But no such victory was ever gained over mountain or forest Indians who had become accustomed to fighting the white men. Every officer who has ever faced these foes has had to spend years in learning his work, and has then been forced to see a bitterly inadequate reward for his labors. The officers of the regular army who served in the forests north of the Ohio just after the Revolution had to undergo a strange and painful training; and were obliged to content themselves with scanty and hard-won triumphs even after this training had been undergone.

Difficulties Experienced by the Officers.

The officers took some time to learn their duties as Indian fighters, but the case was much worse with the rank and file who served under them. From the beginning of our history it often proved difficult to get the best type of native American to go into the regular army save in time of war with a powerful enemy, for the low rate of pay was not attractive, while the disciplined subordination of the soldiers to their officers seemed irksome to people with an exaggerated idea of individual freedom and no proper conception of the value of obedience. Very many of the regular soldiers have always been of foreign birth; and in 1787, on the Ohio, the percentage of Irish and Germans in the ranks was probably fully as large as it was on the Great Plains a century later. [Footnote: Denny's Journal, passim.] They, as others, at that early date, were, to a great extent, drawn from the least desirable classes of the eastern sea-board. [Footnote: For fear of misunderstanding, I wish to add that at many periods the rank and file have been composed of excellent material; of recent years their character has steadily risen, and the stuff itself has always proved good when handled for a sufficient length of time by good commanders.] Three or four years later an unfriendly observer wrote of St. Clair's soldiers that they were a wretched set of men, weak and feeble, many of them mere boys, while others were rotten with drink and debauchery. He remarked that men "purchased from the prisons, wheel-barrows, and brothels of the nation at foolishly low wages, would never do to fight Indians"; and that against such foes, who were terrible enemies in the woods, there was need of first-class, specially trained troops, instead of trying to use "a set of men who enlisted because they could no longer live unhung any other way." [Footnote: Draper Collection. Letter of John Cleves Symmes to Elias Boudinot, January 12, 1792.]

Doubtless this estimate, made under the sting of defeat, was too harsh; and it was even more applicable to the forced levies of militia than to the Federal soldiers; but the shortcomings of the regular troops were sufficiently serious to need no exaggeration. Their own officers were far from pleased with the recruits they got.

To the younger officers, with a taste for sport, the life beyond the Ohio was delightful. The climate was pleasant, the country beautiful, the water was clear as crystal, and game abounded. In hard weather the troops lived on salt beef; but at other times their daily rations were two pounds of turkey or venison, or a pound and a half of bear meat or buffalo beef. Yet this game was supplied by hired hunters, not by the soldiers themselves. One of the officers wrote that he had to keep his troops practising steadily at a target, for they were incompetent to meet an enemy with the musket; they could not kill in a week enough game to last them a day. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 150; Doughty's Letter, March 15, 1786; also, November 30, 1785.] It was almost impossible to train such troops, in a limited number of months or years, so as to enable them to meet their forest foes on equal terms. The discipline to which they were accustomed was admirably fitted for warfare in the open; but it was not suited for warfare in the woods. They had to learn even the use of their fire-arms with painful labor. It was merely hopeless to try to teach them to fight Indian fashion, all scattering out for themselves, and each taking a tree trunk, and trying to slay an individual enemy. They were too clumsy; they utterly lacked the wild-creature qualities proper to the men of the wilderness, the men who inherited wolf-cunning and panther-stealth from countless generations, who bought bare life itself only at the price of never-ceasing watchfulness, craft, and ferocity.

The Regulars Superior to the Militia.

The regulars were certainly not ideal troops with which to oppose such foes; but they were the best attainable at that time. They possessed traits which were lacking in even the best of the frontier militia; and most of the militia fell far short of the best. When properly trained the regulars could be trusted to persevere through a campaign; whereas the militia were sure to disband if kept out for any length of time. Moreover, a regular army formed a weapon with a temper tried and known; whereas a militia force was the most brittle of swords which might give one true stroke, or might fly into splinters at the first slight blow. Regulars were the only troops who could be trusted to wear out their foes in a succession of weary and hard-fought campaigns.

The best backwoods fighters, however, such men as Kenton and Brady had in their scout companies, were much superior to the regulars, and were able to meet the Indians on at least equal terms. But there were only a very few such men; and they were too impatient of discipline to be embodied in an army. The bulk of the frontier militia consisted of men who were better riflemen than the regulars and often physically abler, but who were otherwise in every military sense inferior, possessing their defects, sometimes in an accentuated form, and not possessing their compensating virtues. Like the regulars, these militia fought the Indians at a terrible disadvantage. A defeat for either meant murderous slaughter; for whereas the trained Indian fighters fought or fled each for himself, the ordinary troops huddled together in a mass, an easy mark for their savage foes.

Extreme Difficulty of the War.

The task set the leaders of the army in the Northwest was one of extreme difficulty and danger. They had to overcome a foe trained through untold ages how to fight most effectively on the very battle-ground where the contest was to be waged. To the whites a march through the wilderness was fraught with incredible toil; whereas the Indians moved without baggage, and scattered and came together as they wished, so that it was impossible to bring them to battle against their will. All that could be done was to try to beat them when they chose to receive or deliver an attack. With ordinary militia it was hopeless to attempt to accomplish anything needing prolonged and sustained effort, and, as already said, the thoroughly trained Indian fighters who were able to beat the savages at their own game were too few in numbers, and too unaccustomed to control and restraint, to permit of their forming the main body of the army in an offensive campaign. There remained only the regulars: and the raw recruits had to undergo a long and special training, and be put under the command of a thoroughly capable leader, like old Mad Anthony Wayne, before they could be employed to advantage.

The Feeling between the Regulars and Frontiersmen.

The feeling between the regular troops and the frontiersmen was often very bitter, and on several occasions violent brawls resulted. One such occurred at Limestone, where the brutal Indian-fighter Wetzel lived. Wetzel had murdered a friendly Indian, and the soldiers bore him a grudge. When they were sent to arrest him the townspeople sallied to his support. Wetzel himself resisted, and was, very properly, roughly handled in consequence. The interference of the townspeople was vigorously repaid in kind; they soon gave up the attempt, and afterwards one or two of them were ill-treated or plundered by the soldiers. They made complaint to the civil authorities, and a court-martial was then ordered by the Federal commanders. This court-martial acquitted the soldiers. Wetzel soon afterwards made his escape, and the incident ended. [Footnote: Draper MSS. Harmar's letter to Henry Lee, Sept. 27, 1789. Also depositions of McCurdy, Lawler, Caldwell, and others, and proceedings of court-martial. The depositions conflict.]

Fury of the Indian Ravages.

By 1787 the Indian war had begun with all its old fury. The thickly settled districts were not much troubled, and the towns which, like Marietta in the following year, grew up under the shadow of a Federal fort, were comparatively safe. But the frontier of Kentucky, and of Virginia proper along the Ohio, suffered severely. There was great scarcity of powder and lead, and even of guns, and there was difficulty in procuring provisions for those militia who consented to leave their work and turn out when summoned. The settlers were harried, and the surveyors feared to go out to their work on the range. There were the usual horrible incidents of Indian warfare. A glimpse of one of the innumerable dreadful tragedies is afforded by the statement of one party of scouts, who, in following the trail of an Indian war band, found at the crossing of the river "the small tracks of a number of children," prisoners from a raid made on the Monongahela settlements. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 71, vol. ii. Letters of David Shepherd to Governor Randolph, April 30, and May 24, 1787.]

Difficulties in Extending Help to the Frontiersmen.

The settlers in the harried territory sent urgent appeals for help to the Governor of Virginia and to Congress. In these appeals stress was laid upon the poverty of the frontiersmen, and their lack of ammunition. The writers pointed out that the men of the border should receive support, if only from motives of policy; for it was of great importance to the people in the thickly settled districts that the war should be kept on the frontier, and that the men who lived there should remain as a barrier against the Indians. If the latter broke through and got among the less hardy and warlike people of the interior, they would work much greater havoc; for in Indian warfare the borderers were as much superior to the more peaceful people behind them as a veteran to a raw recruit. [Footnote: Draper MSS. Lt. Marshall to Franklin, Nov. 6, 1787.]

These appeals did not go unheeded; but there was embarrassment in affording the frontier adequate protection, both because the party to which the borderers themselves belonged foolishly objected to the employment of a fair-sized regular army, and because Congress still clung to the belief that war could be averted by treaty, and so forbade the taking of proper offensive measures. In the years 1787, '88, and '89, the ravages continued; many settlers were slain, with their families, and many bodies of immigrants destroyed; while the scouting and rescue parties of whites killed a few Indians in return. [Footnote: Va. State Papers, iv., 357.] All the Indians were not yet at war, however; and curious agreements were entered into by individuals on both sides. In the absence on either side of any government with full authority and power, the leaders would often negotiate some special or temporary truce, referring only to certain limited localities, or to certain people; and would agree between themselves for the interchange or ransom of prisoners. There is a letter of Boone's extant in which he notifies a leading Kentucky colonel that a certain captive woman must be given up, in accordance with an agreement he has made with one of the noted Indian chiefs; and he insists upon the immediate surrender of the woman, to clear his "promise and obligation." [Footnote: Draper MSS., Boone Papers. Boone to Robert Patterson, March 16,1787.]

The Indians Harry the Boats on the Ohio.

The Indians watched the Ohio with especial care, and took their toll from the immense numbers of immigrants who went down it. After passing the Muskingum no boat was safe. If the war parties, lurking along the banks, came on a boat moored to the shore, or swept thither by wind or current, the crew was at their mercy; and grown bold by success, they sometimes launched small flotillas of canoes and attacked the scows on the water. In such attacks they were often successful, for they always made the assault with the odds in their favor; though they were sometimes beaten back with heavy loss.

When the war was at its height the boats going down the Ohio preferred to move in brigades. An army officer has left a description [Footnote: Denny's Military Journal, April 19, 1790.] of one such flotilla, over which he had assumed command. It contained sixteen flat-boats, then usually called "Kentuck boats," and two keels. The flat-boats were lashed three together and kept in one line. The women, children, and cattle were put in the middle scows, while the outside were manned and worked by the men. The keel boats kept on either flank. This particular flotilla was unmolested by the Indians, but was almost wrecked in a furious storm of wind and rain.

Vain Efforts to Conclude Treaties of Peace.

The Federal authorities were still hopelessly endeavoring to come to some understanding with the Indians; they were holding treaties with some of the tribes, sending addresses and making speeches to others, and keeping envoys in the neighborhood of Detroit. These envoys watched the Indians who were there, and tried to influence the great gatherings of different tribes who came together at Sandusky to consult as to the white advance. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 150, vol. iii. Harmar's speech to the Indians at Vincennes, September 17, 1787. Richard Butler to the Secretary of War, May 4, 1788, etc.]

These efforts to negotiate were as disheartening as was usually the case under such circumstances. There were many different tribes, and some were for peace, while others were for war; and even the peaceful ones could not restrain their turbulent young men. Far off nations of Indians who had never been harmed by the whites, and were in no danger from them, sent war parties to the Ohio; and the friendly tribes let them pass without interference. The Iroquois were eagerly consulted by the western Indians, and in the summer of 1788 a great party of them came to Sandusky to meet in council all the tribes of the Lakes and the Ohio valley, and even some from the upper Mississippi. With the Iroquois came the famous chief Joseph Brant, a mighty warrior, and a man of education, who in his letters to the United States officials showed much polished diplomacy. [Footnote: Do., pp. 47 and 51.]

The Indians Hold Great Councils.

The tribes who gathered at this great council met on the soil which, by treaty with England, had been declared American, and came from regions which the same treaty had defined as lying within the boundaries of the United States. But these provisions of the treaty had never been executed, owing largely to a failure on the part of the Americans themselves to execute certain other provisions. The land was really as much British as ever, and was so treated by the British Governor of Canada, Lord Dorchester, who had just made a tour of the Lake Posts. The tribes were feudatory to the British, and in their talks spoke of the King of Great Britain as "father," and Brant was a British pensioner. British agents were in constant communication with the Indians at the councils, and they distributed gifts among them with a hitherto unheard-of lavishness. In every way they showed their resolution to remain in full touch with their red allies. [Footnote: Do., St. Clair to Knox, September 14, 1788; St. Clair to Jay, December 13, 1788.]

Nevertheless, they were anxious that peace should be made. The Wyandots, too, seconded them, and addressed the Wabash Indians at one of the councils, urging them to cease their outrages on the Americans. [Footnote: Do., p. 267, Detroit River's Mouth, July 23, 1788.] These Wyandots had long been converted, and in addressing their heathen brethren, said proudly: "We are not as other nations are—we, the Wyandots—we are Christians." They certainly showed themselves the better for their religion, and they were still the bravest of the brave. But though the Wabash Indians in answering spake them fair, they had no wish to go to peace; and the Wyandots were the only tribes who strove earnestly to prevent war. The American agents who had gone to the Detroit River were forced to report that there was little hope of putting an end to hostilities. [Footnote: Do., James Rinkin to Richard Butler, July 20, 1788.] The councils accomplished nothing towards averting a war; on the contrary, they tended to band all the northwestern Indians together in a loose confederacy, so that active hostilities against some were sure in the end to involve all.

Even the Far-Off Chippewas Make Forays.

While the councils were sitting and while the Americans were preparing for the treaties, outrages of the most flagrant kind occurred. One, out of many; was noteworthy as showing both the treachery of the Indians, and the further fact that some tribes went to war, not because they had been in any way maltreated, but from mere lust of blood and plunder. In July of this year 1788, Governor St. Clair was making ready for a treaty to which he had invited some of the tribes. It was to be held on the Muskingum, and he sent to the appointed place provisions for the Indians with a guard of men. One day a party of Indians, whose tribe was then unknown, though later they turned out to be Chippewas from the Upper Lakes, suddenly fell on the guard. They charged home with great spirit, using their sharp spears well, and killed, wounded, or captured several soldiers; but they were repulsed, and retreated, carrying with them their dead, save one warrior. [Footnote: St. Clair Papers, ii., 50.] A few days afterwards they imprudently ventured back, pretending innocence, and six were seized, and sent to one of the forts as prisoners. Their act of treacherous violence had, of course, caused the immediate abandonment of the proposed treaty.

The remaining Chippewas marched towards home, with the scalps of the men they had slain, and with one captured soldier. They passed by Detroit, telling the French villagers that "their father [the British Commandant] was a dog," because he had given them no arms or ammunition, and that in consequence they would not deliver him their prisoner, but would take the poor wretch with them to their Mackinaw home. Accordingly they carried him on to the far-off island at the mouth of Lake Michigan; but just as they were preparing to make him run the gauntlet the British commander of the lonely little post interfered. This subaltern with his party of a dozen soldiers was surrounded by many times his number of ferocious savages, and was completely isolated in the wilderness; but his courage stood as high as his humanity, and he broke through the Indians, threatening them with death if they interfered, rescued the captive American, and sent him home in safety. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 150, vol. iii. William Wilson and James Rinkin to Richard Butler, August 4, 1788; Wilson and Rinkin to St. Clair, August 31, 1788.]

The other Indians made no attempt to check the Chippewas; on the contrary, the envoys of the Iroquois and Delawares made vain efforts to secure the release of the Chippewa prisoners. On the other hand, the generous gallantry of the British commander at Mackinaw was in some sort equalled by the action of the traders on the Maumee, who went to great expense in buying from the Shawnees Americans whom they had doomed to the terrible torture of death at the stake. [Footnote: Do., Rinkin to Butler, July 2, 1788; St. Clair to Knox, September 4, 1788.]

Under such circumstances the treaties of course came to naught. After interminable delays the Indians either refused to treat at all, or else the acts of those who did were promptly repudiated by those who did not. In consequence throughout this period even the treaties that were made were quite worthless, for they bound nobody. Moreover, there were the usual clashes between the National and State authorities. While Harmar was trying to treat, the Kentuckians were organizing retaliatory inroads; and while the United States Commissioners were trying to hold big peace councils on the Ohio, the New York and Massachusetts Commissioners were conducting independent negotiations at what is now Buffalo, to determine the western boundary of New York. [Footnote: Do., Wilson and Rinkin to St. Clair, July 29, 1788. These treaties made at the Ohio forts are quite unworthy of preservation, save for mere curiosity; they really settled nothing whatever and conferred no rights that were not taken with the strong hand; yet they are solemnly quoted in some books as if they were the real sources of title to parts of the Northwest.]

Continued Ravages.

All the while the ravages grew steadily more severe. The Federal officers at the little widely scattered forts were at their wits' ends in trying to protect the outlying settlers and retaliate on the Indians; and as the latter grew bolder they menaced the forts themselves and harried the troops who convoyed provisions to them. Of the innumerable tragedies which occurred, the record of a few has by chance been preserved. One may be worth giving merely as a sample of many others. On the Virginian side of the Ohio lived a pioneer farmer of some note, named Van Swearingen. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 150, vol. ii., Van Swearingen to William Butler, Washington County, Sept. 29, 1787.] One day his son crossed the river to hunt with a party of strangers. Near a "waste cabbin," the deserted log hut of some reckless adventurer, an Indian war-band came on them unawares, slew three, and carried off the young man. His father did not know whether they had killed him or not. He could find no trace of him, and he wrote to the commander of the nearest fort, begging him to try to get news from the Indian villages as to whether his son were alive or dead, and to employ for the purpose any friendly Indian or white scout, at whatever price was set—he would pay it "to the utmost farthing." He could give no clue to the Indians who had done the deed; all he could say was that a few days before, one of these war parties, while driving off a number of horses, was overtaken by the riflemen of the neighborhood and scattered, after a fight in which one white man and two red men were killed.

The old frontiersman never found his son; doubtless the boy was slain; but his fate, like the fate of hundreds of others, was swallowed up in the gloomy mystery of the wilderness. So far from being unusual, the incident attracted no comment, for it was one of every-day occurrence. Its only interest lies in the fact that it was of a kind that befell the family of almost every dweller in the wilds. Danger and death were so common that the particular expression which each might take made small impress on the minds of the old pioneers. Every one of them had a long score of slain friends and kinsfolk to avenge upon his savage foes.

The Indians Harass the Regular Troops.

The subalterns in command of the little detachments which moved between the posts, whether they went by land or water, were forced to be ever on the watch against surprise and ambush. This was particularly the case with the garrison at Vincennes. The Wabash Indians were all the time out in parties to murder and plunder; and yet these same thieves and murderers were continually coming into town and strolling innocently about the fort; for it was impossible to tell the peaceful Indians from the hostile. They were ever in communication with the equally treacherous and ferocious Miami tribes, to whose towns the war parties often brought five or six scalps in a day, and prisoners, too, doomed to a death of awful torture at the stake. There is no need to waste sympathy on the northwestern Indians for their final fate; never were defeat and subjection more richly deserved.

The bands of fierce and crafty braves who lounged about the wooden fort at Vincennes watched eagerly the outgoing and incoming of the troops, and were prompt to dog and waylay any party they thought they could overcome. They took advantage of the unwillingness of the Federal commander to harass Indians who might be friendly; and plotted at ease the destruction of the very troops who spent much of the time in keeping intruders off their lands. In the summer of 1788 they twice followed parties of soldiers from the town, when they went down the Wabash, and attacked them by surprise, from the river-banks, as they sat in their boats. In one instance, the lieutenant in command got off with the loss of but two or three men. In the other, of the thirty-six soldiers who composed the party ten were killed, eight wounded, and the greater part of the provisions and goods they were conveying were captured; while the survivors, pushing down-stream, ultimately made their way to the Illinois towns. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 150, vol. iii. Lt. Spear to Harmar, June 2, 1788; Hamtranck to Harmar, Aug. 12, 1788.] This last tragedy was avenged by a band of thirty mounted riflemen from Kentucky, led by the noted backwoods fighter Hardin. They had crossed the Ohio on a retaliatory foray, many of their horses having been stolen by the Indians. When near Vincennes they happened to stumble on the war party that had attacked the soldiers, slew ten, and scattered the others to the winds, capturing thirty horses. [Footnote: Draper MSS. Wm. Clark Papers. N. T. Dalton to W. Clark, Vincennes, Aug. 23, 1788; also Denny, p. 528.]

Dreadful Nature of the Warfare.

The war bands who harried the settlements, or lurked along the banks of the Ohio, bent on theft and murder, did terrible deeds, and at times suffered terrible fates in return, when some untoward chance threw them in the way of the grim border vengeance. The books of the old annalists are filled with tales of disaster and retribution, of horrible suffering and of fierce prowess. Countless stories are told of heroic fight and panic rout; of midnight assault on lonely cabins, and ambush of heavy-laden immigrant scows; of the deaths of brave men and cowards, and the dreadful butchery of women and children; of bloody raid and revengeful counter stroke. Sometimes a band of painted marauders would kill family after family, without suffering any loss, would capture boat after boat without effective resistance from the immigrants, paralyzed by panic fright, and would finally escape unmolested, or beat off with ease a possibly larger party of pursuers, who happened to be ill led, or to be men with little training in wilderness warfare.

At other times all this might be reversed. A cabin might be defended with such maddened courage by some stout rifleman, fighting for his cowering wife and children, that a score of savages would recoil baffled, leaving many of their number dead. A boat's crew of resolute men might beat back, with heavy loss, an over-eager onslaught of Indians in canoes, or push their slow, unwieldy craft from shore under a rain of rifle-balls, while the wounded oarsmen strained at the bloody handles of the sweeps, and the men who did not row gave shot for shot, firing at the flame tongues in the dark woods. A party of scouts, true wilderness veterans, equal to their foes in woodcraft and cunning, and superior in marksmanship and reckless courage, might follow and scatter some war band and return in triumph with scalps and retaken captives and horses.

Deeds of a War Party.

A volume could readily be filled with adventures of this kind, all varying infinitely in detail, but all alike in their bloody ferocity. During the years 1789 and 1790 scores of Indian war parties went on such trips, to meet every kind of success and failure. The deeds of one such, which happen to be recorded, may be given merely to serve as a sample of what happened in countless other cases. In the early spring of 1790 a band of fifty-four Indians of various tribes, but chiefly Cherokees and Shawnees, established a camp near the mouth of the Scioto. [Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., pp. 87, 88, 91.] They first attacked a small new-built station, on one of the bottoms of the Ohio, some twenty miles from Limestone, and killed or captured all its fifteen inhabitants. They spared the lives of two of the captives, but forced the wretches to act as decoys so as to try to lure passing boats within reach.

Their first success was with a boat going downriver, and containing four men and two unmarried girls, besides a quantity of goods intended for the stores in the Kentucky towns. The two decoys appeared on the right bank, begging piteously to be taken on board, and stating that they had just escaped from the savages. Three of the voyagers, not liking the looks of the men, refused to land, but the fourth, a reckless fellow named Flynn, and the two girls, who were coarse, foolish, good-natured frontier women of the lower sort, took pity upon the seeming fugitives, and insisted on taking them aboard. Accordingly the scow was shoved inshore, and Flynn jumped on the bank, only to be immediately seized by the Indians, who then opened fire on the others. They tried to put off, and fired back, but they were helpless; one man and a girl were shot, another wounded, and the savages then swarmed aboard, seized everything, and got very drunk on a keg of whiskey. The fates of the captives were various, each falling to some different group of savages. Flynn, the cause of the trouble, fell to the Cherokees, who took him to the Miami town, and burned him alive, with dreadful torments. The remaining girl, after suffering outrage and hardship, was bound to the stake, but saved by a merciful Indian, who sent her home. Of the two remaining men, one ran the gauntlet successfully, and afterwards escaped and reached home through the woods, while the other was ransomed by a French trader at Sandusky.

Before thus disposing of their captives the Indians hung about the mouth of the Scioto for some time. They captured a pirogue going up-stream, and killed all six paddlers. Soon afterwards three heavily laden scows passed, drifting down with the current. Aboard these were twenty-eight men, with their women and children, together with many horses and bales of merchandise. They had but sixteen guns among them, and many were immigrants, unaccustomed to savage warfare, and therefore they made no effort to repel the attack, which could easily have been done by resolute, well-armed veterans. The Indians crowded into the craft they had captured, and paddled and rowed after the scows, whooping and firing. They nearly overtook the last scow, whereupon its people shifted to the second, and abandoned it. When further pressed the people shifted into the headmost scow, cut holes in its sides so as to work all the oars, and escaped down-stream, leaving the Indians to plunder the two abandoned boats, which contained twenty-eight horses and fifteen hundred pounds' worth of goods.

Pursuit of the War Party.

The Kentuckians of the neighborhood sent word to General Harmar, begging him to break up this nest of plunderers. Accordingly he started after them, with his regular troops. He was joined by a number of Kentucky mounted riflemen, under the command of Col. Charles Scott, a rough Indian fighter, and veteran of the Revolutionary War, who afterwards became governor of the State. Scott had moved to Kentucky not long after the close of the war with England; he had lost a son at the hands of the savages, [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 71, vol. ii., p. 563.] and he delighted in war against them.

Harmar made a circuit and came down along the Scioto, hoping to surprise the Indian camp; but he might as well have hoped to surprise a party of timber wolves. His foes scattered and disappeared in the dense forest. Nevertheless, coming across some moccasin tracks, Scott's horsemen followed the trail, killed four Indians, and carried in the scalps to Limestone. The chastisement proved of little avail. A month later five immigrant boats, while moored to the bank a few miles from Limestone, were rushed by the Indians at night; one boat was taken, all the thirteen souls aboard being killed or captured.

Misadventures of Vigo.

Among the men who suffered about this time was the Italian Vigo; a fine, manly, generous fellow, of whom St. Clair spoke as having put the United States under heavy obligations, and as being "in truth the most disinterested person" he had ever known. [Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., Sept. 19, 1790.] While taking his trading boat up the Wabash, Vigo was attacked by an Indian war party, three of his men were killed, and he was forced to drop down-stream. Meeting another trading boat manned by Americans, he again essayed to force a passage in company with it, but they were both attacked with fury. The other boat got off; but Vigo's was captured. However, the Indians, when they found the crew consisted of Creoles, molested none of them, telling them that they only warred against the Americans; though they plundered the boat.

Preparations to Attack the Indians.

By the summer of 1790 the raids of the Indians had become unbearable. Fresh robberies and murders were committed every day in Kentucky, or along the Wabash and Ohio. Writing to the Secretary of War, a prominent Kentuckian, well knowing all the facts, estimated that during the seven years which had elapsed since the close of the Revolutionary War the Indians had slain fifteen hundred people in Kentucky itself, or on the immigrant routes leading thither, and had stolen twenty thousand horses, besides destroying immense quantities of other property. [Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i. Innes to Sec. of War, July 7, 1790.] The Federal generals were also urgent in asserting the folly of carrying on a merely defensive war against such foes. All the efforts of the Federal authorities to make treaties with the Indians and persuade them to be peaceful had failed. The Indians themselves had renewed hostilities, and the different tribes had one by one joined in the war, behaving with a treachery only equalled by their ferocity. With great reluctance the National Government concluded that an effort to chastise the hostile savages could no longer be delayed; and those on the Maumee, or Miami of the Lakes, and on the Wabash, whose guilt had been peculiarly heinous, were singled out as the objects of attack.

The expedition against the Wabash towns was led by the Federal commander at Vincennes, Major Hamtranck. No resistance was encountered; and after burning a few villages of bark huts and destroying some corn he returned to Vincennes.

Harmar's Expedition against the Miami Towns.

The main expedition was that against the Miami Indians, and was led by General Harmar himself. It was arranged that there should be a nucleus of regular troops, but that the force should consist mainly of militia from Kentucky and Pennsylvania, the former furnishing twice as many as the latter. The troops were to gather on the 15th of September at Fort Washington, on the north bank of the Ohio, a day's journey down-stream from Limestone.

Poor Quality of the Militia.

At the appointed time the militia began to straggle in; the regular officers had long been busy getting their own troops, artillery, and military stores in readiness. The regulars felt the utmost disappointment at the appearance of the militia. They numbered but few of the trained Indian fighters of the frontier; many of them were hired substitutes; most of them were entirely unacquainted with Indian warfare, and were new to the life of the wilderness; and they were badly armed. [Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., pp. 104, 105; Military Affairs, i., 20.] The Pennsylvanians were of even poorer stuff than the Kentuckians, numbering many infirm old men, and many mere boys. They were undisciplined, with little regard for authority, and inclined to be disorderly and mutinous.

The Army Assembles.

By the end of September one battalion of Pennsylvania, and three battalions of Kentucky, militia, had arrived, and the troops began their march to the Miami. All told there were 1453 men, 320 being Federal troops and 1133 militia, many of whom were mounted; and there were three light brass field-pieces. [Footnote: Do., Indian Affairs, i., p. 104; also p. 105. For this expedition see also Military Affairs, i., pp. 20, 28, and Denny's Military Journal, pp. 343, 354.] In point of numbers the force was amply sufficient for its work; but Harmar, though a gallant man, was not fitted to command even a small army against Indians, and the bulk of the militia, who composed nearly four-fifths of his force, were worthless. A difficulty immediately occurred in choosing a commander for the militia. Undoubtedly the best one among their officers was Colonel John Hardin, who (like his fellow Kentuckian, Colonel Scott), was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and a man of experience in the innumerable deadly Indian skirmishes of the time. He had no special qualifications for the command of more than a handful of troops, but he was a brave and honorable man, who had done well in leading small parties of rangers against their red foes. Nevertheless, the militia threatened mutiny unless they were allowed to choose their own leader, and they chose a mere incompetent, a Colonel Trotter. Harmar yielded, for the home authorities had dwelt much on the necessity of his preventing friction between the regulars and the militia; and he had so little control over the latter, that he was very anxious to keep them good-humored. Moreover, the commissariat arrangements were poor. Under such circumstances the keenest observers on the frontier foretold failure from the start. [Footnote: Am. State Papers, Indian Affairs, i. Jno. O'Fallan to the President, Lexington, Ky., Sept. 25, 1790.]

The March to the Miami.

For several days the army marched slowly forward. The regular officers had endless difficulty with the pack horsemen, who allowed their charges to stray or be stolen, and they strove to instruct the militia in the rudiments of their duties, on the march, in camp, and in battle. A fortnight's halting progress through the wilderness brought the army to a small branch of the Miami of the Lakes. Here a horse patrol captured a Maumee Indian, who informed his captors that the Indians knew of their approach and were leaving their towns. On hearing this an effort was made to hurry forward; but when the army reached the Miami towns, on October 17th, they had been deserted. They stood at the junction of two branches of the Miami, the St. Mary and the St. Joseph, about one hundred and seventy miles from Fort Washington. The troops had marched about ten miles a day. The towns consisted of a couple of hundred wigwams, with some good log huts; and there were gardens, orchards, and immense fields of corn. All these the soldiers destroyed, and the militia loaded themselves with plunder.

Failure and Defeat of a Militia Expedition.

On the 18th Colonel Trotter was ordered out with three hundred men to spend a couple of days exploring the country, and finding out where the Indians were. After marching a few miles, they came across two Indians. Both were killed by the advanced horsemen. All four of the field officers of the militia—two colonels and two majors—joined helter-skelter in the chase, leaving their troops for half an hour without a leader. Apparently satisfied with this feat, Trotter marched home, having accomplished nothing.

Defeat of a Small Detachment of Troops.

Much angered, Harmar gave the command to Hardin, who left the camp next morning with two hundred men, including thirty regulars. But the militia had turned sulky. They did not wish to go, and they began to desert and return to camp immediately after leaving it. At least half of them had thus left him, when he stumbled on a body of about a hundred Indians. The Indians advanced firing, and the militia fled with abject cowardice, many not even discharging their guns. The thirty regulars stood to their work, and about ten of the militia stayed with them. This small detachment fought bravely, and was cut to pieces, but six or seven men escaping. Their captain, after valiant fighting, broke through the savages, and got into a swamp near by. Here he hid, and returned to camp next day; he was so near the place of the fight that he had seen the victory dance of the Indians over their slain and mutilated foes.

The Army Begins its Retreat.

This defeat took the heart out of the militia. The army left the Miami towns, and moved back a couple of miles to the Shawnee town of Chilicothe. A few Indians began to lurk about, stealing horses, and two of the militia captains determined to try to kill one of the thieves. Accordingly, at nightfall, they hobbled a horse with a bell, near a hazel thicket in which they hid. Soon an Indian stalked up to the horse, whereupon they killed him, and brought his head into camp, proclaiming that it should at least be worth the price of a wolf scalp.

Next day was spent by the army in completing the destruction of all the corn, the huts, and the belongings of the Indians. A band of a dozen warriors tried to harass one of the burning parties; but some of the mounted troops got on their flank, killed two and drove the others off, they themselves suffering no loss.

A Detachment Sent Back to Attack Indians.

The following day, the 21st, the army took up the line of march for Fort Washington, having destroyed six Indian towns, and an immense quantity of corn. But Hardin was very anxious to redeem himself by trying another stroke at the Indians, who, he rightly judged, would gather at their towns as soon as the troops left. Harmar also wished to revenge his losses, and to forestall any attempt of the Indians to harass his shaken and retreating forces. Accordingly that night he sent back against the towns a detachment of four hundred men, sixty of whom were regulars, and the rest picked militia. They were commanded by Major Wyllys, of the regulars. It was a capital mistake of Harmar's to send off a mere detachment on such a business. He should have taken a force composed of all his regulars and the best of the militia, and led it in person.

This Detachment Roughly Handled.

The detachment marched soon after midnight, and reached the Miami at daybreak on October 22d. It was divided into three columns, which marched a few hundred yards apart, and were supposed to keep in touch with one another. The middle column was led by Wyllys in person, and included the regulars and a few militia. The rest of the militia composed the flank columns and marched under their own officers.

Immediately after crossing the Miami, and reaching the neighborhood of the town, Indians were seen. The columns were out of touch, and both of those on the flanks pressed forward against small parties of braves, whom they drove before them up the St. Joseph. Heedless of the orders they had received, the militia thus pressed forward, killing and scattering the small parties in their front and losing all connection with the middle column of regulars. Meanwhile the main body of the Indians gathered to assail this column, and overwhelmed it by numbers; whether they had led the militia away by accident or by design is not known. The regulars fought well and died hard, but they were completely cut off, and most of them, including their commander, were slain. A few escaped, and either fled back to camp or up the St. Joseph. Those who took the latter course met the militia returning and informed them of what had happened. Soon afterwards the victorious Indians themselves appeared, on the opposite side of the St. Joseph, and attempted to force their way across. But the militia were flushed by the easy triumph of the morning and fought well, repulsing the Indians and finally forcing them to withdraw. They then marched slowly back to the Miami towns, gathered their wounded, arrayed their ranks, and rejoined the main army. The Indians had suffered heavily, and were too dispirited, both by their loss, and by their last repulse, to attempt further to harass either this detachment or the main army itself on its retreat.

Practical failure of the expedition.

Nevertheless, the net result was a mortifying failure. In all, the regulars had lost 75 men killed and 3 wounded, while of the militia 28 had been wounded and 108 had been killed or were missing. The march back was very dreary; and the militia became nearly ungovernable, so that at one time Harmar reduced them to order only by threatening to fire on them with the artillery.

The loss of all their provisions and dwellings exposed the Miami tribes to severe suffering and want during the following winter; and they had also lost many of their warriors. But the blow was only severe enough to anger and unite them, not to cripple or crush them. All the other western tribes made common cause with them. They banded together and warred openly; and their vengeful forays on the frontier increased in number, so that the suffering of the settlers was great. Along the Ohio people lived in hourly dread of tomahawk and scalping knife; the attacks fell unceasingly on all the settlements from Marietta to Louisville.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE SOUTHWEST TERRITORY, 1788-1790.

Uneasiness in the southwest

During the years 1788 and 1789 there was much disquiet and restlessness throughout the southwestern territory, the land lying between Kentucky and the southern Indians. The disturbances caused by the erection of the state of Franklin were subsiding, the authority of North Carolina was re-established over the whole territory, and by degrees a more assured and healthy feeling began to prevail among the settlers; but as yet their future was by no means certain, nor was their lot irrevocably cast in with that of their fellows in the other portions of the Union.

As already said, the sense of national unity among the frontiersmen was small. The men of the Cumberland in writing to the Creeks spoke of the Franklin people as if they belonged to an entirely distinct nation, and as if a war with or by one community concerned in no way the other [Footnote: Robertson MSS. Robertson to McGillivray, Nashville, 1788. "Those aggressors live in a different state and are governed by different laws, consequently we are not culpable for their misconduct."]; while the leaders of Franklin were carrying on with the Spaniards negotiations quite incompatible with the continued sovereignty of the United States. Indeed it was some time before the southwestern people realized that after the Constitution went into effect they had no authority to negotiate commercial treaties on their own account. Andrew Jackson, who had recently taken up his abode in the Cumberland country, was one of the many men who endeavored to convince the Spanish agents that it would be a good thing for both parties if the Cumberland people were allowed to trade with the Spaniards; in which event the latter would of course put a stop to the Indian hostilities. [Footnote: Tennessee Hist. Soc. MSS. Andrew Jackson to D. Smith, introducing the Spanish agent, Captain Fargo, Feb. 13, 1789.]

Fear of Indians Strengthens the Federal Bond.

This dangerous loosening of the Federal tie shows that it would certainly have given way entirely had the population at this time been scattered over a wider territory. The obstinate and bloody warfare waged by the Indians against the frontiersmen was in one way of great service to the nation, for it kept back the frontier, and forced the settlements to remain more or less compact and in touch with the country behind them. If the red men had been as weak as, for instance, the black-fellows of Australia, the settlers would have roamed hither and thither without regard to them, and would have settled, each man wherever he liked, across to the Pacific. Moreover the Indians formed the bulwarks which defended the British and Spanish possessions from the adventurers of the border; save for the shield thus offered by the fighting tribes it would have been impossible to bar the frontiersmen from the territory either to the north or to the south of the boundaries of the United States.

Congress had tried hard to bring about peace with the southern Indians, both by sending commissioners to them and by trying to persuade the three southern States to enter into mutually beneficial treaties with them. A successful effort was also made to detach the Chickasaws from the others, and keep them friendly with the United States. Congress as usual sympathized with the Indians against the intruding whites, although it was plain that only by warfare could the red men be permanently subdued. [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., No. 180, p. 66; No. 151, p. 275. Also letters of Richard Winn to Knox, June 25, 1788; James White to Knox, Aug. 1, 1788; Joseph Martin to Knox, July 25, 1788.]

Sufferings of the Cumberland People.

The Cumberland people felt the full weight of the warfare, the Creeks being their special enemies. Robertson himself lost a son and a brother in the various Indian attacks. To him fell the task of trying to put a stop to the ravages. He was the leader of his people in every way, their commander in war and their spokesman when they sought peace; and early in 1788 he wrote a long letter on their behalf to the Creek chief McGillivray. After disclaiming all responsibility for or connection with the Franklin men, he said that the settlers for whom he spoke had not had the most distant idea that any Indians would object to their settling on the Cumberland, in a country that had been purchased outright at the Henderson treaty. He further stated that he had believed the Creek chief would approve of the expedition to punish the marauders at the Muscle Shell Shoals, inasmuch as the Creeks had repeatedly assured him that these marauders were refractory people who would pay no heed to their laws and commands. Robertson knew this to be good point, for as a matter of fact the Creeks, though pretending to be peaceful, had made no effort to suppress these banditti, and had resented by force of arms the destruction of their stronghold. [Footnote: Robertson MSS. Robertson to McGillivray. Letters already cited.]

Robertson's Letters to the Creek Chief McGillivray

Robertson then came to his personal wrongs. His quaintly worded letter runs in part: "I had the mortification to see one of my children Killed and uncommonly Massacred ... from my earliest youth I have endeavored to arm myself with a sufficient share of Fortitude to meet anything that Nature might have intended, but to see an innocent child so Uncommonly Massacred by people who ought to have both sense and bravery has in a measure unmanned me.... I have always striven to do justice to the red people; last fall, trusting in Cherokee friendship, I with utmost difficulty prevented a great army from marching against them. The return is very inadequate to the services I have rendered them as last summer they killed an affectionate brother and three days ago an innocent child." The letter concludes with an emphatic warning that the Indians must expect heavy chastisement if they do not stop their depredations.

His Letter to Martin.

Robertson looked on his own woes and losses with much of the stoicism for which his Indian foes were famed. He accepted the fate of his son with a kind of grim stolidity; and did not let it interfere with his efforts to bring about a peace. Writing to his friend General Martin, he said: "On my return home [from the North Carolina Legislature to which he was a delegate] I found distressing times in the country. A number of persons have been killed since; among those unfortunate persons were my third son.... We sent Captains Hackett and Ewing to the Creeks who have brought very favorable accounts, and we do not doubt but a lasting peace will be shortly concluded between us and that nation. The Cherokees we shall flog, if they do not behave well." [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 71, vol. ii. Robertson to Martin, Pleasant Grove, May 7, 1788.] He wished to make peace if he could; but if that was impossible, he was ready to make war with the same stern acceptance of fate.

The letter then goes on to express the opinion that, if Congress does not take action to bring about a peace, the Creeks will undoubtedly invade Georgia with some five thousand warriors, for McGillivray has announced that he will consent to settle the boundary question with Congress, but will do nothing with Georgia. The letter shows with rather startling clearness how little Robertson regarded the Cumberland people and the Georgians as being both in the same nation; he saw nothing strange in one portion of the country concluding a firm peace with an enemy who was about to devastate another portion.

Robertson was anxious to encourage immigration, and for this purpose he had done his best to hurry forward the construction of a road between the Holston and the Cumberland settlements. In his letter to Martin he urged him to proclaim to possible settlers the likelihood of peace, and guaranteed that the road would be ready before winter. It was opened in the fall; and parties of settlers began to come in over it. To protect them, the district from time to time raised strong guards of mounted riflemen to patrol the road, as well as the neighborhood of the settlements, and to convoy the immigrant companies. To defray the expenses of the troops, the Cumberland court raised taxes. Exactly as the Franklin people had taken peltries as the basis for their currency, so those of the Cumberland, in arranging for payment in kind, chose the necessaries of life as the best medium of exchange. They enacted that the tax should be paid one quarter in corn, one half in beef, pork, bear meat, and venison, one eighth in salt, and one eighth in money. [Footnote: Ramsey, p. 504.] It was still as easy to shoot bear and deer as to raise hogs and oxen.

McGillivray's Letter to Robertson.

Robertson wrote several times to McGillivray, alone or in conjunction with another veteran frontier leader, Col. Anthony Bledsoe. Various other men of note on the border, both from Virginia and North Carolina, wrote likewise. To these letters McGillivray responded promptly in a style rather more polished though less frank than that of his correspondents. His tone was distinctly more warlike and less conciliatory than theirs. He avowed, without hesitation, that the Creeks and not the Americans had been the original aggressors, saying that "my nation has waged war against your people for several years past; but that we had no motive of revenge, nor did it proceed from any sense of injuries sustained from your people, but being warmly attached to the British and being under their influence our operations were directed by them against you in common with other Americans." He then acknowledged that after the close of the war the Americans had sent overtures of peace, which he had accepted—although as a matter of fact the Creeks never ceased their ravages,—but complained that Robertson's expedition against the Muscle Shoals again brought on war. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 71, vol. ii., p. 620. McGillivray to Bledsoe and Robertson; no date.]

There was, of course, nothing in this complaint of the injustice of Robertson's expedition, for the Muscle Shoal Indians had been constantly plundering and murdering before it was planned, and it was undertaken merely to put a stop to their ravages. However, McGillivray made adroit use of it. He stated that the expedition itself, carried on, as he understood it, mainly against the French traders, "was no concern of ours and would have been entirely disregarded by us; but in the execution of it some of our people were there, who went as well from motives of curiosity as to traffic in silverware; and six of whom were rashly killed by your men" [Footnote: McGillivray's Letter of April 17, 1788, p. 521.]; and inasmuch as these slain men were prominent in different Creek towns, the deed led to retaliatory raids. But now that vengeance had been taken, McGillivray declared that a stable peace would be secured, and he expressed "considerable concern" over the "tragical end" of Robertson's slain kinsfolk As for the Georgians, he announced that if they were wise and would agree to an honorable peace he would bury the red hatchet, and if not then he would march against them whenever he saw fit. [Footnote: Do. p. 625; McGillivray's Letter of April 15, 1788.] Writing again at the end of the year, he reiterated his assurances of the peaceful inclinations of the Creeks, though their troubles with Georgia were still unsettled. [Footnote: Robertson MSS. McGillivray to Robertson, December 1, 1788. This letter contains the cautious, non-committal answer to Robertson's letter in which the latter proposed that Cumberland should be put under Spanish protection; the letter itself McGillivray had forwarded to the Spaniards.]

Continuance of the Ravages.

Nevertheless these peaceful protestations produced absolutely no effect upon the Indian ravages, which continued with unabated fury. Many instances of revolting brutality and aggression by the whites against the Cherokees took place in Tennessee, both earlier and later than this, and in eastern Tennessee at this very time; but the Cumberland people, from the earliest days of their settlement, had not sinned against the red men, while as regards all the Tennesseans, the Creeks throughout this period appeared always, and the Cherokees appeared sometimes, as the wrong-doers, the men who began the long and ferocious wars of reprisal.

Death of Bledsoe.

Robertson's companion, Bledsoe, was among the many settlers who suffered death in the summer of 1788. He was roused from sleep by the sound of his cattle running across the yard in front of the twin log-houses occupied by himself and his brother and their families. As he opened the door he was shot by Indians, who were lurking behind the fence, and one of his hired men was also shot down. [Footnote: Putnam, 298.] The savages fled, and Bledsoe lived through the night, while the other inmates of the house kept watch at the loop-holes until day broke and the fear was passed. Under the laws of North Carolina at that time, all the lands went to the sons of a man dying intestate, and Bledsoe's wealth consisted almost exclusively in great tracts of land. As he lay dying in his cabin, his sister suggested to him that unless he made a will he would leave his seven daughters penniless; and so the will was drawn, and the old frontiersman signed it just before he drew his last breath, leaving each of his children provided with a share of his land.

Robertson Wounded.

In the following year, 1789, Robertson himself had a narrow escape. He was at work with some of his field hands in a clearing. One man was on guard and became alarmed at some sound; Robertson snatched up his gun, and, while he was peering into the woods, the Indians fired on him. He ran toward the station and escaped, but only at the cost of a bullet through the foot. Immediately sixty mounted riflemen gathered at Robertson's station, and set out after the fleeing Indians; but finding that in the thick wood they did not gain on their foes, and were hampered by their horses, twenty picked men were sent ahead. Among these twenty men was fierce, moody young Andrew Jackson. They found the Indians in camp, at daybreak, but fired from too great a distance; they killed one, wounded others, and scattered the rest, who left sixteen guns behind them in their flight. [Footnote: Haywood, 244.]

Wrongs Committed by Both Sides.

During these two years many people were killed, both in the settlements, on the trail through the woods, and on the Tennessee River, as they drifted down-stream in their boats. As always in these contests the innocent suffered with the guilty. The hideous border ruffians, the brutal men who murdered peaceful Indians in times of truce and butchered squaws and children in time of war, fared no worse than unoffending settlers or men of mark who had been staunch friends of the Indian peoples. The Legislatures of the seaboard States, and Congress itself, passed laws to punish men who committed outrages on the Indians, but they could not be executed. Often the border people themselves interfered to prevent such outrages, or expressed disapproval of them, and rescued the victims; but they never visited the criminals with the stern and ruthless punishment which alone would have availed to check the crimes. For this failure they must receive hearty condemnation, and be adjudged to have forfeited much of the respect to which they were otherwise entitled by their strong traits, and their deeds of daring. In the same way, but to an even greater degree, the peaceful Indians always failed to punish or restrain their brethren who were bent on murder and plunder; and the braves who went on the warpath made no discrimination between good and bad, strong and weak, man and woman, young and old.

One of the sufferers was General Joseph Martin, who had always been a firm friend of the red race, and had earnestly striven to secure justice for them. [Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i. Martin to Knox, Jan. 15, 1789.] He had gone for a few days to his plantation on the borders of Georgia, and during his visit the place was attacked by a Creek war party. They drove away his horses and wounded his overseer; but he managed to get into his house and stood at bay, shooting one warrior and beating off the others.

Attack on an Emigrant Boat.

Among many attacks on the boats that went down the Tennessee it happens that a full record has been kept of one. A North Carolinian, named Brown, had served in the Revolutionary War with the troop of Light-Horse Harry Lee, and had received in payment a land certificate. Under this certificate he entered several tracts of western land, including some on the Cumberland; and in the spring of 1788 he started by boat down the Tennessee, to take possession of his claims. He took with him his wife and his seven children; and three or four young men also went along. When they reached the Chicamauga towns the Indians swarmed out towards them in canoes. On Brown's boat was a swivel, and with this and the rifles of the men they might have made good their defence; but as soon as the Indians saw them preparing for resistance they halted and hailed the crew, shouting out that they were peaceful and that in consequence of the recent Holston treaties war had ceased between the white men and the red. Brown was not used to Indians; he was deceived, and before he made up his mind what to do, the Indians were alongside, and many of them came aboard. [Footnote: Narrative of Col. Joseph Brown, Southwestern Monthly, Nashville, 1851, i., p. 14. The story was told when Brown was a very old man, and doubtless some of the details are inaccurate.] They then seized the boat and massacred the men, while the mother and children were taken ashore and hurried off in various directions by the Indians who claimed to have captured them. One of the boys, Joseph, long afterwards wrote an account of his captivity. He was not treated with deliberate cruelty, though he suffered now and then from the casual barbarity of some of his captors, and toiled like an ordinary slave. Once he was doomed to death by a party of Indians, who made him undress, so as to avoid bloodying his clothes; but they abandoned this purpose through fear of his owner, a half-breed, and a dreaded warrior, who had killed many whites.

Sevier Secures Release of Prisoners.

After about a year's captivity, Joseph and his mother and sisters were all released, though at different times. Their release was brought about by Sevier. When in the fall of 1788 a big band of Creeks and Cherokees took Gillespie's station, on Little River, a branch of the upper Tennessee, they carried off over a score of women and children. The four highest chiefs, headed by one with the appropriate name of Bloody Fellow, left behind a note addressed to Sevier and Martin, in which they taunted the whites with their barbarities, and especially with the murder of the friendly Cherokee chief Tassel, and warned them to move off the Indian land. [Footnote: Ramsey, 519.] In response Sevier made one of his swift raids, destroyed an Indian town on the Coosa River, and took prisoner a large number of Indian women and children. These were well treated, but were carefully guarded, and were exchanged for the white women and children who were in captivity among the Indians. The Browns were among the fortunate people who were thus rescued from the horrors of Indian slavery. It is small wonder that the rough frontier people, whose wives and little ones, friends and neighbors, were in such manner rescued by Nolichucky Jack, should have looked with leniency on their darling leader's shortcomings, even when these shortcomings took the form of failure to prevent or punish the massacre of friendly Indians.

Efforts of the Settlers to Defend Themselves.

The ravages of the Indians were precisely the same in character that they had always been, and always were until peace was won. There was the usual endless succession of dwellings burned, horses driven off, settlers slain while hunting or working, and immigrant parties ambushed and destroyed; and there was the same ferocious retaliation when opportunity offered. When Robertson's hopes of peace gave out he took steps to keep the militia in constant readiness to meet the foe; for he was the military commander of the district. The county lieutenants—there were now several counties on the Cumberland—were ordered to see that their men were well mounted and ready to march at a moment's notice; and were warned that this was a duty to which they must attend themselves, and not delegate it to their subalterns. The laws were to be strictly enforced; and the subalterns were promptly to notify their men of the time and place to meet. Those who failed to attend would be fined by court-martial. Frequent private musters were to be held; and each man was to keep ready a good gun, nine charges of powder and ball, and a spare flint. It was especially ordered that every marauding band should be followed; for thus some would be overtaken and signally punished, which would be a warning to the others. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., General Orders, April 5, 1789.]

The Creeks and the Georgians.

The wrath of the Creeks was directed chiefly against the Georgians. The Georgians were pushing steadily westward, and were grasping the Creek hunting-grounds with ferocious greed. They had repeatedly endeavored to hold treaties with the Creeks. On each occasion the chiefs and warriors of a few towns met them, and either declined to do anything, or else signed an agreement which they had no power to enforce. A sample treaty of this kind was that entered into at Galphinton in 1785. The Creeks had been solemnly summoned to meet representatives both of the Federal Congress and of Georgia; but on the appointed day only two towns out of a hundred were represented. The Federal Commissioners thereupon declined to enter into negotiations; but those from Georgia persevered. By presents and strong drink they procured, and their government eagerly accepted, a large cession of land to which the two towns in question had no more title than was vested in all the others.

The treaty was fraudulent. The Georgians knew that the Creeks who signed it were giving away what they did not possess; while the Indian signers cared only to get the goods they were offered, and were perfectly willing to make all kinds of promises, inasmuch as they had no intention whatever of keeping any of them. The other Creeks immediately repudiated the transaction, and the war dragged on its course of dismal savagery, growing fiercer year by year, and being waged on nearly even terms. [Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., p. 15.]

McGillivray Signs a Treaty of Peace.

Soon after the Constitution went into effect the National Government made a vigorous effort to conclude peace on a stable basis. Commissioners were sent to the southern Indians. Under their persuasion McGillivray and the leading kings and chiefs of the Muscogee confederacy came to New York and there entered into a solemn treaty. In this treaty the Creeks acknowledged the United States, to the exclusion of Spain, as the sole power with which they could treat; they covenanted to keep faith and friendship with the Americans; and in return for substantial payments and guaranties they agreed to cede some land to the Georgians, though less than was claimed under the treaty of Galphinton.

The Creeks Pay No Heed to the Treaty.

This treaty was solemnly entered into by the recognized chiefs and leaders of the Creeks; and the Americans fondly hoped that it would end hostilities. It did nothing of the kind. Though the terms were very favorable to the Indians, so much so as to make the frontiersmen grumble, the Creeks scornfully repudiated the promises made on their behalf by their authorized representatives. Their motive in going to war, and keeping up the war, was not so much anger at the encroachments of the whites, as the eager thirst for glory, scalps, and plunder, to be won at the expense of the settlers. The war parties raided the frontier as freely as ever. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Williamson to Robertson, Aug. 2, 1789, and Aug. 7, 1790. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, i., 81. Milfort 131, 142.] The simple truth was that the Creeks could be kept quiet only when cowed by physical fear. If the white men did not break the treaties, then the red men did. It is idle to dispute about the rights or wrongs of the contests. Two peoples, in two stages of culture which were separated by untold ages, stood face to face; one or the other had to perish; and the whites went forward from sheer necessity.

Growth of Immigration.

Throughout these years of Indian warfare the influx of settlers into the Holston and Cumberland regions steadily continued. Men in search of homes, or seeking to acquire fortunes by the purchase of wild lands, came more and more freely to the Cumberland country as the settlers therein increased in number and became better able to cope with and repel their savage foes. The settlements on the Holston grew with great rapidity as soon as the Franklin disturbances were at an end. As the people increased in military power, they increased also in material comfort, and political stability. The crude social life deepened and broadened. Comfortable homes began to appear among the huts and hovels of the little towns. The outlying settlers still lived in wooden forts or stations; but where the population was thicker, the terror of the Indians diminished, and the people lived in the ordinary style of frontier farmers.

The South-western Territory Organized.

Early in 1790, North Carolina finally ceded, and the National Government finally accepted, what is now Tennessee; and in May, Congress passed a law for the government of this Territory Southwest of the River Ohio, as they chose to call it. This law followed on the general lines of the Ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwest; but there was one important difference. North Carolina had made her cession conditional upon the non-passage of any law tending to emancipate slaves. At that time such a condition was inevitable; but it doomed the Southwest to suffer under the curse of negro bondage.

Blount Made Governor.

William Blount of North Carolina was appointed Governor of the Territory, and at once proceeded to his new home to organize the civil government. [Footnote: Blount MSS. Biography of Blount, in manuscript, compiled by one of his descendants from the family papers.] He laid out Knoxville as his capital, where he built a good house with a lawn in front. On his recommendation Sevier was appointed Brigadier-General for the Eastern District and Robertson for the Western; the two districts known as Washington and Miro respectively.

Blount was the first man of leadership in the West who was of Cavalier ancestry; for though so much is said of the Cavalier type in the southern States it was everywhere insignificant in numbers, and comparatively few of the southern men of mark have belonged to it. Blount was really of Cavalier blood. He was descended from a Royalist baronet, who was roughly handled by the Cromwellians, and whose three sons came to America. One of them settled in North Carolina, near Albemarle Sound, and from him came the new governor of the southwestern territory. Blount was a good-looking, well-bred man, with cultivated tastes; but he was also a man of force and energy, who knew well how to get on with the backwoodsmen, so that he soon became popular among them.

Retrospect: What had been Accomplished during the Seven Years.

The West had grown with astonishing rapidity during the seven years following the close of the Revolutionary War. In 1790 there were in Kentucky nearly seventy-four thousand, and in the Southwest Territory nearly thirty-six thousand souls. In the Northwest Territory the period of rapid growth Years had not yet begun, and the old French inhabitants still formed the majority of the population.

The changes during these seven years had been vital. In the West, as elsewhere through the Union, the years succeeding the triumphant close of the Revolution were those which determined whether the victory was or was not worth winning. To throw off the yoke of the stranger was useless and worse than useless if we showed ourselves unable to turn to good account the freedom we had gained. Unless we could build up a great nation, and unless we possessed the power and self-restraint to frame an orderly and stable government, and to live under its laws when framed, the long years of warfare against the armies of the king were wasted and went for naught.

At the close of the Revolution the West was seething with sedition. There were three tasks before the Westerners; all three had to be accomplished, under pain of utter failure. It was their duty to invade and tame the shaggy wilderness; to drive back the Indians and their European allies; and to erect free governments which should form parts of the indissoluble Union. If the spirit of sedition, of lawlessness, and of wild individualism and separatism had conquered, then our history would merely have anticipated the dismal tale of the Spanish-American republics.

Viewed from this standpoint the history of the West during these eventful years has a special and peculiar interest. The inflow of the teeming throng of settlers was the most striking feature; but it was no more important than the half-seen struggle in which the Union party finally triumphed over the restless strivers for disunion. The extent and reality of the danger are shown by the numerous separatist movements. The intrigues in which so many of the leaders engaged with Spain, for the purpose of setting up barrier states, in some degree feudatory to the Spaniards; the movement in Kentucky for violent separation from Virginia, and the more secret movement for separation from the United States; the turbulent career of the commonwealth of Franklin; the attitude of isolation of interest from all their neighbors assumed by the Cumberland settlers:—all these various movements and attitudes were significant of the looseness of the Federal tie, and were ominous of the anarchic violence, weakness, and misrule which would have followed the breaking of that tie.

The career of Franklin gave the clearest glimpse of what might have been; for it showed the gradual breaking down of law and order, the rise of factions ready to appeal to arms for success, the bitter broils with neighboring States, the reckless readiness to provoke war with the Indians, unheeding their rights or the woes such wars caused other frontier communities, and finally the entire willingness of the leaders to seek foreign aid when their cause was declining. Had not the Constitution been adopted, and a more perfect union been thus called into being, the history of the state of Franklin would have been repeated in fifty communities from the Alleghanies to the Pacific coast; only these little states, instead of dying in the bud, would have gone through a rank flowering period of bloody and aimless revolutions, of silly and ferocious warfare against their neighbors, and of degrading alliance with the foreigner. From these and a hundred other woes the West no less than the East was saved by the knitting together of the States into a Nation.

This knitting process passed through its first and most critical stage, in the West, during the period intervening between the close of the war for independence, and the year which saw the organization of the Southwest into a territory ruled under the laws, and by the agent, of the National Government. During this time no step was taken towards settling the question of boundary lines with our British and Spanish neighbors; that remained as it had been, the Americans never abandoning claims which they had not yet the power to enforce, and which their antagonists declined to yield. Neither were the Indian wars settled; on the contrary, they had become steadily more serious, though for the first time a definite solution was promised by the active interference of the National Government. But a vast change had been made by the inflow of population; and an even vaster by the growing solidarity of the western settlements with one another, and with the Central Government. The settlement of the Northwest, so different in some of its characteristics from the settlement of the Southwest, had begun. Kentucky was about to become a State of the Union. The territories north and south of it were organized as part of the domain of the United States. The West was no longer a mere wilderness dotted with cabins and hamlets, whose backwoods builders were held by but the loosest tie of allegiance to any government, even their own. It had become an integral part of the mighty American Republic.

THE END OF VOL. III.

INDEX.

Allen, Ethan, separatist leader; relations with British authorities. Army, regular, relations of officers to Kentuckians; friction with frontiersmen; distrust of militia; failure to understand how to fight Indians; shortcomings of; superiority to the militia; further friction with frontiersmen. Baptist preachers. Black Wolf, Indian chief, death of. Bledsoe, Anthony, corresponds with McGillivray; slain by Indians. Bloody Fellow, Cherokee chief, writes note taunting Sevier and Martin. Blount, William, Governor of Southwest Territory. Bolivar, Spanish-American general. Boone, Daniel, hunter and deputy surveyor; in Virginia Legislature; trader; creed; keeps faith with Indians. Borarth, Mrs., feat of, against Indians. Bradford, John, publisher of Kentucke Gazette. Brady, Sam, feats of; his scouts formidable fighters. Brant, Joseph, Iroquois chief. British, keep country round great lakes; support Indians against frontiersmen; deeds of British troops; foes of frontiersmen. Brown, John, Kentucky delegate in Congress, allied to Wilkinson; he and Madison have intercourse with Gardoqui; letter advising independence for Kentucky; disunionist, not corrupt; misrepresents action of Continental Congress. Brown, Joseph, story of his capture by Indians. Caldwell, British partisan. Campbell, Arthur, sides with state of Franklin. Carondolet, Spanish governor, excites Indians against Americans. Castleman, Indian fighter. Cherokees, complain of violation of treaties; chief killed; hold council with Franklin people; hostilities with Franklin; uneasiness under pressure of borderers; embroiled with Kentuckians; outrages against; butchery of; war with. Chickamaugas, a banditti; ravages by; beat back Martin's expedition. Chickasaws, war with Kickapoos; uneasy over American advance. Chippewas, thirst for liquor; wanton outrages by. Choctaws, alarmed by coming of frontier settlers. Christian, Col. William, death of. Clark, George Rogers, closes land office as war measure; land-poor; manner of life; commission to treat with Indians; encroaches on Indian lands; believes treaties to be futile; advocates war; appealed to by Vincennes Americans; moves against Indians; failure of expedition; experiences of friend in river-trade; seizes goods of Spanish trader; back-woodsmen approve this deed; it is condemned by Federal and Virginian authorities; his motives suspected; his acts disapproved by Kentucky Convention; he writes to Gardoqui proposing to found a colony in Illinois; friendship for Gibault. Cocke, William, envoy from state of Franklin; writes to Benj. Franklin. Coldwater, Indian town on; French traders at; destroyed by Robertson. Colonies, proposals to found them in Spanish territory; Colonial systems, varieties of; United States makes new departure in. Commerce on Mississippi, peculiarities and dangers of; profits of; uncertainties of; hampered by Spaniards; extent of. Conolly attempts intrigue in Kentucky. Contested election in state of Franklin. Continental troops, best class of immigrants. Convention, held at Danville to erect Kentucky into a State; second convention declares for separate statehood; third convention; wrangles with Virginia Legislature; further conventions. Cornplanter, the Iroquois, speech and deeds. Corn Tassel, friendly Cherokee chief, murdered by whites. Council, of northern Indians at Sandusky. Creeks, trouble with Georgians; hostility to Americans; feudatory to Spaniards; ravages by; constant clashing with Georgians; bad faith towards United States. Cumberland, river, fertile lands along; speculation in lands; settlements in great bend, II; settlers on, take no share in the Franklin quarrel; they have slight national feeling; their currency; their troubles with Indians; increase in their numbers. Cunningham family murdered by Indians. Cutler, Manasseh, represents Ohio Company before Congress; perhaps writes draft of ordinance; visits Ohio. Dane, Nathan, share in ordinance of 1787. Delawares, divided councils of. Detroit, important British post; life at. Disunion spirit on frontier; folly of; extent in Vermont and Kentucky; equivocal attitude of disunion leaders; Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, and Hartford Convention. Doolin family murdered by Indians. Dorchester, Lord, rouses Indians against Americans; his attitude as Governor of Canada. Elliott, British partisan. Federal Government treats with Indians. Filson, John, misadventure of; goes for help to Louisville. Fleming, Col. Wm., visits Kentucky; presides over first Danville Convention. Frankland, proposal to alter name of Franklin to; proposed constitution for. Franklin, insurrectionary state of, founded; government and finance; memorial to Congress; named after the philosopher; piratical attitude towards Indians; friendship for Georgia; workings of the government; revolt against; Virginia unfriendly, but Georgia friendly; grasps at Indian lands; war with Indians; quarrels with North Carolina and the Cherokees; totters to its fall; collapse. French, complaints against Americans; friendship with Indians. French towns, chaos in. French traders excite Indians against Americans. Frontier, attracts adventurous spirits; social characteristics of frontiersmen. Galvez, victories of; Viceroy of Mexico. Game, abundance of, in Kentucky. Gardoqui, Don Diego, Spanish Minister in New York; negotiations with Jay; declines Jay's propositions; intrigues with separatist leaders; letter to Robertson; negotiations with Morgan; fruitlessness of his diplomacy; inability to understand Americans; intercourse with leaders in Congress; correspondence with Sevier; sends envoy to Franklin; negotiations with the Franklin leaders. Georgia, room for growth within. Gibault, priest at Cahokia. Gillespie, Captain, protects Indian prisoner; his station captured by Indians. Girty, Simon, British partisan; ransoms captive. Grayson, William, share in ordinance. Hamtranck, expedition against Wabash Indians Hardin, John, Col., skirmish with Indians; wounded; successful foray; commands militia under Harmar; is defeated. Harmar, General, investigates alleged filibustering expedition from Franklin; takes possession of French towns; quarrels with backwoodsmen; stateliness of life; foray against Shawnees; marches against Miami towns; poor quality of army; destroys towns; his detachments defeated; his retreat. Hart, Israel, family butchered by Indians. Henry, Patrick, authorizes Kentuckians to attack Indians; services of; hostility to state of Franklin. Holston, river, settlements on; trail from these settlements to Cumberland; rapid growth of settlements. Hopewell, treaty of. Houston, Samuel, proposes constitution of Frankland Illinois, American settlers in the; quarrels of Americans and creoles; creoles petition Congress; relations of both with Federal troops. Indian fighters. Indians, futile treaties with; treachery of; double dealing of; wish war; ravages of; wrongs committed against; horrors of warfare with; terrible qualities of; wage war of aggression; attack immigrants; their ravages; ravages increase; varying conditions of warfare against; further ravages; attacks on Ohio boats; extent of damage done by, in Kentucky. Individual initiative of settlers, chief characteristic of settlement of Northwest Innes threatens disunion. Jackson, Andrew, intercourse with Spanish agents; share in Indian fighting. Jay, John, does not realize growth of West; renders great services to West; negotiations with Gardoqui; offers temporary suspension of right to navigate Mississippi; anger of Westerners at this; his attitude and advice on subject. Jefferson, fatuous military judgment of; wise attitude towards West; against slavery in Northwest. Johnson boys, adventure of. Jonesboro, convention at, declares for independence. Kenton, Simon, surveyor and hunter; Indian fighter; rescues white captives; leads raids against Indians; his scout company. Kentucky Gazette. Kentucky, great growth of; good poor man's country; emigrants to, American, German, Scotch, Irish; characteristics of people; their attitude towards Spain; misery of early settlers; great change in; scourged by Indians; prosperity of; politics; movement for separate statehood; movement compared to that in Franklin; wrangles with Virginia; delays in movement; Kentucky becomes a State. King, Rufus, opposes slavery in Northwest. Kirk, John, his family murdered by Indians; brutal deed of his son. Lake posts, held by British, importance of, to frontiersmen. Land claims of States; differences in substantial value of; those of Virginia and North Carolina most important; those of the other States very shadowy; misconduct of Georgia; attitude of the non-claimant States; Continental Congress