We had us a pretty decent little gullywhumper Friday night that left the woods soggy and sloppy. Nevertheless, Saturday dawned lovely and felt a very strong need to be out in it. My intention was to ramble about three miles or so, then retire to The Pit for my kettlebells-and-shooting bit. Perhaps I was inspired by watching the biathlon pursuit in Austria; it was one of those days when you feel like you just want to go forever, so I ended up doing a seven-miler.
For some of it I was in the tracks of a dogsled team. There’s a local woman who regularly takes her dogs out on this network of logging roads and trails for dryland (in this case bogland) training. I see her often, because we’re both out there often enough for it to qualify as obsessive behavior. I love to hear her dogs yowling while I’m shooting. It’s a stirring sound.
’Twas a lovely day, most of it… before another round of rain blew in. Which, of course, is lovely, too, in its way.
These rambles clear my head and soothe the inner beast. I try to stay in the moment, but I also allow my thoughts to wander along Frontier Partisan trails. I am at my most creative when I’m walking.
My ride with Kit Carson is coming to an end. Part III on his explorations with John C. Fremont will drop on Monday and the final full episode will run the week after that. I think Ceili wants to interview me for a supplemental wrap-up on my thoughts on the “black” and the “white” legend of Carson, and I’ll probably drop that just a couple of days after Part IV.
I initially thought I’d do a series on the Mexican Revolution, but I can’t add value to Mike Duncan’s superb series in his Revolutions podcast. If you haven’t delved into that, do it. All of ’em. It’s aces. I’ll probably still tell some tales from within the Mex Rev, but for now I leave the field to Duncan.
Series 2 of The Frontier Partisans Podcast will be on the Scottish Highlanders as a frontier people. We’ll explore Highland culture up to the destruction of the Clans after Culloden, with an episode dedicated to Calloway’s great book White People, Indians and Highlanders will inform a discussion of similarities in the experience of Highlanders as colonized people — regarded as savages, ethnically cleansed and removed, often acting as colonizers in turn. As part of that exploration we’ll examine the role of Highlanders on the North American frontier, as soldiers of empire and in the Fur Trade.
The Highlander was ever a frontiersman. Art by Robert W. Griffing.
The pipes play a melancholy air…
(Art by Robert W. Griffing)
And I finalized my decision for Series 3 during the hike. That one will delve into the bloody and tragic history of Loyalist Frontier Partisans in the American Revolution. Defectors Simon Girty and Alexander McKee; British Rangers John and Walter Butler; Tory leader John Johnson; the Mohawk partisan Thayendanegea, aka Joseph Brant; the Seneca war leader Cornplanter…
A man called Cornplanter by Robert W. Griffing.
Simon Girty was the most notorious renegade on the American frontier. Modern assessments reveal that he was a highly-skilled partisan liaison between the British and their Indian allies. Art by Tim Truman.
These are stirring tales from America’s first civil war, about some of the most tactically proficient warriors in the annals of Frontier Partisan warfare.
That’ll keep me busy well into spring. It’s good to have the path laid out before me.
Greg Walker says
A trek through the forests has always offered the space and time for me to clear my mind, as well.
Glad to see your podcast programs lining up!
Simon Girty is indeed a most interesting study.
“Inscription on the memorial stone reads, “Simon Girty 1741 – 1818 A Faithful Servant of the British Indian Department for Twenty Years.”
“Inscription on the plaque reads — “Simon Girty UE 1741 – 1818 – Girty’s life crossed cultural boundaries between native and white societies on the frontier of American settlement. In 1756 his family was captured by a French-led native war party in Pennsylvania. Simon was adopted by the Seneca, then repatriated in 1764. In interpreter at Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), he became an intermediary with native nations. In 1778, dismayed over rebel policy on the natives, Girty fled to Detroit. During the Revolutionary War, and subsequently in the Ohio Valley, he was employed by the British Indian Department while serving native nations as a negotiator, scout and military leader. Angry at his defection and fearful of his influence, Americans made Girty a scapegoat for frontier atrocities. He is buried here on his homestead. Erected by the Bicentennial and Toronto Branches of the UELAC with assistance of the Ontario Heritage Foundation.”
“Following his marriage, Simon Girty settled near Amherstburg and for ten years continued to lead or encourage western Indians in their warfare with the Americans. Girty was exiled in 1812 when the Americans took control of Amherstburg but continued to reside there until his death. Described as “one of the most colourful and controversial settlers in the New Settlement,” Girty died in 1818 and was buried on his homestead with military honours.”
http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Monuments/Girty-Simon.php
He would have been a hell of a “Green Beret”!
JimC says
Yes, he would have. His role was very much along “Special Forces lines.
Quixotic Mainer says
Looks like a good hike, the woods after a heavy rain always smell fantastic. Especially if you have good boots and aren’t distracted by oncoming trench foot!
Waiting for the school bus as a kid, my mum used to read my brother and I the Spirit of the Border series. I’ve never been a big revisionist, but ever since I found the Longhouse podcast, I’ve been kind of fascinated with the idea that Simon Girty really wasn’t the arch villain ole Zane made him out to be. Mum won’t hear of it though!
Hope to emulate your fine example and do some shooting and riding before getting caught up in the Yule madness.
JimC says
Excellent.
The very reason I want to explore the Loyalist Frontier Partisans is that all of them were so literally demonized in the triumphalist account — considered “fiends” — and yet they were all rational actors, with very specific and relatable reasons for choosing their side, believing that THEY were actually the supporters of Liberty. Such things fascinate me.
Quixotic Mainer says
Looking forward to hearing it! While there are certainly universal doeth and doeth nots, that nearly all cultures agree on, allegiance is so often a matter of circumstance as much as of political choice.
Matthew says
Great that you had a decent hike.
I look forward to all the new series of podcasts, though I am kind of sad that you won’t be doing one on the Mexican revolution. I may check out the Revolutions podcast, though.
David C Wrolson says
Seems to be kind of a natural progression from the Highlanders to the Loyalists.
Re-walks and so forth.
This summer we bought 110 acres of land that is quite a ways from our home farm. It consists of 90 acres tillable and about 20 acres of very attractive pine trees and meadows.
It is located in the path of development of a high-amenity community like Bend (or Sisters?). Considering the location, we got a very good buy.
Our intermediate plans are to farm the tillable and try to either sell the wooded area or develop it ourselves thus lowering the cost of the tillable by a lot.
Trouble is we are all getting so attached to the wooded land that it is going to be hard to let it go. Until more development fills in the area, it is good deer hunting yet. Plus it is just really pretty and fun to walk through.
Long-term, the entire property is in the path of development.
.lane batot says
Great post! Yeah, I’ve always thought of Simon Girty as loyal to his Seneca upbringing, rather than as a “renegade”….but speaking of sled dogs! What kind of dogs was she running? I have run quite a variety in my years of obsession with them–wolf crosses, malamutes, even that Catahoula I had was harness-trained! But I have enjoyed my Siberian Huskies the best, and I have trained more of them than any other type. My last team were 4 rescued Siberians, ALL from rather traumatic backgrounds–I ended up with each of them when they were a year old or so–just when most people that acquire them that have no idea what keeping a Siberian involves, give up on them! These 4 had so many issues, I wasn’t sure I could do much with them as far as sled/cart training went, but they ended up being THE MOST GUNG-HO team I have had so far!….to be continued…..
.lane batot says
…..Your mentioning of bumping into the lady with the sled dogs made me think of a coupla people I’ve bumped into running my team on public trails in the Uwharrie Forest here in mid-state N. C. One area at the Southern end of the Uwharries has a series of mountain bike trails, and a decent switchback dirt road through the middle of them, that is about the best place I have around here to run them–a ten-mile stretch one way, that going back and forth, barely took the edge off my gung-ho team! You can imagine how surprised many bikers and hikers were to encounter a sled team in backwoods North Carolina, but we were always received with interest and pleasure in all our encounters. You might be surprised to hear I had no qualms about discussing my dogs at length with anyone interested!(ahem!) One fellow was a former military fellow, who had, while stationed in Alaska, worked as a checkpoint person on the Iditarod race, and he just could not get over seeing a team in N. C.! Very enthusiastic fellow! Another family we bumped into were camping and hunting in the woods during deer season, in an old outfitted bus. The patriarch looked every bit the white bearded trapper/mountain man type, and in fact had also lived in Alaska and had run his own sled dogs there! He could not talk enough about his own experiences, and how he missed having sled dogs! And I was most happy to sit back and absorb it all! I mean, what are the odds of bumping into folks like this?
JimC says
Love it.