The Land of the Miamis

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."

Tarhe, a prominent chief of the Wyandots, said at the treaty of Greenville, in 1795, to General Wayne: "Brother, you have proposed to us to build our good work on the treaty of Muskingum (Fort Harmar); that treaty I have always considered as founded upon the fairest principles * * * I have always looked upon that treaty to be binding upon the United States and us Indians." The same boundaries were fixed between the United States and the Wyandots and Delawares, as were fixed in the treaty of Fort McIntosh, and the Six Nations ceded to the government all lands west of the Pennsylvania line, but this time a valuable consideration was given for the land, and the United States "relinquished and quit claimed" to the tribes all claims to the territory embraced within the Indian boundaries "to live and hunt upon, and otherwise to occupy as they shall see fit." In other words, and as Secretary of War Knox says, congress had appropriated a sum of money solely for the purpose of extinguishing the Indian title, and for obtaining regular conveyances from the Indians, and this was accordingly accomplished. One who reads of this great triumph of right and justice, and this humane and merciful treatment of a race of savages, is certainly justified in feeling a profound respect and admiration for the fathers of the republic.

CHAPTER IX

THE KENTUCKIANS

– The first men to break through the mountain barriers to face the British and the Indians.

While the government of the United States was thus shaping its policy toward the Indian tribes, a new empire was building on the western waters, that was to wield a more powerful influence in the development of the western country, than all other forces combined. That empire was Kentucky.

The waters of the Ohio "moving majestically along, noiseless as the foot of time, and as resistless," sweep from the junction of the Monongahela and Allegheny to the waters of the Mississippi, a distance of nine hundred miles, enclosing in their upper courses the island of Blannerhassett, below the mouth of the Little Kanawha, the island of Zane, near Wheeling, and leaping in a descent of twenty-two feet in a distance of two miles the Falls opposite the present city of Louisville. The lofty eminences which crowned its banks, the giant forests of oak and maple which everywhere approached its waters, the vines of the frost-grape that wound their sinuous arms around the topmost branches of its tallest trees, presented a spectacle that filled the soul of the traveler with awe and wonder at every graceful turn of the river. In the spring a wonderful transformation took place in the brown woods. There suddenly appeared on every hand the opening flowers of the red-bud, whose whole top appeared as one mass of red blossoms, interspersed with the white and pale-yellow blossoms of the dog-wood, or cornus florida. Thus there extended "in every direction, at the same time, red, white and yellow flowers; at a distance each tree resembling in aspect so many large bunches of flowers every where dispersed in the woods." This was the Belle Riviere, or the beautiful river of the French, which they long and valiantly sought to hold against the advancing tides of English traders and land hunters. This was that glorious gate to the west, through which floated the rafts and keel-boats of the American settlers who took possession of the great northwest.

But notwithstanding the beauty and grandeur of this stream, there was not, at the close of the French and Indian War, on the tenth of February, 1763, a single habitation of either white man or savage on either the Ohio-Indiana side, or on the Kentucky side of this river. Says General William Henry Harrison: "The beautiful Ohio rolled its 'amber tide' until it paid its tribute to the Father of Waters, through an unbroken solitude. Its banks were without a town or village, or even a single cottage, the curling smoke of whose chimney would give the promise of comfort and refreshment to a weary traveler."

The reason for this solitude is apparent. To the south of the Ohio lay the "Dark and Bloody Ground" of Kentucky; "Dark," because of its vast and almost impenetrable forests; "Bloody," because of the constant savage warfare waged within its limits by roving bands of Miamis, Shawnees, Cherokees, and other tribes who resorted thither in pursuit of game. Says Humphrey Marshall, the early historian of Kentucky: "The proud face of creation here presented itself, without the disguise of art. No wood had been felled; no field cleared; no human habitation raised; even the redman of the forest, had not put up his wigwam of poles and bark for habitation. But that mysterious Being, whose productive power, we call Nature, ever bountiful, and ever great, had not spread out this replete and luxurious pasture, without stocking it with numerous flocks and herds; nor were their ferocious attendants, who prey upon them, wanting, to fill up the circle of created beings. Here was seen the timid deer; the towering elk; the fleet stag; the surly bear; the crafty fox; the ravenous wolf; the devouring panther; the insidious wildcat; the haughty buffalo, besides innumerable other creatures, winged, four-footed, or creeping."

This was the common hunting ground of the wild men of the forest. None took exclusive possession, because none dared. The Ohio was the common highway of the Indian tribes, and while their war paths crossed it at frequent intervals, none were so bold as to attempt exclusive dominion over it.

As was once said in the senate of the United States, "You might as well inhibit the fish from swimming down the western rivers to the sea, as to prohibit the people from settling on the new lands." While the great revolution was opening, that should wrest our independence from Great Britain, the stream of "long rifles" and hunting shirt men of Virginia and Pennsylvania, who followed the valleys of the Allegheny and the Blue Ridge from north to south, suddenly broke through the western mountain barriers and flowed in diminutive rivulets into the basins of the Tennessee, the Ohio and the Cumberland; afterwards forming, as Theodore Roosevelt most strikingly says, "a shield of sinewy men thrust in between the people of the seaboard and the red warriors of the wilderness." In 1774, James Harrod built the first log cabin in Kentucky. On the 14th of June, 1775, the first fort of the white man was erected at Boonesborough.

The situation of the first pioneers of Kentucky was indeed precarious. "They were posted," says Mann Butler, "in the heart of the most favorite hunting ground of numerous and hostile tribes of Indians, on the north and on the south; a ground endeared to these tribes by its profusion of the finest game, subsisting on the luxuriant vegetation of this great natural park. * * * * It was emphatically the Eden of the red man." On the waters of the Wabash, the Miamis and the Scioto, dwelt powerful confederacies of savages who regarded their intrusion as a menace and a threat. Behind these savages stood the minions of Great Britain, urging war on non-combatants and offering bounties for scalps. It was three or four hundred miles to the nearest fort at Pittsburgh, and a wilderness of forest and mountain fully six hundred miles in extent, separated them from the capital of Virginia.

But it is to the everlasting glory of these men that they knew no fear, and valiantly held their ground. Standing as they were, on the very outskirts of civilization, they looked on the perils of the wilderness with unquailing eye, and with stout hearts and brawny arms they carried forward the standards of the republic. The thin line of skirmishers thus thrown far out beyond the western ranges, was all that stood between the grasping power of Great Britain, and the realization of her desire for absolute dominion over the western country. The ambitious projects of her rebel children must be defeated, and they must be driven back beyond the great watershed which they had crossed. The western waters were to be preserved for the red allies of England, who supplied her merchants with furs and peltries. The great "game preserve," as Roosevelt called it, must not be invaded. Years before, a royal governor of Georgia had written: "This matter, my Lords, of granting large bodies of land in the back part of any of his majesty's northern colonies, appears to me in a very serious and alarming light; and I humbly conceive, may be attended with the greatest and worst of consequences; for, my Lords, if a vast territory be granted to any set of gentlemen, who really mean to people it, and actually do so, it must draw and carry out a great number of people from Great Britain, and I apprehend they will soon become a kind of separate and independent people, who will set up for themselves; that they will soon have manufactures of their own; and in process of time they will become formidable enough to oppose his majesty's authority." This, "kind of separate and independent people," had now in fact and in reality appeared, and were evincing a most decided inclination to "set up for themselves" on the king's domain.

The task of faithfully portraying the heroic valour of this handful of men who defended their stockades and cabins, their wives and children, against British hate and savage inroad, is better left to those who have received the account from actual survivors. In 1777, the entire army of Kentucky amounted to one hundred and two men; there were twenty-two at Boonesborough, sixty-five at Harrodsburgh, and fifteen at St. Asaphs, or Logan's fort. Around these frontier stations skulked the Shawnees, hiding behind stumps of trees and in the weeds and cornfields. They waylaid the men and boys working in the fields, beset every pathway, watched every watering place, and shot down the cattle. "In the night," says Humphrey Marshall, "they will place themselves near the fort gate, ready to sacrifice the first person who shall appear in the morning; in the day, if there be any cover, such as grass, a bush, a large clod of earth, or a stone as big as a bushel, they will avail themselves of it, to approach the fort, by slipping forward on their bellies, within gun-shot, and then, whosoever appears first, gets the fire, while the assailant makes his retreat behind the smoke from the gun. At other times they approach the walls, or palisades, with the utmost audacity, and attempt to fire them, or beat down the gate. They often make feints, to draw out the garrison, on one side of the fort, and if practicable, enter it by surprise on the other. And when their stock of provisions is exhausted, this being an individual affair, they supply themselves by hunting; and again, frequently return to the siege, if by any means they hope to get a scalp." In this same year of 1777, St. Asaphs, or Logan's fort, was besieged by the savages from the twentieth of May until the month of September. "The Indians made their attack upon Logan's fort with more than their usual secrecy. While the women, guarded by a part of the men, were milking the cows outside of the fort, they were suddenly fired upon by a large body of Indians, till then concealed in the thick cane which stood about the cabin. By this fire, one man was killed and two others wounded, one mortally; the residue, with the women, got into the fort. When, having reached the protection of its walls, one of the wounded men was discovered, left alive on the ground. Captain Logan, distressed for his situation, and keenly alive to the anguish of his family, who could see him from the fort, weltering in his blood, exposed every instant to be scalped by the savages, endeavored in vain for some time to raise a party for his rescue. The garrison was, however, so small, and the danger so appalling, that he met only objection and refusal; until John Martin, stimulated by his captain, proceeded with him to the front gate. At this instant, Harrison, the wounded man, appeared to raise himself on his hands and knees, as if able to help himself, and Martin withdrew, deterred by the obvious hazard; Logan, incapable of abandoning a man under his command, was only nerved to newer and more vigorous exertions to relieve the wounded man, who, by that time, exhausted by his previous efforts, after crawling a few paces, had fallen to the ground; the generous and gallant captain took him in his arms, amidst a shower of bullets, many of which struck the palisades about his head, and brought him into the fort to his despairing family."

Let another tale be related of this same Benjamin Logan and this same siege. "Another danger now assailed this little garrison. 'There was but little powder or ball in the fort; nor any prospect of supply from the neighboring stations, could it even have been sent for, without the most imminent danger.' The enemy continued before the fort; there was no ammunition nearer than the settlements at Holston, distant about two hundred miles; and the garrison must surrender to horrors worse than death, unless a supply of this indispensable article could be obtained. Nor was it an easy task to pass through so wily an enemy or the danger and difficulty much lessened, when even beyond the besiegers; owing to the obscure and mountainous way, it was necessary to pass, through a foe scattered in almost every direction. But Captain Logan was not a man to falter where duty called, because encompassed with danger. With two companions he left the fort in the night and with the sagacity of a hunter, and the hardihood of a soldier, avoided the trodden way of Cumberland Gap, which was most likely to be waylaid by the Indians, and explored his passage over the Cumberland Mountain, where no man had ever traveled before, through brush and cane, over rocks and precipices, sufficient to have daunted the most hardy and fearless. In less than ten days from his departure, Captain Logan, having obtained the desired supply, and leaving it with directions to his men, how to conduct their march, arrived alone and safe at his 'diminutive station,' which had been almost reduced to despair. The escort with the ammunition, observing the directions given it, arrived in safety, and the garrison once more felt itself able to defend the fort and master its own fortune." The siege was at last raised, but on the body of one of the detachment were found the proclamations of the British governor of Canada, offering protection to those who should embrace the cause of the king, but threatening vengeance on all who refused their allegiance. Thus it was brought home to the struggling pioneers of Kentucky, that the British and the Indians were in league against them.

Men like Daniel Boone, James Harrod and Benjamin Logan, fighting, bleeding, hunting game for the beleaguered garrisons, were the precursors of George Rogers Clark. Clark possessed prescience. He knew the British had determined on the extermination of the Kentucky settlements, because these settlements thwarted the British plan of preserving the west as a red man's wilderness. He had been in the fights at Harrodstown, in 1777, and doubtless knew that the British partisans at Detroit were paying money for scalps. Knowing that all the irruptions of savages into Kentucky were encouraged and set on foot from Kaskaskia, Vincennes and Detroit, he suddenly resolved upon the bold project of capturing these strongholds. This would put the British upon the defensive, relieve the frontiers of Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania, and in the end add a vast territory to the domain of the republic. In the accomplishment of all these designs the soil of Kentucky was to be used as a base of operations.

It is not the purpose of this work to give a history of the Clark campaigns, nor of the daring stratagems of that great leader in effecting his purposes. Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, each in turn fell into his hands, and when Henry Hamilton, the British lieutenant-governor at Detroit, received the astounding news that the French on the Mississippi and the Wabash had sworn allegiance to the Americans, he abandoned his enterprise of capturing Fort Pitt and at once entered upon a campaign to retrieve the lost possessions and "sweep" the Kentuckians out of the country. His scheme was formidable. With a thousand men, and with artillery to demolish the stockades and destroy the frontier posts, he proposed to drive the settlers back across the mountains. "Undoubtedly," says Roosevelt, "he would have carried out his plan, and have destroyed all the settlements west of the Alleghenies, had he been allowed to wait until the mild weather brought him his host of Indian allies and his reinforcements of regulars and militia from Detroit." How Clark with his Virginians and Kentuckians, and a few French allies from the western posts, anticipated his attack, swam the drowned lands of the Wabash, and surprised him at Vincennes, has been well told. Instead of "sweeping" Kentucky, the "hair-buyer" general was taken a prisoner to the dungeons of Virginia, and the newborn possessions were erected into the county of Illinois.

For a number of years following the revolution, there were those in the east, and especially in New England, who suffered from myopia. They utterly failed to see the future of the republic, or the importance of holding the western country. To them, such men as Harrod and Kenton, Logan and Boone, were "lawless borderers" and willful aggressors on the rights of the red man. And yet, back of the crowning diplomacy of John Jay, that placed our western frontiers on the banks of the Mississippi, and extended our northern lines to the thread of the lakes, lay the stern resolution of the men of Kentucky and the supreme audacity of the mind of Clark.

To recount the endless horrors endured by the people south of the Ohio during the remaining days of the revolution, and for long years afterwards, would be impossible. Parties of savages, accompanied ofttimes by French-Canadians from Detroit, scoured the country, stealing horses, driving away the cattle, attacking solitary cabins, waylaying the unwary, and often carrying women and children away into captivity. "Many fell victims to the Indians," says Mann Butler, "many were burned and tortured, with every refinement of diabolical vengeance; others were harrowed with the recollection of their children's brains dashed out against the trees; the dying shrieks of their dearest friends and connexions." In 1781, the raids were appalling. "One of the official British reports to Lord George Germaine, made in October 23rd of this year, deals with the Indian war parties employed against the northwestern frontier. "Many smaller Indian parties have been very successful. * * * * It would be endless and difficult to enumerate to your lordship the parties that are continually employed upon the back settlements. From the Illinois country to the frontiers of New York there is a continual succession * * * the perpetual terror and losses of the inhabitants will I hope operate powerfully in our favor." In 1783, twenty-three widows were in attendance at the court at Logan's station to take out letters of administration upon the estates of their husbands who had been killed in the Indian wars of the day. "Since my first visit to this district," says Judge Harry Innes, writing from Danville, Kentucky, on the 7th of July, 1790, "which was the time above named (1783), I can venture to say, that above fifteen hundred souls have been killed and taken in this district, and emigrating to it; that upwards of twenty thousand horses have been taken and carried off and other property, such as money, merchandise, household goods and wearing apparel, have been carried off and destroyed by these barbarians, to at least fifteen thousand pounds."

From this crucible of fire and blood a great people emerged, hardy, brave, chivalrous, quick to respond to the cries and sufferings of others, but with an iron hate of all things Indian and British stamped eternally in their hearts. Others might be craven, but they were not. Every savage incursion was answered by a counterstroke. The last red man had not retreated across the Ohio, before the mounted riflemen of Kentucky, leaving old men and boys behind to supply the settlements, and with a little corn meal and jerked venison for their provision, sallied forth to take their vengeance and demolish the Indian towns. Federal commanders, secretaries of war, even Presidents might remonstrate, but all in vain. They had come forth into the wilderness to form their homes and clear the land, and make way for civilization, and they would not go back. In every family there was the story of a midnight massacre, or of a wife or child struck down by the tomahawk, or of a loving father burned at the stake. To plead with men whose souls had been seared by outrage and horror was unavailing. All savages appeared the same to them. They shot without discrimination, and shot to kill. They marched with Clark, they rode with Harmar, and they fought with Wayne and Harrison. In the war of 1812, more than seven thousand Kentuckians took the field. It was, as Butler has aptly termed it, "a state in arms." You may call them "barbarians," "rude frontiersmen," or what you will, but it took men such as these to advance the outposts of the nation and to conquer the west. Strongly, irresistibly, is the soul of the patriot moved by the story of their deeds.

With all its bloody toil and suffering, Kentucky grew. After the spring of 1779, when Clark had captured Vincennes, the danger of extermination was over. Following the revolution a strong and ever increasing stream of boats passed down the Ohio. The rich lands, the luxuriant pastures, the bounteous harvests of corn and wheat, were great attractions. Josiah Harmar, writing from the mouth of the Muskingum in May, 1787, reports one hundred and seventy-seven boats, two thousand six hundred and eighty-nine men, women and children, one thousand three hundred and thirty-three horses, seven hundred and sixty-six cattle, and one hundred and two wagons, as passing that point, bound for Limestone and the rapids at Louisville. On the ninth of December of the same year, he reports one hundred and forty-six boats, three thousand one hundred and ninety-six souls, one thousand three hundred and eighty-one horses, one hundred and sixty-five wagons, one hundred and seventy-one cattle, and two hundred and forty-five sheep as on the way to Kentucky, between the first of June and the date of his communication. In 1790, the first census of the United States showed a population of seventy-three thousand six hundred and seventy-seven. On June 1st, 1792, Kentucky became the fifteenth commonwealth in the federal union; the first of the great states west of the Alleghenies that were to add so much wealth, resource and vital strength to the government of the United States.

CHAPTER X

THE BRITISH POLICIES

– The British reluctant to surrender the control of the Northwest – their tampering with the Indian tribes.

The seventh article of the definitive treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain in 1783, provided that "His Britannic Majesty," should, with all convenient speed, "withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets from the said United States, and from every port, place and harbour within the same," but when demand was made upon General Frederick Haldimand, the British governor of Canada, for the important posts of Niagara, Oswego, Michillimacinac and Detroit, he refused to surrender them up, alleging that he had no explicit orders so to do, and that until he had received such commands, he conceived it to be his duty as a soldier to take no step in that direction. This action of Haldimand was cool and deliberate and received the full and entire approbation of the British cabinet. Tories, and apologists for Great Britain, have written much about a justification for this action, but there is no real justification. Lord Carmarthen, the British secretary of state, afterwards said to John Adams that English creditors had met with unlawful impediments in the collection of their debts, but the real reason why England violated her treaty he did not state. She retained the posts to control the tribes. She looked with covetous eye on the lucrative fur-trade of the northwest territory upon which the commerce of Canada was in great measure dependent, and sooner than resist the entreaties of her merchants and traders, she was willing to embroil a people of her own race and blood, in a series of long and merciless wars with murderous savages. For the fact remains, that if England had promptly surrendered up the posts; had not interfered with our negotiations for peace with the Indian tribes; had refused to encourage any confederacy, and had instructed her commanders to keep their spies and agents out of American territory, the murders on the Ohio, the slaughter of innocents, and the long, costly and bloody campaigns in the Indian country might have been avoided.

Nothing can ever extenuate the conduct of England in keeping in her employ and service such men as Alexander McKee, Matthew Elliott and Simon Girty. The chief rendezvous of the tribes after the revolution was at Detroit. Here were located a British garrison and a British Indian agency. This agency, while guarding the trade in peltries, also kept its eye on the fleets that descended the Ohio, on the growing settlements of Kentucky, and warned the Indians against American encroachment. In 1778, and while the revolution was in progress, the missionary John Heckewelder, noted the arrival at Goschochking on the Muskingum, of three renegades and fugitives from Pittsburg. They were McKee, Elliott and Girty. McKee and Elliott had both been traders among the Indians and understood their language. All three had deserted the American cause and were flying into the arms of the British. They told the Delawares and Wyandots, "That it was the determination of the American people to kill and destroy the whole Indian race, be they friends or foes, and possess themselves of their country; and that, at this time, while they were embodying themselves for the purpose, they were preparing fine sounding speeches to deceive them, that they might with more safety fall upon and murder them. That now was the time, and the only time, for all nations to rise, and turn out to a man against these intruders, and not even suffer them to cross the Ohio, but fall upon them where they should find them; which if not done without delay, their country would be lost to them forever." The same men were now inculcating the same doctrines at Detroit. They pointed out to the Indians that the Americans were bent on extinguishing all their council fires with the best blood of the nations; that despite all their fair promises and pretensions, the Americans cared nothing for the tribes, but only for their lands. That England by her treaty had not ceded a foot of the Indian territory to the United States. That all the treaties thus far concluded with the tribes by the Americans, were one-sided and unfair, made at the American forts, and at the cannon's mouth.

A powerful figure now arose among the savages of the north. Joseph Brant was a principal chief of the Mohawk tribe of the Six Nations of New York. His sister Molly was the acknowledged wife of the famous British Indian superintendent, Sir William Johnson. In his youth he had been sent by Johnson to Doctor Wheelock's charity school at Lebanon, Connecticut, where he learned to speak and write English and acquired some knowledge of history and literature. In the war of the revolution the Mohawks sided with England, and Brant was given a colonel's commission. He remained after the war a pensioner of the British government, and General Arthur St. Clair is authority for the statement that he received an annual stipend of four hundred pounds sterling.