506 



SENECA 



[b. a. e. 



the Seneca. Having reached Ironde- 

 quoit, the Seneca landing-place on L. 

 Ontario, Denonville built there a stock- 

 ade in which he left a garrison of 440 

 men. Thence advancing to attack the 

 Seneca villages, he was ambushed by 600 

 or 800 Seneca, who charged and drove 

 back the colonial levies and their Indian 

 allies, and threw the veteran regiments 

 into disorder. Only by the overwhelm- 

 ing numbers of his force was the traitor- 

 ous Denonville saved from disastrous 

 defeat. 



In 1763, at Bloody Run and the Devil's 

 Hole, situated on Niagara r. aliout 4 m. 

 below the falls, the Seneca ambushed a 

 British supply train on the portage road 

 from Ft Schlosser to Ft Niagara, only 

 three escaping from a force of nearly 100. 

 At a short distance from this place the 

 same Seneca ambushed a British force 

 composed of two companies of troops who 

 were hastening to the aid of the supply 

 train, only eight of whom escaped mas- 

 sacre. These bloody and harsh measures 

 were the direct result of the general 

 unrest of the Six Nations and the west- 

 ern tribes, arising from the manner of 

 the recent occupancy of the posts by the 

 British, after the surrender of Canada by 

 the French on Sept. 8, 1760. They con- 

 trasted the sympathetic and bountiful 

 paternalism of tlie French regime with 

 the neglect and niL'^gardliness that char- 

 acterized the British rule. Such was the 

 state of affairs that on July 29, 1761, Sir 

 Wm. Johnson wrote to General Amherst: 

 "I see plainly that there appears to be 

 an universal jealousy amongst every 

 nation, on account of the hasty steps they 

 look upon we are taking towards getting 

 possession of this country, which meas- 

 ures, I am certain, will never subside 

 whilst we encroach within the limits 

 which you may recollect have been put 

 under the protection of the King in the 

 year 1726, and conlirmed to them by him 

 and his successors ever since and by the 

 orders sent to the governors not to allow 

 any one of his subjects settling thereim 

 . . . but that it should remain their abso- 

 lute property." But, by the beginning 

 of the American Revolution, so well had 

 the British agents reconciled them to the 

 rule of Great Britain that the Seneca, 

 together with a large majority of the 

 people of the Six Nations, notwithstand- 

 ing their pledges to the contrary, reluc- 

 tantly espoused the cause of the British 

 against the colonies. Consequently they 

 suffered retribution for their folly when 

 Gen. Sullivan, in 1779, after defeating 

 their warriors, burned their villages and 

 destroyed their crops. 



There is no historical evidence that the 

 Seneca who were on the Ohio and the 

 s. shore of L. Erie in the 18th and 19th 



centuries were chiefly an outlying colony 

 from the Iroquois tribe of that name 

 dwelling in New York. The significant 

 fact that in historical times their alfilia- 

 tions were never with the Iroquois, but 

 rather with tribes usually hostile to them, 

 is to be explained on the presumption 

 that they were rather some remnant of a 

 subjugated tribe dependent on the Seneca 

 and dwelling on lands under the jurisdic- 

 tion of their conquerors. It is a fair 

 inference that they were largelj^ subju- 

 gated f^rie and Conestoga. Regarding 

 the identity of these Indians, the follow- 

 ing citation from Howe ( Hist. Coll. Ohio, 

 II, 574, 1896) is pertinent: "The Senecas 

 of Sandusky — so-called — owned and oc- 

 cupied 40,000 acres of choice land on 

 the E. side of Sandusky r., being mostly 

 in this [Seneca] and partly in San- 

 dusky CO. Thirty thousand acres of 

 this land was granted to them on the 

 29th of September, 1817, at the treaty 

 ... of IMaumee Rapids. . . . The re- 

 maining 10,000 acres, lying s. of the 

 other, was granted bv the treaty at St 

 Mary's, . . . 17th of September, 1818." 

 By the treaty concluded at Washington 

 Feb. 28, 1831, these Seneca ceded their 

 lands in Ohio to the United States and 

 agreed to emigrate s. w. of JNIissouri, on 

 Neosho r. The same writer states that 

 in 1831 " their principal chiefs were 

 Coonstick, Small Cloud Spicer, Seneca 

 Steel, Hard Hickory, Tall Chief, and 

 Good Hunter, the last two of whom 

 were their principal orators. The old 

 chief Good Hunter told Henry C. Brish, 

 their subagent, that this band [which 

 numbered 390 in 1908] were in fact the 

 remnant of Logan's tribe, . . . and says 

 Mr Brish in a communication to us: 'I 

 cannot to this day surmise why they 

 were called Senecas. I never found a 

 Seneca among them. They were Cayu- 

 gas — who were Mingoes- — among Avhom 

 were a few Oneidas, Mohawks, Ononda- 

 gas, Tuscarawas, and Wyandots.'" The 

 majority of them were certainly not 

 Cayuga, as Logan was Conestoga or Min- 

 go on his maternal side. 



In 1677 the Seneca had but four villages, 

 but a century later the number had in- 

 creased to about 30. The following are 

 the better known Seneca towns, which, of 

 course, were not at all contemporary. 

 Canadasaga, Canandaigua, Caueadea, 

 Catherine'sTown, Cattaraugus, Chemung, 

 New Chemung, Old Chemung, Chenango, 

 Cheronderoga, Chinoshageh, Condaw- 

 haw, Connewango, Dayoitgao, Deonun- 

 dagae, Deyodeshot, Deyohnegano, Deyo- 

 nongdadagana, Dyosyowan, Gaandowa- 

 nang, Gadaho, Gahato, Gahayanduk, 

 Ganagweh, Ganawagus, Ganeasos, Gane- 

 dontwan, Ganogeh, Ganondasa, Ganos, 

 Ganosgagong, Gaonsagaon, Gaousge, 



