Our early history has been less sympathetic toward the Indian. The story
of the massacre which occurred at Cherry Valley, not many miles from
Cooperstown, in 1778, although the Tories who took part in it were quite
as savage as their Indian allies, has made memorable the darker side of
Indian character. But although many innocent victims were exacted by his
revenge both here and elsewhere, it was not without cause that the
Indian resorted to bloody measures against the whites. Americans of
to-day can well afford a generous appreciation of the once powerful race
who were their predecessors in sovereignty on this continent. The league
of the Iroquois is no more, but in the Empire State of the American
Republic the scene of their ancient Indian empire remains. It is left
for the white man to commemorate the Indian who made no effort to
perpetuate memorials of himself, erected no boastful monuments, and
carved no inscriptions to record his many conquests. Having gained great
wealth by developing the resources of a land which the Indians used only
as hunting grounds, the white man may none the less appreciate the lofty
qualities of a race of men who, just because they felt no lust of
riches, never emerged from the hunter state, but found the joy of life
amid primeval forests.

The League of the Iroquois has had a strange history, which is part of
the history of America--a history which left no record, except by
chance, of a government that had no archives, an empire that had no
throne, a language that had no books, a citizenship without a city, a
religion that had no temple except that which the Great Spirit created
in the beginning.


FOOTNOTES: