The tomahawk is one of the most versatile and formidable tools to be found on the 18th century American frontier, and saw widespread prevalence all across early America both in the hands of European settlers and Native Americans. In its simplest form, the tomahawk is a small, lightweight hatchet with a typically straight wooden haft handle. It could be used as a cutting tool or as a hand/throwing weapon.
Before recorded history, various Native Americans were using small knapped stone hatchet-like tools that were connected to wooden hafts with sinew. These are seen as the predecessor of the metal tomahawk we know today. Multiple Algonquin words have been tied to the tomahawk since John Smith of Jamestown, Virginia fame translated the word tomahacks to axes as seen in his Travels and Works of John Smith, Vol. 1. This Algonquin word, along with tamahakan is said to have been used by the native speakers to refer to any tool meant for striking or cutting.[4] [5] Britannica suggests that the word is derived from otomahuk, which means “to knock down.” Regardless of which original word the anglicized tomahawk is derived from, it is agreed to be of Algonquin origins.
Trade between European settlers and Native Americans was very frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries and metal tools were highly sought after because of their superiority over stone tools. This led to the rise in popularity of metal European-made “trade axes” intended to be traded to the natives for furs. These axes came to also be called tomahawks by the traders, and therefore Native Americans also applied that term to them.
The Pipe Tomahawk
One of the most popular variants of European-made tomahawks was the pipe tomahawk, then known as a smoak tomahawk, which possibly came to the scene around the year 1700.[5] This tomahawk featured a tobacco pipe bowl attached to the area opposite of the blade, known as the poll. Previous tomahawks would have featured a spike, hammer head, or nothing at all on the poll. Tobacco smoking in the colonies was extremely popular, especially in Native American culture, and so the pipe tomahawk quickly became a favorite among the Cherokee, Iroquois, and many other people and tribes.
Evidence of its origins dating to the early 18th century is purely speculative and can be traced to a series of portraits called Four Indian Kings, which was a painting of three Mohawk chiefs and one Mohican chief during their visit to London done by John Verelest. Shown at the feet of these chiefs are tomahawks that vaguely resemble pipe tomahawks, but true clarity on their identity as such is not evident.
The first written evidence of the pipe tomahawk that cannot be disputed comes from a 1748 account regarding a blacksmith named Anton Schmidt, who was making the tomahawks at that time in the village of Shamokin, Pennsylvania. This was written about by Moravian missionary Johannes von Watteville.[5]
Pipe tomahawks were very popular before the dawn of the French and Indian War in 1754. Some were likely crafted in England and shipped to the colonies, but the majority of these tomahawks were made by various local blacksmiths in the colonies, giving them a very unique American identity. They were originally made of iron, brass, or a combination of both, and were of simple design, but became more elaborate toward the 19th century. Fancier elements were added later and made of materials like copper and silver. These tomahawks were oftentimes traded without handles, as the Native Americans preferred handles of their own design, typically made of reed. Local Indian traders such as George Croghan, John Fraser, and later John McDonald bought, bartered for, or made European goods that were valuable to the Native Americans like these tomahawks and traded them at their trading posts.[6]
Leading up to and during the French & Indian War, the pipe tomahawk saw a surge in popularity and quickly became a symbol among relations with Native American allies of both the British and the French. The British would often present these tomahawks as gifts, so they are sometimes called presentation pipes. Indian Superintendent to the British Crown William Johnson understood their importance and had several ordered from manufacturers in England for less than five shillings each. Resources and artisans were more plentiful in England, which meant trade goods could be produced for cheaper prices. The French also manufactured pipe tomahawks in seemingly smaller numbers, mostly around the Great Lakes region. French designs were often unique and referred to as spontoons, which were earlier polearms from which they drew design inspiration from.[6]
After the end of the French and Indian War, the British became skeptical of trading weapons to Native Americans and Indian Agents began to stock them much less frequently in attempts to disarm Native Americans from superior weapons. The manufacturing of these tomahawks was once again left in the hands of local colonists who conducted their own trade, and the demand by Native Americans did not diminish.[6] The pipe tomahawk became an element of their identity and was seen as an important part of their culture and fashion.
Cultural Significance
One cannot talk about the pipe tomahawk without discussing the duality of its purposes. Peace and warfare are both appropriately associated with either side of the pipe tomahawk, and for justified purposes. There is much evidence of its obvious purpose as a weapon of war, but the tomahawk also equally served as a cutting tool and smoking device.
The “peace pipe” or “calumet” as called by the French, was another type of tobacco smoking pipe created by several Native American cultures and used extensively throughout their histories as a tool for council and diplomacy. Smoking tobacco was believed to purge ill-feelings and clear the mind. Pipe tomahawks may have been used for this same purpose, but not as often as they may have been smoked from for social or holistic healing purposes. Even so, Native Americans often used stone pipes of their own make, or clay trade-pipes. A certain design of stone pipe, called the Micmac bowl, heavily inspired the pipe bowl featured on many tomahawks.[6]
Pipe tomahawks quickly became a symbol of status among both Native Americans and European settlers. Many Native American chiefs incorporated tomahawks into their imagery, causing the tomahawk to often be associated with natives of higher status. Pipe tomahawks were also traded back to some European settlers as gifts, or taken by the latter as souvenirs or war prizes. One local instance of this occurrence is found in the story of the fight between John Cherry and the Poe brothers, and the Wyandot Half-King’s sons in 1781. In this encounter, Andrew Poe was injured in an attack by a tomahawk-wielding Wyandot warrior. After the Poe brothers defeated the warriors, the tomahawk was taken as a spoil of war and was shown off as a historical artifact by his descendants for many years to come. The tomahawk was last known to be owned by the family of Mabel Poe in Cleveland in 1926, but its current whereabouts remain a mystery.[2]
Tomahawks were also used as grave goods, which were items seen to have importance to a deceased individual, particularly in the afterlife. William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, had multiple pipe tomahawks stolen or traded away during the expedition. He traded two strands of beads and two horses to a Native American to get one of his precious pipe tomahawks back. The Native American from whom he received it was intending to use it as a grave good.[6]
A tomahawk was excavated from an Indian mound “a mile or more north of McDonald,” on the original farm of the writer’s 5th great-grandfather Henry Crooks. Henry’s grandson, Andrew Crooks gave an account stating that this was the only artifact excavated from the three or four mounds on the farm.[3] These mounds were likely built over one thousand years ago by the Adena or Hopewell people and therefore predate European contact, meaning the tomahawk found would be made of stone. Examples like these allow us to notice similarities between the ancient and more recent Native American practices. The fate of these ancient mounds is unknown and they were likely destroyed among countless others in the 20th century strip mining operations in the area around Robinson’s Run.
Further Prevalence
Tomahawks are often associated with Native Americans today, but they were also used extensively by the European settlers of the colonial era and later. Although the common metal pipe tomahawk was designed with Native American influences in mind, and was often decorated with beadwork, banding, feathers, and other Native American iconography, it was first forged by European blacksmiths both for European colonist and Native American usage. The design and principle of the pipe tomahawk would remain almost entirely unchanged well into the 19th century as it spread further west across the entire country.
Both militia and professional soldiers almost always carried a blade that could act as a cutting tool and melee weapon. American soldiers were required to carry a sword or tomahawk with them at some points in the American Revolutionary War.[1] Almost every settler living on the frontier would have owned a hatchet or tomahawk of some sort, and no interpretation of a Pennsylvania frontiersman would be complete without one tucked in a belt opposite the side of a knife.
There was a time not so long ago in our very homeland that the tomahawk dominated the forests and presented itself in almost every scene of the American frontier. Once a ubiquitous symbol of American expansionism and limited empowerment of Native Americans, the tomahawk was a part of the frontier that everyone simultaneously desired for diplomacy and feared in warfare.
Works Cited
1. Alchin, Linda. Native Indian Weapons and Tools, The Tomahawk. The Siteseen Limited, 2018. https://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/native-indian-weapons-tools/tomahawk.htm.
2. Forrest, E. R. History of Washington County, Pennsylvania. Vol. 1. United States: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1926.
3. McFarland, Joseph. F. 20th Century History of the City of Washington and Washington County, Pennsylvania and Representative Citizens. United States: Chicago, Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co., 1910.
4. McLemore, Dwight C. The Fighting Tomahawk. United States: Boulder, Paladin Press, 2004.
5. Pitts Rivers Museum, Pipe Tomahawk (1921.53.2). web.prm.ox.ac.uk. Accessed July 30, 2024. https://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/weapons/index.php/tour-by-region/oceania/americas/arms-and-armour-americas-52/index.html.
6. Shannon, Timothy J. Queequeg’s Tomahawk: A Cultural Biography, 1750-1900. The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College, 2005. https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/histfac/4/.
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