Cornstalk

Gravesite of Chief Cornstalk

Cornstalk (? * 1720 (); † 10. November 1777 ) was a famous leader of the Shawnee - Indians at the time of American independence movement . His English name Cornstalk ('Maisstengel') is a translation of his Shawnee name Hokoleskwa or Colesqua ( blade of corn - 'Maishalm' or stalk of corn - 'Maisstengel'). He was also known as Keigh-tugh-qua and Wynepuechsika .

His assassination by American militias enraged whites and Indians alike and erased any hope that the Shawnee would remain neutral during the war.

It is impossible for historians to precisely reconstruct Cornstalk's youth, but it is believed that he was born in what is now Pennsylvania and then with his parents avoided the advancing whites into the Ohio Valley . His participation in the French and Indian War and the Pontiac uprising is not guaranteed, but he played a role in the subsequent peace negotiations.

Cornstalk played a central role in the Dunmores War in 1774 , which was sparked by the Shawnee resistance to the flooding settlers. He led them in the Battle of Point Pleasant , in which a force of Virginia settlers defeated the Shawnee.

During the American independence movement he tried to move the Shawnee to neutrality, which led to a de facto split of the tribe into two camps.

In the fall of 1777, Cornstalk decided to negotiate to Fort Randolph, at what is now Point Pleasant , to travel to maintain its neutrality. But the commander of the fort, who had decided on his own initiative to take every Shawnee prisoner, arrested him and his companion. When his son found out, he too rushed to the fort, but was also arrested. After a soldier was murdered by strangers on November 10, soldiers broke into the cell and murdered Cornstalk and his son Elinipsico. Another Shawnee, who was also captured, tried to escape through the chimney, but was arrested and killed with axes.

literature

• 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.