Captain Pipe | |
|---|---|
| Hopocan, Konieschquanoheel | |
 Statue ofHopocan (Captain Pipe) inBarberton, 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?) (Lenape), calledKonieschquanoheel and also known asHopocan inLenape, was an 18th-century Head Peacechief of theAlgonquian-speakingLenape (Delaware) and War Chief 1778+.[1] He succeeded his maternal uncleCustaloga as chief by 1773.[2] Likely born in present-day Pennsylvania, he later migrated with his people into eastern Ohio.
Although Hopocan tried to stay neutral during theAmerican 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 intoOhio Country. He made treaties with theContinental 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-dayIndiana, where some accounts say he died. By 1821, most of the Lenaperemoved toKansas, which was considered part ofIndian Territory. They and other Native Americans were under pressure from the United States to remove from all areas east of theMississippi River. Congress later formalized this policy under theIndian Removal Act of 1830, signed by PresidentAndrew Jackson.
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 wasHopocan (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 amatrilinealkinship system of descent and inheritance. Children take their social status from their mother's family and clan. In this system, his mother's eldest brother was more important in her children's lives in the clan than their biological father, who was always from another clan. Marriages were exogamous, or outside one's clan. The uncle served especially as a male mentor to boys, bringing them into tribal male society.
Little is known of Hopocan's early years. He was probably born about 1725 near theSusquehanna River in Pennsylvania. His maternal uncle was ChiefCustaloga, whom he later succeeded as hereditary chief, according to the matrilineal kinship rules. Captain Pipe likely spent his early years either at Custaloga's Town, alongFrench Creek inMercer County. He may also have lived at his uncle's other main village,Cussewago, at the present site ofMeadville inCrawford County.[3]
The boy received the public name or nickname ofHopocan (meaning tobacco pipe). Captain Pipe, as the colonists called him, is first noted in historical records in 1759 among thewarriors at a conference held atFort Pitt, July 1759.Hugh Mercer, agent ofSir William Johnson, the chief British Indian agent in the Northeast, noted Captain Pipe among the attendees. Mercer had brought together the Six Nations of theIroquois, as well as the Lenape andShawnee, trying to secure their alliance with Great Britain during itsSeven Years' War with the French (known on the North American front as theFrench 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 theKuskuskies Towns, on theShenango River near present-dayNew Castle. These four villages had earlier been inhabited bySeneca people of theIroquois League, but by 1756 they were settled by Lenape displaced from further east during theFrench and Indian War.[4]
In 1762 the Lenape gave theMoravianmissionaryChristian Frederick Post permission to build a cabin on theTuscarawas River at presentBolivar, 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 byGeorge 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, andMohegan 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 succeededCustaloga as chief of the Lenape Wolf Clan.[3]
During theAmerican Revolution, Captain Pipe tried to remain neutral; he refused to take up arms against the rebels even after GeneralEdward 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 withWhite Eyes andKillbuck, contemporary Lenape leaders of the Turkey Clan, when they signed the first treaty between the Continental Congress and Native peoples. Later that same year, GeneralLachlan McIntosh, the American commander at Fort Pitt, requested permission from the Lenape to march through their territory to attackFort 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 Native Americans allied to the British. In response, McIntosh hadFort 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 British-allied Native Americans, 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 theWalhonding River, about fifteen miles above the present site ofCoshocton, Ohio.
In 1781 ColonelDaniel 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 theSandusky River. This village became known as "Pipe's Town." Present-dayCrawford inWyandot 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 theCrawford Expedition, headed byWilliam Crawford. Seeking vengeance for theGnadenhutten Massacre, in which nearly 100 Lenape were killed, the warriors marked Crawford for death by painting his face black after capturing him in battle. When they conductedritual torture of Crawford before killing him, American witnesses say the soldier beggedSimon Girty, a Loyalist interpreter, to shoot him. Girty had been taken captive and adopted by the Seneca as a boy, becoming assimilated. He knew he would likely be killed if he intervened in the ritual, but he was strongly criticized by American survivors for letting Crawford be tortured.[3][5]
Captain Pipe continued to resist white settlement of theOhio Country (which by then the United States called theNorthwest Territory).
In 1788 when settlers landed at what is nowMarietta, Ohio, they found Captain Pipe and about seventy warriors encamped in the area. At that time GeneralJosiah Harmar described him as a "manly old fellow, and much more of a gentleman than the generality of thefrontier 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-dayCambridge. 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 withSt. 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 theBattle of Fallen Timbers.[2]
Scholars think that between 1793 and 1795, Hopocan made his headquarters atJerometown, Ohio. In his later years, he resided with his people on the upper branches of theMohican, the head branches of theBlack, theVermillion and theCuyahoga rivers, all in Ohio. In 1808-09 early white settlers to the area of what is nowJeromesville inAshland County, on the Jerome Fork of theMohican River, found Lenape people living at the oldMohican village of Johnstown. (This was about three-fourths of a mile southwest of the present-day Jeromesville). The home of Old Captain Pipe was located nearby, as reported in stories of the settlers and the Lenape, who said he lived there until 1812.[3]
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.[3] In the spring of 1812, Old Captain Pipe and his people removed westward again. Some reports say they lived near present-dayOrestes inMadison County, Indiana, but others refute that. TheTreaty of St. Mary's in 1818 gave the tribes three years before having toremove from Indiana to Kansas. They departed peacefully in 1821. Chief Pipe was said to have died around 1818 near Orestes and is supposedly buried there. Other reports claim that he removed to Canada and died there.[3]
Captain Pipe had a son, also known as Captain Pipe, who signed many treaties and moved with the Lenape to Kansas.[6]
Captain Pipe | ||
| Preceded by | Chiefs of the Lenape - Wolf Clan 1774–1818 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
