USA > New York > Monroe County > Rochester > Settlement in the West : sketches of Rochester with incidental notices of western New-York > Part 43
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The Confederates in a year's time compelled their ene- mies to make peace and to restore their chiefs. It was with the French the only escape from destruction. Great bodies of the Confederates threatened Montreal, and their canoes covered the great lakes. They shut up the French in forts ; and would have conquered the whole of Canada, if they had understood the art of attacking fortified places. This peace was soon disturbed by the artifices of Kondia- ronk, a Huron chief ; and the Iroquois made an irruption on the island of Montreal with 1200 men, destroying every- thing before them.
The third and last grand expedition against the Confed- erates was undertaken in 1697 by the Count de Frontenac, the ablest and bravest governor that the French ever had in Canada. He landed at Oswego with a powerful force, and marched to the Onondaga Lake-he found their principal village burned and abandoned. He sent 700 men to destroy the Oneida Castle, who took a few prisoners. An Onondaga chief, upward of 100 years old, was captured in the woods, and abandoned to the fury of the French savages. After sustaining the most horrid tortures with more than stoical fortitude, the only complaint he was heard to utter was when one of them, actuated by compassion, or probably by rage, stabbed him repeatedly with a knife, in order to put a speedy end to his existence. " Thou ought not," said he, " to abridge my life, that thou might have time to learn to
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die like a man. For my own part, I die contented, because I know no meanness with which to reproach myself." After this tragedy, the count thought it prudent to retire with his army; and he probably would have fallen a victim to his temerity, if the Senecas had not been kept at home from a false report that they were to be attacked at the same time by the Ottawas.
After the general peace in 1762, an attempt was made by a number of the western Indians to destroy the British col- onies. The Senecas were involved in this war ;[*] but in 1764, Sir Wm. Johnson, styling himself " his Majesty's sole Agent and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the northern parts of North America, and Colonel of the Six United Na- tions, their allies and dependants," agreed to preliminary ar- ticles of peace with them. In this treaty, the Senecas ceded the carrying-place at Niagara to Great Britain. The Confederates remained in a state of peace until the com- mencement of the revolutionary war.t On the 19th June, 1775, the Oneidas and some other Indians sent to the Con- vention of Massachusetts a speech declaring their neutrality -stating that they could not find nor recollect in the tradi- tions of their ancestors a parallel case; and saying, " As we have declared for peace, we desire you would not ap- ply to our Indian brethren in New-England for assistance. Let us Indians be all of one mind and live with one another, and you white people settle your own disputes between yourselves."# These good dispositions did not long con- tinue with most of the Indian nations : all within the reach of British blandishments and persents were prevailed upon to take up the hatchet. It is calculated that 12,690 Indian warriors were employed by the British during the revolu- tionary war, of which 1580 were Iroquois.§ The influence of Sir William Johnson over the savages was transmitted to his son, who was most successful in alluring them into the views of Great Britain. " A great war-feast was held by
[* This refers to the great conspiracy of Pontiac, the connexion of the Senecas with which was signalized by the tragedy of the "Devil's Hole"-of which particulars are given in note III. at the conclusion of this article.]
t Thos. Mante's History of the late War in America, &c., printed in London, 1772, p. 503.
# 2 William's History of Vermont, p. 440. [See " Indian Accounts" of the causes which involved them in the war, in this volume. ]
§ 10 vol. Mass. Hist. Soc., p. 120, &c.
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him on the occasion, in which, according to the horrid phra- seology of these barbarians, they were invited to banquet upon a Bostonian and to drink his blood."*
Gen. Burgoyne made a speech to the Indians on the 21st of June, 1777, urging them to hostilities, and stating " his satisfaction at the general conduct of the Indian tribes from the beginning of the troubles in America." An old Iroquois chief answered, " We have been tried and tempted by the Bostonians ; but we have loved our father, and our hatchets have been sharpened on our affections. In proof of the sin- cerity of our professions, our whole villages able to go to war are come forth : the old and infirm, our infants and our wives, alone remain at home."f They realized their pro- fessions. The whole Confederacy, except a little more than half of the Oneidas, took up arms against us. They hung like the scythe of death upon the rear of our settlements, and their deeds are inscribed with the scalping-knife and the tomahawk in characters of blood on the fields of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, and on the banks of the Mohawk.
It became necessary that the Confederates should receive a signal chastisement for their barbarous and cruel incur- sions ; and accordingly, Gen. Sullivan, with an army of near 5000 men, marched into their country in the year 1779. Near Newtown, in the present county of Tioga, he defeated them, and drove them from their fortifications. He contin- ued his march between the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, and through their territory as far as the Genesee River, destroy- ing their orchards, corn-fields, and forty villages, the largest of which contained 128 houses. 'This expedition was nearly the finishing blow to savage cruelty and insolence. Their habitations were destroyed ; their provinces laid waste ; they were driven from their country, and were compelled to take refuge under the cannon of Niagara ; and their hostility ter- minated with the pacification with Great Britain.[+]
The Confederates were as celebrated for their eloquence as for their military skill and political wisdom. Popular or free governments have in all ages been the congenial soil of oratory ; and it is, indeed, all important in institutions merely advisory, where persuasion must supply the place of coer-
* Belcham.
t Williams, as before quoted.
[# But manifested itself in various ways afterward, as in the battles with Harmer, St. Clair, Wayne, and Harrison-some particulars of which are stated in the article headed "Indian Difficulties."]
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cion ; where there is no magistrate to execute ; no military to compel ; and where the only sanction of law is the con- trolling power of public opinion. Eloquence being, there- fore, considered so essential, must always be a great stand- ard of personal merit-a certain road to popular favour and a universal passport to public honours. These combined inducements operated with powerful force on the mind of the Indian; and there is little doubt but that oratory was studied with as much care and application among the Con- federates as it was in the stormy democracies of the east- ern hemisphere. I do not pretend to assert that there were, as at Athens and Rome, established schools and professional teachers for the purpose ; but I say that it was an attain- ment to which they devoted themselves, and to which they bent the whole force of their faculties. Their models of eloquence were to be found, not in books, but in the living orators of their local and national assemblies : their chil- dren at an early period of life attended their council-fires, in order to observe the passing scenes and to receive the les- sons of wisdom. Their rich and vivid imagery was drawn from the sublime scenery of nature, and their ideas were de- rived from the laborious operations of their own minds, and from the experience and wisdom of their ancient sages.
The most remarkable difference existed between the Con- federates and the other Indian nations with respect to elo- quence. You may search in vain in the records and wri- tings of the past, or in the events of the present times, for a single model of eloquence among the Algonkins, the Abena- quis, the Delawares, the Shawanese, or any other nation of Indians except the Iroquois. The few scintillations of in- tellectual light, the faint glimmerings of genius which are sometimes to be found in their speeches, are evidently de- rivative, and borrowed from the Confederates.
Considering the interpreters who have undertaken to give the meaning of Indian speeches, it is not a little surprising that some of them should approach so near to perfection. The major part of the interpreters were illiterate persons, sent among them to conciliate their favour by making use- ful or ornamental implements ; or they were prisoners, who learned the Indian language during their captivity. The Rev. Mr. Kirkland, a missionary among the Oneidas, and some- times a public interpreter, was indeed a man of liberal edu- cation ; but those who have seen him officiate at public trea- ties must recollect how incompetent he was to infuse the
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fire of Indian oratory into his expressions ; how he laboured for words, and how feeble and inelegant his language. Oral is more difficult than written interpretation or transla- tion. In the latter case, there is no pressure of time, and we have ample opportunity to weigh the most suitable words, to select the most elegant expressions, and to fathom the sense of the author ; but in the former case we are called upon to act immediately ; no time for deliberation is allowed; and the first ideas that occur must be pressed into the service of the interpreter. At an ancient treaty, a female captive offi- ciated in that capacity ; and at a treaty held in 1722 at Al- bany, the speeches of the Indians were first rendered into Dutch, and then translated into English .* I except from these remarks the speech of the Onondaga Chief Garan- gula to M. Delabarre, delivered on the occasion which I have before mentioned. This was interpreted by Monsieur le Maine, a French Jesuit, and recorded on the spot by Baron la Hontan-men of enlightened and cultivated minds -from whom it has been borrowed by Colden, Smith, Her- riot, Trumbull, and Williams. I believe it to be impossible to find, in all the effusions of ancient or modern oratory, a speech more appropriate and more convincing. Under the veil of respectful profession, it conveys the most biting irony ; and while it abounds with rich and splendid imagery, it con- tains the most solid reasoning. I place it in the same rank with the celebrated speech of Logan ; and I cannot but ex- press astonishment at the conduct of two respectable writers who have represented this interesting interview, and this sub- lime display of intellectual power, as " a scold between the French general and an old Indian."t
On the 9th February, 1690, as we are informed by the tradition of the inhabitants, although history has fixed it on the 8th, the town of Schenectady, which then consisted of a church and forty-three houses, was surprised by a party of French and Indians from Canada : a dreadful scene of con- flagration and massacre ensued ; the greater part of the in- habitants were killed or made prisoners-those who escaped fled naked towards Albany in a deep snow which fell that very night, and providentially met sleighs from that place, which returned immediately with them. This proceeding
* Oldmixon's British Empire, 1 vol., p. 254.
+ Colden and Smith.
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struck terror into the inhabitants of Albany, who were about to abandon the country in despair and consternation. On this occasion, several of the Mohawk chiefs went to Albany, to make the customary speech of condolence, and to animate to honourable exertion. Their speech is preserved in the first volume of Colden's history of the " Five Indian Na- tions"-and even at this distant period it is impossible to read it without sensibility, without respecting its affectionate sympathy, and admiring its magnanimous spirit, and without ranking it among the most respectable models of eloquence which history affords.
In 1777 and 1778, an association of our own citizens, in violation of law, contracted with the Six Nations for the greater part of their territory on a lease of 999 years at an insignificant annual rent. These proceedings were, on mo- tion of the president of the New-York Historical Society,[*] declared void in March, 1788, by the authorities of the state. And when their true character was made known to the In- dians, when they found that their country, in which were in- terred the bones of their ancestors, was sacrificed to the overreaching cupidity of unauthorized speculators, the great- est anxiety and consternation prevailed among them. The Senecas and Cayugas repaired to Albany to confer with the governor; but having no speaker at that time of sufficient eminence and talents for the important occasion, they em- ployed Good Peter, or Domine Peter, the Cicero of the Six Nations, to be their orator ; and he addressed the governor and other commissioners in a speech of great length and ability : it was replete with figurative language-the topics were selected with great art and judgment. I took down the speech from the mouth of the interpreter ; and, notwith- standing the imperfect interpretation of Mr. Kirkland, con- sider it a rare specimen of Indian eloquence.
Within a few years, an extraordinary orator has risen among the Senecas : his real name is Sagualia, but he is commonly called Red Jacket. Without the advantages of illustrious descent, and with no extraordinary talents for war, he has attained the first distinctions in the nation by the force of his eloquence. His predecessor in the honours of the nation was a celebrated chief denominated the Corn- planter. Having lost the confidence of his countrymen [by his efforts to alienate the Indian lands to the whites], in
[* See article in this work headed, " A new State Projected." ]
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order, as it is supposed, to retrieve his former standing, he persuaded his brother to announce himself as a prophet or messenger from Heaven, sent to redeem the fallen fortunes of the Indian race. The superstition of the savages cherished the impostor ; and he acquired such an ascendency as to prevail upon the Onondagas, formerly the most drunken and profligate of the Six Nations, to abstain entirely from spirit- uous liquors, and to observe the laws of morality in other respects. He obtained the same ascendency among the Confederates as another impostor acquired among the Sha- wanese and other Western Indians ; and, like him, he has also employed his influence for evil as well as for good pur- poses. The Indians universally believe in witchcraft; the prophet inculcated this superstition, and proceeded, through the instrumentality of conjurors selected by himself, to desig- nate the offenders, who were accordingly sentenced to death. And the unhappy objects would have been actually executed if the magistrates at Oneida and the officers of the garrison at Niagara had not interfered. This was considered an art- ful expedient to render his enemies the objects of general abhorrence, if not the victims of an ignominious death. Imboldened by success, he proceeded finally to execute the views of his brother ; and Red Jacket was publicly denounced at a great council of Indians held at Buffalo Creek, and was put upon his trial. At this crisis he well knew that the fu- ture colour of his life depended upon the powers of his mind. He spoke in his defence for near three hours. The iron- brow of superstition relented under the magic of his elo- quence; he declared the prophet an impostor and a cheat ; he prevailed ; the Indians divided, and a small majority ap- peared in his favour. Perhaps the annals of history cannot furnish a more conspicuous instance of the triumph and power of oratory in a barbarous nation devoted to supersti- tion and looking up to the accuser as a delegated minister of the Almighty.
I am well aware that the speech of Logan will be triumph- antly quoted against me, and that it will be said that the most splendid exhibition of Indian eloquence may be found out of the pale of the Six Nations. I fully subscribe to the eulogium of Mr. Jefferson when he says, " I may challenge the whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and of any more eminent orator, if Europe has furnished more eminent, to produce a single passage superior to the speech of Logan."
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But let it be remembered that Logan was a Mingo chief, the second son of Shikellimus, a celebrated Cayuga chief, and consequently belonged to the Confederates, although he did not live in their patrimonial territory. The Iroquois had sent out several colonies-one of them was settled at Sandus- ky, and was estimated to contain 300 warriors in 1768. Another was established on a branch of the Scioto, and had sixty warriors in 1779 .* To this I may add the testimony of Charlevoix, who may be justly placed in the first rank of able and learned writers on American affairs, and who enter- tained all the prejudices of his country against the confed- eracy. Speaking of Joncaire, who had been adopted by the Senecas, and who had obtained their consent for the estab- lishment of a fort at Niagara, he says, " Il parla avec tout l'esprit d'un François, qui en a beaucoup et la plus sublime eloquence Iroquoise"-he spoke with all the energetic spirit of a Frenchman, and with the most sublime eloquence of an Iroquois .*
It cannot, I presume, be doubted but that the Confeder- ates were a peculiar and extraordinary people, contra-distin- guished from the mass of the Indian nations by great attain- ments in polity, in government, in negotiation, in eloquence, and in war. La Hontan asserts that " they are of a larger stature, and, withal, more valiant and cunning than the other nations." Charlevoix derives their name of Agonnonsioni from their superior skill and taste in architecture.§ The perspicacious and philosophical Pennant, after fully weigh- ing their character, qualities, and physical conformation, pro- nounced them the descendants of the Tschutski, who reside on a peninsula which forms the most northeasterly part of Asia-who are a free and a brave race ; and, in size and figure, superior to every neighbouring nation. The Rus- sians have never been able to effect their conquest. They cherish a high sense of liberty-constantly refuse to pay tribute-and are supposed to have sprung from that fine race of Tartars, the Kabardinski, or inhabitants of Ka- barda. ||
* Jefferson's Notes.
Charlevoix's Letter 15, page 248. Quere-Is this the Captain Joncaire who is mentioned in General (then Colonel) Washington's Journal of his mission to the Ohio. See 2 Marshall's Life of Wash- ton, 1 Note.
# 2 vol. page 4. § 1 Charlevoix, b. 6, p. 271.
Il 1 Pennant's Arctic Zoology, 181, 186, 262.
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But there is a striking discrimination between this nation and the great body of the Indian tribes, which remains to be mentioned. Charlevoix has the singular merit of having re- jected the common mode of ascertaining the identity of na- tional origin from a coincidence in customs and manners, and of having pointed out a similarity of language as the best and the surest criterion. As far back as La Hontan, whose voyages were published in 1703, and who was well ac- quainted with the Indian languages, it was understood by him that there were but two mother tongues, the Huron and the Algonkin, in the whole extent of Canada, as far west as the Mississippi ; and in a list which he gives of the Indian na- tions, it appears that they all spoke the Algonkin language in different dialects, except the Hurons and the Confeder- ates-the difference between whose languages he considers as not greater than that between the Norman and the French. This opinion has been supported and confirmed by the concurring testimony of Carver, Charlevoix, Rogers, Barton, Edwards, Mackenzie, and Pike-with these quali- fications, that the Sioux or Naudowessies, and the Assini- boils, together with many nations of Indians to the west of the Mississippi, speak a distinct original language ; and it is not perfectly settled whether the Creeks and the other south- ern Indians in their vicinity use a parent language, or un- der which of the three great parent ones theirs must be classed. Carver speaks of the Chippewa ; Edwards of the Mohegan ; Barton of the Delaware ; Rogers of the Otto- way, as the most prevailing language in North America : but they all agree in the similarity. Dr. Edwards asserts that the language of the Delawares in Pennsylvania ; of the Penobscots bordering on Nova Scotia ; of the Indians of St. Francis in Canada ; of the Shawanese on the Ohio ; of the Chippewas at the westward of Lake Huron ; of the Otta- was, Nanticokes, Munsees, Menominees, Missisaugas, Sau- kies, Ottagaumies, Killistineaux, Mipegois, Algonkins, Win- nebagoes, and of the several tribes in New-England, are radically the same ; and the variations are to be accounted for from the want of letters and of communication. On the other hand, that the Confederates and the Hurons were ori- ginally of the same stock, may be inferred not only from the sameness of their language, but from their division into similar tribes .* From this we may rationally conclude that
* Trumbull's Connecticut, 43. Henry's Travels in Canada, 250, 299,
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those nations were descended from an Asiatic stock, radi- cally different from that of the great body of Indians who were spread over North America ; and that the superior qualities of the Iroquois may be ascribed as well to the su- periority of their origin as to the advantages of position, the maxims of policy, and the principles of education which dis- tinguished them from the other red inhabitants of this Wes- tern World. And they were, indeed, at all times ready and willing to cherish the sentiment of exaltation which they felt ; and believing that they excelled the rest of mankind, they called themselves " Ongue-Honwe," that is, men sur- passing all others .*
It is extremely difficult to speak with any precision of the ancient population of the Indian nations. The Powhat- tan Confederacy, or Empire, as it was called, contained one inhabitant for every square mile ; and the proportion of war- riors to the whole number of inhabitants was as three to ten.t If this is to afford a just rule for estimating the Con- federates, it would be easy to ascertain their number and to adjust the relative proportion of their fighting men. Sup- posing their patrimonial or dwelling country to be 300 miles in length and 100 in breadth, the whole number of square miles would be 30,000, and the number of souls the same.} Some writers state the number of their warriors, at the first European settlement, to be 15,000, which would make a population of 50,000. La Hontan says that each village or canton contained about 14,000 souls-that is, 1500 that bear arms, 2000 superannuated men, 4000 women, 2000 maids, and 4000 children : " Though, indeed, some say that each village has not above ten or eleven thousand souls." On the first statement, they would have 7500, and on the last about 5360 fighting men.
325. Carver's Travels, 170. Mackenzie's Voyages, 280. 3 Charle- voix's Letters, 11th and 12th. Jeffery's Natural and Civil History of the French Dominions in North and South America, 45, 50. Rogers's North America, 246. Barton's View, 470. Pike's Expedition, 65. Edward's Observations on the Language of the Muhhekanew Indians. La Hontan's New Voyages, 1 vol., 270, 2 vol., 287.
* 1 Colden, p. 2. t Jefferson's Notes, 141, &c.
# On this subject sce 1 Trumbull's History U. S., p. 30, &c. 1 Williams's Vermont, 215, &c. 1 Douglass's Summary, 185. 5 vol. Mass. Hist. Society, 13, 16, 23, &c. 10 vol. Mass. Hist. Soc., 122, &c. Morse's Gazetteer Six Nations. 1 La Hontan, 23, &c. Jefferson's Notes, 151. Holmes's American Annals, 1 vol. 45. do. 2d vol. 137.
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Colonel Coursey, an agent of Virginia, had in 1677 a con- ference with the Five Nations at Albany. The number of warriors was estimated at that time and place as follows : Mohawks, 300; Oneidas, 200; Onondagas, 350 ; Cayugas, 300; Senecas, 1000; total, 2150 ; which would make the whole population near 7200 .*
Smith says that in 1756 the whole number of fighting men was about 1200. Douglass says that in 1760 it was 1500. In the first case, the whole population would be 4000, and in the last 5000.
In 1764 Bouquet, from the information of a French trader, stated the whole number of inhabitants to be 1550. Captain Hutchins, who visited most of the Indian nations for the ex- press purpose of learning their number, represents them to be 2120 in 1768; and Dodge, an Indian trader, says that in 1779 they were 1600. These three estimates were taken from Jefferson's Notes on Virginia ; and although they ap- parently relate to the whole population, yet I am persuaded that the statements were only intended to embrace the num- ber of warriors.
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