Scouts: the Black Seminoles, 1870-1914

Prior to the Civil War, members of the Five Southeastern Tribes, had owned black slaves.  Slaves, both from other tribes and from White masters, found a ready escape in Florida with the Seminoles.  While some Seminoles did own black slaves, for the most part they welcomed blacks to live among them and intermarry with Natives.  Mixed race Seminole leaders, such as John Horse, were trusted colleagues of Seminole leaders such as Osceola and Coacoochee, fighting for what they considered their homeland, too.  John Horse eventually agreed to lead his people to Oklahoma, under a promise that they would not be returned to slavery.  However, once in Oklahoma, White slave catchers began taking blacks and mixed race Natives back into slavery.  John Hors led his people from Oklahoma and down into Mexico to escape enslavement.  Many became scouts for the Mexican Army.

Following the Civil War, the U.S. government turned its attention to Texas, where tribes such as the Kiowa, Comanche and Kickapoo were fighting White encroachment on their homelands.  The trackless plains with their dust and heat were some of the most unforgiving country in North America.  In order to track bands of raiding warriors, the Army would have to turn to other Natives who, by now, had plenty of experience in the area doing just that for the Mexicans.  In 1870, the government invited John Horse and his people to return to the United States.  On July 4, 1870, 200 warriors with their families crossed the Rio Grande.  The men were mustered into the Army, while their families often settled near Army posts.

Because most of these people were either black or mixed race, they were often dispatched to work with the 9th and 10th Black Cavalry, the Buffalo Soldiers.  Like the cavalry, they were mounted and became proficient scouts and soldiers.  Four Seminole Scouts would receive citations for the Congressional Medal of Honor in skirmishes with the Comanche, Kickapoo and other Plains tribes, but it's unclear whether they actually received the medals to go with the citations.  In 1914, with the war in Europe claiming the government's attention, the Seminole Scouts were disbanded and they and their families forced to go to Indian Territory.  Most of them did.  However, some of their descendants still live in Texas and Mexico.

Friday Reprise: Chainbreaker of the Seneca

The Wolf Clan of the Seneca produced many notable leaders.  We've already looked at Red Jacket.  His maternal nephews were Cornplanter and Handsome Lake, whom we've already discussed.  Their maternal nephew was a war chief known variously as Blacksnake, Governor Blacksnake or Chainbreaker.  His native name or chiefship title is given as Tah-Wo-Ne-Ahs or Thaonawayuthe.

The first mystery in his life is his birth year, which is given from 1727 to 1760, depending mostly on estimates of his age at his death.  His tombstone gives the year 1737, but also claims in error that he served in the Continental Army.  That would have put him at over 120 years old when he died in 1859, which would be implausible without documentation.  He was documented as having served with the British during the Seven Years War (1755-1763), so a birthdate in the 1740's is plausible, making him at least 110 when he died, though he might have been older.  Most likely, he was born near Seneca Lake.  Using the Iroquois matrilineal kinship system, a maternal uncle, such as Cornplanter, would have provided his warrior training and sponsored his rise in Seneca society.  That his mentor was most likely Cornplanter is born out by the fact that he accompanied Cornplanter on a mission to George Washington during the Revolution and also to appear before the Continental Congress.  In 1788, he moved to his uncle's land when his own village was taken in the Phelps and Gorham Land purchase, which more in a later post. 

At some point around 1803, Cornplanter and Blacksnake had a falling out.  Blacksnake agreed to much of Handsome Lake's ideas, especially temperance and personal morality.  But he disliked the idea that Natives should not participate in White men's wars, seeing that the was often the only way for a tribe to gain advantage in preserving their lands.  After Handsome Lake's death, he adapted the Code which modified his views on war somewhat to encourage compromise.  He permitted missionaries to work on lands under his control and encouraged his people to attend school and work toward social harmony among themselves and with neighboring Whites. 

But he was a warrior and later attained the rank of war chief among the Seneca.  In 1777, he took part in the Siege of Fort Stanwix and the Battle of Oriskany. In 1778, he participated in the Battle of Wyoming (nothing to do with the present stat of that name), under Loyalist Major John Butler.  In 1779, he tried to defend Seneca villages from raids by Col. Daniel Brodhead during Sullivan's Expedition, which we've already discussed.  He also carried messages for the British.  After the War, he became reconciled to its outcome and focused on protecting Seneca land.  During the War of 1812, despite advancing age, he participate in the Battle of Fort George.  Throughout

this crucial time in his people's history, he was everywhere and witness to most of the events taking place, including several surveys of Seneca land by Settlers seeking to purchase, or convince the government to take control over, land that belonged to his people.  Blacksnake's testimony in a court case was crucial to saving the lands that became part of the Oil Spring Reservation, as he had in his possession maps which outlined the agreed-upon boundaries, thwarting attempts by land speculators to help themselves to more Seneca land.

As he grew older, his power waned, but he was still a respected elder among his people.  He died on the Allegheny Reservation in Cattaraugus County, New York, remembered as a man of rare intellectual and moral power.  He was buried in Hillside Haven Cemetery.   

Treaty: Fort Stanwix I, July, 1768

We've dealt with this treaty in connection with others that set the boundaries and provided for land concessions from various tribes on the frontier.  Today, we'll deal with the first Treaty of Fort Stanwix, signed at Fort Stanwix near what is now Rome, New York.  Specifically, we'll look at the backstory of the treaty.

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix put a formal end to two conflicts between Natives, specifically the Iroquois, and Colonial governments (read, Sir William Johnson, the Penn family of Pennsylvania), and representative of four colonies, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia.  In frontier America, land speculation was big business.  Though the Royal Proclamation of 1763 had forbidden White settlement beyond the Appalachian mountains, many prominent colonial Americans had already staked out claims to what is now Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky.  Further, being an Indian agent was lucrative business. Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent for Indian Affairs, Northern Department had long used his connections to the Iroquois (read Joseph and Molly Brant), to acquire title to thousands of acres of Iroquois land in New York.  The Iroquois believed that, by rights of conquest during the 17th century Beaver Wars, they had control over hunting rights in the Ohio Valley.  Johnson wasn't the only one with his eye on this lucrative land.  The Penn family in Pennsylvania also hoped to capitalize on Ohio real estate.

The Seven Years War had ended in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris, in which France ceded possession of all its North American territory to Britain, without any specific mention of Native rights to any lands whatsoever.  Several Native tribes who had supported the French rose in what became known as Pontiac's War, 1763-1766.  One of their concerns was the increasing number of Settlers on Native hunting range beyond the Appalachian Mountains, which the British were supposed to police but didn't have the resources or the intention to.  There was only one solution to this problem, one which benefitted wealthy investors in America but created only further war on the frontier.  Johnson, as Indian Agent, called a counsel at Fort Stanwix.  Whether by accident or design, he chose to invite only the Iroquois Confederacy to the counsel.  The Cherokee, Ottawa, Lenape, Cherokee and other tribes who used the Ohio Valley as hunting range were not invited or consulted. 

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix pushed the Royal Proclamation line back into the Ohio Valley.  Instead of the line being the watersheds of the Appalachians, it now ran from near modern-day Pittsburgh (Fort Pitt), and followed the Ohio Valley to the Tennessee River, ceding what is now Kentucky and West Virginia to Virginia, adding several thousand acres to what is now Pennsylvania, and taking in most of modern-day Ohio.  The Iroquois received 10,000 pounds sterling as well as an annual annuity of trade goods in receipt of this purchase.  English officials in London decided to ignore this overstep of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and called the newly acquired land the New Purchase.  The Shawnee were furious.  They wouldn't cede their rights to the Ohio Valley until the Treaty of Camp Charlotte which ended Dunmore's War of 1774.  The Cherokee went through two treaties, Hard Labor in 1768 and Lochaber in 1770, to cede their rights to this same land.  Meanwhile, Settlers continued to pour onto Native land and conflicts continued.

The Foreign MIssion School, Cornwall, Connecticut

This brief experiment in Native American higher education had every chance of working, but for two love stories marred by racial prejudice.  Jedidiah Morse, the father of F.B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, believed that young men from non-White races could be trained as missionaries to their respective people.  He conceived of the idea of a seminary to train such young men as missionaries.  To that end, the Foreign Mission School was established in 1816 in Cornwall, Connecticut.  This wasn't the first opportunity for Native men to receive a University level education.  Both Yale and what would later become Dartmouth also had auxiliary schools for non-White students.  Herman Daggett, the nephew of Yale College president Naphtali Daggett was a headmaster at the school, as well as Timothy Dwight, who also had Yale connections.

The first students at the school were Native Hawaiians.  Henry Opukahaia was a young Hawaiian who'd been abandoned in Connecticut by his ship.  He enrolled at the school and appreciated it so much that he began recruiting among other Native Hawaiians.  Eventually seven Native Hawaiians would receive missionary training at the school, along with one Hindu, a Bengali, two Chinese and two Malay.  Two White students were also enrolled, but the overwhelming majority of the student body was Native, mostly mixed race.  In addition to a typical University curriculum of astronomy, calculus, theology, geography, chemistry, navigation and surveying, French, Greek and Latin, the students were required to do missionary work in the local community.  They also learned practical courses such as blacksmithing and barrel-making.  The aim was to make them self-sufficient preachers, teachers and even translators in a foreign missionary assignment.

Then, in the early 1820's, two young mixed-race Cherokee boys did what college students have done since there has been college students, cultivate an interest in the opposite sex.  Two local girls from prominent families didn't find John Ridge and Elias Boudinot all that bad, and were dead-set on marrying them, even if that meant moving far away from homes and families to Cherokee Country.  Local public opinion, though, wasn't as moonstruck as the two girls.  In fact, they were angry and demanded the school's closure, which occurred in 1826.  Among the notable alumns were Cherokee David Brown, James Fields, Leonard Hicks, David Carter, John Vann, Choctaw McKee and Israel Folsom, Delaware Adin Gibbs, Osage Robert Monroe and Stephen van Renssalear (named for the general), among others.

The Steward's House of the Foreign Mission School still stands and is a National Historic Landmark.

Great Leader: Yonaguska, Janaluska and William Holland Thomas

Today's post is a story of cruel ingratitude and selfless loyalty.  William Holland Thomas was the only White man ever appointed as a chief of the Cherokee Nation and it's easy to see why they reposed such trust in him.  His story intersects with the lives of two other great leaders, so we'll tell all three men's stories here.

Janaluska (1775-1868) was a war leader of the Eastern Band of Cherokee, in what is now North Carolina.  In 1813, he and his warriors joined General Andrew Jackson's army in a punitive expedition against the Red Stick Creeks in what is now Alabama.  At the battle of Horseshoe Bend, March 27, 1814, he joined Jackson in interrogating some prisoners.  One of them broke loose and lunged for the General.  Janaluska intervened and killed the attacker, saving Jackson's life.  Later, Janaluska was awarded land for participating in the fight against the Creeks.  In 1819, he lost his rights to the land after yet another treaty with the Natives was violated.  He moved to the larger Cherokee settlement of Qualla Town.  While there, he may have become acquainted with a young clerk at the trading post, William Holland Thomas.  Their acquaintance would stand Janaluska in good stead later in life.

Yonaguska (1759-1839) was another Cherokee leader who knew Thomas well.  William Holland Thomas (1805-1893), was born in what is now Waynesville, North Carolina.  His father died by drowning when William was a baby.  Later, he was apprenticed to a trader in Qualla Town and took a genuine interest in the post's Cherokee clientele, learning their language and customs.  In time, the fatherless young man and the older Cherokee warrior Yonaguska developed a close friendship.  Yonaguska adopted Thomas as his son, giving him the name "Will-Usdi" or Little Will.  In 1820, the trading post closed.  As partial payment of his past-due wages, the trader gave Thomas a set of law books.  Thomas studied them and was admitted to practice law in North Carolina.  Eventually, he came back to Qualla Town and reopened the trading posts.  He and Yonaguska remained in close touch and they would have much to talk about in the years to come.

Jackson's Administration passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, aimed primarily at the five largest Southeastern tribes, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole.  As the pressure mounted on the Cherokee to leave or face military action, Janaluska made the journey to Washington and asked to see the man whose life he'd once saved.  Jackson granted him an audience, then denied the incident ever happened.  He told Janaluska there was nothing he could do and dismissed him.  Later, as he saw his people being dispossessed, Janaluska remarked that, if he'd known at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend what was to come, history would've been written differently.  In 1838, he was placed in a stockade and began the trip to Oklahoma.  Several weeks in, he and fifty other Cherokee deserted and tried to head back to North Carolina.  They were arrested and deported to Oklahoma.  Janaluska stayed until 1847, when he could stand it no longer and returned to North Carolina.

Meanwhile, Yonaguska had been made the Principal Chief of the Cherokees remaining in North Carolina.  Some of them had received earlier land grants and believed the government would honor them.  Yonaguska wasn't so sure.  He asked him adopted son to represent the North Carolina Cherokee's interests in Washington.  Thomas realized that the Cherokee wouldn't be able to stay in North Carolina unless someone bought the land outright.  Since Natives were losing their land rights and unable to purchase land, Thomas used his own money and credit, as well as available Cherokee funds, to purchase land in North Carolina in and around Qualla Town.  This land became the Qualla Boundary, the nucleus of the land held by the Eastern Band Cherokee in North Carolina.  He also fought for, and won, the right of Yonaguska and several other Cherokee to become citizens of North Carolina and thus avoid deportation.  

Yonaguska now repaid the debt to his adopted son, by convincing the Eastern Cherokee to chose William Holland Thomas to replace him as Principal Chief, the only White man ever to hold that post.  After Yonaguska's death, Thomas continued to fight for the right of his adopted people to stay in North Carolina.  In 1847, when Janaluska returned home, Thomas took his case to the state legislature, earning state citizenship for the old warrior so that he could remain in Qualla without fear of arrest and removal, again.  Thomas continued his labors on behalf of the Cherokee, seeking election to the state legislature so that he could use the leverage of that position on their behalf.  He served from 1848-1860.  When North Carolina seceded from the Union, Thomas formed a troop of cavalry and infantry from Cherokee recruits, and others of Scots and Sotch-Irish extraction.  Thomas' Legion of Cherokees and Highlanders.  They fired the last shots of the Civil War, days after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.  Another Cherokee unit serving in the West under General Stand Watie also claims that distinction. 

Following the War, Thomas' health began to deteriorate.  It's believed he suffered from Alzheimer's Disease.  He was eventually sent to a mental institution and spent the next several years of his life in and out of mental hospitals.  During his lucid moments, he assisted ethnologist James Mooney of the Smithsonian Institution by recounting his knowledge of the Cherokee, their history, legends and traditions.    

The Praying Towns

Settlers hadn't been in New England long when efforts began to convert the local Native populations to Christianity.  While some efforts may have been well-intentioned, most faiths believe they have the path to God and want to share it with others, it may also have been a way of ridding the local tribes of practices that the Puritans considered of the Devil, including Native ceremonies and dress.  Puritan preacher John Eliot learned the local Nipmuc language and began a missionary campaign among the local Nipmuc tribe.  In 1646, he began preaching at what is now Newton, Massachusetts.  Progress was slow but some Natives did eventually convert.

To encourage more Natives to convert and give up their traditional ways, Puritans conceived the idea of the Praying Town.  They wanted to encourage Christianized Natives or Praying Indians, to live in towns, farm, dress and behave as the English did.  Their hope was that, the more Natives who saw the benefits of English living, the more they would convert and the less tension would be in the colony as a whole.  By 1660, Eliot had established 7 Praying Towns.  There would be a total of 14 in all, including but not limited to Natick, Gay Head, Punkapog, Nantucket, Mashpee, and what is now Grafton, Plymouth and Dartmouth.  Three of the towns were located in Connecticut, including the present-day town of Woodstock.  While some Natives may have converted out of genuine belief, others may have been forced to or felt compelled to as they saw their traditional beliefs attacked by the English as evil.

Praying Indians were in the minority and many Natives clung steadfastly to their old traditions.  They saw no need to congregate in English towns and resented the constant demand for lands, foodstuffs and criticisms of their way of life.  This resentment flared into King Phillip's War in 1675.  Though most of the Praying Indians remained neutral or loyal, fear and resentment of the Natives forced the colonial legislature to disband some of the towns and placed the rest under more direct supervision, becoming more insistent that Natives forsake their traditional practices and fully adopt Christianity Puritan-style. 

People of the Great Blue Hill: the Massachusett

Early explorers and settlers of what is now New England often had difficulty keeping straight the various tribes and inter-tribal relationships they encountered among the Natives they met.  The Massachusett were one of several Algonquian-speaking people in Massachusetts, their traditional range being in the Boston area.  A chain of hills near Boston Harbor, known as the Blue Hills, carried special significance to these people, who were known locally by variants of the word Massachusett.  Their original designation was given an ending letter s, and became the name of the bay, colony and later commonwealth now known as Massachusetts.

English and European sailors first encountered the Massachusett during fishing expeditions along the northeastern coast of North America in the 16th century.  Unfortunately, these contacts often brought the Natives into contact with slavers, and with communicable diseases to which they had no immunity.  Samuel de Champlain explored the Massachusetts coastline in 1605, and John Smith also encountered Massachusett people, meeting two leaders, Wessagusett and Quonahasset.  With disease thinning their population, the Massachusett were vulnerable to more powerful tribes such as the Mohawk of New York and the Abenaki.  They were unable to defend themselves against English encroachment on their land.  In 1624, a skirmish between the Massachusetts and members of a short-lived colony at Wessagusett led to the death of a Massachusett sachem, Pecksuot and several warriors.  A smallpox epidemic in 1633 further decimated the tribe.

Several Massachusett accepted Christianity and moved to so-called Praying Towns, an early attempt to confined Native inhabitants to specified areas similar to later reservations.  Natives were coerced into accepting the Puritan religion and English customs and practices, forsaking ancient rituals and tribal beliefs.  It wouldn't be until 1869 that the Massachusetts legislature passed a law permitting Natives to vote in state elections as full citizens of Massachusetts.  Today, descendants of the Massachusett continue to live in Massachusetts, but are not federally recognized as a tribe.

Friday Reprise: Sequoyah of the Cherokee

One of the prerequisites for being thought a civilized tribe by European-Americans was education.  Elite status young men, the sons of chiefs and prominent warriors, were often sent to schools or even universities.  Parents of these young men hoped that by educating their children after the White man's way, it would better enable them to work with the Settlers and ease conflicts with them.  One Cherokee went even further, he developed a system of writing based on the syllables used in the Cherokee language.

Sequoyah was born in the Cherokee town of Tuskegee, near present-day Knoxville, Tennessee.  He is sometimes given the English last name of Gist or Guess, on the assumption that his father was one of two White men, Christopher Gist, the son of a prominent Maryland family who had traveled West, or a German trader with the last name of Guess.  Descendants of Sequoyah reject any idea of mixed race ancestry, so we'll give them the last word.  His Cherokee mother may have been the sister of John Watts, a prominent Cherokee leader of the period.  More on him later.  Sequoyah grew up under his mother's care, helping her run a small trading post and tending their farm.  At some point in his childhood, he suffered an illness or accident that left him partially lame.  Becoming a warrior or a successful farmer was not in his future plans.  Nor is there any evidence that he went to school. 

But Sequoyah was an inquisitive person with an inventive turn of mind.  He devised and built milk troughs and skimmers for the dairy house on his mother's farm.  From his contacts with Settlers, he learned how to make jewelry and became a noted silversmith.  After his mother's death, he took over her trading post.  It became a local gathering place for the men of the neighborhood who liked to drink.  Sequoyah developed a drinking problem and soon was on the verge of losing his farm and store.  He stopped drinking and developed other interests to raise money and keep his mind off alcohol, including drawing and working as a blacksmith.  He could create bridles and bits decorated with silver, which made his work much in demand.  He soon put his store back in the black despite the fact that he refused to stock one of the most lucrative items in a trader's inventory, alcohol. 

He moved to Alabama, and despite his infirmity, served in a Cherokee Regiment which was aiding the U.S. forces in putting down the Red Stick Creek revolt (1813-1814).  While in Alabama, he married his wife, Sally.  No one knows for certain when Sequoyah got the idea of creating the syllabary.  In his dealings with Settlers, he noticed their writing and understood that it was an important means of preserving or transmitting ideas.  While some Cherokees avoided the idea as sorcery or a pretense, Sequoyah knew it was a worthwhile endeavor.  In 1809, while still in Tennessee, he began experimenting with the idea of creating symbols for sounds in the Cherokee language. Friends, family and neighbors were certain he had lost his mind.  Sally burned his initial papers, believing that he was involving himself in witchcraft.  He persevered and came up with a system of 86 characters, each representing a syllable of the Cherokee language. 

Like many inventors, getting his idea accepted was another thing altogether.  He taught his daughter Ayoka the syllabary, because she was the only available pupil.  Not getting any traction on his idea locally, he went to Native reservations in Arkansas, where some Cherokee had settled.  Leaders there were convinced the syllabary was a form of sorcery, so Sequoyah proved them wrong.  He had each man say a word, which he wrote down.  He then called Ayoka and had her read the words back.  Leaders reluctantly allowed Sequoyah to open a school to teach the syllabary, but witchcraft rumors again threatened to derail his efforts.  Sequoyah wrote a dictated letter to each student, and read their responses aloud.  Leaders were convinced that he had developed a practical system of writing their language.  One of the Western Cherokee leaders dictated a message for Sequoyah to carry with him when he returned East.  When Sequoyah read the message, Eastern Cherokee leaders were also convinced.  In 1824, the Eastern Cherokee council awarded Sequoyah a silver medal for his services in creating and teaching the syllabary,  In 1825, the Cherokee National Council officially adopted the syllabary and commissioned a printing of the laws of the Cherokee Nation in written form.  A newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, also used the syllabary from1828-1834. 

Sequoyah returned to Arkansas, set up his blacksmith shop and continued to teach the syllabary.  In 1828, he was part of the delegation that traveled to Washington, D.C. to negotiate lands for settlement in a planned Indian Territory.  He wanted to create a syllabary for use as a universal communication system for all Natives and even traveled to New Mexico and Arizona to promote his idea.  In 1829, Sequoyah voluntarily moved to Sallinaw, Oklahoma and built a cabin and smithy there.  After 1839, while the Cherokees were still divided over the issue of their recent move to Indian Territory, Sequoyah reached out to another Cherokee leader, Jesse Bushyhead, in an effort to reunite the various factions.  In 1842, he traveled to Mexico to persuade Cherokees who had fled there to return to Oklahoma.  Sometimes between 1843-1845 he died and was buried in Zaragoza, near the Texas, Mexico border.  A letter, signed by Natives who had accompanied him on the trip, gives his date of death as August, 1843.  Efforts to find his exact grave have been unsuccessful. 

Sequoyah represents Oklahoma in the National Statuary Hall collection.  His cabin has been designated a National Historic Landmark.  Although some claim that the giant redwoods were named in his honor, there is no definitive proof of that. 

Great Leader: Hopocan/Pipe of the Delaware/Lenape, c 1725- c 1818

Native and European cultures not only had different ways of looking at land ownership rights, but also of dispensing justice.  Hopocan or Captain Pipe of the Lenape/Delaware, c 1725-c 1818, is famous or infamous for his part in killing Colonel William Crawford.  While Whites including George Washington saw it as a brutal murder, Hopocan and his people believed they had the right to dispense justice to someone who had killed their own people.

Pipe was most likely born near the Susquehanna River into his mother's Wolf Clan.  The Algonquian-speaking Lenape were matrilineal, children taking the clan and status of the mother.  Oral tradition records Pipe's given name as Maker of Daylight.  Like many Natives, he didn't use his given name in dealing with Whites, using either a title or nickname himself.  As a young warrior, he was given the name of Hopocan or Pipe.  His uncle, Custaloga, was the Wolf Clan leader and Pipe would succeed him, becoming known as Captain Pipe by virtue of his leadership.  Custaloga would have been Pipe's mentor and Pipe spent his younger years at his uncle's towns in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, later moving to what is now Crawford County in Ohio.

He first appears in the historical record at a Conference at Fort Pitt in 1759, already a leading warrior.  During the French and Indian War, some Lenape moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio, including Pipe and his family.  In 1765, he was recorded at another conference at Fort Pitt.  Native auxiliaries among the Iroquois, Shawnee, Delaware and other tribes helped turn the tide on the frontier against the French, leading to British domination.  By 1773, Pipe had succeeded Custaloga as leader of the Wolf Clan and was known by virtue of this as Captain Pipe by both British and Patriots who dealt with him.  As the Revolution loomed, Pipe wanted to keep his people neutral in the conflict.  Then, in 1778, General Edward Hand launched a punitive expedition into the Ohio River Valley.  The Army made no distinction between Natives in general, or any group or individual responsible for raids on frontier settlements.  A Delaware village in which Pipe's family lived was attacked and several non-combatants killed.  Ironically, the officer in charge of the unit responsible was William Crawford, working along with Simon Girty as a guide and interpreter.  Simon hadn't defected to the British yet.

Hopocan along with White Eyes and several other leaders opened peace talks with the Patriot side and even allowed a force of Americans to pass through their hunting range in one of the many futile attempts at attacking Fort Detroit.  Gradually, though, Pipe came to realize that the Americans couldn't or wouldn't protect his people from British reprisals and began to shift alliances toward the British.  He moved his village to what is now Coshocton, Ohio.  In 1781, Col. Daniel Broadhead destroyed the village at Coshocton, driving Pipe into war on the side of the British.  Pipe moved his people again to the Sandusky River, hoping to stay clear of further American attacks.  Then, on March 8, 1782, Pennsylvania militia attacked 100 Christianized Delaware at the Moravian town of Gnadenhutten.  This was an atrocity that had to be punished.

Meanwhile, George Washington had dispatched Col. William Crawford into the Ohio Valley to punish Natives responsible for raiding frontier settlements.  In June, 1782, Pipe's men captured Crawford at the Battle of Sandusky and brought him to Pipe.  Crawford was a doomed man.  On June 11, 1782, as preparations were made for a ritual burning at the stake, Pipe decided to hold a trial as to why Crawford, who hadn't been at Gnadenhutten, would now burn for the deaths of the Delaware there.  Simon Girty had attempted to negotiate with Pipe for Crawford's life and an older leader, Wingemut had also attempted to intervene, but Pipe wouldn't be swayed.  In some sources, a woman identifies Crawford as the man who had burned their village in 1778.  If indeed this happened, her evidence turned what had been a ritual killing of an enemy and retribution for Gnadenhutten into a very personal judicial execution for Pipe.  Crawford was put through an agony that last nearly 2 hours.

And Americans blamed, not Pipe or his people, but Simon Girty who was believed to have egged on the whole tragic affair.  Likely, there was nothing Girty could've done.  Pipe could have, and some sources indicate he threatened, to burn Girty next if Girty interfered in what Pipe considered personal business.  After the Revolution, Pipe continued to resist settlement on the Lenape's hunting range in Ohio.  And Settlers continued to come.  In 1788, General Josiah Harmer found Pipe at what is now Marietta, Ohio and described him as a handsome old fellow, with better manners that what was normal for the frontier.  Captain Pipe and his people continued to live at various sites in Ohio, trying to stay ahead of Settlers taking over their land.  As the War of 1812 broke out, some sources indicate that Pipe may have drifted as far as Indiana.  The Treaty of St. Mary's, in 1818, gave the tribes in Indiana, including the Delaware, three years of time before they would have to remove to what is know Kansas.  Pipe likely died in what is now Orestes, Indiana.  His son, also called Captain Pipe, would lead a voluntary removal of their people to Kansas in 1821.

Cree-Neskapi-Montagnais

The various Native subgroups who make up the Algonquian-speaking Cree peoples stretch across Canada from what is now Labrador and Quebec through to Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta in Canada.  They are also present in Montana, where they share a reservation with the Ojibwe/Chippewa people.  French explorers and traders first encountered the Cree along with the Ojibwe around Lake Superior.  The French word Cree is a corruption of Ojibwe terms to describe these people.  Each subgroup has their own reference for themselves with the languages they speak.  The Cree language is divided between Woods, Plains, Swampy, Moose, Northern East, Southern East, Neskapi, Montagnais and Atikemekw, as well as a Sign Language which is still in use.  Cree people number almost 200,000 in Canada alone, making them the largest First Nations/Native group in Canada if not North America.

Running east to west, they are:

Neskapi and Montagnais, often collectively referred to as Innu.  They refer to their territories in eastern Quebec and Labrador as Nitassinan.  The Neskapi are nomadic and hunt caribou, being one of the most Northern tribes encountered in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Atikamekw, who live in the upper St. Maurice River Valley of Quebec, which they refer to as Nitaskinan, or Our Land.

James Bay Creek-Grand Council of the Cree, who live in the Nunavik and Istchee regions of Northern Quebec.

Moose Cree, who lived on Moose Factory Island in the Cochrane District of Ontario.  A factory referred to a trading post headed by an agent or factor, as he was sometimes called. 

Swampy Cree, who live in Manitoba along the Hudson's Bay Coast.

Woods Cree, who live in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Plains Cree, who live in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Montana. 

(This post also appears in https://greatwarriorsII.blogspot.com)

Friday Reprise: Dragging Canoe of the Chickamauga Cherokee

Tsiyu Gansini "he is dragging his canoe" (c. 1738-1792), came from a family of great warriors and great leaders.  He was a son of Attakullakulla, a famed Cherokee warrior and leader who had been born to the Nipissing tribe and raised by the Cherokee.  His cousin was Nancy Ward, the last Ghigau or Beloved Woman of the Cherokee.  On his mother's side, Dragging Canoe was Natchez, his mother having been adopted into the Cherokee from that tribe.  They lived with the Overhill Cherokee on the Little Tennessee River.  As a child, Dragging Canoe caught smallpox, which left his face scarred. 

As a young boy spoiling for his first fight, he begged his father to go on a war party against a neighboring tribe.  His father told him he could go as long as he could prove he could carry a canoe.  Unable to actually carry it, the boy dragged it as far as he could, hence his name.  Whether he got to go on that war party or not, he was ready for battle during the Anglo-Cherokee War, 1759-1761, when he was 21 years old.  He emerged as a strong opponent of further White encroachment on Cherokee land and became the headman of Mialoquo "Great Island Town" on the Little Tennessee River. 

During the American Revolution, Dragging Canoe sided with the British.  Later, after his father and other leaders wanted to pursue peace with the Americans, he led his band further south, to where Chattanooga stands today.  Because their settlement was near the South Chickamauga River, they were known as Chickamauga Cherokee by White settlers who encountered them.  They established 11 towns, including Old Town, across the river from where a Scotsman ran a trading post and kept them supplied with guns, ammunition, and other supplies.  In 1782, Col. John Sevier's forces attacked and burned these towns.  They wrought such destruction that Dragging Canoe's band was forced to move further down the Tennessee River below the Tennessee River Gorge.  Because of this location, they were sometimes referred to as Lower Cherokee. 

From this base, Dragging Canoe led attacks on White Settlements throughout the Southeast.  In addition to his own Cherokee band, he welcomed allies from the Muscogee Creek, Shawnee and others along with Loyalists unwilling to give up the fight and Agents from Britain and Spain.  In addition to his three brothers, another of his best fighters was a young Shawnee warrior named Cheeseekau, who from time to time brought his little brother Tecumseh to watch and learn a warrior's ways.  Dragging Canoe died on February 29, 1792 at Running Water Town.  The Town had been celebrating a double occasion, an alliance with the Muscogee and an attack on a nearby White settlement.  Dragging Canoe had taken part in the dancing and may have suffered a heart attack as a result. 

In an age of great Native Commanders, men such as Little Turtle, Blue Jacket and Buckongahelas, Dragging Canoe is rated in some sources as the best.  He may have inspired Tecumseh more than either of them realized.  A direct descendant of Sequoyah later wrote that he, despite his disability, also tried his hand at being a warrior among Dragging Canoe's men. 

Painting: Osceola's Capture (or was it?)

Historical painting is a genre almost as old as painting itself.   American artists found a whole new outlet for painting in the various wars with Native tribes.  Seth Eastman, 1808-1875, was an army officer posted to various forts in the American west.  He was also topographer and illustrator, and an amateur artist in his spare time.  Later in life, his paintings as well as his treatises on topography would be commercially successful, insuring a comfortable retirement. 

One of his most famous works, painted in 1841, was entitled Osceola's Capture.  It shows a vanquished Seminole warrior seated on the ground under a half-tent with a soldier almost in his face.  Ever since its appearance, this painting has been billed as Osceola's capture, but was it?  If Eastman wanted to depict the capture of Osceola in 1837, he was way off in his historical details.  In October, 1937, there were two young Seminole leaders who were rising to the fore in their people's bid to stay in their homeland in Florida.  Osceola, the son of a mixed-race Creek woman and an unknown father, did not come from an elite-status family, but his defiance and daring had made him a celebrity among Americans at the time.  Meanwhile, another younger warrior, Coacoochee/Wildcat, the nephew of Leading Chief Micanopy, and whose father was also a chief, was gaining ground among their people.  He was as much a skilled guerrilla leader as Osceola, but his name and exploits weren't catching fire among the White reading public, who had fastened on Osceola.

Did this create drama between the two men?  We will never know.  However, in October 1837, it was Coacoochee who first approached Col. Thomas Jessup with an offer of a peace parley, saying he was representing Osceola.  Was Osceola, who was ailing at the time, trying to assess Jessup's willingness to talk?  Neither he nor Coacoochee ever said.  However, Jessup was in no mood for delay.  He ordered that both Coacoochee and Osceola, and any other Seminole leader who showed up at the peace parley to be taken in, talks or no.  On October 20, 1837, Coacoochee, Osceola, John Horse and several other Seminole leaders and warriors approached the American camp and were almost immediately taken prisoner.  From there, they were transported to St. Augustine, Florida on horseback and incarcerated in Fort Marion, the old Spanish fortress known as the Castillo de San Marco.  Thus, Osceola didn't have time to sit on the ground, pondering cruel fate.  If it was his capture Eastman wanted to portray, he could easily have been depicted in Fort Marion, whiling away his time.

While in Fort Marion, Coacoochee and John Horse came up with a daring escape plan.  They starved themselves to lose weight, pried the bars loose from their cell window, and dropped to the ground outside the fort, quickly making for the wilds outside the city.  Soon, Coacoochee had gathered the remnants of Seminole who had not surrendered, linked up with Abiaka and Billy Bowlegs, among others, and met Zachary Taylor at the Battle of Okeechobee in late December, 1837.  Too late, Americans realized they had another enemy on their hands, as wily and dangerous as Osceola.  Try as they might, no one could capture Coacoochee.  Finally, in 1840, Col. William S. Harney captured Coacoochee's wife, mother and daughter, thinking that this might induce Coacoochee to agree to deportation to Oklahoma.  Coacoochee met with American authorities several times, promising to surrender his men, but never did so. 

Fed up, Col. William Worth ordered the arrest of Coacoochee.  In October, 1841, he was captured and clapped in irons by Lt. William T. Sherman at Fort Pierce on the Indian River.  Beaten at last, Coacoochee knew he was on his way to Fort Gibson in Oklahoma but it didn't happen right away.  Winter was fast approaching and, in Oklahoma, the weather would be brutal.  Coacoochee would have a few months to wait until deportation time finally arrived.  Enter Lt. John T. Sprague, who had been assigned by the Army to interrogate Coacoochee with a view to determining which Seminole leaders were still the field and how many Natives remained in the swamps.  The two men became friends and Coacoochee gave a few more details about his life and his struggle, saying at one time, "I was in hopes that I would die in battle, but a bullet never reached me."

So, what does this have to do with the Eastman painting?  The painting is attributed to Seth Eastman in 1841.  That was the year Coacoochee was captured.  Also, the circumstances of the painting, a defeated warrior seated in an outdoor environment, closely guarded, fits the circumstances of Coacoochee's capture.  The Seminoles were held at Fort Pierce in tents while they awaited deportation to Oklahoma.  The painter had spared Osceola/Coacoochee the shame of being depicted in irons but the tense soldier guarding him, almost in his face, shows how closely he was being watched.  So, why call the painting Osceola's Capture and not Wildcat's Capture?  Americans were just as celebrity obsessed then as we are now.  With Osceola's capture and internment at Fort Marion and later death at Fort Moultrie in January, 1838, Americans had a name and, with George Catlin's painting, had a face.  Name recognition belonged to Osceola, not Coacoochee, who would have to wait for the 21st century to come out of Osceola's shadow.

Great Warriors: the Stockbridge Militia

The American Revolutionary War, as with Queen Anne's War, King George's War and the Seven Years War, was primarily a colonial war fought over ownership of land.  As Americans prepared to face down one of the largest and best-trained armies then on earth, Natives, as they always had during these wars, had to decide whether to back the British, in the hopes of getting protection from American trespassing on tribal hunting range.  Back the Americans, with hopes of the same, or try to remain neutral and hopefully left alone.  Joseph Brant, a war chief of the Mohawk, urged the Iroquois Confederacy to the side of Great Britain, and some of the Ohio Valley tribes followed suit.  Other tribes threw in their lot with the Patriot cause.

Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in Berkshire County, was located in an area that was still mostly frontier at the time.  Local Native population including Algonquian-speaking Munsee/Delaware, Wappinger, and Mahican people.  As they saw their White neighbors forming into militias and drilling in preparation to meet the British threat, Christianized Munsee Jehoiakim Mtohksin and Abraham Nimham, son of Wappinger Sachem Daniel Nimham, gathered like-minded warriors at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge and pledged their loyalty to the Patriot cause in words taken straight from the Old Testament story of Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi.  "Wherever your armies go, there we will go; you shall always find us by your side; and if providence calls us to sacrifice our lives in the field of battle, we will fall where you fall, and lay our ones by yours.  Nor shall peace ever be made between our nation and the Redcoats until our brothers-the White People-lead the way." 

The soldiers were issued linen hunting shirts, linen trousers and leather moccasins.  A brimmed hat made of plant fiber covered a traditional shaved head with a single scalp-lock.  The men were proficient with a rifle and musket, as well as bows and arrows and hunting axes.  The militia served in the Siege of Boston, the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga.  They disbanded soon after, and many veteran Stockbridge warriors served in the more traditional capacity of auxiliaries to various units, scouts and skirmishers.  Then, in 1777, Massachusetts reorganized its militia companies.  The Stockbridge Regiment was reformed as part of the 8th Massachusetts, General John Nixon's Brigade, and made a formal part of the Continental Army.  Mtohksin led the unit, with the younger Nimham as his Second in Command.  They participated in the Battle of Saratoga and the Siege of Monmouth.

Then, disaster struck.  In August, 1778, the militia was attached to Mordecai Gist's Light Infantry Corps and stationed at what is now Yonker's New York.  There, they were beset by a company of Queen's Rangers, in particular Joseph Brant's militia which was attached to that British Loyalist Unit.  The two sides fought, with the Stockbridge Militia taking heavy casualties.  Among those who fell was the last Wappinger Sachem, Abraham's father, Daniel.  The losses decimated the local Native communities.  The few men who were left had to return to their families, who might at any time be open to reprisals from Loyalist Native units.  George Washington paid the regiment 1,000 to be pieced out among the men and disbanded their unit in September, 1778.

The Stockbridge Militia rallied again, to protect their town of Stockbridge from insurgents during Shays Rebellion of 1786-87.  Around this time, Massachusetts redrafted its constitution, specifically excluding Natives from the right to vote.  That constitution was voted down in favor of one that promised universal manhood suffrage, Native and White.  Many Stockbridge veterans eventually settled in Oneida, New York, and later moved to Wisconsin, forming the Munsee-Stockbridge Indian Reservation.