USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 14
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* Relation, 1671-2, Chap. VI., Part I.
t Early Chapters of Cayuga History, +1, Note. O'Callaghan says Garnier was ordered to the Senecas in 1671, (Col. Hast. IX., 171.) Mar- shall says, "In 1669 he had charge of the Seneca Mission of St. Michael, and the following year that of St. James. In 1671 he conducted the three missions among that people." { The Building and Voyage of the Grif- fon, 261, where he cites as authorities Jesuit Relations, Quebec ed. 1668, p. 17: 1669, p. 12 : 1670, pp. 69-78 : 1671, p. 20; 1666, p. 9.)
# Charlevoix, 1., 323, 398; 402, 452.
* Faillon ; V'ie de S. Bourgeoys, 1. 256.
t Col. Hist. 1X , 130.
# Col. Hist , XI., 171, The Building and V'oyage of the Griffon, 260, 261. § Col. Hist., 1X .. 229.
1 Relation Inedites, 11., 11.
" Relation de ce qui s'est passe des plue remarquable aux missions des Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus, en la Nouvelle France es années 1676 et 1677.
66
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
one hundred and twenty children who died after baptism, which is a certain gain for heaven. 1 cannot extract anything else from Father de Car- heil, Pierron, Raffeix and Garnier who are among the upper Iroquois, because their greatest employ- ment is to suffer and, so to speak, die at every moment by the continual threats and insults which these Indians offer them, who, notwithstanding all this, fail not to wrest many souls from the devil. Father de Carheil writes from Oioguen that the spiritual gain of this year is thirty-eight baptized, six of them adults and thirty-six dead, all children ex- cept three ;" hence we may conclude that the re- mainder of those enumerated above are the fruit of the Seneca missions.
In 1679. Father Louis Hennepin and Sieur la Motte de Lussiere visited Canagorah ( Tagarondies ) in the interest of La Salle's western project, and found Fathers Garnier and Raffeix residing in that village. "They were received by the Senecas," says Marshall, "with marked consideration, and conducted to the cabin of their principal chief, where they became objects of curiosity to the women and children. The young men bathed their travel-worn feet, and anointed them with bear's oil. The next day, being the first of the year, Hen- nepin celebrated mass and preached the mysteries of his faith to the mixed assembly of French and Indians. *
* After Hennepin had concluded his religious services, the grand council was con- vened. It was composed of forty-two of the elders among the Senecas. Their tall forms were com- pletely enveloped in robes made from the skin of the beaver, wolf and black squirrel. With calumet in mouth, these grave councilors took their seats on their mats, with all the stateliness and dignity of Venetian senators. At the opening of the coun- cil, La Motte, suspecting Father Garnier of hos- tility to La Salle, objected to his presence. At the request of the Senecas he withdrew. Henne- pin, considering this an affront to his cloth, retired with him. La Salle was ever suspicious of the Jesuits ; believing them to be opposed to his enter- prises, and inclined to influence the Indians against him. The council was informed, through Bras- sart, the interpreter, that the French had come to visit them on the part of Onontio, their governor, and to smoke the calumet on their mats ; that the Sieur de la Salle was about to buildagreat wooden canoe above the Falls, [Niagara, ] in which to bring merchandize from Europe by a more convenient route than the rapids of the St. Lawrence ; that by this means the French would be able to undersell
the English of Boston, and the Dutch of New York .* This speech was accompanied with four hundred pounds weight of presents, consisting of hatchets, knives, coats, and a large necklace of blue and white shells. Portions of these were handed over at the end of each proposition. This mode of treating with the Indians by bribing their chiefs, has, unfortunately, continued to the present day. Among other inducements, La Motte promised to furnish, for the convenience of their whole nation, a gunsmith and blacksmith, to reside at the mouth of the Niagara, for the purpose of mending their guns and hatchets. Several coats and pieces of fine cloth, iron, and European merchandise of great rarity among the Indians, and of the value of four hundred francs. were added, as weighty reasons, to influence them in favor of the French. 'The best arguments in the world,' says Hennepin, are not list- ened to by the natives, unless accompanied with presents.'t
" On the next day, the Senecas answered the speech of La Motte, sentence by sentence. and re- sponded by presents. Asaids to the memory, they used small wooden sticks, which the speaker took up, one by one, as he replied seriatim, to the sev- eral points in the speech of the day previous. Belts of wampum, made of small shells strung on fine sinews, were presented after each speech, fol- lowed by the exclamation ' Vi-a-oua,' signifying ap- proval, from the whole assembly. This, however, proved an insincere response in the present in- stance, for La Motte, with his specious reasoning, made no impression on these shrewd children of the forest. They knew that the English and Dutch had greater facilities than the French for supply- ing them with merchandise, and could outbid the latter in trading for their furs. They received the offered presents with apparent acquiesence, and after the customary salutations the council broke up." #
Father Garnier, in a letter dated July 10, 1673, says the Seneca nation consisted of three villages, "two composed of natives of the country, and the third of the remnant of the divers Huron nations destroyed by the Iroquois.& All together they may amount to eight hundred men capable of waging
* Alluding to the plan of La Salle to send merchandise to the Niagara by the way of the Mississippi and the lakes.
1 Hennepin, V. D., p. 85.
t The Building and Voyage of the Griffon, 260-263.
§ Greenhalgh, who visited the Seneca country in 1577, says they had four towns, though he refers to only two missions - St. Jacques, at Can- garo, (Canagorah, ) and La Conception, at Tiotehatton, (Totiakton.) O'Callaghan adds, ( Relation, 1669-70, 317.) the French had another mission at the village of Gandougarae, which they called St. Michael. Col. Hist. 111., 251, 152.
67
EARLY EFFORTS TO CHRISTIANIZE THE INDIANS.
war." He adds, " the chiefs of each village have been deputed to go visit you at the place you indi- cated to them ; they are well disposed to receive your orders, and give you every satisfaction. They have made peace with all the nations against whom M. de Courcelles had forbad them waging war, the King having taken them under his protection. They have strictly enjoined on their young men not to turn their arms in that direction. They anxiously desire the French to settle in their country, especially those who are useful to them, such as smiths and armorers."*
In 1683, Colonel Thomas Dongan, then Gov- ernor of New York, though himself a Catholic, had well nigh succeeded in destroying the French in- fluence over the Iroquois. He clearly saw the dan- gers which menaced the English Government under the stimulus of Jesuit influence and intrigue, and was too loyal to allow his religious convictions to cause him to swerve from political rectitude. He therefore directed all his efforts to expel the Cana- dian missionaries from among the Iroquois, and to conciliate the latter promised to send them Eng- lish ministers and build churches in their cantons. He had so far succeeded that as early as 1684 the greater part of the Jesuits had abandoned their missions, and in 1687, the last, Jean de Lamber- ville, had left his station at Onondaga, and gone to Niagara ; his brother, Jacques de Lamberville, left the same station the previous year. From this time, or a few years later, the Jesuit missions began sensibly to decline.
Father Garnier acted as interpreter to the Hu- rons at the peace of 1701, and is said to have returned to the Senecas in 1702,f accompanied by Father François Vaillant de Gueslis. Garnier was then old and infirm, and from this fact it was as- sumed that Jesuits were in great demand in the Iroquois missions .¿ He was the last missionary of that order among the Senecas.$ Lafitau, who was his pupil, and learned from him all he knew of the Indians, says that he had spent more than sixty years on the mission, and that he was well ac- quainted with the Algonquin, Huron and Iroquois languages, but better with the latter two. || He died in Quebec in February, 1730. T
The distinguished Jesuit missionary, Jacques Bruyas, was among the Senecas in 1673 ; and the
Sulpitian priest, Francois de Salignac de Fénelon, whose identity has been confounded with that of his half-brother, the celebrated archbishop of Cambray, though one of the first missionaries under the aus- pices of the Sulpitians among the Iroquois, was not stationed in that capacity among the Senecas south of Lake Ontario, as has been stated by a cotem- porary, but among a branch of that nation, who resided on the north shore of that lake at a village called Gandatsiagon, which was located on the site of Whitby, a port of entry and an excellent harbor on the north shore of the lake, thirty miles north- east of Toronto.
The Dutch colonists did not give the matter of Christianizing the Indians much consideration ; and the Government of New York made no effort in this direction, further than to pay for some time, a small salary to the clergyman at Albany to at- tend to the wants of such Indians as might apply to him. The Rev. Mr. Freeman translated a part of the English liturgy, the morning and evening prayers, the litany, the Athanasian creed, with some passages of the Old and New Testament, into the Indian language; but those professing to be Christians in 1710, are represented as "so ignorant and scandalous that they can scarce be reputed Christians."* In 1712, Rev. William Andrews was sent by the Society for Propagating the Gospel, as missionary to the Mohawks, succeeding in that capacity Rev. Thoroughgood Moor, and extending his labors occasionally to the Oneidas. But he abandoned his mission in 1719, having had no greater success among the natives than his prede- cessor ; f and as he was the first, so was he the last that resided among them for a great many years, the Society afterwards contenting themselves by imitating the policy of the government, and allow- ing a small stipend to their clergyman at Albany to act as a missionary among the Mohawks, in which capacity he did them but very little good.#
Revs. Henry Barclay and John Ogilvie, who succeeded to the rectorship of St. Peter's Church. Albany, the former in 1737, and the latter in 1749: also extended their labors to the Oneidas. Mr. Barclay, who was a son of Rev. Thomas B. Bar- clay, the second rector of that church, was a native of Albany and was graduated from Yale College in 1734. In 1735, at the recommendation of Rev. Mr. Milne, who preceded him in the rectorship of
* Col. Hist., IX., 792.
t Col. Hist., IX., 171, 737, 761.
$ Col. Hist., 1X., 750.
§ Shea's Catholic Mission, 294, n.
Jesuit Relation, ed. 1666, p. 6. Parkman's Jesuits, 54 The Building and Voyage of the Griffon. 261. Col. Hist. IX., 171.
The Building and Voyage of the Griffon, 261.
. Doc. Hist. IV., 505.
t "He became discouraged and asked to be recalled, saying, 'there is no hope of making them better-heathen they are, and heathen they must still be.'"-Hammond's History of Madison County, 106.
# Doc. Hist. IV .. 505.
68
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
St. Peter's, he was appointed catechist to the In- dians at Fort Hunter. He closed his rectorship at Albany in 1746, when he became rector of Trinity Church, New York, where he died in 1764. Mr. Ogilvie was a native of New York and a graduate of Yale. Being a Dutch scholar he was appoint- ed to this mission in 1748, and arrived at Albany in March, 1749. In 1760, he joined the expedi- tion against Niagara and continued attached to the army till the close of the French war. He succeeded Mr. Barclay as rector of Trinity Church, and died Nov. 26, 1774.
In 1744, the New York Legislature made pro- vision for presents for the Indians, as well as for an interpreter and missionary to be sent among them .* In 1748, the people of New England turned their attention to this field of labor, and Revs. Messrs. Spencer, Timothy Woodbridge and Gideon Hawley visited successively the tribes on the Mohawk and Susquehanna rivers. The com- mencement of the French war soon after interrupt- ed all missionary efforts west of Albany, and they were not renewed till 1761, when Rev. Dr. Eleazer Wheelock directed his attention to this quarter, and endeavored, by introducing Indians as mis- sionaries and schoolmasters, to reclaim the natives from their savage life.
In 1754, the Commissioners of Indian Affairs at Albany, adverted to the fact that the French had long been endeavoring to prevail on the Senecas to settle at Irondequoit, in order to have them nearer their settlements and the more easily to debauch them from British interest, and expressed the opinion that, as they (the Senecas) then lived "very re- mote from one another," it should beinsisted upon that they make a general eastle near the mouth of the Genesee (Senecas') River, where they had "already begun to build a new castle," (probably Chenondoanah, ) and farther that the most effectual method to retain and secure the Six Nations to the British interest, would be to build two forts, one at Onondaga, the other in the Senecas' country, and supply each fort with a proper missionary. They also deprecated the carrying and selling of rum in the castles of the Six Nations, as having the most pernicious influence on the British inter- est in general and this colony in particular.t
Speedy action was taken on the recommenda- tion of the Commissioners in respect to the erec- tion of forts,# but none, apparently, in regard to
* Col. Hist. VI., 642.
1 Col. Hist. , VI .. 856, 857. # Col. Hist., VI1., 177.
supplying them with missionaries proper or im- proper, though its importance was frequently ad- verted to. Sir William Johnson, in a communi- cation to the Lords of Trade, November 13. 1763, writes thus disparagingly of the missions of that period. He says :-
" Another matter extremely essential, will be the choice of proper missionaries to reside amongst the Indians in their own villages; many of the present missions are established at settlements on the sea-side, where the nations formerly residing are become extinet, or reduced to an inconsidera- ble number, whilst other missionaries are allowed to double a cure, or live in our towns; so that two or three visits in a year, are all that the Indians get, and the missionaries, unable to speak their language, are obliged to have recourse to the very bad interpreters which the country affords; by which means the worthy design of the Society is in a great measure defeated. There have been other missionaries, who have too often used their influence in obtaining grants of lands, which gives the In- dians the most unfavorable opinion of their worldly and interested views. The Mohawks lately told me that they apprehended the reason they had not clergy as formerly amongst them was because there was no more land to spare."*
Rev. Samuel Kirkland was for many years a dis- tinguished missionary among the Oneidas, and for a shorter period, among the Senecas. He was born in Norwich, Conn., Dec. 1, 1741, and educated at Dr. Wheelock's Indian school. In 1761, he was sent to the Mohawks to learn their language. He entered Princeton college in 1762, and in 1764 returned to the Mohawk country to teach school and perfect himself in that language. He received his collegiate degree in 1765, and in that and the following year was employed among the Senecas. In 1779, he was Brigade Chaplain in General Sul- livan's campaign against the Indians in Western New York, and at the close of the war remained with the Oneidas. He died after a life of much public usefulness, February 28, 1808.
After the war of the Revolution, Washington lent his powerful influence to the furtherance of a projeet looking to the emancipation of the Iroquois and the American Indians generally from their savage barbarism through the medium of a benign civilization; and in the spring of 1792, a deputa- tion of fifty of the representative men of the red race were invited to Philadelphia, then the federal city, for the double purpose of discussing plans looking to this end and of attaching them more closely to the United States' interests. 'The same year the Federal government seconded these efforts
* Col. Hist., VII., 579, 580.
69
RED JACKET'S HOSTILITY TO PROTESTANT MISSIONS.
by the following enactment: "The United States, in order to promote the happiness of the Five Na- tions of Indians, will cause to be expended annu- ally, the amount of one thousand five hundred dollars, in purchasing for them clothing, domestic animals, and implements of husbandry, and for encouraging useful artificers to reside in their vil- lages." But the Indians were not in a condition to be immediately benefited by these beneficent designs. The angry turmoils fomented and per- petuated by British emissaries in Canada, and the jealous apprehensions with which the Indians re- garded the encroachments of white settlers on their lands, measurably defeated these measures. Red Jacket, who was then in the height of his power and influence, at first gave a quasi endorsement of the plan, but afterwards proved its most implacable and obdurate enemy; and when, sub- sequently, efforts to christianize the Indians were made through missionary labors, he and the younger Cornplanter, (notwithstanding the latter's father had been converted to the christian faith,) became the leaders of the anti-christian party of the Senecas, while Captain Pollard, or Kaowmdoo- wand, Gishkaka, commonly called Little Billy, and other distinguished Seneca chieftains, became the champions of the opposite party, which, gaining the ascendency, deposed Red Jacket from his sachemship in 1827 .* He was, however, soon after restored.ț
After the adjustment of the great controversy between the Indians and the United States at Can- andaigua in 1794, the broad and beautiful domain of the Six Nations was curtailed to a few compar- atively small reservations, which were afterwards reduced by greedy and avaricious land cormorants .¿ These reservations included several small tracts on and adjacent to the Genesee, the Indian title to the east of which in this county was extinguished in 1826; but the greater portion of the Senecas took up their residence on the Buffalo Reserva. tion.
In 1796, several families of Friends settled on the Oneida Reservation and improved the condi- tion of that nation by instructing the men in the art of husbandry and some of the indispensable
* Life and Times of Red Facket, 441.
t Ibid, 447.
# These reservations as affecting the Western tribes are as follows :- Tonawanda Reservation, near Niagara river, containing about 13,000 acres.
Buffalo Reservation, near the city of Buffalo, containing about 53,000 acres.
Cattaraugus Reservation, near Cattaraugus creek, containing about 22,000 acres.
Alleghany Reservation, near the Alleghany river, containing about 31,- ooo acres.
Life and Times of Red facket, 28z, note.
mechanic arts, and the women in household duties, spinning, sewing and knitting. In 1798, the Sen- ecas, observing the improvement of the Oneidas, requested the Friends to aid them in the same way, and accordingly three families established themselves in the canton of the Alleghany.
In the summer of 1805, a young missionary named Cram was sent by the Evangelical Mission- ary Society of Massachusetts to establish a mis- sionary station among the Senecas; but he met with no encouragement, and was filled with discom- fort by the speech of the wary Red Jacket, which has been pronounced one of the best of the many attributed to him. He artfully confronted the dis- concerted missionary with the worst phases of a pseudo-christianity, such as too often presented themselves to the untutored savages, and dwelt upon the glaring injustice practiced upon the latter by professors of the religion sought to be incul- cated.
In the spring of 1811, the Rev. Mr. Alexander, the agent of the Missionary Society, accompanied the agent of a New York company holding the preemptive title to the reservations in the Holland Purchase, in an attempt to acquire the right to these, to renew the effort to establish a mission among the Senecas. This drew from Red Jacket an equally terse and laconic speech, in which, among other things, he said :-
"Great numbers of black coats have been amongst the Indians, and with sweet voices and smiling faces, have offered to teach them the religion of the white people. Our brethren in the east listened to the black coats, turned from the religion of their fa- thers, and took up the religion of the white people. What good has it done them? Are they more happy and more friendly one to another than we are? No, brother, they are a divided people-we are united ; they quarrel about religion-we live in love and friendship; they drink strong water ; have learned how to cheat, and practice all the vices of the white men, which disgrace Indians, without imitating the virtues of the white men. Brother, if you are our well-wisher, keep away and do not disturb us. * * * You wish us to change our religion for yours ; we like our religion and do not want another. Our friends* do us great good ; they counsel us in our troubles, and instruct us how to make ourselves comfortable. Our friends the Quakers do more than this ; they give us ploughs and show us how to use them. They tell us we are accountable beings, but do not say we must change our religion. We are satisfied with what they do."
> Referring to Mr. Granger, the United States Agent of Indian Affairs, Mr. Parish, the Indian Interpreter, and Mr. Taylor, the Agent of the Society of Friends for improving the condition of the Indians, who were present at the Council.
70
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
These, however, were either not the sentiments of many of the Senecas, or they were not hell as tenaciously by them; for, notwithstanding the re- pulse of Mr. Alexander in 1811, the New York Missionary Society had succeeded in establishing several missionary stations, that among the Tuscaro- ras as early as 1805, in consequence of which there had been a rapid improvement in their moral and social condition. A missionary house had like- wise been opened at the Seneca village, (the home of Red Jacket, whose Indian name was Sagoye- watha, signifying, he keeps them awake,) about five miles from Buffalo, and another upon the Cattaran- gus reservation. Such was the success of these efforts, that, previous to 1820, the Senecas were divided into two distinct parties, Christian and Pagan. Similar measures were instituted with the Indians living at Squakie Hill. In December, 1815, a secular school was established there under the auspices of the Presbyterian Synod of Geneva, with Jerediah Horsford as teacher.
So grave had the encroachments of civilization become, in the eyes of the Pagan Senecas, and so uncompromising was their hostility to it, that in the winter of 1819-20, an appeal, embodied in a letter dictated by Red Jacket, who was then too feeble to enunciate the sentiments in council, was made to Governor Clinton, complaining of the of- fensive and destructive encroachments of the white settlers on their reservations, and invoking protec- tion against the "black coats," as the missionaries were called. A Mr. Hyde who had formerly been a schoolmaster among them, but had changed his vocation to that of a minister of religion, had made himself especially obnoxious, having threatened, the remonstrance said, that unless they listened to his preaching and became Christians, they would be turned off their lands. "If he has no right to say so," the letter says, "we think he ought to be turned off our lands, and not allowed to plague us any more. We shall never be at peace while he is among us."
In consequence of this and similar representa- tions, the Legislature, in 1821, passed an act to more effectually prevent encroachments upon the lands of the Senecas. The secular provisions of the act were occasionally enforced; but in regard to the missionaries, says Stone, its energies were allowed to slumber for two or three years. In the meantime the New York Missionary Society had transferred its stations to the care of the American Board of Foreign Missions, by which the Seneca missions had been re-organized upon a more effi-
cient basis. In 1821, Rev. Thompson S. Harris, with an augmented mission family, was stationed at the Seneca village, and commissioned superin- tendent of the stations in the several cantons. A church was soon after formed and male and female schools opened. In 1822, Rev. Mr. Thayer, with his family and suitable teachers, were stationed at the Cattaraugus reservation. These labors were successful; and the Pagan party, mortified by the rapid increase of the Christian party at the ex- pense of their own, and alarmed at the disaffection of Capt. Strong, or Oquiyesou, a prominent Cat- taraugus chief, who had become converted to the Christian faith, aided by several "white Pagans" in Buffalo, secured the ejectment of the mission- aries and school teachers under the act of 1821. Efforts were immediately put forth, which, though at first unavailing, finally resulted in such a modi- fication of the law as enabled both missionaries and teachers to resume their labors .* Within the next half decade the Indians had disposed of their limited reservations in this county, and removed to others outside the county; and within the two suc- ceeding decades the Senecas had disposed of every vestige of their lands within the State.
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