Captain Pipe
Captain Pipe | |
---|---|
Hopocan, Konieschquanoheel | |
![]() Statue of Hopocan (Captain Pipe) in Barberton, Ohio | |
Lenape, Wolf Clan leader | |
Preceded by | Custaloga |
Personal details | |
Born | c. 1725? or 1740 |
Died | c. 1818? |
Relations | Uncle, Custaloga |
Children | Son, Captain Pipe, and other children |
Captain Pipe (c. 1725? – c. 1818?) (
Although Hopocan tried to stay neutral during the American Revolutionary War, after many of his family and people were killed in colonial American raids, he allied with the British. After the war, he moved his people fully into Ohio Country. He made treaties with the Continental Congress to try to protect Lenape land. American settlers continued to encroach on his people and territory.
In 1812 he moved with his people westward into present-day
Biography
Early life and education
In Lenape culture, people did not share their real names, because it could give spiritual power to enemies. In addition, individuals were often given new names, or nicknames, at different periods of their lives, particularly to mark life passages, such as reaching manhood. Konieschquanoheel (meaning "Maker of Daylight") was born about 1725 or 1740; this was his real name. His "public" name was Hopocan (meaning tobacco pipe). Because of the translated meaning and his status as a chief, the British called him Captain Pipe. This name was documented in the colonial historical records.[3]
Hopocan was born into the Wolf Clan of his mother, for the Lenape have a
Little is known of Hopocan's early years. He was probably born about 1725 near the
Career
The boy received the public name or nickname of Hopocan (meaning tobacco pipe). Captain Pipe, as the colonists called him, is first noted in historical records in 1759 among the warriors at a conference held at Fort Pitt, July 1759. Hugh Mercer, agent of Sir William Johnson, the chief British Indian agent in the Northeast, noted Captain Pipe among the attendees. Mercer had brought together the Six Nations of the Iroquois, as well as the Lenape and Shawnee, trying to secure their alliance with Great Britain during its Seven Years' War with the French (known on the North American front as the French and Indian War). The war lasted from 1754 to 1763.
Custaloga was known to have moved his band from French Creek into what is now Ohio. There is some evidence that he may have returned to Pennsylvania to the
In 1762 the Lenape gave the Moravian missionary Christian Frederick Post permission to build a cabin on the Tuscarawas River at present Bolivar, Ohio. Hopocan was given the job of marking out the land to be given to Post. In 1765 the warrior was recorded at another conference at Fort Pitt, which about 600 chiefs and warriors attended; numerous women and children accompanied them. In 1768 he again met in a conference at Fort Pitt, held by George Croghan, a sub-agent of Sir William Johnson, British Indian Agent of the northeast and based in central New York. This meeting gathered more than 1,000 Iroquois, Lenape, Shawnee, Wyandot, and Mohegan together following the British victory over the French in the Seven Years' War. Britain proposed an Indian state to be reserved to Native Americans west of the Appalachians, and proclaimed it as off-limits to Anglo-American colonists. But the British colonial governments were unable to enforce restrictions against Anglo-American settlers in this area, who were determined to go to new lands. By 1773, Captain Pipe succeeded Custaloga as chief of the Lenape Wolf Clan.[3]
Revolutionary War
During the American Revolution, Captain Pipe tried to remain neutral; he refused to take up arms against the rebels even after General Edward Hand killed his mother, brother, and a few of his children during a military campaign in 1778.[3] Failing to distinguish among the Native American groups, Hand had attacked the neutral Lenape while trying to reduce the Indian threat to settlers in the Ohio Country, because other tribes, such as the Shawnee, had allied with the British.
In 1778 Captain Pipe was with White Eyes and Killbuck, contemporary Lenape leaders of the Turkey Clan, when they signed the first treaty between the Continental Congress and Native peoples. Later that same year, General Lachlan McIntosh, the American commander at Fort Pitt, requested permission from the Lenape to march through their territory to attack Fort Detroit, which was held by the British. Captain Pipe and other Lenape chiefs agreed, based on the Americans' building a fort to protect the Lenape from the British military and European-American settlers. In response, McIntosh had Fort Laurens built near the Delaware villages in eastern Ohio. He demanded their Ohio Country warriors assist the Americans in capturing Fort Detroit, and threatened them with extermination if they refused.[3]
Believing that the Americans could not protect them from the British and their native allies, Captain Pipe and many other Lenape bands began to reach out to the British as allies. Also in 1778, Pipe and the members of his tribe who supported war, departed from the Tuscarawas area and relocated to the Walhonding River, about fifteen miles above the present site of Coshocton, Ohio.
In 1781 Colonel Daniel Brodhead attacked and destroyed this village, ending Pipe's neutrality. Captain Pipe became the leader of Lenape who supported the British and moved his people to the Tymochtee Creek near the Sandusky River. This village became known as "Pipe's Town." Present-day Crawford in Wyandot County developed near it. Captain Pipe spent the remainder of the war resisting American expansion into the Ohio Country.[3]
In 1782, Pipe helped defeat the
After the Revolution
Captain Pipe continued to resist white settlement of the Ohio Country (which by then the United States called the Northwest Territory).
In 1788 when settlers landed at what is now Marietta, Ohio, they found Captain Pipe and about seventy warriors encamped in the area. At that time General Josiah Harmar described him as a "manly old fellow, and much more of a gentleman than the generality of the frontier people."[3] By this time he was being called "Old Pipe." According to the most reliable accounts, Captain Pipe was then about forty-eight years of age. During this time, he also resided at "Birds Run" and "Indian Camp", communities served by Ohio State Route 658, and "Flatridge", all three villages about 10 miles NW of present-day Cambridge. The Lenape held many ceremonies at these sites, and their artifacts have been found in archeological excavations at those locations. Captain Pipe was believed to have last visited around 1800.[3]
In 1791, Captain Pipe participated in the battle that ended with St. Clair's defeat, and is said to have “slaughtered white men until his arm was weary with the work.”[2] He was likely also present at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.[2]
Scholars think that between 1793 and 1795, Hopocan made his headquarters at
By the 1810s and 1820s, Captain Pipe realized his people had little chance against the Americans and began to negotiate treaties with the United States government. The pioneer settlers also violated the new agreements, moving onto land set aside for the Lenape.
Captain Pipe had a son, also known as Captain Pipe, who signed many treaties and moved with the Lenape to Kansas.[6]
References
- ^ "1960.6934.01 - Document | Bartlesville Area History Museum".
- ^ a b c Stephen T. Jackson, In History: The tale of Captain Pipe, Herald Bulletin, 4 September 2010, accessed 27 August 2021
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Konieschquanoheel", Ohio History Central: An Online Encyclopedia of Ohio History, 1999-2011, accessed 29 January 2011
- ^ "Kuskuskies Towns", Historical marker, Explore Pennsylvania History website, accessed 29 January 2011
- ^ "Simon Girty", Ohio History Central, accessed 29 January 2011
- ^ David Dwiggins, "Orestes Indiana History - Captain Pipe" Archived July 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, n.d. (circa 2000?)
Bibliography
- Baughman, Abraham J. (1837-1913): "Pipe's Cliff", Ohio Archæological and Historical Society Publications: Volume 20 [1911], pp. 253–254.
Further reading
- Barnholth, William I. Hopocan (Capt. Pipe) the Delaware Chieftain; Akron, Ohio, Summit County Historical Society, 1966. OCLC 1078414
- Hurt, R. Douglas. The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.
- McConnell, Michael and Robert S. Grumet ed., "Pisquetomen and Tamaqua: Mediating Peace in the Ohio Country", in Northeastern Indian Lives, 1632-1816 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996): 273–94.
- McConnell, Michael N. A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and its Peoples, 1724-1774 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1992).