Just as Wheatley’s support reassured colonists, news of Indian oppression was essential to Washington’s hearts-and-minds campaign throughout the colonies. At times, the crown had made peace treaties with the Indians that curtailed westward expansion, and the colonists saw themselves as the victims. In an attempt to reassure them, and with the full support of Congress, Washington undertook a campaign of genocide against the Six Nations, the northeast Iroquois confederacy. On May 31, 1779, he allocated a third of his army to General John Sullivan, writing: The immediate objects are the total
...more
