In any case, what I said was, “Well, what if I were to say you have my permission, sir? And that’s all you need.”
He gawped a bit at my brashness, and the fact that I’d taken up the reins of the sleigh, as if I meant to drive it. Which I had intended, until I realized he might think it unladylike.
It seemed to me as if we New Yorkers were too aristocratic for the New Englanders, and too bold for the Virginians, which made me wonder how we’d all get along together if we weren’t forced to it by our war with the king.
I parted with Monroe affectionately, though not nearly as affectionately as Lafayette did. The Frenchman hugged Monroe and kissed him upon both cheeks again and again, until the major finally seemed like a squirming cat eager to get away.
Then we continued westward onto Johnstown.
When the marquis first said that the world’s eyes were upon him, it seemed a self-important boast, but he was already known—or at least known of—by the chieftains. And because he was a Frenchman, we were very well received where the Iroquois had gathered for the conference along the banks of the Mohawk River.
Hair streaked with feathers, their ears cut open, jewels dangling from their noses, their tattoos and painted designs visible beneath the beaded skins they wore, the old men smoked pipes and talked about politics. And so did the women . . .
This did not give Lafayette pause. “If you could see the salons in Paris, the women are the same! Even in my own family. Perhaps especially the women of my family.”
With that, the Frenchman waded into the crowds and showered them with little gifts. Mirrors, rum, brandy, and shining gold coins—louis d’or. And the Iroquois took to him, just as we were beginning to take to him.
It was the same generosity he’d shown our soldiers in Albany. There, and with his own personal funds, he’d bought food, armaments, and clothing for the men. I would later learn that Lafayette spent more than twelve thousand dollars—an even more outrageous sum then than it is now. He’d been able to do for our soldiers what Congress could not. He put shirts on their backs, shoes on their feet, and beef in their bellies. And when he began drilling soldiers, they actually obeyed him, calling him the soldier’s friend. As the daughter of Philip Schuyler, I might have resentfully said it was because he bought their loyalty. But, in truth, I admired the sincerity with which the Frenchman approached his dealings. No one could ever accuse the marquis of being unpretentious, but his enthusiasm and optimism were infectious.
Even amongst the Six Nations. And I might’ve been more sure of the success of our mission were it not for the fact that the most distinguished Mohawk had not responded to the messengers with the wampum belts. No Seneca. Next to no Cayuga. Only a hundred Onondaga. Disappointed and alarmed, I said to my father, “They won’t even meet with us.”
Papa squeezed my hand. “There are nearly eight hundred, Betsy. It’ll be enough for word to get to the others.”
Finally, the ceremony commenced on the common; the Indians arranged themselves in a circle by nation and clan, sitting on the ground upon blankets and furs, men on one side, women on the other, chairs left for the commissioners, and for me.
In the center, a large pot of meat broth boiled away over a fire. And as a pledge of sincerity, three elderly chiefs delivered to Papa and Lafayette a belt of wampum much more intricate than any I’d seen before, curiously worked with porcupine quills, and handsomely painted.
When it was my father’s turn to speak, he didn’t dissemble. He merely explained that the King of England was an ocean away and would abandon his Iroquois allies when the Americans won this war. That if the Six Nations didn’t bury their war ax now, they’d soon find themselves facing a new American nation that would treat them as enemies.
I worried that he would press them too hard, but those who sat nearest to the fire—the Oneida and the Tuscarora—my father praised for maintaining the neutrality they’d once promised. And he pledged our friendship and protection.
That was all he was permitted to say for the time being. These tawny-skinned people of the longhouse abided by strict rules and rituals, and it was now time to dance.
An Oneida clan mother named Two Kettles Together approached me, bells in hand. “Are you not One-of-us?”
She was one of those who had adopted me into the Six Nations. And grinning that she’d remembered me after all these years, I readily fastened the bells on my ankles.
“I am so happy to see you,” I said, introducing her to Lafayette as a warrior in her own right, who had fought at Oriskany. Armed with two pistols, she’d reloaded her husband’s weapons when he—wounded—couldn’t do it for himself.
“Like Joan de Arc!” Lafayette exclaimed, in warm greeting. “A French warrior woman. I have an ancestor who fought beside her. Perhaps one day, you should fight beside me.”
“If you are lucky,” Two Kettles Together said with a shrewd little smile, before taking my hand and pulling me into the dance, where the Indians united by hands and jumped round the pot that hung over the fire, animated by the music of a small drum. One of the chiefs likewise took Lafayette by the hand and danced him round the circle, too. Another blackened Papa’s face with grease from a pot. Whether this was a trick to excite a laugh, or a part of their actual national ceremony, I didn’t know.
But my very dignified father did not like it.
And yet, Lafayette insisted he must also have his face greased!
Apparently charmed by his boisterous participation, the Iroquois adopted Lafayette, too, with a new name. Kayewla. Fearsome horseman.
I knew this was partly because they liked him and mostly because he was a representative
