Читать книгу Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906] - New York State Historical Association. Meeting - Страница 9

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General Sullivan's expedition of 1779 was an immediate outcome of the massacres of Wyoming and Cherry Valley in the summer and autumn of 1778—not to mention those minor incidents of the Border Wars, which, beginning in the summer of 1777, had converted the valley of the upper Susquehanna into a land of desolation. It was a most drastic punishment that Sullivan inflicted, and such it was intended by Congress that his work should be. "The immediate objects," said Washington, in his letter of instruction to Sullivan, "are the total destruction and devastation of the Indian settlements," He added that the Indian country was "not to be merely overrun, but destroyed." If we have regard for proportions, greater losses were inflicted upon the Indians by Sullivan than were ever inflicted upon the settlements of New York by the Indians.

The expedition, however, failed completely in achieving its main purpose, which was to suppress the Indian raids. Sullivan and his army had scarcely left the Western country, when the Indian attacks were renewed and for three years were continued with a savage energy before unknown. The Indians' thirst for revenge having been thoroughly aroused, nothing could afterwards restrain their hands. Aside from the burning of German Flats and the battle of Oriskany (the latter not properly an incident of the Border Wars, since it was an integral part of the Burgoyne campaign), the injury done by the Indians to the Mohawk Valley was done subsequent to the Sullivan expedition.

In their entirety, the Border Wars constitute a phase of the Revolution of which far too little has been remembered. We may seek in vain for a territory elsewhere in the United States where so much destruction was done to non-combatants. In Tryon county alone, 12,000 farms went out of cultivation; fully two-thirds of the population either died or fled, While of the one-third who remained 300 were widows and 2,000 orphans. And yet, as I have said, the losses of the Iroquois were greater still.

But it is with the causes which led to this savage work that I am here to deal. For quite 100 years, Joseph Brant and the Tories of the Mohawk Valley, with Col. Guy and Sir John Johnson, and John and Walter Butler, at their head, were generally accepted as the original and inspiring forces in all the barbarities committed. The greater offenders, however, were men of much higher station and more ample powers—men who had never seen the valleys of the Susquehanna and the Mohawk, but who lived in London, and as members of the King's Cabinet were in direct charge of the war in America. One of them was the Earl of Dartmouth, the other Lord George Germaine; but it is to Germaine that we must ascribe the chief odium.

The administration of the Province of New York, when the Revolution began, was completely in the hands of Loyalists. New York was still a Crown colony, officials holding their appointments directly from London. Outside the official class, however, there were patriots in plenty; none of the colonies possessed more; but as New York City was completely dominated by Tory influences, so was the Mohawk Valley dominated by the Johnsons and their army of followers, in whom loyalty to England was a deep-seated sentiment and a fixed principle of conduct. Sir William Johnson had died just as the Revolution was about to begin. His successors became not only as great Loyalists as ever he had been, but, being men of smaller minds and fewer talents. They added to the sentiment of loyalty an expression of it which took the form of satanic bitterness and brute savagery. It was these men who, with their followers, became the hated Tories of the frontier of New York—men of whom in some instances, Joseph Brant said, they had been more savage than the savages themselves.

The attitude of the Indians can be best understood if we remember that they had been practically in alliance with the English of New York for a hundred years. When war began between the mother country and the colonies, or between what the Indians called "two brother nations," they were lost in amazement and tried in vain to understand it. Their own history for three hundred years had been one of peace between brother nations. "No taxation without representation" was a principle beyond their comprehension. The men who defied British soldiers in the streets of New York and Boston seemed to them exactly like the French of Canada who in the older wars had stormed English forts on the Northern Frontier, since they were engaged in war with the King of England, and the King was the Indians' powerful friend.

When the Border Wars reached their height, the frontier of New York should have been in a state of tranquility. With Burgoyne's surrender, the center of conflict was to pass away from New York and New England, and was soon to be transferred to Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina. Why then, these Border Wars in New York? In one short sentence, the whole truth may be disclosed. The ministry of George III, after long and laborious efforts, now at last had won the Indians of New York into active sympathy with their cause. For three years they had tried in vain to gain their support, and again and again had held counsels with them, but the net results had been an essentially neutral stand by the Indians.

But let us recapitulate. Soon after the battle of Lexington, Col. Guy Johnson, the official successor of Sir William, convened at his home near Amsterdam, a conference with the Indians, mostly Mohawks, and later, after the result at Bunker Hill had alarmed him anew, fled to Oswego and thence to Canada. Nearly all the Mohawk Indians went with him, as well as a domestic force of about 500 white men, mainly Scotch Highlanders, over whom he had placed in command, Col. John Butler. In July Col. Johnson reached Montreal, Where he had an interview with Sir Frederick Haldemand, who said to the Indians:

"Now is the time for you to help the King. The war has begun. Assist him now, and you will find it to your advantage. Whatever you lose during the war, the King will make up to you when peace returns."

Later in the same month, the Earl of Dartmouth, then a member of the British Cabinet, wrote from London to Col. Johnson, that it was the King's pleasure "That you lose no time in taking such steps as may induce the Indians to take up the hatchet against his Majesty's rebellious subjects in America." This letter was accompanied by a large assortment of presents for the Indians, and Col. Johnson was urged not to fail to use "the utmost diligence and activity" in accomplishing the purpose. Col. Johnson was joined in Canada in the spring of the following year by his brother-in-law, Sir John Johnson, the son and heir of Sir William. Sir John had organized a force known as the Royal Greens, composed of loyalists from the New York frontier, and mainly former tenants and dependents of his father's estate.

The Mohawks, who alone of all the Six Nations had gone to Canada, were slow to yield to the importunities of the English, in so far as taking an active part in the war was concerned. A topic of far deeper interest to them was their title to certain lands in the Mohawk and upper Susquehanna Valleys, concerning which they had failed to secure adjustments for many years. In November, 1775, Joseph Brant with other Indian chiefs, sailed for England with a view to accomplishing a settlement of this dispute. An interview took place with the Colonial Secretary, who subsequently was in direct charge of the war in America, Lord George Germaine. Brant made two speeches before Germaine, outlining the grievances of his people, and it is clear from one of them that Germaine then secured the adhesion of Brant to the English cause by promising to redress the Indian grievances after the war, and to keep for the Indians the favor and protection of the King. Thenceforth the responsibility for Indian activity in the Revolution rests mainly on Germaine. It was to him that Lord Chatham referred in a memorable speech on the American War:

"But, my lord, who is the man, that, in addition to the disgrace and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage? To call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitants of the woods? To delegate to the merciless Indian the defense of disputed right, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment."

When the Burgoyne campaign began, Brant had arrived home. New efforts were now actively put forth to enlist the Indians in British service. A considerable company of them started south with Burgoyne, but they subsequently deserted him before a battle had been fought, or even the American army was discovered. With St. Leger a much larger force started for a descent upon the Mohawk Valley. These were in direct charge of Joseph Brant, and comprised the greater part of the efficient Mohawk force. At Oswego a counsel had been held a few weeks before, in order to enlist in British service the other "nations" of the Iroquois, who were assured that the King was a man of great power and that they should never want for food and clothing if they adhered to him. Rum, it was said, would be "as plentiful as water in Lake Ontario." Presents were made, and a bounty offered on every white man's scalp that they might take. The Senecas notably, and to some extent the Onondagas and Cayugas, thus became fired with ambition to see something of the war.

By the time St. Leger arrived at Oswego, about 700 warriors had been secured. Some of them still remained lukewarm as to fighting, but they were at last drawn into the campaign under an assurance that they need not fight themselves, but might sit by during the battle smoking their pipes, while they saw the redcoats "whip the rebels." The result was, that when a battle was imminent at Oriskany, the Indian's love of war was uppermost, and they became the most active participants in the conflict. They also became proportionately the heaviest losers and returned to their homes, not only with doleful shrieks and yells over their losses, but with a determined purpose to revenge themselves on the defenseless frontier. At what frightful cost to the Mohawk Valley they secured that revenge, the story of the ensuing four years bears ample witness.

But, as I have said, the Indians lost more. When the war was over, they had practically lost everything. Their homes were destroyed and their altars obliterated. England virtually abandoned them to the men whom they had fought as rebels, but who were now victorious patriots, the masters of imperial possessions. Nothing whatever was exacted for them in the treaty of peace. Not even their names were mentioned. Such, at the close of the war, was their pitiful state. Everything in the world that they had, had been given to a cause, not their own—the cause of an ally across the great waters, with whom they were keeping an ancient covenant chain. When at last their wide domain, among whose streams and forests for ages their race had found a home, passed forever from their control, they might have said, with a pride more just than that of Francis I., after the battle of Pavia, "All is lost save honor."