Tales, Traditions and Romance of Border and Revolutionary Times — John Shaqi
Tales, Traditions and Romance of Border and Revolutionary TimesEllis, Edward Sylvester
History
Tales, Traditions and Romance of Border and Revolutionary Times
Ellis, Edward Sylvester
Frontier and pioneer life -- United States -- Anecdotes; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Anecdotes
One thing is certain. Brant _was_ at the massacre of Cherry Valley,
which settlement, in the November following the destruction of Wyoming,
met a fate nearly similar. At this terrible affair was repeated the
atrocities of the former. A tory boasted that he killed a Mr. Wells
while at prayer. His daughter, a beautiful and estimable young lady,
fled from the house to a pile of wood for shelter, but an Indian pursued
her; and composedly wiping his bloody knife on his leggin, seized her,
and while she was begging for her life in the few words of Indian which
she knew, he ruthlessly killed her. But why speak of one, where hundreds
met a similar fate? It is said that Brant, on this occasion, did
exercise clemency; and that he was the only one who did. It was shortly
after this that Sullivan's army was organized to march upon the Indian
country and put a stop to such outrages. Brant met it and was repulsed
and fled. It has been made a matter of complaint that our forces
destroyed the Indian villages and crops. But with such wrongs burning in
their breasts, who could ask of them the practice of extraordinary
generosity toward monsters who would not respect nor return it? The same
complaint is made to-day against the exasperated Minnesotians, who claim
the fullest vengeance of the law against the stealthy panthers, and
worse than wild beasts, who have recently ravaged their State. They ask
it, and _should have it_.
In the spring of 1780, Brant renewed his warfare against our
settlements. He seems, in almost all cases, to have been successful,
uniting, as he did, the means of civilized warfare with all the art and
duplicity of the savage.
In later years Colonel Brant exerted himself to preserve peace between
the whites and Indians; and during the important treaties which were
made in 1793 he was in favor of settling matters amicably. He had won
from the British Government all the honors it was willing to bestow upon
a _savage_ ally, and what were they? A Colonel's commission, with
liberty to do work for the king which British soldiers did not care to
do—the slaughter of women and children, and the sacking of villages. It
is quite probable that, after Wayne's decisive castigation of the
Indians, and British insolence had thereby also received a blow, Brant
retired from a service which he knew must be worse than fruitless.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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