The White Savage

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.

War parties tortured enemies 

of both  races

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.

French and Indians Attack

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. He soon began to learn Iroquois and the nuances of tribal life and warfare.

Braves preparing for a hunt

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.

Simon Girty as Scout

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.

Girty served in Lord Dunmore's War

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.

Girty Armed for War

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. 

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.

Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton

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.

Frontier Terror

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.

Ambush

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.

Taking Hostages

He also arranged to move the pre-patriot Moravian missionaries, David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder, with their native parishioners to far reaches of the Upper Sandusky River. This enabled the British to monitor their activities better. It was not the last time the British would move civilians to control them better — the Boer War comes to mind.

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.

Chief Joseph Brant

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. 

Torture and Death of Colonel Crawford

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.

Siege of Bryan's Station

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.

Battle of Blue Licks

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.

Blue Licks marker

The Kentuckians moved up the bluffs in a skirmish line, but once at the heights, Girty's men opened fire at close range with devastating effect. The relief force was sent reeling back, leaving seventy dead on the field, including the son of Daniel Boone. Caldwell and Girty's party then withdrew to Detroit. These hit-and-run tactics kept the northwest frontier ablaze throughout the Revolutionary War and beyond.

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.

Girty took part in tribal councils

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.

Little Turtle

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.

Battle of the Wabash

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.

Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers

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.

The Pantheon in 1836 by Jakob Alt