HISTORY 3

"We Have Always Been the Frontier": The American Revolution in Shawnee Country

Author(s): Colin G. Calloway

Source: American Indian Quarterly , Winter, 1992, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter, 1992), pp. 39- 52

Published by: University of Nebraska Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1185604

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"WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE FRONTIER": THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN SHAWNEE COUNTRY

Colin G. Calloway

DESPITE THE CENTRAL IMPORTANCE of the American Revolution in American history and historiography, the full story of all the par-

ticipants has yet to be told. Indian experiences continue to receive one-dimensional treatment in most studies of the American Revolution, and historians of the era still suffer from the "Drums Along the Mohawk" syndrome where Indians are concerned. The Indians' role in the war still attracts far more attention than does the

impact of the war on their home front; tribes feature as military and political units, but their experiences as human communities are neglected.1 With few exceptions, the Indian story in the Revolution remains relegated to secondary importance and easy explanation: The Indians chose the wrong side and lost. To better understand the reality of the Revolution for American Indians, we need to shift our focus to Indian country and to Indian communities.

The Shawnees exemplify the inadequacy of standard portrayals of Indian experiences during the Revolution. To suggest that for the Shawnees the American Revolution began in 1775 is rather like telling Poland that World War II began with Pearl Harbor. Shawnees were fighting for their freedom long before Lexington and, as for many Indian peoples, the Revolution renewed and intensified famil- iar pressures on their lands and culture. Nor did the Shawnees' Revolution end in 1783; it was one phase in a Twenty Years War that continued until at least the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. During this war the Shawnees occupied the front lines in the fight for the Ohio River. As village chiefs from Chillicothe told the British in 1779, "We have always been the Frontier."2 For twenty years, the American Revolution translated into a story of political fragmentation and burning villages in Shawnee country. It was also a story of change and endurance in Shawnee communities.

The Shawnees traditionally comprised five divisions, each with specific responsibilities. The Chillicothe and Thawekila divisions took care of political concerns that affected the whole tribe and generally supplied tribal political leaders. The Maquachakes were concerned with health and medicine and provided healers and counselors. The

Colin G. Calloway is Associate Professor of History at the University of Wyoming.

39

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40 AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY, WINTER 1992

Piquas were responsible for matters of religion and ritual, and the Kispokis generally took the lead in preparing and training for war and supplying war chiefs. Before the Revolution these divisions seem to have functioned as semi-autonomous political units, occupied par- ticular towns, and possessed their own sacred bundles.3

In 1673 Marquette described the Ohio Valley as the place "where dwell the people called Chaouanons in so great numbers that in one district there are as many as twenty-three villages, and fifteen in another quite near one another." But Iroquois pressure drove these people out, and war, migrations, political fragmentation, disease, eco- nomic disruption, and cultural changes had already taken their toll by the time the Shawnee tribes reassembled in southeastern Ohio by the middle of the eighteenth century, settling on lands set aside for them by the Wyandots.4

The Shawnees' long struggle to defend their homelands against encroachment from Virginia intensified after the Iroquois sold their lands out from under them at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768. Two years later the Shawnees were working to form a confederacy of tribes in opposition to the Stanwix cession.5 Tensions exploded after a series of petty frontier skirmishes in Dunmore's War in 1774. The British Indian Department effectively isolated the Shawnees, and when the Shawnees sent a war belt soliciting Iroquois assistance, the Onondagas threw it back at them.6 After the Battle of Point Pleasant and the destruction of their towns on the Muskingum River, some Shawnees became reconciled to the loss of their lands south of the

Ohio as the price of the peace negotiated with Lord Dunmore at Camp Charlotte; others never accepted the situation as one war merged into another.

When the Revolution broke out, most Shawnees endeavored to remain neutral, and several towns moved away from the Scioto to the Miami River and its tributaries.7 But American encroachments per- sisted, and Shawnee chiefs told the Virginians in July 1775, "We are often inclined to believe there is no resting place for us and that your Intentions were [sic] to deprive us entirely of our whole Country."8 American commissioners traveling through Indian country in the summer of 1775 found the Shawnees "Constantly Counseling" and "the Women all seemed very uneasy in Expectation that there would be War." A Maquachake woman told commissioner Richard Butler that the Shawnees were divided, with the Chillicothe and Piqua divi- sions of the tribe displaying growing militancy. The Shawnees who showed up at the Treaty of Fort Pitt that fall confirmed the Ohio River as the boundary of Indian and white lands, a line the Shawnees fought to hold for the next twenty years.9

When Indian agent Matthew Elliott visited the Kispoki Shawnee towns in the summer of 1776, he feared a general Indian war. Shaw-

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN SHAWNEE COUNTRY 41

nee emissaries carried a nine-foot war belt to the Cherokees, igniting bloody warfare on the borders of Virginia and the Carolinas.10 Nevertheless, that fall Shawnee peace advocates attended another multi-tribal treaty council at Fort Pitt, which the American agent George Morgan misread as a broader commitment to neutrality by the tribes.11 Disease may have added to the disruption in Shawnee vil- lages that year.12

The Shawnees occupied a crucial yet precarious position between the frontiers of Virginia and Kentucky and the hostile Mingo bands at Pluggy's Town and elsewhere closer to Detroit. Tribes already allied to the British threatened the Shawnees with attack if they contemplated peace with the Virginians, and they became embroiled in the escalating conflict. But participation was never total. Different groups and individuals interpreted things differently and came to different conclusions about the best course to pursue in tumultuous times.13 Chief Cornstalk and other peace advocates kept the Americans informed about developments in Indian country and within their own tribe. In late February 1777, Cornstalk, Kishanosity, Molontha, the war chief Oweeconne, and other Maquachake head chiefs sent messengers to George Morgan, assuring him of their desire for peace and blaming the Mingoes for corrupting their young warriors. Cornstalk had little authority beyond his own Maquachake division by this time, and he warned that he could neither restrain his warriors nor stop the drift to war. The chiefs said they intended to separate from those who wanted war and to build a new town. In March, the Delaware Council reminded the Shawnees of what had befallen them three years earlier and invited them to settle at the Delaware capital, Coshocton. Cornstalk planned to move his people closer to the Delawares where, he said, they would be safer from Mingo threats.14 But the war party was gaining in strength in Shawnee villages, and that same year Shawnee warriors accepted a war belt from Governor Henry Hamilton at Detroit and joined the Mingoes in raiding the American frontier. George Morgan and Edward Hand reported in July that two tribes of the Shawnees had "become unmanageable," while two others remained in the American sphere.15 The oldest Shawnees early in the next century could not remember an occasion when "more than one-half of the nation have been at war at the same time."16

Cornstalk's murder by American militia in 1777 drove many Shawnees into the arms of the British. As General Hand recognized, "If we had anything to expect from that Nation it is now Vanished."17 Black Fish invaded Kentucky in the winter of 1777-78, capturing Daniel Boone and twenty-six companions in a snowstorm. But revenge was not the only motor driving the Shawnees: Cornstalk's

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42 AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY, WINTER 1992

Maquachakes remained predominantly neutral. White Eyes, the pro- American leader of the Delaware Turtle clan, said the Maquachakes took "hold to the Chain of Friendship & mind nothing else." Seven- teen Maquachake families under Kishanosity, Oweeconne, and Nimwha, Cornstalk's brother, moved to Coshocton and, in White Eyes' words, "became the same people."18 The Maquachake division remained the most inclined to peace throughout the war.19 Corn- stalk's sister, Nonhelema, the "Grenadier Squaw," consistently sup- ported the American cause.20 But as concern over American encroach- ments grew, more Shawnees accepted Hamilton's war belt in the spring of 1778.21

The nation divided over the question of continued and perhaps endless resistance to the Americans. Many Maquachakes and Kispokis wanted peace, but most Chillicothes and Piquas remained cool to the Americans and favored joining the Mingoes.22 Kikus- gawlowa (Kishkalwa) had led part of the Thawekilas south into Creek country in 1774, brought them back to the Ohio years later, and then moved west of the Mississippi.23 Also by early 1774, 170 families had "packed up everything" and removed from the Scioto, rather than "be Hemmed in on all Sides by the White People, and then be at their mercy."24 Others followed suit, and by 1779 or 1780 some 1,200 Shawnees, primarily from the Thawekila, Piqua, and Kispoki divi- sions, led by Yellow Hawk and Black Stump, had begun to leave their Ohio homelands and migrated west to Missouri, where they took up lands near Cape Girardeau under the auspices of the Spanish govern- ment. Long-distance migration was nothing new: Shawnee traditions say they began to cross the Mississippi as early as 1763, and Missouri Indians killed a Shawnee chief in the west in 1773. But no early migrations split the nation like this one. Shawnee movements in the west continued, and Shawnee history after the Revolution has to be traced in Missouri, Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma, as well as in Ohio and Indiana.25

The Shawnees who remained in Ohio were mainly Chillicothes and Maquachakes, with an amalgam of members from other divi- sions who refused to leave their homelands. The Maquachakes may have continued to hope for accommodation with the Americans, but when Daniel Brodhead sent the Shawnees a speech in 1779 advising them to listen to the peace-minded Delawares and ignore British agents who had come 3,000 miles "only to Rob & Steal," the warriors burned it in defiance.26 Shawnee emissaries carried the war hatchet south to Creek country.27 Thomas Jefferson wanted to see the Ohio Shawnees exterminated or driven from their lands, and he advocated turning other tribes against them.28 American invasions of Shawnee country became almost an annual event, and the Shawnees' Revo- lution became a story of "Drums Along the Miami," as American

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN SHAWNEE COUNTRY 43

troops burned crops and villages, while American forts on the perimeters of their country kept Shawnee communities on a war footing.

In 1779, with the Shawnees badly weakened by recent out-migra- tions, John Bowman led an inglorious campaign from Kentucky against the principal town of Chillicothe. A handful of warriors repelled and harassed the attackers, but Chief Black Fish suffered a mortal wound. A severe winter followed, and Shawnee emissaries urged the British to provide the support they had promised.29 Nevertheless, Shawnees were active on the frontiers the following spring: The British at Detroit reported that the Shawnees and their allies were bringing in scalps every day, "having at present a great field to act upon."30

In 1780, the Shawnees burned Chillicothe themselves rather than let it fall to George Rogers Clark. Luring the Americans on to ground of their own choosing, they fought a full-scale battle at Piqua on the Mad River, until Clark turned his artillery on the village council house where many of the people had taken refuge. Clark described the town as "composed of well built cabins located along the river, each surrounded by a strip of corn," and his men spent two days burning cornfields and plundering Shawnee graves for burial goods and scalps. The inhabitants of Piqua withdrew and rebuilt their town on the Great Miami River. Shawnee losses were slight, but the destruction of their corn hit them hard "on account of our Women and Children who are left now destitute of Shelter in the Woods or

Food to subsist upon." Captive Mary Erskine said the Shawnees lived the whole winter on meat, and refugees filtered into Detroit in search of food and shelter from the British, just as Iroquois refugees fled to Niagara after Sullivan's expedition.31 In council at Detroit the follow- ing spring, Wry Neck urged the British to gather their soldiers and muster the Lake tribes to support the Shawnee war effort. "We see ourselves weak and our arms feeble to the force of the enemy," said the Shawnee chief. "'Tis now upwards of Twenty Years since we have been alone engaged against the Virginians."32

Clark was back in Shawnee country in the fall of 1782. According to Daniel Boone, who accompanied the expedition, Clark burned five villages, "entirely destroyed their corn and other fruits, and spread desolation through their country." Most of the warriors were absent when Clark attacked, and reports of atrocities by "the white Savages Virginians" flew through Indian country. But the Shawnees refused to be drawn into open battle and evidently suffered minimal losses. 33

American strikes continued after the Revolution, with Kentucky militia staging regular incursions across the Ohio. The Maquachakes returned their war belts to the British in 1784, signifying their inten- tion to remain at peace, and their chief Molontha was the voice of

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44 AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY, WINTER 1992

accommodation at the Treaty of Fort Finney in January 1786.34 But months later Benjamin Logan's Kentucky militia conducted "a wild scampering foray" into Shawnee country. They burned Maquachake villages, killed some women and children, and hatcheted Molontha to death under his American flag. "Logan found none but old men, women and children in the towns," said Ebenezer Denny: "They made no resistance; the men were literally murdered."35 In 1787 Robert Todd burned the old Chillicothe town on Paint Creek and killed a handful of Indians.36 General Josiah Harmar burned more vil-

lages and crops in 1790.37 Chillicothe was attacked four times between 1779 and 1790, but the Shawnees kept rebuilding it with the same name in different locations.a8

Even when not subjected to direct assault on their villages, the Shawnees suffered heavily. Recurrent invasion and forced migration no doubt disrupted the Shawnee ceremonial calendar, which, for instance, observed the Green Corn Festival during the summer months when the Americans targeted their attacks on Shawnee vil- lages.39 As among the Iroquois, continual fighting and the loss of men who knew the ceremonies meant that traditional rituals of preparing and going to war became neglected, disrupted, or imperfectly per- formed.40

Warriors could not provide for their families when away on cam- paign, and loss of vital crops of squash, corn, and beans meant increased reliance on hunting at a time when hunters were not avail- able. Similar dietary imbalance among the Mohawks produced widespread sickness. Already dependent on outsiders for firearms and manufactured goods, Shawnees now looked to the British for food and other necessities. But the British, stretched to the limit, dis- couraged them from congregating at Detroit and sent out war parties as a means of relieving the pressure on the king's stores.41

The war altered the location and composition of Shawnee com- munities. Indian villages were not exclusive ethnic units, but in the chaos of the Revolution, Shawnee communities splintered and restructured. Each American invasion caused a renewed shift to the

northwest until the Shawnee population became congregated in new towns on the Auglaize and Maumee rivers. While some families migrated west or took up residence with the Delawares, others moved south to Cherokee and Creek country, where they joined southern warriors in their fight, and by 1791 there were four Shawnee towns on the Tallapoosee River.42 Physical movement was a relatively sim- ple operation for the Shawnees, as their lodges "could be built easily in a few days, and were abandoned with little concern," but leaving familiar sites doubtless took an economic and emotional toll. Moreover, transportation of a division's sacred bundle was of primary concern in such movements, since desecration courted disaster, and

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN SHAWNEE COUNTRY 45

splinter groups who remained behind or moved away from the rest of the division presumably found themselves without the protection of a sacred bundle.43

Meanwhile, Mingoes, Senecas, and Cherokees joined Shawnee communities to continue the war effort. Moravian missionary Reverend John Heckewelder reported, "The Shawnees lost many of their men during these contests; but they were in a manner replaced by individuals of other nations joining them," and he noted that about one hundred "turbulent Cherokees" came over to the Shaw-

nees. Shawnee towns took on the appearance of renegade strong- holds in American eyes.44 The distinctions and particular responsibili- ties of the five ancient Shawnee divisions seem to have become

blurred as some groups migrated west of the Mississippi and, by the war's end, Shawnee families from the several divisions crowded into the towns not destroyed by Clark. After the war, Shawnee towns on the Glaize became part of a multi-tribal community.45

The Revolution also intensified shifts in leadership. The principal war chief, Kishanosity, was discredited after Dunmore's War "on which acct. the Shawanese have thrown him down and have taken all

his Power out of his Hands." Henceforth Kishanosity took a peaceful stance, along with Wryneck, Nimwha, and Cornstalk.46 The latter's murder left a void among the Maquachakes, as did the death of Black Fish at Chillicothe in 1779. Black Snake handed over leadership of the Kispokis to Yellow Hawk when he chose to remain in Ohio. Nimwha died in 1780.47 Molontha was killed in 1786. Black Hoof did not attain prominence until after the Revolution.

Traditionally, Shawnee chiefs were expected to be peaceful. Village chiefs took precedence over war chiefs in council, and war chiefs assumed only temporary responsibility for the conduct of expe- ditions after obtaining the advice of the council. But endemic warfare enhanced the prestige of war leaders. With communities on a perma- nent war footing, the traditional surrender of power by the village chiefs became unnecessary, and the normally temporary authority of war leaders assumed permanent status. As early as 1774, Shawnees reported, "Our People at the lower Towns have no Chiefs amongst them but all are Warriors," and in 1777 chiefs were unable to control warriors who had fallen under the influence of the bellicose Mingoes: "When I speak to them they will attend for a Moment & sit still whilst they are within my Sight... at night they steal their Blankets & run off to where the evil Spirit leads them." Virginia's Indian commis- sioners reckoned that of all tribes Shawnee chiefs had least control over their warriors. The presence of members of other tribes in their villages further limited the chiefs' authority. Maquachake and Kispoki delegates in 1778 attributed all the trouble to Mingoes "who live among us and will not listen to us."48

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46 AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY, WINTER 1992

The authority of the elder chiefs was further undermined by a new generation of warriors who came of age during the Twenty Years War. At the Treaty of Fort Finney in January 1786, Richard Butler found "that many of the young fellows which have grown up through the course of the war, and trained like young hounds to blood, have a great attachment to the British; . . . the chiefs of any repute are and have been averse to the war, but their influence is not of sufficient weight to prevent them from committing mischief, which they regret very much."49 Six years later, in meetings held at the Glaize, Shawnee war leaders sat in front of civil chiefs at the councils, contrary to tra- ditionally accepted seating arrangements.50 This new generation of warriors carried the fight into the next century and new leaders like Tecumseh attracted followings that cut across traditional patterns, or, as Americans saw things, were outlaws from other tribes.51

While traditional leaders struggled with the new times, outsiders exerted increasing influence in Shawnee councils. Allies dispensed guns and support via client chiefs. Indian agents like James and Simon Girty, Matthew Elliott, and Alexander McKee acted as vital intermediaries between the Shawnees and their British allies, and served as conduits through which supplies and gifts flowed to Shawnee villages. McKee, Elliott, and James Girty had Shawnee wives and extensive kinship ties in Shawnee villages. They accompa- nied Shawnee warriors into battle, enjoyed standing in Shawnee councils, and perhaps even influenced the relocation of Shawnee towns. British observers agreed on McKee's remarkable influence over the Shawnees, while Daniel Brodhead, offering rewards for McKee and the Girty brothers, voiced the American line that "the Shawanese would not have been so foolish if it was not put into their heads by some bad people who live with them & are paid by the English to tell them lyes."52

By 1782, the Revolution had become a total war for the Shawnees. When Clark invaded their country that year, boys, old men, and women marched out to fight, together with "every man... who was able to crawl."s3 Traditionally, Shawnees had often adopted captives to help maintain population levels, but now, with the war taking its toll, captives were painted black and marked for death with increasing frequency. Even so, the Shawnees still held in "mild cap- tivity" the prisoners they had formerly taken; only those recently cap- tured who had threatened their extermination were put to death.54 Shawnee warriors carried the war to the Americans, participated in the rout of the Kentuckians at Blue Licks, and assisted in the defeat of William Crawford's expedition in 1782.55

Then, just as it seemed the Shawnees were winning their war, Britain snatched them from the jaws of victory. British officers and agents were suddenly urging the chiefs to restrain their warriors and

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN SHAWNEE COUNTRY 47

tried to sell them the Peace of Paris as offering a new era of peace with the Americans. When hunters from Chillicothe lost stock to

American horse thieves in the summer of 1783, Major De Peyster at Detroit regretted their loss but pointed out "the times are very Critical ... the World wants to be at Peace & its time they should be so." If the Shawnees took action, "it must be an affair of your own, as your Father can take no part in it."56

This was the real disaster of the Revolution for the Shawnees. Independence unleashed a flood of settlers and speculators. Between 1775 and 1790, some 80,000 non-Indians poured into Shawnee coun- try.57 With Simon Girty interpreting, Captain Johnny told the Ameri- cans in 1785, "you are drawing so close to us that we can almost hear the noise of your axes felling our Trees and settling our Country," and warned that if settlers crossed the Ohio "we shall take up a Rod and whip them back to your side."ss Disgruntled Shawnees met the American commissioners Richard Butler and George Rogers Clark at Fort Finney in 1786, "complaining that we were putting them to live on ponds, and leaving them no land to live or raise corn on." Despite a defiant speech by the head warrior Kekewepelethe, the Shawnees ceded tribal lands east of the Great Miami, warning the Americans, "this is not the way to make a good or lasting Peace to take our Chiefs Prisoners and come with Soldiers at your Backs."59 More Shawnees migrated across the Mississippi-some two hundred Shawnees and Delawares left their villages on the Miami in the summer of 1787 and settled in the west-but British predictions that the Shawnees' fight for their lands would continue proved accurate.60

Burned villages and crops, murdered chiefs, divided councils, economic disruption, migrations, losses in battle, and betrayal to their enemies all made the Revolution one of the darkest periods in Shawnee history. In reading the reports of American commanders, it is easy to assume that their expeditions into Shawnee country admin- istered knockout blows. The strategy of burning crops and villages late in the season certainly produced terrible suffering, but burning villages and killing noncombatants do not necessarily destroy a peo- ple's capacity for resistance or their will to win. The Shawnees pulled back as American armies advanced into their country, watched as the troops torched villages and cornfields, and then returned or rebuilt new homes in safer locations after the enemy departed. Shawnee communities survived the destruction of their villages, albeit often in altered form. Untouched food sources beyond the reach of American strikes, and British supplies at Detroit, sustained the Shawnee war effort into the 1790s. George Rogers Clark recognized the futility of destroying Indian towns "when they can get four fold what they lose from the English," and Alexander McKee agreed.61 Not until 1794 did the Americans get at the extensive cornfields on the Auglaize and

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48 AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY, WINTER 1992

Maumee rivers, which Anthony Wayne described as "the grand empo- rium of the hostile Indians of the West."62

For a time during the Revolution, many Shawnees came to iden- tify Britain's cause as their own, and the dwindling of British support hit them hard. But the struggle that terminated for redcoats and patriots in 1783 did not end for the Shawnees. The Shawnees carried on the fight for another dozen years and took a leading role in an emerging multi-tribal confederacy. By 1795 the war for Ohio was lost, the old chiefs sought accommodation with the Americans, and the people underwent further migrations. Defeat, loss of land, and continued disruption of traditional ways generated further upheaval and despair in Shawnee communities. But out of chaos came renewed hope, as the Shawnee Prophet preached moral and religious reform and Tecumseh led a pan-Indian defense of remaining tribal lands.63 As a new century got under way, Shawnees once again found themselves at the frontier of resistance to American expansion.

NOTES

A version of this paper was presented at the 1990 Meeting of the Organization of American Historians. Research for this work has been supported by grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the University of Wyoming (basic research grant and faculty grant-in-aid); the David Library of the American Revolution, Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania; and the Beinecke Library, Yale University.

1. Even writers who focus their attention on the Indians rarely examine their experiences. See S.F. Wise, "The American Revolution and Indian History," in Character and Circumstance: Essays in Honour of Donald Grant Creighton, John S. Moir, ed. (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1970), pp. 182-200; Francis Jennings, "The Indians' Revolution," in Explorations in the History of American Radicalism, Alfred F. Young, ed. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1976); idem., ed., The American Indian and the American Revolution (Chicago: Occasional Papers of the Newberry Library Center for the History of the American Revolution, 1983); Kenneth Morrison, "Native Americans and the American Revolution: Historic Stories and Shifting Frontier Conflict," in Indians in American History, Frederick E. Hoxie, ed. (Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1988), pp. 95-115; Bernard Sheehan, "The Problem of the Indian in the American Revolution," in The American Indian Experience, Philip Weeks, ed. (Arlington Heights, IL: Forum Press, 1988), pp. 66-80; Barbara Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1972) and James O'Donnell III, The Southern Indians in the American Revolution (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973) more closely examine Indian involvement in the Revolution, and O'Donnell is currently working on a book that promises to tell the story of the Revolution for the northern and western Indians.

2. Correspondence and Papers of Sir Frederick Haldimand, British Museum, Additional Mss. 21782: 302.

3. Spellings of the names of these divisions vary considerably. See Vernon Kinietz and Erminie Voegelin, eds., "Shawnese Traditions: C.C. Trowbridge's Account," Occasional Contributions from the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Michigan 9 (June 1939), pp. xiii-xiv, 8; Thomas Wildcat Alford, Civilization and the Story of the Absentee Shawnees, as told to Florence Drake (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1936), p. 44; James H. Howard, Shawnee!: The Ceremonialism of a Native American Tribe and Its Cultural Background (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981), pp. 25-30, 213-222.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN SHAWNEE COUNTRY 49

4. Howard, Shawnee, pp. 4-5, 31, 127-128ff; Reuben G. Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 73 vols. (Cleveland: Burrows Bros, 1896-1901), vol. 59: pp. 144-145; Helen Hornbeck Tanner, "The Greenville Treaty, 1795," in Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin and Helen Hornbeck Tanner, Indians of Ohio and Indiana Prior to 1795, 2 vols. (New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1974) 1: 66-67; Kinietz and Voegelin, eds., "Shawnese Traditions," p. 9.

5. K.G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, 21 vols. (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972--81) 1: 159, 315; 2: 22, 24, 28, 87, 105, 204, 253-254, 261-262.

6. Jack M. Sosin, "The British Indian Department and Dunmore's War," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 74 (Jan. 1966), pp. 34-50; Alexander McKee, "Journal of Negotiations with Indians at Pittsburgh, May-June 1774," Library of Congress, Peter Force Transcripts, Series 8D, reel 49, item 93; "Extract of a Journal of Indian Transactions, from Feb. 27, 1774," and [John Connolly] "Journal of my Proceedings... from April 6, 1774," and "Extract from my Journal from 1 May, 1774," all in New York Public Library, Chalmers Collection, Papers relating to Indians; Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution 7: 143, 174, 223, 263; 9: 24, 47; E.B. O'Callaghan, ed., Documents Relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 15 vols. (Albany: Weed & Parsons, 1855-61), vol. 8: 506-508.

7. Tanner in Voegelin and Tanner, Indians of Ohio and Indiana, 1: 102. 8. Robert L. Scribner, et al., eds., Revolutionary Virginia, The Road to Indepen-

dence: A Documentary Record, 7 vols. (University Press of Virginia, 1973-83), vol. 7: 770. 9. "Butler's Journal," Western Pennsylvania Magazine of History 47: 145, 148;

Reuben Gold Thwaites and Louise Phelps Kellogg, eds., The Revolution on the Upper Ohio, 1775-1777 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1908), pp. 24-25, 39, 41-42, 58, 60-61, 75, 112; Scribner et al., eds., Revolutionary Virginia, 3: 208-266, 316-317, 377, 383-384, 388-390; 4: 15, 140-141, 184-190, 193-196, 222-224.

10. William L. Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina (Raleigh: Dept. of State, 1886-90) 10: 660-661; 763-785; Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution 12: 191-208.

11. Thwaites and Kellogg, eds., Revolution on the Upper Ohio, pp. 216-217; Peter Force, ed., American Archives, 9 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1837-53), 5th series, 3: 599-600; George Morgan Letterbook, Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, 3 vols., 1775-1779, 1: 13; 2: 19-21.

12. Ernest H. Howerton, "Logan, the Shawnee Indian Capital of West Virginia, 1760-1780," West Virginia History 16 (July 1955): 325.

13. P. Henry to George Morgan, March 12, 1777; Answers to Queries ..., Jan. 1778, George Morgan Papers, Library of Congress; George Morgan Letterbook, 1: 13, 32; Pennsylvania Archives, 1st series, 5 (1853): 258-259, 443-444.

14. Force, ed., American Archives, 5th series, 3: 600; Thwaites and Kellogg, eds., Revolution on the Upper Ohio, pp. 14-15; Draper mss., Wisconsin State Historical Society, 2YY92; North Carolina Colonial Records 10: 386; Morgan Letterbook, 1: 47-48, 57, 85.

15. Draper mss. 1U68; National Archives microfilm, Papers of the Continental Congress (hereafter PCC), reel 180, item 163: 278; Reuben G. Thwaites and Louise P. Kellogg, eds., Frontier Defense on the Upper Ohio, 1777-1778 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1912), pp. 20, 25.

16. John Johnston, "Recollections of Sixty Years," in John Johnston and the Indians in the Land of the Three Miamis, Leonard U. Hill, ed. (Piqua, OH, 1957), p. 189.

17. On Cornstalk's murder see Charles A. Stuart, ed., Memoir of Indian Wars and other occurrences, by the Late Colonel Stuart, of Greenbrier (New York: Arno Press reprint, 1971), pp. 60-62; Draper mss. 3D164-73, 2YY91-94; Edward Hand Papers, Library of Congress, Series 7E, reel 13, item 55: Letterbook, 35-39, 45, 48; Thwaites and Kellogg, eds., Frontier Defense on the Upper Ohio, pp. 126-127, 149, 157-163, 175-177, 188-189, 205-209, 258-261.

18. Haldimand Papers 21782: 297: Hand Papers, Letterbook: 61, 16(55); PCC, reel 91, item 78, vol. 1: 420; Thwaites and Kellogg, eds., Frontier Defense, pp. 166, 242; Louise P. Kellogg, ed., Frontier Advance on the Upper Ohio 1778-1779 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1916), pp. 91, 110, 143, 193, 234, 245; Morgan Letterbook, 3: 27, 54, 56, 96.

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50 AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY, WINTER 1992

19. E.g., J. Almon, The Remembrancer (London, 1775-1784), 1780, part 1: 152-158. 20. PCC reel 37, item 30: 371-373; reel 69, item 56: 169-170; Draper mss. 3D39,

14S158-60: Hand Papers, Letterbook: 40. 21. "McKee's report...," June 28, 1778, New York Public Library, Chalmers

Collection, Papers relating to Indians; Haldimand Papers 21781: 28; Collections of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, 40 vols. (Lansing, 1874-1929, hereafter MPHC) 9 (1886), pp. 434, 442-458; Thwaites and Kellogg, eds., Frontier Defense, p. 282.

22. Edward Hand Papers, Library of Congress, Peter Force Transcripts, series 7E, reel 13, item 55: 262, 234; Pennsylvania Archives 1st series, 12: 179-180.

23. Alford, Civilization, pp. 200-201; Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall, History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Edward C. Biddle, 1836-44), 1: 15-18; William A. Galloway, Old Chillicothe (Xenia, Ohio: Buckeye Press, 1934), p. 40

24. Milton W. Hamilton et al., eds., The Papers of Sir William Johnson, 14 vols. (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1921-1965) 12: 1052.

25. Jerry Eugene Clark, "Shawnee Indian Migration: A System Analysis," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1974, pp. 52-53; Kinietz and Voegelin, eds. "Shawnese Traditions," p. xiv.; Howard, Shawnee, pp. 15-16; Thomas Wildcat Alford, Civilization, pp. 10n-lln, 201; Galloway, Old Chillicothe, pp. 41-42, 56, 181-182. References to a Shawnee who had been to New Orleans and to the chief killed by Missouris are in Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution 4: 374-375; 5: 279.

26. Draper mss. 1H54, 2H10; Pennsylvania Archives 1st series, 12: 120; Kellogg, ed., Frontier Advance, pp. 279-280, 349.

27. Haldimand Papers 21782: 181-182, 247. 28. Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 1950), vol. 3: 259, 276. 29. Draper mss. 5D1-20, 27, 49J90; Haldimand Papers 21757: 304-305; 21760:

147; 21782: 301-303; "Bowman's Expedition against Chillicothe, May-June 1779," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications 19 (1910): 446-459; "Bowman's Campaign of 1779," ibid. 22 (1913): 502-519.

30. Haldimand Papers 21781: 74. 31. James Alton James, ed., George Rogers Clark Papers, 1771-1781 (Springfield:

Illinois State Historical Library, 1912), pp. cxxxix-cxli, 451-453, 476-484; Boyd, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 3: 560-561, 670; Galloway, Old Chillicothe, pp. 67-68; Draper mss. 8J136-40, pp. 21-212, 265; 11J24; 26D101; 26J3-5; Haldimand Papers 21781: 75-77; 21782: 383; MPHC 10 (1886), 418-423; John H. Moore, "A Captive of the Shawnees, 1779-1784," West Virginia History 23 (1962): 291. The main reports of the expedition are compiled in J. Martin West, ed., Clark's Shawnee Campaign of 1780: Contemporary Accounts (Springfield, OH: The Clark County Historical Society, 1975).

32. MPHC 10: 462-465.

33. Draper mss. 8J320-22, 11J24, 11S160-62, 1AA275-77; Claus Papers, National Archives of Canada, MG 19 F1 3: 189-190; Colonial Office Records, Public Record Office, Kew, England, C.O.5/109: 49; C.O. 42/15: 381; Haldimand Papers, 21717: 158; 21775: 49; 21756: 88, 91, 93-95, 125-128, 132, 135; 21762: 328, 230; 21763: 1; 21775: 49; 21779: 109-110; 21781: 88; "Journal of Daniel Boone," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications 13 (1904): 276.

34. MPHC 25: 690.

35. PCC reel 85, item 7, vol. 2: 471; William Henry Smith, ed., St. Clair Papers: The Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair, ... With His Correspondence and Other Papers, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1882) 2: 19; Draper mss. 8J242, 11YY13; Haldimand Papers 21736: 262-263; MPHC 24 (1895): 34-35; "Logan's Campaign, 1786," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications 22 (1913): 520-521; The Military Journal of Major Ebenezer Denny (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincot & Co., 1859), p. 94.

36. Erminie Wheeler Voegelin, "Ethnohistory of Indian Use and Occupancy in Ohio and Indiana Prior to 1795," in Indians of Ohio and Indiana, Tanner and Voegelin, eds. 2: 535-536, citing Draper mss. 9BB57, 60, 20S59-60, 23CC42-43, 4BB112.

37. "General Harmar's Expedition," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications 20 (1911): 74-108; Military Journal of Ebenezer Denny, pp. 146-147.

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THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN SHAWNEE COUNTRY 51

38. Galloway, Old Chillicothe, p. 43; "General Harmar's daily log," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly 20: 94. On the movement of the various Shawnee towns see Voegelin in Indians of Ohio and Indiana 2: passim, esp. 532-536, 553ff; Helen H. Tanner, Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), pp. 79-91; Hill, John Johnston and the Indians in the Land of the Three Miamis, vol. 6.

39. Howard, Shawnee, pp. 233, 269-272. 40. Howard, Shawnee, pp. 115-116; Dorothy V. Jones, License for Empire:

Colonialism by Treaty in Early America (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982), p. 131. 41. Haldimand Papers 21765: 34-35, 21774: 7; Claus Papers, 3: 45-47; MPHC 10

(1886), pp. 423, 343; 19 (1891), p. 461. 42. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution 17: 121; Caleb Swan,

"Position and State of Manners and Arts in the Creek or Muscoggee Nation in 1791," in Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, 6 vols., Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, ed. (Philadelphia, 1851-57); 5: 263; Henry Harvey, History of the Shawnee Indians, from the Year 1681 to 1854 (Cincinnati: Ephraim Morgan and Sons, 1855), pp. 98-99.

43. Thomas Wildcat Alford, in Galloway Old Chillicothe, p. 175; Howard, Shawnee, pp. 96, 213, 215, 219.

44. John Heckewelder, History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States (New York: Arno Press Reprint, 1971), p. 89; Haldimand Papers 21763: 25; PCC reel 69, item 56: 249; Louise P. Kellogg, ed., Frontier Retreat on the Upper Ohio 1779-1781 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society, 1917) pp. 1, 173; MPHC 20 (1892), p. 96; Pennsylvania Archives 1st series, 12: 223.

45. Alford in Galloway, Old Chillicothe, p. 21; Howard, Shawnee, p. 86; R. David Edmunds, Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1984), pp. 46-47; Helen Hornbeck Tanner, "The Glaize in 1792: A Composite Indian Community," Ethnohistory 25 (Winter 1978): 15-39.

46. New York Public Library, Chalmers Collection, Papers relating to Indians, "Extract of my Journal," 50; PCC, reel 91, item 78, vol. 1: 420; Draper mss. 1H17 (Wryneck for peace) 1H44 (Nimwha to discuss Delaware peace initiative at Shawnees' main town); Paul Lawrence Stevens, "His Majesty's 'Savage' Allies: British Policy and the Northern Indians During the Revolutionary War, The Carleton Years, 1774-1778," Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York, Buffalo, 1984, 217-218, 1940.

47. Draper mss. 1H126. 48. Howard, Shawnee, pp. 96, 108; cf., by the time C.C. Trowbridge gathered his

information from the Shawnee Prophet, generations of warfare had apparently made the office of war chief more prestigious than that of the village chief. Kinietz and Voegelin, "Shawnese Traditions," pp. 11-13, 17. McKee, "Journal of Negotiations with Indians at Pittsburgh," p. 10; Morgan Letterbook, 1: 57; Scribner et al., eds., Revolutionary Virginia 4: 209, 250; Hand Papers, reel 13, item 55.

49. Neville B. Craig, ed., The Olden Time, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Co., 1876) 2: 515.

50. Tanner, "The Glaize in 1792," p. 32; B.H. Coates, ed., "A Narrative of an Embassy to the Western Indians from the Original Manuscript of Hendrick Aupau- mut," Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 2 (1827), pt. 1: 118.

51. Johnston, "Recollections of Sixty Years," in Hill, John Johnston and the Indians, p. 154.

52. Haldimand Papers 21767: 73; 21781: 29; J. Watts DePeyster, ed., Miscellanies by an Officer, by Colonel Arent Schuyler de Peyster, 1774-1813 (New York: A.E. Chasmer & Co., 1888), p. xxxiv; MPHC 19 (1891), p. 533; Moore, "A Captive of the Shawnees, 1779-1784," pp. 292-293; Voegelin in Voegelin and Tanner, Indians of Ohio and Indiana 2: 535; Kellogg, ed., Frontier Retreat, p. 299; Craig, ed., The Olden Time 2: 487.

53. Draper mss. 1AA 276-277. 54. Claus Papers 3: 147-148, 156; Haldimand Papers 21762: 116; C.C. Trow-

bridge, "Shawnese Traditions," cited in Howard, Shawnee, 125. 55. Haldimand Papers 21762: 149-150; 21781: 85-86.

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52 AMERICAN INDIAN QUARTERLY, WINTER 1992

56. Colin G. Calloway, Crown and Calumet: British-Indian Relations, 1783-1815 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), pp. 3-23; Claus Papers 3: 219; MPHC 20 (1892), 122-123, 153-154; DePeyster, Miscellanies by an Officer, xxxix-xl; MPHC 20 (1892), pp. 153-154.

57. Peter H. Wood, "The Changing Population of the Colonial South: An Overview by Race and Region, 1685-1790," in Peter H. Wood, Gregory A. Waselkov, and M. Thomas Hatley, eds., Powhatan's Mantle (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), p. 86; MPHC 19 (1891), p. 519; G. Imlay, A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America (London: J. Debrett, 1792), pp. 24, 67.

58. "At a Council held at Wakitunikee, May 18, 1785," British Museum, Miscel- laneous American Papers, Additional Mss., 24,322; also in Public Records Office, C.O. 42/47:370-71; Haldimand Papers, and MPHC 25: 691-693; cf. PCC reel 69, item 56: 113-115 and North Carolina Colonial Records 17: 159-160.

59. Military Journal of Major Ebenezer Denny, 63ff; Craig, ed., The Olden Time 2: 512-531.

60. Haldimand Papers 21775: 178; 21781: 86; MPHC 10: 650; Military Journal of Ebenezer Denny, 105.

61. James, ed., George Rogers Clark Papers, 381-383, 605; Draper mss. 26J127-28; MPHC 19 (1891), p. 598.

62. Galloway, Old Chillicothe, 44, 67n13. Wayne's quote is in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, 1: 490, and in Hill, John Johnston and the Indians, pp. 6-7.

63. R. David Edmunds, The Shawnee Prophet (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983).

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