White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery And Vengeance in Colonial America
by Stephen Brumwell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Stephen BrumwellEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-03-07
ISBN: 0306814730
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Book Reviews of White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery And Vengeance in Colonial America
Book Review: `Nous sommes tout Sauvages'
Summary: 5 Stars
Stephen Brumwell's book, "White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery And Vengeance in Colonial America" is a detailed account of a dramatic act of revenge. An act of revenge comparable to General Doolittle's post Pearl Harbor strike against the Japanese during the early months of WW II. In his book, Brumwell seeks to explain the motivation behind Rogers' legendary raid.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, on 4 October 1759, Major Robert Rogers led a raid against the Abenaki residing at the mission site of St Francis, northeast of Montreal. Rogers targeted and struck St Francis: a place thought - by the French and the Indians - to be unreachable. This raid demoralized the native tribes allied to the French and caused them to question their allegiance to France. Thereafter, the Abenakis called Rogers "Wobomagonela" - Abenaki for "White Devil".
Brumwell recounts the struggle between the French and British in North America during the French and Indian War. Of note, Brumwell differs from most other authors by claiming that General Braddock was not defeated in ambush on the Monongahela, but rather in a meeting engagement wherein his force was defeated by superior tactics. Continuing on, Brumwell briefly relates the struggle for and surrender of Fort William Henry on 9 August 1757. Following that surrender was the infamous massacre central to the plot of James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 book, "The Last of the Mohicans". Brumwell explains that this massacre of scores of paroled British soldiers and civilians by French led Algonquians: the Penobscot and Abenaki in particular, inflamed colonial America unlike any other atrocity up to that point in the war. Brumwell tells how the colonial press further inflamed public opinion by grossly inflating the number of innocents slaughtered. This event, coupled with the huge losses suffered by Braddock in 1755, served to animate Major Robert Rogers and others to wreak vengeance on those they believed most responsible: the Abenaki of St Francis whose predatory reign had persisted unchecked for some 70 years.
Brumwell writes, "Thursday 13 September, 1759, was a red-letter day for the destiny of North America. By 10 o'clock that morning James Wolfe had found a hero's death on the Plains of Abraham before the walls of Québec. The ambitious young general succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds, but not before he witnessed the Marquis de Montcalm's army utterly routed, blasted apart by the disciplined firepower of his veteran battalions. The red coats who fought under Wolfe that day included survivors of both General Braddock's defeat on the Monongahela and the notorious massacre at Fort William Henry [depicted in Last of the Mohicans]. These men had butchered comrades to avenge, with fixed bayonets they emerged from the sulphurous smoke of their on volleys and prepared to settle old scores in person.
"Faced with this oncoming line of steel, the shocked survivors of the French regular regiments took to their heels. . . . Wolfe's victory was . . . a hammer blow that shattered the morale of Québec's defenders. . . .
"Two hundred miles to the south-west at Crown Point, Jeffery Amherst and the thousands of soldiers who laboured upon his sprawling fort were oblivious to these momentous events. Though it was more than a month before news of Québec's conquest reached the commander-in-chief and his Grand Army on Lake Champlain, there too, the immortal 13 September, 1759, was not without significance: that same day Robert Rogers quit camp at the head of a formidable force of [250] picked men. The major had orders to execute a mission that was much to his liking: at long last, he was to strike back against those troublesome raiders, the Abenakis of St Francis" (pp. 157-58).
The tale Brumwell recounts is one of incredible human endurance. He details how Rogers' command was detected and pursued by French and Indian patrols, and how the physical hardship of the journey depleted, through straggling and desertion, Rogers' force by some eighty men. When Rogers reconnoitered St Francis on 3 October 1759, he found it mostly occupied by old men, women and children preoccupied with a ceremonial wedding dance. Early on the morning of 4 October, Rogers and his men attacked and laid waste to St Francis. In his official report, Brumwell relates, Rogers claimed to have killed some 200 Abenaki, but the French claimed only thirty were killed - and that twenty of those were women and children. Yet the adventure was not finished. The herculean effort of the attack paled in comparison to that of the retreat.
Rogers' exhausted force struggled desperately to out pace the sizeable French and Indian patrols that were in close pursuit. Most of Rogers' men had consumed their rations before reaching St Francis and were starving. The onset of winter made the retreat even more miserable and harrowing.
Brumwell tells how Rogers, counter-intuitively, divided his force in the face of the enemy ostensibly to allow the men easier foraging. As a result, many of Rogers' men were overwhelmed and captured or killed by their French and Indian pursuers. Some grew too weak to continue the march and died of starvation. Others succumbed to the frigid weather of impending winter. Brumwell describes how some the men resorted to cannibalizing the dead, and how others - including Rogers - killed and ate Abenaki captives in order to survive. Between St Francis and his return to Fort Number Four on 31 October, Rogers had lost an additional fifty men.
At first glance, it would seem that Rogers' raid on St Francis was insignificant or even a horrible failure. Yet Brumwell explains that the psychological impact the raid had on France's native allies was profound. The raid manifestly demonstrated British Indian policy would thenceforth have teeth, and Native American tribes would either submit or relocate.
Brumwell follows Robert Rogers' life through Pontiac's Rebellion and the American Revolution to its end. Rogers ultimately remained loyal to the king and his fortune declined accordingly. Given over to drink, he died in London in 1795 "`reduced to the most miserable state of wretchedness'" (203). Brumwell notes that Rogers' legacy is still alive and well in the 21st century as his codified ranger doctrine is still the operational basis of today's modern U.S. Special Forces.
Brumwell's narrative, derived from extensive period documents, takes the reader on a journey into the primitive wilderness that was once common in North America. Whereas most books commonly speak of armies maneuvering and engaging in battle, such as Wolfe against Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham, Brumwell speaks of strong men dodging from tree to tree skirmishing viciously with an enemy just as viciously adept: "`Nous sommes tout Sauvages' [We are all savages] graffito left by Canadian fur trader Illinois Country, 1680" (p. 6). For this reason, Brumwell's book serves as a valuable supplement to other books on this period.
Summary of White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery And Vengeance in Colonial America
In North America's first major conflict, known today as the French and Indian War, France and England-both in alliance with Native American tribes-fought each other in a series of bloody battles and terrifying raids. No confrontation was more brutal and notorious than the massacre of the British garrison of Fort William Henry--an incident memorably depicted in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. That atrocity stoked calls for revenge, and the tough young Major Robert Rogers and his "Rangers" were ordered north into enemy territory to take it. On the morning of October 4, 1759, they surprised the Abenaki Indian village of St. Francis, slaughtering its sleeping inhabitants without mercy. When the raiders returned to safety, they were hailed as heroes by the colonists, and their leader was immortalized as "the brave Major Rogers." But the Abenakis remembered Rogers differently: To them he was Wobomagonda--"White Devil."
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