mutual Father,” pledging to make the delawares and english “one people,”
with “one King . . . to govern us.” he soon learned, no doubt to his chagrin,
that he had embraced King george just as hundreds of thousands of colonists
were disowning him. On 9 July, a Virginian messenger issued demands but
failed to mention either the king or dunmore’s promises. in a private meet-
ing, with his own interpreter, White eyes careful y explained his arrange-
Opportunity, 1775–76
81
ments with the recently deposed governor. in reply, the messenger explained
dunmore’s fall from power but assured him that Virginia would “amply re-
ward him for his services and damages.”27
recognizing in crisis an opportunity, White eyes cultivated the rebels’
friendship just as he had pursued the king’s. in the months that followed, he
helped persuade wary indians to meet with congressional emissaries and
tried to squash British warnings of treachery. at an October council, he vo-
cal y supported Virginian demands and praised the “commands of our sav-
iour whose hands were nailed to the cross and sides peirced for our sins.” at
the same time, he reminded the council that when the english first arrived in
america, his people had “made room for you to set down by Us,” suggesting
that colonists’ right to their land originated not with the king they now
spurned, but with the generosity of their indian neighbors. he reiterated that
the Wyandots had similarly given land to the delaware and specified the
boundaries in detail. he also explained delaware government, identifying
the leaders of the turtle, turkey, and Wolf phratries and noting the influence
of delaware women, whom he credited with keeping their people out of war.
he delivered a separate speech and wampum belt from the mothers of his
nation, who expressed joy at the prospect of continued peace, and urged the
Virginians to share this message with “your mothers our elder sisters the
White Women,” perhaps hoping they would perform a similar role among
their own people.28 Throughout, he balanced concessions and plans for
change with reminders that delaware women and men remained in charge of
their own people and land.
in the months that followed, White eyes continued promoting his agenda,
with mixed results. he spent the winter in philadelphia lobbying the rebels to
honor dunmore’s promises. in april congress voted to provide the delaware
with a minister, schoolmaster, and blacksmith, a steady supply of trade goods,
and a formal arbitration system to resolve disputes, but the United states
failed to fulfill these commitments. congress also balked at recognizing dela-
ware territorial claims, chiefly for fear of antagonizing the six nations. White
eyes would spend the next three years trying to overcome this setback. But he
personal y received two horses, saddles, and $300 in cash, and a promise to
resolve a dispute with two philadelphia merchants. in addition, Virginia
awarded him £57— about ten times the wages of a common militiaman— for
his services during dunmore’s War. his goals remained elusive, but within a
few months he had transformed himself from the trusted al y of a royal gover-
nor into a favored friend of the rebel congress.29
82
chapter 3
Other Ohio indian leaders balked at White eyes’s program of cultural
transformation, but they similarly sought the rebels’ friendship. The six na-
tions council “scolded” Ojibwes and Odawas for spreading British warnings
of colonial aggression and “reproved” members of their own league who con-
sidered going to war. guyasuta, another onetime dunmore al y, now accom-
panied congressional emissary richard Butler on a tour to invite Ohio
indians to a peace council. at delaware, Wyandot, haudenosaunee, and
shawnee towns, guyasuta repeatedly berated his hosts for not trusting the
colonists. such doubts remained legion, but many male and female leaders
seemed eager to befriend the rebel congress. They repeatedly equated But-
ler’s invitations with the restoration of old alliances. a group of haudenos-
aunee leaders addressed Butler as “Onas,” their old name for the governors of
pennsylvania, and urged that “the Old love & Friendship that was made in
Old times” be made “new and bright as ever.” mekoche shawnee spokesmen
told Butler that they still held the old wampum “that made us relations,” ask-
ing that “as it was of Old let it be again.” These cal s for restoring old ways
contrasted sharply with White eyes’s vision of radical change, but they also
reflected a similar desire to foster a personal and political kinship that bal-
anced interdependence and autonomy.30
These efforts to befriend colonists cost some communities dearly. in the
winter of 1775– 76, a band of shawnee men seized twenty prisoners, including
two small children, and marched them over 150 miles, guarding them care-
ful y to prevent escape. The story echoes many other tales of early american
captivity, except that the captors raided shawnee homes, and tore apart shaw-
nee families, on behalf of Virginia. not for the first time, colonial emissaries
had demanded that Ohio indians hand over wartime captives, since adopted,
as a condition of peace. many adoptees came only after the warriors threat-
ened to “take their scalps” instead. several later escaped Virginia and returned
to their adoptive families. The two children, though, had been born and raised
as shawnees. Their mother had escaped from Virginian slavery and found ref-
uge in the scioto towns, where she met their shawnee father. in 1774, the
shawnees handed her over to dunmore, and they did so again after she es-
caped back to her family. But at the October treaty conference, Virginia’s com-
missioners “insisted upon having the two children” as wel . The otherwise
conciliatory cornstalk balked, arguing that “as the children were Bagat by our
people we thought it very hard they shou’d be made slaves of.” But other lead-
ers gave in. many opposed their choice— hence the warriors’ use of force— but
enough accepted it to overcome the families’ opposition.31 much like White
Opportunity, 1775–76
83
eyes’s services to congress, shawnees undertook this awful task to secure
peace and friendship with their troublesome colonial neighbors. Virginia’s de-
mands challenged shawnee leaders to exercise sovereignty in european terms:
by controlling people and territory. For a time, such concessions carried the
day, with the proponents of violent resistance pressed to the margins.
even so, indian leaders’ submission to revolutionary demands sparked
resentment and hostility. early in 1775, shawnees killed two delaware hunt-
ers, probably in retaliation for that nation’s support for dunmore. cornstalk
later performed condolence rituals to restore the two nations’ friendship, but
even he privately berated guyasuta and the delawares for acting like “dogs or
servants” to the British. in august 1776, a colonist “accidental y” shot a dela-
ware woman near pittsburgh, but the d
elaware council quickly brushed the
incident aside, faulting the victim for going to the town “for rum.” The coun-
cil’s readiness to forgive and forget helped convince their newly appointed
secretary that they were the americans’ “sensear friends,” but the injured
woman, and any number of other delawares, no doubt saw the episode dif-
ferently.32 With each new american imposition or broken promise, not to
mention outright assault, the value of White eyes’s and cornstalk’s hard- won
friendships with the United states, and their own credibility as leaders and
spokesmen, came further into question.
some indians rejected the pro- peace platform entirely. in august 1775 a
Wyandot named snip, whose friend had died at Virginian hands the year
before, decided to go to war. On his way toward Kentucky, some haudenos-
aunees persuaded him to turn back, but then he met two men, one British
and one Wyandot, bringing a load of trade goods up the scioto. according to
snip, the white man, John edwards, admitted he had served in dunmore’s
army. When they camped, snip killed him in his sleep. The Wyandot trader
fled and snip made off with their goods. Word of the killing reached the san-
dusky Wyandot towns during a visit from Butler. dunquat, the sandusky
Wyandots’ preeminent civil leader, announced the news “with tears in his
eyes” and immediately performed a full condolence ceremony. Wyandot
women confronted snip with a large wampum belt, signifying their commu-
nity’s condemnation, and demanded that he return the stolen goods “& not
bring evil on them.” he bowed to the pressure and handed over his plunder.
This outcome hardly measured up to european standards of justice, but it
accorded well with Wyandot ones, and the events had transpired in Wyandot
territory. above al , both Butler and the Wyandots needed to put the incident
behind them to move on with the pressing work of diplomacy.33
84
chapter 3
snip was not alone. in the summer and fall of 1775 a mohawk called
pluggy began cobbling together a motley coalition of haudenosaunees,
shawnees, and Wyandots who staunchly opposed the colonization of Ken-
tucky. many, like snip, had lost loved ones in dunmore’s War. pluggy himself
had attended the governor’s peace council, only to return home and find “his
blood relations lieing dead”: victims of a Virginian surprise attack. Believing
he “could not depend on the faith of a treaty at al ,” pluggy repeatedly taunted
and threatened congressional emissaries and warned indians to distrust co-
lonial promises. colonists themselves sometimes corroborated his warnings.
in a meeting with indians along the Ohio, Virginians boasted that they would
soon cross the river to seize indian land. in another encounter a former cap-
tive, after asking after his adoptive shawnee mother, similarly warned of an
imminent invasion. When such threats proved unpersuasive, pluggy and his
allies turned to exaggeration, deception, and subterfuge. after the edwards
murder, messengers hurried to tell the pekowi and chillicothe shawnees that
“the Windots had struck” the colonists, recasting an isolated murder as a na-
tional declaration of war. But they urged the pekowis and chillicothes to
keep cornstalk’s mekoche shawnees in the dark. a few weeks later, militant
mohawks, Wyandots, and Odawas warned the shawnees— again circum-
venting the mekoche— of another impending invasion. But the Virginians
remained south of the Ohio, and pluggy’s warnings won him few supporters.
The militants’ activities alarmed their neighbors: mekoche shawnee women
repeatedly warned american emissaries that the pekowis and chillicothes
wanted war. But until the end of 1775, none followed snip’s deadly example.34
to make a more compelling case for war, pluggy and his allies looked to
the British to endorse their cause, but they found little encouragement. Brit-
ish officials had suggested recruiting indian allies since the outbreak of hos-
tilities, but guy carleton, the governor of Quebec, instructed his subordinates
merely to befriend the great lakes nations, so that the crown could count on
their aid in the future. at detroit, lieutenant governor henry hamilton lav-
ished gifts on visiting indians and avidly warned them against Virginian per-
fidy but stopped short of an open call to arms. he did urge indians to spy on
the rebels’ movements, and he persuaded Wyandot allies to seize and hand
over John dodge, a sandusky trader and congressional spy. pluggy and his
allies twisted such statements to bolster their cause. in one telling, hamilton
had promised “to suply them with amunition & much more” if they went to
war. But rather than encouraging open hostilities, hamilton advised indian
nations to fight only if the Virginians sent an army across the Ohio.35 Without
Opportunity, 1775–76
85
more explicit British support, few in Ohio cared to undertake a war with
their colonial neighbors.
in late december, pluggy and his allies seized an opportunity to more
forceful y press their case. While scouting around Boonesborough, a small
one, a man named mcQuinney, and captured his companion. it was the first
attack on the infant colony in months. They brought mcQuinney’s scalp back
to Ohio, where they proudly presented it as a symbol of the war they wished
to wage. But most Ohio indians still responded cool y. at sandusky, Wyandot
leaders declared they would “have no hand in such proceedings.” One revolu-
tionary official dismissed the killers as “a few insignificant rascals.” hoping
for a better response from the British, pluggy and his allies hurried to de-
troit. When hamilton greeted them, they presented him with mcQuinney’s
scalp, calling it “a little meat to make you some broth”: an invitation to en-
dorse their cal s for war. caught off guard, hamilton fumbled the transac-
tion. First he declined the scalp, explaining that he wished to avoid suggesting
that “he had authorised them to take it.” Then, second- guessing himself, he
took the scalp, only to “return it instantly untill such time as all the other
nations met.” if the nations went to war, hamilton promised, he would ac-
cept the scalp then. having confused everyone, he offered his guests “some-
thing to refresh themselves” and promised to see them again in a few days.
he soon resumed his familiar refrain, advising indians to spy on the colo-
nists’ movements but not to attack them.36 rather than either endorsing or
censuring the militants’ call for war, hamilton hedged, hoping to keep their
allegiance while dodging responsibility for their actions.
Thanks in part to hamilton’s waffling, the first half of 1776 brought almost
no deadly intercultural violence. early in spring, a group of Wyandots at-
tacked three colonists near the Fal s of the Ohio, killing a man named Willis
lee, wounding one of his companions, and plundering their camp. But the
event apparently stemmed from a peaceful encounter gone bad: the Wyan-
dots had met w
ith lee’s employer, speculator richard henderson, just a few
days before. according to two colonists, the killers were “justly irritated” by
henderson’s behavior. They also declined to scalp the dead man, suggesting
that they viewed the incident as a private quarrel rather than an act of war.
The episode could have triggered further violence, but did not. lee’s friends
reportedly swore “Vengence against all indians they should meet with,” but
they met with none and did not pursue the killers. resulting rumors of war
drove many Kentucky colonists eastward, but most returned after learning
86
chapter 3
that “the greatest part of the news [was] false.” For over two months after
lee’s death, colonists reported no new attacks. meanwhile, at sandusky, dip-
lomats from several Ohio nations resolved again to remain at peace “even
though one or two foolish young men may do what is wrong.”37 The incident
amplified intercultural resentment, and heightened fears of bloodshed, but
led to no further hostilities.
Finding little support around Ohio and the great lakes, pluggy and his
allies looked in another direction. in early 1776, militant haudenosaunee,
shawnee, and Odawa women designed massive wampum belts— one mea-
sured nine feet long— to call other nations to war. That spring, fourteen men
carried the belts south, taking a long detour to avoid Kentucky colonists.
after seventy days they reached the cherokee town of chota, where they
called the entire nation to council. When all had gathered, the northerners
appeared, their faces painted black, and recited a litany of colonial offenses.
a mohawk speaker declared that the Virginians “had without any pro-
vocation come into one of their towns and murdered their people” and
added that they had dunked British agent guy Johnson “into a hogshead of
Boiling tar.” an Odawa called on all indian nations to unite against “their
common enemies.” Final y, a shawnee complained that Virginia had “un-
justly brought war upon their nation” and filled Kentucky “with Forts and