While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Corn Plant
was one of the parties to the treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1784, when a large
cession of territory was made by the Indians. At the treaty of Fort
Harmer, five years afterwards he took the leading part in conveying an
immense tract of country to the American Government, and became so
unpopular that his life was threatened by his incensed tribe. But
this chief, and those who acted with him, were induced to make liberal
concessions by motives of sound policy; for the Six Nations, having fought
on the royal side during the War of the Revolution, and the British
Government having recognized our independence, and signed a peace without
stipulating for the protection of her misguided allies, they were wholly
at our mercy. In an address sent to the President of the United States in
1790 by Corn Plant, Half Town and Big Tree, occurs the following:
"Father: We will not conceal from you that the Great
Spirit and not men has preserved Corn Plant from the hands of his own
nation, for they ask continually, 'Where is the land upon which our
children and their children after them are to lie down? You told us that
the line drawn from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario would mark it forever on
the East, and the line running from Beaver Creek to Pennsylvania would
mark it On the West, and we see it is not so; for first comes one and then
another and takes it away by order of that people which you tell us
promised to secure it to us.
He is silent, for he has nothing to answer. When the
sun goes down he opens his heart before the Great Spirit, and earlier than
the sun appears again upon the hills he gives thanks for his protection
during the night, for he feels that among men become desperate by the
injuries they have received, it is God only that can protect him."
In reply to this address, President Washington
remarked: "The merits of Corn Plant and his friendship for the United
States are well known to me, and shall not be forgotten; and as a mark of
the esteem of the United States, I have directed the Secretary of War to
make him a present of $250, either in money or goods, as Corn Plant shall
like best."
In his efforts to preserve peace with his powerful
neighbors, Corn Plant incurred alternately the suspicion of both parties,
the whites imputing him a secret agency in the depredations of lawless
individuals of his nation, while the Senecas were sometimes jealous of his
apparent fame with the whites, and regarded him as a pensionary of their
oppressors. His course, however, was prudent and consistent, and his
influence very great.
He resided on the banks of the Alleghany river, a few
miles below the junction, upon a tract of fine land within the limits of
Pennsylvania, and not far from the line between that State and New York.
He owned thirteen hundred acres of land, of which six hundred were
comprehended within the village occupied by his people. The Chief favored
the Christian religion and welcomed those who came to teach it.
