Frontier Savagery
The sound of frenzied whooping mixed with shrill screams filled the ears of the three frightened boys huddled together for safety. Their hands and feet were bound, so they could do nothing but stare helplessly through eyes stinging from tears. Soon, the crackling of flames began to compete with the savage whoops of the Delaware braves, who became more excited as the burning fires crept up the figure tied firmly to a pole.
Some of the
braves shouted what could only be taunts and insults, mainly because the old man
remained stiff-lipped as his flesh began to sear and burn, emitting a putrid
stench that nauseated the three youths while exciting the blood lust of their
tormentors. Finally, the fire completely engulfed the old man, whose head
slumped as the dark smoke engulfed him.
One of the
boys shouted when the smoke cleared and the fires subsided, revealing a pile of
charred wood and bone, "Grandpa!"
"Don't
let 'em know you're scared," hissed Simon, the oldest. "Never!"
After this, fourteen-year-old Simon Girty and his two brothers were soon parceled out to different tribes as hostages. This was a typical sequence of events for families who settled along the American frontier, a frontier that was Indian territory.
Frontier Family
Simon Girty was born in 1741 in Chambers Mill, Pennsylvania, a small hamlet near Harrisburg in the middle of the colony. His Scots-Irish family eventually moved to Sherman's Creek, about thirty-five miles northwest. In 1751, Girty lost his father, who was killed in a liquor-fueled duel. Girty's grandfather raised the young boys. Girty and his brothers grew up illiterate but toughened as the family carved out a living on the edge of civilization.
Backwoods Homestead
The West Aflame
In 1754, war
came to Pennsylvania when France and England engaged in another (final) struggle to control North America. All along the frontier, bands of Indians and
their French allies raided farms and settlements, unleashing a wave of terror.
In 1756, the Girty family and many others, fearful of falling to the tomahawk, fled to the safety of Fort Granville, a small stockade some fifty miles northwest of Harrisburg. A mixed force of French troops and Native Americans, mostly Lenape warriors, attacked on 2 August. The garrison quickly surrendered, the fort was destroyed, and the Girty's and other settlers were taken captive. But before they trekked off to live with new masters, they were forced to watch their grandfather burn at the stake.
Indian Life
Simon was
taken by the Delaware tribe but was later passed on to a band of Seneca, who marched
him to the Ohio Territory, where they "adopted" the young man into
the Seneca nation. As was often the case with white captives, Girty quickly took to
life among the native tribes, learning their language and customs.
Frontier Freedom
Girty was
finally released at Fort Pitt in 1759, but by that time, he was fluent in the Seneca and Iroquois
languages and well-versed in all aspects of tribal life and, most importantly, Indian
warfare — a Seneca in all but skin color.
Girty returned to his mother, where he lived as a struggling farmer. He also worked as an interpreter for fur traders trading with the Delaware Indians in western Pennsylvania. The British authorities also sought his skills and engaged him in negotiating treaties with the various tribes along the frontier.
During Lord
Dunmore's War against the Shawnee nation in 1774, Girty became an expert frontier scout. There, he became friends with Simon Kenton, a well-known
frontier scout.
War for Independence
When war between Britain and her American colonies erupted in 1775, Simon sided with the patriot
cause. General James Wood sent him back to the Ohio Territory, where he helped
the American negotiations with the Shawnee, the Seneca, the Delaware, and the
Wyandot.
Troublemaker
Military discipline did not sit well with Girty, who constantly got into trouble with the officers appointed over him. This came to a head in September 1777, when he was arrested and put up on treason charges when he was suspected of helping plan the seizure of Fort Pitt.
Local Loyalists planned to kill Fort Pitt's occupants
before handing it to the British. Girty was acquitted, but the experience left
him bitter, and he switched allegiance back to the crown. In March 1778, the
frontiersman Girty, accompanied by his brothers James and George, quietly
slipped out of the fort and traveled to Detroit, the main British base in the
northwest.
Indian Department
There,
British Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton recognized the need for Girty's
skills as a linguist and frontiersman and ordered him to be attached to the
Indian Department, where he quickly became notorious along the northwest frontier.
Backwoods Pirate
From that time till the end of the war in 1783, Simon Girty beleaguered the Americans. His cultural and linguistic abilities enabled him to recruit many native tribes to the British cause and equally dissuaded them from supporting the Americans. He led or directed raids, ambushes, robberies, and outright massacres that made him the terror of the West. Terrified settlers began calling him The White Savage or The Great Renegade.
First Blood
His real
foray into mayhem began in 1779, when Girty, at the head of mixed bands of
Loyalists and Indians, conducted several attacks that left the patriots reeling.
He launched Indian war bands against the area around Fort Laurens, Ohio, where
they massacred several patriot units. His 4 October 1779 ambush of an American column
led by Colonel David Rogers was a master stroke against the cause that left
fifty-seven militiamen dead while taking 600,000 Spanish Dollars.
In 1780, Girty
helped British Captain Henry Bird lead a major foray against American
settlements in Kentucky. The mission resulted in taking a pair of forts and more
than 300 hostages — among whom was his former friend Simon Kenton, whose
release he arranged.
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The Great Renegade
By now, the
Americans had branded Girty a turncoat — placing a reward of 800 dollars for
him, dead or alive. The firebrand Girty even managed to anger arguably the most
preeminent Loyalists, Iroquois war chief Joseph Brant, getting in Brant's face
for bragging. The equally fiery Brant slashed Girty across the face with his
saber, leaving a wicked Al Capone-like scar. Ironically, the mutilation gave
Girty much prestige among the braves.
Campaign of Infamy
In June of 1782, Captain William Caldwell and Simon Girty led a party of 400 warriors from the Wyandot, Lenape, and Shawnee tribes, along with a detachment of Butler's Rangers, against a column of 500 volunteers under Colonel William Crawford. They checked the American advance aimed at destroying Indian enclaves on the Sandusky River. Then they surrounded Crawford's command, which retreated in a confused panic.
They captured many prisoners, including Crawford, who was brutally tortured over several days and then burned to death at the stake. Just as with his grandfather, Girty was said to have stood by without interfering, gaining lasting infamy among Americans on the frontier. However, some accounts say he was threatened with his own scalping if he interfered.
Kentucky Killing
Caldwell, Girty,
and the mixed band took their mayhem into Kentucky, launching brutal assaults against
the many defenseless farms and hamlets. This campaign of terror reached its
apogee after their failed 15 August siege of Bryan's Station. When he got word
of an oncoming relief force, Girty and his band decided on a ruse. As the
column approached, they faked a retreat.
Girty positioned
a few of his braves along the bluffs overlooking the Blue Licks River. He kept
them in plain sight, hoping to lure the Kentuckians into a kill zone. Caldwell
placed the majority of the rangers and warriors in ravines and behind boulders.
The trap was set.
One of the
column's leaders, famed frontiersman Daniel Boone, suspected a trap and urged
caution, but the column's commander, Major Hugh McGary, led his men headlong across
the stream. Boone commented, "They'd all be slaughtered," but led his
command to the right side of the McGary's line, which moved directly into a
deadly ambush.
No Post War Pause
The Treaty
of Paris did not dampen the friction between the northwest tribes and the ever-increasing
American settlements that began to creep beyond the frontier. And Girty played
a role. For the next ten years, he was a tireless advocate for war against the
Americans at tribal councils. How much was his raw hate for his former
countrymen, revenge for past grievances, or merely him being an agent of
British policy, we will never know. But it was likely all the above.
War Drums Along the Miami
By 1791, the tribes of the Ohio country had united into a federation that pledged to check the American threat to their lands or die in the effort. The assembled warriors possessed all the traditional cunning, skill, and bravery of their ancestors but had British training and weapons that made them a far more dangerous force than any of the Western tribes that rose to fame in the next century. Still, many leaders had decided to settle with the new government, but American incursions and the killing of Chief Little Turtle's daughter drove the tribes to war.
An Army's Destruction
Simon Girty was
with Chief Little Turtle of the Miami and his war party when they eviscerated
an American Army led by Revolutionary War heroes General Arthur St. Clair and
Richard Butler at The Battle of the Wabash. The northwest was at the mercy of the war bands. Enraged,
President Washington ordered the formation of a new army called The American Legion
and placed it under the command of a war hero from eastern Pennsylvania, General
Anthony Wayne.
Fallen Timbers
Simon Girty marched to face this new army with the War Chief Blue Jacket and his Shawnee, Ottawa, and many other tribes. In August 1794, Blue Jacket and Girty clashed with Wayne's American Legion General Charles Scott's Kentucky Militia at Fallen Timbers. In the short but decisive battle of Fallen Timbers, Anthony Wayne crushed Blue Jacket's federation, and the tribes finally sued for peace — a bitter pill for a noble people.
Escape North
The British
finally evacuated Detroit in 1795. The long-held Great Lakes bases for
operations against the new American government were given up to the Americans by
the Jay Treaty. Still a wanted man, Girty was forced to move north to the
safety of Canada and worked for the British Indian Department in Amherstburg,
Ontario. The elderly Girty, now borderline depressed and alcoholic, had to flee
the town when the Americans invaded in 1813. He returned after the Americans
withdrew and lived there until his death on 18 February 1818.
Pantheon of Savagery
What can we
make of this controversial frontiersman? Well, for one thing, he had plenty of
company in the pantheon of savagery, of any color and on both sides. Beyond
well-known battles on the Atlantic seaboard, the American War for Independence
was a civil war and a clash of civilizations. The hundreds of raids, ambushes,
and small-scale fighting were much more bitter than the European-style
engagements in the east. Simon Girty symbolizes the many men on both sides who
used savagery as a tool of war. Sadly, this pantheon continues to gain new
members up to this day.
