While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Chief of the Seneca,
Son of John Abeel and the Indian Princess, Alquipiso
Corn Plant (usually, but improperly spelled Cornplanter) was one of the
most unique characters in American history, and it appears somewhat
strange that after a lapse of a century or more the true history of his
parentage should now for the first time be brought to light, proving
beyond a doubt that he was a grandson of one of Albany's most
distinguished mayors. There may have been an effort on the part of those
interested to cover up the facts at the time by permitting a misspelling
the name which has passed into history as O'Bail (easily mistaken for
Abeel), but Corn Plant's own statement to the Governor of Pennsylvania in
1836, in which he gives an account of his early life (omitting the name of
his father), confirms the newly discovered evidence of his parentage. He
says:
"I feel it my duty to send a speech to the Governor of
Pennsylvania at this time and inform him of the place where I was born,
which was at Connewaugus, on the Genesee River.
"When I was a child, I played with the butterfly, the
grasshopper and the frogs, and as I grew up I began to pay some attention
and play with the Indian boys in the neighborhood, and they took notice of
my skin being a different color from theirs and spoke about it.
I inquired of my mother the cause, and she told me that
my father was a
resident of Albany.
I still eat my victuals out of a bark dish.
I grew up to be a young man and married me a wife, and
I had no kettle
or gun.
I then knew where my father lived, and went to see him,
and found he was
a white man and spoke the English language.
He gave me victuals while at his house, but when I
started home he gave
me no provision to eat on the way.
He gave me neither kettle nor gun, neither did he tell
me that the United States were about to rebel against the Government of
England.
"I will now tell you, brothers who are in session of
the Legislature of Pennsylvania, that the Great Spirit has made known to
me that I have been wicked and the cause thereof has been the
Revolutionary war in America. The cause of Indians being led into sin at
that time, was that many of them were in the practice of drinking and
getting intoxicated.
Great Britain requested us to join with them in the
conflict against the Americans, and promised the Indians land and liquor.
I myself was opposed to joining in the conflict, as I had nothing to do
with the difficulty that existed between the two parties.
I have now informed you how it happened that the
Indians took part in the revolution, and will relate to you some
circumstances that occurred after the war.
