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Isaac Coates Journal of Journeys to the Indian Country

SW_IC1799_Page_23

improvements began to appears, and many of the In-dians have begun to clear out and cultivate their ground; have built houses more comfortable thanthey were formerly accustomed to. When I was up the river from this place four years ago, I believe there were but three or four settlements worth noticing; and now there are eighteen or nineteen, and divers of them have large fields of corn, con-siderable stock of cattle, and some of them this sea-son had wheat for sale; so that upon the whole I think they have improved in agriculture beyond my expectations. Soon after we arrived, our friends showed us the copy of a speech made by Cornplanter and his brother, Conudiu, on the proposal of their moving off the Indians' land and settling near them where they might have the opportunity of being in-structed as usual and building a saw-mill, which is as follows: Conudiu first spoke: It is now a long time since you came to live amongst us; it have even exceeded the limits that were first proposed. I now speak the united voice of our cheifs and warriors to you, our women also, and all our people. Attend, therefore, to what I say. We wish you to make your minds perfectly easy; we are all pleased with your living amongst us, and not one of us wants you to leave our country. We find no fault with you in any respect since you came among us, neither have we anything to charge you with. You have lived peaceably and honestly with us, and have been preserved in health,and nothing has befallen you. This we think is proof that the Great Spirit also is pleased with your living here and with what you have done for us. Friends, Tewenstee, we have been very much en-gaged in business respecting the affairs of our na-tion, which has prevented us from answering you proposals of declining the settlement at Genesinguhta and moving up the river to settle on land of your own joining ours. We now all agree to leave you at full liberty either to remain where you now are on our land, or to move up the river and settle, on land of you own--only that you settle near us. The Little Valley is as far up the river as our people are willing you should go, as we want you to be near us, that you may extend further assistance and instruction; for although we have experienced much benefit from you, and some of our people have made considerable advancement in the knowledge of useful labor, yet we remain very deficient in many things, num-bers of us are yet poor. Friends, Tewenstee, I myself have been advising our people to pursue the course of life you recom-mend to us, and we have fully concluded to follow habits of industry; but we are only just beginning to learn, and we find ourselves at a loss for tools to work with. We now request you to bring on plenty of all kinds you think will be useful; then such of our people as are able will buy for themselves, and such as are poor we wish you to continue to lend to, and they shall be returned to you again. We also want you to bring useful cloths and sell to us, that we may get some necessary things without having to go so far for them. In looking forward we can limit no time for you to live beside us; this must depend on your own judgment. When your friends come from Phil-adelphia we wish you to communicate this speech to them as the full result of our minds concerning you. After the foregoing speech was delivered Corn-planter spoke as follows: Friends, Tewenstee, attend. I will add a little further. When I was in Phildelphia, a long time ago, the Indians and white people at that time con-tinued to kill each other; I then heard of Quakers, that they were a peaceable people, and would not fight or kill anybody. I inquired of the President of the United States about them, whether or not this account was true. He said it was true enough; they were such a people. I then requested him to send some of them to live amonst the Indians, expecting they would be very useful to us. Then it was a long time after before you came. You are now here, and it has afforded me much satisfaction that you have come. I have not been disappointed in the account I heard of you. You have lived peacefully among us, and no difficulty has happened between you and our people. We now want you to stay with us and stand between us and the white people; and if you see any of them trying to cheat us let us know of it; or if you see any of our people trying to cheat the white we wish you to let it be known also, as we confide in youthat you will not cheat us. "Friends, we have now spoken so full on the busi-ness that we need not say any more until we find one of you has killed one of our people, and we find him lying dead on the ground, or until one of us kills one of you; then we will take up the business again." [De- livered the 30th of the 8th month, 1803.] Notwishstanding this, we thought it necessary to see the chiefs and others in council; and being in-formed that Cornplanter was just set out on a hunt-ing tour, we hired an Indian to go in the night, (though it was a wet one), in quest of him. He set out and traversed the woods, blowing his horn; and just at daybreak found him, who came to us early this morn-ing which is the 21st, and 4th of the week. After conferring with him, he appeared very much pleased with our coming, and agreed to send out for the dis-tant chiefs and others to meet us in council at this place next Seventh- day morning. We then set off upthe river in order to look for a suitable place to maek a settlement and build a saw-mill. Having viewed two valleys heretofore had in view, but found the streams entirely dried up, we came to a fine stream on the east side of the river, called Tunesasau, on which we think there is a good mill-seat, being about three and a half miles from this place, and land tol-erably good; then returned. On our way we had the curiosity to ascend a very high mountain in order to have a prospect of the river and adjacent country. Jacob Taylor and myself pursued our route until we got a grand prospect of the river and the adjacent country and a number of the Indian set-tlements, and got home as soon as the others. The young Indian who is the smith at Genesinguhta,whose name is Levi Halftown, went with us and re-