[FN] MS. documents in the office of the Secretary of State, Albany.
The presence of the crafty chieftain at Oghkwaga did not improve the pacific disposition of the natives, as will appear in the sequel; although Brant himself had not thus far committed any act of hostility within the province of New-York. The fact of his having borne a part in the battle of the Cedars seems, moreover, not to have been known in the Mohawk Valley, since they were yet uncertain whether it was his intention to raise the hatchet in the contest or not.
But these uncertainties were not of long duration. In the month of June, 1777, the chief of the Mohawks ascended the Susquehanna from Oghkwaga to Unadilla, [FN] attended by seventy or eighty of his warriors, and requested an interview with the Rev. Mr. Johnstone and the officers of the militia of the neighborhood. He stated that the object of his visit was to procure provisions, of which his people were greatly in want. And such were their necessities, that if peaceable means would not answer, the Indians must obtain them by force.
[FN] Tunadilla was the Indian name of this place, nor does the propriety of the alteration appear.
Advantage was taken of the interview to sound the chief as to his future intentions—whether he was for peace or for war; and his answers were far less difficult of solution than the riddle of the Sphynx. He complained of the ill-treatment which, as he alleged, some of the Mohawks, who had remained behind on the flight of the majority of the nation, had received at the hands of the Whigs. The Mohawks, he said, were as free as the air they breathed, and were determined to remain so; and they could not brook it that any of their brethren should be seized and imprisoned, as had been the case at the Castle. [FN] These, he demanded, should be set at liberty, and suffered to remove from the country. In regard to the question of peace or war, he said the Mohawks were always warriors—that their agreement with the King was very strong, and they were not such villains as to break their covenant.
[FN] Probably on suspicion of maintaining correspondence with the enemy.
The visit continued two days, during which time the Indians were well supplied with provisions, and on their departure permitted to take away some live cattle and sheep. The inhabitants, however, scattered and few, and quite remote from any considerable settlement, no longer feeling themselves safe in their houses, sought protection in places of greater security—principally in Cherry Valley, the place of their first location, whence they had removed, a few years before, into the vale of the Susquehanna. Some of the scattered settlers in the Unadilla region fled to the German Flats, and others, probably, to the older towns upon the Hudson.