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Cornstalk (c.1720 – November 10, 1777) was a prominent leader of the Shawnee people in the era of the American Revolution. His Indian name was Hokoleskwa ("blade of corn"), rendered in innumerable spelling variations by contemporary chroniclers. Cornstalk's murder by American militiamen during the Revolutionary War outraged Indians and whites alike, and eliminated any remaining possibility (already remote) that the Shawnee might remain neutral in that conflict.
Early years
Historians can only speculate on Cornstalk’s early years. He may have been born in present-day Pennsylvania, and migrated to the Ohio Country, near present day Chillicothe, as the Shawnee gave ground in the face of expanding white settlement. There are stories of Cornstalk's involvement in the French and Indian War as part of a Shawnee effort to reclaim lands in Pennsylvania and Virginia, though these are likely apocryphal. Likewise, his active participation in Pontiac's Rebellion is unverifiable, though he played a role in the peace negotiations.
Dunmore's War
Cornstalk played a central role in Dunmore's War of 1774. After the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, white settlers and land speculators began moving into the lands south of the Ohio River in present-day Kentucky. However, the Shawnee and other Indians living in Ohio had not been party to the Fort Stanwix negotiations, and they still considered the Kentucky lands to be their hunting territory. Violence soon erupted. Cornstalk tried to prevent further escalation of the hostilities, to no avail.
Attempting to check a Virginian invasion of Ohio, Cornstalk led a group of Shawnee and Mingo warriors at the Battle of Point Pleasant in present day West Virginia. According to tradition, Cornstalk was a reluctant war leader. He realized that the Shawnee were not strong enough without allies to stop the Virginians, but since his young men were determined to make a stand, he led the way. His attack was not successful; Cornstalk withdrew, and was forced to accept the Ohio River as the boundary line at the Treaty of Camp Charlotte.
Cornstalk's commanding presence often made quite an impression upon American colonists. One Virginia officer wrote of Cornstalk at Camp Charlotte: "I have heard the first orators in Virginia, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, but never have I heard one whose powers of delivery surpassed those of Cornstalk on that occasion."
American Revolution
With the coming of the American Revolutionary War, Cornstalk worked to keep the Shawnee nation neutral, representing his people at treaty councils at Fort Pitt in 1775 and 1776, the first Indian treaties negotiated by the nascent United States. However, many Shawnees hoped to take advantage of the war and use British aid to reclaim lands lost to the Americans. By the winter of 1776, the Shawnee were effectively divided into a neutral faction led by Cornstalk, and militant bands led by men such as Blue Jacket.
In the fall of 1777, Cornstalk made a diplomatic visit to Fort Randolph, an American fort at present-day Point Pleasant, seeking as always to maintain his faction's neutrality. Cornstalk was detained by the fort commander, who had decided on his own initiative to take hostage any Shawnees who fell into his hands. When, on November 10, an American militiaman from the fort was killed nearby by unknown Indians, angry soldiers brutally executed Cornstalk, his son, and two other Shawnees.
American political and military leaders were alarmed by the murder of Cornstalk; they believed he was their only hope of securing Shawnee neutrality. At the insistence of Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia, Cornstalk’s killers (whom Henry called “vile assassins”) were eventually brought to trial, but since their fellow soldiers would not testify against them, all were acquitted.
Cornstalk is buried in Point Pleasant. Legends arose about his dying "curse" being the cause of misfortunes in the area (later supplanted by local "mothman" stories), though no contemporary historical source mentions any such utterance by Cornstalk.
References
- Downes, Randolph C. Council Fires on the Upper Ohio. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1940.
- Sugden, John. "Cornstalk" in American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 1999.
External links
- A 1954 newspaper article about the reburial of Cornstalk's remains
- "Cornstalk" at shawnee-bluejacket.com
- An article on the supposed Cornstalk curse
1720 births | 1777 deaths | Native Americans in the American Revolution | Shawnee tribe | Native American leaders | Murdered Native Americans
"Cornstalk"