Chapter 21.

1763.

THE IROQUOIS.—AMBUSCADE OF THE DEVIL’S HOLE.

While Bouquet was fighting the battle of Bushy Run, and Dalzell making his fatal sortie against the camp of Pontiac, Sir William Johnson was engaged in the more pacific yet more important task of securing the friendship and alliance of the Six Nations.  After several preliminary conferences, he sent runners throughout the whole confederacy to invite deputies of the several tribes to meet him in council at Johnson Hall.  The request was not declined.  From the banks of the Mohawk; from the Oneida, Cayuga, and Tuscarora villages; from the valley of Onondaga, where, from immemorial time, had burned the great council-fire of the confederacy,—came chiefs and warriors, gathering to the place of meeting.  The Senecas alone, the warlike tenants of the Genesee valley, refused to attend; for they were already in arms against the English.  Besides the Iroquois, deputies came from the tribes dwelling along the Saint Lawrence, and within the settled parts of Canada.

The council opened on the seventh of September.  Despite their fair words, their attachment was doubtful; but Sir William Johnson, by a dexterous mingling of reasoning, threats, and promises, allayed their discontent, and banished the thoughts of war.  They winced, however, when he informed them that, during the next season, an English army must pass through their country, on its way to punish the refractory tribes of the West.  “Your foot is broad and heavy,” said the speaker from Onondaga; “take care that you do not tread on us.” Seeing the improved temper of his auditory, Johnson was led to hope for some farther advantage than that of mere neutrality.  He accordingly urged the Iroquois to take up arms against the hostile tribes, and concluded his final harangue with the following figurative words: “I now deliver you a good English axe, which I desire you will give to the warriors of all your nations, with directions to use it against these covenant-breakers, by cutting off the bad links which have sullied the chain of friendship.”

These words were confirmed by the presentation of a black war-belt of wampum, and the offer of a hatchet, which the Iroquois did not refuse to accept.  That they would take any very active and strenuous part in the war, could not be expected; yet their bearing arms at all would prove of great advantage, by discouraging the hostile Indians who had looked upon the Iroquois as friends and abettors.  Some months after the council, several small parties actually took the field; and, being stimulated by the prospect of reward, brought in a considerable number of scalps and prisoners.

Upon the persuasion of Sir William Johnson, the tribes of Canada were induced to send a message to the western Indians, exhorting them to bury the hatchet, while the Iroquois despatched an embassy of similar import to the Delawares on the Susquehanna.  “Cousins the Delawares,”—thus ran the message,—“we have heard that many wild Indians in the West, who have tails like bears, have let fall the chain of friendship, and taken up the hatchet against our brethren the English.  We desire you to hold fast the chain, and shut your ears against their words.”

 In spite of the friendly disposition to which the Iroquois had been brought, the province of New York suffered not a little from the attacks of the hostile tribes who ravaged the borders of Ulster, Orange, and Albany counties, and threatened to destroy the upper settlements of the Mohawk.  Sir William Johnson was the object of their especial enmity, and he several times received intimations that he was about to be attacked.  He armed his tenantry, surrounded his seat of Johnson Hall with a stockade, and garrisoned it with a party of soldiers, which Sir Jeffrey Amherst had ordered thither for his protection.

About this time, a singular incident occurred near the town of Goshen.  Four or five men went out among the hills to shoot partridges, and, chancing to raise a large covey, they all fired their guns at nearly the same moment.  The timorous inhabitants, hearing the reports, supposed that they came from an Indian war-party, and instantly fled in dismay, spreading the alarm as they went.  The neighboring country was soon in a panic.  The farmers cut the harness of their horses, and, leaving their carts and ploughs behind, galloped for their lives.  Others, snatching up their children and their most valuable property, made with all speed for New England, not daring to pause until they had crossed the Hudson.  For several days the neighborhood was abandoned, five hundred families having left their habitations and fled.  Not long after this absurd affair, an event occurred of a widely different character.  Allusion has before been made to the carrying-place of Niagara, which formed an essential link in the chain of communication between the province of New York and the interior country.  Men and military stores were conveyed in boats up the River Niagara, as far as the present site of Lewiston.  Thence a portage road, several miles in length, passed along the banks of the stream, and terminated at Fort Schlosser, above the cataract.  This road traversed a region whose sublime features have gained for it a world-wide renown.  The River Niagara, a short distance below the cataract, assumes an aspect scarcely less remarkable than that stupendous scene itself.  Its channel is formed by a vast ravine, whose sides, now bare and weather-stained, now shaggy with forest-trees, rise in cliffs of appalling height and steepness.  Along this chasm pour all the waters of the lakes, heaving their furious surges with the power of an ocean and the rage of a mountain torrent.  About three miles below the cataract, the precipices which form the eastern wall of the ravine are broken by an abyss of awful depth and blackness, bearing at the present day the name of the Devil’s Hole.  In its shallowest part, the precipice sinks sheer down to the depth of eighty feet, where it meets a chaotic mass of rocks, descending with an abrupt declivity to unseen depths below.  Within the cold and damp recesses of the gulf, a host of forest-trees have rooted themselves; and, standing on the perilous brink, one may look down upon the mingled foliage of ash, poplar, and maple, while, above them all, the spruce and fir shoot their sharp and rigid spires upward into sunlight.  The roar of the convulsed river swells heavily on the ear; and, far below, its headlong waters, careering in foam, may be discerned through the openings of the matted foliage.

On the thirteenth of September, a numerous train of wagons and pack-horses proceeded from the lower landing to Fort Schlosser; and on the following morning set out on their return, guarded by an escort of twenty-four soldiers.  They pursued their slow progress until they reached a point where the road passed along the brink of the Devil’s Hole.  The gulf yawned on their left, while on their right the road was skirted by low densely wooded hills.  Suddenly they were greeted by the blaze and clatter of a hundred rifles.  Then followed the startled cries of men, and the bounding of maddened horses.  At the next instant, a host of Indians broke screeching from the woods, and rifle-butt and tomahawk finished the bloody work.  All was over in a moment.  Horses leaped the precipice; men were driven shrieking into the abyss; teams and wagons went over, crashing to atoms among the rocks below.  Tradition relates that the drummer-boy of the detachment was caught, in his fall, among the branches of a tree, where he hung suspended by his drum-strap.  Being but slightly injured, he disengaged himself, and, hiding in the recesses of the gulf, finally escaped.  One of the teamsters also, who was wounded at the first fire, contrived to crawl into the woods, where he lay concealed till the Indians had left the place.  Besides these two, the only survivor was Stedman, the conductor of the convoy; who, being well mounted, and seeing the whole party forced helpless towards the precipice, wheeled his horse, and resolutely spurred through the crowd of Indians.  One of them, it is said, seized his bridle; but he freed himself by a dexterous use of his knife, and plunged into the woods, untouched by the bullets which whistled about his head.  Flying at full speed through the forest, he reached Fort Schlosser in safety.

The distant sound of the Indian rifles had been heard by a party of soldiers, who occupied a small fortified camp near the lower landing.  Forming in haste, they advanced eagerly to the rescue.  In anticipation of this movement, the Indians, who were nearly five hundred in number, had separated into two parties, one of which had stationed itself at the Devil’s Hole, to waylay the convoy, while the other formed an ambuscade upon the road, a mile nearer the landing-place.  The soldiers, marching precipitately, and huddled in a close body, were suddenly assailed by a volley of rifles, which stretched half their number dead upon the road.  Then, rushing from the forest, the Indians cut down the survivors with merciless ferocity.  A small remnant only escaped the massacre, and fled to Fort Niagara with the tidings.  Major Wilkins, who commanded at this post, lost no time in marching to the spot, with nearly the whole strength of his garrison.  Not an Indian was to be found.  At the two places of ambuscade, about seventy dead bodies were counted, naked, scalpless, and so horribly mangled that many of them could not be recognized.  All the wagons had been broken to pieces, and such of the horses as were not driven over the precipice had been carried off, laden, doubtless, with the plunder.  The ambuscade of the Devil’s Hole has gained a traditionary immortality, adding fearful interest to a scene whose native horrors need no aid from the imagination.

The Seneca warriors, aided probably by some of the western Indians, were the authors of this unexpected attack.  Their hostility did not end here.  Several weeks afterwards, Major Wilkins, with a force of six hundred regulars, collected with great effort throughout the provinces, was advancing to the relief of Detroit.  As the boats were slowly forcing their way upwards against the swift current above the falls of Niagara, they were assailed by a mere handful of Indians, thrown into confusion, and driven back to Fort Schlosser with serious loss.  The next attempt was more fortunate, the boats reaching Lake Erie without farther attack; but the inauspicious opening of the expedition was followed by results yet more disastrous.  As they approached their destination, a violent storm overtook them in the night.  The frail bateaux, tossing upon the merciless waves of Lake Erie, were overset, driven ashore, and many of them dashed to pieces.  About seventy men perished, all the ammunition and stores were destroyed, and the shattered flotilla was forced back to Niagara.