USA > New York > Erie County > Centennial history of Erie County, New York : being its annals from the earliest recorded events to the hundredth year of American independence > Part 4
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While there was no unchangeable custom compelling the clan- council to select one of the heirs of the deceased as his succes- sor, yet the tendency was so strong in that direction that an infant was frequently selected, a guardian being appointed to perform the functions of the office till the youth should reach the proper age to do so.
Notwithstanding the modified system of hereditary power in vogue, the constitution of every tribe was essentially republican. Warriors, old men, and even women, attended the council, and made their influence felt. Neither in the government of the confederacy nor of the tribes was there any such thing as tyr- anny over the people, though there was plenty of tyranny by the league over conquered nations.
36
RELIGION AND MORALS.
In fact there was very little government of any kind, and very little need of any. There were substantially no property inter- ests to guard, all land being in common, and each man's per- sonal property being limited to a bow, a tomahawk and a few deer skins. Liquor had not yet lent its disturbing influence, and few quarrels were to be traced to the influence of woman, for the American Indian is singularly free from the warmer pas- sions. His principal vice is an easily-aroused and unlimited hatred, but the tribes were so small and enemies so convenient, that there was no difficulty in gratifying this feeling outside his own nation. The consequence was that the war-parties of the Iroquois were continually shedding the blood of their foes, but there was very little quarreling at home.
They do not appear to have had any class especially set apart for religious services, and their religious creed was limited to a somewhat vague belief in the existence of a "Great Spirit," and several inferior but very potent evil spirits. They had a few simple ceremonies, consisting largely of dances, one called the " green corn dance," performed at the time indicated by its name, and others at other seasons of the year. From a very early date their most important religious ceremony has been the " burning of the white dog," when an unfortunate canine of the requisite color is sacrificed by one of the chiefs. To this day the pagans among them still perform this rite.
Aside from their political wisdom, and the valor and eloquence developed by it, the Iroquois were not greatly different from the other Indians of North America. In common with their fellow- savages they have been termed "fast friends and bitter enemies." They were a great deal stronger enemies than friends. Revenge was the ruling passion of their nature, and cruelty was their abiding characteristic. Revenge and cruelty are the worst at- tributes of human nature, and it is idle to talk of the goodness of men who roasted their captives at the stake. All Indians were faithful to their own tribes, and the Iroquois were faithful to their confederacy, but outside these limits their friendship could not be counted on, and treachery was always to be appre- hended in dealing with them.
In their family relations they were not harsh to their children, and not wantonly so to their wives, but the men were invariably
37
FAMILY RELATIONS.
indolent, and all labor was contemptuously abandoned to the weaker sex. They were not an amorous race, but could hardly be called a moral one. They were in that respect merely apa- thetic. Their passions rarely led them into adultery, and mer- cenary prostitution was entirely unknown, but they were not sensitive on the question of purity, and readily permitted their maidens to form the most fleeting alliances with distinguished visitors.
Polygamy, too, was practiced, though in what might be called moderation. Chiefs and eminent warriors usually had two or three wives; rarely more. They could be divorced at will by their lords, but the latter seldom availed themselves of their privilege.
These latter characteristics the Iroquois had in common with the other Indians of North America, but their wonderful politico- social league and their extraordinary success in war were the especial attributes of the People of the Long House, for a hun- dred and thirty years the masters, and for more than two cen- turies the occupants, of the county of Erie.
38
THE IROQUOIS TRIUMPHANT.
CHAPTER VI.
FROM 1655 TO 1679.
The Iroquois triumphant .- Obliteration of Dutch Power .- French Progress .- La Salle visits the Senecas .- Greenhalph's Estimates .- La Salle on the Niagara. -- Building of the Griffin .- It enters Lake Erie .- La Salle's Subsequent Ca- reer .- The Prospect in 1679.
From the time of the destruction of the Kahquahs and Eries the Iroquois lords of Erie county went forth conquering and to conquer. This was probably the day of their greatest glory. Stimulated but not yet crushed by contact with the white man, they stayed the progress of the French into their territories, they negotiated on equal terms with the Dutch and English, and, having supplied themselves with the terrible arms of the pale- faces, they smote with direst vengeance whomsoever of their own race were so unfortunate as to provoke their wrath.
On the Susquehanna, on the Allegany, on the Ohio, even to the Mississippi in the west and the Savannah in the south, the Iroquois bore their conquering arms, filling with terror the dwell- ers alike on the plains of Illinois and in the glades of Carolina. They strode over the bones of the slaughtered Kahquahs to new conquests on the great lakes beyond, even to the foaming cas- cades of Michillimacinac, and the shores of the mighty Supe- rior. They inflicted such terrible defeat upon the Hurons, des- pite the alliance of the latter with. the French, that many of the conquered nation sought safety on the frozen borders of Hud- son's Bay. In short, they triumphed on every side, save only where the white man came, and even the white man was for a time held at bay by these fierce confederates.
Of the three rivals, the French and Dutch opened a great fur- trade with the Indians, while the New Englanders devoted them- selves principally to agriculture. In 1664, the English conquered New Amsterdam, and in 1670 their conquest was made perma- nent. Thus the three competitors for empire were reduced to two. The Dutch Lepidus of the triumvirate was gotten rid of,
39
FRENCH PROGRESS.
and henceforth the contest was to be between the Anglo-Saxon Octavius and the Gallic Antony.
Charles the Second, then King of England, granted the con- quered province to his brother James, Duke of York, from whom it was called New York. This grant comprised all the lands along the Hudson, with an indefinite amount westward, thus overlapping the previous grant of James the First to the Ply- mouth Company, and the boundaries of Massachusetts by the charter of Charles the First, and laying the foundation for a con- flict of jurisdiction which was afterwards to have important effects on the destinies of Western New York.
The French, if poor farmers, were indefatigable fur-traders and missionaries ; but their priests and fur-buyers mostly pur- sued a route north of this locality, for here the fierce Senecas guarded the shores of the Niagara, and they like all the rest of the Iroquois were ever unfriendly, if not actively hostile, to the French. By 1665, trading-posts had been established at Mich- illimacinac, Green Bay, Chicago and St. Joseph, but the route past the falls of Niagara was seldom traversed, and then only by the most adventurous of the French traders, the most devoted of the Catholic missionaries.
But a new era was approaching. Louis the Fourteenth was king of France, and his great minister, Colbert, was anxious to extend the power of his royal master over the unknown regions of North America. In 1669, La Salle, whose name was soon to be indissolubly united to the annals of Erie county, visited the Senecas with only two companions, finding their four princi- pal villages from ten to twenty miles southerly from Rochester, scattered over portions of the present counties of Monroe, Livingston and Ontario.
In 1673, the missionaries Marquette and Joliet pushed on 'beyond the farthest French posts, and erected the emblem of Christian salvation on the shore of the Father of Waters.
In 1677, Wentworth Greenhalph, an Englishman, visited all the Five Nations, finding the same four towns of the Senecas described by the companions of La Salle. Greenhalph made very minute observations, counting the houses of the Indians, and reported the Mohawks as having three hundred warriors, the Oneidas two hundred, the Onondagas three hundred and
40
LA SALLE ON THE NIAGAR.1.
fifty, the Cayugas three hundred, and the Senecas a thousand. It will be seen that the Senecas, the guardians of the western door of the Long House, numbered, according to Greenhalph's computation, nearly as many as all the other tribes of the con- federacy combined, and other accounts show that he was not far from correct.
In the month of January, 1679, there arrived at the mouth of the Niagara Robert Cavalier de La Salle, a Frenchman of good family, thirty-five years of age, and one of the most gal- lant, devoted and adventurous of all the bold explorers who under many different banners opened the new world to the knowledge of the old. Leaving his native Rouen at the age of twenty-two, he had ever since been leading a life of adventure in America, having in 1669, as already mentioned, penetrated almost alone to the strongholds of the Senecas. In 1678, he had received from King Louis a commission to discover the western part of New France. He was authorized to build such forts as might be necessary, but at his own expense, being granted certain privileges in return, the principal of which appears to have been the right to trade in buffalo skins. The same year he had made some preparations, and in the fall had sent the Sieur de La Motte and Father Hennepin (the priest and historian of his expedition) in advance, to the mouth of the Niagara. La Motte soon returned.
As soon as La Salle arrived, he went two leagues above the Falls, built a rude dock, and laid the keel of a vessel with which to navigate the upper lakes. Strangely enough Hennepin does not state on which bank of the Niagara this dock was situated, but it is deemed certain by those who have examined the ques- tion, especially by O. H. Marshall, Esq., the best authority in the county on matters of early local history, that it was on the cast side, at the mouth of Cayuga creek, in Niagara county, and in accordance with that view the little village which has been laid out there has received the appellation of " La Salle."
Hennepin distinctly mentions a small village of Senecas situated at the mouth of the Niagara, and it is plain from his whole narrative that the Iroquois were in possession of the entire country along the river, and watched the movement with unceasing jealousy.
41
LA SALLE AND HIS COMRADES.
The work was carried on through the winter, two Indians of the Wolf clan of the Senecas being employed to hunt deer for the French party, and in the spring the vessel was launched, "after having," in the words of Father Hennepin, " been blessed according to the rites of our Church of Rome." The new ship was named. "Le Griffon" (The Griffin) in compliment to the Count de Frontenac, minister of the French colonies, whose coat of arms was ornamented with representations of that mythical beast.
For several months the Griffin remained in the Niagara, between the place where it was built and the rapids at the head of the river. Meanwhile Father Hennepin returned to Fort Frontenac (now Kingston) and obtained two priestly assistants,. and La Salle superintended the removal of the armament and stores from below the Falls.
When all was ready the attempt was made, and several times repeated, to ascend the rapids above Black Rock, but without success. At length, on the seventh day of August, 1679, a favorable wind sprung up from the northeast, all the Griffin's sails were set, and again it approached the troublesome rapids.
It was a dimunitive vessel compared with the leviathans of the deep which now navigate these inland seas, but was a mar- vel in view of the difficulties under which it had been built. It was of sixty tons burthen, completely furnished with anchors and other equipments, and armed with seven small cannon, all of which had been transported by hand around the cataract.
There were thirty-four men on board the Griffin, all French- men with a single exception.
There was the intrepid La Salle, a blue-eyed, fair-faced, ring- leted cavalier, a man fitted to grace the salons of Paris, yet now eagerly pressing forward to dare the hardships of unknown seas and savage lands. A born leader of men, a heroic subduer of nature, the gallant Frenchman for a brief time passes along the border of our county, and then disappears in the western wilds where he was eventually to find a grave.
There was Tonti, the solitary alien amid that Gallic band, exiled by revolution from his native Italy, who had been chosen by La Salle as second in command, and who justified the choice by his unswerving courage and devoted loyalty. There, too, was
4
42
THE GRIFFIN ENTERS LAKE ERIE.
Father Hennepin, the earliest historian of these regions, one of the most zealous of all the zealous band of Catholic priests who, at that period, undauntedly bore the cross amid the fiercest pa- gans in America. Attired in priestly robes, having with him his movable chapel, and attended by his two coadjutors, Father Hen- nepin was ready at any time to perform the rites of his Church, or to share the severest hardships of his comrades.
As the little vessel approached the rapids a dozen stalwart sailors were sent ashore with a tow-line, and aided with all their strength the breeze which blew from the north. Meanwhile a crowd of Iroquois warriors had assembled on the shore, together with many captives whom they had brought from the distant prairies of the West. These watched eagerly the efforts of the pale-faces, with half-admiring and half-jealous eyes.
Those efforts were soon successful. By the aid of sails and tow-line the Griffin surmounted the rapids, all the crew went on board, and the pioneer vessel of these waters swept out on to the bosom of Lake Erie. As it did so the priests led in sing- ing a joyous Te Deum, all the cannon and arquebuses were fired in a grand salute, and even the stoical sons of the forest, watch- ing from the shore, gave evidence of their admiration by repeated cries of "Gannoron ! Gannoron !" Wonderful ! Wonderful !
This was the beginning of the commerce of the upper lakes, and like many another first venture it resulted only in disaster to its projectors, though the harbinger of unbounded success by others. The Griffin went to Green Bay, where La Salle and Hennepin left it, started on its return with a cargo of furs, and was never heard of more. It is supposed that it sank in a storm and that all on board perished.
La Salle was not afterwards identified with the history of Erie county, but his chivalric achievements and tragic fate have still such power to stir the pulse and enlist the feelings that one can hardly refrain from a brief mention of his subsequent career. After the Griffin had sailed, La Salle and Hennepin went in canoes to the head of Lake Michigan. Thence, after building a trading-post and waiting many weary months for the return of his vessel, he went with thirty followers to Lake Peoria on the Illinois, where he built a fort and gave it the expressive name of "Creve Cœur"-Broken Heart. But notwithstanding this
43
LA SALLE'S SUBSEQUENT CAREER.
expression of despair his courage was far from exhausted, and, after sending Hennepin to explore the Mississippi, he with three comrades performed the remarkable feat of returning to Fort Frontenac on foot, depending on their guns for support.
From Fort Frontenac he returned to Creve Cœur, the garri- son of which had in the meantime been driven away by the In- dians. Again the indomitable La Salle gathered his followers, and in the fore part of 1682 descended the Mississippi to the sea, being the first European to explore any considerable portion of that mighty stream. He took possession of the country in the name of King Louis the Fourteenth, and called it Louisiana.
Returning to France he astonished and gratified the court with the story of his discoveries, and in 1684 was furnished with a fleet and several hundred men to colonize the new domain. Then every thing went wrong. The fleet, through the blunders of its naval commander, went to Matagorda bay, in Texas. The store-ship was wrecked, the fleet returned, La Salle failed in an attempt to find the mouth of the Mississippi, his colony dwin- dled away through desertion and death to forty men, and at length he started with sixteen of these, on foot, to return to Can- ada for assistance. Even in this little band there were those that hated him, (possibly he was a man of somewhat imperious na- ture,) and ere he had reached the Sabine he was murdered by two of his followers, and left unburied upon the prairie.
A lofty, if somewhat haughty spirit, France knows him as the man who added Louisiana and Texas to her empire, the Missis- sippi Valley reveres him as the first explorer of its great river, but by the citizens of this county he will best be remembered as the pioneer navigator of Lake Erie.
The adventurous Frenchman doubtless supposed, when he steered the Griffin into that vast inland sea, that he was opening it solely to French commerce, and was preparing its shores for French occupancy. He had ample reason for the supposition. Communication with the French in Lower Canada was much easier than with the Anglo-Dutch province on the Hudson, and thus far the opportunities of the former had been diligently im- proved.
Had La Salle then climbed the bluff which overlooks the transformation of the mighty Erie into the rushing Niagara,
44
THE PROSPECT IN 1679.
and attempted to foretell the destiny of lake and land for the next two centuries, he would without doubt, and with good reason, have mentally given the dominion of both land and lake to the sovereigns of France. He would have seen in his mind's eye the plains that extended eastward dotted with the cottages of French peasants, while here and there among them towered the proud mansions of their baronial masters. He would have imagined the lake white with the sails of hundreds of vessels flying the flag of Gallic kings, and bearing the products of their subjects from still remoter regions, and he would perchance have pictured at his feet a splendid city, reproducing the tall gables of Rouen and the elegant facades of Paris, its streets gay with the vivacious language of France, its cross-capped churches shel- tering only the stately ceremonies of Rome.
But a far different destiny was in store for our county, due partly to the chances of war, and partly to the subtle character- istics of race, which make of the Gaul a good explorer but a bad colonizer, while the Anglo-Saxon is ever ready to identify himself with the land to which he may roam.
.
45
FRENCH ASCENDENCY.
CHAPTER VII.
FRENCH DOMINION.
A Slight Ascendency .- De Nonville's Assault .- Origin of Fort Niagara .- La Hon- tan's Expedition. - The Peace of Ryswick .- Queen Anne's War .- The Iro- quois Neutral .- The Tuscaroras .- Joncaire .- Fort Niagara Rebuilt. - French Power Increasing .- Successive Wars .- The Line of Posts. - The Final Struggle .- The Expedition of D'Aubrey .- The Result .- The Surrender of Canada.
For the next forty-five years after the adventures of La Salle, the French maintained a general but not very substantial ascen- dency in this region. Their voyageurs traded and their mis- sionaries labored here, and their soldiers sometimes made incur- sions, but they had no permanent fortress this side of Fort Frontenac (Kingston) and they were constantly in danger from their enemies, the Hedonosaunee.
In 1687, the Marquis de Nonville, governor of New France, arrived at Irondiquoit bay, a few miles east of Rochester, with nearly two thousand Frenchmen and some five hundred Indian allies, and marched at once against the Seneca villages, situated as has been stated in the vicinity of Victor and Avon. The Senecas attacked him on his way, and were defeated, as well they might be, considering that the largest estimate gives them but eight hundred warriors, the rest of the confederates not hav- ing arrived.
The Senecas burned their villages and fled to the Cayugas. De Nonville destroyed their stores of corn and retired, after going through the form of taking possession of the country. The supplies thus destroyed were immediately replenished by the other confederates, and De Nonville accomplished little ex- cept still further to enrage the Iroquois. The Senecas, however, determined to seek a home less accessible from the waters of Lake Ontario, and accordingly located their principal villages at Geneva, and on the Genesee above Avon.
De Nonville then sailed to the mouth of the Niagara, where
46
ORIGIN OF FORT NIAGARA.
he erected a small fort on the east side of the river. This was the origin of Fort Niagara, one of the most celebrated strong- holds in America, and which, though a while abandoned, was afterwards for a long time considered the key of Western New York.
From the new fortress De Nonville sent the Baron La Hon- tan, with a small detachment of French, to escort the Indian allies to their western homes. They made the necessary port- age around the Falls, rowed up the Niagara to Buffalo, and thence coasted along the northern shore of the lake in their canoes. All along up the river they were closely watched by the enraged Iroquois, but were too strong and too vigilant to permit an attack.
Ere long the governor returned to Montreal, leaving a small garrison at Fort Niagara. These suffered so severely from sick- ness that the fort was soon abandoned, and it does not appear to have been again occupied for nearly forty years.
In fact, at this period the fortunes of France in North America were brought very low. The Iroquois ravaged a part of the island of Montreal, compelled the abandonment of Forts Frontenac and Niagara, and alone proved almost sufficient to overthrow the French dominion in Canada.
The English revolution of 1688, by which James the Second was driven from the throne, was speedily followed by open war with France. In 1689, the Count de Frontenac, the same ener- getic old peer who had encouraged La Salle in his brilliant dis- coveries, and whose name was for a while borne by Lake Ontario, was sent out as governor of New France. This vigorous but cruel leader partially retrieved the desperate condition of the French colony. He, too, invaded the Iroquois, but accom- plished no more than De Nonville.
The war continued with varying fortunes until 1697, the Five Nations being all that while the friends of the English, and most of the time engaged in active hostilities against the French. Their authority over the whole west bank of the Niagara, and far up the south side of Lake Erie, was unbroken, save when a detachment of French troops was actually marching along the shore.
At the treaty of Ryswick in 1797, while the ownership of
47
THE IROQUOIS NEUTRAL.
other lands was definitely conceded to France and England respectively, that of Western New York was left undecided. The English claimed sovereignty over all the lands of the Five Nations, the French with equal energy asserted the authority of King Louis, while the Hedonosaunee themselves, whenever they heard of the controversy, repudiated alike the pretensions of Yonnondio and Corlear, as they denominated the governors respectively of Canada and New York.
So far as Erie county was concerned, they could base their claim on the good old plea that they had killed all its previous occupants, and as neither the English nor French had succeeded in killing the Iroquois, the title of the latter still held good. In legal language they were "in possession," and "adverse posses- sion " at that.
Scarcely had the echoes of battle died away after the peace of Ryswick, when, in 1702, the rival nations plunged into the long conflict known as "Queen Anne's War." But by this time the Iroquois had grown wiser, and prudently maintained their neutrality, commanding the respect of both French and English. The former were wary of again provoking the powerful con- federates, and the government of the colony of New York was very willing that the Five Nations should remain neutral, as they thus furnished a shield against French and Indian attacks for the whole frontier of the colony.
But, meanwhile, through all the western country the French extended their influence. Detroit was founded in 1701. Other posts were established far and wide. Nothwithstanding their alliance with the Hurons and other foes of the Iroquois, and notwithstanding the enmity aroused by the invasions of Cham- plain, De Nonville and Frontenac, such was the subtle skill of the French that they rapidly acquired a strong influence among the western tribes of the confederacy, especially the Senecas. Even the wonderful socio-political system of the Hedonosaunee weakened under the influence of European intrigue, and while the Eastern Iroquois, though preserving their neutrality, were friendly to the English, the Senecas, and perhaps the Cayugas, were almost ready to take up arms for the French.
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