Peter Wraxall (died 11 July 1759) was a British official in the

province of New York The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the U ...

Biography

Born in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, England, Wraxall was the son of John Wraxall, a merchant. Peter became a seaman after his family suffered financial hardship. He traveled to the Netherlands and Jamaica before finally settling in New York. In 1746, during King George's War, he raised a company for the expedition into Canada. The next year, he went back to England on private business. While in England, Wraxall received two royal commissions in 1750: secretary for the New York government to the Indians and clerk of the common pleas in the county and city of Albany. When he returned to New York, however, he found that the governor had already appointed Harmon Gansevoort to the Albany clerk position. Wraxall attempted through the courts to have his clerk's commission honored, to no avail. Wraxall did have his commission as New York's secretary of Indian affairs, which proved to be an important position as the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

approached. In 1754, Wraxall attended the

Albany Congress The Albany Congress (June 19 – July 11, 1754), also known as the Albany Convention of 1754, was a meeting of representatives sent by the legislatures of seven of the 13 British colonies in British America: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, ...

, where British officials attempted to improve their relationship with the

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

and recruit native support for the coming conflict. At the same time, Wraxall published ''An Abridgement of the Records of Indian Affairs: Contained in Four Folio Volumes, Transacted in the Colony of New York, from the Year 1678 to the Year 1751'', an important compilation of documents chronicling New York's dealings with Native Americans. Wraxall's work highlighted the incompetence of New York's Indian commissioners at Albany, and suggested that Indian affairs should be centralized under a single official. The ''Abridgement'' was sent to officials in Great Britain, and may have influenced the policy changes that followed. At the Albany Congress, Wraxall met William Johnson, an influential New York official. In April 1755, Johnson was commissioned as sole British agent to the Iroquois. Wraxall was appointed as Johnson's secretary, a position he held for the remainder of his life. In 1755, Wraxall accompanied Johnson on the Crown Point expedition. Johnson's victory at the

Battle of Lake George The Battle of Lake George was fought on 8 September 1755, in the north of the Province of New York. It was part of a campaign by the British to expel the French from North America, in the French and Indian War. On one side were 1,584 French, Can ...

on 8 September made him a British hero, but Wraxall, though important, remained obscure. Wraxall's final years were relatively uneventful. He continued to serve as Johnson's secretary, and attended Indian conferences, but poor health kept him from further military service. In 1756 he married Elizabeth Stillwell. He died three years later in New York City. His replacement as the crown's Indian secretary was Witham Marshe.

References

Sources

* Allen, Robert. "Wraxall, Peter". '' American National Biography Online'', February 2000. {{DEFAULTSORT:Wraxall, Peter Year of birth missing 1759 deaths British Indian Department British military personnel of the French and Indian War Colonial American Indian agents People of the Province of New York