The council having assembled, [FN] the business was opened by the British Commissioners, who informed the chiefs that their object in calling the meeting was to engage their assistance in subduing the rebel Colonies, the people of which had risen up against the good King their master, and were about to rob him of a great part of his wealth and possessions. As an inducement to enter the service, they were promised an ample reward. The chiefs in reply, or rather those of them who were averse to joining in the war, informed the British officers of the treaty of German Flats and Albany, in which they had bound themselves to take no part in the contest, and the parties to that compact repeated their determination to abide by the treaty, and not take up the hatchet against their white neighbors.
[FN] The only account of this great Indian council, (farther than the mere statement that such a council was held,) which the author has been able to discover, is that given in the life of Mary Jemison, a white woman, who, being taken captive near Pittsburgh in 1755, when a child, after her parents were killed, was raised by the Indians, and became in fact one of them, in every thing but her birth and complexion. She married an Indian, and lived to a very advanced age, and died among them. She was present at this council; and from the fact that the truth of other portions of her interesting narrative is sustained by other authorities, her statement may be received as substantially correct. The life of this remarkable woman, who died but a few years since, was published by James D. Bemis, of Canandaigua. There will be several occasions of referring to it hereafter.
The discussions were protracted, nor were the entreaties of the Commissioners of any avail against the resolution of the Indians to maintain their good faith, until they addressed their avarice, "by telling them that the people of the Colonies were few in number, and would be easily subdued; and that on account of their disobedience to the King, they justly merited all the punishment that it was possible for white men and Indians to inflict upon them. The King," they said, "was rich and powerful, both in money and subjects. His rum was as plenty as the water in Lake Ontario, and his men as numerous as the sands upon its shore; and the Indians were assured, that if they would assist in the war, and persevere in their friendship for the King until its close, they should never want for goods or money," [FN] Overcome by their persevering importunities, and by more direct and palpable appeals to their senses, in a rich display of tawdry articles calculated to please their fancies, the Indians proved recreant to their plighted faith to the Colonies, and concluded a treaty of alliance with Great Britain—binding themselves to take up the hatchet against the rebels, and continue in his Majesty's service until they were subdued.
[FN] Life of Mary Jemison, written in 1823.
At the close of the treaty, each Indian was presented with a suit of clothes, a brass kettle, [FN] a gun, a tomahawk and scalping-knife, a quantity of ammunition, a piece of gold, and the promise of a bounty upon every scalp they should bring in. "Thus richly clad and equipped, the Indians returned to their respective homes, after an absence of about two weeks, full of the fire of war, and anxious to encounter their (new-made) enemies."
[FN] The brass kettles received at Oswego by the Senecas, (to which tribe Mary belonged,) on the occasion mentioned in the text, were yet in use in that nation, so late as 1823.
From that day Thayendanegea was the acknowledged chief of the Six Nations, and he soon became one of the master spirits of the motley forces employed by Great Britain in her attempts to recover the Mohawk Valley, and to annoy the other settlements of what then constituted the North-western frontier. Whether in the conduct of a campaign or of a scouting-party, in the pitched battle or the foray, this crafty and dauntless chieftain was sure to be one of the most efficient, as he was one of the bravest, of those who were engaged. Combining with the native hardihood and sagacity of his race the advantages of education and of civilized life,—in acquiring which, he had lost nothing of his activity or his power of endurance—he became the most formidable border foe with whom the Provincials had to contend, and his name was a terror to the land. His movements were at once so secret and so rapid, that he seemed almost to be clothed with the power of ubiquity.