Gayusuta and Washington

Gayusuta and Washington

Friday, March 31, 2017

Treaty: Fort Harmar, 1789

Treaties between Natives and the federal government often caused more confusion and havoc than they stopped.  Treaty terms were misinterpreted, misrepresented and misunderstood.  Boundary lines were indistinct, and moved time and again.  Tribes who claimed the same hunting range were often overlooked.  The result was more war, leading to further treaties, and yet more war.

The two Treaties of Fort Harmer in 1789 were a case in point.  Both were negotiated at Fort Harmar, in what is now Marietta, Ohio.  Lt.Col. (Bvt. Brig. Gen.) Josiah Harmar, the namesake of the Fort, was the chief negotiator of the two agreements, along with ill-fated General Arthur St. Clair.  A separate treaty was signed with the Iroquois Six Nations concerning their hunting range in the Ohio Valley.  Another agreement covered the rights of the Wyandot, Delaware, Sauk, Ottawa, Chippewa and Potawatomi.  As usual, the Shawnee were left out of the talks, as were the Miami.  The two treaties were supposed to address boundary line discrepancies in Fort Stanwix II of 1784, and the Treaty of Fort McIntosh of 1785.  In reality, the Treaties of Fort Harmar simply reiterated the muddled boundary lines of those two prior agreements and did nothing to address current grievance.

The biggest grievance of the tribes was the increasing influx of settlers into an area known as the Western Reserve.  The Western Reserve was a portion of land in Northeastern Ohio claimed by the colony and later state of Connecticut.  It had ceded its claims to the federal government, which had some vague plans of creating a long-illusive Native buffer state to house the local tribes.  The plans never came to fruition and New England settlers claimed this territory much like settlers from Pennsylvania, Virgnia and the Carolinas claimed Kentucky and Tennessee.  Secretary of War Henry Knox had authorized St. Clair to give a portion of the Western Reserve known as the Firelands back to the Natives but St. Clair, on scene and far away from Washington, wasn't about to cede an inch to the Natives.  Threatening, bribing and deceiving Native leaders about what they were ceding, he kept the Firelands firmly under Native control. 

Fed up with the lack of follow-through on keeping settlers off land supposedly meant for them, the Natives soon returned to fighting.  The Shawnee and Miami, as the tribes most aggrieved by the new treaties, were particularly active under leaders such as Little Turtle and Blue Jacket.  St. Clair and Harmar would receive stinging defeats at the hands of Native commanders in 1791, and it would take Mad Anthony Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers in 1794, and the Treaty of Greenville before the United States took possession of thousands of acres of Native land in Ohio Territory for good.


Thursday, March 30, 2017

Great Warrior: Roundhead of the Wyandot

Great warriors and leaders had a variety of weapons in their arsenal.  They preferred negotiation, would fight when it came to it, but were not above political intrigue or ruthless removal of an enemy who stood in their way.  Roundhead of the Wyandot, c 1760-1813, had all of these qualities.

Roundhead, also known as Bark Carrier, Stayeghtha or Stiahta, came from a powerful Wyandot family that included other leaders such as Leatherlips and Tarhe.  Roundhead was born near the Sandusky River in Ohio and was a leader of the Wyandot under Tarhe at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.  Other than that, little is known about his life until he allied with Tecumseh in 1810 and became one of Tecumseh's lieutenants, as well as a strict adherent of The Prophet's teachings about returning to traditional ways and disavowing the ways and material goods of the Whites.  When Tarhe disagreed with Tecumseh, Roundhead parted ways with the older leader and joined Tecumseh wholeheartedly.  When his own brother Leatherlips also disagreed with Tecumseh and advocated co-existence with the Whites, Roundhead approved charges of witchcraft against Leatherlips and ordered his execution.

Tecumseh joined Col. Henry Proctor's British forces at Fort Detroit, with Roundhead as his second in command.  He led warriors at the Battle of Brownstown and the Battle of Magagua, in August 1812.  Proctor had given Tecumseh a beautiful officer's sash, which Tecumseh presented to Roundhead, saying that the sash should be worn by an older and more experienced warrior.  It was the ultimate accolade.  Not wanting to cause jealousy among the other Native leaders, Roundhead put the sash away for the time being.  He participated in the capture of Fort Detroit, and later Fort Miami and Fort Miegs.  He was also present at the Battle of the Raisin River on January 22, 1813.  Tecumseh had given command of the Native auxiliaries with Proctor's army over to Roundhead, who led 800 Native warriors against almost 600 Americans commanded by Gen. James Winchester.  Winchester was captured by Roundhead, who turned him over to Proctor, saving his life. 

Proctor abandoned Fort Detroit and returned to Canada.  Tecumseh, Roundhead and their men following.  On October 5, 1813, at the Battle of the Thames/Moraviantown, Roundhead was killed and Tecumseh either died in battle or shortly thereafter.  As William Henry Harrison toured the battlefield after the fight, he asked frontiersman Simon Kenton to identify Tecumseh's body.  Kenton pointed out Roundhead's corpse instead.  Was it because Tecumseh had managed to leave the field on his own power, or because neither Kenton nor Harrison wanted Tecumseh's body despoiled?  Was the tell-tale sash a giveaway?  We'll never know.  Roundhead's body was taken over by souvenir hunters on the battlefield.  Meanwhile, the question of whether to support Tecumseh's movement or cede more land to Whites had become a divisive feud within Wyandot society, and Roundhead's treatment of Leatherlips didn't help the breach any.  The Wyandot people would move further west, and eventually decide to cooperate with the Americans as best they could. 

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Survivors: the Powhatan

As usual in early encounters between Settlers and Natives, names, ranks and designations got tangled up.  Powhatan could be the personal name of a leader, the name of his tribe, the tribal confederacy he headed, or maybe it was just a village or the local name for the James River.  Let's clear up some of the confusion here.

When the English settled Jamestown in 1607, they encountered several very powerful and prosperous Native tribes, not all of whom were thrilled about these new strangers on their hunting range.  The Natives were Algonquian-speaking.  They lived in houses built of bent saplings with woven mats or bark, and practiced agriculture, maize being the staple crop.  The men supplemented their diet with meat while the women were efficient gatherers and food preservers.  Each palisaded village was under the control of a chief called in early accounts a wereowance, or even, if female as some of them were, a wereoansqua.  These local leaders in turn owed tribute to a powerful leader, known as a king in European terms, named Powhatan.  In fact, this paramount chief had a personal name, Wahunsunacawh.  Powhatan was the corrupted name of his principal village, known in early records as Paquwachowng.  Powhatan, or a corruption thereof also was applied to the largest river in the area, now known as the James.

As the colonists struggled to figure all this out, they came to understand that there were several distinct tribes in the area, each under leaders with varying degrees of power.  Powhatan, c 1545-c1618, had used a great deal of personal leadership and skill to work these tribes together into a powerful alliance with himself as paramount chief.  When the colonists arrived, he lead his confederacy from the village of Werewocomoco on the York River.  And, a note about leading versus ruling.  Unlike King James in Great Britain, whose word was law and who could commit anyone who disobeyed him to the Tower on a charge of treason, Powhatan, or Wahunsunacock, as the English also called him, had to use a great deal of cunning, leverage and persuasion as well as force of arms and intricate trading balances to keep his Confederacy together.  When he died in 1618, he son, Opecanough, already a skilled leader and warrior, took his father's place.

The Settlers would blow this entire society apart in a series of wars beginning in 1622 and ending in 1648.  These wars, known in history as the Powhatan Wars, began when the Settlers demanded foodstuffs for the colony and the Natives protested that they were hard put to it to feed their own people, let alone anyone else.  Warfare and disease quickly eroded the bonds between the thirty tribes in Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia that made up the Powhatan Confederacy.  Some tribes disappeared from the historical record altogether.  Others migrated, some as far away as New Jersey to feel safe from the colonists.  The surviving tribes in Virginia often found themselves the object of slave raids as epidemics also took their toll on imported Africans and local planters needed help to harvest their tobacco crops.  Eventually, the Virginia House of Burgesses asserted the right to appoint leaders for the remaining Powhatan tribes.

The last remnants of the Powhatan Confederacy were destroyed by 1684, but that didn't mean that the Powhatan had vanished.  The state/commonwealth of Virginia recognizes eight local tribes as being descended of the original Powhatan Confederacy.  Two, the Mattaponi and Pamunkey, do retain some ancestral land in King William County.  Strict racial laws in the 19th and 20th centuries classified any non-white person as black, even if the individual in question were Native or mixed-race, making it difficult for people to trace their heritage today.  The Powhatan-descended tribes in Virginia are still in the process of seeking federal recognition. 

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Opposition: Francis Langhorne Dade

The moral of this story is in three parts.  1) Never underestimate your enemy.  2) The guy you think is your enemy may not be your biggest problem right now.  3) Never forget 1 and 2.  Brevet Major Francis Langhorne Dade did all of the above on December 28, 1835 and it cost him his life and a hole in the head, but not from the usual suspect.  Yes, this story involves Osceola.

In 1835 Osceola was everywhere and the garrisons in northern Florida were spread thin trying to pin him down.  There were other Seminole leaders, Coacoochee, Tiger Tail and John Horse but the American public and the Army brass in Washington and Florida were fixated to the point of obsession on Osceola.  They dismissed two men who were more senior to Osceola at the time, Abiaka, a war leader and medicine man who was Osceola's mentor, and Micanopy, Leading Chief of the Seminoles.  Both were old men and considered to be doddering old fools.  They were far from.  Both were crafty, smart, strategic thinkers who had the respect of their people and knew how to handle themselves on a battlefield.  Osceola was Tustenegge or leading warrior, of Micanopy's band of Seminoles, meaning that Osceola took orders from Micanopy, not the other way round.

On the morning of December 28, 1835, Micanopy and his warriors were waiting for Osceola to join them before ambushing a column of men heading from Fort Brooke to Fort King, in present-day Ocala, Florida.  The men were under the command of Brevet Major Dade.  Dade had been born in Virginia in 1793 and joined the army in 1813, when he was 20 years old.  He had no formal training in the military, but would have had some on-the-job experience during the War of 1812.  In a peacetime army, opportunities for promotion were few and far between.  Brevetting, or giving an officer a nominal rank instead of a full promotion kept some mobility in the ranks.  Dade was brevetted major in 1828 and posted to Florida with the 4th Infantry Regiment as the Second Seminole War broke out in 1835. 

As his men marched up the old Spanish King's Highway toward Fort King, Dade hadn't posted scouts.  Contrary to what's usually portrayed in movies, the area isn't swampy jungle.  There was space between the trees and Dade no doubt thought he could easily spot any warriors sniping through the trees.  If Osceola showed up, Dade was ready.  Little did Dade or Micanopy know that Osceola was away on personal business.  He was lying in wait near Fort King for Indian Agent Wiley Thompson to venture out of the fort.  Thompson would taken an evening walk that night and run into a bullet from his worst enemy.

Meanwhile, on the King's Highway, Micanopy's men crept ever closer to the infantry column, its heavy wagons bogged down in mud, the men beginning to straggle along the trail.  The Seminole knew their home range and could crawl and creep through brush as well as anyone.  They didn't need to stand to shoot.  As the day dragged on and Osceola didn't show up, Micanopy gave the signal to attack.  He took aim from behind a tree on Major Dade himself and dropped him with a shot in the head.  His men quickly surrounded the stranded column, coming so close that one warrior later said they could hear the sergeants cussing at their men and the situation.  Next to fall was Capt. George W. Gardiner, who was no doubt doing more cussing than anybody.  In the end 107 soldiers were killed and 2 wounded, of which one died later on.  Only two men survived.  Seminole losses were 3 killed and 5 wound.

Despite this dismal failure, or because of it, Dade has several places named after him.  Miami-Dade County, Florida, Dade County, Georgia, Dade County, Missouri, Dadeville, Alabama and Dade City, Florida.  There was also a Fort Dade, now decommissioned.  Dade and his men are buried at St. Augustine National Cemetery near Osceola's brother-in-law, Major David Moniac, killed in another battle.  A monument marks the battlefield in Dade Battlefield Historic State Park, where a reenactment is held every year.

Never underestimate your enemy. 

Monday, March 27, 2017

Great Leader: Benjamin Perryman of the Creek

Some leaders shape events, others are left to make the best of a bad situation.  Benjamin Perryman, the subject of an 1836 painting by George Catlin at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, falls into the latter category.

Benjamin Perryman was the son of a Settler named Theodore Perryman, and of a Creek woman.  He had a brother named Samuel.  The two Perryman sons took their status from their mother's family and Benjamin became the headman of a town in Alabama.  He sided with the White Stick faction of the Creeks represented by William McIntosh, though he wasn't known to be the signatory of any treaties ceding Creek land.  After McIntosh and his sons were condemned for ceding Creek land and McIntosh executed in 1825, his sons fled to Oklahoma with families who were either allied by marriage or otherwise supported them.  Benjamin and Samuel Perryman their families chose to remove to Oklahoma, years before the rest of their people did so.

Once in Oklahoma, the Creeks and other tribes tried to reconstitute their society as best they could.  Chili McIntosh asserted his father's claim as leader of the Creeks, a position that many of his fellow Creeks adamantly disagreed with.  The dispute was settled by the commander at Fort Gibson, Col. Arbuckle, who mediated in favor of McIntosh.  Perryman was present at this counsel and signed the written agreement that arose from it.  He was also present at another counsel at Fort Gibson in 1834.  He lived out the remainder of his life in Oklahoma.  Two of his descendants were David McKellop Hodge, a translator and lawyer in Oklahoma Territory, and Pleasant Porter, Principal Chief of the Creek Nation, 1899-1907.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Survivors: the Yamassee

When can a tribe of people be called extinct?  Throughout the history of European contact with Native peoples tribes had adapted to warfare, disease and diminishing hunting range by amalgamating with other tribes or taking on new identities.  This has led some to consider such tribes extinct, though in fact they or their descendants may remain very much in existence.

The Yamassee were a loose confederation of Native people from various towns when Hernando de Soto first encountered them in 1540.  Later, the Spaniards attempted to convert the Yamassee to Christianity, as they had the Guale and other Florida tribes.  The Yamassee weren't willing to convert, causing friction with the Spaniards.  Their range was coastal Georgia and later in northeastern Florida.  Beginning in 1687, Spanish slaving raids penetrated deep into Yamassee territory.  They revolted and moved further into what is now Beaufort, South Carolina, seeking the protection of the British.

That only lasted so long.  Originally allies of the British in their wars against the Spanish in Florida, matters came to a head between the British and the Yamassee in 1715.  The Yamassee were noted for their dark skin, even among Natives at the time.  Slaves frequently escaped to live with the Yamassee, creating tension between Settlers and the tribe.  Efforts to force the Yamassee to give up these escapes and cede more land to the colonists led to the Yamassee War.  So powerful was this tribe at the time that they almost wiped out the colony of Carolina (there was no North/South split until 1721).  Eventually, the Yamassee realized that though they were winning the battles, the toll on their people in fighting the British was too much.  They returned to Florida and allied again with the Spanish.

About this time the tribe dispersed.  Some went back to the Savannah River and allied with local Muscogee/Creek bands, forming the Yamacraw.  Prominent Yamacraw included Tomochichi and his relative, Mary Musgrove, translator for Georgia found James Oglethorpe.  Eventually the Yamacraw were absorbed back into the Creek population.  Other Yamassee joined the Seminoles and Hitchiti, and from there disappeared from the White historical record.  But they didn't disappear.  Some Yamassee maintained their identity and their traditions and today are trying to reclaim their tribal identity.  Others are affiliated with the Miccosuke, the descendants of the Hitchiti.

Natives versus Settlers, Little Turtle's War, 179-1794

We've devoted posts to Little Turtle of the Miami (1747-1812), a renowned war leader of the same caliber as Dragging Canoe, Buckongahelas, Blue Jacket and others whom we've already met.  We've also covered the Northwest Indian War (1785-1794).  Now it's time to drill down on a specific subset of that war known as Little Turtle's War.  That he had an entire portion of the larger war named after him shows just how effective a leader Little Turtle was, particularly at capturing the attention of his enemies.

The Treaty of Paris of 1783 which ended the American Revolutionary War did not deal with any land claims by the original inhabitants of the Ohio River Valley.  It only specified that the British would surrender their forts there and leave, which they had no intention of doing.  Native leaders, particularly White Eyes of the Delaware, conceived of the Ohio Valley as being a Native buffer state, where Natives could live without any encroachment by Settlers.  But it was not to be.  Even before the Revolution ended, Settlers were pouring into Ohio and skirmishes with local Natives were inevitable.  Little Turtle was already a renowned war leader by 1785 and led several war parties against American settlers, often cooperating with Blue Jacket of the Shawnee, with whom he is most closely associated.  By 1790, he would command a share of fame of his own with two ambushes against columns led by Josiah Harmer. 

In 1791, Little Turtle's daughter was captured in a raid led by James Wilkinson.  More on him later, because he was one of the more disreputable men ever to live on the frontier or just about anywhere else.  Little Turtle made getting his daughter back a priority.  He was one of the Native commanders at the Battle of Wabash, on November 4, 1791, when a combined force of Miami, Wyandot, Delaware and others inflicted a defeat on General Arthur St. Clair that was far worse than that suffered by Custer.  For comparison, the loss at Little Big Horn (Greasy Grass) was 268 killed and 46 wounded.  The Battle of the Wabash saw 632 killed/captured, along with 264 wounded.  Civilian casualties were 24 killed, 14 wounded, bringing the total to approximately 933. 

Little Turtle would add to his record with a raid in 1792 on Fort St. Clair, in present-day Preble County, Ohio, that would make American military planners wonder if holding onto the Ohio Valley was even feasible.  The Washington Administration turned to one commander whom George Washington knew from Revolutionary days and believed he could trust, Anthony Wayne.  Like George Rogers Clark before him, Anthony Wayne garnered a reputation among the Natives as a formidable enemy.  On June 30, 1794, Little Turtle's contingent of Miami participated in an attack on Fort Recovery, near the present-day town of Fort Recovery, Ohio.  The fort held out and Little Turtle knew that they faced an enemy of a more skilled caliber than Arthur St. Clair or Josiah Harmer.  Prior to the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794, he counseled caution and that perhaps their best course lay with negotiating with Wayne rather than fighting him.  Nevertheless, when the consensus was to give battle, he led his Miami warriors with his usual skill.  This time, it was not enough.  Wayne inflicted a resounding defeat on the Natives.

Little Turtle was a signatory to the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.  During the gathering for the treaty signing, his wife died and was given a military funeral out of respect for this formidable adversary. 
 

Captivity Narrative: Hannah Hale and the Far Off Warrior

Many captivity narratives have come down to us because the person chose to write about them, Mary Rowlandson or Mary Jemison, for instance.  Other stories endure because someone else thought them important.  In this case, the writer was Benjamin Hawkins, the United States Indian Agent to the Creek, whom we've already run across in a previous post.  It is in his writings and memoirs by descendants that we get a brief glimpse of a young woman who chose to make her life with her captors and raise a family with one of them, rather than return to White society.

The warrior in question was Tustunegge Hopayi, which means "Far Warrior" in Muscogee.  How he got this name or why remains unclear.  He also held the honorific Harjo, which was a testament to his recklessness in battle.  During the American Revolutionary War he was an implacable enemy of the Americans and fought on the side of the British.  During a raid in George in 1777 in which several American prisoners were taken, they included a young girl about 10 or 11 years old.  Her name was Hannah Hale and she was assigned to a Creek family.  A girl that age was too young to marry and Tustunegge Hopayi had other things on his mind.  He quickly rose through the ranks among the Muscogee, becoming leader of the Lower Creeks, who were more traditionally friendly with the Settlers.  He would come to know both Alexander McGillivray and Benjamin Hawkins very well. 

Years later, in 1799, Hawkins would visit Hopayi's village and meet his wife Hannah and her five children.  When and how she and Hopayi decided to marry, whether it was a love match or one of necessity, we will never know.  Likely, Hannah and Hopayi wouldn't have thought that anybody's business.  Her husband took part in the Creek War of 1813-14, fighting on the side of the Americans, as did her two sons, Samuel and David.  Later, they would petition for land allotments based on part on their service during the Creek War and having been the sons of a Creek head man.  Hopayi died in 1832 and Hannah remained with her family in his village, the Agent at that time giving orders that no one was to cause her any problems if she chose to stay.  Nevertheless, her family were removed during the Trail of Tears, with at least one of her sons, David, dying along the way.  Where Hannah herself died or was buried is uncertain. 

Places: the Joseph Brant House, Burlington, Ontario

One can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep and the influences they choose to emulate.  Such is the case is with Joseph Brant's later home in Burlington, Ontario

Some have tried to make Joseph's story out to be a rags-to-riches tale of a young boy with little hope of status in his tribe rising to a life of wealth through the patronage of an English Indian Agent.  But that narrative doesn't do Joseph any justice.  He was not born in poverty and his mother was of sufficient status in their tribe to become the wife of a sachem.  Joseph's stepfather, whose last name he took, lived on a farm with a large farmhouse not indistinguishable from that of their White neighbors.  Members of John Sullivan's 1779 expedition commented on the prosperity of Iroquois farms.  The Brant home was respectable enough that Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of the British Indian Department, felt comfortable staying there.

In 1763 Sir William built Johnson Hall, in present-day Johnstown, New York.  Once he and Molly, Joseph's sister, began their relationship Joseph was a frequent guest at Johnson Hall.  He learned more than just how wealthy Whites lived.  He learned how a man of stature behaved, how he entertained his guests, and how he expected to be perceived in the world.  Joseph would one day try to recreate that world for himself.  After the Revolution, he built a home for himself near what is now Brantford, Ontario, but over time, as his power within his society waned, he decided on a home further away.  He settled in what is now Burlington, Ontario, and began work on a home that was a deliberate half-scale model of Johnson Hall.  His power as a leader may have been on the decline, but he wasn't about to let the world know it.  In that time, keeping up appearances was just as important in Native society as it was in the White world.  Unfortunately, Joseph would only have a few years to enjoy his new home.  He died in 1807 and the house is now a museum.




Natives versus Settlers: La Balme's Defeat, November 5, 1780

The French never gave up their dream of reconquering part of their North American domain, even after that was no longer a viable option. 

Augustin de la Balme was born in 1733 in the French Alpine town of Saint-Antoine.  He later joined a cavalry regiment and participated in the Seven Years War (1755-1763), European Theatre, never seeing service in America.  After the War, he wrote a book on horsemanship and another on cavalry tactics and seemed set for a comfortable retirement.  Like many European officers, though, he saw another chance at glory during the American Revolution and crossed the Atlantic, offering his services to Washington's army.  He became Inspector General of Cavalry, but resigned when a Polish nobleman, Casimir Pulaski, was placed in overall command of the United States Cavalry.

La Balme drifted to Kaskaskia, Illinois.  Inspired by George Rogers Clark's siege of Fort Sackville/Vincennes, he decided to attempt something similar.  He galvanized the support of the local residents, most of whom were French-speakers of Canadian origin and were only too willing to help a French officer get one back on the British.  He attacked the fur trading outpost at Fort St. Joseph, then moved to Vincennes and proceeded up the Wabash River, gathering French sympathizers and Native auxiliaries.  His aim was Fort Detroit, which he intended to claim for France, not America.

At the Miami's main village of Kekionga, he intended to arrest the British Agent there, but he was elsewhere.  So la Balme captured British stores and marched his force to a nearby trading post at Eel River.  Enter Little Turtle of the Miami, who was very much on the British side at this point in his career.  He gathered a force of warriors and ambushed la Balme's column before it reached Eel River.  Sources differ on how long the battle lasted but the outcome was the same.  Of La Balme's roughly 104 men, 30-40 were killed including Augustin de la Balme.  The encounter cemented Little Turtle's reputation as a war chief.  A marker records the defeat and an annual reenactment memorializes the battle.   

Saturday, March 25, 2017

People of the Sacred Voice: the Winnebago/Ho-Chunk

The tribe of Glory of the Morning, Red Bird, and the famed Decorah family, the Winnebago or Ho-Chunk are a Siouan-speaking woodlands tribe with ancestral territory in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and parts of Iowa and Illinois.  The name Winnebago is a Potawatomi word, referencing people living by the stinking water, or possibly salty water.  The tribe's name for themselves, Ho-Chunk means sacred voice people of the pines.  Like other Native peoples they suffered displacement from their ancestral lands several times.

They were first encountered by Jesuit missionaries in 1634, living near what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Other missionaries encountered them near Lake Huron in 1659-60.  They fished, lived on wild rice and other food stuffs that they could gather.  Oral tradition always places the Ho-Chunk in Wisconsin, possibly as descendants of a mound-building culture in the area.  The Ho-Chunk were once a powerful tribe in the region, but suffered like others from the effects of warfare and disease.  Sometime after European contact, 600 warriors lost their lives while on Lake Winnebago when they encountered a storm, further depleting the tribe's numbers.  The Great Peace of 1701 brought a welcome respite from war.

The Ho-Chunk were valuable trading partners to the French.  Later, after the French and Indian War, they were equally willing to trade with the British and did not participate in Pontiac's Rebellion of 1764.  Although forced to remove several times, some as far away as Nebraska, many eventually found their way back to their homeland in Wisconsin.  Today, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska both have federal recognition. 

Friday, March 24, 2017

Natives versus Settlers: the Fort Lachine Massacre of 1689

The Beaver Wars of the 17th century were a period of intense violence and conflict on all sides.  The beaver trade was lucrative business and colonial authorities rigorously maintained their trading connections with Native tribes who supplied the pelts.  Likewise, the tribes struggled to protect trading advantages and hunting range, while coping with incursions on to their land from Settlers and other displaced Natives, disease, warfare, and cultural disruption due to missionary activity by the Settlers.  When all of the above came to a head, as it frequently did, things turned tragic.

Lachine was a French settlement at the lower end of Montreal Island.  It was in land claimed by the Iroquois, particularly the Mohawk.  Beginning in 1688, King William's War/Nine Years War broke out in Europe and North America.  Both French and English colonists incited Native auxiliaries to raids on each other's settlements.  These, in turn, brought reprisals from angry colonists.  Natives raided other tribes and White settlements for a variety of reasons, but one in particular was to take captives who would replace tribal members killed by warfare or disease.  These "mourning raids" were often the most bitterly misunderstood aspects of Native life and instant propaganda for colonists seeking more punitive measures against Natives.  To add to the situation, the Iroquois were beginning to resent the Jesuit and other missionaries who insisted that they no longer practice cultural traditions but adhere strictly to Christianity.

The citizens of Lachine were probably not aware of any of the above on August 5, 1689, when a force of 1500 Mohawk warriors descended on their town, population of roughly 375 people.  The warriors began going from house to house, breaking down doors and taking Settlers captive.  When some of them fled to larger buildings within the town and barricade themselves in, the warriors set the buildings on fire and waited for those inside to flee.  Most likely, around 24 people were killed and 70 captured, those estimates of those killed swelled to over 250, or almost half the entire population of the town.  A commander of the local French garrison mobilized a force and prevented the Mohawk from raiding other settlements.  However, the Governor of New France, stationed in Montreal, knew that his forces were not up to a full-scale confrontation with the Mohawk and their allies and prevented further military action, instead hoping to negotiate for the release of some of the captives.

Both English and French propaganda capitalized on the cruelty of the Iroquois toward their prisoners with salacious stories.  According to second and third-hand accounts, men were tied to stakes and burned alive.  Parents were forced to cast their children on funeral pyres.  Some people were tortured and small children eaten.  Though the Natives did practice ritual killing and some survivors did report being tortured, the reports were most likely exaggerated in the telling.  Because no one attempted to get any reports from Mohawk survivors, their side of the story, including the exact reasons for the raid, will never be known.  The Governor of Montreal was able to negotiate the release of some captives, but many would never return to their families again.  A year later, the French retaliated against both the Mohawk, and the English settlers whom they believed were the true motivators of the incident, by a raid on Schenectady, New York.  Eventually, though, the French realized that they only solution to the enmity with the Iroquois was to treaty with them and make fur trade with the French more lucrative than that with the British.  This incident led indirectly to the Great Peace of Montreal of 1701.


Thursday, March 23, 2017

Great Lady: Glory of the Morning of the Winnebago

Women held esteemed positions in many tribes.  Some served on women's councils, appointed chiefs and other leaders, administered family and clan property, and held veto power over certain decisions, such as going to war with a neighboring tribe or encroaching Settlers.  When their husbands, brothers or other relatives were absent, they could serve as administrators of their village or band.  However, very few actually held the rank of chief in the own right.  Glory of the Morning of the Winnebago/Ho-Chunk, who died at over 100 years old c 1832, was one such esteemed woman.

Oral tradition stated that she had been born the daughter of a Ho-Chunk chief of the Thunderbird Clan.  Her family lived in what Doty Island in what is now Menasha, Winnebago County, Wisconsin.  At some point, Glory of the Morning succeeded her father as a leader of her people.  European visitors, who often misunderstood Native society, frequently called her a queen.  Sometime prior to the French and Indian War, an expedition from the French colony of La Louisiane made contact with the Ho-Chunk people.  The leader of the expedition, named Sabrevoir de Carrie visited the Ho-Chunk.  He soon came to realize that being a fur trader was far more lucrative than being a soldier, resigned his commission and married Glory of the Morning.  They had two boys and a girl.  Whether Glory of the Morning had attained the chiefship at this point or later isn't known for sure, but oral tradition held Carrie in high regard, remarking on him as a leader of men.

Eventually, he and Glory of the Morning went their separate ways.  This often happened in relationships between Natives and Whites and shouldn't be taken in the same way as a modern divorce.  The relationship lasted as long as the partners wished it to last and it was over.  Carrie took their daughter, likely to be educated in a convent school in Montreal.  She would later marry a fur trader.  The two boys, one known as Spoon, and the other as White Beast or Buzzard, would remain with their mother.  Their father's French name, de Carrie, became Decorah.  Both sons would become Ho-Chunk leaders after their mother, and their descendants would provide leadership for the Winnebago/Ho-Chunk people for generations to come. 

During the French conflicts with the Fox tribe over the fur trade, Glory of the Morning supported the French, dispatching her warriors to fight alongside them.  She did likewise during the French and Indian War (1755-1763).  Sabrevoir de Carrie returned to the army during that war and was killed in battle.  Following his death and the defeat of the French, Glory of the Morning made peace with the English and kept her people out of Pontiac's Rebellion.  Captain Jonathan Carver, a New Englander serving with the British army, encountered her in 1766.  He observed Glory of the Morning presiding over a council and the two developed a mutual respect.  Glory of the Morning gave Carpenter safe passage through her hunting range.

Glory of the Morning lived on until around 1832, when a trader's wife described her, still leading her people and raising her grandchildren despite infirmities.  At some point prior to her death, while the woods, Glory of the Morning heard an owl hooting, a sign of impending death.  On the night of her death, though it was winter and a blizzard was blowing, thunder was heard.  The Winnebago took it as a sign that the Thunderbird had taken her home, that she had lived a good life and died a blessed death.  Her grandson was Waukon Decorah, whose leadership stopped the Winnebago War of 1827 before it could escalate any further.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

The End of the Trail(s): Fort Gibson, Muscogee County, Oklahoma

Between 1831-1838 thousands of men, women and children were forcibly deported from their homelands in the Southeast and sent to live in what is now Oklahoma.  Embarkation points for the Five Southeastern Tribes of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee and Seminole were in large eastern cities such as Memphis or New Orleans, but most of them ended in one place, Fort Gibson, in what is now Muscogee County, Oklahoma.  This desolate outpost in the west was the last stop for sick, hungry, stressed and unhappy people who had nowhere else to go.

Fort Gibson was created in 1824.  At its inception, it was the westernmost outpost for the U.S. Army, meant to guard the border of the Louisiana Purchase from incursion by Spain and later Mexico.  The harsh conditions of garrison life on the Plains, including fevers and arduous marches in the heat and dust were viewed by many officers and men to be almost a death sentence. What is now Oklahoma and Kansas was designated Indian Territory and the garrison at Fort Gibson had a new assignment, to keep the peace between the various tribes assigned to live there.  This was no easy task.  Policy makers in Washington seemed oblivious to the fact that Oklahoma at the time was already home to various Plains tribes, notably the Osage, who weren't ready to welcome thousands of other Natives onto land they needed to feed their own families.  As soon as they arrived in Oklahoma, many Southeastern Natives often ran into conflict with bands of nomadic Plains warriors trying to defend their hunting range, too.  The garrison was spread thin trying to protect the new arrivals from raids by already existing tribes.

Natives who were deported west had been promised rations.  These would be provided by government contractors at government expense.  The contractors were almost always corrupt and rations were always short.  Many Natives who had already suffered the deaths of family members and friends along the trail now faced famine, disease and death themselves.  They congregated at Fort Gibson until they could move on to their assigned land and the garrison didn't have the resources to house and feed so many displaced people.  The situation became so bad that in 1841, Major Ethan Allen Hitchcock was sent by the Army to investigate.  As outspoken as his famous grandfather, Hitchcock wrote several blistering reports to his superiors in Washington.  They were shelved and the situation unimproved.  Ironically, people who had been successful farmers for generations weren't given seed or other implements to begin their own food production.  Neither did the schools or other services outlined in the treaty materialize.  With traditional lines of community and tribal leadership disrupted, and unable to hunt or farm for themselves, families and individuals sank further into despair.  The Trail of Tears was not over. 

There were deep fissures within each tribe, arising from disputes about whether to remove to Oklahoma willingly, or try to fight the inevitable as long as possible.  The Muscogee/Creeks had fought an internal civil war in 1813-14 over the issue of land concessions and cooperation with White settlers.  After William McIntosh and other leaders ceded the last of Creek land in Georgia in 1825, the old resentments flared again.  McIntosh's family fled the vengeance of their fellow Creeks and removed to Oklahoma.  As other Muscogee began arriving in 1836, matters came to a head between the two factions, those who supported the leadership of William's son Chilli and those who adamantly did not.  Fort Gibson's commander, Col. William Arbuckle, convened a counsel of both sides and the McIntosh faction maintained control.

Cherokee had already begun settling in Oklahoma since the opening decades of the 19th century.  The Old Settlers had formed their own government.  They did not want to live under newcomers from back east.  Once again, factions developed.  Old Settlers versus the leadership of John Ross, who had masterminded the Cherokees final exodus from their homeland in 1838.  Once again, Arbuckle intervened and Ross' side won out.  Anger simmered into open blood feuds between the various Cherokee groups, often stemming from incidents that had happened long before Removal.  In both cases, Arbuckle was careful to favor the faction seen by Washington as being most amenable to White interests. 

Then there was the matter of blacks who were either held as property by Native families, or where were mixed-race Native themselves.  Oklahoma was a slave territory, meaning that owning slaves was legal.  Many blacks took the opportunity of the displacement of the Trail of Tears to escape enslavement.  Some tribes, such as the Seminole, had large numbers of freed blacks and mixed-race blacks among their ranks.  Slave catchers did a lucrative business in Oklahoma, retrieving blacks who fled there hoping for a no-man's land and freedom.  The Seminoles suspected, in some cases correctly, that Creeks were assisting the slave catchers or doing slave raiding themselves.  Animosity between the Creeks and Seminoles, who had been assigned the same land, added to the tension.

As the Five Southeastern Tribes began to find their own footing in Oklahoma, the need for any protection or assistance from Fort Gibson declined.  Arbuckle departed in 1841, believing that he had done a good job in pacifying the various tribes in Oklahoma.  The reality was much different.  Along with the government contractors and shoddy rations came unscrupulous traders who sold liquor to the tribes despite the fact that it was illegal to do so.  Fort Gibson, like other military outposts, generated its own town with the resulting saloons, gambling dens, and brothels.  Cherokee leaders petitioned Washington to close down the Fort, which it did in 1857.  Then the Civil War happened.  Union troops reoccupied Fort Gibson, which fell into Confederates hands in 1862, before being recaptured in 1863 and remaining Union throughout the War.  The majority of Creeks and Seminoles supported the Union.  The majority of Cherokee supported the Confederacy, though not all.  Violence flared between the two groups in the winter of 1861, when Creek leader Opothleyahola led Creek and Seminole warriors and their families from Oklahoma to Fort Row, Kansas in the Trail of Blood on Ice.   

After the War, Fort Gibson became a post for units of the 9th and 10th Cavalry, the Buffalo soldiers, fighting a variety of Plains tribes.  The black troopers had no choice but to accept an assignment that many white soldiers were lucky they did not have to take.  Fort Gibson was finally abandoned in 1890, though the surrounding town of Fort Gibson had become a prosperous cattle town.  Beginning in the 1930's, some of the old buildings were reconstructed and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960, later added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. 

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Whose Picture Is It: the Johnson/Brant Portrait by Benjamin West

Several members of Sir William Johnson's extended family followed him into what became the family business, serving as Superintendents in the British Indian Department.  One of these was Guy Johnson (c 1740-1788).  Years later, noted portraitist Benjamin West would paint a picture depicting a seated British officer in uniform, wearing a blanket or piece of cloth matchcoat style around his shoulders.  A Mohawk warrior can be seen behind him.  The warrior is delivering advice or intelligence of some kind, to which the officer is listening and pondering intently before making up his mind on what to do.

The cultural sensitivities of this portrait aside, debate exists over whether West meant to depict Sir William Johnson and Joseph Brant, or Guy Johnson and Joseph Brant.  The warrior is almost certainly Brant, who was a Mohawk war chief.  He was active in that capacity during the final years of William's life, and would work closely with two other Johnsons, Guy, and Sir John Johnson, 2nd Baronet.  Neither John nor Guy were sons of Native women.  John (1741-1830), was the son of William Johnson by his first long-term companion, a German woman by the name of Catherine Weisenberg.  Guy, who immigrated from County Meath, Ireland in 1756, would later marry William's daughter and John's sister Polly, another of Catherine's children.  In modern terms it would be highly inappropriate for any of these men to adopt aspects of Native dress but 18th century people had a fascination with Natives and wouldn't have thought anything of it.

Guy served as William's assistant for many years, himself amassing a fortune in what was once Mohawk land.  William died in 1774.  Despite not being the legitimate son of William Johnson, John inherited the lion's share of his father's estate and was later knighted and created a baronet, giving him an equal right to the title of Sir John Johnson.  Meanwhile, Guy succeeded his uncle as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the British Indian Department, Northern colonies, working in tandem with John Stuart in the South.  During the American Revolution, the Johnsons' lands and homes were confiscated.  Not only were they Loyalists, which was bad enough in American eyes, but their close association with the Mohawk, particularly Brant, was unforgivable.  Both men would have made valuable prisoners and much time and intelligence was spent trying to capture either John or Guy while their empire was being dismembered in their absence.  Johnson Hall, where Molly Brant had presided over gatherings attended by local White and Native dignitaries including her brother Joseph, as well as Guy Park, in what is now Amsterdam, New York. 

The Johnson family fled to Canada, and quickly reestablished their roles in the Indian Department as well as acquiring extensive landholdings in Canada.  Like his father, John had a large family, though none of his children married Natives and several of his sons became British officers.  Guy's wife Polly, died during the flight from New York to Canada.  A large and powerful family such as this routinely makes enemies and the Johnsons had their share.  In 1782, as the Revolution would down, Guy was accused by several British officers of misappropriating funds in the Indian Department.  He left John in charge at Fort Niagara and went to London to clear his name, dying there in in 1788.  John succeeded his cousin/brother-in-law as Superintendent in 1782 and served in that capacity in Canada for many years, dying in 1830. 

So, whose portrait is it?  That remains a mystery. 



Monday, March 20, 2017

Places: Fort Niagara, Youngstown, New York

The American Revolution had a human cost, families of Loyalists and thousands of Natives who cast in their lot with the British forfeited homes and livelihoods.  With nowhere else to go many of these people congregated around this British fort, which became an impromptu refugee camp, with all the discomforts usually associated with such a place.

Fort Niagara rests near Youngstown, New York, on the banks of the Ohio River not far from Lake Ontario.  Like many forts in the region, Fort Niagara was built by the French.  The earliest structure on site was built by Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle in 1678.  He named it Fort Conti, after a branch of the ruling Bourbon family.  Another French commander built a more permanent structure, called Fort Denonville, in 1687.  However, staffing and supplying this far-flung outpost from Montreal proved difficult and the site was abandoned the next year.  Finally, in 1726, a two-story fortified structure was built on site and used as a trading post.  That structure still stands and is called the French Castle today because it looks almost like a small French chateau.  Eventually, other buildings, walls and fortifications were built around the site as tensions between the French and British heated up leading to the Seven Years/French and Indian War (1755-1763). 

The Fort fell to the British in 1759 and Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs was its initial commander.  It was renamed Fort Niagara, which is an Iroquoian word meaning land cut in two, obviously by the broad and fast-flowing Niagara River.  During the American Revolution, this was the base for the Loyalist Butler's Rangers or Queen's Rangers, led by Maj. John Butler and his son William.  In the North, this troop had the same reputation as that enjoyed by Banastre Tarleton in South Carolina or the Hessians anywhere else.  They were the royal troops everyone loved to hate and no story of cruelty at their hands could be exaggerated enough.  Particularly was this so when it involved "Monster" Joseph Brant and his Iroquois auxiliaries.  As war ravaged New York, thousands of Loyalists and Natives fled to the safety of Fort Niagara.  The British garrison barely had supplies to equip themselves and could not deal with the onslaught of refuges.  Especially was this true after the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition of 1779-1780.  While gambling dens, brothels and saloons flourished on the flats of land below the Fort, known as The Bottom, others huddled in whatever shelter they could find, or none at all, enduring winter with little food or other necessities.  In addition to the Brants, young Billy Caldwell/Sauganash, a mixed-race Potawatomi refugee also spent time here.

Eventually, most of these people found shelter in Canada.  Loyalists were offered tracts of land and the Iroquois found a new home along the Grand River.  Per the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1783, the English were supposed to surrender Fort Niagara.  They didn't and the Americans didn't press the issue until the Jay Treaty of 1794, which affirmed that the British were to vacate Fort Niagara.  American forces took over the fort and began mending its defenses.  But the British had not given up on North America.  In 1813, they recaptured the Fort, and held it until the Treaty of Ghent of 1814 provided that they give it up, permanently.  The U.S. Army took control and garrisoned the Fort throughout the Civil War.  In the aftermath of the War, coastal defenses based on forts proved to be more and more obsolete. 

Eventually other facilities were built and christened New Fort Niagara.  This is opposed to Old Fort Niagara which is the historic part of the facility.  That portion of the fort became a state park.  The military portion of the installation is under control of the U.S. Coast Guard. 


 

Sunday, March 19, 2017

People of the Sunrise: the Atakapa-Ishak

Too many times we've run across tribes that were once powerful, but who all but became extinct because of warfare, disease and the encroachment of Settlers on hunting range.  Today's tribe, which survive today in Louisiana and Texas, are survivors.  They called themselves Ishak, meaning people of the rising sun, or people of the sunshine.  However, their Choctaw neighbors identified them to early French and Spanish explorers as Atakapa, or man-eaters.  We'll get to that in a minute.

The Atakapa are an Eastern Woodlands people who lived in the area of what is now Louisiana and portions of Texas.  They were not a central tribe, but consisted of several Eastern and Western bands who could come together for mutual aid or defense.  They were an agricultural people, but also depending on fishing the rivers and the coastline as well as other hunting and gathering to supplement their diet.  The surround tribes knew them as fierce warriors who could, from time to time, consume the flesh of dead enemies after battle.  Cannibalism of this kind was known in North American, but it was rare and those tribes or peoples who practiced it got a reputation. 

Confusion exists as to whether the Narvaez expedition on 1528, which landed in what is now Texas, encountered these people or other tribes.  However, in 1703, Jean-Baptiste le Moyne's expedition  came into Atakapa territory.  They soon regretted it.  The Atakapa attacked and killed one of the Frenchmen, whom they later cannibalized.  They approached Frenchmen again in 1714, when Jean-Michel de Lepinay was fortifying Dauphin Island.  Another explorer, Francois-Simars de Ballisle lived for a time among the Atakapa, and gave the most information to date about them.  So did Antoine-Simon le Page du Pratz, whom we've already encountered.  Over time, as White encroachment into Native lands in Louisiana continued, other tribes joined the Atakapa, who themselves intermarried with Houma and Coushatta people, among others. 

By the 19th century, theAtakapa had ceased to function as a tribe, but individuals with Atakapa heritage lived among neighboring tribes, and kept some of the old traditions alive.  Some place-names in Louisiana reflect this tribe's heritage, including Mermentau, which was the name of an Atakapan leader, and Plaquemines, which was a French corruption of their word for parsimmon.  Today, people who claim Atakapan heritage are trying to gain acceptance for recognition as a federally-recognized tribe.  A statue depicting an Atakapan warrior stands in St. Martinville, Louisiana.



Saturday, March 18, 2017

Opposition: Col. William Stacy, 1734-1802

We've already run across this American Revolutionary War officer twice, during the Cherry Valley Massacre and at the Big Bottom Massacre.  Now it's time to bring him fully into his own.

William Stacy was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1734.  He married and raised a large family, eventually resettling in New Salem, Massachusetts.  He was a shoemaker or cordwainer by trade, through he may also have invested in banking and merchant shipping, meaning that he was a wealthy man with a financial stake in the American Revolution.  He was a Captain in New Salem's militia in April, 1775, when the town responded to the crisis at Lexington and Concord.  Tearing up his royal commission, he offered to lead anyone who wanted to head off to help their fellow militiamen fight the Redcoats.  He was present during the siege of Bunker Hill and several other opening battles during the Revolution. 

He became a Lt. Col. in Ichabod Alden's 7th Massachusetts Regiment and found himself posted to Cherry Valley in New York.  This was a potential hotspot as the Loyalist regiment, the Queen's Rangers or Butler's Rangers was prevalent in the area, along with Mohawk and Seneca warriors under Joseph Brant and Cornplanter, respectively.  Despite warning that an attack was imminent, neither Stacy nor Alden took any precautions.  They remained at their local headquarters in town when the Rangers and Native attacked.  Stacy was taken prisoner, but his son Benjamin and nephew Rufus saved the family honor by sprinting to the makeshift palisade in town and rallying the men.  Unfortunately, it was too late.  The Rangers and Native contingent overran the town and the men inside the fort were obliged to surrender. 

By the account of another officer of the regiment who was also taken prisoner, Stacy was stripped and tied to a stake for a ritual death a la William Crawford.  Brant forbade it, and ordered Stacy released.  Stacy was a Freemason, as was Brant, so that might have had something to do with it.  However, Joseph Brant, contrary to popular rumor, was not into torturing prisoners or inflicting unnecessary killing.  Prisoners were much better if they could be ransomed for a payoff, and if not, they weren't worth the trouble of keeping.  He would rather let them go or turn them in to the British, which is what happened to Stacy.  Stacy was held prisoner at Fort Niagara, where family legend stated that Molly Brant wanted Maj. Butler to carry out the death sentence on him.  As a high-ranking woman, the sister of a Mohawk war chief, Molly was within her rights traditionally to make this demand.  Butler was also within his rights to refuse it, which he did.  Stacy was transferred to Fort Chambly in Montreal, where he wasn't exchanged until 1782.  He was later received by George Washington, who presented him with a gold snuff box.

Many Revolutionary War officers never received their arrears wages in money, or at least money that was worth while,  Instead, they were offered promissory notes for land in the Ohio Valley.  Stacy was wise enough to see the eventual outcome of this and in 1788 moved to what is now Marietta, Ohio.  Two of Stacy's son, John and Philemon, had also come west.  Unable to secure any land claims, they had settled in an area known as Big Bottom, near what is now Stockport, Ohio.  Unfortunately for them, Miami and Delaware/Lenape Natives also claimed the land and, in 1791, during the high of Little Turtle's War, this was a dangerous place to be.  Stacy learned of a planned attack on the Big Bottom settlement.  In the harsh winter, taking a horse to ride the thirty miles to give his sons warning wasn't an option.  Massachusetts isn't a mecca for figure skating and hockey for no reason, and the old man reached for some skates.  He skated 30 miles up the frozen Muskingum River to warn John and Philemon to be ready.  Unfortunately, on January 2, 1791, the settlement was attacked.  John was killed and Philemon taken captive and died later.

Having now lost two sons, William Stacy wasn't about to give up.  He oversaw the erection of a stockade to protect Marietta against Indian attacks, and was active in the Masons and the local Society of the Cincinnati.  He also served as foreman of the first Grand Jury of Washington County, Ohio.  He finally died in 1802, having lived a long an active life.  His worthy opponent, Joseph Brant, would follow in 1807. 

Friday, March 17, 2017

The Muscogee and the Creek Confederacy

Though we now think of Osceola as Seminole, he was at pains to tell both his good friend, Captain John Graham, and portraitist George Catlin, "I am pure-blood Muscogee.  No foreign blood runs in my veins."  Other Muscogee leaders who would have echoed such sentiments included Alexander McGillivray and William Weatherford.  The Muscogee were a powerful people, warriors and leaders, and a force to be reckoned with on the Southeastern frontier. 

The Muscogee were not a single tribe, but several bands of Natives linked together by a common language and common heritage.  They were descendants of the Mississippian mound builders and their society, highly structured and based on the town system, reflected that.  Like their closely related neighbors, the Chickasaw and Choctaw, the Muscogee were agricultural, their main crop being corn.  Their religious ceremonies centered in part around making sure that there was a plentiful corn harvest every year.  The Green Corn Dance held every spring performed several functions.  It was a ceremony of renewal and contrition for past misbehavior.  It ensured a plentiful corn crop, and it was also the time when young men came of age and received their adult names.  Or, men who had earned the right received war names and honorifics.  The ceremony was based around rituals involving the Black Drink, a sacred beverage made of the Yaupon Holly.  Chants or Yahola were associated with the drink, known as Asi.  We can guess were this is headed.  In or around 1822, a young man who proved exceptionally good at these chants would receive a name that still resonates today, Osceola or literally, Asi-Yahola, the Black Drink Singer. 

Muscogee bands spread from what is now Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia.  Because they were first encountered living near the Savannah River and/or other creeks and rivers, White settlers referred to this group of Natives as Creeks and the name stuck.  Like most Natives, disease and warfare with tribes and White settlers caused population decline and social upheaval.  Many of the Muscogean peoples banded together for mutual aid and defense.  This was the rise of the Creek Confederacy.  Some of the tribes associated with this Confederacy included the Alabama, Chiaha, Coosa, Cowetta, Coushatta, Hitchiti, Tuckabatchee, Yuchi and several others.  Their basic social unit was the town, with four towns being considered as Mother Towns, Abika, Coosa, Tuckabatchi and Cowetta.  They were further subdivided into the Lower Towns and Upper Towns.  These subdivisions would become important, with the Lower Towns generally being more agreeable to coexistence with Settlers.

Each village was headed by a micco, who had several advisors or assistants.  There were also medicine men and a leading warrior (tastanagi or Tastanagi thlucco) who could be both commander and town constable, keeping order at important ceremonies.  The family unit was the clan.  Clans controlled the property, policed the behavior of their members and determined who was eligible to marry whom.  Clans were matrilineal, with property and status determined through the mother.  Some clans were known for certain things.  Wind clan was known for its leaders.  McGillivray, Weatherford, William McIntosh and Josiah Francis came from this clan.  Bird clan became known for its warriors and lawgivers, Osceola is believed by both of his modern biographers to have hailed from Bird Clan. 

Initially, the Muscogee were loyal to the English, in response to raids and encroachment by the Spanish or by other tribes fleeing the Spanish and/or French.  The Muscogee developed a lucrative trade in deerskins, which many English and Scottish traders found quite lucrative.  The fathers of McGillivray, Weatherford, McIntosh and William "Billy" Powell were all traders.  Later, under McGillivray's guidance, the Lower Creek would become allied with the new United States government.  Creek warriors would fight alongside William Henry Harrison against the Shawnee of Tecumseh's Confederacy, and later with Andrew Jackson against fellow Creek in the Creek war.  While the Lower Towns viewed coexistence with the United States as the best path forward, their fellows in the Upper Towns, known as Red Sticks because of the colors of their battle clubs, weren't so convinced.  The Creek War of 1813-14 was a civil war amongst the Muscogee tribes that ballooned into part of the southern campaign of the War of 1812.

The Creek were under pressure by various Administrations to cede more land and leave for the west.  Though the National Council forbade individual chiefs from signing away rights to more land, William McIntosh defied that order in 1821 and again in 1825.  He would ultimately pay with his life for this betrayal.  Despite the efforts of Opothleyahola and other Creek leaders with the Treaty of Washington in 1826, they lost thousands of acres of land in Georgia and Alabama.  After the Indian Removal law was passed in 1830, pressure increased on the Creek to move.  Many fled to Florida to join the Seminoles, Hitchitis and Miccosukees.  Others were forcibly removed to Oklahoma in 1834.  Only remnants of Muscogean people still remain in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana, where some have gained state recognition as tribes.

Once in Oklahoma, the Creek people faced the immediately problem of finding enough food to stay alive.  Though they had been expert farmers for centuries, they weren't granted seed or farming implements, and forced to live off of reservations rations, which often were not provided.  The grandson of Ethan Allen, Maj. Ethan Allen Hitchcock, wrote several scathing reports on the conditions endured by Natives in Oklahoma.  During the Civil War, the Creek and Seminole were vulnerable to raids by Confederates, and pro-Confederate Cherokee, a traditional enemy.  In 1861, Opothleyahola would lead his warriors and their families on an epic journey from Oklahoma to Kansas known as the Trail of Blood on Ice.  It would be too much for elderly Opothleyahola, who died soon after the journey from both deprivation and disease.

Today, the Muscogee Creek Nation is the largest federal entity representing the rights of the Muscogee people.  There are other Muscogee tribes and tribal towns with federal and state recognition in Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama. 

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Stereotypes: Cigar Store Indians and Weathervanes

Two examples of cultural appropriation in folk art are found in the cigar store Indian and a similar motif in weather vanes.  At least some elements of the cigar store logo had a basis in fact.  Native American tribes in the Americas had long cultivate tobacco, and were the first to introduce it to Europeans.  Beginning in the Middle Ages, shopkeepers used fanciful logos to advertise their wares, since few of their patrons could read.  Painted glass globes represented apothecaries.  The barber pole advertised barbers, who also performed surgery and dental extractions.  Three golden balls indicated a pawn broker, who sometimes functioned as a banker or monetary exchange. 

Tobacconists likewise needed an emblem that signaled to the public.  As early the 17th century, when tobacco became popular and cheaply available in Europe, merchants settled on the image of Natives to sell their product.  Some of these carvings got quite fantastic, since most European artists had never seen a Native person.  Early forms of the cigar store Indian, known as Virginians and meant to mimic the dress of tribes there such as the Powhatan, looked more African, with regalia unknown to Natives and black skin with African features.  Throughout the 18th century, the depiction became more Native-looking.  Cigar store Indians continued in popularity through the 20th century, as evidence by the Hank Williams song of Kaw-Liga.  However, through the advocacy of Native groups, they have been relegated to antique stores and private collections, where the best specimens collect thousands of dollars.

Incidentally, the cigar store Indian isn't the only instance of a Native emblem in marketing tobacco.  Billy Caldwell, a mixed-race Potawatomi leader in the early 19th century had his own brand of cigarettes and chewing tobacco years after Caldwell died and would have been unable to collect any royalties for this use of his likeness.

Weathervanes have been decorative almost as long as there have been weathervanes.  Roosters are a common motif, because of the association with roosters and the sunrise.  They may also have some association with the rooster that crowed when Peter betrayed Jesus, which is why rooster vanes are most commonly associated with churches.  Native likenesses on weathervanes date to the 19th century and may have had several connotations, one being a stereotypical connection between Natives and the elements of nature. 

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Places: Hopewell Plantation

Some people stood at the center of history through luck, connections and their own inclinations.  One of these was Andrew Pickens.  Though he'd begun his career as an "Indian Fighter" opposing the Cherokee, he'd gained fame as a Revolutionary War hero at the Battle of Cowpens, 1781.  A prosperous man, he founded a plantation on the Seneca River in what is now Pickens County, South Carolina.  It was also a crossroads for the Cherokee, who were still very much present in what had been their traditional hunting ranges in the area.  As much as he'd once fought them, the two sides developed a mutual respect.  The Cherokee gave Pickens a name that mean Wise Owl, and he welcomed them and other Native Americans to his home.

Pickens was also a friend of United States Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins.  He also knew fellow Revolutionary War officer Joseph Plumb Martin, who'd served with him at Cowpens.  All these men were from the planter class, had served in the Continental army, and in the Continental Congress at one time or another.  They had also developed connections with the local Southeastern tribes.  They would be used by the Continental Congress and later the Washington Administration to negotiate several treaties with these tribes, including the Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw.  Because Pickens' home was centrally located, Hawkins felt free to use it as a meeting point to negotiate with Native leaders.  History happened several times under an oak tree on the property, which is now administered by Clemson University.

The First Treaty of Hopewell, between the Cherokee and the United States, defined the supposed western boundary of American expansion onto Cherokee land.  The Cherokees later referred to this and other treaties as Talking Leaves, knowing that once the Americans had no further use of it, this treaty would be thrown away like dead leaves that no longer spoke.  In fact, this treaty did nothing to stop settlers pouring into Tennessee, living on Cherokee land claimed by the State of Franklin, the successor to the Watauga Association. 

The Second Treaty of Hopewell involved the United States and members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes.  The Choctaws signed on January 3, 1786 and the Chickasaws on January 10, 1786.  Both treaties attempted to set boundaries to the encroachment of White settlement.  The United States agreed to evict trespassers.  The Natives agreed to return escaped slaves and any captives taken in Native raids.  These treaties, and their expressions of friendship and protection, would also be forgotten in due time.  Hopewell remained in the Pickens family and eventually became part of Clemson University, which oversees the property today.  The treaty oak is no longer in existence and a plaque marks the approximate location. 

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Natives versus Settlers: the Winnebago War of 1827

This conflict, though brief compared to other wars between Natives and Settlers, points out in stark detail how little each side understood the other.  The Winnebago, or Ho-Chunk, are a Siouan-speaking tribe who lived in what is now Wisconsin, Minnesota, and parts of Iowa and Illinois.  Particularly in Wisconsin, the area was a source of lead, which had become a lucrative trade item for the Ho-Chunk.  Following the War of 1812, settlers poured into the area, anxious to mine the lead for a profit.  Meanwhile, the United States pursued a policy of aggressively pursuing treaties with Native tribes, seeking more and more concessions of land.

In 1825, the United States signed a treaty with several tribes, including the Ho-Chunk, at Prairie de Chien, Wisconsin.  Despite the treaty, lead miners poured into the area, clashing with the Ho-Chunk, who tried to evict anyone trespassing on their land.  Matters came to a head in March, 1826, when a French-Canadian man with the last name of Methode, his Native wife and children were harvesting maple syrup on their land.  Two unknown Ho-Chunk attacked and killed the family.  U.S. authorities demanded that the two culprits be turned over for trial.  Two Ho-Chunk men were arrested and taken to Fort Crawford, but they soon escaped.  The local commander seized two others as hostages, again demanding that the tribe turn over the actual murderers.  In July, 1826, the Ho-Chunks turned over six men who weren't connected with the crime, but were intended to appease the Settlers and deflect responsibility from the tribe. 

Eventually, the Ho-Chunk turned over the men responsible for the murders and they were indicted.  The prisoners were then moved to Fort Snelling.  Before they could be tried, another conflict occurred between the Lakota and Ojibwe.  In May, 1827, a Lakota war party attacked the Ojibwes.  They complained to the Americans.  The commander of Fort Snelling turned four Lakota prisoners over to the Ojibwe for them to try and execute on their own.  The Dakota told the Ho-Chunk that it had in fact been the Ho-Chunk prisoners who had been turned over, but this was not true.  They were still alive at Fort Snelling.  The Ho-Chunk had also heard rumors that Native women had been abused by riverboat crewmen on the Mississippi, which may or may not have been true.  American authorities called for a treaty parley with the Ho-Chunk but they were fed up with the injustices and the continued trespassing of the lead miners and back out of the conference.

In June, 1827, three Ho-Chunk, Red Bird, Sun and Little Buffalo visited the home of another Frenchman named Gagnier.  He and his wife invited the Natives to a meal.  According to one version of the story, Red Bird shot and killed Gagnier, with one of the other men shot a hired hand and another shot Gagnier's wife, who wrestled the weapon away and escaped with one of her children.  A baby girl was also shot but managed to survive.  On June 30, 1827, a war party of Ho-Chunks with some Lakota attacked two keelboats on the Mississippi, killing seven Settlers.   The Ho-Chunks sought alliances with other Native tribes, such as the Dakota, Potawatomi, and other Winnebago bands, but these Natives backed away from the situation.

Panic ensued among the Settlers, who began raising militia as more troops poured into the area to reinforce Fort Snelling and other garrisons.  Finally, two Ho-Chunk leaders turned over Red Bird and Sun to American authorities at Fort Snelling.  Suspicion had early attached to Red Bird, because Whites perceived him to be a leader, with more authority over his people's actions than he possessed.  Four more Ho-Chunk men were turned in as being responsible for the murders.  By this time, American settlers were pouring into the area, seeking riches from lead mines.  The army was powerless to stop them. 

Red Bird was never tried.  He died of dysentery in February, 1828, still a prisoner at Fort Snelling.  Five other Ho-Chunk men were released due to lack of evidence to try them for the Methode killings.  Two others were tried for the Gagnier killings and found guilty of the murders, though most of the evidence presented pinned the primary responsibility on Red Bird, who was now dead.  Their attorneys appealed to President John Quincy Adams, who pardoned the two men, afraid that an execution would spark a general uprising in the area.  In July and August, 1829, the Ho-Chunks and several other nearby tribes signed treaties ceding thousands of acres of land, agreeing to move further west to avoid conflict with Settlers.  Forts in the surrounding area were garrisoned and United States policy moved away from co-existence with the Natives to one of outright removal.

Monday, March 13, 2017

People of the Rocky Part: the Penobscot

The Penobscot are an Algonquian-speaking people, part of the Wabanaki Confederacy that includes the Abenaki, Passamaquoddy, Mikmaq, and Maliseet.  Their ancestral range included areas in what is now New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, as well as Maine in the United States.  Thus, they are both a First Nations tribe and a federally recognized tribe in the United States. 

Prior to contact with Europeans, the Penobscot supported themselves by hunting, gathering, and some agriculture.  They were fortunate in having the ocean close at hand to supplement their diet.  Like other coastal peoples, they began a lucrative fur trade with the Europeans.  And, they had a commodity much in demand.  They produced a beer made of pine needles, which had a high quantity of Vitamin C.  Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, this beer was effective against the scurvy commonly experienced by ship's crews.  The Penobscot, like other Algonquian tribes, frequently sided with the French during Colonial wars in North America.  This brought them into frequent contact with the Iroquois tribes.  Diseases also caused their population to decrease.  Encroachment on tribal land also brought the Penobscot into conflict with Settlers.  By 1800, authorities in Maine had forced the Penobscot onto reservations which barely allowed them enough resources to provide for their needs. 

Today the Penobscot Nation is the federally recognized entity for this tribe in the United States.  They became known for their basketry, beadwork and birchbark canoes.  The Penobscot River is named for this tribe. 


Sunday, March 12, 2017

Great Leader: Samoset of the Abenaki

At many points during their history, American settlers owed their survival to the timely assistance of Natives who were more than willing to help.  On March 16, 1621, the Pilgrims in Plimouth Plantation, Massachusetts were in a dire situation.  They had not brought seed or farm implements with them in the Mayflower, and many of them were townspeople who wouldn't have had the faintest idea how to farm back in England, let alone in America.  As they set about building crude shelters and worrying about defense, a Native walked into the camp and greeted them, "hello, Englishmen."

By their own account, the shocked Pilgrims collected their scattered wits and prevented Samoset from entering into one of the cabins.  They were even more shocked at his extensive knowledge of English and Englishmen, even knowing the names of several fishing captains who frequented the Maine coast.  Had they known more about Samoset, they would've solved the mystery immediately.  The Abenaki, an Algonquian-speaking people, inhabited what is now Maine and portions of New Hampshire and Vermont.  The Wampanoag and Massachusett tribes were also Algonquian speakers, so it would've been easy for Samoset, a Sagamore or sub-chief of the Abenaki, to converse and communicate with Massassoit Ousamequin.  Samoset had been visiting the Great Sachem of the Wampanoag throughout the winter and his handy grasp of English would help both Settlers and Natives immensely.

The Gulf of Maine has always been a bountiful fishing area.  Soon after Jean Cabot's expedition in 1497, word had arrived back in England and Europe of the shoals of cod, herring and other fish just waiting for the taking.  Herring in particular could be salted down, preserved and used as bait fish or food.  Often, these fishermen had landed on the coast and had interacted with the Abenaki.  The Abenaki were experiencing White foodstuffs and trade goods for the first time.  They and other coastal peoples were also experiencing a few other things, like diseases and the fact that some unscrupulous captains weren't above snatching Native people to sell to passing Spanish slavers.  That had happened to a young Patuxet warrior named Squanto, who was sold into Spanish slavery and arrived home to discover that his tribe had been wiped out by disease.  Whenever Samoset approached the fishermen, he was taking life and liberty into his own hands.  But he was lucky.

Unlike Massassoit, no one knows for sure what Samoset's real name was.  Samoset may be a corruption of an Algonquian word.  Or, it may be a corruption of the English name Somerset.  Some of he Pilgrims would've been familiar with the city of Somerset back home and might have found it a convenient nickname.  Samoset stayed with them overnight and two days later, brought back other Natives offering deerskins in trade.  As it was Sunday, the Pilgrims refused any deals but that didn't put Samoset off.  He persuaded Massassoit, who had every reason to view these strangers as a threat, that they were harmless.  He introduced Squanto to the Pilgrims, and Squanto agreed to help them learn the Native ways of agriculture and hunting.  This was all free hospitality on the part of the Natives.  Squanto didn't have to help.  Samoset didn't have to talk Massassoit out of any hostile moves.  They all could have stood by and let the Pilgrims become the next Lost Colony.

Samoset appears in the record again when English sea captain Christopher Levett entertained him and other ranking Abenaki leaders to a feast aboard Levett's ship while docked near what is now Portland, Maine.  Rumors of Samoset's death reached the colonists around 1653, in what is now Bristol, Maine.  The Boy Scouts of America maintain a Samoset Council named after Samoset.  Some schools and a town in Florida of all places are named for him.