Mohican Seminar 2 The Challenge - New York State Museum - New ...

Figure 5.3. A painting titled A View of the Lines at Lake George, 1759 was made by Capt.
Thomas Davies, an English soldier. In the detail shown, a man dressed in one of the bluegreen
uniforms of Rogers’ Rangers talks with an unknown resting Indian warrior, possibly from
Stockbridge. The Native American fighter has a blanket across his shoulders and wears a
white shirt, Indian-style leggings with orange fringe and garters, and orange-trimmed moccasins.
In his hair is a red-dyed feather, and his face is daubed with red coloring. Courtesy
Fort Ticonderoga Museum.
writers applied it to the Indians from the Saco
River to Lake Champlain, including those
known to New Hampshire historians as Penacooks.
The Jesuits had missions among these
Indians too—at Pigwacket, Cowas, Otter
Creek, Winooski and Missisquoi, but so little
information has come to light about those missions
that they may have been short-lived
affairs” (Day 1998: 51).
It is interesting that Robert Rogers spent
most of the French and Indian War leading
“ranger” units that were to substitute for the
Indian allies which the British lacked (Figure
5.3.). He tried mightily to perfect the rangers’
skills in woodlands warfare, yet never quite
succeeded. Twice Rogers and his men suffered
terribly (and he himself almost died) at the
hands of French marines and enemy Indians
whose woodlands’ expertise was superior to
his. However, whatever shortcomings Rogers
may have had in forest tactics, he compensated
for in the public mind by publishing his
own version of his adventures.
With the 1765 publication of his Journals in
London, Rogers sought to secure his place in
history as a model frontier guerrilla leader
(Anderson 2000:188). He went so far as to
claim that the several excursions that he had
made provided the key to “the most material
circumstances of every campaign upon the
74 Heriberto Dixon