The Iroquois; or, the bright side of Indian character

by Anna C. Johnson

Her second husband, Hiokatoo, she never learned to love. He was a chief and a warrior, brave and fearless, but though he was always kind to her, he was a man of blood. He delighted in deeds of cruelty and delighted to relate them, and now the fire-water had become common, and the good were made bad and the bad worse, so that dissensions arose in families and in neighborhoods, and the happiness which had been almost without alloy, was no longer known among these simple people.

She adds her testimony to that of all travellers and historians concerning the purity of their lives, having never herself received the slightest insult from an Indian, and scarcely knowing an instance of infidelity or immorality. But when they had once tasted of the maddening draught, the thirst was insatiable, and all they had would be given for a glass of something to destroy their reason. Now they were indeed converted into fiends and furies, and sold themselves to swift destruction. Hiokatoo hesitated at no crime, and took pleasure in every thing that was dark and terrible, but this was a small trial compared to those which Mrs. Jewison was called upon to endure from the intoxication and recklessness of her sons.

Her oldest, the son of Sheninjee, was murdered by John, the son of Hiokatoo, who afterwards murdered his own brother Jessee, and came to the same violent death [[148]]himself by the hands of others. When they came to be in the midst of temptation there was no restraining principle, and even after they grew up, her house was the scene of quarrels and confusion in consequence of their intemperance, and she knew no rest, from fear of some calamity from the indulgence of their unbridled passions.

The chiefs of the Seneca nation, to which her second husband belonged, gave her a large tract of land, and when it became necessary that it should be secured to her by treaty, she attended the council and plead her own case. The commissioners, without inquiring particularly concerning the dimensions of her lots, allowed her to make the boundaries, and when the document was signed, and she was in firm possession, it was found that she was the owner of nearly four thousand acres, of which only a deed in her own handwriting could deprive her. But though she was rich, she toiled not the less diligently, and forsook not the sphere of woman in attending to the ways of her household; and also true to her Indian education, she planted, and hoed, and harvested, retaining her Indian dress and habits, till the day of her death.

During the revolutionary war, her house was made the rendezvous and head-quarters of British officers and Indian chiefs, as her sympathies were entirely with her red brethren, and the cause they espoused was the one she preferred to aid. It was in her power to sympathize with many a lone captive; she always remembered her own anguish at the prospect of spending her life in the wilderness, the companion of Indians, and though she had learned to love instead of fearing them, and knew they were, as a people, deserving of respect and the highest honor, she understood the feelings of those who knew them not.

Her supplications procured the release of many from [[149]]torture, and her generous kindness clothed the naked and fed the starving.

Lot by lot, and acre by acre, the Indians sold their lands, and at length the beautiful valley of the Genesee fell into the hands of the white man, except the domain of “The White Woman,” as she was always called, which could not be given up without her consent. She refused at the time of the sale to part with her portion, but after the Indians removed to the Buffalo Reservation, and she was left alone, though lady of the manor, and surrounded by white people, she preferred to take up her abode with those whom she now called her people. Most emphatically did she adopt the language of Ruth in the days of old—“Entreat me not to leave thee, or return from following after thee, for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried.”

She was as thoroughly Pagan as the veriest Indian who had never heard of God, and exclaimed with him, that their religion was good enough for her, and she desired no change.

She was ninety years old—eighty years she had been an exile from the land of her birth—she had forgotten the prayers her mother taught her, and knew nothing of the worship of her fathers, when one morning she sent a messenger to tell the missionaries she wished to see them. She had ever before refused to listen to them if they came to her dwelling, but they hastened to obey the summons, glad to feel that they should be welcome, though quite uncertain concerning the nature of the interview she proposed. She was literally withered away. Her face was scarcely larger than an infant’s, and completely checkered with fine wrinkles; her teeth were entirely gone, and [[150]]her mouth so sunken that her nose and chin almost met; her hair not silvery, but snowy white, except a little lock by each ear, which still retained the sandy hue of childhood; her form, which was always slight, was bent, and her limbs could no longer support her. She had revived the knowledge of her language since she had dwelt among white people, but “Oh,” said she, as the ladies entered, “I have forgotten how to pray; my mother taught me, and told me never to forget this, though I remembered nothing else.” And then she exclaimed, “Oh God, have mercy upon me!” This expression she had heard in her old age, and now uttered it in the fulness of her heart. There had come a gleam of light through all the dark clouds of superstition and Pagan blindness, and this spark was kindled at the fireside of that little cottage home, and fell upon her heart from a mother’s lips, and now revived at the remembrance of a mother’s love and her dying blessing. It was eighty years since she had seen that mother’s face, as she breathed out her soul in anguish, bending over her in the silent depths of the wilderness—eighty years since she listened to “Our Father who art in Heaven,” from Christian lips, and now the still small voice which had so long been hushed, spoke aloud, and startled her as if an angel called. She tried to stifle it, and for many days after it awoke in her bosom heeded it not, but it gave her no rest. No earthly voice had since reminded her that her heart was sinful, and needed to be washed in order to be clean. The seed which had been sown in it when she was a little child had just sprung up—the snows of eighty winters had not chilled it—the mildews of nearly a century had not blighted it, and the heavy hand of a hundred calamities had left it unharmed. She had not been in the midst of corruptions, therefore it [[151]]had not been destroyed. The little germ was still alive, and proving that it had not been planted in vain.

The aged woman sat pillowed up in bed with her children and children’s children of three generations around her, and lifting her withered hands and sunken eyes to heaven, once more repeated, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” while a new light, like a halo, overspread her face, tears flowed in floods down her cheeks, and in the dark eye of every listener there glistened the tear of sympathy in her new-found happiness.