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.