Program transcript:
Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is a bit different from the typical author I speak with on this program. First, he’s the ninth great grandson of Captain Kidd, whom he's written about. But for our purposes today, Samuel Marquis has written an interesting historical account of a significant moment in New York back before it became a state. And he's managed to publish this and a number of other well-regarded histories and works of historical fiction as his night job. By day, he's a vice president of an environmental consulting firm in Boulder, Colorado. His new book is titled, "Empire and Frontier: Colonel Peter Schuyler and the Valiant Iroquois in King William's War: 1689-1701." Mr. Marquis, welcome to the program. And it sounds like you've got a very full life, congratulations.
Samuel Marquis: Hey, thanks for having me, Grant. It's good to be here and I love upstate New York.
GR: All right, well, we're happy to hear all of that. So let me just start with a real basic question for you. How did you get the idea to write this book, of all things you could have written about historically, why this?
SM: Well, it started because I wrote my book on Captain Kidd, my ninth great grandfather, who fought in King William's War for English America against the French. French Canada was known as New France then. So, from 1689 to 1697 was King William's War in America. So, Captain Kidd lived in New York, he's become the most famous pirate of all time. But I wrote a book, and I had so much interesting material about the Iroquois and Albany region and King William's War that I just pivoted from New York City up to Albany to tell the story of, you know, young America, English America and the Iroquois, with whom we had an alliance with the covenant chain fighting against New France, and Count Frontenac was the governor of New France. So, it was sort of epic "Last of the Mohicans" thing and I just had to write it because I had just written my "Treasure Island," so then I had to write my "Last of the Mohicans."
GR: (laughter) That's a great way to put it. So, briefly set the scene for this tale. Just remind us what King William's War was, and who are the main protagonists in your story? What are they trying to achieve, what are they trying to avoid? You know, just sort of set the scene for us.
SM: Okay. So, King William's War began in 1688, during what was called the Glorious Revolution. So, William and Mary, Prince William of Orange, who was Dutch and Princess Mary of England, who was the daughter of Charles II, who was the Catholic king of England, they usurped the throne in a coup that basically, with the Whig leadership, the Whigs, there were Whigs and Tories, sort of the Tories were the equivalent of the conservatives, and the Whigs were more parliamentarian and a little more progressive. So, they took over, usurped the crown. Mary drove her father, Charles II to France, who was taken in by the Catholics and was basically a king in exile. And then the war came to America in 1689, by August of 1689 it was announced, and English America was fighting New France. So, French Canada was New France then, and then it became this epic war with English American and Dutch from Albany, it was very strong Dutch, fighting the French and their native allies, who were the Huron, Ottawa and Algonquins and then with English America under the covenant chain, which was an alliance with the with the Mohawks and the other Iroquois tribes, the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, and the Five Nations they were then, now they're the Six Nations. So, this is epic battles going from Albany up to Montreal, back and forth.
GR: And what about this fellow, Colonel Schuyler? What's his story in this then?
SM: Well, Colonel Schuyler is, people call him the George Washington of the 1600s because he was, he wore so many hats and was involved in fighting and doing so many administrative tasks that he was an incredibly important leader. So, he was in Albany, you know, it was it was actually Fort Orange then, Albany, because it was Dutch controlled. So the Dutch came in 1625, they basically, you know, had what was New Amsterdam and New Netherlands. So, New Netherlands was New York, New Amsterdam was New York City, the future New York City. And so, he was born a colonial American frontiersman, born in what became Albany. And he grew up speaking Mohawk, running around the woods like Hawkeye in “The Last of the Mohicans." And he became a powerful leader because he came from a very humble family that made it big. They're the epitome of the American dream. So, he became the lead commissioner of Indian affairs, and the only guy who was allowed to talk and negotiate treaties with the Iroquois, in addition to the governor of New York City, who couldn't always be there. So, he's really leading all Indian affairs. But he was very sympathetic, he spoke Mohawk. He also was the head of the Albany, of the New York militia, which was, there was no British troops then, that came later during the fourth French and Indian War in the, you know, 1760s. So, he's that, he's also a leading, you know, fur trader and he has, you know, homes in New York and Albany. So, he's sort of a mover and shaker economically, too. But he wore all these many hats, you know, people wore a lot of hats back then, right? So, he's an incredibly important guy, the George Washington of the 1600s. So, he was an incredibly heroic individual, I was surprised to find such a(n) interesting individual.
GR: Yeah, I want to come back to that. But, so, it sounds like in your story, well, he's a hero, I guess in your story, it sounds like, but maybe not, you can tell me. I was going to ask you, are there heroes and villains in this historical tale?
SM: Well, I don't, I mean, I shouldn't have said a hero because it sounds like…
GR: No, I said that, you didn't say that, that was my words.
SM: Yeah, well, I kind of did say, I think. No, he actually, what I liked about him is, you know, I've done a lot of research into the Indian wars in the West because I'm from Colorado. And so, you know, I'm very interested and always very interested in Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, the Lakota, the Cheyenne and the Indian wars out here. This, it was very different back with the Iroquois, and the Dutch were very progressive in their affairs with the Indians. They tried to negotiate trade agreements, they tried to actually, you know, intervene to be sort of mediators in internal disputes with Native Americans. So, they were trying to work in a synergistic manner. They were still out for themselves because they're trying to expand under the crown and they're trying to be assimilated. Remember, they were taken over at the point of a bayonet. You know, Peter (Stuyvesant) in New York, you know, what became New York City was New Amsterdam in 1664, it was taken over by the English. So, they're trying to assimilate and New York City in particular, is this multi-ethnic, it's what America is today. There was all kinds of Dutch, English, French, you know, all kinds of people, African Americans, all kind of, you know, a huge mix of people lived in New York City. Albany was more Dutch for all the way up until the American Revolution and even then, beyond. So, this was just an incredibly interesting time period. And Peter Schuyler's at the center of all the events is the key. Kind of like Washington by the French and Indian War was a pretty important player in Virginia. And then, you know, going into the American Revolution.
GR: I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Samuel Marquis, the author of, "Empire and Frontier: Colonel Peter Schuyler and the Valiant Iroquois in King William's War: 1689-1701." So, besides being a very entertaining read about this important moment in American history, what do you want readers to take away from your book?
SM: Well, I think one of the things I just touched on a little bit, I think one of the important things that I was surprised at is, first of all, in early America, how powerful the Haudenosaunee were, which is the Five Nations of the Iroquois in terms of, and France, they were really a power, every bit as powerful as the colonists. So, at that point, the scales were in their favor in terms of, you know, they were basically at some point they were getting guns and ammunition and kettles and everything that they kind of came to rely on. But really, they dictated the terms to the English, to English America, and also to New France. So, they came out of this King William's War, you know, with the treaty of 1701, called the Grand Treaty of 1701, which basically said, we don't fight for England or France, we're neutral and we trade with equally with you and England. England and the King, you're going to actually protect us in our Iroquoia, in our territory. So, what would interest me was how there was more of a synergy with the Native American tribes, at least by Peter Schuyler and the Albany colonists. So, for instance, the Schenectady Massacre happened in 1690, February of 1690. The Iroquois, immediately after all the French came down with their Native American warriors and burned the town to the ground and, you know, killed a lot of people, over 60 people. And so, but the Iroquois came right in to help with them, to help with the English rebuild and heal, they had a mourning ceremony. There was a synergy between the Iroquois and the colonists then that I thought was interesting that we don't hear about. We always hear so much negative about early America, you know? So that interested me.
GR: Yeah, yeah, I want to join then what you've learned by looking at this period and the relations between the Europeans and the indigenous people, and then also draw on what you said. You've, you know, you've looked extensively at some of the Indian wars out West, and particularly with the Lakota there in the Dakotas and Montana, and ask this question, why didn't that approach that you're describing here, it doesn't sound like what happened out West? It was a different approach toward indigenous people. Why didn't that become the norm, that type of that type of synergy that you describe in upstate New York at that time period?
SM: Well, you know, what we call the Indian wars, you know, in American history, or Native American wars, you know, are tragic. So, it's complicated. I don't want to overstate, you know, the English crown let down the Iroquois in King William's War, but Peter Schuyler didn't. Peter Schuyler was there for them. What happened is, the neglect comes from the English crown not giving enough supplies, not providing enough food stores and all the things that the Iroquois were basically saying, well, we'll fight alongside you and support you in return for all the supplies that we, muskets in particular and powder and all kinds of food supplies and stuff. And so they, you know, relied on that and the crown did sort of let them down. But Peter Schuyler didn't. So ,the synergy that came, sometimes there were synergies, you know, there were compassionate moments throughout American history. George Crook is a great Indian fighter, General George Crook, almost as well-known as Custer, he became a huge Indian rights activist and actually had a falling out with General Sheridan over it. And yet he was an Indian fighter. So, it's the people that were closest to Native Americans, even if there were Indian fighters who came to admire them, see them as people and wanted to work for them. If we had just had more interaction, I think the key is in Albany area there was a lot of intermarriage, there was a lot of protection of people who had Mohawk family ties and things like that. So, when they’d attacked Schenectady the 30 Mohawks that were in the village were spared by the attacking Native Americans, who, some of which were Mohawk, during the Schenectady Massacre in 1690. So, they would spare lives because, oh, we know these people, we're going to attack the French or we're going to attack the English, but we're not taking out our own people. So, I think that there's just intermarriage and the key is a lot of close interaction is what overcomes a lot of this.
GR: Interesting.
SM: That's why America's better today. We're, you know, we're biracial, we're multiracial, we're more integrated. And yes, we have our problems, but we're a lot better off now than we were, right? Ever.
GR: Sure. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Samuel Marquis, author of a new historical account titled "Empire and Frontier: Colonel Peter Schuyler and the Valiant Iroquois in King William's War: 1689-1701." So, you mentioned this fight in Schenectady, and it's something that kind of happens near the beginning of your book. Just tell us what the Battle of Schenectady was so we're up to speed on that.
SM: Okay. So, after King William's war, after war was declared between England and France and really England, the Dutch Republic against France, Count Frontenac was the governor of New France, so, based in in Quebec City and then in Montreal was controlled by the French in French Canada. So, they swept down in February of 1690 on snowshoes, 220 miles, and attacked Schenectady. So, it was a force of, you know, several hundred French soldiers with, you know, they had Native American Mohawk allies and Algonquin tribesmen who, warriors, who came down on snowshoes. They burned the city to the ground, attacked and killed at least 60 people. And then they took, you know, over 30 captives back with them or around 30 captives back to France. Now, they were caught by a key figure in my book, who's Lawrence the Mohawk, who's a great warrior. So, the book is written out of the point of view of Peter Schuyler, Colonel Peter Schuyler, Lawrence the Mohawk who's a warrior and a diplomat, he's unbelievable, he's an awesome warrior. And also Hilletie Van Olinda, who's a Mohawk, biracial Mohawk Dutch interpreter who is determining the fate of empires because she's the interpreter of all these negotiations. So, Lawrence chases down the war party, kills 20 of the Frenchmen, and brings back 20 captives. So, he's Colonel Peter Schuyler’s right hand warrior and they have an awesome relationship in the book that I flesh out. So, that's what Schenectady Massacre is, and then there's a lot of epic battles in my book as well.
GR: So I wanted to ask you a more, I don't know, theoretical or philosophical question I guess that comes right out of some of the things that you just said. We often hear in what I think are sometimes romanticized narratives of indigenous people, including the Haudenosaunee or as we're calling them, the Iroquois here, that these people are held up as emblematic, first of all, of peace and also of environmental stewardship. And I'm wondering whether your story complicates the reality of the peace part of that sort of current day branding or narrative, if you will.
SM: Well, I think the American people, first of all, the American people have a tremendous respect for Native American tribes. If you look at our military, they name a lot of things after, you know, Apache helicopters and all kinds of things really in tribute to Native Americans and, and sometimes, you know, that's not taken well in some cases, in some cases it is. But in any case, I think it's what, I try not to romanticize. My book, I'm straight, I have a gauntlet, I mean, I have an Iroquois, you know, Haudenosaunee gauntlet and described in detail how it works and I don't have any judgment towards Native Americans. You know that what the Iroquois in this case, what they're doing or how they're fighting or taking scalps or any of that, they fight in their way. So, I look at them through Peter Schuyler's eyes in the 1690s, or their own eyes. I don't do presentism, I do ‘how were they then and what were they like?’ So, the Iroquois have been always regarded as, you know, incredible warriors, you know, and Americans, you know, overestimate that a little bit. They were great statesmen. They're the ones who came out with the Grand Treaty of 1701, which basically fought, you know, pushed aside the English Empire and the French empires and said, no, we are going to be neutral, and we are not going to just be, you don't own us. We're independent, and England, you're going to protect us in our land, Iroquoia. Iroquoia extended from the Hudson River valley all the way to the Great Lakes. And they said, England, you're going to protect us. And if we're north or anywhere around the Great Lakes in in French country, France, you're going to protect us and we're going to remain neutral. We don't owe any of you anything, and we're trading with anyone we want because we're the Haudenosaunee and we're powerful and don't mess with us. So, they were powerful. Now, did that last? No, I mean, you know, America's a tragic Native American story. We all know how it ended up, and it could have been better. But I will say one thing, Native American tribes in the United States today are better off than Canadian tribes. Why? Because they have sovereignty. They're independent nations in the treaties, and a lot of the treaties were violated, you know, unfortunately, that's really the unfortunate thing. But they had more power and gaming industry has actually really helped Native American tribes, not all of them, but a lot. And so, whereas they're sort of paternalistic up in Canada and I'm not saying that's bad, they were more peaceful and a lot of people think that was the better approach. It probably was, what we needed to be is more pacifistic and give them sovereignty, you know? We needed to be more like Colonel Peter Schuyler and the people of Albany. And there were also Germans who came later in the 1730s and 40s, in the Mohawk River valley, were some very important Germans who came. The Germans protected the Mohawks like, you're our brothers, we're not going to let anybody mess with you. And I think even though the American Revolution, you know, they kind of worked together, there was a synergy there with certain Europe, white Europeans and certain Native American tribes that could have been how it could have been in America, and I wish it had been.
GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Samuel Marquis, author of "Empire and Frontier." So again, I want to draw on the fact that you have studied and written about two sets of frontier experiences. One, you know, very early on here, the end of the 1600s. And then you've also looked at the 1800s, and in the middle to late 1800s in the frontier in the West. And I wanted to ask you, do you think there are, are there things about the frontier experience, we don't really don't think of the frontier as being an eastern thing, right? We think of it as, you know, it's out west somewhere, that's where the frontier was. But, you know, your book sort of points out the frontier changes, it moves west. Was there something about the frontier in the East that you think is different beyond sort of the obvious differences of climate and terrain? Was there something about the frontier experience for settlers or for Schuyler or for other, you know, other Europeans in New York that is distinct?
SM: Well, I like I think I touched on it earlier. I just think the Dutch were a little more progressive.
GR: Okay.
SM: And one, the Dutch were always big traders and they were all about trade, and that's why they were so powerful. The Dutch were the most powerful country, more powerful than England in, in the 16, you know, late 1500s into like the late 1600s or at least the mid-1600s. And the England had to create the Navigation Acts just to get them out of there. Why? Because they were so progressive. They took Jews, they took all kinds of people from England. John Locke was thrown out of England. The great legendary John Locke, who, you know, based a lot of our modern principles of egalitarianism and positive things, well, we don't want you in England, you're too much of a leveler kind of guy. So, he fled to the Netherlands, the Dutch Republic. So, the Dutch Republic, they just were a little more, let's trade with these people, let's work together, let's not have conflict all the time. Now, they were aggressive when they first landed because they kind of took over Manhattan Island pretty, you know, they paid for it for, you know, the old story, a few muskets and a blanket and a dog, you know, or whatever, you know, the story it gets exaggerated, though. The problem with native American land purchases early on was the Native American tribes never meant it to be permanent. For them it was, oh, we're renting it to you. You can come here temporarily if you give us some stuff, but it's still ours. But we'll come and go, you know? So really, you know, the Iroquoia is their land, they control it. And, you know, when they landed in Manhattan Island, you know, it's the, you know, it was the Lenape or the Delaware, and, you know, they kind of got, you know, sort of by purchasing that land, there was just too many people. And they weren't there all the time that, you know, that kind of hurt. But in any case, the Dutch didn't go, like, militarily, go annihilate them like the Puritans were brutal. Puritans just killed, they're all, those Indians are savages, they're heathens, they're irreligious, they're sexually liberal, oh, God. So, they almost killed them on, the Puritans, not good at all. The Dutch were different, they were better. Now they weren't perfect, let's not sugarcoat it and make white Europeans the good, you know, perfect guys, because they weren't. But they were better. And there were, and New York City represented what we would later become. And I think the Dutch of Albany, you know, tried and the Germans of the later Mohawk River Valley, those are what, you know, white Europeans could have handled it more like that I think.
GR: Interesting, interesting. Do you think that this time period and these events in this part of New York, did it have any kind of influence, you think, on the early formation and the thoughts about the early formation of the nation? You know, about 70 years later, do you, was there any through line that you could trace between this time period and the 1770s, for example?
SM: Yeah. I mean, I think that there's a definite throughline, and it is King William's War was the first of four French and Indian Wars. And then there was the American Revolution, and there was a war of 1812. King William's War that's all in my book described, you know, frontier warfare going back and forth between New France and New York and all of those pathways that they took to fight the battles, even the sea battles, they tried to take to Quebec City. Well, America tried to take Quebec City during the American Revolution, you know, Benedict Arnold, and it failed, you know, and others. And so, basically all of the military patterns of how armies move to and from Montreal, Quebec, down to Albany, remember, Albany was a critical point. Johnny Burgoyne, General John Burgoyne, during the American Revolution, came down Lake Champlain corridor to try to get to the Hudson River Valley to take Albany, you know, but he was defeated at Saratoga by Benedict Arnold. General Gates didn't do much, let's give it to Benedict Arnold, before he became a turncoat, was a great general. And so, all of those frontier battles and also the alliances with the Iroquois and, you know, the other Native American tribes in the area, all of that was sort of defined in King William's War and carried over all the way into the War of 1812.
GR: Interesting, interesting. So, we've only got about a minute left, and I wanted to make sure that I save time to ask you this completely different question, which is much more personal about you, and it goes back to my introduction of you. I'll just say at the beginning, I've written books that are not as popular as yours, but I do know how much time they take and how dedicated you have to be in order to complete one. And I'm just wondering, how do you write all these while also having a full career in environmental consulting, environmental science? I mean, are you some kind of weird workaholic? What's your secret?
SM: Yeah, I am a little bit. I mean, I kind of have no choice, I love writing. So, I'm a principal hydrogeologist and I do expert witness work in the environmental industry. So ,I'm a groundwater modeler and trying to, you know, clean up the environment and look at, you know, contaminants and ground and how to clean them up using groundwater flow and transport models, MODFLOW and MT3D. So, I'm a nerd, but I'm also this historian. I loved history growing up and I just, I've always loved American history, the Civil War, American Revolution, World War Two. I've written five World War Two books. So, I just kind of do, you know, as much as I can and I've gotten good at it. So I, you know, at some point you become time efficient. You know, like when you're an athlete in college, you got to do it. And so, it's the same kind of thing here. So, I juggle everything and I just make it work. But yes, I kind of I'm a mini workaholic. At 65, what am I thinking?
GR: That makes me feel a little better about myself at 66. We'll have to leave it there. That was Samuel Marquis and again, his new book, which is not nerdy at all when you read it, it's quite an interesting story, is called "Empire and Frontier: Colonel Peter Schuyler and the Valiant Iroquois in King William's War: 1689-1701." Again, a rich account, eminently readable. Mr. Marquis, thanks so much for talking with me, really had fun.
SM: Thank you very much, I appreciate it. It’s been a great time, Grant.
GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media conversations in the public Interest.
