An Account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha, or Red Jacket, and His People, 1750-1830 eBook

An intelligent and enterprising young Scotchman, Charles Williamson, who had previously devoted his time while detained as a prisoner in this country, during the war of the Revolution, to investigations respecting its geographical resources and limits, and who from his disposition and business capacity, was well qualified for the station, was appointed their agent, and emigrating hither with his family, and two other young Scotchmen as his assistants, John Johnstone, and Charles Cameron, he became identified with the early history and progress of the extensive and important part of the Indian territory, that as we have seen, had just been opened, and was inviting a new race, to take possession of its virgin soil.

CHAPTER VI.

Union of the Western Indian Tribes contemplated—­Hostile influence of the agents of Great Britain in Canada—­Ambitious project of Thayendanegea or Brant—­Council at Tioga Point—­Indian Ceremonies—­Visit of Cornplanter and others at the seat of government—­Kindly feeling of Washington—­Fresh occasion of trouble.

When Red Jacket, at the treaty of Fort Stanwix, in 1784, projected the bold idea of the union of all the Indian tribes on the continent, to resist the aggressions of the whites, he may not have thought it would soon come near having a practical fulfillment.  This thought grew out of the circumstances and necessities of the times, and was the natural forecast of a great mind.  His words sank deep into the hearts of his people,—­they were carried beyond the bounds of that council-fire,—­they went gliding along with the light canoe that plied the Lakes,—­and were wafted onward by the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi.  Several causes contributed to give direction and force to this movement.

Prominent among them was the fact, that the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, though it put an end to the war, did not secure friendly relations between the two countries.  Hostile feelings had been engendered and were still cherished, particularly by those who had taken refuge in Canada, in the early part of the Revolutionary struggle.  Some of them were very active in stirring up Indian hostilities among the tribes at the west.

But prominent above all others were the exertions of Thayendanegea, or Brant, the famous war-chief, from whose leadership the inhabitants of our frontier settlements had suffered so severely, during the war of the Revolution.  Very soon after the treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1784, from the dissatisfaction growing out of that treaty, and other indications among the Indians, he began to entertain the ambitious project of forming a grand Indian confederacy, of which he would be chief, embracing not only the Iroquois, but all of the Indian nations of the great North-west.  He had given the entire summer of 1785, to the business of visiting these nations, and holding councils among them, with a view to the furtherance of this object. [Footnote:  See Stone’s Life and Times of Brant, Vol. 2, p. 248.]