NATIVE AMERICAN SLAVERY
Seizing captive slaves from enemy Indian nations was an expected consequence of war among Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans. However, large-scale Native American slavery came with European exploration, particularly the British and the Spanish. Ponce de Leon, Hernando de Soto, and Coronado all forced slavery upon Native Americans. Later settlers used Native American slaves as forced labor on plantations in the southeastern United States and in the Caribbean West Indies.
Until 1720, tens of thousands of Native Americans were enslaved. Some were captives from Native American conflicts who were sold to the British. While some Native American slavery continued later into the century, the colonists began to prefer the African slaves being brought to America in mass numbers.
As Native Americans in the Southeast adopted more European customs, they began participating in the slave trade. Some Native Americans assisted African slaves in escaping, but many prosperous Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw owned African slaves in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It's estimated that 15,000 African slaves also traveled the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory.
One nation that didn't enslave African Americans but lived, worked, and fought alongside them were the Seminole of Florida. Many escaped slaves Joined the Seminole Nation. In Indian Territory, Seminole people defended African Americans from Cherokee and Muscogee nations. After the Civil War, hundreds of African Americans joined the Seminole Nation as Seminole Freedmen. Descendants of Freedmen-Seminole unions are tribal members.
The Treaty of Paris, signaling the end of the American Revolution, not only gave the new Americans the 13 colonies but also the territories in the Ohio Valley. As they created their new government, the first secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, and President George Washington promised a policy of honor toward Native Americans in which “their land and property shall never be taken from them without their consent.”
Chief Brant of the Mohawk couldn’t get the Americans to agree to a land settlement, so he and a large group of Mohawk relocated to Canada in Brantford, Ontario. Brant continued to work for the Mohawk. He also wrote about the Mohawk leader who became an Onondaga chief, Hiawatha, and translated the Bible into the Mohawk language.
Farther west of the Appalachians, the hunting grounds and permanent homes of many native communities was called the Northwest Territory. Before the 19th century began, the federal government sold the land to new settlers. Eventually the Northwest Territory became five states: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
South of the Northwest Territory, settlers began raiding native villages in Kentucky. The Miami and Shawnee people combined forces to fight back. Their goal was to keep these settlers north of the Ohio River. President Washington sent troops, but they were soundly defeated and lost more than 600 men. Eventually, the Americans defeated the Shawnee at Eallen Timbers
The death of Tecumseh.
(near Toledo, Ohio), and the Shawnee signed over Ohio. One Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, disagreed with the decision.
Tecumseh was born the fifth of nine children to a Shawnee warrior and a Muscogee (Creek) woman. After his father died in 1774 at the Battle of Point Pleasant, his mother moved west to Indiana. Eleven-year-old Tecumseh stayed in the Ohio Territory with his older brother and sister. His brother, Chiksika, trained Tecumseh to be a warrior. Tecumseh first tried out his new skills at age 14 in a conflict against the American soldiers. The battlefield sent him to a panic, and he fled. He was so humiliated by this experience that he became determined to be the best warrior he could be.
In 1782, after the Battle of Piqua, the Shawnee retreated to the Maumee River where they renewed their efforts against white settlement. Tecumseh became a formidable opponent for the white Americans. When Tecumseh was 23 years old, he led Shawnee warriors against the troops of Arthur St. Clair at Fort Recovery, Ohio. The U. S. Army suffered one of its worst defeats to date with the loss over 918 men. Tecumseh only had 61 casualties.
Tecumseh’s skills as a warrior and leader were admired by many, but still he could not stop the white people from coming. Familiar with the greed of the American settler, Tecumseh continued to lead his people against settlers who wanted Shawnee land. He was also angered by Shawnee and other tribes who had signed over land to the settlers. The only way to win, Tecumseh decided, was for Native Americans to unite.
In the early 1800s, Tecumseh proposed forming a confederacy of Indian nations, similar to the Six Nations Confederacy but composed of tribes west of the Appalachian Mountains. He hoped the confederacy would keep native leaders from selling land that belonged to everyone. “Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the Earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?” he asked.
MARY MUSGROVE MATTHEWS BOSOMWORTH
Around 1700, a daughter was born to a Muscogee woman and an English trader named Edward Griffin. Known as Mary among the settlers, she was called Coosaponakeesa of the Wind Clan by the Muscogee. Growing up with a foot in each culture, Mary learned the languages and cultures of both English and Muscogee well.
In 1717, Mary married the English trader John Musgrove and helped him set up a trading post near the Savannah River. She began serving as an interpreter at this time, particularly for James Oglethorpe, who founded the Colony of Georgia in 1732. She was believed to be an important part of the peaceful founding of the colony and its first city. Savannah.
When her husband died in 1735, Mary Musgrove moved the trading post to Yamacraw Bluff, where it became an important trading post for the area. After marrying Jacob Matthews in 1737, she established another trading post at Mount Venture. After Matthews’s death, she married her third husband. Reverend Thomas Bosomworth. This marriage increased her status in colonial society. Together, Mary and her husband traveled among Muscogee villages and interpreted for English leaders. Even with her power, she experienced trouble with the colonial government over land claims given to her by Muscogee chiefs. She pursued her claims for over 10 years, even traveling to England to plead her case. A compromise was eventually reached. She died on St. Catherines Island sometime after 1763.
Today, Coosaponakeesa, or Mary Musgrove Matthews Bosomworth, is best known for interpreting and working to maintain peace between the English and the Muscogee. She was inducted into Georgia Women of Achievement in 1993.
Tecumseh’s younger brother, Tenskwatawa, was known as the Prophet, particularly after he predicted an eclipse of the sun. The Prophet said that native people must give up white customs. He spread the message that if native people returned to their native ways, the Master of Life would remove the white people from their land. This prophecy helped Tecumseh unite native people as he became one of the first Native Americans to embrace Pan-Indian unity over tribal loyalty.
The Shawnee and other bands met at a village in Indiana Territory known as Prophet-stown. While Tecumseh was away to recruit other Native American nations, American soldiers attacked Prophetstown and destroyed it. The loss led to a weakened confederacy, so Tecumseh supported the British in the War of 1812. The Shawnee warrior and leader died in the Battle of the Thames in 1813.
World History
