At this place the Indians seized one of the prisoners, ripped open his belly with a knife and took one end of his guts and tied it to a tree. Then they whipped the miserable man round and round till he died. They obliged me to dance while they had their sport with the dying man.
Brown escaped, was caught, but finally the merchant released him. The next year he was captured by the Indians again. Finally, after 3 years and 8 months of captivity, “I was able to return in peace to my father’s house.”125
In 1758, British major Putnam was watching a French force less than 2 miles away. The Indians and French attacked, but Putnam refused to retreat. His gun “missed fire, while the muzzle was pressed against the breast of a large and well proportioned Savage.” The warrior gave a war whoop, lifted his hatchet, and compelled Putnam to surrender. He tied Putnam to a tree, then returned to the battle. The area of the battle then changed, so that Putnam was in the line of fire from both sides. Many shots hit both the tree and his coat. Archibald Loudon continued the story:
At one moment, while the battle swerved in favour of the enemy, a young Savage chose an odd way of discovering his humor. He found Putnam bound. He might have dispatched him at a blow. But he loved better to excite the terrors of the prisoner, by hurling a tomahawk at his head, or rather it should seem his object was to see how near he could throw it without touching him;—the weapon struck in the tree a number of times at a hair’s breadth distance from the mark.126
A French officer then came to the tree and held his gun within a foot of Putnam’s chest, but his gun misfired. Putnam boldly told the Frenchman he was a prisoner of war. The Frenchman’s response was to hit Putnam on the jaw with his gun. The Indians then returned, untied Putnam, stripped him except for his pants, tied his hands, and led him into the woods. They decided to roast him alive. He was stripped completely, tied to another tree, dry brush and other fuel was piled around him, and it was set afire. A sudden downpour put out the fire. The Indians got it started again, and Putnam was painfully burned. This caused the Indians to yell and dance. A French officer named Molang was attracted by this, rushed to the tree, scattered the fire, untied Putnam, and delivered him to the well-proportioned savage who had originally captured him. The savage laid him on his back and tied him spread-eagled to four saplings. Poles and bushes were put over him, then Indians lay down on all sides to prevent his escape in the night. Putnam was turned over to the French and repatriated. He later became a general.127
In 1758, a miller named Richard, his family, and others were at home when 19 Delaware Indians attacked. Promised they would not be killed, the Bard family surrendered. Other captives were then taken. About 1,000 feet from the Bard home, a cousin, Thomas Potter, was killed by the Indians for no apparent reason. A few miles later, without warning, an Indian repeatedly tomahawked a small child in the breast, then scalped the child. The next day Samuel Hunter was tomahawked to death and also scalped.
The day after that, Bard was severely beaten because an Indian who had taken his hat was incensed when it blew off and the Indian had to go down to a stream to get it. Bard escaped that night. Mrs. Bard and 4 children were taken into an Indian town. Their hair was pulled, their faces scratched, and they were beaten. Captive Daniel M’Manimy was also beaten with sticks and tomahawks, tied to a post near a large fire, tortured with burning coals, scalped, and his scalp put on a pole before his face. A red-hot gun barrel was passed over his body, and finally he was pierced repeatedly with a red-hot bayonet. The Indians sang and shouted at him until he died.
Mrs. Bard traveled more than 500 miles. She met a white woman she had known earlier who was married to an Indian and had his child. She said she was told she would be burned unless she married him. She also said that as soon as captive women could speak the Indian language, they would either marry an Indian or be put to death. Although Mrs. Bard was in captivity for more than 2 years, she shrewdly never learned to speak the Indian language. Mr. Bard spent years looking for his wife, finally found her, and ransomed her.128
John M’Cullough kept a memorandum concerning the number of people killed and captured by the Indians in different settlements from November 1755 to July 1759. Many of the people are named. Ninety-five were killed, 171 either killed or captured, and 91 captured, a total of 357 deaths or captives.129
The British appointed General John Forbes to lead a new assault on Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh) in 1758. He sent 800 Scot Highlanders out to scout in September, but they lost one third of their strength to the Indians. In November the British advanced to within a few miles of the fort. They heard a loud explosion, and when they got to it the next day, they found it deserted except for a row of stakes on which were fastened the heads of the Highland troops who had been lost. Each had a Scottish kilt tied beneath it.130
The Shawnee captive Mary Jemison passed a Shawnee town on the Ohio River in 1758. She saw the charred heads, arms, and legs of white settlers who had just been burned.131
In 1758, Cherokee warriors who had abandoned the campaign of General Forbes against Fort Duquesne got a few wild horses. Virginians who claimed the horses were theirs attacked the Cherokee, killing 12. The Virginians sold the horses and collected scalp bounties, falsely announcing that the scalps had been taken from hostile Indians. In return, the Cherokee killed 20 to 30 settlers. The southern frontier shortly thereafter was in a full-scale uprising.132
The year 1763 was an unusually bad year for Indian atrocities. In that year, a leader emerged to bring the Indian tribes together against the British. He was Pontiac,* an Ottawa chief, a commanding presence, and a great orator. Pontiac favored the French over the British not only because they gave presents to chiefs, but also because the English were settling on Ottawa land while the French were not. The French would also extend credit for supplies, unlike the British.134 He then commenced Pontiac’s Rebellion, which in the spring and summer cost the lives of an estimated 2,000 settlers and more than 400 soldiers.135 He eventually enlisted many allied tribes: Ottawas, Chippewa, Delaware, Hurons, Illinois, Kickapoos, Miamis, Potawatomis, Seneca, and Shawnee.136
In order to retain his leadership, in May Pontiac took a tomahawk and “exhorted his followers to attack every white man outside the fort.” His warriors immediately killed a woman and her 2 children a mile from the fort, a retired sergeant, his wife, one of their children, and 2 visiting soldiers. Also in May a war party of Ottawas and Hurons attacked and captured Fort Sandusky, killing 14 of its 15-man garrison as well as the merchants who operated the fort’s storehouse.137
In June there was a lacrosse game outside Fort Michilimackinac (on the south shore of the Straits of Mackinac) between Chippewa† and Sauk.† British major George Etherington and his 35-man garrison were watching it from outside the fort for some reason. Indian women filtered into the fort. A ball went over the stockade, apparently by accident, and the players ran after it through the open gate. Once inside, they dropped their sticks and grabbed guns the women had concealed under their blankets. The captain and a lieutenant were captured immediately. Another lieutenant was wounded and beheaded. The fort was overrun. A young British trader, Alexander Henry, was there and witnessed what happened after his own capture. The dead were scalped and mangled. The dying were shrieking under the knife and tomahawk. The bodies of some soldiers were ripped open, and the Indians “were drinking the blood, scooped up in the hollow of joined hands and quaffed amid shouts of rage and victory.”140
Later that month Henry heard an unusual noise in the fort’s prison. He looked in and saw the bodies of 7 white men being dragged across the floor. He was told that a Chippewa chief had put the 7 to death with his knife to show his approval of the attack. Shortly after that, the Indians took the fattest body, cut off the head, and divided the whole into 5 parts. These were put in 5 kettles over 5 fires. A message came for Henry’s Chippewa friend, Wawatam, whom he had known before his captivity, to take part in the feast. Wawatam left the room with his dish and spoon. He returned half an hour lat
er with his dish, which contained a human hand and a large piece of flesh. He told Henry it was the custom among all Indian nations when returning from war to make a war feast from among the slain. He said it inspired courage among the warriors in attack.141
While in a canoe with the Chippewa, Henry was offered bread, which was cut with the same blood-covered knives they had used to kill the soldiers. The bread was offered to him and the other prisoners with the comment that they should eat the blood of their countrymen.142 Henry escaped after many harrowing experiences. He wrote a book about it all 46 years later.143
In June, the Iroquois took the garrison at Venango. The commander, Lieutenant Gordon, was forced to write down a dictated list of grievances addressed to the king of England. After he had finished the document, he was tortured for 3 days, culminating in the Seneca roasting him to death.144
The fort at Erie, Pennsylvania, agreed to surrender if the garrison was allowed to go to Fort Pitt. An agreement to that effect was signed by the Indians, who then divided the garrison among themselves as prisoners “for later amusement.”145
The same month the Delaware, Mingos, and Shawnee turned to Fort Pitt. The fort was commanded by a Swiss soldier of fortune, Captain Simeon Ecuyer. He sent the Indian delegation, which had demanded his surrender, away with presents—blankets and handkerchiefs from the smallpox hospital. Soon there was a smallpox epidemic among the 3 tribes which lasted into the next year and which removed them from full-time participation in the war. British governor-general of North America Jeffrey Amherst had encouraged this tactic in a letter to Ecuyer.146 Amherst also wrote to his subordinate Lieutenant Colonel Henry Boquet the same month, stating, “I need only Add, that I Wish to Hear of no prisoners, should any of the Villains be met with in Arms.”147
On July 4 at the siege of Fort Detroit, Chippewa or Ojibway chief Wasson insisted that Pontiac turn over Captain Donald Campbell to him because Wasson’s nephew had been killed by the British that day. Pontiac did. Wasson immediately scalped and killed Campbell, then threw his body in the water so that it would float past the defenders of the fort.148
On August 1, Captain James Dalyell led 247 men on a sortie. They were met by Pontiac with 400 Ottawa and Chippewa warriors. The French had told Pontiac about the sortie the night before. Nineteen British were killed, including Captain Dalyell. Pontiac’s men recovered his body, took it back to their village, cut out his heart, wiped their prisoners’ faces with it, hacked off his head, and mounted it on a pole.149
In December a group of 75 Presbyterians from Paxton, Pennsylvania, unhappy because of the failure of the colony’s Quaker-dominated assembly to take more aggressive action against Indians, attacked some Christian Indians and murdered and scalped 3 men, 2 women, and a boy. The Paxton Boys, as they were called, claimed the attack was made because one of the Indians had melted down a stolen pewter spoon. Some Indians who had been away were given sanctuary by settlers in the Lancaster jail. Governor John Penn, the son of William Penn, issued a proclamation condemning the raid and prohibiting further violence.
Thirteen days after the first raid, the Paxton Boys broke into the jail and killed the remaining 14 Indians, including all the children. Benjamin Franklin wrote a pamphlet calling the Paxton Boys “Christian white savages.” He added that the Indians “would have been safe in any part of the known world, except in [this] very neighborhood.” Two months later, the Paxton Boys went to Philadelphia to kill the city’s Indians. The peaceful Quakers defended the Indians. A group headed by Franklin met with the Paxton Boys and worked out a settlement. The Paxton Boys agreed to call off the attack in return for bounties for scalps of Indians from warring tribes.150
An anonymous narrator told this story of his close encounter with death sometime in 1763. Five of his neighbors were killed by Indians. He literally had to run for his life to escape them. Later he and 100 soldiers came upon 3 Indians who were about to fire on them, but surrendered instead. He asked another soldier what should be done with them. The soldier replied that they should be delivered to the commander. He reminded the other soldier about the deaths of the 5 neighbors and how he had had to run for his life. He told the soldier, “I have declared revenge on the first Indian that I saw, and the opportunity now offers.” He got 5 soldiers to agree to his plan. The Indians were told to walk ahead of the soldiers, who then shot them from behind. Two were killed and the third wounded. The third was then scalped. He got up, however, and made his escape.151
Near the close of 1763, Chief Pontiac invited several prominent French settlers to a celebration feast. When it was over, he asked one of the guests how he liked the very good young beef. Pontiac said, “ ‘Come here, I will show you what you have eaten.’ Whereupon he opened a sack lying on the ground behind him and displayed the bloody head of a British soldier, which he held up by the hair and added, with a grin, ‘There is the young beef.’ “152
Benjamin Franklin wrote that in 1764, a soldier named David Owens, who had deserted to the Indians in the Seven Years’ War (the French and Indian War), returned, accompanied by a white boy who had been an Indian captive. They came upon a party of 9 Indians:
In the Night Owens made the White Boy get up from among the Indians and go to the other side of the Fire; and then taking up the Indian’s [sic] Guns, he [Owens] shot two of the men immediately, and with his hatchet dispatch’d another Man together with the Women and Children. Two Men only made their Escape. Owens scalp’d the 5 grown persons.153
Five years later, in 1769, Pontiac was visiting a trading post in Cahokia, Illinois, when he was struck on the head and murdered by an Illinois Indian, Black Dog, believed to be in the pay of the British.154 The Ottawas, Chippewa, Potawatomis, Sac, Foxes, and Kickapoos united against the Illinois as a result of Pontiac’s murder and defeated them, reducing the number of the tribe from 1,800 to 150. The few survivors took refuge at the French settlement of Kaskaskia. Later they sold their land and went to Kansas. Earlier, in the 1680s, the Illinois Indians had stopped the long westward expansion of the Iroquois when the Iroquois failed to take Fort St. Louis on the Illinois River.155
* John Smith was an English soldier of fortune who fought for the French and the Austrians before he brought settlers to Virginia and founded Jamestown. After the events discussed here, he was injured in a gunpowder explosion and had to return to England in 1609. Smith came to the New World again in 1614, when he explored around Cape Cod, and he made his last visit in 1615, during which he was captured by French pirates, then shipwrecked.3
*The Hurons burned their own villages and scattered when the Iroquois invaded their territory. Some went with the French and were granted land near Quebec City; others migrated westward into Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio.25
*The Wampanoags, through Squanto and Samoset, were friends of the New England colonists in the early 1600s, but during King Philip’s War, they became enemies. Those who did not fight kept their lands, particularly on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.37
*The Abnakis were a confederation of Passamaquoddys, Penobscots, Micmacs, Malecites, and Pennacooks. They launched many raids against British settlements in the French and Indian War. Their stronghold, Norridgewock, fell into British hands in 1724, and the Abnaki withdrew to Quebec. They have land in Canada, Maine, and Vermont.97
*The Natchez were governed by a king or queen known as the Great Sun, who had absolute power over his or her subjects. Warriors were tattooed from head to foot. There was a class system of royalty, nobles, and commoners.102
*The Shawnee were widespread, living in 14 states. They migrated often. In the 1800s they were relocated by the whites to Indian Territory.109
* Loudon was a Pennsylvania newspaper publisher. He put an ad in his paper asking those who had knowledge about atrocities during the Revolutionary War to advise the paper about them. Loudon then compiled their responses and published them in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.113
* Pontiac believed that, united, the Indians could drive the British out of the
Great Lakes area. During his rebellion, he unsuccessfully tried to take Fort Detroit, then put it to siege. With the aid of other tribes, he attacked many British forts and settlements. With the coming of winter and upon the advice of a French commander, the rebellion died out.133
† Chippewa, or Ojibway, were more widespread than most tribes. The French gave them firearms with which they drove the Sioux westward and the Sacs, Foxes, and Kickapoos southward out of what is now northern Wisconsin. They fought with the British in the Revolution, and when it was over, they ceded much of their land to the United States.138
† The Sauk, or Sac, for much of their history were allied with the Fox tribe. After defeat in the Black Hawk War, the Sauk moved to Kansas, then to Oklahoma.139
CHAPTER 6
Atrocities During the Eras of the British Wars: The Revolutionary War and the War of 1812
The American colonists were as loyal to King George III* as were the British back home when the French were defeated in the French and Indian War. Britain was soon a global power, but America, “while civilizing rapidly, was still largely a wild and untamed place.”2 But the British in the motherland didn’t understand the problems the colonists faced dealing with the Indians. George Grenville became prime minister in 1763. It was important to him that the colonists profit Britain, but they did not.3
The Wild Frontier Page 17