Sophia Pooley: In her own words

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SOPHIA POOLEY.

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My parents were slaves in New York State.

My

sons-in-law, Daniel OutWaters and Simon Knox, came into the garden where my sister and were playing among the currant bushes, tied their handkerchiefs over our mouths, carried us to vessel, put us know not how in the hold, and sailed up the river. far nor how long — was dark there all the time. Then we came by land. remember when we came to

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were

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settlements

there,

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was the Onondagas, Senecas, and Oneidas. guess first colored girl brought into Canada. The white men sold us at Niagara to old Indian Brant, the king. lived with old Brant about twelve or thirteen years as nigh as can tell.

Brant lived part of the time at Mohawk, part at Ancaster, part at Preston, then called Lower Block the Upper Block was at Snyder's Mills. While lived with old Brant we caught the deer. was at We would let the hounds loose, Dundas at the outlet. and when we heard them bark we would run for the canoe — Peggy? and Mary, and Katy, Brant's daughters

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was born in Fishkill, New York State, twelve miles from North River. My father's name was Oliver Buram now more than ninety then, my mother's Dinah. was stolen from my parents when was years old. seven years old, and brought to Canada that was long There were hardly before the American Revolution. any white people in Canada then — nothing here but have helped Indians and wild beasts. Many a deer catch on the lakes in a canoe one year we took ninety. was a woman grown when the first governor of Canada ciame from England that was Gov. Simcoe.

NORTH-SIDE

VIEW OP SLAVERY.

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and I.

Brant's sons, Joseph and Jacob, would wait on the shore to kill the deer when we fetched him in.

I had a tomahawk, and would hit the deer on the head — then the squaws would take it by the horns and paddle The boys would bleed and skin the deer and ashore. take the meat to the house.

white peoplo Bill Chisholm, and they must it up. white people.

Sometimes

in the neighborhood, John Chishohn and would come and say 'twas their hounds, have the meat. But we would not give Canada was then filling up with And after Brant went to England, and kissed the Then there queen's hand, he was made a colonel began to be laws in Canada. Brant was only half Indian : his mother was a squaw — I saw her when I She was an old body ; her hair came to this country. was quite white. Brant was a good looking man — quite portly. . He was as big as Jim Douglass who lived here in the bush, and weighed two hundred , He lived in an Indian village — white men pounds. came among them and they intermarried.

They had an English schoolmaster, an English preacher, and an English blacksmith. When Brant went among the English, he wore the English dress — when he was among the Indians, he wore the Indian dress, — broadcloth leggings, blanket, moccasins, fur cap. He had his slit with a long loop at the edge, and in these he He wore a silver halfhung long silver ornaments. and moon on his breast with the king's name on He never would broad silver bracelets on his arms.

Brant was paint, but his people painted a great deal. always for making peace among his people that was used to talk the reason of his going about so much. have forgo tten could English.

Indian better than some of

— there

are none to talk 17

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with now.

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Brant's third wife, my mistress, was a barbaroud creature.

She could talk English, but she would not.

She would tell me in Indian to do thingvS, and then hit me with any thing that came to hand, because I did not understand her. I have a scar on my head from a wound she gave me with a hatchet ; and this long scar over my eye, is where she cut me with a knife.

The skin dropped over my eye ; a white woman bound

it up.

[The scars spoken of were quite perceptible, but the writer saw many worse looking cicatrices of

seen them have the war-dance

— in

doth about them, and painted up.

ridiculous — they looked

have

a ring with only

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of them were very savage, — some friendly.

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wounds not inflicted by Indian savages, but by civilized Brant was very angry, when he came home, men.] at what she had done, and punished her as if she had been a child.

Said he, " you know adopted her as one of the family,- and now you are trying to put all the work on her." liked the Indians pretty well in their plaee some

They did not look

— enough to frighten

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savage, anybody. One would take a bowl and rub the edge with a knotted stick then they would raise their toma-

At twelve

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freedpm.

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hawks and whoop. Brant had two colored men for slaves one of them was the father of John Patten, who lives over yonder, the other called himself Simon Ganseville. There was but one other Indian that had no care to get my knew, who owned slave. was sold by Brant to an Englishman in Ancaster, for one hundred doUaris, — his name was Samuel Hatt, and lived with him seven years then the white people said was free, and put me up to running away. He did not stop me — he lilij

in

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years old,

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said he could not take the law into his own hands.

Then I lived in what ia now Waterloo. married

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Robert Pooley, a black man. He ran away with a white woman : he is dead.

Brant died two years before the. second war with the His wife survived him until the year United States.

She was a pretty squaw : her father was the stars fell. an English colonel.

She hid a crock of gold before she died, and I never heard of its being found.

Brant was a freemason.

I was seven miles from Stoney Creek at the time of the battle

— the

cannonade

made

every

thing shake

well.

I am

now unable to work, and am entirely dependent on others for subsistence : but I find plenty of people in the bush to help me a good deal.

JOHN FRANCIS.

I was

twenty-eight years old when I came into the Queen's Bush from Virginia. My usage down South was hard. I was sold three times : first, for debt ; then I was traded off: the third time I sold myself to myself.

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in ten years ago. Then there were few More kept coming, — colored people, — there families.

The land was not surveyed. were not many white.

We settled down where we saw fit. We knew nothing came

about price nor terms. After considerable many settlers had come in, we called a meeting, and sent a man to cret a sTrant of the land if he could ', or, if not that, to

find the terms.

The answer was, that we were on