by Rob Harper
like tools, weapons, fabrics, and liquor. to facilitate this commerce, indian
women often partnered with male colonists in relationships that were both
commercial and sexual. in 1775, a young Ohio mohawk woman took a neo-
phyte trader, nicholas cresswel , under her wing, despite knowing only a lit-
tle of his language. When he lodged with her family in the town of Old
hundy, she slept with him and, the following morning, persuaded him to
bring her along on his journey. Their relationship brought tangible benefits to
both. he needed someone to guide him to customers, cook his food, nurse
him when he got sick, and keep track of his horse, which he had a habit of
losing. For her part, she brought his business to her kin. real affection devel-
oped between them, culminating in a teary- eyed goodbye. Over decades,
countless similar partnerships created elaborate trading networks, in which
indian women and colonial traders linked indigenous kinship groups to
merchants in philadelphia, montreal, and london. trade with colonists was
not always beneficial: liquor brought a host of problems, and male elders
sometimes complained about young women selling rum in their communi-
ties. But for good or il , such entrepreneurship reflected a long- standing pat-
tern of exchange that forged lasting commercial and familial relationships.20
some Ohio indians’ distant ancestors had lived in large and relatively
centralized city- states, but centuries of climatic cooling, together with the
more recent ravages of european pathogens, had encouraged political and
social dispersal, creating a landscape of political y autonomous towns. By the
mid- eighteenth century, it became clear that small and scattered communi-
ties were all the more vulnerable to land- hungry British colonists. many
Ohio indian leaders thus began promoting consolidation: clustering towns
near one another, inviting distant friends and allies to become neighbors, and
leveraging demographic density for political advantage. The Wyandots in-
vited the delawares to settle on their land in eastern Ohio, and the delawares
in turn recruited other easterners to join them, including delawares and mo-
hicans who had embraced the german- led moravian church. The six na-
tions urged Ohio indians to move closer to the haudenosaunee homeland,
while shawnee leaders invited western haudenosaunee to move to the scioto
Valley. These efforts garnered mixed results. many shawnees opted instead
for an older strategy of mobility and dispersal. even so, the migration of far-
flung indians to a shared Ohio homeland added still more diversity to an
12
introduction
already complex mix of peoples. The muskingum Valley became home to
both traditionalists who decried european influence and christians who
played a spinet piano during sunday services.21
Widespread intermarriage, adoption, and migration ensured that many
towns were multiethnic and multilingual. native families commonly adopted
wartime captives to replace deceased loved ones; demand for such adoptees
constituted a major motive for going to war. a cherokee captive was adopted
into one delaware family, married into another, and subsequently joined the
moravian church. somewhere along the way, he learned to “speak the Wyan-
dot language pretty wel .” When cherokee and Wyandot emissaries visited
the muskingum Valley, he volunteered his services as interpreter. anipassi-
cowa’s town was home to shawnees, delawares, and descendants of both af-
ricans and europeans. in the early 1770s, nearly twenty light- skinned people,
most of them childhood captives adopted into shawnee families, lived in the
shawnee town of chillicothe. shawnee and other indian women commonly
married resident white traders. some captives eventual y returned to colonial
society but remained close to their adoptive families. during a trip through
Ohio, a colonist named Joseph nickels went out of his way to visit “his indian
acquaintance, for whom he had a friendship, from his early days of captivity
among them.”22
adoptees entered complex social and political systems that defy popular
stereotypes of “tribes” and “chiefs.” The šaawanwaki, or shawnee people, for
example, includes five major patrilineal divisions or “society clans”: the cha-
laakaatha (or chillicothe), mekoche, Kishpoko, pekowi, and Thawikila.
Though these groups share a common language and culture, they tradition-
al y lived in separate towns with distinct sets of female and male leaders. The
delaware include two major ethnolinguistic divisions, the munsee and
Unami, as well as three matrilineal phratries associated with the turtle, the
wolf, and the turkey. They also enjoy close historic, geographic, and linguistic
ties to the mohican nation, evident today in the stockbridge- munsee com-
munity of Wisconsin. The Wyandot originated as a confederacy of several
nations, similarly divided among three phratries. The six nations of the
haudenosaunee, commonly known as iroquois, include the seneca, cayuga,
Onondaga, Oneida, mohawk, and tuscarora. to the north, the Ojibwe,
Odawa, and potawatomi nations share a common identity and cultural heri-
tage as the Three Fires of the anishinaabeg. to the south, the cherokee na-
tion was historical y divided among several regions, each of which possessed,
to some degree, a distinct political identity.23 The nature and significance of
introduction
13
these unions and divisions varied, and varies, a good deal. in eighteenth-
century politics such extranational or subnational affinities often mattered at
least as much as one’s identification with a specific tribe or nation.
These divisions and confederacies often paled in importance compared
to kinship systems that shawnees call m’shoma, anishinaabeg call doodem,
Wyandots call ,entiok8ten, german missionaries called Freundschaften, and
modern english speakers call clans.24 clan membership stemmed from de-
scent, either matrilineal (for the delaware, Wyandot, haudenosaunee, and
cherokee) or patrilineal (in the case of the shawnee and anishinaabeg).
clans (and sometimes phratries) were traditional y exogamous, so while in-
dividuals inherited clan membership from one parent, they enjoyed kinship
ties with the clans of both. such ties played a critical role in both daily life and
regional politics. When Joseph peepy, a christian delaware from new Jersey,
escorted mcclure to the muskingum Valley town of Kighalampegha, they
found a warm welcome from peepy’s kin despite widespread distaste for their
religious message. israel Welapachtschiechen, a prominent leader of the del-
aware turkey phratry, exerted considerable influence across the region in part
because his clan was “very widespread.” When he adopted christianity, many
fellow clan members followed his example. Others protested his decision, but
bonds of kinship continued to link them and facilitate coalition building de-
spite their religious differences.25
political leadership reflected these ethnic and kinship relationships.
among shawnees, male hokimas, or civil leaders, derived their autho
rity in
part through their patrilineal clan inheritance, as well as from personal vir-
tues and accomplishments. hokimas of different clans had distinct responsi-
bilities, according to the spiritual attributes of each lineage. Their mothers,
known as hokima wi kwes, oversaw agriculture, the adoption of captives, and
other traditional y female responsibilities while also advising hokimas on po-
litical and military matters. similarly, the six nations’ ancient great law of
peace specifies that clan mothers choose and advise male civil leaders.
among all Ohio indians, civil leaders usual y deferred military authority to
war captains. many of the region’s peoples chose still other individuals as
spiritual guides.26
With authority so decentralized, leaders of all kinds had to seek consen-
sus rather than impose their wil . One missionary wrote that shawnees were
“strangers to civil power and authority,” believing that “one man has no natu-
ral right to rule over another.” Formal leaders spoke first in meetings but oth-
erwise had “no more honor or respect payed them than another man.”
14
introduction
political prestige depended less on wealth or status than on generosity. net-
awatwees, the preeminent civil leader of the delaware turtle phratry, lived in
“a poor house” and bore “no emblem of royalty or magesty about him.”
rather than accumulating personal wealth and tangible markers of authority,
he maintained his influence by redistributing resources around the commu-
nity. Ohio indian communities could “never suffer for want,” one irish trader
observed, because their “hospitality is so grate.” When mcclure offered his
spiritual guidance to the delaware council, he expected a prompt and deci-
sive reply. instead, they spent two full weeks debating his proposals and solic-
iting input from other towns before netawatwees rejected his proposals.
rather than introducing european customs to his hosts, mcclure had to ac-
cept a delaware process of discussion and consensus building.27
mcclure’s impatience with delaware politics reflected how much the
muskingum Valley towns remained a “native ground” where indian customs
prevailed and european visitors had to adapt accordingly.28 But at the same
time, proximity to the British colonies and the benefits of intercultural trade
challenged Ohio indians to build relationships with anglo- american gov-
ernments. to do so, some sought to centralize decision making. six nations
leaders, including guyasuta, increasingly, albeit ineffectual y, claimed au-
thority over Ohio indians. delaware leaders answered by asserting their in-
dependence. colonial officials, meanwhile, increasingly demanded that
indian emissaries sign binding agreements prior to building consensus
among the affected peoples.29 to maintain hard- won agreements with colo-
nists, indian leaders had to claim and somehow uphold a kind of central au-
thority that their peoples had never permitted before. doing so brought civil
leaders and diplomats into repeated conflict with members of their own na-
tions, threatening to undercut the national unity they sought to create. But
the alternative was daunting. to maintain prosperity and sovereignty, Ohio
indian leaders had to protect their peoples against colonial violence, secure
their territory against colonial land grabbing, and maintain a reliable trade
for european imports. many concluded that they could achieve these goals
only by winning both respect and formal recognition from colonial
governments.30
Both before and after the american revolution, anglo- american offi-
cialdom delegated relations with indians to two distinct sets of people: “in-
dian agents” and army officers. Though their specific titles, responsibilities,
and influence varied considerably over time, indian agents were broadly
charged with diplomacy: hearing indians’ grievances, distributing gifts, regu-
introduction
15
lating trade, and, at times, mobilizing them for war. armies were charged
variously with protecting colonists from indians, protecting indians from
colonists, enlisting indians as allies, evicting colonists from indian land, and
burning indians’ towns and crops. indian agents typical y had extensive ex-
perience in western trade, politics, and land speculation. They did not neces-
sarily know indians wel , but they understood the protocols of regional
diplomacy. army officers typical y knew far less about a region and its peo-
ples. British military culture prized hierarchy, uniformity, and harsh disci-
pline: values antithetical to those of both indians and many Ohio Valley
colonists. nearly all of Fort pitt’s commanders detested the region’s inhabi-
tants, though some concealed their contempt better than others.31 imperial
and United states officials repeatedly reorganized the relationship between
the “indian department” and the army, muddying the chain of command.
The governments of pennsylvania and Virginia, meanwhile, sometimes ap-
pointed agents of their own. The colonies’ war for independence then threw
all such arrangements into disarray.
notwithstanding such upheavals, the friendship and support of officers
and agents brought tangible benefits. They controlled trading centers at pitts-
burgh, detroit, and niagara, making them gatekeepers between Ohio indi-
ans and transatlantic commerce. They periodical y received funds to hold
treaty councils, enabling them to pay colonial contractors to feed and supply
hundreds or thousands of indians. equal y important, agents and officers
could present indian grievances to their superiors, or not, enabling indians
to win, or lose, military protection, favorable terms of trade, or recognition of
territorial sovereignty. to win agents’ and officers’ sympathies, Ohio indians
used familiar diplomatic tactics, such as ritual adoption and gift giving. But
revolutionary upheaval made it difficult to forge enduring relationships, and
both agents and officers coveted indian land. meanwhile, shrinking deer and
bison herds, and colonial armies’ destruction of towns and crops, created se-
rial subsistence crises that deepened native dependency on government pa-
tronage. rather than pulling government officials into native systems of
kinship and reciprocity, indian leaders’ efforts tended to draw their own peo-
ples more ful y into the emerging anglo- american state.
On a cold december day in 1772, mcclure made his way to a large log house
to join two Virginians in holy matrimony. On entering, the staid new en-
glander found a raucous scene. Wedding guests packed the building, their
attention fixed on a fiddle player and a crowd of dancing couples. no one
16
introduction
noticed the minister’s arrival, so he sat next to the fire and seethed in sullen
disapproval. When he had seen all he could endure, mcclure called a halt to
the dancing and began the ceremony. The happy couple stepped forward,
“snickering and very merry,” and the spectators laughed until mcclure urged
them all “to attend with becoming seriousness, t
he solemnity.” as soon as
“the solemnity” ended, the fiddler struck up a new tune and the party re-
sumed. One of the women repeatedly invited the minister to join her for a
dance, but he steadfastly refused, and instead sat quietly, marveling at the
Virginians’ “wild merriment.”32
The community that so offended mcclure was less than a decade old.
Until the end of pontiac’s War, the upper Ohio Valley’s white population
amounted to a scattering of fur traders, but the midcentury wars spurred
rapid change. Though a royal proclamation banned colonization west of the
mountains, provincial and military policies— often unintentional y— sent the
opposite message. Beginning in the mid- 1760s, marylanders and Virginians
moved to the river valleys south and southeast of Fort pitt, while others, like
mcclure, came west from pennsylvania. By one estimate, within a decade the
region’s colonial population reached tens of thousands. The town next to the
fort grew more slowly: in the early 1770s pittsburgh boasted only thirty- odd
houses, whose inhabitants had little to do with the farmers of nearby valleys.
But the presence of both town and fort encouraged homesteading in the sur-
rounding area. as one shawnee noted, “wherever a Fort appeared in their
neighbourhood, they might depend there would soon be towns & settle-
ments.”33 The empire tried to halt colonists with one hand while waving them
onward with the other.
indians and imperial officials often described these colonists as an undif-
ferentiated mass of troublemakers, but mcclure’s complaints about the wed-
ding party reflected wide social and cultural divisions. One set of travelers
included “two englishmen, two irishmen, one Welshman, two dutchmen, two
Virginians, two marylanders, one swede, one african negro, and a mulatto.”
amid this diversity, mcclure identified three major cultural groups: scots-
irish presbyterians, germans, and anglo- Virginians. The missionary found
the germans sullen and grasping, and he scorned the Virginians’ penchant for
“drinking parties, gambling, horse race[s] & fighting.” By contrast, he praised