• The Crawford Expedition

    Okay, so we looked at the Gnadenhutten Massacre of 1782, here:http://www.historynaked.com/the-gnadenhutten-massacre/ where Pennsylvania Militiamen under the American Army murdered 96 peaceful Christian Native Americans in Ohio. Their people vowed revenge. Today we are going to take a quick look at what led up to this period, and then happened next. A few years prior to the slaughter at Gnadenhutten, in February 1778 Captain Pipe, a Chief of the Delaware Indians had lost several family members to the Americans in continuously retaliatory acts of violence between the two factions. The Americans, led by General Edward Hand, and consisting of a band of 500 Pennsylvania men had led a surprise march into…

  • The Gnadenhutten Massacre

    It was 1782 and America had been at war with the British for several years as a part of their claim for independence. Caught up in this conflict were tribes of Native Americans, particularly along the Ohio river and into Ohio Country. These tribes consisted for the most part of Shawnee, Delawares. Mingos and Wyandots. For some years previously, as part of the Border conflict, there had been a series of raids on frontier settlements, by bands of aggressive Natives opposed to the expansion of the American colonists territory at the cost of native land. The resulting tension manifested in raids where small parties of natives would enter settlements and…

  • Agent 355

    In August 1776, George Washington and the Americans had to beat a hasty retreat leaving the British in control of New York City.  This was thought by many as the death blow to the Revolution.  Washington tried to regroup and desperately needed intelligence from the occupied city of New York.  Out of this need, the Culper spy ring was born. It was organized by Major Benjamin Tallmadge and two main members of the ring were Abraham Woodhull, under the pseudonym of Samuel Culper Sr., and Robert Townsend, who used the pseudonym of Samuel Culper Jr.  The covert activities began in 1778 and they were charged with reporting on the troop…

  • James Armistead Lafayette- Unsung Hero of the American Revolution

      There are many heroes we know about in the American Revolution- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton- but there are many that gave their all for this country that have remained in the shadows.  Their names are not bywords for freedom, but should be.  James Armistead Lafayette is one of those men.   It is not known for sure when and where James was born.  James was a slave, and these things were not important.  General consensus says he was born some time in 1748 in New Kent County, Virginia.  James was the property of William Armistead.  Not much else is known about James’ life until the American Revolution…

  • John and Abigail Adams-   America’s Power Couple

    John Adams was one of the founding fathers as well as our second president.  What is less well known is the extraordinary relationship he had with his wife, Abigail.   The two first met when Abigail was fifteen and John was twenty-five and a practicing lawyer from Braintree, Massachusetts.  Abigail’s first impressions of the young man were less than complimentary.  She wrote in her diary he was “Not fond, not frank, not candid”.  However, from this unremarkable beginning, a relationship grew that would stand the test of time and tide.  Something happened to change Abigail’s opinion on the young lawyer, but we are not privy to what.  Soon he was…