Within the autonomous villages of the Allegheny Plateau and the Ohio Valley beyond, each community controlled its own territory using two systems of coexisting land tenure. First, as a collective group, the inhabitants of each village owned a large area of “hunting territory,” which could be used by anyone from the village to hunt game, fish in the nearby streams, gather up firewood or pick berries.71 At the same time, members of each extended family, usually under the leadership of a matriarch, farmed their own individual parcel of land, with family fields sometimes separated by either fallow fields or trees. These fields remained in the possession of a particular family so long as they continued to cultivate them. Once a family abandoned a field, the ownership reverted to the entire community and the village council would assign it to a family matriarch as a new piece of farmland. Essentially, the Indians viewed “ownership” as being a temporary condition that existed only as long as a family made use of the land for their benefit.72
Although this system was far removed from the traditional English concept that formed the basis of the colonists’ view of ownership, the idea that one could sell perpetual ownership of the land was even farther from the Indians’ belief system. All Native Americans enjoyed a spiritual relationship with not only the land but also all the creatures that shared it with them, bestowing the idea of a soul to each and every thing, both animate and inanimate, seeing all as equals in the universe, as gifts from their creator. In the words of Black Hawk, a chief of the Sauk nation, “Land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, and cultivate, as far as is necessary for their subsistence; and so long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil—but if they voluntarily leave it, then any other [Indian] people have the right to settle upon it.”73
In this sixteenth-century engraving, Indians are shown planting their fields with corn and beans. Library of Congress.
As a result, the British never understood that, on those occasions when the Indians saw fit to bestow land as a gift or token of friendship, they were not surrendering the land in perpetuity. Instead, they believed they were granting their British friends the temporary right to make use of the land, just as their own village councils did for members of their tribe. In their minds, the British had very limited rights to the land granted to them. One of the few colonists to truly comprehend this arrangement was Roger Williams, founder of the Rhode Island colony. He correctly pointed out that even though he had given a “gratuity” to a sachem of the local Narragansett Indians for the use of two islands for grazing hogs, no transfer in land ownership had actually taken place.74 Therefore, in the Indians’ minds, if a settler stopped farming the land given to him by the tribe or if he failed to abide by the terms of their agreement, the land reverted back to the village, just as it would for any member of the tribe. Thus, what many British and American settlers saw as a land sale was often merely a limited, rent-free loan of the land.
However, the pinnacle of British arrogance lay in their belief that they could colonize and rightfully seize land based on their monarch’s divine right and “superior” religion. Employing religious dogma that had existed since the time of the Crusades, the English, like other European monarchies, believed that any Christian king possessed the right of eminent domain over any lands held by a non-Christian “heathen” people. However, the British took matters one step further than their Catholic French and Spanish competitors. While the French and Spaniards both based the legitimacy of their land appropriations on the need to convert the native races to Christianity, the English Protestants believed that merely being Christian entitled them to appropriate the lands of the Indians.75
Further, as Anglican minister Richard Eburne explained the matter, the passage in Genesis 1:28, which reads “…and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it,” provided additional justification for the British to seize the land from Indian hands. According the Eburne, this commandment from God to Adam awarded Christianity a grand charter with the “privilege to spread themselves from place to place, and to have, hold, occupy, and enjoy any region or country whatsoever which they should find either not occupied.”76 Of course, the Indians might argue against the idea that their lands were “unoccupied,” but the British had an answer for that as well. To them, if you were not using the agricultural techniques employed by English and other European farmers, you were not “replenishing” the land and therefore had no rights to it.
Moreover, not only was the idea of ownership an issue, the stewardship of the resources on the land was also very different between whites and Indians. Cornstalk, a chief of the Shawnee, said, “When God created this World he gave this Island [America] to the red people…who live by Hunting and cannot subsist in any other way.”77 The Indians took what was required to live, plus perhaps a small surplus to trade with other villages. Meanwhile, the settlers, who began to arrive in large numbers in the 1770s, took much more, often using wasteful hunting practices. For example, William Haymond wrote that whenever he was in the woods and saw a deer, he could “not resist the temptation to shoot it.”78 Within a generation, the toll from such attitudes began to increase, and one settler would lament, “The buffalo and elk have entirely disappeared from this section of the country. Of the bear and deer but very few remain…The wild turkeys, which used to be so abundant…are now rarely seen.”79
One can easily understand how baffling this behavior had to be to the Indians who not only relied on the same resources for their own survival but also had a deep, spiritual affinity for the animals being slaughtered by the settlers. To them, the settlers, who now seemed to fill their beloved forests, were ravenous thieves who desecrated the gifts of the Creator. The entire frustration of the Indians regarding both the raping of the land’s resources, as well as the land itself, was summed up by the Shawnee Chiksika, who proclaimed, “The whole white race is a monster who is always hungry and what he eats is land.”80 Therein lay the fundamental causes for the great cultural conflict that led to war on the Virginia frontier: the complete disconnect between the two races in terms of what was meant by land “ownership,” and the settlers’ inability to control their appetite for ravaging the resources it provided, both of which threatened the Indians’ very survival.
WARRIORS, TACTICS AND MORALITY
The Indian warriors of the woodland tribes were a very different breed than their European counterparts, and in fact, their entire approach to war was decidedly at odds with that imported to the New World from the Old. As a result, just like the other cultural differences between the two races, European settlers and soldiers alike did not understand or appreciate the Indian style of warfare. However, they did pay an often heavy price for their inability to see it as anything but yet another example of the savage’s ignorance and cowardice.
War was a distinct part of Indian society, with its own set of common practices and fundamental beliefs. In general, wars between Indian nations were relatively short-lived and far less brutal than those in Europe. A few conflicts, such as the Iroquois Confederation’s war against the Wyandot in the seventeenth century, were fought for territorial gain and trade advantage. However, most were either an extension of a blood feud for an alleged wrongdoing that resulted in the death of a tribal member, what was often referred to as a “mourning war,” or were fought to gain captives from the opposing side that could be adopted into the tribe to replace losses from war or disease.
One of the more disparaging views Europeans commonly held against Indian warriors was that they were cowardly and undisciplined. However, as one contemporary colonist pointed out, “I have often heard the British officers call the Indians undisciplined savages, which is a capital mistake—as they have all the essentials of discipline…Could it be supposed that undisciplined troops could defeat Generals Braddock, Grant, etc.?”81 In fact, Indian warriors were actually highly disciplined, but their entire approach to discipline and military tactics was the exact opposite o
f their British opponents.
Indian discipline was based on the concept of individual honor as opposed to corporal punishment inflicted by a superior. Warrior leaders were chosen through a consensus reached on their courage, bravery and military experience, as opposed to the British practice of leadership via purchase or privilege. Indian war chiefs always tried to save their men’s lives, and in Indian culture, no victory could ever justify heavy casualties. As a result, there was no disgrace in calling for a retreat until the odds were more in their favor. In addition, rather than adhering to a set of textbook or traditionally prescribed tactics, Indian leaders practiced a sophisticated and highly adaptive brand of warfare that emphasized situational tactics based on weapons and terrain. In this sense, they were the probably among the finest guerilla fighters in history.82
While the warrior culture had its own practices and weapons, the Indians were quick to see the tactical advantage of using firearms. Contrary to the image of the sharpshooting frontiersman from popular culture, the buckskin-clad hero who could outshoot his Indian opponent, the Indians actually became highly skilled sharpshooters. Native American culture drew little distinction between hunting and warfare, and as a result, warriors were trained to be expert shooters in either environment. By adding the proficient use of European weaponry to their already lethal woodland guerilla tactics, the Indians became truly deadly opponents.
As one frontier Indian fighter observed, “The principles of their military action are rational, and therefore often successful…In vain may we expect success against our adversaries without taking a few lessons from them.”83 The Indians’ tactical principles usually involved moving their men through the woods in dispersed, scattered order, instead of rigid, grouped formations, to avoid being surrounded. At the same time, this approach offered them the best chance to surround the enemy and gain the superior advantage provided by the available ground. Meanwhile, their troops, the warriors of the tribe, came to battle in superb physical condition. These warriors, who practiced running and marksmanship, were trained to endure hunger and hardship on behalf of their people. Although the Indian culture of war sought to avoid unnecessary casualties, the Native Americans were, in their own unique way, a very martial people, “ready to sell their lives dearly in defence [sic] of their homes.”84 It was, perhaps, this deeply moral foundation among the warrior class that allowed them to resist their European and American opponents for so many decades despite the latter’s overwhelming numbers and technological superiority.
This fanciful 1789 drawing depicts an Indian warrior holding a scalp. Library of Congress.
Woodland Indians make a night attack on a frontier settler’s cabin. New York Public Library.
Whenever a force of British colonial troops approached a village, the typical Indian response was to fight a delaying action and evacuate the village. Indians learned early on in their fight against the Europeans that trying to defend a village was a recipe for military disaster. Conversely, if they and the villagers retreated to the woods, their enemy would have to be content with burning lodges and food supplies. Although this might often create great hardship, it was better than the alternative, which was the almost certain slaughter of all the village’s inhabitants. In response to these kinds of attacks, the Indians would typically follow up with a series of ambushes and raids against isolated farms and settlements.
This also meant that Indians seldom, if ever, conducted frontal attacks on fortified positions. During their alliances with the French, they had seen firsthand that such attacks were seldom successful unless you had cannon to knock down the stockade walls. Furthermore, even if a fort was seized, the advantage allowed to the stockade’s defenders resulted in an unjustifiable number of casualties. Instead, the Indians often would resort to wholesale burning of nearby crops and homes, which caused the fort’s inhabitants to sally forth in an effort to save their farms, allowing the Indians to lure them into easy ambushes.
One of the more confusing aspects of the Indian execution of warfare against European settlers is the use of what seems barbarous cruelty, and this a difficult issue for a modern observer to truly understand. As discussed above, fighting between Indian warriors seldom resulted in many casualties. Often rather as not, Indians preferred to take their enemies captive, especially noncombatants. These people were usually adopted into the tribe as a means of maintaining population levels under stress from disease, famine or warfare.
Indian ritual and custom also played a large part in their treatment of prisoners. The fate of all captives was the prerogative of the tribe’s collective matriarchs, the Clan Mothers. In most cases, women and children were automatically adopted, as were most men. However, when a captive was sentenced to die, which happened far more often to opposing Indian prisoners than settlers, there was always a clear adjudication of the crime prior to execution, with both those condemning the accused as well as his supporters given an equal opportunity to speak. It came as a great surprise to Native Americans when Europeans condemned this practice. One Lenape responded to his colonial critics, saying, “You white people also try your criminals, and when they are found guilty, you hang them or kill them, and we do the same among ourselves.”85
A colonial soldier tries to stop Indians from torturing a captive in this nineteenth-century drawing. Library of Congress.
While those condemned to die usually faced a painful death by ritual torture or burning at the stake, an adoptee also was processed into the tribe through rituals, which were intended to accord them full status as a member of the tribal family. One settler, Thomas Grist, who was captured near Fort Duquesne in 1758, was fortunate enough to be adopted into an Indian family as a replacement for a deceased family member:
I was led into the house where I was to live, there strip’d [sic] by a female relation, and then led to the river. There she wash’d [sic] me from head to foot, leavin[g] none of the paint itself on me. We then returned to the house, where was gather[ed] all my relations and I believe few men has so many. Such hug[g]ing and kissing from the women and crying for joy, I never saw before. The men acted in a different manner; they looked very serious, shook my hand, and spake [sic] little. As soon as this ceremony was over I was clad from head to foot; then there was an interpreter brought to tell me which of my kin was nearest to me. I think they re[c]onded [sic] from brother to seventh cousins.86
Another important cultural element of the woodland Indians prosecution of war was what is commonly referred to as the Law of Innocence. Evidence indicates this law dated from at least the twelfth century, and it protected all noncombatants, especially the elderly, women and children, as well as “Messengers of Peace,” the couriers who carried peaceful or neutral messages. Further, under its tenets, women, children, elders and noncombatant males might be taken captive and adopted, but they were never to be killed, scalped or tortured. In addition, the Law of Innocence firmly prohibited rape. Rape was considered an utterly reprehensible act by all the woodland nations and was seen as literally unthinkable in these societies, which deeply revered women and afforded them such high status. In fact, one historian points out that, among these eastern tribes, “the concept of sexual violation was a grotesque aberration, held to be on the same level as wanton child murder.”87 Therefore, one must question why, given these various cultural imperatives, Indian warriors did indeed scalp and kill white women and children.
Several factors influenced what must appear to be utterly aberrant behavior. First, one must remember that Indian warriors were fighting a guerilla war, with operations sometimes ranging deep into “enemy” territory. As a result, military expedience might dictate the elimination of captives who were either not useful or might otherwise slow down the warriors’ successful retreat back to their village. It also appears that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Indians did not perceive enemies or any non-member of their tribal group or community as fully human. Further compounding these views is the fact that the Indians did not perceive a distinction
between war and murder, as Europeans might. In historian Richard White’s study of colonial-period Great Lakes Indians, he found that the Algonquian peoples believed there were two kinds of killings: those perpetrated by enemies and those committed by allies. If someone’s killer belonged to an ally, the victim’s family and community expected that the dead would be “covered” by appropriate compensation and ceremony. If this did not happen, the killer became an enemy and a blood feud began. The Indians did not, however, see the battlefield as a unique cultural zone in which killing was sanctioned to the exclusion of other acts of killing that whites might define as murder. Therefore, while Europeans believed murder to be a crime requiring blood revenge, Indians maintained that killings by enemies demanded such revenge whether in or out of battle.88
Despite this, however, the largest single factor influencing warrior behavior in this regard was the wanton, brutal killings carried out by Anglo-American colonists from virtually the moment they arrived in America. The Puritans were the first, employing a philosophy that “nits make lice,” their cold, racist rationale for the purposeful killing of Native American women and children.89 Furthermore, the British borrowed heavily from European practices of the Thirty Years War, as well as their own legacy of “search and destroy” operations in both Scotland and Ireland, all of which included the indiscriminate killing of noncombatants. As a result, the British provided the lessons of conducting “hard war” to the Native Americans—not the other way around. In fact, it must be said that the British, as well as the Americans who followed them on the frontier, were, in reality, more brutal than their “savage” opponents because their atrocities were usually intentional and the result of carefully calculated plans and policies.
A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier Page 5