SUmmary

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Throughout the Revolutionary War, bounty rewards for killing, scalping, and capturing Indigenous soldiers and civilians were offered by both Continental and British government and military officials. Support for bounty laws was further encouraged by a 1777 raid near Kittanning, Pennsylvania by Westmoreland County militiamen who scalped five Native people, most likely members of Lenape Nation. When news reached colonial officials, Pennsylvania Colonel Archibald Lochry asserted that bounties served “a good end,” and settlers were “determined to exert themselves that way.”

In 1778, British forces and allied Six Nations soldiers mounted a series of attacks on Continental forces and settlers in New York and Pennsylvania. The Continental army and settler militias soon retaliated and launched scorched earth campaigns of ethnic cleansing in Haudenosaunee, Six Nations homelands.

In May 1779, as fighting continued in the region, American Colonel Archibald Lochry wrote to Joseph Reed. Esq., President, and the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, regarding a proposed scalp bounty: “You desire sir, in your letter, if the inhabitants on the frontiers would desire a reward on Indian scalps – I have consulted with a number on this head who all seem of opinion that a reward for scalps would be of excellent use at this time, and give spirit and alacrity to our young men, and make it their interest to be constantly on the scout.”

That spring, at an Indian Council at Fort Niagara, Seneca Chief Sayenqueraghta urged his tribe to ally with the British in battle to protect their lands from American settlers and speculators:

“It is also your business brothers to exert yourselves in the defense of this road by which the King, our father, so fully supplied our wants. If this is once stopt [sic] we must be a miserable people, and be left exposed to the resentment of the rebels, who notwithstanding their fair speeches, wish for nothing more than to extirpate us from the earth, that they may possess our lands, the desire of attaining which we are convinced is the cause of the present war between the king and his disobedient children.”

In July, one hundred British and allied forces, including 300 Seneca, led by Hiokatoo, attacked Fort Freeland, Pennsylvania. British, American, and Native troops engaged in killing and scalping. 

General George Washington then ordered brutal military campaigns of extirpation against the Six Nations. In August 1779, with six hundred U.S. and Native troops, General Daniel Brodhead carried out Washington’s plans, attacking Seneca and Delaware homelands, while many of the men were away fighting other American forces. Brodhead’s army met little resistance, torching at least 16 towns and hundreds of longhouses, taking plunder, crops, and scalps of children, women, and elderly men.

Washington also ordered the Sullivan Campaign (also known as the Sullivan-Clinton Genocide), targeting Haudenosaunee civilians and villages in Pennsylvania and western New York with the goal of "taking the war home to the enemy to break their morale." Mohawk leader Thayendanegea wrote of his premonition of further destruction by American troops, 

“We are in daily expectation of a battle which we think will be a severe one…. We do not quite know the number of the Bostonians [Americans] already stationed about eight miles from here. We think there are 2,000…. This is why there will be a battle either tomorrow or the day after. Then we shall begin to know what is to become of the People of the Long House…. Our minds have not changed. We are determined to fight the Bostonians.”

As anticipated, days later John Sullivan and 5,000 Americans overpowered roughly 800 British and Haudenosaunee, attacking villagers, burning forty towns and roughly 160,000 bushels of corn. Lieutenant William Barton reported that Continental troops scalped Native civilians at Canesaah, New York. During a march through the evacuated village of Gaghsuquilahery, American sharpshooter Timothy Murphy scalped “an unsuspecting elder … [and] two innocents” and “bragged of killing and scalping every Native he happened across.” He killed and scalped dozens in this campaign of terror. 

In August 1779, at Newtown, New York, Sullivan’s forces engaged with Six Nations and British troops. Female Haudenosaunee fighters defending their homes were led in battle by “Queen” Esther Montour, who reportedly led women warriors at Wyoming the year before. Hated by Americans, her body was mutilated by soldiers and thrown into a river. During Sullivan’s two month campaign, he took at least four women captive, though  taking captives was a rare occurrence due to his preference for killing and scalping. 

The combined decimation of American campaigns led by American generals Van Schaick, Brodhead, and Sullivan destroyed at least 60 villages and towns. Haudenosaunee historian Barbara Mann suggests:“To appreciate the scale of destruction, readers should take a map of their home state and, with a red marker, X out its capital and three major cities, along with fifty-six other towns, from the fairly populous to the farm-crossing.”

Colonists were clear that this ethnic cleansing was to open western lands for surveying and settlement by American soldiers who helped destroy Native villages. Sullivan’s report promised that “settlement of the country” would “soon take place.” Towns including Auburn and Owasco, New York and Athens, Pennsylvania (formerly Native towns Tioga and Chemung) were granted or sold to soldiers as bounty lands after the war. Within 50 years there were roughly a million white settlers in Haudenosaunee homelands.

On April 7, 1780, soon after the decimation of Six Nations homelands,  Joseph Reed. Esq., President and the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sent a letter to county lieutenant Colonel Samuel Hunter with the promise of large bounty rewards for the capture and scalping of Delaware people:

It is our earnest Desire that you would encourage the young Men of the Country to go in small Parties & harass the Enemy. In former Indian Wars it was frequently done & with great Advantage…. The Council would & do for this Purpose authorize you to offer the following Premiums for every male Prisoner whether white or Indian if the former is acting with the latter 1500 dollars & 1000 for every Indian Scalp…. We most earnestly recommend it to you to revive that same Spirit & any Plan concerted with Secrecy & Prudence shall have our Concurrence & Support…. 

On April 11, 1780, Reed wrote to Colonel Jacob Stroud, requesting that he send out militias to preemptively strike Native and British targets in order to, 

“… encourage the young men to hire out in small parties to endeavor to strike the enemy near home.… We would gladly support and promote such a measure and have therefore authorized the Lieutenant of the county to offer 1500 dollars for every Indian or Tory prisoner taken in arms against us and 1000 dollars for every Indian scalp. We are fully satisfied that the frontiers will never have peace while the country waits for the enemy but on the other hand it will be in their power with few and small parties to harass and distress them greatly.”

The official bounty act issued on April 22, 1780 by Reed and the Pennsylvania Council awarded $3,000 Continental for every Native prisoner or every Tory who had acted in arms with them, and $2,500 Continental for every Native scalp. At the time, $2,500 in paper was valued at $33 ⅓ in silver. This bounty remained in effect until March 21, 1783.  

In the spring of 1780, “having at present a great field to act upon,”  Shawnee warriors raided the American frontier, bringing scalps every day to officials in Detroit, according to British reports. Thomas Jefferson sought to exterminate the Shawnee or force them from their homelands, using a divide and conquer strategy to encourage intertribal division and warfare with the Delaware and other nations. Continental General Daniel Brodhead was “persuaded they are the most hostile of any savage tribe, and could they receive a severe chastisement it would probably put an end to the Indian war.”

Researchers in the Pennsylvania Archives have uncovered the number of scalps of Native people that were delivered to the state and the names of those who received payment, although we have been unable to verify whether this is a complete list. The following quote refers to soldiers on the government payroll and not civilian militia scalping “expeditions.”

“During the three-year period, according to Treasury records, the state acquired only a half dozen scalps. The rewards went to Captain Samuel Brady ($2,500 Continental), who had led a party of five white men and two Delaware Indians in a scalp raid toward Sandusky in the summer of 1780; to Captain Henry Shoemaker, to be divided among another party of volunteers; and to Captain Andrew Hood, Captain Alexander Wright, William Minor, and Adam Poe, all of western Pennsylvania. On April 2, 1782, an order on the state funds was drawn, to pay Adam Poe £12, 10s, for “taking an Indian scalp in the County of Washington, agreeably to the order of the board.”

Scalping expeditions, proclamations and campaigns of extirpation targeting Tribal Nations in Pennsylvania, New York and elsewhere continued throughout and after the Revolutionary War,   spreading violence, fear, and insecurity amongst all Native peoples, regardless of their loyalties and alliances, causing widespread death and displacement. All tribes were ultimately left out of the Treaty of Paris negotiations, betrayed by both sides at the war’s end. This led to a renewed pan-Native resistance movement against further land seizures and treaty violations over the following decades.

Back to Pennsylvania Scalp Bounty Proclamation, April 22, 1780