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as they didn’t know what they could do with it, even though the other 3 were in good condition, in this way we claimed ownership of it. The people who were on the old ship preferred to die rather than being taken prisoner! Consequently, we brought them by force, except for a few Moors who unfortunately sank with their ship[80].

sich es nicht zu Nutz machen wolten worunder aber noch die andren 3 Schiffe gut waren und mitgenommen wurden. Diejenige Leuthe so auf dem alten Schiff waren wolten sich nicht als Gefangnen übergen sondern lieber sterben ! Worauf mann sie aber mit Gewalt davon nahme biß auf etliche Mohren welche leyder mit ihrem Schiffe zu Grund gingen.

On August 20^th, 20 chiefs of primitive tribes arrived from Albany, among them there was a king! These savages were sent from Albany by 4 of their tribes to make inquiries concerning our arrival so as to offer us their alliance. Our general had them come to him via the intermediary of a Canadian interpreter who spoke French and German well and who was originally from Palatinate[81], and these two interpreters knew the language of the savages as well as their mother tongue[82]. They spoke the following words to our general Chief Lagagix[83] that mean: Oh father of mine! What shall we do, we who are well intentioned toward you in this present war, we promise to help you in this land: it is with a jaundiced eye that we see that some of our tribes are on the side of the English, but it is true that the English have such good rum and such good ratafia, they also give us gun powder and lead so that we may hunt, and therefore if they did not feel as good in their homes for these reasons, they would come here. Our general answered that his

Den 20ten August kamen 20 Wilde Oberhäupter aus Albanien, worunder ein König ware ! Diese Wilden waren ausgeschickt von 4 ihrer Zünfften aus Albanyen um sich unsrer Ankunfft zu erkundigen um uns ihren Allians anzutragen : Unser General liese sie vor sich kommen durch Vermittlung eines Dollmätscher welcher aus Canada gebürdig und gut frantzosisch redete nebst auch einem ge-bohrnen Deutschen aus der Pfaltz gebürdig welche 2 doll-matscher die Wilde-Sprache so gut konten als ihre Mutter- Sprache. Folgenter Anspruch an unsern General Chs Lagaqix. daß heißt : O mein Vatter ! was sollen wir thun aus gutem Willen gegen euch in diesem gegenwärdigen Kriege wir versprechen euch allen Beystand zu thun in diesem Lande : wir sehen es auch nicht gerne daß einige von unser Zünfften auf die engellische Seite halten, allein aber die Engellischen haben doch so guten Rhum und so guten Taffia sie geben uns auch Pulfer und Bley auf die Jagd zu gehen, doch aber wären sie nicht gerne bey ihnen dessenthalben kämen sie hierher. Unser General gab ihnen zur Antwort : wie daß sich sein

könig

https://gallica.bnf.fr/iiif/ark:/12148/btv1b10110846m/f13/pct:50,0,100,100/,700/0/native.jpg

Strasbourg, Médiathèque André Malraux, ms f 15, p. 25.

[agrandir]

Notes

80. Flohr is referring to a naval operation planned to intercept the English reinforcements intended to support Arnold. It was carried out in Virginia under the orders of Captain Le Gardeur de Tilly who was the head of three ships (the ship of the line l’Eveillée, the frigate la Surveillante and La Gentille). This operation ended with the capture of The Romulus, a 44-cannon frigate and a dozen carrier ships. Viscount de Noailles, Marins et soldats français en Amérique pendant la guerre d’indépendance des Etats-Unis (1778-1783), 2^nd edition, Libr. académique Perrin et cie, Paris 1903, p. 206 (listing 108-272 at the multimedia library) [catalogue de la médiathèque Malraux].

81. 3,000 people from Palatinate had arrived in New York in 1710 and were sent to settle in close contact to Indians. Leaving behind 400 women and children in New York, 2,000 colonists originally from Palatinate, led by Johann Conrad Weiser, migrated toward Schoharie, where the Indians allowed them to settle on the lands. There they founded the town of Rhinebeck-on-the-Hudson and several villages along the Schoharie River. The son of Conrad Wieser lived amongst the Mohawks and learned their language, serving as a go-between for colonists and Indians. But the Palatines, after conflicts with the governor of New York and the owners of their lands, decided to migrate toward Pennsylvania by going down the Susquehanna River in 1728. These Palatines that Flohr speaks about were used to playing the role of mediators between the colonists and the Indians; they were probably the descendants of the migrants who left New York to found Tulpehocken in Pennsylvania. It is estimated that 50,000 Palatines settled in this county of inland Pennsylvania in the middle of the eighteenth century. According to Huebener (Theodor), The Germans in America, Philadelphia & New York, Chilton Company, 1962, p. 25.

82. Rochambeau’s reception of this Indian delegation mentioned in the different journals left by the officers. This delegation was sent by the Governor of the colony of New York, Schuyler, to Rochambeau. The American authorities tasked them with strengthening the alliance between the tribes and the United States by proving to them the solidity of their alliance with France, to which the Six Indian Nations had remained attached after the loss of Canada. The alliance of the Indian tribes along the border represented high stakes in every conflict in North America. the Six Nations Confederacy, a traditional ally of the English, was incidentally defeated by the American General Sullivan in 1779. According to Evelyn Acomb, the editor of Baron von Closen’s diary, the delegation consisted in 13 members of the Oneida tribe and 5 Caughnawagas, coming from the Sault-Saint-Louis region, who were allied with France before 1763. These 19 or 20 Indians were accompanied by two interpreters, one of them a German (Flohr apparently met him). It was most certainly a man called Frey, whom Closen also mentions, a "tailor" from Schwetzingen in Palatinate, who had lived with the Indians since 1758 and knew English (Closen, op. cit., p. 38-39).

83. The Chief “Lagagix” mentioned by Flohr as the intermediary between Rochambeau and the delegation is likely Colonel Louis, or Chief Louis, who was unfriendly toward the English. He has been granted this rank by decision of Congress (Gallatin, “with Rochambeau at Newport”, Franco-American Review, I 5, 1937, p. 333).