This is what I have to say to Garangala, that he may carry to the Senecas, Onondagas, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Mohawks, the declaration which the King, my master, has commanded me to make. He doth not wish them to force him to send a great army to Cadarackui Fort, to begin a war which must be fatal to them. He would be sorry that this fort, that was the work of peace, should become the prison of your warriors. We must endeavor, on both sides, to prevent such misfortunes. The French, who are brethren and friends of the Five Nations, will never trouble their repose, provided that the satisfaction which I demand be given, and that the treaties of peace be hereafter observed. I shall be extremely grieved if my words do not produce the effect which I expect from them, for then I shall be obliged to join with the governor of New York, who is commanded by his master to assist me; and burn the castles of the Five Nations and destroy you. This belt confirms my words.

De la Barre's speech was evidently intended to carry dismay into the hearts of the Indian chiefs in council. His threat, though not carried then into execution, is a prophetic statement of what, in a measure, was done in the course of time. The Indians were caught between the two nations, the French and English, as between the upper and nether millstones, and ground to powder,destroyed, annihilated. As allies or enemies, they were equally betrayed, —not at once, it is true, nor by king's troops, nor English Royalists, but by the spirit of greed and earth-hunger, which led the whole fanatic world of people, Spanish, English, and French, to a feast of spoil upon the red race.

The intended effect of terror to the Indians was by no means the result of the Frenchman's speech. All the time that De la Barre spoke, Garangala kept his eyes

fixed on his calumet; and as soon as the governor had done speaking he arose, and when he had walked several times around the circle, spoke as follows:

SPEECH OF GARANGALA, CHIEF OF THE ONONDAGAS.

Yonondio,1 I honor you, and the warriors that are with me likewise honor you. Your interpreter has finished your speech. I now begin mine. My words make haste to reach your ears. Hearken to them. Yonondio, you must have believed, when you left Quebec, that the sun had burnt up all the forests, which render our country inaccessible to the French, or that the lakes had so far overflowed the banks, that they had surrounded our castles, and that it was impossible for us to get out of them. Yes, surely, you must have dreamt so, and the curiosity of seeing so great a wonder has brought you far. Now you are undeceived, since that I and the warriors here present are come to assure you that the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks are yet alive. I thank you, in their name, for bringing back into their country the calumet, which your predecessor received from their hands. It was happy for you that you left underground that murdering hatchet that has been so often dyed in the blood of the French.

Hear, Yonondio! I do not sleep; I have my eyes open; and the sun, which enlightens me, discovers to me a great captain at the head of a company of soldiers, who speaks as if he were dreaming. He says, that he only came to the lake to smoke on the great calumet with the Onondagas. But Garangala says that he sees the contrary, that it was to knock them on the head, if sickness had not weakened the arms of the French.

I see Yonondio raving in a camp of sick men, whose lives

1 Vide M. Cuoq. Onontio, "La Belle Montagne,” p. 176.

the Great Spirit has saved by inflicting this sickness upon them.

Hear, Yonondio! Our women had taken their clubs,— our children and old men had carried their bows and arrows into the heart of the camp, if our warriors had not disarmed them, and kept them back, when your messenger came to our castles.

It is done, and I have said it.

Hear, Yonondio! We plundered none of the French but those that carried guns, powder, and balls to the Twightwies and Chictaghicks [their enemies], because those arms might have cost our lives. Herein we follow the example of the Jesuits, who break all the kegs of rum brought to our castles, lest the drunken Indians should knock them on the head. Our warriors have not beaver enough to pay for all those arms they have taken, and our old men are not afraid of the war.

These belts preserve my words! We carried the English into our lakes, to trade there with the Utawawas and Yuatoghies, as the Adirondacks brought the French to our castles, to carry on a trade which the English say is theirs. We are born free! We neither depend on Yonondio nor Corlaer! 2 We may go where we please, and carry with us whom we please. If your allies be your slaves, use them as such; command them to receive no other but your people. This belt preserves my words. We knock the Twightwies and Chictaghicks on the head, because they had cut down Trees of Peace, which were the limits of our country. They have hunted beaver on our lands. They have acted contrary to the customs of all Indians, for they left none of the beaver alive; they killed both male and femalo. They brought the Satanas into the country to take part with them, after they had concerted ill designs against us. We have done less than

1 Their records were made upon wampum. Vide illustrations of legends of Deluge and Creation, in Chapters XIV and XV.

2 Governor of New York.

either the English or French, that have usurped the lands of so many Indian nations, and chased them from their country. This belt preserves my words.

Hear, Yonondio; what I say is the voice of all the Five Nations. Hear what they answer! Open your ears to what they speak. The Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks say that when they buried the hatchet at Cadarackui, in the presence of your predecessor, in the middle of the fort, they planted the Tree of Peace in the same place, to be there carefully preserved; that in place of a retreat for soldiers, that fort might be a rendezvous for merchants; that in place of arms and ammunition of war, beavers and merchandise should only enter there.

Hear, Yonondio! Take care for the future, that so great a number of soldiers as appear there do not choke the Tree of Peace planted in so small a fort. It will be a great loss, if after it had so easily taken root, you should stop its growth, and prevent its covering your country and ours with its branches. I assure you, in the name of the Five Nations, that our warriors shall dance to the Calumet of Peace under its leaves; and shall remain quiet in their seats, and shall never dig up the hatchet, till their brothers, Yonondió or Corlaer, shall enter jointly, or separately endeavor to attack the country which the Great Spirit has given our ancestors.

This belt preserves my words; and this, the authority which the Five Nations have given me.1

The belts mentioned in Garangala's speech were made with great care, and were to the Indians of great value. Josselyn records a visit to Boston, in 1671, of King Metacom (who is better known by his English name, Philip), in which it is stated that he wore a coat

1 Address to De la Barre, governor of Canada, in 1684. Vide Colden, History of the Five Nations.

and buskins set thick with blue and white beads " in a pleasant wild work," and a broad belt of the same. The sentiments expressed in the foregoing speech are those that actuated King Philip in his dealings with the English. A haughty warrior, and with the death of his brother fresh in memory, King Philip was much to be feared, and his death naturally was a relief to the harassed colonists. But it is with a sense of humiliation that we read the statements that the people" prayed the bullet into King Philip's heart; " that his head was sent to Plymouth, where it was exposed for twenty years, and his hands to Boston; and that his mangled body was refused the right of sepulture. Following the story of the slaughter, by our people, of Indian men, women, and children at Narragansett, we read:

We have heard of two and twenty Indian captains slain, all of them, and brought to hell in one day. . . . It was not long before the hand which now writes [1700] upon a certain occasion took off the jaw from the exposed skull of that blasphemous leviathan [King Philip].1

Examples of the oratory of King Philip have been repeatedly given in the pages of Indian history. It is unnecessary to repeat them. The most striking product of the versatile powers of our savages is a written history given in our own tongue, a portion of which has already found place in this volume. The difficulties which David Cusick encountered in giving the facts of history in a foreign tongue are best known through a knowledge of his native language. So well, however, has he succeeded, that his statements are quoted as

1 Rev. Increase Mather.