Nin se Neaseno.....
Early American Policy, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812.
When Europeans came to this continent, they came with preconceived notions of monarchy and the concept of kings and queens. They expected to interact with the native inhabitants of this land on those terms.
As they encountered the leaders of these villages, they treated them as royalty and made various agreements with them.
However, they were very quickly confused when they learned that an agreement with one village did not bind another village. They were even more confused when they saw that an agreement with one leader did not bind even the people of his village.
They used the term King and Queen and Prince and Princess liberally, when such offices did not exist in Native America. The Europeans, especially the missionaries, soon observed that the leaders of these villages were not hereditary leaders, that they were chosen by their people, some along clan lines, and some for brave exploits. They also realized that they had specialized leaders for different circumstances. They had peace chiefs who regulated the daily life of the village. They had war chiefs who led the warriors into battle.
Even more confusing was the structure of the Confederacies: The 3 Fires, the Iroquois, the Huron, the Illinois, the Sac & Mesquakie, all these confederacies were not the nation states that Europeans expected to find. They were loose confederacies. Each nation, each individual village retained its autonomy, and the confederacies never acted as a whole without the consensus of the entire group.
This rule by consensus, this rule by the people was observed for over a century by the traders, missionaries, and colonists. At first it was considered savage and barbaric, as though civilization had passed these people by. But into the 1700s, British colonists began to view this type of government an interesting possibility for themselves.
Locke and other Enlightenment writers theorized that the Natives of this land were living under Natural Law, wherein sovereignty rests with the people, and the leaders led through influence. The British stopped calling the leaders kings and started referring to them by their own names, sachem or ogema. Ogema is the Bodewadmi word for leader, but it refers to a leader who puts himself out in the front, putting himself at greatest risk, prepared to die for the sake of the people. Often the leaders were the poorest in the village because they gave away all that they had so that others would have enough.
Thomas Paine, Revolutionary War author of Common Sense and The Crisis, noted that poverty was simply not tolerated in Native Society. That the sachems and ogemas would see to it that no one went without. At mealtime, the children and elders ate first, then the women, then the men. The men took their responsibilities as providers of meat and protection very seriously.
But he also noted that such a society based on natural law could not work among the colonists. He said it was impossible “to go from the civilized to the natural state.”
Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were students of Native Sociopolitical Structure. Thomas Jefferson pointed out that the chiefs of the Iroquois were actually elected by the people, not inherited, and there was much discussion of the Iroquois at the Continental Congresses. In fact, in August 1775, Revolutionary leaders sent delegates to treaty with the Iroquois at German Flats, NY, to secure either their support or their neutrality in the war to come. They described a great council fire that they had lit at Philadelphia, and they also sought the advice of the Iroquois on how to form their new union of 13 Fires. The proceedings of this meeting can be found in the Papers of the Continental Congress in the National Archives, entitled “Proceedings of the Commissioners appointed by the Continental Congress to Negotiate a Treaty with the 6 Nations.” The end result was neutrality, however, the Oneida, one of the Iroquois nations, did assist George Washington at Valley Forge.
During the Revolution, American leaders used Iroquois imagery to in writings, political cartoons, and even in demonstrations. The famous Boston Tea Party revelers were dressed as Iroquois as they dumped British tea into Boston Harbor. In 1777, the Continental Congress published “Apocalypse de Chiokoykey, Chief des Iroquois,” as a propaganda pamphlet, describing an Iroquois prophecy that 2 beasts (America and Britain) would fight over Iroquois territory. And after the Revolution, the new Americans made great shows of pageantry to express their gratitude to the Iroquois.
Of course, the Iroquois were not the only confederacy to involve themselves in the war. Warriors in the Ohio and Indiana area, including the 3 fires, the Miami, the Shawnee, and many others, fought on the side of the British. They knew of the Proclamation of 1763, and they could see the handwriting on the wall so to speak. They knew if these Americans won and were allowed to form their 13 fires, they would try to encroach on more of their land. They were mistrustful of a group of people who would break away from their Great Father across the sea, and their worst fears were confirmed by the George Roger’s Clark campaign into the Indiana/Illinois area. In 1779, Clark captured Vincennes, spared the British and French inhabitants of Fort Sackville and Vincennes, but executed all the Native American Warriors. After this incident, the vast majority of the western tribes turned against the Americans, refusing to offer aid against the British, and raiding frontier Americans in Ohio and Kentucky as the British urged them to do.
After the Treaty of Paris in 1783, it was rumored that the British were still aiding Natives in the Ohio territory, and were encouraging them to attack American settlements. They also encouraged a new confederacy or alliance to keep Americans out of Ohio, which did form at Sandusky in the fall of 1783. Consisting of the 3 Fires, Wyandot, Delaware, Shawnee, Miami, Wea, Piankashaw, Fox, Sauk, Kickapoo, and Chickamauga Cherokee.
The early Americans took the position that the Ohio river valley was conquered territory, that it had been ceded by the Iroquois in 1768, and they could invade as they pleased. In fact, George Washington himself had inherited a position in a land company in Ohio, and was very interested in securing the territory. Although the Americans officially signed treaties in 1785 and 1786 with Ohio groups, the frontiersmen of America ignored them and moved right in. Raids and Atrocities followed on both sides, with massacre after massacre of both whites and Indians.
The initial America under the Articles of Confederation could not maintain order and was on the verge of disintegration when the Constitutional Convention was called and a move to create a strong federal government was initiated.
Why couldn’t the model based on the Native Confederacies work?
Because of fundamental cultural differences. Take for example the Iroquois model. The nations that form the Iroquois confederacy are based on kinship and are tied together by the clans. IN the clan system, even distant relations are considered close cousins, and it is forbidden to marry inside your clan. These clans are matrilineal in the Iroquois. The Americans did not see, or would not see, or perhaps could not see, that it was the Iroquois women, the clan mothers, who actually elected the representatives to council. According to Drs. Donald Grinde and Bruce Johansen, if America had followed the Iroquois model completely, American women would be the ones nominating senators and representatives to congress!
And the Americans were lacking the one thing that tied all the nations, all the clans, all the villages together, and that is their fundamental spiritual beliefs. The Missionaries noted that all the tribes had fundamental beliefs on personal sovereignty, and that they scoffed at the hierarchal authority that the Europeans touted. In their view, each individual is created perfectly by the creator for his will and purpose, and each is given free will to do as they please. Because of this free will, each individual is also fundamentally responsible for his or her own choices and own actions. Among traditionals, it is not customary to require or force an action. You simply do not tell others what to do. A traditional thinks carefully about his choices and courses of action, seeks counsel, and makes a personal decision as to what course to follow, then stands by it and is responsible for it. IN all decisions, a traditional looks at how this decision will affect not just him, but the next 7 generations.
IN other words, the Native Peoples of this land had lived in freedom and equality and personal liberty for thousands of years, and had cultural checks and balances to deal with this freedom. The Europeans who came to this continent had lived under the hierarchy of monarchy and serfdom in Europe, and they were accustomed to being told what to do. When they were suddenly relieved of this authority in 1783, they didn’t know how to handle their new personal freedom. It was too new to them.
So the United States regrouped and took elements from both the Native system and the Europeans systems that they were accustomed to, including the British, the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the Bible, and they wrote the Constitution.
The Constitution was ratified in 1789, and in 1790 George Washington was elected the first president. One of his first challenges began in that year.
Little Turtle, a powerful and influential war chief of the Miami, had been carefully crafting and planning an alliance, and in 1790 began Little Turtle’s War, attacking forts and frontier settlements along the Ohio and Kentucky frontier. He defeated 2 American generals, Harmar and St. Clair, and was well on his way to reconquering the Ohio river valley. Until Pres. Washington sent General Mad Anthony Wayne to Ohio in 1792. As warriors left the alliance to feed themselves and their families, and Gen. Wayne gained strength, Little Turtle was finally defeated at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.
Soon after that defeat, the Jay Treaty was signed between the US and Britain, and one of the provisions required that the British leave their forts in the Northwest Territory. Little Turtle saw his men defeated and his allies leaving, so he acquiesced to peace terms and signed the Treaty of Greenville of 1795 along with other leaders of the alliance, the largest group being Bodewadmi. This treaty ceded land in Ohio, and following the treaty, Little Turtle became a peace chief. He did so because he was a man of his word, and when he signed the Treaty of Greenville, he promised not to fight with America anymore, and he kept his word.
This treaty marked the beginning of a long period of time in which Great Lakes tribes received annuities in return for land cessions. The American traders knew about these annuities, and were more than willing to extend lines of credit to any annuity recipient for food, household goods, and whiskey. From Greenville until well after the removal period, the Great Lakes peoples who signed treaties found themselves in a downward economic spiral, wherein their annuity money was often given directly to their creditors.
One of the men at the Battle of Fallen Timbers was Tecumseh, a Shawnee war chief. He was frustrated by Little Turtle’s shift to peace and support of the Americans, and he was frustrated with the loss of land that Greenville represented, a treaty that he refused to sign. Little Turtle’s influence was powerful enough to stop any new alliances from forming, and an uneasy peace settled into the Northwest Territory, with only isolated skirmishes and raids.
In 1805 Tecumseh’s brother Lalewithika had a vision which I spoke about last week. In this vision he saw his people suffering in the afterlife from alcohol. His name was changed in that vision to Tenkswatawa, which means He Opens the Door. He began to preach alongside his brother Tecumseh against white trade goods, especially whiskey, and in 1806 successfully predicted a solar eclipse, which brought him great renown.
In 1808 Tecumseh and Tenkswatawa relocated to Prophetstown, very close to modern day Lafayette. They received support from many tribes in the area, and the only substantial group to avoid them were the Miami, who were influenced by Little Turtle.
Tecumseh did as the war chiefs before him, he carefully crafted an alliance of warriors. With his brother’s medicine matched with his own, he drew many men to him, including Main Poche of the Potawatomi, He traveled all over the Eastern United States, speaking to tribes in the north and south about a rebellion similar to Pontiac’s war of 1763, a coordinated surprise attack to once and for all stop land cessions in the Northwest Territory, and to stop the spread of the white man’s influence. He asserted that those who would follow him only had to wait for a great sign. He said that they would first see a great sign in the sky, the same sign that had heralded his birth. Tecumseh’s name means He Crossed Over, in reference to a comet in the sky in 1768. And in 1811, the Great Comet of 1811 did appear, a sign marked by many historians and writers of the time. But this was just the herald sign, a way of warning his men to prepare themselves for battle. They were to wait for an even greater sign, and that sign was this:
The earth will shake violently, you will feel it in your very bones, your houses will fall, trees will fall, and the great river will flow backwards. That is the sign to gather and begin the attack.
He was spreading this message in November of 1811 to the Creeks and Cherokees. At this time, the Potawatomi began raids in Southern IL, and William Henry Harrison, Northwest territory governor, marched from Vincennes, IN to Prophetstown with a small army to see what these folks are up to. Tenkswatawa organized what was supposed to be a surprise attack, in the early morning hours, but something went wrong and a battle erupted at Tippecanoe creek. The battle itself was a draw, but the lack of victory so surprised the warriors who had trusted in Tenkswatawa’s power that they abandoned Prophetstown, and the Americans marched in and burned it the next day.
Tecumseh came back to Indiana furious, Tenkswatawa had completely lost face and the whole alliance fell apart. He then knew that all he could do was wait for the sign, and then join the British, who were threatening war against the Americans.
The sign did come, in the early morning hours of December 16, 1811. The New Madrid fault line rumbled to life, with an earthquake measureing beteen 7.5 and 9.5 on the Richter scale. It was followed by a series of violent earthquakes, measureing over 8.0. And the Mississippi river did flow backwards. This handout is from the USGS website documenting this massive geological event. These earthquakes combined with the comet in the sky served to scare the pants off a lot of people, who seemed convinced that the world was coming to an end.
Tecumseh’s successful prediction of this earthquake rallied his men, and they had great success in the early part of the war of 1812, but Tecumseh died at the battle of the Thames in 1813, his brother fled to Canada, and the Americans managed not to lose the war of 1812, which was quite an accomplishment for such a young nation.
Following the war, Indiana became a state in 1816, WWHarrison became governor. WWHarrison was a prolific writer, and he recorded his life in excruciating detail, and his papers can be found on microfilm in many Indiana public libraries, and would make excellent sources for any papers. He went on to become president of the united states, and in his infinite wisdom, he made a 2 hour inauguration speech in the rain, caught pneumonia, and died after serving only 30 days in office.
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