Quote · Empire: World History
374. Ken Burns on the American Revolution and Empire
Where this was said
George Washington: Town Destroyer
At 15:30 · chapter starts 14:53
American schoolchildren know Washington as the father of the nation. The Haudenosaunee knew him as something else entirely. [1] — Ken Burns "American schoolchildren know Washington as the father of the nation. The Haudenosaunee knew him as the Town Destroyer. Washington ordered G…" 14:53 Many Native tribes allied with the British not out of love for the Crown, Burns explains, but in the hope — ultimately false — that a British victory would forestall the 'hated Bostonians' from taking their land. In practice, a British victory would have meant exactly the same dispossession under a different flag. The specific origin of Washington's Haudenosaunee name comes from the Sullivan campaign: pressured by the governors of New York and Pennsylvania to act against Native resistance during the Revolution, Washington ordered General Sullivan — from Burns's own home state of New Hampshire — to destroy everything in the Iroquois Confederacy's territory. The result was the razing of 40 to 50 separate towns, a campaign that functioned as a scouting expedition for future white settlement. Burns also corrects a popular misconception: these were not romantic teepee villages — many had clapboard houses, glass windows, chimneys, and would have been indistinguishable from European settler towns until you saw who lived there.
American schoolchildren know Washington as the father of the nation. The Haudenosaunee knew him as the Town Destroyer. Washington ordered General Sullivan to raze 40 to 50 Native American towns in upstate New York — a scouting expedition for future white settlement.
The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy comprised six nations — Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Oneida, and Mohawk — who formed their own political union more than 150 years before the Revolution.
Washington sent General Sullivan to destroy Native American settlements in upstate New York, resulting in 40 to 50 Indian towns being razed — earning Washington the name 'Town Destroyer.'
When Founders argued the British had 'enslaved' them through tyranny, they were signalling something to the people literally serving them in the room. Historian Jane Kaminsky calls it perfectly: 'the liberty talk is leaky.' Everyone heard it. Everyone wanted it. Of course they did.
