Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Indian group, c. 1860. Photograph by Mathew Brady Studio. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Frederick Hill Meserve Collection.
Like Europeans who ventured into Indian country, Indians who traveled to cities often did so warily. Hostile populations, both Indian and white, might render their journeys perilous, especially in times of war. After the Oneida chief Shickellamy died in 1748, his son John (Tachnechdorus) served as the Iroquois representative in the Susquehanna Valley dealing with Pennsylvania. But the French and Indian War in the mid-1750s shattered earlier patterns of coexistence; now war parties ravaged the frontier and the Pennsylvania government offered bounties on the scalps of Indian men, women, and children. Traveling between the Susquehanna and Philadelphia, John Shickellamy was cursed and insulted by “fearful ignorant people” who told him, “to his face, that they had a good mind to scalp him.” Animosities toward India