Real TOMAHAWK Combat!..from historical accounts

let's read some first-hand combat accounts of tomahawks hi folks matt easton here scholar gladiator and you can consider this one of my story time episodes and here we're going to be looking at primary source or at least period accounts of the use of the tomahawk now before i go on i should mention that tomahawk is a fairly loose term that was used particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries to refer to small axes or small hatchets and most people would associate these of course with native americans and that's where the word originally comes from but in fact the word was used much more widely than that in the period accounts we're going to look at here we should also bear in mind that these are 18th and 19th century sources so they use period language we should also remind ourselves of course that these are sources that have bias they're historical sources and they should be taken with a pinch of salt but before i go any further into this video i just want to have a quick word about 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much for staying with me now let's get back to the subject of tomahawks and first-hand accounts that i'm going to be reading some out of yeah for you here i um use the british newspaper archive which i'm a big fan of and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of sources on there now we should mention about those sources as i've already mentioned uh in this video already there's inherent bias to these sources they're not always accurate sometimes they're made up stories sometimes they are first-hand witness accounts and of course the bias of the period is not just should we say cultural it's ethnic it's political sometimes we're describing accounts from a british perspective of things happening in the americas sometimes before the war of independence sometimes during it sometimes after it when sometimes the americans or the european settlers of america are considered the enemy and sometimes indeed the indigenous people the native americans of america are considered as the enemy and sometimes they're considered as allies because for anyone who doesn't know native americans formed various alliances with both the british and the french to fight each other and then also with the british to fight against the americans as well so it's complicated you've got to take these sources in that light they're very much historical sources of their day that have to be taken with with some wisdom shall we say in hindsight now also before i delve into these sources i should mention what is a tomahawk well quite simply it is um it is a word which comes from um comes from the americas it comes from native american languages and it was adopted into european language very very quickly it seems uh probably uh by certainly by the 18th century becomes quite prevalent and in fact if we look at the number of hits that i get searching on the newspaper archive british newspaper archive then indeed you can see that the word was uh heavily used in the 18th century increasingly so and then very heavily used in the 19th century so much heavily used and liked that the word tomahawk was used for the naming of things uh things like obviously in the 20th century famously a a type of aeroplane um but additionally even for things like racehorses in the 19th century so it actually becomes quite difficult when you're just word searching to pull out the sources that really just refer to the use of tomahawks now what were tomahawks in the time well quite simply obviously originally it probably refers to native american weapons that don't use metallic heads that originally have stone or other things in the head but they come to be used the word tomahawk comes to be used for a variety of axes and hatchets okay so it tends to be one-handed axes rather than large sort of wood-filling axes and they can have a simple blade they can have a hammer on the back they can have a pipe built into them so you can smoke them um and indeed sometimes they have spikes or hooks or other things on the back as well so they come in and indeed they don't always have an axe blade sometimes you get a sponton style almost pick or warhammer type spike so there's a huge variety of uh tomahawks and they were used both as weapons and as tools under status symbols as well that has to be said in case you're curious the axes featured in this video are by condor by thor's forge and by ravensbeak forge so without further ado let's plunge into some of these primary sources that contain some interesting anecdotes observations and sometimes some surprising facts so the first account we're going to look at is from the leeds intelligencer of tuesday the 29th of april 1760. so of course this is a period during which this area of america is under british sovereignty and it is from charlestown south carolina the report being on february the 23rd and it says letters are just received from fort prince george which are dated the 24th past containing the following account of the late attempt of the indians to seize that place that on the 16th two indian wenches appearing on the riverside at kiowi mr dhokhati went out of the fort to ask them what news there was that presently after the great warrior of konote appeared and desired that he would call the commanding officer of the fort and tell him he wanted to talk to him that doherty according accordingly did so and lieutenant koitmore went to the bank of the river accompanied by ensign bell dougherty and foster the interpreter that the great warrior told mr coitmore he intended to come down to the governor and would be glad to have a white man to accompany him as a safeguard having somewhat of consequence to impart mr coitmore answered that he should have one whereupon the great warrior said he would go and catch a horse for him mr coitmore told him he needed not give himself that trouble but the warrior said that he would and while he was speaking he swung a bridle which he held carefully in his hand thrice over his head upon which 25 or 30 guns were immediately discharged at mr coitmore and his company from different ambush scades where the cherokees were placed before day and to whom the shaking of the bridle was a signal mr coitmore was shot through the left breast which proved mortal mr bell in the calf of the leg and foster in the buttock that ensign millin who was left in the fort upon such a piece of treachery judging it improper and unsafe for the garrison that the hostages should continue any longer only confined to a room ordered the soldiers to bind and put them in irons that the soldiers accordingly set about executing the order when the first who attempted to take hold of an indian was killed on the spot being struck with a tomahawk on the head stabbed in the belly with a knife and having his jaw broken and another was wounded in the forehead also with a tomahawk this outrage being committed directly after that upon mr koitmore so alarmed and highly incensed the garrison that it was thought expedient to put all the hostages to death immediately which was done accordingly that in the evening some indians came near the fort fired two signal guns and several times cried out in the cherokee language not knowing what had happened fight strong and you shall be assisted soon after which the indians began and continued most part of the night firing on all sides of the fort but they did no damage that hence it was suspected that it had been concerted between the hostages within and their friends without to attack and massacre the garrison that night which suspicion was confirmed the next day for upon searching the apartment in which the hostages had lay there was found besides a bottle of poison doubtless designed to have been emptied into the well several tomahawks buried in the earth which their friends who were suffered to visit them must have privately conveyed thither so in all probability the putting of the hostages to death had proved a very critical event while the garrison are free to for future apprehensions from within so what we see here is essentially what seems to be an ongoing feud between the fort and the local cherokee and the the summer had been taken prisoner and the cherokee um outside had basically hatched a plot according to this article whether it's true or not we don't really know in order to free them and they had gone in to talk to them they'd smuggled in some hatchets and some tomahawks and they had been buried in the earth um so they could use them later so that the uh there'd be a concerted effort with this signal to attack from outside and to attack from within and to take the fort so a very interesting episode obviously quite tragic for the hostages and indeed the other people who were killed during the incident but here we see the tomahawk being the absolutely key hand-to-hand weapon that was prepared for such an encounter and also very interesting detail that these tomahawks were buried because burying the hatchet as we know is a sign of peace so putting the hatchets away and burying them but tomahawks are constantly referred to in the period sources as being buried in the ground which is very very interesting and perhaps this is an old tradition that goes back pre-metal-headed tomahawks to various types of war club perhaps they were sometimes buried in the ground um to obviously for symbolic reasons for war and peace and and pulled out when at time of war but perhaps also like here for episodes of subdivision as well and of course with a non-metallic head it wouldn't rust in the ground with a metallic head it would but i suppose you could wrap it in something or cover it in grease or something like that if you were worried about rust but of course even if this has got rust on it it's still going to function as an effective weapon now the word tomahawk had already passed into widespread use in britain and in america in the english language and indeed outside of the english language as well but it had already passed into common sense of what a tomahawk was so even to the point that here we have an article from the derby mercury of 1764 february 1764. so in the uk in derby not the most cosmopolitan place in 1764 i tell you people knew what a tomahawk was such that it wasn't seen necessary to spell out what a tomahawk was so already by the middle of the 1700s and the incident is this and this seems like a relatively straightforward encounter between as it turned out to hostile people and it says the week before last an inhabitant of minnesync or minifink i'm not sure what that is from the writing being on a hunting for deer so deer hunting expedition on the west side of the delaware fell in with a single indian when it says fell in that means fell out actually so it came into an encounter they are spying each other almost at instant immediately treed now i'm not certain what that means but if you read last of the mohicans there's lots of climbing into trees so i'm not sure whether that's what that means but i don't know what treed means and after exchanging several shots the indian imagined that he'd wounded his and his antagonist kind of suggesting that maybe this guy who was out hunting actually took a pot shot at the native american and the native american decided he wasn't having any of that anyway um and the and he rushed the indian this is the uh he rushed in upon him with his tomahawk but the white man after receiving two desperate wounds from the indian knocked his brains out with the end of his musket cut his head off and brought it home in triumph so i mean that's a fairly bloody encounter and obviously we will never know what exactly happened there the fact that this is being reported in a newspaper suggests that this is not a common occurrence actually and obviously this is something being reported from far away being reported in derby but you know people lapped up stories like these and stories of the the wild frontier in america and what's now the usa and canada were they were lapping it up in britain and they were writing stories about it and telling tales about it so there was very much and you know i have to say again obviously i'm just reading the text it is obviously we refer to people as native americans for the most part now um or various other more modern terms but in all of these sources they pretty much use the word indian and so i will read that when i read it on the page but in this case we'll never really know what happened but again it's the tomahawk when you get a native american coming into conflict that is so often a tomahawk but not always native americans as we'll see as we go through these sources now we fast forward another few years but still pre-american war of independence so we're still talking about british areas of control and this is another article from a british newspaper the leeds intelligencer again this time from september 1771 and this is an extract of a letter from pennsylvania which itself was dated august the first and it says the following account was received here this day from fort chatra one wood a soldier in the royal regiment of ireland was taken prisoner by a party of potawatomi i hope i pronounced that right indians after a most gallant resistance the poor lad was amusing himself with his gun a little away from the fort presumably shooting practice a savage came up to him with the intention to take a take a tomahawk to him but the soldier killed him with a load of shot that he had in his gun now that's an interesting detail a load of shots might suggest buckshot and it might suggest that he was shooting the birds but anyway that's a minor detail then a number of about 20 lept out of the bushes to surround him he then took to his heels that means ran away of course and loaded with ball as he ran now there's an interest interesting detail because prior to that he'd shot a shot which would mean essentially um you know shot for shooting birds but now he's loading with ball some people might call that a bullet but musket ball um as he ran now some this is an interesting detail because some people who for example watch the movie last of the mohicans debate how possible it is to load a um a muzzle loading flintlock musket or rifle whilst running well here we have a historical account from 1771 actually describing this happening it goes on the indians finding that he outran them that sounds somewhat likely but anyway uh fired a volley after him um and wounded him he took to a tree again we've got this taking to a tree thing which is something we see in the book of last of the mohicans so i wonder if the previous account which talked about treed meant taking to a tree and when you think about it this might have a practical usage in the age of muzzle loading fairly slow loading firearms where if you can climb up a tree you can fend someone off for long enough while you reload or it might not mean that it might mean i'm just writing far too much into this or trying to analyze analyze and possibly he just simply took to a tree because he didn't know what else to do and he was wounded and he couldn't run anymore and they surrounded him he shot another from the tree so he had reloaded again by this point which would kind of reinforce my theory but he was overpowered and led away in triumph poor fellow i suppose for a deliberate torture and you'll notice a lot of these accounts when you look at 18th century and 19th century accounts of conflict between native americans and european settlers they often talk about torture and they often make a big thing of um the native americans torturing people and some of this undoubtedly did happen in both directions but also i think there was a degree of politicization and propaganda with all of these things so there is a degree of trying to demonize the people who are seen as other or the enemy in some cases and you'll notice that when we get into uh british accounts where the native americans are allies they talk about them in completely different terms and they stop talking about things like torture and savagery and they talk about them as their noble allies propaganda again so you with newspapers you've also always just the same as today you've got to be very careful about what you read and interpret um however the savages acknowledged to the french on the opposite side of the river that they that they had bought his life very dearly that means that he'd killed two of them in the process so again a heavily propaganda and politicized thing we even see mentions of the french here and in this case there is the implication that these savages are allies of the french again interesting they're savages when they're allied with the enemy but they're not savages when they're aligned with you so a perfect example i think of how to be very careful when we're reading historical period accounts but again we see that tomahawk is always the go-to default weapon hand weapon of native americans in this period so now we're forwarding to 1775 only a few years later and this is from the shrewsbury chronicle 20th of may 1775. and this is talking about the infantry levees militia whatever you want to call them that were being raised in the colonies as they would have been known in britain at the time in the american colonies and essentially how they're structured and what equipment they have so here interestingly we have the word tomahawk used which is a native american word but it's being used to the equipping of european settler troops for the most part so they are they have adopted the tomahawk or perhaps there are weapons like the um other types of acts and of course a lot of these in fact most of these were being imported um from europe or made in the um european colonies in america and being sold to native americans so easily even when this is a native american weapon in native american hands it's often europe pretty much always european made but there were other types of axes as well and we know that certain types of boarding acts essentially or hatchet were used by european settlers widely they were also used by sailors very widely and in fact if we look at the golden age of piracy which of course is let's say it culminates in about the 1720s then very often pirates are represented with axes now this could again be propaganda because this is seen as a more savage and brutal weapon than something like a sword certainly more than a small sword and to some degree perhaps more than the cutlass or or dussac as well and in fact there's this famous image of um anne bonnie and mary reed where they're both armed with what look like medieval battle axes but they're probably supposed to be representative of boarding axes which undoubtedly were used by pirates and everybody else so yes absolutely more traditional styles of native american tomahawk we use as well as other hatchets and axes and the word tomahawk could be applied to all of them in this period because the fame of the native american tomhawk was so great at this time and so influential uh on the kind of uh common public's mind that they would often refer to any old acts as a tomahawk so it says that each company of infantry consists of 68 rank and file to be commanded by one captain two lieutenants or lieutenants if you're american one ensign inside maybe four sergeants four corporals and that they have a drummer and be furnished with the drum and colors that every man be provided with a good rifle if to be had or otherwise if not to be had with a common fire lock so in other words with a smooth ball musket if you can't get hold of a good rifle also a bayonet and cartouche box and also with a tomahawk one pound of gunpowder and four pounds of ball of lead fitted to the bore of his gun so bullets are the right size um and that he'd be clothed in a hunting shirt by way of uniform so we see really here the the the famous image of the forces of uh the independence war against the fighting against the british these are much more kind of practical uh forest dwelling and swamp dwelling uh freedom fighters certainly from an american point of view and that all endeavor as soon as possible to become acquainted with the military exercise for infantry appointed to be used by his majesty in the year 1764. so these are in theory uh british at this point british troops who are supposed to be drilled according to the regulations of 1764 although of course a lot of these troops would have been equipped with tomahawks so therefore they could be in british service or indeed in later independence american service equipped with tomahawks and a lot of these people would have been equipped by his majesty and then of course would have turn coat they would have turned and joined the independence movement which is fair enough now this is the part that surprised me slightly it goes on it says each troop of horse so cavalry consists of 30 exclusive of officers that every horseman be provided with a good horse a bridle a saddle with pistols and holsters a carbine that is a short musket or some other short fire lock so it could be any type of short musket basically with a bucket you think what you need a bucket is for the carbine to go into so it's like a holster for a long arm a cutting sword or tomahawk one pound of gum powder and four pounds of ball at least uh and use the utmost diligence in training and um conditioning his horse um so that he can discharge to the discharge of firearms and in making himself acquainted with the military exercise for cavalry and this is an order coming from london on may the 13th um 1775. now what i found fascinating here is i have never heard reference before to tomahawks being used by cavalry and here it clearly says to furnish them with a cutting sword now what does they mean by cutting sword were either a saber or a back sword or a broadsword basically so they mean not not a small sword not a thrusting sword so a cutting sword or tomahawk that's like crazy so basically if your body of horse if you couldn't furnish them with 30 swords then you'd make do with tomahawks fascinating i never knew that cavalry was sometimes armed with tomahawks at least on paper maybe in reality there are enough cutting swords for them to all have swords but at least it's in the regulations coming from london that they could also be armed with tomahawks on horseback so here we have another account of these famous american riflemen and this account is from 1776. so obviously this is looking at things from a different point of view now because history has moved on and this says uh and sorry this is the derby mercury of uh 17th of may 1776 and it says much has been said of the riflemen of the provincial army and of the almost unerring certitude of their aim that's what they're famous for right that like um much like hawkeye that the accuracy of their sniping as we'd call it today marksmanship and of the uh almost unerring certainty certitude of their aim but there is another part of their military apparatus perhaps still more tremendous of which the public prince have given no account the infantry of the american troops carry no bayonets in the place of which each soldier has a brace of excellent pistols slung to his belt together with a tomahawk or war hatchet now i think i don't think they mean tomahawk or war hatchet like they're two separate things i think they're just for anyone who doesn't know what a tomahawk is it's a wall hatchet it's an axe in the exercise of the latter that is the tomahawk they are no less expert than the rifleman at firing a mark so in other words yes they are awesome marksman with rifles but this is saying the derby mercury that they're also really bloody good with using their tomahawks in combat at the distance of 20 yards their aim is generally fatal their aim that's right they're not just using a hand hand combat they're throwing them and um these they use against the party advancing with the bayonet so the implication here now whether this is true or not i don't know but they certainly believed it was true when they wrote it and they are saying that these riflemen if they were being charged by people with bayonets at close range presumably if they didn't have time to reload and they themselves not having bayonets would throw with unerring aim their tomahawks at the advancing british bayonettiers and it goes on at a distance of 20 yards their aim is generally fatal and they use and they use against uh they use it against a party advancing with a bayonet the direct the direction is at the head which is death if the blow takes place and their pistols are for close combat and to this that the grenadier companies are armed with lances aka spears or spawn tunes which is a better weapon than the bayonet i'd actually agree with that last part definitely absolutely fascinating i had not read an account exactly like this so what they're saying is that they they the standard riflemen were excellent with their tomahawks that they were obviously excellent marksmen but if they were charged by bayonets they would throw the tomahawks at the heads of the charging infantry and then they would use the brace of pistols in close combat fascinating and kind of the opposite to what you expect because you think about the pistols being discharged at range and then this being used at the hand this account whether it's true or not says that they threw the tomahawk and then used the pistols at even closer range presumably just out of bayonet range so a fascinating account and here we categorically have tomahawks or war hatchets being used in the hands of american revolutionary forces against the british now here we have a slightly different take and mention on the tomahawk and this is essentially from parliament it's from the british parliament this is featured in the scots magazine of august 1778 and it's now a period where the british are looking to ally with the native americans against the rebels as the british see them and so the parliamentary discussion says or goes like this it says his lordship declared to us in expressed terms that the congress had endeavoured to engage the indian savages in their service and would have employed them in the war it is well known in what manner they must be employed not in the use of the sword and bayonet of which they are ignorant but the scalping knife and tomahawk in which they are expert in this manner they have been employed by general burgoyne and it goes on to basically say discuss the the ways in which they might conduct the war or should have conducted the war and it's a debate it's a parliamentary debate so i won't go into it because it gets quite meaty and complicated and it's all to do with laying blame on who's done things right and who's done things wrong but it's just an interesting example of how now the the indian savages as the as the british press normally describes them at this time are now starting to become allies rather than enemies and indeed it's a period in which there were some quite large groups of native americans who formed into sort of confederations to fight against european settler americans essentially difficult with the terminology here but it also just kind of reiterates this idea that for the most part the best way for native american troops or warriors to fight is in their traditional manner in which they are accustomed that is with the knife the tomahawk the bow the rifle the musket skirmishing hit and run this kind of things not using the sword and the bayonet in the traditional european fashion so even the british who liked to go to places like india and train sepoy soldiers to fight in the european fashion even the british recognized the best way to engage native american troops was for them to fight to their strengths and fight in the ways and with the weapons that they were most familiar with so here is an article from the hampshire chronicle of february 1786 and this is a kind of i think the context of this is that it's the increasing interest in britain in the various peoples of uh what's now known as the usa because they are potential allies basically in trying to get the the north america back under british control and so there are lots of descriptive accounts and sort of factoids about these people not all accurate by any sense and obviously heavily biased sometimes completely misinformed but they do contain some nuggets of inf interesting information and this is talking about a confederation of um of tribes that include the mohawk i won't go into the detail of it talks a lot about the different tribes and who's in charge of who and uh kind of um domination of certain tribes over others and the payment of taxes essentially between one tribe another but i won't go into that detail but it says it talking about their weapons it says their arms are muskets long knives and a small hatchet called the tomahawk which they never cease to carry about them the last serves them also as a pipe a steel bowl being fixed on the head of the hatchet and a tube running up the handle this they throw with such certainty and dexterity as to stick the edge into any object at considerable distance they express peace by the metaphor of a fire and tree and war by an axe or hatchet these are the brave the free the faithful allies that england has so shamefully abandoned nor is this the first time that she has acted in this manner so this is actually very interesting because we find bias obviously in all historical documents this one is actually criticizing england for not standing up for native americans in uh essentially under european settler kind of yoke and having you know land taken away from this kind of stuff but what's interesting is this is the beginnings of a movement whereby you know britain was only only too happy pre-independence to take as much land as it could in some cases buy it from france for example quite simply they're now moving into a period where they're trying to big up the native americans and say look at these noble uh allies um who we've done wrong by and we need to do right for them so they're trying to build an almost christian just cause for continuing war with what's now the three american states also of course this is a mention of a pipe tomahawk of which this is actually a hammer headed type so it doesn't have a pipe but it's very much the same shape as this so it is the showing of the importance again the tomahawk of being such a primary together with the long knife such a primary important uh hand weapon of the native americans but also it talks about throwing again and if i didn't see so many historical accounts of these being thrown i would have been a bit dubious about them to be honest but it's mentioned time and time again the accuracy and effectiveness of these as throwing weapons and there's a parallel there with early medieval francisca perhaps in in western europe but so there we go so these were very popular and very famed weapons as throwing weapons as well as hand weapons now no video looking at primary sources talking about tomahawks uh and the long knife incidentally as well would really be true to the historical sources available without mentioning scalping and certainly uh the kind of politically incorrect and badly informed uh sort of western movies i think made a big thing of um scalping in the early days of cinema and indeed this stems from 19th century literature talking about the frontier in the in the americas and the and the carrying out of scale scalping now i realize that in modern times this has become a contentious topic which i'm not going to go into because i don't know enough about it but the fact is i'm looking at sources from the 17th and um sorry from the 18th and 19th centuries here and so here is one talking about scalping i'm only using this one particularly because it talks about the effects of tomahawks specifically so it says this is an article again in the derby mercury from november 1791 so again it's post-american independence uh it's on the verge of the napoleonic wars now and it says that it's titled scalping among the american indians scalping is a mode of torture peculiar to the indians in a if a blow is given with the tomahawk previous to the scalp being taken off it's followed by instant death but where the scalping only is inflicted with a knife presumably it puts the person to excruciating pain though death does not always ensue there are instances of persons of both sexes now living in america and no doubt in other countries who after having been scalped by wearing a plate of silver or tin on the crown of the head to keep it from the cold an infection enjoy a good state of health and a seldom afflicted with pains when an indian strikes a person on the temple with the tomahawk the victim instantly drops he then seizes his hair with one hand twisting it very tight together to prepare the skin for the sorry to separate the skin from the head and placing his knee on the breast with the other he draws the scalping knife from his from the sheath and cuts the skin around the forehead pulling it off with his teeth as he is very dexterous the operation is generally performed in two minutes the scalp is then extended on three hoops buried in the sun sorry dried in the sun and rubbed over with vermilion some of the indians in time of war when scalps are well paid for divide one into five or six parts and carry them to the nearest post in hopes of receiving a reward proportionate to their number now we do obviously know well certainly the sources talk about paying for scalps and this happened in the british versus french war prior to independence and at other times as well but i don't want to dwell on the scalping and the paying of booty for it really here i think the the reason i picked out this article for reading is one i thought it's an example where the tomahawks mentioned in conjunction with scalping and scalping is mentioned a lot in 18th and 19th century sources but it talks about the tomahawk so the tomahawk is the striking implement and in this case the knife is the scalping implement so it does seem that there is a preference and i know that obviously in movies we see that the knife and the tomahawk use together one in each hand because movies love dual wielding looking at the original source material i am somewhat dubious that dual building was done very much it's not shown very much in the period art it's not mentioned very much yes indeed the long knife and the tomahawk are both mentioned in the period sources but they usually mention being used separately this is a rare case where they're being used together but that's in a very particular scalping situation and note that the first strike the person that the way of felling the person is striking to the head with the tomahawk the other thing i want to mention as well is certainly within a native american context it seems to be that the head particularly the forehead and the temple are the primary targets for the tomahawk sometimes other targets are mentioned such as arms but usually the tomahawk seems to have been directed at the front or side of the upper part of the head with a downward blow so that's why i pulled out this source because it illustrates that quite nicely and also it says the victim instantly drops will most people with a good hit in the head with the tomahawk i should imagine do this is now the british trying to destabilize shall we say the american nation in its infancy um of the new american nation in its infancy by essentially trying to provoke and promote a native american independence movement um ironic of course that this should in some senses happen in britain's empire later on 19th century but that's something for another video and this talks about the defeat of general saint claire now if you search general sinclair i won't do a video about him about his fascinating fascinating military commander military leader but he had a major major defeat when the u.s army american army under his command was defeated by a confederation of native americans and again i won't go into the whole campaign exactly what happened but i'll read this account and this is reported in the northampton mercury british newspaper in january 1792 and it says the warriors of the almost numberless combined indian nations having length collected their forces appeared in the van in the back of the american army marshalled with much order in battle array so that according to the newspaper there are just loads and loads and loads of massive thousands of confederated native americans who come together lots of different tribes they've pulled together to basically try and defeat this american army under general sinclair a desperate conflict ensued and victory for a long time seemed suspended at length the indians throwing away their muskets rushed with their bayonets and tomahawks bayonets and tom hawks i suspect they need long knives and tomahawks but anyway because they've just thrown away their muskets i suppose there's a possibility they could have been using bayonets dismounted from the muskets but i think this is just the reporter the journalist using the wrong word for the implement but so let's say knives knives and tomahawks rushed upon the americans who dismayed no less by the horrified shrieks of the enemy than the suddenness and impetuocity of the attack fled on all sides so the american army ran away general saint claire with great courage and ability rallied his forces and by the most judicious movements affected a tolerable retreat towards kentucky leaving however about 300 rank and file dead on the field of battle with the greatest part of his baggage and the whole of his plunder it's not a little extraordinary that although 32 officers were wounded not one was killed so this incident actually happened in november 1791 and as uh known today as sinclair's defeat also known as the battle of the wabash also the columbia massacre or the battle of a thousand slain and it remains to this day the greatest defeat of a u.s army by native americans by a native american army in history with about 623 american soldiers killed in action and about 50 native americans killed so rather different to the newspaper article there and it's just a reminder to take what you read in the newspapers with a massive dose of salt but again we see the tomahawk featuring heavily here and it's interesting to see that certainly according to the article if it's correct the um the native american army realizing that uh maybe didn't have as much firepower as the um american army but realizing that they had greater numbers and were probably therefore far more formidable in hand-to-hand combat um charged and this is echoed with things like the highland charge uh during the jacobite rebellion in battle of cloud and things like that also um the zulus for example later in the 19th century or the sudanese the dervishes later in the 19th century so very often an army which is equipped with um despite the fact they've got firearms but is equipped with hand weapons and is greater in numbers very often the successful tactic is to just rush the enemy so they can't stand there and reload and fire and reload and fire so sinclair's defeat very interesting episode in which the tomahawk was blooded and featured very heavily now finally we're actually going to move away from native americans for the last couple of accounts and that is because the word tomahawk passed into general usage to describe any sorts of hatchet or small acts so this the word tomahawk and the concept of the tomahawk really entered the public imagination and even became applied to as i say other forms of hatchet or indeed naval boarding acts and what we have here is a naval incident although i should caveat that with my assumption is this refers to a boarding act but it might possibly actually be what we'd commonly call a tomahawk let's read the account so this is from the hull advertiser and exchange gazette from january 1798 so we're now in the napoleonic wars era some further particulars relative to the mutiny on board the british fig frigate hermione when about three days out from cape nicola mull on a cruise part of the crew were engaged handing the mizzen top sale the captain speaking sharply to them two of the men fell from the yards when the others came down they were reprimanded in harsh terms by the captain and several of them were threatened with punishment this occasioned much discontent another beginnings of a mutiny it was the captain's fault which continued until the next evening when the mutiny broke out by throwing double-headed shot about the ship and other disorderly behavior having a riot basically the first lieutenant went down to inquire what they wanted and was soon wounded in the arm with a tomahawk so my assumption is that means a boarding axe or any other type of hatchet but it's interesting that they use the word tomahawk and indeed there is some possibility i suppose that it was literally what we'd call as a morgue he retired for some time i imagine he did if you'd been hit in the arm of the tom hawk and when he returned he was knocked down with a tomahawk and his throat cut and then he was thrown overboard so he's i mean he's done for after which the sailors proceeded to the cabin in search of the captain who'd locked himself in i imagine he had i think i would have jumped overboard which is why i'm not captain of a ship but he too was soon dragged out after having wounded two or three and defending himself with his sword and experienced the fate of his unfortunate lieutenant so he had his throat cut and he was thrown overboard as well they afterwards seized upon and murdered every officer in the ship except a master's mate and two midshipmen so they were sort of compassionate i guess the spaniards have since manned the ship and sent her to sea our informant further adds that the crew of the hermione were a mixture of several nations i don't know why that's important but maybe that's the i suppose trying to excuse or explain the mutiny and the the killing of the presumably british officers by the non-british crew well frankly in the napoleonic wars the crews of most ships including at the battle of trafalgar were made up of people from many nations from all over the world and famously you know the british the royal navy were um freeing slaves and then basically not forcing but basically forcing them into service on board royal navy ships but anyway that's the topic for another video here we have tomahawk used twice as a weapon on board a ship on a royal navy ship and i just think that that's interesting that whether it is a literal tomahawk or what i suspect it's more likely to be a hatchet or a boarding axe they call it a tomahawk so that word tomahawk has really permeated certainly the british public's mindset here we have another incident at sea on board a ship and it is titled mate tomahawked by a seaman and again we've got things being described here as tomahawks which may or may not be tomahawks but there's some type of hatchet or acts could be a boarding ax i think probably more likely a boarding ax but nevertheless it shows that the word tomahawk has become prevalent it does describe violence um so let's read it anyway because it's interesting to see how people use axes uh in the in this case in 1888. so mate tomahawk by seaman the melbourne argus just received says the british american ship luciana belonging to nova scotia which arrived in hobson's bay on tuesday last reported the occurrence of a shocking tragedy which took place on the 12th of july during the voyage from new york on the date named the vessel was traveling along at a good pace and the wind being rather fresh two men were stationed at the wheel one of these a young swede though swedish named theodore hansen was on the weather side of the wheel the steering of the ship was bad several times and the second mate hugh mckinnon remonstrated with hanson an altercation ensued during which mckinnon gave hanson a kick never kick a swede nothing further then passed some time after hanson was relieved in the usual course for the purpose of going forward and taking his coffee while there he appears to have entered the carpenter's shop and secreted a tomahawk on his person so my interpretation here is probably not a tomahawk if it's in the carpenter shop it's a wood chopping axe it's a hatchet so here we have something that's i think a hatchet or a boiling axe is unlikely to be what we'd typically to call a tomahawk but it's described as a tomahawk in the source so having secreted the tomahawk on his person he then returned aft onto the poop deck where mckinnon was sitting smoking his pipe near the wheel hanson advanced towards him quietly and drawing the tomahawk without a word suddenly raised it and dealt mckinnon a fearful blow on the head with the edge of the weapon which buried itself deeply into the man's skull and there it remained for hansen immediately leaving gohan of the handle ran away along the poop deck on his hands and feet down onto the main deck the second mate with the tomahawk still sticking in his head also descended to the main deck and called out for the captain with an axe sticking out of his head the tomahawk then fell to the deck and he was removed to his birth all that was possible for the wounded man under the circumstances was done uh was done by those on board but the wound was of such a terrible nature that he lingered for five days and then died on july the 17th or eight days before reaching port hanson was placed in irons i bet he was and handed over to the police immediately on arrival of the vessel in port he's not quite 20 years old and looks even younger so maya hanson had a hell of a temper on him didn't he um angry swede with a wood carpenter's axe i would say but the important part for purposes of this video is they refer to it as a tomahawk so the word tomahawk had really entered into the public consciousness now coming back to the sources there are some interesting things that we can take away the fact is that the word tomahawk is slightly problematic when we're looking at period sources because it can describe any type of smallish acts okay but definitely in regards to when it's referred to with native americans there was a very strong particularly in the 18th century and into the 19th century um idea that it was native americans this was a native american weapon and their use of the axe was world famous certainly in english-speaking countries and so absolutely they were famed for the use of this weapon it was a close combat weapon and it seems it was probably a throne weapon and there's quite a lot of period sources referring to the throwing of this when it wasn't thrown and when it was used in hand it seems to have been mainly used to strike at the head by people who knew how to use it usually at the forehead or the sides of the head the temples and so this seems to have been the primary way it was used and it was often used in conjunction with a long knife although it's my belief from the sources and the artwork the written sources and the artwork of the period that they weren't probably usually used together as we sometimes see in movies they were probably used for different purposes one after the other so a very important weapon and i'm sure there are more really good primary sources to dig out by their use not just of course by native americans but also used by european americans in the american ward war of independence but also just generally as handy belt weapons as frontier weapons that could be used as a tool but were often used as weapons and i have to say they can be used at all but they are quite different to tool axes and actually even if we look at naval boarding axes naval boarding axes are usually larger and heavier than what are typically regarded as tomahawks or trade axes are thanks a lot for watching give us a like and subscribe if you haven't done already and i hope i'll see you back on the channel again really soon cheers folks thanks for watching we've got extra videos on patreon please give our facebook a like and subscribe if you haven't already cheers folks

Channel: scholagladiatoria

Views: 204,719

Keywords: native american, american war of independence, tomahawk, indian tomahawk, axe review, history

Id: or0AoV1NQt8

Length: 53min 30sec (3210 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 10 2021