Peter Chartier

Fur traders doing business with Native Americans in 1777, with a barrel of rum to the left.

Beginning around 1675 traders had been selling rum in Shawnee communities which had resulted in several violent deaths.[27] In October 1701 the Pennsylvania Assembly had prohibited the sale of rum to the Indians,[28] however as the law was poorly enforced and the penalty was light—a fine of ten pounds and confiscation of any illegal supplies—rum continued to be used to barter for furs. Traders soon began selling rum on credit in order to extort furs and skins and labor out of the Shawnees.[7]

By the early 1700s the effects of alcohol abuse were damaging Shawnee communities. Rum as well as brandy and other distilled beverages had become important trade items and essential elements in diplomatic councils, treaty negotiations, and political transactions and had become part of Native American gift-giving rituals. The result was the erosion of civility, an increase in violence and widespread health problems. Alcohol made men less reliable hunters and allies, destabilized village economics and contributed to a rise in poverty.[29] The minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania for 16 May 1704 record a complaint submitted by Chief Ortiagh of the Conestoga Indians:

Great quantities of rum [are] continually brought to their town, insomuch as they [are] ruined by it, having nothing left but have laid out all, even their clothes, for rum, and may now, when threatened with war, be surprised by their enemies when beside themselves with drink, and so be utterly destroyed.[30]

On 24 April 1733 the Shawnee chiefs at "Allegania" sent a petition to Governor Gordon complaining that "There is yearly and monthly some new upstart of a trader without license, who comes amongst us and brings with him nothing but rum ..." and asking permission to destroy the casks of rum: "We therefore beg thou would take it into consideration, and send us two firm orders, one for Peter Chartier, the other for us, to break in pieces all the [casks] so brought."[31]

On 1 May 1734 this was followed by another letter dictated by several Shawnee chiefs to a trader, probably Jonah Davenport, listing the names of some fifteen traders who either had no license or had exhibited undesirable behavior such as frequent disputes or violence. Another seven, including Chartier, were named as being in good standing, and these would be permitted to bring up to 60 gallons of rum a year, as long as they could show a license. Chartier was described as "one of us, and he is welcome to come as long as he pleases ... [and] to bring what quantity [of rum] he pleases ..." The letter concludes, "And for our parts, if we see any other traders than those we desire amongst us, we will stave their [casks] and seize their goods."[7] The Shawnee evidently felt that control over the sale of rum would reduce problems resulting from its abuse.

By 1737 Chartier had become chief of the Pekowi Turtle Clan, with whom he was living.[26] He apparently made the decision to prohibit the sale of rum in Shawnee communities in his area, and persuaded other chiefs to do the same. In a letter of 20 March 1738, addressed to Thomas Penn and Acting Governor James Logan, three Shawnee chiefs stated:

All our people being gathered together, we held a council together, to leave off drinking for the space of four years, and we all in general agreed to it, taking into consideration the ill consequences that attend it and what disturbance it makes, and that two of our brothers, the Mingoes, lost their lives in our towns by rum, and that we would live in peace and quietness and become another people ... The proposal of stopping the rum and all strong liquors was made to the rest [of the tribe] in the winter, and they were all willing. As soon as it was concluded of, all the rum that was in the Towns was all staved and spilled, belonging both to Indians and white people, which in quantity consisted of about forty gallons, that was thrown in the street, and we have appointed four men to stave all the rum or strong liquors that is brought to the Towns hereafter, either by Indians or white men, during the four years. We would be glad if our brothers would send strict orders that we might prevent the rum coming to the hunting cabins or to the neighboring towns. We have sent wampum to the French, to the Five Nations, to the Delaware ... to tell them not to bring any rum to our towns, for we want none ... so we would be glad if our brothers would inform the traders not bring any for we are sorry, after they have brought it a great way, for them to have it broke, and when they're once warned they will take care.[32]

This letter was accompanied by a pledge, signed by ninety-eight Shawnees and by Chartier, agreeing that all rum should be spilled, and four men should be appointed for every town to see that no rum or strong liquor should be brought into their towns for the term of four years.[16][7] Governor Patrick Gordon sent Chartier a reprimand,[33] and traders continued to bring rum into Shawnee communities, including several traders who the Shawnees had requested be barred from their territory.

For several years the French government had been trying to win the support of indigenous communities for a war against the British, and in 1740 the Governor of New France, Charles de la Boische, Marquis de Beauharnois, attempted to persuade Chartier and other Shawnee leaders to meet in Montreal to discuss relocating to Detroit and forming an alliance.[34] In a letter of 25 June 1740 Chartier declined, promising to visit Montreal the following year (a promise which he evidently did not keep).[22]

Tensions with the Pennsylvania government escalated in 1743 when on 6 June three traders appeared before the Pennsylvania Provincial Council saying that two others had been murdered and that they had been advised by the Shawnees to leave or they too would be killed.[7][16] The governor regarded this as an act of provocation to violence, and sent a letter to the Pennsylvania Assembly alleging that Chartier's Native American heritage inclined him to have a "brutish disposition ... and it is not to be doubted that a person of his savage temper will do us all the mischief he can."[7]

In 1743 Chartier moved to Shannopin's Town (a Seneca village and the site of present-day Pittsburgh), and established a trading post on the Allegheny River about twenty miles upstream from the forks of the Ohio near the mouth of Chartiers Run at what is now Tarentum, a place which became known as Chartier's Town (Chartier's Old Town after it was abandoned in 1745).[16][35][36] Several Shawnee communities from the Chalahgawtha, Pekowi and Mekoche bands later resettled near Chartier's Town.[37]

Conference between French and Native American leaders around 1750 by Émile Louis Vernier

His efforts to protect his people from the influence of rum-peddling British traders having been frustrated, Chartier decided to lead his people away, cutting off the lucrative supply of furs that the British received from the Shawnee in exchange for rum.[20] In April 1745 Chartier accepted a military commission from the French[24] and, with some 400 Pekowi Shawnees, abandoned their settlement and headed southwest.[38]

In July 1745 two traders, James Dunning (one of the traders that had been banned in 1734) and Peter Tostee appeared in Philadelphia claiming that they had been robbed on 18 April:

... as they were returning up the Allegheny River in canoes, from a trading trip, with a considerable quantity of furs and skins, Peter Chartier, late an Indian Trader, with about 400 Shawnese Indians, armed with guns, pistols and cutlasses, suddenly took them prisoners, having, as he said, a captain's commission from the King of France; and plundered them of all their effects to the value of sixteen hundred pounds.[7]

The Pennsylvania provincial council issued an indictment of "Peter Chartier of Lancaster County ... Labourer [who], being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil ... falsely, traitorously, unlawfully and treasonably did compass, imagine and intend open war, insurrection and rebellion against our said Lord the King." Chartier's landholdings in Pennsylvania, totaling some 600 acres, were seized and turned over to Thomas Lawrence, a business partner of Edward Shippen, III.[22]

Chartier led his Shawnee band to Lower Shawneetown on the Ohio River where they took refuge for a few weeks.[39] Chartier and his people recognized that, by defying the Provincial Governor and accepting French patronage, they were now compelled to leave Pennsylvania.[40] An anonymous French trader visiting Lower Shawneetown witnessed Chartier's attempts to persuade the leaders of Lower Shawneetown to accept French patronage, without success:

They held a council to...hear the reading of Longueuil's letter. After this Chartiers took the [French] flag and planted it in front of one of the big chiefs of the village, saying to them: "This is what yours sends you, to continue to [do] the bidding of the general." They all took up arms, saying...they would have nothing to do with it...if the French could bring them back...it was only to make slaves of them...but Chartiers told them that he would not listen to them.[41]

The same trader watched the Shawnees who had accompanied Chartier performing a two-day "Death Feast," a ceremony conducted before abandoning a village.[42][41][20]

Black Hoof (Catecahassa) was a member of Chartier's nomadic Shawnee band. From the History of the Indian Tribes of North America.

Fortunately, the Shawnees were accustomed to relocating—Peter's father Martin had traveled with them from Illinois to Maryland in the early 1690s. On 24 June, 1745[41] the group left Lower Shawneetown, traveled down the Ohio River as far as the Great Miami River[41] and in August proceeded south to Kentucky to establish a new community called Eskippakithiki.[43]

Proceeding southwards along the Catawba Trail, they established a town about a mile west of the oil spring on what was afterwards called Lulbegrud Creek, a northern tributary of the Red River of Kentucky, about twelve miles east of the site of the present town of Winchester, Clark County.[7]^:134

Fighting with Iroquois and Chickasaw, as well as a smallpox epidemic,[4] led them to move south to the Coosa River in 1748,[44] where they established the village of Chalakagay near what is now Sylacauga, Alabama.[45][46] The warrior and chieftain Black Hoof (1740–1831), then a child, was a member of this Shawnee band and recalled it in later years.[43][7] In May, 1749 Antoine Louis Rouillé, the French Foreign minister, wrote: "[Chartier's] band, after ascending a part of the river of the Cherakis, decided to go and join the Alibamons, where it appeared to have behaved well."[47]^:129

The Pennsylvania government continued to offer a bounty for Chartier as late as 1747, when James Adair attempted to catch him in South Carolina. Adair later wrote:

I headed a company of the cheerful, brave Chickasaw, with the eagles' tails, to the camp of the Shawano Indians, to apprehend one Peter Shartie (a Frenchman), who, ...had decoyed a large body of the Shawano from the English to the French interest. But, fearing the consequences he went round an hundred miles toward the Cheerake nation...and thereby evaded the danger.[7]^:134

Early in his career, Peter Chartier served as a capable intermediary, bridging the cultural gap between the English and the Native American tribes of the Ohio Valley and Western Pennsylvania by acting as an interpreter and negotiator who played a crucial part in maintaining good relations with local tribes, establishing military alliances, and promoting trade. Many other métis traders and explorers of mixed European-Native American parentage served in this role, along with Europeans who had assimilated into Native American communities, speaking English, French and (sometimes several) Native American languages fluently, and understanding both European and Native American customs and values. The best-known of these are Louis-Thomas Chabert de Joncaire and his son Philippe-Thomas Chabert de Joncaire, several members of the Montour family including Madam Montour, her son Andrew Montour and his son Nicholas Montour, and Augustin Langlade and his son Charles Michel de Langlade.[7]^:xv

Chartier's decision to join the French and to lead his community out of Pennsylvania sparked fears that French influence over Native Americans would motivate them to attack British settlements. Accordingly, the Pennsylvania provincial government took measures to comply with the repeated requests of Shawnee leaders to control the practice of trading rum for furs. On 7 May 1745, shortly after Chartier had announced his defection to the French, Lieutenant-Governor George Thomas issued a proclamation stating:

Whereas frequent complaints have been made by the Indians, and of late earnestly renewed, that divers gross irregularities and abuses have been committed in the Indian countries, and that many of their people have been cheated and inflamed to such a degree by means of strong liquors being brought and sold amongst them contrary to the said laws, as to endanger their own lives and the lives of others ... I do hereby strictly enjoin the magistrates of the several counties within this province, and especially those of the county of Lancaster, where these abuses are mostly carried on, to be very vigilant.[54]

Thomas strengthened the law against the sale of rum in indigenous communities, doubled the fine to twenty pounds, required a surety bond of one hundred pounds from anyone applying for a license to trade furs with Native Americans, required that the goods of traders traveling to indigenous communities be searched, and gave

...full power and authority to any Indian or Indians to whom rum or other strong liquors shall be hereafter offered for sale contrary to the said laws, to stave and break to pieces the cask or vessel in which such rum or other strong liquor is contained.[54]

Although this was the most severe proclamation yet implemented to control the distribution of alcohol to Native Americans, it was also not strictly enforced and alcohol abuse continued to be an increasing problem in indigenous communities.[27]

Historian Stephen Warren describes Peter Chartier as an "audacious example of independence [which] infuriated Englishmen and Frenchmen alike," saying that Chartier

...encouraged Pan-Indian expressions of unity ... He discovered valuable lessons in movement and reinvention and ... turned Shawnee histories of migration and violence toward adoption of a new racial consciousness for Indian peoples in the eastern half of North America.[20]

Warren argues that both Peter and his father Martin Chartier influenced the Shawnee attitudes towards their neighbors and rivals, both European and Native American:

The Shawnees ... modeled themselves after men such as Martin and Peter Chartier, who moved between regions and empires in a single lifetime. Like the Chartiers, the Shawnees refused to acquiesce to French, English, or Iroquois "overlords." Frustratingly independent, Shawnee migrants made deliberate choices based on the realities of Indian slavery, intertribal warfare, and access to European trade goods.[20]