The Wild Frontier (23 page)

In 1757, Indian allies of the French returned to Montreal with prisoners. The governor bought some of the prisoners from the Indians for 2 kegs of brandy each. The drunk Indians “killed one of the prisoners, put him into the kettle, and forced his wretched countrymen [the British] to eat of him.” Another witness swore the Indians “compelled mothers to eat the flesh of their children.”
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In the spring of 1757, General Montcalm and 2,000 Indian allies recruited from the upper Great Lakes region marched toward Lake George, destroying British soldiers along the way. The Indians scalped the dead and ate some of them as well.
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Massachusetts soldier Thomas Brown remarkably was captured 4 times by the Indians. He was serving as a scout for British major Robert Rogers’s Rangers in 1757 when the group discovered about 50 French
and Indian ice sleighs on Lake Champlain. Seven prisoners were taken (including one by Brown), then Rogers’s men were attacked by about 400 French and 30 or 40 Indians. Brown was wounded in the first volley. “When I was able, I went to the rear, to the prisoner I had taken on the lake. I knocked him on the head and killed him—we did not want him to give information to the enemy.” Brown and 2 other badly wounded soldiers made a small fire, discovered the British had retreated, and decided to surrender to the French. An Indian came toward them; Brown hid himself, and the Indian went to Captain Spikeman, who was so badly wounded he could not resist. The Indian stripped him and scalped him alive. The third soldier, Baker, pulled out his knife to stab himself, but the Indian carried him away. Spikeman saw Brown and asked him to give him a tomahawk so he could end his life, but Brown would not, telling him to pray because he could not live long.

Brown was captured (he had been captured not far from the same spot less than 3 years earlier) and led back to the place where Spikeman had been scalped. His head had been cut off and fixed on a pole. Brown was then told by an interpreter that all the British prisoners were to be hanged the next day because all 7 French prisoners had been killed. “Afterward he was so kind as to tell us this was done only to terrify us.” The French decided to take all the prisoners to Montreal. They traveled about 9 miles on frozen Lake Champlain. Brown’s hair was cut off, and his clothes were taken away.

Another prisoner resisted having his hair cut. The next night, the Indians made a fire, stripped that prisoner, and tied him to a stake. The Indian women then cut pieces of pine like skewers, stuck them in his flesh, and set them on fire. The Indians began to whoop and dance. They made Brown do the same. The Indians cut the prisoner’s cords and made him run back and forth. Finally, in extreme pain, he pitched himself into the flames and died. The next day, they came to an Indian town near Montreal. The women stripped Brown naked, then told him to run to a wigwam. He was beaten with sticks and stones all the way. Brown was given to a French merchant who was returning to his home on the Mississippi. They got to the Ohio River.

Brown escaped, was caught, but finally the merchant released him. The next year he was captured by the Indians again. Finally, after 3 years and 8 months of captivity, “I was able to return in peace to my father’s house.”
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In 1758, British major Putnam was watching a French force less than 2 miles away. The Indians and French attacked, but Putnam refused to retreat. His gun “missed fire, while the muzzle was pressed against the breast of a large and well proportioned Savage.” The warrior gave a war whoop, lifted his hatchet, and compelled Putnam to surrender. He tied Putnam to a tree, then returned to the battle. The area of the battle then changed, so that Putnam was in the line of fire from both sides. Many shots hit both the tree and his coat. Archibald Loudon continued the story:

A French officer then came to the tree and held his gun within a foot of Putnam’s chest, but his gun misfired. Putnam boldly told the Frenchman he was a prisoner of war. The Frenchman’s response was to hit Putnam on the jaw with his gun. The Indians then returned, untied Putnam, stripped him except for his pants, tied his hands, and led him into the woods. They decided to roast him alive. He was stripped completely, tied to another tree, dry brush and other fuel was piled around him, and it was set afire. A sudden downpour put out the fire. The Indians got it started again, and Putnam was painfully burned. This caused the Indians to yell and dance. A French officer named Molang was attracted by this, rushed to the tree, scattered the fire, untied Putnam, and delivered him to the well-proportioned savage who had originally captured him. The savage laid him on his back and tied him spread-eagled to four saplings. Poles and bushes were put over him, then Indians lay down on all sides to prevent his escape in the night. Putnam was turned over to the French and repatriated. He later became a general.
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In 1758, a miller named Richard, his family, and others were at home when 19 Delaware Indians attacked. Promised they would not be killed,
the Bard family surrendered. Other captives were then taken. About 1,000 feet from the Bard home, a cousin, Thomas Potter, was killed by the Indians for no apparent reason. A few miles later, without warning, an Indian repeatedly tomahawked a small child in the breast, then scalped the child. The next day Samuel Hunter was tomahawked to death and also scalped.

The day after that, Bard was severely beaten because an Indian who had taken his hat was incensed when it blew off and the Indian had to go down to a stream to get it. Bard escaped that night. Mrs. Bard and 4 children were taken into an Indian town. Their hair was pulled, their faces scratched, and they were beaten. Captive Daniel M’Manimy was also beaten with sticks and tomahawks, tied to a post near a large fire, tortured with burning coals, scalped, and his scalp put on a pole before his face. A red-hot gun barrel was passed over his body, and finally he was pierced repeatedly with a red-hot bayonet. The Indians sang and shouted at him until he died.

Mrs. Bard traveled more than 500 miles. She met a white woman she had known earlier who was married to an Indian and had his child. She said she was told she would be burned unless she married him. She also said that as soon as captive women could speak the Indian language, they would either marry an Indian or be put to death. Although Mrs. Bard was in captivity for more than 2 years, she shrewdly never learned to speak the Indian language. Mr. Bard spent years looking for his wife, finally found her, and ransomed her.
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John M’Cullough kept a memorandum concerning the number of people killed and captured by the Indians in different settlements from November 1755 to July 1759. Many of the people are named. Ninety-five were killed, 171 either killed or captured, and 91 captured, a total of 357 deaths or captives.
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The British appointed General John Forbes to lead a new assault on Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh) in 1758. He sent 800 Scot Highlanders out to scout in September, but they lost one third of their strength to the Indians. In November the British advanced to within a few miles of the fort. They heard a loud explosion, and when they got to it the next day, they found it deserted except for a row of stakes on which were fastened the heads of the Highland troops who had been lost. Each had a Scottish kilt tied beneath it.
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The Shawnee captive Mary Jemison passed a Shawnee town on the Ohio River in 1758. She saw the charred heads, arms, and legs of white settlers who had just been burned.
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In 1758, Cherokee warriors who had abandoned the campaign of
General Forbes against Fort Duquesne got a few wild horses. Virginians who claimed the horses were theirs attacked the Cherokee, killing 12. The Virginians sold the horses and collected scalp bounties, falsely announcing that the scalps had been taken from hostile Indians. In return, the Cherokee killed 20 to 30 settlers. The southern frontier shortly thereafter was in a full-scale uprising.
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The year 1763 was an unusually bad year for Indian atrocities. In that year, a leader emerged to bring the Indian tribes together against the British. He was Pontiac,
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an Ottawa chief, a commanding presence, and a great orator. Pontiac favored the French over the British not only because they gave presents to chiefs, but also because the English were settling on Ottawa land while the French were not. The French would also extend credit for supplies, unlike the British.
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He then commenced Pontiac’s Rebellion, which in the spring and summer cost the lives of an estimated 2,000 settlers and more than 400 soldiers.
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He eventually enlisted many allied tribes: Ottawas, Chippewa, Delaware, Hurons, Illinois, Kickapoos, Miamis, Potawatomis, Seneca, and Shawnee.
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In order to retain his leadership, in May Pontiac took a tomahawk and “exhorted his followers to attack every white man outside the fort.” His warriors immediately killed a woman and her 2 children a mile from the fort, a retired sergeant, his wife, one of their children, and 2 visiting soldiers. Also in May a war party of Ottawas and Hurons attacked and captured Fort Sandusky, killing 14 of its 15-man garrison as well as the merchants who operated the fort’s storehouse.
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In June there was a lacrosse game outside Fort Michilimackinac (on the south shore of the Straits of Mackinac) between Chippewa
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and Sauk.
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British major George Etherington and his 35-man garrison were watching it from outside the fort for some reason. Indian women filtered into the fort. A ball went over the stockade, apparently by accident, and the players ran after it through the open gate. Once inside, they dropped their sticks and grabbed guns the women had concealed
under their blankets. The captain and a lieutenant were captured immediately. Another lieutenant was wounded and beheaded. The fort was overrun. A young British trader, Alexander Henry, was there and witnessed what happened after his own capture. The dead were scalped and mangled. The dying were shrieking under the knife and tomahawk. The bodies of some soldiers were ripped open, and the Indians “were drinking the blood, scooped up in the hollow of joined hands and quaffed amid shouts of rage and victory.”
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Later that month Henry heard an unusual noise in the fort’s prison. He looked in and saw the bodies of 7 white men being dragged across the floor. He was told that a Chippewa chief had put the 7 to death with his knife to show his approval of the attack. Shortly after that, the Indians took the fattest body, cut off the head, and divided the whole into 5 parts. These were put in 5 kettles over 5 fires. A message came for Henry’s Chippewa friend, Wawatam, whom he had known before his captivity, to take part in the feast. Wawatam left the room with his dish and spoon. He returned half an hour later with his dish, which contained a human hand and a large piece of flesh. He told Henry it was the custom among all Indian nations when returning from war to make a war feast from among the slain. He said it inspired courage among the warriors in attack.
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While in a canoe with the Chippewa, Henry was offered bread, which was cut with the same blood-covered knives they had used to kill the soldiers. The bread was offered to him and the other prisoners with the comment that they should eat the blood of their countrymen.
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Henry escaped after many harrowing experiences. He wrote a book about it all 46 years later.
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In June, the Iroquois took the garrison at Venango. The commander, Lieutenant Gordon, was forced to write down a dictated list of grievances addressed to the king of England. After he had finished the document, he was tortured for 3 days, culminating in the Seneca roasting him to death.
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The fort at Erie, Pennsylvania, agreed to surrender if the garrison was allowed to go to Fort Pitt. An agreement to that effect was signed by the Indians, who then divided the garrison among themselves as prisoners “for later amusement.”
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The same month the Delaware, Mingos, and Shawnee turned to Fort Pitt. The fort was commanded by a Swiss soldier of fortune, Captain Simeon Ecuyer. He sent the Indian delegation, which had demanded his surrender, away with presents—blankets and handkerchiefs from the smallpox hospital. Soon there was a smallpox epidemic among the 3
tribes which lasted into the next year and which removed them from full-time participation in the war. British governor-general of North America Jeffrey Amherst had encouraged this tactic in a letter to Ecuyer.
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Amherst also wrote to his subordinate Lieutenant Colonel Henry Boquet the same month, stating, “I need only Add, that I Wish to Hear of no prisoners, should any of the Villains be met with in Arms.”
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On July 4 at the siege of Fort Detroit, Chippewa or Ojibway chief Wasson insisted that Pontiac turn over Captain Donald Campbell to him because Wasson’s nephew had been killed by the British that day. Pontiac did. Wasson immediately scalped and killed Campbell, then threw his body in the water so that it would float past the defenders of the fort.
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On August 1, Captain James Dalyell led 247 men on a sortie. They were met by Pontiac with 400 Ottawa and Chippewa warriors. The French had told Pontiac about the sortie the night before. Nineteen British were killed, including Captain Dalyell. Pontiac’s men recovered his body, took it back to their village, cut out his heart, wiped their prisoners’ faces with it, hacked off his head, and mounted it on a pole.
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