Guyasuta and the Fall of Indian America

May 6, 2013
Crytzer (Major Washington’s Pittsburgh and the Mission to Fort Le Boeuf), who teaches history at Robert Morris University, traces the life and times of Guyasuta, an influential sachem, or chief, among the Iroquois. The author’s task is a difficult one—Guyasuta lived a relatively long life (1724–1799) during one of the most tumultuous centuries on the North American continent, especially for Native Americans. The book unfolds as a litany of woes—ambushes, massacres, sieges, battles, and treaties (drafted and broken)—that constituted frontier conflict in the heyday of the hatchet and musket. Complicating the narrative are the shifting allegiances and reciprocal savageries of an age in which “Indians fought as a group of individuals seeking individual glory” and, for settlers, “each colony had its own character.” Crytzer emphasizes the fickle relationship between Guyasuta and his sometime ally George Washington, “two men whose careers were defined by battling the ideological fortunes of the other.” Although a visionary in his ideation of a “unified Indian identity,” Guyasuta never saw his dream fulfilled, and indeed witnessed the beginning of the end of Native America. Early American history buffs will relish this perspective on a seminal period of rebellion and revolution that saw the rise of one nation atop the remains of many more. 21 illus. & 8 maps.

May 15, 2013

Guyasuta was a Seneca by birth, but he was known as a Mingo in the Ohio Valley. Mingos were members of the Iroquois Confederacy who migrated to the region to assert Iroquois authority over the local native peoples, although they never had the power they claimed. Guyasuta earned a reputation for opposing Euro-American encroachment into the Ohio Country. His opposition was not absolute, as opportunism prevailed in 1753 when he helped guide George Washington and his troops through the region. Crytzer (history, Robert Morris Univ.) depicts his subject in this narrative as the equal of such native leaders as Pontiac, Little Turtle, and Blue Jacket, which he clearly was not. Furthermore, the assertion that Guyasuta's death marked the effective end of native resistance in the Ohio Country ignores the colossal impact that Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa would have soon thereafter. VERDICT Crytzer's monograph is recommended for readers interested in the role of the Iroquois in the Ohio Country, but for further balance and context, readers should acquire Michael N. McConnell's A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, 1724-1774 and David L. Preston's The Texture of Contact: European and Indian Settler Communities on the Frontiers of Iroquoia, 1667-1783.--John R. Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY

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