The rudest of all the tribes of the northwest were the Ottawas, those expert canoemen of the Great Lakes, known to the French as the "traders," because they carried on a large trade and commerce between the other tribes. They seem to have had their original home on Mantoulin Island, in Lake Huron, and on the north and south shores of the Georgian Bay. Driven by terror of the Iroquois to the region west of Lake Michigan, they later returned to the vicinity of L'Arbe Croche, near the lower end of Lake Michigan, and from thence spread out in all directions. Consulting Bradford's map of 1838 again, the Ottawas are found in the whole northern end of the lower Michigan peninsula. Ottawa county, at the mouth of Grand river, would seem to indicate that at one time, their towns must have existed in that vicinity, and in fact their possessions are said to have extended as far down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan as the St. Joseph. To the south and east of these points "their villages alternated with those of their old allies, the Hurons, now called Wyandots, along the shore of Lake Erie from Detroit to the vicinity of Beaver creek, in Pennsylvania." They were parties with the Wyandots and Delawares and other tribes to the treaty of Fort Harmar, Ohio, at the mouth of Muskingum, in 1789, whereby the Wyandots ceded large tracts of land in the southern part of that state to the United States government, and were granted in turn the possession and occupancy of certain lands to the south of Lake Erie. The Ottawa title to any land in southern Ohio, however, is exceedingly doubtful, and they were probably admitted as parties to the above treaty in deference to their acknowledged overlords, the Wyandots. Their long intercourse with the latter tribe, in the present state of Ohio, who were probably the most chivalrous, brave and intelligent of all the tribes, seems to have softened their manners and rendered them less ferocious than formerly. Like the Chippewas, their warriors were of fine physical mould, and Colonel William Stanley Hatch, an early historian of Ohio, in writing of the Shawnees, embraces the following reference to the Ottawas: "As I knew them, (i. e., the Shawnees), they were truly noble specimens of their race, universally of fine athletic forms, and light complexioned, none more so, and none appeared their equal, unless it was their tribal relatives, the Ottawas, who adjoined them. The warriors of these tribes were the finest looking Indians I ever saw, and were truly noble specimens of the human family." The leading warriors and chieftains of their tribe, however, were great lovers of strong liquor, and Pontiac, the greatest of all the Ottawas, was assassinated shortly after a drunken carousal, and while he was singing the grand medicine songs of his race.

But the wandering Ishmaelites of all the northwest tribes were the Shawnees. Cruel, crafty and treacherous, and allied always with the English, they took a leading part in all the ravages and depredations on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia during the revolution and led expedition after expedition against the infant settlements of Kentucky, from the period of the first pioneers in 1775, until Wayne's victory in 1794. These were the Indians who kept Boone in captivity, made Simon Kenton run the gauntlet, stole thousands of horses in Kentucky, and who for years attacked the flatboats and keel boats that floated down the Ohio, torturing their captives by burning at the stake.

General William Henry Harrison, in speaking of the migrations of this tribe, says: "No fact, in relation to the Indian tribes, who have resided on the northwest frontier for a century past, is better known, than that the Shawnees came from Florida and Georgia about the middle of the eighteenth century. They passed through Kentucky (along the Cumberland river) on their way to the Ohio. But that their passage was rather a rapid one, is proved by these circumstances. Black Hoof, their late principal chief (With whom I had been acquainted since the treaty of Greenville), was born in Florida, before the removal of his tribe. He died at Wapocconata, in this state, only three or four years ago. As I do not know his age, at the time of his leaving Florida, nor at his death, I am not able to fix with precision the date of emigration. But it is well known that they were at the town which still bears their name on the Ohio (Shawneetown, Ill.), a few miles below the mouth of the Wabash, some time before the commencement of the Revolutionary war; that they remained there some years before they removed to the Scioto, where they were found by Governor Dunmore, in the year 1774. That their removal from Florida was a matter of necessity, and their progress from thence, a flight, rather than a deliberate march, is evident from their appearance, when they presented themselves upon the Ohio, and claimed the protection of the Miamis. They are represented by the chiefs of the latter, as well as those of the Delawares, as supplicants for protection, not against the Iroquois, but against the Creeks and Seminoles, or some other southern tribes, who had driven them from Florida, and they are said to have been literally sans provat et sans culottes."



Later writers have mentioned that while they originally dwelt in the south, that one division of the tribe lived in South Carolina, while another and more numerous division lived along the Cumberland river, and had a large village near the present site of Nashville. The Cumberland river was known on the early maps preceding the Revolution as the Shawnee river, while the Tennessee was called the Cherokee river. This Cumberland division is said to have become engaged in war with both the Cherokees and Chickasaws, and to have fled to the north to receive the protection of the powerful nations of the Wabash.

Notwithstanding the magnanimous conduct of the Miamis, however, they, together with the Wyandots of Ohio, always regarded the Shawnees with suspicion and as trouble makers. The great chief of the Miamis told Antoine Gamelin at Kekionga, in April, 1790, when Gamelin was sent by the government to pacify the Wabash Indians, that the Miamis had incurred a bad name on account of mischief done along the Ohio, but that this was the work of the Shawnees, who, he said, had "a bad heart," and were the "perturbators of all the nations." To the articles of the treaty at Fort Harmar, in 1789, the following is appended: "That the Wyandots have laid claim to the lands that were granted to the Shawnees, (these lands were along the Miami, in Ohio), at the treaty held at the Miami, and have declared, that as the Shawnees have been so restless, and caused so much trouble, both to them and to the United States, if they will not now be at peace, they will dispossess them, and take the country into their own hands; for that country is theirs of right, and the Shawnees are only living upon it by their permission."

From the recital of the above facts, it is evident that the Shawnees could never justly claim the ownership of any of the lands north of the Ohio. That, far from being the rightful sovereigns of the soil, they came to the valleys of the Miamis and Wyandots as refugees from a devastating war, and as supplicants for mercy and protection. This is recognized by the Quaker, Henry Harvey, who was partial to them, and for many years dwelt among them as a missionary. Harvey says that from the accounts of the various treaties to which they were parties, "they had been disinherited altogether, as far as related to the ownership of land anywhere." Yet from the lips of the most famous of all the Shawnees, came the false but specious reasoning that none of the tribes of the northwest, not even the Miamis who had received and sheltered them, had a right to alienate any of their lands without the common consent of all. "That no single tribe had the right to sell; that the power to sell was not vested in their chiefs, but must be the act of the warriors in council assembled of all the tribes, as the land belonged to all—no portion of it to any single tribe." This doctrine of communistic ownership was advocated by Tecumseh in the face of all the conquests of the Iroquois, in the face of the claim of the Wyandots to much of the domain of the present state of Ohio, and in the face of all of Little Turtle's claims to the Maumee and the Wabash valleys, founded on long and undisputed occupancy and possession. It never had any authority, either in fact or in history, and moreover, lacked the great and saving grace of originality. For if any Indian was the author of the doctrine that no single tribe of Indians had the power to alienate their soil, without the consent of all the other tribes, the first Indian to clearly state that proposition was Joseph Brant of the Mohawk nation, and Brant was clearly inspired by the British, at the hands of whom he was a pensioner.

The savage warriors of the northwest were not formidable in numbers, but they were terrible in their ferocity, their knowledge of woodcraft, and their cunning strategy. General Harrison says that for a decade prior to the treaty of Greenville, the allied tribes could not at any time have brought into the field over three thousand warriors. This statement is corroborated by Colonel James Smith, who had an intimate knowledge of the Wyandots and other tribes, and who says: "I am of the opinion that from Braddock's war, until the present time (1799), there never was more than three thousand Indians at any time, in arms against us, west of Fort Pitt, and frequently not half that number."

Constant warfare with the colonies and the Kentucky and Virginia hunting shirt men had greatly reduced their numbers, but above all the terrible ravages of smallpox, the insidious effects flowing from the use of intoxicants, and the spread of venereal disorders among them, which latter diseases they had no means of combating, had carried away thousands and reduced the ranks of their valiant armies.

Woe to the general, however, who lightly estimated their fighting qualities, or thought that these "rude and undisciplined" savages, as they were sometimes called, could be met and overpowered by the tactics of the armies of Europe or America! They were, says Harrison, "a body of the finest light troops in the world," and this opinion is corroborated by Theodore Roosevelt, who had some first hand knowledge of Indian fighters. The Wyandots and Miamis, especially, as well as other western bands, taught the males of their tribes the arts of war from their earliest youth. When old enough to bear arms, they were disciplined to act in concert, to obey punctually all commands of their war chiefs, and cheerfully unite to put them into immediate execution. Each warrior was taught to observe carefully the motion of his right hand companion, so as to communicate any sudden movement or command from the right to the left, Thus advancing in perfect accord, they could march stealthily and abreast through the thick woods and underbrush, in scattered order, without losing the conformation of their ranks or creating disorder. These maneuvers could be executed slowly or as fast as the warriors could run. They were also disciplined to form a circle, a semi-circle or a hollow square. They used the circle to surround their enemies, the semi-circle if the enemy had a stream on one side or in the rear, and the hollow square in case of sudden attack, when they were in danger of being surrounded. By forming a square and taking to trees, they put their faces to the enemy in every direction and lessened the danger of being shot from behind objects on either side.

The principal sachem of the village was seldom the war chief in charge of an expedition. War chiefs were selected with an eye solely to their skill and ability; to entrust the care and direction of an army to an inexperienced leader was unheard of. One man, however, was never trusted with the absolute command of an army. A general council of the principal officers was held, and a plan concerted for an attack. Such a council was held before the battle of Fallen Timbers, in which Blue Jacket, of the Shawnees, Little Turtle of the Miamis, and other celebrated leaders participated. The plan thus concerted in the council was scrupulously carried out. It was the duty of the war chief to animate his warriors by speeches and orations before the battle. During the battle he directed their movements by pre-arranged signals or a shout or yell, and thus ordered the advance or retreat. The warriors who crept through the long grass of the swamp lands at Tippecanoe to attack the army of Harrison, were directed by the rattling of dried deer hoofs.

It was a part of the tactics practiced by the war chiefs to inflict the greatest possible damage upon the enemy, with the loss of as few of their own men as possible. They were never to bring on an attack without some considerable advantage, "or without what appeared to them the sure prospect of victory," If, after commencing an engagement, it became apparent that they could not win the conflict without a great sacrifice of men, they generally abandoned it, and waited for a more favorable opportunity. This was not the result of cowardice, for Harrison says that their bravery and valor were unquestioned. It may have been largely the result of a savage superstition not to force the decrees of Fate. Says Harrison: "It may be fairly considered as having its source in that particular temperament of mind, which they often manifested, of not pressing fortune under any sinister circumstances, but patiently waiting until the chances of a successful issue appeared to be favorable." When the Great Spirit was not angry, he would again favor his children. One tribe among the warriors of the Northwest, however, were taught from their earliest youth never to retreat; to regard "submission to an enemy as the lowest degradation," and to "consider anything that had the appearance of an acknowledgment of the superiority of an enemy as disgraceful." These were the Wyandots, the acknowledged superiors in the northwestern confederacy. "In the battle of the Miami Rapids of thirteen chiefs of that tribe, who were present, only one survived, and he badly wounded."

The well known policy of the savages to ambush or outflank their enemies was well known to Washington. He warned St. Clair of this terrible danger in the Indian country, but his advice went unheeded. A pre-concerted attack might occur on the front ranks of an advancing column, and almost immediately spread to the flanks. This occurred at Braddock's defeat. The glittering army of redcoats, so much admired by Washington, with drums beating and flags flying, forded the Monongahela and ascended the banks of the river between two hidden ravines. Suddenly they were greeted by a terrible fire on the front ranks, which almost immediately spread to the right flank, and then followed a horrible massacre of huddled troops, who fired volleys of musketry at an invisible foe, and then miserably perished. When St. Clair started his ill-fated march upon the Miami towns in 1791, his movements were observed every instant of time by the silent scouts and runners of the Miamis. Camping on the banks of the upper Wabash, and foolishly posting his militia far in the front, he suddenly saw them driven back in confusion upon his regulars, his lines broken by attacks on both flanks, and his artillery silenced to the last gun. The attack was so well planned, so sudden and so furious, that nothing remained but precipitate and disastrous retreat. Out of an army consisting of fourteen hundred men and eighty-six officers, eight hundred and ninety men and sixteen officers were killed and wounded. St. Clair believed that he had been "overpowered by numbers," and so reported to the government. "It was alleged by the officers," says Judge Burnet, "that the Indians far outnumbered the American troops. That conclusion was drawn, in part, from the fact that they outflanked and attacked the American lines with great force, and at the same time on every side." The truth is, that St. Clair was completely outwitted by the admirable cunning and strategy of Little Turtle, the Miami, who concerted the plan of attack, and directed its operation. Nor is it at all likely that the Indians had a superior force. They often attacked superior numbers, if they enjoyed the better fighting position, or could take advantage of an ambush or surprise. A very respectable authority, who has the endorsement of historians, says: "There was an army of Indians composed of Miamis, Potawatomis, Ottowas, Chippewas, Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, and a few Mingoes and Cherokees, amounting in all to eleven hundred and thirty-three, that attacked and defeated General St. Clair on the 4th of November, 1791. Each nation was commanded by their own chiefs, all of whom were governed by the Little Turtle, who made the arrangements for the action, and commenced the attack with the Miamis, who were under his immediate command. The Indians had thirty killed and died with their wounds the day of the action and fifty wounded."

Of such formidable mould, were the redmen of the northwest, who went into battle stripped to the skin, and with bodies painted with horrible stripes of vermilion. So disastrous had been the result of their victories over the armies of Harmar and St. Clair, and so illy equipped with men, money and supplies was the infant government of the United States, that immediately prior to the campaign of General Anthony Wayne, a military conference was held between President Washington, General Knox, Secretary of War, and General Wayne, to devise a system of military tactics that should thereafter control in the conduct of all wars against the Indians of the northwest.

The development of this system of tactics has been outlined by General William Henry Harrison, who was an aide to Wayne, in a personal letter to Mann Butler, one of the historians of Kentucky.

It was determined that in all future contests with the tribes, that the troops employed should, when in the Indian country, be marched in such manner as that the order of march could be immediately converted, by simple evolution, into an order of battle. In other words, that the troops while actually in the line of march, could be almost instantly formed in lines of battle. This was to prevent any sudden or unexpected attack, and this was always liable to occur in the thickly wooded country. The troops were also taught to march in open formation, each file to be more than an arm's length from those on the right and left. The old European system of fighting men shoulder to shoulder was entirely impracticable in a wilderness of woods, for it invited too great a slaughter, interfered with the movement of the troops, and shortened the lines. The great object of the Indian tactics was always to flank their enemy, therefore an extension of the lines was highly desirable when entering into action. "In fighting Indians, there was no shock to be given or received, and a very open order was therefore attended with two very great advantages; it more than doubled the length of the lines, and in charging, which was an essential part of the system, it gave more facility to get through the obstacles which an action in the woods presented."

A system was also developed whereby, in case the Indians attempted to flank the enemy, they were met by a succession of fresh troops coming from the rear to extend the lines. When encamped, the troops were to assume the form of a hollow square, with the baggage and cavalry, and sometimes the light infantry and riflemen, in the center. A rampart of logs was to be placed around the camp, to prevent a sudden night attack, and to give the troops time to get under arms, but this rampart was not intended as a means of defense in daylight. "To defeat Indians by regular troops, the charge must be relied upon; the fatality of a contest at long shot, with their accurate aim and facility of covering themselves, was mournfully exhibited in the defeats of Braddock and St. Clair. General Wayne used no patrols, no picket guards. In Indian warfare they would always be cut off; and if that were not the case, they would afford no additional security to the army, as Indians do not require roads to enable them to advance upon an enemy. For the same reason (that they would be killed or taken), patrols were rejected, and reliance for safety was entirely placed upon keeping the army always ready for action. In connection with this system for constant preparation, there was only a chain of sentinels around the camps, furnished by the camp guards, who were placed within supporting distance."

The outline and adoption of this system of tactics shows that both Washington and Anthony Wayne were fully aware of the dangerous nature of their savage adversaries; that they had a wholesome respect for both their woodcraft and military discipline, and that they regarded the conquest of the western wilderness as a task requiring great circumspection and military genius.



CHAPTER VII

REAL SAVAGES

—The savage painted in his true colors from the standpoint of the frontiersman.

The poets and philosophers who dwelt in security far from the frontier posts of danger, have been much disposed in the past to extol the virtues of the savage and bewail his misfortunes, at the expense of the rugged pioneer who had to face his tomahawk and furnish victims for his mad vengeance. They went into rhapsodies when speaking of the "poor Indian," assuming that in his primitive state, before he was corrupted by contact with the manners and customs of the white man, he represented all that was pure, good and simple, and that only after the European came, did this child of nature take on that ferocity and savagery that made his name the terror of the wilderness. They said that he was cruelly and unjustly despoiled of his lands and possessions; driven like a wild beast before the face of the settlements, and by fraud and force deprived of every right that he had enjoyed. These philosophers, while thus impeaching civilization, were always ready to condemn what they termed as the "rude frontiersmen," the men who originally made it possible that the land might be inhabited, the soil brought to a state of cultivation, and the arts and sciences brought to bear upon the wild forces of nature. They were especially severe in their animadversions upon the Kentuckians. They denounced their raids upon the Indian towns and villages along the Scioto and the Wabash as barbarous and uncalled for. They pointed to the fact that the Kentuckians pursued the Indians with a fierce and relentless hatred, using the scalping knife, and burning down their cabins and corn fields, forgetting at the same time the thousands of Kentuckians cruelly slain, the carrying away into captivity of pregnant women and innocent children, and the horrible tortures ofttimes inflicted on the aged and the helpless.

It must never be forgotten that despite his stoicism in facing danger, his skill in battle, his power to endure privation, and his undoubted valor and bravery, that the Indian was a savage, and entertained the thoughts of a savage. Toward those who, like the French, pampered his appetites and indulged his passions to secure his trade, he entertained no malice. The lazy, fiddling Canadians who dwelt in Kaskaskia and Vincennes, had no ambition to absorb the soil or build up a great commonwealth. The little land they required to raise their corn, their vines and their onions on, aroused no savage jealousies. But from the first moment that the Americans came through the gaps and passes of the Blue Ridge, and swept down the waters of the Ohio, with their women and children, their horses and cattle, the savage scented danger. These men were not traders; they came to set up their cabins and to build homes. The wild dwellers in the wilderness must be tamed or swept back. Conflict was inevitable; war certain. On the one hand was a grim determination to advance civilization; on the other, just as grim a determination to resist it. The savage, employing the same arts in his wars with the white man as he did in his wars with his fellow savage, used stealth and cunning, the ambuscade, the scalping knife, and the tomahawk, and tortured his victims at the stake. A terrible hatred was engendered, that meant death and extermination. In the sanguinary struggles that followed, many outrages were no doubt perpetrated by lawless white men upon the Indians. Such men as Lewis Wetzel are no credit to a race. But there is no sufficient ground either for the exaltation of the savage, or the condemnation of men like Boone, Kenton, Hardin and Scott, who stoutly fought in the vanguard of civilization. It was a war for supremacy between white man and red, and the fittest survived. The wild hunters of the forest and river, gave way to farmers and woodsmen, who made the clearings, built their cabins, and laid the foundation for the future greatness of the west. The passing of the tribes was a tragedy, but it would have been a deeper tragedy still, had savagery prevailed.

Among the Indians of the northwest there was one tribe that attained a considerable fame. In all their forays into Kentucky and Virginia the Wyandots fought with the most fearless bravery and the most disciplined skill. Their conduct at the battle of Estel's Station met with many words of praise from Mann Butler, the Kentucky historian. It was well known among the settlements that the Wyandots treated their captives with consideration, and that they seldom resorted to torture by fire. Though few in numbers, they acquired the acknowledged supremacy in the confederation of the northwest, were intrusted by Wayne at the treaty of Greenville with the custody of the great belt, the symbol of peace and union, and were given the principal copy of the treaty of peace. Between the Wyandot and the Ottawa, however, and the Wyandot and the Potawatomi, there was a striking divergence. If the Wyandot represented the highest order of intelligence among the savages of the northwest, the Potawatomi represented one of the lowest. He was dark, cruel, treacherous and unattractive, and proved a willing tool for murder and assassination in the hands of the English. There was no place on earth for the chivalrous Kentuckian and the treacherous Potawatomi to dwell in peace together, and the imparting of some idea of the true nature of this Indian will now engage our attention.

When the Dutchman put flint-locks and powder into the hands of the Iroquois, one of the tribes that he drove around the head of the great lakes was the Potawatomi. Where did they come from? The Jesuit Relation says, from the western shores of Lake Huron, and the Jesuit Fathers knew more about the Algonquin tribes of Canada and the west than all others. All accounts confirm that they were of the same family as the Chippewas and Ottawas. From the head of Lakes Huron and Michigan they were forced to the west and then driven to the south. In 1670 it is known that a portion of them were on the islands in the mouth of Green bay. They were then moving southward, probably impelled by the fierce fighting Sioux, whom Colonel Roosevelt so appropriately named the "horse Indians," of the west. At the close of the seventeenth century they were on the Milwaukee river, in the vicinity of Chicago, and on the St. Joseph river in southern Michigan. They had gone entirely around the northern, western and southern sides of Lake Michigan, and were now headed in the direction of their original habitations.

According to Hiram W. Beckwith, the Potawatomi were the most populous tribe between the lakes and the Ohio, the Wabash and the Mississippi. Their debouch upon the plains of the Illinois has already been mentioned. This was about the year 1765. The confederacy among them, the Kickapoos and the Sacs and Foxes, resulted in the extermination of the old Illinois tribes, and after that extermination, the Kickapoos took possession of the country around Peoria and along the Vermilion river, the Potawatomi of eastern and northern Illinois, while the Sacs and Foxes went farther to the west. After the treaty of Greenville in 1795, the Potawatomi rapidly absorbed the ancient domain of the Miamis in northern Indiana, swiftly pressing them back to the Wabash, and usurping the major portion of the small lake region in the north end of the state. They had now become so haughty and insolent in their conduct as to refer to the Miamis as "their younger brothers," and the Miamis, by reason of their long wars, their commingling with the traders, and their acquisition of degenerate habits, were unable to drive them back. In 1810 and 1811, Tecumseh and the one-eyed Prophet were eagerly seeking an alliance with their treacherous chiefs. A demand was made upon Tecumseh for the surrender of certain Potawatomi murderers and horse thieves who had invaded the Missouri region and committed depredations, but Tecumseh replied that he was unable to apprehend them, and that they had escaped to the Illinois country. The Potawatomi were now living in mixed villages west of the present sites of Logansport and Lafayette, and the southern limits of their domain extended as far down the Wabash as the outlet of Pine creek across the river from the present city of Attica.



The Potawatomi loved the remoteness and seclusion of the great prairie, and many of their divisions have been known as the "prairie" tribes. They seem to have lived for the most part in separate, roving bands, which divided "according to the abundance or scarcity of game, or the emergencies of war." Encouraged by the English, they joined in the terrible expeditions of the Shawnees and Miamis against the keel-boats on the Ohio, and against the settlements of Kentucky. They were inveterate horse-thieves. Riding for long distances across plain and prairie, through forests and across rivers, they suddenly swooped down on some isolated frontier cabin, perhaps murdering its helpless and defenseless inmates, taking away a child or a young girl, killing cattle or riding away the horses and disappearing in the wilderness as suddenly as they emerged from it. In the later days of Tecumseh's time, these parties of marauders generally consisted of from four or five, to twenty. They were still striking the white settlements of Kentucky, and even penetrated as far west as the outposts on the Missouri river. Their retreat after attack was made with the swiftness of the wind. Pursuit, if not made immediately, was futile. Traveling day and night, the murderous riders were lost in the great prairies and wildernesses of the north, and the Prophet was a sure protector. The savage chief, Turkey Foot, for whom two groves were named, in Benton and Newton Counties, Indiana, stealing horses in far away Missouri, murdered three or four of his pursuers and made good his escape to the great plains and swamps between the Wabash and Lake Michigan.

There was nothing romantic about the Potawatomi. They were real savages, and known to the French-Canadians as "Les Poux," or those who have lice, from which it may be inferred that they were not generally of cleanly habits. In general appearance they did not compare favorably with the Kickapoos of the Vermilion river. The Kickapoo warriors were generally tall and sinewy, while the Potawatomi were shorter and more thickly set, very dark and squalid. Numbers of the women of the Kickapoos were described as being lithe, "and many of them by no means lacking in beauty." The Potawatomi women were inclined to greasiness and obesity. The Potawatomi had little regard for their women. Polygamy was common among them when visited by the early missionaries. The warriors were always gamblers, playing heavily at their moccasin games and lacrosse.

Nothing, however, revealed their savage nature so well as their rapid decline under the influence of whiskey. As we shall see hereafter, one of the great motives that impelled their attacks on the flat boats of the Ohio river, was their desire not only for plunder, but for rum. The boats generally contained a liberal supply. Nothing was more common than drunkenness after the greedy and avaricious traders of the Wabash got into their midst and bartered them brandy for their most valuable peltries. Potawatomi were found camping about Vincennes in great numbers and trading everything of value for liquor. In General Harrison's day, he endeavored time and time again to stop this nefarious traffic. On all occasions when treaties were to be made, or council fires kindled, he issued proclamations prohibiting the sale of liquor to the Indians. These proclamations were inserted in the Western Sun, at Vincennes, on more than one occasion, but they were unavailing. The temptation of a huge profit was too strong. Carousals and orgies took place when the Indians were under the influence of "fire-water." Fights and murders were frequent. At the last, whiskey destroyed the last vestige of virtue in their women, and valor in their warriors.

After the crushing of the Prophet in 1811, and the destruction of British influence in the northwest, consequent upon the war of 1812, the decline of the Potawatomi was swift and appalling. The terrible ravages of "fire-water" played no inconsiderable part. Many of their principal chieftains became notorious drunkards reeling along the streets of frontier posts and towns and boasting of their former prowess. Even the renowned Topenebee, the last principal chief of the tribe of the river St. Joseph was no exception. Reproached by General Lewis Cass, because he did not remain sober and care for his people, he answered: "Father, we do not care for the land, nor the money, nor the goods; what we want is whiskey! Give us whiskey!" The example set by the chiefs was not neglected by their followers.

Nothing can better illustrate the shocking savagery and depravity of some of their last chieftains, after the tribe had been contaminated by the effect of strong liquors, than the story of Wabunsee, principal war chief of the prairie band of Potawatomi residing on the Kankakee river in Illinois, and in his early days one of the renowned and daring warriors of his tribe. When General Harrison marched with his regulars and Indiana and Kentucky militia, on the way to the battlefield of Tippecanoe, he ascended the Wabash river, erecting Fort Harrison, near the present site of Terre Haute, and christening it on Sunday, the 27th day of October, 1811. From here, the army marched up the east bank of the river, crossing the deep water near the present site of Montezuma, Indiana, and erecting a block house on the west bank, about three miles below the mouth of the Vermilion river, for a base of supplies. Corn and provisions for the army were taken in boats and pirogues from Fort Harrison up the river, and unloaded at this block house. On Saturday, the 2nd day of November, John Tipton recorded in his diary that, "this evening a man came from the Garrison (Fort Harrison) said last night his boat was fired on—one man that was asleep killed dead." Beckwith records that the dare-devil "Wabunsee, the Looking-Glass, principal war chief of the prairie bands of Potawatomis, residing on the Kankakee river, in Illinois, distinguished himself, the last of October, 1811, by leaping aboard of one of Governor Harrison's supply boats, loaded with corn, as it was ascending the Wabash, five miles above Terre Haute, and killing a man, and making his escape ashore without injury." Allowing a slight discrepancy in dates, this was probably the same incident referred to by John Tipton, and taking into consideration that the boats were probably guarded by armed men, this was certainly a daring and adventurous feat.

Yet it is recorded of this chief, that he always carried about with him two scalps in a buckskin pouch, "taken from the heads of soldiers in the war of 1812, and when under the influence of liquor he would exhibit them, going through the motions of obtaining those trophies." Schoolcraft, whose attention was especially drawn towards this chieftain on account of his drunken ferocity, and who paints him as one of the worst of many bad savages of his day, says: "He often freely indulged in liquor; and when excited, exhibited the flushed visage of a demon. On one occasion, two of his wives, or rather female slaves, had a dispute. One of them went, in her excited state of feeling, to Wabunsee, and told him that the other ill-treated his children. He ordered the accused to come before him. He told her to lie down on her back on the ground. He then directed the other (her accuser) to take a tomahawk and dispatch her. She instantly split open her skull. "There," said the savage, "let the crows eat her." He left her unburied, but was afterwards persuaded to direct the murderess to bury her. She dug the grave so shallow, that the wolves pulled out her body that night, and partly devoured it."

The cold, cruel treachery of this tribe is without a parallel, save in the single instance of the Shawnees. It has been admitted by Shaubena, one of their best chiefs, that most of the depredations on the frontier settlements in Illinois during the Black Hawk war, were committed by the Potawatomi. The cowardly and brutal massacre at Chicago, August 15, 1812, was the work principally of the Potawatomi, "and their several bands from the Illinois and Kankakee rivers; those from the St. Joseph of the lake, and the St. Joseph of the Maumee, and those of the Wabash and its tributaries were all represented in the despicable act." In that massacre, Captain William Wells, the brother-in-law of Little Turtle, was killed when he was trying to protect the soldiers and refugees. He was discovered afterwards, terribly mutilated. His body lay in one place, his head in another, while his arms and legs were scattered about over the prairie. The warriors of this tribe, stripped to the skin, except breech-cloth and moccasins, and with bodies painted with red stripes, went into battle with the rage of mad-men and demons and committed every excess known to human cruelty.

Looking at the Potawatomi in the true light, and stripped of all that false coloring with which he has been painted, and the facts remains that he was every inch a wild and untamed barbarian. And while we must admire him for his native strength, his wonderful endurance through the famine and cold of the northern winters, and his agility and ingenuity in the chase or on the warpath, it is not any wonder that the children of that time, as Judge James Hall relates, "learned to hate the Indian and to speak of him as an enemy. From the cradle they listened continually to horrid tales of savage violence, and became familiar with narratives of aboriginal cunning and ferocity." Nor is it any wonder that when General Harrison crossed the Wabash at Montezuma and gave an order to the advance guard to shoot every Indian at sight, that the rough frontiersman, John Tipton, entered in his diary, "Fine News!"



CHAPTER VIII

OUR INDIAN POLICY

—The Indian right of occupancy recognized through the liberal policy of Washington and Jefferson.

By the terms of the definitive treaty of 1783, concluding the war of the revolution the territory northwest of the river Ohio passed forever from the jurisdiction of the British government, over to the new born states of the United States. By the first article of that treaty, the thirteen former colonies were acknowledged to be free, sovereign and independent powers, and Great Britain not only relinquished all her rights to the government, but to the "proprietary and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof." At the time of that treaty, the northwest territory was occupied by a number of powerful and warlike tribes of savages, yet no reservation of any kind was made in their favor by the English negotiators. The Iroquois confederacy of New York, and more particularly the Mohawks, had stood out stoutly on the side of the king, but they were wholly forgotten in the articles of peace. Of this action, Joseph Brant, the Mohawk leader, in his communications with Lord Sidney, in 1786, most bitterly complained, expressing his astonishment "that such firm friends and allies could be so neglected by a nation remarkable for its honor and glory." Yet if Brant had been better acquainted with the policy and usage of European nations, he would have known that England had granted away not only the sovereignty, but the very soil of the territory itself, subject only to the Indian rights of occupancy. In all the ancient grants of the crown to the duke of York, Lord Clarendon and others, there passed "the soil as well as the right of dominion to the grantee." France, while adopting a liberal policy toward the savages of the new world, claimed the absolute right of ownership to the land, based on first discovery. Spain maintained a like claim. The war for supremacy in the Saint Lawrence, the Mississippi and the Ohio valleys between Great Britain and France, terminating in the peace of 1763, was a war waged for the control of lands and territory, notwithstanding the occupancy of the Indian tribes. If a country acquired either by conquest or prior discovery, is filled with a people attached to the soil, and having fixed pursuits and habitations, the opinion of mankind would seem to require that the lands and possessions of the occupants should not be disturbed, but if the domain discovered or conquered is filled with a race of savages who make no use of the land, save for the purpose of hunting over it, a different solution must of necessity result. There can be no admixture of races where the one is civilized and the other barbarous. The barbarian must either lose his savagery and be assimilated, or he must recede. The North American Indian was not only brave, but fierce. In the wilds and fastnesses of his native land, he refused to become either a subject or a slave. No law of the European could be formulated for his control; he obeyed only the laws of nature under which he roamed in freedom. He knew nothing of fee or seisin, or the laws of conveyancing, as his white brother knew it. He knew only that the rivers and the forests were there, and that he gained his subsistence from them. With him, the strongest and the fiercest had the right to rule; the right to hunt the buffalo and elk. The European put fire arms into the hands of the Iroquois warrior, and that warrior at once made himself master of all north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, without regard to the prior claims of other tribes. To expect that a savage of this nature could be dealt with under the ordinary forms and conventions of organized society, was to expect the impossible. To him, the appearance of a surveyor or a log cabin was an immediate challenge to his possession. Today he might be brought to make a treaty, but on the morrow he was filled with a jealous hate again, and was ready to burn and destroy. On the other hand, to leave him in the full possession of his country was, as Chief Justice Marshall said: "To leave the country a wilderness." To stop on the borderland of savagery and advance no further, meant the retrogression of civilization. The European idea of ownership was founded on user. The inevitable consequence was, that the conqueror or discoverer in the new world claimed the ultimate fee in the soil, and the tribes receding, as they inevitably did, this fee ripened into present enjoyment. When Great Britain, therefore, owing to the conquests of George Rogers Clark, surrendered up to the United States her jurisdiction and control over the territory north and west of the Ohio river, she did, according to the precedent and usage established by all the civilized nations of that day, pass to her grantee or grantees, the ultimate absolute title to the land itself, notwithstanding its savage occupants, and the right to deal with these occupants thenceforward became a part of the domestic policy of the new republic, with which England and her agents had nothing to do. "It has never been doubted," says Chief Justice Marshall, "that either the United States, or the several states, had a clear title to all the lands within the boundary lines described in the treaty, subject only, to the Indian right of occupancy, and that the exclusive power to extinguish that right was vested in that government which might constitutionally exercise it." These facts should be kept in mind when one comes to consider the equivocal course that England afterwards pursued.

But how were the savage wards occupying these lands, and thus suddenly coming under the guardianship of the republic, to be dealt with? Were they to be evicted by force and arms, and their possessory rights entirely disregarded, or were their claims as occupants to be gradually and legitimately extinguished by treaty and purchase, as the frontiers of the white man advanced? In other words, was the seisin in fee on the part of the states, or the United States, to be at once asserted and enforced, to the absolute and immediate exclusion of the tribes from the lands they occupied, or was a policy of justice and equity to prevail, and the ultimate right to the soil set up, only after the most diligent effort to ameliorate the condition of the dependent red man had been employed? The answer to this question had soon to be formulated, for on March 1st, 1784, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee and James Monroe, delegates in the Continental Congress on the part of the State of Virginia, in pursuance of the magnanimous policy of her statesmen, executed a deed of cession to the United States, of all her claim and right to the territory northwest of the Ohio, the same to be used as a common fund "for the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become, or shall become, members of the confederation or federal alliance of the states." The only reservations made were of a tract of land not to exceed one hundred and fifty thousand acres to be allowed and granted to General George Rogers Clark, his officers and soldiers, who had conquered Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and the western British posts under the authority of Virginia, said tract being afterwards located on the Indiana side of the Ohio, adjacent to the falls of that river, and known as the "Illinois Grant," and a further tract to be laid off between the rivers Scioto and Little Miami, in case certain lands reserved to the continental troops of Virginia upon the waters of the Cumberland, "should, from the North Carolina line, bearing in further upon the Cumberland lands than was expected," prove to be deficient for that purpose. The cession of Virginia was preceded by that of New York on the first day of March, 1781, and followed by that of Massachusetts, on the 19th day of April, 1785, and that of Connecticut on the 14th of September, 1786, and thus the immense domain now comprising the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, with the exception of the reservations of Virginia, and a small reservation of the state of Connecticut in northeastern Ohio, passed over to the general government, before the adoption of the federal constitution, and before George Washington, the first president of the United States, was sworn into office, on the 30th day of April, 1789.

But the wisdom and the broad national views of the leading Virginia law-makers and statesmen, had already, in great measure, pointed the way to the Indian policy to be pursued by Washington and his successors. No state, either under the old confederation or the new constitution, presented such a formidable array of talent and statecraft as Virginia. Washington, Jefferson, John Marshall, and Madison, stood pre-eminent, but there was also Edmund Randolph, Patrick Henry, James Monroe, George Mason, William Grayson and Richard Henry Lee.

Washington had always taken a deep and abiding interest in the western country. In 1770 he had made a trip down the Ohio in company with his friends, Doctor Craik and William Crawford. The distance from Pittsburgh to the mouth of the Great Kanawha was two hundred and sixty-five miles. The trip was made by canoes and was rather hazardous, as none of Washington's party were acquainted with the navigation of the river. The party made frequent examinations of the land along the way and Washington was wonderfully impressed with the future prospects of the country. Arriving at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, he ascended that river for a distance of fourteen miles, hunting by the way, as the land was plentifully stocked with buffalo, deer, turkeys and other wild game. He also made critical observations of the soil here, with a view to future acquisitions. The whole country below Pittsburgh at that time, was wild and uninhabited, save by the Indian tribes.

At the close of the revolution the minds of Washington, Jefferson and other leading Virginians were filled with the grand project of developing and colonizing the west, and binding it to the union by the indissoluble ties of a common interest. There was nothing of the narrow spirit of provincialism about these men. Their thoughts went beyond the limited confines of a single state or section, and embraced the nation. They entertained none of those jealousies which distinguish the small from the great. On the contrary, they looked upon the mighty trans-montane domain with its many watercourses, its rich soil, and its temperate climate, as a rich field for experimentation in the erection of new and free republics. The deed of cession of Virginia had provided: "That the territory so ceded shall be laid out and formed into new states, containing a suitable extent of territory, not less than one hundred, nor more than one hundred fifty miles square, or as near thereto as circumstances will admit: and that the states so formed should be distinct republican states, and admitted members of the federal union, having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as the other states." If this great public domain, thus dedicated to the whole nation, and under the control of its supreme legislative body, the continental congress, could be filled up with a conglomerate population from all the states, factions and sectional jealousies would disappear, and at the same time the original states would be more closely knit together by the bonds of their common interest in the new federal territory.

But there was one great obstacle to the realization of these hopes, and that was the difficulty of opening up any means of communication with this western empire. The mountain ranges stood as barriers in the way, unless the headwaters of such rivers as the Potomac and the James, could be connected by canals and portages with the headwaters of the Ohio and its tributaries. If this could be accomplished, and if the headwaters of the Miami, Scioto and Muskingum, could be connected in turn with those of the Cuyahoga, the Maumee and the Wabash, then all was well, for this would furnish an outlet for the commerce of the west through the ports and cities of the Atlantic seaboard. There were other and highly important political questions that engaged Washington's attention at this time, and they were as follows: The English dominion of Canada bordered this northwest territory on the north. The British, contrary to the stipulations of the treaty of peace of 1783, had retained the posts of Detroit, Niagara and Oswego, to command the valuable fur trade of the northwest, and the Indian tribes engaged therein, and in addition they also enjoyed a complete monopoly of all trading vessels on the Great Lakes. To the south and west of this northwest territory lay the Spanish possessions, and the Spanish were attempting to bar the settlers of Kentucky from the use of the Mississippi for the purposes of trade. In other words, they were closing the market of New Orleans against the Kentuckians. But suppose that either or both of these powers, who were then extremely jealous of the growth and expansion of the new republic, should hold forth commercial advantages and inducements to the western people? What then would be the result? What then the prospect of binding any new states to be formed out of this western territory in the interest of the federal union?

With all these great questions revolving in his mind, we see the father of his country again on horseback in the year 1784, traversing six hundred and eighty miles of mountain wilderness in Pennsylvania and Virginia and examining the headwaters of the inland streams. He made every inquiry possible, touching the western country, examined every traveler and explorer who claimed to have any knowledge of its watercourses and routes of travel, and after spending thirty-three days of fatiguing travel in the saddle, he returned to his home and made a report of his observations to Governor Harrison of Virginia. His remarks on the western country are so highly interesting and important, and manifest such a deep and profound interest in the future welfare of the western world, as to call for the following quotations:

"I need not remark to you that the flanks and rear of the United States are possessed by great powers, and formidable ones, too; nor how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest to bind all parts of the Union together by indissoluble bonds, especially that part of it, which lies immediately west of us, with the middle states. For what ties, let me ask, should we have upon these people? How entirely unconnected with them shall we be, and what troubles may we not apprehend, if the Spaniards on their right, and Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing stumbling-blocks in their way, as they now do, should hold out lures for their trade and alliance? What, when they get strength, which will be sooner than most people conceive (from the emigration of foreigners, who will have no particular predilection towards us, as well as from the removal of our own citizens), will be the consequence of their having formed close connections with both or either of those powers, in a commercial way? It needs not, in my opinion, the gift of prophecy to foretell."

"The western states (I speak now from my own observation) stand as it were upon a pivot. The touch of a feather will turn them any way. They have looked down the Mississippi, until the Spaniards, very impolitically, I think, for themselves, threw difficulties in their way; and they look that way for no other reason, than because they could glide gently down the stream; without considering, perhaps, the difficulties of the voyage back again, and the time necessary to perform it in; and because they have no other means of coming to us, but by long land transportations and unimproved roads. These causes have hitherto checked the industry of the present settlers; for except the demand for provisions, occasioned by the increase of population, and a little flour, which the necessities of the Spaniards compel them to buy, they have no incitements to labor. But smooth the road, and make easy the way for them, and then see what an influx of articles will be poured upon us; how amazingly our exports will be increased by them, and how amply we shall be compensated for any trouble and expense we may encounter to effect it."

"A combination of circumstances makes the present conjuncture more favorable for Virginia, than for any other state in the union, to fix these matters. The jealous and untoward disposition of the Spaniards on the one hand, and the private views of some individuals, coinciding with the general policy of the court of Great Britain, on the other, to retain as long as possible the posts of Detroit, Niagara, and Oswego (which though done under the letter of the treaty, is certainly an infraction of the spirit of it, and injurious to the Union) may be improved to the greatest advantage by this state, if she would open the avenues to the trade of that country, and embrace the present moment to establish it. It only wants a beginning. The western inhabitants would do their part towards its execution. Weak as they are, they would meet us at least half-way, rather than be driven into the arms of foreigners, or be made dependent upon them; which would eventually either bring on a separation of them from us, or a war between the United States and one or other of those powers, most probably the Spaniards."

These remarks coming from the pen of Washington aroused intense interest in Virginia. He did not stop there. On the fourteenth of December, 1784, we see him calling the attention of the president of the old continental congress to these affairs. He urged, "that congress should have the western waters well explored, their capacities for navigation ascertained as far as the communications between Lake Erie and the Wabash, and between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, and a complete and perfect map made of the country at least as far west as the Miamis, which run into the Ohio and Lake Erie," and he pointed out the Miami village as the place for a very important post for the Union. The expense attending such an undertaking could not be great; the advantages would be unbounded. "Nature," he said, "has made such a display of her bounty in these regions that the more the country is explored the more it will rise in estimation. The spirit of emigration is great; people have got impatient; and, though you cannot stop the road, it is yet in your power to mark the way. A little while and you will not be able to do either." Such were the enlightened and fatherly hopes that Washington thus early entertained of the great west and its struggling pioneers, who were trying to carve out their destinies in a remote wilderness.

No less enlightened were the views of Jefferson. He may be said in truth to be the father of the northwest. When a member of the legislature of Virginia, he had promoted the expedition under George Rogers Clark, which resulted in the conquest of the northwest, and its subsequent cession to the United States under the treaty of 1783. As governor of Virginia he had taken part in its cession to the general government on March first, 1784. "On that same day," says Bancroft, "before the deed could be recorded and enrolled among the acts of the United States, Jefferson, as chairman of a committee, presented a plan for the temporary government of the western territory from the southern boundary of the United States in the latitude of thirty-one degrees to the Lake of the Woods. It is still preserved in the national archives in his own handwriting, and is as completely his own work as the Declaration of Independence." As the profoundest advocate of human rights of his day or time, freeing himself from the narrow spirit of sectionalism, and despising human slavery and its contamination of the institutions of a free people, he proposed the ultimate establishment of ten new states in the territory northwest of the Ohio, a republican form of government for each of them, and no property qualification for either the electors or the elected. "Following an impulse of his own mind," he proposed the everlasting dedication of the northwest to free men and free labor, by providing that after the year 1800 there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of them. While Jefferson's plan for the exclusion of slavery was stricken from the ordinance, his noble ideas of freedom were afterwards fully and completely incorporated in the final Ordinance of 1787, whereby "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," should ever be permitted. This ordinance, through the predominating influence of Virginia and her statesmen, was passed by the vote of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, and afterwards ratified by the legislature of Virginia who had to consent thereto to give it full force.

It is at once apparent that these statesmen and patriots who looked forward to the establishment of free republics in the western domain, based on free labor and equal rights, would never consent that the foundation of these new republics should be laid in blood. The outrages perpetrated on the frontiers of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and on the infant settlements of Kentucky, during the revolution, and all at the instigation of the British, had left behind them a loud cry for vengeance. In fact similar outrages were still taking place daily. The claim was made that under the treaty of peace with Great Britain, that no reservation had been made in favor of any of the Indian tribes, or in favor of their claims to any of the lands they occupied; that under the treaty the absolute fee in all the Indian lands within the limits of the United States had passed to the several states such as Virginia, who had a legitimate claim to them, and later by cession of these states to the general government, and that congress "had the right to assign, or retain such portions as they should judge proper;" that the Indian tribes, having aided Great Britain in her attempt to subjugate her former colonies, and having committed innumerable murders, arsons and scalpings on the exposed frontiers, should now be required to pay the penalty for their crimes; that their lands and hunting grounds should stand forfeit to the government, and they be expelled therefrom. In other words, it was asserted that the government should turn a harsh and stern countenance towards all these savage marauders and drive them by force, if need be, from the public lands.

Towards all these arguments in favor of a hard and uncompromising attitude toward the savage tribes, both Washington and Jefferson turned a deaf ear. They assumed a high plane of mercy and forgiveness towards the red man that must ever redound to their glory. On August 7th, 1789, in a message to the senate of the United States, Washington said: "While the measures of government ought to be calculated to protect its citizens from all injury and violence, a due regard should be extended to those Indian tribes whose happiness, in the course of events, so materially depends upon the national justice and humanity of the United States." These sentiments were reflected in his course of action from the first day of peace with Great Britain. He, together with General Philip Schuyler, said, "that with regard to these children of the forest, a veil should be drawn over the past, and that they should be taught that their true interest and safety must henceforth depend upon the cultivation of amicable relations with the United States." He took the high ground that peace should be at once granted to the several tribes, and treaties entered into with them, assigning them certain lands and possessions, within the limits of which they should not be molested. To avoid national dishonor, he advocated the purchase of all lands occupied by the various Indian tribes as the advance of the settlements should seem to require, thus fully recognizing the Indian right of occupancy. He utterly rejected all ideas of conquest, and as he commanded a powerful influence over all the better minds of that day, his counsels prevailed.

To those who have read Jefferson's speeches to the Little Turtle, the Miamis, Potawatomi and Delawares in the year 1808, near the close of his second administration, the broad humanitarianism and fatherly benevolence of the third president is at once apparent. In those addresses he laments the "destructive use of spirituous liquors," the wasting away of the tribes as a consequence thereof, and directs the attention of their chieftains to "temperance, peace and agriculture," as a means of restoring their former numbers, and establishing them firmly in the ways of peace. "Tell this, therefore, to your people on your return home. Assure them that no change will ever take place in our dispositions toward them. Deliver to them my adieux, and my prayers to the Great Spirit for their happiness. Tell them that during my administration I have held their hand fast in mine; that I will put it into the hand of their new father, who will hold it as I have done." Jefferson demanded always that the strictest justice should be done toward the tribes, and carrying forward his ideas in his first ordinance of 1784, for the government of the northwest territory, he inserted a provision that no land was to be taken up until it had been first purchased from the Indian tribes and offered for sale through the regular agencies of the government.

The tree of justice thus planted by Washington and Jefferson, flourished and grew until it produced the magnificent fruit of the Ordinance of 1787, wherein it is stipulated that: "The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights and liberty, they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall, from time to time be made, for preventing wrongs being done them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them."



In order that we may trace the development of the principles of equity thus incorporated in the Ordnance of 1787, and which thenceforward distinguished the domestic policy of the federal government towards the tribes, a brief review of the treaties had and negotiated with the Indian tribes prior to that year now becomes germane. The first treaty after the revolution was that of Fort Stanwix (Rome) New York, concluded on the 22nd day of October, 1784, by and between Oliver Wolcott, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee, commissioners plenipotentiary of the United States, on the one part, and the sachems and warriors of the Six Nations of the Iroquois confederacy, on the other part. This treaty was opposed by Joseph Brant, chief of the Mohawks, and a firm friend and ally of the British, but supported by the Cornplanter, his rival, who was a friend of the United States. By its terms the United States gave peace to the Senecas, Mohawks, Onondagas and Cayugas on their delivery of hostages to secure the return of prisoners taken during the Revolution; secured the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, who had fought on the side of the United States, in the possession of the lands they occupied, and took all the tribes under the protection of the federal government. On the other hand, the Iroquois tribes yielded to the United States any and all claims to the territory west of the western line of Pennsylvania, thus surrendering up any further pretensions on their part to any of the lands in the northwest territory. The treaty seems to have been openly conducted, and really exhibited no small degree of leniency on the part of the government, as the Mohawks especially had taken part in many horrible massacres on the American frontier during the Revolution and were the objects of almost universal execration. Then again, the Iroquois had really sacrificed but little in surrendering their claims to the lands west of the Pennsylvania line, for while they had at one time undoubtedly conquered all of the tribes east of the Mississippi, these days of glory had long since departed, and the Wyandots, Delawares and Miamis were the rightful owners of a large part of the Ohio country. The treaty of Fort Stanwix was followed about ninety days later by the treaty of Fort McIntosh, concluded on the 21st day of January, 1785, at the mouth of Beaver creek, in Pennsylvania. The commissioners on the part of the United States were George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee, while the Indian negotiators were the "Half-King of the Wyandots, Captain Pipe, and other chiefs, on behalf of the Wyandot, Delaware, Ottawa and Chippewa nations." By the articles of this treaty the outside boundaries of the Wyandots and Delawares were fixed as follows: Beginning at the mouth of the River Cuyahoga, where the city of Cleveland now stands, and running thence up said river to the portage between that and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum; thence running down said branch to the forks of the crossing place above old Fort Laurens; thence extending westerly to the portages between the branches of the Miami of the Ohio and the St. Marys; thence along the St. Marys to the Miami village; thence down the Maumee to Lake Erie; thence along the south shore of Lake Erie to the place of beginning. The Wyandot and Delaware nations, together with some Ottawa tribesmen dwelling among the Wyandots, were given the right and privilege of living and hunting upon the lands embraced within the above limits, but the United States reserved tracts of six miles square each, at the mouth of the Maumee, at Sandusky, and at the portage of the St. Marys and Great Miami, as well as some further small tracts at the rapids of the Sandusky river, for the establishment of trading posts. All land east, south and west of the above boundaries was acknowledged to be the property of the government, and none of the above tribes were to settle upon it. Further reservations for trading posts were made at Detroit and Michillimacinac. The Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas and Chippewas were granted peace, and at the same time were made to acknowledge the absolute sovereignty of the United States. Any Indian committing a murder or robbery upon any citizen of the United States was to be delivered to the nearest post for punishment according to the laws of the nation. The third and last treaty before the Ordinance, affecting the northwest, was held at the mouth of the Great Miami, on January 31st, 1786, between George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler and Samuel H. Parsons, commissioners, and the murderous and horse-stealing Shawnees, and but for the cool daring and intrepidity of Clark, there probably would have been a massacre. Some restraint was sought to be imposed on the Shawnee raiders who constantly kept the frontiers of Kentucky and Virginia in a turmoil. Owing to their absolute hostility, however, and the influence of the British agents at Miamitown and Detroit, only a few of the younger chiefs attended the conference. The Shawnees were made to acknowledge the United States as the "sole and absolute sovereigns of all the territory ceded to them by a treaty of peace, made between them and the king of Great Britain, the fourteenth day of January, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four," and in turn were granted peace and protection. They were allotted certain lands to live and hunt upon, on the headwaters of the Great Miami and the Wabash rivers.

But a fundamental error had crept into all these negotiations, and that was, that the Indians' ancient right of occupancy was not recognized. That right of present enjoyment and possession, although claimed by savages who had waged war without mercy, against women and children, was still a right. In the years to come, and after the new constitution of the Union came into force and effect, the Supreme court of the United States, sitting in solemn judgment upon this very question, would have to pronounce that the Indian tribes had an unquestioned right to the lands they occupied, "until that right was extinguished by a voluntary cession to the government," notwithstanding the fact that the ultimate fee in the soil rested in the government. To declare that the Iroquois, the Wyandots and the Delawares, suddenly became divested of every species of property in their lands, on the ground that they had forfeited them by waging war against the United States, was to declare that which could never be defended in a court of conscience and equity. But in the first hot moments succeeding the Revolution, and before men's minds had time to cool, that was practically the principle upon which the continental congress had proceeded.

By consulting the records of the old congress of date October 15th, 1783, it is found that a committee composed of Mr. Duane, Mr. Peters, Mr. Carroll, Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Arthur Lee, to whom had been referred the whole question of Indian affairs, had reported in substance as follows: That while the Indian tribes were "disposed to a pacification," that they were not in "a temper to relinquish their territorial claims without further struggles;" that if the tribes were expelled from their lands, they would probably retreat to Canada, where they would meet with "a welcome reception from the British government;" that this accession of power on the part of Canada would make her a formidable rival in case of future trouble, and secure to her people the profits of the fur trade; "that although motives of policy as well as clemency ought to incline Congress to listen to the prayers of the hostile Indians for peace, yet in the opinion of the committee it is just and necessary that lines of property should be ascertained and established between the United States and them, which will be convenient to the respective tribes, and commensurate to the public wants, because the faith of the United States stands pledged to grant portions of the uncultivated lands as a bounty to their army, and in reward of their courage and fidelity, and the public finances do not admit of any considerable expenditure to extinguish the Indian claims upon such lands;" that owing to the rapid increase in population it was necessary to provide for the settlement of the territories of the United States; that the public creditors were looking to the public lands as the basis for a fund to discharge the public debt. The committee went further. They reported with some particularity that the Indians had been the aggressors in the late war, "without even a pretense of provocation;" that they had violated the convention of neutrality made with Congress at Albany in 1775, had brought utter ruin to thousands of families, and had wantonly desolated "our villages and settlements, and destroyed our citizens;" that they should make atonement for the enormities they had perpetrated, and due compensation to the republic for their wanton barbarity, and that they had nothing wherewith to satisfy these demands except by consenting to the fixing of boundaries. Wherefore, it was resolved that a convention be held with the tribes; that they be received into the favor and protection of the United States, and that boundaries be set "separating and dividing the settlements of the citizens from the Indian villages and hunting grounds."

It will be seen that in all this report there is nothing said of vested rights, or the just and lawful claims of the Indian occupants. If clemency was granted, it was a matter of grace. The government claimed the absolute jus disponendi, without any word of argument on the part of the savages. On the same day that the above resolution for holding a convention with the Indian tribes was agreed upon, preliminary instructions to the commissioners were decided upon by congress. It was determined first, that all prisoners of whatever age or sex must be delivered up; second, that the Indians were to be informed that after a long contest of eight years for the sovereignty of the country, that Great Britain had relinquished all her claims to the soil within the limits described in the treaty of peace; third, that they be further informed that a less generous people than the Americans might, in the face of their "acts of hostility and wanton devastation," compel them to retire beyond the lakes, but as the government was disposed to be kind to them, "to supply their wants, and to partake of their trade," that from "motives of compassion" a veil should be drawn over what had passed, and boundaries fixed beyond which the Indians should not come, "but for the purpose of trading, treating, or other business equally unexceptionable." There were other instructions, but is not essential to this inquiry that they be enumerated.

It is at once apparent that the commissioners on behalf of the government who went into the treaties of Fort Stanwix, Fort McIntosh, and that at the mouth of the Great Miami, if they obeyed the instructions of congress, gave the Indian tribes to understand that the United States absolutely owned every foot of the soil of the northwest, were entitled to the immediate possession of it, and if they allowed the savages to remain upon it, and did not drive them beyond the lakes, it was purely from "motives of compassion," and not because these savages enjoyed any right of occupancy that was bound to be respected by the government. That these statements are true is proven by the report of Henry Knox, secretary of war, to President Washington, on June 15th, 1789, in a review of past conditions relative to the northwestern Indians. The representations of Knox correctly reflected the views of Washington himself. The Secretary says: "It is presumable, that a nation solicitous of establishing its character on the broad basis of justice, would not only hesitate at, but reject every proposition to benefit itself, by the injury of any neighboring community, however contemptible or weak it might be, either with respect to its manners or power * * * The Indians being the prior occupants, possess the right of the soil. It cannot be taken from them unless by their free consent, or by the right of conquest in case of a just war. To dispossess them on any other principle, would be a gross violation of the fundamental law of nations, and of that distributive justice which is the glory of a nation." He then says the following: "The time has arrived, when it is highly expedient that a liberal system of justice should be adopted for the various Indian tribes within the limits of the United States. By having recourse to the several Indian treaties, made by the authority of congress, since the conclusion of the war with Great Britain, except those made in January, 1789, at Fort Harmar, it would appear, that congress were of the opinion, that the treaty of peace, of 1783, absolutely invested them with the fee of all the Indian lands within the limits of the United States; that they had the right to assign, or retain such portions as they should judge proper." Again, and during the negotiations of Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph and Timothy Pickering, with the northwestern Indians in 1793, this candid admission is made of the former errors in the negotiations at Fort Stanwix: "The commissioners of the United States have formerly set up a claim to your whole country, southward of the Great Lakes, as the property of the United States, grounding this claim on the treaty of peace with your father, the king of Great Britain, who declared, as we have before mentioned the middle of those lakes and the waters which unite them to be the boundaries of the United States. We are determined that our whole conduct shall be marked with openness and sincerity. We therefore frankly tell you, that we think those commissioners put an erroneous construction on that part of our treaty with the king. As he had not purchased the country of you, of course he could not give it away. He only relinquished to the United States his claims to it. That claim was founded on a right acquired by treaty with other white nations, to exclude them from purchasing or settling in any part of your country; and it is this right which the king granted to the United States. Before that grant, the king alone had a right to purchase of the Indian nations, any of the lands between the Great Lakes, the Ohio and the Mississippi, excepting the part within the charter boundary of Pennsylvania; and the king, by the treaty of peace, having granted this right to the United States, they alone have now the right of purchasing." Thus with perfect candor and justice did we afterwards admit that our first treaties with the tribes, were founded on a mistaken and arbitrary notion of our rights in the premises, and without a due regard to the right of occupancy of the Indian nations. A government thus frank enough to declare its error, should have been implicitly trusted by the Indian chieftains, and no doubt would have been, but for the constant representations of the British agents who for mercenary gain appealed to their fear and prejudice.

These first errors in our Indian negotiations, however, were extremely costly to us, and proved to be so many thorns in the side of the republic. On the 20th of May, 1785, an ordinance was passed by the continental congress "for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in the western territory," recently acquired under the treaties of Forts Stanwix and McIntosh. Beginning at the western line of Pennsylvania, ranges of townships six miles square were to be laid off, extending from the river Ohio to Lake Erie. These ranges were to be surveyed under the superintendence of the chief geographer of the United States, assisted by surveyors appointed from each state, and these surveyors were in turn placed over the different companies of chain carriers and axemen. Congress was making strenuous efforts to open up the western country to purchase and settlement.

But at the first attempts of the government surveyors to enter the Ohio country, they met with a most determined resistance from the savages. Brigadier-General Tupper, of Massachusetts, who went to Pittsburgh to run some lines, was enabled to proceed no farther west than that station. Captain John Doughty, writing to the secretary of war from Fort McIntosh, on the 21st of October, 1785, says "They (the Indians) are told by the British, and they are full in the persuasion, that the territory in question was never ceded to us by Britain, further than respects the jurisdiction or putting the Indians under the protection of the United States. From this reasoning they draw a conclusion that our claim in consequence of that cession ought not to deprive them of their lands without purchase. I believe you may depend upon it that this is the reasoning of their chiefs. I am so informed by several persons who have been among them. Our acting upon the late treaty made at this place last winter, in beginning to survey their country, is certainly one great cause of their present uneasiness." Everywhere the British partizans of Miamitown and Detroit, in order to keep the tribes in firm alliance with England, and thus preserve the valuable fur trade, were pointing to the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort McIntosh and telling the Indians that the Americans were laying claim to their whole country, and would drive them beyond the lakes. The British agents went further. According to Captain Doughty, certain emissaries of the British, who were acquainted with the Indian language and manners, were constantly circulating among the Indian towns in the Miami and Wyandot country, making presents to the savages, and appealing to their fears. From the information of one Alexander McCormick, communicated to Captain Doughty, it appears that some time during the season of 1785, a grand council of the tribes was held at Coshocton, on the Muskingum. Tribes were present from a considerable distance beyond the Mississippi. The object of this council seems to have been to unite all the tribes and oppose the American advance. "Two large belts of wampum were sent from the council to the different nations, holding that they should unite and be at peace with each other." This looked like a threat of war. Matthew Elliott, an Indian agent of the British, said in the Shawnee town in the presence of forty warriors, "that the Indians had better fight like men than give up their lands and starve like dogs." Simon Girty and Caldwell were among the Delawares and Wyandots advising them to keep away from the contemplated treaty at the mouth of the Great Miami.

In the face of all these portentous happenings the adoption of the great Ordinance of 1787, came as a happy relief. It was apparent now, to the minds of all right thinking men, that an unfortunate interpretation had been made of the treaty of peace; that nothing could justify an unlawful seizure of the Indian possessions. It might be humiliating to reverse the policy of the government, and give the British agents a chance to say that the United States had been wrong from the beginning, but the leading men in the federal councils had determined to adhere to the advice of Washington, and purchase every foot of the Indian lands. The potent words of the ordinance that "The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent," were in every sense truly American and placed the nation four-square to all the world.

As a direct consequence of the new policy toward the tribes, as evidenced by the Ordinance of 1787, two separate treaties of peace were entered into at Fort Harmar, at the mouth of the Muskingum river, on January 9th, 1789, and in the first year of George Washington's administration. The first treaty was concluded with the Wyandot, Delaware, Ottawa, Chippewa, Potawatomi and Sac nations; the second with the sachems and warriors of the Six Nations. About the time of the adoption of the Ordinance for the government of the northwest territory, the Ohio Company composed of revolutionary officers and soldiers, had negotiated with congress for the purchase of a large tract of land in the Muskingum valley, and on the 7th day of April, 1788, the town of Marietta, Ohio, had been established at the mouth of that river, opposite Fort Harmar. The purchase by the Ohio Company was succeeded by that of John Cleves Symmes, of a large tract of land between the Great and the Little Miami rivers, and about the first of January, 1789, the foundations were laid of the present city of Cincinnati. On October 5th, 1787, Arthur St. Clair, of Revolutionary fame, was appointed as the first governor of the northwest territory, and on July 9th, 1788, he arrived at Marietta to assume his duties, to organize the government, and adopt laws for the protection of the people.

The sale of these lands in the Indian country, the planting of these new settlements, and the increasing tide of men, women and children sweeping down the Ohio, to settle in Kentucky, seemed to verify all that the British agents had told the Indians respecting the American intentions. The depredations on the Ohio river, the plundering of boats, and murder of immigrants and settlers, were on the increase. Governor St. Clair had been given instructions by congress on the 26th day of October, 1787, to negotiate if possible an effectual peace. He was to feel out the tribes, ascertain if possible their leading head men and warriors and attach them to the interests of the United States. The primary object of the treaty was declared to be the removing of all causes of controversy, and the establishment of peace and harmony between the United States and the Indian tribes. On July 2nd, 1788, he was given additional instructions and informed that the sum of twenty thousand dollars had been appropriated, in addition to six thousand dollars theretofore set aside, for the specific purpose of obtaining a boundary advantageous to the United States, "and for further extinguishing by purchase, Indian titles, in case it can be done on terms beneficial to the Union." Congress was evidently seeking to carry out the letter and spirit of the Ordinance, and to extinguish the Indian right of occupancy, by fair negotiation and purchase.

Time will not be taken here to enumerate the many difficulties encountered by General St. Clair in the negotiation of the treaty at Fort Harmar. The violent opposition of Joseph Brant and the Indian department of the British government will be treated under another head. Suffice it to say that President Washington always considered this as a fair treaty. In the instructions given by the government to General Rufus Putnam in 1792, this language occurs: "You may say that we conceive the treaty of Fort Harmar to have been formed by the tribes having a just right to make the same, and that it was done with their full understanding and free consent."