by Rob Harper
armed men.” declaring they would rather “die like men than to dwindle
away by inches,” the speakers urged war, noting that with victory the chero-
kees “might hope to enlarge their Bounds.” The speeches were full of false-
hoods and exaggerations— guy Johnson, for example, had spent the previous
six months safely in london— but they resonated with the cherokees’ own
frustrations and fears. The young cherokee commander dragging canoe
took up the massive shawnee war belt, accepting their call to arms. “[a]lmost
all the young Warriors” from across the cherokee nation followed suit. Older
leaders who had previously urged peace now kept silent, perhaps acquiescing
to a war that seemed inevitable. soon thereafter, cherokee warriors attacked
a party of revolutionary militia. By mid- July as many as two thousand cher-
okees had set out for war.38 nonetheless, within a few months Virginians and
carolinians had repulsed their attacks and destroyed cherokee towns in
retaliation.
The delegation from Ohio, meanwhile, turned for home, this time travel-
ing directly through Kentucky. inspired by the cherokees, they split up to
attack nearby colonists. some of the group killed two men in separate attacks
near licking river. They brought their victims’ scalps back to Ohio, just as
Opportunity, 1775–76
87
they had done with mcQuinney’s six months before, hoping this time for a
better reaction. meanwhile, five of their companions staked out Boonesbor-
ough, where they found three teenaged girls paddling a canoe down the river.
The warriors seized the girls and headed for the Ohio, dragging them through
the woods for two days. Then, as they rested near salt springs called Blue
licks, a band of colonists led by daniel Boone slipped up to their camp and
opened fire. two of the captors fel , mortal y wounded. The other three fled,
leaving the girls unharmed. But despite this dramatic rescue, the raids
sparked widespread terror. in may, the Boonesborough colonist John Floyd
had seen little reason to fear indians; by late July he worried that “the greater
part of the people may fall a prey to them.” But pluggy and his allies still
struggled to find support. On learning that two shawnee warriors had died at
Blue licks, cornstalk quickly blamed the bloodshed on pluggy’s militants,
rather than Boone’s rescue party. near pittsburgh, indians killed and scalped
a man named crawford, prompting “much uneasiness” and “frequent quar-
rels,” but no further violence resulted, and the killers left crawford’s wife and
children unharmed. most Wyandot men spent the summer out hunting; a
congressional messenger reported that they seemed “not to have aney notion
of war.”39
The contrast between the cherokees and Ohio indians reflected dissimi-
lar access to British resources. as one British agent noted, the cherokees
were “so hemmed in” by colonists that they could not go to war “with any
safety untill they [we]re well supplied.” Well aware of this problem, the
northern militants assured cherokees that canada had “supplied them plen-
tiful y with ammunition arms & provisions.” But the view from Ohio was
murkier. British officers gave them gunpowder at niagara and detroit, but
the revolutionary crisis weakened imperial credibility. traders who had for-
merly mediated between Ohio indians and the crown either embraced the
rebel cause or faded from view. hamilton harassed rebel sympathizers but
wielded scant influence south of lake erie. meanwhile, Ohio indians hosted
Virginian and congressional representatives throughout 1775 and 1776. By
contrast, the British agent alexander cameron remained in cherokee coun-
try throughout; many nearby traders supported the royal cause as wel . to
obtain gifts of gunpowder, Ohio indians had to make their way to detroit,
but cameron kept the cherokees supplied in their own towns. in april, Brit-
ish agents brought the cherokees “21 horse load of ammunition” and as-
sured them that an additional “100 horse load” would soon follow. These
shipments lent credibility to the northerners’ promises of material support.
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like hamilton, cameron urged his indian allies to remain at peace, but they
felt confident that he and his British sponsors would continue to “furnish
their whole nation with goods and ammunition.” not surprisingly, when
cherokees accepted the northerners’ war belt, they insisted they went to fight
“the Kings enemies.”40
in early september, hamilton— perhaps inadvertently— bolstered the
militants’ cal s for war. The flamboyant lieutenant governor likely chafed
against his orders not to encourage attacks. in July, he had warned a congres-
sional agent that his indian allies were “ready at a Word to fall on the Frontier
settlements.” The indian agent Jehu hay, a former army officer who had mar-
ried into a detroit merchant family, mediated and likely moderated hamil-
ton’s dealings with western nations. But in early august, hay left detroit for
several months, leaving his impulsive superior to his own devices. a few
weeks later, White eyes and a congressional envoy, William Wilson, came to
detroit to invite the great lakes nations to an upcoming pittsburgh treaty. at
the Wyandot town just upstream from the British fort, assembled leaders ac-
cepted Wilson’s wampum belt and promised to “use all their influence . . . to
preserve peace.” The next day, Wilson repeated his speech in front of hamil-
ton and large Odawa, Ojibwe, shawnee, and haudenosaunee delegations.
after an array of interpreters finished translating his words, Wilson presented
the wampum belt to a Wyandot leader, who handed it to hamilton. The Brit-
ish commander then denounced Wilson’s superiors as “enemies and traitors
to my King” and declared that “before i would take one of them by the hand,
i would suffer my right hand to be cut off.” he “tore the speech and cut the
belt to pieces, and contemptuously strewed it about,” and ordered White eyes
and Wilson to leave town immediately.41
hamilton’s performance made an impression. in the symbolic language
of great lakes diplomacy, his destruction of Wilson’s wampum signaled con-
tempt for both his message and the congress that sent it. as they made their
way back to their towns, pluggy and his allies recounted his speeches in ever
more inflammatory terms. even before the confrontation with Wilson, mili-
tants claimed that hamilton advised them to “stick their tomohawk” into the
heads of any colonists they met, then “cut of[f] sum of the hair and Bring it
to him.” hamilton may have said such things, or not, but he offered ample
reason to think he approved. above al , hamilton gave each of his visitors
from pluggy’s town— militants who had been promoting war for months—
ten pieces of lead shot and half a pint of gunpowder. in his presence, dun-
quat, who had formerly condemned the attacks on edwards and mcQuinney,
Opportunity, 1775–76
89
now sang a “War song intimating that he would strike the White
people.”
Three of his companions did the same. hamilton’s counterparts at niagara
offered similar gifts, prompting several seneca leaders to echo dunquat’s
song. hamilton still discouraged indians from attacking “defenceless Women
& children,” insisting that they should fight only rebels who came “armed
into the indian country,” but like cameron’s distribution of gunpowder, his
actions spoke louder than his words.42
in the weeks that followed, an emboldened militant coalition carried out
a wave of attacks on Ohio Valley colonists. in september, a delaware and
haudenosaunee reportedly killed two colonists near the mouth of the ten-
nessee river; other militants captured Ohio traders with rebel sympathies. By
mid- October five different Wyandot and haudenosaunee war parties had
crossed the Ohio. On 9 October they killed two women and captured a boy
near the mouth of Fish creek. eighty miles downriver, another band killed
two men and wounded three more. a few weeks later, raiders killed two more
men at the mouth of grave creek. Back in Ohio, militants increasingly ha-
rassed the moravian missionaries. hamilton, meanwhile, acknowledged that
“several small parties” were attacking colonists but did nothing to discourage
them, reasoning that the Virginians’ “arrogance, disloyalty, and imprudence”
had “justly drawn” this fate upon them. Thanks to his tacit encouragement,
the sporadic killings of previous months now escalated into something like a
coordinated campaign.43
even so, indian support for war remained limited. news of the cherokee
towns’ destruction reinforced the belief that a war for Kentucky could suc-
ceed only with active British allies. leaders like guyasuta, White eyes, and
cornstalk continued to speak out for peace. Wyandot leaders declared that of
their nation, only dunquat’s clan favored war. dunquat himself, despite his
performance at hamilton’s council, continued to equivocate. in november,
he sent ten men “to scout against the Virginians” but insisted that they would
“go on slow & hunt by the way.” he applauded the delaware for their neutral-
ity and insisted that he undertook his scouting expedition “only to oblige” the
militants. in mid- november, dunquat and other militant sympathizers put
hamilton’s promises to the test, warning that a Virginian army had invaded
Ohio, but the lieutenant governor still balked at endorsing war. he and the
recently returned hay repeated the familiar refrain— watch and wait— and
handed out ammunition. hamilton was rightly skeptical: once again, no in-
vading army appeared. But this time hamilton’s dance earned him jeers and
protests. dunquat’s sandusky Wyandots insisted that he had previously
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endorsed war by desecrating congress’s wampum belt. When hamilton si-
multaneously called for restraint, they had concluded that he was merely
“joking with them.” Frustrated with his apparent duplicity, they now berated
him for “always inciting them to go to war against the White people, while he
sat quietly and did not do anything.” if he continued his double talk, they
warned, “they would trample all of his speeches under their feet” and “de-
clare friendship with the colonies.”44
The Wyandots’ friends and neighbors, the muskingum Valley delaware,
were well ahead of them. in the summer of 1776, the delaware council
strengthened their friendship with the rebels, who had recently declared
their colonies “free and independent states.” The council pledged to help
“preserv[e] the peace of this conterey” and asked congress to send them a
secretary to handle their correspondence. White eyes also requested help to
build “a strong place where we may be protected,” including “houses & a
Fort.” When detroit traders bought large herds of Ohio indians’ cattle to feed
the British garrison, the council seized the animals and sent them to pitts-
burgh instead. When congressional envoy William Wilson set out to invite
western nations to a new treaty council, White eyes— together with other
delawares, shawnees, and Wyandots— personal y accompanied him all the
way to detroit. There, hamilton’s diatribe offended the delaware diplomat,
who insisted he had done nothing to warrant such abuse. Both he and corn-
stalk, who witnessed the same performance, soon recommitted to their
friendship with the rebels hamilton despised.45
in October 1776, at a major council at pittsburgh, congressional and Ohio
indian emissaries set about redefining their peoples’ relations with one an-
other. revolutionary spokesmen announced that by declaring independence,
the king’s erstwhile subjects had become americans and thus kin to their
native neighbors. “[t]ho’ you are red, & we White,” the commissioners rea-
soned, “yet we are all children of the same Big island. . . . We are the same
people tho’ of different complexions, & our enemies are the same.” They
urged their shawnee, delaware, mohican, and haudenosaunee guests to re-
main neutral in the ongoing war for independence but promised to help if
the British attacked them. above al , they repeatedly denied that the states
harbored “ill designs against you” or “covet[ed] your lands.” indians’ re-
maining territory “shall not be touched or intruded on,” they pledged, “while
the sun shines, or the rivers run.” These assurances careful y addressed many
Ohio indians’ leading concerns: physical security, respect for territory, and
the promise of kinship between colonial and indigenous nations. But with
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91
the message of goodwill came a threat: if frontier violence escalated, they
warned, america’s “young men . . . [would] seek for revenge for their slaugh-
tered Kinsmen.”46
White eyes responded with an ambitious vision of his own, laying a new
foundation for Ohio indian sovereignty. Just like the United states, he an-
nounced, delawares, shawnees, and mohicans had formed a new union.
speaking for this collective entity, he embraced the americans’ friendship as
one confederation to another. he also challenged familiar depictions of his
own nation’s gender identity. For most of the preceding century, six nations
spokesmen— and sometimes delawares themselves— had called the delaware
a “nation of women.” This term was not pejorative in origin: White eyes sug-
gested that his people’s figurative womanhood had once made them “head
counsellors in all treaties.” But by the second half of the eighteenth century
haudenosaunee speakers maintained that they had “cut off [the] legs” of the
rhetorical y female delaware, leaving them with no political identity or terri-
tory of their own: an image that closely mirrored the english law of coverture.
The delaware’s familiar claim to their land— that the Wyandot had recently
gifted it to them— reflected this presumption of historic delaware landless-
ness. White eyes now jettisoned this argument, declaring instead that the
delaware and shawnee had won their lands by conquering “the nation dall-
> agai” perhaps a century before. This new narrative of delaware sovereignty,
rooted in a tale of ancient conquest, echoed the six nations’ own claims to
supremacy. it suggested a more aggressive, even militaristic identity, probably
to impress the patriarchal colonists. But while asserting this new national vi-
rility, White eyes also claimed his nation’s traditional y female authority over
decision making. “Brothers,” he declared, “i am no Woman, neither are my
legs cut off: but as a Woman i stand firm ready to support our Friendship.”47
With this dramatic announcement, White eyes responded creatively to
the opportunities of revolutionary crisis. generations of delawares had en-
dured repeated displacement, thanks to six nations land sales and colonial
disregard for their rights. For years, Ohio indians had struggled to build a
new western confederacy to counterbalance the league in colonial diplomacy.
now the split between colonists and Britain raised the possibility of a new
political settlement that might address these long- standing grievances. White
eyes’s story of ancient conquest, his description of the new confederacy, and
his ambiguous redefinition of delaware womanhood all aimed to make that
vision a reality. to the six nations, he declared political and territorial inde-
pendence (some haudenosaunees later threatened to “punish and humiliate”
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his nation for his impertinence).48 to the americans, whose friendship he
had cultivated for years, he more forceful y reiterated the delawares’ long-
standing territorial claims, while also stressing their desirability as allies. and
for his fellow delawares, he envisioned a future that both honored their her-
itage as womanly counselors and embraced a new identity as a political y sov-
ereign nation, ful y recognized by their anglo- american neighbors.
many indians at the treaty had little use for these proposals. as on previous
occasions, the allegheny seneca guyasuta defended the supremacy of the six
nations league and the boundaries it had negotiated with the British empire. But