History of the settlement of Upper Canada (Ontario,) with special reference to the Bay Quinté. William Canniff
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enough it was at this battle that Brant, then only thirteen years old, first took part with his tribe in the contest. The mantle of Soieugarahta fell upon the youthful Thayendinagea.
Thayendinagea, or Joseph Brant, was born upon the banks of the Ohio, in the year 1742, while his tribe was on a visit to that region. According to Stone, his biographer, he was the son of “Tehowaghwengaraghkwin a full-blooded Mohawk, of the Wolf tribe.”
After the battle at Lake George, Brant continued with his people under Johnson till the close of that bloody war. At its close, about 1760, Brant, with several other young Indians, was placed by Johnson at Moor School, Lebanon, Connecticut. After acquiring some knowledge of the rudiments of literature, he left the school to engage in active warfare with the Pontiacs and Ottawas. In 1765, we find him married and settled in his own house at the Mohawk Valley. It is said he was not married, except in the Indian mode, until the winter of 1779, when at Niagara, seeing a Miss Moore, a captive, married, he was also thus married by Colonel John Butler, to a half-breed, the daughter of Colonel Croghan, by an Indian woman. Here he spent a quiet and peaceful life for some years, acting as interpreter in negotiations between his people and the whites, and lending his aid to the efforts of the missionaries who were engaged in the work of teaching and converting the Indians.
“Those who visited his house, spoke in high terms of his kindness and hospitality.” Sir William Johnson died in 1774, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Colonel George Johnson, as Indian agent, who appointed Brant his Secretary. The same year Johnson had to flee from the Mohawk, westward, to escape being captured by a band of rebels. He was accompanied by Brant and the principal warriors of the tribe. The rebels vainly tried to win the Indians to their side; but excepting a few Senecas, they preferred their long tried friends. The regular successor of Old King Hendrick, was “little Abraham.” It is said he was well disposed to the Americans, probably through jealousy of Brant. At all events, Brant, by universal consent became the principal chief. He proceeded with the other chiefs, and a large body of Indian warriors to Montreal, where he was commissioned as a captain in the British army. “In the fall of 1775, he sailed for England to hold personal conference with the officers of government. He was an object of much curiosity at London, and attracted the attention of persons of high rank and great celebrity.” Brant returned to America in the spring following, landed near New York, and made his way through his enemy’s country to Canada. He placed himself at the head of his warriors, and led them on to many a victory. The first of which was at the battle of “the Cedars.”
But the rebels did not cease endeavoring to seduce Brant to their cause. In June, 1777, General Herkimer of the rebel militia approached Brant’s head-quarters with a large force, ostensibly to treat on terms of equality. Brant had reason to suspect treachery, and consequently would not, for some time, meet Herkimer. After a week, however, he arranged to see General Herkimer, but every precaution was taken against treachery, and it appears that not without cause. Brant and Herkimer were old, and had been intimate friends. Brant took with him a guard of about forty warriors. It would seem that Herkimer’s intention was to try and persuade Brant to come over to the rebels, and failing in this to have Brant assassinated as he was retiring. Says an American writer, Brownell, “We are sorry to record an instance of such unpardonable treachery as Herkimer is said to have planned at this juncture. One of his men, Joseph Waggoner, affirmed that the General privately exhorted him to arrange matters so that Brant and his three principal associates might be assassinated.” Well does it become the Americans to talk about savage barbarity. Brant thwarted the intentions of his old friend by keeping his forty warriors within call. During all of the repeated attempts to get the Mohawks they never swerved, but reminded the rebels of their old treaties with England, and the ill-treatment their people had sustained at the hands of the colonists.
The head-quarters of Brant was at Oghkwaga, Owego, upon the Susquehanna. During the summer of 1777 while Burgoyne was advancing, the Mohawks under Brant rendered important service. In the attempt to capture Fort Stanwix, they took a prominent part. In the summer of 1778 the Indians, with Butler’s Rangers were engaged principally in border warfare. It was during this season that the affair at Wyoming took place, which event has been so extravagantly made use of to blacken the character of the Indians and vilify the “tories.” That Brant was not inhuman, but that he was noble, let recent American writers testify. Brownell says: “many an instance is recorded of his interference, even in the heat of conflict, to stay the hand uplifted against the feeble and helpless.”
It was in the latter part of June that a descent was planned upon the settlements of Wyoming. Of this event, again we will let Brownell speak:—“It has been a commonly received opinion that Brant was the Chief under whom the Indian portion of the army was mustered, but it is now believed that he had as little share in this campaign as in many other scenes of blood long coupled with his name. There was no proof that he was present at any of the scenes that we are about to relate.”
“No portion of the whole history of the revolution has been so distorted in the narration as that connected with the laying waste of the valley of Wyoming. No two accounts seem to agree, and historians have striven to out-do each other in the violence of their expressions of indignation, at cruelties and horrors which existed only in their imaginations, or which came to them embellished with all the exaggeration incident to reports arising amid scenes of excitement and bloodshed.
Wyoming had, for many years, been the scene of the bitterest hostility between the settlers under the Connecticut grant, and those from Pennsylvania. Although these warlike operations were upon a small scale, they were conducted with great vindictiveness and treachery. Blood was frequently shed, and as either party obtained the ascendency, small favor was shown to their opponents, who were generally driven from their homes in hopeless destitution. We cannot go into a history of these early transactions, and only mention them as explanatory of the feelings of savage animosity which were exhibited between neighbors, and even members of the same family, who had espoused opposite interests in the revolutionary contest.” Such, be it noted, was the character of the inhabitants of Wyoming valley, who have been so long held up as innocent victims of Indian barbarity. By the above, we learn that prior to this, there had been contentions between the loyalists and rebels. The party who entered Wyoming to attack the Fort, were under Colonel John Butler, and were composed of some 300 British regulars and refugees, and 500 Indians. Now, it would seem that the depredation which was committed after Colonel Zebulon Butler, the rebel leader, had been defeated, and the Fort had capitulated, was to a great extent due to retaliatory steps taken by the loyalists who previously had been forced away, and had seen their homes committed to the flames. Such was the border warfare of those days. It was not Indian savagery, it was a species of fighting introduced by the “Sons of Liberty.” And if we condemn such mode of fighting, let our condemnation rest first, and mainly upon those who initiated it. Not upon the Indians, for they were led by white men—not upon Brant, for he was not there—not so much upon the loyalists, for they had been driven away from their homes; but let it be upon those who introduced it.
The rebels were not slow to seek retribution for their losses at Wyoming. Aided by a party of Oneidas who lent themselves to the rebels, “Colonel Wm. Butler with a Pennsylvania regiment, entered the towns of Unadilla and Oghkwaga, and burned and destroyed the buildings, together with large stores of provisions intended for winter use.” In turn, Walter Butler led a party of 700, a large number being Indians under Brant, to attack a fort at Cherry Valley which was “garrisoned by troops under Colonel Ichabod Alden.” It will be seen that the Indians and loyalists did not enter an unprotected place to burn and destroy. They attacked a garrison of troops. But the Indians exasperated by the cruel procedure at Oghkwaga, became ungovernable, and about fifty men, women and children fell by the tomahawk. This was the retaliation which the Indian had been taught to regard as justifiable for the wrongs which had been inflicted upon his own tribe—his little ones; yet be it remembered, and later American writers admit it, that the commanders, Butler and Brant, did all they could to restrain the terrible doings of the exasperated men. “Specific instances are reported in which the Mohawk Chief interfered, and successfully, to avert the murderous tomahawk.”
And now begins the bloody revenge which the rebels determined to inflict upon the Indians, without respect to tribes. In April, 1779, Colonel Van Schaick