Although the dignity of a chief is hereditary in his family, generally,
the aristocracy of the Indians is not one of birth merely, nor one of
wealth; but it is an aristocracy of merit. A chief is liable to be
deposed for misconduct; and a brave warrior takes his place on account
of the actions he has performed. Among those who have maintained an
ascendancy among their countrymen by the force of individual merit,
none is more remarkable than Shenandoh, the Oneida chief.
This celebrated chief, whose life measured a century, died in 1816.
He was well known in the wars which occurred while the United States
were British colonies; and, also, in the war of the Revolution—as the
undeviating friend of the Americans.
In his youth he was very savage, and addicted to drunkenness; but,
by the force of reflection, and the benevolent exhortations of a
missionary to the tribe, he lived a reformed man for more than sixty
years, and died in Christian hope.[5]
Shenandoh’s person was tall and muscular, but well made—his countenance
was intelligent, and beamed with all the ingenuous dignity of an Indian
Chief. In youth, he was brave and intrepid—in his riper years, one of
the ablest counsellors among the North American tribes. He possessed
a strong and vigorous mind; and, though terrible as the tornado, in
war—he was bland and mild as the zephyr, in peace. With the cunning of
the fox, the hungry perseverance of the wolf, and the agility of the
mountain cat, he watched and repelled Canadian invasions. His vigilance
once preserved from massacre the inhabitants of the then infant
settlements of the German Flats. His influence brought his tribe to
assist the Americans, in their war of the Revolution. His many friendly
actions in their behalf, gained for him, among the Indian tribes, the
appellation of the ‘_White Man’s Friend_.’
To a friend who called to see him, in his wane (he was then blind), he
thus expressed himself:
“I am an aged hemlock—the winds of a hundred winters have whistled
through my branches—I am dead at the top. The generation to which I
belonged have run away and left me. Why _I_ live, the Great Spirit
alone knows! Pray to my Jesus that I may have patience to wait for my
appointed time to die.”
‘Indulge my native land; indulge the tear
That steals impassioned o’er the nation’s doom:
To me each twig from Adam’s stock is near,
And sorrows fall upon an Indian’s tomb.’