By the time of our War for Independence, the indigenous populations of the East Coast had suffered greatly as they came in contact with European settlers. They were dispossessed of their land and pushed violently westward, and lost their homelands, cultural traditions and in many cases their lives. Treaty after treaty was agreed upon between the British Government and the indigenous populations to buy land, set borders, proffer protections and secure laws.
Time and again these treaties were broken including the 1678 Treaty of Casco in Massachusetts, the 1722 Treaty of Albany in New York, the 1758 Treaty of Easton in Pennsylvania, and the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which set the Appalachian mountains as the western border of European expansion.
During the American Revolution, both the Patriots and the British offered enticements to the Lenape, now living in the western Pennsylvania and Ohio territories, for their suppoert. The Treaty at Fort Pitt in 1778 was one of these enticements.
The Treaty of Fort Pitt was signed on September 17, 1778, was the first formal written treaty between the newly established United States and an American Indian Nation, The Delaware Indians.
In exchange for allowing the Continental Army to pass through their land and providing warriors for the patriotic efforts, the Lenape were given promises of trade goods, the construction of a protective fort and the promise of a 14th state entirely populated by indigenous persons.
Detail of a Topographical Plan of that part of the Indian-Country through which the Army under the Command of Colonel Bouquet marched, 1764
Not all the Lenape were convinced that supporting the American cause was in their best interest. Chief Koquethagechton (White Eyes) and Chief Gelelemend (Captain John Killbuck Jr.), aligned with the Patriots while Chief Hopocan (Captain Pipe) believed that both the Patriot forces and encroaching settlers were the greatest threat to Native lands. Though Captain Pipe initially agreed to the treaty, he and his followers remained suspicious.
In November 1778, shortly after the treaty signing, Chief White Eyes was killed under suspicious circumstances. While Americans reported he had died of smallpox, historical accounts suggest he was murdered by American militiamen.
The assassination shattered the Lenape’s trust in the United States and triggered a deep political and strategic division within the Lenape Nation. Chief Killbuck tried to salvage the alliance while Chief Pipe sided with the British. Setting brother against brother.
Topographical Plan of that part of the Indian-Country through which the Army under the Command of Colonel Bouquet marched, 1764
Captain John Montour, a supporter of Chief Killbuck's diplomatic efforts, formed a group of Delaware Warriors to fight for the Patriots in June of 1780. Montour, part Delaware and part Oneida, was born in 1744 and was educated at the Philadelphia Academy where he learned to read, write and speak English. His father, Andrew Montour (half Oneida), had been interpreter and liaison for George Washington before the Revolution. His Mother, the first wife of Andrew Montour, was Madelina, the granddaughter of the Delaware leader Allumappees .
Academy and College of Philadelphia, a c. 1780 sketch by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere when the new building (left) was erected in 1740; the dormitory (right) was erected 25 years later, in 1765.
Montour left Philadelphia by 1762 with his father, moving first to Shamokin on the Susquehanna River and later to an island, named Montour’s Island, about five miles below the forks of the Ohio.
Montour's life story reflects the troubled place the indigenous people found themselves in during the Revolution. Caught between a rock and hard place.
George Washington’s sketch map of the country he traversed in 1753-4
In 1774, Montour and Chief White Eyes, accompanied Lord Dunmore during his assault on the Shawnee. In the fall of 1775 during the Pittsburgh Treaty, Montour served as an interpreter during an investigation into an attack on White Mingo, one of the important chiefs in attendance.
John Frost, “Battle of Point Pleasant,” Thrilling adventures among the Indians (Boston: L. P. Crown & Co., 1854). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
In 1776, Montour chose a side. While on a diplomatic mission on behalf of Congress to invite the Wyandot tribe to the Pittsburgh Treaty, his party was confronted by British Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton. Hamilton tore up the letter from Congress, insulted Chief White Eyes and ordered him to leave Detroit without delay. However, Hamilton welcomed Montour who he said “brought me a great Belt of friendship addressed to his Majesty by the Delaware Nation."
Montour remained in the northern Ohio area along the Sandusky River for the next year-and-a-half openly supporting the British.
Capture of fort Vincennes with General Hamilton
It was a great surprise, then, to the British when in January of 1778, John Montour helped three rebel prisoners escape from Fort Detroit. Likely Montour did it to help one prisoner in particular, his close friend, John Dodge. They were pursued and recaptured. Montour was confined but eventually released.
Montour’s imprisonment turned him against the British. In June 1778, Montour had returned to the Delaware villages on the Muskingum River speaking in favor of the United States and against Hamilton.
Montour did not stay long with the Delaware, instead he moved to the Sandusky River Valley to live with the Wyandot. When the Wyandot's chose to support the British in 1779, rather than alienate his hosts Montour joined in a siege of the American Fort Laurens. However, the Wynadot soon tired of attacking the Americans with no support from the British, so on May 28, 1779, they sent Montour as their emissary to Coshocton with the news that the Wyandot were willing to make peace with the Americans
The new military commander at Fort Pitt, Colonel Daniel Brodhead, trusted Montour’s “fidelity.” Because of that trust, Brodhead began to use Montour more aggressively in the American cause. Although the Wyandot had agreed to a nominal peace, the Mingoes had not. To punish them, Colonel Brodhead decided to strike at the Mingo villages along the upper Allegheny River and recruited Montour to guide the September 1779 campaign.
Once he joined the with the Patriots, Captain John Montour served with both the Virginia 13th Continental Regiment and the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment under Colonel Broadhead.
Daniel Brodhead (1736-1809) portrait from the NYPL Thomas Addis Emmet Collection of Illustrations Relating to the American Revolution. Dated 1886.
In choosing to fight with the Continental Army, Montour had chosen a side which put him opposite other indigenous warriors on the battlefield and directly in opposition to other indigenous settlements.
A Newspaper Account provided by Colonel Daniel Broadhead of an Attack on Indigenous Villages
"John Montour informed me this town was called Yoghroonwago. Besides this, we found several other towns consisting in the whole of a 130 houses. Some of which were large enough for the accommodation of 3 or 4 Indian families. The troops remained on the grounds 3 whole days, destroying the towns and cornfields."
Poulson's American Daily Advertiser, 10/19/1779, page 2
Montour proved loyal and effective and so from June 15 of 1780 to October 31, 1781 he was made Captain of the Delaware Company of Indians which consisted of at least 12 soldiers: 4 captains and 8 privates. At the end of his enlistment, each private received "6 dollars and 60/90ths" per month for a total of "108 dollars and 12/90ths". The captains received 40 dollars per month for a total of "649 dollars and 30/90ths" for 16 months and 7 days
Payroll for the American Continental Army shows the following Delaware Soldiers: Privates Aleemen, Caylaylamind, Handutit, Hingwalupa, Pimeelaoughan, Quillpukamen, Shaughamek, Tawquatchee, and Captains Mahingwapoosses, Mawanapano, Nanawaland and Montour.
Native Americans in the Antebellum U.S. Military Winter 2007, Vol. 39, No. 4 | Genealogy Notes By James P. Collins, National Archives
Chief Killbuck’s loss of influence had begun in the spring of 1779 when he agreed to allow individual Delaware to fight with the Americans against other Indians. By January 1781, Killbuck was forced to step down as chief of the Turtle clan. His absence from the Coshocton council gave Chief Pipe the opportunity to persuade the Coshocton Delaware to join the British against the Americans.
Word reached Fort Pitt by March 4 that the Delaware were at war and that three war parties were ready to move against western settlements. John Montour, the bearer of this information, told Brodhead that he had been pursued by eight warriors and just barely avoided capture. Montour remained at Fort Pitt, while Killbuck took refuge with the Moravians.
Carte des environs du Fort Pitt et de la nouvelle province-Indiana, by Dediee A.M. Franklin
On April 20, 1781 Montour and the warriors who fought with him were forced to make the hard choice to attack their own people living in the Delaware Town of Coshocton, which had sided with the British under Chief Pipe.
"One of the advanced guards consisting of 15 white men and 8 Delaware Indians discovered between 30 to 40 warriors coming down the Allegheny river in 7 canoes. These warriors, having likewise discovered some of the troops immediately landed, stripped off their shirts and prepared for action. And the advanced guard immediately began the attack....[only]one of [our] Delaware Indians, Nanoland were wounded, and so slightly that they were already recovered and fit for action."
THE DELAWARE WERE NOW FIGHTING THE DELAWARE.
"The plunder brought in by the troops sold at Fort Henry for about 80,000 lbs. I had upon this expedition, Captains Montour and Wilson, and three other faithful Indians who contributed greatly to the success."
The Pennsylvania Gazette, 6/6/1781, Page 3
When the captured warriors could not prove their loyalty to America, Brodhead had them executed. The village of Coshocton was put to the torch. Facing the certain knowledge that the warring Delaware would seek revenge, Montour had little choice but to join Killbuck and thirty loyal Delaware who sought asylum at Pittsburgh. For the time being, Montour had burned all his bridges with the Ohio country Indians.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that they had chosen the American cause over their own people, the Indigenous population was never completely trusted by the Americans. Some white men, riddled by hate, like Henry Brackenridge, took every opportunity to advocate for the execution and expulsion of the indigenous populations for what he called their savage behaviors and at one point he singles out John, publicly, as an example of this behavior.
"A certain John Montour, who had been educated at one of the northern seminaries, taught Greek and Latin, and in this war. Dignified by Congress with a commission of captain, no greater savage ever existed. He had murdered several of his own people. And being obliged to avoid the resentment of their relations had fled from one place to another."
The Freeman's Journal or The North American Intelligencer, 5/28/1783, Page 1
Perhaps it was hatred, bias and reports like these that encouraged the settlers at Fort Pitt to ban Montour and other indigenous peoples from the settlement.
But the distrust of the indigenous soldiers went up to the highest levels of the American government. In April of 1782, Montour petitioned the government, stating that the inhabitants of Fort Pitt,
"resolved to suffer no Indians to live among them," and that " to this moment he has received neither pay or clothing from the states...that there is a considerable sum of money due him...[and] your petitioner is in a strange place without money, friends, or clothes on his way to the Head Quarters of General Washington to join the army."
John Montour's Petition
General Irvine apprised of Montour's petition, immediately called Montour's loyalty into question. He writes,
" I am suspicious of his fidelity. but he is so cunning that no hold could be laid on him--this is however the worst place he could possibly be in if he meant to go off being perfectly acquainted with all the Indian Country."
Irvine had good reason to suspect that Montour would switch sides. On March 8, 1782, Pennsylvania militiamen murdered more than 90 Delaware Indians at the village of Gnadenhutten. Eighty-eight were Moravians, and more than half of those were women and children.
The Delaware were outraged. Even those who held little respect for Christianity, swore they would seek revenge. News of the massacre spread rapidly. There can be little doubt that Montour had heard what happened at Gnadenhutten.
Engraving of the Gnadenhutten massacre in 1782, from Henry Howe's book "Historical Collections of the Great West". Artwork description: "Massacre of the Christian Indians. - Of the number thus cruelly murdered by the backwoodsmen of the upper Ohio, between fifty and sixty were women and children - some of them innocent babes."
Benjamin Lincoln the Secretary of War, concurred with General Irvine's assessment, noting that Montour seems unaware that he has been decommissioned, and recommends Montour be sent to George Washington and distracted.
"I am therefore of the opinion that it will be expedient to advance him two months pay...that he be sent to General Washington...and requested to amuse him as long as possible--so that should he quit our service and join the Enemy it may be so late in the season as to prevent him doing mischief in the present campaign."
The crux of the issue was that Montour with a large number of other soldiers was "deranged" or honorably decommissioned as an act of Congress on December 31, 1781. The very traits that made him desirable as a soldier (fluency in multiple languages, knowledge of the military plans and indigenous nations) were now being seen as a liability should he defect.
It seems that George Washington, followed through on this advice sending Montour on a diplomatic mission, to "amuse him" according to a letter penned at Washington’s headquarters near Newburgh, NY, on July 11, 1782. In it, the Commander in Chief directs Lt. Col. George Reid of the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment to give full rations and show hospitality to the bearer, Captain John Montour. Washington observes that Montour had served for several years on the Pennsylvania frontier and “is going to Schenectady on a visit to his Friends the Oneidas and Tuscaroras.”
Autographed Letter by George Washington to Lt. Col. George Reid of the 2nd New Hampshire Regime stationed in Newburgh, NY, on July 11, 1782. Alex Cooper Auctioneers, Americana Auction Lot 2045
After the war Montour disappears from public life. He had made his military career navigating the turbulent political terrain between the American, British and Indigenous nations. Perhaps it is not surprising that he did not live long, with so many enemies. In 1788 a record of his death appears, murdered at the age of 44 by some Mingoes while he was hunting. His dance between the rock and the hard place had finally caught up with him.