What Happened to 7,000 People

In the following year, 1778, the Loyalists and Indians mounted a number of vengeance raids on the frontier. In July, the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania (present day Wilkes-Barre) was destroyed. In September, the German Flats area was burned, and in November, the settlement of Cherry Valley was devastated. The killing of women and children at Cherry Valley caused an outcry that reached Congress and General Washington. Congress pressured Washington to do something about these border raids and in 1779 he mounted a campaign to “punish” the Iroquois. The Rebels had had some success against the Cherokee in the south and forced that tribe to sue for peace. Washington hoped to achieve the same with the Iroquois.

In July 1779, Major General John Sullivan led an expedition into the Iroquois lands. Sullivan’s force numbered over 5,000 men and succeeded in destroying some 40 Indian villages along with all their crops and orchards. The force had only one small battle with the Indians at Newtown (near present-day Elmira, New York). At the end of the campaign, the expedition could account for only 16 warriors killed and a handful of prisoners.15 Major Jeremiah Fogg who participated in the campaign wrote a very prophetic line in his journal: “The nests have been destroyed, but the birds are still on the wing.”16 The Indian nations that sided with the British never sued for peace. Most modern historians consider the campaign to have been a waste of time and money.

via What Happened to 7,000 People.

 

What Happened to 7,000 People (cont.)

The Iroquois (or Six Nations) Confederacy, was a crucial source of fighting men for the raiding parties. Most historians believe the confederacy was formed in 1500 A.D.; however, new research suggests that it may have been formed as early as 1100 or 1200 A.D. Whatever the year of its inception, the confederacy had a long history. At the outset of the Revolutionary War, the Iroquois remained neutral. The Sachems (or Chiefs) saw no value in getting embroiled in a “family quarrel”. In 1777, the British persuaded a number of warriors, particularly the Seneca, to come and watch as they set off to defeat the Rebels at Fort Stanwix and march down the Mohawk Valley to Albany. Instead, the Indians found themselves in the Battle of Oriskany. They discovered they were fighting not only the militia, but also a number of their own brothers – the Oneidas and Tuscaroras. While four nations joined the British ranks, a majority of Oneidas and Tuscaroras joined the Patriots.

The great confederation was broken. With the Oneidas and Tuscaroras fighting their brothers, the Iroquois Confederacy was extinguished. Only individual Indian nations remained. The Battle of Oriskany was particularly devastating to the Seneca. Five of their Sachems were killed — by Seneca standards, a terrible loss. Nothing like this had happened in the entire history of the Seneca Nation.

via What Happened to 7,000 People.

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Very in-depth history of the Mohawk Valley and nearby areas.

– CAA

 

Seven Years War

The Seven Years War*

1754-1763

The “Seven Years War,” the “French and Indian War”, and the “Great War for Empire.” Variously named and defined, each of these terms refers to the same watershed event in early American History.

European superpowers France and Great Britain engaged in a century-long struggle for world domination that lasted from 1689 to 1815. Against an overall climate of hostility, a series of distinct wars were fought in Europe itself and in (and over) their worldwide colonial empires.

The New York theater of the last of these North American adjuncts began with the French and Indian raid and burning of Hoosick in August 1754. North American forces fought with each other over the next two years although war was not declared officially until 1756. Although for the most part, fighting ended in North America following the fall of Quebec in 1759, this conflict was not concluded officially until the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

via Seven Years War.

 

King’s Highway

The King’s Highway

“The Kings Highway” is a legendary term that has been used to describe any of the country roads out of colonial Albany that may have been built by the British army during the French and Indian War. Albany to the VerberghHowever, it most often refers to the main route through the “Pine Bush” from Albany to Schenectady.

This overland thoroughfare connecting the Hudson and the Mohawk was in existence from the earliest days of the community and was first used by Native American hunters bringing their furs to Beverwyck and then Albany.

Until the mid-18th century, the Kings Highway was little more than a path through the woods. the Kings Highway But it was improved dramatically by British and provincial soldiers during the last of the colonial wars. After the war, many new settlers were travelling west from Albany over this road. By that time, the western parts of it were maintained under contract with the Albany city government.

On the Albany end, the Kings Highway began at the Schenectady gate of the stockade and continued uphill and into the pine barrens along the route of today’s Washington Avenue.

via King’s Highway.

 

Beverwyck

Beverwyck

The Eendracht at Beverwyck – 1656Beverwyck is the popular and mythical name given to the community of fur traders that first emerged along the river to the north of Fort Orange during the 1640s. The name came into official use in 1652 when the Dutch West India Company established a judicial jurisdiction for the land north of the trading post/fort. That act began a legacy of home rule for Albany that was primarily responsible for its development into a pre-urban center. Immediately following, the first houselots were parcelled out. By the end of the decade, a log palisade had enclosed the settlement.

via Beverwyck.

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Became Albany, New York.

– CAA

 

Schenectady Massacre

* From Tales of Old Schenectady by Larry Hart, Chapter 8, Page 37-40

The fate of Schenectady was sealed in the middle of January, 1690, when 114 Frenchmen and 96 Sault and Algonquin Indians, most of whom had been converted by the Jesuits, started from Montreal to attack English outposts to the south. It was part of a master plan of Count Frontenac, governor to Canada, to fulfill the commission of French King Louis XIV to “build a new empire in America.”

They came down across the frozen reaches of the St Lawrence and over the ice of Lake Champlain and finally, in about six days, down to a point at what is now Fort Edward, where the French officers held council on the plan of attack. It was here that they began to compromise with the Indian leaders on the feasibility of attacking Schenectady instead of the original objective, Fort Orange (Albany).

Another journey of about 17 days down to the Mohawk Valley brought the war party scarcely two miles from the fur-trading post beside the Binnekill on Feb. 8. It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and a blizzard came howling down from the north-west, icy winds swirling snow about the would-be attackers as they huddled in a final council near what is now Alplaus.

The French leaders, Lts. Le Moyne de Sainte Helene and Daillebout de Mantet, ordered Indian scouts to cross the Mohawk River and see what precautions the Dutchmen had made against enemy attack. The French were well aware that attack warnings had been posted in the valley communities and they did not know how well the Schenectady stockade might be garrisoned.

The Dutchman’s fireside on that night of Feb. 8, 1690, glowed with the radiance of humble content. Within the raftered room, its floor and ceiling reflecting Holland cleanliness, he warmed himself before the crackling logs. He was smugly certain that his house was safe from attack – on a night such as this, even the foolhardy Frenchmen would not be expected from the frozen north regions.

via Schenectady Massacre.

 

Schenectady, on Mohawk River, New York

Schenectady

The village and then town of Schenectady emerged from a patent to farm on the Great Flats of the Mohawk River originally granted by the Dutch in 1661. It was located beyond the western border of Rensselaerswyck.

Over the next decade, Schenectady was settled mostly by former Beverwyck residents who sought less competitive opportunities farther away from the community that became Albany in 1664. The complete list of patentees is the subject of some discussion. Union College librarian and historian Jonathan Pearson has compiled a useful list.

Over the next twenty-five years, the original patentees and their descendants built a stockaded town on the south side of the Mohawk River about eighteen miles west of Albany. Schenectady asleep on February 9, 1690 By 1680, a Dutch Reformed church had become established in the community. As part of his initiative to “royalize” the colony, Governor Thomas Dongan granted Schenectady a town patent in 1684 and a community economy began to develop on the Albany model but with a more direct connection to the farms of its immediate environs. Land north of the Mohawk also was deeded and settled. It would be known as “Scotia” (today’s village of Scotia in the town of Glenville – both commemorating the original landholding families).

All this came crashing down when French and Indian raiders destroyed the town on the night of February 9, 1690. The settlement was in shambles with its people killed, captured, or sent fleeing as refugees to the safety of the Albany fort. The Schermerhorns and others temporarily set up homes in Albany. The so-called “Schenectady Massacre” still is one of the “great,” mythical events of the community’s heritage and has been embellished in print, song, and tradition!

via Schenectady.