FIGHTING ON THE FRONTIER
Brant was now regularly in the pay of the British, and
until the close of the war he was to be employed actively
in weakening the colonists by destroying their settlements
intervening between the populous centres of the Atlantic
states and the borders of Canada. In this unhappy
fratricidal war each side used the Indians to strike
terror into the hearts of its enemies, and as a result,
in the quiet valleys lying between the Hudson and Ohio
and the Great Lakes, there was an appalling destruction
of property and loss of life. Brant proved himself one
of the most successful of the leaders in this border
warfare, and while he does not seem ever to have been
guilty of wanton cruelty himself, those under him, on
more than one occasion, ruthlessly murdered their foes,
irrespective of age or sex. That he tacitly permitted
his followers to murder and scalp unarmed settlers shows
that he was still much of a savage. As one historian has
written: 'He was not a devil, and not an angel.' It is
true, as we shall see, that on several occasions he
intervened to save Tory friends and acquaintances, but
these are isolated examples, and his raids were accompanied
by all the horrors of Indian warfare. The only excuse
that can be offered for him is that he was no worse than
his age, and that the white loyalist leaders, such as
the Butlers, as well as the colonial commanders of the
revolutionists, were equally callous regarding the
destruction of property and life.
Brant appears to have spent the winter of 1777 and 1778
in Canada, but with the opening of military operations
in the spring he was again at Oquaga and Unadilla. One
of his first exploits of the year 1778 was at Springfield,
a small settlement lying some miles beyond Cherry Valley
at the head of Lake Otsego. When news of Brant's approach
reached this place, a number of the men-folk fled for
their lives. Those who remained were taken prisoners.
The chief gathered the women and children into one house
and set the torch to all the other buildings in the
settlement. Brant's care for the weaker sex and the
children during this expedition shows that he had a
tenderness of heart unusual among the red men of his
time.
During the hay-making season the chief was reconnoitring
in the Schoharie district, which was situated some distance
west of Albany and south of the Mohawk river. The scythe
had been at work in the tall grass, and a farmer's lad
was busy in a sunlit meadow raking hay. As he dragged
the loose bundles over the stubble, he heard a footfall
in his rear. Turning about he saw that a sturdy Indian
dressed in warrior's garb had stolen upon him. The boy
involuntarily raised his rake as though to strike.
'Do not be afraid, young man,' the intruder said in good
English; 'I will not hurt you.'
The warrior then asked the youth in friendly terms where
a Mr Foster, a loyalist, had his dwelling. He went further
and asked the lad his name.
'I know your father well,' said the redskin, when the
boy had answered his questions; 'he lives neighbour to
Captain McKean. I know McKean very well, and a fine fellow
he is too.'
The boy was now quite reassured that the Indian would do
him no harm, and boldly inquired who his interrogator
might be.
'My name is Brant,' answered the redskin, although he
pondered for a moment before replying.
'What! Joseph Brant?' said the youth, as a sharp thrill
went coursing through his veins.
'No!' answered the warrior, 'I am a cousin of his'; but
a smile lit up his dark countenance, and the boy knew
that his denial was just a bit of native humour. Thereupon
Brant disappeared in the direction of Foster's house.
The boy at once rushed from the field to the fortified
post near by to tell his story, and a hue and cry was
soon raised. A party hurried to the loyalist's house to
seek Brant, but he was not there. Foster said that he
had never come and that he knew nothing of him. So,
checkmated in their search, the group of would-be captors
had to wheel about and go back disappointed to their
fortress.
Brant was fast gaining an unsavoury reputation which he
but partly merited. Owing to the character of the country
in which he was fighting, and to the lack of discipline
in the force under his command, destruction of property
and plunder were certain to occur. Brant, as we shall
see, did little to discourage this among his warriors.
His argument was that his antagonists had taken up arms
against their lawful king. As rebels, their lands and
property were forfeited to the crown and were justly
liable to seizure by the king's forces. To the settlers
on the border, however, Brant was looked upon as a ruthless
marauder, thirsting for blood. Whenever acts of wanton
cruelty took place, the blame was generally laid at his
door. This explains the bitterness of their attitude to
him both during and after the conflict and the singular
fear which his name inspired among them.
At Unadilla Brant had begun to fortify an area which lent
itself to defence, and thither the tribesmen flocked from
the surrounding districts. So determined were the settlers
to capture him that they offered a reward to any one who
would bring them any knowledge of his movements. Even
men like Captain McKean, whom Brant had mentioned so
kindly to the farmer's boy, were hot upon his trail. This
officer set out with five other men in order, if possible,
to effect Brant's capture. While on their quest the little
party came one night to the house of a Quaker. To their
great delight, the Quaker told them that Brant had been
at his place during the day and would come back. He warned
them, however, that Brant was prepared to meet them, and
that if he returned suddenly their lives would be in
danger. McKean, however, was stubborn in his resolve to
stay.
'Your house, friend Sleeper,' he said, with a show of
bravado, 'shall be my fort to-night.'
But the Quaker would have none of them, and sent the
searchers on their way. Then Captain McKean wrote a letter
to Brant. Placing this in a stick, he cast it on an Indian
path, where it was soon found by a redskin and carried
to the War Chief's wigwam. In the letter McKean arraigned
Brant for the ferocious manner in which he was fighting,
and dared the Mohawk chief to single combat, or to send
a chosen body of men to meet him in fair field against
an equal number. If he showed his face in Cherry Valley,
threatened McKean, 'they would change him from a Brant
into a Goose.'
Brant knew the impulsive nature of McKean and took this
amusing letter for what it was worth. Yet the letter was
not without its effect upon him. They had dared him;
they had taunted him with threats; he would show them
that Joseph Brant would have a day of reckoning and that
right early. 'Cherry Valley people,' he wrote in the
postscript of a short note sent to an ardent loyalist,
'[are] very bold, and intended to make nothing of us;
they call us wild geese, but I know the contrary.'
Early in July a bloody engagement had occurred in the
valley of Wyoming, an extensive region in Pennsylvania
on the north branch of the Susquehanna river. For many
years after the encounter it was commonly believed that
Brant was the leader of the Indians who took part in it.
The valley of Wyoming had once been a possession of the
tribes of the Six Nations but, in 1754, they had been
ousted from their inheritance by a colonizing company.
When the Revolutionary War began it was already well
peopled with settlers. Naturally eager for vengeance,
the dispossessed Indians invited the co-operation of
Colonel John Butler and his rangers in a raid. Butler
accepted the invitation, and the Indians and rangers to
the number of five hundred made a swift descent of the
Susquehanna and invaded the valley. Their approach,
however, had been discovered, and the entire militia of
the district, mustering eight hundred, advanced against
them. In the battle which followed, the defenders were
defeated with great slaughter and many scalps were taken.
Older American historians misrepresented the fight as a
cruel massacre of non-combatants and asserted that Brant
was present. British writers, following them, fell into
the same error. Thomas Campbell's poem, 'Gertrude of
Wyoming,' written in 1809, gives a gruesome picture of
the episode, telling of the work which was done by the
'monster Brant.' During his visit to England in 1823,
the War Chief's youngest son, John Brant, vindicated his
father in a letter to Campbell, and showed that the
reference to his father in this poem was based on false
information. He declared that 'living witnesses' had
convinced him that his father was not in the neighbourhood
of Wyoming at the time of the so-called massacre; testimony
has been forthcoming to support the claims which John
Brant then made. It has been shown that the tribesmen of
the Six Nations whom Butler had with him were Senecas,
while the rest were Indians from the western tribes, and
that Brant's tribe, the Mohawks, were not present.
Nevertheless the Wyoming slaughter differs only in degree
from other scenes of bloodshed and plunder in which Brant
took part. In the month, indeed, in which the vale of
Wyoming was being bathed in blood, he swept down on the
little hamlet of Andrustown, and, bearing away a few
captives and much booty, disappeared with his followers
in the surrounding forest.
It was now nearing the time of harvest, and in the Mohawk
valley the grain had ripened to a golden brown. Even amid
the din of war men must live, and so the settlers began
to garner the season's crop. Nowhere on the river were
there fuller barns than in the populous district that
went by the name of the German Flatts. Bordering the
Mohawk river on either side, it stretched for ten miles
along the valley, rich in soil, and with broad green
pastures and plenteous herds. The settlers knew that the
enemy was not far off, and they grew more afraid of attack
with each passing day. They had two strongholds to which
they could flee in case of trouble, Fort Herkimer on one
bank of the river, Fort Dayton on the other; but these
would be of little use to the settlers if they had not
sufficient warning of the approach of the enemy. Mindful
of this, they sent four of their number to act as scouts
and to warn the settlement of any danger. While on this
mission three of the party met with death at the hands
of their adversaries, but the fourth escaped and hastened
back to the German Flatts. One evening, just before
sunset, he arrived with the fearful tidings that Brant
was moving up the river with a large band of Indians and
would soon be upon them. The alarm was spread through
the valley, and men, women, and children gathered up what
articles of value they could take with them in their
hurried flight, and rushed pell-mell to the forts. During
the evening some carried off a portion of their household
effects in small boats. In the meantime Caldwell, commanding
a party of rangers, with Indians under Brant, had come
to the outskirts of the settlement. Then, even before
the first gleam of daylight had begun to slant across
the valley, the Indians were flitting like ghostly spectres
in and out among the buildings. Almost at the same moment
flames arose in every direction, flashing and darting
against the morning sky. Powerless to stay the destruction,
the settlers, huddled behind their defences, witnessed
a melancholy sight. Houses and barns, everything that
could be given to the fire, were soon a heap of smoking
embers.
Caldwell had no means of laying siege to the forts, as
he was without cannon; so he made no effort to effect
their capture. But he did not check his warriors from
roaming at will over the valley. Running down the slopes
into the pasture land, they rounded up the horses, the
herds of black cattle, and the browsing sheep; and, having
collected these together, they drove them from the meadows
and disappeared with them among the trees. Before sundown
they were many miles away, leaving behind desolation and
blank dismay.