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The American Revolution and the Iroquois

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The American Revolution and the Iroquois Max M. Mintz. Seeds of Empire: The American Revolutionary Conquest of the Iroquois. New York and London: New York University Press, 1999. xi + 232 pp. $28.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8147-5622-5. Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb Published on H-War (December, 1999) >From Six Nations to Conquered Provinces: hawk, Susquehanna, and Allegheny broad river The American Revolution and the Iroquois valleys were a magnet for farmers weary of con‐ This book focuses upon the American military tending with New England's stubborn soil. The campaigns against the Loyalist Iroquois and their route westward along the southern shore of Lake Tory allies during the years 1777 through 1779. Erie offered a pass through the Appalachian The title for my review paraphrases General mountain chain and beyond to the Mississippi" George Washington who considered the lands of (p. 1). the Six Nations to be "conquered provinces" (7 Structurally, Seeds of Empire includes ac‐ September 1783). The title for the book derives knowledgments, a prologue, thirteen chapters, an from a letter from one of General Sullivan's young epilogue, and list of abbreviations, notes, and an Continental army lieutenants who wrote that "I index. 23 black-and-white illustrations and six really feel guilty as I applied the torch to huts that maps supplement the narrative. The illustrations were Homes of Content until we ravagers came are, in the main, reproductions of portraits of spreading desolation everywhere.... Our mission some of the important personages who fgure here is ostensibly to destroy but may it not tran‐ prominently in the narrative. There are no sepa‐ spire that we pillagers are carelessly sowing the rate bibliographies or references cited, but a total seeds of Empire?" (p. 186). of 320 endnotes (6 to 34 per chapter) are included, Mintz, professor emeritus of history at South‐ and depend upon a list of 36 abbreviations, most‐ ern Connecticut State University, is the author of ly acronyms. A nine-page double column index is two other books on the American Revolution. He confined to proper nouns and does not incorpo‐ writes that the revolution was "not only a struggle rate topics. for independence, but also for the lands of the In‐ I shall review Mintz's presentation, then pro‐ dians, and the jewel was the upstate New York do‐ ceed to a critique and comparison of Seeds of Em‐ main of the Iroquois' Six Nations. The fertile Mo‐ pire with Barbara Graymont's classic work, The H-Net Reviews Iroquois in the American Revolution (1972) [1], counted. In spite of the defeat of the Americans the best account of the Iroquois side of the cam‐ and their retreat at Oriskany, the Loyalists were paigns, and military historian Joseph R. Fischer's unable to capture Fort Stanwix and they retreat‐ A Well-Executed Failure: The Sullivan Campaign ed. With this important action, the war took a against the Iroquois, July-September 1779 (1997) new turn, for as Mintz notes, "the Indians would [2], which provides an analysis of the Continental no longer serve as auxiliaries in a British force of army's frst expedition against Indians. Seeds of professional soldiers fghting an American force Empire is a synthesis of the military actions be‐ of professional soldiers. They were to direct their tween the Loyalists and Indian allies on one side main offensive against civilian centers, destroy and the rebel American colonials and their Indian private residences, and take the lives of noncom‐ allies on the other. It is a comprehensive retelling batants of both sexes and all ages" (p. 45). Mintz of the story of the struggle in New York and Penn‐ next documents the backcountry raids by the Iro‐ sylvania between the American colonists and the quois in late 1777 and early 1778 in upstate New American Indians, both native and recent mi‐ York and northern Pennsylvania. Notable among grants to that region. Likewise, it documents the the Indian attacks was the Wyoming Valley Mas‐ initial attempt in 1779 by the Continental army in sacre of 3 July 1778. That rampage led the Ameri‐ its frst Indian campaign and assesses its success‐ can Congress, the Board of War, and General es and failures. The conflict was not simply be‐ Washington to formulate a major retaliatory of‐ tween the British and the Colonists. Indeed, Euro- fensive and defensive plan of action. The plan‐ Americans, black Loyalist and colonist freemen ning and execution of the Sullivan, Clinton, and and slaves, and American Indians were included Brodhead Campaign of 1779 occupies the subse‐ among the diverse groups drawn into the war. quent eight chapters of Mintz's book (pp. 75-172). The Indians included even more heterogeneous Graymont [1] covers briefly the same period (pp. peoples, in the main among these the Iroquois- 192-241), while Fischer [2] provides 265 pages on speaking tribes of the northeastern United States. the same topic from a professional military per‐ The Iroquois homeland in upstate New York con‐ spective. trolled important trade routes from the Great New Hampshire lawyer Major-General John Lakes through the Finger Lakes Region and Mo‐ Sullivan had military experience at Boston, Que‐ hawk Valley to Albany. bec, and Trenton from 1774-1776, and was select‐ Mintz begins ca. 1773, documenting the ed as commander of the punitive expedition, al‐ schism that developed among the six Iroquois na‐ though known for his "contentiousness" (p. 100). tions, with the Oneida and Tuscarora espousing Brigadier General James Clinton's forces joined the rebel "American" cause, while Loyalist Iro‐ with Sullivan near Tioga. At the Battle of New‐ quois, led by the Mohawk Joseph Brant, and the town on 29 August 1779, 700 Indians and Loyalist other three tribes allied with the British. Brant rangers under John Butler and Brant faced a com‐ (1742-1807) learned English, was an Anglican mis‐ bined force of nearly 5,000 under Clinton and sionary, and fought for the British during the Brigadier General Enoch Poor. Although the French and Indian War. He was presented to the Americans failed to close a planned pincer-like court of King George III in 1775 and received a trap and Butler and Brant escaped with some of commission as a captain in 1776, serving as a their men, the battle was an overwhelming victo‐ British officer until 1783. The infamous ambush ry for Sullivan's army. Iroquois houses and corn‐ and decimation of General Nicholas Herkimer's fields were burned and the army continued up troops by St Leger's forces and Brandt's Iroquois the Chemung River into the Iroquois heartland. at the Battle of Oriskany on 6 August 1777 is re‐ Displaced Iroquois warriors and civilians, and 2 H-Net Reviews their allies streamed toward Niagara, compound‐ lowed the enemy to escape at Newtown and failed ing housing and supply problems at that base. Vil‐ to attack Fort Niagara. In the autumn of 1779, Nia‐ lages and croplands on the Seneca River, others at gara had only a garrison of 400 and was over‐ the north ends of Seneca and Cayuga lakes, and whelmed by 5,000 refugees from Iroquoia by Jan‐ Chenussio ("grand capital of the Indian country") uary 1780. The winter of 1779-1780 proved to be were destroyed. On the return trip, Sullivan tar‐ one of the harshest on record, but from February geted the Cayuga villages, croplands, and or‐ to September 1780 Butler sent out 59 war parties chards on the east and west sides of Lake Cayuga, to attack American settlements in the Mohawk, before the army returned to Tioga and then to Delaware, Susquehanna, and Juniata River val‐ Easton. Mintz summarizes that "a draconian tide leys. New York's Governor Clinton estimated 200 of desolation" swept through Iroquoia. dwellings were burned and 150,000 bushels of The third component of Washington's Sulli‐ grain were destroyed (p. 168), but other Tory at‐ van-Clinton-Brodhead strategy involved a success‐ tacks were ineffective. With the surrender of ful diversion. Colonel Daniel Brodhead, Comman‐ British General Cornwalis at Yorktown in Novem‐ der of the Western Department and Fourth Penn‐ ber 1781, the reconquest of the Iroquois home‐ sylvania Continental Regiment at Fort Pitt led 605 land was not possible, and the Indians were men up the Allegheny River Valley on 11 August. caught between British retrenchment and Ameri‐ There were minor skirmishes with Seneca and can annihilation. These Iroquois felt betrayed by Muncy Delaware, and the force proceeded unop‐ the British and were a subdued people dependent posed to Bucktooth (Salamanca, New York). The upon Canada. A reaffirmation of the 1768 Treaty force returned to Fort Pitt on 14 September, hav‐ of Fort Stanwix occurred in October 1784. In the ing destroyed more than 500 acres of crops and book's "Epilogue," Mintz writes "the Iroquois 130 houses in three Seneca villages in the Kinzua found themselves powerless to resist the post-Rev‐ area (Warren, Pennsylvania). None of Brodhead's olutionary takeover and peopling of their heart‐ men were killed or taken prisoner. Graymont (pp. land by the new American nation" (p. 183). He 214-215) and Starkey (pp. 123-127) write briefly then catalogues the attempts by New York State to on this expedition. systematically dispossess the Loyalist Indians of their lands by threat, deception, and guile. The Six Sullivan leveled 32 Indian villages and de‐ Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario and stroyed 160,000 bushels of corn, but his overly Seneca land retention and sales are touched upon cautious nature, demands for overwhelming as Mintz brings the reader quickly up to February numbers of troops and extraordinary amounts of 1999 in a few paragraphs.
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