THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK

THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK

PORTRAIT OF MASS MURDER

By

Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.

Introduction

(Authors note:) The following is a story, historically documented in a “Little Black Book” recording of my great-great-great-great grandmother Bartheney Lanham, born in County Cork, Ireland in 1742 and came to America in 1757 to marry a man named Finney Simpson, a self-taught veterinarian, settling in Western New York. Believe it or not, each time I have read the “Little Black Book” of the dear little Irish grannie, I dream of her as though she and I are seated at the kitchen table having a sip of Irish whiskey while she puffs on her tiny corn cob pipe. This, then is my Grannie B.'s story as the Narrator as she wrote it in her native tongue which has taken five years to transcribe. But first I must tell you how I came to possess the “Little Black Book.” Late one night, in the middle of the day a messenger appeared at my lodging and stated merely, “sign here!” I followed his instructions and before I could fetch a shilling or two, he had vanished like the due in the morning sun. Straight away then thinking I had saved sufficiently for stew at the track kitchen, I sat beneath a swaying lantern set to rhythm by a wondering parakeet who flew in last Friday to get in from the rain.... liking it so much did not refrain from taking up residence in the rafters there...a crazy bird without despair! I noted the envelop was from a barrister from Kentucky, one Harvey Dipshit and the letter within stated hence and nothing more: “Come get it for it is yours.” I took the parakeet and a worn valise and drove 140 miles to Lebanon, Kentucky where I found Dipshit at Jakes Bar and Grill drinking his lunch. It was chilly there and the barrister had his hand in his own pockets, and we eyed each other from stem to stern and resolved our business without discourse. Seems a log cabin built lovingly by Finney Simpson for his mail order bride awaited me on the Miller Pike near Gravel Switch and I went there to find it in great disrepair. The next day I began to tear out the rot of a cabin built entirely of American Chestnut which is now extinct. As the sweat rolled into my eyes, and to my surprise in a major header above the door, a knothole revealed the “Little Black Book” within the trunk).

As previously stated, the “Little Black Book,” was written by hand and after transcription to my amazement it was a 365-page recording of historical events within Granny B’s travels with her veterinarian husband whose profession gained credibility throughout the Indian Nations. So, the Little Black Book provided the storyline utilizing authentic stories recorded when they happened and after I completed the manuscript it was submitted to several publishers and finally accepted by one in Australia, Tablo Publishing with a $20,000 advance for the book titled Portrait of Mass Murder, America’s Decision to Exterminate the Native American fetching a King’s ransom for this undeserving scribe, providing a continuing income, a fortune found in a hollow log with words of history true and profound.

I shall share here a few of the words of wisdom from my dear Grannie B to whet your appetite and cause you to rush out to Barnes & Noble to purchase the full text.

Grannie B., Narrator

The interest which the world is taking in all which relates to the history of our Native Americans, and the greediness which is manifest in the devouring of sensational stories published which glamorize falsely, filling a child’s mind and their imaginations with stories of wild Indian life on the plains and borders, without regard to the truthfulness, cannot but… be harmful; and therefore this scribe, after three years' of annotated experience on the plains, feels desirous of giving youthful minds a more true history of the red man and his daily activity in the camps of our forests. Thus, the true stories will teach the children, in time to come, the original race which once dominated this continent; especially before the white race manifestly marked them for extermination... destroying the source of life which existed on hunting-grounds granted to the Native American by treaties broken for the outright possession of the United States America in each and every executed treaty.

So how are we supposed to know the RIGHTS and WRONGS of the Indians in order that the truth can be known about the way the Indian befriended the white men, saving them from starvation in the first brutal winter of pioneer life when the Mayflower came to these shores.

As the writer, I propose now, only a history of Indians since I began to know the "Six Nations" in Western New York. Since then, these have dwindled down to a handful, and do not now exist in their separate tribal relations, but having been forced to assimilate, far away from the beautiful lakes they once inhabited."

The origin of the Native American has puzzled the wisest heads, and this lonely scribe most of all. The most plausible theory seems to be that they are one of the lost tribes of Israel; that they crossed a narrow natural bridge from the confines of Asia, and that their traditions, it is said, go far to prove it.

I had heard for instance, that the Sioux tell us that they were, many moons ago, set upon by a race larger in number than they, and were driven from the north in great fear, till they came to the banks of the North Platte, and finding the river swollen up to its banks, they were stopped there, with all their women, children, and horses. The enemy was pursuing, and their hearts grew white with fear. They made an offering to the Great Spirit, and he blew a wind into the water, so as to open a path on the bed of the river, and they all went over in safety, and the waters, closing up, left their enemies on the other side.

Grannie B: Narrator:

Elias Boudinot, many years ago, a minister in Vermont, published books to show that the American Indians were a portion of the lost tribes, from resemblances between their religious customs and those of the Israelites. Later still, a converted Jew named Simon, undertook to identify the ancient South American races, Mexicans, Peruvians, etc., as descendants of ancient Israel, from similarity of language and of civil and religious customs. These authors have taken as their starting-point the resolution which, Esdras informs us (in the Apocrypha), the ten tribes took after being first placed in the cities of the Medes, viz., that they would leave the multitude of the heathen and go into a land wherein never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep the ten commandments given to Abraham by God; and they suppose that, in pursuance of this resolution, the tribes continued in a northeasterly direction until they came to Behring Straits, which they crossed, and set foot on this continent, spreading over it from north to south, until, at the discovery of it by Columbus, they had peopled every part.

It must be admitted that this theory is very plausible, and that if our Indians are not the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, they show by their traditions and customs a knowledge of the ancient religion, such as calling the Great Spirit Yo-he-wah, the Jehovah of the Scriptures, and in many festivals corresponding to the Mosaic law.[1]

The country to which the ten tribes, in a journey of a year and a half, would arrive, from the river Euphrates, east, would be somewhere adjoining Tartary, and intercourse between the two races would easily lead to the adoption of the religious ideas and customs of the one by the other.”

“I know,” interjected the writer, “That the gypsy tribes came from Tartary, and in my discussions with these wandering people, I found they had a custom somewhat like our Indians' practice, in moving from place to place. For instance, the gypsies, when they leave a part of their company to follow them, fix leaves in such wise as to direct their friends to follow in their course. This is called "_patteran_" in Romany or gypsy language. And the Indian cuts a notch in a tree as he passes through a forest, or places stones in the plains in such a way as to show in what direction he has gone. An officer saw a large stone, upon which an Indian had drawn the figure of a soldier on horseback, to indicate to others which way the soldiers had gone.”

Grannie B: Narrator:

And the likeness to the bible is quite similar to the Origin of Evil. The Indians have a tradition handed down in which the Great Spirit said they might eat of all [the fruit] except the apple or thus vis-a-vie [the animals] he had made, except the beaver. But some bad Indians went and killed a beaver, (and Eve ate the apple) and the Great Spirit was angry and said they must all die. But after a while he became willing that Indians should kill and eat them, so the beaver is hunted for his skin, and his meat is eaten as often as he suffers himself to be caught.”

There is a legend about a great man named On-on-da-ga, an Indian chief, who died near Elbridge, a town lying north of Auburn, in the State of New York. This Indian belonged to the Onondagas, one of the tribes called "the Six Nations of the IROQUOIS" (E-ro-kwa), a confederacy consisting of the MOHAWKS, ONEIDAS, SENECAS, CAYUGAS, ONONDAGAS, and TUSCARORAS or CHIPPEWAS. I was a lad at the time of this chief's death, having my home in Auburn, New York, where my father was the physician and surgeon to the State prison. My father had a cousin, who was also a doctor and surgeon, a man of stalwart frame, raised in Vermont, named Cogswell. He was proud of his skill in surgery and devoted to the science. He had learned of the death of the Onondaga chief, and conceived the idea of getting the body out of the grave for the purpose of dissecting the old fellow, --that is, of cutting him up and preserving his bones to hang upon the walls of his office; of course, there was only one way of doing it, and that was by stealing the body under cover of night, as the Indians are very superstitious and careful about the graves of their dead. You know they place all the trappings of the dead--his bow and arrows, tomahawk, and wampum--in the grave, as they think he will need them to hunt and supply his needs on his journey to the happy hunting-grounds. They place food and tobacco, with other things, at the burial site which is above ground and easily accessible..

Dr. Cogswell took two men one night, with a wagon, and as the distance was only twelve miles, they performed the journey and got back safely before daylight, depositing the body of the Indian in a barn belonging to a Mr. Hopkins, in the north part of the town. It was soon noised about town what they had done, and there lived a man there who threatened to go and inform the tribe of the despoiling of the chief's grave unless he was paid thirty dollars to keep silent. The doctor, being a bold, courageous man, refused to comply with a request he had no right to make because it was an attempt to "levy blackmail," as it is called.

To be continued and soon available in your bookstore:

Welby Thomas Cox, Jr.

415 NW 9th Street

Richmond, Indiana 47374-2807

765-462-1634