Farmers and Native Americans

Like many kids of my generation, I grew up playing Cowboys and Indians. What better pastime for a growing child? Such glorious times! Such winsome adventures! Whether waving a six-shooter or slinging arrows, nothing we dreamt of doing could possibly be so exciting!

As tender five and six-year-olds, we were equalitarians, proud to wear either the headgear of our colorful, floppy feathers, or a snug, string-tied-under-our-chin cowboy hat. We cared not a whit what team we were on. Both sides afforded a worthy protagonist and noble adversary. The truth was we weren’t exactly sure where our heritage lay. Had our families once been Cowboys or Indians? Who knew? It was all a bit murky. Cowboys had guns, which were advantageous, but Indians lived surrounded by trees, and that suited me best. Alternating between the two sides allowed us to take advantage of all available merits. The important thing was that Cowboys and Indians had to keep fighting each other. And that was just fine!

By the time my children came along, playing Cowboys and Indians had passed out of fashion. We no longer used the term “Indian” (having finally caught on that Columbus had failed to discover India). If you were intent on reliving the aforementioned outdated game, you would need to play Cowboys and Native Americans. But that phrase just sounded wrong! You could almost picture cowboys and their native neighbors sitting at a campfire together, joking around and sharing a meal. Sigh. Where was the drama in that? Better to hang up the feathers and cowboy hats altogether.

Actually, the term “cowboy” was a misnomer since most settlers who skirmished with native populations were farmers. You know as well as I do that playing Farmers and Native Americans just wan’t going to happen. What would kids do? Plant corn?

The Steeles and other Valley men who fought the Shawnee at Point Pleasant and Fallen Timbers were mostly farmers. Some Valley men raised horses and cattle, but they weren’t western-styled cowboys. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, ranchers west of the Appalachians raised cattle mostly for their own needs or for the local market. Further west, landowners employed help on big ranches, and these low-paid employees were known as cowboys, but they weren’t exactly fighters. They might defend cattle against raids if necessary, but they had little time or energy left over from the grueling work of ranching to tangle with Indians. In the more open territories even further west and in Texas, cowboys rounded up free-roaming cattle for branding and driving to markets, and sometimes skirmished with various tribes, but this era of cowboys roaming the range proved to be quite short. Cowboys, as we undestood them as children, weren’t needed for much of our history. Sure, the demand for beef increased after the Civil War but by the1880s, barbed wire had put an end to open grazing and the era of the roaming cowboy came to an end. A significant number of American Indians worked as cowboys by the end of the century. Most armed conflicts occurred between Native people and cavalry units. Even in my generation, few kids would be callous enough to play Soldiers and Native Americans.

My entire generation lived in denial of this historical fact. My friends and I played Cowboys and Indians based on false information. We implicitly trusted the movies! We trusted movies created by adults! But then again, we grew up in a time of political incorrectness. When I think back on the wild skirmishes in my backyard, I’m grateful that a whole chunk of my childhood remained hidden within a glamorous, daring, glorious lie.

Don’t judge me. I’m still evolving as a person.

Having grown up on Westerns, I would’ve found all this historically accurate information confusing as a child. Not to mention disappointing! To make life even duller for my former child-self, Native Americans were also farmers. In addition, they raised horses, but not cattle, and milled corn and acorns, but not wheat. Women—can we bring them in here—cooked and sewed, and tended children and the elderly. Both men and women, whether Native American or Valley Presbyterian, took religion seriously. Family and the need for a peaceful community were paramount to both populations. Native Americans and settlers shared many commonalities. They didn’t spend much time fighting, at least not in the Valley.

Although few tribes kept permanent villages in the Shenandoah Valley, many different tribes used the land, which was abundant with water and wildlife. Hunters burnt the fields every autumn to keep them open for bison and deer. When European immigrants began to trickle down from Pennsylvania into the open fields and woodlands of the Valley, they weren’t greeted with open hostility by native hunters. Valley folk and their native neighbors might’ve been wary of each other but they seldom fought.

Robert Steele must’ve learned to trap and hunt from his native neighbors. The Steeles, like all the newcomers to the Valley, had to learn to trap and hunt in order to survive in their new homeland. Most likely, Robert came to know his native neighbors quickly, learning at a malleable age the skills that his father and uncles didn't learn back in Ireland because they had no need for such skills. Settlers learned many survival skills from their native neighbors, including what crops to grow—corn, squash, beans, potatoes and tomatoes, plants that originated in the New World. Robert Steele lived for a time in a wigwam on the banks of a fork of the South River, on land that would become part of Greenville. How could he build a wigwam without first having had a native acquaintance?

During Robert’s lifetime, the semi-cooperative situation between settlers and the original hunters and farmers of the Valley came to an end. The Shawnee and other tribes that had lived in the Valley quietly slipped over the Appalachians, abandoning the Valley. European settlers continued to penetrate the unsettled backcountry where conflicts between Native Americans and settlers intensified. People in the Valley knew many of these western immigrants and the reports that reached back to them of the dangers and difficulties their friends and family faced with the native populations fueled a growing sense of anger and dread. Even though attacks from Indians had always been rare in the Valley, settlers began to build protective fences around their homes and erect thick-walled timbered and stone homes and churches to serve as fortresses. Most Valley men never left home without their gun.

Okay, so once in a writing group in Vermont, I shared a story about the Steeles, and the teacher shouted, “But they stole the land!” She volunteered that no one would want to know my family’s story. “No one in New York will publish this!” Which is weird, right? Why would we want to bury our history? So we can punish our forebears? So we can feel righteous and enlightened? This is the gift of being a southerner, I suppose. Southerners can’t pretend away our history. It’s too present in our geography. Through knowing our past, we discover that people are peculiar, both then and now. We know the potential for the dark and not-so-dark within us all. The weird glue that binds everyone together makes us need to remember our history, not forget it.

The Shawnee had long kept a village near Staunton, but their numbers were never large, and eventually they left the area. As the years passed, Indian sightings became rare, which might explain why a band of Shawnee traveling single-file through the Valley in 1759 in the style of warriors spooked some settlers. The Shawnee party was traveling home to the Ohio Valley after fighting their ancient enemy the Cherokee in North Carolina. A group of Valley men decided to pursue the Shawnee. When they realized they were being followed, the warriors turned to ambush the settlers. A colonial militia retaliated by chasing the Shawnee out of the Valley.

A small band broke off from the larger group, and doubled back to attack the settlement at Kerr’s Creek, reputedly a favorite hunting spot of the Shawnee before the arrival of white settlers, located about twenty miles southwest of Steeles Tavern. I picture these Shawnee as young men, longing to prove their valor and vindicate their forefathers. Young men who wouldn’t listen to the wisdom of their elders. Hot heads. Gang members. The kind of young men who might end up in jail today. This small band of Shawnee attacked and killed about twelve settlers, scalping many, and taking another thirteen captive. This tragedy shook the Valley, as you might imagine. But the massacre was repeated several years later as part of a larger war organized by the Ottawa chief, Pontiac. These men weren’t young hooligans. The leader of the group was the famous Cornstalk, respected by his people and many other tribes as well as the British and French. This second attack on Kerri’s Creek was no random act of violence.

A settler out hunting spied an encampment from the top of a hill. Someone else saw moccasin tracks in a cornfield. One day, William Gilmore turned toward the mountains to scout for Indians and warriors shot him. They swooped down on the women and children. Terrified, people ran in every direction, trying to hide. The Shawnee killed everyone in their path. Some fled for the spring pond, hiding in the weeds and water. The warriors pursued and killed them, tossing their bodies into the pond. Over thirty Shawnee fought against a hundred settlers that day. Many of the settlers were unarmed women and children. Margaret Cunningham, who survived a scalping during the first raid on Kerr’s Creek, was captured in the second raid, along with James, Betsy, and Henry Cunningham. Archibald and Marian Hamilton were also taken. The Shawnees marched their captives toward the Ohio River. Captives who later returned told of that terrible march, during which an infant was impaled on a spear and left as a threat to pursuers.

I think of wars as caused by broad strokes between nations, not by personal vendettas. But as I read about the Kerr’s Creek Massacre, a few names kept turning up. The fates of Cornstalk and his son, Black Wolf, and the Gilmore and Moore families seemed to be deeply entwined. Their retributive actions influenced a series of events that spanned many years. The hostilities between the Valley settlers and the Shawnee resembled the Hatfields and McCoys, only a lot bloodier.

These stories were later told to children, repeated through the first few generations. I doubt very much that these kids played Cowboys and Indians. The stakes were too high, the images too terrifying. It would be like pretending to be a school shooter with your friends huddled under their desks. Terror in the Valley fueled the call for soldiers to fight at Point Pleasant and Fallen Timbers. Skirmishes lead to outright war.

Thomas Gilmore died at Kerr’s Creek. His wife, Jenny, was captured with their son, James, and their two daughters. The deaths and capture of members of the Gilmore family played a large part in the ensuing hostilities between early settlers and the Shawnee in the Ohio Valley. Men from the Shenandoah Valley enlisted and fought at Point Pleasant because of the Massacre at Kerr’s Creek. Cornstalk was murdered long after his surrender at Point Pleasant by a member of the Gilmore family. This murder prompted the massacre of the Moore family in Abbs Valley by Cornstalk’s son, Black Wolf. The Abbs Valley Massacre created incentive for Valley men to fight at Fallen Timbers, which turned out to be the pivotal battle that opened Ohio to western expansion.

The Battle of Point Pleasant occurred because the United States government insisted that it had the right to occupy lands that had been gained in battle with the English—even though Britain had recognized the land as belonging to the Native Americans. This is what happened: In 1768, the Iroquois had agreed to give up the land east and west of the Ohio River, but the Shawnee, Mingo, and Delaware, who actually lived on the land, had not signed the treaty and were furious when settlers began moving into the area. They rejected the idea that the British or Americans could dispose of their tribal lands without their consent. In 1774, The Virginia Governor, Lord Dunmore, sent a thousand troops west to put down an uprising in the Ohio Valley that occurred after the broken treaty. At first reluctant to fight the English, the Shawnee leader, Cornstalk, eventually decided to send a thousand troops to meet colonial forces.

Many Valley men fought at the Battle of Point Pleasant, including the Steeles. In August of 1774, they joined six hundred volunteers of Augusta County and marched to the Ohio River. It was a slow and difficult journey. The fifty-four thousand pounds of provisions they brought along with them had to be carried on five hundred pack horses. The caravan averaged eight miles a day. Even though the land was teaming with deer and other wildlife, the soldiers brought along over a hundred head of cattle so that the men would have something to eat! On Oct 10, 1774, the colonial troops fought the followers of Cornstalk at the Battle of Point Pleasant. The English drove Cornstalk’s followers north across the Ohio River. Dunmore pursued them and forced a treaty. The Shawnee gave up all their lands east and north of the Ohio River.

The Moore and Steele families fought in the Battle of Point Pleasant. Twenty-two-year old John Steele (Robert’s cousin) was wounded and about to be scalped by two Indians when his friend, William Moore (brother to Polly Moore Steele, wife of the Revolutionary soldier, David, with the hole in his head), rescued John by shooting one of the warriors, and knocking the other one down with his rifle. John Steele was a big man, but William Moore shouldered him to safety and saved his life. Afterwards, John liked to say of William, “There was no other man in the army who could have done it, if he would; and no other who would have done it if he could.”

Do the descendants of the Shawnee men who William Moore shot or knocked down know about this story? Do their families tell such a tale?

After the defeat at Point Pleasant, Cornstalk used his considerable influence to maintain peaceful ties with the settlers. But Blue Jacket, another Shawnee leader, rallied his forces and decided to strike the fort. Cornstalk traveled to Point Pleasant to warn the commander. For this act of peace, Cornstalk was detained, a decision that deeply troubled the Shawnee, with good reason.

Among the soldiers at the fort were men from the Shenandoah Valley under the command of Capt. James Hall. Hall was connected by marriage to the Gilmore family who had died or been abducted during the Kerr’s Creek massacres. While hunting outside the fort the day after Cornstalk’s arrival, Robert Gilmore, a Valley soldier under Hall’s command, was killed and scalped by a Shawnee. Enraged by Gilmore’s death, Hall and a few of his men broke down the door and killed Cornstalk, his son Elinipsico, and two other Shawnee. Although Cornstalk’s murder was condemned by Gov. Patrick Henry, James Hall and his men were never convicted because no one would testify against them. Cornstalk’s surviving son, Black Wolf, brooded over this injustice.

Samuel Moore had previoulsy settled in the Shenandoah Valley. He should’ve stayed put. But he relocated to Abbs Valley, about two-hundred miles southwest of Steeles Tavern. The beautiful grasses of the Abbs Valley were ideal for raising Moore’s horses—and he owned hundreds of them. But few people had settled in the area. Moore’s farm was isolated, exposed, and so very tempting—what with all those horses! Samuel Moore knew the dangers. He knew he couldn’t defend his family against a marauding band of Shawnee with only a few hired help. Didn't he?

Samuel Moore had fought at Point Pleasant (along with other Moore men who are kin to me). As Black Wolf made plans to revenge his father and brother, Moore’s farm seemed perfectly situated for a successful attack. Young Mary Moore was outside in the yard, standing by the fence calling the two reapers in the field to breakfast. Her father Capt. Samuel Moore was in the field salting the horses. When the Shawnee attacked, Mary ran to the house. James Moore was shot down and killed. The Shawnee forced their way into the house and took the family captive, along with a visiting friend, Mary Evans. (The Evans were kin to the Steeles.) Two children died on the long trek to Ohio. Martha Moore and her daughter, Jane, were tortured and killed in a Shawnee village. Mary Moore remained captive for three years until her brother, Samuel, gained his freedom, and along with Thomas Evans, rescued both Mary and Martha Evans.

After her return, Mary Moore lived with her maternal grandparents in the Shenandoah Valley. She married Rev. Samuel Brown, the pastor of New Providence Church, which is located a few miles from Steeles Tavern. Both David and his son, Robert Steele, are buried at Providence. All through her life, Mary Moore Brown continued to experience terrible nightmares about her experiences as a captive. Her husband built her an adult-sized cradle to rock her to sleep. The cradle is now housed at the Historical Society in Lexington.

Some years after the Abbs Valley massacre, the Shawnee chief, Blue Jacket, rallied a confederation of forces to fight against the newly established American calvary. The Battle of Fallen Timbers ensued. Blue Jacket took a defensive position along the Maumee River near where a stand of trees had been blown down by a storm. The Shawnee thought the trees would slow the advance of the Americans. Robert Steele’s two sons, William and John, died in the battle that unfolded by the stand of fallen trees. William Steele, and his friend, Thomas Moon, rode as point men for the new American army. They rode along the shores of the Maumee River and were shot from their saddles by Shawnee lying in wait. Their deaths began the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Soldiers then attacked the Shawnee with a bayonet charge. Outflanked, Blue Jacket's warriors fled.

The Shawnee defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers opened the Northwest Territory for white settlement. But the Indian Wars didn’t end with Fallen Timbers. Tecumseh, a young Shawnee veteran of Fallen Timbers, refused to sign any new treaties that he considered unfair. He became the primary leader of a large, multi-tribal confederacy dedicated to repelling the Americans from the Old Northwest Territory. During the War of 1812, Tecumseh formed an alliance with the British. He died during the war, and after his death, the alliances he’d created collapsed. Within a few years, the remaining tribal lands in the Old Northwest were ceded to the United States. Most American Indians moved west, across the Mississippi River. People in the Shenandoah Valley seldom saw their former native neighbors again.

I grew up in the West End of Richmond in a neighborhood of tidy, brick ranch homes built after World War II. The streets were named after Santa’s reindeer. Ours was Comet. My house was situated on the top of a black, asphalted hill, and I often road my bike, which I thought of as my horse, down Comet, past Dancer and Donder to Rudolph. I rode down my hill with the wind in my hair. Over and over again.

Our neighborhood was known as Tuckahoe, a plant used by Native Americans as an excellent source of starch. I never understood why a neighborhood with an Indian name would have reindeer-themed roads, but childhood was like that, wasn’t it? Not a lot made sense.

Leaving my neighborhood, I soon came to Three Chopt Road, an ancient Indian trail named for the three hatchet marks struck upon the tree’s bark in order to designate the trail. I could never find these marks, and assumed the Indians no longer needed them since the road was paved. Indians were everywhere in my childhood. They dwelt in the woods behind my house, and beneath and between every tree in my backyard. My dad leant me his old army tent for the backyard, which I used as my base camp. After sleeping out in the tent, I ate strawberries and carrots straight out of my mom’s garden. In the woods behind my house, I built wigwams. I searched for arrowheads in the dirt. I was a semi-wild child, at least in my head. I felt held together by reindeer and surrounded by neighborly Indians, a mysterious but generally friendly situation, which is how I would sum up much of my early childhood.

If you go east out of Steeles Tavern, you come to a ravine where a group of Native Americans once lived. I don’t remember their tribal name but they weren’t Shawnee. I’ve heard that their descendants still gather there for reunions—two hundred years after their families left the Valley. They don’t have family houses to visit like I do, but they must remember the babbling creek that flows across smooth, river rocks, and the noisy birds and scampering squirrels perched in the tall, shady trees.

Contact: barbarahawpelewis@gmail.com