II. ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE IROQUOIS, AS A DISTINCT PEOPLE.
The first period of Indian history having thus terminated in discords, wars, and the mutual destruction of each other, tradition does not denote how long the depopulation of the country continued. It begins a second period by recollections of the Konoshioni, or Iroquois. They do not indicate what relation they bear to the ancient, broken down confederacy glanced at, in the preceding paper; but leave us to suppose that they may have been fragmentary descendants of it. That such a conclusion should not be formed, however, and in order to prove themselves an original people in the land, they frame a new myth, to begin their national existence. They boldly assert, that they were, through some means, confined in a mountain, from whose subterraneous bowels they were extricated by Taryenyawagon, the Holder of the Heavens. They point to a place at or near the falls of the Oswego river, where this deliverance happened, and they look to this divine messenger, who could assume various shapes, as the friend and patron of their nation.[24]
[24] Where the Indians dwelt for a long time, it is customary for them to affirm in their metaphorical language, that they originated, or were created. When they date from such a spot, we find they frame a story, saying that they came out of a hill, &c. at that spot. In 1791, an extensive work, consisting of ditches, &c. was found about 40 miles south of Oswego, which is not remote from the probable place of origin their traditions refer to; and it may be worthy of examination with this particular view. Some account of this old fort appeared in the N. Y. Mag. 1792.
As soon as they were released, he gave them instructions respecting the mode of hunting, matrimony, worship, and other points. He warned them against the Evil Spirit, and gave them corn, beans, squashes, potatoes and tobacco, and dogs to hunt their game. He bid them go towards the east, and personally guided them, until they entered a valley called Tenonanatchi, or the Mohawk. They followed this stream to its entrance into the Sanatatea, or, as called by the Mohawks, Kohatatea, which they pursued to the sea.
From this point they retraced their steps towards the west, originating as they went, in their order and position, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas. They do not omit the Tuscaroras, whom they acknowledged, after a long period of wandering and a considerable change of language, and admitted as the Sixth tribe of the confederacy.
The Tuscaroras affirm, that, after reaching the lake waters, they turned southwest, to the Mississippi river, where a part of them crossed on a grape vine, but it broke, leaving the remainder east. Those who went west, have been lost and forgotten from their memory. The remainder, or eastern Tuscaroras, continued their wanderings, hunting, and wars, until they had crossed the Alleghanies and reached the sea again, at the mouth of the Cautoh, or Neuse river, in North Carolina.
Each tribe was independent of the others. They increased in numbers, valor and skill, and in all sorts of knowledge necessary in the forest. But they began to fight and quarrel among themselves, and thus wasted and destroyed each other. They lived a life of perpetual fear and built forts to defend themselves, or to protect their women and children. Besides this, the country was wide and covered with large forests and lakes, and it gave shelter to many fierce wild animals and monsters, who beset their paths and kept them in dread. The evil spirit also plagued them with monstrous visitations. They were often induced to change their villages, sometimes from the fear of such enemies, and sometimes from sickness or bad luck. In this manner, and owing to their perpetual hostility, their population was often reduced. How long they wandered and warred, they do not know. At length it was proposed by some wise man that they should no longer fight against each other, but unite their strength against their enemies, the Alleghans, the Adirondacks, the Eries, and other ancient and once powerful tribes, who figure in the foreground of their early history, and who, if accounts be true, once greatly excelled them both in war and arts, the skill of making implements, canoes and utensils, &c.
To this league, which was formed on the banks of Onondaga lake, they in time, gave the name of the Long House, using the term symbolically, to denote that they were tied and braced together by blood and lineage, as well as political bonds. This house, agreeably to the allusion so often made by their speakers, during our colonial history, reached from the banks of the Hudson to the Lakes. At its eastern door stood the Mohawks, at the west the Senecas, who guarded it with vigilance.
[a.] The Mohawks.
The Mohawks are supposed to be the eldest brother, in the symbolical chain of the Six Nations. Their own tradition assigns them this rank, and it appears to be consonant to other traditions.
When Tarenyawagon, their liberator from their subterranean confinement, bid them travel east, he gave them his personal conduct and care until they had entered the Mohawk valley. Some of their western brethren call this stream Tenonanatche, or a river flowing through a mountain. In due time, they went on into the valley of the Hudson, and thence, if we credit their annals, to the sea. The seat of their power and growth was, however, in the genial valley where they had at first located. Here they lived when the country was discovered, and here they continued to live and flourish until the events of the American revolution, and the determined cruelty which they exercised, under the authority and influence of the British crown, drove them out of it, and lost them the inheritance.
It does not appear, from any thing history or tradition tells us, or from any monumental remains in the valley or its immediate vicinity, that it had before been occupied by other nations. They do not speak of having driven out or conquered any other tribe. There are no old forts or earthen walls, or other traces of military or defensive occupancy, of which we have heard. Their ramparts were rather their own brawny arms, stout bodies and brave hearts. From the earliest notices of them, they were renowned for wielding the war club and arrow with great dexterity. They raised corn on the rich intervales, and pursued the deer, bear and elk in the subjacent forests. Their dominion extended from the head waters of the Susquehanna and Delaware to Lake Champlain. They had pursued their forays into the territorial area of New-England, as far, at least, as the central portions of the Connecticut, and had made their power felt, as temporary invaders, among the small independent tribes who lived about the region of the present city and harbor of New-York. Wherever they went, they carried terror. Their very name, as we learn from Colden, was a synonyme for cruelty and dread.[25] No tribe, perhaps, on the continent, produced better warriors, or have ever more fully realized, as a nation, the highest measure of heroism and military glory to which hunter nations can reach.
[25] The word Mohawk itself, is not a term of Mohawk origin, but one imposed upon them, as is believed, by the Mohegan race, who inhabited the borders of the sea. Among this race the Dutch and English landed, and they would naturally adopt the term most in vogue for so celebrated a tribe. The Dutch, indeed, modified it to Maaquas—a modification which helps us to decypher its probable origin, in Mauqua (by kindred tribes, Mukwa, &c.) a bear. By others, it may be traced to mok, wa, a wolf, and awki, a country.
In passing over the country which they once occupied, there is little to stimulate historical interest, beyond the general idea of their power and military renown. Their history is connected with the rise and influence of one of our most distinguished anti-revolutionary citizens, Sir William Johnson. The influence he obtained over them was never exceeded, if equalled by that of any other man of European lineage. He moulded them to his purposes in peace and war. They followed him in his most perilous expeditions, and sustained him manfully, as we know, in the two great contests to whose successful issue he owed his laurels, namely, Lake George and Niagara. So completely identified were they in feeling and policy with this politic and brave man, that after his death, which happened at the crisis of ’76, they transferred their attachment to his family, and staking their all on the issue, abandoned their beloved valley and the bones of their fathers, and fled to the less hospitable latitudes of Canada, from which they have never permanently returned.
Some twenty or more persons of this tribe are mingled as residents of the villages of their brethren, the Senecas, Tuscaroras, and Oneidas. A much greater number exist with intermixture of other kindred tribes, in the St. Regis canton of St. Lawrence county; but the greater number of the parent tribe reside on lands appropriated for their use by the British government, at Brantford, on the Grand river of Canada West. To this place at the close of the war, they followed their distinguished leader, Thayendanegea, the Jephtha of his tribe, who, against the custom of birth and descent, and every other obstacle, after the failure of the line of wise and brave chiefs to lead them to battle, was made their Tekarahogea and leader, and displayed a degree of energy and firmness of purpose, which few of the aboriginal race in America have ever equalled.
What light the examination of the old places of burial of this tribe in the valley would throw on their ancient history or arts, by entombed articles, cannot be told without examinations which have not been made. Probably the old places of Indian interment about Canajoharie, Dionderoga, and Schenectady, would reveal something on this head, conforming at least, in age and style of art, with the stone pipes, tomahawks and amulets of the Onondaga and Genesee countries. The valley of the Schoharie and that of the Tawasentha, or Norman’s kill, near Albany, might also be expected to reward this species of research. [Vide B.] A human head, rudely carved in stone, apparently aboriginal, was sent to the New-York Historical Society early in 1845, which was represented to have been found in excavating a bank at Schenectady. If this piece of sculpture, which denoted more labor than art, be regarded as of Mohawk origin, it would evince no higher degree of art, in this respect, than was evinced by similar outlines cut in the rock, but not detached, by some of the New-England tribes.[26]
[26] Rude carvings of this kind are represented to exist on the banks of the Connecticut, at Bellows’ Falls, &c.
[b.] Origin and History of the Oneidas.
This canton of the Iroquois nation, deduces its origin in a remote age, from the Onondagas, with the language of which, the Oneida has the closest affinity. According to a tradition which was related to me, and which is believed to be entitled to respect, they are descended from two persons, who, in their obscure ages, and before a confederation had been thought of, went out from the people at Onondaga, and first dwelt at the head of the Oneida river. After increasing in numbers, they removed to the outlet of the Oneida creek, which flows into Oneida lake. Here they fortified themselves, and farther increased in numbers and power. Remains of this fortification are said still to exist. Their next removal was up the Oneida creek valley, to the storied locality of the Oneida stone, from which, by a figure of speech, they represent themselves to have sprung. This stone is in the town of Stockbridge, Madison county. It lies on a very commanding eminence, from which the entire valley, as far as the Oneida lake, can be seen in a clear atmosphere. The day of my visit being hazy at a distance, the lake could not be seen, although the view down the valley, was both magnificent and picturesque. This eminence was formerly covered with a butternut grove. Old, and partly decayed trees of this species, still remain in a few places. The ancient town extended in a transverse valley, south of this ridge of land, covered as it was, with nut wood trees, and was completely sheltered by it, from the north winds. A copious and clear spring of water issued at the spot selected for their wigwams. Here in seclusion from their enemies, the tribe expanded and grew in numbers. When it was necessary to light their pipes, and assemble to discuss their national affairs, they had only to ascend the hill, through its richly wooded grove, to its extreme summit, at the site of the Oneida stone. This stone, represented on the succeeding page, became the national altar.
Standing at its side, at a probable elevation of 400 or 500 feet above the Stanwix summit, they could survey the whole valley of the Oneida; and a beacon fire lighted here, was the signal for assembling their warriors, from all the surrounding lateral plains and vallies. Time and usage rendered the object sacred, and as they expanded into nationality and power, while located around it, their sages asserted with metaphorical truth, that they sprang from this rock. Stone in this language is Onia. They called themselves, Oniota-aug, people of, or who sprung from the stone. There is some variety in the pronunciation. The Mohawks call them Onéota. The French wrote it Aneyoute, the English and Dutch, Oneida, which latter has prevailed. Neither retained the plural inflection in aug, which carries the idea of people.
With a knowledge of these traditions, I approached the spot with deep interest. It occupies the extreme summit, as shown in the print. The first feeling, on approaching it, was one of disappointment at its size, but this feeling soon subsided in the interest of its antiquity and national associations. It is a large, but not enormous boulder of syenite,[27] of the erratic block groupe, and, consequently, geologically foreign to the location. There are no rocks of this species in situ, I believe, nearer to it, in a northerly or easterly direction, than the Kayaderosseras or the Adirondack mountains.[28] The summit upon which, partly embedded, it reposes, is now a cleared field, in grass. A few primitive and secondary boulders, all of lesser size, are strown about the ridge, and several of weight and magnitude rest upon its flanks, and in the vallies at its base. One of the largest of these is the White Stone at the spring, which has been spoken of, I think, in some early notices of the Oneidas, as the true Oneida Stone; but this opinion is erroneous, by the concurrent testimony of red and white men, cognizant of the facts, whom I consulted. This white stone, figured below, has been removed, by the proprietor of the land,[29] from its ancient position near the spring, to constitute part of a stone fence; it is a carbonate of lime.
[27] A specimen of the rock before me, brought thence, consists of flesh colored feldspar, quartz and hornblende.
[28] If the passage of the Mohawk through the Astorenga or Astogan hills, at Little Falls, discloses syenite, I am not aware of the fact.
[29] Mr. Job Francis.
Tshejoana, one of the Oneidas, who served as my guide in visiting this interesting location, took me to see still another stone, of note, lying a mile or more distant, in a southerly direction, on a farm of Gen. Knox. This stone, of which a figure is annexed, I found to be a large boulder of dark, compact limestone, with organic remains.
It was observable that the encrinites contained in this mass, were red. My Indian guide would have this color to be the result of the ancient Indian war paint. But the most striking characteristic of this rock, aside from its massy and flattened size and channelled centre, consists in the evidences it affords of the action of water, in rounding and polishing it. In several places, my guide would have this wearing effect to have been produced by the rubbing and sharpening of the Indian war axes; for he averred that it was customary for war parties who went out south against the Cherokees, to come and sharpen their axes upon this stone, and paint themselves for war. Whatever there was in this custom, I think he was probably mistaken in his locality; yet it is a question in which others may differ. At any rate, geology had been quite beforehand with the Oneida legendary and philosopher, in producing and accounting for these two phenomena, namely, the red color and smoothed and channelled surfaces. Geology having been mentioned, I may add the following incident. I told Skanawadi, one of my guides, while standing at the Oneida stone, lying on its proud ancient elevation, that there was no stone like this, in place, till we went north to the Adirondacks or Tehawas, or great lakes, and that this block of syenite had been brought here by the ocean, when it covered the whole land, and left on its recession. He replied, after a moment’s reflection, that “he believed this.”
At the time the Oneidas came to fix their location at this stone, the Konoshioni or Iroquois had not confederated. This people, in the early eras of their history, like the Algonquins, sent out individuals and bands, who became powerful, and assumed the character of separate and independent tribes, making war and peace ad libitum. If this mode of multiplication be compared to the lower orders of creation, it had some striking analogies with it. Like the bear and the hawk, the moment the young member was ready to quit the parent lair or nest, it had not only to forage for subsistence, but to defend itself against other bears and hawks, and all other claimants to the food of the forest. To make war is, in fact, the first and the last act of sovereignty of the pettiest of all our aboriginal tribes. War is with them the road, and the only road to fame, and the readiest way to secure a supply of spontaneous food. They fight to increase or defend the boundaries of their hunting grounds. Thus, doubtless, arose the first difficulties between the Oneidas and the other branches of the Iroquois. As soon as they were important enough to be noticed, and bold enough to defend themselves, they had to raise barriers around their villages, and when these were carried, as they probably were, or were threatened to be, at two points, on the Oneida waters, they fled to the hill country, at the site of the Oneida stone. How long they abode here, and made it the seat of their council fire, we can only conjecture. They cannot and do not pretend to tell. Wisdom, at length, taught the Iroquois sages, that they had enemies enough, without fighting with each other, and the idea of a confederation was suggested. Tradition has preserved the name of Thaunowaga as the original suggester: but it has preserved nothing more of his biography. The delegate from the Oneidas was Otatschechta. That he came from, and lived at, the locality of the stone, and was renowned for his deeds and wisdom, is probable. This comprises the brief biography of two celebrated aboriginal sages and statesmen. Three periods of transference, of their council fire, have been named, all of which were probably prior to the confederation. Their fourth remove was down the valley to the present site of Oneida Castle—a place which then, as now, they called KUNAWALOA, meaning a man’s head on a pole. At this place they lived and held their council fire, when the Dutch, in 1609, discovered and ascended the Kohatatea, or, Hudson river. Such are the accounts of their sachems and wise men. It is a general confirmation of them, that the other members call them Younger Brother.
By another and older Indian tradition, an earlier date is assigned to the Oneida canton, which is regarded as one of the original subdivisions of the generic stock. It represents this stock as moving from the west to the east, and at another period, returning towards the point of sun-setting, leaving the several separate tribes, or cantons, in their order as they passed. In this migration, the Oneidas are named as the second in geographical position and order of chronology.
They located themselves, says the Tuscarora annalist,[30] at a stream called Kaw nah taw te ruh, or Pineries, a tributary, of the Susquehanna, which originates according to this authority, in Allen’s lake, ten miles south of Oneida Castle. They were called Ne haw retahgo,[31] or Big-Tree, a name, it may be remarked, which does not occur as the patronymic for this tribe in other authors, nor has it been retained by them. The distance and course denoted, coincide very nearly with that of the Oneida stone. It is not known, however, that any tributary of the Susquehanna exists in that vicinity.
[30] Cusick.
[31] In Tuscarora.
The two traditions may indeed be reconciled to truth, by supposing the latter the more ancient one, and that the Onondaga families before mentioned, constituted a subsequent accession to, and union with a band who had seated themselves at a prior era, at the spot denoted; or this band may have remained there, on the general passage of the people eastward, and thus been the nucleus of the tribe, on the general return of the people west. In any view, however, they were called and are still called by the Iroquois, “Younger Brother,” which must be considered conclusive, that their nationality is of a period subsequent to that of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. This fact too, is adverse to the theory, which has too much the aspect of a mere theory, that the re-migration of the Iroquois westward from the Atlantic, proceeded like a marching army, leaving tribes here and there as they went, in a regular chronological order, each of which took a name, and “altered,” as his phrase is, the language. The writer seems all along, to have had the Jewish Tribes in his mind. The truth is, ethnologically speaking, no tribe or nation, alters by an authoritative decision, or pre-thought, its language or idioms. Such alterations flow from time and circumstances. Least of all, do wandering savage tribes gravely determine to “alter” their dialects. Accident, usage, or caprice, little by little, and at long intervals, is the parent of new dialects and languages.
A few deductions may be added. By data before introduced, it will have been seen that it is probable the present confederation, whatever had preceded it, did not take place till about 1539, or seventy years before the arrival of Hudson. It may be considered as probable, that the Oneidas did not remove from the Oneida stone, into the valley and plains of Oneida Castle, until after the event of the final confederation between the Five Tribes, gave them security against internal enemies. The date of this transfer of the council fire, is rather remote, but not very ancient. A new forest has grown upon the old cornfields which were once cultivated at their ancient settlement at the Oneida stone. The appearance of corn hills in rows, is still clearly perceptible in some parts of this forest. To an inquiry how such a preservation of the outlines of corn hills could be possible, my informant, who was an Oneida, answered, that in ancient times, the corn hills were made so large, that three clusters of stalks or sub-hills were raised on each circle or hill. There being no ploughs or other general means of turning up the earth, the same hill was used year after year, and thus its outlines became large and well defined. In a black walnut tree, standing on the site of one of these ancient corn-fields, which was partly cut, and partly broken off, I counted on the cut part, one hundred cortical layers, and measuring the broken part, estimated it to have 140 more. Allowing a year for each ring, the commencement of the growth was in 1555, or 16 years after the supposed date of the confederacy, and 290 years from the present date.
The remaining history of the Oneidas can only be glanced at, but has some points of peculiar interest. They are the only tribe of the ancient Konoshioni who adhered to us, at least the better part of them, in our life and death struggle of the revolutionary war, saving some portion of the Tuscaroras; whose aid, however, is justly due to the Oneida influence. It was by the Oneidas that the Tuscaroras were brought off from the south. The Oneidas had long distinguished themselves in their war excursions against the southern Indians. Their traditions are replete with accounts of these war parties against the Oyada, or Cherokees. They had found allies at the south in the Tuscaroras, who were themselves engaged in desperate wars, at various periods, against the Catabas, and Cherokees, and others. Besides this, Iroquois tradition claims the Tuscaroras as one of their original cantons, or rather as a band of the original Eagwe Heowe, who had, in early times gone south.[32] And when a crisis happened in their affairs, they nobly went to their relief, and seated them on their western confines, between themselves and the Onondagas, where they remained during the revolution. The Oneidas bore their full share in the long and bloody wars waged by Iroquois for more than two centuries, against the French in the Canadas, and against the distant Algonquins, Hurons and Illinese. And he who scans the ancient records of treaties and councils, will find that their sachems were represented in the conferences assembled on this continent, by the kings and potentates of Europe, who planted colonies at various times, between the respective Gulphs of Mexico and the St. Lawrence. After the flight of the Mohawks, in 1776, they were in the van of the Konoshioni, and to use their symbolic phraseology, stood in the eastern door of the Long House. When the mixed Saxon population of New-York and New-England began, after the war of 1776, to move westward, the Oneidas first felt the pressure upon their territory. By siding with the colonists, they had secured their entire ancient domain, from which they ceded to the State, from time to time, such portions as they did not want for cultivation, taking in lieu money annuities. Nor did they fail to profit, in a measure, by the example of industry set before them in agriculture and the arts. For a while, it is true, they reeled before the march of intemperance, and sunk in numbers, but many of them learned the art of holding the plough. From the earliest times they were noted, along with their more western brethren, for the cultivation of Indian corn, and the planting of orchards. They also became tolerable herdsmen, and raised in considerable numbers, neat cattle, horses and hogs.
[32] Vide Cusick’s pamphlet.
To preserve their nationality, their sachems, about the year 1820, sent delegates west to look out a location for their permanent residence. They purchased a suitable territory from the Monomonees of Wisconsin, a wandering and non-industrious race, seated about Green Bay, and expended a part of their annuities in the payment. This turned out a wise measure. They soon began to remove, and have at this time a very flourishing settlement on Duck river, in that territory. At that location they have established schools, temperance societies and a church. They bear a good reputation for morals and industry, and are advancing in civilization and the arts.
By an official return of the date of 1844, they numbered 722 persons at that settlement. Two hundred and ten are still seated within the boundaries of New-York, mostly in Oneida county. They are a mild people, of a good stature, and easy manners, and speak a soft dialect of the Iroquois, abounding in the liquid l, which, together with a mild enunciation, imparts a pleasing character to their speech.
[c.] Onondagas.
Onondaga was, from the remotest times, the seat of the Iroquois government. Granting credence to the account of their own origin, on the high grounds or falls of the Oswego, they had not proceeded far up the course of the widely gathered waters of this stream, when a portion of them planted their wigwams in this fertile region. Whatever was the cause of their migrating from their primary council fire, nothing was more natural than that, by pursuing this stream upward, they should separate into independent tribes, and by further tracing out its far spread forks, gradually expand themselves, as they were found by the discoverers and first settlers, over the entire area of western New-York. On reaching the grand junction of Three River Point, a part went up the Seneca river, who subsequently dividing, formed the Senecas and Cayugas. The bands who took the eastern fork, or Oneida river, pushed forward over the Deowainsta, or Rome summit, into the first large stream, flowing east, and became the Mohawks. The central or Onondaga fork was chosen by the portion who, from the hill country they first located in, took this name; and from them, the Oneidas, pursuing in fact the track of the Mohawks, were an off-shoot. That such was the general route, and causes of their separation, appears as evident as strong probabilities, in coincidence with their own traditions and modern discovery, can make it. That the whole of the original number who started from the south banks of Lake Ontario, did not keep together till they reached the valley of the Hudson and the sea, and then go back to the west,—for so their general tradition has it, is also both reasonable and probable to suppose. Large bodies of hunters cannot keep long together. They must separate to procure food, and would separate from other causes. The first effect of their separation and spread into various rich vallies, abounding in game, nuts and fish, was a rapid increase in population. The next, to become overbearing, quarrel about territory, and fight. They were compelled to build forts to defend their stations, or secure their women and children, at night, and by this system, kept down their population to about its first point of increase. It is altogether probable that they did not more than maintain, for ages, a stationary population, which occasionally went down by disease and other calamities, and again revived, as we know that natural causes, in the laws of vitality, will revive a people quickly, after the scourge of pestilence.
The idea of a confederation was, it is believed, an old one with this people, for the very oldest traditions speak of something of this kind, among the lake and St. Lawrence tribes of older days. When the present league was formed, on the banks of the Onondaga lake, this central tribe had manifestly greatly increased in strength, and distinguished itself in arms, and feats of hunting and daring against giants and monsters, for in such rencontres their traditions abound.
Most distinguished, however, above all others, east or west, was a leader of great courage, wisdom and address, called Atotarho; and when they proposed to form a league, this person, who had inspired dread, and kept himself retired, was anxiously sought. He was found, by the Mohawk embassy, who were charged with the matter, sitting as he is represented in the annexed cut, composedly in a swamp, smoking his pipe, and rendered completely invulnerable, by living serpents. These animals extended their hissing heads from all parts of his head and body. Every thing about him, and the place of his residence, was such as to inspire the utmost fear and respect. His dishes and spoons were made of the skulls of enemies, whom he had slain in battle. Him, when they had duly approached with presents and burned tobacco in friendship, in their pipes, by way of frankincense, they placed at the head of their league, as its presiding officer. They collected a large quantity of wampum, and invested him with a broad belt of this sacred article. I found the original drawing of this personage, from which the above is reduced, in the summer of 1845, in the house of a Seneca on the Cattaragus reservation. The owner of this curious pictorial relic, on being asked, proceeded to a chest and carefully took it from its envelope, and allowed me to make a copy. It represents Atotarho, at the moment of his discovery, by the Mohawk delegation.
The right thus awarded to the Onondagas, to furnish a presiding officer for the league, has ever been retained, and is still possessed by that canton. To the Mohawks, at the same time, was awarded the Tekarahogea, or chief war captain—an office, however, of the general recognition of which, there is a disagreement amongst interpreters.
A singular tradition may be here added. It is said that the XIIIth Atotarho reigned at Onondaga when America was discovered. [[D].]
Giving to each Atotarho[33] a rule of fifteen years, and taking Hudson’s voyage as the period the Indians allude to, we should have A. D. 1414, as the era of the present confederacy, in place of 1539, before mentioned on the authority of a general tradition recorded by Pyrlaus. We cannot, however, place much reliance upon Cusick’s chronology.
[33] Incidental circumstances have led to the substitution of the above head for the original figure.
[d.] Cayugas.
The history of this canton does not stand out prominently among the Iroquois while it will be found that as one of the inclusive tribes who carried their name and fame so high among the aborigines, they have performed their due part, and produced warriors, sages and speakers of eminence. Were every thing else, indeed, blotted out of their history, the fact of their having produced a Logan[34] would be sufficient to rescue their memory from oblivion. In their early search after a place to hunt, fish and plant corn, as an independent tribe, they, on the assumption of their own traditions, passed up the Seneca river, into the sylvan and beautiful lake which bears their name. In visiting this lake the present year, in search of their ancient sites, it was not without a melancholy interest, that I surveyed, within the boundaries of Aurora, the remains of one of those apple orchards, which were ruthlessly cut down by a detachment of the army of Gen. Sullivan, in his severe but necessary expedition in 1778. Many vestiges of their ancient residence still remain in Cayuga county, nor has local memory, in its intelligent and hospitable inhabitants, dropped from its scroll the names of several of its distinguished chiefs, and their places of abode. They point to a spot at Springport, now trenched on by the road, where lie the remains of Karistagea, better known by his English appellative of Steeltrap, one of their noted chiefs and wise men, who extended the hospitalities of his lodge to the first settlers on the “Military Tract.” The nation itself, although they had fought strenuously under the Red Cross of St. George in the Revolutionary war, appeared to be composed of mild and peaceable men, of friendly dispositions towards the settlers. They brought venison, fish and wild fruits for sale to the doors of families, whose elder branches yet dwell upon the shores of the Cayuga.
[34] Logan was the son of Skellelimus, a Cayuga, and went early to the Ohio valley, if he were not born there.
Yet their history is a melancholy one, and their decline, on the settlement of Western New-York, was probably one of the most striking instances of the rapid depopulation of a tribe in modern days. Their first cession of land to the State was in 1789. This was confirmed at the general treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1790, and such had been the pressure of emigration into that quarter, that in 1795, at a treaty held at Cayuga bridge, they ceded their reserve of one hundred miles square in the valley of the Seneca outlet and the basin of Cayuga lake, reserving but four miles square. In these treaties they deemed themselves wise to change into large money annuities,[35] a territory which was no longer useful for hunting, and which they did not cultivate.
[35] A perpetual annuity of $2,300 was secured by one of these treaties.
Experience has shown, however, throughout America, that Indian tribes, who live on annuities, and not by agricultural labor, are in the most dangerous condition of rapid decline. To render the danger eminent, it needs but the close proximity of a European population, who present the means of indulging selfish gratifications. Among these means, so seductive to the Indian mind, ardent spirits have ever been the most baneful. It proved so at least with the Cayugas, for within sixteen years after the treaty of Fort Stanwix, they had all emigrated west. Some of them had rejoined their brethren, who followed Brant and the Mohawks to Canada. Some had migrated to Sandusky, in Ohio, and others found a refuge among the Senecas, near Buffalo. With the Senecas they have ever been on most intimate terms. Whilst they lived on the Cayuga lake, and the latter on the Seneca, they were separated by a midland range of forest, little more than 16 miles broad. They intermingled freely in their hunting parties, and even in their villages. The inhabitants still point to a large tree near Canoga, on the banks of Cayuga lake, where the celebrated orator Red Jacket was born.
In investigating the Indian population of New-York, under the provisions of the census act, I found 114 Cayugas residing in twenty families, on the Cattaragus reservation. These families cultivate 316 acres of land, and during the year 1845, they raised 1,970 bushels of corn, 1,622 of oats, 210 of wheat, 955 of potatoes, and 277 of buckwheat, besides esculents and small articles. They were found to possess 43 milch cows, 39 horses, 40 sheep, and 109 hogs. Besides the Cayugas residing on the Cattaragus, there were found, dispersed among the other cantons, 83 persons; making the whole number within the boundaries of New-York, 197. The style of their dwellings is, generally, that of squared timber, plainly but comfortably furnished, with glass windows, and plain common furniture. Sixteen of the number are members of Protestant churches. The males dress exclusively in the European fashion, and their condition and prospects are, like those of the Senecas, among whom they dwell, in a high degree encouraging to the friends of humanity. Of the number out of the bounds of the State, there have been no accurate means of judging. The vocabulary of their language (vide appendix O) will denote its close affinities with other tribes of this family.
From a remark made to me, by a daughter of Brant, (the late Mrs. Kerr,) at her house near Wellington square, Canada, in 1843, I am inclined to think, that in the early wars waged by the Iroquois against the Virginia Indians, the Cayugas defeated and made prisoners the remnant of the Tuteloes, whom they brought and settled among them, in the Cayuga country.
[e.] History and origin of the Senecas.
One of the first traits which strikes an observer on entering the territory of this tribe, is the fact that they are called by a name which is not known in their vocabulary, and which they only recognize from having long been thus designated by others. Identical as it is in its present orthography, with the name of the Roman moralist, it is yet wholly improbable that it had any such origin; it must be regarded as an accidental coincidence of sound in some other Indian tongue. That this tongue is the Mohawk, a people who stood first in position east on the Iroquois borders, is probable, but not certain. The earlier authors spelt it with a k, with the a final, which probably had the usual broad sound. It occurs on a map of 1614, which was brought over from Holland recently, by the historical agent of the State, and has been laid, by that gentleman, before the New-York Historical Society, with the proofs of its genuineness, thus bringing the use of the word within five years of the voyage of Hudson.
The term by which they call themselves is Nundowaga, or the People of the Hill. A name which leads us at once to consider the accounts of their own origin. Various relations of this story have been given, differing in some of their details, but all coinciding in the main events, namely: that they originated and lived on a well known hill, at the head of Canandaigua lake, where they were put in eminent peril of utter destruction by a monstrous serpent, which circled itself about the fort and lay with its mouth open at the gate. The following is given from a native source, and has some novel details to recommend it.
While the tribe had its seat and council fire on this hill, a woman and her son were living near it, when the boy, one day caught a small two-headed serpent, called Kaistowanea, in the bushes. He brought it home as a pet to amuse himself, and put it in a box, where he fed it on bird’s flesh and other dainties. After some time it had become so large that it rested on the beams of the lodge, and the hunters were obliged to feed it with deer; but it soon went out and made its abode on a neighboring hill, where it maintained itself. It often went out and sported in the lake, and in time became so large and mischievous that the tribe were put in dread of it. They consulted on the subject one evening, and determined to fly next morning; but with the light of the next morning the monster had encircled the hill and lay with its double jaws extended before the gate. Some attempted to pass out, but were driven back; others tried to climb over its body, but were unable. Hunger at last drove them to desperation, and they made a rush to pass, but only rushed into the monster’s double jaws. All were devoured but a warrior and his sister, who waited in vain expectancy of relief. At length the warrior had a dream, in which he was showed that if he would fledge his arrows with the hair of his sister, the charm would prevail over their enemy. He was warned not to heed the frightful heads and hissing tongues, but to shoot at the heart. Accordingly, the next morning he armed himself with his keenest weapons, charmed as directed, and boldly shot at the serpent’s heart. The instantaneous recoiling of the monster proved that the wound was mortal. He began in great agony to roll down the hill, breaking down trees and uttering horrid noises, until he rolled into the lake. Here he slaked his thirst, and tried by water to mitigate his agony, dashing about in fury. At length he vomited up all the people whom he had eaten, and immediately expired and sunk to the bottom.[36]
[36] If this be viewed as an allegory, it may admit of this interpretation. Internal feuds created by somebody brought up in their own lodges, originated hatred and hot blood. In a long and bloody war, the nation was nearly exterminated; at length the affections of a woman prevailed. Harmony was restored, and a new era of prosperity began, by removing the council fire to another place.
The fort was immediately deserted, and all who had escaped went with their deliverer to, and fixed their council fire on, the west shores of Seneca lake, where Geneva now stands.
The general course of the migration and conquests of the Senecas has, however, been towards the west. Taking their own general and ancient traditions of the parent stock, to wit, their origin in the valley of the Oswego, they may be supposed to have followed the Seneca branch of those outspread waters to the banks of the Seneca and Canandaigua lakes, and thence into the rich valley of the Genesee. At an early day they were limited to the region east of this capital stream, which, crossing the country in a transverse direction, formed a natural boundary. There lived west of it, in ancient times, a tribe who are known as Alleghans, Andastes and Eries, or, as the Senecas call them, Kah-Kwahs. They had their council fires at or near Buffalo, extending west and also east. The people called by the French the Neuter Nation, had placed themselves, so far as we can learn, on the waters of Oak-Orchard creek, which draws its tributaries in part from the fertile districts of Genesee, Niagara and Orleans counties. From the accounts of the Tuscaroras, [[D].] this people were governed in early times by a queen, who ruled over twelve forts in that quarter. North of them, embracing the Niagara ridge and the country below it, dwelt a branch of the Algonquin nation, who are called by the same authority, Twankannah. Other names occur, which are believed to be either synonymes for these, or minor divisions of the three principal tribes named, of which some further notice will be taken in a subsequent paper on the antiquarian remains of the country.
That these Trans-Genesean people were populous and warlike, not only maintaining their grounds against the Senecas, but often defeating them and driving them back, is proved not only by the traditions of the Senecas themselves, but by the striking evidences of their military strength and skill, denoted by the remains of forts and intrenchments and cemeteries, yet existing throughout the extensive area, included between the Genesee and the Niagara, extending up the southern shores of Lake Erie to Chautauque and the other principal known Indian routes to the waters of the Alleghany and Ohio. There is, at least, one authority[37] for believing that the Eries themselves were remotely descended from the Senecas, and we have living tradition to prove [VIII.] that, at the time of their final defeat and so called extermination, some of them fled west, whilst the remainder of them, scattered, cut up and depressed, were incorporated in the Seneca canton.
[37] Cusick.
To the Twankannas, the Neuter Nation, and other tribes and bands, not being Eries, who lived in this portion of the State, the Iroquois applied the general term of Adirondacks,[38] a bold, warlike, northern race, who spread over many degrees of latitude and longitude in former days, covering, by generic affiliation with other tribes, all New-England and the Atlantic coast, to North Carolina, and who are still, in their numerous and subdivided descendants, in the upper lakes and the west, the most numerous of any of the aboriginal stocks yet existing east of the Mississippi and Missouri. So long as the Iroquois remained divided, the Eries and their Algonquin allies kept their ground; and there is no reason to believe that they began to decline until a considerable period after the era of the Onondaga league. That league was at first but little more than an agreement to stand by each other, and to send delegates and forward news to a central council; but it put an end to intestine wars, and its popular capacities soon developed themselves, and made it formidable to their neighbors. Thus much by way of prelude to their wars, to be noticed hereafter.
[38] Called Algonquins by the French.
The Senecas were from the earliest times the most powerful of the Iroquois, nearly doubling, in its best estate, the Mohawks. Their population in past days has been variously estimated, and often exaggerated. Perhaps Dalton, who puts it at 400 warriors, or 2,000 souls, during the American war, verges to the opposite extreme, and actually underrates it. Be this as it may, I found the entire Seneca population, within the State, to be 2,383, residing on four reservations in the counties of Niagara and Genesee, Erie, Chautauque, Cattaraugus and Alleghany. They were found to be divided into 538 families, who cultivated, in the aggregate, 8,416 acres of land. The produce of this land, as near as it could be obtained, as some declined stating it, was 21,341 bushels of corn, 3,745 of wheat, 20,039 of oats, and 12,469 of potatoes, besides buckwheat, turneps, peas, and smaller articles. They possess 1,537 neat cattle, 510 milch cows, 626 horses, 335 sheep, and 2,269 hogs. Other details of their advance in agriculture were equally flattering. They cut large quantities of meadow land, possess an adequate supply of farming utensils, carts, wagons, including many tasty buggies and sleighs. Very little of their means of subsistence, even in the most unfavored positions, is derived from the chase. Upwards of 4,000 fruit trees were counted. The style of their buildings, fences and household furniture, as well as the dress of the males, is not essentially different, and little, often nothing at all, inferior to that of their white neighbors. Temperance and temperance societies exist in a good state in each canton. Fifteen of their youth have received a collegiate or academic education. A number of these have studied professions. About 350 of the children attend private or missionary schools, and so far as I could obtain returns, some 250 adults are enrolled as members of Protestant churches. Of this number, there are several catechists and intelligent educated translators and interpreters of the language. On the four reservations, there are fifteen native mechanics and three physicians.
Thus it appears that the energies once devoted by their ancestors to war and hunting, are in good earnest now directed to husbandry and the arts; and there is every encouragement to hope, and reason to believe, that by a continuance in the best measures, they will be wholly reclaimed and added to the number of useful, intelligent and moral citizens. In viewing the condition of such a people, hardy, well formed and active, and pressing forward, as they are, in the great experiment of civilization, humanity consoles itself with the hope, that the energy and firmness of purpose which once carried them, in pursuit of warlike glory, far and wide, will develope itself, as it has already signally commenced to do, in the labors of the field and the workshop. Their rude picture-writing upon the bark of trees, has given place to the school. Their prophets’ lodges have been converted into churches; their midnight orgies, at the Indian dancing house, into societies to promote temperance. It is but applying present experience to future results, to predict that these results may become general. The eloquence thrown out by a Red Jacket, in opposition to the further curtailment of their territory may shine out, in some of his descendants, to enlighten his people in agriculture, morals and political economy. Nor ought we to doubt that the desk and the forum are yet to resound with Seneca eloquence.
[f.] Tuscaroras.
The traditions of this canton affirm, that they are descendants of the original family of Iroquois, who began their existence, or their nationality, at least at or near the falls of the Oswego. After the migration of the parent tribe towards the sea, and their return west and separation into tribes, this band went on west till they reached Lake Erie. From hence they travelled southwest till they reached the Mississippi. Part of them crossed the river, and they were thus divided. Those who went over, became, in time, the enemies of such as remained on its eastern banks, and were finally lost and forgotten from their memory.
Terenyawagon, the Holder of the Heavens, who was the patron of the home bands, did not fail, in this crisis, to direct their way also. After giving them practical instructions in war and hunting, he guided their footsteps in their journies, south and east, until they had crossed the Alleghanies, and reached the shores of the sea, on the coasts which are now called the Carolinas. They were directed to fix their residence on the banks of the Cau-tan-o, that is, a Pine in the water, now called Neuse river, in North Carolina. By this time their language was altered, but not so much but that they could understand each other. Here Terenyawagon left them to hunt, increase and prosper, whilst he returned to direct the remaining Five Nations to form their confederacy. Thus far the Tuscarora annalist. History picks up the Tuscaroras precisely where tradition and fable leave them. On the settlement of Virginia and the Carolinas, they were found to be the first nation of any stability of purpose, after passing the Powhatanic tribes, in proceeding south. The intervening coast tribes were petty chieftaindoms, few in numbers and disunited in action or policy. They were essentially ichthyophagi. They soon fell before the two-fold influence of idleness and rum, and have left little or no history, or traits worth preserving. Such is the history of the Chowanokes,[39] the Maratocks, and the Mangoacks, who, in one hundred and twenty years from the date of Raleigh’s patent, had dwindled from 6,000 to forty-six bowmen.[40]
[39] Mr. Jefferson thinks (vide Notes, p. 152, London ed. of 1787,) that this tribe was connected with the Tutelos, Nottaways and Meherrins of Virginia.
[40] Williamson.
The Tuscaroras, who lived in the game country, on the skirts of the mountains, showed themselves at the mouths of Cantano or Neuse, Contentny, and Taw rivers. They were, at the time, numerous and warlike, and as inimical to the inhabitants of the Carolinas, as they were numerous. They were at war with the Catabas, the Cowetas and the Cherokees. Numbers, bravery and success, and abundance of animal food, made them haughty, and they evinced the disposition of their northern brethren, by trying to subjugate and break down their neighbors. What they had done with red men, very effectually, it must be confessed at least with the Catabas, they thought they might do with the Hugenots of France, the cavaliers of England, and the protestants of the baronetcy of Graffenried in Germany. It is not improbable, indeed, that, at a prior era, the Tuscaroras were the very people who had exterminated the colony left on Roanoke island, under the first attempts of Sir Walter Raleigh to colonize Virginia. But, if such were the fact—a mere conjecture at best—they mistook their present neighbors and their own position in attempting to repeat the act.
This scheme was, however, deeply laid, although it appeared to be a matter hastily executed. They had long felt a growing jealousy of the encroaching settlements, and gave vent to it, the first occasion that offered, by seizing Lawson the surveyor-general of the Province, on a trip up the Neuse, and after a kind of trial before a council, putting him to death. The Baron Graffenried, who was with him, and was also condemned, but saved, on an appeal on the ground of his being a man of rank and not an Englishman; but they kept him a prisoner, while they proceeded to execute their ill-advised and nefarious plot, which was nothing less than the massacre of the entire colony in one day. The day fixed for this tragedy was the 22d of September, 1711. Williamson[41] thinks it was an impulsive movement arising from the killing of Lawson, who being a public officer, they felt themselves committed in a war, and resolved to proceed with the bloody work. For this purpose they divided themselves into small bands of six or seven, and entering the settlements at various points, they struck down with the tomahawk on one day one hundred and thirty persons. To conceal their intentions, they had left their arms, and relied on their hatchets alone. In this plot, they were assisted by the sea-coast bands of Corees, Mattamuskeets and Bear-river Indians, some three or four tribes, denoting a league and maturity in the attempt. But the plan did not succeed to their wishes, for besides that the colony consisted then of nearly two thousand men, much spread, it must needs have happened that many at the time of attack, would be absent from their homes. The colonists rallied, and prepared to carry the war home to their subtle assailants. They asked the aid of South Carolina, which came gallantly to their rescue. The Legislature of that Province having granted four thousand pounds, placed Col. Barnwell at the head of a small detachment of armed men, supported by a large body of Cherokees, Creeks and Catabas, the deadly enemies of the Tuscaroras. He killed, in various actions, thirty Tuscaroras, and fifty of the sea-coast auxiliaries, and took two hundred women and children of the latter prisoners, and returned. The war thus commenced was continued, with various results for some few years. The aid of Virginia, as well as South Carolina was invoked the next year. The Tuscaroras also made vigorous exertions. They were well provided with arms and ammunition, and despatched runners to the Senecas for aid. Their auxiliaries, the Mattamuskeets, Corees and others killed or made prisoners the next winter, forty inhabitants of the Island of Roanoke or Croatan. The Tuscaroras prepared to maintain their power by entrenching themselves behind a picketed work on the river Taw. This work, called fort Naharuke, stood on a plain beside a creek, and consisted of a rampart of earth, covering the whole ground occupied, defended with palisades. To protect themselves from artillery, they had dug within this wall, square pits of earth, six feet deep, covered with poles, and connected by a wall of earth. They were well provided with corn and ammunition, and had the means of standing a siege, had they made a wise provision for water. To obtain this necessary article, they relied on an artificial ditch leading to the stream.
[41] Hist. North Carolina.
To this aboriginal fort Col. Moore of South-Carolina, drove them from the lower country with 40 musketeers and 800 Indians, in the early part of the winter of 1713, after having been detained on his march by a deep snow. He immediately saw the mistake of the water trench, and placed cannon to rake it. He then fortified the only passage or point of land, where the Indians would be likely to escape, and began regular approaches to the work, which he entered on the 26th of March, 1713, taking 800 Tuscaroras prisoners. It is not said how many were killed. He had lost of his army, during the siege, 22 white, and 36 red men killed, and 29 of the former, and 50 of the latter wounded. The Cherokees and their allies claimed the prisoners, who were taken to the south, and sold as slaves, a part, as we are left to infer, being offered by the southern Indians, to appease the spirit of retaliation for prior losses by them.
This brought the tribe to terms, and they entered into preliminaries of peace, by which they agreed to deliver up twenty men, who were the contrivers of the plot, and who took Lawson and Graffenried; to restore all prisoners, horses and cattle, arms and other property; to treat and pursue the Mattamuskeets and their other allies, as enemies; and finally, to give two hostages for the peaceable conduct of each of their towns.
During the following summer, the chief called “King Blount,” brought in thirty scalps from his miserably treated allies; “but the greater part of the nation,” says the historian before quoted, “unable to contend, and unwilling to submit, removed to the northward, and joined the Seneca, and other confederate tribes on the frontiers of New-York.[42] Those who remained, were to have settled between the Neuse and Taw rivers; but an Indian war having broken out in the southern colonies in 1715, only three months after the peace, with the Corees and their other former allies, the Tuscaroras, now the remains of a broken down tribe, feeble in numbers and power, obtained permission to settle on the north side of the Roanoke river, on a reservation, where some of them were living in 1803.
[42] Williamson.
The whole number of Indians living in North Carolina in 1708, estimating their fighting men, were 1,608, of whom, the Tuscaroras constituted 1,200, which would give them, on the ordinary principle of estimating their population, 6,000 souls. Two thirds of the whole number of their fighting men were captured at the taking of fort Naharuke in 1713. How many were killed on other occasions is not certainly known; but it is probable that in this short war of but three years duration, and owing to the desertion of families, death by sickness, want, and other casualties consequent upon the surrender of Naharuke, they sunk to almost immediate insignificance. Those who fled to their kindred in western New-York, were never counted. They were estimated, perhaps high, at 200 warriors, in 1776. They were located at first, immediately west of, and in juxtaposition to the Oneidas, along with whom, they are mentioned as being secured in their rights, by the treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1784. But in fact, they had no independent claim to territory, living merely as guests, although the confederacy had admitted them as an integral member, after their disastrous flight from North Carolina, calling themselves no longer the Five, but the Six Nations. The Senecas gave them lands on the Niagara Ridge, after the American revolution; these were subsequently secured to them in a reservation made by the State, in the present bounds of Niagara county. Here they have continued to dwell, having added to their possessions, by an early purchase from the Holland Land Company, made with the avails of the sale of their reservation north of the Roanoke, in North Carolina.
But if the Tuscaroras have erred in policy, and sunk in numbers, with a rapidity and in a ratio unequalled by any other members of the confederacy, if we except the Onondagas and Cayugas, they may be said to have grown wise by experience. Low as their present numbers are, they hold an exalted rank among their brethren for industry, temperance, and their general advance in arts, agriculture and morals.
I found, on making the enumeration, 283 persons living in 53 families, of whom 151 were males and 167 females. These families cultivated the past year 2,080 acres of land, on which they raised 4,897 bushels of wheat, 3,515 of corn, 4,085 of oats, 1,166 of potatoes, besides limited quantities of peas, beans, buckwheat and turnips. They possess 336 neat cattle, 98 milch cows, making 7,537 pounds of butter, 153 horses, 215 sheep, and 596 hogs.
When it is considered that this enumeration gives an average of six neat cattle, three horses, (nearly) two milch cows, (nearly) 10 hogs, and 92 bushels of wheat, 966 of corn to each family, their capacity to sustain themselves, and their advance as agriculturists will be perceived. Fifty-nine ploughs were found amongst fifty-three families. They cut 195 acres of meadow to sustain their cattle. They have over 1,500 fruit trees, and dwell in excellent frame or square-timber houses, well finished, and for the most part well furnished. I noticed one edifice of stone, in the process of building, seated on rising grounds, amidst shade trees, which denotes both wealth and taste. Other results of civilization are to be already observed. Among these there are no slight indications of classes of society, arranging themselves, as rich and poor, intelligent and ignorant, industrious and idle, moral and immoral.
Of the entire population, 63 are church members, and 231 members of temperance societies, which is a far higher proportion than is found in any other of the cantons.
[g.] Necariages.
The Tuscaroras were probably admitted into the confederacy about 1714. Nine years afterwards the Iroquois received the Nicariages. Under this name the long expatriated Quatoghies, or Hurons, then living at Teiodonderoghie or Michilimackinac, were taken into the confederacy as the Seventh Tribe, or canton. This act was consummated in the reign of George II., at a public council held at Albany on the 30th May, 1723, on their own desire. A delegation of 80 men, who had their families with them, were present. Of this curious transaction but little is known. For although done in faith, it was not perceived that a tribe so far separated from the main body, although now reconciled, and officially incorporated, could not effectually coalesce and act as one. And accordingly, it does not appear, by the subsequent history of the confederacy, that they ever came to recognize, permanently, the Necariages as a Seventh Nation. The foundation for this act of admission had been laid at a prior period by the daring and adroit policy of Adario, who had so skilfully contrived to shift the atrocity of his own act, in the capture of the Iroquois delegates on the St. Lawrence, on the Governor-General of Canada.
It has been mentioned, in a preceding page of this report, that the Iroquois recommended their political league as a model to the colonies, long before the American revolution was thought of. And it is remarkable that its typical character, in relation to our present union, should have been also sustained, in the feature of the admission, if not “annexation,” of new tribes, who became equal participants of all the original rights and privileges of the confederacy.
[h.] St. Regis Colony, or Band.
This community is an off-shoot of the Iroquois stock, but not a member of the confederacy. It originated in the efforts commenced about the middle of the 17th century, by the Roman Catholic church of France, to draw the Iroquois into communion with that church. It was, however, but a part of the public policy, which originated in the reign of Louis XV., to colonize the Iroquois country, and wrest it from the power of the British crown. When this effort failed,—replete as it was with wars, intrigues and embassies, battles and massacres, which make it the heroic age of our history, the persons who had become enlisted in the ritual observances of this church, were induced to withdraw from the body of the tribes, and settle on the banks of the St. Lawrence, in the area of the present county of St. Lawrence. It was, in effect, a missionary colony. Its members were mostly Mohawks, from Caughnawaga, with some Oneidas, and perhaps a few of the Onondagas, amongst whom there had been Catholic missions and forts established, at early dates.
The exertions made to organize this new canton were, politically considered, at direct variance with the colonial policy of New-York, and were therefore opposed by the persons entrusted by the crown with Indian affairs, and also by the councils of the confederacy.
Those persons who composed it assimilated in faith, and almost as a necessary consequence, they soon did so in politics.[43] They went off in small parties, secretly, and after they had become embodied and located, they were regarded, in effect, as foreign Indians, and were never recognized or admitted to a seat in the confederacy. The feeling caused by this separation, among the tribes themselves, amounted to bitterness, and it is a feeling which, I had occasion to observe on one occasion, is not forgotten by the existing cantons even at this day.
[43] Some exceptions to this existed. The noted chief called Col. Louis, who rendered the American cause such essential service, during the siege of Fort Stanwix, in 1777, was of the St. Regis tribe, agreeably to information given to me, at Oneida Castle, the present year, by Abraham Dennie.
The St. Regis colony increased rapidly, but had some extra stimulants to promote its growth, its success being equally dear to the political and ecclesiastical policy of France. It became a thorn to the frontier towns and settlements of New-England, during the whole of the old French war, so called, and of the American revolution. Some of the forays of this band into the Connecticut valley were productive of thrilling and heart rending events, as those must have realized who have had their youthful sympathies excited by narrations of the touching captivities of the Hows and the Williams, of that valley.
When the 54° parallel came to be drawn, under the provision of the treaty of Ghent, it cut the St. Regis settlement unequally in two, leaving the church and the larger portion of the Indian population within the bounds of Canada. Those who reside within the limits of New-York, numbered, the past summer, three hundred and sixty souls.