The First Frontier

by Scott Weidensaul

  “a natural Failing”: Lawson, History of North Carolina, 116.

  “split the Pitch-Pine”: Ibid.

  [>] “Inside of 18 months”: Christoph von Graffenried’s Account of the Founding of New Bern, ed. Vincent H. Todd (Raleigh, NC: Edwards & Broughton Printing, 1920), 228.

  “The land is good”: Ibid., 312.

  “This country is praised”: Ibid.

  [>] leaders of the Conestoga: The Conestoga, named for their town along the lower Susquehanna River, were the remnants of the Susquehannock, who had been badly diminished in seventeenth-century wars with the Iroquois.

  “elder women”: J. N. B. Hewitt, “Tuscarora,” in Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, ed. F. W. Hodge (Washington, DC: Bureau of American Ethnology, 1910), 2:843.

  “past carriage”: Ibid., 844.

  “I am credibly”: Alexander Spotswood to Edward Hyde, January 1711, in The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood, ed. R. A. Brock (Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, 1882), 1:48.

  “to fall upon”: Ibid.

  “a Train of ill”: Ibid.

  [>] “a just reproach”: Ibid.

  “saying there was”: Christoph von Graffenried, “Copy of the account written Mr. Edward Hyde, Governor in North Carolina, the 23d of October, 1711, with reference to my miraculous deliverance from the savages,” in Christoph von Graffenried’s Account of the Founding of New Bern, ed. Vincent H. Todd (Raleigh, NC: Edwards & Broughton Printing, 1920), 263.

  “fine and apparently”: Ibid.

  “this was of no consequence”: Ibid.

  “There came . . . a general”: Ibid., 266.

  [>] “This spoiled everything”: Ibid.

  “I turned toward”: Ibid., 267.

  [>] “dressed like a Christian”: Ibid.

  “in the most dignified”: Ibid.

  “made a short speech”: Ibid., 269.

  “Surveyor General Lawson”: Ibid.

  “The threat had”: Ibid., 270.

  [>] “cannot find a member”: Alexander Spotswood to Lord Dartmouth, December 28, 1711, in Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood, 1:137.

  “for carrying on”: Ibid., 1:135.

  “out of a humor”: John Page to John Harleston, December 1, 1708, quoted in A. S. Salley, “Barnwell of South Carolina,” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 2 (January 1901): 47.

  “my brave Yamassees”: Barnwell, February 4, 1712, 34.

  [>] “small forts”: Ibid., 32.

  “within the Fort”: Ibid.

  “did not yield”: Ibid.

  “got all the slaves”: Ibid., 33.

  “to stimulate themselves”: Graffenried, quoted in Hewitt, “Tuscarora,” 2:846.

  the most ambitious: Barnwell reported that an escaped Virginia slave named Harry had been the architect of the fort, but this may reflect a refusal (as among the Puritans when confronting the Narragansett Great Swamp fort; see chapter 5) to believe that Indians could design such a “civilized” fortification themselves.

  “strong as well”: Barnwell, March 12, 1712, in “Tuscarora Expedition,” 43.

  “large reeds & canes”: Ibid.

  [>] “without a dram”: Ibid., 50.

  “that I ordered”: Ibid.

  “contrived several sorts”: Ibid., 50–51.

  “This siege”: Ibid., 51.

  “hardy boys”: Ibid., 54.

  [>] “quit all pretentions”: Ibid., 52.

  “never to build”: Ibid.

  [>] “I want words”: Thomas Pollock (December 23, 1712), quoted in Joseph W. Barnwell, “The Second Tuscarora Expedition,” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 10 (January 1909): 36.

  “the ignorance and obstinacy”: Ibid.

  “The destructions his indians”: Thomas Pollock (June 15, 1713), quoted in Barnwell, “Second Tuscarora Expedition,” 36.

  a fort even more: By far the best exploration of Tuscarora innovation is military historian Wayne E. Lee’s “Fortify, Fight, or Flee: Tuscarora and Cherokee Defensive Warfare and Military Culture Adaptation,” Journal of Military History 68 (July 2004): 713–40, from which much of this discussion is drawn. Recent excavations at Neoheroka have confirmed Moore’s descriptions concerning the size and sophistication of the fort.

  [>] “Of ye Enemies”: James Moore to Thomas Pollock, March 27, 1713, in Barnwell, “Second Tuscarora Expedition,” 39.

  [>] enjoyed a windfall: It’s not known what the Yamasee and other Indian allies received for the seven hundred Tuscarora captives—the wholesale price, so to speak—but estimates of the price they fetched on the slave market vary from £7,000 to £24,000, a fortune in those days (Olexer 2005).

  the value of slaves: According to French sources, English traders would pay the equivalent of up to £37 for an Indian slave, although this is almost certainly exaggerated; £5 to £10 may be closer to the mark, about what the French paid when they had the resources. See Gallay 2002, 311–14, for a discussion of comparable slave valuations.

  “not now so much”: Thomas Nairne (1710), “A Letter from South Carolina,” quoted in Haan 1981, 347.

  [>] “sum of their Indians”: David Crawley to William Byrd, July 30, 1715, in Calendar of State Papers: Colonial, ed. William N. Sainsbury (London: Public Records Office, 1964), 28:248.

  “when out among”: Ibid., 28:247–48.

  “cut off the said”: James Douglas (May 6, 1714), quoted in Journals of the Commissioners of the Indian Trade, September 20, 1710–August 29, 1718, ed. William L. McDowell Jr. (Columbia: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1955), 1:56.

  “to prevent their falling”: Ibid.

  “seemed pleased with”: Ibid.

  [>] “that the white men”: Quoted in Ramsey 2008, 228, who details how he uncovered this account—long rumored but lost for centuries—which explains Wright’s role and confirms that the Yamasee fully expected to be attacked and enslaved. Dictated in the early days of the war by the Yamasee chief known as the Huspaw King to an English boy, it was written “in gunpowder ink” and addressed to Governor Charles Craven. It lay unnoticed since the 1700s in the archives of the British Admiralty until Ramsey stumbled upon it.

  “vex’d the great”: Ibid.

  [>] “Oppressions, Grievances”: Francis Le Jau, May 10, 1715, in The Carolina Chronicles of Dr. Francis LeJau, 1706–1717, ed. Frank J. Klingberg (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), 153.

  “In my humble”: Ibid.

  armed black slaves: African slaves made up a significant proportion of the Carolina militia during the Yamasee War and nearly a third of the standing army formed in the wake of the militia’s spotty performance. As Oatis 2004 has pointed out, the slaves proved especially adept at frontier warfare and played important roles as scouts and interpreters. Except for one slave freed by an act of the Commons House, however, “most of the several hundred blacks who served on behalf of South Carolina were unceremoniously returned to their plantations by the war’s end” (p. 170).

  [>] “How to hold both”: Letter to Joseph Boone, April 25, 1717, in Colonial State Papers, National Archives (UK), catalogue CO 5/1265, no. 69; calendar ref. item 542, vol. 29 (1716–1717), 290–91.

  “in such a temper”: John Barnwell to Robert Johnson, April 20, 1719, in Colonial State Papers, National Archives (UK), catalogue CO 5/1265, nos. 127, i., ii., calendar ref. item 164, vol. 31 (1719–1720), 80–81.

  [>] “Our Southward”: Ibid.

  “I fear much”: Ibid.

  “the Golden Islands”: Robert Montgomery and John Barnwell, The Most Delightful Golden Islands (1720; repr., Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing, 1969), 1.

  Chapter 8: “One Head One Mouth, and One Heart”

  [>] Tarachiawagon: Tarachiawagon (spelled a variety of ways, including Tharonhiawá:kon and, in Mohawk, tharo˛hyawâ·ko˛) is the Good Twin in Iroquois cosmology, who battled and eventually triumphed over his evil brother, Tawiskaron. The name is perhaps more accurately translated as “sky grasper
.” See Fenton 1978 and Richter 1992.

  “king of the Indian traders”: George Patterson Donehoo, A History of the Cumberland Valley in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, PA: Susquehanna History Association, 1930), 1:96.

  “the Buck”: Wainwright 1959, 177.

  [>] “So You may see”: George Croghan to William Murray, July 12, 1765, in Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, ed. Clarence W. Alvord (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1916), 11:58.

  “Kantucqui”: The name, referring to both the region and a river, first appears in a 1753 deposition in Pennsylvania, in which it is also spelled Cantucky (F. W. Hodge, ed., American Anthropologist [Lancaster, PA: American Anthropological Association, 1908], 10:340).

  “the Half-King”: Tanaghrisson and Scarouady (who was similarly appointed “half-king” by the Iroquois League to supervise the Shawnee) appear in colonial records beginning in 1748. See Conrad Weiser to Provincial Council, September 29, 1748, in Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, 5:358 (hereafter cited as MPCP).

  Onondaga: With the establishment of the Iroquois League, the Onondaga—whose homeland sat in the middle of the original Five Nations, south of Oneida Lake—became the “fire keepers” for the confederacy, and their villages were the ceremonial heart of the league and the setting for most of its council deliberations. See Harold Blau, Jack Campisi, and Elisabeth Tooker, “Onondaga,” in Trigger 1978, 491–99.

  Madame Montour: There is little about Madame Montour’s early life that can be pinned down with any certainty, although claims that she was the daughter of the French governor were a fallacy. “Madame” was a title; she may have been born Elizabeth Couc in 1665 or Catherine Montour in 1684, and whether she was of pure French or métis descent is anyone’s guess. Likewise, there are conflicting accounts of her captivity among the Iroquois—whether she was taken as a child or as a young married woman, and whether by English-backed Iroquois while she was living in Canada or by French-allied Iroquois while living in New York, although the former seems more likely. By 1704, however, she was in French Detroit, creating scandals with French officers, and by 1709 she was working for the New York government, having taken over as interpreter for her murdered brother Louis Couc Montour. She may have had one or more marriages prior to her union with Andrew’s father, the Oneida war chief Carondowana, who died while raiding the Catawba in 1729. Madame Montour was involved in the Five Nations’ negotiations before and during the Tuscarora War, but around 1727 she moved to Pennsylvania, where Carondowana was the Iroquois council’s overseer among the Shawnee. She remained there with Andrew after her husband’s death in 1729. For recent examinations of Madame Montour’s life, see Hunter, “Tanaghrisson,” and Royot 2007.

  [>] “countenance [was] decidedly”: Count Nicolaus Ludwig graf von Zinzendorf (1742), quoted in William C. Reichel, ed., Memorials of the Moravian Church (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1870), 1:95–96.

  “of brass and other”: Ibid., 1:96.

  [>] “set a Horn”: Scarouady (October 4, 1753), in MPCP, 5:683.

  “one of their Counsellors”: Ibid.

  “a French woman”: Conrad Weiser, “Narrative of a Journey, Made in the Year 1737, by Conrad Weiser,” trans. Hiester H. Muhlenberg, in Collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, ed. John Pennington and Henry C. Baird (Philadelphia: Merrihew & Thompson, 1853), 1:8.

  [>] “of all the Traders”: Horatio Sharpe to Robert Dinwiddie, December 26, 1754, in Correspondence of Governor Horatio Sharpe, ed. William H. Browne (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1888), 1:151.

  “He abused me”: Conrad Weiser to Richard Peters, September 13, 1754, in Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd ser., 7:246 (hereafter cited as PA).

  “faithful, knowing, & prudent”: Conrad Weiser (June 23, 1748), in MPCP, 5:290.

  “a French man”: Richard Peters to Proprietaries, November 6, 1753, in Penn Manuscripts, Official Correspondence (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania), 6:115.

  “at a lost”: Conrad Weiser to Richard Peters, August 4, 1754, in Penn Manuscripts, 6:12.

  [>] loosely related groups: See Becker 1989 for a contrary view, suggesting that the Lenape/Delaware as usually defined were three linguistically and culturally distinct groups.

  Unlike the Susquehannock: See Sugrue 1992.

  [>] “must live in love”: William Penn (1683), quoted in Jean R. Soderlund, ed., William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania, 1680–1684 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1983), 307.

  “noe man shall”: “Indian sections in certain conditions or concessions agreed upon between William Penn and his Pennsylvania land purchasers” (July 11, 1681), in William Penn’s Own Account of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians, ed. Albert Cook Myers, rev. ed. (Moorestown, NJ: Middle Atlantic Press, 1970), 55.

  “unique blend”: Jennings 1984, 241.

  “sachemakers”: William Penn, quoted in Soderlund, William Penn, 156.

  “two handfull”: Ibid., 161.

  “so much Wampum”: Deed (June 22, 1683), quoted in William Penn’s Own Account, 86.

  [>] “4 hansfull Bells”: Ibid., 88.

  “bought lands”: William Penn, quoted in Soderlund, William Penn, 292.

  “as long as”: “Letter of Pennsylvania Indians to the King of England Commending Their Friend William Penn, 1701,” in William Penn’s Own Account of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians, ed. Albert Cook Myers, rev. ed. (Moorestown, NJ: Middle Atlantic Press, 1970), 66.

  [>] a level of diplomatic: The league was and remains a remarkable achievement, but it has been increasingly credited—on fairly thin evidence—with having served as the direct inspiration for the federal structure established by the American colonies’ Articles of Confederation, an argument made in works such as Donald A. Grinde, The Iroquois and the Founding of the American Nation (San Francisco: Indian Historian Press, 1977), and Bruce E. Johansen, Forgotten Founders (Ipswich, MA: Gambit, 1982). The Onondaga sachem Canasatego, at a treaty in Lancaster in 1744, praised to colonial officials the “Union and Amity” of the Iroquois League and told them, “We heartily recommend Union and a good Agreement between you Brethren” (quoted in Payne 1996, 609). But while Benjamin Franklin and others among the founders were aware of the league’s history and structure and may well have been influenced by it, much of the argument for such influence boils down to a single, decidedly sarcastic remark by Franklin. Despairing of colonial unity, Franklin in 1750 wrote, “It would be a very strange Thing, if six Nations of ignorant Savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such an Union . . . and yet that a like Union should be impracticable for ten or a Dozen English Colonies” (Franklin to James Parker, March 20, 1751, in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961], 4:118–19).

  [>] British embassy warned: With the 1707 Acts of Union, England and Scotland were joined into the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

  “You may have half”: James Dayrolle (June 14, 1709), quoted in Wallace 1945, 6.

  [>] “I suffered much”: Conrad Weiser, “Copy of a Family Register in the Handwriting of Conrad Weiser,” trans. Hiester H. Muhlenberg, in Collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, ed. John Pennington and Henry C. Baird (Philadelphia: Merrihew & Thompson, 1853), 1:2.

  “were so barbarous”: Ibid.

  “learned the greater part”: Ibid., 1:3.

  “there were always”: Ibid.

  [>] “could not believe”: Sassoonan (June 5, 1728), in MPCP, 3:322. Like many Natives, Sassoonan was known by multiple names, depending on the audience. He often appears in colonial records as Olumapies.

  [>] “without the Consent”: James Logan (June 5, 1728), in MPCP, 3:340.

  Ann Eva Feck: Ann’s name was sometimes recorded as Anne or Anna.

  [>] “Shikellima, of the five Nations”: MPCP, 3:357. Many colonial scribes were slow to adopt the term “Six Nations” following the Tuscarora’s entry
into the league in the early 1720s.

  “forty Shillings”: Ibid., 3:425.

  “a trusty good Man”: Ibid., 3:410.

  “whose Services had been”: Ibid., 3:337.

  [>] “Also in the day”: Numbers 10:10 (The Holy Bible, Quatercentenary Edition, ed. Gordon Campbell [1611; facs. ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010], 33).

  [>] “at a previous period”: Conrad Weiser (1737), quoted in “Narrative of a Journey, Made in 1737, by Conrad Weiser,” trans. Hiester H. Muhlenberg, in Collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, ed. John Pennington and Henry C. Baird (Philadelphia: Merrihew & Thompson, 1853), 1:16.

  “but not without”: Ibid., 7.

  [>] “a French woman by birth”: Ibid., 8.

  Sheshequin Path: Because of flooding, Weiser’s party was forced to detour off the main path for the first dozen miles or so, where they encountered the worst ice.

  “We came to a thick”: Weiser, quoted in “Narrative of a Journey,” 9.

  “frightful”: Ibid.

  “The passage through”: Ibid.

  “terrible mountains”: Ibid.

  [>] “stood still in astonishment”: Ibid., 10.

  “Indian shoe strings”: Ibid., 16.

  “on which we sustained”: Ibid.

  “now their children”: Ibid., 17.

  “You kill [the game]”: Ibid.

  “through a dreadful”: Ibid., 18.

  “I stepped aside”: Ibid.

  “the sensible reasoning”: Ibid.

  [>] “let justice have”: William Penn to Gulielma Penn [his wife] and children, August 4, 1682, in Soderlund, William Penn, 169.

  The Penns’ justification: For a damning examination of the Walking Purchase and the attempts in decades thereafter to cover up the essential fraud, see Jennings 1984, especially Appendix B, “Documents of the Walking Purchase.” It is ironic that Jennings suspected that one of the infamous walkers, Solomon Jennings, might have been his own ancestor.

  [>] “all the best”: Lappawinzo (1737), quoted in William J. Buck, The Indian Walk (Philadelphia: Edwin S. Stuart, 1886), 95.