Battles on New York’s Mohawk River: “Bloody Mowawk”

I am much more knowledgeable about a section of early American history after reading (and thoroughly enjoying) Richard Berlith’s book, Bloody Mohawk: The French and Indian War and American Revolution on New York’s Frontier.

This well written and researched history of the battles fought in the vicinity of the Mowhawk River, discusses in depth the background and interactions of the people—natives, Dutch, English, Palatines, and Irish—who lived along the Mohawk River.

I found that sides taken during the Revolutionary War—British/Loyalist/Tories versus Continentals/Patriots—was much more complex than I had understood before.

The narrative ties the history of the area’s battles with Joseph Brant and the July 22, 1779 Minisink Battle (briefly mentioned in The Mill on Halfway Brook) and Dr. Tusten.

Also mentioned and related to the “Mohawk Wars” was the Wyoming Massacre in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania which apparently sent my Austin relatives back east for two or three years. (The Austins weren’t mentioned specifically.)

Richard Berleth creates an exceptional narrative here that is forever driven by the unique geography of the Mohawk Valley, as well as by the people who settled there from the powerful Iroquois, to avaricious European fur traders, to the colonials who fought in and ultimately won a series of devastating eighteenth-century wars. –Robert Weibel, New York State Historian & Chief Curator New York State Museum.