French & Indian War scenarios?

[mikedemana]

Hi folks,

Not that I don't like dreaming up my own scenarios (which I do), but I was curious.  Does anyone  know of a source for skirmish level scenarios for French & Indian War focusing on fights between native Americans?  I'll want the occasional trapper, frontiersman or colonial troops, but the bulk of the fights are going to be Indian on Indian.  I envision each player controlling no more than about 10 figures, with 4-6 total players, to give you an idea of the "scale" I want.

I'm trying to remember to write down ideas as I get them, but just wanted to avoid reinventing the wheel if others have been down this road before...

[Aaron]

Mike,

I'm not aware of anything like that myself. Very early in (actually just before) the F&I War there was a raid on the British trading post / Miami village at Piqua, OH by Charles Langlade leading some Ojibway and Ottawa. Other than that I think you have to drop down south to the long standing Cherokee/Iroquois feuds to get any real Indian vs Indian action in the period. Of course if you want to drop back to the 1600s you have the Beaver Wars, but figures for that period are practically non-existant.

If you want to go the fictional route the possibilities are endless. Just about all of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales are good starting points.

Also, if you don't mind going a few years later you can incorporate the various adventures of Simons Girty and Kenton, semi-local to the Columbus area. This book on Girty is full of scenario ideas like the time Girty and a band of Shawnee lured a flatboat full of supplies for George Rogers Clark onto a bank of the Ohio River and ambushed them. http://www.amazon.com/Simon-Girty-Turncoat-Phillip-Hoffman/dp/0984225633/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302608408&sr=8-1

Aaron

[fergal]

For skirmish ideas, I don't know of any pre-prepared scenario books, though I wish I did as I'd buy it in a second. 

I have been reading accounts from the era.  I just reviewed http://syw6mm.com/2011/03/review-of-war-on-the-run-by-john-f-ross/.  But the only annoying thing is that most of the encounters are hundreds to a side rather than the 50 or so that would fit into a skirmish scenario nicely.  But you can adjust to taste.

Another great book for scenario ideas is http://www.catskill.net/purple/robrog.htm.  That one is Rogers' own journal with some explanations added in plain modern English.  Again, no maps or hard numbers and troop qualities, but great stuff to roll your own.

The Iron Ivan rules, This Very Ground, has about 8 or so scenarios in it for the Delaware wars, but it's expensive to buy just for scenarios. 

This sounds like a great niche for someone to take advantage of.  A French and Indian War scenario book would be the only one out there.

Just re-read your post, you were asking about Red on Red battles, I'm not as as skeptical as Aaron about Indians fighting each other in FIW times.  I would assume it happened all the time at the skirmish level.  You are still talking about different cultures with warrior traditions fighting for the land and hunting grounds necessary for the survival of their way of life.  If two Indians fight in the woods, and no white men hear it, does it make a noise? 

One of Rogers' main tasks when he went out west after the FIW was to stop the different tribes fighting each other as it was bad for business.  Also, men like Pontiac became famous because they united tribes, well if they weren't united before, what were they doing?  The problem will be finding documentation of battles between cultures with no written language and no white witnesses. 

[Galloping Major]

A lot of the tribes seemed to tollerate each other quite a lot of the time, but there were notable exceptions. I can think of a few off hand:

Again, down south, there are the Choctaw/Chickasaw conflicts, and the Cherokees falling out with quite a lot of people.

The Iroquois subjugated the Dalawares, who started getting all uppety again during the FIW. The Huron/Mohawk conflict went on (and off) pretty much through the 17th and 18th centuries, the Huron suffering quite heavy losses during the 2nd half of the 17th century.

The British and French, of course, whenever war broke out between them, and frequently without the need for such formalities, took advantage of inter-tribal enmities with their alliances, while the tribes also used their alliances with the European powers (and later the American govt.) to further their own interests against the opposition.

The woodland indian extension of the plains Indian inter-tribal rules "A Good Day to Die", I seem to remember, may have some background stuff on this, or a may be confused there 
I'll try to remember to dig it out and check. 

www.gallopingmajorwargames.com

[Aaron]

 If two Indians fight in the woods, and no white men hear it, does it make a noise?    

Nice!   I'm not saying it didn't happen, just that it doesn't seem to have happened much in the context of the war. Go back 50 years earlier and there was all-out red-on-red war happening in the region. Heck, the town I grew up in on the shores of Lake Erie was built on the site of a village completely wiped out by the Iroquois in the late 1600s.

By the time the F&I War broke out though things had settled down somewhat. One of the reasons Langlade had to go to the Ojibway and Ottawa to get warriors for his raid on the Miami is that the much closer pro-French tribes in the Detroit area got along with the Miami and didn't want to piss off their neighbors (and thus face retaliatory raids themselves). You do have the French-allied Caughnawaga Iroquois fighting the Brit-allied Mohawk Iroquois during the "Bloody Morning Scout", but even here there are allegations that the French ambush was betrayed by a sympathetic Caughnawaga.

Pontiac was reknowned not for getting the tribes to stop fighting each other as much as getting them to all act together against the Brits. AFAIK, Rogers was sent to stop the Indians from raiding against (Brit) whites at the instigation of the French, who still had holdings in the Louisiana territory and even manned some remote outposts ceded to the Brits until some time after the war ended.

Again, I'm not saying there weren't incidents of red-on-red skirmishing, or even that it is unlikely. But such instances were probably rare and, AFAIK, largely unrecorded. hopefully I'm not coming off like my anorak is too tight! 

Two more possible scenario sources did occur to me while I was typing this rambling mess. C Hale Sipe was a PA lawyer (IIRC) who was also an avid student of local Indian history. I have read his "Indian Chiefs of Pennsylvania" and it is a great collection of thumbnail biographies. I have not yet read his "Indian Wars of Pennsylvania" from cover to cover, but it would appear to be ideal fodder for scenarios. The best news about these works is that both are available for free download: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=c%20hale%20sipe . If you prefer a hard copy they have been reprinted by Wennawoods Publishing: http://wennawoods.com/users/wennawoods-cgi/listpage.cgi?store=books

This one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/025321212X?ie=UTF8&tag=ohc-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=025321212X might also interest you since you're a buckeye, but it doesn't sound like there are any actual scenario ideas in there.

[fergal]

hopefully I'm not coming off like my anorak is too tight!

Don't sweat it, people wouldn't come here if they didn't want to share and learn from each other.   I enjoyed reading your post.  I'm reading as fast as I can to learn about this areas history and about the FIW.

I just can't really fathom the idea of such a tidy nations at peace impression of the Indians at the time.  I have a hard time imagining that there were no old feuds to be settled or raiding parties left, other than by Indians allied with European nations.

This seems rife for skirmish scenarios.  Now, to find the documentation to make them historical scenarios... There's the rub.

[fergal]

The Huron/Mohawk conflict went on (and off) pretty much through the 17th and 18th centuries, the Huron suffering quite heavy losses during the 2nd half of the 17th century.

This one has my interest the most!  Your figures made this one possible for me, not much longer now and I'll have enough for a skirmish, heh heh.

[Galloping Major]

Right chaps.   I'm pretty sure we all have points of agreement here, and areas where we may have to differ just a tad, but aint that part of the fun of it all? I'm not looking to start or fan the flames of any sort of argument here, nor to referee anything - risking getting caught in the crossfire  

I think that Aaron's general point about a lot of the 'big' intertribal conflicts within the colonies being in the past by the time of the French & Indian War, is pretty well correct - especially as many of those tribes involved within the Anglo-American colonies had been decimated, transplanted of otherwise removed.

I also think that Fergal's:
"Just re-read your post, you were asking about Red on Red battles, I'm not as as skeptical as Aaron about Indians fighting each other in FIW times.  I would assume it happened all the time at the skirmish level.  You are still talking about different cultures with warrior traditions fighting for the land and hunting grounds necessary for the survival of their way of life.  If two Indians fight in the woods, and no white men hear it, does it make a noise?  

One of Rogers' main tasks when he went out west after the FIW was to stop the different tribes fighting each other as it was bad for business.  Also, men like Pontiac became famous because they united tribes, well if they weren't united before, what were they doing?  The problem will be finding documentation of battles between cultures with no written language and no white witnesses."

is perfectly logical, and the line Aaron quoted is delightfully witty.  

I would think that yet another war between the British and the French presented the perfect opportunity for the settling of a lot of old scores, both within and around those colonies, and involving nations farther afield, many of whom were inclined to have a go at each other without much of an excuse. Understandably perhaps, the chroniclers from both major powers and their colonies would be less interested in the relatively desultory conflicts between Native American nations, overshadowed by the great world events of the 7 Years War and the ‘local’ campaigns that contributed to it.

There you are you see – already I’m rambling far more than I had intended.  

I love this forum      


So, if we go back to Mikedemana’s query without worrying too much about finding actual historically documented skirmishes not involving ‘Europeans’ (as none of us so far know of any reliable sources – but I’m sure we’d love to be surprised there), then I think he has a recipe for some brilliant games.

What I would do Mikedemana, and probably shall, is make some up, knowing who didn’t get on any too well, and what sort of things were happening: raids, pursuits, ambushes etc.

I’ve dug out the rules I mentioned earlier, and will come back later with some examples lifted from it, of who traditionally was whose enemy, to hopefully help you set up some great games.

For some reason that escapes me, I’d especially recommend Mohawk v Huron  


www.gallopingmajorwargames.com

[Aaron]

Yes, actually I think we all do agree more or less. I just ramble too much.

Mohawk vs Huron is certainly a good one (I'm finishing up painting some Huron from a certain company right now!). More local to Mike would be Shawnee and Cherokee who frequently skirmished over hunting rights to the Kentucky area. "Long hunters" and squatters were beginning to infiltrate this area during the F&I period and there were probably a few unliscensed traders plying their wares throughout the region as well.

[Galloping Major]

Yes, actually I think we all do agree more or less. I just ramble too much.

Me too  

Great stuff Aaron, just the sort of thing. And some people who were destined for greatness (along with a lot who were not) were involved in some very dodgy arrangements and land dealings at the time  

The rules supplement I mentioned (which I've never played - yet) gives “Force Compositions and Special Rules for the Woodland Tribes” for the following tribal groups:

The North Eastern Algonquian Tribes (Abenaki, Algonkin, Montagnais, Cree and Nipissing)
The Five Nations [Iroquois] (Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, Seneca and Cayuga – allowing for the period before they were joined by the Tuscarora)
The Tuscarora
The Wyandots & Hurons
The Delaware
The Shawnee
The Winnebago
The Three Fires Confederacy (Ottawa, Ojibwa, Pottawatamie)
The Woodland Sioux
The Sac, Fox and Kickapoo
The Miami
The Illinois
The Mingo (disident Senecas and Cayugas)
The Catawba
The Cherokee
The Creeks
The Chickasaw
The Choctaw

Given the time-spread the rules are intended to cover, some of the above are more relevant to the 1750s-60s that others, and of course, as with all rules, they’re open to differing interpretation and adjustment, but for your interest, here are some examples of what are given as traditional enemies:

Iroquois (5/6 Nations): North Eastern Algonquians, Wyandots, Hurons, Delawares, Shawnees, Three Fires Confederacy, Sac, Fox and Kickapoos, Miamis, Illinois, Catawbas, Cherokees.
Hurons: 5/6 Nations, Sioux, Sac, Fox and Kickapoos , Miamis, Illinois.
Delaware: 5/6 Nations, Catawbas.
Shawnees: 5/6 Nations, Catawbas, Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws.

Obviously, not all at one go.

  


www.gallopingmajorwargames.com

[fergal]

Hopefully Mike will return to the thread and soak all this up!

Excellent discussion guys, I really like this forum.  Loads of info with chaps falling over each other to be nice.  A breath of fresh air after TMP.

[mikedemana]

Thanks for all the feedback, guys!  My own research agrees with the synopsis that the "big" tribal wars with no French & British involvement are pre-F&I War.  However, the native American possessed a raiding culture.  He was in an almost constant state of "red on red" warfare, from my reading.  Scalp taking, proving oneself by fighting an enemy, all of that was integral to their culture.  The peaceful Indian living at harmony with neighboring tribes until the nasty white man came along is a fiction created in the touchy-feely era of the mid to late 20th century.  Or should I say, revisionist historians?

Anyway, I will definitely look up those free downloads of books on the Delaware -- thanks for the link.  And I am currently re-reading the Leatherstocking tales, so hope to glean another idea or two from that.  And when I do compile a book of scenarios, I may look into publishing since there is interest (after I've playtested the scenarios, of course!).

My general plan is to set my games in the context of the Beaver Wars, but to post-date them back to just before the F&I War.  So, instead of occurring in the 1600s, in my world the Beaver Wars will be taking place in the 1700s.  That way, my miniatures will all remain good for a range of conflicts.  For those who don't know, the Beaver Wars actually occurred here in my native Ohio, when the Iroquois Confederacy (5 Nations) attempted to muscle in on this territory for control of its beaver pelts.  They had pretty much depleted them in their own lands.  So, it is kind of a tribal free-for-all, with many of those in the list Galloping Major posted having a hand in it.

Thanks again...and keep the input coming...!

[Miniman]

I was looking for any scenerio's based on The French and Indian wars and my search found this thread.
While this is revolving around the native american's fighting each other, I was wondering if any of you have scenerio's that involve them fighting the British along with or without the French? Any scenerio's at all?

I just picked up Black powder rules and have some mini's to play with.
Plus I just had to get into this thread for the wealth of imformation here.

[fergal]

Maybe we can crowd source this.  I've just started a blog post on the subject http://syw6mm.com/2011/04/french-and-indian-war-scenarios/.

If anyone knows of FIW scenarios out there on the web, leave a comment and we'll get a resource started.

[Captain Blood]

Anyone want to use this scenario, feel free 

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=13697.0