Finding White Thunder

Back in 2013 I quoted Charles Lee’s 18 June 1756 letter to his sister on being “adopted by the Mohocks into the Tribe of the bear under the name of Ounewaterika, which signifies boiling water.”

Through Facebook a commenter just asked me: ”Do you know what Mohawks?”

I thought there might be clues in something else Lee wrote: “My Wife is daughter to the famous White Thunder who is Belt of Wampum to the Senakas which is in fact their Lord Treasurer.”

That eventually led me to this entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography:

KAGHSWAGHTANIUNT (Coswentannea, Gaghswaghtaniunt, Kachshwuchdanionty, Tohaswuchdoniunty, Belt of Wampum, Old Belt, Le Collier Pendu, White Thunder), a Seneca Indian living on the upper Ohio River by 1750; d. c. 1762.

As Cadsedan-hiunt he was identified in 1750 as one of the “Chiefs of the Seneca Nations settled at Ohio”; as Kachshwuchdanionty, he appeared in 1753 as one of “the Chiefs now entrusted with the Conduct of Publick affairs among the Six Nations” on the Ohio; and in 1755 he was described as “Belt of Wampum or White Thunder [who] keeps the wampum.” His English and French designations apparently attempt to translate his Seneca name; compare Zeisberger’s form, gaschwechtonni, of the Onondaga word meaning to make a belt of wampum.

That certainly seems to be “the famous White Thunder who is Belt of Wampum to the Senekas.” So was Lee marrying (or forming a temporary relationship with) a Seneca woman while being adopted into the Mohawk nation? Or did he not care about such distinctions among the Six Nations?

Kaghswaghtaniunt was part of Lt. Col. George Washington’s 1754 expedition west, and then Gen. Edward Braddock’s bigger, more famous, and even less successful march. Lee could have first met him during the planning of the Braddock expedition.

According to the D.C.B., in 1756 Kaghswaghtaniunt and his Mingo community “moved from Pennsylvania to New York under the protection of Sir William Johnson.” In the same month that Lee wrote to his sister, “Johnson sent Kaghswaghtaniunt with a message to the Senecas, and advised him and his family to settle among them.”

If, therefore, Lee was with his new “Wife,” and she was with her father and other members of the family, they were in the vicinity of Fort Johnson, New York. And that would suggest that Lee met Mohawks in that area, possibly other people who had come to work with Sir William Johnson.

If, on the other hand, we can’t rely on Charles Lee’s statements about his wife, her father, or what nations he was interacting with, then it’s an even bigger mystery.