by Ron Carter
“I see many of your soldiers behind you, carrying arms. I have your paper and signature saying this was not to be. I am surprised to be treated thus by an old friend and neighbor.”
For a moment Herkimer’s startled surprise showed in his face. Brant had purposely seized control of the parley by speaking first, and had tipped Herkimer off balance with an accusation that Herkimer had treacherously broken his own signed word and brought soldiers against an old neighbor. Herkimer tried to recover.
“My soldiers are far behind, and they are under orders not to raise their muskets. They will not harm you.”
“I see they are many. Perhaps four hundred. I have brought but twenty with me to meet you in open council, but I have many in my camp to the south. They are also under orders to leave their weapons untouched. Only if they hear the sounds of battle will they come here, in a great swarm, like the locusts. I intend you no harm. I have come to parley with you in peace concerning that which divides us. I tell you of my warriors in the forest because I do not wish to deceive you.”
Herkimer’s eyes never left Brant. “I have come for the same purpose. Do you wish to council here, or in a building where we can sit to parley?”
“Here. I have brought blankets.” Brant glanced at one of his warriors and in an instant, blankets appeared. The Indians spread them on the ground, and Herkimer and his small knot of men sat facing Brant and his warriors.
Herkimer continued. “It has been said that Brant has spent many months among the Iroquois, from Onoquaga to Oriskany, and from Schoharie to the lake Ontario, talking against the Americans, seeking to unite all Indians with the British. Is it true?” Herkimer’s eyes narrowed.
Brant nodded once, but his facial expression did not change. “It is so.”
“What is the reason?”
Brant did not hesitate. “It is not hard to understand. The Americans have ever diminished our lands. They have restricted our travel. Our sachems and ministers are not allowed to come to Canajoharie. The Americans have been industrious to build forts on the lands guaranteed to us in the Treaty of 1768, nine years ago. I have a copy of that treaty and of the line that was drawn and the location of the three forts with me. Would you care to see it?”
Herkimer’s eyes dropped. It was true. The Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768 had established a north-south line near the Tienaderha River, with the firm agreement that the Mohawk were to have the territory to the west of the line without interference from the Americans. Nonetheless, Fort Oswego, Fort Brewerton, and Fort Sullivan remained within the lands reserved to the Mohawk. There was nothing Herkimer could do about it. He raised his face to Brant.
“I know of the forts, and I regret they remain on your land. I have no power to correct it. I would if I could. But it is not the forts I have come to discuss. There is the greater matter of the trouble that has developed between the Americans and the British. That is for the white men to resolve, not the Indians. The great Mohawk, and the Iroquois confederation, gave their solemn pledge that they would not take up the hatchet in this matter. They would leave it for the Americans and the British to settle. I remind you of your pledge, and I ask you now to honor it.”
There it was. Herkimer had brought the deadly question out in the open and put it squarely before Brant. Much of the fate of the oncoming battle of the Lake Champlain–Hudson River corridor hung on the answer. Brownley, Whetten, and Bates were holding their breath. Belnap’s face was a ghostly white. Cox’s face was a blank.
“I cannot. I have treatied with the king in London. He has sworn to drive all Americans from our lands and close the forts. He has sent us great gifts and promised to deliver more. The British have the power to keep their commitments and humble the rebels from Boston. I will honor my treaty with the king.”
For five seconds the air was charged. No one moved as the hair raised on their necks. The only sounds were the birds and insects busy doing their spring work. Then, out of the silence, Ebenezer Cox spoke directly to Brant, his voice thick with acrimony.
“Fergot already the pledge you and the Iroquois made to remain neutral? What happened? Did the British offer you more rum than the Americans?”
Herkimer recoiled in shocked horror and opened his mouth to speak, but Cox continued, his voice booming, insulting.
“This trouble between the Americans and the British has nothing to do with you. It’s for them to settle. Take your warriors and get back to your own—”
He got no further. Brant turned his face slightly to his left, and the twenty warriors behind him were instantly on their feet. The American soldiers eighty yards to the north swung their muskets up, waiting for orders. In the forest west of the flagpole, the two hidden riflemen, Attenborough and Briscoe, laid the barrels of their Pennsylvania rifles over a branch of the oak tree in which they were hidden, and eared back the big hammers, while to the east, Phelps, twenty feet up an ancient pine, did the same. All three men laid their cheeks against the stocks of their rifles and buried the stubby foresight at the end of the long barrel in the center of Brant’s chest while they began taking up the slack in the triggers.
Herkimer bolted to his feet and raised his hands, signaling no further action from the Americans. It seemed the world stopped for a time before eighteen of the Iroquois warriors turned on their heels and ran south to disappear into the trees. Moments later, out of sight in the forest where they had gone, came the sustained firing of muskets. North of the flagpole the Americans cocked their muskets and raised them to the ready while the three hidden riflemen began to take up the last one-eighth inch in the pull of their rifle triggers.
“Stop!” shouted Herkimer. “They’re not shooting at us. It’s a show of strength. Uncock those muskets and lower them. Now! Do it!”
Confused, the American militiamen uncocked their muskets and peered at their officers, waiting, not knowing what to do. In disbelief, the three hidden riflemen jerked their heads from their rifles and peered through narrowed eyes, trying to understand what was happening in the clearing, one hundred yards away. Slowly, carefully, they uncocked their weapons and waited, not knowing whether they had failed in their assignment to shoot Brant dead if he broke the peace. From their position, they could not tell if the Indian muskets blasting in the trees was, or was not, the beginning of the war on the Hudson River. They remained unmoving, focused, frustrated, hating what they did not know.
Infuriated, face red, neck veins extended, Herkimer turned to Brant. “You promised peace at this parley. When did Joseph Brant cease keeping his word? Order your warriors to stop, now!” Herkimer knew the terrible risk he was taking in giving Brant a direct order.
Still seated, Brant stoically raised his right hand high above his head, fist clenched, and two seconds later the rattling blasts of gunfire ceased. He raised his eyes to Herkimer. “You promised peace if I would come to this parley, yet you bring along this man Cox who does not want peace, and you allow him to insult me and my people to provoke us. My warriors fired their weapons as a warning. We will accept no more insults. We will talk as brothers, or not at all.”
Herkimer’s hot answer came instantly. “I came in peace. Cox speaks for himself.” He turned to look at Cox, eyes flashing, jaw set, chin thrust out. Cox swallowed and dropped his gaze. Herkimer turned to the rank and file of militia eighty yards north and gave them a hand signal. The butts of their muskets and rifles were to be on the ground. In the trees to the east and west, the hidden riflemen stared in puzzlement, but remained silent, motionless.
Slowly Herkimer regained control of himself and sat back down on his blanket facing Brant, and spoke with restraint.
“You complained that your minister, Mr. Stuart, cannot visit you. I will see to it he can come to Canajoharie, and that he can bring with him the wife of John Butler.”
Brant reflected for a moment, then bobbed his head slightly in acknowledgment while Herkimer continued.
“I cannot cause the militia to leave the three forts in Mohawk territory, but I c
an promise that the Tories who support the king will not be molested.”
Again Brant thought for a moment before he nodded. Herkimer turned and with a great flourish, pointed at the four cattle. “I offer these to you as a gift showing our good faith.”
Brant nodded once again, then waited, knowing that the concessions made by Herkimer, and the gift of the four cattle, were but a preparation for a demand that Herkimer was about to make, and there was no doubt in Brant’s mind what it was to be.
Herkimer spoke slowly, firmly. “In return I will expect you to keep your pledge to let the Americans and British settle their differences and to influence your people to do the same.”
Brant’s expression did not change as he rose to his feet. “I will take the cattle, and I will go to counsel with Colonel Butler at Oswego.”
Brant had been taught well the subversive art of the white men. He had extracted from Herkimer the concessions he wanted, and four cattle besides, then instantly concluded the parley without saying yes or no to the single, critical demand of Herkimer.
He said no more as he gave abrupt hand signs to the two warriors who had remained with him. They gathered the lead ropes of the four cattle, then followed Brant to walk steadily away, not looking back.
Stunned, livid with anger, Herkimer opened his mouth to call after him, then clamped it shut, teeth grinding as he watched Brant’s back moving calmly toward the safety of the forest. I can’t call after him without showing everyone that he is in control, and I won’t give him the satisfaction of having me beg. I’ll fight him first.
A hush held for a moment before murmuring erupted among the rank and file, and then the explosive moment was over. Herkimer slowly brought his outrage under control and forced his mind to make a judgment of what he had gained, and what he had lost, and to plan the next step. He turned to Reverend Belnap, who shrugged and turned away. In restrained anger, Herkimer turned to Ebenezer Cox, who shook his head in sour disgust and followed Belnap before the general could say a word.
Herkimer stood with head tilted forward, mouth pursed for several seconds, pondering, pulling his thoughts together. Then he turned to Brownley and Whetten. Neither man would look him in the eye. Herkimer’s shoulders slumped as bitter thoughts cut into his heart. I failed. All I did was give him what he wanted, and I got nothing in return—no promise that he would stay out of the war. The unbearable humiliation rose to choke him for a moment. What will Schuyler say? St. Clair?
Teeth clenched, he raised his face to stare south at the trees where Brant had disappeared. What will he do? When the battle starts that will decide who controls the Hudson River and Fort Ticonderoga, what will Brant do?
Notes
The history of the Iroquois as well as the other Indian tribes of the northeastern section of the United States, which the author thought helpful to the reader in understanding the conduct of the Indians in the revolution, is set out in the following references: Graymont, The Iroquois; Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, pp. 18–38; Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution, pp. 1–26.
In addition, specific facts set forth hereafter are taken from Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution on the pages indicated.
Joseph Brant, in concert with British Major John Butler, Daniel Claus, and others, used the winter of 1776–77 to circulate widely through the territory of the Iroquois and other Indian tribes, seeking support for the British. He gained access to their councils by use of a wampum belt, eventually depositing it at Onondaga, the repository of thousands of such belts. Brant, with a few warriors, circulated from Lake Ontario in the Great Lakes, to the Hudson River.
Eventually he invited most of the tribal leaders to a great conference at Ganaghsaraga, a short distance south of Lake Oneida. Brant’s efforts tended to stir division among the various tribes, some taking sides with the British, others wishing to remain neutral and let the white men settle their own wars, and yet others favoring the Americans.
With unrest rising, General Philip Schuyler sought to gain favor with the Indians by opening a large trading post at Oswego, and the Indians came in droves to trade. Samuel Kirkland, a powerful Christian missionary who favored the Americans, came to make speeches to the Indians, describing the great success of General Washington at Trenton and Princeton, at which time Schuyler provided six barrels of rum, all of which were well received by the Indians. It was then the sad news came from the Onondaga tribe that a disease had swept through their villages, killing many. Their council fire was extinguished, and only by a herculean effort was Samuel Kirkland able to persuade them to rekindle it and carry on. A proposed Grand Meeting at Onondaga was poorly attended; nevertheless, Brant and others continued their work, aimed at stirring up the Indians against the Americans.
In May 1777, Colonel Peter Gansevoort replaced Colonel Elmore as commander of Fort Stanwix, near the headwaters of the Mohawk River. In June 1777, Brant visited the village of Unadilla at the junction of the Susquehanna River and Butternut Creek, and the meeting was reported to General Schuyler and the Committee of Safety. When General Nicholas Herkimer of the militia heard of it, he, with three hundred eighty soldiers, went to Unadilla to investigate and requested Brant to meet him for a conference. Brant came. Herkimer met him in the village, bringing with him four local leaders, including Ebenezer Cox, who despised Brant. Herkimer, who had known Brant for years, and been a neighbor of his, had three riflemen hide nearby with orders to shoot Brant and his lieutenants if they started trouble.
The conference went reasonably well until Ebenezer Cox interrupted with harsh criticism of Brant, whereupon Brant gave a signal and his warriors, at their camp in the trees, fired their muskets. For a moment it seemed a battle was imminent, but Herkimer ordered his men to refrain, then made several concessions to Brant to console him, including a gift of four cattle. The conference ended with Brant leaving, having obtained the concessions he wanted, and four cattle for food besides. Herkimer was largely unsuccessful in gaining any commitments from Brant.
See Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution, pp. 110–17.
Boston
June 30, 1777
CHAPTER XII
* * *
Something’s wrong with him—different—he’s too quiet, preoccupied—something’s happened. Margaret Dunson glanced from the kitchen to the dining table at one end of the parlor, where Caleb sat with the other children—Adam, Priscilla, and Brigitte—just finishing their supper of broiled salmon, baked potato, and garden greens. He was seated at the end of the table, where his father, John Dunson, had presided over his family, until Tom Sievers brought him home at dusk on April 19, 1775, shot in the back, with a huge British musketball lodged in his right lung. The two men, along with Matthew, the eldest of the Dunson children, and Billy Weems, a lifelong friend, had been with those who met the British at Concord, turned them, humiliated them, shattered them, drove them back the eighteen miles to Charlestown and Boston. In a bewildering dream world, Caleb had watched his father die the next day, making Matthew the man of the family, until he received a request to use his skills as an oceangoing navigator on American ships, working to intercept British vessels on the high seas. At age fourteen, the weight of being the eldest man in the Dunson home had then fallen on Caleb’s young shoulders.
The leap from angry words against the king to the deadly shooting had happened too fast, caught too many unprepared. Still just a boy in the awkward beginnings of the awakening of manhood, Caleb had struggled to understand a world gone mad. At the time in his life when he most needed the strong, steadying hand of a father to guide him through the strange, confusing, bittersweet, ever-shifting, ever-changing world of a boy becoming a man, Caleb had no one.
With the people in the colonies divided in their loyalties between England and America, and with the best of men shaken, vacillating, uncertain, young Caleb faced questions that rolled over him like a tidal wave, swamping his mind, numbing his heart. If the American cause of freedom was God’s wo
rk, then why had God allowed his father, one of the leaders, to be killed? And why had He then taken Matthew and Tom Sievers away from the family? Why had his mother been left a widow, heartbroken, grieving, with five children to raise and support? Why had Billy Weems been all but killed by musket and bayonet, when he was fighting for the right? Why had God let the British smash George Washington’s army on Long Island, and then drive the remnants running in desperate panic clear to Pennsylvania, across the Delaware River, to save anything they could?
True, this great and omnipotent God had allowed Washington to retake Trenton, and then Princeton, but why, with those two victories won, had they come to nothing? The British remained. They continued to crush the rebellious Americans. And now they were coming down the Hudson River, to divide the states and take them one at a time.
If this great, righteous, omnipotent, Almighty God was using the colonists to accomplish His work, then why were these chosen people being killed, beaten, massacred at every turn? When He needed them, they were there. But when they needed Him, where was He? Why was He indifferent to their suffering, their pleading, their cries, their prayers? Was He hiding? Or maybe He simply didn’t exist at all. Caleb’s young mind spiraled ever downward into a black, abysmal fog that led first to criticism, then bitterness, then rebellion against God.
Terrified, Margaret had pled, prayed, begged. Old Silas Olmsted, who had been the family reverend since John had courted and won Margaret’s hand, had tried to reach across the growing abyss that lay between Caleb and the Almighty, but Caleb had refused him and silently turned his face away from God.
Sick in her heart, Margaret had prayed long and fervently every day, begging God for a miracle, then pled with Caleb, and given the last ounce of her strength to try to reach him, but he was deaf and blind to it all. Secretly, he resolved he would leave home to join the fight against the British, but for one reason only. Not for freedom, not for his country, not for the Almighty, but because the British had killed his father. He would make them pay. He would have his revenge. Vengeance is mine, said this Almighty God, but Caleb only smiled. You take your vengeance. I’ll take mine.