despite their differences, both White eyes and guyasuta used the revolutionary
crisis to defend national sovereignty. above al , they aimed to secure their re-
maining territory from colonization. round Face, another seneca who spoke on
behalf of warriors and women, berated the commissioners for allowing surveys
on a nearby island. “you know the Boundary,” he scolded.49 delaware and shaw-
nee speakers, while disputing six nations supremacy, echoed this emphasis on
enforcing established borders. Familiar chains of patronage had col apsed, but
congress’s need for allies offered the chance to cultivate new ones. guyasuta
aimed to restore the old covenant chain partnership, while White eyes and
cornstalk sought a new union of confederations, but all sought some means of
cementing sovereignty within the coming postrevolutionary order.
This desire to exploit the imperial crisis also transcended divisions be-
tween moderates and militants. White eyes and cornstalk may have champi-
oned diplomacy in part for spiritual reasons— both men had ties to the
pacifist moravians— but their strategy reflected above all a pragmatic assess-
ment of political opportunity. similarly, pluggy and his allies sought to ex-
ploit Britain’s war effort to halt colonial expansion. militants drew on a
tradition of nativist spirituality, but their case hinged on the expectation of a
British alliance.50 Both moderates and militants sought first and foremost to
secure their nations’ territories against the colonial invasion already sweep-
ing over Kentucky. They recognized that they could do so only by forging a
lasting relationship with an anglo- american state, even as that state shat-
tered and reassembled itself in the throes of revolution. in the bloody years to
come, these parallel strategies facilitated mutual support and peacemaking
among Ohio indians, while undercutting British and congressional attempts
to control their nominal allies.
By late 1776, the peoples of the Ohio Valley had ample reason to fear war.
Though still sporadic, indian attacks on colonists were becoming more fre-
Opportunity, 1775–76
93
quent. The organization of militia in frontier counties raised the possibility of
large- scale retaliation. in Ohio, rumors of Virginian invasion grew ever more
alarming, thanks to the heated rhetoric of congressional envoys and the re-
building of forts along the Ohio river. indian diplomats had promised to pun-
ish those who broke the peace, but they worried that colonial strikes against
pluggy and his supporters would threaten their own communities as wel .
even so, as 1776 came to a close Ohio indian militancy appeared to be
waning. Just a few months after dunquat sang his war song at detroit, his wife
spent christmas at a newly established moravian mission, where she showed
a keen interest in the differences between the german pietists and the French
priests who taught her own people at detroit. she brought along trader alex-
ander mccormick, a rebel sympathizer whom Wyandot militants had cap-
tured a few months before. rather than handing mccormick to hamilton, she
had adopted him as her brother and now returned him to his delaware wife at
assünnünk, where he soon became one of congress’s more useful western
informants. The visit convinced even the missionary david Zeisberger— who
seldom gave non- moravian indians the benefit of any doubt— that the Wyan-
dot and Odawa were now “almost inclin’d to lay down the hatchet & to live in
friendship with the americans.” The following spring, two moravian indian
leaders visited sandusky to promote an upcoming treaty council with the
United states. They reported back that the Wyandots “received them wel ,
were willing to listen to them, and [we]re inclined to accept peace.”51
as Wyandots and moravians celebrated christmas, several midwinter
war parties crossed the Ohio to attack Kentucky colonists. pluggy and his
allies had no qualms about hamilton’s contradictory messages, taking in-
struction instead from his gifts of gunpowder. On the Kanawha, a shawnee
band killed three colonists and took one prisoner; they carried out more such
attacks in the weeks that followed. By march, their numbers reportedly ex-
ceeded sixty. paying no heed to formal leaders like cornstalk, they declared
themselves “free men that had no King nor chief,” confident that “detroit
would provide them with ammunition.” But such freedom came at a price.
pluggy’s party killed four men on licking river, then moved on to a walled
outpost called mcclel and’s station. With too few men to storm the fort, and
no heavy guns to topple its wooden wal s, they soon retreated. pluggy him-
self fell during the assault, having fatal y overestimated his men’s military ca-
pability.52 however much terror they caused, and however much gunpowder
hamilton gave them, the militants still lacked the numbers and resources to
overcome even a makeshift stockade.
94
chapter 3
meanwhile, cornstalk and a younger shawnee man visited point pleasant
with messages for the Virginian garrison of a newly built fort. The shawnees
camped across the Ohio; on 29 november a Wyandot man joined them. The
next day, they conferred as best they could with the Virginian commander
matthew arbuckle, despite knowing little of one another’s languages. soon
afterward haudenosaunee warriors seized one of arbuckle’s men and es-
caped into the woods. in retaliation, the Virginians set out to seize the Wyan-
dot stranger. cornstalk, afraid for his guest’s life, tried to hide the man, but
the Virginians found him and imprisoned him in the chil y fort. Three weeks
later, a group of indians appeared with the captured militiaman in tow. some-
how, cornstalk and the prisoner’s Wyandot kin had found the young Virgin-
ian and persuaded his captors to hand him over. placated, arbuckle released
his own hostage in exchange. no one died.53
These dissimilar encounters, characterized by misunderstanding, dis-
trust, and the near- constant threat of violence, exemplified the early years of
revolution in the Ohio Valley. For a year and a half after dunmore’s War, in-
tercultural violence largely ceased. it resumed with pluggy’s raids in 1776, but
on a much smaller scale. The col apse of state authority deterred indians and
colonists from waging war. arbuckle’s small garrison was short on food, gun-
powder, and blankets; cornstalk’s shawnees keenly remembered the invasion
of 1774; and pluggy’s raiders struggled against even rudimentary colonial de-
fenses. meanwhile, imperial crisis fostered political and diplomatic creativity.
Both indians and colonists labored to shape a new political order, often by
cultivating new coalition partners. Virginians and pennsylvanians, loyalists
and rebels, all sought indians’ friendship. Both the militant pluggy and the
more moderate dunquat pressed hamilton for support, recognizing that
their political and military prospects hinged on British backing. White eyes
and cornstalk, meanwhile, sought new patrons in the emerging revolution-
ary regime. distrust an
d hatred remained, but political expediency prevailed.
instead of fostering chaos, state failure had brought relative peace.
Chapter 4
reluctance, 1777– 79
in early august 1777, dunquat, the half- King of the sandusky Wyandots,
took a detour off the road to war. he had set out with two hundred warriors
to attack Virginian forts on the Ohio, but he stopped en route to visit the
resolutely neutral muskingum Valley delaware. dunquat, while proudly call-
ing himself “a man of war,” praised their neutrality as well as the pacifism of
the neighboring moravian mission of lichtenau. more remarkably, the Wy-
andot embraced the missionary david Zeisberger as a “father,” pledged to
treat him “as my own body,” and promised to protect the moravians against
other indians. For the following two weeks, the delawares listened to dun-
quat’s doubts about the war he had set out to fight. Just a few months before
he had been “inclined to accept peace.” he now went to fight only “as a favor”
to henry hamilton, the British commander at detroit. he repeatedly post-
poned his army’s departure, declared he did not plan “to do much harm,” and
hoped the troublesome conflict would end soon. he berated impatient allies
for wanting “to go kill innocent women and children,” and he refused to let
them leave without him. The constant arguing convinced Zeisberger that
“they had not yet decided for sure what they would do.” Then delaware mes-
sengers reported the approach of a large army from Fort pitt. The news
proved false, but the specter of invasion brought debate to a halt. dunquat
attacked Wheeling and killed fifteen men but, to his surprise, found the gar-
rison well prepared. he retreated to goschachgünk with his wounded, where
he declared he was “happy to see” Zeisberger again. at the time, he did not
know that his new “father” had almost certainly warned the Virginians of his
plans.1
This half- hearted campaign began the revolutionary War in the Ohio
Valley. in his landmark history of the region, richard White dubs this
96
chapter 4
struggle “a contest of vil agers”: independent indians and colonists with only
loose ties to British and revolutionary armies.2 This interpretation contains
some truth: time and again fighting men chose to kil , or not, with scant re-
gard for the orders of government- appointed commanders. like dunquat at
lichtenau, Ohio Valley inhabitants mobilized haltingly, foiling attempts to
launch major campaigns. in consequence, those who went to war usual y tar-
geted noncombatants. British- allied indians assailed colonial homesteads
and stockades, while revolutionary expeditions torched indian towns and
murdered indian prisoners and allies. But however much gentlemen officers
wrung their hands, their allies’ brutality hinged on the gunpowder, provi-
sions, and coordination that their governments provided. indian- hating mili-
tiamen ignored orders routinely, but, when deprived of government support,
their companies col apsed and colonists fled in droves. indian war parties
acted more independently, but their coalition’s strength nonetheless hinged
on British backing.
rather than a determined struggle of indians and colonists eager to shed
each other’s blood, the war of the late 1770s exuded uncertainty, hesitation,
and failure. its intermittent ferocity resulted less from intercultural hatred
than from British and revolutionary governments’ determination to control
the Ohio Valley. in 1775, imperial col apse had left the region’s peoples to fend
for themselves, yielding relative peace. shortages of food and ammunition, as
well as the memories of dunmore’s War, deterred all but the most militant
from renewing hostilities. Then, beginning in 1777, British and revolutionary
officials funneled resources into the region, each hoping to build a western
bulwark against the other. This material support only partial y and erratical y
addressed local needs, but it helped win over pragmatists and undercut
peacemakers, tipping the political balance toward militancy.
yet even as bloodshed escalated, opportunities remained to slow or even
halt the killing. The Wyandot, central players in the British great lakes alli-
ance, repeatedly offered to make peace with the United states. The delaware
of goschachgünk and lichtenau acted as intermediaries, even as both the
British and americans pressured them to go to war. This Wyandot- delaware
col aboration reflected shared goals: protection for people and crops, state
recognition of territorial sovereignty, and peace with their indian neighbors.
The two nations cultivated warring state patrons, but they simultaneously
held to an older and deeper friendship with one another. By 1780, their bids
for peace had failed, in large part because of the arrogance and ineptitude of
american commanders.
reluctance, 1777–79
97
* * *
On 18 June 1777, about six weeks before dunquat’s visit to lichtenau, henry
hamilton shed his usual garments and donned something resembling the
garb of a great lakes indian warrior. he painted his face and torso and
picked up a large belt of wampum beads, colored red to represent blood.
large assembly of western indians, and gave their best impression of a tradi-
tional “War song.” This singular performance had dramatic implications. For
the first time since the beginning of the revolutionary War, a British com-
mander had openly asked great lakes indians to wage war against the amer-
ican rebels. The audience joined in the singing, accepting the call to arms,
though some, like dunquat, did so half- heartedly. after the council, hamil-
ton rewarded his new allies with weaponry, laying a strong foundation for the
new military alliance.3
some in the audience were fighting already, with hamilton’s tacit encour-
agement. For the past year and a half, hamilton’s orders had barred him from
calling indians to war, but he had regularly offered militants gunpowder
while publicly deriding his king’s enemies. By late 1776 small bands of Ohio
indians had begun attacking colonial outposts in Kentucky, reasoning cor-
rectly that hamilton would continue to supply them with gunpowder. By
march 1777, sixty- four shawnees had reportedly gone to war, together with
perhaps a few dozen haudenosaunees and Wyandots. Through the spring
they repeatedly attacked Ohio Valley colonists from grave creek to harrods-
burg, killing about fifteen, capturing a woman and seven children, burning
houses, and slaughtering livestock. a shawnee community condemned one
captive militiaman to death by ritual burning. But even as these horrors
mounted, they remained limited in scale. Warriors attacked in parties of a
few dozen at most; by contrast, perhaps eight hundred shawnees had fought
at the 1774 Battle of point pleasant. some Ohio indian towns supported the
attacks, but others opposed them. equal y important, the anishinaabeg to
the north, and the miami and other Wabash
nations to the west, stayed out of
the fighting.4
Then British secretary of state george germain ordered hamilton to
raise parties of western indians to “excit[e] an alarm upon the frontiers of
Virginia and pennsylvania.” With these orders, and the resulting “War song,”
the shape and scale of fighting changed dramatical y. The call to arms won
over moderates like dunquat and expanded the militant coalition to include
the anishinaabeg and Wabash nations as wel . in the months that followed,
98
chapter 4
hundreds went to war and returned carrying scalps and captives. in just two
summer days, warriors killed and scalped a woman and her child on the
upper monongahela, captured a family of seven near raccoon creek, and
killed a militia sergeant and captured two young men on the Ohio river. at
Kittanning, on the allegheny, an Ojibwe war party ambushed a group of mi-
litia, killing three. nearly three hundred miles to the south, on the greenbrier
river in southwest Virginia, another group killed three men, wounded an-
other, and captured one woman. dunquat failed to capture Wheeling, but a
few weeks later his Wyandots ambushed forty- six militia downstream from
the fort. Fewer than half the Virginians escaped alive. By early 1778, warriors
supplied at detroit had captured 73 prisoners and taken 129 scalps. in the fall
of 1778, more than four hundred shawnee warriors set out against Kentucky;
one report estimated that eight hundred to one thousand warriors were at-
tacking frontier Virginia and pennsylvania.5
But if those warriors took up arms at hamilton’s urging, they fought on
their own terms and for their own reasons. in many respects, they held to
long- standing patterns of great lakes warfare, favoring ambushes that mini-
mized their own casualties and enabled them to take captives, especial y
women and children, to be adopted into their communities. They wreaked
havoc on isolated homesteads and unwary militia patrols, but usual y failed
to overcome stockade defenses. resentment of colonial expansion motivated
many, especial y those who had gone to war before hamilton’s song, but po-