The Esopus Indian Nation's Revolutionary War Experience

Editor's Note: This series of blog posts recounts the dramatic story of the Esopus Indian Nation’s Revolutionary War exodus. The original inhabitants of Ulster County, the Esopus Indians successfully maintained their sovereignty and traditional way of life in the face of overwhelming odds for over a century. These blog posts are summaries of a much fuller story that will be published in 2027.

Map: Sauthier, Claude Joseph (1776) "A map of the Province of New-York" Library of Congress Geography and Map Division G3800 1776 .S3 Medal: 1766 Peace Medal, American Numismatic Society Raymond.1925.929; Fuld,Tayman.HWU12; Stahl.Scully.28

Part 2: A Peaceable Disposition (1776-1777)
​
Spring, 1776. Over the New England border to the east, revolution was brewing. Within a few months, it had reached the isolated settlers living near to the Esopus Indians on the far side of the Catskill Mountains. In that year, Kingston resident Charles DeWitt, a member of the New York Provincial Congress, became colonel of the 2nd Ulster County Militia regiment. Like other colonial officials, he knew that the outcome of previous colonial wars greatly depended on the support of Native allies, especially the powerful Six Nations. In Ulster County, the Esopus Indians no longer resided in appreciable numbers around Kingston and the river towns. Over the preceding decades, nearly the entirety of the Esopus Indian Nation had moved over the Catskill Mountains to the headwaters of the Delaware and Suquehanna Rivers, where they were in regular communication with both the government of the Six Nations and with that of Ulster County. Individuals and families continued to visit their old Hudson Valley homeland, where many still counted friends among their Dutch colonial former neighbors. For DeWitt, maintaining friendly relations with the county’s former Native residents might ensure some measure of protection in case the war were to spread into the Colony of New York. And so, Col. Charles DeWitt and other Ulster County officials strove to strengthen the traditional bonds of friendship between Ulster County and its Esopus Indians.

Over the course of 1776, Kingston authorities sent letters and gifts to the Esopus Indians’ tribal government and elected chief, Philip Houghtaling. Notably, they sent quantities of gunflints, powder, and lead for ammunition over the mountains. These gifts of ammunition seem to indicate that DeWitt hoped for more than simply peaceful relations. Perhaps he hoped that, like the Stockbridge Mohicans in New England to the east, the Esopus Indians also sympathized with the Rebel cause. Indeed, quantities of ammunition were also sent over the mountains to those settlers who were known to be “hearty friends of the American cause.”[1] The Esopus Nation’s leadership, like that of their Nanticoke, Munsee, Mohican, and Tuscarora neighbors on the nearby upper Susquehanna, emphasized to colonial officials in both Pennsylvania and New York of their desire to stay out of conflict. They offered, instead, to shield Ulster County from the war while not otherwise offering support.[2]

That autumn, the thinly-scattered European settlers on the far side of the Catskills expressed alarm at a possible war afoot in adjacent Indian Country. The paranoia of Indian raids that spread among them was much like that which overtook Ulster County two decades earlier during the French and Indian War. What these settlers did not mention in their panicked letters was the fact that some of them had formed a gang and were actively persecuting Loyalist neighbors on the upper Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers. Many of the so-called Loyalists were simply peaceful farmers who had little interest in joining a rebellion. The persecutions – which included violent evictions and theft of property – got so out of hand that armed local Indian warriors felt the need to protect these settlers.[3] The harassment by the roving Rebel gangs pushed many on the frontier – Indian and white – towards Loyalism. In that September, leaders from the tribal governments on the western side of the Catskills pledged loyalty to the British at a large treaty held at Fort Niagara.[4] Upon returning from Fort Niagara, Esopus Indian chief sachem Philip Houghtaling sent a representative, the war captain John Runnupe, with a message to local Rebel settlers: they had one week to leave the Western Catskills, with no guarantee of safety for those who refused.[5]

In response, Ulster County resolved that a company of rangers be formed to patrol the western frontier of Ulster County to protect non-Loyalist settlers.[6] A few days later, more alarming news arrived from over the Catskills: an elderly Esopus Indian woman “…weeping much… desired the [settlers] to move this week to get out danger, and that she would not see them [again for] a long time… she expected that in case they did not move off they would be murdered by the Indians in a short time…”[7] Many settlers now abandoned their frontier farms and fled eastward to the safety of the river towns. And yet, even if they had warned off rebellious frontier settlers, the Esopus Indians still showed no inclination towards conflict with Ulster County as a whole. A number of their leaders arrived in Kingston in November of 1776 to renew the treaty of peace, just as they had done nearly annually since the Second Esopus War ended in 1664. This would be the last time in history that the Nicolls Treaty was renewed.
           
The winter of early 1777 passed by relatively uneventfully. When travel became easier with the melting of winter snow, messengers were once again sent from Kingston to the Esopus Indians on the other side of the Catskills to enquire as to their intentions.[8] By early April of 1777, the Esopus Indians’ response was received: they still wished to maintain peace with Ulster County. The Esopus Indian leadership even offered to send one of their most respected citizens, Nicholas, to Kingston with his family to remain for the duration of the war as a sign of their good will (and as a potential hostage). Chief Sachem Philip Houghtaling ended his message stating that “We assure you of a truth, that it is our determination that we will lay still in this distressing time, and that you shall not receive damage by us… The remote tribes of Indians are mostly joined at Niagara, and we expect they will be on your [i.e., the rebels’] backs some time this moon, at the northward [towards the Mohawk River]…”[9]
           
Pragmatically, the Esopus Indians wished to avoid conflict with their friends and former neighbors in the river towns of Ulster County, regardless of political orientation. They promised to protect Ulster County from raids by Loyalists and loyal Indian allies, so long as Ulster County protected Esopus Indian families and settlements on the upper Susquehanna and along the upper branches of the Delaware River. But by all indications, in following the lead of the Six Nations, the Esopus Indian Nation had allied itself with Great Britain the previous autumn two months before renewing the Nicholls Treaty in Kingston for the last time. And they had good reason to do so: should the Rebels win the war, they would prove to be an existential threat to all of those Native Nations dwelling near to the Fort Stanwix Treaty Line.[10] Moreover, it is likely that many young Esopus Indian warriors were inspired by charismatic Mohawk war chief and British officer Joseph Brant, who spent lengths of time in these years living amongst them. By early August of 1777, the Esopus Indians had participated as victors in one of the bloodiest ambushes of the American Revolution: the Battle of Oriskany in the western Mohawk Valley.

Several weeks later, on August 23rd, a rumor spread among the Esopus Indian communities that a large Rebel force from Kingston was on its way to destroy them. Although the rumor was unfounded, Esopus Indian families and non-combattants were sent eastward for safety up the West Branch to an isolated one of their settlements, as well as to Joseph Brant’s base of operations at the town of Onaquaga. It is possible that they imagined that this attack would be retribution for their involvement at Oriskany. They then sent a friendly overture to the authorities in Kingston; just as in previous overtures, they noted that they would continue to shield the river towns in Ulster County from any Loyalist raids, while hoping that Ulster County would cast a blind eye towards their warriors’ support of British military endeavors in the Mohawk Valley to the north.[11] New York Governor Clinton’s response to the Esopus Indians was indignant: that since “…the young Indians & warriors who had joined [the Loyalist officer] Butler went there designedly to fight and kill our People and to assist the English, that we cannot, therefore, consider the Fathers & Mothers of those young Indians as our Friends…”[12]
 
                                                               To Be Continued…
 
Citations:
[1] Journals of the Provincial Congress of the State of New-York: 1775-1776-1777, Vol. I. Albany: Thurlow Weed. 1842. 539-540.
[2] Harvey, Oscar Jewell & Ernest Gray Smith. A History of Wilkes-Barré, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Vol. II. Wilkes-Barré: 1909. 888-889.
[3] McGinnis, Richard. "A Loyalist Journal, Part 1" in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. 105(4). New York: 1974. 193-202.
[4] Journals of the Provincial Congress of the State of New-York: 1775-1776-1777, Vol. II. Albany: Thurlow Weed. 1842. 216.
[5] John Runnupe was likely the son or grandson of his namesake, whose full name was recorded under variations of Noondawiharind and who was involved in land sales in Shawangunk and for the Hardenbergh Patent earlier in the century.
[6] Journals of the Provincial Congress of the State of New-York: 1775-1776-1777, Vol. I. Albany: Thurlow Weed. 1842. 656-657.
[7] Ibid, Vol. II: 340.
[8] Calendar of Historic Manuscripts Relating to the American Revolution in NYS, Vol II. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons & Company. 1863. 93-94.
[9] Journals of the Provincial Congress of the State of New-York: 1775-1776-1777, Vol. II. Albany: Thurlow Weed. 1842. 423-424.
[10] The 1768 Fort Stanwix Treaty line was a boundary that more-or-less followed the Appalachian Mountains and which was meant to keep the peace by dividing the British colonies from the Indian Nations to the west.
[11] Calendar of Historic Manuscripts Relating to the American Revolution in NYS, Vol II. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons & Company. 1863. 276-277.
[12] Public Papers of George Clinton, Vol. II. Albany: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co. 1900. 272-274.

Author

Author Justin Wexler is an ethnoecologist who has spent the last 25 years conducting archival and ethnographic research to better understand the history, culture, and land management practices of the Native Peoples of the Hudson and Delaware Valleys. He has a BA in History and Anthropology from Marlboro College and an MA in Teaching History from Bard College. He and his wife Anna Plattner run Wild Hudson Valley, a forest farm and educational organization focused on Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountain history, ecology, wild foods, and land stewardship practices.

---

If ​you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!

Donate Now

Join Today