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Indians; Reading the Declaration of Independence ; Lafayette's Second Visit to America; Epilog, and March Past the Terrace Some Five Thousand Descendants of William Penn and His Colonials
Shall come mighty leaders, undaunted,
intrepid, Born with the mien of command and the
power — Far-seeing and silent.
Suddenly the Dutch colonists of 1631 appeared, and started, in representation, their little settlement of Swaannendael, or the "valley of the swans." The Lenni Lenape Indians gathered and fraternized with them.
Captain Heyse gave them Holland schnapps, which they drank, and called "firewater." The palisades of a fort were put up.
Then no more of pipe-smoking by the natives. They grew suspicious, and drew off.
Presently they crept up upon the fort, and attacked it. The cries of the massacred were heard from within. But a friendly tribe, the Minquas, rushed up, and fought the assailants back. Thus the first white settlement in Pennsylvania was conceived and born in turmoil and bloodshed.
The chorus swelled thru the park :
Now come to these shores the hardy Swedes ;
Here do they found their town of Christina,
Planting the name of a Queen in the Western domain,
Ready to fight for the right with the Hollander.
As the voices rose, the scene was changed to represent the Swedish settlement of Fort Christina, now the
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city of Wilmington. In the distance the firing of cannon was heard, and the rugged Swedes, under Peter Minuit, formerly of the Dutch West India Company, appeared. Governor Keift, of the Hollanders, in vain warned them of trespass; * v
Presently still newer settlers appeared upon the virgin fields. They were the Englishmen of Lord De la Warre. The Dutch and Swedes united against their common enemy, and almost without resistance drove the pitiful cavalcade into the woods.
And now came the ponderous governor, Johan Printz, from over seas, with his spouse, Maria von Linnestau.
The Swedes rejoiced, banners were waved from the fort, and the colonists, with their pastor, sang hymns. The Dutch looked upon this" sullenly , and then the first real battle of civilized man against his fellow in the wilds of northern America followed.
Wailing music alternated with minor chords as the characters passed off the field. The chorus chanted a farewell :
Farewell to the era of terrible conflict! All hail to the spirit of peace that approaches !
The true spirit of America followed, in the advent of William Penn, and in his founding of Philadelphia.
Penn was the son of an English admiral, and his embracing of the Quaker faith had resulted in a career of social ostracism and persecution.