No Useless Mouth

NO USELESS MOUTH

WAGING WAR AND FIGHTING HUNGER IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Rachel B. Herrmann

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First published 2019 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Herrmann, Rachel B., author. Title: No useless mouth : waging war and fighting hunger in the American Revolution / Rachel B. Herrmann. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018060505 (print) | LCCN 2019001071 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501716133 (pdf ) | ISBN 9781501716126 (ret) | ISBN 9781501716119 (pbk. ; alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Indians. | United States—History— Revolution, 1775–1783—African Americans. | Food security—United States—History—18th century. | Food security—Nova Scotia—History—18th century. | Food security—Sierra Leone—History—18th century. | Indians of North America—Food—History—18th century. | African Americans—Food—History—18th century. | Nova Scotia—History—1763–1867. | Sierra Leone—History—To 1896. Classification: LCC E269.I5 (ebook) | LCC E269.I5 H47 2019 (print) | DDC 973.3—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060505

Cover image: Plan of Civilization, unidentified artist (n.d.). Courtesy of the Greenville County Museum of Art. Museum purchase with funds from the Museum Association’s 1990 and 1991 Collectors Groups and the 1989, 1990 and 1991 Museum Antiques Shows, sponsored by Elliott, Davis & Company, CPAs Corporate Benefac- tors: Ernst and Young; Fluor Daniel; Mr. and Mrs. Alester G. Furman III; Mr. and Mrs. M. Dexter Hagy; Thomas P. Hartness; Mr. and Mrs. E. Erwin Maddrey II; Mary M. Pearce; Mr. and Mrs. John D. Pellett, Jr.; Mr. W. Thomas Smith; Mr. and Mrs. Edward H. Stall; Eleanor and Irvine Welling. This one’s for the archive rats and primary source enthusiasts

Contents

Introduction: Why the Fight against Hunger Mattered 1 Part One: Power Rising 19 1. Hunger, Accommodation, and Violence in Colonial Ameri ca 21 2. Iroquois Food Diplomacy in the Revolutionary North 38 3. Cherokee and Creek Victual Warfare in the Revolutionary South 65 Part Two: Power in Flux 87 4. Black Victual Warriors and Hunger Creation 89 5. Fighting Hunger, Fearing Violence after the Revolutionary War 109 6. Learning from Food Laws in Nova Scotia 136 Part Three: Power Waning 155 7. Victual Imperialism and U.S. Indian Policy 157 8. Black Loyalist Hunger Prevention in Sierra Leone 178 viii Contents

Conclusion: Why Native and Black Revolutionaries Lost the Fight 200

Acknowledgments 209 Bibliographic Note 215 Notes 219 Index 289 NO USELESS MOUTH

Introduction Why the Fight against Hunger Mattered

During a July 1791 treaty negotiation, Timothy Pickering, a key figure in the development of early U.S. food policy, misremem- bered past instances of Native and non-Native hunger while giving a “history lesson.” At this meeting on the Tioga River (which ran between present-day Pennsylvania and New York), Pickering met a group of Senecas, one of the six tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy. “When the white people came to this Island, the Indians lived chiefly by hunting and fish