THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT.
FOR the possession of the North American continent two nations, France
and England, representing the two civilizations, Roman and Teutonic,
which dominate respectively Southern and Northern Europe, contended.
France, in America, embodied the Roman or more ancient type of
civilization, in which government and order were represented by the
priest and the soldier, while the people had little or nothing to do
with the government, except to obey. External authority was everything;
inward condition, little or nothing. The French system was not that of
real colonization, but of military possession; and the desired form of
social and political order was that based on monarchy and feudalism. In
the despotism of a Church subordinate to a ruler in Italy, and of a
State represented by a monarch, the individual was lost, and the
people’s function was simply to submit and pay taxes. They were taught
to look upon their privileges and enjoyments as the gifts of the
sovereign and of the Church. Authority emanated from the government,
which represented God, and represented Him infallibly.
The English colonists, whose leaders had been largely trained in the
Dutch Republic, represented the best elements of Teutonic civilization,
those of English blood being more English than the Englishmen left
behind, and more Teutonic than the Germans. Most of the principles and
institutions wrought out in the experience of the colonists, especially
those now seen to be most peculiarly American, were not of British, but
of continental origin. New England was settled mostly by immigrants who
had left England before 1640; and nearly all their leaders had come by
way of Holland, receiving their political and military education in the
United States of Holland, and under its red, white, and blue flag.
The strong hereditary instincts of Germanic freedom were best
represented in the seventeenth century by the Hollanders, who in the
little republic had long lived under democratic institutions. Nearly all
the leading men who settled New England had come to America after a
longer or shorter stay in Holland, where they imbibed the republican
ideas which they transported as good seed to America. The Pilgrims, who
were the first settlers of Massachusetts; many of the Puritans who came
later to Boston and Salem; the leaders of the Connecticut
Colony,—Hooker, Davenport, and many of their company,—had all been in
Holland. The military commanders—Miles Standish, John Smith, Samuel
Argall, Lyon Gardiner, Governor Dudley, and others—had been trained in
the Dutch armies. Thus it came to pass that while the makers of New
England were English in blood and language, their peculiar institutions
were not of England, but directly borrowed from the one republic of
Northern Europe.
The Middle States were all settled under the Netherlands influences.
Even in New York, where through the patroon system semi-feudal
institutions very much like those of aristocratic England had begun, the
innate love of liberty in the people ultimately broke through these as a
seed through its shell. The full growth was the typical American State
of New York, whose constitution possessed more of the features of the
National Constitution of 1787 than any other of the original thirteen
States. Feudalism and its ideas were thus for the most part left behind
or soon outgrown. The Church, even when united with the State, as was
the case in some of the colonies, was of democratic form. The system of
landholding and registry, the town-meeting, and the written and secret
ballot,—all Germanic ideas,—with many customs and practical political
ideas brought from Holland, made the people free, developed the
individual man, and gave the colonies a reserve of strength and
endurance impossible in Canada.
In their plan of strategy, the French idea was to limit the English
domain within and east of the Alleghany Mountains by a chain of forts
stretching from Quebec along the Great Lakes, down the Ohio and the
Mississippi to New Orleans. This was a scheme of magnificent distances,
involving enormous energy and expense, especially while the English held
the seacoast and bases of supplies. It was evident that for any hope of
success in their mighty territorial scheme the aborigines must be
secured as allies. In this work the priest could do more than the
soldier. Hence the zeal and energy of the spiritual orders were invoked,
and put under tribute to the grand design of Gallicizing America.
On the other hand, to overcome the plans of the French, there must be
that which could neutralize the wiles of the Jesuit as well as the
ability of the soldier. In every war between France and England,
Americans must bear a part; and until the ultimate question should have
been decided, the Indian held, on this continent, the balance of power.
Neutrality to red or white man was impossible. The spring, the
dominating idea of diplomacy and war in Europe was this doctrine of the
balance of power; but in America it was less a speculative notion than a
practical reality. The American Indian would be the decisive element
until one or other of the two nations and civilizations became
paramount.
A fresh disturbance of this doctrinal stability in European politics
occurring near the middle of the eighteenth century, at once caused the
scales to oscillate in America, gave the French the first advantage, and
compelled William Johnson to follow up Van Curler’s work, and to be the
most active agent and influence among the Mohawks which had been felt
since the death of “Brother Corlaer.” This series of episodes is called
in Europe “The War of the Austrian Succession.” It was begun by
Frederick the Great of Prussia, against Maria Theresa of Austria. In
America it is known in history as the “Old French War.”
The “Old” French War (not that of 1753) was declared by Louis XV., March
15, 1744. The news was known all along the Canada borders by the end of
April. The tidings travelled more slowly in the English language; and it
was the middle of May, after the French had attacked the English
garrison at Canso and compelled it to surrender, before the startling
facts aroused the colonies. Already the Indian hatchets had been
sharpened, and the plan of raid and slaughter well made, when the
governor of New York, relying on the Indians as the great breakwater
against the waves of Canadian invasion, called a council of the chiefs
of the confederated Six Nations at Albany, which met June 18, 1744.
The settlers soon found that, in this as in previous wars, the French
and Canadian Indians were the more aggressive party, while the military
authorities of New York relied on a defensive policy. The governor,
George Clinton,—not the ancestor of the Clintons in the United States,
but the sixth son of the Earl of Lincoln,—had arrived in September,
1743. He was an old sea-dog, an ex-admiral, who knew as much about civil
government as one of his powder-monkeys on shipboard. It seemed to be
the policy of the British Government to send over decayed functionaries
and politicians who were favourites at court, but in every way unfitted
for the great problems of state in the complex community whose borders
were on Canada, where French power was intrenched. Too many of these
nominees of the Crown considered it to be their first duty to build up
their private fortune. Nevertheless, it was Clinton—who had probably
been influenced by his fellow-sailor, Captain Warren—who summoned
William Johnson, the trader, into public life.
Despite the superiority of the British fleet, the French moved more
quickly, and were first in America with reinforcements. The open
water-way from Canada into the heart of New York was the military nerve
of the continent. It made the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys the objective
point of the French invaders. The war, though not yet declared, was to
last five years, and, as we shall see, developed all the inherent
energies of Johnson, the young Irishman, who had already shown powers of
leadership. The military policy of the French was to keep the English
frontier in a state of ceaseless alarm, by small parties of stealthy
savages striking their blows unexpectedly all along the line from Oswego
to Hoosic. The story of the numberless petty raids is well told in
Drake’s “Particular History;” but in some cases the details are now
extant only in written accounts found in the Johnson papers, in church
records, in family Bibles, and on tombstones in Mohawk Valley and in New
England.
Johnson soon found himself where the Robinson Crusoe of poetry wished to
be,—“in the midst of alarms;” but his temper rose into the heights of
unshakable calm as the dangers increased. Invited, with his wife and
three infant children, to come and live in Albany till the war was over,
he declined, and remained at Mount Johnson, losing no opportunity to
win, to keep, and to increase his influence over the Iroquois. His
abilities and power were, as we have seen, brought to the notice of the
new governor, indirectly through his uncle, but immediately through the
introduction of Chief Justice De Lancey, a brother of his uncle’s wife.
In the month of April, 1745, William Johnson received a commission as
one of the justices of the peace in the county of Albany, which then
extended from Coeymans to Herkimer.
At this point the strictly private life of Johnson ended, and his
political career began. The situation of Mount Johnson was within easy
reach of all important places in the province which were likely to be
the seat of war. An easy day’s ride on horseback would bring him to
Albany, whence, by either land or water, the country was opened
northward to Crown Point, or southward to New York. Thence, over a cross
route by way of Saratoga Springs, a strong man well mounted could, by
hard riding, reach Mount Johnson from the foot of Lake George in a day
and part of a night. Westward also, by river or land route, there was
easy access to all the tribes of the Long House and to all the Mohawk
Valley settlements.
Johnson’s uncle, Captain Warren, had by the capture of a privateer
distinguished himself at sea, and receiving promotion to the grade of
Commodore, was ordered to command the naval forces for the reduction of
Louisburg. By his energy and ability strict blockade was maintained
while the American citizen soldiery under Pepperell tightened the coils
of investment. When the “Vigilante,” a French frigate laden with
reinforcements in men and provisions, had been decoyed and captured, the
fortress was surrendered. Warren became an admiral; and Pepperell, a
merchant like Johnson, was made a baronet,—the former one day, the
latter one month, after receipt of the news in England.
Chronology was in this case a key to English jealousy of the colonists,
whose growing strength and republicanism monarchical Britain feared. The
joy of the Americans was excessive. It culminated in Boston, where
“Louisburg Square” still preserves the name. The gladness on this side
of the Atlantic equalled the astonishment, flavoured with jealousy,
which fell upon Europe. One would have thought that it would salt
wholesomely the inborn contempt which the regular officers of the king’s
troops felt toward provincial fighters, but it did not; and Braddock,
Loudon, Abercrombie, and their foolish imitators were yet numerously to
come. Indeed, this success of provincial Americans induced a jealousy
that was to rankle for a generation or more in British breasts, to the
serious disadvantage of both Great Britain and the colonies, as we shall
soon see.
Meanwhile, Indian affairs were in a critical condition, and the signs of
danger on the frontier were ominous. For reasons not here to be
analyzed, there were bad feelings between the Iroquois and the Albany
people. Rumours of the purpose of the English to destroy the Indians
were diligently kept in circulation by both lay and clerical Frenchmen.
Those who wore canonicals and those who wore regimentals were equally
industrious in fomenting dissatisfaction. The uneasiness of the Mohawks
was so great that they sent several chiefs to confer with their
brethren, the Caughnawaga Indians, in Canada. It was generally believed
that the French would attack Oswego. There is also evidence that
attempts were made to kidnap Johnson, against whom, as a relative of
Admiral Warren, as one of the captors of Louisburg, and as the man who
especially influenced the Iroquois in favour of the English, the French
had an especial grudge. It was known that from the fort at Crown Point
scalping parties issued at intervals; but mere rumours turned into
genuine history when Longmeadow, Massachusetts, was attacked and burned
by French Indians. On Nov. 17, 1745, the poorly fortified Dutch village
of Saratoga on the Hudson was attacked by an overwhelming force of over
six hundred French and Indians. After easy victory the place was given
over to the torch, and the sickening story of the massacre of
Schenectady was repeated.
In French civilization the priest and the soldier always go together.
They are the two necessary figures, whether in Corea, Africa, Cochin
China, or Canada. The soldier, Marin, was in this case led by the
priest, Picquet. Besides the massacre, in which thirty persons were
killed and scalped, sixty were made prisoners; and the whole fertile
farming country, blooming with the flower and fruit of industry, was
desolated for many miles. Many of the captives were negroes, and a
majority of the whole number died of disease in the prisons of Quebec.
One of the best accounts of this massacre—meagre in details—is
contained in a letter to Mr. Johnson from Mr. Sanders, of Albany. It was
nine days after this event that Johnson received the urgent letter
inviting him to move for safety to Albany.
A line of fire and blood, ashes and blackness, was now being drawn from
Springfield to Niagara. All men were under arms, and each was called to
watch every third night. No house was safe, except palisaded or built of
logs for defence. The forts were repaired and garrisoned. The bullet
moulds were kept hot, and extra flints, ramrods, and ammunition laid out
all ready, while weary sentinels strained ear and eye through each long,
dark night.
Out from the gateway of Crown Point, like centrifugal whirlwinds of
fire, swept bands of savages, who swooped down on the settlements.
Almost under the shadow of the palisades of Albany, Schenectady, and the
villages along the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, men were shot and their
scalps taken to decorate Canadian wigwams. The little “God’s Acre” in
every settlement on the Mohawk began to fatten with victims who had died
out of their beds. Perhaps none of these ancient sleeping-places has
been reverently emptied in order to consign their memorials of once
active life to more enduring public honour in the modern cemeteries, but
the number of perforated skulls surprises the beholder. In these mute
witnesses to the disquiet of the past, he reads the story of ancestral
danger and suffering. The devout frontiersman made his way to church on
the Lord’s Day with his loaded gun on his shoulder, its flint well
picked and its pan well primed. He took his seat at the end of the pew,
only after sentinels had been posted and arms made ready for instant
use. Slight wonder was it that the effects of all-night vigils, and the
unusual posture of repose in a pew, rather than the length of the
Domine’s sermon, induced sleep even in meeting.
Most of the churches were loop-holed for defence, and even in the few
old houses occasionally found with projecting second floor, we see an
interesting survival of the old days, when from both church and dwelling
a line of gun-barrels might at any hour decorate the eaves with
gargoyles spouting fire and death. Away from the villages, the farmers,
building a block-house on some commanding hill, and if possible over a
well or spring, kept a sentinel on the roof while they laboured in the
fields. Horn in hand, the watcher surveyed the wide stretches of valley,
or scrutinized the edges of the clearing, to give warning of the
approach of skulking red or white murderers. Yet human nerves would
weary, and after constant strain for months with no near sign of danger,
vigilance would often relax at the very moment when the enemy opened
fire and raised his yell. Men would laugh to-day at warnings, while,
perhaps, the boys in play would set up mock sentinels at the gateways,
who on the morrow would be scalped or be bound and on their way to
Canada.
The twofold plan of campaign decided on in England was the old one first
formulated by Leisler in 1690, looking to the invasion and subjugation
of Canada, attempted again in 1711, when a German regiment in New York
was raised for the purpose, and which was frustrated by the disaster to
the British fleet. The land and naval forces of New and Old England were
now to make rendezvous at Louisburg, and move up the St. Lawrence to
Quebec, while the provincial militia of the middle and lower colonies,
combined with the Iroquois if possible, should capture the French fort,
St. Frederick, at Crown Point, and the city of Montreal.
The disastrous inaction of King George and the London lords, arising
probably from jealousy of the provincials, and the rumours of a great
French fleet under D’Anville to be sent against New England, caused the
abandonment of the expedition to Quebec. This, however, was not known by
submarine electric cable; and meantime New York politics, at which we
must now glance, had become interesting.
Two friends, the Chief-Justice De Lancey and Governor Clinton,
quarrelled over their cups at a convivial gathering, and this took place
just after the latter had renewed the former’s commission for life.
Happening, too, on the eve of the great council of the Six Nations,
which Clinton had summoned at Albany, just when that town was
pestiferous with small-pox and bilious fever, the outlook for successful
negotiations was not very promising. Messrs. Rutherford, Livingston, and
Dr. Cadwallader Colden were the only members of his council who came
with Clinton, while of the expected Indians only three had arrived.
These, for the two scalps with the blood hardly dried on the hair, were
rewarded with strouds and laced coats, and sent to drum up recruits,
while the governor waited a month for the tardy, suspicious, and sullen
savages to appear before him.
Matters looked dark indeed. Yet when Mohawk runners, despatched by
Johnson on a scouting expedition to Crown Point, arrived, bringing news
of French preparations for a descent upon Schenectady and the Valley,
and possibly upon Albany, the governor was unable to see the imminent
danger. He still waited; he still believed wholly in the defensive
policy, and seemed satisfied, because for the fort on the Hudson at
Saratoga, now Easton, a sum equal to about eight hundred dollars had
been voted by the Assembly. This sum enabled the colonial engineers to
build a palisade one hundred and fifty feet long, with six redoubts for
barracks, all of timber, and to mount on platforms twelve cannon of six,
twelve, and eighteen pound calibre. In this way the summer was wasted in
waiting; for the Indians came not, and Clinton’s ambition to be a
powerful diplomatist with the Indians was for the present baffled.
Believing this was a matter between French and English alone, strongly
inclining to neutrality, and diligently persuaded thereto by the French
Jesuits, the Iroquois sulked at home. Not only did they flatly refuse to
meet the governor, but some of the chiefs went openly over to the
French.
Meanwhile the white settlers were, according to Johnson’s report,
abandoning their farms along the Mohawk, and concentrating in the
block-houses or palisaded towns. Besides having sent Indian scouts to
the Champlain country, Johnson wrote urgent letters to Clinton stating
the case, and asking him to open his eyes to the facts. To protect
Johnson’s stores of eleven thousand bushels of grain, while standing his
ground, the governor sent a lieutenant and thirty men. Another militia
company was despatched to the upper Mohawk Castle. Having done these
things, Clinton, who had as early as the 4th of August officially
notified Governor Shirley of Massachusetts that he would proceed against
Crown Point with the warriors of the Five Nations, was at his wits’ end.
He had alienated Colonel Schuyler and the members of the Board of Indian
Commissioners, mostly faithful and trusted men well known in the
provinces. In the quarrel of the governor with De Lancey, these ranged
themselves on the side of the chief justice.
It is too clumsy an attempt at explanation of the difficulty between the
king’s agent, Clinton, and the Board of Indian Commissioners, to ascribe
the causes chiefly or entirely to the “rascality” of the commissioners,
who “abused their office for private peculation,” or to the ambition of
De Lancey. It is not necessary in one who appreciates the great
abilities of Johnson to describe him as a white lily of honesty and
purity. English authors, the Tory historians of the Revolution, and the
prejudiced writers of American history, who reflect their own narrowness
and sectional views, take delight in maligning the character of the men
of colonial New York simply because they were Dutch. As matter of
unsentimental fact, there is much to be said on both sides. The people
of New York were not anxious to send the Indians on the war-path, nor to
furnish white soldiers to guard their squaws and pappooses while they
were away from their villages. They were not at all persuaded of the
superior honesty either of the governor or his advisers and appointees.
The greater facts are also clear, that the New York Assembly was
vigilantly jealous of the people’s liberties, and was determined at all
hazards to limit the royal prerogative as far as possible. Since his
quarrel with De Lancey, the governor had shown excessive zeal in
maintaining the rights of the king. On the other hand, most of the steps
necessary to make New York an independent state had, as the British
Attorney-General Bradley declared, already been taken by his Assembly,
which of twenty-seven members had fourteen of Dutch descent. These men
were determined to teach the king’s agent that he must bow to the will
of the people, who were more important than king and court, and make no
advance in monarchical ideas. They saw that the governor was under the
close personal influence of Cadwallader Colden, a radical Tory, who they
suspected prepared most of Clinton’s State papers; and they set
themselves in array against this intermeddler on royalty’s behalf. Again
the petty jealousy which burned steadily in all the colonies made these
Dutchmen enjoy paying back the New Englanders in their own coin some of
the slights and insults of the past. The former had long looked down in
contempt on the settlers of New Amsterdam, and their sons now repaid
them in kind, and were on the whole rather glad to snub Shirley and to
annoy Clinton for so deferring to the wishes of the latter. Clinton
seemed lacking in tact, and was unable to conciliate the members of the
Board of Indian Commissioners, who one and all, led by Schuyler,
resigned.
In a word, Clinton had begun his administration by trying to bully and
drive the Dutchmen. Now, those who know the men of this branch of the
Teutonic race have always found by experience that when their hearts are
won they are easily led. All attempts to drive them, however, usually
result as Alva’s and Philip’s plans resulted in the Netherlands, where
three hundred thousand Spaniards were buried; or as in South Africa,
where Dutch boers hold their own against British aggression. It took
Clinton some years to learn the lesson, but it was the same experience
of failure and retreat.
At his wits’ end, Governor Clinton turned to the man for the hour.
William Johnson was offered the appointment of Superintendent of Indian
Affairs, and at once accepted. Thus, at thirty-one years, opened in full
promise the splendid career of the Irish adventurer.
While no man in the province or continent comprehended more clearly the
gravity of the situation, no one better understood all the elements in
the case, the ground of faith in the immediate improvement of affairs,
and the ultimate supremacy of the British cause. Johnson was a man of
continental ideas. Without losing an instant of time he at once set
himself to the task of getting hold of the chief men of the Six Nations.
He first sent wampum belts to the Pennsylvanian Indians and the Esopus
tribe, asking their co-operation with the Albany Council. He put on
Indian dress, and for weeks gave himself up to their pastimes. Sparing
not paint, grease, ochre, feathers, games, or councils, he arrayed
himself as one of their own braves. He encouraged them to get up
war-dances, in order to excite their martial spirit. He was speedily
successful in turning the tide of opinion in one whole canton of the
Confederacy in favour of attending the Albany Convention.
It was probably about this time that Johnson was formally adopted into
the Mohawk tribe, made a chief, and received that name which was ever
afterward his Indian title. This habit of the Iroquois, of especially
and significantly naming prominent personages, is still in vogue. When
some Dakota Indians visited Boston in 1889, after seeing Charlestown and
Bunker Hill Monument, they called on Governor Brackett, and named him
the “Great Rock in the Clouds.”
The title which the Mohawks gave their new white chief and leader in
1746, was, according to the anarchic and unscientific spelling of the
time, War-ragh-i-yah-gey. The term may be translated “Chief Director of
Affairs.” It may with economy of vocables be spelled Wa-ra-i-ya-gé.
Other matters contributed to this success, and utilized the work of
others. Conrad Weiser, the Pennsylvanian German interpreter, had been
recently among the tribes as far as Ohio, influencing them in favour of
the English. A happy accident—the coming of a delegation of Chickasaws
from the West and South to invade Canada, and to invite the Senecas to
take part and pilot them—awoke this most western division of the
Iroquois Confederacy to the importance of the accession. The
simultaneous offers of alliance and aid by other scattered tribes led to
a complete change of views. In a word, the Senecas resolved to sit at
the Albany caucus. With the tribes at each end, the west and the east of
the Long House, thus in substantial accord, Johnson directed the Mohawks
to send out runners to the whole confederation. Thus the work of winning
over the other few tribes, at least so far as attendance at Albany was
concerned, proved to be comparatively easy.
Even the feuds and quarrels which at the time divided the Long House
seemed to work for Johnson’s fame and the English cause. For some reason
in Iroquois politics, occult to a white man, the house was divided
against itself: the Senecas, Onondagas, and Mohawks composed one great
faction; the Oneidas, Cayugas, and Tuscaroras formed the other and
weaker. The latter tribe from the Carolinas, which had joined the
Confederacy a generation before, in 1712, were far from being won over
so as to take up arms for the English. When the fighting braves and
counselling old men came to pow-wow with the large faction, the first
thing done by them was to give the Mohawks, especially, a vigorous
scolding for having acted so presumptuously and independently without
taking council of the whole Confederacy. After lively debate and
rejoinder, it was agreed by all to go to Albany, but with the river
between the factions on their journey. So, along the banks of the Mohawk
the delegates of the Confederacy marched as far as Schenectady, when
quitting the river, the trail across country and to Norman’s Kill was
followed. All but three of the Mohawk chiefs had been won to the English
side. Of these, two of the Bear-totem clan lived at the upper castle at
Canajoharie, and the third of the Tortoise-totem clan at the lower
castle on the hill near Schoharie Creek. These dignitaries were finally
persuaded by Rev. Mr. Barclay, then living among the Mohawks, and the
famous Dr. Cadwallader Colden, who knew the Indians well, and later
became the historian of the Six Nations.
It was a decisive moment in the history of America when on the 8th of
August, 1746, the two rival divisions marched down old Patroon Street,
the Clinton Avenue of to-day, and into State Street to Fort Frederick.
Leading the Mohawk band in all the paraphernalia of Indian dress and
decoration, with abundant ochre and plumes, was the pale-faced man,
Johnson, who could whoop, yell, leap, dance, run, wrestle, play racket,
and eat dog-hash—drawing the line at the cannibal feast,—with the best
champions in any of the six tribes. The double column moved past Fort
Frederick, where now stands the Episcopal Church, the Indians firing
their guns and the fort its ordnance. Then the gates of the sallyport
swung open, and in the largest room of the fort the red men squatted and
were served with food.