I was talking with a friend and he asked me (apparently someone had told him this) if George Washington had ever ordered an Indian tribe to be wiped out? He said he tried to research it and came up with nothing.
I’ve never heard of him doing such a thing, though that doesn’t mean anything. I know that Jackson later did some rather bad stuff to the Native Americans, but that’s another kettle of fish.
Has anyone heard of evidence that such a thing happened, or is this some kind of PC, “Dead White Male” bashing?
Apparently many of the Mohawk sided with the British in the Revolutionary War, which means they were treated by the Continental Army no better than the white Loyalists were, i.e., badly. But General Washington was not in command of this campaign:
Washington’s main dealings with Native Americans during his presidency had to do with the federal government’s assumption from the states of the right to negotiate treaties with the Indian nations. Specifically he oversaw the negotiation of a treaty with the Creek nation, which had been hostile to white settlers.
The Iroquois still consider this an act of depredation–notwithstanding that it was a response to the Iroquois supporting the British with warriors. Iroquois were among the troops led by Butler the year previously that massacred many of the inhabitants of the Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, in a joint Loyalist/Indian raid. (While the Loyalists were treated badly by those favoring independence, they also participated in their share of brutality.) The Iroquois had also participated with the British in both of the battles at Saratoga in the two years before that, in each case raiding settlers’ farms who were not involved with the fighting. (One of the most notorious incidents involved the murder of a young Loyalist woman after her “capture” prior to the first Battle of Saratoga.)
Washington also authorized the taking of (some) Iroquois lands during his presidency, but I have not found a citation in a quick search.
On Washington’s presidency, Samuel Eliot Morison (1965) wrote:
"Washington and Congress were as deeply concerned over Indian as over European relations. In a number of presidential messages and congressional laws, certain basic principles for dealing with the Indians, inherited from the old colonial system, were laid down: (1) The Indians’ lands should be guaranteed to them by solemn treaties, and land purchases therefrom prohibited, except by the federal government; (2) promotion of federally regulated and controlled Indian trade; (3) white people be punished for abusing Indians, and they for attacking whites; (4) Indians living on their own lands not to be taxed or considered citizens of the United States, to govern themselves by tribal law but to be welcomed as citizens if they chose to settle among white people . . .
“The President it must be admitted, first broke his own principles by attempting, without Indian consent, to build a fort at the principal village of the Maumee, in order to counteract British influence [in the Northwest Territory]. This was entrusted to General Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory. At the head of some 2000 troops, including the entire regular army, St. Clair jumped off from Fort Washington at the site of Cincinnati in the fall of 1791. On 4 November, when only a few miles short of his destination (the site of Fort Wayne, Indiana) his force was surprised and routed by the Indians, and suffered over 900 casualties.”
After Braddock’s death, he successfully directed the retreat out of western Pennsylvania. I am not aware of any other serious action in which he engaged in that war and none of the skirmishes would have resulted in the destruction of an entire tribe (or even village) even on the rare occasions when he was on the winning side. I have never heard of any atrocities against indians associated with the campaign against Fort Duquesne.
I’m pretty sure that any association between Washington and the “wiping out” of a tribe would have been the Sullivan campaign of 1779. This site includes a contempoary assessment of the orders Washington gave and the way in which Sullivan carried out the orders:
I still have not turned up any information about Washington’s relations with the Iroquois while he was president. I now suspect that what I vaguely remembered was simply a “coldness” in his relations with them following the war (perhaps including a rebuff of any requests for asistance, I’m not sure).
[hijack?] I have no idea whether or not Washington was a war criminal by today’s definition. He and the other revolutionaries were, by almost any definition, criminals. They were guilty of the crime of treason in fomenting and waging war against their lawful and God-given sovereign. Those who didn’t actually participate in battle at least were guilty of giving aid and comfort to the lawful government’s enemies.
Fortunately for them, they won and the winners get to write the histories.[/hijack?]