Blacksnake "Chainbreaker"

Chainbreaker, also known as Governor Blacksnake, a Seneca leader, captured on camera around 1850. The Seneca, part of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy, chose to support the British during the war, while other members of the Six Nations sided with the Patriots. Chainbreaker experienced this division on the battlefield, notably at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777, where he and other members of the Seneca faced Patriots and Oneida, their pre-war allies. Chainbreaker recounted his experiences to a fellow Seneca in the 1840s, becoming one of the earliest and most important memoirs of the Revolution from the Indigenous perspective.