The Winning of the West, Volume 2 by Theodore Roosevelt (page 6)

against it, it would, of necessity, have been abandoned.

Indian Hostilities.

Throughout ’81 and ’82 the Cumberland settlers were worried beyond description by a succession of small war parties. In the first of these years they raised no corn; in the second they made a few crops on fields they had cleared in 1780. No man’s life was safe for an hour, whether he hunted, looked up strayed stock, went to the spring for water, or tilled the fields. If two men were together, one always watched while the other worked, ate, or drank; and they sat down back to back, or, if there were several, in a ring, facing outwards, like a covey of quail. The Indians were especially fond of stealing the horses; the whites pursued them in bands, and occasionally pitched battles were fought, with loss on both sides, and apparently as often resulting in the favor of one party as of the other. The most expert Indian fighters naturally became the leaders, being made colonels and captains of the local militia. The position and influence of the officers depended largely on their individual prowess; they were the actual, not titular, leaders of their men. Old Kasper Mansker, one of the most successful, may be taken as a type of the rest. He was ultimately made a colonel, and shared in many expeditions; but he always acted as his own scout, and never would let any of his men ride ahead or abreast of him, preferring to trust to his own eyes and ears and knowledge of forest warfare. The hunters, who were especially exposed to danger, were also the men who inflicted most loss on the Indians, and though many more of the settlers than of their foes were slain, yet the tables were often turned on the latter, even by those who seemed their helpless victims. Thus, once, two lads were watching at a deer lick, when some Indians came to it; each of the boys chose his man, fired, and then fled homewards; coming back with some men they found they had killed two Indians, whose scalps they took.

The eagerness of the Indians to get scalps caused them frequently to scalp their victims before life was extinct; and, as a result, there were numerous instances in which the scalped unfortunate, whether man, woman, or child, was rescued and recovered, living many years. One of these instances is worth giving in the quaint language of the old Tennessee historian, Haywood:

“In the spring of the year 1782 a party of Indians fired upon three persons at French Lick, and broke the arms of John Tucker and Joseph Hendricks, and shot down David Hood, whom they scalped and stamped, as he said, and followed the others towards the fort; the people of the fort came out and repulsed them and saved the wounded men. Supposing the Indians gone, Hood got up softly, wounded and scalped as he was, and began to walk towards the fort on the bluff, when, to his mortification, he saw, standing upon the bank of the creek, a number of Indians, the same who had wounded him before, making sport of his misfortune and mistake. They then fell upon him again, and having given him, in several places, new wounds that were apparently mortal, then left him. He fell into a brush heap in the mow, and next morning was tracked and found by his blood, and was placed as a dead man in one of the out-houses, and was left alone; after some time he recovered, and lived many years.”

Many of the settlers were killed, many others left for Kentucky, Illinois, or Natchez, or returned to their old homes among the Alleghanies; and in 1782 the inhabitants, who had steadily dwindled in numbers, became so discouraged that they again mooted the question of abandoning the Cumberland district in a body. Only Robertson’s great influence prevented this being done; but by word and example he finally persuaded them to remain. The following spring brought the news of peace with Great Britain. A large inflow of new settlers began with the new year, and though the Indian hostilities still continued, the Cumberland country throve apace, and by the end 1783 the old stations had been rebuilt and many new ones founded. Some of the settlers began to live out on their clearings. Rude little corn-mills and “hominy pounders” were built beside some of the streams. The piles of furs and hides that had accumulated in the stockades were sent back to the coast country on pack-horses. After this year there was never any danger that the settlements would be abandoned.

During the two years of petty but disastrous Indian warfare that followed the attack on Freelands, the harassed and diminishing settlers had been so absorbed in the contest with the outside foe that they had done little towards keeping up their own internal government. When 1783 opened new settlers began to flock in, the Indian hostilities abated, and commissioners arrived from North Carolina under a strong guard, with the purpose of settling the claim of the various settlers [Footnote: Haywood. Six hundred and forty acres were allowed by preemption claim to each family settled before June 1, 1780; after that date they had to make proper entries in the courts. The salt-licks were to be held as public property.] and laying off the bounty lands, promised to the Continental troops. [Footnote: Isaac Shelby was one of these commissioners.] It therefore became necessary that the Committee or Court of Triers should again be convened, to see that justice was done as between man and man.

Internal Government.

The ten men elected from the different stations met at Nashborough on January 7th, Robertson being again made chairman, as well as colonel of the militia, while a proper clerk and sheriff were chosen. Each member took a solemn oath to do equal justice according to the best of his skill and ability. A number of suits between the settlers themselves were disposed of. These related to a variety of subjects. A kettle had been “detained” from Humphrey Hogan; he brought suit, and it was awarded him, the defendant “and his mother-in-law” being made to pay the cost of the suit. A hog case, a horse used in hunting, a piece of cleared ground, a bed which had not been made according to contract, the ownership of a canoe, and of a heifer, a “clevis lent and delayed to be returned”–such were some of the cases on which the judges had to decide. There were occasional slander suits; for in a small backwoods community there is always much jealousy and bitter gossip. When suit was brought for “cattle won at cards,” the committee promptly dismissed the claim as illegal; they evidently had clear ideas as to what was good public policy. A man making oath that another had threatened his life, the latter was taken and put under bonds. Another man produced a note of hand for the payment of two good cows, “against John Sadler”; he “proved his accompt,” and procured an attachment against the estate of “Sd. Sadler.” When possible, the Committee compromised the cases, or advised the parties to adjust matters between themselves. The sheriff executed the various decrees, in due form; he arrested the men who refused to pay heed to the judgments of the court, and when necessary took out of their “goods and chattles, lands and tenements,” the damages awarded, and also the costs and fees. The government was in the hands of men who were not only law-abiding themselves but also resolute to see that the law was respected by others.

The committee took cognizance of all affairs concerning the general welfare of the community. They ordered roads to be built between the different stations, appointing overseers who had power to “call out hands to work on the same.” Besides the embodiment of all the full-grown men as militia,–those of each station under their own captain, lieutenant, and ensign,–a diminutive force of paid regulars was organized; that is, six spies were “kept out to discover the motions of the enemy so long as we shall be able to pay them; each to receive seventy-five bushels of Indian corn per month.” They were under the direction of Colonel Robertson, who was head of all the branches of the government. One of the committee’s regulations followed an economic principle of doubtful value. Some enterprising individuals, taking advantage of the armed escort accompanying the Carolina commissioners, brought out casks of liquors. The settlers had drunk nothing but water for many months, and they eagerly purchased the liquor, the merchants naturally charging all that the traffic would bear. This struck the committee as a grievance, and they forthwith passed a decree that any person bringing in liquor “from foreign ports,” before selling the same, must give bond that they would charge no more than one silver dollar, or its value in merchandise, per quart.

Some of the settlers would not enter the association, preferring a condition of absolute freedom from law. The committee, however, after waiting a proper time, forced these men in by simply serving notice, that thereafter they would be treated as beyond the pale of the law, not entitled to its protection, but amenable to its penalties. A petition was sent to the North Carolina Legislature, asking that the protection of government should be extended to the Cumberland people, and showing that the latter were loyal and orderly, prompt to suppress sedition and lawlessness, faithful to the United States, and hostile to its enemies. [Footnote: This whole account is taken from Putnam, who has rendered such inestimable service by preserving these records.] To show their good feeling the committee made every member of the community, who had not already done so, take the oath of abjuration and fidelity.

Affairs with Outside Powers.

Until full governmental protection could be secured the commonwealth was forced to act as a little sovereign state, bent on keeping the peace, and yet on protecting itself against aggression from the surrounding powers, both red and white. It was forced to restrain its own citizens, and to enter into quasi-diplomatic relations with its neighbors. Thus early this year fifteen men, under one Colbert, left the settlements and went down the river in boats, ostensibly to trade with the Indians, but really to plunder the Spaniards on the Mississippi. They were joined by some Chickasaws, and at first met with some success in their piratical attacks, not only on the Spanish trading-boats, but on those of the French Creoles, and even the Americans, as well. Finally they were repulsed in an attempt against the Spaniards at Ozark; some were killed, and the rest scattered. [Footnote: Calendar Va. State Papers, III., pp. 469, 527.] Immediately upon learning of these deeds, the Committee of Triers passed stringent resolutions forbidding all persons trading with the Indians until granted a license by the committee, and until they had furnished ample security for their good behavior. The committee also wrote a letter to the Spanish governor at New Orleans, disclaiming all responsibility for the piratical misdeeds of Colbert and his gang, and announcing the measures they had taken to prevent any repetition of the same in the future. They laid aside the sum of twenty pounds to pay the expenses of the messengers who carried this letter to the Virginian “agent” at the Illinois, whence it was forwarded to the Spanish Governor. [Footnote: Putnam, pp. 185, 189, 191.]

One of the most difficult questions with which the committee had to deal was that of holding a treaty with the Indians. Commissioners came out from Virginia and North Carolina especially to hold such a treaty [Footnote: Donelson, who was one of the men who became discouraged and went to Kentucky, was the Virginian commissioner. Martin was the commissioner from North Carolina. He is sometimes spoken of as if he likewise represented Virginia.]; but the settlers declined to allow it until they had themselves decided on its advisability. They feared to bring so many savages together, lest they might commit some outrage, or be themselves subjected to such at the hands of one of the many wronged and reckless whites; and they knew that the Indians would expect many presents, while there was very little indeed to give them. Finally, the committee decided to put the question of treaty or no treaty to the vote of the freemen in the several stations; and by a rather narrow majority it was decided in the affirmative. The committee then made arrangements for holding the treaty in June, some four miles from Nashborough; and strictly prohibited the selling of liquor to the savages. At the appointed time many chiefs and warriors of the Chickasaws, Cherokees, and even Creeks appeared. There were various sports, such as ball-games and footraces; and the treaty was brought to a satisfactory conclusion. [Footnote: Putnam, 196.] It did not put a complete stop to the Indian outrages, but it greatly diminished them. The Chickasaws thereafter remained friendly; but, as usual, the Cherokee and Creek chiefs who chose to attend were unable to bind those of their fellows who did not. The whole treaty was, in fact, on both sides, of a merely preliminary nature. The boundaries it arranged were not considered final until confirmed by the treaty of Hopewell a couple of years later.

Robertson meanwhile was delegated by the unanimous vote of the settlers to go to the Assembly of North Carolina, and there petition for the establishment of a regular land office at Nashborough, and in other ways advance the interests of the settlers. He was completely successful in his mission. The Cumberland settlements were included in a new county, called Davidson [Footnote: In honor of General Wm. Davidson, a very gallant and patriotic soldier of North Carolina during the Revolutionary war. The county government was established in October, 1783.]; and an Inferior Court of Pleas and Common Sessions, vested by the act with extraordinary powers, was established at Nashborough. The four justices of the new court had all been Triers of the old committee, and the scheme of government was practically not very greatly changed, although now resting on an indisputably legal basis. The Cumberland settlers had for years acted as an independent, law-abiding, and orderly commonwealth, and the Court of Triers had shown great firmness and wisdom. It spoke well for the people that they had been able to establish such a government, in which the majority ruled, while the rights of each individual were secured. Robertson deserves the chief credit as both civil and military leader. The committee of which he was a member, had seen that justice was done between man and man, had provided for defense against the outside foe, and had striven to prevent any wrongs being done to neutral or allied powers. When they became magistrates of a county of North Carolina they continued to act on the lines they had already marked out. The increase of population had brought an increase of wealth. The settlers were still frontiersmen, clad in buckskin or homespun, with rawhide moccasins, living in log-cabins, and sleeping under bearskins on beds made of buffalo hides; but as soon as they ventured to live on their clearings the ground was better tilled, corn became abundant, and cattle and hogs increased as the game diminished. Nashborough began to look more like an ordinary little border town. [Footnote: The justices built a court-house and jail of hewed logs, the former eighteen feet square, with a lean-to or shed of twelve feet on one side. The contracts for building were let out at vendue to the lowest bidder.]

Correspondence with the Spaniards.

During this year Robertson carried on some correspondence with the Spanish governor at New Orleans, Don Estevan Miro. This was the beginning of intercourse between the western settlers and the Spanish officers, an intercourse which was absolutely necessary, though it afterwards led to many intrigues and complications. Robertson was obliged to write to Miro not only to disclaim responsibility for the piratical deeds of men like Colbert, but also to protest against the conduct of certain of the Spanish agents among the Creeks and Chickamaugas. No sooner had hostilities ceased with the British than the Spaniards began to incite the savages to take up once more the hatchet they had just dropped, [Footnote: Calendar of Va. State Papers, III., 584, 608, etc.] for Spain already recognized in the restless borderers possible and formidable foes.

Miro in answering Robertson assured him that the Spaniards were very friendly to the western settlers, and denied that the Spanish agents were stirring up trouble. He also told him that the harassed Cherokees, weary of ceaseless warfare, had asked permission to settle west of the Mississippi–although they did not carry out their intention. He ended by pressing Robertson and his friends to come down and settle in Spanish territory, guaranteeing them good treatment. [Footnote: Robertson MSS. As the letter is important I give it in full in the Appendix.]

In spite of Miro’s fair words the Spanish agents continued to intrigue against the Americans, and especially against the Cumberland people. Yet there was no open break. The Spanish governor was felt to be powerful for both good and evil, and at least a possible friend of the settlers. To many of their leaders he showed much favor, and the people as a whole were well impressed by him; and as a compliment to him they ultimately, when the Cumberland counties were separated from those lying to the eastward, united the former under the name of Mero [Footnote: So spelt; but apparently his true name was Miro.] District.

CHAPTER XIII.

WHAT THE WESTERNERS HAD DONE DURING THE REVOLUTION, 1783.

When the first Continental Congress began its sittings the only frontiersmen west of the mountains, and beyond the limits of continuous settlement within the old Thirteen Colonies, [Footnote: This qualification is put in because there were already a few families on the Monongahela, the head of the Kanawha, and the upper Holston; but they were in close touch with the people behind them.] were the two or three hundred citizens of the little Watauga commonwealth. When peace was declared with Great Britain the backwoodsmen had spread westward, in groups, almost to the Mississippi, and they had increased in number to some twenty-five thousand souls, [Footnote: These figures are simply estimates; but they are based on careful study and comparison, and though they must be some hundreds, and maybe some thousands, out of the way, are quite near enough for practical purposes.] of whom a few hundred dwelt in the bend of the Cumberland, while the rest were about equally divided between Kentucky and Holston.

The Winning of the West.

This great westward movement of armed settlers was essentially one of conquest, no less than of colonization. Thronging in with their wives and children, their cattle, and their few household goods, they won and held the land in the teeth of fierce resistance, both from the Indian claimants of the soil and from the representatives of a mighty and arrogant European power. The chain of events by which the winning was achieved is perfect; had any link therein snapped it is likely that the final result would have been failure. The wide wanderings of Boon and his fellow hunters made the country known and awakened in the minds of the frontiersmen a keen desire to possess it. The building of the Watauga commonwealth by Robertson and Sevier gave a base of operations, and furnished a model for similar communities to follow. Lord Dunmore’s war made the actual settlement possible, for it cowed the northern Indians, and restrained them from seriously molesting Kentucky during its first and most feeble years. Henderson and Boon made their great treaty with the Cherokees in 1775, and then established a permanent colony far beyond all previous settlements, entering into final possession of the new country. The victory over the Cherokees in 1776 made safe the line of communication along the Wilderness road, and secured the chance for further expansion. Clark’s campaigns gained the Illinois, or northwestern regions. The growth of Kentucky then became very rapid; and in its turn this, and the steady progress of the Watauga settlements, rendered possible Robertson’s successful effort to plant a new community still farther west, on the Cumberland.

The Wars of the Backwoodsmen

The backwoodsmen pressed in on the line of least resistance, first taking possession of the debatable hunting-grounds lying between the Algonquins of the north and the Appalachian confederacies of the south. Then they began to encroach on the actual tribal territories. Every step was accompanied by stubborn and bloody fighting with the Indians. The forest tribes were exceedingly formidable opponents; it is not too much to say that they formed a far more serious obstacle to the American advance than would have been offered by an equal number of the best European troops. Their victories over Braddock, Grant, and St. Clair, gained in each case with a smaller force, conclusively proved their superiority, on their own ground, over the best regulars, disciplined and commanded in the ordinary manner. Almost all of the victories, even of the backwoodsmen, were won against inferior numbers of Indians. [Footnote: That the contrary impression prevails is due to the boastful vanity which the backwoodsmen often shared with the Indians, and to the gross ignorance of the average writer concerning these border wars. Many of the accounts in the popular histories are sheer inventions. Thus, in the “Chronicles of Border Warfare,” by Alex. S. Withers (Clarksburg, Va., 1831, p. 301), there is an absolutely fictitious account of a feat of the Kentucky Colonel Scott, who is alleged to have avenged St. Clair’s defeat by falling on the victorious Indians while they were drunk, and killing two hundred of them. This story has not even a foundation in fact; there was not so much as a skirmish of the sort described. As Mann Butler–a most painstaking and truthful writer–points out, it is made up out of the whole cloth, thirty years after the event; it is a mere invention to soothe the mortified pride of the whites. Gross exaggeration of the Indian numbers and losses prevails even to this day. Mr. Edmund Kirke, for instance, usually makes the absolute or relative numbers of the Indians from five to twenty-five times as great as they really were. Still, it is hard to blame backwoods writers for such slips in the face of the worse misdeeds of the average historian of the Greek and Roman wars with barbarians.] The red men were fickle of temper, and large bodies could not be kept together for a long campaign, nor, indeed, for more than one special stroke; the only piece of strategy any of their chiefs showed was Cornstalk’s march past Dunmore to attack Lewis; but their tactics and discipline in the battle itself were admirably adapted to the very peculiar conditions of forest warfare. Writers who speak of them as undisciplined, or as any but most redoubtable antagonists, fall into an absurd error. An old Indian fighter, who, at the close of the last century, wrote, from experience, a good book on the subject, summed up the case very justly when he said: “I apprehend that the Indian discipline is as well calculated to answer the purpose in the woods of America as the British discipline is in Flanders; and British discipline in the woods is the way to have men slaughtered, with scarcely any chance of defending themselves.” [Footnote: Col. Jas. Smith, “An Account,” etc., Lexington, Ky., 1799.] A comparison of the two victories gained by the backwoodsmen, at the Great Kanawha, over the Indians, and at Kings Mountain over Ferguson’s British and tories, brings out clearly the formidable fighting capacity of the red men. At the Kanawha the Americans outnumbered their foes, at King’s Mountain they were no more than equal; yet in the former battle they suffered twice the loss they did in the latter, inflicted much less damage in return, and did not gain nearly so decisive a victory.

Twofold Character of the Revolution.

The Indians were urged on by the British, who furnished them with arms, ammunition, and provisions, and sometimes also with leaders and with bands of auxiliary white troops, French, British, and tories. It was this that gave to the revolutionary contest its twofold character, making it on the part of the Americans a struggle for independence in the east, and in the west a war of conquest, or rather a war to establish, on behalf of all our people, the right of entry into the fertile and vacant regions beyond the Alleghanies. The grievances of the backwoodsmen were not the same as the grievances of the men of the seacoast. The Ohio Valley and the other western lands of the French had been conquered by the British, not the Americans. Great Britain had succeeded to the policy as well as the possessions of her predecessor, and, strange to say, had become almost equally hostile to the colonists of her own stock. As France had striven for half a century, so England now in her turn strove, to bar out the settlers of English race from the country beyond the Alleghanies. The British Crown, Parliament, and people were a unit in wishing to keep woodland and prairie for the sole use of their own merchants, as regions tenanted only by Indian hunters and French trappers and traders. They became the guardians and allies of all the Indian tribes. On the other hand, the American backwoodsmen were resolute in their determination to go in and possess the land. The aims of the two sides thus clashed hopelessly. Under all temporary and apparent grounds of quarrel lay this deep-rooted jealousy and incompatibility of interests. Beyond the Alleghanies the Revolution was fundamentally a struggle between England, bent on restricting the growth of the English race, and the Americans, triumphantly determined to acquire the right to conquer the continent.

The West Actually Conquered.

Had not the backwoodsmen been successful in the various phases of the struggle, we would certainly have been cooped up between the sea and the mountains. If in 1774 and ’76 they had been beaten by the Ohio tribes and the Cherokees, the border ravaged, and the settlements stopped or forced back as during what the colonists called Braddock’s War, [Footnote: During this Indian war, covering the period from Braddock’s to Grant’s defeats, Smith, a good authority, estimates that the frontiers were laid waste, and population driven back, over an area nearly three hundred miles long by thirty broad.] there is every reason to believe that the Alleghanies would have become our western frontier. Similarly, if Clark had failed in his efforts to conquer and hold the Illinois and Vincennes, it is overwhelmingly probable that the Ohio would have been the boundary between the Americans and the British. Before the Revolution began, in 1774, the British Parliament had, by the Quebec Act, declared the country between the Great Lakes and the Ohio to be part of Canada; and under the provisions of this act the British officers continued to do as they had already done–that is, to hold adverse possession of the land, scornfully heedless of the claims of the different colonies. The country was _de facto_ part of Canada; the Americans tried to conquer it exactly as they tried to conquer the rest of Canada; the only difference was that Clark succeeded, whereas Arnold and Montgomery failed.

But only Definitely Secured by Diplomacy.

Of course the conquest by the backwoodsmen was by no means the sole cause of our acquisition of the west. The sufferings and victories of the westerners would have counted for nothing, had it not been for the success of the American arms in the east, and for the skill of our three treaty-makers at Paris–Jay, Adams, and Franklin, but above all the two former, and especially Jay. On the other hand, it was the actual occupation and holding of the country that gave our diplomats their vantage-ground. When the treaty was made, in 1782, the commissioners of the United States represented a people already holding the whole Ohio Valley, as well as the Illinois. The circumstances of the treaty were peculiar; but here they need to be touched but briefly, and only so far as they affected the western boundaries. The United States, acting together with France and Spain, had just closed a successful war with England; but when the peace negotiations were begun, they speedily found that their allies were, if any thing, more anxious than their enemy to hamper their growth. England, having conceded the grand point of independence, was disposed to be generous, and not to haggle about lesser matters. Spain, on the contrary, was quite as hostile to the new nation as to England. Through her representative, Count Aranda, she predicted the future enormous expansion of the Federal Republic at the expense of Florida, Louisiana, and Mexico, unless it was effectually curbed in its youth. The prophecy has been strikingly fulfilled, and the event has thoroughly justified Spain’s fear; for the major part of the present territory of the United States was under Spanish dominion at the close of the Revolutionary war. Spain, therefore, proposed to hem in our growth by giving us the Alleghanies for our western boundary. [Footnote: At the north this boundary was to follow the upper Ohio, and end towards the foot of Lake Erie. See maps at end of volume.] France was the ally of America; but as between America and Spain, she favored the latter. Moreover, she wished us to remain weak enough to be dependent upon her further good graces. The French court, therefore, proposed that the United States should content themselves with so much of the trans-Alleghany territory as lay round the head-waters of the Tennessee and between the Cumberland and Ohio. This area contained the bulk of the land that was already settled [Footnote: Excluding only so much of Robertson’s settlement as lay south of the Cumberland, and Clark’s conquest.]; and the proposal showed how important the French court deemed the fact of actual settlement.

Thus the two allies of America were hostile to her interests. The open foe, England, on the contrary was anxious to conclude a separate treaty, so that she might herself be in better condition to carry on negotiations with France and Spain; she cared much less to keep the west than she did to keep Gibraltar, and an agreement with the United States about the former left her free to insist on the retention of the latter. Congress, in a spirit of slavish subserviency, had instructed the American commissioners to take no steps without the knowledge and advice of France. Franklin was inclined to obey these instructions; but Jay, supported by Adams, boldly insisted on disregarding them; and accordingly a separate treaty was negotiated with England. In settling the claims to the western territory, much stress was laid on the old colonial charters; but underneath all the verbiage it was practically admitted that these charters conferred merely inchoate rights, which became complete only after conquest and settlement. The States themselves had already by their actions shown that they admitted this to be the case. Thus North Carolina, when by the creation of Washington County–now the State of Tennessee–she rounded out her boundaries, specified them as running to the Mississippi. As a matter of fact the royal grant, under which alone she could claim the land in question, extended to the Pacific; and the only difference between her rights to the regions east and west of the river was that her people were settling in one, and could not settle in the other. The same was true of Kentucky, and of the west generally; if the States could rightfully claim to run to the Mississippi, they could also rightfully claim to run to the Pacific. The colonial charters were all very well as furnishing color of title; but at bottom the American claim rested on the peculiar kind of colonizing conquest so successfully carried on by the backwoodsmen. When the English took New Amsterdam they claimed it under old charters; but they very well knew that their real right was only that of the strong hand. It was precisely so with the Americans and the Ohio valley. They produced old charters to support their title; but in reality it rested on Clark’s conquests and above all on the advance of the backwoods settlements. [Footnote: Mr. R. A. Hinsdale, in his excellent work on the “Old Northwest” (New York, 1888), seems to me to lay too much stress on the weight which our charter-claims gave us, and too little on the right we had acquired by actual possession. The charter-claims were elaborated with the most wearisome prolixity at the time; but so were the English claims to New Amsterdam a century earlier. Conquest gave the true title in each case; the importance of a claim is often in inverse order to the length at which it is set forth in a diplomatic document. The west was gained by: (1) the westward movement of the backwoodsmen during the Revolution; (2) the final success of the Continental armies in the east; (3) the skill of our diplomats at Paris; failure on any one of these three points would have lost us the west.

Mr. Hinsdale seems to think that Clark’s conquest prevented the Illinois from being conquered from the British by the Spaniards; but this is very doubtful. The British at Detroit would have been far more likely to have conquered the Spaniards at St. Louis; at any rate there is small probability that they would have been seriously troubled by the latter. The so-called Spanish conquest of St. Joseph was not a conquest at all, but an unimportant plundering raid.

The peace negotiations are best discussed in John Jay’s chapter thereon, in the seventh volume of Winsor’s “Narrative and Critical History of North America.” Sparks’ account is fundamentally wrong on several points. Bancroft largely follows him, and therefore repeats and shares his errors.]

This view of the case is amply confirmed by a consideration of what was actually acquired under the treaty of peace which closed the Revolutionary struggle. Map-makers down to the present day have almost invariably misrepresented the territorial limits we gained by this treaty. They represent our limits in the west in 1783 as being the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, and the 31st parallel of latitude from the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee; [Footnote: The map in Mr. Hinsdale’s book may be given as a late instance.] but in reality we did not acquire these limits until a dozen years later, by the treaties of Jay and Pinckney. Two points must be kept in mind: first, that during the war our ally, Spain, had conquered from England that portion of the Gulf coast known as West Florida; and second, that when the treaty was made the United States and Great Britain mutually covenanted to do certain things, some of which were never done. Great Britain agreed to recognize the lakes as our northern boundary, but, on the alleged ground that we did not fulfil certain of our promises, she declined to fulfil this agreement, and the lake posts remained in her hands until the Jay treaty was ratified. She likewise consented to recognize the 31st parallel as our southern boundary, but by a secret article it was agreed that if by the negotiations she recovered West Florida, then the boundary should run about a hundred miles farther north, ending at the mouth of the Yazoo. The discovery of this secret article aroused great indignation in Spain. As a matter of fact, the disputed territory, the land drained by the Gulf rivers, was not England’s to grant, for it had been conquered and was then held by Spain. Nor was it given up to us until we acquired it by Pinckney’s masterly diplomacy. The treaty represented a mere promise which in part was not and in part could not be fulfilled. All that it really did was to guarantee us what we already possessed–that is, the Ohio valley and the Illinois, which we had settled and conquered during the years of warfare. Our boundary lines were in reality left very vague. On the north the basin of the Great Lakes remained British; on the south the lands draining into the Gulf remained Spanish, or under Spanish influence. The actual boundaries we acquired can be roughly stated in the north to have followed the divide between the waters of the lake and the waters of the Ohio, and in the south to have run across the heads of the Gulf rivers. Had we remained a loose confederation these boundaries, would more probably have shrunk than advanced; we did not overleap them until some years after Washington had become the head of a real, not merely a titular, nation. The peace of 1783, as far as our western limits were affected, did nothing more than secure us undisturbed possession of lands from which it had proved impossible to oust us. We were in reality given nothing more than we had by our own prowess gained; the inference is strong that we got what we did get only because we had won and held it.

The Backwoods Governments.

The first duty of the backwoodsmen who thus conquered the west was to institute civil government. Their efforts to overcome and beat back the Indians went hand in hand with their efforts to introduce law and order in the primitive communities they founded; and exactly as they relied purely on themselves in withstanding outside foes, so they likewise built up their social life and their first systems of government with reference simply to their special needs, and without any outside help or direction. The whole character of the westward movement, the methods of warfare, of settlement, and government, were determined by the extreme and defiant individualism of the backwoodsmen, their inborn independence and self-reliance, and their intensely democratic spirit. The west was won and settled by a number of groups of men, all acting independently of one another, but with a common object, and at about the same time. There was no one controlling spirit; it was essentially the movement of a whole free people, not of a single master-mind. There were strong and able leaders, who showed themselves fearless soldiers and just law-givers, undaunted by danger, resolute to persevere in the teeth of disaster; but even these leaders are most deeply interesting because they stand foremost among a host of others like them. There were hundreds of hunters and Indian fighters like Mansker, Wetzel, Kenton, and Brady; there were scores of commonwealth founders like Logan, Todd, Floyd, and Harrod; there were many adventurous land speculators like Henderson; there were even plenty of commanders like Shelby and Campbell. These were all men of mark; some of them exercised a powerful and honorable influence on the course of events in the west. Above them rise four greater figures, fit to be called not merely State or local, but national heroes. Clark, Sevier, Robertson, and Boon are emphatically American worthies. They were men of might in their day, born to sway the minds of others, helpful in shaping the destiny of the continent. Yet of Clark alone can it be said that he did a particular piece of work which without him would have remained undone. Sevier, Robertson, and Boon only hastened, and did more perfectly, a work which would have been done by others had they themselves fallen by the wayside. [Footnote: Sevier’s place would certainly have been taken by some such man as his chief rival, Tipton. Robertson led his colony to the Cumberland but a few days before old Mansker led another; and though without Robertson the settlements would have been temporarily abandoned, they would surely have been reoccupied. If Henderson had not helped Boon found Kentucky, then Hart or some other of Henderson’s associates would doubtless have done so; and if Boon had been lacking, his place would probably have been taken by some such man as Logan. The loss of these men would have been very serious, but of no one of them can it be said, as of Clark, that he alone could have done the work he actually did.] Important though they are for their own sakes, they are still more important as types of the men who surrounded them.

The individualism of the backwoodsmen, however, was tempered by a sound common-sense, and capacity for combination. The first hunters might come alone or in couples, but the actual colonization was done not by individuals, but by groups of individuals. The settlers brought their families and belongings either on pack-horses along the forest trails, or in scows down the streams; they settled in palisaded villages, and immediately took steps to provide both a civil and military organization. They were men of facts, not theories; and they showed their usual hard common-sense in making a government. They did not try to invent a new system; they simply took that under which they had grown up, and applied it to their altered conditions. They were most familiar with the government of the county; and therefore they adopted this for the framework of their little independent, self-governing commonwealths of Watauga, Cumberland, and Transylvania. [Footnote: The last of these was the most pretentious and short-lived and least characteristic of the three, as Henderson made an abortive effort to graft on it the utterly foreign idea of a proprietary colony.]

They were also familiar with the representative system; and accordingly they introduced it into the new communities, the little forted villages serving as natural units of representation. They were already thoroughly democratic, in instinct and principle, and as a matter of course they made the offices elective, and gave full play to the majority. In organizing the militia they kept the old system of county lieutenants, making them elective, not appointive; and they organized the men on the basis of a regiment, the companies representing territorial divisions, each commanded by its own officers, who were thus chosen by the fighting men of the fort or forts in their respective districts. Thus each of the backwoods commonwealths, during its short-lived term of absolute freedom, reproduced as its governmental system that of the old colonial county, increasing the powers of the court, and changing the justices into the elective representatives of an absolute democracy. The civil head, the chairman of the court or committee, was also usually the military head, the colonel-commandant. In fact the military side of the organization rapidly became the most conspicuous, and, at least in certain crises, the most important. There were always some years of desperate warfare during which the entire strength of the little commonwealth was drawn on to resist outside aggression, and during these years the chief function of government was to provide for the griping military needs of the community, and the one pressing duty of its chief was to lead his followers with valor and wisdom in the struggle with the stranger. [Footnote: My friend, Professor Alexander Johnson, of Princeton, is inclined to regard these frontier county organizations as reproductions of a very primitive type of government indeed, deeming that they were formed primarily for war against outsiders, that their military organization was the essential feature, the real reason for their existence. I can hardly accept this view in its entirety; though fully recognizing the extreme importance of the military side of the little governments, it seems to me that the preservation of order, and especially the necessity for regulating the disposition of the land, were quite as powerful factors in impelling the settlers to act together. It is important to keep in mind the territorial organization of the militia companies and regiments; a county and a regiment, a forted village and a company, were usually coextensive.]

These little communities were extremely independent in feeling, not only of the Federal Government, but of their parent States, and even of one another. They had won their positions by their own courage and hardihood; very few State troops and hardly a Continental soldier had appeared west of the Alleghanies. They had heartily sympathized with their several mother colonies when they became the United States, and had manfully played their part in the Revolutionary war. Moreover they were united among themselves by ties of good-will and of services mutually rendered. Kentucky, for instance, had been succored more than once by troops raised among the Watauga Carolinians or the Holston Virginians, and in her turn she had sent needed supplies to the Cumberland. But when the strain of the war was over the separatist spirit asserted itself very strongly. The groups of western settlements not only looked on the Union itself very coldly, but they were also more or less actively hostile to their parent States, and regarded even one another as foreign communities; [Footnote: See in Gardoqui MSS. the letters of George Rogers Clark to Gardoqui, March 15, 1788; and of John Sevier to Gardoqui, September 12, 1788; and in the Robertson MS. the letter of Robertson to McGillivray, August 3, 1788. It is necessary to allude to the feeling here; but the separatist and disunion movements did not gather full force until later, and are properly to be considered in connection with post-revolutionary events.] they considered the Confederation as being literally only a lax league of friendship.

Character of the Pioneer Population.

Up to the close of the Revolutionary contest the settlers who were building homes and States beyond the Alleghanies formed a homogeneous backwoods population. The wood-choppers, game hunters, and Indian fighters, who dressed and lived alike, were the typical pioneers. They were a shifting people. In every settlement the tide ebbed and flowed. Some of the new-comers would be beaten in the hard struggle for existence, and would drift back to whence they had come. Of those who succeeded some would take root in the land, and others would move still farther into the wilderness. Thus each generation rolled westward, leaving its children at the point where the wave stopped no less than at that where it started. The descendants of the victors of King’s Mountain are as likely to be found in the Rockies as in the Alleghanies.

With the close of the war came an enormous increase in the tide of immigration; and many of the new-comers were of a very different stamp from their predecessors. The main current flowed towards Kentucky, and gave an entirely different character to its population. The two typical figures in Kentucky so far had been Clark and Boon, but after the close of the Revolution both of them sank into unimportance, whereas the careers of Sevier and Robertson had only begun. The disappearance of the two former from active life was partly accidental and partly a resultant of the forces that assimilated Kentucky so much more rapidly than Tennessee to the conditions prevailing in the old States. Kentucky was the best known and the most accessible of the western regions; within her own borders she was now comparatively safe from serious Indian invasion, and the tide of immigration naturally flowed thither. So strong was the current that, within a dozen years, it had completely swamped the original settlers, and had changed Kentucky from a peculiar pioneer and backwoods commonwealth into a State differing no more from Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina than these differed from one another.

The men who gave the tone to this great flood of new-comers were the gentry from the sea-coast country, the planters, the young lawyers, the men of means who had been impoverished by the long-continued and harassing civil war. Straitened in circumstances, desirous of winning back wealth and position, they cast longing eyes towards the beautiful and fertile country beyond the mountains, deeming it a place that afforded unusual opportunities to the man with capital, no less than to him whose sole trust was in his own adventurous energy.

Most of the gentle folks in Virginia and the Carolinas, the men who lived in great roomy houses on their well-stocked and slave-tilled plantations, had been forced to struggle hard to keep their heads above water during the Revolution. They loyally supported the government, with blood and money; and at the same time they endeavored to save some of their property from the general wreck, and to fittingly educate their girls, and those of their boys who were too young to be in the army. The men of this stamp who now prepared to cast in their lot with the new communities formed an exceptionally valuable class of immigrants; they contributed the very qualities of which the raw settlements stood most in need. They had suffered for no fault of their own; fate had gone hard with them. The fathers had been in the Federal or Provincial congresses; the older sons had served in the Continental line or in the militia. The plantations were occasionally overrun by the enemy; and the general disorder had completed their ruin. Nevertheless, the heads of the families had striven to send the younger sons to school or college. For their daughters they did even more; and throughout the contest, even in its darkest hours, they sent them down to receive the final touches of a lady-like education at some one of the State capitals not at the moment in the hands of the enemy–such as Charleston or Philadelphia. There the young ladies were taught dancing and music, for which, as well as for their frocks and “pink calamanco shoes,” their fathers paid enormous sums in depreciated Continental currency. [Footnote: Clay MSS. Account of Robert Morris with Miss Elizabeth Hart, during her residence in Philadelphia in 1780-81. The account is so curious that I give it in full in the Appendix.]

Even the close of active hostilities, when the British were driven from the Southern States, brought at first but a slight betterment of condition to the straggling people. There was no cash in the land, the paper currency was nearly worthless, every one was heavily in debt, and no one was able to collect what was owing to him. There was much mob violence, and a general relaxation of the bonds of law and order. Even nature turned hostile; a terrible drought shrunk up all the streams until they could not turn the grist-mills, while from the same cause the crops failed almost completely. A hard winter followed, and many cattle and hogs died; so that the well-to-do were brought to the verge of bankruptcy and the poor suffered extreme privations, being forced to go fifty or sixty miles to purchase small quantities of meal and grain at exorbitant prices. [Footnote: Clay MSS. Letters of Jesse Benton, 1782 and ’83. See Appendix.]

This distress at home inclined many people of means and ambition to try their fortunes in the west: while another and equally powerful motive was the desire to secure great tracts of virgin lands, for possession or speculation. Many distinguished soldiers had been rewarded by successive warrants for unoccupied land, which they entered wherever they chose, until they could claim thousands upon thousands of acres. [Footnote: Thus Col. Wm. Christian, for his services in Braddock’s and Dunmore’s wars and against the Cherokees, received many warrants; he visited Kentucky to enter them, 9,000 acres in all. See “Life of Caleb Wallace,” by Wm. H. Whitsitt, Louisville, 1888.] Sometimes they sold these warrants to outsiders; but whether they remained in the hands of the original holders or not, they served as a great stimulus to the westward movement, and drew many of the representatives of the wealthiest and most influential families in the parent States to the lands on the farther side of the mountains.

At the close of the Revolution, however, the men from the sea-coast region formed but an insignificant portion of the western pioneers. The country beyond the Alleghanies was first won and settled by the backwoodsmen themselves, acting under their own leaders, obeying their own desires, and following their own methods. They were a marked and peculiar people. The good and evil traits in their character were such as naturally belonged to a strong, harsh, and homely race, which, with all its shortcomings, was nevertheless bringing a tremendous work to a triumphant conclusion. The backwoodsmen were above all things characteristically American; and it is fitting that the two greatest and most typical of all Americans should have been respectively a sharer and an outcome of their work. Washington himself passed the most important years of his youth heading the westward movement of his people; clad in the traditional dress of the backwoodsmen, in tasselled hunting-shirt and fringed leggings, he led them to battle against the French and Indians, and helped to clear the way for the American advance. The only other man who in the American roll of honor stands by the side of Washington, was born when the distinctive work of the pioneers had ended; and yet he was bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh; for from the loins of this gaunt frontier folk sprang mighty Abraham Lincoln.

APPENDICES.

* * * * *

APPENDIX A–TO CHAPTER I.

During the early part of this century our more pretentious historians who really did pay some heed to facts and wrote books that–in addition to their mortal dulness–were quite accurate, felt it undignified and beneath them to notice the deeds of mere ignorant Indian fighters. They had lost all power of doing the best work; for they passed their lives in a circle of small literary men, who shrank from any departure from conventional European standards.

On the other hand, the men who wrote history for the mass of our people, not for the scholars, although they preserved much important matter, had not been educated up to the point of appreciating the value of evidence, and accepted undoubted facts and absurd traditions with equal good faith. Some of them (notably Flint and one or two of Boon’s other biographers) evidently scarcely regarded truthfulness and accuracy of statement as being even desirable qualities in a history. Others wished to tell the facts, but lacked all power of discrimination. Certain of their books had a very wide circulation. In some out-of-the-way places they formed, with the almanac, the staple of secular literature. But they did not come under the consideration of trained scholars, so their errors remained uncorrected; and at this day it is a difficult, and often an impossible task, to tell which of the statements to accept and which to reject.

Many of the earliest writers lived when young among the old companions of the leading pioneers, and long afterwards wrote down from memory the stories the old men had told them. They were themselves often clergymen, and were usually utterly inexperienced in wild backwoods life, in spite of their early surroundings–exactly as to-day any town in the Rocky Mountains is sure to contain some half-educated men as ignorant of mountain and plains life, of Indians and wild beasts, as the veriest lout on an eastern farm. Accordingly they accepted the wildest stories of frontier warfare with a faith that forcibly reminds one of the equally simple credulity displayed by the average classical scholar concerning early Greek and Roman prowess. Many of these primitive historians give accounts of overwhelming Indian numbers and enormous Indian losses, that read as if taken from the books that tell of the Gaulish hosts the Romans conquered, and the Persian hordes the Greeks repelled; and they are almost as untrustworthy.

Some of the anecdotes they relate are not far removed from the Chinese-like tale–given, if my memory is correct, in Herodotus–of the Athenian soldier, who went into action with a small grapnel or anchor attached by a chain to his waist, that he might tether himself out to resist the shock of the charging foe. A flagrant example is the story which describes how the white man sees an Indian very far off making insulting gestures; how he forthwith loads his rifle with two bullets–which the narrator evidently thinks will go twice as far and twice as straight as one,–and, taking careful aim, slays his enemy. Like other similar anecdotes, this is told of a good many different frontier heroes; the historian usually showing a delightful lack of knowledge of what is and what is not possible in hunting, tracking, and fighting. However, the utter ignorance of even the elementary principles of rifle-shooting may not have been absolutely confined to the historians. Any one accustomed to old hunters knows that their theories concerning their own weapons are often rather startling. A year ago last fall I was hunting some miles below my ranch (on the Little Missouri) to lay in the winter stock of meat, and was encamped for a week with an old hunter. We both had 45-75 Winchester rifles; and I was much amused at his insisting that his gun “shot level” up to two hundred yards–a distance at which the ball really drops considerably over a foot. Yet he killed a good deal of game; so he must either in practice have disregarded his theories, or else he must have always overestimated the distances at which he fired.

The old writers of the simpler sort not only delighted in impossible feats with the rifle, but in equally impossible deeds of strength, tracking and the like; and they were very fond of attributing all the wonderful feats of which they had heard to a single favorite hero, not to speak of composing speeches for him.

It seems–though it ought not to be–necessary to point out to some recent collectors of backwoods anecdotes, the very obvious truths: that with the best intentions in the world the average backwoodsman often has difficulty in describing a confused chain of events exactly as they took place; that when the events are described after a long lapse of years many errors are apt to creep in; and that when they are reported from tradition it is the rarest thing imaginable for the report to be correct.

* * * * *

APPENDIX B-TO CHAPTER II.

(The following account of the first negotiations of the Americans with the Indians near Vincennes is curious as being the report of one of the Indians; but it was evidently colored to suit his hearer, for as a matter of fact the Indians of the Wabash were for the time being awed into quiet, the Piankeshaws sided with the Americans, and none of them dared rise until the British approached.)

(_Haldimand MSS._, Series B, Vol. 122, p. 219.)

Proceedings of the Rebels at St. Vincennes as related to Lieut Govr. Hamilton by Neegik an Ottawa War Chief sent forward to gain intelligence. Camp at Rocher de Bout 14th Octr. 1778–

On the Rebels first arrival at St. Vincennes they took down the English Flag left there by Lieut. Gen. Abbott, wrapped a large stone in it, and threw it into the Ouabash, saying to the Indians, thus we mean to treat your Father–

Having called the Indians together they laid a War Belt colored red, & a belt colored green before them, telling them that if they delighted in mischief and had no compassion on their wives & children they might take up the red one, if on the contrary they were wise & preferred peace, the green one–

The old Tobacco a chief of the [Piankeshaws] spoke as follows–My brothers–you speak in a manner not to be understood, I never yet saw, nor have I heard from my ancestors that it was customary to place good & bad things in the same dish–You talk to us as if you meant us well, yet you speak of War & peace in the same minute, thus I treat the speeches of such men–on which with a violent kick he spurned their belts from him.

The son of Lagesse, a young Chief of the Pontconattamis of St Joseph spoke next to them.

My Brothers–‘Tis because I have listened to the voice of our old men, & because I have regard to our women & children that I have not before now struck my Tomahawk into some of your heads–attend to what I say, I will only go to see in what condition our wives & children are (meaning I will first place them in security) & then you may depend on seeing me again–

The Rebel speaker then said–

You are young men & your youth excuses your ignorances, you would not else talk as you do–Our design is to march thro’ your country, & if we find any fires in our way, we shall just tread them out as we walk along & if we meet with any obstacle or barrier we shall remove it with all ease, but the bystanders must take care lest the splinters should scar their faces.

We shall then proceed to Detroit where your father is whom we consider as a Hog put to fatten in a penn, we shall enclose him in his penn, till he be fat, & then we will throw him into the river–We shall draw a reinforcement from the Falls on the Ohio & from thence & the Ilinois send six hundred men to Chicagou–

To this the Indians replied–You that are so brave, what need have you to be reinforced, go to Detroit, you that can put out our fires & so easyly remove our barriers.–This we say to you, take care that in attempting to extinguish our fires you do not burn yourselves, & that in breaking down our barriers you do not run splinters into your hands. You may also expect that we shall not suffer a single Frenchman to accompany you to Detroit.

End of the Conference.

* * * * *

APPENDIX C–TO CHAPTER IV.

(From Canadian Archives.)

(_Haldimand MSS._, Series B, Vol. 122, p. 351.)

(Copy.)

UPPER ST. DUSKI, June 9, 1779.

Dear Sir,

After much running about, some presents to Chiefs, we had collected at the Mingo Town near 200 Savages chiefly Shawanese–When lo! a runner arrived with accounts of the Shawanese towns being attacked by a body from Kentuck, they burnt five houses, killed one Indian & wounded the Chief badly–lost their own Commander _Heron_ or _Herington_–they carried off 30 Horses, were pursued by fifty Shawanese, the Shawanese were beat back with loss of five & six wounded–News flew that all the Towns were to be attack’d & our little body seperated in an instant past reassembling–confusion still prevails–much counselling–no resolves–many are removing–more for peace.

The Delawares make it dangerous travelling. By this opportunity Davison & Cook return sick–Girty is flying about–McCarty stays with me with some Ottawas–these unsteady Rogues put me out of all patience,–I will go with him in a few days, if nothing material occurs–See the Enemy that I may not be laugh’d at then return.–The Rebels mean I believe to destroy the Villages & corn now up–the method they bring their little armies into the field as follows: Every Family on the Borders receive orders to send according to their strength (one or two men) to the place of Rendezvous at a time appointed (on pain of fine or imprisonment) with fifteen or twenty days Provisions, they immediately receive their ammunition & proceed quickly to action–I am credibly inform’d by various means, that they can raise in that manner three or four thousand in a few days for such excursions–I was obliged to Kill four more Cattle for the Indians at the Mingo Town–they are always Cooking or Counselling.

I have nothing more to inform you off if anything material occurs, which I really expect in a day or two, I will inform you by Express.

I am &c

HENRY BIRD.

To CAPT. LERNOULT.

(Copy.)

June 12th, UPPER ST. DUSKI.

Sir,

Couriers after Couriers arrive with accounts of the Rebels advancing to destroy the Savage Villages now all their corn is planted–

* * * * *

APPENDIX D–TO CHAPTER IV.

(_State Department MSS._; No. 48, Vol. “Memorials &c Inhabitants of Illinois, Kaskaskias and Kentucky.”)

The Petition and Prayr. of the people of that Part of Contry [sic] now Claim’d. by the State of Virginia in the Countys of Kaintuckey and Ilinois Humbly Sheweth–That we the leige Subjects of the United States Labour under many Greivences on acount of not being formd into a Seperate State or the Mind and Will of Congress more fully known respecting us–And we Humbly beg leave to Present to the Honorable Continental Congress our Humble Petition seting forth the Grievences and oppressions we labour under and Pray Congress may Consider Such our greivences and grant us redress.

We your Petitioners being situate in a wide Extencive Uncultivated Contry and Exposd. on every side to incursions of the Savage Indians humbly Conceive Ourselves approssed by several acts of the general assembly of Virginia for granting large Grants for waist and unapropriated lands on the Western Waters without Reservation for Cultivating and Settling the same whereby Setling the Contry is Discouraged and the inhabitants are greatly Exposd. to the Saviges by whome our wives and Childring are daly Cruily murdered Notwithstanding our most Humble Petitions Canot Obtain Redress–By an other act we are Taxd. which in our Present Situation we Conceive to be oppresive and unjust being Taxd. with money and grain whilst Enrold and in actual Pay residing in Garrisons. We are Situate from Six Hundred to one Thousand Miles from our Present Seite of Goverment, Whereby Criminals are Suffered to Escape with impunity, Great numbers who ware Ocationaly absent are Deprived of an Opertunity of their Just Rights and Emprovements and here we are Obliged to Prosecute all Apeals, and whillst we remain uncertain whether the unbounded Claim of This Extencive Contry Ought of right to belong to the United States or the State of Virginia, They have by another late act required of us to Sware alegince to the State of Virginia in Particular Notwithstanding we have aredy taken the Oath of alegance to the united States. These are Greivences too Heavy to be born, and we do Humbly Pray that the Continental Congress will Take Proper Methods to form us into a Seperate State or grant us Such Rules and regulations as they in their Wisdoms shall think most Proper, During the Continuance of the Present War and your Petitioners shall ever Pray

May 15th, 1780.

[Signed] ROBERT TYLER
RICHARD CONNOR
THOMAS HUGHES
ARCHIBALD MCDONALD
ABRAHAM VAN METER
(and others to the number of 640).

* * * * *

APPENDIX E–TO CHAPTER VII.

(_Haldimand MSS._ Series B, Vol. 123, p. 302.)

Sir,

My Letter of the 22nd & 23rd of July informed you of the reports brought us of the Enemy’s motions at that time which was delivered by the Chiefs of the standing Stone Village & confirmed by Belts & Strings of Wampum in so earnest a manner that could not but gain Credit with us. We had upon this occasion the greatest Body of Indians collected to an advantageous peice of ground near the Picawee Village that have been assembled in this Quarter since the commencement of the War & perhaps may never be in higher spirits to engage the Enemy, when the return of Scouts from the Ohio informed us that the account we had received was false; this disappointment notwithstanding all our endeavours to keep them together occasioned them to disperse in disgust with each other, the inhabitants of this Country who were the most immediately interested in keeping in a Body ware the first that broke off & though we advanced towards the Ohio with upwards of three hundred Hurons & Lake Indians few of the Delawares, Shawanese or Mingoes followed us. On our arrival at the Ohio we remain’d still in uncertainty with respect to the Enemys motions, & it was thought best from hence to send Scouts to the Falls & that the main Body should advance into the Enemy’s Country and endeavour to lead out a party from some of their Forts by which we might be able to gain some certain Intelligence accordingly we crossed the Ohio and arrived the 18th Inst. at one of the Enemys settlements–call’d Bryans Station, but the Indians discovering their numbers prevented their coming out and the Lake Indians finding this rush’d up to the Fort and set several out Houses on fire but at too great a distance to touch the Fort the Wind blowing the Contrary way. The firing continued this day during which time a Party of about twenty of the Enemy approached a part that happened not to be Guarded & about one half of them reached it the rest being drove back by a few Indians who ware near the place, the next morning finding it to no purpose to keep up a fire longer upon the Fort as we were getting men killed, & had already several men wounded which ware to be carried, the Indians determined to retreat & the 20th reached the Blue Licks where we encamp’d near an advantageous Hill and expecting the enemy would pursue determined here to wait for them keeping spies at the Lick who in the morning of the 21st discovered them & at half past 7 o’clock we engaged them & in a short time totally defeated them, we ware not much superior to them in Numbers they being about two hundred picked men from the settlement of Kentucky. Commanded by the Colonels Todd, Trigg, Boon & Todd, with the Majors Harlin, and McGary most of whom fell in the action, from the best inquiry I could make upon the spot there was upwards of one hundred & forty killed & taken with near an hundred rifles several being thrown into a deep River that ware not recovered. It was said by the Prisoners that a Colonel Logan was expected to join them with one hundred men more we waited upon the ground to-day for him, but seeing there was not much probability of his coming we set off & crossed the ohio the second day after the action. Captain Caldwell & I arrived at this place last night with a design of sending some assistance to those who are bring on the wounded people who are fourteen in number, we had Ten Indians kill’d with Mr. La Bute of the Indian Department who by sparing the life of one of the Enemy & endeavouring to take him Prisoner loss’d his own, to our disappointment we find no Provisions brought forward to this place or likely hood of any for some time, and we have entirely subsisted since we left this on what we got in the Woods, and took from the Enemy. The Prisoners all agree in their account that there is no talk of an Expedition from that Quarter, nor indeed are they able without assistance from the Colonies, & that the Militia of the Country have been employed during the summer in Building the Fort at the Falls, & what they call a Row Galley which has made one trip up the River to the Mouth of the big Miamis & occasioned that alarm that created us so much trouble, she carries one six pounder, six four pounders & two two pounders & Row’s eighty oars, she had at the big Bone Lick one hundred men but being chiefly draughts from the Militia many of them left her on different parts of the River. One of the Prisoners mentions the arrival of Boats lately from Fort Pitt & that Letters has pass’d between the Commanding officer of that place & Mr. Clark intimating that preparation is making there for another Expedition into the Indian Country, we have since our arrival heard something of this matter and that the particulars has been forwarded to you, a Detachment of Rangers with a large party of Delawares, & Shawanese are gone that way who will be able to discover the truth of this matter.

I am this day favoured with yours of the 6th Augt. containing the report of Isaac Gians concerning the Cruelties of the Indians. It is true they have made sacrifices to their revenge after the massacre of their women & children some being known to them to be perpetraters of it, but it was done in my absence or before I could reach any of the places to interfere. And I can assure you Sir that there is not a white person here wanting in their duty to represent to the Indians in the strongest terms the highest abhorence of such conduct as well as the bad consequences that may attend it to both them & us being contrary to the rule of carrying on war by Civilized nations, however it is not improbable that Gians may have exaggerated matters greatly being notoriously known for a disaffected person and concerned in sending Prisoners away with Intelligence to the Enemy at the time Captain Bird came out as we ware then informed. I flatter myself that I may by this time have an answer to the Letter I had the honor of writing to the Commandr. in Chief on leaving Detroit. Mr. Elliot is to be the Bearer of this who will be able to give you any farther information necessary respecting matters here.

I am with respect Sir your most obedient & Very Humble Servant

A. MCKEE.

SHAWANESE COUNTRY,

August 28th, 1782.

Major DE PEYSTER.

* * * * *

APPENDIX F–TO CHAPTER VII.

(_Haldimand MSS._, Series B, Vol. 123, p. 297.)

Extract of a letter from Captain Caldwell, dated at Wakitamiki, August 26, 1782.

“When I last had the pleasure of writing you, I expected to have struck at Wheeling as I was on my march for that place, but was overtaken by a Messenger from the Shawnese, who informed me that the Enemy was on their march for their Country, which obliged me to turn their way, and to my great mortification found the alarm false & that it was owing to a Gondals coming up to the mouth of Licking Creek, and landing some men upon the South side of the Ohio which when the Indians saw supposed it must be Clark. It would have been a lucky circumstance if they had come on, as I had eleven hundred Indians on the ground, and three hundred within a days march of me. When the Report was contradicted They mostly left us, many of them had left their Towns no way equipped for War, as they expected as well as myself to fight in a few days, notwithstanding I was determined to pay the Enemy a visit with as many Indians as would follow me: accordingly I crossed the Ohio with three hundred Indians & Rangers, and Marched for Bryants Station on Kentuck, and surrounded the Fort the 15th in the morning, & tried to draw ’em out by sending up a small party to try to take a Prisoner and shew themselves, but the Indians were in too great a hurry and the whole shewed too soon–I then saw it was in vain to wait any longer and so drew nigh the Fort, burnt 3 Houses which are part of the Fort but the wind being contrary prevented it having the desired effect. Killed upwards of 300 Hogs, 150 Head of Cattle, and a number of Sheep, took a number of Horses, pull’d up and destroy’d their Potatoes, cut down a great deal of their Corn, burn’t their Hemp and did other considerable damage–by the Indians exposing themselves too much we had 5 Killed & 2 Wounded.

We retreated the 16th and came as far as Biddle’s former Station, when nigh 100 Indians left me, as they went after their things they left at the Forks of Licking, and I took the Road by the blue Licks as it was nigher and the ground more advantageous in case the Enemy should pursue us–got to the Licks on the 17th and encamped.

On the 18th in the morning, one of my party that was watching the Road came in and told me the Enemy was within a mile of us, upon which I drew up to fight them–at 1/2 past seven they advanced in three Divisions in good order, they had spied some of us and it was the very place they expected to overtake us.–We had but fired one Gun till they gave us a Volley and stood to it very well for some time,’till we rushed in upon them, when they broke immediately.–We pursued for about two miles, and as the enemy was mostly on horseback, it was in vain to follow further.

We killed and took one hundred and Forty six. Amongst the killed is Col. Todd the Commandr Col. Boon, Lt. Col. Trigg, Major Harlin who commanded their Infantry, Major Magara and a number more of their officers. Our loss is Monsr. La Bute killed, he died like a warrior fighting Arm to Arm, six Indians killed and ten wounded–The Indians behaved extremely well, and no people could behave better than both Officers & men in general–The Indians I had with me were the Wyandots and Lake Indians–The Wyandots furnished me with what provisions I wanted, and behaved extremely well.”

* * * * *

APPENDIX G–TO CHAPTER X.

It has been so habitual among American writers to praise all the deeds, good, bad, and indifferent, of our Revolutionary ancestors, and to belittle and make light of what we have recently done, that most men seem not to know that the Union and Confederate troops in the Civil War fought far more stubbornly and skilfully than did their forefathers at the time of the Revolution. It is impossible to estimate too highly the devoted patriotism and statesmanship of the founders of our national life; and however high we rank Washington, I am confident that we err, if any thing, in not ranking him high enough, for on the whole the world has never seen a man deserving to be placed above him; but we certainly have overestimated the actual fighting qualities of the Revolutionary troops, and have never laid enough stress on the folly and jealousy with which the States behaved during the contest. In 1776 the Americans were still in the gristle; and the feats of arms they then performed do not bear comparison with what they did in the prime of their lusty youth, eighty or ninety years later. The Continentals who had been long drilled by Washington and Greene were most excellent troops; but they never had a chance to show at their best, because they were always mixed in with a mass of poor soldiers, either militia or just-enlisted regulars.

The resolute determination of the Americans to win, their trust in the justice of their cause, their refusal to be cast down by defeat, the success with which they overran and conquered the west at the very time they were struggling for life or death in the east, the heroic grandeur of their great leader–for all this they deserve full credit. But the militia who formed the bulk of the Revolutionary armies did not generally fight well. Sometimes, as at Bunker’s Hill and King’s Mountain, they did excellently, and they did better, as a rule, than similar European bodies–than the Spanish and Portuguese peasants in 1807-12, for instance. At that time it was believed that the American militia could not fight at all; this was a mistake, and the British paid dearly for making it; but the opposite belief, that militia could be generally depended upon, led to quite as bad blunders, and the politicians of the Jeffersonian school who encouraged the idea made us in our turn pay dearly for our folly in after years, as at Bladensburg and along the Niagara frontier in 1812. The Revolutionary war proved that hastily gathered militia, justly angered and strung to high purpose, could sometimes whip regulars, a feat then deemed impossible; but it lacked very much of proving that they would usually do this. Moreover, even the stalwart fighters who followed Clark and Sevier, and who did most important and valorous service, cannot point to any one such desperate deed of fierce courage as that of the doomed Texans under Bowie and Davy Crockett in the Alamo.

A very slight comparison of the losses suffered in the battles of the Revolution with those suffered in the battles of the Civil War is sufficient to show the superiority of the soldiers who fought in the latter (and a comparison of the tactics and other features of the conflicts will make the fact even clearer). No Revolutionary regiment or brigade suffered such a loss as befell the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg, where it lost 215 out of 263 men, 82 per cent.; the 9th Illinois at Shiloh, where it lost 366 out of 578 men, 63 per cent.; the 1st Maine at Petersburg, which lost 632 out of 950 men, 67 per cent.; or Caldwell’s brigade of New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania troops, which, in Hancock’s attack at Fredericksburg, lost 949 out of 1,947 men, 48 per cent.; or, turning to the Southern soldiers, such a loss as that of the 1st Texas at Antietam, when 186 out of 226 men fell, 82 per cent.; or of the 26th North Carolina, which, at Gettysburg, lost 588 out of 820 men, 72 per cent.; or the 8th Tennessee, at Murfreesboro, which lost 306 out of 444 men, or 68 per cent.; or Garnett’s brigade of Virginians, which, in Pickett’s charge, lost 941 men out of 1,427, or 65 per cent.

There were over a hundred regiments, and not a few brigades, in the Union and Confederate armies, each of which in some one action suffered losses averaging as heavy as the above. The Revolutionary armies cannot show such a roll of honor as this. Still, it is hardly fair to judge them by this comparison, for the Civil War saw the most bloody and desperate fighting that has occurred of late years. None of the European contests since the close of the Napoleonic struggles can be compared to it. Thus the Light Brigade at Balaclava lost only 37 per cent., or 247 men out of 673, while the Guards at Inkermann lost but 45 per cent., or 594 out of 1,331; and the heaviest German losses in the Franco-Prussian war were but 49 and 46 per cent., occurring respectively to the Third Westphalian Regiment at Mars-le-Tours, and the Garde-Schutzen battalion at Metz.

These figures are taken from “Regimental Losses in the American Civil War,” by Col. Wm. F. Fox, Albany, 1881; the loss in each instance includes few or no prisoners, save in the cases of Garnett’s brigade and of the Third Westphalian Regiment.

* * * * *

APPENDIX H–TO CHAPTER XII.

(From the _Robertson MSS._, Vol. I., Letter of Don Miro.)

NEW ORLEANS, the 20th April, 1783.

Sir

I received yours of 29th January last, & am highly pleased in seeing the good intentions of the People of that District, & knowing the falsehood of the report we have heard they are willing to attack their Province. You ought to make the same account of the news you had that the Indians have been excited in their Province against you, since I wrote quite the contrary at different times to Alexander McGillevray to induce him to make peace, & lastly he answered me that he gave his word to the Governor of North Carolina that the Creeks would not trouble again those settlements: notwithstanding after the letter received from you, and other from Brigadier general Daniel Smith Esqr I will writte to him engaging him to be not more troublesome to you.

I have not any connection with Cheroquis & Marcuten, but as they go now & then to Illinois I will give advice to that Commander to induce them to be quiet: in respect to the former in the month of May of last year they asked the permission of settling them selves on the west side of the Mississippi River which is granted & they act accordingly, you plainly see you are quite free from their incursions.

I will give the Passeport you ask for your son-in-law, & I will be highly pleased with his coming down to setle in this Province & much more if you, & your family should come along with him, since I can assure you that you will find here your welfare, without being either molested on religious matters or paying any duty & under the circumstances of finding allwais market for your crops which makes every one of the planters settled at Natchez or elsewhere to improve every day, much more so than if they were to purchase the Lands, as they are granted gratis.

I wish to be usefull to you being with regard sir

Your most obt. hl. servant ESTEVAN MIRO.

(Dupte.) Colonel JAMES ROBERTSON, Esqr.

The duplicity of the Spaniards is well illustrated by the fact that the Gardoqui MSS. give clear proof that they were assisting the Creeks with arms and ammunition at the very time Miro was writing these letters. See the Gardoqui MSS., _passim_, especially Miro’s letter of June 28, 1786.

APPENDIX I-TO CHAPTER XIII.

Account of Robert Morris with Miss Betsey Hart, Philadelphia, 1780-81. From the Clay MSS.

DR. MISS HARTE IN ACCOUNT CURRENT WITH ROBERT MORRIS CR. [Oldest daughter of Col. Thomas Hart. She married Dr. Richard Pendell.]

1780

Aug. 29

To cash paid for a Pair of Shoes for you L64,2,6 at 60 for 1 L 1,1,4
(Continental, Exchange, Specie)

To a Chest of Sugar delivered Mrs. Brodeau & Porterage 1107,15,0 Do 18,9,3

To two ps Sheeting Delivered Ditto
1116,0,0 at Do 18,12,0

To cash paid Wm. McDugall’s Bill for one & a half Quarters Tuition at Dancing
223,10,0 at Do 3,12,6

Paid E. Denaugheys Bill for washing Done for you 95,12,6 at Do 1,11,10

Dec. 6

To Ditto for Hannah Estys Bill for making Frocks for you L257,10 Paid D Denaugheys Bill for Washg L125.12.6 383,3,6 at 75 for 1 5,2,2

Dec. 29

To Ditto pair for pair of Pink Calemancoi Shoes for you 78,15,0 at Do 1,1,0

1781

Feb. 3

To Ditto paid B. Victor your music master for one Quarter Tuition of Music
506,5,0 at 75 for 1 6,15,0

To the following Articles delivered Mrs. Brodeau on your Accot One firkin of Butter one Box of Candles & a Box of Soap Amounting p Account to
629,1,2 at Do 8,7,9

To Cash paid Mrs. Brodeau in full of her Accot. to October last against you
3856,17,6 at Do 51,8,6

Total: L115, 3,5 (Specie) Allowed for Depreciation 57,13,7
=========
L172,17,0

Received Philad. April 7th 1781 the One hundred and Seventy two Pounds 17/ State Specie being in full the amount of the annexed account

for Robt. Morris
L172.17. State Specie
J. SWANNICK

APPENDIX J–TO CHAPTER XIII.

In the Clay MSS. the letters of Jesse Benton to Col. Hart, of December 4, 1782, and March 22, 1783, paint vividly the general distress in the Carolinas. They are taken up mostly with accounts of bad debts and of endeavors to proceed against various debtors; they also touch on other subjects.

In the first, of December 4,1782, Benton writes: “It seems the powers above are combined against us this year. Such a Drouth was never known here [in the upper Carolinas] before; Corn sells from the stack at 4 & 5/ p. Bushel, Wheat 6 & 8/, Rye the same, Oats 3/ 6 &c &c … I have not had Water to keep the Grist Mill Fuling Mill and Oyl Mill at Work before this Week…. Johny Rice has gone to Kentuck with his goods to buy Furs, but before he went we talked of your debts and he did not like to be concerned, saying he should gain ill will for no profit; However I will immediately enforce the Law to recover your Debts … the Lands which You had of me would sell as soon as any but this hard year makes many settlers and few buyers. I have heard nothing more of Major Haywoods desire of purchasing & all I ever heard upon the subject was from his son-in-law who now appears very sick of his late purchase of Elegant Buildings…. Your Brother Capt. Nat Hart, our worthy and respectable Friend, I doubt is cut off by the Savages at the time and in the manner as first represented, to wit, that he went out to hunt his horses in the month of July or August it is supposed the Indians in Ambuscade between Boonsboro and Knockbuckle, intended to take him Prisonner, but killd his horse and at the same time broke his Thigh, that the savages finding their Prisonner with his Thigh broken was under the necessity of puting him to Death by shooting him through the Heart at so small a Distance as to Powder burn his Flesh. He was Tomhawkd, scalped & lay two Days before he was found and buried. This Account has come by difrent hands & confirmd to Col. Henderson by a Letter from an intimate Friend of his at Kentuck.”

This last bit of information is sandwiched in between lamentations over bad debts, concerning which the writer manifested considerably more emotion than over the rather startling fate of Captain Hart.

The second letter contains an account of the “trafficking off” of a wagon and fine pair of Pennsylvania horses, the news that a debt had been partially liquidated by the payment of sixty pounds’ worth of rum and sugar, which in turn went to pay workmen, and continues: “The common people are and will be much distressed for want of Bread. I have often heard talk of Famine, but never thought of seeing any thing so much like it as the present times in this part of the Country. Three fourths of the Inhabitants of this country are obliged to purchase their Bread at 50 & 60 miles distance at the common price of 16/ and upwards per barrel. The winter has been very hard upon the live stock & I am convinced that abundance of Hogs and Cattle will die this Spring for want of Food…. Cash is now scarcer here than it ever was before…. I have been industrious to get the Mills in good repair and have succeeded well, but have rcd. very little benefit from them yet owing intirely to the general failure of a Crop. We have done no Merchant work in the Grist Mill, & she only supplies my Family and workmen with Bread. Rye, the people are glad to eat. Flaxseed the cattle have chiefly eaten though I have got as much of that article as made 180 Gallons of Oyl at 4/ per bushel. The Oyl is in great demand; I expect two dollars p. Gallon for it at Halifax or Edenton, & perhaps a better price. We were very late in beginning with the Fulling Business; for want of water…. [there are many] Mobbs and commotions among the People.”

INDEX TO VOLUMES I. AND II.

Abingdon, a typical frontier town, II; _Adventure_, the, voyage of, II;
Algonquins, the, their location, I; dwellings and dress;
their relations with the Iroquois and the southern Indians; tribal relations;
their numbers;
lack of cohesion;
numbers in the field;
their prowess in war;
their mode of war;
their discipline in battle;
their superiority to European troops; usually the attacking party;
their cruelty
Allaire, Lieut., a New York loyalist, II; Alleghanies, the, our western border for a century and a half, I; America, its importance and accessibility, I; twofold character of warfare in;
Spain’s share in the conquest of; difference between the Spanish-English conquests in; constant succession of contests in;
her allies hostile to her interests, II; Americans, a distinct people from the British, I; western conquest, the great work of the; their sharpshooters dreaded by the British officers, II; as soldiers, Appendix;
Appalachian Confederacies, the, I; their geographical position;
origin of the name;
how divided;
numbers;
Australia, small difficulty in settling; Axe, the, its importance in the conquest of the west; Backwoods levies, the character of;
Backwoodsmen, the, of Kentucky, I; of the Alleghanies;
little in common with the tide-water inhabitants; Americans by birth and parentage;
Scotch-Irish, the dominant strain in their blood; from one people;
their creed, Presbyterian;
their intense Americanism;
their difference from the rest of the world; their villages;
not a town-building race;
won and kept their lands by force; their natural weapons;
their forts;
their mode of life;
size of farms;
society, dress, and arms;
their first lesson;
their helpfulness;
sports and quarrels;
weddings;
funerals;
schooling;
home employments;
pack-trains;
dangers of life;
as hunters;
warlike character;
their own soldiers;
military organization;
administration of justice;
sharp contrasts of society among; wickedness of the lawless among;
their summary modes of punishment; their superstitions;
their religion;
summary of their lives;
desire for revenge;
hasten to join Lewis;
assemble at the great levels of Greenbriar; march of Lewis’ army;
grimness of their character, II;
gather at Bryan’s Station;
defeated at the Blue Licks;
fate of the captured;
their increase during the Revolution; their wars;
governments instituted by them;
their individualism;
character of the pioneer population; what they had done at the close of the Revolution; Balme La, his expedition against Detroit, II; Baubin captures Boon, II;
Bear Grass Creek, ravaged by Indians, II; Big Bone Lick, remains of mastodon discovered at, I; Big Foot, a gigantic chief of the Wyandots, II; fight with Andrew Poe, 134;
killed by Adam Poe;
Big Island of the French Broad, the; Christian’s army reach, I;
Bingaman, his fight in the dark, II; Bird, Capt. Henry, dissolution of his expedition, II; his inroad;
his retreat;
loses his cannon;
Blue Licks, visited by Boon, II;
Indians retreat to;
the backwoodsmen reach;
the fight begins;
battle of the;
defeat of the whites;
a wild panic;
the Indians checked;
a crushing disaster;
Boiling Springs, fort built at, I; Boon, Daniel, his birth, I;
removes to North Carolina and marries; his passion for hunting and exploration; his appearance;
his character;
his inscription on a tree;
connection with Henderson;
his claim to distinction;
his success;
goes to Kentucky;
beauty of the country and abundance of game; attacked by Indians;
capture and escape;
wanderings;
joined by his brother;
lonely sojourn in the wilderness; joined by other hunters;
“Gulliver’s Travels” in camp;
returns to North Carolina;
meets the McAfees’ at Powell’s Valley; attempts to settle Kentucky;
attacked by Indians;
his son killed;
pilots in Lord Dunmore’s surveyors; in command of frontier forts;
attacked by Indians;
reaches the Kentucky River;
begins to build Boonsborough;
welcomes Henderson’s company;
the fort at Boonsborough;
returns to North Carolina for his family; his prominence in Kentucky history;
serves as a Kentucky burgess in the Virginia Legislature; his strange life;
his daughter captured by Indians and rescued; the historic tree;
original letter of;
wounded in the attack on Boonsborough, II; captured by Indians;
taken to Old Chillicothe;
adopted into the Shawnee tribe;
escapes from the Indians;
makes a foray into the Indian country; outwits de Quindre;
thanks Kenton for saving his life; comes to the rescue of Kenton;
a favorite hero of frontier story; loses his brother by the Indians;
lieut.-colonel under Todd;
marches to relieve Bryan’s Station; opposed to the attack at Blue Licks;
commands the left wing at battle of Blue Licks; his successful advance;
surrounded and routed;
last to leave the field;
his son Isaac slain;
Boon, Squire, joins his brother Daniel in Kentucky, I; Boonsborough, founding of, saves Kentucky, I; receives Henderson and his party;
completion of the fort;
land office opens at;
store opened by the Transylvania company; meeting of the Transylvanian Legislature; attacked by Indians, II;
again besieged;
retreat of the Indians;
school opened at;
Boon’s Station, not Boonsborough, II; Borderers, the, misdeeds of, I;
contempt for Pennsylvanian government; Border Wars, the, inevitable, I;
begun by the Indians;
struggle for the land, one great cause of; Bowman, John, advances against Vincennes, II; attacks Chillicothe;
defeated by the Indians
Brady, Capt. Samuel, a noted Indian fighter, II; captured and bound to the stake;
escapes;
whips the Indians;
Brant, Joseph, surprises Loughry, II; defeats Squire Boon and Floyd
British, the,
incite the southern Indians to war against the Americans, I; hatred of, inherited by the sons and grandsons of the backwoodsmen; their intrigues with the Indians;
scalp-buying, II;
begun a war of extermination;
their complicity in the Indian murders; in the Southern States;
defeated at King’s Mountain;
Brodhead, Col., in command at Fort Pitt, II; burns some Iroquois towns;
prevents the militia from attacking the Moravians; Bryan’s Station, attack on, II;
danger of procuring water;
the settlers rally to the relief of Buford, Captain, routed by Tarleton, II Butler, his party attacked by Cherokees, I Cahokia, converted to the American cause, II; council at
Caldwell, Capt., a good commander of irregular troops, II; commands Canadian volunteers;
defeats Crawford at Sandusky;
wounded;
invades Kentucky;
letter from, Appendix;
California, the winning of, I;
Calk, William, his journal of Henderson’s journey, II; Callahan, Edward, a privileged character, II; Cameron, the British agent in the Cherokee country, I; attempt to capture him;
leads his tories and the Cherokees against South Carolina; organizes expeditions against the frontier, II; Campbell, Arthur, his character, II;
misses the battle of King’s Mountain; his jealousy;
Campbell, William, his appearance and character, II; anecdotes of;
raises troops to oppose Cornwallis; made commander-in-chief;
encourages his men on the eve of battle; begins the assault at King’s Mountain; rallies his troops;
manifesto to his troops;
death of
Canada, extension westward of the English race in, I; Canadian archives, II, Appendix;
Carolinas, the, attacked by Indians and tories, I; Carpenter, a Cherokee chief, I;
signs the treaty of the Sycamore Shoals; Carter’s Valley, ravaged by the Indians, I; Castleman, his escape from death, I;
Charleston captured by the British, II; Cherokees, the, in the barbarous rather than savage state, I; divided into the Otari and the Erati;
their numbers;
and location;
not successful fighters;
their dwellings;
character;
games and amusements;
renegade bands of;
their great war trail;
treaty with Virginia;
negotiations opened with;
the Otaris assemble at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga; irritated at the conduct of the frontiersmen; take up the tomahawk at the bidding of the British; begin the war on the frontier;
numbers of their warriors;
suddenness of their attack;
fall upon the Watauga settlers;
ravage Carter’s Valley;
defeated by the whites at the battle of the Island Flats; the Watauga fort besieged;
retreat from the Watauga;
ravage the Georgian and Carolinian frontiers; come down the Catawba;
their furious attacks on South Carolina; their country invaded;
towns destroyed;
again attacked;
defeat of the Indians;
destruction of the Cherokee settlements; the warriors gather at the Big Island of the French Broad; flight of the Indians;
sue for peace;
destruction of Tuskega;
peace declared;
their severe chastisement;
defeated by Sevier, II;
their country overrun;
the country of the Erati ravaged by Sevier; sue for peace;
attack Nashborough;
Chicago, attempted settlement of, II Chickamaugas, the, a tribe of freebooters, I; their fastnesses;
refuse to make peace;
their towns burned;
Chickasaws, the, belonged to the Appalachian Confederacy, I; the smallest of the Southern nations;
their numbers;
their unity;
their wars and successes;
definite peace concluded with, II; Chillicothe, attacked by Boon, II;
burned;
Chippewas, the, location of, I;
Choctaws, the, an Appalachian tribe, I; the rudest of the confederacy;
their location;
numbers;
character;
Christian, Col. William, commands the Fincastle men, I; refused permission to march with Lewis; reaches the Great Kanawha after the battle; gathers the Virginia troops at the Great Island of the Holston; marches against the Cherokees;
reply to the Cherokees;
destroys the Indian towns;
agrees to terms of peace;
marches homeward;
Chronicle, killed at King’s Mountain, II; Civil war on the border, I;
Clark, George Rogers;
compared to Allen and Marion, I;
relieves a party of hunters in Kentucky; with Cresap at the outbreak of Lord Dunmore’s war; his character;
accompanies Lord Dunmore;
arrives at Harrodstown;
sent to Virginia as a delegate;
presents petition to Governor and Council; asks for gunpowder;
transports it in safety to Kentucky; procures the erection of Kentucky County; living at Harrodstown, II;
shares in the defence of Kentucky; skirmishes with the Indians;
matures his plans for the Illinois campaign; goes to Virginia to raise troops;
incidents of travel;
lays his plans before Patrick Henry; authorized to raise troops;
organizes the expedition;
difficulty in raising men;
starts down the Ohio;
lands at the mouth of the Kentucky; reaches the Falls of the Ohio;
joined by Kenton and the Kentuckians; meets a party of hunters;
the march to Kaskaskia;
surprises the town;
a dramatic picture;
his diplomacy;
his winning stroke;
sends troops to Cahokia;
his difficulties;
prepares for defence;
establishes friendly relations with the Spanish authorities; dealings with the Indians;
apprehensive of treachery;
puts the Indians in irons;
his seeming carelessness;
offers peace or war to the Indians; makes peace with the Indians;
his influence over them;
prepares to resist Hamilton;
narrow escape from the Indians;
receives news of Vincennes;
determines to strike the first blow; equips the first gunboat on the Western waters; marches against Vincennes;
reaches the drowned lands of the Wabash; hardships and sufferings of his troops; encourages his troops;
difficulties of approach to Vincennes; crosses the Horse Shoe Plain;
exhaustion of the troops;
surprises Vincennes;
attacks the fort;
summons the fort to surrender;
destroys a scouting party;
surrender of the fort;
reproaches Hamilton;
importance of the result of the expedition; sends Helm to intercept a convoy;
disposes of his prisoners;
receives reinforcements;
pacifies the country;
builds a fort on the Mississippi; moves to the Falls of the Ohio;
made a brigadier-general;
greatness of his deeds;
hears of Bird’s inroads;
his campaign against Piqua;
musters his troops at the mouth of the Licking; starts up the Ohio;
burns Chillicothe;
surprises the Indians at Piqua;
disperses the Indians;
destroys the town;
disbands his army;
effects of the victory;
his plan to attack Detroit;
why his efforts were baffled;
commandant of State troops;
roused by the battle of the Blue Licks; his counter-stroke;
destroys the Miami towns;
undertakes to supply the settlements with meat; Clay MSS., II, Appendix;
Cleavland, Col. Benjamin, commands North Carolina militia, II; commands left wing at King’s Mountain; Clinch River, settlers of, at war with Shawnees, I; a feeder of the Tennessee River;
Conolly, Capt. John, his hostilities against Pennsylvania, I; his rashness;
his open letter;
appalled by the storm he had raisen; holds councils with Delawares and Iroquois; defied by the Shawnees;
Cornstalk, a Shawnee chief, I;
first heard of in Pontiac’s war;
opposed to the war with the whites; his strategy;
advances to attack Lewis;
crossing the Ohio;
fails to surprise Lewis’ army;
displays the only generalship at the battle of the Great Kanawha; bids defiance to his foes;
sues for peace;
his eloquence;
his grand death
Cornwallis, Lord, in command at the South, II; marches through the up-country;
retreats from North Carolina;
Crab Orchard, regarded with affection by travellers, I; Crawford, Col. William, a fairly good officer, II; marches against Sandusky;
routed;
captured;
tortured;
a valued friend of Washington
Creeks, the, made up of many bands, I; strongest of the Appalachian tribes;
their numbers;
location;
semi-civilization of;
their cattle and slaves;
agriculture;
mode of life;
towns;
houses;
council-house;
dress and adornments;
red and white towns of;
feasts and dances;
looseness of the Creek Confederacy; the Chief McGillivray;
their hostility to the whites;
scalps, their ideal of glory;
observe a kind of nominal neutrality; incited by the British to war;
their reply to the Cherokees;
ravage the Georgia frontier;
Creoles, the, of Kaskaskia, II;