American Indian alliance choices during the American revolution

During the American Revolutionary War, American Indians engaged in surveillance, intelligence, and fighting to support both the American colonists and the British in various capacities. This paper is a case study of three different American Indian nations and their differing choices of alliance during the American Revolutionary War. It examines the Oneida-Colonist relationship, the Mohawk-British relationship, and the effort of the Abenaki nation to remain neutral and seperate from the fight. It concludes that alliance choices by American Indian nations were not random and that each path of alliance was chosen in an effort to maintain autonomy, land, and survival, and was influenced by existing relationships the American Indian nation had with white powers.

ABSTRACT During the American Revolutionary War, American Indians engaged in surveillance, intelligence, and fighting to support both the American colonists and the British in various capacities. This paper is a case study of three different American Indian nations and their differing choices of alliance during the American Revolutionary War. It examines the Oneida-Colonist relationship, the Mohawk-British relationship, and the effort of the Abenaki nation to remain neutral and seperate from the fight. It concludes that alliance choices by American Indian nations were not random and that each path of alliance was chosen in an effort to maintain autonomy, land, and survival, and was influenced by existing relationships the American Indian nation had with white powers. 1 INTRODUCTION The American Revolution was, at least initially, a familiar sort of conflict to the American Indians who had seen a long history of frequent militant squabbling among the white nations that had footholds in North America. The American Revolutionary War was seen as a “war between brothers,” between the Old and the New English, another problem between settlers that did not concern American Indians.1 Yet, American Indians engaged in fighting, intelligence, surveillance, and all other political matters that accompany war among themselves and with the powerful white settling nations, on both sides of the conflict. What led some indigenous people to create alliances with settlers and choose the alliances they did? At the point of the revolution, European settlers and colonists already had a long history of interaction with American Indians that included conflict, trade, diplomatic endeavors, migration, and wide cultural intermixing.2 Different communities had far-reaching and often well-established connections and pressing concerns with one another. The American Revolutionary War may have indeed been a “white man’s war,” but white men and Indian men, by 1775, had interconnecting communities and what concerned one group influenced the other.3 As a general trend, American Indian groups would have preferred to stay out of the war altogether, but the violent circumstances of the conflict made that increasingly impossible.4 American Indians to Governor Trumball. American Archives, 4th series, vol 2 (Washington, D.C., 1839), 116-17. 1 Colin G. Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 1. 2 3 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, xii, 96. 4 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, xii, 96. 2 American Indians made the alliance choices they did during the American Revolution because existing relationships with white powers influenced decision-making geared towards survival. It is important to recognize that American Indians are not one people, but many peoples, and should be contemporarily and historically thought of as such. Says Woody Holton, an American colonist historian at the University of South Carolina, “We are still waiting for a comprehensive survey of Indian involvement in the American Revolution. That none has yet appeared can no longer be ascribed to a lack of scholarly interest. Rather, Indians’ experiences in the Revolution were so diverse… that no one has tried to encompass all of them within the covers of a single volume."5 Historian Ethan Schmidt has come the closest to such comprehensive survey in his book Native Americans in the American Revolution: How the War Divided, Devastated, and Transformed the Early American Indian World, but in order to provide a more in depth analysis and acknowledge diverse historical experiences, this paper will support its thesis by doing a case study of three different tribal groups instead of attempting to look at them all. In its most simple form, the American Indian actors in the 1770s, 80s, and 90s had three choices when it came to making alliances in the Revolutionary War: neutrality, alliance with patriot colonists, or alliance with the British government and loyalist colonists. This paper will examine three different Indian nations that each made a separate alliance choice in hopes of highlighting complex and individual factors that would lead to each choice. The Abenaki nation Woody Holton quoted in Ethan A. Schmidt, Native Americans in the American Revolution: How the War Divided, Devastated, and Transformed the Early American Indian World (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2014), 6. 5 3 is the nation that sought and retained the greatest amount of neutrality in the war, the Oneida nation allied with the colonists, and the Mohawk nation allied with the British. This paper looks at these three peoples in particular not just because of their differing alliance paths, but because they represent the extremes of those alliance choices. They were also chosen because they border each other geographically, which narrows geographic historic research and limits region as an alliance factor. ABENAKIS The northernmost of the three nations, the Abenaki peoples occupied space that extended west to Lake Chaplain in New York and eastward and northward through Vermont and up past Quebec.6 The Abenaki people, unlike the Oneidas and Mohawks, were not historically part of the great Six Nations Confederacy and were certainly less centralized than both the Oneidas and the Mohawks. Though they expanded into vast amounts of territory, they were comparatively low in numbers, and situated themselves far from New England settlements. Because they occupied territory on the St. Lawrence River, however, which remained a valuable transportation route from Canada to New England, the British were concerned with this smaller Indian nation. The Abenakis were very factionalized and especially as the American Revolution progressed, they functioned more as independent family bands and less as a single tribal unit. They lacked interaction with New Englanders for several reasons. One, they simply had lower numbers, and two, they were geographically situated farther north and had more interaction with Ethan A. Schmidt, Native Americans in the American Revolution: How the War Divided, Devastated, and Transformed the Early American Indian World (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2014), 48. 6 4 the French colonists and traders who were more established in and around Quebec. The French were less concerned with expansive settlement in their North American colonies and were more motivated to use America and its native peoples for trading, and so Abenakis had to physically give up less land to permanent settlers than their neighbors to the south did. This is indicative of a long history and relationship the Abenaki people had with the French. The French became familiar with the gift-giving traditions that promoted good relations with the American Indians, and Abenakis lived on long-established beaver trading. The British were not as likely to give gifts to the Abenakis, instead preferring transactions for goods. Throughout the 17th and into the 18th century, the Abenakis traded with white settlers but preferred to stay out of conflict. This is part of a much larger and wider historical pattern. American Indians understood French and English squabbling would continue as long as they both occupied North American territory, and almost universally American Indians opted out of such conflict unless forced into it, as happened during the French and Indian War. Suddenly, the Abenakis had to deal with an influx of soldiers on their land and an influx of interest in one of their main cities, Odanak. Odanak was strategically placed on the St. Lawrence River and attracted British interest during the French and Indian War. In an effort to retain their hunting ground, many Abenakis involved themselves in the war. They were generally supportive of French forces. Not only is this because of a standing history of better French relations than English ones, but the French seemed to succeed widely in the first few years of the war and the Abenaki people were drawn to their success.7 David L. Ghere, “ European Diplomacy with the Eastern Abenaki, 1725-1750,” Proceedings of the Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society 19, (1994): 92. 7 5 It would be a gross oversimplification, however, to say that the entire nation supported the French during the French and Indian War. Many Abenakis did, but the Abenaki nation as a whole was fractionalized between French and English factions, as well as being fractionalized into separate family bands instead of one cohesive tribal whole.8 Some Abenakis moved even farther north to avoid conflict.9 What one, or even what many Abenakis did, does not speak for all of the Abenaki Indians. This decentralized nature of the Abenaki nation is one of the key themes that helps bring understanding to how they reacted in the American Revolutionary War. The British knew that land among the St. Lawrence River was good territory, and knew that winning over American Indian bands was a necessary part of retaining control over their new territory, especially as they engaged revolutionary colonies to the south. The St. Lawrence River fell primarily in Canada, previously New France, which was a British colony that decided to not to engage in the revolution. The British also knew, however, that Abenakis did not view them in a very good light following the French and Indian War. The British did not follow the same gift-giving traditions of the French, the beaver trade was declining, and now many Abenakis had fought directly against the British and suffered casualties and loss. Due to the lack of gift-giving and the declining trade, Abenaki Indians were forced to spread out even more to find hunting ground. At the time of the revolution, about four to five hundred Abenaki remained in Odanak, which became the center place for British/Abenaki interaction.10 In fall of 1777, reports of some forty 8 Ghere, “European Diplomacy with the Eastern Abenaki, 1725-1750,” 87-100. 9 Schmidt, Native Americans in the American Revolution, 51. 10 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 69. 6 Abenaki families near Connecticut likely mean more movement away from Odanak, either as a sort of “mass exodus” from the city, or simply as a disregard for British efforts to keep the Indians from dispersing and covering vast amounts of hunting territory in already established seasonal patterns.11 The British decided to send soldiers to permanently occupy Odanak after the French and Indian War in an attempt to control the St. Lawrence River and also the Abenaki Indians. Occupying Odanak was necessary to retain control of territory won over from the French, but did not sit well with the Abenakis and strained British/Abenaki relations even further than they already were.12 Part of this strain was religious. Odanak, also known as Saint Francis, was originally a mission village and refugee center, built around a Catholic church.13 Attempts to impose Anglican policies were resisted by Odanak residents. The British struggled to maintain diplomatic control and create the sort of alliance that the Abenakis had with the French previously, made increasingly difficult as many Abenakis at Odanak became decidedly anti-British.14 British troops at Odanak both did not treat the Abenakis well and pressured them to take up arms.15 The British recognized the decentralized nature of the Abenakis, and knew that this made it more difficult for the British to control or win over the nation to their side. On March 29, 1762, 11 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 71. 12 Schmidt, Native Americans in the American Revolution, 49. 13 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 65-66. 14 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 72. 15 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 71. 7 William Johnson, the superintendent of Indian Affairs for the British, admonished the Abenaki people to “collect your people together in one Village, apply yourselves to your hunting, planting and Trade and to leave off Rambling about through the Country; by following which advice you will become more respectable than you are at present.” He told them that in doing so, and by following his other requests, they may then be able to depend on the protection of the British.16 Sir William Johnson knew that exhorting them to gather in one place would make it easier to gain control and foster more favor with them than he otherwise would be able to. Unsurprisingly, many Abenaki Indians failed to heed Johnson’s admonition. Complained Lieutenant Wills Crofts, who was stationed for permanent residence at Odanak, “You know perfectly well that when Indians go out hunting there is no preventing them going where they please.”17 Despite Johnson’s efforts, the Abenaki nation, during the Revolutionary War, did not fight for the British. Nor did they ever come together in one village. This decentralized nature of the Abenakis made it impossible for the British, and more specifically, Sir Johnson, to secure an alliance from the Abenaki peoples. Though the British managed to get the support of some Abenakis at Odanak, even an Abenaki chief who assured the British that the Abenakis had only peaceful intentions, there was little Abenaki leaders could do in regards to the rest of their nation.18 Family bands functioned as miniature political units unto themselves. Additionally, the Abenakis were never all together in one place. This also made it difficult for the British to The Papers of Sir William Johnson 1715-1774 (Albany: University of the State of New York. Division of Archives and History), vol. 10, 412. 16 Will Crofts, 1780. Haldimand Papers, 21777: 269-70, quoted in Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 78. 17 18 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 66. 8 determine just how many there were. The Abenakis remained vague in number and ambiguous in their loyalties. Though some, especially those pressured at Odanak, may have promised that they would support the British, few did. It might seem that because the Abenakis had allied with the French in the French and Indian war and had a very strained relationship with the British, siding with the American colonists would naturally follow during the Revolution. This did not happen. Just as much as the Abenakis did not give very much support to the British, nor did they give very much support to the colonists. Abenakis were eager to remain out of the fight. Their goal was to keep the war at arms length so as to not disrupt their hunting grounds. As quoted in a letter to Congress, a revolutionary expressed concerns that the Indians would not support the American cause. He said, “Mrs Brown asked which side they would fight. Answered, why should, we fight for t' other country, for we never see t' other country; our hunting is in this country.”19 The Abenakis were correct; all of their hunting happened away from settlers, why should they fight for them? They had responded to this crisis the same way they had responded to crises before: by dispersing into smaller bands. Not only this, but they were dispersing territoritorially farther apart anyway as a necessity to find new hunting ground as the weather cooled and as gift-giving and the beaver trade declined. Even if the Abenakis had been well-disposed to the revolutionary cause, it appeared as though colonists did not want their help. Because of their connection with the French, the Abenakis were more Catholic than other American Indians, which protestant New Englanders did not take kindly to. Not only did they think poorly of American Indians in general, but Henry Young Brown, of the Committee of Brownfield, to Massachusetts Congress, letter. American Archives, Series 4, vol 2, 641. May 16, 1775. 19 9 American Indians who were Catholic were not the kind of people the colonists wanted to connect with, let alone make the effort to try and get them to fight on their side. The Quebec Act had angered the colonists in large part because of its connections with the Catholic faith. Observed one man, “Here I must beg leave to make one particular observation; left, from what has been said, it should be thought that the Indians have a particular dislike to Europeans more than to the whites born in America; but the very reverse of this is the truth, for it is the white natives of the country that the Indians have the greatest aversion to, and by whom they have been so often most treacherously and barbarously used. The white Americans also have the most rancorous antipathy to the whole race of Indians; and nothing is more common than to hear them talk of extirpating them totally from the face of the earth, men, women, and children.”20 The colonists rejected American Indians in general, and religious division was a common theme among colonists anyway. In this strain the Abenakis had two strikes against them; they were Indian, and they were Catholic, neither of which white colonists felt very much empathy for. Thus, the choice of the Abenaki peoples during the American Revolutionary war was to give support to neither the colonists, nor the British. This is an ambiguous statement, however, because some Abenakis supported the British, and some actually supported the colonists. As an example, Abenakis may have helped defend Quebec for the British in 1775, while in that same year five Abenaki Indians trekked to the colonist camp at Cambridge and offered “their service Quote from John Ferdinand Dalziel Symth,“A Tour in the United States of America: Containing an Account of the Present Situation of that Country…” 1784. Northern Illinois University Digital Library, col. “Prairie Fire: The Illinois Country Before 1818,” JFS: Tour 20 10 in the cause of American liberty.”21 The Abenaki’s alliance choice as a nation, though, was one of neutrality, but this was only accomplished because of ambiguity that existed within the nation due to its decentralized nature and the independency of individual bands of Abenaki Indians. This ambiguity was intentional. Abenakis were not a very centralized nation before the Revolutionary War, but dispersed even more so when the crisis was upon them. Like other Indian nations, the Abenakis were not necessarily looking to patriotism in determining their alliance choice, but specifically to survival. Dispersing was the means the Abenakis took to try and secure their survival, and individual Abenakis, even ones in authority positions, made or did not make agreements with colonists or the British knowing that they could not speak for or account for the support or actions of the rest of the Abenaki peoples. Their strategy is one that they had been using a century and a half prior to the French and Indian war. It was a strategy of trying to play the white people off of each other. Unfortunately, with the French out of the way, this strategy was not nearly as profitable to the Abenakis. Neither the British nor the colonists were in a position to support the gift-giving traditions that the French had sustained. Many Abenakis fled even farther north after the French and Indian war. More fled during and after the American Revolution. SIX NATIONS It is impossible to analyze the Mohawk and Oneida nations without considering the wider context of the Six Nations Confederacy that they were a part of. Also known as the Iroquois or Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 69; Writings of Washington, vol. 3: 423-4 from the Pennsylvania Gazette, 30 August, 1775, quoted in Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 69. 21 11 the Haudenosaunee, the Six Nations Confederacy dates back to at least the 15th century, perhaps as early as the 11th century.22 The Five, and later Six Nations Confederacy, was a loose political alliance that stopped bloodshed between major native tribal groups. Translated to mean “the People of the Longhouse,” for centuries leaders of the various groups would meet in a literal longhouse to discuss and practice decision-making. The Six Nations were easily the most powerful American Indian political entity in the Northeast well into the 18th century. From west to east, they were the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Oneida, and Mohawk. They dominated Native American relations with French, Dutch, and English colonists and later American revolutionaries as well. One of the great tragedies of the American Revolutionary War is the dissolution of the Six Nations. (Map of Six Nation Territory, 1771, obtained from New York State Indian Policy After the American Revolution, Barbara Graymont, 1976) 22 Schmidt, Native Americans in the American Revolution, 52. 12 The Six Nations held a unique place among American Indian nations during the era of European colonization. In 1675, Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of New York, helped establish with the Six Nations a diplomatic relationship known as the Covenant Chain. This Covenant Chain was meant to represent a friendship between the Indian nations and the settlers. In lieu of stronger diplomatic connections with colonialists governments by other Indian peoples, this diplomatic relationship with New York meant that the Five, and later Six Nations served as the liaison between northern American Indians and British white settlers during political dealings. This put the Six Nations in a powerful diplomatic position for a very long time. MOHAWKS The Mohawk nation was the easternmost of the Six Nations, and the closest neighbor to both New York settlements by colonists and the Abenaki nation to their northeast. Generally, as one went from west to east among the Six Nations, so did dispositions among the nations go from French to English. The Mohawk people, aptly put, were the closest to the English “both in terms of geography and sentiment.”23 Though much of their territory was lost in the Revolutionary War, they originally inhabited Mohawk Valley in New York and their hunting grounds overlapped with the Abenakis up into modern-day Canada. Though many American Indians ultimately allied with the British, incentivized by offers of protection, gifts of food, and put off by land-hungry revolutionaries, the Mohawk nation is by 23 Schmidt, Native Americans in the American Revolution, xviii. 13 far the greatest example of a pro-British American Indian group. They went far above and beyond typical (if there is such a thing) American Indian British support. Mohawk people provided warriors, led and created battalions, protected British officials, led raids against colonist settlements and other American Indians that sympathized with the revolutionaries, and preached anti-American sentiments to other Indian nations. The question arises, then, why were the Mohawk people such staunch supporters of the British during the American Revolutionary War, especially when their neighboring Indian nations were not? Answers include a long history of British relations and support, a close relationship with the British northern superintendent of Indian affairs, a breakdown of the Six Nations Confederacy and separation from the other nations within the Confederacy, and a dissatisfaction with colonial governments and settlers who continually chipped away at their land. Well before the Revolutionary War, Mohawk people fell largely into the anglophile faction of the Six Nations Confederacy during the continuing battle between the French and the English over who should control North America, even as the Six Nations kept an air of neutrality throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Additionally, Sir Edmund Andros, the Governor of New York (conveniently located closest to the Mohawks), established a system of alliance with the Six Nations known as the Covenant Chain in the 1670s. This cemented that not only did the English recognize the Six Nations as a powerful political player in North America, but put the Six Nations as a diplomatic envoy position as broker between English relations with all northern American Indian peoples. The Mohawks, as traditional leader of the Six Nations, were put in the position of most power diplomatically then. This served to increase anglo support. 14 Part of their British sentiment was religious as well. Mohawks responded to Anglican missionaries and as far as native conversion to western religion went, the Mohawks were considered part the Anglican religious community as the Abenakis were part of the Catholic one and the Oneidas part of the Presbyterian one. The Seven Years War demonstrates a brief blip in Mohawk British support. The beginning years of the war went horribly for the British, and Mohawks were increasingly reluctant to retain friendship with a global power that would inevitably lose influence in North America. One Mohawk leader declared that the British had betrayed them and declared the Covenant Chain broken as they saw the French succeed in winning battles, land, and subsequently Iroquois support in the war.24 However, with the appointment of William Pitt as prime minister, British forces received the reinforcement, parliamentary support, and leadership needed to forge ahead of the French, and in light of their success, the Iroquois nation abandoned any pretense of neutrality and offered support to the British. The larger theme evident in this action is one of group survival. Ideally, the Six Nations would have played Britain and France off of each other indefinitely and retained their neutrality. With the elimination of one of these world players, the Iroquois knew that they had to identify, and then support, the winning side in order to maintain themselves as a nation. Ultimately, the Mohawks knew that the same sort of crisis was happening between British and American forces in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War. Following a long history of seeing British success in North America, they assumed that the winning nation would not be the budding American one, but the long-standing British one. To ensure survival in the years to come following the conflict, they picked the 24 Schmidt, Native Americans in the American Revolution, 55. 15 British to stand behind, which unfortunately proved an unsuccessful strategy in securing their tribal autonomy and land. In the years following the French and Indian War the Mohawks continued to remain supportive of the British. This is absolutely due to the close relationship that developed between their nation and Sir William Johnson, the British Northern Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Johnson made promises to keep British settlers off of Mohawk lands, and married a Mohawk, cementing his ties with the Mohawk nation. A particularly significant moment that secured the Johnson and Mohawk relationship occurred when Johnson favored the Mohawk people over both another Indian nation and Connecticut settlers in a land dispute that ultimately gave prime hunting territory in Wyoming to the Mohawk people, despite the fact that the Six Nations had actually sold the land years before to Pennsylvania in what is known as the Walking Purchase.25 Johnson was, as was most of Britain, part of the Anglican church. George III may have said that the Revolution a “Presbyterian rebellion,”26 and unfortunately, religious division did not contain itself only to white colonists but greatly affected American Indians as well and pulled at the Six Nations Confederacy. It is an easy historical narrative to say that the “shatter[ing of] the ancient unity of the Iroquois League”27 happened solely because Indian nations ended up fighting against each other as they got involved on different sides of the war, but division within the six nations happened long before brother against brother fighting actually happened. That division is why the Mohawks felt comfortable breaking from Iroquois unity and allying with the British 25 Schmidt, Native Americans in the American Revolution, 58. 26 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 108. 27 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 108. 16 when not all of the Iroquois (ie, the Oneidas) shared similar sentiment. In fact, the Mohawks, because of their British relationship, were disposed to want to ally themselves on the other side from the Oneidas and other American supporters and those who were not only politically divided from them, but religiously. By the eve of the Revolution, the Six Nations had a strong religious division between British Anglicanism and New England Presbyterianism.28 The Mohawks found themselves on the Anglican side of this ideological conflict, as opposed to the Oneidas who were primarily Presbyterian. This religious conflict increasingly divided nations within the Confederacy, and contributed to the deterioration of the Covenant Chain, a diplomatic and symbolic tie of friendship between the Six Nations and the British. Once the chain was broken, so was the Six Nations Confederacy and each nation was free to create alliances without having any responsibility to keep the Six Nations as a unified political unit. As part of the break-down of the Confederacy, raids on Mohawk towns by particularly patriotic Oneida warriors only increasingly drove them to British alliance. Colonist dissatisfaction with the Mohawk was an additional supporting factor that led the Mohawk to the British. The Colonist/Mohawk relationship was one that started bad and got worse as time went on. Distinguished by their iconic haircut, colonists depicted Mohawks as savages and particularly attacked a war chief and Mohawk leader named Thayendanegea, who was given the Christian name of Joseph Brant. Brant is a key Mohawk leader in the Revolutionary War and is known for his fighting zeal and efforts to get the rest of the Six 28 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 112. 17 Nations to make a formal alliance with Britain, as in the midst of colonist political attacks preached anti-American sentiments to the Six Nations and his own Mohawk people. The Mohawks first took action that cemented their alliance when they, well before the war, established a small force that hid and protected Sir. William Johnson when revolutionaries sought to burn down his house. Joseph Brant established a mixed Mohawk/British military force. The culmination of the Mohawk-British alliance and the Oneida-Revolutionary one happened at the Battle of Oriskany, an Oneida village that saw the first open fighting from two nations that for over 500 years before that had remained not only friends and political allies, but in literature and spirituality, brothers. ONEIDAS In striking contrast to the Mohawk nation, the Oneidas represent pro-revolutionary sentiments among a native people and ultimately openenly allied with the Americans. They fought with them in four battles, one siege, one campaign, and multiple raids and skirmishes.29 A gradual assimilation into colonist culture, the influence of missionaries, specifically that of Samuel Kirkland, and the separation of Six Nations drove the Oneidas to ally with the Americans. A common historical narrative is to cite the influence of Samuel Kirkland completely for the Oneida-Colonist alliance, but that narrative disgards the complex shift in Oneida society that set them up for friendship with Kirkland and brought other colonist connections; it was not just a David Levinson, “An Explanation for the Oneida-Colonist Alliance in the American Revolution,” Ethnohistory 23, no. 3 (1976): 280. 29 18 single missionary that turned the Oneidas towards the revolutionaries, but a deep relationship with the colonists as a result of a changing Oneida society. Geographic proximity, trade with the colonists, gradual Europeanization, and colonial gifts to the Oneida people each contributed to the Colonist-Oneida relationship.30 In 1700, the Oneidas were neither literate nor Christian. They were primarily a hunting and agricultural people and most interactions were with other American Indians, not colonists. By the Revolution, Oneida culture had been transformed. They were literate, often not only in their Iroquoian language but in English as well. Christian missionaries gained converts, children were attending school, and economically the foundation of their society had shifted from hunting to trade and large-scale farming and animal husbandry.31 Missionaries, traders, and squatters all helped the Europeanization that took place in the Oneida nation over the 18th century, and by the war, Oneidas not only interacted with colonists, but were heavily dependent on continuous trade with them to feed their families and provide commonplace goods. The Revolutionary War disrupted trade, and therefore threatened the livelihood of the Oneida people. Says David Levinson, “Furthermore, the Oneida began to form closer friendship and political ties with the settlers because political matters that affected the settlers, such as British taxation policies, affected the flow of goods to the Oneida.”32 Threats from Britain served to strengthen settler-Oneida friendship. External threats tend to be a very effective unifying force in any situation, and though Mohawks preached protection from the British, the Oneidas experienced something different on the ground. 30 Levinson, “An Explanation for the Oneida-Colonist Alliance,” 280. 31 Levinson, “An Explanation for the Oneida-Colonist Alliance,” 280. 32 Levinson, “An Explanation for the Oneida-Colonist Alliance,” 281. 19 Missionaries are perhaps the greatest driving force for the assimilation of settler-like practices into Oneida culture. Not only did they bring the bible, but they also brought hoes, cattle, plow tackling, flour, cookware, guns, and more, and the knowledge to use these things.33 The most influential missionary in strengthening the Oneida-colonist relationship and ultimately leading the Oneidas to a colonial alliance was a Presbyterian congressionalist named Rev. Samuel Kirkland. Kirkland started his mission to the Iroquois when he was only 22, in 1764.34 He spent most of his time living in an Oneida village named Kanowalohale, where he and his wife spent over 40 years among the Oneidas. They earned the respect of the Oneidas because they learned their language and did not expect the Oneidas to pay for their living, but instead lived poorly among them. He said, “I have from my youth up had a peculiar affection for the Indians,”35 and it showed in his dedicated preaching and service to them. Kirkland is particularly important because he served as a source of information to the Onedias on the eve of and during the war. While Abenaki bands got information by word of mouth among themselves and any settlers they may have had contact with, and the Mohawks got information about the war from Sir. William Johnson, the Oneidas not only received information from Johnson but were the only Indian people that, as a nation, heard information directly from the colonial side. Kirkland would read to the Oneidas the proceedings of the Continental Congress, and in 1774 was asked to "use your influence with them to join with us in the defense Levinson, “An Explanation for the Oneida-Colonist Alliance,” 280. Stephen Valone, “Samuel Kirkland, Iroquois Missions and the Land, 1764-1774,” American Presbyterians 65, no. 3 (1987): 187. 33 34 35 Valone, “Samuel Kirkland, Iroquois Missions and the Land, 1764-1774,” 187. 20 of our rights.”36 In 1775 he actually was employed by the Continental Congress to do what he could among all of the Six Nations to “secure their friendship and continue them in a state of neutrality.”37 The effort of the Congress was to try and keep all of the Six Nations out of the conflict, as they knew the war would be much worse if the Six Nations joined the opposing side. At the same time Congress asked Kirkland to try and secure neutrality, they were drafting a speech to send to not just the Six Nations, but all nations of American Indians that also had the intention of securing neutrality from the different peoples.38 The speech is full of persuasive language that presents the colonists as relatable to the Indians. They call the Indians “brothers and friends,” and refer to them with seeming admiration and respect. It argues for the nations to take a stance of neutrality in a war that does not concern them. “What is it we have asked of you? Nothing but peace…”39 The speech, although advocating for neutrality, unsurprisingly, is very much skewed in the favor of the colonists and the continental congress’s cause against the British, invoking imagery of an angry father hitting an innocent child who just was trying to please.40 Congress, and Kirkland, found success when the Oneidas issued a statement of neutrality in 1775, at the beginning of the war. The Oneidas, of course, would later shift to outright colonial alliance later in the conflict, but even in this early document support for the A letter from the Massachusetts Provincial Congress quoted in Levinson, “An Explanation for the Oneida-Colonist Alliance in the American Revolution,” 285 36 Continental Congress to Samuel Kirkland, 18 July 1775. Samuel Kirkland Papers, Hamilton College Library 37 38 Speech to the Six Nations. Journal of the Continental Congress, 13 July 1775 39 Speech to the Six Nations. Journal of the Continental Congress, 13 July 1775 40 Speech to the Six Nations. Journal of the Continental Congress, 13 July 1775 21 continental cause can be seen. In likewise manner, they refer back to the colonists as “brothers.” In a letter to the Connecticut governor, with a charge that the message be shared with the other “chiefs of New England,” the Oneidas say, “BROTHERS-We have heard of the unhappy differences and great contention between you and Old England.” They have heard, of course, of the unhappy differences by Kirkland. “Possess your minds in peace respecting us Indians. We cannot intermeddle in this dispute between two brothers.” Like Congress wanted, they are “for peace.”41 Kirkland taught of the conflict between the colonists and Great Britain and urged the Oneidas to support the colonists. Congress’s efforts to secure neutrality from the Oneida people antagonized Britain, specifically William Johnson. Johnson, knowing that Kirkland was a threat, tried to get him removed several times, but no attempt was successful. In fact, these efforts only increased the Kirkland-Oneida friendship.42 They increased the Kirkland-Oneida relationship because Kirkland was seen as part of the Oneida people, and they did not think it well for Johnson to attack him. Efforts were made to protect, and hostilities grew between the Oneidas and Johnson. Though Johnson originally supported Kirkland’s mission, a division soon existed between the two of them as Kirkland held to his Presbyterian preaching and refused to teach Anglican principles. The Oneidas and their neighbors, the Tuscaroras, were the most receptive in the Six Nations to missionary influence and Johnson had hoped to use Kirkland to expand Oneida Indians to Governor Trumball, 19 June 1775. American Archives, 4th series, vol 2 (Washington, D.C., 1839), 1116-17. 41 42 Levinson, “An Explanation for the Oneida-Colonist Alliance,” 285. 22 Anglican influence. The Six Nations felt the strain of religious division, which only compounded with the Johnson-Kirkland rivalry, which influenced the Oneida-Mohawk separation. It is important to note that while the colonist-Oneida relationship is by far the most important white-American Indian relationship in securing Oneida alliance, the relationship that the Oneidas had with Britain also greatly influenced their decision. The negative relationship the Oneidas had with the British pushed them to action perhaps as much as the positive one they had with the colonists. Oneida displeasure with Britain in the years before the Revolution perhaps start in seen in 1768, when the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, negotiated by Sir William Johnson, established a boundary line that meant the loss of “the Carrying Place” to the Oneidas, a place that they had hoped to maintain control of and had significance to them.43 In the years after that, Johnson continually placed Mohawk concerns over Oneida ones during negotiations. The Oneida-Johnson relationship was a rocky one, which meant that not only was the Oneida-Britain relationship uneasy, but also the Oneida-Mohawk relationship. The breakdown of the Iroquois confederacy afforded the Oneidas an opportunity to take themselves out from Mohawk leadership if they allied on the opposite side as them, which they did. It is worth specifically pointing out that American Indian alliance for either the British or the colonists did not happen for necessarily the same reasons other settlers were pro-British or pro-Colonist. Each nation had their own reasons, and for the Oneida and the Mohawk, internal political conflict within the Six Nations Confederacy certainly played a part in influencing alliance paths. The Oneidas were driven by tribal autonomy and survival. They wanted both to be free from the restraint of Six 43 Levinson, “An Explanation for the Oneida-Colonist Alliance,” 283. 23 Nation rulings, which were largely determined by Mohawk leaders and to maintain colonial connections and retain trade with settlers that had been interrupted by conflict and taxation. CONCLUSION Unfortunately, the conclusion remains the same for the Oneidas as it did the Mohawks and the Abenakis. Said a group of American Indian chiefs to the governor of Saint Louis, in 1784,“That event [the American Revolutionary War] was for us the greatest blow that could have been dealt us, unless it had been our total destruction.”44 The outcomes of the Abenaki, the Mohawk, and the Oneida peoples demonstrate a much larger and greater devastating pattern of American Indian destruction that befell upon individuals and lndian nations because of the Revolutionary War. Each of the three nations in this study suffered greatly, demonstrating that alliance choice did not make any difference in how American Indians were treated by the new American Republic. The Abenakis had not made any close relationships with the settlers and they continued to fragment, many more of them migrating to Canada. The Oneidas and the Mohawks both ended up homeless, many of whom also sought refuge in Canada. With the defeat of Britain, the Mohawks did not receive any of the promises of land protection that the crown had extended to them. Britain no longer had control on North American territorial fights. The Oneidas, also, did not receive any of the promises of land, stability, or protection that they had been offered both formally and informally by allying with the colonists. The newly formed American federal government did not have any power over the State of New York’s government, a body that completely disregarded any American Indian 44 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, viii. 24 and their claims to New York land. Americans used the Revolution as a justification to try and eradicate American Indians completely. They claimed American Indians had thrown their lot in with the British without a second thought, and treated them as traitors who did not deserve land rights or the maintaining of treaties.45 Oneidas, and other groups that had fought against the British, were not excluded in this distinction. More and more were American Indians viewed as being one people, one enemy, one outsider, rather than a complex set of different peoples. Says Calloway, “With the Revolution won, however, Americans reduced the diverse experiences of Indian peoples to a single role.”46 Americans wanted land and it was an easy narrative to place American Indians-- all American Indians-- under a blanket of savagery and traitorship as to justify native land as colonist property, hard fought and won from Britain. This paper is part of the body of research that hopes to expand the story of the Revolution as it is spoken about and talked about to include American Indians and to recognize the diversity of their experiences. The Revolution has evolved to become the origin myth of America. It is a narrative that generally excludes American Indians, and when it does mention them, they stand as a footnote to the start of “our great nation,” without instead a recognition that America’s origin story started long before the Revolution. 45 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 283. 46 Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country, 292. 25 Bibliography: Avalon Project. Journal of the Continental Congress. Yale: Yale University. Calloway, Colin G. The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 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