[FN] Life of Mary Jemison. In a letter written by Corn-Planter to the Governor of Pennsylvania, in 1822, complaining of an attempt made by the officers of that State to impose taxes upon him and the Senecas residing on the Allegheny, he began as follows:—"When I was a child, I played with the butterfly, the grasshopper, and the frogs. As I grew up, I began to pay some attention, and play with the Indian boys in the neighborhood, and they took notice of my skin being a different color from theirs, and spoke about it. I inquired of my mother the cause, and she told me that my father was a resident of Albany. I ate still my victuals out of a bark dish: I grew up to be a young man, and married me a wife, but I had no kettle or gun. I then knew where my father lived, and went to see him, and found he was a white man, and spoke the English language. He gave me victuals while I was at his house, but when I started to return home, he gave me no provision to eat on the way. He gave me neither kettle nor gun, neither did he tell me that the United States were about to rebel against the government of England," &c., &c. By this statement it appears that he must have seen his father several years before the Mohawk campaign. This may very well have been, and yet the anecdote related by Mary Jemison be true also. In every instance in which the author has had an opportunity of testing the correctness of her statements by other authorities, they have proved to be remarkably correct. Corn-Planter lived to a great age, having deceased within the last eight or ten years. He was an able man—distinguished in subsequent negotiations. He was eloquent, and a great advocate for Temperance. He made a very effective and characteristic speech upon that subject in 1822. "The Great Spirit first made the world, and next the flying animals, and found all things good and prosperous. He is immortal and everlasting. After finishing the flying animals, he came down on earth, and there stood. Then he made different kinds of trees, and woods of all sorts, and people of every kind. He made the Spring, and other seasons, and the weather suitable for planting. These he did make. But stills to make whiskey to give to Indians, he did not make. . . . The Great Spirit told us there were three things for people to attend to. First, we ought to take care of our wives and children. Secondly, the white people ought to attend to their farms and cattle. Thirdly, the Great Spirit has given the bears and deers to the Indians. . . . The Great Spirit has ordered me to quit drinking. He wishes me to inform the people that they should quit drinking intoxicating drink." In the course of the same speech, he gave evidence that he was not overmuch pleased with the admixture of his own blood. . . . "The different kinds the Great Spirit made separate, and not to mix with and disturb each other. But the white people have broken this command, by mixing their color with the Indians. The Indians have done better by not doing so."
The old gentleman, however, had sown his wild oats. His days of romance were over. Preferring, therefore, the produce of his own fields, the company of his white children, and the comforts of his own house, to the venison, the freedom, and the forests of the western wilds, he chose to return. His son, fulfilling his word, bowed to the election, and giving his father in charge to a suitable escort, he was enabled to reach his own dwelling in safety. The proud Seneca and his warriors moved off to their own wilds.
Simultaneously with the movements of Sir John Johnson through the Schoharie and Mohawk country, the enemy had been actively engaged against the settlements at the North of Albany, between the Hudson and Lake Champlain, and likewise against some of the upper settlements on the Connecticut river. In order to create a diversion in favor of Sir John, Major Carleton came up the lake from St. John's, with a fleet of eight large vessels and twenty-six flat-bottomed boats, containing upward of one thousand men, regular troops, loyalists and Indians. Fort George and Fort Anne were both taken by surprise, and their garrisons, which were not large, were surrendered prisoners of war. [FN-1] The party directed against the upper settlements of the Connecticut river, was commanded by Major Haughton of the 53d regiment, and consisted almost entirely of Indians, of whom there were two hundred. This marauding incursion was likewise successful. In addition to the booty taken, thirty-two of the inhabitants were carried away prisoners. Several of the militia, who turned out in pursuit of Major Haughton, were killed. In regard to Major Carleton's expedition, sad tales of cruelty were reported. One of these was a relation, by a deserter named Van Deusen, of a horrible case of torture inflicted upon a soldier of Colonel Warner's regiment, taken by Carleton in the action near Fort George. Van Deusen was a deserter from the American army to the enemy; but having stolen back into his own country, was apprehended and executed. Colonel Gansevoort, however, then in command at the North, wrote to Major Carleton upon the subject on the 2d of November, stating the particulars of the story. Carleton repelled the charge in the most positive and earnest manner, as will presently appear. [FN-2]
[FN-1] Forts Anne and George were taken by Major Carleton on the 10th and 11th of October. In his official report, Major Carleton stated his own loss, on both occasions, at four officers and twenty-three privates killed. The number of prisoners taken is stated at two captains, two lieutenants, and one hundred and fourteen privates.
[FN-2] Speaking of Carleton's expedition, Sir Frederick Haldimand, in a letter to Lord George Germaine, observes:—"The reports assiduously published on all occasions by the enemy, of cruelties committed by the Indians, are notoriously false, and propagated merely to exasperate the ignorant and deluded people. In this late instance Major Carleton informs me, they behaved with the greatest moderation, and did not strip, or in any respect ill use, their prisoners." Sir John Johnson had less control over his Indians at Schoharie.
The correspondence between Gansevoort and Carleton, however, was not confined to this particular transaction. Indeed, that was altogether an incidental affair, and the correspondence with Carleton himself was also incidental, being part only of a more extended negotiation with other and higher officers of the British army in Canada, the object of which was the settlement of a cartel for an extensive exchange of prisoners at the North. The story will be best told by the introduction of a portion of the correspondence itself, while at the same time several other points will receive satisfactory illustration.
"General Powell to Colonel Van Schaick.
"St. John's, Sept. 22d, 1780.