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Frontier Terrorism
Terrorism is nothing new to America.
From the first days of the Jamestown and Plymouth settlements the
country has been rocked by repeated acts of terrorism. This was usually on the frontier and was a
part of the scene of westward expansion.
While Europeans fought endless bloody wars, the new world saw a
different type of war, which is now called asymmetric or “guerilla” war. This was characterized by ambush, surprise
attacks, and the killing of not only the combatants, but women and children as
well. Outnumbered and outgunned the
Native Americans fought back with small attacks and terror. The timeless methods of Native-American
warfare were adopted by the colonists and carried to great extremes. Colonists had seen the futility of European
style warfare early on. All along the
frontier the farm families feared the war whoop and near certain death. The Native-Americans, pushed further west had
not only to fear attack by the onrushing colonists, but also the brutal tribal
warfare which the constant constriction of their territories exacerbated.
In May 26, 1637 the Pequot war
was ended when colonists surrounded the Indian village of Misistuck at
night. Setting their homes afire, they
slaughtered 600 – 700 men women and children as they fled the flames. The Narragansett and Mohegan allies of the
English colonists went home in disgust, saying that the “manner of the
Englishmen's fight . . is too furious, and slays too many men.” In 1689 the Mohawk attacked the small town of
LaChine (375 inhabitants) on Montreal island.
They broke down doors and drug settlers outside to their deaths; they set
fire to the buildings in which settlers barricaded themselves; they killed 24
initially and took 70 hostage. Of those
taken hostage nearly 50 were tortured and killed (burned to death and
cannibalized).
In February of 1690, Finding
the town gate unattended, Canadians and their Mohawk allies attacked
Schenectady New York in the night, killing most of the inhabitants. Of the 60 dead, 10 were women and 12 children. During the French and Indian war, George
Washington’s reputation was tarnished when his Iroquois allies massacred 20
French prisoners, tomahawking and scalping them before the colonial militia’s
eyes. This sort of brutality occurred in
greater or lesser degree for over 200 years of our history. The result is known to us all – the near
extinction of the Native-American.
It became acceptable to many Americans to
attack Indian villages and kill their inhabitants wholesale. Perhaps the most infamous advocate of
annihilation was John M. Chivington.
Chivington had been ordained a Methodist minister in 1844, serving in
several states. During the Civil war he
became a Major in the First Colorado Volunteer regiment, and after the southern
forces in Colorado were beaten, he began to advocate for the extermination of
the local Indians: “the Cheyennes will
have to be roundly whipped -- or completely wiped out -- before they will be
quiet. I say that if any of them are caught in your vicinity, the only thing to
do is kill them." On November
24th 1864 he led his volunteers on a raid of the Sand Creek
reservation where a peaceful chief, Black Kettle and his tribe were
camped. Black Kettle held a white flag and
an American flag, and Chivington was told he had surrendered. His response was to order an attack in which
400 – 700 were killed, mostly women and children. Following the slaughter, his troops scalped
and sexually mutilated many of the bodies, later showing their trophies to
cheering crowds in Denver. When asked why his men had killed women and children
he said “nits make lice.”
We don’t have to go elsewhere
to find examples of the terrorism that characterized the frontier. In 1830 a party of Sac and Fox were ambushed south
of Prairie Du Chien. Only one of the 18,
a boy, escaped. The rest were murdered, and mutilated. Elizabeth Therese Baird, who was born and
lived in Prairie Du Chien, described the scene years later;
“After the massacre, all who yet breathed were dispatched, and horribly
mutilated. Hands, feet, fingers, ears, and scalps were cut off, and more
horrible still, the heart of the aged chief was cut from his breast, and all
taken by the victors as trophies of the bloody conflict.
On the day succeeding the murder, the victorious party assembled, and
accompanied by a few squaws, paraded the streets of Prairie du Chien, with the
monotonous sounding drum and rattle, and displaying on poles the scalps and
dismembered human fragments taken from the bodies of their victims. The whole
party was painted with various colors, wore feathers, and carried their
tomahawks, war-clubs and scalping-knives. Stopping in front of the principal
houses in the village, they danced the war-dance and scalp-dance, ending with
yells characteristic of incarnate devils.
The mangled limbs were still fresh and
bleeding; one old squaw had carried on a pole the entire hand, with a long
strip of skin from the arm of one of the murdered men, elevated above her head,
the blood trickling down upon her hair and face, while she kept up the
death-song, and joined in the scalp-dance. After this exhibition, which lasted
two or three hours, the. warriors went to a small mound, about two hundred
yards from Mr. Rolette's residence, and in plain sight made a fire, and roasted
the heart of the old murdered chief, and then divided it into small pieces
among the several warriors, who devoured it—to inspire them with courage, and
"make their hearts glad."
The whole scene was shocking and disgusting in the extreme, and such a
one, we hope, never again will be witnessed in a civilized community. The incidents just related occurred in a town
containing a civilized (?) population of six or eight hundred inhabitants,
under the walls of the United States garrison, and within musket shot of the
fort. Neither civil nor military authorities made any effort to prevent the
exhibition of the revolting and savage trophies of the sanguinary battle.”
In 1832, during the Blackhawk war
a number on both sides were killed and mutilated. After defeating a party of Kickapoo in the
Battle of Pecatonica Col. Henry Dodge, later Territorial governor, U.S.
Representative, and, Senator reported thusly:
“Nine of them were killed on the
spot and the remaining two killed in crossing the Lake so that they were left
without one to carry the news to their Friends. The Volunteers under my command
behaved with great gallantry… A part of
The so called “Battle of Bad Axe” was really a
massacre. The steamboat Warrior was in
the river blocking the escape across the Mississippi Blackhawk had
planned. They fired indiscriminately on
women with children on their backs. When
Dodge came upon the scene he ordered his men to attack. They killed without quarter and did not
accept prisoners. The soldiers killed
everyone who tried to run for cover or cross the river; men,
John Allen Wakefield, who took part in the action and later wrote an account said:
“They now found that they could not get away from us. The only chance for them was to fight until they died…
“We killed and wounded a great many of these wretched wanderers, who have no home in the world, but are like the wild beasts more than man – wandering from forest to forest, and not making any improvement on the natural mind. Putting together what were killed in the two battles, we must have destroyed upwards of four hundred of these unhappy and miserable beings.
“When we came upon the squaws and children, they raised a scream and cry loud enough to affect the stoutest man upon earth. If they had shown themselves, they would have come off much better, but fear prevented them; and in their retreat, trying to hide from us, many of them were killed; but contrary to the wish of every man, as neither officer nor private intended to have spilt the blood of those squaws and children. But such was their fate; some of them were killed, but not intentionally by any man; as all were men of too much sense of honor and feeling to have killed any but those who were able to harm us. We all well knew the squaws and children could do us no harm; and could not help what the old Black Hawk and the other chiefs did."
Wakefield was probably lying about not wanting to kill the women and children. Blackhawk put it this way: "Early in the morning a party of whites, being in advance of the army, came upon our people, who were attempting to cross the Mississippi. They tried to give themselves up--the whites paid no attention to their entreaties--but commenced slaughtering them! In a little while the whole army arrived. Our braves, but few in number, finding that the enemy paid no regard to age or sex, and seeing that they were murdering helpless women and little children, determined to fight until they were killed! As many women as could, commenced swimming the Mississippi, with their children on their backs. A number of them were drowned, and some shot, before they could reach the opposite shore..."
What have we learned with this
history? Our ancestors knew terrorism,
and I believe that we have come by sad example to abhor it. Our history is tarnished by terrorism. It outrages most of us when justice is sought
in the blood of the innocent. We do not
wish to stray into the bloody endeavor of hounding terrorists to the death, but
we are a large and powerful nation, and we have a history that says “we’re not
going to take this.” That is both our
strength and our weakness. We cannot
avoid the attacks that big powers suffer. We can avoid the injuries we do too often; to
our nation and its reputation, by doing all we can to spare the innocent. I believe this is the policy and practice of
our armed forces. Sparing the innocent
vindicates the lessons our history has taught us.
Katie Couric said: “As much as we said
at the time (9/11), America's never been attacked on home soil—or the
continental U.S.—that wasn't true. For the first 200 years, early American
life's main feature was being attacked, by the Indians. And it was on villages
and communities, on home and hearth. The settlers had this feeling that they
were being attacked by non-Christian, nonwhite "terrorists." And Puritan patriarchs would refer to the
Indians as "terrorists."
Our frontier mentality has directed our thinking in
the recent past, but we have by sad experience, come to realize that
terrorizing the innocent is not an acceptable aspect of war. Those log cabin fears are still with us;
fears of being powerless against sneak attack.
We may still harbor the urge to kill indiscriminately to end the
threat. It isn’t our nature to be patient, but that
nature is tempered in our history by the desire of Americans to be merciful and
as humane as possible. This desire
arises in part because we have learned from generations of terror on the
frontier that there has to be a better way.
“[Black Hawk] has
fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against white men, who came
year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You know the cause of
our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. “-Blackhawk
