Based on the Albany Plan of Union (see entry for JUNE TO JULY 1754), the Articles of Confederation establish the first national government of the United States. In the articles, Congress continues the British practice of assuming that Indian tribes are sovereign nations, whose claims to their land can be extinguished only by treaty. The document also grants Congress the responsibility for “regulating trade and managing all affairs with Indians, not members of any of the states, provided that the legislative right of any state within its own limits be not infringed or violated.”
July
The Quechan revolt against the Spanish.
Angered by the dominating Spaniards in their lands, the Quechan of present-day Arizona rise up against them, killing about 75 soldiers, settlers, and priests and destroying two missions near the Indians’ villages. Although skirmishes between the Quechan and Spanish continue for several years, the revolt succeeds in effectively driving the Spanish out of the Quechan lands along the lower Colorado River. The rebellion will therefore greatly hinder Spanish colonization, by cutting off the only convenient land route between Spanish settlements in Alta California and Mexico.
P
“[W]hite men would be always telling us of their great Book which God had given them. They would persuade us that every man was bad who did not believe in it. They told us a great many things which they said was written in the Book; and wanted us to believe it. We would likely have done so, if we had seen them practice what they pretended to believe—and acted according to the good words which they told us. But no! While they held the Big Book in one hand, in the other they held murderous weapons—guns and swords—wherewith to kill us poor Indians.”
—Lenni Lenape (Delaware) leader David Heckewelder on the Gnaddenhutten Massacre
Autumn
Ninety Moravian Christian Lenni Lenape (Delaware) are murdered in the Gnaddenhutten Massacre.
Mohawk war leader Joseph Brant (see entry for NOVEMBER 11, 1778) tries to persuade a group of Lenni Lenape (Delaware) converts to the Moravian sect to help his warriors raid white settlements in western Pennsylvania. When the Moravian Indians refuse, they are advised to leave the area if they want to stay out of the warfare. Harsh winter weather, however, forces them to stay. In their villages, they are set upon by American troops led by Colonel David Williamson. He orders his soldiers to execute 90 Moravian Indian women and men by striking them in the head with mallets. The governor of Pennsylvania condemns the mass execution, known as the Gnaddenhutten Massacre, but no action is taken against Williamson and his men.
World History
