The Indian World of George Washington

by Colin G. Calloway

  The Stockbridges probably felt that the expense never compensated their sacrifices. They suffered heavy casualties in battle—perhaps half their number—and more died after returning home sick. They complained that Captain Hendricks’s contingent served “immediately under the direction of his Excellency Genl. Washington and at the close of the campaign received nothing but a little clothing and money to bring them home.”39 Back at Stockbridge, widows struggled to pay off their dead husbands’ debts, and the community petitioned the Massachusetts government for assistance with food and clothing. At the end of the war, Washington furnished the Stockbridges with a certificate attesting that they “have remained firmly attached to us and have fought and bled by our side; That we consider them as friends and Brothers.”40 Unfortunately, Stockbridge veterans returned home to find that their white brothers had taken over the town government and much of their land while they were away fighting for liberty. When Stockbridge chiefs petitioned Congress for assistance, the secretary of Congress recommended that the petition be referred to the state of Massachusetts where they lived and that they be dismissed with some presents, “covering according to the indian custom, the bones of those who have been killed in the war with shrouds, blankets or clothing to be delivered to the widows or families of the deceased; the amount not to exceed 100 dollars.”41

  in the early stages of the war, Washington was more concerned with Indian activities in the North than with Indian soldiers in his army. He knew the Indians could have a critical impact on the war there, and he found Indian responses to the Revolution in northern New England, Quebec, and Nova Scotia more ambiguous and more worrying than in southern New England. He received reports and emissaries from the northern tribes, but he was touching the edges of an Indian world beyond his reach and perhaps even his understanding. He had dealt with Cherokees, Catawbas, and Ohio tribes during the French and Indian War, but he had no experience with the Indian peoples of Canada and northern New England. He attributed generic Indian traits to them but acknowledged to Schuyler “the little Knowledge I have of these people’s policy and real Intentions.”42 The immediate worry was that the British in Canada would unleash Indian raids as the French had done. Schuyler kept tabs on the movements of the Indians and Canadians, supplied Washington with intelligence, and sent him evidence that the British were trying to enlist Indians to fight. Washington found the evidence “incontrovertable.”43

  In September 1775, encouraged by what he heard about the disposition of the inhabitants and the Indians there, Washington dispatched Colonel Benedict Arnold and one thousand men to invade Canada via the Kennebeck River in Maine. Arnold would either provide a diversion for Schuyler’s planned advance on Montreal or capture Quebec, which, Washington predicted, “in its present defenceless State must fall into his Hands an easy Prey.”44 He was wrong, but invading Canada as a way to stop Indian raids and win over Indian allies remained a compelling strategy.

  The Indian communities on the St. Lawrence River known collectively as the Seven Nations of Canada had grown up in the previous century when refugees from New England and New York had settled around French mission villages. Many of the inhabitants were nominally Catholic, and the British, and sometimes other Indians, often called them French Indians. Now they were exposed to diplomatic pressure and military threat from both sides. British and American agents focused most of their efforts on the Abenaki village at Odanak, then known as St. Francis, and the Mohawk village of Caughnawaga or Kahnawake, which was also the site of the Seven Nations’ council fire. Both communities had kinship ties to New England, where, during earlier conflicts, their warriors had taken captives who were adopted by Mohawk or Abenaki families. Both also understood they could be caught in a crossfire. They had little love for the British—after all, they had fought against them for eighty years—but they had to live with the reality of British power in Canada and weigh that against the prospect that Americans might launch a successful invasion. Kahnawakes told the Americans that the British threatened them and that they assisted the redcoats only as an act of self-preservation. Abenakis wanted to avoid a recurrence of what had happened in 1759, when Robert Rogers’s Rangers had burned Odanak. Kahnawake and Odanak received overtures from both sides, and they made overtures of their own. The Revolution generated disagreement, division, and shifting allegiances in these communities as it did in many others. Individuals and groups promised and rendered service, generally as scouts, but Kahnawake and Odanak avoided making a full commitment to either side—and thereby avoided making themselves targets.45

  In August 1775 a chief named Swashan and four other Abenakis from Odanak arrived at Washington’s encampment at Cambridge, offered their services, and remained throughout the siege of Boston.46 The same month, Colonel Jacob Bayley from Cohoss or Cowass in the upper Connecticut Valley brought to the camp a Kahnawake chief named Atiatoharongwen or Louis Cook (see plates 3 and 4). Of Abenaki and African American parentage, as a young man he had fought against Washington at Braddock’s defeat. Now Atiatoharongwen was said to be “a Man of Weight, & Consequence” at Kahnawake. He said the British were pressuring the Kahnawakes to fight for them, but his nation was “totally averse,” and the Indians would support the Americans if they invaded Canada. Washington did all he could “to cherish these favorable Dispositions.”47

  Atiatoharongwen returned with a group of thirteen people from Kahnawake in January, first visiting Schuyler in Albany and then Washington at Cambridge. John Adams, who saw them at Cambridge, said Atiatoharongwen spoke English and French “as well as Indian.”48 Washington said the chief, “whom I understand is now the first Man in the Nation,” intended to apply to him for an officer’s commission and promised to raise four or five hundred men when he returned. Washington treated the Kahnawakes with respect and made a point of impressing them with his army’s strength.49

  The “Sundry Sachems & Warriors of the Cognaawaga Nation” told Washington they had been sent by five tribes in Canada “to Inquire into the cause of the Quarrel between the people of England & Our Brothers in this Country.” But when they offered military assistance, Washington was “a little embarrassed to know in what Manner to conduct myself.” A chief named Jean Baptiste or Ogaghsagighte declared, “I am now in my own Country where I was born (being a New Englander & taken prisoner in his Infancy) and want Liberty to raise men to fight for Its defence.” He asked Washington to give them a letter informing Schuyler that if he needed men he had only to call on them and they would join him. Having the Indians abandon neutrality and take an active part seemed to go beyond what Congress had authorized, and then there was the expense. Yet Washington assumed they would join one side or the other and did not want to reject their services when offered. Not knowing the Indians’ real intentions or how much Schuyler needed their assistance, he admitted, “how far … I ought to go is a Question that puzzles me.” He decided “to please them by yielding in Appearance to their Demands” and buy time while he consulted with Schuyler and Congress. He ordered Colonel Timothy Bedel to conduct the Kahanawakes safely back to Canada and advanced him £100 to cover expenses. Then he wrote to Schuyler. The Kahnawakes’ offer had “put the Matter upon the Footing I wished,” he said. “I heartily wish that this Union may be lasting and that Nothing may cast up to interrupt it. The Expediency of calling upon them I shall leave to you—Circumstances and policy will suggest the Occasion.”50

  Schuyler was less than enthusiastic. “If we can get decently rid of their Offer, I would prefer it to employing them,” he countered. The expenses in the Indian Department were already “amazing,” and Kahnawake allies would only increase them. Besides, their intervention would not have much effect unless the other northern nations joined as well.51 He need not have worried about an influx of Kahnawake recruits. Jean Baptiste promised more than he could deliver and did not speak for all the Kahnawakes. In May the American agent James Dean returned from Montreal with a more realistic appraisal: the Kahnawakes were friendly but refused to ta
ke up arms for the Americans.52

  Atiatoharongwen, however, would prove a valuable ally to Washington. Congress gave him a commission as lieutenant colonel in 1779, and he became commonly known as “Colonel Louis.” He served with the American army, including at the pivotal battle at Saratoga; was at Valley Forge in the winter of 1778; brought intelligence from Indian country; and may have served in General Sullivan’s expedition. Relieved to hear that Colonel Louis had returned safely from a mission July 1779, Washington referred to him as “our friend.”53 The next summer, Colonel Louis led a delegation of nineteen French-speaking Indian allies to visit the French general Rochambeau at Newport, Rhode Island. One of Rochambeau’s officers noted that the Indian colonel “seemed intelligent” and spoke French “fairly well, and even without an accent.”54 He was likely the “Indian colonel from Canada” who three years later sat down to dinner with Washington and a visiting Italian count at Schuyler’s Hudson Valley mansion; the count said he “spoke French and English fluently in addition to five Indian languages.”55

  After weighing the pros and cons, Washington and Schuyler both overcame their initial reluctance to employ Indians. Washington urged Congress to engage Indians as allies because it was impossible to keep them neutral, the king’s emissaries were poisoning their minds, and if they turned against the Americans it “would be a Most fatal stroke under our present Circumstances.” Schuyler agreed, although he feared it would be virtually impossible to enlist the Indians as allies unless the American forces took Canada.56

  Eleazar Wheelock, president of Dartmouth College, suggested another line of defense. Wheelock had founded the college in 1769, ostensibly for the education of Indians. Located on the east bank of the upper Connecticut River—a direct route between Canada and Massachusetts, and a warpath traveled by French and Indian raiders—Dartmouth lay vulnerable to attack from the north. Wheelock argued to Washington that sending missionaries to Canada to recruit more Indian students for his college and charity school was a good strategy for preventing Indian attacks.57 Wheelock had targeted Kahnawake and Odanak in his recruiting efforts and had the sons of chiefs of “the most Respectible Tribes in Canada” at his school. Ten children from Kahnawake and Odanak were there when the Revolution broke out, eight of them descendants of English captives. Wheelock considered the children “as Hostages” and was confident their parents would not go to war while they were at the school. In repeated memorials to Congress, he stressed the vital strategic importance of keeping the Canadian Indian students at Dartmouth and keeping his school on its feet. Congress agreed and appropriated money for that purpose, reasoning that “it may be a means of reconciling the friendship of the Canadian Indians, or at least of preventing hostilities from them in some measure.” After Wheelock’s death in 1779, his son took over as president and continued to request congressional assistance to retain the loyalty of key Odanak and Kahnawake families. Washington agreed it was good policy.58

  He had good reason to do so. He expected “a very bloody Summer” in New York and Canada in 1776. The enemy was sure to launch campaigns, and “we are not, either in Men, or Arms, prepared for it.” He hoped “that if our cause is just, as I do most religiously believe it to be, the same Providence which has in many Instances appeared for us, will still go on to afford its aid.”59

  Rather than rely on Providence or Dartmouth College to defend the upper Connecticut Valley, Schuyler and the New Hampshire Committee of Safety turned to Colonel Timothy Bedel of the New Hampshire militia. Bedel had attended Wheelock’s charity school and had connections at Kahnawake and Odanak. His orders were to assemble a force of rangers and Abenakis as the first line of defense and do his utmost to win and keep the Indians’ friendship. With minimal financial resources, he tried to attract Indians to Cowass, the site of an old Abenaki village near present-day Newbury, Vermont, and he sent out word that he was ready to trade, operating on the strategy that “if the Indians Trade with us, we need no Soldiers.” The Americans believed that the Abenakis who came to Cowass were from Odanak, but most probably lived in the vast borderland between the two places. There was talk of building a fort at Cowass, but nothing came of it, and Bedel had to rely on local militia and Abenaki scouts to defend the upper Connecticut. By the end of 1778 about thirty warriors and their families had assembled at Cowass, with more arriving daily. Bedel said they were “all Naked” but would make “a very good Guard to this Quarter” if supplied with blankets and leggings. Washington, however, was unwilling to run up Congress’s debts clothing the Indians, and, as an invasion of Canada seemed unlikely by this time, he told Bedel to hold off engaging any of the Indians for the present.60

  Bedel’s Indian rangers continued to serve with minimal supplies. Captain John Vincent of Kahnawake, who had fought against Washington at Braddock’s defeat, led one company.61 Swashan, who had joined Washington at the siege of Boston, served as his sergeant. Lewis Vincent, a Huron from Lorette and the third Indian student to graduate from Dartmouth, also served. Responding to one of John Wheelock’s requests for support, Washington wrote: “Pleased with the Specimen you have given in Mr. Vincent, of the improvement and cultivation which are derived from an education in your Seminary of Literature, I cannot but hope the institution will become more flourishing and extensively successful.” Vincent apparently requested in person that Washington enter him on the payroll as a lieutenant of the corps of Indians. Washington could not grant that request but was willing to make Lewis “a present of the Horse which he rides here” if General Jacob Bayley thought he deserved such a reward.62

  At the same time that Bedel was dispatching Abenakis northward to scout the woods for signs of enemies, the British were dispatching Abenakis from Odanak to scout the region to the south. The rival scouting parties failed to come into contact—at least that’s what the American and British records indicate—and they certainly avoided coming into conflict. By ranging the woods for signs of enemy activity, Abenakis from both communities gave the appearance of participating in the war and managed to keep that war away from their homes and families.63

  Abenaki ambivalence, or strategy, was reflected in the person of Joseph Louis Gill. The son of white parents who had been captured in separate raids on New England, adopted as Abenakis, and married, Gill grew up Abenaki and was known as “the White Chief of the Abenakis.” Both the British and the Americans courted his support. Gill’s son and nephews attended Dartmouth. In the summer of 1778 Gill came to Cowass and asked what the Americans intended to do for their many friends among the Abenakis. In November he said the Abenakis at Odanak were “all willing to Join the United States.” In 1779 Washington supported a recommendation that Gill be granted a commission in the American army and endorsed “the fidelity and good services of this Chief, and those of his Tribe.” Congress awarded Gill a commission as major.64 But as the likelihood of an American invasion of Canada diminished, Gill understood that he needed to mend fences with the British and at least make a show of supporting the Crown. He now assured the British that they could rely on Abenaki support. The British did not entirely trust him, but his strategy was consistent with that of Odanak and Kahnawake in these perilous times.65

  The British-Indian threat from the north was real. Small parties of Indian and Tory raiders evaded a string of blockhouses erected between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut Valley—as French and Indian raiders had evaded Virginian frontier posts in the 1750s—and settlers retreated to safer locations farther south.66 In 1777 warriors from the Seven Nations of Canada made up the bulk of Burgoyne’s Indian allies when he thrust south down the Champlain and Hudson Valley corridor, eventually to meet defeat at Saratoga. Some of the warriors killed a young woman named Jane McCrea. The event served as a powerful propaganda weapon, rallying the New Hampshire militia to assist in defeating Burgoyne. After the war, Americans invoked the murder, made infamous by John Vanderlyn’s painting in 1804, to justify treating Indians as savages, although if the killers came from the mission villages the
y likely were Christians. The attack on Dartmouth that Wheelock feared never came, although raiders came close: in 1780 a war party of 265 Mohawks and Abenakis under British command attacked and burned the nearby town of Royalton in Vermont, carrying off thirty-two prisoners.67 In the closing years of the war, Governor Frederick Haldimand of Quebec purposely avoided sending Indian raids into Vermont at a time when the independent republic was contemplating reunion with his province.68

  indians in maine and nova scotia faced a situation similar to that of Kahnawake and Odanak. Agents from the rebel government in Massachusetts (of which Maine was part at the time) and the loyal government of Nova Scotia competed for the allegiance of the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet (St. Johns) and Mi’kmaq tribes as the keys to controlling the region. In the fall of 1775 two Maliseet chiefs, Ambroise Saint-Aubin and Pierre Tomah, appeared at the Penobscot trading house at present-day Bangor, Maine, and sent a letter to the government of Massachusetts, offering their support and asking that a Catholic priest and goods be sent to them. Massachusetts agreed.69 Also that fall, five Penobscots joined Benedict Arnold’s expedition as guides.70

  Some Maliseets, Penobscots, and Abenakis visited Washington at Cambridge in the fall of 1775, but at that time he was still unsure whether he was authorized to enlist Indian allies and dismissed them with some presents. In February he sent the Maliseets a letter declining their offers of assistance and asked them to pray for him. According to Colonel John Allan, Washington’s letter gave “universal satisfaction.” Mi’kmaq and Maliseet people “adored him as a saint for the reason that though he was harassed with war himself, still he tells us (say they) ‘to be at peace and if they want help he will grant it and defend us.’ That for this their incessant prayers were for his success.” They even told Allan “they had turned out one of their chiefs because he had spoken disrespectfully of General Washington.”71