There Will Be War Volume VIII, page 30
Western Gate;
The Cayuga between them
And the fire.
At the Eastern Gate
The People of the Flint
The Canienga,
Gaze towards the ocean
Over those who call them Mohawks.
Between them and the fire
The Oneida sit.
Between the Cayuga and the Oneida
The Onandaga keep the Council fire—
That was the roll of you—
You that combined in the work,
You that completed the work,
The Great Peace.
But the sea has coughed up thirteen tribes,
White-skinned outlaws from beyond the dawn.
Heretics and traders, convicts and slavers,
They sit themselves down by the Eastern Gate.
They trade guns for beaverskins,
They bring beads and whiskey—
Whiskey! Whiskey!
They eat up the land
Of the lesser tribes
(Broken peoples flock to the Long House).
The forest echoes to the drum of their axes,
And trembles to the tale of toppling timber.
Dutchmen and English,
Puritans and rogues—
They trade guns for beaverskins,
They bring beads and whiskey—
Whiskey! Whiskey!
They prey on the lesser tribes
And quarrel among themselves.
Catholics in Maryland,
Puritans in Plymouth,
Quakers in Penn’s Woods.
Dutch, Scots, and English,
Rich men and poor—
Convicts, landed gentry—
How they hate each other!
Etho! They have no Hayenwatha:
The serpent locks of hatred
Must writhe and hiss uncombed.
No Deganoweda speaks to still
The ancient feuds, covering old corpses;
Singing spilled blood to silence.
They quarrel over the land
Of the lesser tribes—
For they lock up land in little boxes,
Plowing up their Mother
With the labour of black brother.
They disagree about the nature
Of a single, distant, god.
Barbarous and bloody,
Divided by hatred;
They watch and wait
By the Eastern Gate.
No Council governs them,
Keeps peace between them,
No Council speaks for them all…
But—
They have a King across the sea…
The King he sits in London Town,
Planning his long French war:
Saying: “Indian allies we must have
To defend the American Shore.
The Hurons with the French have joined
To drive us into the sea:
We must send gifts to the Iroquois
To bind their League to me.”
Messengers now come to the Long House;
Bearers of gifts from the English King.
Old men listen to promises of peace,
While young men listen to words of war.
Ten pounds sterling for each Huron scalp;
Paid in bright cloth and beads,
In powder and in lead, and in sharp steel hatchets.
Huron scalps are better than beaverskins!
White belts are given to the English King,
And peace, and war both made.
Frenchmen are good in stew.
Huron scalps are better than beaverskins:
They bring guns and hatchets,
Woven cloth and beads,
Powder, lead, and whiskey
Whiskey! Whiskey!
The Hurons are broken,
Eries and Attiwandaronks crushed.
Broken bands fly westward,
And prisoners and orphans
Absorbed by the League,
Adopted into the Clans:
New sons and daughters
Swell the ranks of the Five Nations—
And the League stands
More strongly than before.
Up from the south
Tuscaroras come flying—
Slavers have been hunting them,
The supply of blacks is low.
Beaded wampum figures
On a white wampum belt
Link hands to hold up the tree.
The youngest brother
Takes his place by the fire
To live in peace upon Oneida land:
Six Nations now, instead of Five,
The League stands
More strongly than before.
Sheltered by their treaty
With the English King,
Rich and powerful, strongest
Of all the tribes,
Allies now with the white-skinned folk
Who trade guns for beaverskins
And bring beads and whiskey—
Sheltered by their treaty with the English King
The League stands more strongly than before…
The seasons came and went, the years whirled by;
Wind Keeper drove his creatures across the land.
Dead leaves scattered: so did the foes of the League.
Into Ireokwa hands
The Northern nations give belts of peace,
To intercede with the English King,
And stand between the White Man and the Red.
Ojibway and Chippewa,
Delaware and Shawnee,
Miami and Illinois—
All listen in silence
When Six Nations meet.
The League forbids them war;
Bids them grow
Three Sisters,
Corn, Squash and Beans.
Nor may they sell their land to whites
Unless the League gives leave.
Between White Man and Red, the Great League stands:
The treaty belts for all the North gathered in their hands.
But listen, ye who established the Great League!
Now it has grown old.
Now it is nothing but wilderness.
Ye are in your graves,
Ye who established it!
Thus it began.
The Shawnee shelter in the shadow of the Long House;
Swatana is sent, the staunch Oneida,
Legate from the League to the lesser tribes
To represent as regent Ireokwa rule
And shield the Shawnee from shady dealings,
As accredited Ambassador to the English.
With him his children came,
Cayugas, of their mother’s clan and tribe:
Tagnegtoris was the eldest;
White men called him John Shikellimy.
Sagoheyata was the youngest;
John Petty was easier on the English tongue.
And thus their brother, Soyegtowa,
Was called James Logan,
The “White Man’s friend.”
Upon the Ohio, old and honored,
Worn out with work for White Man and Red,
The ageing Oneida his ancestors met:
Swatana sought strawberries on the skybound trail.
Sing the Karenna
White Man and Red!
Raise the praise
Of the honoured dead.
Sing to greet and thank the League,
Sing to greet and thank his kinsmen.
Thank the men and thank the women;
Lay the wampum on the grave.
Swatana’s sons now sorrow with the Shawnee.
Wind Keeper’s wind creatures wander across the land,
Driving years before them in a whirl of leaves.
White Bear Wind breathes winter through the trees,
Harrying wolves and bobcats south with swirling snow.
Timid Fawn Wind from the South
Breathes Spring into the green buds.
Thus seasons pass, and the selfless brothers,
The Oneida exile’s offspring among the Ohio Shawnee
Fulfill their father’s mission freely for the League.
But Logan is lonely: the League far distant.
From his Cayuga kinsmen he is cut off.
His youthful years filled with the usual yearnings
The lonesome Logan longs for love.
Unlock your legs to Logan, lovely maid.
Let the sachem’s seed inside you
Fill you full; feel not afraid
But widen your womb for the wise and true.
Lonely no longer, let the Cayuga
Conceive him kin in your kind embrace
Found a family, far from Ireokwa,
Rejoice in the renewal of his race.
Babies are born of the blood of Logan,
Lonely no longer along the Ohio;
Cherished by the chieftain, his children grow,
To play in the peace his prestige has brought—
For the father never falters in his fight for peace.
Though shrewdly shielding his Shawnee charges,
He wins White friends by the wisdom of his counsel:
Wars were averted, and once, when words failed,
And death and destruction by deaf ears wrought,
Calm in his cabin, the Cayuga chief
Sorrowed for the slaughter and sought for peace;
Well was he famed as “the White Man’s friend.”
Where Logan dwells along the Ohio
Peace is preserved by his prestige alone.
Peacekeeper’s prize is not praise from the Council,
But the laughter of little ones who live free from war.
The Cayuga keeps peace from his care for his children.
A fond father, he forges them joy
Telling old tales by the twilight fires;
A legacy of legend for Logan’s children,
Of husk masks and false faces,
Of stonish giants and flying heads.
He tells how He-noh, the Thunderer fills thirsty fields,
How gladly the Three Sisters drink rain.
Of Wind Keeper’s wind creatures, and when and why they come,
Of Onestah, corn spirit, who feeds us all.
Closely clutching their cornhusk dolls,
Little ones listen, alight with joy
Their wondering faces watching their father.
Old Logan lives in his children.
Ohio River, flow with tears,
For after years the blow
Will fall, and Logan sorrow know.
White Bear Wind brings winter many times,
Stalking in snowstorms the silent ice river.
Winters have whitened the warrior’s locks, and long-lived Logan, who loves his children,
And shields the Shawnee on the shores of the Ohio,
Their gray-haired guardian: is a grandfather now.
The Virginia governor, Lord Dunmore,
Casts covetous eyes on Ohio land.
The vastness of the West impels his dreams,
And bends his mind to Westward rulership.
To rule a tract stretching from sea to sea,
Would be a post more fit for belted Earl.
What though the King has treaties made with tribes
Of red-skinned savage pagans in the North?
His Colonials would gladly drive them forth,
And the Crown would gain thereby. These jailbirds
With whom the King had charged him were scarce fit
To be called men: disloyalty was rife.
Already tea was floating in Boston Harbour;
Rabble-rousers ranted in the taverns
And public streets of Williamsburg itself.
Indian war would keep them occupied.
Rebels and red niggers could kill each other.
The King would come to recognize his worth.
That scoundrel Greathouse was the tool to use,
And that fool, Cresap—needless more to choose,
The common mob would follow common ways.
Long has Logan laboured for peace,
Following his father, fulfilling his work.
As age approaches, after thirty autumns
He seems to see success surrounding him.
With English aid, an era of peace appears:
Even the Iroquois’ ancient enemy sends envoys,
Cherokee chieftains, whose champions have
Long scoured for scalps the southern trails
Come to the Council to cover the old feud,
Singing spilled blood to silence.
Since Iroquois slew Erie on the Ohio,
Crushing the Cat-people for the King,
The Shawnee’s shelter in the shady forest
A bloody battleground has been, the border of warring tribe
With English aid the old enmity ends,
In the Western wilderness no war-band prowls.
Worn out with work for White Man and Red,
The diplomat Logan dreams of a dawn of peace.
Greathouse; fat, nervous, a toady born.
Dunmore hides his sneer, thinking of return
And triumphant entry into London Town.
“I thought to buy land from the Shawnee, but—”
A civilized shrug of well-bred indifference,
“They cannot sell land: the League forbids it.
No matter. The charter of the Colony
Sets our borders to North and South, but West
Our claim runs to the shores of the Spanish sea.
The Shawnee are but squatters on our land,
Refugees, fled from slavers further south.”
With trembling voice, Greathouse dares to demur.
“But the Council claims the land by conquest,
And both Crown and law support the League!
Royal edict forbids settling their land.”
The vicious, low-born dog was insolent!
Nevertheless—the perfect instrument.
“The Crown will not prefer the League to me!
I am His Highness’ rightful deputy—
But we speak not of the League, but the Shawnee.
If they rise to contend with us in war,
Then we must defend ourselves—no more
Is needed; for surely then, we must provide—
For our defence—forts by the riverside.”
Greathouse’s fat face swung denial back and forth.
“No war on Whites will the Shawnee wage while,
Loyal to the League, Logan keeps the peace.
He’ll complain, through the Council, to the King.
His Majesty will take the Shawnee’s part,
And end your war before it is begun.”
“If Logan holds them back,” Lord Dunmore said, And laughed.
Why such as this was simple sport!
He would yet return in triumph to the Court.
West through the mountains march the pioneers,
Despite Royal edicts and their own fears.
A flood of White Men on Allegheny trails,
Into the vast and virgin forest home
Of bears, wolves and Indians, dreaded vermin all.
Rifles ready, settlers watch each shadow,
Haunting the woods with ghosts of their fears.
Greathouse, with his wagonloads of whiskey,
And Michael Cresap with his militiamen,
And land-hungry settlers from Virginia,
Seek out and cross the ford of the Ohio.
Axes resound like thunder in the woods,
As they clear away the land for cornfields.
Ohio River, sing your song,
Nor right nor wrong you bring;
Water wants not any thing.
Men fell trees that have stood for a hundred years.
They fear the woods; its shadow haunts their dreams.
The devils in their minds take human form,
Red-skinned, and dressed in buckskins and war paint.
Greathouse feeds their fears with tales of torture;
Of captives writhing for hours at the stake.
The vastness of the West troubles their dreams,
Women and children grow gaunt and hollow-eyed;
In the vast and virgin forest they can hear
Wind Keeper’s wind creatures wander in the trees.
The East wind comes as a gigantic moose,
Crashing with his antlers through tangled trees.
Blowing in fury from the lands of the League.
Their eyes dart rapidly about the forest
Their fears have haunted with a thousand shapes;
Children start and sob at the slightest sound.
And even brave men remember tales of terror
When the black wind panther howls out of the West,
Eerily in the air among the endless trees.
Cornstalk comes to the cabin of Logan,
Talking of treachery, and treaties broken.
(On the Cayuga’s wise counsel, Cornstalk,
Chief of the Shawnee, charts his people’s way.)
“When White Men come, they cut down the woods!
The deer decrease, driven from the land!
Deserted beaver dams dry up;
And the folk who fill the forest vanish too.
We slew many slavers in the South, yet
Were forced to flee and find homes here.
Must we now wander wearily into the West,
Hungry and homeless, our hunting-grounds destroyed?
Where, Logan, is the Law of the League?
Colonists have come across the Ohio,
To the North Shore treaties ensured as Shawnee land.
Surely the Shawnee are shielded by the League?
Let the League help its loyal allies,
To defend our domain and drive out the Whites!
Or does the Cayuga still call, like a coward, for peace?”
“Choose, Shawnee Chief, your words: Cherokee scalps
My bravery in battle show beyond question.
Calm yourself, Cornstalk: comfort your people.
Leave to Logan, and the League, these Whites.
The power of my people will prevent further inroads.
As for these ones—these woods are wide: White Men few.
Surely the Shawnee could share a little land?”
“With perfidy there is no peace,” the proud Shawnee replied.
“But long has Logan, and the League,
Pursued peace for my people.
Visit the Whites, vanquish them with your voice.
Yet walk, wise one, warily among them.”
“Who is that white-haired Indian, who stands,
Palm upraised in peace, by the palisade?”
