Goshen Central High School - Yearbook (Goshen, NY)

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THE PIONEER 17 the chase and when waging war upon his fellow men. His religion, however, was grossly corrupted with superstitions. He believed that spirits dwelled in animals, in trees, and in everything about him. His imagination peopled the air and the water and the forests with living, invisible creatures, and often filled him with superstitous dread. He worshipped the Great Spirit; he worshiped the sun and the stars, the rivers and the mountains, but he did not bow down to that which he had made with his own hands. In one respect the religion of the Iroquois differed from that of almost all other people. He did not look upon himself as a sinner in the sight of the Great Being. His tribe may have offended as a whole, but he did not feel a personal responsibility, nor did he believe that his future happiness depended in any way upon his actions in life. He followed the dictates of his own conscience with the utmost exactness; and while his conscience, which was based on tribal custom and not upon religion, bade him to be honest and kind in his dealings with his own people, it permitted him to steal from his enemy, to destroy his property, and to torture him to death. The dwellings and works of defense of the Iroquois were far from contemptible, either in their dimensions or in their structure. Along the banks of the Mohawk, among the hills and hollows of the Onondaga, in the forests of Oneida and Cayuga, on the romatic shores of Seneca Lake, and the rich borders of the Genesee, surrounded by waving maize fields, and encircled from afar by the green margin of the forest, stood the ancient strongholds of the confederacy. The clustering dwellings were encompassed by triple rows of palisades, pierced with loopholes; furnished with platforms within, for the convenience of the defenders; with magazines of stones, to hurl upon the heads of the enemy; and, with water conductors to extinguish any fire which might be kindled without. The area which these defenses enclosed was often several acres in extent, and the dwellings, ranged in order within, were sometimes more than a hundred feet in length. Posts, firmly driven into the ground, with an intervening frame-work of poles, formed the basis of the structure; and its sides and arched roof were closely covered with layers of elm bark. Each of the larger dwellings contained several distinct families, whose separate fires were built along the central space, while compartments on each side, like the stalls of a stable, afforded so me degree of privacy. Here rude couches were prepared, and bear and deer skins spread; while above, the ripened ears of maize, suspended in rows, formed a golden tapestry. In the long evenings of midwinter, when in the wilderness without the trees cracked with biting cold, and the forest paths were clogged with snow, then around the lodge-fires of the Iroquois, warriors, squaws, and restless, naked children were clustered in social groups, each dark face brightening in the fickle firelight, while, with jest and laugh, the pipe passed round from hand to hand. The chase, the warpath, the dance, the festival, the game of hazard, the race of political ambition, all had their votaries. When the assembled Sachems had resolved on war against some foreign tribe, and when, from their great council-house of bark, in the valley of the Onondaga, their messengers had gone forth to invite the warriors to arms, then from east to west, through the farthest bounds of the confederacy, a thousand warlike hosts caught up the summons with glad alacrity. With fasting and praying, and consulting dreams and omens; with invoking the war god, and dancing the frantic war-dance, the warriors sought to insure the triumph of their arms; and, these strange rites concluded, they began their stealthy progress, full of confidence, through the devious pathways of the forest. For days and weeks, in anxious expectation, the villagers await the result, and now, as evening closes, a shrill, wild cry, pealing from afar, over the darkening forest, proclaims the return of the victorious warriors. The village is alive with sudden commotion; and snatching sticks and stones, knives and hatchets, men, women and children, yelling like fiends let loose, swarm out of the narrow portal, to visit upon the miserable captives a foretaste of the deadlier torments in store for them. And now, the black arches of the forest glow with the fires of death; and with brandished torch and firebrand the frenzied multitude close around their victim. The pen shrinks to write, the heart sickens to conceive the fierceness of his agony, yet still, amid the din of his tormentors, rises the captive’s clear voice of scorn and defiance. The work is done, the blackened trunk is flung to the dogs, and with clamorous shouts and hootings, the murderers seek to drive away the spirit of their victim. The Iroquois reckoned these barbarities among their most exquisite enjoyments, and yet they had other sources of pleasure, which made up in frequency and in innocence all that they lacked in intensity. Each passing season had its feasts and dances, often'mingling religion with social pastimes. Foremost in war, foremost in eloquence, foremost in their savage arts of policy, stood the fierce people called by themselves the Hodeuosaunee, and by the French the Iroquois. They extended their conquests and their depredations from Quebec to the Carolinas; and from the western prairies to the forests of Maine; on the south, they forced trouble from the subjugated Delewares, and pierced the mountain forests of the Cherokees with incessant forays. On the north, they uprooted the ancient settlements of the Wyandots. On the west, they exterminated the Eries and the Andastes, and spread havoc and dismay among the tribes of the Illinois; and on the east, the Indians of New England fled at the first peal of the Mohawk war-cry. Nor was it the Indian race alone who quailed before their ferocious valor. All Canada shook with the desolating fury of their onset, the people fled to the forts for refuge; the blood-besmeared conquerors roamed like wolves among the burning settlements, and the youthful colony trembled on the brink of ruin.

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16 THE PIONEER met in a battle where the city of Elmira now stands. The Indians were routed and fled in the direction of Fort Niagara, while the work of destroying the deserted village continued. At last the work was done and General Sullivan looked about him in triumph. The once happy and beautiful scene was gone forever and all that remained to show that man had ever lived there were the piles of blackened ashes. Such warfare may seem cruel to us but it was no more than retaliation, and it was necessary if the white man was to control the country. The two races were totally different not only in character but also in the manner of living and one country was not large enough to hold both of them. The forests were necessary to the Indian for from them he gained his pleasure and living. He was content to spend his life in fighting, hunting and other savage pleasures, and never bettered his conditions, enough at least to compare with the white man. On the other hand the white man was the forerunner of development, and as he advanced he cleared away the forests and began to cultivate the land. As the forests disappeared the redman went with them and their few descendants whom we see on the reservations today are but a sorry remnant of a once flourishing race. It seems to be a law of nature that the world shall belong to the people who make the best use of it and there can be no doubt in our minds that it was best for our country that the white man should control it. EVERETT M. VINCENT. THE GREATEST CONFEDERATION OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES, IROQUOIS. HEN the Caucasian race first entered the primeval forests of the Empire State they found it already populated with two great Indian families. These two Indian organizations were the Iroquois and the Algonquins. The Algonquins held all of the Hudson River valley, the highlands below the Catskill mountains, and all of Long Island, being closely related to the New England Indians. The Iroquois inhabited the central and westerly part of the State of New York, from the Adriondack mountains in the north to Katzberg in the south and westward as far as the County of Erie. The Iroquois originally consisted of only five tribes: the Mohawk, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas and the Senecas; but in 1712 the Tuscaroras were admitted to the league, which now adopted the name of “Six Nations. Of the Iroquois nations mentioned, five were already in New York when Champlain and Hudson entered it in 1609. The Mohawk had come by way of Lake Champlain from the north; the Oneidas from the same direction, apparently leaving the St. Lawrence at the Oswegatchie river and tarrying in that region for a time; the Onondagas had gradually migrated from Jefferson County to the Oswego and Seneca rivers, hastening their movements and seeking the hills farther south when the war broke out in the 16th century; the Cayugas and Senecas had come by way of Niagara river much earlier than this, moving eastward unmolested. West of the Iroquois were the Erics and Cattaraugus; to the northwest were the Neutrals, known by that name because they seldom went to war; on the remaining sides, they were surrounded by the Algonquins. The Iroquois, in some measure, owed their triumphs to the position of their country from which several great rivers and the inland oceans of the northern lakes opened ready thoroughfares to their roving warriors through all the adjacent wilderness. But the true foundation of their success was in their own inherent energies, wrought to the most effective action under a political fabric well suited for the Indian life. In their scheme of government, as in their social customs and religious observances, the Iroquois displayed in full symmetry and matured strength, the same characteristics which in other tribes are found distorted, withered, decayed to the root, or, perhaps, faintly visible in an imperfect germ. To each tribe belonged an orgnnization of its own. Each had several Sachems, who, with subordinate chiefs and principal men, regulated all its internal affairs; but when foreign powers were to be treated with, or matters involving the whole confederacy required deliberation, all the Sachems of the several tribes convened in general assembly at the great council house in the valley of the Onondagas. Here ambassadors were received, alliances were adjusted, and all subjects of general interest discussed with exemplary harmony. The order of debate was prescribed by time-honored customs; and, in the fiercest heat of controversy, the assembly maintained its iron self-control. But the main story of Iroquois polity was the system of totemship. It was this which gave the structure its elastic strength; and but for this, a mere confederacy of jealous and warlike tribes must soon have been rent asunder by shocks from without or discord from within. The whole confederacy irrespective of their separation into tribes, consisted of eight totemic clans; and the members of each clan, to whatever nation they belonged, were mutually bound to one another by those close ties of fraternity which mark this singular institution. The names of the principal clans wcrs the Bear, the Wolf, the Turtle, the Deer, the Eagle and the Herons. A peculiar but very powerful element of the legislature of the whole confederacy was formed by the matrons. They sat in the assemblies and had an absolute veto in questions of war and peace. The Indian believed in a future life, a happy hunting ground, where he would be accompanied by his dog, would need his bow and arrow and hatchet, and where his occupation would be similar to that of this life, except that all care and sorrow, and toil that wearies, would be removed. The religion of the red man was an ever present consciousness; he prayed when he sat down to meal and when he arose; he prayed when he went on

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18 THE PIONEER On the whole, the Iroquois were of all the Indian tribes of North America not only the most powerful, but also the highest developed, and some of their leaders, as, for instance, Red Jacket of the Seneca tribe and Brant of the Mohawk, were men of valor, understanding, and eloquence. The enmity of the Iroquois towards the French had its origin in a little skirmish they had in 1609 with Champlain, when a few of their chiefs were slain. But there was another cause. The Iroquois and the Algonquins were deadly, hereditary enemies, and so they had been from time far back, beyond the coming of the white man to North America; and the intimacy between the Algonquins and the French proved a serious barrier to the latter when they sought to make friends of the Iroquois. For a quarter of a century the French made every effort to win the Six Nations, and they would doubtless have succeeded but for the counter influence of one man, William Johnson, the British superintendent of Indian affairs. Johnson spent many years among the Iroquois, knew their language as he knew his own, married a Mohawk squaw, sister to Joseph Brant, and was a Sachem of their tribe. It was through the influence of Johnson, who was a royalist, that Brant cast his lot and that of the Iroquois with Great Britain. During the Revolutionary war, Brant attacked and nearly destroyed by fire and sword the settlements of Cobleskill, German Flats, and Andrewstown. During this same war Brant committed the massacre of Minisink, and made depredations into Wyoming and Cherry Valley. But in the next year of the war the Americans retaliated, and General Sullivan nearly broke the power of the Confederation. The Iroquois present a remarkable exception to the supposed general law of decrease amnog the American Indians, they having increased at every enumeration since the year 1812, when they reached their lowest point of numbers. Nearly one-half of the Iroquois, have removed from New York to points farther west. The largest reservation is that of the Mohawks, on the Grand River in Ontario, one hundred fifty miles west of Niagara. The Mohawks of Grand River number nearly two thousand, with these are now three hundred Tuscaroras and a few individuals from the other tribes. Five-sixths of the Oneidas, or about one thousand five hundred, live on a reservation on Green Bay, Wis., and some two hundred fifty Senecas reside in the Indian Territory. The Six Nations, having long since sold all their lands in New York, they are scattered among the sister tribes, with whom they have intermarried. All the Six Nations have enjoyed the benefits of missions from an early period in the century, and for twenty years past their schoools have been supported by the State, the teachers being mainly natives. Three hundred years have now elapsed and the war whoop of the Iroquois now ceases to turn the white man s blood cold as it did in the days of the pioneer. The territory once traversed by a score of thousand Indians is now populated with two million souls of a different race and color. May the successors of the Iroquois observe the saying that Right makes might,” therefore bringing a reign of peace instead of war over our Empire State. PAUL R. SCHRIVER. Our New High School • w ' 'I OSHEN is to have a new high school VJ building.” The heart of every pupil and graduate and of every friend of public education was made glad when at the special election, held early in the spring, the voters decided by a splendid majority that the time had come for our village to make the move that would put it in line with the other up-to-date villages and cities in the matter of school buildings. This district will spend about $70,000 on the building'and its equipment, and this, with our present splendid high school building, which will be used for a grammar school when the new building is occupied, will give Goshen one of the finest school plants in this part of the State. The Noah Webster building, which is now used as a grade school, will probably be abandoned for school purposes. The site chosen for the new building is an excellent one. It is in a conspicuous part of the town and its close proximity to the old high school will render the management of the schools much less difficult then if they were at a considerable distance from each other. The lot is directly in front of the present high school, measuring about 190 ft. on Main St. and 340 on Erie St. The board of education and principal Smith have devoted a great deal of time to the study of school house architecture and building plans. The plans of nearly all of the new school buildings in this part of the State have been investigated and the type of building that has finally been selected was chosen after consulting with many of the best architects and school authorities in the State. Mr. Wm. T. Towner, of New Rochelle, who is at present at work on his one hundred and fifteenth school building, was selected to draw the plans. Mr. Towner is one