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Beyond Penn's Treaty

Journal of Joel Swayne

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would be a very disagreeable journey, however
we concluded to leave the Oxen in the woods
and try if we could get to the town, which
we did with some difficulty being pretty
tired and hungry, next day the cattle were
brought home by some Indians

After my return I was for several days engag
in the Carpenter-works of a School House about
half a mile from Genisshadego

where the Indians
propose building a new Town, while I was thus
engaged I received information that agreeable to
Cornplanters orders three of his men had ta-
ken the life of an Indian Woman, who had
been for some time past strongly suspected
by the natives for having the art of witchcraft
and was so despised that her husband put her away
and took another woman for his wife, (which
as the story goes) so enraged her, that she
threatened to take the life of a young child a
relation to her former husband. This circumstance
very much agitated the minds of some of the Indians
insomuch that Cornplanter ordered three of
his men immediately to take her life, she
being at that time at work in the cornfield