She adds her testimony to that of all travelers and historians concerning
the purity of their lives, having never herself received the slightest
insult from an Indian and scarcely knowing an instance of infidelity or
immorality. But when once they had tasted of the maddening draught the
thirst was insatiable, and all they had would be given for a glass of
something to destroy their reason. Now they were indeed converted into
fiends and furies and sold themselves to swift destruction.

Hiokatoo hesitated at no crime and took pleasure in everything dark and
terrible, but this was a small trial compared to those which Mrs.
Jemmison was called upon to endure from the intoxication and recklessness
of her son. Her eldest, the son of Sheningee, was murdered by John, the
son of Hiokatoo, who afterward murdered his own brother Jesse, and came
to the same violent death himself at the hands of others. When they came
to be in the midst of temptation there was no restraining principle, and,
even after they grew up her house was the scene of quarrels and confusion
in consequence of their intemperance, and she knew no rest from fear of
some calamity from the indulgence of their unbridled passions. The Chief
of the Seneca nation, to which her second husband belonged, gave her a
large tract of land, and when it became necessary that it should be
secured to her by treaty, she plead her own case. The commissioners
without inquiring particularly concerning the dimensions of her lots,
allowed her to make her own boundaries, and when the document was signed
and she was in firm possession it was found that she was the owner of
nearly four thousand acres, of which only a deed in her own hand-writing
could deprive her. But though she was rich she toiled not the less
dilligently and forsook not the sphere of woman in attending to the ways
of her household, and also, true to her Indian education, she planted and
hoed and harvested, retaining her Indian dress and habits till the day of