The Cornplanter Memorial: An Historical Sketch of Gy-Ant-Wa-Chia—the Cornplanter, and of the Six Nations of Indians.

This 1867 historical work preserves the memory of Gy-Ant-Wa-Chia, Cornplanter, a Seneca chief who walked the razor-thin line between two peoples during America's most violent expansion. After the Revolutionary War, Cornplanter devoted his life to maintaining fragile peace between the Six Nations and the United States, a role that demanded impossible compromises and invited criticism from both sides. Snowden's account centers on the Pennsylvania Legislature's 1865 authorization of a monument to Cornplanter at Jennesadaga (now Warren, Pennsylvania), offering the full ceremonial proceedings, speeches by both Native representatives and white citizens, and a biographical narrative that traces Cornplanter's journey from warrior to diplomat. The book captures a rare moment of official recognition, examining how a young nation chose to remember an indigenous leader who had served its interests, a complicated gratitude, rendered with the earnest Victorian sentiment of an era still grappling with its own contradictions.