The War Chief Of The Six Nations Part 4

At this juncture the great Mohawk lay with a considerable body of warriors at Gra.s.sy Brook. He had learned that Minisink in the Shaw.a.n.gunk Mountains close to the New Jersey line was left unguarded, and decided to fall upon it. Taking sixty redskins and twenty-seven white men apparelled as Indians, he advanced so stealthily that his approach was unnoticed. During the night of July 19 he surprised the town, burnt it to the ground, and carried off prisoners and booty.

Orange county, in which Minisink was situated, was at once in a state of tumult. The local militia flocked together, and were eager to follow hard after their daring foe. Some thought it more prudent to stay at home, but the majority wished immediately to take up the chase.

The matter was settled when Major Meeker sprang on his horse, waved his sword, and cried with vehemence: 'Let the brave men follow me, the cowards may stay behind.'

With this, the ill-advised settlers picked up the trail of the redskins and started in pursuit. A body of scouts who were slightly in the lead emerged, after various exciting adventures, upon the broad hills that skirt the Delaware river. Below them they could see the Indians twining in and out among the trees. The red men were evidently making for a shallow place where they might ford the stream.

To the colonials this seemed a stroke of good fortune.

They would dash down the hill and dispute Brant's pa.s.sage of the river. Acting on the impulse, they swung confidently along, only to find themselves outgeneralled. No sooner had they sunk from sight in the forest than Brant had artfully changed his march. He slipped through a deep ravine and came out on the enemy's rear. Then he chose his own position for an ambush. The Orange county men, looking high and low for the Indians, at length came to a halt, when to their dismay they found that the enemy were posted in an unlooked-for quarter. There, in concealment behind them, lay Brant's force. The War Chief now issued from among his redskins, and made overtures to the opposing force. He advised them to surrender without offering resistance; if they did so he would see that no harm befell them. Should the battle begin, he added, he might be unable to restrain his followers. The only answer which came was a hurtling bullet that clipped a hole through the covering of his belt. In an instant Brant had faced about and disappeared under cover.

Straightway the enemy bore down at break-neck speed upon the tree-sheltered lair of the Indians. In wading through a narrow brook that obstructed their advance, their ranks became disordered, and Brant made effective use of the situation. His voice rose in a war-whoop and his warriors sprang into motion. After delivering one sharp, destructive volley, they seized their tomahawks and surged into the midst of their foe. From an hour before noon until sundown, sheltered by trees and rocks, both sides fought stubbornly.

At last the whites gave way, and the battle closed with appalling slaughter. Of the retreating remnant thirty survived, while the bodies of many of their comrades were left upon the field of battle. Of those who sought safety by swimming the Delaware, a number were killed in the water by the Indians, who fired upon them as they struggled towards the opposite bank.

After the fight, as Brant traversed the blood-stained field he bent over the wounded form of Gabriel Wisner, who was a magistrate of Orange county. The fallen man, though suffering excruciating pain, was still able to speak, but the chieftain saw that he was dying. There were wolves in the forest, and these would soon visit the scene of carnage. To bear Wisner from the field would avail nothing. For a moment the War Chief debated what he should do. Then, turning the attention of the wounded man in another direction, he poised his hatchet. In a flash it had smitten the skull of the dying magistrate and his misery was at an end. In this act as in others Brant showed that his contact with civilization had not freed him from the basic instincts of his savage nature.

Few white men could have performed such a deed even on the field of battle with so much calmness.

Brant now returned to the border country and, together with Sir John Johnson, drew up a plan of defence. It was resolved that they should fortify a position on the Chemung river, to resist the advance of the Americans into the Indian country. The place selected was not far from the village of Newtown. A breastwork was built, half a mile in length, and this was protected on one side by the river and on the other by two stretches of elevated ground. Upon these ridges battalions were placed. But the defenders were able to muster only a comparatively small force, vastly inferior to the foe in numbers. In all, the garrison consisted of about eight hundred men, two-thirds of whom were Indians.

It was barely four weeks after the battle on the Delaware that Generals Sullivan and Clinton joined forces at Tioga.

They had a very powerful army, consisting altogether of some five thousand men, including a strong brigade of experienced riflemen and an artillery corps with a number of heavy guns. They had sent out corps of light infantry in advance and were now moving slowly against the defences occupied by the king's forces.

The War Chief was in charge of the Indians, and despite the strength of the opposing force he had resolved to make a determined stand. As the foe came on, he sent out his men in small parties from the works to annoy them and r.e.t.a.r.d their advance. The Indians attacked the invaders after the manner of bush-fighters, firing and then seeking cover while they reloaded their muskets. The conflict that ensued was desperate beyond description. Every bit of cover--bush, tree, or boulder--held its man. With dogged valour the savages stood their ground, till driven back by the very impetus of the onset. The enemy were ma.s.sed deep in front and but little impression could be made on their compact ranks. More distressing still, the Americans had brought their heavy artillery into play, and it began to thunder against the defences. On this day Brant was an inspiring figure to his thin line of warriors. His resolute countenance gave them hope; his resonant voice rang out strong and clear amid the clamour and spurred them to resist. Wherever the fight was fiercest he made his way, issuing his orders with care, speaking words of cheer, and, in the face of death, striving to stem the current of certain defeat.

Meanwhile General Sullivan had caught sight of the troops that infested the rising ground. A detachment was immediately told off under Major Poor with orders to storm the slopes and drive the defenders from their position. The War Chief grasped the situation in an instant. In a last attempt to save the day, he rallied his warriors and, with the aid of a battalion of Rangers, threw himself with renewed energy into the struggle. But though Brant hurried from place to place with the utmost energy, it soon became evident that the day was lost.

The Americans climbed the ascent and, in the teeth of a brave opposition, turned the loyalists' flank. The troops of the enemy began to fold about the garrison.

'Oonah! Oonah!' The savages' doleful cry of retreat vibrated upon the air. Moving towards the stream, redskins and white men crossed it together in headlong flight. It was an Indian custom to carry the dead from the field of battle, but on this occasion so precipitate was their retreat that eleven corpses were left to lie where they had fallen in the struggle. Sullivan and his army had undisputed possession of the field. To Brant and to the men of the Six Nations this was a day of grief and disaster. The gates of their country were thrown open; their villages were left undefended; there was nothing to prevent the ravager from treading down and plundering the fair land of their fathers, the pride of a n.o.ble race, the gift of the centuries. But in the light of their conduct at the affair in Cherry Valley it must be said that their fate was not undeserved.

As General Sullivan advanced, burning and devastating, he came at length into the valley of the Genesee. This he made 'a scene of drear and sickening desolation. The Indians were hunted like wild beasts, till neither house nor fruit-tree, nor field of corn, nor inhabitant, remained in the whole country.' One hundred and twenty-eight houses were razed in the town of Genesee. Sullivan became known to the Indians as the 'Town Destroyer.' 'And to this day,' said Cornplanter, in a speech delivered many years afterwards, 'when the name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale and our children cling close to the necks of their mothers.'

The War Chief had, indeed, been beaten on the Chemung river. And yet, in the hour of defeat, he had added l.u.s.tre to his name. In the annals of the forest there are few incidents as glorious as this Spartan-like struggle on the frontiers of the Indian country. Points of similarity can be traced between this battle and another which was waged, in 1813, by the great Shawnee warrior Tec.u.mseh, at Moravian Town, on the Canadian Thames. Like Brant, Tec.u.mseh was allied with a force of white men, and, like the chief of the Mohawks in the struggle on the Chemung, Tec.u.mseh played the leading role in the battle of the Thames. In each engagement the fight was against an army much stronger in numbers; in each the defeat was not without honour to the Indian leader.

CHAPTER XI

OVER THE BORDER

Instead of proceeding to attack the strong loyalist fort at Niagara, General Sullivan re-crossed the Genesee on September 16. Lack of provisions, he a.s.serted, was his reason for turning back. Before this, Brant had frustrated a plot which was afoot among the Indians to desert the British cause. Red jacket, an influential chief of the Senecas and a very persuasive orator, had suggested that the Six Nations should negotiate a permanent peace with the colonists. 'What have the English done for us,' he exclaimed, as he pointed in the direction of the Mohawk valley, 'that we should become homeless and helpless for their sakes?' A considerable following embraced the view of the Seneca chieftain, and it was agreed that a runner should be sent to the camp of General Sullivan to acquaint him with their desire to come to terms. If Sullivan was prepared to negotiate with them, he was to be asked to send his proposals under a flag of truce. These proceedings came to Brant's knowledge and, whether his act may be justified or not, he adopted probably the only means of preventing a wholesale desertion to the enemy. He chose two of his trustiest warriors and gave them instructions to waylay the bearers of the flag of truce from Sullivan's camp. The bearers were killed and the proposals of the American commander fell into Brant's hands, and Red Jacket and his party were left to imagine that Sullivan had not been gracious enough even to send them an answer.

Not long after the rout of the Six Nations on the Chemung river and the destruction of their villages the snow had begun to fall. The winter of 1779-80 was an unusually severe one, and the Indians suffered untold hardships through famine and disease. They were driven to trek in great numbers to the vicinity of the English fort at Niagara. Brant was there at this time, and during his sojourn he saw a wedding performed according to the sacred rites of the Anglican Church. He had lost his first wife, the mother of Isaac and Christiana, and had married her half-sister, Susanna; but she also had died childless, and Brant had taken to his tent the daughter of a Mohawk chief, whom he now decided to wed after the manner of the white people. His third bride, who was about twenty-one years of age at the time of her marriage, is known in history as Catherine Brant. She bore Brant three sons and four daughters, and lived for some years after his death. Her father was the leading sachem of the Tortoise clan and consequently she was able to bestow high rank within the Mohawk nation upon her son, Ahyouwaighs, or John Brant.

The story of Brant's part in the War of the Revolution from this time on can be related very briefly. Before spring he was again on the war-path and helped to destroy the villages of the Oneidas, because of their active sympathy for the rebel cause. In the month of April he closed in upon the settlement of Harpersfield and levelled it to the ground. As he was making his way back from the last adventure, he was seized with fever and forced to move by slow stages. He allowed his warriors to travel only every other day. There is an anecdote telling how he cured himself of his malady in a very Indian-like manner. Taking his position on the side of a hill, a haunt of rattlesnakes, he waited till one should crawl out to bask in the sun. When at length a snake showed itself he seized it and bore it to his camp. This reptile was cooked in a broth, and Brant supped eagerly of the hot decoction. And after partaking of this wonderful remedy, according to the story, he was well again in a very short time.

In August of the same year, 1780, Brant again invaded the Mohawk valley. On this occasion he gained his object by an artful device. He learned that some stores were being borne to Fort Schuyler and pretended that he was going to seize them and attack the fort itself. The local militia marched to the fort's defence and, while they were intent on this, Brant doubled back to the rear.

Swooping down upon the white settlement at Canajoharie, he laid everything low and carried away captive many women and children. Later in the season he made a similar descent into the Schoharie-kill, but here there is on record to his credit at least one act of kindness. After the raid, a group of settlers were gathered together, telling of all the mishaps that had occurred to them.

One sad-eyed woman told of the loss of her husband and several of her children. She had been bereft even of an infant, which had been torn from its cradle. But that morning, while the officers of the colonial camp were seated at their breakfast, a painted redskin sprang into their midst carrying in his arms a slender child and handed a letter to the officer in command. It was the woman's child that he bore, and the letter was from Joseph Brant.

'Sir,' ran the epistle, 'I send you by one of my runners the child which he will deliver, that you may know that whatever others do, I do not make war upon women and children. I am sorry to say that I have those engaged with me in the service who are more savage than the savages themselves.'

The year 1781 brought the war to its climax. On October 19 Lord Cornwallis, hard pressed at Yorktown by an army of sixteen thousand men under Washington and a powerful French fleet under Admiral de Gra.s.se, was forced to surrender. This was the last important episode before peace was arranged. During the summer the War Chief had still been fighting on the border and hara.s.sing the country of those who sympathized with the Americans. In August he was found in the west, having defeated a part of Colonel Clark's forces near the Great Miami river, which empties into Lake Erie.

The treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States of America was signed in November 1782. Canada, Newfoundland, and what are now the Maritime Provinces of the Dominion remained in the hands of the crown, but the independence of the other English colonies in the New World was recognized. In the whole text of the treaty there was not a word about the Six Nations. But all their lands south of Lake Ontario as far as the banks of the Hudson came into the possession of the United States.

For some time it seemed as though the Indians' sacrifices on behalf of His Majesty the King were to be reckoned as nothing, and the tribesmen who had been loyal were very wroth. They had fought valiantly for the crown, and now expected that the king should do something for them in return. All that they had to fall back upon was the promise that their rights would be respected when the conflict ended.

'Now is the time for you to help the King,' General Haldimand had said to the a.s.sembled redskins in 1775.

'The war has commenced. a.s.sist the King now, and you will find it to your advantage. Go now and fight for your possessions, and, whatever you lose of your property during the war, the King will make up to you when peace returns.'

Sir Guy Carleton had also a.s.sured the Indians that money would be spent to give them the same position after the war that they had occupied before it, and that the government would not be lax in dealing with their needs.

In 1779, when General Haldimand was already in command of all the forces in Canada, he had reiterated his promises, and said that he would do his best to fulfil them, 'as soon as that happy time [the restoration of peace] should come.'

When the war was ended most of the Mohawk nation were dwelling on the west bank of the Niagara river. They had pitched their wigwams close to the landing-place, now Lewiston, which was some miles above the fort. Their old territory was situated in the heart of the country of their conquerors and to this they could not return with safety. The Senecas, who lived near by, saw how sad was their plight and offered them land upon which they might reside. The Mohawks appreciated the kindness of this proposal of the warlike nation which had fought by their side in the long struggle, but they could not accept the offer. In the words of Brant himself, they were resolved to 'sink or swim' with the English.

To settle the matter the War Chief journeyed down the St Lawrence to confer with the Canadian leaders. At Quebec he met General Haldimand and was welcomed by this officer with the sincerest friendship and given a chance to discuss the unhappy lot of his homeless people. Haldimand said that he would be quite ready to fulfil the promises that he had made during the war. Brant replied that his tribesmen would like to settle on English ground, and named the region on the Bay of Quinte as a spot suited to their needs. These lands were especially fertile and beautiful, and Haldimand was quite willing that the grant should be made in accordance with their wishes. He said that a tract would soon be purchased and given to the warriors of the Six Nations. Brant must have been well accompanied on his journey to the east, since on his way back twenty Indian families turned aside and pitched their abodes in the territory allotted to them on the Bay of Quinte. They were ruled by an Indian named Captain John, and a thriving Mohawk settlement was thus begun.

Brant continued his journey along the south side of Lake Ontario, and came once again to Niagara.

But when the War Chief told the waiting redskins of his negotiations with General Haldimand there was a great outcry of dissatisfaction. The Senecas, who were the chief objectors, stated that they could not allow their kinsmen and old comrades-in-arms to go so far away from them as the Bay of Quinte. The Senecas were still afraid that they might have difficulties with the people of the United States, in whose country they were dwelling. The Mohawks must be near at hand to come to their rescue should the hatchet again be upraised.

Brant felt very keenly for the Senecas, who had done him such yeoman service in the war. They could be cruel in combat, but were very loyal to their friends, and he knew that something must be done for them. Accordingly, he repaired a second time to Quebec and again discussed the situation with General Haldimand. The outcome was that he obtained another grant of land, on the Grand river, which runs with a southerly course into the waters of Lake Erie. A tract six miles wide on each side of this stream, extending from its source to its mouth, was allotted to the Six Nations. This beautiful district, bordering on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie, only forty miles from the outer fringe of the Seneca villages, was in a direct line of intercourse between the Six Nations and the many tribes of the west and the upper lakes. Brant obtained the t.i.tle-deeds to this territory for the Indians in the autumn of 1784, under the seal of royal authority.

It was a gift, as indicated by the terms of the award, 'which the Mohawks and others of the Six Nations... with their posterity,' were to enjoy for ever.

Having been provided with a new home, the band of copper-hued patriots now began to cross the Niagara. They were loyalists of another than the white race, and, like the other Loyalists, they had left their Long Houses behind in the hands of the stranger. On their bodies were the marks and scars of many a campaign; their limbs had become suppler with the long march and swarthier in the summer sun; they did not dare to cast a glance back at the fair land that had been the hunting-ground of their fathers. With them were their women, dark-eyed Amazons of the north. Their little ones toddled by their side.

The journey was shortly over and they beheld the waters of the Grand river, flowing between their narrow banks.

Here, in the flowering glades, they raised their tents and lit anew their council fires. Then they toiled up against the current, searching out the borders of their country; down-stream they shot again, their glad eyes beaming as they saw how wide and goodly was their heritage.

The nation of the Mohawks had come to Canada to stay.

Among them settled many from their kindred tribes, red men who would not forsake their Great White Father the King. By the sheltering boughs of the regal maple, the silver-garbed beech, or the drooping willow they built the rough huts of a forest people. Then they tilled the soil, and learned to love their new abode. Although of a ferocious stock, unrivalled in the arts of savage warfare, the Mohawks and other Indians of the Six Nations in Canada have rarely, if ever, been surpa.s.sed by any other red men in the ways of peace.

CHAPTER XII

ENGLAND ONCE MORE

Meanwhile, how was it faring with the tribesmen of the Six Nations who had remained in their former territories east of the Niagara? They were anxious to come to terms with the government of the United States, but not by themselves alone. In any treaty which might be made, they wished the concurrence of the western tribes. The officials of the new republic were, however, opposed to this and treated their desire with scant courtesy. In 1784 a conference was called at Fort Stanwix, but the western tribes were not invited to come. While this was taking place, Red Jacket, the Seneca orator, rose in the company of his fellows and uttered a speech burning with eloquence.

His att.i.tude towards the Americans had undergone a change since Brant had undone his treachery before the war had closed. The Six Nations should renew the contest, said Red Jacket. Never should they submit to the yoke of their oppressors. On the other hand, Chief Cornplanter, with sounder judgment, argued for peace. It would surely be an unwise thing for the Indians to enter upon a fresh war single-handed, and without the a.s.sistance of their former allies, the English.

At length Cornplanter had his way, and on October 22 a treaty was made with the representatives of the United States. By this treaty the Indians were to give up all the prisoners of war still in their hands. Until this was done, six hostages were to be furnished from among their number. At the same time, the boundaries of the country over which they held sway were defined.

Loud murmurs of complaint arose within the Six Nations on the completion of this pact, and no one was more angry than Joseph Brant himself. He was at Quebec, on the point of leaving for England, but he hurried back on learning the terms of the treaty. He was especially exasperated because Aaron Hill, one of the lesser chiefs of the Mohawks, was to be given up as a hostage. Arriving at Cataraqui, Brant, on November 27, sent a long and stirring letter to Colonel Munroe. In this he showed that his Indians were in no way to blame for the retention of prisoners of war. The fight was over, and the Six Nations wanted harmony restored. With considerable feeling, he referred to the 'customs and manners of the Mohawks.'

'They are always active and true,' he protested; 'no double faces at war or any other business.

The difficulty was quickly righted and the War Chief satisfied, but he saw that all the Indian races were in a precarious position and might, sooner or later, be drawn into hostilities. Meanwhile he was meditating a scheme which might be likened to the bold conception of Pontiac. In vision he saw all the Indian tribes united into one far-reaching confederacy for the a.s.sertion of their liberties. Brant was of a singularly ambitious disposition and had no humble idea of his own capacities.

He pictured himself as the chosen head of such a vast league of the native races. It was with this in view that at this very time he paid a visit to the western tribes and sought to ascertain their ideas upon the subject.

At the close of 1785 Brant was ready to make his second journey across the Atlantic. It was indeed fitting, after his years of active service for the crown, that he should do homage once more at the English court. He desired, also, to plead the cause of his Mohawks, who had lost so much in the struggle. It is even likely that he was pondering over his design of uniting all the tribes and wished to disclose this scheme to the home authorities.

A striking sketch of the War Chief's appearance during this period is given by the Baroness Riedesel. This talented lady, who had met the Mohawk chief at Quebec, was the wife of the noted general who led a troop of Hessians in the War of the Revolution.

'I saw at this time,' she writes, 'the famous Indian Chief, Captain Brant. His manners are polished: he expressed himself with fluency, and was much esteemed by General Haldimand.' The strenuous scenes through which Brant had lived, indeed, seem to have left but little impression on his face. 'I dined once with him at the General's,' continued the baroness. 'In his dress he showed off to advantage the half military and half savage costume. His countenance was manly and intelligent, and his disposition very mild.'