Friday Reprise: Koquethagechton/White Eyes of the Lenape/Delaware

Native American leaders tried a variety of strategies to cope with the influx of White Settlers onto their hunting ranges.  While some preferred all-out resistance, others tried to negotiate and work with the inevitable as best the could.  Even then, the results were almost always tragic.  White Eyes' story is a case in point. 

Koquethagechton was born somewhere in Pennsylvania (c 1730-1778), and his clan heritage marked him out as a man in a position for leadership.  He received his warrior's training and later married a young woman, Rachel Doddridge, who'd been captured from her Settler family as a little girl and assimilated into the tribe.  They had one son, whom they named after a personal friend of the family.   White Eyes first came to the attention of British authorities as a messenger during the French and Indian War.  Settlers and Colonial authorities referred to him by a variety of names, including William or Captain Grey Eyes.  Most likely, the names referred to some feature of his eyes that stood out as different from other Natives, but is not recorded now.  Despite the fact that he did not speak English well, he was singled out by Colonial authorities as being useful for facilitating interaction between Whites and Natives, a role he seemed willing to play. 

By 1773, he had risen to prominence among his people as speaker of the Delaware Head Council.  By that time, he had migrated from his birthplace in Pennsylvania to the Muskingum River Valley in Ohio.  There, many Delaware came under the influence of the Moravian missionaries and turned to Christianity.  White Eyes chose to retain his traditional beliefs, but tried to make sure that Christian Delaware remained part of the larger Lenape community.  He established his own town, called White Eyes' Town, near where Coshocton, Ohio is today.  In 1774, the Lenape Grand Council named him Principal Chief of their Nation.  White Eyes' first attempts at negotiations failed, as he was unable to persuade the Shawnee not to escalate the conflict that became Lord Dunmore's War.  However, he served as an intermediary between the Virginians and the warring tribes and helped negotiate the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, October, 1774, which ended that War. 

White Eyes' ultimate aim was a separate Lenape state in the Ohio Valley where his people could live without fear of encroachment on their lands.  He was willing to talk to British colonial officials in hopes of making that a reality, but the Revolution intervened.  He opened negotiations with the Americans and, in 1776, personally visited and spoke to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, requesting a separate homeland for his people.  In 1778, representatives of the United States and the Lenape signed the Treaty of Fort Pitt, which promised, among other things, a separate Lenape State.  American negotiators took the treaty back to Philadelphia, where it was never presented to Congress for action.  The treaty also provided that the Lenape would act as guides to American forces trying to dislodge the British from the Ohio Valley.

In early November, 1778, White Eyes joined an expedition led by American General Lachlan McIntosh as a guide and negotiator.  He died soon after and the Americans reported his death to his people as smallpox.  Only years later did White Eyes' friend, United States Indian Agent George Morgan, write a letter to Congress requesting a pension for White Eyes' widow and child.  In that letter, he claimed that White Eyes had been killed by an American militiaman.  The assassination was covered up at the time to avoid alienating the Lenape and inflaming other tribes in the frontier.   White Eyes' widow, Rachel, who had assimilated to her husband's people, was also murdered by White Militia in 1788.  George Morgan took their son in and raised him as his own child.  He was successful in securing for White Eyes' son a scholarship to the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), all expenses paid by the Continental Congress.  Unfortunately, the young man died in 1798. 

Treaty: Fort Pitt, September 17, 1778

This treaty was the first formal, written treaty between the new United States Government, as represented by the Continental Congress and an Indian tribe.  It is sometimes known as the Delaware Treaty, or even the Fourth Treaty of Pittsburgh, commemorating both the people with whom it was conducted, the Lenape/Delaware, and the place, Fort Pitt where modern-day Pittsburgh now stands.

Prior to this treaty, various states had conducted diplomacy with Native tribes and there had been informal agreements but nothing formal on the federal level.  With the Revolutionary War on the frontier theatre heating up, the Continental Congress knew they needed allies among the Native tribes.  They would need the help if an attack on Fort Detroit was to become reality.  White Eyes of the Delaware, whom we've already covered, was one of those leaders who believed peaceful co-existence with the Americans was the only way for his people to preserve some of their land and hunting range for themselves.  He had been chosen as Principal Chief of the Delaware and spearheaded negotiations for their side. 

The United States requested permission for troops to travel through Delaware territory and called for the Delaware to actively aid them as allies against the British, including furnishing warriors to fight against the Redcoats or their Native auxiliaries.  The United States promised trade goods including cloth, such as Calico, ammunition and arms.  It represented to the Delaware that it would build a fort to help protect the Delaware against either the British or trespassers on their land.  In reality, the fort would be there to protect American settlers as they made their way into the Ohio Valley.  And here the understanding on both sides diverged.  As with many Native treaties, the Natives believed they were granting free passage or use of their land.  They didn't know or weren't told, that this treaty would be a prelude to White settlement.  White Eyes also pressed for, or was led to believe, that the treaty created a Native buffer state out of the Ohio to allow the Natives to live in peace in a no-man's-land between British-held territory and American territory.  Sources differ on whether White Eyes requested it, or the American representatives offered it as an incentive to sign the treaty.  In reality, a treaty with such a clause in it would likely never see the light of day.

The Treaty was signed at Fort Pitt on September 17, 1778.  The Delaware delegation included White Eyes, Captain Pipe/Hopocan, whom we've also met, and John Kill Buck/Gelelemend for the Lenape/Delaware.  Brothers Andrew Lewis and Thomas Lewis, veterans of several frontier skirmishes, led the American delegation.  The treaty signing was witnessed by Col. Daniel Brodhead, more on him later, and Col. William Crawford, whom we've already run across in a previous post.  The Treaty was returned to Philadelphia to be ratified by the Congress and was submarined in committee, never being ratified into effect.  Settlers continued to pour into the Ohio Valley.  The Delaware sent delegations to the Congress to alert them that the treaty terms weren't being carried out, to no avail.  Peaceful relations between the Delaware and Settlers collapsed again.  White Eyes, who'd worked so hard to bring the treaty forward, died during one such visit in November, 1778, barely two months after it was signed.  The story was that he'd died of smallpox or fever, depending on the source.  Only years later did relatives find out that he'd been killed by one of his militia escorts.  The Delaware soon joined other Ohio tribes on the side of the British and the war in the frontier kept on.