"I Have Now Made a Path to Virginia": Outacite Ostenaco and the Cherokee-Virginia Alliance in the French and Indian War

By 1756, Colonel George Washington had been given the daunting task of defending Virginia's entire three-hundred-mile western frontier from French soldiers and their Amerindian allied warriors. The worldwide conflict Virginia was embroiled in came to be known by English-speaking Americans south of the Canadian border as the French and Indian War. The outcome of this war would determine which of several cultures would dominate the region between the Blue Ridge and the Ohio River.

Having seen a well-supplied, superbly disciplined English army soundly beaten by an inferior force of the enemy during General Edward Braddock's defeat near Fort Duquesne in 1755, the young Virginia officer understood well the importance of having a military alliance with southern Indians. He wrote Virginia Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie on September 8, 1756, regarding Dinwiddie's plan to seek military assistance from Cherokee and Catawba warriors, "They will be of particular service more than twice their number of white men."¹ Neither Virginian leader could foresee the myriad ways the alliance would be strained over the next few years.

Governor Dinwiddie was familiar with several Cherokee leaders, having met with them in the few years prior to the beginning of hostilities on the Virginia frontier. Outacite Ostenaco, a man of action and honor, was one of the principal Cherokee military leaders who responded early when called upon by the Virginia governor for assistance, but even Ostenaco's commitment to the alliance would be tested by unforeseen circumstances. Grasping the significance of the Cherokee role in the war, modern historian Gregory Dowd wrote, "Before 1759, no Indian people would contribute a larger body of warriors or a more important service to British efforts."² Not the least of the Cherokee military leaders' contributions to the British victory in the conflict was their willingness to train colonial soldiers in the art of Indian war tactics—an art in which American military special forces personnel still receive training today.³

Some of the popular histories of the war have detailed the efforts of the Mohawks on behalf of northern colonies late in the war, but the details of the significant contributions by the Cherokees are underrepresented in even the most recent literature. Dowd compared the efforts of these two British-allied native nations: "In the Seven Years' War, their [the Cherokees'] martial alliance bore promise; at one time in 1758 they fielded some 450-700 warriors for Britain. Not even the Mohawks in friendship with Sir William Johnson could match that record before 1759, when British victory was imminent."⁴ Dowd's estimate of Cherokee warriors afield is low, but his estimation of their high importance to Britain's effort to control the Ohio country is right on target. During the course of the war, the Cherokees covered a front of thirteen hundred miles from Fort Presque Isle⁵ to near Birmingham, Alabama. Ostenaco and other head warriors led numerous offensive campaigns deep into enemy territory, so the colonial military authorities could focus their attention on defensive efforts in their "back settlements." The geographic emphasis of the Cherokee offensive actions in the southern half of the North American war theater freed up colonial soldiers from the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania for duty further north when their services were required. The subsequent history of the Trans-Allegheny regions of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia (including much of present-day West Virginia) hinged upon the effectiveness of the Cherokee-Virginia alliance. In this, one of the 250^th anniversary years of the French and Indian War, it is fitting to examine the alliance to ensure that the Cherokee veterans of the war are appropriately honored, and to help students of history understand how important the alliance was to the outcome of the war.

Ancient Enemies and Allies

The war between England and France for control of the Ohio Valley not only pitted European superpowers against one another, but it also incited American Indian nations to war. Enmity between the Cherokees and some of their Amerindian neighbors may have...