Unsettling the West

by Rob Harper

  him “several severe blows” to the head. he did not rise again. Thomas lay stil .

  after the white man disappeared, he slipped out and found tobias in the

  woods. From their hiding place, the two twelve- year- olds watched the militia

  pil age and burn the houses and bodies. The boys, as well as Jacob, eventual y

  joined the people of the third mission, schönbrunn, who had fled shortly

  before the militia reached their town. refugees again, the survivors made

  their way toward sandusky to share the awful news.42

  Word of the massacre spread quickly. On smoky island, gelelemend’s

  small band mourned their moravian kin and worried about their own safety.

  Then, in the wee hours of 24 march, the delawares woke to sounds of armed

  struggle. a band of armed men had quietly canoed across the river, over-

  whelmed or conspired with the army’s posted guards, and attacked the sleep-

  ing camp. several young men fought off the attackers long enough for

  gelelemend to escape to Fort pitt with the women and children. two other

  survivors made their way to sandusky. But four delawares paid with their

  lives, including two who held officers’ commissions in the continental army.

  The murderers declared they would next attack Fort pitt and kill the acting

  commander John gibson, along with his delaware wife and children. For

  months to come, the delawares kept to the fort and irvine restricted colo-

  nists’ access, wondering how well his underpaid and underfed garrison

  would fight against indian- hating white men.43

  The massacre surely il ustrated militiamen’s meager regard for indian

  lives: even those who opposed the slaughter declined to interfere with it. But

  focusing on the attitudes of either murderers or bystanders obscures how

  government- sponsored warfare brought it about. as war dragged on, the re-

  gion’s inhabitants increasingly looked to state support for both subsistence

  and physical protection. For years, upper Ohio colonists had begged for aid,

  and the continental congress, together with pennsylvania and Virginia, had

  answered by providing money, supplies, and an institutional structure for

  new county militias. The resulting monster now escaped the control of the

  governments that created it. at Fort pitt, gibson wanted to help the moravi-

  ans, but he lacked either the material resources or the political support to do

  so. his predicament reflected how little armies and governments could con-

  trol the consequences of their own initiatives. instead of a tool for enforcing

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  official policy, the militia became a mechanism through which colonists redi-

  rected state resources for their own ends.

  news of the slaughter prompted wide- ranging responses. at detroit, de

  peyster invited the remaining moravians to settle on his own land along lake

  erie. The missionaries and many converts accepted the offer, but others re-

  nounced the mission and sought to avenge their lost loved ones, as did the

  victims’ non- christian kin. in philadelphia, newspapers initial y noted that

  the militia had killed over fifty old men, women, and children, but nonethe-

  less they characterized the action as a successful attack on the enemy. The

  murderers’ critics soon spread more accurate accounts. Upper Ohio colonists

  characteristical y split, with “some condemning, others applauding” the

  slaughter. in early may, pennsylvania’s executive council asked irvine and

  pentecost to investigate. gibson, a longtime al y of the moravians, hoped to

  find witnesses to testify against the murderers. But neither irvine nor pente-

  cost wished to risk antagonizing the murderers and their supporters. instead,

  they quickly squashed the inquiry, explaining that it might “produce a con-

  fusion, and ilwill amongst the people.” William moore, the president of

  pennsylvania’s executive council, got the message. he asked irvine to pass

  on any new information but tacitly accepted that no real investigation, let

  alone prosecution, would take place. Over two months later, the state’s gen-

  eral assembly called for further inquiry, but no one complied.44

  This pointed inaction reflected the heterogeneity of emerging state insti-

  tutions. Both irvine and pentecost enjoyed considerable influence, thanks

  largely to government affiliations. as commander of Fort pitt, irvine strug-

  gled to manage a rarely paid and occasional y mutinous garrison, but he

  nonetheless controlled the region’s largest supply of gunpowder, flints, and

  other military necessities. pentecost, ironical y, used his place on pennsylva-

  nia’s executive council to ral y resistance to its policies. While both irvine

  and pentecost represented state institutions, and derived political influence

  from them, their own interests deviated considerably from those of legisla-

  tors in philadelphia. Both sought to extend state influence, and cultivate state

  patrons, but only to the extent that doing so aligned with their own ends.

  They had little to gain, and much to lose, by demanding justice for the massa-

  cre victims.45

  instead, irvine sought to bank political capital by enabling further militia

  violence. Weeks before the abortive investigation, he pledged to help marshel

  and Williamson organize another expedition, this time “to destroy with fire

  and sword . . . the indian town and settlements at sandusky.” marshel again

  horrors, 1780–82

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  drafted Washington county militia and recruited volunteers who earned ex-

  emption from future drafts. like the gnadenhütten murderers, all no doubt

  hoped for plunder. irvine supplied ammunition, helped purchase provisions,

  and sent his aide- de- camp as military advisor. tellingly, he neglected to men-

  tion these plans to george Washington until late may, when the expedition

  was already under way, ensuring he received no orders that might interfere

  with the militia’s plans. marshel and his allies ultimately mobilized and

  equipped several hundred men. to command, the men elected William

  crawford, Washington’s old partner in land speculation. irvine instructed

  crawford to exchange any prisoners they could not carry away, a token effort

  to exonerate himself for any new massacre. But the men themselves scoffed at

  such restrictions. as they marched, they left messages and “effegies” in every

  camp, openly threatening “to extermenate the whole Wiandott tribe.”46

  Buoyed by their purported success at gnadenhütten, crawford’s men

  overestimated their abilities. They moved slowly and noisily. The sandusky

  Wyandots and delawares learned their plans before they set out, and for once

  the British alliance did not disappoint them. two hundred shawnees and a

  company of mounted British rangers arrived at sandusky just as the expedi-

  tion approached. together with delawares, Wyandots, and other British-

  allied indians, they quickly routed the undisciplined militia. While

  Williamson led the flight back to the Ohio, warriors captured crawford and a

  number of others and handed them over to the sandusky delawares. many of

  these refugees, including pipe, had struggled for years to stay out of the war,

  moving repe
atedly to evade British and american demands. in the months

  since gnadenhütten, they and other British- allied indians had handed over

  many prisoners to the British alive, taking pains to contrast their conduct

  with Williamson’s. But they knew that many of crawford’s men had been at

  gnadenhütten and that they had aimed to commit similar atrocities at san-

  dusky. in retaliation, the community burned crawford and two other officers

  to death.47

  Through the ensuing summer, British- allied indians battered colonial de-

  fenses, deepening colonists’ dependence on irvine and the United states. a

  large force burned hannastown, home to Westmoreland county’s makeshift

  courthouse. in Kentucky, indians ambushed and destroyed a substantial mi-

  litia detachment at Blue licks. elsewhere, smaller war parties resumed at-

  tacking colonial homesteads and stockades. some colonists fled eastward.

  Those who remained demanded the aid of regular troops. noting that they

  could not simultaneously harvest grain and guard the fields, communities

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  begged irvine for soldiers. meanwhile, marshel and other militia command-

  ers urged irvine to personal y command a new, larger, and more disciplined

  campaign into Ohio. The influence of regular army officers and troops, they

  reasoned, would enable them to avoid repeating crawford’s debacle. irvine,

  eager to strengthen his own authority and that of the United states, complied.

  together with clark in Kentucky, he planned a multipronged campaign to

  destroy “all the indian settlements within two hundred miles.” With the

  promise of payment, plunder, and irvine’s leadership, hundreds of men vol-

  unteered themselves, their horses, and their crops to support his campaign.48

  much like British- allied indians, the trauma of state- sponsored warfare

  left colonists dependent on government support, which in turn fueled more

  warfare. But then it ended. in august and september, de peyster and irvine

  received orders to halt all offensive operations. For a few months, violence

  persisted: many combatants wanted to fight on. irvine called off his own

  preparations, but he tacitly supported clark’s november attack on chilli-

  cothe. For their part, a few British- allied warriors continued raiding for

  months after de peyster called them in. They, like clark, claimed that news of

  peace reached them late. But such excuses lost their purchase within a few

  months. more importantly, guns, ammunition, and money stopped flowing

  into militants’ hands. de peyster fretted about demands for food from “the

  approaching bands of indians, who will come to represent the nakedness of

  their families.” his superiors, however, insisted that he prioritize conserving

  “the public money.” Upper Ohio colonists similarly pleaded for food, cloth-

  ing, and tax relief. They hated indians as much as ever. irvine, once a critic of

  anti- indian brutality, now called for the “total extirpation” of the western na-

  tions. But without the imperative of military conflict, both Britain and the

  United states sought to curb expenditures. Without their support, even the

  most militant indians and colonists lacked the means to wage war.49

  Chapter 6

  Failures, 1783– 95

  in the summer of 1783, just south of the Ohio river, several shawnee hunters

  met three Kentucky colonists. a year before, these people had been at war,

  but now their thoughts turned to trade. The shawnees needed “licker and

  sault”; two of the white men promised to bring some to sell them, leaving

  their companion behind to hunt. some days later, cherokees— reportedly

  horse thieves— killed this man in the woods. On learning of his death, shaw-

  nee leaders reported it to the nearest militia outpost and added that another

  group of shawnees had killed two colonists they found stealing horses north

  of the Ohio. The militia commander did not fault them for killing the thieves

  and hoped they would drive the cherokees from their land. he added that

  traders would soon visit the shawnee towns to sell them the salt they needed.1

  animosity and horse thievery endured, and periodical y brought bloodshed,

  but open warfare had given way to tentative diplomacy.

  This de- escalation of violence jarred with the widespread opinion, popu-

  lar among land speculators and american officials, that “an immortal hatred”

  between Ohio Valley indians and colonists drove them to “kill or be killed.”

  many insisted that racial antipathy led inexorably to racial violence, a theory

  that neatly deflected blame from the United states’ demands for indian land.

  if congress took “proper measures” to “conciliate the affection of the indi-

  ans,” they insisted, dispossession and colonization could proceed without

  bloodshed. One overeager land jobber insisted that he could cross the Ohio

  to “spy out the choicest and best spots” without giving offense, because he

  had “soothed” indians with “presents and otherwise” beforehand. When vio-

  lence erupted, such speculators invariably pleaded innocence and pointed to

  the savagery of “back woods men.”2

  such views permeate the documentary record, but a closer look reveals a

  more nuanced story. in 1783, anglo- american peace deprived combatants of

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  the resources they had used to wage war. hostilities diminished accordingly,

  enabling the region’s peoples to reshape relationships with a still complex

  array of governments. British agents nurtured ties to Ohio indians and re-

  fused to surrender the forts of detroit, niagara, and michilimackinac. penn-

  sylvania officials had settled their decades- long border dispute with Virginia,

  but they struggled to govern or even survey the state’s boundaries. Virginia

  faced similar challenges in Kentucky. across the region, army officers, indian

  agents, and county administrators twisted official policies to serve their own

  ends. But governments nonetheless cast a long shadow. Though indians and

  colonists often disregarded official demands, they also recognized that they

  could not achieve their own goals— above al , securing land— without the

  backing of an effective state. Ohio indians, no longer united by war, vied with

  one another for the friendship of British and american officials. colonists,

  feuding among themselves, jockeyed for the support of legislators and magis-

  trates. all might embrace the government representatives or attack them, de-

  pending on the matters at stake. amid this uncertainty, diplomacy among

  erstwhile enemies brought new hopes of peace.

  Those hopes soon col apsed, thanks to the United states’ implacable de-

  mands for indian land. congress and the states had amassed a daunting war

  debt, while widespread postwar inflation and bankruptcy left scant means of

  raising revenue. These woes gave ample reason to avoid frontier conflict,

  which secretary of War henry Knox warned “would exceedingly embarrass

  the United states.” But neither could congress afford to leave the west in

  peace. The land business— obtaining territory cheaply from indians, and sell-

  ing it to colonists and speculators�
� offered the new nation its best hope for

  financial solvency. many american officials hoped to profit personal y as

  wel . But these profits could be won only if the United states directly man-

  aged the process of dispossession and colonization. left to their own devices,

  indians and colonists might turn for protection to British canada or spanish

  louisiana, shattering nationalists’ dreams of a continental american empire.

  By insisting on colonizing Ohio, congress antagonized Ohio indians and

  disregarded Kentuckians’ chief grievances.3 The failures of United states di-

  plomacy drove both groups to seek alternative solutions, with deadly results.

  a few months after the treaty of paris, congressional emissary ephraim

  douglass made his way to Upper sandusky, home of the delaware leader

  known as pipe. he followed in the footsteps of the crawford expedition,

  which pipe and his allies had routed less than a year before. Well aware that

  Figure 6. Th e Ohio Valley, 1783–95.

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  pipe’s people had burned crawford to death, douglass and his two compan-

  ions no doubt wondered whether they would face a similar fate. But pipe

  greeted them “with every demonstration of joy,” showing “greater civility

  than is usual with them in time of profound peace.” crawford’s tormentor

  aided douglass with gusto, sending messengers to other nations, advising

  him on indian diplomacy, and personal y escorting him to a council at de-

  troit. pipe made no apologies: he proudly showed his guests the battlefield

  and boasted that he could have killed crawford’s entire army if not for the

  rashness of his shawnee allies. But his hospitality nonetheless impressed

  douglass, who concluded that western indians were “heartily tired of the war

  and sincerely disposed to peace.”4

  douglass was visiting a social landscape transformed by war. pipe’s own

  town had relocated several times within a few years, first to remain neutral,

  then to support the U.s.- delaware alliance, and final y to join the British-