Washington [246]
The dilemma of what to do with his slaves would hound Washington for the rest of his life. Virginia still lacked a free labor force, and, at bottom, he probably could not figure out how to farm in the absence of slaves. So however much he admired the economies of the New England and mid-Atlantic states in which he spent the war, he did not see how he could re-create that freer world at home.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Storm Thickens
IN FRAMING POLICY toward Native Americans, George Washington spoke in many conflicting voices. As an inveterate speculator in western lands and a military man with firsthand knowledge of Indian raids on frontier outposts, he was capable of railing against Indians as savages who committed barbaric acts. In a less-than-enlightened letter of 1773, he told George William Fairfax that the colonists had “a cruel and bloodthirsty enemy upon our backs, the Indians . . . with whom a general war is inevitable.”1 Yet this same man could sound sage and statesmanlike in urging his countrymen to treat the Indians fairly and coexist with them in peace. He always advocated buying Indian lands “in preference to attempting to drive them by force of arms out of their country.”2 Frequently he manifested horror at the avarice of real estate speculators and the wanton depredations of settlers against Native American communities. His tone, however, varied subtly with the audience and the situation.
The American Revolution did not give Washington the option of developing a broad-minded Indian policy, especially when dealing with the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. These proud warriors felt more endangered by American westward expansion than by British policy, which had banned settlements beyond the Alleghenies, starting with the 1763 proclamation that had so infuriated the young Washington. The Six Nations weren’t uniformly pro-British—the Oneidas sided with the Americans—but such fine distinctions often got overlooked in the heat of battle.
Of special concern to Washington was the capable Mohawk chieftain Joseph Brant, who had plotted with the British to attack American settlements in the Mohawk Valley of upstate New York. In November 1778 Brant took three hundred Seneca Indians, united them with two Tory companies under Major Walter Butler, and ravaged an American settlement at Cherry Valley, New York: they set fire to the village and killed more than thirty settlers. The attack generated hair-raising stories of atrocities, some credible tales of scalpings, others far-fetched claims of cannibalism. The assault produced such outrage that Washington had no choice but to take decisive action. “It is in the highest degree distressing to have our frontier so continually harassed by this collection of banditti under Brant and Butler,” he told General Edward Hand, warning of retaliatory measures.3
At various junctures Washington extended diplomatic overtures to the Indians. As early as January 1776 he had presided over a parley of Indian sachems. John Adams was then visiting the camp, and Washington, with a droll flight of fancy, introduced him as belonging to the “Grand Council Fire at Philadelphia.”4 During the Middlebrook winter of 1778-79, Washington invited Native American chieftains to tour the camp and witness the size of his army. James Thacher wrote how his brigade was “paraded for the purpose of being reviewed by General Washington and a number of Indian chiefs . . . His Excellency, with his usual dignity, [was] followed by his mulatto servant Bill, riding a beautiful gray steed.”5 The French alliance helped Washington to woo Indian tribes that were erstwhile French supporters. Nonetheless most tribes made the rational, if ultimately calamitous, decision that they had to protect their homelands and that