James Ross Snowden

“ In the first place, I observe to you, and I request it may sink deep in your minds, that it is my desire, and the desire of the United States, that all the miseries of the late war should be forgotten and buried forever. That in future the United States and the Six Nations should be truly brothers, promoting each other's prosperity by acts of mutual friendship and justice. ”

“ You, first one and then another, comes and takes it away by order of that people, which you tell us promised to secure it to us. He is silent—for he has nothing to answer. When the sun goes down, he opens his heart before God; and earlier than the sun appears upon the hills, he gives thanks for his protection during the night; for he feels, that among men become desperate by their danger—it is God only that can preserve him. He loves peace and all that he has had in store, he has given to those who have been robbed by your people, lest they should plunder the innocent to re-pay themselves. ”

“ We have been driven from our lands on the Mohawk, the Gennessee, the Chemung and the Unadilla. And from our western door we have been pushed, from the Susquehanna, then over the great mountains, then beyond the Ohio, the Allegheny and the Conewango; and now we are here on the borders of the great lakes, and a further push will throw me and my people off the log. If I ask, where is our land? a bird whispers in my ear, the Great King over the water has made peace with Washington and the thirteen fires, and divided the land between them by a line through the great lakes. ”

“ In a letter of that year to Friends in Philadelphia, he says: "Brothers, the Seneca nation see that the Great Spirit intends they should not continue to live by hunting, and they look around on every side and inquire, who it is that shall teach them what is best for them to do? Your fathers dealt honorably by our fathers, and they have engaged us to remember it. We wish our children to be taught the same principles by which your fathers were guided. Brothers! We have too little wisdom among us, and we cannot teach our children what we see their situation requires them to know. ”

“ That they have not only refused to listen to my voice inviting them to peace, but that upon receiving it they renewed their incursions and murders with greater violence than ever. I have, therefore, been obliged to strike those bad people, in order to make them sensible of their madness. I sincerely hope they will hearken to reason, and not require to be further chastised. The United States desire to be the friends of the Indians, upon terms of justice and humanity.—But they will not suffer the depredations of the bad Indians to go unpunished. ”

“ Party, in all its forms and violence, rages among them with uncontrolled sway. The nations are split up into fragments; the son is arrayed against the father; brother against brother; families against families; tribes against tribes. They are divided into factions—religious, political and personal; Christian and Pagan; American and British—the followers of Cornplanter and Red Jacket, of Skonadoi and Captain Peter. The minister of destruction is hovering over them; and before the passing away of the present generation, not a single Iroquois will be seen in this State. ”

“ It is gratifying to us to hear the words we have heard this day, so true and plain, delivered by our brother, from Philadelphia, who so well depicted the life and character of Cornplanter. And here at his grave, where his bones are buried, it is our duty to remember his instructions « 84 » to his people, to work, and also, to plant our land; and now it is our duty to prosecute that work as his children. Brothers! We have been told that the Indians are like the leaves which fall at this season of the year. The leaves do fall, but we live in hope that the next summer will bring them forth again. ”

“ The sun shines upon us, and we are here as brothers to do honor to the memory of old Cornplanter. It is in accordance with the laws and customs of the Six Nations that the people should meet to commemorate the memory of the dead.
Brothers! We are now a feeble people in numbers and in power; our forefathers were strong and powerful. ”

“ The voice of the Seneca nation speaks to you, the great councillor, in whose heart the wise men of all the Thirteen Fires have placed their wisdom. It may be very small in your ears, and we therefore entreat you to hearken with attention, for we are about to speak of things which are to us very great. When your army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you the Town Destroyer; and to this day, when that name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling to the necks of their mothers. Our councillors and warriors are men, and cannot be afraid ”

“ You now know that the lands secured to you by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, excepting such parts as you may since have fairly sold, are yours, and that only your own acts can convey them away. Speak, therefore, your wishes on the subject of tilling the ground. The United States will be happy to afford you every assistance in the only business which will add to your numbers and happiness.
The murders which have been committed upon some of your people by the bad white men, I sincerely lament and reprobate, and I earnestly hope that the real murderers will be secured, and punished as they deserve. ”

“ Our forefathers thought that their posterity would pursue their tracks, and support themselves by their hunts, as they did in the extensive forests given them by the Great Spirit, and by them transmitted to us. But the great revolution among the white people in this country has extended its influence to the people of my color. Turn our faces which way we will, we find the white people cultivating the ground which our forefathers hunted over, and the forests which furnished them with plenty, now afford but a scanty subsistence for us, and our young men are not safe in pursuing it. ”

“ After taking him a few miles into the forest, he made to him the following address: "My name is John ABeel, commonly called Cornplanter. I am your son. You are my father. You are my prisoner, and subject to the customs of Indian warfare. But you shall not be harmed. You need not fear. I am a warrior. Many are the scalps I have taken. I am your son. I was anxious to see you, and greet you in friendship. I went to your cabin and took you by force; but your life shall be spared. Indians love their friends and their kindred, and treat them with kindness. ”

“ In all your enterprises for the good of your people, you may count with confidence on the aid and protection of the United States, and on the sincerity and zeal with which I am animated in the furthering of this humane work. You are our brethren of the same land; we wish you prosperity, as brethren should do. ”

“ As a warrior, whatever may be thought or said by whites, Cornplanter, in the estimation of the Indians who were their contemporaries, was the superior of Brant. The Senecas were a nation of warriors; and it will be admitted that they did the most of the fighting for the Six Nations, during nearly two centuries of their history, with which we are conversant. From the time Cornplanter came on the stage, (and he entered upon the war path early,) down to the close of the Revolutionary war, he had no superior, and few equals as a warrior. ”

“ I inquired of my mother the cause, and she told me that my father was a residenter in Albany. I still eat my victuals out of a bark dish. I grew up to be a young man, and married me a wife, and I had no kettle nor 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 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. ”

“ White people get credit from Indians, and do not pay them honestly according to agreement. In another respect, also, it has been broken by white people residing near my dwelling; for when I plant melons and vines in my field, they take them as their own. It has been broken again, by white people using their endeavors to obtain our pine trees from us. We have very few pine trees on our land in the State of New York, and whites and Indians often get into dispute respecting them. There is also a great quantity of whiskey brought near our reservation, and the Indians obtain it and become drunken. ”

“ Sundry other things might be said, but as he is now on his way to attend the Assembly at Philadelphia, I will only recommend him to the particular attention of the good people of Pennsylvania, between here and that place. They may depend upon it, that they not only entertain a friend, but a friend of great consequence, for the Seneca nation is so much governed by him, that « 52 » if he says war, it is war; and if he says peace, it is peace. He is, therefore, a man worthy of the greatest attention. The other Chiefs with him, second him in every thing, and are men worthy of great attention. ”

“ We will persuade the Wyandotts, and other western nations, to open their eyes and look towards the bed which you have made for us, and to ask of you a bed for themselves and their children, that will not slide from under them. We thank you for your presents to us, and rely on your promise to instruct us in raising corn, as the white people do; the sooner you do this the better for us. And we thank you for the care you have taken to prevent bad men from coming to trade among us. ”

“ As illustrative of the character of their government, I here insert the address of the Six Nations, to the colonies of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, delivered at the treaty made in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1744. "We heartily recommend union and agreement between you, our brethren. Never disagree, but preserve a strict friendship for one another, and thereby you, as well as we, will become the stronger. Our wise forefathers established amity and friendship among the Five Nations. This has made us formidable, and has given us weight and authority with the neighboring nations. ”

“ The influence and example of Cornplanter, assisted by other good men, white as well as red, leading their people to agriculture, and to habits of industry and temperance, has saved from destruction a remnant of the brave and once powerful nations, who lived on these rivers and lakes, and possessed the land, both far and near. ”

“ By giving it back again you will satisfy the whole of our nation. The Chiefs who signed that treaty will be in safety, and peace between your children and our children will continue so long as your land shall join ours. Every man of our nation will then turn their eyes away from all the other lands which we then gave up to you, and forget that our fathers ever said that they belonged, to them.
Father! We see that you ought to have the path at the carrying-place from Lake Erie to Niagara, as it was marked down at Fort Stanwix, and we are all willing, that it should remain to be yours. ”

“ It will, however, be important that before you make any farther sales of your land, that you should determine among yourselves who are the persons among you that shall give such conveyances thereof as shall be binding upon your nation, and forever preclude all disputes relative to the validity of the sale.
That, besides the before-mentioned security for your land, you will perceive by the law of Congress for regulating trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes—the fatherly care the United States intend to take of the Indians. ”

“ Feeling secure in their castles beyond the mountains, and contented with their homes, amidst their beautiful lakes, and rivers and forests, where they possessed towns and villages, cultivated fields and orchards of various fruits, and being kindly disposed to their white brethren of the English colonies, they ventured the friendly task of giving them such wise and excellent counsel and advice, as is worthy of being re-produced on this occasion, although one hundred and twenty-two years have passed away since its delivery on the banks of the Conestoga. ”

“ He had the sagacity to perceive that if his nation and people depended upon a mere hunter's right to roam over a section of country, they would be driven, like other Indian tribes, from place to place, and at length be either exterminated or removed to distant lands, where they would be regarded as new comers, and be oppressed or destroyed by the Indians who had a prior claim to the territory. ”

“ General Putnam then told me at the Council at Fort Stanwix, that by the late war, the Americans had gained two objects: they had established themselves an independent nation, and had obtained some land to live upon, the division line of which from Great Britain run through the Lakes. I then spoke, and said I wanted some land for the Indians to live on, and General Putnam said that it should be granted, and I should have land in the State of New York for the Indians. ”

“ If any come without your license we will turn them back; and we hope our nation will determine to spill all the rum which shall hereafter be brought to our towns.
Father! We are glad to hear that you determine to appoint an agent that will do us justice in taking care that bad men do not come to trade among us; but we earnestly entreat you that you will let us have an interpreter, in whom we can confide, to reside at Pittsburg. To that place our people, and other nations, will long continue to resort. ”

“ But Cornplanter, with untiring exertions, and at the hazard of his own life, prevented such a disastrous result, and thus saved the settlers on the Allegheny and upper Ohio, from the horrors of a merciless Indian warfare. For his invaluable services in the procurement and maintenance of peace between his people and the infant nation, just recuperating from its exhausting conflict with the British lion, Cornplanter received the thanks and liberal donations of the government and General Washington. ”

“ Will it yield to our children the same advantages after our heads are laid down as it will at present produce to us? Will it be out of the reach of our foolish young men, so that they cannot drink it up to the prejudice of our children? ”

“ Upon this threat, our Chiefs held a council, and they agreed that no event of war could be worse than to be driven, with our wives and children, from the only country which we had any right to, and, therefore, weak as our nation was, they determined to take the chance of war, rather than submit to such unjust demands, which seemed to have no bounds. Street, the great trader to Niagara, was then with us, having come at the request of Phelps, and as he always professed to be our great friend, we consulted him upon this subject. ”

“ But we desire that you will not depend on your agent for information concerning land; for after the abuses, which we have suffered by such men, we will not trust them with any thing which relates to land.
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Father! There are men that go from town to town and beget children, and leave them to perish, or, except better men take care of them, to grow up without instruction. Our nation has looked round for a father, but they found none that would own them for children, until you now tell us that your courts are open to us as to your own people. ”