples that they would subject the accused killers to justice, even though a murder charge, if it were brought, could mean capital punishment for their own colonists. Yet, to the great surprise of colonial magistrates, a Susquehannock man called ‘Captain Civility’ counseled colonial agents not to resort to such measures; instructing them instead on indigenous ideas on the terms of true justice.” By 1722, the title Captain Civility had been used by at least three genera- tions of Susquehannock Diplomats. The indigenous leaders specialized in bringing peace, reconciliation and weaving ties among the native nations. These same principles were applied to the colonist brothers’ crime of kill- ing Sawantaeny, their native friend. The Cartlidge Brothers were no strangers to colonial justice. John Car- tlidge had served as a mediator in all manners of conflicts for settlers and he was ultimately appointed as a justice of the peace. He was also a reliable translator for the indigenous people, translating between Delaware and English languages. Governor Keith of Pennsylvania, who had succeeded William Penn after his death, had a strong view of justice. “The heart of man being, for the most part, corrupted and defiled with the violence of his passions, Keith said, true justice, ‘commands an im- partial scrutiny be made.’ For Keith, emotion was corrupting and had no place in court. Whatever, ‘confused mixture of pity and horror,’ might fill the minds of those charged with judging the accused, they were ex- pected to set all feelings aside and, ‘discover the naked truth on which our judgements for or against one another are simply to be founded.’” SUMMER 2023 JOURNAL 36