USA > New York > Madison County > History of Madison County, state of New York > Part 6
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The supremacy of the French on this continent was now at its zenith ; henchforward, all change tended to decline
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and dispossession. The year 1758 was destined to effect this change in the fortunes of the contending powers, and the victors were to become the vanquished. Flushed with success, the French were not prepared for the tide which at length set against them.
Inspired by wise counsels the English Government re- organized its army. Incompetent commanders were recalled, and men of military genius and wisdom were placed in their stead. The expeditions moved forward with new spirit and success from the first. Fort Frontenac, after a battle, fell into the hands of Colonel Bradstreet. Fort Du Quesne, on the approach of the English army, was deserted by the French, whose power over the Indians of the Ohio and Alleghanies, suddenly waned. Although the attempts to take Crown Point and Ticonderoga were defeated, yet these were relinquished and the English gained easy pos- session. The next year, 1759, the 25th day of July, Fort Niagara was taken. On the death of Gen. Prideaux at this battle, the command devolved upon Sir William Johnson, of whom it was remarked in a letter written from the scene of action, "Sir William Johnson has gained immortal honors in this affair. The army have the highest opinion of him, and the Indians adore him, [there were six hundred Indians with him at this battle,] as his conduct has been steady and judicious ; he has carried on the seige with spirit." Subsequently it was stated, that by the assiduity and influence of Sir William Johnson, " there were upwards of eleven hundred Indians convened there, who, by their good behavior have justly gained the esteem of the whole army."* "*
In the meantime General Wolf was vigorously carrying forward his operations against General Montcalm, at Que- bec. Upon the issue of his movements hung the fate of the contest. The commanders on each side saw the emergency,
* Turner's Hist. Holland Purchase, page 209.
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and both with characteristic vigor, perfected their plans which culminated in the decisive battle of Quebec, in which both of these noble men fell, one as the "shouts of victory were ringing louder and louder in his failing ears," the other with the fervent wish upon his dying lips that he might not "live to see the surrender of Quebec," and his country's dominions pass into the hands of another.
Although the fires of battle still smouldered and burst forth in several places during the beginning of 1760, yet the battle of Quebec was the decisive blow. A formidable. army under Gen. Amherst, joined by Sir William Johnson with a thousand of the Six Nations, consolidated with Gen. Murray at Montreal in September of that year, whose work was to reduce the French who still held out at that post. On the arrival of the British army, Vaudreuil, the Governor, understanding his inability to successfully resist them, resolved on capitulation, and the 7th of September, 1760, Montreal, Detroit, and all places of strength in Canada, were surrendered to the British Crown.
A treaty of peace was definitely concluded at Paris, be- tween England and France in 1763, and the French do- minion in America passed away, never more to molest the inhabitants of New York, or to harass the Iroquois. The long bloody contest was closed. Hailed with joy was the peace which followed, only too soon to be broken by a far different conflict.
Sir William Johnson had acted well his part in this war. He began his work as General Agent of the English to the Six Nations. He looked well to the condition of the na- tions and knew them better than any other man.
November 18th, 1763, he sent to the Government the following report of the Nations :-
" The Mohawks have one hundred and sixty men. Two villages on the Mohawk River, with a few emigrants at Scoharie, about sixteen miles from Fort Hunter.
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" Oneidas two hundred and fifty men ; two villages, one twenty-five miles from Fort Stanwix, the other twelve miles west of Oneida Lake [at Canaseraga] with emigrants in several places toward the Susquehanna River.
" Tuscaroras one hundred and forty men ; one village six miles from the first Oneidas [at Stockbridge] and several others about the Susquehanna.
"Onondagas, one hundred and fifty men ; one large vil- lage six miles from the lake of their name, [which is the place of Congress for the Confederates,] with a smaller at some distance.
" Cayuga, two hundred' men ; one large village near the lake of their name, with several others from thence to the Susquehanna.
" Senecas, ten hundred and fifty men ; have several vil- lages, beginning about fifty miles from Cayuga, from thence to Chennessio, the largest about 70 miles from Niagara, with others thence to the Ohio. Of the Senecas, two vil- lages are still in our interest. The rest have joined the western Nations.
" Remarks .- Of the Six Nations the Mohawks and On- ondagas and Senecas are considered the Chief and elder branches. The Oneidas, Cayugas, and Tuscaroras are younger ; the last mentioned Nation having many years ago retired from the south, and were admitted into the Confederacy with the Five Nations, the Oneidas giving them the land and they now enjoy all the privileges with the rest."
No white man had possessed such influence over the Iro- quois as Sir Wm. Johnson. He became their Counsellor, their Physician, their Chief and their Father. He called many Conventions of the Nations to which almost the en- tire Confederacy answered by their presence. We read of a famous Convention held in September, 1753, at Onon-
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daga, in which Hendrick the Great Mohawk Chieftain, was present, and where " Red Head," the head Chief of the On- ondagas, answered the speech of Sir William. Many times the Indians convened at Johnson's residence on the Mo- hawk, and there tarried many days, being generously feast- ed by their host. One of the most remarkable of these Congresses was held at Fort Stanwix in September and October, 1768, which Sir William called for the purpose of fixing the limits and determining the geographical line be- tween the Six Nations and the English. Commissioners from the Colony of Virginia, with the Governor of New Jersey and of Pennsylvania, were present to assist at the treaty. The Indians came in companies, or tribes, and en- camped, but as all did not come on immediately, many from a distance stopping at the towns on their way, having pri- vate affairs and conferences to hold, the general Con- gress was deferred till the main body had arrived. The meeting was opened the 25th of October, when three thousand had arrived and they still continued to come. The numbers exceeded the provisions made by the government for their reception and maintenance, and for more than one month a large part of these numbers subsisted upon the bounties provided by the host. He remarks in a letter to Lord Hillsborough, the 23d of October, as follows : "I was much concerned on this occasion by reason of the great consumption of provisions, and the heavy expense attending the maintenance of those Indians on the spot, *
each of whom consumes daily more than two ordinary men and would be extremely dissatisfied if stinted when con- vened for business. This circumstance alone was very disagreeable from the difficulty of getting provisions, there being none nearer than Albany, and very little there except some cattle at an extravagant price."
From all points of the compass the tribes came in ; the Delawares and Shawnees from the South, bringing with
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them on their way the tribes from Oquago (members of the Oneida family) ; the trails of the Susquehanna, the Unadilla and Chenango, swarmed with hosts of red men. From the east the Mohawks and other eastern tribes came in ; from the rivers of the west came up fleets of canoes over Lake Oneida ; the trails of northern Madison County were worn deeper by the long defile of Oneidas and Tuscaroras, joined by their comrades of the south and west ; and Oswegat- chie sent down her Catholic Iroquois.
This grand council was to decide an old and oft-repeated cause of contention and jealousy, viz : the encroachments of white settlers on their lands. The whole matter was raked up from the beginning. The Iroquois had first peaceably suffered the white race to settle on much of their land on the Mohawk and east of the Susquehanna; but they did not relish the wholesale covetousness, with which they appropriated and added to that already given them. The jealousy of the Indians was quite aroused in this respect before the close of the seventeenth century. At a council called at Albany by the Colonial Governor, Dongan, in 1683, the Sachems were questioned so closely and carefully as to the situation of the lands of the Susquehanna River, that they demanded wherefore such particular information was sought. Upon being asked if they were willing that white people should settle there, they signified their assent. But it appears that the proprietors of Pennsylvania had been disposed to count the lands of the Susquehanna, howsoever far they might extend to the north, as a part of the Penn- sylvania purchase, and the Five Nations did not so regard it. In order to secure themselves from encroachments by Pennsylvania, they, in a treaty in 1684, put themselves and their lands under the protection of the Duke of York. In 1686 the Governor of New York gave seals to the Indians, with instructions to seize any man found trading or hunting on the Susquehanna lands without the Governor's scal or
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pass, and to deliver him to Albany to be punished accord- ing to law. With decision characteristic of the race, those seals were promptly returned to the Governor with these words : " A man whose goods is taken from him will de- fend himself, which will create trouble or war ; * therefore, we deliver the seals to your Honor again, that we may live wholly in peace."
Watchful lest they should be made the victims of du- plicity, they had detected in this movement a plan to use them against the Pennsylvanians, ostensibly for their own security, but really to establish the dominion of the pro- vince of New York. In the treaty of 1701, again renewed and ratified in 1726, the Iroquois had learned better how to arrange diplomatic treaties with the long-headed British. The limits of their hunting grounds comprehending the large lakes and sixty miles around them, were tolerably clear in their deed, and yet there was sufficient margin for difficulties. Grasping, avaricious individuals who had ob- tained grants on the borders of the Indian country, took ad- vantage, in the absence of surveyed lines, to enlarge upon their borders to an unlimited extent. The bounds of many grants having no survey, were expressed by the Indian names of brooks, rivulets, hills, ponds, falls of water, &c., and stated in an uncertain manner. The fact that these Indian names were not real local names, only the general names signifying, broad brook, a small brook, a high hill, &c., and which were applied to many other places, gave op- portunity for the possessor, with his deed bearing the license of those words, " Be it more or less," to explain and enlarge those grants according to his inclination ; and also to lo- cate them, as Colden says, "in what place or part of the country they please, of which I can give some particular in- stances where the claims of some have increased many miles in a few years." At a public meeting with Sir Wm. Johnson, in 1755, one of the Chiefs in a speech, said :
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" Brothers, you desire us to unite and live together, and draw all our allies near us, but we shall have no land left either for ourselves or them, for your people when they buy a small piece of us, by stealing they make it large. We de- sire such things may not be done, that your people may not be suffered to buy any more of our lands. Sometimes its bought of two men who are not the proper owners of it. The land which reaches down from Oswego to Wyoming we beg may not be settled by Christians. The Governor of Pennsylvania bought a whole tract and only paid for half, and desire you will let him know that we will not part with the other half, but keep it. These things makes us con- stantly uneasy in our minds, and we desire that you will take care that we may keep our land for ourselves."
Sir William Johnson from the time of his arrival among the Indians, sought to correct this deplorable state of affairs and eradicate the evils arising therefrom. For that purpose he held those frequent councils, and patiently listening to their grievances, carefully probed the matter to the bottom, and wisely arranged the plans for its settlement. He had been in separate conference with the Nations at their own castles during the year 1767, and knew well their mind as to where a satisfactory boundary line could be drawn. He states in a letter to General Gage, dated October 22d, 1767, that he had been absent three weeks at Oneida Lake, to confer with them and settle the difficulties regarding the encroachment of frontier settlements. The Indians after detailing their many grievances, said they had received " a belt from an officer on the Mississippi, with a message to inform them that they need not longer be trifled with by the English, for that he [meaning the Government to which he belonged, Spain,] having sat down quietly for some time and being about to rise up, luckily discovered his ax beside him, and found that it was as sharp as ever, therefore exhorted them to take up theirs likewise."
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In the Grand Council at Fort Stanwix in 1768, above mentioned, the "Line of Property" was to be settled; the boundary between the whites and Indians to be located and decided upon, before any reasonable measures could be adopted. Johnson found it necessary to use his utmost influence to divest their minds of the ill feeling stirred up by the Spanish, and to dispossess them of the hopes incited thereby. He also found it very difficult to locate the boundary line as far to the westward as it seemed necessary, "as many of them were for closing it by running it to the next patented lands, which would have limited the province of New York in such a manner as must have produced some complaints." However, he accomplished the treaty of the "Boundary Line," having it located at the place where he intended it should be, which reserved to the Indians all the western part of the State, the eastern boundary running from the Pennsylvania line northward up the Susquehanna River to the Unadilla, thence across the country to Canada Creek where it empties into wood Creek, (which last men- tioned water falls into Oneida Lake,) and from there to a point indefinitely stated as at the northward of Oswego.
The settlement of this boundary line was a measure of . utmost importance toward the settlement of the country, and the inhabitants realizing a degree of security, dared once more take up their abode on the frontier.
But the Iroquois were ill at ease. They no longer had the French to disturb them, and they now began to listen to the persuasions of the Spanish, who, on the Mississippi, were fermenting difficulties with the western Indians. Brit- ain and Spain were at war, and it became the interest of the Spanish to enlist the savages to conquer the American dominions for them. Sir William Johnson, the faithful friend of the Iroquois and the bond of union between them and the British Nation, everywhere made himself conspicu- ous among them. In traveling through their towns he
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found them destitute and suffering for food, from a failure of the corn crop in 1769. Immediately he went home and forwarded them a supply. They poured into his ears many complaints, to which he says : " It may not be amiss here to remark that when Indians are disposed to quarrel, they collect all the material they can as grounds for their con- duct, and often insist on grievances which have in reality given them little concern ; the true cause is often misrepre- sented, and therefore the proper remedy is wanting."
The true cause was a desire on the part of many to unite with the western Indians, who, under Spanish instigation were anxious for this consummation. To effect this alliance, they held a great Council of the Northern and Southern Confederacies on the plains of the Sciota in 1770. Sir William apprehended the meaning of this congress, and through his influence and the natural aversion of some of the Six Nations to the Southern Indians, it was not con- summated.
The difficulties between the American Colonists and the mother country were now fomenting, which could not fail to stir up the Iroquois. Sir William Johnson saw the porten- tious clouds with deep anxiety. He could not avert the im- pending conflict. He had received too many favors from the mother country. to willingly turn his back upon her. To the day of his death, he interested himself solely with the interests of the Indians, taking no part in the increasing embroils.
SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON.
Of a personage so remarkable as Sir William Johnson, something more than a passing notice should be given, as he passes off from the stage of action and out of this period of history. From "Turner's History," the following is transferred :
"The year 1740, is signalized by the advent upon the Mohawk, of one who was destined to exercise an important
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influence, and occupy a conspicuous place in our Colonial history. SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON was a native of Ireland. He left his native country in consequence of the unfavorable issue of a love affair. His uncle, SIR PETER WARREN, an Admiral in the English navy, owned by government grant a large tract of land-fifteen thousand acres-within the present town of Florida, Montgomery county. Young Johnson became his agent, and located himself in the year above named at Warren's Bush, a few miles from the pres- ent village of Port Jackson. He now began that intercourse with the Indians, which was to prove so beneficial to the English in the last French war that soon followed, the in- fluences of which were to be so prejudicial to the colonial interests, in the war of the Revolution. He made himself familiar with their language, spoke it with ease and fluency, watched their habits and peculiarities ; studied their man- ners, and by his mildness and prudence, gained their favor and confidence, and an unrivalled ascendancy over them. In all important matters he was generally consulted by them, and his advice followed. In 1755 he was entrusted with a command in the provincial service of New York. He marched against Crown Point, and after the repulse of Col. Williams, he defeated and took Dieskau prisoner. For this service the Parliament voted him five thousand pounds and the King made him a Baronet. The reader will have noticed his effective agency in keeping the Six Nations in the English interests, and his military achievements at Niagara.
"From the following notice, which appeared in a contem- porary publication-the London Gentleman's Magazine, for September, 1755-it will be seen how well adapted he was to the peculiar offices and agencies that devolved upon him. It is an extract from a journal written in this country :
" Major General Johnson (an Irish gentleman,) is univer- sally esteemed in our parts, for the part he sustains.
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Besides his skill and experience as an officer, he is particu- larly happy in making himself beloved by all sorts of peo- ple, and can conform to all companies and conversations. He is very much of the fine gentleman in genteel company. But as the inhabitants next him are mostly Dutch, he sits down with them and smokes his tobacco, drinks flip, and talks of improvements, bear and beaver skins. Being sur- rounded with Indians, he speaks several of their languages well, and has always some of them with him. His house is a hospitable retreat for them from the enemy. He takes care of their wives and children when they go out on parties, and even wears their dress. In short by his honest dealings with them in trade, and his courage, which has often been successfully tried with them, and his courteous behavior, he has so endeared himself to them, that they chose him one of their Chief Sachems or princes, and esteem him as their common father."
" MISS ELEANOR WALLASLOUS, a fair and comely Dutch girl, who had been sold to limited service in New York, to pay her passage across the ocean, to one of his neighbors, soon supplied the place of the fair one in Ireland whose fickleness had been the means of impelling him to new scenes and associations in the backwoods of America. Although taking her to his bed and board, and for a long period acknowledging her as his wife, he never married her until she was upon her death bed, a measure necessary to legitimatize his three children, who afterwards became Sir John Johnson, Mrs. Guy Johnson and Mrs. Colonel Claus. His next wife was Molly Brant, sister of the conspicuous Chieftain of that name. He was married to her a few years before his death, for the same purpose that was con- summated in the previous instance.
" Colden says of Sir William, that 'he dressed himself after the Indian manner, made frequent dances after their customs when they excite war, and used all the means he F
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could think of, at a considerable expense, to engage them in a war against Canada.'"
Sir William Johnson's courtly demeanor and oratorical powers, won the admiration of the Indians, and his familiar- ity, their love and confidence. His quick perceptions and ingenious management made him famous among a race who prided themselves on their cunning. The following anec- dote illustrates the manner in which he outwitted the celebrated Mohawk Chief Hendrick, who was at his house when he received several suits of rich lace clothes. A short time after, the Chief came to him and said, " I dream." "Well, what did you dream?" "I dream you give me one suit of clothes." This hint, Sir William could not well avoid and accordingly gave him a suit. Some time after, meeting Hendrick, Sir William said to him, " I dreamed last night." "Did you ! What did you dream ?" "I dreamed you gave me a tract of land;" at the same time de- scribing a tract lying in the present county of Herkimer, twelve miles square. Hendrick was at first surprised at the enormity of the demand, but at length said, "You may have the land ; but we no dream again, you dream too hard for me." The title to this tract was confirmed by the King and was called the "Royal Grant."
Extracts of portions of speeches made at a Congress of the Nations holden at Onondaga, September 8th, 1753, illustrates his mode of conference with them. It was the oc- casion of the death of three renowned Chiefs. A deputa_ tion of Sachems came out a mile from the Onondaga village to meet Col. Johnson. After entering their place of coun- cil, the Sachem, Red Head, rose up and said :
" Brother Warraghiiyagey [Johnson's Indian name] :-
As you enter our meeting place with wet eyes and sorrowful heart in conjunction with our Brethren the Mohawks, we do with this string of Wampum wipe away your tears and assuage your grief that you may
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speak freely in this assembly." Here they gave a string of wampum. Sir William Johnson replies :
" Brethren of the Six Nations :-
The great concern I am under for the loss of our three great and beloved brothers, Cagh- niagasota, Onughsadego and Gahusquerowana, who in their time made your assembly complete, makes it incumbent upon me to condole their death, and as it is a great loss to us in general, I do by these three belts of wampum dry up your tears that we may see each other, clear your throats that we may speak together, and wash away their blood out of our sight, and cover their bones with these strowd blankets." Here he gave three belts of wampum and three blankets of strowds.
Sir William was desirous that the gospel should be taught the natives, and his request to the Home government that every Castle, especially where there is a garrison, be pro- vided with a minister of the gospel, was frequently and ur- gently repeated. He asked especially that Onondaga and Oneida be thus supplied, reminding his government of the French, who, through their priests had accomplished so much. He also deprecated the sale of intoxicating liquors, and called for its suppression among the natives. If the government had as faithfully attended to his reasonable re- quests, as he carried out all orders entrusted to him, it . would have been the better for all parties concerned.
Sir William Johnson died on the 24th of June, 1774. A council with the Indians was in progress at the time, which was concluded by Guy Johnson, after his decease.
Johnson had for nearly thirty-five years exercised an almost one man power, not only in his own immediate do- main, but far beyond. A contemporary says: "In his character were blended many sterling virtues, with vices that are perhaps to be attributed in a greater degree to the freedom of backwood's life,-the absence of restraints which the ordinances of civilization imposes,-than to radical defects. His talents, it must be inferred, were of a high
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