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Lot 172
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Richard Peters Indian content ALS from French & Indian War NY
Richard Peters Indian content ALS from French & Indian War NY
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Description:

Native American 0 - 0 Richard Peters Indian content ALS from front of the French and Indian War in New York 1755.

Single page ALS, 6.25" x 7.75", inscribed recto and verso. Dated "15 Dec 1755", expected folds with small repair to a separation along fold. Small pin holes of loss, page with overall toning. Strongly contrasting ink with a bold signature of Richard Peters as "Richard Peters".An incredible in-the-moment accounting of the chaos from the period of the French and Indian War, cusping just before the official "Seven Years War", which commenced in 1756 and transpired throughout much of the East Coast. This ALS was penned by Richard Peters to his brother.

Richard Peters, as a member of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, and secretary of the Land Office, helped manage the growing government of the colony of Pennsylvania through the access he had to members of the Penn family. He also worked closely with notable statesmen such as Benjamin Franklin and James Logan. Peters was appointed a Council member in 1749; he also served as a state commissioner to the 1754 Albany Congress. His involvement with Indian treaties and negotiations are well documented including within the archive of Benjamin Franklin's letters within the Founders Archives as noted below:

"Peters, Norris, and Franklin were commissioned on September 22 to meet the Indians at Carlisle and they proceeded to the westward immediately. They reached the house of Conrad Weiser, the province interpreter, on the Tulpehocken on September 24 and, setting out next morning and making all speed, they covered sixty miles and rode into Carlisle on the afternoon of September 26. The Indians had just arrived, in the company of George Croghan and Andrew Montour. The conference began inauspiciously, for the commissioners had outrun the wagons carrying the province's presents, and no formalities could begin until the goods were actually distributed. ..."

In this lengthy and illuminating ALS Peters, is providing extraordinary detail of an event from December 15, 1755. The letter in full is shown below:

"Dear Brother

I have received a most shocking Account from Mr Parsons of the State of the Indian War in that County & from what the Messenger Mr Atkins said ye Ravages now doing there are committed by the Wyomink Indians and that the Messengers are not gone to Wyomink this makes an unfavourable Turn in our affairs and should oblige us to consider how to raise Companies of Schouts Rangers & Indian Traders upon good Pay & Encouragement for Scalps and post them in the most convenient Places along the Mountains and not to delay doing this, for the back Inhabitants will all desert also. Pray what are the Commissioners doing none of my Lres by the Post so much as mentioned them. I do not know when the Council of War will finish their Plans of Operation but I want sadly to be at home & shall hasten the Governor all in my Power. It is not yet know[n] what Expeditions / will be first preferred nor what measures will be taken to regain the Indians - this last will I hope be fully considered & something done to extruct our Province from some of the Difficulties else our stay will be in vain.

An unhappy Difference has arow' betwn Mr Shirley & Mr Johnson yt I wish may not have some influence on Indian affairs. It is certain that they have blamed one another to the Indians & are striving on separate Interests which can get the most to his liking but I hope some way will be found to put an End to this unnatural variance.

I think it will be better to begin a new Council Book from ye Govrs Return from Newcastle and could wish all the Minutes were entered up to the Day in it from that time.

The story of the 27 French Men at War being arrived at Cape Breton is not credited here

New York I am Dear Brother

15 Dec 1755 Yours affectionately

Richard Peters"

The background leading up to this events which culminated in the French and Indian wars which started 260 years ago began as heartrending confrontations between the Native Americans and the incoming white European settlers. Cumberland County at that time comprised the western frontier, and Scots-Irish settlers were rapidly establishing a presence in lands that had long been home to the Delaware Indians. In 1758, during the French and Indian War, the British were negotiating Treaties with the Native Americans of the Ohio Valley. In it, the British promised not to settle the land west of the Allegheny Mountains and to abandon all forts in "Indian Territory" at the conclusion of the war. However, after the British victory over the French in 1763, it became clear that the provisions of the treaty would not be honored. Realizing that their only options were to either resist the incursions of the white settlers or lose their lands and culture to the newcomers, the Native Americans formed a confederation under the leadership of the Ottawa chief Pontiac, aiming to drive the whites out of the frontier lands. During both the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and the period now known as Pontiac's War (1763- 1764), many white settlements in the were attacked and destroyed, and settlers lived in constant fear of violent Indian raids. The fearfulness of this period is expressed in a 1755 letter from John Potter, Sheriff of Cumberland County, to Richard Peters, Esq., in which he describes the condition of the county after a horrific Indian raid. He wrote:

"There is two-thirds of the Inhabitants of this Valley who hath already fled, leaving their Plantations ... Last night I had a Family of upwards of a hundred of Women and Children who fled for Succor. You cannot form no just Idea of the Distressed and Distracted Condition of Our Inhabitants unless your Eyes seen and your Ears heard their Crys".

Other accounts were more graphic. In February of 1756, Thomas Barton, the rector of St. James Church in Lancaster, described the following in a letter to Richard Peters, secretary of the Provincial Land Office, concerning an Indian attack in Cumberland County:

"Within three miles ... was found Adam Nicolson and his wife, dead and scalp'd, his two Sons & a Daughter are carried off. .. The same Day, one Sherridan, a Quaker, his wife, three Children & a Servant, were killed and scalp'd, together with one Wm. Hamilton, & his wife ... within Ten Miles of Carlisle, a little beyond Stephen's Gap. It is dismal, Sir, to see the Distresses of the People ... For God's Sake make our Condition known."

These views of the raids, however, display only one facet of the story. Although many of the white settlers who were attacked in these violent encounters with the natives were indeed killed, a sizable number, mostly women and children, were instead taken captive, or "carried off", as Rev. Barton describes the Nicolson children. In accounts of the time, the lives of white people in Indian captivity were depicted as horror stories, with the eventual return of the captives to "civilization" seen as indisputably positive. However, a deeper reading of the historical record demonstrates that, although their encounters with the native culture were initially coerced, many of the captives came to wholeheartedly adopt the Native American style of life and discovered that they preferred it to that of their original culture. Having exchanged their white identities and social norms for those of the natives, many captives later resisted the opportunity to return to white society, a reluctance incomprehensible to European colonials, who regarded the natives as godless savages.

An incredibly scarce ALS first hand accounting from this period by Richard Peters.

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