Zeb Larson reviews Rebels #9…
Before the Revolutionary War, across the Ohio River Valley, numerous forts were built to claim and hold valuable territory. Meet Stone Hoof, a young Native American who falls in with a crew of white settlers during the French and Indian War.
Rebels #9 takes a look at a neglected group in an often skipped portion of U.S. history: Native Americans and their role in the European colonial wars. This installment takes place close to twenty years before the Revolutionary War began, when the Ohio Valley when contested by the French and British and when the idea of independent British colonies was on nobody’s mind. Yet while the issue situates the reader nicely in this period, it also examines the complicated racial politics that existed between Native Americans and the Europeans, subverting many of the “noble savage” tropes in the process.
In 1750, a Shawnee boy named Stone Hoof helps a group of British soldiers build a fort called Fort Stalwart in the Ohio Valley, and befriends a soldier named Will Henderson. Five years later, Stone Hoof returns and tells Will about the movement of some unfriendly tribes in the area, asking him to stay safe. He rues those words when he and his tribe return to Stalwart, having joined the war on the side of the French. They storm the fort, only to be “accidentally” bombarded by their French allies. In the confusion, Will and Stone Hoof run into each, and Stone Hoof demands to know why the Shawnee betrayed the British. The two cannot come to an agreement and in the end Stone Hoof leaves him with a bucket to carry water and help his comrades.
I appreciate that Rebels took a look, however brief at the French and Indian War, a subject which is wholly neglected in most depictions of American history. Even more important than that is some discussion of what happened to the Native Americans, who were caught between two European competitors who didn’t care much for the welfare of the tribes. Euroamericans could complain that the Native American tribes never stuck to any agreements, but this issue reveals some of the reasons that they had no reason to. All the agreements that Europeans made were ultimately at the expense of their Native American allies anyway, and so many treaties were broken that they ultimately meant nothing.
That being said, there’s only so much space they can devote to the shifting nature of European-Native American treaties here: the real drama is between Will and Stone Hoof. Their conversation after the fall of Stalwart says so much about the power dynamics between the two. Will likes Stone Hoof in certain contexts: the obedient and silent native, the helpful native, and the native without artifice. But that’s what the relationship is based on, and the moment Stone Hoof steps outside of those bounds he’s right back to being a savage. Maybe Will is a little too able to articulate his own feelings here: he likes Stone Hoof as the illiterate child who fetches water.
Overall, this issue also toys with many of the stereotypes existing about Native Americans from this period, both positive and negative. When the issue begins, Stone Hoof is the “helpful savage,” helping the white men build their home, and later giving them information to stay safe. Yet later he’s the “traitorous savage,” betraying his supposed friends in a brutal assault. Neither description what’s really going on with him, because he’s more complicated than a simple trope.
I’d love to see Rebels packaged alongside Howard Zinn in American history classes. We’ve covered more ground in the last few issues than I feel like I did in an entire year of social studies freshman year. Keep it up.
Zeb Larson
Originally published December 17, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
