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Winning the West with Words
Language and Conquest in the Lower Great Lakes
By James Joseph Buss UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
Copyright © 2011 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-5040-6
CHAPTER 1
"A Peace, Sincere and Lasting"
Treaties and the Eroding Language of the Middle Ground
The clearing of the middle ground happened in the American imagination long before it took place in practice. American officials had not always intended on pushing Indians westward; initially they sought to create a boundary between white and Indian spaces. Before the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, American officials and Indian leaders were even willing to compromise and accept each other's customs of diplomacy, but by the end of the War of 1812, American leaders (especially western ones) decided that cooperation ultimately impeded their goal of acquiring land and advancing white settlement. At the second Treaty of Greenville, concluded in 1814, federal agents no longer wished to accommodate Native interpretations of their mutual relationship. While physical violence had come to characterize this period, Native leaders and American diplomats also engaged in a war of words that helped shape the following 150 years of white and Indian history.
Almost two decades ago, the preeminent western historian Patricia Nelson Limerick argued that the "process of invasion, conquest, and colonization was the kind of activity that provoked shiftiness in verbal behavior." For American diplomats and Indian leaders, treaty councils emerged as places where language and history mattered. These councils also provide historians with a place to trace a shiftiness in language that shaped the place-stories written by later Americans. To gauge the role of historical interpretation in shaping this relationship, we must first briefly explore American Indian policy in the years that preceded the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.
When violence erupted between Indians and Kentuckians along the Ohio River in the 1780s, Secretary of War Henry Knox acknowledged that Indians possessed "the right of the soil," which prevented the United States from taking land without the Indians' "free consent, or by the right of conquest in case of a just war." He demanded that the United States "be influenced by reason" and formulate an Indian policy that adhered to the "fundamental laws of nature." By 1790, Knox had come to believe that the United States must accept the premise of an indigenous right to the soil as outlined by the Treaty of Fort Harmar. The treaty extended additional rights to Indians as it established a policy of punishing settlers who ignored boundaries and crossed onto Indian lands. Knox pushed American politicians to consider Indian policy as a diplomatic issue rather than a domestic problem. Early Americans were unwilling to conduct their national experiment on an unjust acquisition of Indian lands. Instead, they turned toward Enlightenment fundamentals of justice in their push for expansion. These ideas informed the treaty councils that followed.
The council proceedings at Greenville in 1795 provided American officials the opportunity to gain legitimacy by exhibiting magnanimity in partaking in Native council ceremonies and accepting Native practices as equally lawful as their own. Americans also sought to gain the trust of Native leaders by acting in an honorable and benevolent fashion during the proceedings. Federal officials demanded that their western representatives to the councils set a positive example for their soldiers, white settlers, and Indians by stressing the principles of truth and honesty. Secretary of War Timothy Pickering instructed the head American official at Greenville, General Anthony Wayne, to make the Indians feel at "perfect liberty to speak their sentiments" and insisted that "a rigid adherence to truth" should govern the proceedings. Thereby, federal authorities hoped that this council would serve as a new model for future Indian relations and legitimize American claims.
Many historians argue that little true negotiating took place at Greenville, but this view of the treaty council underplays the vital role that Native leaders took in shaping a shared historical memory for the region. Stressing the treaty as the beginning of America's lust for Indian lands, too many scholars ignore the subtle moves made by both sides in defining their delicate relationship with one another. Leaders on both sides saw that the treaty offered a new beginning and marked an opportunity for Americans and Indians to construct a shared space where they could both live in peace. In other words, American officials at the negotiations in Greenville were willing to allow Native leaders a voice in crafting a future direction for Indian-white relations.
Indian leaders entered the treaty talks at Greenville with a set of expectations based on their previous experiences with European diplomats. Native people had not always engaged in treaties, and the written compacts certainly had not always served as the basis for their relationship with others—economic systems of trade, intermarriages, and exchanges of gifts in ceremonies of reciprocity guided daily life much more than words inked on parchment. When they wished to befriend their indigenous neighbors in the years before American hegemony, European agents routinely had engaged in practices other than treaty councils. Often these included an incorporation of Native customs and practices into calls for assistance or alliance. For example, when he met Indian leaders in their villages during the American Revolution, British general Henry Hamilton presented each chief with a war belt made of wampum and demonstrated his understanding of Indian culture by dancing for them as he "sung the War Song." In return, Native leaders accommodated Europeans by accepting Euro-American forms of negotiation, such as recognizing an authority for written documents.
If American officials demanded that Indian chiefs acknowledge the power of written texts, they were willing at first to respect the authority of indigenous protocols and ceremonies such as the exchange of wampum and extended oratory. At the same time, Native leaders at Greenville initially voiced concerns about using past treaties as the basis for new ones. Federal officials acknowledged that many of the tribes present at Greenville had not participated in the earlier treaties, and they urged Wayne to base the new treaty on a "full representation of all nations" of the Great Lakes. Nevertheless, Wayne continued to insist that the old treaties be given reverence. He carried several massive volumes with him to Greenville that contained the copies of every previous treaty signed between Indians and the United States (and many of the treaties signed between the tribes and the British government). Native American leaders capitalized on Wayne's willingness to acknowledge the indigenous right to possess land, enumerated in the older treaties, and persuaded him to acknowledge their own right to relinquish more.
Indian leaders clearly understood the obsession of Americans with the authority of texts and tried to use them, when they could, to advance their own agendas. Some Indian chiefs appeared at treaty councils bearing their own copies of older treaties and letters written by American officials. They hoped that if they recognized an American reliance on the written word, American officials would reciprocate by recognizing their customs of diplomacy. Chippewa chief Masass brought his own copy of the Treaty of Fort Harmar with him to Greenville and tried to use it for leverage in gaining Wayne's graces. The Americans had not even invited Masass to the council. But the Chippewa chief insisted on attending; he believed that his presence at the signing of earlier treaties (such as the Treaty of Fort Harmar) gave him personal insights into the history of the documents. Miami chief Little Turtle likewise produced written texts in an attempt to win Wayne's favor. He presented the general with papers given to him by George Washington that guaranteed Indians the "enjoyment" of their hunting grounds and protection from whites who attempted to purchase Indian lands. Wyandot chief Tarhe (or the Crane) quoted a letter that he had received from Washington, in which the president promised to "defend his dutiful children from any injury that may be attempted against them." Tarhe went as far as to suggest that he would notify the president if he suspected the Americans at Greenville of any wrongdoings.
Native leaders also wanted their participation at the treaty council to be preserved in writing for future councils. The day after presenting Wayne with the letter from George Washington, Tarhe produced a written copy of his speech, insisting that the commander attach it to the official treaty proceedings. Conceivably, Tarhe was trying to prevent white translators from manipulating his words, but more likely, the Wyandot chief was working to demonstrate his willingness to participate in American forms of negotiation and recognize the authority of texts. In this way, Indian leaders throughout the negotiations used their knowledge of American diplomatic practices to advance their positions and demand respect.
Claiming too much knowledge of the past, however, could get one in trouble. Masass perhaps too closely tied himself to the Treaty of Fort Harmar. Wayne praised the Chippewa chief's "open and generous manner" and "honest, open, and manly heart" in front of the other chiefs, but such accolades drew the ire of chiefs who competed for Wayne's attention. Native leaders squabbled among themselves over who had the authority to claim ownership of the lower Great Lakes and sign the new treaty. Little Turtle, leader of the Indian confederation that crushed armies under Colonel Josiah Harmar and territorial governor Arthur St. Clair, said that, although he was "ignorant" of the proceedings at Fort Harmar, he believed the new commitment should not be based on the previous one.
As Indian chiefs supported Little Turtle and cursed the old treaty as unjust and illegal, indigenous leaders who had so adamantly linked themselves to the agreement found themselves at odds with neighboring tribal leaders. Masass, who twenty-four hours earlier boasted about his attendance at the previous council, quickly made an about-face and claimed that his Wyandot uncles had ordered him to sign the treaty, even though he did not fully understand what it had said. He blamed bad American interpreters for misleading him, which, he argued, was the reason that this time he brought his own Franco-American interpreters to Greenville.
Masass quickly abandoned his proclaimed faith in the document itself, complaining that Delaware and Wyandot villages had received few of the annuities promised to them in the Fort Harmar agreement. Additionally, he pulled a wampum belt from his bag and showed it to the council. The written treaty may have represented the details of the annuities, he argued, but the belt symbolized something more—the promise of friendship forged between Americans and Indians. Masass tried to play the political middleman, speaking to both sides—first bowing to Wayne's demands and then criticizing American policies to gain status among his own people. He also spoke from two different perspectives—one rigidly guided by written treaties and a second based on oral storytelling and wampum. In essence, he tried to balance two competing methods for recording the past.
Oral histories were central to indigenous society; communities constituted rich linguistic locations where leaders rose to power based on oratorical ability. Tribal and intertribal dialogue centered on debate and openness, rather than the relatively closed system of discourse encouraged by Americans. When they met in closed tribal councils, Indian leaders accepted advice from elders, councilors, and female chiefs. Elders at Delaware councils sat behind the main body "and when necessary" spoke up to explain "the proceedings of any previous council." Shawnee tribal councils appointed women as war and peace chiefs who would often lend their advice to "prevent the unnecessary efussion [sic] of blood." Robert Yagelski has argued that the "variety of narrative devices" employed by Indian diplomats at treaty negotiations "suggest that only the best storytellers in a tribe were sent to negotiate multicultural alliances." Conversely, American negotiators entered treaty councils with strict instructions from their superiors and often merely repeated their demands over the course of occasional month long negotiations.
When they engaged Indian leaders in rhetorical contests during councils, American officials entered into an unfamiliar dialogue where they were forced to recognize that talented Indian speakers outmatched them. Americans often responded by mimicking Indian uses of metaphor and storytelling, especially when it came to the language of fictive kinship. Indians and Europeans had long used ideas of fictive kinship networks to describe everything from economic trade to political negotiation in the lower Great Lakes. Indian communities often assigned each other kinship titles that represented their roles within a larger fictive network. For example, the Delawares considered the Shawnees as their grandchildren and demanded respect from them; in return, the Shawnees expected their grandfathers to protect them and advise them during councils. Sometimes these fictive networks manifested themselves in the physical orientation of council proceedings. At Greenville, the Shawnee chief Blue Jacket made a point of switching seats in order to sit next to his Delaware grandfathers and Wyandot uncles. For the most part, kinship monikers were meant to describe mutual obligations rather than an actual spatial orientation.
The chiefs first tried to establish a fictive kinship with Wayne at the Treaty of Greenville, even as the general tried to "speak Indian." Wayne opened nearly every day of talks by telling the chiefs that the United States wished to "take them by the hand." This figurative gesture might have symbolized a military alliance, an extension of aid, a sign of equality, or the hand of a father guiding or protecting his children—the details of indigenous metaphors used during council meetings were often negotiable. And they probably expected that it meant something important. Considering that Native orators were often important members of their communities, there is little reason to believe that Indian leaders viewed Wayne as anything less than a powerful agent of the U.S. government. But powerful American negotiator did not necessarily translate into omnipotent sovereign. Why would Indians recognize him as anything more than equal? Through a horribly ethnocentric and teleological lens, modern onlookers have concluded that Indians were simply enamored by Wayne's military prowess.
Chief Te-ta-boksh-ke was the first to recognize Wayne as his fictive "brother." For the Delaware leader, the title signified an equal relationship. Within the larger fictive kinship network, brothers held relatively equal obligations, but modifiers were often added to intimately describe the responsibilities of each party. Most of the Indian chiefs at the council called Wayne their "elder brother," slightly altering the relationship. Older brothers could demand respect from their younger siblings, but elder family members also held an additional obligation to protect their younger family members in the same way that uncles, fathers, or grandfathers held much stronger obligations toward protecting and guiding their younger nephews, children, or grandchildren. The details of the relationship between Wayne (the elder brother) and the gathered Indians (his younger siblings) were open to interpretation. Thus Wayne and the Indian leaders spent much of the negotiations trying to define the obligations of this relationship. Despite the insistence of modern scholars that no real negotiation went on at the Treaty of Greenville, Indian use of the title of "brother" implied that they were not willing to concede wholly to the Americans. Instead, Native leaders attempted to use the council to renegotiate their position with the Americans. In many ways they succeeded, but Wayne and the American leaders at Greenville understood little about the extralegal and cultural obligations to which they agreed when they accepted their roles as fictive brothers.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Winning the West with Words by James Joseph Buss. Copyright © 2011 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
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