A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier (7 page)

Although this system was far removed from the traditional English concept that formed the basis of the colonists’ view of ownership, the idea that one could sell perpetual ownership of the land was even farther from the Indians’ belief system. All Native Americans enjoyed a spiritual relationship with not only the land but also all the creatures that shared it with them, bestowing the idea of a soul to each and every thing, both animate and inanimate, seeing all as equals in the universe, as gifts from their creator. In the words of Black Hawk, a chief of the Sauk nation, “Land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, and cultivate, as far as is necessary for their subsistence; and so long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil—but if they voluntarily leave it, then any other [Indian] people have the right to settle upon it.”
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In this sixteenth-century engraving, Indians are shown planting their fields with corn and beans.
Library of Congress
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As a result, the British never understood that, on those occasions when the Indians saw fit to bestow land as a gift or token of friendship, they were not surrendering the land in perpetuity. Instead, they believed they were granting their British friends the temporary right to make use of the land, just as their own village councils did for members of their tribe. In their minds, the British had very limited rights to the land granted to them. One of the few colonists to truly comprehend this arrangement was Roger Williams, founder of the Rhode Island colony. He correctly pointed out that even though he had given a “gratuity” to a sachem of the local Narragansett Indians for the use of two islands for grazing hogs, no transfer in land ownership had actually taken place.
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Therefore, in the Indians’ minds, if a settler stopped farming the land given to him by the tribe or if he failed to abide by the terms of their agreement, the land reverted back to the village, just as it would for any member of the tribe. Thus, what many British and American settlers saw as a land sale was often merely a limited, rent-free loan of the land.

However, the pinnacle of British arrogance lay in their belief that they could colonize and rightfully seize land based on their monarch’s divine right and “superior” religion. Employing religious dogma that had existed since the time of the Crusades, the English, like other European monarchies, believed that any Christian king possessed the right of eminent domain over any lands held by a non-Christian “heathen” people. However, the British took matters one step further than their Catholic French and Spanish competitors. While the French and Spaniards both based the legitimacy of their land appropriations on the need to convert the native races to Christianity, the English Protestants believed that merely being Christian entitled them to appropriate the lands of the Indians.
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Further, as Anglican minister Richard Eburne explained the matter, the passage in Genesis 1:28, which reads “…and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it,” provided additional justification for the British to seize the land from Indian hands. According the Eburne, this commandment from God to Adam awarded Christianity a grand charter with the “privilege to spread themselves from place to place, and to have, hold, occupy, and enjoy any region or country whatsoever which they should find either not occupied.”
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Of course, the Indians might argue against the idea that their lands were “unoccupied,” but the British had an answer for that as well. To them, if you were not using the agricultural techniques employed by English and other European farmers, you were not “replenishing” the land and therefore had no rights to it.

Moreover, not only was the idea of ownership an issue, the stewardship of the resources on the land was also very different between whites and Indians. Cornstalk, a chief of the Shawnee, said, “When God created this World he gave this Island [America] to the red people…who live by Hunting and cannot subsist in any other way.”
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The Indians took what was required to live, plus perhaps a small surplus to trade with other villages. Meanwhile, the settlers, who began to arrive in large numbers in the 1770s, took much more, often using wasteful hunting practices. For example, William Haymond wrote that whenever he was in the woods and saw a deer, he could “not resist the temptation to shoot it.”
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Within a generation, the toll from such attitudes began to increase, and one settler would lament, “The buffalo and elk have entirely disappeared from this section of the country. Of the bear and deer but very few remain…The wild turkeys, which used to be so abundant…are now rarely seen.”
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One can easily understand how baffling this behavior had to be to the Indians who not only relied on the same resources for their own survival but also had a deep, spiritual affinity for the animals being slaughtered by the settlers. To them, the settlers, who now seemed to fill their beloved forests, were ravenous thieves who desecrated the gifts of the Creator. The entire frustration of the Indians regarding both the raping of the land’s resources, as well as the land itself, was summed up by the Shawnee Chiksika, who proclaimed, “The whole white race is a monster who is always hungry and what he eats is land.”
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Therein lay the fundamental causes for the great cultural conflict that led to war on the Virginia frontier: the complete disconnect between the two races in terms of what was meant by land “ownership,” and the settlers’ inability to control their appetite for ravaging the resources it provided, both of which threatened the Indians’ very survival.

W
ARRIORS
, T
ACTICS AND
M
ORALITY

The Indian warriors of the woodland tribes were a very different breed than their European counterparts, and in fact, their entire approach to war was decidedly at odds with that imported to the New World from the Old. As a result, just like the other cultural differences between the two races, European settlers and soldiers alike did not understand or appreciate the Indian style of warfare. However, they did pay an often heavy price for their inability to see it as anything but yet another example of the savage’s ignorance and cowardice.

War was a distinct part of Indian society, with its own set of common practices and fundamental beliefs. In general, wars between Indian nations were relatively short-lived and far less brutal than those in Europe. A few conflicts, such as the Iroquois Confederation’s war against the Wyandot in the seventeenth century, were fought for territorial gain and trade advantage. However, most were either an extension of a blood feud for an alleged wrongdoing that resulted in the death of a tribal member, what was often referred to as a “mourning war,” or were fought to gain captives from the opposing side that could be adopted into the tribe to replace losses from war or disease.

One of the more disparaging views Europeans commonly held against Indian warriors was that they were cowardly and undisciplined. However, as one contemporary colonist pointed out, “I have often heard the British officers call the Indians undisciplined savages, which is a capital mistake—as they have all the essentials of discipline…Could it be supposed that undisciplined troops could defeat Generals Braddock, Grant, etc.?”
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In fact, Indian warriors were actually highly disciplined, but their entire approach to discipline and military tactics was the exact opposite of their British opponents.

Indian discipline was based on the concept of individual honor as opposed to corporal punishment inflicted by a superior. Warrior leaders were chosen through a consensus reached on their courage, bravery and military experience, as opposed to the British practice of leadership via purchase or privilege. Indian war chiefs always tried to save their men’s lives, and in Indian culture, no victory could ever justify heavy casualties. As a result, there was no disgrace in calling for a retreat until the odds were more in their favor. In addition, rather than adhering to a set of textbook or traditionally prescribed tactics, Indian leaders practiced a sophisticated and highly adaptive brand of warfare that emphasized situational tactics based on weapons and terrain. In this sense, they were the probably among the finest guerilla fighters in history.
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While the warrior culture had its own practices and weapons, the Indians were quick to see the tactical advantage of using firearms. Contrary to the image of the sharpshooting frontiersman from popular culture, the buckskin-clad hero who could outshoot his Indian opponent, the Indians actually became highly skilled sharpshooters. Native American culture drew little distinction between hunting and warfare, and as a result, warriors were trained to be expert shooters in either environment. By adding the proficient use of European weaponry to their already lethal woodland guerilla tactics, the Indians became truly deadly opponents.

As one frontier Indian fighter observed, “The principles of their military action are rational, and therefore often successful…In vain may we expect success against our adversaries without taking a few lessons from them.”
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The Indians’ tactical principles usually involved moving their men through the woods in dispersed, scattered order, instead of rigid, grouped formations, to avoid being surrounded. At the same time, this approach offered them the best chance to surround the enemy and gain the superior advantage provided by the available ground. Meanwhile, their troops, the warriors of the tribe, came to battle in superb physical condition. These warriors, who practiced running and marksmanship, were trained to endure hunger and hardship on behalf of their people. Although the Indian culture of war sought to avoid unnecessary casualties, the Native Americans were, in their own unique way, a very martial people, “ready to sell their lives dearly in defence [
sic
] of their homes.”
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It was, perhaps, this deeply moral foundation among the warrior class that allowed them to resist their European and American opponents for so many decades despite the latter’s overwhelming numbers and technological superiority.

This fanciful 1789 drawing depicts an Indian warrior holding a scalp.
Library of Congress
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Woodland Indians make a night attack on a frontier settler’s cabin.
New York Public Library
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Whenever a force of British colonial troops approached a village, the typical Indian response was to fight a delaying action and evacuate the village. Indians learned early on in their fight against the Europeans that trying to defend a village was a recipe for military disaster. Conversely, if they and the villagers retreated to the woods, their enemy would have to be content with burning lodges and food supplies. Although this might often create great hardship, it was better than the alternative, which was the almost certain slaughter of all the village’s inhabitants. In response to these kinds of attacks, the Indians would typically follow up with a series of ambushes and raids against isolated farms and settlements.