Gelelemend

Gelelemend (* 1737 ; † 1811 ), also John Kilbuck jr. , William Henry or simply called Killbuck , was a chief of the Munsee , a tribe of the Lenni Lenape , and a member of the Turtle (turtle) or Turkey (turkey) clan. Historians do not agree on this. His Native American name was Gelelemend, which means leader , while Killbuck was apparently the nickname. The Lenape were reluctant to use their real name and nicknames were very common. William Henry was his Christian name , which he received after his baptism by the Moravian missionary David Zeisberger .

Historical background

A Moravian brother baptizes three Munsee-Lenape

The Munsee-Lenape lived in the 17th century roughly in the area where the present-day states of New York , Pennsylvania and New Jersey meet. They included the Esopus , Minisink , Canarsee and Wappinger , for example . Under the pressure of the white settlement, they were pushed westward from 1650 and united. The groups from the land east of the Hudson River withdrew inland and gradually gathered at remote meeting places. This trend continued at the beginning of the 18th century, the Minisink moved northwest to the northern arm of the Susquehanna River and many Munsee-speaking Lenape from the Hudson Valley joined them. Over time, the name for this new group changed from Minisink to Munsee .

After the Lenape moved to the Ohio area around 1740 , they organized themselves along the lines of their traditional clans, namely the turtle, wolf and turkey clan. Each clan had its own peace, council and war chief, with the turtle clan always being the chief chief of the entire tribe. In 1774, White Eyes of the Turtle Clan was the chief chief, while Gelelemend, the councilor and Captain Pipe of the Wolf Clan, embodied the Munsee-Lenape war chief. In the French and Indian War (1754–1763) Gelelemend actively supported the British in their fight against the French. In 1761 he led a British supply column from Fort Pitt to Fort Sandusky .

At the beginning of the 1770s, the Moravian missionaries came to the Ohio area , among them David Zeisberger and Johann Heckewelder , to convert Lenni Lenape to Christianity. The missionaries set up a series of missions near the Lenape villages, preached non-resistance and non-violence, and made a remarkable change in many Indian converted . They were called Moravian Indians (ger .: Moravian Indians ) and they lived in clean villages with names like Salem , Bethlehem or Gnadenhutten . There they raised horses and cattle, cultivated orchards, tilled their fields, and gathered daily for worship. The missionaries demanded that the Indians give up their traditional way of life altogether. As a result, part of the Lenape converted to Christianity and lived like whites, while others continued to adhere to their traditional customs. Gelelemend resented his grandfather for allowing the missionaries to stay in the Ohio area. Gelelemend was convinced that because the missionaries urged their converted Lenape to pacifism , he lost many warriors in the fight against the white settlers.

Between the lines

In the American War of Independence (1775-1783), the Lenape were initially neutral and White Eyes even held in 1776 addressed the Continental Congress of the United States in Philadelphia . The Lenape's position was critical, however, because their residential area was exactly between the British in the west and the Americans in the east. Gelelemend signed the first treaty between the United States and the Indians in Fort Pitt in September 1778. In this treaty, the USA assured the Lenape that they would no longer colonize Indian land, protect them from the British and, if requested, send a representative to Congress. In return, the Lenape became American allies and allowed a fort to be built on their territory. In the same year White Eyes died and Gelelemend succeeded him as chief of the tribe.

The Lenni Lenape as a whole, however, were deeply divided on which war party to support. Captain Pipe and Chief Buckongahelas did not follow Gelelemend and joined the British. Only Gelelemend remained loyal to the Americans, who ignored his request to build a fort to protect the village of Coshocton at the confluence of the Tuscarawas and Walhonding Rivers in Ohio. The people of Coshocton moved to Fort Pitt and left the main Lenape village to the enemy Wyandot and Mingo warriors.

Chief without people

Colonel Daniel Brodhead

In the spring of 1781, Gelelemend led Colonel Daniel Brodhead's punitive expedition from Fort Pitt to Coshocton, now inhabited by Lenape again. Before the attack, a chief wanted to negotiate with Brodhead about the surrender of the village without a fight, but was killed by a soldier with a tomahawk . Coshocton was burned to the ground, women and children were spared, but 15 male prisoners were executed. With only a few followers, Gelelemend followed the Americans to Fort Pitt, a chief without people or land who constantly feared for his life.

Gelelemend had been interested in Christianity for a long time and went on the mission to Salem, Ohio in 1788. There he was baptized in the name of William Henry , in honor of a man who had saved his life in the French and Indian Wars. He was the most prominent convert in the Munsee Christian community and died in Goshen, Ohio in 1811. He left behind several descendants whose middle name was always Henry , such as John Henry Kilbuck , a well-known missionary who served in Alaska around 1900 .

literature

• Francis C. Huebner: Charles Killbuck - An Indian's Story of the Border Wars of the American Revolution. Kessinger Publishing 2005, ISBN 978-141790-634-5
• CA Weslager: The Delaware Indians . New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1972.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bruce G. Trigger (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians. Volume 15. Northeast. Chapter: Delaware, page 213f.
2. ↑ Killbuck