USA > New York > Pioneer history of the Holland Purchase of western New York : embracing some account of the ancient remains > Part 7
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When the white man first entered this, the country of the Seneca Iroquois, he found deeply indented, well trodden paths, threading the forests in different directions. They led from village to village, thence to their favorite hunting and fishing grounds, or here
* Their war against the French was declared by a unanimous vote. After this, when the question came up of taking the British side in the war of the Revolution. the coun- cil was divided, a number of the Oneida sachems strongly opposing it, and although most of the confederates were allies of the English in that contest, it was an act of the League, but each nation chose its own position.
t The senate of the United States, in 1838, committed a great error in abrogating this unanimity principle, and substituting the rule of the majority, in reference to the sale of Seneca lands to the pre-emptionists. It was over-riding an ancient law of the confede- racy, and in fact, as was the ultimate result, aiding a system of coercion and bribery, to dispossess them of their reservations.
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and there marked their intercourse with neighboring aboriginal nations. They are termed Trails. They were the routes pursued by the French Missionaries and traders, by the Dutch and English in their intercourse with the Indians; by the British troops and Indians of Canada in their incursions into Western New-York, during the Revolution; by BUTLER's rangers, in all their bloody enterprises to the valleys of the Mohawk and Susquehannah; and afterwards guided our early Pioneers through the forest, enabling them to appreciate the beauty and value of this goodly land. With reference to the Holland Purchase, these trails were mainly as follows :-
The trail from the east, the valleys of the Hudson, the Mohawk, &c., passing through Canandaigua, West Bloomfield and Lima, came upon the Genesee River at Avon; crossing the River a few rods above the Bridge it went up the west bank to the Indian village a mile above the ford, and then bore off north-west to Cale- donia. Turning westward, it crossed Allen's creek at Le Roy, and Black creek at Stafford, coming upon the banks of the Tonawanda a little above Batavia. Passing down the cast bank of that stream, around what was early known as the Great Bend, at the Arsenal it turned north-west, came upon the openings at Caryville, and bearing westwardly across the openings it crossed the Tonawanda at the Indian village. Here the trail branched: - one branch taking a north-westwardly direction, re-crossed the creek below the village, and passing through the Tonawanda swamp, emerged from it nearly south-east of Royalton Centre, coming out upon the Lockport and Batavia road in the valley of Millard's Brook, and from thence it continued upon the Chestnut Ridge to the Cold Springs. Pursuing the route of the Lewiston road, with occasional deviations it struck the Ridge Road at Warren's. It followed the Ridge until it passed Hopkins' Marsh, when it gradually ascended the Mountain Ridge, passed through the Tuscarora village, and then down again to the Ridge Road, which it continued on to the River. This was the principal route into Canada, crossing from Lewiston to Queenston; a branch trail however, going down the River to Fort Niagara.
The other branch of the trail leaving the village of Tonawanda, took a south-west direction, and crossing Murder creek at Akron, it came upon the Buffalo road at Clarence Hollow ; from thence west, nearly on the line of the Buffalo road to Williamsville, cross- ing Ellicott's creek it continued its westerly course to the Cold
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Springs near Buffalo, and entering the city at what has since become the head of Main Street, it came out at the mouth of Buf- falo creek. A branch Trail diverging at Clarence came upon the Cayuga branch of the Buffalo creek at Lancaster, thence down that stream to the Seneca village, and down the Buffalo creek to its entrance into the lake.
The Ontario trail, starting from Oswego, came upon the Ridge Road at Irondequoit Bay; then turning up the Bay to its head, where a branch trail went to Canandaigua, it turned west, crossing the Genesee River at the acqueduet, and passing down the river, came again upon the Ridge Road, which it pursued west to near the west line of Hartland, Niagara county, where it diverged to the south-west, crossing the east branch of the Eighteen-mile Creek, and forming a junction with the Canada or Niagara trail at the Cold Springs.
From Mount Morris, on the Genesce River, a trail passed up the river to Gardow, and Canadea, and from thence to Allegany River at Olean.
A trail left Little Beard's Town on the Genesce river, and cross- ing the east line of the Holland Purchase, entered it in the north side of T. 10 R. 1, and crossing the north-east corner of T. 10 R. 2, and south-west corner of T. 11 same range, passed through the south sides of T. 11 R. 3. T. 11 R. 4, T. 11 R. 5, entered the Seneca Reservation at the south-west corner of the latter township ; and pursuing a westerly course, came upon the banks of Buffalo creek, near the Seneca Indian village.
These were the principal highways of the Seneca Iroquois. How nearly the simple primitive paths of the aborigines, corres- pond with our now principal thorough-fares ; but how changed ! The trails are obliterated in the progress of improvement, the forests that enshrouded them are principally cleared away, and in their place are turnpikes, M'Adam roads, canals, rail roads, and tele- graphic posts and wires. The waters upon which they paddled their bark canoes, supply our canals; the swamps they avoided, and the ridges they traversed, are passed along and across by our steam propelled locomotives. The "forked lightning," they saw in the clouds, which occasionally scathed the tall trees of their forest home, reminding them of the power and omnipotence of the Great Spirit they adored, the Manitou of their simple creed,- is
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tamed, and in an instant accomplishes the purposes, that employed their swiftest runners for days!
"The wild man hates restraint, and loves to do what is right in his own eyes."* Hence there was little in all the frame work of the government of the Iroquois, of restraint or coercive laws. They seemed to have acted upon the maxim that "nations are governed too much." And this principle extended in a great degree to family government. Their children were reproved, not injurcd or beaten, and none but the milder forms of punishment ever resorted to. Theirs was a simple form of government-so simple as to excite a wonder that it could have been effectual ;- an oligarchy, and yet cherishing the democratic principle, of the common good; an here- ditary council in whom was vested all power, and yet there was no castes, no privileged orders; no conventional or social exclusiveness. Their system of government, like themselves, is a mystery. Both have been but imperfectly understood; both are well worthy of enquiry and investigation. The student, or historical reader of our country, may well turn occasionally from the beaten track of our colleges and schools-from the histories of far off ages, races and people -and taking the humble "trails" of the Iroquois, see if there is not in the history of our own country-our predecessors- that which will interest and instruct him.
As has been assumed in the preceding pages, the Seneca branch of the Iroquois were our immediate predecessors; but we gather from their traditions, and from the writings of the earliest Jesuit
NOTE .- At the time of the delivery of the admirable 'Letters on the Iroquois,' before the N. Y. Historical Society ; or rather when that portion of them which related to the Trails was read, Dr. Peter Wilson, an educated Cayuga chief, happened to be present. He accepted an invitation to address the Society. ' He spoke with such pathos and eloquence of his people and his race, their ancient prowess and generosity- their present weakness and dependence -and especially upon the hard fate of a small band of Senacas and Cayugas which had recently been hurried into the western wilderness to perish, that all present were deeply moved by his eloquence.' 'The land of Ga-nun-no, or the 'Empire State' as you love to call it, was once laced by our Trails from Albany to Buffalo -Trails that we had trod for centuries -trails worn so deep by the feet of the Iroquois, that they became your roads of travel as your pos- sessions gradually eat into those of my people ! Your roads still traverse those same lines of communication which bound one part of the Long House to the other. Have we, the first holders of this prosperous region, no longer a share in your history ? Glad were your fathers to set down upon the threshold of the Long House. Rich did they hold themselves in getting the mere sweepings from its door. Had our forefathers spurned you from it when the French were thundering at the opposite side to get a passage through, and drive you into the sea, whatever has been the fate of other Indians, we might still have had a nation, and I-I, instead of pleading here for the privilege of lingering within your borders, I -I might have had a country.'
* Bancroft.
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Missionaries, that they had only possessed the country west of the Genesee river, since about the middle of the seventeenth century. In the "Relations of the Jesuits" there is a letter from Father L' ALLEMANT to the Provincial of the Jesuits in France, dated at St. Mary's Mission, May 19, 1641, in which he gives an account of a journey made to the country of the Neuter Nation the year previous, by JEAN DE BREBEUF and JOSEPH MARIE CHAUMONOT, two Jesuit Fathers. As this letter is one of the earliest reminiscence of this region, other than Indian tradition, the author copies it entire:
"JEAN DE BREBEUF and JOSEPH MARIE CHAUMONOT, two Fathers of our company which have charge of the Mission to the Neuter Nation set out from St. Marie on the 2d day of November, 1640, to visit this people. Father BREBEUF is peculiarly fitted for such an expedition, God having in an eminent degree endowed him with a capacity for learning languages. His companion was also consid- ered a proper person for the enterprise.
"Although many of our French in that quarter have visited this people to profit by their furs and other commodities, we have no knowledge of any who have been there to preach the gospel except Father DE LA ROCH DAILLON, a Recollect, who passed the winter there in the year 1626.
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" The nation is very populous, there being estimated about forty villages. After leaving the Hurons it is four or five days journey or about forty leagues to the nearest of their villages, the course being nearly due south. If, as indicated by the latest and most exact observations we can make, our new station, St. Marie,* in the interior of the Huron country, is in north latitude about 44 degrees, 25 minutes, then the entrance of the Neuter Nation from the Huron side, is about 44 degrees. t More exact surveys and observations, cannot now be made, for the sight of a single instru- ment would bring to extremes those who cannot resist the temptation of an inkhorn.
"From the first village of the Neuter Nation that we met with in travelling from this place, as we proceed south or southwest, it is about four days travel to the place where the celebrated river of the nation empties into lake Ontario, or St. Louis. On the west side of that river, and not on the east, are the most numerous of the villages of the Neuter Nation. There are three or four on the east side, extending from east to west towards the Eries, or Cat nation."
NOTE .-- This would of course be along our side of the Niagara, and probably extended along the shores of lake Erie.
* A Jesuit Mission on the river Severn, near the eastern extremity of lake Huron.
t The good father is about a degree out of the way.
5
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" This river is that by which our great lake of the Hurons, or fresh sea, is discharged, which first empties into the lake of Erie, or of the nation of the Cat, from thence it enters the territory of the Neuter Nation, and takes the name of Onguiaahra, (Niagara,) until it empties into Ontario or St. Louis lake, from which latter flows the river which passes before Quebec, called the St. Lawrence, so that if we once had control of the side of the lake nearest the residence of the Iroquois, we could ascend by the river St. Lawrence, without danger, even to the Neuter Nation, and much beyond, with great saving of time and trouble.
" According to the estimate of these illustrious fathers who have been there, the Neuter Nation comprises about 12,000 souls, which enables them to furnish 4,000 warriors, notwithstanding war, pestilence and famine have prevailed among them for three years in an extraordinary manner.
" After all, I think that those who have heretofore ascribed such an extent and population to this nation, have understood by the Neuter Nation, all who live south and southwest of our Hurons, and who are truly in great number, and, being at first only partially known, have all been comprised under the same name. The more perfect knowledge of their language and country, which has since been obtained, has resulted in a clearer distinction between the tribes. Our French who first discovered this people, named them the ‘Neu- ter Nation'; and not without reason, for their country being the ordinary passage, by land, between some of the Iroquois nations and the Hurons, who are sworn enemies, they remained at peace with both ; so that in times past. the Hurons and Iroquois, meeting in the same wigwam or village of that nation, were both in safety while they remained. Recently. their enmity against each other is so great, that there is no safety for either party in any place, particularly for the Hurons, for whom the Neuter Nation entertain the least good will.
" There is every reason for believing, that not long since, the Hurons, Iroquois, and Neuter Nations, formed one people, and originally came from the same family, but have in the lapse of time, became separated from each other. more or less, in distance, interests and affection, so that some are now enemies, others neutral, and others still live in intimate friendship and intercourse.
" The food and clothing of the Neuter Nation seem little different from that of our Hurons. They have Indian corn, beans and gourds in equal abundance. Also plenty of fish, some kinds of which abound in particular places only.
"They are much employed in hunting deer. buffalo, wildcats. wolves, wild boars, beaver. and other animals. Meat is very abundant this year, an account of the heavy snow, which has aided the hunters. It is rare to see snow in this country more than half a foot deep. But this year it is more than three feet.
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There is also abundance of wild turkeys, which go in flocks in the fields and woods.
" Their fruits are the same as with the Hurons, except chestnuts, which are more abundant, and crab apples, which are somewhat larger.
"The men, like all savages, cover their naked flesh with skins. but are less particular than the Hurons in concealing what should not appear. The squaws are ordinarily clothed, at least from the waist to the knees, but are more free and shameless in their immod- esty than the Hurons.
"As for their remaining customs and manners, they are almost entirely similar to the other savage tribes of the country.
" There are some things in which they differ from our Hurons. They are larger, stronger, and better formed. They also entertain a great affection for the dead, and have a greater number of fools or jugglers.
" The Sonontonheronons, (Senecas) one of the Iroquois nations, the nearest to and most dreaded by the Hurons, are not more than a day's journey distant from the easternmost village of the Neuter Nation, named 'Onguiaahra' (Niagara) of the same name as the river.
"Our fathers returned from the mission in safety, not having found in all the eighteen villages which they visited, but one, named 'Khe-o-e-to-a,' or St. Michael, which gave them the reception which their embassy deserved. In this village, a certain foreign nation, which lived beyond the lake of Erie, or of the nation of the Cat, named 'A-ouen-re-ro-non,' has taken refuge for many years for fear of their enemies, and they seem to have been brought here by a good Providence, to hear the word of God."
CHARLEVOIX says that in the year 1642, "a people, larger, stronger, and better formed than any other savages, and who lived south of the Huron country, were visited by the Jesuits, who preached to them the Kingdom of God. They were called the Neuter Nation, because they took no part in the wars which deso- lated the country. But in the end, they could not themselves, escape entire destruction. To avoid the fury of the Iroquois, they finally joined them against the Hurons, but gained nothing by the union. The Iroquois, that like lions that have tasted blood, cannot be satiated, destroyed indiscriminately all that came in their way, and at this day, there remains no trace of the Neuter Nation." In another place, the same author says that the Neuter Nation was destroyed about the year 1643. LA FITEU, in his "Mœurs des Sauvages," published at Paris in 1724, relates, on the authority of FATHER GARNIER, a Jesuit Missionary, the origin of the quarrel
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between the Senecas and the Neuter Nation, which is hinted at in the letter of FATHER L'ALLEMANT. He says, " the war did not terminate but by the total destruction of the Neuter Nation."
Mr. SCHOOLCRAFT assumes that the Senecas had warred upon, conquered the Neuter Nation, and come in possession of their terri- tory, twenty-four years before the advent of LA SALLE upon the Niagara river. A writer in the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser of March, 1846, who is named in the preface of this work, says :- "From all that can be derived from history, it is very probable, that the Kah-Kwas and the Neutral Nation were identical, that the singular tribe whose institution of neutrality has been likened by an eloquent writer, to a 'calm and peaceful island looking out upon a world of waves and tempests,' in whose wigwams the fierce Hurons and relentless Iroquois met on neutral ground, fell victims near this city, (Buffalo) to the insatiable ferocity of the latter. They were the first proprietors, as far as we can learn, of the soil we now occupy. Their savage spoilers gave them a grave on the spot which they died in defending, and have recently, in their turn, vielded to the encroachments of a more powerful adversary. The white man is now lord of the soil where the fires of the nation are put out forever. Around that scene, the proudest recollections and devout associations of the Senecas have long loved to linger. Let it be forever dedicated to the repose of the dead. Let the sanctity of the grave be inviolate. A simple enclosure should protect a spot which will increase in interest with the lapse of time." *
The Senecas have within few years, yielded to the importunities and appliances of the pre-emptionists, and abandoned their Reser- vation. It is now in the hands of another race. The plough, the pickaxe and spade, will soon obliterate all that remains of the evidences of the conquests of their ancestors. "It is a site around which the Senecas have clung, as if it marked an era in their national history; although the work was clearly erected by their enemies. It has been the seat of their government or council fire, from an early period of our acquaintance with them. It was here that RED JACKET uttered some of his most eloquent harrangues against the steady encroachments of the white race, and in favor
* The spot here alluded to, is upon the Reservation near Buffalo, on the creek, near the old council and mission houses. The author has included it in some preceding notices of ancient remains ; but yielding to the better knowledge in this branch of history, of the author of the above extract, he is disposed to regard it as he has assumed, the field of final conquest of this region, by the Senecas.
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of retaining this cherished portion of their lands, and transmitting them with full title to their descendants. It was here that the noted captive, DEHEWAMIS, better known as MARY JEMISON, came to live after a long life of most extraordinary vicissitudes. And it is here that the bones of the distinguished orator, and the no less distinguished captive, rest, side by side, with a multitude of warriors, chiefs and sages. But there will soon be no one left whose heart vibrates with the blood of a Seneca, to watch the venerated resting places of their dead." *
And in this connection it may be well to observe generally, that at the period when the French Missionaries and traders first reached the southern shores of lake Ontario and the Niagara river, the Neuter Nation was in possession of the region west of the Genesee river, including both sides of the Niagara river. The immediate domain of the Senecas, was east of the Genesee, until it reached that of the Cayugas. The Hurons occupied the interior of Canada West, west to lake Huron. The domain of the Eries, or Cat nation, according to HENNEPIN, commenced upon the southern shore of lake Erie, the dividing line between them and the Neuter Nation being about midway, up the lake. After the conquest of the Neuter Nation, the Senecas conquered the Eries, as is supposed, about the year 1653.
There are few into whose hand this local history will fall, who are not familiar with the general character, domestic habits, &c., of the aborigines. The first settlers of the Holland Purchase, had them for their primitive neighbors, and they even now, diminished as they are, linger among us in four localities :- at Tuscarora, Tonawanda, Cattaraugus and Alleghany. Their eloquence, their deeds of valor, their peculiarly interesting traits of character; the wrongs they have done our race, as traced in the often too highly colored, but generally truthful legends of the Mohawk and the Susquehannah; and the terrible retributions that have, in turn, been visited upon their race, in the extinguishing of most of the fires that "blazed in their Long House from the Hudson to lake Erie"-in subjecting them to the urgent and pressing overtures of pre-emptionists, who were better schooled in the diplomacy of bargain and gain, than were these men of simple habits and of honest impulses; and last and worst of all,
* Schoolcraft.
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in visiting upon them the curse of the darker features of civiliza- tion. With all this, the reader, in most instances, will be familiar; a part of it is interwoven in the nursery tales of our region. The author has only aimed thus far to give a general idea of the Indians as found here by the first European adventurers, and afford an insight, an induction, into their political institutions, their system of government, laws, &c., which have been subjects of too recent investigation, to admit of any very general familiarity with them. He is admonished that this branch of his main subject, is occupying too much space here, inasmuch as the Seneca Iroquois especially, must be frequently mingled with the local annals of our own race, as they will occur in chronological narrative.
PART SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY EUROPEAN VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES.
The prevailing spirit of the Monarchs of Europe, and their subjects, during the fifteenth and a greater portion of the sixteenth centuries, tended to the enlargement of their dominions, and the extension of their powers. In the latter end of the fifteenth century, COLUMBUS had discovered a New World. Spain then at the height of its prosperity and grandeur, profiting by the discoveries of an expedition that had sailed under her flag, under the auspices of her Queen had followed up the event, by farther discoveries and colonization in the Southern portion of our con- tinent. The reigning monarch of England, HENRY VII, stimu- lated by regret that he had allowed a rival power to be the first in the discovery of a continent, the advantages and resources of which, as the tidings of the discovery were promulgated, dazzled the eyes and awakened the emulation of all Europe; ambitious to make his subjects co-discoverers with the subjects of the Spanish monarch; listened with favor to the theory of JOHN CABOT, a Venetian, but a resident of England- who inferred that as lands had been discovered in the southwest, they might also be in the northwest, and offered to the king to conduct an expedition in this direction.
With a commission of discovery, granted by the king, and a ship provided by him, and four small vessels equipped by the merchants of Bristol, CABOT with his son SEBASTIAN, set sail from England, in less than three years after COLUMBUS had discovered the Island of San Salvador. As the discovery of COLUMBUS was incidental to the main object of his daring enterprise -the discovery of a shorter route to the Indies,-the CABOTS, adopting
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