_INDIANS IN THE REVOLUTION._
The writers of American histories severely condemn the British
government for employing Indians in the war of the Revolution as well as
in 1812, and give unstinted praise to the Americans for humanity in
refusing to make use of the warlike but undisciplined and cruel Indian
as an ally in the activities of a military campaign. Either an attempt
is made to suppress the whole truth of this matter, or the writers have
failed in their duty to thoroughly investigate sources of history easily
accessible to the honest historian.
The fact is, that in the incipient stage of the Revolutionary war,
overtures were made by the political disturbers and leading instigators
of trouble to win over to the side of the American party the fiercest,
if not the most numerous Indian nation on the North American continent.
From Concord, on the fourth of April, 1775, the Provincial Congress
thought fit, with cunning prudence, to address the sachem of the
Mohawks, with the rest of the Iroquois tribes, in the following words:
"Brother, they have made a law to establish the religion of the pope in
Canada, which lies near you. We much fear some of your children may be
induced, instead of worshipping the only true God, to pay his due to
images, made with their own hands."[75]
[75] American Archives, series I, p. 1350.
Here, then, a religious reason was advanced, in lieu of the real one,
why the Indians should oppose the British, by whom they had always been
generously treated. The response to the insinuating address was not
encouraging. May it not be assumed that these Indians had already
experienced some of the same kind of love, generosity and good faith, as
later every tribe has received from every government at Washington, from
the days of the first president to the latest, through the past "century
of dishonor."
_Before the 19th of April_, the Provincial Congress had authorized the
enlistment of a company of Stockbridge (Massachusetts) Indians. These
Indians were used by the Americans during the siege of Boston. A letter,
dated July 9, 1775, says: "Yesterday afternoon some barges were sounding
the Charles River near its mouth, but were soon obliged to row off by
our Indians, fifty in number, who are encamped near that place."
[Illustration: COLONEL MIFFLEN'S INTERVIEW WITH THE CAUGINAWAGA INDIANS.
At Watertown during the seige of Boston, the Revolutionists endeavored
to obtain their assistance.]
On the 21st of June, two of the Indians killed four of the regulars with
their bows and arrows, and plundered them. Frothingham says the
British complained, and with reason, of their mode of warfare.
Lieut. Carter, writes July 2, 1775: "Never had the British army so
ungenerous an enemy to oppose. They send their riflemen, five or six at
a time, who conceal themselves behind trees, etc., till an opportunity
presents itself of taking a shot at our advanced sentries, which done,
they immediately retreat."[76]
[76] American Archives. Series I, p. 1350.
During the siege of Boston, John Adams visited Washington's camp at
Watertown, and wrote the following letter to his wife, which goes to
prove the efforts made by the Americans to enlist the Canadian Indians
in their cause, and which they afterwards complained so bitterly of the
British for doing:
"Watertown, 24 January, 1776.
"I dined at Colonel Mifflin's with the general and lady, and a vast
collection of other company, among whom were six or seven sachems and
warriors of the French Caughnawaga Indians, with several of their wives
and children. A savage feast they made of it, yet were very polite in
the Indian style. One of the sachems is an Englishman, a native of this
colony, whose name was Williams, captivated in infancy, with his mother,
and adopted by some kind squaw."[77]
[77] Frothingham Siege of Boston, p. 212. Letters of John Adams to his
Wife Vol. I., p. 79.
Many attempts were made by the Americans to use the Indians. Montgomery
made use of them in his Canadian expedition.
In April, 1776, Washington wrote to Congress, urging their employment in
the army, and reported on July 13th that, without special authority, he
had directed General Schuyler to engage the Six Nations on the best
terms he and his colleagues could procure, and again submitting the
propriety of engaging the Eastern Indians. John Adams thought "we need
not be so delicate as to refuse the assistance of Indians, provided we
cannot keep them neutral." A treaty was exchanged with the Eastern
Indians on July 17, 1776, whereby they agreed to furnish six hundred for
a regiment, which was to be officered by the whites. As a result of
this, the Massachusetts Council subsequently reported that seven
Penobscot Indians--all that could be procured--were enlisted in October
for one year.[78] It is interesting to remember, in this connection,
that the courteous and chivalrous Lafayette raised a troop of Indians to
fight the British and the Tories, though his reputation has been saved
by the utter and almost ludicrous failure of his attempt.[79]
[78] Windsor Nar. and Crit. His. Vol. VI., 655, 657.
[79] Essays in American History, 178.
When all this had been done, it needed the forgetfulness and the blind
hypocrisy of passion to denounce the king to the world for having
"endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless
Indian savage." Yet Americans have never had the self-respect to erase
this charge from a document generally printed in the fore-front of the
Constitution and Laws, and with which every schoolboy is sedulously made
familiar.
The Revolutionists failed to enlist the Indians in their cause, for the
Indian and the Colonist were bitter and irreconcilable foes. The Indian
had long scores to pay, not upon the English nation or the English army,
but upon the American settler who had stolen his lands, shot his sons,
and debauched his daughters. It is well here to remember the speech of
Logan, the Cayuga chief, on the occasion of the signing of the treaty of
peace in 1764, at the close of the Pontiac Conspiracy. Logan said: "I
appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry
and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed
him not. Such was my love of the white man that my countrymen in passing
my cabin said: 'Logan is the friend of the white man.' I have even
thought to have lived with you but for the injuries you did me last
spring, when in cold blood and unprovoked, you murdered all the
relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs
not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called
for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted
my vengeance." Logan's family, being on a visit to a family of the name
of Greathouse, was murdered by them and their associates under
circumstances of great brutality and cowardice. It is known that in
revenge, Logan took over 30 scalps with his own hand. And others than
Indians had old scores to wipe out. Many loyalists who desired to be
left alone in peace had been tarred and feathered by their former
friends and fellow-townsmen; were driven from their homes and hunted
like wild beasts; imprisoned, maimed, and compelled to suffer every kind
of indignity. In many cases fathers, brothers and sons were hanged,
because they insisted on remaining loyal to their country. Therefore it
is not to be wondered at that many of these loyalists sought a terrible
revenge against those who had maltreated them. If the loyalists of New
York, Georgia and the Carolinas resolved to join the Indians and wreak
vengeance on their fellow countrymen at Wyoming and Cherry Valley, and
to take part in the raids of Tyron and Arnold, there was a rude cause
for their retaliating. Their actions have been held up to the execration
of posterity as being exceptionally barbarous, and as far surpassing in
cruelty the provocative actions of the revolutionists, Sullivan's
campaign through the Indian country being conveniently forgotten. There
was not much to choose between a cowboy and a skinner, and very little
difference between Major Ferguson's command and that of Marion and
Sumpter. There were no more orderly or better behaved troops in either
army than Simcoe's Queen's Rangers. There can be no doubt that the
action of the loyalists have been grossly exaggerated, or at least dwelt
upon as dreadful scenes of depravity, to form a background for the
heroism and fortitude of the "patriotic" party whose misdeeds are passed
lightly over. The methods of the growth of popular mythology have been
the same in America as in Greece or Rome. The gods of one party have
become the devils of the other. The haze of distance has thrown a halo
around the American leaders--softening outlines, obscuring faults, while
those of the British and the loyalists have grown with the advanced
years.[80]
[80] Essays in American History, 176, 177.
[Illustration: CARTOON ILLUSTRATING FRANKLIN'S DIABOLICAL SCALP STORY.
From an old print in the possession of the Bostonian Society.]
The following brief entry in a diary, will show that among the American
forces savage customs found place: "On Monday, the 30th, sent out a
party for some dead Indians. Toward morning found them, and skinned two
of them from their hips down, for boot legs; one pair for the major, the
other for myself."[81]
[81] Proceedings, N. J. His. Soc. II, 31.
It has been the policy of American historians and their echoes in
England to bring disrepute upon the Indians and the British government
who employed them, and not only to magnify actual occurrences, but
sometimes, when facts were wanting, to draw upon imagination for such
deeds of ferocity and bloodshed as might serve to keep alive the
strongest feelings of indignation against the mother country, and thus
influence men to take the field for revenge who had not already been
driven thither by the impulse of their sense of patriotism. Dr. Franklin
himself did not think it unworthy of his antecedents and position to
employ these methods to bring disrepute on the British. The "deliberate
fiction for political purposes," by Franklin, were written as facts.
Never before was there such diabolical fiction written as his well known
scalp story, long believed and recently revived in several books
purporting to be "authentic history." The details were so minute and
varied as to create a belief that they were entirely true. For a century
supposed to be authentic, it has since been ascertained to be a
publication from the pen of Dr. Franklin for political purposes. It
describes minutely the capture from the Seneca Indians of eight bales of
scalps, which were being sent the governor of Canada, to be forwarded by
him as a gift to the "Great King." The description of the contents of
each bale was given with such an air of plausibility as to preclude a
suspicion that it was fictitious. The following are a few brief
abstracts from this story: "No. 1 contains forty-three scalps of
Congress soldiers, also sixty-two farmers, killed in their houses in the
night time. No. 2 contains ninety-eight farmers killed in their houses
in the day time. No. 3 contains ninety-seven farmers killed in the
fields in the day time. No. 4 contains 102 farmers, mixed, 18 burnt
alive, after being scalped; sixty-seven being greyheads, and one
clergyman. No. 5 containing eighty-eight scalps of woman's hair,
long-braided in Indian fashion. No. 6 containing 193 boys' scalps of
various ages. No. 7, 211 girls' scalps, big and little. No. 8, this
package is a mixture of all the varieties above mentioned, to the number
of 122, with a box of birch bark, containing twenty-nine infants' scalps
of various sizes."[82]
[82] Life of Brandt. Appendix No. 1, Vol. I.
With the bales of scalps was a speech addressed to the "Great King."
One of the most cruel and bloodthirsty acts of the Americans was the
massacre of the Moravian Indians. "From love of peace they had advised
those of their own color who were bent on war to desist from it. They
were also led from humanity, to inform the white people of their danger,
when they knew their settlements were about to be invaded. One hundred
and sixty Americans crossed the Ohio and put to death these harmless,
inoffensive people, though they made no resistance. In conformity with
their religious principles these Moravians submitted to their hard fate
without attempting to destroy their murderers. Upward of ninety of these
pacific people were killed by men who, while they called themselves
Christians, were more deserving of the names of savages than were their
unresisting victims."[83]
[83] Dr. Ramsay's His. U. S., Vol. II., Chapter XIX, pp. 330, 332.