"Suspected on Both Sides": Little Abraham, Iroquois Neutrality, and the American Revolution

"This, then, is the determination of the Six Nations" the Mohawk chief Little Abraham told an assembly of New York Whigs in 1775. "Not to take any part, but, as it is a family affair, to sit still and see you fight it out ... for we bear as much affection for the King of England's subjects, upon the other side of the water, as we do for you, born upon this island."1Such was the position that Little Abraham espoused at the beginning of the Revolution, and such was the position that he and many others would sustain throughout the conflict. But despite having been perhaps the most prominent Iroquois neutral of the Revolution, Little Abraham has been as understudied and as misunderstood as the neutrality that he advocated. Historians have long noted that most Iroquois sought neutrality early in the war, but that they eventually took up arms as the conflict burned its way through New York. Most Oneidas and Tuscaroras sided with the Americans, and most Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas sided with the British. In emphasizing this overall transition from neutrality to warfare and the destruction it caused within the Iroquois League, however, historians have paid less attention to those who sought to remain neutral throughout the conflict. Indeed, Little Abraham rarely gets more than a brief reference before the spotlight shifts to military partisans like the Mohawk warrior Joseph Brant. Iroquois neutrality appears as an ephemeral stage in the Revolution, doomed to failure and thus left relatively unexamined.2But Abraham's experiences merit another look, and for several reasons. First, they illuminate a critical era of eighteenth-century diplomacy, suggesting that support for neutrality was stronger than most scholars have thought. Driven by kinship ties, political considerations, and military expediency, I will argue, Abraham gradually and grudgingly decided to perform diplomatic work for the Americans in order to remain militarily neutral. But instead of rendering him innocuous, Abraham's pursuit of neutrality through a limited American alliance ultimately left him vulnerable to the wrath of Whigs and Loyalists alike. Indeed, driven by the exigencies and horrors of war, most people in Abraham's community of Tiononderoga eventually fled to British strongholds like Niagara and Montreal. But Abraham stayed, determined to protect his own lands and those of his community. In the process, he retained a great deal of support from the people who remained at Tiononderoga, from other Iroquois, and even from many of those who had left. Far from an anomaly, Abraham's message of neutrality resonated among many Iroquois and deserves more attention.Second, Abraham's story is important because it sheds light on critical diplomatic debates that emerged within Iroquois communities during the Revolution. Throughout the war, Little Abraham would seek to preserve Iroquois autonomy and territory by advocating a system of factional neutrality, one in which he would pursue a limited partnership with the Americans while others pursued an alliance with the British. This kind of neutrality dated to at least 1701, when Iroquois gathering at Montreal called a truce with Canada and its native allies, pledging neutrality in future conflicts between France and England. It was not a passive neutrality, but an aggressive one in which anglophile, francophile, and neutralist factions balanced each other out and, collectively, preserved a variety of diplomatic options for the League as a whole. While some Iroquois therefore brokered a "Covenant Chain" alliance with England, others pursued similar alliances with France. This strategy enabled the Iroquois to play one power off against the other in order to reap the fruits of imperial competition. It also enabled communities to explore diverse political options, as different leaders tested different alliances without committing the entire League to any one position. Rather than acting as a divisive force, factions contributed to an overall policy of neutrality that itself fostered unity and shared identity among Iroquoian peoples. …