The Amerindian of the eastern North American forests has provided a color, romance and excitement for American War of Independence wargaming that have no matching counterpart in the European wars of the same period. The ferocious Indian warrior emerging from the forest half-naked, streaked with paint, bald-headed save for a scalplock and emitting an earpiercing war whoop as he springs his ambush, or descends upon an unsuspecting pioneer settlement, is the picture represented in both novels and first hand accounts. The Cherry Valley and Wyoming massacres; how does one convert this into wargame charts, morale modifiers and die rolls? One question that must be asked, is whether the Indians were actually militarily effective in the AWI, or just a "good scare", more suited for propaganda use (as were the tales of the merciless, butchering Hessian mercenaries) than combat. The reputation of the redman was familiar to both rebels and redcoats as both had fought against and in some cases, with them in the French & Indian Wars and it must not be forgotten that the rebel commander-in-chief George Washington had been present at Braddock's defeat. In the AWI, it is rather curious that the Indian warrior, who by all accounts should have been the ultimate ranger/light infantry prototype, seems to have been singularly ineffective. The dreaded Iroquois, allies of the British, were with the other tribes, employed as a sort of trump card in the planning of the Saratoga campaign, but actually proved quite disappointing and in regards to the Jane McCrea incident, actually united the colonists in a stubborn resistance to the despicable Crown practice of unleashing savages against innocent settlers. For the people who had survived four French & Indian wars, this act certainly went "agin" the Yankee grain. It is interesting that most AWI rules rate Indians on the same level as militia but as can be seen from the largest Indian battle of the AWI, the Battle of Oriskany, during which Indians supported by Tories ambushed the rebel militia under the command of General Herkimer, fought them for six hours and then quit the field, were defeated not by Morgan's Riflemen, or Continental line, but by the stalwart farmer citizen-soldier of the New York County militia. The Indians attached to Baum's column on the Bennington raid aided their German allies by shooting milk cows for their cowbells and then deserting Baum as soon as Stark's New England militia contested their presence. Later in the war when Sullivan's expedition was sent into Iroquois country to punish them for their raids on the frontier, the Indians made a stand at the battle of Newton. Once again their plan was to ambush the Americans but their trap failed and the Iroquois towns and crops were destroyed so completely that their power and influence were forever eliminated. Military Value The preceding examples illustrate that the Indian's military value as a participant in conventional warfare of the period was almost nil, yet still the Indian continued to be feared. It is my supposition that the Indian was not feared so much for what he could actually accomplish against formed regulars, but rather what the Indian warrior was capable of when fighting in his own style and in his own environment. In the hit and run skirmish warfare of the woodlands the Indian's military value appreciates considerably. In his forest "home turf," the Indian could choose when and where to fight and the battle was almost inevitably an ambush. The woodland warriors were physically hardy, skilled woodsmen, swift, silent and ferocious when they struck. Three Indian victories exhibit these features: Braddock's Defeat, the Battle of Blue Licks and St. Clair's Defeat. All were ambuscades and all were crushing defeats. One was against British regulars, one against Kentucky frontiersmen, and one against American regulars. Thus in wargaming, it appears that the Indian will be granted his due as a warrior in the small scale skirmish game where his military attributes may be exploited. Whereas, in a slightly larger scale, using formed regulars on the conventional battlefield will in most cases render the Indian warrior of little value. Back to MWAN #53 Table of Contents © Copyright 1991 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com