A brutal, all but forgotten scorched earth campaign that led to one of our country’s first “refugee crisis” is the subject of today’s #stampoftheday, a 2-cent stamp issued on June 17, 1929 honoring “Sullivan’s Expedition” a major offensive in the Revolutionary War against Loyalist soldiers and tribes that were part of the Iroquois Nation.
At the onset of the American Revolution both Great Britain and the Continental Congress claimed that they hoped the American Indian nations would remain neutral, but that quickly became unrealistic. A few of the eastern tribes did support the Continental Army, but far more Indians decided to fight alongside the British, who had traditionally supplied them with trade goods and prevented the frontier settlers from encroaching on their lands. So by 1777, Native American war bands, led by Loyalist rangers, started launching a series of destructive raids on frontier settlements in western Pennsylvania and New York.
At first, the Americans had too few soldiers to fight the British in the east and to protect the western frontier so General George Washington expected these exposed areas to use local militiamen to defend themselves. But, as these attacks continued they not only began to deprive Washington’s army of provisions and manpower but also, by spreading terror, caused many settlers to abandon their homes and communities. In early 1789, after learning that two companies of Loyalist rangers and more than 300 Iroquois warriors had killed more 30 settlers, mostly women and children, in Cherry Valley New York in November 1788. Washington and his advisors decided to have Sullivan mount an expedition that would break the ability of the Iroquois Confederacy to carry out these attacks. Washington made it clear in his orders to Sullivan that he wanted the Indian country “not merely overrun, but destroyed.”
Although it is often overlooked, Sullivan’s 1779 campaign was one of the larger American offensives of the Revolution. With the war in the north at a stalemate outside New York City, Washington allocated nearly 5,000 men, mostly Continental units from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, for the expedition, which finally got under way in June 1789 when it left from Easton, PA. While Sullivan’s force fought only a few actual battles as they marched west over the next few months, their presence caused many Native Americans to abandon their settlements because they knew the Americans were destroying settlements, provisions and fields as they moved west. In mid-September, after reaching Genesee in western New York state, Sullivan decided that his forces, which lacked large artillery pieces would turn back rather than trying to take Fort Niagara, which he had been ordered to attempt if he thought it feasible. Instead his troops began returning back east, again burning any villages or crops they had missed earlier.
By the time they returned in late 1779 Sullivan’s forces, which had lost only about 40 men, had burned more than 40 large Indian towns or villages and destroyed 160,000 bushels of corn as well as other provisions. Sullivan reported to Washington and Congress there was “not a single village left in the country of the five nations.”
By burning the Iroquois’ homes, crops and food stores, his army ensured the deaths of thousands of men, women and children by freezing and starvation during what would be the coldest winter on record at the time. Many, including more than 5,000 who fled to Fort Niagara, where the British had little room, food, or compassion for the refugees.
Although Washington was disappointed the Sullivan didn’t capture Fort Niagara, he was pleased that his plan for the destruction of the Iroquois homeland seemed to have succeeded. In some respects, however, that success was short lived because, as a member of the expedition wrote, “the nests are destroyed, but the birds are still on the wing.” In the spring that followed that terrible winter, hundreds of warriors descended on numerous towns along the frontier, ultimately destroying about 1,000 homes, 1,000 barns and 600,000 bushels of grain. Such attacks continued nearly to war’s end. Assessing this result, historian Richard Berleth concluded: “The great, expensive expedition, glorious in its progress against the opponents of liberty, had in fact succeeded in leaving the people of New York more vulnerable, more isolated and less protected than before Sullivan’s army had marched.”
In the longer run, the expedition destroyed the Iroquois nation. The 1783 Treaty of Paris ceded the greater part of Iroquois territory to the United States. In the wake of the Treaty of Paris (1783), many displaced Native Americans relocated to Canada, Wisconsin and Oklahoma (the subject of another #stampoftheday posting). European-Americans began settling the newly vacant areas in relative safety, eventually isolating the remaining pockets of Iroquois into separate villages and towns. And, ironically, between 1794 and 1804 four New York counties (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga and Oneida) were named for the defeated and displaced tribes.
I’m not sure what to make of this history, which I didn’t know before examining today’s stamp. I can see why Washington and his advisors thought it necessary. But its human cost seems excessive, particularly in light of the shameful ways that we’ve treated the descendants of those displaced by this expedition (and other, similarly marginalized and stigmatized people).
And that, perhaps, is the message transmitted by today’s stamp.