The Little Red Foot Part 4

What would these savages do when the storm broke? What would happen to this frontier? What would happen to the solitary settlers, to such hamlets as Fonda's Bush, to Johnstown, to Schenectady--nay, to Albany itself?

Sir William was no more. Guy Johnson had become his Majesty's Superintendent for Indian affairs. He was most violently a King's man--a member of the most important family in all the Northland, and master of six separate nations of savages, which formed the Iroquois Confederacy.

What would Guy Johnson do with the warriors of these six nations that bordered our New York frontier?

Always these questions were seething in my mind as I swung my axe or plowed or harrowed. I thought about them as I sat at eventide by the door of my new log house. I considered them as I lay abed, watching the moonlight crawl across the puncheon floor.

As Brent-Meester to Sir William, I knew Indians, and how to conduct when I encountered them in the forest, in their own castles, or when they visited the Hall.

I had no love for them and no dislike, but treated them always with the consideration due from one white man to another.

I was not conscious of making any friends among them, nor of making any enemies either. To me they were a natural part of the wilderness, like the trees, rivers, hills, and wild game, belonging there and not wantonly to be molested.

Others thought differently; trappers, forest runners, coureurs-du-bois often hated them, and lost no opportunity to display their animosity or to do them a harm.

But it was not in me to feel that way toward any living creature whom G.o.d had fas.h.i.+oned in His own image if not in His own colour. And who is so sure, even concerning the complexion of the Most High?

Also, Sir William's kindly example affected my sentiments toward these red men of the forest. I learned enough of their language to suit my requirements; I was courteous to their men, young and old; and considerate toward their women. Otherwise, I remained indifferent.

Now, during these first two years of my life in Fonda's Bush, events in the outer world were piling higher than those black thunder-clouds that roll up behind the Mayfield hills and climb toward mid-heaven. Already the dull glare of lightning lit them redly, though the thunder was, as yet, inaudible.

In April of my first year in Fonda's Bush a runner came to the Kennyetto with the news of Lexington, and carried it up and down the wilderness from the great Vlaie and Maxon Ridge to Frenchman's Creek and Fonda's Bush.

This news came to us just as we learned that our Continental Congress was about to rea.s.semble; and it left our settlement very still and sober, and a loaded rifle within reach of every man who went grimly about his spring plowing.

But the news of open rebellion in Ma.s.sachusetts Bay madded our Tory gentry of County Tryon; and they became further so enraged when the Continental Congress met that they contrived a counter demonstration, and, indeed, seized upon a pretty opportunity to carry it with a high hand.

For there was a Court holden in Johnstown, and a great concourse of Tryon loyalists; and our Tory hatch-mischiefs did by arts and guile and persuasions obtain signatures from the majority of the Grand Jurors and the County Magistracy.

Which, when known and flaunted in the faces of the plainer folk of Tryon County, presently produced in all that slow, deep anger with which it is not well to trifle--neither safe for kings nor lesser fry.

In the five districts, committees were appointed to discuss what was to be the att.i.tude of our own people and to erect a liberty pole in every hamlet.

The Mohawk district began this business, which, I think, was truly the beginning of the Revolution in the great Province of New York. The Canajoharie district, the Palatine, the Flatts, the Kingsland followed.

And, at the Mohawk district meeting, who should arrive but Sir John, unannounced, uninvited; and with him the entire company of Tory big-wigs--Colonels Claus, Guy Johnson, and John Butler, and a heavily armed escort from the Hall.

Then Guy Johnson climbed up onto a high stoop and began to harangue our unarmed people, warning them of offending Majesty, abusing them for dolts and knaves and traitors to their King, until Jacob Sammons, unable to stomach such abuse, shook his fist at the Intendant. And, said he: "Guy Johnson, you are a liar and a villain! You may go to h.e.l.l, sir, and take your Indians, too!"

But Guy Johnson took him by the throat and called him a d.a.m.ned villain in return. Then the armed guard came at Sammons and knocked him down with their pistol-b.u.t.ts, and a servant of Sir John sat astride his body and beat him.

There was a vast uproar then; but our people were unarmed, and presently took Sammons and went off.

But, as they left the street, many of them called out to Sir John that it were best for him to fortify his Baronial Hall, because the day drew near when he would be more in need of swivel guns than of congratulations from his Royal Master.

Sure, now, the fire blazing so prettily in Boston was already running north along the Hudson; and Tryon had begun to smoke.

Now there was, in County Tryon, a number of militia regiments of which, when brigaded, Sir William had been our General.

Guy Johnson, also, was Colonel of the Mohawk regiment. But the Mohawk regiment had naturally split in two.

Nevertheless he paraded the Tory remainder of it, doubtless with the intention of awing the entire county.

It did awe us who were unorganized, had no powder, and whose messengers to Albany in quest of ammunition were now stopped and searched by Sir John's men.

For the Baronet, also, seemed alarmed; and, with his battalion of Highlanders, his Tory militia, his swivels, and his armed retainers, could muster five hundred men and no mean artillery to hold the Hall if threatened.

But this is not what really troubled the plain people of Tryon. Guy Johnson controlled thousands of savage Iroquois. Their war chief was Sir William's brother-in-law, brother to the dark Lady Johnson, Joseph Brant, called Thayendanegea,--the greatest Mohawk who ever lived,--perhaps the greatest of all Iroquois. And I think that Hiawatha alone was greater in North America.

Brave, witty, intelligent, intellectual, having a very genius for war and stratagems, educated like any gentleman of the day and having served Sir William as secretary, Brant, in the conventional garments of civilization, presented a charming and perfectly agreeable appearance.

Accustomed to the society of Sir William's drawing room, this Canienga Chief was utterly conversant with polite usage, and entirely qualified to maintain any conversation addressed to him. Always he had been made much of by ladies--always, when it did not too greatly weary him, was he the centre of batteries of bright eyes and the object of gayest solicitation amid those respectable gatherings for which, in Sir William's day, the Hall was so justly celebrated.

That was the modest and civil student and gentleman, Joseph Brant.

But in the forest he was a painted spectre; in battle a flame! He was a war chief: he never became Royaneh;[3] but he possessed the wisdom of Hendrik, the eloquence of Red Jacket, the terrific energy of Hiakatoo.

[Footnote 3: Sachem: the Canienga term.]

We, of Tryon, were aware of all these things. Our ears were listening for the dread wolf cry of the Iroquois in their paint; our eyes were turned in dumb expectation toward our Provincial Congress of New York; toward our dear General Schuyler in Albany; toward the Continental Congress now in solemn session; toward our new and distant hope s.h.i.+ning clearer, brighter as each day ended--His Excellency the Virginian.

How long were Sir John and his people to be left here in County Tryon to terrorize all friends to liberty,--to fortify Johnstown, to stop us about our business on the King's highway, to intrigue with the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, the Onondagas, the Senecas, the Tuscaroras?

Guy Johnson tampered with the River Indians at Poughkeepsie, and we knew it. He sent belts to the Shawanese, to the Wyandottes, to the Mohicans.

We knew it. He met the Delaware Sachems at a mongrel fire--G.o.d knows where and by what authority, for the Federal Council never gave it!--and we stopped one of his runners in the Bush with his pouch full o' belts and strings; and we took every inch of wampum without leave of Sir John, and bade the runner tell him what we did.

We wrote to Albany; Albany made representations to Sir John, and the Baronet replied that his show of armed force at the Hall was solely for the reason that he had been warned that the Boston people were laying plans to invade Tryon and make of him a prisoner.

I think this silly lie was too much for Schuyler, for all now knew that war must come. Twelve Colonies, in Congress a.s.sembled, had announced that they had rather die as free people than continue to live as slaves.

Very fine indeed! But what was of more interest to us at Fonda's Bush, this Congress commissioned George Was.h.i.+ngton as Commander in Chief of a Colonial Army of 20,000 men, and prepared to raise three millions on bills of credit _for the prosecution of the war_!

Now, at last, the cleavage had come. Now, at last, Sir John was forced into the open.

He swore by Almighty G.o.d that he had had no hand in intriguing against the plain people of Tryon: and while he was making this oath, Guy Johnson was raising the Iroquois against us at Oswego; he was plotting with Carleton and Haldimand at Montreal; he had arranged for the departure of Brant with the great bulk of the Mohawk nation, and, with them, the fighting men of the Iroquois Confederacy. Only the Western Gate Keepers remained,--the fierce Senecas.

And so, except for a few Tuscaroras, a few lukewarm Onondagas, a few of the Lenape, and perhaps half--possibly two-thirds of the Oneida nation, Guy Johnson already had swung the terrible Iroquois to the King.

And now, secretly, the rats began to leave for the North, where, behind the Canada border, savage hordes were gathering by clans, red and white alike.

Guy Johnson went on pretense of Indian business; and none dare stop the Superintendent for Indian affairs on a mission requiring, as he stated, his personal appearance at Oswego.

But once there he slipped quietly over into Canada; and Brant joined him.

Colonel Claus sneaked North; old John Butler went in the night with a horde of Johnstown and Caughnawaga Tories. McDonald followed, accompanied by some scores of bare-s.h.i.+nned Tory Mc's. Walter Butler disappeared like a phantom.