Cornplanter spoke fluent English—and was
immediately released. The chief then gave his
father the choice of retiring in luxury with the
Senecas or returning to civilization. “If you
now choose to follow me and live with my
people I will promise to cherish your old age
with plenty of venison and you shall live
easy,” he told him. However, when his father
chose to leave, Cornplanter detailed an escort
of warriors to ensure his safe return.
By the time the American Revolution
ended in 1783, Cornplanter’s dire predictions
had come true. Great Britain more or less
abandoned its Indian allies through the Treaty
of Paris, and the Six Nations were left to face
an angry United States, now victorious and
well-armed, on their own. As a consequence
of the Senecas’ siding with Britain, the Ameri-
cans demanded and received large tracts of
Native American land throughout New York
and Pennsylvania. Cornplanter was usually at
the center of these negotiations and did his
best to forestall the inevitable losses. His prin-
cipal tribal adversary was Red Jacket, who
stridently opposed land sales and used the ris-
ing tide of resentment to increase his own po-
litical standing. Between 1784 and 1797, Corn-
planter signed five treaties that handed over
more and more land to the restless Ameri-
cans, but war was averted and he received
promises of better conduct toward his people.
When transgressions occurred, Cornplanter
traveled to New York to address his griev-
ances to Congress. In 1790, he ventured to
Philadelphia to confer with newly elected
President George Washington and com-
plained about the strong-arm tactics em-
ployed to obtain Indian land. The president
was impressed by the sincerity of his guest
and convinced Congress to better regulate
white behavior toward Indians. In 1792, Wash-
ington then asked Cornplanter to visit the
Ohio Valley and intercede on behalf of the
United States. It was hoped a chief of his
stature could convince the Miami Indians to
cease their military resistance to white expan-
sion. However, Chief Little Turtle, fresh
from his impressive victory over Gen. Arthur
St. Clair the previous year, roundly rebuffed
Cornplanter and his delegation, causing them
to flee for their lives. Failure here did nothing
to diminish the chief’s status among whites,
however, and in 1802 Cornplanter visited
Washington, D.C., to confer with President
Thomas Jefferson.
As a consequence of his willingness to sell
land, Cornplanter became a popular figure
among white politicians, who paraded him as
a “good Indian.” But this compliance carried a
stiff price by creating great internal dissent
among the Senecas, and Cornplanter’s life was
generally endangered. He later admitted that
“the Great God, and not man, has preserved
the Cornplanter from the hands of his own
people.” Nevertheless, in 1792 he received a
square-mile land grant in western Pennsylva-
nia, just below the Allegheny River, where he
spent the rest of his life. It was on this tract in
1799 that Handsome Lake, his half-brother, ex-
perienced a series of visions calling for the re-
newal of traditional Iroquois religion and cus-
toms. Cornplanter, who had converted to
Christianity, welcomed Quaker missionaries
on Seneca land, and quarreled with Handsome
Lake over religious matters. Handsome Lake
then departed with his followers to Coldwater
on the Allegheny reservation. The aged chief
willingly offered his services to the United
States in the War of 1812, which were politely
declined, but his son, Henry O’Bail, received
an army commission. Toward the end of his
long life Cornplanter experienced visions that
called upon him to renounce Christianity, his
white friends, and to destroy all their material
gifts to him. He also railed against the wide-
spread use of alcohol, thereby becoming one
of the first temperance lecturers in America.
Cornplanter, nearly a century old, died on Feb-
ruary 17, 1836, and was buried on his grant. In
1871, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
raised a marble shrine atop his grave, al-
legedly the first such monument ever erected
to a Native American. In 1964, the United
States government forsook the memory of
their former ally by erecting the Kinzua Dam,
which flooded and completely submerged theCORNPLANTER