German Flatts

Variant name of place

German Flats

Geographic position

43.00528°N 75.01306°W

Sources

Preston, David L. The Texture of Contact: European and Settler Communities on the Frontiers of Iroquoia. 1667-1783. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Print. http://herkimer.nygenweb.net/gerflats.html. https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/German_Flatts,_New_York.html.

General note

German Flatts is located in upper Mohawk Valley on the south side of the Mohawk River in Herkimer County, New York. The Oneidas had settled this land for centuries before Palatine German immigrants, for whom the town is named, settled there in the 1720s. The Palatines were granted leases from Governor Burnet to purchase land from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) in 1723. The Germans and Oneidas sustained excellent relations and had both a trading and military alliance (and even had several inter-marriages). When the French and Indian War began, the German Flatts settlers and the Oneidas agreed to maintain peace and neutrality. Both the Palatines and the Oneidas resented nearby Fort Herkimer, believing it made the area a military target. The French refused to accept the neutrality of the Indians and Germans at German Flatts, and in 1757, the French and their Indian allies attacked a Palatine settlement in German Flatts with the help of a few Oneidas who succumbed to pressure from the French. The Germans could not defend themselves (40 were killed and 150 were taken captive back to New France), and the French and their Indian allies burned much of German Flatts. After the French and Indian War, the Germans and Haudenosaunee renewed their trading relationship and maintained peace throughout the 1760s. In two separate letters in September 1761, Wheelock refers to a July 7, 1761 letter from Occom, written from German Flatts, reporting his kind reception by the Six Nations. Wheelock also recounts a July 7th letter from General Johnson from German Flatts written by two Mohawk boys whom the General recommends as interpreters or missionaries for the Indian Charity School. In a 1767 letter to Robert Keen, Wheelock quotes letters from Samuel Kirtland that express the lack of provisions due to years of poor crops. In 1778 during the American Revolution, the Loyalists and Mohawks, led by Joseph Brant, attacked German Flatts, and residents withdrew to Fort Herkimer. While the majority of the Haudenosaunee sided with the British, the Oneidas supported the colonists in the Revolution.