Sermon

Trails of Tears – the Ethnic Cleansing of Native Americans

August 07, 2016
Deuteronomy 7:1-3; Matthew 28:18-20; Revelation 7:9-10
Speaker:

In this brief summary of the experience of aborigines in North America with European settlers I will focus on three historical incidents.  But note that the history of much of this period of time is somewhat suspect for at least two reasons – First – Much of what took place was in a time when few records were kept and the records which were kept are difficult to verify by today’s historical standards.  And second the “history” was mostly written by one side – “the winners,” that is, the Europeans.  Also, even though history is a hobby of mine, I am no historian and so am relying on popular history of the Wikopedia type. That said, I am fairly confident of most of the facts and will try to note where there may be doubt as to actual details.

The Walking Purchase

On September 19, 1737 there was a foot race in Eastern Pennsylvania, the likes of which had never been seen up to that time or since.  First of all, it was not supposed to be a foot race.  It was supposed to be a walk, as part of a treaty between the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) tribe and William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, in 1686.  Note the difference of 51 years, it is important to understanding the story.  It was not William Penn who implemented what became known as the Walking Purchase Treaty, but his son Thomas Penn.  William Penn had for the most part dealt fairly with Native Americans, at least in comparison to other European settlers such as the Puritans in New England.  There were difference in notions of private ownership of land between Europeans and Native Americans which probably were exploited even by William Penn but in any case, the Penn sons, and notably Thomas Penn, clearly were determined to go much further in exploiting Native Americans in order to satisfy the desires of new European settlers for land in the early 18th century.  In particular, the land agents for Thomas Penn were selling land in the Lehigh Valley to settlers even while it was still occupied by the Lenni Lenape.

In 1737 Thomas Penn showed the Lenni Lenape chiefs a deed from 1686 which represented a transaction between their ancestors and William Penn to the effect that a tract of land was deeded to Penn as much as could be covered in a day-and-a half-walk.  Never mind that we are comparing an area measurement to a linear measurement – who really knows what the intentions were or understanding was on both sides?  The details are even more troubling, as it is not clear that such a deed even existed – some historians think it was an outright forgery.  In any event, the Lenni Lenape chiefs agreed to the terms of the 1686 deeds, likely being persuaded by the efforts of one James Logan, who showed them a map which misrepresented some of the distances involved as well as the likely course of the “walk.” We Mennonites should know who James Logan was – he is the Penn land agent who sold the original Mennonite settlers land in the early 1700s in the Pequea Settlement in what is today Lancaster County PA.

The Lenni Lenape trusted that the walk was really a walk through the forests roughly parallel to the Delaware River.  They were not aware that they were about to lose a significant amount of land.  Thomas Penn took measures to ensure that the distance covered by his “walkers” would be as large as possible.  Among other things, Penn had a straight path cleared through the forest and hired three of the fastest runners in the province.  He and his agents spent weeks mapping a route which went northwest rather than north along the Delaware River, which exploited the ambiguity of linear and area measurements specified in the deed to the detriment of the interests of the Lenni Lenape.

James Logan also promised the fastest runner five pounds sterling and 500 acres of land.  So you can see how this is going to turn out.  Instead of a 30 mile distance, roughly a 70 mile distance was covered in a day-and-a-half.  In the end, only one of the men actually finished the “walk,” the other two having dropped out from exhaustion.  A perpendicular line was drawn from the end of the line back toward the northeast, resulting in an area of 1.2 million acres to the east of the two lines and the Delaware River, roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island.  One can easily understand why the Lenape chiefs protested this outcome.  They appealed to leaders in the Iroquois confederacy and the King of England to no avail.  The Iroquois, having already made their peace with the English settlers, sided with the English, and the King of England of course sided with the English settlers as well.  The Lenape were on their own and were pushed out of the territory.  This has a lot to do with their decision to side with the French during the French and Indian War some 20 years later and a lot to do with the next story, the massacre of the Conestogas by the Paxton Boys.  And incidents of this type may have had a lot to do with the disparaging term of “Indian Giver” which, not knowing better, my brothers and I freely used growing up.

The Paxton Boys

The Paxton Boys were Scots-Irish frontiersmen living along the Susquehanna River in the area near present-day Harrisburg, PA. They were led by a charismatic pastor, Reverend John Elder, known as the “Fighting Parson” who reportedly kept his rifle in the pulpit while he delivered his sermons.  Elder organized the settlers into a mounted militia to defend against attacks by Native Americans allied with the French during the French and Indian War and its aftermath. Elder justified this approach on self-defense but also on Old Testament understanding of the Israelites conquering the Canaanites.  Elder cited scriptures such as Deut 7:1-3 and 1 Samuel 15:3 as justification, the latter verse offering justification for not only conquering what he regarded as the Canaanites but killing everybody, men, women, and children.  Keep this in mind as I relate what we know about this account.

The Conestoga Indians were remnants of a Susquehannock tribe who lived on land ceded to them by William Penn in the 1690s.  Many were pacifistic Christians, having been converted by Moravian missionaries. They had lived peacefully with European settlers for decades and there is no evidence that they were involved with any attacks during the French and Indian War or Pontiac’s rebellion.  However, even though there had been no recent attacks in the area, the Paxton Boys claimed that the Conestoga secretly provided aid and intelligence to the hostiles.  Accordingly, at daybreak on December 14, 1763, a group of the Paxton Boys attacked Conestoga homes at Conestoga Town (near present day Millersville PA), murdered six, and burned their cabins.  The outcome would have been worse, but there had been a snowstorm and many of the Conestogas had been unable to reach home the previous evening.  It should be noted that John Elder was not with the group that committed these atrocities.  And he reportedly tried to stop the Paxton Boys from riding against the Conestogas, only to back off when they threatened to shoot his horse.  However he excused their actions later on.  As bad as this was, it gets worse.

The Pennsylvania colonial government held an inquest and determined that the killings were murder.  The governor, John Penn, offered a reward for the capture of the Paxton Boys and placed 16 Conestagas who had escaped the killings in protective custody in the Lancaster City jail.  However, the jail was lightly guarded and no match for the reportedly 25-30 mounted Paxton Boys who showed up on December 27, 1763.  The guards ran away and the Paxton Boys brutally murdered, scalped, and mutilated 6 adults and 8 children.  The government of Pennsylvania offered a new reward of $600 for the capture of anyone involved in this second attack, but the attackers were never directly identified to the authorities.

At this point it is worth quoting from a letter written by John Elder, who was not directly implicated in either attack, to Governor Penn on January 27, 1764.

“The storm, which had been so long gathering, has, at length, exploded.  Had Government removed the Indians, which had been frequently, but without effect, urged, this painful catastrophe might have been avoided.  What could I do with men heated to madness?  All that I could do was done.  I expostulated; but life and reason were set at defiance.  Yet the men in private life are virtuous and respectable; not cruel, but mild and merciful.  The time will arrive when each palliating circumstance will be weighed.  This deed, magnified into the blackest of crimes, shall be considered as one of those ebullitions of wrath, caused by momentary excitement, to which human infirmity is subjected.”

He does have a way with words, I will give him that. But before we get too hard on the Rev. John Elder, we might reflect on the similarities to some of the current political debate.  And that is much as I want to say on that from a pulpit.

 

The Cherokee Trail of Tears

The Cherokee Nation was located in the Southeastern part of the United States.  In light of the events which followed, it is important to say that they had a written language, a written constitution, and a Cherokee Supreme Court.  In other words, they were as much a nation as the United States itself.  Nevertheless, when pressure began building in the early 1800s because of the need for land by European settlers, the U.S. government quickly sided in favor of the settlers against the Cherokee.  The means were a little more sophisticated than the Walking Purchase but the result was the same – removal of Native Americans from ancestral land. In this case President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 as the basis for removing Native American tribes, including the Cherokee, from all land east of the Mississippi River to land reserves in the West.  In the case of the Cherokee, the Treaty of New Achota, signed in 1835, with a group of100 Cherokee, was used to justify the removal of all of the Cherokee Nation, even though there is compelling evidence that this group of “Treaty Party Cherokees” had no authority to speak for the Cherokee Nation. Furthermore, in 1832 there was a ruling by the SCOTUS against the state of Georgia and in favor of the Cherokee which should have prevented the removal of the Cherokee in Georgia.  President Jackson ignored this ruling, reportedly saying, “Justice Marshall has made his ruling, now let him enforce it.” There is little evidence that these were Jackson’s exact words but there is no question that he ignored the ruling with impunity and suffered no consequences.

In 1838 Jackson ordered the U.S. Army to roundup some 17,000 Cherokee for removal to Oklahoma.  Many were held in concentration camps before being force marched to Indian Territory in Oklahoma.  An estimated 4,000 died from hunger, exposure, an disease in the camps or on the journey itself, much of which was by foot.  The journey became a cultural memory as “the trail where they cried” for the Cherokees and other removed tribes.  Today it is widely remembered by the Cherokee and the general public simply as the “Trail of Tears.”

What I have done here is give a few examples of what today we would call ethnic cleansing.  I have left out a lot, including the explicit attempts to stamp out Native American culture to force assimilation into the broader European culture of the United States.  The deliberate destruction of the American Buffalo is but one example of that.  In my view we as a country have not yet fully come to terms with this history.  As pacifist Christians who have benefited directly and indirectly from this violence against Native Americans I hope we can be part of the truth and reconciliation process which needs to take place.   At minimum, I hope we can address the current political discussions regarding immigrants with a better understanding of just how we came to be citizens of this United States of America.