[1265] The question of the rights of Indian women in lands of the tribes forms part of the discussion in the paper by Lucien Carr, entitled "The social and political condition of women among the Huron-Iroquois tribes." (Report xvi. of the Peabody Museum, pp. 216-218.) Instances are on record where transfers were compelled by the women in opposition to the wishes of the chiefs, and where they prevented sales, the terms of which had been arranged by the men. At the conference at Canajoharie Castle in 1763, where the Mohawks submitted one of their numerous complaints against settlers for stealing their lands, all the women present interrupted the speaker, and declared that they "did not choose to part with their lands and be reduced to make brooms for a living." The fraudulent transfers alluded to in the text had already attracted the attention of the authorities. By proclamation, dated October 7, 1763, the king had forbidden private individuals to purchase land from Indians.
[1266] "After the peace, numbers of the frontier inhabitants of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, etc., animated with a spirit of frenzy, under pretext of revenge for past injuries, though in manifest violation of British faith and the strength of the late treaties, robbed and murdered sundry Indians of good character, and still continue to do so, vowing vengeance against all that come in their way; whilst others forcibly established themselves beyond even the limits of their own governments in the Indian country."
[1267] At this date the Mohawk Valley, as far west as the boundary line, was jointly occupied by the whites and the Mohawk tribe. Immediately to the west of that line, in the neighborhood of Oneida Lake, lived the Oneidas. Both Mohawks and Oneidas had extensive hunting-grounds to the north. The Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas severally lived upon the lakes which to-day bear the names of those tribes. The Tuscaroras occupied land which had been allotted them immediately to the south of the Oneida country, and had also a section on the Susquehanna. [See Colden's map in Vol. IV. 491, and the maps in Vol. III. 281, 293.—Ed.] The whole number of the confederacy did not exceed 10,000 souls, of whom 2,000 were warriors, more than one half being Senecas. The most conspicuous tribe among the Ohio Indians was the Shawanese. They were a source of terror to the Virginia settlers, and had a hand in most of the invasions of Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They numbered about 300 warriors, and lived in Ohio on the Scioto and its branches. The Delawares, counting 600 warriors, were scattered from the Susquehanna Valley to Lake Erie; 200 Wyandots lived near Sandusky. These and other tribes living on the border or in Canada, who were classified as allies of the Six Nations, numbered in all about 2,000 warriors. The other tribes living east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio, with whom the British had dealings, or of whom they had knowledge, were classified as the "Ottawa Confederacy, comprehending the Twightwees or Miamis", and numbered about 8,000 warriors, of whom 3,000 lived near Detroit. In all, there were, according to this estimate, which is from Sir William Johnson's papers, about 12,000 warriors. [See Sketch map in Vol. IV. 298.—Ed.]
A similar computation of the "gun-men or effectives" in the South, made by Sir James Wright in 1773, shows that over 9,500 men could be furnished by the Choctaws, Creeks, Cherokees, and Catawbas. From other sources we have estimates which include tribes omitted by the above authorities, from which it would appear probable that there were about 35,000 warriors east of the Mississippi, in the United States and across the straits at Detroit. There is a difference of opinion as to the proportion of warriors to the total population. Apparently the proportion varied in different tribes. Some observers have placed the number as high as six to one; others, as low as three to one. Between four and five to one appears to be about the number furnished by the averages of the best observers. This will give for a total Indian population east of the Mississippi, in the United States and along the lakes near Detroit, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, 150,000 persons.
[1268] "My intelligence informs me", wrote Governor Penn to Lord Dunmore, March 1, 1775, "that your lordship has set up an office for granting lands far within the limits of this province, and that lands already patented by me have been granted by your lordship."
[1269] Guy Johnson refers to the success of his interference on this occasion in his letter to the magistrates and others of Palatine, Canajoharie, and the upper districts, dated May 20, 1775, quoted in Stone's Brant, i. p. 65.
[1270] Accustomed as the inhabitants of the Northern colonies had been to coöperating with Indians in the several wars with the French, the proposition to make use of their services did not excite the universal feeling of horror which would be aroused by the same proposition to-day. On the contrary, it was regarded as a natural and inevitable condition attached to the war that the natives should be engaged upon the one side or the other; and rumors of the friendly disposition of this tribe, and of the number of warriors which that tribe would furnish to the cause, found their way into the journals of that day. It was evident that Indian auxiliaries would be of greater military value to the English than to the Americans. The English army would be practically an army of invasion. There were no English homes exposed to destruction. The use of savages by the Americans would not keep out of the field a single Englishman for the protection of the scalps of his family. Nevertheless, it was felt by the colonists that all the tribes that could be secured would be an advantage gained. Such evidently was the opinion of the men composing the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay, who first met the question, and, even before the battle of Lexington, solved it by employing some of the Stockbridge Indians as minute-men. The records of that body go far towards justifying the statement made by Gen. Gage at Boston (June 12, 1775), that the "rebels" were "bringing as many Indians down here as they could collect."
[1271] In this letter to Kirkland the assertion is made that the step was taken because of information received that "those who are inimical to us in Canada have been tampering with the natives." In the American Archives, 4th series, ii. p. 244, is a letter dated Montreal, March 29th, from J. Brown to Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren, Committee of Correspondence of Boston, in which Brown's mission is betrayed even without his credentials. He was prospecting the ground with a view to future operations. He reports that "the Indians say they have been repeatedly applied to and requested to join with the king's troops to fight Boston, but have peremptorily refused, and still intend to refuse. They are a simple politick people, and say that if they are obliged, for their own safety, to take up arms on either side, they shall take part on the side of their brethren the English in New-England." In the same letter Brown states as a secret that Ticonderoga must be seized on the beginning of hostilities. Samuel Adams, one of the committee to whom Brown's letter was addressed, was also a member of the committee which drafted the letter to Kirkland. If Brown's letter did not reach Adams in time to inspire the suggestion of "tampering", it indicates at least the character of the rumors. The English writers (like Mahon, vi. 35) look upon the plea of "tampering" as a pretence; and Dartmouth, in July and August, 1775, called his orders retaliatory ones. We know that there was little for the colonists to apprehend from Carleton on this score. His opposition to the enlistment of Indians for service outside Canada drew forth complaints afterward from Guy Johnson (N. Y. Col. Docs., viii. p. 636). Still less was there cause for apprehension if the Caughnawagas were going to take sides with the colonists. It was probably understood that the statements of these Canadian Indians could not be implicitly relied upon.
[1272] The enlisted Indians are occasionally heard from during the war, although their services were not conspicuous. Their fondness for liquor soon brought them into trouble, and we find that a petition signed by seventeen of them was presented to the Provincial Congress, asking that liquor might be kept out of their way. This petition was duly granted. (Am. Arch., 4th ser., ii. pp. 1049 and 1083.) During the siege of Boston they occasionally killed a sentry (The Boston Gazette and Country Journal, Aug. 7, 1775; Frothingham's Siege of Boston, pp. 212, 213). In Mass. Archives, vol. lvi. (special title, "Coat Rolls, 8 Months' Service, 1775—vol. i. Rolls"), no. 173, is a copy of what purports to be an order for bounty money, etc., signed by thirty-two persons. Appended is the following: "Camp at Charlestown, March 12, 1776. This may certify that the within named persons were soldiers in my Regiment, and served as such in the service of this province last summer, until they were discharged by his Excellency Gen. Washington. Attest, John Paterson, Col. These Indians belonged to Capt. William Goodrich's Company. Attest, John Sargent." Some of them, under the command of Captain Ezra Whittlesey, were "posted at the saw-mills", Sept. 13, 1776 (Amer. Arch., 5th series, ii. p. 476). If Guy Johnson is to be believed, there were enlisted Indians in the battle of Long island, and some of them were taken prisoners (N. Y. Coll. Doc., viii. p. 740). Washington applied for them for scouting service, Oct. 18, 1776 (Amer. Arch., 5th series, ii. p. 1120); Jones (Annals of Oneida County, p. 854) says that a considerable party of Oneidas participated in the battle of White Plains, and that a full company of Stockbridge Indians, under Captain Daniel Ninham, went to White Plains (Ibid. p. 888). A capture by Indians of six prisoners is reported in Moore's Diary, etc., i. p. 476. The Stockbridge Indians were ambuscaded at King's Bridge with severe loss, Aug. 31, 1778. (Mag. Am. Hist., v. p. 187.) In 1819, the survivors of this tribe, petitioning the President of the United States for the protection of their rights in certain lands in Indiana, said: "When your parent disowned you as her children, and sent over to this great island many strong warriors to burn your towns, destroy your families, and bring you into captivity, we, of the Muhheakunuks, defended your fathers on the west against the warriors which your parent had sent against you on that side; and we also sent our warriors to join your great chief, Washington, to aid him in driving back into the sea the unnatural monsters who had come up from thence to devour you, and ravage the land which we a long time before granted to your fathers to live upon." (American State Papers—Public Lands, vol. iii., Washington, 1834).
[1273] Kidder's Mil. Operations in Eastern Maine, p. 51.—Ed.