Unsettling the West

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