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Simon Girty was perhaps the most hated man on the American frontier in the mid 1700s. Worse than an Indian, Girty had turned traitor on his own kind to become a white leader of Indians, the architect of terrible slaughters inflicted against the white settlers of the frontier. Girty was born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1741. His childhood was a harrowing one. When he was 10 years old he watched as his father got drunk with a local ‘friendly’ Indian. The Indian, however wasn’t friendly enough. He got into a fight with Girty senior and ended up sinking his tomahawk into the white man’s head.
At the age of 15, Simon along with his mother, siblings and step father were taken captive by a raiding band of Delaware Indians. Again he was to watch in horror as, this time, his step father was tortured and scalped. His mother and three brothers were made slaves to the Delawares while Simon was traded to the Senecas. For three years he remained with the Senecas. Then, at the age of 18, Simon Girty was returned to white civilization. For the next few years he worked around Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania as an interpreter between the local Indian tribes and the traders. In 1778, he signed on as a recruiter for the Continental Army. Hoping to be made a captain he became bitterly disappointed when this was not forthcoming. In fact he became so embittered that he decided to change his allegiances. He made his way to Detroit where he offered his services to the British. Soon he was joined by two of his brothers, George and James, who had long since been returned to civilization by their Indian captors.
The British utilised the skills that the brothers had acquired during their captivity to send them among the various tribes of Mingos, Shawnees and Wyandots to inspire them to rise up against the Americans. Simon Girty began dressing like an Indian, and he would distribute guns and ammunition to the warrior tribes, all the while building them to a fever pitch with his fierce anti-American rhetoric. Typical of his speeches to the Indians was the following:
“Brothers, the Long Knives have overrun your country and usurped your hunting grounds. They have destroyed the cane, trodden down the clover, killed the deer and the buffalo. Brothers, unless you rise in the majesty of your might and exterminate their whole race, you may bid adieu to the hunting grounds of your fathers.”
Girty was able to thus organise many raids from the Detroit area that reached as far as Kentucky. It is reported that he encouraged the torture of those white people taken captive, enjoying the sight of his fellow white men writhing in pain. In 1782 the Colonists offered an $800 reward for the head of Simon Girty. This only served to cause Girty to increase the ferocity of his attacks on the villages. On one such occasion, Girty led a force of 300 Indians on an attack on Dunlap’s Station. Taking a white prisoner, he told the man that if the inhabitants of the Fort surrendered he would be released but if not he would be killed. When those inside refused to yield, the Indians, under Girty’s guidance, stripped the man, pinioned his outstretched feet and hands to the ground and then placed kindling on his stomach. Slowly he was burnt to death. His screams could be heard inside the Fort for many hours.
Simon Girty was never captured. When the British withdrew from Detroit in 1796, Girty headed for Canada. For the next 20 years he lived a life of inebriated peace. He died in Canada in 1816.
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