Programming Note: the Story Continues

If you've enjoyed reading Great Warriors Path, the story of contact between Native people and Europeans in North America from early exploration through the Indian Removals of the 1830's, then follow https://greatwarriorsII.blogspot.com for the story of the conflict of Natives with settlement of the American West from the 1820's Apache Wars in Texas through the Navajo and Ute Wars of the 1920's. 

Natives versus Settlers: the Dartmouth Raid, May 13, 1751

The Mi'kmaq and other Native tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy found an unlikely ally as English settlers moved into Nova Scotia, the Acadiens.  Nova Scotia had been part of New France since the landing of Samuel de Champlain in 1600.  Some of the earliest European settlements in North America were located there.  In time, portions of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and what is now Maine became a distinct district in New France known as Acadie or Acadia.  When the British took over Nova Scotia in 1710, they guaranteed the religious freedom of the local people.  What they did not guarantee or try to prevent was the influx of English settlers coming into the region.  These Settlers became increasingly hostile to the French-speaking, Catholic population, demanding that the mother country do something about them and about the local Mi'kmaq people. 

Following King George's War, 1744-1748, the English began building more fortifications in Nova Scotia and issuing harsher laws against the Catholic religion.  The Acadiens and the Mi'kmaq responded by a series of raids on British settlements, particularly Annapolis and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.  Fed up after a raid in 1749 on Dartmouth, commander Edward Cornwallis, brother of the Revolutionary War general, issued scalp bounties for every Mi'kmaq male killed in battle.  Unlike in the American Revolutionary War, where the Redcoats didn't offer scalp bounties, there were scalp bounties offered in this conflict.  Not to be outdone, French commanders offered bounties to their auxiliaries for any British scalps collected.  The fighting became more intense as Dartmouth and other towns in Nova Scotia were raided again and again.  The British were under the impression that they could simply fight the Natives off their land while cracking down on the Acadiens at the same time.  They would learn the error of their ways soon enough.

Several Mi'kmaq warriors joined themselves to a guerrilla force led by Joseph Brousard dit Beausoleil.  Beausoleil remains a hero to Acadiens and Cajuns alike for his resistance to the British during the windup to what Acadiens and Cajuns call the Great Upheaval, the Expulsions beginning in 1755 when Acadien families were forcibly removed from their land and sent to France, Haiti and eventually Louisiana.  Beausoleil had teamed up with a parish priest, Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre, to organize an armed resistance to the British.  Thus, the Mi'kmaq and the Acadiens formed an alliance, both fighting for territory that they each considered theirs.  On May 13, 1751, Broussard led sixty Acadiens and Mi'kmaq down the Shubenacadie River from Chignecto in an early morning raid on Dartmouth.  They burned 36 homes, killed 20, and captured several Settlers.  They also captured a sergeant and three soldiers, who were tortured and put to death. 

British soldiers gave chase but could not find the raiders.  All they found were scalped bodies, which they took to Halifax for burial.  The British retaliated by raiding the town of Chignecto, destroying Acadien foodstores, something that proved a hardship for both the Acadiens and the Mi'kmaq.  However, the raid did accomplish one thing.  Cornwallis pulled all Settlers out of Dartmouth.  They wouldn't return for another 30 years.  Acadien and Mi'kmaq raids continued through Father Le Loutre's War, 1749-1755, and the French and Indian War, 1755-1763.  The cession of New France by France to Britain later did induce the Mi'kmaq to sign treaties of peace, but they steadfastly refuse to cede any land.

Treaty: Lancaster, 1744

Early frontier history is a confusing mess of treaty after treaty with various tribes.  There were several reasons for this.  While surveying was a known science in that time, George Washington was a surveyor, the amount of land in question in any such treaty was often a vast and unknown quantity.  The way Natives reckoned the boundaries of their home ranges was often different than the way Whites did.  Further, settling the rights of one tribe by treaty often failed to dispose of the rights held by other tribes to that same stretch of land.  White ideas of ownership couldn't conceive of the idea that if the Iroquois Confederacy claimed land as its hunting range, the Shawnee, Cherokee and others often did the same.  Thus, treaties often had to be renegotiated and rewritten, with more confusion and, too often, more land ceded than what the tribes intended.

The Treaty of Lancaster of 1744 was one example.  The parties to the agreement were the colonial governments of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, and the Iroquois Confederacy/Haudenosaunee.  A treaty parley convened on June 25, 1744 in the county courthouse, and the treaty was drawn up and signed on July 4, 1744.  Ever since 1722, Virginia had agreed to recognize the Blue Ridge Mountains as the boundary of settlement.  However, successive governments had been unable to curb Settlers trespassing on Native land and the Iroquois, by 1744, were ready to go to war to protect their own.  The Governor of Virginia paid the Natives for the land occupied, which included the fertile Shenandoah Valley, but skirmishes continued.  Per the terms of the Treaty of Lancaster, the Iroquois believed they were giving up only the Shenandoah Valley east of the Allegheny Mountains.  The Virginians believed they were getting the entire Shenandoah Valley and land in the Ohio Valley southeast of the Ohio River.  And, again, settling with the Iroquois didn't dispose of any rights of the Shawnee, Cherokee or tribes who actually lived in this area. 

It would take several more treaties and years of continued frontier skirmishing to straighten out this mess.  The Treaty of Logstown in 1752, between the Iroquois Confederacy and Virginia granted Virginia rights to the entire Ohio Valley, but did not include the Cherokee, Shawnee and others.  The Treaty of Easton set the boundary as the Allegheny Mountains, as did the Proclamation of 1763.  That only lasted as long as the first Settlers who found their way over the mountains anyway.  In the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1768, the Iroquois gave up all claims to land between the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers.  No Shawnee or Cherokee leaders were consulted or informed.  It would take Lord Dunmore's War of 1774 and the Treaty of Camp Charlotte before the Shawnee ceded their claims to this same area.  It took two treaties, also signed in 1768, to settle the Cherokee claims.  No wonder the frontier was always on the fight.

Myths and Misconceptions: Long Knife, Big Knife and Sharp Knife

According to popular frontier and western legend, repeated time out of mind, the Natives called Settlers Long Knives or Big Knives because of either a) the large utility knives carried by such Settlers, or b) the bayonets used by soldiers fighting Indians.  While this might be true in certain instances, or with particular people or incidents, there was a founding origin for the term Long Knife when used to refer to a White man. 

Francis Howard, 5th Baron Howard of Effingham, came from an old and storied branch of the noble Howard family in England.  One of his ancestors was a captain in the Spanish Armada in 1588.  In 1683, he was appointed Governor of Virginia by Charles II in 1683 and certainly felt himself entitled to all the deference and perks of his position and family name.  Though appointed in Virginia, he hoped at some point to be transferred to become Governor of New York and often spent time in that colony.  Twice during his tenure as Governor of Virginia he conducted negotiations with the Iroquois Confederacy.  Relations with the England and the Iroquois were, at this point during the Beaver Wars, touchy at best and the Iroquois had broken their Covenant Chain agreements with the English due to encroaching settlement on their hunting range.  Howard promised and paid them money for the land taken.  Impressed with this particular Englishman, the Natives took his last name as a play on the Dutch word for cutlass, a hower.  They called Howard Asserogoa, which meant long knife or big knife.  Howard was never able to get on the good side of his own colonists in Virginia and was recalled in 1693.

Natives bestowed nicknames on people they either respected, or they hated.  The name Asseragoa came to be accepted as a title for the Governor of Virginia, whoever he happened to be.  In turn, the English version, Long Knife or Big Knife was used by the Iroquois and tribes in the Ohio Valley to refer to men from Virginia, especially frontiersmen from Virginia.  George Rogers Clark took pride in the name, referring to his men as Long Knives even after they had settled in Indiana.  In time, the name came to designate any American soldier or frontiersman in arms against the Natives and became common usage on the frontier and even in the west.  The term Long Knife or Big Knife is often confused with the not-so-nice nickname the Creeks gave to Andrew Jackson.  He was Sharp Knife, because of his punitive military strikes on the Creeks during the Creek War and the hard bargains he drew in treaties. 

Opposition: Marie-Madeleine Jerret de Vercheres, 1678-1747

Native war parties faced opposition from a wide variety of leaders, most of them male, but none would have expected to be stood off by a 14-year-old girl with a mind of her own.  Madeleine de Vergeres', 1678-1747, story has been told, retold, embellished and dissected over the years but the essentials remained the same.  During the Beaver Wars of the 18th century, she, her siblings and a few others stood off an attack from an Iroquois war party for the better part of a day. 

Francois Jerret de Vercheres was a Seigneur, or large landowner, in New France, what is now Quebec.  He had come from France seeking adventure on the frontier and amassed large landholdings.  He eventually married Marie Perrot, herself only 12 years old at the time, and the couple had twelve children.  Marie-Madeleine was fourth in birth order.  The family had built a fortified settlement, much like the blockhouses and stockades on the American frontier and had a great deal of experience fending off local Iroquois tribesmen.  In 1690, Marie Perrot de Vercheres commanded the defense of her family's home against the Iroquois.  Which tribe this was isn't stated.  Her eldest son, Francois-Michel had been killed by Natives, as had two successive husbands of her elder daughter, Marie-Jeanne.

In late October, 1692, Francois and Marie left their remaining children at home while they went into town to purchase supplies.  Madeleine was the eldest.  Soon after the parents left, other Settlers at the fort went outside the walls to tend the fields, guarded by 8 soldiers.  Madeleine was in a cabbage patch near the fort's gate.  The Iroquois attacked, quickly subduing the adults in the fields beyond the fort.  Madeleine made a run for the fort's gate.  A warrior caught hold of her scarf or neckerchief and it tore away in his hand, giving her time to sprint to safety and close the gates.  As she reached the fort, she began calling out, aux armes, to arms!, to warn any soldiers remaining to combat the danger.  Madeleine encouraged the panicked people inside the fort to fire muskets and make noise, trying to convince the Natives outside that there were more soldiers on hand then there really were.  She also ordered a cannon fired to warn nearby forts and possibly summon help.

The Iroquois were momentarily tricked by the ruse, knowing they'd lost the element of surprise but unaware that their adversary was a teenager with several smaller brothers and sisters, a few other women, and at best one or two men on hand to defend the fort.  She noticed a canoe on the nearby river with a family inside, unaware of their danger.  Overruling the soldiers left at the fort, Madeleine had the gate opened long enough for this family to come inside.  As night fell, it was time to let the cattle into the fort.  Madeleine was aware that the Natives might use this opportunity to sneak or force their way into the fort.  With her brothers on the lookout for any Native wrapped in a freshly killed hide, she let the cattle inside. 

Little did she know but help was on the way.  A small body of soldiers from Montreal arrived, to be greeted by a young girl who greeted them in grand style, "Monsieur, I surrender my arms to you." As romantic as it sounded, the lieutenant in command understood that it was the physical weapons on hand she was surrendering, not herself.  No romantic beginnings here.  Her surprised parents returned and learned of Madeleine's Home Alone adventure.  In 1700, her father died and it was Madeleine, not her brothers or her mother, who received his pension and control of his land claims or seigneury, on condition that she provide for her mother, which she did.  In 1706, she married Thomas de Lanougiere, the son of a French family of noble birth who had also acquired a great deal of land in New France.  Real estate legalities occupied much of her time, and Thomas trusted her enough that Madeleine sailed to France twice to represent both of them trying to iron out her ownership of Vercheres and his to various portions of land in her inheritance.  She died at age 69, with her husband following 10 years later.

A statue of Madeleine stands near where her family's stockade stood, at Vercheres Point near Montreal.  She was designated a Person of National Significance by Canada in 1923.  By that time her story had been told and retold.  Madeleine wrote two accounts of her story.  Others added to what she wrote.  Though the details have been rehashed and embellished over time, the basic facts remained the same. 

Great Leader: Jean-Baptiste Cope of the Mi'kmaq, 1698-1760

Native leaders caught between competing Colonial powers faced a delicate balancing act if they wanted to maintain their people's livelihoods and way of life.  Often, the only path forward was to stay on the side of the dominant power.  Jean-Baptiste Cope, a Sackamaw or Chief of the Mi'kmaq of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, 1698-1760, was one of those leaders who had to insure his people's survival.

Little is known of Cope's early life except that his last name, Anglicized as Cope, came from the Mi'kmaq word Kopit, for beaver, either a Native name or a clan affiliation.  How he became a Sackamaw is not known.  During his early years, he was closely allied with the French, earning the military designation of Major, which was the highest title the French would give to a Native auxiliary.  He also converted to Catholicism, which accounts for the name, Jean-Baptiste.  During Father Rale's War, 1722-1725, he allied with the resident French Acadian people in their efforts to resist English occupation.  He would do the same in Father Le Loutre's War, 1749-1755.  The issues in this war became more than just which Colonial power, England or France, got the lion's share of territory.  For local inhabitants, it was a matter of Protestant versus Catholic and Settler versus Native.

At first, English commanders took a hard line, seeking to punish the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and other tribes who had actively supported the French/Acadian cause.  Finally learning the error of this policy, the English relented and became more conciliatory, broaching the idea of peace with local Native leaders.  Cope helped negotiate a treaty of peace with the British in 1752.  However, relations quickly soured when the Natives realize that what the British really wanted were land concessions.  The Mi'kmaq and other tribes quickly returned to fighting alongside Acadien leader Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil,  a folk hero to Acadiens and Cajuns alike.  Eventually, Beausoleil was captured and the resistance faltered, just in time for the Seven Years War, 1755-1762.

British officials offered scalp bounties for any male Native killed in battle.  The one man they were most desirous to catch was Jean-Baptiste Cope, whom they felt had betrayed them.  Cope led his warriors on several skirmishes, not so much supporting the French as trying to keep intruders away from Mi'kmaq land.  During a skirmish at Aspinquid's Chapel, where the British and Mi'kmaq met to negotiate a treaty, a skirmish broke out instead during which Cope was killed.  Other Native leaders then signed a treaty of peace with the British, but again refusing to concede any land. 

Places: Fort Beausejour/Cumberland, New Brunswick

To Americans, the Revolutionary War was about winning independence from Great Britain.  For the colonial powers, Britain and France, it was a decades-old grudge match over land in North America.  During these frequently colonial wars, both France and Great Britain had been willing to use/exploit Native warriors as auxiliaries to do the often dangerous work of scouting and skirmishing, but also psychological warfare.  Just the thought, let alone the reality of an Indian attack on the frontier struck terror into the adherents of either side.  George Washington, who'd fought for the British as a young militia colonel, hoped to sow discord behind enemy lines by use of the Native tribes in Canada.

Large portions of the Maritime Provinces, what is now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as well as Quebec and parts of Maine, had been the area of Acadia under French rule.  In 1751, the French began construction of a fort on the Isthmus of Chignecto, a strip of land connecting Nova Scotia with New Brunswick.  As was often the case in the windup to the French and Indian War, military planners sought to place forts near connecting bodies of water both to stop any enemy advance and to better control the fur trade with local natives.  The outpost, known as Fort Beausejour, was begun in 1751.  But the French didn't have possession of it for all that long.  It was besieged in the Battle of Fort Cumberland in 1755 and the French promptly surrendered it.  The British renamed it after the then Duke of Cumberland (not Victoria's grinchy uncle, but her great-uncle, a son of George II).  The British lost no time expelling the local French-speaking inhabitants, known as the Acadians/Cajuns, and trying to conciliate the local Native tribes. 

One of these tribes was the Maliseet, who participated in 1761 in a burying of the hatchet ceremony in Annapolis along with other tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy.  As far as the British wanted to believe, the Natives were compliant allies of the Crown.  However, Natives in Canada had the same problems as Natives on the American frontier, incessant demands for land concessions, trespassing on tribal hunting range, lack of quality trade goods for their furs.  While most of the Wabanaki Confederacy leaders were willing to pass on the idea of open resistance to the Crown, there were individuals who were willing to fight.  And, they had allies.  The Acadian Expulsion had left farmland that was filled by New England families known as the New England Planters.  Though most of them were Loyalists, some were affiliated enough with their New England roots that they, too, might rise. 

Washington appointed as his Indian Agent for New England a Scotsman named John Allan.  Allan was born in Edinburgh, grew up in Nova Scotia, and was educated in Massachusetts.  As a child and young man, he took a keen interest in the Natives around him, learning some local dialects as well as French.  Being a prosperous merchant before the war, he had contacts in both Canada and the United States.  When war broke out in America, Allan became a vocal Patriot and found himself charged with treason.  He fled Nova Scotia for Maine and was soon in the employ of Washington as an Indian Agent for Nova Scotia and Maine.  In 1775, he succeeded in persuading individual Mi'kmaq and Maliseet warriors to participate in an abortive raid on Fort Cumberland.  The British repulsed several attacks of these kind on Fort Cumberland during the War.

Allan then turned his attention to the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet, signing a treaty with some individuals, who may or may not have had authority to speak for their tribes, to rise on behalf of the Patriots.  He would go on to other attempts to rouse the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet for the Patriot cause but the majority chose to stay neutral.  Washington soon realized that igniting a rebellion behind British lines in Canada wasn't a profitable endeavor and turned his attention elsewhere.  Fort Cumberland remained in British hands until it was abandoned shortly after the War of 1812.  It's a historic site today. 

 

Did It Happen: Burying the Hatchet

Today the phrase, bury the hatchet, means to settle a dispute in such a way that it stays settled, permanently.  Did Native tribes really bury hatchet to signify the end of long-running disputes, or is this yet another stereotype? 

The most famous example of burying the hatchet was during the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy.  Under the guidance of the Great Peacemaker, leaders of the five tribes buried war axes under a large white pine tree, symbolizing the resolve of the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida and Onondaga to live together in perpetual peace.  This ceremony seemed to act as a precedent for other Eastern Woodlands people to bury war axes to end disputes, both amongst Natives, and between Natives and Settlers.  For example, Samuel Sewell, who gained fame years later as a judge of the Salem Witch Trials, wrote of a dispute between the Mohawk and Settlers in New York which was settled when a Sachem buried two axes, one representing the Mohawk and the other representing the Settlers.

The 1795 Treaty of Hopewell in South Carolina, between the Cherokee and Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins witnessed by Col. Andrew Pickens actually contains the phrase, bury the hatchet.  On June 25, 1761, the British and Mi'kmaq ended 75 years of conflict by a ceremonial burying of war axes that is commemorated today in Nova Scotia as the Burying the Hatchet Ceremony.  Also during the Seven Years War, the Shawnee let the French know of their intent to switch allegiances and make peace with the British by stating that they would, bury the bloody hatchet, with the British. 

People of the Red Earth: the Mi'kmaq

The Mi'kmaq are an Algonquian-speaking people historically part of the Wabanaki Confederacy and closely allied with such tribes as the Abenaki, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot.  Their traditional range is throughout the Maritime Provinces of Canada including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Labrador, Newfoundland and Quebec as well as portions of Maine in the United States.  Sources differ as to the exact meaning and origin of the term, Mi'kmaq.  Like most human beings, the Mi'kmaq refer to themselves as the people.  The word Mi'kmaq may mean people of the red earth, or it may be a reference to an ancestral medicine man who taught the people his knowledge.

Like many coastal tribes, the Mi'kmaq relied not only on hunting, and were noted experts in hunting moose, a dangerous animal.  They also relied on coastal fishing.  The hostile climate and terrain of their hunting range didn't allow for much in the way of agricultural production, so hunting and gathering were necessary to their survival.  The Mi'kmaq were among the earliest Native peoples contacted by Europeans, including John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, and many other French, Spanish, Basque and English fishermen.  These frequently made landfall to dry the herring that they took home to Europe.  While on land, they had opportunities to trade with the Mi'kmaq and from time to time document aspects of their customs.  As with other Eastern tribes, the Mi'kmaq also became valuable partners in the fur trade.

The traditional Mi'kmaq homeland was divided into seven districts, each ruled by a chief in consultation with a council made up of band chiefs and other leaders.  A Grand Council, made up of district leaders assisted by elders, wampum readers and others with specialized knowledge cared for matters affecting the tribe as a whole.  The district chiefs rotated the title of Grand Chief.  The people lived in peaked spruce shelters known as wigwams.  While most continued to follow traditional practices, many Mi'kmaq converted to Catholicism in the 1600's.  The Mi'kmaq and the four other tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy began to coalesce about the time of King Phillip's War, 1675, no doubt seeing the wisdom of mutual aid and protection in dealing with Settlers.  The Mi'kmaq remained staunchly pro-French during the various colonial wars in North American, even after the French lost control of Nova Scotia in 1713.  The Mi'kmaq steadfastly refused to concede any land to the British.  During the Expulsion of the Acadians in 1758-60, the Mi'kmaqs sided with the Acadians in resisting the British.

During this time, the Mi'kmaq were willing to sign treaties of peace and friendship with Great Britain, but not to cede any land.  The Mi'kmaq were at first tolerant of English settlers in the home range, but became less so after immigrants from New England, known as Planters, and later Loyalists after the Revolution began flocking into their territory.  Because of British incursion on their territory, Mi'kmaq warriors were willing to assist the Americans and some even served as auxiliaries to the Continental Army.  After the Revolution, as more Settlers arrived on traditional Mi'kmaq range, called Mi'kmaqi by the Natives, they were pressured to send their children to school and assimilate to White ways of life.   The Mi'kmaq may have been the inventors of ice hockey, being credited with the first ice hockey sticks in what became Canada's national sport.  Sticks made by Mi'kmaq craftsmen became the standard in the sport.  Mi'kmaq have served honorably in the Canadian armed forces during both World Wars.

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Double Feature: Maintonomoh and Canonchet of the Narrangansett

These two Narragansett Sachems, father and son, both came tragic ends because of conflicts which weren't the fault of their own nation, but through the actions of others.  Maintonomoh, 1600-1643, was the son of Narragansett Sachem Canonicus, likely an English corruption of his real name.  Maintonomoh shared with his father in leading the Narragansett and later succeeded as Sachem in 1636.  Though the Narragansett were on friendly terms with Colonists in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, Maintonomoh himself was distrusted by the Settlers as somehow being treacherous.

At risk to his own personal liberty and safety, Maintonomoh traveled to Boston to convince Colonial authorities that his intentions were peaceful.  During the Pequot War of 1636-1638, he allowed the Settlers to march their army through his territory in a punitive strike on the Pequot, who were decimated as tribe due to the conflict.  In 1638, he was a signatory of a treaty with the English and Mohegan leaders to divide up Pequot land and captives.  Conflict developed between all three parties as to control of the former Pequot land.  Fed up, Maintonomoh approached other tribes to form a confederacy against the English.  Instead, in 1643, an outright war developed between the Mohegan and the Narragansett.  Maintonomoh led 1,000 warriors against the Mohegan in battle, but was capture by Uncas of the Mohegan.  When Maintonomoh broached to Uncas the idea of uniting against the English, Uncas turned Maintonomoh over to Colonial authorities at Hartford, Connecticut. 

Maintonomoh was tried in Boston for rebellion against Colonial authority.  His defense was that he had marched against the Mohegan on the orders of the Settlers, which was true.  He was found guilty and returned to the Mohegan for punishment.  They returned him to Norwich, where he was ritually clubbed to death with a tomahawk by Uncas' brother, Wewagua.  His daughter Minnetinka, was taken in by a Dutch family.  His son, Canonchet, succeeded Maintonomoh as Sachem of the Narragansett.  The place of his execution in Norwich is now a state park.  Four U.S. Navy ships have born his name.  Streets in Middletown, Rhode Island, bear his name and that of his father, Canonicus. 

Maintnomoh's son was able to restore some peace between the Narragansett and the Colonists.  The Narragansett tried to stay out of King Phillip's War, 1675, but did take some Wampanoag refugees, including members of Phillip's extended family, into their village near South Kingston, Rhode Island.  This led to an attack by the Colonists in the Great Swamp Fight in December, 1675.  The following year, 1676, he was captured by the Colonists and offered his life in exchange for a peace treaty with the English.  Canonchet refused and was instead sentenced to death.  Informed of his fate, he replied, "I like it well.  I shall die before my heart is soft, and before I speak any words unworthy of myself." 

Settlers versus Natives: the Great Swamp Fight, 1675

This decisive battle between militia of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Connecticut colonies against members of the Narragansett tribe during King Phillip's War of 1675 had a cruel irony.  The Narrangansetts had not taken up arms against the colonists.  They were not members of the Wampanoag Confederacy.  They had given shelter to Wampanoag refugees including some members of King Phillip's/Metacomet's, family, but that was enough to turn the wrath of the English on them, too.

Ousamequin/Massassoit, the Great Sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy, had been a loyal friend to the English settlers of both Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay for years following the landing at Plymouth in 1620.  Following his death in 1661, relations between the two sides quickly soured.  Colonists' demands for more land and more foodstuffs from the Natives angered Alexander, Massassoit's son, who was arrested and taken to Plymouth in 1662.  He died, possibly of poisoning, before returning home.  His brother, Metacomet took his place as Sachem and the hard feelings continued.  The Settlers accused the Natives of stealing English cattle, demanded compensation, more land and more yearly foodstuffs.  Fed up, Phillip rose against the English in 1675.  Eight soldiers were killed by the Wampanoag in an ambush near Bristol, Rhode Island.  Raids quickly followed on other Massachusetts towns. 

In December, 1675, Josiah Winslow, Governor of Plymouth Colony, led a combined force of 1,000 militia from Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Rhode Island and Connecticut, accompanied by 150 Mohegan warriors under Uncas, to what is now South Kingston, Rhode Island.  This was a large, palisaded Narrangansett village to which many of King Philip's warriors and some of his extended family had fled during the winter.  The Narrangansetts weren't part of the Wampanoag Confederacy and hadn't risen against the English.   The expedition was in the nature of a preemptive strike, as the English believed the Narragansett would join Phillip come spring, and as a means of locating those Wampanoag who had fled to Rhode Island. 

The Narrangansett were aware that English forces were in the area and, on December 15, 1675, led a strike of their own on a nearby English force at Bull's Garrison and killed 15 English soldiers.  On December 19, 1675, early in the morning, the English attacked the main Narragansett town.  Winter had frozen the swamps, making approach to the large palisade possible.  The English force of over 1,000 quickly overran the Narragansett defenses, setting the palisade and houses on fire.  The tribes winter stores were also burnt.  97 warriors and anywhere from 300 to 1,000 Native non-combatants were killed.  The English lost 70 killed and 150 wounded.  While the English wounded were tended in nearby Rhode Island settlements, Narragansett families fled into the winter cold with no food or shelter.  Hundreds more perished, although some managed to reach Wampanoag territory.  Neutral at first, they were willing to take their chances with Phillip's uprising now.  In 1676, both the Narragansett Sachem, Canonchet, and his entire family were executed.  Phillip was also killed and his wife and son sent to the Caribbean as slaves.  Colonial retribution for this uprising decimated the Wampanoag and the Narragansett, who wouldn't be able to mount any further resistance to Colonial takeover of their land.

A marker was placed at the presumed site of the battle in 1906, with descendants of the Settlers and the Natives taking part in the dedication.  When the monument was unveiled, a sudden rainstorm began, which must have been seen as an omen by those taking part.  In 1930, a Wampanoag/Narragansett scholar, Princess Red Wing, began a yearly commemoration of the battle, which includes a reenactment of the fight. 

Great Leader: Menominee of the Potawatomi

Native leaders tried a number of tactics to hold on to whatever land remained for their people.  Menominee of the Potawatomi, c 1791-1841, resisted removal from Twin Lakes, in what is now Marshall County, Indiana, first stalling for time by signing a series of treaties, then refusing to move until he was forced off his land in the 1838 Trail of Death.

Menominee was born somewhere in what is now Wisconsin or Illinois.  How he achieved leadership status among the Potawatomi is not clear now.  However, beginning 1818 and through the 1830's, he was signatory to several treaties ceding most of what is now Illinois and Indiana to the American government.  These treaties included the Treaty of St. Mary's, 1818, the Treaty of Mississinwas, 1828, and the Treaty of Tippecanoe, 1832, as well as another treaty in 1834.  These treaties confined the Potawatomi to a reservation at Twin Lakes, near present-day Plymouth, Indiana.  There, Menominee and other Native leaders hoped to be allowed to stay.  He developed a reputation as a spiritual leader, fusing Native religious beliefs with Roman Catholicism.  Faced with pressure to remove his people to Kansas, he and other leaders put off the inevitable time and again, often by claiming that the elderly and children were unable to travel, or that the requests came too late in the year, putting the march during winter and leaving the Natives without ability to hunt or harvest crops. 

For awhile, these stalling tactics worked.  Menominee refused to sign the Treaty of Yellow River in 1836, plainly telling American representatives that he knew he and his people were being deceived about the amount of land they were being forced to sign over.  However, in 1838, the government ordered Menominee and his people to prepare for removal.  Menominee and other leaders were arrested and kept in custody pending the trek to Kansas.  859 Potawatomi men, women and children marched over 660 miles from Indiana to Kansas.  The journey was in late fall, from September-November, 1838.  42 people, 28 of them young children, died along the way.  At first, Menominee and the other leaders were forced to ride in a wagon behind the rest of the column, being treated as hostages or captives.  As conditions worsened, a Catholic priest riding with the group begged the soldiers to allow the men to hunt and for the leaders to take their place on horseback at the head of the column.  Food supplies and moral improved among the people, and the death rate slowed down. 

Menominee survived the march to Kansas, but died of illness in 1841.  He was buried at St. Mary's Mission, Kansas,  The state of Indiana erected a statue to his memory on the site of his village at Twin Lakes.  The Chief Menominee Memorial Site was listed on the National Register of Historical Places in 2010. 

Explorer: Jean-Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, 1680-1767

Americans are generally oriented toward English exploration of North America.  Men such as Sir Walter Raleigh and John Smith planted the earliest colonies.  The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.  William Penn founded Pennsylvania, and so on.  The Spanish get a mention in southwestern history but other groups such as the French, Swedish and Dutch get a merely a mention, if that.  However, it was the French who explored vast regions of what is now the interior of North America, including the Mississippi watershed and the Gulf Coast.  It was French explorers who had the earliest contact with Native tribes from these areas and described people which, in some cases, no longer have a tribal entity.

One of those early explorers was Jean-Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville.  Exploring and colonizing was something of a family business for the le Moynes.  His older brother, Pierre le Moyne d'Iberville, was an explorer, too.  The family hailed from Longueil, in Dieppe, France.  Both boys were born in what is now Montreal, New France, now Canada.  In 1699, Bienville joined d'Iberville on an expedition which charted the much of the Gulf Coast around Mobile, Alabama, including the networks of coastal islands off Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.  He established Fort Louis de la Mobile in what later became Mobile, Alabama.  He would also found Fort Rosalie in what is now Natchez, Mississippi.  And, while governor of Louisiana, he would found the city of New Orleans. 

During his term as governor beginning in 1733, Bienville inherited rising tensions with the Chickasaw.  The Chickasaw were fed up with White encroachment on their land and high-handed treatment on the part of French colonial officials and missionaries who disapproved of their Native customs and ways of life.  In 1736 and 1739, he attempted to lead two expeditions against the Chickasaw which, apartment from skirmishes, led to stalemates.  Finally, in 1739, after his last expedition failed to get beyond the planning stage, Bienville negotiated a treaty with the Chickasaw, resigned as governor and headed to Paris and a new assignment.  He would return to the Gulf Coast when hurricanes devastated the region in 1740, but returned to France and remained there.  He died in Paris in 1767. 

Controversy: Quashquame of the Sauk, c 1764- c 1832

Europeans and American often compared Native leaders to kings, believing they had supreme power over their people.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Native leaders had to consistently prove their right to lead by their actions and example.  When they failed, they could find themselves demoted in status and authority.

Quashquame, whose name means Jumping Fish in Sauk was a leader of a band of Sauk and Fox/Meskwaki people, with villages near present-day Nauvoo, Illinois, Montrose, Iowa, and Cooper, Missouri.  He was consistently described by White observers as one of the principal leaders of the Sauk tribe.  In 1804, he led a delegation of Sauk and Fox leaders that signed the Treaty of St. Louis of 1804, ceding land in Illinois and Wisconsin.  Anger soon broke out amongst the Sauk people, who argued that the leaders did not have the tribe's authority to agree to any land concessions.  According to Black Hawk, dictated in his 1833 autobiography, Quashquame and the other leaders had been sent to St. Louis to discuss reparations for a Native who had been accused of murdering a Settler and was being held in jail awaiting trial.  Further, the land agreed in the treaty was vastly more than what Quashquame and the others were informed that it was.  Blame fell on Quashquame, as Black Hawk stated, "I will leave it to the people of the United States to say whether we were properly represented in that treaty."

During the War of 1812, Quashquame was sent several times to assure American leaders that the Sauk intended to remain neutral and not side with the British.  However, he apparently did not speak for all of his people, as some Sauk, including Black Hawk, did fight with the British during that war.  Quashquame was not in the field, but left to protect the women, children and other non-combatants.  Throughout the 1820's, he continued to be a signatory to various treaties mostly confirming boundaries between the Sauk and neighboring tribes.  In 1829, a visitor to Quashquame's village near Montrose, Iowa confirmed that Quashquame was a skilled wood carver, having carved a panorama of a steamboat into a piece of bark.  Atwater also described Quashquame's home and village life.  It was he who indicated that Quashquame's role in the 1804 treaty had not met with the approval of his people, causing him to be demoted from a principal chief to a village headman.  Black Hawk later confirmed the anger toward Quashquame for having signed away so much land in the 1804 treaty.

Treaty: St. Louis I-XIV, 1804-1824

St. Louis has always been at the center of history.  Situated on the west bank of the Missippi River which forms the boundary between Missouri and Illinois, it was a hub of the Mississippian culture before becoming a key outpost in the French fur-trading network.  It would later become a gateway to the west, most immigrants beginning their journey in St. Louis from wherever they had come back east or overseas.  As a trading center, St. Louis was the focal point for many Native tribes.  Between 1804-1825, over 14 treaties with various tribes would be signed either in or around St. Louis.  Most of them were agreed by either William Henry Harrison or William Clark. 

Four of those treaties, chosen because they're within the scope of this blog, are as follows:

The Treaty of St. Louis, 1804, negotiated by William Henry Harrison with the Sak and Meskwaki tribes, represented by Queshquame of the Sak.  In exchange for a yearly allotment of trade goods valued at $1,000 in currency at that time, the Sauk and Meskwaki agreed to give up most of Illinois and western Wisconsin.  Resentment at this treaty would flair repeatedly for the next several years, culminating in the Black Hawk War of 1832.

After achieving fame for his role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition, William Clark, younger half-brother of George Rogers Clark, became Governor of Missouri Territory and Indian Agent.  He negotiated other treaties where Harrison had left off.  Among them:

The Treaty of St. Louis, 1816, in which members of the Ottawa, Ojibwe and Potawatomi, who ceded the rights to land in Illinois and Wisconsin.

The Treaty of St. Louis, 1818, with the Osage ceded all territory between the Arkansas and Verdigris River.

The Treaty of St. Louis, 1825, the Shawnee ceded the area of Cape Girardeau, in Missouri.

Native Life: Ceremonial Pipes, Peace Pipes and Calumets

One of the more enduring images of the frontier is a peace parley marked by the exchange of a "peace pipe" to mark the agreement of a treaty.  A pipe ceremony occurred at almost all parleys and most treaty signings.  However, this was not the only use of pipes by Native Americans.  Nor were all pipes peace pipes, or all peace pipes known as a calumet.

Tobacco was a lucrative trading item, both among Native tribes and between Natives and Settlers.  While Settlers smoked tobacco for pleasure, Natives used it for medicinal and ceremonial purposes.  Thus, the pipes used to smoke tobacco could be sacred items used only for ceremony.  Smoking tobacco was a means of offering prayer.  Ceremonial pipes could be used whenever councils met, important decisions were made, tribes exchanged visits of diplomacy with other tribes or with Europeans, and of course when agreements were reached.  Beautifully decorated ceremonial pipes were often presented as gifts or commemoratives of agreement.  They could also serve as safe conduct passages through a tribe's territory.  Jacques Marquette, a 17th century Jesuit missionary, was presented with such a pipe by the Illini people. 

Various Native cultures have different terms for ceremonial pipes, depending on the type of pipe and its use.  The term calumet is derived from French words meaning a reed or straw.  The word was first used by French settlers in Canada to describe pipes made from reeds.  Later pipes, often elaborately decorated, became part of Native conversion ceremonies to Catholicism, particularly among the Huron or Mikmaq, and were also known as calumets.  It was only these religious pipes that were originally called by this name.  Over time, people have come to refer to any Native ceremonial pipe as a peace pipe, or even as a calumet, notwithstanding its use or purpose.

Interestingly, the bowls of some pipes are mad with red pipestone, known as Catlinite.  Portraitist George Catlin traveled among the Sioux people in Minnesota, claiming to be the first to have seen their quarries of this stone.  In fact, both French explorers and Lewis and Clark also were aware of the quarries.  However, this red pipestone was later named Catlinite, in his honor.  There are other types of colored pipestones, alabasters and clays used to make beautiful pipe bowls.

 

Places: Fort Michilimackinac, Michigan

We complete one full year of Great Warrior's Path with a look at a historic French and British fort which takes the prize for the most complicated place name on the frontier.  Pronounced Mish-ilee-mac-inaw, this fort was built to guard the Straits of Mackinac, i.e., Mak-inaw, on the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula what is now Michigan.  The Straits connected Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, two of the Great Lakes.  The present-day town of Mackinaw City is built around the site of the fort, which has been partially reconstructed with out-buildings and a palisade. 

There were several reasons for building a fort in such a location.  Narrow passageways of water were always a vulnerable place where colonial powers wanted to protect their turf.  However, the fort's primary purpose was a trading post and supply base for fur traders in the 18th century.  A chain of forts connected France's possessions from the Atlantic Coast and St. Lawrence River through to the Mississippi River and into Illinois.  Beginning in 1671, Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette established St. Ignace mission near present-day St. Ignace on the Upper Peninsula.  In 1683, the French established Fort de Buade to protect the mission and patrol the Straits.  The then-Governor of New France, Sieur de Cadillac closed the mission and the fort and moved both back to Detroit.  However, in 1713, the French began building Fort Michilimackinac on the Lower Peninsula and maintained a garrison there, which was a difficult task given the remote area.

In 1761, the French surrendered Michilimackinac to the advancing British during the Seven Years War.  Local tribes much preferred the French as trading partners, resenting the restrictions the British placed on key trade goods such as firearms, munitions and alcohol.  In 1763, in the windup to Pontiac's rebellion, a band of Ojibwe staged a game of baagawadowe, their version of what became lacrosse.  Once they gained entrance to the fort, the Ojibwe ambushed the defenders, killing most of the British inhabitants and sparing only metis and local French-speaking residence.  The Ojibwe held he fort for a year before the British retook the fort.  The British learned that they would have to be more generous with trade goods if they hoped to win the respect of the Native population.  By 1781, British authorities decided to build a limestone fort on nearby Mackinac Island.  Portions of Michilimackinac were dismantled and sent to the island.  What was left behind was eventually destroyed.

The site of the fort was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.  It is part of Colonial Michilimackinac State Park.  Costumed interpreters hold reenactments and educate visitors on life in an 18th century fort and it has been extensively excavated by archaeologists. 

The Midewiwin Scrolls

White men looked down on Native societies for many reasons, one allegation being that they lacked any way of keeping track of their own history, as any civilized society would do.  Natives were, in fact, astute and accurate historians with several different methods of keeping track of events in their tribal history.  In addition to oral tradition, some tribes had other methods of recording important events.  Wampum was one method.  Markings on birch bark, pottery, hides or other surfaces was another.

The Midewiwin Society was a religious society found in some Eastern Woodlands tribes.  They were tasked with keeping the sacred, medicinal and historical knowledge of their people.  Tribes with these Societies, sometimes called Grand Medicine Societies including the Abenaki, Wampanoag, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Fox, Sac and Winnebago, among others.  There were male and female practitioners and their knowledge was passed along on scrolls made from birch bark.  Other materials that could easily be made into flat surfaces might also be used, including hides, copper plates, pottery and the like.  These scrolls would be inscribed and used in ceremonies, then hidden away for safekeeping.  The information they contained could be added to as needed.  One scroll located by archaeologists dated to the 1560's. 

Natives versus Settlers: the Long Cane Massacre, February 1, 1760

The Anglo-Cherokee War, 1759-1761 was the result of misunderstood motives on both sides of the conflict.  The Cherokee expected that British authorities would respect their hunting range and keep settlers out.  The British were concerned that the Cherokee might switch allegiance to the French.  There was a concurrent war going on, the Seven Years/French and Indian War, 1756-1763. 

There were mutual attacks on both sides.  The British sent punitive raids deep into Cherokee territory, burning several villages.  Cherokee forces captured Fort Loudoun after several leaders taken hostage had been killed.  In this tense environment, Settlers in outlying areas decided to flee their farmsteads until hostilities calmed down.  Around 150 settlers had established a settlement near Long Cane Creek, in what is now McCormick County, South Carolina.  They determined to head to Fort Moore, near Augusta, Georgia to await a more peaceful time.  On July 1, 1760, about 150 men, women and children in 150 wagons struggled to cross the boggy creek bed.  Wagons got stuck and the going was slow.  There, they were ambushed by a force of Cherokee Indians.  Casualties were 23 Settlers killed and about 21 Cherokee killed.  The Settlers were armed and able to fight back.  However, some captives were taken, including Ann Calhoun, a relative of future Senator and Vice President John C. Calhoun.  A tombstone marks the spot near Troy, South Carolina where the incident happened.

Opposition: Andrew Pickens, the Wizard Owl

The Mel Gibson movie, The Patriot, features Col. Benjamin Martin, a veteran Indian Fighter who rallies his militia to fight Redcoats in the South Carolina backcountry during the American Revolution.  Some portions of Martin's character backstory echo that of a real life militia leader, Brig. Gen. Andrew Pickens, 1739-1817.  Pickens would later earn the grudging respect of his Cherokee opponents, who gave him the name Wizard Owl.  Wizard, not in the sense of a magician, but someone with an uncanny knack for knowing their tactics as well as they did.  Owls being a mixed-message harbinger of death or of change.  I.e., a powerful warrior not to be trifled with.

Pickens was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, of Scots-Irish and French Huguenot ancestry.  The family drifted to the Shenandoah Valley, and later to the Waxhaws, a frontier area on the border between North and South Carolina.  Eventually, Pickens moved to Abbeville County, South Carolina and married Rebekah Calhoun.  They had 12 children together.  Later, the couple moved to the Seneca River and established Hopewell Plantation, the venue for several councils and treaty parleys with the Cherokee and other tribes.  Hopewell wasn't far from a Cherokee town known as Isunigi.

Pickens got his start as an Indian Fighter in the Anglo-Cherokee War, 1759-1761, where he became known as a Fighting Elder because of his skills on a battlefield and his fatalistic Presbyterian faith.  During the American Revolution, he became a captain of militia.  He would face the Cherokee in 1779 in the Battle of Long Cane.  Loyalists in the area were attempting to recruit the Natives to the British cause and Pickens intended to discourage the practice.  In February, 1779, Pickens' 300 man force overtook a much larger British-Loyalist force at the Battle of Kettle Creek.  Loyalist activity in the area slowed down.  In 1780, when the British successfully besieged Charleston, Pickens surrendered his command at Ninety-Six, giving his parole to remain out of fighting.  Tory marauders attacked Hopewell and Pickens considered his leave of absence over, returning to the fighting. 

Along with Charles Sumter, who had also gotten his start during the Anglo-Cherokee War, and Francis Marion, another Indian Fighter, Pickens became a formidable foe, taking part in the Battle of Cowpens, January, 1780.  At that Battle, he asked his militia to give just three volleys before breaking to let the more seasoned Continentals encounter the main British force, something Martin does in the movie.  Pickens also participated in the Siege of Ninety-Six, Siege of Augusta, and Battle of Eutaw Springs.  He also led a campaign against the Cherokee, his victories forcing land concessions between the Savannah and Chattahoochee Rivers.  His prowess in battle earned him the name, Skyagunsta, the Wizard Owl.  He emerged from the war a Brigadier General of Militia.

Later, he would serve in the South Carolina House of Representatives and represent the state at the Constitutional Convention.  He also served as a United States Congressman.  He was a good friend and close associate of Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins, who chose to use Hopewell as a meeting place for Native parleys because of its convenient location and because of Pickens' respect among the local Cherokee.  Counties in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina are named for him.  Hopewell still stands on the campus of Clemson, University. 

  

Keepers of the Fire: the Onondaga

One of the original Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Onondaga people called themselves the People of the Hill Place.  They were referred to by the other Iroquois Nations as being the Keepers of the Fire.  Their role in the Iroquois Constitution is central to the maintaining of the Great Law of Peace.  It is the Onondaga who maintain the meeting place for the Iroquois Council, including the central fire, and is an Onondaga Sachem, Todadaho, who presides over the meetings and serves as spokesman for the Council.  Their traditional homeland is in what is now New York State.

The Iroquois Confederacy was formed around 1140 AD from a series of five Iroquoian-speaking tribes who had been at constant warfare with one another.  The Great peacemaker, through his emissary Hiawatha, approached the Onondaga to propose a new path of unity and peace.  Their leader, Todadaho, accepted the Great Peacemaker's teachings.  After the Seneca had also joined the Confederacy, a solar eclipse signaled the blessing of the spirit world on their agreement.  Europeans encountered the Onondaga during Champlain's expedition in 1613 and a detailed drawing from the era describes his attack on one of their villages.  The village shows the typical palisade with longhouse structures common to Iroquoian culture.  Like the other tribes, the Onondaga practiced agriculture as well as hunting and gathering.  During the Beaver Wars, the Onondaga joined the other Iroquois nations as allies of the British and suffered severe French reprisals.  During the American Revolution, the Onondaga as a nation attempted to remain neutral.  An attack on their main village of Onondaga in 1779, during the Sullivan-Clinton expedition, forced them onto the side of the British to defend themselves.

Following the war, bands on Onondaga followed the other Iroquois tribes to Canada and settled on the Grand River.  However, some Onondaga leaders signed the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States, being allowed to retain portions of their ancestral land.  They are both federally recognized and a First Nation of Canada.   

Orator: Canasatego of the Onondaga, c 1684-1750

Native leaders who cooperated with colonial authorities walked a difficult and dangerous line.  Forced or induced to make steep land concessions, and embroiled in conflicts with other colonial powers and other tribes, the conflicts of loyalties became impossible and tragedy followed.  Onondaga leader Canasatego, c 1684-1750,  was yet another casualty of early colonial conflict and land hunger.

Little is known of Canasatego's early life.  Sources differ on whether he ranked as a Sachem or was a leader who rose through the ranks with his skill in oratory and diplomacy.  He enters the historical record in the 1730's, through the auspices of Conrad Weiser.  Weiser worked with Canasatego, Shkellamy and other Native leaders to make concessions of land in Pennsylvania.  The problem was that the Iroquois didn't live on this land, or even use it as a hunting range.  It belonged to the Delaware/Lenape.  Despite this, in 1736, the Penn family brokered an agreement with the Iroquois to cede the land.  Later, in 1737, the Delaware would be forced again to make land concessions as a result of the Walking Purchase.  Then, William Penn's sons had an even more ruthless idea.  Use the Iroquois to force the Delaware from their land.  At a meeting between Pennsylvania authorities, the Delaware and the Iroquois, Canasatego ordered the Delawares to vacate the land.  Sources differ on what he actually said, but he may have called the Delaware warriors women to their faces.  Angered and humiliated, resentment between the tribes simmered.

In 1744, Canasatego served as one of the speakers for the Iroquois delegation at a parley that lead to the Treaty of Lancaster.  An observer for the colony of Maryland noted that Canasatego was about 60 years old, tall, with a muscular chest and brawny limbs.  He had an engaging personality, with a ready smile and lively speech, the necessary qualities for any diplomat.  Present at the conference were members of all the Iroquois tribes except the Mohawk, as well as representatives for Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania.  Canasatego was able to persuade the colonial leaders to agree to a much larger purchase price for the land.  However, the final treaty gave Virginia the Shenandoah Valley and several thousand acres more than the Native leaders had bargained.  Canasatego gave the colonial leaders some advice:

We have one thing further to say, and that is We heartily recommend Union and a Good Agreement between you our Brethren. Never disagree, but preserve a strict Friendship for one another, and thereby you as well as we will become the Stronger.  Our wise Forefathers established Union and Amity between the Five Nations; this has made us formidable, this has given us great weight and Authority with our Neighboring Nations. We are a powerful confederacy, and, by your observing the same Methods our wise Forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh Strength and Power; therefore, whatever befalls you, never fall out with one another. (Wikipedia).

Benjamin Franklin was a member of the Pennsylvania delegation and later printed these words in his newspaper.  Sources differ on just how much the Iroquois Confederacy influenced the future United States government, but these words must have given Franklin food for thought, since he saw fit to reprint them for posterity.  Canasatego again pressed the idea of colonial unity in 1745.  His last appearance was a treaty conference in 1749, where again, the Natives were forced to cede far more land than what they originally bargained for.  Soon after, in 1750, Canasatego was poisoned.  Colonial authorities blamed French agents for poisoning the Onondaga leader, who was perceived as being pro-British and anti-French.  He was also rumored to have accepted bribes for the various land concessions he had made over the years.  Probably, he was killed by pro-French Iroquois who wanted to repudiate the various land deals Canasatego had helped negotiate during his lifetime.

He Holds up the Heavens: Conrad Weiser

Interpreting and translating is difficult work, easy to get wrong.  Concepts and ideas, idioms and figures of speech often do not translate from one language to another.  Add to this the fact that Native cultural ideas about leadership and land ownership rights couldn't have been more different and the challenge becomes even harder.  With good reason, Native tribes trusted few White men as interpreters, well aware that most served the agenda of the White agencies and governments who hired them.  One man who did earn their trust was Conrad Weiser, 1696-1760, a German religious refugee from Pennsylvania who was a master at both interpreting and mediating between various Native tribes and Pennsylvania colonial authorities.

Conrad was born in Affstatt, in what is now Wurttemberg, Germany.  This area was part of Germany's Palatinate region, an area of principalities along the River Rhine, facing France.  It was a war-torn area, as the kingdoms of Germany were frequently at war with France over religion, succession and land rights.  The Weiser family were a deeply religious Protestant family, subject to persecution from French invaders and local governments in Germany.  The Palatinate region was ruled by the Catholic Wittelsbach family, who also ruled Bavaria.  Conrad's mother died when he was about twelve or thirteen and his father decided that the family should flee their homeland forever.  They first settled in England, where several thousand refugees from war and persecution in the Palatinate had gone.  There were so many of them that the English government had to set up refugee camps outside London.  With the help of friendly Mohawk leaders, Queen Anne's government arranged for these refugees to settle along the Mohawk River in New York.  However, each family had to pay for their passage as indentured servants, living in refugee camps until they could find land of their own.

In 1710, Conrad's family arrived in America.  His father knew that a refugee camp was no place to raise a young man.  The elder Weiser had made contact with Mohawk leaders near Schoharie, New York and arranged for his son to live among the Mohawk.  Thus, rather than being captured, Conrad's family placed him with the Natives, where he learned their language and culture and grew to respect it.  Conrad later returned to White society in 1713.  By 1720, he had married Anna Feck, and the two settled on a farm near what is now Reading, Pennsylvania.   In 1731, Weiser was out hunting and ran into Oneida chief Shkellamy.  Shkellamy had been sent by the Oneida as an emissary to other tribes and to the British.  Weiser and Shkellamy soon became friends and Weiser agreed to travel to Philadelphia to assist Shkellamy in presenting his people's needs to colonial authorities in Philadelphia.  As an adopted Mohawk, Weiser was respected by the Native people and soon grew to be trusted by White authorities, as well.  In 1736, Pennsylvania finalized a purchase from the Iroquois of land drained by the Delaware River around Blue Mountain.  By treating with the Iroquois, the Pennsylvanians angered and alienate the local Delaware/Lenape, who actually lived on and hunted this land.  Combined with the Walking Purchase and other treaties, the Delaware felt cheated by Pennsylvania and this led to tension between Whites and Delaware as well as the Iroquois and the Lenape/Delaware.

Weiser understood this and was used several times by both the Pennsylvania and Virginia governments in conducting councils with the Iroquois.  His ability to endure the hardships of frontier travel between the Iroquois capital of Onondaga, Philadelphia and Williamsburg earned him further esteem among the Natives.  His Mohawk name was Tarachiawagon, He Holds Up the Heavens.  Another trusted friend of Weiser's was Benjamin Franklin, who had also observed Native culture and respected their democratic methods of governing and solving problems.  Weiser would be the interpreter at the Treaty of Lancaster of 1744, of which Franklin was an observer.  In addition to councils with the Iroquois tribes, Weiser also worked with the Shawnee and Delaware, trying to alleviate the tensions between them and Pennsylvania.  In 1756, the Pennsylvania legislature appointed Weiser and Franklin to oversee construction of a series of forts in the backcountry to protect the colony in the even of a French attack.  Weiser also interpreted for the council that lead to the Treaty of Easton of 1758.  As a Protestant refugee who'd been given an opportunity in British-controlled America, Weiser was careful to persuade his Native contacts of the need to ally with Britain over France.

In addition to his service as an interpreter and running his own farm, Weiser became a convinced Seventh Day Baptist and spent several years at a commune run by a German preacher named Conrad Beissel.  He supplemented his income as a tanner and was the Chief Judge of Berks County from 1752-1760.  He also was a lay preacher and Sunday school teacher.  He died and was buried on his farm in 1760.  An Iroquois leader was said to have remarked that, "we are at a great loss and sit in darkness.  Since his death we cannot so well understand one another."  After Weiser's death, relations between Pennsylvania and the various tribes deteriorated rapidly into war.  The Conrad Weiser Homestead in Womelsdorf, Pennyslvania is run by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission as a museum and interpretive center.

Treaty of Easton, 1758

Colonial wars began in European theatres and spread to North America with little thought of the consequences to those most directly involved, the Native tribes who actually lived here.  Ever since the 17th century, tribes had developed intricate trading networks with either France or England, the two dominant powers.  Each tribe had their reasons for preferring one or the other.  The Iroquois were almost unanimous in their support of the English, while other tribes, such as the Delaware/Lenape and the Shawnee, at times preferred the French.  Fortunately, some colonial officials, such as Sir William Johnson, saw the need to get as many tribes as possible on the side of the British and worked feverishly to that end throughout the Seven Years War, 1758-1763.

The Delaware/Lenape at this time were especially aggrieved.  The Walking Purchase treaty of 1737 had defrauded them of most of their range in Pennsylvania.  Now they were being asked to give up any claims to hunting lands in New Jersey.  In October, 1758, representatives of 13 tribes including the Iroquois, the Delaware/Lenape and the Shawnee met in Easton, Pennsylvania to work out an agreement.  Conrad Weiser, a colorful character on the Pennsylvania frontier, served as the interpreter and official representative of Johnson's Indian Department.  Colonial representatives from Pennsylvania were also present.  The tribes all agreed not to support the French in return for guarantees of the right to settle in the Ohio Valley.  The British undertook to bar settlement beyond the Allegheny Mountains.  The various tribes reiterated their cession of land in Pennsylvania and the Delaware in particular were paid 1,000 Spanish reals for the New Jersey land.  The Governor of Pennsylvania, William Denny, took the opportunity to reiterate Pennsylvania's peaceful relationship with the Delaware.

So, how did this all work out in reality?  Although the British did issue the Proclamation of 1763, forbidding American settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains, Settlers ignored it and the British found it next to impossible to police.  Settlers poured into Pennsylvania and then into the Ohio Valley, Kentucky and Tennessee, disrupting the hunting ranges of all these tribes.  Many tribal leaders soon found that the English weren't the trading partners the French had been, curtailing sales of weapons, ammunition and liquor while demanding higher quotas of pelts.  King Phillip's War of 1764 was the result of all of the above.  The settlement boundaries would be pushed back by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 and the frontier remained as volatile as ever it had been.

Great Leader: Main Poc of the Potawatomi (Yellow River/Kankakee)

Part of Tecumseh's talent was to gather around him other able Native leaders into a cohesive unit loyal to him and his movement.  One such was Main Poc of the Yellow River/Kankakee Potawatomi.  His Native name was Wenebeset, or Crafty One.  He had no fingers or thumb on his left hand.  Whether this was a birth defect or an injury is uncertain.  However, he was known to Whites by the French words for Crippled Hand.  A formidable shaman and leader, he was also an effective warrior.  His disability did not diminish his capacities one bit.

Little is known of Main Poc's life until 1793, when American officials in St. Louis began urging local tribes to raid the Osage, who were allies of the Spanish.  Main Poc, who otherwise opposed American incursions on U.S. territory, took up the offer, making several daring raids deep into Osage and Spanish territory.  He continued these raids for several years, keeping Spanish officials in territories neighboring the U.S. in a constant state of apprehension.  Thus, though he was opposed to American settlement, the United States found him and his warriors useful allies for the time being. 

With the Louisiana Purchase and tensions easing with Spain, Main Poc turned his energies elsewhere, still adamantly opposed to any terms with Americans that including ceding of tribal land.  In 1809 he spent the winter with the Shawnee at Fort Wayne, becoming exposed to Tenskwatawa's teachings.  He then went on a delegation to Washington and met with Thomas Jefferson before returning home to his own territory.  While the Americans believed that he might be a useful ally against the growing power of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, as he had been against the Osages, Main Poc was becoming more inclined to the Prophet's message rejecting Americans and their ways of life.  He returned to Prophetstown in 1810, originally intending to lead raids against Fort Dearborn, now modern-day Chicago.  Events intervened and he resumed his raids on the Osage, as well as on American settlements. 

Main Poc was in Canada in 1811, during the Battle of Tippecanoe, but in its aftermath, he continued to recruit Potawatomi and warriors from other tribes to fight against the Americans.  As the War of 1812 broke out, Main Poc was occupied in fighting around Fort Detroit, while other Potawatomi leaders attacked Fort Dearborn in August, 1812.  Main Poc was part of the Native contingent at the Battle of Maguaga on August 9, 1812, which happened just days before the Fort Dearborn attack.  While Tecumseh led most of his Native force in support of the British into Canada and the disaster at the Battle of the Thames in 1813, Main Poc remained in the Detroit area, intending to harass Harrison's supply columns.  General Duncan McArthur extended a truce to the local tribes and pressured Harrison to allow Main Poc to sign on, if he so wished.  Main Poc finally signed a treaty with the Americans to cease fighting, but adamantly refused any concessions for land. 

The Americans called for another treaty parley at Greenville in 1814.  Main Poc refused to attend.  He was at Fort Mackinac when the British commander there received word of the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812.  Inviting again to treaty parleys in in 1815 and 1816, Main Poc refused to attend and refused any agreements.  He died in 1816.

Comedy of Errors: the Battle of Maguaga, August 9, 1812

Battles can be grand games of tactics and strategy, or they can be a case of fumble, bumble and stumble, with tragic consequences to the men involved.  This battle, fought near present-day Monguagon, Michigan, was one of the opening skirmishes of the War of 1812, and it did no credit to either side. 

European regiments had an almost impossible time adapting to methods on the North American frontier.  Fancy uniforms and parade ground discipline made no difference in the wilderness.  American militia, who wore their own clothing and were used to hunting and shooting in the terrain, were often poorly disciplined.  Native auxiliaries were meant to bridge this gap, combining skirmishing, scouting and surveillance with natural camouflage and survival skills.  At least, in theory.  However, even the best auxiliaries were often only as good as the men who commanded them and here, where able Native leaders such as Roundhead of the Wyandot, Tecumseh of the Shawnee and Main Poc of the Potawatomi were all present, their British chain of command let them down.

Nor were the Americans fairing better in terms of leaders.  General William Hull had planned to use Fort Detroit as a base for an invasion of Canada.  However, hearing that the British had retaken Mackinac Island, he decided not to attack across the Detroit River on Fort Malden, now Amherstburg, but to drop back to safer American territory, leaving a small garrison at Detroit.  Two supply columns set out from Detroit to resupply Hull.  One was defeated at the Battle of Brownstown.  A second, larger column was sent to escort that supply train back to Detroit and ran into a detachment of the British 41, with Native auxiliaries.  The Americans had 280 Regulars and 330 militia.  The British had 70 Regulars, 70 Native auxiliaries and 60 militia. 

Things went downhill almost immediately for the British, standing out against the terrain in their scarlet uniforms.  American sharpshooters quickly went to work.  Potatwatomi auxiliaries under Main Poc tried to reinforce the British but the British, panicking, though these were more Americans who had come up on their flank.  They opened fire on their own auxiliaries, who had to fire back to spare their own lives.  The two sides traded fire for several minutes until they figured out their mistake.  Meanwhile, the British commander thought he saw weakness on the American front and ordered his men to attack.  His militia misunderstood the drumbeat and trumpet calls signals and instead withdrew.  This was a golden opportunity for the Americans and their commander ordered an advance.  The British had meanwhile regrouped to make a stand, at which point the Americans simply vacated the field without pressing a clear advantage.  Americans, 18 killed, 64 wounded, 2 captured.  British, 16 killed, 2 missing and 8 wounded. 

The American commander, James Miller, was clearly shaken by his first experience of combat.  His men had thrown their knapsacks away prior to the battle, and as they left the field, didn't stop to pick them up.  Ill and disoriented, Miller refused to go back for the supplies.  Hull, fed up, ordered Miller back to Detroit.  Luckily for him, he would redeem himself later in the War, ending up a Brigadier General, but he narrowly escaped a court-martial and charges of insubordination and cowardice. 

The Real People: the Lenape/Delaware

This historic tribe boasted such leaders as Buckongahelas, Tamanend, White Eyes and Lapowinsa.  Their name, Lenape, comes from Algonquian words meaning the real people.  They were an Algonquian-speaking people who used two primary languages, Umani and Munsee.  Their range, known as Lenapehoking, spread through portions of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Delaware, hence the name.  Delaware place names were common in this area, particularly New York, where designations such as Tappan and Raritan were thought to be individual tribes, but were really bands of Lenape people.  Like other Algonquian nations, the Lenape were a loose grouping of several different bands, rather than one large tribe, or several different tribes, as some early commentators believed.  As usual among Eastern Woodlands Natives, their society was matrilineal, with women controlling the property and resources of their families, and able to appoint or remove leaders whom they believed were not meeting the people's needs.  They were hunter-gatherers as well as agricultural, depending on maize, beans and squash.

Europeans first encountered the Lenape in 1524, when explorer Giovanni De Verrezzano entered lower New York Bay.  Later, the Lenape had a complicated relationship with the Dutch, who were both trading partners in the 17th century period of the Beaver Wars, and sometimes enemies when local colonial officials, such as Willem Klieft, ineptly handled relations with local bands and tribes.  It was the inability of the Dutch to strike a consistent, harmonious relationship with the Lenape and other tribes that eventually doomed their colonial efforts in New York.  Prior to contact, the Lenape were considered the founders or more senior of other coastal Algonquian-speaking tribes, were called the grandfathers and treated with respect in inter-tribal diplomacy.  The Beaver Wars resulted in significant population reduction, bringing them under the domination of the Susquehannock, who in turn were tributaries to the Iroquois Confederacy. 

The Lenape were also noted for their close association with William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania.  While there may have been an agreement between the Lenape, represented by Tamanend and other leaders, to allow Penn and his followers to settle on their land, sources differ as to whether there was a signed agreement in 1682 under the Treaty Elm of Shackamaxon, since no trace of a document appears to exist.  The Walking Purchase fiasco of the 1730's, where the Lenape were forced to cede thousands of acres through potentially forged documents by Penn's heirs put pressure on them to relocated into the Ohio Valley.  During the French and Indian War (1755-1763), some Lenape sided with the British, while other bands believed the best way was to be neutral in the conflict.  The Moravian missionaries found many Lenape receptive to Christianity.  This, unfortunately, proved to be their undoing when the mission station at Gnadenhutten was raided in 1781 by Pennsylvania militia retaliating for attacks on frontier settlements.  One hundred men, women and children were killed. 

The Lenape were fortunate in the leadership of men like Buckongahelas, who ranked along with Dragging Canoe of the Cherokee, Blue Jacket of the Shawnee, and Little Turtle of the Miami as leaders and able military tacticians, respected by their British and American enemies for their ability to protect their people through skill in battle.  White Eyes, the first elected Principal Chief of the Delaware, attempted diplomacy with the Americans, hoping for a Native buffer state in Ohio.  The Treaty of Fort Pitt of 1778 was supposed to accomplish this, but that treaty never saw the light of day and White Eyes was assassinated before he could present his people's case directly to the Continental Congress.  During the American Revolution, some Lenape joined the Iroquois, Wyandot and other Ohio tribes on the side of the British, while others favored the Americans.  Several Lenape served in a Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army, hence the name Stockbridge.  At the end of the War, many Munsee-speaking Lenape chose to go to Canada, where some also found refuge on the Grand River with the Iroquois.  Others went to New York, before eventually being pressured to move to Wisconsin.  Finally, in 1860, most of the American Lenape had no choice but to remove to Oklahoma and make the best of life there.  However, groups do remain in New Jersey, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and even in Texas. 

Today, three federally recognized tribes, the Delaware Nation of Andarko, Oklahoma, the Delaware Tribe of Indians of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and the Munsee-Stockbridge Community of Bowler, Wisconsin, are in the United States.  Canada also has First Nations communities of Delaware, the Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian on the Thames, and at Grand River of the Six Nations.