Silly war
Scene from the Battle of Norridgewock
| date | July 25, 1722 to December 15, 1725 |
|---|---|
| place | New England , Nova Scotia |
| output | armistice |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
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Sébastien Rasles , Gray Lock
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The Dummers War or Dummer's War (1722–1727) belongs to the colonial wars between England and France in northeastern North America, in which it was a matter of supremacy in this region. The name comes from Governor William Dummer in Massachusetts , after whom a fort in Vermont , built in 1724, was named.
By 1717 the English settlements in northern New England grew and claimed more and more Indian land. Many of the French missionaries wanted to defend the rights of the converted Indians and France and encouraged the Abenaki to resume the fight for their land. The spokesman for the Jesuits was Father Sébastien Rasles . Negotiations between the British and Abenaki in 1717 and 1719 were unsuccessful and after several outbreaks of violence between Abenaki and English settlers, Governor Samuel Shuttle declared war on the Abenaki in 1722, known as Dummer's War , Lovewell's War , Father Rasle's War or Gray Lock's War , become known and last for five years. In 1724 a force of colonists under Captain Jeremiah Moultan attacked Norridgewock in Maine , an eastern Abenaki village on the upper Kennebec River , burned it, killed Father Rasles and mutilated his body. Although the French did not participate directly in the war, their sympathies were clearly on the side of the Abenaki, and the reactions to the circumstances surrounding Rasle's death almost caused open rebellion among the French people. Only 150 Kennebec refugees from Norridgewock managed to escape to safe New France .
In the Silly War, the authorities suspended scalp premiums for the first time . For example, you paid 100 dollars for an Abenaki scalp, which would correspond to around 15,000 euros based on today's money. After the Pigwacket were also defeated the following spring, the Abenaki resistance in Maine collapsed. In December they signed a peace treaty with Massachusetts.
However, the conflict with the Western Abenaki , also known as the Gray Lock's War, continued for two years. A Pocumtuc chief named Gray Lock had found refuge in Schaghticoke , New York , after the King Philip's War . He had been wounded by white settlers in western Massachusetts as a young man and hated them ever since. He left Schaghticook and went to the Western Abenaki in Missisquoi. After the outbreak of war, he became war chief in 1722 and was popular with his successful raids against colonist settlements in the Connecticut River valley . The English were unable to track him down in his hiding place near Missisquoi and turned to the Iroquois for help. This refused and offered against it a mediating role.
After the war in Maine ended with the Eastern Abenaki defeat and the Peace Treaty in 1725 , Massachusetts sent gifts and an offer of peace to Gray Lock that fall, but the response came in the form of more raids. The New York government, the Iroquois and Penobscot tried to mediate, but Gray Lock ignored them all. The Penobscot finally succeeded in the Canadian Abenaki making peace with New England in Bécancour and Saint-François-du-Lac . Gray Lock was proven not to be present when the peace treaty was signed in Montreal in July 1727 . Shortly afterwards he ended the war without ever signing a treaty with the English. Gray Lock was 70 years old and the highest mountain in Massachusetts now bears his name.
See also: Timeline of the Indian Wars
Individual evidence
- ^ Abenaki History
- ↑ http://www.famousamericans.net/johnlovewell/ John Lovewell Biography