cornstalk

For other uses, see Corn Stalk.

Cornstalk's gravesite in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

Hokoleskwa (ca. 1720 – November 10, 1777) — known as Cornstalk — was an important 18th century leader of the Shawnee people. In the Shawnee language, his name meant "blade of corn". His name was spelled a variety of ways, including Colesqua and Keigh-tugh-qua.

Cornstalk and the rest of the Shawnee people migrated into present-day Ohio in the 1730s, pushed by European colonial encroachment into their traditional lands. He and his tribesmen participated in many battles against the English settlers of Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. His death came at a time when he had been at peace with the whites. His effort to warn the fort of impending plans of massacre by militant natives defines the reputation of this Native American hero.

Biography

Early years

Historians can only speculate on Cornstalk’s early years. He may have been born in present-day Pennsylvania. At some time his people migrated to the Ohio Country, near present day Chillicothe, as the Shawnee gave ground in the face of expanding English settlement.

French and Indian War

During the French and Indian War (1754–63) — conflicts in North America that paralleled European rivalries of the Seven Years War — Cornstalk and the Shawnees sided with the French. They feared that English settlers would rapidly expand into the Ohio Country if they were not stopped. As part of the more general conflict known as Pontiac's Rebellion (1763), Cornstalk led raiding parties into western Virginia, hoping to drive the English away from Shawnee territory. In June 1763, Cornstalk led a band of about 60 of his tribesmen into Greenbrier County, in present-day West Virginia. On June 26, by pretending friendship, he gained the confidence of the settlers at Muddy Creek. When their defenses were down, his warriors killed them all. Among the dead were the families of Frederick Sea, Joseph Carrol and Salty Yolkum. The next day, Cornstalk repeated his deception at the Clendenin Settlement, near the current site of Lewisburg, where his warriors killed more than 50 settlers.^[1] Colonel Henry Bouquet defeated the Shawnee in 1764. To ensure that the natives would sign a peace treaty ending the rebellion, Bouquet seized several hostages, including Cornstalk. The Shawnee agreed not to take up arms against the English again.

Lord Dunmore's War

During the next decade, fighting occurred again between the English and the Ohio natives. Cornstalk tried to ease the tensions, but with the arrival of more white settlers, his urging peace put him in the minority. By the spring of 1774, violence was constant. On May 3, 1774, a group of English colonists killed eleven Mingo Indians. At least two were relatives of Logan, a leader of the Mingos in the Ohio Country. Upon hearing of the murders, many Mingos and Shawnees demanded retribution. Some, like Cornstalk, urged conciliation. Cornstalk and most Shawnee Indians promised to protect English fur traders in the Ohio Country from retaliatory attacks, since the traders were innocent. Logan, however, was not easily convinced. Shawnee and Mingo chiefs permitted him to attack British colonists south of the Ohio River, who had killed his family members.see Vandalia (colony)^[2]

Logan took approximately two dozen warriors to exact revenge. He traveled into western Pennsylvania. There, his followers killed thirteen settlers before returning back across the Ohio River. Captain John Connolly, commander of Fort Pitt, immediately prepared to attack the Ohio Country natives. John Murray, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, offered his colony's assistance. Dunmore hoped to prevent Pennsylvania's expansion into modern-day West Virginia and Kentucky by placing Virginia militiamen in those regions. He also hoped to benefit his colonists by opening the lands to English settlement.

In August 1774, Pennsylvania militia entered the Ohio Country and quickly destroyed seven Mingo villages, which the Indians had abandoned as the soldiers approached. At the same time, Lord Dunmore sent 1,000 men to the Little Kanawha River in modern-day West Virginia to build a fort and attack the Shawnees. Cornstalk, who had experienced a change of heart about the white colonists as the soldiers invaded the Ohio Country, dispatched nearly 1,000 Shawnee warriors to drive Dunmore's force from the region. The forces met on October 10, 1774, in what became known as the Battle of Point Pleasant. After several hours of intense fighting, the English drove Cornstalk's followers north of the Ohio River. Dunmore, with a separate force, followed the Shawnees across the river. Upon nearing Shawnee villages on the Pickaway Plains, Dunmore stopped and asked the Shawnees to discuss a peace treaty. The Shawnees agreed. While negotiations were under way, however; Colonel Andrew Lewis and a detachment of Virginia militia crossed the Ohio River and destroyed several Shawnee villages. Fearing that Dunmore intended to destroy them, the Shawnees immediately agreed to terms before more blood was shed. Under this new treaty, the Shawnee Indians agreed to the previous Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) in which they gave up ownership of all lands east and south of the Ohio River. This was the first time that natives who lived in the Ohio Country agreed to relinquish some of their land. In addition, the Shawnees promised to return all European captives and to refrain from attacking English colonists traveling down the Ohio River.

American Revolution

Cornstalk abided by this treaty for the rest of his life, but most Shawnees did not. By 1777, the Shawnee Indians again planned to drive the white settlers from the region. This time they did so at the urging of British soldiers, Simon Girty with the Ohio Shawnee, Thomas McKee with the Ohio Delaware and British officer Henry Hamilton of Fort Detroit the other frontier Indians, who sought assistance in defeating the colonists in the American Revolution. Cornstalk and his son, Elinipsico, went to Point Pleasant, the site of an American fort, to warn the whites of the impending attack. The Americans took the natives hostage. Shortly thereafter, news reached Point Pleasant that, the Shawnee had ambushed and killed an American soldier. Seeking vengeance, the colonists killed Cornstalk, his son, and other Natives in American custody.

Cornstalk was originally buried at Fort Randolph. In 1840 his grave was found and the remains moved to the Mason County Courthouse grounds. When the courthouse was torn down in 1954 he was reburied at Tu-Endie-Wei State Park in Point Pleasant.

See also

• Chief Cornstalk Wildlife Management Area

Notes

References

• Barr, Daniel P., ed. The Boundaries Between Us: Natives and Newcomers Along the Frontiers of the Old Northwest Territory, 1750-1850. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006.
• Barrett, Carole, Harvey Markowitz, and R. Kent Rasmussen, eds. American Indian Biographies. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 2005.
• Bond, Beverley W., Jr. The Foundations of Ohio. Columbus, OH: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1941.
• Clark, Jerry E. Clark. The Shawnee. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993.
• Dixon, David. Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac's Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.
• Dowd, Gregory Evans. War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations & the British Empire. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
• Flavell, Julie, and Stephen Conway, eds. Britain and America go to War: The Impact of War and Warfare in Anglo-America, 1754-1815. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.
• Fowler, William M., Jr. Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763. New York: Walker & Company, 2005.
• Hurt, R. Douglas. The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.
• Knepper, George. Ohio and Its People. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2003.
• Nester, William R. The Great Frontier War: Britain, France, and the Imperial Struggle for North America, 1607-1755. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000.
• O'Donnell, James H., III. Ohio's First Peoples. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004.
• Ricky, Donald B., ed. Encyclopedia of Ohio Indians. St. Clair Shores, MI: Somerset Publishers, Inc., 1998.
• Ward, Matthew C. Breaking the Backcountry: The Seven Years' War in Virginia and Pennsylvania, 1754-1765. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Cornstalk

• http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=77
• Mason County Convention and Visitors Bureau
• A 1954 newspaper article about the reburial of Cornstalk's remains
• "Cornstalk", Shawnee-bluejacket.com
• An article on the supposed Cornstalk curse, Prairie Ghosts