In the opening chapter of the present work, the Rev. Dr. Stewart, formerly a missionary in the Mohawk Valley, and subsequently Archdeacon of the Episcopal church of Upper Canada, was several times referred to as authority for a variety of particulars in the early life of the elder Brant. The sketches of his life thus referred to, were in fact written by the present honorable and venerable Archdeacon Strachan, of Toronto, from conversations with Dr. Stewart, and published in the Christian Recorder, at Kingston, in 1819. There were portions of those sketches which gave offence to the family of Thayendanegea, and his son and successor entered upon the vindication of his father's character with great spirit. Dr. Strachan had used an unfortunate epithet in reference to the old Chief, and virtually charged him with having been engaged in the bloody affair of Wyoming; accused him of having entertained designs hostile to the interests of the crown; of wavering loyalty; and, before his death, of intemperance. These and other matters, contained in the before-mentioned sketches, tending seriously to detract from the respect previously entertained for the memory of the father, were repelled with vigorous and virtuous indignation by the son in the course of a correspondence with the Reverend Archdeacon; and were it not for the circumstance that the matter was in the end satisfactorily adjusted, some extracts from this correspondence might here be presented, by way of exhibiting the tact and talent with which a Mohawk Chief could manage a controversy in the field of letters. The offensive statements in the sketches of the Christian Recorder were clearly shown to have arisen from mistakes and misrepresentations; and in the course of the explanations that ensued, the conduct of the Archdeacon "was most honorable." [FN]
[FN] Letter of William Johnson Kerr to the author.
The difficulties between the Mohawks and the Provincial Government, respecting the title to the lands of the former, which the elder Brant had so long labored, but in vain, to adjust, yet continuing unsettled, in the year 1821 John Brant, alias Ahyouwaeghs, was commissioned to proceed to England, as his father had been before him, to make one more appeal to the justice and magnanimity of the parent government. He urged his claim with ability, and enlisted in the cause of his people men of high rank and influence. Among these was the Duke of Northumberland, the son of the old Duke—the Lord Percy of the American Revolution, and the friend of his father, who had deceased in 1817. The Duke, like his father, had been adopted as a warrior of the Mohawks under the aboriginal cognomen of Teyonhighkon; and he now manifested as much zeal and friendship for the Mohawks, in the controversy which had carried John Brant to England, as the old Duke had done for Thayendanegea twenty years before. The young chief likewise found an active and efficient friend in Saxe Bannister, Esq., a gentleman bred both to the navy and the law, who had resided for a time in Upper Canada. Mr. Bannister espoused the cause of the Indians with laudable zeal, and wrote several papers for the consideration of the ministers in their behalf. [FN] The result was, that before leaving England in 1822, the agent received a promise from the Secretary of the Colonies, Lord Bathurst, that his complaints should be redressed to his entire satisfaction. Instructions to that effect were actually transmitted to the Colonial Government, then administered by Sir Peregrine Maitland, and Ahyouwaeghs returned to his country and constituents with the well-earned character of a successful diplomatist.
[FN] Mr. Bannister afterward held an appointment in New South Wales, and subsequently still was Chief Justice of the colony of Sierra Leone, where he died.
But the just expectations of the Chief and his people were again thwarted by the provincial authorities. The refusal of the local government to carry into effect the instructions from the ministers of the crown, the pretexts which they advanced, and the subterfuges to which they resorted as excuses for their conduct, were communicated by the chief to his friend the Duke of Northumberland, by letter, in June, 1823. He also wrote simultaneously to Mr. Bannister upon the subject. A correspondence of some length ensued between the Chief and those gentlemen, and repeated efforts were made to compass a satisfactory and final arrangement of the vexed and long-pending controversy. But these efforts were as unsuccessful in the end as they had been in the beginning.
While in England upon this mission, the young Chief determined to vindicate the memory of his father from the aspersions that had been cast upon it there, as he had already done in his own country. Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming" had then been published several years. The subject, and general character of that delightful work, are too well and universally known to require an analysis in this place. With a poet's license, Mr. Campbell had not only described the valley as a terrestrial paradise, but represented its inhabitants as being little if any inferior, in their character, situation, and enjoyments, to the spirits of the blessed. Into a community thus innocent, gay, and happy, he had introduced the authors of the massacre of 1778, led on by "the monster Brant." This phrase gave great offence to the family of the old chief, as also did the whole passage in which it occurred. The offensive stanzas purport to form a portion of the speech of an Indian hero of the tale, an Oneida Chief, who is made to interrupt a domestic banquet, under most interesting circumstances, in the following strains, prophetic of danger near at hand:—
"But this is not the time,"—he started up,
And smote his heart with woe-denouncing hand—
"This is no time to fill the joyous cup,
The mammoth comes,—the foe,—the monster Brant,—
With all his howling, desolating band;—
These eyes have seen their blade, and burning pine
Awake at once, and silence half your land.
Red is the cup they drink—but not with wine:
Awake, and watch to-night! or see no morning shine!
"Scorning to wield the hatchet for his tribe,
'Gainst Brant himself I went to battle forth:
Accursed Brant! he left of all my tribe
Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth:
No! not the dog that watch'd my household hearth
Escaped that night of blood, upon our plains!
All perish'd—I alone am left on earth!
To whom nor relative, nor blood remains,
No!—not a kindred drop that runs in human veins!"
This paraphrase of the celebrated speech of Logan—less poetical, by the way, than the original—was illustrated by notes, asserting positively that Brant was the Indian leader at Wyoming, and proving his cool-blooded ferocity by citing the anecdote from Weld's Travels, quoted, for denial, as a note on a preceding page. John Brant had previously prepared himself with documents to sustain a demand upon the poet for justice to the memory of his father; and in December, 1821, his friend Bannister waited upon Mr. Campbell, with an amicable message, opening the door for explanations. A correspondence ensued, only a portion of which has been preserved among the papers of John Brant; but in a note of the latter to the poet, dated the 28th of December, the young chief thanked him for the candid manner in which he had received his request conveyed by Mr. Bannister. The documents with which the Chief had furnished himself for the occasion, were thereupon enclosed to Mr. Campbell, and the result was a long explanatory letter from the poet, which has been very generally re-published. Candor, however, must admit that that letter does but very partial and evidently reluctant justice to the calumniated warrior. It is, moreover, less magnanimous, and characterised by more of special pleading, than might have been expected. [FN-1] In addition to this, it appears, by a communication from the young chief to Sir John Johnson, dated January 22, 1822, that Mr. Campbell had not only expressed his regret at the injustice done the character of his father, but had promised a correction in the next edition—then soon to be published. This correction, however, was not made, as it should have been, in the text, but in a note to the subsequent edition; and although, at the close of that note, Mr. Campbell says, for reasons given, that "the name of Brant remains in his poem only as a pure and declared character of fiction," yet it is not a fictitious historical character, and cannot be made such by an effort of the imagination. The original wrong, therefore, though mitigated, has not been fully redressed, for the simple reason that it is the poem that lives in the memory, while the note, even if read, makes little impression, and is soon forgotten. [FN-2]