IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) ? ^ ^ A .// /^ /a 1.0 I.I ^ii^ IIIIIM •^ 1^ ill 2.2 2.0 1^ i:^ m iiiM i 1.8 1.6 <^ y] / ^ ^J y « fV iV :\ \ % <^A/^\ >>. o^'^^.l^ ^'^ ^^' CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian institute for Historical IVIicroreproductions institut canadien de microreproductions historiques 1980 Technical Notes / Notes techniques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Physical features of this copy which may alter any of the images in the reproduction are checked below. L'Institut a microfilm^ le meillaur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. 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The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering tlie condition and legibility of the original copy and in kee|,?ing with the filming contract specifications. Las images suivantes ont 6td reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition at de la netteti de I'exemplaire fiimi, e* en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de filmage. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol —►(meaning CONTINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Un des symboles suivants apparaltra sur la der- niire image de cheque microfiche, selon ie cas: le symbols >-► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols V signifie "FIN". The original copy was borrowed from, and filmed with, the kind consent of the following institution: National Library of Canada L'exemplaire filmd fut reproduit grdce d la g6n6rosit6 de I'dtablissement prdteur suivant : Bibliothdque nationale du Canada IVIaps or plates too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. Thi following diagrams illustrate the methor/: Les cartes ou les planches trop grandes pour dtre reproduites en un seul cliche sont filmdes d partir de I'angle sup6rieure gauche, de gauche d droits et de haut en bas, en prenant ie nombre d'images ndcessaire. Le diagramme suivant illustre la mdthode : 1 2 3 4 6 6 & ^ CANADIAN NOTABILITIES. BY JOHN CHARLES DENT. 190l I. TORONTO: PUBLISHED BY JOHN B. MAGURN. 1880. VI' I(TA>l/.:j Entered aooordjag to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1880, by John B. Magubn, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. . T /. . rr- • — rttrrr-i — rrttrrir ^ .3 .hfjT !>TPro.«OT 9 JOSEPH BEANT— THAYENDANEGEA. Few tasks are more difficult of accomplishment than the over- turning of the ideas and prejudices which have been con- ceived in our youth, which have grown up with us to mature age, and which have finally become the settled convictions of our manhood. The overturning process is none the less difli- cult when, as is not seldom the case, those ideas and convictions are widely at variance with facts. Most of us have grown up with very erroneous notions respecting the Indian character — notions which have been chiefly derived from the romances of Cooper and his imitators. We have been accustomed to regard the aboriginal red man as an incarnation of treachery and remorseless ferocity, whose favourite recreation is to butcher defenceless women and children in cold blood. A few of us, led away by the stock anecdotes in worthless missionary and Sunday School books, have gone far into the c^ 'e extreme, and have been wont to regard the Indian as the i ."^le Savage who never forgets a kindness, who is ever ready to return good for evil, and who is so absurdly credulous as to look upon the pale-faces as the natural friends and benefactors of his species. Until witliin the last few years, no pen has ventured to write impartially of the Indian character, and no one has attempted to separate the wheat from the chaff in the generally received accounts which have come down to us from our forefathers. The fact is that the Indian is very much what his white brother has made him. The red man was the original possessor of this continent, the settlement of which by Europeans sounded the death-knfll of his sovereignty. The aboriginal could hardly be expected to receive the intruder with open arms, even if the latter had a ted up to his professions of peace and good-will. It would have argued a spirit of contemptible abjectnoss and faintness of iieart if the Indian had submitted without a murmur to the gradual encroachments of the foreigner, even if the latter had adopted a UTiiform policy of mildness and conciliation. But the invader adopted no such policy. Not satisfied with taking 2 10 forcible possession ot* the soil, ho took the first steps in that long, sickening course of treachery and cruelty which has caused the chronicles of the white concjuest in Ameiica to lie written in characters of bloixl. The first and most liideous butcheries were committed by the whites. And if the Indians did not tamely submit to the yoke sought to be imposed upon their necks, they only acted as human beings, civilized and uncivil- ized, have always acted upon like provocation. Those who have characterized thii Indian as inhuman and fiendish because he ])ut his [)risoners to the torture, seem to have forgotten that the wildest accounts of Indian ferocity pale beside the un- doubtedly true accounts of the horrors of the Spanish Inqui- sition. Christian S})ain — nay, even Christian England — tor- tured prisoners with a diabolical ingenuity which never entered into the heart of a pagan Indian to conceive. And on this continent, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, m(;n of English stock performed prodigies of cruelty to which parallels can be found in the history of the Inquisition alone. For the terrible records of battle, murder, torture and death, of which the history of the early settlement of this continent is so laigely made up, the white man and the Christian must be held chiefly responsible. It must, moreover, be remembered that those records have been written by historians who have had every motive for distorting the truth. All the accounts that have come down to us have been pennecl by the aggressors them- selves, and their immediate descendants. The Indians have had no chronicler to tell their version of the story. We all know how much weight should be attached to a history written by a violent partisan ; for instance, a history of the Frenrh Revolution, written by one of the House of Bourbon. The wonder is, not that the poor Indian should have been blackened and maligned, but that any attribute of nobleness or humanity should have been accorded to him. Of all the chamcters w ho figure in the dark history of Indian warfare, few have attained greater notoriety, and none has been more persistently vilified than the subject of this sketch. Joseph Brant was known to us in the days of our childh^^od as a firm and staunch ally of the British, it is true ; but as a man embodying n\ hi" own person all the demerits and barbarities of his race, and with no moi>e mercy in his breast than is to be found in a famished tiger of the jungle. And for this unjust view of his character Amt-rioan historians are not wholly to blame. " Most historians of that period wrote too near the 11 time when the events they were describing occurred, for a dis- passionate investigation of the truth ; and other writers who have succeeded have been content to follow the beaten track, without incurring the labour of dilimmt and calm enquiry." Any his son-in-law, Colonel Guy Johnson. Brant was as great a favourite with the Colonel as he had been with that gentleman's predecessor. The new agent required a private secretary, and appointed Brant to that office. The clouds that had been gathering for some time over the relations between the mother country and her American colonies culminated in the great war of the revolu- tion. The Americans, seeing the importance of conciliating the Six Nations, made overtures to them to cast in their lot with the revolutionists. These overtures were made in vain, Brant then and ever afterwards expressed his tirm determina- tion to "sink or swim with the English;" a determination from which he never for a moment swerved down to the last hour of his life. Apart altogether from the consideration that all his sympathies impelled him to adopt this course, he felt himself bound in honour to do so, in consequence of his having long before pledged his word to Sir William Johnson to espouse the British side in the event of trouble breaking out in the colonies. Similar pledges had been given by his fore-fathers. Honour and inclination both pointt^d in the same direction, he exerted all his influence with the native tribes, who lonel Guy lolinson fled \%jstvvard to avoid being (cap- tured by the Americans, Brant and the principal warriors of the Six Nations accompanied him. The latter formed them- selves into a confederacy, accepted royal commissions, and took a deciiled stand on the side of King George. To Brant was assigned the position of Principal War Chief of the Confederacy, . witli the military degree of a Captain. The Crown could not have secured a more efficient ally. He is described at this time as " distinguished alike for his address, his activity and his courage ; possessing in point of stature and symmetry of per- son the ndvantaofc of most men even among his own well-formed race ; tall, erect and majestic, with the air and mien of one born to command ; having been a man of war from liis boy- 1« hood ; his name was a power of strength among the warriors of the wilderness. Still more extensive was his influence rendered by the circumstance that he had been much employed in the civil service ot the Indian Department under Sir William John-on, by whom he was often deputed upon embassies among the tribes of the confederacy, and to those yet more distant, upon the great lakes and rivers of the north-west, by reason of which his knowledge of the whole country and people was accurate and extensive," In the autumn of 1775 he sailed for Englaud, to hold per- sonal conference with the officers of the Imperial Government. Upon his arrival in London he was received with open arms by the best society. His usual dress was that of an ordinary English jTfentleman, but las Court dress was a gortjeous and costly adaptation of the fashions of his own people. In this latter dress, at the instigation of that busiest of busybodies James Boswell,he sat to have his portrait painted. The name of the artist has not been preserved, nor is the preservation of much importance, as this is the least interesting of the various pictures of Brant, the expression of the face being dull and commonplace. A much better poitrait of him was painted during this visit for the Earl ot Warwick, the artist being George Romney, the celebrated painter of historical pictures and portraits. It has been reproduced by our engraver for these pages. The efl'ect of this visit was to fully confirm him in his loyalty to the British Crown. Early in the following spring he set sail on his return voyage. He was secretly landed on the American coast, not iar from New York, from whence he made his way through a hostile country to Canada at great peril of his life. Ill Avould it have fared with him if he had fallen into the hands of the American soldiery at that time. No such contin- gency occuired, however, and he reached his destination in safety. Upon his arrival in Canada lie at once placed himself at the head of the native tribes, and took part in the battle of " the Cedars," about forty miles above Moritreal. This migage- ment ended disastrously for the Americans ; and after it was over. Brant did good service to the cause of humanity by pre- venting his savage followers from massacring the [)risf)ners. From that time to the close of the war in 17^2, Joseph Brant never ceased his exertions in the royal cause. From east to west, wherever bullets were thickest, his glittering tomahawk might be seen in the van, while his terrific war-whoop resounded above the din of strife. In those stirring times it is not easy* to follow his individual career very closely ; but one episode in it has been so often and so grossly misrepresented that we owe it to his memory to give some details respecting it. That episode was the massacre at Wyoming. This affair of Wyoming can after all scarcely be called an episode in Brant's career, inasmuch as he was not present at the massacre at all, and was many miles distant at the time of its occurrence. Still, historians and poets have so persistently associated it with his name, and have been so determined to saddle upon him whatever obloquy attaches to the transaction that a short account of it may properly be given here. The generally-received versions are tissues of exaggerations and absurdities from first to last. Wyoming has been uni- formly represented as a terrestrial paradise ; as a sort of Occi- dental Arcadia where the simple-hearted pious people lived and served God after the manner of patriarchal times. Stripped of the halo of romance which lias been thrown around it, Wyoming is merely a pleasant, fertile valley on the Susque- hanna, in the north-eastern part of the State of Pennsylvania. In the year 17(i5 it was purchased from the Delaware Indians by a company in Connecticut, consisting of about forty fami- lies, who settled in the valley shortly after completing their purchase. Upon their arrival they found the valley in i)os- session of a number of Pennsylvanian families, who disputed their rights to the property, and between whom and themselves bickerings and contests were long the order of the day. Their mode of life was as little Arcadian as can well be imagined. Neither party was jjowerful enough to permanently oust the other ; and although their warlike operations were conducted upon a small scale, they were carried on with a petty meanness, vindictiveness and treachery that would have disgraced the Hurons themselves. From time to time one party would gain the upper hand, and would drive the other from the valley in apparently hopeless destitution; but the defeated ones, to whichsoever side they might belong, invariably contrived to re-muster their forces, and return to harass and drive out their opponents in their turn. The only purpose for which they could be induced to temporarily lay aside their disputes and band themselves together in a common cause was to repel the incursions ot marauding Indians, to which the valley was occa- sionally subject. When the war broke out between Great Britain and the colonies, the denizens of the valley espoused the colonial side, and were compelled to unite vigorously for pur- poses of self-defence. They organized a militia, and drilled their troops to something like military efficiency ; but not long afterwards these troops were comiielled to abandon the valley, and to join the colonial army of regulars under General Wash- ington. On the 3rd of July, 177tS, a force made up of four hun- dred British troops and about seven hundred Seneca Indians, under the command of Col. John Butler, entered the valley from the north-west. Such of the militia as the exigencies of the American Government had left to the jisople of Wyoming arrayed themselves for defence, together with a small company of American regular troo^js that had recently arrived in the valley, under the command of Colonel Zebulon Butler. The settlers were defeated and driven out of the valley. In spite of all efforts on the part of the Biitish to restrain them, the Indian troops massacred a good many of the fugitives, and the valley was left a smoking ruin. But the massacre was not nearly so great as took place on several other occasions during the revoluti(ynary war, and the burning was an ordinary inci- dent of primitive warfare. Such, in brief, is the true history of the massacre in the Wj'oming valley, over which the genius of Thomas Campbell has cast a spell that will never pass away while the English language endures. For that massacre Brant was no more responsible, nor had he any further participation in it, than George Washington. He was not within fifty (and probably not within a hundred) miles of the valley. Had he been present his great influence would have been put forward, as it always was on similar occasions, to check the ferocity of the Indians. But it is doubtful whether even he could have prevented the massacre. Another place with which the name of Brant is inseparably associated is Cherry Valley. He has been held responsible for all the atrocities committed there, and even the atrocities them- selves have been grossly exaggerated. There is some sltow of justice in this, inasmuch as Brant was undoubtedly present when the descent was made upon the valley. But it is not true that he either prompted the massacre or took any part in it. On the other hand, he did everything in his power to restrain it, and wherever it was ))ossible for him to interfere successfully to prevent bloodshed he did so. Candour compels us to admit that his conduct on that terrible November tlay stands out in bright contrast to that of Butler, the white officer in connnand. Brant did his utmost to prevent the shed- 8 „_J Ji! !_ 18 ding of innocent blood ; but, even had he been in command of the expedition, which he was not, Indians are totally unman- ageable on the field of battle. There is at least evi deuce that he did his best to save life. Entering one of the houses, w^hile the massacre was raging, he found there a woman quietly en- gaged in sewing. " Why do you not fly, or hide yourself?" he nsked ; " do you not know that the Indians are murdering all your neighbours, and will soon be here?" "I am not afraid," was the reply: "I am a loyal subject of King George, and there is one Joseph Brant witli the In