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.