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In April 1779 an American force marched out of Fort Schuyler — the old Fort Stanwix, in what is now Rome, New York — and in five and a half days destroyed the towns of the Onondaga Nation. The Americans counted it the most complete success of that year's campaign against the Six Nations. It was also a turning point in how the Onondaga and the Oneida, the Americans' allies, saw the new United States.
A nation that tried to stay out
The Onondaga kept the Great Council Fire of the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations) Confederacy, and as a nation they held to neutrality in the Revolutionary War. Inside the nation, though, there were neutral, pro-American and pro-British factions.
The fire had already been put out once, in 1777, after an epidemic killed 90 people in the town, among them three principal chiefs. In January 1779 eight neutral chiefs decided to side with the Oneida and Tuscarora — the only two nations the Americans recognized as allies — and told the rest of the nation that by their decision the fire was out again. Neutrality, they said, was no longer possible; everyone would have to choose. The others refused to accept it without the remaining chiefs present, and said they would stay on their land. Perhaps 40 Onondaga followed the eight chiefs to the Oneida.
The eight were right. That year the Americans set out to stop the raids that Indian and loyalist parties were making on frontier settlements, by breaking the Six Nations' ability to make war. The main operation, the Clinton–Sullivan Campaign, would strike the Cayuga and Seneca from Pennsylvania. It used the raiders' own methods — burning homes and crops, killing stock, taking prisoners — and it gave no room for neutrality: any nation that had not declared for the Americans would be treated as an enemy. The Onondaga were to be hit separately, from Fort Schuyler.
The force
Colonel Goose Van Schaick, whose 1st New York Regiment garrisoned the fort, arrived on April 16 to prepare. He had 558 men:
| Unit | Companies |
|---|---|
| 1st New York Regiment | 3 |
| 3rd, 4th and 5th New York Regiments | 1 each |
| 4th Pennsylvania Regiment | 1 |
| 6th Massachusetts Regiment | 1 |
| Riflemen | 1 |
Lieutenant Colonel Marinus Willett and Major Robert Cochran of the 3rd New York served as his field officers.
Secrecy mattered, and a fort filling with troops is hard to hide. Before Van Schaick arrived, 63 Oneida had come in with their families and asked to join the expedition. He had been warned that the Oneida and Onondaga were too closely bound to fight each other, and feared the Oneida would warn their kin. So he told them no expedition was planned — and when they asked to go on one of their own, sent them to take the small British post at Oswegatchie (today's Ogdensburg). The real purpose was to keep them away. They left on April 18 and were gone until the 30th. They did not take the post, but they came back with prisoners and news of enemy movements. By then the Onondaga towns were ash.
The march, April 18–24
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| April 18, evening | 29 bateaux with eight days' food are floated down Wood Creek to Oneida Lake; the troops march overland and reach the lake first |
| April 20 | across the lake and on toward Onondaga; the night is spent eight miles out, on snow, with no fires, cold food and one blanket each |
| April 21 | across Onondaga Creek; the advance guard takes a hunter prisoner, then attacks the first settlement — people are killed and captured, some escape and raise the alarm. Detachments fan out along eight miles of settlements to surround as many as they can while the main body pushes to the principal town. Most are still caught by surprise, and families flee with nothing. By 4 p.m. it is over, and the force turns back at once. At Onondaga Creek about 20 warriors fire from cover on the far bank; the riflemen kill one and scatter the rest |
| April 22 | camp on Frenchman's Island, on the way home |
| April 24, about noon | back at Fort Schuyler, greeted by three cannon |
Van Schaick's own report counted 33 Onondaga and one white man taken prisoner and 12 killed. About fifty houses were burned with a large store of corn and beans; horses and all other livestock were killed; about a hundred guns were carried off or destroyed, with a good deal of ammunition; and a swivel gun at the council house was wrecked. Among the dead was a Black man who served the town as its doctor. The round trip was 180 miles, and the Americans lost no one.
What it achieved
To the Americans the expedition looked better than the larger campaign against the Cayuga and Seneca later that year — "more complete and effectual." Its longer effects looked worse, and some who took part came to question the whole year's strategy.
- The raids did not stop. Warriors allied to the British returned in 1780 and afterwards, in greater numbers.
- Neutrals were pushed to the British. Many who may have been genuinely neutral now had both the anger and the need to turn to Britain.
- The Oneida alliance cracked. Bound to the Onondaga by kinship, the Oneida had repeatedly vouched for their neutrality. The expedition showed them the Americans had ignored their word and their advice.
No Six Nations group sued for peace. When the war ended, Britain abandoned its allies, the United States treated them as defeated enemies, and the Onondaga were among the nations made to sign the dictated treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1784.
Sources
Written from "The Van Schaick Expedition — April 1779", Fort Stanwix National Monument, National Park Service, part of its series The Military History of Fort Schuyler; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Quotations are from Van Schaick's report and participants' accounts cited in that article.
I dessa samlingarFort Stanwix National MonumentThe Military History of Fort Schuyler
Licens: CC0 1.0 (allmän egendom) · Bearbetat efter www.nps.gov
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