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by Theodore Roosevelt
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Title: The Winning of the West, Volume Four
Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Release Date: April 7, 2004 [EBook #11944]
Language: English
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PRESIDENTIAL EDITION
THE WINNING OF THE WEST
BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
VOLUME FOUR
LOUISIANA AND THE NORTHWEST
1791-1807
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
PREFACE TO FOURTH VOLUME.
This volume covers the period which opened with the checkered but
finally successful war waged by the United States Government against the
Northwestern Indians, and closed with the acquisition and exploration of
the vast region that lay beyond the Mississippi. It was during this
period that the West rose to real power in the Union. The boundaries of
the old West were at last made certain, and the new West, the Far West,
the country between the Mississippi and the Pacific, was added to the
national domain. The steady stream of incoming settlers broadened and
deepened year by year; Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio became states,
Louisiana, Indiana, and Mississippi territories. The population in the
newly settled regions increased with a rapidity hitherto unexampled; and
this rapidity, alike in growth of population and in territorial
expansion, gave the West full weight in the national councils.
The victorious campaigns of Wayne in the north, and the innumerable
obscure forays and reprisals of the Tennesseeans and Georgians in the
south, so cowed the Indians, that they all, north and south alike, made
peace; the first peace the border had known for fifty years. At the same
time the treaties of Jay and Pinckney gave us in fact the boundaries
which the peace of 1783 had only given us in name. The execution of
these treaties put an end in the north to the intrigues of the British,
who had stirred the Indians to hostility against the Americans; and in
the south to the far more treacherous intrigues of the Spaniards, who
showed astounding duplicity, and whose intrigues extended not only to
the Indians but also to the baser separatist leaders among the
Westerners themselves.
The cession of Louisiana followed. Its true history is to be found, not
in the doings of the diplomats who determined merely the terms upon
which it was made, but in the western growth of the people of the United
States from 1769 to 1803, which made it inevitable. The men who settled
and peopled the western wilderness were the men who won Louisiana; for
it was surrendered by France merely because it was impossible to hold it
against the American advance. Jefferson, through his agents at Paris,
asked only for New Orleans; but Napoleon thrust upon him the great West,
because Napoleon saw, what the American statesmen and diplomats did not
see, but what the Westerners felt; for he saw that no European power
could hold the country beyond the Mississippi when the Americans had
made good their foothold upon the hither bank.
It remained to explore the unknown land; and this task fell, not to mere
wild hunters, such as those who had first penetrated the wooded
wilderness beyond the Alleghanies, but to officers of the regular army,
who obeyed the orders of the National Government. Lewis, Clark, and Pike
were the pioneers in the exploration of the vast territory the United
States had just gained.
The names of the Indian fighters, the treaty-makers, the wilderness
wanderers, who took the lead in winning and exploring the West, are
memorable. More memorable still are the lives and deeds of the settler
folk for whom they fought and toiled; for the feats of the leaders were
rendered possible only by the lusty and vigorous growth of the young
commonwealths built up by the throng of westward-pushing pioneers. The
raw, strenuous, eager social life of these early dwellers on the western
waters must be studied before it is possible to understand the
conditions that determined the continual westward extension of the
frontier. Tennessee, during the years immediately preceding her
admission to statehood, is especially well worth study, both as a
typical frontier community, and because of the opportunity afforded to
examine in detail the causes and course of the Indian wars.
In this volume I have made use of the material to which reference was
made in the first; beside the American State Papers, I have drawn on the
Canadian Archives, the Draper Collection, including especially the
papers from the Spanish archives, the Robertson MSS., and the Clay MSS.
for hitherto unused matter. I have derived much assistance from the
various studies and monographs on special phases of Western history; I
refer to each in its proper place. I regret that Mr. Stephen B. Weeks'
valuable study of the Martin family did not appear in time for me to use
it while writing about the little state of Franklin, in my third volume.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
SAGAMORE HILL, LONG ISLAND,
_May_, 1896.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT, 1791
II. MAD ANTHONY WAYNE; AND THE FIGHT OF THE FALLEN TIMBERS, 1792-1795
III. TENNESSEE BECOMES A STATE, 1791-1796
IV. INTRIGUES AND LAND SPECULATIONS--THE TREATIES OF JAY AND PINCKNEY,
1793-1797.
V. THE MEN OF THE WESTERN WATERS, 1798-1802
VI. THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA; AND BURR'S CONSPIRACY, 1803-1807
VII. THE EXPLORERS OF THE FAR WEST, 1804-1807.
APPENDIX
INDEX
[Illustration: Map Showing the First Explorations of the Great West.
Based on a map by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.]
THE WINNING OF THE WEST.
CHAPTER I.
ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT, 1791.
The Westward March of the Backwoodsman.
The backwoods folk, the stark hunters and tree-fellers, and the war-worn
regulars who fought beside them in the forest, pushed ever westward the
frontier of the Republic. Year after year each group of rough settlers
and rough soldiers wrought its part in the great epic of wilderness
conquest.
The people that for one or more generations finds its allotted task in
the conquest of a continent, has before it the possibility of splendid
victory, and the certainty of incredible toil, suffering, and hardship.
The opportunity is great indeed; but the chance of disaster is even
greater. Success is for a mighty race, in its vigorous and masterful
prime. It is an opportunity such as is offered to an army by a struggle
against a powerful foe; only by great effort can defeat be avoided, but
triumph means lasting honor and renown.
As it is in the battle, so it is in the infinitely greater contests
where the fields of fight are continents, and the ages form the measure
of time. In actual life the victors win in spite of brutal blunders and
repeated checks.
The Grimness and Harshness of Frontier Life.
Watched nearby, while the fight stamps to and fro, the doers and the
deeds stand out naked and ugly. We see all too clearly the blood and
sweat, the craft and dunning and blind luck, the raw cruelty and
stupidity, the shortcomings of heart and hand, the mad abuse of victory.
Strands of meanness and cowardice are everywhere shot through the warp
of lofty and generous daring. There are failures bitter and shameful
side by side with feats of triumphant prowess. Of those who venture in
the contest some achieve success; others strive feebly and fail ignobly.
Only a Mighty Race Fit for the Trial.
If a race is weak, if it is lacking in the physical and moral traits
which go to the makeup of a conquering people, it cannot succeed. For
three hundred years the Portuguese possessed footholds in South Africa;
but they left to the English and Dutch the task of building free
communities able to hold in fact as well as in name the country south of
the Zambesi. Temperate South America is as fertile and healthy for the
white man as temperate North America, and is so much less in extent as
to offer a far simpler problem of conquest and settlement; yet the
Spaniard, who came to the Plata two centuries before the American
backwoodsman reached the Mississippi, scarcely made as much progress in
a decade as his northern rival did in a year.
The task must be given the race just at the time when it is ready for
the undertaking. The whole future of the world would have been changed
had the period of trans-oceanic expansion among the nations of Europe
begun at a time when the Scandinavians or Germans were foremost in
sea-trade and sea-war; if it had begun when the fleets of the Norsemen
at the threatened all coasts, or when the Hanseatic league was in its
prime.
No race can Succeed Save at the Right Moment.
But in the actual event the days of Scandinavian supremacy at sea
resulted in no spread of the Scandinavian tongue or culture; and the
temporary maritime prosperity of the North German cities bore no
permanent fruit of conquest for the German people. The only nations that
profited by the expansion beyond the seas, and that built up in alien
continents vast commonwealths with the law, the language, the creed, and
the culture, no less than the blood, of the parent stocks, were those
that during the centuries of expansion, possessed power on the
ocean,--Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, and, above all, England.
Interest of the Race and the Individual Opposed.
Even a strong race, in its prime, and given the task at the right
moment, usually fails to perform it; for at the moment the immense
importance of the opportunity is hardly ever understood, while the
selfish interests of the individual and the generation are opposed to
the interest of the race as a whole. Only the most far-seeing and
high-minded statesmen can grasp the real weight, from the
race-standpoint, of the possibilities which to the men of their day seem
so trivial. The conquest and settlement rarely take place save under
seldom-occurring conditions which happen to bring about identity of
interest between the individual and the race. Dutch seamen knew the
coasts of Australia and New Zealand generations before they were settled
by the English, and had the people of Holland willed to take possession
of them, the Dutch would now be one of the leading races of mankind; but
they preferred the immediate gains to be derived from the ownership of
the trade with the Spice Islands; and so for the unimportant
over-lordship of a few patches of tropical soil, they bartered the
chance of building a giant Dutch Republic in the South Seas. Had the
Swedish successors of Gustavus Adolphus devoted their energies to
colonization in America, instead of squabbling with Slavs and Germans
for one or two wretched Baltic provinces, they could undoubtedly have
built up in the new world a Sweden tenfold greater than that in the old.
If France had sent to her possessions in America as many colonists as
she sent soldiers to war for petty townships in Germany and Italy, the
French would now be masters of half the territory north of the Rio
Grande. England alone, because of a combination of causes, was able to
use aright the chances given her for the conquest and settlement of the
world's waste spaces; and in consequence the English-speaking peoples
now have before them a future more important than that of all the
continental European peoples combined.
Each Race Indifferent to its Own Future.
It is natural that most nations should be thus blind to the
possibilities of the future. Few indeed are the men who can look a score
of years into the future, and fewer still those who will make great
sacrifices for the real, not the fancied, good of their children's
children; but in questions of race supremacy the look-ahead should be
for centuries rather than decades, and the self-sacrifice of the
individual must be for the good not of the next generation but perchance
of the fourth or fifth in line of descent. The Frenchman and the
Hollander of the seventeenth century could not even dimly see the
possibilities that loomed vast and vague in the colonization of America
and Australia; they did not have, and it was hardly possible that they
should have, the remotest idea that it would be well for them to
surrender, one the glory gained by his German conquests, the other the
riches reaped from his East Indian trade, in order that three hundred
years later huge unknown continents should be filled with French and
Dutch commonwealths. No nation, taken as a whole, can ever see so far
into the future; no nation, even if it could see such a future, would
ever sacrifice so much to win it. Hitherto each race in turn has
expanded only because the interests of a certain number of individuals
of many succeeding generations have made them active and vigorous agents
in the work of expansion.
This Indifference as Marked in New as in Old Communities.
This indifference on the part of individuals to the growth of the race
is often nearly as marked in new as in old communities, although the
very existence of these new communities depends upon that growth. It is
strange to see now the new settlers in the new land tend to turn their
faces, not towards the world before them, but towards the world they
have left behind. Many of them, perhaps most, wish rather to take parts
in the struggles of the old civilized powers, than to do their share in
laying the obscure but gigantic foundations of the empires of the
future. The New Englander who was not personally interested in the lands
beyond the Alleghanies often felt indifferent or hostile to the growth
of the trans-montane America; and in their turn these over-mountain men,
these Kentuckians and Tennesseans, were concerned to obtain a port at
the mouth of the Mississippi rather than the right to move westward to
the Pacific. There were more men in the new communities than in the old
who saw, however imperfectly, the grandeur of the opportunity and of the
race-destiny: but there were always very many who did their share in
working out their destiny grudgingly and under protest.
The Race Grows because its Interests Happen to be Identical with
those of the Individual.
The race as a whole, in its old homes and its new, learns the lesson
with such difficulty that it can scarcely be said to be learnt at all
until success or interests failure has done away with the need of
learning it. But in the case of our own people it has fortunately
happened that the concurrence of the interests of the individual and of
the whole organism has been normal throughout most of its history.
The United States and Great Britain in 1791.
The attitude of the United States and Great Britain, as they faced one
another in the western wilderness at the beginning of the year 1791, is
but another illustration of the truth of this fact. The British held the
lake posts, and more or less actively supported the Indians in their
efforts to bar the Americans from the Northwest. Nominally, they held
the posts because the Americans had themselves left unfulfilled some of
the conditions of the treaty of peace; but this was felt not to be the
real reason, and the Americans loudly protested that their conduct was
due to sheer hatred of the young Republic. The explanation was simpler.
The British had no far-reaching design to prevent the spread and growth
of the English-speaking people on the American continent. They cared
nothing, one way or the other, for that spread and growth, and it is
unlikely that they wasted a moment's thought on the ultimate future of
the race. All that they desired was to preserve the very valuable
fur-trade of the region round the Great Lakes for their own benefit.
They were acting from the motives of self-interest that usually control
nations; and it never entered their heads to balance against these
immediate interests the future of a nation many of whose members were to
them mere foreigners.
Reluctance of the Americans to Enter into War with the Indians.
The majority of the Americans, on their side, were exceedingly loth to
enter into aggressive war with the Indians: but were reluctantly forced
into the contest by the necessity of supporting the backwoodsmen. The
frontier was pushed westward, not because the leading statesmen of
America, or the bulk of the American people, foresaw the continental
greatness of this country or strove for such greatness; but because the
bordermen of the West, and the adventurous land-speculators of the East,
were personally interested in acquiring new territory, and because,
against their will, the governmental representatives of the nation were
finally forced to make the interests of the Westerners their own. The
people of the seaboard, the leaders of opinion in the coast towns and
old-settled districts, were inclined to look eastward, rather than
westward. They were interested in the quarrels of the old-world nations;
they were immediately concerned in the rights of the fisheries they
jealously shared with England, or the trade they sought to secure with
Spain. They did not covet the Indian lands. They had never heard of the
Rocky Mountains--nobody had as yet,--they cared as little for the
Missouri as for the Congo, and they thought of the Pacific Slope as a
savage country, only to be reached by an ocean voyage longer than the
voyage to India. They believed that they were entitled, under the
treaty, to the country between the Alleghanies and the Great Lakes; but
they were quite content to see the Indians remain in actual occupancy,
and they had no desire to spend men and money in driving them out.
Nevertheless, they were even less disposed to proceed to extremities
against their own people, who in very fact were driving out the Indians;
and this was the only alternative, for in the end they had to side with
one or the other set of combatants.
The governmental authorities of the newly created Republic shared these
feelings. They felt no hunger for the Indian lands; they felt no desire
to stretch their boundaries and thereby add to their already heavy
burdens and responsibilities. They wished to do strict justice to the
Indians; the treaties they held with them were carried on with
scrupulous fairness and were honorably lived up to by the United States
officials.
The Government Especially Averse to War.
They strove to keep peace, and made many efforts to persuade the
frontiersmen to observe the Indian boundary lines, and not to intrude on
the territory in dispute; and they were quite unable to foresee the
rapidity of the nation's westward growth. Like the people of the eastern
seaboard, the men high in governmental authority were apt to look upon
the frontiersmen with feelings dangerously akin to dislike and
suspicion. Nor were these feelings wholly unjustifiable. The men who
settle in a new country, and begin subduing the wilderness, plunge back
into the very conditions from which the race has raised itself by the
slow toil of ages.
Inevitable Shortcomings of the Frontiersmen.
The conditions cannot but tell upon them. Inevitably, and for more than
one lifetime--perhaps for several generations--they tend to retrograde,
instead of advancing. They drop away from the standard which highly
civilized nations have reached. As with harsh and dangerous labor they
bring the new land up towards the level of the old, they themselves
partly revert to their ancestral conditions; they sink back towards the
state of their ages-dead barbarian forefathers. Few observers can see
beyond this temporary retrogression into the future for which it is a
preparation. There is small cause for wonder in the fact that so many of
the leaders of Eastern thought looked with coldness upon the effort of
the Westerners to push north of the Ohio.
The Westerners Solved the Problem.
Yet it was these Western frontiersmen who were the real and vital
factors in the solution of the problems which so annoyed the British
Monarchy and the American Republic. They eagerly craved the Indian
lands; they would not be denied entrance to the thinly-peopled territory
wherein they intended to make homes for themselves and their children.
Rough, masterful, lawless, they were neither daunted by the prowess of
the red warriors whose wrath they braved, nor awed by the displeasure of
the Government whose solemn engagements they violated. The enormous
extent of the frontier dividing the white settler from the savage, and
the tangled inaccessibility of the country in which it everywhere lay,
rendered it as difficult for the national authorities to control the
frontiersmen as it was to chastise the Indians.
Why the East backed the West.
If the separation of interests between the thickly settled East and the
sparsely settled West had been complete it may be that the East would
have refused outright to support the West, in which case the advance
would have been very slow and halting. But the separation was not
complete. The frontiersmen were numerically important in some of the
States, as in Virginia, Georgia, and even Pennsylvania and New York; and
under a democratic system of government this meant that these States
were more or less responsive to their demands. It was greatly to the
interest of the frontiersmen that their demands should be gratified,
while other citizens had no very concrete concern in the matter one way
or the other. In addition to this, and even more important, was the fact
that there were large classes of the population everywhere who felt much
sense of identity with the frontiersmen, and sympathized with them. The
fathers or grandfathers of these peoples had themselves been
frontiersmen, and they were still under the influences of the traditions
which told of a constant march westward through the vast forests, and a
no less constant warfare with a hostile savagery. Moreover, in many of
the communities there were people whose kinsmen or friends had gone to
the border; and the welfare of these adventurers was a matter of more or
less interest to those who had stayed behind. Finally, and most
important of all, though the nation might be lukewarm originally, and
might wish to prevent the settlers from trespassing on the Indian lands
or entering into an Indian war, yet when the war had become of real
moment and when victory was doubtful, the national power was sure to be
used in favor of the hard-pressed pioneers.
The Government Ultimately supports the Frontiersmen.
At first the authorities at the national capital would blame the whites,
and try to temporize and make new treaties, or even threaten to drive
back the settlers with a strong hand; but when the ravages of the
Indians had become serious, when the bloody details were sent to homes
in every part of the Union by letter after letter from the border, when
the little newspapers began to publish accounts of the worst atrocities,
when the county lieutenants of the frontier counties were clamoring for
help, when the Congressmen from the frontier districts were appealing to
Congress, and the governors of the States whose frontiers were molested
were appealing to the President--then the feeling of race and national
kinship rose, and the Government no longer hesitated to support in every
way the hard-pressed wilderness vanguard of the American people.
The Situation in 1791.
The situation had reached this point by the year 1791. For seven years
the Federal authorities had been vainly endeavoring to make some final
settlement of the question by entering into treaties with the
Northwestern and Southwestern tribes. In the earlier treaties the
delegates from the Continental Congress asserted that the United States
were invested with the fee of all the land claimed by the Indians. In
the later treaties the Indian proprietorship of the lands was conceded.
[Footnote: American State Papers, Vol. IV., Indian Affairs, I., p. 13.
Letter of H. Knox, June 15, 1789. This is the lettering on the back of
the volume, and for convenience it will be used in referring to it.]
This concession at the time seemed important to the whites; but the
Indians probably never understood that there had been any change of
attitude; nor did it make any practical difference, for, whatever the
theory might be, the lands had eventually to be won, partly by whipping
the savages in fight, partly by making it better worth their while to
remain at peace than to go to war.
Knox and the Treaties.
The Federal officials under whose authority these treaties were made had
no idea of the complexity of the problem. In 1789 the Secretary of War,
the New Englander Knox, solemnly reported to the President that, if the
treaties were only observed and the Indians conciliated, they would
become attached to the United States, and the expense of managing them,
for the next half-century, would be only some fifteen thousand dollars a
year. [Footnote: American State Papers, Vol. IV., Indian Affairs, I., p.
13.] He probably represented, not unfairly, the ordinary Eastern view of
the matter. He had not the slightest idea of the rate at which the
settlements were increasing, though he expected that tracts of Indian
territory would from time to time be acquired. He made no allowance for
a growth so rapid that within the half-century six or eight populous
States were to stand within the Indian-owned wilderness of his day. He
utterly failed to grasp the central features of the situation, which
were that the settlers needed the land, and were bound to have it,
within a few years; and that the Indians would not give it up, under no
matter what treaty, without an appeal to arms.
Treaties with the Southern Indians.
In the South the United States Commissioners, in endeavoring to conclude
treaties with the Creeks and Cherokees, had been continually hampered by
the attitude of Georgia and the Franklin frontiersmen. The Franklin men
made war and peace with the Cherokees just as they chose, and utterly
refused to be bound by the treaties concluded on behalf of the United
States. Georgia played the same part with regard to the Creeks. The
Georgian authorities paid no heed whatever to the desires of Congress,
and negotiated on their own account a series of treaties with the Creeks
at Augusta, Galphinton, and Shoulder-bone, in 1783, 1785, and 1786. But
these treaties amounted to nothing, for nobody could tell exactly which
towns or tribes owned a given tract of land, or what individuals were
competent to speak for the Indians as a whole; the Creeks and Cherokees
went through the form of surrendering the same territory on the Oconee.
[Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 15. Letter of Knox, July 6,
1789.] The Georgians knew that the Indians with whom they treated had no
power to surrender the lands; but all they wished was some shadowy color
of title, that might serve as an excuse for their seizing the coveted
territory. On the other hand the Creeks, loudly though they declaimed
against the methods of the Georgian treaty-makers, themselves
shamelessly disregarded the solemn engagements which their authorized
representatives made with the United States. Moreover their murderous
forays on the Georgian settlers were often as unprovoked as were the
aggressions of the brutal Georgia borderers.
Mutual Wrongs of the Creeks and the Borderers.
The Creeks were prompt to seize every advantage given by the
impossibility of defining the rights of the various component parts of
their loosely knit confederacy. They claimed or disclaimed
responsibility as best suited their plans for the moment. When at
Galphinton two of the Creek towns signed away a large tract of
territory, McGillivray, the famous half-breed, and the other chiefs,
loudly protested that the land belonged to the whole confederacy, and
that the separate towns could do nothing save by consent of all. But in
May, 1787, a party of Creeks from the upper towns made an unprovoked
foray into Georgia, killed two settlers, and carried off a negro and
fourteen horses; the militia who followed them attacked the first
Indians they fell in with, who happened to be from the lower towns, and
killed twelve; whereupon the same chiefs disavowed all responsibility
for the deeds of the Upper Town warriors, and demanded the immediate
surrender of the militia who had killed the Lower Town people--to the
huge indignation of the Governor of Georgia. [Footnote: American State
Papers, Vol. IV., 31, 32, 33. Letter of Governor Matthews, August 4,
1787, etc.]
Difficulties of the Federal Treaty-Makers.
The United States Commissioners were angered by the lawless greed with
which the Georgians grasped at the Indian lands; and they soon found
that though the Georgians were always ready to clamor for help from the
United States against the Indians, in the event of hostilities, they
were equally prompt to defy the United States authorities if the latter
strove to obtain justice for the Indians, or if the treaties concluded
by the Federal and the State authorities seemed likely to conflict.
[Footnote: _Do_., p. 49. Letter of Benjamin Hawkins and Andrew Pickens,
December 30, 1785.] The Commissioners were at first much impressed by
the letters sent them by McGillivray, and the "talks" they received
through the Scotch, French, and English half-breed interpreters
[Footnote: _Do_., _e.g._, the letter of Galphin and Douzeazeaux, June
14, 1787.] from the outlandishly-named Muscogee chiefs--the Hallowing
King of the War Towns, the Fat King of the White or Peace Towns, the
White Bird King, the Mad Dog King, and many more. But they soon found
that the Creeks were quite as much to blame as the Georgians, and were
playing fast and loose with the United States, promising to enter into
treaties, and then refusing to attend; their flagrant and unprovoked
breaches of faith causing intense anger and mortification to the
Commissioners, whose patient efforts to serve them were so ill rewarded.
[Footnote: American State Papers, Vol. IV., p. 74, September 26, 1789.]
Moreover, to offset the Indian complaints of lands taken from them under
fraudulent treaties, the Georgians submitted lists [Footnote: _Do_., p.
77, October 5, 1789.] of hundreds of whites and blacks killed, wounded,
or captured, and of thousands of horses, horned cattle, and hogs
butchered or driven off by Indian war parties. The puzzled Commissioners
having at first been inclined to place the blame of the failure of peace
negotiations on the Georgians, next shifted the responsibility to
McGillivray, reporting that the Creeks were strongly in favor of peace.
The event proved that they were in error; for after McGillivray and his
fellow chiefs had come to New York, in the summer of 1790, and concluded
a solemn treaty of peace, the Indians whom they nominally represented
refused to be bound by it in any way, and continued without a change
their war of rapine and murder.
The Indians as Much to Blame as the Whites.
In truth the red men were as little disposed as the white to accept a
peace on any terms that were possible. The Secretary of War, who knew
nothing of Indians by actual contact, wrote that it would be indeed
pleasing "to a philosophic mind to reflect that, instead of
exterminating a part of the human race by our modes of population ... we
had imparted our knowledge of cultivation and the arts to the
aboriginals of the country," thus preserving and civilizing them
[Footnote: American State Papers, Vol. IV., pp. 53, 57, 60, 77, 79, 81,
etc.]; and the public men who represented districts remote from the
frontier shared these views of large, though vague, beneficence. But
neither the white frontiersmen nor their red antagonists possessed
"philosophic minds." They represented two stages of progress, ages
apart; and it would have needed many centuries to bring the lower to the
level of the higher. Both sides recognized the fact that their interests
were incompatible; and that the question of their clashing rights had to
be settled by the strong hand.
The Trouble Most Serious in the North.
In the Northwest matters culminated sooner than in the Southwest. The
Georgians, and the settlers along the Tennessee and Cumberland, were
harassed rather than seriously menaced by the Creek war parties; but in
the north the more dangerous Indians of the Miami, the Wabash, and the
Lakes gathered in bodies so large as fairly to deserve the name of
armies. Moreover, the pressure of the white advance was far heavier in
the north. The pioneers who settled in the Ohio basin were many times as
numerous as those who settled on the lands west of the Oconee and north
of the Cumberland, and were fed from States much more populous. The
advance was stronger, the resistance more desperate; naturally the open
break occurred where the strain was most intense.
There was fierce border warfare in the south. In the north there were
regular campaigns carried on, and pitched battles fought, between
Federal armies as large as those commanded by Washington at Trenton or
Greene at Eutaw Springs, and bodies of Indian warriors more numerous
than had ever yet appeared on any single field.
The United States Government Driven to War.
The newly created Government of the United States was very reluctant to
make formal war on the northwestern Indians. Not only were President
Washington and the National Congress honorably desirous of peace, but
they were hampered for funds, and dreaded any extra expense.
Nevertheless they were forced into war. Throughout the years 1789 and
1790 an increasing volume of appeals for help came from the frontier
countries. The governor of the Northwestern Territory, the
brigadier-general of the troops on the Ohio, the members of the Kentucky
Convention, and all the county lieutenants of Kentucky, the lieutenants
of the frontier counties of Virginia proper, the representatives from
the counties, the field officers of the different districts, the General
Assembly of Virginia, all sent bitter complaints and long catalogues of
injuries to the President, the Secretary of War, and the two Houses of
Congress; complaints which were redoubled after Harmar's failure. With
heavy hearts the national authorities prepared for war. [Footnote:
American State Papers, IV., pp. 83, 94, 109, and III.]
Raid on the Marietta Settlements.
Their decision was justified by the redoubled fury of the Indian raids
during the early part of 1791. Among others the settlements near
Marietta were attacked, a day or two after the new year began, in bitter
winter weather. A dozen persons, including a woman and two children,
were killed, and five men were taken prisoners. The New England
settlers, though brave and hardy, were unused to Indian warfare. They
were taken completely by surprise, and made no effective resistance; the
only Indian hurt was wounded with a hatchet by the wife of a frontier
hunter in the employ of the company. [Footnote: "The American Pioneer,"
II., 110. American State Papers, IV., 122.] There were some twenty-five
Indians in the attacking party; they were Wyandots and Delawares, who
had been mixing on friendly terms with the settlers throughout the
preceding summer, and so knew how best to deliver the assault. The
settlers had not only treated these Indians with much kindness, but had
never wronged any of the red race; and had been lulled into a foolish
feeling of security by the apparent good-will of the treacherous foes.
The assault was made in the twilight, on the 2nd of January, the Indians
crossing the frozen Muskingum and stealthily approaching a block-house
and two or three cabins. The inmates were frying meat for supper, and
did not suspect harm, offering food to the Indians; but the latter, once
they were within doors, dropped the garb of friendliness, and shot or
tomahawked all save a couple of men who escaped and the five who were
made prisoners. The captives were all taken to the Miami, or Detroit,
and as usual were treated with much kindness and humanity by the British
officers and traders with whom they came in contact. McKee, the British
Indian agent, who was always ready to incite the savages to war against
the Americans as a nation, but who was quite as ready to treat them
kindly as individuals, ransomed one prisoner; the latter went to his
Massachusetts home to raise the amount of his ransom, and returned to
Detroit to refund it to his generous rescuer. Another prisoner was
ransomed by a Detroit trader, and worked out his ransom in Detroit
itself. Yet another was redeemed from captivity by the famous Iroquois
chief Brant, who was ever a terrible and implacable foe, but a
great-hearted and kindly victor. The fourth prisoner died; while the
Indians took so great a liking to the fifth that they would not let him
go, but adopted him into the tribe, made him dress as they did, and, in
a spirit of pure friendliness, pierced his ears and nose. After Wayne's
treaty he was released, and returned to Marietta to work at his trade as
a stone mason, his bored nose and slit ears serving as mementos of his
captivity.
Cincinnati Also Suffers.
The squalid little town of Cincinnati also suffered from the Indian war
parties in the spring of this year, [Footnote: "American Pioneer," II.,
149.] several of the townsmen being killed by the savages, who grew so
bold that they lurked through the streets at nights, and lay in ambush
in the gardens where the garrison of Fort Washington raised their
vegetables. One of the Indian attacks, made upon a little palisaded
"station" which had been founded by a man named Dunlop, some seventeen
miles from Cincinnati, was noteworthy because of an act of not uncommon
cruelty by the Indians. In the station there were some regulars. Aided
by the settlers they beat back their foes; whereupon the enraged savages
brought one of their prisoners within ear-shot of the walls and tortured
him to death. The torture began at midnight, and the screams of the
wretched victim were heard until daylight. [Footnote: McBride, I., 88.]
Difficulties Discriminating between Hostile and Friendly
Indians.
Until this year the war was not general. One of the most bewildering
problems to be solved by the Federal officers on the Ohio was to find
out which tribes were friendly and which hostile. Many of the inveterate
enemies of the Americans were as forward in professions of friendship as
the peaceful Indians, were just as apt to be found at the treaties, or
lounging about the settlements; and this widespread treachery and deceit
made the task of the army officers puzzling to a degree. As for the
frontiersmen, who had no means whatever of telling a hostile from a
friendly tribe, they followed their usual custom and lumped all the
Indians, good and bad, together; for which they could hardly be blamed.
Even St. Clair, who had small sympathy with the backwoodsmen,
acknowledged [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 58.] that they could
not and ought not to submit patiently to the cruelties and depredations
of the savages; "they are in the habit of retaliation, perhaps without
attending precisely to the nations from which the injuries are
received," said he. A long course of such aggressions and retaliations
resulted, by the year 1791, in all the Northwestern Indians going on the
war-path. The hostile tribes had murdered and plundered the
frontiersmen; the vengeance of the latter, as often as not, had fallen
on friendly tribes; and these justly angered friendly tribes usually
signalized their taking the red hatchet by some act of treacherous
hostility directed against the settlers who had not molested them.
Treachery of the Friendly Delawares.
In the late winter of 1791 the hitherto friendly Delawares who hunted or
traded along the western frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia proper
took this manner of showing that they had joined the open foes of the
Americans. A big band of warriors spread up and down the Alleghany for
about forty miles, and on the 9th of February attacked all the outlying
settlements. The Indians who delivered this attack had long been on
intimate terms with the Alleghany settlers, who were accustomed to see
them in and about their houses; and as the savages acted with seeming
friendship to the last moment, they were able to take the settlers
completely unawares, so that no effective resistance was made. [Footnote:
"American Pioneer," I., 44; Narrative of John Brickell.] Some settlers
were killed and some captured. Among the captives was a lad named John
Brickell, who, though at first maltreated, and forced to run the
gauntlet, was afterwards adopted into the tribe, and was not released
until after Wayne's victory. After his adoption, he was treated with the
utmost kindness, and conceived a great liking for his captors, admiring
their many good qualities, especially their courage and their kindness
to their children. Long afterwards he wrote down his experiences, which
possess a certain value as giving, from the Indian standpoint, an
account of some of the incidents of the forest warfare of the day.
Utter Untrustworthiness of the Indians.
The warriors who had engaged in this raid on their former friends, the
settlers along the Alleghany. retreated two or three days' journey into
the wilderness to an appointed place, where they found their families.
One of the Girtys was with the Indians. No sooner had the last of the
warriors come in, with their scalps and prisoners, including the boy
Brickell, than ten of their number deliberately started back to
Pittsburgh, to pass themselves as friendly Indians, and trade. In a
fortnight they returned laden with goods of various kinds, including
whiskey. Some of the inhabitants, sore from disaster, suspected that
these Indians were only masquerading as friendly, and prepared to attack
them; but one of the citizens warned them of their danger and they
escaped. Their effrontery was as remarkable as their treachery and
duplicity. They had suddenly attacked and massacred settlers by whom
they had never been harmed, and with whom they preserved an appearance
of entire friendship up to the very moment of the assault. Then, their
hands red with the blood of their murdered friends, they came boldly
into Pittsburgh, among the near neighbors of these same murdered men,
and stayed there several days to trade, pretending to be peaceful allies
of the whites. With savages so treacherous and so ferocious it was a
mere impossibility for the borderers to distinguish the hostile from the
friendly, as they hit out blindly to revenge the blows that fell upon
them from unknown hands. Brutal though the frontiersmen often were, they
never employed the systematic and deliberate bad faith which was a
favorite weapon with even the best of the red tribes.
The Federal Authorities Misjudge the Settlers.
The people who were out of reach of the Indian tomahawk, and especially
the Federal officers, were often unduly severe in judging the borderers
for their deeds of retaliation, Brickell's narrative shows that the
parties of seemingly friendly Indians who came in to trade were
sometimes--and indeed in this year 1791 it was probable they were
generally--composed of Indians who were engaged in active hostilities
against the settlers, and who were always watching for a chance to
murder and plunder. On March 9th, a month after the Delawares had begun
their attacks, the grim backwoods captain Brady, with some of his
Virginian rangers, fell on a party of them who had come to a block-house
to trade, and killed four. The Indians asserted that they were friendly,
and both the Federal Secretary of War and the Governor of Pennsylvania
denounced the deed, and threatened the offenders; but the frontiersmen
stood by them. [Footnote: State Department MSS., Washington Papers, Ex.
C., p. 11, etc. Presly Neville to Richard Butler, March 19, 1791; Isaac
Craig to Secretary of War, March 16, 1791; Secretary of War to
President, March 31, 1791.] Soon afterwards a delegation of chiefs from
the Seneca tribe of the Iroquois arrived at Fort Pitt, and sent a
message to the President, complaining of the murder of these alleged
friendly Indians. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 145, Cornplanter
and others to the President, March 17, 1791.] On the very day these
Seneca chiefs started on their journey home another Delaware war party
killed nine settlers, men, women, and children, within twenty miles of
Fort Pitt; which so enraged the people of the neighborhood that the
lives of the Senecas were jeopardized. The United States authorities were
particularly anxious to keep at peace with the Six Nations, and made
repeated efforts to treat with them; but the Six Nations stood sullenly
aloof, afraid to enter openly into the struggle, and yet reluctant to
make a firm peace or cede any of their lands. [Footnote: State Department
MSS., Washington Papers, Knox to the President, April 10, 1791; American
State Papers, IV., pp. 139-170, 225-233, 477-482, etc.]
Intimate Relations of the British and Indians.
The intimate relations between the Indians and the British at the Lake
Posts continued to perplex and anger the Americans. While the frontiers
were being mercilessly ravaged, the same Indians who were committing the
ravages met in council with the British agent, Alexander McKee, at the
Miami Rapids; the council being held in this neighborhood for the
special benefit of the very towns which were most hostile to the
Americans, and which had been partially destroyed by Harmar the
preceding fall. The Indian war was at its height, and the murderous
forays never ceased throughout the spring and summer. McKee came to
Miami in April, and was forced to wait nearly three months, because of
the absence of the Indian war parties, before the principal chiefs and
headmen gathered to meet him. At last, on July 1st, they were all
assembled; not only the Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas,
Pottawatamies and others who had openly taken the hatchet against the
Americans, but also representatives of the Six Nations, and tribes of
savages from lands so remote that they carried no guns, but warred with
bows, spears, and tomahawks, and were clad in buffalo-robes instead of
blankets. McKee in his speech to them did not incite them to war. On the
contrary, he advised them, in guarded language, to make peace with the
United States; but only upon terms consistent with their "honor and
interest." He assured them that, whatever they did, he wished to know
what they desired; and that the sole purpose of the British was to
promote the welfare of the confederated Indians. Such very cautious
advice was not of a kind to promote peace; and the goods furnished the
savages at the council included not only cattle, corn, and tobacco, but
also quantities of powder and balls. [Footnote: Canadian Archives,
McKee's speech to the Indians, July 1, 1971; and Francis Lafontaine's
account of sundries to Indians.]
The Fur Trade the Prime Object of the British.
The chief interest of the British was to preserve the fur trade for
their merchants, and it was mainly for this reason that they clung so
tenaciously to the Lake Posts. For their purposes it was essential that
the Indians should remain lords of the soil. They preferred to see the
savages at peace with the Americans, provided that in this way they
could keep their lands; but, whether through peace or war, they wished
the lands to remain Indian, and the Americans to be barred from them.
While they did not at the moment advise war, their advice to make peace
was so faintly uttered, and so hedged round with conditions as to be of
no weight; and they furnished the Indians not only with provisions but
with munitions of war. While McKee, and other British officers, were at
the Miami Rapids, holding councils with the Indians, and issuing to them
goods and weapons, bands of braves were continually returning from
forays against the American frontier, bringing in scalps and prisoners;
and the wilder subjects of the British King, like the Girtys, and some
of the French from Detroit, went off with the war parties on their
forays. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 196. Narrative of Thomas
Rhea, July 2, 1791. This narrative was distrusted; but it is fully borne
out by McKee's letter, and the narrative of Brickell. He saw Brickell,
whom he calls "Brittle," at the Miami.] The authorities at the capital
of the new Republic were deceived by the warmth with which the British
insisted that they were striving to bring about a peace; but the
frontiersmen were not deceived, and they were right in their belief that
the British were really the mainstay and support of the Indians in their
warfare.
The Americans Draw the Sword.
Peace could only be won by the unsheathed sword. Even the National
Government was reluctantly driven to this view. As all the Northwestern
tribes were banded in open war, it was useless to let the conflict
remain a succession of raids and counter-raids. Only a severe stroke,
delivered by a formidable army, could cow the tribes. It was hopeless to
try to deliver such a crippling blow with militia alone, and it was very
difficult for the infant government to find enough money or men to equip
an army composed exclusively of regulars. Accordingly preparations were
made for a campaign with a mixed force of regulars, special levies, and
militia; and St. Clair, already Governor of the Northwestern Territory,
was put in command of the army as Major-General.
Rangers and Scouts are Raised.
Before the army was ready the Federal Government was obliged to take
other measures for the defence of the border. Small bodies of rangers
were raised from among the frontier militia, being paid at the usual
rate for soldiers in the army, a net sum of about two dollars a month
while in service. In addition, on the repeated and urgent request of the
frontiersmen, a few of the most active hunters and best woodsmen, men
like Brady, were enlisted as scouts, being paid six or eight times the
ordinary rate. These men, because of their skill in woodcraft and their
thorough knowledge of Indian fighting, were beyond comparison more
valuable than ordinary militia or regulars, and were prized very highly
by the frontiersmen. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 107, Jan. 5,
1791.]
Raid of Scott.
Besides thus organizing the local militia for defense, the President
authorized the Kentuckians to undertake two offensive expeditions
against the Wabash Indians so as to prevent them from giving aid to the
Miami tribes, whom St. Clair was to attack. Both expeditions were
carried on by bands of mounted volunteers, such as had followed Clark on
his various raids. The first was commanded by Brigadier-General Charles
Scott; Colonel John Hardin led his advance guard, and Wilkinson was
second in command. Towards the end of May, Scott crossed the Ohio, at
the head of eight hundred horse-riflemen, and marched rapidly and
secretly towards the Wabash towns. A mounted Indian discovered the
advance of the Americans and gave the alarm; and so most of the Indians
escaped just as the Kentucky riders fell on the town. But little
resistance was offered by the surprised and outnumbered savages. Only
five Americans were wounded, while of the Indians thirty-two were slain,
as they fought or fled, and forty-one prisoners, chiefly women and
children, were brought in, either by Scott himself or by his detachments
under Hardin and Wilkinson. Several towns were destroyed, and the
crowing corn cut down. There were not a few French living in the town,
in well-finished log-houses, which were burned with the wigwams.
[Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 131, Scott's Report, June 28,
1791.]
Raid of Wilkinson.
The second expedition was under the command of Wilkinson, and consisted
of over five hundred men. He marched in August, and repeated Scott's
feats, again burning down two or three of the towns, and destroying the
goods and the crops. He lost three or four men killed or wounded, but
killed ten Indians and captured some thirty. [Footnote: _Do_.,
Wilkinson's Letter, August 24, 1791.] In both expeditions the volunteers
behaved well and committed no barbarous act, except that in the
confusion of the actual onslaught two or three non-combatants were
slain. The Wabash Indians were cowed and disheartened by their
punishment, and in consequence gave no aid to the Miami tribes; but
beyond this the raids accomplished nothing, and brought no nearer the
wished-for time of peace.
St. Clair's Difficulty in Organizing his Campaign.
Meanwhile St. Clair was striving vainly to hasten the preparations for
his own far more formidable task. There was much delay in forwarding him
the men and the provisions and munitions. Congress hesitated and
debated; the Secretary of War, hampered by a newly created office and
insufficient means, did not show to advantage in organizing the
campaign, and was slow in carrying out his plans; while there was
positive dereliction of duty on the part of the quartermaster, and the
contractors proved both corrupt and inefficient. The army was often on
short commons, lacking alike food for the men and fodder for the horses;
the powder was poor, the axes useless, the tents and clothing nearly
worthless; while the delays were so extraordinary that the troops did
not make the final move from Fort Washington until mid-September.
[Footnote: St. Clair Papers, II., 286, Report of Special Committee of
Congress, March 27, 1792.]
Wretched Condition of St. Clair's Army.
St. Clair himself was broken in health; he was a sick, weak, elderly
man, high minded, and zealous to do his duty, but totally unfit for the
terrible responsibilities of such an expedition against such foes. The
troops were of wretched stuff. There were two small regiments of regular
infantry, the rest of the army being composed of six months' levies and
of militia ordered out for this particular campaign. The pay was
contemptible. Each private was given three dollars a month, from which
ninety cents was deducted, leaving a net payment of two dollars and ten
cents a month. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 118, Report of
Secy. of War, January 22, 1791.] Sergeants netted three dollars and
sixty cents; while the lieutenants received twenty-two, the captains
thirty, and the colonels sixty dollars. The mean parsimony of the nation
in paying such low wages to men about to be sent on duties at once very
arduous and very dangerous met its fit and natural reward. Men of good
bodily powers, and in the prime of life, and especially men able to do
the rough work of frontier farmers, could not be hired to fight Indians
in unknown forests for two dollars a month. Most of the recruits were
from the streets and prisons of the seaboard cities. They were hurried
into a campaign against peculiarly formidable foes before they had
acquired the rudiments of a soldier's training, and, of course, they
never even understood what woodcraft meant. [Footnote: Denny's Journal,
374.] The officers were men of courage, as in the end most of them
showed by dying bravely on the field of battle; but they were utterly
untrained themselves, and had no time in which to train their men. Under
such conditions it did not need keen vision to foretell disaster. Harmar
had learned a bitter lesson the preceding year; he knew well what
Indians could do, and what raw troops could not; and he insisted with
emphasis that the only possible outcome to St. Clair's expedition was
defeat.
The Troops Gather at Fort Washington.
As the raw troops straggled to Pittsburgh they were shipped down the
Ohio to Fort Washington; and St. Clair made the headquarters of his army
at a new fort some twenty-five miles northward, which he christened Fort
Hamilton. During September the army slowly assembled; two small
regiments of regulars, two of six months' levies, a number of Kentucky
militia, a few cavalry, and a couple of small batteries of light guns.
After wearisome delays, due mainly to the utter inefficiency of the
quartermaster and contractor, the start for the Indian towns was made on
October the 4th.
The Army Begins its March.
The army trudged slowly through the deep woods and across the wet
prairies, cutting out its own road, and making but five or six miles a
day. It was in a wilderness which abounded with game; both deer and bear
frequently ran into the very camps; and venison was a common food.
[Footnote: Bradley MSS. The journal and letters of Captain Daniel
Bradley; shown me by the courtesy of his descendants, Mr. Daniel B.
Bradley of Southport, Conn., and Mr. Arthur W. Bradley of Cincinnati,
Ohio.] On October 13th a halt was made to build another little fort,
christened in honor of Jefferson. There were further delays, caused by
the wretched management of the commissariat department, and the march
was not resumed until the 24th, the numerous sick being left in Fort
Jefferson. Then the army once more stumbled northward through the
wilderness. The regulars, though mostly raw recruits, had been reduced
to some kind of discipline; but the six months' levies were almost worse
than the militia. [Footnote: Denny, October 29, 1791, etc.] Owing to the
long delays, and to the fact that they had been enlisted at various
times, their terms of service were expiring day by day; and they wished
to go home, and tried to, while the militia deserted in squads and
bands. Those that remained were very disorderly. Two who attempted to
desert were hung; and another, who shot a comrade, was hung also; but
even this severity in punishment failed to stop the demoralization.
St. Clair a Broken-down Man and His Subordinates
With such soldiers there would have been grave risk of disaster under
any commander; but St. Clair's leadership made the risk a certainty.
There was Indian sign, old and new, all through woods; and the scouts
and stragglers occasionally interchanged shots with small parties of
braves, and now and then lost a man, killed or captured. It was,
therefore, certain that the savages knew every movement of the army,
which, as it slowly neared the Miami towns, was putting itself within
easy striking range of the most formidable Indian confederacy in the
Northwest. The density of the forest was such that only the utmost
watchfulness could prevent the foe from approaching within arm's length
unperceived. It behooved St. Clair to be on his guard, and he had been
warned by Washington, who had never forgotten the scenes of Braddock's
defeat, of the danger of a surprise. But St. Clair was broken down by
the worry and by continued sickness; time and again it was doubtful
whether he could so much as stay with the army. The second in command,
Major-General Richard Butler, was also sick most of the time; and, like
St. Clair, he possessed none of the qualities of leadership save
courage. The whole burden fell on the Adjutant-General, Colonel Winthrop
Sargent, an old Revolutionary officer; without him the expedition would
probably have failed in ignominy even before the Indians were reached,
and he showed not only cool courage but ability of a good order; yet in
the actual arrangements for battle he was, of course, unable to remedy
the blunders of his superiors.
His Shortcomings.
St. Clair should have covered his front and flanks for miles around with
scouting parties; but he rarely sent any out, and, thanks to letting the
management of those that did go devolve on his subordinates, and to not
having their reports made to him in person, he derived no benefit from
what they saw. He had twenty Chickasaws with him; but he sent these off
on an extended trip, lost touch of them entirely, and never saw them
again until after the battle. He did not seem to realize that he was
himself in danger of attack. When some fifty miles or so from the Miami
towns, on the last day of October, sixty of the militia deserted; and he
actually sent back after them one of his two regular regiments, thus
weakening by one half the only trustworthy portion of his force.
[Footnote: Bradley MSS. In his journal Captain Bradley expresses his
astonishment at seeing the regiment and his inability to understand the
object in sending it back. Captain Bradley was not over-pleased with his
life at the fort; as one of the minor ills he mentions in one of his
letters to Ebenezer Banks: "Please deliver the enclosed letter to my
wife. Not a drop of cider have I drinked this twelve month."]
The Last Camp.
On November 3d the doomed army, now reduced to a total of about fourteen
hundred men, camped on the eastern fork of the Wabash, high up, where it
was but twenty yards wide. There was snow on the ground and the little
pools were skimmed with ice. The camp was on a narrow rise of ground,
where the troops were cramped together, the artillery and most of the
horse in the middle. On both flanks, and along most of the rear, the
ground was low and wet. All around, the wintry woods lay in frozen
silence. In front the militia were thrown across the creek, and nearly a
quarter of a mile beyond the rest of the troops. [Footnote: St. Clair's
Letter to the Secretary of War, Nov. 9, 1791.] Parties of Indians were
seen during the afternoon, and they skulked around the lines at night,
so that the sentinels frequently fired at them; yet neither St. Clair
nor Butler took any adequate measures to ward off the impending blow. It
is improbable that, as things actually were at this time, they could
have won a victory over their terrible foes; but they might have avoided
overwhelming disaster.
The Indians Surprise the Camp at Dawn.
On November 4th the men were under arms, as usual, by dawn, St. Clair
intending to throw up entrenchments and then make a forced march in
light order against the Indian towns. But he was forestalled. Soon after
sunrise, just as the men were dismissed from parade, a sudden assault
was made upon the militia, who lay unprotected beyond the creek. The
unexpectedness and fury of the onset, the heavy firing, and the
appalling whoops and yells of the throngs of painted savages threw the
militia into disorder. After a few moments' resistance they broke and
fled in wild panic to the camp of the regulars, among whom they drove in
a frightened herd, spreading dismay and confusion.
The drums beat, and the troops sprang to arms, as soon as they heard the
heavy firing at the front; and their volleys for a moment checked the
onrush of the plumed woodland warriors. But the check availed nothing.
The braves filed off to one side and the other, completely surrounded
the camp, killed or drove in the guards and pickets, and then advanced
close to the main lines. [Footnote: Denny, November 4th; also p. 221.]
Desperate Fighting Follows.
A furious battle followed. After the first onset the Indians fought in
silence, no sound coming from them save the incessant rattle of their
fire, as they crept from log to log, from tree to tree, ever closer and
closer. The soldiers stood in close order, in the open; their musketry
and artillery fire made a tremendous noise, but did little damage to a
foe they could hardly see. Now and then, through the hanging smoke,
terrible figures flitted, painted black and red, the feathers of the
hawk and eagle braided in their long scalp-locks; but save for these
glimpses, the soldiers knew the presence of their sombre enemy only from
the fearful rapidity with which their comrades fell dead and wounded in
the ranks. They never even knew the numbers or leaders of the Indians.
At the time it was supposed that they outnumbered the whites; but it is
probable that the reverse was the case, and it may even be that they
were not more than half as numerous. It is said that the chief who led
them, both in council and battle, was Little Turtle, the Miami. At any
rate, there were present all the chiefs and picked warriors of the
Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, and Miamis, and all the most reckless and
adventurous young braves from among the Iroquois and the Indians of the
Upper Lakes, as well as many of the ferocious whites and half-breeds who
dwelt in the Indian villages.
Fury and Skill of the Indians.
The Indians fought with the utmost boldness and ferocity, and with the
utmost skill and caution. Under cover of the smoke of the heavy but
harmless fire from the army they came up so close that they shot the
troops down as hunters slaughter a herd of standing buffalo. Watching
their chance, they charged again and again with the tomahawk, gliding
into close quarters while their bewildered foes were still blindly
firing into the smoke-shrouded woods. The men saw no enemy as they stood
in the ranks to load and shoot; in a moment, without warning, dark faces
frowned through the haze, the war-axes gleamed, and on the frozen ground
the weapons clattered as the soldiers fell. As the comrades of the
fallen sprang forward to avenge them, the lithe warriors vanished as
rapidly as they had appeared; and once more the soldiers saw before them
only the dim forest and the shifting smoke wreaths, with vague half
glimpses of the hidden foe, while the steady singing of the Indian
bullets never ceased, and on every hand the bravest and steadiest fell
one by one.
The Troops at First Fight Resolutely.
Bravery of the Officers in Command.
At first the army as a whole fought firmly; indeed there was no choice,
for it was ringed by a wall of flame. The officers behaved very well,
cheering and encouraging their men; but they were the special targets of
the Indians, and fell rapidly. St. Clair and Butler by their cool
fearlessness in the hour of extreme peril made some amends for their
shortcomings as commanders. They walked up and down the lines from flank
to flank, passing and repassing one another; for the two lines of battle
were facing outward, and each general was busy trying to keep his wing
from falling back. St. Clair's clothes were pierced by eight bullets,
but he was himself untouched. He wore a blanket coat with a hood; he had
a long queue, and his thick gray hair flowed from under his
three-cornered hat; a lock of his hair was carried off by a bullet.
[Footnote: McBride's "Pioneer Biography," I., 165. Narrative of Thomas
Irwin, a packer, who was in the fight. There are of course discrepancies
between the various accounts; in the confusion of such a battle even the
most honest eye-witnesses could not see all things alike.] Several times
he headed the charges, sword in hand. General Butler had his arm broken
early in the fight, but he continued to walk to and fro along the line,
his coat off and the wounded arm in a sling. Another bullet struck him
in the side, inflicting a mortal wound; and he was carried to the middle
of the camp, where he sat propped up by knapsacks. Men and horses were
falling around him at every moment. St. Clair sent an aide, Lieutenant
Ebenezer Denny, to ask how he was; he displayed no anxiety, and answered
that he felt well. While speaking, a young cadet, who stood nearby, was
hit on the kneecap by a spent ball, and at the shock cried aloud;
whereat the General laughed so that his wounded side shook. The aide
left him; and there is no further certain record of his fate except that
he was slain; but it is said that in one of the Indian rushes a warrior
bounded towards him and sunk the tomahawk in his brain before any one
could interfere.
The Indians Capture the Artillery.
Charges and Counter-Charges.
Instead of being awed by the bellowing artillery, the Indians made the
gunners a special object of attack. Man after man was picked off, until
every officer was killed but one, who was wounded; and most of the
privates also were slain or disabled. The artillery was thus almost
silenced, and the Indians, emboldened by success, swarmed forward and
seized the guns, while at the same time a part of the left wing of the
army began to shrink back. But the Indians were now on comparatively
open ground, where the regulars could see them and get at them; and
under St. Clair's own leadership the troops rushed fiercely at the
savages, with fixed bayonets, and drove them back to cover. By this time
the confusion and disorder were great; while from every hollow and grass
patch, from behind every stump and tree and fallen log, the Indians
continued their fire. Again and again the officers led forward the
troops in bayonet charges; and at first the men followed them with a
will. Each charge seemed for a moment to be successful, the Indians
rising in swarms and running in headlong flight from the bayonets. In
one of the earliest, in which Colonel Darke led his battalion, the
Indians were driven several hundred yards, across the branch of the
Wabash; but when the Colonel halted and rallied his men, he found that
the savages had closed in behind him, and he had to fight his way back,
while the foe he had been driving at once turned and harassed his rear.
He was himself wounded, and lost most of his command. On re-entering
camp he found the Indians again in possession of the artillery and
baggage, from which they were again driven; they had already scalped the
slain who lay about the guns. Major Thomas Butler had his thigh broken
by a bullet; but he continued on horseback, in command of his battalion,
until the end of the fight, and led his men in one of the momentarily
successful bayonet charges. The only regular regiment present lost every
officer, killed or wounded. The commander of the Kentucky militia,
Colonel Oldham, was killed early in the action, while trying to rally
his men and damning them for cowards.
Inferiority of the Troops to the Indians.
The charging troops could accomplish nothing permanent. The men were too
clumsy and ill-trained in forest warfare to overtake their fleet,
half-naked antagonists. The latter never received the shock; but though
they fled they were nothing daunted, for they turned the instant the
battalion did, and followed firing. They skipped out of reach of the
bayonets, and came back as they pleased; and they were only visible when
raised by a charge.
Feats of Some of the Packhorsemen.
Among the packhorsemen were some who were accustomed to the use of the
rifle and to life in the woods; and these fought well. One, named
Benjamin Van Cleve, kept a journal, in which he described what he saw of
the fight. [Footnote: "American Pioneer," II., 150; Van Cleve's
memoranda.] He had no gun, but five minutes after the firing began he
saw a soldier near him with his arm swinging useless; and he borrowed
the wounded man's musket and cartridges. The smoke had settled to within
three feet of the ground, so he knelt, covering himself behind a tree,
and only fired when he saw an Indian's head, or noticed one running from
cover to cover. He fired away all his ammunition, and the bands of his
musket flew off; he picked up another just as two levy officers ordered
a charge, and followed the charging party at a run. By this time the
battalions were broken, and only some thirty men followed the officers.
The Indians fled before the bayonets until they reached a ravine filled
with down timber; whereupon they halted behind the impenetrable tangle
of fallen logs. The soldiers also halted, and were speedily swept away
by the fire of the Indians, whom they could not reach; but Van Cleve,
showing his skill as a woodsman, covered himself behind a small tree,
and gave back shot for shot until all his ammunition was gone. Before
this happened his less skilful companions had been slain or driven off,
and he ran at full speed back to camp. Here he found that the artillery
had been taken and re-taken again and again. Stricken men lay in heaps
everywhere, and the charging troops were once more driving the Indians
across the creek in front of the camp. Van Cleve noticed that the dead
officers and soldiers who were lying about the guns had all been scalped
and that "the Indians had not been in a hurry, for their hair was all
skinned off." Another of the packers who took part in the fight, one
Thomas Irwin, was struck with the spectacle offered by the slaughtered
artillerymen, and with grewsome homeliness compared the reeking heads to
pumpkins in a December cornfield.
The Soldiers Lose Heart.
Panic Seizes the Army.
As the officers fell the soldiers, who at first stood up bravely enough,
gradually grew disheartened. No words can paint the hopelessness and
horror such a struggle as that in which they were engaged. They were
hemmed in by foes who showed no mercy and whose blows they could in no
way return. If they charged they could not overtake the Indians; and the
instant the charge stopped the Indians came back. If they stood they
were shot down by an unseen enemy; and there was no stronghold, no
refuge to which to flee. The Indian attack was relentless, and could
neither be avoided, parried, nor met by counter assault. For two hours
or so the troops kept up a slowly lessening resistance; but by degrees
their hearts failed. The wounded had been brought towards the middle of
the lines, where the baggage and tents were, and an ever growing
proportion of unwounded men joined them. In vain the officers tried, by
encouragement, by jeers, by blows, to drive them back to the fight. They
were unnerved. As in all cases where large bodies of men are put in
imminent peril of death, whether by shipwreck, plague, fire, or
violence, numbers were swayed by a mad panic of utterly selfish fear,
and others became numbed and callous, or snatched at any animal
gratification during their last moments. Many soldiers crowded round the
fires and stood stunned and confounded by the awful calamity; many broke
into the officers' marquees and sought for drink, or devoured the food
which the rightful owners had left when the drums beat to arms.
St. Clair Resolves on Retreat.
There was but one thing to do. If possible the remnant of the army must
be saved, and it could only be saved by instant flight, even at the cost
of abandoning the wounded. The broad road by which the army had advanced
was the only line of retreat. The artillery had already been spiked and
abandoned. Most of the horses had been killed, but a few were still
left, and on one of these St. Clair mounted. He gathered together those
fragments of the different battalions which contained the few men who
still kept heart and head, and ordered them to charge and regain the
road from which the savages had cut them off. Repeated orders were
necessary before some of the men could be roused from their stupor
sufficiently to follow the charging party; and they were only induced to
move when told that it was to retreat.
The Troops Break through the Indian Ring.
Colonel Darke and a few officers placed themselves at the head of the
column, the coolest and boldest men drew up behind them, and they fell
on the Indians with such fury as to force them back well beyond the
road. This made an opening through which, said Van Cleve the packer, the
rest of the troops "pressed like a drove of bullocks." The Indians were
surprised by the vigor of the charge, and puzzled as to its object. They
opened out on both sides and half the men had gone through before they
fired more than a chance shot or two. They then fell on the rear, and
began a hot pursuit. St. Clair sent his aide, Denny, to the front to try
to keep order, but neither he nor anyone else could check the flight.
Major Clark tried to rally his battalion to cover the retreat, but he
was killed and the effort abandoned.
Wild Rout of the Army.
There never was a wilder rout. As soon as the men began to run, and
realized that in flight there lay some hope of safety, they broke into a
stampede which soon became uncontrollable. Horses, soldiers, and the few
camp followers and women who had accompanied the army were all mixed
together. Neither command nor example had the slightest weight; the men
were abandoned to the terrible selfishness of utter fear. They threw
away their weapons as they ran. They thought of nothing but escape, and
fled in a huddle, the stronger and the few who had horses trampling
their way to the front through the old, the weak, and the wounded; while
behind them raged the Indian tomahawk. Fortunately the attraction of
plundering the camp was so overpowering that the savages only followed
the army about four miles; otherwise hardly a man would have escaped.
Story of Van Cleve the Packer.
St. Clair was himself in much danger, for he tried to stay behind and
stem the torrent of fugitives; but he failed, being swept forward by the
crowd, and when he attempted to ride to the front to rally them, he
failed again, for his horse could not be pricked out of a walk. The
packer, Van Cleve, in his journal, gives a picture of the flight. He was
himself one of the few who lost neither courage nor generosity in the
rout.
Among his fellow packers were his uncle and a young man named Bonham,
who was his close and dear friend. The uncle was shot in the wrist, the
ball lodging near his shoulder; but he escaped. Bonham, just before the
retreat began, was shot through both hips, so that he could not walk.
Young Van Cleve got him a horse, on which he was with difficulty
mounted; then, as the flight began, Bonham bade Van Cleve look to his
safety, as he was on foot, and the two separated. Bonham rode until the
pursuit had almost ceased; then, weak and crippled, he was thrown off
his horse and slain. Meanwhile Van Cleve ran steadily on foot. By the
time he had gone two miles most of the mounted men had passed him. A
boy, on the point of falling from exhaustion, now begged his help; and
the kind-hearted backwoodsman seized the lad and pulled him along nearly
two miles farther, when he himself became so worn-out that he nearly
fell. There were still two horses in the rear, one carrying three men,
and one two; and behind the latter Van Cleve, summoning his strength,
threw the boy, who escaped. Nor did Van Cleve's pity for his fellows
cease with this; for he stopped to tie his handkerchief around the knee
of a wounded man. His violent exertions gave him a cramp in both thighs,
so that he could barely walk; and in consequence the strong and active
passed him until he was within a hundred yards of the rear, where the
Indians were tomahawking the old and wounded men. So close were they
that for a moment his heart sunk in despair; but he threw off his shoes,
the touch of the cold ground seemed to revive him, and he again began to
trot forward. He got around a bend in the road, passing half a dozen
other fugitives; and long afterwards he told how well he remembered
thinking that it would be some time before they would all be massacred
and his own turn came. However, at this point the pursuit ceased, and a
few miles farther on he had gained the middle of the flying troops, and
like them came to a walk. He fell in with a queer group, consisting of
the sole remaining officer of the artillery, an infantry corporal, and a
woman called Red-headed Nance. Both of the latter were crying, the
corporal for the loss of his wife, the woman for the loss of her child.
The worn-out officer hung on the corporal's arm, while Van Cleve
"carried his fusee and accoutrements and led Nance; and in this sociable
way arrived at Fort Jefferson a little after sunset."
The Remnant of the Army Reaches Cincinnati.
Exultation of the Victors.
Before reaching Fort Jefferson the wretched army encountered the regular
regiment which had been so unfortunately detached a couple of days
before the battle. The most severely wounded were left in the fort;
[Footnote: Bradley MSS. The addition of two hundred sick and wounded
brought the garrison to such short commons that they had to slaughter
the pack-horses for food.] and then the flight was renewed, until the
disorganized and half-armed rabble reached Fort Washington, and the mean
log huts of Cincinnati. Six hundred and thirty men had been killed and
over two hundred and eighty wounded; less than five hundred, only about
a third of the whole number engaged in the battle, remained unhurt. But
one or two were taken prisoners, for the Indians butchered everybody,
wounded or unwounded, who fell into their hands. There is no record of
the torture of any of the captives, but there was one singular instance
of cannibalism. The savage Chippewas from the far-off north devoured one
of the slain soldiers, probably in a spirit of ferocious bravado; the
other tribes expressed horror at the deed. [Footnote: Brickell's
Narrative.] The Indians were rich with the spoil. They got horses, tents,
guns, axes, powder, clothing, and blankets--in short everything their
hearts prized. Their loss was comparatively slight; it may not have been
one twentieth that of the whites. They did not at the moment follow up
their victory, each band going off with its own share of the booty. But
the triumph was so overwhelming, and the reward so great, that the war
spirit received a great impetus in all the tribes. The bands of warriors
that marched against the frontier were more numerous, more formidable,
and bolder than ever.
In the following January Wilkinson with a hundred and fifty mounted
volunteers marched to the battle-field to bury the slain. The weather
was bitterly cold, snow lay deep on the ground, and some of the
volunteers were frost bitten. [Footnote: McBride's "Pioneer Biography,"
John Reily's narrative. This expedition, in which not a single hostile
Indian was encountered, has been transmuted by Withers and one or two
other border historians into a purely fictitious expedition of revenge
in which hundreds of Indians were slain on the field of St. Clair's
disaster.]
Kentucky Volunteers Visit the Battle-field and Bury the Dead.
Four miles from the scene of the battle, where the pursuit had ended,
they began to find the bodies on the road, and close alongside, in
the woods, whither some of the hunted creatures had turned at the last,
to snatch one more moment of life. Many had been dragged from under the
snow and devoured by wolves. The others lay where they had fallen,
showing as mounds through the smooth white mantle that covered them. On
the battle-field itself the slain lay thick, scalped, and stripped of
all their clothing which the conquerors deemed worth taking. The bodies,
blackened by frost and exposure, could not be identified; and they were
buried in a shallow trench in the frozen ground. The volunteers then
marched home.
News of the Disaster is Sent to Washington.
When the remnant of the defeated army reached the banks of the Ohio, St.
Clair sent his aide, Denny, to carry the news to Philadelphia, at that
time the national capital. The river was swollen, there were incessant
snowstorms, and ice formed heavily, so that it took twenty days of toil
and cold before Denny reached Wheeling and got horses. For ten days more
he rode over the bad winter roads, reaching Philadelphia with the evil
tidings on the evening of December 19th. It was thus six weeks after the
defeat of the army before the news was brought to the anxious Federal
authorities.
The young officer called first on the Secretary of War; but as soon as
the Secretary realized the importance of the information he had it
conveyed to the President. Washington was at dinner, with some guests,
and was called from the table to listen to the tidings of ill fortune.
He returned with unmoved face, and at the dinner, and at the reception
which followed, he behaved with his usual stately courtesy to those whom
he was entertaining, not so much as hinting at what he had heard.
Washington's Wrath.
But when the last guest had gone, his pent-up wrath broke forth in one
of those fits of volcanic fury which sometimes shattered his iron
outward calm. Walking up and down the room he burst out in wild regret
for the rout and disaster, and bitter invective against St. Clair,
reciting how, in that very room, he had wished the unfortunate commander
success and honor and had bidden him above all things beware of a
surprise. [Footnote: Tobias Lear, Washington's Private Secretary as
quoted by both Custis and Rush. The report of an eyewitness. See also
Lodge's "Washington," p. 94. Denny, in his journal, merely mentions that
he went at once to the Secretary of War's office on the evening of the
19th, and does not speak of seeing Washington until the following
morning. On the strength of this omission one or two of St. Clair's
apologists have striven to represent the whole account of Washington's
wrath as apocryphal; but the attempt is puerile; the relation comes from
an eyewitness who had no possible motive to distort the facts. The
Secretary of War, Knox, was certain to inform Washington of the disaster
the very evening he heard of it; and whether he sent Denny, or another
messenger, or went himself is unimportant. Lear might very well have
been mistaken as to the messenger who brought the news; but he could not
have been mistaken about Washington's speech.] "He went off with that
last solemn warning thrown into his ears," spoke Washington, as he
strode to and fro, "and yet to suffer that army to be cut to pieces,
hacked, butchered, tomahawked, by a surprise, the very thing I guarded
him against! O God, O God, he's worse than a murderer! How can he answer
it to his country!" Then, calming himself by a mighty effort: "General
St. Clair shall have justice ... he shall have full justice." And St.
Clair did receive full justice, and mercy too, from both Washington and
Congress. For the sake of his courage and honorable character they held
him guiltless of the disaster for which his lack of capacity as a
general was so largely accountable.
The Blame for the Disaster.
Washington and his administration were not free from blame. It was
foolish to attempt the campaign the Northwestern Indians with men who
had only been trained for six months, and who were enlisted at the
absurd price of two dollars a month. Moreover, there were needless
delays in forwarding the troops to Fort Washington; and the commissary
department was badly managed. Washington was not directly responsible
for any of these shortcomings; he very wisely left to the Secretary of
War, Knox, the immediate control of the whole matter, seeking to avoid
all interference with him, so that there might be no clashing or
conflict of authority [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., Washington Papers. War
Dept. Ex. C., Washington to Knox, April 1, 1791.]; but he was of course
ultimately responsible for the little evil, no less than for the great
good, done by his administration.
Incompetence of St. Clair.
The chief blunder was the selection of St. Clair. As a commander he
erred in many ways. He did not, or could not, train his troops; and he
had no business to challenge a death fight with raw levies. It was
unpardonable of him to send back one of his two regular regiments, the
only trustworthy portion of his force, on the eve of the battle. He
should never have posted the militia, his poorest troops, in the most
exposed situation. Above all he should have seen that the patrols and
pickets were so numerous, and performed their duty so faithfully, as to
preclude the possibility of surprise. With the kind of army furnished
him he could hardly have won a victory under any circumstances; but the
overwhelming nature of the defeat was mainly due to his incompetence.
CHAPTER II.
MAD ANTHONY WAYNE; AND THE FIGHT OF THE FALLEN TIMBERS, 1792-1795.
Demoralization Caused by St. Clair's Defeat.
The United States Government was almost as much demoralized by St.
Clair's defeat as was St. Clair's own army. The loosely-knit nation was
very poor, and very loath to undertake any work which involved sustained
effort and pecuniary sacrifice; while each section was jealous of every
other and was unwilling to embark in any enterprise unlikely to inure to
its own immediate benefit. There was little national glory or reputation
to be won by even a successful Indian war; while another defeat might
prove a serious disaster to a government which was as yet far from firm
in its seat. The Eastern people were lukewarm about a war in which they
had no direct interest; and the foolish frontiersmen, instead of backing
up the administration, railed at it and persistently supported the party
which desired so to limit the powers and energies of the National
Government as to produce mere paralysis. Under such conditions the
national administration, instead of at once redoubling its efforts to
ensure success by shock of arms, was driven to the ignoble necessity of
yet again striving for a hopeless peace.
Reluctance of the Government to Carry on the War.
It would be impossible to paint in too vivid colors the extreme
reluctance of the Government to enter into, or to carry on, war with the
Indians. It was only after every other shift had been vainly tried that
resort was had to the edge of the sword. The United States would gladly
have made a stable peace on honorable terms, and strove with weary
patience to bring about a friendly understanding. But all such efforts
were rendered abortive partly by the treachery and truculence of the
savages, who could only be cowed by a thorough beating, and partly by
the desire of the settlers for lands which the red men claimed as their
hunting grounds.
Peace Envoys Sent to the Tries.
In pursuance of their timidly futile policy of friendliness, the
representatives of the National Government, in the spring of 1792, sent
peace envoys, with a flag of truce, to the hostile tribes. The
unfortunate ambassadors thus chosen for sacrifice were Colonel John
Hardin, the gallant but ill-starred leader of Kentucky horse, who had so
often and with such various success encountered the Indians on the field
of battle; and a Federal officer, Major Alexander Trueman. In June they
started towards the hostile towns, with one or two companions, and soon
fell in with some Indians, who on being shown the white flag, and
informed of the object of their visit, received them with every
appearance of good will. But this was merely a mask. A few hours later
the treacherous savages suddenly fell upon and slew the messengers of
peace. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 238, 239, etc.; also
Marshall.] It was never learned whether the deed was the mere wanton
outrage of some blood-thirsty young braves, or the result of orders
given by one of the Indian councils. At any rate, the Indians never
punished the treachery; and when the chiefs wrote to Washington they
mentioned with cool indifference that "you sent us at different times
different speeches, the bearers whereof our foolish young men killed on
their way" [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Indian affairs, M. 2, p. 224.
The Michigan and Wisconsin historical societies have performed a great
service by publishing so many of these papers.]; not even expressing
regret for the occurrence.
Treachery of the Savages.
The truculent violence and bad faith of the savages merited severe
chastisement; but the United States Government was long-suffering and of
the forbearing to a degree. There was no attempt to avenge the murder of
the flag-of-truce men. On the contrary, renewed efforts were made to
secure a peace by treaty. In the fall of 1792 Rufus Putnam, on behalf of
the United States, succeeded in concluding a treaty with the Wabash and
Illinois tribes, [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 338.] which at
least served to keep many of their young braves out of actual
hostilities. In the following spring three commissioners--Benjamin
Lincoln, Beverly Randolph, and Timothy Pickering, all men of note,--were
sent to persuade the Miami tribes and their allies to agree to a peace.
In his letter of instructions the Secretary of War impressed upon them
the desire of the people of the United States for peace in terms that
were almost humiliating, and even directed them if necessary to cede
some of the lands already granted by the Indians at previous treaties.
Peace Commissioners Go to Niagara.
Failure of the Negotiations.
In May, 1793, the Commissioners went to Niagara, where they held
meetings with various Iroquois chiefs and exchanged friendly letters
with the British officers of the posts, who assured them that they would
help in the effort to conclude a peace. Captain Brant, the Iroquois
chief, acted as spokesman for a deputation of the hostile Indians from
the Miami, where a great council was being held, at which not only the
Northwestern tribes, but the Five Nations, were in attendance. The
commissioners then sailed to the Detroit River, having first sent home a
strong remonstrance against the activity displayed by the new commander
on the Ohio, Wayne, whose vigorous measures, they said, had angered the
Indians and were considered by the British "unfair and unwarrantable."
This was a preposterous complaint; throughout our history, whether in
dealing with Indians or with other foes, our Peace Commissioners have
invariably shown to disadvantage when compared with the military
commandants, for whom they always betray such jealously. Wayne's conduct
was eminently proper; and it is difficult to understand the mental
attitude of the commissioners who criticised it because the British
considered it "unwarrantable." However, a few weeks later they learned
to take a more just view of Wayne, and to thank him for the care with
which he had kept the peace while they were vainly trying to treat; for
at the Detroit they found they could do nothing. Brant and the Iroquois
urged the Northwestern tribes not to yield any point, and promised them
help, telling the British agent, McKee, evidently to his satisfaction,
"we came here not only to assist with our advice, but other ways, ... we
came here with arms in our hands"; and they insisted that the country
belonged to the confederated tribes in common, and so could not be
surrendered save by all. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Brant to McKee, Aug. 4,
1793.] Brant was the inveterate foe of the Americans, and the pensioner
of the British; and his advice to the tribes was sound, and was adopted
by them--though he misled them by his never-fulfilled promise of
support. They refused to consider any proposition which did not
acknowledge the Ohio as the boundary between them and the United States;
and so, towards the end of August, the commissioners returned to report
their failure. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 340-360.] The
final solution of the problem was thus left to the sword of Wayne.
Attitude of the British Becomes Progressively More Hostile.
The attitude of the British gradually changed from passive to active
hostility. In 1792 and 1793 they still wished the Indians to make peace
with the Americans, provided always there were no such concessions made
to the latter as would endanger the British control of the fur trade.
But by the beginning of 1794 the relations between Great Britain and the
United States had become so strained that open war was threatened; for
the advisers of the King, relying on the weakness of the young Federal
Republic, had begun to adopt that tone of brutal insolence, which
reflected well the general attitude of the British people towards the
Americans, and which finally brought on the second war between the two
nations.
Lord Dorchester's Speech.
The British officials in Canada were quick to reflect the tone of the
home government, and, as always in such cases, the more zealous and
belligerent went a little farther than they were authorized. On February
10th Lord Dorchester, Governor of Canada, in an address of welcome to
some of the chiefs from the tribes of the north and west said, speaking
of the boundary: "Children, since my return I find no appearance of a
line remains; and from the manner in which the people of the United
States push on and act and talk... I shall not be surprised if we are at
war with them in the course of the present year; and if so a line must
then be drawn by the warriors... we have acted in the most peaceable
manner and borne the language and conduct of the people of the United
States with patience; but I believe our patience is almost exhausted."
[Footnote: Rives' "Life and Times of James Madison," III., 418. A
verified copy of the speech from the archives of the London foreign
office. The authenticity of the speech was admitted at the time by the
British Minister; yet, extraordinary to say, not only British, but
American historians, have spoken of it as spurious.] Of course such a
speech, delivered to such an audience, was more than a mere incitement
to war; it was a direct appeal to arms. Nor did the encouragement given
the Indians end with words; for in April, Simcoe, the Lieutenant
Governor, himself built a fort at the Miami Rapids, in the very heart of
the hostile tribes, and garrisoned it with British regulars, infantry
and artillery; which, wrote one of the British officials to another, had
"put all the Indians here in great spirits" [Footnote: Canadian
Archives, Thomas Duggan to Joseph Chew, Detroit, April 16, 1794.] to
resist the Americans.
The British and Spaniards Join in Intriguing with the Indians.
The same official further reported that the Spaniards also were exciting
the Indians to war, and were in communication with Simcoe, their
messengers coming to him at his post on the Miami. At this time the
Spanish Governor, Carondelet, was alarmed over Clark's threatened
invasion of Louisiana on behalf of the French Republic. He wrote to
Simcoe asking for English help in the event of such invasion. Simcoe, in
return, wrote expressing his good will, and enclosing a copy of
Dorchester's speech to the Northern Indians; which, Carondelet reported
to the Court of Spain, showed that the English were following the same
system adopted by the Spaniards in reference to the Indians, whom they
were employing with great success against the Americans. [Footnote:
Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, letter of Carondelet, July 9,1794.]
Moreover, the Spaniards, besides communicating with the British, sent
messages to the Indians at the Miami, urging them to attack the
Americans, and promising help; [Footnote: Canadian Archives, letter of
McKee, May 7, 1794.] a promise which they never fulfilled, save that in
a covert way they furnished the savages with arms and munitions of war.
Effect of Dorchester's Speech.
The Indians Greatly Encouraged.
The Canadians themselves were excited and alarmed by Dorchester's
speech, [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Joseph Chew to Thomas Aston
Coffin, Montreal, February 27, 1794.] copies of which were distributed
broadcast; for the general feeling was that it meant that war was about
to be declared between Great Britain and the United States. The Indians
took the same view, as to what the speech meant; but to them it gave
unmixed pleasure and encouragement. The British officials circulated it
everywhere among the tribes, reading it aloud to the gathered chiefs and
fighting men. "His Excellency Governor Simcoe has just now left my house
on his way to Detroit with Lord Dorchester's speech to the Seven
Nations," wrote Brant the Iroquois chief to the Secretary of Indian
Affairs for Canada, "and I have every reason to believe when it is
delivered that matters will take an immediate change to the Westward, as
it will undoubtedly give those Nations high spirits and enable them by a
perfect union to check General Wayne." [Footnote: Canadian Archives,
Brant to Chew, April 21, 1794.] In April, Lieutenant Colonel John
Butler, of the British army, addressed a great council of chiefs near
Buffalo, beginning, "I have now a speech to deliver to you from your
father Lord Dorchester, which is of the utmost consequence, therefore
desire you will pay strict attention to it." [Footnote: Canadian
Archives, Butler to Chew, April 27, 1794.] He then delivered the speech,
to the delight of the Indians, and continued: "You have heard the great
talk of our going to war with the United States, and by the speech of
your Father just now delivered to you, you cannot help seeing there is a
great prospect of it, I have therefore to recommend you to be all
unanimous as one man, and to call in all your people that may be
scattered about the Territories of the United States." McKee, the
British Indian agent among the Northwestern tribes who were at war with
the Americans, reported with joy the rapid growth of warlike spirit
among the savages in consequence of Dorchester's speech, and of the
building of the British fort on the Miami. He wrote, "The face of the
Indian affairs in this country, I have the greatest satisfaction in
informing you, seems considerably altered for the better. His Excellency
Lord Dorchester's speech and the arrival here of speeches from the
Spaniards induce me to believe that a very extensive union of the Indian
Nations will be the immediate consequence. The Lieutenant Governor has
ordered a strong detachment of the 24th Regt. to take post a mile & a
half below this place, this step has given great spirits to the Indians
and impressed them with a hope of our ultimately acting with them and
affording a security for their families, should the enemy penetrate to
their villages." [Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to Chew, May 8,
1794.]
The British Furnish Them with Arms and Munitions.
Nor did the British confine their encouragement to words. The Canadian
authorities forwarded to the Miami tribes, through the agent McKee,
quantities of guns, rifles, and gunlocks, besides vermillion paint and
tobacco. [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Chew to Coffin, June 23, 1794.]
McKee was careful to get from the home authorities the best firearms he
could, explaining that his red protégés preferred the long to the short
rifles, and considered the common trade guns makeshifts, to be used only
until they could get better ones.
British Agents Greet the Scalping Parties.
The Indians made good use of the weapons thus furnished them by the
"neutral" British. A party of Delawares and Shawnees, after a successful
skirmish with the Americans, brought to McKee six of the scalps they had
taken; and part of the speech of presentation at the solemn council
where they were received by McKee, ran: "We had two actions with [some
of Wayne's troops who were guarding convoys] in which a great many of
our enemies were killed. Part of their flesh we have brought here with
us to convince our friend of the truth of their being now in great force
on their march against us; therefore, Father, [addressing McKee] we
desire you to be strong and bid your children make haste to our
assistance as was promised by them." The speaker, a Delaware chief,
afterwards handed the six scalps to a Huron chief, that he might
distribute them among the tribes. McKee sent to the home authorities a
full account of this council, where he had assisted at the reception and
distribution of the scalps the savages had taken from the soldiers of a
nation with which the British still pretended to be at peace; and a few
days later he reported that the Lake Indians were at last gathering, and
that when the fighting men of the various tribes joined forces, as he
had reason to believe they shortly would, the British posts would be
tolerably secure from any attacks by Wayne. [Footnote: Canadian
Archives, McKee's letters May 25 and May 30, 1794.]
Indians Serve the British as Police.
The Indians served the British, not only as a barrier, against the
Americans, but as a police for their own soldiers, to prevent their
deserting. An Englishman who visited the Lake Posts at this time
recorded with a good deal of horror the fate that befell one of a party
of deserters from the British garrison at Detroit. The commander, on
discovering that they had gone, ordered the Indians to bring them back
dead or alive. When overtaken one resisted, and was killed and scalped.
The Indians brought in his scalp and hung it outside the fort, where it
was suffered to remain, that the ominous sight might strike terror to
other discontented soldiers. [Footnote: Draper MSS. From Parliament
Library in Canada, MS. "Canadian Letters," descriptive of a tour in
Canada in 1792-93.]
Anger of the Americans over Dorchester's Speech.
The publication of Lord Dorchester's speech caused angry excitement in
the United States. Many thought it spurious; but Washington, then
President, with his usual clear-sightedness, at once recognized that it
was genuine, and accepted it as proof of Great Britain's hostile feeling
towards his country. Through the Secretary of State he wrote to the
British Minister, calling him to sharp account, not only for
Dorchester's speech but for the act of building a fort on the Miami, and
for the double-dealing of his government, which protested friendship,
with smooth duplicity, while their agents urged the savages to war. "At
the very moment when the British Ministry were forwarding assurances of
good will, does Lord Dorchester foster and encourage in the Indians
hostile dispositions towards the United States," ran the letter, "but
this speech only forebodes hostility; the intelligence which has been
received this morning is, if true, hostility itself...governor Simcoe
has gone to the foot of the Rapids of the Miami, followed by three
companies of a British regiment, in order to build a fort there." The
British Minister, Hammond, in his answer said he was "willing to admit
the authenticity of the speech," and even the building of the fort; but
sought to excuse both by recrimination, asserting that the Americans had
themselves in various ways shown hostility to Great Britain. [Footnote:
Wait's State Papers and Publick Documents, I., 449, 451. Letters of
Randolph, May 20, 1794, and Hammond, May 22, 1794.] In spite of this
explicit admission, however, the British statesmen generally, both in
the House of Lords and the House of Commons, disavowed the speech,
though in guarded terms; [Footnote: Am. State Papers, Foreign Relations,
I., Randolph to Jay, Aug. 18, 1794.] and many Americans were actually
convinced by their denials.
Severity of the Indian Ravages.
Raids and Counter-raids.
Throughout this period, whatever the negotiators might say or do, the
ravages of the Indian war parties never ceased. In the spring following
St. Clair's defeat the frontiers of Pennsylvania suffered as severely as
those of Virginia, from bands of savages who were seeking for scalps,
prisoners, and horses. Boats were way-laid and attacked as they
descended the Ohio; and the remote settlements were mercilessly
scourged. The spies or scouts, the trained Indian fighters, were out all
the while, watching for the war bands; and when they discovered one, a
strong party of rangers or militia was immediately gathered to assail
it, if it could be overtaken. Every variety of good and bad fortune
attended these expeditions. Thus, in August, 1792, the spies discovered
an Indian party in the lower settlements of Kentucky. Thirty militia
gathered, followed the trail, and overtook the marauders at Rolling
Fork, killing four, while the others scattered; of the whites one was
killed and two wounded. About the same time Kenton found a strong Indian
camp which he attacked at dawn, killing three warriors; but when they
turned out in force, and one of his own scouts was killed, he promptly
drew back out of danger. Neither the Indians nor the wild white Indian
fighters made any point of honor about retreating. They wished to do as
much damage as possible to their foes, and if the fight seemed doubtful
they at once withdrew to await a more favorable opportunity. As for the
individual adventures, their name was legion. All the old annalists, all
the old frontiersmen who in after life recorded their memories of the
Indian wars, tell with interminable repetition stories, grewsome in
their blood-thirstiness, and as monotonous in theme as they are varied
in detail:--how such and such a settler was captured by two Indians,
and, watching his chance, fell on his captors when they sat down to
dinner and slew them "with a squaw-axe"; how another man was
treacherously attacked by two Indians who had pretended to be peaceful
traders, and how, though wounded, he killed them both; how two or three
cabins were surprised by the savages and all the inhabitants slain; or
how a flotilla of flatboats was taken and destroyed while moored to the
bank of the Ohio; and so on without end. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Major
McCully to Captain Biddle, Pittsburgh, May 5, 1792; B. Netherland to
Evan Shelby, July 5, 1793, etc., etc. Also Kentucky _Gazette_, Sept. I,
1792; Charleston _Gazette_, July 22, 1791, etc.]
The Frontiersmen Wish War.
The United States authorities vainly sought peace; while the British
instigated the tribes to war, and the savages themselves never thought
of ceasing their hostilities. The frontiersmen also wished war, and
regarded the British and Indians with an equal hatred. They knew that
the presence of the British in the Lake Posts meant Indian war; they
knew that the Indians would war on them, whether they behaved well or
ill, until the tribes suffered some signal overthrow; and they coveted
the Indian lands with a desire as simple as it was brutal. Nor were land
hunger and revenge the only motives that stirred them to aggression;
meaner feelings were mixed with the greed for untilled prairie and
unfelled forest, and the fierce longing for blood. Throughout our
history as a nation, as long as we had a frontier, there was always a
class of frontiersmen for whom an Indian war meant the chance to acquire
wealth at the expense of the Government: and on the Ohio in 1792 and '93
there were plenty of men who, in the event of a campaign, hoped to make
profit out of the goods, horses, and cattle they supplied the soldiers.
One of Madison's Kentucky friends wrote him with rather startling
frankness that the welfare of the new State hinged on the advent of an
army to assail the Indians, first, because of the defence it would give
the settlers, and, secondly, because it would be the chief means for
introducing into the country a sufficient quantity of money for
circulation. [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., Madison Papers, Hubbard Taylor
to Madison, Jan. 3, 1792.] Madison himself evidently saw nothing out of
the way in this twofold motive of the frontiersmen for wishing the
presence of an army. In all the border communities there was a lack of
circulating medium, and an earnest desire to obtain more by any
expedient.
Like many other frontiersmen, Madison's correspondent indulged almost
equally in complaints of the Indian ravages, and in denunciations of the
regular army which alone could put an end to them and of the national
party which sustained the army. [Footnote: _Do._, Taylor to Madison,
April 16, 1792; May 8 and 17, 1792; May 23, 1793, etc.]
Wayne Appointed to Command Western Army.
Major General Anthony Wayne, a Pennsylvanian, had been chosen to succeed
St. Clair in the command of the army; and on him devolved the task of
wresting victory from the formidable forest tribes, fighting as the
latter were in the almost impenetrable wilderness of their own country.
The tribes were aided by the support covertly, and often openly, yielded
them by the British. They had even more effective allies in the
suspicion with which the backwoodsmen regarded the regular army, and
the supine indifference of the people at large, which forced the
administration to try every means to obtain peace before adopting the
only manly and honorable course, a vigorous war.
Wayne's Character and History.
Of all men, Wayne was the best fitted for the work. In the Revolutionary
War no other general, American, British, or French, won such a
reputation for hard fighting, and for daring energy and dogged courage.
He felt very keenly that delight in the actual shock of battle which the
most famous fighting generals have possessed. He gloried in the
excitement and danger, and shone at his best when the stress was sorest;
and because of his magnificent courage his soldiers had affectionately
christened him "Mad Anthony." But his head was as cool as his heart was
stout. He was taught in a rough school; for the early campaigns in which
he took part were waged against the gallant generals and splendid
soldiery of the British King. By experience he had grown to add caution
to his dauntless energy. Once, after the battle of Brandywine, when he
had pushed close to the enemy, with his usual fearless self-confidence,
he was surprised in a night attack by the equally daring British general
Grey, and his brigade was severely punished with the bayonet. It was a
lesson he never forgot; it did not in any way abate his self-reliance or
his fiery ardor, but it taught him the necessity of forethought, of
thorough preparation, and of ceaseless watchfulness. A few days later he
led the assault at Germantown, driving the Hessians before him with the
bayonet. This was always his favorite weapon; he had the utmost faith in
coming to close quarters, and he trained his soldiers to trust the
steel. At Monmouth he turned the fortunes of the day by his stubborn and
successful resistance to the repeated bayonet charges of the Guards and
Grenadiers. His greatest stroke was the storming of Stony Point, where
in person he led the midnight rush of his troops over the walls of the
British fort. He fought with his usual hardihood against Cornwallis; and
at the close of the Revolutionary War he made a successful campaign
against the Creeks in Georgia. During this campaign the Creeks one night
tried to surprise his camp, and attacked with resolute ferocity, putting
to flight some of the troops; but Wayne rallied them and sword in hand
he led them against the savages, who were overthrown and driven from the
field. In one of the charges he cut down an Indian chief; and the dying
man, as he fell, killed Wayne's horse with a pistol shot.
Wayne Reorganizes the Army
As soon as Wayne reached the Ohio, in June, 1792, he set about
reorganizing the army. He had as a nucleus the remnant of St. Clair's
beaten forces; and to this were speedily added hundreds of recruits
enlisted under new legislation by Congress, and shipped to him as fast
as the recruiting officers could send them. The men were of precisely
the same general character as those who had failed so dismally under St.
Clair, and it was even more difficult to turn them into good soldiers,
for the repeated disasters, crowned by the final crushing horror, had
unnerved them and made them feel that their task was hopeless, and that
they were foredoomed to defeat. [Footnote: Bradley MSS. Letters and
Journal of Captain Daniel Bradley; see entry of May 7, 1793, etc.] The
mortality among the officers had been great, and the new officers,
though full of zeal, needed careful training. Among the men desertions
were very common; and on the occasion of a sudden alarm Wayne found that
many of his sentries left their posts and fled. [Footnote: "Major
General Anthony Wayne," by Charles J. Stillé, p. 323.] Only rigorous and
long continued discipline and exercise under a commander both stern and
capable, could turn such men into soldiers fit for the work Wayne had
before him. He saw this at once, and realized that a premature movement
meant nothing but another defeat; and he began by careful and patient
labor to turn his horde of raw recruits into a compact and efficient
army, which he might use with his customary energy and decision. When he
took command of the army--or "Legion," as he preferred to call it--the
one stipulation he made was that the campaign should not begin until his
ranks were full and his men thoroughly disciplined.
He Makes a Winter Camp on the Ohio.
Towards the end of the summer of '92 he established his camp on the Ohio
about twenty-seven miles below Pittsburgh. He drilled both officers and
men with unwearied patience, and gradually the officers became able to
do the drilling themselves, while the men acquired the soldierly
self-confidence of veterans. As the new recruits came in they found
themselves with an army which was rapidly learning how to manoeuvre with
precision, to obey orders unhesitatingly, and to look forward eagerly to
a battle with the foe. Throughout the winter Wayne kept at work, and by
the spring he had under him twenty-five hundred regular soldiers who
were already worthy to be trusted in a campaign. He never relaxed his
efforts to improve them; though a man of weaker stuff might well have
been discouraged by the timid and hesitating policy of the National
Government. The Secretary of War, in writing to him, laid stress chiefly
on the fact that the American people desired at every hazard to avert an
Indian war, and that on no account should offensive operations be
undertaken against the tribes. Such orders tied Wayne's hands, for
offensive operations offered the only means of ending the war; but he
patiently bided his time, and made ready his army against the day when
his superiors should allow him to use the weapon he had tempered.
In Spring He Shifts His Camp to Near Cincinnati.
His Second Winter Camp at Greeneville.
In May, '93, he brought his army down the Ohio to Fort Washington, and
near it established a camp which he christened Hobson's Choice. Here he
was forced to wait the results of the fruitless negotiations carried on
by the United States Peace Commissioners, and it was not until about the
1st of October that he was given permission to begin the campaign. Even
when he was allowed to move his army forward he was fettered by
injunctions not to run any risks--and of course a really good fighting
general ought to be prepared to run risks. The Secretary of War wrote
him that above all things he was to remember to hazard nothing, for a
defeat would be fraught with ruinous consequences to the country. Wayne
knew very well that if such was the temper of the country and the
Government, it behooved him to be cautious, and he answered that, though
he would at once advance towards the Indian towns, to threaten the
tribes, he would not run the least unnecessary risk. Accordingly he
shifted his army to a place some eighty miles north of Cincinnati,
where he encamped for the winter, building a place of strength which he
named Greeneville in honor of his old comrade in arms, General Greene.
He sent forward a strong detachment of his troops to the site of St.
Clair's defeat, where they built a post which was named Fort Recovery.
The discipline of the army steadily improved, though now and then a
soldier deserted, usually fleeing to Kentucky, but in one or two cases
striking through the woods to Detroit. The bands of auxiliary militia
that served now and then for short periods with the regulars, were of
course much less well trained and less dependable.
Indians Attack the Convoys.
The Indians were always lurking about the forts, and threatening the
convoys of provisions and munitions as they marched slowly from one to
the other. Any party that left a fort was in imminent danger. On one
occasion the commander of Fort Jefferson and his orderly were killed and
scalped but three hundred yards from the fort. A previous commander of
this fort while hunting in this neighborhood had been attacked in
similar fashion, and though he escaped, his son and a soldier were
slain. On another occasion a dozen men, near the same fort, were
surprised while haying; four were killed and the other eight captured,
four of whom were burned at the stake. [Footnote: Bradley MSS., Journal,
entries of Feb. 11, Feb. 24, June 24, July 12, 1792.]
Before Wayne moved down the Ohio a band of Kentucky mounted riflemen,
under major John Adair, were attacked under the walls of one of the log
forts--Fort St. Clair--as they were convoying a large number of
packhorses. The riflemen were in camp at the time, the Indians making
the assault at dawn. Most of the horses were driven off or killed, and
the men fled to the fort, which, Adair dryly remarked, proved "a place
of safety for the bashful"; but he rallied fifty, who drove off the
Indians, killing two and wounding others. Of his own men six were killed
and five wounded. [Footnote: Am. State Papers, IV., 335. Adair to
Wilkinson, Nov. 6, 1792.]
Defeat of a Detachment.
Wayne's own detachments occasionally fared as badly. In the fall of
1793, just after he had advanced to Greeneville, a party of ninety
regulars, who were escorting twenty heavily laden wagons, were surprised
and scattered, a few miles from the scene of Adair's misadventure.
[Footnote: Bradley MSS., Journal, entry of October 17, 1793.] The
lieutenant and ensign who were in command and five or six of their men
were slain, fighting bravely; half a dozen were captured; the rest were
panic struck and fled without resistance. The Indians took off about
seventy horses, leaving the wagons standing in the middle of the road,
with their contents uninjured; and a rescue party brought them safely to
Wayne. The victors were a party of Wyandots and Ottawas under the chief
Little Otter. On October 24th the British agent at the Miami towns met
in solemn council with these Indians and with another successful war
party. The Indians had with them ten scalps and two prisoners. Seven of
the scalps they sent off, by an Indian runner, a special ally friend of
the British agent, to be distributed among the different Lake Indians,
to rouse them to war. One of their prisoners, an Irishman, they refused
to surrender; but the other they gave to the agent. He proved to be a
German, a mercenary who had originally been in Burgoyne's army.
[Footnote: Canadian Archives, Duggan to Chew, February 3, 1794.
inclosing his journal for the fall of 1793. American State Papers, IV.,
361, Wayne to Knox, October 23, 1793. The Americans lost 13 men; the
Indian reports of course exaggerated this.] Later one of the remaining
captives made his escape, killing his two Indian owners, a man and a
woman, both of whom had been leaders of war parties.
Another Detachment Defeats a Body of Indians.
In the spring of 1794, as soon as the ground was dry, Wayne prepared to
advance towards the hostile towns and force a decisive battle. He was
delayed for a long time by lack of provisions, the soldiers being on
such short rations that they could not move. The mounted riflemen of
Kentucky, who had been sent home at the beginning of winter, again
joined him. Among the regulars, in the rifle company, was a young
Kentuckian, Captain William Clark, brother of George Rogers Clark, and
afterwards one of the two famous explorers who first crossed the
continent to the Pacific. In his letters home Clark dwelt much on the
laborious nature of his duties, and mentioned that he was "like to have
starved," and had to depend on his rifle for subsistence. [Footnote:
Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan Clark, May 25, 1794] In May he
was sent from Fort Washington with twenty dragoons and sixty infantry to
escort 700 packhorses to Greeneville. When eighteen miles from Fort
Washington Indians attacked his van, driving off a few packhorses; but
Clark brought up his men from the rear and after a smart skirmish put
the savages to flight. They left behind one of their number dead, two
wounded, and seven rifles; Clark lost two men killed and two wounded.
[Footnote: _Do_. Also Canadian Archives, Duggan to Chew, May 30, 1794.
As an instance of the utter untrustworthiness of these Indian or British
accounts of the American losses, it may be mentioned that Duggan says
the Indians brought off forty scalps, and killed an unknown number of
Americans in addition; whereas in reality only two were slain. Even
Duggan admits that the Indians were beaten off.]
A Large War Party Attacks Fort Recovery.
On the last day of June a determined assault was made by the Indians on
Fort Recovery, which was garrisoned by about two hundred men. Thanks to
the efforts of the British agents, and of the runners from the allied
tribes of the Lower Lakes, the Chippewas and all the tribes of the Upper
Lakes had taken the tomahawk, and in June they gathered at the Miami.
Over two thousand warriors, all told, [Footnote: Canadian Archives,
McKee to Chew, July 7, 1794.] assembled; a larger body than had ever
before marched against the Americans. [Footnote: Am. State Papers, IV.,
488, Wayne to the Secretary of War, 1794. He says they probably numbered
from 1500 to 2000 men, which was apparently about the truth. Throughout
this campaign the estimate of the Americans as to the Indian forces and
losses were usually close to the facts, and were often under rather than
over statements.] They were eager for war, and wished to make a stroke
of note against their foes; and they resolved to try to carry Fort
Recovery, built on the scene of their victory over St. Clair. They
streamed down through the woods in long columns, and silently neared the
fort. With them went a number of English and French rangers, most of
whom were painted and dressed like the Indians.
Repulse of the Savages.
When they reached the fort they found camped close to the walls a party
of fifty dragoons and ninety riflemen. These dragoons and riflemen had
escorted a brigade of packhorses from Greeneville the day before, and
having left the supplies in the fort were about to return with the
unladen packhorses. But soon after daybreak the Indians rushed their
camp. Against such overwhelming numbers no effective resistance could be
made. After a few moments' fight the men broke and ran to the fort. The
officers, as usual, showed no fear, and were the last to retreat, half
of them being killed or wounded,--one of the honorably noteworthy
features of all these Indian fights was the large relative loss among
the officers. Most of the dragoons and riflemen reached the fort,
including nineteen who were wounded; nineteen officers and privates were
killed, and two of the packhorsemen were killed and three captured. Two
hundred packhorses were captured. The Indians, flushed with success and
rendered over-confident by their immense superiority in numbers, made a
rush at the fort, hoping to carry it by storm. They were beaten back at
once with severe loss; for in such work they were no match for their
foes. They then surrounded the fort, kept up a harmless fire all day,
and renewed it the following morning. In the night they bore off their
dead, finding them with the help of torches; eight or ten of those
nearest the fort they could not get. They then drew off and marched back
to the Miami towns. At least twenty-five [Footnote: Canadian Archives,
G. La Mothe to Joseph Chew, Michilimackinac, July 19, 1794. McKee says,
"17 men killed"; evidently he either wilfully understated the truth, or
else referred only to the particular tribes with which he was
associated. La Mothe says, "they have lost twenty-five people amongst
different nations," but as he was only speaking of the Upper Lake
Indians, it may be that the total Indian loss was 25 plus 17, or 42.
McKee always understates the British force and loss, and greatly
overstates the loss and force of the Americans. In this letter he says
that the Americans had 50 men killed, instead of 22; and that 60
"drivers" (packhorsemen) were taken and killed; whereas in reality 3
were taken and 2 killed.] of them had been killed, and a great number
wounded; whereas they had only succeeded in killing one and wounding
eleven of the garrison. They were much disheartened at the check, and
the Upper Lake Indians began to go home. The savages were as fickle as
they were ferocious: and though terrible antagonists when fighting on
their own ground and in their own manner, they lacked the stability
necessary for undertaking a formidable offensive movement in mass. This
army of two thousand warriors, the largest they had ever assembled, was
repulsed with loss in an attack on a wooden fort with a garrison not one
sixth their strength, and then dissolved without accomplishing anything
at all.
Wayne Starts on his March.
Severity of Wayne's Discipline.
Three weeks after the successful defence of Fort Recovery, Wayne was
joined by a large force of mounted volunteers from Kentucky, under
General Scott; and on July 27th he set out towards the Miami towns. The
Indians who watched his march brought word to the British that his army
went twice as far in a day as St. Clair's, that he kept his scouts well
out and his troops always in open order and ready for battle; that he
exercised the greatest precaution to avoid an ambush or surprise, and
that every night the camps of the different regiments were surrounded by
breastworks of fallen trees so as to render a sudden assault hopeless.
Wayne was determined to avoid the fates of Braddock and St. Clair. His
"legion" of regular troops, was over two thousand strong. His discipline
was very severe, yet he kept the loyal affection of his men. He had made
the officers devote much of their time to training the infantry in
marksmanship and the use of the bayonet and the cavalry in the use of
the sabre. He impressed upon the cavalry and infantry alike that their
safety lay in charging home with the utmost resolution. By steady drill
he had turned his force, which was originally not of a promising
character, into as fine an army, for its size, as a general could wish
to command.
Excellence of his Troops.
The perfection of fighting capacity to which he had brought his forces
caused much talk among the frontiersmen themselves. One of the
contingent of Tennessee militia wrote home in the highest praise of the
horsemanship and swordsmanship of the cavalry, who galloped their horses
at speed over any ground, and leaped them over formidable obstacles, and
of the bayonet practice, and especially of the marksmanship, of the
infantry. He remarked that hunters were apt to undervalue the soldiers
as marksmen, but that Wayne's riflemen were as good shots as any hunters
he had ever seen at any of the many matches he had attended in the
backwoods. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, August 27, 1793.]
Wayne's Scouts.
Wayne showed his capacity as a commander by the use he made of his spies
or scouts. A few of these were Chickasaw or Choctaw Indians; the rest,
twenty or thirty in number, were drawn from the ranks of the wild white
Indian-fighters, the men who plied their trade of warfare and the chase
right on the hunting grounds of the hostile tribes. They were far more
dangerous to the Indians, and far more useful to the army, than the like
number of regular soldiers or ordinary rangers.
Efficiency of the Scouts.
It was on these fierce backwoods riflemen that Wayne chiefly relied for
news of the Indians, and they served him well. In small parties, or
singly, they threaded the forest scores of miles in advance or to one
side of the marching army, and kept close watch on the Indians'
movements. As skilful and hardy as the red warriors, much better
marksmen, and even more daring, they took many scalps, harrying the
hunting parties, and hanging on the outskirts of the big wigwam
villages. They captured and brought in Indian after Indian; from whom
Wayne got valuable information. The use of scouts, and the consequent
knowledge gained by the examination of Indian prisoners, emphasized the
difference between St. Clair and Wayne. Wayne's reports are accompanied
by many examinations of Indian captives. [Footnote: American State
Papers, IV., 489, 94. Examination of two Pottawatamies captured on the
5th of June; of two Shawnees captured on the 22d of June; of a Shawnee
captured on Aug. 11th, etc., etc.]
Among these wilderness warriors who served under Wayne were some who
became known far and wide along the border for their feats of reckless
personal prowess and their strange adventures. They were of course all
men of remarkable bodily strength and agility, with almost unlimited
power of endurance, and the keenest eyesight; and they were masters in
the use of their weapons. Several had been captured by the Indians when
children, and had lived for years with them before rejoining the whites;
so that they knew well the speech and customs of the different tribes.
Feats of the Scouts.
One of these men was the captain of the spies, William Wells. When a boy
of twelve he had been captured by the Miamis, and had grown to manhood
among them, living like any other young warrior; his Indian name was
Black Snake, and he married a sister of the great war-chief, Little
Turtle. He fought with the rest of the Miamis, and by the side of Little
Turtle, in the victories the Northwestern Indians gained over Harmar and
St. Clair, and during the last battle he killed several soldiers with
his own hand. Afterwards, by some wayward freak of mind, he became
harassed by the thought that perhaps he had slain some of his own
kinsmen; dim memories of his childhood came back to him; and he resolved
to leave his Indian wife and half-breed children and rejoin the people
of his own color. Tradition relates that on the eve of his departure he
made his purpose known to Little Turtle, and added, "We have long been
friends; we are friends yet, until the sun stands so high [indicating
the place] in the heavens; from that time we are enemies and may kill
one another." Be this as it may, he came to Wayne, was taken into high
favor, and made chief of scouts, and served loyally and with signal
success until the end of the campaign. After the campaign he was joined
by his Indian wife and his children; the latter grew up and married well
in the community, so that their blood now flows in the veins of many of
the descendants of the old pioneers. Wells himself was slain by the
Indians long afterwards, in 1812, at the Chicago massacre.
Surprise of an Indian Party.
One of Wells' fellow spies was William Miller. Miller, like Wells, had
been captured by the Indians when a boy, together with his brother
Christopher. When he grew to manhood he longed to rejoin his own people,
and finally did so, but he could not persuade his brother to come with
him, for Christopher had become an Indian at heart. In June, 1794,
Wells, Miller, and a third spy, Robert McClellan, were sent out by Wayne
with special instructions to bring in a live Indian. McClellan, who a
number of years afterwards became a famous plainsman and Rocky Mountain
man, was remarkably swift of foot. Near the Glaize River they found
three Indians roasting venison by a fire, on a high open piece of
ground, clear of brushwood. By taking advantage of the cover yielded by
a fallen treetop the three scouts crawled within seventy yards of the
camp fire; and Wells and Miller agreed to fire at the two outermost
Indians, while McClellan, as soon as they had fired, was to dash in and
run down the third. As the rifles cracked the two doomed warriors fell
dead in their tracks; while McClellan bounded forward at full speed,
tomahawk in hand. The Indian had no time to pick up his gun; fleeing for
his life he reached the bank of the river, where the bluffs were twenty
feet high, and sprang over into the stream-bed. He struck a miry place,
and while he was floundering McClellan came to the top of the bluff and
instantly sprang down full on him, and overpowered him. The others came
up and secured the prisoner, whom they found to be a white man; and to
Miller's astonishment it proved to be his brother Christopher. The
scouts brought their prisoner, and the scalps of the two slain warriors,
back to Wayne. At first Christopher was sulky and refused to join the
whites; so at Greeneville he was put in the guard house. After a few
days he grew more cheerful, and said he had changed his mind. Wayne set
him at liberty, and he not only served valiantly as a scout through the
campaign, but acted as Wayne's interpreter. Early in July he showed his
good faith by assisting McClellan in the capture of a Pottawatamie
chief.
An Unexpected Act of Mercy.
On one of Wells' scouts he and his companions came across a family of
Indians in a canoe by the river bank. The white wood rangers were as
ruthless as their red foes, sparing neither sex nor age; and the scouts
were cocking rifles when Wells recognized the Indians as being the
family into which he had been adopted, and by which he had been treated
as a son and brother. Springing forward he swore immediate death to the
first man who fired; and then told his companions who the Indians were.
The scouts at once dropped their weapons, shook hands with the Miamis,
and sent them off unharmed.
Last Scouting Trip before the Battle.
Wells' last scouting trip was made just before the final battle of the
campaign. As it was the eve of the decisive struggle, Wayne was anxious
to get a prisoner. Wells went off with three companions--McClellan, a
man named Mahaffy, and a man named May. May, like Wells and Miller, had
lived long with the Indians, first as a prisoner, and afterwards as an
adopted member of their tribe, but had finally made his escape. The four
scouts succeeded in capturing an Indian man and woman, whom they bound
securely. Instead of returning at once with their captives, the
champions, in sheer dare-devil, ferocious love of adventure, determined,
as it was already nightfall, to leave the two bound Indians where they
could find them again, and go into one of the Indian camps to do some
killing. The camp they selected was but a couple of miles from the
British fort. They were dressed and painted like Indians, and spoke the
Indian tongues; so, riding boldly forward, they came right among the
warriors who stood grouped around the camp fires. They were at
arm's-length before their disguise was discovered. Immediately each of
them, choosing his man, fired into an Indian, and then they fled,
pursued by a hail of bullets. May's horse slipped and fell in the bed of
a stream, and he was captured. The other three, spurring hard and
leaning forward in their saddles to avoid the bullets, escaped, though
both Wells and McClellan were wounded; and they brought their Indian
prisoners into Wayne's camp that night. May was recognized by the
Indians as their former prisoner; and next day they tied him up, made a
mark on his breast for a target, and shot him to death. [Footnote:
McBride collects or reprints a number of narratives dealing with these
border heroes; some of them are by contemporaries who took part in their
deeds. Brickell's narrative corroborates these stories; the differences
are such as would naturally be explained by the fact that different
observers were writing of the same facts from memory after a lapse of
several years. In their essentials the narratives are undoubtedly
trustworthy. In the Draper collection there are scores of MS. narratives
of similar kind, written down from what the pioneers said in their old
age; unfortunately it is difficult to sift out the true from the false,
unless the stories are corroborated from outside sources; and most of
the tales in the Draper MSS. are evidently hopelessly distorted. Wells'
daring attack on the Indian camp is alluded to in the Bradley MSS.; the
journal, under date of August 12th, recites how four white spies went
down almost to Lake Erie, captured two Indians, and then attacked the
Indians in their tents, three of the spies being wounded.]
Wayne Reaches the Maumee and Builds Fort Defiance.
With his advance effectually covered by his scouts, and his army guarded
by his own ceaseless vigilance, Wayne marched without opposition to the
confluence of the Glaize and the Maumee, where the hostile Indian
villages began, and whence they stretched to below the British fort. The
savages were taken by surprise and fled without offering opposition;
while Wayne halted, on August 8th, and spent a week in building a strong
log stockade, with four good blockhouses as bastions; he christened the
work Fort Defiance. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 490, Wayne to
Secretary of War, Aug. 14, 1794.] The Indians had cleared and tilled
immense fields, and the troops revelled in the fresh vegetables and ears
of roasted corn, and enjoyed the rest; [Footnote: Bradley MSS. Letter of
Captain Daniel Bradley to Ebenezer Banks, Grand Glaize, August 28,
1794.] for during the march the labor of cutting a road through the
thick forest had been very severe, while the water was bad and the
mosquitoes were exceedingly troublesome. At one place a tree fell on
Wayne and nearly killed him; but though somewhat crippled he continued
as active and vigilant as ever. [Footnote: American Pioneer, I., 317,
Daily Journal of Wayne's Campaign. By Lieutenant Boyer. Reprinted
separately in Cincinnati in 1866.]
The Indians Decline to Make Peace.
From Fort Defiance Wayne sent a final offer of peace to the Indians,
summoning them at once to send deputies to meet him. The letter was
carried by Christopher Miller, and a Shawnee prisoner; and in it Wayne
explained that Miller was a Shawnee by adoption, whom his soldiers had
captured "six month since," while the Shawnee warrior had been taken but
a couple of days before; and he warned the Indians that he had seven
Indian prisoners, who had been well treated, but who would be put to
death if Miller were harmed. The Indians did not molest Miller, but
sought to obtain delay, and would give no definite answer; whereupon
Wayne advanced against them, having laid waste and destroyed all their
villages and fields.
Wayne Marches Forward.
His army marched on the 15th, and on the 18th reached Roche du Bout, by
the Maumee Rapids, only a few miles from the British fort. Next day was
spent in building rough breastwork to protect the stores and baggage,
and in reconnoitring the Indian position. [Footnote: American State
Papers, 491, Wayne's Report to Secretary of War, August 28, 1794.]
The Indians--Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Miamis,
Pottawatamies, Chippewas, and Iroquois--were camped closed to the
British. There were between fifteen hundred and two thousand warriors;
and in addition there were seventy rangers from Detroit, French,
English, and refugee Americans, under Captain Caldwell, who fought with
them in the battle. The British agent McKee was with them; and so was
Simon Girty, the "white renegade," and another partisan leader, Elliott.
But McKee, Girty, and Elliott did not actually fight in the battle.
[Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to Chew, August 27, 1794. McKee says
there were 1300 Indians, and omits all allusion to Caldwell's rangers.
He always underestimates the Indian numbers and loss. In the battle one
of Caldwell's rangers, Antoine Lasselle, was captured. He gave in detail
the numbers of the Indians engaged; they footed up to over 1500. A
deserter from the fort, a British drummer of the 24th Regiment, named
John Bevin, testified that he had heard both McKee and Elliott report
the number of Indians as 2000, in talking to Major Campbell, the
commandant of the fort, after the battle. He and Lasselle agree as to
Caldwell's rangers. See their depositions, American State Papers, IV.,
494.]
The Indians' Stand at the Fallen Timbers.
On August 20, 1794, Wayne marched to battle against the Indians.
[Footnote: Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan Clark, August 28,
1794. McBride, II., 129; "Life of Paxton." Many of the regulars and
volunteers were left in Fort Defiance and the breastworks on the Maumee
as garrisons.] They lay about six miles down the river, near the British
fort, in a place known as the Fallen Timbers, because there the thick
forest had been overturned by a whirlwind, and the dead trees lay piled
across one another in rows. All the baggage was left behind in the
breastwork, with a sufficient guard. The army numbered about three
thousand men; two thousand were regulars, and there were a thousand
mounted volunteers from Kentucky under General Scott.
March of the Army.
The army marched down the left or north branch of the Maumee. A small
force of mounted volunteers--Kentucky militia--were in front. On the
right flank the squadron of dragoons, the regular cavalry, marched next
to the river. The infantry, armed with musket and bayonet, were formed
in two long lines, the second some little distance behind the first; the
left of the first line being continued by the companies of regular
riflemen and light troops. Scott, with the body of the mounted
volunteers, was thrown out on the left with instructions to turn the
flank of the Indians, thus effectually preventing them from performing a
similar feat at the expense of the Americans. There could be no greater
contrast than that between Wayne's carefully trained troops, marching in
open order to the attack, and St. Clair's huddled mass of raw soldiers
receiving an assault they were powerless to repel.
Heavy Skirmishing,
The Indians stretched in a line nearly two miles long at right angles to
the river, and began the battle confidently enough. They attacked and
drove in the volunteers who were in advance and the firing then began
along the entire front. But their success was momentary. Wayne ordered
the first line of the infantry to advance with trailed arms, so as to
rouse the savages from their cover, then to fire into their backs at
close range, and to follow them hard with the bayonet, so as to give
them no time to load. The regular cavalry were directed to charge the
left flank of the enemy; for Wayne had determined "to put the horse hoof
on the moccasin." Both orders were executed with spirit and vigor.
Charge of the Dragoons.
It would have been difficult to find more unfavorable ground for
cavalry; nevertheless the dragoons rode against their foes at a gallop,
with broad-swords swinging, the horses dodging in and out among the
trees and jumping the fallen logs. They received a fire at close
quarters which emptied a dozen saddles, both captains being shot down.
One, the commander of the squadron, Captain Mis Campbell [Footnote: A
curious name, but so given in all the reports.], was killed; the other,
Captain Van Rensselaer, a representative of one of the old Knickerbocker
families of New York, who had joined the army from pure love of
adventure, was wounded. The command devolved on Lieutenant Covington,
who led forward the troopers, with Lieutenant Webb alongside him; and
the dragoons burst among the savages at full speed, and routed them in a
moment. Covington cut down two of the Indians with his own hand, and
Webb one.
Successful Bayonet Charge.
At the same time the first line of the infantry charged with equal
impetuosity and success. The Indians delivered one volley and were then
roused from their hiding places with the bayonet; as they fled they were
shot down, and if they attempted to halt they were at once assailed and
again driven with the bayonet. They could make no stand at all, and the
battle was won with ease. So complete was the success that only the
first line of regulars was able to take part in the fighting; the second
line, and Scott's horse-riflemen, on the left, in spite of their
exertions were unable to reach the battle-field until the Indians were
driven from it; "there not being a sufficiency of the enemy for the
Legion to play on," wrote Clark. The entire action lasted under forty
minutes. [Footnote: Bradley MSS., entry in the journal for August 20th.]
Less than a thousand of the Americans were actually engaged. They
pursued the beaten and fleeing Indians for two miles, the cavalry
halting only when under the walls of the British fort.
A Complete and Easy Victory.
Thirty-three of the Americans were killed and one hundred wounded.
[Footnote: Wayne's report; of the wounded 11 afterwards died. He gives
an itemized statement. Clark in his letter makes the dead 34 (including
8 militia instead of 7) and the wounded only 70. Wayne reports the
Indian loss as twice as great as that of the whites; and says the woods
were strewn with their dead bodies and those of their white auxiliaries.
Clark says 100 Indians were killed. The Englishman, Thomas Duggan,
writing from Detroit to Joseph Chew, Secretary of the Indian Office,
says officially that "great numbers" of the Indians were slain. The
journal of Wayne's campaign says 40 dead were left on the field, and
that there was considerable additional, but unascertained, loss in the
rapid two miles pursuit. The member of Caldwell's company who was
captured was a French Canadian; his deposition is given by Wayne. McKee
says the Indians lost but 19 men, and that but 400 were engaged,
specifying the Wyandots and Ottawas as being those who did the fighting
and suffered the loss; and he puts the loss of the Americans, although
he admits that they won, at between 300 and 400. He was furious at the
defeat, and was endeavoring to minimize it in every way. He does not
mention the presence of Caldwell's white company; he makes the mistake
of putting the American cavalry on the wrong wing, in trying to show
that only the Ottawas and Wyandots were engaged; and if his figures, 19
dead, have any value at all, they refer only to those two tribes; above
I have repeatedly shown that he invariably underestimated the Indian
losses, usually giving the losses suffered by the band he was with as
being the entire loss. In this case he speaks of the fighting and loss
as being confined to the Ottawas and Wyandots; but Brickell, who was
with the Delawares, states that "many of the Delawares were killed and
wounded." All the Indians were engaged; and doubtless all the tribes
suffered proportionately; and much more than the Americans. Captain
Daniel Bradley in his above quoted letter of Aug. 28th to Ebenezer Banks
(Bradley MSS.) says that between 50 and 100 Indians were killed.] It was
an easy victory. The Indians suffered much more heavily than the
Americans; in killed they probably lost two or three times as many.
Among the dead were white men from Caldwell's company; and one white
ranger was captured. It was the most complete and important victory ever
gained over the Northwestern Indians, during the forty years' warfare to
which, it put an end; and it was the only considerable pitched battle in
which they lost more than their foes. They suffered heavily among their
leaders; no less than eight Wyandot chiefs were slain.
The British in the Fort.
From the fort the British had seen, with shame and anger, the rout of
their Indian allies. Their commander wrote to Wayne to demand his
intentions; Wayne responded that he thought they were made sufficiently
evident by his successful battle with the savages. The Englishman wrote
in resentment of this curt reply, complaining that Wayne's soldiers had
approached within pistol shot of the fort, and threatening to fire upon
them if the offence was repeated. Wayne responded by summoning him to
abandon the fort; a summons which he of course refused to heed. Wayne
then gave orders to destroy everything up to the very walls of the fort,
and his commands were carried out to the letter; not only were the
Indian villages burned and their crops cut down, but all the houses and
buildings of the British agents and traders, including McKee's, were
levelled to the ground. The British commander did not dare to interfere
or make good his threats: nor, on the other hand, did Wayne dare to
storm the fort, which was well built and heavily armed.
The Army Marches Back.
After completing his work of destruction Wayne marched his army back to
Fort Defiance. Here he was obliged to halt for over a fortnight while he
sent back to Fort Recovery for provisions. He employed the time in work
on the fort, which he strengthened so that it would stand an attack by a
regular army. The mounted volunteers were turned to account in a new
manner, being employed not only to escort the pack-animals but
themselves to transport the flour on their horses. There was much
sickness among the soldiers, especially from fever and ague, and but for
the corn and vegetables they obtained from the Indian towns which were
scattered thickly along the Maumee they would have suffered from hunger.
They were especially disturbed because all the whiskey was used
up. [Footnote: Daily Journal of Wayne's Campaign, "American Pioneer," I.,
351]
On September 14th the legion started westward towards the Miami Towns at
the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers, the scene of
Harmar's disaster. In four days the towns were reached, the Indians
being too cowed to offer resistance. Here the army spent six weeks,
burned the towns and destroyed the fields and stores of the hostile
tribes, and built a fort which was christened Fort Wayne. British
deserters came in from time to time; some of the Canadian traders made
overtures to the army and agreed to furnish provisions at a moderate
price; and of the savages only straggling parties were seen. The mounted
volunteers grew mutinous, but were kept in order by their commander
Scott, a rough, capable backwoods soldier. Their term of service at
length expired and they were sent home; and the regulars of the Legion,
leaving a garrison at Fort Wayne, marched back to Greeneville, and
reached it on November 2d, just three months and six days after they
started from it on their memorable and successful expedition. Wayne had
shown himself the best general ever sent to war with the Northwestern
Indians; and his victorious campaign was the most noteworthy ever
carried on against them, for it brought about the first lasting peace on
the border, and put an end to the bloody turmoil of forty years'
fighting. It was one of the most striking and weighty feats in the
winning of the West.
Winter Quarters at Greeneville.
The army went into winter quarters at Greeneville. There was sickness
among the troops, and there were occasional desertions; the discipline
was severe, and the work so hard and dangerous that the men generally
refused to re-enlist. [Footnote: Draper MSS., William Clark to Jonathan
Clark, November 23, 1794.] The officers were uneasy lest there should be
need of a further campaign. But their fears were groundless. Before
winter set in heralds arrived from the hostile tribes to say that they
wished peace.
The Indians Utterly Downcast.
The Indians were utterly downcast over their defeat. [Footnote: Canadian
Archives, William Johnson Chew to Joseph Chew, December 7. 1794.] The
destruction of their crops, homes, and stores of provisions was
complete, and they were put to sore shifts to live through the winter.
Their few cattle, and many even of their dogs, died; they could not get
much food from the British; and as winter wore on they sent envoy after
envoy to the Americans, exchanged prisoners, and agreed to make a
permanent peace in the spring. They were exasperated with the British,
who, they said, had not fulfilled a single promise they had
made. [Footnote: Brickell's Narrative.]
Their Anger with the British.
The anger of the Indians against the British was as just as it was
general. They had been lured and goaded into war by direct material aid,
and by indirect promises of armed assistance; and they were abandoned as
soon as the fortune of war went against them. Brant, the Iroquois chief,
was sorely angered by the action of the British in deserting the Indians
whom they had encouraged by such delusive hopes; and in his letter to
the British officials [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Joseph Brant to
Joseph Chew, Oct. 22, 1794; William J. Chew to J. Chew, Oct. 24, 1794.]
he reminded them of the fact that but for their interference the Indians
would have concluded "an equitable and honorable peace in June
1793"--thus offering conclusive proof that the American commissioners,
in their efforts to make peace with the Indians in that year, had been
foiled by the secret machinations of the British agents, as Wayne had
always thought. Brant blamed the British agent McKee for ever having
interfered in the Indian councils, and misled the tribes to their hurt;
and in writing to the Secretary of the Indian Office for Canada he
reminded him in plain terms of the treachery with which the British had
behaved to the Indians at the close of the Revolutionary War, and
expressed the hope that it would not be repeated; saying:[Footnote:
Canadian Archives, Brant to Joseph Chew, Feb. 24, and March 17, 1795.]
"If there is a treaty between Great Britain and the Yankees I hope our
Father the King will not forget the Indians as he did in the year '83."
When his forebodings came true and the British, in assenting to Jay's
treaty, abandoned their Indian allies, Brant again wrote to the
Secretary of the Indian Office, in repressed but bitter anger at the
conduct of the King's agents in preventing the Indians from making peace
with the Americans while they could have made it on advantageous terms,
and then in deserting them. He wrote: "This is the second time the poor
Indians have been left in the lurch & I cannot avoid lamenting that they
were prevented at a time when they had it in their power to make an
Honorable and Advantageous Peace." [Footnote: _Do_., Brant to Chew, Jan.
19, 1796.]
Wrath of the British Indian Agents.
McKee, the British Indian agent, was nearly as frank as Brant in
expressing his views of the conduct of the British towards their allies;
he doubtless felt peculiar bitterness as he had been made the active
instrument in carrying out the policy of his chiefs, and had then seen
that policy abandoned and even disavowed. In fact he suffered the usual
fate of those who are chosen to do some piece of work which unscrupulous
men in power wish to have done, but wish also to avoid the
responsibility of doing. He foretold evil results from the policy
adopted, a policy under which, as he put it, "the distressed situation
of the poor Indians who have long fought for us and bled farely for us
[is] no bar to a Peaceable accommodation with America and ... they [are]
left to shift for themselves." [Footnote: Canadian Archives, McKee to
Chew, March 27, 1795.] That a sentence of this kind could be truthfully
written by one British official to another was a sufficiently biting
comment on the conduct of the British Government.
The Indians Resolve to Treat.
The battle of the Fallen Timbers opened the eyes of the Indians to more
facts than one. They saw that they could not stand against the Americans
unassisted. Furthermore, they saw that though the British would urge
them to fight, and would secretly aid them, yet that in the last resort
the King's troops would not come to their help by proceeding to actual
war. All their leaders recognized that it was time to make peace. The
Americans found an active ally in the French Canadian, Antoine Lasselle,
whom they had captured in the battle. He worked hard to bring about a
peace, inducing the Canadian traders to come over to the American side,
and making every effort to get the Indians to agree to terms. Being a
thrifty soul, he drove a good trade with the savages at the councils,
selling them quantities of liquor.
They Send Ambassadors to Wayne.
In November the Wyandots from Sandusky sent ambassadors to Wayne at
Greeneville. Wayne spoke to them with his usual force and frankness. He
told them he pitied them for their folly in listening to the British,
who were very glad to urge them to fight and to give them ammunition,
but who had neither the power nor the inclination to help them when the
time of trial came; that hitherto the Indians had felt only the weight
of his little finger, but that he would surely destroy all the tribes in
the near future if they did not make peace. [Footnote: Canadian
Archives, Geo. Ironside to McKee, Dec. 13, 1794.]
The Hurons went away much surprised, and resolved on peace; and the
other tribes followed their example. In January, 1795, the Miamis,
Chippewas, Sacs, Delawares, Pottawatomies, and Ottawas sent ambassadors
to Greeneville and agreed to treat. [Footnote: _Do_., Antoine Lasselle
to Jacques Lasselle, Jan. 31, 1795.] The Shawnees were bent on
continuing the war; but when their allies deserted them they too sent to
Greeneville and asked to be included in the peace. [Footnote: _Do_.,
Letter of Lt.-Col. England, Jan. 30, 1795; also copy of treaty of peace
of Feb. 11th.] On February 11th the Shawnees, Delawares, and Miamis
formally entered into a preliminary treaty.
Treaty of Greeneville.
This was followed in the summer of 1795 by the formal Treaty of
Greeneville, at which Wayne, on behalf of the United States, made a
definite peace with all the Northwestern tribes. The sachems, war
chiefs, and warriors of the different tribes began to gather early in
June; and formal proceedings for a treaty were opened on June 17th. But
many of the tribes were slow in coming to the treaty ground, others
vacillated in their course, and unforeseen delays arose; so that it was
not until August 7th that it was possible to come to a unanimous
agreement and ratify the treaty. No less than eleven hundred and thirty
Indians were present at the treaty grounds, including a full delegation
from every hostile tribe. All solemnly covenanted to keep the peace; and
they agreed to surrender to the whites all of what is now southern Ohio
and south eastern Indiana, and various reservations elsewhere, as at
Fort Wayne, Fort Defiance, Detroit, and Michilimackinac, the lands
around the French towns, and the hundred and fifty thousand acres near
the Falls of the Ohio which had been allotted to Clark and his soldiers.
The Government, in its turn, acknowledged the Indian title to the
remaining territory, and agreed to pay the tribes annuities aggregating
nine thousand five hundred dollars. All prisoners on both sides were
restored. There were interminable harangues and councils while the
treaty was pending, the Indians invariably addressing Wayne as Elder
Brother, and Wayne in response styling them Younger Brothers. In one
speech a Chippewa chief put into terse form the reasons for making the
treaty, and for giving the Americans title to the land, saying, "Elder
Brother, you asked who were the true owners of the land now ceded to the
United States. In answer I tell you, if any nations should call
themselves the owners of it they would be guilty of falsehood; our claim
to it is equal; our Elder Brother has conquered it." [Footnote: American
State Papers, IV., 562-583.]
Wayne's Great Achievement.
Wayne had brought peace by the sword. It was the first time the border
had been quiet for over a generation; and for fifteen years the quiet
lasted unbroken. The credit belongs to Wayne and his army, and to the
Government which stood behind both. Because it thus finally stood behind
them we can forgive its manifold shortcomings and vacillations, its
futile efforts to beg a peace, and its reluctance to go to war. We can
forgive all this; but we should not forget it. Americans need to keep in
mind the fact that as a nation they have erred far more often in not
being willing enough to fight than in being too willing. Once roused,
they have always been dangerous and hard-fighting foes; but they have
been over-difficult to rouse. Their educated classes, in particular,
need to be perpetually reminded that, though it is an evil thing to
brave a conflict needlessly, or to bully and bluster, it is an even
worse thing to flinch from a fight for which there is legitimate
provocation, or to live in supine, slothful, unprepared ease, helpless
to avenge an injury.
The Misconduct of the British.
The conduct of the Americans in the years which closed with Wayne's
treaty did not shine very brightly; but the conduct of the British was
black, indeed. On the Northwestern frontier they behaved in a way which
can scarcely be too harshly stigmatized. This does not apply to the
British civil and military officers at the Lake Posts; for they were
merely doing their duty as they saw it, and were fronting their foes
bravely, while with loyal zeal they strove to carry out what they
understood to be the policy of their superiors. The ultimate
responsibility rested with these superiors, the Crown's high advisers,
and the King and Parliament they represented. Their treatment both of
the Indians, whom they professed to protect, and of the Americans, with
whom they professed to be friendly, forms one of the darkest pages in
the annals of the British in America. Yet they have been much less
severely blamed for their behaviour in this matter, than for far more
excusable offences. American historians, for example, usually condemn
them without stint because in 1814 the army of Ross and Cockburn burned
and looted the public buildings of Washington; but by rights they should
keep all their condemnation for their own country, so far as the taking
of Washington is concerned; for the sin of burning a few public
buildings is as nothing compared with the cowardly infamy of which the
politicians of the stripe of Jefferson and Madison, and the people whom
they represented, were guilty in not making ready, by sea and land, to
protect their Capital and in not exacting full revenge for its
destruction. These facts may with advantage be pondered by those men of
the present day who are either so ignorant or of such lukewarm
patriotism that they do not wish to see the United States keep prepared
for war and show herself willing and able to adopt a vigorous foreign
policy whenever there is need of furthering American interests or
upholding the honor of the American flag. America is bound scrupulously
to respect the rights of the weak; but she is no less bound to make
stalwart insistance on her own rights as against the strong.
Their Treachery towards Both the Indians and the Americans.
The count against the British on the Northwestern frontier is, not that
they insisted on their rights, but that they were guilty of treachery to
both friend and foe. The success of the British was incompatible with
the good of mankind in general, and of the English-speaking races in
particular; for they strove to prop up savagery, and to bar the westward
march of the settler-folk whose destiny it was to make ready the
continent for civilization. But the British cannot be seriously blamed
because they failed to see this. Their fault lay in their aiding and
encouraging savages in a warfare which was necessarily horrible; and
still more in their repeated breaches of faith. The horror and the
treachery were the inevitable outcome of the policy on which they had
embarked; it can never be otherwise when a civilized government
endeavors to use, as allies in war, savages whose acts it cannot control
and for whose welfare it has no real concern.
Doubtless the statesmen who shaped the policy of Great Britain never
deliberately intended to break faith, and never fully realized the awful
nature of the Indian warfare for which they were in part responsible;
they thought very little of the matter at all in the years which saw the
beginning of their stupendous struggle with France. But the acts of
their obscure agents on the far interior frontier were rendered
necessary and inevitable by their policy. To encourage the Indians to
hold their own against the Americans, and to keep back the settlers,
meant to encourage a war of savagery against the border vanguard of
white civilization; and such a war was sure to teem with fearful deeds.
Moreover, where the interests of the British Crown were so manifold it
was idle to expect that the Crown's advisers would treat as of much
weight the welfare of the scarcely-known tribes whom their agents had
urged to enter a contest which was hopeless except for British
assistance. The British statesmen were engaged in gigantic schemes of
warfare and diplomacy; and to them the Indians and the frontiersmen
alike were pawns on a great chessboard, to be sacrificed whenever
necessary. When the British authorities deemed it likely that there
would be war with America, the tribes were incited to take up the
hatchet; when there seemed a chance of peace with America the deeds of
the tribes were disowned; and peace was finally assured by a cynical
abandonment of their red allies. In short, the British, while professing
peace with the Americans, treacherously incited the Indians to war
against them; and, when it suited their own interests, they
treacherously abandoned their Indian allies to the impending ruin.
[Footnote: The ordinary American histories, often so absurdly unjust to
England, are right in their treatment of the British actions on the
frontier in 1793-94. The ordinary British historians simply ignore the
whole affair. As a type of their class, Mr. Percy Gregg may be
instanced. His "History of the United States" is a silly book; he is
often intentionally untruthful, but his chief fault is his complete
ignorance of the facts about which he is writing. It is, of course,
needless to criticise such writers as Mr. Gregg and his fellows. But it
is worth while calling attention to Mr. Goldwin Smith's "The United
States," for Mr. Goldwin Smith is a student, and must be taken
seriously. He says: "That the British government or anybody by its
authority was intriguing with the Indians against the Americans is an
assertion of which there seems to be no proof." If he will examine the
Canadian Archives, from which I have quoted, and the authorities which I
cite, he will find the proof ready to hand. Prof. A. C. McLaughlin has
made a capital study of this question in his pamphlet on "The Western
Posts and the British Debts." What he says cannot well be controverted.]
CHAPTER III.
TENNESSEE BECOMES A STATE, 1791-1796.
The Southwestern Territory.
"The Territory of the United States of America South of the River Ohio"
was the official title of the tract of land which had been ceded by
North Carolina to the United States, and which a few years later became
the State of Tennessee. William Blount, the newly appointed Governor,
took charge late in 1790. He made a tour of the various counties, as
laid out under authority of the State of North Carolina, rechristening
them as counties of the Territory, and summoning before him the persons
in each county holding commissions from North Carolina, at the
respective court-houses, where he formally notified them of the change.
He read to them the act of Congress accepting the cessions of the claims
of North Carolina; then he read his own commission from President
Washington; and informed them of the provision by North Carolina that
Congress should assume and execute the government of the new Territory
"in a manner similar to that which they support northwest of the River
Ohio." Following this he formally read the ordinance for the government
of the Northwestern Territory. He commented upon and explained this
proclamation, stating that under it the President had appointed the
Governor, the Judges, and the Secretary of the new Territory, and that
he himself, as Governor, would now appoint the necessary county
officers.
Blount Inaugurated as Governor.
Slavery in the New Territory.
The remarkable feature of this address was that he read to the assembled
officers in each county, as part of the law apparently binding upon
them, Article 6 of the Ordinance of 1787, which provided that there
should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the Northwestern
Territory. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Journal of Proceedings of William
Blount, Esq., Governor in and over the Territory of the United States of
America South of the River Ohio, in his executive department, October
23, 1790.] It had been expressly stipulated that this particular
provision as regards slavery should not apply to the Southwestern
Territory, and of course Blount's omission to mention this fact did not
in any way alter the case; but it is a singular thing that he should
without comment have read, and his listeners without comment have heard,
a recital that slavery was abolished in their territory. It emphasizes
the fact that at this time there was throughout the West no very strong
feeling on the subject of slavery, and what feeling there was, was if
anything hostile. The adventurous backwoods farmers who composed the
great mass of the population in Tennessee, as elsewhere among and west
of the Alleghanies, were not a slave-owning people, in the sense that
the planters of the seaboard were. They were preeminently folk who did
their work with their own hands. Master and man chopped and ploughed and
reaped and builded side by side, and even the leaders of the community,
the militia generals, the legislators, and the judges, often did their
share of farm work, and prided themselves upon their capacity to do it
well. They had none of that feeling which makes slave-owners look upon
manual labor as a badge of servitude. They were often lazy and
shiftless, but they never deified laziness and shiftlessness or made
them into a cult. The one thing they prized beyond all others was their
personal freedom, the right of the individual to do whatsoever he saw
fit. Indeed they often carried this feeling so far as to make them
condone gross excesses, rather than insist upon the exercise of even
needful authority. They were by no means entirely logical, but they did
see and feel that slavery was abhorrent, and that it was utterly
inconsistent with the theories of their own social and governmental
life. As yet there was no thought of treating slavery as a sacred
institution, the righteousness of which must not be questioned. At the
Fourth of July celebrations toasts such as "The total abolition of
slavery" were not uncommon. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, July 17,
1795, etc. See also issue Jan. 28, 1792.] It was this feeling which
prevented any manifestation of surprise at Blount's apparent
acquiescence in a section of the ordinance for the government of the
Territory which prohibited slavery.
Dulness of the Public Conscience about Slavery.
Nevertheless, though slaves were not numerous, they were far from
uncommon, and the moral conscience of the community was not really
roused upon the subject. It was hardly possible that it should be
roused, for no civilized people who owned African slaves had as yet
abolished slavery, and it was too much to hope that the path toward
abolition would be pointed out by poor frontiersmen engaged in a life
and death struggle with hostile savages. The slaveholders were not
interfered with until they gradually grew numerous enough and powerful
enough to set the tone of thought, and make it impossible to root out
slavery save by outside action.
Blount's First Appointments.
Blount recommended the appointment of Sevier and Robertson as
brigadier-generals of militia of the Eastern and Western districts of
the Territory, and issued a large number of commissions to the justices
of the peace, militia officers, sheriffs, and clerks of the county
courts in the different counties. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Journal of the
Proceedings, etc.] In his appointments he shrewdly and properly
identified himself with the natural leaders of the frontiersmen. He made
Sevier and Robertson his right-hand men, and strove always to act in
harmony with them, while for the minor military and civil officers he
chose the persons whom the frontiersmen themselves desired. In
consequence he speedily became a man of great influence for good. The
Secretary of the Territory reported to the Federal Government that the
effect of Blount's character on the frontiersmen was far greater than
was the case with any other man, and that he was able to get them to
adhere to the principles of order and to support the laws by his
influence in a way which it was hopeless to expect from their own
respect for governmental authority. Blount was felt by the frontiersmen
to be thoroughly in sympathy with them, to understand and appreciate
them, and to be heartily anxious for their welfare; and yet at the same
time his influence could be counted upon on the side of order, while the
majority of the frontier officials in any time of commotion were apt to
remain silent and inactive, or even to express their sympathy with the
disorderly element. [Footnote: American State Papers, iv.; Daniel Smith
to the Secretary of War, Knoxville, July 19, 1793.]
Blount's Tact in Dealing with Difficulties.
No one but a man of great tact and firmness could have preserved as much
order among the frontiersmen as Blount preserved. He was always under
fire from both sides. The settlers were continually complaining that
they were deserted by the Federal authorities, who favored the Indians,
and that Blount himself did not take sufficiently active steps to subdue
the savages; while on the other hand the National Administration was
continually upbraiding him for being too active against the Indians, and
for not keeping the frontiersmen sufficiently peaceable. Under much
temptations, and in a situation that would have bewildered any one,
Blount steadfastly followed his course of, on the one hand, striving his
best to protect the people over whom he was placed as governor, and to
repel the savages, while, on the other hand, he suppressed so far as lay
in his power, any outbreak against the authorities, and tried to
inculcate a feeling of loyalty and respect for the National Government.
[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Feb. 13, 1793.] He did
much in creating a strong feeling of attachment to the Union among the
rough backwoodsmen with whom he had thrown in his lot.
Treaty of Holston with the Cherokees.
Early in 1791 Blount entered into negotiations with the Cherokees, and
when the weather grew warm, he summoned them to a treaty. They met on
the Holston, all of the noted Cherokee chiefs and hundreds of their
warriors being present, and concluded the treaty of Holston, by which,
in consideration of numerous gifts and of an annuity of a thousand
(afterwards increased to fifteen hundred) dollars, the Cherokees at last
definitely abandoned their disputed claims to the various tracts of land
which the whites claimed under various former treaties. By this treaty
with the Cherokees, and by the treaty with the Creeks entered into at
New York the previous summer, the Indian title to most of the present
State of Tennessee, was fairly and legally extinguished. However the
westernmost part, was still held by the Chickasaws, and certain tracts
in the southeast, by the Cherokees; while the Indian hunting grounds in
the middle of the territory were thrust in between the groups of
settlements on the Cumberland and the Holston.
Knoxville Founded.
The "Knoxville Gazette."
On the ground where the treaty was held Blount proceeded to build a
little town, which he made the capital of the Territory, and christened
Knoxville, in honor of Washington's Secretary of War. At this town there
was started, in 1791, under his own supervision, the first newspaper of
Tennessee, known as the _Knoxville Gazette_. It was four or five years
younger than the only other newspaper of the then far West, the
_Kentucky Gazette_. The paper gives an interesting glimpse of many of
the social and political conditions of the day. In political tone it
showed Blount's influence very strongly, and was markedly in advance of
most of the similar papers of the time, including the _Kentucky
Gazette_; for it took a firm stand in favor of the National Government,
and against every form of disorder, of separatism, or of mob law. As
with all of the American papers of the day, even in the backwoods, there
was much interest taken in European news, and a prominent position was
given to long letters, or extracts from seaboard papers, containing
accounts of the operations of the English fleets and the French armies,
or of the attitude of the European governments. Like most Americans, the
editorial writers of the paper originally sympathized strongly with the
French Revolution; but the news of the beheading of Marie Antoinette,
and the recital of the atrocities committed in Paris, worked a reaction
among those who loved order, and the _Knoxville Gazette_ ranged itself
with them, taking for the time being strong grounds against the French,
and even incidentally alluding to the Indians as being more
blood-thirsty than any man "not a Jacobin." [Footnote: _Knoxville
Gazette_, March 27, 1794.] The people largely shared these sentiments.
In 1793 at the Fourth of July celebration at Jonesborough there was a
public dinner and ball, as there was also at Knoxville; Federal troops
were paraded and toasts were drunk to the President, to the Judges of
the Supreme Court, to Blount, to General Wayne, to the friendly
Chickasaw Indians, to Sevier, to the ladies of the Southwestern
Territory, to the American arms, and, finally, "to the true liberties of
France and a speedy and just punishment of the murderers of Louis XVI."
The word "Jacobin" was used as a term of reproach for some time.
The "Gazette" Sound in its Politics.
The paper was at first decidedly Federalist in sentiment. No sympathy
was expressed with Genet or with the efforts undertaken by the Western
allies of the French Minister to organize a force for the conquest of
Louisiana; and the Tennessee settlers generally took the side of law and
order in the earlier disturbances in which the Federal Government was
concerned. At the Fourth of July celebration in Knoxville, in 1795, one
of the toasts was "The four western counties of Pennsylvania; may they
repent their folly and sin no more"; the Tennesseeans sympathizing as
little with the Pennsylvania whiskey revolutionists as four years later
they sympathized with the Kentuckians and Virginians in their
nullification agitation against the alien and sedition laws.
Its Gradual Change of Tone.
Gradually, however, the tone of the paper changed, as did the tone of
the community, at least to the extent of becoming Democratic and
anti-Federal; for the people felt that the Easterners did not sympathize
with them either in their contests with the Indians or in their desire
to control the Mississippi and the farther West. They grew to regard
with particular vindictiveness the Federalists,--the aristocrats, as
they styled them,--of the Southern seaboard States, notably of Virginia
and South Carolina.
One pathetic feature of the paper was the recurrence of advertisements
by persons whose friends and kinsfolk had been carried off by the
Indians, and who anxiously sought any trace of them.
Queer Use of the "Gazette."
But the _Gazette_ was used for the expression of opinions not only by
the whites, but occasionally even by an Indian. One of the Cherokee
chiefs, the Red Bird, put into the _Gazette_, for two buckskins, a talk
to the Cherokee chief of the Upper Towns, in which he especially warned
him to leave alone one William Cocke, "the white man who lived among the
mulberry trees," for, said Red Bird, "the mulberry man talks very strong
and runs very fast"; this same Cocke being afterwards one of the first
two senators from Tennessee. The Red Bird ended his letter by the
expression of the rather quaint wish, "that all the bad people on both
sides were laid in the ground, for then there would not be so many mush
men trying to make people to believe they were warriors." [Footnote:
_Knoxville Gazette_, November 3, 1792.]
Efforts to Promote Higher Education.
Blount brought his family to Tennessee at once, and took the lead in
trying to build up institutions for higher education. After a good deal
of difficulty an academy was organized under the title of Blount
College, and was opened as soon as a sufficient number of pupils could
be gotten together; there were already two other colleges in the
Territory, Greeneville and Washington, the latter being the academy
founded by Doak. Like almost all other institutions of learning of the
day these three were under clerical control; but Blount College was
chartered as a non-denomination institution, the first of its kind in
the United States. [Footnote: See Edward T. Sanford's "Blount College
and the University of Tennessee," p. 13.] The clergyman and the lawyer,
with the school-master, were still the typical men of letters in all the
frontier communities. The doctor was not yet a prominent feature of life
in the backwoods, though there is in the _Gazette_ an advertisement of
one who announces that he intends to come to practise "with a large
stock of genuine medicines." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, June 19,
1794.]
Books of the Backwoods.
The ordinary books were still school books, books of law, and sermons or
theological writings. The first books, or pamphlets, published in
Eastern Tennessee were brought out about this time at the _Gazette_
office, and bore such titles as "A Sermon on Psalmody, by Rev. Hezekiah
Balch"; "A Discourse by the Rev. Samuel Carrick"; and a legal essay
called "Western Justice." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Jan. 30 and
May 8, 1794.] There was also a slight effort now and then at literature
of a lighter kind. The little Western papers, like those in the East,
had their poets' corners, often with the heading of "Sacred to the
Muses," the poems ranging from "Lines to Myra" and "An Epitaph on John
Topham" to "The Pernicious Consequences of Smoking Cigars." In one of
the issues of the _Knoxville Gazette_ there is advertised for sale a new
song by "a gentleman of Col. McPherson's Blues, on a late Expedition
against the Pennsylvania Insurgents"; and also, in rather incongruous
juxtaposition, "Toplady's Translation of Zanchi on Predestination."
Settlers Throng into Tennessee.
Settlers were thronging into East Tennessee, and many penetrated even to
the Indian-harassed western district. In travelling to the western parts
the immigrants generally banded together in large parties, led by some
man of note. Among those who arrived in 1792 was the old North Carolina
Indian fighter, General Griffith Rutherford. He wished to settle on the
Cumberland, and to take thither all his company, with a large number of
wagons, and he sent to Blount begging that a road might be cut through
the wilderness for the wagons; or, if this could not be done, that some
man would blaze the route, "in which case," said he "there would be
hands of our own that could cut as fast as wagons could march."
[Footnote: Blount MSS., Rutherford to Blount, May 25, 1792.]
Meeting of the Territorial Legislature.
In 1794, there being five thousand free male inhabitants, as provided by
law, Tennessee became entitled to a Territorial legislature, and the
Governor summoned the Assembly to the meet at Knoxville on August 17th.
So great was the danger from the Indians that a military company had to
accompany the Cumberland legislators to and from the seat of government.
For the same reason the judges on their circuits had to go accompanied
by a military guard.
Among the first acts of this Territorial Legislature was that to
establish higher institutions of learning; John Sevier was made a
trustee in both Blount and Greeneville Colleges. A lottery was
established for the purpose of building the Cumberland road to
Nashville, and another one to build a jail and stocks in Nashville. A
pension act was passed for disabled soldiers and for widows and orphans,
who were to be given an adequate allowance at the discretion of the
county court. A poll tax of twenty-five cents on all taxable white polls
was laid, and on every taxable negro poll fifty cents. Land was taxed at
the rate of twenty-five cents a hundred acres, town lots one dollar;
while a stud horse was taxed four dollars. Thus, taxes were laid
exclusively upon free males, upon slaves, lands, town lots, and stud
horses, a rather queer combination. [Footnote: Laws of Tennessee,
Knoxville, 1803. First Session of Territorial Legislature, 1794.]
Many Industries Established.
Various industries were started, as the people began to demand not only
the necessaries of life but the comforts, and even occasionally the
luxuries. There were plenty of blacksmith shops; and a goldsmith and
jeweller set up his establishment. In his advertisement he shows that he
was prepared to do some work which would be alien to his modern
representative, for he notifies the citizens that he makes "rifle guns
in the neatest and most approved fashion." [Footnote: _Knoxville
Gazelle_, Oct. 20, 1792.]
Ferries and Taverns.
Ferries were established at the important crossings, and taverns in the
county-seats and small towns. One of the Knoxville taverns advertises
its rates, which were one shilling for breakfast, one shilling for
supper, and one and sixpence for dinner; board and lodging for a week
costing two dollars, and board only for the same space and of time nine
shillings. Ferriage was three pence for a man and horse and two
shillings for a wagon and team.
Trade.
Various stores were established in the towns, the merchants obtaining
most of their goods in the great trade centres of Philadelphia and
Baltimore, and thence hauling them by wagon to the frontier. Most of the
trade was carried on by barter. There was very little coin in the
country and but few bank-notes. Often the advertisement specified the
kind of goods that would be taken and the different values at which they
would be received. Thus, the salt works at Washington, Virginia, in
advertising their salt, stated that they would sell it per bushel for
seven shillings and sixpence if paid in cash or prime furs; at ten
shillings if paid in bear or deer skins, beeswax, hemp, bacon, butter,
or beef cattle; and at twelve shillings if in other trade and country
produce, as was usual. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, June 1, 1793.]
Currency.
The prime furs were mink, coon, muskrat, wildcat, and beaver. Besides
this the stores advertised that they would take for their articles cash,
beeswax, and country produce or tallow, hogs' lard in white walnut kegs,
butter, pork, new feathers, good horses, and also corn, rye, oats, flax,
and "old Congress money," the old Congress money being that issued by
the Continental Congress, which had depreciated wonderfully in value.
They also took certificates of indebtedness either from the State or the
nation because of services performed against the Indians, and
certificates of land claimed under various rights. The value of some of
these commodities was evidently mainly speculative. The storekeepers
often felt that where they had to accept such dubious substitutes for
cash they desired to give no credit, and some of the advertisements run:
"Cheap, ready money store, where no credit whatever will be given," and
then proceed to describe what ready money was,--cash, furs, bacon, etc.
The stores sold salt, iron-mongery, pewterware, corduroys, rum, brandy,
whiskey, wine, ribbons, linen, calamancos, and in fact generally what
would be found at that day in any store in the smaller towns of the
older States. The best eight by ten crown-glass "was regularly
imported," and also "beautiful assortments of fashionable coat and vest
buttons," as well as "brown and loaf sugar, coffee, chocolate, tea, and
spices." In the towns the families had ceased to kill their own meat,
and beef markets were established where fresh meat could be had twice a
week.
Stock on the Range.
Houses and lots were advertised for sale, and one result of the method
of allowing the branded stock to range at large in the woods was that
the Range, there were numerous advertisements for strayed horses, and
even cattle, with descriptions of the brands and ear marks. The people
were already beginning to pay attention to the breeding of their horses,
and fine stallions with pedigrees were advertised, though some of the
advertisements show a certain indifference to purity of strain; one
stallion being quoted as of "mixed fox-hunting and dray" breed. Rather
curiously the Chickasaw horses were continually mentioned as of special
merit, together with those of imported stock. Attention was paid both to
pacers and trotters.
The lottery was still a recognized method of raising money for every
purpose, including the advancement of education and religion. One of the
advertisements gives as one of the prizes a negro, valued at one hundred
and thirty pounds, a horse at ten pounds, and five hundred acres of fine
land without improvements at twelve hundred pounds.
Government Escort for Immigrants.
Journeying to the long-settled districts of the East, persons went as
they wished, in their own wagons or on their own horses; but to go from
East Tennessee either to Kentucky, or to the Cumberland district, or to
New Orleans, was a serious matter because of the Indians. The
Territorial authorities provided annually an escort for immigrants from
the Holston country to the Cumberland, a distance of one hundred and ten
miles through the wilderness, and the departure of this annual escort
was advertised for weeks in advance.
Sometimes the escort was thus provided by the authorities. More often
adventurers simply banded together; or else some enterprising man
advertised that on a given date he should start and would provide
protection for those who chose to accompany him. Thus, in the _Knoxville
Gazette_ for February 6, 1795, a boat captain gives public notice to all
persons who wish to sail from the Holston country to New Orleans, that
on March 1st, if the waters answer, his two boats will start, the _Mary_
of twenty-five tons, and the _Little Polly_ of fifteen tons. Those who
had contracted for freight and passage are desired to attend previous to
that period.
Lawlessness.
There was of course a good deal of lawlessness and a strong tendency to
settle assault and battery cases in particular out of court. The
officers of justice at times had to subdue criminals by open force.
Andrew Jackson, who was District Attorney for the Western District,
early acquired fame by the energy and success with which he put down any
criminal who resisted the law. The worst offenders fled to the
Mississippi Territory, there to live among Spaniards, Creoles, Indians,
and lawless Americans. Lawyers drove a thriving business; but they had
their own difficulties, to judge by one advertisement, which appears in
the issue of the _Gazette_ for March 23, 1793, where six of them give
notice that thereafter they will give no legal advice unless it is
legally paid for.
Endless Land Speculations.
All the settlers, or at least all the settlers who had any ambition to
rise in the world, were absorbed in land speculations: Blount,
Robertson, and the other leaders as much so as anybody. They were
continually in correspondence with one another about the purchase of
land warrants, and about laying them out in the best localities. Of
course there was much jealousy and rivalry in the effort to get the best
sites. Robertson, being farthest on the frontier, where there was most
wild land, had peculiar advantages. Very soon after he settled in the
Cumberland district at the close of the Revolutionary War, Blount had
entered into an agreement with him for a joint land speculation. Blount
was to purchase land claims from both officers and soldiers amounting in
all to fifty thousand acres and enter them for the Western Territory,
while Robertson was to survey and locate the claims, receiving one
fourth of the whole for his reward. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Agreement
between William Blount and James Robertson, Oct. 30, 1783.] Their
connection continued during Blount's term as Governor, and Blount's
letters to Robertson contain much advice as to how the warrants shall be
laid out. Wherever possible they were of course laid outside the Indian
boundaries; but, like every one else, Blount and Robertson knew that
eventually the Indian lands would come into the possession of the United
States, and in view of the utter confusion of the titles, and especially
in view of the way the Indians as well as the whites continually broke
the treaties and rendered it necessary to make new ones, both Blount and
Robertson were willing to place claims on the Indian lands and trust to
luck to make the claims good if ever a cession was made. The lands thus
located were not lands upon which any Indian village stood. Generally
they were tracts of wilderness through which the Indians occasionally
hunted, but as to which there was a question whether they had yet been
formally ceded to the government. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to
Robertson, April 29, 1792.]
Land Tax and Land Sales.
Blount also corresponded with many other men on the question of these
land speculations, and it is amusing to read the expressions of horror
of his correspondents when they read that Tennessee had imposed a land
tax. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Thomas Hart to Blount, Lexington, Ky.,
March 29, 1795.] By his activity he became a very large landed
proprietor, and when Tennessee was made a State he was taxed on 73,252
acres in all. The tax was not excessive, being but $179.72. [Footnote:
_Do_., Return of taxable property of Blount, Nashville, Sept. 9, 1796.]
It was of course entirely proper for Blount to get possession of the
land in this way. The theory of government on the frontier was that each
man should be paid a small salary, and be allowed to exercise his
private business just so long as it did not interfere with his public
duties. Blount's land speculations were similar to those in which almost
every other prominent American, in public or private life, was engaged.
Neither Congress nor the States had as yet seen the wisdom of allowing
the laud to be sold only in small parcels to actual occupants, and the
favorite kind of speculation was the organization of land companies. Of
course there were other kinds of business in which prominent men took
part. Sevier was interested not only in land, but in various mercantile
ventures of a more or less speculative kind; he acted as an intermediary
with the big importers, who were willing to furnish some of the stores
with six months' credit if they could be guaranteed a settlement at the
end of that time. [Footnote: _Do_., David Allison to Blount, Oct. 16,
1791.]
Business Versatility of the Frontiersman
One of the characteristics of all the leading frontiersmen was not only
the way in which they combined business enterprises with their work as
Government officials and as Indian fighters, but the readiness with
which they turned from one business enterprise to another. One of
Blount's Kentucky correspondents, Thomas Hart, the grandfather of
Benton, in his letter to Blount shows these traits in typical fashion.
He was engaged in various land speculations with Blount, [Footnote: Clay
MSS., Blount to Hart, Knoxville, February 9, 1794. This was just as Hart
was moving to Kentucky.] and was always writing to him about locating
land warrants, advertising the same as required by law, and the like. He
and Blount held some tens of thousands of acres of the Henderson claim,
and Hart proposed that they should lay it out in five-hundred-acre
tracts, to be rented to farmers, with the idea that each farmer should
receive ten cows and calves to start with; a proposition which was of
course hopeless, as the pioneers would not lease lands when it was so
easy to obtain freeholds. In his letters, Hart mentioned cheerfully that
though he was sixty-three years old he was just as well able to carry on
his manufacturing business, and, on occasion, to leave it, and play
pioneer, as he ever had been, remarking that he "never would be
satisfied in the world while new countries could be found," and that his
intention, now that he had moved to Kentucky, was to push the mercantile
business as long as the Indian war continued and money was plenty, and
when that failed, to turn his attention to farming and to divide up
those of his lands he could not till himself, to be rented by others.
[Footnote: Blount MSS., Thomas Hart to Blount, Dec. 23, 1793.]
This letter to Blount shows, by the way, as was shown by Madison's
correspondent from Kentucky, that the Indian war, scourge though it was
to the frontiersmen as a whole, brought some attendant benefits in its
wake by putting a stimulus on the trade of the merchants and bringing
ready money into the country. It must not be forgotten, however, that
men like Hart and Blount, though in some ways they were benefited by the
war, were in other ways very much injured, and that, moreover, they
consistently strove to do justice to the Indians and to put a stop to
hostilities.
In his letters Colonel Hart betrays a hearty, healthy love of life, and
capacity to enjoy it, and make the best of it, which fortunately exist
in many Kentucky and Tennessee families to this day. He wanted money,
but the reason he wanted it was to use it in having a good time for
himself and his friends, writing: "I feel all the ardor and spirit for
business I did forty years ago, and see myself more capable to conduct
it. Oh, if my old friend Uncle Jacob was but living and in this country,
what pleasure we should have in raking up money and spending it with our
friends!" and he closed by earnestly entreating Blount and his family to
come to Kentucky, which he assured him was the finest country in the
world, with moreover, "a very pleasant society, for," said he, "I can
say with truth that the society of this place is equal, if not superior,
to any that can be found in any inland town in the United States, for
there is not a day that passes over our heads but I can have half a
dozen strange gentlemen to dine with us, and they are from all parts of
the Union." [Footnote: Blount MSS., Hart to Blount, Lexington, Feb. 15,
1795.]
The Neverending Indian Warfare.
Incessant Violation of the Treaties by Both the Red Men and the White.
The one overshadowing fact in the history of Tennessee during Blount's
term as governor was the Indian warfare. Hostilities with the Indians
were never ceasing, and, so far as Tennessee was concerned, during these
six years it was the Indians, and not the whites who were habitually the
aggressors and wrongdoers. The Indian warfare in the Territory during
these years deserves some study because it was typical of what occurred
elsewhere. It illustrates forcibly the fact that under the actual
conditions of settlement wars were inevitable; for if it is admitted
that the land of the Indians had to be taken and that the continent had
to be settled by white men, it must be further admitted that the
settlement could not have taken place save after war. The whites might
be to blame in some cases, and the Indians in others; but under no
combination of circumstances was it possible to obtain possession of the
country save as the result of war, or of a peace obtained by the fear of
war. Any peace which did not surrender the land was sure in the end to
be broken by the whites; and a peace which did surrender the land would
be broken by the Indians. The history of Tennessee during the dozen years
from 1785 to 1796 offers an admirable case in point. In 1785 the United
States Commissioners concluded the treaty of Hopewell with the Indians,
and solemnly guaranteed them certain lands. The whites contemptuously
disregarded this treaty and seized the lands which it guaranteed to
the Indians, being themselves the aggressors, and paying no heed to
the plighted word of the Government, while the Government itself was
too weak to make the frontiersmen keep faith. The treaties of New York
and of Holston with the Creeks and Cherokees in 1790 and 1791 were
fairly entered into by fully authorized representatives of the tribes.
Under them, for a valuable consideration, and of their own motion, the
Creeks and Cherokees solemnly surrendered all title to what is now the
territory of Tennessee, save to a few tracts mostly in the west and
southeast; and much of the land which was thus ceded they had ceded
before. Nevertheless, the peace thus solemnly made was immediately
violated by the Indians themselves. The whites were not the aggressors
in any way, and, on the contrary, thanks to the wish of the United
States authorities for peace, and to the care with which Blount strove
to carry out the will of the Federal Government, they for a long time
refrained even from retaliating when injured; yet the Indians robbed and
plundered them even more freely than when the whites themselves had been
the aggressors and had broken the treaty.
Confusion of the Treaties.
Before making the treaty of Holston Blount had been in correspondence
with Benjamin Hawkins, a man who had always been greatly interested in
Indian affairs. He was a prominent politician in North Carolina, and
afterwards for many years agent among the Southern Indians. He had been
concerned in several of the treaties. He warned Blount that since the
treaty of Hopewell the whites, and not the Indians, had been the
aggressors; and also warned him not to try to get too much land from the
Indians, or to take away too great an extent of their hunting grounds,
which would only help the great land companies, but to be content with
the thirty-fifth parallel for a southern boundary. [Footnote: Blount
MSS., Hawkins to Blount, March 10, 1791.] Blount paid much heed to this
advice, and by the treaty of Holston he obtained from the Indians little
more than what the tribes had previously granted; except that they
confirmed to the whites the country upon which the pioneers were already
settled. The Cumberland district had already been granted over and over
again by the Indians in special treaties, to Henderson, to the North
Carolinians and to the United States. The Creeks in particular never had
had any claim to this Cumberland country, which was a hundred miles and
over from any of their towns. All the use they had ever made of it was
to visit it with their hunting parties, as did the Cherokees, Choctaws,
Chickasaws, Shawnees, Delawares, and many others. Yet the Creeks and
other Indians had the effrontery afterwards to assert that the
Cumberland Country had never been ceded at all, and that as the settlers
in it were thus outside of the territory properly belonging to the
United States, they were not entitled to protection under the treaty
entered into with the latter.
Blount's Good Faith with the Indians.
Blount was vigilant and active in seeing that none of the frontiersmen
trespassed on the Indian lands, and when a party of men, claiming
authority under Georgia, started to settle at the Muscle Shoals, he
co-operated actively with the Indians in having them brought back, and
did his best, though in vain, to persuade the Grand Jury to indict the
offenders. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Sept. 3,
1791.] He was explicit in his orders to Sevier, to Robertson, and to
District Attorney Jackson that they should promptly punish any white man
who violated the provisions of the treaty; and over a year after it had
been entered into he was able to write in explicit terms that "not a
single settler had built a house, or made a settlement of any kind, on
the Cherokee lands, and that no Indians had been killed by the whites
excepting in defence of their lives and property." [Footnote: _Do_.,
Blount to Robertson, Jan. 2, 1792; to Bloody Fellow, Sept. 13, 1792.]
Robertson heartily co-operated with Blount, as did Sevier, in the effort
to keep peace, Robertson showing much good sense and self-control, and
acquiescing in Blount's desire that nothing should be done "inconsistent
with the good of the nation as a whole," and that "the faith of the
nation should be kept." [Footnote: Blount MSS., Robertson to Blount,
Jan. 17, 1793.]
Bad Faith of the Indians.
The Indians as a body showed no appreciation whatever of these efforts
to keep the peace, and plundered and murdered quite as freely as before
the treaties, or as when the whites themselves were the aggressors. The
Creek Confederacy was in a condition of utter disorganization,
McGillivray's authority was repudiated, and most of the towns scornfully
refused to obey the treaty into which their representatives had entered
at New York. A tory adventurer named Bowles, who claimed to have the
backing of the English Government, landed in the nation and set himself
in opposition to McGillivray. The latter, who was no fighter, and whose
tools were treachery and craft, fled to the protection of the Spaniards.
Bowles, among other feats, plundered the stores of Panton, a white
trader in the Spanish interest, and for a moment his authority seemed
supreme; but the Spaniards, by a trick, got possession of him and put
him in prison.
Intrigues of the Spaniards.
The Spaniards still claimed as their own the Southwestern country, and
were untiring in their efforts to keep the Indians united among
themselves and hostile to the Americans. They concluded a formal treaty
of friendship and of reciprocal guarantee with the Choctaws, Chickasaws,
Creeks, and Cherokees at Nogales, in the Choctaw country, on May 14,
1792. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Documents; Letter of Carondelet to
Duke of Alcudia, Nov. 24, 1794.] The Indians entered into this treaty at
the very time they had concluded wholly inconsistent treaties with the
Americans. On the place of the treaty the Spaniards built a fort, which
they named Fort Confederation, to perpetuate, as they hoped, the memory
of the confederation they had thus established among the Southern
Indians. By means of this fort they intended to control all the
territory enclosed between the rivers Mississippi, Yazoo, Chickasaw, and
Mobile. The Spaniards also expended large sums of money in arming the
Creeks, and in bribing them to do, what they were quite willing to do of
their own accord,--that is, to prevent the demarkation of the boundary
line as provided in the New York treaty; a treaty which Carondelet
reported to his Court as "insulting and pernicious to Spain, the
abrogation of which has lately been brought about by the intrigues with
the Indians." [Footnote: Draper MSS., Letter of Carondelet, New Orleans,
Sept. 25, 1795.]
Carondelet's Policy.
At the same time that the bill for these expenses was submitted for
audit to the home government the Spanish Governor also submitted his
accounts for the expenses in organizing the expedition against the
"English adventurer Bowles," and in negotiating with Wilkinson and the
other Kentucky Separatists, and also in establishing a Spanish post at
the Chickasaw Bluffs, for which he had finally obtained the permission
of the Chickasaws. The Americans of course regarded the establishment
both of the fort at the Chickasaw Bluffs and the fort at Nogales as
direct challenges; and Carondelet's accounts show that the frontiersmen
were entirely justified in their belief that the Spaniards not only
supplied the Creeks with arms and munitions of war, but actively
interfered to prevent them from keeping faith and carrying out the
treaties which they had signed. The Spaniards did not wish the Indians
to go to war unless it was necessary as a last resort. They preferred
that they should be peaceful, provided always they could prevent the
intrusion of the Americans. Carondelet wrote: "We have inspired the
Creeks with pacific intentions towards the United States, but with the
precise restriction that there shall be no change of the boundaries,"
[Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Docs.; Carondelet's Report, Oct. 23,
1793.] and he added that "to sustain our allied nations [of Indians] in
the possession of their lands becomes therefore indispensable, both to
preserve Louisiana to Spain, and in order to keep the Americans from the
navigation of the Gulf." He expressed great uneasiness at the efforts of
Robertson to foment war between the Chickasaws and Choctaws and the
Creeks, and exerted all his powers to keep the Indian nations at peace
with one another and united against the settler-folk. [Footnote: _Do_.,
Carondelet to Don Louis De Las Casas, June 13, 1795, enclosing letter
from Don M. G. De Lemos, Governor of Natchez.]
The Spaniards far more Treacherous than the British.
The Spaniards, though with far more infamous and deliberate deceit and
far grosser treachery, were pursuing towards the United States and the
Southwestern Indians the policy pursued by the British towards the
United States and the Northwestern Indians; with the difference that the
Spanish Governor and his agents acted under the orders of the Court of
Spain, while the English authorities connived at and profited by, rather
than directly commanded, what was done by their subordinates. Carondelet
expressly states that Colonel Gayoso and his other subordinates had been
directed to unite the Indian nations in a defensive alliance, under the
protection of Spain, with the object of opposing Blount, Robertson, and
the frontiersmen, and of establishing the Cumberland River as the
boundary between the Americans and the Indians. The reciprocal guarantee
of their lands by the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws was,
said Carondelet, the only way by which the Americans could be retained
within their own boundaries. [Footnote: Carondelet to Alcudia, Aug. 17,
1793.] The Spaniards devoted much attention to supporting those traders
among the Indians who were faithful to the cause of Spain and could be
relied upon to intrigue against the Americans. [Footnote: _Do_., Manuel
Gayoso De Lemos to Carondelet, Nogales, July 25, 1793.]
Carondelet's Tortuous Intrigues.
The divided condition of the Creeks, some of whom wished to carry out in
good faith the treaty of New York, while the others threatened to attack
whoever made any move towards putting the treaty into effect, puzzled
Carondelet nearly as much as it did the United States authorities; and
he endeavored to force the Creeks to abstain from warfare with the
Chickasaws by refusing to supply them with munitions of war for any such
purpose, or for any other except to oppose the frontiersmen. He put
great faith in the endeavor to treat the Americans not as one nation,
but as an assemblage of different communities. The Spaniards sought to
placate the Kentuckians by promising to reduce the duties on the goods
that came down stream to New Orleans by six per cent., and thus to
prevent an outbreak on their part; at the same time the United States
Government was kept occupied by idle negotiations. Carondelet further
hoped to restrain the Cumberland people by fear of the Creek and
Cherokee nations, who, he remarked, "had never ceased to commit
hostilities upon them and to profess implacable hatred for them."
[Footnote: Carondelet to De Lemos, Aug. 15, 1793.] He reported to the
Spanish Court that Spain had no means of molesting the Americans save
through the Indians, as it would not be possible with an army to make a
serious impression on the "ferocious and well-armed" frontier people,
favored as they would be by their knowledge of the country; whereas the
Indians, if properly supported, offered an excellent defence, supplying
from the Southwestern tribes fifteen thousand warriors, whose keep in
time of peace cost Spain not more than fifty thousand dollars a year,
and even in time of war not more than a hundred and fifty thousand.
[Footnote: Carondelet to Alcudia, Sept. 27, 1793.]
He Continually Incites the Indians to War.
The Spaniards in this manner actively fomented hostilities among the
Creeks and Cherokees. Their support explained much in the attitude of
these peoples, but doubtless the war would have gone on anyhow until the
savages were thoroughly cowed by force of arms. The chief causes for the
incessantly renewed hostilities were the desire of the young braves for
blood and glory, a vague but well-founded belief among the Indians that
the white advance meant their ruin unless stayed by an appeal to arms,
and, more important still, the absolute lack of any central authority
among the tribesmen which could compel them all to war together
effectively on the one hand, or all to make peace on the other.
Seagrove the Indian Agent.
Blount was Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Indians as
well as Governor of the Territory; and in addition the Federal
authorities established an Indian agent, directly responsible to
themselves, among the Creeks. His name was James Seagrove. He did his
best to bring about a peace, and, like all Indian agents, he was apt to
take an unduly harsh view of the deeds of the frontiersmen, and to
consider them the real aggressors in any trouble. Of necessity his point
of view was wholly different from that of the border settlers. He was
promptly informed of all the outrages and aggressions committed by the
whites, while he heard little or nothing of the parties of young braves,
bent on rapine, who continually fell on the frontiers; whereas the
frontiersmen came in contact only with these war bands, and when their
kinsfolk had been murdered and their cattle driven off, they were
generally ready to take vengeance on the first Indians they could find.
Even Seagrove, however, was at times hopelessly puzzled by the attitude
of the Indians. He was obliged to admit that they were the first
offenders, after the conclusion of the treaties of New York and Holston,
and that for a long time the settlers behaved with great moderation in
refraining from revenging the outrages committed on them by the Indians,
which, he remarked, would have to be stopped if peace was to be
preserved. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., Seagrove to the
Secretary of War, St. Mary's, June 14, 1792.]
Disorder among the Frontiersmen.
McGillivray Bewildered.
As the Government took no efficient steps to preserve the peace, either
by chastising the Indians or by bridling the ill-judged vengeance of the
frontier inhabitants, many of the latter soon grew to hate and despise
those by whom they were neither protected nor restrained. The disorderly
element got the upper hand on the Georgia frontier, where the
backwoodsmen did all they could to involve the nation in a general
Indian war; and displayed the most defiant and mutinous spirit toward
the officers, civil and military, of the United States Government.
[Footnote: _Do_., Seagrove to the President, Rock Landing, on the
Oconee, in Georgia, July 17, 1792.] As for the Creeks, Seagrove found it
exceedingly hard to tell who of them were traitors and who were not; and
indeed the chiefs would probably themselves have found the task
difficult, for they were obliged to waver more or less in their course
as the fickle tribesmen were swayed by impulses towards peace or war.
One of the men whom Seagrove finally grew to regard as a confirmed
traitor was the chief, McGillivray. He was probably quite right in his
estimate of the half-breed's character; and, on the other hand,
McGillivray doubtless had as an excuse the fact that the perpetual
intrigues of Spanish officers, American traders, British adventurers,
Creek chiefs who wished peace, and Creek warriors who wished war, made
it out of the question for him to follow any settled policy. He wrote to
Seagrove: "It is no wonder the Indians are distracted, when they are
tampered with on every side. I am myself in the situation of a keeper
of Bedlam, and nearly fit for an inhabitant." [Footnote: American State
Papers, IV., McGillivray to Seagrove, May 18, 1793.] However, what he
did amounted to but little, for his influence had greatly waned, and
in 1793 he died.
The Indians the Aggressors.
On the Georgia frontier the backwoodsmen were very rough and lawless,
and were always prone to make aggressions on the red men; nevertheless,
even in the case of Georgia in 1791 and '92, the chief fault lay with
the Indians. They refused to make good the land cession which they had
solemnly guaranteed at the treaty of New York, and which certain of
their towns had previously covenanted to make in the various more or
less fraudulent treaties entered into with the State of Georgia
separately. In addition to this their plundering parties continually
went among the Georgians. The latter, in their efforts to retaliate,
struck the hostile and the peaceful alike; and as time went on they made
ready to take forcible possession of the lands they coveted, without
regard to whether or not these lands had been ceded in fair treaty.
In the Tennessee country the wrong was wholly with the Indians. Some of
the chiefs of the Cherokees went to Philadelphia at the beginning of the
year 1792 to request certain modifications of the treaty of Holston,
notably an increase in their annuity, which was granted. [Footnote:
_Do_., Secretary of War to Governor Blount, Jan. 31, 1792.]
Their Outrages on the Tennesseeans.
The General Government had conducted the treaties in good faith and had
given the Indians what they asked. The frontiersmen did not molest them
in any way or trespass upon their lands; yet their ravages continued
without cessation. The authorities at Washington made but feeble efforts
to check these outrages, and protect the southwestern settlers. Yet at
this time Tennessee was doing her full part in sustaining the National
Government in the war against the Northwestern tribes; a company of
Tennessee militia, under Captain Jacob Tipton, joined St. Clair's army,
and Tipton was slain at the defeat, where he fought with the utmost
bravery. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Dec. 17, 1791. I use the word
"Tennessee" for convenience; it was not at this time used in this
sense.] Not unnaturally the Tennesseeans, and especially the settlers on
the far-off Cumberland, felt it a hardship for the United States to
neglect their defence at the very time that they were furnishing their
quota of soldiers for an offensive war against nations in whose subdual
they had but an indirect interest. Robertson wrote to Blount that their
silence and remoteness was the cause why the interests of the Cumberland
settlers were thus neglected, while the Kentuckians were amply
protected. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Robertson's letter, Nashville,
Aug. 25, 1791.]
Anger of the Tennesseeans.
Blindness of the Federal Government.
Naturally the Tennesseeans, conscious that they had not wronged the
Indians, and had scrupulously observed the treaty, grew imbittered over,
the wanton Indian outrages. They were entirely at a loss to explain the
reason why the warfare against them was waged with such ferocity. Sevier
wrote to Madison, with whom he frequently corresponded: "This country is
wholly involved in a war with the Creek and Cherokee Indians, and I am
not able to suggest the reasons or the pretended cause of their
depredations. The successes of the Northern tribes over our late
unfortunate armies have created great exultation throughout the whole
Southern Indians, and the probabilities may be they expect to be equally
successful. The Spaniards are making use of all their art to draw over
the Southern tribes, and I fear may have stimulated them to commence
their hostilities. Governor Blount has indefatigably labored to keep
these people in a pacific humor, but in vain. War is unavoidable,
however ruinous and calamitous it may be." [Footnote: State Dep. MSS.,
Madison Papers, Sevier's letter, Oct. 30, 1792.] The Federal Government
was most reluctant to look facts in the face and acknowledge that the
hostilities were serious, and that they were unprovoked by the whites.
The Secretary of War reported to the President that the offenders were
doubtless merely a small banditti of Creeks and Cherokees, with a few
Shawnees who possessed no fixed residence; and in groping for a remedy
he weakly suggested that inasmuch as many of the Cherokees seemed to be
dissatisfied with the boundary line they had established by treaty it
would perhaps be well to alter it. [Footnote: State Dep. MSS.,
Washington Papers, Secretary of War to the President, July 28, and Aug.
5, 1792.] Of course the adoption of such a measure would have amounted
to putting a premium on murder and treachery.
Odd Manifestations of Particularistic Feeling.
If the Easterners were insensible to the Western need for a vigorous
Indian war, many of the Westerners showed as little appreciation of the
necessity for any Indian war which did not immediately concern
themselves. Individual Kentuckians, individual colonels and captains of
the Kentucky militia, were always ready to march to the help of the
Tennesseeans against the Southern Indians; but the highest officials of
Kentucky were almost as anxious as the Federal authorities to prevent
any war save that with the tribes northwest of the Ohio. One of the
Kentucky senators, Brown, in writing to the Governor, Isaac Shelby, laid
particular stress upon the fact that nothing but the most urgent
necessity could justify a war with the Southern Indians. [Footnote:
Shelby MSS., J. Brown to Isaac Shelby, Philadelphia, June 2, 1793.]
Shelby himself sympathized with this feeling. He knew what an Indian war
was, for he had owed his election largely to his record as an Indian
fighter and to the confidence the Kentuckians felt in his power to
protect them from their red foes. [Footnote: _Do_., M. D. Hardin to
Isaac Shelby, April 10, 1792, etc., etc.] His correspondence is filled
with letters in relation to Indian affairs, requests to authorize the
use of spies, requests to establish guards along the wilderness road and
to garrison blockhouses on the frontier; and sometimes there are more
pathetic letters, from a husband who had lost a wife, or from an "old,
frail woman," who wished to know if the Governor could not by some means
get news of her little granddaughter who had been captured in the
wilderness two years before by a party of Indians. [Footnote: _Do._,
Letter of Mary Mitchell to Isaac Shelby, May 1, 1793.] He realized fully
what hostilities meant, and had no desire to see his State plunged into
any Indian war which could be avoided.
Yet, in spite of this cautious attitude, Shelby had much influence with
the people of the Tennessee territory. They confided to him their
indignation with Blount for stopping Logan's march to the aid of
Robertson; while on the other hand the Virginians, when anxious to
prevent the Cumberland settlers from breaking the peace, besought him to
use his influence with them in order to make them do what was
right. [Footnote: Shelby MSS., Arthur Campbell to Shelby, January 6,
1890; letter from Cumberland to Shelby, May 11, 1793; John Logan to
Shelby, June 19, 1794; petition of inhabitants of Nelson County, May 9,
1793.] When such a man as Shelby was reluctant to see the United States
enter into open hostilities with the Southern Indians, there is small
cause for wonder in the fact that the authorities at the National
capital did their best to deceive themselves into the belief that there
was no real cause for war.
Intolerable Hardships of the Settlers.
Inability to look facts in the face did not alter the facts. The Indian
ravages in the Southern Territory grew steadily more and more serious.
The difficulties of the settlers were enormously increased because the
United States strictly forbade any offensive measures. The militia were
allowed to drive off any war bands found among the settlements with
evidently hostile intent; but, acting under the explicit, often
repeated, and emphatic commands of the General Government, Blount was
obliged to order the militia under no circumstances to assume the
offensive, or to cross into the Indian hunting grounds beyond the
boundaries established by the treaty of Holston. [Footnote: Robertson
MSS., Blount to Robertson, April 1, 1792.] The inhabitants of the
Cumberland region, and of the frontier counties generally, petitioned
strongly against this, stating that "the frontiers will break if the
inroads of the savages are not checked by counter expeditions."
[Footnote: _Do_., Feb. 1, 1792.]
Blount's Good Conduct.
It was a very disagreeable situation for Blount, who, in carrying out
the orders of the Federal authorities, had to incur the ill-will of the
people whom he had been appointed to govern; but even at the cost of
being supposed to be lukewarm in the cause of the settlers, he loyally
endeavored to execute the commands of his superiors. Yet like every
other man acquainted by actual experience with frontier life and Indian
warfare, he knew the folly of defensive war against Indians. At this
very time the officers on the frontier of South Carolina, which was not
a State that was at all inclined to unjust aggression against the
Indians, notified the Governor that the defensive war was "expensive,
hazardous, and distressing" to the settlers, because the Indians "had
such advantages, being so wolfish in their manner and so savage in their
nature," that it was impossible to make war upon them on equal terms if
the settlers were confined to defending themselves in their own country,
whereas a speedy and spirited counter-attack upon them in their homes
would probably reduce them to peace, as their mode of warfare fitted
them much less to oppose such an attack than to "take skulking, wolfish
advantages of the defenceless" settlers. [Footnote: American State
Papers, IV., Robert Anderson to the Governor of South Carolina, Sep. 20,
1792.]
Doublefaced Conduct of the Creeks and Cherokees.
The difficulties of Blount and the Tennessee frontiersmen were increased
by the very fact that the Cherokees and Creeks still nominally remained
at peace. The Indian towns nearest the frontier knew that they were
jeopardized by the acts of their wilder brethren, and generally strove
to avoid committing any offense themselves. The war parties from the
remote towns were the chief offenders. Band after band came up from
among the Creeks or from among the lower Cherokees, and, passing through
the peaceful villages of the upper Cherokees, fell on the frontier,
stole horses, ambushed men, killed or captured women and children, and
returned whence they had come. In most cases it was quite impossible to
determine even the tribe of the offenders with any certainty; and all
that the frontiersmen knew was that their bloody trails led back towards
the very villages where the Indians loudly professed that they were at
peace. They soon grew to regard all the Indians with equal suspicion,
and they were so goaded by the blows which they could not return that
they were ready to take vengeance upon any one with a red skin, or at
least to condone such vengeance when taken. The peaceful Cherokees,
though they regretted these actions and were alarmed and disquieted at
the probable consequences, were unwilling or unable to punish the
aggressors.
Blount Warns the Federal Government.
Blount was soon at his wits' ends to prevent the outbreak of a general
war. In November, 1792, he furnished the War Department with a list of
scores of people--men, women, and children--who had been killed in
Tennessee, chiefly in the Cumberland district, since the signing of the
treaty of Holston. Many others had been carried off, and were kept in
slavery. Among the wounded were General Robertson and one of his sons,
who were shot, although not fatally, in May, 1792, while working on
their farm. Both Creeks and Cherokees took part in the outrages, and the
Chickamauga towns on the Tennessee, at Running Water, Nickajack, and in
the neighborhood, ultimately supplied the most persistent
wrongdoers. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of
War, Nov. 8, 1792; also page 330, etc. Many of these facts will be found
recited, not only in the correspondence of Blount, but in the Robertson
MSS., in the _Knoxville Gazette_, and in Haywood, Ramsey, and Putman.]
Effect of the Defeat of Harmar and St. Clair.
Growth of the War Spirit.
As Sevier remarked, the Southern, no less than the Northern Indians were
much excited and encouraged by the defeat of St. Clair, coming as it did
so close upon the defeat of Harmar. The double disaster to the American
arms made the young braves very bold, and it became impossible for the
elder men to restrain them. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., pp.
263, 439, etc.] The Creeks harassed the frontiers of Georgia somewhat,
but devoted their main attention to the Tennesseeans, and especially to
the isolated settlements on the Cumberland. The Chickamauga towns were
right at the crossing place both for the Northern Indians when they came
south and for the Creeks when they went north. Bands of Shawnees, who
were at this time the most inveterate of the enemies of the
frontiersmen, passed much time among them; and the Creek war parties,
when they journeyed north to steal horses and get scalps, invariably
stopped among them, and on their return stopped again to exhibit their
trophies and hold scalp dances. The natural effect was that the
Chickamaugas, who were mainly Lower Town Cherokees, seeing the impunity
with which the ravages were committed, and appreciating the fact that
under the orders of the Government they could not be molested in their
own homes by the whites, began to join in the raids; and their nearness
to the settlements soon made them the worst offenders. One of their
leading chiefs was John Watts, who was of mixed blood. Among all these
Southern Indians, half-breeds were far more numerous than among the
Northerners, and when the half-breeds lived with their mothers' people
they usually became the deadliest enemies of their fathers' race. Yet,
they generally preserved the father's name. In consequence, among the
extraordinary Indian titles borne by the chiefs of the Creeks, Cherokees,
and Choctaws--the Bloody Fellow, the Middle Striker, the Mad Dog, the
Glass, the Breath--there were also many names like John Watts, Alexander
Cornell, and James Colbert, which were common among the frontiersmen
themselves.
Fruitless Peace Negotiations.
These Chickamaugas, and Lower Cherokees, had solemnly entered into
treaties of peace, and Blount had been taken in by their professions of
friendship, and for some time was loath to believe that their warriors
were among war parties who ravaged the settlements. By the spring of
1792, however, the fact of their hostility could no longer be concealed.
Nevertheless, in May of that year the chiefs of the Lower Cherokee
Towns, joined with those of the Upper Towns in pressing Governor Blount
to come to a council at Coyatee, where he was met by two thousand
Cherokees, including all their principal chiefs and warriors. [Footnote:
Robertson's MSS., Blount to Robertson, May 20, 1792.] The head men, not
only from the Upper Towns, but from Nickajack and Running Water,
including John Watts, solemnly assured Blount of their peaceful
intentions, and expressed their regret at the outrages which they
admitted had been committed by their young men. Blount told them plainly
that he had the utmost difficulty in restraining the whites from taking
vengeance for the numerous murders committed on the settlers, and warned
them that if they wished to avert a war which would fall upon both the
innocent and the guilty they must themselves keep the peace. The chiefs
answered, with seeming earnestness, that they were most desirous of
being at peace, and would certainly restrain their men; and they begged
for the treaty goods which Blount had in his possession. So sincere did
they seem that he gave them the goods. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_,
March 24,1792; American State Papers, IV., Blount to Secretary of War,
June 2, 1792, with minutes of conference at Coyatee.]
This meeting began on the 17th of May, yet on the 16th, within twelve
miles of Knoxville, two boys were killed and scalped while picking
strawberries, and on the 13th a girl had been scalped within four miles
of Nashville; and on the 17th itself, while Judge Campbell of the
Territorial Court was returning from the Cumberland Circuit his party
was attacked, and one killed. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, June 2,
1792.]
Chickamaugas Make Open War.
Try to Deceive Blount.
When such outrages were committed at the very time the treaty was being
held, it was hopeless to expect peace. In September the Chickamaugas
threw off the mask and made open war. When the news was received Blount
called out the militia and sent word to Robertson that some friendly
Cherokees had given warning that a big war party was about to fall on
the settlements round Nashville. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV.,
Blount to Secretary of War, Sept. 11, 1792.] Finding that the warning
had been given, the Chickamauga chiefs sought to lull their foes into
security by a rather adroit peace of treachery. Two of their chiefs, The
Glass and The Bloody Fellow, wrote to Blount complaining that they had
assembled their warriors because they were alarmed over rumors of a
desire on the part of the whites to maltreat them; and on the receipt of
assurances from Blount that they were mistaken, they announced their
pleasure and stated that no hostilities would be undertaken. Blount was
much relieved at this, and thought that the danger of an outbreak was
past. Accordingly he wrote to Robertson telling him that he could disband
his troops, as there was no longer need of them. Robertson, however, knew
the Indian character as few men did know it, and, moreover, he had
received confidential information about the impending raid from a
half-breed and a Frenchman who were among the Indians. He did not disband
his troops, and wrote to Blount that The Glass and The Bloody Fellow had
undoubtedly written as they did simply to deceive him and to secure their
villages from a counter-attack while they were off on their raid against
the Cumberland people. Accordingly three hundred militia were put under
arms. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Sept. 6, 1792;
Blount to The Bloody Fellow, Sept. 10, 1792; to Robertson, Sept. 12;
to The Glass, Sept. 13; to The Bloody Fellow, Sept. 13; to Robertson,
Sept. 14; Robertson to Blount, Sept. 26, 1792.]
Attack Buchanan's Station.
Failure of the Attack.
It was well that the whites were on their guard. Towards the end of
September a big war party, under the command of John Watts and including
some two hundred Cherokees, eighty Creeks, and some Shawnees, left the
Chickamauga Towns and marched swiftly and silently to the Cumberland
district. They attempted to surprise one of the more considerable of the
lonely little forted towns. It was known as Buchanan's Station, and in
it there were several families, including fifteen "gun-men." Two spies
went out from it to scour the country and give warning of any Indian
advance; but with the Cherokees were two very white half-breeds, whose
Indian blood was scarcely noticeable, and these two men met the spies
and decoyed them to their death. The Indians then, soon after midnight
on the 30th of September, sought to rush the station by surprise. The
alarm was given by the running of the frightened cattle, and when the
sentinel fired at the assailants they were not ten yards from the gate
of the blockhouse. The barred door withstood the shock and the
flame-flashes lit up the night as the gun-men fired through the
loop-holes. The Indians tried to burn the fort, one of the chiefs, a
half-breed, leaping on the roof; he was shot through the thigh and
rolled off; but he stayed close to the logs trying to light them with
his torch, alternately blowing it into a blaze and halloing to the
Indians to keep on with the attack. However, he was slain, as was the
Shawnee head chief, and several warriors, while John Watts, leader of
the expedition, was shot through both thighs. The log walls of the grim
little blockhouse stood out black in the fitful glare of the cane torches;
and tongues of red fire streamed into the night as the rifles rang. The
attack had failed, and the throng of dark, flitting forms faded into
the gloom as the baffled Indians retreated. So disheartened were they
by the check, and by the loss they had suffered, that they did not
further molest the settlements, but fell back to their strongholds across
the Tennessee. Among the Cherokee chiefs who led the raid were two
signers of the treaty of Holston. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to
Robertson, Oct. 17, 1792; _Knoxville Gazette_, Oct. 10, and Oct. 20,
1792; Brown's Narrative, in _Southwestern Monthly_.]
Monotony of the Indian Outrages.
After this the war was open, so far as the Indians of the Lower Cherokee
Towns and of many of the Creek Towns were concerned; but the whites were
still restrained by strict orders from the United States authorities,
who refused to allow them to retaliate. Outrage followed outrage in
monotonously bloody succession. The Creeks were the worst offenders in
point of numbers, but the Lower Cherokees from the Chickamauga towns did
most harm according to their power. Sometimes the bands that entered the
settlements were several hundred strong; but their chief object was
plunder, and they rarely attacked the strong places of the white
frontiersmen, though they forced them to keep huddled in the stockaded
stations; nor did they often fight a pitched battle with the larger
bodies of militia. There is no reason for reciting in full the countless
deeds of rapine and murder. The incidents, though with infinite variety
of detail, were in substance the same as in all the Indian wars of the
backwoods. Men, women, and children were killed or captured; outlying
cabins were attacked and burned; the husbandman was shot as he worked in
the field, and the housewife as she went for water. The victim was now a
militiaman on his way to join his company, now one of a party of
immigrants, now a settler on his lonely farm, and now a justice of the
peace going to Court, or a Baptist preacher striving to reach the
Cumberland country that he might preach the word of God to the people
who had among them no religious instructor. The express messengers and
post riders, who went through the wilderness from one commander to the
other, always rode at hazard of their lives. In one of Blount's letters
to Robertson he remarks: "Your letter of the 6th of February sent
express by James Russell was handed to me, much stained with his blood,
by Mr. Shannon, who accompanied him." Russell had been wounded in an
ambuscade, and his fifty dollars were dearly earned. [Footnote:
Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, March 8, 1794. The files of the
_Knoxville Gazette_ are full of details of these outrages, and so are
the letters of Blount to the Secretary of War given in the American
State Papers, as well as the letters of Blount and Robertson in the two
bound volumes of Robertson MSS. Many of them are quoted in more
accessible form in Haywood.]
Horse-stealing.
Brutal White Ruffians.
The Indians were even more fond of horse-stealing than of murder, and
they found a ready market for their horses not only in their own nations
and among the Spaniards, but among the American frontiersmen themselves.
Many of the unscrupulous white scoundrels who lived on the borders of
the Indian country made a regular practice of receiving the stolen
horses. As soon as a horse was driven from the Tennessee or Cumberland
it was hurried through the Indian country to the Carolina or Georgia
frontiers, where the red thieves delivered it to the foul white
receivers, who took it to some town on the seaboard, so as effectually
to prevent a recovery. At Swannanoa in North Carolina, among the lawless
settlements at the foot of the Oconee Mountain in South Carolina, and at
Tugaloo in Georgia, there were regular markets for these stolen horses.
[Footnote: Blount to the Secretary of War, May 5, 1792, and Nov. 10,
1794. As before, I use the word "Tennessee" instead of "Southwestern
Territory" for convenience; it was not regularly employed until 1796.]
There were then, and continued to exist as long as the frontier lasted,
plenty of white men who, though ready enough to wrong the Indians, were
equally ready to profit by the wrongs they inflicted on the white
settlers, and to encourage their misdeeds if profit was thereby to be
made. Very little evildoing of this kind took place Tennessee, for
Blount, backed by Sevier and Robertson, was vigilant to put it down; but
as yet the Federal Government was not firm in its seat, and its arm was
not long enough to reach into the remote frontier districts, where
lawlessness of every kind throve, and the whites wronged one another as
recklessly as they wronged the Indians.
Sufferings of the Honest Settlers.
Blount's Efforts to Prevent Brutality.
The white scoundrels throve in the confusion of a nominal peace which
the savages broke at will; but the honest frontiersmen really suffered
more than if there had been open war, as the Federal Government refused
to allow raids to be carried into the Indian territory, and in
consequence the marauding Indians could at any time reach a place of
safety. The blockhouses were of little consequence in putting a stop to
Indian attacks. The most efficient means of defence was the employment
of the hardiest and best hunters as scouts or spies, for they travelled
hither and thither through the woods and continually harried the war
parties. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., p. 364; letter of
Secretary of War, May 30, 1793.] The militia bands also travelled to and
fro, marching to the rescue of some threatened settlement, or seeking to
intercept the attacking bands or to overtake those who had delivered
their stroke and were returning to the Indian country. Generally they
failed in the pursuit. Occasionally they were themselves ambushed,
attacked, and dispersed; sometimes they overtook and scattered their
foes. In such a case they were as little apt to show mercy to the
defeated as were the Indians themselves. Blount issued strict orders
that squaws and children were not to be slain, and the frontiersmen did
generally refuse to copy their antagonists in butchering the women
and children in cold blood. When an attack was made on a camp, however,
it was no uncommon thing to have the squaws killed while the fight was
hot. Blount, in one of his letters to Robertson, after the Cumberland
militia had attacked and destroyed a Creek war party which had murdered
a settler, expressed his pleasure at the perseverance with which the
militia captain had followed the Indians to the banks of the Tennessee,
where he had been lucky enough to overtake them in a position where not
one was able to escape. Blount especially complimented him upon having
spared the two squaws, "as all civilized people should"; and he added
that in so doing the captain's conduct offered a most agreeable contrast
to the behavior of some of his fellow citizens under like circumstances.
[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount's letter, March 8, 1794.]
Repeated Failures to Secure Peace.
Repeated efforts were made to secure peace with the Indians. Andrew
Pickens, of South Carolina, was sent to the exposed frontier in 1792 to
act as peace Commissioner. Pickens was a high-minded and honorable man,
who never hesitated to condemn the frontiersmen when they wronged the
Indians, and he was a champion of the latter wherever possible. He came
out with every hope and belief that he could make a permanent treaty;
but after having been some time on the border he was obliged to admit
that there was no chance of bringing about even a truce, and that the
nominal peace that obtained was worse for the settlers than actual war.
He wrote to Blount that though he earnestly hoped the people of the
border would observe the treaty, yet that the Cherokees had done more
damage, especially in the way of horse stealing, since the treaty was
signed than ever before, and that it was not possible to say what the
frontier inhabitants might be provoked to do. He continued: "While a
part, and that the ostensible ruling part, of a nation affect to be at,
and I believe really are for, peace, and the more active young men are
frequently killing people and stealing horses, it is extremely difficult
to know how to act. The people, even the most exposed, would prefer an
open war to such a situation. The reason is obvious. A man would then
know when he saw an Indian he saw an enemy, and would be prepared and
act accordingly." [Footnote: American State Papers, Pickens to Blount,
Hopewell, April 28, 1792.]
The Georgia Frontier.
The people of Tennessee were the wronged, and not the wrongdoers, and it
was upon them that the heaviest strokes of the Indians fell. The Georgia
frontiers were also harried continually, although much less severely;
but the Georgians were themselves far from blameless. Georgia was the
youngest, weakest, and most lawless of the original thirteen States, and
on the whole her dealings with the Indians were far from creditable,
More than once she inflicted shameful wrong on the Cherokees. The
Creeks, however, generally wronged her more than she wronged them, and
at this particular period even the Georgia frontiersmen were much less
to blame than were their Indian foes. By fair treaty the Indians had
agreed to cede to the whites lands upon which they now refused to allow
them to settle. They continually plundered and murdered the outlying
Georgia settlers; and the militia, in their retaliatory expeditions,
having no knowledge of who the murderers actually were, quite as often
killed the innocent as the guilty. One of the complaints of the Indians
was that the Georgians came in parties to hunt on the neutral ground,
and slew quantities of deer and turkeys by fire hunting at night and by
still hunting with the rifle in the daytime, while they killed many
bears by the aid of their "great gangs of dogs." [Footnote: American
State Papers, Timothy Barnard to James Seagrove, March 26, 1793.] This
could hardly be called a legitimate objection on the part of the Creeks,
however, for their own hunting parties ranged freely through the lands
they had ceded to the whites and killed game wherever they could find
it.
Evil and fearful deeds were done by both sides. Peaceful Indians, even
envoys, going to the treaty grounds were slain in cold blood; and all
that the Georgians could allege by way of offset was that the savages
themselves had killed many peaceful whites.
Brutal Nature of the Contest in Georgia.
The Georgia frontiersmen openly showed their sullen hatred of the United
States authorities. The Georgia State government was too weak to enforce
order. It could neither keep the peace among its own frontiersmen,
nor wage effective war on the Indians; for when the militia did gather
to invade the Creek country they were so mutinous and disorderly that
the expeditions generally broke up without accomplishing anything. At
one period a militia general, Elijah Clark, actually led a large party
of frontiersmen into the unceded Creek hunting grounds with the purpose
of setting up an independent government; but the Georgia authorities for
once summoned energy sufficient to break up this lawless community.
[Footnote: American State Papers, IV., pp. 260, 295, 365, 394, 397, 410,
412, 417, 427, 473, etc.; _Knoxville Gazette_, Sept. 26, 1794. For
further allusion to Clark's settlement, see next chapter.]
Blount's Faithful Efforts to Preserve the Peace.
The Georgians were thus far from guiltless themselves, though at this
time they were more sinned against than sinning; but in the Tennessee
Territory the white settlers behaved very well throughout these years,
and showed both patience and fairness in their treatment of the Indians.
Blount did his best to prevent outrages, and Sevier and Robertson
heartily seconded him. In spite of the grumbling of the frontiersmen,
and in spite of repeated and almost intolerable provocation in the way
of Indian forays, Blount steadily refused to allow counter-expeditions
into the Indian territory, and stopped both the Tennesseeans and
Kentuckians when they prepared to make such expeditions. [Footnote:
Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Jan. 8, 1793; to Benjamin Logan,
Nov. 1, 1794, etc.] Judge Campbell, the same man who was himself
attacked by the Indians when returning from his circuit, in his charge
to the Grand Jury at the end of 1791, particularly warned them to stop
any lawless attack upon the Indians. In November, 1792, when five
Creeks, headed by a Scotch half-breed, retreated to the Cherokee town of
Chiloa with stolen horses, a band of fifty whites gathered to march
after them and destroy the Cherokee town; but Sevier dispersed them and
made them go to their own homes. The following February a still larger
band gathered to attack the Cherokee towns and were dispersed by Blount
himself. Robertson, in the summer of 1793, prevented militia parties
from crossing the Tennessee in retaliation. In October, 1794, the Grand
Jury of Hamilton County entreated and adjured the people, in spite of
the Indian outrages to stand firmly by the law, and not to try to be
their own avengers; and when some whites settled in Powell's Valley, on
Cherokee lands, Governor Blount promptly turned them off. [Footnote:
_Knoxville Gazette_, Dec. 31, 1791; Nov. 17, 1792; Jan. 25, 1793; Feb.
9, Mar. 23, July 13, Sept. 14, 1793; Nov. 1 and 15, 1794; May 8, 1795.]
Seagrove's Difficulties.
The unfortunate Indian agent among the Creeks, Seagrove, speedily became
an object of special detestation to the frontiersmen generally, and the
inhabitants of the Tennessee country in particular, because he
persistently reported that he thought the Creeks peaceable, and deemed
their behavior less blameable than that of the whites. His attitude was
natural, for probably most of the Creek chiefs with whom he came in
contact were friendly, and many of those who were not professed to be so
when in his company, if only for the sake of getting the goods he had to
distribute; and of course they brought him word whenever the Georgians
killed a Creek, either innocent or guilty, without telling him of the
offence which the Georgians were blindly trying to revenge. Seagrove
himself had some rude awakenings. After reporting to the Central
Government at Philadelphia that the Creeks were warm in professing the
most sincere friendship, he would suddenly find, to his horror, that
they were sending off war parties and acting in concert with the
Shawnees; and at one time they actually, without any provocation,
attacked a trading store kept by his own brother, and killed the two men
who were managing it. [Footnote: American State Papers, Seagrove to James
Holmes, Feb. 24, 1793; to Mr. Payne, April 14, 1793.] Most of the
Creeks, however, professed, and doubtless felt, regret at these
outrages, and Seagrove continued to represent their conduct in a
favorable light to the Central Government, though he was forced to admit
that certain of the towns were undoubtedly hostile and could not be
controlled by the party which was for peace.
Blount calls Seagrove to Account.
Blount was much put out at the fact that Seagrove was believed at
Philadelphia when he reported the Creeks to be at peace. In a letter to
Seagrove, at the beginning of 1794, Blount told him sharply that as far
as the Cumberland district was concerned the Creeks had been the only
ones to blame since the treaty of New York, for they had killed or
enslaved over two hundred whites, attacking them in their houses,
fields, or on the public roads, and had driven off over a thousand
horses, while the Americans had done the Creeks no injuries whatever
except in defence of their homes and lives, or in pursuing war parties.
It was possible of course that occasionally an innocent hunter suffered
with the guilty marauders, but this was because he was off his own
hunting grounds; and the treaty explicitly showed that the Creeks had no
claim to the Cumberland region, while there was not a particle of truth
in their assertion that since the treaty had been entered into there had
been intrusion on their hunting grounds. Seagrove, in response, wrote
that he believed the Creeks and Cherokees sincerely desired peace. This
was followed forthwith by new outrages, and Blount wrote to Robertson:
"It does really seem as if assurances from Mr. Seagrove of the peaceful
disposition of the Creeks was the prelude to their murdering and
plundering the inhabitants of your district." [Footnote: Robertson MSS.,
Blount to Robertson, Feb. 13, 1793; Blount to James Seagrove, Jan. 9,
1794; Seagrove to Blount, Feb. 10, 1794; Blount to Robertson, March 8,
1794.] The _Knoxville Gazette_ called attention to the fact that
Seagrove had written a letter to the effect that the Creeks were well
disposed, just four days before the attack on Buchanan Station. On
September 22d Seagrove wrote stating that the Creeks were peaceable,
that all their chief men ardently wished for the cessation of
hostilities, and that they had refused the request of the Cherokees to
go to war with the United States; and his deputy agent, Barnard,
reiterated the assertions and stated that the Upper Creeks had remained
quiet, although six of their people had been killed at the mouth of the
Tennessee. The _Gazette_ thereupon published a list of twenty-one men,
women, and children who at that very time were held in slavery in the
Creek towns, and enumerated scores of murders which had been committed
by the Creeks during precisely the period when Seagrove and Barnard
described them as so desirous of peace. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_,
Dec. 29, 1792; Dec. 19, 1793.]
Increasing Indignation of the Settlers.
Under such circumstances the settlers naturally grew indignant with the
United States because they were not protected, and were not even allowed
to defend themselves by punishing their foes. The Creeks and Cherokees
were receiving their annuities regularly, and many presents in addition,
while their outrages continued unceasingly. The Nashville people
complained that the Creeks were "as busy in killing and scalping as if
they had been paid three thousand dollars for so doing, in the room of
fifteen hundred dollars to keep the peace." [Footnote: _Knoxville
Gazette_, March 23, 1793.] A public address was issued in the _Knoxville
Gazette_ by the Tennesseeans on the subjects of their wrongs. In
respectful and loyal language, but firmly, the Tennesseeans called the
attention of the Government authorities to their sufferings. They avowed
the utmost devotion to the Union and a determination to stand by the
laws, but insisted that it would be absolutely necessary for them to
take measures to defend themselves by retaliating on the Indians.
Nature of the Indian Inroads.
A feature of the address was its vivid picture of the nature of the
ordinary Indian inroad and of the lack of any definite system of defence
on the frontier. It stated that the Indian raid or outbreak was usually
first made known either by the murder of some defenceless farmer, the
escape of some Indian trader, or the warning of some friendly Indian who
wished to avoid mischief. The first man who received the news, not
having made any agreement with the other members of the community as to
his course in such an emergency, ran away to his kinsfolk as fast as he
could. Every neighbor caught the alarm, thought himself the only person
left to fight, and got off on the same route as speedily as possible,
until, luckily for all, the meeting of the roads on the general retreat,
the difficulty of the way, the straying of horses, and sometimes the
halting to drink whiskey, put a stop to "the hurly-burly of the flight"
and reminded the fugitives that by this time they were in sufficient
force to rally; and then they would return "to explore the plundered
country and to bury the unfortunate scalped heads in the fag-end of the
retreat"; whereas if there had been an appointed rendezvous where all
could rally it would have prevented such a flight from what might
possibly have been a body of Indians far inferior in numbers to the
armed men of the settlements attacked. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_,
April 6, 1793.]
The Frontiersmen Ask Permission to Retaliate.
The convention of Mero district early petitioned Congress for the right
to retaliate on the Indians and to follow them to their towns, stating
that they had refrained from doing so hitherto not from cowardice, but
only from regard to Government, and that they regretted that their
"rulers" (the Federal authorities at Philadelphia) did not enter into
their feelings or seem to sympathize with them. [Footnote: _Knoxville
Gazette_, August 13, 1792.] When the Territorial Legislature met in 1794
it petitioned Congress for war against the Creeks and Cherokees,
reciting the numerous outrages committed by them upon the whites;
stating that since 1792 the frontiersmen had been huddled together two
or three hundred to the station, anxiously expecting peace, or a legally
authorized war from which they would soon wring peace; and adding that
they were afraid of war in no shape, but that they asked that their
hands be unbound and they be allowed to defend themselves in the only
possible manner, by offensive war. They went on to say that, as members
of the Nation, they heartily approved of the hostilities which were then
being carried on against the Algerines for the protection of the
seafaring men of the coast-towns, and concluded: "The citizens who live
in poverty on the extreme frontier are as much entitled to be protected
in their lives, their families, and their little properties, as those
who roll in luxury, ease, and affluence in the great and opulent
Atlantic cities,"--for in frontier eyes the little seaboard
trading-towns assumed a rather comical aspect of magnificence. The
address was on the whole dignified in tone, and it undoubtedly set forth
both the wrong and the remedy with entire accuracy. The Tennesseeans
felt bitterly that the Federal Government did everything for Kentucky
and nothing for themselves, and they were rather inclined to sneer at
the difficulty experienced by the Kentuckians and the Federal army in
subduing the Northwestern Indians, while they themselves were left
single-handed to contend with the more numerous tribes of the South.
They were also inclined to laugh at the continual complaints the
Georgians made over the comparatively trivial wrongs they suffered from
the Indians, and at their inability either to control their own people
or to make war effectively. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Feb. 26,
1794, March 27, 1794, etc., etc.]
The Situation Grows Intolerable.
Such a state of things as that which existed in the Tennessee territory
could not endure. The failure of the United States authorities to
undertake active offensive warfare and to protect the frontiersmen
rendered it inevitable that the frontiersmen should protect themselves;
and under the circumstances, when retaliation began it was certain
sometimes to fall upon the blameless. The rude militia officers began to
lead their retaliatory parties into the Indian lands, and soon the
innocent Indians suffered with the guilty, for the frontiersmen had no
means of distinguishing between them. The Indians who visited the
settlements with peaceful intent were of course at any time liable to be
mistaken for their brethren who were hostile, or else to be attacked by
scoundrels who were bent upon killing all red men alike. Thus, on one
day, as Blount reported, a friendly Indian passing the home of one of
the settlers was fired upon and wounded; while in the same region five
hostile Indians killed the wife and three children of a settler in his
sight; and another party stole a number of horses from a station; and
yet another party, composed of peaceful Indian hunters, was attacked at
night by some white militia, one man being killed and another wounded.
[Footnote: State Department MSS., Washington Papers, War Department, Ex.
C., page 19, extract of letter from Blount to Williamson, April 14,
1792.]
Scolacutta, the Friendly Cherokee.
One of the firm friends of the whites was Scolacutta, the chief of the
Upper Cherokees. He tried to keep his people at peace, and repeatedly
warned the whites of impending attacks, Nevertheless, he was unwilling
or unable to stop by force the war parties of Creeks and Lower Cherokees
who came through his towns to raid against the settlements and who
retreated to them again when the raids were ended. Many of his young men
joined the bands of horse-thieves and scalp-hunters. The marauders
wished to embroil him with the whites, and were glad that the latter
should see the bloody trails leading back to his towns. For two years
after the signing of the treaty of Holston the war parties thus passed
and repassed through his country, and received aid and comfort from his
people, and yet the whites refrained from taking vengeance; but the
vengeance was certain to come in the end.
His Village Attacked.
In March, 1793, Scolacutta's nearest neighbor, an Indian living next
door to him in his own town, and other Indians of the nearest towns,
joined one of the war parties which attacked the settlements and killed
two unarmed lads. [Footnote: American State Papers, Blount's letter,
March 20, 1793. Scolacutta was usually known to the whites as Hanging
Maw.] The Indians did nothing to the murderers, and the whites forbore
to attack them; but their patience was nearly exhausted. In June
following a captain, John Beard, with fifty mounted riflemen, fell in
with a small party of Indians who had killed several settlers. He
followed their trail to Scolacutta's town, where he slew eight or nine
Indians, most of whom were friendly. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Smith to
Robertson, June 19, 1793, etc.; _Knoxville Gazette_, June 15 and July
13, 1793, etc.] The Indians clamored for justice and the surrender of
the militia who had attacked them. Blount warmly sympathized with them,
but when he summoned a court-martial to try Beard it promptly acquitted
him, and the general frontier feeling was strongly in his favor. Other
militia commanders followed his example. Again and again they trailed
the war parties, laden with scalps and plunder, and attacked the towns
to which they went; killing the warriors and capturing squaws and
children. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, July 13, July 27, 1793, etc.,
etc.]
Revengeful Forays.
The following January another party of red marauders was tracked by a
band of riflemen to Scolacutta's camp. The militia promptly fell on the
camp and killed several Indians, both the hostile and the friendly.
Other Cherokee towns were attacked and partially destroyed. In but one
instance were the whites beaten off. When once the whites fairly began
to make retaliatory inroads they troubled themselves but little as to
whether the Indians they assailed were or were not those who had wronged
them. In one case, four frontiersmen dressed and painted themselves like
Indians prior to starting on a foray to avenge the murder of a neighbor.
They could not find the trail of the murderers, and so went at random to
a Cherokee town, killed four warriors who were asleep on the ground, and
returned to the settlements. Scolacutta at first was very angry with
Blount, and taunted him with his inability to punish the whites, asserting
that the frontiersmen were "making fun" of their well-meaning governor;
but the old chief soon made up his mind that as long as he allowed the
war parties to go through his towns he would have to expect to suffer
at the hands of the injured settlers. He wrote to Blount enumerating
the different murders that had been committed by both sides, and stating
that his people were willing to let the misdeeds stand as off-setting
one another. He closed his letter by stating that the Upper Towns were
for peace, and added: "I want my mate, General Sevier, to see my talk ...
We have often told lies, but now you may depend on hearing the truth,"
which was a refreshingly frank admission. [Footnote: American State
Papers, iv., pp. 459, 460, etc.; _Knoxville Gazette_, Jan. 16, and
June 5, 1794.]
Sevier Takes Command.
He makes a Brilliant Raid.
When, towards the close of 1792, the ravages became very serious,
Sevier, the man whom the Indians feared more than any other, was called
to take command of the militia. For a year he confined himself to acting
on the defensive, and even thus he was able to give much protection to
the settlements. In September, 1793, however, several hundred Indians,
mostly Cherokees, crossed the Tennessee not thirty miles from Knoxville.
They attacked a small station, within which there were but thirteen
souls, who, after some resistance, surrendered on condition that their
lives should be spared; but they were butchered with obscene cruelty.
Sevier immediately marched toward the assailants, who fled back to the
Cherokee towns. Thither Sevier followed them, and went entirely through
the Cherokee country to the land of the Creeks, burning the towns and
destroying the stores of provisions. He marched with his usual quickness,
and the Indians were never able to get together in sufficient numbers to
oppose him. When he crossed High Tower River there was a skirmish, but
he soon routed the Indians, killing several of their warriors, and losing
himself but three men killed and three wounded. He utterly destroyed a
hostile Creek town, the chief of which was named Buffalo Horn. He
returned late in October, and after his return the frontiers of Eastern
Tennessee had a respite from the Indian ravages. Yet Congress refused
to pay his militia for the time they were out, because they had invaded
the Indian country instead of acting on the defensive. [Footnote:
Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Oct. 29, 1793; _Knoxville Gazette_,
Oct. 12, and Nov. 23, 1793.]
Destruction of Nickajack and Running Water.
To chastise the Upper Cherokee Towns gave relief to the settlements on
the Holston, but the chief sinners were the Chickamaugas of the Lower
Cherokee towns, and the chief sufferers were the Cumberland settlers.
The Cumberland people were irritated beyond endurance, alike by the
ravages of these Indians and by the conduct of the United States in
forbidding them to retaliate. In September, 1794, they acted for
themselves. Early in the month Robertson received certain information
that a large body of Creeks and Lower Cherokees had gathered at the
towns and were preparing to invade the Cumberland settlements. The best
way to meet them was by a stroke in advance, and he determined to send
an expedition against them in their strongholds. There was no question
whatever as to the hostility of the Indians, for at this very time
settlers were being killed by war parties throughout the Cumberland
country. Some Kentuckians, under Colonel Whitley, had joined the
Tennesseeans, who were nominally led by a Major Ore; but various
frontier fighters, including Kaspar Mansker, were really as much in
command as was Ore. Over five hundred mounted riflemen, bold of heart
and strong of hand, marched toward the Chickamauga towns, which contained
some three hundred warriors. When they came to the Tennessee they spent
the entire night in ferrying the arms across and swimming the horses;
they used bundles of dry cane for rafts, and made four "bull-boats" out
of the hides of steers. They passed over unobserved and fell on the towns
of Nickajack and Running Water, taking the Indians completely by surprise;
they killed fifty-five warriors and captured nineteen squaws and children.
In the entire expedition but one white man was killed and three wounded.
[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Robertson to Blount, Oct. 8, 1794; Blount to
Robertson, Oct. 1, 1794, Sept. 9, 1794 (in which Blount expresses the
utmost disapproval of Robertson's conduct, and says he will not send on
Robertson's original letter to Philadelphia, for fear it will get him
into a scrape; and requests him to send a formal report which can be
forwarded); _Knoxville Gazette_, Sept. 26, 1794; Brown's Narrative.]
This Brings the Cherokees to Terms.
Not only the Federal authorities, but Blount himself, very much
disapproved of this expedition; nevertheless, it was right and proper,
and produced excellent effects. In no other way could the hostile towns
have been brought to reason. It was followed by a general conference
with the Cherokees at Tellico Blockhouse. Scolacutta appeared for the
Upper, and Watts for the Lower Cherokee Towns. Watts admitted that "for
their folly" the Lower Cherokees had hitherto refused to make peace, and
remarked frankly, "I do not say they did not deserve the chastisement
they received." Scolacutta stated that he could not sympathize much with
the Lower Towns, saying, "their own conduct brought destruction upon
them. The trails of murderers and thieves was followed to those towns
... Their bad conduct drew the white people on me, who injured me nearly
unto death.... All last winter I was compelled to lay in the woods by
the bad conduct of my own people drawing war on me." At last the
Cherokees seemed sincere in their desire for peace. [Footnote: Robertson
MSS., Blount's Minutes of Conference held with Cherokees, Nov. 7 and 8,
1794, at Tellico Blockhouse.]
Cherokees and Chikasaws Restrain Creeks.
These counter-attacks served a double purpose. They awed the hostile
Cherokees; and they forced the friendly Cherokees, for the sake of their
own safety, actively to interfere against the bands of hostile Creeks. A
Cherokee chief, The Stallion, and a number of warriors, joined with the
Federal soldiers and Tennessee militia in repulsing the Creek war
parties. They acted under Blount's directions, and put a complete stop
to the passage of hostile Indians through their towns. [Footnote:
Robertson MSS., Ecooe to John McKee, Tellico, Feb. 1, 1795, etc.] The
Chickasaws also had become embroiled with the Creeks. [Footnote: Blount
MSS., James Colbert to Robertson, Feb. 10, 1792.] For over three years
they carried on an intermittent warfare with them, and were heartily
supported by the frontiersmen, who were prompt to recognize the value of
their services. At the same time the hostile Indians were much cowed at
the news of Wayne's victory in the North.
Treachery of the United States Government to the Chickasaws.
The Frontiersmen Stand by Chickasaws.
All these causes combined to make the Creeks sue for peace. To its shame
and discredit the United States Government at first proposed to repeat
towards the Chickasaws the treachery of which the British had just been
guilty to the Northern Indians; for it refused to defend them from the
Creeks, against whom they had been acting, partly, it is true, for their
own ends, but partly in the interest of the settlers. The frontiersmen,
however, took a much more just and generous view of the affair. Mansker
and a number of the best fighters in the Cumberland district marched to
the assistance of the Chickasaws; and the frontier militia generally
showed grateful appreciation of the way both the Upper Cherokees and the
Chickasaws helped them put a stop to the hostilities of the Chickamaugas
and Creeks. Robertson got the Choctaws to interfere on behalf of the
Chickasaws and to threaten war with the Creeks if the latter persisted
in their hostilities. Moreover, the United States agents, when the
treaty was actually made, behaved better than their superiors had
promised, for they persuaded the Creeks to declare peace with the
Chickasaws as well as with the whites. [Footnote: Robertson MSS.,
Robertson to Blount, Jan. 13, 1795; Blount to Robertson, Jan. 20, 1795,
and April 26, 1795; Robertson to Blount, April 20, 1795; _Knoxville
Gazette_, Aug. 25, 1792, Oct. 12, 1793, June 19, 1794, July 17, Aug. 4
and Aug. 15, 1794; American State Papers, pp. 284, 285, etc., etc.] Many
of the peaceful Creeks had become so alarmed at the outlook that they
began to exert pressure on their warlike brethren; and at last the
hostile element yielded, though not until bitter feeling had arisen
between the factions. The fact was, that the Creeks were divided much as
they were twenty years later, when the Red Sticks went to war under the
inspiration of the Prophet; and it would have been well if Wayne had
been sent South, to invade their country and anticipate by twenty years
Jackson's feats. But the nation was not yet ready for such strong
measures. The Creeks were met half way in their desire for peace; and
the entire tribe concluded a treaty the provisions of which were
substantially those of the treaty of New York. They ceased all
hostilities, together with the Cherokees.
Fatuity of Timothy Pickering.
The concluding stage of the negotiations was marked by an incident which
plainly betrayed the faulty attitude of the National Government towards
Southwestern frontiersmen. With incredible folly, Timothy Pickering, at
this time Secretary of War, blindly refused to see the necessity of what
had been done by Blount and the Tennessee frontiersmen. In behalf of the
administration he wrote a letter to Blount which was as offensive as it
was fatuous. In it he actually blamed Blount for getting the Cherokees
and Chickasaws to help protect the frontier against the hostile Indians.
He forbade him to give any assistance to the Chickasaws. He announced
that he disapproved of The Stallion's deeds, and that the Cherokees must
not destroy Creeks passing through their country on the way to the
frontier. He even intimated that the surrender of The Stallion to the
Creeks would be a good thing. As for protecting the frontier from the
ravages of the Creeks, he merely vouchsafed the statement that he would
instruct Seagrove to make "some pointed declarations" to the Creeks on
the subject! He explained that the United States Government was resolved
not to have a direct or indirect war with the Creeks; and he closed by
reiterating, with futile insistency, that the instruction to the
Cherokees not to permit Creek war parties against the whites to come
through their country, did not warrant their using force to stop them.
[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Pickering to Blount, March 23, 1795.] He
failed to point out how it was possible, without force, to carry out
these instructions.
A more shameful letter was never written, and it was sufficient of
itself to show Pickering's conspicuous incapacity for the position he
held. The trouble was that he represented not very unfairly the
sentiment of a large portion of the Eastern, and especially the
Northeastern, people. When Blount visited Philadelphia in the summer of
1793 to urge a vigorous national war as the only thing which could bring
the Indians to behave themselves, [Footnote: Blount MSS., Blount to
Smith, June 17, 1793.] he reported that Washington had an entirely just
idea of the whole Indian business, but that Congress generally knew
little of the matter and was not disposed to act. [Footnote: Robertson
MSS., Blount to gentleman in Cumberland, Philadelphia, Aug. 28, 1793.]
His report was correct; and he might have added that the congressmen
were no more ignorant, and no more reluctant to do right, than their
constituents.
Misconduct of the Federal Government.
The truth is that the United States Government during the six years from
1791 to 1796 behaved shamefully to the people who were settled along the
Cumberland and Holston. This was the more inexcusable in view of the
fact that, thanks to the example of Blount, Sevier, and Robertson, the
Tennesseeans, alone among the frontiersmen, showed an intelligent
appreciation of the benefits of the Union and a readiness to render it
loyal support. The Kentuckians acted far less rationally; yet the
Government tolerated much misconduct on their part, and largely for
their benefit carried on a great national war against the Northwestern
Indians. In the Southwest almost all that the Administration did was to
prohibit the frontiersmen from protecting themselves. Peace was finally
brought about largely through the effect of Wayne's victory, and the
knowledge of the Creeks that they would have to stand alone in any
further warfare; but it would not have been obtained at all if Sevier
and the other frontier leaders had not carried on their destructive
counter-inroads into the Cherokee and Upper Creek country, and if under
Robertson's orders Nickajack and Running Water had not been destroyed;
while the support of the Chickasaws and friendly Cherokees in stopping
the Creek war parties was essential. The Southwesterners owed thanks to
General Wayne and his army and to their own strong right hands; but they
had small cause for gratitude to the Federal Government. They owed still
less to the Northeasterners, or indeed to any of the men of the eastern
seaboard; the benefits arising from Pinckney's treaty form the only
exception. This neglect brought its own punishment. Blount and Sevier
were naturally inclined to Federalism, and it was probably only the
supineness of the Federal Government in failing to support the
Southwesterners against the Indians which threw Tennessee, when it
became a State, into the arms of the Democratic party.
Peace.
However, peace was finally wrung from the Indians, and by the beginning
of 1796 the outrages ceased. The frontiers, north and south alike,
enjoyed a respite from Indian warfare for the first time in a
generation; nor was the peace interrupted until fifteen years
afterwards.
Growth of Tennessee.
Throngs of emigrants had come into Tennessee. A wagon road had been
chopped to the Cumberland District, and as the Indians gradually ceased
their ravages, the settlements about Nashville began to grow as rapidly
as the settlements along the Holston. In 1796 the required limit of
population had been reached, and Tennessee with over seventy-six
thousand inhabitants was formally admitted as a State of the Federal
Union; Sevier was elected Governor, Blount was made one of the Senators,
and Andrew Jackson was chosen Representative in Congress.
The Tennessee Constitution.
In their State Constitution the hard-working backwoods farmers showed a
conservative spirit which would seem strange to the radical democracy of
new Western States to-day. An elective Governor and two legislative
houses were provided; and the representation was proportioned, not to
the population at large, but to the citizen who paid taxes; for persons
with some little property were still considered to be the rightful
depositaries of political power. The Constitution established freedom of
the press, and complete religious liberty--a liberty then denied in the
parent State of North Carolina; but it contained some unwise and unjust
provisions. The Judges were appointed by the Legislature, and were
completely subservient to it; and, through the influence of the land
speculators all lands except town lots were taxed alike, so that the men
who had obtained possession of the best tracts shifted to other
shoulders much of their own proper burden. [Footnote: "Constitutional
History of Tennessee," by Joshua W. Caldwell, p. 101, another of Robert
Clark's publications; an admirable study of institutional development in
Tennessee.]
CHAPTER IV.
INTRIGUES AND LAND SPECULATIONS--THE TREATIES OF JAY AND PINCKNEY,
1793-1797.
The Current of Tendency.
Throughout the history of the winning of the West what is noteworthy is
the current of tendency rather than the mere succession of individual
events. The general movement, and the general spirit behind the
movement, became evident in many different forms, and if attention is
paid only to some particular manifestation we lose sight of its true
import and of its explanation. Particular obstacles retarded or
diverted, particular causes accelerated, the current; but the set was
always in one direction. The peculiar circumstances of each case must
always be taken into account, but it is also necessary to understand
that it was but one link in the chain of causation.
The Causes of the Various Separatist and Filibustering Movements.
Such events as Burr's conspiracy or the conquest of Texas cannot be
properly understood if we fail to remember that they were but the most
spectacular or most important manifestations of what occurred many
times. The Texans won a striking victory and performed a feat of the
utmost importance in our history; and, moreover, it happened that at the
moment the accession of Texas was warmly favored by the party of the
slave-holders. Burr had been Vice-President of the United States, and
was a brilliant and able man, of imposing personality, whose intrigues
in the West attracted an attention altogether disproportionate to their
real weight. In consequence each event is often treated as if it were
isolated and stood apart from the general current of western history;
whereas in truth each was but the most striking or important among a
host or others. The feats performed by Austin and Houston and the
other founders of the Texan Republic were identical in kind with the
feats merely attempted, or but partially performed, by the men who, like
Morgan, Elijah Clark, and George Rogers Clark, at different times either
sought to found colonies in the Spanish-speaking lands under Spanish
authority, or else strove to conquer these lands outright by force of
arms. Boone settled in Missouri when it was still under the Spanish
Government, and himself accepted a Spanish commission. Whether Missouri
had or had not been ceded first by Spain to France and then by France to
the United States early in the present century, really would not have
altered its final destiny, so far at least as concerns the fact that it
would ultimately have been independent of both France and Spain, and
would have been dominated by an English-speaking people; for when once
the backwoodsmen, of whom Boone was the forerunner, became sufficiently
numerous in the land they were certain to throw off the yoke of the
foreigner; and the fact that they had voluntarily entered the land and
put themselves under this yoke would have made no more difference to
them than it afterwards made to the Texans. So it was with Aaron Burr.
His conspiracy was merely one, and by no means the most dangerous, of
the various conspiracies in which men like Wilkinson, Sebastian, and
many of the members of the early Democratic societies in Kentucky, bore
a part. It was rendered possible only by the temper of the people and by
the peculiar circumstances which also rendered the earlier conspiracies
possible; and it came to naught for the same reasons that they came to
naught, and was even more hopeless, because it was undertaken later,
when the conditions were less favorable.
Clark's Part in the Proposed French Attack on Spain.
The movement deliberately entered into by many of the Kentuckians in the
years 1793 and 1794, to conquer Louisiana on behalf of France, must be
treated in this way. The leader in this movement was George Rogers
Clark. His chance of success arose from the fact that there were on the
frontier many men of restless, adventurous, warlike type, who felt a
spirit of unruly defiance toward the home government and who greedily
eyed the rich Spanish lands. Whether they got the lands by conquest or
by colonization, and whether they warred under one flag or another, was
to them a matter of little moment. Clark's career is of itself
sufficient to prove the truth of this. He had already been at the head
of a movement to make war against the Spaniards, in defiance of the
Central Government, on behalf of the Western settlements. On another
occasion he had offered his sword to the Spanish Government, and had
requested permission to found in Spanish territory a State which should
be tributary to Spain and a barrier against the American advance. He had
thus already sought to lead the Westerners against Spain in a warfare
undertaken purely by themselves and for their own objects, and had also
offered to form by the help of some of these Westerners a State which
should be a constituent portion of the Spanish dominion. He now readily
undertook the task of raising an army of Westerners to overrun Louisiana
in the interests of the French Republic. The conditions which rendered
possible these various movements were substantially the same, although
the immediate causes, or occasions, were different. In any event the
result would ultimately have been the conquest of the Spanish dominions
by the armed frontiersmen, and the upbuilding of English-speaking States
on Spanish territory.
The American Sympathizers with the French Revolution.
The expedition which at the moment Clark proposed to head took its
peculiar shape from outside causes. At this period Genet was in the
midst of his preposterous career as Minister from the French Republic to
the United States. The various bodies of men who afterwards coalesced
into the Democratic-Republican party were frantically in favor of the
French Revolution, regarding it with a fatuous admiration quite as
foolish as the horror with which it affected most of the Federalists.
They were already looking to Jefferson as their leader, and Jefferson,
though at the time Secretary of State under Washington, was secretly
encouraging them, and was playing a very discreditable part toward his
chief. The ultra admirers of the French Revolution not only lost their
own heads, but turned Genet's as well, and persuaded him that the people
were with him and were ready to oppose Washington and the Central
Government in the interests of revolutionary France. Genet wished to
embroil America with England, and sought to fit out American privateers
on the seacoast towns to prey on the English commerce, and to organize
on the Ohio River an armed expedition to conquer Louisiana, as Spain was
then an ally of England and at war with France.
The Jeffersonians' Western Policy.
All over the country Genet's admirers formed Democratic societies on the
model of the Jacobin Clubs of France. They were of course either useless
or noxious in such a country and under such a government as that of the
United States, and exercised a very mischievous effect. Kentucky was
already under the influence of the same forces that were at work in
Virginia and elsewhere, and the classes of her people who were
politically dominant were saturated with the ideas of those doctrinaire
politicians of whom Jefferson was chief. These Jeffersonian doctrinaires
were men who at certain crises, in certain countries, might have
rendered great service to the cause of liberty and humanity; but their
influence in America was on the whole distinctly evil, save that, by a
series of accidents, they became the especial champions of the westward
extension of the nation, and in consequence were identified with a
movement which was all-essential to the national well-being.
Kentucky Ripe for Genet's Intrigues.
Kentucky was ripe for Genet's intrigues, and he found the available
leader for the movement in the person of George Rogers Clark. Clark was
deeply imbittered, not only with the United States Government but with
Virginia, for the Virginia assembly had refused to pay any of the debts
he had contracted on account of the State, and had not even reimbursed
him for what he had spent. [Footnote: Draper MSS., J. Clark to G. R.
Clark, Dec. 27, 1792.] He had a right to feel aggrieved at the State's
penuriousness and her indifference to her moral obligations; and just at
the time when he was most angered came the news that Genet was agitating
throughout the United States for a war with England, in open defiance of
Washington, and that among his plans he included a Western movement
against Louisiana. Clark at once wrote to him expressing intense
sympathy with the French objects and offering to undertake an expedition
for the conquest of St. Louis and upper Louisiana if he was provided
with the means to obtain provisions and stores. Clark further informed
Genet that his country had been utterly ungrateful to him, and that as
soon as he received Genet's approbation of what he proposed to do he
would get himself "expatriated." He asked for commissions for officers,
and stated his belief that the Creoles would rise, that the adventurous
Westerners would gladly throng to the contest, and that the army would
soon be at the gates of New Orleans. [Footnote: _Do_., Letter of George
Rogers Clark, Feb. 5, 1793; also Feb. 2d and Feb. 3d.]
Clark Commissioned as a French Major General.
Genet immediately commissioned Clark as a Major General in the service
of the French Republic, and sent out various Frenchmen--Michaux, La
Chaise, and others--with civil and military titles, to co-operate with
him, to fit out his force as well as possible, and to promise him pay
for his expenses. Brown, now one of Kentucky's representatives at
Philadelphia, gave these men letters of introduction to merchants in
Lexington and elsewhere, from whom they got some supplies; but they
found they would have to get most from Philadelphia. [Footnote: Draper
MSS., Michaux to George Rogers Clark, undated, but early in 1793.]
Michaux was the agent for the French Minister, though nominally his
visit was undertaken on purely scientific grounds. Jefferson's course in
the matter was characteristic. Openly, he was endeavoring in a
perfunctory manner to carry out Washington's policy of strict neutrality
in the contest between France and England, but secretly he was engaged
in tortuous intrigues against Washington and was thwarting his wishes,
so far as he dared, in regard to Genet.
Jefferson's Double-dealing.
It is impossible that he could have been really misled as to Michaux's
character and the object of his visits; nevertheless, he actually gave
him a letter of introduction to the Kentucky Governor, Isaac Shelby.
[Footnote: State Department MSS., Jefferson Papers, Series I., Vol. V.,
p. 163.] Shelby had shown himself a gallant and capable officer in
warfare against both the Indians and the Tories, but he possessed no
marked political ability, and was entirely lacking in the strength of
character which would have fitted him to put a stop to rebellion and
lawlessness. He hated England, sympathized with France, and did not
possess sufficient political good sense to appreciate either the
benefits of the Central Government or the need of preserving order.
Clark at once proceeded to raise what troops he could, and issued a
proclamation signed by himself as Major General of the Armies of France,
Commander in Chief of the French Revolutionary Legions on the
Mississippi. He announced that he proposed to raise volunteers for the
reduction of the Spanish posts on the Mississippi and to open the trade
of that river, and promised all who would join him from one to three
thousand acres of any unappropriated land in the conquered regions, the
officers to receive proportionately more. All lawful plunder was to be
equally divided according to the customs of war. [Footnote: Marshall,
II., page 103.] The proclamation thus frankly put the revolutionary
legions on the footing of a gang of freebooters. Each man was to receive
a commission proportioned in grade to the number of soldiers he brought
to Clark's band. In short, it was a piece of sheer filibustering, not
differing materially from one of Walker's filibustering attempts in
Central America sixty years later, save that at this time Clark had
utterly lost his splendid vigor of body and mind and was unfit for the
task he had set himself. At first, however, he met with promises of
support from various Kentuckians of prominence, including Benjamin
Logan. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Benjamin Logan to George Rogers Clark,
Dec. 31, 1793.] His agents gathered flat-boats and pirogues for the
troops and laid in stores of powder, lead, and beef. The nature of some
of the provisions shows what a characteristic backwoods expedition it
was; for Clark's agent notified him that he had ready "upwards of eleven
hundred weight of Bear Meat and about seventy or seventy-four pair of
Veneson Hams." [Footnote: Draper MSS., John Montgomery to Geo. Rogers
Clark, Jan. 12, 1794.]
The Democratic Societies Support Clark.
The Democratic Societies in Kentucky entered into Clark's plans with the
utmost enthusiasm, and issued manifestoes against the Central Government
which were, in style, of hysterical violence, and, in matter,
treasonable. The preparations were made openly, and speedily attracted
the attention of the Spanish agents, besides giving alarm to the
representatives of the Federal Government and to all sober citizens who
had sense enough to see that the proposed expedition was merely another
step toward anarchy. St. Clair, the Governor of the Northwestern
Territory, wrote to Shelby to warn him of what was being done, and
Wayne, who was a much more formidable person than Shelby or Clark or any
of their backers, took prompt steps to prevent the expedition from
starting, by building a fort near the mouth of the Ohio, and ordering
his lieutenants to hold themselves in readiness for any action he might
direct. At the same time the Administration wrote to Shelby telling him
what was on foot, and requesting him to see that no expedition of the
kind was allowed to march against the domains of a friendly power.
Shelby's Vacillation.
Shelby, in response, entered into a long argument to show that he could
not interfere with the expedition, and that he doubted his
constitutional power to do anything in the matter; his reasons being of
the familiar kind usually advanced in such cases, where a government
officer, from timidity or any other cause, refuses to do his duty. If
his contention as to his own powers and the powers of the General
Government had been sound, it would logically have followed that there
was no power anywhere to back up the law. Innes, the Federal Judge,
showed himself equally lukewarm in obeying the Federal authorities.
[Footnote: American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I., pp. 454, 460;
Marshall, II., 93.]
Blount's Decision and Patriotism.
Blount, the Governor of the Southwestern Territory, acted as vigorously
and patriotically as St. Clair and Wayne, and his conduct showed in
marked contrast to Shelby's. He possessed far too much political good
sense not to be disgusted with the conduct of Genet, which he denounced
in unmeasured terms. He expressed great pleasure when Washington
summarily rebuked the blatant French envoy. He explained to the
Tennesseeans that Genet had as his chief backers the disappointed
office-hunters and other unsavory characters in New York and in the
seacoast cities, but that the people at large were beginning to realize
what the truth was, and to show a proper feeling for the President and
his government. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount's letter,
Philadelphia, Aug. 28, 1793.] Some of the Cumberland people, becoming
excited by the news of Clark's preparation, prepared to join him, or to
undertake a separate filibustering attack on their own account. Blount
immediately wrote to Robertson directing him to explain to these
"inconsiderate persons" that all they could possibly do was to attempt
the conquest of West Florida, and that they would "lay themselves liable
to heavy Pains and Penalties, both pecuniary and corporal in case they
ever returned to their injured country." He warned Robertson that it was
his duty to prevent the attempt, and that the legal officers of the
district must proceed against any of the men having French commissions,
and must do their best to stop the movement; which, he said, proceeded
"from the Machenations no doubt of that Jacobin Incendiary, Genet, which
is reason sufficient to make every honest mind revolt at the Idea."
Robertson warmly supported him, and notified the Spanish commander at
New Madrid of the steps which he was taking; at which the Spaniards
expressed great gratification. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to
Robertson, Jan. 18, 1794; letter from Portello, New Madrid, Jan. 17,
1794.]
Collapse of the Movement.
However, the whole movement collapsed when Genet was recalled early in
1794, Clark being forced at once to abandon his expedition. [Footnote:
Blount MSS., Blount to Smith, April 3, 1794.] Clark found himself out of
pocket as the result of what he had done; and as there was no hope of
reimbursing himself by Spanish plunder, he sought to obtain from the
French Government reimbursement for the expenses, forwarding to the
French Assembly, through an agent in France, his bill for the "Expenses
of Expedition ordered by Citizen Genet." The agent answered that he
would try to secure the payment; and after he got to Paris he first
announced himself as hopeful; but later he wrote that he had discovered
that the French agents were really engaged in a dangerous conspiracy
against the Western country, and he finally had to admit that the claim
was disallowed. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Clark's accounts, Aug. 23, 1794;
Fulton to Clark, Nantes, Nov. 16, 1794; _Do.,_ Paris, April 9 and 12,
1795.] With this squabble between the French and Americans the history
of the abortive expedition ends.
Tortuous Diplomacy of the Spaniards.
The attempt, of course, excited and alarmed the Spaniards, and gave a
new turn to their tortuous diplomacy. In reading the correspondence of
the Spanish Governor, Baron Carondelet, both with his subordinates and
with his superiors, it is almost amusing to note the frankness with
which he avows his treachery. It evidently did not occur to him that
there was such a thing as national good faith, or that there was the
slightest impropriety in any form of mendacity when exercised in dealing
with the ministers or inhabitants of a foreign State. In this he was a
faithful reflex of his superiors at the Spanish Court. At the same time
that they were solemnly covenanting for a definite treaty of peace with
the United States they were secretly intriguing to bring about a
rebellion in the western States; and while they were assuring the
Americans that they were trying their best to keep the Indians peaceful,
they were urging the savages to war.
Their Alarm at Clark's Movements.
As for any gratitude to the National Government for stopping the
piratical expeditions of the Westerners, the Spaniards did not feel a
trace. They had early received news of Clark's projected expedition
through a Frenchman who came to the Spanish agents at Philadelphia;
[Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Alcudia, March
20, 1794.] and when the army began to gather they received from time to
time from their agents in Kentucky reports which, though exaggerated,
gave them a fairly accurate view of what was happening. No overt act of
hostility was committed by Clark's people, except by some of those who
started to join him from the Cumberland district, under the lead of a
man named Montgomery. These men built a wooden fort at the mouth of the
Cumberland River, and held the boats that passed to trade with Spain;
one of the boats that they took being a scow loaded with flour and
biscuit sent up stream by the Spanish Government itself.
Good Conduct of the United States Government.
When Wayne heard of the founding of this fort he acted with his usual
promptness, and sent an expedition which broke it up and released the
various boats. Then, to stop any repetition of the offence, and more
effectually to curb the overbearing truculence of the frontiersmen, he
himself built, as already mentioned, a fort at Massac, not far from the
Mississippi. All this of course was done in the interests of the
Spaniards themselves and in accordance with the earnest desire of the
United States authorities to prevent any unlawful attack on Louisiana;
yet Carondelet actually sent word to Gayoso de Lemos, the Governor of
Natchez and the upper part of the river, to persuade the Chickasaws
secretly to attack this fort and destroy it.
Ingratitude of the Spaniards.
Carondelet always had an exaggerated idea of the warlike capacity of the
Indian nations, and never understood the power of the Americans, nor
appreciated the desire of their Government to act in good faith. Gayoso
was in this respect a much more intelligent man, and he positively
refused to carry out the orders of his superior, remonstrating directly
to the Court of Spain, by which he was sustained. He pointed out that
the destruction of the fort would merely encourage the worst enemies of
the Spaniards, even if accomplished; and he further pointed out that it
was quite impossible to destroy it; for he understood fully the
difference between a fort garrisoned by Wayne's regulars and one held by
a mob of buccaneering militia. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish
Documents, Manuel Gayoso de Lemos to the Duke de Alcudia, Natchez, Sept.
19, 1794.]
Gayoso and Carondelet.
It was not the first time that Gayoso's superior knowledge of the
Indians and of their American foes had prevented his carrying out the
orders of his superior officer. On one occasion Carondelet had directed
Gayoso to convene the Southern Indians, and to persuade them to send
deputies to the United States authorities with proposals to settle the
boundaries in accordance with the wishes of Spain, and to threaten open
war as an alternative. Gayoso refused to adopt this policy, and
persuaded Carondelet to alter it, showing that it was necessary above
all things to temporize, that such a course as the one proposed would
provoke immediate hostilities, and that the worst possible line for the
Spaniards to follow would be one of open war with the entire power of
the United States. [Footnote: _Do.,_ De Leraos to Carondelet, Dec. 6,
1793.]
Pressure of the Westerners on the Spanish Domain.
Of course the action of the American Government in procuring the recall
of Genet and putting a stop to Clark's operations lightened for a moment
the pressure of the backwoodsmen upon the Spanish dominions; but it was
only for a moment. The Westerners were bent on seizing the Spanish
territory; and they were certain to persist in their efforts until they
were either successful or were definitely beaten in actual war. The acts
of aggression were sure to recur; it was only the form that varied. When
the chance of armed conquest under the banner of the French Republic
vanished, there was an immediate revival of plans for getting possession
of some part of the Spanish domain through the instrumentality of the
great land companies.
The Land Companies.
These land companies possessed on paper a weight which they did not have
in actual history. They occasionally enriched, and more often
impoverished, the individual speculators; but in the actual peopling of
the waste lands they counted for little in comparison with the steady
stream of pioneer farmers who poured in, each to hold and till the
ground he in fact occupied. However, the contemporary documents of the
day were full of details concerning the companies; and they did possess
considerable importance at certain times in the settlement of the West,
both because they in places stimulated that settlement, and because in
other places they retarded it, inasmuch as they kept out actual
settlers, who could not pre-empt land which had been purchased at low
rates from some legislative body by the speculators. The companies were
sometimes formed by men who wished themselves to lead emigrants into the
longed-for region, but more often they were purely speculative in
character, and those who founded them wished only to dispose of them at
an advantage to third parties. Their history is inextricably mixed with
the history of the intrigues with and against the Spaniards and British
in the West. The men who organized them wished to make money. Their
object was to obtain title to or possession of the lands, and it was
quite a secondary matter with them whether their title came from the
United States, England, or Spain. They were willing to form colonies on
Spanish or British territory, and they were even willing to work for the
dismemberment of the Western Territory from the Union, if by so doing
they could increase the value of the lands which they sought to acquire.
American adventurers had been in correspondence with Lord Dorchester,
the Governor General of Canada, looking to the possibility of securing
British aid for those desirous of embarking in great land speculations
in the West. These men proposed to try to get the Westerners to join
with the British in an attack upon Louisiana, or even to conduct this
attack themselves in the British interests, believing that with New
Orleans in British hands the entire province would be thrown open to
trade with the outside world and to settlement; with the result that the
lands would increase enormously in value, and the speculators and
organizers of the companies, and of the movements generally, grow rich
in consequence. [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Dorchester to Sydney, June
7, 1789; Grenville to Dorchester, May 6, 1790; Dorchester to Beckwith,
June 17, 1790; Dorchester to Grenville, Sept. 25, 1790. See Brown's
"Political Beginnings," 187.] They assured the British agents that the
Western country would speedily separate from the eastern States, and
would have to put itself under the protection of some foreign state.
Dorchester considered these plans of sufficient weight to warrant
inquiry by his agents, but nothing ever came of them.
The Yazoo Land Companies.
Much the most famous, or, it would be more correct to say, infamous, of
these companies were those organized in connection with the Yazoo
lands. [Footnote: The best and most thorough account of these is to be
found in Charles H. Haskin's "The Yazoo Land Companies."] The country in
what is now northern Mississippi and Alabama possessed, from its great
fertility, peculiar fascinations in the eyes of the adventurous land
speculators. It was unoccupied by settlers, because as a matter of fact
it was held in adverse possession by the Indians, under Spanish
protection. It was claimed by the Georgians, and its cession was sought
by the United States Government, so that there was much uncertainty as
to the title, which could in consequence be cheaply secured. Wilkinson,
Brown, Innes, and other Kentuckians, had applied to the Spaniards to be
allowed to take these lauds and hold them, in their own interests, but
on behalf of Spain, and against the United States. The application had
not been granted, and the next effort was of a directly opposite
character, the adventurers this time proposing, as they could not hold
the territory as armed subjects of Spain, to wrest it from Spain by
armed entry after getting title from Georgia. In other words, they were
going to carry on war as a syndicate, the military operations for the
occupation of the ceded territory being part of the business for which
the company was organized. Their relations with the Union were doubtless
to be determined by the course of events.
The South Carolina Yazoo Company.
This company was the South Carolina Yazoo Company. In 1789 several
companies were formed to obtain from the Georgia Legislature grants of
the western territory which Georgia asserted to be hers. One, the
Virginia Company, had among its incorporators Patrick Henry, and
received a grant of nearly 20,000 square miles, but accomplished
nothing. Another, the Tennessee Company, received a grant of what is now
most of northern Alabama, and organized a body of men under the
leadership of an adventurer named Zachariah Cox, who drifted down the
Tennessee in flat-boats to take possession, and repeated the attempt
more than once. They were, however, stopped, partly by Blount, and
partly by the Indians. The South Carolina Yazoo Company made the most
serious effort to get possession of the coveted territory. Its grant
included about 15,000 square miles in what is now middle Mississippi and
Alabama; the nominal price being 67,000 dollars. One of the prime movers
in this company was a man named Walsh, who called himself Washington, a
person of unsavory character, who, a couple of years later, was hung at
Charleston for passing forged paper money in South Carolina. All these
companies had hoped to pay the very small prices they were asked for the
lands in the depreciated currency of Georgia; but they never did make
the full payments or comply with the conditions of the grants, which
therefore lapsed.
Its Abortive Efforts in Kentucky.
Before this occurred the South Carolina Yazoo Company had striven to
take possession of its purchase by organizing a military expedition to
go down the Mississippi from Kentucky. For commander of this expedition
choice was made of a Revolutionary soldier named James O'Fallon, who
went to Kentucky, where he married Clark's sister. He entered into
relations with Wilkinson, who drew him into the tangled web of Spanish
intrigue. He raised soldiers, and drew up a formal contract, entered
into between the South Carolina Yazoo Company and their troops of the
Yazoo Battalion--over five hundred men in all, cavalry, artillery and
infantry. Each private was to receive two hundred and fifty acres of
"stipendiary" lands and the officers in proportion, up to the Lieutenant
Colonel, who was to receive six thousand. Commissions were formally
issued, and the positions of all the regular officers were filled, so
that the invasion was on the point of taking place. [Footnote: American
State Papers, Indian Affairs, I., James O'Fallon to the President of the
United States, Lexington, Sept. 25, 1790, etc., etc.] However, the
Spanish authorities called the matter to the attention of the United
States, and the Federal Government put a prompt stop to the
movement. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to
Alcudia, Jan. 1, 1794, and May 31, 1794.] O'Fallon was himself
threatened with arrest by the Federal officers, and had to abandon his
project. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Clark and O'Fallon Papers, anonymous
letter to James O'Fallon, Lexington, March 30, 1791, etc., etc.] He
afterwards re-established his relations with the Government, and became
one of Wayne's correspondents; [Footnote: Draper MSS., Wayne to O'Fallon,
Sept. 16, 1793.] but he entered heartily into Clark's plans for the
expedition under Genet, and, like all the other participators in that
wretched affair, became involved in broils with Clark and every one
else. [Footnote: Draper MSS., De Lemos to Carondelet, Dec. 23, 1793.]
Revival of the Companies.
In 1795 the land companies, encouraged by the certainty that the United
States would speedily take possession of the Yazoo territory,
again sprang into life. In that year four, the Georgia, the
Georgia-Mississippi, the Tennessee, and the Upper Mississippi, companies
obtained grants from the Georgia Legislature to a territory of over
thirty millions of acres, for which they paid but five hundred thousand
dollars, or less than two cents an acre. Among the grantees were many
men of note, congressmen, senators, even judges. The grants were secured
by the grossest corruption, every member of the Legislature who voted
for them, with one exception, being a stockholder in some one of the
companies, while the procuring of the cessions was undertaken by James
Gunn, one of the two Georgia Senators. The outcry against the
transaction was so universal throughout the State that at the next
session of the Legislature, in 1796, the acts were repealed and the
grants rescinded. This caused great confusion, as most of the original
grantees had hastily sold out to third parties; the purchases being
largely made in South Carolina and Massachusetts. Efforts were made by
the original South Carolina Yazoo Company to sue Georgia in the Federal
Courts, which led to the adoption of the Constitutional provision
forbidding such action.
Their Failure.
When in 1802, Georgia ceded the territory in question, including all of
what is now middle and northern Alabama and Mississippi, to the United
States for the sum of twelve hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the
National Government became heir to these Yazoo difficulties. It was not
until 1814 that the matter was settled by a compromise, after
interminable litigation and legislation. [Footnote: American State
Papers, Public Lands, I., pp. 99, 101, 111, 165, 172, 178; Haskin's
"Yazoo Land Companies." In Congress, Randolph, on behalf of the ultra
states'-rights people led the opposition to the claimants, whose special
champions were Madison and the northern democrats. Chief Justice
Marshall in the case of Fletcher _vs._ Peck, decided that the rescinding
act impaired the obligation of contracts, and was therefore in violation
of the Constitution of the United States; a decision further amplified
in the Dartmouth case, which has determined the national policy in
regard to public contracts. This decision was followed by the passage of
the Compromise Act by Congress in 1814, which distributed a large sum of
money obtained from the land sales in the territory, in specified
proportions among the various claimants.] The land companies were more
important to the speculators than to the actual settlers of the
Mississippi; nevertheless, they did stimulate settlement, in certain
regions, and therefore increased by just so much the western pressure
upon Spain.
Georgian Filibusterers.
Some of the aggressive movements undertaken by the Americans were of so
loose a nature that it is hard to know what to call them. This was true
of Elijah dark's company of Georgia freebooters in 1794. Accompanied by
large bodies of armed men, he on several occasions penetrated into the
territory southwest of the Oconee. He asserted at one time that he was
acting for Georgia and in defence of her rights to the lands which the
Georgians claimed under the various State treaties with the Indians, but
which by the treaty of New York had been confirmed to the Creeks by the
United States. On another occasion he entitled his motley force the Sans
Culottes, and masqueraded as a major general of the French army, though
the French Consul denied having any connection with him. He established
for the time being a little independent government, with blockhouses and
small wooden towns, in the middle of the unceded hunting grounds, and
caused great alarm to the Spaniards. The frontiersmen sympathized with
him, and when he was arrested in Wilkes County the Grand Jury of the
county ordered his discharge, and solemnly declared that the treaty of
New York was inoperative and the proclamation of the Governor of Georgia
against Clark, illegal. This was too much for the patience of the
Governor. He ordered out the State troops to co-operate with the small
Federal force, and Clark and his men were ignominiously expelled from
their new government and forced to return to Georgia. [Footnote: Steven's
"Georgia," II., 401.]
Benefit of Washington's Administration to the West.
In such a welter of intrigue, of land speculation, and of more or less
piratical aggression, there was immanent danger that the West would
relapse into anarchy unless a firm government were established, and
unless the boundaries with England and Spain were definitely
established. As Washington's administration grew steadily in strength
and in the confidence of the people the first condition was met. The
necessary fixity of boundary was finally obtained by the treaties
negotiated through John Jay with England, and through Thomas Pinckney
with Spain.
Jay's Treaty.
Jay's treaty aroused a perfect torrent of wrath throughout the country,
and nowhere more than in the West. A few of the coolest and most
intelligent men approved it, and rugged old Humphrey Marshall, the
Federalist Senator from Kentucky, voted for its ratification; but the
general feeling against it was intense. Even Blount, who by this time
was pretty well disgusted with the way he had been treated by the
Central Government, denounced it, and expressed his belief that
Washington would have hard work to explain his conduct in procuring its
ratification. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Blount to Smith, Aug. 24, 1795.]
Folly of the Westerners.
Yet the Westerners were the very people who had no cause whatever to
complain of the treaty. It was not an entirely satisfactory treaty;
perhaps a man like Hamilton might have procured rather better terms;
but, taken as a whole, it worked an immense improvement upon the
condition of things already existing. Washington's position was
undoubtedly right. He would have preferred a better treaty, but he
regarded the Jay treaty as very much better than none at all. Moreover,
the last people who had a right to complain of it were those who were
most vociferous in their opposition. The anti-Federalist party was on
the whole the party of weakness and disorder, the party that was
clamorous and unruly, but ineffective in carrying out a sustained
policy, whether of offense or of defence, in foreign affairs. The people
who afterwards became known as Jeffersonian Republicans numbered in
their ranks the extremists who had been active as the founders of
Democratic societies in the French interest, and they were ferocious in
their wordy hostility to Great Britain; but they were not dangerous foes
to any foreign government which did not fear words. Had they possessed
the foresight and intelligence to strengthen the Federal Government the
Jay treaty would not have been necessary.
Futility of the State's-Rights Men in Foreign Affairs.
Only a strong, efficient central government, backed by a good fleet and
a well organized army, could hope to wring from England what the French
party, the forerunners of the Jeffersonian Democracy, demanded. But the
Jeffersonians were separatists and State's-rights men. They believed in
a government so weak as to be ineffective, and showed a folly literally
astounding in their unwillingness to provide for the wars which they
were ready to provoke. They resolutely refused to provide an army or a
navy, or to give the Central Government the power necessary for waging
war. They were quite right in their feeling of hostility to England, and
one of the fundamental and fatal weaknesses of the Federalists was the
Federalist willingness to submit to England's aggressions without
retaliation; but the Jeffersonians had no gift for government, and were
singularly deficient in masterful statesmen of the kind imperatively
needed by any nation which wishes to hold an honorable place among other
nations. They showed their governmental ineptitude clearly enough later
on when they came into power, for they at once stopped building the
fleet which the Federalists had begun, and allowed the military forces
of the nation to fall into utter disorganization, with, as a
consequence, the shameful humiliations of the War of 1812. This war was
in itself eminently necessary and proper, and was excellent in its
results, but it was attended by incidents of shame and disgrace to
America for which Jefferson and Madison and their political friends and
supporters among the politicians and the people have never received a
sufficiently severe condemnation.
Benefits of Jay's Treaty to the West.
Jay's treaty was signed late in 1794 and was ratified in 1795.
[Footnote: American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I., pp. 479, 484,
489, 502, 519, etc.] The indignation of the Kentuckians almost amounted
to mania. They denounced the treaty with frantic intemperance, and even
threatened violence to those of their own number, headed by Humphrey
Marshall, who supported it; yet they benefited much by it, for it got
them what they would have been absolutely powerless to obtain for
themselves, that is, the possession of the British posts on the Lakes.
In 1796 the Americans took formal possession of these posts, and the
boundary line in the Northwest as nominally established by the treaty
of Versailles became in fact the actual line of demarcation between
the American and the British possessions. The work of Jay capped the
work of Wayne. Federal garrisons were established at Detroit and
elsewhere, and the Indians, who had already entered into the treaty of
Greeneville, were prevented from breaking it by this intervention of the
American military posts between themselves and their British allies.
Peace was firmly established for the time being in the Northwest, and our
boundaries in that direction took the fixed form they still retain.
[Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I., p. 573; Foreign
Relations, I., _passim_, etc., etc.]
Systematic Treachery of the Spaniards.
In dealing with the British the Americans sometimes had to encounter bad
faith, but more often a mere rough disregard for the rights of others,
of which they could themselves scarcely complain with a good grace, as
they showed precisely the same quality in their own actions. In dealing
with the Spaniards, on the other hand, they had to encounter deliberate
and systematic treachery and intrigue. The open negotiations between the
two governments over the boundary ran side by side with a current of
muddy intrigue between the Spanish Government on the one hand, and
certain traitorous Americans on the other; the leader of these traitors
being, as usual, the arch scoundrel, Wilkinson.
Their Intrigues with the Indians.
The Spaniards trusted almost as much to Indian intrigue as to bribery of
American leaders; indeed they trusted to it more for momentary effect,
though the far-sighted among them realized that in the long run the
safety of the Spanish possessions depended upon the growth of divisional
jealousies among the Americans themselves. The Spanish forts were built
as much to keep the Indians under command as to check the Americans. The
Governor of Natchez, De Lemos, had already established a fort at the
Chickasaw Bluffs, where there was danger of armed collision between the
Spaniards and either the Cumberland settlers under Robertson or the
Federal troops. Among the latter, by the way, the officer for whose
ability the Spaniards seemed to feel an especial respect was Lieutenant
William Clark. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to
Don Louis de Las Casas, June 13, 1795; De Lemos to Carondelet, July 25,
1793.]
The Chickasaws Befriend the Americans.
The Chickasaws were nearly drawn into a war with the Spaniards, who were
intensely irritated over their antagonism to the Creeks, for which the
Spaniards insisted that the Americans were responsible. [Footnote:
American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I., p. 305, etc.] The
Americans, however, were able to prove conclusively that the struggle
was due, not to their advice, but to the outrages of marauders from the
villages of the Muscogee confederacy. They showed by the letter of the
Chickasaw chief, James Colbert, that the Creeks had themselves begun
hostilities early in 1792 by killing a Chickasaw, and that the
Chickasaws, because of this spilling of blood, made war on the Creeks,
and sent word to the Americans to join in the war. The letter ran: "I
hope you will exert yourselves and join us so that we might give the
lads a Drubbeen for they have encroached on us this great while not us
alone you likewise for you have suffered a good dale by them I hope you
will think of your wounds." [Footnote: Blount MSS., James Colbert to
Robertson, Feb. 10, 1792.] The Americans had "thought of their wounds"
and had aided the Chickasaws in every way, as was proper; but the
original aggressors were the Creeks. The Chickasaws had entered into
what was a mere war of retaliation; though when once in they had fought
hard, under the lead of Opiamingo, their most noted war chief, who was
always friendly to the Americans and hostile to the Spaniards.
The Situation at Natchez.
At the Chickasaw Bluffs, and at Natchez, there was always danger of a
clash; for at these places the Spanish soldiers were in direct contact
with the foremost of the restless backwoods host, and with the Indians
who were most friendly or hostile to them. Open collision was averted,
but the Spaniards were kept uneasy and alert. There were plenty of
American settlers around Natchez, who were naturally friendly to the
American Government; and an agent from the State of Georgia, to the
horror of the Spaniards, came out to the country with the especial
purpose of looking over the Yazoo lands, at the time when Georgia was
about to grant them to the various land companies. What with the land
speculators, the frontiersmen, and the Federal troops, the situation
grew steadily more harassing for the Spaniards; and Carondolet kept the
advisors of the Spanish Crown well informed of the growing stress.
The Separatists Play into the Hands of the Spaniards.
The Spanish Government knew it would be beaten if the issue once came to
open war, and, true to the instincts of a weak and corrupt power, it
chose as its weapons delay, treachery, and intrigue. To individual
Americans the Spaniards often behaved with arrogance and brutality; but
they feared to give too serious offence to the American people as a
whole. Like all other enemies of the American Republic, from the days of
the Revolution to those of the Civil War, they saw clearly that their
best allies were the separatists, the disunionists, and they sought to
encourage in every way the party which, in a spirit of sectionalism,
wished to bring about a secession of one part of the country and the
erection of a separate government. The secessionists then, as always,
played into the hands of the men who wished the new republic ill. In the
last decade of the eighteenth century the acute friction was not between
North and South, but between East and West. The men who, from various
motives, wished to see a new republic created, hoped that this republic
would take in all the people of the western waters. These men never
actually succeeded in carrying the West with them. At the pinch the
majority of the Westerners remained loyal to the idea of national unity;
but there was a very strong separatist party, and there were very many
men who, though not separatists, were disposed to grumble loudly about
the shortcomings of the Federal government.
Their Influence in Kentucky.
Their Fatuity.
These men were especially numerous and powerful in Kentucky, and they
had as their organ the sole newspaper of the State, the _Kentucky
Gazette_. It was filled with fierce attacks, not only upon the General
Government, but upon Washington himself. Sometimes these attacks were
made on the authority of the _Gazette_; at other times they appeared in
the form of letters from outsiders, or of resolutions by the various
Democratic societies and political clubs. They were written with a
violence which, in striving after forcefulness, became feeble. They
described the people of Kentucky as having been "degraded and insulted,"
and as having borne these insults with "submissive patience." The
writers insisted that Kentucky had nothing to hope from the Federal
Government, and that it was nonsense to chatter about the infraction of
treaties, for it was necessary, at any cost, to take Louisiana, which
was "groaning under tyranny." They threatened the United States with
what the Kentuckians would do if their wishes were not granted, announcing
that they would make the conquest of Louisiana an ultimatum, and warning
the Government that they owed no eternal allegiance to it and might have
to separate, and that if they did there would be small reason to deplore
the separation. The separatist agitators failed to see that they could
obtain the objects they sought, the opening of the Mississippi and the
acquisition of Louisiana, only through the Federal Government, and only
by giving that Government full powers. Standing alone the Kentuckians
would have been laughed to scorn not only by England and France, but
even by Spain. Yet with silly fatuity they vigorously opposed every
effort to make the Government stronger or to increase national feeling,
railing even at the attempt to erect a great Federal city as "unwise,
impolitic, unjust," and "a monument to American folly." [Footnote:
_Kentucky Gazette_, Feb. 8, 1794; Sept. 16, 1797, etc., etc.] The men
who wrote these articles, and the leaders of the societies and clubs
which inspired them, certainly made a pitiable showing; they proved
that they themselves were only learning, and had not yet completely
mastered, the difficult art of self government.
Negotiations of the Spanish and American Governments.
Wilkinson's Ineffectual Treason.
It was the existence of these Western separatists, nominally the
fiercest foes of Spain, that in reality gave Spain the one real hope of
staying the western advance. In 1794 the American agents in Spain were
carrying on an interminable correspondence with the Spanish Court in the
effort to come to some understanding about the boundaries. [Footnote:
American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I., p. 443, etc.; letters of
Carmichael and Short to Gardoqui, Oct. 1, 1793; to Alcudia, Jan. 7,
1794, etc., etc.] The Spanish authorities were solemnly corresponding
with the American envoys, as if they meant peace; yet at the same time
they had authorized Carondelet to do his best to treat directly with the
American States of the West so as to bring about their separation from
the Union. In 1794 Wilkinson, who was quite incapable of understanding
that his infamy was heightened by the fact that he wore the uniform of
a Brigadier General of the United States, entered into negotiations for
a treaty, the base of which should be the separation of the Western
States from the Atlantic States. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish
Documents, Carondelet to Alcudia, July 30, 1794.] He had sent two
confidential envoys to Carondelet. Carondelet jumped at the chance of
once more trying to separate the west from the east; and under Wilkinson's
directions he renewed his efforts to try by purchase and pension to
attach some of the leading Kentuckians to Spain. As a beginning he decided
to grant Wilkinson's request and send him twelve thousand dollars for
himself. [Footnote: _Do_., De Lemos to Alcudia, Sept. 19, 1794.] De Lemos
was sent to New Madrid in October to begin the direct negotiations with
Wilkinson and his allies. The funds to further the treasonable conspiracy
were also forwarded, as the need arose.
Failure of the American Government to Act with Proper Decision.
Carondelet was much encouraged as to the outcome by the fact that De
Lemos had not been dispossessed by force from the Chickasaw Bluffs. This
shows conclusively that Washington's administration was in error in not
acting with greater decision about the Spanish posts. Wayne should have
been ordered to use the sword, and to dispossess the Spaniards from the
east bank of the Mississippi. As so often in our history, we erred, not
through a spirit of over-aggressiveness, but through a willingness to
trust to peaceful measures instead of proceeding to assert our rights by
force.
Murder of the Messengers to Wilkinson.
The Murderers Shielded.
The first active step taken by Carondelet and De Lemos was to send the
twelve thousand dollars to Wilkinson, as the foundation and earnest of
the bribery fund. But the effort miscarried. The money was sent by two
men, Collins Owen, each of whom bore cipher letters to Wilkinson,
including some that were sewed into the collars of their coats. Collins
reached Wilkinson in safety, but Owen was murdered, for the sake of the
money he bore, by his boat's crew while on the Ohio river. [Footnote:
_Do._, letters of Carondelet to Alcudia, Oct. 4, 1794, and of De Lemos
to Carondelet, Aug. 28, 1795.] The murderers were arrested and were
brought before the Federal judge, Harry Innes. Owen was a friend of
Innes, and had been by him recommended to Wilkinson as a trustworthy man
for any secret and perilous service. Nevertheless, although it was his
own friend who had been murdered, Innes refused to try the murderers, on
the ground that they were Spanish subjects; a reason which was simply
nonsensical. He forwarded them to Wilkinson at Fort Warren. The latter
sent them back to New Madrid. On their way they were stopped by the
officer at Fort Massac, a thoroughly loyal man, who had not been engaged
in the intrigues of Wilkinson and Innes. He sent to the Spanish
commander at New Madrid for an interpreter to interrogate the men. Of
course the Spaniards were as reluctant as Wilkinson and Innes that the
facts as to the relations between Carondelet and Wilkinson should be
developed, and, like Wilkinson and Innes, they preferred that the
murderers should escape rather than that these facts should come to
light. Accordingly the interpreter did not divulge the confession of the
villains, all evidence as to their guilt was withheld, and they were
finally discharged. The Spaniards were very nervous about the affair,
and were even afraid lest travellers might dig up Owen's body and find
the dispatches hidden in his collar; which, said De Lemos, they might
send to the President of the United States, who would of course take
measures to find out what the money and the ciphers meant. [Footnote:
_Do._, letter of De Lemos.]
Wilkinson's motives in acting as he did were of course simple. He could
not afford to have the murderers of his friend and agent tried lest they
should disclose his own black infamy. The conduct of Judge Innes is
difficult to explain on any ground consistent with his integrity and
with the official propriety of his actions. He may not have been a party
to Wilkinson's conspiracy, but he must certainly have known that
Wilkinson was engaged in negotiations with the Spaniards so corrupt that
they would not bear the light of exposure, or else he would never have
behaved toward the murderers in the way that he did behave. [Footnote:
Marshall, II., 155; Green, p. 328. Even recently defenders of Wilkinson
and Innes have asserted, in accordance with Wilkinson's explanations,
that the money forwarded him was due him from tobacco contracts entered
into some years previously with Miro. Carondelet in his letters above
quoted, however, declares outright that the money was advanced to begin
negotiations in Kentucky, through Wilkinson and others, for the
pensioning of Kentuckians in the interests of Spain and the severance of
the Western States from the Union.]
Carondelet Refuses to Give up the Posts.
Carondelet, through De Lemos, entered into correspondence with Wayne
about the fort built by his orders at the Chickasaw Bluffs. He refused
to give up this fort; and as Wayne became more urgent in his demands, he
continually responded with new excuses for delay. He was enabled to tell
exactly what Wayne was doing, as Wilkinson, who was serving under Wayne,
punctually informed the Spaniard of all that took place in the American
army. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Alcudia,
Nov. 1, 1793.] Carondelet saw that the fate of the Spanish-American
province which he ruled, hung on the separation of the Western States
from the Union. [Footnote: _Do._, Carondelet to Alcudia, Sept. 25,
1795.] As long as he thought it possible to bring about the separation,
he refused to pay heed even to the orders of the Court of Spain, or to
the treaty engagements by which he was nominally bound. He was forced to
make constant demands upon the Spanish Court for money to be used in the
negotiations; that is, to bribe Wilkinson and his fellows in Kentucky.
He succeeded in placating the Chickasaws, and got from them a formal
cession of the Chickasaw Bluffs, which was a direct blow at the American
pretensions. As with all Indian tribes, the Chickasaws were not capable
of any settled policy, and were not under any responsible authority.
While some of them were in close alliance with the Americans and were
warring on the Creeks, the others formed a treaty with the Spaniards and
gave them the territory they so earnestly wished. [Footnote: _Do._, De
Lemos to Carondelet, enclosed in Carondelet's letter of Sept. 26, 1795.]
Pinckney Sent as Minister to Spain.
However, neither Carondelet's energy and devotion to the Spanish
government nor his unscrupulous intrigues were able for long; to defer
the fate which hung over the Spanish possessions. In 1795 Washington
nominated as Minister to Spain Thomas Pinckney, a member of a
distinguished family of South Carolina statesmen, and a man of the
utmost energy and intelligence. Pinckney finally wrung from the
Spaniards a treaty which was as beneficial to the West as Jay's treaty,
and was attended by none of the drawbacks which marred Jay's work. The
Spaniards at the outset met his demands by a policy of delay and
evasion. Finally, he determined to stand this no longer, and, on October
24, 1795, demanded his passports, in a letter to Godoy, the "Prince of
Peace." The demand came at an opportune moment; for Godoy had just heard
of Jay's treaty. He misunderstood the way in which this was looked at in
the United States, and feared lest, if not counteracted, it might throw
the Americans into the arms of Great Britain, with which country Spain
was on the verge of war. It is not a little singular that Jay should
have thus rendered an involuntary but important additional service to
the Westerners who so hated him.
He Negotiates a treaty.
The Spaniards now promptly came to terms. They were in no condition to
fight the Americans; they knew that war would be the result if the
conflicting claims of the two peoples were not at once definitely
settled, one way or the other; and they concluded the treaty forthwith.
[Footnote: Pinckney receives justice from Lodge, in his "Washington,"
II., 160. For Pinckney's life, see the biography by Rev. C. C. Pinckney,
p. 129, etc.] Its two most important provisions were the settlement of
the southern boundary on the lines claimed by the United States, and the
granting of the right of deposit to the Westerners. The boundary
followed the thirty-first degree of latitude from the Mississippi to the
Chattahoochee, down it to the Flint, thence to the head of the St.
Mary's, and down it to the ocean. The Spanish troops were to be
withdrawn from this territory within the space of six months. The
Westerners were granted for three years the right of deposit at New
Orleans; after three years, either the right was to be continued, or
another equivalent port of deposit was to be granted somewhere on the
banks of the Mississippi. The right of deposit carried with it the right
to export goods from the place of deposit free from any but an
inconsiderable duty. [Footnote: American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, I., p. 533, etc.; Pinckney to Secretary of State, Aug. 11,
1795; to Godoy (Alcudia), Oct. 24, 1795; copy of treaty, Oct. 27th,
etc.]
The Spaniards Delay the Execution of the Treaty.
They Again Try to Intrigue with the Westerners.
The treaty was ratified in 1796, but with astonishing bad faith the
Spaniards refused to carry out its provisions. At this time Carondelet
was in the midst of his negotiations with Wilkinson for the secession of
the West, and had high hopes that he could bring it about. He had chosen
as his agent an Englishman, named Thomas Power, who was a naturalized
Spanish subject, and very zealous in the service of Spain. [Footnote:
Gayarre, III., 34;. Wilkinson's Memoirs, II., 225.] Power went to
Kentucky, where he communicated with Wilkinson, Sebastian, Innes, and
one or two others, and submitted to them a letter from Carondelet. This
letter proposed a treaty, of which the first article was that Wilkinson
and his associates should exert themselves to bring about a separation
of the Western country and its formation into an independent government
wholly unconnected with that of the Atlantic States; and Carondelet in
letter assured the men to whom he was writing, that, because of what had
occurred in Europe since Spain had ratified the treaty of October 27th,
the treaty would not be executed by his Catholic Majesty. Promises of
favor to the Western people were held out, and Wilkinson was given a
more substantial bribe, in the shape of ten thousand dollars, by Power.
Sebastian, Innes, and their friends were also promised a hundred
thousand dollars for their good offices; and Carondelet, who had no more
hesitation in betraying red men than white, also offered to help the
Westerners subdue their Indian foes; these Indian foes being at the
moment the devoted allies of Spain.
Failure of their Efforts.
The time had gone by, however, when it was possible to hope for success
in such an intrigue. The treaty with Spain had caused much satisfaction
in the West, and the Kentuckians generally were growing more and more
loyal to the Central Government. Innes and his friends, in a written
communication, rejected the offer of Carondelet. They declared that they
were devoted to the Union and would not consent to break it up; but they
betrayed curiously little surprise or indignation at the offer, nor did
they in rejecting it use the vigorous language which beseemed men who,
while holding the commissions of a government, were proffered a hundred
thousand dollars to betray that government. [Footnote: American State
Papers, Miscellaneous, I., 928; deposition of Harry Innes, etc.] Power,
at the close of 1797, reported to his superiors that nothing could be
done.
Confusion at Natchez.
The Posts Surrendered
Meanwhile Carondelet and De Lemos had persisted in declining to
surrender the posts at the Chickasaw Bluffs and Natchez, on pretexts
which were utterly frivolous. [Footnote: American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, II., pp. 20, 70, 78, 79; report of Timothy Pickering, January
22, 1798, etc.] At this time the Spanish Court was completely
subservient to France, which was hostile to the United States; and the
Spaniards would not carry out the treaty they had made until they had
exhausted every device of delay and evasion. Andrew Ellicott was
appointed by Washington Surveyor-General to run the boundary; but when,
early in 1797, he reached Natchez, the Spanish representative refused
point blank to run the boundary or evacuate the territory. Meanwhile the
Spanish Minister at Philadelphia, Yrujo, in his correspondence with the
Secretary of State, was pursuing precisely the same course of subterfuge
and delay. But these tactics could only avail for a time. Neither the
Government of the United States, nor the Western people would consent to
be balked much longer. The negotiations with Wilkinson and his
associates had come to nothing. A detachment of American regular
soldiers came down the river to support Ellicott. The settlers around
Natchez arose in revolt against the Spaniards and established a
Committee of Safety, under protection of the Americans. The population
of Mississippi was very mixed, including criminals fleeing from justice,
land speculators, old settlers, well-to-do planters, small pioneer
farmers, and adventurers of every kind; and, thanks to the large tory
element, there was a British, and a smaller Spanish party; but the
general feeling was overwhelmingly for the United States. The Spanish
Government made a virtue of necessity and withdrew its garrison, after
for some time preserving a kind of joint occupancy with the Americans.
[Footnote: B. A. Hinsdale: "The Establishment of the First Southern
Boundary of the United States." Largely based upon Ellicott's Journal.
Both Ellicott, and the leaders among the settlers, were warned of
Blount's scheme of conquest and land speculation, and were hostile to
it.] Captain Isaac Guyon, with a body of United States troops, took
formal possession of both the Chickasaw Bluffs and Natchez in 1797. In
1798 the Spaniards finally evacuated the country, [Footnote: Claiborne's
"Mississippi," p. 176. He is a writer of poor judgment; his verdicts on
Ellicott and Wilkinson are astounding.] their course being due neither
to the wisdom nor the good faith of their rulers, but to the fear and
worry caused by the unceasing pressure of the Americans. Spain yielded,
because she felt that not to do so would involve the loss of all
Louisiana. [Footnote: Gayarré, 413, 418; Pontalba's Memoir, Sept. 15,
1800.] The country was organized as the Mississippi Territory in June,
1798. [Footnote: American State Papers, Public Lands, I., p. 209.]
Blount's Extraordinary Scheme.
There was one incident, curious rather than important, but
characteristic in its way, which marked the close of the transactions of
the Western Americans with Spain at this time. During the very years
when Carondelet, under the orders of his Government, was seeking to
delay the execution of the boundary treaty, and to seduce the Westerners
from their allegiance to the United States, a Senator of the United
States, entirely without the knowledge of his Government, was engaged in
an intrigue for the conquest of a part of the Spanish dominion. This
Senator was no less a person than William Blount. Enterprising and
ambitious, he was even more deeply engaged in land speculations than
were the other prominent men of his time. [Footnote: Clay MSS., Blount
to Hart, March 13, 1799, etc., etc.] He felt that he had not been well
treated by the United States authorities, and, like all other
Westerners, he also felt that the misconduct of the Spaniards had been
so great that they were not entitled to the slightest consideration.
Moreover, he feared lest the territory should be transferred to France,
which would be a much more dangerous neighbor than Spain; and he had a
strong liking for Great Britain. If he could not see the territory taken
by the Americans under the flag of the United States, then he wished to
see them enter into possession of it under the standard of the British
King.
In 1797 he entered into a scheme which was in part one of land
speculation and in part one of armed aggression against Spain. He tried
to organize an association with the purpose of seizing the Spanish
territory west of the Mississippi, and putting it under the control of
Great Britain, in the interests of the seizers. The scheme came to
nothing. No definite steps were taken, and the British Government
refused to take any share in the movement. Finally the plot was
discovered by the President, who brought it to the attention of the
Senate, and Blount was properly expelled from the Upper House for
entering into a conspiracy to conquer the lands of one neighboring power
in the interest of another. The Tennesseeans, however, who cared little
for the niceties of international law, and sympathized warmly with any
act of territorial aggression against the Spaniards, were not in the
least affected by his expulsion. They greeted him with enthusiasm, and
elected him to high office, and he lived among them the remainder of his
days, honored and respected. [Footnote: Blount MSS., letter of Hugh
Williamson, March 3, 1808, etc., etc.] Nevertheless, his conduct in this
instance was indefensible. It was an unfortunate interlude in an
otherwise honorable and useful public career. [Footnote: General Marcus
J. Wright, in his "Life and Services of William Blount," gives the most
favorable view possible of Blount's conduct.]
CHAPTER V.
THE MEN OF THE WESTERN WATERS, 1798-1802.
Rapid Growth of the West.
The growth of the West was very rapid in the years immediately
succeeding the peace with the Indians and the treaties with England and
Spain. As the settlers poured into what had been the Indian-haunted
wilderness it speedily became necessary to cut it into political
divisions. Kentucky had already been admitted as a State in 1792;
Tennessee likewise became a State in 1796. The Territory of Mississippi
was organized in 1798, to include the country west of Georgia and south
of Tennessee, which had been ceded by the Spaniards under Pinckney's
treaty. [Footnote: Claiborne's "Mississippi," p. 220, etc.] In 1800 the
Connecticut Reserve, in what is now northeastern Ohio, was taken by the
United States. The Northwestern Territory was divided into two parts;
the eastern was composed mainly of what is now the State of Ohio, while
the western portion was called Indiana Territory, and was organized with
W. H. Harrison as Governor, his capital being at Vincennes. [Footnote:
"Annals of the West," by Thomas H. Perkins, p. 473. A valuable book,
showing much scholarship and research. The author has never received
proper credit. Very few indeed of the Western historians of his date
showed either his painstaking care or his breadth of view.] Harrison
had been Wayne's aid-de-camp at the fight of the Fallen Timbers, and had
been singled out by Wayne for mention because of his coolness and
gallantry. Afterwards he had succeeded Sargent as Secretary of the
Northwestern Territory when Sargent had been made Governor of
Mississippi, and he had gone as a Territorial delegate to Congress.
[Footnote: Jacob Burnett in "Ohio Historical Transactions," Part II.,
Vol. I., p. 69.]
Ohio Becomes a State.
In 1802 Ohio was admitted as a State. St. Clair, and St. Clair's
supporters, struggled to keep the Territory from statehood, and proposed
to cut it down in size, nominally because they deemed the extent of
territory too great for governmental purposes, but really, doubtless,
because they distrusted the people, and did not wish to see them take
the government into their own hands. The effort failed, however, and the
State was admitted by Congress, beginning its existence in 1803.
[Footnote: Atwater, "History of Ohio," p. 169.] Congress made the
proviso that the State Constitution should accord with the Constitution
of the United States, and should embody the doctrines contained in the
Ordinance of 1787. [Footnote: The question of the boundaries of the
Northwestern States is well treated in "The Boundaries of Wisconsin," by
Reuben G. Thwaites, the Secretary of the State Historical Society of
Wisconsin.] The rapid settlement of southeastern Ohio was hindered by
the fact that the speculative land companies, the Ohio and Scioto
associations, held great tracts of territory which the pioneers passed
by in their desire to get to lands which they could acquire in their own
right. This was one of the many bad effects which resulted from the
Government's policy of disposing of its land in large blocks to the
highest bidder, instead of allotting it, as has since been done, in
quarter sections to actual settlers. [Footnote: Mr. Eli Thayer, in his
various writings, has rightly laid especial stress on this point.]
Harrison, St. Clair, and Sargent.
Lessons Taught by Blount's Experience.
Harrison was thoroughly in sympathy with the Westerners. He had thrown
in his lot with theirs; he deemed himself one of them, and was accepted
by them as a fit representative. Accordingly he was very popular as
Governor of Indiana. St. Clair in Ohio and Sargent in Mississippi were
both extremely unpopular. They were appointed by Federalist
administrations, and were entirely out of sympathy with the Western
people among whom they lived. One was a Scotchman, and one a New
Englander. They were both high-minded men, with sound ideas on
governmental policy, though Sargent was the abler of the two; but they
were out of touch with the Westerners. They distrusted the frontier
folk, and were bitterly disliked in return. Each committed the
fundamental fault of trying to govern the Territory over which he had
been put in accordance with his own ideas, and heedless of the wishes
and prejudices of those under him. Doubtless each was conscientious in
what he did, and each of course considered the difficulties under which
he labored to be due solely to the lawlessness and the many shortcomings
of the settlers. But this was an error. The experience of Blount when he
occupied the exceedingly difficult position of Territorial Governor of
Tennessee showed that it was quite possible for a man of firm belief in
the Union to get into touch with the frontiersmen and to be accepted by
them as a worthy representative; but the virtues of St. Clair and
Sargent were so different from the backwoods virtues, and their habits
of thought were so alien, that they could not possibly get on with the
people among whom their lot had been cast. Neither of them in the end
took up his abode in the Territory of which he had been Governor, both
returning to the East. The code of laws which they enacted prior to the
Territories possessing a sufficient number of inhabitants to become
entitled to Territorial legislatures were deemed by the settlers to be
arbitrary and unsuited to their needs. There was much popular feeling
against them. On one occasion St. Clair was mobbed in Chillicothe, the
then capital of Ohio, with no other effect than to procure a change of
capital to Cincinnati. Finally both Sargent and St. Clair were removed
by Jefferson, early in his administration.
The Jeffersonians the Champions of the West.
The Jeffersonian Republican party did very much that was evil, and it
advocated governmental principles of such utter folly that the party
itself was obliged immediately to abandon them when it undertook to
carry on the government of the United States, and only clung to them
long enough to cause serious and lasting damage to the country; but on
the vital question of the West, and its territorial expansion, the
Jeffersonian party was, on the whole, emphatically right, and its
opponents, the Federalists, emphatically wrong. The Jeffersonians
believed in the acquisition of territory in the West, and the
Federalists did not. The Jeffersonians believed that the Westerners
should be allowed to govern themselves precisely as other citizens of
the United States did, and should be given their full share in the
management of national affairs. Too many Federalists failed to see that
these positions were the only proper ones to take. In consequence,
notwithstanding all their manifold shortcomings, the Jeffersonians, and
not the Federalists, were those to whom the West owed most.
Right of the Westerners to Self-Government.
Whether the Westerners governed themselves as wisely as they should have
mattered little. The essential point was that they had to be given the
right of self-government. They could not be kept in pupilage. Like other
Americans, they had to be left to strike out for themselves and to sink
or swim according to the measure of their own capacities. When this was
done it was certain that they would commit many blunders, and that some
of these blunders would work harm not only to themselves but to the
whole nation. Nevertheless, all this had to be accepted as part of the
penalty paid for free government. It was wise to accept it in the first
place, and in the second place, whether wise or not, it was inevitable.
Many of the Federalists saw this; and to many of them, the Adamses, for
instance, and Jay and Pinckney, the West owed more than it did to most
of the Republican statesmen; but as a whole, the attitude of the
Federalists, especially in the Northeast, toward the West was ungenerous
and improper, while the Jeffersonians, with all their unwisdom and
demagogy, were nevertheless the Western champions.
Vagaries of Western Constitution-Making.
Mississippi and Ohio had squabbled with their Territorial governors much
as the Old Thirteen Colonies had squabbled with the governors appointed
by the Crown. One curious western consequence of this was common to both
cases. When the old Colonies became States, they in their constitutions
usually imposed the same checks upon the executive they themselves
elected as they had desired to see imposed upon the executive appointed
by an outside power. The new Territories followed the same course. When
Ohio became a State it adopted a very foolish constitution. This
constitution deprived the executive of almost all power, and provided a
feeble, short-term judiciary, throwing the control of affairs into the
hands of the legislative body, in accordance with what were then deemed
Democratic ideas. The people were entirely unable to realize that, so
far as their discontent with the Governor's actions was reasonable, it
arose from the fact that he was appointed, not by themselves, but by
some body or person not in sympathy with them. They failed to grasp the
seemingly self-evident truth that a governor, one man elected by the
people, is just as much their representative and is just as certain to
carry out their ideas as is a legislature, a body of men elected by the
people. They provided a government which accentuated, instead of
softening, the defects in their own social system. They were in no
danger of suffering from tyranny; they were in no danger of losing the
liberty which they so jealously guarded. The perils that threatened them
were lawlessness, lack of order, and lack of capacity to concentrate
their efforts in time of danger from within or from an external enemy;
and against these perils they made no provision whatever.
Western Feeling against the East.
The West in Close Touch with the South.
The inhabitants of Ohio Territory were just as bitter against St. Clair
as the inhabitants of Mississippi Territory were against Sargent. The
Mississippians did not object to Sargent as a Northern man, but, in
common with the men of Ohio, they objected to governors who were Eastern
men and out of touch with the West. At the end of the eighteenth
century, and during the early years of the nineteenth, the important
fact to be remembered in treating of the Westerners was their
fundamental unity, in blood, in ways of life, and in habits of thought.
[Footnote: Prof. Frederick A. Turner, of the University of Michigan,
deserves especial credit for the stress he has laid upon this point.]
They were predominantly of Southern, not of Northern blood; though it
was the blood of the Southerners of the uplands, not of the low coast
regions, so that they were far more closely kin to the Northerners than
were the seaboard planters. In Kentucky and Tennessee, in Indiana and
Mississippi, the settlers were of the same quality. They possessed the
same virtues and the same shortcomings, the same ideals and the same
practices. There was already a considerable Eastern emigration to the
West, but it went as much to Kentucky as to Ohio, and almost as much to
Tennessee and Mississippi as to Indiana. As yet the Northeasterners were
chiefly engaged in filling the vacant spaces in New England, New York,
and Pennsylvania. The great flood of Eastern emigration to the West, the
flood which followed the parallels of latitude, and made the Northwest
like the Northeast, did not begin until after the War of 1812. It was
no accident that made Harrison, the first governor of Indiana and long
the typical representative of the Northwest, by birth a Virginian, and
the son of one of the Virginian signers of the Declaration of
Independence. The Northwest was at this time in closer touch with
Virginia than with New England.
Homogeneity of the West.
Slavery in the West.
There was as yet no hard and fast line drawn between North and South
among the men of the Western waters. Their sense of political cohesion
was not fully developed, and the same qualities that at times made them
loose in their ideas of allegiance to the Union at times also prevented
a vivid realization on their part of their own political and social
solidarity; but they were always more or less conscious of this
solidarity, and, as a rule, they acted together. Most important of all,
the slavery question, which afterwards rived in sunder the men west of
the Alleghanies as it rived in sunder those east of them, was of small
importance in the early years. West of the Alleghanies slaves were
still to be found almost everywhere, while almost every where there
were also frequent and open expressions of hostility to slavery. The
Southerners still rather disliked slavery, while the Northerners did
not as yet feel any very violent antagonism to it. In the Indiana
Territory there were hundreds of slaves, the property of the old French
inhabitants and of the American settlers who had come there prior to
1787; and the majority of the population of this Territory actually
wished to reintroduce slavery, and repeatedly petitioned Congress to
be allowed the reintroduction. Congress, with equal patriotism, and
wisdom, always refused the petition; but it was not until the new century
was well under way that the anti-slavery element obtained control in
Indiana and Illinois. Even in Ohio there was a considerable party which
favored the introduction of slavery, and though the majority was against
this, the people had small sympathy with the negroes, and passed very
severe laws against the introduction of free blacks into the State, and
even against those already in residence therein. [Footnote: "Ohio," by
Rufus King. pp. 290, 364, etc.] On the other hand, when Kentucky's first
constitutional convention sat, a resolute effort was made to abolish
slavery within the State, and this effort was only defeated after a hard
struggle and a close vote. To their honor be it said that all of the
clergymen--three Baptists, one Methodist, one Dutch Reformed, and one
Presbyterian--who were members of the constitutional convention voted
in favor of the abolition of slavery. [Footnote: John Mason Brown,
"Political Beginnings of Kentucky," 229. Among the men who deserve honor
for thus voting against slavery was Harry Innes. One of the Baptist
preachers, Gerrard, was elected Governor over Logan, four years later;
a proof that Kentucky sentiment was very tolerant of attacks on slavery.
All the clergymen, by the way, also voted to disqualify clergymen for
service in the legislatures.]
In Tennessee no such effort was made, but the leaders of thought did not
hesitate to express their horror of slavery and their desire that it
might be abolished. There was no sharp difference between the attitudes
of the Northwestern and the Southwestern States towards slavery.
Features of Western Life.
The Farmer the Typical Westerner.
North and South alike, the ways of life were substantially the same;
though there were differences, of course, and these differences tended
to become accentuated. Thus, in the Mississippi Territory the planters,
in the closing years of the century, began to turn their attention to
cotton instead of devoting themselves to the crops of their brethren
farther north; and cotton soon became their staple product. But as yet
the typical settler everywhere was the man of the axe and rifle, the
small pioneer farmer who lived by himself, with his wife and his
swarming children, on a big tract of wooded land, perhaps three or four
hundred acres in extent. Of this three or four hundred acres he rarely
cleared more than eight or ten; and these were cleared imperfectly. On
this clearing he tilled the soil, and there he lived in his rough log
house with but one room, or at most two and a loft. [Footnote: F. A.
Michaux, "Voyages" (in 1802), pp. 132, 214, etc.]
Game Still Abundant.
The man of the Western waters, was essentially a man who dwelt alone in
the midst of the forest on his rude little farm, and who eked out his
living by hunting. Game still abounded everywhere, save in the immediate
neighborhood of the towns; so that many of the inhabitants lived almost
exclusively by hunting and fishing, and, with their return to the
pursuits of savagery, adopted not a little of the savage idleness and
thriftlessness. Bear, deer, and turkey were staple foods. Elk had ceased
to be common, though they hung on here and there in out of the way
localities for many years; and by the close of the century the herds of
bison had been driven west of the Mississippi. [Footnote: Henry Ker,
"Travels," p.22.] Smaller forms of wild life swarmed. Gray squirrels
existed in such incredible numbers that they caused very serious damage
to the crops, and at one time the Kentucky Legislature passed a law
imposing upon every male over sixteen years of age the duty of killing a
certain number of squirrels and crows every year. [Footnote: Michaux,
215, 236; Collins, I., 24.] The settlers possessed horses and horned
cattle, but only a few sheep, which were not fitted to fight for their
own existence in the woods, as the stock had to. On the other hand,
slab-sided, long-legged hogs were the most plentiful of domestic
animals, ranging in great, half-wild droves through the forest.
Fondness of the Westerners for the Lonely Life of the Woods.
All observers were struck by the intense fondness of the frontiersmen
for the woods and for a restless, lonely life. [Footnote: Crêvecoeur,
"Voyage dans la Haute Pennsylvanie," etc., p. 265.] They pushed
independence to an extreme; they did not wish to work for others or to
rent land from others. Each was himself a small landed proprietor, who
cleared only the ground that he could himself cultivate. Workmen were
scarce and labor dear. It was almost impossible to get men fit to work
as mill hands, or to do high-class labor in forges even by importing
them from Pennsylvania or Maryland. [Footnote: Clay MSS., Letter to
George Nicholas, Baltimore, Sept. 3, 1796.] Even in the few towns the
inhabitants preferred that their children should follow agriculture
rather than become handicraftsmen; and skilled workmen such as
carpenters and smiths made a great deal of money, so much so that they
could live a week on one day's wage. [Footnote: Michaux, pp. 96, 152.]
The River Trade.
In addition to farming there was a big trade along the river. Land
transportation was very difficult indeed, and the frontiersman's whole
life was one long struggle with the forest and with poor roads. The
waterways were consequently of very great importance, and the
flatboatmen on the Mississippi and Ohio became a numerous and noteworthy
class. The rivers were covered with their craft. There was a driving
trade between Pittsburgh and New Orleans, the goods being drawn to
Pittsburgh from the seacoast cities by great four-horse wagons, and
being exported in ships from New Orleans to all parts of the earth. Not
only did the Westerners build river craft, but they even went into
shipbuilding; and on the upper Ohio, at Pittsburgh, and near Marietta,
at the beginning of the present century, seagoing ships were built and
launched to go down the Ohio and Mississippi, and thence across the
ocean to any foreign port. [Footnote: Thompson Mason Harris, "Journal of
Tour," etc., 1803, p. 140; Michaux, p. 77.] There was, however, much
risk in this trade; for the demand for commodities at Natchez and New
Orleans was uncertain, while the waters of the Gulf swarmed with British
and French cruisers, always ready to pounce like pirates on the ships of
neutral powers. [Footnote: Clay MSS., W. H. Turner to Thomas Hart,
Natchez, May 27, 1797.]
Small Size of the Towns.
Natchez.
Yet the river trade was but the handmaid of frontier agriculture. The
Westerners were a farmer folk who lived on the clearings their own hands
had made in the great woods, and who owned the land they tilled. Towns
were few and small. At the end of the century there were some four
hundred thousand people in the West; yet the largest town was Lexington,
which contained less than three thousand people. [Footnote: Perrin Du
Lac "Voyage," etc., 1801, 1803, p. 153; Michaux, 150.] Lexington was a
neatly built little burg, with fine houses and good stores. The leading
people lived well and possessed much cultivation. Louisville and
Nashville were each about half its size. In Nashville, of the one
hundred and twenty houses but eight were of brick, and most of them were
mere log huts. Cincinnati was a poor little village. Cleveland consisted
of but two or three log cabins, at a time when there were already a
thousand settlers in its neighborhood on the Connecticut Reserve,
scattered out on their farms. [Footnote: "Historical Collections of
Ohio," p. 120.] Natchez was a very important town, nearly as large as
Lexington. It derived its importance from the river traffic on the
Mississippi. All the boatmen stopped there, and sometimes as many as
one hundred and fifty craft were moored to the bank at the same time.
The men who did this laborious river work were rude, powerful, and
lawless, and when they halted for a rest their idea of enjoyment was
the coarsest and most savage dissipation. At Natchez there speedily
gathered every species of purveyor to their vicious pleasures, and the
part of the town known as "Natchez under the Hill" became a by-word for
crime and debauchery. [Footnote: Henry Ker, "Travels," p. 41.]
Growth of Kentucky.
Kentucky had grown so in population, possessing over two hundred
thousand inhabitants, that she had begun to resemble an Eastern State.
When, in 1796, Benjamin Logan, the representative of the old
woodchoppers and Indian fighters, ran for governor and was beaten, it
was evident that Kentucky had passed out of the mere pioneer days. It
was more than a mere coincidence that in the following year Henry Clay
should have taken up his residence in Lexington. It showed that the
State was already attracting to live within her borders men like those
who were fitted for social and political leadership in Virginia.
The Kentucky Gentry.
The Danville Political Club.
Though the typical inhabitant of Kentucky was still the small frontier
farmer, the class of well-to-do gentry had already attained good
proportions. Elsewhere throughout the West, in Tennessee, and even here
and there in Ohio and the Territories of Indiana and Mississippi, there
were to be found occasional houses that were well built and well
finished, and surrounded by pleasant grounds, fairly well kept; houses
to which the owners had brought their stores of silver and linen and
heavy, old-fashioned furniture from their homes in the Eastern States.
Blount, for instance, had a handsome house in Knoxville, well fitted, as
beseemed that of a man one of whose brothers still lived at Blount Hall,
in the coast region of North Carolina, the ancestral seat of his
forefathers for generations. [Footnote: Clay MSS., Blount to Hart,
Knoxville, Feb. 9, 1794.] But by far the greatest number of these fine
houses, and the largest class of gentry to dwell in them, were in
Kentucky. Not only were Lexington and Louisville important towns, but
Danville, the first capital of Kentucky, also possessed importance, and,
indeed, had been the first of the Western towns to develop an active and
distinctive social and political life. It was in Danville that, in the
years immediately preceding Kentucky's admission as a State, the
Political Club met. The membership of this club included many of the
leaders Of Kentucky's intellectual life, and the record of its debates
shows the keenness with which they watched the course of social and
political development not only in Kentucky but in the United States.
They were men of good intelligence and trained minds, and their meetings
and debates undoubtedly had a stimulating effect upon Kentucky life,
though they were tainted, as were a very large number of the leading men
of the same stamp elsewhere throughout the country, with the doctrinaire
political notions common among those who followed the French political
theorists of the day. [Footnote: "The Political Club," by Thomas Speed,
Filson Club Publications.]
The Large Landowners.
Open-air Life.
Of the gentry many were lawyers, and the law led naturally to political
life; but even among the gentry the typical man was still emphatically
the big landowner. The leaders of Kentucky were men who owned large
estates, on which they lived in their great roomy houses. Even when they
practised law they also supervised their estates; and if they were not
lawyers, in addition to tilling the land they were always ready to try
their hand at some kind of manufacture. They were willing to turn their
attention to any new business in which there was a chance to make money,
whether it was to put up a mill, to build a forge, to undertake a
contract for the delivery of wheat to some big flour merchant, or to
build a flotilla of flatboats, and take the produce of a given
neighborhood down to New Orleans for shipment to the West Indies.
[Footnote: Clay MSS., Seitz & Lowan to Garret Darling, Lexington,
January 23, 1797; agreement of George Nicholas, October 10, 1796, etc.
This was an agreement on the part of Nicholas to furnish Seitz & Lowan
with all the flour manufactured at his mill during the season of 1797
for exportation, the flour to be delivered by him in Kentucky. He was to
receive $5.50 a barrel up to the receipt of $1500; after that it was to
depend upon the price of wheat. Six bushels of wheat were reckoned to a
barrel of flour, and the price of a bushel was put at four shillings; in
reality it ranged from three to six.] They were also always engaged in
efforts to improve the breed of their horses and cattle, and to
introduce new kinds of agriculture, notably the culture of the vine.
[Footnote: _Do._, "Minutes of meeting of the Directors of the Vineyard
Society," June 27, 1800.] They speedily settled themselves definitely in
the new country, and began to make ready for their children to inherit
their homes after them; though they retained enough of the restless
spirit which had made them cross the Alleghanies to be always on the
lookout for any fresh region of exceptional advantages, such as many of
them considered the lands along the lower Mississippi. They led a life
which appealed to them strongly, for it was passed much in the open air,
in a beautiful region and lovely climate, with horses and hounds, and
the management of their estates and their interest in politics to occupy
their time; while their neighbors were men of cultivation, at least by
their own standards, so that they had the society for which they most
cared. [Footnote: _Do._, James Brown to Thomas Hart, Lexington, April 3,
1804.] In spite of their willingness to embark in commercial ventures
and to build mills, rope-walks, and similar manufactures,--for which
they had the greatest difficulty in procuring skilled laborers, whether
foreign or native, from the Northeastern States [Footnote: _Do._, J.
Brown to Thomas Hart, Philadelphia, February 11, 1797. This letter was
brought out to Hart by a workman, David Dodge, whom Brown had at last
succeeded in engaging. Dodge had been working in New York at a
rope-walk, where he received $500 a year without board. From Hart he
bargained to receive $350 with board. It proved impossible to engage
other journeymen workers, Brown expressing his belief that any whom he
chose would desert a week after they got to Kentucky, and Dodge saying
that he would rather take raw hands and train them to the business than
take out such hands as offered to go.]--and in spite of their liking
for the law, they retained the deep-settled belief that the cultivation
of the earth was the best of all possible pursuits for men of every
station, high or low. [Footnote _Do._, William Nelson to Col. George
Nicholas, Caroline, Va., December 29, 1794.]
Virginia and Kentucky.
In many ways the life of the Kentuckians was most like that of the
Virginia gentry, though it had peculiar features of its own. Judged by
Puritan standards, it seemed free enough; and it is rather curious to
find Virginia fathers anxious to send their sons out to Kentucky so that
they could get away from what they termed "the constant round of
dissipation, the scenes of idleness, which boys are perpetually engaged
in" in Virginia. One Virginia gentleman of note, in writing to a
prominent Kentuckian to whom he wished to send his son, dwelt upon his
desire to get him away from a place where boys of his age spent most of
the time galloping wherever they wished, mounted on blooded horses.
Kentucky hardly seemed a place to which a parent would send a son if he
wished him to avoid the temptations of horse flesh; but this particular
Virginian at least tried to provide against this, as he informed his
correspondent that he should send his son out to Kentucky mounted on an
"indifferent Nag," which was to be used only as a means of locomotion
for the journey, and was then immediately to be sold. [Footnote: _Do_.,
William Nelson to Nicholas, November 9, 1792.]
Education.
The gentry strove hard to secure a good education for their children,
and in Kentucky, as in Tennessee, made every effort to bring about the
building of academies where their boys and girls could be well taught.
If this was not possible, they strove to find some teacher capable of
taking a class to which he could teach Latin and mathematics; a teacher
who should also "prepare his pupils for becoming useful members of
society and patriotic citizens." [Footnote: Shelby MSS., letter of
Toulmin, January 7, 1794; Blount MSS., January 6, 1792, etc.] Where
possible the leading families sent their sons to some Eastern college,
Princeton being naturally the favorite institution of learning with
people who dwelt in communities where the Presbyterians took the lead in
social standing and cultivation. [Footnote: Clay MSS., _passim;_ letter
to Thomas Hart, October 19, 1794; October 13, 1797, etc. In the last
letter, by the way, written by one John Umstead, occurs the following
sentence: "I have lately heard a piece of news, if true, must be a
valuable acquisition to the Western World, viz. a boat of a considerable
burden making four miles and a half an hour against the strongest
current in the Mississippi river, and worked by horses."]
Currency.
Prices of Goods.
All through the West there was much difficulty in getting money. In
Tennessee particularly money was so scarce that the only way to get cash
in hand was by selling provisions to the few Federal garrisons.
[Footnote: _Do_., Blount to Hart, Knoxville, March 13, 1799.] Credits
were long, and payment made largely in kind; and the price at which an
article could be sold under such conditions was twice as large as that
which it would command for cash down. In the accounts kept by the
landowners with the merchants who sold them goods, and the artizans who
worked for them, there usually appear credit accounts in which the
amounts due on account of produce of various kinds are deducted from the
debt, leaving a balance to be settled by cash and by orders. Owing to
the fluctuating currency, and to the wide difference in charges when
immediate cash payments were received as compared with charges when the
payments were made on credit and in kind, it is difficult to know
exactly what the prices represent. In Kentucky currency mutton and beef
were fourpence a pound, in the summer of 1796, while four beef tongues
cost three shillings, and a quarter of lamb three and a sixpence. In
1798, on the same account, beef was down to threepence a pound.
[Footnote: _Do._, Account of James Morrison and Melchia Myer, October
12, 17098.] Linen cost two and fourpence, or three shillings a yard;
flannel, four to six shillings; calico and chintz about the same; baize,
three shillings and ninepence. A dozen knives and forks were eighteen
shillings, and ten pocket handkerchiefs two pounds. Worsted shoes were
eight shillings a pair, and buttons were a shilling a dozen. A pair of
gloves were three and ninepence; a pair of kid slippers, thirteen and
sixpence; ribbons were one and sixpence. [Footnote: _Do._, Account of
Mrs. Marion Nicholas with Tillford, 1802. On this bill appears also a
charge for Hyson tea, for straw bonnets, at eighteen shillings; for
black silk gloves, and for one "Aesop's Fables," at a cost of three
shillings and ninepence.] The blacksmith charged six shillings and
ninepence for a new pair of shoes, and a shilling and sixpence for
taking off an old pair; and he did all the iron work for the farm and
the house alike, from repairing bridle bits and sharpening coulters to
mounting "wafil irons" [Footnote: _Do._, Account of Morrison and Hickey,
1798.]--for the housewives excelled in preparing delicious waffles and
hot cakes.
Holidays of the Gentry.
The gentry were fond of taking holidays, going to some mountain resort,
where they met friends from other parts of Kentucky and Tennessee, and
from Virginia and elsewhere. They carried their negro servants with
them, and at a good tavern the board would be three shillings a day for
the master and a little over a shilling for the man. They lived in
comfort and they enjoyed themselves; but they did not have much ready
money. From the sales of their crops and stock and from their mercantile
ventures they got enough to pay the blacksmith and carpenter, who did
odd jobs for them, and the Eastern merchants from whom they got gloves,
bonnets, hats, and shoes, and the cloth which was made into dresses by
the womankind on their plantations. But most of their wants were
supplied on their own places. Their abundant tables were furnished
mainly with, what their own farms yielded. When they travelled they went
in their own carriages. The rich men, whose wants were comparatively
many, usually had on their estates white hired men or black slaves whose
labor could gratify them; while the ordinary farmer, of the class that
formed the great majority of the population, was capable of supplying
almost all his needs himself, or with the assistance of his family.
Contrast of Old and new Methods of Settlements.
The immense preponderance of the agricultural, land-holding, and
land-tilling element, and the comparative utter insignificance of town
development was highly characteristic of the Western settlement of this
time, and offers a very marked contrast to what goes on to-day, in the
settlement of new countries. At the end of the eighteenth century the
population of the Western country was about as great as the population
of the State of Washington at the end of the nineteenth, and Washington
is distinctly a pastoral and agricultural State, a State of men who chop
trees, herd cattle, and till the soil, as well as trade; but in
Washington great cities, like Tacoma, Seattle, and Spokane, have sprung
up with a rapidity which was utterly unknown in the West a century ago.
Nowadays when new States are formed the urban population in them tends
to grow as rapidly as in the old. A hundred years ago there was
practically no urban population at all in a new country. Colorado even
during its first decade of statehood had a third of its population in
its capital city. Kentucky during its first decade did not have much
more than one per cent of its population in its capital city. Kentucky
grew as rapidly as Colorado grew, a hundred years later; but Denver grew
thirty or forty times as fast as Lexington had ever grown.
Restlessness of the Frontiersman. Boone's Wanderings.
In the strongly marked frontier character no traits were more pronounced
than the dislike of crowding and the tendency to roam to and fro, hither
and thither, always with a westward trend. Boone, the typical
frontiersman, embodied in his own person the spirit of loneliness and
restlessness which marked the first venturers into the wilderness. He
had wandered in his youth from Pennsylvania to Carolina, and, in the
prime of his strength, from North Carolina to Kentucky. When Kentucky
became well settled in the closing years of the century, he crossed into
Missouri, that he might once more take up his life where he could see
the game come out of the woods at nightfall, and could wander among
trees untouched by the axe of the pioneer. An English traveller of note
who happened to encounter him about this time has left an interesting
account of the meeting. It was on the Ohio, and Boone was in a canoe,
alone with his dog and gun, setting forth on a solitary trip into the
wilderness to trap beaver. He would not even join himself to the other
travellers for a night, preferring to plunge at once into the wild,
lonely life he so loved. His strong character and keen mind struck the
Englishman, who yet saw that the old hunter belonged to the class of
pioneers who could never themselves civilize the land, because they ever
fled from the face of the very civilization for which they had made
ready the land. In Boone's soul the fierce impatience of all restraint
burned like a fire. He told the Englishman that he no longer cared for
Kentucky, because its people had grown too easy of life; and that he
wished to move to some place where men still lived untrammelled and
unshackled, and enjoyed uncontrolled the free blessings of nature.
[Footnote: Francis Bailey's "Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of
North America in 1796 and 1797," p. 234.] The isolation of his life and
the frequency with which he changed his abode brought out the
frontiersman's wonderful capacity to shift for himself, but it hindered
the development of his power of acting in combination with others of his
kind. The first comers to the new country were so restless and so
intolerant of the presence of their kind, that as neighbors came in they
moved ever westward. They could not act with their fellows.
The Permanent Settlers.
Efforts to Provide Schooling.
Of course in the men who succeeded the first pioneers, and who were the
first permanent settlers, the restlessness and the desire for a lonely
life were much less developed. These men wandered only until they found
a good piece of land, and took up claims on this land, not because the
country was lonely, but because it was fertile. They hailed with joy
the advent of new settlers and the upbuilding of a little market town in
the neighborhood. They joined together eagerly in the effort to obtain
schools for their children. As yet there were no public schools
supported by government in any part of the West, but all the settlers of
any pretension to respectability were anxious to give their children a
decent education. Even the poorer people, who were still engaged in the
hardest and roughest struggle for a livelihood, showed appreciation of
the need of schooling for their children; and wherever the clearings of
the settlers were within reasonable distance of one another a log
schoolhouse was sure to spring up. The school-teacher boarded around
among the different families, and was quite as apt to be paid in produce
as in cash. Sometimes he was a teacher by profession; more often he
took up teaching simply as an interlude to some of his other occupations.
Schoolbooks were more common than any others in the scanty libraries of
the pioneers.
The County-System in the West.
The settlers who became firmly established in the land gave definite
shape to its political career. The county was throughout the West the
unit of division, though in the North it became somewhat mixed with the
township system. It is a pity that the township could not have been the
unit, as it would have rendered the social and political development in
many respects easier, by giving to each little community responsibility
for, and power in, matters concerning its own welfare; but the
backwoodsmen lived so scattered out, and the thinly-settled regions
covered so large an extent of territory, that the county was at first in
some ways more suited to their needs. Moreover, it was the unit of
organization in Virginia, to which State more than to any other the
pioneers owed their social and governmental system. The people were
ordinarily brought but little in contact with the Government. They were
exceedingly jealous of their individual liberty, and wished to be
interfered with as little as possible. Nevertheless, they were fond of
litigation. One observer remarks that horses and lawsuits were their
great subjects of conversation. [Footnote: Michaux, p. 240.]
The Lawyers and Clergymen Forced to Much Travel.
The vast extent of the territory and the scantiness of the population
forced the men of law, like the religious leaders, to travel about rather
than stay permanently fixed in any one place. In a few towns there were
lawyers and clergymen who had permanent homes; but as a rule both rode
circuits. The judges and the lawyers travelled together on the circuits,
to hold court. At the Shire-town all might sleep in one room, or at
least under one roof; and it was far from an unusual thing to see both
the grand and petty juries sitting under trees in the open. [Footnote:
Atwater, p. 177.]
Power to Combine among the Frontiersmen.
The fact that the Government did so little for the individual and left
so much to be done by him rendered it necessary for the individuals
voluntarily to combine. Huskings and house-raisings were times when all
joined freely to work for the man whose corn men was to be shucked or
whose log cabin was to be built, and turned their labor into a frolic
and merrymaking, where the men drank much whiskey and the young people
danced vigorously to the sound of the fiddle. Such merry-makings were
attended from far and near, offering a most welcome break to the
dreariness of life on the lonely clearings in the midst of the forest.
Ordinarily the frontiersman at his home only drank milk or water; but at
the taverns and social gatherings there was much drunkenness, for the
men craved whiskey, drinking the fiery liquor in huge draughts. Often
the orgies ended with brutal brawls. To outsiders the craving of the
backwoodsman for whiskey was one of his least attractive traits.
[Footnote: Perrin Du Lac, p. 131; Michaux, 95, etc.] It must always be
remembered, however, that even the most friendly outsider is apt to
apply to others his own standards in matters of judgment. The average
traveller overstated the drunkenness of the backwoodsman, exactly as he
overstated his misery.
Roughness and Poverty of the Life.
Its Attractiveness.
The frontiersman was very poor. He worked hard and lived roughly, and he
and his family had little beyond coarse food, coarse clothing, and a
rude shelter. In the severe winters they suffered both from cold and
hunger. In the summers there was sickness everywhere, fevers of various
kinds scourging all the new settlements. The difficulty of communication
was so great that it took three months for the emigrants to travel from
Connecticut to the Western Reserve near Cleveland, and a journey from a
clearing, over the forest roads, to a little town not fifty miles off
was an affair of moment to be undertaken but once a year. [Footnote:
"Historical Collections of Ohio," p. 120; Perrin Du Lac, p. 143.] Yet to
the frontiersmen themselves the life was far from unattractive. It
gratified their intense love of independence; the lack of refinement
did not grate on their rough, bold natures; and they prized the entire
equality of a life where there were no social distinctions, and few
social restraints. Game was still a staple, being sought after for the
flesh and the hide, and of course all the men and boys were enthralled
by the delights of the chase. The life was as free as it was rude, and
it possessed great fascinations, not only for the wilder spirits, but
even for many men who, when they had the chance, showed that they
possessed ability to acquire cultivation.
One old pioneer has left a pleasant account of the beginning of an
ordinary day's work in a log cabin [Footnote: Drake's "Pioneer Life in
Kentucky." This gives an excellent description of life in a family of
pioneers, representing what might be called the average frontiersman of
the best type. Drake's father and mother were poor and illiterate, but
hardworking, honest, God-fearing folk, with an earnest desire to do
their duty by their neighbors and to see their children rise in the
world.]:
Life in a Log Cabin.
"I know of no scene in civilized life more primitive than such a cabin
hearth as that of my mother. In the morning, a buckeye back-log, a
hickory forestick, resting on stone and irons, with a johnny-cake, on a
clean ash board, set before the fire to bake; a frying pan, with its
long handle resting on a split-bottom turner's chair, sending out its
peculiar music, and the tea-kettle swung from a wooden lug pole, with
myself setting the table or turning the meat, or watching the
johnny-cake, while she sat nursing the baby in the corner and telling
the little ones to hold still and let their sister Lizzie dress them.
Then came blowing the conch-shell for father in the field, the howling
of old Lion, the gathering round the table, the blessing, the dull
clatter of pewter spoons and pewter basins, the talk about the crop and
stock, the inquiry whether Dan'l (the boy) could be spared from the
house, and the general arrangements for the day. Breakfast over, my
function was to provide the sauce for dinner; in winter, to open the
potato or turnip hole, and wash what I took out; in spring, to go into
the field and collect the greens; in summer and fall, to explore the
truck patch, our little garden. If I afterwards went to the field my
household labors ceased until night; if not, they continued through the
day. As often as possible mother would engage in making pumpkin pies, in
which I generally bore a part, and one of these more commonly graced the
supper than the dinner table. My pride was in the labors of the field.
Mother did the spinning. The standing dye-stuff was the inner bark of
the white walnut, from which we obtained that peculiar and permanent
shade of dull yellow, the butternut [so common and typical in the
clothing of the backwoods farmer]. Oak bark, with copper as a mordant,
when father had money to purchase it, supplied the ink with which I
learned to write. I drove the horses to and from the range, and salted
them. I tended the sheep, and hunted up the cattle in the woods."
[Footnote: _Do_., pp. 90, in, etc., condensed.] This was the life of the
thrifty pioneers, whose children more than held their own in the world.
The shiftless men without ambition and without thrift, lived in laziness
and filth; their eating and sleeping arrangements were as unattractive
as those of an Indian wigwam.
Peculiar Qualities of the Pioneers.
Native Americans did Best.
The pleasures and the toils of the life were alike peculiar. In the
wilder parts the loneliness and the fierce struggle with squalid poverty,
and with the tendency to revert to savage conditions, inevitably produced
for a generation or two a certain falling off from the standard of
civilized communities. It needed peculiar qualities to insure success,
and the pioneers were almost exclusively native Americans. The Germans
were more thrifty and prosperous, but they could not go first into the
wilderness. [Footnote: Michaux, p. 63, etc.] Men fresh from England
rarely succeeded. [Footnote: Parkinson's "Tour in America, 1798-1800,"
pp. 504, 588, etc. Parkinson loathed the Americans. A curious example
of how differently the same facts will affect different observers may
be gained by contrasting his] The most pitiable group of emigrants that
reached the West at this time was formed by the French [Footnote:
observations with those of his fellow Englishman, John Davis, whose trip
covered precisely the same period; but Parkinson's observations as to
the extreme difficulty of an Old Country farmer getting on in the
backwoods regions are doubtless mainly true.] who came to found the
town of Gallipolis, on the Ohio. These were mostly refugees from the
Revolution, who had been taken in by a swindling land company. They were
utterly unsuited to life in the wilderness, being gentlemen, small
tradesmen, lawyers, and the like. Unable to grapple with the wild life
into which they found themselves plunged, they sank into shiftless
poverty, not one in fifty showing industry and capacity to succeed.
Congress took pity upon them and granted them twenty-four thousand acres
in Scioto County, the tract being known as the French grant; but no gift
of wild land was able to insure their prosperity. By degrees they were
absorbed into the neighboring communities, a few succeeding, most ending
their lives in abject failure. [Footnote: Atwater, p. 159; Michaux,
p. 122, etc.]
Trouble with Land Titles.
The trouble these poor French settlers had with their lands was far from
unique. The early system of land sales in the West was most unwise. In
Kentucky and Tennessee the grants were made under the laws of Virginia
and North Carolina, and each man purchased or preempted whatever he
could, and surveyed it where he liked, with a consequent endless
confusion of titles. The National Government possessed the disposal of
the land in the Northwest and in Mississippi; and it avoided the pitfall
of unlimited private surveying; but it made little effort to prevent
swindling by land companies, and none whatever to people the country
with actual settlers. Congress granted great tracts of lands to
companies and to individuals, selling to the highest bidder, whether or
not he intended personally to occupy the country. Public sales were thus
conducted by competition, and Congress even declined to grant to the men
in actual possession the right of pre-emption at the average rate of
sale, refusing the request of settlers in both Mississippi and Indiana
that they should be given the first choice to the lands which they had
already partially cleared. [Footnote: American State Papers, Public
Lands, I., 261; also pp. 71, 74, 99, etc.] It was not until many years
later that we adopted the wise policy of selling the National domain in
small lots to actual occupants.
Sullen Jealousy of the Pioneers.
Clouded Economic Notions.
The pioneer in his constant struggle with poverty was prone to look with
puzzled anger at those who made more money than he did, and whose lives
were easier. The backwoods farmer or planter of that day looked upon the
merchant with much the same suspicion and hostility now felt by his
successor for the banker or the railroad magnate. He did not quite
understand how it was that the merchant, who seemed to work less hard
than he did, should make more money; and being ignorant and suspicious,
he usually followed some hopelessly wrong-headed course when he tried to
remedy his wrongs. Sometimes these efforts to obtain relief took the
form of resolutions not to purchase from merchants or traders such
articles as woollens, linens, cottons, hats, or shoes, unless the same
could be paid for in articles grown or manufactured by the farmers
themselves. This particular move was taken because of the alarming
scarcity of money, and was aimed particularly at the inhabitants of the
Atlantic States. It was of course utterly ineffective. [Footnote:
Marshall, II., p. 325.] A much less wise and less honest course was that
sometimes followed of refusing to pay debts when the latter became
inconvenient and pressing. [Footnote: The inhabitants of Natchez, in the
last days of the Spanish dominion, became inflamed with hostility to
their creditors, the merchants, and insisted upon what were practically
stay laws being enacted in their favor. Gayarré and Claiborne.]
Vices of the Militia System.
The frontier virtue of independence and of impatience of outside
direction found a particularly vicious expression in the frontier
abhorrence of regular troops, and advocacy of a hopelessly feeble
militia system. The people were foolishly convinced of the efficacy of
their militia system, which they loudly proclaimed to be the only proper
mode of national defence. [Footnote: Marshall, II., p. 279.] While in the
actual presence of the Indians the stern necessities of border warfare
forced the frontiersmen into a certain semblance of discipline. As soon
as the immediate pressure was relieved, however, the whole militia
system sank into a mere farce. At certain stated occasions there were
musters for company or regimental drill. These training days were
treated as occasions for frolic and merry-making. There were pony races
and wrestling matches, with unlimited fighting, drunkenness, and general
uproar. Such musters were often called, in derision, cornstalk drills,
because many of the men, either having no guns or neglecting to bring
them, drilled with cornstalks instead. The officers were elected by the
men and when there was no immediate danger of war they were chosen
purely for their social qualities. For a few years after the close of
the long Indian struggle there were here and there officers who had seen
actual service and who knew the rudiments of drill; but in the days of
peace the men who had taken part in Indian fighting cared but little to
attend the musters, and left them more and more to be turned into mere
scenes of horseplay.
Lack of Military Training.
The frontier people of the second generation in the West thus had no
military training whatever, and though they possessed a skeleton militia
organization, they derived no benefit from it, because their officers
were worthless, and the men had no idea of practising self-restraint or
of obeying orders longer than they saw fit. The frontiersmen were
personally brave, but their courage was entirely untrained, and being
unsupported by discipline, they were sure to be disheartened at a
repulse, to be distrustful of themselves and their leaders, and to be
unwilling to persevere in the face of danger and discouragement. They
were hardy, and physically strong, and they were good marksmen; but here
the list of their soldierly qualities was exhausted. They had to be put
through a severe course of training by some man like Jackson before they
became fit to contend on equal terms with regulars in the open or with
Indians in the woods. Their utter lack of discipline was decisive
against them at first in any contest with regulars. In warfare with the
Indians there were a very few of their number, men of exceptional
qualities as woodsmen, who could hold their own; but the average
frontiersman, though he did a good deal of hunting and possessed much
knowledge of woodcraft, was primarily a tiller of the soil and a feller
of trees, and he was necessarily at a disadvantage when pitted against
an antagonist whose entire life was passed in woodland chase and
woodland warfare. These facts must all be remembered if we wish to get
an intelligent explanation of the utter failure of the frontiersmen
when, in 1812, they were again pitted against the British and the forest
tribes. They must also be taken into account when we seek to explain why
it was possible but a little later to develop out of the frontiersmen
fighting armies which under competent generals could overmatch the red
coat and the Indian alike.
Individualism in Religious Matters.
The Great Revival.
The extreme individualism of the frontier, which found expression for
good and for evil, both in its governmental system in time of peace and
in its military system in time of war, was also shown in religious
matters. In 1799 and 1800 a great revival of religion swept over the
West. Up to that time the Presbyterian had been the leading creed beyond
the mountains. There were a few Episcopalians here and there, and there
were Lutherans, Catholics, and adherents of the Reformed Dutch and
German churches; but, aside from the Presbyterians, the Methodists and
Baptists were the only sects powerfully represented. The great revival
of 1799 was mainly carried on by Methodists and Baptists, and under their
guidance the Methodist and Baptist churches at once sprang to the
front and became the most important religious forces in the frontier
communities. [Footnote: McFerrin's "History of Methodism in Tennessee,"
338, etc.; Spencer's "History of Kentucky Baptists," 69, etc.] The
Presbyterian church remained the most prominent as regards the wealth
and social standing of its adherents, but the typical frontiersman who
professed religion at all became either a Methodist or a Baptist,
adopting a creed which was intensely democratic and individualistic,
which made nothing of social distinctions, which distrusted educated
preachers, and worked under a republican form of ecclesiastical
government.
Camp Meetings.
The great revival was accompanied by scenes of intense excitement. Under
the conditions of a vast wooded wilderness and a scanty population the
camp-meeting was evolved as the typical religious festival. To the great
camp-meetings the frontiersmen flocked from far and near, on foot, on
horseback, and in wagons. Every morning at daylight the multitude was
summoned to prayer by sound of trumpet. No preacher or exhorter was
suffered to speak unless he had the power of stirring the souls of his
hearers. The preaching, the praying, and the singing went on without
intermission, and under the tremendous emotional stress whole
communities became fervent professors of religion. Many of the scenes at
these camp-meetings were very distasteful to men whose religion was not
emotional and who shrank from the fury of excitement into which the
great masses were thrown, for under the strain many individuals
literally became like men possessed, whether of good or of evil spirits,
falling into ecstasies of joy or agony, dancing, shouting, jumping,
fainting, while there were widespread and curious manifestations of a
hysterical character, both among the believers and among the scoffers;
but though this might seem distasteful to an observer of education and
self-restraint, it thrilled the heart of the rude and simple
backwoodsman and reached him as he could not possibly have been reached
in any other manner. Often the preachers of the different denominations
worked in hearty unison; but often they were sundered by bitter jealousy
and distrust. The fiery zeal of the Methodists made them the leaders;
and in their war on the forces of evil they at times showed a tendency
to include all non-methodists--whether Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics,
or infidels--in a common damnation. Of course, as always in such a
movement, many even of the earnest leaders at times confounded the
essential and the non-essential, and railed as bitterly against dancing
as against drunkenness and lewdness, or anathematized the wearing of
jewelry as fiercely as the commission of crime. [Footnote: Autobiography
of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher.] More than one hearty,
rugged old preacher, who did stalwart service for decency and morality,
hated Calvinism as heartily as Catholicism, and yet yielded to no
Puritan in his austere condemnation of amusement and luxury.
Good Accomplished.
Trials of the Frontier Preachers.
Often men backslid, and to a period of intense emotional religion
succeeded one of utter unbelief and of reversion to the worst practices
which had been given up. Nevertheless, on the whole there was an immense
gain for good. The people received a new light, and were given a sense
of moral responsibility such as they had not previously possessed. Much
of the work was done badly or was afterwards undone, but very much was
really accomplished. The whole West owes an immense debt to the
hard-working frontier preachers, sometimes Presbyterian, generally
Methodist or Baptist, who so gladly gave their lives to their labors and
who struggled with such fiery zeal for the moral wellbeing of the
communities to which they penetrated. Wherever there was a group of log
cabins, thither some Methodist circuit-rider made his way or there some
Baptist preacher took up his abode. Their prejudices and narrow
dislikes, their raw vanity and sullen distrust of all who were better
schooled than they, count for little when weighed against their intense
earnestness and heroic self-sacrifice. They proved their truth by their
endeavor. They yielded scores of martyrs, nameless and unknown men who
perished at the hands of the savages, or by sickness or in flood or
storm. They had to face no little danger from the white inhabitants
themselves. In some of the communities most of the men might heartily
support them, but in others, where the vicious and lawless elements were
in control, they were in constant danger of mobs. The Godless and
lawless people hated the religious with a bitter hatred, and gathered in
great crowds to break up their meetings. On the other hand, those who
had experienced religion were no believers in the doctrine of
nonresistance. At the core, they were thoroughly healthy men, and they
fought as valiantly against the powers of evil in matters physical as in
matters moral. Some of the successful frontier preachers were men of
weak frame, whose intensity of conviction and fervor of religious belief
supplied the lack of bodily powers; but as a rule the preacher who did
most was a stalwart man, as strong in body as in faith. One of the
continually recurring incidents in the biographies of the famous
frontier preachers is that of some particularly hardened sinner who was
never converted until, tempted to assault the preacher of the Word, he
was soundly thrashed by the latter, and his eyes thereby rudely opened
through his sense of physical shortcoming to an appreciation of his
moral iniquity.
The Frontiersmen Threaten the Spanish Regions.
Throughout these years, as the frontiersmen pressed into the West, they
continued to fret and strain against the Spanish boundaries. There was
no temptation to them to take possession of Canada. The lands south of
the Lakes were more fertile than those north of the Lakes, and the
climate was better. The few American settlers who did care to go into
Canada found people speaking their own tongue, and with much the same
ways of life; so that they readily assimilated with them, as they could
not assimilate with the French and Spanish creoles. Canada lay north,
and the tendency of the backwoodsman was to thrust west; among the
Southern backwoodsmen, the tendency was south and southwest. The
Mississippi formed no natural barrier whatever. Boone, when he moved
into Missouri, was but a forerunner among the pioneers; many others
followed him. He himself became an official under the Spanish
Government, and received a grant of lands. Of the other frontiersmen who
went into the Spanish territory, some, like Boone, continued to live as
hunters and backwoods farmers. [Footnote: American State Papers, Public
Lands, II., pp. 10, 872.] Others settled in St. Louis, or some other of
the little creole towns, and joined the parties of French traders who
ascended the Missouri and the Mississippi to barter paint, beads,
powder, and blankets for the furs of the Indians.
Uneasiness of the Spaniards.
Their Religious Intolerance.
The Spanish authorities were greatly alarmed at the incoming of the
American settlers. Gayoso de Lemos had succeeded Carondelet as Governor,
and he issued to the commandants of the different posts throughout the
colonies a series of orders in reference to the terms on which land
grants were to be given to immigrants; he particularly emphasized the
fact that liberty of conscience was not to be extended beyond the first
generation, and that the children of the immigrant would either have to
become Catholics or else be expelled, and that this should be explained
to settlers who did not profess the Catholic faith. He ordered, moreover,
that no preacher of any religion but the Catholic should be allowed to
come into the provinces. [Footnote: Gayarré, III., p. 387.] The Bishop
of Louisiana complained bitterly of the American immigration and of the
measure of religious toleration accorded the settlers, which, he said,
had introduced into the colony a gang of adventurers who acknowledged
no religion. He stated that the Americans had scattered themselves over
the country almost as far as Texas and corrupted the Indians and Creoles
by the example of their own restless and ambitious temper; for they came
from among people who were in the habit of saying to their stalwart boys,
"You will go to Mexico." Already the frontiersmen had penetrated even
into New Mexico from the district round the mouth of the Missouri, in
which they had become very numerous; and the Bishop earnestly advised
that the places where the Americans were allowed to settle should be
rigidly restricted. [Footnote: _Do_., p. 408.]
A Conflict inevitable.
When the Spaniards held such views it was absolutely inevitable that a
conflict should come. Whether the frontiersman did or did not possess
deep religious convictions, he was absolutely certain to refuse to be
coerced into becoming a Catholic; and his children were sure to fight as
soon as they were given the choice of changing their faith or abandoning
their country. The minute that the American settlers were sufficiently
numerous to stand a chance of success in the conflict it was certain
that they would try to throw off the yoke of the fanatical and corrupt
Spanish Government. As early as 1801 bands of armed Americans had
penetrated here and there into the Spanish provinces in defiance of the
commands of the authorities, and were striving to set up little bandit
governments of their own. [Footnote: _Do_., p. 447.]
Advantages of the Frontiersmen.
The frontiersmen possessed every advantage of position, of numbers, and
of temper. In any contest that might arise with Spain they were sure to
take possession at once of all of what was then called Upper Louisiana.
The immediate object of interest to most of them was the commerce of the
Mississippi River and the possession of New Orleans; but this was only
part of what they wished, and were certain to get, for they demanded all
the Spanish territory that lay across the line of their westward march.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the settlers on the Western
waters recognized in Spain their natural enemy, because she was the
power who held the mouth and the west bank of the Mississippi. They
would have transferred their hostility to any other power which fell
heir to her possessions, for these possessions they were bound one day
to make their own.
Predominance of the Middle West.
A thin range of settlements extended from the shores of Lake Erie on the
north to the boundary of Florida on the south; and there were out-posts
here and there beyond this range, as at Fort Dearborn, on the site of
what is now Chicago; but the only fairly well-settled regions were in
Kentucky and Tennessee. These two States were the oldest, and long
remained the most populous and influential, communities in the West.
They shared qualities both of the Northerners and of the Southerners,
and they gave the tone to the thought and the life in the settlements
north of them no less than the settlements south of them. This fact of
itself tended to make the West homogeneous and to keep it a unit with a
peculiar character of its own, neither Northern nor Southern in
political and social tendency. It was the middle West which was first
settled, and the middle West stamped its peculiar characteristics on all
the growing communities beyond the Alleghanies. Inasmuch as west of the
mountains the Northern communities were less distinctively Northern and
the Southern communities less distinctively Southern than was the case
with the Eastern States on the seaboard, it followed naturally that,
considered with reference to other sections of the Union, the West
formed a unit, possessing marked characteristics of its own. A
distinctive type of character was developed west of the Alleghanies, and
for the first generation the typical representatives of this Western
type were to be found in Kentucky and Tennessee.
The Northwest.
The settlement of the Northwest had been begun under influences which in
the end were to separate it radically from the Southwest. It was settled
under Governmental supervision, and because of and in accordance with
Governmental action; and it was destined ultimately to receive the great
mass of its immigrants from the Northeast; but as yet these two
influences had not become strong enough to sunder the frontiersmen north
of the Ohio by any sharp line from those south of the Ohio. The settlers
on the Western waters were substantially the same in character North and
South.
The Westerners Formed One People.
In sum, the western frontier folk, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, possessed in common marked and peculiar characteristics, which
the people of the rest of the country shared to a much less extent. They
were backwoods farmers, each man preferring to live alone on his own
freehold, which he himself tilled and from which he himself had cleared
the timber. The towns were few and small; the people were poor, and
often ignorant, but hardy in body and in temper. They joined hospitality
to strangers with suspicion of them. They were essentially warlike in
spirit, and yet utterly unmilitary in all their training and habits of
thought. They prized beyond measure their individual liberty and their
collective freedom, and were so jealous of governmental control that
they often, to their own great harm, fatally weakened the very
authorities whom they chose to act over them. The peculiar circumstances
of their lives forced them often to act in advance of action by the law,
and this bred a lawlessness in certain matters which their children
inherited for generations; yet they knew and appreciated the need of
obedience to the law, and they thoroughly respected the law.
Decadence of Separatist Feeling.
The separatist agitations had largely died out. In 1798 and 1799
Kentucky divided with Virginia the leadership of the attack on the Alien
and Sedition laws; but her extreme feelings were not shared by the other
Westerners, and she acted not as a representative of the West, but on a
footing of equality with Virginia. Tennessee sympathized as little with
the nullification movement of these two States at this time as she
sympathized with South Carolina in her nullification movement a
generation later. With the election of Jefferson the dominant political
party in the West became in sympathy with the party in control of the
nation, and the West became stoutly loyal to the National Government.
Importance of the West.
The West had thus achieved a greater degree of political solidarity,
both as within itself and with the nation as a whole, than ever before.
Its wishes were more powerful with the East. The pioneers stood for an
extreme Americanism, in social, political, and religious matters alike.
The trend of American thought was toward them, not away from them. More
than ever before, the Westerners were able to make their demands felt at
home, and to make their force felt in the event of a struggle with a
foreign power.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA; AND BURR'S CONSPIRACY, 1803-1807.
A great and growing race may acquire vast stretches of scantily peopled
territory in any one of several ways. Often the statesman, no less than
the soldier, plays an all-important part in winning the new land;
nevertheless, it is usually true that the diplomatists who by treaty
ratify the acquisition usurp a prominence in history to which they are
in no way entitled by the real worth of their labors.
Ways in which Territorial Expansion may Take Place.
The territory may be gained by the armed forces of the nation, and
retained by treaty. It was in this way that England won the Cape of Good
Hope from Holland; it was in this way that the United States won New
Mexico. Such a conquest is due, not to the individual action of members
of the winning race, but to the nation as a whole, acting through her
soldiers and statesmen. It was the English Navy which conquered the Cape
of Good Hope for England; it was the English diplomats that secured its
retention. So it was the American Army which added New Mexico to the
United States; and its retention was due to the will of the politicians
who had set that army in motion. In neither case was there any previous
settlement of moment by the conquerors in the conquered territory. In
neither case was there much direct pressure by the people of the
conquering races upon the soil which was won for them by their soldiers
and statesmen. The acquisition of the territory must be set down to the
credit of these soldiers and statesmen, representing the nation in its
collective capacity; though in the case of New Mexico there would of
course ultimately have been a direct pressure of rifle-bearing settlers
upon the people of the ranches and the mud-walled towns.
Diplomatic Victories.
In such cases it is the government itself, rather than any individual or
aggregate of individuals, which wins the new land for the race. When it
is won without appeal to arms, the credit, which would otherwise be
divided between soldiers and statesmen, of course accrues solely to the
latter. Alaska, for instance, was acquired by mere diplomacy. No
American settlers were thronging into Alaska. The desire to acquire it
among the people at large was vague, and was fanned into sluggish
activity only by the genius of the far-seeing statesmen who purchased
it. The credit of such an acquisition really does belong to the men who
secured the adoption of the treaty by which it was acquired. The honor
of adding Alaska to the national domain belongs to the statesmen who at
the time controlled the Washington Government. They were not
figure-heads in the transaction. They were the vital, moving forces.
Victories with Which Diplomats Have no Concern.
Just the contrary is true of cases like that of the conquest of Texas.
The Government of the United States had nothing to do with winning Texas
for the English-speaking people of North America. The American
frontiersmen won Texas for themselves, unaided either by the statesmen
who controlled the politics of the Republic, or by the soldiers who took
their orders from Washington.
Victories of Mixed Nature.
In yet other cases the action is more mixed. Statesmen and diplomats
have some share in shaping the conditions under which a country is
finally taken; in the eye of history they often usurp much more than
their proper share; but in reality they are able to bring matters to a
conclusion only because adventurous settlers, in defiance or disregard
of governmental action, have pressed forward into the longed-for land.
In such cases the function of the diplomats is one of some importance,
because they lay down the conditions under which the land is taken; but
the vital question as to whether the land shall be taken at all, upon no
matter what terms, is answered not by the diplomats, but by the people
themselves.
It was in this way that the Northwest was won from the British, and the
boundaries of the Southwest established by treaty with the Spaniards.
Adams, Jay, and Pinckney deserve much credit for the way they conducted
their several negotiations; but there would have been nothing for them
to negotiate about had not the settlers already thronged into the
disputed territories or strenuously pressed forward against their
boundaries.
Louisiana Really Acquired by the Western Settlers.
So it was with the acquisition of Louisiana. Jefferson, Livingston, and
their fellow-statesmen and diplomats concluded the treaty which
determined the manner in which it came into our possession; but they did
not really have much to do with fixing the terms even of this treaty;
and the part which they played in the acquisition of Louisiana in no way
resembles, even remotely, the part which was played by Seward, for
instance, in acquiring Alaska. If it had not been for Seward, and the
political leaders who thought as he did, Alaska might never have been
acquired at all; but the Americans would have won Louisiana in any
event, even if the treaty of Livingston and Monroe had not been signed.
The real history of the acquisition must tell of the great westward
movement begun in 1769, and not merely of the feeble diplomacy of
Jefferson's administration. In 1802 American settlers were already
clustered here and there on the eastern fringe of the vast region which
then went by the name of Louisiana. All the stalwart freemen who had
made their rude clearings, and built their rude towns, on the hither
side of the mighty Mississippi, were straining with eager desire against
the forces which withheld them from seizing with strong hand the coveted
province. They did not themselves know, and far less did the public men
of the day realize, the full import and meaning of the conquest upon
which they were about to enter. For the moment the navigation of the
mouth of the Mississippi seemed to them of the first importance. Even
the frontiersmen themselves put second to this the right to people the
vast continent which lay between the Pacific and the Mississippi. The
statesmen at Washington viewed this last proposition with positive
alarm, and cared only to acquire New Orleans. The winning of Louisiana
was due to no one man, and least of all to any statesman or set of
statesmen. It followed inevitably upon the great westward thrust of the
settler-folk; a thrust which was delivered blindly, but which no rival
race could parry, until it was stopped by the ocean itself.
Pressure of the Backwoodsmen on the Spanish Dominions.
Louisiana was added to the United States because the hardy backwoods
settlers had swarmed into the valleys of the Tennessee, the Cumberland,
and the Ohio by hundreds of thousands; and had already begun to build
their raw hamlets on the banks of the Mississippi, and to cover its
waters with their flat-bottomed craft. Restless, adventurous, hardy,
they looked eagerly across the Mississippi to the fertile solitudes
where the Spaniard was the nominal, and the Indian the real, master; and
with a more immediate longing they fiercely coveted the creole province
at the mouth of the river.
The Mississippi formed no barrier whatsoever to the march of the
backwoodsmen. It could be crossed at any point; and the same rapid
current which made it a matter of extreme difficulty for any power at
the mouth of the stream to send reinforcements up against the current
would have greatly facilitated the movements of the Ohio, Kentucky, and
Tennessee levies down-stream to attack the Spanish provinces. In the
days of sails and oars a great river with rapid current might vitally
affect military operations if these depended upon sending flotillas up
or down stream. But such a river has never proved a serious barrier
against a vigorous and aggressive race, where it lies between two
peoples, so that the aggressors have merely to cross it. It offers no
such shield as is afforded by a high mountain range. The Mississippi
served as a convenient line of demarkation between the Americans and the
Spaniards; but it offered no protection whatever to the Spaniards
against the Americans.
Importance of New Orleans.
Therefore the frontiersmen found nothing serious to bar their farther
march westward; the diminutive Spanish garrisons in the little creole
towns near the Missouri were far less capable of effective resistance
than were most of the Indian tribes whom the Americans were brushing out
of their path. Towards the South the situation was different. The
Floridas were shielded by the great Indian confederacies of the Creeks
and Choctaws, whose strength was as yet unbroken. What was much more
important, the mouth of the Mississippi was commanded by the important
seaport of New Orleans, which was accessible to fleets, which could
readily be garrisoned by water, and which was the capital of a region
that by backwoods standards passed for well settled. New Orleans by its
position was absolute master of the foreign, trade of the Mississippi
valley; and any power in command of the seas could easily keep it
strongly garrisoned. The vast region that was then known as Upper
Louisiana--the territory stretching from the Mississippi to the
Pacific--was owned by the Spaniards, but only in shadowy fashion, and
could not have been held by any European power against the sturdy
westward pressure of the rifle-bearing settlers. But New Orleans and its
neighborhood were held even by the Spaniards in good earnest; while a
stronger power, once in possession, could with difficulty have been
dislodged.
Desire of the Settlers for it.
It naturally followed that for the moment the attention of the
backwoodsmen was directed much more to New Orleans than to the
trans-Mississippi territory. A few wilderness lovers like Boone, a few
reckless adventurers of the type of Philip Nolan, were settling around
and beyond the creole towns of the North, or were endeavoring to found
small buccaneering colonies in dangerous proximity to the Spanish
commanderies in the Southwest. But the bulk of the Western settlers as
yet found all the vacant territory they wished east of the Mississippi.
What they needed at the moment was, not more wild land, but an outlet
for the products yielded by the land they already possessed. The vital
importance to the Westerners of the free navigation of the Mississippi
has already been shown. Suffice it to say that the control of the mouth
of the great Father of Waters was of direct personal consequence to
almost every tree feller, every backwoods farmer, every land owner,
every townsman, who dwelt beyond the Alleghanies. These men did not
worry much over the fact that the country on the farther bank of the
Mississippi was still under the Spanish Flag. For the moment they did
not need it, and when they did, they knew they could take it without the
smallest difficulty. But the ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi
was a matter of immediate importance; and though none of the settlers
doubted that it would ultimately be theirs, it was yet a matter of much
consequence to them to get possession of it as quickly as possible, and
with as little trouble as possible, rather than to see it held, perhaps
for years, by a powerful hostile nation, and then to see it acquired
only at the cost of bloody, and perchance checkered, warfare.
Terror of the Spaniards.
This was the attitude of the backwoods people as with sinewy, strenuous
shoulder they pressed against the Spanish boundaries. The Spanish
attitude on the other hand was one of apprehension so intense that it
overcame even anger against the American nation. For mere diplomacy, the
Spaniards cared little or nothing; but they feared the Westerners. Their
surrender of Louisiana was due primarily to the steady pushing and
crowding of the frontiersmen, and the continuous growth of the Western
commonwealths. In spite of Pinckney's treaty the Spaniards did not leave
Natchez until fairly drowned out by the American settlers and soldiers.
They now felt the same pressure upon them in New Orleans; it was growing
steadily and was fast becoming intolerable. Year by year, almost month
by month, they saw the numbers of their foes increase, and saw them
settle more and more thickly in places from which it would be easy to
strike New Orleans. Year by year the offensive power of the Americans
increased in more than arithmetical ratio as against Louisiana.
Incursions of American Adventurers.
The more reckless and lawless adventurers from time to time pushed
southwest, even toward the borders of Texas and New Mexico, and strove
to form little settlements, keeping the Spanish Governors and Intendants
in a constant fume of anxiety. One of these settlements was founded by
Philip Nolan, a man whom rumor had connected with Wilkinson's intrigues,
and who, like many another lawless trader of the day, was always
dreaming of empires to be carved from, or wealth to be won in, the
golden Spanish realms. In the fall of 1800, he pushed beyond the
Mississippi with a score or so of companions, and settled on the Brazos.
The party built pens or corrals, and began to catch wild horses, for the
neighborhood swarmed not only with game but with immense droves of
mustangs. The handsomest animals they kept and trained, letting the
others loose again. The following March these tamers of wild horses were
suddenly set upon by a body of Spaniards, three hundred strong, with one
field-piece. The assailants made their attack at daybreak, slew Nolan,
and captured his comrades, who for many years afterwards lived as
prisoners in the Mexican towns. [Footnote: Pike's letter, July 22, 1807,
in Natchez _Herald_; in Col. Durrett's collection; see Coue's edition of
Pike's "Expedition," LII.; also Gayarré, III., 447.] The menace of such
buccaneering movements kept the Spaniards alive to the imminent danger
of the general American attack which they heralded.
Spain's Colonial system.
Spain watched her boundaries with the most jealous care. Her colonial
system was evil in its suspicious exclusiveness towards strangers; and
her religious system was marked by an intolerance still almost as fierce
as in the days of Torquemada. The Holy Inquisition was a recognized
feature of Spanish political life; and the rulers of the
Spanish-American colonies put the stranger and the heretic under a
common ban. The reports of the Spanish ecclesiastics of Louisiana dwelt
continually upon the dangers with which the oncoming of the backwoodsmen
threatened the Church no less than the State. [Footnote: Report of
Bishop Peñalvert, Nov. I, 1795, Gayarré.] All the men in power, civil,
military, and religious alike, showed towards strangers, and especially
towards American strangers, a spirit which was doubly unwise; for by
their jealousy they created the impression that the lands they so
carefully guarded must hold treasures of great price; and by their
severity they created an anger which when fully aroused they could not
well quell. The frontiersmen, as they tried to peer into the Spanish
dominions, were lured on by the attraction they felt for what was hidden
and forbidden; and there was enough danger in the path to madden them,
while there was no exhibition of a strength sufficient to cow them.
Spain Wishes a Barrier against American Advance.
The Spanish rulers realized fully that they were too weak effectively to
cope with the Americans, and as the pressure upon them grew ever heavier
and more menacing they began to fear not only for Louisiana but also for
Mexico. They clung tenaciously to all their possessions; but they were
willing to sacrifice a part, if by so doing they could erect a barrier
for the defence of the remainder. Such a chance was now seemingly
offered them by France.
Napoleon's Dreams of Empire.
At the beginning of the century Napoleon was First Consul; and the
France over which he ruled was already the mightiest nation in Europe,
and yet had not reached the zenith of her power. It was at this time
that the French influence over Spain was most complete. Both the Spanish
King and the Spanish people were dazzled and awed by the splendor of
Napoleon's victories. Napoleon's magnificent and wayward genius was
always striving after more than merely European empire. As throne after
throne went down before him he planned conquests which should include
the interminable wastes of snowy Russia, and the sea-girt fields of
England; and he always dreamed of yet vaster, more shadowy triumphs, won
in the realms lying eastward of the Mediterranean, or among the islands
and along the coasts of the Spanish Main. In 1800 his dream of Eastern
conquest was over, but his lofty ambition was planning for France the
re-establishment in America of that colonial empire which a generation
before had been wrested from her by England.
The Treaty of San Ildefonso.
The need of the Spaniards seemed to Napoleon his opportunity. By the
bribe of a petty Italian principality he persuaded the Bourbon King of
Spain to cede Louisiana to the French, at the treaty of San Ildefonso,
concluded in October, 1800. The cession was agreed to by the Spaniards
on the express pledge that the territory should not be transferred to
any other power; and chiefly for the purpose of erecting a barrier which
might stay the American advance, and protect the rest of the Spanish
possessions.
The Right of Deposit Annulled.
Every effort was made to keep the cession from being made public, and
owing to various political complications it was not consummated for a
couple of years; but meanwhile it was impossible to prevent rumors from
going abroad, and the mere hint of such a project was enough to throw
the West into a fever of excitement. Moreover, at this moment, before
the treaty between France and Spain had been consummated, Morales, the
Intendant of New Orleans, deliberately threw down the gage of battle to
the Westerners. [Footnote: Gayarré, III., 456.] On October 16, 1802, he
proclaimed that the Americans had forfeited their right of deposit in
New Orleans. By Pinckney's treaty this right had been granted for three
years, with the stipulation that it should then be extended for a longer
period, and that if the Spaniards chose to revoke the permit so far as
New Orleans was concerned, they should make some other spot on the river
a port of free entry. The Americans had taken for granted that the
privilege when once conferred would never be withdrawn; but Morales,
under pretence that the Americans had slept on their rights by failing
to discover some other spot as a treaty port, declared that the right of
deposit had lapsed, and would not be renewed. The Governor, Salcedo--who
had succeeded Gayoso, when the latter died of yellow fever, complicated
by a drinking-bout with Wilkinson--was not in sympathy with the
movement; but this mattered little. Under the cumbrous Spanish colonial
system, the Governor, though he disapproved of the actions of the
Intendant, could not reverse them, and Morales paid no heed to the angry
protests of the Spanish Minister at Washington, who saw that the
Americans were certain in the end to fight rather than to lose the only
outlet for the commerce of the West. [Footnote: Gayarré, III., 576. The
King of Spain, at the instigation of Godoy, disapproved the order of
Morales, but so late that the news of the disapproval reached Louisiana
only as the French were about to take possession. However, the reversal
of the order rendered the course of the further negotiations easier.] It
seems probable that the Intendant's action was due to the fact that he
deemed the days of Spanish dominion numbered, and, in his jealousy of
the Americans, wished to place the new French authorities in the
strongest possible position; but the act was not done with the knowledge
of France.
Anger of the Westerners.
Of this, however, the Westerners were ignorant. They felt sure that any
alteration in policy so fatal to their interests must be merely a
foreshadowing of the course the French intended thereafter to follow.
They believed that their worst fears were justified. Kentucky and
Tennessee clamored for instant action, and Claiborne offered to raise in
the Mississippi territory alone a force of volunteer riflemen sufficient
to seize New Orleans before its transfer into French hands could be
effected.
Jefferson Forced into Action.
Jefferson was President, and Madison Secretary of State. Both were men
of high and fine qualities who rendered, at one time or another, real
and great service to the country. Jefferson in particular played in our
political life a part of immense importance. But the country has never
had two statesmen less capable of upholding the honor and dignity of the
nation, or even of preserving its material well-being, when menaced by
foreign foes. They were peaceful men, quite unfitted to grapple with
an enemy who expressed himself through deeds rather than words. When
stunned by the din of arms they showed themselves utterly inefficient
rulers.
It was these two timid, well-meaning statesmen who now found themselves
pitted against Napoleon, and Napoleon's Minister, Talleyrand; against
the greatest warrior and lawgiver, and against one of the greatest
diplomats, of modern times; against two men, moreover, whose sodden lack
of conscience was but heightened by the contrast with their brilliant
genius and lofty force of character; two men who were unable to so much
as appreciate that there was shame in the practice of venality,
dishonesty, mendacity, cruelty, and treachery.
Jefferson was the least warlike of presidents, and he loved the French
with a servile devotion. But his party was strongest in precisely those
parts of the country where the mouth of the Mississippi was held to be
of right the property of the United States; and the pressure of public
opinion was too strong for Jefferson to think of resisting it. The South
and the West were a unit in demanding that France should not be allowed
to establish herself on the lower Mississippi. Jefferson was forced to
tell his French friends that if their nation persisted in its purpose
America would be obliged to marry itself to the navy and army of
England. Even he could see that for the French to take Louisiana meant
war with the United States sooner or later; and as above all things else
he wished peace, he made every effort to secure the coveted territory by
purchase.
Beginning of Negotiations with France.
Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York represented American
interests in Paris; but at the very close of the negotiation he was
succeeded by Monroe, whom Jefferson sent over as a special envoy. The
course of the negotiations was at first most baffling to the Americans.
[Footnote: In Henry Adams' "History of the United States," the account
of the diplomatic negotiations at this period, between France, Spain,
and the United States, is the most brilliant piece of diplomatic
history, so far as the doings of the diplomats themselves are concerned,
that can be put to the credit of any American writer.] Talleyrand lied
with such unmoved calm that it was impossible to put the least weight
upon anything he said; moreover, the Americans soon found that Napoleon
was the sole and absolute master, so that it was of no use attempting to
influence any of his subordinates, save in so far as these subordinates
might in their turn influence him. For some time it appeared that
Napoleon was bent upon occupying Louisiana in force and using it as a
basis for the rebuilding of the French colonial power. The time seemed
ripe for such a project. After a decade of war with all the rest of
Europe, France in 1802 concluded the Peace of Amiens, which left her
absolutely free to do as she liked in the New World. Napoleon thoroughly
despised a republic, and especially a republic without an army or navy.
After the Peace of Amiens he began to treat the Americans with
contemptuous disregard; and he planned to throw into Louisiana one of
his generals with a force of veteran troops sufficient to hold the
country against any attack.
Illusory Nature of Napoleon's Hopes.
His hopes were in reality chimerical. At the moment France was at peace
with her European foes, and could send her ships of war and her
transports across the ocean without fear of the British navy. It would
therefore have been possible for Napoleon without molestation to throw a
large body of French soldiers into New Orleans. Had there been no
European war such an army might have held New Orleans for some years
against American attack, and might even have captured one or two of the
American posts on the Mississippi, such as Natchez; but the instant it
had landed in New Orleans the entire American people would have accepted
France as their deadliest enemy, and all American foreign policy would
have been determined by the one consideration of ousting the French from
the mouth of the Mississippi. To the United States, France was by no
means as formidable as Great Britain, because of her inferiority as a
naval power. Even if unsupported by any outside alliance the Americans
would doubtless in the end have driven a French army from New Orleans,
though very probably at the cost of one or two preliminary rebuffs. The
West was stanch in support of Jefferson and Madison; but in time of
stress it was sure to develop leaders of more congenial temper, exactly
as it actually did develop Andrew Jackson a few years later. At this
very time the French failed to conquer the negro republic which
Toussaint Louverture had founded in Hayti. What they thus failed to
accomplish in one island, against insurgent negroes, it was folly to
think they could accomplish on the American continent, against the power
of the American people. This struggle with the revolutionary slaves in
Hayti hindered Napoleon from immediately throwing an army into
Louisiana; but it did more, for it helped to teach him the folly of
trying to carry out such a plan at all.
Report of Pontaiba.
A very able and faithful French agent in the meanwhile sent a report to
Napoleon plainly pointing out the impossibility of permanently holding
Louisiana against the Americans. He showed that on the Western waters
alone it would be possible to gather armies amounting in the aggregate
to twenty or thirty thousand men, all of them inflamed with the eager
desire to take New Orleans. [Footnote: Pontalba's Memoir. He hoped that
Louisiana might, in certain contingencies, be preserved for the French,
but he insisted that it could only be by keeping peace with the American
settlers, and by bringing about an immense increase of population in the
province.] The Mississippi ran so as to facilitate the movement of any
expedition against New Orleans, while it offered formidable obstacles to
counter-expeditions from New Orleans against the American commonwealths
lying farther up stream. An expeditionary force sent from the mouth of
the Mississippi, whether to assail the towns and settlements along the
Ohio, or to defend the Creole villages near the Missouri, could at the
utmost hope for only transient success, while its ultimate failure was
certain. On the other hand, a backwoods army could move down stream with
comparative ease; and even though such an expedition were defeated, it
was certain that the attempt would be repeated again and again, until by
degrees the mob of hardy riflemen changed into a veteran army, and
brought forth some general like "Old Hickory," able to lead to victory.
Views of Barbé Marbois.
The most intelligent French agents on the ground saw this. Some of
Napoleon's Ministers were equally far-sighted. One of them, Barbé
Marbois, represented to him in the strongest terms the hopelessness of
the undertaking on which he proposed to embark. He pointed out that the
United States was sure to go to war with France if France took New
Orleans, and that in the end such a war could only result in victory for
the Americans.
We can now readily see that this victory was certain to come, even had
the Americans been left without allies. France could never have defended
the vast region known as Upper Louisiana, and sooner or later New
Orleans itself would have fallen, though it may well be only after
humiliating defeats for the Americans and much expenditure of life and
treasure. But as things actually were the Americans would have had
plenty of powerful allies. The Peace of Amiens lasted but a couple of
years before England again went to war. Napoleon knew, and the American
statesmen knew, that the British intended to attack New Orleans upon the
outbreak of hostilities, if it were in French hands. In such event
Louisiana would have soon fallen; for any French force stationed there
would have found its reinforcements cut off by the English navy, and
would have dwindled away until unable to offer resistance.
Louisiana's Destiny Really by the Backwoodsmen.
Nevertheless, European wars, and the schemes and fancies of European
statesmen, could determine merely the conditions under which the
catastrophe was to take place, but not the catastrophe itself. The fate
of Louisiana was already fixed. It was not the diplomats who decided its
destiny, but the settlers of the Western states. The growth of the
teeming folk who had crossed the Alleghanies and were building their
rude, vigorous commonwealths in the northeastern portion of the
Mississippi basin, decided the destiny of all the lands that were
drained by that mighty river. The steady westward movement of the
Americans was the all-important factor in determining the ultimate
ownership of New Orleans. Livingston, the American minister, saw plainly
the inevitable outcome of the struggle. He expressed his wonder that
other Americans should be uneasy in the matter, saying that for his part
it seemed as clear as day that no matter what trouble might temporarily
be caused, in the end Louisiana was certain to fall into the grasp of
the United States. [Footnote: Livingston to Madison, Sept. 1, 1802.
Later Livingston himself became uneasy, fearing lest Napoleon's
wilfulness might plunge him into an undertaking which, though certain to
end disastrously to the French, might meanwhile cause great trouble to
the Americans.]
Tedious Course of the Negotiations.
There were many Americans and many Frenchmen of note who were less
clear-sighted. Livingston encountered rebuff after rebuff, and delay
after delay. Talleyrand met him with his usual front of impenetrable
duplicity. He calmly denied everything connected with the cession of
Louisiana until even the details became public property, and then
admitted them with unblushing equanimity. His delays were so tantalizing
that they might well have revived unpleasant memories of the famous X.
Y. Z. negotiations, in which he tried in vain to extort bribe-money from
the American negotiators [Footnote: Jefferson was guilty of much weak
and undignified conduct during these negotiations, but of nothing weaker
and more petty than his attempt to flatter Talleyrand by pretending that
the Americans disbelieved his admitted venality, and were indignant with
those who had exposed it. See Adams.]; but Livingston, and those he
represented, soon realized that it was Napoleon himself who alone
deserved serious consideration. Through Napoleon's character, and
helping to make it great, there ran an imaginative vein which at times
bordered on the fantastic; and this joined with his imperious self-will,
brutality, and energy to make him eager to embark on a scheme which,
when he had thought it over in cold blood, he was equally eager to
abandon. For some time he seemed obstinately bent on taking possession
of Louisiana, heedless of the attitude which this might cause the
Americans to assume. He designated as commander of his army of
occupation, Victor, a general as capable and brave as he was insolent,
who took no pains to conceal from the American representatives his
intention to treat their people with a high hand.
Jefferson took various means, official and unofficial, of impressing
upon Napoleon the strength of the feeling in the United States over the
matter; and his utterances came as near menace as his pacific nature
would permit. To the great French Conqueror however, accustomed to
violence and to the strife of giants, Jefferson's somewhat vacillating
attitude did not seem impressive; and the one course which would have
impressed Napoleon was not followed by the American President. Jefferson
refused to countenance any proposal to take prompt possession of
Louisiana by force or to assemble an army which could act with immediate
vigor in time of need; and as he was the idol of the Southwesterners,
who were bitterly anti-federalist in sympathy, he was able to prevent
any violent action on their part until events rendered this violence
unnecessary. At the same time, Jefferson himself never for a moment
ceased to feel the strong pressure of Southern and Western public
sentiment; and so he continued resolute in his purpose to obtain
Louisiana.
Napoleon Forced to Change his Purpose.
Louisiana Ceded to the United States.
It was no argument of Jefferson's or of the American diplomats, but the
inevitable trend of events that finally brought about a change in
Napoleon's mind. The army he sent to Hayti wasted away by disease and in
combat with the blacks, and thereby not only diminished the forces he
intended to throw into Louisiana, but also gave him a terrible object
lesson as to what the fate of these forces was certain ultimately to be.
The attitude of England and Austria grew steadily more hostile, and his
most trustworthy advisers impressed on Napoleon's mind the steady growth
of the Western-American communities, and the implacable hostility with
which they were certain to regard any power that seized or attempted to
hold New Orleans. Napoleon could not afford to hamper himself with the
difficult defence of a distant province, and to incur the hostility of a
new foe, at the very moment when he was entering on another struggle
with his old European enemies. Moreover, he needed money in order to
carry on the struggle. To be sure he had promised Spain not to turn over
Louisiana to another power; but he was quite as incapable as any Spanish
statesman, or as Talleyrand himself, of so much as considering the
question of breach of faith or loss of honor, if he could gain any
advantage by sacrificing either. Livingston was astonished to find that
Napoleon had suddenly changed front, and that there was every prospect
of gaining what for months had seemed impossible. For some time there
was haggling over the terms. Napoleon at first demanded an exorbitant
sum; but having once made up his mind to part with Louisiana his impatient
disposition made him anxious to conclude the bargain. He rapidly abated
his demands, and the cession was finally made for fifteen millions of
dollars.
The Boundaries Undecided.
The treaty was signed in May, 1805. The definition of the exact
boundaries of the ceded territory was purposely left very loose by
Napoleon. On the east, the Spanish Government of the Floridas still kept
possession of what are now several parishes in the State of Louisiana.
In the far west the boundary lines which divided upper Louisiana from
the possessions of Britain on the north and of Spain on the south led
through a wilderness where no white man had ever trod, and they were of
course unmapped, and only vaguely guessed at.
Blindness of the American Statesmen.
There was one singular feature of this bargain, which showed, as nothing
else could have shown, how little American diplomacy had to do with
obtaining Louisiana, and how impossible it was for any European power,
even the greatest, to hold the territory in the face of the steady
westward growth of the American people. Napoleon forced Livingston and
Monroe to become the reluctant purchasers not merely of New Orleans, but
of all the immense territory which stretched vaguely northwestward to
the Pacific. Jefferson at moments felt a desire to get all this western
territory; but he was too timid and too vacillating to insist
strenuously upon anything which he feared Napoleon would not grant.
Madison felt a strong disinclination to see the national domain extend
west of the Mississippi; and he so instructed Monroe and Livingston. In
their turn the American envoys, with solemn fatuity, believed it might
impress Napoleon favorably if they made much show of moderation, and
they spent no small part of their time in explaining that they only
wished a little bit of Louisiana, including New Orleans and the east
bank of the lower Mississippi. Livingston indeed went so far as to
express a very positive disinclination to take the territory west of the
Mississippi at any price, stating that he should much prefer to see it
remain in the hands of France or Spain, and suggesting, by way of
apology for its acquisition, that it might be re-sold to some European
power! But Napoleon saw clearly that if the French ceded New Orleans it
was a simple physical impossibility for them to hold the rest of the
Louisiana territory. If his fierce and irritable vanity had been touched
he might, through mere wayward anger, have dared the Americans to a
contest which, however disastrous to them, would ultimately have been
more so to him; but he was a great statesman, and a still greater
soldier, and he did not need to be told that it would be worse than
folly to try to keep a country when he had given up the key-position.
The Great West Gained against the Wishes of the American
Diplomats.
The region west of the Mississippi could become the heritage of no other
people save that which had planted its populous communities along the
eastern bank of the river, it was quite possible for a powerful European
nation to hold New Orleans for some time, even though all upper
Louisiana fell into the hands of the Americans; but it was entirely
impossible for any European nation to hold upper Louisiana if New
Orleans became a city of the United States. The Westerners, wiser than
their rulers, but no wiser than Napoleon at the last, felt this, and
were not in the least disturbed over the fate of Louisiana, provided
they were given the control of the mouth of the Mississippi. As a matter
of fact, it is improbable that the fate of the great territory lying
west of the upper Mississippi would even have been seriously delayed had
it been nominally under the control of France or Spain. With the mouth
of the Mississippi once in American hands it was a physical
impossibility in any way to retard the westward movement of the men who
were settling Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
Debates in Congress.
Folly of the Federalists.
The ratification of the treaty brought on some sharp debates in
Congress. Jefferson had led his party into power as the special champion
of States' Rights and the special opponent of national sovereignty. He
and they rendered a very great service to the nation by acquiring
Louisiana; but it was at the cost of violating every precept which they
had professed to hold dear, and of showing that their warfare on the
Federalists had been waged on behalf of principles which they were
obliged to confess were shams the moment they were put to the test. But
the Federalists of the Northeast, both in the Middle States and in New
England, at this juncture behaved far worse than the Jeffersonian
Republicans. These Jeffersonian Republicans did indeed by their
performance give the lie to their past promise, and thereby emphasize
the unworthiness of their conduct in years gone by; nevertheless, at
this juncture they were right, which was far more important than being
logical or consistent. But the Northeastern Federalists, though with
many exceptions, did as a whole stand as the opponents of national
growth. They had very properly, though vainly, urged Jefferson to take
prompt and effective steps to sustain the national honor, when it seemed
probable that the country could be won from France only at the cost of
war; but when the time actually came to incorporate Louisiana into the
national domain, they showed that jealous fear of Western growth which
was the most marked defect in Northeastern public sentiment until past
the middle of the present century. It proved that the Federalists were
rightly distrusted by the West; and it proved that at this crisis, the
Jeffersonian Republicans, in spite of their follies, weaknesses, and
crimes, were the safest guardians of the country, because they believed
in its future, and strove to make it greater.
The Jeremiads of the Federalist leaders in Congress were the same in
kind as those in which many cultivated men of the East always indulged
whenever we enlarged our territory, and in which many persons like them
would now indulge were we at the present day to make a similar
extension. The people of the United States were warned that they were
incorporating into their number men who were wholly alien in every
respect, and who could never be assimilated. They were warned that when
they thus added to their empire, they merely rendered it unwieldy and
assured its being split into two or more confederacies at no distant
day. Some of the extremists, under the lead of Quincy, went so far as to
threaten dissolution of the Union because of what was done, insisting
that the Northeast ought by rights to secede because of the injury done
it by adding strength to the South and West. Fortunately, however, talk
of this kind did not affect the majority; the treaty was ratified and
Louisiana became part of the United States.
The French Prefect Laussat.
Meanwhile the Creoles themselves accepted their very rapidly changing
fates with something much like apathy. In March, 1803, the French
Prefect Laussat arrived to make preparations to take possession of the
country. He had no idea that Napoleon intended to cede it to the United
States. On the contrary, he showed that he regarded the French as the
heirs, not only to the Spanish territory, but of the Spanish hostility
to the Americans. He openly regretted that the Spanish Government had
reversed Morales' act taking away from the Americans the right of
deposit; and he made all his preparations as if on the theory that New
Orleans was to become the centre of an aggressive military government.
Corruption of the Spanish Government.
His dislikes, however, were broad, and included the Spaniards as well as
the Americans. There was much friction between him and the Spanish
officials; he complained bitterly to the home government of the
insolence and intrigues of the Spanish party. He also portrayed in
scathing terms the gross corruption of the Spanish authorities. As to
this corruption he was borne out by the American observers. Almost every
high Spanish official was guilty of peculation at the expense of the
government, and of bribe-taking at the expense of the citizens.
The Creoles not Ill-Satisfied with it.
Nevertheless the Creoles were far from ill-satisfied with Spanish rule.
They were not accustomed to self-government, and did not demand it; and
they cared very little for the fact that their superiors made money
improperly. If they paid due deference to their lay and clerical rulers
they were little interfered with; and they were in full accord with the
governing classes concerning most questions, both of principle or lack of
principle, and of prejudice. The Creoles felt that they were protected,
rather than oppressed, by people who shared their tastes, and who did
not interfere with the things they held dear. On the whole they showed
only a tepid joy at the prospect of again becoming French citizens.
Preparations to Turn the Country Over to the United States.
Laussat soon discovered that they were to remain French citizens for a
very short time indeed; and he prepared faithfully to carry out his
instructions, and to turn the country over to the Americans. The change
in the French attitude greatly increased the friction with the
Spaniards. The Spanish home government was furious with indignation at
Napoleon for having violated his word, and only the weakness of Spain
prevented war between it and France. The Spanish party in New Orleans
muttered its discontent so loud that Laussat grew alarmed. He feared
some outbreak on the part of the Spanish sympathizers, and, to prevent
such a mischance, he not only embodied the comparatively small portion
of the Creole militia whom he could trust, but also a number of American
volunteers, concerning whose fidelity in such a crisis as that he
anticipated there could be no question. It was not until December first,
1803, that he took final possession of the provinces. Twenty days
afterwards he turned it over to the American authorities.
Claiborne Made Governor.
Wilkinson, now commander of the American army,--the most disgraceful
head it has ever had--was entrusted with the governorship of all of
Upper Louisiana. Claiborne was made governor of Lower Louisiana,
officially styled the Territory of Orleans. He was an honest man, loyal
to the Union, but had no special qualifications for getting on well with
the Creoles. He could not speak French, and he regarded the people whom
he governed with a kindly contempt which they bitterly resented. The
Americans, pushing and masterful, were inclined to look down on their
neighbours, and to treat them overbearingly; while the Creoles in their
turn disliked the Americans as rude and uncultivated barbarians. For
some time they felt much discontent with the United States; nor was this
discontent allayed when in 1804 the territory of Orleans was reorganized
with a government much less liberal than that enjoyed by Indiana or
Mississippi; nor even when in 1805 an ordinary territorial government
was provided. A number of years were to pass before Louisiana felt
itself, in fact no less than in name, part of the Union.
New Orleans Offers a Field For Sedition.
Naturally there was a fertile field for seditious agitation in New
Orleans, a city of mixed population, where the numerically predominant
race felt a puzzled distrust for the nation of which it suddenly found
itself an integral part, and from past experience firmly believed in the
evanescent nature of any political connection it might have, whether
with Spain, France, or the United States. The Creoles murmured because
they were not given the same privileges as American citizens in the old
States, and yet showed themselves indifferent to such privileges as they
were given. They were indignant because the National Government
prohibited the importation of slaves into Louisiana, and for the moment
even the transfer thither of slaves from the old States--a circumstance,
by the way, which curiously illustrated the general dislike and
disapproval of slavery then felt, even by an administration under
Southern control. The Creoles further complained of Claiborne's
indifference to their wishes; and as he possessed little tact he also
became embroiled with the American inhabitants, who were men of
adventurous and often lawless temper, impatient of restraint.
Representatives of the French and Spanish governments still remained in
Louisiana, and by their presence and their words tended to keep alive a
disaffection for the United States Government. It followed from these
various causes that among all classes there was a willingness to talk
freely of their wrongs and to hint at righting them by methods outlined
with such looseness as to make it uncertain whether they did or did not
comport with entire loyalty to the United States Government.
The Filibusters.
Furthermore, there already existed in New Orleans a very peculiar class,
representatives of which are still to be found in almost every Gulf city
of importance. There were in the city a number of men ready at any time
to enter into any plot for armed conquest of one of the Spanish American
countries. [Footnote: Wilkinson's "Memoirs," II., 284.] Spanish America
was feeling the stir of unrest that preceded the revolutionary outbreak
against Spain. Already insurrectionary leaders like Miranda were seeking
assistance from the Americans. There were in New Orleans a number of
exiled Mexicans who were very anxious to raise some force with which to
invade Mexico, and there erect the banner of an independent sovereignty.
The bolder spirits among the Creoles found much that was attractive in
such a prospect; and reckless American adventurers by the score and the
hundred were anxious to join in any filibustering expedition of the
kind. They did not care in the least what form the expedition took. They
were willing to join the Mexican exiles in an effort to rouse Mexico to
throw off the yoke of Spain, or to aid any province of Mexico to revolt
from the rest, or to help the leaders of any defeated faction who wished
to try an appeal to arms, in which they should receive aid from the
sword of the stranger. Incidentally they were even more willing to
attempt the conquest on their own account; but they did not find it
necessary to dwell on this aspect of the case when nominally supporting
some faction which chose to make use of such watchwords as liberty and
independence.
Burr's Conspiracy.
Under such conditions New Orleans, even more than the rest of the West,
seemed to offer an inviting field for adventurers whose aim was both
revolutionary and piratical. A particularly spectacular adventurer of
this type now appeared in the person of Aaron Burr. Burr's conspiracy
attracted an amount of attention, both at home and in the pages of
history, altogether disproportioned to its real consequence. His career
had been striking. He had been Vice-President of the United States. He
had lacked but one vote of being made President, when the election of
1800 was thrown into the House of Representatives. As friend or as enemy
he had been thrown intimately and on equal terms with the greatest
political leaders of the day. He had supplied almost the only feeling
which Jefferson, the chief of the Democratic party, and Hamilton, the
greatest Federalist, ever possessed in common; for bitterly though
Hamilton and Jefferson had hated each other, there was one man whom each
of them had hated more, and that was Aaron Burr. There was not a man in
the country who did not know about the brilliant and unscrupulous party
leader who had killed Hamilton in the most famous duel that ever took
place on American soil, and who by a nearly successful intrigue had come
within one vote of supplanting Jefferson in the presidency.
Burr's Previous Career in New York.
In New York Aaron Burr had led a political career as stormy and
chequered as the careers of New York politicians have generally been. He
had shown himself as adroit as he was unscrupulous in the use of all the
arts of the machine manager. The fitful and gusty breath of popular
favor made him at one time the most prominent and successful politician
in the State, and one of the two or three most prominent and successful
in the nation. In the State he was the leader of the Democratic party,
which under his lead crushed the Federalists; and as a reward he was
given the second highest office in the nation. Then his open enemies and
secret rivals all combined against him. The other Democratic leaders in
New York, and in the nation as well, turned upon the man whose brilliant
abilities made them afraid, and whose utter untrustworthiness forbade
their entering into alliance with him. Shifty and fertile in expedients,
Burr made an obstinate fight to hold his own. Without hesitation, he
turned for support to his old enemies, the Federalists; but he was
hopelessly beaten. Both his fortune and his local political prestige
were ruined; he realized that his chance for a career in New York was
over.
When Beaten in New York he Turned to the West.
He was no mere New York politician, however. He was a statesman of
national reputation; and he turned his restless eyes toward the West,
which for a score of years had seethed in a turmoil out of which it
seemed that a bold spirit might make its own profit. He had already been
obscurely connected with separatist intrigues in the Northeast; and he
determined to embark in similar intrigues on an infinitely grander scale
in the West and Southwest. He was a cultivated man, of polished manners
and pleasing address, and of great audacity and physical courage; and he
had shown himself skilled in all the baser arts of political management.
It is small wonder that the conspiracy of which such a man was head
should make a noise out of all proportion to its real weight. The
conditions were such that if Burr journied West he was certain to
attract universal attention, and to be received with marked enthusiasm.
No man of his prominence in national affairs had ever travelled through
the wild new commonwealths on the Mississippi. The men who were founding
states and building towns on the wreck of the conquered wilderness were
sure to be flattered by the appearance of so notable a man among them,
and to be impressed not only by his reputation, but by his charm of
manner and brilliancy of intellect. Moreover they were quite ready to
talk vaguely of all kinds of dubious plans for increasing the importance
of the West. Very many, perhaps most, of them had dabbled at one time or
another in the various separatist schemes of the preceding two decades;
and they felt strongly that much of the Spanish domain would and should
ultimately fall into their hands--and the sooner the better.
He Misunderstands the Western Situation.
There was thus every chance that Burr would be favorably received by the
West, and would find plenty of men of high standing who would profess
friendship for him and would show a cordial interest in his plans so
long as he refrained from making them too definite; but there was in
reality no chance whatever for anything more than this to happen. In
spite of Burr's personal courage he lacked entirely the great military
qualities necessary to successful revolutionary leadership of the kind
to which he aspired. Though in some ways the most practical of
politicians he had a strong element of the visionary in his character;
it was perhaps this, joined to his striking moral defects, which brought
about and made complete his downfall in New York. Great political and
revolutionary leaders may, and often must, have in them something of the
visionary; but it must never cause them to get out of touch with the
practical. Burr was capable of conceiving revolutionary plans on so vast
a scale as to be fairly appalling, not only from their daring but from
their magnitude. But when he tried to put his plans into practice, it at
once became evident that they were even more unsubstantial than they
were audacious. His wild schemes had in them too strong an element of
the unreal and the grotesque to be in very fact dangerous.
The West Had Grown Loyal.
Besides, the time for separatist movements in the West had passed, while
the time for arousing the West to the conquest of part of
Spanish-America had hardly yet come. A man of Burr's character might
perhaps have accomplished something mischievous in Kentucky when
Wilkinson was in the first flush of his Spanish intrigues; or when the
political societies were raving over Jay's treaty; or when the Kentucky
legislature was passing its nullification resolutions. But the West had
grown loyal as the Nineteenth Century came in. The Westerners were
hearty supporters of the Jeffersonian democratic-republican party;
Jefferson was their idol; they were strongly attached to the Washington
administration, and strongly opposed to the chief opponents of that
administration, the Northeastern Federalists. With the purchase of
Louisiana all deep-lying causes of Western discontent had vanished. The
West was prosperous, and was attached to the National Government. Its
leaders might still enjoy a discussion with Burr or among themselves
concerning separatist principles in the abstract, but such a discussion
was at this time purely academic. Nobody of any weight in the community
would allow such plans as those of Burr to be put into effect. There
was, it is true, a strong buccaneering spirit, and there were plenty of
men ready to enlist in an invasion of the Spanish dominions under no
matter what pretext; but even those men of note who were willing to lead
such a movement, were not willing to enter into it if it was complicated
with open disloyalty to the United States.
Burr Begins his Treasonable Plotting.
Burr began his treasonable scheming before he ceased to be
Vice-President. He was an old friend and crony of Wilkinson; and he knew
much about the disloyal agitations which had convulsed the West during
the previous two decades. These agitations always took one or the other
of two forms that at first sight would seem diametrically opposed. Their
end was always either to bring about a secession of the West from the
East by the aid of Spain or some other foreign power; or else a conquest
of the Spanish dominions by the West, in defiance of the wishes of the
East and of the Central Government. Burr proposed to carry out both of
these plans.
He Endeavors to Enlist the Foreign Powers.
The exact shape which his proposals took would be difficult to tell.
Seemingly they remained nebulous even in his own mind. They certainly so
remained in the minds of those to whom he confided them. At any rate his
scheme, though in reality less dangerous than those of his predecessors
in Western treason, were in theory much more comprehensive. He planned
the seizure of Washington, the kidnapping of the President, and the
corruption of the United States Navy. He also endeavored to enlist
foreign Powers on his side. His first advances were made to the British.
He proposed to put the new empire, no matter what shape it might assume,
under British protection, in return for the assistance of the British
fleet in taking New Orleans. He gave to the British ministers full--and
false--accounts of the intended uprising, and besought the aid of the
British Government on the ground that the secession of the West would so
cripple the Union as to make it no longer a formidable enemy of Great
Britain. Burr's audacity and plausibility were such that he quite
dazzled the British minister, who detailed the plans at length to his
home government, putting them in as favorable a light as he could. The
statesmen at London, however, although at this time almost inconceivably
stupid in their dealings with America, were not sunk in such abject
folly as to think Burr's schemes practicable, and they refused to have
anything to do with them.
He Starts West and Stays with Blennerhassett.
In April, 1805, Burr started on his tour to the West. One of his first
stoppages was at an island on the Ohio near Parkersburg, where an Irish
gentleman named Blennerhassett had built what was, for the West, an
unusually fine house. Only Mrs. Blennerhassett was at home at the time;
but Blennerhassett later became a mainstay of the "conspiracy." He was a
warm-hearted man, with no judgment and a natural tendency toward
sedition, who speedily fell under Burr's influence, and entered into his
plans with eager zeal. With him Burr did not have to be on his guard,
and to him he confided freely his plans; but elsewhere, and in dealing
with less emotional people, he had to be more guarded.
How Far Burr's Allies were Privy to his Treason.
It is always difficult to find out exactly what a conspirator of Burr's
type really intended, and exactly how guilty his various temporary
friends and allies were. Part of the conspirator's business is to
dissemble the truth, and in after-time it is nearly impossible to
differentiate it from the false, even by the most elaborate sifting of
the various untruths he has uttered. Burr told every kind of story, at
one time or another, and to different classes of auditors. It would be
unsafe to deny his having told a particular falsehood in any given case
or to any given man. On the other hand when once the plot was unmasked
those persons to whom he had confided his plans were certain to insist
that he had really kept them in ignorance of his true intention. In
consequence it is quite impossible to say exactly how much guilty
knowledge his various companions possessed. When it comes to treating of
his relationship with Wilkinson all that can be said is that no single
statement ever made by either man, whether during the conspiracy or
after it, whether to the other or to an outsider, can be considered as
either presumptively true or presumptively false.
It is therefore impossible to say exactly how far the Westerners with
whom Burr was intimate were privy to his plans. It is certain that the
great mass of the Westerners never seriously considered entering into
any seditious movement under him. It is equally certain that a number of
their leaders were more or less compromised by their associations with
him. It seems probable that to each of these leaders he revealed what he
thought would most attract him in the scheme; but that to very few did
he reveal an outright proposition to break up the Union. Many of them
were very willing to hear the distinguished Easterner make vague
proposals for increasing the power of the West by means which were
hinted at with sinister elusiveness; and many others were delighted to
go into any movement which promised an attack upon the Spanish
territory; but it seems likely that there were only a few
men--Wilkinson, for instance, and Adair of Kentucky--who were willing to
discuss a proposition to commit downright treason.
Burr and Andrew Jackson.
Burr stopped at Cincinnati, in Ohio, and at one or two places in
Kentucky. In both States many prominent politicians, even United States
Senators, received him with enthusiasm. He then visited Nashville where
he became the guest of Andrew Jackson. Jackson was now Major General of
the Tennessee militia; and the possibility of war, especially of war
with the Spaniards, roused his hot nature to uncontrollable eagerness.
[Footnote: Adams, III., 221.] Burr probably saw through Jackson's
character at once, and realized that with him it was important to dwell
solely upon that part of the plan which contemplated an attack upon the
Spaniards.
Threatened Hostilities with Spain.
Jackson's Eagerness to Assail Spain.
The United States was at this time on the verge of war with Spain. The
Spanish Governor and Intendant remained in New Orleans after the
cession, and by their conduct gave such offence that it finally became
necessary to order them to leave. Jefferson claimed, as part of
Louisiana, portions of both West Florida and Texas. The Spaniards
refused to admit the justice of the claim and gathered in the disputed
territories armies which, though small, outnumbered the few regular
troops that Wilkinson had at his disposal. More than once a collision
seemed imminent. The Westerners clamored for war, desiring above all
things to drive the Spaniards by force from the debatable lands. For
some time Jefferson showed symptoms of yielding to their wishes; but he
was too timid and irresolute to play a high part, and in the end he
simply did nothing. However, though he declined to make actual war on
the Spaniards, he also refused to recognize their claims as just, and
his peculiar, hesitating course, tended to inflame the Westerners, and
to make them believe that their government would not call them to
account for acts of aggression. To Jackson doubtless Burr's proposals
seemed quite in keeping with what he hoped from the United States
Government. He readily fell in with views so like his own, and began
to make preparations for an expedition against the Spanish dominions;
an expedition which in fact would not have differed essentially from the
expeditions he actually did make into the Spanish Floridas six or eight
years afterward, or from the movement which still later his fellow
Tennessean, Houston, headed in Texas.
Burr and Wilkinson.
From Nashville Burr drifted down the Cumberland, and at Fort Massac, on
the Ohio, he met Wilkinson, a kindred spirit, who possessed neither
honor nor conscience, and could not be shocked by any proposal.
Moreover, Wilkinson much enjoyed the early stages of a seditious
agitation, when the risk to himself seemed slight; and as he was at this
time both the highest military officer of the United States, and also
secretly in the pay of Spain, the chance to commit a double treachery
gave an added zest to his action. He entered cordially into Burr's
plans, and as soon as he returned to his headquarters, at St. Louis, he
set about trying to corrupt his subordinates, and seduce them from their
allegiance.
Burr Visits New Orleans.
Meanwhile Burr passed down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where he
found himself in the society of persons who seemed more willing than any
others he had encountered to fall in with his plans. Even here he did
not clearly specify his purposes, but he did say enough to show that
they bordered on the treasonable; and he was much gratified at the
acquiescence of his listeners. His gratification, however, was
over-hasty. The Creoles, and some of the Americans, were delighted to
talk of their wrongs and to threaten any course of action which they
thought might yield vengeance; but they had little intention of
proceeding from words to deeds. Claiborne, a straightforward and honest
man, set his face like a flint against all of Burr's doings.
From New Orleans Burr retraced his steps and visited Wilkinson at St.
Louis. But Wilkinson was no longer in the same frame of mind as at Fort
Massac. He had tested his officers, to see if they could be drawn into
any disloyal movement, and had found that they were honorable men, firm
in their attachment to the Union; and he was beginning to perceive that
the people generally were quite unmoved by Burr's intrigues.
Accordingly, when Burr reached him he threw cold water on his plans, and
though he did not denounce or oppose them, he refrained from taking
further active part in the seditious propaganda.
Burr Returns to Washington.
After visiting Harrison, the Governor of the Indiana territory, Burr
returned to Washington. If he had possessed the type of character which
would have made him really dangerous as a revolutionist, he would have
seen how slight was his hope of stirring up revolt in the West; but he
would not face facts, and he still believed he could bring about an
uprising against the Union in the Mississippi Valley. His immediate need
was money. This he hoped to obtain from some foreign government. He
found that nothing could be done with Great Britain; and then,
incredible though it may seem, he turned to Spain, and sought to obtain
from the Spaniards themselves the funds with which to conquer their own
territories.
His Burlesque Proposals to Spain.
This was the last touch necessary to complete the grotesque fantasy
which his brain had evolved. He approached the Spanish Minister first
through one of his fellow conspirators and then in his own person. At
one time he made his request on the pretence that he wished to desert
the other filibusterers, and save Spain by committing a double
treachery, and betraying the treasonable movement into which he had
entered; and again he asked funds on the ground that all he wished to do
was to establish a separate government in the West, and thus destroy the
power of the United States to molest Spain. However, his efforts came to
naught, and he was obliged to try what he could do unaided in the West.
His Second Trip to the West.
In August, 1806, he again crossed the Alleghenies. His first stop of
importance was at Blennerhassett's. Blennerhassett was the one person of
any importance who took his schemes so seriously as to be willing to
stake his fortune on their success. Burr took with him to
Blennerhassett's his daughter, Theodosia, a charming woman, the wife of
a South Carolinian, Allston. The attractions of the daughter, and Burr's
own address and magnetism, completely overcame both Blennerhassett and
his wife. They gave the adventurer all the money they could raise, with
the understanding that they would receive it back a hundred-fold as the
result of a land speculation which was to go hand in hand with the
expected revolution. Then Blennerhassett began, in a very noisy and
ineffective way, to make what preparations were possible in the way of
rousing the Ohio settlers, and of gathering a body of armed men to serve
under Burr when the time came. It was all done in a way that savored of
farce rather than of treason.
Again Visits Jackson.
There was much less comedy however in what went on in Kentucky and
Tennessee where Burr next went. At Nashville he was received with open
arms by Jackson and Jackson's friends. This was not much to Jackson's
credit, for by this time he should have known Burr's character; but the
temptation of an attack on the Spaniards proved irresistible. As Major
General, he called out the militia of West Tennessee, and began to make
ready in good earnest to invade Florida or Mexico. At public dinners he
and his friends and Burr made speeches in which they threatened
immediate war against Spain, with which country the United States was at
peace; but they did not threaten any attack on the Union, and indeed
Jackson exacted from Burr a guarantee of his loyalty to the Union.
His Experience in Kentucky.
From Nashville the restless conspirator returned to Kentucky to see if
he could persuade the most powerful of the Western States to take some
decided step in his favor. Senator John Adair, former companion-in-arms
of Wilkinson in the wars against the Northwestern Indians, enlisted in
support of Burr with heart and soul. Kentucky society generally received
him with enthusiasm. But there was in the State a remnant of the old
Federalist party, which although not formidable in numbers, possessed
weight because of the vigor and ability of its leaders. The chief among
them were Humphrey Marshall, former United States Senator, and Joseph H.
Daveiss, who was still District Attorney, not having, as yet, been
turned out by Jefferson. [Footnote: For the Kentucky episode, see
Marshall and Greene. Gayarré is the authority for what occurred in New
Orleans. For the whole conspiracy, see Adams.] These men saw--what
Eastern politicians could not see--the connection between Burr's
conspiracy and the former Spanish intrigues of men like Wilkinson,
Sabastian, and Innes. They were loyal to the Union; and they felt a
bitter factional hatred for their victorious foes in whose ranks were to
be found all the old time offenders; so they attacked the new conspiracy
with a double zest. They not only began a violent newspaper war upon
Burr and all the former conspirators, but also proceeded to invoke the
aid of the courts and the legislature against them. Their exposure of
the former Spanish intrigues, as well as of Burr's plots, attracted
widespread attention in the West, even at New Orleans [Footnote:
Gayarré, IV., 180.]; but the Kentuckians, though angry and ashamed, were
at first reluctant to be convinced. Twice Daveiss presented Burr for
treason before the Grand Jury; twice the Grand Jury declared in his
favor; and the leaders of the Kentucky Democracy gave him their
countenance, while Henry Clay acted as his counsel. Daveiss, by a
constant succession of letters, kept Jefferson fully informed of all
that was done. Though his attacks on Burr for the moment seemed
failures, they really accomplished their object. They created such
uneasiness that the prominent Kentuckians made haste to clear themselves
of all possible connection with any treasonable scheme. Henry Clay
demanded and received from Burr a formal pledge that his plans were in
no wise hostile to the Union; and the other people upon whom Burr
counted most, both in Ohio and Kentucky, hastily followed this example.
This immediate defection showed how hopeless Burr's plans were. The
moment he attempted to put them into execution, their utter futility was
certain to be exposed.
Friction with the Spaniards.
Meanwhile Jefferson's policy with the Spaniards, which neither secured
peace nor made ready for war, kept up constant irritation on the border.
Both the Spanish Governor Folch, in West Florida, and the Spanish
General Herrera, in Texas, menaced the Americans. [Footnote: Gayarré,
IV., 137, 151, etc.] Wilkinson hurried with his little army towards
Herrera, until the two stood face to face, each asserting that the other
was on ground that belonged to his own nation. Just at this time Burr's
envoys, containing his final propositions, reached Wilkinson. But
Wilkinson now saw as cleanly as any one that Burr's scheme was
foredoomed to fail; and he at once determined to make use of the only
weapon in which he was skilled,--treachery. At this very time he, the
commander of the United States Army, was in the pay of Spain, and was in
secret negotiation with the Spanish officials against whom he was
supposed to be acting; he had striven to corrupt his own army and had
failed; he had found out that the people of the West were not disloyal.
He saw that there was no hope of success for the conspirators; and he
resolved to play the part of defender of the nation, and to act with
vigor against Burr. Having warned Jefferson, in language of violent
alarm, about Burr's plans, he prepared to prevent their execution. He
first made a truce with Herrera in accordance with which each was to
retire to his former position, and then he started for the Mississippi.
Burr Flees Down the Mississippi.
When Burr found that he could do nothing in Kentucky and Tennessee, he
prepared to go to New Orleans. The few boats that Blennerhassett had
been able to gather were sent hurriedly down stream lest they should be
interfered with by the Ohio authorities. Burr had made another visit to
Nashville. Slipping down the Cumberland, he joined his little flotilla,
passed Fort Massac, and began the descent of the Mississippi.
The plot was probably most dangerous at New Orleans, if it could be said
to be dangerous anywhere. Claiborne grew very much alarmed about it,
chiefly because of the elusive mystery in which it was shrouded. But
when the pinch came it proved as unsubstantial there as elsewhere. The
leaders who had talked most loosely about revolutionary proceedings grew
alarmed, as the crisis approached, lest they might be called on to make
good their words; and they hastened to repudiate all connection with
Burr, and to avow themselves loyal to the Union. Even the
Creole militia,--a body which Claiborne regarded with just
suspicion,--volunteered to come to the defence of the Government when it
was thought that Burr might actually attack the city.
Collapse of the Conspiracy.
But Burr's career was already ruined. Jefferson, goaded into action, had
issued a proclamation for his arrest; and even before this proclamation
was issued, the fabric of the conspiracy had crumbled into shifting
dust. The Ohio Legislature passed resolutions demanding prompt action
against the conspirators; and the other Western communities followed
suit. There was no real support for Burr anywhere. All his plot had been
but a dream; at the last he could not do anything which justified, in
even the smallest degree, the alarm and curiosity he had excited. The
men of keenest insight and best judgment feared his unmasked efforts
less than they feared Wilkinson's dark and tortuous treachery.
[Footnote: E. G. Cowles Meade; see Gayarré, IV., 169.] As he drifted
down the Mississippi with his little flotilla, he was overtaken by
Jefferson's proclamation, which was sent from one to another of the
small Federal garrisons. Near Natchez, in January, 1807, he surrendered
his flotilla, without resistance, to the Acting-Governor of Mississippi
Territory. He himself escaped into the land of the Choctaws and Creeks,
disguised as a Mississippi boatman; but a month later he was arrested
near the Spanish border, and sent back to Washington.
Thus ended ingloriously the wildest, most spectacular, and least
dangerous, of all the intrigues for Western disunion. It never contained
within itself the least hope of success. It was never a serious menace
to the National government. It was not by any means even a good example
of Western particularistic feeling. It was simply a sporadic
illustration of the looseness of national sentiment, here and there,
throughout the country; but of no great significance, because it was in
no sense a popular movement, and had its origin in the fantastic
imagination of a single man.
After-Effects in the West.
It left scarcely a ripple in the West. When the danger was over
Wilkinson appeared in New Orleans, where he strutted to the front for a
little while, playing the part of a fussy dictator and arresting, among
others, Adair of Kentucky. As the panic subsided, they were released. No
Louisianian suffered in person or property from any retaliatory action
of the Government; but lasting good was done by the abject failure of
the plot and by the exhibition of unused strength by the American
people. The Creoles ceased to mutter discontent, and all thought of
sedition died away in the province.
Sufferers from the Conspiracy.
The chief sufferers, aside from Blennerhassett, were Sebastian and
Innes, of Kentucky. The former resigned from the bench, and the latter
lost a prestige he never regained. A few of their intimate friends also
suffered. But their opponents did not fare much better. Daveiss and
Marshall were the only men in the West whose action toward Burr had been
thoroughly creditable, showing alike vigor, intelligence, and loyalty.
To both of them the country was under an obligation. Jefferson showed
his sense of this obligation in a not uncharacteristic way by removing
Daveiss from office; Marshall was already in private life, and all that
could be done was to neglect him.
The Trial of Burr.
As for Burr, he was put on trial for high treason, with Wilkinson as
state's evidence. Jefferson made himself the especial champion of
Wilkinson; nevertheless the General cut a contemptible figure at the
trial, for no explanation could make his course square with honorable
dealing. Burr was acquitted on a technicality. Wilkinson, the double
traitor, the bribe-taker, the corrupt servant of a foreign government,
remained at the head of the American Army.
CHAPTER VII.
THE EXPLORERS OF THE FAR WEST, 1804-1807.
The Far West.
The Far West, the West beyond the Mississippi, had been thrust on
Jefferson, and given to the nation, by the rapid growth of the Old West,
the West that lay between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. The
actual title to the new territory had been acquired by the United States
Government, acting for the whole nation. It remained to explore the
territory thus newly added to the national domain. The Government did
not yet know exactly what it had acquired, for the land was not only
unmapped but unexplored. Nobody could tell what were the boundary lines
which divided it from British America on the north and Mexico on the
south, for nobody knew much of the country through which these lines
ran; of most of it, indeed, nobody knew anything. On the new maps the
country now showed as part of the United States; but the Indians who
alone inhabited it were as little affected by the transfer as was the
game they hunted.
Need for its Exploration.
Even the Northwestern portion of the land definitely ceded to the United
States by Great Britain in Jay's treaty was still left in actual
possession of the Indian tribes, while the few whites who lived among
them were traders owing allegiance to the British Government. The
head-waters of the Mississippi and the beautiful country lying round
them were known only in a vague way; and it was necessary to explore and
formally take possession of this land of lakes, glades, and forests.
Beyond the Mississippi all that was really well known was the territory
in the immediate neighbourhood of the little French villages near the
mouth of the Missouri. The creole traders of these villages, and an
occasional venturous American, had gone up the Mississippi to the
country of the Sioux and the Mandans, where they had trapped and hunted
and traded for furs with the Indians. At the northern most points that
they reached they occasionally encountered traders who had travelled
south or southwesterly from the wintry regions where the British fur
companies reigned supreme. The headwaters of the Missouri were
absolutely unknown; nobody had penetrated the great plains, the vast
seas of grass through which the Platte, the Little Missouri, and the
Yellowstone ran. What lay beyond them, and between them and the Pacific,
was not even guessed at. The Rocky Mountains were not known to exist, so
far as the territory newly acquired by the United States was concerned,
although under the name of "Stonies" their northern extensions in
British America were already down on some maps.
The National Government Undertakes the Work.
The West had passed beyond its first stage of uncontrolled
individualism. Neither exploring nor fighting was thenceforth to be the
work only of the individual settlers. The National Government was making
its weight felt more and more in the West, because the West was itself
becoming more and more an important integral portion of the Union. The
work of exploring these new lands fell, not to the wild hunters and
trappers, such as those who had first explored Kentucky and Tennessee,
but to officers of the United States army, leading parties of United
States soldiers, in pursuance of the command of the Government or of its
representatives. The earliest and most important expeditions of
Americans into the unknown country which the nation had just purchased
were led by young officers of the regular army.
Jefferson Entitled to the Credit.
The first of these expeditions was planned by Jefferson himself and
authorised by Congress. Nominally its purpose was in part to find out
the most advantageous places for the establishment of trading stations
with the Indian tribes over which our government had acquired the
titular suzerainty; but in reality it was purely a voyage of
exploration, planned with intent to ascend the Missouri to its head, and
thence to cross the continent to the Pacific. The explorers were
carefully instructed to report upon the geography, physical
characteristics, and zoology of the region traversed, as well as upon
its wild human denizens. Jefferson was fond of science, and in
appreciation of the desirability of non-remunerative scientific
observation and investigation he stood honorably distinguished among
the public men of the day. To him justly belongs the credit of
originating this first exploring expedition ever undertaken by the
United States Government.
Lewis and Clark Chosen.
The two officers chosen to carry through the work belonged to families
already honorably distinguished for service on the Western border. One
was Captain Meriwether Lewis, representatives of whose family had served
so prominently in Dunmore's war; the other was Lieutenant (by courtesy
Captain) William Clark, a younger brother of George Rogers Clark.
[Footnote: He had already served as captain in the army; see Coues'
edition of the "History of the Expedition," lxxi.] Clark had served with
credit through Wayne's campaigns, and had taken part in the victory of
the Fallen Timbers. [Footnote: See his letters, quoted in Chap. II.
There is a good deal of hitherto unused material about him in the Draper
MSS.] Lewis had seen his first service when he enlisted as a private in
the forces which were marshalled to put down the whisky insurrection.
Later he served under Clark in Wayne's army. He had also been President
Jefferson's private secretary.
Their Party.
The young officers started on their trip accompanied by twenty-seven men
who intended to make the whole journey. Of this number one, the
interpreter and incidentally the best hunter of the party, was a
half-breed; two were French voyageurs; one was a negro servant of Clark;
nine were volunteers from Kentucky; and fourteen were regular soldiers.
All, however, except the black slave, were enlisted in the army before
starting, so that they might be kept under regular discipline. In
addition to these twenty-seven men there were seven soldiers and nine
voyageurs who started only to go to the Mandan villages on the Missouri,
where the party intended to spend the first winter. They embarked in
three large boats, abundantly supplied with arms, powder, and lead,
clothing, gifts for the Indians, and provisions.
The starting point was St. Louis, which had only just been surrendered
to the United States Government by the Spaniards, without any French
intermediaries. The explorers pushed off in May, 1804, and soon began
stemming the strong current of the muddy Missouri, to whose unknown
sources they intended to ascend. For two or three weeks they
occasionally passed farms and hamlets. The most important of the little
towns was St. Charles, where the people were all Creoles; the explorers
in their journal commented upon the good temper and vivacity of these
_habitants_, but dwelt on the shiftlessness they displayed and their
readiness to sink back towards savagery, although they were brave and
hardy enough. The next most considerable town was peopled mainly by
Americans, who had already begun to make numerous settlements in the new
land. The last squalid little village they passed claimed as one of its
occasional residents old Daniel Boone himself.
After leaving the final straggling log cabins of the settled country,
the explorers, with sails and paddles, made their way through what is
now the State of Missouri. They lived well, for their hunters killed
many deer and wild turkey and some black bear and beaver, and there was
an abundance of breeding water fowl. Here and there were Indian
encampments, but not many, for the tribes had gone westward to the great
plains of what is now Kansas to hunt the buffalo. Already buffalo and
elk were scarce in Missouri, and the party did not begin to find them in
any numbers until they reached the neighborhood of what is now southern
Nebraska.
They Reached the Great Plains.
From there onwards the game was found in vast herds and the party began
to come upon those characteristic animals of the Great Plains which were
as yet unknown to white men of our race. The buffalo and the elk had
once ranged eastward to the Alleghanies and were familiar to early
wanderers through the wooded wilderness; but in no part of the east had
their numbers ever remotely approached the astounding multitudes in
which they were found on the Great Plains. The curious prong-buck or
prong-horned antelope was unknown east of the Great Plains. So was the
blacktail, or mule deer, which our adventurers began to find here and
there as they gradually worked their way northwestward. So were the
coyotes, whose uncanny wailing after nightfall varied the sinister
baying of the gray wolves; so were many of the smaller animals, notably
the prairie dogs, whose populous villages awakened the lively curiosity
of Lewis and Clark.
Good Qualities of Lewis and Clark.
In their note-books the two captains faithfully described all these new
animals and all the strange sights they saw. They were men with no
pretensions to scientific learning, but they were singularly close and
accurate observers and truthful narrators. Very rarely have any similar
explorers described so faithfully not only the physical features but the
animals and plants of a newly discovered land. Their narrative was not
published until some years later, and then it was badly edited, notable
the purely scientific portion; yet it remains the best example of what
such a narrative should be. Few explorers who did and saw so much that
was absolutely new have written of their deeds with such quiet absence
of boastfulness, and have drawn their descriptions with such complete
freedom from exaggeration.
Their Dealings with the Indians.
Moreover, what was of even greater importance, the two young captains
possessed in perfection the qualities necessary to pilot such an
expedition through unknown lands and among savage tribes. They kept good
discipline among the men; they never hesitated to punish severely any
wrong-doer; but they were never over-severe; and as they did their full
part of the work, and ran all the risks and suffered all the hardship
exactly like the other members of the expedition, they were regarded by
their followers with devoted affection, and were served with loyalty and
cheerfulness. In dealing with the Indians they showed good humor and
common-sense mingled with ceaseless vigilance and unbending resolution.
Only men who possessed their tact and daring could have piloted the
party safely among the warlike tribes they encountered. Any act of
weakness or timidity on the one hand, or of harshness or cruelty on the
other, would have been fatal to the expedition; but they were careful to
treat the tribes well and to try to secure their good-will, while at the
same time putting an immediate stop to any insolence or outrage. Several
times they were in much jeopardy when they reached the land of the
Dakotas and passed among the various ferocious tribes whom they knew,
and whom we yet know, as the Sioux. The French traders frequently came
up river to the country of the Sioux, who often maltreated and robbed
them. In consequence Lewis and Clark found that the Sioux were inclined
to regard the whites as people whom they could safely oppress. The
resolute bearing of the new-comers soon taught them that they were in
error, and after a little hesitation the various tribes in each case
became friendly.
Councils with the Indians.
With all the Indian tribes the two explorers held councils, and
distributed presents, especially medals, among the head chiefs and
warriors, informing them of the transfer of the territory from Spain to
the United States and warning them that henceforth they must look to the
President as their protector, and not to the King, whether of England or
of Spain. The Indians all professed much satisfaction at the change,
which of course they did not in the least understand, and for which they
cared nothing. This easy acquiescence gave much groundless satisfaction
to Lewis and Clark, who further, in a spirit of philanthropy, strove to
make each tribe swear peace with its neighbors. After some hesitation
the tribe usually consented to this also, and the explorers, greatly
gratified, passed on. It is needless to say that as soon as they had
disappeared the tribes promptly went to war again; and that in reality
the Indians had only the vaguest idea as to what was meant by the
ceremonies, and the hoisting of the American Flag. The wonder is that
Clark, who had already had some experience with Indians, should have
supposed that the councils, advice, and proclamations would have any
effect of the kind hoped for upon these wild savages. However, together
with the love of natural science inculcated by the fashionable
philosophy of the day, they also possessed the much less admirable,
though entirely amiable, theory of universal and unintelligent
philanthropy which was embodied in this philosophy. A very curious
feature of our dealings with the Indians, not only in the days of Lewis
and Clark, but since, has been the combination of extreme and indeed
foolish benevolence of purpose on the part of the Government, with, on
the part of the settlers, a brutality of action which this benevolent
purpose could in no wise check or restrain.
They Winter at the Mandan Villages.
As the fall weather grew cold the party reached the Mandan village,
where they halted and went into camp for the winter, building huts and a
stout blockade, which they christened Fort Mandan. Traders from St.
Louis and also British traders from the North reached these villages,
and the inhabitants were accustomed to dealing with the whites.
Throughout the winter the party was well treated by the Indians, and
kept in good health and spirits; the journals frequently mention the
fondness the men showed for dancing, although without partners of the
opposite sex. Yet they suffered much from the extreme cold, and at times
from hunger, for it was hard to hunt in the winter weather, and the game
was thin and poor. Generally game could be killed in a day's hunt from
the fort; but occasionally small parties of hunters went off for a trip
of several days, and returned laden with meat; in one case they killed
thirty-two deer, eleven elk, and a buffalo; in another forty deer,
sixteen elk, and three buffalo; thirty-six deer and fourteen elk, etc.,
etc. The buffalo remaining in the neighborhood during the winter were
mostly old bulls, too lean to eat; and as the snows came on most of the
antelope left for the rugged country farther west, swimming the Missouri
in great bands. Before the bitter weather began the explorers were much
interested by the methods of the Indians in hunting, especially when
they surrounded and slaughtered bands of buffalo on horseback; and by
the curious pens, with huge V-shaped wings, into which they drove
antelope.
They Start Westward in the Spring.
In the spring of 1805, Lewis and Clark again started westward, first
sending down-stream ten of their companions, to carry home the notes of
their trip so far, and a few valuable specimens. The party that started
westward numbered thirty-two adults, all told; for one sergeant had
died, and two or three persons had volunteered at the Mandan villages,
including a rather worthless French "squaw-man," with an intelligent
Indian wife, whose baby was but a few weeks old.
From this point onwards, when they began to travel west instead of
north, the explorers were in a country where no white man had ever trod.
It was not the first time the continent had been crossed. The Spaniards
had crossed and recrossed it, for two centuries, farther south. In
British America Mackenzie had already penetrated to the Pacific, while
Hearne had made a far more noteworthy and difficult trip than Mackenzie,
when he wandered over the terrible desolation of the Barren Grounds,
which lie under the Arctic circle. But no man had ever crossed or
explored that part of the continent which the United States had just
acquired; a part far better fitted to be the home of our stock than the
regions to the north or south. It was the explorations of Lewis and
Clark, and not those of Mackenzie on the north or of the Spaniards in
the south, which were to bear fruit, because they pointed the way to the
tens of thousands of settlers who were to come after them, and who were
to build thriving commonwealths in the lonely wilderness which they had
traversed.
Wonderful Hunting Grounds.
From the Little Missouri on to the head of the Missouri proper the
explorers passed through a region where they saw few traces of Indians.
It literally swarmed with game, for it was one of the finest hunting
grounds in all the world. [Footnote: It so continued for three quarters
of a century. Until after 1880 the region around the Little Missouri was
essentially unchanged from what is was in the days of Lewis and Clark;
game swarmed, and the few white hunters and trappers who followed the
buffalo, the elk, and the beaver, were still at times in conflict with
hunting parties from various Indian tribes. While ranching in this
region I myself killed every kind of game encountered by Lewis and
Clark.] There were great numbers of sage fowl, sharp-tailed prairie
fowl, and ducks of all kinds; and swans, and tall white cranes; and
geese, which nested in the tops of the cottonwood trees. But the hunters
paid no heed to birds, when surrounded by such teeming myriads of big
game. Buffalo, elk, and antelope, whitetail and blacktail deer, and
bighorn sheep swarmed in extraordinary abundance throughout the lands
watered by the upper Missouri and the Yellowstone; in their journals the
explorers dwell continually on the innumerable herds they encountered
while on these plains, both when travelling up-stream and again the
following year when they were returning. The antelopes were sometimes
quite shy; so were the bighorn; though on occasions both kinds seemed to
lose their wariness, and in one instance the journal specifies the fact
that, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, the deer were somewhat shy, while
the antelope, like the elk and buffalo, paid no heed to the men
whatever. Ordinarily all the kinds of game were very tame. Sometimes one
of the many herds of elk that lay boldly, even at midday, on the
sandbars, or on the brush-covered points, would wait until the explorers
were within twenty yards of them before starting. The buffalo would
scarcely move out of the path at all, and the bulls sometimes, even when
unmolested, threatened to assail the hunters. Once, on the return
voyage, when Clark was descending the Yellowstone River, a vast herd of
buffalo, swimming and wading, plowed its way across the stream where it
was a mile broad, in a column so thick that the explorers had to draw up
on shore and wait for an hour, until it passed by, before continuing
their journey. Two or three times the expedition was thus brought to a
halt; and as the buffalo were so plentiful, and so easy to kill, and as
their flesh was very good, they were the mainstay for the explorers'
table. Both going and returning this wonderful hunting country was a
place of plenty. The party of course lived almost exclusively on meat,
and they needed much; for, when they could get it, they consumed either
a buffalo, or an elk and a deer, or four deer, every day.
First Encounters with the Grizzly Bear.
There was one kind of game which they at times found altogether too
familiar. This was the grizzly bear, which they were the first white men
to discover. They called it indifferently the grizzly, gray, brown, and
even white bear, to distinguish it from its smaller, glossy,
black-coated brother with which they were familiar in the Eastern woods.
They found that the Indians greatly feared these bears, and after their
first encounters they themselves treated them with much respect. The
grizzly was then the burly lord of the Western prairie, dreaded by all
other game, and usually shunned even by the Indians. In consequence it
was very bold and savage. Again and again these huge bears attacked the
explorers of their own accord, when neither molested nor threatened.
They galloped after the hunters when they met them on horseback even in
the open; and they attacked them just as freely when they found them on
foot. To go through the brush was dangerous; again and again one or
another of the party was charged and forced to take to a tree, at the
foot of which the bear sometimes mounted guard for hours before going
off. When wounded the beasts fought with desperate courage, and showed
astonishing tenacity of life, charging any number of assailants, and
succumbing but slowly even to mortal wounds. In one case a bear that was
on shore actually plunged into the water and swam out to attack one of
the canoes as it passed. However, by this time all of the party had
become good hunters, expert in the use of their rifles, and they killed
great numbers of their ursine foes.
Other Brute Enemies.
Nor were the bears their only brute enemies. The rattlesnakes were often
troublesome. Unlike the bears, the wolves were generally timid, and
preyed only on the swarming game: but one night a wolf crept into camp
and seized a sleeper by the hand; when driven off he jumped upon another
man, and was shot by a third. A less intentional assault was committed
by a buffalo bull which one night blundered past the fires, narrowly
escaped trampling on the sleepers, and had the whole camp in an uproar
before it rushed off into the darkness. When hunted the buffalo
occasionally charged; but there was not much danger in their chase.
The Scourge of Mosquitos.
All these larger foes paled into insignificance compared with the
mosquitos. There are very few places on earth where these pests are so
formidable as in the bottom lands of the Missouri, and for weeks and
even months they made the lives of our explorers a torture. No other
danger, whether from hunger or cold, Indians or wild beasts, was so
dreaded by the explorers as these tiny scourges.
Pleasant Life in the Plains Country.
In the Plains country the life of the explorers was very pleasant save
only for the mosquitos and the incessant clouds of driving sand along
the river bottoms. On their journey west through these true happy
hunting grounds they did not meet with any Indians, and their encounters
with the bears were only just sufficiently dangerous to add excitement
to their life. Once or twice they were in peril from cloud bursts, and
they were lamed by the cactus spines on the prairie, and by the stones
and sand of the river bed while dragging the boats against the current;
but all these trials, labors, and risks were only enough to give zest to
their exploration of the unknown land. At the Great Falls of the
Missouri they halted, and were enraptured with their beauty and majesty;
and here, as everywhere, they found the game so abundant that they lived
in plenty. As they journeyed up-stream through the bright summer
weather, though they worked hard, it was work of a kind which was but a
long holiday. At nightfall they camped by the boats on the river bank.
Each day some of the party spent in hunting, either along the river
bottoms through the groves of cottonwoods with shimmering, rustling
leaves, or away from the river where the sunny prairies stretched into
seas of brown grass, or where groups of rugged hills stood, fantastic in
color and outline, and with stunted pines growing on the sides of their
steep ravines. The only real suffering was that which occasionally
befell someone who got lost, and was out for days at a time, until he
exhausted all his powder and lead before finding the party.
Crossing the Mountains.
Fall had nearly come when they reached the head-waters of the Missouri.
The end of the holiday-time was at hand, for they had before them the
labor of crossing the great mountains so as to strike the head-waters of
the Columbia. Their success at this point depended somewhat upon the
Indian wife of the Frenchman who had joined them at Mandan. She had been
captured from one of the Rocky Mountains tribes and they relied on her
as interpreter. Partly through her aid, and partly by their own
exertions, they were able to find, and make friends with, a band of
wandering Shoshones, from whom they got horses. Having cached their
boats and most of their goods they started westward through the
forest-clad passes of the Rockies; before this they had wandered and
explored in several directions through the mountains and the foot-hills.
The open country had been left behind, and with it the time of plenty.
In the mountain forests the game was far less abundant than on the
plains and far harder to kill; though on the tops of the high peaks
there was one new game animal, the white antelope-goat, which they did
not see, though the Indians brought them hides. The work was hard, and
the party suffered much from toil and hunger, living largely on their
horses, before they struck one of the tributaries of the Snake
sufficiently low down to enable them once more to go by boat.
The Indians they Met.
They now met many Indians of various tribes, all of them very different
from the Indians of the Western Plains. At this time the Indians both
east and west of the Rockies, already owned numbers of horses. Although
they had a few guns, they relied mainly on the spears and tomahawks, and
bows and arrows with which they had warred and hunted from time
immemorial; for only the tribes on the outer edges had come in contact
with the whites, whether with occasional French and English traders who
brought them goods, or with the mixed bloods of the northern Spanish
settlements, upon which they raided. Around the mouth of the Columbia,
however, the Indians knew a good deal about the whites; the river had
been discovered by Captain Gray of Boston thirteen years before, and
ships came there continually, while some of the Indian tribes were
occasionally visited by traders from the British fur companies.
With one or two of these tribes the explorers had some difficulty, and
owed their safety to their unceasing vigilance, and to the prompt
decision with which they gave the Indians to understand that they would
tolerate no bad treatment; while yet themselves refraining carefully
from committing any wrong. By most of the tribes they were well
received, and obtained from them not only information of the route, but
also a welcome supply of food. At first they rather shrank from eating
the dogs which formed the favorite dish of the Indians; but after a
while they grew quite reconciled to dog's flesh; and in their journals
noted that they preferred it to lean elk and deer meat, and were much
more healthy while eating it.
Lewis and Clark reach the Pacific Coast.
They reached the rain-shrouded forests of the coast before cold weather
set in, and there they passed the winter; suffering somewhat from the
weather, and now and then from hunger, though the hunters generally
killed plenty of elk, and deer of a new kind, the blacktail of the
Columbia.
They Start Eastward Again.
In March, 1806, they started eastward to retrace their steps. At first
they did not live well, for it was before the time when the salmon came
up-stream, and game was not common. When they reached the snow-covered
mountains there came another period of toil and starvation,
and they were glad indeed when they emerged once more on the happy
hunting-grounds of the Great Plains. They found their caches
undisturbed. Early in July they separated for a time, Clark descending
the Yellowstone and Lewis the Missouri, until they met at the junction
of the two rivers. The party which went down the Yellowstone at one time
split into two, Clark taking command of one division, and a sergeant of
the other; they built their own canoes, some of them made out of
hollowed trees, while the others were bull boats, made of buffalo hides
stretched on a frame. As before they revelled in the abundance of the
game. They marvelled at the incredible numbers of the buffalo whose
incessant bellowing at this season filled the air with one continuous
roar, which terrified their horses; they were astonished at the
abundance and tameness of the elk; they fought their old enemies the
grizzly bears; and they saw and noted many strange and wonderful beasts
and birds.
The Adventure of Lewis and the Indians.
To Lewis there befell other adventures. Once, while he was out with
three men, a party of eight Blackfoot warriors joined them and suddenly
made a treacherous attack upon them and strove to carry off their guns
and horses. But the wilderness veterans sprang to arms with a readiness
that had become second nature. One of them killed an Indian with a knife
thrust; Lewis himself shot another Indian, and the remaining six fled,
carrying with them one of Lewis' horses, but losing four of their own,
which the whites captured. This was the beginning of the long series of
bloody skirmishes between the Blackfeet and the Rocky Mountain explorers
and trappers. Clark, at about the same time, suffered at the hands of
the Crows, who stole a number of his horses.
He is Shot by one of his Own Party.
None of the party were hurt by the Indians, but some time after the
skirmish with the Blackfeet Lewis was accidentally shot by one of the
Frenchmen of the party and suffered much from the wound. Near the mouth
of the Yellowstone Clark joined him, and the reunited company floated
down the Missouri. Before they reached the Mandan villages they
encountered two white men, the first strangers of their own color the
party had seen for a year and a half. These were two American hunters
named Dickson and Hancock, who were going up to trap the head-waters of
the Missouri on their own account. They had come from the Illinois
country a year before, to hunt and trap; they had been plundered, and
one of them wounded, in an encounter with the fierce Sioux, but were
undauntedly pushing forwards into the unknown wilderness towards the
mountains.
They Meet Two Hunters.
These two hardy and daring adventurers formed the little vanguard of the
bands of hunters and trappers, the famous Rocky Mountain men, who were
to roam hither and hither across great West in lawless freedom for the
next three quarters of a century. They accompanied the party back to the
Mandan village; there one of the soldiers joined them, a man name
Colter, so fascinated by the life of the wilderness that he was not
willing to leave it, even for a moment's glimpse of the civilization,
from which he had been so long exiled. [Footnote: For Colter, and the
first explorers of this region, see "The Yellowstone National Park," by
Captain H. M. Chittenden.] The three turned their canoe up-stream, while
Lewis and Clark and the rest of the party drifted down past the Sioux.
They Return to St. Louis.
The further voyage of the explorers was uneventful. They had
difficulties with the Sioux of course, but they held them at bay. They
killed game in abundance, and went down-stream as fast as sails, oars,
and current could carry them. In September they reached St. Louis and
forwarded to Jefferson an account of what they had done.
After-Careers of Lewis and Clark.
They had done a great deed, for they had opened the door into the heart
of the far West. Close on their tracks followed the hunters, trappers,
and fur traders who themselves made ready the way for the settlers whose
descendants were to possess the land. As for the two leaders of the
explorers, Lewis was made Governor of Louisiana Territory, and a couple
of years afterwards died, as was supposed, by his own hand, in a squalid
log cabin on the Chickasaw trace--though it was never certain that he
had not been murdered. Clark was afterwards Governor of the territory,
when its name had been changed to Missouri, and he also served honorably
as Indian agent. But neither of them did anything further of note; nor
indeed was it necessary, for they had performed a feat which will always
give them a place on the honor roll of American worthies.
Pike and his Explorations.
While Lewis and Clark were descending the Columbia and recrossing the
continent from the Pacific coast, another army officer was conducting
explorations which were only less important than theirs. This was Lieut.
Zebulon Montgomery Pike. He was not by birth a Westerner, being from New
Jersey, the son of an officer of the Revolutionary army; but his name
will always be indelibly associated with the West. His two voyages of
exploration, one to the head-waters of the Mississippi, the other to the
springs of the Arkansas and the Rio Grande, were ordered by Wilkinson,
without authority from Congress. When Wilkinson's name was smirched by
Burr's conspiracy the Lieutenant likewise fell under suspicion, for it
was believed that his south-western trip was undertaken in pursuance of
some of Wilkinson's schemes. Unquestionably this trip was intended by
Pike to throw light on the exact nature of the Spanish boundary claims.
In all probability he also intended to try to find out all he could of
the military and civil situation in the northern provinces of Mexico.
Such information could be gathered but for one purpose; and it seems
probable that Wilkinson had hinted to him that part of his plan which
included an assault of some kind or other on Spanish rule in Mexico; but
Pike was an ardent patriot, and there is not the slightest ground for
any belief that Wilkinson dared to hint to him his own disloyalty to the
Union.
He Ascends the Mississippi.
In August, 1805, Pike turned his face towards the head-waters of the
Mississippi, his purpose being both to explore the sources of that
river, and to show to the Indians, and to the British fur traders among
them, that the United States was sovereign over the country in fact as
well as in theory. He started in a large keel boat, with twenty soldiers
of the regular army. The voyage up-stream was uneventful. The party
lived largely on game they shot, Pike himself doing rather more hunting
than anyone else and evidently taking much pride in his exploits; though
in his journal he modestly disclaimed any pretensions to special skill.
Unlike the later explorers, but like Lewis and Clark, Pike could not
avail himself of the services of hunters having knowledge of the
country. He and his regulars were forced to be their own pioneers and to
do their own hunting, until, by dint of hard knocks and hard work, they
grew experts, both as riflemen and as woodsmen.
Encounters with Indians.
The expedition occasionally encountered parties of Indians. The savages
were nominally at peace with the whites, and although even at this time
they occasionally murdered some solitary trapper or trader, they did not
dare meddle with Pike's well armed and well prepared soldiers, confining
themselves to provocation that just fell short of causing conflict. Pike
handled them well, and speedily brought those with whom he came into
contact to a proper frame of mind, showing good temper and at the same
time prompt vigor in putting down any attempt at bullying. On the
journey up stream only one misadventure befell the party. A couple of
the men got lost while hunting and did not find the boat for six days,
by which time they were nearly starved, having used up all their
ammunition, so that they could not shoot game.
Winters on the Headwaters of the Mississippi.
The winter was spent in what is now Minnesota. Pike made a permanent
camp where he kept most of his men, while he himself travelled hither
and thither, using dog sleds after the snow fell. They lived almost
purely on game, and Pike, after the first enthusiasm of the sport had
palled a little, commented on the hard slavery of a hunter's life and
its vicissitudes; for on one day he might kill enough meat to last the
whole party for a week and when that was exhausted they might go three
or four days without anything at all. [Footnote: Pike's Journal, entry
of November 16, 1805.] Deer and bear were the common game, though they
saw both buffalo and elk, and killed several of the latter. Pike found
his small-bore rifle too light for the chase of the buffalo.
Council with the Sioux.
At the beautiful falls of St. Anthony, Pike held a council with the
Sioux, and got them to make a grant of about a hundred thousand acres in
the neighborhood of the falls; and he tried vainly to make peace between
the Sioux and the Chippewas. In his search for the source of the
Mississippi he penetrated deep into the lovely lake-dotted region of
forests and prairies which surrounds the head-waters of the river. He
did not reach Lake Itasca; but he did explore the Leech Lake drainage
system, which he mistook for the true source.
Hoists the American Flag.
At the British trading-posts, strong log structures fitted to repel
Indian attacks, Pike was well received. Where he found the British flag
flying he had it hauled down and the American flag hoisted in its place,
making both the Indians and the traders understand that the authority of
the United States was supreme in the land. In the spring he floated down
stream and reached St. Louis on the last day of April, 1806.
Returns to St. Louis and Starts Westward.
In July he was again sent out, this time on a far more dangerous and
important trip. He was to march west to the Rocky Mountains, and explore
the country towards the head of the Rio Grande, where the boundary line
between Mexico and Louisiana was very vaguely determined. His party
numbered twenty-three all told, including Lieutenant J. B. Wilkinson, a
son of the general, and a Dr. J. H. Robinson, whose special business it
was to find out everything possible about the Spanish provinces, or, in
plain English, to act as a spy. The party was also accompanied by fifty
Osage Indians, chiefly women and children who had been captured by the
Potowatomies, and whose release and return to their homes had been
brought about by the efforts of the United States Government. The
presence of these redeemed captives of course kept the Osages in good
humor with Pike's party.
Pike Journeys to the Osage and Pawnee Villages.
The party started in boats, and ascended the Osage River as far as it
was navigable. They then procured horses and travelled to the great
Pawnee village known as the Pawnee Republic, which gave its name to the
Republican River. Before reaching the Pawnee village they found that a
Spanish military expedition, several hundred strong, under an able
commander named Malgares, had anticipated them, by travelling through
the debatable land, and seeking to impress upon the Indians that the
power of the Spanish nation was still supreme. Malgares had travelled
from New Mexico across the Arkansas into the Pawnee country; during much
of his subsequent route Pike followed the Spaniard's trail. The Pawnees
had received from Malgares Spanish flags, as tokens of Spanish
sovereignty. Doubtless the ceremony meant little or nothing to them; and
Pike had small difficulty in getting the chiefs and warriors of the
village to hoist the American flag instead. But they showed a very
decided disinclination to let him continue his journey westward.
However, he would not be denied. Though with perfect good temper, he
gave them to understand that he would use force if they ventured to bar
his passage; and they finally let him go by. Later he had a somewhat
similar experience with a large Pawnee war party.
The Swarms of Game.
The explorers had now left behind them the fertile, tree-clad country,
and had entered on the great plains, across which they journeyed to the
Arkansas, and then up that river. Like Lewis and Clark, Pike found the
country literally swarming with game; for all the great plains region,
from the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande, formed at this time one of the
finest hunting grounds to be found in the whole world. At one place just
on the border of the plains Pike mentions that he saw from a hill
buffalo, elk, antelope, deer, and panther, all in sight at the same
moment. When he reached the plains proper the three characteristic
animals were the elk, antelope, and, above all, the buffalo.
The Bison.
The myriads of huge shaggy-maned bison formed the chief feature in this
desolate land; no other wild animal of the same size, in any part of the
world, then existed in such incredible numbers. All the early travellers
seem to have been almost equally impressed by the interminable seas of
grass, the strange, shifting, treacherous plains rivers, and the
swarming multitudes of this great wild ox of the West. Under the blue
sky the yellow prairie spread out in endless expanse; across it the
horseman might steer for days and weeks through a landscape almost as
unbroken as the ocean. It was a region of light rainfall; the rivers ran
in great curves through beds of quicksand, which usually contained only
trickling pools of water, but in times of freshet would in a moment fill
from bank to bank with boiling muddy torrents. Hither and thither across
these plains led the deep buffalo-trails, worn by the hoofs of the herds
that had passed and re-passed through countless ages. For hundreds of
miles a traveller might never be out of sight of buffalo. At noon they
lay about in little groups all over the prairie, the yellow calves
clumsily frisking beside their mothers, while on the slight mounds the
great bulls moaned and muttered and pawed the dust. Towards nightfall
the herds filed down in endless lines to drink at the river, walking at
a quick, shuffling pace, with heads held low and beards almost sweeping
the ground. When Pike reached the country the herds were going south
from the Platte towards their wintering grounds below the Arkansas. At
first he passed through nothing but droves of bulls. It was not until he
was well towards the mountains that he came upon great herds of cows.
Other Game.
The prairie was dotted over with innumerable antelope. These have always
been beasts of the open country; but the elk, once so plentiful in the
great eastern forests, and even now plentiful in parts of the Rockies,
then also abounded on the plains, where there was not a tree of any
kind, save the few twisted and wind-beaten cottonwoods that here and
there, in sheltered places fringed the banks of the rivers.
Indians Hunting.
Lewis and Clark had seen the Mandan horsemen surround the buffalo herds
and kill the great clumsy beasts with their arrows. Pike records with
the utmost interest how he saw a band of Pawnees in similar fashion
slaughter a great gang of elk, and he dwells with admiration on the
training of the horses, the wonderful horsemanship of the naked
warriors, and their skill in the use of bow and spear. It was a wild
hunting scene, such as belonged properly to times primeval. But indeed
the whole life of these wild red nomads, the plumed and painted
horse-Indians of the great plains, belonged to time primeval. It was at
once terrible and picturesque, and yet mean in its squalor and laziness.
From the Blackfeet in the north to the Comanches in the south they were
all alike; grim lords of war and the chase; warriors, hunters, gamblers,
idlers; fearless, ferocious, treacherous, inconceivably cruel;
revengeful and fickle; foul and unclean in life and thought; disdaining
work, but capable at times of undergoing unheard-of toil and hardship,
and of braving every danger; doomed to live with ever before their eyes
death in the form of famine or frost, battle or torture, and schooled to
meet it, in whatever shape it came, with fierce and mutterless
fortitude. [Footnote: Fortunately these horse-Indians, and the game they
chiefly hunted, have found a fit historian. In his books, especially
upon the Pawnees and Blackfeet, Mr. George Bird Grinnell has portrayed
them with a master hand; it is hard to see how his work can be
bettered.]
Wilkinson Descends the Arkansas.
When the party reached the Arkansas late in October Wilkinson and three
or four men journied down it and returned to the settled country.
Wilkinson left on record his delight when he at last escaped from the
bleak windswept plains and again reached the land where deer supplanted
the buffalo and antelope and where the cottonwood was no longer the only
tree.
Pike Reaches Pike's Peak.
The others struck westward into the mountains, and late in November
reached the neighborhood of the bold peak which was later named after
Pike himself. Winter set in with severity soon after they penetrated the
mountains. They were poorly clad to resist the bitter weather, and they
endured frightful hardships while endeavoring to thread the tangle of
high cliffs and sheer canyons. Moreover, as winter set in, the blacktail
deer, upon which the party had begun to rely for meat, migrated to the
wintering grounds, and the explorers suffered even more from hunger than
from cold. They had nothing to eat but the game, not even salt.
Sufferings from Cold and Hunger.
The travelling through the deep snow, whether exploring or hunting, was
heart-breaking work. The horses suffered most; the extreme toil, and
scant pasturage weakened them so that some died from exhaustion; others
fell over precipices and the magpies proved evil foes, picking the sore
backs of the wincing, saddle-galled beasts. In striving to find some
pass for the horses the whole party was more than once strung out in
detachments miles apart, through the mountains. Early in January, near
the site of the present Canyon City, Pike found a valley where deer were
plentiful. Here he built a fort of logs, and left the saddle-band and
pack-animals in charge of two of the members of the expedition;
intending to send back for them when he had discovered some practicable
route.
He Strikes Across the Mountains on Foot.
He himself, with a dozen of the hardiest soldiers, struck through the
mountains towards the Rio Grande. Their sufferings were terrible. They
were almost starved, and so cold was the weather that at one time no
less than nine of the men froze their feet. Pike and Robinson proved on
the whole the hardiest, being kept up by their indomitable will, though
Pike mentions with gratification that but once, in all their trials, did
a single member of the party so much as grumble.
The Party almost Perishes from Starvation.
Pike and Robinson were also the best hunters; and it was their skill and
stout-heartedness, shown in the time of direst need, that saved the
whole party from death. In the Wet Mountain valley, which they reached
mid-January, 1807, at the time that nine of the men froze their feet,
starvation stared them in the face. There had been a heavy snowstorm; no
game was to be seen; and they had been two days without food. The men
with frozen feet, exhausted by hunger, could no longer travel. Two of
the soldiers went out to hunt, but got nothing. At the same time, Pike
and Robinson started, determined not to return at all unless they could
bring back meat. Pike wrote that they had resolved to stay out and die
by themselves, rather than to go back to camp "and behold the misery of
our poor lads." All day they tramped wearily through the heavy snow.
Towards evening they came on a buffalo, and wounded it; but faint and
weak from hunger, they shot badly, and the buffalo escaped; a
disappointment literally as bitter as death. That night they sat up
among some rocks, all night long, unable to sleep because of the intense
cold, shivering in their thin rags; they had not eaten for three days.
But they were men of indomitable spirit, and next day trudging painfully
on, they at last succeeded, after another heart-breaking failure, in
killing a buffalo. At midnight they staggered into camp with the meat,
and all the party broke their four days' fast. Two men lost their feet
through frost-bite, and had to be left in this camp, with all the food.
Only the fact that a small band of buffalo was wintering in the valley
had saved the whole expedition from death by starvation.
Pike Reaches the Rio Grande.
After leaving this valley Pike and the remaining men of the expedition
finally reached the Rio Grande, where the weather was milder and deer
abounded. Here they built a little fort over which they flew the United
States flag, though Pike well knew that he was in Spanish territory.
When the Spanish commander at Santa Fé learned of their presence he
promptly sent out a detachment of troops to bring them in, though
showing great courtesy, and elaborately pretending to believe that Pike
had merely lost his way.
Pike is Sent Home by the Spaniards.
From Santa Fé Pike was sent home by a roundabout route through
Chihuahua, and through Texas, where he noted the vast droves of wild
horses, and the herds of peccaries. He was much impressed by the strange
mixture of new world savagery and old world feudalism in the provinces
through which he passed. A nobility and a priesthood which survived
unchanged from the middle ages held sway over serfs and made war upon
savages. The Apache and Comanche raided on the outlying settlements; the
mixed bloods, and the "tame" Indians on the great ranches and in the
hamlets were in a state of peonage; in the little walled towns, the
Spanish commanders lived in half civilized, half barbaric luxury, and
shared with the priests absolute rule over the people roundabout. The
American lieutenant, used to the simplicity of his own service, was
struck by the extravagance and luxury of the Spanish officers, who
always travelled with sumpter mules laden with delicacies; and he was no
less struck with the laxity of discipline in all ranks. The Spanish
cavalry were armed with lances and shields; the militia carried not only
old fashioned carbines but lassos and bows and arrows. There was small
wonder that the Spanish authorities, civil, military, and ecclesiastical
alike, should wish to keep intruders out of the land, and should
jealously guard the secret of their own weakness.
His Subsequent Career.
When Pike reached home he found himself in disfavor, as was everyone who
was suspected of having any intimate relations with Wilkinson. However,
he soon cleared himself, and continued to serve in the army. He rose to
be a brigadier-general and died gloriously in the hour of triumph, when
in command of the American force which defeated the British and captured
York.
Lewis, Clark, and Pike had been the pioneers in the exploration of the
far West. The wandering trappers and traders were quick to follow in
their tracks, and to roam hither and thither exploring on their own
accord. In 1807 one of these restless adventurers reached Yellowstone
Lake, and another Lake Itasca; and their little trading stations were
built far up the Missouri and the Platte.
The West Gradually Fills with Population.
While these first rough explorations of the far West were taking place,
the old West was steadily filling with population and becoming more and
more a coherent portion of the Union. In the treaties made from time to
time with the Northwestern Indians, they ceded so much land that at last
the entire northern bank of the Ohio was in the hands of the settlers.
But the Indians still held Northwestern Ohio and the northern portions
of what are now Indiana and Illinois, so that the settlement at Detroit
was quite isolated; as were the few little stockades, or groups of
fur-traders' huts, in what are now northern Illinois and Wisconsin. The
Southern Indians also surrendered much territory, in various treaties.
Georgia got control of much of the Indian land within her State limits.
All the country between Knoxville and Nashville became part of
Tennessee, so that the eastern and middle portions of the State were no
longer sundered by a jutting fragment of wilderness, infested by Indian
war parties whenever there were hostilities with the savages. The only
Indian lands in Tennessee or Kentucky were those held by the Chickasaws,
between the Tennessee and the Mississippi; and the Chickasaws were
friendly to the Americans.
Power of the West.
Year by year the West grew better able to defend itself if attacked, and
more formidable in the event of its being necessary to undertake
offensive warfare. Kentucky and Tennessee had become populous States, no
longer fearing Indian inroads; but able on the contrary to equip
powerful armies for the aid of the settlers in the more scantily peopled
regions north and south of them. Ohio was also growing steadily; and in
the territory of Indiana, including what is now Illinois, and the
territory of Mississippi, including what is now northern Alabama, there
were already many settlers.
Dangers Threatening the West.
Nevertheless the shadow of desperate war hung over the West. Neither the
northern nor the southern Indians were yet subdued; sullen and angry
they watched the growth of the whites, alert to seize a favorable moment
to make one last appeal to arms before surrendering their hunting
grounds. Moreover in New Orleans and Detroit the Westerners possessed
two outposts which it would be difficult to retain in the event of war
with England, the only European nation that had power seriously to
injure them. These two outposts were sundered from the rest of the
settled Western territory by vast regions tenanted only by warlike
Indian tribes. Detroit was most in danger from the Indians, the British
being powerless against it unless in alliance with the formidable tribes
that had so long battled against American supremacy. Their superb navy
gave the British the power to attack New Orleans at will. The Westerners
could rally to the aid of New Orleans much more easily than to the aid
of Detroit; for the Mississippi offered a sure channel of communication,
and New Orleans, unlike Detroit, possessed some capacity for
self-defence; whereas the difficulties of transit through the
Indian-haunted wilderness south of the Great Lakes were certain to cause
endless dangers and delays if it became necessary for the Westerners
either to reinforce or to recapture the little city which commanded the
straits between Huron and Erie.
During the dozen years which opened with Wayne's campaigns, saw the
treaties of Jay and Pinckney, and closed with the explorations of Lewis,
Clarke, and Pike, the West had grown with the growth of a giant, and for
the first time had achieved peace; but it was not yet safe from danger
of outside attack. The territories which had been won by war from the
Indians and by treaty from Spain, France, and England, and which had
been partially explored, were not yet entirely our own. Much had been
accomplished by the deeds of the Indian-fighters, treaty-makers, and
wilderness-wanderers; far more had been accomplished by the steady push
of the settler folk themselves, as they thrust ever westward, and carved
states out of the forest and the prairie; but much yet remained to be
done before the West would reach its natural limits, would free itself
forever from the pressure of outside foes, and would fill from frontier
to frontier with populous commonwealths of its own citizens.
THE END OF VOL. IV.
APPENDIX
It is a pleasure to be able to say that the valuable Robertson
manuscripts are now in course of publication, under the direction of a
most competent editor in the person of Mr. W. R. Garrett, Ph.D. They are
appearing in the _American Historical Magazine_, at Nashville,
Tennessee; the first instalment appeared in January, and the second in
April, 1896. The _Magazine_ is doing excellent work, exactly where this
work is needed; and it could not render a better service to the study of
American history than by printing these Robertson papers.
After the present volume was in press Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, of
Harvard, most kindly called my attention to the Knox Papers, in the
archives of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, of
Boston. These papers are of great interest. They are preserved in a
number of big volumes. I was able to make only a most cursory
examination of them; but Mr. Villard with great kindness went carefully
through them, and sent me copies of those which I deemed important.
There are a number of papers referring to matters connected with the
campaigns against the western Indians. The most interesting and valuable
is a long letter from Col. Darke giving a very vivid picture of St.
Clair's defeat, and of the rout which followed. While it can hardly be
said to cast any new light on the defeat, it describes it in a very
striking manner, and brings out well the gallantry of the officers and
the inferior quality of the rank and file; and it gives a very
unpleasant picture of St. Clair and Hamtranck.
Besides the Darke letter there are several other manuscripts containing
information of value. In Volume XXIII., page 169, there is a letter from
Knox to General Harmar, dated New York, September 3, 1790. After much
preliminary apology, Knox states that it "has been reported, and under
circumstances which appear to have gained pretty extensive credit on the
frontiers, that you are too apt to indulge yourself to excess in a
convivial glass"; and he then points out the inevitable ruin that such
indulgence will bring to the General.
A letter from St. Clair to Knox, dated Lexington, September 4, 1791,
runs in part: "Desertion and sickness have thinned our ranks. Still, if
I can only get them into action before the time of the levies expires, I
think my force sufficient, though that opinion is founded on the
calculation of the probable number that is opposed to us, having no
manner of information as to the force collected to oppose us." On the
15th he writes from Ft. Washington about the coming expiration of
enlistments and says: "I am very sensible how hazardous it is to
approach, under such circumstances, and my only expectation is that the
men will find themselves so far engaged that it will be obviously better
to go forward than to return, at the same time it precludes the
establishment of another post of communication however necessary, but
that indeed is precluded also from our decreasing numbers, and the very
little dependence that is to be placed upon the militia."
Col. Winthrop Sargent writes to General Knox from Ft. Washington, on
January 2, 1792. He states that there were fourteen hundred Indians
opposed to St. Clair in the battle, and repeats a rumor that six hundred
Indians from the Lakes quarrelled with the Miamis over the plunder, and
went home without sharing any part, warning their allies that thereafter
they should fight their battles alone. Sargent dwells upon the need of
spies, and the service these spies would have rendered St. Clair. A few
days afterwards he writes in reference to a rumor that his own office is
to be dispensed with, protesting that this would be an outrage, and that
he has always discharged his duties well, having entered the service
simply from a desire to be of use to his country. He explains that the
money he receives would hardly do more than equip him, and that he only
went into the army because he valued reputation and honor more than
fortune.
The letters of the early part of 1792 show that the survivors of St.
Glair's army were torn by jealousy, and that during the winter following
his defeat there was much bitter wrangling among the various officers.
Wilkinson frequently wrote to Knox giving his estimate of the various
officers, and evidently Knox thought very well of him. Wilkinson spoke
well of Sargent; but most of the other officers, whom he mentions at
all, he mentions with some disfavor, and he tells at great length of the
squabbles among them, his narrative being diversified at times by an
account of some other incident such as "a most lawless outrage" by "a
party of the soldiery on the person of a civil magistrate in the village
of Cincinnati." Knox gives his views as to promotions in a letter to
Washington, which shows that he evidently felt a good deal of difficulty
in getting men whom he deemed fit for high command, or even for the
command of a regiment.
One of the worst quarrels was that of the Quartermaster, Hodgdon, first
with Major Zeigler and then with Captain Ford. The Major resigned, and
the captain publicly insulted the Quartermaster and threated to
horsewhip him.
In one letter Caleb Swan, on March 11, 1792, advises Wilkinson that he
had been to Kentucky and had paid off the Kentucky militia who had
served under St. Clair. Wilkinson in a letter of March 13th, expresses
the utmost anxiety for the retention of St. Clair in command. Among the
numerous men whom Wilkinson had complained of was Harmar, who, he said,
was not only addicted to drink, but was also a bad disciplinarian. He
condemned the quartermaster also, although less severely than most of
the other officers.
Darke's letter is worth quoting in full. Its spelling and punctuation
are extraordinary; and some of the words can not be deciphered.
Letter from Col. Darke to George Washington, president of the U. S.,
dated at Fort Washington, Nineth of Novr. 1791,
(_Knox_ Papers, Vol. xxx., p. 12.)
I take the liberty to Communicate to your Excellency the disagreeable
News of our defeat.
We left fort Washington the Begining of Septr a Jornel of our march to
the place of action and the whole proseeding on our march I hoped to
have had the honour to inclose to you but that and all other papers
cloathing & &c., was Taken by the Indians. this Jornel I know would have
gave you pain but thought it not amis to Give you a State of facts and
Give you every Information in my power and had it Ready to Send to you
the Very Morning we were actacked.
We advanced 24 miles from fort Washington and bult a Small fort which we
I thought were long about from thence we advanced along the banks of the
Meamme River where the fort was arected 44-1/2 Miles on a Streight Line
by the Compass west 1/4 north though farther the way the Road went and
bult another fort which we Left on the 23 October and from that time to
the 3d Novr Got 31 Miles where we incamped in two Lines about 60 yards
apart the Right whing in frunt Commanded by General Butler, the Left in
the Rear which I commanded, our piccquets Decovered Some Sculking
Indians about Camp in the Night and fired on them. Those we expected
were horsstealers as they had Taken Many of our horses near fort
Washington, and on the way and killed a few of our Men.
As Soon as it was Light in the Morning of the 4th Novr the advanced
Guards of the Meletia fired the Meletia Being in-camped a Small distance
in frunt a Scattering fire Soon Commenced The Troops were instandly
formed to Reserve them and the pannack Struck Meletia Soon broke in to
the Center of our incampment in a few Munites our Guards were drove in
and our whole Camp Surrounded by Savages advencing up nere to our Lines
and Made from behind trees Logs &c., Grate Havoke with our Men I for
Some time having no orders [indevanced?] to pervent the Soldiers from
braking and Stil finding the enemy Growing More bold and Coming to the
very Mouths of our Cannon and all the brave artilery officers Killed I
ordered the Left whing to Charge which with the assistance of the
Gallent officers that were then Left I with deficuaty prevailed on them
to do, the Second U S Regt was then the Least disabled the Charge begat
with them on the Left of the Left whing I placed a Small Company of
Rifelmen on that flank on the Bank of a Small Crick and persued the
enemy about four hundred yards who Ran off in all directions but this
time the Left flank of the Right whing Gave way and Number of the
Indians Got into our Camp and Got possession of the Artilery and Scalped
I Sopose a hundred men or more I turned back and beat them quite off the
Ground and Got posesion of the Cannon and had it been possible to Get
the troops to form and push them we Should then have Soon beat them of
the Ground but those that Came from the Lelf whing Run in a huddle with
those of the Right the enemys fire being allmost over for Many Munites
and all exertions Made by many of the brave officer to Get them in Some
order to persue Victory was all in Vain. they would not form in any
order in this Confution they Remained until the enemy finding they were
not pushed and I dare say Active officers with them and I beleive
Several of them white they Came on again, and the whole Army Ran
toGether Like a Mob at a fair and had it not been for the Gratest
Exertions of the officers would have stood there til all killed the Genl
then Sent to me if possible to Get them off that Spot by Making a Charge
I found my Endevours fruitless for Some time but at Length Got Several
Soldiers together that I had observed behaving brave and Incoraged them
to lead off which they did with charged bayonetts Success the whole
followed with Grate Rapidity I then endevoured to halt the frunt to Get
them in Some order to turn and fire a few Shots but the horse I Rode
being Good for little and I wounded in the thigh Early in the Action and
having fatigued my Self much was So Stif I could make a poor hand of
Running. the Confution in the Retreat is beyound description the Men
throughing away their arms not withstanding all the indevour of the few
Remaining Brave officers I think we must have Lost 1000 Stand of arms
Meletia included. It is impossible to Give any Good account of the Loss
of men at this time but from the Loss of officers you may Give Some Gess
a list of their Names you have In Closed the Brave and Much to be
Lemented G. B. at their Head I have Likewise in Closed you a Small Rough
Scetch of the feald of battle. I at this time am Scarcely able to write
being worn out with fatigue Not having Slept 6 hours Since the defeat.
This fatigue has bean occationed by the Cowardly behaviour of Major John
F. Hamtramck, and I am Sorry to say Not the Same exertions of the
Govenor that I expected. Hamtramck was about Twenty four Miles in our
Rear with the first U S Regiment Consisting of upwards of 300 effective
men and on hearing of our defeat insted of Coming on as his orders was I
believe to follow us Retreated back 7 miles to fort Jefferson we knowing
of his being on his march after us and was in hopes of Grate Releif from
him in Covering the Retreat of perhaps upwards of 200 or 300 wounded men
Many of whom might easily bean Saved with that fresh Regiment with whom
I should not have bean arraid to have passed the whole Indian army if
they had persued as the would have bean worn down with the Chace and in
Grate Disorder when we Got to the fort 31 miles in about 9 hours no one
having eat any from the day before the action we found the Garison
without more than than one days bred and no meat having bean on half
alowence two days there was a Council Called to which I aftar I beleive
they had agreed what was to be done was called it was Concluded to march
of & Recommence the Retreat at 10 oclock which was begun I think an hour
before that time more than 300 wounded and Tired in our Rear the Govenor
assured me that he expected provition on every hour I at first Concluded
to stay with my Son who was very dangerously and I expected Mortaly
wounded but after Geting Several officers dressed and as well provided
for as possible and Seing the Influance Hamtramck had with the Genl
about twelve oclock I got a horse and followed the army as I thought
from apearences that Major Hamtramck had Influance anough to pervent the
Garison from being Supplied with the provition Coming on by Keeping the
first Regt as a guard for himself I Rode alone about ten Miles from
twelve oclock at night until I overtook the Regiment and the Genl I
still kept on until I met the pack horses about daylight Much alarmed at
having heard Something of the defeat, the Horse master Could Not prevail
on the drivers to Go on with him until I assured then I would Go back
with them Lame as I was I ordered the horses to be loaded immediately
and I Returned as fast as I could to hault the first Regiment as a
guard, and when I met them told them to halt and make fires to Cook
immediately as I made Sure they would be sent back with the provitions,
but when I met the Govenor and Major Hamtramck I pervailed with Genl St.
Clair to order 60 men back only which was all I could possibly get and
had the bulock drivers known that was all the guard they were to have
they would not have gone on nuther would the horse drivers I believe in
Sted of the 120 hors loads Got on all the Rest went back with the army
and though the Men had bean So Long Sterving and we then 47 miles from
the place of action I could not pervail on them the Genl and his fammily
or [advisers?] to halt for the sterved worn down Soldiers to Cook, nor
did they I believe even Kill a bullock for their Releaf I went back to
fort Jefferson that Night with the flour beaves &c. where they was No
kind of provision but a Miserable Poor old horse and many Valuable
officers wound there and perhaps 200 soldiers it was Night when I Got
back I Slept not one moment that Night my son and other officers being
in Such Distress. the next day I was busy all day--Getting--made to
Carry of the wounded officers there being no Medison there Nor any
Nurishment not even a quart of Salt but they were not able to bare the
Motion of the horses. That Night I Set off for this place and Rode til
about 12 oclock by which time my thigh was amassingly Sweld Near as
large as my body and So hot that I could feel the warmth with my hand 2
foot off of it I could Sleep none and have Slept very Little Since the
wounds begin to Separate and are much esier I am aprehensive that fort
Jeferson is now beseiged by the indians as Certain Information has bean
Received that a large body were on Sunday night within fifteen miles of
it Coming on the Road we Marched out and I am Sorey to Se no exertions
to Releive it I Cannot tel whether they have the Cannon they took from
us or Not if they have not, they Cannot take it Nor I don't think they
Can with for want of Ball which they have No Grate Number of. They took
from us eight pieces of ordenence 130 bullocks, about 300 horses upwards
of 200 Tents and a Considerable quantity of flour amunition and all the
officers and Soldiers Cloathing and bagage except what they had on I
believe they gave quarters to none as most of the Women were Killed
before we left the Ground I think the Slaughter far Grater than Bradocks
there being 33 brave officers Killd Dead on the Ground 27 wounded that
we know of and Some Mising exclusive of the Meletia and I know their
Cole, and two Captains were Killed I do not think our Loss so Grate as
to Strike the Surviving officers with Ideas of despair as it Seems to.
the Chief of the Men Killd are of the Levies and indeed many of them are
as well out of the world as in it as for the Gallent officers they are
much to be Lamented as the behaviour of allmost all of them would have
done honour to the first Veterans in the world. The few that escaped
without wounds it was Chiefly axedent that Saved them as it is
impossible to Say more in their praise than they deserve.
In the few horse officers though they had no horses Good for anything
Capt. Truman Lieut. Sedam Debuts Boins and Gleer behaved Like Soldiers.
Capt. Snowder is I think Not Calculated for the army and Suliven
Quartermaster and Commt is as Grate a poltoon as I ever saw in the
world. [Footnote: Written and lined as above.] Ensign Shambury of the
first United States Regiment is as brave Good and determined a Hero as
any in the work Lieutenent James Stephenson from Berkeley of the Levies
aded to one of the most unspoted and Respectable Carectors in the world
in private Life as Good an officer as ever drew breth, his Gallent
behavior in Action drew the attention of every officer that was Near him
more than any other. There is one Bisel perhaps a volenteer in the
Second U S Regiment who Richly deserved preferment for his bravery
through the whole action he made the freeest use of the Baonet of any
Man I noticed in the Carcases of the Savages. John Hamelton I cant say
too much in praise of who was along with the army a packhorse master he
picked up the dead mens guns and used them freely when he found them
Loaded and when the Indians entered the Camp he took up an ax and at
them with it. I am Intirely at a loss to Give you any idea what General
St. Clair intends to do. I well know what I would do if I was in his
place and would venture to forfet my Life if the Indians have not moved
the Cannon farther than the Meamme Towns if I did not Retake them by
Going there in three days insted of two months I well know the have Lost
many of their braves & wariors and I make no doubt the have Near 100
wounded Their killed I cannot think Bare any perpotion to ours as they
Lay so Concealed but many I know were killd and those the most dareing
fellows which has weakened them Grately and I know we were able to beat
them and that a violent push with one hundred brave men when the Left
whing Returned from persuing them would have turned the Scale in our
favor indeed I think fifty would in the Scatered State they were in and
five or Six hundred Mounted Riflemen from Conetuck aded to the force we
have would Be as Sure of Suchsess as they went many have offer to Go
with me a number of officers ofer to Go as privates and I never was
Treated with So much Respect in any part of the world as I have bean
this day in this wilderness in the time I am offered My Choice of any
horse belonging to the town as I Lost all my own horses I shall Se the
General in the morning and perhaps be no more Satisfied than I am now.
Though I have Spoke of all the officers with that Respect they Richly
deserve I Cannot in Justice to Capt. Hannah help mentioning him as when
all his men were killed wounded and Scatered except four Got a ( ?) that
belonged to Capt. Darkes Company when the Cannon was Retaken the
Artilery men being all killed and Lying in heaps about the Peases who he
Draged away and Stood to the Cannon himSelf til the Retreat and then
within a few yards of the enemy Spiked the Gun with his Baonet Capt.
Brack (?) and all the Captains of the Maryland Line I cannot Say too
much in their praise. I have taken the Liberty of Writing So perticculer
to you as I think no one Can Give a better account nor do I think you
will Get an account from any that Saw So much of the action Genl. St.
Clair not Being able to Run about as I was if his inclination had been
as Grate I hope in the Course of the winter to have the pleasure of
Seeing you when I may have it in my power to answer any questions you
are pleased to ask Concerning the unfortunate Campain. I
Have the Honour to be
your Excellencys most obt.
and most humble servent
WM. DARKE
10 Novr. I have prevailed on the Good Genl. to send a Strong party To
Carry Supplies to fort Jeferson which I hope will be able to Releve it
and as I have polticed wound and the Swelling much Asswaged if I find
myself able to Set on hors back will Go with the party as I Can be very
warm by Laping myself with blankets
WM. DARKE
His Excellency
The President of the United States.
INDEX.
Adair, John,
skirmish with Indians,
relations with Burr,
arrested by Wilkinson.
Americans
reluctant to war against Indians;
culpably lax in defence of their honor.
Augusta, treaty at.
Backwoods folk, their deeds;
their pressure on the Spanish dominions;
they were the real factors in acquiring Louisiana.
Barbé Marbois, sound advice to Napoleon.
Beard, John, militia captain;
kills Cherokees.
Bishop of Louisiana, hatred of Americans and Protestants.
Blennerhassett.
Bloody Fellow, Indian chief.
Blount College.
Blount, William,
made governor of Southwestern Territory;
organized it;
his tact and ability;
his loyalty;
treats with Cherokees;
helps cause of education;
land speculations;
good faith towards Indians;
Superintendent of Indian Affairs;
tries to restrain militia;
and avert a general war;
deceived by the Cherokees;
deceived by Chickamaugas;
puts down horse thieves;
prevents outrages on Indians;
controversy with Seagrove;
efforts to avert war;
successfully directs the war;
desires a national war;
elected Senator;
excellent conduct in stopping filibustering;
disapproves Jay's treaty;
his extraordinary land-grabbing scheme;
expelled from Senate;
his handsome house.
Bonham, killed at St. Clair's defeat.
Books in the backwoods.
Boone
in Missouri;
his restlessness;
meets English traveller;
becomes a Spanish official;
in Missouri.
Bowles, tory adventurer among Creeks.
Brady, attacks Indians.
Brant, the Iroquois chief,
kindness to prisoners;
advises war against Americans;
pleased with Dorchester's speech;
anger with British.
Brickell, captivity of.
British,
support Indians;
hostile to Americans;
treachery of, on Northwestern frontier.
Brown, Senator from Kentucky,
aids Genet.
Buchanan's Station, attack on.
Burr, Aaron,
conspiracy of;
his former career;
his relations to the West;
his treasonable schemes;
he starts West;
vagueness of his schemes;
his intrigues with Wilkinson, Jackson, and various other Western
leaders;
his second trip West;
his plans foiled by the Kentucky Federalists;
crumbling of his plans;
his trial.
Butler, John, British colonel,
reads Dorchester's speech to the Indians.
Butler, Richard, General,
failings as a commander;
his courage;
his death.
Butler, Thomas, Major,
gallantry of, at St. Clair's defeat.
Caldwell, British partisan.
Campbell, Captain Mis,
killed at Fallen Timbers.
Campbell, Judge,
attacked by Indians;
charge to Grand Jury.
Camp-meetings.
Carondelet, Baron,
corresponds with Simcoe;
incites savages to war against Americans;
intrigues with Southern Indians;
frank treachery;
foolishness of;
intrigues with Westerners;
correspondence with Wayne;
failure of his negotiations with the Westerners;
declines to carry out treaty.
Cherokees,
(_See_ Indians.)
Chickamaugas,
very hostile;
treacherous;
make open war;
repulsed;
their towns destroyed.
Chickasaw Bluffs.
Chickasaws,
(_See_ Indians.)
Cincinnati raided.
Claiborne, Governor of Mississippi,
proposes attack on Louisiana;
Governor of Orleans;
his loyalty.
Clark, Elijah,
his establishment of a little freebooter state.
Clark, George Rogers,
wishes to acquire Spanish territory;
intrigues with French;
accepts a French commission;
organizes expedition;
collapse of expedition.
Clark, Major,
killed at St. Clair's defeat.
Clark, William,
serves under Wayne;
defeats Indians in skirmish;
at Fallen Timbers;
his ability respected by Spaniards;
starts across continent with Lewis;
their voyage up the Missouri;
their wonder at the strange animals;
their good qualities as explorers;
their attitude towards the Indians;
they halt at Mandan for the winter;
start west in the spring;
travel through vast hunting grounds;
cross the Rocky Mountains;
their return voyage;
adventures and accidents;
their return;
their after-fates.
Clay, Henry, and Burr.
Cocke, William, "the mulberry man".
Collins, envoy of De Lemos.
Colter.
Connecticut Reserve.
County, the unit of organization.
Creeks,
make treaties;
raid on Georgians;
bad faith of;
(_See_ Indians.)
Cumberland District,
ravaged by Indians;
the settlers retaliate;
rapid growth of.
Currency in the backwoods.
Darke, Colonel,
gallantry of, at St. Clair's defeat.
Daveiss, Joseph H.,
Burr's most formidable foe;
ingratitude, shown to, by Jefferson.
Defiance, Fort, built by Wayne.
Democratic societies, seditious conduct of.
Denny, St. Clair's aide,
at St. Clair's defeat;
carries the news to Washington.
Disunionists, folly and treachery of.
Doak, founds a college.
Dorchester, Lord,
his speech;
correspondence with land speculators.
Dunlop's Station, attack on.
Education, in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Elliott, British partisan.
Ellicott, Andrew, Surveyor-General at Natchez.
Explorers, of the Far West.
Fallen Timbers, battle of.
Federalist party, wrong in its attitude
towards West.
Filibusters at New Orleans.
Flat boatmen.
Folch, Spanish Governor.
Frontiersmen,
tend to retrograde;
importance of;
hatred of Indians;
some of them profit by Indian wars;
characteristics of;
fondness for a lonely life;
engage in river trade;
but fundamentally farmers;
build few and small towns;
capacity for self-help;
traits of those who became permanent settlers;
their political organization;
join together for common objects;
hardness of life;
existence in a log cabin;
Americans the pioneers;
failure of old-world immigrants on frontier;
pioneers suspicious of merchants;
sometimes repudiate debts;
viciousness of their military system;
their individualism in religious matters;
they strain against Spanish boundaries;
hated and feared by Spaniards;
their advantages over Spaniards.
Galphinton, treaty at.
Game, vast herds of, on the great plains.
Gayoso de Lemos,
sound advice to Carondelet;
builds fort at Chickasaw Bluffs;
negotiations with Wilkinson;
anxiety over murder of his envoy;
endeavors to check Protestantism among the settlers.
Genet, French Ambassador,
his preposterous career;
wishes to procure the conquest of Louisiana;
commissions Clark;
checked by Washington;
recalled.
Georgia,
makes her own treaties with Creeks;
lawlessness of her backwoodsmen;
they and the Indians commit brutal outrages on one another.
Girtys,
one of, with treacherous Delawares;
go with war parties of Indians;
Simon, at Fallen Timbers.
Glass, Indian Chief.
Godoy, Prince of Peace, makes treaty with Pinckney.
Greeneville, Fort and afterwards Town of,
founded by Wayne;
treaty of.
Gunn, Senator,
connection with Yazoo frauds.
Guyon, Isaac, Captain.
Hardin, Col. John, treacherously slain by Indians.
Harrison, W. H.
Hart, Thomas.
Hawkins, Benjamin, his advice to Blount.
Hearne, Arctic explorer.
Herrera, Spanish General.
Holston, treaty of, with Cherokees.
Horse-thieves, white allies of.
Indiana Territory.
Indians,
treachery of;
hostility of;
misjudged by Easterners;
Northwestern, hold great council at Miami Rapids;
band in open war against Americans;
victory over St. Clair;
serve British as a protection, and as police;
their ravages;
innumerable obscure conflicts with;
Creeks and Cherokees;
warfare with;
the chief fact in early Tennessee history;
typical character of these Tennessee wars;
treachery of the Southern Indians;
their peculiar warfare necessitates offensive returns;
the divided state of the Creeks and Cherokees only increases the
trouble of the settlers;
extraordinary names among;
Chickamaugas and Lower Cherokees as hostile as the Creeks;
mixed war party beaten back from Buchanan's Station;
outrages,
conflicts with militia,
Creeks and Georgians;
Indians and frontiersmen;
mutual outrages;
Chickasaws assail Creeks;
are helped by frontiersmen;
Creeks and Cherokees forced to make peace;
outrages cease;
Chickasaws and Spaniards;
their war with Creeks;
division among them;
play into the hands of Spaniards;
the Indians of the Far West.
Innes, Judge,
lukewarm towards Federal Government;
bad conduct of;
honorable attitude towards slavery;
assailed by Daveiss.
Irwin, Thomas, the packhorse-man.
Jackson, Andrew,
wars on criminals;
goes to Congress;
relations with Burr.
Jay, John,
wrath of Westerners at his treaty;
its good effects;
its effects on Pinckney's treaty.
Jefferson,
his intrigues against Washington;
secretly aids the French;
governmental inaptitude;
his timidity;
tries to buy Louisiana;
tries to impress Napoleon;
his vacillation;
abandons his former theories;
his ingratitude;
Louisiana thrust upon him;
his great services to science.
Jeffersonian Democracy,
folly of;
but the champion of the West.
Judicial officers, ride circuits.
Kenton, fight with Indians.
Kentucky,
anger over Jay's treaty;
statehood;
gentry of;
handsome houses of gentry;
they are lawyers, manufacturers;
but more than all, large landowners;
compared with Virginians;
habits of life.
_Kentucky Gazette_.
Knox, misunderstands Indian question.
Knoxville,
founded;
taverns at.
_Knoxville Gazette_,
Federalist and anti-Jacobin;
no sympathy with Genet;
pathetic advertisements in;
Indian outrages;
public address on wrongs of Tennesseeans.
La Chaise, French agent.
Lake Ports,
centres for fur trade and Indian intrigue;
British cling to;
taken possession of by Americans.
Land companies,
their connection with British and Spanish intrigues,
Land sales, unwise system of.
Lasselle, Antoine, the Canadian.
Laussat, French Prefect.
Lewis, Meriwether,
_See_ William Clark.
Little Otter, Indian chief,
his Wyandots and Ottowas defeat one of Wayne's detachments.
Little Turtle, Miami chief,
at St. Clair's defeat;
anecdote of.
Livingston, Robert R.
Logan, Benjamin,
offers to join Clark;
beaten for Governor of Kentucky.
Louisiana,
really won for the United States by the Western settlers themselves;
the diplomats really played a small part in acquiring it;
the Mississippi no barrier to the backwoodsmen;
they covet the mouth of the Mississippi;
for the moment New Orleans of more consequence than the
trans-Mississippi country;
fury of West when Louisiana was ceded to France by Spain;
fate of Louisiana inevitable;
cession finally made;
obtained purely because of growth of West;
brief French occupation;
apathy of Creoles;
discontent in, at change;
friction between Creoles and Americans;
made into Territory of Orleans;
composite character of the population
of New Orleans;
the Creoles and slavery;
New Orleans offers a field for Burr's arts.
Mackenzie, Canadian explorer.
Madison,
his frank Kentucky correspondent;
Secretary of State;
fear of West.
Mahaffy, a scout.
Malgares, Spanish Commander.
Mandan village.
Mansker, Kaspar, the Tennessee Indian fighter.
Marietta, settlements near, raided.
Marshall, Humphrey.
Massac, Wayne builds fort at.
May, a scout, death of.
McClellan, Robert, one of Wayne's scouts.
McGillivray,
duplicity of;
repudiated by Creeks;
loss of influence;
death of.
McKee, British Indian agent,
treats prisoners well;
holds council with Indians;
advises them;
incites them to war;
presides at war councils;
at Fallen Timbers;
taunts the British with their treachery.
Mero district, convention wishes to retaliate on Indians.
Michaux, French agent.
Miller, Christopher and William, Wayne's scouts.
Mississippi Territory.
Monroe.
Montgomery, the filibuster.
Morales, Spanish Intendant, takes away right of deposit.
Muscogee, _See_ Creek.
Napoleon,
his plans of empire;
gets Louisiana from Spaniards;
his utter moral depravity;
wishes to occupy Louisiana in force;
chimerical nature of his hopes;
designates Victor as commander;
his army destroyed in Hayti;
sells Louisiana;
recognizes the inevitable.
Natchez,
Americans and Spaniards at;
turmoil at;
importance of;
lawlessness at.
Nickajack, Chickamauga town, destroyed.
Nolan, Philip, his adventures and death.
North Carolina, cedes her western territory to United States.
O'Fallon, James, connection with Yazoo companies.
Ohio,
made a State;
its development hindered by the speculative land companies;
adopts foolish constitution.
Oldham, Col., killed at St. Clair's defeat.
Ore, Major, at attack of Chickamauga towns.
Orleans. _See_ Louisiana.
Owen, murder of.
Pickens, Andrew, Peace Commissioner.
Pickering, Timothy, fatuity of.
Pike, Zebulon Montgomery,
the explorer;
ascends the Mississippi;
starts for the Rocky Mountains;
hardships and perils encountered;
taken by the Spaniards;
sent home;
his death.
Pinckney, Thomas, his treaty.
Pioneers. _See_ Frontiersmen.
Political Club, of Danville.
Power, Thomas, Spanish envoy.
Putnam, Rufus, treaty with Wabash Indians.
Quincy, secessionist speech of.
Race expansion,
methods by which a race can acquire new territory;
through deeds of soldiers and diplomats;
under conditions established by diplomats;
through the action of settlers only;
acquisition of Alaska and Louisiana compared.
Recovery, Fort,
built by Wayne on scene of St. Clair's defeat;
attacked by Indians.
Red Bird, the Cherokee, quaint "talk" of.
Revival, the great,
the Methodist and Baptist churches,
under its influence become the leading churches of the West;
enthusiasm of the religious leaders;
their self-devotion.
Robertson, James, made brigadier-general;
land speculations;
works hand in hand with Blount;
wounded by Indians, together with his son;
puts the Cumberland militia on guard;
protects Indians;
organizes expedition against Chickamauga towns;
interferes on behalf of Chickasaws;
prevents filibustering.
Robinson, Dr. J. H..
Rutherford, Gen. Griffith.
Salcedo, Spanish Governor, disapproves of Morales.
Sargent, Winthrop, does well in St. Glair's expedition;
Governor of Mississippi;
failure as such.
Scolacutta, Cherokee chief.
Scott, General Charles, raid on Wabash town;
joins Wayne with mounted volunteers.
Seagroves, James, Indian agent;
deceived by Indians.
Sebastian, corruption and treachery of;
detection of.
Settlers, _See_ Frontiersmen and Westerners.
Sevier, John, made brigadier-general;
a college trustee;
mercantile ventures;
co-operates with Blount;
puzzled by the Indian attitude;
prevents Indian outrages;
takes command of Tennessee militia;
successful expedition;
elected Governor of Tennessee.
Shelby, Isaac,
agrees with Brown that there should be peace with Southern Indians;
beloved by frontiersmen;
bad conduct towards United States Government;
weakness of.
Shipbuilding on the Ohio.
Shoulderbone, treaty at.
Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor of Canada, builds fort on Miami;
corresponds with Carondolet;
distributes Dorchester's speech.
Slavery, attitude of West towards.
Southwestern Territory, _See_ Tennessee.
Spaniards, hostility to Americans;
intrigues with Indians;
gross treachery of;
tortuous intrigues;
ingratitude of;
bad faith;
try to bribe Westerners;
irritation with frontiersmen;
trust to corruption and intrigue;
negotiate with United States Government;
try to corrupt Westerners;
refuse to yield territory;
refuse to fulfil treaty engagements;
last efforts to corrupt the West;
and to retain their own;
yield;
religious bigotry;
fear Westerners;
jealous policy;
their civilization and government in Northern Mexico,
Stallion, Cherokee chief,
St. Clair, put in command of Northwestern army;
hampered by difficulties;
unfit for task;
his troops wretched stuff;
delays on march;
fails to guard against surprise;
his camp attacked at dawn;
his courage in the battle;
leads bayonet charges;
destruction of his troops;
their wild rout;
they reach Cincinnati;
he is held guiltless of the blame;
but showed himself incompetent;
effect of his defeat on the Southern Indians;
warns Shelby against Clark;
governor of what is now Ohio;
unpopularity of,
Talleyrand's smooth duplicity,
Tellico Blockhouse, peace conference at,
Tennessee, intolerable nature of;
Indian outrages in;
becomes a State;
constitution of;
statehood.
Tennesseeans, wronged by Indians and by the Federal Government;
not allowed to retaliate on their foes.
Territorial Legislature of the Southwestern Territory,
petitions for war against the Creeks and Cherokees.
Texas, Texans.
Tipton, Jacob, slain at St. Clair's defeat.
Toussaint Louverture.
Towns, insignificant development of, as compared with new settlements
to-day.
Trade in the backwoods.
Trueman, Alexander Major, treacherously slain by Indians.
United States commissioners, puzzled by conduct of Creeks;
peace commissioners, Lincoln, Randolph, and Pickering, failure to
make treaty with Northwestern Indians.
United States Government, reluctantly wars on Indians;
injustice of, towards Chickasaws;
towards Blount;
towards the Southwesterners generally.
Van Cleve, Benjamin, at St. Clair's defeat.
Van Rensselaer, Captain, wounded at Fallen Timbers.
Wabash Indian towns, ravaged by Kentuckians.
Washington, wrath over St. Clair's defeat;
effect of his administration on the West.
Watts, John, Cherokee chief;
attacks Buchanan's Station;
wounded;
speech.
Wayne, Anthony, General, complained of by British;
takes command of army;
his military training;
goes to the Ohio;
camps near Pittsburgh;
trains his troops;
builds Greeneville;
his detachments cut off by Indians;
advances against the tribes;
fine horsemanship and marksmanship of his men;
his use of Indians and backwoodsmen as scouts;
reaches the Glaize;
the Miami Rapids;
the Fallen Timbers;
his decisive victory;
his correspondence with British commander;
destroys Indian towns;
goes into winter-quarters at Greeneville;
concludes treaty of peace;
effect of his victory on Southern Indians;
measures against Clark;
stops filibustering.
Webb, Lieutenant, feat of, at Fallen Timbers.
Wells, William, chief of Wayne's scouts, his feats.
West, the Far, unknown and unexplored.
Westerners, fundamental unity of;
relationship with the Southerners;
extent of their settlements;
homogeneity of;
characteristics of;
importance of, in Union.
Whitley, Major, at attack of Chickamauga towns.
Wilkinson, General, raids Wabash towns;
buries the dead of St. Clair's army;
peculiar infamy of his intrigues with the Spaniards;
his relations with Burr;
acquitted of treason.
Wilkinson, Lieut. J. B..
Yazoo Land Companies,
early efforts of various Kentuckians to get possession of the
Yazoo lands;
South Carolina Yazoo Company;
the Virginia Company and Patrick Henry;
Tennessee Company and Zachariah Cox;
South Carolina Company and Walsh and O'Fallon;
Federal authorities interfere against it;
Yazoo companies again spring into life;
corruption caused by;
end of.
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