Eastern American Indians sought to avoid imperial mastery over their homelands by preventing either France or England from being defeated outright. Native Americans wanted to protect their populations and cultural identities while being civil in their dealings with Europeans. Native communities remained neutral or switched sides which led Europeans to brand Native Americans as untrustworthy. Indian's goals differed markedly from Europeans.
Native American Tribes
Lenni-Lenape, Lenope, Delawares (translates as strong heart), Wapanachki and Mhegans/Mohicans are the same peoples who were, in general, friendly to the British.
Non-confederated Mohawk Iroquois were initially allied to the British.
Mengwe, Mingo, Maqua and Iroquois were not the same people but were politically confederated along with Seneca, Oneida, Mohawk and Huron, some of these tribes were allied to the French.
Conflict begins in the Ohio Valley
In 1754, twenty two year old George Washington led two hundred troops to seize Fort Duquesne. The Catawbas and Cherokees rejected Britain for being allied to their Iroquois enemies. A few Mingoes and Delawares joined Washington. The Indians abandoned Washington when they realised his territorial ambitions. Washington surrendered to the French on 4 July, 1754.
A force of 2,500 British and colonial soldiers were sent under General Braddock to capture Fort Duquesne totally ignoring Native Americans' concerns. Braddock dismissed fifty Mingos who offered their assistance. Some Delawares asked Braddock's terms in return for their assistance, he replied 'No savage should inherit the land,' so, Braddock lost all Indian support. The advance column of 1,450 British troops were attacked by 600 Ottowas, Potawatomis, Abenakis, Shawnees, Delawares, Mingos and other Indians plus 250 French and Canadian troops. On 9 July, 1755, after a three hour engagement, Braddock and 900 of his men lay dead. During the next three years Shawnees Delawares and Mingos attacked Anglo-American colonists in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia.
Massacres at Fort Oswego and Fort William Henry
Encounters at Lake George in September 1755 with better equipped French forces, led Britain's most trusted non-Confederacy Mohawk Iroquois to withdraw from the war. While Mohawks became neutral confederacy Iroquois actively supported the French. For thirty years the Six Nations allowed the British Fort Oswego and the French Fort Niagara to coexist on their homeland because they traded with both. In August 1756, 600 confederacy Iroquois along with other Indians joined 3,000 French and Canadian troops in overwhelming Fort Oswego capturing 1,600 prisoners. The French Commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, was thanked by the Iroquois. Montcalm did not reward the Indians with presents. Accordingly, Indians plundered the prisoners killing hundreds. The French-Indian capture of Britain's Fort William Henry on 9 August 1757 ended with the killing of 500-1,500 captives, which was central to James Fenimore Cooper's classic novel The Last of the Mohicans.
The Spoils of War
Throughout the war the Eastern Indians wanted plunder, scalps and prisoners while keeping casualties to a minimum. Both French and British Commanders disdained the Indians. The French refused to treat the Native Americans as equals particularly after a costly victory at Lake George. Native support for the war was withdrawn as the British navy blockaded French ports during the winter of 1757-1758. French troops were prevented from transporting troops, supplies and presents for Indian allies to America.
Delaware Diplomacy changed the War
Native American men going to war failed to build up winter stocks of meat and fish for their families, often bringing lethal smallpox back to their communities. French victories affected Native Americans most severely. In October 1758, the Delawares sent a delegate to the treaty conference at Easton, Pennsylvania where the eastern and western Delawares, Six Nations Iroquois, the colonies of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and the British Empire agreed to unite against France. The western Delaware abandoned Fort Duquesne, consequently five hundred French troops withdrew and the British occupied the post renaming it Fort Pitt. The British captured Quebec in September 1759. In 1760 the British captured Montreal. In 1761 France surrendered all of Canada. The Eastern Indians faced Britain as the sole imperial power in eastern North America. White Americans disparaged Native Americans, so, they were allied with the British during the American revolutionary period of 1761-1783.
The Last of the Mohicans
James Fenimore Cooper wrote his classic novel about the Mohicans some 69 years after the Seven Years War ended. His novel was a heroic rendering of tough, uncompromising frontier life with Hawk-Eye, a white man reared by the Indians, and his adventures with his two Mohican companions. General Munro's daughters were captured by Magua, a Mohawk, who was reared by the Hurons and was allied to the French. Hawk-Eye rescued the daughters only to have one die at the hands of Magua. Coopers archaic, highly descriptive English ensured this is an enduring North American classic novel.
The film, The Last of the Mohicans, 1992
Daniel Day Lewis (Hawk-Eye), Madeleine Stowe (Cora Munro), Eric Schweig (Magua) and Russel Means (Chingachgook) re-created the frontier life of the Eastern Indians during the Anglo-French War of 1754-61, in particular, the aftermath of the siege of Fort William Henry on 9 August 1757, where the scene of the bloody massacre of prisoners was fully recreated. The heroism of Hawk-Eye and his companion Mohicans dominated the film.
Sources
- The People, A History of Native America by Edmunds, Hoxie and Salisbury, Wadsworth Cengage Learning 2007
- The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, Penguin Popular Classics 1826 and 1994
- James Fenimore Cooper Museum, Cooperstown, New York
- The Film The Last of the Mohicans
Michael Manning - ' The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity' W.B.Yeats
