USA > New York > The natural, statistical, and civil history of the state of New-York, v. 2 > Part 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
The Agoneaseah claimed all the lands from the Sorel in the north-east, south-westwardly to the Mississippi; and between the Otawas or Grand river, lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario, and the St. Lawrence. Again, M. de Salle says in liis Journal, the Ago- neaseah (Iroquoise) possessed a tract of land from Montreal, or rather from the place where the two rivers, the St. Lawrence and Ottawas, which form that of the St. Lawrence, meet to the farther
191
STATE OF NEW-YORK.
end of the lake Conti or Herie (Erie,) two hundred leagues. See his Voyages in 1678, &c.
The Agoneaseah by the conquest and dispersion of the Hurons and Erigas, became possessed of the extensive regions which they had occupied. According to Hennepin and La Hontan, who wrote towards the latter part of the seventeenth century, they had several villages on the north side of lake Ontario, not far from fort Fron- tinac, now Kingston. Those which they have enumerated were called Tejajahon, Kente and Ganneousse. These villages subsisted in 1679, and were, it is presumable, founded by colonies.
M. de la Salle informs us that the Agoneaseah had in 1678, villages on lake Conti or Herie (Erie,) near the great falls of Niagara. The particular places where these villages stood he does not designate. He calls one village Niagara.
The peace concluded between the French and Agoneaseah iu 1667, was not lasting. The latter, as soon as they had recovered from the dread inspired by the invasion of the former, renewed their inroads into Canada upon the French and Adirondacks. In 16S4, M. de la Barre with one thousand seven hundred French, and a considerable body of Adirondacks, crossed lake Ontario and invaded the country of the Onondagas. A conference was bad with the Onondagas; Oneidas and Cayugas, three of the confederate cantons. At this conference, M. de la Barre made a speech to the assembled chiefs. He proffered peace and amity to the nation, charged them with having plundered and murdered many of the French and their allies, and demanded reparation, and threatened them with vengeance in case they refused a compliance. Garran- gula, a chief of the Onondagas on the part of the Agoneaseah made a reply. He denied that they had plundered the French or their allies, declared their inability to make satisfaction, and signified to the commander of the French, that they were willing and desi- rous of peace. A treaty was thereupon concluded, and M. de la Barre returned to Frontinac.
Very shortly after the treaty concluded at Onondaga, the Ago- neaseah interrupted the French traders going to and returning from the upper lakes, and plundered themn. In 1687, M. de Nonville, with two thousand French troops, and six hundred Adirondacks,
192
HISTORY OF THE
proceeded to the country of the Senecas; here he was joined by a : detachment from Niagara, and a considerable number of Indians. M. Companie, with the advance, surprised two or three villages about eight leagues south of lake Ontario. De Nonville, on his way to Niagara, stopped at Teoronto, (Irondequot,) a few miles east of the mouth of Genesee river, probably in the vicinage of the village of Penfield, in the county of Monroe. From Teoronto M. de Nonville marched to the principal village or town of the Sene- cas, distant about seven leagues. This village, it is likely, was Kanawageres. Here an action was fought, in which the Senecas were defeated, with the loss of one hundred and five men killed and wounded. The French after this action burned several villages, and destroyed all the corn fields around them ; they then returned to the lake, from whence they repaired to Niagara, where they erected a small fort, in which one hundred men were placed under M. de la Troye.
Soon after these occurrences the Agoneasean chiefs met Col. Dongan at Albany, and renewed the treaty. Shortly after this a body of Mohawks, accompanied by some Mohlickanders or Wabin- gas, their dependants, made an irruption into Canada, beset Cham- bly, burnt several houses, and then returned with a number of cap- tives. About the same time a marauding party of the Onondagas surprised a few French soldiers near fort Frontenac whom they led into captivity.
Ju the mean time the French proposed an armistice to the Ago- neaseah, which was accepted, and an exchange of prisoners was agreed upon. Montreal was chosen as the place for making peace. Nearly twelve hundred of the Agoneasean warriors repaired thither in order to be present. A treaty was entered into, which included the Adirondacks, and others, in alliance with France. This peace, however, was of very short duration ; the rupture was occasioned by Adario, a chief of the Dinondodies, or Dinondadies, a Huron tribe. This man, with a party, set upon and killed several of the Agonca- sean ambassadors, at one of the falls of the St. Lawrence, while they were on their way to Montreal. In this tragic scene he had the address to induce those whom he had spared to believe that he had been instigated to this atrocious deed by the French.
193 195-
STATE OF NEW-YORK.
The whole nation, on receiving intelligence of this, vowed revenge upon the French. Twelve or fifteen hundred of their warriors, animated with the fiercest feelings of the savage heart, assembled and set out on a march for Montreal. The inhabitants of that place, unacquainted with the attack and murder of the ambassa- dors, and uninformed of the expedition, were in perfect tranquility, without any preparation of defence, or any apprehension of danger. While the town was thus serene and without fear, the storm of ven- geance burst. The Agoneaseah landed on the island of Montreal the twenty-sixth of July, 1688, and immediately began their assault upon every part of the town. Nothing could exceed the destruc- tion which these enraged savages carried with them. They slaugh- tered every man, woman, and child, whom they found without the fortifications, burnt the houses, and sacked the plantations. One thousand of the French, according to some accounts, and three hundred, according to others, were massacred, and twenty-six led into captivity, where they were burned at the stake.
In October, of the same year, they made a second descent upon the same island, and desolated the lower part of it, after having killed and captured many of the inhabitants. These inroads, mas- sacres, and devastations, seem to have occasioned the sacking and burning of Schenectady, in February, 1690, by the French.
This war was kept up with great animosity between the Agonea_ seah and French until 1693, when peace was concluded between them. From the latter period, to 1755, the Agoneaseali remained on terms of amity and friendship with the French and Adirondacks, and the other tribes in alliance with them. In the wars between England and France they observed a strict neutrality. Both the English and French courted their friendship with costly presents, and endeavored to preserve peace with them. Every governor of New-York upon his arrival had to announce it to the Agoncaseal, and appoint a time to meet them at Albany. At every meeting the ancient league or covenant was renewed, and accompanied with costly gifts. And so firmly was this custom established, that an omission on the part of the governor would have been deemed a sufficient justification by these fierce savages for the commencement of hostilities.
VOL. II
25
194 196
HISTORY OF THE
The French maintained missionaries among the Onondagas, Ca- yugas, and Senecas, till their expulsion from Canada. These mis- sionaries acquired unbounded influence over them, and controlled them in all their treaties and alliances. One of these missionaries, named Joncaire, had the same influence among the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Chitowoneaughgaws, or Senecas, that Major Schuy- ler possessed among the Mohawks.
In 1712 the Monacans, or Tuscaroras, were received and incor- porated by the Agoneaseah as the sixth tribe. The Monacans were from Virginia and North Carolina. The Agoneaseah received them on a supposition that they were originally of the same stock, because there was a similitude between their languages.
The cause of the Monacan emigration was this : In the year 1711 or 1712, the Monacans entered into a plot with the Corees, a neighboring tribe of North Carolina, to murder every person then living in the infant colony of that state. Great address was shown in the management of this affair. The Monacans and Corees sent out many small parties by different roads, who entered the habita- tions of the colonists under a well dissembled friendship; and, at the appointed time, they began an indiscriminate massacre. One hundred and thirty-seven of the inhabitants were killed. Some, however, escaping gave the alarm. The militia - assembled, and forces soon after arrived from South Carolina. These, with the militia, invaded the states of the Corees and Monacans, and sub- dued them. One thousand of the latter were killed and taken ; the remainder were obliged to sue for peace, which was granted. The greater part who had escaped the sword immediately thereafter migrated to the north. The Monacans, we are assured by Capt. John Smith, in his history of Virginia, had one thousand five hun- dred warriors in the year 1607. "On the 20th of May, 1723, eighty Nicariagas, besides women and children, joined the Agonea- seah ; their country was on the north side of Michilimackinack."- See Smith's history of New-York. The Nicariagas, it is likely, were of Huron extraction.
Although the Agoneaseah preserved peace with the French and English, and Adirondacks, and other Indian tribes in the north, yet they made frequent expeditions to the south, against the Catawbas,
.
.
195
STATE OF NEW-YORK.
Cherokees, and others. They also made expeditions south-west- wardly as far as the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. All the Indian tribes to the south and south-west, as far as the countries of the Catawbas, Cherokees, and Illinoise, were subdued, and compelled to acknowledge their power. Traditionary accounts are preserved to this day among the Agoneaseah, in relation to these expeditions.
" The confederacy of the Five Nations extended their conquests as far south as Manhattan island, and had passed over to the west end of Long Island, and subdued the Canarse Indians."
"There is a tradition among the Dutch, that at the time of the first settlement of the island the Canarse tribe paid the Mohawks an annual tribute of wampum and dried clams, and that they dis- - continued the payment of it on the persuasion of the whites, in con- sequence of which a party of the conquerors came and destroyed the whole tribe, except a few who happened to be from home." -- See a Sketch of the first settlement of Long Island, by the Hon. Silas Wood, page 63.
In the same page Mr. Wood goes on and says, " Some writers have supposed that the conquest of the Mohawks extended to the whole Island, but there is no tradition to support it, and it is be- lieved that the conquest never extended beyond the territory of the Canarse Indians."
Between 1664 and 1775, several bands of the Agoneaseah emi- grated to Canada and other places. The Caughnawagas, Oswe- gatchies, and Connasedagas, were mostly from the Mohawk canton. These settled on the river St. Lawrence, at those places which still bear their names. These emigrations followed the conversion of those clans to christianity.
- The number of the Agoneaseah .- It is impossible to ascertain the number of inhabitants in the Agoneasean commonwealth at any one period. Little or no attention appears to have been given to this subject by those who had correspondence with them, and who had in some measure the means. That their numbers declined after they had intercourse with the Dutch, English, and French, cannot be disputed ; but in what ratio we are unable to say.
La Hontan says that each canton, or tribe of the Agoneasean state contained fourteen thousand souls, which would have given
.
196
HISTORY OF THE
a population of seventy thousand to the nation ; he is evidently mis- taken ; his round numbers, and his assigning an equal population to each tribe, show that he wrote from hearsay. The opinion of Col. Coursey, the Virginian agent, who had a conference with the Ago- neasean chiefs at Albany, in the year 1677, has some claims 10 truth. He estimates the warriors at only one thousand eight hun- ยท dred and fifty ; his data, however, on which he founds his estimate, are vague. He gives to the Mohawks three hundred ; to the Onei- das two hundred ; to the Onondagas three hundred and fifty ; and to the Cayugas and Senecas one thousand. Coursey has undoub :- edly underrated the Mohawks and Senecas ; the former were at the head of the confederation, and were beyond all doubt the most nu- merous ; the latter ranked next, and could not have fallen far under as to numbers. The Mohawks had, probably, five times the num- ber of warriors which he assigns to them. Lahontan, and Cour- , sey, especially the former, wrote from hearsay. We cannot, there- fore, attach much weight to their accounts. In making these re- marks we would not wish to be understood as derogating the merits of Lahontan and Colonel Coursey. In other respects, the former has furnished us with many facts in regard to the erratic tribes of North America. To obtain the exact number of any of the Amer- ican nations is very difficult, perhaps impossible ; the population is in- sulated, and scattered over a large extent of country, and is never embodied. That of the Agoneaseah was thinly spread over thirty or forty thousand square miles, and was never collected together ; so that, from the very condition that it was in, no man could find out with any degree of certainty the amount.
In 1768, when the confederacy had drawn near a dissolution, there were two thousand nine hundred and seventy warriors, if re- liance can be placed in a list made out of the tribes of several na- tions by Hutchins, in which list the Agoneaseah are included. Four years before Bouquet furnished a list, but it is incomplete. He enumerates in part the same tribes that Hutchins does. We will give statements from both lists. According to that of Hutchins, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tus- caroras, had two thousand one hundred and twenty warriors; and . the Caughnawagas, Oswegatchies, Connesadagoes, Aughiquagas,
-
197
STATE OF NEW-YORK.
Mingos, and Cohunnewagoes, eight hundred and fifty, making in all two thousand nine hundred and seventy. The reader will recol- lect that the Caughnawagas, and the other clans following them, were either emigrants or war colonies from the Agoneasean state. The list of Bouquet gives only one thousand five hundred and fifty to the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tus- caroras, which . falls five hundred and seventy under that given by Hutchins of the same tribes. In both instances the numbers are beyond all doubt overrated. But taking the statement of Hutchins for granted, the whole population of the Agoneasean nation could not have exceeded twelve or fourteen thousand souls. The Ago- neaseah, about the time the Dutch began to settle at New-York, Albany, and Schenectady, were in their meridian, and were more numerous than at subsequent periods. Their decline began with the Dutch settlements, and has continued ever since. In a sub- sequent chapter we intend to speak more fully in relation to their probable population.
The Mohawks, and some of the other confederates joined the English in the war between England and France, which was com- menced in 1755, and ended in 1763, as allies ; while the Senecas, and others, joined the French in the same character. Hendrick, the chief of the Mohawks, accompanied Sir William Johnson to the head of lake George, near which he fell in an action between the Anglo-Americans and the French. In the course of this war they were very active. Few expeditions were undertaken but what they accompanied, and did more injury to their employers than good. As the French interest declined in Canada, those who had aided that people abandoned them, and came over to the English. This occurred at Niagara, and other places. The Cayugas and Sene- cas turned the very arms which the French had given to them, against them.
After the conquest of Canada, the Agoneaseah for the most part remained at peace till 1776, when all the tribes except the Oneidas took up the hatchet against the United States, being seduced by the English agents to make common cause with England against the American people, who had just shaken off the yoke. In the early part of this year, a treaty had been negotiated with them at
198
HISTORY OF THE
Herkimer, in which they engaged to observe a neutrality. Imme- diately after, however, they commenced depredations again on the frontiers of New-York. Agents were dispatched to them in order to prevent a repetition. - They made apologies and promised to adhiere to the treaty ; but notwithstanding their promises, they shortly after renewed their depredations with increased strength, activity, and ferocity. The treaty concluded in the early part of the year, was at Fort Dayton in the town of Herkimer. General Schuyler was the commissioner on the part of the United States. All the leading men and head warriors of the Agoneaseah attended on the occasion. Large presents were made to them in order to induce them to remain neutral. In the management of this difficult and delicate affair, General Schuyler acted with the utmost prudence and skill, but it was unavailing. -
The Mohawks, who had hitherto resided on the Mohawk river, broke up their settlements at Fort Hunter, Canajoharie and Nowa- daga, and retired to Canada. The Oneidas prefering peace 10 war, and the amity of the United States to that of Great Britain, upon the suggestion of the American government removed from the banks of Onedia creek, and the contiguous parts to Schenectady, where they continued to the peace concluded in 1783, being pro- vided by government with the means of subsistence.
The Mohawks, Onondagas, Cauygas and Senecas, in the course of the war made numerous inroads into the states of New-York and Pennsylvania, especially the former state, where, in conjunction with the royalists they committed great devastations, burning the frontier settlements, and murdering the inhabitants, or dragging them into long and painful captivity. In July 1778, a large body of the Agoneaseah in company with bands of the Lenni Lenape and royalists, burst suddenly into the rich and flourishing settlement of Wyoming in Pennsylvania, and laid it entirely waste, killing most of the inhabitants. In this invasion the royalists surpassed the Agoneaseah and Lenni Lenape in cruelty. The fine settlement of Minisink in this state, shared the same fate soon after. Chemung on Tioga river, and Oquago in the county of Broome on the Sus- quehanna, were the places whence these maraunding bands set out in their destructive and bloody incursions. At these places they
1
199
STATE OF NEW-YORK.
collected provisions, arms and other munitions of war. From these places, then remote from the frontiers and surrounded with woods, and almost inaccessible to regular troops, the Agoneaseah, Lenni Lenape and royalists, easily penetrated the Minisink, Schoharie and Mohawk countries, and committed their depredations. All of their advances, attacks and retreats, were rapid and almost simul- taneous. Alarms scarcely preceded the irruptions, attacks, and retreats. The settlement of Cherry Valley in the county of Otsego, was destroyed the same year that, that of Minisink was. Colonel Brandt the chief of the Agoneaseah came up the valley from the Susquehanna with four or five hundred men including royalists, and laid the settlements entirely waste. No buildings escaped the con- flagration except those under the guns of the fort. Several of the inhabitants were murdered in cold blood ; and among those were women and children. A bare recital of the cruelties committed at "this place, makes humanity shudder. Women were ripped open and quartered, and their mangled limbs suspended on the branches of trees ; smiling infants takeu from the breasts of their mothers, had their brains dashed out. The family of the late Jolin Wells, Esquire, were all murdered, and he would have shared the same fate, had he not been at the grammar school in Schenectady. He was then about nine years old.
William Buttler, an American partizan officer. towards the close of the . same year, marched from Schoharie with a small party through the woods to Oquago, and destroyed the depot and Indian towns. On his return, he laid the Indian villages on Unadilla river waste.
To repress the inroads of the Agoneaseah, and to make them feel all the horrors of an invasion ; General Sullivan was directed in the year 1779, to march into their country with four thousand men. Tioga point in Pennsylvania, at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Tioga rivers, was fixed upon for the rendezvous of these troops. General Sullivan proceeded up the Susquehanna with three thousand men, where he was joined by General James Clin- ton, who had come by the way of the Mohawk and Cherry Valley to the outlet of Otsego lake, and thence by water down the Susquehanna. Upon the junction of these troops, General Sul-
200
HISTORY OF THE
livan began his march up Tioga river, for the country of the Sene- cas. Near Newtown in the country of Tioga, the enemy attempted to oppose him but were defeated. After this they retreated, abandoning every idea of farther resistance. Sullivan continued his march along the Tioga, up to the Conhocton, and thence to Genesee river. Then proceeding down that river, he laid all their settlements waste, burning their habitations, and destroying their corn. Eighteen towns and villages were burnt in a few days.
While General Sullivan was laying the Agoneasean settlements waste on Tioga, Conhocton and Genesee rivers, Colonel Broad- head marched from Pittsburg in Pennsylvania, with six or seven * hundred men, about two hundred miles up the Alleghany, and destroyed the towns, villages, and cornfields, belonging to the Ago- neaseah along that river. The Agoneasean settlements on that river were mostly at Tunessassah, in the counties of Warren and Mc Kean, in Pennsylvania and Cattaraugus in this state. Here the Senecas and Cayugas had several towns and villages. The reseservation now extends about thirty miles along the river Al- leghany.
Previous to these expeditions, and in the month of April in the same year, Colonel Van Schaick assisted by Liuetenant Colonel Willet and Major Cochran, marched from fort Schuyler now Utica, with five or six hundred men against the Onondagas, whom he sur- prised and routed ; twelve were killed, and thirty-four made prisoners. The houses and provisions of the Onondagas were . burnt, and the whole settlement wasted. Colonel Van Schaick returned on the sixth day, having marched one hundred and sixty miles through the woods, including egress and ingress, and without the loss of a man.
Although these expeditions did not induce the Agoneaseah and their dependents, the Lenni Lenape to come to peace, and although they did not afford perfect security to the frontier inhabitants, yet they were attended with considerable advantages. The Agonea- seah, though not conquered, were greatly intimidated. They were less terrible, and their irruptions were less frequent, and less for- midable than they had been.
201
STATE OF NEW-YORK.
-
In the year 1780, the Agoneaseab and royalists under Sir John Johnson and Colonel Brandt, invaded aud partially devastated the Mohawk and Schoharie countries. The enemy, in this invasion quickly traversed the Mohawk and Scholarie valleys. Two ac- tions were fought; the one at Palatine, and the other at Johnstown in the county of Montgomery. In the former, the Americans under Major Brown were defeated ; but in the latter, Colonel Willet kept the field and compelled the enemy to retire.
The incursions which followed the preceding invasion were con- fined to small parties, and though some individuals were usually killed, yet they were not of so serious a nature. Still, however, the border settlers were under almost daily alarms, and had to be con- stantly on the watch. An end was put to these inroads by the peace made in 1783, between Great Britain and the United States.
Dissolution of the Agoneasean confederacy .- Since 1783, the Agoneaseah do not appear to have acted in unison, The bonds which had hitherto held them together became loosened, and the several tribes acted separately in their public as well as their private transactions. The same causes which had dissolved the compacts of the hunting tribes on the coast, operated upon the Agoneaseah and weakened them, and rendered them imbecile. But these causes had not hitherto operated with such powerful effects, be- cause they had been more remote, and had not fully penetrated their domain. The Mohawk canton felt he first effects, because it came into immediate contact when the Dutch settled at Albany and Schenectady. Hence it declined, and was on the eve of a dissolution at the commencement of the revolution. The latter event accelerated it, by opening. those avenues which the royal government had been preparing, and at once completed their ruin. In 1776, the Mohawks broke up their settlements at Icanderago, Nowadaga, and other places on the banks of the Mohawk, and withdrew to Canada. The lands which they held escheated to the state. The lands which belonged to the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, were the best in the state, and consequently held out great inducements to emigrants. To obtain these lands was an object of the utmost consideration. The value and im- VOL. 15. 26
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.