USA > New York > Pioneer history of the Holland Purchase of western New York : embracing some account of the ancient remains > Part 18
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Dr. COLDEN says the Onondagas were deterred from remaining and defending their houses, by the frightful accounts that a Seneca gave them, who had deserted from the French. He said the French army was as numerous as "the leaves on the trees ; that they had machines which threw balls up into the air, and which falling on their castle would burst to pieces and spread fire and death every where ; against which, their stockades could be no defence."
The Chevalier de VAUDREUIL was detached with a large force to ravage the country of the Oneidas and destroy their crops. The Oneidas were less hostile to the French than the rest of the con- federacy. Thirty or forty of them remained to make the French welcome, but they were made prisoners and taken to Montreal.
Frontenac was urged by some of his officers to extend the con- quest, but he declined, saying "it was time for him to repose." He concluded he had so far intimidated the Five Nations as to incline them to peace. It is plain, however, that the French had learned to dread the Iroquois and their stratagems, and were fearful that the retreat from their towns was, but to collect in full force, and perhaps surprise their invaders by an ambuscade. COLDEN, who, as an
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Englishman, and the historian of the Five Nations, inclines to cavil generally upon the French expeditions, says ; - "all that can be said for this expedition, is, that it was a kind of heroic dotage ;" and it would seem to have been somewhat of that complexion.
The French army returned to Montreal, not, however, without being harassed on their way by the Onondagas. But a few weeks had elapsed before war parties of the Five Nations appeared in the vicinity of Montreal, making attacks upon the French settlements. " Thus," says COLDEN, "the war was continued until the peace of Ryswick, by small parties of Indians on both sides, harrassing, surprising, and scalping the inhabitants of Montreal and Albany."
The war settled nothing in the way of respective boundary and dominion, except perhaps a kind of mutual acknowledgment of what each had claimed before. It left Western New York to con- tinue to be a bone of contention. The French had conceded to them the whole coast and adjacent Islands, from Maine to beyond Labrador and Hudson's Bay, besides Canada, the western Lake region, and the valley of the Mississippi.
In adjusting the boundaries, the English commissioner claimed all the country of the Five Nations, and that it extended west, so far even as to include Mackinaw, This extravagant ambition was treated with derision ; the French still claiming the whole country of the Five Nations, from discovery and precedent occupancy, by a garrison at Niagara, and their missionaries and traders. "Reli- gious sympathies" says BANCROFT "inclined the Five Nations to the French, but commercial advantages brought them always into connection with the English." About the period of the attempt to settle the question of boundary in New York, the English passed a law for hanging "every Popish priest that should come voluntarily into the province ;" including, of course, the disputed ground, as that was claimed to be a part of the province. "The law ought forever to continue in force," says SMITHI, the first historian of New York, who had strong prejudices against the French and their reli- gion. Mr. BANCROFT, in a better spirit, concludes that his pre- decessor was "wholly unconscious of the true nature of his remark." While the French and English both laid claim to Western New York, the rightful owners and occupants never for a moment assented to either of the claims but insisted upon their independence.
In 1700 a peace was ratified between the Iroquois on the one
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side, and France and her Indian allies on the other. The Rat, the Huron chief who had so craftily played the part of an Iago, in preventing a previous peace, said at a council at Montreal :- "I lay down the axe at my father's feet;" the deputies of the four tribes of Ottawas echoed his words. All the western Indians agreed to terms of peace. A general exchange of prisoners took place, as well between the hostile Indian nations, as between the French and the Five Nations .*
Count FRONTENAC died soon after the close of the French and English war, and was succeeded in the government of New France, by DE CALLIERS, who had been first in rank under him in his military expeditions. Lord BELLAMONT, succeeded Colonel SLOUGHTER, as Governor of the English provinces. The new French Governor insisted upon French jurisdiction of the Iroquois, and that question remained unsettled, while all others were adjusted.
The peace between England and France was of short duration. The smoke of what was termed "King William's War," had hardly cleared away, when "Queen Anne's War" commenced. In the month of may, 1702, war was declared between Queen ANNE and her allies, the Emperor of Germany and the States
* " I shall finish this Part by observing that, notwithstanding the French Commis- sioners took all pains possible to carry Home the French that were Prisoners with the Five Nations, and they had full Liberty from the Indians, few of them could be persuaded to return. It may be thought that this was occasioned by the Hardships they endured in their own Country, under a tyrannical Government and a barren Soil. But this certainly was not the only reason; for the English had as much Difficulty to per- suade the people that had been taken Prisoners by the French Indians, to leave the Indian Manner of living, though no People enjoy more Liberty, and live in greater Plenty than the common Inhabitants of New York do. No Arguments, no Iutreaties, nor Tears of their Friends and Relations, could persuade many of them to leave their New Indian Friends and Acquaintance; several of them that were by the Caressings of their Relations persuaded to come Home, in a little time grew tired of our Manner of living, and run away again to the Indians, and ended their Days with them. On the other Hand Indian Children have been carefully educated among the English, clothed and taught, yet I think there is not one Instance, that any of these, after they had Liberty to go among their own People, and were come to Age, would remain with the English, but returned to their own Nations, and became as fond of the Indian manner of Life as those that knew nothing of the civilized Manner of living. What I now tell of Christian Prisoners among Indians, relates not only to what happened at the Conclusion of the War, but has been found true on many other occasions."
COLDEN,
NOTE .- The captive chief Tawarahet died in Montreal. Colden says the French gave him a christian burial, in a pompous manner; the Priest that had attended him at his death having declared that he died a true christian; for, said the Priest, while I explained to him the passion of our Savior, whom the Jews crucified, he cried out :- "Oh! had I been there, I would have revenged his death, and brought away their scalps."
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General, of Holland, and France and Spain. It was soon extended to the colonies, and another long and bloody war ensued. By this time the French, through the influence of the Jesuit Missionaries, and the diplomacy of VAUDREUIL, had fully reinstated themselves in the good will of the western Indians, and made allies of the most powerful nations of New England. This gave them by far the vantage ground throughout the war. The Province of New York took but little part in the contest, and its chief burden fell upon New England. The Indians, within their own limits, rein- forced by the Indians of Canada, and not unfrequently accompanied by the French, made incursions into all parts of the eastern English Provinces, falling upon the frontier settlements with the torch, the tomahawk and knife, and furnishing a long catalogue of captivity and death, that mark that as one of the most trying periods in a colonial history upon almost every page of which we are forcibly reminded how much of blood and suffering it cost our pioneer ancestors to maintain a foothold upon this continent .* The war on the part of the English colonies, was principally directed against Port Royal, Quebec, and Montreal. Most of the expeditions they fitted out were failures; there was a suspicion of shipwreck, badly framed schemes of conquest; organization of forces but to be disbanded before they had consummated any definite purposes; "marching up hills and marching down again."
Such being the geographical features of the war; the Province of New York having assented to the treaty of neutrality between the French and Five Nations, and contenting itself with an enjoy- ment of Indian trade, while their neighboring Provinces were struggling against the French and Indians; there is little to notice having any immediate connection with our local relations.
Generally, during the war, the Five Nations preserved their neutrality. They managed with consummate skill to be the friends of both the English and French. Situated between two powerful nations at war with each other, they concluded the safest way was to keep themselves in a position to fall in with the one that finally triumphed. At one period when an attack upon Montreal was contemplated, they were induced by the English to furnish a large auxiliary force, that assembled with a detachment of English
* From the year 1675, to the close of Queen Anne's War, in 1713, about six thousand of the English colonists, had perished by the stroke of the enemy or by distempers contracted in military service.
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troops at Wood Creek. The whole scheme amounting to a failure, no opportunity was afforded of testing their sincerity, but from some circumstances that transpired, it was suspected that they were as much inclined to the French as to the English. At one period during the war, five Iroquois sachems were prevailed upon to visit England for the purpose of urging renewed attempts to conquer Canada. They were introduced to the Queen, decked out in splendid wardrobe, exhibited through the streets of London, at the theatres, and other places of public resort; feasted and toasted, they professed that their people were ready to assist in exterminating the French, but threatened to go home and join the French unless more effectual war measures were adopted. This was a lesson undoubtedly taught them by the English colonists who had sent them over to aid in exciting more interest at home in the contest that was waging in the colonies. The visit of the sachems had temporarily the desired effect. It aided in inducing the English government to furnish the colonies with an increased force of men and vessels of war; in assisting in a renewed expe- dition against Montreal and Quebec, which ended, as others had. in a failure. They got nothing from the Five Nations but profes- sions; no overt act of co-operation and assistance. The governor of the province of New York, all along refused to urge them to violate their engagements of neutrality; for as neutrals, they were a barrier to the frontier settlements of New York, against the encroachments of the French and their Indian allies.
The treaty of Utrecht, in April, 1713, put an end to the war. France ceded to England, " all Nova Scotia or Acadia, with its ancient boundaries, also the city of Port Royal, now called Annapolis Royal, and all other things in those parts, which depend upon the said lands." France stipulated in the treaty that she would " never molest the Five Nations subject to the dominion of Great Britain," leaving still undefined their boundaries, to form with other questions of boundary and dominion, future disa- greements.
In all this contest, France lost no foothold at the West; but had kept on strengthening and extending its trading establishments in that quarter; following up the new impulse which had been given to their interests there, at the close of King William's war, through the successful diplomacy of FRONTENAC. In June, 1701, De la TOTTE CADILLAC, with a Jesuit Missionary and one hundred
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Frenchmen took possession, and became the founders of Detroit. At that period there were three numerous Indian villages in the immediate vicinity of the French post.
In 1722, WILLIAM BURNET, Governor of the Province of New York and New Jersey, who had acquired an accurate and thorough knowledge of the interior geography of Western New York, considered it very important to get command of lake Ontario. To accomplish this object, strengthen English influence over the Six Nations; and defeat the French project of a continuous line of forts, stretching from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, he established a trading house at Oswego in the country of the Senecas. The French having repaired the fort at Niagara, and built a large store house in 1725, he in 1726, at his own expense, built a fort at Oswego. In a report of the "committee of the council " of New York, in 1724, they say "the government has built a public trading house upon Cataraqui lake, at Irondequat, on the Sennekas' lands, and another is to be built next spring on the Onondagas' (Oswego) river." In a letter written by "J. A. Esq., to Mr. P. C.," of London, dated New York, 1740, on the subject of the measures taken by Gov. BURNET, for " redeeming the Indian trade out of the hands of the French," it is said :- "Gov. BURNET, through his earnest application, and at first chiefly with his money, credit and risk, erected a trading house and fortification at the mouth of the Onondagues river, called Osneigo, where the province of New York supports a garrison of soldiers, consisting of a Lieutenant and twenty men, which are yearly relieved. At this place a very great trade is carried on with the remote Indians, who formerly used to go down to the French, at Montreal, and there buy our English goods, at second hand, at about twice the price they now pay for them at Osneigo."
About the period of the occupation of Oswego by the English, and the re-occupation of Niagara by the French, a warm contest arose in the Province of New York, growing out of the fact that the French had taken the advantage of the interim of peace, and were buying their Indian goods in New York. The English Indian traders, by representing that this was helping the French to almost wholly engross the Indian trade, and aiding in alienating the Indians from the English, procured the passage of an act forbidding merchants in the Province of New York, selling Indian goods to the French. The law was not to the liking of the New
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York merchants, who made bitter complaints of its effects. Grow- ing out of this controversy, was a memorial which stated the relative advantages of bringing goods into the country by the way of Montreal, and Quebec, and New York. After enumerating the great expenses and disadvantages of the northern French route, they speak of the facilities the French enjoy after getting upon the lakes and the Mississippi :- there is opened to them, says the memorial, "such a scene of inland navigation as cannot be paral- leled in any other part of the world." With reference to the English route to the lakes and the Mississippi, they say :- "From Albany, the English traders commonly carry their goods over-land sixteen miles to the Mohawk river at Schenectady, the charge of which carriage is nine shillings New York money, or five shillings sterling, each wagon load. From Schenectady they carry them in canoes up the Mohawk river, to the carrying place between the Mohawk river and the river which runs into the Oneida lake; which carrying place between is only three miles long, except in ' very dry weather, when they are obliged to carry them two miles farther. From thence they go down with the current the Onon- daga river to Cataracui lake." This, the author ventures to assume, is the earliest written document having reference to the inland navigation of our state. Its date is 1724.
The peace of Europe was again interrupted by a war in which England, Spain, France and Austria, were ultimately, involved; together with the American colonies of the three first named. The events that distinguished it, however interesting and important as matters of general colonial history, have little or no relation to this section of country. The frontiers of Florida and Georgia became involved. OGLETHORPE, the Governor of Georgia, con- ducted an expedition against St. Augustine, with forces raised in the newly settled province. An English fleet, commanded by VERNON, captured Porto Bello, destroyed the fort at Chargres, and demolished the fortifications at Carthagena, in the West Indies. England sent out to the Gulf of Mexico the largest naval armament that had ever before sailed upon its waters. Four battalions were demanded of the colonies north of Carolina to accompany it. The colonies complied with the requisition, and furnished the troops. England set out with the intention of conquering the richest Spanish provinces in America; but, after all her efforts and losses, she made no permanent acquisitions at the south. An English
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fleet having met, engaged, and gained a victory over a French fleet in the Mediterranean.
In America, the scene of contest was now transferred from the southern to the northern portion of the continent. The New England colonics planned and fitted out the successful expedition that besieged and captured Louisburgh, on the Island of Cape Breton. A plan for the entire conquest of Canada was formed, preparations were made; but it was not carried out.
At length a treaty of peace was negotiated between the warring nations, and signed at Aix la Chapelle, October 7th, 1748. Though peace prevailed in Europe, yet so far as the French and English colonies were concerned, it was only nominal, never real. The repose and quietness they so much needed, never came. Both England and France immediately entered upon the system of mutual aggression, that finally proved so fatal to the power of the latter on this continent. By the terms of the treaty, England restored to France all the conquests she had made, and no change was made in the colonial possessions of either.
Though not strictly relative to our subject, we will note a matter of general interest, in this connection. While England and Spain were at war, a proposal was made to the British Minister, in 1739, to tax the English colonies in America. The reply which the minister made is worthy repetition; and had the lesson of wisdom which it taught been learned and regarded by those who, a gener- ation after, stood in his place, how different might have been the annals, not only of our own region, but the entire history which commemorates the achievements and progress of the fortunes and destiny of Britain and America :- " Taxation," said Sir ROBERT WALPOLE, " That, I will leave for some of my successors who may have more courage than I have, and be less a friend to commerce than I am. It has been a maxim with me during my administration, to encourage the trade of the American colonies in the utmost latitude."
THE TUSCARORAS.
The remnant of this once powerful nation are located upon the Mountain Ridge, in the town of Lewiston. Their introduction at this stage of our history, is due to the chronological arrangment it 12
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is intended to preserve. They were adopted by the Iroquois, and became the Sixth Nation of the confederacy, in 1712.
They came originally from North Carolina-from the upper country, on the Rivers Neuse and Tar. In 1708 they had "fifteen towns, and could count twelve hundred warriors." In 1711 a rupture occured between them and the colonists. There was a question of territory ; of alledged aggression upon their lands. That they were aggrieved and wronged in the onset, is plainly to be inferred from concurrent history. Their new neighbors, the trespassers upon their territory, were not of a character to have a very nice sense of right and wrong .* With as little ceremony, and with as little show of justice, as was exhibited in a later period in the partition of Poland the "Proprietaries " of North Carolina commenced parcelling out their lands to the German fugitives. DE GRAFFENRIED, who had charge of the establishment of the exiles, accompanied by a surveyor, named LAWSON, traversed the Neuse in their territory to determine the character of the country through which it flowed. This and previous demonstrations, convinced the Tuscaroras of the intended aggressions, and they seized the agent and surveyor, and conveyed them to one of their villages. Here, before a general council of the principal men of the various tribes, in which was recounted the wrongs they had suffered from the English, and especially their having "marked some of their territory into lots for settlers," the prisoners were condemned to death. The Indian ceremonies, a feast and festive dances, the kindling of a fire, were preliminary to the execution. On the morning of the appointed day, a new council decreed a reprieve of GRAFFENRIED, but renewed the sentence of LAWSON. GRAFFENRIED was retained as a pris- oner for five weeks, and discharged upon a promise that as chieftain of the German emigrants, he would occupy no land without the consent of the Indians.
While all this was transacting in one quarter, and a suspension of aggression and retribution, agreed upon; in another, hostilities had commenced. A band of Tuscaroras and Corees in concert, made a descent upon the scattered German settlers upon the Roanoke
* In allusion to an epitaph upon the tomb stone of one of the early Governors, which says that " North Carolina enjoyed tranquility during his administration," Mr Bancroft says ;- " It was the liberty of freemen in the woods ; a wild independence." Gov. Spotswood of Virginia said, "it was a country without any form of government." And a severe commentator has said ;- " In Carolina every one did what was right in his own eyes, paying tribute neither to God nor Cæsar."
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and Pamlico Sound, carrying there, and to the Albemarle Sound, the utmost rigors of savage warfare. A portion of the Tuscaroras did not countenance this sudden resort to the knife and tomahawk.
South Carolina came to the relief of the whites in North Caro- lina. A commander named BARNWELL, at the head of an allied force of South Carolinians, Cherokees, Creeks, Catawbas, Yamas- ses,* and a few North Carolinians, besieged a fort the Tuscaroras had constructed in Craven County. Thus situated, failing in a co-operation which the people of North Carolina refused from a feeling unfriendly to those who had brought on the war, BARNWELL, to avoid the doubtful issue of a battle, negotiated a treaty of peace. The peace was of but short duration; in violation of its terms, the returning forces of BARNWELL seized the inhabitants of Tuscarora villages, and carried them into captivity and slavery. Retaliation, such as before had been made, was renewed. In warlike meas- ures, however, the Tuscaroras were divided, Gov. SPOTSWOOD, of Virginia, having succeeded in making neutrals of a large portion of them. In Dec., 1713, the country of the Tuscaroras was again invaded from South Carolina by a large force of Indians, and a few white men, under the command of JAMES MOORE. Assembled in a fort on the Neuse, eight hundred of the Tuscaroras became the captives of the invaders. The legislature of North Carolina, entering into the contest with more harmony in their councils, men and money were raised, and the woods were patrolled by the "red allies, who hunted for prisoners to be sold as slaves, or took scalps for a reward."
Thus defeated and persecuted, driven from their lands and homes by the adverse result of a contest provoked by wrong and aggression; with not only the colonial authorities of North and South Carolina to contend with, but their own race, to gratify an arrant spirit of revenge, basely becoming the active allies of their enemies; the Tuscaroras who had remained in arms, migrated to New York.
The author, thus far, has relied chiefly upon the authority of
* Why the neighboring nations were found ready to take up arms against the Tusca- roras, as allies of the English, is probably explained by a recurrence to previous events. They had been at war with them; and in the long wars waged against the southern Indians, by the Confederated Five Nations of this region, the Tuscaroras had been allies of the northern invaders. And this was probably the affinity that led them after wards to seek a home at the north, instead of their being " kindred of the Iroquois," as Mr. Bancroft infers.
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Mr. BANCROFT, with reference to the events that preceded the emigration of the Tuscaroras. He is enabled to add two other accounts. The first was written but sixteen years after the events, by WM. BOYD, of Westover, Virginia, who was one of the early commissioners to run a boundary line between Virginia and Mary- land; and was first published in 1841. The second is from CARROLL's Historical Collections of South Carolina: - 4
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