Other Indian Wars ?

[pellethie]

Another battle which occurred before St. Clair’s defeat.

In 1790, Josiah Harmar, commander of the American army in the Northwest Territory, was stationed at Fort Washington (present-day Cincinnati). Henry Knox, the Secretary of War, ordered Harmar to end the threat of Indian attack in western Ohio. Harmar marched from Fort Washington with 320 regular soldiers and roughly 1,100 militiamen -- primarily from Pennsylvania and Kentucky. The militiamen were poorly trained. Many did not know how to load and fire a musket; several others did not even have a gun. Harmar was determined to destroy the native villages near modern-day Fort Wayne, Indiana. He intended to attack the Miami Indians, the Shawnee Indians, and the Delaware Indians, along with other natives located in western Ohio.
The natives fled their villages as Harmar's army approached. The Americans burned several villages, but the Indians regrouped. On October 20, the natives, led by Little Turtle, of the Miami Indians, attacked a detachment from Harmar's army led by Colonel John Hardin. Hardin's force consisted of several hundred militiamen and a few regular soldiers. Hardin led his men into an ambush. Most of the militiamen fled the battle without even firing a shot. The regular soldiers put up a brief resistance, but the natives killed most of them. Some of the retreating militiamen did not stop until they crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky. Harmar sent out another detachment after Little Turtle's warriors two days later. Once again, the natives inflicted heavy casualties upon the Americans. Harmar immediately retreated to the safety of Fort Washington. He had lost 183 men killed or missing in his campaign. It became known as Harmar's Defeat. In 1791, the United States army convened a court-martial against Harmar. He was accused him of wrongdoing during the campaign, including being drunk on duty. The court-martial exonerated him of all charges, but Harmar retired from the army on January 1, 1792.
Harmar's actions in western Ohio only heightened tensions between the white settlers and the Indians. Following Harmar's defeat, native attacks against settlers increased. In 1791, Arthur St. Clair led another campaign against the natives in western Ohio, hoping to succeed where Harmar had failed.

www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=505

[quincannon]

Bird Person: It is not from a John Wayne movie. It was from James Warner Bellah's short story "Command" published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1946. A movie was made of the story but John Ford did not direct it, John Wayne did not star in it. Bellah did write the screen play, but the lines themselves never appeared in that movie or any movie, although they did appear in a radio adaptation of the story on the series "Escape" in 1949. At least please do your research and get the facts before you attempt to correct or mock me. That old memory of what you thought you heard or thought you knew can be tricky can't it, and sometimes, like this, it can come back and bite you in your ass.

I would think Colonel Bellah knew something of tactics, and the nature of war in general in that he served both with the 1st Infantry and 30th Infantry Divisions as well as on the staff of Orde Wingate in Burma. Regardless of his credentials the quotation is none the less true, and I find that it has been useful to me from time to time. There is another quote "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you can be pretty certain it's a duck" as illustrated by:

{{{Now I also see you reprinted one of your posts word for word from another site you frequent. On that site your birthday is listed as 12 December 1955. On this one it is listed as 5 May 1955. It seems to me that someone who does not know his own birthday is either 1) incompetent or 2) is trying to hide something. }}}}

I assume from your continued non-answer that you do not have one, so I will leave it there.

[pellethie]

Yeah I don't give out my address, phone, social security # or do facebook either.

Just not that much of a internet forum wh0re, Brittles, nor all that concerned about proving my worth to every brush popper that comes along.

I'm sure there's enough other people you can still debate, or troll without having to run one little Indian off from here,

Brittles, or is it Quincannon ?

[quincannon]

Far be it from me to try and run you off. All I wanted was the answer to a simple question.

It is both actually, but I do know and don't try to hide my birthday. Now if you know both Brittles and Quincannon it indicates you have been around these boards before, most probably under a different name and different set of statistics, which sort of reinforces my point does it not?

Wh**e is not a very nice word.

[pellethie]

As long as there's no one else sleeping in that sock drawer, Quincannon.

To answer you - I came across this sub-forum about other Indian Wars and commented how so many see all NDNs as only feathery, warbonnet wearing, teepee living, painted pony riding warriors, when in all actuality it was the woodland tribes who fiercely contested white expansion for hundreds of years versus the few decades it took the plains tribes to become defeated. Perhaps that's why there's so many plains or western Indians left and so little of us still around as the woodland tribes often fought until there were little to none of them surviving.

[pellethie]

Now if the Sioux would of joined Tecumseh when they were asked, things may of turned out differently.

[quincannon]

Well that really was not my question. My question dealt with war in general and the glamorization of war in particular, an idea I find disgusting. So while you gave an answer, it was not addressed at the question that was asked, therefore no answer.

Did you ever think that the relative rapidity of the defeat of the Plains Tribes and the tribes of the great southwest had more to do with the relative numbers involved. It may very well have also had to do with the relative openess of the terrain, as opposed to the east coast. Being a native of that area, the terrain is very familiar to me as is the western terrain where I have spent the last twenty plus years of my life. Numbers and terrain have meaning. In short the indians were easier to defeat out here because of these factors. The eastern indian wars were more along the classic irregular mold as opposed to the far reaching maneuver of the Plains. The closest the west came to the east in terms of operational battlespace and methodology was with the tribes of Arizona and New Mexico. There were exceptions of course, but I think that is true in the main.

And IF a bull frog had wings it would not bump its ass. I believe they prefer the name Lakota, and some others, over the word Sioux, which if memory serves is French. The one and only Lakota I know does, and has no use whatsoever for the other word. I would have thought you would know that, and more to the point respected it, you being what you say you are and all.

As long as sock drawers are concerned, is that an accusation, if so prove it, for you will find none.

[pellethie]

Quincannon, why do you edit all your original statements ? Double tongue dictating your writing ability ?

Well I copied this one from the jump -

"Well that really was not my question. My question dealt with war in general and the glamorization of war in particular, an idea I find disgusting. So while you gave an answer, it was not addressed at the question that was asked, therefore no answer.

Did you ever think that the relative rapidity of the defeat of the Plains Tribes and the tribes of the great southwest had more to do with the relative numbers involved. It may very well have also had to do with the relative openess of the terrain, as opposed to the east coast. Being a native of that area, the terrain is very familiar to me as is the western terrain where I have spent the last twenty plus years of my life. Numbers and terrain have meaning. In short the indians were easier to defeat out here because of these factors. The eastern indian wars were more along the classic irregular mold as opposed to the far reaching maneuver of the Plains. The closest the west came to the east in terms of tactical battlespace and methodology was with the tribes of Arizona and New Mexico. There were exceptions of course, but I think that is true in the main.

And IF a bull frog had wings it would not bump its ass."


Numbers ? To my understanding people like the Lakota-Dakota-Nakota and Comanche could throw huge numbers of warriors onto the field.

To many tribes war was an important aspect of life as was hunting. However the conflict between tribes were not as the wars of Europe where the main objective was to eliminate the enemy and conquer land. If one tribe eliminated the other, who would there be to raid next season ?

And if Custer had not been such an overconfident fool, he may have been another american great white father instead of buzzard and worm food.

[quincannon]

I edit what I write as I please.

Relative numbers. What I mean here is the relative numbers of non-indians to indians, in other words population growth to population stagnation. No matter the numbers that could be put in the field the indians were always limited in the numbers they had to begin with. That was not so for those that opposed them. So no matter how you want to look at it their eventual defeat was foretold by relative numbers. Those numbers grew for one side and decreased for the other over the period of time in question. You can slice it and dice it any way you please to suit your beliefs and/or ego, but the fact remains that relative numbers were the deciding factor.

[pellethie]

And the name Sioux came from the Algonquian word - Nadoüessioüak which meant speakers of another language. I've friends among these people as well as those from other nations.

[pellethie]

Oct 20, 2012 13:24:23 GMT -5 quincannon said:

I edit what I write as I please.

Relative numbers. What I mean here is the relative numbers of non-indians to indians, in other words population growth to population stagnation. No matter the numbers that could be put in the field the indians were always limited in the numbers they had to begin with. That was not so for those that opposed them. So no matter how you want to look at it their eventual defeat was foretold by relative numbers. Those numbers grew for one side and decreased for the other over the period of time in question. You can slice it and dice it any way you please to suit your beliefs and/or ego, but the fact remains that relative numbers were the deciding factor.

Is that why several hundred Odawa, Lenape, Potawatomi, Wendat and Shawnee along with a few French more or less rubbed out well over 2000 British and colonial militia at the Battle of the Monongahela ?

I guess the woodland tribes were more concerned with fighting the Anglos than looking their best while doing so.

[fuchs]

Oct 20, 2012 13:05:13 GMT -5 pellethie said:

Numbers ? To my understanding people like the Lakota-Dakota-Nakota and Comanche could throw huge numbers of warriors onto the field.

Than this means probably that you fell for the "American National Mythology" version of history.

For the L/Dakota there is a good article available online:
www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/1994-Teton_Sioux.pdf

On the southern plains there was very likely even less manpower available.

Mr. Bray (the author of that paper) and Mr. Kavanagh (should know a bit or two about the Comanche) are active on the other board.

Oct 20, 2012 13:33:50 GMT -5 pellethie said:

I guess the woodland tribes were more concerned with fighting the Anglos than looking their best while doing so.

It might also be that those tribes had one or more European powers available as trading partners and/or allies most of the times, which were leveraged to get supplied with guns and ammunition to a degree the Plainsers could only dream of.
When that supply ran dry, things went downhill really fast.

[quincannon]

To add to what Fuchs laid before you. I would ask you what the total indian population of what is now the United States was in the following years 1607, 1700. 1800, 1850, 1876, and what was the non-indian population of the same area in the same years? How did this shift in population effect the overall outcomes? It's not about battles. It is not even about military manpower. It is about the tide of history.Were it not, how would you explain winning arguably the most lopsided tactical indian victory of the 19th century in June 1876, and to be totally defeated and militarily emasculated by spring of the following year? Winning battles may be important to some, but winning wars is what counts, what makes it into the history books, what shapes the texture of populations and countries. Who won? Who won them all, and why?

I probably looked at the same google entry you did to refresh my memory and you failed to note it was a French-Canadian corruption of the Algonquain word, so we can split the difference.

I suppose I am very fortunate in this regard. The Nation I owe my first allegence to is the United States, and not to my Hanovarian, English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh forbearers. While I take pride in my heritage, I don't let it cloud my view of the team I pitch for.

[pellethie]

Custer and the 7th ran smack dab into a hornet's nest of warriors whose main concern was protecting their non-combatants. He was outnumbered, outgunned and by that time of his life probably suffering more from his mental mental deficiency. The victorious Lakota broke the supernatural conditions of their spiritual leader and that was their undoing.

Yes the american military won the Indian wars, but had disease, liquor, traitorous tribes as allies and an unlimited supply of fresh longknives to put into the field.

By the way, where do you think the Lakota and Cheyenne got their repeating rifles from ?

The woodland tribes suffered the same disadvantages, yet battled on for hundreds of years. From around the 1500s to the Black Hawk war of the 1830s.

I get the feeling you are none too fond of NDNS, especially outspoken ones, but no matter as the white man's days here in this land are fraught with conflict and uncertainty.

We will just wait them out

[pellethie]

"I don't let it cloud my view of the team I pitch for"

Yes that's quite obvious.

Time for a new pitcher, eh ?