n8 The Winning of the West 



by the United States Commissioners. They came 

 to see what they could get by begging, or by prom 

 ising what they had neither the will nor the power 

 to perform. Many of them, as in the case of the 

 Chippewas, were from lands so remote that they 

 felt no anxiety about white encroachments, and 

 were lured into hostile encounter with the Ameri 

 cans chiefly by their own overmastering love of 

 plunder and bloodshed. 



Nevertheless, there were a few chiefs and men 

 of note in the tribes who sincerely wished peace. 

 One of these was Cornplanter, the Iroquois. The 

 power of the Six Nations had steadily dwindled; 

 moreover, they did not, like the more western tribes, 

 lie directly athwart the path which the white ad 

 vance was at the moment taking. Thus they were 

 not drawn into open warfare, but their continual 

 uneasiness, and the influence they still possessed 

 with the other Indians, made it an object to keep 

 on friendly terms with them. Cornplanter, a val 

 iant and able warrior, who had both taken and 

 given hard blows in warring against the Ameri 

 cans, was among the chiefs and ambassadors who 

 visited Fort Pitt during the troubled lull in frontier 

 war which succeeded the news of the peace of 1783. 

 His speeches showed, as his deeds had already 

 shown, in a high degree, that loftiness of courage, 

 and stern, uncomplaining acceptance of the decrees 

 of a hostile fate, which so often ennobled the other 

 wise gloomy and repellent traits of the Indian char 

 acter. He raised no plaint over what had befallen 



