The Use of Indians in the War of the American Revolution: A Re-Assessment of Responsibility

The Use of Indians in the War of the American Revolution: A Re-Assessment of Responsibility JACK M. SOSIN ONE OF THE MOST CONFUSED POLEMICAL ASPECTS Of the War for AmericanIndependence concerned thedecision bytheBritish andAmericans to employ Indianwarriors ascombatants. The question was,andis, tinged withemotion fortheverynature ofsavage warfare resulted in the barbaric slaughter of unarmed menand innocent womenand children by the"hellhounds of death," asthe warriors werecalled. Anydiscussion almost automatically brings to mindHenryHamilton whopurportedly paidthe Indiansfor white scalps, the murderof JaneMcCraeby Burgoyne's Indians, andthe Wyoming andCherry valley"massacres" conducted by JohnandWalterButlerof Ranger fame. Traditionally theexcesses havebeenassociated withtheBritish sideandAmerican historians, imputing blameonCanadian partisans among others, haveforgotten thatattimes Indians weretheinnocent victims offrontier violence. Therewerewhiteaswellasredsavages. Latein therevolutionary conflict oneBritishofficial complained that numbers of Cherokee "women and children have been butchered in coldbloodor burntalive .... "• Whilealmost all writersagreethat Indianwarfarewasbrutaltheydisagree on assigning responsibility forinstigating thistypeofcombat. Some blametheBritish, some the Whigs, andfinallysome arguethattherecanbe noimputation of guiltsince it wasprobable thatthenatives wouldengage in adjacent combat areas whether solicited bythewhites ornot. Thefirstofthese interpretations isbest illustrated byJohn Haywood whocharged, inhisCivilandPolitical History o) • Tennessee, thatthe 1Lt. Col. ThomasBrowneto GeneralGuy Carleton,Oct. 9, 1782, BritishArmy Headquarters Papers (Guy Carleton Papers), no. 5822,microfilm, Colonial Williamsburg ,Williamsburg, Virginia. 101 Vol.XLVI, No.2, June,1965 10•, THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW Britishsuperintendent t•orIndianaffairs in thesouthern district and hisagents instigated the Cherokee attackon the southern frontier settlements in the summer of 1776. Some recent writers still follow thisview, 2despite studies disputing thisiudgment by JohnP. Brown, John R.Alden, PhilipM. Hamer, andHelenLouise Shaw whocontend thatthesuperintendent, John Stuart, wasthevictimofcircumstances: the efforts of the Whig governments to influence the natives, the ordersissuedhim by the commander-in-chief, Genera]Thomas Gage,andprovincial politics. Stuart's political opponents in South Carolina instituted the charge that through hisagents he sought to incite theIndians. WhileGage didorder theuseofthesavages, Stuart realized that innocentmen, women, and children would suffer and sought toprevent anindiscriminate attack unless carried outin coniunction witha regular British force.The Cherokee attackin 1776 wastheresult ofencroachments bywhites onIndian]ands andnotof theei•orts oftheBritish agents, HenryStuart andAlexander Cameron. Hamercontended that oneof the Wataugasettlers forgeda letter purportedly fromStuartandCameron indicating thata Britishforce would penetrate totheIndiancountry fromPensacola andin conjunctionwiththesavages attack thefrontier. 3Although Hamer, Shaw, and Brown used thecorrespondence ofthesuperintendent andhisagents to provetheir case,otherhistorians remained unconvinced. Judge Samuel C. Williams, for example, argued thatthefactremained that British agents andTories in thebackcountry didinstigate theIndian attack. 4 Historians are equallydividedin assessing responsibility for the useof Indians in thenorth,particularly overtheroles ot•Gage,Guy Johnson (the superintendent in Me northern district),andvarious militaryo/[icials such asHenryHamilton at Detroit.Muchhasbeen writtentodetermine ff Hamilton didbuyscalps, 5butthelargerissue -•Stephen B. Weeks,"CeneralJoseph Martin and the War of the Revolution in the West," AmericanHistoricalAssociation, Annual Report for 1893 (Washington, 1894),p. 422;andWilliamH. Nelson, TheAmerican Tory(Oxford,1961 ), p. 144. 3John Richard Alden,JohnStuartandthe Southern Colonial Frontier(AnnArbor, 1944), pp. 169 and 171,note75; JohnP. Brown,Old Frontiers; The Storyof the CherokeeIndianafrom EarliestTimesto the Date of Their Removalto the West, 1838 (Kingsport, Tenn.,1938),pp.140-9;HelenLouise Shaw, British Administration ofthe Southern Indians,1756-1783(Lancaster, Pa., 1931), pp. 88-105; PhilipM. Hamer, ed.,"Correspondence of HenryStuartandAlexander Cameron with the Wataugans," Mississippi ValleyHistorical Review,XVII (Dec., 1930), 451-57; PhilipM. Hamer, "The Watau ans and the Cherokee Indians in 1776," East Tennessee Historical g Society, Publications, III (Jan.,1931), 114-26; andPhilipM. Hamer,"JohnStuart's IndianPolicy during theEarlyMonths of theAmerican Revolution," Mississippi Valley HiatoricalReview,XVII (Dec., 1930), 351-9, 363-6. 4Samuel C. Williams,Tennessee Duringthe Revolutionary War (Nashvfile, 1944), p. 25 andnote4. •Themostexhaustive workis by OrvilleJohnJaebker, "HenryHamilton: British Soldier andColonial Governor," unpublished Ph.D.dissertation, IndianaUniversity, INDIANS IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR 105 relates to theuseof theIndians. Although both•ames A. •amesand Orville•ohn•aebkerdisagree on theirestimates of Hamfiton, they doconcur in blaming BritishCrownofficials for urgingthe useof Indians andattacking thefrontier. •ames dismissed asspurious Gage's argument thattheAmericans hademployed the savages firstin the siege of Boston. 6AllenFrenchin hisstudyof the firstyearof the conflict condemned Gageevenmorestrongly claiming thathisefforts toarouse theIndians predated theefforts oftheMassachusetts patriots. Moreover, whfietheyusedthe domesticated Stockbridge Indiansin "civfiized" combat, Gagesought to employsavages indiscriminately against the frontier.On orders from the Britishcommander, Guy Carleton wasplottingto bringin the SixNations of NewYorkand the SevenNationsof Canada.Hence the New Englanders were justified inattempting toraise theStockbridge andtheIroquois. 7The opposite...