Their Great Men, both Sachems and Captains, are generally poorer than the common People, for they affect to give away and distribute all the Presents or Plunder they get in their Treaties or War, so as to leave nothing to themselves. If they should once be suspected of Selfishness, they would grow mean in the opinion of their Country-men, and would consequently loose [sic] their Authority.

—Cadwallader Colden, The History of the
Five Indian Nations Depending on the
Province of New-York in America, 1727.