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by Theodore Roosevelt
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Title: The Winning of the West, Volume One
From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Release Date: April 7, 2004 [EBook #11941]
Language: English
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PRESIDENTIAL EDITION
THE WINNING OF THE WEST
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
VOLUME ONE
FROM THE ALLEGHANIES TO THE MISSISSIPPI
1769-1776
WITH MAP
This book is dedicated, with his permission
to FRANCIS PARKMAN
To whom Americans who feel a pride in the pioneer history
of their country are so greatly indebted
"O strange New World that yit wast never young,
Whose youth from thee by gripin' need was wrung,
Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose baby-bed
Was prowled roun' by the Injun's cracklin' tread,
And who grew'st strong thru shifts an' wants an' pains,
Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains,
Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain
With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane;
Thou skilled by Freedom and by gret events
To pitch new states ez Old World men pitch tents.
Thou taught by fate to know Jehovah's plan,
Thet man's devices can't unmake a man.
* * * * *
Oh, my friends, thank your God, if you have one, that he
'Twixt the Old World and you set the gulf of a sea,
Be strong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines,
By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs."
--LOWELL.
PREFACE.
Much of the material on which this work is based is to be found in the
archives of the American Government, which date back to 1774, when the
first Continental Congress assembled. The earliest sets have been
published complete up to 1777, under the title of "American Archives,"
and will be hereafter designated by this name. These early volumes
contain an immense amount of material, because in them are to be found
memoranda of private individuals and many of the public papers of the
various colonial and State governments, as well as those of the
Confederation. The documents from 1789 on--no longer containing any
papers of the separate States--have also been gathered and printed
under the heading of "American State Papers"; by which term they will
be hereafter referred to.
The mass of public papers coming in between these two series, and
covering the period extending from 1776 to 1789, have never been
published, and in great part have either never been examined or else
have been examined in the most cursory manner. The original documents
are all in the Department of State at Washington, and for convenience
will be referred to as "State Department MSS." They are bound in two
or three hundred large volumes; exactly how many I cannot say,
because, though they are numbered, yet several of the numbers
themselves contain from two or three to ten or fifteen volumes apiece.
The volumes to which reference will most often be made are the
following:
* * * * *
No. 15. Letters of Huntington.
No. 16. Letters of the Presidents of Congress.
No. 18. Letter-Book B.
No. 20. Vol. 1. Reports of Committees on State Papers.
No. 27. Reports of Committees on the War Office. 1776 to 1778.
No. 30. Reports of Committees.
No. 32. Reports of Committees of the States and of the Week.
No. 41. Vol. 3. Memorials E. F. G. 1776-1788.
No. 41. Vol. 5. Memorials K. L. 1777-1789.
No. 50. Letters and Papers of Oliver Pollock. 1777-1792.
No. 51. Vol. 2 Intercepted Letters. 1779-1782.
No. 56. Indian Affairs.
No. 71. Vol. 1. Virginia State Papers.
No. 73. Georgia State Papers.
No. 81. Vol. 2. Reports of Secretary John Jay.
No. 120. Vol. 2. American Letters.
No. 124. Vol. 3. Reports of Jay.
No. 125. Negotiation Book.
No. 136. Vol. 1. Reports of Board of Treasury.
No. 136. Vol. 2. Reports of Board of Treasury.
No. 147. Vol. 2. Reports of Board of War.
No. 147. Vol. 5. Reports of Board of War.
No. 147. Vol. 6. Reports of Board of War.
No. 148. Vol. 1. Letters from Board of War.
No. 149. Vol. 1. Letters and Reports from B. Lincoln, Secretary at
War.
No. 149. Vol. 2. Letters and Reports from B. Lincoln, Secretary at
War.
No. 149. Vol. 3. Letters and Reports from B. Lincoln, Secretary at
War.
No. 150. Vol. 1. Letters of H. Knox, Secretary at War.
No. 150. Vol. 2. Letters of H. Knox, Secretary at War.
No. 150. Vol. 3. Letters of H. Knox, Secretary at War.
No. 152. Vol. 11. Letters of General Washington.
No. 163. Letters of Generals Clinton, Nixon, Nicola, Morgan, Harmar,
Muhlenburg.
No. 169. Vol. 9. Washington's Letters.
No. 180. Reports of Secretary of Congress.
Besides these numbered volumes, the State Department contains others,
such as Washington's letter-book, marked War Department 1792, '3, '4,
'5. There are also a series of numbered volumes of "Letters to
Washington," Nos. 33 and 49 containing reports from Geo. Rogers Clark.
The Jefferson papers, which are likewise preserved here, are bound in
several series, each containing a number of volumes. The Madison and
Monroe papers, also kept here, are not yet bound; I quote them as the
Madison MSS. and the Monroe MSS.
My thanks are due to Mr. W. C. Hamilton, Asst. Librarian, for giving
me every facility to examine the material.
At Nashville, Tennessee, I had access to a mass of original matter in
the shape of files of old newspapers, of unpublished letters, diaries,
reports, and other manuscripts. I was given every opportunity to
examine these at my leisure, and indeed to take such as were most
valuable to my own home. For this my thanks are especially due to
Judge John M. Lea, to whom, as well as to my many other friends in
Nashville, I shall always feel under a debt on account of the
unfailing courtesy with which I was treated. I must express my
particular acknowledgments to Mr. Lemuel R. Campbell. The Nashville
manuscripts, etc. of which I have made most use are the following:
* * * * *
The Robertson MSS., comprising two large volumes, entitled the
"Correspondence, etc., of Gen'l James Robertson," from 1781 to 1814.
They belong to the library of Nashville University; I had some
difficulty in finding the second volume but finally succeeded.
The Campbell MSS., consisting of letters and memoranda to and from
different members of the Campbell family who were prominent in the
Revolution; dealing for the most part with Lord Dunmore's war, the
Cherokee wars, the battle of King's Mountain, land speculations, etc.
They are in the possession of Mr. Lemuel R. Campbell, who most kindly
had copies of all the important ones sent me, at great personal
trouble.
Some of the Sevier and Jackson papers, the original MS. diaries of
Donelson on the famous voyage down the Tennessee and up the
Cumberland, and of Benj. Hawkins while surveying the Tennessee
boundary, memoranda of Thos. Washington, Overton and Dunham, the
earliest files of the Knoxville _Gazette_, from 1791 to 1795,
etc. These are all in the library of the Tennessee Historical Society.
For original matter connected with Kentucky, I am greatly indebted to
Col. Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, the founder of the "Filson
Club," which has done such admirable historical work of late years. He
allowed me to work at my leisure in his library, the most complete in
the world on all subjects connected with Kentucky history. Among other
matter, he possesses the Shelby MSS., containing a number of letters
to and from, and a dictated autobiography of, Isaac Shelby; MS.
journals of Rev. James Smith, during two tours in the western country
in 1785 and '95; early files of the "Kentucke _Gazette_"; books
owned by the early settlers; papers of Boon, and George Rogers Clark;
MS. notes on Kentucky by George Bradford, who settled there in 1779;
MS. copy of the record book of Col. John Todd, the first governor of
the Illinois country after Clark's conquest; the McAfee MSS.,
consisting of an Account of the First Settlement of Salt River, the
Autobiography of Robert McAfee, and a Brief Memorandum of the Civil
and Natural History of Kentucky; MS. autobiography of Rev. William
Hickman, who visited Kentucky in 1776, etc., etc.
I am also under great obligations to Col. John Mason Brown of
Louisville, another member of the Filson Club, for assistance rendered
me; particularly for having sent me six bound volumes of MSS.,
containing the correspondence of the Spanish Minister Gardoqui, copied
from the Spanish archives.
At Lexington I had access to the Breckenridge MSS., through the
kindness of Mr. Ethelbert D. Warfield; and to the Clay MSS. through
the kindness of Miss Lucretia Hart Clay. I am particularly indebted to
Miss Clay for her courtesy in sending me many of the most valuable old
Hart and Benton letters, depositions, accounts, and the like.
The Blount MSS. were sent to me from California by the Hon. W. D.
Stephens of Los Angeles, although I was not personally known to him;
an instance of courtesy and generosity, in return for which I could do
nothing save express my sincere appreciation and gratitude, which I
take this opportunity of publicly repeating.
The Gates MSS., from which I drew some important facts not hitherto
known concerning the King's Mountain campaign, are in the library of
the New York Historical Society.
The Virginia State Papers have recently been published, and are now
accessible to all.
Among the most valuable of the hitherto untouched manuscripts which I
have obtained are the Haldimand papers, preserved in the Canadian
archives at Ottawa. They give, for the first time, the British and
Indian side of all the northwestern fighting; including Clark's
campaigns, the siege of Boonsborough, the battle of the Blue Licks,
Crawford's defeat, etc. The Canadian archivist. Mr. Douglass Brymner,
furnished me copies of all I needed with a prompt courtesy for which I
am more indebted than I can well express.
I have been obliged to rely mainly on these collections of early
documents as my authorities, especially for that portion of western
history prior to 1783. Excluding the valuable, but very brief, and
often very inaccurate, sketch which Filson wrote down as coming from
Boon, there are no printed histories of Kentucky earlier than
Marshall's, in 1812; while the first Tennessee history was Haywood's,
in 1822. Both Marshall and Haywood did excellent work; the former was
an able writer, the latter was a student, and (like the Kentucky
historian Mann Butler) a sound political thinker, devoted to the
Union, and prompt to stand up for the right. But both of them, in
dealing with the early history of the country beyond the Alleghanies,
wrote about matters that had happened from thirty to fifty years
before, and were obliged to base most of their statements on tradition
or on what the pioneers remembered in their old age. The later
historians, for the most part, merely follow these two. In
consequence, the mass of original material, in the shape of official
reports and contemporary letters, contained in the Haldimand MSS., the
Campbell MSS., the McAfee MSS., the Gardoqui MSS., the State
Department MSS., the Virginia State Papers, etc., not only cast a
flood of new light upon this early history, but necessitate its being
entirely re-written. For instance, they give an absolutely new aspect
to, and in many cases completely reverse, the current accounts of all
the Indian fighting, both against the Cherokees and the Northwestern
tribes; they give for the first time a clear view of frontier
diplomacy, of the intrigues with the Spaniards, and even of the mode
of life in the backwoods, and of the workings of the civil government.
It may be mentioned that the various proper names are spelt in so many
different ways that it is difficult to know which to choose. Even
Clark is sometimes spelt Clarke, while Boon was apparently indifferent
as to whether his name should or should not contain the final silent
_e_. As for the original Indian titles, it is often quite
impossible to give them even approximately; the early writers often
wrote the same Indian words in such different ways that they bear no
resemblance whatever to one another.
In conclusion I would say that it has been to me emphatically a labor
of love to write of the great deeds of the border people. I am not
blind to their manifold shortcomings, nor yet am I ignorant of their
many strong and good qualities. For a number of years I spent most of
my time on the frontier, and lived and worked like any other
frontiersman. The wild country in which we dwelt and across which we
wandered was in the far west; and there were of course many features
in which the life of a cattleman on the Great Plains and among the
Rockies differed from that led by a backwoodsman in the Alleghany
forests a century before. Yet the points of resemblance were far more
numerous and striking. We guarded our herds of branded cattle and
shaggy horses, hunted bear, bison, elk, and deer, established civil
government, and put down evil-doers, white and red, on the banks of
the Little Missouri and among the wooded, precipitous foot-hills of
the Bighorn, exactly as did the pioneers who a hundred years
previously built their log-cabins beside the Kentucky or in the
valleys of the Great Smokies. The men who have shared in the fast
vanishing frontier life of the present feel a peculiar sympathy with
the already long-vanished frontier life of the past.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
SAGAMORE HILL, _May_, 1889
FOREWORD.
In the year 1898 the United States finished the work begun over a
century before by the backwoodsman, and drove the Spaniard outright
from the western world. During the march of our people from the crests
of the Alleghanies to the Pacific, the Spaniard was for a long period
our chief white opponent; and after an interval his place among our
antagonists was taken by his Spanish-American heir. Although during
the Revolution the Spaniard at one time became America's friend in the
sense that he was England's foe, he almost from the outset hated and
dreaded his new ally more than his old enemy. In the peace
negotiations at the close of the contest he was jealously eager to
restrict our boundaries to the line of the Alleghanies; while even
during the concluding years of the war the Spanish soldiers on the
upper Mississippi were regarded by the Americans in Illinois as a
menace no less serious than the British troops at Detroit.
In the opening years of our national life the Western backwoodsman
found the Spanish ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi even more
hurtful and irksome than the retention by the British king of the
posts on the Great Lakes. After years of tedious public negotiations,
under and through which ran a dark woof of private intrigue, the
sinewy western hands so loosened the Spanish grip that in despair
Spain surrendered to France the mouth of the river and the vast
territories stretching thence into the dim Northwest. She hoped
thereby to establish a strong barrier between her remaining provinces
and her most dreaded foe. But France in her turn grew to understand
that America's position as regards Louisiana, thanks to the steady
westward movement of the backwoodsman, was such as to render it on the
one hand certain that the retention of the province by France would
mean an armed clash with the United States, and on the other hand no
less certain that in the long run such a conflict would result to
France's disadvantage. Louisiana thus passed from the hands of Spain,
after a brief interval, into those of the young Republic. There
remained to Spain, Mexico and Florida; and forthwith the pressure of
the stark forest riflemen began to be felt on the outskirts of these
two provinces. Florida was the first to fall. After a portion of it
had been forcibly annexed, after Andrew Jackson had marched at will
through part of the remainder, and after the increasing difficulty of
repressing the American filibustering efforts had shown the imminence
of some serious catastrophe, Spain ceded the peninsula to the United
States. Texas, New Mexico, and California did not fall into American
hands until they had passed from the Spaniard to his half-Indian sons.
Many decades went by after Spain had lost her foothold on the American
continent, and she still held her West Indian empire. She misgoverned
the islands as she had misgoverned the continent; and in the islands,
as once upon the continent, her own children became her deadliest
foes. But generation succeeded generation, and the prophecies of those
far-seeing statesmen who foretold that she would lose to the northern
Republic her West Indian possessions remained unfulfilled. At last, at
the close of one of the bloodiest and most brutal wars that even Spain
ever waged with her own colonists, the United States intervened, and
in a brief summer campaign destroyed the last vestiges of the mediaeval
Spanish domain in the tropic seas alike of the West and the remote
East.
We of this generation were but carrying to completion the work of our
fathers and of our fathers' fathers. It is moreover a matter for just
pride that while there was no falling off in the vigor and prowess
shown by our fighting men, there was a marked change for the better in
the spirit with which the deed was done. The backwoodsmen had pushed
the Spaniards from the Mississippi, had set up a slave-holding
republic in Texas, and had conquered the Californian gold-fields, in
the sheer masterful exercise of might. It is true that they won great
triumphs for civilization no less than for their own people; yet they
won them unwittingly, for they were merely doing as countless other
strong young races had done in the long contest carried on for so many
thousands of years between the fit and the unfit. But in 1898 the
United States, while having gained in strength, showed that there had
likewise been gain in justice, in mercy, in sense of responsibility.
Our conquest of the Southwest has been justified by the result. The
Latin peoples in the lands we won and settled have prospered like our
own stock. The sons and grandsons of those who had been our foes in
Louisiana and New Mexico came eagerly forward to serve in the army
that was to invade Cuba. Our people as a whole went into the war,
primarily, it is true, to drive out the Spaniard once for all from
America; but with the fixed determination to replace his rule by a
government of justice and orderly liberty.
To use the political terminology of the present day, the whole western
movement of our people was simply the most vital part of that great
movement of expansion which has been the central and all-important
feature of our history--a feature far more important than any other
since we became a nation, save only the preservation of the Union
itself. It was expansion which made us a great power; and at every
stage it has been bitterly antagonized, not only by the short-sighted
and the timid, but even by many who were neither one nor the other.
There were many men who opposed the movement west of the Alleghanies
and the peopling of the lands which now form Kentucky, Tennessee, and
the great States lying between the Ohio and the Lakes. Excellent
persons then foretold ruin to the country from bringing into it a
disorderly population of backwoodsmen, with the same solemnity that
has in our own day marked the prophecies of those who have seen
similar ruin in the intaking of Hawaii and Porto Rico. The annexation
of Louisiana, including the entire territory between the northern
Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean, aroused such frantic opposition in
the old-settled regions of the country, and especially in the
Northeast, as to call forth threats of disunion, the language used by
the opponents of our expansion into the Far West being as violent as
that sometimes used in denouncing our acquisition of the Philippines.
The taking of Texas and of California was complicated by the slave
question, but much of the opposition to both was simply the general
opposition to expansion--that is, to national growth and national
greatness. In our long-settled communities there have always been
people who opposed every war which marked the advance of American
civilization at the cost of savagery. The opposition was fundamentally
the same, whether these wars were campaigns in the old West against
the Shawnees and the Miamis, in the new West against the Sioux and the
Apaches, or in Luzon against the Tagals. In each case, in the end, the
believers in the historic American policy of expansion have triumphed.
Hitherto America has gone steadily forward along the path of
greatness, and has remained true to the policy of her early leaders
who felt within them the lift towards mighty things. Like every really
strong people, ours is stirred by the generous ardor for daring strife
and mighty deeds, and now with eyes undimmed looks far into the misty
future.
At bottom the question of expansion in 1898 was but a variant of the
problem we had to solve at every stage of the great western movement.
Whether the prize of the moment was Louisiana or Florida, Oregon or
Alaska, mattered little. The same forces, the same types of men, stood
for and against the cause of national growth, of national greatness,
at the end of the century as at the beginning.
My non-literary work has been so engrossing during the years that have
elapsed since my fourth volume was published, that I have been unable
to go on with "The Winning of the West"; but my design is to continue
the narrative as soon as I can get leisure, carrying it through the
stages which marked the taking of Florida and Oregon, the upbuilding
of the republic of Texas, and the acquisition of New Mexico and
California as the result of the Mexican war.
Theodore Roosevelt
EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, ALBANY, N. Y.
_January_ 1, 1900.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.--THE SPREAD OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
II.--THE FRENCH OF THE OHIO VALLEY, 1763-1775
III.--THE APPALACHIAN CONFEDERACIES, 1765-1775
IV.--THE ALGONQUINS OF THE NORTHWEST, 1769-1774
V.--THE BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES, 1769-1774
VI.--BOON AND THE LONG HUNTERS; AND THEIR HUNTING IN NO-MAN'S-LAND,
1769-1774
VII.--SEVIER, ROBERTSON, AND THE WATAUGA COMMONWEALTH, 1769-1774
VIII.--LORD DUNMORE'S WAR, 1774
IX.--THE BATTLE OF THE GREAT KANAWHA; AND LOGAN'S SPEECH, 1774
X.--BOON AND THE SETTLEMENT OF KENTUCKY, 1775
XI.--IN THE CURRENT OF THE REVOLUTION--THE SOUTHERN BACKWOODSMEN
OVERWHELM THE CHEROKEES, 1776
XII.--GROWTH AND CIVIL ORGANIZATION OF KENTUCKY, 1776
APPENDICES:
APPENDIX A--TO CHAPTER IV.
APPENDIX B--TO CHAPTER V.
APPENDIX C--TO CHAPTER VI.
APPENDIX D--TO CHAPTER VI.
APPENDIX E--TO CHAPTER VII.
APPENDIX F--TO CHAPTER IX.
[Illustration: Map. The West during the Revolution. Showing Hamilton's
route from Detroit to Vincennes; Clark's route from Redstone to the
Illinois, and thence to Vincennes; Boon's trail, on the Wilderness
Road to Kentucky; Robertson's trail to the settlement he founded on
the Cumberland; the water route from the Watauga to Nashboro, that
taken by the _Adventure_; the march of the backwoodsmen from the
Sycamore Shoals to King's Mountain. The flags denote the battles of
the Great Kanawha, the Blue Licks, the Island Flats of the Holston,
and King's Mountain; and the assaults on Boonsboro and Vincennes.
Based on a map by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.]
THE WINNING OF THE WEST.
CHAPTER I.
THE SPREAD OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES.
During the past three centuries the spread of the English-speaking
peoples over the world's waste spaces has been not only the most
striking feature in the world's history, but also the event of all
others most far-reaching in its effects and its importance.
The tongue which Bacon feared to use in his writings, lest they should
remain forever unknown to all but the inhabitants of a relatively
unimportant insular kingdom, is now the speech of two continents. The
Common Law which Coke jealously upheld in the southern half of a
single European island, is now the law of the land throughout the vast
regions of Australasia, and of America north of the Rio Grande. The
names of the plays that Shakespeare wrote are household words in the
mouths of mighty nations, whose wide domains were to him more unreal
than the realm of Prester John. Over half the descendants of their
fellow countrymen of that day now dwell in lands which, when these
three Englishmen were born, held not a single white inhabitant; the
race which, when they were in their prime, was hemmed in between the
North and the Irish seas, to-day holds sway over worlds, whose endless
coasts are washed by the waves of the three great oceans.
There have been many other races that at one time or another had their
great periods of race expansion--as distinguished from mere
conquest,--but there has never been another whose expansion has been
either so broad or so rapid.
At one time, many centuries ago, it seemed as if the Germanic peoples,
like their Celtic foes and neighbors, would be absorbed into the
all-conquering Roman power, and, merging their identity in that of the
victors, would accept their law, their speech, and their habits of
thought. But this danger vanished forever on the day of the slaughter
by the Teutoburger Wald, when the legions of Varus were broken by the
rush of Hermann's wild warriors.
Two or three hundred years later the Germans, no longer on the
defensive, themselves went forth from their marshy forests conquering
and to conquer. For century after century they swarmed out of the dark
woodland east of the Rhine, and north of the Danube; and as their
force spent itself, the movement was taken up by their brethren who
dwelt along the coasts of the Baltic and the North Atlantic. From the
Volga to the Pillars of Hercules, from Sicily to Britain, every land
in turn bowed to the warlike prowess of the stalwart sons of Odin.
Rome and Novgorod, the imperial city of Italy as well as the squalid
capital of Muscovy, acknowledged the sway of kings of Teutonic or
Scandinavian blood.
In most cases, however, the victorious invaders merely intruded
themselves among the original and far more numerous owners of the
land, ruled over them, and were absorbed by them. This happened to
both Teuton and Scandinavian; to the descendants of Alaric, as well as
to the children of Rurik. The Dane in Ireland became a Celt; the Goth
of the Iberian peninsula became a Spaniard; Frank and Norwegian alike
were merged into the mass of Romance-speaking Gauls, who themselves
finally grew to be called by the names of their masters. Thus it came
about that though the German tribes conquered Europe they did not
extend the limits of Germany nor the sway of the German race. On the
contrary, they strengthened the hands of the rivals of the people from
whom they sprang. They gave rulers--kaisers, kings, barons, and
knights--to all the lands they overran; here and there they imposed
their own names on kingdoms and principalities--as in France,
Normandy, Burgundy, and Lombardy; they grafted the feudal system on
the Roman jurisprudence, and interpolated a few Teutonic words in the
Latin dialects of the peoples they had conquered; but, hopelessly
outnumbered, they were soon lost in the mass of their subjects, and
adopted from them their laws, their culture, and their language. As a
result, the mixed races of the south--the Latin nations as they are
sometimes called--strengthened by the infusion of northern blood,
sprang anew into vigorous life, and became for the time being the
leaders of the European world.
There was but one land whereof the winning made a lasting addition to
Germanic soil; but this land was destined to be of more importance in
the future of the Germanic peoples than all their continental
possessions, original and acquired, put together. The day when the
keels of the low-Dutch sea-thieves first grated on the British coast
was big with the doom of many nations. There sprang up in conquered
southern Britain, when its name had been significantly changed to
England, that branch of the Germanic stock which was in the end to
grasp almost literally world-wide power, and by its overshadowing
growth to dwarf into comparative insignificance all its kindred folk.
At the time, in the general wreck of the civilized world, the making
of England attracted but little attention. Men's eyes were riveted on
the empires conquered by the hosts of Alaric, Theodoric, and Clovis,
not on the swarm of little kingdoms and earldoms founded by the
nameless chiefs who led each his band of hard-rowing, hard-fighting
henchmen across the stormy waters of the German Ocean. Yet the rule
and the race of Goth, Frank, and Burgund have vanished from off the
earth; while the sons of the unknown Saxon, Anglian, and Friesic
warriors now hold in their hands the fate of the coming years.
After the great Teutonic wanderings were over, there came a long lull,
until, with the discovery of America, a new period of even vaster race
expansion began. During this lull the nations of Europe took on their
present shapes. Indeed, the so-called Latin nations--the French and
Spaniards, for instance--may be said to have been born after the first
set of migrations ceased. Their national history, as such, does not
really begin until about that time, whereas that of the Germanic
peoples stretches back unbroken to the days when we first hear of
their existence. It would be hard to say which one of half a dozen
races that existed in Europe during the early centuries of the present
era should be considered as especially the ancestor of the modern
Frenchman or Spaniard. When the Romans conquered Gaul and Iberia they
did not in any place drive out the ancient owners of the soil; they
simply Romanized them, and left them as the base of the population. By
the Frankish and Visigothic invasions another strain of blood was
added, to be speedily absorbed; while the invaders took the language
of the conquered people, and established themselves as the ruling
class. Thus the modern nations who sprang from this mixture derive
portions of their governmental system and general policy from one
race, most of their blood from another, and their language, law, and
culture from a third.
The English race, on the contrary, has a perfectly continuous history.
When Alfred reigned, the English already had a distinct national
being; when Charlemagne reigned, the French, as we use the term
to-day, had no national being whatever. The Germans of the mainland
merely overran the countries that lay in their path; but the
sea-rovers who won England to a great extent actually displaced the
native Britons. The former were absorbed by the subject-races; the
latter, on the contrary, slew or drove off or assimilated the original
inhabitants. Unlike all the other Germanic swarms, the English took
neither creed nor custom, neither law nor speech, from their beaten
foes. At the time when the dynasty of the Capets had become firmly
established at Paris, France was merely part of a country where
Latinized Gauls and Basques were ruled by Latinized Franks, Goths,
Burgunds, and Normans; but the people across the Channel then showed
little trace of Celtic or Romance influence. It would be hard to say
whether Vercingetorix or Caesar, Clovis or Syagrius, has the better
right to stand as the prototype of a modern French general. There is
no such doubt in the other case. The average Englishman, American, or
Australian of to-day who wishes to recall the feats of power with
which his race should be credited in the shadowy dawn of its history,
may go back to the half-mythical glories of Hengist and Horsa, perhaps
to the deeds of Civilis the Batavian, or to those of the hero of the
Teutoburger fight, but certainly to the wars neither of the Silurian
chief Caractacus nor of his conqueror, the after-time Emperor
Vespasian.
Nevertheless, when, in the sixteenth century, the European peoples
began to extend their dominions beyond Europe, England had grown to
differ profoundly from the Germanic countries of the mainland. A very
large Celtic element had been introduced into the English blood, and,
in addition, there had been a considerable Scandinavian admixture.
More important still were the radical changes brought by the Norman
conquest; chief among them the transformation of the old English
tongue into the magnificent language which is now the common
inheritance of so many widespread peoples. England's insular position,
moreover, permitted it to work out its own fate comparatively
unhampered by the presence of outside powers; so that it developed a
type of nationality totally distinct from the types of the European
mainland.
All this is not foreign to American history. The vast movement by
which this continent was conquered and peopled cannot be rightly
understood if considered solely by itself. It was the crowning and
greatest achievement of a series of mighty movements, and it must be
taken in connection with them. Its true significance will be lost
unless we grasp, however roughly, the past race-history of the nations
who took part therein.
When, with the voyages of Columbus and his successors, the great
period of extra-European colonization began, various nations strove to
share in the work. Most of them had to plant their colonies in lands
across the sea; Russia alone was by her geographical position enabled
to extend her frontiers by land, and in consequence her comparatively
recent colonization of Siberia bears some resemblance to our own work
in the western United States. The other countries of Europe were
forced to find their outlets for conquest and emigration beyond the
ocean, and, until the colonists had taken firm root in their new homes
the mastery of the seas thus became a matter of vital consequence.
Among the lands beyond the ocean America was the first reached and the
most important. It was conquered by different European races, and
shoals of European settlers were thrust forth upon its shores. These
sometimes displaced and sometimes merely overcame and lived among the
natives. They also, to their own lasting harm, committed a crime whose
shortsighted folly was worse than its guilt, for they brought hordes
of African slaves, whose descendants now form immense populations in
certain portions of the land. Throughout the continent we therefore
find the white, red, and black races in every stage of purity and
intermixture. One result of this great turmoil of conquest and
immigration has been that, in certain parts of America, the lines of
cleavage of race are so far from coinciding with the lines of cleavage
of speech that they run at right angles to them--as in the four
communities of Ontario, Quebec, Havti, and Jamaica.
Each intruding European power, in winning for itself new realms beyond
the seas, had to wage a twofold war, overcoming the original
inhabitants with one hand, and with the other warding off the assaults
of the kindred nations that were bent on the same schemes. Generally
the contests of the latter kind were much the most important. The
victories by which the struggles between the European conquerors
themselves were ended deserve lasting commemoration. Yet, sometimes,
even the most important of them, sweeping though they were, were in
parts less sweeping than they seemed. It would be impossible to
overestimate the far-reaching effects of the overthrow of the French
power in America; but Lower Canada, where the fatal blow was given,
itself suffered nothing but a political conquest, which did not
interfere in the least with the growth of a French state along both
sides of the lower St. Lawrence. In a somewhat similar way Dutch
communities have held their own, and indeed have sprung up in South
Africa.
All the European nations touching on the Atlantic seaboard took part
in the new work, with very varying success; Germany alone, then rent
by many feuds, having no share therein. Portugal founded a single
state, Brazil. The Scandinavian nations did little: their chief colony
fell under the control of the Dutch. The English and the Spaniards
were the two nations to whom the bulk of the new lands fell: the
former getting much the greater portion. The conquests of the
Spaniards took place in the sixteenth century. The West Indies and
Mexico, Peru and the limitless grass plains of what is now the
Argentine Confederation,--all these and the lands lying between them
had been conquered and colonized by the Spaniards before there was a
single English settlement in the New World, and while the fleets of
the Catholic king still held for him the lordship of the ocean. Then
the cumbrous Spanish vessels succumbed to the attacks of the swift
war-ships of Holland and England, and the sun of the Spanish
world-dominion set as quickly as it had risen. Spain at once came to a
standstill; it was only here and there that she even extended her rule
over a few neighboring Indian tribes, while she was utterly unable to
take the offensive against the French, Dutch, and English. But it is a
singular thing that these vigorous and powerful new-comers, who had so
quickly put a stop to her further growth, yet wrested from her very
little of what was already hers. They plundered a great many Spanish
cities and captured a great many Spanish galleons, but they made no
great or lasting conquests of Spanish territory. Their mutual
jealousies, and the fear each felt of the others, were among the main
causes of this state of things; and hence it came about that after the
opening of the seventeenth century the wars they waged against one
another were of far more ultimate consequence than the wars they waged
against the former mistress of the western world. England in the end
drove both France and Holland from the field; but it was under the
banner of the American Republic, not under that of the British
Monarchy, that the English-speaking people first won vast stretches of
land from the descendants of the Spanish conquerors.
The three most powerful of Spain's rivals waged many a long war with
one another to decide which should grasp the sceptre that had slipped
from Spanish hands. The fleets of Holland fought with stubborn
obstinacy to wrest from England her naval supremacy; but they failed,
and in the end the greater portion of the Dutch domains fell to their
foes. The French likewise began a course of conquest and colonization
at the same time the English did, and after a couple of centuries of
rivalry, ending in prolonged warfare, they also succumbed. The close
of the most important colonial contest ever waged left the French
without a foot of soil on the North American mainland; while their
victorious foes had not only obtained the lead in the race for
supremacy on that continent, but had also won the command of the
ocean. They thenceforth found themselves free to work their will in
all seagirt lands, unchecked by hostile European influence.
Most fortunately, when England began her career as a colonizing power
in America, Spain had already taken possession of the populous
tropical and subtropical regions, and the northern power was thus
forced to form her settlements in the sparsely peopled temperate zone.
It is of vital importance to remember that the English and Spanish
conquests in America differed from each other very much as did the
original conquests which gave rise to the English and the Spanish
nations. The English had exterminated or assimilated the Celts of
Britain, and they substantially repeated the process with the Indians
of America; although of course in America there was very little,
instead of very much, assimilation. The Germanic strain is dominant in
the blood of the average Englishman, exactly as the English strain is
dominant in the blood of the average American. Twice a portion of the
race has shifted its home, in each case undergoing a marked change,
due both to outside influence and to internal development; but in the
main retaining, especially in the last instance, the general race
characteristics.
It was quite otherwise in the countries conquered by Cortes, Pizarro,
and their successors. Instead of killing or driving off the natives as
the English did, the Spaniards simply sat down in the midst of a much
more numerous aboriginal population. The process by which Central and
South America became Spanish bore very close resemblance to the
process by which the lands of southeastern Europe were turned into
Romance-speaking countries. The bulk of the original inhabitants
remained unchanged in each case. There was little displacement of
population. Roman soldiers and magistrates, Roman merchants and
handicraftsmen were thrust in among the Celtic and Iberian peoples,
exactly as the Spanish military and civil rulers, priests, traders,
land-owners, and mine-owners settled down among the Indians of Peru
and Mexico. By degrees, in each case, the many learnt the language and
adopted the laws, religion, and governmental system of the few,
although keeping certain of their own customs and habits of thought.
Though the ordinary Spaniard of to-day speaks a Romance dialect, he is
mainly of Celto-Iberian blood; and though most Mexicans and Peruvians
speak Spanish, yet the great majority of them trace their descent back
to the subjects of Montezuma and the Incas. Moreover, exactly as in
Europe little ethnic islands of Breton and Basque stock have remained
unaffected by the Romance flood, so in America there are large
communities where the inhabitants keep unchanged the speech and the
customs of their Indian forefathers.
The English-speaking peoples now hold more and better land than any
other American nationality or set of nationalities. They have in their
veins less aboriginal American blood than any of their neighbors. Yet
it is noteworthy that the latter have tacitly allowed them to arrogate
to themselves the title of "Americans," whereby to designate their
distinctive and individual nationality.
So much for the difference between the way in which the English and
the way in which other European nations have conquered and colonized.
But there have been likewise very great differences in the methods and
courses of the English-speaking peoples themselves, at different times
and in different places.
The settlement of the United States and Canada, throughout most of
their extent, bears much resemblance to the later settlement of
Australia and New Zealand. The English conquest of India and even the
English conquest of South Africa come in an entirely different
category. The first was a mere political conquest, like the Dutch
conquest of Java or the extension of the Roman Empire over parts of
Asia. South Africa in some respects stands by itself, because there
the English are confronted by another white race which it is as yet
uncertain whether they can assimilate, and, what is infinitely more
important, because they are there confronted by a very large native
population with which they cannot mingle, and which neither dies out
nor recedes before their advance. It is not likely, but it is at least
within the bounds of possibility, that in the course of centuries the
whites of South Africa will suffer a fate akin to that which befell
the Greek colonists in the Tauric Chersonese, and be swallowed up in
the overwhelming mass of black barbarism.
On the other hand, it may fairly be said that in America and Australia
the English race has already entered into and begun the enjoyment of
its great inheritance. When these continents were settled they
contained the largest tracts of fertile, temperate, thinly peopled
country on the face of the globe. We cannot rate too highly the
importance of their acquisition. Their successful settlement was a
feat which by comparison utterly dwarfs all the European wars of the
last two centuries; just as the importance of the issues at stake in
the wars of Rome and Carthage completely overshadowed the interests
for which the various contemporary Greek kingdoms were at the same
time striving.
Australia, which was much less important than America, was also won
and settled with far less difficulty. The natives were so few in
number and of such a low type, that they practically offered no
resistance at all, being but little more hindrance than an equal
number of ferocious beasts. There was no rivalry whatever by any
European power, because the actual settlement--not the mere
expatriation of convicts--only began when England, as a result of her
struggle with Republican and Imperial France, had won the absolute
control of the seas. Unknown to themselves, Nelson and his fellow
admirals settled the fate of Australia, upon which they probably never
wasted a thought. Trafalgar decided much more than the mere question
whether Great Britain should temporarily share the fate that so soon
befell Prussia; for in all probability it decided the destiny of the
island-continent that lay in the South Seas.
The history of the English-speaking race in America has been widely
different. In Australia there was no fighting whatever, whether with
natives or with other foreigners. In America for the past two
centuries and a half there has been a constant succession of contests
with powerful and warlike native tribes, with rival European nations,
and with American nations of European origin. But even in America
there have been wide differences in the way the work has had to be
done in different parts of the country, since the close of the great
colonial contests between England, France, and Spain.
The extension of the English westward through Canada since the war of
the Revolution has been in its essential features merely a less
important repetition of what has gone on in the northern United
States. The gold miner, the transcontinental railway, and the soldier
have been the pioneers of civilization. The chief point of difference,
which was but small, arose from the fact that the whole of western
Canada was for a long time under the control of the most powerful of
all the fur companies, in whose employ were very many French voyageurs
and coureurs des bois. From these there sprang up in the valleys of
the Red River and the Saskatchewan a singular race of half-breeds,
with a unique semi-civilization of their own. It was with these
half-breeds, and not, as in the United States, with the Indians, that
the settlers of northwestern Canada had their main difficulties.
In what now forms the United States, taking the country as a whole,
the foes who had to be met and overcome were very much more
formidable. The ground had to be not only settled but conquered,
sometimes at the expense of the natives, often at the expense of rival
European races. As already pointed out the Indians themselves formed
one of the main factors in deciding the fate of the continent. They
were never able in the end to avert the white conquest, but they could
often delay its advance for a long spell of years. The Iroquois, for
instance, held their own against all comers for two centuries. Many
other tribes stayed for a time the oncoming white flood, or even drove
it back; in Maine the settlers were for a hundred years confined to a
narrow strip of sea-coast. Against the Spaniards, there were even here
and there Indian nations who definitely recovered the ground they had
lost.
When the whites first landed, the superiority and, above all, the
novelty of their arms gave them a very great advantage. But the
Indians soon became accustomed to the new-comers' weapons and style of
warfare. By the time the English had consolidated the Atlantic
colonies under their rule, the Indians had become what they have
remained ever since, the most formidable savage foes ever encountered
by colonists of European stock. Relatively to their numbers, they have
shown themselves far more to be dreaded than the Zulus or even the
Maoris.
Their presence has caused the process of settlement to go on at
unequal rates of speed in different places; the flood has been hemmed
in at one point, or has been forced to flow round an island of native
population at another. Had the Indians been as helpless as the native
Australians were, the continent of North America would have had an
altogether different history. It would not only have been settled far
more rapidly, but also on very different lines. Not only have the red
men themselves kept back the settlements, but they have also had a
very great effect upon the outcome of the struggles between the
different intrusive European peoples. Had the original inhabitants of
the Mississippi valley been as numerous and unwarlike as the Aztecs,
de Soto would have repeated the work of Cortes, and we would very
possibly have been barred out of the greater portion of our present
domain. Had it not been for their Indian allies, it would have been
impossible for the French to prolong, as they did, their struggle with
their much more numerous English neighbors.
The Indians have shrunk back before our advance only after fierce and
dogged resistance. They were never numerous in the land, but exactly
what their numbers were when the whites first appeared is impossible to
tell. Probably an estimate of half a million for those within the limits
of the present United States is not far wrong; but in any such
calculation there is of necessity a large element of mere rough
guess-work. Formerly writers greatly over-estimated their original
numbers, counting them by millions. Now it is the fashion to go to the
other extreme, and even to maintain that they have not decreased at all.
This last is a theory that can only be upheld on the supposition that
the whole does not consist of the sum of the parts; for whereas we can
check off on our fingers the tribes that have slightly increased, we can
enumerate scores that have died out almost before our eyes. Speaking
broadly, they have mixed but little with the English (as distinguished
from the French and Spanish) invaders. They are driven back, or die out,
or retire to their own reservations; but they are not often assimilated.
Still, on every frontier, there is always a certain amount of
assimilation going on, much more than is commonly admitted;[1] and
whenever a French or Spanish community has been absorbed by the
energetic Americans, a certain amount of Indian blood has been absorbed
also. There seems to be a chance that in one part of our country, the
Indian territory, the Indians, who are continually advancing in
civilization, will remain as the ground element of the population, like
the Creoles in Louisiana, or the Mexicans in New Mexico.
The Americans when they became a nation continued even more
successfully the work which they had begun as citizens of the several
English colonies. At the outbreak of the Revolution they still all
dwelt on the seaboard, either on the coast itself or along the banks
of the streams flowing into the Atlantic. When the fight at Lexington
took place they had no settlements beyond the mountain chain on our
western border. It had taken them over a century and a half to spread
from the Atlantic to the Alleghanies. In the next three quarters of a
century they spread from the Alleghanies to the Pacific. In doing this
they not only dispossessed the Indian tribes, but they also won the
land from its European owners. Britain had to yield the territory
between the Ohio and the Great Lakes. By a purchase, of which we
frankly announced that the alternative would be war, we acquired from
France the vast, ill-defined region known as Louisiana. From the
Spaniards, or from their descendants, we won the lands of Florida,
Texas, New Mexico, and California.
All these lands were conquered after we had become a power,
independent of every other, and one within our own borders; when we
were no longer a loose assemblage of petty seaboard communities, each
with only such relationship to its neighbor as was implied in their
common subjection to a foreign king and a foreign people. Moreover, it
is well always to remember that at the day when we began our career as
a nation we already differed from our kinsmen of Britain in blood as
well as in name; the word American already had more than a merely
geographical signification. Americans belong to the English race only
in the sense in which Englishmen belong to the German. The fact that
no change of language has accompanied the second wandering of our
people, from Britain to America, as it accompanied their first, from
Germany to Britain, is due to the further fact that when the second
wandering took place the race possessed a fixed literary language,
and, thanks to the ease of communication, was kept in touch with the
parent stock. The change of blood was probably as great in one case as
in the other. The modern Englishman is descended from a Low-Dutch
stock, which, when it went to Britain, received into itself an
enormous infusion of Celtic, a much smaller infusion of Norse and
Danish, and also a certain infusion of Norman-French blood. When this
new English stock came to America it mingled with and absorbed into
itself immigrants from many European lands, and the process has gone
on ever since. It is to be noted that, of the new blood thus acquired,
the greatest proportion has come from Dutch and German sources, and
the next greatest from Irish, while the Scandinavian element comes
third, and the only other of much consequence is French Huguenot. Thus
it appears that no new element of importance has been added to the
blood. Additions have been made to the elemental race-strains in much
the same proportion as these were originally combined.
Some latter-day writers deplore the enormous immigration to our shores
as making us a heterogeneous instead of a homogeneous people; but as a
matter of fact we are less heterogeneous at the present day than we
were at the outbreak of the Revolution. Our blood was as much mixed a
century ago as it is now. No State now has a smaller proportion of
English blood than New York or Pennsylvania had in 1775. Even in New
England, where the English stock was purest, there was a certain
French and Irish mixture; in Virginia there were Germans in addition.
In the other colonies, taken as a whole, it is not probable that much
over half of the blood was English; Dutch, French, German, and Gaelic
communities abounded.
But all were being rapidly fused into one people. As the Celt of
Cornwall and the Saxon of Wessex are now alike Englishmen, so in 1775
Hollander and Huguenot, whether in New York or South Carolina, had
become Americans, undistinguishable from the New Englanders and
Virginians, the descendants of the men who followed Cromwell or
charged behind Rupert. When the great western movement began we were
already a people by ourselves. Moreover, the immense immigration from
Europe that has taken place since, had little or no effect on the way
in which we extended our boundaries; it only began to be important
about the time that we acquired our present limits. These limits would
in all probability be what they now are even if we had not received a
single European colonist since the Revolution.
Thus the Americans began their work of western conquest as a separate
and individual people, at the moment when they sprang into national
life. It has been their great work ever since. All other questions
save those of the preservation of the Union itself and of the
emancipation of the blacks have been of subordinate importance when
compared with the great question of how rapidly and how completely
they were to subjugate that part of their continent lying between the
eastern mountains and the Pacific. Yet the statesmen of the Atlantic
seaboard were often unable to perceive this, and indeed frequently
showed the same narrow jealousy of the communities beyond the
Alleghanies that England felt for all America. Even if they were too
broad-minded and far-seeing to feel thus, they yet were unable to
fully appreciate the magnitude of the interests at stake in the west.
They thought more of our right to the North Atlantic fisheries than of
our ownership of the Mississippi valley; they were more interested in
the fate of a bank or a tariff than in the settlement of the Oregon
boundary. Most contemporary writers showed similar shortcomings in
their sense of historic perspective. The names of Ethan Allen and
Marion are probably better known than is that of George Rogers Clark;
yet their deeds, as regards their effects, could no more be compared
to his, than his could be compared to Washington's. So it was with
Houston. During his lifetime there were probably fifty men who, east
of the Mississippi, were deemed far greater than he was. Yet in most
cases their names have already almost faded from remembrance, while
his fame will grow steadily brighter as the importance of his deeds is
more thoroughly realized. Fortunately, in the long run, the mass of
easterners always backed up their western brethren.
The kind of colonizing conquest, whereby the people of the United
States have extended their borders, has much in common with the
similar movements in Canada and Australia, all of them, standing in
sharp contrast to what has gone on in Spanish-American lands. But of
course each is marked out in addition by certain peculiarities of its
own. Moreover, even in the United States, the movement falls naturally
into two divisions, which on several points differ widely from each
other.
The way in which the southern part of our western country--that is,
all the land south of the Ohio, and from thence on to the Rio Grande
and the Pacific--was won and settled, stands quite alone. The region
north of it was filled up in a very different manner. The Southwest,
including therein what was once called simply the West, and afterwards
the Middle West, was won by the people themselves, acting as
individuals, or as groups of individuals, who hewed out their own
fortunes in advance of any governmental action. On the other hand, the
Northwest, speaking broadly, was acquired by the government, the
settlers merely taking possession of what the whole country guaranteed
them. The Northwest is essentially a national domain; it is fitting
that it should be, as it is, not only by position but by feeling, the
heart of the nation.
North of the Ohio the regular army went first. The settlements grew up
behind the shelter of the federal troops of Harmar, St. Claire, and
Wayne, and of their successors even to our own day. The wars in which
the borderers themselves bore any part were few and trifling compared
to the contests waged by the adventurers who won Kentucky, Tennessee,
and Texas.
In the Southwest the early settlers acted as their own army, and
supplied both leaders and men. Sevier, Robertson, Clark, and Boon led
their fellow pioneers to battle, as Jackson did afterwards, and as
Houston did later still. Indeed the Southwesterners not only won their
own soil for themselves, but they were the chief instruments in the
original acquisition of the Northwest also. Had it not been for the
conquest of the Illinois towns in 1779 we would probably never have
had any Northwest to settle; and the huge tract between the upper
Mississippi and the Columbia, then called Upper Louisiana, fell into
our hands, only because the Kentuckians and Tennesseeans were
resolutely bent on taking possession of New Orleans, either by bargain
or battle. All of our territory lying beyond the Alleghanies, north
and south, was first won for us by the Southwesterners, fighting for
their own hand. The northern part was afterwards filled up by the
thrifty, vigorous men of the Northeast, whose sons became the real
rulers as well as the preservers of the Union; but these settlements
of Northerners were rendered possible only by the deeds of the nation
as a whole. They entered on land that the Southerners had won, and
they were kept there by the strong arm of the Federal Government;
whereas the Southerners owed most of their victories only to
themselves.
The first-comers around Marietta did, it is true, share to a certain
extent in the dangers of the existing Indian wars; but their trials
are not to be mentioned beside those endured by the early settlers of
Tennessee and Kentucky, and whereas these latter themselves subdued
and drove out their foes, the former took but an insignificant part in
the contest by which the possession of their land was secured.
Besides, the strongest and most numerous Indian tribes were in the
Southwest.
The Southwest developed its civilization on its own lines, for good
and for ill; the Northwest was settled under the national ordinance of
1787, which absolutely determined its destiny, and thereby in the end
also determined the destiny of the whole nation. Moreover, the gulf
coast, as well as the interior, from the Mississippi to the Pacific,
was held by foreign powers; while in the north this was only true of
the country between the Ohio and the Great Lakes during the first
years of the Revolution, until the Kentucky backwoodsmen conquered it.
Our rivals of European race had dwelt for generations along the lower
Mississippi and the Rio Grande, in Florida, and in California, when we
made them ours. Detroit, Vincennes, St. Louis, and New Orleans, St.
Augustine, San Antonio, Santa Fe, and San Francisco are cities that
were built by Frenchmen or Spaniards; we did not found them, but
conquered them. All but the first two are in the Southwest, and of
these two one was first taken and governed by Southwesterners. On the
other hand, the Northwestern cities, from Cincinnati and Chicago to
Helena and Portland, were founded by our own people, by the people who
now have possession of them.
The Southwest was conquered only after years of hard fighting with the
original owners. The way in which this was done bears much less
resemblance to the sudden filling up of Australia and California by
the practically unopposed overflow from a teeming and civilized mother
country, than it does to the original English conquest of Britain
itself. The warlike borderers who thronged across the Alleghanies, the
restless and reckless hunters, the hard, dogged, frontier farmers, by
dint of grim tenacity overcame and displaced Indians, French, and
Spaniards alike, exactly as, fourteen hundred years before, Saxon and
Angle had overcome and displaced the Cymric and Gaelic Celts. They
were led by no one commander; they acted under orders from neither
king nor congress; they were not carrying out the plans of any
far-sighted leader. In obedience to the instincts working half blindly
within their breasts, spurred ever onwards by the fierce desires of
their eager hearts, they made in the wilderness homes for their
children, and by so doing wrought out the destinies of a continental
nation. They warred and settled from the high hill-valleys of the
French Broad and the Upper Cumberland to the half-tropical basin of
the Rio Grande, and to where the Golden Gate lets through the
long-heaving waters of the Pacific. The story of how this was done
forms a compact and continuous whole. The fathers followed Boon or
fought at King's Mountain; the sons marched south with Jackson to
overcome the Creeks and beat back the British; the grandsons died at
the Alamo or charged to victory at San Jacinto. They were doing their
share of a work that began with the conquest of Britain, that entered
on its second and wider period after the defeat of the Spanish Armada,
that culminated in the marvellous growth of the United States. The
winning of the West and Southwest is a stage in the conquest of a
continent.
1. To this I can testify of my own knowledge as regards Montana, Dakota,
and Minnesota. The mixture usually takes place in the ranks of the
population where individuals lose all trace of their ancestry after two
or three generations; so it is often honestly ignored, and sometimes
mention of it is suppressed, the man regarding it as a taint. But I also
know many very wealthy old frontiersmen whose half-breed children are
now being educated, generally at convent schools, while in the
Northwestern cities I could point out some very charming men and women,
in the best society, with a strain of Indian blood in their veins.
CHAPTER II.
THE FRENCH OF THE OHIO VALLEY, 1763-1775.
The result of England's last great colonial struggle with France was to
sever from the latter all her American dependencies, her colonists
becoming the subjects of alien and rival powers. England won Canada and
the Ohio valley; while France ceded to her Spanish allies Louisiana,
including therein all the territory vaguely bounded by the Mississippi
and the Pacific. As an offset to this gain Spain had herself lost to
England both Floridas, as the coast regions between Georgia and
Louisiana were then called.
Thus the thirteen colonies, at the outset of their struggle for
independence, saw themselves surrounded north, south, and west, by lands
where the rulers and the ruled were of different races, but where rulers
and ruled alike were hostile to the new people that was destined in the
end to master them all.
The present province of Quebec, then called Canada, was already, what
she has to this day remained, a French state acknowledging the English
king as her over-lord. Her interests did not conflict with those of our
people, nor touch them in any way, and she has had little to do with our
national history, and nothing whatever to do with the history of the
west.
In the peninsula of East Florida, in the land of the cypress, palmetto,
and live oak, of open savannas, of sandy pine forests, and impenetrable,
interminable morasses, a European civilization more ancient than any in
the English colonies was mouldering in slow decay. Its capital city was
quaint St. Augustine, the old walled town that was founded by the
Spaniards long years before the keel of the _Half-Moon_ furrowed
the broad Hudson, or the ships of the Puritans sighted the New England
coast. In times past St. Augustine had once and again seen her harbor
filled with the huge, cumbrous hulls, and whitened by the bellying
sails, of the Spanish war vessels, when the fleets of the Catholic king
gathered there, before setting out against the seaboard towns of Georgia
and the Carolinas; and she had to suffer from and repulse the
retaliatory inroads of the English colonists. Once her priests and
soldiers had brought the Indian tribes, far and near, under subjection,
and had dotted the wilderness with fort and church and plantation, the
outposts of her dominion; but that was long ago, and the tide of Spanish
success had turned and begun to ebb many years before the English took
possession of Florida. The Seminoles, fierce and warlike, whose warriors
fought on foot and on horseback, had avenged in countless bloody forays
their fellow-Indian tribes, whose very names had perished under Spanish
rule. The churches and forts had crumbled into nothing; only the cannon
and the brazen bells, half buried in the rotting mould, remained to mark
the place where once stood spire and citadel. The deserted plantations,
the untravelled causeways, no longer marred the face of the tree-clad
land, for even their sites had ceased to be distinguishable; the great
high-road that led to Pensacola had faded away, overgrown by the rank
luxuriance of the semi-tropical forest. Throughout the interior the
painted savages roved at will, uncontrolled by Spaniard or Englishman,
owing allegiance only to the White Chief of Tallasotchee. St. Augustine,
with its British garrison and its Spanish and Minorcan townsfolk,[2] was
still a gathering place for a few Indian traders, and for the scattered
fishermen of the coast; elsewhere there were in all not more than a
hundred families.[3]
Beyond the Chattahooche and the Appalachicola, stretching thence to the
Mississippi and its delta, lay the more prosperous region of West
Florida.[4] Although taken by the English from Spain, there were few
Spaniards among the people, who were controlled by the scanty British
garrisons at Pensacola, Mobile, and Natchez. On the Gulf coast the
inhabitants were mainly French creoles. They were an indolent,
pleasure-loving race, fond of dancing and merriment, living at ease in
their low, square, roomy houses on the straggling, rudely farmed
plantations that lay along the river banks. Their black slaves worked
for them; they, themselves spent much of their time in fishing and
fowling. Their favorite arm was the light fowling-piece, for they were
expert wing shots;[5] unlike the American backwoodsmen, who knew nothing
of shooting on the wing, and looked down on smooth-bores, caring only
for the rifle, the true weapon of the freeman. In winter the creoles
took their negroes to the hills, where they made tar from the pitch
pine, and this they exported, as well as indigo, rice, tobacco, bear's
oil, peltry, oranges, and squared timber. Cotton was grown, but only for
home use. The British soldiers dwelt in stockaded forts, mounting light
cannon; the governor lived in the high stone castle built of old by the
Spaniards at Pensacola.[6]
In the part of west Florida lying along the east bank of the
Mississippi, there were also some French creoles and a few Spaniards,
with of course negroes and Indians to boot. But the population consisted
mainly of Americans from the old colonies, who had come thither by sea
in small sailing-vessels, or had descended the Ohio and the Tennessee in
flat-boats, or, perchance, had crossed the Creek country with pack
ponies, following the narrow trails of the Indian traders. With them
were some English and Scotch, and the Americans themselves had little
sympathy with the colonies, feeling instead a certain dread and dislike
of the rough Carolinian mountaineers, who were their nearest white
neighbors on the east.[7] They therefore, for the most part, remained
loyal to the crown in the Revolutionary struggle, and suffered
accordingly.
When Louisiana was ceded to Spain, most of the French creoles who formed
her population were clustered together in the delta of the Mississippi;
the rest were scattered out here and there, in a thin, dotted line, up
the left bank of the river to the Missouri, near the mouth of which
there were several small villages,--St. Louis, St. Genevieve, St.
Charles.[8] A strong Spanish garrison held New Orleans, where the
creoles, discontented with their new masters, had once risen in a revolt
that was speedily quelled and severely punished. Small garrisons were
also placed in the different villages.
Our people had little to do with either Florida or Louisiana until after
the close of the Revolutionary war; but very early in that struggle, and
soon after the movement west of the mountains began, we were thrown into
contact with the French of the Northwestern Territory, and the result
was of the utmost importance to the future welfare of the whole nation.
This northwestern land lay between the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the
Great Lakes. It now constitutes five of our large States and part of a
sixth. But when independence was declared it was quite as much a foreign
territory, considered from the standpoint of the old thirteen colonies,
as Florida or Canada; the difference was that, whereas during the war we
failed in our attempts to conquer Florida and Canada, we succeeded in
conquering the Northwest. The Northwest formed no part of our country as
it originally stood; it had no portion in the declaration of
independence. It did not revolt; it was conquered. Its inhabitants, at
the outset of the Revolution, no more sympathized with us, and felt no
greater inclination to share our fate, than did their kinsmen in Quebec
or the Spaniards in St. Augustine. We made our first important conquest
during the Revolution itself,--beginning thus early what was to be our
distinguishing work for the next seventy years.
These French settlements, which had been founded about the beginning of
the century, when the English still clung to the estuaries of the
seaboard, were grouped in three clusters, separated by hundreds of miles
of wilderness. One of these clusters, containing something like a third
of the total population, was at the straits, around Detroit.[9] It was
the seat of the British power in that section, and remained in British
hands for twenty years after we had become a nation.
The other two were linked together by their subsequent history, and it
is only with them that we have to deal. The village of Vincennes lay on
the eastern bank of the Wabash, with two or three smaller villages
tributary to it in the country round about; and to the west, beside the
Mississippi, far above where it is joined by the Ohio, lay the so-called
Illinois towns, the villages of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, with between them
the little settlements of Prairie du Rocher and St. Philip.[10]
Both these groups of old French hamlets were in the fertile prairie
region of what is now southern Indiana and Illinois. We have taken into
our language the word prairie, because when our backwoodsmen first
reached the land and saw the great natural meadows of long grass--sights
unknown to the gloomy forests wherein they had always dwelt--they knew
not what to call them, and borrowed the term already in use among the
French inhabitants.
The great prairies, level or rolling, stretched from north to south,
separated by broad belts of high timber. Here and there copses of
woodland lay like islands in the sunny seas of tall, waving grass. Where
the rivers ran, their alluvial bottoms were densely covered with trees
and underbrush, and were often overflowed in the spring freshets.
Sometimes the prairies were long, narrow strips of meadow land; again
they were so broad as to be a day's journey across, and to the American,
bred in a wooded country where the largest openings were the beaver
meadows and the clearings of the frontier settlers, the stretches of
grass land seemed limitless. They abounded in game. The buffalo crossed
and recrossed them, wandering to and fro in long files, beating narrow
trails that they followed year in and year out; while bear, elk, and
deer dwelt in the groves around the borders.[11]
There were perhaps some four thousand inhabitants in these French
villages, divided almost equally between those in the Illinois and those
along the Wabash.[12]
The country came into the possession of the British--not of the colonial
English or Americans--at the close of Pontiac's war, the aftermath of
the struggle which decided against the French the ownership of America.
It was held as a new British province, not as an extension of any of the
old colonies; and finally in 1774, by the famous Quebec Act, it was
rendered an appanage of Canada, governed from the latter. It is a
curious fact that England immediately adopted towards her own colonists
the policy of the very nationality she had ousted. From the date of the
triumphant peace won by Wolfe's victory, the British government became
the most active foe of the spread of the English race in America. This
position Britain maintained for many years after the failure of her
attempt to bar her colonists out of the Ohio valley. It was the position
she occupied when at Ghent in 1814 her commissioners tried to hem in the
natural progress of her colonists' children by the erection of a great
"neutral belt" of Indian territory, guaranteed by the British king. It
was the role which her statesmen endeavored to make her play when at a
later date they strove to keep Oregon a waste rather than see it peopled
by Americans.
In the northwest she succeeded to the French policy as well as the
French position. She wished the land to remain a wilderness, the home of
the trapper and the fur trader, of the Indian hunter and the French
voyageur. She desired it to be kept as a barrier against the growth of
the seaboard colonies towards the interior. She regarded the new lands
across the Atlantic as being won and settled, not for the benefit of the
men who won and settled them, but for the benefit of the merchants and
traders who stayed at home. It was this that rendered the Revolution
inevitable; the struggle was a revolt against the whole mental attitude
of Britain in regard to America, rather than against any one special act
or set of acts. The sins and shortcomings of the colonists had been
many, and it would be easy to make out a formidable catalogue of
grievances against them, on behalf of the mother country; but on the
great underlying question they were wholly in the right, and their
success was of vital consequence to the well-being of the race on this
continent.
Several of the old colonies urged vague claims to parts of the
Northwestern Territory, basing them on ancient charters and Indian
treaties; but the British heeded them no more than the French had, and
they were very little nearer fulfilment after the defeat of Montcalm and
Pontiac than before. The French had held adverse possession in spite of
them for sixty years; the British held similar possession for fifteen
more. The mere statement of the facts is enough to show the intrinsic
worthlessness of the titles. The Northwest was acquired from France by
Great Britain through conquest and treaty; in a precisely similar
way--Clark taking the place of Wolfe--it was afterwards won from Britain
by the United States. We gained it exactly as we afterwards gained
Louisiana, Florida, Oregon, California, New Mexico, and Texas: partly by
arms, partly by diplomacy, partly by the sheer growth and pressure of
our spreading population. The fact that the conquest took place just
after we had declared ourselves a free nation, and while we were still
battling to maintain our independence, does not alter its character in
the least; but it has sufficed to render the whole transaction very hazy
in the minds of most subsequent historians, who generally speak as if
the Northwest Territory had been part of our original possessions.
The French who dwelt in the land were at the time little affected by the
change which transferred their allegiance from one European king to
another. They were accustomed to obey, without question, the orders of
their superiors. They accepted the results of the war submissively, and
yielded a passive obedience to their new rulers.[13] Some became rather
attached to the officers who came among them; others grew rather to
dislike them: most felt merely a vague sentiment of distrust and
repulsion, alike for the haughty British officer in his scarlet uniform,
and for the reckless backwoodsman clad in tattered homespun or buckskin.
They remained the owners of the villages, the tillers of the soil. At
first few English or American immigrants, save an occasional fur trader,
came to live among them. But their doom was assured; their rule was at
an end forever. For a while they were still to compose the bulk of the
scanty population; but nowhere were they again to sway their own
destinies. In after years they fought for and against both whites and
Indians; they faced each other, ranged beneath the rival banners of
Spain, England, and the insurgent colonists; but they never again fought
for their old flag or for their own sovereignty.
From the overthrow of Pontiac to the outbreak of the Revolution the
settlers in the Illinois and round Vincennes lived in peace under their
old laws and customs, which were continued by the British
commandants.[14] They had been originally governed, in the same way that
Canada was, by the laws of France, adapted, however, to the
circumstances of the new country. Moreover, they had local customs which
were as binding as the laws. After the conquest the British commandants
who came in acted as civil judges also. All public transactions were
recorded in French by notaries public. Orders issued in English were
translated into French so that they might be understood. Criminal cases
were referred to England. Before the conquest the procureur du roi gave
sentence by his own personal decision in civil cases; if the matters
were important it was the custom for each party to name two arbitrators,
and the procureur du roi a fifth; while an appeal might be made to the
council superieur at New Orleans. The British commandant assumed the
place of the procureur du roi, although there were one or two
half-hearted efforts made to introduce the Common Law.
The original French commandants had exercised the power of granting to
every person who petitioned as much land as the petitioner chose to ask
for, subject to the condition that part of it should be cultivated
within a year, under penalty of its reversion to "the king's
demesnes."[15] The English followed the same custom. A large quantity of
land was reserved in the neighborhood of each village for the common
use, and a very small quantity for religious purposes. The common was
generally a large patch of enclosed prairie, part of it being
cultivated, and the remainder serving as a pasture for the cattle of the
inhabitants.[16] The portion of the common set aside for agriculture was
divided into strips of one arpent in front by forty in depth, and one or
more allotted to each inhabitant according to his skill and industry as
a cultivator.[17] The arpent, as used by the western French, was a
rather rough measure of surface, less in size than an acre.[18] The
farms held by private ownership likewise ran back in long strips from a
narrow front that usually lay along some stream.[19] Several of them
generally lay parallel to one another, each including something like a
hundred acres, but occasionally much exceeding this amount.
The French inhabitants were in very many cases not of pure blood. The
early settlements had been made by men only, by soldiers, traders, and
trappers, who took Indian wives. They were not trammelled by the queer
pride which makes a man of English stock unwilling to make a red-skinned
woman his wife, though anxious enough to make her his concubine. Their
children were baptized in the little parish churches by the black-robed
priests, and grew up holding the same position in the community as was
held by their fellows both of whose parents were white. But, in addition
to these free citizens, the richer inhabitants owned both red and black
slaves; negroes imported from Africa, or Indians overcome and taken in
battle.[20] There were many freedmen and freedwomen of both colors, and
in consequence much mixture of blood.
They were tillers of the soil, and some followed, in addition, the
trades of blacksmith and carpenter. Very many of them were trappers or
fur traders. Their money was composed of furs and peltries, rated at a
fixed price per pound;[21] none other was used unless expressly so
stated in the contract. Like the French of Europe, their unit of value
was the livre, nearly equivalent to the modern franc. They were not very
industrious, nor very thrifty husbandmen. Their farming implements were
rude, their methods of cultivation simple and primitive, and they
themselves were often lazy and improvident. Near their town they had
great orchards of gnarled apple-trees, planted by their forefathers when
they came from France, and old pear-trees, of a kind unknown to the
Americans; but their fields often lay untilled, while the owners lolled
in the sunshine smoking their pipes. In consequence they were sometimes
brought to sore distress for food, being obliged to pluck their corn
while it was still green.[22]
The pursuits of the fur trader and fur trapper were far more congenial
to them, and it was upon these that they chiefly depended. The
half-savage life of toil, hardship, excitement, and long intervals of
idleness attracted them strongly. This was perhaps one among the reasons
why they got on so much better with the Indians than did the Americans,
who, wherever they went, made clearings and settlements, cut down the
trees, and drove off the game.
But even these pursuits were followed under the ancient customs and
usages of the country, leave to travel and trade being first obtained
from the commandant[23] for the rule of the commandant was almost
patriarchal. The inhabitants were utterly unacquainted with what the
Americans called liberty. When they passed under our rule, it was soon
found that it was impossible to make them understand such an institution
as trial by jury; they throve best under the form of government to which
they had been immemorially accustomed--a commandant to give them orders,
with a few troops to back him up.[24] They often sought to escape from
these orders, but rarely to defy them; their lawlessness was like the
lawlessness of children and savages; any disobedience was always to a
particular ordinance, not to the system.
The trader having obtained his permit, built his boats,--whether light,
roomy bateaux made of boards, or birch-bark canoes, or pirogues, which
were simply hollowed out logs. He loaded them with paint, powder,
bullets, blankets, beads, and rum, manned them with hardy voyageurs,
trained all their lives in the use of pole and paddle, and started off
up or down the Mississippi,[25] the Ohio, or the Wabash, perhaps making
a long carry or portage over into the Great Lakes. It took him weeks,
often months, to get to the first trading-point, usually some large
winter encampment of Indians. He might visit several of these, or stay
the whole winter through at one, buying the furs.[26] Many of the French
coureurs des bois, whose duty it was to traverse the wilderness, and who
were expert trappers, took up their abode with the Indians, taught them
how to catch the sable, fisher, otter, and beaver, and lived among them
as members of the tribe, marrying copper-colored squaws, and rearing
dusky children. When the trader had exchanged his goods for the peltries
of these red and white skin-hunters, he returned to his home, having
been absent perhaps a year or eighteen months. It was a hard life; many
a trader perished in the wilderness by cold or starvation, by an upset
where the icy current ran down the rapids like a mill-race, by the
attack of a hostile tribe, or even in a drunken brawl with the friendly
Indians, when voyageur, half-breed, and Indian alike had been frenzied
by draughts of fiery liquor.[27]
Next to the commandant in power came the priest. He bore unquestioned
rule over his congregation, but only within certain limits; for the
French of the backwoods, leavened by the presence among them of so many
wild and bold spirits, could not be treated quite in the same way as the
more peaceful _habitants_ of Lower Canada. The duty of the priest
was to look after the souls of his sovereign's subjects, to baptize,
marry, and bury them, to confess and absolve them, and keep them from
backsliding, to say mass, and to receive the salary due him for
celebrating divine service; but, though his personal influence was of
course very great, he had no temporal authority, and could not order his
people either to fight or to work. Still less could he dispose of their
laud, a privilege inhering only in the commandant and in the
commissaries of the villages, where they were expressly authorized so to
do by the sovereign.[28]
The average inhabitant, though often loose in his morals, was very
religious. He was superstitious also, for he firmly believed in omens,
charms, and witchcraft, and when worked upon by his dread of the unseen
and the unknown he sometimes did terrible deeds, as will be related
farther on.
Under ordinary circumstances he was a good-humored, kindly man, always
polite--his manners offering an agreeable contrast to those of some of
our own frontiersmen,--with a ready smile and laugh, and ever eager to
join in any merrymaking. On Sundays and fast-days he was summoned to the
little parish church by the tolling of the old bell in the small wooden
belfry. The church was a rude oblong building, the walls made out of
peeled logs, thrust upright in the ground, chinked with moss and coated
with clay or cement. Thither every man went, clad in a capote or blanket
coat, a bright silk handkerchief knotted round his head, and his feet
shod with moccasins or strong rawhide sandals. If young, he walked or
rode a shaggy pony; if older, he drove his creaking, springless wooden
cart, untired and unironed, in which his family sat on stools.[29]
The grades of society were much more clearly marked than in similar
communities of our own people. The gentry, although not numerous,
possessed unquestioned social and political headship and were the
military leaders; although of course they did not have any thing like
such marked preeminence of position as in Quebec or New Orleans, where
the conditions were more like those obtaining in the old world. There
was very little education. The common people were rarely versed in the
mysteries of reading and writing, and even the wives of the gentry were
often only able to make their marks instead of signing their names.[30]
The little villages in which they dwelt were pretty places,[31] with
wide, shaded streets. The houses lay far apart, often a couple of
hundred feet from one another. They were built of heavy hewn timbers;
those of the better sort were furnished with broad verandas, and
contained large, low-ceilinged rooms, the high mantle-pieces and the
mouldings of the doors and windows being made of curiously carved wood.
Each village was defended by a palisaded fort and block-houses, and was
occasionally itself surrounded by a high wooden stockade. The
inhabitants were extravagantly fond of music and dancing;[32] marriages
and christenings were seasons of merriment, when the fiddles were
scraped all night long, while the moccasined feet danced deftly in time
to the music.
Three generations of isolated life in the wilderness had greatly changed
the characters of these groups of traders, trappers, bateau-men, and
adventurous warriors. It was inevitable that they should borrow many
traits from their savage friends and neighbors. Hospitable, but bigoted
to their old customs, ignorant, indolent, and given to drunkenness, they
spoke a corrupt jargon of the French tongue; the common people were even
beginning to give up reckoning time by months and years, and dated
events, as the Indians did, with reference to the phenomena of nature,
such as the time of the floods, the maturing of the green corn, or the
ripening of the strawberries.[33] All their attributes seemed alien to
the polished army-officers of old France;[34] they had but little more
in common with the latter than with the American backwoodsmen. But they
had kept many valuable qualities, and, in especial, they were brave and
hardy, and, after their own fashion, good soldiers. They had fought
valiantly beside King Louis' musketeers, and in alliance with the
painted warriors of the forest; later on they served, though perhaps
with less heart, under the gloomy ensign of Spain, shared the fate of
the red-coated grenadiers of King George, or followed the lead of the
tall Kentucky riflemen.
1. "Travels by William Bartram," Philadelphia, 1791, pp. 184, 231, 232,
etc. The various Indian names are spelt in a dozen different ways.
2. Reise, etc. (in 1783 and 84), by Johann David Schopf, 1788, II. 362.
The Minorcans were the most numerous and prosperous; then came the
Spaniards, with a few creoles, English, and Germans.
3. J. D. F. Smyth, "Tour in the United States" (1775), London, 1784,
II., 35.
4. _Do_.
5. "Mémoire ou Coup-d'Oeil Rapide sur mes différentes voyages et mon
séjour dans la nation Creck, par Le Gal. Milfort, Tastanegy ou grand
chef de guerre de la nation Creck et General de Brigade au service de la
République Française." Paris, 1802. Writing in 1781, he said Mobile
contained about forty proprietary families, and was "un petit paradis
terrestre."
6. Bartram, 407.
7. _Magazine of American History_, IV., 388. Letter of a New
England settler in 1773.
8. "Annals of St. Louis." Frederic L. Billon. St. Louis, 1886. A
valuable book.
9. In the Haldimand MSS., Series B, vol. 122, p. 2, is a census of
Detroit itself, taken in 1773 by Philip Dejean, justice of the peace.
According to this there were 1,367 souls, of whom 85 were slaves; they
dwelt in 280 houses, with 157 barns, and owned 1,494 horned cattle, 628
sheep, and 1,067 hogs. Acre is used as a measure of length; their united
farms had a frontage of 512, and went back from 40 to 80. Some of the
people, it is specified, were not enumerated because they were out
hunting or trading at the Indian villages. Besides the slaves, there
were 93 servants.
This only refers to the settlers of Detroit proper, and the farms
adjoining. Of the numerous other farms, and the small villages on both
sides of the straits, and of the many families and individuals living as
traders or trappers with the Indians, I can get no good record. Perhaps
the total population, tributary to Detroit was 2,000. It may have been
over this. Any attempt to estimate this creole population perforce
contains much guess-work.
10. State Department MSS., No. 150, Vol. III., p. 89.
11. _Do_ Harmar's letter.
12. State Department MSS, No 30, p 453. Memorial of François
Carbonneaux, agent for the inhabitants of the Illinois country. Dec 8,
1784. "Four hundred families [in the Illinois] exclusive of a like
number at Post Vincent" [Vincennes]. Americans had then just begun to
come in, but this enumeration did not refer to them. The population had
decreased during the Revolutionary war, so that at its outbreak there
were probably altogether a thousand families. They were very prolific,
and four to a family is probably not too great an allowance, even when
we consider that in such a community on the frontier there are always
plenty of solitary adventurers. Moreover, there were a number of negro
slaves. Harmar's letter of Nov. 24, 1787, states the adult males of
Kaskaskia and Cahokia at four hundred and forty, not counting those at
St. Philip or Prairie du Rocher. This tallies very well with the
preceding. But of course the number given can only be considered
approximately accurate, and a passage in a letter of Lt-Gov Hamilton
would indicate that it was considerably smaller.
This letter is to be found in the Haldimand MSS, Series B, Vol. 123, p.
53, it is the 'brief account' of his ill-starred expedition against
Vincennes. He says "On taking an account of the Inhabitants at this
place [Vincennes], of all ages and sexes we found their number to amount
to 621, of this 217 fit to bear arms on the spot, several being absent
hunting Buffaloe for their winter provision." But elsewhere in the same
letter he alludes to the adult arms-bearing men as being three hundred
in number, and of course the outlying farms and small tributary villages
are not counted in. This was in December, 1778. Possibly some families
had left for the Spanish possessions after the war broke out, and
returned after it was ended. But as all observers seem to unite in
stating that the settlements either stood still or went backwards during
the Revolutionary struggle, it is somewhat difficult to reconcile the
figures of Hamilton and Carbonneaux.
13. In the Haldimand MSS., Series B, Vol. 122, p. 3, the letter of M.
Ste. Marie from Vincennes, May 3, 1774, gives utterance to the general
feeling of the creoles, when he announces, in promising in their behalf
to carry out the orders of the British commandant, that he is "remplie
de respect pour tout ce qui porte l'emprinte de l'otorité." [sic.]
14. State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 51. Statement of M. Cerre (or
Carre), July, 1786, translated by John Pintard.
15. _Do_.
16. State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 41. Petition of J. B. La Croix, A.
Girardin, etc., dated "at Cohoe in the Illinois 15th July, 1786."
17. Billon, 91.
18. An arpent of land was 180 French feet square. MS. copy of Journal of
Matthew Clarkson in 1766. In Durrett collection.
19. American State Papers, Public Lands, I., II.
20. Fergus Historical Series, No. 12, "Illinois in the 18th Century."
Edward G. Mason, Chicago, 1881. A most excellent number of an excellent
series. The old parish registers of Kaskaskia, going back to 1695,
contain some remarkable names of the Indian mothers--such as Maria
Aramipinchicoue and Domitilla Tehuigouanakigaboucoue. Sometimes the man
is only distinguished by some such title as "The Parisian," or "The
Bohemian."
21. Billon, 90.
22. Letter of P. A. Lafarge, Dec. 31, 1786. Billon, 268.
23. State Department MSS., No. 150, Vol. III., p. 519. Letter of Joseph
St. Mann, Aug 23, 1788.
24. _Do_., p 89, Harmar's letter.
25. _Do_., p 519, Letter of Joseph St. Marin.
26. _Do_., p. 89.
27. Journal of Jean Baptiste Perrault, in 1783; in "Indian Tribes," by
Henry R. Schoolcraft, Part III., Philadelphia, 1855. See also Billon,
484, for an interesting account of the adventures of Gratiot, who
afterwards, under American rule, built up a great fur business, and
drove a flourishing trade with Europe, as well as the towns of the
American seaboard.
28. State Department MSS., No. 48, p. 25. A petition concerning a case
in point, affecting the Priest Gibault.
29. "History of Vincennes," by Judge John Law, Vincennes, 1858. pp. 18
and 140. They are just such carts as I have seen myself in the valley of
the Red River, and in the big bend of the Missouri, carrying all the
worldly goods of their owners, the French Metis. These Metis,--ex-trappers,
ex-buffalo runners, and small farmers,--are the best representatives of
the old French of the west; they are a little less civilized, they have
somewhat more Indian blood in their veins, but they are substantially the
same people. It may be noted that the herds of buffaloes that during the
last century thronged the plains of what are now the States of Illinois
and Indiana furnished to the French of Kaskaskia and Vincennes their
winter meat; exactly as during the present century the Saskatchewan Metis
lived on the wild herds until they were exterminated.
30. See the lists of signatures in the State Department MSS., also
Mason's Kaskaskia Parish Records and Law's Vincennes. As an example; the
wife of the Chevalier Vinsenne (who gave his name to Vincennes, and
afterwards fell in the battle where the Chickasaws routed the Northern
French and their Indian allies), was only able to make her mark.
Clark in his letters several times mentions the "gentry," in terms
that imply their standing above the rest of the people.
31. State Department MSS., No. 150, Vol. III., p. 89.
32. "Journal of Jean Baptiste Perrault," 1783.
33. "Voyage en Amérique" (1796), General Victor Collot, Paris, 1804, p.
318.
34. _Do_. Collot calls them "un composé de traiteurs, d'aventuriers, de
coureurs de bois, rameurs, et de guerriers; ignorans, superstitieux et
entêtés, qu'aucunes fatigues, aucunes privations, aucunes dangers ne
peuvent arreter dans leurs enterprises, qu'ils mettent toujours fin; ils
n'ont conservé des vertus françaises que le courage."
CHAPTER III.
THE APPALACHIAN CONFEDERACIES, 1765-1775.
When we declared ourselves an independent nation there were on our
borders three groups of Indian peoples. The northernmost were the
Iroquois or Six Nations, who dwelt in New York, and stretched down
into Pennsylvania. They had been for two centuries the terror of every
other Indian tribe east of the Mississippi, as well as of the whites;
but their strength had already departed. They numbered only some ten
or twelve thousand all told, and though they played a bloody part in
the Revolutionary struggle, it was merely as subordinate allies of the
British. It did not lie in their power to strike a really decisive
blow. Their chastisement did not result in our gaining new territory;
nor would a failure to chastise them have affected the outcome of the
war nor the terms of peace. Their fate was bound up with that of the
king's cause in America and was decided wholly by events unconnected
with their own success or defeat.
The very reverse was the case with the Indians, tenfold more numerous,
who lived along our western frontier. There they were themselves our
main opponents, the British simply acting as their supporters; and
instead of their fate being settled by the treaty of peace with Britain,
they continued an active warfare for twelve years after it had been
signed. Had they defeated us in the early years of the contest, it is
more than probable that the Alleghanies would have been made our western
boundary at the peace. We won from them vast stretches of territory
because we had beaten their warriors, and we could not have won it
otherwise; whereas the territory of the Iroquois was lost, not because
of their defeat, but because of the defeat of the British.
There were two great groups of these Indians, the ethnic corresponding
roughly with the geographic division. In the northwest, between the
Ohio and the Lakes, were the Algonquin tribes, generally banded
loosely together; in the southwest, between the Tennessee--then called
the Cherokee--and the Gulf, the so-called Appalachians lived. Between
them lay a vast and beautiful region where no tribe dared dwell, but
into which all ventured now and then for war and hunting.
The southwestern Indians were called Appalachians by the olden writers,
because this was the name then given to the southern Alleghanies. It is
doubtful if the term has any exact racial significance; but it serves
very well to indicate a number of Indian nations whose system of
government, ways of life, customs, and general culture were much alike,
and whose civilization was much higher than was that of most other
American tribes.
The Appalachians were in the barbarous, rather than in the merely
savage state. They were divided into five lax confederacies: the
Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. The latter
were merely a southern offshoot of the Creeks or Muscogees. They were
far more numerous than the northwestern Indians, were less nomadic,
and in consequence had more definite possession of particular
localities; so that their lands were more densely peopled.
In all they amounted to perhaps seventy thousand souls.[1] It is more
difficult to tell the numbers of the different tribes; for the division
lines between them were very ill defined, and were subject to wide
fluctuations. Thus the Creeks, the most formidable of all, were made up
of many bands, differing from each other both in race and speech. The
languages of the Chickasaws and Choctaws did not differ more from the
tongue of the Cherokees, than the two divisions of the latter did from
each other. The Cherokees of the hills, the Otari, spoke a dialect that
could not be understood by the Cherokees of the lowlands, or Erati.
Towns or bands continually broke up and split off from their former
associations, while ambitious and warlike chiefs kept forming new
settlements, and if successful drew large numbers of young warriors from
the older communities. Thus the boundary lines between the confederacies
were ever shifting.[2] Judging from a careful comparison of the
different authorities, the following estimate of the numbers of the
southern tribes at the outbreak of the Revolution may be considered as
probably approximately correct.
The Cherokees, some twelve thousand strong,[3] were the mountaineers of
their race. They dwelt among the blue-topped ridges and lofty peaks of
the southern Alleghanies,[4] in the wild and picturesque region where
the present States of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas
join one another.
To the west of the Cherokees, on the banks of the Mississippi, were
the Chickasaws, the smallest of the southern nations, numbering at the
outside but four thousand souls;[5] but they were also the bravest
and most warlike, and of all these tribal confederacies theirs was the
only one which was at all closely knit together. The whole tribe acted
in unison. In consequence, though engaged in incessant warfare with
the far more numerous Choctaws, Creeks, and Cherokees, they more than
held their own against them all; besides having inflicted on the
French two of the bloodiest defeats they ever suffered from Indians.
Most of the remnants of the Natchez, the strange sun-worshippers, had
taken refuge with the Chickasaws and become completely identified with
them, when their own nationality was destroyed by the arms of New
Orleans.
The Choctaws, the rudest and historically the least important of these
Indians, lived south of the Chickasaws. They were probably rather less
numerous than the Creeks.[6] Though accounted brave they were
treacherous and thievish, and were not as well armed as the others. They
rarely made war or peace as a unit, parties frequently acting in
conjunction with some of the rival European powers, or else joining in
the plundering inroads made by the other Indians upon the white
settlements. Beyond thus furnishing auxiliaries to our other Indian
foes, they had little to do with our history.
The Muscogees or Creeks were the strongest of all. Their southern bands,
living in Florida, were generally considered as a separate confederacy,
under the name of Seminoles. They numbered between twenty-five and
thirty thousand souls,[7] three fourths of them being the Muscogees
proper, and the remainder Seminoles. They dwelt south of the Cherokees
and east of the Choctaws, adjoining the Georgians.
The Creeks and Cherokees were thus by their position the barrier tribes
of the South, who had to stand the brunt of our advance, and who acted
as a buffer between us and the French and Spaniards of the Gulf and the
lower Mississippi. Their fate once decided, that of the Chickasaws and
Chocktaws inevitably followed.
The customs and the political and social systems of these two tribes
were very similar; and those of their two western neighbors were
merely ruder copies thereof. They were very much further advanced than
were the Algonquin nations of the north.
Unlike most mountaineers the Cherokees were not held to be very
formidable fighters, when compared with their fellows of the
lowlands.[8] In 1760 and 1761 they had waged a fierce war with the
whites, had ravaged the Carolina borders, had captured British forts,
and successfully withstood British armies; but though they had held
their own in the field, it had been at the cost of ruinous losses. Since
that period they had been engaged in long wars with the Chickasaws and
Creeks, and had been worsted by both. Moreover, they had been much
harassed by the northern Indians. So they were steadily declining in
power and numbers.[9]
Though divided linguistically into two races, speaking different
dialects, the Otari and Erati, the political divisions did not follow
the lines of language. There were three groups of towns, the Upper,
Lower, and Middle; and these groups often acted independently of one
another. The Upper towns lay for the most part on the Western Waters, as
they were called by the Americans,--the streams running into the
Tennessee. Their inhabitants were known as Overhill Cherokees and were
chiefly Otari; but the towns were none of them permanent, and sometimes
shifted their positions, even changing from one group to another. The
Lower towns, inhabited by the Erati, lay in the flat lands of upper
Georgia and South Carolina, and were the least important. The third
group, larger than either of the others and lying among the hills and
mountains between them, consisted of the Middle towns. Its borders were
ill-marked and were ever shifting.
Thus the towns of the Cherokees stretched from the high upland region,
where rise the loftiest mountains of eastern America, to the warm,
level, low country, the land of the cypress and the long-leaved pine.
Each village stood by itself, in some fertile river-bottom, with
around it apple orchards and fields of maize. Like the other southern
Indians, the Cherokees were more industrious than their northern
neighbors, lived by tillage and agriculture as much as by hunting, and
kept horses, hogs, and poultry. The oblong, story-high houses were
made of peeled logs, morticed into each other and plastered with clay;
while the roof was of chestnut bark or of big shingles. Near to each
stood a small cabin, partly dug out of the ground, and in consequence
very warm; to this the inmates retired in winter, for they were
sensitive to cold. In the centre of each village stood the great
council-house or rotunda, capable of containing the whole population;
it was often thirty feet high, and sometimes stood on a raised mound
of earth.[10]
The Cherokees were a bright, intelligent race, better fitted to "follow
the white man's road" than any other Indians. Like their neighbors, they
were exceedingly fond of games of chance and skill, as well as of
athletic sports. One of the most striking of their national amusements
was the kind of ball-play from which we derive the game of lacrosse. The
implements consisted of ball sticks or rackets, two feet long, strung
with raw-hide webbing, and of a deer-skin ball, stuffed with hair, so as
to be very solid, and about the size of a base ball. Sometimes the game
was played by fixed numbers, sometimes by all the young men of a
village; and there were often tournaments between different towns and
even different tribes. The contests excited the most intense interest,
were waged with desperate resolution, and were preceded by solemn dances
and religious ceremonies; they were tests of tremendous physical
endurance, and were often very rough, legs and arms being occasionally
broken. The Choctaws were considered to be the best ball players.[11]
The Cherokees were likewise fond of dances. Sometimes these were comic
or lascivious, sometimes they were religious in their nature, or were
undertaken prior to starting on the war-trail. Often the dances of the
young men and maidens were very picturesque. The girls, dressed in
white, with silver bracelets and gorgets, and a profusion of gay
ribbons, danced in a circle in two ranks; the young warriors, clad in
their battle finery, danced in a ring around them; all moving in
rhythmic step, as they kept time to the antiphonal chanting[12] and
singing, the young men and girls responding alternately to each other.
The great confederacy of the Muscogees or Creeks, consisting of numerous
tribes, speaking at least five distinct languages, lay in a well-watered
land of small timber.[13] The rapid streams were bordered by narrow
flats of rich soil, and were margined by canebrakes and reed beds. There
were fine open pastures, varied by sandy pine barrens, by groves of
palmetto and magnolia, and by great swamps and cypress ponds. The game
had been largely killed out, the elk and buffalo having been
exterminated and even the deer much thinned, and in consequence the
hunting parties were obliged to travel far into the uninhabited region
to the northward in order to kill their winter supply of meat. But
panthers, wolves, and bears still lurked in the gloomy fastnesses of the
swamps and canebrakes, whence they emerged at night to prey on the hogs
and cattle. The bears had been exceedingly abundant at one time, so much
so as to become one of the main props of the Creek larder, furnishing
flesh, fat, and especially oil for cooking and other purposes; and so
valued were they that the Indians hit upon the novel plan of preserving
them, exactly as Europeans preserve deer and pheasants. Each town put
aside a great tract of land which was known as "the beloved bear
ground,"[14] where the persimmons, haws, chestnuts, muscadines, and fox
grapes abounded, and let the bears dwell there unmolested, except at
certain seasons, when they were killed in large numbers. However, cattle
were found to be more profitable than bears, and the "beloved bear
grounds" were by degrees changed into stock ranges.[15]
The Creeks had developed a very curious semi-civilization of their own.
They lived in many towns, of which the larger, or old towns, bore rule
over the smaller,[16] and alone sent representatives to the general
councils. Many of these were as large as any in the back counties of the
colonies;[17] but they were shifted from time to time, as the game was
totally killed off and the land exhausted by the crops.[18] The soil
then became covered by a growth of pines, and a so-called "old field"
was formed. This method of cultivation was, after all, much like that of
the southern whites, and the "old fields," or abandoned plantations
grown up with pines, were common in the colonies.
Many of the chiefs owned droves of horses and horned cattle, sometimes
as many as five hundred head,[19] besides hogs and poultry; and some of
them, in addition, had negro slaves. But the tillage of the land was
accomplished by communal labor; and, indeed, the government, as well as
the system of life, was in many respects a singular compound of
communism and extreme individualism. The fields of rice, corn, tobacco,
beans, and potatoes were sometimes rudely fenced in with split hickory
poles, and were sometimes left unfenced, with huts or high scaffolds,
where watchers kept guard. They were planted when the wild fruit was so
ripe as to draw off the birds, and while ripening the swine were kept
penned up and the horses were tethered with tough bark ropes. Pumpkins,
melons, marsh-mallows, and sunflowers were often grown between the rows
of corn. The planting was done on a given day, the whole town being
summoned; no man was excepted or was allowed to go out hunting. The
under-headman supervised the work.[20]
For food they used all these vegetables, as well as beef and pork, and
venison stewed in bear's oil; they had hominy and corn-cakes, and a cool
drink made from honey and water,[21] besides another made from fermented
corn, which tasted much like cider.[22] They sifted their flour in
wicker-work sieves, and baked the bread in kettles or on broad, thin
stones. Moreover, they gathered the wild fruits, strawberries, grapes,
and plums, in their season, and out of the hickory-nuts they made a
thick, oily paste, called the hickory milk.
Each town was built round a square, in which the old men lounged all day
long, gossiping and wrangling. Fronting the square, and surrounding it,
were the four long, low communal houses, eight feet high, sixteen feet
deep, and forty to sixty in length. They were wooden frames, supported
on pine posts, with roof-tree and rafters of hickory. Their fronts were
open piazzas, their sides were lathed and plastered, sometimes with
white marl, sometimes with reddish clay, and they had plank doors and
were roofed neatly with cypress bark or clapboards. The eave boards were
of soft poplar. The barrier towns, near white or Indian enemies, had log
houses, with portholes cut in the walls.
The communal houses were each divided into three rooms. The House of
the Micos, or Chiefs and Headmen, was painted red and fronted the
rising sun; it was highest in rank. The Houses of the Warriors and the
Beloved Men--this last being painted white--fronted south and north
respectively, while the House of the Young People stood opposite that
of the Micos. Each room was divided into two terraces; the one in
front being covered with red mats, while that in the rear, a kind of
raised dais or great couch, was strewn with skins. They contained
stools hewed out of poplar logs, and chests made of clapboards sewed
together with buffalo thongs.[23]
The rotunda or council-house stood near the square on the highest spot
in the village. It was round, and fifty or sixty feet across, with a
high peaked roof; the rafters were fastened with splints and covered
with bark. A raised dais ran around the wall, strewed with mats and
skins. Sometimes in the larger council-houses there were painted
eagles, carved out of poplar wood, placed close to the red and white
seats where the chiefs and warriors sat; or in front of the broad dais
were great images of the full and the half moon, colored white or
black; or rudely carved and painted figures of the panther, and of men
with buffalo horns. The tribes held in reverence both the panther and
the rattlesnake.
The corn-cribs, fowl-houses, and hot-houses or dugouts for winter use
were clustered near the other cabins.
Although in tillage they used only the hoe, they had made much progress
in some useful arts. They spun the coarse wool of the buffalo into
blankets, which they trimmed with beads. They wove the wild hemp in
frames and shuttles. They made their own saddles. They made beautiful
baskets of fine cane splints, and very handsome blankets of turkey
feathers; while out of glazed clay they manufactured bowls, pitchers,
platters, and other pottery.
In summer they wore buckskin shirts and breech-clouts; in winter they
were clad in the fur of the bear and wolf or of the shaggy buffalo.
They had moccasins of elk or buffalo hide, and high thigh-boots of
thin deer-skin, ornamented with fawns' trotters, or turkey spurs that
tinkled as they walked. In their hair they braided eagle plumes, hawk
wings, or the brilliant plumage of the tanager and redbird. Trousers
or breeches of any sort they despised as marks of effeminacy.
Vermilion was their war emblem; white was only worn at the time of the
Green-Corn Dance. In each town stood the war pole or painted post, a
small peeled tree-trunk colored red. Some of their villages were
called white or peace towns; others red or bloody towns. The white
towns were sacred to peace; no blood could be spilt within their
borders. They were towns of refuge, where not even an enemy taken in
war could be slain; and a murderer who fled thither was safe from
vengeance. The captives were tortured to death in the red towns, and
it was in these that the chiefs and warriors gathered when they were
planning or preparing for war.
They held great marriage-feasts; the dead were buried with the goods
they had owned in their lifetime.
Every night all the people of a town gathered in the council-house to
dance and sing and talk. Besides this, they held there on stated
occasions the ceremonial dances; such were the dances of war and of
triumph, when the warriors, painted red and black, returned, carrying
the scalps of their slain foes on branches of evergreen pine, while
they chanted the sonorous song of victory; and such was the Dance of
the Serpent, the dance of lawless love, where the women and young
girls were allowed to do whatsoever they listed.
Once a year, when the fruits ripened, they held the Green-Corn Dance, a
religious festival that lasted eight days in the larger towns and four
in the smaller. Then they fasted and feasted alternately. They drank out
of conch-shells the Black Drink, a bitter beverage brewed from the
crushed leaves of a small shrub. On the third day the high-priest or
fire-maker, the man who sat in the white seat, clad in snowy tunic and
moccasins, kindled the holy fire, fanning it into flames with the
unsullied wing of a swan, and burning therein offerings of the
first-fruits of the year. Dance followed dance. The beloved men and
beloved women, the priest and priestesses, danced in three rings,
singing the solemn song of which the words were never uttered at any
other time; and at the end the warriors, in their wild war-gear, with
white-plume headdresses, took part, and also the women and girls, decked
in their best, with ear-rings and armlets, and terrapin shells filled
with pebbles fastened to the outside of their legs. They kept time with
foot and voice; the men in deep tones, with short accents, the women in
a shrill falsetto; while the clay drums, with heads of taut deer-hide,
were beaten, the whistles blown, and the gourds and calabashes rattled,
until the air resounded with the deafening noise.[24]
Though they sometimes burnt their prisoners or violated captive women,
they generally were more merciful than the northern tribes.[25]
But their political and military systems could not compare with those of
the Algonquins, still less with those of the Iroquois. Their confederacy
was of the loosest kind. There was no central authority. Every town
acted just as it pleased, making war or peace with the other towns, or
with whites, Choctaws, or Cherokees. In each there was a nominal head
for peace and war, the high chief and the head warrior; the former was
supposed to be supreme, and was elected for life from some one powerful
family--as, for instance, the families having for their totems the wind
or the eagle. But these chiefs had little control, and could not do much
more than influence or advise their subjects; they were dependent on the
will of the majority. Each town was a little hotbed of party spirit; the
inhabitants divided on almost every question. If the head-chief was for
peace, but the war-chief nevertheless went on the war-path, there was no
way of restraining him. It was said that never, in the memory of the
oldest inhabitant, had half the nation "taken the war talk" at the same
time.[26] As a consequence, war parties of Creeks were generally merely
small bands of marauders, in search of scalps and plunder. In proportion
to its numbers, the nation never, until 1813, undertook such formidable
military enterprises as were undertaken by the Wyandots, Shawnees, and
Delawares; and, though very formidable individual fighters, even in this
respect it may be questioned if the Creeks equalled the prowess of their
northern kinsmen.
Yet when the Revolutionary war broke out the Creeks were under a
chieftain whose consummate craft and utterly selfish but cool and
masterly diplomacy enabled them for a generation to hold their own
better than any other native race against the restless Americans. This
was the half-breed Alexander McGillivray, perhaps the most gifted man
who was ever born on the soil of Alabama.[27]
His father was a Scotch trader, Lachlan McGillivray by name, who came
when a boy to Charleston, then the head-quarters of the commerce
carried on by the British with the southern Indians. On visiting the
traders' quarter of the town, the young Scot was strongly attracted by
the sight of the weather-beaten packers, with their gaudy, half-Indian
finery, their hundreds of pack-horses, their curious pack-saddles, and
their bales of merchandise. Taking service with them, he was soon
helping to drive a pack-train along one of the narrow trails that
crossed the lonely pine wilderness. To strong, coarse spirits, that
were both shrewd and daring, and willing to balance the great risks
incident to their mode of life against its great gains, the business
was most alluring. Young Lachlan rose rapidly, and soon became one of
the richest and most influential traders in the Creek country.
Like most traders, he married into the tribe, wooing and wedding, at the
Hickory Ground, beside the Coosa River, a beautiful half-breed girl,
Sehoy Marchand, whose father had been a French officer, and whose mother
belonged to the powerful Creek family of the Wind. There were born to
them two daughters and one son, Alexander. All the traders, though
facing danger at every moment, from the fickle and jealous temper of the
savages, wielded immense influence over them, and none more than the
elder McGillivray, a far-sighted, unscrupulous Scotchman, who sided
alternately with the French and English interests, as best suited his
own policy and fortunes.
His son was felt by the Creeks to be one of themselves. He was born
about 1746, at Little Tallasee, on the banks of the clear-flowing Coosa,
where he lived till he was fourteen years old, playing, fishing,
hunting, and bathing with the other Indian boys, and listening to the
tales of the old chiefs and warriors. He was then taken to Charleston,
where he was well educated, being taught Greek and Latin, as well as
English history and literature. Tall, dark, slender, with commanding
figure and immovable face, of cool, crafty temper, with great ambition
and a keen intellect, he felt himself called to play no common part. He
disliked trade, and at the first opportunity returned to his Indian
home. He had neither the moral nor the physical gifts requisite for a
warrior; but he was a consummate diplomat, a born leader, and perhaps
the only man who could have used aright such a rope of sand as was the
Creek confederacy.
The Creeks claimed him as of their own blood, and instinctively felt
that he was their only possible ruler. He was forthwith chosen to be
their head chief. From that time on he remained among them, at one or
the other of his plantations, his largest and his real home being at
Little Tallasee, where he lived in barbaric comfort, in a great roomy
log-house with a stone chimney, surrounded by the cabins of his sixty
negro slaves. He was supported by many able warriors, both of the half
and the full blood. One of them is worthy of passing mention. This was a
young French adventurer, Milfort, who in 1776 journeyed through the
insurgent colonies and became an adopted son of the Creek nation. He
first met McGillivray, then in his early manhood, at the town of Coweta,
the great war-town on the Chattahoochee, where the half-breed chief,
seated on a bear-skin in the council-house, surrounded by his wise men
and warriors, was planning to give aid to the British. Afterwards he
married one of McGillivray's sisters, whom he met at a great dance--a
pretty girl, clad in a short silk petticoat, her chemise of fine linen
clasped with silver, her ear-rings and bracelets of the same metal, and
with bright-colored ribbons in her hair.[28]
The task set to the son of Sehoy was one of incredible difficulty, for
he was head of a loose array of towns and tribes from whom no man could
get perfect, and none but himself even imperfect, obedience. The nation
could not stop a town from going to war, nor, in turn, could a town stop
its own young men from committing ravages. Thus the whites were always
being provoked, and the frontiersmen were molested as often when they
were quiet and peaceful as when they were encroaching on Indian land.
The Creeks owed the land which they possessed to murder and rapine; they
mercilessly destroyed all weaker communities, red or white; they had no
idea of showing justice or generosity towards their fellows who lacked
their strength, and now the measure they had meted so often to others
was at last to be meted to them. If the whites treated them well, it was
set down to weakness. It was utterly impossible to restrain the young
men from murdering and plundering, either the neighboring Indians or the
white settlements. Their one ideal of glory was to get scalps, and these
the young braves were sure to seek, no matter how much the older and
cooler men might try to prevent them. Whether war was declared or not,
made no difference. At one time the English exerted themselves
successfully to bring about a peace between the Creeks and Cherokees. At
its conclusion a Creek chief taunted the mediators as follows: "You have
sweated yourselves poor in our smoky houses to make peace between us and
the Cherokees, and thereby enable our young people to give you in a
short time a far worse sweat than you have yet had."[29] The result
justified his predictions; the young men, having no other foe, at once
took to ravaging the settlements. It soon became evident that it was
hopeless to expect the Creeks to behave well to the whites merely
because they were themselves well treated, and from that time on the
English fomented, instead of striving to put a stop to, their quarrels
with the Choctaws and Chickasaws.
The record of our dealings with them must in many places be unpleasant
reading to us, for it shows grave wrong-doing on our part; yet the
Creeks themselves lacked only the power, but not the will, to treat us
worse than we treated them, and the darkest pages of their history
recite the wrongs that we ourselves suffered at their hands.
1. Letter of Commissioners Hawkins, Pickens, Martin, and McIntosh, to
the President of the Continental Congress, Dec. 2, 1785. (Given in
Senate documents, 33d Congress, 2d session, Boundary between Ga. and
Fla.) They give 14,200 "gun-men," and say that "at a moderate
calculation" there are four times as many old men, women, and children,
as there are gun-men. The estimates of the numbers are very numerous and
very conflicting. After carefully consulting all accessible authorities,
I have come to the conclusion that the above is probably pretty near the
truth. It is the deliberate, official opinion of four trained experts,
who had ample opportunities for investigation, and who examined the
matter with care. But it is very possible that in allotting the several
tribes their numbers they err now and then, as the boundaries between
the tribes shifted continually, and there were always large communities
of renegades, such as the Chickamaugas, who were drawn from the ranks of
all.
2. This is one of the main reasons why the estimates of their numbers
vary so hopelessly. As a specimen case, among many others, compare the
estimate of Professor Benj. Smith Barton ("Origin of the Tribes and
Nations of America," Phila., 1798) with the report of the Commissioner
of Indian Affairs for 1827. Barton estimated that in 1793 the
Appalachian nations numbered in all 13,000 warriors; considering these
as one fifth of the total population, makes it 65,000. In 1837 the
Commissioner reports their numbers at 65,304--almost exactly the same.
Probably both statements are nearly correct, the natural rate of
increase having just about offset the loss in consequence of a partial
change of home, and of Jackson's slaughtering wars against the Creeks
and Seminoles. But where they agree in the total, they vary hopelessly
in the details. By Barton's estimate, the Cherokees numbered but 7,500,
the Chocktaws 30,000; by the Commissioner's census the Cherokees
numbered 21,911, the Choctaws 15,000. It is of course out of the
question to believe that while in 44 years the Cherokees had increased
threefold, the Choctaws had diminished one half. The terms themselves
must have altered their significance or else there was extensive
inter-tribal migration. Similarly, according to the reports, the Creeks
had increased by 4,000--the Seminoles and Choctaws had diminished by
3,000.
3. "Am. Archives," 4th Series, III., 790. Drayton's account, Sept. 23,
'75. This was a carefully taken census, made by the Indian traders.
Apart from the outside communities, such as the Chickamaugas at a later
date, there were:
737 gun-men in the 10 overhill towns
908 " " 23 middle "
356 " " 9 lower "
a total of 2,021 warriors. The outlying towns, who had cast off their
allegiance for the time being, would increase the amount by three or
four hundred more.
4. "History of the American Indians, Particularly Those Nations
Adjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South and
North Carolina, and Virginia." By James Adair (an Indian trader and
resident in the country for forty years), London, 1775. A very valuable
book, but a good deal marred by the author's irrepressible desire to
twist every Indian utterance, habit, and ceremony into a proof that they
are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes. He gives the number of Cherokee
warriors at 2,300.
5. Hawkins, Pickens, Martin, and McIntosh, in their letter, give them
800 warriors: most other estimates make the number smaller.
6. Almost all the early writers make them more numerous. Adair gives
them 4,500 warriors, Hawkins 6,000. But much less seems to have been
known about them than about the Creeks, Cherokees, and Chickasaws; and
most early estimates of Indians were largest when made of the
least-known tribes. Adair's statement is probably the most trustworthy.
The first accurate census showed the Creeks to be more numerous.
7. Hawkins, Pickens, etc., make them "at least" 27,000 in 1789, the
Indian report for 1837 make them 26,844. During the half century they
had suffered from devastating wars and forced removals, and had probably
slightly decreased in number. In Adair's time their population was
increasing.
8. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, I., 95. Letter of Charles Lee.
9. Adair, 227. Bartram, 390.
10. Bartram, 365.
11. Adair, Bartram.
12. Bartram.
13. "A Sketch of the Creek Country," Benjamin Hawkins. In Coll. Ga.
Hist. Soc. Written in 1798, but not published till fifty years
afterwards.
14. _Do_, p. 33.
15. The use of the word "beloved" by the Creeks was quite peculiar. It
is evidently correctly translated, for Milfort likewise gives it as
"bien aimé." It was the title used for any thing held in especial
regard, whether for economic or supernatural reasons; and sometimes it
was used as western tribes use the word "medicine" at the present day.
The old chiefs and conjurers were called the "beloved old men"; what in
the west we would now call the "medicine squaws," were named "the
beloved old women." It was often conferred upon the chief dignitaries of
the whites in writing to them.
16. Hawkins, 37.
17. Bartram, 386. The Uchee town contained at least 1,500 people.
18. _Do_.
19. Hawkins, 30.
20. Hawkins 39; Adair, 408.
21. Bartram, 184.
22. Milfort, 212.
23. Hawkins, 67. Milfort, 203. Bartram, 386. Adair, 418.
24. Hawkins and Adair, _passim_.
25. _Do_. Also _vide_ Bartram.
26. Hawkins, 29, 70. Adair, 428.
27. "History of Alabama," by Albert James Pickett, Charleston, 1851,
II., 30. A valuable work.
28. Milfort, 23, 326. Milfort's book is very interesting, but as the man
himself was evidently a hopeless liar and braggart, it can only be
trusted where it was not for his interest to tell a falsehood. His book
was written after McGillivray's death, the object being to claim for
himself the glory belonging to the half-breed chief. He insisted that he
was the war-chief, the arm, and McGillivray merely the head, and boasts
of his numerous successful war enterprises. But the fact is, that during
this whole time the Creeks performed no important stroke in war; the
successful resistance to American encroachments was due to the diplomacy
of the son of Sehoy. Moreover, Milfort's accounts of his own war deeds
are mainly sheer romancing. He appears simply to have been one of a
score of war chiefs, and there were certainly a dozen other Creek
chiefs, both half-breeds and natives, who were far more formidable to
the frontier than he was; all their names were dreaded by the settlers,
but his was hardly known.
29. Adair, 279.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ALGONQUINS OF THE NORTHWEST, 1769-1774.
Between the Ohio and the Great Lakes, directly north of the Appalachian
confederacies, and separated from them by the unpeopled wilderness now
forming the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, dwelt another set of
Indian tribes. They were ruder in life and manners than their southern
kinsmen, less advanced towards civilization, but also far more warlike;
they depended more on the chase and fishing, and much less on
agriculture; they were savages, not merely barbarians; and they were
fewer in numbers and scattered over a wider expanse of territory. But
they were farther advanced than the almost purely nomadic tribes of
horse Indians whom we afterwards encountered west of the Mississippi.
Some of their villages were permanent, at any rate for a term of years,
and near them they cultivated small crops of corn and melons. Their
usual dwelling was the conical wigwam covered with bark, skins, or mats
of plaited reeds but in some of the villages of the tribes nearest the
border there were regular blockhouses, copied from their white
neighbors. They went clad in skins or blankets; the men were hunters and
warriors, who painted their bodies and shaved from their crowns all the
hair except the long scalp-lock, while the squaws were the drudges who
did all the work.
Their relations with the Iroquois, who lay east of them, were rarely
very close, and in fact were generally hostile. They were also usually
at odds with the southern Indians, but among themselves they were
frequently united in time of war into a sort of lax league, and were
collectively designated by the Americans as the northwestern Indians.
All the tribes belonged to the great Algonquin family, with two
exceptions, the Winnebagos and the Wyandots. The former, a branch of the
Dakotahs, dwelt west of Lake Michigan; they came but little in contact
with us, although many of their young men and warriors joined their
neighbors in all the wars against us. The Wyandots or Hurons lived near
Detroit and along the south shore of Lake Erie, and were in battle our
most redoubtable foes. They were close kin to the Iroquois though bitter
enemies to them, and they shared the desperate valor of these, their
hostile kinsfolk, holding themselves above the surrounding Algonquins,
with whom, nevertheless, they lived in peace and friendship.
The Algonquins were divided into many tribes, of ever shifting size. It
would be impossible to place them all, or indeed to enumerate them, with
any degree of accuracy; for the tribes were continually splitting up,
absorbing others, being absorbed in turn, or changing their abode, and,
in addition, there were numerous small sub-tribes or bands of renegades,
which sometimes were and sometimes were not considered as portions of
their larger neighbors. Often, also, separate bands, which would vaguely
regard themselves as all one nation in one generation, would in the next
have lost even this sense of loose tribal unity.
The chief tribes, however, were well known and occupied tolerably
definite locations. The Delawares or Leni-Lenappe, dwelt farthest east,
lying northwest of the upper Ohio, their lands adjoining those of the
Senecas, the largest and most westernmost of the Six Nations. The
Iroquois had been their most relentless foes and oppressors in time gone
by; but on the eve of the Revolution all the border tribes were
forgetting their past differences and were drawing together to make a
stand against the common foe. Thus it came about that parties of young
Seneca braves fought with the Delawares in all their wars against us.
Westward of the Delawares lay the Shawnee villages, along the Scioto and
on the Pickaway plains; but it must be remembered that the Shawnees,
Delawares, and Wyandots were closely united and their villages were
often mixed in together. Still farther to the west, the Miamis or
Twigtees lived between the Miami and the Wabash, together with other
associated tribes, the Piankeshaws and the Weas or Ouatinous. Farther
still, around the French villages, dwelt those scattered survivors of
the Illinois who had escaped the dire fate which befell their
fellow-tribesmen because they murdered Pontiac. Northward of this scanty
people lived the Sacs and Foxes, and around the upper Great Lakes the
numerous and powerful Pottawattamies, Ottawas, and Chippewas; fierce and
treacherous warriors, who did not till the soil, and were hunters and
fishers only, more savage even than the tribes that lay southeast of
them.[1] In the works of the early travellers we read the names of many
other Indian nations; but whether these were indeed separate peoples, or
branches of some of those already mentioned, or whether the different
travellers spelled the Indian names in widely different ways, we cannot
say. All that is certain is that there were many tribes and sub-tribes,
who roamed and warred and hunted over the fair lands now forming the
heart of our mighty nation, that to some of these tribes the whites gave
names and to some they did not, and that the named and the nameless
alike were swept down to the same inevitable doom.
Moreover, there were bands of renegades or discontented Indians, who for
some cause had severed their tribal connections. Two of the most
prominent of these bands were the Cherokees and Mingos, both being noted
for their predatory and murderous nature and their incessant raids on
the frontier settlers. The Cherokees were fugitives from the rest of
their nation, who had fled north, beyond the Ohio, and dwelt in the land
shared by the Delawares and Shawnees, drawing to themselves many of the
lawless young warriors, not only of these tribes, but of the others
still farther off. The Mingos were likewise a mongrel banditti, made up
of outlaws and wild spirits from among the Wyandots and Miamis, as well
as from the Iroquois and the Munceys (a sub-tribe of the Delawares).
All these northwestern nations had at one time been conquered by the
Iroquois, or at least they had been defeated, their lands overrun, and
they themselves forced to acknowledge a vague over-lordship on the part
of their foes. But the power of the Iroquois was now passing away: when
our national history began, with the assembling of the first continental
congress, they had ceased to be a menace to the western tribes, and the
latter no longer feared or obeyed them, regarding them merely as allies
or neutrals. Yet not only the Iroquois, but their kindred folk, notably
the Wyandots, still claimed, and received, for the sake of their ancient
superiority, marks of formal respect from the surrounding Algonquins.
Thus, among the latter, the Leni-Lenappe possessed the titular headship,
and were called "grandfathers" at all the solemn councils as well as in
the ceremonious communications that passed among the tribes; yet in turn
they had to use similar titles of respect in addressing not only their
former oppressors, but also their Huron allies, who had suffered under
the same galling yoke.[2]
The northwestern nations had gradually come to equal the Iroquois as
warriors; but among themselves the palm was still held by the Wyandots,
who, although no more formidable than the others as regards skill,
hardihood, and endurance, nevertheless stood alone in being willing to
suffer heavy punishment in order to win a victory.[3]
The Wyandots had been under the influence of the French Jesuits, and
were nominally Christians;[4] and though the attempt to civilize them
had not been very successful, and they remained in most respects
precisely like the Indians around them, there had been at least one
point gained, for they were not, as a rule, nearly so cruel to their
prisoners. Thus they surpassed their neighbors in mercifulness as well
as valor. All the Algonquin tribes stood, in this respect, much on the
same plane. The Delawares, whose fate it had been to be ever buffeted
about by both the whites and the reds, had long cowered under the
Iroquois terror, but they had at last shaken it off, had reasserted the
superiority which tradition says they once before held, and had become a
formidable and warlike race. Indeed it is curious to study how the
Delawares have changed in respect to their martial prowess since the
days when the whites first came in contact with them. They were then not
accounted a formidable people, and were not feared by any of their
neighbors. By the time the Revolution broke out they had become better
warriors, and during the twenty years' Indian warfare that ensued were
as formidable as most of the other redskins. But when moved west of the
Mississippi, instead of their spirit being broken, they became more
warlike than ever, and throughout the present century they have been the
most renowned fighters of all the Indian peoples, and, moreover, they
have been celebrated for their roving, adventurous nature. Their numbers
have steadily dwindled, owing to their incessant wars and to the
dangerous nature of their long roamings.[5]
It is impossible to make any but the roughest guess at the numbers of
these northwestern Indians. It seems probable that there were
considerably over fifty thousand of them in all; but no definite
assertion can be made even as to the different tribes. As with the
southern Indians, old-time writers certainly greatly exaggerated their
numbers, and their modern followers show a tendency to fall into the
opposite fault, the truth being that any number of isolated observations
to support either position can be culled from the works of the
contemporary travellers and statisticians.[6] No two independent
observers give the same figures. One main reason for this is doubtless
the exceedingly loose way in which the word "tribe" was used. If a man
speaks of the Miamis and the Delawares, for instance, before we can
understand him we must know whether he includes therein the Weas and the
Munceys, for he may or may not. By quoting the numbers attributed by the
old writers to the various sub-tribes, and then comparing them with the
numbers given later on by writers using the same names, but speaking of
entire confederacies, it is easy to work out an apparent increase, while
a reversal of the process shows an appalling decrease. Moreover, as the
bands broke up, wandered apart, and then rejoined each other or not as
events fell out, two successive observers might make widely different
estimates. Many tribes that have disappeared were undoubtedly actually
destroyed; many more have simply changed their names or have been
absorbed by other tribes. Similarly, those that have apparently held
their own have done so at the expense of their neighbors. This was made
all the easier by the fact that the Algonquins were so closely related
in customs and language; indeed, there was constant intermarriage
between the different tribes. On the whole, however, there is no
question that, in striking contrast to the southern or Appalachian
Indians, these northwestern tribes have suffered a terrible diminution
in numbers.
With many of them we did not come into direct contact for long years
after our birth as a nation. Perhaps those tribes with all or part of
whose warriors we were brought into collision at some time during or
immediately succeeding the Revolutionary war may have amounted to thirty
thousand souls.[7] But though they acknowledged kinship with one
another, and though they all alike hated the Americans, and though,
moreover, all at times met in the great councils, to smoke the calumet
of peace and brighten the chain of friendship[8] among themselves, and
to take up the tomahawk[9] against the white foes, yet the tie that
bound them together was so loose, and they were so fickle and so split
up by jarring interests and small jealousies, that never more than half
of them went to war at the same time. Very frequently even the members
of a tribe would fail to act together.
Thus it came about that during the forty years intervening between
Braddock's defeat and Wayne's victory, though these northwestern tribes
waged incessant, unending, relentless warfare against our borders, yet
they never at any one time had more than three thousand warriors in the
field, and frequently not half that number,[10] and in all the battles
they fought with British and American troops there was not one in which
they were eleven hundred strong.[11]
But they were superb individual fighters, beautifully drilled in their
own discipline;[12] and they were favored beyond measure by the nature
of their ground, of which their whole system of warfare enabled them to
take the utmost possible benefit. Much has been written and sung of the
advantages possessed by the mountaineer when striving in his own home
against invaders from the plains; but these advantages are as nothing
when weighed with those which make the warlike dweller in forests
unconquerable by men who have not his training. A hardy soldier,
accustomed only to war in the open, will become a good cragsman in fewer
weeks than it will take him years to learn to be so much as a fair
woodsman; for it is beyond all comparison more difficult to attain
proficiency in woodcraft than in mountaineering.[13]
The Wyandots, and the Algonquins who surrounded them, dwelt in a region
of sunless, tangled forests; and all the wars we waged for the
possession of the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi
were carried on in the never-ending stretches of gloomy woodland. It was
not an open forest. The underbrush grew, dense and rank, between the
boles of the tall trees, making a cover so thick that it was in many
places impenetrable, so thick that it nowhere gave a chance for human
eye to see even as far as a bow could carry. No horse could penetrate it
save by following the game trails or paths chopped with the axe; and a
stranger venturing a hundred yards from a beaten road would be so
helplessly lost that he could not, except by the merest chance, even
find his way back to the spot he had just left. Here and there it was
broken by a rare hillside glade or by a meadow in a stream valley; but
elsewhere a man might travel for weeks as if in a perpetual twilight,
never once able to see the sun, through the interlacing twigs that
formed a dark canopy above his head.
This dense forest was to the Indians a home in which they had lived from
childhood, and where they were as much at ease as a farmer on his own
acres. To their keen eyes, trained for generations to more than a wild
beast's watchfulness, the wilderness was an open book; nothing at rest
or in motion escaped them. They had begun to track game as soon as they
could walk; a scrape on a tree trunk, a bruised leaf, a faint
indentation of the soil, which the eye of no white man could see, all
told them a tale as plainly as if it had been shouted in their ears.[14]
With moccasined feet they trod among brittle twigs, dried leaves, and
dead branches as silently as the cougar, and they equalled the great
wood-cat in stealth and far surpassed it in cunning and ferocity. They
could no more get lost in the trackless wilderness than a civilized man
could get lost on a highway. Moreover, no knight of the middle ages was
so surely protected by his armor as they were by their skill in hiding;
the whole forest was to the whites one vast ambush, and to them a sure
and ever-present shield. Every tree trunk was a breastwork ready
prepared for battle; every bush, every moss-covered boulder, was a
defence against assault, from behind which, themselves unseen, they
watched with fierce derision the movements of their clumsy white enemy.
Lurking, skulking, travelling with noiseless rapidity, they left a trail
that only a master in woodcraft could follow, while, on the other hand,
they could dog a white man's footsteps as a hound runs a fox. Their
silence, their cunning and stealth, their terrible prowess and merciless
cruelty, makes it no figure of speech to call them the tigers of the
human race.
Unlike the southern Indians, the villages of the northwestern tribes
were usually far from the frontier. Tireless, and careless of all
hardship, they came silently out of unknown forests, robbed and
murdered, and then disappeared again into the fathomless depths of the
woods. Half of the terror they caused was due to the extreme difficulty
of following them, and the absolute impossibility of forecasting their
attacks. Without warning, and unseen until the moment they dealt the
death stroke, they emerged from their forest fastnesses, the horror they
caused being heightened no less by the mystery that shrouded them than
by the dreadful nature of their ravages. Wrapped in the mantle of the
unknown, appalling by their craft, their ferocity, their fiendish
cruelty, they seemed to the white settlers devils and not men; no one
could say with certainty whence they came nor of what tribe they were;
and when they had finished their dreadful work they retired into a
wilderness that closed over their trail as the waves of the ocean close
in the wake of a ship.
They were trained to the use of arms from their youth up, and war and
hunting were their two chief occupations, the business as well as the
pleasure of their lives. They were not as skilful as the white hunters
with the rifle[15]--though more so than the average regular
soldier,--nor could they equal the frontiersman in feats of physical
prowess, such as boxing and wrestling; but their superior endurance and
the ease with which they stood fatigue and exposure made amends for
this. A white might outrun them for eight or ten miles; but on a long
journey they could tire out any man, and any beast except a wolf. Like
most barbarians they were fickle and inconstant, not to be relied on for
pushing through a long campaign, and after a great victory apt to go off
to their homes, because each man desired to secure his own plunder and
tell his own tale of glory. They are often spoken of as undisciplined;
but in reality their discipline in the battle itself was very high. They
attacked, retreated, rallied or repelled a charge at the signal of
command; and they were able to fight in open order in thick covers
without losing touch of each other--a feat that no European regiment was
then able to perform.
On their own ground they were far more formidable than the best European
troops. The British grenadiers throughout the eighteenth century showed
themselves superior, in the actual shock of battle, to any infantry of
continental Europe; if they ever met an over-match, it was when pitted
against the Scotch highlanders. Yet both grenadier and highlander, the
heroes of Minden, the heirs to the glory of Marlborough's campaigns, as
well as the sinewy soldiers who shared in the charges of Prestonpans and
Culloden, proved helpless when led against the dark tribesmen of the
forest. On the march they could not be trusted thirty yards from the
column without getting lost in the woods[16]--the mountain training of
the highlanders apparently standing them in no stead whatever,--and were
only able to get around at all when convoyed by backwoodsmen. In fight
they fared even worse. The British regulars at Braddock's battle, and
the highlanders at Grant's defeat a few years later, suffered the same
fate. Both battles were fair fights; neither was a surprise; yet the
stubborn valor of the red-coated grenadier and the headlong courage of
the kilted Scot proved of less than no avail. Not only were they utterly
routed and destroyed in each case by an inferior force of Indians (the
French taking little part in the conflict), but they were able to make
no effective resistance whatever; it is to this day doubtful whether
these superb regulars were able, in the battles where they were
destroyed, to so much as kill one Indian for every hundred of their own
men who fell. The provincials who were with the regulars were the only
troops who caused any loss to the foe; and this was true in but a less
degree of Bouquet's fight at Bushy Run. Here Bouquet, by a clever
stratagem, gained the victory over an enemy inferior in numbers to
himself; but only after a two days' struggle in which he suffered a
fourfold greater loss than he inflicted.[17]
When hemmed in so that they had no hope of escape, the Indians fought to
the death; but when a way of retreat was open they would not stand
cutting like British, French, or American regulars, and so, though with
a nearly equal force, would retire if they were suffering heavily, even
if they were causing their foes to suffer still more. This was not due
to lack of courage; it was their system, for they were few in numbers,
and they did not believe in losing their men.[18] The Wyandots were
exceptions to this rule, for with them it was a point of honor not to
yield, and so they were of all the tribes the most dangerous in an
actual pitched battle.[19]
But making the attack, as they usually did, with the expectation of
success, all were equally dangerous. If their foes were clustered
together in a huddle they attacked them without hesitation, no matter
what the difference in numbers, and shot them down as if they had been
elk or buffalo, they themselves being almost absolutely safe from harm,
as they flitted from cover to cover. It was this capacity for hiding, or
taking advantage of cover, that gave them their great superiority; and
it is because of this that the wood tribes were so much more formidable
foes in actual battle than the horse Indians of the plains afterwards
proved themselves. In dense woodland a body of regular soldiers are
almost as useless against Indians as they would be if at night they had
to fight foes who could see in the dark; it needs special and
long-continued training to fit them in any degree for wood-fighting
against such foes. Out on the plains the white hunter's skill with the
rifle and his cool resolution give him an immense advantage; a few
determined men can withstand a host of Indians in the open, although
helpless if they meet them in thick cover; and our defeats by the Sioux
and other plains tribes have generally taken the form of a small force
being overwhelmed by a large one.
Not only were the Indians very terrible in battle, but they were cruel
beyond all belief in victory; and the gloomy annals of border warfare
are stained with their darkest hues because it was a war in which
helpless women and children suffered the same hideous fate that so often
befell their husbands and fathers. It was a war waged by savages against
armed settlers, whose families followed them into the wilderness. Such a
war is inevitably bloody and cruel; but the inhuman love of cruelty for
cruelty's sake,[20] which marks the red Indian above all other savages,
rendered these wars more terrible than any others. For the hideous,
unnamable, unthinkable tortures practised by the red men on their
captured foes, and on their foes' tender women and helpless children,
were such as we read of in no other struggle, hardly even in the
revolting pages that tell the deeds of the Holy Inquisition. It was
inevitable--indeed it was in many instances proper--that such deeds
should awake in the breasts of the whites the grimmest, wildest spirit
of revenge and hatred.
The history of the border wars, both in the ways they were begun and in
the ways they were waged, make a long tale of injuries inflicted,
suffered, and mercilessly revenged. It could not be otherwise when
brutal, reckless, lawless borderers, despising all men not of their own
color, were thrown in contact with savages who esteemed cruelty and
treachery as the highest of virtues, and rapine and murder as the
worthiest of pursuits. Moreover, it was sadly inevitable that the
law-abiding borderer as well as the white ruffian, the peaceful Indian
as well as the painted marauder, should be plunged into the struggle to
suffer the punishment that should only have fallen on their evil-minded
fellows.
Looking back, it is easy to say that much of the wrong-doing could have
been prevented; but if we examine the facts to find out the truth, not
to establish a theory, we are bound to admit that the struggle was
really one that could not possibly have been avoided. The sentimental
historians speak as if the blame had been all ours, and the wrong all
done to our foes, and as if it would have been possible by any exercise
of wisdom to reconcile claims that were in their very essence
conflicting; but their utterances are as shallow as they are
untruthful.[21] Unless we were willing that the whole continent west of
the Alleghanies should remain an unpeopled waste, the hunting-ground of
savages, war was inevitable; and even had we been willing, and had we
refrained from encroaching on the Indians' lands, the war would have
come nevertheless, for then the Indians themselves would have encroached
on ours. Undoubtedly we have wronged many tribes; but equally
undoubtedly our first definite knowledge of many others has been derived
from their unprovoked outrages upon our people. The Chippewas, Ottawas,
and Pottawatamies furnished hundreds of young warriors to the parties
that devastated our frontiers generations before we in any way
encroached upon or wronged them.
Mere outrages could be atoned for or settled; the question which lay at
the root of our difficulties was that of the occupation of the land
itself, and to this there could be no solution save war. The Indians had
no ownership of the land in the way in which we understand the term. The
tribes lived far apart; each had for its hunting-grounds all the
territory from which it was not barred by rivals. Each looked with
jealousy upon all interlopers, but each was prompt to act as an
interloper when occasion offered. Every good hunting-ground was claimed
by many nations. It was rare, indeed, that any tribe had an uncontested
title to a large tract of land; where such title existed, it rested, not
on actual occupancy and cultivation, but on the recent butchery of
weaker rivals. For instance, there were a dozen tribes, all of whom
hunted in Kentucky, and fought each other there, all of whom had equally
good titles to the soil, and not one of whom acknowledged the right of
any other; as a matter of fact they had therein no right, save the right
of the strongest. The land no more belonged to them than it belonged to
Boon and the white hunters who first visited it.
On the borders there are perpetual complaints of the encroachments of
whites upon Indian lands; and naturally the central government at
Washington, and before it was at Washington, has usually been inclined
to sympathize with the feeling that considers the whites the aggressors,
for the government does not wish a war, does not itself feel any land
hunger, hears of not a tenth of the Indian outrages, and knows by
experience that the white borderers are not easy to rule. As a
consequence, the official reports of the people who are not on the
ground are apt to paint the Indian side in its most favorable light, and
are often completely untrustworthy, this being particularly the case if
the author of the report is an eastern man, utterly unacquainted with
the actual condition of affairs on the frontier.
Such a man, though both honest and intelligent, when he hears that the
whites have settled on Indian lands, cannot realize that the act has no
resemblance whatever to the forcible occupation of land already
cultivated. The white settler has merely moved into an uninhabited
waste; he does not feel that he is committing a wrong, for he knows
perfectly well that the land is really owned by no one. It is never even
visited, except perhaps for a week or two every year, and then the
visitors are likely at any moment to be driven off by a rival
hunting-party of greater strength. The settler ousts no one from the
land; if he did not chop down the trees, hew out the logs for a
building, and clear the ground for tillage, no one else would do so. He
drives out the game, however, and of course the Indians who live thereon
sink their mutual animosities and turn against the intruder. The truth
is, the Indians never had any real title to the soil; they had not half
as good a claim to it, for instance, as the cattlemen now have to all
eastern Montana, yet no one would assert that the cattlemen have a right
to keep immigrants off their vast unfenced ranges. The settler and
pioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continent
could not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalid
savages. Moreover, to the most oppressed Indian nations the whites often
acted as a protection, or, at least, they deferred instead of hastening
their fate. But for the interposition of the whites it is probable that
the Iroquois would have exterminated every Algonquin tribe before the
end of the eighteenth century; exactly as in recent time the Crows and
Pawnees would have been destroyed by the Sioux, had it not been for the
wars we have waged against the latter.
Again, the loose governmental system of the Indians made it as difficult
to secure a permanent peace with them as it was to negotiate the
purchase of the lands. The sachem, or hereditary peace chief, and the
elective war chief, who wielded only the influence that he could secure
by his personal prowess and his tact, were equally unable to control all
of their tribesmen, and were powerless with their confederated nations.
If peace was made with the Shawnees, the war was continued by the
Miamis; if peace was made with the latter, nevertheless perhaps one
small band was dissatisfied, and continued the contest on its own
account; and even if all the recognized bands were dealt with, the
parties of renegades or outlaws had to be considered; and in the last
resort the full recognition accorded by the Indians to the right of
private warfare, made it possible for any individual warrior who
possessed any influence to go on raiding and murdering unchecked. Every
tribe, every sub-tribe, every band of a dozen souls ruled over by a
petty chief, almost every individual warrior of the least importance,
had to be met and pacified. Even if peace were declared, the Indians
could not exist long without breaking it. There was to them no
temptation to trespass on the white man's ground for the purpose of
settling; but every young brave was brought up to regard scalps taken
and horses stolen, in war or peace, as the highest proofs and tokens of
skill and courage, the sure means of attaining glory and honor, the
admiration of men and the love of women. Where the young men thought
thus, and the chiefs had so little real control, it was inevitable that
there should be many unprovoked forays for scalps, slaves, and horses
made upon the white borderers.[22]
As for the whites themselves, they too have many and grievous sins
against their red neighbors for which to answer. They cannot be severely
blamed for trespassing upon what was called the Indian's land; for let
sentimentalists say what they will, the man who puts the soil to use
must of right dispossess the man who does not, or the world will come to
a standstill; but for many of their other deeds there can be no pardon.
On the border each man was a law unto himself, and good and bad alike
were left in perfect freedom to follow out to the uttermost limits their
own desires; for the spirit of individualism so characteristic of
American life reached its extreme of development in the back-woods. The
whites who wished peace, the magistrates and leaders, had little more
power over their evil and unruly fellows than the Indian sachems had
over the turbulent young braves. Each man did what seemed best in his
own eyes, almost without let or hindrance; unless, indeed, he trespassed
upon the rights of his neighbors, who were ready enough to band together
in their own defence, though slow to interfere in the affairs of others.
Thus the men of lawless, brutal spirit who are found in every community
and who flock to places where the reign of order is lax, were able to
follow the bent of their inclinations unchecked. They utterly despised
the red man; they held it no crime whatever to cheat him in trading, to
rob him of his peltries or horses, to murder him if the fit seized them.
Criminals who generally preyed on their own neighbors, found it easier,
and perhaps hardly as dangerous, to pursue their calling at the expense
of the redskins, for the latter, when they discovered that they had been
wronged, were quite as apt to vent their wrath on some outsider as on
the original offender. If they injured a white, all the whites might
make common cause against them; but if they injured a red man, though
there were sure to be plenty of whites who disapproved of it, there were
apt to be very few indeed whose disapproval took any active shape.
Each race stood by its own members, and each held all of the other race
responsible for the misdeeds of a few uncontrollable spirits; and this
clannishness among those of one color, and the refusal or the inability
to discriminate between the good and the bad of the other color were the
two most fruitful causes of border strife.[23] When, even if he sought
to prevent them, the innocent man was sure to suffer for the misdeeds of
the guilty, unless both joined together for defence, the former had no
alternative save to make common cause with the latter. Moreover, in a
sparse backwoods settlement, where the presence of a strong, vigorous
fighter was a source of safety to the whole community, it was impossible
to expect that he would be punished with severity for offences which, in
their hearts, his fellow townsmen could not help regarding as in some
sort a revenge for the injuries they had themselves suffered. Every
quiet, peaceable settler had either himself been grievously wronged, or
had been an eye-witness to wrongs done to his friends; and while these
were vivid in his mind, the corresponding wrongs done the Indians were
never brought home to him at all. If his son was scalped or his cattle
driven off, he could not be expected to remember that perhaps the
Indians who did the deed had themselves been cheated by a white trader,
or had lost a relative at the hands of some border ruffian, or felt
aggrieved because a hundred miles off some settler had built a cabin on
lands they considered their own. When he joined with other exasperated
and injured men to make a retaliatory inroad, his vengeance might or
might not fall on the heads of the real offenders; and, in any case, he
was often not in the frame of mind to put a stop to the outrages sure to
be committed by the brutal spirits among his allies--though these brutal
spirits were probably in a small minority.
The excesses so often committed by the whites, when, after many checks
and failures, they at last grasped victory, are causes for shame and
regret; yet it is only fair to keep in mind the terrible provocations
they had endured. Mercy, pity, magnanimity to the fallen, could not be
expected from the frontiersmen gathered together to war against an
Indian tribe. Almost every man of such a band had bitter personal wrongs
to avenge. He was not taking part in a war against a civilized foe; he
was fighting in a contest where women and children suffered the fate of
the strong men, and instead of enthusiasm for his country's flag and a
general national animosity towards its enemies, he was actuated by a
furious flame of hot anger, and was goaded on by memories of which
merely to think was madness. His friends had been treacherously slain
while on messages of peace; his house had been burned, his cattle driven
off, and all he had in the world destroyed before he knew that war
existed and when he felt quite guiltless of all offence; his sweetheart
or wife had been carried off, ravished, and was at the moment the slave
and concubine of some dirty and brutal Indian warrior; his son, the stay
of his house, had been burned at the stake with torments too horrible to
mention;[24] his sister, when ransomed and returned to him, had told of
the weary journey through the woods, when she carried around her neck as
a horrible necklace the bloody scalps of her husband and children;[25]
seared into his eyeballs, into his very brain, he bore ever with him,
waking or sleeping, the sight of the skinned, mutilated, hideous body of
the baby who had just grown old enough to recognize him and to crow and
laugh when taken in his arms. Such incidents as these were not
exceptional; one or more, and often all of them, were the invariable
attendants of every one of the countless Indian inroads that took place
during the long generations of forest warfare. It was small wonder that
men who had thus lost every thing should sometimes be fairly crazed by
their wrongs. Again and again on the frontier we hear of some such
unfortunate who has devoted all the remainder of his wretched life to
the one object of taking vengeance on the whole race of the men who had
darkened his days forever. Too often the squaws and pappooses fell
victims of the vengeance that should have come only on the warriors; for
the whites regarded their foes as beasts rather than men, and knew that
the squaws were more cruel than others in torturing the prisoner, and
that the very children took their full part therein, being held up by
their fathers to tomahawk the dying victims at the stake.[26]
Thus it is that there are so many dark and bloody pages in the book of
border warfare, that grim and iron-bound volume, wherein we read how our
forefathers won the wide lands that we inherit. It contains many a tale
of fierce heroism and adventurous ambition, of the daring and resolute
courage of men and the patient endurance of women; it shows us a stern
race of freemen who toiled hard, endured greatly, and fronted adversity
bravely, who prized strength and courage and good faith, whose wives
were chaste, who were generous and loyal to their friends. But it shows
us also how they spurned at restraint and fretted under it, how they
would brook no wrong to themselves, and yet too often inflicted wrong on
others; their feats of terrible prowess are interspersed with deeds of
the foulest and most wanton aggression, the darkest treachery, the most
revolting cruelty; and though we meet with plenty of the rough, strong,
coarse virtues, we see but little of such qualities as mercy for the
fallen, the weak, and the helpless, or pity for a gallant and vanquished
foe.
Among the Indians of the northwest, generally so much alike that we need
pay little heed to tribal distinctions, there was one body deserving
especial and separate mention. Among the turbulent and jarring elements
tossed into wild confusion by the shock of the contact between savages
and the rude vanguard of civilization, surrounded and threatened by the
painted warriors of the woods no less than by the lawless white riflemen
who lived on the stump-dotted clearings, there dwelt a group of peaceful
beings who were destined to suffer a dire fate in the most lamentable
and pitiable of all the tragedies which were played out in the heart of
this great wilderness. These were the Moravian Indians.[27] They were
mostly Delawares, and had been converted by the indefatigable German
missionaries, who taught the tranquil, Quaker-like creed of Count
Zinzendorf. The zeal and success of the missionaries were attested by
the marvellous change they had wrought in these converts; for they had
transformed them in one generation from a restless, idle, blood-thirsty
people of hunters and fishers, into an orderly, thrifty, industrious
folk, believing with all their hearts the Christian religion in the form
in which their teachers both preached and practised it. At first the
missionaries, surrounded by their Indian converts, dwelt in
Pennsylvania; but, harried and oppressed by their white neighbors, the
submissive and patient Moravians left their homes and their cherished
belongings, and in 1771 moved out into the wilderness northwest of the
Ohio. It is a bitter and unanswerable commentary on the workings of a
non-resistant creed when reduced to practice, that such outrages and
massacres as those committed on these helpless Indians were more
numerous and flagrant in the colony the Quakers governed than in any
other; their vaunted policy of peace, which forbade them to play a true
man's part and put down wrong-doing, caused the utmost possible evil to
fall both on the white man and the red. An avowed policy of force and
fraud carried out in the most cynical manner could hardly have worked
more terrible injustice; their system was a direct incentive to crime
and wrong-doing between the races, for they punished the aggressions of
neither, and hence allowed any blow to always fall heaviest on those
least deserving to suffer. No other colony made such futile,
contemptible efforts to deal with the Indian problem; no other colony
showed such supine, selfish helplessness in allowing her own border
citizens to be mercilessly harried; none other betrayed such inability
to master the hostile Indians, while, nevertheless, utterly failing to
protect those who were peaceful and friendly.
When the Moravians removed beyond the Ohio, they settled on the banks of
the Muskingum, made clearings in the forest, and built themselves little
towns, which they christened by such quaint names as Salem and
Gnadenhutten; names that were pathetic symbols of the peace which the
harmless and sadly submissive wanderers so vainly sought. Here, in the
forest, they worked and toiled, surrounded their clean, neatly kept
villages with orchards and grain-fields, bred horses and cattle, and
tried to do wrong to no man; all of each community meeting every day to
worship and praise their Creator. But the missionaries who had done so
much for them had also done one thing which more than offset it all: for
they had taught them not to defend themselves, and had thus exposed the
poor beings who trusted their teaching to certain destruction. No
greater wrong can ever be done than to put a good man at the mercy of a
bad, while telling him not to defend himself or his fellows; in no way
can the success of evil be made surer and quicker; but the wrong was
peculiarly great when at such a time and in such a place the defenceless
Indians were thrust between the anvil of their savage red brethren and
the hammer of the lawless and brutal white borderers. The awful harvest
which the poor converts reaped had in reality been sown for them by
their own friends and would-be benefactors.
So the Moravians, seeking to deal honestly with Indians and whites
alike, but in return suspected and despised by both, worked patiently
year in and year out, as they dwelt in their lonely homes, meekly
awaiting the stroke of the terrible doom which hung over them.
1. See papers by Stephen D. Peet, on the northwestern tribes, read
before the state Archaeological Society of Ohio, 1878.
2. Barton, xxv.
3. General W. H. Harrison, "Aborigines of the Ohio Valley." Old
"Tippecanoe" was the best possible authority for their courage.
4. "Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col. James Smith,"
etc., written by himself, Lexington, Ky., 1799. Smith is our best
contemporary authority on Indian warfare; he lived with them for several
years, and fought them in many campaigns. Besides several editions of
the above, he also published in 1812, at Paris, Ky., a "Treatise" on
Indian warfare, which holds much the same matter.
5. See Parkman's "Oregon Trail." In 1884 I myself met two Delawares
hunting alone, just north of the Black Hills. They were returning from a
trip to the Rocky Mountains. I could not but admire their strong, manly
forms, and the disdainful resolution with which they had hunted and
travelled for so many hundred miles, in defiance of the white
frontiersmen and of the wild native tribes as well. I think they were in
more danger from the latter than the former, but they seemed perfectly
confident of their ability to hold their own against both.
6. See Barton, the Madison MSS., Schoolcraft, Thos. Hutchins (who
accompanied Bouquet), Smythe, Pike, various reports of the U. S. Indian
Commissioners, etc, etc.
7. I base this number on a careful examination of the tribes named
above, discarding such of the northern bands of the Chippewas, for
instance, as were unlikely at that time to have been drawn into war with
us.
8. The expressions generally used by them in sending their war talks and
peace talks to one another or the whites. Hundreds of copies of these
"talks" are preserved at Washington.
9. _Do_.
10. Smith, "Remarkable Occurrences," etc., p. 154. Smith gives a very
impartial account of the Indian discipline and of their effectiveness,
and is one of the few men who warred against them who did not greatly
overestimate their numbers and losses. He was a successful Indian
fighter himself. For the British regulars he had the true backwoods
contempt, although having more than the average backwoods sense in
acknowledging their effectiveness in the open. He had lived so long
among the Indians, and estimated so highly their personal prowess, that
his opinion must be accepted with caution where dealing with matters of
discipline and command.
11. The accounts of the Indian numbers in any battle given by British or
Americans, soldiers or civilians, are ludicrously exaggerated as a rule;
even now it seems a common belief of historians that the whites were
generally outnumbered in battles, while in reality they were generally
much more numerous than their foes.
12. Harrison (_loc. cit._) calls them "the finest light troops in
the world"; and he had had full experience in serving with American and
against British infantry.
13. Any one who is fond of the chase can test the truth of this
proposition for himself, by trying how long it will take him to learn to
kill a bighorn on the mountains, and how long it will take him to learn
to kill white-tail deer in a dense forest, by fair still-hunting, the
game being equally plenty. I have known many novices learn to equal the
best old hunters, red or white, in killing mountain game; I have never
met one who could begin to do as well as an Indian in the dense forest,
unless brought up to it--and rarely even then. Yet, though woodcraft is
harder to learn, it does not imply the possession of such valuable
qualities as mountaineering; and when cragsman and woodman meet on
neutral ground, the former is apt to be the better man.
14. To this day the wild--not the half-tame--Indians remain unequalled
as trackers. Even among the old hunters not one white in a hundred can
come near them. In my experience I have known a very few whites who had
spent all their lives in the wilderness who equalled the Indian average;
but I never met any white who came up to the very best Indian. But,
because of their better shooting and their better nerve, the whites
often make the better hunters.
15. It is curious how to this day the wild Indians retain the same
traits. I have seen and taken part in many matches between frontiersmen
and the Sioux, Cheyennes, Grosventres, and Mandans, and the Indians were
beaten in almost every one. On the other hand the Indians will stand
fatigue, hunger, and privation better, but they seem more susceptible to
cold.
16. See Parkman's "Conspiracy of Pontiac"; also "Montcalm and Wolfe."
17. Bouquet, like so many of his predecessors and successors, greatly
exaggerated the numbers and loss of the Indians in this fight. Smith,
who derived his information both from the Indians and from the American
rangers, states that but eighteen Indians were killed at Bushy Run.
18. Most of the plains Indians feel in the same way at present. I was
once hunting with a Sioux half-breed who illustrated the Indian view of
the matter in a rather striking way, saying: "If there were a dozen of
you white hunters and you found six or eight bears in the brush, and you
knew you could go in and kill them all, but that in the fight you would
certainly lose three or four men yourselves, you wouldn't go in, would
you? You'd wait until you got a better chance, and could kill them
without so much risk. Well, Indians feel the same way about attacking
whites that you would feel about attacking those bears."
19. All the authorities from Smith to Harrison are unanimous on this
point.
20. Any one who has ever been in an encampment of wild Indians, and has
had the misfortune to witness the delight the children take in torturing
little animals, will admit that the Indian's love of cruelty for
cruelty's sake cannot possibly be exaggerated. The young are so trained
that when old they shall find their keenest pleasure in inflicting pain
in its most appalling form. Among the most brutal white borderers a man
would be instantly lynched if he practised on any creature the fiendish
torture which in an Indian camp either attracts no notice at all, or
else excites merely laughter.
21. See Appendix A.
22. Similarly the Crows, who have always been treated well by us, have
murdered and robbed any number of peaceful, unprotected travellers
during the past three decades, as I know personally.
23. It is precisely the same at the present day. I have known a party of
Sioux to steal the horses of a buffalo-hunting outfit, whereupon the
latter retaliated by stealing the horses of a party of harmless
Grosventres; and I knew a party of Cheyennes, whose horses had been
taken by white thieves, to, in revenge, assail a camp of perfectly
orderly cowboys. Most of the ranchmen along the Little Missouri in 1884,
were pretty good fellows, who would not wrong Indians, yet they
tolerated for a long time the presence of men who did not scruple to
boast that they stole horses from the latter; while our peaceful
neighbors, the Grosventres, likewise permitted two notorious red-skinned
horse thieves to use their reservation as a harbor of refuge, and a
starting-point from which to make forays against the cattlemen.
24. The expression "too horrible to mention" is to be taken literally,
not figuratively. It applies equally to the fate that has befallen every
white man or woman who has fallen into the power of hostile plains
Indians during the last ten or fifteen years. The nature of the wild
Indian has not changed. Not one man in a hundred, and not a single
woman, escapes torments which a civilized man cannot look another in the
face and so much as speak of. Impalement on charred stakes, finger-nails
split off backwards, finger-joints chewed off, eyes burned out--these
tortures can be mentioned, but there are others equally normal and
customary which cannot even be hinted at, especially when women are the
victims.
25. For the particular incident see M'Ferrin's "History of Methodism in
Tennessee," p. 145.
26. As was done to the father of Simon Girty. Any history of any Indian
inroad will give examples such as I have mentioned above. See McAfee
MSS., John P. Hale's "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers," De Haas' "Indian Wars,"
Wither's "Border War," etc. In one respect, however, the Indians east of
the Mississippi were better than the tribes of the plains from whom our
borders have suffered during the present century; their female captives
were not invariably ravished by every member of the band capturing them,
as has ever been the custom among the horse Indians. Still, they were
often made the concubines of their captors.
27. The missionaries called themselves United Brethren; to outsiders
they were known as Moravians. Loskiel, "History of the Mission of the
United Brethren," London, 1794. Heckewelder, "Narrative of the Mission
of the United Brethren," Phil., 1820.
CHAPTER V.
THE BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 1769-1774.
Along the western frontier of the colonies that were so soon to be the
United States, among the foothills of the Alleghanies, on the slopes of
the wooded mountains, and in the long trough-like valleys that lay
between the ranges, dwelt a peculiar and characteristically American
people.
These frontier folk, the people of the up-country, or back-country, who
lived near and among the forest-clad mountains, far away from the
long-settled districts of flat coast plain and sluggish tidal river,
were known to themselves and to others as backwoodsmen. They all bore a
strong likeness to one another in their habits of thought and ways of
living, and differed markedly from the people of the older and more
civilized communities to the eastward. The western border of our country
was then formed by the great barrier-chains of the Alleghanies, which
ran north and south from Pennsylvania through Maryland, Virginia, and
the Carolinas,[1] the trend of the valleys being parallel to the
sea-coast, and the mountains rising highest to the southward. It was
difficult to cross the ranges from east to west, but it was both easy
and natural to follow the valleys between. From Fort Pitt to the high
hill-homes of the Cherokees this great tract of wooded and mountainous
country possessed nearly the same features and characteristics,
differing utterly in physical aspect from the alluvial plains bordering
the ocean.
So, likewise, the backwoods mountaineers who dwelt near the great
watershed that separates the Atlantic streams from the springs of the
Watauga, the Kanawha, and the Monongahela were all cast in the same
mould, and resembled each other much more than any of them did their
immediate neighbors of the plains. The backwoodsmen of Pennsylvania had
little in common with the peaceful population of Quakers and Germans who
lived between the Delaware and the Susquehanna; and their near kinsmen
of the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains were separated by an
equally wide gulf from the aristocratic planter communities that
flourished in the tide-water regions of Virginia and the Carolinas. Near
the coast the lines of division between the colonies corresponded fairly
well with the differences between the populations; but after striking
the foothills, though the political boundaries continued to go east and
west, those both of ethnic and of physical significance began to run
north and south.
The backwoodsmen were Americans by birth and parentage, and of mixed
race; but the dominant strain in their blood was that of the
Presbyterian Irish--the Scotch-Irish as they were often called. Full
credit has been awarded the Roundhead and the Cavalier for their
leadership in our history; nor have we been altogether blind to the
deeds of the Hollander and the Huguenot; but it is doubtful if we have
wholly realized the importance of the part played by that stern and
virile people, the Irish whose preachers taught the creed of Knox and
Calvin. These Irish representatives of the Covenanters were in the west
almost what the Puritans were in the northeast, and more than the
Cavaliers were in the south. Mingled with the descendants of many other
races, they nevertheless formed the kernel of the distinctively and
intensely American stock who were the pioneers of our people in their
march westward, the vanguard of the army of fighting settlers, who with
axe and rifle won their way from the Alleghanies to the Rio Grande and
the Pacific.[2]
The Presbyterian Irish were themselves already a mixed people. Though
mainly descended from Scotch ancestors--who came originally from both
lowlands and highlands, from among both the Scotch Saxons and the Scotch
Celts,[3]--many of them were of English, a few of French Huguenot,[4]
and quite a number of true old Milesian Irish[5] extraction. They were
the Protestants of the Protestants; they detested and despised the
Catholics, whom their ancestors had conquered, and regarded the
Episcopalians by whom they themselves had been oppressed, with a more
sullen, but scarcely less intense, hatred.[6] They were a truculent and
obstinate people, and gloried in the warlike renown of their
forefathers, the men who had followed Cromwell, and who had shared in
the defence of Derry and in the victories of the Boyne and Aughrim.[7]
They did not begin to come to America in any numbers till after the
opening of the eighteenth century; by 1730 they were fairly swarming
across the ocean, for the most part in two streams, the larger going to
the port of Philadelphia, the smaller to the port of Charleston.[8]
Pushing through the long settled lowlands of the seacoast, they at once
made their abode at the foot of the mountains, and became the outposts
of civilization. From Pennsylvania, whither the great majority had come,
they drifted south along the foothills, and down the long valleys, till
they met their brethren from Charleston who had pushed up into the
Carolina back-country. In this land of hills, covered by unbroken
forest, they took root and flourished, stretching in a broad belt from
north to south, a shield of sinewy men thrust in between the people of
the seaboard and the red warriors of the wilderness. All through this
region they were alike; they had as little kinship with the Cavalier as
with the Quaker; the west was won by those who have been rightly called
the Roundheads of the south, the same men who, before any others,
declared for American independence.[9]
The two facts of most importance to remember in dealing with our pioneer
history are, first, that the western portions of Virginia and the
Carolinas were peopled by an entirely different stock from that which
had long existed in the tide-water regions of those colonies; and,
secondly, that, except for those in the Carolinas who came from
Charleston, the immigrants of this stock were mostly from the north,
from their great breeding-ground and nursery in western
Pennsylvania.[10]
That these Irish Presbyterians were a bold and hardy race is proved by
their at once pushing past the settled regions, and plunging into the
wilderness as the leaders of the white advance. They were the first and
last set of immigrants to do this; all others have merely followed in
the wake of their predecessors. But, indeed, they were fitted to be
Americans from the very start; they were kinsfolk of the Covenanters;
they deemed it a religious duty to interpret their own Bible, and held
for a divine right the election of their own clergy. For generations
their whole ecclesiastic and scholastic systems had been fundamentally
democratic. In the hard life of the frontier they lost much of their
religion, and they had but scant opportunity to give their children the
schooling in which they believed; but what few meeting-houses and
school-houses there were on the border were theirs.[11] The numerous
families of colonial English who came among them adopted their religion
if they adopted any. The creed of the backwoodsman who had a creed at
all was Presbyterianism; for the Episcopacy of the tide-water lands
obtained no foothold in the mountains, and the Methodists and Baptists
had but just begun to appear in the west when the Revolution broke
out.[12]
These Presbyterian Irish were, however, far from being the only settlers
on the border, although more than any others they impressed the stamp of
their peculiar character on the pioneer civilization of the west and
southwest. Great numbers of immigrants of English descent came among
them from the settled districts on the east; and though these later
arrivals soon became indistinguishable from the people among whom they
settled, yet they certainly sometimes added a tone of their own to
backwoods society, giving it here and there a slight dash of what we are
accustomed to consider the distinctively southern or cavalier
spirit.[13] There was likewise a large German admixture, not only from
the Germans of Pennsylvania, but also from those of the Carolinas.[14] A
good many Huguenots likewise came,[15] and a few Hollanders[16] and even
Swedes,[17] from the banks of the Delaware, or perhaps from farther off
still.
A single generation, passed under the hard conditions of life in the
wilderness, was enough to weld together into one people the
representatives of these numerous and widely different races; and the
children of the next generation became indistinguishable from one
another. Long before the first Continental Congress assembled, the
backwoodsmen, whatever their blood, had become Americans, one in speech,
thought, and character, clutching firmly the land in which their fathers
and grandfathers had lived before them. They had lost all remembrance of
Europe and all sympathy with things European; they had become as
emphatically products native to the soil as were the tough and supple
hickories out of which they fashioned the handles of their long, light
axes. Their grim, harsh, narrow lives were yet strangely fascinating and
full of adventurous toil and danger; none but natures as strong, as
freedom-loving, and as full of bold defiance as theirs could have
endured existence on the terms which these men found pleasurable. Their
iron surroundings made a mould which turned out all alike in the same
shape. They resembled one another, and they differed from the rest of
the world--even the world of America, and infinitely more the world of
Europe--in dress, in customs, and in mode of life.
Where their lands abutted on the more settled districts to the eastward,
the population was of course thickest, and their peculiarities least.
Here and there at such points they built small backwoods burgs or towns,
rude, straggling, unkempt villages, with a store or two, a
tavern,--sometimes good, often a "scandalous hog-sty," where travellers
were devoured by fleas, and every one slept and ate in one room,[18]--a
small log school-house, and a little church, presided over by a
hard-featured Presbyterian preacher, gloomy, earnest, and zealous,
probably bigoted and narrow-minded, but nevertheless a great power for
good in the community.[19]
However, the backwoodsmen as a class neither built towns nor loved to
dwell therein. They were to be seen at their best in the vast,
interminable forests that formed their chosen home. They won and kept
their lands by force, and ever lived either at war or in dread of war.
Hence they settled always in groups of several families each, all banded
together for mutual protection. Their red foes were strong and terrible,
cunning in council, dreadful in battle, merciless beyond belief in
victory. The men of the border did not overcome and dispossess cowards
and weaklings; they marched forth to spoil the stout-hearted and to take
for a prey the possessions of the men of might. Every acre, every rood
of ground which they claimed had to be cleared by the axe and held with
the rifle. Not only was the chopping down of the forest the first
preliminary to cultivation, but it was also the surest means of subduing
the Indians, to whom the unending stretches of choked woodland were an
impenetrable cover behind which to move unseen, a shield in making
assaults, and a strong tower of defence in repelling counter-attacks. In
the conquest of the west the backwoods axe, shapely, well-poised, with
long haft and light head, was a servant hardly standing second even to
the rifle; the two were the national weapons of the American
backwoodsman, and in their use he has never been excelled.
When a group of families moved out into the wilderness they built
themselves a station or stockade fort; a square palisade of upright
logs, loop-holed, with strong blockhouses as bastions at the corners.
One side at least was generally formed by the backs of the cabins
themselves, all standing in a row; and there was a great door or gate,
that could be strongly barred in case of need. Often no iron whatever
was employed in any of the buildings. The square inside contained the
provision sheds and frequently a strong central blockhouse as well.
These forts, of course, could not stand against cannon, and they were
always in danger when attacked with fire; but save for this risk of
burning they were very effectual defences against men without artillery,
and were rarely taken, whether by whites or Indians, except by surprise.
Few other buildings have played so important a part in our history as
the rough stockade fort of the backwoods.
The families only lived in the fort when there was war with the Indians,
and even then not in the winter. At other times they all separated out
to their own farms, universally called clearings, as they were always
made by first cutting off the timber. The stumps were left to dot the
fields of grain and Indian corn. The corn in especial was the stand-by
and invariable resource of the western settler; it was the crop on which
he relied to feed his family, and when hunting or on a war trail the
parched grains were carried in his leather wallet to serve often as his
only food. But he planted orchards and raised melons, potatoes, and many
other fruits and vegetables as well; and he had usually a horse or two,
cows, and perhaps hogs and sheep, if the wolves and bears did not
interfere. If he was poor his cabin was made of unhewn logs, and held
but a single room; if well-to-do, the logs were neatly hewed, and
besides the large living- and eating-room with its huge stone fireplace,
there was also a small bedroom and a kitchen, while a ladder led to the
loft above, in which the boys slept. The floor was made of puncheons,
great slabs of wood hewed carefully out, and the roof of clapboards.
Pegs of wood were thrust into the sides of the house, to serve instead
of a wardrobe; and buck antlers, thrust into joists, held the ever-ready
rifles. The table was a great clapboard set on four wooden legs; there
were three-legged stools, and in the better sort of houses old-fashioned
rocking-chairs.[20] The couch or bed was warmly covered with blankets,
bear-skins, and deer-hides.[21]
These clearings lay far apart from one another in the wilderness. Up to
the door-sills of the log-huts stretched the solemn and mysterious
forest. There were no openings to break its continuity; nothing but
endless leagues on leagues of shadowy, wolf-haunted woodland. The great
trees towered aloft till their separate heads were lost in the mass of
foliage above, and the rank underbrush choked the spaces between the
trunks. On the higher peaks and ridge-crests of the mountains there were
straggling birches and pines, hemlocks and balsam firs;[22] elsewhere,
oaks, chestnuts, hickories, maples, beeches, walnuts, and great tulip
trees grew side by side with many other kinds. The sunlight could not
penetrate the roofed archway of murmuring leaves; through the gray
aisles of the forest men walked always in a kind of mid-day gloaming.
Those who had lived in the open plains felt when they came to the
backwoods as if their heads were hooded. Save on the border of a lake,
from a cliff top, or on a bald knob--that is, a bare hill-shoulder,--they
could not anywhere look out for any distance.
All the land was shrouded in one vast forest. It covered the mountains
from crest to river-bed, filled the plains, and stretched in sombre and
melancholy wastes towards the Mississippi. All that it contained, all
that lay hid within it and beyond it, none could tell; men only knew
that their boldest hunters, however deeply they had penetrated, had not
yet gone through it, that it was the home of the game they followed and
the wild beasts that preyed on their flocks, and that deep in its
tangled depths lurked their red foes, hawk-eyed and wolf-hearted.
Backwoods society was simple, and the duties and rights of each member
of the family were plain and clear. The man was the armed protector and
provider, the bread-winner; the woman was the housewife and
child-bearer. They married young and their families were large, for they
were strong and healthy, and their success in life depended on their own
stout arms and willing hearts. There was everywhere great equality of
conditions. Land was plenty and all else scarce; so courage, thrift, and
industry were sure of their reward. All had small farms, with the few
stock necessary to cultivate them; the farms being generally placed in
the hollows, the division lines between them, if they were close
together, being the tops of the ridges and the watercourses, especially
the former. The buildings of each farm were usually at its lowest point,
as if in the centre of an amphitheatre.[23] Each was on an average of
about 400 acres,[24] but sometimes more.[25] Tracts of low, swampy
grounds, possibly some miles from the cabin, were cleared for meadows,
the fodder being stacked, and hauled home in winter.
Each backwoodsman was not only a small farmer but also a hunter; for his
wife and children depended for their meat upon the venison and bear's
flesh procured by his rifle. The people were restless and always on the
move. After being a little while in a place, some of the men would
settle down permanently, while others would again drift off, farming and
hunting alternately to support their families.[26] The backwoodsman's
dress was in great part borrowed from his Indian foes. He wore a fur cap
or felt hat, moccasins, and either loose, thin trousers, or else simply
leggings of buckskin or elk-hide, and the Indian breech-clout. He was
always clad in the fringed hunting-shirt, of homespun or buckskin, the
most picturesque and distinctively national dress ever worn in America.
It was a loose smock or tunic, reaching nearly to the knees, and held in
at the waist by a broad belt, from which hung the tomahawk and
scalping-knife.[27] His weapon was the long, small-bore, flint-lock
rifle, clumsy, and ill-balanced, but exceedingly accurate. It was very
heavy, and when upright, reached to the chin of a tall man; for the
barrel of thick, soft iron, was four feet in length, while the stock was
short, and the butt scooped out. Sometimes it was plain, sometimes
ornamented. It was generally bored out--or, as the expression then was,
"sawed out"--to carry a ball of seventy, more rarely of thirty or forty,
to the pound; and was usually of backwoods manufacture.[28] The marksman
almost always fired from a rest, and rarely at a very long range; and
the shooting was marvellously accurate.[29]
In the backwoods there was very little money; barter was the common form
of exchange, and peltries were often used as a circulating medium, a
beaver, otter, fisher, dressed buckskin or large bearskin being reckoned
as equal to two foxes or wildcats, four coons, or eight minks.[30] A
young man inherited nothing from his father but his strong frame and
eager heart; but before him lay a whole continent wherein to pitch his
farm, and he felt ready to marry as soon as he became of age, even
though he had nothing but his clothes, his horses, his axe, and his
rifle.[31] If a girl was well off, and had been careful and industrious,
she might herself bring a dowry, of a cow and a calf, a brood mare, a
bed well stocked with blankets, and a chest containing her
clothes[32]--the latter not very elaborate, for a woman's dress
consisted of a hat or poke bonnet, a "bed gown," perhaps a jacket, and a
linsey petticoat, while her feet were thrust into coarse shoepacks or
moccasins. Fine clothes were rare; a suit of such cost more than 200
acres of good land.[33]
The first lesson the backwoodsmen learnt was the necessity of self-help;
the next, that such a community could only thrive if all joined in
helping one another. Log-rollings, house-raisings, house-warmings,
corn-shuckings, quiltings, and the like were occasions when all the
neighbors came together to do what the family itself could hardly
accomplish alone. Every such meeting was the occasion of a frolic and
dance for the young people, whisky and rum being plentiful, and the host
exerting his utmost power to spread the table with backwoods
delicacies--bear-meat and venison, vegetables from the "truck patch,"
where squashes, melons, beans, and the like were grown, wild fruits,
bowls of milk, and apple pies, which were the acknowledged standard of
luxury. At the better houses there was metheglin or small beer, cider,
cheese, and biscuits.[34] Tea was so little known that many of the
backwoods people were not aware it was a beverage and at first attempted
to eat the leaves with salt or butter.[35]
The young men prided themselves on their bodily strength, and were
always eager to contend against one another in athletic games, such as
wrestling, racing, jumping, and lifting flour-barrels; and they also
sought distinction in vieing with one another at their work. Sometimes
they strove against one another singly, sometimes they divided into
parties, each bending all its energies to be first in shucking a given
heap of corn or cutting (with sickles) an allotted patch of wheat. Among
the men the bravos or bullies often were dandies also in the backwoods
fashions, wearing their hair long and delighting in the rude finery of
hunting-shirts embroidered with porcupine quills; they were loud,
boastful, and profane, given to coarsely bantering one another. Brutally
savage fights were frequent; the combatants, who were surrounded by
rings of interested spectators, striking, kicking, biting, and gouging.
The fall of one of them did not stop the fight, for the man who was down
was maltreated without mercy until he called "enough." The victor always
bragged savagely of his prowess, often leaping on a stump, crowing and
flapping his arms. This last was a thoroughly American touch; but
otherwise one of these contests was less a boxing match than a kind of
backwoods _pankration,_ no less revolting than its ancient
prototype of Olympic fame. Yet, if the uncouth borderers were as brutal
as the highly polished Greeks, they were more manly; defeat was not
necessarily considered disgrace, a man often fighting when he was
certain to be beaten, while the onlookers neither hooted nor pelted the
conquered. We first hear of the noted scout and Indian fighter, Simon
Kenton, as leaving a rival for dead after one of these ferocious duels,
and fleeing from his home in terror of the punishment that might follow
the deed.[36] Such fights were specially frequent when the backwoodsmen
went into the little frontier towns to see horse races or fairs.
A wedding was always a time of festival. If there was a church anywhere
near, the bride rode thither on horseback behind her father, and after
the service her pillion was shifted to the bridegroom's steed.[37] If,
as generally happened, there was no church, the groom and his friends,
all armed, rode to the house of the bride's father, plenty of whisky
being drunk, and the men racing recklessly along the narrow
bridle-paths, for there were few roads or wheeled vehicles in the
backwoods. At the bride's house the ceremony was performed, and then a
huge dinner was eaten, after which the fiddling and dancing began, and
were continued all the afternoon, and most of the night as well. A party
of girls stole off the bride and put her to bed in the loft above; and a
party of young men then performed the like service for the groom. The
fun was hearty and coarse, and the toasts always included one to the
young couple, with the wish that they might have many big children; for
as long as they could remember the backwoodsmen had lived at war, while
looking ahead they saw no chance of its ever stopping, and so each son
was regarded as a future warrior, a help to the whole community.[38] The
neighbors all joined again in chopping and rolling the logs for the
young couple's future house, then in raising the house itself, and
finally in feasting and dancing at the house-warming.
Funerals were simple, the dead body being carried to the grave in a
coffin slung on poles and borne by four men.
There was not much schooling, and few boys or girls learnt much more
than reading, writing, and ciphering up to the rule of three.[39] Where
the school-houses existed they were only dark, mean log-huts, and if in
the southern colonies, were generally placed in the so-called "old
fields," or abandoned farms grown up with pines. The schoolmaster
boarded about with the families; his learning was rarely great, nor was
his discipline good, in spite of the frequency and severity of the
canings. The price for such tuition was at the rate of twenty shillings
a year, in Pennsylvania currency.[40]
Each family did every thing that could be done for itself. The father
and sons worked with axe, hoe, and sickle. Almost every house contained
a loom, and almost every woman was a weaver. Linsey-woolsey, made from
flax grown near the cabin, and of wool from the backs of the few sheep,
was the warmest and most substantial cloth; and when the flax crop
failed and the flocks were destroyed by wolves, the children had but
scanty covering to hide their nakedness. The man tanned the buckskin,
the woman was tailor and shoemaker, and made the deerskin sifters to be
used instead of bolting-cloths. There were a few pewter spoons in use;
but the table furniture consisted mainly of hand-made trenchers,
platters, noggins, and bowls. The cradle was of peeled hickory bark.[41]
Ploughshares had to be imported, but harrows and sleds were made without
difficulty; and the cooper work was well done. Chaff beds were thrown on
the floor of the loft, if the house-owner was well off. Each cabin had a
hand-mill and a hominy block; the last was borrowed from the Indians,
and was only a large block of wood, with a hole burned in the top, as a
mortar, where the pestle was worked. If there were any sugar maples
accessible, they were tapped every year.
But some articles, especially salt and iron, could not be produced in
the backwoods. In order to get them each family collected during the
year all the furs possible, these being valuable and yet easily carried
on pack-horses, the sole means of transport. Then, after seeding time,
in the fall, the people of a neighborhood ordinarily joined in sending
down a train of peltry-laden pack-horses to some large sea-coast or
tidal-river trading town, where their burdens were bartered for the
needed iron and salt. The unshod horses all had bells hung round their
neck; the clappers were stopped during the day, but when the train was
halted for the night, and the horses were hobbled and turned loose, the
bells were once more unstopped.[42] Several men accompanied each little
caravan, and sometimes they drove with them steers and hogs to sell on
the sea-coast. A bushel of alum salt was worth a good cow and calf, and
as each of the poorly fed, undersized pack animals could carry but two
bushels, the mountaineers prized it greatly, and instead of salting or
pickling their venison, they jerked it, by drying it in the sun or
smoking it over a fire.
The life of the backwoodsmen was one long struggle. The forest had to be
felled, droughts, deep snows, freshets, cloudbursts, forest fires, and
all the other dangers of a wilderness life faced. Swarms of deer-flies,
mosquitoes, and midges rendered life a torment in the weeks of hot
weather. Rattlesnakes and copperheads were very plentiful, and, the
former especially, constant sources of danger and death. Wolves and
bears were incessant and inveterate foes of the live stock, and the
cougar or panther occasionally attacked man as well.[43] More terrible
still, the wolves sometimes went mad, and the men who then encountered
them were almost certain to be bitten and to die of hydrophobia.[44]
Every true backwoodsman was a hunter. Wild turkeys were plentiful. The
pigeons at times filled the woods with clouds that hid the sun and broke
down the branches on their roosting grounds as if a whirlwind had
passed. The black and gray squirrels swarmed, devastating the
corn-fields, and at times gathering in immense companies and migrating
across mountain and river. The hunter's ordinary game was the deer, and
after that the bear; the elk was already growing uncommon. No form of
labor is harder than the chase, and none is so fascinating nor so
excellent as a training-school for war. The successful still-hunter of
necessity possessed skill in hiding and in creeping noiselessly upon the
wary quarry, as well as in imitating the notes and calls of the
different beasts and birds; skill in the use of the rifle and in
throwing the tomahawk he already had; and he perforce acquired keenness
of eye, thorough acquaintance with woodcraft, and the power of standing
the severest strains of fatigue, hardship and exposure. He lived out in
the woods for many months with no food but meat, and no shelter
whatever, unless he made a lean-to of brush or crawled into a hollow
sycamore.
Such training stood the frontier folk in good stead when they were
pitted against the Indians; without it they could not even have held
their own, and the white advance would have been absolutely checked. Our
frontiers were pushed westward by the warlike skill and adventurous
personal prowess of the individual settlers; regular armies by
themselves could have done little. For one square mile the regular
armies added to our domain, the settlers added ten,--a hundred would
probably be nearer the truth. A race of peaceful, unwarlike farmers
would have been helpless before such foes as the red Indians, and no
auxiliary military force could have protected them or enabled them to
move westward. Colonists fresh from the old world, no matter how
thrifty, steady-going, and industrious, could not hold their own on the
frontier; they had to settle where they were protected from the Indians
by a living barrier of bold and self-reliant American borderers.[45] The
west would never have been settled save for the fierce courage and the
eager desire to brave danger so characteristic of the stalwart
backwoodsmen.
These armed hunters, woodchoppers, and farmers were their own soldiers.
They built and manned their own forts; they did their own fighting under
their own commanders. There were no regiments of regular troops along
the frontier.[46] In the event of an Indian inroad each borderer had to
defend himself until there was time for them all to gather together to
repel or avenge it. Every man was accustomed to the use of arms from his
childhood; when a boy was twelve years old he was given a rifle and made
a fort-soldier, with a loophole where he was to stand if the station was
attacked. The war was never-ending, for even the times of so-called
peace were broken by forays and murders; a man might grow from babyhood
to middle age on the border, and yet never remember a year in which some
one of his neighbors did not fall a victim to the Indians.
There was everywhere a rude military organization, which included all
the able-bodied men of the community. Every settlement had its colonels
and captains; but these officers, both in their training and in the
authority they exercised, corresponded much more nearly to Indian chiefs
than to the regular army men whose titles they bore. They had no means
whatever of enforcing their orders, and their tumultuous and disorderly
levies of sinewy riflemen were hardly as well disciplined as the Indians
themselves.[47] The superior officer could advise, entreat, lead, and
influence his men, but he could not command them, or, if he did, the men
obeyed him only just so far as it suited them. If an officer planned a
scout or campaign, those who thought proper accompanied him, and the
others stayed at home, and even those who went out came back if the fit
seized them, or perchance followed the lead of an insubordinate junior
officer whom they liked better than they did his superior.[48] There was
no compulsion to perform military duties beyond dread of being disgraced
in the eyes of the neighbors, and there was no pecuniary reward for
performing them; nevertheless the moral sentiment of a backwoods
community was too robust to tolerate habitual remissness in military
affairs, and the coward and laggard were treated with utter scorn, and
were generally in the end either laughed out, or "hated out," of the
neighborhood, or else got rid of in a still more summary manner. Among a
people naturally brave and reckless, this public opinion acted fairly
effectively, and there was generally but little shrinking from military
service.[49]
A backwoods levy was formidable because of the high average courage and
prowess of the individuals composing it; it was on its own ground much
more effective than a like force of regular soldiers, but of course it
could not be trusted on a long campaign. The backwoodsmen used their
rifles better than the Indians, and also stood punishment better, but
they never matched them in surprises nor in skill in taking advantage of
cover, and very rarely equalled their discipline in the battle itself.
After all, the pioneer was primarily a husbandman; the time spent in
chopping trees and tilling the soil his foe spent in preparing for or
practising forest warfare, and so the former, thanks to the exercise of
the very qualities which in the end gave him the possession of the soil,
could not, as a rule, hope to rival his antagonist in the actual
conflict itself. When large bodies of the red men and white borderers
were pitted against each other, the former were if any thing the more
likely to have the advantage.[50] But the whites soon copied from the
Indians their system of individual and private warfare, and they
probably caused their foes far more damage and loss in this way than in
the large expeditions. Many noted border scouts and Indian
fighters--such men as Boon, Kenton, Wetzel, Brady, McCulloch,
Mansker[51]--grew to overmatch their Indian foes at their own game, and
held themselves above the most renowned warriors. But these men carried
the spirit of defiant self-reliance to such an extreme that their best
work was always done when they were alone or in small parties of but
four or five. They made long forays after scalps and horses, going a
wonderful distance, enduring extreme hardship, risking the most terrible
of deaths, and harrying the hostile tribes into a madness of terror and
revengeful hatred.
As it was in military matters, so it was with the administration of
justice by the frontiersmen; they had few courts, and knew but little
law, and yet they contrived to preserve order and morality with rough
effectiveness, by combining to frown down on the grosser misdeeds, and
to punish the more flagrant misdoers. Perhaps the spirit in which they
acted can be best shown by the recital of an incident in the career of
the three McAfee brothers, who were among the pioneer hunters of
Kentucky.[52] Previous to trying to move their families out to the new
country, they made a cache of clothing, implements, and provisions,
which in their absence was broken into and plundered. They caught the
thief, "a little diminutive, red-headed white man," a runaway convict
servant from one of the tide-water counties of Virginia. In the first
impulse of anger at finding that he was the criminal, one of the McAfees
rushed at him to kill him with his tomahawk; but the weapon turned, the
man was only knocked down, and his assailant's gusty anger subsided as
quickly as it had risen, giving way to a desire to do stern but fair
justice. So the three captors formed themselves into a court, examined
into the case, heard the man in his own defence, and after due
consultation decided that "according to their opinion of the laws he had
forfeited his life, and ought to be hung"; but none of them were willing
to execute the sentence in cold blood, and they ended by taking their
prisoner back to his master.
The incident was characteristic in more than one way. The prompt desire
of the backwoodsman to avenge his own wrong; his momentary furious
anger, speedily quelled and replaced by a dogged determination to be
fair but to exact full retribution; the acting entirely without regard
to legal forms or legal officials, but yet in a spirit which spoke well
for the doer's determination to uphold the essentials that make honest
men law-abiding; together with the good faith of the whole proceeding,
and the amusing ignorance that it would have been in the least unlawful
to execute their own rather harsh sentence--all these were typical
frontier traits. Some of the same traits appear in the treatment
commonly adopted in the backwoods to meet the case--of painfully
frequent occurrence in the times of Indian wars--where a man taken
prisoner by the savages, and supposed to be murdered, returned after two
or three years' captivity, only to find his wife married again. In the
wilderness a husband was almost a necessity to a woman; her surroundings
made the loss of the protector and provider an appalling calamity; and
the widow, no matter how sincere her sorrow, soon remarried--for there
were many suitors where women were not over-plenty. If in such a case
the one thought dead returned, the neighbors and the parties interested
seem frequently to have held a sort of informal court, and to have
decided that the woman should choose either of the two men she wished to
be her husband, the other being pledged to submit to the decision and
leave the settlement. Evidently no one had the least idea that there was
any legal irregularity in such proceedings.[53]
The McAfees themselves and the escaped convict servant whom they
captured typify the two prominent classes of the backwoods people. The
frontier, in spite of the outward uniformity of means and manners, is
preeminently the place of sharp contrasts. The two extremes of society,
the strongest, best, and most adventurous, and the weakest, most
shiftless, and vicious, are those which seem naturally to drift to the
border. Most of the men who came to the backwoods to hew out homes and
rear families were stern, manly, and honest; but there was also a large
influx of people drawn from the worst immigrants that perhaps ever were
brought to America--the mass of convict servants, redemptioners, and the
like, who formed such an excessively undesirable substratum to the
otherwise excellent population of the tide-water regions in Virginia and
the Carolinas.[54] Many of the southern crackers or poor whites spring
from this class, which also in the backwoods gave birth to generations
of violent and hardened criminals, and to an even greater number of
shiftless, lazy, cowardly cumberers of the earth's surface. They had in
many places a permanently bad effect upon the tone of the whole
community.
Moreover, the influence of heredity was no more plainly perceptible than
was the extent of individual variation. If a member of a bad family
wished to reform, he had every opportunity to do so; if a member of a
good family had vicious propensities, there was nothing to check them.
All qualities, good and bad, are intensified and accentuated in the life
of the wilderness. The man who in civilization is merely sullen and
bad-tempered becomes a murderous, treacherous ruffian when transplanted
to the wilds; while, on the other hand, his cheery, quiet neighbor
develops into a hero, ready uncomplainingly to lay down his life for his
friend. One who in an eastern city is merely a backbiter and slanderer,
in the western woods lies in wait for his foe with a rifle; sharp
practice in the east becomes highway robbery in the west; but at the
same time negative good-nature becomes active self-sacrifice, and a
general belief in virtue is translated into a prompt and determined war
upon vice. The ne'er-do-well of a family who in one place has his debts
paid a couple of times and is then forced to resign from his clubs and
lead a cloudy but innocuous existence on a small pension, in the other
abruptly finishes his career by being hung for horse-stealing.
In the backwoods the lawless led lives of abandoned wickedness; they
hated good for good's sake, and did their utmost to destroy it. Where
the bad element was large, gangs of horse thieves, highwaymen, and other
criminals often united with the uncontrollable young men of vicious
tastes who were given to gambling, fighting, and the like. They then
formed half-secret organizations, often of great extent and with wide
ramifications; and if they could control a community they established a
reign of terror, driving out both ministers and magistrates, and killing
without scruple those who interfered with them. The good men in such a
case banded themselves together as regulators and put down the wicked
with ruthless severity, by the exercise of lynch law, shooting and
hanging the worst off-hand.[55]
Jails were scarce in the wilderness, and often were entirely wanting in
a district, which, indeed, was quite likely to lack legal officers also.
If punishment was inflicted at all it was apt to be severe, and took the
form of death or whipping. An impromptu jury of neighbors decided with a
rough and ready sense of fair play and justice what punishment the crime
demanded, and then saw to the execution of their own decree. Whipping
was the usual reward of theft. Occasionally torture was resorted to, but
not often; and to their honor be it said, the backwoodsmen were
horrified at the treatment accorded both to black slaves and to white
convict servants in the lowlands.[56]
They were superstitious, of course, believing in witchcraft, and signs
and omens; and it may be noted that their superstition showed a singular
mixture of old-world survivals and of practices borrowed from the
savages or evolved by the very force of their strange surroundings. At
the bottom they were deeply religious in their tendencies; and although
ministers and meeting-houses were rare, yet the backwoods cabins often
contained Bibles, and the mothers used to instil into the minds of their
children reverence for Sunday,[57] while many even of the hunters
refused to hunt on that day.[58] Those of them who knew the right
honestly tried to live up to it, in spite of the manifold temptations to
backsliding offered by their lives of hard and fierce contention.[59]
But Calvinism, though more congenial to them than Episcopacy, and
infinitely more so than Catholicism, was too cold for the fiery hearts
of the borderers; they were not stirred to the depths of their natures
till other creeds, and, above all, Methodism, worked their way to the
wilderness.
Thus the backwoodsmen lived on the clearings they had hewed out of the
everlasting forest; a grim, stern people, strong and simple, powerful
for good and evil, swayed by gusts of stormy passion, the love of
freedom rooted in their very hearts' core. Their lives were harsh and
narrow; they gained their bread by their blood and sweat, in the
unending struggle with the wild ruggedness of nature. They suffered
terrible injuries at the hands of the red men, and on their foes they
waged a terrible warfare in return. They were relentless, revengeful,
suspicious, knowing neither ruth nor pity; they were also upright,
resolute, and fearless, loyal to their friends, and devoted to their
country. In spite of their many failings, they were of all men the best
fitted to conquer the wilderness and hold it against all comers.
1. Georgia was then too weak and small to contribute much to the
backwoods stock; her frontier was still in the low country.
2. Among the dozen or so most prominent backwoods pioneers of the west
and southwest, the men who were the leaders in exploring and settling
the lands, and in fighting the Indians, British, and Mexicans, the
Presbyterian Irish stock furnished Andrew Jackson, Samuel Houston, David
Crockett, James Robertson; Lewis, the leader of the backwoods hosts in
their first great victory over the northwestern Indians; and Campbell,
their commander in their first great victory over the British. The other
pioneers who stand beside the above were such men as Sevier, a
Shenandoah Huguenot; Shelby, of Welsh blood; and Boon and Clark, both of
English stock, the former from Pennsylvania, the latter from Virginia.
3. Of course, generations before they ever came to America, the McAfees,
McClungs, Campbells, McCoshes, etc., had become indistinguishable from
the Todds, Armstrongs, Elliotts, and the like.
4. A notable instance being that of the Lewis family, of Great Kanawha
fame.
5. The Blount MSS. contain many muster-rolls and pay-rolls of the
frontier forces of North Carolina during the year 1788. In these, and in
the lists of names of settlers preserved in the Am. State Papers, Public
Lands, II., etc., we find numerous names such as Shea, Drennan, O'Neil,
O'Brien, Mahoney, Sullivan, O'Connell, Maguire, O'Donohue,--in fact
hardly a single Irish name is unrepresented. Of course, many of these
were the descendants of imported Irish bondservants; but many also were
free immigrants, belonging to the Presbyterian congregations, and
sometimes appearing as pastors thereof. For the numerous Irish names of
prominent pioneers (such as Donelly, Hogan, etc.) see McClung's "Western
Adventures" (Louisville, 1879), 52, 167, 207, 308, etc.; also DeHaas,
236, 289, etc.; Doddridge, 16, 288, 301, etc., etc.
6. "Sketches of North Carolina," William Henry Foote, New York, 1846. An
excellent book, written after much research.
7. For a few among many instances: Houston (see Lane's "Life of
Houston") had ancestors at Derry and Aughrim; the McAfees (see McAfee
MSS.) and Irvine, one of the commanders on Crawford's expedition, were
descendants of men who fought at the Boyne ("Crawford's Campaign," G. W.
Butterfield, Cincinnati, 1873, p. 26); so with Lewis, Campbell, etc.
8. Foote, 78.
9. Witness the Mecklenburg Declaration.
10. McAfee MSS. "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers" (John P. Hale), 17. Foote,
188. See also _Columbian Magazine_, I., 122, and Schopf, 406. Boon,
Crockett, Houston, Campbell, Lewis, were among the southwestern pioneers
whose families originally came from Pennsylvania. See "Annals of Augusta
County, Va.," by Joseph A. Waddell, Richmond, 1888 (an excellent book),
pp. 4, 276, 279, for a clear showing of the Presbyterian Irish origin of
the West Virginians, and of the large German admixture.
11. The Irish schoolmaster was everywhere a feature of early western
society.
12. McAfee MSS. MS. Autobiography of Rev. Wm. Hickman, born in Virginia
in 1747 (in Col. R. T. Durrett's library). "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers,"
147. "History of Kentucky Baptists," J. H. Spencer (Cincinnati, 1885)
13. Boon, though of English descent, had no Virginia blood in his veins;
he was an exact type of the regular backwoodsman; but in Clark, and
still more in Blount, we see strong traces of the "cavalier spirit." Of
course, the Cavaliers no more formed the bulk of the Virginia people
than they did of Rupert's armies; but the squires and yeomen who went to
make up the mass took their tone from their leaders.
14. Many of the most noted hunters and Indian fighters were of German
origin, (see "Early Times in Middle Tennessee," John Carr, Nashville,
1859, pp. 54 and 56, for Steiner and Mansker--or Stoner and Mansco.)
Such were the Wetzels, famous in border annals, who lived near Wheeling;
Michael Steiner, the Steiners being the forefathers of many of the
numerous Kentucky Stoners of to-day; and Kasper Mansker, the "Mr.
Mansco" of Tennessee writers. Every old western narrative contains many
allusions to "Dutchmen," as Americans very properly call the Germans.
Their names abound on the muster-rolls, pay-rolls, lists of settlers,
etc., of the day (Blount MSS., State Department MSS., McAfee MSS., Am.
State Papers, etc.); but it must be remembered that they are often
Anglicized, when nothing remains to show the origin of the owners. We
could not recognize in Custer and Herkomer, Kuster and Herckheimer, were
not the ancestral history of the two generals already known; and in the
backwoods, a man often loses sight of his ancestors in a couple of
generations. In the Carolinas the Germans seem to have been almost as
plentiful on the frontiers as the Irish (see Adair, 245, and Smyth's
"Tour," I., 236). In Pennsylvania they lived nearer civilization
(Schoolcraft, 3, 335, "Journey in the West in 1785," by Lewis Brantz),
although also mixed with the borderers, the more adventurous among them
naturally seeking the frontier.
15. Giving to the backwoods society such families as the Seviers and
Lenoirs. The Huguenots, like the Germans, frequently had their names
Anglicized. The best known and most often quoted example is that of the
Blancpied family, part of whom have become Whitefoots, while the others,
living on the coast, have suffered a marvellous sea-change, the name
reappearing as "Blumpy."
16. To the western American, who was not given to nice ethnic
distinctions, both German and Hollander were simply Dutchmen but
occasionally we find names like Van Meter, Van Buskirk, Van Sweanngen,
which carry their origin on their faces (De Haas, 317, 319. Doddridge,
307).
17. The Scandinavian names in an unlettered community, soon become
indistinguishable from those of the surrounding American's--Jansen,
Petersen, etc., being readily Americanized. It is therefore rarely that
they show their parentage. Still, we now and then come across one that
is unmistakable, as Erickson, for instance (see p. 51 of Col. Reuben T.
Durrett's admirable "Life and Writings of John Filson," Louisville and
Cincinnati, 1884).
18. MS. Journal of Matthew Clarkson, 1766. See also "Voyage dans les
Etats-Unis," La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Paris, L'an, VII., I., 104.
19. The borderers had the true Calvinistic taste in preaching. Clarkson,
in his journal of his western trip, mentions with approval a sermon he
heard as being "a very judicious and alarming discourse."
20. McAfee MSS.
21. In the McAfee MSS. there is an amusing mention of the skin of a huge
bull elk, killed by the father, which the youngsters christened "old
ellick"; they used to quarrel for the possession of it on cold nights,
as it was very warm, though if the hairside was turned in it became
slippery and apt to slide off the bed.
22. On the mountains the climate, flora, and fauna were all those of the
north, not of the adjacent southern lowlands. The ruffed grouse, red
squirrel, snow bird, various Canadian warblers, and a peculiar species
of boreal field-mouse, the _evotomys_, are all found as far south
as the Great Smokies.
23. Doddridge's "Settlements and Indian Wars," (133) written by an
eyewitness; it is the most valuable book we have on old-time frontier
ways and customs.
24. The land laws differed at different times in different colonies; but
this was the usual size at the outbreak of the Revolution, of the farms
along the western frontier, as under the laws of Virginia, then
obtaining from the Holston to the Alleghany, this amount was allotted
every settler who built a cabin or raised a crop of corn.
25. Beside the right to 400 acres, there was also a preemption right to
1,000 acres more adjoining to be secured by a land-office warrant. As
between themselves the settlers had what they called "tomahawk rights,"
made by simply deadening a certain number of trees with a hatchet. They
were similar to the rights conferred in the west now by what is called a
"claim shack" or hut, built to hold some good piece of land; that is,
they conferred no title whatever, except that sometimes men would pay
for them rather than have trouble with the claimant.
26. McAfee MSS. (particularly Autobiography of Robert McAfee).
27. To this day it is worn in parts of the Rocky Mountains, and even
occasionally, here and there, in the Alleghanies.
28. The above is the description of one of Boon's rifles, now in the
possession of Col. Durrett. According to the inscription on the barrel
it was made at Louisville (Ky.), in 1782, by M. Humble. It is perfectly
plain; whereas one of Floyd's rifles, which I have also seen, is much
more highly finished, and with some ornamentation.
29. For the opinion of a foreign military observer on the phenomenal
accuracy of backwoods markmanship, see General Victor Collot's "Voyage
en Amérique," p. 242.
30. MS. copy of Matthew Clarkson's Journal in 1766.
31. McAfee MSS. (Autobiography of Robert R. McAfee).
32. _Do._
33. Memoirs of the Hist. Soc. of Penn., 1826. Account of first
settlements, etc., by John Watson (1804).
34. _Do._ An admirable account of what such a frolic was some
thirty-five years later is to be found in Edward Eggleston's "Circuit
Rider."
35. Such incidents are mentioned again and again by Watson, Milfort,
Doddridge, Carr, and other writers.
36. McClung's "Western Adventures." All eastern and European observers
comment with horror on the border brawls, especially the eye-gouging.
Englishmen, of course, in true provincial spirit, complacently
contrasted them with their own boxing fights; Frenchmen, equally of
course, were more struck by the resemblances than the differences
between the two forms of combat. Milfort gives a very amusing account of
the "Anglo-Américains d'une espèce particulière," whom he calls
"crakeurs ou gaugeurs," (crackers or gougers). He remarks that he found
them "tous borgnes," (as a result of their pleasant fashion of
eye-gouging--a backwoods bully in speaking of another would often
threaten to "measure the length of his eye-strings,") and that he doubts
if there can exist in the world "des hommes plus méchants que ces
habitants."
These fights were among the numerous backwoods habits that showed Scotch
rather than English ancestry. "I attempted to keep him down, in order to
improve my success, after the manner of my own country." ("Roderick
Random").
37. Watson.
38. Doddridge.
39. McAfee MSS.
40. Watson.
41. McAfee MSS. See also Doddridge and Watson.
42. Doddridge, 156. He gives an interesting anecdote of one man engaged
in helping such a pack-train, the bell of whose horse was stolen. The
thief was recovered, and whipped as a punishment, the owner exclaiming
as he laid the strokes lustily on: "Think what a rascally figure I
should make in the streets of Baltimore without a bell on my horse." He
had never been out of the woods before; he naturally wished to look well
on his first appearance in civilized life, and it never occurred to him
that a good horse was left without a bell anywhere.
43. An instance of this, which happened in my mother's family, has been
mentioned elsewhere ("Hunting Trips of a Ranchman"). Even the wolves
occasionally attacked man; Audubon gives an example.
44. Doddridge, 194. Dodge, in his "Hunting Grounds of the Great West,"
gives some recent instances. Bears were sometimes dangerous to human
life. Doddridge, 64. A slave on the plantation of my great-grandfather
in Georgia was once regularly scalped by a she-bear whom he had tried to
rob of her cubs, and ever after he was called, both by the other negroes
and by the children on the plantation, "Bear Bob."
45. Schopf, I., 404.
46. The insignificant garrisons at one or two places need not be taken
into account, as they were of absolutely no effect.
47. Brantz Mayer, in "Tah-Gah-Jute, or Logan and Cresap" (Albany, 1867),
ix., speaks of the pioneers as "comparative few in numbers," and of the
Indian as "numerous, and fearing not only the superior weapons of his
foe, but the organization and discipline which together made the
comparatively few equal to the greater number." This sentence embodies a
variety of popular misconceptions. The pioneers were more numerous than
the Indians; the Indians were generally, at least in the northwest, as
well armed as the whites, and in military matters the Indians were
actually (see Smith's narrative, and almost all competent authorities)
superior in organization and discipline to their pioneer foes. Most of
our battles against the Indians of the western woods, whether won or
lost, were fought by superior numbers on our side. Individually, or in
small parties, the frontiersmen gradually grew to be a match for the
Indians, man for man, at least in many cases, but this was only true of
large bodies of them if they were commanded by some one naturally able
to control their unruly spirits.
48. As examples take Clark's last Indian campaign and the battle of Blue
Licks.
49. Doddridge, 161, 185.
50. At the best such a frontier levy was composed of men of the type of
Leatherstocking, Ishmael Bush, Tom Hutter, Harry March, Bill Kirby, and
Aaron Thousandacres. When animated by a common and overmastering
passion, such a body would be almost irresistible; but it could not hold
together long, and there was generally a plentiful mixture of men less
trained in woodcraft, and therefore useless in forest fighting, while
if, as must generally be the case in any body, there were a number of
cowards in the ranks, the total lack of discipline not only permitted
them to flinch from their work with impunity, but also allowed them, by
their example, to infect and demoralize their braver companions.
51. Haywood, DeHaas, Withers, McClung, and other border annalists, give
innumerable anecdotes about these and many other men, illustrating their
feats of fierce prowess and, too often, of brutal ferocity.
52. McAfee MSS. The story is told both in the "Autobiography of Robert
McAfee," and in the "History of the First Settlement on Salt River."
53. Incidents of this sort are frequently mentioned. Generally the woman
went back to her first husband. "Early Times in Middle Tennessee," John
Carr, Nashville, 1859, p. 231.
54. See "A Short History of the English Colonies in America," by Henry
Cabot Lodge (New York, 1886), for an account of these people.
55. The regulators of backwoods society corresponded exactly to the
vigilantes of the western border to-day. In many of the cases of lynch
law which have come to my knowledge the effect has been healthy for the
community; but sometimes great injustice is done. Generally the
vigilantes, by a series of summary executions, do really good work; but
I have rarely known them fail, among the men whom they killed for good
reason, to also kill one or two either by mistake or to gratify private
malice.
56. See Doddridge.
57. McAfee MSS.
58. Doddridge.
59. Said one old Indian fighter, a Col. Joseph Brown, of Tennessee, with
quaint truthfulness, "I have tried also to be a religious man, but have
not always, in a life of so much adventure and strife, been able to act
consistently."--_Southwestern Monthly_, Nashville, 1851, I., 80.
CHAPTER VI.
BOON AND THE LONG HUNTERS; AND THEIR HUNTING IN NO-MAN'S-LAND,
1769-1774.
The American backwoodsmen had surged up, wave upon wave, till their mass
trembled in the troughs of the Alleghanies, ready to flood the continent
beyond. The peoples threatened by them were dimly conscious of the
danger which as yet only loomed in the distance. Far off, among their
quiet adobe villages, in the sun-scorched lands by the Rio Grande, the
slow Indo-Iberian peons and their monkish masters still walked in the
tranquil steps of their fathers, ignorant of the growth of the power
that was to overwhelm their children and successors; but nearer by,
Spaniard and Creole Frenchman, Algonquin and Appalachian, were all
uneasy as they began to feel the first faint pressure of the American
advance.
As yet they had been shielded by the forest which lay over the land like
an unrent mantle. All through the mountains, and far beyond, it
stretched without a break; but towards the mouth of the Kentucky and
Cumberland rivers the landscape became varied with open groves of
woodland, with flower-strewn glades and great barrens or prairies of
long grass. This region, one of the fairest in the world, was the
debatable ground between the northern and the southern Indians. Neither
dared dwell therein,[1] but both used it as their hunting-grounds; and
it was traversed from end to end by the well marked war traces[2] which
they followed when they invaded each other's territory. The whites, on
trying to break through the barrier which hemmed them in from the
western lands, naturally succeeded best when pressing along the line of
least resistance; and so their first great advance was made in this
debatable land, where the uncertainly defined hunting-grounds of the
Cherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw marched upon those of northern Algonquin
and Wyandot.
Unknown and unnamed hunters and Indian traders had from time to time
pushed some little way into the wilderness; and they had been followed
by others of whom we do indeed know the names, but little more. One
explorer had found and named the Cumberland river and mountains, and the
great pass called Cumberland Gap.[3] Others had gone far beyond the
utmost limits this man had reached, and had hunted in the great bend of
the Cumberland and in the woodland region of Kentucky, famed amongst the
Indians for the abundance of the game.[4] But their accounts excited no
more than a passing interest; they came and went without comment, as
lonely stragglers had come and gone for nearly a century. The backwoods
civilization crept slowly westward without being influenced in its
movements by their explorations.[5]
Finally, however, among these hunters one arose whose wanderings were to
bear fruit; who was destined to lead through the wilderness the first
body of settlers that ever established a community in the far west,
completely cut off from the seaboard colonies. This was Daniel Boon. He
was born in Pennsylvania in 1734,[6] but when only a boy had been
brought with the rest of his family to the banks of the Yadkin in North
Carolina. Here he grew up, and as soon as he came of age he married,
built a log hut, and made a clearing, whereon to farm like the rest of
his backwoods neighbors. They all tilled their own clearings, guiding
the plow among the charred stumps left when the trees were chopped down
and the land burned over, and they were all, as a matter of course,
hunters. With Boon hunting and exploration were passions, and the lonely
life of the wilderness, with its bold, wild freedom, the only existence
for which he really cared. He was a tall, spare, sinewy man, with eyes
like an eagle's, and muscles that never tired; the toil and hardship of
his life made no impress on his iron frame, unhurt by intemperance of
any kind, and he lived for eighty-six years, a backwoods hunter to the
end of his days. His thoughtful, quiet, pleasant face, so often
portrayed, is familiar to every one; it was the face of a man who never
blustered or bullied, who would neither inflict nor suffer any wrong,
and who had a limitless fund of fortitude, endurance, and indomitable
resolution upon which to draw when fortune proved adverse. His
self-command and patience, his daring, restless love of adventure, and,
in time of danger, his absolute trust in his own powers and resources,
all combined to render him peculiarly fitted to follow the career of
which he was so fond.
Boon hunted on the western waters at an early date. In the valley of
Boon's Creek, a tributary of the Watauga, there is a beech tree still
standing, on which can be faintly traced an inscription setting forth
that "D. Boon cilled a bar on (this) tree in the year 1760."[7] On the
expeditions of which this is the earliest record he was partly hunting
on his own account, and partly exploring on behalf of another, Richard
Henderson. Henderson was a prominent citizen of North Carolina,[8] a
speculative man of great ambition and energy. He stood high in the
colony, was extravagant and fond of display, and his fortune being
jeopardized he hoped to more than retrieve it by going into speculations
in western lands on an unheard of scale; for he intended to try to
establish on his own account a great proprietary colony beyond the
mountains. He had great confidence in Boon; and it was his backing which
enabled the latter to turn his discoveries to such good account.
Boon's claim to distinction rests not so much on his wide wanderings in
unknown lands, for in this respect he did little more than was done by a
hundred other backwoods hunters of his generation, but on the fact that
he was able to turn his daring woodcraft to the advantage of his
fellows. As he himself said, he was an instrument "ordained of God to
settle the wilderness." He inspired confidence in all who met him,[9] so
that the men of means and influence were willing to trust adventurous
enterprises to his care; and his success as an explorer, his skill as a
hunter, and his prowess as an Indian fighter, enabled him to bring these
enterprises to a successful conclusion, and in some degree to control
the wild spirits associated with him.
Boon's expeditions into the edges of the wilderness whetted his appetite
for the unknown. He had heard of great hunting-grounds in the far
interior from a stray hunter and Indian trader,[10] who had himself seen
them, and on May 1, 1769, he left his home on the Yadkin "to wander
through the wilderness of America in quest of the country of
Kentucky."[11] He was accompanied by five other men, including his
informant, and struck out towards the northwest, through the tangled
mass of rugged mountains and gloomy forests. During five weeks of severe
toil the little band journeyed through vast solitudes, whose utter
loneliness can with difficulty be understood by those who have not
themselves dwelt and hunted in primaeval mountain forests. Then, early in
June, the adventurers broke through the interminable wastes of dim
woodland, and stood on the threshold of the beautiful blue-grass region
of Kentucky; a land of running waters, of groves and glades, of
prairies, cane-brakes, and stretches of lofty forest. It was teeming
with game. The shaggy-maned herds of unwieldy buffalo--the bison as they
should be called--had beaten out broad roads through the forest, and had
furrowed the prairies with trails along which they had travelled for
countless generations. The round-horned elk, with spreading, massive
antlers, the lordliest of the deer tribe throughout the world, abounded,
and like the buffalo travelled in bands not only through the woods but
also across the reaches of waving grass land. The deer were
extraordinarily numerous, and so were bears, while wolves and panthers
were plentiful.
Wherever there was a salt spring the country was fairly thronged with
wild beasts of many kinds. For six months Boon and his companions
enjoyed such hunting as had hardly fallen to men of their race since the
Germans came out of the Hercynian forest.[12]
In December, however, they were attacked by Indians. Boon and a
companion were captured; and when they escaped they found their camp
broken up, and the rest of the party scattered and gone home. About this
time they were joined by Squire Boon, the brother of the great hunter,
and himself a woodsman of but little less skill, together with another
adventurer; the two had travelled through the immense wilderness, partly
to explore it and partly with the hope of finding the original
adventurers, which they finally succeeded in doing more by good luck
than design. Soon afterwards Boon's companion in his first short
captivity was again surprised by the Indians, and this time was
slain[13]--the first of the thousands of human beings with whose
life-blood Kentucky was bought. The attack was entirely unprovoked. The
Indians had wantonly shed the first blood. The land belonged to no one
tribe, but was hunted over by all, each feeling jealous of every other
intruder; they attacked the whites, not because the whites had wronged
them, but because their invariable policy was to kill any strangers on
any grounds over which they themselves ever hunted, no matter what man
had the best right thereto. The Kentucky hunters were promptly taught
that in this no-man's-land, teeming with game and lacking even a
solitary human habitation, every Indian must be regarded as a foe.
The man who had accompanied Squire Boon was terrified by the presence of
the Indians, and now returned to the settlements. The two brothers
remained alone on their hunting-grounds throughout the winter, living in
a little cabin. About the first of May Squire set off alone to the
settlements to procure horses and ammunition. For three months Daniel
Boon remained absolutely alone in the wilderness, without salt, sugar,
or flour, and without the companionship of so much as a horse or a
dog.[14] But the solitude-loving hunter, dauntless and self-reliant,
enjoyed to the full his wild, lonely life; he passed his days hunting
and exploring, wandering hither and thither over the country, while at
night he lay off in the canebrakes or thickets, without a fire, so as
not to attract the Indians. Of the latter he saw many signs, and they
sometimes came to his camp, but his sleepless wariness enabled him to
avoid capture. Late in July his brother returned, and met him according
to appointment at the old camp. Other hunters also now came into the
Kentucky wilderness, and Boon joined a small party of them for a short
time. Such a party of hunters is always glad to have any thing wherewith
to break the irksome monotony of the long evenings passed round the camp
fire; and a book or a greasy pack of cards was as welcome in a camp of
Kentucky riflemen in 1770 as it is to a party of Rocky Mountain hunters
in 1888. Boon has recorded in his own quaint phraseology an incident of
his life during this summer, which shows how eagerly such a little band
of frontiersmen read a book, and how real its characters became to their
minds. He was encamped with five other men on Red River, and they had
with them for their "amusement the history of Samuel Gulliver's travels,
wherein he gave an account of his young master, Glumdelick, careing
[sic] him on a market day for a show to a town called Lulbegrud." In the
party who, amid such strange surroundings, read and listened to Dean
Swift's writings was a young man named Alexander Neely. One night he
came into camp with two Indian scalps, taken from a Shawnese village be
had found on a creek running into the river; and he announced to the
circle of grim wilderness veterans that "he had been that day to
Lulbegrud, and had killed two Brobdignags in their capital." To this day
the creek by which the two luckless Shawnees lost their lives is known
as Lulbegrud Creek.[15]
Soon after this encounter the increasing danger from the Indians drove
Boon back to the valley of the Cumberland River, and in the spring of
1771 he returned to his home on the Yadkin.
A couple of years before Boon went to Kentucky, Steiner, or Stoner, and
Harrod, two hunters from Pittsburg, who had passed through the Illinois,
came down to hunt in the bend of the Cumberland, where Nashville now
stands; they found vast numbers of buffalo, and killed a great many,
especially around the licks, where the huge clumsy beasts had fairly
destroyed most of the forest, treading down the young trees and bushes
till the ground was left bare or covered with a rich growth of clover.
The bottoms and the hollows between the hills were thickset with cane.
Sycamore grew in the low ground, and towards the Mississippi were to be
found the persimmon and cottonwood. Sometimes the forest was open and
composed of huge trees; elsewhere it was of thicker, smaller growth.[16]
Everywhere game abounded, and it was nowhere very wary. Other hunters of
whom we know even the names of only a few, had been through many parts
of the wilderness before Boon, and earlier still Frenchmen had built
forts and smelting furnaces on the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the
head tributaries of the Kentucky.[17] Boon is interesting as a leader
and explorer; but he is still more interesting as a type. The west was
neither discovered, won, nor settled by any single man. No keen-eyed
statesman planned the movement, nor was it carried out by any great
military leader; it was the work of a whole people, of whom each man was
impelled mainly by sheer love of adventure; it was the outcome of the
ceaseless strivings of all the dauntless, restless backwoods folk to win
homes for their descendants and to each penetrate deeper than his
neighbors into the remote forest hunting-grounds where the perilous
pleasures of the chase and of war could be best enjoyed. We owe the
conquest of the west to all the backwoodsmen, not to any solitary
individual among them; where all alike were strong and daring there was
no chance for any single man to rise to unquestioned preeminence.
In the summer of 1769 a large band of hunters[18] crossed the mountains
to make a long hunt in the western wilderness, the men clad in
hunting-shirts, moccasins, and leggings, with traps, rifles, and dogs,
and each bringing with him two or three horses. They made their way over
the mountains, forded or swam the rapid, timber-choked streams, and went
down the Cumberland, till at last they broke out of the forest and came
upon great barrens of tall grass. One of their number was killed by a
small party of Indians; but they saw no signs of human habitations. Yet
they came across mounds and graves and other remains of an ancient
people who had once lived in the land, but had died out of it long ages
before the incoming of the white men.[19]
The hunters made a permanent camp in one place, and returned to it at
intervals to deposit their skins and peltries. Between times they
scattered out singly or in small bands. They hunted all through the
year, killing vast quantities of every kind of game. Most of it they got
by fair still-hunting, but some by methods we do not now consider
legitimate, such as calling up a doe by imitating the bleat of a fawn,
and shooting deer from a scaffold when they came to the salt licks at
night. Nevertheless, most of the hunters did not approve of "crusting"
the game--that is, of running it down on snow-shoes in the deep
mid-winter snows.
At the end of the year some of the adventurers returned home; others[20]
went north into the Kentucky country, where they hunted for several
months before recrossing the mountains; while the remainder, led by an
old hunter named Kasper Mansker,[21] built two boats and hollowed out of
logs two pirogues or dugouts--clumsier but tougher craft than the light
birch-bark canoes--and started down the Cumberland. At the French Lick,
where Nashville now stands, they saw enormous quantities of buffalo,
elk, and other game, more than they had ever seen before in any one
place. Some of their goods were taken by a party of Indians they met,
but some French traders whom they likewise encountered, treated them
well and gave them salt, flour, tobacco, and taffia, the last being
especially prized, as they had had no spirits for a year. They went down
to Natchez, sold their furs, hides, oil, and tallow, and some returned
by sea, while others, including Mansker, came overland with a drove of
horses that was being taken through the Indian nations to Georgia. From
the length of time all these men, as well as Boon and his companions,
were absent, they were known as the Long Hunters, and the fame of their
hunting and exploring spread all along the border and greatly excited
the young men.[22]
In 1771 many hunters crossed over the mountains and penetrated far into
the wilderness, to work huge havoc among the herds of game. Some of them
came in bands, and others singly, and many of the mountains, lakes,
rivers, and creeks of Tennessee are either called after the leaders
among these old hunters and wanderers, or else by their names perpetuate
the memory of some incident of their hunting trips.[23]
Mansker himself came back, a leader among his comrades, and hunted many
years in the woods alone or with others of his kind, and saw and did
many strange things. One winter he and those who were with him built a
skin house from the hides of game, and when their ammunition gave out
they left three of their number and all of their dogs at the skin house
and went to the settlements for powder and lead. When they returned they
found that two of the men had been killed and the other chased away by
the Indians, who, however, had not found the camp. The dogs, having seen
no human face for three months, were very wild, yet in a few days became
as tame and well trained as ever. They killed such enormous quantities
of buffalo, elk, and especially deer, that they could not pack the hides
into camp, and one of the party, during an idle moment and in a spirit
of protest against fate,[24] carved on the peeled trunk of a fallen
poplar, where it long remained, the sentence: "2300 deer skins lost;
ruination by God!" The soul of this thrifty hunter must have been
further grieved when a party of Cherokees visited their camp and took
away all the camp utensils and five hundred hides. The whites found the
broad track they made in coming in, but could not find where they had
gone out, each wily redskin then covering his own trail, and the whole
number apparently breaking up into several parties.
Sometimes the Indians not only plundered the hunting camps but killed
the hunters as well, and the hunters retaliated in kind. Often the white
men and red fought one another whenever they met, and displayed in their
conflicts all the cunning and merciless ferocity that made forest
warfare so dreadful. Terrible deeds of prowess were done by the mighty
men on either side. It was a war of stealth and cruelty, and ceaseless,
sleepless watchfulness. The contestants had sinewy frames and iron
wills, keen eyes and steady hands, hearts as bold as they were ruthless.
Their moccasined feet made no sound as they stole softly on the camp of
a sleeping enemy or crept to ambush him while he himself still-hunted or
waylaid the deer. A favorite stratagem was to imitate the call of game,
especially the gobble of the wild turkey, and thus to lure the would-be
hunter to his fate. If the deceit was guessed at, the caller was himself
stalked. The men grew wonderfully expert in detecting imitation. One old
hunter, Castleman by name, was in after years fond of describing how an
Indian nearly lured him to his death. It was in the dusk of the evening,
when he heard the cries of two great wood owls near him. Listening
attentively, he became convinced that all was not right. "The woo-woo
call and the woo-woo answer were not well timed and toned, and the
babel-chatter was a failure. More than this, they seemed to be on the
ground." Creeping cautiously up, and peering through the brush, he saw
something the height of a stump between two forked trees. It did not
look natural; he aimed, pulled trigger, and killed an Indian.
Each party of Indians or whites was ever on the watch to guard against
danger or to get the chance of taking vengeance for former wrongs. The
dark woods saw a myriad lonely fights where red warrior or white hunter
fell and no friend of the fallen ever knew his fate, where his sole
memorial was the scalp that hung in the smoky cabin or squalid wigwam of
the victor.
The rude and fragmentary annals of the frontier are filled with the
deeds of men, of whom Mansker can be taken as a type. He was a wonderful
marksman and woodsman, and was afterwards made a colonel of the frontier
militia, though, being of German descent, he spoke only broken
English.[25] Like most of the hunters he became specially proud of his
rifle, calling it "Nancy"; for they were very apt to know each his
favorite weapon by some homely or endearing nickname. Every forest sight
or sound was familiar to him. He knew the cries of the birds and beasts
so well that no imitation could deceive him. Once he was nearly taken in
by an unusually perfect imitation of a wild gobbler; but he finally
became suspicious, and "placed" his adversary behind a large tree.
Having perfect confidence in his rifle, and knowing that the Indians
rarely fired except at close range--partly because they were poor shots,
partly because they loaded their guns too lightly--he made no attempt to
hide. Feigning to pass to the Indian's right, the latter, as he
expected, tried to follow him; reaching an opening in a glade, Mansker
suddenly wheeled and killed his foe. When hunting he made his home
sometimes in a hollow tree, sometimes in a hut of buffalo hides; for the
buffalo were so plenty that once when a lick was discovered by himself
and a companion,[26] the latter, though on horseback, was nearly
trampled to death by the mad rush of a herd they surprised and
stampeded.
He was a famous Indian fighter; one of the earliest of his recorded
deeds has to do with an Indian adventure. He and three other men were
trapping on Sulphur Fork and Red River, in the great bend of the
Cumberland. Moving their camp, they came on recent traces of Indians:
deer-carcases and wicker frames for stretching hides. They feared to
tarry longer unless they knew something of their foes, and Mansker set
forth to explore, and turned towards Red River, where, from the sign, he
thought to find the camp. Travelling some twenty miles, he perceived by
the sycamore trees in view that he was near the river. Advancing a few
steps farther he suddenly found himself within eighty or ninety yards of
the camp. He instantly slipped behind a tree to watch. There were only
two Indians in camp; the rest he supposed were hunting at a distance.
Just as he was about to retire, one of the Indians took up a tomahawk
and strolled off in the opposite direction; while the other picked up
his gun, put it on his shoulder, and walked directly towards Mansker's
hiding-place. Mansker lay close, hoping that he would not be noticed;
but the Indian advanced directly towards him until not fifteen paces
off. There being no alternative, Mansker cocked his piece, and shot the
Indian through the body. The Indian screamed, threw down his gun, and
ran towards camp; passing it he pitched headlong down the bluff, dead,
into the river. The other likewise ran to camp at the sound of the shot;
but Mansker outran him, reached the camp first, and picked up an old gun
that was on the ground; but the gun would not go off, and the Indian
turned and escaped. Mansker broke the old gun, and returned speedily to
his comrades. The next day they all went to the spot, where they found
the dead Indian and took away his tomahawk, knife, and bullet-bag; but
they never found his gun. The other Indian had come back, had loaded his
horses with furs, and was gone. They followed him all that day and all
night with a torch of dry cane, and could never overtake him. Finding
that there were other bands of Indians about, they then left their
hunting grounds. Towards the close of his life old Mansker, like many
another fearless and ignorant backwoods fighter, became so much
impressed by the fiery earnestness and zeal of the Methodists that he
joined himself to them, and became a strong and helpful prop of the
community whose first foundations he had helped to lay.
Sometimes the hunters met Creole trappers, who sent their tallow, hides,
and furs in pirogues and bateaux down the Mississippi to Natchez or
Orleans, instead of having to transport them on pack-horses through the
perilous forest-tracks across the mountains. They had to encounter
dangers from beasts as well as men. More than once we hear of one who,
in a canebrake or tangled thicket, was mangled to death by the horns and
hoofs of a wounded buffalo.[27] All of the wild beasts were then
comparatively unused to contact with rifle-bearing hunters; they were,
in consequence, much more ferocious and ready to attack man than at
present. The bear were the most numerous of all, after the deer; their
chase was a favorite sport. There was just enough danger in it to make
it exciting, for though hunters were frequently bitten or clawed, they
were hardly ever killed. The wolves were generally very wary; yet in
rare instances they, too, were dangerous. The panther was a much more
dreaded foe, and lives were sometimes lost in hunting him; but even with
the panther, the cases where the hunter was killed were very
exceptional.
The hunters were in their lives sometimes clean and straight, and
sometimes immoral, with a gross and uncouth viciousness. We read of one
party of six men and a woman, who were encountered on the Cumberland
River; the woman acted as the wife of a man named Big John, but deserted
him for one of his companions, and when he fell sick persuaded the whole
party to leave him in the wilderness to die of disease and starvation.
Yet those who left him did not in the end fare better, for they were
ambushed and cut off, when they had gone down to Natchez, apparently by
Indians.
At first the hunters, with their small-bore rifles, were unsuccessful in
killing buffalo. Once, when George Rogers Clark had long resided in
Kentucky, he and two companions discovered a camp of some forty
new-comers actually starving, though buffalo were plenty. Clark and his
friends speedily relieved their necessities by killing fourteen of the
great beasts; for when once the hunters had found out the knack, the
buffalo were easier slaughtered than any other game.[28]
The hunters were the pioneers; but close behind them came another set of
explorers quite as hardy and resolute. These were the surveyors. The men
of chain and compass played a part in the exploration of the west
scarcely inferior to that of the heroes of axe and rifle. Often, indeed,
the parts were combined; Boon himself was a surveyor.[29] Vast tracts of
western land were continually being allotted either to actual settlers
or as bounties to soldiers who had served against the French and
Indians. These had to be explored and mapped and as there was much risk
as well as reward in the task, it naturally proved attractive to all
adventurous young men who had some education, a good deal of ambition,
and not too much fortune. A great number of young men of good families,
like Washington and Clark, went into the business. Soon after the return
of Boon and the Long Hunters, parties of surveyors came down the
Ohio,[30] mapping out its course and exploring the Kentucky lands that
lay beside it.[31]
Among the hunters, surveyors, and explorers who came into the wilderness
in 1773 was a band led by three young men named McAfee,--typical
backwoodsmen, hardy, adventurous, their frontier recklessness and
license tempered by the Calvinism they had learned in their rough log
home. They were fond of hunting, but they came to spy out the land and
see if it could be made into homes for their children; and in their
party were several surveyors. They descended the Ohio in dugout canoes,
with their rifles, blankets, tomahawks, and fishing-tackle. They met
some Shawnees and got on well with them; but while their leader was
visiting the chief, Cornstalk, and listening to his fair speeches at his
town of Old Chilicothe, the rest of the party were startled to see a
band of young Shawnee braves returning from a successful foray on the
settlements, driving before them the laden pack-horses they had
stolen.[32]
They explored part of Kentucky, and visited the different licks. One,
long named Big Bone Lick, was famous because there were scattered about
it in incredible quantity the gigantic remains of the extinct mastodon;
the McAfees made a tent by stretching their blankets over the huge
fossil ribs, and used the disjointed vertebrae as stools on which to sit.
Game of many kinds thronged the spaces round the licks; herds of
buffalo, elk, and deer, as well as bears and wolves, were all in sight
at once. The ground round about some of them was trodden down so that
there was not as much grass left as would feed a sheep; and the game
trails were like streets, or the beaten roads round a city. A little
village to this day recalls by its name the fact that it stands on a
former "stamping ground" of the buffalo. At one lick the explorers met
with what might have proved a serious adventure. One of the McAfees and
a companion were passing round its outskirts, when some others of the
party fired at a gang of buffaloes, which stampeded directly towards the
two. While his companion scampered up a leaning mulberry bush, McAfee,
less agile, leaped behind a tree trunk, where he stood sideways till the
buffalo passed, their horns scraping off the bark on either side; then
he looked round to see his friend "hanging in the mulberry bush like a
coon."[33]
When the party left this lick they followed a buffalo trail, beaten out
in the forest, "the size of the wagon road leading out of Williamsburg,"
then the capital of Virginia. It crossed the Kentucky River at a riffle
below where Frankfort now stands. Thence they started homewards across
the Cumberland Mountains, and suffered terribly while making their way
through the "desolate and voiceless solitudes"; mere wastes of cliffs,
crags, caverns, and steep hillsides covered with pine, laurel, and
underbrush. Twice they were literally starving and were saved in the
nick of time by the killing, on the first occasion, of a big bull elk,
on the next, of a small spike buck. At last, sun-scorched and
rain-beaten, foot-sore and leg-weary, their thighs torn to pieces by the
stout briars,[34] and their feet and hands blistered and scalded, they
came out in Powell's Valley, and followed the well-worn hunter's trail
across it. Thence it was easy to reach home, where the tale of their
adventures excited still more the young frontiersmen.
Their troubles were ended for the time being; but in Powell's Valley
they met other wanderers whose toil and peril had just begun. There they
encountered the company[35] which Daniel Boon was just leading across
the mountains, with the hope of making a permanent settlement in far
distant Kentucky.[36] Boon had sold his farm on the Yadkin and all the
goods he could not carry with him, and in September, 1773, he started
for Kentucky with his wife and his children; five families, and forty
men besides, went with him, driving their horses and cattle. It was the
first attempt that was made to settle a region separated by long
stretches of wilderness from the already inhabited districts; and it was
doomed to failure. On approaching the gloomy and forbidding defiles of
the Cumberland Mountains the party was attacked by Indians.[37] Six of
the men, including Boon's eldest son, were slain, and the cattle
scattered; and though the backwoodsmen rallied and repulsed their
assailants, yet they had suffered such loss and damage that they
retreated and took up their abode temporarily on the Clinch River.
In the same year Simon Kenton, afterwards famous as a scout and Indian
fighter, in company with other hunters, wandered through Kentucky.
Kenton, like every one else, was astounded at the beauty and fertility
of the land and the innumerable herds of buffalo, elk, and other game
that thronged the trampled ground around the licks. One of his
companions was taken by the Indians, who burned him alive.
In the following year numerous parties of surveyors visited the land.
One of these was headed by John Floyd, who was among the ablest of the
Kentucky pioneers, and afterwards played a prominent part in the young
commonwealth, until his death at the hands of the savages. Floyd was at
the time assistant surveyor of Fincastle County; and his party went out
for the purpose of making surveys "by virtue of the Governor's warrant
for officers and soldiers on the Ohio and its waters."[38]
They started on April 9, 1774,--eight men in all,--from their homes in
Fincastle County.[39] They went down the Kanawha in a canoe, shooting
bear and deer, and catching great pike and catfish. The first survey
they made was one of two thousand acres for "Colo. Washington"; and they
made another for Patrick Henry. On the way they encountered other
parties of surveyors, and learned that an Indian war was threatened; for
a party of thirteen would-be settlers on the upper Ohio had been
attacked, but had repelled their assailants, and in consequence the
Shawnees had declared for war, and threatened thereafter to kill the
Virginians and rob the Pennsylvanians wherever they found them.[40] The
reason for this discrimination in favor of the citizens of the Quaker
State was that the Virginians with whom the Indians came chiefly in
contact were settlers, whereas the Pennsylvanians were traders. The
marked difference in the way the savages looked at the two classes
received additional emphasis in Lord Dunmore's war.
At the mouth of the Kanawha[41] the adventurers found twenty or thirty
men gathered together; some had come to settle, but most wished to
explore or survey the lands. All were in high spirits, and resolute to
go to Kentucky, in spite of Indian hostilities. Some of them joined
Floyd, and raised his party to eighteen men, who started down the Ohio
in four canoes.[42] They found "a battoe loaded with corn," apparently
abandoned, and took about three bushels with them. Other parties joined
them from time to time, as they paddled and drifted down stream; and one
or two of their own number, alarmed by further news of Indian
hostilities, went back. Once they met a party of Delawares, by whom they
were not molested; and again, two or three of their number encountered a
couple of hostile savages; and though no one was hurt, the party were
kept on the watch all the time. They marvelled much at the great
trees--one sycamore was thirty-seven feet in circumference,--and on a
Sunday, which they kept as a day of rest, they examined with interest
the forest-covered embankments of a fort at the mouth of the Scioto, a
memorial of the mound-builders who had vanished centuries before.
When they reached the mouth of the Kentucky[43] they found two Delawares
and a squaw, to whom they gave corn and salt. Here they split up, and
Floyd and his original party spent a week in the neighborhood, surveying
land, going some distance up the Kentucky to a salt lick, where they saw
a herd of three hundred buffalo.[44] They then again embarked, and
drifted down the Ohio. On May 26th they met two Delawares in a canoe
flying a red flag; they had been sent down the river with a pass from
the commandant at Fort Pitt to gather their hunters and get them home,
in view of the threatened hostilities between the Shawnees and
Virginians.[45] The actions of the two Indians were so suspicious, and
the news they brought was so alarming, that some of Floyd's companions
became greatly alarmed, and wished to go straight on down the
Mississippi; but Floyd swore that he would finish his work unless
actually forced off. Three days afterwards they reached the Falls.
Here Floyd spent a fortnight, making surveys in every direction, and
then started off to explore the land between the Salt River and the
Kentucky. Like the others, he carried his own pack, which consisted of
little but his blanket and his instruments. He sometimes had
difficulties with his men; one of them refused to carry the chain one
day, and went off to hunt, got lost, and was not found for thirty-six
hours. Another time it was noticed that two of the hunters had become
sullen, and seemed anxious to leave camp. The following morning, while
on the march, the party killed an elk and halted for breakfast; but the
two hunters walked on, and, says the journal, "we never saw them more";
but whether they got back to the settlements or perished in the
wilderness, none could tell.
The party suffered much hardship. Floyd fell sick, and for three days
could not travel. They gave him an "Indian sweat," probably building
just such a little sweat-house as the Indians use to this day. Others of
their number at different times fell ill; and they were ever on the
watch for Indians. In the vast forests, every sign of a human being was
the sign of a probable enemy. Once they heard a gun, and another time a
sound as of a man calling to another; and on each occasion they
redoubled their caution, keeping guard as they rested, and at night
extinguishing their camp-fire and sleeping a mile or two from it.
They built a bark canoe in which to cross the Kentucky, and on the 1st
of July they met another party of surveyors on the banks of that
stream.[46] Two or three days afterwards, Floyd and three companions
left the others, agreeing to meet them on August 1st, at a cabin built
by a man named Harwood, on the south side of the Kentucky, a few miles
from the mouth of the Elkhorn. For three weeks they surveyed and hunted,
enchanted with the beauty of the country.[47] They then went to the
cabin, several days before the appointed time; but to their surprise
found every thing scattered over the ground, and two fires burning,
while on a tree near the landing was written, "Alarmed by finding some
people killed and we are gone down." This left the four adventurers in a
bad plight, as they had but fifteen rounds of powder left, and none of
them knew the way home. However there was no help for it, and they
started off.[48] When they came to the mountains they found it such hard
going that they were obliged to throw away their blankets and every
thing else except their rifles, hunting-shirts, leggings, and moccasins.
Like the other parties of returning explorers, they found this portion
of their journey extremely distressing; and they suffered much from sore
feet, and also from want of food, until they came on a gang of
buffaloes, and killed two. At last they struck Cumberland Gap, followed
a blazed trail across it to Powell's Valley, and on August 9th came to
the outlying settlements on Clinch River, where they found the settlers
all in their wooden forts, because of the war with the Shawnees.[49]
In this same year many different bodies of hunters and surveyors came
into the country, drifting down the Ohio in pirogues. Some forty men led
by Harrod and Sowdowsky[50] founded Harrodsburg, where they built cabins
and sowed corn; but the Indians killed one of their number, and the rest
dispersed. Some returned across the mountains; but Sowdowsky and another
went through the woods to the Cumberland River, where they built a
canoe, paddled down the muddy Mississippi between unending reaches of
lonely marsh and forest, and from New Orleans took ship to Virginia.
At that time, among other parties of surveyors there was one which had
been sent by Lord Dunmore to the Falls of the Ohio. When the war broke
out between the Shawnees and the Virginians, Lord Dunmore, being very
anxious for the fate of these surveyors, sent Boon and Stoner to pilot
them in; which the two bush veterans accordingly did, making the round
trip of 800 miles in 64 days. The outbreak of the Indian war caused all
the hunters and surveyors to leave Kentucky; and at the end of 1774
there were no whites left, either there or in what is now middle
Tennessee. But on the frontier all men's eyes were turned towards these
new and fertile regions. The pioneer work of the hunter was over, and
that of the axe-bearing settler was about to begin.
1. This is true as a whole; but along the Mississippi, in the extreme
west of the present Kentucky and Tennessee, the Chickasaws held
possession. There was a Shawnee town south of the Ohio, and Cherokee
villages in southeastern Tennessee.
2. The backwoodsmen generally used "trace," where western frontiersmen
would now say "trail."
3. Dr. Thomas Walker, of Virginia. He named them after the Duke of
Cumberland. Walker was a genuine explorer and surveyor, a man of mark as
a pioneer. The journal of his trip across the Cumberland to the
headwaters of the Kentucky in 1750 has been preserved, and has just been
published by William Cabell Rives (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.). It is
very interesting, and Mr. Rives has done a real service in publishing
it. Walker and five companions were absent six months. He found traces
of earlier wanderers--probably hunters. One of his companions was bitten
by a bear; three of the dogs were wounded by bears, and one killed by an
elk; the horses were frequently bitten by rattlesnakes; once a
bull-buffalo threatened the whole party. They killed 13 buffaloes, 8
elks, 53 bears, 20 deer, 150 turkeys and some other game.
4. Hunters and Indian traders visited portions of Kentucky and Tennessee
years before the country became generally known even on the border. (Not
to speak of the French, who had long known something of the country
where they had even made trading posts and built furnaces, as see
Haywood, etc.) We know the names of a few. Those who went down the Ohio,
merely landing on the Kentucky shore, do not deserve mention; the French
had done as much for a century. Whites who had been captured by the
Indians, were sometimes taken through Tennessee or Kentucky, as John
Salling in 1730 and Mrs. Mary Inglis in 1756 (see "Trans-Alleghany
Pioneers," Collis, etc.). In 1654 a certain Colonel Wood was in
Kentucky. The next real explorer was nearly a century later, though
Doherty in 1690, and Adair in 1730, traded with the Cherokees in what is
now Tennessee. Walker struck the head-water of the Kentucky in 1750; he
had been to the Cumberland in 1748. He made other exploring trips.
Christopher Gist went up the Kentucky in 1751. In 1756 and 1758 Forts
Loudon and Chisset were built on the Tennessee head-waters, but were
soon afterwards destroyed by the Cherokees. In 1761, '62, '63 and for a
year or two afterwards a party of hunters under the lead of one Wallen
hunted on the western waters, going continually farther west. In 1765
Croghan made a sketch of the Ohio River. In 1766 James Smith and others
explored Tennessee. Stoner, Harrod, and Lindsay, and a party from South
Carolina were near the present site of Nashville in 1767, in the same
year John Finley and others were in Kentucky, and it was Finley who
first told Boon about it and led him thither.
5. The attempt to find out the names of the men who first saw the
different portions of the western country is not very profitable. The
first visitors were hunters, simply wandering in search of game, not
with any settled purpose of exploration. Who the individual first-comers
were, has generally been forgotten. At the most it is only possible to
find out the name of some one of several who went to a given locality.
The hunters were wandering everywhere. By chance some went to places we
now consider important. By chance the names of a few of these have been
preserved. But the credit belongs to the whole backwoods race, not to
the individual backwoodsman.
6. August 22, 1734 (according to James Parton, in his sketch of Boon).
His grandfather was an English immigrant; his father had married a
Quakeress. When he lived on the banks of the Delaware, the country was
still a wilderness. He was born in Berks Co.
7. The inscription is first mentioned by Ramsey, p. 67. See Appendix C,
for a letter from the Hon. John Allison, at present (1888) Secretary of
State for Tennessee, which goes to prove that the inscription has been
on the tree as long as the district has been settled. Of course it
cannot be proved that the inscription is by Boon; but there is much
reason for supposing that such is the case, and little for doubting it.
8. He was by birth a Virginian, of mixed Scotch and Welsh descent. See
Collins, II., 336; also Ramsey. For Boon's early connection with
Henderson, in 1764, see Haywood, 35.
9. Even among his foes; he is almost the only American praised by
Lt.-Gov. Henry Hamilton of Detroit, for instance (see _Royal
Gazette_, July 15, 1780).
10. John Finley.
11. "The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon, formerly a hunter";
nominally written by Boon himself, in 1784, but in reality by John
Filson, the first Kentucky historian,--a man who did history good
service, albeit a true sample of the small hedge-school pedant. The old
pioneer's own language would have been far better than that which Filson
used; for the latter's composition is a travesty of Johnsonese in its
most aggravated form. For Filson see Durrett's admirable "Life" in the
Filson Club Publications.
12. The Nieblung Lied tells of Siegfried's feats with bear, buffalo,
elk, wolf, and deer:
"Danach schlug er wieder einen Buffel und einen Elk
Vier starkes Auer nieder und einen grimmen Schelk,
So schnell trug ihn die Mahre, dasz ihm nichts entsprang;
Hinden und Hirsche wurden viele sein Fang.
....... ein Waldthier furchterlich,
Einen wilden Baren."
Siegfried's elk was our moose; and like the American frontiersmen of
to-day, the old German singer calls the Wisent or Bison a
buffalo--European sportsmen now committing an equally bad blunder by
giving it the name of the extinct aurochs. Be it observed also that the
hard fighting, hard drinking, boastful hero of Nieblung fame used a
"spur hund," just as his representative of Kentucky or Tennessee used a
track hound a thousand years later.
13. His name was John Stewart.
14. His remaining absolutely alone in the wilderness for such a length
of time is often spoken of with wonder; but here again Boon stands
merely as the backwoods type, not as an exception. To this day many
hunters in the Rockies do the same. In 1880, two men whom I knew
wintered to the west of the Bighorns, 150 miles from any human beings.
They had salt and flour, however; but they were nine months without
seeing a white face. They killed elk, buffalo, and a moose; and had a
narrow escape from a small Indian war party. Last winter (1887-88) an
old trapper, a friend of mine in the days when he hunted buffalo, spent
five months entirely alone in the mountains north of the Flathead
country.
15. Deposition of Daniel Boon, September 15, 1796. Certified copy from
Deposition Book No. I, page 156, Clarke County Court, Ky. First
published by Col. John Mason Brown, in "Battle of the Blue Licks," p. 40
(Frankfort, 1882). The book which these old hunters read around their
camp-fire in the Indian-haunted primaeval forest a century and a quarter
ago has by great good-luck been preserved, and is in Col. Durrett's
library at Louisville. It is entitled the "Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift,
London, MDCCLXV," and is in two small volumes. On the title-page is
written "A. Neelly, 1770"
Frontiersmen are often content with the merest printed trash; but the
better men among them appreciate really good literature quite as much as
any other class of people. In the long winter evenings they study to
good purpose books as varied as Dante, Josephus, Macaulay, Longfellow,
Parton's "Life of Jackson," and the Rollo stories--to mention only
volumes that have been especial favorites with my own cowboys and
hunters.
16. MS. diary of Benj. Hawkins, 1796. Preserved in Nash. Historical Soc.
In 1796 buffalo were scarce; but some fresh signs of them were still
seen at licks.
17. Haywood, p. 75, etc. It is a waste of time to quarrel over who first
discovered a particular tract of this wilderness. A great many hunters
traversed different parts at different times, from 1760 on, each
practically exploring on his own account. We do not know the names of
most of them; those we do know are only worth preserving in county
histories and the like; the credit belongs to the race, not the
individual.
18. From twenty to forty. Compare Haywood and Marshall, both of whom are
speaking of the same bodies of men; Ramsey makes the mistake of
supposing they are speaking of different parties; Haywood dwells on the
feats of those who descended the Cumberland; Marshall of those who went
to Kentucky.
19. The so-called mound builders; now generally considered to have been
simply the ancestors of the present Indian races.
20. Led by one James Knox.
21. His real name was Kasper Mansker, as his signature shows, but he was
always spoken of as Mansco.
22. McAfee MSS. ("Autobiography of Robt. McAfee"). Sometimes the term
Long Hunters was used as including Boon, Finley, and their companions,
sometimes not; in the McAfee MSS. it is explicitly used in the former
sense.
23. See Haywood for Clinch River, Drake's Pond, Mansco's Lick, Greasy
Rock, etc., etc.
24. A hunter named Bledsoe; Collins, II., 418.
25. Carr's "Early Times in Middle Tennessee," pp. 52, 54, 56, etc.
26. The hunter Bledsoe mentioned in a previous note.
27. As Haywood, 81.
28. This continued to be the case until the buffalo were all destroyed.
When my cattle came to the Little Missouri, in 1882, buffalo were
plenty; my men killed nearly a hundred that winter, though tending the
cattle; yet an inexperienced hunter not far from us, though a hardy
plainsman, killed only three in the whole time. See also Parkman's
"Oregon Trail" for an instance of a party of Missouri backwoodsmen who
made a characteristic failure in an attempt on a buffalo band.
29. See Appendix.
30. An English engineer made a rude survey or table of distances of the
Ohio in 1766.
31. Collins states that in 1770 and 1772 Washington surveyed small
tracts in what is now northeastern Kentucky; but this is more than
doubtful.
32. All of this is taken from the McAfee MSS., in Colonel Durrett's
library.
33. McAfee MSS. A similar adventure befell my brother Elliott and my
cousin John Roosevelt while they were hunting buffalo on the staked
plains of Texas in 1877.
34. They evidently wore breech-clouts and leggings, not trowsers.
35. McAfee MSS.
36. Filson's "Boon."
37. October 10, 1773, Filson's "Boon." The McAfee MSS. speak of meeting
Boon in Powell's Valley and getting home in September; if so, it must
have been the very end of the month.
38. The account of this journey of Floyd and his companions is taken
from a very interesting MS. journal, kept by one of the party--Thomas
Hanson. It was furnished me, together with other valuable papers,
through the courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Trigg, of Abingdon, Va., and
of Dr. George Ben. Johnston, of Richmond, to whom I take this
opportunity of returning my warm thanks.
39. From the house of Col. William Preston, "at one o'clock, in high
spirits." They took the canoe at the mouth of Elk River, on the 16th.
Most of the diary is, of course, taken up with notes on the character
and fertility of the lands, and memoranda of the surveys made. Especial
comment is made on a burning spring by the Kanawha, which is dubbed "one
of the wonders of the world."
40. They received this news on April 17th, and confirmation thereof on
the 19th. The dates should be kept in mind, as they show that the
Shawnees had begun hostilities from a fortnight to a month before
Cresap's attack and the murder of Logan's family, which will be
described hereafter.
41. Which they reached on the 20th.
42. On the 22d.
43. On May 13th.
44. There were quarrels among the surveyors. The entry for May 13th
runs: "Our company divided, eleven men went up to Harrad's company one
hundred miles up the Cantucky or Louisa river (n.b. one Capt. Harrad has
been there many months building a kind of Town &c) in order to make
improvements. This day a quarrel arose between Mr. Lee and Mr. Hyte; Lee
cut a Stick and gave Hyte a Whiping with it, upon which Mr. Floyd
demanded the King's Peace which stopt it sooner that it would have ended
if he had not been there."
45. They said that in a skirmish the whites had killed thirteen
Shawnees, two Mingos, and one Delaware (this may or may not mean the
massacres by Cresap and Greathouse; see, _post_, chapter on Lord
Dunmore's War).
46. Where the journal says the land "is like a paradise, it is so good
and beautiful."
47. The journal for July 8th says: "The Land is so good that I cannot
give it its due Praise. The undergrowth is Clover, Pea-vine, Cane &
Nettles; intermingled with Rich Weed. It's timber is Honey Locust, Black
Walnut, Sugar Tree, Hickory, Iron-Wood, Hoop Wood, Mulberry, Ash and Elm
and some Oak." And later it dwells on the high limestone cliffs facing
the river on both sides.
48. On July 25th.
49. I have given the account of Floyd's journey at some length as
illustrating the experience of a typical party of surveyors. The journal
has never hitherto been alluded to, and my getting hold of it was almost
accidental.
There were three different kinds of explorers. Boon represents the
hunters; the McAfees represent the would-be settlers; and Floyd's
party the surveyors who mapped out the land for owners of land grants.
In 1774, there were parties of each kind in Kentucky. Floyd's
experience shows that these parties were continually meeting others
and splitting up; he started out with eight men, at one time was in a
body with thirty-seven, and returned home with four.
The journal is written in a singularly clear and legible hand,
evidently by a man of good education.
50. The latter, from his name presumably of Sclavonic ancestry, came
originally from New York, always a centre of mixed nationalities. He
founded a most respectable family, some of whom have changed their name
to Sandusky; but there seems to be no justification for their claim that
they gave Sandusky its name, for this is almost certainly a corruption
of its old Algonquin title. "American Pioneer" (Cincinnati, 1843), II.,
p. 325.
CHAPTER VII.
SEVIER, ROBERTSON, AND THE WATAUGA COMMONWEALTH, 1769-1774.
Soon after the successful ending of the last colonial struggle with
France, and the conquest of Canada, the British king issued a
proclamation forbidding the English colonists from trespassing on Indian
grounds, or moving west of the mountains. But in 1768, at the treaty of
Fort Stanwix, the Six Nations agreed to surrender to the English all the
lands lying between the Ohio and the Tennessee;[1] and this treaty was
at once seized upon by the backwoodsmen as offering an excuse for
settling beyond the mountains. However, the Iroquois had ceded lands to
which they had no more right than a score or more other Indian tribes;
and these latter, not having been consulted, felt at perfect liberty to
make war on the intruders. In point of fact, no one tribe or set of
tribes could cede Kentucky or Tennessee, because no one tribe or set of
tribes owned either. The great hunting-grounds between the Ohio and the
Tennessee formed a debatable land, claimed by every tribe that could
hold its own against its rivals.[2]
The eastern part of what is now Tennessee consists of a great
hill-strewn, forest-clad valley, running from northeast to southwest,
bounded on one side by the Cumberland, and on the other by the Great
Smoky and Unaka Mountains; the latter separating it from North Carolina.
In this valley arise and end the Clinch, the Holston, the Watauga, the
Nolichucky, the French Broad, and the other streams, whose combined
volume makes the Tennessee River. The upper end of the valley lies in
southwestern Virginia, the head-waters of some of the rivers being well
within that State; and though the province was really part of North
Carolina, it was separated therefrom by high mountain chains, while from
Virginia it was easy to follow the watercourses down the valley. Thus,
as elsewhere among the mountains forming the western frontier, the first
movements of population went parallel with, rather than across, the
ranges. As in western Virginia the first settlers came, for the most
part, from Pennsylvania, so, in turn, in what was then western North
Carolina, and is now eastern Tennessee, the first settlers came mainly
from Virginia, and, indeed, in great part, from this same Pennsylvanian
stock.[3] Of course, in each case there was also a very considerable
movement directly westward.[4] They were a sturdy race, enterprising and
intelligent, fond of the strong excitement inherent in the adventurous
frontier life. Their untamed and turbulent passions, and the lawless
freedom of their lives, made them a population very productive of wild,
headstrong characters; yet, as a whole, they were a God-fearing race, as
was but natural in those who sprang from the loins of the Irish
Calvinists. Their preachers, all Presbyterians, followed close behind
the first settlers, and shared their toil and dangers; they tilled their
fields rifle in hand, and fought the Indians valorously. They felt that
they were dispossessing the Canaanites, and were thus working the Lord's
will in preparing the land for a race which they believed was more truly
His chosen people than was that nation which Joshua led across the
Jordan. They exhorted no less earnestly in the bare meeting-houses on
Sunday, because their hands were roughened with guiding the plow and
wielding the axe on week-days; for they did not believe that being
called to preach the word of God absolved them from earning their living
by the sweat of their brows. The women, the wives of the settlers, were
of the same iron temper. They fearlessly fronted every danger the men
did, and they worked quite as hard. They prized the knowledge and
learning they themselves had been forced to do without; and many a
backwoods woman by thrift and industry, by the sale of her butter and
cheese, and the calves from her cows, enabled her husband to give his
sons good schooling, and perhaps to provide for some favored member of
the family the opportunity to secure a really first-class education.[5]
The valley in which these splendid pioneers of our people settled, lay
directly in the track of the Indian marauding parties, for the great war
trail used by the Cherokees and by their northern foes ran along its
whole length. This war trail, or war trace as it was then called, was in
places very distinct, although apparently never as well marked as were
some of the buffalo trails. It sent off a branch to Cumberland Gap,
whence it ran directly north through Kentucky to the Ohio, being there
known as the warriors' path. Along these trails the northern and
southern Indians passed and re-passed when they went to war against each
other; and of course they were ready and eager to attack any white man
who might settle down along their course.
In 1769, the year that Boon first went to Kentucky, the first permanent
settlers came to the banks of the Watauga,[6] the settlement being
merely an enlargement of the Virginia settlement, which had for a short
time existed on the head-waters of the Holston, especially near Wolf
Hills.[7] At first the settlers thought they were still in the domain of
Virginia, for at that time the line marking her southern boundary had
not been run so far west.[8] Indeed, had they not considered the land as
belonging to Virginia, they would probably not at the moment have dared
to intrude farther on territory claimed by the Indians. But while the
treaty between the crown and the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix[9] had
resulted in the cession of whatever right the Six Nations had to the
southwestern territory, another treaty was concluded about the same
time[10] with the Cherokees, by which the latter agreed to surrender
their claims to a small portion of this country, though as a matter of
fact before the treaty was signed white settlers had crowded beyond the
limits allowed them. These two treaties, in the first of which one set
of tribes surrendered a small portion of land, while in the second an
entirely different confederacy surrendered a larger tract, which,
however, included part of the first cession, are sufficient to show the
absolute confusion of the Indian land titles.
But in 1771, one of the new-comers,[11] who was a practical surveyor,
ran out the Virginia boundary line some distance to the westward, and
discovered that the Watauga settlement came within the limits of North
Carolina. Hitherto the settlers had supposed that they themselves were
governed by the Virginian law, and that their rights as against the
Indians were guaranteed by the Virginian government; but this discovery
threw them back upon their own resources. They suddenly found themselves
obliged to organize a civil government, under which they themselves
should live, and at the same time to enter into a treaty on their own
account with the neighboring Indians, to whom the land they were on
apparently belonged.
The first need was even more pressing than the second. North Carolina
was always a turbulent and disorderly colony, unable to enforce law and
justice even in the long-settled districts; so that it was wholly out of
the question to appeal to her for aid in governing a remote and outlying
community. Moreover, about the time that the Watauga commonwealth was
founded, the troubles in North Carolina came to a head. Open war ensued
between the adherents of the royal governor, Tryon, on the one hand, and
the Regulators, as the insurgents styled themselves, on the other, the
struggle ending with the overthrow of the Regulators at the battle of
the Alamance.[12]
As a consequence of these troubles, many people from the back counties
of North Carolina crossed the mountains, and took up their abode among
the pioneers on the Watauga[13] and upper Holston; the beautiful valley
of the Nolichucky soon receiving its share of this stream of
immigration. Among the first comers were many members of the class of
desperate adventurers always to be found hanging round the outskirts of
frontier civilization. Horse-thieves, murderers, escaped bond-servants,
runaway debtors--all, in fleeing from the law, sought to find a secure
asylum in the wilderness. The brutal and lawless wickedness of these
men, whose uncouth and raw savagery was almost more repulsive than that
of city criminals, made it imperative upon the decent members of the
community to unite for self-protection. The desperadoes were often mere
human beasts of prey; they plundered whites and Indians impartially.
They not only by their thefts and murders exasperated the Indians into
retaliating on innocent whites, but, on the other hand, they also often
deserted their own color and went to live among the redskins, becoming
their leaders in the worst outrages.[14]
But the bulk of the settlers were men of sterling worth; fit to be the
pioneer fathers of a mighty and beautiful state. They possessed the
courage that enabled them to defy outside foes, together with the rough,
practical commonsense that allowed them to establish a simple but
effective form of government, so as to preserve order among themselves.
To succeed in the wilderness, it was necessary to possess not only
daring, but also patience and the capacity to endure grinding toil. The
pioneers were hunters and husbandmen. Each, by the aid of axe and brand,
cleared his patch of corn land in the forest, close to some clear,
swift-flowing stream, and by his skill with the rifle won from canebrake
and woodland the game on which his family lived until the first crop was
grown.
A few of the more reckless and foolhardy, and more especially of those
who were either merely hunters and not farmers, or else who were of
doubtful character, lived entirely by themselves; but, as a rule, each
knot of settlers was gathered together into a little stockaded hamlet,
called a fort or station. This system of defensive villages was very
distinctive of pioneer backwoods life, and was unique of its kind;
without it the settlement of the west and southwest would have been
indefinitely postponed. In no other way could the settlers have combined
for defence, while yet retaining their individual ownership of the land.
The Watauga forts or palisaded villages were of the usual kind, the
cabins and blockhouses connected by a heavy loop-holed picket. They were
admirably adapted for defence with the rifle. As there was no moat,
there was a certain danger from an attack with fire unless water was
stored within; and it was of course necessary to guard carefully against
surprise. But to open assault they were practically impregnable, and
they therefore offered a sure haven of refuge to the settlers in case of
an Indian inroad. In time of peace, the inhabitants moved out, to live
in their isolated log-cabins and till the stump-dotted clearings. Trails
led through the dark forests from one station to another, as well as to
the settled districts beyond the mountains; and at long intervals men
drove along them bands of pack-horses, laden with the few indispensable
necessaries the settlers could not procure by their own labor. The
pack-horse was the first, and for a long time the only, method of
carrying on trade in the backwoods; and the business of the packer was
one of the leading frontier industries.
The settlers worked hard and hunted hard, and lived both plainly and
roughly. Their cabins were roofed with clapboards, or huge shingles,
split from the log with maul and wedge, and held in place by heavy
stones, or by poles; the floors were made of rived puncheons, hewn
smooth on one surface; the chimney was outside the hut, made of rock
when possible, otherwise of logs thickly plastered with clay that was
strengthened with hogs' bristles or deer hair; in the great fire-place
was a tongue on which to hang pot-hooks and kettle; the unglazed window
had a wooden shutter, and the door was made of great clapboards.[15] The
men made their own harness, farming implements, and domestic utensils;
and, as in every other community still living in the heroic age, the
smith was a person of the utmost importance. There was but one thing
that all could have in any quantity, and that was land; each had all of
this he wanted for the taking,--or if it was known to belong to the
Indians, he got its use for a few trinkets or a flask of whisky. A few
of the settlers still kept some of the Presbyterian austerity of
character, as regards amusements; but, as a rule, they were fond of
horse-racing, drinking, dancing, and fiddling. The corn-shuckings,
flax-pullings, log-rollings (when the felled timber was rolled off the
clearings), house-raisings, maple-sugar-boilings, and the like were
scenes of boisterous and light-hearted merriment, to which the whole
neighborhood came, for it was accounted an insult if a man was not asked
in to help on such occasions, and none but a base churl would refuse his
assistance. The backwoods people had to front peril and hardship without
stint, and they loved for the moment to leap out of the bounds of their
narrow lives and taste the coarse pleasures that are always dear to a
strong, simple, and primitive race. Yet underneath their moodiness and
their fitful light-heartedness lay a spirit that when roused was
terrible in its ruthless and stern intensity of purpose.
Such were the settlers of the Watauga, the founders of the commonwealth
that grew into the State of Tennessee, who early in 1772 decided that
they must form some kind of government that would put down wrong-doing
and work equity between man and man. Two of their number already towered
head and shoulders above the rest in importance and merit especial
mention; for they were destined for the next thirty years to play the
chief parts in the history of that portion of the Southwest which
largely through their own efforts became the State of Tennessee. These
two men, neither of them yet thirty years of age, were John Sevier and
James Robertson.[16]
Robertson first came to the Watauga early in 1770.[17] He had then been
married for two years, and had been "learning his letters and to spell"
from his well-educated wife; for he belonged to a backwoods family, even
poorer than the average, and he had not so much as received the
rudimentary education that could be acquired at an "old-field" school.
But he was a man of remarkable natural powers, above the medium
height,[18] with wiry, robust form, light-blue eyes, fair complexion,
and dark hair; his somewhat sombre face had in it a look of
self-contained strength that made it impressive; and his taciturn,
quiet, masterful way of dealing with men and affairs, together with his
singular mixture of cool caution and most adventurous daring, gave him
an immediate hold even upon such lawless spirits as those of the border.
He was a mighty hunter; but, unlike Boon, hunting and exploration were
to him secondary affairs, and he came to examine the lands with the eye
of a pioneer settler. He intended to have a home where he could bring up
his family, and, if possible, he wished to find rich lands, with good
springs, whereto he might lead those of his neighbors who, like himself,
eagerly desired to rise in the world, and to provide for the well-being
of their children.
To find such a country Robertson, then dwelling in North Carolina,
decided to go across the mountains. He started off alone on his
exploring expedition, rifle in hand, and a good horse under him. He
crossed the ranges that continue northward the Great Smokies, and spent
the summer in the beautiful hill country where the springs of the
western waters flowed from the ground. He had never seen so lovely a
land. The high valleys, through which the currents ran, were hemmed in
by towering mountain walls, with cloud-capped peaks. The fertile loam
forming the bottoms was densely covered with the growth of the primaeval
forest, broken here and there by glade-like openings, where herds of
game grazed on the tall, thick grass.
Robertson was well treated by the few settlers, and stayed long enough
to raise a crop of corn, the stand-by of the backwoods pioneer; like
every other hunter, explorer, Indian fighter, and wilderness wanderer,
he lived on the game he shot, and the small quantity of maize he was
able to carry with him.[19] In the late fall, however, when recrossing
the mountain on his way home through the trackless forests, both game
and corn failed him. He lost his way, was forced to abandon his horse
among impassable precipices, and finally found his rifle useless owing
to the powder having become soaked. For fourteen days he lived almost
wholly on nuts and wild berries, and was on the point of death from
starvation, when he met two hunters on horseback, who fed him and let
him ride their horses by turns, and brought him safely to his home.
Such hardships were little more than matter-of-course incidents in a
life like his; and he at once prepared to set out with his family for
the new land. His accounts greatly excited his neighbors, and sixteen
families made ready to accompany him. The little caravan started, under
Robertson's guidance, as soon as the ground had dried after the winter
rains in the spring of 1771.[20] They travelled in the usual style of
backwoods emigrants: the men on foot, rifle on shoulder, the elder
children driving the lean cows, while the women, the young children, and
the few household goods, and implements of husbandry, were carried on
the backs of the pack-horses; for in settling the backwoods during the
last century, the pack-horse played the same part that in the present
century was taken by the canvas-covered emigrant wagon, the white-topped
"prairie schooner."
Once arrived at the Watauga, the Carolina new-comers mixed readily with
the few Virginians already on the ground; and Robertson speedily became
one of the leading men in the little settlement. On an island in the
river he built a house of logs with the bark still on them on the
outside, though hewed smooth within; tradition says that it was the
largest in the settlement. Certainly it belonged to the better class of
backwoods cabins, with a loft and several rooms, a roof of split
saplings, held down by weighty poles, a log veranda in front, and a huge
fire-place, of sticks or stones laid in clay, wherein the pile of
blazing logs roared loudly in cool weather. The furniture was probably
precisely like that in other houses of the class; a rude bed, table,
settee, and chest of drawers, a spinning-jenny, and either three-legged
stools or else chairs with backs and seats of undressed deer hides.
Robertson's energy and his remarkable natural ability brought him to the
front at once, in every way; although, as already said, he had much less
than even the average backwoods education, for he could not read when he
was married, while most of the frontiersmen could not only read but also
write, or at least sign their names.[21]
Sevier, who came to the Watauga early in 1772, nearly a year after
Robertson and his little colony had arrived, differed widely from his
friend in almost every respect save highmindedness and dauntless,
invincible courage. He was a gentleman by birth and breeding, the son of
a Huguenot who had settled in the Shenandoah Valley. He had received a
fair education, and though never fond of books, he was to the end of his
days an interested and intelligent observer of men and things, both in
America and Europe. He corresponded on intimate and equal terms with
Madison, Franklin, and others of our most polished statesmen; while
Robertson's letters, when he had finally learned to write them himself,
were almost as remarkable for their phenomenally bad spelling as for
their shrewd common-sense and homely, straightforward honesty. Sevier
was a very handsome man; during his lifetime he was reputed the
handsomest in Tennessee. He was tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed,
brown-haired, of slender build, with erect, military carriage and
commanding bearing, his lithe, finely proportioned figure being well set
off by the hunting-shirt which he almost invariably wore. From his
French forefathers he inherited a gay, pleasure-loving temperament, that
made him the most charming of companions. His manners were polished and
easy, and he had great natural dignity. Over the backwoodsmen he
exercised an almost unbounded influence, due as much to his ready tact,
invariable courtesy, and lavish, generous hospitality, as to the skill
and dashing prowess which made him the most renowned Indian fighter of
the Southwest. He had an eager, impetuous nature, and was very
ambitious, being almost as fond of popularity as of Indian-fighting.[22]
He was already married, and the father of two children, when he came to
the Watauga, and, like Robertson, was seeking a new and better home for
his family in the west. So far, his life had been as uneventful as that
of any other spirited young borderer; his business had been that of a
frontier Indian trader; he had taken part in one or two unimportant
Indian skirmishes.[23] Later he was commissioned by Lord Dunmore as a
captain in the Virginia line.
Such were Sevier and Robertson, the leaders in the little frontier
outpost of civilization that was struggling to maintain itself on the
Watauga; and these two men afterwards proved themselves to be, with the
exception of George Rogers Clark, the greatest of the first generation
of Trans-Alleghany pioneers.
Their followers were worthy of them. All alike were keenly alive to the
disadvantages of living in a community where there was neither law nor
officer to enforce it. Accordingly, with their characteristic capacity
for combination, so striking as existing together with the equally
characteristic capacity for individual self-help, the settlers
determined to organize a government of their own. They promptly put
their resolution into effect early in the spring of 1772, Robertson
being apparently the leader in the movement.
They decided to adopt written articles of agreement, by which their
conduct should be governed; and these were known as the Articles of the
Watauga Association. They formed a written constitution, the first ever
adopted west of the mountains, or by a community composed of
American-born freemen. It is this fact of the early independence and
self-government of the settlers along the head-waters of the Tennessee
that gives to their history its peculiar importance. They were the first
men of American birth to establish a free and independent community on
the continent. Even before this date, there had been straggling
settlements of Pennsylvanians and Virginians along the head-waters of
the Ohio; but these settlements remained mere parts of the colonies
behind them, and neither grew into a separate community, nor played a
distinctive part in the growth of the west.
The first step taken by the Watauga settlers,[24] when they had
determined to organize, was to meet in general convention, holding a
kind of folk-thing, akin to the New England town-meeting. They then
elected a representative assembly, a small parliament or "witanagemot,"
which met at Robertson's station. Apparently the freemen of each little
fort or palisaded village, each blockhouse that was the centre of a
group of detached cabins and clearings, sent a member to this first
frontier legislature.[25] It consisted of thirteen representatives, who
proceeded to elect from their number five--among them Sevier and
Robertson--to form a committee or court, which should carry on the
actual business of government, and should exercise both judicial and
executive functions. This court had a clerk and a sheriff, or executive
officer, who respectively recorded and enforced their decrees. The five
members of this court, who are sometimes referred to as arbitrators, and
sometimes as commissioners, had entire control of all matters affecting
the common weal; and all affairs in controversy were settled by the
decision of a majority. They elected one of their number as chairman, he
being also ex-officio chairman of the committee of thirteen; and all
their proceedings were noted for the prudence and moderation with which
they behaved in their somewhat anomalous position. They were careful to
avoid embroiling themselves with the neighboring colonial legislatures;
and in dealing with non-residents they made them give bonds to abide by
their decision, thus avoiding any necessity of proceeding against their
persons. On behalf of the community itself, they were not only permitted
to control its internal affairs, but also to secure lands by making
treaties with a foreign power, the Indians; a distinct exercise of the
right of sovereignty. They heard and adjudicated all cases of difference
between the settlers themselves; and took measures for the common
safety. In fact the dwellers, in this little outlying frontier
commonwealth, exercised the rights of full statehood for a number of
years; establishing in true American style a purely democratic
government with representative institutions, in which, under certain
restrictions, the will of the majority was supreme, while, nevertheless,
the largest individual freedom, and the utmost liberty of individual
initiative were retained. The framers showed the American predilection
for a written constitution or civil compact; and, what was more
important, they also showed the common-sense American spirit that led
them to adopt the scheme of government which should in the simplest way
best serve their needs, without bothering their heads over mere
high-sounding abstractions.[26]
The court or committee held their sessions at stated and regular times,
and took the law of Virginia as their standard for decisions. They saw
to the recording of deeds and wills, settled all questions of debt,
issued marriage licenses, and carried on a most vigorous warfare against
lawbreakers, especially horse-thieves.[27] For six years their
government continued in full vigor; then, in February, 1778, North
Carolina having organized Washington County, which included all of what
is now Tennessee, the governor of that State appointed justices of the
peace and militia officers for the new county, and the old system came
to an end. But Sevier, Robertson, and their fellow-committeemen were all
members of the new court, and continued almost without change their
former simple system of procedure and direct and expeditious methods of
administering justice; as justices of the peace they merely continued to
act as they acted while arbitrators of the Watauga Association, and in
their summary mode of dealing with evil-doers paid a good deal more heed
to the essence than to the forms of law. One record shows that a
horse-thief was arrested on Monday, tried on Wednesday, and hung on
Friday of the same week. Another deals with a claimant who, by his
attorney, moved to be sworn into his office of clerk, "but the court
swore in James Sevier, well knowing that said Sevier had been elected,"
and being evidently unwilling to waste their time hearing a contested
election case when their minds were already made up as to the equity of
the matter. They exercised the right of making suspicious individuals
leave the county.[28] They also at times became censors of morals, and
interfered with straightforward effectiveness to right wrongs for which
a more refined and elaborate system of jurisprudence would have provided
only cumbersome and inadequate remedies. Thus one of their entries is to
the effect that a certain man is ordered "to return to his family and
demean himself as a good citizen, he having admitted in open court that
he had left his wife and took up with another woman." From the character
of the judges who made the decision, it is safe to presume that the
delinquent either obeyed it or else promptly fled to the Indians for
safety.[29] This fleeing to the Indians, by the way, was a feat often
performed by the worst criminals--for the renegade, the man who had
"painted his face" and deserted those of his own color, was a being as
well known as he was abhorred and despised on the border, where such a
deed was held to be the one unpardonable crime.
So much for the way in which the whites kept order among themselves. The
second part of their task, the adjustment of their relations with their
red neighbors, was scarcely less important. Early in 1772 Virginia made
a treaty with the Cherokee Nation, which established as the boundary
between them a line running west from White Top Mountain in latitude 36
degrees 30'.[30] Immediately afterwards the agent[31] of the British
Government among the Cherokees ordered the Watauga settlers to instantly
leave their lands. They defied him, and refused to move: but feeling
the insecurity of their tenure they deputed two commissioners, of
whom Robertson was one, to make a treaty with the Cherokees. This
was successfully accomplished, the Indians leasing to the associated
settlers all the lands on the Watauga waters for the space of eight
years, in consideration of about six thousand dollars' worth of
blankets, paint, muskets, and the like.[32] The amount advanced was
reimbursed to the men advancing it by the sale of the lands in small
parcels to new settlers,[33] for the time of the lease.[34]
After the lease was signed, a day was appointed on which to hold a great
race, as well as wrestling-matches and other sports, at Watauga. Not
only many whites from the various settlements, but also a number of
Indians, came to see or take part in the sports; and all went well until
the evening, when some lawless men from Wolf Hills, who had been lurking
in the woods round about,[35] killed an Indian, whereat his fellows left
the spot in great anger.
The settlers now saw themselves threatened with a bloody and vindictive
Indian war, and were plunged in terror and despair; yet they were
rescued by the address and daring of Robertson. Leaving the others to
build a formidable palisaded fort, under the leadership of Sevier,
Robertson set off alone through the woods and followed the great war
trace down to the Cherokee towns. His mission was one of the greatest
peril, for there was imminent danger that the justly angered savages
would take his life. But he was a man who never rushed heedlessly into
purposeless peril, and never flinched from a danger which there was an
object in encountering. His quiet, resolute fearlessness doubtless
impressed the savages to whom he went, and helped to save his life;
moreover, the Cherokees knew him, trusted his word, and were probably a
little overawed by a certain air of command to which all men that were
thrown in contact with him bore witness. His ready tact and knowledge of
Indian character did the rest. He persuaded the chiefs and warriors to
meet him in council, assured them of the anger and sorrow with which all
the Watauga people viewed the murder, which had undoubtedly been
committed by some outsider, and wound up by declaring his determination
to try to have the wrong-doer arrested and punished according to his
crime. The Indians, already pleased with his embassy, finally consented
to pass the affair over and not take vengeance upon innocent men. Then
the daring backwoods diplomatist, well pleased with the success of his
mission, returned to the anxious little community.
The incident, taken in connection with the plundering of a store kept by
two whites in Holston Valley at the same time, and the unprovoked
assault on Boon's party in Powell's Valley a year later, shows the
extreme difficulty of preventing the worst men of each color from
wantonly attacking the innocent. There was hardly a peaceable red or
law-abiding white who could not recite injuries he had received from
members of the opposite race; and his sense of the wrongs he had
suffered, as well as the general frontier indifference to crimes
committed against others, made him slow in punishing similar outrages by
his own people. The Watauga settlers discountenanced wrong being done
the Indians, and tried to atone for it, but they never hunted the
offenders down with the necessary mercilessness that alone could have
prevented a repetition of their offences. Similarly, but to an even
greater degree, the good Indians shielded the bad.[36]
For several years after they made their lease with the Cherokees the men
of the Watauga were not troubled by their Indian neighbors. They had to
fear nothing more than a drought, a freshet, a forest fire, or an
unusually deep snow-fall if hunting on the mountains in mid-winter. They
lived in peace, hunting and farming, marrying, giving in marriage, and
rearing many healthy children. By degrees they wrought out of the
stubborn wilderness comfortable homes, filled with plenty. The stumps
were drawn out of the clearings, and other grains were sown besides
corn. Beef, pork, and mutton were sometimes placed on the table, besides
the more common venison, bear meat, and wild turkey. The women wove good
clothing, the men procured good food, the log-cabins, if homely and
rough, yet gave ample warmth and shelter. The families throve, and life
was happy, even though varied with toil, danger, and hardship. Books
were few, and it was some years before the first church,--Presbyterian,
of course,--was started in the region.[37] The backwoods Presbyterians
managed their church affairs much as they did their civil government:
each congregation appointed a committee to choose ground, to build a
meeting-house, to collect the minister's salary, and to pay all charges,
by taxing the members proportionately for the same, the committee being
required to turn in a full account, and receive instructions, at a
general session or meeting held twice every year.[38]
Thus the Watauga folk were the first Americans who, as a separate body,
moved into the wilderness to hew out dwellings for themselves and their
children, trusting only to their own shrewd heads, stout hearts, and
strong arms, unhelped and unhampered by the power nominally their
sovereign.[39] They built up a commonwealth which had many successors;
they showed that the frontiersmen could do their work unassisted; for
they not only proved that they were made of stuff stern enough to hold
its own against outside pressure of any sort, but they also made it
evident that having won the land they were competent to govern both it
and themselves. They were the first to do what the whole nation has
since done. It has often been said that we owe all our success to our
surroundings; that any race with our opportunities could have done as
well as we have done. Undoubtedly our opportunities have been great;
undoubtedly we have often and lamentably failed in taking advantage of
them. But what nation ever has done all that was possible with the
chances offered it? The Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the French, not
to speak of the Russians in Siberia, have all enjoyed, and yet have
failed to make good use of, the same advantages which we have turned to
good account. The truth is, that in starting a new nation in a new
country, as we have done, while there are exceptional chances to be
taken advantage of, there are also exceptional dangers and difficulties
to be overcome. None but heroes can succeed wholly in the work. It is a
good thing for us at times to compare what we have done with what we
could have done, had we been better and wiser; it may make us try in the
future to raise our abilities to the level of our opportunities. Looked
at absolutely, we must frankly acknowledge that we have fallen very far
short indeed of the high ideal we should have reached. Looked at
relatively, it must also be said that we have done better than any other
nation or race working under our conditions.
The Watauga settlers outlined in advance the nation's work. They tamed
the rugged and shaggy wilderness, they bid defiance to outside foes, and
they successfully solved the difficult problem of self-government.
1. Then called the Cherokee.
2. Volumes could be filled--and indeed it is hardly too much to say,
have been filled--with worthless "proofs" of the ownership of Iroquois,
Shawnees, or Cherokees, as the case might be. In truth, it would
probably have been difficult to get any two members of the same tribe to
have pointed out with precision the tribal limits. Each tribe's country
was elastic, for it included all lands from which it was deemed possible
to drive out the possessors. In 1773 the various parties of Long Hunters
had just the same right to the whole of the territory in question that
the Indians themselves had.
3. Campbell MSS.
"The first settlers on Holston River were a remarkable race of people
for their intelligence, enterprise, and hardy adventure. The greater
portion of them had emigrated from the counties of Botetourt, Augusta,
and Frederick, and others along the same valley, and from the upper
counties of Maryland and Pennsylvania were mostly descendants of Irish
stock, and generally where they had any religious opinions, were
Presbyterians. A very large proportion were religious, and many were
members of the church. There were some families, however, and amongst
the most wealthy, that were extremely wild and dissipated in their
habits.
"The first clergyman that came among them was the Rev. Charles
Cummings, an Irishman by birth but educated in Pennsylvania. This
gentleman was one of the first settlers, defended his domicile for
years with his rifle in hand, and built his first meeting house on the
very spot where he and two or three neighbors and one of his servants
had had a severe skirmish with the Indians, in which one of his party
was killed and another wounded. Here he preached to a very large and
most respectable congregation for twenty or thirty years. He was a
zealous whig and contributed much to kindle the patriotic fire which
blazed forth among these people in the revolutionary struggle."
This is from a MS sketch of the Holston Pioneers by the Hon. David
Campbell, a son of one of the first settlers. The Campbell family, of
Presbyterian Irish stock, first came to Pennsylvania, and drifted
south. In the revolutionary war it produced good soldiers and
commanders, such as William and Arthur Campbell. The Campbells
intermarried with the Prestons, Breckenridges and other historic
families, and their blood now runs in the veins of many of the noted
men of the States south of the Potomac and Ohio.
4. The first settlers on the Watauga included both Virginians (as
"Captain" William Bean, whose child was the first born in what is now
Tennessee, Ramsey, 94) and Carolinians (Haywood, 37). But many of these
Carolina hill people were, like Boon and Henderson, members of families
who had drifted down from the north. The position of the Presbyterian
churches in all this western hill country shows the origin of that
portion of the people which gave the tone to the rest, and, as we have
already seen, while some of the Presbyterians penetrated to the hills
from Charleston, most came down from the north. The Presbyterian blood
was, of course, Irish or Scotch, and the numerous English from the coast
regions also mingled with the two former kindred stocks, and adopted
their faith. The Huguenots, Hollanders, and many of the Germans being of
Calvinistic creed, readily assimilated themselves to the Presbyterians.
The absence of Episcopacy on the western border, while in part
indicating merely the lack of religion in the backwoods, and the natural
growth of dissent in such a society, also indicates that the people were
not of pure English descent, and were of different stock from those east
of them.
5. Campbell MSS.
6. For this settlement see especially "Civil and Political History of
the State of Tennessee," John Haywood (Knoxville, 1823), p. 37; also
"Annals of Tennessee," J. G. M. Ramsey (Charleston, 1853), p. 92,
"History of Middle Tennessee," A. W. Putnam (Nashville, 1859), p. 21,
the "Address" of the Hon. John Allison to the Tennessee Press
Association (Nashville, 1887); and the "History of Tennessee," by James
Phelan (Boston, 1888).
7. Now Abingdon.
8. It only went to Steep Rock.
9. November 5, 1768.
10. October 14, 1768, at Hard Labor, S. C., confirmed by the treaty of
October 18, 1770, at Lockabar, S. C. Both of these treaties acknowledged
the rights of the Cherokees to the major part of these northwestern
hunting-grounds.
11. Anthony Bledson.
12. May 16, 1771.
13. It is said that the greatest proportion of the early settlers came
from Wake County, N. C., as did Robertson; but many of them, like
Robertson, were of Virginian birth; and the great majority were of the
same stock as the Virginian and Pennsylvanian mountaineers. Of the five
members of the "court" or governing committee of Watauga, three were of
Virginian birth, one came from South Carolina, and the origin of the
other is not specified. Ramsey, 107.
14. In Collins, II., 345, is an account of what may be termed a type
family of these frontier barbarians. They were named Harpe; and there is
something revoltingly bestial in the record of their crimes; of how they
travelled through the country, the elder brother, Micajah Harpe, with
two wives, the younger with only one; of the appalling number of murders
they committed, for even small sums of money, of their unnatural
proposal to kill all their children, so that they should not be hampered
in their flight; of their life in the woods, like wild beasts, and the
ignoble ferocity of their ends. Scarcely less sombre reading is the
account of how they were hunted down, and of the wolfish eagerness the
borderers showed to massacre the women and children as well as the men.
15. In "American Pioneers," II., 445, is a full description of the
better sort of backwoods log-cabin.
16. Both were born in Virginia; Sevier in Rockingham County, September
23, 1745, and Robertson in Brunswick County, June 28, 1742.
17. Putnam, p. 21; who, however, is evidently in error in thinking he
was accompanied by Boon, as the latter was then in Kentucky. A recent
writer revives this error in another form, stating that Robertson
accompanied Boon to the Watauga in 1769. Boon, however, left on his
travels on May 1, 1769, and in June was in Kentucky; whereas Putnam not
only informs us definitely that Robertson went to the Watauga for the
first time in 1770, but also mentions that when he went his eldest son
was already born, and this event took place in June, 1769, so that it is
certain Boon and Robertson were not together.
18. The description of his looks is taken from the statements of his
descendants, and of the grandchildren of his contemporaries.
19. The importance of maize to the western settler is shown by the fact
that in our tongue it has now monopolized the title of corn.
20. Putnam, p. 24, says it was after the battle of the Great Alamance,
which took place May 16, 1771. An untrustworthy tradition says March.
21. In examining numerous original drafts of petitions and the like,
signed by hundreds of the original settlers of Tennessee and Kentucky, I
have been struck by the small proportion--not much over three or four
per cent. at the outside--of men who made their mark instead of
signing.
22. See, in the collection of the Tenn. Hist. Soc., at Nashville, the
MS. notes containing an account of Sevier, given by one of the old
settlers named Hillsman. Hillsman especially dwells on the skill with
which Sevier could persuade the backwoodsmen to come round to his own
way of thinking, while at the same time making them believe that they
were acting on their own ideas, and adds--"whatever he had was at the
service of his friends and for the promotion of the Sevier party, which
sometimes embraced nearly all the population."
23. Mr. James Gilmore (Edmund Kirke), in his "John Sevier," makes some
assertions, totally unbacked by proof, about his hero's alleged feats,
when only a boy, in the wars between the Virginians and the Indians. He
gives no dates, but can only refer to Pontiac's war. Sevier was then
eighteen years old, but nevertheless is portrayed, among other things,
as leading "a hundred hardy borderers" into the Indian country, burning
their villages and "often defeating bodies of five times his own
numbers." These statements are supported by no better authority than
traditions gathered a century and a quarter after the event and must be
dismissed as mere fable. They show a total and rather amusing ignorance
not only of the conditions of Indian warfare, but also of the history of
the particular contest referred to. Mr. Gilmore forgets that we have
numerous histories of the war in which Sevier is supposed to have
distinguished himself, and that in not one of them is there a syllable
hinting at what he says. Neither Sevier nor any one else ever with a
hundred men defeated "five times his number" of northwestern Indians in
the woods, and during Sevier's life in Virginia, the only defeat ever
suffered by such a body of Indians was at Bushy Run, when Bouquet gained
a hard-fought victory. After the end of Pontiac's war there was no
expedition of importance undertaken by Virginians against the Indians
until 1774, and of Pontiac's war itself we have full knowledge. Sevier
was neither leader nor participant in any such marvellous feats as Mr.
Gilmore describes, on the contrary, the skirmishes in which he may have
been engaged were of such small importance that no record remains
concerning them. Had Sevier done any such deeds all the colonies would
have rung with his exploits, instead of their remaining utterly unknown
for a hundred and twenty-five years. It is extraordinary that any author
should be willing to put his name to such reckless misstatements, in
what purports to be a history and not a book of fiction.
24. The Watauga settlers and those of Carter's Valley were the first to
organize; the Nolichucky people came in later.
25. Putnam, 30.
26. The original articles of the Watauga Association have been lost, and
no copies are extant. All we know of the matter is derived from Haywood,
Ramsey, and Putnam, three historians to whose praiseworthy industry
Tennessee owes as much as Kentucky does to Marshall, Butler, and
Collins. Ramsey, by the way, chooses rather inappropriate adjectives
when he calls the government "paternal and patriarchal."
27. A very good account of this government is given in Allison's
Address, pp. 5-8, and from it the following examples are taken.
28. A right the exercise of which is of course susceptible to great
abuse, but, nevertheless, is often absolutely necessary to the
well-being of a frontier community. In almost every case where I have
personally known it exercised, the character of the individual ordered
off justified the act.
29. Allison's Address.
30. Ramsey, log. Putnam says 36 degrees 35'.
31. Alexander Cameron.
32. Haywood, 43.
33. Meanwhile Carter's Valley, then believed to lie in Virginia, had
been settled by Virginians; the Indians robbed a trader's store, and
indemnified the owners by giving them land, at the treaty of Sycamore
Shoals. This land was leased in job lots to settlers, who, however, kept
possession without paying when they found it lay in North Carolina.
34. A similar but separate lease was made by the settlers on the
Nolichucky, who acquired a beautiful and fertile valley in exchange for
the merchandize carried on the back of a single pack-horse. Among the
whites themselves transfers of land were made in very simple forms, and
conveyed not the fee simple but merely the grantor's claim.
35. Haywood says they were named Crabtree; Putnam hints that they had
lost a brother when Boon's party was attacked and his son killed; but
the attack on Boon did not take place till over a year after this time.
36. Even La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (8, 95), who loathed the
backwoodsmen--few polished Europeans being able to see any but the
repulsive side of frontier character, a side certainly very often
prominent,--also speaks of the tendency of the worst Indians to go to
the frontier to rob and murder.
37. Salem Church was founded (Allison, 8) in 1777, by Samuel Doak, a
Princeton graduate, and a man of sound learning, who also at the same
time started Washington College, the first real institution of learning
south of the Alleghanies.
38. "Annals of Augusta," 21.
39. See Appendix.
CHAPTER VIII.
LORD DUNMORE'S WAR, 1774.
On the eve of the Revolution, in 1774, the frontiersmen had planted
themselves firmly among the Alleghanies. Directly west of them lay the
untenanted wilderness, traversed only by the war parties of the red men,
and the hunting parties of both reds and whites. No settlers had yet
penetrated it, and until they did so there could be within its borders
no chance of race warfare, unless we call by that name the unchronicled
and unending contest in which, now and then, some solitary white
woodsman slew, or was slain by, his painted foe. But in the southwest
and the northwest alike, the area of settlement already touched the home
lands of the tribes, and hence the horizon was never quite free from the
cloud of threatening Indian war; yet for the moment the southwest was at
peace, for the Cherokees were still friendly.
It was in the northwest that the danger of collision was most imminent;
for there the whites and Indians had wronged one another for a
generation, and their interests were, at the time, clashing more
directly than ever. Much the greater part of the western frontier was
held or claimed by Virginia, whose royal governor was, at the time, Lord
Dunmore. He was an ambitious, energetic man, who held his allegiance as
being due first to the crown, but who, nevertheless, was always eager to
champion the cause of Virginia as against either the Indians or her
sister colonies. The short but fierce and eventful struggle that now
broke out was fought wholly by Virginians, and was generally known by
the name of Lord Dunmore's war.
Virginia, under her charter, claimed that her boundaries ran across to
the South Seas, to the Pacific Ocean. The king of Britain had graciously
granted her the right to take so much of the continent as lay within
these lines, provided she could win it from the Indians, French, and
Spaniards; and provided also she could prevent herself from being ousted
by the crown, or by some of the other colonies. A number of grants had
been made with the like large liberality, and it was found that they
sometimes conflicted with one another. The consequence was that while
the boundaries were well marked near the coast, where they separated
Virginia from the long-settled regions of Maryland and North Carolina,
they became exceeding vague and indefinite the moment they touched the
mountains. Even at the south this produced confusion, and induced the
settlers of the upper Holston to consider themselves as Virginians, not
Carolinians; but at the north the effect was still more confusing, and
nearly resulted in bringing about an intercolonial war between
Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The Virginians claimed all of extreme western Pennsylvania, especially
Fort Pitt and the valley of the Monongahela, and, in 1774, proceeded
boldly to exercise jurisdiction therein.[1] Indeed a strong Party among
the settlers favored the Virginian claim; whereas it would have been
quite impossible to arouse anywhere in Virginia the least feeling in
support of a similar claim on behalf of Pennsylvania. The borderers had
a great contempt for the sluggish and timid government of the Quaker
province, which was very lukewarm in protecting them in their
rights--or, indeed, in punishing them when they did wrong to others. In
fact, it seems probable that they would have declared for Virginia even
more strongly, had it not been for the very reason that their feeling of
independence was so surly as to make them suspicious of all forms of
control; and they therefore objected almost as much to Virginian as
Pennsylvanian rule, and regarded the outcome of the dispute with a
certain indifference.[2]
For a time in the early part of 1774 there seemed quite as much
likelihood of the Virginians being drawn into a fight with the
Pennsylvanians as with the Shawnees. While the Pennsylvanian
commissioners were trying to come to an agreement concerning the
boundaries with Lord Dunmore, the representatives of the two contesting
parties at Fort Pitt were on the verge of actual collision. The Earl's
agent in the disputed territory was a Captain John Conolly,[3] a man of
violent temper and bad character. He embodied the men favorable to his
side as a sort of Virginian militia, with which he not only menaced both
hostile and friendly Indians, but the adherents of the Pennsylvanian
government as well. He destroyed their houses, killed their cattle and
hogs, impressed their horses, and finally so angered them that they
threatened to take refuge in the stockade at Fort Pitt, and defy him to
open war,--although even in the midst of these quarrels with Conolly
their loyalty to the Quaker State was somewhat doubtful.[4]
The Virginians were the only foes the western Indians really dreaded;
for their backwoodsmen were of warlike temper, and had learned to fight
effectively in the forest. The Indians styled them Long Knives; or, to
be more exact, they called them collectively the "Big Knife."[5] There
have been many accounts given of the origin of this name, some ascribing
it to the long knives worn by the hunters and backwoodsmen generally,
others to the fact that some of the noted Virginian fighters in their
early skirmishes were armed with swords. At any rate the title was
accepted by all the Indians as applying to their most determined foes
among the colonists; and finally, after we had become a nation, was
extended so as to apply to Americans generally.
The war that now ensued was not general. The Six Nations, as a whole,
took no part in it, while Pennsylvania also stood aloof; indeed at one
time it was proposed that the Pennsylvanians and Iroquois should jointly
endeavor to mediate between the combatants.[6] The struggle was purely
between the Virginians and the northwestern Indians.
The interests of the Virginians and Pennsylvanians conflicted not only
in respect to the ownership of the land, but also in respect to the
policy to be pursued regarding the Indians. The former were armed
colonists, whose interest it was to get actual possession of the
soil;[7] whereas in Pennsylvania the Indian trade was very important and
lucrative, and the numerous traders to the Indian towns were anxious
that the redskins should remain in undisturbed enjoyment of their
forests, and that no white man should be allowed to come among them;
moreover, so long as they were able to make heavy profits, they were
utterly indifferent to the well-being of the white frontiersmen, and in
return incurred the suspicion and hatred of the latter. The Virginians
accused the traders of being the main cause of the difficulty,[8]
asserting that they sometimes incited the Indians to outrages, and
always, even in the midst of hostilities, kept them supplied with guns
and ammunition, and even bought from them the horses that they had
stolen on their plundering expeditions against the Virginian border.[9]
These last accusations were undoubtedly justified, at least in great
part, by the facts. The interests of the white trader from Pennsylvania
and of the white settler from Virginia were so far from being identical
that they were usually diametrically opposite.
The northwestern Indians had been nominally at peace with the whites for
ten years, since the close of Bouquet's campaign. But Bouquet had
inflicted a very slight punishment upon them, and in concluding an
unsatisfactory peace had caused them to make but a partial reparation
for the wrongs they had done.[10] They remained haughty and insolent,
irritated rather than awed by an ineffective chastisement, and their
young men made frequent forays on the frontier. Each of the ten years of
nominal peace saw plenty of bloodshed. Recently they had been seriously
alarmed by the tendency of the whites to encroach on the great
hunting-grounds south of the Ohio;[11] for here and there hunters or
settlers were already beginning to build cabins along the course of that
stream. The cession by the Iroquois of these same hunting-grounds, at
the treaty of Fort Stanwix, while it gave the whites a colorable title,
merely angered the northwestern Indians. Half a century earlier they
would hardly have dared dispute the power of the Six Nations to do what
they chose with any land that could be reached by their war parties; but
in 1774 they felt quite able to hold their own against their old
oppressors, and had no intention of acquiescing in any arrangement the
latter might make, unless it was also clearly to their own advantage.
In the decade before Lord Dunmore's war there had been much mutual
wrong-doing between the northwestern Indians and the Virginian
borderers; but on the whole the latter had occupied the position of
being sinned against more often than that of sinning. The chief offence
of the whites was that they trespassed upon uninhabited lands, which
they forthwith proceeded to cultivate, instead of merely roaming over
them to hunt the game and butcher one another. Doubtless occasional
white men would murder an Indian if they got a chance, and the traders
almost invariably cheated the tribesmen. But as a whole the traders were
Indian rather than white in their sympathies, and the whites rarely made
forays against their foes avowedly for horses and plunder, while the
Indians on their side were continually indulging in such inroads. Every
year parties of young red warriors crossed the Ohio to plunder the
outlying farms, burn down the buildings, scalp the inmates, and drive
off the horses.[12] Year by year the exasperation of the borderers grew
greater and the tale of the wrongs they had to avenge longer.[13]
Occasionally they took a brutal and ill-judged vengeance, which usually
fell on innocent Indians,[14] and raised up new foes for the whites. The
savages grew continually more hostile, and in the fall of 1773 their
attacks became so frequent that it was evident a general outbreak was at
hand; eleven people were murdered in the county of Fincastle alone.[15]
The Shawnees were the leaders in all these outrages; but the outlaw
bands, such as the Mingos and Cherokees, were as bad, and parties of
Wyandots and Delawares, as well as of the various Miami and Wabash
tribes, joined them.
Thus the spring of 1774 opened with every thing ripe for an explosion.
The Virginian borderers were fearfully exasperated, and ready to take
vengeance upon any Indians, whether peaceful or hostile; while the
Shawnees and Mingos, on their side, were arrogant and overbearing, and
yet alarmed at the continual advance of the whites. The headstrong
rashness of Conolly, who was acting as Lord Dunmore's lieutenant on the
border, and who was equally willing to plunge into a war with
Pennsylvania or the Shawnees, served as a firebrand to ignite this mass
of tinder. The borderers were anxious for a war; and Lord Dunmore was
not inclined to baulk them. He was ambitious of glory, and probably
thought that in the midst of the growing difficulties between the mother
country and the colonies, it would be good policy to distract the
Virginians' minds by an Indian war, which, if he conducted it to a
successful conclusion, might strengthen his own position.[16]
There were on the border at the moment three or four men whose names are
so intimately bound up with the history of this war, that they deserve a
brief mention. One was Michael Cresap, a Maryland frontiersman, who had
come to the banks of the Ohio with the purpose of making a home for his
family.[17] He was of the regular pioneer type; a good woodsman, sturdy
and brave, a fearless fighter, devoted to his friends and his country;
but also, when his blood was heated, and his savage instincts fairly
roused, inclined to regard any red man, whether hostile or friendly, as
a being who should be slain on sight. Nor did he condemn the brutal
deeds done by others on innocent Indians.
The next was a man named Greathouse, of whom it is enough to know that,
together with certain other men whose names have for the most part, by a
merciful chance, been forgotten,[18] he did a deed such as could only be
committed by inhuman and cowardly scoundrels.
The other two actors in this tragedy were both Indians, and were both
men of much higher stamp. One was Cornstalk, the Shawnee chief; a
far-sighted seer, gloomily conscious of the impending ruin of his race,
a great orator, a mighty warrior, a man who knew the value of his word
and prized his honor, and who fronted death with quiet, disdainful
heroism; and yet a fierce, cruel, and treacherous savage to those with
whom he was at enmity, a killer of women and children, whom we first
hear of, in Pontiac's war, as joining in the massacre of unarmed and
peaceful settlers who had done him no wrong, and who thought that he was
friendly.[19] The other was Logan, an Iroquois warrior, who lived at
that time away from the bulk of his people, but who was a man of
note--in the loose phraseology of the border, a chief or headman--among
the outlying parties of Senecas and Mingos, and the fragments of broken
tribes that dwelt along the upper Ohio. He was a man of splendid
appearance; over six feet high, straight as a spear-shaft, with a
countenance as open as it was brave and manly,[20] until the wrongs he
endured stamped on it an expression of gloomy ferocity. He had always
been the friend of the white man, and had been noted particularly for
his kindness and gentleness to children. Up to this time he had lived at
peace with the borderers, for though some of his kin had been massacred
by them years before, he had forgiven the deed--perhaps not unmindful of
the fact that others of his kin had been concerned in still more bloody
massacres of the whites. A skilled marksman and mighty hunter, of
commanding dignity, who treated all men with a grave courtesy that
exacted the same treatment in return, he was greatly liked and respected
by all the white hunters and frontiersmen whose friendship and respect
were worth having; they admired him for his dexterity and prowess, and
they loved him for his straightforward honesty, and his noble loyalty to
his friends. One of these old pioneer hunters has left on record[21] the
statement that he deemed "Logan the best specimen of humanity he ever
met with, either white or red." Such was Logan before the evil days came
upon him.
Early in the spring the outlying settlers began again to suffer from the
deeds of straggling Indians. Horses were stolen, one or two murders were
committed, the inhabitants of the more lonely cabins fled to the forts,
and the backwoodsmen began to threaten fierce vengeance. On April 16th,
three traders in the employ of a man named Butler were attacked by some
of the outlaw Cherokees, one killed, another wounded, and their goods
plundered. Immediately after this Conolly issued an open letter,
commanding the backwoodsmen to hold themselves in readiness to repel any
attack by the Indians, as the Shawnees were hostile. Such a letter from
Lord Dunmore's lieutenant amounted to a declaration of war, and there
were sure to be plenty of backwoodsmen who would put a very liberal
interpretation upon the order given them to repel an attack. Its effects
were seen instantly. All the borderers prepared for war. Cresap was near
Wheeling at the time, with a band of hunters and scouts, fearless men,
who had adopted many of the ways of the redskins, in addition to their
method of fighting. As soon as they received Conolly's letter they
proceeded to declare war in the regular Indian style, calling a council,
planting the war-post, and going through other savage ceremonies,[22]
and eagerly waited for a chance to attack their foes.
Unfortunately the first stroke fell on friendly Indians. The trader,
Butler, spoken of above, in order to recover some of the peltries of
which he had been robbed by the Cherokees, had sent a canoe with two
friendly Shawnees towards the place of the massacre. On the 27th Cresap
and his followers ambushed these men near Captina, and killed and
scalped them. Some of the better backwoodsmen strongly protested against
this outrage;[23] but the mass of them were excited and angered by the
rumor of Indian hostilities, and the brutal and disorderly side of
frontier character was for the moment uppermost. They threatened to kill
whoever interfered with them, cursing the "damned traders" as being
worse than the Indians,[24] while Cresap boasted of the murder, and
never said a word in condemnation of the still worse deeds that followed
it.[25] The next day he again led out his men and attacked another party
of Shawnees, who had been trading near Pittsburg, killed one and wounded
two others, one of the whites being also hurt.[26]
Among the men who were with Cresap at this time was a young Virginian,
who afterwards played a brilliant part in the history of the west, who
was for ten years the leader of the bold spirits of Kentucky, and who
rendered the whole United States signal and effective service by one of
his deeds in the Revolutionary war. This was George Rogers Clark, then
twenty-one years old.[27] He was of good family, and had been fairly
well educated, as education went in colonial days; but from his
childhood he had been passionately fond of the wild roving life of the
woods. He was a great hunter; and, like so many other young colonial
gentlemen of good birth and bringing up, and adventurous temper, he
followed the hazardous profession of a backwoods surveyor. With chain
and compass, as well as axe and rifle, he penetrated the far places of
the wilderness, the lonely, dangerous regions where every weak man
inevitably succumbed to the manifold perils encountered, but where the
strong and far-seeing were able to lay the foundations of fame and
fortune. He possessed high daring, unflinching courage, passions which
he could not control, and a frame fitted to stand any strain of fatigue
or hardship. He was a square-built, thick-set man, with high broad
forehead, sandy hair, and unquailing blue eyes that looked out from
under heavy, shaggy brows.[28]
Clark had taken part with Cresap in his assault upon the second party of
Shawnees. On the following day the whole band of whites prepared to
march off and attack Logan's camp at Yellow Creek, some fifty miles
distant. After going some miles they began to feel ashamed of their
mission; calling a halt, they discussed the fact that the camp they were
preparing to attack, consisted exclusively of friendly Indians, and
mainly of women and children; and forthwith abandoned their proposed
trip and returned home. They were true borderers--brave, self-reliant,
loyal to their friends, and good-hearted when their worst instincts were
not suddenly aroused; but the sight of bloodshed maddened them as if
they had been so many wolves. Wrongs stirred to the depths their moody
tempers, and filled them with a brutal longing for indiscriminate
revenge. When goaded by memories of evil, or when swayed by swift,
fitful gusts of fury, the uncontrolled violence of their passions led
them to commit deeds whose inhuman barbarity almost equalled, though it
could never surpass, that shown by the Indians themselves.[29]
But Logan's people did not profit by Cresap's change of heart. On the
last day of April a small party of men, women, and children, including
almost all of Logan's kin, left his camp and crossed the river to visit
Greathouse, as had been their custom; for he made a trade of selling rum
to the savages, though Cresap had notified him to stop. The whole party
were plied with liquor, and became helplessly drunk, in which condition
Greathouse and his associated criminals fell on and massacred them, nine
souls in all.[30] It was an inhuman and revolting deed, which should
consign the names of the perpetrators to eternal infamy.
At once the frontier was in a blaze, and the Indians girded themselves
for revenge. The Mingos sent out runners to the other tribes, telling of
the butchery, and calling on all the red men to join together for
immediate and bloody vengeance.[31] They confused the two massacres,
attributing both to Cresap, whom they well knew as a warrior;[32] and
their women for long afterwards scared the children into silence by
threatening them with Cresap's name as with that of a monster.[33] They
had indeed been brutally wronged; yet it must be remembered that they
themselves were the first aggressors. They had causelessly murdered and
robbed many whites, and now their sins had recoiled on the heads of the
innocent of their own race. The conflict could not in any event have
been delayed long; the frontiersmen were too deeply and too justly
irritated. These particular massacres, however discreditable to those
taking part in them, were the occasions, not the causes, of the war; and
though they cast a dark shade on the conduct of the whites, they do not
relieve the red men from the charge of having committed earlier, more
cruel, and quite as wanton outrages.
Conolly, an irritable but irresolute man, was appalled by the storm he
had helped raise. He meanly disclaimed all responsibility for Cresap's
action,[34] and deposed him from his command of rangers; to which,
however, he was soon restored by Lord Dunmore. Both the earl and his
lieutenant, however, united in censuring severely Greathouse's deed.[35]
Conolly, throughout May, held a series of councils with the Delawares
and Iroquois, in which he disclaimed and regretted the outrages, and
sought for peace.[36] To one of these councils the Delaware chief,
Killbuck, with other warriors, sent a "talk" or "speech in writing"[37]
disavowing the deeds of one of their own parties of young braves, who
had gone on the warpath; and another Delaware chief made a very sensible
speech, saying that it was unfortunately inevitable that bad men on both
sides should commit wrongs, and that the cooler heads should not be led
away by acts due to the rashness and folly of a few. But the Shawnees
showed no such spirit. On the contrary they declared for war outright,
and sent a bold defiance to the Virginians, at the same time telling
Conolly plainly that he lied. Their message is noteworthy, because,
after expressing a firm belief that the Virginian leader could control
his warriors, and stop the outrages if he wished, it added that the
Shawnee head men were able to do the like with their own men when they
required it. This last allegation took away all shadow of excuse from
the Shawnees for not having stopped the excesses of which their young
braves had been guilty during the past few years.
Though Conolly showed signs of flinching, his master the earl had
evidently no thought of shrinking from the contest. He at once began
actively to prepare to attack his foes, and the Virginians backed him up
heartily, though the Royal Government, instead of supporting him,
censured him in strong terms, and accused the whites of being the real
aggressors and the authors of the war.[38]
In any event, it would have been out of the question to avoid a contest
at so late a date. Immediately after the murders in the end of April,
the savages crossed the frontier in small bands. Soon all the back
country was involved in the unspeakable horrors of a bloody Indian war,
with its usual accompaniments of burning houses, tortured prisoners, and
ruined families, the men being killed and the women and children driven
off to a horrible captivity.[39] The Indians declared that they were not
at war with Pennsylvania,[40] and the latter in return adopted an
attitude of neutrality, openly disclaiming any share in the wrong that
had been done, and assuring the Indians that it rested solely on the
shoulders of the Virginians.[41] Indeed the Shawnees protected the
Pennsylvania traders from some hostile Mingos, while the Pennsylvania
militia shielded a party of Shawnees from some of Conolly's men;[42] and
the Virginians, irritated by what they considered an abandonment of the
white cause, were bent on destroying the Pennsylvania fur trade with the
Indians.[43] Nevertheless, some of the bands of young braves who were
out on the war-path failed to discriminate between white friends and
foes, and a number of Pennsylvanians fell victims to their desire for
scalps and their ignorance or indifference as to whom they were at war
with.[44]
The panic along the Pennsylvania frontier was terrible; the out settlers
fled back to the interior across the mountains, or gathered in numbers
to defend themselves.[45] On the Virginian frontier, where the real
attack was delivered, the panic was more justifiable; for terrible
ravages were committed, and the inhabitants were forced to gather
together in their forted villages, and could no longer cultivate their
farms, except by stealth.[46] Instead of being cowed, however, the
backwoodsmen clamored to be led against their foes, and made most urgent
appeals for powder and lead, of which there was a great scarcity.[47]
The confusion was heightened by the anarchy in which the government of
the northwestern district had been thrown in consequence of the quarrel
concerning the jurisdiction. The inhabitants were doubtful as to which
colony really had a right to their allegiance, and many of the frontier
officials were known to be double-faced, professing allegiance to both
governments.[48] When the Pennsylvanians raised a corps of a hundred
rangers there almost ensued a civil war among the whites, for the
Virginians were fearful that the movement was really aimed against
them.[49] Of course the march of events gradually forced most, even of
the neutral Indians, to join their brethren who had gone on the
war-path, and as an example of the utter confusion that reigned, the
very Indians that were at war with one British colony, Virginia, were
still drawing supplies from the British post of Detroit.[50]
Logan's rage had been terrible. He had changed and not for the better,
as he grew older, becoming a sombre, moody man; worse than all, he had
succumbed to the fire-water, the curse of his race. The horrible
treachery and brutality of the assault wherein his kinsfolk were slain
made him mad for revenge; every wolfish instinct in him came to the
surface. He wreaked a terrible vengeance for his wrongs; but in true
Indian fashion it fell, not on those who had caused them, but on others
who were entirely innocent. Indeed he did not know who had caused them.
The massacres at Captina and Yellow Creek occurred so near together that
they were confounded with each other; and not only the Indians but many
whites as well[51] credited Cresap and Greathouse with being jointly
responsible for both, and as Cresap was the most prominent, he was the
one especially singled out for hatred.
Logan instantly fell on the settlement with a small band of Mingo
warriors. On his first foray he took thirteen scalps, among them those
of six children.[52] A party of Virginians, under a man named McClure,
followed him: but he ambushed and defeated them, slaying their
leader.[53] He repeated these forays at least three times. Yet, in spite
of his fierce craving for revenge, he still showed many of the traits
that had made him beloved of his white friends. Having taken a prisoner,
he refused to allow him to be tortured, and saved his life at the risk
of his own. A few days afterwards he suddenly appeared to this prisoner
with some gunpowder ink, and dictated to him a note. On his next
expedition this note, tied to a war-club, was left in the house of a
settler, whose entire family was murdered. It was a short document,
written with ferocious directness, as a kind of public challenge or
taunt to the man whom he wrongly deemed to be the author of his
misfortunes. It ran as follows:
"CAPTAIN CRESAP:
"What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white people
killed my kin at Conestoga, a great while ago, and I thought nothing of
that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took my cousin
prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to
war since; but the Indians are not angry, only myself.
"July 21, 1774. CAPTAIN JOHN LOGAN."[54]
There is a certain deliberate and blood-thirsty earnestness about this
letter which must have shown the whites clearly, if they still needed to
be shown, what bitter cause they had to rue the wrongs that had been
done to Logan.
The Shawnees and Mingos were soon joined by many of the Delawares and
outlying Iroquois, especially Senecas; as well as by the Wyandots and by
large bands of ardent young warriors from among the Algonquin tribes
along the Miami, the Wabash, and the Lakes. Their inroads on the
settlements were characterized, as usual, by extreme stealth and
merciless ferocity. They stole out of the woods with the silent cunning
of wild beasts, and ravaged with a cruelty ten times greater. They
burned down the lonely log-huts, ambushed travellers, shot the men as
they hunted or tilled the soil, ripped open the women with child, and
burned many of their captives at the stake. Their noiseless approach
enabled them to fall on the settlers before their presence was
suspected; and they disappeared as suddenly as they had come, leaving no
trail that could be followed. The charred huts and scalped and mangled
bodies of their victims were left as ghastly reminders of their visit,
the sight stirring the backwoodsmen to a frenzy of rage all the more
terrible in the end, because it was impotent for the time being.
Generally they made their escape successfully; occasionally they were
beaten off or overtaken and killed or scattered.
When they met armed woodsmen the fight was always desperate. In May, a
party of hunters and surveyors, being suddenly attacked in the forest,
beat off their assailants and took eight scalps, though with a loss of
nine of their own number.[55] Moreover, the settlers began to band
together to make retaliatory inroads; and while Lord Dunmore was busily
preparing to strike a really effective blow, he directed the
frontiersmen of the northwest to undertake a foray, so as to keep the
Indians employed. Accordingly, they gathered together, four hundred
strong,[56] crossed the Ohio, in the end of July, and marched against a
Shawnee town on the Muskingum. They had a brisk skirmish with the
Shawnees, drove them back, and took five scalps, losing two men killed
and five wounded. Then the Shawnees tried to ambush them, but their
ambush was discovered, and they promptly fled, after a slight skirmish,
in which no one was killed but one Indian, whom Cresap, a very active
and vigorous man, ran down and slew with his tomahawk.[57] The Shawnee
village was burned, seventy acres of standing corn were cut down, and
the settlers returned in triumph. On the march back they passed through
the towns of the peaceful Moravian Delawares, to whom they did no harm.
1. "American Archives," 4th series, Vol. I., p. 454. Report of Penn.
Commissioners, June 27, 1774.
2. Maryland was also involved, along her western frontier, in border
difficulties with her neighbors; the first we hear of the Cresap family
is their having engaged in a real skirmish with the Pennsylvanian
authorities. See also "Am. Arch.," IV., Vol. I., 547.
3. "Am. Arch.," IV., Vol. I., 394, 449, 469, etc. He was generally
called Dr. Conolly.
4. See _do_., 463, 471, etc., especially St. Clair's letters,
_passim_.
5. In most of the original treaties, "talks," etc., preserved in the
Archives of the State Department, where the translation is exact, the
word "Big Knife" is used.
6. Letter of John Penn, June 28, 1774. "Am. Arch.," IV., Vol. IV.
7. "Am. Archives," _do_., 465.
8. _Do_., 722.
9. _Do_., 872.
10. "Am. Arch.," IV., Vol. I., p. 1015.
11. McAfee MSS. This is the point especially insisted on by Cornstalk in
his speech to the adventurers in 1773; he would fight before seeing the
whites drive off the game.
12. In the McAfee MSS., as already quoted, there is an account of the
Shawnee war party, whom the McAfees encountered in 1773 returning from a
successful horse-stealing expedition.
13. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol. I., 872. Dunmore in his speech enumerates
19 men, women, and children who had been killed by the Indians in 1771,
'72, and '73, and these were but a small fraction of the whole. "This
was before a drop of Shawnee blood was shed."
14. "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers," p. 262, gives an example that happened
in 1772.
15. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol. I. Letter of Col. Wm. Preston, Aug. 13,
1774.
16. Many local historians, including Brantz Mayer (Logan and Cresap, p.
85), ascribe to the earl treacherous motives. Brantz Mayer puts it thus:
"It was probably Lord Dunmore's desire to incite a war which would
arouse and band the savages of the west, so that in the anticipated
struggle with the united colonies the British home-interest might
ultimately avail itself of these children of the forest as ferocious and
formidable allies in the onslaught on the Americans." This is much too
futile a theory to need serious discussion. The war was of the greatest
advantage to the American cause; for it kept the northwestern Indians
off our hands for the first two years of the Revolutionary struggle; and
had Lord Dunmore been the far-seeing and malignant being that this
theory supposes, it would have been impossible for him not also to
foresee that such a result was absolutely inevitable. There is no reason
whatever to suppose that he was not doing his best for the Virginians;
he deserved their gratitude; and he got it for the time being. The
accusations of treachery against him were afterthoughts, and must be set
down to mere vulgar rancor, unless, at least, some faint shadow of proof
is advanced. When the Revolutionary war broke out, however, the earl,
undoubtedly, like so many other British officials, advocated the most
outrageous measures to put down the insurgent colonists.
17. See Brantz Mayer, p. 86, for a very proper attack on those
historians who stigmatize as land-jobbers and speculators the perfectly
honest settlers, whose encroachments on the Indian hunting-grounds were
so bitterly resented by the savages. Such attacks are mere pieces of
sentimental injustice. The settlers were perfectly right in feeling that
they had a right to settle on the vast stretches of unoccupied ground,
however wrong some of their individual deeds may have been. But Mayer,
following Jacob's "Life of Cresap," undoubtedly paints his hero in
altogether too bright colors.
18. Sappington, Tomlinson, and Baker were the names of three of his
fellow miscreants. See Jefferson MSS.
19. At Greenbriar. See "Narrative of Captain John Stewart," an actor in
the war.--_Magazine of American History_, Vol. I., p. 671.
20. Loudon's "Indian Narratives," II., p. 223.
21. See "American Pioneer," I., p. 189.
22. Letter of George Rogers Clark, June 17. 1798. In Jefferson MSS., 5th
Series, Vol. I. (preserved in Archives of State Department at
Washington)
23. Witness the testimony of one of the most gallant Indian fighters of
the border, who was in Wheeling at the time; letter of Col. Ebenezer
Zane, February 4, 1800, in Jefferson MSS.
24. Jefferson MSS. Deposition of John Gibson, April 4, 1800.
25. _Do_. Deposition of Wm. Huston, April 19, 1798; also
depositions of Samuel McKee, etc.
26. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol. I., p. 468. Letter of Devereux Smith June
10, 1774, Gibson's letter, Also Jefferson MSS.
27. _Historical Magazine_, I., p. 168. Born in Albemarle County,
Va., November 19, 1752.
28. Military Journal of Major Ebenezer Denny, with an introductory
memoir by William H. Denny (Publication of the Hist. Soc. of Penn.),
Phil., 1860, p. 216
29. The Cresap apologists, including even Brantz Mayer, dwell on
Cresap's nobleness in not massacring Logan's family! It was certainly to
his credit that he did not do so, but it does not speak very well for
him that he should even have entertained the thought. He was doubtless,
on the whole, a brave, good-hearted man--quite as good as the average
borderer; but nevertheless apt to be drawn into deeds that were the
reverse of creditable. Mayer's book has merit; but he certainly paints
Logan too black and Cresap too white, and (see Appendix) is utterly
wrong as to Logan's speech. He is right in recognizing the fact that in
the war, as a whole, justice was on the side of the frontiersmen.
30. Devereux Smith's letter. Some of the evil-doers afterwards tried to
palliate their misdeeds by stating that Logan's brother, when drunk,
insulted a white man, and that the other Indians were at the time on the
point of executing an attack upon them. The last statement is
self-evidently false; for had such been the case, the Indians would, of
course, never have let some of their women and children put themselves
in the power of the whites, and get helplessly drunk; and, anyhow, the
allegations of such brutal and cowardly murderers are entirely unworthy
of acceptance, unless backed up by outside evidence.
31. Jefferson MSS., 5th Series, Vol. I. Heckewelder's letter.
32. Jefferson MSS. Deposition of Col. James Smith, May 25, 1798.
33. _Do_., Heckewelder's letter.
34. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol. I., p. 475.
35. _Do_., p. 1015.
36. _Do_., p. 475.
37. _Do_., p. 418.
38. _Do_., p. 774. Letter of the Earl of Dartmouth, Sept. 10, 1774.
A sufficient answer, by the way, to the absurd charge that Dunmore
brought on the war in consequence of some mysterious plan of the Home
Government to embroil the Americans with the savages. It is not at all
improbable that the Crown advisers were not particularly displeased at
seeing the attention of the Americans distracted by a war with the
Indians; but this is the utmost that can be alleged.
39. _Do_., p. 808.
40. _Do_., p. 478.
41. _Do_., p. 506.
42. _Do_., p. 474.
43. _Do_., p. 549.
44. _Do_., p. 471.
45. _Do_., pp. 435, 467, 602.
46. _Do_., pp. 405, 707.
47. _Do_., p. 808.
48. _Do_., p. 677.
49. _Do_., pp. 463, 467.
50. _Do_., p. 684.
51. _Do_., p. 435.
52. _Do_., pp. 468, 546.
53. _Do_., p. 470.
54. Jefferson MSS. Dep. of Wm. Robinson, February 28, 1800, and letter
from Harry Innes, March 2, 1799, with a copy of Logan's letter as made
in his note-book at the time.
55. "Am. Archives.," p. 373.
56. Under a certain Angus MacDonald, _do_., p. 722. They crossed
the Ohio at Fish Creek, 120 miles below Pittsburg.
57. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol. I., pp. 682, 684.
CHAPTER IX.
THE BATTLE OF THE GREAT KANAWHA; AND LOGAN'S SPEECH, 1774.
Meanwhile Lord Dunmore, having garrisoned the frontier forts, three of
which were put under the orders of Daniel Boon, was making ready a
formidable army with which to overwhelm the hostile Indians. It was to
be raised, and to march, in two wings or divisions, each fifteen hundred
strong, which were to join at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. One wing,
the right or northernmost, was to be commanded by the earl in person;
while the other, composed exclusively of frontiersmen living among the
mountains west and southwest of the Blue Ridge, was entrusted to General
Andrew Lewis. Lewis was a stalwart backwoods soldier, belonging to a
family of famous frontier fighters, but though a sternly just and
fearless man,[1] he does not appear to have had more than average
qualifications to act as a commander of border troops when pitted
against Indians.
The backwoodsmen of the Alleghanies felt that the quarrel was their own;
in their hearts the desire for revenge burned like a sullen flame. The
old men had passed their manhood with nerves tense from the strain of
unending watchfulness, and souls embittered by terrible and repeated
disasters; the young men had been cradled in stockaded forts, round
which there prowled a foe whose comings and goings were unknown, and who
was unseen till the moment when the weight of his hand was felt. They
had been helpless to avenge their wrongs, and now that there was at last
a chance to do so, they thronged eagerly to Lewis' standard. The left
wing or army assembled at the Great Levels of Greenbriar, and thither
came the heroes of long rifle, tomahawk, and hunting-shirt, gathering
from every stockaded hamlet, every lonely clearing and smoky hunter's
camp that lay along the ridges from whose hollows sprang the sources of
the Eastern and the Western Waters. They were not uniformed, save that
they all wore the garb of the frontier hunter; but most of them were
armed with good rifles, and were skilful woodsmen, and though utterly
undisciplined, they were magnificent individual fighters.[2] The
officers were clad and armed almost precisely like the rank and file,
save that some of them had long swords girded to their waist-belts; they
carried rifles, for, where the result of the contest depended mainly on
the personal prowess of the individual fighter, the leader was expected
literally to stand in the forefront of the battle, and to inspirit his
followers by deeds as well as words.
Among these troops was a company of rangers who came from the scattered
wooden forts of the Watauga and the Nolichucky. Both Sevier and
Robertson took part in this war, and though the former saw no fighting,
the latter, who had the rank of sergeant, was more fortunate.
While the backwoods general was mustering his unruly and turbulent host
of skilled riflemen, the English earl led his own levies, some fifteen
hundred strong, to Fort Pitt.[3] Here he changed his plans, and decided
not to try to join the other division, as he had agreed to do. This
sudden abandonment of a scheme already agreed to and acted on by his
colleague was certainly improper, and, indeed, none of the earl's
movements indicated very much military capacity. However, he descended
the Ohio River with a flotilla of a hundred canoes, besides keel-boats
and pirogues,[4] to the mouth of the Hockhocking, where he built and
garrisoned a small stockade. Then he went up the Hockhocking to the
falls, whence he marched to the Scioto, and there entrenched himself in
a fortified camp, with breastworks of fallen trees, on the edge of the
Pickaway plains, not far from the Indian town of Old Chillicothe. Thence
he sent out detachments that destroyed certain of the hostile towns. He
had with him as scouts many men famous in frontier story, among them
George Rogers Clark, Cresap, and Simon Kenton--afterwards the bane of
every neighboring Indian tribe, and renowned all along the border for
his deeds of desperate prowess, his wonderful adventures, and his
hairbreadth escapes. Another, of a very different stamp, was Simon
Girty, of evil fame, whom the whole west grew to loathe, with bitter
hatred, as "the white renegade." He was the son of a vicious Irish
trader, who was killed by the Indians; he was adopted by the latter, and
grew up among them, and his daring ferocity and unscrupulous cunning
early made him one of their leaders.[5] At the moment he was serving
Lord Dunmore and the whites; but he was by tastes, habits, and education
a red man, who felt ill at ease among those of his own color. He soon
returned to the Indians, and dwelt among them ever afterwards, the most
inveterate foe of the whites that was to be found in all the tribes. He
lived to be a very old man, and is said to have died fighting his
ancient foes and kinsmen, the Americans, in our second war against the
British.
But Lord Dunmore's army was not destined to strike the decisive blow in
the contest. The great Shawnee chief, Cornstalk, was as wary and able as
he was brave. He had from the first opposed the war with the whites;[6]
but as he had been unable to prevent it, he was now bent on bringing it
to a successful issue. He was greatly outnumbered; but he had at his
command over a thousand painted and plumed warriors, the pick of the
young men of the western tribes, the most daring braves to be found
between the Ohio and the Great Lakes. His foes were divided, and he
determined to strike first at the one who would least suspect a blow,
but whose ruin, nevertheless, would involve that of the other. If Lewis'
army could be surprised and overwhelmed, the fate of Lord Dunmore's
would be merely a question of days. So without delay, Cornstalk, crafty
in council, mighty in battle, and swift to carry out what he had
planned, led his long files of warriors, with noiseless speed, through
leagues of trackless woodland to the banks of the Ohio.
The backwoodsmen who were to form the army of Lewis had begun to gather
at the Levels of Greenbriar before the 1st of September, and by the 7th
most of them were assembled. Altogether the force under Lewis consisted
of four commands, as follows: a body of Augusta troops, under Col.
Charles Lewis, a brother of the general's;[7] a body of Botetourt
troops, under Col. William Fleming;[8] a small independent company,
under Col. John Field; and finally the Fincastle men, from the Holston,
Clinch, Watauga, and New River[9] settlements, under Col. William
Christian.[10] One of Christian's captains was a stout old Marylander,
of Welsh blood, named Evan Shelby; and Shelby's son Isaac,[11] a
stalwart, stern-visaged young man, who afterwards played a very
prominent part on the border, was a subaltern in his company, in which
Robertson likewise served as a sergeant. Although without experience of
drill, it may be doubted if a braver or physically finer set of men were
ever got together on this continent.[12]
Among such undisciplined troops it was inevitable that there should be
both delay and insubordination. Nevertheless they behaved a good deal
better than their commander had expected; and he was much pleased with
their cheerfulness and their eagerness for action. The Fincastle men,
being from the remote settlements, were unable to get together in time
to start with the others; and Col. Field grew jealous of his commander
and decided to march his little company alone. The Indians were hovering
around the camp, and occasionally shot at and wounded stragglers, or
attempted to drive off the pack-horses.
The army started in three divisions. The bulk, consisting of Augusta
men, under Col. Charles Lewis, marched on September 8th, closely
followed by the Botetourt troops under Andrew Lewis himself.[13]
Field, with his small company, started off on his own account; but after
being out a couple of days, two of his scouts met two Indians, with the
result that a man was killed on each side; after which, profiting by the
loss, he swallowed his pride and made haste to join the first division.
The Fincastle troops were delayed so long that most of them, with their
commander, were still fifteen miles from the main body the day the
battle was fought; but Captains Shelby and Russell, with parts of their
companies, went on ahead of the others, and, as will be seen, joined
Lewis in time to do their full share of the fighting. Col. Christian
himself only reached the Levels on the afternoon of the day the Augusta
men had marched. He was burning with desire to distinguish himself, and
his men were also very eager to have a share in the battle; and he
besought Lewis to let him go along with what troops he had. But he was
refused permission, whereat he was greatly put out.
Lewis found he had more men than he expected, and so left some of the
worst troops to garrison the small forts. Just before starting he
received a letter from the Earl advising, but not commanding, a change
in their plans; to this he refused to accede, and was rather displeased
at the proposal, attributing it to the influence of Conolly, whom the
backwoods leaders were growing to distrust. There is not the slightest
reason to suppose, however, that he then, or at any time during the
campaign, suspected the Earl of treachery; nor did the latter's conduct
give any good ground for such a belief. Nevertheless, this view gained
credit among the Virginians in later years, when they were greatly
angered by the folly and ferocity of Lord Dunmore's conduct during the
early part of the Revolutionary war, and looked at all his past acts
with jaundiced eyes.[14]
Lewis' troops formed a typical backwoods army, both officers and
soldiers. They wore fringed hunting-shirts, dyed yellow, brown, white,
and even red; quaintly carved shot-bags and powder-horns hung from their
broad ornamented belts; they had fur caps or soft hats, moccasins, and
coarse woollen leggings reaching half-way up the thigh.[15] Each carried
his flint-lock, his tomahawk, and scalping-knife. They marched in long
files with scouts or spies thrown out in front and on the flanks, while
axe-men went in advance to clear a trail over which they could drive the
beef cattle, and the pack-horses, laden with provisions, blankets, and
ammunition. They struck out straight through the trackless wilderness,
making their road as they went, until on the 21st of the month[16] they
reached the Kanawha, at the mouth of Elk Creek. Here they halted to
build dug-out canoes; and about this time were overtaken by the
companies of Russell and Shelby. On October 1st[17] they started to
descend the river in twenty-seven canoes, a portion of the army marching
down along the Indian trail, which followed the base of the hills,
instead of the river bank, as it was thus easier to cross the heads of
the creeks and ravines.[18]
They reached the mouth of the river on the 6th,[19] and camped on Point
Pleasant, the cape of land jutting out between the Ohio and the Kanawha.
As a consequence the bloody fight that ensued is sometimes called the
battle of Point Pleasant, and sometimes the battle of the Great Kanawha.
Hitherto the Indians had not seriously molested Lewis' men, though they
killed a settler right on their line of march, and managed to drive off
some of the bullocks and pack-horses.[20]
The troops, though tired from their journey, were in good spirits, and
eager to fight. But they were impatient of control, and were murmuring
angrily that there was favoritism shown in the issue of beef. Hearing
this, Lewis ordered all the poorest beeves to be killed first; but this
merely produced an explosion of discontent, and large numbers of the men
in mutinous defiance of the orders of their officers began to range the
woods, in couples, to kill game. There was little order in the camp,[21]
and small attention was paid to picket and sentinel duty; the army, like
a body of Indian warriors, relying for safety mainly upon the
sharp-sighted watchfulness of the individual members and the activity of
the hunting parties.
On the 9th Simon Girty[22] arrived in camp bringing a message from Lord
Dunmore, which bade Lewis meet him at the Indian towns near the Pickaway
plains. Lewis was by no means pleased at the change, but nevertheless
prepared to break camp and march next morning. He had with him at this
time about eleven hundred men.[23]
His plans, however, were destined to be rudely forestalled, for
Cornstalk, coming rapidly through the forest, had reached the Ohio. That
very night the Indian chief ferried his men across the river on rafts,
six or eight miles above the forks,[24] and by dawn was on the point of
hurling his whole force, of nearly a thousand warriors[25] on the camp
of his slumbering foes.
Before daylight on the 10th small parties of hunters had, as usual, left
Lewis' camp. Two of these men, from Russell's company, after having gone
somewhat over a mile, came upon a large party of Indians; one was
killed, and the survivor ran back at full speed to give the alarm,
telling those in camp that he had seen five acres of ground covered with
Indians as thick as they could stand.[26] Almost immediately afterwards
two men of Shelby's company, one being no less a person than Robertson
himself and the other Valentine, a brother of John Sevier, also stumbled
upon the advancing Indians; being very wary and active men, they both
escaped, and reached camp almost as soon as the other.
Instantly the drums beat to arms,[27] and the backwoodsmen,--lying out
in the open, rolled in their blankets,--started from the ground, looked
to their flints and priming, and were ready on the moment. The general,
thinking he had only a scouting party to deal with, ordered out Col.
Charles Lewis and Col. Fleming, each with one hundred and fifty men.
Fleming had the left, and marched up the bank of the Ohio, while Lewis,
on the right, kept some little distance inland. They went about half a
mile.[28] Then, just before sunrise, while it was still dusk, the men in
camp, eagerly listening, heard the reports of three guns, immediately
succeeded by a clash like a peal of thin thunder, as hundreds of rifles
rang out together. It was evident that the attack was serious and Col.
Field was at once despatched to the front with two hundred men.[29]
He came only just in time. At the first fire both of the scouts in front
of the white line had been killed. The attack fell first, and with
especial fury, on the division of Charles Lewis, who himself was
mortally wounded at the very outset; he had not taken a tree,[30] but
was in an open piece of ground, cheering on his men, when he was shot.
He stayed with them until the line was formed, and then walked back to
camp unassisted, giving his gun to a man who was near him. His men, who
were drawn up on the high ground skirting Crooked Run,[31] began to
waver, but were rallied by Fleming, whose division had been attacked
almost simultaneously, until he too was struck down by a bullet. The
line then gave way, except that some of Fleming's men still held their
own on the left in a patch of rugged ground near the Ohio. At this
moment, however, Colonel Field came up and restored the battle, while
the backwoodsmen who had been left in camp also began to hurry up to
take part in the fight. General Lewis at last, fully awake to the
danger, began to fortify the camp by felling timber so as to form a
breastwork running across the point from the Ohio to the Kanawha. This
work should have been done before; and through attending to it Lewis was
unable to take any personal part in the battle.
Meanwhile the frontiersmen began to push back their foes, led by Col.
Field. The latter himself, however, was soon slain; he was at the time
behind a great tree, and was shot by two Indians on his right, while he
was trying to get a shot at another on his left, who was distracting his
attention by mocking and jeering at him.[32] The command then fell on
Captain Evan Shelby, who turned his company over to the charge of his
son, Isaac. The troops fought on steadily, undaunted by the fall of
their leaders, while the Indians attacked with the utmost skill,
caution, and bravery. The fight was a succession of single combats, each
man sheltering himself behind a stump, or rock, or tree-trunk, the
superiority of the backwoodsmen in the use of the rifle being offset by
the superiority of their foes in the art of hiding and of shielding
themselves from harm. The hostile lines, though about a mile and a
quarter in length, were so close together, being never more than twenty
yards apart, that many of the combatants grappled in hand-to-hand
fighting, and tomahawked or stabbed each other[33] to death. The clatter
of the rifles was incessant, while above the din could be heard the
cries and groans of the wounded, and the shouts of the combatants, as
each encouraged his own side, or jeered savagely at his adversaries. The
cheers of the whites mingled with the appalling war-whoops and yells of
their foes. The Indians also called out to the Americans in broken
English, taunting them, and asking them why their fifes were no longer
whistling--for the fight was far too close to permit of any such music.
Their headmen walked up and down behind their warriors, exhorting them
to go in close, to shoot straight, and to bear themselves well in the
fight;[34] while throughout the action the whites opposite Cornstalk
could hear his deep, sonorous voice as he cheered on his braves, and
bade them "be strong, be strong."[35]
About noon the Indians tried to get round the flank of the whites, into
their camp; but this movement was repulsed, and a party of the
Americans[36] followed up their advantage, and running along the banks
of the Kanawha out-flanked the enemy in turn. The Indians being pushed
very hard now began to fall back, the best fighters covering the
retreat, while the wounded were being carried off; although,--a rare
thing in Indian battles--they were pressed so close that they were able
to bear away but a portion of their dead. The whites were forced to
pursue with the greatest caution; for those of them who advanced
heedlessly were certain to be ambushed and receive a smart check.
Finally, about one o'clock, the Indians, in their retreat, reached a
very strong position, where the underbrush was very close and there were
many fallen logs and steep banks. Here they stood resolutely at bay, and
the whites did not dare attack them in such a stronghold. So the action
came almost to an end; though skirmishing went on until about an hour
before sunset, the Indians still at times taunting their foes and
calling out to them that they had eleven hundred men as well as the
whites, and that to-morrow they were going to be two thousand strong[37]
This was only bravado, however; they had suffered too heavily to renew
the attack, and under cover of darkness they slipped away, and made a
most skilful retreat, carrying all their wounded in safety across the
Ohio. The exhausted Americans, having taken a number of scalps, as well
as forty guns, and many tomahawks[38] and some other plunder,[39]
returned to their camp.
The battle had been bloody as well as stubborn. The whites, though the
victors, had suffered more than their foes, and indeed had won only
because it was against the entire policy of Indian warfare to suffer a
severe loss, even if a victory could be gained thereby. Of the whites,
some seventy-five men had been killed or mortally wounded, and one
hundred and forty severely or slightly wounded,[40] so that they lost a
fifth of their whole number. The Indians had not lost much more than
half as many; about forty warriors were killed outright or died of their
wounds.[41] Among the Indians no chief of importance was slain; whereas
the Americans had seventeen officers killed or wounded, and lost in
succession their second, third, and fourth in command. The victors
buried their own dead and left the bodies of the vanquished to the
wolves and ravens. At midnight, after the battle, Col. Christian and his
Fincastle men reached the ground. The battle of the Great Kanawha was a
purely American victory, for it was fought solely by the backwoodsmen
themselves. Their immense superiority over regular troops in such
contests can be readily seen when their triumph on this occasion is
compared with the defeats previously suffered by Braddock's grenadiers
and Grant's highlanders, at the hands of the same foes. It was purely a
soldiers' battle, won by hard individual fighting; there was no display
of generalship, except on Cornstalk's part.[42] It was the most closely
contested of any battle ever fought with the northwestern Indians; and
it was the only victory gained over a large body of them by a force but
slightly superior in numbers.[43] Both because of the character of the
fight itself, and because of the results that flowed from it, it is
worthy of being held in especial remembrance.
Lewis left his sick and wounded in the camp at the Point, protected by a
rude breastwork, and with an adequate guard. With the remainder of his
forces, over a thousand strong, he crossed the Ohio, and pushed on to
the Pickaway plains. When but a few miles from the earl's encampment he
was met by a messenger informing him that a treaty of peace was being
negotiated with the Indians.[44] The backwoodsmen, flushed with success,
and angry at their losses, were eager for more bloodshed; and it was
only with difficulty that they were restrained, and were finally induced
to march homewards, the earl riding down to them and giving his orders
in person. They grumbled angrily against the earl for sending them back,
and in later days accused him of treachery for having done so; but his
course was undoubtedly proper, for it would have been very difficult to
conclude peace in the presence of such fierce and unruly auxiliaries.
The spirit of the Indians had been broken by their defeat. Their stern
old chief, Cornstalk, alone remained with unshaken heart, resolute to
bid defiance to his foes and to fight the war out to the bitter end. But
when the council of the headmen and war-chiefs was called it became
evident that his tribesmen would not fight, and even his burning
eloquence could not goad the warriors into again trying the hazard of
battle. They listened unmoved and in sullen silence to the thrilling and
impassioned words with which he urged them to once more march against
the Long Knives, and if necessary to kill their women and children, and
then themselves die fighting to the last man. At last, when he saw he
could not stir the hearts of his hearers he struck his tomahawk into the
warpost and announced that he himself would go and make peace. At that
the warriors broke silence, and all grunted out approvingly, ough! ough!
ough! and then they instantly sent runners to the earl's army to demand
a truce.[45]
Accordingly, with all his fellow-chiefs, he went to Lord Dunmore's camp,
and there entered into a treaty. The crestfallen Indians assented to all
the terms the conquerors proposed. They agreed to give up all the white
prisoners and stolen horses in their possession, and to surrender all
claim to the lands south of the Ohio, and they gave hostages as an
earnest of their good-faith.[46] But their chief spokesman, Cornstalk,
while obliged to assent to these conditions, yet preserved through all
the proceedings a bearing of proud defiance that showed how little the
fear of personal consequences influenced his own actions. At the talks
he addressed the white leader with vehement denunciation and reproach,
in a tone that seemed rather that of a conqueror than of one of the
conquered. Indeed, he himself was not conquered; he felt that his
tribesmen were craven, but he knew that his own soul feared nothing. The
Virginians, who, like their Indian antagonists, prized skill in oratory
only less than skill in warfare, were greatly impressed by the
chieftain's eloquence, by his command of words, his clear, distinct
voice, his peculiar emphasis, and his singularly grand and majestic, and
yet graceful, bearing; they afterwards said that his oratory fully
equalled that of Patrick Henry himself.[47]
Every prominent chief but one came to the council. The exception was
Logan, who remained apart in the Mingo village, brooding over his
wrongs, and the vengeance he had taken. His fellows, when questioned
about his absence, answered that he was like a mad dog, whose bristles
were still up, but that they were gradually falling; and when he was
entreated to be present at the meeting he responded that he was a
warrior, not a councillor, and would not come. The Mingos, because they
failed to appear at the treaty, had their camp destroyed and were forced
to give hostages, as the Delawares and Shawnees had done,[48] and Logan
himself finally sullenly acquiesced in, or at least ceased openly to
oppose, the peace.
But he would not come in person to Lord Dunmore; so the earl was obliged
to communicate with him through a messenger, a frontier veteran[49]
named John Gibson, who had long lived among the Indians and knew
thoroughly both their speech and their manners.[50] To this messenger
Logan was willing to talk. Taking him aside, he suddenly addressed him
in a speech that will always retain its place as perhaps the finest
outburst of savage eloquence of which we have any authentic record. The
messenger took it down in writing, translating it literally,[51] and,
returning to camp, gave it to Lord Dunmore. The earl then read it, in
open council, to the whole backwoods army, including Cresap, Clark, and
the other scouts. The speech, when read, proved to be no message of
peace, nor an acknowledgment of defeat, but instead, a strangely
pathetic recital of his wrongs, and a fierce and exulting justification
of the vengeance he had taken. It ran as follows:
"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin
hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked and he
clothed him not? During the course of the last long and bloody war,
Logan remained idle in his camp, an advocate for peace. Such was my love
for the whites that my countrymen pointed as I passed and said, 'Logan
is the friend of the white man.' I had even thought to have lived with
you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring,
in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not
even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in
the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have
sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my
country I rejoice at the beams of peace; but do not harbor a thought
that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on
his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one."
The tall frontiersmen, lounging in a circle round about, listened to the
reading of the speech with eager interest; rough Indian haters though
they were, they were so much impressed by it that in the evening it was
a common topic of conversation over their camp fires, and they
continually attempted to rehearse it to one another.[52] But they knew
that Greathouse, not Cresap, had been the chief offender in the murder
of Logan's family; and when the speech was read, Clark, turning round,
jeered at and rallied Cresap as being so great a man that the Indians
put every thing on his shoulders; whereat, Cresap, much angered, swore
that he had a good mind to tomahawk Greathouse for the murder.[53]
The speech could not have been very satisfactory to the earl; but at
least it made it evident that Logan did not intend to remain on the
war-path; and so Lord Dunmore marched home with his hostages. On the
homeward march, near the mouth of the River Hockhocking, the officers of
the army held a notable meeting. They had followed the British earl to
battle; but they were Americans, in warm sympathy with the Continental
Congress, which was then in session. Fearful lest their countrymen might
not know that they were at one with them in the struggle of which the
shadow was looming up with ever increasing blackness, they passed
resolutions which were afterwards published. Their speakers told how
they had lived in the woods for three months, without hearing from the
Congress at Philadelphia, nor yet from Boston, where the disturbances
seemed most likely to come to a head. They spoke of their fear lest
their countrymen might be misled into the belief that this numerous body
of armed men was hostile or indifferent to the cause of America; and
proudly alluded to the fact that they had lived so long without bread or
salt, or shelter at night, and that the troops they led could march and
fight as well as any in the world. In their resolutions they professed
their devotion to their king, to the honor of his crown, and to the
dignity of the British empire; but they added that this devotion would
only last while the king deigned to rule over a free people, for their
love for the liberty of America outweighed all other considerations, and
they would exert every power for its defence, not riotously, but when
regularly called forth by the voice of their countrymen.
They ended by tendering their thanks to Lord Dunmore for his conduct. He
was also warmly thanked by the Virginia Legislature, as well as by the
frontiersmen of Fincastle,[54] and he fully deserved their gratitude.
The war had been ended in less than six months' time; and its results
were of the utmost importance. It had been very successful. In
Braddock's war, the borderers are estimated to have suffered a loss of
fifty souls for every Indian slain; in Pontiac's war, they had learned
to defend themselves better, and yet the ratio was probably as ten to
one;[55] whereas in this war, if we consider only males of fighting age,
it is probable that a good deal more than half as many Indians as whites
were killed, and even including women and children, the ratio would not
rise to more than three to one. Certainly, in all the contests waged
against the northwestern Indians during the last half of the eighteenth
century there was no other where the whites inflicted so great a
relative loss on their foes. Its results were most important. It kept
the northwestern tribes quiet for the first two years of the
Revolutionary struggle; and above all it rendered possible the
settlement of Kentucky, and therefore the winning of the West. Had it
not been for Lord Dunmore's war, it is more than likely that when the
colonies achieved their freedom they would have found their western
boundary fixed at the Alleghany Mountains.[56]
Nor must we permit our sympathy for the foul wrongs of the two great
Indian heroes of the contest to blind us to the fact that the struggle
was precipitated, in the first place, by the outrages of the red men,
not the whites; and that the war was not only inevitable, but was also
in its essence just and righteous on the part of the borderers. Even the
unpardonable and hideous atrocity of the murder of Logan's family, was
surpassed in horror by many of the massacres committed by the Indians
about the same time. The annals of the border are dark and terrible.
Among the characters who played the leaders' parts in this short and
tragic drama of the backwoods few came to much afterwards. Cresap died a
brave Revolutionary soldier. Of Greathouse we know nothing; we can only
hope that eventually the Indians scalped him. Conolly became a virulent
tory, who yet lacked the power to do the evil that he wished. Lewis
served creditably in the Revolution; while at its outbreak Lord Dunmore
was driven from Virginia and disappears from our ken. Proud, gloomy
Logan never recovered from the blow that had been dealt him; he drank
deeper and deeper, and became more and more an implacable, moody, and
bloodthirsty savage, yet with noble qualities that came to the surface
now and then. Again and again he wrought havoc among the frontier
settlers; yet we several times hear of his saving the lives of
prisoners. Once he saved Simon Kenton from torture and death, when
Girty, moved by a rare spark of compassion for his former comrade, had
already tried to do so and failed. At last he perished in a drunken
brawl by the hand of another Indian.
Cornstalk died a grand death, but by an act of cowardly treachery on the
part of his American foes; it is one of the darkest stains on the
checkered pages of frontier history. Early in 1777 he came into the
garrison at Point Pleasant to explain that, while he was anxious to keep
at peace, his tribe were bent on going to war; and he frankly added that
of course if they did so he should have to join them. He and three other
Indians, among them his son and the chief Redhawk, who had also been at
the Kanawha battle, were detained as hostages. While they were thus
confined in the fort a member of a company of rangers was killed by the
Indians near by; whereupon his comrades, headed by their captain,[57]
rushed in furious anger into the fort to slay the hostages. Cornstalk
heard them rushing in, and knew that his hour had come; with unmoved
countenance he exhorted his son not to fear, for it was the will of the
Great Spirit that they should die there together; then, as the murderers
burst into the room, he quietly rose up to meet them, and fell dead
pierced by seven or eight bullets. His son and his comrades were
likewise butchered, and we have no record of any more infamous deed.
Though among the whites, the men who took prominent parts in the
struggle never afterwards made any mark, yet it is worth noting that all
the aftertime leaders of the west were engaged in some way in Lord
Dunmore's war. Their fates were various. Boon led the vanguard of the
white advance across the mountains, wandered his life long through the
wilderness, and ended his days, in extreme old age, beyond the
Mississippi, a backwoods hunter to the last. Shelby won laurels at
King's Mountain, became the first governor of Kentucky, and when an old
man revived the memories of his youth by again leading the western men
in battle against the British and Indians. Sevier and Robertson were for
a generation the honored chiefs of the southwestern people. Clark, the
ablest of all, led a short but brilliant career, during which he made
the whole nation his debtor. Then, like Logan, he sank under the curse
of drunkenness,--often hardly less dangerous to the white borderer than
to his red enemy,--and passed the remainder of his days in ignoble and
slothful retirement.
1. Stewart's Narrative.
2. "Am. Archiv." Col. Wm. Preston's letter, Sept. 28, 1774.
3. _Do_., p. 872.
4. Doddridge, 235.
5. See _Mag. of Am. Hist._, XV., 256.
6. De Haas, p. 161. He is a very fair and trustworthy writer; in
particular, as regards Logan's speech and Cresap's conduct. It is to be
regretted that Brantz Mayer, in dealing with these latter subjects,
could not have approached them with the same desire to be absolutely
impartial, instead of appearing to act solely as an advocate.
7. His eight captains were George Matthews, Alexander McClannahan, John
Dickinson, John Lewis (son of William), Benjamin Harrison, William Paul,
Joseph Haynes, and Samuel Wilson. Hale, "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers," p.
181.
8. His seven captains were Matthew Arbuckle, John Murray, John Lewis
(son of Andrew), James Robertson, Robert McClannahan, James Ward, and
John Stewart (author of the Narrative).
9. As the Kanawha was sometimes called.
10. Whose five captains were Evan Shelby, Russell, Herbert, Draper, and
Buford.
11. Born December 11, 1750, near Hagerstown, Md.
12. Letter of Col. Wm. Preston, September 28, 1774. "Am. Archives."
13. Letter of one of Lord Dunmore's officers, November 21, 1774. "Am.
Archives," IV., Vol. I., p. 1017. Hale gives a minute account of the
route followed; Stewart says they started on the 11th.
With the journal of Floyd's expedition, mentioned on a previous page, I
received MS. copies of two letters to Col. William Preston, both dated
at Camp Union, at the Great Levels; one, of September 8th from Col.
Andrew Lewis, and one of September 7th (9th?) from Col. William
Christian.
Col. Lewis' letter runs in part: "From Augusta we have 600; of this
county [Botetourt] about 400; Major Field is joined with 40.... I have
had less Trouble with the Troops than I expected.... I received a letter
from his Lordship last Sunday morning which was dated the 30th of August
at Old Towns, which I take to be Chresops, he then I am told had Col.
Stephens and Major Conolly at his Elbow as might easily be discovered by
the Contents of his Letter which expressed his Lordship's warmest wishes
that I would with all the troops from this Quarter join him at the mouth
of the little Kanaway, I wrote his Lordship that it was not in my power
to alter our rout.... The Indians wounded a man within two miles of
us ... and wounded another, from this we may expect they will be picking
about us all the March." He states that he has more men than he
expected, and will therefore need more provisions, and that he will
leave some of his poorest troops to garrison the small fort.
Col. Christian's letter states that the Augusta men took with them 400
pack-horses, carrying 54,000 pounds of flour, and 108 beeves, they
started "yesterday." Field marched "this evening", Fleming and his 450
Botetourt men, with 200 pack-horses, "are going next Monday." Field had
brought word that Dunmore expected to be at the mouth of the Great
Kanawha "some days after the 20th." Some Indians had tried to steal a
number of pack-horses, but had been discovered and frightened off.
Christian was very much discontented at being bidden to stay behind
until he could gather 300 men, and bring up the rear, he expresses his
fear that his men will be much exasperated when they learn that they are
to stay behind, and reiterates "I would not for all I am worth be behind
crossing the Ohio and that we should miss lending our assistance." Field
brought an account of McDonald's fight (see _ante_, p. 216), he
said the whites were 400 and the Indians but 30 strong, that the former
had 4 men killed and 6 wounded, the Indians but 3 or 4 killed and 1
captured, and their town was burnt. The number of the Shawnees and their
allies was estimated at 1,200 warriors that could be put into one
battle. The 400 horses that had started with the Augusta men were to
return as fast as they could (after reaching the embarkment point,
whence the flour was carried in canoes).
14. When the Revolutionary war broke out the Earl not only fought the
revolted colonists with all legitimate weapons, but tried to incite the
blacks to servile insurrection, and sent agents to bring his old foes,
the red men of the forest, down on his old friends, the settlers. He
encouraged piratical and plundering raids, and on the other hand failed
to show the courage and daring that are sometimes partial offsets to
ferocity. But in this war, in 1774, he conducted himself with great
energy in making preparations, and showed considerable skill as a
negotiator in concluding the peace, and apparently went into the
conflict with hearty zest and good will. He was evidently much
influenced by Conolly, a very weak adviser, however; and his whole
course betrayed much vacillation, and no generalship.
15. Smyth's "Tour," II., p. 179.
16. "Am. Archives," p. 1017.
17. _Do_. Stewart says they reached the mouth of the Kanawha on
Oct. 1st; another account says Sept. 30th; but this is an error, as
shown both by the "Am. Archives" and by the Campbell MSS.
18. Hale, 182.
19. Campbell MSS. Letter of Isaac Shelby to John Shelby, Oct. 16, 1774.
A portion of this letter, unsigned, was printed in "Am. Archives," p.
1016, and in various newspapers (even at Belfast; _see_ Hale, p.
187, who thinks it was written by Captain Arbuckle). As it is worth
preserving and has never been printed in full I give it in the Appendix.
20. Stewart's Narrative.
21. Smyth, II., p. 158. He claims to have played a prominent part in the
battle. This is certainly not so, and he may not have been present at
all; at least Col. Stewart, who was there and was acquainted with every
one of note in the army, asserts positively that there was no such man
along; nor has any other American account ever mentioned him. His
military knowledge was nil, as may be gathered from his remark, made
when the defeats of Braddock and Grant were still recent, that British
regulars with the bayonet were best fitted to oppose Indians.
22. Some accounts say that he was accompanied by Kenton and McCulloch;
others state that no messenger arrived until after the battle. But this
is certainly wrong. Shelby's letter shows that the troops learned the
governor's change of plans before the battle.
23. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol. J., p. 1017; and was joined by Col.
Christian's three hundred the day after the battle.
24. Campbell MSS. Letter of Col. William Preston (presumably to Patrick
Henry), Oct. 31, 1774. As it is interesting and has never been
published, I give it in the Appendix.
25. Many of the white accounts make their number much greater, without
any authority; Shelby estimates it at between eight hundred and one
thousand. Smith, who generally gives the Indian side, says that on this
occasion they were nearly as numerous as the whites. Smyth, who bitterly
hates the Americans, and always belittles their deeds, puts the number
of Indians at nine hundred; he would certainly make it as small as
possible. So the above estimate is probably pretty near the truth,
though it is of course impossible to be accurate. At any rate, it was
the only important engagement fought by the English or Americans against
the northwestern Indians in which there was a near approach to equality
of force.
26. Campbell MSS. Shelby's letter. Their names were Mooney and Hickman;
the latter was killed. Most historians have confused these two men with
the two others who discovered the Indians at almost the same time.
27. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol, I., p. 1017.
28. _Do_., p. 1017. Letter from Stanton, Virginia, Nov. 4, 1774,
says 3/4 of a mile; Shelby says 1/2 of a mile.
29. _Do_., Letter of Nov. 17th.
30. The frontier expression for covering one's self behind a tree-trunk.
31. A small stream running into the Kanawha near its mouth. De Haas, p.
151.
32. Campbell MSS. Preston's, letter.
33. "Am. Archives." Letter of November 4, 1774.
34. Campbell MSS. Preston's letter.
35. Stewart's Narrative.
36. Led by Isaac Shelby, James Stewart, and George Matthews.
37. Campbell MSS. Preston's letter.
38. "Am. Archives" Letter of November 4, 1774. It is doubtful if Logan
was in this fight; the story about Cornstalk killing one of his men who
flinched may or may not be true.
39. Hale, 199, the plunder was afterwards sold at auction for L74 4s.
6d.
40. These are the numbers given by Stewart, but the accounts vary
greatly. Monette ("Valley of the Mississippi,") says 87 killed and 141
wounded. The letters written at the time evidently take no account of
any but the badly wounded. Shelby thus makes the killed 55, and the
wounded (including the mortally hurt) 68. Another account ("Am.
Archives," p. 1017) says 40 men killed and 96 wounded, 20 odd of whom
were since dead, whilst a foot-note to this letter enumerates 53 dead
outright, and 87 wounded, "some of whom have since died." It is
evidently impossible that the slightly wounded are included in these
lists; and in all probability Stewart's account is correct, as he was an
eye-witness and participant.
41. Twenty-one were scalped on the field; the bodies of 12 more were
afterwards found behind logs or in holes where they had been lain, and 8
eventually died of their wounds. (See "American Archives," Smith, Hale,
De Haas, etc.) Smith, who wrote from the Indian side, makes their loss
only 28; but this apparently does not include the loss of the western
Indians, the allies of the Shawnees, Mingos, and Delawares.
42. _Smyth_, the Englishman, accuses Lewis of cowardice, an
accusation which deserves no more attention than do the similar
accusations of treachery brought against Dunmore. Brantz Mayer speaks in
very hyperbolic terms of the "relentless Lewis," and the "great
slaughter" of the Indians.
43. Wayne won an equally decisive victory, but he outnumbered his foes
three to one. Bouquet, who was almost beaten, and was saved by the
provincial rangers, was greatly the superior in force, and suffered four
times the loss he inflicted. In both cases, especially that of Bouquet,
the account of the victor must be received with caution where it deals
with the force and loss of the vanquished. In the same way Shelby and
the other reporters of the Kanawha fight stated that the Indians lost
more heavily than the whites.
44. The stories of how Lewis suspected the earl of treachery, and of how
the backwoodsmen were so exasperated that they wished to kill the
latter, may have some foundation; but are quite as likely to be pure
inventions, made up after the Revolutionary war. In De Haas, "The
American Pioneer," etc., can be found all kinds of stories, some even
told by members of the Clark and Lewis families, which are meant to
criminate Dunmore, but which make such mistakes in chronology--placing
the battle of Lexington in the year of the Kanawha fight, asserting that
peace was not made till the following spring, etc.--that they must be
dismissed offhand as entirely untrustworthy.
45. Stewart's Narrative.
46. "Am. Archives," IV. St. Clair's letter, Dec. 4, 1774. Also Jefferson
MSS. Dep. of Wm. Robinson, etc.
47. See De Haas, 162.
48. "Am. Archives," IV., Vol. I., pp. 1013, 1226.
49. John Gibson, afterwards a general in the army of the United States.
See Appendix.
50. Jefferson MSS. Statements of John Gibson, etc.; there is some
uncertainty as to whether Logan came up to Gibson at the treaty and drew
him aside, or whether the latter went to seek the former in his wigwam.
51. Jefferson Papers (State Department MSS.), 5-1-4. Statement of Col.
John Gibson to John Anderson, an Indian trader at Pittsburg, in 1774.
Anderson had asked him if he had not himself added somewhat to the
speech; he responded that he had not, that it was a literal translation
or transcription of Logan's words.
52. Jefferson MSS. Affidavits of Andrew Rogers, Wm. Russell, and others
who were present.
53. Clark's letter.
54. See De Haas, 167.
55. These are Smith's estimates, derived largely from Indian sources.
They are probably excessive, but not very greatly so.
56. It is difficult to understand why some minor historians consider
this war as fruitless.
57. John Hall; it is worth while preserving the name of the ringleader
in so brutal and cowardly a butchery. See Stewart's Narrative.
CHAPTER X.
BOON AND THE SETTLEMENT OF KENTUCKY, 1775.
Lord Dunmore's war, waged by Americans for the good of America, was the
opening act in the drama whereof the closing scene was played at
Yorktown. It made possible the twofold character of the Revolutionary
war, wherein on the one hand the Americans won by conquest and
colonization new lands for their children, and on the other wrought out
their national independence of the British king. Save for Lord Dunmore's
war we could not have settled beyond the mountains until after we had
ended our quarrel with our kinsfolk across the sea. It so cowed the
northern Indians that for two or three years they made no further
organized effort to check the white advance. In consequence, the
Kentucky pioneers had only to contend with small parties of enemies
until time had been given them to become so firmly rooted in the land
that it proved impossible to oust them. Had Cornstalk and his
fellow-chiefs kept their hosts unbroken, they would undoubtedly have
swept Kentucky clear of settlers in 1775,--as was done by the mere rumor
of their hostility the preceding summer. Their defeat gave the
opportunity for Boon to settle Kentucky, and therefore for Robertson to
settle Middle Tennessee, and for Clark to conquer Illinois and the
Northwest; it was the first in the chain of causes that gave us for our
western frontier in 1783 the Mississippi and not the Alleghanies.
As already mentioned, the speculative North Carolinian Henderson had for
some time been planning the establishment of a proprietary colony beyond
the mountains, as a bold stroke to reestablish his ruined fortunes; and
early in 1775, as the time seemed favorable, he proceeded to put his
venturous scheme into execution. For years he had been in close business
relations with Boon; and the latter had attempted to lead a band of
actual settlers to Kentucky in 1773. Naturally, when Henderson wished to
fix on a place wherein to plant his colony, he chose the beautiful land
which the rumor of Boon's discovery had rendered famous all along the
border; and equally naturally he chose the pioneer hunter himself to act
as his lieutenant and as the real leader of the expedition. The result
of the joint efforts of these two men was to plant in Kentucky a colony
of picked settlers, backed by such moral and material support as enabled
them to maintain themselves permanently in the land. Boon had not been
the first to discover Kentucky, nor was he the first to found a
settlement therein;[1] but it was his exploration of the land that alone
bore lasting fruit, and the settlement he founded was the first that
contained within itself the elements of permanence and growth.
Of course, as in every other settlement of inland America, the especial
point to be noticed is the individual initiative of the different
settlers. Neither the royal nor the provincial governments had any thing
to do with the various colonies that were planted almost simultaneously
on the soil of Kentucky. Each little band of pioneers had its own
leaders, and was stirred by its own motives. All had heard, from
different sources, of the beauty and fertility of the land, and as the
great danger from the Indians was temporarily past, all alike went in to
take possession, not only acting without previous agreement, but for the
most part being even in ignorance of one another's designs. Yet the
dangers surrounding these new-formed and far-off settlements were so
numerous, and of such grave nature, that they could hardly have proved
permanent had it not been for the comparatively well-organized
settlement of Boon, and for the temporary immunity which Henderson's
treaty purchased from the southern Indians.
The settlement of Kentucky was a much more adventurous and hazardous
proceeding than had been the case with any previous westward extension
of population from the old colonies; because Kentucky, instead of
abutting on already settled districts, was an island in the wilderness,
separated by two hundred miles of unpeopled and almost impassable forest
from even the extreme outposts of the seacoast commonwealths. Hitherto
every new settlement had been made by the simple process of a portion of
the backwoods pioneers being thrust out in advance of the others, while,
nevertheless, keeping in touch with them, and having their rear covered,
as it were, by the already colonized country. Now, for the first time, a
new community of pioneers sprang up, isolated in the heart of the
wilderness, and thrust far beyond the uttermost limits of the old
colonies, whose solid mass lay along the Atlantic seaboard. The vast
belt of mountainous woodland that lay between was as complete a barrier
as if it had been a broad arm of the ocean. The first American incomers
to Kentucky were for several years almost cut off from the bulk of their
fellows beyond the forest-clad mountains; much as, thirteen centuries
before, their forebears, the first English settlers in Britain, had been
cut off from the rest of the low-Dutch folk who continued to dwell on
the eastern coast of the German Ocean.
Henderson and those associated with him in his scheme of land
speculation began to open negotiations with the Cherokees as soon as the
victory of the Great Kanawha for the moment lessened the danger to be
apprehended from the northwestern Indians. In October, 1774, he and
Nathaniel Hart, one of his partners in the scheme, journeyed to the
Otari towns, and made their proposals. The Indians proceeded very
cautiously, deputing one of their number, a chief called the Carpenter,
to return with the two white envoys, and examine the goods they proposed
to give in exchange. To this Henderson made no objection; on the
contrary, it pleased him, for he was anxious to get an indisputable
Indian title to the proposed new colony. The Indian delegate made a
favorable report in January, 1775; and then the Overhill Cherokees were
bidden to assemble at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga. The order was
issued by the head-chief, Oconostota, a very old man, renowned for the
prowess he had shown in former years when warring against the English.
On the 17th of March, Oconostota and two other chiefs, the Raven and the
Carpenter, signed the Treaty of the Sycamore Shoals, in the presence and
with the assent of some twelve hundred of their tribe, half of them
warriors; for all who could had come to the treaty grounds. Henderson
thus obtained a grant of all the lands lying along and between the
Kentucky and the Cumberland rivers. He promptly named the new colony
Transylvania. The purchase money was 10,000 pounds of lawful English
money; but, of course, the payment was made mainly in merchandise, and
not specie. It took a number of days before the treaty was finally
concluded; no rum was allowed to be sold, and there was little
drunkenness, but herds of beeves were driven in, that the Indians might
make a feast.
The main opposition to the treaty was made by a chief named Dragging
Canoe, who continued for years to be the most inveterate foe of the
white race to be found among the Cherokees. On the second day of the
talk he spoke strongly against granting the Americans what they asked,
pointing out, in words of glowing eloquence, how the Cherokees, who had
once owned the land down to the sea, had been steadily driven back by
the whites until they had reached the mountains, and warning his
comrades that they must now put a stop at all hazards to further
encroachments, under penalty of seeing the loss of their last
hunting-grounds, by which alone their children could live. When he had
finished his speech he abruptly left the ring of speakers, and the
council broke up in confusion. The Indian onlookers were much impressed
by what he said; and for some hours the whites were in dismay lest all
further negotiations should prove fruitless. It was proposed to get the
deed privately; but to this the treaty-makers would not consent,
answering that they cared nothing for the treaty unless it was concluded
in open council, with the full assent of all the Indians. By much
exertion Dragging Canoe was finally persuaded to come back; the council
was resumed next day, and finally the grant was made without further
opposition. The Indians chose their own interpreter; and the treaty was
read aloud and translated, sentence by sentence, before it was signed,
on the fourth day of the formal talking.
The chiefs undoubtedly knew that they could transfer only a very
imperfect title to the land they thus deeded away. Both Oconostota and
Dragging Canoe told the white treaty-makers that the land beyond the
mountains, whither they were going, was a "dark ground," a "bloody
ground"; and warned them that they must go at their own risk, and not
hold the Cherokees responsible, for the latter could no longer hold them
by the hand. Dragging Canoe especially told Henderson that there was a
black cloud hanging over the land, for it lay in the path of the
northwestern Indians--who were already at war with the Cherokees, and
would surely show as little mercy to the white men as to the red.
Another old chief said to Boon: "Brother, we have given you a fine land,
but I believe you will have much trouble in settling it." What he said
was true, and the whites were taught by years of long warfare that
Kentucky was indeed what the Cherokees called it, a dark and bloody
ground.[2]
After Henderson's main treaty was concluded, the Watauga Association
entered into another, by which they secured from the Cherokees, for
2,000 pounds sterling, the lands they had already leased.
As soon as it became evident that the Indians would consent to the
treaty, Henderson sent Boon ahead with a company of thirty men to clear
a trail from the Holston to the Kentucky.[3] This, the first regular
path opened into the wilderness, was long called Boon's trace, and
became forever famous in Kentucky history as the Wilderness Road, the
track along which so many tens of thousands travelled while journeying
to their hoped-for homes in the bountiful west. Boon started on March
10th with his sturdy band of rifle-bearing axemen, and chopped out a
narrow bridle-path--a pony trail, as it would now be called in the west.
It led over Cumberland Gap, and crossed Cumberland, Laurel, and
Rockcastle rivers at fords that were swimming deep in the time of
freshets. Where it went through tall, open timber, it was marked by
blazes on the tree trunks, while a regular path was cut and trodden out
through the thickets of underbrush and the dense canebrakes and
reed-beds.
After a fortnight's hard work the party had almost reached the banks of
the Kentucky River, and deemed that their chief trials were over. But
half an hour before daybreak on the morning of the 25th, as they lay
round their smouldering camp-fires, they were attacked by some Indians,
who killed two of them and wounded a third; the others sprang to arms at
once, and stood their ground without suffering further loss or damage
till it grew light, when the Indians silently drew off.[4] Continuing
his course, Boon reached the Kentucky River, and on April 1st began to
build Boonsborough, on an open plain where there was a lick with two
sulphur springs.
Meanwhile other pioneers, as hardy and enterprising as Boon's
companions, had likewise made up their minds that they would come in to
possess the land; and in bands or small parties they had crossed the
mountains or floated down the Ohio, under the leadership of such men as
Harrod, Logan,[5] and the McAfees.[6] But hardly had they built their
slight log-cabins, covered with brush or bark, and broken ground for the
corn-planting, when some small Indian war-parties, including that which
had attacked Boon's company, appeared among them. Several men were
"killed and sculped," as Boon phrased it; and the panic among the rest
was very great, insomuch that many forthwith set out to return. Boon was
not so easily daunted; and he at once sent a special messenger to hurry
forward the main body under Henderson, writing to the latter with quiet
resolution and much good sense:
"My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as soon as possible. Your
company is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but are
willing to stay and venture their lives with you, and now is the time to
flusterate the intentions of the Indians, and keep the country whilst we
are in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case."[7]
Henderson had started off as soon as he had finished the treaty. He took
wagons with him, but was obliged to halt and leave them in Powell's
Valley, for beyond that even so skilful a pathfinder and road-maker as
Boon had not been able to find or make a way passable for wheels.[8]
Accordingly, their goods and implements were placed on pack-horses, and
the company started again.[9] Most fortunately a full account of their
journey has been kept; for among Henderson's followers at this time was
a man named William Calk, who jotted down in his diary the events of
each day.[10] It is a short record, but as amusing as it is instructive;
for the writer's mind was evidently as vigorous as his language was
terse and untrammelled. He was with a small party, who were going out as
partners; and his journal is a faithful record of all things, great or
small, that at the time impressed him. The opening entry contains the
information that "Abram's dog's leg got broke by Drake's dog." The owner
of the latter beast, by the way, could not have been a pleasant
companion on a trip of this sort, for elsewhere the writer, who, like
most backwoodsmen, appreciated cleanliness in essentials, records with
evident disfavor the fact that "Mr. Drake Bakes bread without washing
his hands." Every man who has had the misfortune to drive a pack-train
in thick timber, or along a bad trail, will appreciate keenly the
following incident, which occurred soon after the party had set out for
home:
* * * * *
"I turned my hors to drive before me and he got scard ran away threw
Down the Saddel Bags and broke three of our powder goards and Abram's
beast Burst open a walet of corn and lost a good Deal and made a
turrabel flustration amongst the Reast of the Horses Drake's mair run
against a sapling and noct it down we cacht them all again and went on
and lodged at John Duncan's."
* * * * *
Another entry records the satisfaction of the party when at a log fort
(before getting into the wilderness) they procured some good loaf-bread
and good whisky.
They carried with them seed-corn[11] and "Irish tators" to plant, and
for use on the journey had bacon, and corn-meal which was made either
into baked corn-dodgers or else into johnny-cakes, which were simply
cooked on a board beside the fire, or else perhaps on a hot stone or in
the ashes. The meal had to be used very sparingly; occasionally a beef
was killed, out of the herd of cattle that accompanied the emigrants;
but generally they lived on the game they shot--deer, turkeys, and, when
they got to Kentucky, buffaloes. Sometimes this was killed as they
travelled; more often the hunters got it by going out in the evening
after they had pitched camp.
The journey was hard and tiresome. At times it rained; and again there
were heavy snow-storms, in one of which an emigrant got lost, and only
found his way to camp by the help of a pocket-compass. The mountains
were very steep, and it was painfully laborious work to climb them,
while chopping out a way for the pack-train. At night a watch had to be
kept for Indians. It was only here and there that the beasts got good
grazing. Sometimes the horses had their saddles turned while struggling
through the woods. But the great difficulty came in crossing the creeks,
where the banks were rotten, the bottom bad, or the water deep; then the
horses would get mired down and wet their packs, or they would have to
be swum across while their loads were ferried over on logs. One day, in
going along a creek, they had to cross it no less than fifty times, by
"very bad foards."
On the seventh of April they were met by Boon's runner, bearing tidings
of the loss occasioned by the Indians; and from that time on they met
parties of would-be settlers, who, panic-struck by the sudden forays,
were fleeing from the country. Henderson's party kept on with good
courage, and persuaded quite a number of the fugitives to turn back with
them. Some of these men who were thus leaving the country were not doing
so because of fright; for many, among them the McAfees, had not brought
out their families, but had simply come to clear the ground, build
cabins, plant corn, and turn some branded cattle loose in the woods,
where they were certain to thrive well, winter and summer, on the
nourishing cane and wild pea-vine. The men then intended to go back to
the settlements and bring out their wives and children, perhaps not till
the following year; so that things were in a measure prepared for them,
though they were very apt to find that the cattle had been stolen by the
Indians, or had strayed too far to be recovered.[12]
The bulk of those fleeing, however, were simply frightened out of the
country. There seems no reason to doubt[13] that the establishment of
the strong, well-backed settlement of Boonsborough was all that
prevented the abandonment of Kentucky at this time; and when such was
the effect of a foray by small and scattered war parties of Indians from
tribes nominally at peace with us,[14] it can easily be imagined how
hopeless it would have been to have tried to settle the land had there
still been in existence a strong hostile confederacy such as that
presided over by Cornstalk. Beyond doubt the restless and vigorous
frontiersmen would ultimately have won their way into the coveted
western lands; yet had it not been for the battle of the Great Kanawha,
Boon and Henderson could not, in 1775, have planted their colony in
Kentucky; and had it not been for Boon and Henderson, it is most
unlikely that the land would have been settled at all until after the
Revolutionary war, when perhaps it might have been British soil. Boon
was essentially a type, and possesses his greatest interest for us
because he represents so well the characteristics as well as the
life-work of his fellow backwoodsmen; still, it is unfair not to bear in
mind also the leading part he played and the great services he rendered
to the nation.
The incomers soon recovered from the fright into which they had been
thrown by the totally unexpected Indian attack; but the revengeful anger
it excited in their breasts did not pass away. They came from a class
already embittered by long warfare with their forest foes; they hoarded
up their new wrongs in minds burdened with the memories of countless
other outrages; and it is small wonder that repeated and often
unprovoked treachery at last excited in them a fierce and indiscriminate
hostility to all the red-skinned race. They had come to settle on ground
to which, as far as it was possible, the Indian title had been by fair
treaty extinguished. They ousted no Indians from the lands they took;
they had had neither the chance nor the wish to themselves do wrong; in
their eyes the attack on the part of the Indians was as wanton as it was
cruel; and in all probability this view was correct, and their
assailants were actuated more by the desire for scalps and plunder than
by resentment at the occupation of hunting grounds to which they could
have had little claim. In fact, throughout the history of the discovery
and first settlement of Kentucky, the original outrages and murders were
committed by the Indians on the whites, and not by the whites on the
Indians. In the gloomy and ferocious wars that ensued, the wrongs done
by each side were many and great.
Henderson's company came into the beautiful Kentucky country in
mid-April, when it looked its best: the trees were in leaf, the air
heavy with fragrance, the snowy flowers of the dogwood whitened the
woods, and the banks of the streams burned dull crimson with the wealth
of red-bud blossoms. The travellers reached the fort that Boon was
building on the 20th of the month, being welcomed to the protection of
its wooden walls by a volley from twenty or thirty rifles. They at once
set to with a will to finish it, and to make it a strong place of refuge
against Indian attacks. It was a typical forted village, such as the
frontiersmen built everywhere in the west and southwest during the years
that they were pushing their way across the continent in the teeth of
fierce and harassing warfare; in some features it was not unlike the
hamlet-like "tun" in which the forefathers of these same pioneers dwelt,
long centuries before, when they still lived by the sluggish waters of
the lower Rhine, or had just crossed to the eastern coast of
Britain.[15]
The fort was in shape a parallelogram, some two hundred and fifty feet
long and half as wide. It was more completely finished than the majority
of its kind, though little or no iron was used in its construction. At
each corner was a two-storied loop-holed block-house to act as a
bastion. The stout log-cabins were arranged in straight lines, so that
their outer sides formed part of the wall, the spaces between them being
filled with a high stockade, made of heavy squared timbers thrust
upright into the ground, and bound together within by a horizontal
stringer near the top. They were loop-holed like the block-houses. The
heavy wooden gates, closed with stout bars, were flanked without by the
block-houses and within by small windows cut in the nearest cabins. The
houses had sharp, sloping roofs, made of huge clapboards, and these
great wooden slabs were kept in place by long poles, bound with withes
to the rafters. In case of dire need each cabin was separately
defensible. When danger threatened, the cattle were kept in the open
space in the middle.
Three other similar forts or stations were built about the same time as
Boonsborough, namely: Harrodstown, Boiling Springs, and St. Asaphs,
better known as Logan's Station, from its founder's name. These all lay
to the southwest, some thirty odd miles from Boonsborough. Every such
fort or station served as the rallying-place for the country round
about, the stronghold in which the people dwelt during time of danger;
and later on, when all danger had long ceased, it often remained in
changed form, growing into the chief town of the district. Each settler
had his own farm besides, often a long way from the fort, and it was on
this that he usually intended to make his permanent home. This system
enabled the inhabitants to combine for defence, and yet to take up the
large tracts of four to fourteen hundred acres,[16] to which they were
by law entitled. It permitted them in time of peace to live well apart,
with plenty of room between, so that they did not crowd one another--a
fact much appreciated by men in whose hearts the spirit of extreme
independence and self-reliance was deeply ingrained. Thus the settlers
were scattered over large areas, and, as elsewhere in the southwest, the
county and not the town became the governmental unit. The citizens even
of the smaller governmental divisions acted through representatives,
instead of directly, as in the New England town-meetings.[17] The centre
of county government was of course the county court-house.
Henderson, having established a land agency at Boonsborough, at once
proceeded to deed to the Transylvania colonists entry certificates of
surveys of many hundred thousand acres. Most of the colonists were
rather doubtful whether these certificates would ultimately prove of any
value, and preferred to rest their claims on their original cabin
rights; a wise move on their part, though in the end the Virginia
Legislature confirmed Henderson's sales in so far as they had been made
to actual settlers. All the surveying was of course of the very rudest
kind. Only a skilled woodsman could undertake the work in such a
country; and accordingly much of it devolved on Boon, who ran the lines
as well as he could, and marked the trees with his own initials, either
by powder or else with his knife.[18] The State could not undertake to
make the surveys itself, so it authorized the individual settler to do
so. This greatly promoted the rapid settlement of the country, making it
possible to deal with land as a commodity, and outlining the various
claims; but the subsequent and inevitable result was that the sons of
the settlers reaped a crop of endless confusion and litigation.
It is worth mentioning that the Transylvania company opened a store at
Boonsborough. Powder and lead, the two commodities most in demand, were
sold respectively for $2.66-2/3 and 16-2/3 cents per pound. The payment
was rarely made in coin; and how high the above prices were may be
gathered from the fact that ordinary labor was credited at 33-1/3 cents
per day while fifty cents a day was paid for ranging, hunting, and
working on the roads.[19]
Henderson immediately proceeded to organize the government of his
colony, and accordingly issued a call for an election of delegates to
the Legislature of Transylvania, each of the four stations mentioned
above sending members. The delegates, seventeen in all, met at
Boonsborough and organized the convention on the 23d of May. Their
meetings were held without the walls of the fort, on a level plain of
white clover, under a grand old elm. Beneath its mighty branches a
hundred people could without crowding find refuge from the noon-day sun;
it was a fit council-house for this pioneer legislature of game hunters
and Indian fighters.[20]
These weather-beaten backwoods warriors, who held their deliberations in
the open air, showed that they had in them good stuff out of which to
build a free government. They were men of genuine force of character,
and they behaved with a dignity and wisdom that would have well become
any legislative body. Henderson, on behalf of the proprietors of
Transylvania, addressed them, much as a crown governor would have done.
The portion of his address dealing with the destruction of game is worth
noting. Buffalo, elk, and deer had abounded immediately round
Boonsborough when the settlers first arrived, but the slaughter had been
so great that even after the first six weeks the hunters began to find
some difficulty in getting any thing without going off some fifteen or
twenty miles. However, stray buffaloes were still killed near the fort
once or twice a week.[21] Calk in his journal quoted above, in the midst
of entries about his domestic work--such as, on April 29th "we git our
house kivered with bark and move our things into it at Night and Begin
housekeeping," and on May 2d, "went and sot in to clearing for
corn,"--mentions occasionally killing deer and turkey; and once, while
looking for a strayed mare, he saw four "bofelos." He wounded one, but
failed to get it, with the luck that generally attended backwoods
hunters when they for the first time tried their small-bore rifles
against these huge, shaggy-maned wild cattle.
As Henderson pointed out, the game was the sole dependence of the first
settlers, who, most of the time, lived solely on wild meat, even the
parched corn having been exhausted; and without game the new-comers
could not have stayed in the land a week.[22] Accordingly he advised the
enactment of game-laws; and he was especially severe in his comments
upon the "foreigners" who came into the country merely to hunt, killing
off the wild beasts, and taking their skins and furs away, for the
benefit of persons not concerned in the settlement. This last point is
curious as showing how instantly and naturally the colonists succeeded
not only to the lands of the Indians, but also to their habits of
thought; regarding intrusion by outsiders upon their hunting-grounds
with the same jealous dislike so often shown by their red-skinned
predecessors.
Henderson also outlined some of the laws he thought it advisable to
enact, and the Legislature followed his advice. They provided for courts
of law, for regulating the militia, for punishing criminals, fixing
sheriffs' and clerks' fees, and issuing writs of attachment.[23] One of
the members was a clergyman: owing to him a law was passed forbidding
profane swearing or Sabbath-breaking; a puritanic touch which showed the
mountain rather than the seaboard origin of the men settling Kentucky.
The three remaining laws the Legislature enacted were much more
characteristic, and were all introduced by the two Boons--for Squire
Boon was still the companion of his brother. As was fit and proper, it
fell to the lot of the greatest of backwoods hunters to propose a scheme
for game protection, which the Legislature immediately adopted; and his
was likewise the "act for preserving the breed of horses,"--for, from
the very outset, the Kentuckians showed the love for fine horses and for
horse-racing which has ever since distinguished them. Squire Boon was
the author of a law "to protect the range"; for the preservation of the
range or natural pasture over which the branded horses and cattle of the
pioneers ranged at will, was as necessary to the welfare of the stock as
the preservation of the game was to the welfare of the men. In Kentucky
the range was excellent, abounding not only in fine grass, but in cane
and wild peas, and the animals grazed on it throughout the year. Fires
sometimes utterly destroyed immense tracts of this pasture, causing
heavy loss to the settlers; and one of the first cares of pioneer
legislative bodies was to guard against such accidents.
It was likewise stipulated that there should be complete religious
freedom and toleration for all sects. This seems natural enough now, but
in the eighteenth century the precedents were the other way. Kentucky
showed its essentially American character in nothing more than the
diversity of religious belief among the settlers from the very start.
They came almost entirely from the backwoods mountaineers of Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, among whom the predominant faith had
been Presbyterianism; but from the beginning they were occasionally
visited by Baptist preachers,[24] whose creed spread to the borders
sooner than Methodism; and among the original settlers of Harrodsburg
were some Catholic Marylanders.[25] The first service ever held in
Kentucky was by a clergyman of the Church of England, soon after
Henderson's arrival; but this was merely owing to the presence of
Henderson himself, who, it must be remembered, was not in the least a
backwoods product. He stood completely isolated from the other
immigrants during his brief existence as a pioneer, and had his real
relationship with the old English founders of the proprietary colonies,
and with the more modern American land speculators, whose schemes are so
often mentioned during the last half of the eighteenth century.
Episcopacy was an exotic in the backwoods; it did not take real root in
Kentucky till long after that commonwealth had emerged from the pioneer
stage.
When the Transylvanian Legislature dissolved, never to meet again,
Henderson had nearly finished playing his short but important part in
the founding of Kentucky. He was a man of the seacoast regions, who had
little in common with the backwoodsmen by whom he was surrounded; he
came from a comparatively old and sober community, and he could not
grapple with his new associates; in his journal he alludes to them as a
set of scoundrels who scarcely believed in God or feared the devil. A
British friend[26] of his, who at this time visited the settlement, also
described the pioneers as being a lawless, narrow-minded, unpolished,
and utterly insubordinate set, impatient of all restraint, and relying
in every difficulty upon their individual might; though he grudgingly
admitted that they were frank, hospitable, energetic, daring, and
possessed of much common-sense. Of course it was hopeless to expect that
such bold spirits, as they conquered the wilderness, would be content to
hold it even at a small quit-rent from Henderson. But the latter's
colony was toppled over by a thrust from without before it had time to
be rent in sunder by violence from within.
Transylvania was between two millstones. The settlers revolted against
its authority, and appealed to Virginia; and meanwhile Virginia,
claiming the Kentucky country, and North Carolina as mistress of the
lands round the Cumberland, proclaimed the purchase of the Transylvanian
proprietors null and void as regards themselves, though valid as against
the Indians. The title conveyed by the latter thus enured to the benefit
of the colonies; it having been our policy, both before and since the
Revolution, not to permit any of our citizens to individually purchase
lands from the savages.
Lord Dunmore denounced Henderson and his acts; and it was in vain that
the Transylvanians appealed to the Continental Congress, asking leave to
send a delegate thereto, and asserting their devotion to the American
cause; for Jefferson and Patrick Henry were members of that body, and
though they agreed with Lord Dunmore in nothing else, were quite as
determined as he that Kentucky should remain part of Virginia. So
Transylvania's fitful life flickered out of existence; the Virginia
Legislature in 1778, solemnly annulling the title of the company, but
very properly recompensing the originators by the gift of two hundred
thousand acres.[27] North Carolina pursued a precisely similar course;
and Henderson, after the collapse of his colony, drifts out of history.
Boon remained to be for some years one of the Kentucky leaders. Soon
after the fort at Boonsborough was built, he went back to North Carolina
for his family, and in the fall returned, bringing out a band of new
settlers, including twenty-seven "guns"--that is, rifle-bearing
men,--and four women, with their families, the first who came to
Kentucky, though others shortly followed in their steps.[28] A few
roving hunters and daring pioneer settlers also came to his fort in the
fall; among them, the famous scout, Simon Kenton, and John Todd,[29] a
man of high and noble character and well-trained mind, who afterwards
fell by Boon's side when in command at the fatal battle of Blue Licks.
In this year also Clark[30] and Shelby[31] first came to Kentucky; and
many other men whose names became famous in frontier story, and whose
sufferings and long wanderings, whose strength, hardihood, and fierce
daring, whose prowess as Indian fighters and killers of big game, were
told by the firesides of Kentucky to generations born when the elk and
the buffalo had vanished from her borders as completely as the red
Indian himself. Each leader gathered round him a little party of men,
who helped him build the fort which was to be the stronghold of the
district. Among the earliest of these town-builders were Hugh McGarry,
James Harrod, and Benjamin Logan. The first named was a coarse, bold,
brutal man, always clashing with his associates (he once nearly shot
Harrod in a dispute over work). He was as revengeful and foolhardy as he
was daring, but a natural leader in spite of all. Soon after he came to
Kentucky his son was slain by Indians while out boiling sugar from the
maples; and he mercilessly persecuted all redskins for ever after.
Harrod and Logan were of far higher character, and superior to him in
every respect. Like so many other backwoodsmen, they were tall, spare,
athletic men, with dark hair and grave faces. They were as fearless as
they were tireless, and were beloved by their followers. Harrod finally
died alone in the wilderness, nor was it ever certainly known whether he
was killed by Indian or white man, or perchance by some hunted beast.
The old settlers always held up his memory as that of a man ever ready
to do a good deed, whether it was to run to the rescue of some one
attacked by Indians, or to hunt up the strayed plough-horse of a brother
settler less skilful as a woodsman; yet he could hardly read or write.
Logan was almost as good a woodsman and individual fighter, and in
addition was far better suited to lead men. He was both just and
generous. His father had died intestate, so that all of his property by
law came to Logan, who was the eldest son; but the latter at once
divided it equally with his brothers and sisters. As soon as he came to
Kentucky he rose to leadership, and remained for many years among the
foremost of the commonwealth founders.
All this time there penetrated through the sombre forests faint echoes
of the strife the men of the seacoast had just begun against the British
king. The rumors woke to passionate loyalty the hearts of the pioneers;
and a roaming party of hunters, when camped on a branch[32] of the
Elkhorn, by the hut of one of their number, named McConnell, called the
spot Lexington, in honor of the memory of the Massachusetts minute-men,
about whose death and victory they had just heard.[33]
By the end of 1775 the Americans had gained firm foothold in Kentucky.
Cabins had been built and clearings made; there were women and children
in the wooden forts, cattle grazed on the range, and two or three
hundred acres of corn had been sown and reaped. There were perhaps some
three hundred men in Kentucky, a hardy, resolute, strenuous band. They
stood shoulder to shoulder in the wilderness, far from all help,
surrounded by an overwhelming number of foes. Each day's work was
fraught with danger as they warred with the wild forces from which they
wrung their living. Around them on every side lowered the clouds of the
impending death struggle with the savage lords of the neighboring lands.
These backwoodsmen greatly resembled one another; their leaders were but
types of the rank and file, and did not differ so very widely from them;
yet two men stand out clearly from their fellows. Above the throng of
wood-choppers, game-hunters, and Indian fighters loom the sinewy figures
of Daniel Boon and George Rogers Clark.
1. The first permanent settlement was Harrodsburg, then called
Harrodstown, founded in 1774, but soon abandoned, and only permanently
occupied on March 18, 1775, a fortnight before Boon began the erection
of his fort.
2. The whole account of this treaty is taken from the Jefferson MSS.,
5th Series, Vol. VIII.; "a copy of the proceedings of the Virginia
Convention, from June 15 to November 19, 1777, in relation to the
Memorial of Richard Henderson, and others"; especially from the
depositions of James Robertson, Isaac Shelby, Charles Robertson,
Nathaniel Gist, and Thomas Price, who were all present. There is much
interesting matter aside from the treaty; Simon Girty makes depositions
as to Braddock's defeat and Bouquet's fight; Lewis, Croghan, and others
show the utter vagueness and conflict of the Indian titles to Kentucky,
etc., etc. Though the Cherokees spoke of the land as a "dark" or
"bloody" place or ground, it does not seem that by either of these terms
they referred to the actual meaning of the name Kentucky. One or two of
the witnesses tried to make out that the treaty was unfairly made; but
the bulk of the evidence is overwhelmingly the other way.
Haywood gives a long speech made by Oconostota against the treaty; but
this original report shows that Oconostota favored the treaty from the
outset, and that it was Dragging Canoe who spoke against it. Haywood
wrote fifty years after the event, and gathered many of his facts from
tradition; probably tradition had become confused, and reversed the
position of the two chiefs. Haywood purports to give almost the exact
language Oconostota used; but when he is in error even as to who made
the speech, he is exceedingly unlikely to be correct in any thing more
than its general tenor.
3. Then sometimes called the Louisa; a name given it at first by the
English explorers, but by great good-fortune not retained.
4. Collins, II., 498. Letter of Daniel Boon, April 1, 1775. Collins has
done good work for Kentucky history, having collected a perfect mass of
materials of every sort. But he does not discriminate between facts of
undoubted authenticity, and tales resting on the idlest legend; so that
he must be used with caution, and he is, of course, not to be trusted
where he is biassed by the extreme rancor of his political prejudices.
Of the Kentucky historians, Marshall is by far the most brilliant, and
Mann Butler the most trustworthy and impartial. Both are much better
than Collins.
5. Benjamin Logan; there were many of the family in Kentucky. It was a
common name along the border; the Indian chief Logan had been named
after one of the Pennsylvania branch.
6. McAfee MSS.
7. Boon's letter.
8. Richard Henderson's "Journal of an Expedition to Cantucky in 1775"
(Collins).
9. April 5th.
10. It is printed in the Filson Club publications; see "The Wilderness
Road," by Thomas Speed, Louisville, Ky., 1886; one of the best of an
excellent series.
11. It is not necessary to say that "corn" means maize; Americans do not
use the word in the sense in which it is employed in Britain.
12. McAfee MSS. Some of the McAfees returned with Henderson.
13. Boon's letter, Henderson's journal, Calk's diary, McAfee's
autobiography all mention the way in which the early settlers began to
swarm out of the country in April, 1775. To judge from their accounts,
if the movement had not been checked instantly the country would have
been depopulated in a fortnight, exactly as in 1774.
14. It must be remembered that the outrages of the Indians this year in
Kentucky were totally unprovoked; they were on lands where they did not
themselves dwell, and which had been regularly ceded to the whites by
all the tribes--Iroquois, Shawnees, Cherokees, etc.--whom the whites
could possibly consider as having any claim to them. The wrath of the
Kentuckians against all Indians is easily understood.
15. When the block-house and palisade enclosed the farm of a single
settler the "tun," in its still earlier sense, was even more nearly
reproduced.
16. Four hundred acres were gained at the price of $2.50 per 100 acres,
by merely building a cabin and raising a crop of corn; and every settler
with such a "cabin right" had likewise a preemption right to 1,000 acres
adjoining, for a cost that generally approached forty dollars a hundred.
17. In Mr. Phelan's scholarly "History of Tennessee," pp. 202-204, etc.,
there is an admirably clear account of the way in which Tennessee
institutions (like those of the rest of the Southwest) have been
directly and without a break derived from English institutions; whereas
many of those of New England are rather pre-Normanic revivals, curiously
paralleled in England as it was before the Conquest.
18. Boon's deposition, July 29, 1795.
19. Mann Butler, p. 31.
20. Henderson's Journal. The beauty of the elm impressed him very
greatly. According to the list of names eighteen, not seventeen, members
were elected; but apparently only seventeen took part in the
proceedings.
21. Henderson's Journal.
22. "Our game, the only support of life amongst many of us, and without
which the country would be abandoned ere to-morrow." Henderson's
address.
23. Journal of the Proceedings of the House of Delegates or
Representatives of the Colony of Transylvania.
24. Possibly in 1775, certainly in 1776; MS. autobiography of Rev. Wm.
Hickman. In Durrett's library.
25. "Life of Rev. Charles Nerinckx," by Rev. Camillus P. Maes,
Cincinnati, 1880, p. 67.
26. Smyth, p. 330.
27. Gov. James T. Morehead's "address" at Boonsborough, in 1840
(Frankfort, Ky., 1841).
28. _Do._, p. 51. Mrs. Boon, Mrs. Denton, Mrs. McGarry, Mrs. Hogan;
all were from the North Carolina backwoods; their ancestry is shown by
their names. They settled in Boonsborough and Harrodsburg.
29. Like Logan he was born in Pennsylvania, of Presbyterian Irish stock.
He had received a good education.
30. Morehead, p. 52.
31. Shelby's MS. autobiography, in Durrett's Library at Louisville.
32. These frontiersmen called a stream a "run," "branch," "creek," or
"fork," but never a "brook," as in the northeast.
33. "History of Lexington," G. W. Ranck, Cincinnati, 1872, p. 19. The
town was not permanently occupied till four years later.
CHAPTER XI.
IN THE CURRENT OF THE REVOLUTION--THE SOUTHERN BACKWOODSMEN OVERWHELM
THE CHEROKEES, 1776.
The great western drift of our people began almost at the moment when
they became Americans, and ceased to be merely British colonists. They
crossed the great divide which sundered the springs of the seaboard
rivers from the sources of the western waters about the time that
American citizens first publicly acted as American freemen, knit
together by common ties, and with interests no longer akin to those of
the mother country. The movement which was to make the future nation a
continental power was begun immediately after the hitherto separate
colonies had taken the first step towards solidification. While the
communities of the sea-coast were yet in a fever heat from the uprising
against the stamp tax, the first explorers were toiling painfully to
Kentucky, and the first settlers were building their palisaded hamlets
on the banks of the Watauga. The year that saw the first Continental
Congress saw also the short, grim tragedy of Lord Dunmore's war. The
early battles of the Revolution were fought while Boon's comrades were
laying the foundations of their commonwealth.
Hitherto the two chains of events had been only remotely connected; but
in 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence, the struggle
between the king and his rebellious subjects shook the whole land, and
the men of the western border were drawn headlong into the full current
of revolutionary warfare. From that moment our politics became national,
and the fate of each portion of our country was thenceforth in some sort
dependent upon the welfare of every other. Each section had its own work
to do; the east won independence while the west began to conquer the
continent. Yet the deeds of each were of vital consequence to the other.
Washington's Continentals gave the west its freedom; and took in return
for themselves and their children a share of the land that had been
conquered and held by the scanty bands of tall backwoodsmen.
The backwoodsmen, the men of the up-country, were, as a whole, ardent
adherents of the patriot or American side. Yet there were among them
many loyalists or tories; and these tories included in their ranks much
the greatest portion of the vicious and the disorderly elements. This
was the direct reverse of what obtained along portions of the seaboard,
where large numbers of the peaceable, well-to-do people stood loyally by
the king. In the up-country, however, the Presbyterian Irish, with their
fellows of Calvinistic stock and faith, formed the back-bone of the
moral and order-loving element; and the Presbyterian Irish[1] were
almost to a man staunch and furious upholders of the Continental
Congress. Naturally, the large bands of murderers, horse-thieves, and
other wild outlaws, whom these grim friends of order hunted down with
merciless severity, were glad to throw in their lot with any party that
promised revenge upon their foes. But of course there were lawless
characters on both sides; in certain localities where the crop of
jealousies, always a rank backwoods growth, had been unusually large,
and had therefore produced long-standing and bitter feuds,[2] the rival
families espoused opposite sides from sheer vindictive hatred of one
another. As a result, the struggle in the backwoods between tories and
whigs, king's-men and congress-men,[3] did not merely turn upon the
questions everywhere at stake between the American and British parties.
It was also in part a fight between the law-abiding and the lawless, and
in part a slaking of savage personal animosities, wherein the borderers
glutted their vengeance on one another. They exercised without restraint
the right of private warfare, long abandoned in more civilized regions.
It was natural that such a contest should be waged with appalling
ferocity.
Nevertheless this very ferocity was not only inevitable, but it was in a
certain sense proper; or, at least, even if many of its manifestations
were blamable, the spirit that lay behind them was right. The
backwoodsmen were no sentimentalists; they were grim, hard,
matter-of-fact men, engaged all their lives long in an unending struggle
with hostile forces, both human and natural; men who in this struggle
had acquired many unamiable qualities, but who had learned likewise to
appreciate at their full value the inestimable virtues of courage and
common-sense. The crisis demanded that they should be both strong and
good; but, above all things, it demanded that they should be strong.
Weakness would have ruined them. It was needful that justice should
stand before mercy; and they could no longer have held their homes, had
they not put down their foes, of every kind, with an iron hand. They did
not have many theories; but they were too genuinely liberty-loving not
to keenly feel that their freedom was jeopardized as much by domestic
disorder as by foreign aggression.
The tories were obnoxious under two heads: they were the allies of a
tyrant who lived beyond the sea, and they were the friends of anarchy at
home. They were felt by the frontiersmen to be criminals rather than
ordinary foes. They included in their ranks the mass of men who had been
guilty of the two worst frontier crimes--horse-stealing and murder; and
their own feats were in the eyes of their neighbors in no way
distinguishable from those of other horse-thieves and murderers.
Accordingly the backwoodsmen soon grew to regard toryism as merely
another crime; and the courts sometimes executed equally summary justice
on tory, desperado, and stock-thief, holding each as having forfeited
his life.[4]
The backwoodsmen were engaged in a threefold contest. In the first
place, they were occasionally, but not often, opposed to the hired
British and German soldiers of a foreign king. Next, they were engaged
in a fierce civil war with the tories of their own number. Finally, they
were pitted against the Indians, in the ceaseless border struggle of a
rude, vigorous civilization to overcome an inevitably hostile savagery.
The regular British armies, marching to and fro in the course of their
long campaigns on the seaboard, rarely went far enough back to threaten
the frontiersmen; the latter had to do chiefly with tories led by
British chiefs, and with Indians instigated by British agents.
Soon after the conflict with the revolted colonists became one of arms
as well as one of opinions the British began to rouse the Indian tribes
to take their part. In the northwest they were at first unsuccessful;
the memory of Lord Dunmore's war was still fresh in the minds of the
tribes beyond the Ohio, and they remained for the most part neutral. The
Shawnees continued even in 1776 to send in to the Americans white
prisoners collected from among their outlying bands, in accordance with
the terms of the treaty entered into on the Pickaway plains.[5]
But the southwestern Indians were not held in check by memories of
recent defeat, and they were alarmed by the encroachments of the whites.
Although the Cherokees had regularly ceded to the Watauga settlers their
land, they still continued jealous of them; and both Creeks and
Cherokees were much irritated at the conduct of some of the lawless
Georgian frontiersmen.[6] The colonial authorities tried to put a stop
to this lawlessness, and one of the chief offenders was actually seized
and hung in the presence of two Indians.[7] This had a momentary effect
on the Creeks, and induced them for the time being to observe a kind of
nominal neutrality, though they still furnished bodies of warriors to
help the British and Cherokees.[8]
The latter, however, who were the nearest neighbors of the Americans,
promptly took up the tomahawk at the bidding of the British. The royal
agents among these southern Indians had so far successfully[9] followed
the perfectly cold-blooded though perhaps necessary policy of exciting
the tribes to war with one another, in order that they might leave the
whites at peace; but now, as they officially reported to the British
commander, General Gage, they deemed this course no longer wise, and,
instead of fomenting, they endeavored to allay, the strife between the
Chickasaws and Creeks, so as to allow the latter to turn their full
strength against the Georgians.[10] At the same time every effort was
made to induce the Cherokees to rise,[11] and they were promised
gunpowder, blankets, and the like although some of the promised stores
were seized by the Americans while being forwarded to the Indians.[12]
In short, the British were active and successful in rousing the war
spirit among Creeks, Cherokees, Chocktaws, and Chickasaws, having
numerous agents in all these tribes.[13] Their success, and the
consequent ravages of the Indians, maddened the American frontiersmen
upon whom the blow fell, and changed their resentment against the
British king into a deadly and lasting hatred, which their sons and
grandsons inherited. Indian warfare was of such peculiar atrocity that
the employment of Indians as allies forbade any further hope of
reconciliation. It is not necessary to accept the American estimate of
the motives inspiring the act in order to sympathize fully with the
horror and anger that it aroused among the frontiersmen. They saw their
homes destroyed, their wives outraged, their children captured, their
friends butchered and tortured wholesale by Indians armed with British
weapons, bribed by British gold, and obeying the orders of British
agents and commanders. Their stormy anger was not likely to be allayed
by the consideration that Congress also had at first made some effort to
enlist Indians in the patriot forces, nor were they apt to bear in mind
the fact that the British, instead of being abnormally cruel, were in
reality less so than our former French and Spanish opponents.[14]
Looking back it is easy to see that the Indians were the natural foes of
the American people, and therefore the natural allies of the British
Government. They had constantly to fear the advance of the Americans,
while from the fur traders, Indian agents, and army officers who alone
represented Britain, they had nothing but coveted treasures of every
kind to expect. They seemed tools forged for the hands of the royal
commanders, whose own people lay far beyond the reach of reprisals in
kind; and it was perhaps too much to expect that in that age such tools
should not be used.[15] We had less temptation to employ them, less
means wherewith to pay them, and more cause to be hostile to and dread
them; and moreover our skirts are not quite clear in the matter, after
all, for we more than once showed a tendency to bid for their support.
But, after all is said, the fact remains that we have to deal, not with
what, under other circumstances, the Americans _might_ have done,
but with what the British actually _did;_ and for this there can be
many apologies, but no sufficient excuse. When the commissioners to the
southern Indians wrote to Lord George Germain, "we have been
indefatigable in our endeavors to keep up a constant succession of
parties of Indians to annoy the rebels," the writers must have well
known, what the king's ministers should also have made it their business
to know, that the war-parties whom they thus boasted of continually
sending against the settlements directed their efforts mainly, indeed
almost exclusively, not against bodies of armed men, but against the
husbandmen as they unsuspectingly tilled the fields, and against the
women and children who cowered helplessly in the log-cabins.[16] All men
knew that the prisoners who fell into Indian hands, of whatever age or
sex, often suffered a fate hideous and revolting beyond belief and
beyond description. Such a letter as that quoted above makes the
advisers of King George the Third directly responsible for the manifold
and frightful crimes of their red allies.
It is small wonder that such a contest should have roused in the breasts
of the frontiersmen not only ruthless and undying abhorrence of the
Indians, but also a bitterly vindictive feeling of hostility towards
Great Britain; a feeling that was all-powerful for a generation
afterwards, and traces of which linger even to the present day.
Moreover, the Indian forays, in some ways, damaged the loyalist cause.
The savages had received strict instructions not to molest any of the
king's friends;[17] but they were far too intent on plunder and rapine
to discriminate between whig and tory. Accordingly their ravages drove
the best tories, who had at first hailed the Indian advance with joy,
into the patriot ranks, making the frontier almost solidly whig; save
for the refugees, who were willing to cast in their lot with the
savages.[18]
While the Creeks were halting and considering, and while the Choctaws
and Chickasaws were being visited by British emissaries, the Cherokees
flung themselves on the frontier folk. They had been short of
ammunition; but when the British agents sent them fifty horse-loads by a
pack-train that was driven through the Creek towns, they no longer
hesitated.[19] The agents showed very poor generalship in making them
rise so early, when there were no British troops in the southern States,
and when the Americans were consequently unhampered and free to deal
with the Indians.[20] Had the rising been put off until a British army
was in Georgia, it might well have proved successful.
The Cherokee villages stood in that cluster of high mountain chains
which mark the ending of the present boundaries of Georgia and both
Carolinas. These provinces lay east and southeast of them. Directly
north were the forted villages of the Watauga pioneers, in the valley of
the upper Tennessee, and beyond these again, in the same valley, the
Virginian outpost settlements. Virginia, North and South Carolina, and
Georgia were alike threatened by the outbreak, while the Watauga people
were certain to be the chief sufferers. The Cherokees were so near the
settlements that their incursions were doubly dangerous. On the other
hand, there was not nearly as much difficulty in dealing them a
counter-blow as in the case of the northern Indians, for their towns lay
thickly together and were comparatively easy of access. Moreover, they
were not rated such formidable fighters. By comparing Lord Dunmore's war
in 1774 with this struggle against the Cherokees in 1776, it is easy to
see the difference between a contest against the northern and one
against the southern tribes. In 1776 our Indian foes were more numerous
than in 1774, for there were over two thousand Cherokee
warriors--perhaps two thousand five hundred,--assisted by a few Creeks
and tories; they were closer to the frontier, and so their ravages were
more serious; but they did not prove such redoubtable foes as
Cornstalk's warriors, their villages were easier reached, and a more
telling punishment was inflicted.
The Cherokees had been showing signs of hostility for some time. They
had murdered two Virginians the previous year;[21] and word was brought
to the settlements, early in the summer of '76, that they were
undoubtedly preparing for war, as they were mending guns, making
moccasins and beating flour for the march.[22] In June their ravages
began.[23] The Otari, or Overhill Cherokees, had sent runners to the
valley towns, asking their people to wait until all were ready before
marching, that the settlements might be struck simultaneously; but some
of the young braves among the lower towns could not be restrained, and
in consequence the outlying settlers of Georgia and the Carolinas were
the first to be assailed.
The main attack was made early in July, the warriors rushing down from
their upland fastnesses in fierce and headlong haste, the different
bands marching north, east, and southeast at the same moment. From the
Holston to the Tugelou, from southwestern Virginia to northwestern
Georgia, the back-county settlements were instantly wrapped in the
sudden horror of savage warfare.
The Watauga people, the most exposed of all, received timely warning
from a friendly squaw,[24] to whom the whites ever after showed respect
and gratitude. They at once began to prepare for the stroke; and in all
the western world of woodsmen there were no men better fitted for such a
death grapple. They still formed a typical pioneer community; and their
number had been swelled from time to time by the arrival of other bold
and restless spirits. Their westernmost settlement this year was in
Carter's valley; where four men had cleared a few acres of corn-land,
and had hunted buffalo for their winter's meat.[25]
As soon as they learned definitely that the Otari warriors, some seven
hundred in number, were marching against them, they took refuge in their
wooden forts or stations. Among the most important of these were the one
at Watauga, in which Sevier and Robertson held command, and another
known as Baton's Station, placed just above the forks of the
Holston.[26] Some six miles from the latter, near the Long Island or Big
Island of the Holston, lay quite a large tract of level land, covered
with an open growth of saplings, and known as the Island flats.
The Indians were divided into several bands; some of their number
crossed over into Carter's valley, and after ravaging it, passed on up
the Clinch. The settlers at once gathered in the little stockades; those
who delayed were surprised by the savages, and were slain as they fled,
or else were captured, perhaps to die by torture,--men, women, and
children alike. The cabins were burnt, the grain destroyed, the cattle
and horses driven off, and the sheep and hogs shot down with arrows; the
Indians carried bows and arrows for this express purpose, so as to avoid
wasting powder and lead. The bolder war-parties, in their search for
scalps and plunder, penetrated into Virginia a hundred miles beyond the
frontier,[27] wasting the country with tomahawk and brand up to the
Seven-Mile Ford. The roads leading to the wooden forts were crowded
with settlers, who, in their mortal need of hurry, had barely time to
snatch up a few of the household goods, and, if especially lucky, to
mount the women and children on horses; as usual in such a flight, there
occurred many deeds of cowardly selfishness, offset by many feats of
courage and self-sacrifice. Once in the fort, the backwoodsmen often
banded into parties, and sallied out to fall on the Indians. Sometimes
these parties were worsted; at other times they overcame their foes
either by ambush or in fair fight. One such party from the Wolf Hills
fort killed eleven Indian warriors; and on their return they hung the
scalps of their slain foes, as trophies of triumph, from a pole over the
fort gate.[28] They were Bible-readers in this fort, and they had their
Presbyterian minister with them, having organized a special party to
bring in the books he had left in his cabin; they joined in prayer and
thanksgiving for their successes; but this did not hinder them from
scalping the men they killed. They were too well-read in the merciless
wars of the Chosen People to feel the need of sparing the fallen; indeed
they would have been most foolish had they done so; for they were
battling with a heathen enemy more ruthless and terrible than ever was
Canaanite or Philistine. The two largest of the invading Indian
bands[29] moved, one by way of the mountains, to fall on the Watauga
fort and its neighbors, and the other, led by the great war chief,
Dragging Canoe, to lay waste the country guarded by Eaton's Station.
The white scouts--trained woodsmen, whose lives had been spent in the
chase and in forest warfare--kept the commanders or headmen of the forts
well informed of the Indian advance. As soon as it was known what part
was really threatened, runners were sent to the settlements near by,
calling on the riflemen to gather at Eaton's Station; whither they
accordingly came in small bodies, under their respective militia
captains.[30]
No man was really in command; the senior captain exercised a vague kind
of right of advice over the others, and the latter in turn got from
their men such obedience as their own personal influence was able to
procure. But the levy, if disorderly, was composed of excellent marksmen
and woodsmen, sinewy, hardy, full of fight, and accustomed to act
together. A council was held, and it was decided not to stay cooped up
in the fort, like turkeys in a pen, while the Indians ravaged the fields
and burnt the homesteads, but to march out at once and break the shock
by a counter-stroke.
Accordingly, on the morning of the twentieth of July, they filed out of
the fort, one hundred and seventy strong, and bent their steps towards
the Island Flats. Well versed in woodland warfare, the frontier riflemen
marched as well as fought on a system of their own, much more effective
for this purpose than the discipline of European regulars. The men of
this little levy walked strung out in Indian file, in two parallel
lines,[31] with scouts in front, and flankers on each side. Marching
thus they could not be surprised, and were ready at any moment to do
battle with the Indians, in open order and taking shelter behind the
trees; while regulars, crowded together, were helpless before the
savages whom the forest screened from view, and who esteemed it an easy
task to overcome any number of foes if gathered in a huddle.[32]
When near the Flats the whites, walking silently with moccasined feet,
came suddenly on a party of twenty Indians, who, on being attacked, fled
in the utmost haste, leaving behind ten of their bundles--for the
southern warriors carried with them, when on the war-path, small bundles
containing their few necessaries.
After this trifling success a council was held, and, as the day was
drawing to a close, it was decided to return to the fort. Some of the
men were dissatisfied with the decision, and there followed an incident
as characteristic in its way as was the bravery with which the battle
was subsequently fought. The discontented soldiers expressed their
feelings freely, commenting especially upon the supposed lack of courage
on the part of one of the captains. The latter, after brooding over the
matter until the men had begun to march off the ground towards home,
suddenly halted the line in which he was walking, and proceeded to
harangue the troops in defence of his own reputation. Apparently no one
interfered to prevent this remarkable piece of military
self-justification; the soldiers were evidently accustomed openly to
criticise the conduct of their commanders, while the latter responded in
any manner they saw fit. As soon as the address was over, and the lines
once more straightened out, the march was renewed in the original order;
and immediately afterwards the scouts brought news that a considerable
body of Indians, misled by their retreat, was running rapidly up to
assail their rear.[33]
The right file was promptly wheeled to the right and the left to the
left, forming a line of battle a quarter of a mile long, the men taking
advantage of the cover when possible. There was at first some confusion
and a momentary panic, which was instantly quelled, the officers and
many of the men joining to encourage and rally the few whom the
suddenness of the attack rendered faint-hearted. The Otari warriors,
instead of showing the usual Indian caution, came running on at headlong
speed, believing that the whites were fleeing in terror; while still
some three hundred yards off[34] they raised the war-whoop and charged
without halting, the foremost chiefs hallooing out that the white men
were running, and to come on and scalp them. They were led by Dragging
Canoe himself, and were formed very curiously, their centre being
cone-shaped, while their wings were curved outward; apparently they
believed the white line to be wavering and hoped to break through its
middle at the same time that they outflanked it, trusting to a single
furious onset instead of to their usual tactics.[35] The result showed
their folly. The frontiersmen on the right and left scattered out still
farther, so that their line could not be outflanked; and waiting coolly
till the Otari were close up, the whites fired into them. The long
rifles cracked like four-horse whips; they were held in skilful hands,
many of the assailants fell, and the rush was checked at once. A short
fight at close quarters ensued here and there along the line, Dragging
Canoe was struck down and severely wounded, and then the Indians fled in
the utmost confusion, every man for himself. Yet they carried off their
wounded and perhaps some of their dead. The whites took thirteen scalps,
and of their own number but four were seriously hurt; they also took
many guns and much plunder.
In this battle of the Island Flats[36] the whites were slightly
superior[37] in number to their foes; and they won without difficulty,
inflicting a far heavier loss than they received. In this respect it
differs markedly from most other Indian fights of the same time; and
many of its particulars render it noteworthy. Moreover, it had a very
good effect, cheering the frontiersmen greatly, and enabling them to
make head against the discouraged Indians.
On the same day the Watauga fort[38] was attacked by a large force at
sunrise. It was crowded with women and children,[39] but contained only
forty or fifty men. The latter, however, were not only resolute and
well-armed, but were also on the alert to guard against surprise; the
Indians were discovered as they advanced in the gray light, and were at
once beaten back with loss from the loopholed stockade. Robertson
commanded in the fort, Sevier acting as his lieutenant. Of course, the
only hope of assistance was from Virginia, North Carolina being
separated from the Watauga people by great mountain chains; and Sevier
had already notified the officers of Fincastle that the Indians were
advancing. His letter was of laconic brevity, and contained no demand
for help; it was merely a warning that the Indians were undoubtedly
about to start, and that "they intended to drive the country up to New
River before they returned"--so that it behooved the Fincastle men to
look to their own hearthsides. Sevier was a very fearless, self-reliant
man, and doubtless felt confident that the settlers themselves could
beat back their assailants. His forecast proved correct; for the
Indians, after maintaining an irregular siege of the fort for some three
weeks, retired, almost at the moment that parties of frontiersmen came
to the rescue from some of the neighboring forts.[40]
While the foe was still lurking about the fort the people within were
forced to subsist solely on parched corn; and from time to time some of
them became so irritated by the irksome monotony of their confinement,
that they ventured out heedless of the danger. Three or four of them
were killed by the Indians, and one boy was carried off to one of their
towns, where he was burnt at the stake; while a woman who was also
captured at this time was only saved from a like fate by the exertions
of the same Cherokee squaw already mentioned as warning the settlers.
Tradition relates that Sevier, now a young widower, fell in love with
the woman he soon afterwards married during the siege. Her name was Kate
Sherrill. She was a tall girl, brown-haired, comely, lithe and supple
"as a hickory sapling." One day while without the fort she was almost
surprised by some Indians. Running like a deer, she reached the
stockade, sprang up so as to catch the top with her hands, and drawing
herself over, was caught in Sevier's arms on the other side; through a
loop-hole he had already shot the headmost of her pursuers.
Soon after the baffled Otari retreated from Robertson's fort the other
war parties likewise left the settlements. The Watauga men together with
the immediately adjoining Virginian frontiersmen had beaten back their
foes unaided, save for some powder and lead they had received from the
older settlements; and moreover had inflicted more loss than they
suffered.[41] They had made an exceedingly vigorous and successful
fight.
The outlying settlements scattered along the western border of the
Carolinas and Georgia had been attacked somewhat earlier; the Cherokees
from the lower towns, accompanied by some Creeks and Tories, beginning
their ravages in the last days of June.[42] A small party of Georgians
had, just previously, made a sudden march into the Cherokee country.
They were trying to capture the British agent Cameron, who, being
married to an Indian wife, dwelt in her town, and owned many negroes,
horses, and cattle. The Cherokees, who had agreed not to interfere,
broke faith and surprised the party, killing some and capturing others
who were tortured to death.[43]
The frontiers were soon in a state of wild panic; for the Cherokee
inroad was marked by the usual features. Cattle were driven off, houses
burned, plantations laid waste, while the women and children were
massacred indiscriminately with the men.[44] The people fled from their
homes and crowded into the stockade forts; they were greatly hampered by
the scarcity of guns and ammunition, as much had been given to the
troops called down to the coast by the war with Britain. All the
southern colonies were maddened by the outbreak; and prepared for
immediate revenge, knowing that if they were quick they would have time
to give the Cherokees a good drubbing before the British could
interfere.[45] The plan was that they should act together, the
Virginians invading the Overhill country at the same time that the
forces from North and South Carolina and Georgia destroyed the valley
and lower towns. Thus the Cherokees would be crushed with little danger.
It proved impossible, however, to get the attacks made quite
simultaneously.
The back districts of North Carolina suffered heavily at the outset;
however, the inhabitants showed that they were able to take care of
themselves. The Cherokees came down the Catawba murdering many people;
but most of the whites took refuge in the little forts, where they
easily withstood the Indian assaults. General Griffith Rutherford raised
a frontier levy and soon relieved the besieged stations. He sent word to
the provincial authorities that if they could only get powder and lead
the men of the Salisbury district were alone quite capable of beating
off the Indians, but that if it was intended to invade the Cherokee
country he must also have help from the Hillsborough men.[46] He was
promised assistance, and was told to prepare a force to act on the
offensive with the Virginians and South Carolinians.
Before he could get ready the first counter-blow had been struck by
Georgia and South Carolina. Georgia was the weakest of all the colonies,
and the part it played in this war was but trifling. She was threatened
by British cruisers along the coast, and by the Tories of Florida; and
there was constant danger of an uprising of the black slaves, who
outnumbered the whites. The vast herds of cattle and great rice
plantations of the south offered a tempting bait to every foe. Tories
were numerous in the population, while there were incessant bickerings
with the Creeks, frequently resulting in small local wars, brought on as
often by the faithlessness and brutality of the white borderers as by
the treachery and cruelty of the red. Indeed the Indians were only kept
quiet by presents, it being an unhappy feature of the frontier troubles
that while lawless whites could not be prevented from encroaching on the
Indian lands, the Indians, in turn could only be kept at peace with the
law-abiding by being bribed.[47]
Only a small number of warriors invaded Georgia. Nevertheless they
greatly harassed the settlers, capturing several families and fighting
two or three skirmishes with varying results.[48] By the middle of July
Col. Samuel Jack[49] took the field with a force of two hundred rangers,
all young men, the old and infirm being left to guard the forts. The
Indians fled as soon as he had embodied his troops, and towards the end
of the month he marched against one or two of their small lower towns,
which he burned, destroying the grain and driving off the cattle. No
resistance was offered, and he did not lose a man.
The heaviest blow fell on South Carolina, where the Cherokees were led
by Cameron himself, accompanied by most of his tories. Some of his
warriors came from the lower towns that lay along the Tugelou and
Keowee, but most were from the middle towns, in the neighborhood of the
Tellico, and from the valley towns that lay well to the westward of
these, among the mountains, along the branches of the Hiawassee and
Chattahoochee rivers. Falling furiously on the scattered settlers, they
killed them or drove them into the wooden forts, ravaging, burning, and
murdering as elsewhere, and sparing neither age nor sex. Col. Andrew
Williamson was in command of the western districts, and he at once began
to gather together a force, taking his station at Picken's Fort, with
forty men, on July 3d.[50] It was with the utmost difficulty that he
could get troops, guns, or ammunition; but his strenuous and unceasing
efforts were successful, and his force increased day by day. It is worth
noting that these lowland troops were for the most part armed with
smoothbores, unlike the rifle-bearing mountaineers. As soon as he could
muster a couple of hundred men[51] he left the fort and advanced towards
the Indians, making continual halts,[52] so as to allow the numerous
volunteers that were flocking to his standard to reach him. At the same
time the Americans were much encouraged by the repulse of an assault
made just before daylight on one of the forts.[53] The attacking party
was some two hundred strong, half of them being white men, naked and
painted like the Indians; but after dark, on the evening before the
attack, a band of one hundred and fifty American militia, on their way
to join Williamson, entered the fort. The assault was made before dawn;
it was promptly repulsed, and at daybreak the enemy fled, having
suffered some loss; thirteen of the tories were captured, but the more
nimble Indians escaped.
By the end of July, Williamson had gathered over eleven hundred
militia[54] (including two small rifle companies), and advanced against
the Indian towns, sending his spies and scouts before him. On the last
day of the month he made a rapid night march, with three hundred and
fifty horsemen, to surprise Cameron, who lay with a party of tories and
Indians, encamped at Oconoree Creek, beyond the Cherokee town of
Eseneka, which commanded the ford of the river Keowee. The cabins and
fenced gardens of the town lay on both sides of the river. Williamson
had been told by his prisoners that the hither bank was deserted, and
advanced heedlessly, without scouts or flankers. In consequence he fell
into an ambush, for when he reached the first houses, hidden Indians
suddenly fired on him from front and flank. Many horses, including that
of the commander, were shot down, and the startled troops began a
disorderly retreat, firing at random. Col. Hammond rallied about twenty
of the coolest, and ordering them to reserve their fire, he charged the
fence from behind which the heaviest hostile fire came. When up to it,
they shot into the dark figures crouching behind it, and jumping over
charged home. The Indians immediately fled, leaving one dead and three
wounded in the hands of the whites. The action was over; but the
by-no-means-reassured victors had lost five men mortally and thirteen
severely wounded, and were still rather nervous. At daybreak Williamson
destroyed the houses near by, and started to cross the ford. But his
men, in true militia style, had become sulky and mutinous, and refused
to cross, until Col. Hammond swore he would go alone, and plunged into
the river, followed by three volunteers, whereupon the whole army
crowded after. The revulsions in their feelings was instantaneous; once
across they seemed to have left all fear as well as all prudence behind.
On the hither side there had been no getting them to advance; on the
farther there was no keeping them together, and they scattered
everywhere. Luckily the Indians were too few to retaliate; and besides
the Cherokees were not good marksmen, using so little powder in their
guns that they made very ineffective weapons. After all the houses had
been burned, and some six thousand bushels of corn, besides peas and
beans, destroyed, Williamson returned to his camp. Next day he renewed
his advance, and sent out detachments against all the other lower towns,
utterly destroying every one by the middle of August, although not
without one or two smart skirmishes.[55] His troops were very much
elated, and only the lack of provisions prevented his marching against
the middle towns. As it was, he retired to refit, leaving a garrison of
six hundred men at Eseneka, which he christened Fort Rutledge. This
ended the first stage of the retaliatory campaign, undertaken by the
whites in revenge for the outbreak. The South Carolinians, assisted
slightly by a small independent command of Georgians, who acted
separately, had destroyed the lower Cherokee towns, at the same time
that the Watauga people repulsed the attack of the Overhill warriors.
The second and most important movement was to be made by South Carolina,
North Carolina, and Virginia jointly, each sending a column of two
thousand men,[56] the two former against the middle and valley, the
latter against the Overhill towns. If the columns acted together the
Cherokees would be overwhelmed by a force three times the number of all
their warriors. The plan succeeded well, although the Virginia division
was delayed so that its action, though no less effective, was much later
than that of the others, and though the latter likewise failed to act in
perfect unison.
Rutherford and his North Carolinians were the first to take the
field.[57] He had an army of two thousand gunmen, besides pack-horsemen
and men to tend the drove of bullocks, together with a few Catawba
Indians,--a total of twenty-four hundred.[58] On September 1st he left
the head of the Catawba,[59] and the route he followed was long known by
the name of Rutherford's trace. There was not a tent in his army, and
but very few blankets; the pack-horses earned the flour, while the beef
was driven along on the hoof. Officers and men alike wore homespun
hunting-shirts trimmed with colored cotton; the cloth was made from
hemp, tow, and wild-nettle bark.
He passed over the Blue Ridge at Swananoa Gap, crossed the French Broad
at the Warriors' Ford, and then went through the mountains[60] to the
middle towns, a detachment of a thousand men making a forced march in
advance. This detachment was fired at by a small band of Indians from an
ambush, and one man was wounded in the foot; but no further resistance
was made, the towns being abandoned.[61] The main body coming up,
parties of troops were sent out in every direction, and all of the
middle towns were destroyed. Rutherford had expected to meet Williamson
at this place, but the latter did not appear, and so the North Carolina
commander determined to proceed alone against the valley towns along the
Hiawassee. Taking with him only nine hundred picked men, he attempted to
cross the rugged mountain chains which separated him from his
destination; but he had no guide, and missed the regular pass--a
fortunate thing for him, as it afterwards turned out, for he thus
escaped falling into an ambush of five hundred Cherokees who were
encamped along it.[62] After in vain trying to penetrate the tangle of
gloomy defiles and wooded peaks, he returned to the middle towns at
Canucca on September 18th. Here he met Williamson, who had just arrived,
having been delayed so that he could not leave Fort Rutledge until the
13th.[63] The South Carolinians, two thousand strong, had crossed the
Blue Ridge near the sources of the Little Tennessee.
While Rutherford rested[64] Williamson, on the 19th, pushed on through
Noewee pass, and fell into the ambush which had been laid for the
former. The pass was a narrow, open valley, walled in by steep and lofty
mountains. The Indians waited until the troops were struggling up to the
outlet, and then assailed them with a close and deadly fire. The
surprised soldiers recoiled and fell into confusion; and they were for
the second time saved from disaster by the gallantry of Colonel Hammond,
who with voice and action rallied them, endeavoring to keep them firm
while a detachment was sent to clamber up the rocks and outflank the
Indians. At the same time Lieutenant Hampton got twenty men together,
out of the rout, and ran forward, calling out: "Loaded guns advance,
empty guns fall down and load." Being joined by some thirty men more he
pushed desperately upwards. The Indians fled from the shock; and the
army thus owed its safety solely to two gallant officers. Of the whites
seventeen were killed and twenty-nine wounded;[65] they took fourteen
scalps.[66]
Although the distance was but twenty odd miles, it took Williamson five
days of incredible toil before he reached the valley towns. The troops
showed the utmost patience, clearing a path for the pack-train along the
sheer mountain sides and through the dense, untrodden forests in the
valleys. The trail often wound along cliffs where a single misstep of a
pack-animal resulted in its being dashed to pieces. But the work, though
fatiguing, was healthy; it was noticed that during the whole expedition
not a man was laid up for any length of time by sickness.
Rutherford joined Williamson immediately afterwards, and together they
utterly laid waste the valley towns; and then, in the last week of
September, started homewards. All the Cherokee settlements west of the
Appalachians had been destroyed from the face of the earth, neither
crops nor cattle being left; and most of the inhabitants were obliged to
take refuge with the Creeks.
Rutherford reached home in safety, never having experienced any real
resistance; he had lost but three men in all. He had killed twelve
Indians, and had captured nine more, besides seven whites and four
negroes. He had also taken piles of deerskins, a hundred-weight of
gunpowder and twenty-five hundred pounds of lead; and, moreover, had
wasted and destroyed to his heart's content.[67]
Williamson, too, reached home without suffering further damage, entering
Fort Rutledge on October 7th. In his two expeditions he had had
ninety-four men killed and wounded, but he had done much more harm than
any one else to the Indians. It was said the South Carolinians had taken
seventy-five scalps;[68] at any rate, the South Carolina Legislature had
offered a reward of L75 for every warrior's scalp, as well as L100 for
every Indian, and L80 for every tory or negro, taken prisoner.[69] But
the troops were forbidden to sell their prisoners as slaves--not a
needless injunction, as is shown by the fact that when it was issued
there had already been at least one case in Williamson's own army where
a captured Indian was sold into bondage.
The Virginian troops had meanwhile been slowly gathering at the Great
Island of the Holston, under Colonel William Christian, preparatory to
assaulting the Overhill Cherokees. While they were assembling the
Indians threatened them from time to time; once a small party of braves
crossed the river and killed a soldier near the main post of the army,
and also killed a settler; a day or two later another war-party slipped
by towards the settlements, but on being pursued by a detachment of
militia faced about and returned to their town.[70] On the first of
October the army started, two thousand strong,[71] including some troops
from North Carolina, and all the gunmen who could be spared from the
little stockaded hamlets scattered along the Watauga, the Holston, and
the Clinch. Except a small force of horse-riflemen the men were on foot,
each with tomahawk, scalping-knife, and long, grooved flint-lock; all
were healthy, well equipped, and in fine spirits, driving their
pack-horses and bullocks with them. Characteristically enough a
Presbyterian clergyman, following his backwoods flock, went along with
this expedition as chaplain. The army moved very cautiously, the night
encampments being made behind breastworks of felled timbers. There was
therefore no chance for a surprise; and their great inferiority in
number made it hopeless for the Cherokees to try a fair fight. In their
despair they asked help from the Creeks; but the latter replied that
they had plucked the thorn of warfare from their (the Creeks') foot, and
were welcome to keep it.[72]
The Virginians came steadily on[73] until they reached the Big Island of
the French Broad.[74] Here the Cherokees had gathered their warriors,
and they sent a tory trader across with a flag of truce. Christian well
knowing that the Virginians greatly outnumbered the Indians, let the man
go through his camp at will,[75] and sent him back with word that the
Cherokee towns were doomed, for that he would surely march to them and
destroy them. That night he left half of his men in camp, lying on their
arms by the watch-fires, while with the others he forded the river below
and came round to surprise the Indian encampment from behind; but he
found that the Indians had fled, for their hearts had become as water,
nor did they venture at any time, during this expedition, to molest the
white forces. Following them up, Christian reached the towns early in
November,[76] and remained two weeks, sending out parties to burn the
cabins and destroy the stores of corn and potatoes. The Indians[77] sent
in a flag to treat for peace, surrendering the horses and prisoners they
had taken, and agreeing to fix a boundary and give up to the settlers
the land they already had, as well as some additional territory.
Christian made peace on these terms and ceased his ravages, but he
excepted the town of Tuskega, whose people had burned alive the boy
taken captive at Watauga. This town he reduced to ashes.
Nor would the chief Dragging Canoe accept peace at all; but gathering
round him the fiercest and most unruly of the young men, he left the
rest of the tribe and retired to the Chickamauga fastnesses.
When the preliminary truce had been made Christian marched his forces
homeward, and disbanded them a fortnight before Christmas, leaving a
garrison at Holston, Great Island. During the ensuing spring and summer
peace treaties were definitely concluded between the Upper Cherokees and
Virginia and North Carolina at the Great Island of the Holston,[78] and
between the Lower Cherokees and South Carolina and Georgia at De Witt's
Corners. The Cherokees gave up some of their lands; of the four seacoast
provinces South Carolina gained most, as was proper, for she had done
and suffered most.[79]
The Watauga people and the westerners generally were the real gainers by
the war. Had the Watauga settlements been destroyed, they would no
longer have covered the Wilderness Road to Kentucky; and so Kentucky
must perforce have been abandoned. But the followers of Robertson and
Sevier stood stoutly for their homes; not one of them fled over the
mountains. The Cherokees had been so roughly handled that for several
years they did not again go to war as a body; and this not only gave the
settlers a breathing time, but also enabled them to make themselves so
strong that when the struggle was renewed they could easily hold their
own. The war was thus another and important link in the chain of events
by which the west was won; and had any link in the chain snapped during
these early years, the peace of 1783 would probably have seen the
trans-Alleghany country in the hands of a non-American power.
1. Mr. Phelan, in his "History of Tennessee," deserves especial praise
for having so clearly understood the part played by the Scotch-Irish.
2. The Campbell MSS. contain allusions to various such feuds, and
accounts of the jealousies existing not only between families, but
between prominent members of the same family.
3. See Milfort, Smyth, etc., as well as the native writers.
4. Executions for "treason," murder, and horse-stealing were very
common. For an instance where the three crimes were treated alike as
deserving the death penalty the perpetrators being hung, see Calendar of
Virginia State Papers, Vol. III., p. 361.
5. "American Archives," 4th Series, Vol. VI., p. 541. But parties of
young braves went on the war-path from time to time.
6. _Do._, Vol III., p. 790.
7. _Do._, Vol. VI., p. 1228.
8. See Milfort, pp. 46, 134, etc.
9. "American Archives," 4th Series, Vol. I., p. 1094, for example of
fight between Choctaws and Creeks.
10. _Do._, Vol. IV., p. 317. Letter of Agent John Stuart to General
Gage, St. Augustine, Oct. 3, 1775.
11. State Department MSS. No. 71, Vol. II., p. 189. Letter of David
Taitt, Deputy Superintendent (of British) in Creek Nation.
12. "American Archives," Vol. III., p. 218, August 21, 1775. _Do.,_
p. 790 September 25, 1775.
13. State Department MSS., No. 51, Vol. II., p. 17 (volume of
"Intercepted Letters"). Letters of Andrew Rainsford, John Mitchell, and
Alex McCullough, to Rt. Hon. Lord George Germain.
14. No body of British troops in the Revolution bore such a dark stain
on its laurels as the massacre at Fort William Henry left on the banners
of Montcalm; even the French, not to speak of the Spaniards and
Mexicans, were to us far more cruel foes than the British, though
generally less formidable. In fact the British, as conquerors and rulers
in America, though very disagreeable, have not usually been either
needlessly cruel nor (relatively speaking) unjust, and compare rather
favorably with most other European nations.
15. Though it must be remembered that in our own war with Mexico we
declined the proffered--and valuable--aid of the Comanches.
16. State Department MSS. "Intercepted Letters," Pensacola, July 12,
1779.
17. _Do._
18. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, I., 610.
19. Stuart and Cameron; the latter dwelt among them, and excited them to
war. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, III., 649.
20. The only British attempt made at that time against the southern
colonies was in too small force, and failed.
21. "American Archives," 4th Series, Vol. III., p. 1112.
22. _Do.,_ 5th Series, Vol. I., p. III.
23. _Do.,_ 4th Series, Vol. VI., p. 1229.
24. Her name was Nancy Ward. Campbell MSS., Haywood, etc.
25. Ramsey, 144. The buffalo were killed (winter of 1775-1776) twelve
miles northeast of Carter's valley.
26. Haywood and his followers erroneously call it Heaton's: in the
Campbell MSS., as well as the "Am. Archives," 5th Series, I., p. 464, it
is called Eaton's or Amos Eaton's. This is contemporary authority. Other
forts were Evan Shelby's, John Shelby's, Campbell's, the Wommack Fort,
etc.
27. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, I., 973.
28. "American Pioneers," I., 534. Letter of Benjamin Sharp, who was in
the fort at the time as a boy fourteen years old.
29. Many writers speak as if all the Indians were in these two bands,
which was not so. It is impossible to give their numbers exactly;
probably each contained from 150 to 300 warriors.
30. James Thompson, James Shelby, William Buchanan, John Campbell,
William Cocke, and Thomas Madison. See their letter of August 2, 1776,
"Am. Archives," 5th Series, I., 464. Haywood, relying on tradition, says
five companies gathered; he is invaluable as an authority, but it must
be kept in mind that he often relies on traditional statement.
31. The report of the six captains says "two divisions"; from Haywood we
learn that the two divisions were two lines, evidently marching side by
side, there being a right line and a left line.
32. See James Smith, _passim._
33. Among the later Campbell MSS. are a number of copies of papers
containing traditional accounts of this battle. They are mostly very
incorrect, both as to the numbers and losses of the Indians and whites,
and as to the battle itself very little help can be derived from them.
34. Campbell MSS.
35. Campell MSS.
36. Tennessee historians sometimes call it the battle of Long Island;
which confuses it with Washington's defeat of about the same date.
37. The captains' report says the Indians were "not inferior" in
numbers; they probably put them at a maximum. Haywood and all later
writers greatly exaggerate the Indian numbers; as also their losses,
which are commonly placed at "over 40," of "26 being left dead on the
ground." In reality only 13 were so left; but in the various skirmishes
on the Watauga about this time, from the middle of July to the middle of
August, the backwoodsmen took in all 26 scalps, and one prisoner
("American Archives," 5th Series, I., 973). This is probably the origin
of the "26 dead" story; the "over 40" being merely a flourish. Ramsey
gives a story about Isaac Shelby rallying the whites to victory, and
later writers of course follow and embellish this; but Shelby's MS.
autobiography (see copy in Col. Durrett's library at Louisville) not
only makes no mention of the battle, but states that Shelby was at this
time in Kentucky; he came back in August or September, and so was
hundreds of miles from the place when the battle occurred. Ramsey gives
a number of anecdotes of ferocious personal encounters that took place
during the battle. Some of them are of very doubtful value--for instance
that of the man who killed six of the most daring Indians himself (the
total number killed being only thirteen), and the account of the Indians
all retreating when they saw another of their champions vanquished. The
climax of absurdity is reached by a recent writer, Mr. Kirke, who, after
embodying in his account all the errors of his predecessors and adding
several others on his own responsibility, winds up by stating that "two
hundred and ten men under Sevier and [Isaac] Shelby ... beat back ...
fifteen thousand Indians." These numbers can only be reached by
comparing an exaggerated estimate of all the Cherokees, men, women, and
children, with the white men encountered by a very small proportion of
the red warriors in the first two skirmishes. Moreover, as already
shown, Shelby was nowhere near the scene of conflict, and Sevier was
acting as Robertson's subaltern.
38. Another fort, called Fort Lee, had been previously held by Sevier
but had been abandoned; see Phelan, p. 42.
39. "American Archives," 5th Series, I., 973; 500 women and children.
40. Campbell MSS. Haywood says that the first help came from Evan
Shelby; Col. Russell, at Baton's Station proving dilatory. In the
Campbell MSS. are some late letters written by sons of the Captain
Campbell who took part in the Island Flats fight, denying this
statement.
41. "American Archives," 5th Series, I., 973. Of the Watauga settlers
eighteen men, two women, and several children had been killed; two or
three were taken captive. Of the Indians twenty-six were scalped;
doubtless several others were slain. Of course these figures only apply
to the Watauga neighborhood.
42. _Do.,_ p 611.
43. "History of Georgia," Hugh McCall, Savannah, 1816, p. 76.
44. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, I., 610.
45. _Do.,_ 4th Series, VI, 1228.
46. _Do.,_ 5th Series, I., 613.
47. _Do.,_ 5th Series, I., 7, and III., 649. The Georgia
frontiersmen seem to have been peculiarly brutal in their conduct to the
Creeks; but the latter were themselves very little, if at all, better.
48. McCall; five families captured, in three skirmishes eight whites
were killed and six Indian scalps taken.
49. McCall; the Tennessee historians erroneously assign the command to
Col. McBury.
50. "View of South Carolina," John Drayton, Charleston, 1802, p. 231. A
very good book.
51. More exactly two hundred and twenty-two, on the 8th of July.
52. _E.g._, at Hogskin Creek and Barker's Creek.
53. Lyndley's Fort, on Rayborn Creek.
54. Eleven hundred and fifty-one, of whom one hundred and thirty were
riflemen. He was camped at Twenty-three Mile Creek.
55. At Tomassee, where he put to flight a body of two or three hundred
warriors, he lost eight killed and fifteen wounded, and at Tugelou, four
wounded. Besides these two towns, he also destroyed Soconee, Keowee,
Ostatay, Cherokee, Eustustie, Sugaw Town, and Brass Town.
56. All militia of course, with only the training they had received on
the rare muster days; but a warlike set, utterly unlike ordinary
militia, and for woodland work against savages in many respects much
superior to European regulars. This campaign against the Cherokees was
infinitely more successful than that waged in 1760 against the same foe
by armies of grenadiers and highlanders.
57. That is, after the return of the South Carolinians from their
destruction of the lower towns.
58. "Historical Sketches of North Carolina," John H. Wheeler, Phil.,
1851, p. 383.
59. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, Vol. II., p. 1235.
60. Up Hominy Creek, across the Pigeon, up Richland Creek, across
Tuckaseigee River, over Cowee Mount.
61. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, II., p. 1235.
62. _Do._
63. Drayton. There was a good deal of jealousy between the two armies
and their reports conflict on some points.
64. There is some conflict in the accounts of the destruction of the
valley towns; after carefully comparing the accounts in the "American
Archives," Drayton, White, Ramsey, etc., I believe that the above is
substantially accurate. However it is impossible to reconcile all of the
accounts of the relative order of Rutherford's and Williamson's marches.
65. Drayton; the "Am. Archives" say only twelve killed and twenty
wounded. In another skirmish at Cheowee three South Carolinians were
killed.
66. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, II., p. 1235.
67. _Do._
68. _Do._, p. 990; Drayton puts the total Cherokee loss at two
hundred.
69. _Do._, Vol III., p. 33.
70. These two events took place on September 26th and 29th; "Am.
Archives," 5th Series, Vol. II., p. 540. Ramsey is thus wrong in saying
no white was killed on this expedition.
71. McAfee MSS.; one of the McAfees went along and preserved a rough
diary of dates.
72. "History of Virginia," John Burke (continued by L. H. Girardin),
Petersburg, 1816, p. 176.
73. After camping a few days at Double Springs, the head-waters of Lick
Creek, to let all the Watauga men come up.
74. They sent spies in advance. The trail led through forests and marshy
canebrakes; across Nolichucky, up Long Creek and down Dunplin Creek to
the French Broad. Haywood and Ramsey.
75. McAfee MSS.
76. Nov. 5th. _Do._
77. Nov. 8th. _Do._
78. The boundary then established between the Cherokees and Watauga
people was known as Brown's Line.
79. As a very rough guess after a careful examination of all the
authorities, it may be said that in this war somewhat less than two
hundred Indians were slain, all warriors. The loss of the whites in war
was probably no greater; but it included about as many more women and
children. So that perhaps two or three times as many whites as Indians
were killed, counting in every one.
CHAPTER XII.
GROWTH AND CIVIL ORGANIZATION OF KENTUCKY, 1776.
By the end of 1775 Kentucky had been occupied by those who were
permanently to hold it. Stouthearted men, able to keep what they had
grasped moved in, and took with them their wives and children. There was
also of course a large shifting element, composing, indeed, the bulk of
the population: hunters who came out for the season; "cabinners," or men
who merely came out to build a cabin and partially clear a spot of
ground, so as to gain a right to it under the law; surveyors, and those
adventurers always to be found in a new country, who are too restless,
or too timid, or too irresolute to remain.
The men with families and the young men who intended to make permanent
homes formed the heart of the community, the only part worth taking into
account. There was a steady though thin stream of such immigrants, and
they rapidly built up around them a life not very unlike that which they
had left behind with their old homes. Even in 1776 there was marrying
and giving in marriage, and children were born in Kentucky. The
new-comers had to settle in forts, where the young men and maidens had
many chances for courtship. They married early, and were as fruitful as
they were hardy.[1] Most of these marriages were civil contracts, but
some may have been solemnized by clergymen, for the commonwealth
received from the outset occasional visits from ministers.
These ministers belonged to different denominations, but all were sure
of a hearing. The backwoodsmen were forced by their surroundings to
exercise a grudging charity towards the various forms of religious
belief entertained among themselves--though they hated and despised
French and Spanish Catholics. When off in the wilderness they were
obliged to take a man for what he did, not for what he thought. Of
course there were instances to the contrary, and there is an amusing and
authentic story of two hunters, living alone and far from any
settlement, who quarrelled because one was a Catholic and the other a
Protestant. The seceder took up his abode in a hollow tree within
speaking distance of his companion's cabin. Every day on arising they
bade each other good-morning; but not another word passed between them
for the many months during which they saw no other white face.[2] There
was a single serious and important, albeit only partial, exception to
this general rule of charity. After the outbreak of the Revolution, the
Kentuckians, in common with other backwoodsmen, grew to thoroughly
dislike one religious body which they already distrusted; this was the
Church of England, the Episcopal Church. They long regarded it as merely
the persecuting ecclesiastical arm of the British Government. Such of
them as had been brought up in any faith at all had for the most part
originally professed some form of Calvinism; they had very probably
learnt their letters from a primer which in one of its rude cuts
represented John Rogers at the stake, surrounded by his wife and seven
children, and in their after lives they were more familiar with the
"Pilgrim's Progress" than with any other book save the Bible; so that it
was natural for them to distrust the successors of those who had
persecuted Rogers and Bunyan.[3] Still, the border communities were, as
times then went very tolerant in religious matters; and of course most
of the men had no chance to display, or indeed to feel, sectarianism of
any kind, for they had no issue to join, and rarely a church about which
to rally.
By the time Kentucky was settled the Baptists had begun to make headway
on the frontier, at the expense of the Presbyterians. The rough
democracy of the border welcomed a sect which was itself essentially
democratic. To many of the backwoodsmen's prejudices, notably their
sullen and narrow hostility towards all rank, whether or not based on
merit and learning, the Baptists' creed appealed strongly. Where their
preachers obtained foothold, it was made a matter of reproach to the
Presbyterian clergymen that they had been educated in early life for the
ministry as for a profession. The love of liberty, and the defiant
assertion of equality, so universal in the backwoods, and so excellent
in themselves, sometimes took very warped and twisted forms, notably
when they betrayed the backwoodsmen into the belief that the true
democratic spirit forbade any exclusive and special training for the
professions that produce soldiers, statesmen, or ministers.
The fact that the Baptist preachers were men exactly similar to their
fellows in all their habits of life, not only gave them a good standing
at once, but likewise enabled them very early to visit the farthest
settlements, travelling precisely like other backwoodsmen; and once
there, each preacher, each earnest professor, doing bold and fearless
missionary work, became the nucleus round which a little knot of true
believers gathered. Two or three of them made short visits to Kentucky
during the first few years of its existence. One, who went thither in
the early spring of 1776, kept a journal of his trip.[4] He travelled
over the Wilderness Road with eight other men. Three of them were
Baptists like himself, who prayed every night; and their companions,
though they did not take part in the praying, did not interrupt it.
Their journey through the melancholy and silent wilderness resembled in
its incidents the countless other similar journeys that were made at
that time and later.
They suffered from cold and hunger and lack of shelter; they became
footsore and weary, and worn out with driving the pack-horses. On the
top of the lonely Cumberland Mountains they came upon the wolf-eaten
remains of a previous traveller, who had recently been killed by
Indians. At another place they met four men returning--cowards, whose
hearts had failed them when in sight of the promised land. While on the
great Indian war-trail they killed a buffalo, and thenceforth lived on
its jerked meat. One night the wolves smelt the flesh, and came up to
the camp-fire; the strong hunting-dogs rushed out with clamorous barking
to drive them away, and the sudden alarm for a moment made the sleepy
wayfarers think that roving Indians had attacked them. When they reached
Crab Orchard their dangers were for the moment past; all travellers grew
to regard with affection the station by this little grove of wild
apple-trees. It is worthy of note that the early settlers loved to build
their homes near these natural orchards, moved by the fragrance and
beauty of the bloom in spring.[5]
The tired Baptist was not overpleased with Harrodstown, though he there
listened to the preaching of one of his own sect.[6] He remarked "a poor
town it was in those days," a couple of rows of smoky cabins, tenanted
by dirty women and ragged children, while the tall, unkempt frontiersmen
lounged about in greasy hunting-shirts, breech-clouts, leggings, and
moccasins. There was little or no corn until the crops were gathered,
and, like the rest, he had to learn to eat wild meat without salt. The
settlers,--as is always the case in frontier towns where the people are
wrapped up in their own pursuits and rivalries, and are obliged to talk
of one another for lack of outside interests,--were divided by
bickering, gossiping jealousies; and at this time they were quarrelling
as to whether the Virginian cabin-rights or Henderson's land-grants
would prove valid. As usual, the zealous Baptist preacher found that the
women were the first to "get religion," as he phrased it. Sometimes
their husbands likewise came in with them; at other times they remained
indifferent. Often they savagely resented their wives and daughters
being converted, visiting on the head of the preacher an anger that did
not always find vent in mere words; for the backwoodsmen had strong,
simple natures, powerfully excited for good or evil, and those who were
not God-fearing usually became active and furious opponents of all
religion.
It is curious to compare the description of life in a frontier fort as
given by this undoubtedly prejudiced observer with the equally
prejudiced, but golden- instead of sombre-hued, reminiscences of
frontier life, over which the pioneers lovingly lingered in their old
age. To these old men the long-vanished stockades seemed to have held a
band of brothers, who were ever generous, hospitable, courteous, and
fearless, always ready to help one another, never envious, never
flinching from any foe.[7] Neither account is accurate; but the last is
quite as near the truth as the first. On the border, as elsewhere, but
with the different qualities in even bolder contrast, there was much
both of good and bad, of shiftless viciousness and resolute honesty.
Many of the hunters were mere restless wanderers, who soon surrendered
their clearings to small farming squatters, but a degree less shiftless
than themselves; the latter brought the ground a little more under
cultivation, and then likewise left it and wandered onwards, giving
place to the third set of frontiersmen, the steady men who had come to
stay. But often the first hunters themselves stayed and grew up as
farmers and landed proprietors.[8] Many of the earliest pioneers,
including most of their leaders, founded families, which took root in
the land and flourish to this day, the children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren of the old-time Indian fighters becoming Congressmen
and judges, and officers in the regular army and in the Federal and
Confederate forces during the civil war.[9] In fact the very first
comers to a wild and dangerous country are apt to be men with fine
qualities of heart and head; it is not until they have partly tamed the
land that the scum of the frontier drifts into it.[10]
In 1776, as in after years, there were three routes that were taken by
immigrants to Kentucky. One led by backwoods trails to the Greenbriar
settlements, and thence down the Kanawha to the Ohio;[11] but the travel
over this was insignificant compared to that along the others. The two
really important routes were the Wilderness Road, and that by water,
from Fort Pitt down the Ohio River. Those who chose the latter way
embarked in roughly built little flat-boats at Fort Pitt, if they came
from Pennsylvania, or else at the old Redstone Fort on the Monongahela,
if from Maryland or Virginia, and drifted down with the current. Though
this was the easiest method, yet the danger from Indians was so very
great that most immigrants, the Pennsylvanians as well as the
Marylanders, Virginians, and North Carolinians,[12] usually went
overland by the Wilderness Road. This was the trace marked out by Boon,
which to the present day remains a monument to his skill as a practical
surveyor and engineer. Those going along it went on foot, driving their
horses and cattle. At the last important frontier town they fitted
themselves out with pack-saddles; for in such places two of the leading
industries were always those of the pack-saddle maker and the artisan in
deer leather. When there was need, the pioneer could of course make a
rough pack-saddle for himself, working it up from two forked branches of
a tree. If several families were together, they moved slowly in true
patriarchal style. The elder boys drove the cattle, which usually headed
the caravan; while the younger children were packed in crates of hickory
withes and slung across the backs of the old quiet horses, or else were
seated safely between the great rolls of bedding that were carried in
similar fashion. The women sometimes rode and sometimes walked, carrying
the babies. The men, rifle on shoulder, drove the pack-train, while some
of them walked spread out in front, flank, and rear, to guard against
the savages.[13] A tent or brush lean-to gave cover at night. Each
morning the men packed the animals while the women cooked breakfast and
made ready the children. Special care had to be taken not to let the
loaded animals brush against the yellow-jacket nests, which were always
plentiful along the trail in the fall of the year; for in such a case
the vicious swarms attacked man and beast, producing an immediate
stampede, to the great detriment of the packs.[14] In winter the fords
and mountains often became impassable, and trains were kept in one place
for weeks at a time, escaping starvation only by killing the lean
cattle; for few deer at that season remained in the mountains.
Both the water route and the wilderness road were infested by the
savages at all times, and whenever there was open war the sparsely
settled regions from which they started were likewise harried. When the
northwestern tribes threatened Fort Pitt and Fort Henry--or Pittsburg
and Wheeling, as they were getting to be called,--they threatened one of
the two localities which served to cover the communications with
Kentucky; but it was far more serious when the Holston region was
menaced, because the land travel was at first much the more important.
The early settlers of course had to suffer great hardship even when they
reached Kentucky. The only two implements the men invariably carried
were the axe and rifle, for they were almost equally proud of their
skill as warriors, hunters, and wood-choppers. Next in importance came
the sickle or scythe. The first three tasks of the pioneer farmer were
to build a cabin, to make a clearing--burning the brush, cutting down
the small trees, and girdling the large--and to plant corn. Until the
crop ripened he hunted steadily, and his family lived on the abundant
game, save for which it would have been wholly impossible to have
settled Kentucky so early. If it was winter-time, however, all the wild
meat was very lean and poor eating, unless by chance a bear was found in
a hollow tree, when there was a royal feast, the breast of the wild
turkey serving as a substitute for bread.[15] If the men were suddenly
called away by an Indian inroad, their families sometimes had to live
for days on boiled tops of green nettles.[16] Naturally the children
watched the growth of the tasselled corn with hungry eagerness until the
milky ears were fit for roasting. When they hardened, the grains were
pounded into hominy in the hominy-block, or else ground into meal in the
rough hand-mill, made of two limestones in a hollow sycamore log. Until
flax could be grown the women were obliged to be content with lint made
from the bark of dead nettles. This was gathered in the spring-time by
all the people of a station acting together, a portion of the men
standing guard while the rest, with the women and children, plucked the
dead stalks. The smart girls of Irish ancestry spun many dozen cuts of
linen from this lint, which was as fine as flax but not so strong.[17]
Neither hardship nor danger could render the young people downhearted,
especially when several families, each containing grown-up sons and
daughters, were living together in almost every fort. The chief
amusements were hunting and dancing. There being no permanent ministers,
even the gloomy Calvinism of some of the pioneers was relaxed. Long
afterwards one of them wrote, in a spirit of quaint apology, that
"dancing was not then considered criminal,"[18] and that it kept up the
spirits of the young people, and made them more healthy and happy; and
recalling somewhat uneasily the merriment in the stations, in spite of
the terrible and interminable Indian warfare, the old moralist felt
obliged to condemn it, remarking that, owing to the lack of ministers of
the gospel, the impressions made by misfortune were not improved.
Though obliged to be very careful and to keep their families in forts,
and in spite of a number of them being killed by the savages,[19] the
settlers in 1776 were able to wander about and explore the country
thoroughly,[20] making little clearings as the basis of "cabin claims,"
and now and then gathering into stations which were for the most part
broken up by the Indians and abandoned.[21] What was much more
important, the permanent settlers in the well-established stations
proceeded to organize a civil government.
They by this time felt little but contempt for the Henderson or
Transylvania government. Having sent a petition against it to the
provincial authorities, they were confident that what faint shadow of
power it still retained would soon vanish; so they turned their
attention to securing a representation in the Virginia convention. All
Kentucky was still considered as a part of Fincastle County, and the
inhabitants were therefore unrepresented at the capital. They determined
to remedy this; and after due proclamation, gathered together at
Harrodstown early in June, 1776. During five days an election was held,
and two delegates were chosen to go to Williamsburg, then the seat of
government.
This was done at the suggestion of Clark, who, having spent the winter
in Virginia had returned to Kentucky in the spring. He came out alone
and on foot, and by his sudden appearance surprised the settlers not a
little. The first to meet him was a young lad,[22] who had gone a few
miles out of Harrodstown to turn some horses on the range. The boy had
killed a teal duck that was feeding in a spring, and was roasting it
nicely at a small fire, when he was startled by the approach of a fine
soldierly man, who hailed him: "How do you do my little fellow? What is
your name? Ar'n't you afraid of being in the woods by yourself?" The
stranger was evidently hungry, for on being invited to eat he speedily
finished the entire duck; and when the boy asked his name he answered
that it was Clark, and that he had come out to see what the brave
fellows in Kentucky were doing, and to help them if there was need. He
took up his temporary abode at Harrodstown--visiting all the forts,
however, and being much in the woods by himself,--and his commanding
mind and daring, adventurous temper speedily made him, what for ten
critical years he remained, the leader among all the bold "hunters of
Kentucky"--as the early settlers loved to call themselves.
He had advised against delegates to the convention being chosen,
thinking that instead the Kentuckians should send accredited agents to
treat with the Virginian government. If their terms were not agreed to,
he declared that they ought to establish forthwith an independent state;
an interesting example of how early the separatist spirit showed itself
in Kentucky. But the rest of the people were unwilling to go quite as
far. They elected two delegates, Clark of course being one. With them
they sent a petition for admission as a separate county. They were
primarily farmers, hunters, Indian fighters--not scholars; and their
petition was couched in English that was at times a little crooked; but
the idea at any rate was perfectly straight, and could not be
misunderstood. They announced that if they were admitted they would
cheerfully cooperate in every measure to secure the public peace and
safety, and at the same time pointed out with marked emphasis "how
impolitical it would be to suffer such a Respectable Body of Prime
Riflemen to remain in a state of neutrality" during the then existing
revolutionary struggle.[23]
Armed with this document and their credentials, Clark and his companion
set off across the desolate and Indian-haunted mountains. They travelled
very fast, the season was extremely wet, and they did not dare to kindle
fires for fear of the Indians; in consequence they suffered torments
from cold, hunger, and especially from "scalded" feet. Yet they hurried
on, and presented their petition to the Governor[24] and Council--the
Legislature having adjourned. Clark also asked for five hundred-weight
of gunpowder, of which the Kentucky settlement stood in sore and
pressing need. This the Council at first refused to give; whereupon
Clark informed them that if the country was not worth defending, it was
not worth claiming, making it plain that if the request was not granted,
and if Kentucky was forced to assume the burdens of independence, she
would likewise assume its privileges. After this plain statement the
Council yielded. Clark took the powder down the Ohio River, and got it
safely through to Kentucky; though a party sent under John Todd to
convey it overland from the Limestone Creek was met at the Licking and
defeated by the Indians, Clark's fellow delegate being among the killed.
Before returning Clark had attended the fall meeting of the Virginia
Legislature, and in spite of the opposition of Henderson, who was
likewise present, he procured the admission of Kentucky as a separate
county, with boundaries corresponding to those of the present State.
Early in the ensuing year, 1777, the county was accordingly organized;
Harrodstown, or Harrodsburg, as it was now beginning to be called, was
made the county seat, having by this time supplanted Boonsborough in
importance. The court was composed of the six or eight men whom the
governor of Virginia had commissioned as justices of the peace; they
were empowered to meet monthly to transact necessary business, and had a
sheriff and clerk.[25] These took care of the internal concerns of the
settlers. To provide for their defence a county lieutenant was created,
with the rank of colonel,[26] who forthwith organized a militia
regiment, placing all the citizens, whether permanent residents or not,
into companies and battalions. Finally, two burgesses were chosen to
represent the county in the General Assembly of Virginia.[27] In later
years Daniel Boon himself served as a Kentucky burgess in the Virginia
Legislature;[28] a very different body from the little Transylvanian
parliament in which he began his career as a law-maker. The old
backwoods hero led a strange life: varying his long wanderings and
explorations, his endless campaigns against savage men and savage
beasts, by serving as road-maker, town-builder, and commonwealth-founder,
sometimes organizing the frontiersmen for foreign war, and again doing
his share in devising the laws under which they were to live and prosper.
But the pioneers were speedily drawn into a life-and-death struggle
which engrossed their whole attention to the exclusion of all merely
civil matters; a struggle in which their land became in truth what the
Indians called it--a dark and bloody ground, a land with blood-stained
rivers.[29]
It was impossible long to keep peace on the border between the
ever-encroaching whites and their fickle and blood-thirsty foes. The
hard, reckless, often brutalized frontiersmen, greedy of land and
embittered by the memories of untold injuries, regarded all Indians with
sullen enmity, and could not be persuaded to distinguish between the
good and the bad.[30] The central government was as powerless to
restrain as to protect these far-off and unruly citizens. On the other
hand, the Indians were as treacherous as they were ferocious; Delawares,
Shawnees, Wyandots, and all.[31] While deceiving the commandants of the
posts by peaceful protestations, they would steadily continue their
ravages and murders; and while it was easy to persuade a number of the
chiefs and warriors of a tribe to enter into a treaty, it was impossible
to make the remainder respect it.[32] The chiefs might be for peace, but
the young braves were always for war, and could not be kept back.[33]
In July, 1776, the Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingo chiefs assembled at
Fort Pitt and declared for neutrality;[34] the Iroquois ambassadors, who
were likewise present, haughtily announced that their tribes would
permit neither the British nor the Americans to march an army through
their territory. They disclaimed any responsibility for what might be
done by a few wayward young men; and requested the Delawares and
Shawnees to do as they had promised, and to distribute the Iroquois
"talk" among their people. After the Indian fashion, they emphasized
each point which they wished kept in mind by the presentation of a
string of wampum.[35]
Yet at this very time a party of Mingos tried to kill the American
Indian agents, and were only prevented by Cornstalk, whose noble and
faithful conduct was so soon to be rewarded by his own brutal murder.
Moreover, while the Shawnee chief was doing this, some of his warriors
journeyed down to the Cherokees and gave them the war belt, assuring
them that the Wyandots and Mingos would support them, and that they
themselves had been promised ammunition by the French traders of Detroit
and the Illinois.[36] On their return home this party of Shawnees
scalped two men in Kentucky near the Big Bone Lick, and captured a
woman; but they were pursued by the Kentucky settlers, two were killed
and the woman retaken.[37]
Throughout the year the outlook continued to grow more and more
threatening. Parties of young men kept making inroads on the
settlements, especially in Kentucky; not only did the Shawnees,
Wyandots, Mingos, and Iroquois[38] act thus, but they were even joined
by bands of Ottawas, Pottawatomies, and Chippewas from the lakes, who
thus attacked the white settlers long ere the latter had either the will
or the chance to hurt them.
Until the spring of 1777[39] the outbreak was not general, and it was
supposed that only some three or four hundred warriors had taken up the
tomahawk.[40] Yet the outlying settlers were all the time obliged to
keep as sharp a look-out as if engaged in open war. Throughout the
summer of 1776 the Kentucky settlers were continually harassed. Small
parties of Indians were constantly lurking round the forts, to shoot
down the men as they hunted or worked in the fields, and to carry off
the women. There was a constant and monotonous succession of unimportant
forays and skirmishes.
One band of painted marauders carried off Boon's daughter. She was in a
canoe with two other girls on the river near Boonsborough when they were
pounced on by five Indians.[41] As soon as he heard the news Boon went
in pursuit with a party of seven men from the fort, including the three
lovers of the captured girls. After following the trail all of one day
and the greater part of two nights, the pursuers came up with the
savages, and, rushing in, scattered or slew them before they could
either make resistance or kill their captives. The rescuing party then
returned in triumph to the fort.
Thus for two years the pioneers worked in the wilderness, harassed by
unending individual warfare, but not threatened by any formidable
attempt to oust them from the lands that they had won. During this
breathing spell they established civil government, explored the country,
planted crops, and built strongholds. Then came the inevitable struggle.
When in 1777 the snows began to melt before the lengthening spring days,
the riflemen who guarded the log forts were called on to make head
against a series of resolute efforts to drive them from Kentucky.
1. Imlay, p. 55, estimated that from natural increase the population of
Kentucky doubled every fifteen years,--probably an exaggeration.
2. Hale's "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers," p. 251.
3. "Pioneer Life in Kentucky," Daniel Drake, Cincinnati, 1870, p. 196
(an invaluable work).
4. MS. autobiography of Rev. William Hickman. He was born in Virginia,
February 4, 1747. A copy in Col. Durrett's library at Louisville, Ky.
5. There were at least three such "Crab-Orchard" stations in Virginia,
Kentucky, and Tennessee. The settlers used the word "crab" precisely as
Shakespeare does.
6. A Mr. Finley. Hickman MS.
7. McAfee MSS.
8. McAfee MSS.
9. Such was the case with the Clarks, Boons, Seviers, Shelbys,
Robertsons, Logans, Cockes, Crocketts, etc.; many of whose descendants
it has been my good-fortune personally to know.
10. This is as true to-day in the far west as it was formerly in
Kentucky and Tennessee; at least to judge by my own experience in the
Little Missouri region, and in portions of the Kootenai, Coeur d'Alene,
and Bighorn countries.
11. McAfee MSS. See also "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers," p. III. As Mr. Hale
points out, this route, which was travelled by Floyd, Bullitt, the
McAfees, and many others, has not received due attention, even in
Colonel Speed's invaluable and interesting "Wilderness Road."
12. Up to 1783 the Kentucky immigrants came from the backwoods of
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and were of almost
precisely the same character as those that went to Tennessee. See Imlay,
p. 168. At the close of the Revolutionary war, Tennessee and Kentucky
were almost alike in population. But after that time the population of
Kentucky rapidly grew varied, and the great immigration of upper-class
Virginians gave it a peculiar stamp of its own. By 1796, when Logan was
defeated for governor, the control of Kentucky had passed out of the
hands of the pioneers; whereas in Tennessee the old Indian fighters
continued to give the tone to the social life of the State, and remained
in control until they died.
13. McAfee MSS. Just as the McAfee family started for Kentucky, the wife
of one of their number, George, was confined. The others had to leave
her; but at the first long halt the husband hurried back, only to meet
his wife on the way; for she had ridden after them just three days after
her confinement, taking her baby along.
14. "Pioneer Biography," James McBride (son of a pioneer who was killed
by the Indians in 1789 in Kentucky), p. 183, Cincinnati, 1869. One of
the excellent series published by Robert Clarke & Co., to whom American
historians owe a special and unique debt of gratitude.
15. McAfee MSS.
16. McBride, II., 197.
17. McAfee MSS.
18. _Do._
19. Morehead, App. Floyd's letter.
20. They retained few Indian names; Kentucky in this respect differing
from most other sections of the Union. The names were either taken from
the explorers, as Floyd's Fork; or from some natural peculiarity, as the
Licking, so called from the number of game licks along its borders; or
else they commemorated some incident. On Dreaming Creek Boon fell asleep
and dreamed he was stung by yellow-jackets. The Elkhorn was so named
because a hunter, having slain a monstrous bull elk, stuck up its horns
on a pole at the mouth. At Bloody Run several men were slain. Eagle
Branch was so called because of the many bald eagles round it. See
McAfee MSS.
21. Marshall, 45.
22. Afterwards General William Ray. Butler, p. 37.
23. Petition of the committee of West Fincastle, dated June 20, 1776. It
is printed in Col. John Mason Brown's "Battle of the Blue Licks"
pamphlet.
24. Patrick Henry.
25. Among their number were John Todd (likewise chosen burgess--in these
early days a man of mark often filled several distinct positions at the
same time), Benj. Logan, Richard Galloway, John Bowman, and John Floyd;
the latter was an educated Virginian, who was slain by the Indians
before his fine natural qualities had time to give him the place he
would otherwise assuredly have reached.
26. The first colonel was John Bowman.
27. John Dodd and Richard Calloway. See Diary of Geo. Rogers Clark, in
1776. Given by Morehead, p. 161.
28. Butler, 166.
29. The Iroquois, as well as the Cherokees, used these expressions
concerning portions of the Ohio valley. Heckewelder, 118.
30. State Department MSS., No. 147, Vol. VI., March 15, 1781.
31. As one instance among many see Haldimand MSS., letter of Lt. Col.
Hamilton, August 17, 1778, where Girty reported, on behalf of the
Delawares, the tribe least treacherous to the Americans, that even these
Indians were only going in to Fort Pitt and keeping up friendly
relations with its garrison so as to deceive the whites, and that as
soon as their corn was ripe they would move off to the hostile tribes.
32. State Department MSS., No. 150, Vol. I., p. 107. Letter of Captain
John Doughty.
33. State Department MSS., No. 150, Vol. I., p. 115. Examination of John
Leith.
34. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, Vol. I., p. 36.
35. "The Olden Time," Neville B. Craig, II., p. 115.
36. "Am. Archives," 5th Series, Vol. I., p. 111.
37. _Do_., p. 137.
38. _Do._, Vol. II., pp. 516, 1236.
39. When Cornstalk was so foully murdered by the whites; although the
outbreak was then already started.
40. Madison MSS. But both the American statesmen and the Continental
officers were so deceived by the treacherous misrepresentations of the
Indians that they often greatly underestimated the numbers of the
Indians on the war-path; curiously enough, their figures are frequently
much more erroneous than those of the frontiersmen. Thus the Madison
MSS. and State Department MSS. contain statements that only a few
hundred northwestern warriors were in the field at the very time that
two thousand had been fitted out at Detroit to act along the Ohio and
Wabash; as we learn from De Peyster's letter to Haldimand of May 17,
1780 (in the Haldimand MSS.).
41. On July 14, 1776. The names of the three girls were Betsy and Fanny
Callaway and Jemima Boon, See Boon's Narrative, and Butler, who gives
the letter of July 21, 1776, written by Col. John Floyd, one of the
pursuing party.
The names of the lovers, in their order, were Samuel Henderson (a
brother of Richard), John Holder, and Flanders Callaway. Three weeks
after the return to the fort Squire Boon united in marriage the eldest
pair of lovers, Samuel Henderson and Betsey Callaway. It was the first
wedding that ever took place in Kentucky. Both the other couples were
likewise married a year or two later.
The whole story reads like a page out of one of Cooper's novels. The two
younger girls gave way to despair when captured, but Betsey Callaway was
sure they would be followed and rescued. To mark the line of their
flight she broke off twigs from the bushes, and when threatened with the
tomahawk for doing this, she tore off strips from her dress. The Indians
carefully covered their trail, compelling the girls to walk apart, as
their captors did, in the thick cane, and to wade up and down the little
brooks.
Boon started in pursuit the same evening. All next day he followed the
tangled trail like a bloodhound, and early the following morning came on
the Indians, camped by a buffalo calf which they had just killed and
were about to cook. The rescue was managed very adroitly, for had any
warning been given the Indians would have instantly killed their
captives, according to their invariable custom. Boon and Floyd each shot
one of the savages, and the remaining three escaped almost naked,
without gun, tomahawk, or scalping-knife. The girls were unharmed, for
the Indians rarely molested their captives on the journey to the home
towns, unless their strength gave out, when they were tomahawked without
mercy.
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX A--TO CHAPTER IV.
It is greatly to be wished that some competent person would write a full
and true history of our national dealings with the Indians. Undoubtedly
the latter have often suffered terrible injustice at our hands. A number
of instances, such as the conduct of the Georgians to the Cherokees in
the early part of the present century, or the whole treatment of Chief
Joseph and his Nez Percés, might be mentioned, which are indelible blots
on our fair fame; and yet, in describing our dealings with the red men
as a whole, historians do us much less than justice.
It was wholly impossible to avoid conflicts with the weaker race, unless
we were willing to see the American continent fall into the hands of
some other strong power; and even had we adopted such a ludicrous
policy, the Indians themselves would have made war upon us. It cannot be
too often insisted that they did not own the land; or, at least, that
their ownership was merely such as that claimed often by our own white
hunters. If the Indians really owned Kentucky in 1775, then in 1776 it
was the property of Boon and his associates; and to dispossess one party
was as great a wrong as to dispossess the other. To recognize the Indian
ownership of the limitless prairies and forests of this continent--that
is, to consider the dozen squalid savages who hunted at long intervals
over a territory of a thousand square miles as owning it
outright--necessarily implies a similar recognition of the claims of
every white hunter, squatter, horse-thief, or wandering cattle-man. Take
as an example the country round the Little Missouri. When the
cattle-men, the first actual settlers, came into this land in 1882, it
was already scantily peopled by a few white hunters and trappers. The
latter were extremely jealous of intrusion; they had held their own in
spite of the Indians, and, like the Indians, the inrush of settlers and
the consequent destruction of the game meant their own undoing; also,
again like the Indians, they felt that their having hunted over the soil
gave them a vague prescriptive right to its sole occupation, and they
did their best to keep actual settlers out. In some cases, to avoid
difficulty, their nominal claims were bought up; generally, and rightly,
they were disregarded. Yet they certainly had as good a right to the
Little Missouri country as the Sioux have to most of the land on their
present reservations. In fact, the mere statement of the case is
sufficient to show the absurdity of asserting that the land really
belonged to the Indians. The different tribes have always been utterly
unable to define their own boundaries. Thus the Delawares and Wyandots,
in 1785, though entirely separate nations, claimed and, in a certain
sense, occupied almost exactly the same territory.
Moreover, it was wholly impossible for our policy to be always
consistent. Nowadays we undoubtedly ought to break up the great Indian
reservations, disregard the tribal governments, allot the land in
severally (with, however, only a limited power of alienation), and
treat the Indians as we do other citizens, with certain exceptions,
for their sakes as well as ours. But this policy, which it would be
wise to follow now, would have been wholly impracticable a century
since. Our central government was then too weak either effectively to
control its own members or adequately to punish aggressions made upon
them; and even if it had been strong, it would probably have proved
impossible to keep entire order over such a vast, sparsely-peopled
frontier, with such turbulent elements on both sides. The Indians
could not be treated as individuals at that time. There was no
possible alternative, therefore, to treating their tribes as nations,
exactly as the French and English had done before us. Our difficulties
were partly inherited from these, our predecessors, were partly caused
by our own misdeeds, but were mainly the inevitable result of the
conditions under which the problem had to be solved; no human wisdom
or virtue could have worked out a peaceable solution. As a nation, our
Indian policy is to be blamed, because of the weakness it displayed,
because of its shortsightedness, and its occasional leaning to the
policy of the sentimental humanitarians; and we have often promised
what was impossible to perform; but there has been little wilful
wrong-doing. Our government almost always tried to act fairly by the
tribes; the governmental agents (some of whom have been dishonest, and
others foolish, but who, as a class, have been greatly traduced), in
their reports, are far more apt to be unjust to the whites than to the
reds; and the Federal authorities, though unable to prevent much of
the injustice, still did check and control the white borderers very
much more effectually than the Indian sachems and war-chiefs
controlled their young braves. The tribes were warlike and
bloodthirsty, jealous of each other and of the whites; they claimed
the land for their hunting grounds, but their claims all conflicted
with one another; their knowledge of their own boundaries was so
indefinite that they were always willing, for inadequate compensation,
to sell land to which they had merely the vaguest title; and yet, when
once they had received the goods, were generally reluctant to make
over even what they could; they coveted the goods and scalps of the
whites, and the young warriors were always on the alert to commit
outrages when they could do it with impunity. On the other hand, the
evil-disposed whites regarded the Indians as fair game for robbery and
violence of any kind; and the far larger number of well-disposed men,
who would not willingly wrong any Indian, were themselves maddened by
the memories of hideous injuries received. They bitterly resented the
action of the government, which, in their eyes, failed to properly
protect them, and yet sought to keep them out of waste, uncultivated
lands which they did not regard as being any more the property of the
Indians than of their own hunters. With the best intentions, it was
wholly impossible for any government to evolve order out of such a
chaos without resort to the ultimate arbitrator--the sword.
The purely sentimental historians take no account of the difficulties
under which we labored, nor of the countless wrongs and provocations
we endured, while grossly magnifying the already lamentably large
number of injuries for which we really deserve to be held responsible.
To get a fair idea of the Indians of the present day, and of our
dealings with them, we have fortunately one or two excellent books,
notably "Hunting Grounds of the Great West," and "Our Wild Indians,"
by Col. Richard I. Dodge (Hartford, 1882), and "Massacres of the
Mountains," by J. P. Dunn (New York, 1886). As types of the opposite
class, which are worse than valueless, and which nevertheless might
cause some hasty future historian, unacquainted with the facts, to
fall into grievous error, I may mention, "A Century of Dishonor," by
H. H. (Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson), and "Our Indian Wards," (Geo. W.
Manypenny). The latter is a mere spiteful diatribe against various
army officers, and neither its manner nor its matter warrants more
than an allusion. Mrs. Jackson's book is capable of doing more harm
because it is written in good English, and because the author, who had
lived a pure and noble life, was intensely in earnest in what she
wrote, and had the most praiseworthy purpose--to prevent our
committing any more injustice to the Indians. This was all most
proper; every good man or woman should do whatever is possible to make
the government treat the Indians of the present time in the fairest
and most generous spirit, and to provide against any repetition of
such outrages as were inflicted upon the Nez Percés and upon part of
the Cheyennes, or the wrongs with which the civilized nations of the
Indian territory are sometimes threatened. The purpose of the book is
excellent, but the spirit in which it is written cannot be called even
technically honest. As a polemic, it is possible that it did not do
harm (though the effect of even a polemic is marred by hysterical
indifference to facts.) As a history it would be beneath criticism,
were it not that the high character of the author and her excellent
literary work in other directions have given it a fictitious value and
made it much quoted by the large class of amiable but maudlin fanatics
concerning whom it may be said that the excellence of their intentions
but indifferently atones for the invariable folly and ill effect of
their actions. It is not too much to say that the book is thoroughly
untrustworthy from cover to cover, and that not a single statement it
contains should be accepted without independent proof; for even those
that are not absolutely false, are often as bad on account of so much
of the truth having been suppressed. One effect of this is of course
that the author's recitals of the many real wrongs of Indian tribes
utterly fail to impress us, because she lays quite as much stress on
those that are non-existent, and on the equally numerous cases where
the wrong-doing was wholly the other way. To get an idea of the value
of the work, it is only necessary to compare her statements about
almost any tribe with the real facts, choosing at random; for
instance, compare her accounts of the Sioux and the plains tribes
generally, with those given by Col. Dodge in his two books; or her
recital of the Sandy Creek massacre with the facts as stated by Mr.
Dunn--who is apt, if any thing, to lean to the Indian's side.
These foolish sentimentalists not only write foul slanders about their
own countrymen, but are themselves the worst possible advisers on any
point touching Indian management. They would do well to heed General
Sheridan's bitter words, written when many Easterners were clamoring
against the army authorities because they took partial vengeance for a
series of brutal outrages: "I do not know how far these humanitarians
should be excused on account of their ignorance; but surely it is the
only excuse that can give a shadow of justification for aiding and
abetting such horrid crimes."
APPENDIX B--TO CHAPTER V.
In Mr. Shaler's entertaining "History of Kentucky," there is an
account of the population of the western frontiers, and Kentucky,
interesting because it illustrates some of the popular delusions on
the subject. He speaks (pp. 9, 11, 23) of Kentucky as containing
"nearly pure English blood, mainly derived through the old Dominion,
and altogether from districts that shared the Virginian conditions."
As much of the blood was Pennsylvanian or North Carolinian, his last
sentence means nothing, unless all the "districts" outside of New
England are held to have shared the Virginian conditions. Turning to
Marshall (I., 441) we see that in 1780 about half the people were from
Virginia, Pennsylvania furnishing the next greatest number; and of the
Virginians most were from a population much more like that of
Pennsylvania than like that of tide-water Virginia; as we learn from
twenty sources, such as Waddell's "Annals of Augusta County." Mr.
Shaler speaks of the Huguenots and of the Scotch immigrants, who came
over after 1745, but actually makes no mention of the Presbyterian
Irish or Scotch Irish, much the most important element in all the
west; in fact, on p. 10, he impliedly excludes any such immigration at
all. He greatly underestimates the German element, which was important
in West Virginia. He sums up by stating that the Kentuckians come from
the "truly British people," quite a different thing from his statement
that they are "English."
The "truly British people" consists of a conglomerate of as distinct
races as exist anywhere in Aryan Europe. The Erse, Welsh, and Gaelic
immigrants to America are just as distinct from the English, just as
"foreign" to them, as are the Scandinavians, Germans, Hollanders, and
Huguenots--often more so. Such early families as the Welsh Shelbys,
and Gaelic McAfees are no more English than are the Huguenot Seviers
or the German Stoners. Even including merely the immigrants from the
British Isles, the very fact that the Welsh, Irish, and Scotch, in a
few generations, fuse with the English instead of each element
remaining separate, makes the American population widely different
from that of Britain; exactly as a flask of water is different from
two cans of hydrogen and oxygen gas. Mr. Shaler also seems inclined to
look down a little on the Tennesseeans, and to consider their
population as composed in part of inferior elements; but in reality,
though there are very marked differences between the two commonwealths
of Kentucky and Tennessee, yet they resemble one another more closely,
in blood and manners, than either does any other American State; and
both have too just cause for pride to make it necessary for either to
sneer at the other, or indeed at any State of our mighty Federal
Union. In their origin they were precisely alike; but whereas the
original pioneers, the hunters and Indian fighters, kept possession of
Tennessee as long as they lived,--Jackson, at Sevier's death, taking
the latter's place with even more than his power,--in Kentucky, on the
other hand, after twenty years' rule, the first settlers were swamped
by the great inrush of immigration, and with the defeat of Logan for
governor the control passed into the hands of the same class of men
that then ruled Virginia. After that date the "tide-water" stock
assumed an importance in Kentucky it never had in Tennessee; and of
course the influence of the Scotch-Irish blood was greatly diminished.
Mr. Shaler's error is trivial compared to that made by another and
even more brilliant writer. In the "History of the People of the
United States," by Professor McMaster (New York, 1887), p. 70, there
is a mistake so glaring that it would not need notice, were it not for
the many excellencies and wide repute of Professor McMaster's book. He
says that of the immigrants to Kentucky, most had come "from the
neighboring States of Carolina and Georgia," and shows that this is
not a mere slip of the pen, by elaborating the statement in the
following paragraphs, again speaking of North and South Carolina and
Georgia as furnishing the colonists to Kentucky. This shows a complete
misapprehension not only of the feeding-grounds of the western
emigration, but of the routes it followed, and of the conditions of
the southern States. South Carolina furnished very few emigrants to
Kentucky, and Georgia practically none; combined they probably did not
furnish as many as New Jersey or Maryland. Georgia was herself a
frontier community; she received instead of sending out immigrants.
The bulk of the South Carolina emigration went to Georgia.
APPENDIX C--TO CHAPTER VI.
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE,
NASHVILLE, TENN., June 12, 1888.
Hon. THEODORE ROOSEVELT,
SAGAMORE HILL,
LONG ISLAND, N. Y.
DEAR SIR:
I was born, "raised," and have always lived in Washington County, E.
Tenn. Was born on the "head-waters" of "Boone's Creek," in said
county. I resided for several years in the "Boone's Creek Civil
District," in Washington County (this some "twenty years ago"), within
two miles of the historic tree in question, on which is carved, "D.
Boon cilled bar &c."; have visited and examined the tree more than
once. The tree is a beech, still standing, though fast decaying. It is
located some eight miles northeast of Jonesboro, the county seat of
Washington, on the "waters of Boone's Creek," which creek was named
after Daniel Boone, and on which (creek) it is certain Daniel Boone
"camped" during a winter or two. The tree stands about two miles from
the spring, where it has always been understood Boone's camp was. More
than twenty years ago, I have heard old gentlemen (living in the
neighborhood of the tree), who were then from fifty to seventy years
old, assert that the carving was on the tree when they were boys, and
that the tradition in the community was that the inscription was on
the tree when discovered by the first permanent settlers. The posture
of the tree is "leaning," so that a "bar," or other animal could
ascend it without difficulty.
While the letters could be clearly traced when I last looked at them,
still because of the expansion of the bark, it was difficult, and I
heard old gentlemen years ago remark upon the changed appearance of
the inscription from what it was when they _first_ knew it.
Boone certainly camped for a time under the tree; the creek is named
after him (has always been known as Boone's Creek); the Civil District
is named after him, and the post-office also. True, the story as to
the carving is traditionary, but a man had as well question in that
community the authenticity of "Holy Writ," as the fact that Boone
carved the inscription on that tree.
I am very respectfully
JOHN ALLISON.
APPENDIX D--TO CHAPTER VI.
The following copy of an original note of Boon's was sent me by Judge
John N. Lea:
July the 20th 1786. Sir, The Land has Been Long Survayd and Not
Knowing When the Money would be Rady Was the Reason of my not
Returning the Works however the may be Returned when you pleas. But I
must have Nother Copy of the Entry as I have lost that I had when I
lost my plating instruments and only have the Short Field Notes. Just
the Corse Distance and Corner trees pray send me Nother Copy that I
may know how to give it the proper bounderry agreeable to the Location
and I Will send the plat to the offis medetly if you chose it, the
expense is as follows
Survayer's fees L9 3 8
Ragesters fees 7 14 0
Chanman 8 0 0
purvisions of the tower 2 0 0
--------
L26 17 8
You will also Send a Copy of the agreement betwixt Mr. [illegible]
overton and myself Where I Red the warrants. I am, sir, your omble
servant,
DANIEL BOONE.
APPENDIX E--TO CHAPTER VII.
Recently one or two histories of the times and careers of Robertson
and Sevier have been published by "Edmund Kirke," Mr. James R.
Gilmore. They are charmingly written, and are of real service as
calling attention to a neglected portion of our history and making it
interesting. But they entirely fail to discriminate between the
provinces of history and fiction. It is greatly to be regretted that
Mr. Gilmore did not employ his powers in writing an avowed historical
novel treating of the events he discusses; such a work from him would
have a permanent value, like Robert L. Kennedy's "Horseshoe Robinson."
In their present form his works cannot be accepted even as offering
material on which to form a judgment, except in so far as they contain
repetitions of statements given by Ramsey or Putnam. I say this with
real reluctance, for my relations with Mr. Gilmore personally have
been pleasant. I was at the outset prepossessed in favor of his books;
but as soon as I came to study them I found that (except for what was
drawn from the printed Tennessee State histories) they were extremely
untrustworthy. Oral tradition has a certain value of its own, if used
with great discretion and intelligence; but it is rather startling to
find any one blandly accepting as gospel alleged oral traditions
gathered one hundred and twenty-five years after the event, especially
when they relate to such subjects as the losses and numbers of Indian
war parties. No man with the slightest knowledge of frontiersmen or
frontier life could commit such a mistake. If any one wishes to get at
the value of oral tradition of an Indian fight a century old, let him
go out west and collect the stories of Custer's battle, which took
place only a dozen years ago. I think I have met or heard of fifty
"solitary survivors" of Custer's defeat; and I could collect certainly
a dozen complete accounts of both it and Reno's fight, each believed
by a goodly number of men, and no two relating the story in an even
approximately similar fashion. Mr. Gilmore apparently accepts all such
accounts indiscriminately, and embodies them in his narrative without
even a reference to his authorities. I particularize one or two out of
very many instances in the chapters dealing with the Cherokee wars.
Books founded upon an indiscriminate acceptance of any and all such
traditions or alleged traditions are a little absurd, unless, as
already said, they are avowedly merely historic novels, when they may
be both useful and interesting. I am obliged to say with genuine
regret, after careful examination of Mr. Gilmore's books, that I
cannot accept any single unsupported statement they contain as even
requiring an examination into its probability. I would willingly pass
them by without comment, did I not fear that my silence might be
construed into an acceptance of their truth. Moreover, I notice that
some writers, like the editors of the "Cyclopedia of American
Biography," seem inclined to take the volumes seriously.
APPENDIX F--TO CHAPTER IX.
I.
(_Campbell MSS.;_ this letter and the one following are from
copies, and the spelling etc., may not be quite as in the originals).
CAMP OPPOSITE THE MOUTH OF THE GREAT KENAWAY.
October 16--1774.
DEAR UNCLE,
I gladly embrace this opportunity to acquaint you that we are all here
yet alive through Gods mercies, & I sincerely wish that this may find
you and your family in the station of health that we left you. I never
had anything worth notice to acquaint you with since I left you till
now--the express seems to be hurrying, that I cannot write you with
the same coolness and deliberation as I would. We arrived at the mouth
of the Canaway, thursday 6th. Octo. and encamped on a fine piece of
ground, with an intent to wait for the Governor and his party but
hearing that he was going another way we contented ourselves to stay
there a few days to rest the troops, &c. where we looked upon
ourselves to be in safety till Monday morning the 10th. instant when
two of our company went out before day to hunt--to wit Val. Sevier and
James Robinson and discovered a party of Indians. As I expect you will
hear something of our battle before you get this, I have here stated
the affair nearly to you:
For the satisfaction of the people in your parts in this they have a
true state of the memorable battle fought at the mouth of the Great
Canaway on the 10th. instant. Monday morning about half an hour before
sunrise, two of Capt. Russells company discovered a large party of
Indians about a mile from camp, one of which men was killed, the other
made his escape & brought in his intelligence. In two or three minutes
after, two of Capt. Shelby's Company came in & confirmed the account,
Col. Andrew Lewis being informed thereof immediately ordered Col.
Charles Lewis to take the command of 150 men from Augusta and with him
went Capt. Dickison, Capt. Harrison, Capt. Wilson, Capt. John Lewis,
from Augusta and Capt. Sockridge which made the first division. Col.
Fleming was also ordered to take the command of one hundred and fifty
more, consisting of Battertout, Fincastle & Bedford troops,--viz.,
Capt. Buford of Bedford, Capt. Lewis of Battertout, Capt. Shelby &
Capt. Russell of Fincastle which made the second division. Col. Lewis
marched with his division to the right some distance from the Ohio.
Col. Fleming with his division up the bank of the Ohio to the left.
Col. Lewis' division had not marched little more than a quarter of a
mile from camp when about sunrise, an attack was made on the front of
his division in a most vigorous manner by the united tribes
Indians,--Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes, Taways, and of several other
nations, in number not less than eight hundred, and by many thought to
be a thousand. In this heavy attack Col. Charles Lewis received a
wound which soon after caused his death, and several of his men fell
on the spot,--in fact the Augusta division was forced to give way to
the heavy fire of the enemy. In about the second of a minute after the
attack on Col. Lewis' division, the enemy engaged of Col. Fleming's
division on the ohio and in a short time Col. Fleming received two
balls thro' his left arm and one thro' his breast; and after animating
the Captains & soldiers in a calm manner to the pursuit of victory
returned to the camp. The loss of the brave Col's was severely felt by
the officers in particular. But the Augusta troops being shortly
reinforced from camp by Col. Field with his company, together with
Capt. M'Dowers, Capt. Matthew's and Capt. Stewart's from Augusta;
Capt. John Lewis, Capt. Paulins, Capt. Arbuckle's, and Capt.
M'Clannahan's from Battertout. The enemy no longer able to maintain
their ground was forced to give way till they were in a line with the
troops left in action on branches of ohio by Col. Fleming. In this
precipitate retreat Col. Field was killed; after which Capt. Shelby
was ordered to take the command. During this time which was till after
twelve of the clock, the action continued extremely hot, the close
underwood, many steep banks and logs greatly favored their retreat,
and the bravest of their men made the _best_ use of themselves,
while others were throwing their dead into the ohio, and carrying off
the wounded. After twelve the action in a small degree abated, but
continued sharp enough till after one o'clock. Their long retreat gave
them a most advantageous spot of ground; from which it appeared to the
officers so difficult to dislodge them, that it was thought most
advisable, to stand as the line was then formed, which was about a
mile and a quarter in length, and had till then sustained a constant
and equal weight of fire from wing to wing. It was till half an hour
of sunset they continued firing on us, which we returned to their
disadvantage, at length night coming on they found a safe retreat.
They had not the satisfaction of scalping any of our men save one or
two straglers, whom they killed before the engagement. Many of their
dead they scalped rather than we should have them, but our troops
scalped upwards of twenty of those who were first killed. Its beyond a
doubt, their loss in numbers far exceeds ours which is considerable.
Field officers killed--Col. Charles Lewis, & Col. John Fields. Field
officers wounded--Col. William Fleming;--Capts. killed, John Murray,
Capt. Samuel Wilson, Capt. Robert M'Clannahan, Capt. James Ward.
Capts. wounded--Thomas Buford, John Dickison & John Scidmore.
Subalterns killed, Lieutenant Hugh Allen, Ensign Matthew Brackin &
Ensign Cundiff; Subalterns wounded, Lieut. Lane, Lieut. Vance, Lieut.
Goldman, Lieut. James Robertson; and about 46 killed and 60 wounded.
From this sir you may judge that we had a very hard day; its really
impossible for me to express or you to conceive the acclamations that
we were under,--sometimes the hideous cries of the enemy, and the
groans of our wounded men lying around, was enough to shudder the
stoutest heart. Its the general opinion of the officers that we shall
soon have another engagement, as we have now got over into the enemy's
country. We expect to meet the Governor about forty or fifty miles
from here. Nothing will save us from another battle, unless they
attack the Governors party. Five men that came in dadys (daddy's)
company were killed, I don't know that you were acquainted with any of
them, except Mark Williams who lived with Roger Top. Acquaint Mr.
Carmack that his son was slightly wounded through the shoulder and arm
and that he is in a likely way of recovery. We leave him at the mouth
of the Canaway and one very careful hand to take care of him. There is
a garrison and three hundred men left at that place, with a surgeon to
heal the wounded. We expect to return to the garrison in about 16 days
from the Shawny towns.
I have nothing more particular to acquaint you with concerning the
battle. As to the country I cannot say much in praise of any that I
have yet seen. Dady intended writing you, but did not know of the
express until the time was too short. I have wrote to mammy tho' not
so fully to you, as I then expected the express was just going. We
seem to be all in a moving posture, just going from this place, so
that I must conclude, wishing you health and prosperity until I see
you and your family. In the meantime I am your truly affectionate
friend and humble servant,
ISAAC SHELBY.
To MR. JOHN SHELBY,
Holston River,
Fincastle County.
Favd. by Mr. Benj. Gray.
II.
(_Campbell MSS._)
October ye 31st. 1774.
DEAR SIR,
Being on my way home to Fincastle court, was overtaken this evening by
letters from Colo. Christian and other gentlemen on the expedition,
giving an account of a battle which was fought between our troops &
the enemy Indians, on the 10th instant, in the Fork of the Ohio & the
Great Kanhawa.
The particulars of the action, drawn up by Colo. Andr. Lewis I have
sent you enclosed, also a return of the killed and wounded, by which
you will see that we have lost many brave and valiant officers &
soldiers, whose loss to their families, as well as to the community,
is very great.
Colo. Christian with the Fincastle troops, (except the companies
commanded by Capts. Russell & Shelby, who were in the action) were on
their march; and on the evening of that day, about 15 miles from field
of battle, heard that the action began in the morning. They marched
hard, and got to the camp about midnight. The cries of the wounded,
without any persons of skill or any thing to nourish people in their
unhappy situation, was striking. The Indians had crossed the river on
rafts, 6 or 8 miles above the Forks, in the night, and it is believed,
intended to attack the camp, had they not been prevented by our men
marching to meet them at the distance of half a mile. It is said the
enemy behaved with bravery and great caution, that they frequently
damned our men for white sons of bitches. Why did they not whistle
now? (alluding to the fifes) & that they would learn them to shoot.
The Governor was then at Hockhocking, about 12 or 15 miles below the
mouth of the Little Kanhawa, from whence he intended to march his
party to a place called Chillicoffee, about 20 miles farther than the
towns where it was said the Shawneese had assembled with their
families and allies, to make a stand, as they had good houses and
plenty of ammunition & provisions & had cleared the woods to a great
distance from the place. His party who were to march from the camp was
about 1200, and to join Colo. Lewis' party about 28 miles from
Chillicoffee. But whether the action above mentioned would disconcert
this plan or not, I think appears a little uncertain, as there is a
probability that his excellency on hearing the news might, with his
party, fall down the river and join Colo. Lewis' party and march
together against the enemy.
They were about building a breastwork at the Forks, & after leaving a
proper party to take care of the wounded & the provisions there, that
Colo. Lewis could march upwards of a thousand men to join his
Lordship, so that the whole when they meet will be about 2200 choice
men. What may be their success God only knows, but it is highly
probable the matter is decided before this time.
Colo. Christian says, from the accounts he had the enemy behaved with
inconceivable bravery. The head men walked about in the time of
action, exhorting their men "to be close, shoot well, be strong of
fight." They had parties planted on the opposite side of both rivers
to shoot our men as they swam over, not doubting, as is supposed, but
they would gain a complete victory. In the evening late they called to
our men "that they had 2000 men for them to-morrow, and that they had
1100 men now as well as they." They also made very merry about a
treaty.
Poor Colo. Charles Lewis was shot on a clear piece of ground, as he
had not taken a tree, encouraging his men to advance. On being wounded
he handed his gun to a person nigh him and retired to the camp,
telling his men as he passed "I am wounded but go on and be brave." If
the loss of a good man a sincere friend, and a brave officer, claims a
tear, he certainly is entitled to it.
Colo. Fields was shot at a great tree by two Indians on his right,
while one on his left was amusing him with talk and the Colo.
Endeavoring to get a shot at him.
Besides the loss the troops met with in action by Colo. Fleming who
was obliged to retire from the field, which was very great, the
wounded met with the most irreparable loss in an able and skillful
surgeon. Colo. Christian says that his (Flemings) lungs or part of
them came out of the wound in his breast but were pushed back; and by
the last part of his letter, which was dated the 16th. instant, he has
some hopes of his recovery.
Thus, sir, I have given you an account of the action from the several
letters I recd., and have only to add, that Colo. Christian desires me
to inform Mrs. Christian of his welfare, which with great pleasure I
do through this channel, and should any further news come, which I
much expect soon, I shall take the earliest oppy. of communicating the
same to you. It is believed the troops will surely return in Nov.
I write in a hurry and amidst a crowd of inquisitive people, therefore
hope you will excuse the inaccuracy of, D'r. Sir,
Your sincere well wisher & most obedt. Servt.,
WM. PRESTON.
P. S. If you please you may give Mr. Purdie a copy of the enclosed
papers, & anything else you may think worthy the notice of the Public.
III.
LOGAN'S SPEECH.
There has been much controversy over the genuineness of Logan's
speech; but those who have questioned it have done so with singularly
little reason. In fact its authenticity would never have been impugned
at all had it not (wrongly) blamed Cresap with killing Logan's family.
Cresap's defenders, with curious folly, have in consequence thought it
necessary to show, not that Logan was mistaken, but that he never
delivered the speech at all.
The truth seems to be that Cresap, without provocation, but after
being incited to war by Conolly's letter, murdered some peaceful
Indians, among whom there were certainly some friends and possibly
some relations of Logan (see testimony of Col. Ebenezer Zane, in
Jefferson's Notes, and "American Pioneer," I., 12; also Clark's letter
in the Jefferson Papers); but that he had no share in the massacre of
Logan's family at Yellow Creek by Greathouse and his crew two or three
days afterwards. The two massacres occurring so near together,
however, produced the impression not only among the Indians but among
many whites (as shown in the body of this work), that Cresap had been
guilty of both; and this Logan undoubtedly believed, as can be seen by
the letter he wrote and left tied to a war club in a murdered
settler's house. This was an injustice to Cresap; but it was a very
natural mistake on Logan's part.
After the speech was recited it attracted much attention; was
published in newspapers, periodicals, etc., and was extensively
quoted. Jefferson, as we learn from his Papers at Washington, took it
down in 1775, getting it from Lord Dunmore's officers, and published
it in his "Notes," in 1784; unfortunately he took for granted that its
allegations as regards Cresap were true, and accordingly prefaced it
by a very unjust attack on the reputed murderer. Until thirteen years
after this publication, and until twenty-three years after the speech
had been published for the first time, no one thought of questioning
it. Then Luther Martin, of Maryland, attacked its authenticity, partly
because he was Cresap's son-in-law, and partly because he was a
Federalist and a bitter opponent of Jefferson. Like all of his
successors in the same line, he confused two entirely distinct things,
viz., the justice of the charge against Cresap, and the authenticity
of Logan's speech. His controversy with Jefferson grew very bitter. He
succeeded in showing clearly that Cresap was wrongly accused by Logan;
he utterly failed to impugn the authenticity of the latter's speech.
Jefferson, thanks to a letter he received from Clark, must have known
that Cresap had been accused wrongly; but he was irritated by the
controversy, and characteristically refrained in any of his
publications from doing justice to the slandered man's memory.
A Mr. Jacobs soon afterwards wrote a life of Cresap, in which he
attempted both of the feats aimed at by Martin; it is quite an
interesting production, but exceedingly weak in its arguments. Neville
B. Craig, in the February, 1847, number of _The Olden Time_, a
historical magazine, followed on the same lines. Finally, Brantz
Mayer, in his very interesting little book, "Logan and Cresap," went
over the whole matter in a much fairer manner than his predecessors,
but still distinctly as an advocate; for though he collected with
great industry and gave impartially all the original facts (so that
from what he gives alone it is quite possible to prove that the speech
is certainly genuine), yet his own conclusions show great bias. Thus
he severely rules out any testimony against Cresap that is not
absolutely unquestioned; but admits without hesitation any and every
sort of evidence leaning against poor Logan's character or the
authenticity of his speech. He even goes so far (pp. 122, 123) as to
say it is not a "speech" at all,--although it would puzzle a man to
know what else to call it, as he also declares it is not a
message,--and shows the animus of his work by making the gratuitous
suggestion that if Logan made it at all he was probably at the time
excited "as well by the cruelties he had committed as by liquor."
It is necessary, therefore, to give a brief summary of a portion of
the evidence in its favor, as well as of all the evidence against it.
Jefferson's Notes and Mr. Mayer's book go fully into the matter.
The evidence in its favor is as follows:
(1.) Gibson's statement. This is the keystone of the arch. John Gibson
was a man of note and of unblemished character; he was made a general
by Washington, and held high appointive positions under Madison and
Jefferson; he was also an Associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleas
in Pennsylvania. Throughout his life he bore a reputation for absolute
truthfulness. He was the messenger who went to Logan, heard the
speech, took it down, and gave it to Lord Dunmore. We have his
deposition, delivered under oath, that "Logan delivered to him the
speech nearly as related by Mr. Jefferson in his Notes," when the two
were alone together, and that he "on his return to camp delivered the
speech to Lord Dunmore," and that he also at the time told Logan he
was mistaken about Cresap. Brantz Mayer, who accepts his statement as
substantially true, thinks that he probably only reported the
_substance_ of Logan's speech, or so much of it as he could
recollect; but in the State Department at Washington, among the
Jefferson Papers (5-1-4), is a statement by John Anderson, a merchant
in Fredericksburg, who was an Indian trader at Pittsburg in 1774; he
says that he questioned Gibson as to whether he had not himself added
something to the speech, to which Gibson replied that he had not
changed it in any way, but had translated it literally, as well as he
could, though he was unable to come up to the force of the expressions
in the original.
This evidence itself is absolutely conclusive, except on the
supposition that Gibson was a malicious and infamous liar. The men who
argue that the speech was fictitious are also obliged to explain what
motive there could possibly have been for the deception; they
accordingly advance the theory that it was part of Dunmore's
(imaginary) treacherous conduct, as he wished to discredit Cresap,
because he knew--apparently by divination--that the latter was going
to be a whig. Even granting the Earl corrupt motives and a prophetic
soul, it remains to be explained why he should wish to injure an
obscure borderer, whom nobody has ever heard of except in connection
with Logan; it would have served the purpose quite as well to have
used the equally unknown name of the real offender, Greathouse. The
fabrication of the speech would have been an absolutely motiveless and
foolish transaction; to which Gibson, a pronounced whig, must needs
have been a party. This last fact shows that there could have been no
intention of using the speech in the British interest.
(2) The statement of General George Rogers Clark. (Like the preceding,
this can be seen in the Jefferson Papers.) Clark was present in
Dunmore's camp at the time. He says: "Logan's speech to Dunmore now
came forward as related by Mr. Jefferson and was generally believed
and indeed not doubted to have been genuine and dictated by Logan. The
Army knew it was wrong so far as it respected Cresap, and afforded an
opportunity of rallying that Gentleman on the subject--I discovered
that Cresap was displeased and told him that he must be a very great
Man, that the Indians shouldered him with every thing that had
happened.... Logan is the author of the speech as related by Mr.
Jefferson." Clark's remembrance of his rallying Cresap shows that the
speech contained Cresap's name and that it was read before the army;
several other witnesses, whose names are not necessary to mention,
simply corroborate Clark's statements, and a large amount of indirect
evidence to the same effect could be produced, were there the least
necessity. (See Jefferson's Notes, "The American Pioneer," etc., etc.)
The evidence against the authenticity of the speech, outside of mere
conjectures and inuendoes, is as follows:
(1) Logan called Cresap a colonel when he was really a captain. This
inability of an Indian to discriminate accurately between these two
titles of frontier militia officers is actually solemnly brought
forward as telling against the speech.
(2) Logan accused Cresap of committing a murder which he had not
committed. But, as we have already seen, Logan had made the same
accusation in his unquestionably authentic letter, written previously;
and many whites, as well as Indians, thought as Logan did.
(3) A Col. Benj. Wilson, who was with Dunmore's army, says that "he
did not hear the charge preferred in Logan's speech against Captain
Cresap." This is mere negative evidence, valueless in any event, and
doubly so in view of Clark's statement.
(4) Mr. Neville B. Craig, in _Olden Time_, says in 1847 that
"many years before a Mr. James McKee, the brother of Mr. William
Johnson's deputy, had told him that he had seen the speech in the
handwriting of one of the Johnsons ... before it was seen by Logan."
This is a hearsay statement delivered just seventy-three years after
the event, and it is on its face so wildly improbable as not to need
further comment, at least until there is some explanation as to why
the Johnsons should have written the speech, how they could possibly
have gotten it to Logan, and why Gibson should have entered into the
conspiracy.
(5) A Benjamin Tomlinson testifies that he believes that the speech
was fabricated by Gibson; he hints, but does not frankly assert, that
Gibson was not sent after Logan, but that Girty was; and swears that
he heard the speech read three times and that the name of Cresap was
not mentioned in it.
He was said in later life to bear a good reputation; but in his
deposition he admits under oath that he was present at the Yellow
Creek murder (_Olden Time_, II., 61; the editor, by the way,
seems to call him alternately Joseph and Benjamin); and he was
therefore an unconvicted criminal, who connived at or participated in
one of the most brutal and cowardly deeds ever done on the frontier.
His statement as against Gibson's would be worthless anyhow;
fortunately his testimony as to the omission of Cresap's name from the
speech is also flatly contradicted by Clark. With the words of two
such men against his, and bearing in mind that all that he says
against the authenticity of the speech itself is confessedly mere
supposition on his part, his statement must be promptly set aside as
worthless. If true, by the way, it would conflict with (4) Craig's
statement.
This is literally all the "evidence" against the speech. It scarcely
needs serious discussion; it may be divided into two parts--one
containing allegations that are silly, and the other those that are
discredited.
There is probably very little additional evidence to be obtained, on
one side or the other; it is all in, and Logan's speech can be
unhesitatingly pronounced authentic. Doubtless there have been verbal
alterations in it; there is not extant a report of any famous speech
which does not probably differ in some way from the words as they were
actually spoken. There is also a good deal of confusion as to whether
the council took place in the Indian town, or in Dunmore's camp;
whether Logan was sought out alone in his hut by Gibson, or came up
and drew the latter aside while he was at the council, etc. In the
same way, we have excellent authority for stating that, prior to the
battle of the Great Kanawha, Lewis reached the mouth of that river on
October 1st, and that he reached it on October 6th; that on the day
of the attack the troops marched from camp a quarter of a mile, and
that they marched three quarters; that the Indians lost more men than
the whites, and that they lost fewer; that Lewis behaved well, and
that he behaved badly; that the whites lost 140 men, and that they
lost 215, etc., etc. The conflict of evidence as to the dates and
accessory details of Logan's speech is no greater than it is as to the
dates and accessory details of the murder by Greathouse, or as to all
the preliminaries of the main battle of the campaign. Coming from
backwoods sources, it is inevitable that we should have confusion on
points of detail; but as to the main question there seems almost as
little reason for doubting the authenticity of Logan's speech, as for
doubting the reality of the battle of the Great Kanawha.
END OF VOL. I.
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