Settlers v. Natives: the Anglo-Mikmaq War: 1749-1755

Warfare along the North American frontier, which extended from Nova Scotia and Quebec through the Thirteen Colonies and into Spanish Florida was constant.  French versus British, French Settlers versus American Colonials, Whites versus Natives and Natives versus each other, sometimes pursuing their own rivalries and sometimes at the behest or instigation of one group of Settlers against another.  Today, we'll look at the continuation of yesterday's conflicts, one that dovetailed with both King George's War (1740-48) and the French and Indian War (1755-1762).

As we've seen with the aftermath of Queen Anne's War, the British took over that portion of New France known as Acadia, roughly New Brunswick and parts of Maine.  Acadia was inhabited both by French settlers commonly known as Acadiens, the ancestors of today's Acadiens and Cajuns, and by two tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Mikmaq and Maliseet, who often managed to intermarry and otherwise coexist with the Acadiens.  Due to the Acadiens' influence and that of Jesuit and other Catholic missionaries, the Mikmaq and Maliseet tended to adhere to Catholicism in addition to tribal beliefs.  The treaty ending Queen Anne's War stipulated that the English would respect the religious beliefs of the French colonists.  England, and particular New England, had an answer to that.  Protestant settlers would move into Maine, Nova Scotia and parts of Quebec, disrupting the balance of power as best they could.  We've already seen parts of this during the New England-Wabanaki War (Father Rale's War (1725).  Now, it would play out again in Nova Scotia.

As Acadiens saw more and more Protestants moving into Nova Scotia, they understandably grew worried.  Even more worried were the Mikmaq and Maliseet, who were becoming outnumbered by Europeans, both French Acadiens and now New Englanders.  There was a series of raids by Acadiens and their Mikmaq allies against British settlements and outposts which led to reprisals, making the Canadian frontier just as hazardous as the American one.  The British responded by building a series of Forts in Nova Scotia to head off both the Acadiens and Natives.  They located some of these forts in established Acadien communities and the message was clear.  They were there as conquerors and occupiers.  The French beefed up their fortifications in Quebec and encouraged the continued raiding by the Wabanaki tribes.  Jean Le Loutre was an Abbe, the French term for a vicar, parson or village priest rather than a missionary like Louis Rale.  He, along with Acadien guerilla leader Joseph Broussard (Beausoleil), also made hit-and-run raids on English settlements.  New England leader John Gorham, whom some consider to be the forerunner of Rogers and his Rangers, pushed deep into French territory in Quebec, prompting more Native attacks on English settlements in Nova Scotia.

Fed up, the British turned their wrath on the Acadiens, demanding an oath of unconditional loyalty to the British Crown and the Protestant religion or eviction from their lands.  While some Acadiens preferred to take the oath and practice their religion in secret, others flocked to Le Loutre and Beausoleil.  The British began burning Acadien farms and towns in retaliation.  Seeing the inevitable, Le Loutre himself chose to lead his people out of Nova Scotia rather than stay and risk more fighting.  The British, believing that French refugees from Nova Scotia might provoke an all-out war with France, blockaded ships willing to take the beleaguered Acadians on board.  The Acadiens, trapped in a no-man's-land, kept up the fight.  In 1749, the Mikmaq and Maliseet staged raids on Canso, Chignecto, Dartmouth, Lunenburg, and besieged Grand Pre, showing astonishing success against the British and their New England allies.  The raids continued for almost seven years, with the English learning the same lesson again.  They could not simply beat down the Acadiens and the Wabanaki tribes, they would have to treat with the Natives and deport the Acadiens by force, whether it resulted in war with France or not.

The tide had begun to turn against Le Loutre and Beausoleil with the fall of Fort Beausejoir in 1755.  Both men were imprisoned.  British forces harried the Acadiens into ports and herded them onto ships bound for France.  Jean-Louis Le Loutre would be imprisoned in a castle on the Isle of Jersey until the end of the Seven Years War (1763).  Upon being released he continued to help displaced Acadiens in France find new homes.  Joseph Broussard (Bausoleil) continued as a guerrilla fighter on behalf of his people throughout the Seven Years' War until he was captured and imprisoned in Halifax, Nova Scotia and transferred to Haiti.  Finally, in 1765, he led a group of Acadiens from Haiti to what is now St. Martinville, Louisiana to establish the first Cajun settlement there.  Meanwhile, back in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the British dealt with the Wabanaki in a series of treaties and punitive raids.  That portion of the frontier was quiet, for the time being.

A War Wtihin a War Within a War: How a Severed Ear Sparked a Colonial War

This is one of the more bizarre Colonial Wars in the way it began and the fact that it did not stop over time, but mushroomed into ever bigger conflicts.  Since Natives participated in all three conflicts, we'll put it in its proper context here.

In 1731 Spanish coast guard vessels surrounded and boarded an English merchant ship belonging to Robert Jenkins.  While Jenkins was a legitimate merchant captain, he was also a known smuggler and the Spaniards had had enough.  As they confiscated his cargo and he threatened war in Britain's name one of the Spaniards sliced off his ear with a sword, telling him to take that to King George II and see if George even cared.  Jenkins picked his severed ear in a jar of alcohol, returned home to Britain and showed his ear to anyone who could bear to look.  He even testified before parliament and displayed the ear there.  At first, no one was interested in conducting reprisals against Spain on behalf of Jenkins' Ear.

Fast forward to 1738, when the British South Sea Company, which hoped to break Spain's control of trade in the Caribbean, hoped the time was right to convince Britain to find an excuse to start a war against Spain.  Jenkins and his ear became celebrities again as members of the South Sea Company and their wealthy investors lobbied parliament.  This time, it worked.  Britain declared war on Spain and began ravaging Spanish shipping in the Caribbean, including the wealthy galleons which brought silver and other wealth from Mexican mines back to Spain.  Most of this War was on the sea, but the British managed to blockade the Spanish port city of St. Augustine, Florida in 1740.  James Oglethorpe lead an expedition of Georgia and South Carolina colonists to attack St. Augustine by land.  Whether Creek auxiliaries fought with Oglethorpe no one knows.  St. Augustine, guarded by the Castillo de San Marco, held out against the attack.  Oglethorpe's men went back to Georgia.  However, there were raids back and forth between English and Spanish settlers on the Florida-Georgia border.  More slaves bolted from Florida plantations, and many Natives enlisted to fight with Spain also liberated themselves.  At first called marones by the Spanish, and later cimarrones or wild ones, these escaped Native auxiliaries merged with the runaway slaves, become one of the origin points for a new tribe of Natives, the Seminoles, who don't otherwise figure much in this story.

Florida quickly became a side note as another larger issue began to worry Europe.  The last male Habsburg emperor of Austria, Charles VI died, leaving his heiress Maria Theresa as heir to the Holy Roman Empire and all of Austria's dominions in Europe.  It was understood that the new Holy Roman Emperor would actually be her husband, Francis of Lorraine but that the ruling power would be hers.  The two rulers in Europe most angry with this situation were Louis XV of France and Frederick the Great of Prussia who had the excuse they needed to strip Austria of her prized Italian possessions, possibly unseat Maria Theresa and either place a candidate to their liking on the throne or divvy up the Austrian Empire for themselves.  France dragged England into the War with attacks on English shipping and on England's North American possessions, particularly Nova Scotia.

As we've seen in earlier posts, France had been forced to give up claims to Nova Scotia after Queen Anne's War about thirty years before.  They were still sore, as they considered Nova Scotia and Acadia, read New Brunswick and parts of Maine, as parts of New France.  In May, 1744, French forces from Quebec, supported by Mikmaq and Maliseet auxiliaries, attacked the British fishing outpost of Canso, then decided to besiege the provincial capitol of Annapolis Royal.  Meanwhile, local Acadiens and other Natives rallied under the banner of Father Jean LeLoutre and attacked Annapolis Royal on their own initiative.  Their beef with Britain was the oppression of Acadian Catholics by British authorities, and raids on Native hunting grounds by settlers in Maine. 

The British rushed help to Annapolis in the form of provincial troops from Massachusetts and broke the French siege in 1745.  British forces also captured Louisbourg, the last French outpost in Nova Scotia.  This prompted raids on British outposts and colonial settlements from member tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy, whom we've already seen in action.  The French tried to retake Louisbourg in 1746 but disease and other misfortunes forced them to give up the effort and admit the inevitable.  Skirmishing between French and American Settlers broke out along the Frontier, with various Natives also getting on the drama.  There were so many raids along the Massachusetts border that the Governor there ordered a construction of frontier outposts to protect communities there.  French soldiers with Native allies, most likely Abenaki, burned the village of Saratoga, New York, prompting anger among Settlers and the powerful Iroquois tribes.  French and Indian attacks were also launched against Fort Massachusetts, now Adams, Massachusetts and Schenectady, NY. 

The various wars would wear on until 1748 in Europe, taking in the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland, among others.  The North American theater took a heavy toll on New England, where 8% of the male population was lost.  The British government compensated Massachusetts for its losses, which gave them an economic boost.  Meanwhile, the Acadians under Father LeLoutre and a guerilla leader named Joseph Broussard (Beausoleil), continued to resist the British efforts to remove Acadians from New Brunswick and Maine.  More on this side war and the part Natives played in it, in a later post.

Places: Fort St. Frederic and Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga)

We've already met some of the players in the saga of the capture of these two strategic points during the French and Indian War (1755-162), now it's time to look more closely at these two forts.  Today, St. Frederic, also called by its location in Crown Point, New York, and about 15 miles away, Fort Carillon, better known as Fort Ticonderoga, which has been almost fully restored by the National Park Service.  In addition to British and French regulars who fought here, and American and Canadian militia who did the same, warriors from many Native tribes also fought, contributed their skills and effort, and died to take these bloody grounds.

Both French and British military planners had long understood the importance of the Champlain Valley with Lake Champlain, which was navigable by larger ships directly below Montreal and then further north and east to Quebec and the St. Lawrence River.  Lake Champlain itself was connected to Lake George by the fast-flowing La Chute River at its southern end.  For that reason, French engineers had constructed Fort St. Frederic in the 1730's on the west bank of Lake Champlain to guard the Lake against any attack from Lake George and up the La Chute River.  They later built Fort Carillon, at the point where La Chute enters Lake Champlain, for the same reason.  Constructed in the classic star-fort style and meant to accommodate garrisons several hundred men, these forts should have been more of a priority to officials in New France and France itself.  However, by the time of the French and Indian War, French forces in North America were spread then and the French command was relying on the sheer strength of the forts themselves to provide much of their defense. 

Almost as soon as the War started, the British began their assault on Montreal via Lake Champlain.  While much of the British army was concentrated around Quebec City, further north, Sir William Johnson with a force of 1,500 Colonial militia and 200 Mohawk warriors under Hendrick Theyanoguin, whom we've also run into, hurried to take these two forts.  The French commander at Crown Point, Baron Deskau, supported by an equal force of French Colonial militia, Abenaki and Kahnawake Mohawk allies marched to take the British outpost at Fort Edward, which would serve as a staging area for Johnson's expedition. 

Advance units of the two armies collided near the site of the present-day village of Lake George, New York.  Theyanoguin and the American militia commander were killed in an encounter memorialized as the "Bloody Morning Scout".  While most of the American militia broke and fled back toward Johnson's camp, the Mohawks held and covered their retreat.  Deskau wanted to attack Johnson's camp but his Native allies, having lost a commander of their own, declined to do so.  Rashly, Deskau gathered about 200 militiamen and some Natives who were willing to make the attempt and attacked Johnson.  Johnson's cannon crews opened up with grapeshot and withered the French lines.  In the ensuing melee both Johnson and Deskau were wounded.  Later, Johnson spared Deskau's life when an angry Mohawk warrior, believing Deskau responsible for the death of Theyanoguin, was about to exact revenge with his tomahawk.  Meanwhile, other units from both armies clashed at an area known today as Bloody Point and narrowly averted disaster for the British. 

The Battle of Lake George was a British victory, but too costly for Johnson to follow up on right away.  Rather than continue the advance to Fort St. Frederic, he decided to strengthen Fort William Henry, which we've already discussed, and wait for the following year to commence his assault on Lake Champlain's defenses.  Eventually, Johnson would have other matters to attend to and his days as a military commander were over.

It would fall to Lord Jeffrey Amherst, he of the smallpox germ warfare fame, to deal with Fort St. Frederic.  The French, hard-pressed to hang on to Quebec, Montreal and the St. Lawrence River, realized they were outmanned and outgunned and left, destroying Fort St. Frederic.  Not to be outdone, Amherst's men began constructing Fort Crown Point next to the ruins.  The ruined barracks can still be seen today.  The British also began constructing the Crown Point Road across the Green Mountains to the Connecticut River. 

Fort Carillon would prove the tougher nut to crack and it would be several years into the War before they attempted it.  While the French held the area, the surroundings of Fort Carillon had grown into a town.  There was a garden to feed the garrison.  In town were several taverns, as well as bakeries and more comfortable barracks.  The garrison at Fort Carillon was composed of professional soldiers from France, not militia or Colonial troops.  In August, 1757, Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm, the French commander at Fort Carillon, decided to attack Fort William Henry on Lake George.  He laid siege to the Fort and, as every Last of the Mohicans fan knows, allowed the British garrison to march out.  This didn't sit well with his Native auxiliaries, who attacked the British on the march.  Montcalm destroyed Fort William Henry but, instead of marching on Fort Edward, which was just as vulnerable, he hurried back to Carillon.  Possibly, this was due to a lack of supplies and a belief that he might not be able to stop the vengeance of the Natives on another defeated British garrison.  A disastrous famine in the grain-growing regions around Montreal put a stop to any further campaigning as Montcalm had to let any militia and Colonial troops go both to avoid draining his supplies and to look after their families. 

The British once again turned their attention to the Champlain Valley in 1758, when General James Abercromby re-garrisoned Fort William Henry and began massing troops for an assault on Carillon.  Montcalm was prepared, digging extra ditches and earthworks around the fort.  1758 was not a good year for the British, who had suffered several defeats, deaths among the higher ranks of command, and the appointment of James Wolfe, whom many of his subordinates disliked, in overall command.  Meanwhile, Montcalm had had to divert most of the professional French troops to Louisbourg, Quebec and Montreal.  Lacking Colonial troops or militia, much of the fighting for his side had to rely on the Abenaki, Kahwanake Mohawk and other Native allies.  These Natives provided a deterrent to Rogers' Rangers and other British scouting parties trying to assess French strength at Carillon. 

The British, to stave off any French attempts to retake Fort William Henry, amassed a 16,000 man force to strike at Carillon.  On July 8, 1758, Abercromby surrounded and began the siege of Fort Carillon.  In Montcalm and his men the British had met his match.  Carillon was heavily fortified, well-armed and dug in.  This wasn't going to be easy.  The British, though, had the advantage that the Fort, situated on Lake Champlain, the La Chute River and with a moat, was surrounded on at least three sides by water.  They could have waited Montcalm out but Abercrombie wanted a quick victory.  They tried a frontal assault, which the French repulsed.  The British had to pull back to Fort William Henry. 

It would take until July, 1759, before Lord Jeffrey Amherst, now replacing James Wolfe as Commander in Chief of British Forces in North America, moved against Carillon again.  Realizing he was outmanned and outgunned, the commander of Fort Carillon ordered the outbuildings of the fort, including the bakeries and barracks to be burned.  He then demolished much of the interior of the fort, spiked what guns they could not drag away, and evacuated Fort Carillon.  Amherst's men brushed aside the French rear guard and entered Carillon, which they renamed Fort Ticonderoga.  Over the next two years, they tried to repair the damage and mount a garrison there but other priorities always seemed to interfere.  By 1773, two years before Ethan Allen showed up to claim his victory at Ticonderoga, Frederick Haldimand, Governor of Quebec wrote that it was in a ruinous condition. 

Despite this fact, the defense of the Fort Carillon by successive French commanders, and its ultimate capture by the British were bragging rights for both sides.  The Battle of Carillon in 1758, when French forces managed to withstand the British frontal assault, is a well-known story in the history of Quebec, and the Carillon flag is as treasured by them as the "Don't Treat on Me" flag is to American history.  Likewise, the British attached considerable bragging rights to the taking of Fort Carillon, which is why, when Allen got his hands on it, it was a thumb in the eye to British commanders in North America, as well as a treasure trove of guns for Washington's army.

And none of these battles and marches would have been possible without the assistance and fighting ability of Mohawk, Abenaki and other Native warriors, whose contributions are overlooked.     

People Who Trade: the Ottawa

We've already met two of their leaders, Pontiac and Egushawa, so today we'll take a closer look at the people whose name is most familiar to North Americans as the capitol city of Canada.

The Ottawa are an Algonquian-speaking Eastern Woodlands people closely related to the Ojibwe and the Potawatomi.  Like those two groups, they refer to themselves as Ashinaabe, or Original People.  Other Algonquian speakers refer to them as Adaawe or a cognate term meaning "those who barter or trade".  Their ancient homeland was along the East Coast, though by the time White men encountered them they were living on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shore of Lake Huron, and the Bruce Peninsula in present-day Ontario.  They were known among other tribes of the area as well as French explorers and missionaries for being traders of Native commodities such as cornmeal, sunflower oil, furs and skins, rugs and mats, tobacco and medicinal herbs.  Incidentally, two traders prominent in the Great Lakes area during our time period, Madeleine LaFramboise and Petosegay, were mixed race Ottawa in origin.

Ottawa origin stories indicate that the Ashinaabe came from the East Coast to what is now the Detroit area and split into the Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Ottawa.  Archeology finds some links between the Hopewell culture and all three groups.  The Ashinaabe formed the Council of Three Fires, defending themselves against both Iroquois and Sioan neighbors.  Like many Algonquian tribes, the Ottawa divided themselves into several different loosely affiliated bands.  A Jesuit missionary in 1675 recoded members of three bands living together in one village.  They became important players in the 17th century beaver trade.  As usual during this time period, war and disease took their toll and the Ottawa moved into what is now Michigan and down into Ohio, crowding in with other displaced tribes.  Pontiac was likely born near what is now Defiance, Ohio.

During the French and Indian War (1755-1762), the Ottawa sided with the French.  After the French were defeated, the Ottawa joined other tribes who were dissatisfied with British policies regarding trade goods and the sale of arms, munition and alcohol to the Natives.  Though Pontiac was an important leader and front man for the rebellion that bears his name (1764), there were other leaders from other tribes, such as Guyasuta of the Seneca, whom we've come across.  Other tribes did not join with the Ottawa-Seneca faction and operated independently.  The British ultimately put down the rebellion(s) after a fierce struggle and the Ottawa had to find ways to work with them.  During the Revolutionary War, Egushawa, discussed in a previous post, led Ottawa warriors on behalf of the British in the American Revolutionary War.  He and his warriors were also part of the Western Confederacy of tribes and took part in the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795). 

Under the Treaty of Greenville (1795), the Ottawa ceded their claims to Ohio except for the Northwestern portion, which was the range of the Detroit Ottawa.   They also ceded Southeastern Michigan, along with several other tribes who lived in that area.  The various bands then moved into upper Michigan and Canada.  They were given two reservations, one at Blanchard's Creek and another at the Little Anglaize River, but with the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, they were increasingly under pressure to remove to the West.  Bands from Blanchard's Creek, Little Anglaize, Roche de Boeuf and Wolf Rapids moved to new territory in Kansas.  Today, the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma represents the Ottawa in the United States.  There are recognized First Nations bands of Ottawa on reserves in Canada. 

Frontier Life: Borrowed Words and Concepts

As we've seen in previous posts, Natives borrowed goods and technology from Settlers which often made their lives more convenient.  The most obvious of these were firearms and the horse, but also trade goods such as metal for blades, cooking pots, mirrors, cloth, beads and needles.  However, close proximity between Natives and Settlers meant that the borrowing went both ways, Settlers taking up Native words and technologies to adapt to a more hardy life on the frontier.  We've seen examples of this with Squanto's teaching the Pilgrims to plant and hunt in their new home, and Polly Cooper showing Washington's men how to properly cook sweet corn.  Let's consider some more.

The most basic item was food.  In Europe, corn refers to the heads of grain crops and could be an archaic name for wheat or barley, as in the slang term for liquor, John Barleycorn.  Corn as we know it today wasn't in use in Europe prior to the Spanish and other explorers bringing samples of it back to their homelands.  Europeans still refer to this kind of corn as maize, a Spanish derivation of a Taino word used to refer to the plant.  Ditto for the tomato, potato, squash, and a dish that uses corn, beans and squash, called succotash, from a Narragansett word for broken corn kernels.  Hominy, a method of preserving corn in brine and jerky, salted, dried and preserved meat.  Although Europeans had been pickling with brine and salting meat since ancient times, they relearned these methods of preserving food from Natives.


Hollowing logs to make boats or stretching hides over bone or wood frames had been known in Europe since ancient times but was relearned by European settlers and explorers to North America.  The word canoe comes from a Spanish corruption of a Carib word denoting a hollowed out log, which was then used to make a boat.  Likewise a travois, poles crossed over the back of a horse or dog to carry loads.  The word travois is an archaic French term for a device used to restrain horses, but the concept of using a device to drag heavy loads is Native.

Tomahawks are a common tool used by outdoor enthusiasts and military forces alike not only as a weapon but as a small utility ax for outdoor jobs.  Many military forces issue tactical tomahawks.  The designs are based on Native adaptations of European blades, and maybe also their concept of European hatchets and smaller weapons known as boarding pikes, which were a small, combined hatchet and blade used by sailors in hand-to-hand combat.

Another practice borrowed from Natives was the buckskin suit, later made famous by frontiersmen and outdoor enthusiasts from Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett to Buffalo Bill and Theodore Roosevelt.  Europeans had been tanning and using leather for millennia but the style of the great shirt or hunting shirt (later the jacket) with fringes used to channel rain water off the garment (later for decoration), and the leggings (which became trousers), is Native, almost specifically based on Cherokee winter clothing.  Ditto for the iconic coonskin cap worn by Crockett or later adaptations with beaver and other skins.  Likewise, Europeans had used worked leather for boots and shoes for centuries but the moccasin, from the Powhatan word, durable, weather resistant and easy to make and repair, was Native.


Guerilla warfare in Europe was known as Fabian tactics, after Roman general Fabius (280 B.C.-203 B.C.), who developed a system of hit-and-run skirmishing to delay and wear down enemies.  The word guerrilla is a Spanish term for "little warrior", with the Spanish adapting such tactics to use against the Moors during the Reconquista (700-1492).  Native tribes had independently developed these tactics as a practical response to fighting and hunting in the heavily wooded eastern reaches of North America and, by the time of the French and Indian War (1755-1762), many American commanders were well versed in fighting "American style", something the British still hadn't caught on to when, on April 19, 1775, over 4,000 angry Massachusetts militiamen encircled and almost annihilated nearly 1,500 British regulars in the retreat from Concord all the way back to Boston.  The British did not know, nor do many Americans today, that the level of fighting skill displayed by these men was developed by commanders among them who were veterans of the French and Indian War, such as Captain John Parker of Lexington, who may have fought with Robert Rogers and John Stark.  Colonel (later General) Hugh, Lord Percy (later Duke of Northumberland), wrote, "they have men among them who know what they are about." 

Native loan words still exist in American and other dialects of English.  Caribou, a Mikmaq word meaning snow shoveler; caucus, from an Algonquian word for counsel or orator, speaker; chipmunk, an Ojibwe term for the red squirrel; eskimo, from a Montagnais word originally used to refer to the Mikmaq; hickory, from Powhatan for a drink made from the milk of hickory nuts; hominy, Powhatan for something which is ground or beaten; moose, from various Algonquian cognate words for elk; muskrat, a Massachusett word referring to something that bobs on the surface of the water; possum, a Powhattan word referencing a white, dog-like animal; papoose, a Narragansett word for baby; pecan, from the Illinois word for the nut; parsimmon, a Powhatan term referring to this fruit; pone, Powhatan for something which is baked; pow-wow, from the Narragansett word for a shaman or visionary; quahog, from the Narragansett word for this type of clam; Quonset, from an Algonquian word denoting a small, long place; raccoon, the Powhatan word for this animal; sachem, from various Algonquian cognates denoting a ruler or a chief; skunk, an Algonquian word meaning to urinate; squash, the Narragansett designation for it; squaw, from Massachusett and other cognate words denoting a woman (now considered offensive); terrapin, from a Delaware word for the animal; toboggan, a Mikmaq or Maliseet word meaning to drag; totem, an Ojibwe word referring to one's family or kinfolk; wampum, a Massachusett word referring to a white string of beads, just to name a few. 

Great Leader: the Black Warrior

In today's post we go back to some the earliest contacts between Natives and Europeans, the expedition of Hernando de Soto beginning in 1539.  Unlike the English, who were interested in settlement, or the French and Dutch, who were interested in trade, the Spanish dual mission was conversion and conquest, which meant that their encounters with Natives were almost always hostile to some degree.  In today's great warrior they met their match in cunning. 

The Southeast of de Soto's time was still ruled by the Mississippian culture of mound builders.  Groups of towns would be headed by a paramount chief in a larger city.  One such leader was Tuscaloosa, whose name in Muscogee means Black Warrior.  How he received this name is uncertain though it in no way means that he was African or black.  He was paramount chief over towns along the Coosa and Alabama Rivers in what is now Alabama.  His people are considered ancestors of the modern Choctaw tribe.  Nothing is known of his boyhood, or how he rose to become paramount chief, though judging from typical Muscogean practice it was probably through matrilineal heredity, maternal uncle to nephew.  Through the extensive trade networks among the various peoples in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, he would have heard of the fair-skinned strangers in iron suits who showed up in Florida and their methods of dealing with the Natives.

Hernando de Soto had been appointed by King Carlos I (Emperor Charles V to European historians), to be Governor of Cuba, with orders to conquer Florida, which was still assumed to be a larger island and not connected to a land mass the size of North America.  In 1539, de Soto landed on the coast of what is now Florida.  In need of interpreters, guides, bearers of supplies and women to perform camp work and other services to the men, he established a practice of taking Native captives who could transmit those requests to their people.  If a town or local ruler appeared reluctant, de Soto would capture a local leader or other official and detain that person until they reached the territory of the next tribe, where the previous captives would be let go if they still survived and the process repeated.

Eventually, de Soto made his way across Georgia.  They came to the village of Talisi near present-day Childersburg, Alabama, and made their usual demands for service.  The Chief of Talisi appeared willing to cooperate, so de Soto released the Chief of Coosa, who was understandably angry at the way he'd been treated.  Did he slip word to other leaders in the various towns, including Tuscaloosa?  Who knows.  Tuscaloosa sent his son as an envoy to the Spaniards.  The son had orders to assess Spanish strength and threat capability.  The Spanish began their journey through Tuscaloosa's domain, heading toward his main village at Atahachi.  Tuscaloosa received them on a platform mound in the plaza of the village and one look at the attendants and warriors surrounding him should have told de Soto just how powerful this ruler was.  What struck observers on meeting Tuscaloosa was his outstanding height.  He was taller than any of the men, Native or Spanish, with whom he came in contact.  He was described as lean and muscular, with an air of importance that befitted his status in his society. 

De Soto sought to impress Tuscaloosa with a jousting game played on horseback with lances.  Ever so often during the game, the Spaniards would form up as though to advance on Tuscaloosa, just to see what his reaction would be.  He remained seated on his platform, showing no emotion one way or the other though he must have realized the message de Soto was trying to put across.  When de Soto made his usual demands for guides, interpreters, etc., Tuscaloosa retorted that he was accustomed to being served, not serving.  He initially refused, though by the next day he agreed, providing guides and bearers, but telling de Soto that available women were only to be found in the town of Mabila, several days march away.  De Soto gave him a pair of boots and a red cloak in return for his cooperation.  He also took Tuscaloosa hostage to ensure the cooperation of his people.  They reached the village of Piachi, where de Soto began to notice the hostile attitude of the people.  When two of his men disappeared, de Soto threatened to have Tuscaloosa himself burned at the stake if the two men were not found.  Tuscaloosa replied that they, too, had probably gone on to Mabila.

On October 18, 1540, the party arrived at Mabila, a large, fortified town with a palisade surrounding it.  De Soto noticed that there were plenty of warriors in residence, but few women and almost no children.  They also noticed that the palisade appeared to have been strengthened, with the brush cleared away from the outside.  Older men were training younger warriors in drills and mock skirmishes.  The Chief of Mabila greeted the Spaniards politely, giving them robes of skins as a gift.  The Spaniards ordered their Native bearers to place their supplies in a pile just outside the palisade.  Then, the Mabilians organized a dance to welcome their guests.  During the dance, Tuscaloosa told de Soto that he was tired of traveling with the Spaniards and wanted to remain in Mabila.  De Soto refused, but did allow Tuscaloosa to step into a nearby house to confer with some of his leading warriors.  Growing suspicious, de Soto sent men to retrieve Tuscaloosa, who refused to come.  The men found him in the house filled with armed warriors, obviously ready to fight.  Tuscaloosa sent word to de Soto that he and his men would either leave, or be forced to leave. 

During the discussion inside the house, de Soto or his representative renewed his demand for bearers and serving women.  Tuscaloosa or his spokesman refused and a Spaniard grabbed a nearby warrior to claim as hostage.  In the ensuing scuffle, a Spanish sword sliced Tuscaloosa, amputating his arm.  The Mabilians attacked the Spanish.  While some townsmen went and captured the pile of Spanish supplies, dragging them inside the palisade, others surrounded de Soto and his men, who appeared to be outnumbered and at their mercy.  The Spaniards fought their way out of Mabila and regrouped, launching several attacks on the town.  In the ensuing commotion, the palisade caught fire or was set fire and flames roared through the densely packed houses where over 5,000 people perished.  Other inhabitants fled to surrounding villages, some dying of their wounds along the way.  For weeks afterwards, the Spaniards encountered dead or dying Mabilians along their route and in other villages.  Although Tuscaloosa's son died or was killed in the attack, of Tuscaloosa himself there was no sign.  He had either fled to regroup his men or, more likely, die of the serious injury he had sustained. 

The peoples of the region now knew they had an extremely dangerous and rapacious enemy in the Spaniards.  As more raiding parties made their way into the Southeast, remnants of the Missisippian culture began to coalesce with each other.  Descendants of Tuscaloosa's people became the ancestors of the modern-day Choctaw.  Tuscaloosa, Alabama is named for the Black Warrior and Mobile is the French form of the town name of Mabila.

Natives v. Settlers: The Cherry Valley Massacre, November 11, 1778

In recent times a controversy has developed between what encounters of Natives versus Settlers should be called battles and which should be called massacres.  While fights such as the one at Fort Dearborn in 1812 and the Battle of Wyoming Valley of July, 1778 have been renamed battles, there are still some incidents which unfortunately must stay in the massacre column.  The fight at Cherry Valley, New York, November 11, 1778, is one such that does no credit to Loyalists, Redcoats, Natives or Patriots involved.

Like many tragedies, this one was compounded by people's personalities.  Major John Butler, commander of the Queen's Rangers had been an Agent in Sir William Johnson's Indian Department.  He had worked closely with Johnson and George Croghan and knew Joseph and Molly Brant.  He and Joseph Brant worked together in a spirit of mutual respect and cooperation, sharing resources, information nd personnel to reach their objectives.  Though Butler could be ruthless toward Patriots and had no problem using Natives to do the dirty work of fighting and take the blame, he did personally treat them with some respect.  Not so his son Walter, who was commanding a contingent of his father's troop.  To him, Natives were expendable scapegoats and nothing more.  He also harbored a personal grudge against Joseph Brant, who was successful in recruiting both Natives and White Loyalists to fight under his command, often weaning away potential recruits that Butler hoped to attract.  Caught in the middle of this personality contest was Cornplanter and his Seneca warriors, who were fed up with all of it.

As we've seen, Brant was not with John Butler and Cornplanter during their attack in the Wyoming Valley.  Due to the disproportionate numbers of Patriot dead and wounded, though, public opinion blamed Brant, who happened to be Mohawk and not on the field that day, and the Senecas, who weren't under Brant's authority.  Following Wyoming Valley, bands of Patriots attacked Brant's base at Onaquaga, now present day Windsor, New York, and a Seneca village at Unadilla, in present-day Otswego County, New York.  Patriot survivors of Wyoming who had been paroled and released also destroyed the Seneca town of Tioga, in modern-day Tioga County in violation of their oath to stay out of fighting until exchanged.  The Senecas were aware that they were being lumped with Brant and all the stories of his supposed monstrosities during battle and that they were bearing the brunt of Patriot anger for the raids in New York.  Further, Cornplanter, who came from a chiefly family of Wolf Clan Seneca had little use or patience for Brant, whose only connections were the now-dead William Johnson and an equally dead stepfather who'd been a Mohawk Sachem.  Cornplanter, as did his uncle Red Jacket and others of their family, believed Joseph Brant was an upstart who had gotten the Iroquois Nations into a war that they should not have been in, but could not back out of now. 

As the campaign went along the war of personalities between Walter Butler and Brant worsened.  Butler refused supplies to any White Loyalist fighting with Brant.  As a result, several Loyalists deserted Brant, but did not sign on with the Queen's Rangers, further deepening the animosity.  Meanwhile, the inhabitants and defenders of Cherry Valley had been warned of an impending attack, but for some reason had chosen not to prepare.  On hand for the Patriot side were the 7th Massachusetts Regiment, part of the Massachusetts Line of the Continental Army, which was still suffering from poor leadership in some units, and 250 Settlers and militia capable of bearing arms.  There was a palisade around the meeting house in the town, which could have served as a temporary stockade to hold off the coming onslaught.  Instead, Col. Ichabod Alden (great-grandson of John and Priscilla Mullens Alden of Mayflower fame) and second in command Lt. Col. William Stacy, were headquartered at the home of the Wells family nearby. 

Sources conflict as to whose idea it was to kill non-inhabitants during the attack.  Walter Butler said later that, the night before the attack, he had convened a council with Brant and the other Native leaders and ordered that non-combatants be spared.  An American soldier captured before the battle stated that Butler ordered that soldiers and inhabitants alike were to be killed and that Brant had wept openly and declared he would not kill non-combatants.  He knew several families in the town and considered them friends who would hope to have his protection.  The Senecas, angry and vengeful, kept their thoughts to themselves.  While it may never been known for certain what transpired at the council, killing non-combatants and laying waste to Patriot property wasn't beyond either John or Walter Butler, neither was blaming the resulting havoc on convenient Native allies.  On the other hand, both Brant and Cornplanter had been known to spare non-combatants and ransom captives.

In the early morning hours of November 11, 1778, the Loyalists divided forces, with some going to attack the Wells house and other making for the palisade in town.  Again, sources diverge on who went where, Butler saying later that he attacked the palisade and that the Natives attacked the Wells residence and other families in the town.  The American captive indicated that it was Brant and his force of Loyalists who attacked the palisade, while Butler and the Senecas directed their attention to the Wells house.  In the ensuing battle, Col. Alden was killed as he fled the house toward the palisade. Rumor had it that it was Joseph Brant who killed him and again this was put down as butchery on Brant's part though Alden, as a soldier, would have been fair game.  Lt. Col. Stacy was taken prisoner, while Seneca warriors killed the entire Wells family.  Depictions of young and pretty Jane Wells pleading for her life as she was cut down by a Native warrior flourished in the decades after the battle.  Brant intervened before the Seneca could kill William Stacy and he was turned over to a small British force operating with the Loyalists.

The Patriot forces, now leaderless, scrambled for the palisade where they should have been all along.  Benjamin Stacy and his cousin Rufus Stacy ran through a hail of bullets to reach the palisade and rally their men.  Several soldiers and militia did make it to the palisade and managed to hold it for several hours.  Meanwhile, the Loyalists and Natives turned their attention to the surrounding residences.  Members of several families personally known to Brant were killed by angry Seneca avenging attacks on their villages and the constant blame they'd received for Brant's supposed actions.  By many accounts, Loyalists attached to Butler and Brant also joined in the slaughter, with Brant unable and Walter Butler unwilling to stop the mayhem.  The following day, Butler sent Brant and some Loyalists and Natives back into the town to complete the destruction. Losses were 5 wounded on the Loyalist side.  Patriot military losses were 14 killed, 11 captured.  Civilians totaled 30 inhabitants killed and 70 taken captive.  Brant and Butler managed to have forty captives released, but 30 civilians remained in Native hands following the battle.  Most were ransomed later.

The fallout was immediate and bitter.  Mohawk and Seneca leaders backed the actions of their warriors at Cherry Valley, saying that it was in retaliation for like conduct suffered by Native non-combatants at Onaquaga, Unadilla and Tioga.  British commanders repudiated Butler, condemned his lax control of his men and the Natives.  Frederick Haldimand, Governor of Quebec and a patron of Brant, was especially vocal in his disapproval of Walter Butler's actions.  Patriot public opinion was outraged, with cries that Washington send more troops from the Continental Army to put an end to the Native presence in New York, leading to the Sullivan-Clinton expedition of 1779 that decimated over forty Iroquois villages and broke their power in their ancient homeland forever. 

A monument to the defenders and victims of Cherry Valley was dedicated in 1878 and in the village of New Salem, Massachusetts, Benjamin Stacy's bravery in rallying his father's men was celebrated with an annual footrace.  Colonel Louis Cook, an African-Mohawk warrior whom we've also met, would deal with Walter Butler personally during a skirmish in 1781, with a bullet in the head as Butler fled during a skirmish with Cook's men.     

Captivity Narrative: Mary Rowlandson

One of the worse nightmares of anyone living on the frontier was to be captured by Natives.  Lurid imaginings of what might happen were often worse than the reality when it did occur.  Such was the experience of the first American woman to record her experiences in captivity, Mary Rowlandson.

Mary White Rowlandson (1637-1711) was born in Somersetshire, England and came to Massachusetts in 1650, while she was a teenager.  They settled first in Salem, then moved to Lancaster, Massachusetts in 1656.  Mary met and married Joseph Rowlandson, the local Puritan minister.  The couple had four children, but one died soon after birth, leaving them only Sarah, Little Mary and Joseph, Jr.  In the early morning hours of February 10, 1675 during King Phillip's War, the entire family was captured by Wampanoag, Narragansett and Nashaway Natives.  Joseph, Sr., managed to escape but Mary and the three kids were hurried away by their captors, Mary struggling to carry six-year-old Sarah, who had been wounded in the attack.  Sarah eventually died and Mary was separated from Little Mary and Joseph, Jr.  Although she feared the Natives and felt disgusted by their primitive way of life, they were kind to her and Mary reciprocated by helping to gather food and sewing clothing for them.  The ladies of Boston took up a collection for ransom and Mary along with the two surviving children were turned over to Colonial authorities eleven weeks later at Redemption Rock near Princeton, Massachusetts.

Mary went back to her life as a minister's wife, raising her remaining children.  In 1677, Joseph Rowlandson moved his family to Wethersfield, Connecticut and took up ministerial duties there.  He died in 1678 and the church voted his widow a pension.  During this time, if Mary spoke or wrote about her experiences with the Natives, she did so privately.  Soon after her first husband's death, Mary Rowlandson moved to Boston and there, nearly six years later, she wrote and published a heavily edited version of her captivity, entitled The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Redemption of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.  Because no original manuscript survives, it's difficult to tell how much of the writing was her own work and how much was the result of editing, mostly by Increase Mather, a leading Puritan minister and propagandist for Puritanism in general and Massachusetts in particular.

Mary divides her journey into twenty smaller journeys, which she or her editor term removes, likely because the captives were quickly removed from place to place as the Natives continued raiding and tried to stay one step ahead of the Settler forces.  Losing Sarah in death and uncertain where her other two children or husband were, Mary constantly turned to her faith and her knowledge of Scripture to sustain her.  Not only was she worried about being so far from the nearest White settlements that she might never be found, she was also worried about the possibility of rape, which seems to have been a subtle but overriding concern.  In her Narrative, she was at pains to say that the Natives were kind, never once doing or saying anything that she would consider unchaste.  This kindness and restraint on their part, however, she attributes to Divine Providence, repeatedly referring to Natives as barbarous creatures, murderous wretches and any other invective she or her editor could think up.  Mary, or her editor speaking in her voice, thoroughly believed the Puritan mindset that Natives were some sort of demonic creatures of the wilderness, not human beings in their own right and incapable of kindness or humanity other than if restrained by God or circumstance.

The Narrative was published in Boston in 1682 and later that same year in London.  Captivity narratives in and of themselves were nothing new, having existed since the time of the Crusades when Christians were captured by Saracens and vice versa.  However, this was the first captivity Narrative by a Settler in North America taken by Natives.  And, it was the first significant piece of Colonial literature by a woman writing under her own name and coming forward of her own initiative.  Although later generations assumed Mary died soon after writing the book, she later married Samuel Talcott, and outlived him to survive until 1711.  The Narrative went through several different editions and reprints and ultimately inspired other captivity stories.  It became an archetype of the captivity Narrative and later romance novels based on the genre. 

Natives v Settlers: New England Wabanaki War 1722-1725

As we've seen in other instances, Colonial powers often made treaties settling the disposition of Colonial holdings in North American without consulting the Native inhabitants on the ground.  And, as always, it ended up in tragedy.  This war between New England and Nova Scotia settlers and the tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy is sometimes called Dummer's War (after the then Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts), Father Rale's War (after the French missionary priest who supposedly incited the Abenaki to fight), Lovell's War (after one of the New England commanders), the 4th Anglo-Abenaki War, the Three Years' War or Greylock's War (after one of the Native commanders).  We'll stick with the most generic name, the New England Abenaki War of 1722-1725.

We'll begin in Europe, where a Spanish Bourbon Prince backed by France had been placed on the throne of Spain against the wishes of England.  This family inheritance situation caused a conflict known as the War of the Spanish succession but, in reality, was a conflict between England and France over power on the high seas and in North America.  The European conflict was settled by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.  French Acadia was ceded to Great Britain and later became Nova Scotia.  However, there remained a question of where the boundary line actually lay, along the Kennebec River, in what is now eastern Maine, or the Isthmus of Chignecto, in modern-day New Brunswick.  The land in question was occupied by members of the Wabanaki Confederacy.  The Governor of Massachusetts, who had control of what is now Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, met with Wabanaki leaders and agreed that the boundary lay in New Brunswick, but demanded that the English have the right to set up trading posts in the area.  This was agreed in the Treaty of Portsmouth of 1713.  Abenaki leaders signed off on the treaty, not understanding that, in fact, it contained language ceding their land in this area to Britain.  Leaders from the other Wabanaki tribes did not sign and did not feel themselves bound by its terms.

Following the treaty, as usual, settlers poured across the Kennebec River and fishermen began operating in the rich waters of Nova Scotia.  Not to be outdone, the French authorities in New France sent missionaries into the area, who were also building churches and other settlements.  In 1717, New England and Native representatives met again to clarify the boundaries of settlement.  The Natives were rudely brushed off with the comment, "we only mean to have what is ours, and that we will have."  The resulting treaty only angered and alienated the Wabanaki.  Fast forward to 1720, when a settlement of fishermen in Canso, Nova Scotia was attacked by French and Mikmaq forces.  Massachusetts authorities protested and demanded the removal of Sebastian Rale, a Jesuit priest in charge of the mission at Norridgewock, who they believed was inciting the Natives.  The Wabanaki refused and demanded the release of some captives taken earlier by the Colonists.  Massachusetts didn't respond.

Probably with Rale's help, the Wabanaki in 1721 drew up a treaty of their own, delineating what they believed to be the correct boundaries.  Massachusetts dismissed their offer.  Fed up with the continuing raids, Massachusetts sent a raiding party to capture Rale in 1722 and liberated his personal strongbox of documents.  In it, they found documentation proving that Rale was, in fact, an agent of France, promising the Natives enough ammunition to drive the English out of Nova Scotia.  The Governor of Massachusetts complained to the Governor of New France.  He responded that, while the French still contested the disputed land, in reality it was the Wabanaki who locally owned it and pointed out that White idea of land and property use differed from that of the Natives.   He suggested that Massachusetts take matters up with the Natives.

In March, 1722, Mikmaq and Maliseet warriors massed at what is now Grand Pre, Nova Scotia to lay siege to Annapolis Royal.  They blockaded the capitol of Nova Scotia with the intent of starving out the inhabitants.  The Abenaki laid siege to Fort George in June, 1722, and was reinforced in July by more Native units lead by another Jesuit priest.  The fort managed to hold out and the warriors burned the surrounding countryside before retreating.   The Governor of Massachusetts formally declared war on the Wabanaki tribes, then sailed for England to consult with authorities there about unrelated disputes with the Colonial Assembly, leaving control of the war to Lieutenant Governor William Dummer.  In September, 1722, St. Francis Abenaki and Mikmaq warriors attacked Arrowsic in what is now Maine.  The fort managed to hold out until the Natives withdrew, destroying other settlements along their route. 

Things died down during the winter but hostilities resumed in March, 1723, when New England soldiers attacked a vacant Penobscot village and burned it to the ground.  Through April to December, 1723, the Wabanaki Confederacy launched over a dozen raids on English settlements in Maine.  Dummer ordered the local inhabitants to pull back to areas where blockhouses had been built to provide some shelter against the attacks.  The raids continued throughout 1724, making portions of Maine virtually uninhabitable for Settlers.  The fighting spread as far as what is now Dover, New Hampshire.  On August, 22, 1724, Colonial forces advanced on Norridgewock in present-day Madison, Maine to kill Sebastian Rale and destroy the settlement.  Rale was killed when most of the Abenaki in the town chose to flee rather than fight.  The English followed up their success by destroying the Abenaki village of St. Francis and the town of Becancour, Quebec.  Meanwhile, another New England commander, John Lovell, made several raids against the Abenaki and their allies, pursuing them into the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  One of his aims was to collect the scalp bounties offered by Massachusetts authorities to anyone who would join the fighting. 

The fighting in the Maine-New Hampshire theater terminated in the Battle of Pequawket on April 16, 1725.  Lovell had built a fort at what is now Ossipee and was leading a party of men to raid the Pequawket tribe near present-day Fryeburg, Maine.  As they gathered for morning prayer, someone spotted a lone Abenaki warrior and the whole group took the bait, chasing after him while Pequawket warriors led by Paugus raided the supplies they had left behind near the prayer circle.  After one of the Settlers killed the lone warrior, they returned for the packs and Paugus sprung his trap.  Lovell and several of his men were killed.  The survivors retreated to a stronger position and held off the Natives, killing Paugus.  After the death of their leader, the Pequawket withdrew. 

Meanwhile, in Vermont and northern Massachusetts, a war within a war was taking place which is sometimes given its own designation of Greylock's War.  In August, 1723, Abenaki under Greylock raided Northfield, Massachusetts.  Fort the next several weeks, his men raided the surrounding countryside.  Dummer ordered the construction of a fort near the present-day site of Brattleboro, Vermont to deal with this threat.  It became the first permanent European settlement in Vermont.  In June,  1724, Greylock struck again, near Hatfield, Massachusetts and also in Deerfield, Northfield again, and Westfield.  He struck Fort Dummer at Brattleboro in October, 1724.

In Nova Scotia, in 1722, the Royal Governor there managed to end the Native blockade of Annapolis Royal and build a fort at Canso to hold off further raiding.  Not to be outdone, the Mikmaq again raided Annapolis in 1724.  They struck Canso again in 1725.  By this time, with portions of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and now four New England states were
depopulated, under arms and scared to death, authorities realized that they had better take the Governor of New France up on his suggestion to deal with the people who really owned the land, the Wabanaki Confederacy.  The Wabanaki and Dummer agreed to cessation of hostilities in July, 1725.  They were allowed to retain Catholic missionaries, but Dummer refused to make any land concessions.  The Wabanaki also refused to acknowledge British sovereignty.  The peace talks broke up until 1726, when the Abenaki were finally convinced, probably through mistranslation of the treaty terms, to agree to Dummer's demands.  Other peace councils conciliated most of the Wabanaki leaders except Greylock, who refused to come in for talks.  His raids continued until 1727, when he disappeared from the record and probably died. 

As a result of the war, Native presence on the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers declined and western Maine came under complete British control.  There would be relative peace in the area until King George's War in the 1740's.  Though the terms of the treaties in regard to land concessions remained questionable, this war marked the first time English and Colonial authorities realized they would have to treat with the Natives for the use of what was, after all, their land, not simply push them aside and try to use force to get possession of it.   By the mechanism of treaties, the English were acknowledging, grudgingly, that Natives had a right of possession in their land.  Meanwhile, New Brunswick remained under French control.  That would change decades later, in another war to be discussed later. 

Lovell's fight at Pequawket was celebrated by New England poets and novelists in the 19th century.  The town of Lovell, Maine is named for him.  Paugus Bay, Paugus Mill, now part of Albany, New Hampshire, and Mount Paugus were named for the Kennebec leader.  The site of Norridgewock, now Madison, Maine is a National historic landmark.  

Terminology: Voyageurs, Longhunters and Mountain Men

One of the more famous books on this time period is the novelized history series of Allan Eckert, one of whose volumes is called The Frontiersman, essential reading for anyone seeking a better understanding of the era.  However, the label of frontiersman to describe most of the people (usually male) who made their livings off the fringes of European settlement during the 17th-19th century didn't become current until years later, when historians were seeking a convenient label.  At the time, and since then, there were several terms used to describe these men, what they did, where they did it, and in what time period or country they were active.  We'll go over some of them here.

The first is the French Canadian coureur de bois (courier de bwah, woodsman) or voyageur (voy-ah-ger, traveler).  These men were active during the beaver trade of the 17th century and early part of the 18th century.  Primarily French, either from French or from the Francophone parts of Canada such as Quebec or Acadia, they weren't primarily interested in settlement.  Their query was the beaver and their role was either to hunt and trap the beaver themselves or make connections with Natives willing to do it for them in exchange for trade goods.  Over time, English and Scottish men joined the lucrative beaver trade.  As has been explained before, many of these men intermarried with local tribes.  Their descendants became known as the Metis.  Several Metis, themselves the sons of voyaguers or coureurs, also became skilled hunters, guides, interpreters and traders in their own right, providing an important cultural bridge between Natives and Settlers.

Longhunters are what we most commonly think of today as frontiersman, men who operated on the frontier east of the Mississippi.  Men such as Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, who would venture into the wilderness for months at a time in search of beaver or other animal pelts.  Wearing buckskin hunting shirts, skin caps and either leggings or trousers made of skins, an outfit copied from the Cherokees' winter clothing, they also depended upon alliance with the Natives to access areas where beaver might be located, or to trade for pelts.  Some had been captured by Natives and spent time with them, such as Boone or Girty.  Others intermarried with Natives and their children became skilled interpreters, guides or traders, such as George Drouillard.  Their knowledge of Natives and the backcountry gave them marketable skills as guides or interpreters and men such as George Drouillard and Simon Girty capitalized on these skills to make a living on the frontier.  Unlike the coureurs or voyageurs, these men could be interested in founding settlements, as Daniel Boone attempted to do many times before settling Boonesborough.

Mountain men tended to operate west of the Mississippi, usually in the Rocky Mountains.  They were a 19th century extension of the longhunters, active from 1810-1880.  Whereas voyageurs or longhunters tended to operate independently, mountain men were more apt to be employed by a trading conglomerate such as the Hudson's Bay Company, or smaller outfitters such as Manuel Lisa and later Jim Bridger and William and Charles Bent.  Indeed, a man who started out as a mountain man employed by one of the above could hope to establish himself as a trader with a fortified trading post of his own, taking advantage of the lucrative business of outfitting Settlers heading west, and passing on his knowledge of the trails they would have to cross.  Like voyageurs and some longhunters, these men intermarried with Native women, though they might often have a relationship in more than one tribe, or later marry a White woman and leave their Native wives and children behind.  Their sons were often employed by the Army as scouts and interpreters, as several of the Bent family later did. 

Don't confuse mountain man, an itinerant fur trader or trapper, with overmountain man, a Settler from Pennsylvania, Virginia or the Carolinas who settled in Ohio, Tennessee, or Kentucky.  Unlike longhunters and mountain men, overmountain men were primarily settlers, though some, such as Davy Crockett, also functioned as hunters, guides, trappers or anything else to supplement their living as farmers.  And, of course, there are more specific terms, such as scout, guide, interpreter or trapper, depending on the function the individual was performing at the time, and often these roles changed over time.  The above are the most basic distinctions. 

The Half King: Which one?

One can't study this period in history for too long without running into a Native leader known as the Half King.  He's everywhere.  First, he's guiding George Washington to find a French raiding party and wreaking personal vengeance on a French officer who killed relatives of his.  Next, he's warning Benjamin Franklin of the massing Confederacy that would become Pontiac's War.  Then, he's best friends with Simon Girty.  That's because there are actually three Native leaders of the era known as Half King.  Half in the sense that Settlers realized they weren't Sachems (Kings), but did possess more authority than regular village headmen or war leaders.  We'll run them down now to allay confusion:

Dunquat or Petawontakas (active late 1700's), was an Ohio Huron and likely the Half King that Girty knew.  He was born a Huron, though the tribe became known as Wyandot when they moved to the Ohio Valley.  He allied his people with the British during the American Revolution and later joined the Western Confederacy during the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795).  Like Buckongahelas, he was worried about the Christianized Delaware who would be at the mercy of both sides when war broke out and tried to protect them from Native reprisals as best he could.  He was a signatory to the Treaty of Greenville in 1795 and faded from history soon after. 

Tanacharison (1700-1754), was a Seneca.  He was known as the Half King by Whites who understood that he had been appointed by the Iroquois Sachems as their diplomatic link with the Seneca and other Iroquoian tribes who had migrated to the Ohio Valley.  Tanacharison was born a Catawba but captured and raised as a Seneca on the shores of Lake Erie.  During the French and Indian War (1755-1762) he allied with the British, working closely with George Croghan and George Washington.  He was with Washington when Washington surrendered Fort Necessity in 1754 and later on an expedition to find a raiding party led by the Sieur de Jumonville.  Half King did kill Jumonville in revenge for the Frenchman having earlier been responsible for the death of some of his relatives, though sources debate the story that he washed his hands in Jumonville's brains.  Later, Half King moved to the area of what is now Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and died of pneumonia.  This is the best known of the three Half Kings and the subject of many modern works of art, such as the bust and painting shown.

Scaroudy (active 1750's), an Oneida who succeeded Tanacharison in his position of diplomatic link with the Iroquois Council in New York to the Iroquoian people in Ohio and as their link between White settlers already settling the backcountry.  He aligned with the British during the French and Indian War (1755-1762) and present at Braddock's Defeat in 1755.   Benjamin Franklin's first diplomatic forays were as a representative of the Pennsylvania Colony to the Natives in the Ohio Valley where he saw Scaroudy's oratory skills at first hand, as when he comforted and rallied the Mingos (Ohio Iroquoian-speaking Natives) who had suffered heavily at the hands of the French.  Scaroudy presented Franklin and the other peace commissioners with a wampum belt and swore peace between the Mingos and Pennsylvania (which didn't last long).  Later, he got word to Franklin of the impending Pontiac's War. 

Native Life: Gunstock War Clubs

One of the most lethal blunt force weapons in a warrior's armament was this mean-looking form of club.  It's easy to see where the inspiration for this weapon came, though sources differ on how it developed.  Did Natives use muskets without the metal works and adapt them with blades obtained from trade goods, or did they carve wood in the shape of a clubbed musket, with a blade or blades on the business end?  No one knows for sure, though adapting a busted-out musket with a blade probably wasn't too durable or practical.  The most logical assumption is that Natives got the idea from the smashing force of an empty and clubbed firearm.  They adapted this simple weapon by adding metal blades obtained from trade goods and decorated the weapons to personal taste with tacks, leather grips or figures carved into the handles.  Gunstock war clubs were first used by Woodlands tribes in the mid-17th century and remained in use by Plains Native into the 19th century.  Real specimens from the era are prized collectors items, while replicas are sometimes used as part of regalia on special occasions. 

Land Swindle: The Pennsylvania Walking Purchase

There were many ways unscrupulous land speculators could take land away from unsuspecting Native tribes.  Some did not bother to consult the tribes at all, as we saw with the Yazoo Scandal in Georgia.  Others might use coercion, liquor or mistranslation to force Natives to give up their land, as may have been the case with the Treaty of Payne's Landing in Florida.  Still others resorted to outright fraud.  We'll look at one such case here:

William Penn (1644-1718), was known for his honest dealing with the Delaware/Lenape tribe and they did respect him.  His sons were a different matter.  They wanted to expand the Penn family land holdings in Pennsylvania and were willing to go to any lengths to do so.  In 1737, John and Thomas Penn produced what they claimed was a deed from 1686 between their father and Delaware leaders promising to sell a tract of land beginning at the junction of the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers, near modern-day Easton, Pennsylvania, and extending as far as a man could walk in a day and half.  Today, sources differ as to what this document was.  It might have been an unsigned agreement between the elder Penn and Delaware leaders, or it might have been a forged land deed.  Who really knows? 

The Penns' land office agent, James Logan, produced another map misrepresenting the Lehigh River as Tohickon Creek, and including a dotted line which showed a path that a man could feasibly walk in the allotted time.  Believing that the land requested wasn't as much as they originally feared, the Lenape/Delaware agreed.  They believed that a man could only walk about 40 miles in a day and half, anyway.  Logan, working on behalf of the Penns, hired three of the fastest runners in the colony, who ran as far as they could in a day and half starting on September 19, 1737.  Only one runner finished the race.  The Sheriff conducting the marathon then claimed all the land east of the finish line and ending at the Delaware River.  The resulting land claim was 1,200,000 acres of land in what is now Pike, Monroe, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northampton, Lehigh and Bucks Counties, an area about the size of Rhode Island. 

The Delaware leaders were aghast, to put it mildly.  Chief Lappawinsoe is supposed to have said that, "the white runners should have walked along by the Delaware River or the next Indian Path to it...should have walked for a few miles and then have sat down and smoked a pipe, and now and then have shot a squirrel and not have kept up running all day."  In other words, the Settlers had showed their greed and disrespect of the Delaware by conducting the walk as a footrace and demanding so much land.  The Delaware appealed to the Iroquois, who had overall control of the area, but the Penns had thought of that angle.  They had persuaded the Iroquois, likely with more liquor and trade goods, not to get involved.  Lappawinsoe and his people had to leave the contested area, crowding into the Shamokin and Wyoming Valleys, where they clashed for space with other dislocated tribes and bands.  They later drifted to the Ohio River Valley and never trusted the Pennsylvania government again.

In 2004, descendants of the Lenape/Delaware brought suit in federal court seeking reparation for this fraudulent land deal.  While the District Court agreed that the original documents and method of procuring the land was likely fraudulent, but decreed the case non-justiciable on technical grounds.  The Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's ruling and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. 

Great Leader: Joseph Brant (Theyandenagea) of the Mohawk

As we know from our own history, great leaders often spark great debate and controversy.  It's time to deal with a Native leader who led his people through perilous and tragic times, but has generated his fair share of debate over the years.

Joseph Brant (1743-1807) was born in what is now Ohio, near the Cuyahoga River, while his parents were on a hunting trip.  Though they later gave up their range in the Ohio Valley, the Iroquois did use it frequently for hunting for the first few years of Joseph's life and he would have been familiar with the country.  His family had assimilated European ways.  He was baptized Anglican with the given name of Joseph, but acquired the Mohawk name of Theyandenagea, meaning "one who places two bets".  He used both throughout his life, as his signature showed.  It was a fitting name for one who kept a foot in both the Native and White worlds.  He was born into his mother's wolf clan, but she was not from one of the elite families with the right to choose a Sachem.  She later married a Sachem, named Peter Brant, and Joseph took his stepfather's last name. 

The Brant family lived on a prosperous farm near Canajoharie, one of the main Mohawk towns.  Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent of the British Indian Department was a frequent guest and, by 1758, he and Joseph's older sister Molly formed a relationship.  Molly would later live at Johnson's estate, Johnson Hall, and Joseph would visit here there, seeing how a prosperous gentleman lived and behaved.  Though Joseph would have received his warrior's training from his mother's brothers, he received his training about living and functioning in the White man's world from Johnson.  No doubt, Peter Brant was also doing some teaching of his own, about how to rise to greatness in Native society when one did not come from a Sachem family, and about the need to assimilate to coexist with the Settlers. 

Joseph's first taste of war would have been during the Seven Years War (1755-1758), taking part in Abercrombie's failed expedition to take Fort Carillon/Fort Ticonderoga in 1758, Johnson's Battle of Fort Niagara in 1759, and Amherst's expedition to Montreal in 1760.  He was one of 182 warriors awarded a silver medal from the British for his services during the War.  Afterward, in 1761, Johnson sponsored Joseph and two other young Mohawk men to be educated at an Indian Charity School in Connecticut.  This school later became the forerunner of Dartmouth College, meaning that Joseph got as close to a university education as it was possible at the time.  Joseph also met Samuel Kirkland, a missionary who would later do a great deal of work among the various Iroquois tribes.  Johnson wanted to send Joseph to King's College in New Jersey, now Princeton, but the outbreak of Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763 put an end to that idea.  Joseph participated in putting down the rebellion in 1764 with attacks on Lenape/Delaware villages.  The Lenape and various Iroquois tribes were enemies and rivals for the same hunting ranges.

In 1765, Joseph married a woman named Maggie.  She  was a White women who had been captured from her Virginia family as a young girl and assimilated into the Mohawk tribe.  He inherited his stepfather's farm and began to acquire property of his own.  He also kept a small store and was known for dressing in White clothing.  Joseph and Maggie had two children, Isaac and Christine, before she died of tuberculosis.  He later married Susanna, an Oneida woman said to be the daughter of John Shenandoah, whom we met in an early post.  The marriage produced no children and Susanna died in 1777 while the couple were staying at Fort Niagara.  In 1780, Joseph married Catherine Adonwetishon Croghan, the daughter of trader George Croghan and a Mohawk woman from a Sachem family.  This marriage meant that one of their sons, most likely her oldest son John, would become Tekarihoga, the principal Sachem of the Mohawk tribe.  Through Catherine, Joseph also forged another link with the extended Johnson family and descendants of Chief Hendrick, whom we also met earlier.  In addition to John, they had other children, Margaret, Mary, Catherine, Elizabeth, Jacob and Joseph, Jr..  Elizabeth would form another link with the Johnsons, marrying a grandson of William Johnson and Molly Brant.  Through his own marriage and later his children's unions, Joseph was positioning himself and his children with a view to status in both the frontier and Mohawk worlds.

By 1772, with Johnson's encouragement, Joseph had been named a war chief of the Mohawk.  He moved to Fort Hunter, where he met Anglican minister John Stuart.  He became Stuart's interpreter and helped him to translate the Anglican catechism and the Gospel of Mark into Mohawk.  He was baptized Anglican, a faith he clung to for the rest of his life.  Because he spoke most of the Iroquois languages, he was also an interpreter with Johnson's British Indian Department.

At the outbreak of the Revolution, he was appointed Captain of the Mohawk warriors attached to the British Indian Department.  He and his family moved around a lot during this time, living first in Quebec and later Fort Niagara.  He also went with Guy Johnson, Sir William's son to London to elicit more support for Mohawk land grievances in return for their greater support of British troops in the field.  While there, he refused to bow to King George, but did shake his hand and kissed the hand of Queen Charlotte.  George apparently took no offense, as he later gave Brant his 3rd Degree apron as a Mason.  Brant's portrait was painted by several leading painters of the day, and as he was there to advance Mohawk interests, he chose to wear Native dress for these portraits and while at Court or making public appearances.

He returned to New York and led the warriors attached to General Howe's forces as they tried to retake New York.  He participated in the Battle of Long Island in 1776 and gained the friendship of Henry, Lord Percy, later Duke of Northumberland, one of his few lasting relationships with a White man.  This contact in London would help his people later.  As Joseph traveled from village to village, sometimes in disguise or at night to avoid capture, he urged the Iroquois peoples to join the British.  This made him many enemies among Iroquois leaders who wished to remain neutral, or men such as his father-in-law, John Shenandoah or Col. Louis Cook, who believed the Natives should support the Americans.  The Iroquois Council had initially determined on neutrality and many of its members worked to undermine Brant wherever they could.  He was able to raise parties of Loyalists and some Natives, but not very much.  When the Council finally decided to cast in their lot with the British, it broke the unity of the Iroquois people and some believed that Brant had committed the cardinal sin of violating the Great Law of Peace by promoting division within the tribes.  As a final slap to Brant's pride, the Council named Cornplanter and Sayenquaraghta of the Seneca as the war chiefs representing the Council.  Brant remained only as Mohawk war chief, along with a leader named John Deseranto.

Not to be outdown, Brant took the men willing to fight under him and joined General Barry St. Leger's army.  He was present at the Battle of Oriskany, which we've already covered.  General John Burgoyne had a low opinion of Native fighters and it wasn't until his surrender and capture that Joseph had much to do in the way of war.   In 1778, he led parties of Mohawk raiders throughout the Mohawk Valley, raiding American farms and towns.  It's from these raids that the "Monster Brant" idea came.  Popular imagination and propaganda had him slaughtering men, women and children indiscriminately, scalping, torturing at will and hinting at worse when women captives were concerned.  Comparing accounts on both sides of the conflict, the picture emerges of someone who did not kill non-combatants, and often took over women and children as his prisoners, not to torture them but to spare them further mistreatment.  Most of these people he either let go at the first opportunity or ransomed off.  Where there was killing or torture of prisoners or non-combatants, it was while Joseph was elsewhere and unable to put a stop to it, which he invariably did when he could. 

In retaliation for Brant's supposed cruelties, American soldiers in 1778 raided his then base at Onaquaga, burning buildings, ruining crops and chopping down trees.  One soldier described the place as the finest Indian farm he ever saw.  In retaliation, Joseph joined his forces with those of Walter Butler, brother of Major John, in the Cherry Valley Massacre, more on this later.  His men, angry at the destruction of their homes, did kill non-combatants, which Joseph was not able to restrain as much as he usually did, further adding to his nefarious image among Americans.  He was also blamed for the Wyoming Valley Massacre, though he was not even there, but several miles away.  It would take many decades before his reputation as a monster began to abate somewhat. 

In 1779, Brant met with Frederick Haldimand, the Governor of Quebec.  He was appointed captain of the Northern Confederated Indians, but received no pay.  He promised instead that the Natives would be compensated at War's end with the return of their lands.  Brant acquired a farm on the Niagara River.  He also bought a slave to attend to the house.  Since the Mohawk often took slaves in raids, he probably saw nothing adverse in doing so.  His favor with the British caused jealousy among other Iroquois leaders, who blamed Brant for the widespread destruction of their lands and lives by getting them involved in the War in the first place.  Joseph was active in the field, as well, attacking the Continental Army at Minisink on July 22, 1779, with little effect.  He was defeated again at the Battle of Newton on August 29, 1779.  General Sullivan's forces swept aside the Native defense and laid waste the Mohawk Valley, destroying all Native villages and towns they came across. 

Brant kept his raids in the Mohawk Valley and also punitive reprisals against the Oneida for having joined the Americans.  He was wounded in the Battle of Klock's field and sent to Fort Detroit, in what is now Michigan, to defend the Ohio Valley against raids by General George Rogers Clark.  He also worked to keep the angry and defeated Iroquois loyal to Britain after the British were defeated in 1781.  In the treaty negotiations that followed, both the United States and Britain ignored Native claims for land or compensation for its loss.  The British were forced to cede the Ohio Valley, to the anger of the many tribes now living there in hopes that it would be a Native buffer zone between the two Colonial powers.  The disaffected Natives met in council at Lower Sandusky, in Ohio and began the formation of the Western Confederacy that would fight the Northwest Indian Wars (1785-1795).  He was not present at the Second Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784, where Iroquois leaders had been detained and forced to cede their claims to their lands in New York.

Joseph turned to the British and, with Haldimand's help, selected land along the Grand River as a new Reserve for the Iroquois Six Nations.  He settled down and began to farm, though he went to England to request English help for the Western Confederacy in the Northwest Indian War.  Later, the United States offered Brant money and land in New York if he would lead the Iroquois back to their traditional lands.  He refused.  He traveled to New York and Philadelphia many times to meet with American leaders and British diplomats to seek help for his people, but without much success.  He also bought land near Burlington, Ontario from the Mississauga, and settled in a home intended to replicate Johnson Hall and the life he had known as a young man. 

Then tragedy struck in several forms.  Though British leaders tried to talk him out of it, Brant entered into several plans to lease portions of the Natives land in an effort to generate money.  Most of the funds never materialized.  Seeing Brant's prosperous lifestyle, some of his people began questioning where the money went.  His son Isaac, by some accounts his favorite, turned on his father in a drunken rage.  Joseph struck back to defend himself and killed Isaac.  He was heartbroken and began drinking heavily, becoming more reclusive as he got older.  He died at his home in Burlington on November 24, 1807, with his adopted nephew John Norton beside him.  He told Norton, whom we've run across in a previous post, "Have pity on the poor Indians.  If you have any influence with the great, endeavor to use it for their good."

He was buried in Burlington, though fifty years later his remains would be transferred to the Mohawk Chapel in Brantford, Ontario.  His efforts to create a pan-tribal movement would inspire Tecumseh, who in turn would inspire later generations of Native leaders.  Many portraits of him by several prominent artists of the day survive.  The City of Brantford and County of Brant are named in his honor, as is the reserve at Tyendinega.  He's received other honors throughout Canada which are too numerous to mention here.