Black Eagle (39 page)

Rathburn shook his head at her.

“Which is it? Confession or death?”

Presented with no other choice, John Rathburn, at some length, sat and wrote, while both Marisa and Black Eagle watched.

At last it was done. Marisa read the note with care.

She said, “I think there is more for you to confess. But perhaps the Pennsylvania incident is a good start. If I remember correctly, however, there is a maid you took into service, whose parents you killed, whose land you took and who you enslaved. That will be part of this confession, as well.”

With a deep sigh, Rathburn again put pen to paper.

When it was done, Marisa said, “And now for James. Where is James? I have something to say to him, too.”

“James is no longer with me,” Rathburn confessed. “Of all the insolent, ugly men. And a bad butler he was, as well. He had the gall to go to a preacher and confess his sins.”

“Did he?” Marisa smiled. “I am glad to hear that at least one man has a conscience.”

At last the note was signed and sealed. John Rathburn turned to Marisa. He said, “And now what? Are you going to kill me anyway?”

“No,” she said. “I won't let you take the easy way out. I think we are going to escort you and your written confession to the town constable. I think we'll do it now.”

“ 'T is the middle of the night.”

“So it is,” she said, and she smiled. “So it is.”

It was done. At last John Rathburn was to face a jury of his peers for the crimes he had committed. At last Marisa was free.

There would be the Rathburn home and estate to dispose of properly. But upon further thought, Marisa decided she would leave even that for the authorities. There was nothing here for her. She had become Mohawk, and she wanted to return home.

But they wouldn't be staying there. She and Black Eagle were going to take Sir William's advice and go west. It was true, the Mohawk village was too close to Albany. There would always be trouble. So why stay?

Instead, they would make their own life elsewhere, away from all this. Away from the prejudice and war. It was possible. Even in this war-torn world, they could and they would find happiness.

It was Spring. The woods were alive with new life, and there was a scent in the air of hope. Of hope and happiness. The winter in the Mohawk village had been long and happy. But it was time to move west.

Black Eagle led the way down the Iroquois long trail. Marisa followed, but there was one other with them this day. Pretty Ribbon skipped along before Marisa, who pulled up their rear.

“Do you think there will be Seneca children for me to play with?”

“There will be many,” said Marisa. “No doubt. And they'll love you, as I love you, too.”

Pretty Ribbon smiled. “I am glad that you let me come with you, sister. I'll go back and visit the rest of the family, but I'm glad to be with you.”

“How could we have left you behind?”

“
Nyoh
,” said Black Eagle, as he turned back to them. “How could we have left you behind?” He smiled at them both. “Look there,” he said, pointing west. “Do you see the hill? Do you see the river? We are almost there.”

Marisa gazed in the direction that he indicated. It was another strong, fortified village. “What if they don't like me?” she asked.

“They will love you. But it matters little. I think we will seek our happiness beyond even Seneca country. I hear there is a beautiful plain country further west. Would you like to go there with me?”

“I will follow you anywhere. For you see, I love you.”

“As I love you, my wife. As I love you.” He took her in his arms and hugged her, kissing her with a passion that would serve them all their life through. Pretty Ribbon stood between them, her arms encircling them, and on her countenance was a smile that was a beautiful thing to behold.

I hope you will bear with me as I take a moment to impart a bit of history that is, I think, important for a clear understanding of this period in our nation's history. If you are at all like me, in order to visualize scenes well, it is necessary to have an understanding of the forces at work in the world at this time.

Long ago, before the white man ever stepped foot on the North American continent, there was a Native American confederation that was established for the purpose of bringing peace to the land they called Turtle Island (the known world at that time), and to abolish war forever. That confederation was and still is called the Iroquois confederation or the League of the Five/Six Nations.

The confederation was composed of five—and eventually six—Nations who were related by custom, language and blood. These Nations were the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondagas, the Cayuga and the Seneca. In the early eighteenth century (sometime around 1722) the Tuscaroras joined the confederation, making the league six instead of five nations.

What is called the Great Peace of the Iroquois came about because of two men, Deganawida and Hiawatha (the real Hiawatha, not the Hiawatha of Longfellow's poem). Both of these men had a vision of ending war and the fear associated with war, and bringing peace and unity to a people that would not only make the people strong, but would allow the people to live their lives in freedom.

The Council of the Great Peace was an extraordinary government, unparalleled in European culture. It made each man, woman and child free of government rule, and provided strong provisions to ensure that the chiefs remained responsible to the people. So strict and astute were these laws that if any chief began to serve his own needs, instead of those of the people, the offending chief was at once removed by the elder women of the tribe. That such men lived the rest of their lives in disgrace was evident.

Within the council a majority could not force the minority to their will. All had to agree before any law or action came into being, thus debate and oratory were highly valued. The Great Peace was a government truly of, by and for the people, and it influenced Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. When it came time to set up our own government and constitution, Benjamin Franklin studied the Iroquois confederation in detail. This is a fact that I didn't learn in school, and in case you didn't either, I thought I would bring the information to your attention.

There truly was a spirit of freedom and independence that filled Native America long before the white man “discovered” America. This was so much the case, that it was unwittingly written into James Fenimore Cooper's books. In his prose, one can lay witness to a taste of this spirit. In fact, if one were to watch Michael Mann's most recent rendition of
The Last of the Mohicans
(1992), and listen to our hero, Nathaniel, one can hear him state that he is not
subject
to much at all. Such was the attitude prevalent throughout Native America. It was a country of free men and free women, and no “subjects” were to be found.

From my studies I have come to believe that it was this concept of freedom and independence that met and influenced the first European settlers. Indeed, the European people who came to the shores of America had not been indoctrinated in the idea of freedom of thought. Instead, the Europeans came to America to escape oppression, and a government that considered people little more than chattel; the right to have an individual thought was almost non-existent. Instead the “Divine Right of Kings,” where the King owned everything and everyone, ruled England and Europe.

Although the doctrines of Greece influenced our Founding Fathers considerably, not even in Greece was the concept of equality and the idea of being beholden to none better embraced than in Native America. This was particularly so amongst the Iroquois, who gave our founding country so much.

So remember, when one conceives of the idea of American freedom as we have come to know it, those roots grow deep in Native America.

It is also a truth to say that without the Iroquois's covenant chain that bound them to England, and England to them, the French and Indian War would have very likely ended with a different ruling body over the American continent. It was the Mohawks who guarded our northern borders against French invasion. It was the Senecas who guarded the western borders against the French, for French reign included not only Canada at that time, but much of the Ohio Valley, leaving the English and the American settlers choked on the Eastern coast, unable to go West.

Sandwiched on land situated between the French and English settlements sat the Native Americans on ground they had owned for centuries. Because the Native Americans were also a people who had raised some of the finest warriors in history, the English and French vied to obtain the loyalty of the Iroquois, often spreading fear and rumors, one against the other in the attempt to gain their support.

The French and Indian War was called such because several Canadian Indians did side with the French. Many of those Indians were of Algonquin stock, but some were Christian Mohawks who had come under the influence of French Jesuits, and who had left their homeland in what is now New York for Canada. That this pitted Mohawk against Mohawk, brother against brother, was not forgotten by the Iroquois, and is one reason why, during the Revolutionary War, many Iroquois people were determined to remain neutral.

During the time period when this book takes place, the French and Indian War was in full swing. The Iroquois—specifically the Mohawk living along the Mohawk River in upper New York State—were aligned with the English and the Americans.

I am happy to have shared this journey back in time to a period in the history of Turtle Island (the world at that time) that was most heroic.

 

Gen Bailey

One More Historical Note

In the beginning to this book, Sir William Johnson is escorted to the Water-that-runs-swift by members of the Mohawk Nation. Although this is a true historical event, it didn't happen at the Battle of Lake George. It happened later, in 1767 when Sir William was suffering from gout, and also from the effects of the bullet he had received in the Battle at Lake George.

He was at that time taken by boat to Schenectady and then carried across the Iroquois trails by the Mohawks, arriving at the Water-that-runs-swift in late August.

I hope you will bear with me as I took a little literary license and changed this bit of history.

Among the children who had been carried off young, and had long lived with the Indians, it is not to be expected that any marks of joy would appear on their being restored to their parents or relatives. Having been accustomed to look upon the Indians as the only connexions they had, having been tenderly treated by them, and speaking their language, it is no wonder that they considered their new state in the light of a captivity, and parted from the savages with tears.

But it must not be denied that there were even some grown persons who shewed an unwillingness to return. The Shawanese were obliged to bind several of their prisoners and force them along to the camp; and some women, who had been delivered up, afterwards found means to escape and run back to the Indian towns. Some, who could not make their escape, clung to their savage acquaintance at parting, and continued many days in bitter lamentations, even refusing sustenance.

 

William Smith,
Historical Account of Bouquet's Expedition
against the Ohio Indians in 1764
Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Co., 1868, p. 80.