USA > New York > The old New York frontier : its wars with Indians and Tories, its missionary schools, pioneers, and land titles, 1614-1800 > Part 10
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* Brant's home at this time was in Canajoharie, where he had lived since returning from the West in 1764. Theophilus Chamberlain, the mis- sionary, when sick from exposure, had been Brant's guest, and says he found him " exceeding kind."
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Indians in half an hour erected a house capable of shelter- ing us from the wet, for it rained most of the day and night succeeding.
Several days were spent in making the Otego survey and then the party returned to Colonel Crogh- an's house at the lake, from which in a few days they departed on their return home. They chose as their route the Susquehanna to Oghwaga and thence went to Cookoze on the Delaware, whence they proceeded to Easton, Trenton, and Burling- ton. Following are the most interesting points concerning the journey from the lake to Oghwaga :
May 25th-We finished and launched our canoe into the lake. She is 32 feet 7 inches in length and 2 feet 4 inches broad.
May 27th-We engaged Joseph Brant, the Mohawk, to go down with us to Aquahga. Last night a drunken Indian came and kissed Col. Croghan and me very joyously. Here are natives of different Nations almost continually. They visit the Deputy Superintendent as dogs to the bone, for what they can get. John Davies, a young Mohawk, one of the retinue, who has been educated at Dr. Wheelock's school in Connecticut, now quitted our service to march against the Catawbas.
May 29th-Myself, with Joseph Brant, his wife and child, and another young Mohawk named James, went down in the new canoe to our upper corner,* whilst the rest of the company travelled by land. This river from the lake Otsego hither is full of logs and trees and short crooked turns, and the navigation for canoes and batteaux requires dexterity.
May 31st-At 7 o'clock we decamped for Skenever's and hit the Susquehanna near two miles below. Then fol- lowing the common Indian path we arrived at the landing opposite to Yokum's House at I o'clock. He is a Dutch-
* A mile or two above the mouth of Cherry Valley Creek.
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man, but speaks good English, pays no rent as yet to Liv- ingston, built the house, but found the orchard already planted by the Indians, who also planted one at the mouth of Otego. The trees are ever tall and lofty, sometimes two hundred feet high and straight, but not pro- portionally large in circumference, except some white pines and a few particular trees of other kinds .* In the afternoon we went over the river to Yokum's House. The orchard planted by the natives is irregular and not in rows. The Indian graves in the orchards are not placed in any regular order nor shaped in one fashion. One of them was a flat pyramid of about three feet high, trenched round. Another was flatted like a tomb, and a third something like our form.
Yokum's Indian corn is planted but not yet come up. The Indians are not troublesome to him, though they often call at his house. He obtains his necessaries chiefly from Cherry Valley. Col. Morris and the Duchess lodged three nights at his house two or three weeks ago with a large train of attendants. They went over to view their tract at Una- dilla, or, as some call it, Tunaderrah. Here we met with one Dorn, a Dutchman, with his family from Canajoharie going to settle at Wywomoc .; He informs us that 130 families from his neighborhood on the Mohawk river have actually bought there and are about to remove.
June Ist-Messrs Wells and Biddle this day marked out a path to the intended store house on the creek Onoyaren- ton. . . . This evening our bark canoe being finished, at one half after five o'clock myself, Joseph Brant, his wife and child embarked in her with some loading, and Mr. Wells with James, the other Indian, in a small wood canoe contain- ing most of the Indians' baggage and our own. Enjoying a fine serene evening we descended the stream for two hours, about ten miles, to a bark hut, where we found a fire
* Eleven years after writing his journal, Smith added to the above statement the following note : "Some years afterwards John Sleeper and myself measured a birch tree growing in his meadow on the borders of Otego Creek and found it twenty-six feet in circumference." + Wyoming.
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burning. We passed the Adiquetinge on the left and the Onoyarenton on the right.
June 2nd-A bear came this morning near to us and was pursued by Brant and his dog, who, after some chase brought him in. This Mohawk it seems is a considerable farmer, possessing horses and cattle and one hundred acres of rich land at Canajoharie. He says the Mohawks have lately followed Husbandry more than formerly. In his excursion after the bear he says he was on the Onoyarenton and saw some good flats there. In an hour after our departure we arrived at the old field near the mouth of Otego, where we met William Ridgway.
We dined here in company with Mr. William Harper and Mr. Campbell, the surveyor, who are now running out Harper's patent. Ridgway and Hicks were likewise pres- ent. This field had been formerly planted by the Indians with corn and apple trees. A few of the latter remain scattered about. In three hours and three quarters from the mouth of Otego we reached a place on the East shore where we encamped. Joseph be- ing unwell, took some tea of the Sassafras root and slept in the open air.
June 3rd-We set out about seven o'clock, and in two hours we arrived at a small village of Mohiccons consisting of two houses on the right hand and three on the left, a mile above Unadilla. Here we went on shore and perceived the huts to be wretched and filled with women and children. They have cows and hogs and a little land cleared, with a garden fenced in and Indian corn planted very slovenly. Among the grass the cows were large and fat.
At this village we left our wood canoe and engaged a good looking old Indian named Una to take us down in his canoe, and pilot over to the Delaware, which is his hunting country. He took a quarter of an hour to dress himself, his wife and little Son, and then we all embarked. These vil- lagers could not speak English.
At one o'clock we arrived at an Oneida village of four or five houses, called the great Island or Cunnahunter.
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The men were absent, but a number of pretty children amused themselves with shooting arrows at a mark. The houses resembled great old barns. One squaw in the canoe suckles her son, though he seems to be between two and three years old. We saw two apple trees before a door of this village. . Forty minutes after three o'clock we passed by two Indian houses on the left, and just before us saw some Indians setting fire to the woods. Several single huts are seated on such spots, and some are now build- ing houses, and apple trees are seen by these huts.
At five o'clock we entered Ahquhaga, an Oneida town of fifteen or sixteen big houses, just at the moment of the transit of Venus, which Mr. Wells observed with a teles- cope he brought for that purpose. We took our lodgings with the Rev. Mr. Ebenezer Moseley. This village has a suburb over the river on the Western side. Here is a small wooden fortress built some years ago by Captain Wells of Cherry Valley, but now used as a meeting house. Each house possesses a paltry garden, wherein they plant corn, beans, watermelons, potatoes, cucumbers, muskmelons, cabbage, French turnips, some apple trees, salad, parsnips, and other plants. There are now two plows in the town, together with cows, hogs, fowls, and horses, which they sell cheap. We found the inhabitants civil and sober.
June 4th -- Ahquhaga contains about 140 souls, and the Tuscarora town (three miles below) about the same num- ber. At the last named place there is a shad fishery com- mon to the people of Ahquhaga also. They tie bushes to- gether so as to reach over the river, sink them with stones and haul them around by canoes. All persons present, in- cluding strangers, such is their laudable hospitality, have an equal division of the fish. Some of the women wear silver brooches, each of which passes for a shilling, and are as current among the Indians as money. Brant's wife had several tier of them in her dress to the amount perhaps of ten or fifteen pounds. . . . Brant was dressed in a suit of blue broadcloth, as his wife was in a calico or chintz gown.
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PART IV
The Border Wars Begun 1776-1777
I
Causes that Led to the Wars
1774-1777
W HILE the pioneers continued to take up land, and the missionaries pursued their labors, strained relations between the colonies and the mother-land advanced to the point of rupture. Even if war with England were to come, few anticipated that this remote and secluded land would be one of its scenes. But in a few years the Susquehanna settlers were all driven from their homes. Forest lands which their toil had turned into cultivated fields, nature was soon to be- gin her irresistible and mysterious work of restoring to the wild and primeval state.
When Sir William Johnson died, in 1774, he had seen more than a single warning that a storm was gathering in the sky, and that it might soon break in fury over the whole land. He had lived through the bitter years of the Stamp Act and its repeal ; had observed the hostility engendered by the arri- val of General Gage in Boston ; had known of the Battle of Golden Hill and the Boston Massacre, and a few months before dying had heard of the casting of tea into Boston Harbor. Possessed as he was of a vast domain, and bound to the English Government by close political and personal ties, the situation may well have been the sternest that his strong and sagacious mind ever was called upon to face. His death has been attributed to suicide, but
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this theory, which would account for its suddenness and the lack of information as to its cause, has never been well authenticated.
As the breach widened, it was seen that in Tryon County lived hundreds of patriots, and none more stanch than the Scotch-Irish of the Susquehanna, to whom hostility to England was a passion already strong, through inheritance. With the call for a Continental Congress to meet in September, 1774, prompt sympathy was shown. In the Palatine dis- trict, Colonel Guy Johnson, who had succeeded to Sir William's office, in vain endeavored to turn the current. In spite of him, the Palatine patriots, in August, a month after Sir William's death, openly declared for the Congress and for " the undeniable privilege to be taxed only with our own consent, given by ourselves or our representatives." In
Canajoharie and German Flatts the people were almost unanimous in support of these sentiments. Late in April, 1775, came news of great import from Boston. The fight at Lexington had occurred, and at Concord " the embattled farmers " again had met the red coats.
As the British had lost 273 men, and the patriots only 103, here was a grave warning. Such was the alarm, that in May, Colonel Johnson's followers actually believed the Colonel was "in great fear of being taken by the Bostonians." In consequence Johnson began to fortify at Johnstown, but the men of Cherry Valley, unawed by his course, held a stirring meeting in their church. Not only grown men and women, but children, attended it, the chief orator being Thomas Spencer, an Indian half-breed interpreter, whom Campbell describes as speaking "in a strain of rude though impassioned elo-
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quence." * In Harpersfield, a few months later, at the house of John Harper, a vigilance committee was formed, and the Palatine patriots sent a letter to the Albany committee declaring that they were resolved " to be free or die." +
Not only in Tryon County, but in Boston and elsewhere, the Americans had been prompt to realize the important part which the Iroquois might play if the quarrel came to a clash of arms. Steps to secure their sympathies were taken as early as 1774. The Mohawks were approached through the Stock- bridge Indians, and Mr. Kirkland was depended on to look after the Oneidas. Communication with Brant was opened by his old teacher, Dr. Whee- lock, but it led to a response as unsatisfactory as it was characteristic. Brant said he had not forgotten the prayers he had heard at Lebanon, that they all might " learn to fear God and honor the King."
Nor did the British overlook the Indians. Kirk- land wrote from Cherry Valley, in the winter of 1774-75 that Colonel Johnson had received orders " to remove the dissenting ministers from the Six Nations until the difficulty between Great Britain and the colonies was settled." Colonel Johnson had already interfered with Kirkland's work, and was " unreasonably jealous."
The current of opinion, much as he sought to check it, steadily advanced in a direction hostile to Colonel Johnson. Late in May, 1775, he convened at Guy Park, his residence near Amsterdam, a con-
* The active men in Cherry Valley included John Moore, Samuel Clyde, Samuel Campbell, James Scott, Samuel Dunlop, Robert Wells, James Richey, and James Moore.
t Gould estimates the population of Harpersfield at this time as about fifty, which seems too low. No more than Stone and Campbell did Gould understand the extent to which the valley had been invaded be- fore the war.
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ference with the Indians, mostly Mohawks, to which came thirty chiefs and warriors from Oghwaga and other Susquehanna villages. He had now in readiness a domestic force of some 500 men, mainly Scotch Highlanders of the Catholic faith, and over them in command he placed Colonel John Butler .* The council soon adjourned, to meet at Cosby's Manor, near German Flatts, but from this point, during the summer, Colonel Johnson and his follow- ers removed to Fort Stanwix. The current against him had become too strong everywhere, and when, late in June, he heard of the fight at Bunker Hill, he had no heart further to prolong resistance. Be- fore the month ended, he reached Oswego, and thence soon went to Canada. Campbell says few of the Mohawks ever returned to their homes on the banks of the stream that perpetuates their name. They abandoned the graves of their ancestors and never again did their council-fires burn in that val- ley.
In July, 1775, when Colonel Johnson and the Mohawks reached Montreal, they had an interview with Sir Guy Carleton and Sir Frederick Haldi- mand. Brant, in 1803, declared that at this inter- view Haldimand said to the Indians : "Now is the time for you to help the King. The war has begun. Assist the King now, and you will find it to your advantage. Go now and fight for your possessions, and whatever you lose of your property during the
* John Butler was a native of Connecticut, but had lived for many years in the Mohawk Valley. Under Sir William Johnson he had served as Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and in the Niagara cam- paign of 1759 and the Montreal expedition of 1760 commanded the Ind- ians under Johnson. He had large interests in land, but these posses- sions were confiscated after the war, and he returned to Canada. The English Government granted him a pension of $3,500 a year, with 5,000 acres of land.
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war, the King will make up to you when peace re- turns." Only the Mohawks seem to have been favorable to these proposals at that time, and not all of them, since the Lower Castle Mohawks, of whom Little Abraham was the chief, had not followed Colonel Johnson to Canada. As for the other Na- tions, four of them, in the following spring, sent dele- gates to Philadelphia for an interview with Congress. In an address to the President they said they hoped a state of friendship might "continue as long as the sun shall shine, and the waters run." They gave to John Hancock, President of Congress, the name of Karanduaan, meaning the Great Tree, a name which they afterward always knew him by.
Colonel Guy Johnson was a strict and devoted Tory. Education and early associations had helped to make him a partisan of England. Never lack-, ing in zeal for the King's cause, he was now inspired to new industry by direct instructions from London. On July 24, 1775, the Earl of Dartmouth informed him that it was the King's pleasure "that you lose no time in taking such steps as may induce them (the Six Nations) to take up the hatchet against his Majesty's rebellious subjects in America, and to en- gage them in his Majesty's service upon such plan as shall be suggested to you by Gen. Gage, to whom this letter is sent, accompanied with a large assortment of goods for presents to them upon this important occasion." It was "a service of very great importance," and he was not to fail "to exert every effort that may tend to accomplish it," or to use " the utmost diligence and activity."
In August, 1775, the patriots under General Philip Schuyler, hoping to counteract Colonel Johnson's influence with the Indians, convened a preliminary
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council at German Flatts, which met later in Albany. Colonel Barlow says about five hundred Indians reached Albany. He found them " very likely, spry, lusty fellows, drest very nice for Indians. The larger part of them had on ruffeled shirts, Indian stockings and shoes, and blankets richly trimmed with silver and wampum." On the day of the coun- cil they made " a very beautiful show, being the like- liest, brightest Indians I ever saw." Presents to the amount of 150 pounds worth of goods were made, and while the council was not wholly representative, the Indians solemnly agreed not to take up arms for either side. Of the Senecas, Mary Jemison says that for a year after the council "we were enjoying ourselves in the employments of peaceful times,"ob- viously a continuation of those idyllic times she has described in another part of her book, when " for twelve or fifteen years the use of the implements of war was not known, nor the war whoop heard, save on days of festivity "-times when, as she declared, there was peace, " if peace ever dwelt with men."
There is no doubt that the Indians who were present acted in good faith in their professed friend- ship. When finally won over to the British in the summer of 1777, the entreaties made to them suc- ceeded for two reasons. One was a desire to be re- venged for their heavy losses at the battle of Oris- kany ; the other, British appeals to their avarice.
The colonists had some hope of retaining the friendship of Sir John Johnson, Sir William's son and heir. It was believed that self-interest alone might make him cast his lot with them. But in the autumn of 1775, when approached on the subject, he replied, that "sooner than lift his hand against his King, or sign any association, he would suffer
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his head to be cut off." Sir John's Toryism was sincere. He had been knighted by George III., as a special compliment to his father. Nothing remained to cement his attachment to the royal cause. Indeed, Sir John bore the financial test. Stone could not doubt that he was a Loyalist from principle, " else he would scarcely have hazarded as he did, and ultimately lost, domains larger and fairer than probably ever belonged to a single proprietor in America, William Penn alone excepted." Sir John remained in the Mohawk Valley after Colonel Johnson's departure, but finally was arrested, and then released on parole. In May, 1776, he took alarm at the outlook, and fled precipitately, leaving behind him the family Bible, which contained the evidence that, unlike other children of Sir William, he was legitimate. Four months before his flight he had proposed to Governor Tryon and Tryon to Lord George Germaine that he "muster five hundred Indians to support the cause of govern- ment and that these with a body of regulars might retake the forts."
The immediate cause of Sir John's flight was the arrival of Colonel Dayton at Johnstown with a part of his regiment, under orders to arrest him. With a large number of his followers, Sir John fled north- ward through the unbroken forest to the Sacondaga, and thence followed the upper waters of the Hudson, avoiding Lake Champlain, since he did not know in whose possession it then was-a journey lasting nineteen days, in which the party encountered severe suffering from long marches over difficult ground and from want of food. Sir John was soon made a colonel in the British army, and organized a force called the Royal Greens, composed of Loyalists who
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had fled from the New York frontier, mainly former tenants and dependents of his estate.
The course taken by the red men who followed Colonel Johnson to Canada is not difficult to under- stand. The Mohawks in particular, and the other Indians, except for a short period, had been allies of the English for a century. To them the complaints of the colonists about taxation without representa- tion, and the throwing of tea into Boston Harbor, were quite beyond understanding. The men of Boston resisting the soldiers of General Gage were like the French of Canada who had stormed English forts on the northern frontier; they were at war with the King of England, their friend who " lived over the great lake." Even the Oneidas, the most of whom adhered to the patriots, said they could not understand the war. Sending their love to Gov- ernor Trumbull, of Connecticut, they described the quarrel as " unnatural." " You are two brothers," they said, " of one blood. We Indians cannot find, nor recollect in the traditions of our ancestors, the like case or similar instance." *
The attitude which the Oneidas maintained through the war, is clearly traceable to the influence of the New England missionaries, and notably to Kirkland. Among the Indians who had been edu-
* Of these friendly Oneidas, the most interesting and celebrated was Skenando, one of the accomplished warriors of that nation, who for long years after the Revolution continued to be known as " the white man's friend." He survived until 1816, when his age was reputed to be one hundred and ten years. Mr. Kirkland, the missionary, had converted him before the Revolution, and he remained a Christian ever afterward. Not long before his death he said to a friend who had called upon him : "I am an aged hemlock. The winds of one hundred win- ters have whistled through my branches. I am dead at the top. The generation to which I belonged have run away and left me. Why I live the Great Good Spirit only knows. Pray to my Jesus that I may have patience to wait for my appointed time to die." Skenando's grave is at Clinton, Oneida County, alongside that of Kirkland.
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cated at Lebanon for missionary work was Joseph Johnson. In 1775 he received from the Provincial Congress a message directed to the Oneidas, and about the same time the General Assembly of New Hampshire instructed him " to use his utmost en- deavors to brighten the chain of friendship which has for many years subsisted between us and them." With a letter from Dr. Wheelock he went to Cam- bridge in February, 1776, to see Washington, who wrote him a letter that he could show to the Six Nations :
You have seen a part of our strength, and can inform our brothers that we can withstand all the force which those who want to rob us of our lands and our homes can send against us. You can tell our friends that they may always look upon me, whom the whole United Colonies have chosen to be their Chief Warrior, as their brother.
Washington further said-and this is important in the light of the steps taken by the British Cabi- net to induce the Indians to fight with them-
Tell them that we don't want them to take up the hatchet for us, except they choose it ; we only desire that they will not fight against us; we want that the chain of friendship should always remain bright between our friends of the nations and us.
Samson Occum, the Indian who had now risen to great repute as a teacher and preacher for his people, also gave Johnson a letter, in which he said :
The former kings of England used to let the people of this country have their freedom and liberty ; but the pres- ent king of England wants to make them slaves to himself, and the people of this country don't want to be slaves, and so they are come over to kill them, and the people here are
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obliged to defend themselves. Use all your influence with your brethren not to intermeddle in these quarrels among the white people.
In spite of these appeals it is not difficult to un- derstand the confusion of mind which the conflict gave to the Indians. These unlettered men could see plainly that even the province of New York was not bound as a unit to the cause. Here dwelt many friends of the King, eminent and honored citizens of the province, who steadfastly adhered to the royal cause. Too much should not have been expected of the Indians. Their wisest course unquestionably would have been to remain neutral, but this to an Indian was almost impossible. First, of all things, he loved war. It was his trade, and he excelled in it. It was his accomplishment and delight, the fountain, indeed, of all things that to him seemed glorious and honorable. When, finally, in 1777, the main body cast their lot with the King, it is to be said to their credit that they were keeping the an- cient "covenant chain." With the close of the con- flict, when nothing but ruin and despair remained, they might have declared with a pride quite as just as the pride of Francis I. after Pavia: " All is lost save honor."
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