USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the Genesee country (western New York) comprising the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates, Volume I > Part 16
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CHAPTER VIII. THE WHITE MAN TAKES POSSESSION, 1783-1842.
BY ARTHUR CASWELL PARKER, M. S.
It was one of the customs of war for the Senecas to secure as many captives as they could conveniently lead back to their villages. These were reserved for the joint purpose of propitiat- ing the outraged manes of the slain, and for filling their places in the tribe. It was believed that the sufferings of captured ene- mies satisfied the souls of warriors killed in battle and gave them the revenge that they required. To deny this sacrifice to the ghosts meant that they would avenge themselves upon the living and bring famine and pestilence. Loyal brothers and loving relatives might make the sky-journey easy if they would bruise and burn a captive. Rooted upon this belief in ghosts, the Iro- quois practiced his inhuman deeds of torture. It may have been superstition, but not more vile, perhaps, than the flaying, rack- ing, boiling, lacerating and burning of unhappy victims in Eng- land and France, because their views of religion were not those of the established church. We are prone to call the red man cruel and think of him as beneath us in this respect, forgetting that civilized, and presumably Christian Europeans, were far more cruel to each other than the Indian ever was.
In their frontier raids the Senecas took many white captives, hoping to adopt them as their own children. To be torn from a Christian home and hurried to an Indian settlement was a horri- ble experience to many, and there are heartrending accounts of unhappy captives who, during long years of vain endeavor, sought to find their relatives. The narrative of the Gilbert captivity is a specific case; that of Frances Slocum, the lost sister, another, but each story has a different ending. It is impossible to tell how many French, English, Dutch and American men and women, boys and girls, were captured and hidden by the Senecas. We know that there were many, but no complete account has ever
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been made. Now and then we catch a glimpse of captives, as travelers passed through Seneca settlements, like the case of Kanadasega, where Cornplanter lived with a white wife, and where Sullivan found a white child that could not speak a word of English. In every Seneca town there were half-blood children of French and English traders. Thus, through captives and by forest dwellers and wanderers, Seneca blood by the middle of the 18th century was becoming diluted with that of the European.
By far the most reliable and interesting story of a captivity is that of Mary Jemison, the White Woman of the Genesee, whose biography, taken down by Dr. James Everett Seaver in Novem- ber, 1823, has passed through more than twenty editions. It is not our intention to review the life of this remarkable woman, but to call attention to the fact that, once she resigned herself to her fate, Mary Jemison did not find her lot one unbearably hard. Her Indian friends loved her and she probably suffered no more hardships than she would as a frontier woman among her own people. We do know for a certainty, however, that her life was a useful one, and that her example of thrift and industry had a marked influence upon her adopted people, who in the end re- warded her well. By the fortunate circumstance of Doctor Sea- ver's record of her history, taken substantially from her own lips, we have an account of Seneca life during the period from 1755 to 1823 that is without equal in its value as an interpreta- tion of the times.
Jasper Parrish was another captive whose influence was of the highest importance in the determination of events in the Genesee Country. At the age of eleven years he was captured by a party of Delawares, who perhaps had lost kinsmen in the Wyoming massacre. Young Parrish was passed from one tribe to another, and during his varied experiences learned five or six Indian dialects. His prudence and good judgment, coupled with a sense of humor, gained many friends for him, and he was everywhere a favorite among the red men. One of his fellow captives was Horatio Jones, who in 1781 was taken prisoner. Jones, unlike Parrish, was a soldier, and might have shared a soldier's fate at the hands of his enemies, but, by good fortune, was ordered to run the gauntlet, the goal being a wigwam which, should he reach it would mean safety. The Senecas lined up on either side of the path and, as Jones ran, pelted him with stones,
KENJOCKETY (SHEN-DYUH-GWA-DIH) THE LAST SURVIVOR OF THE KAH-KWAS
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clubs, javelins and arrows; he was a swiftly moving mark, and skillfully dodged the missiles, escaping uninjured. His pleasant manner and sense of humor gained him great admiration. His tormentors among the young warriors of the village soon found him more than a match for them. When Sharp Shins, for ex- ample, threw tomahawks at him, he tossed them back with such fatal accuracy that he nearly killed him. He thrust a boiling squash under the shirt of another warrior, who teased him be- yond the limits of endurance, and the Indians who witnessed the prank laughed long and loud. They admired a man who could give more than he received, and do so with a smile. Both Parrish and Jones endeared themselves to the Senecas, and when, by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, all prisoners were to be released, they gave up these two with many a heart ache. But these young men had found their niche, and went back to their Seneca friends, both of them commissioned by the United States Government as interpreters. Jones settled at Little Beards Town, and Parrish made his home at Canandaigua. At the Genesee council of 1797, it was ordered that both Jones and Parrish should receive sub- stantial presents. Farmers Brother, an influential chief, made an eloquent address which was designed to be communicated to the Legislature of New York, asking a confirmation of the title of the land given them. In this address he said, among other things :
"Brothers: This whirlwind (the Revolutionary war) was so directed by the Great Spirit above, as to throw into our arms two of your infant children, Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish. We adopted them into our families, and made them our children. We nourished them and loved them. They lived with us many years. At length the Great Spirit spoke to the whirlwind, and it was still. A clear and uninterrupted sky appeared, the path of peace was opened, and the chain of friendship was once more made bright. Then these adopted children left us to seek their rela- tions. We wished them to return among us, and promised, if they would return and live in our country, to give each of them a seat of land for them and their children to sit down upon.
"Brothers: They have returned and have for several years past been serviceable to us as interpreters; we still feel our hearts " beat with affection for them, and now wish to fulfill the promise we made them for their services."
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Farmers Brother then outlined the tracts of land assigned to Jones and Parrish on Suyguquoydes Creek near the Niagara. It was a generous gift and characteristic as an expression of grat- itude. Of Jones and Parrish and Farmers Brother we shall learn more in pages that tell of the treaties that followed the war.
In the Treaty of Peace, which ended the Revolutionary war, Great Britain totally forgot her faithful allies, and no provision whatsoever was made for them. This placed them in an intoler- able situation, for the citizens of the new United States could not easily forgive the horrors of border warfare. They clamored that the Indians should go. Washington and Philip Schuyler were in- clined to be more lenient. The heart that had hardened against them softened once more. Though Washington had directed the campaign of Sullivan as a punishment for the brutalities of their raids, winning for himself the name Town Destroyer, once the end had been achieved, he was moved with pity for these deluded people, so grievously deceived by British agents of low calibre. A plan was devised by which the Senecas and their allies, except the Mohawks, might still retain a portion of their ancient domain. Hope was born anew in the hearts of the scattered and broken natives of the Genesee Country. To measure out what they still should hold, and to bring about the terms of peace, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix was consummated (1784). It was the first treaty with an Indian tribe made by the United States of America. Though it took from them large slices of their western territory and fixed a western boundary, the Senecas and their allies signed the treaty, largely through the importunities of Cornplanter, who, old and experienced, saw that peace on ample acres was far more to be desired than war upon a range of territory that could not be defended. Red Jacket arose to argue the might and supremacy of the Iroquois, and spoke against the provisions of the treaty, but in the end, though the Indians were deeply stirred by his eloquence, Cornplanter's wisdom prevailed. The treaty was signed by a few chiefs, but not by a majority. It was accepted, however, by the Six Nations, though the Senecas could not be reconciled to the loss they had sustained.
The United States believed that its provisions were liberal, considering the relations of the contracting parties, and the Com- missioners were careful to convey to the Indians the idea that the land was being given back to them through mercy and fatherly
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consideration alone, and not because it was necessary or a matter of compulsion. The Commissioners took a haughty position, for were they not representatives of a conquering nation? By this attitude they hoped to impress the Indians with their conception of the case and to make them feel the weakness of the Indian cause. The Iroquois insisted that they were an independent peo- ple; the Commissioners denied this and asserted the supreme sovereignty of the State and Nation.
The Fort Stanwix Treaty as the years went on became a source of great irritation to the Senecas and their fellow tribes- men. It was like an ill-smelling bandage smeared with a caustic salve applied to an open wound. Defeat, starvation and homeless- ness were bad enough, but this treaty was the "most unkindest cut" of all. So felt the Six Nations; they were not satisfied. Said Cornplanter later: "You told us that we were in your hand, and that by closing it you could crush us to nothing, and you demanded from us a great country as the price of that peace you had offered us-as if our want of strength had destroyed our rights. Our chiefs had felt your power and were unable to contend against you, and they therefore gave up that country. What they agreed to has bound our nation, but your anger against us must by this time be cooled, and, though our strength has not increased, nor your power become less, we ask you to consider calmly, were the terms dictated to us by your commissioners reasonable and just?"1
Fort Stanwix was the scene of almost daily councils relating to the dissatisfaction of the Senecas. Red Jacket kept up a con- stant agitation and by his fiery oratory roused his people to a sense of what they had lost. The Treaty of Fort Harmer on the Muskingum followed in 1789, and all through these trying events we hear the voice of Washington endeavoring to pacify the Six Nations, and to assure them that the United States meant to accord full justice. His magnanimity is little less than astonish- ing, and his gentle firmness and diplomacy is one of the triumphs of statesmanship. This the Six Nations afterward realized, and they have accorded him an honorable place in their "Happy Hunt- ing Ground"; yet a solitary place, for they said that he was the only white man who could enter the Indian's heaven. Today they remember Washington with equal gratitude.
1 Public Documents, Indian Affairs, Vol. 1, pp. 206-207. Quoted by Stone, Life of Red Jacket, p. 29.
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The times were trying, and, to add to difficulties, a border war started in Pennsylvania and Virginia, resulting in the murder of several Seneca chiefs and head men by Pennsylvania bordermen. This was the signal for an outbreak of hostile feeling against the United States, a sentiment that was encouraged by British sym- pathizers. The United States awakened to the knowledge that the Six Nations, though humbled, were capable of terrible re- prisals should they take the war trail again. The Federal Gov- ernment at once took measures to disavow responsibility for the murder of the Indians and offered a reward for the arrest of the culprits.
The Indians now saw strange happenings. Little did they know that under a royal grant their domain had been given to the Massachusetts Bay colony (Plymouth Company) ; given by a King who never owned it or saw it, to a colony that never saw it and could not use it. Nor did they know that it had been again granted to the Duke of York by Charles I. These conflicting grants caused some difficulty after the Revolutionary war and, since the states that grew out of the colonies and inherited their rights-New York and Massachusetts-were in controversy, a convention was held at Hartford in December, 1786. As a result Massachusetts surrendered to New York all her claim to the gov- ernment, sovereignty and jurisdiction of the entire state, and New York conceded to Massachusetts the right of preemption to the soil, subject to the title of the native Indians, of all that part of its territory lying west of a line beginning at a point in the north boundary of Pennsylvania eighty-two miles west of the northeast corner of the latter state and running thence due north through Seneca Lake to Lake Ontario, thereafter known as the "Preemption Line," with certain reservations. One notable reser- vation was a strip of land east of and adjoining the eastern bank of the Niagara River, a mile wide and extending its whole length. The State claimed the land to the river's edge, for the Senecas had agreed to this, but, inasmuch as they did not sell to the middle of the river, they still claim ownership of the bed of the Niagara, from its east bank to the international line.
New York was thus confirmed in the sovereignty of its whole territory, and Massachusetts secured the right to sell the lands described. This, in April, 1788, it contracted with Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, Massachusetts citizens, to do for one
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million dollars in Massachusetts Consolidated Securities, then below par, and the purchasers were to extinguish the Indian title. In July, 1788, at Buffalo Creek, Phelps and Gorham made a treaty with the Indians by which the title of the latter to a portion of their purchase from Massachusetts was released to them. This tract contained about two million six hundred thousand acres and consisted of all the lands lying east of a line extending from the Pennsylvania state boundary due north to the confluence of Cana- seraga Creek and the Genesee River; thence along the river to a point two miles north of the old village of Canawaugus; thence due west twelve miles; thence northerly so as to be twelve miles distant from the west bounds of the river to the shore of Lake Ontario. In November, 1788, Massachusetts conveyed this part of the "Purchase" to Phelps and Gorham. But the advance in value of the Consolidated Securities of Massachusetts brought ruin to Phelps and Gorham, and they were obliged to surrender to Massachusetts their contractual rights to the lands west of the line above mentioned, embracing nearly three million seven hun- dred and fifty thousand acres. These lands were purchased from Massachusetts by Robert Morris, in 1791, for one hundred thousand pounds; Morris, in turn, sold them, except the eastern portion known as the "Morris Reserve," to a group of Hollanders, whence the name "Holland Purchase," and, in 1797, at the treaty of Big Tree, the Indian title to these lands was extinguished, with the exception of certain reservations elsewhere mentioned.
The story of these land transactions is a thoroughly interest- ing one; it is elsewhere in this work comprehensively told, and forms no major part of the subject of this chapter. Our concern is rather with the extinguishment of the Indian title and with the treaties that effected this. We have seen that the Senecas were not satisfied with the Fort Stanwix agreement and that they were aroused by affairs on the western border. It was evident that a new treaty should be arranged.
President Washington selected Col. Timothy Pickering as his Commissioner and charged him with the duty of making a treaty that should satisfy all parties. A great council was convoked at Tioga Point, where many tribes gathered and poured out their grievances and laid bare their hearts. It is here that we catch glimpses of the character and power of Red Jacket, Farmers Brother, Little Billy, Fish Carrier and Henry Apamaut. Later
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came the Proctor Council at Buffalo Creek and the Pickering Council at Painted Post. During all these events British agents had kept the Indians in a state of agitation, and western tribes sought to unite the Six Nations in a league that would destroy the colonies and push the white man back into the sea, whence he came.
The United States wished to cultivate the friendship of the Six Nations for many reasons, not the least of which was a sincere desire to be humane and just. A friendly council was called at Philadelphia and all the noted chiefs bidden to attend. They came in all their pomp and dignity, and were met by a gala dis- play of military power. They were paraded and feasted and hailed as friends, loaded with presents and clothing, and feasted again. One chief died from an overabundance of good food, and, we may suspect, of good drink. Colonel Pickering was in charge of this task of instilling faith and hope in the hearts of the Indians, seeking to develop a feeling of loyalty to the new council of states-the Thirteen Fires, as the Indians called them. To him was committed a great mission. As a character in American history, Pickering should be better known. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and in 1766 was commissioned a lieutenant. Ten years later he was a regimental commander in the American army. His deportment won the esteem of General Knox and commended itself to Washington. His attainments as a lawyer and military commander gave him considerable influence ; he pos- sessed a pleasing personality, an athletic physique; his bearing was dignified, almost regal, and he radiated a sense of inherent power. As a Commissioner to the Indians this was an ideal selec- tion, for the Indians like to measure a man by the respect he in- stinctively demands, and by the natural confidence that he instills. Pickering was sincere because he was genuine. The Indians felt this and named him Connisauti, meaning The Sunny Side of the Hill. The name was an old and honorable one among them and aptly applied, though Indian names seldom have any personal application. Pickering felt that the Senecas and their brethren were in an unhappy state and his sympathies were all with them. Divesting himself of prejudice, he was able to interpret their acts and their situation in accordance with the times in which they lived and the cultural state in which they were reared.
To settle all differences that existed between the Six Nations
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and their white neighbors, finally to cement peace, to declare the intention of the United States and to fix boundaries definitely, a new council was held at Canandaigua during the late autumn of 1794. It was the culmination of a long series of events, some of which we have mentioned all too briefly. Long and stormy were these final deliberations. Each great chief had his day in court, and even the women spoke. There were feastings and exchanges of mutual good will, but at times it seemed as if the council would fail. The Senecas, though they expressed a desire to be friendly, had a certain haughtiness, for they knew that some of their west- ern friends had united against General Anthony Wayne, who was following up the victories of the Indians over Harmer and St. Clair. But during the Canandaigua proceedings, a Tuscarora runner brought in the news of Wayne's victory over Little Turtle and his Miami warriors. Sukachgooh, the Black Snake, as Wayne was called by the red man, had coiled about his foes and crushed them. The news had a salutary effect upon the council. Its de- liberations were continued, Red Jacket generally objecting to any move to relinquish hold on a single mile of land on this side of the Ohio. He was a chief of inferior rank, and not a sachem, but he made up by his oratory what he lacked in station, and thus was regarded as a power among his people. Fortunately for the white people of the Genesee, Clear Sky was the presiding sachem of the Senecas at this council, and the voices of Cornplanter and Farmers Brother conveyed messages that were more logical and conciliatory. The Senecas gave up their Ohio lands and agreed to new boundaries; the other nations had their lines defined ac- curately, and all were assured the right to hold and possess their remaining belongings until such time as they might choose to sell to the people of the United States.
The treaty as signed reads in part :
Article 1. Peace and friendship are hereby firmly established and shall be perpetual between the United States of America and the Six Nations.
Article 2. The United States acknowledge the land reserved to the Oneida, Cayuga and Onondaga nations, in their respective treaties with the State of New York, and called their reserva- tions, to be their property ; and the United States will never claim the same nor disturb them or either of the Six Nations, nor their Indian friends residing thereon, and united with them, in the free
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use and enjoyment thereof; but said reservations shall remain theirs until they choose to sell the same to the people of the United States who have the right to purchase.
Article 3. The land of the Seneca Nation is bounded as fol- lows: (here follows the description) and the United States will never claim the same, nor disturb the Seneca Nation, but it shall remain theirs until they choose to sell to the people of the United States who have the right to purchase.
Other articles provide for the construction of a wagon road from Fort Schlosser to Buffalo Creek, the free and unobstructed passage of the people of the United States through the Indian lands, the free use of waterways and harbors adjoining, and, what was of vast importance, the giving up of private retaliation for judicial arrest and trial.
Peace was accomplished and the points of disagreement set- tled. The Senecas felt that, though they had lost a vast territory in the Ohio region, they had secured stable peace and a guaranty that what they now had was theirs forever. Said one of the chiefs to Colonel Pickering, "This settlement appears as a great light to me." And, indeed, this treaty remains a light, being the basic document upon which the Six Nations rest their land titles and tribal rights.
Soon afterward Wayne concluded the treaty of Grenville and the western Indians were pacified. The Six Nations now felt that they might rest in full security. They were assured that their white neighbors would be kind and peaceable, and to these things they had also pledged themselves. No longer would their young warriors have an excuse to take the trail westward to join hostile bands that warred against the settlers; and the old people might now live and die without the constant fear of bloodshed, sudden attack and starvation. The readjustment to the new era had come. To the settlers in the new country this meant that safety was assured. The land companies immediately became busy and the white population increased by leaps and bounds. Towns sprang up and with them newspapers, inns, stores and schools.
Our interest, however, is with the aboriginal occupation. Let us glance for a moment at the tracts of land that were assured to them as the new century dawned. We have seen that the Phelps and Gorham Purchase stripped the Senecas of virtually all
GEN. ELY PARKER
Full blooded Seneca Indian, descendant of Red Jacket, became famous as War Secretary to General Grant and was author of the articles of surrender accepted by General Lee. Is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery at Buffalo, next to Red Jacket's grave.
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of their lands east of the Genesee River, while, with twelve ex- ceptions, the whole tract west of the river was at the treaty of Big Tree passed over to Robert Morris and became the Holland Purchase and the Morris Reserve. These exceptions are of much interest to us because they reveal where the Senecas were. A glance at the map will be helpful here as a guide to locations.
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