BLOOD OF FIRST WATERS

   “That the Indians may, if they are disposed to it, be very useful, is undoubtedly true, and the way to create and preserve this disposition is to keep ‘em in a state of dependence upon the person who may from time to time want their services.”- Col. Marinus Willet, Gov. George Clinton Papers

     

    The story continues—When I finally looked up to see those antlers tip over, I don’t think I’ve ever been so exhausted (or happy) in my life. I had hit the deer in the back of the head (not the back) killing it instantly. Some will find this callous—to be so thrilled at the death of an animal—but remember I HAD WOUNDED THIS DEER. It’s a hunter’s duty to kill (if possible) a wounded animal. Shooting from a rocking boat in a snow storm, an  inch higher and I would have missed. I tossed my empty shotgun in the bottom of the boat, grabbed the oars and rowed frantically to the deer. There was no need to hurry. Dead deer float! How was a city boy to know that? I tied a rope around the buck’s antlers and rowed back triumphantly to the cheering hunters; who had kept my father from interceding on behalf of his idiot son. “You have other kids. Cut your losses.” Buddy Key had reassured him, solemnly placing a heavy hand on my old man’s shoulder. My father, and most of the old timers I used to hunt with, are gone now. Even the great Ray Key is dead, leaving us to figure it all out on our own. I miss them dearly. End of story.     

       The New York House of Refuge functioned as a private, untouchable, state supplied clearing house for indentured youth with very little oversight. Truant officers patrolled the streets of the city, capturing and incarcerating vulnerable children, who may or may not have ever committed a crime. Then, for a fee, the constables, truant officers and sheriffs turned these children over to The Refuge. 

   The Refuge confined the young wayward or vagrant male and female, taught them what they saw as useful domestic skills, like sewing, cooking, carpentry and literacy. Then, in another well oiled conspiracy, these children were sold to the general public, like the Sewards. The relatively new manifestation of state incarceration (for young and old) reflected, in many ways, the old institutions of slavery and perpetuated indentured servitude. Instead of being chained to an oar in the belly of a ship, these penitents sewed torn britches, emptied chamber pots or served sea captains meals. These ideas were not new, but as historians point out, working incarceration was an outgrowth of the Tower of London, Amsterdam workhouses, and even the Vatican.   

    The now literate, semi-skilled children, converted to Christianity in the process, would be sold to anyone willing to pay for the trained and subdued children. Not being a “prison,” per se, with no regulation of their practices, The Refuge was free to continue unencumbered by government oversight. What today is accomplished by psychotropic drugs and solitary, this entrepreneurial “society,” operated as a thriving cottage industry, a farm league system, supplying the already “broken in” juvenile servant to waiting customers.

     William Henry Seward, the thirty-seven year old lawyer and land agent, became Governor of New York State on New Year’s Day 1839, exactly twenty years after he boarded that stage headed for New York City and Georgia. A lot had happened in those two decades. By now Martin Van Buren had also been elected New York Gov., for a short time, served as a State Senator, been appointed  Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of State and Vice President. And the “Little Magician,” was now President of the United States.

      Henry Seward had taken over his father-in-law Judge Elijah Miller’s Auburn law practice and with the help of a political visionary and Rochester newspaper publisher, Thurlow Weed and Horace Greeley of The New York Tribune, he’d run for, and be elected to, multiple public offices. Like his father, Dr. Samuel Sweezy Seward, Henry inherited, not only a sense of privilege, unbridled optimism and potential, but unlimited ambition. The Seward family stock was on the rise. The Jennings, who had moved to Montgomery, quietly settled into a welcome generational inconspicuousness and comfortable obscurity. The family was now cleanly cleaved.  

        Scholars portray Seward as unquestionably pro-immigrant, an ardent abolitionist and an advocate for secular education of the poor. Biographer Walter Stahr quotes Seward as declaring that ultimately a fair educational system “banishes the distinctions, old as time, of rich and poor, master and slave. It banishes ignorance and lays axe to the root of crime.” He was all this. Yet, he had black servants all his life and his family were far from progressive in their hiring practices, his father owning slaves and siblings continuing indentured servitude . 

   Aware of the rising crime statistics in the state and issue of immigrant youth, the Governor took the time to sit down and write to The House of Refuge Superintendent Rev. David Terry concerning the well being of one of Terry’s charges. The new Governor had been barraged with letters from distraught, poor parents, unable to reach their children at The Refuge. These worried parents had implored Seward to intercede on their behalf. In his letter to Rev. Terry, William H. Seward did not mince words.

     “It requires a heart of stone to deny such a woman’s petition for the pardon of a child thirteen years old, and at the same time to refuse to inquire whether the child is well and cheerful.” Seward admonished Director Terry. The Governor’s letter from Albany fell on deaf ears. Still, Henry persisted in his attempts at prison reform and oversight at the House of Refuge, to no avail. As the Gov. argued with David Terry, his brother George Washington Seward was the recipient of young Emma Jane, an indentured girl straight out of the House of Refuge. Rev. Terry reminded George Washington Seward, “It has not been concealed from you, and ought not to be forgotten, that this child has been a delinquent. We beg, therefore, to remind you that her conduct may require more attention than might be thought necessary to one who had never been led from paths of virtue. Should your kindness and care redeem this child, and make her religious, moral, and industrious, you will participate with us in those feelings, which must result from reflection that we may have contributed to the temporal and eternal happiness of a fellow-being.”  This is obviously a printed form letter put out by the Refuge to all clients, with “his” or “her” added as appropriate.

    Rev. David Terry, while sending one Seward this letter along with his indentured servant, ignored all inquiries into his questionable activities by the other Seward in Albany; informing the Governor that the ten year old girl in question had already been “indentured” and “the master did not wish to give her up.” According to Rev. Terry, under the law there was nothing else he could do. End of story. Henry Seward went on to inform Terry that, “I herewith transmit a pardon to the little apprentice. Should the master refuse to surrender her, you will have the goodness to return the pardon to me, with information of his name and residence, that I may direct a writ of habeas corpus to be sued out for her release”  In other words—produce the body. There was no reply and the subject was dropped. As George W. Seward’s paperwork indicates, the Refuge was operating within the law, granted “…powers given to us by an act of the Legislature of this state.” The Governor of the state was obviously aware, if not complicit in the workings of the Refuge. 

     One silent pre-dawn, after putting on the “Indian” play for the visiting dignitaries, Austin Reed finally made good his escape from The House of Refuge, leaving it (if we are to believe him) like Farmer Ladd’s barn…. in flames; as the Seward family seem at odds as to how they or society should treat (or receive the services of) slaves, indentured servants, or your missing children.