Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations — John Shaqi
Sir William Johnson and the Six NationsGriffis, William Elliot
History
Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations
Griffis, William Elliot
Johnson, William, 1715-1774; United States -- History -- French and Indian War, 1754-1763
Great changes took place within the Iroquois Confederacy after the
advent of the white man. His fire-arms, liquor, fences, and ideas at
once began to modify Indian politics, hunting, social life, and
religion. The unity of interests was broken, and division and secession
set in, as steady currents, to weaken the forest republic. Large numbers
of the Iroquois emigrated westward to live and hunt in Ohio and beyond,
and joined the Ottawa confederacy. Others left in bands or groups, and
made their homes in Pennsylvania, Virginia, or the Southwest, to get
away, if possible, from the white man’s fences and fire-water. Others
followed their religious teachers into Canada, and made settlements
there. These losses were only in a measure made good by the addition to
the Long House of a whole tribe from the South, the Tuscaroras, whose
ancestral seats had been in the Carolinas.
North Carolina was one of the majority of the original thirteen States
first settled by a variety of colonists,—French, German, Swiss,
Scottish, and Irish, as well as English. At first red and white men
lived at peace; but soon the inevitable “question” came, and the Indians
imagined that they could show themselves superior to the pale-faces.
Making what white historians call a “conspiracy,” but striking what they
believed to be a blow for home and freedom, they rose, and in one night
massacred in or near Roanoke alone one hundred and thirty-seven of the
white settlers. Their murderous act at once drew out the vengeance of
Governor Craven of South Carolina, who sent Col. John Barnwell, an
Irishman, who marched with a regiment of six hundred whites and several
hundred Indian allies. Without provision trains, but subsisting as
Indians do in a wilderness unbroken by villages, farms, or clearings,
Barnwell struck the Tuscaroras in battle, and reduced their numbers by
the loss of three hundred warriors. Pursuing them to their fortified
castle, he laid siege and compelled surrender. By successive blows, this
“Tuscarora John,” by death or capture, destroyed one thousand fighting
men, and compelled the remainder of the tribe to leave the graves of
their fathers, and emigrate northward. Only a remnant reached New York.
The Tuscaroras joined the Iroquois Confederacy in 1713, and the
federated forest republic then took upon itself the style and title of
the Six Nations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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