The Indian World of George Washington

by Colin G. Calloway

  The marquis de Lafayette had adopted Peter Otsiquette or Ojekheta when he was a teenager. After several years in France, where he received an education, learned French and English, and became accustomed to moving in polite society, Otsiquette had returned home in the summer of 1788. Three years later he impressed the businessman and land investor Ekanah Watson as “probably the most polished and educated Indian in North America,” well versed in “music and many branches of polite and elegant literature,” who in his manners resembled “a well-bred French man.” After less than a week in Philadelphia, Otsiquette died suddenly. He was buried in the cemetery of the Second Presbyterian Church. Ten thousand people attended the funeral, no doubt impressing the visiting chiefs with the “populousness of the city.” Big Tree also died while in Philadelphia and was buried in the Friends burial ground.37

  Before Washington met the delegates, Pickering gave him some blunt advice. He must negotiate in good faith and deal only with the introduction of agriculture and other civilized pursuits, not the acquisition of land:

  Indians have been so often deceived by White people, that White Man is among many of them, but another name for Liar. Really, Sir I am unwilling to be subjected to this infamy. I confess I am not indifferent to a good name, even among Indians[.] Besides, they recieved, and expressly considered me, as “your Representative[”]; and my promises, as the promises of [“]The Town Destroyer.” Sir, for your honour & the honour & interest of the United States, I wish them to know that there are some white men who are incapable of deceiving.38

  In his opening speech, Washington stressed his wish to keep the alliance with the Six Nations strong and presented a belt of white wampum, symbolizing his desire for peace. With the consent of the Senate, he proposed establishing a fund to provide $1,500 each year to provide the Iroquois with clothing, livestock, and farming tools; farmers and teachers would instruct their men to farm, their women to spin and weave, and their children to read and write. Knox and Pickering then turned to the real business at hand: getting the Iroquois to use their influence with the western tribes to make peace.39

  The Iroquois delegates were not bought so easily. Good Peter had experienced the devastation of Oneida country in the Revolution and the assault on Oneida lands in the 1780s, and he was known for his intelligence and integrity. Kirkland, who once attended a council where Good Peter “spoke for an hour like an Apollo & with the energy of a son of Thunder,” said “his equal is no where to be found among all the Indian nations.”40 Responding to Washington’s speech via Pickering a week later, Red Jacket returned to the tricky question of New York State’s right of preemption over Iroquois lands, a right Washington had implicitly denied in his negotiations with Cornplanter in December 1790, and then rather tamely accepted in the face of Governor Clinton’s protests the following year. “The President,” Red Jacket announced, “has in effect told us that we were freemen; the sole proprietors of the soil on which we live. This is the source of the joy; which we feel—How can two brothers speak freely together, unless they feel that they are on equal ground.” The Seneca politician was putting words into Washington’s mouth, but with a disastrous Indian war on his hands and Iroquois neutrality an absolute necessity, Washington said nothing to contradict him. Although there was peace among the Iroquois, there was still “some Shaking among the original Americans at the setting sun,” Red Jacket said. Washington had said he was not the cause of the hostilities in the West, so Red Jacket pointedly asked him, “What do you thin[k] is the real cause?” (emphasis in the original). As far as the Iroquois could see, murdering Indians and stealing their land in fraudulent treaties were the principal problems, and the president and Congress must resolve them if they truly wanted peace. “You have manifested a desire to put the burthen of bringing you and the Western Indians together, upon our shoulders: but it is too heavy for us to bear without your assistance.”41

  Washington presented Red Jacket with a peace medal, which the Seneca wore in later portraits, evidently proud of it and his association with the first president.42 As he had when McGillivray and the Creeks came to New York, the artist John Trumbull painted portraits of several of the visiting chiefs, including Good Peter (see plate 8).43 On April 22 Washington dined with twenty-two Iroquois, their interpreter, and Kirkland. A few days later, after a month in the capital, the chiefs left Philadelphia laden with gifts from the government.44

  Pickering was relieved to see them go. He had issued the original invitation, but knew nothing about the delegation coming until Knox crossed the street one day and told him the Indians were on their way. “I believe I must get you to negotiate with them,” said Knox. “Do think of it.” Pickering bore the brunt of the negotiations and found the business “very burthensome”: the written proceedings would fill a hefty volume, and besides the formal speeches there was “a multitude of conversations.” He had scribbled down the Indians’ speeches as the interpreters translated them, and then he transcribed and corrected them, often working at night and on Sundays. Was he entitled to any compensation? he asked the secretary of the treasury.45

  joseph brant did not participate in the Newtown Point council or the Philadelphia delegation. His was an absence the US government dared not accept. Allan Maclean, commander at Fort Niagara, said Brant was “better educated & Much More intelligent than any other Indian.” The British made him a captain in the Indian Department, provided a pension for his sister, Mary or Molly, the widow of Sir William Johnson and an influential clan mother, and set aside lands (purchased from the Mississaugua Ojibwas) on the Grand River in Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) for Brant and his people.46 Brant’s ties to Johnson and visits to England gave him connections in important circles. Governor Clinton described him to Washington as “a Man of very considerable information, influence and enterprise” and reckoned his friendship “worthy of cultivation at some Expense.”47 Many regarded Brant as the most important Indian of his day, and Brant seems to have agreed. He was also the Six Nations leader most closely aligned with the Northwestern Confederacy. He had defiantly articulated the stance against piecemeal land sales, and he remained a powerful voice for Indian unity. However, Brant wanted unity to strengthen the Indians’ bargaining position in reaching a peaceful settlement, not to sustain an endless war against American expansion. He regretted that the breach between the Indians and the United States was wider than ever, he told Clinton in early 1791; Harmar’s expedition had “spread the Sore where it was not felt before, … [and] all that will be gained in the end, will not be adequate to the Expense in Blood and Treasure.”48

  If the United States could win over Brant, it would reinforce Iroquois neutrality and at the same time weaken the Northwestern Confederacy and the British-Indian alliance. During the Revolution, Washington had hoped that some Iroquois might be induced to kidnap Brant.49 Now he tried to get him to Philadelphia and secure his help. Pickering sent the first invitation by letter, but, fearing that would not be sufficient inducement, Knox turned to Kirkland, Brant’s former classmate. Brant and Kirkland had parted ways during the Revolution; living at Grand River, Brant seemed firmly in the British orbit, but his relationship with the British colonial government was often testy. He had returned frustrated from a second visit to London in 1786 and was disappointed by Britain’s reluctance to give full support to the Indian resistance movement. Shawnees and other hard-liners for whom the stakes were higher suspected Brant because of his willingness to compromise on the Ohio boundary, especially after his absence from the victory over St. Clair. Uncertain circumstances plus his own ego and ambition made Brant receptive to the flattering invitations Pickering, Knox, and Kirkland all sent, promising a grand reception as befitted a man of his importance. “The President of the United States will be highly gratified by receiving and conversing with a chief of such eminence as you are, on a subject so interesting and important to the human race,” Knox wrote him in February 1792. Kirkland even pledged his honor and his life for Brant’s safety.50 Brant ac
cepted the invitation, telling the British that since his requests for assistance from them had produced only evasive answers, he was going to Philadelphia to assess American intentions and the prospects for peace.51

  In undertaking such a journey Brant surely anticipated getting more than just answers. It took him almost a month to reach Philadelphia. He set out from the Grand River in May, made his way through the country Washington’s armies had razed in the Revolution, and traveled down the Hudson to New York, then on to the capital. He received the reception he had been promised. Washington met with him the day after his arrival. “I have brought the celebrated Captn. Joseph Brant to this City, with a view to impress him with the equitable intentions of this government towards all the Nations of his colour,” Washington wrote privately to his friend Gouverneur Morris just before the meeting.52 The president and his cabinet wined and dined Brant. Jefferson noted on June 21, a Thursday: “He dined with the P. yesterday, will dine with Knox to-day, [George] Hammond on Sunday, the Presdt. On Monday &c.”53 But Brant was not overly impressed by Philadelphia or dinners with Washington: he had been twice to London and dined with royalty and aristocracy, and, as at Mount Vernon, dinners at his Grand River mansion were served by black servants dressed in livery.54 Knox met with him several times to try to convince him of Washington’s “humane disposition” toward Indians and talk him into getting the western chiefs to come to Philadelphia, where “the President would have the satisfaction of forming an acquaintance with the Chiefs,” and making a treaty would be more efficient than sending commissioners into Indian country, as points of dispute could be settled as they arose and “adjusted exactly according to his wishes.”55

  The government offered Brant a secret pension of $1,500 (six times what it paid Cornplanter), land for himself, and a reservation for the Mohawks on the American side of the border. He left Philadelphia on June 28, “apparently in the best dispositions,” according to Jefferson. Although Brant said he refused the offers, preferring “the interests of his Majesty, and the credit of my nation, to my own private welfare,” he likely departed a wealthier man. He also left Knox and Washington believing he would be instrumental in reaching a settlement with the Northwestern Confederacy. It is also not beyond the realm of possibility that Washington and Brant, both Freemasons, reached some private understanding. Before he left, Brant went to see George Hammond, Britain’s first minister to the United States, and told him of the American offer. Knowing Hammond would convey the information up the line, Brant used the visit to bolster his own position and put pressure on the British.56 He continued to work for a settlement, but, as the British well knew, he had his own agenda. He was not about to do the Americans’ bidding. Back in Upper Canada, Brant dined with Lieutenant Governor and Lady Simcoe in November 1792. “He has a countenance expressive of art or cunning,” the lady noted in her diary, evidently imbibing her husband’s views.57

  As Washington pursued his diplomatic initiatives with the Indians in Philadelphia, so the British pursued theirs. When Hammond arrived in town in October 1791, Jefferson gave him a frosty reception and made clear his rancor toward Britain; Washington treated him with politeness and respect.58 In addition to negotiating a commercial accord with the United States, the twenty-seven-year-old Yorkshireman had instructions to try to mediate a peace between the Indians and the Americans, and secure a new boundary between Canada and the United States that would include an Indian reserve as a barrier to American expansion. Preoccupied with events in Revolutionary France, Britain was not likely to support the Indians in open war against the United States, but if it could mediate a new border with an Indian buffer zone, the Indians would be appeased and Canada safeguarded. The Indian victory over St. Clair in November seemed to open the door for such a proposal, and Hammond engaged in multiple discussions with Jefferson and Hamilton, though the scheme made little headway.59

  Washington adamantly opposed calling in the British to act as mediators. In cabinet discussion in March 1792, he, Knox, Jefferson, and Hamilton agreed never to accept British mediation. (The others were unaware that Hamilton had privately appealed to Lord Dorchester via the agent George Beckwith to use his good offices in bringing the Indian war to a close.)60 Washington laid out his own position in a letter to Gouverneur Morris. British interference was the root of all difficulties with the Indians, and Britain’s mediation would never be requested and would be rejected if offered. The United States would conduct its own Indian diplomacy, offering the tribes the usual choice between war and peace, and “will never have occasion, I hope, to ask for the interposition of that Power or any other to establish peace within their own territory.” The administration was doing all it could to convince the Indians “that we neither seek their extirpation, nor the occupancy of their lands (as they are taught to believe)” except those purchased in fair treaties, but if they still refused to “listen to the voice of peace, the sword must decide the dispute; and we are, though very reluctantly, vigorously preparing to meet the event.”61 Hammond continued to explore the possibilities of British mediation and Indian boundaries with Hamilton and, more testily, with Jefferson but gained no traction.62

  The British were equally suspicious of Washington’s attempts to secure Iroquois mediation. “I cannot but regret the Six Nations having sent deputies to Philadelphia,” Lieutenant Governor Simcoe wrote; “it is certain no Method will be left undone to cajole them into a War against the Western Indians.”63 Fearing that the Republic’s aggression against the Indians would spill over into his own colony, and pinning his hopes on the Indian confederacy to contain American expansion at the Ohio, Simcoe saw Brant’s moderation as a threat to unity and viewed Brant himself with suspicion after he had been to Philadelphia to talk with Washington. “There is no person, perhaps, who thinks less of the talents or integrity of Mr. Washington than I do,” he wrote.64

  american efforts to reach out to the western tribes came up empty. In January 1792 Knox dispatched two agents, Captain Peter Pond and William Steedman, on a mission impossible: to persuade the victorious Indians to ask the United States for peace. “We cannot ask the Indians to make peace with us, considering them as the aggressors,” Knox explained; “they must ask peace of us.” Traveling in the guise of traders, Pond and Steedman were also to gather what information they could about the confederacy; in other words, they were spies.65 In April, Knox sent Colonel John Hardin and Major Alexander Trueman, who had survived the campaigns in 1790 and 1791, respectively, to tell the western tribes that the United States did not want to take their lands and drive them out of the country. Quite the contrary, the United States wanted to impart to them the blessings of civilized life, teaching them to cultivate the earth, raise domesticated animals, live in comfortable homes, and educate their children. The Indians should not be fooled by their recent victory into thinking they could escape ruin if the war continued. They should send chiefs to Philadelphia, where chiefs of the Six Nations were currently having talks, and make peace.66 George Nicholas thought it shameful that a handful of savages should have destroyed two armies and reduced the United States to asking for peace.67 But Trueman and Hardin did not get far: Indians killed and scalped them both as they traveled from Fort Washington to the Miami villages.68 Cornplanter said the emissaries should have taken the appropriate road for making peace via the Six Nations, not the road via the Ohio that had been made bloody and where they were taken for enemies.69

  Washington viewed their deaths as “lamentable proof of Indian barbarity” that should “stimulate every nerve to prepare for the worst.”70 When the Six Nations delegation was on its way, Washington and his cabinet agreed they should be well treated but not trusted too much.71 Now Knox felt that the last hope for reaching out to the western tribes rested on the “Indians who were in this City for that purpose.”72 Washington agreed. If those attempts also failed, he told Jefferson, there was no alternative left “but the Sword.”73

  The potential emissaries hardly constituted a united team. Th
e Senecas, Hendrick Aupaumut, Colonel Louis Cook, and Brant each had their own agendas. Cornplanter and Red Jacket did not speak for all the Senecas, and the Senecas did not speak for the rest of the Six Nations. Brant called Aupaumut a “Yanky Indian,” but Aupaumut was not just Washington’s mouthpiece. Drawing on the Mahicans’ historic role as diplomats and mediators and their long-standing ties with the Delawares, Shawnees, and Miamis, Aupaumut stated, “We look upon ourselves as the front door, by and through which you can go through all the different Tribes.” At Washington’s request he traveled west four times in the early 1790s in an effort to broker peace, but he undertook the missions to reassert Mahican influence and prestige rather than simply advance American interests.74 The western tribes would more likely listen to a message delivered by an Indian whom they regarded as friend and who had never deceived or hurt them, he said, and he took with him “ancient wampum” that recorded past agreements.75 He urged the Indians to make peace, argued the benefits of aligning with the United States rather than the British, and likened the American republic to traditional indigenous governance where leaders derived their power from the consent of the governed. In his journal, though, he confided he was careful “to say nothing with regard of the conduct of the [New] Yorkers, how they cheat my fathers, how they taken our lands Unjustly, and how my fathers were groaning as it were to their graves, in loseing their lands for nothing, although they were faithful friends to the Whites; and how the white people artfully got their Deeds confirm in their Laws, &c.”76 In speaking to the western Indians about the Americans, he distinguished between Big Knives, frontier whites who lied, stole, and killed, and President Washington, who was honest, wise, and just.77