The Cornplanter Chronicles
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- Click here to read the Cornplanter
Chronicles from the current MLR.
- Click here to read the story of
Cornplanter's Cave.
- Click here to read the story of
Cornplanter's Wager.
- Click here to order Cornplanter Chronicles.
- Click here to read more articles on the history of MLR
Country.
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The CORNPLANTER CHRONICLES are a
labor of love by the author, Harold Thomas Beck. Raised on tales of the Mingo and Seneca
Indian Tribes passed on to him by his father, Harold Beck was surprised at the lack of
recorded history for them. In particular, he could find little written about the great
Seneca Chief Cornplanter.
Mr. Beck, in his research, found that on three separate occasions Cornplanter held
George Washington under his knife. On each of those occasions, Washington’s life was
spared and our nation was not deprived the leader and hero of the Revolutionary War and
our first President. It was little known facts such as these that were used to create the
tale of the legendary Seneca Chieftain.
The tale of Chief Cornplanter encompasses the 100 years of the life of the man. It
begins with the first white men in northwestern Pennsylvania. It speaks of his
grandfather, a Scotsman, and his father who was forced to change his name from O’Bain
to O’Bail and flee England. His mother, daughter of the Seneca Chief Gaiusuthia,
named him John and had him baptized in the Catholic Church. He was known as Ganiodieu
among the Seneca and the name Cornplanter began as a taunt from the children with whom he
played. Cornplanter was fluent in his native Iroquois tongue, French, English, Spanish and
German.
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The story of the man is the story of a people. It is the story of their survival in a
time when the encroaching white men were bent on their total annihilation. It demonstrates
how a single man could keep his people together and hold mighty armies at bay. It shows
the great courage of the Seneca Nation and the people. They were able to bend in the wind
and continue their existence rather than breaking under the oppressive force of nations
fighting to control this new land. In the midst of the French and Indian War, conflicts
with the other five Iroquois tribes, the Revolutionary War, wars with the western tribes,
and finally the War of 1812, the steady hand of the great Seneca War Chief kept his people
on a steady course.
The stories of the CORNPLANTER CHRONICLES will give an insight
missing from other tales of Indian Nations. The stories are written
from the point of view of the Seneca instead of the invading white
man.
CORNPLANTER CHRONICLES
is available for sale on this website. It is a beautiful
337 page hardcover edition that includes all the writing of Harold
Thomas Beck. This book has been heralded by Native Americans everywhere
as the greatest work ever written about Native Americans. It tells
the real story about real people struggling to survive the onslaught
of the white European settlers and conquerors.
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