  Indians only to be attached by being converted—The abortive expedition of Mons. Barre—Ironical sketch of an Indian. Upon the attachment the Indians had to our religion, was grafted the strongest regard to our government, and the greatest fidelity to the treaties made with us. I shall insert a specimen of Indian eloquence, illustrative of this last; not that I consider it by any means so rich, impressive, or sublime as many others that I could quote, but as containing a figure of speech rarely to be met with among savage people; and supposed, by us, incompatible with the state of intellectual advancement to which they have attained. I mean a fine and well supported irony. About the year 1686, Mons. Barre, the commander of the French forces in Canada, made a kind of inroad, with a warlike design, into the precincts claimed by our Mohawk allies; the march was tedious, the French fell sick, and many of their Indians deserted them. The wily commander, finding himself unequal to the meditated attack, and that it would be unsafe to return through the lakes and woods, while in hourly danger of meeting enemies so justly provoked, sent to invite the sachems to a friendly conference; and when they met, asserted in an artful speech that he and his troops had come with the sole intention of settling old grievances, and smoking the calumet of peace with them. The Indians, not imposed on by such pretences, listened patiently to his speech, and then made the answer which the reader will find in the notes. 13.“Onnonthio, I honour you; and all the warriors who are with me likewise honour you. Your interpreter has finished his speech, I begin mine. My words make haste to reach your ears; hearken to them, Yonnondio. You must have believed, when you left Quebec, that the sun had burnt up all the forests which made our country so inaccessible to the French; or that the lakes had so far overflowed their banks, that they had surrounded our castles, and that it was impossible for us to get out of them. Yes, Yonnondio, surely you have dreamt so: and the curiosity of seeing so great a wonder has brought you so far. Now you are undeceived, since I and the warriors here present, are come to assure you that the Hurons, Onondagoes, and Mohawks are yet alive. I thank you, in their name, for bringing back into their country the calumet, which your predecessor received from their hands. It was happy for you that you left underground that murdering hatchet, which has been so dyed with the blood of the French. Hear, Onnondio, I do not sleep; I have my eyes open: and the sun which enlightens me, discovers to me a great captain, at the head of his soldiers, who speaks as if he were dreaming. He says that he only came to the lake to smoke out the great calumet with the Five Nations; but Connaratego says that he sees the contrary: that it was to knock them on the head, if sickness had not weakened the arms of the French. I see Onnonthio raving in a camp of sick men, whose lives the Great Spirit has saved by inflicting this sickness upon them. Hear, Onnonthio, our women had taken their clubs; our children and old men had carried their bows and arrows into the heart of your camp, if our warriors had not disarmed them, and kept them back, when your messenger came to our castles. It is done, and I have said it. Hear, Yonnondio, we plundered none of the French, but those who carried guns, powder, and ball to the wolf and elk tribes, because those arms might have cost us our lives. Herein we follow the example of the Jesuits, who stave all the kegs of rum brought to the castles where they are, lest the drunken Indians should knock them on the head. Our warriors have not beavers enough to pay for all those arms that they have taken—and our old men are not afraid of the war. This belt preserves my words. We carried the English into our lakes, to trade with the wolf and elk tribes, as the praying Indians brought the French to our castles, to carry on a trade, which the English say is theirs. We are born free. We neither depend upon Onnonthio nor Corlaer; we may go where we please. If your allies be your slaves, use them as such; command them to receive no other but your people. This belt preserves my words. We knocked the Connecticut Indians and their confederates on the head, because they had cut down the trees of peace, which were the limits of our country. They have hunted beavers on our lands, contrary to the customs of all Indians, for they have left none alive; they have killed both male and female. They brought the Sathanas into our country to take part with them, after they had formed ill designs against us; we have done less than they merited. “Hear, once more, the words of the Five Nations. They say that when they buried the hatchet at Cardaragui, (in the presence of your predecessor,) in the middle of the fort, [Detroit] they planted the tree of peace in the same place, to be there carefully preserved; that instead of an abode for soldiers, that fort might be a rendezvous for merchants; that in place of arms and ammunition, only peltry and goods should enter there. “Hear, Yonnondio, take care for the future that so great a number of soldiers as appear there do not choke the tree of peace, planted in so small a fort. It will be a great loss, after having so easily taken root, if you should stop its growth, and prevent its covering your country and ours with its branches. I assure you, in the name of the Five Nations that our warriors shall dance to the calumet of peace under its leaves, and shall remain quiet on their mats; and that they shall never dig up the hatchet till Corlaer or Onnonthio, either jointly or separately, attack the country, which the Great Spirit hath given to our ancestors. This belt preserves my words; and this other, the authority which the Five Nations have given me.” Then Garangula, addressing himself to Mons. de Maine, who understood his language, and interpreted, spoke thus: “take courage, friend, you have spirits, speak, explain my words, omit nothing. Tell all that your brethren and friends say to Onnonthio, your governor, by the mouth of Garangula, who loves you, and desires you to accept of this present of beaver, and take part with me in my feast, to which I invite you. This present of beaver is sent to Yonnondio on the part of the Five Nations.” Mons. BarrÉ returned to his fort much enraged at what he had heard. Garangula feasted the French officers, and then went home; and Mons. BarrÉ set out on his way towards Montreal; and as soon as the general, with the few soldiers who remained in health, had embarked, the militia made their way to their own habitations without order or discipline. Thus a chargeable and fatiguing expedition, meant to strike terror of the French name into the stubborn hearts of the Five Nations, ended in a scold between a French general and an old Indian.—Colden’s History of the Five Nations, p. 68. Twice in the year, the new converts came to Albany to partake of the sacrament, before a place of worship was erected for themselves. They always spent the night, or oftener two nights, before their joining in this holy rite, at the Flats, which was their general rendezvous from different quarters. There they were cordially received by the three brothers, who always met together at this time to have a conference with them, on subjects the most important to their present and future welfare. These devout Indians seemed all impressed with the same feelings, and moved by the same spirit. They were received with affectionate cordiality, and accommodated in a manner quite conformable to their habits, in the passage, porch, and offices; and so deeply impressed were they with a sense of the awful duty that brought them there, and the rights of friendship and hospitality, and at this period, become so much acquainted with our customs, that though two hundred communicants, followed by many of their children, were used to assemble on those occasions, the smallest instance of riot or impropriety was not known amongst them. They brought little presents of game, or of their curious handicrafts, and were liberally and kindly entertained by their good brother Philip, as they familiarly called him. In the evening they all went apart to secret prayer, and in the morning, by dawn of day, they assembled before the portico; and their entertainers, who rose early, to enjoy, unobserved, a view of their social devotion, beheld them with their mantles drawn over their heads, prostrate on the earth, offering praises and fervent supplications to their Maker. After some time spent in this manner, they arose, and seated in a circle on the ground, with their heads veiled as formerly, they sang a hymn, which it was delightful to hear, from the strength, richness, and sweet accord of their uncommonly fine voices; which every one that ever heard this sacred chorus, however indifferent to the purport of it, praised as incomparable. The voices of the female Indians are particularly sweet and powerful. I have often heard my friend dwell with singular pleasure on the recollection of those scenes, and of the conversations she and the colonel used to hold with the Indians, whom she described as possessed of very superior powers of understanding; and in their religious views and conversations, uniting the ardour of proselytes with the firm decision and inflexible steadiness of their national character. It was on the return of those new christians to the Flats, after they had thus solemnly sealed their profession, that these wise regulations for preserving peace and good will between the settlers (now become confident and careless from their numbers) and the Indians, jealous, with reason, of their ancient rights, were concluded. |
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