Saturday, June 7, 2014

Indian Interactions in Upstate New York (Part 1)

This post uses the Turner History of the Pioneer Settlement of the Gorham-Phelps to give an account of how the interactions between the whites and the Indians worked in the Gorham-Phelps purchase.

  • Around Farmington Township, later Manchester, the whites would take the venison hunted by the Indians to Canandaigua for them and sell it. The venison hams were dried and sold to the East (p.209).
  • Already the indians had established fruit orchards (p.247) and the whites liked to carry these over.
  • When the pioneers in Wayne County ran out of corn, they would purchase some from the Indians, such as the Onondaga (p.266). 
  • Indians were hired by the British commanders in Fort Niagara (p.374) to hunt down and kill the deserters that would abscond into the new settlements, such as Avon.
  • Around Allen Flats, Monroe, the Indians sided with the British in Canada and behaved with insolence until Fort Niagara surrendered (p.409).
  • Mary Jemison had been captured by the Indians, but preferred to stay with them, telling her story to Peter Shaeffer of Monroe (p.410) when she spent the night at his place with her Indian hunting party.
  • Allen of Allen's mill in Monroe County collaborated with the Indians, throwing parties with them, where they served wild hogs and whiskey, and having both a white wife and a squaw (p.425). 
  • The first settlers of Conneaut relied on the native squaws to assist the only woman in the party, Mrs Stiles, in gaving birth to a son that winter (p.426 Note). 
(to be continued)

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