Even the feuds and quarrels which at the time divided the Long House seemed to work for Johnson’s fame and the English cause. For some reason in Iroquois politics, occult to a white man, the house was divided against itself: the Senecas, Onondagas, and Mohawks composed one great faction; the Oneidas, Cayugas, and Tuscaroras formed the other and weaker. The latter tribe from the Carolinas, which had joined the Confederacy a generation before, in 1712, were far from being won over so as to take up arms for the English. When the fighting braves and counselling old men came to pow-wow with the large faction, the first thing done by them was to give the Mohawks, especially, a vigorous scolding for having acted so presumptuously and independently without taking council of the whole Confederacy. After lively debate and rejoinder, it was agreed by all to go to Albany, but with the river between the factions on their journey. So, along the banks of the Mohawk the delegates of the Confederacy marched as far as Schenectady, when quitting the river, the trail across country and to Norman’s Kill was followed. All but three of the Mohawk chiefs had been won to the English side. Of these, two of the Bear-totem clan lived at the upper castle at Canajoharie, and the third of the Tortoise-totem clan at the lower castle on the hill near Schoharie Creek. These dignitaries were finally persuaded by Rev. Mr. Barclay, then living among the Mohawks, and the famous Dr. Cadwallader Colden, who knew the Indians well, and later became the historian of the Six Nations.
It was a decisive moment in the history of America when on the 8th of August, 1746, the two rival divisions marched down old Patroon Street, the Clinton Avenue of to-day, and into State Street to Fort Frederick. Leading the Mohawk band in all the paraphernalia of Indian dress and decoration, with abundant ochre and plumes, was the pale-faced man, Johnson, who could whoop, yell, leap, dance, run, wrestle, play racket, and eat dog-hash—drawing the line at the cannibal feast,—with the best champions in any of the six tribes. The double column moved past Fort Frederick, where now stands the Episcopal Church, the Indians firing their guns and the fort its ordnance. Then the gates of the sallyport swung open, and in the largest room of the fort the red men squatted and were served with food.
CHAPTER V.
A CHAPTER IN THE STORY OF LIBERTY.
When the conference opened, August 19, Dr. Cadwallader took the place of Governor Clinton, who was down with fever. The two delegates from Massachusetts, Mr. Nelles and Colonel Wendell, were also present, but none from Connecticut appeared. Colden’s speech was a bubble of rhetoric, fairly dazzling with the prismatics of a lively imagination. It rehearsed facts, fancies, and prophecies appropriate to the situation. The colossal but purely mythical preparations supposed to be made in Great Britain, in the reality of which the sailor-governor himself heartily believed, were duly set forth. Then the wrongs suffered by the Indians at the hands of the “perfidious” French were detailed, until the braves were stirred in eye and nostril, and the chiefs grunted out, “Yo-hay! yo-hay!” (“Do you hear! do you believe!”), and general applause in Indian fashion followed as the interpreter finished each sentence. The war spirit was further roused by flatteries which fell like oil on the flames, kindling the fiercest enthusiasm. After the usual promises of gifts and equipment, with assurance of reward and booty in the future, the orator wound up by narrating the murder of some white men, their brothers, even since their arrival in Albany, and calling upon his hearers for immediate and permanent revenge.
Taking it all in all, this speech of Clinton and Colden’s is a fair sample of the lies, false promises, and irresponsible assertions on which the red man has been fed, from the first coming of the whites, to the battle with the Sioux, near Pine Ridge Agency, in January, 1891. The proper peroration of the speech, according to Indian etiquette, was the casting down of a wampum war-belt with verbal assurances and in symbolic intent that the British would live and die with their brethren the Iroquois. When this was done, a war-whoop was raised that must have been heard in every cabin and iron-monogrammed brick-house in the colony and manor.
On that very day, as was soon afterward learned, the French were at Fort Massachusetts,[[5]] which had been built by Col. Ephraim Williams. It stood in the meadows east of Williamstown, under the shadow of old Greylock, beyond the present town of North Adams. After two days’ siege the brave garrison surrendered and were led away to Canada. The French lost forty-seven men. The fort was afterward, in 1747, rebuilt, and was the scene of more than one attack by the enemy.
The council-fire was then raked up, so that the braves might have time to sleep, smoke, and deliberate for reply. When the council re-opened on the 24th, the governor was present, and the first orator at the rekindled fire was an Onondaga chief. After the usual efflorescence of forest rhetoric, he promised in the name of the Seven Nations—a small army of eight hundred braves from Detroit and the Lake country, the Missesagues, having temporarily joined the confederates for the common purpose—to dig up the hatchet against the French and their allies. They further agreed to roast alive any French priest who came among them. The next day was devoted to distributing the presents sent from the king and the governors of Virginia and Massachusetts; the new tribe, Missesagues, receiving one fourth. On the 26th the kettle was hung over the fire, and a great war-dance held, in which, after unusual smearings of paint, the weird, wild, and guttural, but pathetic songs were sung. After a few private interviews with the chiefs, and further tickling of their palms with presents and their stomachs with fire-water, the council-fire was put out by separation and scattering. Part of the Valley Indians remained in Albany, in token of their loyalty to the English, while most of them returned to their castles to organize war-parties. Unfortunately an epidemic of the small-pox broke out at this time all along the Valley, carrying off hundreds of the Indians, among whom were the two delegates from the Missesagues.
Other councils were held with lesser bodies of Indians; and Johnson, despite the raging of the small-pox among the Valley Indians, endeavoured to keep the savages on the war-path toward Canada; but little was accomplished during the summer. While the coming French fleet was destroyed by storm, Johnson increased his fortune by being appointed government contractor for Oswego, and his fame by being commissioned by Clinton as Colonel of militia. The only campaign in 1747 was one of paper and ink, Shirley and Clinton being the chief combatants. There were also raids and fights on the New England borders, but little took place that needs to be chronicled here. Clinton and De Lancey kept up their quarrels; the former warning Johnson of his illustrious relative, venting his wrath on the Dutch legislators, and taking high-handed vengeance on Judge Daniel Horsmanden. This champion of the Assembly and people, and one of the ablest jurists in the province, was most obnoxious, politically, to the king’s representatives. He was also personally offensive as being the co-worker with Chief-Justice De Lancey.
On the 12th of September Horsmanden was suspended from service as a member of the council. The fact was published in the journal; but no reason was given for this, except that the governor announced that he would explain his action to the king. Horsmanden was also removed from his other positions,—as commissioner to meet the representatives of the other colonies, and as judge and recorder of the city. This act of the governor’s still further irritated the “stubborn Dutchmen,” whose hostility now turned into a war to the knife. Even though savages were ravaging the suburbs of New York, it is doubtful whether they would have been turned from their determination to fight absolutism, in the person of Clinton. When the governor announced the return of Johnson from his fruitless search after the enemy at Crown Point, the temper of the Assembly was not improved. They were tired of having the praises of Johnson sounded in their ears. They still refused, in the face of Johnson’s contract, while still in force, to furnish extra guards for the fulfilment of his stipulation in provisioning Oswego. They also adhered to their determination not to yield to the governor’s demands, so long as he thwarted their purposes. In affirming their former resolutions, they, nevertheless, offered to indemnify Johnson if through accident he became a loser by fulfilling his contract.
Meanwhile, the governor held counsel with the New England commissioners, and despite the remonstrances of the members, bluffed off his little Parliament until October 5. The frontier was still exposed. It was hard to get volunteers for Oswego, largely owing to the abominable drunkenness of the officers there, and the lack of good discipline. Two companies from Colonel Schuyler’s regiment were therefore drafted for the purpose. It being practically impossible to maintain the weak force at Saratoga, this post, which had been named Fort Clinton, was burned by order, and the ordnance and stores removed to Albany. In this unpleasant state of affairs Colonel Johnson was summoned to New York, and on October 9 was examined by the committee of the Executive Council. He exposed the grave state of affairs, in that the Indians had been kept from hunting for a whole year, and were now destitute. Unless something were speedily done, he felt he must abandon Mount Johnson and his interests in the Mohawk Valley. He even imagined that his leaving would be the general signal for an exodus of all the white people from the Mohawk basin. He recommended the erection of forts both in the Seneca and the Oneida districts. He believed that these measures, with plenty of presents, and the ferreting out of the miscellaneous rumsellers who debauched the Indians, would make safe the northern frontier and save the colony.