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, leaving them helpless to do anything but stare with eyes stinging from tears. Soon, the crackling of flames began to compete with the savage whoops of the Delaware braves, who grew 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, primarily because the old man remained stiff-lipped as his flesh began to sear and burn, emitting a putrid stench that made the three youths nauseous while exciting the bloodlust of their tormentors. Finally, the fire completely engulfed the old man, whose head slumped as the dark smoke swallowed 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, which was Indian territory.

Frontier Family

Simon Girty was born in 1741 in Chambers Mill, Pennsylvania, a small hamlet near Harrisburg in the heart of the colony. His Scots-Irish family later moved to Sherman's Creek, about thirty-five miles to the northwest. In 1751, Girty lost his father, who was killed in a liquor-fueled duel. Girty's grandfather raised the boys. Girty and his brothers grew up illiterate but tough, as the family lived on the edge of civilization.

Backwoods Homestead

The West Aflame

In 1754, war reached Pennsylvania as France and England fought one last time to control North America. Along the frontier, groups of Indians and their French allies raided farms and settlements, causing a wave of terror.

French and Indians Attack

In 1756, the Girty family and many others, afraid of falling prey to the tomahawk, fled to the safety of Fort Granville, a small stockade about fifty miles northwest of Harrisburg. A mixed force of French troops and Native Americans, mainly Lenape warriors, attacked on August 2. The garrison quickly surrendered; the fort was destroyed, and the Girtys and other settlers were taken captive. But before they were forced to move off to live with new masters, they had to watch as their grandfather was burned at the stake.

Indian Life

Simon was captured by the Delaware tribe but was later handed over 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 adjusted to life among the native tribes, learning their language and customs. He soon began to learn Iroquois and the subtleties of tribal life and warfare.

Braves preparing for a hunt

Frontier Freedom

Girty was finally released at Fort Pitt in 1759. By then, he had become fluent in the Seneca and Iroquois languages and was 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 live with his mother and worked as a struggling farmer. He also served as an interpreter for fur traders dealing with the Delaware Indians in western Pennsylvania. The British authorities valued his skills and enlisted him to negotiate treaties with 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 a skilled frontier scout. There, he befriended Simon Kenton, a well-known frontiersman.

War for Independence

When war broke out between Britain and her American colonies in 1775, Simon supported the patriot cause. General James Wood sent him back to the Ohio Territory, where he helped with American negotiations with the Shawnee, Seneca, the Delaware, and the Wyandot.

Girty Armed for War

Troublemaker

Girty struggled with military discipline, often finding himself in trouble with the officers in charge. This issue reached a peak in September 1777, when he was arrested and accused of treason, as he was suspected of helping to plot the seizure of Fort Pitt. 

Fort Pitt

Local Loyalists plotted to kill the occupants of Fort Pitt before surrendering it to the British. Girty was acquitted, but the experience left him bitter, and he switched his allegiance back to the crown. In March 1778, the frontiersman Girty, along with 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 join the Indian Department, where he quickly gained notoriety across the northwest frontier.

Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton

Backwoods Pirate

From that time until the war ended in 1783, Simon Girty attacked the Americans. His cultural and language skills helped him recruit many native tribes to the British side and also kept them from supporting the Americans. He led or directed raids, ambushes, robberies, and outright massacres, becoming the terror of the West. Frightened settlers started calling him The White Savage or The Great Renegade.

Frontier Terror

First Blood

His true entry into chaos began in 1779 when Girty, leading mixed groups of Loyalists and Indians, carried out several attacks that left the patriots shaken. He unleashed Indian war bands around Fort Laurens, Ohio, where they massacred multiple patriot units. His October 4, 1779, ambush of an American column led by Colonel David Rogers was a brilliant strike against the cause, resulting in fifty-seven militiamen dead and the capture of 600,000 Spanish dollars.

Ambush

In 1780, Girty helped British Captain Henry Bird lead a major attack against American settlements in Kentucky. The mission led to the capture of two forts and over 300 hostages, including 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, along with their native parishioners, to the distant reaches of the Upper Sandusky River. This allowed the British to better monitor their activities. It's not the last time the British would relocate civilians for tighter control — the Boer War comes to mind.

The Great Renegade

By this point, the Americans had branded Girty a turncoat — offering a reward of 800 dollars for him, dead or alive. The incendiary Girty even succeeded in angering arguably the most prominent Loyalist, Iroquois war chief Joseph Brant, by confronting him when Brant was 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 1782, Captain William Caldwell and Simon Girty led a force of 400 warriors from the Wyandot, Lenape, and Shawnee tribes, along with a detachment of Butler's Rangers, against a group of 500 volunteers commanded by Colonel William Crawford. They stopped the American push aimed at destroying Indian settlements on the Sandusky River. Then they surrounded Crawford's force, which retreated in a disorganized panic. 

Torture and Death of Colonel Crawford

They captured many prisoners, including Crawford, who endured brutal torture for days before being burned at the stake. Like his grandfather, Girty was said to have stood by without intervening, 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 brought chaos into Kentucky, launching brutal attacks on many defenseless farms and small villages. This campaign of terror reached its peak after their failed siege of Bryan's Station on August 15. When he learned of an approaching relief force, Girty and his band decided to use a trick. As the column drew near, they pretended to retreat.

Siege of Bryan's Station

Girty positioned several of his braves along the bluffs overlooking the Blue Licks River. He kept them in plain sight, aiming to lure the Kentuckians into a kill zone. Caldwell placed most of the rangers and warriors in ravines and behind boulders. The trap was set.

Battle of Blue Licks

One of the column's leaders, renowned frontiersman Daniel Boone, suspected a trap and warned for caution, but the column's commander, Major Hugh McGary, hurried his men straight across the stream. Boone said, "They'd all be slaughtered," but took his command to the right of McGary's line, which then moved right into a deadly ambush.

Blue Licks marker

The Kentuckians moved up the bluffs in a skirmish line, but once they reached 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 Daniel Boone's son. 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 reduce the tension between the northwest tribes and the ever-expanding American settlements that started to cross the frontier. Girty also played a part. For the next ten years, he was a relentless supporter of war against the Americans at tribal councils. Was it driven by his deep hatred for his former countrymen, revenge for past wrongs, or simply because he was an agent of British policy? We may never know. But it was probably all of those things.

Girty took part in tribal councils

War Drums Along the Miami

By 1791, the tribes of the Ohio country had unified into a federation that vowed to fight the American threat to their lands or die trying. The gathered warriors had all the traditional cunning, skill, and bravery of their ancestors but also had British training and weapons that made them a much stronger force than any of the Western tribes that gained fame in the next century. Still, many leaders decided to settle with the new government, but American raids and the killing of Chief Little Turtle's daughter pushed the tribes into war.

An Army's Destruction

Simon Girty was with Chief Little Turtle of the Miami and his war party when they defeated an American Army led by Revolutionary War heroes General Arthur St. Clair and Richard Butler at the Battle of the Wabash. The northwest was vulnerable to 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 confront this new army alongside War Chief Blue Jacket and his Shawnee, Ottawa, and various other tribes. In August 1794, Blue Jacket and Girty faced off against Wayne's American Legion and General Charles Scott's Kentucky Militia at Fallen Timbers. In the brief but decisive battle of Fallen Timbers, Anthony Wayne defeated Blue Jacket's coalition, and the tribes ultimately 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-standing Great Lakes bases used for operations against the new American government were handed over to the Americans by the Jay Treaty. Still a wanted man, Girty had to move north to safety in Canada and worked for the British Indian Department in Amherstburg, Ontario. The elderly Girty, now nearing depression and struggling with alcoholism, had to flee the town when the Americans invaded in 1813. He returned after the Americans withdrew and lived there until his death on February 18, 1818.

Pantheon of Savagery

What can we understand from this controversial frontiersman? For one, he had many companions in the pantheon of savagery, from all backgrounds and sides. Besides the well-known battles on the Atlantic coast, the American War for Independence was both a civil war and a clash of cultures. The hundreds of raids, ambushes, and small skirmishes were much more brutal than the European-style battles in the east. Simon Girty represents the many men on both sides who used savagery as a weapon of war. Sadly, this pantheon continues to grow with new members to this day.

The Pantheon in 1836 by Jakob Alt

 

Noble Warrior of Peace

Clash of Empires

The Native American tribes played an interesting role in the American War for Independence. In some ways, the tension caused by the westward expansion of European settlers contributed to the strain between the colonists and the British authorities in London, who saw the Indian Territory west of the Alleghanies as a buffer zone against Spain. Americans moving westward posed a potential risk as future allies of Spain or even as a cause of war with Spain. The tribes found themselves caught in the middle, especially in the Carolinas and western New York.

In New York, the British had built strong trade and political alliances with the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederation, who served as powerful military allies during the French and Indian War. Most of the tribes sided with the British. Among them was the Seneca nation. And among these proud people rose a leader who would earn fame in war and praise in peace. His name was Gyantwakia, which in English was Cornplanter.

Seneca Chief

Cornplanter was born in 1740 to a Dutch trader named John Abeel and a Seneca woman in the village of Conawagaus, now known as Avon, New York. He was raised as a Seneca, living among his mother’s influential family, the Wolf Clan, which was a warrior clan. He led a war party in support of the British during the French and Indian War, and by the start of the American Revolution in 1775, he was an established war chief, having gained his experience as a young warrior. The Iroquois were among the most skilled warriors of all the native tribes, and both sides sought their support. Cornplanter, showing notable caution, urged neutrality in the conflict between the white settlers.

                                                           Gyantwakia aka Cornplanter

Raising the Tomahawk

However, as the struggle grew more intense, he could not keep the Seneca on the sidelines. In August 1777, the Seneca joined their former allies, the British, in taking up the tomahawk. By that time, the war in New York was at its peak, with General John Burgoyne’s three-pronged campaign to capture New York already in progress. In many ways, this campaign would determine the outcome of the war.

                                                   The War Chief addresses the Wolf Clan

Valley of Death

Once committed, Cornplanter was fully involved. He soon led a Seneca war party in support of Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger’s expedition east through the Mohawk Valley. Standing between him and his goal, Albany, was the small outpost known as Fort Stanwix. In this role, he participated in the siege of Fort Stanwix, New York, and later helped plan the ambush of Colonel Nicholas Herkimer’s relief column in the dense woods near Oriskany on August 6, 1777. 

The ambush was a typical Indian warfare tactic. Cornplanter’s warriors surprised and destroyed the column, mortally injuring Herkimer. However, the approach of another column under Benedict Arnold forced the British to withdraw their regular forces from New York and switch to hit-and-run guerrilla raids against frontier settlements.

                                    Seneca ambush at Oriskany mortally wounds Col Herkimer

Frontier on Fire

Cornplanter led many raids against American settlements, especially at Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, where on July 3, 1778, his warriors ambushed and defeated a pursuit force of 400 militia commanded by Colonel Zebulon Butler. In November, his Seneca allies supported Loyalist Captain Walter Butler (unrelated to Zebulon) in a brutal attack on Cherry Valley, New York. 

These Indian and Loyalist raids caused such significant damage to American lives, property, and morale that General George Washington ordered a punitive campaign against the Six Nations the following year.

                                                              Cherry Valley Massacre

Yankee Retribution

American retribution arrived with the 1779 expedition led by General John Sullivan, who launched a punishing attack on August 28, defeating the Iroquois and Loyalists at Newtown (Elmira), New York. Sullivan then carried out a scorched earth campaign to punish Iroquois villages in the region. 

Under pressure, he and the Seneca stood down for the winter, but the next summer, Cornplanter was back on the warpath with raids against Canajoharie and the Schoharie Valley, New York. At Canajoharie, his band took his father, John Abeel, prisoner. Cornplanter offered to make him a guest of his clan, but Abeel declined, so the dutiful son released him.

                                                                   Wolf Clan attacks

Smoking the Peace Pipe

At the end of the Revolutionary War, the Iroquois faced complications as they tried to adapt to the new American government. Cornplanter participated in numerous treaty signings, which gradually led to the loss of his people’s land. 

The Iroquois had little influence against the victorious Americans, who never forgot their wrongdoings in support of the British. Cornplanter defended his nation and clan with calmness and resolve. This led more aggressive leaders like Red Jacket to criticize him and strongly oppose land sales, hoping to improve their own standing among the clans.

                                                           The  Senecas and the rest of the 

                                                                Six Nations stood down

A Moderate Influence

The Ohio (Northwest) Territory ignited with conflict as tribes along the Ohio River grew restless over American expansion and British interference. These tribes formed a Great Confederation led by figures like Little Turtle and initially achieved victory, notably defeating an American army led by Revolutionary War General Arthur St. Clair in 1791.

 Due to his reputation and prowess as a warrior, the new American government appointed him to represent them in negotiations with the tribes at a major peace conference, known as the Council on the Auglaize. However, Cornplanter and other moderate native leaders were unsuccessful. 

The fierce fighting persisted until former Revolutionary War leader Anthony Wayne defeated the confederation at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, leading the Ohio tribes to sign a peace treaty at the Treaty of Greenville. In recognition of his efforts to unite the western tribes, Pennsylvania rewarded Cornplanter with a large land grant on the Allegheny River.

    Treaty of Greeneville settled Indian Affairs 

in the Northwest Territory

Smoking the War Pipe

With the outbreak of war with Britain in 1812, the now elderly Chief Cornplanter offered his services to the United States but was refused. However, his son, Henry O’Bail, served with some distinction. Cornplanter, one of the fiercest Seneca warriors, lived peacefully on his land grant for another two decades.

                                                   Monument to Chief of the Wolf Clan

When he died on February 18, 1836, the great war chief was widely mourned as a man of peace. Many decades later, in 1871, Pennsylvania chose to honor the noble Seneca by erecting a marble shrine on his grave as a symbol of respect and admiration.