PRESIDENTIAL EDITION THE WINNING OF THE WEST BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT VOLUME ONE FROM THE ALLEGHANIES TO THE MISSISSIPPI 1769-1776 WITH MAP This book is dedicated, with his permissionto FRANCIS PARKMAN To whom Americans who feel a pride in the pioneer historyof their country are so greatly indebted "O strange New World that yit wast never young, Whose youth from thee by gripin' need was wrung, Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose baby-bed Was prowled roun' by the Injun's cracklin' tread, And who grew'st strong thru shifts an' wants an' pains, Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains, Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane; Thou skilled by Freedom and by gret events To pitch new states ez Old World men pitch tents. Thou taught by fate to know Jehovah's plan, Thet man's devices can't unmake a man. * * * * * Oh, my friends, thank your God, if you have one, that he 'Twixt the Old World and you set the gulf of a sea, Be strong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines, By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs. " --LOWELL. PREFACE. Much of the material on which this work is based is to be found in thearchives of the American Government, which date back to 1774, when thefirst Continental Congress assembled. The earliest sets have beenpublished complete up to 1777, under the title of "American Archives, "and will be hereafter designated by this name. These early volumescontain an immense amount of material, because in them are to be foundmemoranda of private individuals and many of the public papers of thevarious colonial and State governments, as well as those of theConfederation. The documents from 1789 on--no longer containing anypapers of the separate States--have also been gathered and printedunder the heading of "American State Papers"; by which term they willbe hereafter referred to. The mass of public papers coming in between these two series, andcovering the period extending from 1776 to 1789, have never beenpublished, and in great part have either never been examined or elsehave been examined in the most cursory manner. The original documentsare all in the Department of State at Washington, and for conveniencewill be referred to as "State Department MSS. " They are bound in twoor three hundred large volumes; exactly how many I cannot say, because, though they are numbered, yet several of the numbersthemselves contain from two or three to ten or fifteen volumes apiece. The volumes to which reference will most often be made are thefollowing: * * * * * No. 15. Letters of Huntington. No. 16. Letters of the Presidents of Congress. No. 18. Letter-Book B. No. 20. Vol. 1. Reports of Committees on State Papers. No. 27. Reports of Committees on the War Office. 1776 to 1778. No. 30. Reports of Committees. No. 32. Reports of Committees of the States and of the Week. No. 41. Vol. 3. Memorials E. F. G. 1776-1788. No. 41. Vol. 5. Memorials K. L. 1777-1789. No. 50. Letters and Papers of Oliver Pollock. 1777-1792. No. 51. Vol. 2 Intercepted Letters. 1779-1782. No. 56. Indian Affairs. No. 71. Vol. 1. Virginia State Papers. No. 73. Georgia State Papers. No. 81. Vol. 2. Reports of Secretary John Jay. No. 120. Vol. 2. American Letters. No. 124. Vol. 3. Reports of Jay. No. 125. Negotiation Book. No. 136. Vol. 1. Reports of Board of Treasury. No. 136. Vol. 2. Reports of Board of Treasury. No. 147. Vol. 2. Reports of Board of War. No. 147. Vol. 5. Reports of Board of War. No. 147. Vol. 6. Reports of Board of War. No. 148. Vol. 1. Letters from Board of War. No. 149. Vol. 1. Letters and Reports from B. Lincoln, Secretary atWar. No. 149. Vol. 2. Letters and Reports from B. Lincoln, Secretary atWar. No. 149. Vol. 3. Letters and Reports from B. Lincoln, Secretary atWar. No. 150. Vol. 1. Letters of H. Knox, Secretary at War. No. 150. Vol. 2. Letters of H. Knox, Secretary at War. No. 150. Vol. 3. Letters of H. Knox, Secretary at War. No. 152. Vol. 11. Letters of General Washington. No. 163. Letters of Generals Clinton, Nixon, Nicola, Morgan, Harmar, Muhlenburg. No. 169. Vol. 9. Washington's Letters. No. 180. Reports of Secretary of Congress. Besides these numbered volumes, the State Department contains others, such as Washington's letter-book, marked War Department 1792, '3, '4, '5. There are also a series of numbered volumes of "Letters toWashington, " Nos. 33 and 49 containing reports from Geo. Rogers Clark. The Jefferson papers, which are likewise preserved here, are bound inseveral series, each containing a number of volumes. The Madison andMonroe papers, also kept here, are not yet bound; I quote them as theMadison MSS. And the Monroe MSS. My thanks are due to Mr. W. C. Hamilton, Asst. Librarian, for givingme every facility to examine the material. At Nashville, Tennessee, I had access to a mass of original matter inthe shape of files of old newspapers, of unpublished letters, diaries, reports, and other manuscripts. I was given every opportunity toexamine these at my leisure, and indeed to take such as were mostvaluable to my own home. For this my thanks are especially due toJudge John M. Lea, to whom, as well as to my many other friends inNashville, I shall always feel under a debt on account of theunfailing courtesy with which I was treated. I must express myparticular acknowledgments to Mr. Lemuel R. Campbell. The Nashvillemanuscripts, etc. Of which I have made most use are the following: * * * * * The Robertson MSS. , comprising two large volumes, entitled the"Correspondence, etc. , of Gen'l James Robertson, " from 1781 to 1814. They belong to the library of Nashville University; I had somedifficulty in finding the second volume but finally succeeded. The Campbell MSS. , consisting of letters and memoranda to and fromdifferent members of the Campbell family who were prominent in theRevolution; dealing for the most part with Lord Dunmore's war, theCherokee wars, the battle of King's Mountain, land speculations, etc. They are in the possession of Mr. Lemuel R. Campbell, who most kindlyhad copies of all the important ones sent me, at great personaltrouble. Some of the Sevier and Jackson papers, the original MS. Diaries ofDonelson on the famous voyage down the Tennessee and up theCumberland, and of Benj. Hawkins while surveying the Tennesseeboundary, memoranda of Thos. Washington, Overton and Dunham, theearliest files of the Knoxville _Gazette_, from 1791 to 1795, etc. These are all in the library of the Tennessee Historical Society. For original matter connected with Kentucky, I am greatly indebted toCol. Reuben T. Durrett, of Louisville, the founder of the "FilsonClub, " which has done such admirable historical work of late years. Heallowed me to work at my leisure in his library, the most complete inthe world on all subjects connected with Kentucky history. Among othermatter, he possesses the Shelby MSS. , containing a number of lettersto and from, and a dictated autobiography of, Isaac Shelby; MS. Journals of Rev. James Smith, during two tours in the western countryin 1785 and '95; early files of the "Kentucke _Gazette_"; booksowned by the early settlers; papers of Boon, and George Rogers Clark;MS. Notes on Kentucky by George Bradford, who settled there in 1779;MS. Copy of the record book of Col. John Todd, the first governor ofthe Illinois country after Clark's conquest; the McAfee MSS. , consisting of an Account of the First Settlement of Salt River, theAutobiography of Robert McAfee, and a Brief Memorandum of the Civiland Natural History of Kentucky; MS. Autobiography of Rev. WilliamHickman, who visited Kentucky in 1776, etc. , etc. I am also under great obligations to Col. John Mason Brown ofLouisville, another member of the Filson Club, for assistance renderedme; particularly for having sent me six bound volumes of MSS. , containing the correspondence of the Spanish Minister Gardoqui, copiedfrom the Spanish archives. At Lexington I had access to the Breckenridge MSS. , through thekindness of Mr. Ethelbert D. Warfield; and to the Clay MSS. Throughthe kindness of Miss Lucretia Hart Clay. I am particularly indebted toMiss Clay for her courtesy in sending me many of the most valuable oldHart and Benton letters, depositions, accounts, and the like. The Blount MSS. Were sent to me from California by the Hon. W. D. Stephens of Los Angeles, although I was not personally known to him;an instance of courtesy and generosity, in return for which I could donothing save express my sincere appreciation and gratitude, which Itake this opportunity of publicly repeating. The Gates MSS. , from which I drew some important facts not hithertoknown concerning the King's Mountain campaign, are in the library ofthe New York Historical Society. The Virginia State Papers have recently been published, and are nowaccessible to all. Among the most valuable of the hitherto untouched manuscripts which Ihave obtained are the Haldimand papers, preserved in the Canadianarchives at Ottawa. They give, for the first time, the British andIndian side of all the northwestern fighting; including Clark'scampaigns, the siege of Boonsborough, the battle of the Blue Licks, Crawford's defeat, etc. The Canadian archivist. Mr. Douglass Brymner, furnished me copies of all I needed with a prompt courtesy for which Iam more indebted than I can well express. I have been obliged to rely mainly on these collections of earlydocuments as my authorities, especially for that portion of westernhistory prior to 1783. Excluding the valuable, but very brief, andoften very inaccurate, sketch which Filson wrote down as coming fromBoon, there are no printed histories of Kentucky earlier thanMarshall's, in 1812; while the first Tennessee history was Haywood's, in 1822. Both Marshall and Haywood did excellent work; the former wasan able writer, the latter was a student, and (like the Kentuckyhistorian Mann Butler) a sound political thinker, devoted to theUnion, and prompt to stand up for the right. But both of them, indealing with the early history of the country beyond the Alleghanies, wrote about matters that had happened from thirty to fifty yearsbefore, and were obliged to base most of their statements on traditionor on what the pioneers remembered in their old age. The laterhistorians, for the most part, merely follow these two. Inconsequence, the mass of original material, in the shape of officialreports and contemporary letters, contained in the Haldimand MSS. , theCampbell MSS. , the McAfee MSS. , the Gardoqui MSS. , the StateDepartment MSS. , the Virginia State Papers, etc. , not only cast aflood of new light upon this early history, but necessitate its beingentirely re-written. For instance, they give an absolutely new aspectto, and in many cases completely reverse, the current accounts of allthe Indian fighting, both against the Cherokees and the Northwesterntribes; they give for the first time a clear view of frontierdiplomacy, of the intrigues with the Spaniards, and even of the modeof life in the backwoods, and of the workings of the civil government. It may be mentioned that the various proper names are spelt in so manydifferent ways that it is difficult to know which to choose. EvenClark is sometimes spelt Clarke, while Boon was apparently indifferentas to whether his name should or should not contain the final silent_e_. As for the original Indian titles, it is often quiteimpossible to give them even approximately; the early writers oftenwrote the same Indian words in such different ways that they bear noresemblance whatever to one another. In conclusion I would say that it has been to me emphatically a laborof love to write of the great deeds of the border people. I am notblind to their manifold shortcomings, nor yet am I ignorant of theirmany strong and good qualities. For a number of years I spent most ofmy time on the frontier, and lived and worked like any otherfrontiersman. The wild country in which we dwelt and across which wewandered was in the far west; and there were of course many featuresin which the life of a cattleman on the Great Plains and among theRockies differed from that led by a backwoodsman in the Alleghanyforests a century before. Yet the points of resemblance were far morenumerous and striking. We guarded our herds of branded cattle andshaggy horses, hunted bear, bison, elk, and deer, established civilgovernment, and put down evil-doers, white and red, on the banks ofthe Little Missouri and among the wooded, precipitous foot-hills ofthe Bighorn, exactly as did the pioneers who a hundred yearspreviously built their log-cabins beside the Kentucky or in thevalleys of the Great Smokies. The men who have shared in the fastvanishing frontier life of the present feel a peculiar sympathy withthe already long-vanished frontier life of the past. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. SAGAMORE HILL, _May_, 1889 FOREWORD. In the year 1898 the United States finished the work begun over acentury before by the backwoodsman, and drove the Spaniard outrightfrom the western world. During the march of our people from the crestsof the Alleghanies to the Pacific, the Spaniard was for a long periodour chief white opponent; and after an interval his place among ourantagonists was taken by his Spanish-American heir. Although duringthe Revolution the Spaniard at one time became America's friend in thesense that he was England's foe, he almost from the outset hated anddreaded his new ally more than his old enemy. In the peacenegotiations at the close of the contest he was jealously eager torestrict our boundaries to the line of the Alleghanies; while evenduring the concluding years of the war the Spanish soldiers on theupper Mississippi were regarded by the Americans in Illinois as amenace no less serious than the British troops at Detroit. In the opening years of our national life the Western backwoodsmanfound the Spanish ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi even morehurtful and irksome than the retention by the British king of theposts on the Great Lakes. After years of tedious public negotiations, under and through which ran a dark woof of private intrigue, thesinewy western hands so loosened the Spanish grip that in despairSpain surrendered to France the mouth of the river and the vastterritories stretching thence into the dim Northwest. She hopedthereby to establish a strong barrier between her remaining provincesand her most dreaded foe. But France in her turn grew to understandthat America's position as regards Louisiana, thanks to the steadywestward movement of the backwoodsman, was such as to render it on theone hand certain that the retention of the province by France wouldmean an armed clash with the United States, and on the other hand noless certain that in the long run such a conflict would result toFrance's disadvantage. Louisiana thus passed from the hands of Spain, after a brief interval, into those of the young Republic. Thereremained to Spain, Mexico and Florida; and forthwith the pressure ofthe stark forest riflemen began to be felt on the outskirts of thesetwo provinces. Florida was the first to fall. After a portion of ithad been forcibly annexed, after Andrew Jackson had marched at willthrough part of the remainder, and after the increasing difficulty ofrepressing the American filibustering efforts had shown the imminenceof some serious catastrophe, Spain ceded the peninsula to the UnitedStates. Texas, New Mexico, and California did not fall into Americanhands until they had passed from the Spaniard to his half-Indian sons. Many decades went by after Spain had lost her foothold on the Americancontinent, and she still held her West Indian empire. She misgovernedthe islands as she had misgoverned the continent; and in the islands, as once upon the continent, her own children became her deadliestfoes. But generation succeeded generation, and the prophecies of thosefar-seeing statesmen who foretold that she would lose to the northernRepublic her West Indian possessions remained unfulfilled. At last, atthe close of one of the bloodiest and most brutal wars that even Spainever waged with her own colonists, the United States intervened, andin a brief summer campaign destroyed the last vestiges of the mediaevalSpanish domain in the tropic seas alike of the West and the remoteEast. We of this generation were but carrying to completion the work of ourfathers and of our fathers' fathers. It is moreover a matter for justpride that while there was no falling off in the vigor and prowessshown by our fighting men, there was a marked change for the better inthe spirit with which the deed was done. The backwoodsmen had pushedthe Spaniards from the Mississippi, had set up a slave-holdingrepublic in Texas, and had conquered the Californian gold-fields, inthe sheer masterful exercise of might. It is true that they won greattriumphs for civilization no less than for their own people; yet theywon them unwittingly, for they were merely doing as countless otherstrong young races had done in the long contest carried on for so manythousands of years between the fit and the unfit. But in 1898 theUnited States, while having gained in strength, showed that there hadlikewise been gain in justice, in mercy, in sense of responsibility. Our conquest of the Southwest has been justified by the result. TheLatin peoples in the lands we won and settled have prospered like ourown stock. The sons and grandsons of those who had been our foes inLouisiana and New Mexico came eagerly forward to serve in the armythat was to invade Cuba. Our people as a whole went into the war, primarily, it is true, to drive out the Spaniard once for all fromAmerica; but with the fixed determination to replace his rule by agovernment of justice and orderly liberty. To use the political terminology of the present day, the whole westernmovement of our people was simply the most vital part of that greatmovement of expansion which has been the central and all-importantfeature of our history--a feature far more important than any othersince we became a nation, save only the preservation of the Unionitself. It was expansion which made us a great power; and at everystage it has been bitterly antagonized, not only by the short-sightedand the timid, but even by many who were neither one nor the other. There were many men who opposed the movement west of the Alleghaniesand the peopling of the lands which now form Kentucky, Tennessee, andthe great States lying between the Ohio and the Lakes. Excellentpersons then foretold ruin to the country from bringing into it adisorderly population of backwoodsmen, with the same solemnity thathas in our own day marked the prophecies of those who have seensimilar ruin in the intaking of Hawaii and Porto Rico. The annexationof Louisiana, including the entire territory between the northernMississippi and the Pacific Ocean, aroused such frantic opposition inthe old-settled regions of the country, and especially in theNortheast, as to call forth threats of disunion, the language used bythe opponents of our expansion into the Far West being as violent asthat sometimes used in denouncing our acquisition of the Philippines. The taking of Texas and of California was complicated by the slavequestion, but much of the opposition to both was simply the generalopposition to expansion--that is, to national growth and nationalgreatness. In our long-settled communities there have always beenpeople who opposed every war which marked the advance of Americancivilization at the cost of savagery. The opposition was fundamentallythe same, whether these wars were campaigns in the old West againstthe Shawnees and the Miamis, in the new West against the Sioux and theApaches, or in Luzon against the Tagals. In each case, in the end, thebelievers in the historic American policy of expansion have triumphed. Hitherto America has gone steadily forward along the path ofgreatness, and has remained true to the policy of her early leaderswho felt within them the lift towards mighty things. Like every reallystrong people, ours is stirred by the generous ardor for daring strifeand mighty deeds, and now with eyes undimmed looks far into the mistyfuture. At bottom the question of expansion in 1898 was but a variant of theproblem we had to solve at every stage of the great western movement. Whether the prize of the moment was Louisiana or Florida, Oregon orAlaska, mattered little. The same forces, the same types of men, stoodfor and against the cause of national growth, of national greatness, at the end of the century as at the beginning. My non-literary work has been so engrossing during the years that haveelapsed since my fourth volume was published, that I have been unableto go on with "The Winning of the West"; but my design is to continuethe narrative as soon as I can get leisure, carrying it through thestages which marked the taking of Florida and Oregon, the upbuildingof the republic of Texas, and the acquisition of New Mexico andCalifornia as the result of the Mexican war. Theodore Roosevelt EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, ALBANY, N. Y. _January_ 1, 1900. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. --THE SPREAD OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES II. --THE FRENCH OF THE OHIO VALLEY, 1763-1775 III. --THE APPALACHIAN CONFEDERACIES, 1765-1775 IV. --THE ALGONQUINS OF THE NORTHWEST, 1769-1774 V. --THE BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES, 1769-1774 VI. --BOON AND THE LONG HUNTERS; AND THEIR HUNTING IN NO-MAN'S-LAND, 1769-1774 VII. --SEVIER, ROBERTSON, AND THE WATAUGA COMMONWEALTH, 1769-1774 VIII. --LORD DUNMORE'S WAR, 1774 IX. --THE BATTLE OF THE GREAT KANAWHA; AND LOGAN'S SPEECH, 1774 X. --BOON AND THE SETTLEMENT OF KENTUCKY, 1775 XI. --IN THE CURRENT OF THE REVOLUTION--THE SOUTHERN BACKWOODSMENOVERWHELM THE CHEROKEES, 1776 XII. --GROWTH AND CIVIL ORGANIZATION OF KENTUCKY, 1776 APPENDICES: APPENDIX A--TO CHAPTER IV. APPENDIX B--TO CHAPTER V. APPENDIX C--TO CHAPTER VI. APPENDIX D--TO CHAPTER VI. APPENDIX E--TO CHAPTER VII. APPENDIX F--TO CHAPTER IX. [Illustration: Map. The West during the Revolution. Showing Hamilton'sroute from Detroit to Vincennes; Clark's route from Redstone to theIllinois, and thence to Vincennes; Boon's trail, on the WildernessRoad to Kentucky; Robertson's trail to the settlement he founded onthe Cumberland; the water route from the Watauga to Nashboro, thattaken by the _Adventure_; the march of the backwoodsmen from theSycamore Shoals to King's Mountain. The flags denote the battles ofthe Great Kanawha, the Blue Licks, the Island Flats of the Holston, and King's Mountain; and the assaults on Boonsboro and Vincennes. Based on a map by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. ] THE WINNING OF THE WEST. CHAPTER I. THE SPREAD OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES. During the past three centuries the spread of the English-speakingpeoples over the world's waste spaces has been not only the moststriking feature in the world's history, but also the event of allothers most far-reaching in its effects and its importance. The tongue which Bacon feared to use in his writings, lest they shouldremain forever unknown to all but the inhabitants of a relativelyunimportant insular kingdom, is now the speech of two continents. TheCommon Law which Coke jealously upheld in the southern half of asingle European island, is now the law of the land throughout the vastregions of Australasia, and of America north of the Rio Grande. Thenames of the plays that Shakespeare wrote are household words in themouths of mighty nations, whose wide domains were to him more unrealthan the realm of Prester John. Over half the descendants of theirfellow countrymen of that day now dwell in lands which, when thesethree Englishmen were born, held not a single white inhabitant; therace which, when they were in their prime, was hemmed in between theNorth and the Irish seas, to-day holds sway over worlds, whose endlesscoasts are washed by the waves of the three great oceans. There have been many other races that at one time or another had theirgreat periods of race expansion--as distinguished from mereconquest, --but there has never been another whose expansion has beeneither so broad or so rapid. At one time, many centuries ago, it seemed as if the Germanic peoples, like their Celtic foes and neighbors, would be absorbed into theall-conquering Roman power, and, merging their identity in that of thevictors, would accept their law, their speech, and their habits ofthought. But this danger vanished forever on the day of the slaughterby the Teutoburger Wald, when the legions of Varus were broken by therush of Hermann's wild warriors. Two or three hundred years later the Germans, no longer on thedefensive, themselves went forth from their marshy forests conqueringand to conquer. For century after century they swarmed out of the darkwoodland east of the Rhine, and north of the Danube; and as theirforce spent itself, the movement was taken up by their brethren whodwelt along the coasts of the Baltic and the North Atlantic. From theVolga to the Pillars of Hercules, from Sicily to Britain, every landin turn bowed to the warlike prowess of the stalwart sons of Odin. Rome and Novgorod, the imperial city of Italy as well as the squalidcapital of Muscovy, acknowledged the sway of kings of Teutonic orScandinavian blood. In most cases, however, the victorious invaders merely intrudedthemselves among the original and far more numerous owners of theland, ruled over them, and were absorbed by them. This happened toboth Teuton and Scandinavian; to the descendants of Alaric, as well asto the children of Rurik. The Dane in Ireland became a Celt; the Gothof the Iberian peninsula became a Spaniard; Frank and Norwegian alikewere merged into the mass of Romance-speaking Gauls, who themselvesfinally grew to be called by the names of their masters. Thus it cameabout that though the German tribes conquered Europe they did notextend the limits of Germany nor the sway of the German race. On thecontrary, they strengthened the hands of the rivals of the people fromwhom they sprang. They gave rulers--kaisers, kings, barons, andknights--to all the lands they overran; here and there they imposedtheir own names on kingdoms and principalities--as in France, Normandy, Burgundy, and Lombardy; they grafted the feudal system onthe Roman jurisprudence, and interpolated a few Teutonic words in theLatin dialects of the peoples they had conquered; but, hopelesslyoutnumbered, they were soon lost in the mass of their subjects, andadopted from them their laws, their culture, and their language. As aresult, the mixed races of the south--the Latin nations as they aresometimes called--strengthened by the infusion of northern blood, sprang anew into vigorous life, and became for the time being theleaders of the European world. There was but one land whereof the winning made a lasting addition toGermanic soil; but this land was destined to be of more importance inthe future of the Germanic peoples than all their continentalpossessions, original and acquired, put together. The day when thekeels of the low-Dutch sea-thieves first grated on the British coastwas big with the doom of many nations. There sprang up in conqueredsouthern Britain, when its name had been significantly changed toEngland, that branch of the Germanic stock which was in the end tograsp almost literally world-wide power, and by its overshadowinggrowth to dwarf into comparative insignificance all its kindred folk. At the time, in the general wreck of the civilized world, the makingof England attracted but little attention. Men's eyes were riveted onthe empires conquered by the hosts of Alaric, Theodoric, and Clovis, not on the swarm of little kingdoms and earldoms founded by thenameless chiefs who led each his band of hard-rowing, hard-fightinghenchmen across the stormy waters of the German Ocean. Yet the ruleand the race of Goth, Frank, and Burgund have vanished from off theearth; while the sons of the unknown Saxon, Anglian, and Friesicwarriors now hold in their hands the fate of the coming years. After the great Teutonic wanderings were over, there came a long lull, until, with the discovery of America, a new period of even vaster raceexpansion began. During this lull the nations of Europe took on theirpresent shapes. Indeed, the so-called Latin nations--the French andSpaniards, for instance--may be said to have been born after the firstset of migrations ceased. Their national history, as such, does notreally begin until about that time, whereas that of the Germanicpeoples stretches back unbroken to the days when we first hear oftheir existence. It would be hard to say which one of half a dozenraces that existed in Europe during the early centuries of the presentera should be considered as especially the ancestor of the modernFrenchman or Spaniard. When the Romans conquered Gaul and Iberia theydid not in any place drive out the ancient owners of the soil; theysimply Romanized them, and left them as the base of the population. Bythe Frankish and Visigothic invasions another strain of blood wasadded, to be speedily absorbed; while the invaders took the languageof the conquered people, and established themselves as the rulingclass. Thus the modern nations who sprang from this mixture deriveportions of their governmental system and general policy from onerace, most of their blood from another, and their language, law, andculture from a third. The English race, on the contrary, has a perfectly continuous history. When Alfred reigned, the English already had a distinct nationalbeing; when Charlemagne reigned, the French, as we use the termto-day, had no national being whatever. The Germans of the mainlandmerely overran the countries that lay in their path; but thesea-rovers who won England to a great extent actually displaced thenative Britons. The former were absorbed by the subject-races; thelatter, on the contrary, slew or drove off or assimilated the originalinhabitants. Unlike all the other Germanic swarms, the English tookneither creed nor custom, neither law nor speech, from their beatenfoes. At the time when the dynasty of the Capets had become firmlyestablished at Paris, France was merely part of a country whereLatinized Gauls and Basques were ruled by Latinized Franks, Goths, Burgunds, and Normans; but the people across the Channel then showedlittle trace of Celtic or Romance influence. It would be hard to saywhether Vercingetorix or Caesar, Clovis or Syagrius, has the betterright to stand as the prototype of a modern French general. There isno such doubt in the other case. The average Englishman, American, orAustralian of to-day who wishes to recall the feats of power withwhich his race should be credited in the shadowy dawn of its history, may go back to the half-mythical glories of Hengist and Horsa, perhapsto the deeds of Civilis the Batavian, or to those of the hero of theTeutoburger fight, but certainly to the wars neither of the Silurianchief Caractacus nor of his conqueror, the after-time EmperorVespasian. Nevertheless, when, in the sixteenth century, the European peoplesbegan to extend their dominions beyond Europe, England had grown todiffer profoundly from the Germanic countries of the mainland. A verylarge Celtic element had been introduced into the English blood, and, in addition, there had been a considerable Scandinavian admixture. More important still were the radical changes brought by the Normanconquest; chief among them the transformation of the old Englishtongue into the magnificent language which is now the commoninheritance of so many widespread peoples. England's insular position, moreover, permitted it to work out its own fate comparativelyunhampered by the presence of outside powers; so that it developed atype of nationality totally distinct from the types of the Europeanmainland. All this is not foreign to American history. The vast movement bywhich this continent was conquered and peopled cannot be rightlyunderstood if considered solely by itself. It was the crowning andgreatest achievement of a series of mighty movements, and it must betaken in connection with them. Its true significance will be lostunless we grasp, however roughly, the past race-history of the nationswho took part therein. When, with the voyages of Columbus and his successors, the greatperiod of extra-European colonization began, various nations strove toshare in the work. Most of them had to plant their colonies in landsacross the sea; Russia alone was by her geographical position enabledto extend her frontiers by land, and in consequence her comparativelyrecent colonization of Siberia bears some resemblance to our own workin the western United States. The other countries of Europe wereforced to find their outlets for conquest and emigration beyond theocean, and, until the colonists had taken firm root in their new homesthe mastery of the seas thus became a matter of vital consequence. Among the lands beyond the ocean America was the first reached and themost important. It was conquered by different European races, andshoals of European settlers were thrust forth upon its shores. Thesesometimes displaced and sometimes merely overcame and lived among thenatives. They also, to their own lasting harm, committed a crime whoseshortsighted folly was worse than its guilt, for they brought hordesof African slaves, whose descendants now form immense populations incertain portions of the land. Throughout the continent we thereforefind the white, red, and black races in every stage of purity andintermixture. One result of this great turmoil of conquest andimmigration has been that, in certain parts of America, the lines ofcleavage of race are so far from coinciding with the lines of cleavageof speech that they run at right angles to them--as in the fourcommunities of Ontario, Quebec, Havti, and Jamaica. Each intruding European power, in winning for itself new realms beyondthe seas, had to wage a twofold war, overcoming the originalinhabitants with one hand, and with the other warding off the assaultsof the kindred nations that were bent on the same schemes. Generallythe contests of the latter kind were much the most important. Thevictories by which the struggles between the European conquerorsthemselves were ended deserve lasting commemoration. Yet, sometimes, even the most important of them, sweeping though they were, were inparts less sweeping than they seemed. It would be impossible tooverestimate the far-reaching effects of the overthrow of the Frenchpower in America; but Lower Canada, where the fatal blow was given, itself suffered nothing but a political conquest, which did notinterfere in the least with the growth of a French state along bothsides of the lower St. Lawrence. In a somewhat similar way Dutchcommunities have held their own, and indeed have sprung up in SouthAfrica. All the European nations touching on the Atlantic seaboard took partin the new work, with very varying success; Germany alone, then rentby many feuds, having no share therein. Portugal founded a singlestate, Brazil. The Scandinavian nations did little: their chief colonyfell under the control of the Dutch. The English and the Spaniardswere the two nations to whom the bulk of the new lands fell: theformer getting much the greater portion. The conquests of theSpaniards took place in the sixteenth century. The West Indies andMexico, Peru and the limitless grass plains of what is now theArgentine Confederation, --all these and the lands lying between themhad been conquered and colonized by the Spaniards before there was asingle English settlement in the New World, and while the fleets ofthe Catholic king still held for him the lordship of the ocean. Thenthe cumbrous Spanish vessels succumbed to the attacks of the swiftwar-ships of Holland and England, and the sun of the Spanishworld-dominion set as quickly as it had risen. Spain at once came to astandstill; it was only here and there that she even extended her ruleover a few neighboring Indian tribes, while she was utterly unable totake the offensive against the French, Dutch, and English. But it is asingular thing that these vigorous and powerful new-comers, who had soquickly put a stop to her further growth, yet wrested from her verylittle of what was already hers. They plundered a great many Spanishcities and captured a great many Spanish galleons, but they made nogreat or lasting conquests of Spanish territory. Their mutualjealousies, and the fear each felt of the others, were among the maincauses of this state of things; and hence it came about that after theopening of the seventeenth century the wars they waged against oneanother were of far more ultimate consequence than the wars they wagedagainst the former mistress of the western world. England in the enddrove both France and Holland from the field; but it was under thebanner of the American Republic, not under that of the BritishMonarchy, that the English-speaking people first won vast stretches ofland from the descendants of the Spanish conquerors. The three most powerful of Spain's rivals waged many a long war withone another to decide which should grasp the sceptre that had slippedfrom Spanish hands. The fleets of Holland fought with stubbornobstinacy to wrest from England her naval supremacy; but they failed, and in the end the greater portion of the Dutch domains fell to theirfoes. The French likewise began a course of conquest and colonizationat the same time the English did, and after a couple of centuries ofrivalry, ending in prolonged warfare, they also succumbed. The closeof the most important colonial contest ever waged left the Frenchwithout a foot of soil on the North American mainland; while theirvictorious foes had not only obtained the lead in the race forsupremacy on that continent, but had also won the command of theocean. They thenceforth found themselves free to work their will inall seagirt lands, unchecked by hostile European influence. Most fortunately, when England began her career as a colonizing powerin America, Spain had already taken possession of the populoustropical and subtropical regions, and the northern power was thusforced to form her settlements in the sparsely peopled temperate zone. It is of vital importance to remember that the English and Spanishconquests in America differed from each other very much as did theoriginal conquests which gave rise to the English and the Spanishnations. The English had exterminated or assimilated the Celts ofBritain, and they substantially repeated the process with the Indiansof America; although of course in America there was very little, instead of very much, assimilation. The Germanic strain is dominant inthe blood of the average Englishman, exactly as the English strain isdominant in the blood of the average American. Twice a portion of therace has shifted its home, in each case undergoing a marked change, due both to outside influence and to internal development; but in themain retaining, especially in the last instance, the general racecharacteristics. It was quite otherwise in the countries conquered by Cortes, Pizarro, and their successors. Instead of killing or driving off the natives asthe English did, the Spaniards simply sat down in the midst of a muchmore numerous aboriginal population. The process by which Central andSouth America became Spanish bore very close resemblance to theprocess by which the lands of southeastern Europe were turned intoRomance-speaking countries. The bulk of the original inhabitantsremained unchanged in each case. There was little displacement ofpopulation. Roman soldiers and magistrates, Roman merchants andhandicraftsmen were thrust in among the Celtic and Iberian peoples, exactly as the Spanish military and civil rulers, priests, traders, land-owners, and mine-owners settled down among the Indians of Peruand Mexico. By degrees, in each case, the many learnt the language andadopted the laws, religion, and governmental system of the few, although keeping certain of their own customs and habits of thought. Though the ordinary Spaniard of to-day speaks a Romance dialect, he ismainly of Celto-Iberian blood; and though most Mexicans and Peruviansspeak Spanish, yet the great majority of them trace their descent backto the subjects of Montezuma and the Incas. Moreover, exactly as inEurope little ethnic islands of Breton and Basque stock have remainedunaffected by the Romance flood, so in America there are largecommunities where the inhabitants keep unchanged the speech and thecustoms of their Indian forefathers. The English-speaking peoples now hold more and better land than anyother American nationality or set of nationalities. They have in theirveins less aboriginal American blood than any of their neighbors. Yetit is noteworthy that the latter have tacitly allowed them to arrogateto themselves the title of "Americans, " whereby to designate theirdistinctive and individual nationality. So much for the difference between the way in which the English andthe way in which other European nations have conquered and colonized. But there have been likewise very great differences in the methods andcourses of the English-speaking peoples themselves, at different timesand in different places. The settlement of the United States and Canada, throughout most oftheir extent, bears much resemblance to the later settlement ofAustralia and New Zealand. The English conquest of India and even theEnglish conquest of South Africa come in an entirely differentcategory. The first was a mere political conquest, like the Dutchconquest of Java or the extension of the Roman Empire over parts ofAsia. South Africa in some respects stands by itself, because therethe English are confronted by another white race which it is as yetuncertain whether they can assimilate, and, what is infinitely moreimportant, because they are there confronted by a very large nativepopulation with which they cannot mingle, and which neither dies outnor recedes before their advance. It is not likely, but it is at leastwithin the bounds of possibility, that in the course of centuries thewhites of South Africa will suffer a fate akin to that which befellthe Greek colonists in the Tauric Chersonese, and be swallowed up inthe overwhelming mass of black barbarism. On the other hand, it may fairly be said that in America and Australiathe English race has already entered into and begun the enjoyment ofits great inheritance. When these continents were settled theycontained the largest tracts of fertile, temperate, thinly peopledcountry on the face of the globe. We cannot rate too highly theimportance of their acquisition. Their successful settlement was afeat which by comparison utterly dwarfs all the European wars of thelast two centuries; just as the importance of the issues at stake inthe wars of Rome and Carthage completely overshadowed the interestsfor which the various contemporary Greek kingdoms were at the sametime striving. Australia, which was much less important than America, was also wonand settled with far less difficulty. The natives were so few innumber and of such a low type, that they practically offered noresistance at all, being but little more hindrance than an equalnumber of ferocious beasts. There was no rivalry whatever by anyEuropean power, because the actual settlement--not the mereexpatriation of convicts--only began when England, as a result of herstruggle with Republican and Imperial France, had won the absolutecontrol of the seas. Unknown to themselves, Nelson and his fellowadmirals settled the fate of Australia, upon which they probably neverwasted a thought. Trafalgar decided much more than the mere questionwhether Great Britain should temporarily share the fate that so soonbefell Prussia; for in all probability it decided the destiny of theisland-continent that lay in the South Seas. The history of the English-speaking race in America has been widelydifferent. In Australia there was no fighting whatever, whether withnatives or with other foreigners. In America for the past twocenturies and a half there has been a constant succession of contestswith powerful and warlike native tribes, with rival European nations, and with American nations of European origin. But even in Americathere have been wide differences in the way the work has had to bedone in different parts of the country, since the close of the greatcolonial contests between England, France, and Spain. The extension of the English westward through Canada since the war ofthe Revolution has been in its essential features merely a lessimportant repetition of what has gone on in the northern UnitedStates. The gold miner, the transcontinental railway, and the soldierhave been the pioneers of civilization. The chief point of difference, which was but small, arose from the fact that the whole of westernCanada was for a long time under the control of the most powerful ofall the fur companies, in whose employ were very many French voyageursand coureurs des bois. From these there sprang up in the valleys ofthe Red River and the Saskatchewan a singular race of half-breeds, with a unique semi-civilization of their own. It was with thesehalf-breeds, and not, as in the United States, with the Indians, thatthe settlers of northwestern Canada had their main difficulties. In what now forms the United States, taking the country as a whole, the foes who had to be met and overcome were very much moreformidable. The ground had to be not only settled but conquered, sometimes at the expense of the natives, often at the expense of rivalEuropean races. As already pointed out the Indians themselves formedone of the main factors in deciding the fate of the continent. Theywere never able in the end to avert the white conquest, but they couldoften delay its advance for a long spell of years. The Iroquois, forinstance, held their own against all comers for two centuries. Manyother tribes stayed for a time the oncoming white flood, or even droveit back; in Maine the settlers were for a hundred years confined to anarrow strip of sea-coast. Against the Spaniards, there were even hereand there Indian nations who definitely recovered the ground they hadlost. When the whites first landed, the superiority and, above all, thenovelty of their arms gave them a very great advantage. But theIndians soon became accustomed to the new-comers' weapons and style ofwarfare. By the time the English had consolidated the Atlanticcolonies under their rule, the Indians had become what they haveremained ever since, the most formidable savage foes ever encounteredby colonists of European stock. Relatively to their numbers, they haveshown themselves far more to be dreaded than the Zulus or even theMaoris. Their presence has caused the process of settlement to go on atunequal rates of speed in different places; the flood has been hemmedin at one point, or has been forced to flow round an island of nativepopulation at another. Had the Indians been as helpless as the nativeAustralians were, the continent of North America would have had analtogether different history. It would not only have been settled farmore rapidly, but also on very different lines. Not only have the redmen themselves kept back the settlements, but they have also had avery great effect upon the outcome of the struggles between thedifferent intrusive European peoples. Had the original inhabitants ofthe Mississippi valley been as numerous and unwarlike as the Aztecs, de Soto would have repeated the work of Cortes, and we would verypossibly have been barred out of the greater portion of our presentdomain. Had it not been for their Indian allies, it would have beenimpossible for the French to prolong, as they did, their struggle withtheir much more numerous English neighbors. The Indians have shrunk back before our advance only after fierce anddogged resistance. They were never numerous in the land, but exactlywhat their numbers were when the whites first appeared is impossible totell. Probably an estimate of half a million for those within the limitsof the present United States is not far wrong; but in any suchcalculation there is of necessity a large element of mere roughguess-work. Formerly writers greatly over-estimated their originalnumbers, counting them by millions. Now it is the fashion to go to theother extreme, and even to maintain that they have not decreased at all. This last is a theory that can only be upheld on the supposition thatthe whole does not consist of the sum of the parts; for whereas we cancheck off on our fingers the tribes that have slightly increased, we canenumerate scores that have died out almost before our eyes. Speakingbroadly, they have mixed but little with the English (as distinguishedfrom the French and Spanish) invaders. They are driven back, or die out, or retire to their own reservations; but they are not often assimilated. Still, on every frontier, there is always a certain amount ofassimilation going on, much more than is commonly admitted;[1] andwhenever a French or Spanish community has been absorbed by theenergetic Americans, a certain amount of Indian blood has been absorbedalso. There seems to be a chance that in one part of our country, theIndian territory, the Indians, who are continually advancing incivilization, will remain as the ground element of the population, likethe Creoles in Louisiana, or the Mexicans in New Mexico. The Americans when they became a nation continued even moresuccessfully the work which they had begun as citizens of the severalEnglish colonies. At the outbreak of the Revolution they still alldwelt on the seaboard, either on the coast itself or along the banksof the streams flowing into the Atlantic. When the fight at Lexingtontook place they had no settlements beyond the mountain chain on ourwestern border. It had taken them over a century and a half to spreadfrom the Atlantic to the Alleghanies. In the next three quarters of acentury they spread from the Alleghanies to the Pacific. In doing thisthey not only dispossessed the Indian tribes, but they also won theland from its European owners. Britain had to yield the territorybetween the Ohio and the Great Lakes. By a purchase, of which wefrankly announced that the alternative would be war, we acquired fromFrance the vast, ill-defined region known as Louisiana. From theSpaniards, or from their descendants, we won the lands of Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and California. All these lands were conquered after we had become a power, independent of every other, and one within our own borders; when wewere no longer a loose assemblage of petty seaboard communities, eachwith only such relationship to its neighbor as was implied in theircommon subjection to a foreign king and a foreign people. Moreover, itis well always to remember that at the day when we began our career asa nation we already differed from our kinsmen of Britain in blood aswell as in name; the word American already had more than a merelygeographical signification. Americans belong to the English race onlyin the sense in which Englishmen belong to the German. The fact thatno change of language has accompanied the second wandering of ourpeople, from Britain to America, as it accompanied their first, fromGermany to Britain, is due to the further fact that when the secondwandering took place the race possessed a fixed literary language, and, thanks to the ease of communication, was kept in touch with theparent stock. The change of blood was probably as great in one case asin the other. The modern Englishman is descended from a Low-Dutchstock, which, when it went to Britain, received into itself anenormous infusion of Celtic, a much smaller infusion of Norse andDanish, and also a certain infusion of Norman-French blood. When thisnew English stock came to America it mingled with and absorbed intoitself immigrants from many European lands, and the process has goneon ever since. It is to be noted that, of the new blood thus acquired, the greatest proportion has come from Dutch and German sources, andthe next greatest from Irish, while the Scandinavian element comesthird, and the only other of much consequence is French Huguenot. Thusit appears that no new element of importance has been added to theblood. Additions have been made to the elemental race-strains in muchthe same proportion as these were originally combined. Some latter-day writers deplore the enormous immigration to our shoresas making us a heterogeneous instead of a homogeneous people; but as amatter of fact we are less heterogeneous at the present day than wewere at the outbreak of the Revolution. Our blood was as much mixed acentury ago as it is now. No State now has a smaller proportion ofEnglish blood than New York or Pennsylvania had in 1775. Even in NewEngland, where the English stock was purest, there was a certainFrench and Irish mixture; in Virginia there were Germans in addition. In the other colonies, taken as a whole, it is not probable that muchover half of the blood was English; Dutch, French, German, and Gaeliccommunities abounded. But all were being rapidly fused into one people. As the Celt ofCornwall and the Saxon of Wessex are now alike Englishmen, so in 1775Hollander and Huguenot, whether in New York or South Carolina, hadbecome Americans, undistinguishable from the New Englanders andVirginians, the descendants of the men who followed Cromwell orcharged behind Rupert. When the great western movement began we werealready a people by ourselves. Moreover, the immense immigration fromEurope that has taken place since, had little or no effect on the wayin which we extended our boundaries; it only began to be importantabout the time that we acquired our present limits. These limits wouldin all probability be what they now are even if we had not received asingle European colonist since the Revolution. Thus the Americans began their work of western conquest as a separateand individual people, at the moment when they sprang into nationallife. It has been their great work ever since. All other questionssave those of the preservation of the Union itself and of theemancipation of the blacks have been of subordinate importance whencompared with the great question of how rapidly and how completelythey were to subjugate that part of their continent lying between theeastern mountains and the Pacific. Yet the statesmen of the Atlanticseaboard were often unable to perceive this, and indeed frequentlyshowed the same narrow jealousy of the communities beyond theAlleghanies that England felt for all America. Even if they were toobroad-minded and far-seeing to feel thus, they yet were unable tofully appreciate the magnitude of the interests at stake in the west. They thought more of our right to the North Atlantic fisheries than ofour ownership of the Mississippi valley; they were more interested inthe fate of a bank or a tariff than in the settlement of the Oregonboundary. Most contemporary writers showed similar shortcomings intheir sense of historic perspective. The names of Ethan Allen andMarion are probably better known than is that of George Rogers Clark;yet their deeds, as regards their effects, could no more be comparedto his, than his could be compared to Washington's. So it was withHouston. During his lifetime there were probably fifty men who, eastof the Mississippi, were deemed far greater than he was. Yet in mostcases their names have already almost faded from remembrance, whilehis fame will grow steadily brighter as the importance of his deeds ismore thoroughly realized. Fortunately, in the long run, the mass ofeasterners always backed up their western brethren. The kind of colonizing conquest, whereby the people of the UnitedStates have extended their borders, has much in common with thesimilar movements in Canada and Australia, all of them, standing insharp contrast to what has gone on in Spanish-American lands. But ofcourse each is marked out in addition by certain peculiarities of itsown. Moreover, even in the United States, the movement falls naturallyinto two divisions, which on several points differ widely from eachother. The way in which the southern part of our western country--that is, all the land south of the Ohio, and from thence on to the Rio Grandeand the Pacific--was won and settled, stands quite alone. The regionnorth of it was filled up in a very different manner. The Southwest, including therein what was once called simply the West, and afterwardsthe Middle West, was won by the people themselves, acting asindividuals, or as groups of individuals, who hewed out their ownfortunes in advance of any governmental action. On the other hand, theNorthwest, speaking broadly, was acquired by the government, thesettlers merely taking possession of what the whole country guaranteedthem. The Northwest is essentially a national domain; it is fittingthat it should be, as it is, not only by position but by feeling, theheart of the nation. North of the Ohio the regular army went first. The settlements grew upbehind the shelter of the federal troops of Harmar, St. Claire, andWayne, and of their successors even to our own day. The wars in whichthe borderers themselves bore any part were few and trifling comparedto the contests waged by the adventurers who won Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas. In the Southwest the early settlers acted as their own army, andsupplied both leaders and men. Sevier, Robertson, Clark, and Boon ledtheir fellow pioneers to battle, as Jackson did afterwards, and asHouston did later still. Indeed the Southwesterners not only won theirown soil for themselves, but they were the chief instruments in theoriginal acquisition of the Northwest also. Had it not been for theconquest of the Illinois towns in 1779 we would probably never havehad any Northwest to settle; and the huge tract between the upperMississippi and the Columbia, then called Upper Louisiana, fell intoour hands, only because the Kentuckians and Tennesseeans wereresolutely bent on taking possession of New Orleans, either by bargainor battle. All of our territory lying beyond the Alleghanies, northand south, was first won for us by the Southwesterners, fighting fortheir own hand. The northern part was afterwards filled up by thethrifty, vigorous men of the Northeast, whose sons became the realrulers as well as the preservers of the Union; but these settlementsof Northerners were rendered possible only by the deeds of the nationas a whole. They entered on land that the Southerners had won, andthey were kept there by the strong arm of the Federal Government;whereas the Southerners owed most of their victories only tothemselves. The first-comers around Marietta did, it is true, share to a certainextent in the dangers of the existing Indian wars; but their trialsare not to be mentioned beside those endured by the early settlers ofTennessee and Kentucky, and whereas these latter themselves subduedand drove out their foes, the former took but an insignificant part inthe contest by which the possession of their land was secured. Besides, the strongest and most numerous Indian tribes were in theSouthwest. The Southwest developed its civilization on its own lines, for goodand for ill; the Northwest was settled under the national ordinance of1787, which absolutely determined its destiny, and thereby in the endalso determined the destiny of the whole nation. Moreover, the gulfcoast, as well as the interior, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, was held by foreign powers; while in the north this was only true ofthe country between the Ohio and the Great Lakes during the firstyears of the Revolution, until the Kentucky backwoodsmen conquered it. Our rivals of European race had dwelt for generations along the lowerMississippi and the Rio Grande, in Florida, and in California, when wemade them ours. Detroit, Vincennes, St. Louis, and New Orleans, St. Augustine, San Antonio, Santa Fe, and San Francisco are cities thatwere built by Frenchmen or Spaniards; we did not found them, butconquered them. All but the first two are in the Southwest, and ofthese two one was first taken and governed by Southwesterners. On theother hand, the Northwestern cities, from Cincinnati and Chicago toHelena and Portland, were founded by our own people, by the people whonow have possession of them. The Southwest was conquered only after years of hard fighting with theoriginal owners. The way in which this was done bears much lessresemblance to the sudden filling up of Australia and California bythe practically unopposed overflow from a teeming and civilized mothercountry, than it does to the original English conquest of Britainitself. The warlike borderers who thronged across the Alleghanies, therestless and reckless hunters, the hard, dogged, frontier farmers, bydint of grim tenacity overcame and displaced Indians, French, andSpaniards alike, exactly as, fourteen hundred years before, Saxon andAngle had overcome and displaced the Cymric and Gaelic Celts. Theywere led by no one commander; they acted under orders from neitherking nor congress; they were not carrying out the plans of anyfar-sighted leader. In obedience to the instincts working half blindlywithin their breasts, spurred ever onwards by the fierce desires oftheir eager hearts, they made in the wilderness homes for theirchildren, and by so doing wrought out the destinies of a continentalnation. They warred and settled from the high hill-valleys of theFrench Broad and the Upper Cumberland to the half-tropical basin ofthe Rio Grande, and to where the Golden Gate lets through thelong-heaving waters of the Pacific. The story of how this was doneforms a compact and continuous whole. The fathers followed Boon orfought at King's Mountain; the sons marched south with Jackson toovercome the Creeks and beat back the British; the grandsons died atthe Alamo or charged to victory at San Jacinto. They were doing theirshare of a work that began with the conquest of Britain, that enteredon its second and wider period after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, that culminated in the marvellous growth of the United States. Thewinning of the West and Southwest is a stage in the conquest of acontinent. 1. To this I can testify of my own knowledge as regards Montana, Dakota, and Minnesota. The mixture usually takes place in the ranks of thepopulation where individuals lose all trace of their ancestry after twoor three generations; so it is often honestly ignored, and sometimesmention of it is suppressed, the man regarding it as a taint. But I alsoknow many very wealthy old frontiersmen whose half-breed children arenow being educated, generally at convent schools, while in theNorthwestern cities I could point out some very charming men and women, in the best society, with a strain of Indian blood in their veins. CHAPTER II. THE FRENCH OF THE OHIO VALLEY, 1763-1775. The result of England's last great colonial struggle with France was tosever from the latter all her American dependencies, her colonistsbecoming the subjects of alien and rival powers. England won Canada andthe Ohio valley; while France ceded to her Spanish allies Louisiana, including therein all the territory vaguely bounded by the Mississippiand the Pacific. As an offset to this gain Spain had herself lost toEngland both Floridas, as the coast regions between Georgia andLouisiana were then called. Thus the thirteen colonies, at the outset of their struggle forindependence, saw themselves surrounded north, south, and west, by landswhere the rulers and the ruled were of different races, but where rulersand ruled alike were hostile to the new people that was destined in theend to master them all. The present province of Quebec, then called Canada, was already, whatshe has to this day remained, a French state acknowledging the Englishking as her over-lord. Her interests did not conflict with those of ourpeople, nor touch them in any way, and she has had little to do with ournational history, and nothing whatever to do with the history of thewest. In the peninsula of East Florida, in the land of the cypress, palmetto, and live oak, of open savannas, of sandy pine forests, and impenetrable, interminable morasses, a European civilization more ancient than any inthe English colonies was mouldering in slow decay. Its capital city wasquaint St. Augustine, the old walled town that was founded by theSpaniards long years before the keel of the _Half-Moon_ furrowedthe broad Hudson, or the ships of the Puritans sighted the New Englandcoast. In times past St. Augustine had once and again seen her harborfilled with the huge, cumbrous hulls, and whitened by the bellyingsails, of the Spanish war vessels, when the fleets of the Catholic kinggathered there, before setting out against the seaboard towns of Georgiaand the Carolinas; and she had to suffer from and repulse theretaliatory inroads of the English colonists. Once her priests andsoldiers had brought the Indian tribes, far and near, under subjection, and had dotted the wilderness with fort and church and plantation, theoutposts of her dominion; but that was long ago, and the tide of Spanishsuccess had turned and begun to ebb many years before the English tookpossession of Florida. The Seminoles, fierce and warlike, whose warriorsfought on foot and on horseback, had avenged in countless bloody foraystheir fellow-Indian tribes, whose very names had perished under Spanishrule. The churches and forts had crumbled into nothing; only the cannonand the brazen bells, half buried in the rotting mould, remained to markthe place where once stood spire and citadel. The deserted plantations, the untravelled causeways, no longer marred the face of the tree-cladland, for even their sites had ceased to be distinguishable; the greathigh-road that led to Pensacola had faded away, overgrown by the rankluxuriance of the semi-tropical forest. Throughout the interior thepainted savages roved at will, uncontrolled by Spaniard or Englishman, owing allegiance only to the White Chief of Tallasotchee. St. Augustine, with its British garrison and its Spanish and Minorcan townsfolk, [2] wasstill a gathering place for a few Indian traders, and for the scatteredfishermen of the coast; elsewhere there were in all not more than ahundred families. [3] Beyond the Chattahooche and the Appalachicola, stretching thence to theMississippi and its delta, lay the more prosperous region of WestFlorida. [4] Although taken by the English from Spain, there were fewSpaniards among the people, who were controlled by the scanty Britishgarrisons at Pensacola, Mobile, and Natchez. On the Gulf coast theinhabitants were mainly French creoles. They were an indolent, pleasure-loving race, fond of dancing and merriment, living at ease intheir low, square, roomy houses on the straggling, rudely farmedplantations that lay along the river banks. Their black slaves workedfor them; they, themselves spent much of their time in fishing andfowling. Their favorite arm was the light fowling-piece, for they wereexpert wing shots;[5] unlike the American backwoodsmen, who knew nothingof shooting on the wing, and looked down on smooth-bores, caring onlyfor the rifle, the true weapon of the freeman. In winter the creolestook their negroes to the hills, where they made tar from the pitchpine, and this they exported, as well as indigo, rice, tobacco, bear'soil, peltry, oranges, and squared timber. Cotton was grown, but only forhome use. The British soldiers dwelt in stockaded forts, mounting lightcannon; the governor lived in the high stone castle built of old by theSpaniards at Pensacola. [6] In the part of west Florida lying along the east bank of theMississippi, there were also some French creoles and a few Spaniards, with of course negroes and Indians to boot. But the population consistedmainly of Americans from the old colonies, who had come thither by seain small sailing-vessels, or had descended the Ohio and the Tennessee inflat-boats, or, perchance, had crossed the Creek country with packponies, following the narrow trails of the Indian traders. With themwere some English and Scotch, and the Americans themselves had littlesympathy with the colonies, feeling instead a certain dread and dislikeof the rough Carolinian mountaineers, who were their nearest whiteneighbors on the east. [7] They therefore, for the most part, remainedloyal to the crown in the Revolutionary struggle, and sufferedaccordingly. When Louisiana was ceded to Spain, most of the French creoles who formedher population were clustered together in the delta of the Mississippi;the rest were scattered out here and there, in a thin, dotted line, upthe left bank of the river to the Missouri, near the mouth of whichthere were several small villages, --St. Louis, St. Genevieve, St. Charles. [8] A strong Spanish garrison held New Orleans, where thecreoles, discontented with their new masters, had once risen in a revoltthat was speedily quelled and severely punished. Small garrisons werealso placed in the different villages. Our people had little to do with either Florida or Louisiana until afterthe close of the Revolutionary war; but very early in that struggle, andsoon after the movement west of the mountains began, we were thrown intocontact with the French of the Northwestern Territory, and the resultwas of the utmost importance to the future welfare of the whole nation. This northwestern land lay between the Mississippi, the Ohio, and theGreat Lakes. It now constitutes five of our large States and part of asixth. But when independence was declared it was quite as much a foreignterritory, considered from the standpoint of the old thirteen colonies, as Florida or Canada; the difference was that, whereas during the war wefailed in our attempts to conquer Florida and Canada, we succeeded inconquering the Northwest. The Northwest formed no part of our country asit originally stood; it had no portion in the declaration ofindependence. It did not revolt; it was conquered. Its inhabitants, atthe outset of the Revolution, no more sympathized with us, and felt nogreater inclination to share our fate, than did their kinsmen in Quebecor the Spaniards in St. Augustine. We made our first important conquestduring the Revolution itself, --beginning thus early what was to be ourdistinguishing work for the next seventy years. These French settlements, which had been founded about the beginning ofthe century, when the English still clung to the estuaries of theseaboard, were grouped in three clusters, separated by hundreds of milesof wilderness. One of these clusters, containing something like a thirdof the total population, was at the straits, around Detroit. [9] It wasthe seat of the British power in that section, and remained in Britishhands for twenty years after we had become a nation. The other two were linked together by their subsequent history, and itis only with them that we have to deal. The village of Vincennes lay onthe eastern bank of the Wabash, with two or three smaller villagestributary to it in the country round about; and to the west, beside theMississippi, far above where it is joined by the Ohio, lay the so-calledIllinois towns, the villages of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, with between themthe little settlements of Prairie du Rocher and St. Philip. [10] Both these groups of old French hamlets were in the fertile prairieregion of what is now southern Indiana and Illinois. We have taken intoour language the word prairie, because when our backwoodsmen firstreached the land and saw the great natural meadows of long grass--sightsunknown to the gloomy forests wherein they had always dwelt--they knewnot what to call them, and borrowed the term already in use among theFrench inhabitants. The great prairies, level or rolling, stretched from north to south, separated by broad belts of high timber. Here and there copses ofwoodland lay like islands in the sunny seas of tall, waving grass. Wherethe rivers ran, their alluvial bottoms were densely covered with treesand underbrush, and were often overflowed in the spring freshets. Sometimes the prairies were long, narrow strips of meadow land; againthey were so broad as to be a day's journey across, and to the American, bred in a wooded country where the largest openings were the beavermeadows and the clearings of the frontier settlers, the stretches ofgrass land seemed limitless. They abounded in game. The buffalo crossedand recrossed them, wandering to and fro in long files, beating narrowtrails that they followed year in and year out; while bear, elk, anddeer dwelt in the groves around the borders. [11] There were perhaps some four thousand inhabitants in these Frenchvillages, divided almost equally between those in the Illinois and thosealong the Wabash. [12] The country came into the possession of the British--not of the colonialEnglish or Americans--at the close of Pontiac's war, the aftermath ofthe struggle which decided against the French the ownership of America. It was held as a new British province, not as an extension of any of theold colonies; and finally in 1774, by the famous Quebec Act, it wasrendered an appanage of Canada, governed from the latter. It is acurious fact that England immediately adopted towards her own coloniststhe policy of the very nationality she had ousted. From the date of thetriumphant peace won by Wolfe's victory, the British government becamethe most active foe of the spread of the English race in America. Thisposition Britain maintained for many years after the failure of herattempt to bar her colonists out of the Ohio valley. It was the positionshe occupied when at Ghent in 1814 her commissioners tried to hem in thenatural progress of her colonists' children by the erection of a great"neutral belt" of Indian territory, guaranteed by the British king. Itwas the role which her statesmen endeavored to make her play when at alater date they strove to keep Oregon a waste rather than see it peopledby Americans. In the northwest she succeeded to the French policy as well as theFrench position. She wished the land to remain a wilderness, the home ofthe trapper and the fur trader, of the Indian hunter and the Frenchvoyageur. She desired it to be kept as a barrier against the growth ofthe seaboard colonies towards the interior. She regarded the new landsacross the Atlantic as being won and settled, not for the benefit of themen who won and settled them, but for the benefit of the merchants andtraders who stayed at home. It was this that rendered the Revolutioninevitable; the struggle was a revolt against the whole mental attitudeof Britain in regard to America, rather than against any one special actor set of acts. The sins and shortcomings of the colonists had beenmany, and it would be easy to make out a formidable catalogue ofgrievances against them, on behalf of the mother country; but on thegreat underlying question they were wholly in the right, and theirsuccess was of vital consequence to the well-being of the race on thiscontinent. Several of the old colonies urged vague claims to parts of theNorthwestern Territory, basing them on ancient charters and Indiantreaties; but the British heeded them no more than the French had, andthey were very little nearer fulfilment after the defeat of Montcalm andPontiac than before. The French had held adverse possession in spite ofthem for sixty years; the British held similar possession for fifteenmore. The mere statement of the facts is enough to show the intrinsicworthlessness of the titles. The Northwest was acquired from France byGreat Britain through conquest and treaty; in a precisely similarway--Clark taking the place of Wolfe--it was afterwards won from Britainby the United States. We gained it exactly as we afterwards gainedLouisiana, Florida, Oregon, California, New Mexico, and Texas: partly byarms, partly by diplomacy, partly by the sheer growth and pressure ofour spreading population. The fact that the conquest took place justafter we had declared ourselves a free nation, and while we were stillbattling to maintain our independence, does not alter its character inthe least; but it has sufficed to render the whole transaction very hazyin the minds of most subsequent historians, who generally speak as ifthe Northwest Territory had been part of our original possessions. The French who dwelt in the land were at the time little affected by thechange which transferred their allegiance from one European king toanother. They were accustomed to obey, without question, the orders oftheir superiors. They accepted the results of the war submissively, andyielded a passive obedience to their new rulers. [13] Some became ratherattached to the officers who came among them; others grew rather todislike them: most felt merely a vague sentiment of distrust andrepulsion, alike for the haughty British officer in his scarlet uniform, and for the reckless backwoodsman clad in tattered homespun or buckskin. They remained the owners of the villages, the tillers of the soil. Atfirst few English or American immigrants, save an occasional fur trader, came to live among them. But their doom was assured; their rule was atan end forever. For a while they were still to compose the bulk of thescanty population; but nowhere were they again to sway their owndestinies. In after years they fought for and against both whites andIndians; they faced each other, ranged beneath the rival banners ofSpain, England, and the insurgent colonists; but they never again foughtfor their old flag or for their own sovereignty. From the overthrow of Pontiac to the outbreak of the Revolution thesettlers in the Illinois and round Vincennes lived in peace under theirold laws and customs, which were continued by the Britishcommandants. [14] They had been originally governed, in the same way thatCanada was, by the laws of France, adapted, however, to thecircumstances of the new country. Moreover, they had local customs whichwere as binding as the laws. After the conquest the British commandantswho came in acted as civil judges also. All public transactions wererecorded in French by notaries public. Orders issued in English weretranslated into French so that they might be understood. Criminal caseswere referred to England. Before the conquest the procureur du roi gavesentence by his own personal decision in civil cases; if the matterswere important it was the custom for each party to name two arbitrators, and the procureur du roi a fifth; while an appeal might be made to thecouncil superieur at New Orleans. The British commandant assumed theplace of the procureur du roi, although there were one or twohalf-hearted efforts made to introduce the Common Law. The original French commandants had exercised the power of granting toevery person who petitioned as much land as the petitioner chose to askfor, subject to the condition that part of it should be cultivatedwithin a year, under penalty of its reversion to "the king'sdemesnes. "[15] The English followed the same custom. A large quantity ofland was reserved in the neighborhood of each village for the commonuse, and a very small quantity for religious purposes. The common wasgenerally a large patch of enclosed prairie, part of it beingcultivated, and the remainder serving as a pasture for the cattle of theinhabitants. [16] The portion of the common set aside for agriculture wasdivided into strips of one arpent in front by forty in depth, and one ormore allotted to each inhabitant according to his skill and industry asa cultivator. [17] The arpent, as used by the western French, was arather rough measure of surface, less in size than an acre. [18] Thefarms held by private ownership likewise ran back in long strips from anarrow front that usually lay along some stream. [19] Several of themgenerally lay parallel to one another, each including something like ahundred acres, but occasionally much exceeding this amount. The French inhabitants were in very many cases not of pure blood. Theearly settlements had been made by men only, by soldiers, traders, andtrappers, who took Indian wives. They were not trammelled by the queerpride which makes a man of English stock unwilling to make a red-skinnedwoman his wife, though anxious enough to make her his concubine. Theirchildren were baptized in the little parish churches by the black-robedpriests, and grew up holding the same position in the community as washeld by their fellows both of whose parents were white. But, in additionto these free citizens, the richer inhabitants owned both red and blackslaves; negroes imported from Africa, or Indians overcome and taken inbattle. [20] There were many freedmen and freedwomen of both colors, andin consequence much mixture of blood. They were tillers of the soil, and some followed, in addition, thetrades of blacksmith and carpenter. Very many of them were trappers orfur traders. Their money was composed of furs and peltries, rated at afixed price per pound;[21] none other was used unless expressly sostated in the contract. Like the French of Europe, their unit of valuewas the livre, nearly equivalent to the modern franc. They were not veryindustrious, nor very thrifty husbandmen. Their farming implements wererude, their methods of cultivation simple and primitive, and theythemselves were often lazy and improvident. Near their town they hadgreat orchards of gnarled apple-trees, planted by their forefathers whenthey came from France, and old pear-trees, of a kind unknown to theAmericans; but their fields often lay untilled, while the owners lolledin the sunshine smoking their pipes. In consequence they were sometimesbrought to sore distress for food, being obliged to pluck their cornwhile it was still green. [22] The pursuits of the fur trader and fur trapper were far more congenialto them, and it was upon these that they chiefly depended. Thehalf-savage life of toil, hardship, excitement, and long intervals ofidleness attracted them strongly. This was perhaps one among the reasonswhy they got on so much better with the Indians than did the Americans, who, wherever they went, made clearings and settlements, cut down thetrees, and drove off the game. But even these pursuits were followed under the ancient customs andusages of the country, leave to travel and trade being first obtainedfrom the commandant[23] for the rule of the commandant was almostpatriarchal. The inhabitants were utterly unacquainted with what theAmericans called liberty. When they passed under our rule, it was soonfound that it was impossible to make them understand such an institutionas trial by jury; they throve best under the form of government to whichthey had been immemorially accustomed--a commandant to give them orders, with a few troops to back him up. [24] They often sought to escape fromthese orders, but rarely to defy them; their lawlessness was like thelawlessness of children and savages; any disobedience was always to aparticular ordinance, not to the system. The trader having obtained his permit, built his boats, --whether light, roomy bateaux made of boards, or birch-bark canoes, or pirogues, whichwere simply hollowed out logs. He loaded them with paint, powder, bullets, blankets, beads, and rum, manned them with hardy voyageurs, trained all their lives in the use of pole and paddle, and started offup or down the Mississippi, [25] the Ohio, or the Wabash, perhaps makinga long carry or portage over into the Great Lakes. It took him weeks, often months, to get to the first trading-point, usually some largewinter encampment of Indians. He might visit several of these, or staythe whole winter through at one, buying the furs. [26] Many of the Frenchcoureurs des bois, whose duty it was to traverse the wilderness, and whowere expert trappers, took up their abode with the Indians, taught themhow to catch the sable, fisher, otter, and beaver, and lived among themas members of the tribe, marrying copper-colored squaws, and rearingdusky children. When the trader had exchanged his goods for the peltriesof these red and white skin-hunters, he returned to his home, havingbeen absent perhaps a year or eighteen months. It was a hard life; manya trader perished in the wilderness by cold or starvation, by an upsetwhere the icy current ran down the rapids like a mill-race, by theattack of a hostile tribe, or even in a drunken brawl with the friendlyIndians, when voyageur, half-breed, and Indian alike had been frenziedby draughts of fiery liquor. [27] Next to the commandant in power came the priest. He bore unquestionedrule over his congregation, but only within certain limits; for theFrench of the backwoods, leavened by the presence among them of so manywild and bold spirits, could not be treated quite in the same way as themore peaceful _habitants_ of Lower Canada. The duty of the priestwas to look after the souls of his sovereign's subjects, to baptize, marry, and bury them, to confess and absolve them, and keep them frombacksliding, to say mass, and to receive the salary due him forcelebrating divine service; but, though his personal influence was ofcourse very great, he had no temporal authority, and could not order hispeople either to fight or to work. Still less could he dispose of theirlaud, a privilege inhering only in the commandant and in thecommissaries of the villages, where they were expressly authorized so todo by the sovereign. [28] The average inhabitant, though often loose in his morals, was veryreligious. He was superstitious also, for he firmly believed in omens, charms, and witchcraft, and when worked upon by his dread of the unseenand the unknown he sometimes did terrible deeds, as will be relatedfarther on. Under ordinary circumstances he was a good-humored, kindly man, alwayspolite--his manners offering an agreeable contrast to those of some ofour own frontiersmen, --with a ready smile and laugh, and ever eager tojoin in any merrymaking. On Sundays and fast-days he was summoned to thelittle parish church by the tolling of the old bell in the small woodenbelfry. The church was a rude oblong building, the walls made out ofpeeled logs, thrust upright in the ground, chinked with moss and coatedwith clay or cement. Thither every man went, clad in a capote or blanketcoat, a bright silk handkerchief knotted round his head, and his feetshod with moccasins or strong rawhide sandals. If young, he walked orrode a shaggy pony; if older, he drove his creaking, springless woodencart, untired and unironed, in which his family sat on stools. [29] The grades of society were much more clearly marked than in similarcommunities of our own people. The gentry, although not numerous, possessed unquestioned social and political headship and were themilitary leaders; although of course they did not have any thing likesuch marked preeminence of position as in Quebec or New Orleans, wherethe conditions were more like those obtaining in the old world. Therewas very little education. The common people were rarely versed in themysteries of reading and writing, and even the wives of the gentry wereoften only able to make their marks instead of signing their names. [30] The little villages in which they dwelt were pretty places, [31] withwide, shaded streets. The houses lay far apart, often a couple ofhundred feet from one another. They were built of heavy hewn timbers;those of the better sort were furnished with broad verandas, andcontained large, low-ceilinged rooms, the high mantle-pieces and themouldings of the doors and windows being made of curiously carved wood. Each village was defended by a palisaded fort and block-houses, and wasoccasionally itself surrounded by a high wooden stockade. Theinhabitants were extravagantly fond of music and dancing;[32] marriagesand christenings were seasons of merriment, when the fiddles werescraped all night long, while the moccasined feet danced deftly in timeto the music. Three generations of isolated life in the wilderness had greatly changedthe characters of these groups of traders, trappers, bateau-men, andadventurous warriors. It was inevitable that they should borrow manytraits from their savage friends and neighbors. Hospitable, but bigotedto their old customs, ignorant, indolent, and given to drunkenness, theyspoke a corrupt jargon of the French tongue; the common people were evenbeginning to give up reckoning time by months and years, and datedevents, as the Indians did, with reference to the phenomena of nature, such as the time of the floods, the maturing of the green corn, or theripening of the strawberries. [33] All their attributes seemed alien tothe polished army-officers of old France;[34] they had but little morein common with the latter than with the American backwoodsmen. But theyhad kept many valuable qualities, and, in especial, they were brave andhardy, and, after their own fashion, good soldiers. They had foughtvaliantly beside King Louis' musketeers, and in alliance with thepainted warriors of the forest; later on they served, though perhapswith less heart, under the gloomy ensign of Spain, shared the fate ofthe red-coated grenadiers of King George, or followed the lead of thetall Kentucky riflemen. 1. "Travels by William Bartram, " Philadelphia, 1791, pp. 184, 231, 232, etc. The various Indian names are spelt in a dozen different ways. 2. Reise, etc. (in 1783 and 84), by Johann David Schopf, 1788, II. 362. The Minorcans were the most numerous and prosperous; then came theSpaniards, with a few creoles, English, and Germans. 3. J. D. F. Smyth, "Tour in the United States" (1775), London, 1784, II. , 35. 4. _Do_. 5. "Mémoire ou Coup-d'Oeil Rapide sur mes différentes voyages et monséjour dans la nation Creck, par Le Gal. Milfort, Tastanegy ou grandchef de guerre de la nation Creck et General de Brigade au service de laRépublique Française. " Paris, 1802. Writing in 1781, he said Mobilecontained about forty proprietary families, and was "un petit paradisterrestre. " 6. Bartram, 407. 7. _Magazine of American History_, IV. , 388. Letter of a NewEngland settler in 1773. 8. "Annals of St. Louis. " Frederic L. Billon. St. Louis, 1886. Avaluable book. 9. In the Haldimand MSS. , Series B, vol. 122, p. 2, is a census ofDetroit itself, taken in 1773 by Philip Dejean, justice of the peace. According to this there were 1, 367 souls, of whom 85 were slaves; theydwelt in 280 houses, with 157 barns, and owned 1, 494 horned cattle, 628sheep, and 1, 067 hogs. Acre is used as a measure of length; their unitedfarms had a frontage of 512, and went back from 40 to 80. Some of thepeople, it is specified, were not enumerated because they were outhunting or trading at the Indian villages. Besides the slaves, therewere 93 servants. This only refers to the settlers of Detroit proper, and the farmsadjoining. Of the numerous other farms, and the small villages on bothsides of the straits, and of the many families and individuals living astraders or trappers with the Indians, I can get no good record. Perhapsthe total population, tributary to Detroit was 2, 000. It may have beenover this. Any attempt to estimate this creole population perforcecontains much guess-work. 10. State Department MSS. , No. 150, Vol. III. , p. 89. 11. _Do_ Harmar's letter. 12. State Department MSS, No 30, p 453. Memorial of FrançoisCarbonneaux, agent for the inhabitants of the Illinois country. Dec 8, 1784. "Four hundred families [in the Illinois] exclusive of a likenumber at Post Vincent" [Vincennes]. Americans had then just begun tocome in, but this enumeration did not refer to them. The population haddecreased during the Revolutionary war, so that at its outbreak therewere probably altogether a thousand families. They were very prolific, and four to a family is probably not too great an allowance, even whenwe consider that in such a community on the frontier there are alwaysplenty of solitary adventurers. Moreover, there were a number of negroslaves. Harmar's letter of Nov. 24, 1787, states the adult males ofKaskaskia and Cahokia at four hundred and forty, not counting those atSt. Philip or Prairie du Rocher. This tallies very well with thepreceding. But of course the number given can only be consideredapproximately accurate, and a passage in a letter of Lt-Gov Hamiltonwould indicate that it was considerably smaller. This letter is to be found in the Haldimand MSS, Series B, Vol. 123, p. 53, it is the 'brief account' of his ill-starred expedition againstVincennes. He says "On taking an account of the Inhabitants at thisplace [Vincennes], of all ages and sexes we found their number to amountto 621, of this 217 fit to bear arms on the spot, several being absenthunting Buffaloe for their winter provision. " But elsewhere in the sameletter he alludes to the adult arms-bearing men as being three hundredin number, and of course the outlying farms and small tributary villagesare not counted in. This was in December, 1778. Possibly some familieshad left for the Spanish possessions after the war broke out, andreturned after it was ended. But as all observers seem to unite instating that the settlements either stood still or went backwards duringthe Revolutionary struggle, it is somewhat difficult to reconcile thefigures of Hamilton and Carbonneaux. 13. In the Haldimand MSS. , Series B, Vol. 122, p. 3, the letter of M. Ste. Marie from Vincennes, May 3, 1774, gives utterance to the generalfeeling of the creoles, when he announces, in promising in their behalfto carry out the orders of the British commandant, that he is "rempliede respect pour tout ce qui porte l'emprinte de l'otorité. " [sic. ] 14. State Department MSS. , No. 48, p. 51. Statement of M. Cerre (orCarre), July, 1786, translated by John Pintard. 15. _Do_. 16. State Department MSS. , No. 48, p. 41. Petition of J. B. La Croix, A. Girardin, etc. , dated "at Cohoe in the Illinois 15th July, 1786. " 17. Billon, 91. 18. An arpent of land was 180 French feet square. MS. Copy of Journal ofMatthew Clarkson in 1766. In Durrett collection. 19. American State Papers, Public Lands, I. , II. 20. Fergus Historical Series, No. 12, "Illinois in the 18th Century. "Edward G. Mason, Chicago, 1881. A most excellent number of an excellentseries. The old parish registers of Kaskaskia, going back to 1695, contain some remarkable names of the Indian mothers--such as MariaAramipinchicoue and Domitilla Tehuigouanakigaboucoue. Sometimes the manis only distinguished by some such title as "The Parisian, " or "TheBohemian. " 21. Billon, 90. 22. Letter of P. A. Lafarge, Dec. 31, 1786. Billon, 268. 23. State Department MSS. , No. 150, Vol. III. , p. 519. Letter of JosephSt. Mann, Aug 23, 1788. 24. _Do_. , p 89, Harmar's letter. 25. _Do_. , p 519, Letter of Joseph St. Marin. 26. _Do_. , p. 89. 27. Journal of Jean Baptiste Perrault, in 1783; in "Indian Tribes, " byHenry R. Schoolcraft, Part III. , Philadelphia, 1855. See also Billon, 484, for an interesting account of the adventures of Gratiot, whoafterwards, under American rule, built up a great fur business, anddrove a flourishing trade with Europe, as well as the towns of theAmerican seaboard. 28. State Department MSS. , No. 48, p. 25. A petition concerning a casein point, affecting the Priest Gibault. 29. "History of Vincennes, " by Judge John Law, Vincennes, 1858. Pp. 18and 140. They are just such carts as I have seen myself in the valley ofthe Red River, and in the big bend of the Missouri, carrying all theworldly goods of their owners, the French Metis. These Metis, --ex-trappers, ex-buffalo runners, and small farmers, --are the best representatives ofthe old French of the west; they are a little less civilized, they havesomewhat more Indian blood in their veins, but they are substantially thesame people. It may be noted that the herds of buffaloes that during thelast century thronged the plains of what are now the States of Illinoisand Indiana furnished to the French of Kaskaskia and Vincennes theirwinter meat; exactly as during the present century the Saskatchewan Metislived on the wild herds until they were exterminated. 30. See the lists of signatures in the State Department MSS. , alsoMason's Kaskaskia Parish Records and Law's Vincennes. As an example; thewife of the Chevalier Vinsenne (who gave his name to Vincennes, andafterwards fell in the battle where the Chickasaws routed the NorthernFrench and their Indian allies), was only able to make her mark. Clark in his letters several times mentions the "gentry, " in termsthat imply their standing above the rest of the people. 31. State Department MSS. , No. 150, Vol. III. , p. 89. 32. "Journal of Jean Baptiste Perrault, " 1783. 33. "Voyage en Amérique" (1796), General Victor Collot, Paris, 1804, p. 318. 34. _Do_. Collot calls them "un composé de traiteurs, d'aventuriers, decoureurs de bois, rameurs, et de guerriers; ignorans, superstitieux etentêtés, qu'aucunes fatigues, aucunes privations, aucunes dangers nepeuvent arreter dans leurs enterprises, qu'ils mettent toujours fin; ilsn'ont conservé des vertus françaises que le courage. " CHAPTER III. THE APPALACHIAN CONFEDERACIES, 1765-1775. When we declared ourselves an independent nation there were on ourborders three groups of Indian peoples. The northernmost were theIroquois or Six Nations, who dwelt in New York, and stretched downinto Pennsylvania. They had been for two centuries the terror of everyother Indian tribe east of the Mississippi, as well as of the whites;but their strength had already departed. They numbered only some tenor twelve thousand all told, and though they played a bloody part inthe Revolutionary struggle, it was merely as subordinate allies of theBritish. It did not lie in their power to strike a really decisiveblow. Their chastisement did not result in our gaining new territory;nor would a failure to chastise them have affected the outcome of thewar nor the terms of peace. Their fate was bound up with that of theking's cause in America and was decided wholly by events unconnectedwith their own success or defeat. The very reverse was the case with the Indians, tenfold more numerous, who lived along our western frontier. There they were themselves ourmain opponents, the British simply acting as their supporters; andinstead of their fate being settled by the treaty of peace with Britain, they continued an active warfare for twelve years after it had beensigned. Had they defeated us in the early years of the contest, it ismore than probable that the Alleghanies would have been made our westernboundary at the peace. We won from them vast stretches of territorybecause we had beaten their warriors, and we could not have won itotherwise; whereas the territory of the Iroquois was lost, not becauseof their defeat, but because of the defeat of the British. There were two great groups of these Indians, the ethnic correspondingroughly with the geographic division. In the northwest, between theOhio and the Lakes, were the Algonquin tribes, generally bandedloosely together; in the southwest, between the Tennessee--then calledthe Cherokee--and the Gulf, the so-called Appalachians lived. Betweenthem lay a vast and beautiful region where no tribe dared dwell, butinto which all ventured now and then for war and hunting. The southwestern Indians were called Appalachians by the olden writers, because this was the name then given to the southern Alleghanies. It isdoubtful if the term has any exact racial significance; but it servesvery well to indicate a number of Indian nations whose system ofgovernment, ways of life, customs, and general culture were much alike, and whose civilization was much higher than was that of most otherAmerican tribes. The Appalachians were in the barbarous, rather than in the merelysavage state. They were divided into five lax confederacies: theCherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. The latterwere merely a southern offshoot of the Creeks or Muscogees. They werefar more numerous than the northwestern Indians, were less nomadic, and in consequence had more definite possession of particularlocalities; so that their lands were more densely peopled. In all they amounted to perhaps seventy thousand souls. [1] It is moredifficult to tell the numbers of the different tribes; for the divisionlines between them were very ill defined, and were subject to widefluctuations. Thus the Creeks, the most formidable of all, were made upof many bands, differing from each other both in race and speech. Thelanguages of the Chickasaws and Choctaws did not differ more from thetongue of the Cherokees, than the two divisions of the latter did fromeach other. The Cherokees of the hills, the Otari, spoke a dialect thatcould not be understood by the Cherokees of the lowlands, or Erati. Towns or bands continually broke up and split off from their formerassociations, while ambitious and warlike chiefs kept forming newsettlements, and if successful drew large numbers of young warriors fromthe older communities. Thus the boundary lines between the confederacieswere ever shifting. [2] Judging from a careful comparison of thedifferent authorities, the following estimate of the numbers of thesouthern tribes at the outbreak of the Revolution may be considered asprobably approximately correct. The Cherokees, some twelve thousand strong, [3] were the mountaineers oftheir race. They dwelt among the blue-topped ridges and lofty peaks ofthe southern Alleghanies, [4] in the wild and picturesque region wherethe present States of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinasjoin one another. To the west of the Cherokees, on the banks of the Mississippi, werethe Chickasaws, the smallest of the southern nations, numbering at theoutside but four thousand souls;[5] but they were also the bravestand most warlike, and of all these tribal confederacies theirs was theonly one which was at all closely knit together. The whole tribe actedin unison. In consequence, though engaged in incessant warfare withthe far more numerous Choctaws, Creeks, and Cherokees, they more thanheld their own against them all; besides having inflicted on theFrench two of the bloodiest defeats they ever suffered from Indians. Most of the remnants of the Natchez, the strange sun-worshippers, hadtaken refuge with the Chickasaws and become completely identified withthem, when their own nationality was destroyed by the arms of NewOrleans. The Choctaws, the rudest and historically the least important of theseIndians, lived south of the Chickasaws. They were probably rather lessnumerous than the Creeks. [6] Though accounted brave they weretreacherous and thievish, and were not as well armed as the others. Theyrarely made war or peace as a unit, parties frequently acting inconjunction with some of the rival European powers, or else joining inthe plundering inroads made by the other Indians upon the whitesettlements. Beyond thus furnishing auxiliaries to our other Indianfoes, they had little to do with our history. The Muscogees or Creeks were the strongest of all. Their southern bands, living in Florida, were generally considered as a separate confederacy, under the name of Seminoles. They numbered between twenty-five andthirty thousand souls, [7] three fourths of them being the Muscogeesproper, and the remainder Seminoles. They dwelt south of the Cherokeesand east of the Choctaws, adjoining the Georgians. The Creeks and Cherokees were thus by their position the barrier tribesof the South, who had to stand the brunt of our advance, and who actedas a buffer between us and the French and Spaniards of the Gulf and thelower Mississippi. Their fate once decided, that of the Chickasaws andChocktaws inevitably followed. The customs and the political and social systems of these two tribeswere very similar; and those of their two western neighbors weremerely ruder copies thereof. They were very much further advanced thanwere the Algonquin nations of the north. Unlike most mountaineers the Cherokees were not held to be veryformidable fighters, when compared with their fellows of thelowlands. [8] In 1760 and 1761 they had waged a fierce war with thewhites, had ravaged the Carolina borders, had captured British forts, and successfully withstood British armies; but though they had heldtheir own in the field, it had been at the cost of ruinous losses. Sincethat period they had been engaged in long wars with the Chickasaws andCreeks, and had been worsted by both. Moreover, they had been muchharassed by the northern Indians. So they were steadily declining inpower and numbers. [9] Though divided linguistically into two races, speaking differentdialects, the Otari and Erati, the political divisions did not followthe lines of language. There were three groups of towns, the Upper, Lower, and Middle; and these groups often acted independently of oneanother. The Upper towns lay for the most part on the Western Waters, asthey were called by the Americans, --the streams running into theTennessee. Their inhabitants were known as Overhill Cherokees and werechiefly Otari; but the towns were none of them permanent, and sometimesshifted their positions, even changing from one group to another. TheLower towns, inhabited by the Erati, lay in the flat lands of upperGeorgia and South Carolina, and were the least important. The thirdgroup, larger than either of the others and lying among the hills andmountains between them, consisted of the Middle towns. Its borders wereill-marked and were ever shifting. Thus the towns of the Cherokees stretched from the high upland region, where rise the loftiest mountains of eastern America, to the warm, level, low country, the land of the cypress and the long-leaved pine. Each village stood by itself, in some fertile river-bottom, witharound it apple orchards and fields of maize. Like the other southernIndians, the Cherokees were more industrious than their northernneighbors, lived by tillage and agriculture as much as by hunting, andkept horses, hogs, and poultry. The oblong, story-high houses weremade of peeled logs, morticed into each other and plastered with clay;while the roof was of chestnut bark or of big shingles. Near to eachstood a small cabin, partly dug out of the ground, and in consequencevery warm; to this the inmates retired in winter, for they weresensitive to cold. In the centre of each village stood the greatcouncil-house or rotunda, capable of containing the whole population;it was often thirty feet high, and sometimes stood on a raised moundof earth. [10] The Cherokees were a bright, intelligent race, better fitted to "followthe white man's road" than any other Indians. Like their neighbors, theywere exceedingly fond of games of chance and skill, as well as ofathletic sports. One of the most striking of their national amusementswas the kind of ball-play from which we derive the game of lacrosse. Theimplements consisted of ball sticks or rackets, two feet long, strungwith raw-hide webbing, and of a deer-skin ball, stuffed with hair, so asto be very solid, and about the size of a base ball. Sometimes the gamewas played by fixed numbers, sometimes by all the young men of avillage; and there were often tournaments between different towns andeven different tribes. The contests excited the most intense interest, were waged with desperate resolution, and were preceded by solemn dancesand religious ceremonies; they were tests of tremendous physicalendurance, and were often very rough, legs and arms being occasionallybroken. The Choctaws were considered to be the best ball players. [11] The Cherokees were likewise fond of dances. Sometimes these were comicor lascivious, sometimes they were religious in their nature, or wereundertaken prior to starting on the war-trail. Often the dances of theyoung men and maidens were very picturesque. The girls, dressed inwhite, with silver bracelets and gorgets, and a profusion of gayribbons, danced in a circle in two ranks; the young warriors, clad intheir battle finery, danced in a ring around them; all moving inrhythmic step, as they kept time to the antiphonal chanting[12] andsinging, the young men and girls responding alternately to each other. The great confederacy of the Muscogees or Creeks, consisting of numeroustribes, speaking at least five distinct languages, lay in a well-wateredland of small timber. [13] The rapid streams were bordered by narrowflats of rich soil, and were margined by canebrakes and reed beds. Therewere fine open pastures, varied by sandy pine barrens, by groves ofpalmetto and magnolia, and by great swamps and cypress ponds. The gamehad been largely killed out, the elk and buffalo having beenexterminated and even the deer much thinned, and in consequence thehunting parties were obliged to travel far into the uninhabited regionto the northward in order to kill their winter supply of meat. Butpanthers, wolves, and bears still lurked in the gloomy fastnesses of theswamps and canebrakes, whence they emerged at night to prey on the hogsand cattle. The bears had been exceedingly abundant at one time, so muchso as to become one of the main props of the Creek larder, furnishingflesh, fat, and especially oil for cooking and other purposes; and sovalued were they that the Indians hit upon the novel plan of preservingthem, exactly as Europeans preserve deer and pheasants. Each town putaside a great tract of land which was known as "the beloved bearground, "[14] where the persimmons, haws, chestnuts, muscadines, and foxgrapes abounded, and let the bears dwell there unmolested, except atcertain seasons, when they were killed in large numbers. However, cattlewere found to be more profitable than bears, and the "beloved beargrounds" were by degrees changed into stock ranges. [15] The Creeks had developed a very curious semi-civilization of their own. They lived in many towns, of which the larger, or old towns, bore ruleover the smaller, [16] and alone sent representatives to the generalcouncils. Many of these were as large as any in the back counties of thecolonies;[17] but they were shifted from time to time, as the game wastotally killed off and the land exhausted by the crops. [18] The soilthen became covered by a growth of pines, and a so-called "old field"was formed. This method of cultivation was, after all, much like that ofthe southern whites, and the "old fields, " or abandoned plantationsgrown up with pines, were common in the colonies. Many of the chiefs owned droves of horses and horned cattle, sometimesas many as five hundred head, [19] besides hogs and poultry; and some ofthem, in addition, had negro slaves. But the tillage of the land wasaccomplished by communal labor; and, indeed, the government, as well asthe system of life, was in many respects a singular compound ofcommunism and extreme individualism. The fields of rice, corn, tobacco, beans, and potatoes were sometimes rudely fenced in with split hickorypoles, and were sometimes left unfenced, with huts or high scaffolds, where watchers kept guard. They were planted when the wild fruit was soripe as to draw off the birds, and while ripening the swine were keptpenned up and the horses were tethered with tough bark ropes. Pumpkins, melons, marsh-mallows, and sunflowers were often grown between the rowsof corn. The planting was done on a given day, the whole town beingsummoned; no man was excepted or was allowed to go out hunting. Theunder-headman supervised the work. [20] For food they used all these vegetables, as well as beef and pork, andvenison stewed in bear's oil; they had hominy and corn-cakes, and a cooldrink made from honey and water, [21] besides another made from fermentedcorn, which tasted much like cider. [22] They sifted their flour inwicker-work sieves, and baked the bread in kettles or on broad, thinstones. Moreover, they gathered the wild fruits, strawberries, grapes, and plums, in their season, and out of the hickory-nuts they made athick, oily paste, called the hickory milk. Each town was built round a square, in which the old men lounged all daylong, gossiping and wrangling. Fronting the square, and surrounding it, were the four long, low communal houses, eight feet high, sixteen feetdeep, and forty to sixty in length. They were wooden frames, supportedon pine posts, with roof-tree and rafters of hickory. Their fronts wereopen piazzas, their sides were lathed and plastered, sometimes withwhite marl, sometimes with reddish clay, and they had plank doors andwere roofed neatly with cypress bark or clapboards. The eave boards wereof soft poplar. The barrier towns, near white or Indian enemies, had loghouses, with portholes cut in the walls. The communal houses were each divided into three rooms. The House ofthe Micos, or Chiefs and Headmen, was painted red and fronted therising sun; it was highest in rank. The Houses of the Warriors and theBeloved Men--this last being painted white--fronted south and northrespectively, while the House of the Young People stood opposite thatof the Micos. Each room was divided into two terraces; the one infront being covered with red mats, while that in the rear, a kind ofraised dais or great couch, was strewn with skins. They containedstools hewed out of poplar logs, and chests made of clapboards sewedtogether with buffalo thongs. [23] The rotunda or council-house stood near the square on the highest spotin the village. It was round, and fifty or sixty feet across, with ahigh peaked roof; the rafters were fastened with splints and coveredwith bark. A raised dais ran around the wall, strewed with mats andskins. Sometimes in the larger council-houses there were paintedeagles, carved out of poplar wood, placed close to the red and whiteseats where the chiefs and warriors sat; or in front of the broad daiswere great images of the full and the half moon, colored white orblack; or rudely carved and painted figures of the panther, and of menwith buffalo horns. The tribes held in reverence both the panther andthe rattlesnake. The corn-cribs, fowl-houses, and hot-houses or dugouts for winter usewere clustered near the other cabins. Although in tillage they used only the hoe, they had made much progressin some useful arts. They spun the coarse wool of the buffalo intoblankets, which they trimmed with beads. They wove the wild hemp inframes and shuttles. They made their own saddles. They made beautifulbaskets of fine cane splints, and very handsome blankets of turkeyfeathers; while out of glazed clay they manufactured bowls, pitchers, platters, and other pottery. In summer they wore buckskin shirts and breech-clouts; in winter theywere clad in the fur of the bear and wolf or of the shaggy buffalo. They had moccasins of elk or buffalo hide, and high thigh-boots ofthin deer-skin, ornamented with fawns' trotters, or turkey spurs thattinkled as they walked. In their hair they braided eagle plumes, hawkwings, or the brilliant plumage of the tanager and redbird. Trousersor breeches of any sort they despised as marks of effeminacy. Vermilion was their war emblem; white was only worn at the time of theGreen-Corn Dance. In each town stood the war pole or painted post, asmall peeled tree-trunk colored red. Some of their villages werecalled white or peace towns; others red or bloody towns. The whitetowns were sacred to peace; no blood could be spilt within theirborders. They were towns of refuge, where not even an enemy taken inwar could be slain; and a murderer who fled thither was safe fromvengeance. The captives were tortured to death in the red towns, andit was in these that the chiefs and warriors gathered when they wereplanning or preparing for war. They held great marriage-feasts; the dead were buried with the goodsthey had owned in their lifetime. Every night all the people of a town gathered in the council-house todance and sing and talk. Besides this, they held there on statedoccasions the ceremonial dances; such were the dances of war and oftriumph, when the warriors, painted red and black, returned, carryingthe scalps of their slain foes on branches of evergreen pine, whilethey chanted the sonorous song of victory; and such was the Dance ofthe Serpent, the dance of lawless love, where the women and younggirls were allowed to do whatsoever they listed. Once a year, when the fruits ripened, they held the Green-Corn Dance, areligious festival that lasted eight days in the larger towns and fourin the smaller. Then they fasted and feasted alternately. They drank outof conch-shells the Black Drink, a bitter beverage brewed from thecrushed leaves of a small shrub. On the third day the high-priest orfire-maker, the man who sat in the white seat, clad in snowy tunic andmoccasins, kindled the holy fire, fanning it into flames with theunsullied wing of a swan, and burning therein offerings of thefirst-fruits of the year. Dance followed dance. The beloved men andbeloved women, the priest and priestesses, danced in three rings, singing the solemn song of which the words were never uttered at anyother time; and at the end the warriors, in their wild war-gear, withwhite-plume headdresses, took part, and also the women and girls, deckedin their best, with ear-rings and armlets, and terrapin shells filledwith pebbles fastened to the outside of their legs. They kept time withfoot and voice; the men in deep tones, with short accents, the women ina shrill falsetto; while the clay drums, with heads of taut deer-hide, were beaten, the whistles blown, and the gourds and calabashes rattled, until the air resounded with the deafening noise. [24] Though they sometimes burnt their prisoners or violated captive women, they generally were more merciful than the northern tribes. [25] But their political and military systems could not compare with those ofthe Algonquins, still less with those of the Iroquois. Their confederacywas of the loosest kind. There was no central authority. Every townacted just as it pleased, making war or peace with the other towns, orwith whites, Choctaws, or Cherokees. In each there was a nominal headfor peace and war, the high chief and the head warrior; the former wassupposed to be supreme, and was elected for life from some one powerfulfamily--as, for instance, the families having for their totems the windor the eagle. But these chiefs had little control, and could not do muchmore than influence or advise their subjects; they were dependent on thewill of the majority. Each town was a little hotbed of party spirit; theinhabitants divided on almost every question. If the head-chief was forpeace, but the war-chief nevertheless went on the war-path, there was noway of restraining him. It was said that never, in the memory of theoldest inhabitant, had half the nation "taken the war talk" at the sametime. [26] As a consequence, war parties of Creeks were generally merelysmall bands of marauders, in search of scalps and plunder. In proportionto its numbers, the nation never, until 1813, undertook such formidablemilitary enterprises as were undertaken by the Wyandots, Shawnees, andDelawares; and, though very formidable individual fighters, even in thisrespect it may be questioned if the Creeks equalled the prowess of theirnorthern kinsmen. Yet when the Revolutionary war broke out the Creeks were under achieftain whose consummate craft and utterly selfish but cool andmasterly diplomacy enabled them for a generation to hold their ownbetter than any other native race against the restless Americans. Thiswas the half-breed Alexander McGillivray, perhaps the most gifted manwho was ever born on the soil of Alabama. [27] His father was a Scotch trader, Lachlan McGillivray by name, who camewhen a boy to Charleston, then the head-quarters of the commercecarried on by the British with the southern Indians. On visiting thetraders' quarter of the town, the young Scot was strongly attracted bythe sight of the weather-beaten packers, with their gaudy, half-Indianfinery, their hundreds of pack-horses, their curious pack-saddles, andtheir bales of merchandise. Taking service with them, he was soonhelping to drive a pack-train along one of the narrow trails thatcrossed the lonely pine wilderness. To strong, coarse spirits, thatwere both shrewd and daring, and willing to balance the great risksincident to their mode of life against its great gains, the businesswas most alluring. Young Lachlan rose rapidly, and soon became one ofthe richest and most influential traders in the Creek country. Like most traders, he married into the tribe, wooing and wedding, at theHickory Ground, beside the Coosa River, a beautiful half-breed girl, Sehoy Marchand, whose father had been a French officer, and whose motherbelonged to the powerful Creek family of the Wind. There were born tothem two daughters and one son, Alexander. All the traders, thoughfacing danger at every moment, from the fickle and jealous temper of thesavages, wielded immense influence over them, and none more than theelder McGillivray, a far-sighted, unscrupulous Scotchman, who sidedalternately with the French and English interests, as best suited hisown policy and fortunes. His son was felt by the Creeks to be one of themselves. He was bornabout 1746, at Little Tallasee, on the banks of the clear-flowing Coosa, where he lived till he was fourteen years old, playing, fishing, hunting, and bathing with the other Indian boys, and listening to thetales of the old chiefs and warriors. He was then taken to Charleston, where he was well educated, being taught Greek and Latin, as well asEnglish history and literature. Tall, dark, slender, with commandingfigure and immovable face, of cool, crafty temper, with great ambitionand a keen intellect, he felt himself called to play no common part. Hedisliked trade, and at the first opportunity returned to his Indianhome. He had neither the moral nor the physical gifts requisite for awarrior; but he was a consummate diplomat, a born leader, and perhapsthe only man who could have used aright such a rope of sand as was theCreek confederacy. The Creeks claimed him as of their own blood, and instinctively feltthat he was their only possible ruler. He was forthwith chosen to betheir head chief. From that time on he remained among them, at one orthe other of his plantations, his largest and his real home being atLittle Tallasee, where he lived in barbaric comfort, in a great roomylog-house with a stone chimney, surrounded by the cabins of his sixtynegro slaves. He was supported by many able warriors, both of the halfand the full blood. One of them is worthy of passing mention. This was ayoung French adventurer, Milfort, who in 1776 journeyed through theinsurgent colonies and became an adopted son of the Creek nation. Hefirst met McGillivray, then in his early manhood, at the town of Coweta, the great war-town on the Chattahoochee, where the half-breed chief, seated on a bear-skin in the council-house, surrounded by his wise menand warriors, was planning to give aid to the British. Afterwards hemarried one of McGillivray's sisters, whom he met at a great dance--apretty girl, clad in a short silk petticoat, her chemise of fine linenclasped with silver, her ear-rings and bracelets of the same metal, andwith bright-colored ribbons in her hair. [28] The task set to the son of Sehoy was one of incredible difficulty, forhe was head of a loose array of towns and tribes from whom no man couldget perfect, and none but himself even imperfect, obedience. The nationcould not stop a town from going to war, nor, in turn, could a town stopits own young men from committing ravages. Thus the whites were alwaysbeing provoked, and the frontiersmen were molested as often when theywere quiet and peaceful as when they were encroaching on Indian land. The Creeks owed the land which they possessed to murder and rapine; theymercilessly destroyed all weaker communities, red or white; they had noidea of showing justice or generosity towards their fellows who lackedtheir strength, and now the measure they had meted so often to otherswas at last to be meted to them. If the whites treated them well, it wasset down to weakness. It was utterly impossible to restrain the youngmen from murdering and plundering, either the neighboring Indians or thewhite settlements. Their one ideal of glory was to get scalps, and thesethe young braves were sure to seek, no matter how much the older andcooler men might try to prevent them. Whether war was declared or not, made no difference. At one time the English exerted themselvessuccessfully to bring about a peace between the Creeks and Cherokees. Atits conclusion a Creek chief taunted the mediators as follows: "You havesweated yourselves poor in our smoky houses to make peace between us andthe Cherokees, and thereby enable our young people to give you in ashort time a far worse sweat than you have yet had. "[29] The resultjustified his predictions; the young men, having no other foe, at oncetook to ravaging the settlements. It soon became evident that it washopeless to expect the Creeks to behave well to the whites merelybecause they were themselves well treated, and from that time on theEnglish fomented, instead of striving to put a stop to, their quarrelswith the Choctaws and Chickasaws. The record of our dealings with them must in many places be unpleasantreading to us, for it shows grave wrong-doing on our part; yet theCreeks themselves lacked only the power, but not the will, to treat usworse than we treated them, and the darkest pages of their historyrecite the wrongs that we ourselves suffered at their hands. 1. Letter of Commissioners Hawkins, Pickens, Martin, and McIntosh, tothe President of the Continental Congress, Dec. 2, 1785. (Given inSenate documents, 33d Congress, 2d session, Boundary between Ga. AndFla. ) They give 14, 200 "gun-men, " and say that "at a moderatecalculation" there are four times as many old men, women, and children, as there are gun-men. The estimates of the numbers are very numerous andvery conflicting. After carefully consulting all accessible authorities, I have come to the conclusion that the above is probably pretty near thetruth. It is the deliberate, official opinion of four trained experts, who had ample opportunities for investigation, and who examined thematter with care. But it is very possible that in allotting the severaltribes their numbers they err now and then, as the boundaries betweenthe tribes shifted continually, and there were always large communitiesof renegades, such as the Chickamaugas, who were drawn from the ranks ofall. 2. This is one of the main reasons why the estimates of their numbersvary so hopelessly. As a specimen case, among many others, compare theestimate of Professor Benj. Smith Barton ("Origin of the Tribes andNations of America, " Phila. , 1798) with the report of the Commissionerof Indian Affairs for 1827. Barton estimated that in 1793 theAppalachian nations numbered in all 13, 000 warriors; considering theseas one fifth of the total population, makes it 65, 000. In 1837 theCommissioner reports their numbers at 65, 304--almost exactly the same. Probably both statements are nearly correct, the natural rate ofincrease having just about offset the loss in consequence of a partialchange of home, and of Jackson's slaughtering wars against the Creeksand Seminoles. But where they agree in the total, they vary hopelesslyin the details. By Barton's estimate, the Cherokees numbered but 7, 500, the Chocktaws 30, 000; by the Commissioner's census the Cherokeesnumbered 21, 911, the Choctaws 15, 000. It is of course out of thequestion to believe that while in 44 years the Cherokees had increasedthreefold, the Choctaws had diminished one half. The terms themselvesmust have altered their significance or else there was extensiveinter-tribal migration. Similarly, according to the reports, the Creekshad increased by 4, 000--the Seminoles and Choctaws had diminished by3, 000. 3. "Am. Archives, " 4th Series, III. , 790. Drayton's account, Sept. 23, '75. This was a carefully taken census, made by the Indian traders. Apart from the outside communities, such as the Chickamaugas at a laterdate, there were: 737 gun-men in the 10 overhill towns 908 " " 23 middle " 356 " " 9 lower " a total of 2, 021 warriors. The outlying towns, who had cast off theirallegiance for the time being, would increase the amount by three orfour hundred more. 4. "History of the American Indians, Particularly Those NationsAdjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South andNorth Carolina, and Virginia. " By James Adair (an Indian trader andresident in the country for forty years), London, 1775. A very valuablebook, but a good deal marred by the author's irrepressible desire totwist every Indian utterance, habit, and ceremony into a proof that theyare descended from the Ten Lost Tribes. He gives the number of Cherokeewarriors at 2, 300. 5. Hawkins, Pickens, Martin, and McIntosh, in their letter, give them800 warriors: most other estimates make the number smaller. 6. Almost all the early writers make them more numerous. Adair givesthem 4, 500 warriors, Hawkins 6, 000. But much less seems to have beenknown about them than about the Creeks, Cherokees, and Chickasaws; andmost early estimates of Indians were largest when made of theleast-known tribes. Adair's statement is probably the most trustworthy. The first accurate census showed the Creeks to be more numerous. 7. Hawkins, Pickens, etc. , make them "at least" 27, 000 in 1789, theIndian report for 1837 make them 26, 844. During the half century theyhad suffered from devastating wars and forced removals, and had probablyslightly decreased in number. In Adair's time their population wasincreasing. 8. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, I. , 95. Letter of Charles Lee. 9. Adair, 227. Bartram, 390. 10. Bartram, 365. 11. Adair, Bartram. 12. Bartram. 13. "A Sketch of the Creek Country, " Benjamin Hawkins. In Coll. Ga. Hist. Soc. Written in 1798, but not published till fifty yearsafterwards. 14. _Do_, p. 33. 15. The use of the word "beloved" by the Creeks was quite peculiar. Itis evidently correctly translated, for Milfort likewise gives it as"bien aimé. " It was the title used for any thing held in especialregard, whether for economic or supernatural reasons; and sometimes itwas used as western tribes use the word "medicine" at the present day. The old chiefs and conjurers were called the "beloved old men"; what inthe west we would now call the "medicine squaws, " were named "thebeloved old women. " It was often conferred upon the chief dignitaries ofthe whites in writing to them. 16. Hawkins, 37. 17. Bartram, 386. The Uchee town contained at least 1, 500 people. 18. _Do_. 19. Hawkins, 30. 20. Hawkins 39; Adair, 408. 21. Bartram, 184. 22. Milfort, 212. 23. Hawkins, 67. Milfort, 203. Bartram, 386. Adair, 418. 24. Hawkins and Adair, _passim_. 25. _Do_. Also _vide_ Bartram. 26. Hawkins, 29, 70. Adair, 428. 27. "History of Alabama, " by Albert James Pickett, Charleston, 1851, II. , 30. A valuable work. 28. Milfort, 23, 326. Milfort's book is very interesting, but as the manhimself was evidently a hopeless liar and braggart, it can only betrusted where it was not for his interest to tell a falsehood. His bookwas written after McGillivray's death, the object being to claim forhimself the glory belonging to the half-breed chief. He insisted that hewas the war-chief, the arm, and McGillivray merely the head, and boastsof his numerous successful war enterprises. But the fact is, that duringthis whole time the Creeks performed no important stroke in war; thesuccessful resistance to American encroachments was due to the diplomacyof the son of Sehoy. Moreover, Milfort's accounts of his own war deedsare mainly sheer romancing. He appears simply to have been one of ascore of war chiefs, and there were certainly a dozen other Creekchiefs, both half-breeds and natives, who were far more formidable tothe frontier than he was; all their names were dreaded by the settlers, but his was hardly known. 29. Adair, 279. CHAPTER IV. THE ALGONQUINS OF THE NORTHWEST, 1769-1774. Between the Ohio and the Great Lakes, directly north of the Appalachianconfederacies, and separated from them by the unpeopled wilderness nowforming the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, dwelt another set ofIndian tribes. They were ruder in life and manners than their southernkinsmen, less advanced towards civilization, but also far more warlike;they depended more on the chase and fishing, and much less onagriculture; they were savages, not merely barbarians; and they werefewer in numbers and scattered over a wider expanse of territory. Butthey were farther advanced than the almost purely nomadic tribes ofhorse Indians whom we afterwards encountered west of the Mississippi. Some of their villages were permanent, at any rate for a term of years, and near them they cultivated small crops of corn and melons. Theirusual dwelling was the conical wigwam covered with bark, skins, or matsof plaited reeds but in some of the villages of the tribes nearest theborder there were regular blockhouses, copied from their whiteneighbors. They went clad in skins or blankets; the men were hunters andwarriors, who painted their bodies and shaved from their crowns all thehair except the long scalp-lock, while the squaws were the drudges whodid all the work. Their relations with the Iroquois, who lay east of them, were rarelyvery close, and in fact were generally hostile. They were also usuallyat odds with the southern Indians, but among themselves they werefrequently united in time of war into a sort of lax league, and werecollectively designated by the Americans as the northwestern Indians. All the tribes belonged to the great Algonquin family, with twoexceptions, the Winnebagos and the Wyandots. The former, a branch of theDakotahs, dwelt west of Lake Michigan; they came but little in contactwith us, although many of their young men and warriors joined theirneighbors in all the wars against us. The Wyandots or Hurons lived nearDetroit and along the south shore of Lake Erie, and were in battle ourmost redoubtable foes. They were close kin to the Iroquois though bitterenemies to them, and they shared the desperate valor of these, theirhostile kinsfolk, holding themselves above the surrounding Algonquins, with whom, nevertheless, they lived in peace and friendship. The Algonquins were divided into many tribes, of ever shifting size. Itwould be impossible to place them all, or indeed to enumerate them, withany degree of accuracy; for the tribes were continually splitting up, absorbing others, being absorbed in turn, or changing their abode, and, in addition, there were numerous small sub-tribes or bands of renegades, which sometimes were and sometimes were not considered as portions oftheir larger neighbors. Often, also, separate bands, which would vaguelyregard themselves as all one nation in one generation, would in the nexthave lost even this sense of loose tribal unity. The chief tribes, however, were well known and occupied tolerablydefinite locations. The Delawares or Leni-Lenappe, dwelt farthest east, lying northwest of the upper Ohio, their lands adjoining those of theSenecas, the largest and most westernmost of the Six Nations. TheIroquois had been their most relentless foes and oppressors in time goneby; but on the eve of the Revolution all the border tribes wereforgetting their past differences and were drawing together to make astand against the common foe. Thus it came about that parties of youngSeneca braves fought with the Delawares in all their wars against us. Westward of the Delawares lay the Shawnee villages, along the Scioto andon the Pickaway plains; but it must be remembered that the Shawnees, Delawares, and Wyandots were closely united and their villages wereoften mixed in together. Still farther to the west, the Miamis orTwigtees lived between the Miami and the Wabash, together with otherassociated tribes, the Piankeshaws and the Weas or Ouatinous. Fartherstill, around the French villages, dwelt those scattered survivors ofthe Illinois who had escaped the dire fate which befell theirfellow-tribesmen because they murdered Pontiac. Northward of this scantypeople lived the Sacs and Foxes, and around the upper Great Lakes thenumerous and powerful Pottawattamies, Ottawas, and Chippewas; fierce andtreacherous warriors, who did not till the soil, and were hunters andfishers only, more savage even than the tribes that lay southeast ofthem. [1] In the works of the early travellers we read the names of manyother Indian nations; but whether these were indeed separate peoples, orbranches of some of those already mentioned, or whether the differenttravellers spelled the Indian names in widely different ways, we cannotsay. All that is certain is that there were many tribes and sub-tribes, who roamed and warred and hunted over the fair lands now forming theheart of our mighty nation, that to some of these tribes the whites gavenames and to some they did not, and that the named and the namelessalike were swept down to the same inevitable doom. Moreover, there were bands of renegades or discontented Indians, who forsome cause had severed their tribal connections. Two of the mostprominent of these bands were the Cherokees and Mingos, both being notedfor their predatory and murderous nature and their incessant raids onthe frontier settlers. The Cherokees were fugitives from the rest oftheir nation, who had fled north, beyond the Ohio, and dwelt in the landshared by the Delawares and Shawnees, drawing to themselves many of thelawless young warriors, not only of these tribes, but of the othersstill farther off. The Mingos were likewise a mongrel banditti, made upof outlaws and wild spirits from among the Wyandots and Miamis, as wellas from the Iroquois and the Munceys (a sub-tribe of the Delawares). All these northwestern nations had at one time been conquered by theIroquois, or at least they had been defeated, their lands overrun, andthey themselves forced to acknowledge a vague over-lordship on the partof their foes. But the power of the Iroquois was now passing away: whenour national history began, with the assembling of the first continentalcongress, they had ceased to be a menace to the western tribes, and thelatter no longer feared or obeyed them, regarding them merely as alliesor neutrals. Yet not only the Iroquois, but their kindred folk, notablythe Wyandots, still claimed, and received, for the sake of their ancientsuperiority, marks of formal respect from the surrounding Algonquins. Thus, among the latter, the Leni-Lenappe possessed the titular headship, and were called "grandfathers" at all the solemn councils as well as inthe ceremonious communications that passed among the tribes; yet in turnthey had to use similar titles of respect in addressing not only theirformer oppressors, but also their Huron allies, who had suffered underthe same galling yoke. [2] The northwestern nations had gradually come to equal the Iroquois aswarriors; but among themselves the palm was still held by the Wyandots, who, although no more formidable than the others as regards skill, hardihood, and endurance, nevertheless stood alone in being willing tosuffer heavy punishment in order to win a victory. [3] The Wyandots had been under the influence of the French Jesuits, andwere nominally Christians;[4] and though the attempt to civilize themhad not been very successful, and they remained in most respectsprecisely like the Indians around them, there had been at least onepoint gained, for they were not, as a rule, nearly so cruel to theirprisoners. Thus they surpassed their neighbors in mercifulness as wellas valor. All the Algonquin tribes stood, in this respect, much on thesame plane. The Delawares, whose fate it had been to be ever buffetedabout by both the whites and the reds, had long cowered under theIroquois terror, but they had at last shaken it off, had reasserted thesuperiority which tradition says they once before held, and had become aformidable and warlike race. Indeed it is curious to study how theDelawares have changed in respect to their martial prowess since thedays when the whites first came in contact with them. They were then notaccounted a formidable people, and were not feared by any of theirneighbors. By the time the Revolution broke out they had become betterwarriors, and during the twenty years' Indian warfare that ensued wereas formidable as most of the other redskins. But when moved west of theMississippi, instead of their spirit being broken, they became morewarlike than ever, and throughout the present century they have been themost renowned fighters of all the Indian peoples, and, moreover, theyhave been celebrated for their roving, adventurous nature. Their numbershave steadily dwindled, owing to their incessant wars and to thedangerous nature of their long roamings. [5] It is impossible to make any but the roughest guess at the numbers ofthese northwestern Indians. It seems probable that there wereconsiderably over fifty thousand of them in all; but no definiteassertion can be made even as to the different tribes. As with thesouthern Indians, old-time writers certainly greatly exaggerated theirnumbers, and their modern followers show a tendency to fall into theopposite fault, the truth being that any number of isolated observationsto support either position can be culled from the works of thecontemporary travellers and statisticians. [6] No two independentobservers give the same figures. One main reason for this is doubtlessthe exceedingly loose way in which the word "tribe" was used. If a manspeaks of the Miamis and the Delawares, for instance, before we canunderstand him we must know whether he includes therein the Weas and theMunceys, for he may or may not. By quoting the numbers attributed by theold writers to the various sub-tribes, and then comparing them with thenumbers given later on by writers using the same names, but speaking ofentire confederacies, it is easy to work out an apparent increase, whilea reversal of the process shows an appalling decrease. Moreover, as thebands broke up, wandered apart, and then rejoined each other or not asevents fell out, two successive observers might make widely differentestimates. Many tribes that have disappeared were undoubtedly actuallydestroyed; many more have simply changed their names or have beenabsorbed by other tribes. Similarly, those that have apparently heldtheir own have done so at the expense of their neighbors. This was madeall the easier by the fact that the Algonquins were so closely relatedin customs and language; indeed, there was constant intermarriagebetween the different tribes. On the whole, however, there is noquestion that, in striking contrast to the southern or AppalachianIndians, these northwestern tribes have suffered a terrible diminutionin numbers. With many of them we did not come into direct contact for long yearsafter our birth as a nation. Perhaps those tribes with all or part ofwhose warriors we were brought into collision at some time during orimmediately succeeding the Revolutionary war may have amounted to thirtythousand souls. [7] But though they acknowledged kinship with oneanother, and though they all alike hated the Americans, and though, moreover, all at times met in the great councils, to smoke the calumetof peace and brighten the chain of friendship[8] among themselves, andto take up the tomahawk[9] against the white foes, yet the tie thatbound them together was so loose, and they were so fickle and so splitup by jarring interests and small jealousies, that never more than halfof them went to war at the same time. Very frequently even the membersof a tribe would fail to act together. Thus it came about that during the forty years intervening betweenBraddock's defeat and Wayne's victory, though these northwestern tribeswaged incessant, unending, relentless warfare against our borders, yetthey never at any one time had more than three thousand warriors in thefield, and frequently not half that number, [10] and in all the battlesthey fought with British and American troops there was not one in whichthey were eleven hundred strong. [11] But they were superb individual fighters, beautifully drilled in theirown discipline;[12] and they were favored beyond measure by the natureof their ground, of which their whole system of warfare enabled them totake the utmost possible benefit. Much has been written and sung of theadvantages possessed by the mountaineer when striving in his own homeagainst invaders from the plains; but these advantages are as nothingwhen weighed with those which make the warlike dweller in forestsunconquerable by men who have not his training. A hardy soldier, accustomed only to war in the open, will become a good cragsman in fewerweeks than it will take him years to learn to be so much as a fairwoodsman; for it is beyond all comparison more difficult to attainproficiency in woodcraft than in mountaineering. [13] The Wyandots, and the Algonquins who surrounded them, dwelt in a regionof sunless, tangled forests; and all the wars we waged for thepossession of the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippiwere carried on in the never-ending stretches of gloomy woodland. It wasnot an open forest. The underbrush grew, dense and rank, between theboles of the tall trees, making a cover so thick that it was in manyplaces impenetrable, so thick that it nowhere gave a chance for humaneye to see even as far as a bow could carry. No horse could penetrate itsave by following the game trails or paths chopped with the axe; and astranger venturing a hundred yards from a beaten road would be sohelplessly lost that he could not, except by the merest chance, evenfind his way back to the spot he had just left. Here and there it wasbroken by a rare hillside glade or by a meadow in a stream valley; butelsewhere a man might travel for weeks as if in a perpetual twilight, never once able to see the sun, through the interlacing twigs thatformed a dark canopy above his head. This dense forest was to the Indians a home in which they had lived fromchildhood, and where they were as much at ease as a farmer on his ownacres. To their keen eyes, trained for generations to more than a wildbeast's watchfulness, the wilderness was an open book; nothing at restor in motion escaped them. They had begun to track game as soon as theycould walk; a scrape on a tree trunk, a bruised leaf, a faintindentation of the soil, which the eye of no white man could see, alltold them a tale as plainly as if it had been shouted in their ears. [14]With moccasined feet they trod among brittle twigs, dried leaves, anddead branches as silently as the cougar, and they equalled the greatwood-cat in stealth and far surpassed it in cunning and ferocity. Theycould no more get lost in the trackless wilderness than a civilized mancould get lost on a highway. Moreover, no knight of the middle ages wasso surely protected by his armor as they were by their skill in hiding;the whole forest was to the whites one vast ambush, and to them a sureand ever-present shield. Every tree trunk was a breastwork readyprepared for battle; every bush, every moss-covered boulder, was adefence against assault, from behind which, themselves unseen, theywatched with fierce derision the movements of their clumsy white enemy. Lurking, skulking, travelling with noiseless rapidity, they left a trailthat only a master in woodcraft could follow, while, on the other hand, they could dog a white man's footsteps as a hound runs a fox. Theirsilence, their cunning and stealth, their terrible prowess and mercilesscruelty, makes it no figure of speech to call them the tigers of thehuman race. Unlike the southern Indians, the villages of the northwestern tribeswere usually far from the frontier. Tireless, and careless of allhardship, they came silently out of unknown forests, robbed andmurdered, and then disappeared again into the fathomless depths of thewoods. Half of the terror they caused was due to the extreme difficultyof following them, and the absolute impossibility of forecasting theirattacks. Without warning, and unseen until the moment they dealt thedeath stroke, they emerged from their forest fastnesses, the horror theycaused being heightened no less by the mystery that shrouded them thanby the dreadful nature of their ravages. Wrapped in the mantle of theunknown, appalling by their craft, their ferocity, their fiendishcruelty, they seemed to the white settlers devils and not men; no onecould say with certainty whence they came nor of what tribe they were;and when they had finished their dreadful work they retired into awilderness that closed over their trail as the waves of the ocean closein the wake of a ship. They were trained to the use of arms from their youth up, and war andhunting were their two chief occupations, the business as well as thepleasure of their lives. They were not as skilful as the white hunterswith the rifle[15]--though more so than the average regularsoldier, --nor could they equal the frontiersman in feats of physicalprowess, such as boxing and wrestling; but their superior endurance andthe ease with which they stood fatigue and exposure made amends forthis. A white might outrun them for eight or ten miles; but on a longjourney they could tire out any man, and any beast except a wolf. Likemost barbarians they were fickle and inconstant, not to be relied on forpushing through a long campaign, and after a great victory apt to go offto their homes, because each man desired to secure his own plunder andtell his own tale of glory. They are often spoken of as undisciplined;but in reality their discipline in the battle itself was very high. Theyattacked, retreated, rallied or repelled a charge at the signal ofcommand; and they were able to fight in open order in thick coverswithout losing touch of each other--a feat that no European regiment wasthen able to perform. On their own ground they were far more formidable than the best Europeantroops. The British grenadiers throughout the eighteenth century showedthemselves superior, in the actual shock of battle, to any infantry ofcontinental Europe; if they ever met an over-match, it was when pittedagainst the Scotch highlanders. Yet both grenadier and highlander, theheroes of Minden, the heirs to the glory of Marlborough's campaigns, aswell as the sinewy soldiers who shared in the charges of Prestonpans andCulloden, proved helpless when led against the dark tribesmen of theforest. On the march they could not be trusted thirty yards from thecolumn without getting lost in the woods[16]--the mountain training ofthe highlanders apparently standing them in no stead whatever, --and wereonly able to get around at all when convoyed by backwoodsmen. In fightthey fared even worse. The British regulars at Braddock's battle, andthe highlanders at Grant's defeat a few years later, suffered the samefate. Both battles were fair fights; neither was a surprise; yet thestubborn valor of the red-coated grenadier and the headlong courage ofthe kilted Scot proved of less than no avail. Not only were they utterlyrouted and destroyed in each case by an inferior force of Indians (theFrench taking little part in the conflict), but they were able to makeno effective resistance whatever; it is to this day doubtful whetherthese superb regulars were able, in the battles where they weredestroyed, to so much as kill one Indian for every hundred of their ownmen who fell. The provincials who were with the regulars were the onlytroops who caused any loss to the foe; and this was true in but a lessdegree of Bouquet's fight at Bushy Run. Here Bouquet, by a cleverstratagem, gained the victory over an enemy inferior in numbers tohimself; but only after a two days' struggle in which he suffered afourfold greater loss than he inflicted. [17] When hemmed in so that they had no hope of escape, the Indians fought tothe death; but when a way of retreat was open they would not standcutting like British, French, or American regulars, and so, though witha nearly equal force, would retire if they were suffering heavily, evenif they were causing their foes to suffer still more. This was not dueto lack of courage; it was their system, for they were few in numbers, and they did not believe in losing their men. [18] The Wyandots wereexceptions to this rule, for with them it was a point of honor not toyield, and so they were of all the tribes the most dangerous in anactual pitched battle. [19] But making the attack, as they usually did, with the expectation ofsuccess, all were equally dangerous. If their foes were clusteredtogether in a huddle they attacked them without hesitation, no matterwhat the difference in numbers, and shot them down as if they had beenelk or buffalo, they themselves being almost absolutely safe from harm, as they flitted from cover to cover. It was this capacity for hiding, ortaking advantage of cover, that gave them their great superiority; andit is because of this that the wood tribes were so much more formidablefoes in actual battle than the horse Indians of the plains afterwardsproved themselves. In dense woodland a body of regular soldiers arealmost as useless against Indians as they would be if at night they hadto fight foes who could see in the dark; it needs special andlong-continued training to fit them in any degree for wood-fightingagainst such foes. Out on the plains the white hunter's skill with therifle and his cool resolution give him an immense advantage; a fewdetermined men can withstand a host of Indians in the open, althoughhelpless if they meet them in thick cover; and our defeats by the Siouxand other plains tribes have generally taken the form of a small forcebeing overwhelmed by a large one. Not only were the Indians very terrible in battle, but they were cruelbeyond all belief in victory; and the gloomy annals of border warfareare stained with their darkest hues because it was a war in whichhelpless women and children suffered the same hideous fate that so oftenbefell their husbands and fathers. It was a war waged by savages againstarmed settlers, whose families followed them into the wilderness. Such awar is inevitably bloody and cruel; but the inhuman love of cruelty forcruelty's sake, [20] which marks the red Indian above all other savages, rendered these wars more terrible than any others. For the hideous, unnamable, unthinkable tortures practised by the red men on theircaptured foes, and on their foes' tender women and helpless children, were such as we read of in no other struggle, hardly even in therevolting pages that tell the deeds of the Holy Inquisition. It wasinevitable--indeed it was in many instances proper--that such deedsshould awake in the breasts of the whites the grimmest, wildest spiritof revenge and hatred. The history of the border wars, both in the ways they were begun and inthe ways they were waged, make a long tale of injuries inflicted, suffered, and mercilessly revenged. It could not be otherwise whenbrutal, reckless, lawless borderers, despising all men not of their owncolor, were thrown in contact with savages who esteemed cruelty andtreachery as the highest of virtues, and rapine and murder as theworthiest of pursuits. Moreover, it was sadly inevitable that thelaw-abiding borderer as well as the white ruffian, the peaceful Indianas well as the painted marauder, should be plunged into the struggle tosuffer the punishment that should only have fallen on their evil-mindedfellows. Looking back, it is easy to say that much of the wrong-doing could havebeen prevented; but if we examine the facts to find out the truth, notto establish a theory, we are bound to admit that the struggle wasreally one that could not possibly have been avoided. The sentimentalhistorians speak as if the blame had been all ours, and the wrong alldone to our foes, and as if it would have been possible by any exerciseof wisdom to reconcile claims that were in their very essenceconflicting; but their utterances are as shallow as they areuntruthful. [21] Unless we were willing that the whole continent west ofthe Alleghanies should remain an unpeopled waste, the hunting-ground ofsavages, war was inevitable; and even had we been willing, and had werefrained from encroaching on the Indians' lands, the war would havecome nevertheless, for then the Indians themselves would have encroachedon ours. Undoubtedly we have wronged many tribes; but equallyundoubtedly our first definite knowledge of many others has been derivedfrom their unprovoked outrages upon our people. The Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawatamies furnished hundreds of young warriors to the partiesthat devastated our frontiers generations before we in any wayencroached upon or wronged them. Mere outrages could be atoned for or settled; the question which lay atthe root of our difficulties was that of the occupation of the landitself, and to this there could be no solution save war. The Indians hadno ownership of the land in the way in which we understand the term. Thetribes lived far apart; each had for its hunting-grounds all theterritory from which it was not barred by rivals. Each looked withjealousy upon all interlopers, but each was prompt to act as aninterloper when occasion offered. Every good hunting-ground was claimedby many nations. It was rare, indeed, that any tribe had an uncontestedtitle to a large tract of land; where such title existed, it rested, noton actual occupancy and cultivation, but on the recent butchery ofweaker rivals. For instance, there were a dozen tribes, all of whomhunted in Kentucky, and fought each other there, all of whom had equallygood titles to the soil, and not one of whom acknowledged the right ofany other; as a matter of fact they had therein no right, save the rightof the strongest. The land no more belonged to them than it belonged toBoon and the white hunters who first visited it. On the borders there are perpetual complaints of the encroachments ofwhites upon Indian lands; and naturally the central government atWashington, and before it was at Washington, has usually been inclinedto sympathize with the feeling that considers the whites the aggressors, for the government does not wish a war, does not itself feel any landhunger, hears of not a tenth of the Indian outrages, and knows byexperience that the white borderers are not easy to rule. As aconsequence, the official reports of the people who are not on theground are apt to paint the Indian side in its most favorable light, andare often completely untrustworthy, this being particularly the case ifthe author of the report is an eastern man, utterly unacquainted withthe actual condition of affairs on the frontier. Such a man, though both honest and intelligent, when he hears that thewhites have settled on Indian lands, cannot realize that the act has noresemblance whatever to the forcible occupation of land alreadycultivated. The white settler has merely moved into an uninhabitedwaste; he does not feel that he is committing a wrong, for he knowsperfectly well that the land is really owned by no one. It is never evenvisited, except perhaps for a week or two every year, and then thevisitors are likely at any moment to be driven off by a rivalhunting-party of greater strength. The settler ousts no one from theland; if he did not chop down the trees, hew out the logs for abuilding, and clear the ground for tillage, no one else would do so. Hedrives out the game, however, and of course the Indians who live thereonsink their mutual animosities and turn against the intruder. The truthis, the Indians never had any real title to the soil; they had not halfas good a claim to it, for instance, as the cattlemen now have to alleastern Montana, yet no one would assert that the cattlemen have a rightto keep immigrants off their vast unfenced ranges. The settler andpioneer have at bottom had justice on their side; this great continentcould not have been kept as nothing but a game preserve for squalidsavages. Moreover, to the most oppressed Indian nations the whites oftenacted as a protection, or, at least, they deferred instead of hasteningtheir fate. But for the interposition of the whites it is probable thatthe Iroquois would have exterminated every Algonquin tribe before theend of the eighteenth century; exactly as in recent time the Crows andPawnees would have been destroyed by the Sioux, had it not been for thewars we have waged against the latter. Again, the loose governmental system of the Indians made it as difficultto secure a permanent peace with them as it was to negotiate thepurchase of the lands. The sachem, or hereditary peace chief, and theelective war chief, who wielded only the influence that he could secureby his personal prowess and his tact, were equally unable to control allof their tribesmen, and were powerless with their confederated nations. If peace was made with the Shawnees, the war was continued by theMiamis; if peace was made with the latter, nevertheless perhaps onesmall band was dissatisfied, and continued the contest on its ownaccount; and even if all the recognized bands were dealt with, theparties of renegades or outlaws had to be considered; and in the lastresort the full recognition accorded by the Indians to the right ofprivate warfare, made it possible for any individual warrior whopossessed any influence to go on raiding and murdering unchecked. Everytribe, every sub-tribe, every band of a dozen souls ruled over by apetty chief, almost every individual warrior of the least importance, had to be met and pacified. Even if peace were declared, the Indianscould not exist long without breaking it. There was to them notemptation to trespass on the white man's ground for the purpose ofsettling; but every young brave was brought up to regard scalps takenand horses stolen, in war or peace, as the highest proofs and tokens ofskill and courage, the sure means of attaining glory and honor, theadmiration of men and the love of women. Where the young men thoughtthus, and the chiefs had so little real control, it was inevitable thatthere should be many unprovoked forays for scalps, slaves, and horsesmade upon the white borderers. [22] As for the whites themselves, they too have many and grievous sinsagainst their red neighbors for which to answer. They cannot be severelyblamed for trespassing upon what was called the Indian's land; for letsentimentalists say what they will, the man who puts the soil to usemust of right dispossess the man who does not, or the world will come toa standstill; but for many of their other deeds there can be no pardon. On the border each man was a law unto himself, and good and bad alikewere left in perfect freedom to follow out to the uttermost limits theirown desires; for the spirit of individualism so characteristic ofAmerican life reached its extreme of development in the back-woods. Thewhites who wished peace, the magistrates and leaders, had little morepower over their evil and unruly fellows than the Indian sachems hadover the turbulent young braves. Each man did what seemed best in hisown eyes, almost without let or hindrance; unless, indeed, he trespassedupon the rights of his neighbors, who were ready enough to band togetherin their own defence, though slow to interfere in the affairs of others. Thus the men of lawless, brutal spirit who are found in every communityand who flock to places where the reign of order is lax, were able tofollow the bent of their inclinations unchecked. They utterly despisedthe red man; they held it no crime whatever to cheat him in trading, torob him of his peltries or horses, to murder him if the fit seized them. Criminals who generally preyed on their own neighbors, found it easier, and perhaps hardly as dangerous, to pursue their calling at the expenseof the redskins, for the latter, when they discovered that they had beenwronged, were quite as apt to vent their wrath on some outsider as onthe original offender. If they injured a white, all the whites mightmake common cause against them; but if they injured a red man, thoughthere were sure to be plenty of whites who disapproved of it, there wereapt to be very few indeed whose disapproval took any active shape. Each race stood by its own members, and each held all of the other raceresponsible for the misdeeds of a few uncontrollable spirits; and thisclannishness among those of one color, and the refusal or the inabilityto discriminate between the good and the bad of the other color were thetwo most fruitful causes of border strife. [23] When, even if he soughtto prevent them, the innocent man was sure to suffer for the misdeeds ofthe guilty, unless both joined together for defence, the former had noalternative save to make common cause with the latter. Moreover, in asparse backwoods settlement, where the presence of a strong, vigorousfighter was a source of safety to the whole community, it was impossibleto expect that he would be punished with severity for offences which, intheir hearts, his fellow townsmen could not help regarding as in somesort a revenge for the injuries they had themselves suffered. Everyquiet, peaceable settler had either himself been grievously wronged, orhad been an eye-witness to wrongs done to his friends; and while thesewere vivid in his mind, the corresponding wrongs done the Indians werenever brought home to him at all. If his son was scalped or his cattledriven off, he could not be expected to remember that perhaps theIndians who did the deed had themselves been cheated by a white trader, or had lost a relative at the hands of some border ruffian, or feltaggrieved because a hundred miles off some settler had built a cabin onlands they considered their own. When he joined with other exasperatedand injured men to make a retaliatory inroad, his vengeance might ormight not fall on the heads of the real offenders; and, in any case, hewas often not in the frame of mind to put a stop to the outrages sure tobe committed by the brutal spirits among his allies--though these brutalspirits were probably in a small minority. The excesses so often committed by the whites, when, after many checksand failures, they at last grasped victory, are causes for shame andregret; yet it is only fair to keep in mind the terrible provocationsthey had endured. Mercy, pity, magnanimity to the fallen, could not beexpected from the frontiersmen gathered together to war against anIndian tribe. Almost every man of such a band had bitter personal wrongsto avenge. He was not taking part in a war against a civilized foe; hewas fighting in a contest where women and children suffered the fate ofthe strong men, and instead of enthusiasm for his country's flag and ageneral national animosity towards its enemies, he was actuated by afurious flame of hot anger, and was goaded on by memories of whichmerely to think was madness. His friends had been treacherously slainwhile on messages of peace; his house had been burned, his cattle drivenoff, and all he had in the world destroyed before he knew that warexisted and when he felt quite guiltless of all offence; his sweetheartor wife had been carried off, ravished, and was at the moment the slaveand concubine of some dirty and brutal Indian warrior; his son, the stayof his house, had been burned at the stake with torments too horrible tomention;[24] his sister, when ransomed and returned to him, had told ofthe weary journey through the woods, when she carried around her neck asa horrible necklace the bloody scalps of her husband and children;[25]seared into his eyeballs, into his very brain, he bore ever with him, waking or sleeping, the sight of the skinned, mutilated, hideous body ofthe baby who had just grown old enough to recognize him and to crow andlaugh when taken in his arms. Such incidents as these were notexceptional; one or more, and often all of them, were the invariableattendants of every one of the countless Indian inroads that took placeduring the long generations of forest warfare. It was small wonder thatmen who had thus lost every thing should sometimes be fairly crazed bytheir wrongs. Again and again on the frontier we hear of some suchunfortunate who has devoted all the remainder of his wretched life tothe one object of taking vengeance on the whole race of the men who haddarkened his days forever. Too often the squaws and pappooses fellvictims of the vengeance that should have come only on the warriors; forthe whites regarded their foes as beasts rather than men, and knew thatthe squaws were more cruel than others in torturing the prisoner, andthat the very children took their full part therein, being held up bytheir fathers to tomahawk the dying victims at the stake. [26] Thus it is that there are so many dark and bloody pages in the book ofborder warfare, that grim and iron-bound volume, wherein we read how ourforefathers won the wide lands that we inherit. It contains many a taleof fierce heroism and adventurous ambition, of the daring and resolutecourage of men and the patient endurance of women; it shows us a sternrace of freemen who toiled hard, endured greatly, and fronted adversitybravely, who prized strength and courage and good faith, whose wiveswere chaste, who were generous and loyal to their friends. But it showsus also how they spurned at restraint and fretted under it, how theywould brook no wrong to themselves, and yet too often inflicted wrong onothers; their feats of terrible prowess are interspersed with deeds ofthe foulest and most wanton aggression, the darkest treachery, the mostrevolting cruelty; and though we meet with plenty of the rough, strong, coarse virtues, we see but little of such qualities as mercy for thefallen, the weak, and the helpless, or pity for a gallant and vanquishedfoe. Among the Indians of the northwest, generally so much alike that we needpay little heed to tribal distinctions, there was one body deservingespecial and separate mention. Among the turbulent and jarring elementstossed into wild confusion by the shock of the contact between savagesand the rude vanguard of civilization, surrounded and threatened by thepainted warriors of the woods no less than by the lawless white riflemenwho lived on the stump-dotted clearings, there dwelt a group of peacefulbeings who were destined to suffer a dire fate in the most lamentableand pitiable of all the tragedies which were played out in the heart ofthis great wilderness. These were the Moravian Indians. [27] They weremostly Delawares, and had been converted by the indefatigable Germanmissionaries, who taught the tranquil, Quaker-like creed of CountZinzendorf. The zeal and success of the missionaries were attested bythe marvellous change they had wrought in these converts; for they hadtransformed them in one generation from a restless, idle, blood-thirstypeople of hunters and fishers, into an orderly, thrifty, industriousfolk, believing with all their hearts the Christian religion in the formin which their teachers both preached and practised it. At first themissionaries, surrounded by their Indian converts, dwelt inPennsylvania; but, harried and oppressed by their white neighbors, thesubmissive and patient Moravians left their homes and their cherishedbelongings, and in 1771 moved out into the wilderness northwest of theOhio. It is a bitter and unanswerable commentary on the workings of anon-resistant creed when reduced to practice, that such outrages andmassacres as those committed on these helpless Indians were morenumerous and flagrant in the colony the Quakers governed than in anyother; their vaunted policy of peace, which forbade them to play a trueman's part and put down wrong-doing, caused the utmost possible evil tofall both on the white man and the red. An avowed policy of force andfraud carried out in the most cynical manner could hardly have workedmore terrible injustice; their system was a direct incentive to crimeand wrong-doing between the races, for they punished the aggressions ofneither, and hence allowed any blow to always fall heaviest on thoseleast deserving to suffer. No other colony made such futile, contemptible efforts to deal with the Indian problem; no other colonyshowed such supine, selfish helplessness in allowing her own bordercitizens to be mercilessly harried; none other betrayed such inabilityto master the hostile Indians, while, nevertheless, utterly failing toprotect those who were peaceful and friendly. When the Moravians removed beyond the Ohio, they settled on the banks ofthe Muskingum, made clearings in the forest, and built themselves littletowns, which they christened by such quaint names as Salem andGnadenhutten; names that were pathetic symbols of the peace which theharmless and sadly submissive wanderers so vainly sought. Here, in theforest, they worked and toiled, surrounded their clean, neatly keptvillages with orchards and grain-fields, bred horses and cattle, andtried to do wrong to no man; all of each community meeting every day toworship and praise their Creator. But the missionaries who had done somuch for them had also done one thing which more than offset it all: forthey had taught them not to defend themselves, and had thus exposed thepoor beings who trusted their teaching to certain destruction. Nogreater wrong can ever be done than to put a good man at the mercy of abad, while telling him not to defend himself or his fellows; in no waycan the success of evil be made surer and quicker; but the wrong waspeculiarly great when at such a time and in such a place the defencelessIndians were thrust between the anvil of their savage red brethren andthe hammer of the lawless and brutal white borderers. The awful harvestwhich the poor converts reaped had in reality been sown for them bytheir own friends and would-be benefactors. So the Moravians, seeking to deal honestly with Indians and whitesalike, but in return suspected and despised by both, worked patientlyyear in and year out, as they dwelt in their lonely homes, meeklyawaiting the stroke of the terrible doom which hung over them. 1. See papers by Stephen D. Peet, on the northwestern tribes, readbefore the state Archaeological Society of Ohio, 1878. 2. Barton, xxv. 3. General W. H. Harrison, "Aborigines of the Ohio Valley. " Old"Tippecanoe" was the best possible authority for their courage. 4. "Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col. James Smith, "etc. , written by himself, Lexington, Ky. , 1799. Smith is our bestcontemporary authority on Indian warfare; he lived with them for severalyears, and fought them in many campaigns. Besides several editions ofthe above, he also published in 1812, at Paris, Ky. , a "Treatise" onIndian warfare, which holds much the same matter. 5. See Parkman's "Oregon Trail. " In 1884 I myself met two Delawareshunting alone, just north of the Black Hills. They were returning from atrip to the Rocky Mountains. I could not but admire their strong, manlyforms, and the disdainful resolution with which they had hunted andtravelled for so many hundred miles, in defiance of the whitefrontiersmen and of the wild native tribes as well. I think they were inmore danger from the latter than the former, but they seemed perfectlyconfident of their ability to hold their own against both. 6. See Barton, the Madison MSS. , Schoolcraft, Thos. Hutchins (whoaccompanied Bouquet), Smythe, Pike, various reports of the U. S. IndianCommissioners, etc, etc. 7. I base this number on a careful examination of the tribes namedabove, discarding such of the northern bands of the Chippewas, forinstance, as were unlikely at that time to have been drawn into war withus. 8. The expressions generally used by them in sending their war talks andpeace talks to one another or the whites. Hundreds of copies of these"talks" are preserved at Washington. 9. _Do_. 10. Smith, "Remarkable Occurrences, " etc. , p. 154. Smith gives a veryimpartial account of the Indian discipline and of their effectiveness, and is one of the few men who warred against them who did not greatlyoverestimate their numbers and losses. He was a successful Indianfighter himself. For the British regulars he had the true backwoodscontempt, although having more than the average backwoods sense inacknowledging their effectiveness in the open. He had lived so longamong the Indians, and estimated so highly their personal prowess, thathis opinion must be accepted with caution where dealing with matters ofdiscipline and command. 11. The accounts of the Indian numbers in any battle given by British orAmericans, soldiers or civilians, are ludicrously exaggerated as a rule;even now it seems a common belief of historians that the whites weregenerally outnumbered in battles, while in reality they were generallymuch more numerous than their foes. 12. Harrison (_loc. Cit. _) calls them "the finest light troops inthe world"; and he had had full experience in serving with American andagainst British infantry. 13. Any one who is fond of the chase can test the truth of thisproposition for himself, by trying how long it will take him to learn tokill a bighorn on the mountains, and how long it will take him to learnto kill white-tail deer in a dense forest, by fair still-hunting, thegame being equally plenty. I have known many novices learn to equal thebest old hunters, red or white, in killing mountain game; I have nevermet one who could begin to do as well as an Indian in the dense forest, unless brought up to it--and rarely even then. Yet, though woodcraft isharder to learn, it does not imply the possession of such valuablequalities as mountaineering; and when cragsman and woodman meet onneutral ground, the former is apt to be the better man. 14. To this day the wild--not the half-tame--Indians remain unequalledas trackers. Even among the old hunters not one white in a hundred cancome near them. In my experience I have known a very few whites who hadspent all their lives in the wilderness who equalled the Indian average;but I never met any white who came up to the very best Indian. But, because of their better shooting and their better nerve, the whitesoften make the better hunters. 15. It is curious how to this day the wild Indians retain the sametraits. I have seen and taken part in many matches between frontiersmenand the Sioux, Cheyennes, Grosventres, and Mandans, and the Indians werebeaten in almost every one. On the other hand the Indians will standfatigue, hunger, and privation better, but they seem more susceptible tocold. 16. See Parkman's "Conspiracy of Pontiac"; also "Montcalm and Wolfe. " 17. Bouquet, like so many of his predecessors and successors, greatlyexaggerated the numbers and loss of the Indians in this fight. Smith, who derived his information both from the Indians and from the Americanrangers, states that but eighteen Indians were killed at Bushy Run. 18. Most of the plains Indians feel in the same way at present. I wasonce hunting with a Sioux half-breed who illustrated the Indian view ofthe matter in a rather striking way, saying: "If there were a dozen ofyou white hunters and you found six or eight bears in the brush, and youknew you could go in and kill them all, but that in the fight you wouldcertainly lose three or four men yourselves, you wouldn't go in, wouldyou? You'd wait until you got a better chance, and could kill themwithout so much risk. Well, Indians feel the same way about attackingwhites that you would feel about attacking those bears. " 19. All the authorities from Smith to Harrison are unanimous on thispoint. 20. Any one who has ever been in an encampment of wild Indians, and hashad the misfortune to witness the delight the children take in torturinglittle animals, will admit that the Indian's love of cruelty forcruelty's sake cannot possibly be exaggerated. The young are so trainedthat when old they shall find their keenest pleasure in inflicting painin its most appalling form. Among the most brutal white borderers a manwould be instantly lynched if he practised on any creature the fiendishtorture which in an Indian camp either attracts no notice at all, orelse excites merely laughter. 21. See Appendix A. 22. Similarly the Crows, who have always been treated well by us, havemurdered and robbed any number of peaceful, unprotected travellersduring the past three decades, as I know personally. 23. It is precisely the same at the present day. I have known a party ofSioux to steal the horses of a buffalo-hunting outfit, whereupon thelatter retaliated by stealing the horses of a party of harmlessGrosventres; and I knew a party of Cheyennes, whose horses had beentaken by white thieves, to, in revenge, assail a camp of perfectlyorderly cowboys. Most of the ranchmen along the Little Missouri in 1884, were pretty good fellows, who would not wrong Indians, yet theytolerated for a long time the presence of men who did not scruple toboast that they stole horses from the latter; while our peacefulneighbors, the Grosventres, likewise permitted two notorious red-skinnedhorse thieves to use their reservation as a harbor of refuge, and astarting-point from which to make forays against the cattlemen. 24. The expression "too horrible to mention" is to be taken literally, not figuratively. It applies equally to the fate that has befallen everywhite man or woman who has fallen into the power of hostile plainsIndians during the last ten or fifteen years. The nature of the wildIndian has not changed. Not one man in a hundred, and not a singlewoman, escapes torments which a civilized man cannot look another in theface and so much as speak of. Impalement on charred stakes, finger-nailssplit off backwards, finger-joints chewed off, eyes burned out--thesetortures can be mentioned, but there are others equally normal andcustomary which cannot even be hinted at, especially when women are thevictims. 25. For the particular incident see M'Ferrin's "History of Methodism inTennessee, " p. 145. 26. As was done to the father of Simon Girty. Any history of any Indianinroad will give examples such as I have mentioned above. See McAfeeMSS. , John P. Hale's "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers, " De Haas' "Indian Wars, "Wither's "Border War, " etc. In one respect, however, the Indians east ofthe Mississippi were better than the tribes of the plains from whom ourborders have suffered during the present century; their female captiveswere not invariably ravished by every member of the band capturing them, as has ever been the custom among the horse Indians. Still, they wereoften made the concubines of their captors. 27. The missionaries called themselves United Brethren; to outsidersthey were known as Moravians. Loskiel, "History of the Mission of theUnited Brethren, " London, 1794. Heckewelder, "Narrative of the Missionof the United Brethren, " Phil. , 1820. CHAPTER V. THE BACKWOODSMEN OF THE ALLEGHANIES. 1769-1774. Along the western frontier of the colonies that were so soon to be theUnited States, among the foothills of the Alleghanies, on the slopes ofthe wooded mountains, and in the long trough-like valleys that laybetween the ranges, dwelt a peculiar and characteristically Americanpeople. These frontier folk, the people of the up-country, or back-country, wholived near and among the forest-clad mountains, far away from thelong-settled districts of flat coast plain and sluggish tidal river, were known to themselves and to others as backwoodsmen. They all bore astrong likeness to one another in their habits of thought and ways ofliving, and differed markedly from the people of the older and morecivilized communities to the eastward. The western border of our countrywas then formed by the great barrier-chains of the Alleghanies, whichran north and south from Pennsylvania through Maryland, Virginia, andthe Carolinas, [1] the trend of the valleys being parallel to thesea-coast, and the mountains rising highest to the southward. It wasdifficult to cross the ranges from east to west, but it was both easyand natural to follow the valleys between. From Fort Pitt to the highhill-homes of the Cherokees this great tract of wooded and mountainouscountry possessed nearly the same features and characteristics, differing utterly in physical aspect from the alluvial plains borderingthe ocean. So, likewise, the backwoods mountaineers who dwelt near the greatwatershed that separates the Atlantic streams from the springs of theWatauga, the Kanawha, and the Monongahela were all cast in the samemould, and resembled each other much more than any of them did theirimmediate neighbors of the plains. The backwoodsmen of Pennsylvania hadlittle in common with the peaceful population of Quakers and Germans wholived between the Delaware and the Susquehanna; and their near kinsmenof the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains were separated by anequally wide gulf from the aristocratic planter communities thatflourished in the tide-water regions of Virginia and the Carolinas. Nearthe coast the lines of division between the colonies corresponded fairlywell with the differences between the populations; but after strikingthe foothills, though the political boundaries continued to go east andwest, those both of ethnic and of physical significance began to runnorth and south. The backwoodsmen were Americans by birth and parentage, and of mixedrace; but the dominant strain in their blood was that of thePresbyterian Irish--the Scotch-Irish as they were often called. Fullcredit has been awarded the Roundhead and the Cavalier for theirleadership in our history; nor have we been altogether blind to thedeeds of the Hollander and the Huguenot; but it is doubtful if we havewholly realized the importance of the part played by that stern andvirile people, the Irish whose preachers taught the creed of Knox andCalvin. These Irish representatives of the Covenanters were in the westalmost what the Puritans were in the northeast, and more than theCavaliers were in the south. Mingled with the descendants of many otherraces, they nevertheless formed the kernel of the distinctively andintensely American stock who were the pioneers of our people in theirmarch westward, the vanguard of the army of fighting settlers, who withaxe and rifle won their way from the Alleghanies to the Rio Grande andthe Pacific. [2] The Presbyterian Irish were themselves already a mixed people. Thoughmainly descended from Scotch ancestors--who came originally from bothlowlands and highlands, from among both the Scotch Saxons and the ScotchCelts, [3]--many of them were of English, a few of French Huguenot, [4]and quite a number of true old Milesian Irish[5] extraction. They werethe Protestants of the Protestants; they detested and despised theCatholics, whom their ancestors had conquered, and regarded theEpiscopalians by whom they themselves had been oppressed, with a moresullen, but scarcely less intense, hatred. [6] They were a truculent andobstinate people, and gloried in the warlike renown of theirforefathers, the men who had followed Cromwell, and who had shared inthe defence of Derry and in the victories of the Boyne and Aughrim. [7] They did not begin to come to America in any numbers till after theopening of the eighteenth century; by 1730 they were fairly swarmingacross the ocean, for the most part in two streams, the larger going tothe port of Philadelphia, the smaller to the port of Charleston. [8]Pushing through the long settled lowlands of the seacoast, they at oncemade their abode at the foot of the mountains, and became the outpostsof civilization. From Pennsylvania, whither the great majority had come, they drifted south along the foothills, and down the long valleys, tillthey met their brethren from Charleston who had pushed up into theCarolina back-country. In this land of hills, covered by unbrokenforest, they took root and flourished, stretching in a broad belt fromnorth to south, a shield of sinewy men thrust in between the people ofthe seaboard and the red warriors of the wilderness. All through thisregion they were alike; they had as little kinship with the Cavalier aswith the Quaker; the west was won by those who have been rightly calledthe Roundheads of the south, the same men who, before any others, declared for American independence. [9] The two facts of most importance to remember in dealing with our pioneerhistory are, first, that the western portions of Virginia and theCarolinas were peopled by an entirely different stock from that whichhad long existed in the tide-water regions of those colonies; and, secondly, that, except for those in the Carolinas who came fromCharleston, the immigrants of this stock were mostly from the north, from their great breeding-ground and nursery in westernPennsylvania. [10] That these Irish Presbyterians were a bold and hardy race is proved bytheir at once pushing past the settled regions, and plunging into thewilderness as the leaders of the white advance. They were the first andlast set of immigrants to do this; all others have merely followed inthe wake of their predecessors. But, indeed, they were fitted to beAmericans from the very start; they were kinsfolk of the Covenanters;they deemed it a religious duty to interpret their own Bible, and heldfor a divine right the election of their own clergy. For generationstheir whole ecclesiastic and scholastic systems had been fundamentallydemocratic. In the hard life of the frontier they lost much of theirreligion, and they had but scant opportunity to give their children theschooling in which they believed; but what few meeting-houses andschool-houses there were on the border were theirs. [11] The numerousfamilies of colonial English who came among them adopted their religionif they adopted any. The creed of the backwoodsman who had a creed atall was Presbyterianism; for the Episcopacy of the tide-water landsobtained no foothold in the mountains, and the Methodists and Baptistshad but just begun to appear in the west when the Revolution brokeout. [12] These Presbyterian Irish were, however, far from being the only settlerson the border, although more than any others they impressed the stamp oftheir peculiar character on the pioneer civilization of the west andsouthwest. Great numbers of immigrants of English descent came amongthem from the settled districts on the east; and though these laterarrivals soon became indistinguishable from the people among whom theysettled, yet they certainly sometimes added a tone of their own tobackwoods society, giving it here and there a slight dash of what we areaccustomed to consider the distinctively southern or cavalierspirit. [13] There was likewise a large German admixture, not only fromthe Germans of Pennsylvania, but also from those of the Carolinas. [14] Agood many Huguenots likewise came, [15] and a few Hollanders[16] and evenSwedes, [17] from the banks of the Delaware, or perhaps from farther offstill. A single generation, passed under the hard conditions of life in thewilderness, was enough to weld together into one people therepresentatives of these numerous and widely different races; and thechildren of the next generation became indistinguishable from oneanother. Long before the first Continental Congress assembled, thebackwoodsmen, whatever their blood, had become Americans, one in speech, thought, and character, clutching firmly the land in which their fathersand grandfathers had lived before them. They had lost all remembrance ofEurope and all sympathy with things European; they had become asemphatically products native to the soil as were the tough and supplehickories out of which they fashioned the handles of their long, lightaxes. Their grim, harsh, narrow lives were yet strangely fascinating andfull of adventurous toil and danger; none but natures as strong, asfreedom-loving, and as full of bold defiance as theirs could haveendured existence on the terms which these men found pleasurable. Theiriron surroundings made a mould which turned out all alike in the sameshape. They resembled one another, and they differed from the rest ofthe world--even the world of America, and infinitely more the world ofEurope--in dress, in customs, and in mode of life. Where their lands abutted on the more settled districts to the eastward, the population was of course thickest, and their peculiarities least. Here and there at such points they built small backwoods burgs or towns, rude, straggling, unkempt villages, with a store or two, atavern, --sometimes good, often a "scandalous hog-sty, " where travellerswere devoured by fleas, and every one slept and ate in one room, [18]--asmall log school-house, and a little church, presided over by ahard-featured Presbyterian preacher, gloomy, earnest, and zealous, probably bigoted and narrow-minded, but nevertheless a great power forgood in the community. [19] However, the backwoodsmen as a class neither built towns nor loved todwell therein. They were to be seen at their best in the vast, interminable forests that formed their chosen home. They won and kepttheir lands by force, and ever lived either at war or in dread of war. Hence they settled always in groups of several families each, all bandedtogether for mutual protection. Their red foes were strong and terrible, cunning in council, dreadful in battle, merciless beyond belief invictory. The men of the border did not overcome and dispossess cowardsand weaklings; they marched forth to spoil the stout-hearted and to takefor a prey the possessions of the men of might. Every acre, every roodof ground which they claimed had to be cleared by the axe and held withthe rifle. Not only was the chopping down of the forest the firstpreliminary to cultivation, but it was also the surest means of subduingthe Indians, to whom the unending stretches of choked woodland were animpenetrable cover behind which to move unseen, a shield in makingassaults, and a strong tower of defence in repelling counter-attacks. Inthe conquest of the west the backwoods axe, shapely, well-poised, withlong haft and light head, was a servant hardly standing second even tothe rifle; the two were the national weapons of the Americanbackwoodsman, and in their use he has never been excelled. When a group of families moved out into the wilderness they builtthemselves a station or stockade fort; a square palisade of uprightlogs, loop-holed, with strong blockhouses as bastions at the corners. One side at least was generally formed by the backs of the cabinsthemselves, all standing in a row; and there was a great door or gate, that could be strongly barred in case of need. Often no iron whateverwas employed in any of the buildings. The square inside contained theprovision sheds and frequently a strong central blockhouse as well. These forts, of course, could not stand against cannon, and they werealways in danger when attacked with fire; but save for this risk ofburning they were very effectual defences against men without artillery, and were rarely taken, whether by whites or Indians, except by surprise. Few other buildings have played so important a part in our history asthe rough stockade fort of the backwoods. The families only lived in the fort when there was war with the Indians, and even then not in the winter. At other times they all separated outto their own farms, universally called clearings, as they were alwaysmade by first cutting off the timber. The stumps were left to dot thefields of grain and Indian corn. The corn in especial was the stand-byand invariable resource of the western settler; it was the crop on whichhe relied to feed his family, and when hunting or on a war trail theparched grains were carried in his leather wallet to serve often as hisonly food. But he planted orchards and raised melons, potatoes, and manyother fruits and vegetables as well; and he had usually a horse or two, cows, and perhaps hogs and sheep, if the wolves and bears did notinterfere. If he was poor his cabin was made of unhewn logs, and heldbut a single room; if well-to-do, the logs were neatly hewed, andbesides the large living- and eating-room with its huge stone fireplace, there was also a small bedroom and a kitchen, while a ladder led to theloft above, in which the boys slept. The floor was made of puncheons, great slabs of wood hewed carefully out, and the roof of clapboards. Pegs of wood were thrust into the sides of the house, to serve insteadof a wardrobe; and buck antlers, thrust into joists, held the ever-readyrifles. The table was a great clapboard set on four wooden legs; therewere three-legged stools, and in the better sort of houses old-fashionedrocking-chairs. [20] The couch or bed was warmly covered with blankets, bear-skins, and deer-hides. [21] These clearings lay far apart from one another in the wilderness. Up tothe door-sills of the log-huts stretched the solemn and mysteriousforest. There were no openings to break its continuity; nothing butendless leagues on leagues of shadowy, wolf-haunted woodland. The greattrees towered aloft till their separate heads were lost in the mass offoliage above, and the rank underbrush choked the spaces between thetrunks. On the higher peaks and ridge-crests of the mountains there werestraggling birches and pines, hemlocks and balsam firs;[22] elsewhere, oaks, chestnuts, hickories, maples, beeches, walnuts, and great tuliptrees grew side by side with many other kinds. The sunlight could notpenetrate the roofed archway of murmuring leaves; through the grayaisles of the forest men walked always in a kind of mid-day gloaming. Those who had lived in the open plains felt when they came to thebackwoods as if their heads were hooded. Save on the border of a lake, from a cliff top, or on a bald knob--that is, a bare hill-shoulder, --theycould not anywhere look out for any distance. All the land was shrouded in one vast forest. It covered the mountainsfrom crest to river-bed, filled the plains, and stretched in sombre andmelancholy wastes towards the Mississippi. All that it contained, allthat lay hid within it and beyond it, none could tell; men only knewthat their boldest hunters, however deeply they had penetrated, had notyet gone through it, that it was the home of the game they followed andthe wild beasts that preyed on their flocks, and that deep in itstangled depths lurked their red foes, hawk-eyed and wolf-hearted. Backwoods society was simple, and the duties and rights of each memberof the family were plain and clear. The man was the armed protector andprovider, the bread-winner; the woman was the housewife andchild-bearer. They married young and their families were large, for theywere strong and healthy, and their success in life depended on their ownstout arms and willing hearts. There was everywhere great equality ofconditions. Land was plenty and all else scarce; so courage, thrift, andindustry were sure of their reward. All had small farms, with the fewstock necessary to cultivate them; the farms being generally placed inthe hollows, the division lines between them, if they were closetogether, being the tops of the ridges and the watercourses, especiallythe former. The buildings of each farm were usually at its lowest point, as if in the centre of an amphitheatre. [23] Each was on an average ofabout 400 acres, [24] but sometimes more. [25] Tracts of low, swampygrounds, possibly some miles from the cabin, were cleared for meadows, the fodder being stacked, and hauled home in winter. Each backwoodsman was not only a small farmer but also a hunter; for hiswife and children depended for their meat upon the venison and bear'sflesh procured by his rifle. The people were restless and always on themove. After being a little while in a place, some of the men wouldsettle down permanently, while others would again drift off, farming andhunting alternately to support their families. [26] The backwoodsman'sdress was in great part borrowed from his Indian foes. He wore a fur capor felt hat, moccasins, and either loose, thin trousers, or else simplyleggings of buckskin or elk-hide, and the Indian breech-clout. He wasalways clad in the fringed hunting-shirt, of homespun or buckskin, themost picturesque and distinctively national dress ever worn in America. It was a loose smock or tunic, reaching nearly to the knees, and held inat the waist by a broad belt, from which hung the tomahawk andscalping-knife. [27] His weapon was the long, small-bore, flint-lockrifle, clumsy, and ill-balanced, but exceedingly accurate. It was veryheavy, and when upright, reached to the chin of a tall man; for thebarrel of thick, soft iron, was four feet in length, while the stock wasshort, and the butt scooped out. Sometimes it was plain, sometimesornamented. It was generally bored out--or, as the expression then was, "sawed out"--to carry a ball of seventy, more rarely of thirty or forty, to the pound; and was usually of backwoods manufacture. [28] The marksmanalmost always fired from a rest, and rarely at a very long range; andthe shooting was marvellously accurate. [29] In the backwoods there was very little money; barter was the common formof exchange, and peltries were often used as a circulating medium, abeaver, otter, fisher, dressed buckskin or large bearskin being reckonedas equal to two foxes or wildcats, four coons, or eight minks. [30] Ayoung man inherited nothing from his father but his strong frame andeager heart; but before him lay a whole continent wherein to pitch hisfarm, and he felt ready to marry as soon as he became of age, eventhough he had nothing but his clothes, his horses, his axe, and hisrifle. [31] If a girl was well off, and had been careful and industrious, she might herself bring a dowry, of a cow and a calf, a brood mare, abed well stocked with blankets, and a chest containing herclothes[32]--the latter not very elaborate, for a woman's dressconsisted of a hat or poke bonnet, a "bed gown, " perhaps a jacket, and alinsey petticoat, while her feet were thrust into coarse shoepacks ormoccasins. Fine clothes were rare; a suit of such cost more than 200acres of good land. [33] The first lesson the backwoodsmen learnt was the necessity of self-help;the next, that such a community could only thrive if all joined inhelping one another. Log-rollings, house-raisings, house-warmings, corn-shuckings, quiltings, and the like were occasions when all theneighbors came together to do what the family itself could hardlyaccomplish alone. Every such meeting was the occasion of a frolic anddance for the young people, whisky and rum being plentiful, and the hostexerting his utmost power to spread the table with backwoodsdelicacies--bear-meat and venison, vegetables from the "truck patch, "where squashes, melons, beans, and the like were grown, wild fruits, bowls of milk, and apple pies, which were the acknowledged standard ofluxury. At the better houses there was metheglin or small beer, cider, cheese, and biscuits. [34] Tea was so little known that many of thebackwoods people were not aware it was a beverage and at first attemptedto eat the leaves with salt or butter. [35] The young men prided themselves on their bodily strength, and werealways eager to contend against one another in athletic games, such aswrestling, racing, jumping, and lifting flour-barrels; and they alsosought distinction in vieing with one another at their work. Sometimesthey strove against one another singly, sometimes they divided intoparties, each bending all its energies to be first in shucking a givenheap of corn or cutting (with sickles) an allotted patch of wheat. Amongthe men the bravos or bullies often were dandies also in the backwoodsfashions, wearing their hair long and delighting in the rude finery ofhunting-shirts embroidered with porcupine quills; they were loud, boastful, and profane, given to coarsely bantering one another. Brutallysavage fights were frequent; the combatants, who were surrounded byrings of interested spectators, striking, kicking, biting, and gouging. The fall of one of them did not stop the fight, for the man who was downwas maltreated without mercy until he called "enough. " The victor alwaysbragged savagely of his prowess, often leaping on a stump, crowing andflapping his arms. This last was a thoroughly American touch; butotherwise one of these contests was less a boxing match than a kind ofbackwoods _pankration, _ no less revolting than its ancientprototype of Olympic fame. Yet, if the uncouth borderers were as brutalas the highly polished Greeks, they were more manly; defeat was notnecessarily considered disgrace, a man often fighting when he wascertain to be beaten, while the onlookers neither hooted nor pelted theconquered. We first hear of the noted scout and Indian fighter, SimonKenton, as leaving a rival for dead after one of these ferocious duels, and fleeing from his home in terror of the punishment that might followthe deed. [36] Such fights were specially frequent when the backwoodsmenwent into the little frontier towns to see horse races or fairs. A wedding was always a time of festival. If there was a church anywherenear, the bride rode thither on horseback behind her father, and afterthe service her pillion was shifted to the bridegroom's steed. [37] If, as generally happened, there was no church, the groom and his friends, all armed, rode to the house of the bride's father, plenty of whiskybeing drunk, and the men racing recklessly along the narrowbridle-paths, for there were few roads or wheeled vehicles in thebackwoods. At the bride's house the ceremony was performed, and then ahuge dinner was eaten, after which the fiddling and dancing began, andwere continued all the afternoon, and most of the night as well. A partyof girls stole off the bride and put her to bed in the loft above; and aparty of young men then performed the like service for the groom. Thefun was hearty and coarse, and the toasts always included one to theyoung couple, with the wish that they might have many big children; foras long as they could remember the backwoodsmen had lived at war, whilelooking ahead they saw no chance of its ever stopping, and so each sonwas regarded as a future warrior, a help to the whole community. [38] Theneighbors all joined again in chopping and rolling the logs for theyoung couple's future house, then in raising the house itself, andfinally in feasting and dancing at the house-warming. Funerals were simple, the dead body being carried to the grave in acoffin slung on poles and borne by four men. There was not much schooling, and few boys or girls learnt much morethan reading, writing, and ciphering up to the rule of three. [39] Wherethe school-houses existed they were only dark, mean log-huts, and if inthe southern colonies, were generally placed in the so-called "oldfields, " or abandoned farms grown up with pines. The schoolmasterboarded about with the families; his learning was rarely great, nor washis discipline good, in spite of the frequency and severity of thecanings. The price for such tuition was at the rate of twenty shillingsa year, in Pennsylvania currency. [40] Each family did every thing that could be done for itself. The fatherand sons worked with axe, hoe, and sickle. Almost every house containeda loom, and almost every woman was a weaver. Linsey-woolsey, made fromflax grown near the cabin, and of wool from the backs of the few sheep, was the warmest and most substantial cloth; and when the flax cropfailed and the flocks were destroyed by wolves, the children had butscanty covering to hide their nakedness. The man tanned the buckskin, the woman was tailor and shoemaker, and made the deerskin sifters to beused instead of bolting-cloths. There were a few pewter spoons in use;but the table furniture consisted mainly of hand-made trenchers, platters, noggins, and bowls. The cradle was of peeled hickory bark. [41]Ploughshares had to be imported, but harrows and sleds were made withoutdifficulty; and the cooper work was well done. Chaff beds were thrown onthe floor of the loft, if the house-owner was well off. Each cabin had ahand-mill and a hominy block; the last was borrowed from the Indians, and was only a large block of wood, with a hole burned in the top, as amortar, where the pestle was worked. If there were any sugar maplesaccessible, they were tapped every year. But some articles, especially salt and iron, could not be produced inthe backwoods. In order to get them each family collected during theyear all the furs possible, these being valuable and yet easily carriedon pack-horses, the sole means of transport. Then, after seeding time, in the fall, the people of a neighborhood ordinarily joined in sendingdown a train of peltry-laden pack-horses to some large sea-coast ortidal-river trading town, where their burdens were bartered for theneeded iron and salt. The unshod horses all had bells hung round theirneck; the clappers were stopped during the day, but when the train washalted for the night, and the horses were hobbled and turned loose, thebells were once more unstopped. [42] Several men accompanied each littlecaravan, and sometimes they drove with them steers and hogs to sell onthe sea-coast. A bushel of alum salt was worth a good cow and calf, andas each of the poorly fed, undersized pack animals could carry but twobushels, the mountaineers prized it greatly, and instead of salting orpickling their venison, they jerked it, by drying it in the sun orsmoking it over a fire. The life of the backwoodsmen was one long struggle. The forest had to befelled, droughts, deep snows, freshets, cloudbursts, forest fires, andall the other dangers of a wilderness life faced. Swarms of deer-flies, mosquitoes, and midges rendered life a torment in the weeks of hotweather. Rattlesnakes and copperheads were very plentiful, and, theformer especially, constant sources of danger and death. Wolves andbears were incessant and inveterate foes of the live stock, and thecougar or panther occasionally attacked man as well. [43] More terriblestill, the wolves sometimes went mad, and the men who then encounteredthem were almost certain to be bitten and to die of hydrophobia. [44] Every true backwoodsman was a hunter. Wild turkeys were plentiful. Thepigeons at times filled the woods with clouds that hid the sun and brokedown the branches on their roosting grounds as if a whirlwind hadpassed. The black and gray squirrels swarmed, devastating thecorn-fields, and at times gathering in immense companies and migratingacross mountain and river. The hunter's ordinary game was the deer, andafter that the bear; the elk was already growing uncommon. No form oflabor is harder than the chase, and none is so fascinating nor soexcellent as a training-school for war. The successful still-hunter ofnecessity possessed skill in hiding and in creeping noiselessly upon thewary quarry, as well as in imitating the notes and calls of thedifferent beasts and birds; skill in the use of the rifle and inthrowing the tomahawk he already had; and he perforce acquired keennessof eye, thorough acquaintance with woodcraft, and the power of standingthe severest strains of fatigue, hardship and exposure. He lived out inthe woods for many months with no food but meat, and no shelterwhatever, unless he made a lean-to of brush or crawled into a hollowsycamore. Such training stood the frontier folk in good stead when they werepitted against the Indians; without it they could not even have heldtheir own, and the white advance would have been absolutely checked. Ourfrontiers were pushed westward by the warlike skill and adventurouspersonal prowess of the individual settlers; regular armies bythemselves could have done little. For one square mile the regulararmies added to our domain, the settlers added ten, --a hundred wouldprobably be nearer the truth. A race of peaceful, unwarlike farmerswould have been helpless before such foes as the red Indians, and noauxiliary military force could have protected them or enabled them tomove westward. Colonists fresh from the old world, no matter howthrifty, steady-going, and industrious, could not hold their own on thefrontier; they had to settle where they were protected from the Indiansby a living barrier of bold and self-reliant American borderers. [45] Thewest would never have been settled save for the fierce courage and theeager desire to brave danger so characteristic of the stalwartbackwoodsmen. These armed hunters, woodchoppers, and farmers were their own soldiers. They built and manned their own forts; they did their own fighting undertheir own commanders. There were no regiments of regular troops alongthe frontier. [46] In the event of an Indian inroad each borderer had todefend himself until there was time for them all to gather together torepel or avenge it. Every man was accustomed to the use of arms from hischildhood; when a boy was twelve years old he was given a rifle and madea fort-soldier, with a loophole where he was to stand if the station wasattacked. The war was never-ending, for even the times of so-calledpeace were broken by forays and murders; a man might grow from babyhoodto middle age on the border, and yet never remember a year in which someone of his neighbors did not fall a victim to the Indians. There was everywhere a rude military organization, which included allthe able-bodied men of the community. Every settlement had its colonelsand captains; but these officers, both in their training and in theauthority they exercised, corresponded much more nearly to Indian chiefsthan to the regular army men whose titles they bore. They had no meanswhatever of enforcing their orders, and their tumultuous and disorderlylevies of sinewy riflemen were hardly as well disciplined as the Indiansthemselves. [47] The superior officer could advise, entreat, lead, andinfluence his men, but he could not command them, or, if he did, the menobeyed him only just so far as it suited them. If an officer planned ascout or campaign, those who thought proper accompanied him, and theothers stayed at home, and even those who went out came back if the fitseized them, or perchance followed the lead of an insubordinate juniorofficer whom they liked better than they did his superior. [48] There wasno compulsion to perform military duties beyond dread of being disgracedin the eyes of the neighbors, and there was no pecuniary reward forperforming them; nevertheless the moral sentiment of a backwoodscommunity was too robust to tolerate habitual remissness in militaryaffairs, and the coward and laggard were treated with utter scorn, andwere generally in the end either laughed out, or "hated out, " of theneighborhood, or else got rid of in a still more summary manner. Among apeople naturally brave and reckless, this public opinion acted fairlyeffectively, and there was generally but little shrinking from militaryservice. [49] A backwoods levy was formidable because of the high average courage andprowess of the individuals composing it; it was on its own ground muchmore effective than a like force of regular soldiers, but of course itcould not be trusted on a long campaign. The backwoodsmen used theirrifles better than the Indians, and also stood punishment better, butthey never matched them in surprises nor in skill in taking advantage ofcover, and very rarely equalled their discipline in the battle itself. After all, the pioneer was primarily a husbandman; the time spent inchopping trees and tilling the soil his foe spent in preparing for orpractising forest warfare, and so the former, thanks to the exercise ofthe very qualities which in the end gave him the possession of the soil, could not, as a rule, hope to rival his antagonist in the actualconflict itself. When large bodies of the red men and white bordererswere pitted against each other, the former were if any thing the morelikely to have the advantage. [50] But the whites soon copied from theIndians their system of individual and private warfare, and theyprobably caused their foes far more damage and loss in this way than inthe large expeditions. Many noted border scouts and Indianfighters--such men as Boon, Kenton, Wetzel, Brady, McCulloch, Mansker[51]--grew to overmatch their Indian foes at their own game, andheld themselves above the most renowned warriors. But these men carriedthe spirit of defiant self-reliance to such an extreme that their bestwork was always done when they were alone or in small parties of butfour or five. They made long forays after scalps and horses, going awonderful distance, enduring extreme hardship, risking the most terribleof deaths, and harrying the hostile tribes into a madness of terror andrevengeful hatred. As it was in military matters, so it was with the administration ofjustice by the frontiersmen; they had few courts, and knew but littlelaw, and yet they contrived to preserve order and morality with rougheffectiveness, by combining to frown down on the grosser misdeeds, andto punish the more flagrant misdoers. Perhaps the spirit in which theyacted can be best shown by the recital of an incident in the career ofthe three McAfee brothers, who were among the pioneer hunters ofKentucky. [52] Previous to trying to move their families out to the newcountry, they made a cache of clothing, implements, and provisions, which in their absence was broken into and plundered. They caught thethief, "a little diminutive, red-headed white man, " a runaway convictservant from one of the tide-water counties of Virginia. In the firstimpulse of anger at finding that he was the criminal, one of the McAfeesrushed at him to kill him with his tomahawk; but the weapon turned, theman was only knocked down, and his assailant's gusty anger subsided asquickly as it had risen, giving way to a desire to do stern but fairjustice. So the three captors formed themselves into a court, examinedinto the case, heard the man in his own defence, and after dueconsultation decided that "according to their opinion of the laws he hadforfeited his life, and ought to be hung"; but none of them were willingto execute the sentence in cold blood, and they ended by taking theirprisoner back to his master. The incident was characteristic in more than one way. The prompt desireof the backwoodsman to avenge his own wrong; his momentary furiousanger, speedily quelled and replaced by a dogged determination to befair but to exact full retribution; the acting entirely without regardto legal forms or legal officials, but yet in a spirit which spoke wellfor the doer's determination to uphold the essentials that make honestmen law-abiding; together with the good faith of the whole proceeding, and the amusing ignorance that it would have been in the least unlawfulto execute their own rather harsh sentence--all these were typicalfrontier traits. Some of the same traits appear in the treatmentcommonly adopted in the backwoods to meet the case--of painfullyfrequent occurrence in the times of Indian wars--where a man takenprisoner by the savages, and supposed to be murdered, returned after twoor three years' captivity, only to find his wife married again. In thewilderness a husband was almost a necessity to a woman; her surroundingsmade the loss of the protector and provider an appalling calamity; andthe widow, no matter how sincere her sorrow, soon remarried--for therewere many suitors where women were not over-plenty. If in such a casethe one thought dead returned, the neighbors and the parties interestedseem frequently to have held a sort of informal court, and to havedecided that the woman should choose either of the two men she wished tobe her husband, the other being pledged to submit to the decision andleave the settlement. Evidently no one had the least idea that there wasany legal irregularity in such proceedings. [53] The McAfees themselves and the escaped convict servant whom theycaptured typify the two prominent classes of the backwoods people. Thefrontier, in spite of the outward uniformity of means and manners, ispreeminently the place of sharp contrasts. The two extremes of society, the strongest, best, and most adventurous, and the weakest, mostshiftless, and vicious, are those which seem naturally to drift to theborder. Most of the men who came to the backwoods to hew out homes andrear families were stern, manly, and honest; but there was also a largeinflux of people drawn from the worst immigrants that perhaps ever werebrought to America--the mass of convict servants, redemptioners, and thelike, who formed such an excessively undesirable substratum to theotherwise excellent population of the tide-water regions in Virginia andthe Carolinas. [54] Many of the southern crackers or poor whites springfrom this class, which also in the backwoods gave birth to generationsof violent and hardened criminals, and to an even greater number ofshiftless, lazy, cowardly cumberers of the earth's surface. They had inmany places a permanently bad effect upon the tone of the wholecommunity. Moreover, the influence of heredity was no more plainly perceptible thanwas the extent of individual variation. If a member of a bad familywished to reform, he had every opportunity to do so; if a member of agood family had vicious propensities, there was nothing to check them. All qualities, good and bad, are intensified and accentuated in the lifeof the wilderness. The man who in civilization is merely sullen andbad-tempered becomes a murderous, treacherous ruffian when transplantedto the wilds; while, on the other hand, his cheery, quiet neighbordevelops into a hero, ready uncomplainingly to lay down his life for hisfriend. One who in an eastern city is merely a backbiter and slanderer, in the western woods lies in wait for his foe with a rifle; sharppractice in the east becomes highway robbery in the west; but at thesame time negative good-nature becomes active self-sacrifice, and ageneral belief in virtue is translated into a prompt and determined warupon vice. The ne'er-do-well of a family who in one place has his debtspaid a couple of times and is then forced to resign from his clubs andlead a cloudy but innocuous existence on a small pension, in the otherabruptly finishes his career by being hung for horse-stealing. In the backwoods the lawless led lives of abandoned wickedness; theyhated good for good's sake, and did their utmost to destroy it. Wherethe bad element was large, gangs of horse thieves, highwaymen, and othercriminals often united with the uncontrollable young men of vicioustastes who were given to gambling, fighting, and the like. They thenformed half-secret organizations, often of great extent and with wideramifications; and if they could control a community they established areign of terror, driving out both ministers and magistrates, and killingwithout scruple those who interfered with them. The good men in such acase banded themselves together as regulators and put down the wickedwith ruthless severity, by the exercise of lynch law, shooting andhanging the worst off-hand. [55] Jails were scarce in the wilderness, and often were entirely wanting ina district, which, indeed, was quite likely to lack legal officers also. If punishment was inflicted at all it was apt to be severe, and took theform of death or whipping. An impromptu jury of neighbors decided with arough and ready sense of fair play and justice what punishment the crimedemanded, and then saw to the execution of their own decree. Whippingwas the usual reward of theft. Occasionally torture was resorted to, butnot often; and to their honor be it said, the backwoodsmen werehorrified at the treatment accorded both to black slaves and to whiteconvict servants in the lowlands. [56] They were superstitious, of course, believing in witchcraft, and signsand omens; and it may be noted that their superstition showed a singularmixture of old-world survivals and of practices borrowed from thesavages or evolved by the very force of their strange surroundings. Atthe bottom they were deeply religious in their tendencies; and althoughministers and meeting-houses were rare, yet the backwoods cabins oftencontained Bibles, and the mothers used to instil into the minds of theirchildren reverence for Sunday, [57] while many even of the huntersrefused to hunt on that day. [58] Those of them who knew the righthonestly tried to live up to it, in spite of the manifold temptations tobacksliding offered by their lives of hard and fierce contention. [59]But Calvinism, though more congenial to them than Episcopacy, andinfinitely more so than Catholicism, was too cold for the fiery heartsof the borderers; they were not stirred to the depths of their naturestill other creeds, and, above all, Methodism, worked their way to thewilderness. Thus the backwoodsmen lived on the clearings they had hewed out of theeverlasting forest; a grim, stern people, strong and simple, powerfulfor good and evil, swayed by gusts of stormy passion, the love offreedom rooted in their very hearts' core. Their lives were harsh andnarrow; they gained their bread by their blood and sweat, in theunending struggle with the wild ruggedness of nature. They sufferedterrible injuries at the hands of the red men, and on their foes theywaged a terrible warfare in return. They were relentless, revengeful, suspicious, knowing neither ruth nor pity; they were also upright, resolute, and fearless, loyal to their friends, and devoted to theircountry. In spite of their many failings, they were of all men the bestfitted to conquer the wilderness and hold it against all comers. 1. Georgia was then too weak and small to contribute much to thebackwoods stock; her frontier was still in the low country. 2. Among the dozen or so most prominent backwoods pioneers of the westand southwest, the men who were the leaders in exploring and settlingthe lands, and in fighting the Indians, British, and Mexicans, thePresbyterian Irish stock furnished Andrew Jackson, Samuel Houston, DavidCrockett, James Robertson; Lewis, the leader of the backwoods hosts intheir first great victory over the northwestern Indians; and Campbell, their commander in their first great victory over the British. The otherpioneers who stand beside the above were such men as Sevier, aShenandoah Huguenot; Shelby, of Welsh blood; and Boon and Clark, both ofEnglish stock, the former from Pennsylvania, the latter from Virginia. 3. Of course, generations before they ever came to America, the McAfees, McClungs, Campbells, McCoshes, etc. , had become indistinguishable fromthe Todds, Armstrongs, Elliotts, and the like. 4. A notable instance being that of the Lewis family, of Great Kanawhafame. 5. The Blount MSS. Contain many muster-rolls and pay-rolls of thefrontier forces of North Carolina during the year 1788. In these, and inthe lists of names of settlers preserved in the Am. State Papers, PublicLands, II. , etc. , we find numerous names such as Shea, Drennan, O'Neil, O'Brien, Mahoney, Sullivan, O'Connell, Maguire, O'Donohue, --in facthardly a single Irish name is unrepresented. Of course, many of thesewere the descendants of imported Irish bondservants; but many also werefree immigrants, belonging to the Presbyterian congregations, andsometimes appearing as pastors thereof. For the numerous Irish names ofprominent pioneers (such as Donelly, Hogan, etc. ) see McClung's "WesternAdventures" (Louisville, 1879), 52, 167, 207, 308, etc. ; also DeHaas, 236, 289, etc. ; Doddridge, 16, 288, 301, etc. , etc. 6. "Sketches of North Carolina, " William Henry Foote, New York, 1846. Anexcellent book, written after much research. 7. For a few among many instances: Houston (see Lane's "Life ofHouston") had ancestors at Derry and Aughrim; the McAfees (see McAfeeMSS. ) and Irvine, one of the commanders on Crawford's expedition, weredescendants of men who fought at the Boyne ("Crawford's Campaign, " G. W. Butterfield, Cincinnati, 1873, p. 26); so with Lewis, Campbell, etc. 8. Foote, 78. 9. Witness the Mecklenburg Declaration. 10. McAfee MSS. "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers" (John P. Hale), 17. Foote, 188. See also _Columbian Magazine_, I. , 122, and Schopf, 406. Boon, Crockett, Houston, Campbell, Lewis, were among the southwestern pioneerswhose families originally came from Pennsylvania. See "Annals of AugustaCounty, Va. , " by Joseph A. Waddell, Richmond, 1888 (an excellent book), pp. 4, 276, 279, for a clear showing of the Presbyterian Irish origin ofthe West Virginians, and of the large German admixture. 11. The Irish schoolmaster was everywhere a feature of early westernsociety. 12. McAfee MSS. MS. Autobiography of Rev. Wm. Hickman, born in Virginiain 1747 (in Col. R. T. Durrett's library). "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers, "147. "History of Kentucky Baptists, " J. H. Spencer (Cincinnati, 1885) 13. Boon, though of English descent, had no Virginia blood in his veins;he was an exact type of the regular backwoodsman; but in Clark, andstill more in Blount, we see strong traces of the "cavalier spirit. " Ofcourse, the Cavaliers no more formed the bulk of the Virginia peoplethan they did of Rupert's armies; but the squires and yeomen who went tomake up the mass took their tone from their leaders. 14. Many of the most noted hunters and Indian fighters were of Germanorigin, (see "Early Times in Middle Tennessee, " John Carr, Nashville, 1859, pp. 54 and 56, for Steiner and Mansker--or Stoner and Mansco. )Such were the Wetzels, famous in border annals, who lived near Wheeling;Michael Steiner, the Steiners being the forefathers of many of thenumerous Kentucky Stoners of to-day; and Kasper Mansker, the "Mr. Mansco" of Tennessee writers. Every old western narrative contains manyallusions to "Dutchmen, " as Americans very properly call the Germans. Their names abound on the muster-rolls, pay-rolls, lists of settlers, etc. , of the day (Blount MSS. , State Department MSS. , McAfee MSS. , Am. State Papers, etc. ); but it must be remembered that they are oftenAnglicized, when nothing remains to show the origin of the owners. Wecould not recognize in Custer and Herkomer, Kuster and Herckheimer, werenot the ancestral history of the two generals already known; and in thebackwoods, a man often loses sight of his ancestors in a couple ofgenerations. In the Carolinas the Germans seem to have been almost asplentiful on the frontiers as the Irish (see Adair, 245, and Smyth's"Tour, " I. , 236). In Pennsylvania they lived nearer civilization(Schoolcraft, 3, 335, "Journey in the West in 1785, " by Lewis Brantz), although also mixed with the borderers, the more adventurous among themnaturally seeking the frontier. 15. Giving to the backwoods society such families as the Seviers andLenoirs. The Huguenots, like the Germans, frequently had their namesAnglicized. The best known and most often quoted example is that of theBlancpied family, part of whom have become Whitefoots, while the others, living on the coast, have suffered a marvellous sea-change, the namereappearing as "Blumpy. " 16. To the western American, who was not given to nice ethnicdistinctions, both German and Hollander were simply Dutchmen butoccasionally we find names like Van Meter, Van Buskirk, Van Sweanngen, which carry their origin on their faces (De Haas, 317, 319. Doddridge, 307). 17. The Scandinavian names in an unlettered community, soon becomeindistinguishable from those of the surrounding American's--Jansen, Petersen, etc. , being readily Americanized. It is therefore rarely thatthey show their parentage. Still, we now and then come across one thatis unmistakable, as Erickson, for instance (see p. 51 of Col. Reuben T. Durrett's admirable "Life and Writings of John Filson, " Louisville andCincinnati, 1884). 18. MS. Journal of Matthew Clarkson, 1766. See also "Voyage dans lesEtats-Unis, " La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Paris, L'an, VII. , I. , 104. 19. The borderers had the true Calvinistic taste in preaching. Clarkson, in his journal of his western trip, mentions with approval a sermon heheard as being "a very judicious and alarming discourse. " 20. McAfee MSS. 21. In the McAfee MSS. There is an amusing mention of the skin of a hugebull elk, killed by the father, which the youngsters christened "oldellick"; they used to quarrel for the possession of it on cold nights, as it was very warm, though if the hairside was turned in it becameslippery and apt to slide off the bed. 22. On the mountains the climate, flora, and fauna were all those of thenorth, not of the adjacent southern lowlands. The ruffed grouse, redsquirrel, snow bird, various Canadian warblers, and a peculiar speciesof boreal field-mouse, the _evotomys_, are all found as far southas the Great Smokies. 23. Doddridge's "Settlements and Indian Wars, " (133) written by aneyewitness; it is the most valuable book we have on old-time frontierways and customs. 24. The land laws differed at different times in different colonies; butthis was the usual size at the outbreak of the Revolution, of the farmsalong the western frontier, as under the laws of Virginia, thenobtaining from the Holston to the Alleghany, this amount was allottedevery settler who built a cabin or raised a crop of corn. 25. Beside the right to 400 acres, there was also a preemption right to1, 000 acres more adjoining to be secured by a land-office warrant. Asbetween themselves the settlers had what they called "tomahawk rights, "made by simply deadening a certain number of trees with a hatchet. Theywere similar to the rights conferred in the west now by what is called a"claim shack" or hut, built to hold some good piece of land; that is, they conferred no title whatever, except that sometimes men would payfor them rather than have trouble with the claimant. 26. McAfee MSS. (particularly Autobiography of Robert McAfee). 27. To this day it is worn in parts of the Rocky Mountains, and evenoccasionally, here and there, in the Alleghanies. 28. The above is the description of one of Boon's rifles, now in thepossession of Col. Durrett. According to the inscription on the barrelit was made at Louisville (Ky. ), in 1782, by M. Humble. It is perfectlyplain; whereas one of Floyd's rifles, which I have also seen, is muchmore highly finished, and with some ornamentation. 29. For the opinion of a foreign military observer on the phenomenalaccuracy of backwoods markmanship, see General Victor Collot's "Voyageen Amérique, " p. 242. 30. MS. Copy of Matthew Clarkson's Journal in 1766. 31. McAfee MSS. (Autobiography of Robert R. McAfee). 32. _Do. _ 33. Memoirs of the Hist. Soc. Of Penn. , 1826. Account of firstsettlements, etc. , by John Watson (1804). 34. _Do. _ An admirable account of what such a frolic was somethirty-five years later is to be found in Edward Eggleston's "CircuitRider. " 35. Such incidents are mentioned again and again by Watson, Milfort, Doddridge, Carr, and other writers. 36. McClung's "Western Adventures. " All eastern and European observerscomment with horror on the border brawls, especially the eye-gouging. Englishmen, of course, in true provincial spirit, complacentlycontrasted them with their own boxing fights; Frenchmen, equally ofcourse, were more struck by the resemblances than the differencesbetween the two forms of combat. Milfort gives a very amusing account ofthe "Anglo-Américains d'une espèce particulière, " whom he calls"crakeurs ou gaugeurs, " (crackers or gougers). He remarks that he foundthem "tous borgnes, " (as a result of their pleasant fashion ofeye-gouging--a backwoods bully in speaking of another would oftenthreaten to "measure the length of his eye-strings, ") and that he doubtsif there can exist in the world "des hommes plus méchants que ceshabitants. " These fights were among the numerous backwoods habits that showed Scotchrather than English ancestry. "I attempted to keep him down, in order toimprove my success, after the manner of my own country. " ("RoderickRandom"). 37. Watson. 38. Doddridge. 39. McAfee MSS. 40. Watson. 41. McAfee MSS. See also Doddridge and Watson. 42. Doddridge, 156. He gives an interesting anecdote of one man engagedin helping such a pack-train, the bell of whose horse was stolen. Thethief was recovered, and whipped as a punishment, the owner exclaimingas he laid the strokes lustily on: "Think what a rascally figure Ishould make in the streets of Baltimore without a bell on my horse. " Hehad never been out of the woods before; he naturally wished to look wellon his first appearance in civilized life, and it never occurred to himthat a good horse was left without a bell anywhere. 43. An instance of this, which happened in my mother's family, has beenmentioned elsewhere ("Hunting Trips of a Ranchman"). Even the wolvesoccasionally attacked man; Audubon gives an example. 44. Doddridge, 194. Dodge, in his "Hunting Grounds of the Great West, "gives some recent instances. Bears were sometimes dangerous to humanlife. Doddridge, 64. A slave on the plantation of my great-grandfatherin Georgia was once regularly scalped by a she-bear whom he had tried torob of her cubs, and ever after he was called, both by the other negroesand by the children on the plantation, "Bear Bob. " 45. Schopf, I. , 404. 46. The insignificant garrisons at one or two places need not be takeninto account, as they were of absolutely no effect. 47. Brantz Mayer, in "Tah-Gah-Jute, or Logan and Cresap" (Albany, 1867), ix. , speaks of the pioneers as "comparative few in numbers, " and of theIndian as "numerous, and fearing not only the superior weapons of hisfoe, but the organization and discipline which together made thecomparatively few equal to the greater number. " This sentence embodies avariety of popular misconceptions. The pioneers were more numerous thanthe Indians; the Indians were generally, at least in the northwest, aswell armed as the whites, and in military matters the Indians wereactually (see Smith's narrative, and almost all competent authorities)superior in organization and discipline to their pioneer foes. Most ofour battles against the Indians of the western woods, whether won orlost, were fought by superior numbers on our side. Individually, or insmall parties, the frontiersmen gradually grew to be a match for theIndians, man for man, at least in many cases, but this was only true oflarge bodies of them if they were commanded by some one naturally ableto control their unruly spirits. 48. As examples take Clark's last Indian campaign and the battle of BlueLicks. 49. Doddridge, 161, 185. 50. At the best such a frontier levy was composed of men of the type ofLeatherstocking, Ishmael Bush, Tom Hutter, Harry March, Bill Kirby, andAaron Thousandacres. When animated by a common and overmasteringpassion, such a body would be almost irresistible; but it could not holdtogether long, and there was generally a plentiful mixture of men lesstrained in woodcraft, and therefore useless in forest fighting, whileif, as must generally be the case in any body, there were a number ofcowards in the ranks, the total lack of discipline not only permittedthem to flinch from their work with impunity, but also allowed them, bytheir example, to infect and demoralize their braver companions. 51. Haywood, DeHaas, Withers, McClung, and other border annalists, giveinnumerable anecdotes about these and many other men, illustrating theirfeats of fierce prowess and, too often, of brutal ferocity. 52. McAfee MSS. The story is told both in the "Autobiography of RobertMcAfee, " and in the "History of the First Settlement on Salt River. " 53. Incidents of this sort are frequently mentioned. Generally the womanwent back to her first husband. "Early Times in Middle Tennessee, " JohnCarr, Nashville, 1859, p. 231. 54. See "A Short History of the English Colonies in America, " by HenryCabot Lodge (New York, 1886), for an account of these people. 55. The regulators of backwoods society corresponded exactly to thevigilantes of the western border to-day. In many of the cases of lynchlaw which have come to my knowledge the effect has been healthy for thecommunity; but sometimes great injustice is done. Generally thevigilantes, by a series of summary executions, do really good work; butI have rarely known them fail, among the men whom they killed for goodreason, to also kill one or two either by mistake or to gratify privatemalice. 56. See Doddridge. 57. McAfee MSS. 58. Doddridge. 59. Said one old Indian fighter, a Col. Joseph Brown, of Tennessee, withquaint truthfulness, "I have tried also to be a religious man, but havenot always, in a life of so much adventure and strife, been able to actconsistently. "--_Southwestern Monthly_, Nashville, 1851, I. , 80. CHAPTER VI. BOON AND THE LONG HUNTERS; AND THEIR HUNTING IN NO-MAN'S-LAND, 1769-1774. The American backwoodsmen had surged up, wave upon wave, till their masstrembled in the troughs of the Alleghanies, ready to flood the continentbeyond. The peoples threatened by them were dimly conscious of thedanger which as yet only loomed in the distance. Far off, among theirquiet adobe villages, in the sun-scorched lands by the Rio Grande, theslow Indo-Iberian peons and their monkish masters still walked in thetranquil steps of their fathers, ignorant of the growth of the powerthat was to overwhelm their children and successors; but nearer by, Spaniard and Creole Frenchman, Algonquin and Appalachian, were alluneasy as they began to feel the first faint pressure of the Americanadvance. As yet they had been shielded by the forest which lay over the land likean unrent mantle. All through the mountains, and far beyond, itstretched without a break; but towards the mouth of the Kentucky andCumberland rivers the landscape became varied with open groves ofwoodland, with flower-strewn glades and great barrens or prairies oflong grass. This region, one of the fairest in the world, was thedebatable ground between the northern and the southern Indians. Neitherdared dwell therein, [1] but both used it as their hunting-grounds; andit was traversed from end to end by the well marked war traces[2] whichthey followed when they invaded each other's territory. The whites, ontrying to break through the barrier which hemmed them in from thewestern lands, naturally succeeded best when pressing along the line ofleast resistance; and so their first great advance was made in thisdebatable land, where the uncertainly defined hunting-grounds of theCherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw marched upon those of northern Algonquinand Wyandot. Unknown and unnamed hunters and Indian traders had from time to timepushed some little way into the wilderness; and they had been followedby others of whom we do indeed know the names, but little more. Oneexplorer had found and named the Cumberland river and mountains, and thegreat pass called Cumberland Gap. [3] Others had gone far beyond theutmost limits this man had reached, and had hunted in the great bend ofthe Cumberland and in the woodland region of Kentucky, famed amongst theIndians for the abundance of the game. [4] But their accounts excited nomore than a passing interest; they came and went without comment, aslonely stragglers had come and gone for nearly a century. The backwoodscivilization crept slowly westward without being influenced in itsmovements by their explorations. [5] Finally, however, among these hunters one arose whose wanderings were tobear fruit; who was destined to lead through the wilderness the firstbody of settlers that ever established a community in the far west, completely cut off from the seaboard colonies. This was Daniel Boon. Hewas born in Pennsylvania in 1734, [6] but when only a boy had beenbrought with the rest of his family to the banks of the Yadkin in NorthCarolina. Here he grew up, and as soon as he came of age he married, built a log hut, and made a clearing, whereon to farm like the rest ofhis backwoods neighbors. They all tilled their own clearings, guidingthe plow among the charred stumps left when the trees were chopped downand the land burned over, and they were all, as a matter of course, hunters. With Boon hunting and exploration were passions, and the lonelylife of the wilderness, with its bold, wild freedom, the only existencefor which he really cared. He was a tall, spare, sinewy man, with eyeslike an eagle's, and muscles that never tired; the toil and hardship ofhis life made no impress on his iron frame, unhurt by intemperance ofany kind, and he lived for eighty-six years, a backwoods hunter to theend of his days. His thoughtful, quiet, pleasant face, so oftenportrayed, is familiar to every one; it was the face of a man who neverblustered or bullied, who would neither inflict nor suffer any wrong, and who had a limitless fund of fortitude, endurance, and indomitableresolution upon which to draw when fortune proved adverse. Hisself-command and patience, his daring, restless love of adventure, and, in time of danger, his absolute trust in his own powers and resources, all combined to render him peculiarly fitted to follow the career ofwhich he was so fond. Boon hunted on the western waters at an early date. In the valley ofBoon's Creek, a tributary of the Watauga, there is a beech tree stillstanding, on which can be faintly traced an inscription setting forththat "D. Boon cilled a bar on (this) tree in the year 1760. "[7] On theexpeditions of which this is the earliest record he was partly huntingon his own account, and partly exploring on behalf of another, RichardHenderson. Henderson was a prominent citizen of North Carolina, [8] aspeculative man of great ambition and energy. He stood high in thecolony, was extravagant and fond of display, and his fortune beingjeopardized he hoped to more than retrieve it by going into speculationsin western lands on an unheard of scale; for he intended to try toestablish on his own account a great proprietary colony beyond themountains. He had great confidence in Boon; and it was his backing whichenabled the latter to turn his discoveries to such good account. Boon's claim to distinction rests not so much on his wide wanderings inunknown lands, for in this respect he did little more than was done by ahundred other backwoods hunters of his generation, but on the fact thathe was able to turn his daring woodcraft to the advantage of hisfellows. As he himself said, he was an instrument "ordained of God tosettle the wilderness. " He inspired confidence in all who met him, [9] sothat the men of means and influence were willing to trust adventurousenterprises to his care; and his success as an explorer, his skill as ahunter, and his prowess as an Indian fighter, enabled him to bring theseenterprises to a successful conclusion, and in some degree to controlthe wild spirits associated with him. Boon's expeditions into the edges of the wilderness whetted his appetitefor the unknown. He had heard of great hunting-grounds in the farinterior from a stray hunter and Indian trader, [10] who had himself seenthem, and on May 1, 1769, he left his home on the Yadkin "to wanderthrough the wilderness of America in quest of the country ofKentucky. "[11] He was accompanied by five other men, including hisinformant, and struck out towards the northwest, through the tangledmass of rugged mountains and gloomy forests. During five weeks of severetoil the little band journeyed through vast solitudes, whose utterloneliness can with difficulty be understood by those who have notthemselves dwelt and hunted in primaeval mountain forests. Then, early inJune, the adventurers broke through the interminable wastes of dimwoodland, and stood on the threshold of the beautiful blue-grass regionof Kentucky; a land of running waters, of groves and glades, ofprairies, cane-brakes, and stretches of lofty forest. It was teemingwith game. The shaggy-maned herds of unwieldy buffalo--the bison as theyshould be called--had beaten out broad roads through the forest, and hadfurrowed the prairies with trails along which they had travelled forcountless generations. The round-horned elk, with spreading, massiveantlers, the lordliest of the deer tribe throughout the world, abounded, and like the buffalo travelled in bands not only through the woods butalso across the reaches of waving grass land. The deer wereextraordinarily numerous, and so were bears, while wolves and pantherswere plentiful. Wherever there was a salt spring the country was fairly thronged withwild beasts of many kinds. For six months Boon and his companionsenjoyed such hunting as had hardly fallen to men of their race since theGermans came out of the Hercynian forest. [12] In December, however, they were attacked by Indians. Boon and acompanion were captured; and when they escaped they found their campbroken up, and the rest of the party scattered and gone home. About thistime they were joined by Squire Boon, the brother of the great hunter, and himself a woodsman of but little less skill, together with anotheradventurer; the two had travelled through the immense wilderness, partlyto explore it and partly with the hope of finding the originaladventurers, which they finally succeeded in doing more by good luckthan design. Soon afterwards Boon's companion in his first shortcaptivity was again surprised by the Indians, and this time wasslain[13]--the first of the thousands of human beings with whoselife-blood Kentucky was bought. The attack was entirely unprovoked. TheIndians had wantonly shed the first blood. The land belonged to no onetribe, but was hunted over by all, each feeling jealous of every otherintruder; they attacked the whites, not because the whites had wrongedthem, but because their invariable policy was to kill any strangers onany grounds over which they themselves ever hunted, no matter what manhad the best right thereto. The Kentucky hunters were promptly taughtthat in this no-man's-land, teeming with game and lacking even asolitary human habitation, every Indian must be regarded as a foe. The man who had accompanied Squire Boon was terrified by the presence ofthe Indians, and now returned to the settlements. The two brothersremained alone on their hunting-grounds throughout the winter, living ina little cabin. About the first of May Squire set off alone to thesettlements to procure horses and ammunition. For three months DanielBoon remained absolutely alone in the wilderness, without salt, sugar, or flour, and without the companionship of so much as a horse or adog. [14] But the solitude-loving hunter, dauntless and self-reliant, enjoyed to the full his wild, lonely life; he passed his days huntingand exploring, wandering hither and thither over the country, while atnight he lay off in the canebrakes or thickets, without a fire, so asnot to attract the Indians. Of the latter he saw many signs, and theysometimes came to his camp, but his sleepless wariness enabled him toavoid capture. Late in July his brother returned, and met him accordingto appointment at the old camp. Other hunters also now came into theKentucky wilderness, and Boon joined a small party of them for a shorttime. Such a party of hunters is always glad to have any thing wherewithto break the irksome monotony of the long evenings passed round the campfire; and a book or a greasy pack of cards was as welcome in a camp ofKentucky riflemen in 1770 as it is to a party of Rocky Mountain huntersin 1888. Boon has recorded in his own quaint phraseology an incident ofhis life during this summer, which shows how eagerly such a little bandof frontiersmen read a book, and how real its characters became to theirminds. He was encamped with five other men on Red River, and they hadwith them for their "amusement the history of Samuel Gulliver's travels, wherein he gave an account of his young master, Glumdelick, careing[sic] him on a market day for a show to a town called Lulbegrud. " In theparty who, amid such strange surroundings, read and listened to DeanSwift's writings was a young man named Alexander Neely. One night hecame into camp with two Indian scalps, taken from a Shawnese village behad found on a creek running into the river; and he announced to thecircle of grim wilderness veterans that "he had been that day toLulbegrud, and had killed two Brobdignags in their capital. " To this daythe creek by which the two luckless Shawnees lost their lives is knownas Lulbegrud Creek. [15] Soon after this encounter the increasing danger from the Indians droveBoon back to the valley of the Cumberland River, and in the spring of1771 he returned to his home on the Yadkin. A couple of years before Boon went to Kentucky, Steiner, or Stoner, andHarrod, two hunters from Pittsburg, who had passed through the Illinois, came down to hunt in the bend of the Cumberland, where Nashville nowstands; they found vast numbers of buffalo, and killed a great many, especially around the licks, where the huge clumsy beasts had fairlydestroyed most of the forest, treading down the young trees and bushestill the ground was left bare or covered with a rich growth of clover. The bottoms and the hollows between the hills were thickset with cane. Sycamore grew in the low ground, and towards the Mississippi were to befound the persimmon and cottonwood. Sometimes the forest was open andcomposed of huge trees; elsewhere it was of thicker, smaller growth. [16]Everywhere game abounded, and it was nowhere very wary. Other hunters ofwhom we know even the names of only a few, had been through many partsof the wilderness before Boon, and earlier still Frenchmen had builtforts and smelting furnaces on the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and thehead tributaries of the Kentucky. [17] Boon is interesting as a leaderand explorer; but he is still more interesting as a type. The west wasneither discovered, won, nor settled by any single man. No keen-eyedstatesman planned the movement, nor was it carried out by any greatmilitary leader; it was the work of a whole people, of whom each man wasimpelled mainly by sheer love of adventure; it was the outcome of theceaseless strivings of all the dauntless, restless backwoods folk to winhomes for their descendants and to each penetrate deeper than hisneighbors into the remote forest hunting-grounds where the perilouspleasures of the chase and of war could be best enjoyed. We owe theconquest of the west to all the backwoodsmen, not to any solitaryindividual among them; where all alike were strong and daring there wasno chance for any single man to rise to unquestioned preeminence. In the summer of 1769 a large band of hunters[18] crossed the mountainsto make a long hunt in the western wilderness, the men clad inhunting-shirts, moccasins, and leggings, with traps, rifles, and dogs, and each bringing with him two or three horses. They made their way overthe mountains, forded or swam the rapid, timber-choked streams, and wentdown the Cumberland, till at last they broke out of the forest and cameupon great barrens of tall grass. One of their number was killed by asmall party of Indians; but they saw no signs of human habitations. Yetthey came across mounds and graves and other remains of an ancientpeople who had once lived in the land, but had died out of it long agesbefore the incoming of the white men. [19] The hunters made a permanent camp in one place, and returned to it atintervals to deposit their skins and peltries. Between times theyscattered out singly or in small bands. They hunted all through theyear, killing vast quantities of every kind of game. Most of it they gotby fair still-hunting, but some by methods we do not now considerlegitimate, such as calling up a doe by imitating the bleat of a fawn, and shooting deer from a scaffold when they came to the salt licks atnight. Nevertheless, most of the hunters did not approve of "crusting"the game--that is, of running it down on snow-shoes in the deepmid-winter snows. At the end of the year some of the adventurers returned home; others[20]went north into the Kentucky country, where they hunted for severalmonths before recrossing the mountains; while the remainder, led by anold hunter named Kasper Mansker, [21] built two boats and hollowed out oflogs two pirogues or dugouts--clumsier but tougher craft than the lightbirch-bark canoes--and started down the Cumberland. At the French Lick, where Nashville now stands, they saw enormous quantities of buffalo, elk, and other game, more than they had ever seen before in any oneplace. Some of their goods were taken by a party of Indians they met, but some French traders whom they likewise encountered, treated themwell and gave them salt, flour, tobacco, and taffia, the last beingespecially prized, as they had had no spirits for a year. They went downto Natchez, sold their furs, hides, oil, and tallow, and some returnedby sea, while others, including Mansker, came overland with a drove ofhorses that was being taken through the Indian nations to Georgia. Fromthe length of time all these men, as well as Boon and his companions, were absent, they were known as the Long Hunters, and the fame of theirhunting and exploring spread all along the border and greatly excitedthe young men. [22] In 1771 many hunters crossed over the mountains and penetrated far intothe wilderness, to work huge havoc among the herds of game. Some of themcame in bands, and others singly, and many of the mountains, lakes, rivers, and creeks of Tennessee are either called after the leadersamong these old hunters and wanderers, or else by their names perpetuatethe memory of some incident of their hunting trips. [23] Mansker himself came back, a leader among his comrades, and hunted manyyears in the woods alone or with others of his kind, and saw and didmany strange things. One winter he and those who were with him built askin house from the hides of game, and when their ammunition gave outthey left three of their number and all of their dogs at the skin houseand went to the settlements for powder and lead. When they returned theyfound that two of the men had been killed and the other chased away bythe Indians, who, however, had not found the camp. The dogs, having seenno human face for three months, were very wild, yet in a few days becameas tame and well trained as ever. They killed such enormous quantitiesof buffalo, elk, and especially deer, that they could not pack the hidesinto camp, and one of the party, during an idle moment and in a spiritof protest against fate, [24] carved on the peeled trunk of a fallenpoplar, where it long remained, the sentence: "2300 deer skins lost;ruination by God!" The soul of this thrifty hunter must have beenfurther grieved when a party of Cherokees visited their camp and tookaway all the camp utensils and five hundred hides. The whites found thebroad track they made in coming in, but could not find where they hadgone out, each wily redskin then covering his own trail, and the wholenumber apparently breaking up into several parties. Sometimes the Indians not only plundered the hunting camps but killedthe hunters as well, and the hunters retaliated in kind. Often the whitemen and red fought one another whenever they met, and displayed in theirconflicts all the cunning and merciless ferocity that made forestwarfare so dreadful. Terrible deeds of prowess were done by the mightymen on either side. It was a war of stealth and cruelty, and ceaseless, sleepless watchfulness. The contestants had sinewy frames and ironwills, keen eyes and steady hands, hearts as bold as they were ruthless. Their moccasined feet made no sound as they stole softly on the camp ofa sleeping enemy or crept to ambush him while he himself still-hunted orwaylaid the deer. A favorite stratagem was to imitate the call of game, especially the gobble of the wild turkey, and thus to lure the would-behunter to his fate. If the deceit was guessed at, the caller was himselfstalked. The men grew wonderfully expert in detecting imitation. One oldhunter, Castleman by name, was in after years fond of describing how anIndian nearly lured him to his death. It was in the dusk of the evening, when he heard the cries of two great wood owls near him. Listeningattentively, he became convinced that all was not right. "The woo-woocall and the woo-woo answer were not well timed and toned, and thebabel-chatter was a failure. More than this, they seemed to be on theground. " Creeping cautiously up, and peering through the brush, he sawsomething the height of a stump between two forked trees. It did notlook natural; he aimed, pulled trigger, and killed an Indian. Each party of Indians or whites was ever on the watch to guard againstdanger or to get the chance of taking vengeance for former wrongs. Thedark woods saw a myriad lonely fights where red warrior or white hunterfell and no friend of the fallen ever knew his fate, where his solememorial was the scalp that hung in the smoky cabin or squalid wigwam ofthe victor. The rude and fragmentary annals of the frontier are filled with thedeeds of men, of whom Mansker can be taken as a type. He was a wonderfulmarksman and woodsman, and was afterwards made a colonel of the frontiermilitia, though, being of German descent, he spoke only brokenEnglish. [25] Like most of the hunters he became specially proud of hisrifle, calling it "Nancy"; for they were very apt to know each hisfavorite weapon by some homely or endearing nickname. Every forest sightor sound was familiar to him. He knew the cries of the birds and beastsso well that no imitation could deceive him. Once he was nearly taken inby an unusually perfect imitation of a wild gobbler; but he finallybecame suspicious, and "placed" his adversary behind a large tree. Having perfect confidence in his rifle, and knowing that the Indiansrarely fired except at close range--partly because they were poor shots, partly because they loaded their guns too lightly--he made no attempt tohide. Feigning to pass to the Indian's right, the latter, as heexpected, tried to follow him; reaching an opening in a glade, Manskersuddenly wheeled and killed his foe. When hunting he made his homesometimes in a hollow tree, sometimes in a hut of buffalo hides; for thebuffalo were so plenty that once when a lick was discovered by himselfand a companion, [26] the latter, though on horseback, was nearlytrampled to death by the mad rush of a herd they surprised andstampeded. He was a famous Indian fighter; one of the earliest of his recordeddeeds has to do with an Indian adventure. He and three other men weretrapping on Sulphur Fork and Red River, in the great bend of theCumberland. Moving their camp, they came on recent traces of Indians:deer-carcases and wicker frames for stretching hides. They feared totarry longer unless they knew something of their foes, and Mansker setforth to explore, and turned towards Red River, where, from the sign, hethought to find the camp. Travelling some twenty miles, he perceived bythe sycamore trees in view that he was near the river. Advancing a fewsteps farther he suddenly found himself within eighty or ninety yards ofthe camp. He instantly slipped behind a tree to watch. There were onlytwo Indians in camp; the rest he supposed were hunting at a distance. Just as he was about to retire, one of the Indians took up a tomahawkand strolled off in the opposite direction; while the other picked uphis gun, put it on his shoulder, and walked directly towards Mansker'shiding-place. Mansker lay close, hoping that he would not be noticed;but the Indian advanced directly towards him until not fifteen pacesoff. There being no alternative, Mansker cocked his piece, and shot theIndian through the body. The Indian screamed, threw down his gun, andran towards camp; passing it he pitched headlong down the bluff, dead, into the river. The other likewise ran to camp at the sound of the shot;but Mansker outran him, reached the camp first, and picked up an old gunthat was on the ground; but the gun would not go off, and the Indianturned and escaped. Mansker broke the old gun, and returned speedily tohis comrades. The next day they all went to the spot, where they foundthe dead Indian and took away his tomahawk, knife, and bullet-bag; butthey never found his gun. The other Indian had come back, had loaded hishorses with furs, and was gone. They followed him all that day and allnight with a torch of dry cane, and could never overtake him. Findingthat there were other bands of Indians about, they then left theirhunting grounds. Towards the close of his life old Mansker, like manyanother fearless and ignorant backwoods fighter, became so muchimpressed by the fiery earnestness and zeal of the Methodists that hejoined himself to them, and became a strong and helpful prop of thecommunity whose first foundations he had helped to lay. Sometimes the hunters met Creole trappers, who sent their tallow, hides, and furs in pirogues and bateaux down the Mississippi to Natchez orOrleans, instead of having to transport them on pack-horses through theperilous forest-tracks across the mountains. They had to encounterdangers from beasts as well as men. More than once we hear of one who, in a canebrake or tangled thicket, was mangled to death by the horns andhoofs of a wounded buffalo. [27] All of the wild beasts were thencomparatively unused to contact with rifle-bearing hunters; they were, in consequence, much more ferocious and ready to attack man than atpresent. The bear were the most numerous of all, after the deer; theirchase was a favorite sport. There was just enough danger in it to makeit exciting, for though hunters were frequently bitten or clawed, theywere hardly ever killed. The wolves were generally very wary; yet inrare instances they, too, were dangerous. The panther was a much moredreaded foe, and lives were sometimes lost in hunting him; but even withthe panther, the cases where the hunter was killed were veryexceptional. The hunters were in their lives sometimes clean and straight, andsometimes immoral, with a gross and uncouth viciousness. We read of oneparty of six men and a woman, who were encountered on the CumberlandRiver; the woman acted as the wife of a man named Big John, but desertedhim for one of his companions, and when he fell sick persuaded the wholeparty to leave him in the wilderness to die of disease and starvation. Yet those who left him did not in the end fare better, for they wereambushed and cut off, when they had gone down to Natchez, apparently byIndians. At first the hunters, with their small-bore rifles, were unsuccessful inkilling buffalo. Once, when George Rogers Clark had long resided inKentucky, he and two companions discovered a camp of some fortynew-comers actually starving, though buffalo were plenty. Clark and hisfriends speedily relieved their necessities by killing fourteen of thegreat beasts; for when once the hunters had found out the knack, thebuffalo were easier slaughtered than any other game. [28] The hunters were the pioneers; but close behind them came another set ofexplorers quite as hardy and resolute. These were the surveyors. The menof chain and compass played a part in the exploration of the westscarcely inferior to that of the heroes of axe and rifle. Often, indeed, the parts were combined; Boon himself was a surveyor. [29] Vast tracts ofwestern land were continually being allotted either to actual settlersor as bounties to soldiers who had served against the French andIndians. These had to be explored and mapped and as there was much riskas well as reward in the task, it naturally proved attractive to alladventurous young men who had some education, a good deal of ambition, and not too much fortune. A great number of young men of good families, like Washington and Clark, went into the business. Soon after the returnof Boon and the Long Hunters, parties of surveyors came down theOhio, [30] mapping out its course and exploring the Kentucky lands thatlay beside it. [31] Among the hunters, surveyors, and explorers who came into the wildernessin 1773 was a band led by three young men named McAfee, --typicalbackwoodsmen, hardy, adventurous, their frontier recklessness andlicense tempered by the Calvinism they had learned in their rough loghome. They were fond of hunting, but they came to spy out the land andsee if it could be made into homes for their children; and in theirparty were several surveyors. They descended the Ohio in dugout canoes, with their rifles, blankets, tomahawks, and fishing-tackle. They metsome Shawnees and got on well with them; but while their leader wasvisiting the chief, Cornstalk, and listening to his fair speeches at histown of Old Chilicothe, the rest of the party were startled to see aband of young Shawnee braves returning from a successful foray on thesettlements, driving before them the laden pack-horses they hadstolen. [32] They explored part of Kentucky, and visited the different licks. One, long named Big Bone Lick, was famous because there were scattered aboutit in incredible quantity the gigantic remains of the extinct mastodon;the McAfees made a tent by stretching their blankets over the hugefossil ribs, and used the disjointed vertebrae as stools on which to sit. Game of many kinds thronged the spaces round the licks; herds ofbuffalo, elk, and deer, as well as bears and wolves, were all in sightat once. The ground round about some of them was trodden down so thatthere was not as much grass left as would feed a sheep; and the gametrails were like streets, or the beaten roads round a city. A littlevillage to this day recalls by its name the fact that it stands on aformer "stamping ground" of the buffalo. At one lick the explorers metwith what might have proved a serious adventure. One of the McAfees anda companion were passing round its outskirts, when some others of theparty fired at a gang of buffaloes, which stampeded directly towards thetwo. While his companion scampered up a leaning mulberry bush, McAfee, less agile, leaped behind a tree trunk, where he stood sideways till thebuffalo passed, their horns scraping off the bark on either side; thenhe looked round to see his friend "hanging in the mulberry bush like acoon. "[33] When the party left this lick they followed a buffalo trail, beaten outin the forest, "the size of the wagon road leading out of Williamsburg, "then the capital of Virginia. It crossed the Kentucky River at a rifflebelow where Frankfort now stands. Thence they started homewards acrossthe Cumberland Mountains, and suffered terribly while making their waythrough the "desolate and voiceless solitudes"; mere wastes of cliffs, crags, caverns, and steep hillsides covered with pine, laurel, andunderbrush. Twice they were literally starving and were saved in thenick of time by the killing, on the first occasion, of a big bull elk, on the next, of a small spike buck. At last, sun-scorched andrain-beaten, foot-sore and leg-weary, their thighs torn to pieces by thestout briars, [34] and their feet and hands blistered and scalded, theycame out in Powell's Valley, and followed the well-worn hunter's trailacross it. Thence it was easy to reach home, where the tale of theiradventures excited still more the young frontiersmen. Their troubles were ended for the time being; but in Powell's Valleythey met other wanderers whose toil and peril had just begun. There theyencountered the company[35] which Daniel Boon was just leading acrossthe mountains, with the hope of making a permanent settlement in fardistant Kentucky. [36] Boon had sold his farm on the Yadkin and all thegoods he could not carry with him, and in September, 1773, he startedfor Kentucky with his wife and his children; five families, and fortymen besides, went with him, driving their horses and cattle. It was thefirst attempt that was made to settle a region separated by longstretches of wilderness from the already inhabited districts; and it wasdoomed to failure. On approaching the gloomy and forbidding defiles ofthe Cumberland Mountains the party was attacked by Indians. [37] Six ofthe men, including Boon's eldest son, were slain, and the cattlescattered; and though the backwoodsmen rallied and repulsed theirassailants, yet they had suffered such loss and damage that theyretreated and took up their abode temporarily on the Clinch River. In the same year Simon Kenton, afterwards famous as a scout and Indianfighter, in company with other hunters, wandered through Kentucky. Kenton, like every one else, was astounded at the beauty and fertilityof the land and the innumerable herds of buffalo, elk, and other gamethat thronged the trampled ground around the licks. One of hiscompanions was taken by the Indians, who burned him alive. In the following year numerous parties of surveyors visited the land. One of these was headed by John Floyd, who was among the ablest of theKentucky pioneers, and afterwards played a prominent part in the youngcommonwealth, until his death at the hands of the savages. Floyd was atthe time assistant surveyor of Fincastle County; and his party went outfor the purpose of making surveys "by virtue of the Governor's warrantfor officers and soldiers on the Ohio and its waters. "[38] They started on April 9, 1774, --eight men in all, --from their homes inFincastle County. [39] They went down the Kanawha in a canoe, shootingbear and deer, and catching great pike and catfish. The first surveythey made was one of two thousand acres for "Colo. Washington"; and theymade another for Patrick Henry. On the way they encountered otherparties of surveyors, and learned that an Indian war was threatened; fora party of thirteen would-be settlers on the upper Ohio had beenattacked, but had repelled their assailants, and in consequence theShawnees had declared for war, and threatened thereafter to kill theVirginians and rob the Pennsylvanians wherever they found them. [40] Thereason for this discrimination in favor of the citizens of the QuakerState was that the Virginians with whom the Indians came chiefly incontact were settlers, whereas the Pennsylvanians were traders. Themarked difference in the way the savages looked at the two classesreceived additional emphasis in Lord Dunmore's war. At the mouth of the Kanawha[41] the adventurers found twenty or thirtymen gathered together; some had come to settle, but most wished toexplore or survey the lands. All were in high spirits, and resolute togo to Kentucky, in spite of Indian hostilities. Some of them joinedFloyd, and raised his party to eighteen men, who started down the Ohioin four canoes. [42] They found "a battoe loaded with corn, " apparentlyabandoned, and took about three bushels with them. Other parties joinedthem from time to time, as they paddled and drifted down stream; and oneor two of their own number, alarmed by further news of Indianhostilities, went back. Once they met a party of Delawares, by whom theywere not molested; and again, two or three of their number encountered acouple of hostile savages; and though no one was hurt, the party werekept on the watch all the time. They marvelled much at the greattrees--one sycamore was thirty-seven feet in circumference, --and on aSunday, which they kept as a day of rest, they examined with interestthe forest-covered embankments of a fort at the mouth of the Scioto, amemorial of the mound-builders who had vanished centuries before. When they reached the mouth of the Kentucky[43] they found two Delawaresand a squaw, to whom they gave corn and salt. Here they split up, andFloyd and his original party spent a week in the neighborhood, surveyingland, going some distance up the Kentucky to a salt lick, where they sawa herd of three hundred buffalo. [44] They then again embarked, anddrifted down the Ohio. On May 26th they met two Delawares in a canoeflying a red flag; they had been sent down the river with a pass fromthe commandant at Fort Pitt to gather their hunters and get them home, in view of the threatened hostilities between the Shawnees andVirginians. [45] The actions of the two Indians were so suspicious, andthe news they brought was so alarming, that some of Floyd's companionsbecame greatly alarmed, and wished to go straight on down theMississippi; but Floyd swore that he would finish his work unlessactually forced off. Three days afterwards they reached the Falls. Here Floyd spent a fortnight, making surveys in every direction, andthen started off to explore the land between the Salt River and theKentucky. Like the others, he carried his own pack, which consisted oflittle but his blanket and his instruments. He sometimes haddifficulties with his men; one of them refused to carry the chain oneday, and went off to hunt, got lost, and was not found for thirty-sixhours. Another time it was noticed that two of the hunters had becomesullen, and seemed anxious to leave camp. The following morning, whileon the march, the party killed an elk and halted for breakfast; but thetwo hunters walked on, and, says the journal, "we never saw them more";but whether they got back to the settlements or perished in thewilderness, none could tell. The party suffered much hardship. Floyd fell sick, and for three dayscould not travel. They gave him an "Indian sweat, " probably buildingjust such a little sweat-house as the Indians use to this day. Others oftheir number at different times fell ill; and they were ever on thewatch for Indians. In the vast forests, every sign of a human being wasthe sign of a probable enemy. Once they heard a gun, and another time asound as of a man calling to another; and on each occasion theyredoubled their caution, keeping guard as they rested, and at nightextinguishing their camp-fire and sleeping a mile or two from it. They built a bark canoe in which to cross the Kentucky, and on the 1stof July they met another party of surveyors on the banks of thatstream. [46] Two or three days afterwards, Floyd and three companionsleft the others, agreeing to meet them on August 1st, at a cabin builtby a man named Harwood, on the south side of the Kentucky, a few milesfrom the mouth of the Elkhorn. For three weeks they surveyed and hunted, enchanted with the beauty of the country. [47] They then went to thecabin, several days before the appointed time; but to their surprisefound every thing scattered over the ground, and two fires burning, while on a tree near the landing was written, "Alarmed by finding somepeople killed and we are gone down. " This left the four adventurers in abad plight, as they had but fifteen rounds of powder left, and none ofthem knew the way home. However there was no help for it, and theystarted off. [48] When they came to the mountains they found it such hardgoing that they were obliged to throw away their blankets and everything else except their rifles, hunting-shirts, leggings, and moccasins. Like the other parties of returning explorers, they found this portionof their journey extremely distressing; and they suffered much from sorefeet, and also from want of food, until they came on a gang ofbuffaloes, and killed two. At last they struck Cumberland Gap, followeda blazed trail across it to Powell's Valley, and on August 9th came tothe outlying settlements on Clinch River, where they found the settlersall in their wooden forts, because of the war with the Shawnees. [49] In this same year many different bodies of hunters and surveyors cameinto the country, drifting down the Ohio in pirogues. Some forty men ledby Harrod and Sowdowsky[50] founded Harrodsburg, where they built cabinsand sowed corn; but the Indians killed one of their number, and the restdispersed. Some returned across the mountains; but Sowdowsky and anotherwent through the woods to the Cumberland River, where they built acanoe, paddled down the muddy Mississippi between unending reaches oflonely marsh and forest, and from New Orleans took ship to Virginia. At that time, among other parties of surveyors there was one which hadbeen sent by Lord Dunmore to the Falls of the Ohio. When the war brokeout between the Shawnees and the Virginians, Lord Dunmore, being veryanxious for the fate of these surveyors, sent Boon and Stoner to pilotthem in; which the two bush veterans accordingly did, making the roundtrip of 800 miles in 64 days. The outbreak of the Indian war caused allthe hunters and surveyors to leave Kentucky; and at the end of 1774there were no whites left, either there or in what is now middleTennessee. But on the frontier all men's eyes were turned towards thesenew and fertile regions. The pioneer work of the hunter was over, andthat of the axe-bearing settler was about to begin. 1. This is true as a whole; but along the Mississippi, in the extremewest of the present Kentucky and Tennessee, the Chickasaws heldpossession. There was a Shawnee town south of the Ohio, and Cherokeevillages in southeastern Tennessee. 2. The backwoodsmen generally used "trace, " where western frontiersmenwould now say "trail. " 3. Dr. Thomas Walker, of Virginia. He named them after the Duke ofCumberland. Walker was a genuine explorer and surveyor, a man of mark asa pioneer. The journal of his trip across the Cumberland to theheadwaters of the Kentucky in 1750 has been preserved, and has just beenpublished by William Cabell Rives (Boston: Little, Brown & Co. ). It isvery interesting, and Mr. Rives has done a real service in publishingit. Walker and five companions were absent six months. He found tracesof earlier wanderers--probably hunters. One of his companions was bittenby a bear; three of the dogs were wounded by bears, and one killed by anelk; the horses were frequently bitten by rattlesnakes; once abull-buffalo threatened the whole party. They killed 13 buffaloes, 8elks, 53 bears, 20 deer, 150 turkeys and some other game. 4. Hunters and Indian traders visited portions of Kentucky and Tennesseeyears before the country became generally known even on the border. (Notto speak of the French, who had long known something of the countrywhere they had even made trading posts and built furnaces, as seeHaywood, etc. ) We know the names of a few. Those who went down the Ohio, merely landing on the Kentucky shore, do not deserve mention; the Frenchhad done as much for a century. Whites who had been captured by theIndians, were sometimes taken through Tennessee or Kentucky, as JohnSalling in 1730 and Mrs. Mary Inglis in 1756 (see "Trans-AlleghanyPioneers, " Collis, etc. ). In 1654 a certain Colonel Wood was inKentucky. The next real explorer was nearly a century later, thoughDoherty in 1690, and Adair in 1730, traded with the Cherokees in what isnow Tennessee. Walker struck the head-water of the Kentucky in 1750; hehad been to the Cumberland in 1748. He made other exploring trips. Christopher Gist went up the Kentucky in 1751. In 1756 and 1758 FortsLoudon and Chisset were built on the Tennessee head-waters, but weresoon afterwards destroyed by the Cherokees. In 1761, '62, '63 and for ayear or two afterwards a party of hunters under the lead of one Wallenhunted on the western waters, going continually farther west. In 1765Croghan made a sketch of the Ohio River. In 1766 James Smith and othersexplored Tennessee. Stoner, Harrod, and Lindsay, and a party from SouthCarolina were near the present site of Nashville in 1767, in the sameyear John Finley and others were in Kentucky, and it was Finley whofirst told Boon about it and led him thither. 5. The attempt to find out the names of the men who first saw thedifferent portions of the western country is not very profitable. Thefirst visitors were hunters, simply wandering in search of game, notwith any settled purpose of exploration. Who the individual first-comerswere, has generally been forgotten. At the most it is only possible tofind out the name of some one of several who went to a given locality. The hunters were wandering everywhere. By chance some went to places wenow consider important. By chance the names of a few of these have beenpreserved. But the credit belongs to the whole backwoods race, not tothe individual backwoodsman. 6. August 22, 1734 (according to James Parton, in his sketch of Boon). His grandfather was an English immigrant; his father had married aQuakeress. When he lived on the banks of the Delaware, the country wasstill a wilderness. He was born in Berks Co. 7. The inscription is first mentioned by Ramsey, p. 67. See Appendix C, for a letter from the Hon. John Allison, at present (1888) Secretary ofState for Tennessee, which goes to prove that the inscription has beenon the tree as long as the district has been settled. Of course itcannot be proved that the inscription is by Boon; but there is muchreason for supposing that such is the case, and little for doubting it. 8. He was by birth a Virginian, of mixed Scotch and Welsh descent. SeeCollins, II. , 336; also Ramsey. For Boon's early connection withHenderson, in 1764, see Haywood, 35. 9. Even among his foes; he is almost the only American praised byLt. -Gov. Henry Hamilton of Detroit, for instance (see _RoyalGazette_, July 15, 1780). 10. John Finley. 11. "The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon, formerly a hunter";nominally written by Boon himself, in 1784, but in reality by JohnFilson, the first Kentucky historian, --a man who did history goodservice, albeit a true sample of the small hedge-school pedant. The oldpioneer's own language would have been far better than that which Filsonused; for the latter's composition is a travesty of Johnsonese in itsmost aggravated form. For Filson see Durrett's admirable "Life" in theFilson Club Publications. 12. The Nieblung Lied tells of Siegfried's feats with bear, buffalo, elk, wolf, and deer: "Danach schlug er wieder einen Buffel und einen Elk Vier starkes Auer nieder und einen grimmen Schelk, So schnell trug ihn die Mahre, dasz ihm nichts entsprang; Hinden und Hirsche wurden viele sein Fang. ....... Ein Waldthier furchterlich, Einen wilden Baren. " Siegfried's elk was our moose; and like the American frontiersmen ofto-day, the old German singer calls the Wisent or Bison abuffalo--European sportsmen now committing an equally bad blunder bygiving it the name of the extinct aurochs. Be it observed also that thehard fighting, hard drinking, boastful hero of Nieblung fame used a"spur hund, " just as his representative of Kentucky or Tennessee used atrack hound a thousand years later. 13. His name was John Stewart. 14. His remaining absolutely alone in the wilderness for such a lengthof time is often spoken of with wonder; but here again Boon standsmerely as the backwoods type, not as an exception. To this day manyhunters in the Rockies do the same. In 1880, two men whom I knewwintered to the west of the Bighorns, 150 miles from any human beings. They had salt and flour, however; but they were nine months withoutseeing a white face. They killed elk, buffalo, and a moose; and had anarrow escape from a small Indian war party. Last winter (1887-88) anold trapper, a friend of mine in the days when he hunted buffalo, spentfive months entirely alone in the mountains north of the Flatheadcountry. 15. Deposition of Daniel Boon, September 15, 1796. Certified copy fromDeposition Book No. I, page 156, Clarke County Court, Ky. Firstpublished by Col. John Mason Brown, in "Battle of the Blue Licks, " p. 40(Frankfort, 1882). The book which these old hunters read around theircamp-fire in the Indian-haunted primaeval forest a century and a quarterago has by great good-luck been preserved, and is in Col. Durrett'slibrary at Louisville. It is entitled the "Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift, London, MDCCLXV, " and is in two small volumes. On the title-page iswritten "A. Neelly, 1770" Frontiersmen are often content with the merest printed trash; but thebetter men among them appreciate really good literature quite as much asany other class of people. In the long winter evenings they study togood purpose books as varied as Dante, Josephus, Macaulay, Longfellow, Parton's "Life of Jackson, " and the Rollo stories--to mention onlyvolumes that have been especial favorites with my own cowboys andhunters. 16. MS. Diary of Benj. Hawkins, 1796. Preserved in Nash. Historical Soc. In 1796 buffalo were scarce; but some fresh signs of them were stillseen at licks. 17. Haywood, p. 75, etc. It is a waste of time to quarrel over who firstdiscovered a particular tract of this wilderness. A great many hunterstraversed different parts at different times, from 1760 on, eachpractically exploring on his own account. We do not know the names ofmost of them; those we do know are only worth preserving in countyhistories and the like; the credit belongs to the race, not theindividual. 18. From twenty to forty. Compare Haywood and Marshall, both of whom arespeaking of the same bodies of men; Ramsey makes the mistake ofsupposing they are speaking of different parties; Haywood dwells on thefeats of those who descended the Cumberland; Marshall of those who wentto Kentucky. 19. The so-called mound builders; now generally considered to have beensimply the ancestors of the present Indian races. 20. Led by one James Knox. 21. His real name was Kasper Mansker, as his signature shows, but he wasalways spoken of as Mansco. 22. McAfee MSS. ("Autobiography of Robt. McAfee"). Sometimes the termLong Hunters was used as including Boon, Finley, and their companions, sometimes not; in the McAfee MSS. It is explicitly used in the formersense. 23. See Haywood for Clinch River, Drake's Pond, Mansco's Lick, GreasyRock, etc. , etc. 24. A hunter named Bledsoe; Collins, II. , 418. 25. Carr's "Early Times in Middle Tennessee, " pp. 52, 54, 56, etc. 26. The hunter Bledsoe mentioned in a previous note. 27. As Haywood, 81. 28. This continued to be the case until the buffalo were all destroyed. When my cattle came to the Little Missouri, in 1882, buffalo wereplenty; my men killed nearly a hundred that winter, though tending thecattle; yet an inexperienced hunter not far from us, though a hardyplainsman, killed only three in the whole time. See also Parkman's"Oregon Trail" for an instance of a party of Missouri backwoodsmen whomade a characteristic failure in an attempt on a buffalo band. 29. See Appendix. 30. An English engineer made a rude survey or table of distances of theOhio in 1766. 31. Collins states that in 1770 and 1772 Washington surveyed smalltracts in what is now northeastern Kentucky; but this is more thandoubtful. 32. All of this is taken from the McAfee MSS. , in Colonel Durrett'slibrary. 33. McAfee MSS. A similar adventure befell my brother Elliott and mycousin John Roosevelt while they were hunting buffalo on the stakedplains of Texas in 1877. 34. They evidently wore breech-clouts and leggings, not trowsers. 35. McAfee MSS. 36. Filson's "Boon. " 37. October 10, 1773, Filson's "Boon. " The McAfee MSS. Speak of meetingBoon in Powell's Valley and getting home in September; if so, it musthave been the very end of the month. 38. The account of this journey of Floyd and his companions is takenfrom a very interesting MS. Journal, kept by one of the party--ThomasHanson. It was furnished me, together with other valuable papers, through the courtesy of Mr. And Mrs. Daniel Trigg, of Abingdon, Va. , andof Dr. George Ben. Johnston, of Richmond, to whom I take thisopportunity of returning my warm thanks. 39. From the house of Col. William Preston, "at one o'clock, in highspirits. " They took the canoe at the mouth of Elk River, on the 16th. Most of the diary is, of course, taken up with notes on the characterand fertility of the lands, and memoranda of the surveys made. Especialcomment is made on a burning spring by the Kanawha, which is dubbed "oneof the wonders of the world. " 40. They received this news on April 17th, and confirmation thereof onthe 19th. The dates should be kept in mind, as they show that theShawnees had begun hostilities from a fortnight to a month beforeCresap's attack and the murder of Logan's family, which will bedescribed hereafter. 41. Which they reached on the 20th. 42. On the 22d. 43. On May 13th. 44. There were quarrels among the surveyors. The entry for May 13thruns: "Our company divided, eleven men went up to Harrad's company onehundred miles up the Cantucky or Louisa river (n. B. One Capt. Harrad hasbeen there many months building a kind of Town &c) in order to makeimprovements. This day a quarrel arose between Mr. Lee and Mr. Hyte; Leecut a Stick and gave Hyte a Whiping with it, upon which Mr. Floyddemanded the King's Peace which stopt it sooner that it would have endedif he had not been there. " 45. They said that in a skirmish the whites had killed thirteenShawnees, two Mingos, and one Delaware (this may or may not mean themassacres by Cresap and Greathouse; see, _post_, chapter on LordDunmore's War). 46. Where the journal says the land "is like a paradise, it is so goodand beautiful. " 47. The journal for July 8th says: "The Land is so good that I cannotgive it its due Praise. The undergrowth is Clover, Pea-vine, Cane &Nettles; intermingled with Rich Weed. It's timber is Honey Locust, BlackWalnut, Sugar Tree, Hickory, Iron-Wood, Hoop Wood, Mulberry, Ash and Elmand some Oak. " And later it dwells on the high limestone cliffs facingthe river on both sides. 48. On July 25th. 49. I have given the account of Floyd's journey at some length asillustrating the experience of a typical party of surveyors. The journalhas never hitherto been alluded to, and my getting hold of it was almostaccidental. There were three different kinds of explorers. Boon represents thehunters; the McAfees represent the would-be settlers; and Floyd'sparty the surveyors who mapped out the land for owners of land grants. In 1774, there were parties of each kind in Kentucky. Floyd'sexperience shows that these parties were continually meeting othersand splitting up; he started out with eight men, at one time was in abody with thirty-seven, and returned home with four. The journal is written in a singularly clear and legible hand, evidently by a man of good education. 50. The latter, from his name presumably of Sclavonic ancestry, cameoriginally from New York, always a centre of mixed nationalities. Hefounded a most respectable family, some of whom have changed their nameto Sandusky; but there seems to be no justification for their claim thatthey gave Sandusky its name, for this is almost certainly a corruptionof its old Algonquin title. "American Pioneer" (Cincinnati, 1843), II. , p. 325. CHAPTER VII. SEVIER, ROBERTSON, AND THE WATAUGA COMMONWEALTH, 1769-1774. Soon after the successful ending of the last colonial struggle withFrance, and the conquest of Canada, the British king issued aproclamation forbidding the English colonists from trespassing on Indiangrounds, or moving west of the mountains. But in 1768, at the treaty ofFort Stanwix, the Six Nations agreed to surrender to the English all thelands lying between the Ohio and the Tennessee;[1] and this treaty wasat once seized upon by the backwoodsmen as offering an excuse forsettling beyond the mountains. However, the Iroquois had ceded lands towhich they had no more right than a score or more other Indian tribes;and these latter, not having been consulted, felt at perfect liberty tomake war on the intruders. In point of fact, no one tribe or set oftribes could cede Kentucky or Tennessee, because no one tribe or set oftribes owned either. The great hunting-grounds between the Ohio and theTennessee formed a debatable land, claimed by every tribe that couldhold its own against its rivals. [2] The eastern part of what is now Tennessee consists of a greathill-strewn, forest-clad valley, running from northeast to southwest, bounded on one side by the Cumberland, and on the other by the GreatSmoky and Unaka Mountains; the latter separating it from North Carolina. In this valley arise and end the Clinch, the Holston, the Watauga, theNolichucky, the French Broad, and the other streams, whose combinedvolume makes the Tennessee River. The upper end of the valley lies insouthwestern Virginia, the head-waters of some of the rivers being wellwithin that State; and though the province was really part of NorthCarolina, it was separated therefrom by high mountain chains, while fromVirginia it was easy to follow the watercourses down the valley. Thus, as elsewhere among the mountains forming the western frontier, the firstmovements of population went parallel with, rather than across, theranges. As in western Virginia the first settlers came, for the mostpart, from Pennsylvania, so, in turn, in what was then western NorthCarolina, and is now eastern Tennessee, the first settlers came mainlyfrom Virginia, and, indeed, in great part, from this same Pennsylvanianstock. [3] Of course, in each case there was also a very considerablemovement directly westward. [4] They were a sturdy race, enterprising andintelligent, fond of the strong excitement inherent in the adventurousfrontier life. Their untamed and turbulent passions, and the lawlessfreedom of their lives, made them a population very productive of wild, headstrong characters; yet, as a whole, they were a God-fearing race, aswas but natural in those who sprang from the loins of the IrishCalvinists. Their preachers, all Presbyterians, followed close behindthe first settlers, and shared their toil and dangers; they tilled theirfields rifle in hand, and fought the Indians valorously. They felt thatthey were dispossessing the Canaanites, and were thus working the Lord'swill in preparing the land for a race which they believed was more trulyHis chosen people than was that nation which Joshua led across theJordan. They exhorted no less earnestly in the bare meeting-houses onSunday, because their hands were roughened with guiding the plow andwielding the axe on week-days; for they did not believe that beingcalled to preach the word of God absolved them from earning their livingby the sweat of their brows. The women, the wives of the settlers, wereof the same iron temper. They fearlessly fronted every danger the mendid, and they worked quite as hard. They prized the knowledge andlearning they themselves had been forced to do without; and many abackwoods woman by thrift and industry, by the sale of her butter andcheese, and the calves from her cows, enabled her husband to give hissons good schooling, and perhaps to provide for some favored member ofthe family the opportunity to secure a really first-class education. [5] The valley in which these splendid pioneers of our people settled, laydirectly in the track of the Indian marauding parties, for the great wartrail used by the Cherokees and by their northern foes ran along itswhole length. This war trail, or war trace as it was then called, was inplaces very distinct, although apparently never as well marked as weresome of the buffalo trails. It sent off a branch to Cumberland Gap, whence it ran directly north through Kentucky to the Ohio, being thereknown as the warriors' path. Along these trails the northern andsouthern Indians passed and re-passed when they went to war against eachother; and of course they were ready and eager to attack any white manwho might settle down along their course. In 1769, the year that Boon first went to Kentucky, the first permanentsettlers came to the banks of the Watauga, [6] the settlement beingmerely an enlargement of the Virginia settlement, which had for a shorttime existed on the head-waters of the Holston, especially near WolfHills. [7] At first the settlers thought they were still in the domain ofVirginia, for at that time the line marking her southern boundary hadnot been run so far west. [8] Indeed, had they not considered the land asbelonging to Virginia, they would probably not at the moment have daredto intrude farther on territory claimed by the Indians. But while thetreaty between the crown and the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix[9] hadresulted in the cession of whatever right the Six Nations had to thesouthwestern territory, another treaty was concluded about the sametime[10] with the Cherokees, by which the latter agreed to surrendertheir claims to a small portion of this country, though as a matter offact before the treaty was signed white settlers had crowded beyond thelimits allowed them. These two treaties, in the first of which one setof tribes surrendered a small portion of land, while in the second anentirely different confederacy surrendered a larger tract, which, however, included part of the first cession, are sufficient to show theabsolute confusion of the Indian land titles. But in 1771, one of the new-comers, [11] who was a practical surveyor, ran out the Virginia boundary line some distance to the westward, anddiscovered that the Watauga settlement came within the limits of NorthCarolina. Hitherto the settlers had supposed that they themselves weregoverned by the Virginian law, and that their rights as against theIndians were guaranteed by the Virginian government; but this discoverythrew them back upon their own resources. They suddenly found themselvesobliged to organize a civil government, under which they themselvesshould live, and at the same time to enter into a treaty on their ownaccount with the neighboring Indians, to whom the land they were onapparently belonged. The first need was even more pressing than the second. North Carolinawas always a turbulent and disorderly colony, unable to enforce law andjustice even in the long-settled districts; so that it was wholly out ofthe question to appeal to her for aid in governing a remote and outlyingcommunity. Moreover, about the time that the Watauga commonwealth wasfounded, the troubles in North Carolina came to a head. Open war ensuedbetween the adherents of the royal governor, Tryon, on the one hand, andthe Regulators, as the insurgents styled themselves, on the other, thestruggle ending with the overthrow of the Regulators at the battle ofthe Alamance. [12] As a consequence of these troubles, many people from the back countiesof North Carolina crossed the mountains, and took up their abode amongthe pioneers on the Watauga[13] and upper Holston; the beautiful valleyof the Nolichucky soon receiving its share of this stream ofimmigration. Among the first comers were many members of the class ofdesperate adventurers always to be found hanging round the outskirts offrontier civilization. Horse-thieves, murderers, escaped bond-servants, runaway debtors--all, in fleeing from the law, sought to find a secureasylum in the wilderness. The brutal and lawless wickedness of thesemen, whose uncouth and raw savagery was almost more repulsive than thatof city criminals, made it imperative upon the decent members of thecommunity to unite for self-protection. The desperadoes were often merehuman beasts of prey; they plundered whites and Indians impartially. They not only by their thefts and murders exasperated the Indians intoretaliating on innocent whites, but, on the other hand, they also oftendeserted their own color and went to live among the redskins, becomingtheir leaders in the worst outrages. [14] But the bulk of the settlers were men of sterling worth; fit to be thepioneer fathers of a mighty and beautiful state. They possessed thecourage that enabled them to defy outside foes, together with the rough, practical commonsense that allowed them to establish a simple buteffective form of government, so as to preserve order among themselves. To succeed in the wilderness, it was necessary to possess not onlydaring, but also patience and the capacity to endure grinding toil. Thepioneers were hunters and husbandmen. Each, by the aid of axe and brand, cleared his patch of corn land in the forest, close to some clear, swift-flowing stream, and by his skill with the rifle won from canebrakeand woodland the game on which his family lived until the first crop wasgrown. A few of the more reckless and foolhardy, and more especially of thosewho were either merely hunters and not farmers, or else who were ofdoubtful character, lived entirely by themselves; but, as a rule, eachknot of settlers was gathered together into a little stockaded hamlet, called a fort or station. This system of defensive villages was verydistinctive of pioneer backwoods life, and was unique of its kind;without it the settlement of the west and southwest would have beenindefinitely postponed. In no other way could the settlers have combinedfor defence, while yet retaining their individual ownership of the land. The Watauga forts or palisaded villages were of the usual kind, thecabins and blockhouses connected by a heavy loop-holed picket. They wereadmirably adapted for defence with the rifle. As there was no moat, there was a certain danger from an attack with fire unless water wasstored within; and it was of course necessary to guard carefully againstsurprise. But to open assault they were practically impregnable, andthey therefore offered a sure haven of refuge to the settlers in case ofan Indian inroad. In time of peace, the inhabitants moved out, to livein their isolated log-cabins and till the stump-dotted clearings. Trailsled through the dark forests from one station to another, as well as tothe settled districts beyond the mountains; and at long intervals mendrove along them bands of pack-horses, laden with the few indispensablenecessaries the settlers could not procure by their own labor. Thepack-horse was the first, and for a long time the only, method ofcarrying on trade in the backwoods; and the business of the packer wasone of the leading frontier industries. The settlers worked hard and hunted hard, and lived both plainly androughly. Their cabins were roofed with clapboards, or huge shingles, split from the log with maul and wedge, and held in place by heavystones, or by poles; the floors were made of rived puncheons, hewnsmooth on one surface; the chimney was outside the hut, made of rockwhen possible, otherwise of logs thickly plastered with clay that wasstrengthened with hogs' bristles or deer hair; in the great fire-placewas a tongue on which to hang pot-hooks and kettle; the unglazed windowhad a wooden shutter, and the door was made of great clapboards. [15] Themen made their own harness, farming implements, and domestic utensils;and, as in every other community still living in the heroic age, thesmith was a person of the utmost importance. There was but one thingthat all could have in any quantity, and that was land; each had all ofthis he wanted for the taking, --or if it was known to belong to theIndians, he got its use for a few trinkets or a flask of whisky. A fewof the settlers still kept some of the Presbyterian austerity ofcharacter, as regards amusements; but, as a rule, they were fond ofhorse-racing, drinking, dancing, and fiddling. The corn-shuckings, flax-pullings, log-rollings (when the felled timber was rolled off theclearings), house-raisings, maple-sugar-boilings, and the like werescenes of boisterous and light-hearted merriment, to which the wholeneighborhood came, for it was accounted an insult if a man was not askedin to help on such occasions, and none but a base churl would refuse hisassistance. The backwoods people had to front peril and hardship withoutstint, and they loved for the moment to leap out of the bounds of theirnarrow lives and taste the coarse pleasures that are always dear to astrong, simple, and primitive race. Yet underneath their moodiness andtheir fitful light-heartedness lay a spirit that when roused wasterrible in its ruthless and stern intensity of purpose. Such were the settlers of the Watauga, the founders of the commonwealththat grew into the State of Tennessee, who early in 1772 decided thatthey must form some kind of government that would put down wrong-doingand work equity between man and man. Two of their number already toweredhead and shoulders above the rest in importance and merit especialmention; for they were destined for the next thirty years to play thechief parts in the history of that portion of the Southwest whichlargely through their own efforts became the State of Tennessee. Thesetwo men, neither of them yet thirty years of age, were John Sevier andJames Robertson. [16] Robertson first came to the Watauga early in 1770. [17] He had then beenmarried for two years, and had been "learning his letters and to spell"from his well-educated wife; for he belonged to a backwoods family, evenpoorer than the average, and he had not so much as received therudimentary education that could be acquired at an "old-field" school. But he was a man of remarkable natural powers, above the mediumheight, [18] with wiry, robust form, light-blue eyes, fair complexion, and dark hair; his somewhat sombre face had in it a look ofself-contained strength that made it impressive; and his taciturn, quiet, masterful way of dealing with men and affairs, together with hissingular mixture of cool caution and most adventurous daring, gave himan immediate hold even upon such lawless spirits as those of the border. He was a mighty hunter; but, unlike Boon, hunting and exploration wereto him secondary affairs, and he came to examine the lands with the eyeof a pioneer settler. He intended to have a home where he could bring uphis family, and, if possible, he wished to find rich lands, with goodsprings, whereto he might lead those of his neighbors who, like himself, eagerly desired to rise in the world, and to provide for the well-beingof their children. To find such a country Robertson, then dwelling in North Carolina, decided to go across the mountains. He started off alone on hisexploring expedition, rifle in hand, and a good horse under him. Hecrossed the ranges that continue northward the Great Smokies, and spentthe summer in the beautiful hill country where the springs of thewestern waters flowed from the ground. He had never seen so lovely aland. The high valleys, through which the currents ran, were hemmed inby towering mountain walls, with cloud-capped peaks. The fertile loamforming the bottoms was densely covered with the growth of the primaevalforest, broken here and there by glade-like openings, where herds ofgame grazed on the tall, thick grass. Robertson was well treated by the few settlers, and stayed long enoughto raise a crop of corn, the stand-by of the backwoods pioneer; likeevery other hunter, explorer, Indian fighter, and wilderness wanderer, he lived on the game he shot, and the small quantity of maize he wasable to carry with him. [19] In the late fall, however, when recrossingthe mountain on his way home through the trackless forests, both gameand corn failed him. He lost his way, was forced to abandon his horseamong impassable precipices, and finally found his rifle useless owingto the powder having become soaked. For fourteen days he lived almostwholly on nuts and wild berries, and was on the point of death fromstarvation, when he met two hunters on horseback, who fed him and lethim ride their horses by turns, and brought him safely to his home. Such hardships were little more than matter-of-course incidents in alife like his; and he at once prepared to set out with his family forthe new land. His accounts greatly excited his neighbors, and sixteenfamilies made ready to accompany him. The little caravan started, underRobertson's guidance, as soon as the ground had dried after the winterrains in the spring of 1771. [20] They travelled in the usual style ofbackwoods emigrants: the men on foot, rifle on shoulder, the elderchildren driving the lean cows, while the women, the young children, andthe few household goods, and implements of husbandry, were carried onthe backs of the pack-horses; for in settling the backwoods during thelast century, the pack-horse played the same part that in the presentcentury was taken by the canvas-covered emigrant wagon, the white-topped"prairie schooner. " Once arrived at the Watauga, the Carolina new-comers mixed readily withthe few Virginians already on the ground; and Robertson speedily becameone of the leading men in the little settlement. On an island in theriver he built a house of logs with the bark still on them on theoutside, though hewed smooth within; tradition says that it was thelargest in the settlement. Certainly it belonged to the better class ofbackwoods cabins, with a loft and several rooms, a roof of splitsaplings, held down by weighty poles, a log veranda in front, and a hugefire-place, of sticks or stones laid in clay, wherein the pile ofblazing logs roared loudly in cool weather. The furniture was probablyprecisely like that in other houses of the class; a rude bed, table, settee, and chest of drawers, a spinning-jenny, and either three-leggedstools or else chairs with backs and seats of undressed deer hides. Robertson's energy and his remarkable natural ability brought him to thefront at once, in every way; although, as already said, he had much lessthan even the average backwoods education, for he could not read when hewas married, while most of the frontiersmen could not only read but alsowrite, or at least sign their names. [21] Sevier, who came to the Watauga early in 1772, nearly a year afterRobertson and his little colony had arrived, differed widely from hisfriend in almost every respect save highmindedness and dauntless, invincible courage. He was a gentleman by birth and breeding, the son ofa Huguenot who had settled in the Shenandoah Valley. He had received afair education, and though never fond of books, he was to the end of hisdays an interested and intelligent observer of men and things, both inAmerica and Europe. He corresponded on intimate and equal terms withMadison, Franklin, and others of our most polished statesmen; whileRobertson's letters, when he had finally learned to write them himself, were almost as remarkable for their phenomenally bad spelling as fortheir shrewd common-sense and homely, straightforward honesty. Sevierwas a very handsome man; during his lifetime he was reputed thehandsomest in Tennessee. He was tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, brown-haired, of slender build, with erect, military carriage andcommanding bearing, his lithe, finely proportioned figure being well setoff by the hunting-shirt which he almost invariably wore. From hisFrench forefathers he inherited a gay, pleasure-loving temperament, thatmade him the most charming of companions. His manners were polished andeasy, and he had great natural dignity. Over the backwoodsmen heexercised an almost unbounded influence, due as much to his ready tact, invariable courtesy, and lavish, generous hospitality, as to the skilland dashing prowess which made him the most renowned Indian fighter ofthe Southwest. He had an eager, impetuous nature, and was veryambitious, being almost as fond of popularity as of Indian-fighting. [22]He was already married, and the father of two children, when he came tothe Watauga, and, like Robertson, was seeking a new and better home forhis family in the west. So far, his life had been as uneventful as thatof any other spirited young borderer; his business had been that of afrontier Indian trader; he had taken part in one or two unimportantIndian skirmishes. [23] Later he was commissioned by Lord Dunmore as acaptain in the Virginia line. Such were Sevier and Robertson, the leaders in the little frontieroutpost of civilization that was struggling to maintain itself on theWatauga; and these two men afterwards proved themselves to be, with theexception of George Rogers Clark, the greatest of the first generationof Trans-Alleghany pioneers. Their followers were worthy of them. All alike were keenly alive to thedisadvantages of living in a community where there was neither law norofficer to enforce it. Accordingly, with their characteristic capacityfor combination, so striking as existing together with the equallycharacteristic capacity for individual self-help, the settlersdetermined to organize a government of their own. They promptly puttheir resolution into effect early in the spring of 1772, Robertsonbeing apparently the leader in the movement. They decided to adopt written articles of agreement, by which theirconduct should be governed; and these were known as the Articles of theWatauga Association. They formed a written constitution, the first everadopted west of the mountains, or by a community composed ofAmerican-born freemen. It is this fact of the early independence andself-government of the settlers along the head-waters of the Tennesseethat gives to their history its peculiar importance. They were the firstmen of American birth to establish a free and independent community onthe continent. Even before this date, there had been stragglingsettlements of Pennsylvanians and Virginians along the head-waters ofthe Ohio; but these settlements remained mere parts of the coloniesbehind them, and neither grew into a separate community, nor played adistinctive part in the growth of the west. The first step taken by the Watauga settlers, [24] when they haddetermined to organize, was to meet in general convention, holding akind of folk-thing, akin to the New England town-meeting. They thenelected a representative assembly, a small parliament or "witanagemot, "which met at Robertson's station. Apparently the freemen of each littlefort or palisaded village, each blockhouse that was the centre of agroup of detached cabins and clearings, sent a member to this firstfrontier legislature. [25] It consisted of thirteen representatives, whoproceeded to elect from their number five--among them Sevier andRobertson--to form a committee or court, which should carry on theactual business of government, and should exercise both judicial andexecutive functions. This court had a clerk and a sheriff, or executiveofficer, who respectively recorded and enforced their decrees. The fivemembers of this court, who are sometimes referred to as arbitrators, andsometimes as commissioners, had entire control of all matters affectingthe common weal; and all affairs in controversy were settled by thedecision of a majority. They elected one of their number as chairman, hebeing also ex-officio chairman of the committee of thirteen; and alltheir proceedings were noted for the prudence and moderation with whichthey behaved in their somewhat anomalous position. They were careful toavoid embroiling themselves with the neighboring colonial legislatures;and in dealing with non-residents they made them give bonds to abide bytheir decision, thus avoiding any necessity of proceeding against theirpersons. On behalf of the community itself, they were not only permittedto control its internal affairs, but also to secure lands by makingtreaties with a foreign power, the Indians; a distinct exercise of theright of sovereignty. They heard and adjudicated all cases of differencebetween the settlers themselves; and took measures for the commonsafety. In fact the dwellers, in this little outlying frontiercommonwealth, exercised the rights of full statehood for a number ofyears; establishing in true American style a purely democraticgovernment with representative institutions, in which, under certainrestrictions, the will of the majority was supreme, while, nevertheless, the largest individual freedom, and the utmost liberty of individualinitiative were retained. The framers showed the American predilectionfor a written constitution or civil compact; and, what was moreimportant, they also showed the common-sense American spirit that ledthem to adopt the scheme of government which should in the simplest waybest serve their needs, without bothering their heads over merehigh-sounding abstractions. [26] The court or committee held their sessions at stated and regular times, and took the law of Virginia as their standard for decisions. They sawto the recording of deeds and wills, settled all questions of debt, issued marriage licenses, and carried on a most vigorous warfare againstlawbreakers, especially horse-thieves. [27] For six years theirgovernment continued in full vigor; then, in February, 1778, NorthCarolina having organized Washington County, which included all of whatis now Tennessee, the governor of that State appointed justices of thepeace and militia officers for the new county, and the old system cameto an end. But Sevier, Robertson, and their fellow-committeemen were allmembers of the new court, and continued almost without change theirformer simple system of procedure and direct and expeditious methods ofadministering justice; as justices of the peace they merely continued toact as they acted while arbitrators of the Watauga Association, and intheir summary mode of dealing with evil-doers paid a good deal more heedto the essence than to the forms of law. One record shows that ahorse-thief was arrested on Monday, tried on Wednesday, and hung onFriday of the same week. Another deals with a claimant who, by hisattorney, moved to be sworn into his office of clerk, "but the courtswore in James Sevier, well knowing that said Sevier had been elected, "and being evidently unwilling to waste their time hearing a contestedelection case when their minds were already made up as to the equity ofthe matter. They exercised the right of making suspicious individualsleave the county. [28] They also at times became censors of morals, andinterfered with straightforward effectiveness to right wrongs for whicha more refined and elaborate system of jurisprudence would have providedonly cumbersome and inadequate remedies. Thus one of their entries is tothe effect that a certain man is ordered "to return to his family anddemean himself as a good citizen, he having admitted in open court thathe had left his wife and took up with another woman. " From the characterof the judges who made the decision, it is safe to presume that thedelinquent either obeyed it or else promptly fled to the Indians forsafety. [29] This fleeing to the Indians, by the way, was a feat oftenperformed by the worst criminals--for the renegade, the man who had"painted his face" and deserted those of his own color, was a being aswell known as he was abhorred and despised on the border, where such adeed was held to be the one unpardonable crime. So much for the way in which the whites kept order among themselves. Thesecond part of their task, the adjustment of their relations with theirred neighbors, was scarcely less important. Early in 1772 Virginia madea treaty with the Cherokee Nation, which established as the boundarybetween them a line running west from White Top Mountain in latitude 36degrees 30'. [30] Immediately afterwards the agent[31] of the BritishGovernment among the Cherokees ordered the Watauga settlers to instantlyleave their lands. They defied him, and refused to move: but feelingthe insecurity of their tenure they deputed two commissioners, ofwhom Robertson was one, to make a treaty with the Cherokees. Thiswas successfully accomplished, the Indians leasing to the associatedsettlers all the lands on the Watauga waters for the space of eightyears, in consideration of about six thousand dollars' worth ofblankets, paint, muskets, and the like. [32] The amount advanced wasreimbursed to the men advancing it by the sale of the lands in smallparcels to new settlers, [33] for the time of the lease. [34] After the lease was signed, a day was appointed on which to hold a greatrace, as well as wrestling-matches and other sports, at Watauga. Notonly many whites from the various settlements, but also a number ofIndians, came to see or take part in the sports; and all went well untilthe evening, when some lawless men from Wolf Hills, who had been lurkingin the woods round about, [35] killed an Indian, whereat his fellows leftthe spot in great anger. The settlers now saw themselves threatened with a bloody and vindictiveIndian war, and were plunged in terror and despair; yet they wererescued by the address and daring of Robertson. Leaving the others tobuild a formidable palisaded fort, under the leadership of Sevier, Robertson set off alone through the woods and followed the great wartrace down to the Cherokee towns. His mission was one of the greatestperil, for there was imminent danger that the justly angered savageswould take his life. But he was a man who never rushed heedlessly intopurposeless peril, and never flinched from a danger which there was anobject in encountering. His quiet, resolute fearlessness doubtlessimpressed the savages to whom he went, and helped to save his life;moreover, the Cherokees knew him, trusted his word, and were probably alittle overawed by a certain air of command to which all men that werethrown in contact with him bore witness. His ready tact and knowledge ofIndian character did the rest. He persuaded the chiefs and warriors tomeet him in council, assured them of the anger and sorrow with which allthe Watauga people viewed the murder, which had undoubtedly beencommitted by some outsider, and wound up by declaring his determinationto try to have the wrong-doer arrested and punished according to hiscrime. The Indians, already pleased with his embassy, finally consentedto pass the affair over and not take vengeance upon innocent men. Thenthe daring backwoods diplomatist, well pleased with the success of hismission, returned to the anxious little community. The incident, taken in connection with the plundering of a store kept bytwo whites in Holston Valley at the same time, and the unprovokedassault on Boon's party in Powell's Valley a year later, shows theextreme difficulty of preventing the worst men of each color fromwantonly attacking the innocent. There was hardly a peaceable red orlaw-abiding white who could not recite injuries he had received frommembers of the opposite race; and his sense of the wrongs he hadsuffered, as well as the general frontier indifference to crimescommitted against others, made him slow in punishing similar outrages byhis own people. The Watauga settlers discountenanced wrong being donethe Indians, and tried to atone for it, but they never hunted theoffenders down with the necessary mercilessness that alone could haveprevented a repetition of their offences. Similarly, but to an evengreater degree, the good Indians shielded the bad. [36] For several years after they made their lease with the Cherokees the menof the Watauga were not troubled by their Indian neighbors. They had tofear nothing more than a drought, a freshet, a forest fire, or anunusually deep snow-fall if hunting on the mountains in mid-winter. Theylived in peace, hunting and farming, marrying, giving in marriage, andrearing many healthy children. By degrees they wrought out of thestubborn wilderness comfortable homes, filled with plenty. The stumpswere drawn out of the clearings, and other grains were sown besidescorn. Beef, pork, and mutton were sometimes placed on the table, besidesthe more common venison, bear meat, and wild turkey. The women wove goodclothing, the men procured good food, the log-cabins, if homely andrough, yet gave ample warmth and shelter. The families throve, and lifewas happy, even though varied with toil, danger, and hardship. Bookswere few, and it was some years before the first church, --Presbyterian, of course, --was started in the region. [37] The backwoods Presbyteriansmanaged their church affairs much as they did their civil government:each congregation appointed a committee to choose ground, to build ameeting-house, to collect the minister's salary, and to pay all charges, by taxing the members proportionately for the same, the committee beingrequired to turn in a full account, and receive instructions, at ageneral session or meeting held twice every year. [38] Thus the Watauga folk were the first Americans who, as a separate body, moved into the wilderness to hew out dwellings for themselves and theirchildren, trusting only to their own shrewd heads, stout hearts, andstrong arms, unhelped and unhampered by the power nominally theirsovereign. [39] They built up a commonwealth which had many successors;they showed that the frontiersmen could do their work unassisted; forthey not only proved that they were made of stuff stern enough to holdits own against outside pressure of any sort, but they also made itevident that having won the land they were competent to govern both itand themselves. They were the first to do what the whole nation hassince done. It has often been said that we owe all our success to oursurroundings; that any race with our opportunities could have done aswell as we have done. Undoubtedly our opportunities have been great;undoubtedly we have often and lamentably failed in taking advantage ofthem. But what nation ever has done all that was possible with thechances offered it? The Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the French, notto speak of the Russians in Siberia, have all enjoyed, and yet havefailed to make good use of, the same advantages which we have turned togood account. The truth is, that in starting a new nation in a newcountry, as we have done, while there are exceptional chances to betaken advantage of, there are also exceptional dangers and difficultiesto be overcome. None but heroes can succeed wholly in the work. It is agood thing for us at times to compare what we have done with what wecould have done, had we been better and wiser; it may make us try in thefuture to raise our abilities to the level of our opportunities. Lookedat absolutely, we must frankly acknowledge that we have fallen very farshort indeed of the high ideal we should have reached. Looked atrelatively, it must also be said that we have done better than any othernation or race working under our conditions. The Watauga settlers outlined in advance the nation's work. They tamedthe rugged and shaggy wilderness, they bid defiance to outside foes, andthey successfully solved the difficult problem of self-government. 1. Then called the Cherokee. 2. Volumes could be filled--and indeed it is hardly too much to say, have been filled--with worthless "proofs" of the ownership of Iroquois, Shawnees, or Cherokees, as the case might be. In truth, it wouldprobably have been difficult to get any two members of the same tribe tohave pointed out with precision the tribal limits. Each tribe's countrywas elastic, for it included all lands from which it was deemed possibleto drive out the possessors. In 1773 the various parties of Long Huntershad just the same right to the whole of the territory in question thatthe Indians themselves had. 3. Campbell MSS. "The first settlers on Holston River were a remarkable race of peoplefor their intelligence, enterprise, and hardy adventure. The greaterportion of them had emigrated from the counties of Botetourt, Augusta, and Frederick, and others along the same valley, and from the uppercounties of Maryland and Pennsylvania were mostly descendants of Irishstock, and generally where they had any religious opinions, werePresbyterians. A very large proportion were religious, and many weremembers of the church. There were some families, however, and amongstthe most wealthy, that were extremely wild and dissipated in theirhabits. "The first clergyman that came among them was the Rev. CharlesCummings, an Irishman by birth but educated in Pennsylvania. Thisgentleman was one of the first settlers, defended his domicile foryears with his rifle in hand, and built his first meeting house on thevery spot where he and two or three neighbors and one of his servantshad had a severe skirmish with the Indians, in which one of his partywas killed and another wounded. Here he preached to a very large andmost respectable congregation for twenty or thirty years. He was azealous whig and contributed much to kindle the patriotic fire whichblazed forth among these people in the revolutionary struggle. " This is from a MS sketch of the Holston Pioneers by the Hon. DavidCampbell, a son of one of the first settlers. The Campbell family, ofPresbyterian Irish stock, first came to Pennsylvania, and driftedsouth. In the revolutionary war it produced good soldiers andcommanders, such as William and Arthur Campbell. The Campbellsintermarried with the Prestons, Breckenridges and other historicfamilies, and their blood now runs in the veins of many of the notedmen of the States south of the Potomac and Ohio. 4. The first settlers on the Watauga included both Virginians (as"Captain" William Bean, whose child was the first born in what is nowTennessee, Ramsey, 94) and Carolinians (Haywood, 37). But many of theseCarolina hill people were, like Boon and Henderson, members of familieswho had drifted down from the north. The position of the Presbyterianchurches in all this western hill country shows the origin of thatportion of the people which gave the tone to the rest, and, as we havealready seen, while some of the Presbyterians penetrated to the hillsfrom Charleston, most came down from the north. The Presbyterian bloodwas, of course, Irish or Scotch, and the numerous English from the coastregions also mingled with the two former kindred stocks, and adoptedtheir faith. The Huguenots, Hollanders, and many of the Germans being ofCalvinistic creed, readily assimilated themselves to the Presbyterians. The absence of Episcopacy on the western border, while in partindicating merely the lack of religion in the backwoods, and the naturalgrowth of dissent in such a society, also indicates that the people werenot of pure English descent, and were of different stock from those eastof them. 5. Campbell MSS. 6. For this settlement see especially "Civil and Political History ofthe State of Tennessee, " John Haywood (Knoxville, 1823), p. 37; also"Annals of Tennessee, " J. G. M. Ramsey (Charleston, 1853), p. 92, "History of Middle Tennessee, " A. W. Putnam (Nashville, 1859), p. 21, the "Address" of the Hon. John Allison to the Tennessee PressAssociation (Nashville, 1887); and the "History of Tennessee, " by JamesPhelan (Boston, 1888). 7. Now Abingdon. 8. It only went to Steep Rock. 9. November 5, 1768. 10. October 14, 1768, at Hard Labor, S. C. , confirmed by the treaty ofOctober 18, 1770, at Lockabar, S. C. Both of these treaties acknowledgedthe rights of the Cherokees to the major part of these northwesternhunting-grounds. 11. Anthony Bledson. 12. May 16, 1771. 13. It is said that the greatest proportion of the early settlers camefrom Wake County, N. C. , as did Robertson; but many of them, likeRobertson, were of Virginian birth; and the great majority were of thesame stock as the Virginian and Pennsylvanian mountaineers. Of the fivemembers of the "court" or governing committee of Watauga, three were ofVirginian birth, one came from South Carolina, and the origin of theother is not specified. Ramsey, 107. 14. In Collins, II. , 345, is an account of what may be termed a typefamily of these frontier barbarians. They were named Harpe; and there issomething revoltingly bestial in the record of their crimes; of how theytravelled through the country, the elder brother, Micajah Harpe, withtwo wives, the younger with only one; of the appalling number of murdersthey committed, for even small sums of money, of their unnaturalproposal to kill all their children, so that they should not be hamperedin their flight; of their life in the woods, like wild beasts, and theignoble ferocity of their ends. Scarcely less sombre reading is theaccount of how they were hunted down, and of the wolfish eagerness theborderers showed to massacre the women and children as well as the men. 15. In "American Pioneers, " II. , 445, is a full description of thebetter sort of backwoods log-cabin. 16. Both were born in Virginia; Sevier in Rockingham County, September23, 1745, and Robertson in Brunswick County, June 28, 1742. 17. Putnam, p. 21; who, however, is evidently in error in thinking hewas accompanied by Boon, as the latter was then in Kentucky. A recentwriter revives this error in another form, stating that Robertsonaccompanied Boon to the Watauga in 1769. Boon, however, left on histravels on May 1, 1769, and in June was in Kentucky; whereas Putnam notonly informs us definitely that Robertson went to the Watauga for thefirst time in 1770, but also mentions that when he went his eldest sonwas already born, and this event took place in June, 1769, so that it iscertain Boon and Robertson were not together. 18. The description of his looks is taken from the statements of hisdescendants, and of the grandchildren of his contemporaries. 19. The importance of maize to the western settler is shown by the factthat in our tongue it has now monopolized the title of corn. 20. Putnam, p. 24, says it was after the battle of the Great Alamance, which took place May 16, 1771. An untrustworthy tradition says March. 21. In examining numerous original drafts of petitions and the like, signed by hundreds of the original settlers of Tennessee and Kentucky, Ihave been struck by the small proportion--not much over three or fourper cent. At the outside--of men who made their mark instead ofsigning. 22. See, in the collection of the Tenn. Hist. Soc. , at Nashville, theMS. Notes containing an account of Sevier, given by one of the oldsettlers named Hillsman. Hillsman especially dwells on the skill withwhich Sevier could persuade the backwoodsmen to come round to his ownway of thinking, while at the same time making them believe that theywere acting on their own ideas, and adds--"whatever he had was at theservice of his friends and for the promotion of the Sevier party, whichsometimes embraced nearly all the population. " 23. Mr. James Gilmore (Edmund Kirke), in his "John Sevier, " makes someassertions, totally unbacked by proof, about his hero's alleged feats, when only a boy, in the wars between the Virginians and the Indians. Hegives no dates, but can only refer to Pontiac's war. Sevier was theneighteen years old, but nevertheless is portrayed, among other things, as leading "a hundred hardy borderers" into the Indian country, burningtheir villages and "often defeating bodies of five times his ownnumbers. " These statements are supported by no better authority thantraditions gathered a century and a quarter after the event and must bedismissed as mere fable. They show a total and rather amusing ignorancenot only of the conditions of Indian warfare, but also of the history ofthe particular contest referred to. Mr. Gilmore forgets that we havenumerous histories of the war in which Sevier is supposed to havedistinguished himself, and that in not one of them is there a syllablehinting at what he says. Neither Sevier nor any one else ever with ahundred men defeated "five times his number" of northwestern Indians inthe woods, and during Sevier's life in Virginia, the only defeat eversuffered by such a body of Indians was at Bushy Run, when Bouquet gaineda hard-fought victory. After the end of Pontiac's war there was noexpedition of importance undertaken by Virginians against the Indiansuntil 1774, and of Pontiac's war itself we have full knowledge. Sevierwas neither leader nor participant in any such marvellous feats as Mr. Gilmore describes, on the contrary, the skirmishes in which he may havebeen engaged were of such small importance that no record remainsconcerning them. Had Sevier done any such deeds all the colonies wouldhave rung with his exploits, instead of their remaining utterly unknownfor a hundred and twenty-five years. It is extraordinary that any authorshould be willing to put his name to such reckless misstatements, inwhat purports to be a history and not a book of fiction. 24. The Watauga settlers and those of Carter's Valley were the first toorganize; the Nolichucky people came in later. 25. Putnam, 30. 26. The original articles of the Watauga Association have been lost, andno copies are extant. All we know of the matter is derived from Haywood, Ramsey, and Putnam, three historians to whose praiseworthy industryTennessee owes as much as Kentucky does to Marshall, Butler, andCollins. Ramsey, by the way, chooses rather inappropriate adjectiveswhen he calls the government "paternal and patriarchal. " 27. A very good account of this government is given in Allison'sAddress, pp. 5-8, and from it the following examples are taken. 28. A right the exercise of which is of course susceptible to greatabuse, but, nevertheless, is often absolutely necessary to thewell-being of a frontier community. In almost every case where I havepersonally known it exercised, the character of the individual orderedoff justified the act. 29. Allison's Address. 30. Ramsey, log. Putnam says 36 degrees 35'. 31. Alexander Cameron. 32. Haywood, 43. 33. Meanwhile Carter's Valley, then believed to lie in Virginia, hadbeen settled by Virginians; the Indians robbed a trader's store, andindemnified the owners by giving them land, at the treaty of SycamoreShoals. This land was leased in job lots to settlers, who, however, keptpossession without paying when they found it lay in North Carolina. 34. A similar but separate lease was made by the settlers on theNolichucky, who acquired a beautiful and fertile valley in exchange forthe merchandize carried on the back of a single pack-horse. Among thewhites themselves transfers of land were made in very simple forms, andconveyed not the fee simple but merely the grantor's claim. 35. Haywood says they were named Crabtree; Putnam hints that they hadlost a brother when Boon's party was attacked and his son killed; butthe attack on Boon did not take place till over a year after this time. 36. Even La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (8, 95), who loathed thebackwoodsmen--few polished Europeans being able to see any but therepulsive side of frontier character, a side certainly very oftenprominent, --also speaks of the tendency of the worst Indians to go tothe frontier to rob and murder. 37. Salem Church was founded (Allison, 8) in 1777, by Samuel Doak, aPrinceton graduate, and a man of sound learning, who also at the sametime started Washington College, the first real institution of learningsouth of the Alleghanies. 38. "Annals of Augusta, " 21. 39. See Appendix. CHAPTER VIII. LORD DUNMORE'S WAR, 1774. On the eve of the Revolution, in 1774, the frontiersmen had plantedthemselves firmly among the Alleghanies. Directly west of them lay theuntenanted wilderness, traversed only by the war parties of the red men, and the hunting parties of both reds and whites. No settlers had yetpenetrated it, and until they did so there could be within its bordersno chance of race warfare, unless we call by that name the unchronicledand unending contest in which, now and then, some solitary whitewoodsman slew, or was slain by, his painted foe. But in the southwestand the northwest alike, the area of settlement already touched the homelands of the tribes, and hence the horizon was never quite free from thecloud of threatening Indian war; yet for the moment the southwest was atpeace, for the Cherokees were still friendly. It was in the northwest that the danger of collision was most imminent;for there the whites and Indians had wronged one another for ageneration, and their interests were, at the time, clashing moredirectly than ever. Much the greater part of the western frontier washeld or claimed by Virginia, whose royal governor was, at the time, LordDunmore. He was an ambitious, energetic man, who held his allegiance asbeing due first to the crown, but who, nevertheless, was always eager tochampion the cause of Virginia as against either the Indians or hersister colonies. The short but fierce and eventful struggle that nowbroke out was fought wholly by Virginians, and was generally known bythe name of Lord Dunmore's war. Virginia, under her charter, claimed that her boundaries ran across tothe South Seas, to the Pacific Ocean. The king of Britain had graciouslygranted her the right to take so much of the continent as lay withinthese lines, provided she could win it from the Indians, French, andSpaniards; and provided also she could prevent herself from being oustedby the crown, or by some of the other colonies. A number of grants hadbeen made with the like large liberality, and it was found that theysometimes conflicted with one another. The consequence was that whilethe boundaries were well marked near the coast, where they separatedVirginia from the long-settled regions of Maryland and North Carolina, they became exceeding vague and indefinite the moment they touched themountains. Even at the south this produced confusion, and induced thesettlers of the upper Holston to consider themselves as Virginians, notCarolinians; but at the north the effect was still more confusing, andnearly resulted in bringing about an intercolonial war betweenPennsylvania and Virginia. The Virginians claimed all of extreme western Pennsylvania, especiallyFort Pitt and the valley of the Monongahela, and, in 1774, proceededboldly to exercise jurisdiction therein. [1] Indeed a strong Party amongthe settlers favored the Virginian claim; whereas it would have beenquite impossible to arouse anywhere in Virginia the least feeling insupport of a similar claim on behalf of Pennsylvania. The borderers hada great contempt for the sluggish and timid government of the Quakerprovince, which was very lukewarm in protecting them in theirrights--or, indeed, in punishing them when they did wrong to others. Infact, it seems probable that they would have declared for Virginia evenmore strongly, had it not been for the very reason that their feeling ofindependence was so surly as to make them suspicious of all forms ofcontrol; and they therefore objected almost as much to Virginian asPennsylvanian rule, and regarded the outcome of the dispute with acertain indifference. [2] For a time in the early part of 1774 there seemed quite as muchlikelihood of the Virginians being drawn into a fight with thePennsylvanians as with the Shawnees. While the Pennsylvaniancommissioners were trying to come to an agreement concerning theboundaries with Lord Dunmore, the representatives of the two contestingparties at Fort Pitt were on the verge of actual collision. The Earl'sagent in the disputed territory was a Captain John Conolly, [3] a man ofviolent temper and bad character. He embodied the men favorable to hisside as a sort of Virginian militia, with which he not only menaced bothhostile and friendly Indians, but the adherents of the Pennsylvaniangovernment as well. He destroyed their houses, killed their cattle andhogs, impressed their horses, and finally so angered them that theythreatened to take refuge in the stockade at Fort Pitt, and defy him toopen war, --although even in the midst of these quarrels with Conollytheir loyalty to the Quaker State was somewhat doubtful. [4] The Virginians were the only foes the western Indians really dreaded;for their backwoodsmen were of warlike temper, and had learned to fighteffectively in the forest. The Indians styled them Long Knives; or, tobe more exact, they called them collectively the "Big Knife. "[5] Therehave been many accounts given of the origin of this name, some ascribingit to the long knives worn by the hunters and backwoodsmen generally, others to the fact that some of the noted Virginian fighters in theirearly skirmishes were armed with swords. At any rate the title wasaccepted by all the Indians as applying to their most determined foesamong the colonists; and finally, after we had become a nation, wasextended so as to apply to Americans generally. The war that now ensued was not general. The Six Nations, as a whole, took no part in it, while Pennsylvania also stood aloof; indeed at onetime it was proposed that the Pennsylvanians and Iroquois should jointlyendeavor to mediate between the combatants. [6] The struggle was purelybetween the Virginians and the northwestern Indians. The interests of the Virginians and Pennsylvanians conflicted not onlyin respect to the ownership of the land, but also in respect to thepolicy to be pursued regarding the Indians. The former were armedcolonists, whose interest it was to get actual possession of thesoil;[7] whereas in Pennsylvania the Indian trade was very important andlucrative, and the numerous traders to the Indian towns were anxiousthat the redskins should remain in undisturbed enjoyment of theirforests, and that no white man should be allowed to come among them;moreover, so long as they were able to make heavy profits, they wereutterly indifferent to the well-being of the white frontiersmen, and inreturn incurred the suspicion and hatred of the latter. The Virginiansaccused the traders of being the main cause of the difficulty, [8]asserting that they sometimes incited the Indians to outrages, andalways, even in the midst of hostilities, kept them supplied with gunsand ammunition, and even bought from them the horses that they hadstolen on their plundering expeditions against the Virginian border. [9]These last accusations were undoubtedly justified, at least in greatpart, by the facts. The interests of the white trader from Pennsylvaniaand of the white settler from Virginia were so far from being identicalthat they were usually diametrically opposite. The northwestern Indians had been nominally at peace with the whites forten years, since the close of Bouquet's campaign. But Bouquet hadinflicted a very slight punishment upon them, and in concluding anunsatisfactory peace had caused them to make but a partial reparationfor the wrongs they had done. [10] They remained haughty and insolent, irritated rather than awed by an ineffective chastisement, and theiryoung men made frequent forays on the frontier. Each of the ten years ofnominal peace saw plenty of bloodshed. Recently they had been seriouslyalarmed by the tendency of the whites to encroach on the greathunting-grounds south of the Ohio;[11] for here and there hunters orsettlers were already beginning to build cabins along the course of thatstream. The cession by the Iroquois of these same hunting-grounds, atthe treaty of Fort Stanwix, while it gave the whites a colorable title, merely angered the northwestern Indians. Half a century earlier theywould hardly have dared dispute the power of the Six Nations to do whatthey chose with any land that could be reached by their war parties; butin 1774 they felt quite able to hold their own against their oldoppressors, and had no intention of acquiescing in any arrangement thelatter might make, unless it was also clearly to their own advantage. In the decade before Lord Dunmore's war there had been much mutualwrong-doing between the northwestern Indians and the Virginianborderers; but on the whole the latter had occupied the position ofbeing sinned against more often than that of sinning. The chief offenceof the whites was that they trespassed upon uninhabited lands, whichthey forthwith proceeded to cultivate, instead of merely roaming overthem to hunt the game and butcher one another. Doubtless occasionalwhite men would murder an Indian if they got a chance, and the tradersalmost invariably cheated the tribesmen. But as a whole the traders wereIndian rather than white in their sympathies, and the whites rarely madeforays against their foes avowedly for horses and plunder, while theIndians on their side were continually indulging in such inroads. Everyyear parties of young red warriors crossed the Ohio to plunder theoutlying farms, burn down the buildings, scalp the inmates, and driveoff the horses. [12] Year by year the exasperation of the borderers grewgreater and the tale of the wrongs they had to avenge longer. [13]Occasionally they took a brutal and ill-judged vengeance, which usuallyfell on innocent Indians, [14] and raised up new foes for the whites. Thesavages grew continually more hostile, and in the fall of 1773 theirattacks became so frequent that it was evident a general outbreak was athand; eleven people were murdered in the county of Fincastle alone. [15]The Shawnees were the leaders in all these outrages; but the outlawbands, such as the Mingos and Cherokees, were as bad, and parties ofWyandots and Delawares, as well as of the various Miami and Wabashtribes, joined them. Thus the spring of 1774 opened with every thing ripe for an explosion. The Virginian borderers were fearfully exasperated, and ready to takevengeance upon any Indians, whether peaceful or hostile; while theShawnees and Mingos, on their side, were arrogant and overbearing, andyet alarmed at the continual advance of the whites. The headstrongrashness of Conolly, who was acting as Lord Dunmore's lieutenant on theborder, and who was equally willing to plunge into a war withPennsylvania or the Shawnees, served as a firebrand to ignite this massof tinder. The borderers were anxious for a war; and Lord Dunmore wasnot inclined to baulk them. He was ambitious of glory, and probablythought that in the midst of the growing difficulties between the mothercountry and the colonies, it would be good policy to distract theVirginians' minds by an Indian war, which, if he conducted it to asuccessful conclusion, might strengthen his own position. [16] There were on the border at the moment three or four men whose names areso intimately bound up with the history of this war, that they deserve abrief mention. One was Michael Cresap, a Maryland frontiersman, who hadcome to the banks of the Ohio with the purpose of making a home for hisfamily. [17] He was of the regular pioneer type; a good woodsman, sturdyand brave, a fearless fighter, devoted to his friends and his country;but also, when his blood was heated, and his savage instincts fairlyroused, inclined to regard any red man, whether hostile or friendly, asa being who should be slain on sight. Nor did he condemn the brutaldeeds done by others on innocent Indians. The next was a man named Greathouse, of whom it is enough to know that, together with certain other men whose names have for the most part, by amerciful chance, been forgotten, [18] he did a deed such as could only becommitted by inhuman and cowardly scoundrels. The other two actors in this tragedy were both Indians, and were bothmen of much higher stamp. One was Cornstalk, the Shawnee chief; afar-sighted seer, gloomily conscious of the impending ruin of his race, a great orator, a mighty warrior, a man who knew the value of his wordand prized his honor, and who fronted death with quiet, disdainfulheroism; and yet a fierce, cruel, and treacherous savage to those withwhom he was at enmity, a killer of women and children, whom we firsthear of, in Pontiac's war, as joining in the massacre of unarmed andpeaceful settlers who had done him no wrong, and who thought that he wasfriendly. [19] The other was Logan, an Iroquois warrior, who lived atthat time away from the bulk of his people, but who was a man ofnote--in the loose phraseology of the border, a chief or headman--amongthe outlying parties of Senecas and Mingos, and the fragments of brokentribes that dwelt along the upper Ohio. He was a man of splendidappearance; over six feet high, straight as a spear-shaft, with acountenance as open as it was brave and manly, [20] until the wrongs heendured stamped on it an expression of gloomy ferocity. He had alwaysbeen the friend of the white man, and had been noted particularly forhis kindness and gentleness to children. Up to this time he had lived atpeace with the borderers, for though some of his kin had been massacredby them years before, he had forgiven the deed--perhaps not unmindful ofthe fact that others of his kin had been concerned in still more bloodymassacres of the whites. A skilled marksman and mighty hunter, ofcommanding dignity, who treated all men with a grave courtesy thatexacted the same treatment in return, he was greatly liked and respectedby all the white hunters and frontiersmen whose friendship and respectwere worth having; they admired him for his dexterity and prowess, andthey loved him for his straightforward honesty, and his noble loyalty tohis friends. One of these old pioneer hunters has left on record[21] thestatement that he deemed "Logan the best specimen of humanity he evermet with, either white or red. " Such was Logan before the evil days cameupon him. Early in the spring the outlying settlers began again to suffer from thedeeds of straggling Indians. Horses were stolen, one or two murders werecommitted, the inhabitants of the more lonely cabins fled to the forts, and the backwoodsmen began to threaten fierce vengeance. On April 16th, three traders in the employ of a man named Butler were attacked by someof the outlaw Cherokees, one killed, another wounded, and their goodsplundered. Immediately after this Conolly issued an open letter, commanding the backwoodsmen to hold themselves in readiness to repel anyattack by the Indians, as the Shawnees were hostile. Such a letter fromLord Dunmore's lieutenant amounted to a declaration of war, and therewere sure to be plenty of backwoodsmen who would put a very liberalinterpretation upon the order given them to repel an attack. Its effectswere seen instantly. All the borderers prepared for war. Cresap was nearWheeling at the time, with a band of hunters and scouts, fearless men, who had adopted many of the ways of the redskins, in addition to theirmethod of fighting. As soon as they received Conolly's letter theyproceeded to declare war in the regular Indian style, calling a council, planting the war-post, and going through other savage ceremonies, [22]and eagerly waited for a chance to attack their foes. Unfortunately the first stroke fell on friendly Indians. The trader, Butler, spoken of above, in order to recover some of the peltries ofwhich he had been robbed by the Cherokees, had sent a canoe with twofriendly Shawnees towards the place of the massacre. On the 27th Cresapand his followers ambushed these men near Captina, and killed andscalped them. Some of the better backwoodsmen strongly protested againstthis outrage;[23] but the mass of them were excited and angered by therumor of Indian hostilities, and the brutal and disorderly side offrontier character was for the moment uppermost. They threatened to killwhoever interfered with them, cursing the "damned traders" as beingworse than the Indians, [24] while Cresap boasted of the murder, andnever said a word in condemnation of the still worse deeds that followedit. [25] The next day he again led out his men and attacked another partyof Shawnees, who had been trading near Pittsburg, killed one and woundedtwo others, one of the whites being also hurt. [26] Among the men who were with Cresap at this time was a young Virginian, who afterwards played a brilliant part in the history of the west, whowas for ten years the leader of the bold spirits of Kentucky, and whorendered the whole United States signal and effective service by one ofhis deeds in the Revolutionary war. This was George Rogers Clark, thentwenty-one years old. [27] He was of good family, and had been fairlywell educated, as education went in colonial days; but from hischildhood he had been passionately fond of the wild roving life of thewoods. He was a great hunter; and, like so many other young colonialgentlemen of good birth and bringing up, and adventurous temper, hefollowed the hazardous profession of a backwoods surveyor. With chainand compass, as well as axe and rifle, he penetrated the far places ofthe wilderness, the lonely, dangerous regions where every weak maninevitably succumbed to the manifold perils encountered, but where thestrong and far-seeing were able to lay the foundations of fame andfortune. He possessed high daring, unflinching courage, passions whichhe could not control, and a frame fitted to stand any strain of fatigueor hardship. He was a square-built, thick-set man, with high broadforehead, sandy hair, and unquailing blue eyes that looked out fromunder heavy, shaggy brows. [28] Clark had taken part with Cresap in his assault upon the second party ofShawnees. On the following day the whole band of whites prepared tomarch off and attack Logan's camp at Yellow Creek, some fifty milesdistant. After going some miles they began to feel ashamed of theirmission; calling a halt, they discussed the fact that the camp they werepreparing to attack, consisted exclusively of friendly Indians, andmainly of women and children; and forthwith abandoned their proposedtrip and returned home. They were true borderers--brave, self-reliant, loyal to their friends, and good-hearted when their worst instincts werenot suddenly aroused; but the sight of bloodshed maddened them as ifthey had been so many wolves. Wrongs stirred to the depths their moodytempers, and filled them with a brutal longing for indiscriminaterevenge. When goaded by memories of evil, or when swayed by swift, fitful gusts of fury, the uncontrolled violence of their passions ledthem to commit deeds whose inhuman barbarity almost equalled, though itcould never surpass, that shown by the Indians themselves. [29] But Logan's people did not profit by Cresap's change of heart. On thelast day of April a small party of men, women, and children, includingalmost all of Logan's kin, left his camp and crossed the river to visitGreathouse, as had been their custom; for he made a trade of selling rumto the savages, though Cresap had notified him to stop. The whole partywere plied with liquor, and became helplessly drunk, in which conditionGreathouse and his associated criminals fell on and massacred them, ninesouls in all. [30] It was an inhuman and revolting deed, which shouldconsign the names of the perpetrators to eternal infamy. At once the frontier was in a blaze, and the Indians girded themselvesfor revenge. The Mingos sent out runners to the other tribes, telling ofthe butchery, and calling on all the red men to join together forimmediate and bloody vengeance. [31] They confused the two massacres, attributing both to Cresap, whom they well knew as a warrior;[32] andtheir women for long afterwards scared the children into silence bythreatening them with Cresap's name as with that of a monster. [33] Theyhad indeed been brutally wronged; yet it must be remembered that theythemselves were the first aggressors. They had causelessly murdered androbbed many whites, and now their sins had recoiled on the heads of theinnocent of their own race. The conflict could not in any event havebeen delayed long; the frontiersmen were too deeply and too justlyirritated. These particular massacres, however discreditable to thosetaking part in them, were the occasions, not the causes, of the war; andthough they cast a dark shade on the conduct of the whites, they do notrelieve the red men from the charge of having committed earlier, morecruel, and quite as wanton outrages. Conolly, an irritable but irresolute man, was appalled by the storm hehad helped raise. He meanly disclaimed all responsibility for Cresap'saction, [34] and deposed him from his command of rangers; to which, however, he was soon restored by Lord Dunmore. Both the earl and hislieutenant, however, united in censuring severely Greathouse's deed. [35]Conolly, throughout May, held a series of councils with the Delawaresand Iroquois, in which he disclaimed and regretted the outrages, andsought for peace. [36] To one of these councils the Delaware chief, Killbuck, with other warriors, sent a "talk" or "speech in writing"[37]disavowing the deeds of one of their own parties of young braves, whohad gone on the warpath; and another Delaware chief made a very sensiblespeech, saying that it was unfortunately inevitable that bad men on bothsides should commit wrongs, and that the cooler heads should not be ledaway by acts due to the rashness and folly of a few. But the Shawneesshowed no such spirit. On the contrary they declared for war outright, and sent a bold defiance to the Virginians, at the same time tellingConolly plainly that he lied. Their message is noteworthy, because, after expressing a firm belief that the Virginian leader could controlhis warriors, and stop the outrages if he wished, it added that theShawnee head men were able to do the like with their own men when theyrequired it. This last allegation took away all shadow of excuse fromthe Shawnees for not having stopped the excesses of which their youngbraves had been guilty during the past few years. Though Conolly showed signs of flinching, his master the earl hadevidently no thought of shrinking from the contest. He at once beganactively to prepare to attack his foes, and the Virginians backed him upheartily, though the Royal Government, instead of supporting him, censured him in strong terms, and accused the whites of being the realaggressors and the authors of the war. [38] In any event, it would have been out of the question to avoid a contestat so late a date. Immediately after the murders in the end of April, the savages crossed the frontier in small bands. Soon all the backcountry was involved in the unspeakable horrors of a bloody Indian war, with its usual accompaniments of burning houses, tortured prisoners, andruined families, the men being killed and the women and children drivenoff to a horrible captivity. [39] The Indians declared that they were notat war with Pennsylvania, [40] and the latter in return adopted anattitude of neutrality, openly disclaiming any share in the wrong thathad been done, and assuring the Indians that it rested solely on theshoulders of the Virginians. [41] Indeed the Shawnees protected thePennsylvania traders from some hostile Mingos, while the Pennsylvaniamilitia shielded a party of Shawnees from some of Conolly's men;[42] andthe Virginians, irritated by what they considered an abandonment of thewhite cause, were bent on destroying the Pennsylvania fur trade with theIndians. [43] Nevertheless, some of the bands of young braves who wereout on the war-path failed to discriminate between white friends andfoes, and a number of Pennsylvanians fell victims to their desire forscalps and their ignorance or indifference as to whom they were at warwith. [44] The panic along the Pennsylvania frontier was terrible; the out settlersfled back to the interior across the mountains, or gathered in numbersto defend themselves. [45] On the Virginian frontier, where the realattack was delivered, the panic was more justifiable; for terribleravages were committed, and the inhabitants were forced to gathertogether in their forted villages, and could no longer cultivate theirfarms, except by stealth. [46] Instead of being cowed, however, thebackwoodsmen clamored to be led against their foes, and made most urgentappeals for powder and lead, of which there was a great scarcity. [47] The confusion was heightened by the anarchy in which the government ofthe northwestern district had been thrown in consequence of the quarrelconcerning the jurisdiction. The inhabitants were doubtful as to whichcolony really had a right to their allegiance, and many of the frontierofficials were known to be double-faced, professing allegiance to bothgovernments. [48] When the Pennsylvanians raised a corps of a hundredrangers there almost ensued a civil war among the whites, for theVirginians were fearful that the movement was really aimed againstthem. [49] Of course the march of events gradually forced most, even ofthe neutral Indians, to join their brethren who had gone on thewar-path, and as an example of the utter confusion that reigned, thevery Indians that were at war with one British colony, Virginia, werestill drawing supplies from the British post of Detroit. [50] Logan's rage had been terrible. He had changed and not for the better, as he grew older, becoming a sombre, moody man; worse than all, he hadsuccumbed to the fire-water, the curse of his race. The horribletreachery and brutality of the assault wherein his kinsfolk were slainmade him mad for revenge; every wolfish instinct in him came to thesurface. He wreaked a terrible vengeance for his wrongs; but in trueIndian fashion it fell, not on those who had caused them, but on otherswho were entirely innocent. Indeed he did not know who had caused them. The massacres at Captina and Yellow Creek occurred so near together thatthey were confounded with each other; and not only the Indians but manywhites as well[51] credited Cresap and Greathouse with being jointlyresponsible for both, and as Cresap was the most prominent, he was theone especially singled out for hatred. Logan instantly fell on the settlement with a small band of Mingowarriors. On his first foray he took thirteen scalps, among them thoseof six children. [52] A party of Virginians, under a man named McClure, followed him: but he ambushed and defeated them, slaying theirleader. [53] He repeated these forays at least three times. Yet, in spiteof his fierce craving for revenge, he still showed many of the traitsthat had made him beloved of his white friends. Having taken a prisoner, he refused to allow him to be tortured, and saved his life at the riskof his own. A few days afterwards he suddenly appeared to this prisonerwith some gunpowder ink, and dictated to him a note. On his nextexpedition this note, tied to a war-club, was left in the house of asettler, whose entire family was murdered. It was a short document, written with ferocious directness, as a kind of public challenge ortaunt to the man whom he wrongly deemed to be the author of hismisfortunes. It ran as follows: "CAPTAIN CRESAP: "What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white peoplekilled my kin at Conestoga, a great while ago, and I thought nothing ofthat. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took my cousinprisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times towar since; but the Indians are not angry, only myself. "July 21, 1774. CAPTAIN JOHN LOGAN. "[54] There is a certain deliberate and blood-thirsty earnestness about thisletter which must have shown the whites clearly, if they still needed tobe shown, what bitter cause they had to rue the wrongs that had beendone to Logan. The Shawnees and Mingos were soon joined by many of the Delawares andoutlying Iroquois, especially Senecas; as well as by the Wyandots and bylarge bands of ardent young warriors from among the Algonquin tribesalong the Miami, the Wabash, and the Lakes. Their inroads on thesettlements were characterized, as usual, by extreme stealth andmerciless ferocity. They stole out of the woods with the silent cunningof wild beasts, and ravaged with a cruelty ten times greater. Theyburned down the lonely log-huts, ambushed travellers, shot the men asthey hunted or tilled the soil, ripped open the women with child, andburned many of their captives at the stake. Their noiseless approachenabled them to fall on the settlers before their presence wassuspected; and they disappeared as suddenly as they had come, leaving notrail that could be followed. The charred huts and scalped and mangledbodies of their victims were left as ghastly reminders of their visit, the sight stirring the backwoodsmen to a frenzy of rage all the moreterrible in the end, because it was impotent for the time being. Generally they made their escape successfully; occasionally they werebeaten off or overtaken and killed or scattered. When they met armed woodsmen the fight was always desperate. In May, aparty of hunters and surveyors, being suddenly attacked in the forest, beat off their assailants and took eight scalps, though with a loss ofnine of their own number. [55] Moreover, the settlers began to bandtogether to make retaliatory inroads; and while Lord Dunmore was busilypreparing to strike a really effective blow, he directed thefrontiersmen of the northwest to undertake a foray, so as to keep theIndians employed. Accordingly, they gathered together, four hundredstrong, [56] crossed the Ohio, in the end of July, and marched against aShawnee town on the Muskingum. They had a brisk skirmish with theShawnees, drove them back, and took five scalps, losing two men killedand five wounded. Then the Shawnees tried to ambush them, but theirambush was discovered, and they promptly fled, after a slight skirmish, in which no one was killed but one Indian, whom Cresap, a very activeand vigorous man, ran down and slew with his tomahawk. [57] The Shawneevillage was burned, seventy acres of standing corn were cut down, andthe settlers returned in triumph. On the march back they passed throughthe towns of the peaceful Moravian Delawares, to whom they did no harm. 1. "American Archives, " 4th series, Vol. I. , p. 454. Report of Penn. Commissioners, June 27, 1774. 2. Maryland was also involved, along her western frontier, in borderdifficulties with her neighbors; the first we hear of the Cresap familyis their having engaged in a real skirmish with the Pennsylvanianauthorities. See also "Am. Arch. , " IV. , Vol. I. , 547. 3. "Am. Arch. , " IV. , Vol. I. , 394, 449, 469, etc. He was generallycalled Dr. Conolly. 4. See _do_. , 463, 471, etc. , especially St. Clair's letters, _passim_. 5. In most of the original treaties, "talks, " etc. , preserved in theArchives of the State Department, where the translation is exact, theword "Big Knife" is used. 6. Letter of John Penn, June 28, 1774. "Am. Arch. , " IV. , Vol. IV. 7. "Am. Archives, " _do_. , 465. 8. _Do_. , 722. 9. _Do_. , 872. 10. "Am. Arch. , " IV. , Vol. I. , p. 1015. 11. McAfee MSS. This is the point especially insisted on by Cornstalk inhis speech to the adventurers in 1773; he would fight before seeing thewhites drive off the game. 12. In the McAfee MSS. , as already quoted, there is an account of theShawnee war party, whom the McAfees encountered in 1773 returning from asuccessful horse-stealing expedition. 13. "Am. Archives, " IV. , Vol. I. , 872. Dunmore in his speech enumerates19 men, women, and children who had been killed by the Indians in 1771, '72, and '73, and these were but a small fraction of the whole. "Thiswas before a drop of Shawnee blood was shed. " 14. "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers, " p. 262, gives an example that happenedin 1772. 15. "Am. Archives, " IV. , Vol. I. Letter of Col. Wm. Preston, Aug. 13, 1774. 16. Many local historians, including Brantz Mayer (Logan and Cresap, p. 85), ascribe to the earl treacherous motives. Brantz Mayer puts it thus:"It was probably Lord Dunmore's desire to incite a war which wouldarouse and band the savages of the west, so that in the anticipatedstruggle with the united colonies the British home-interest mightultimately avail itself of these children of the forest as ferocious andformidable allies in the onslaught on the Americans. " This is much toofutile a theory to need serious discussion. The war was of the greatestadvantage to the American cause; for it kept the northwestern Indiansoff our hands for the first two years of the Revolutionary struggle; andhad Lord Dunmore been the far-seeing and malignant being that thistheory supposes, it would have been impossible for him not also toforesee that such a result was absolutely inevitable. There is no reasonwhatever to suppose that he was not doing his best for the Virginians;he deserved their gratitude; and he got it for the time being. Theaccusations of treachery against him were afterthoughts, and must be setdown to mere vulgar rancor, unless, at least, some faint shadow of proofis advanced. When the Revolutionary war broke out, however, the earl, undoubtedly, like so many other British officials, advocated the mostoutrageous measures to put down the insurgent colonists. 17. See Brantz Mayer, p. 86, for a very proper attack on thosehistorians who stigmatize as land-jobbers and speculators the perfectlyhonest settlers, whose encroachments on the Indian hunting-grounds wereso bitterly resented by the savages. Such attacks are mere pieces ofsentimental injustice. The settlers were perfectly right in feeling thatthey had a right to settle on the vast stretches of unoccupied ground, however wrong some of their individual deeds may have been. But Mayer, following Jacob's "Life of Cresap, " undoubtedly paints his hero inaltogether too bright colors. 18. Sappington, Tomlinson, and Baker were the names of three of hisfellow miscreants. See Jefferson MSS. 19. At Greenbriar. See "Narrative of Captain John Stewart, " an actor inthe war. --_Magazine of American History_, Vol. I. , p. 671. 20. Loudon's "Indian Narratives, " II. , p. 223. 21. See "American Pioneer, " I. , p. 189. 22. Letter of George Rogers Clark, June 17. 1798. In Jefferson MSS. , 5thSeries, Vol. I. (preserved in Archives of State Department atWashington) 23. Witness the testimony of one of the most gallant Indian fighters ofthe border, who was in Wheeling at the time; letter of Col. EbenezerZane, February 4, 1800, in Jefferson MSS. 24. Jefferson MSS. Deposition of John Gibson, April 4, 1800. 25. _Do_. Deposition of Wm. Huston, April 19, 1798; alsodepositions of Samuel McKee, etc. 26. "Am. Archives, " IV. , Vol. I. , p. 468. Letter of Devereux Smith June10, 1774, Gibson's letter, Also Jefferson MSS. 27. _Historical Magazine_, I. , p. 168. Born in Albemarle County, Va. , November 19, 1752. 28. Military Journal of Major Ebenezer Denny, with an introductorymemoir by William H. Denny (Publication of the Hist. Soc. Of Penn. ), Phil. , 1860, p. 216 29. The Cresap apologists, including even Brantz Mayer, dwell onCresap's nobleness in not massacring Logan's family! It was certainly tohis credit that he did not do so, but it does not speak very well forhim that he should even have entertained the thought. He was doubtless, on the whole, a brave, good-hearted man--quite as good as the averageborderer; but nevertheless apt to be drawn into deeds that were thereverse of creditable. Mayer's book has merit; but he certainly paintsLogan too black and Cresap too white, and (see Appendix) is utterlywrong as to Logan's speech. He is right in recognizing the fact that inthe war, as a whole, justice was on the side of the frontiersmen. 30. Devereux Smith's letter. Some of the evil-doers afterwards tried topalliate their misdeeds by stating that Logan's brother, when drunk, insulted a white man, and that the other Indians were at the time on thepoint of executing an attack upon them. The last statement isself-evidently false; for had such been the case, the Indians would, ofcourse, never have let some of their women and children put themselvesin the power of the whites, and get helplessly drunk; and, anyhow, theallegations of such brutal and cowardly murderers are entirely unworthyof acceptance, unless backed up by outside evidence. 31. Jefferson MSS. , 5th Series, Vol. I. Heckewelder's letter. 32. Jefferson MSS. Deposition of Col. James Smith, May 25, 1798. 33. _Do_. , Heckewelder's letter. 34. "Am. Archives, " IV. , Vol. I. , p. 475. 35. _Do_. , p. 1015. 36. _Do_. , p. 475. 37. _Do_. , p. 418. 38. _Do_. , p. 774. Letter of the Earl of Dartmouth, Sept. 10, 1774. A sufficient answer, by the way, to the absurd charge that Dunmorebrought on the war in consequence of some mysterious plan of the HomeGovernment to embroil the Americans with the savages. It is not at allimprobable that the Crown advisers were not particularly displeased atseeing the attention of the Americans distracted by a war with theIndians; but this is the utmost that can be alleged. 39. _Do_. , p. 808. 40. _Do_. , p. 478. 41. _Do_. , p. 506. 42. _Do_. , p. 474. 43. _Do_. , p. 549. 44. _Do_. , p. 471. 45. _Do_. , pp. 435, 467, 602. 46. _Do_. , pp. 405, 707. 47. _Do_. , p. 808. 48. _Do_. , p. 677. 49. _Do_. , pp. 463, 467. 50. _Do_. , p. 684. 51. _Do_. , p. 435. 52. _Do_. , pp. 468, 546. 53. _Do_. , p. 470. 54. Jefferson MSS. Dep. Of Wm. Robinson, February 28, 1800, and letterfrom Harry Innes, March 2, 1799, with a copy of Logan's letter as madein his note-book at the time. 55. "Am. Archives. , " p. 373. 56. Under a certain Angus MacDonald, _do_. , p. 722. They crossedthe Ohio at Fish Creek, 120 miles below Pittsburg. 57. "Am. Archives, " IV. , Vol. I. , pp. 682, 684. CHAPTER IX. THE BATTLE OF THE GREAT KANAWHA; AND LOGAN'S SPEECH, 1774. Meanwhile Lord Dunmore, having garrisoned the frontier forts, three ofwhich were put under the orders of Daniel Boon, was making ready aformidable army with which to overwhelm the hostile Indians. It was tobe raised, and to march, in two wings or divisions, each fifteen hundredstrong, which were to join at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. One wing, the right or northernmost, was to be commanded by the earl in person;while the other, composed exclusively of frontiersmen living among themountains west and southwest of the Blue Ridge, was entrusted to GeneralAndrew Lewis. Lewis was a stalwart backwoods soldier, belonging to afamily of famous frontier fighters, but though a sternly just andfearless man, [1] he does not appear to have had more than averagequalifications to act as a commander of border troops when pittedagainst Indians. The backwoodsmen of the Alleghanies felt that the quarrel was their own;in their hearts the desire for revenge burned like a sullen flame. Theold men had passed their manhood with nerves tense from the strain ofunending watchfulness, and souls embittered by terrible and repeateddisasters; the young men had been cradled in stockaded forts, roundwhich there prowled a foe whose comings and goings were unknown, and whowas unseen till the moment when the weight of his hand was felt. Theyhad been helpless to avenge their wrongs, and now that there was at lasta chance to do so, they thronged eagerly to Lewis' standard. The leftwing or army assembled at the Great Levels of Greenbriar, and thithercame the heroes of long rifle, tomahawk, and hunting-shirt, gatheringfrom every stockaded hamlet, every lonely clearing and smoky hunter'scamp that lay along the ridges from whose hollows sprang the sources ofthe Eastern and the Western Waters. They were not uniformed, save thatthey all wore the garb of the frontier hunter; but most of them werearmed with good rifles, and were skilful woodsmen, and though utterlyundisciplined, they were magnificent individual fighters. [2] Theofficers were clad and armed almost precisely like the rank and file, save that some of them had long swords girded to their waist-belts; theycarried rifles, for, where the result of the contest depended mainly onthe personal prowess of the individual fighter, the leader was expectedliterally to stand in the forefront of the battle, and to inspirit hisfollowers by deeds as well as words. Among these troops was a company of rangers who came from the scatteredwooden forts of the Watauga and the Nolichucky. Both Sevier andRobertson took part in this war, and though the former saw no fighting, the latter, who had the rank of sergeant, was more fortunate. While the backwoods general was mustering his unruly and turbulent hostof skilled riflemen, the English earl led his own levies, some fifteenhundred strong, to Fort Pitt. [3] Here he changed his plans, and decidednot to try to join the other division, as he had agreed to do. Thissudden abandonment of a scheme already agreed to and acted on by hiscolleague was certainly improper, and, indeed, none of the earl'smovements indicated very much military capacity. However, he descendedthe Ohio River with a flotilla of a hundred canoes, besides keel-boatsand pirogues, [4] to the mouth of the Hockhocking, where he built andgarrisoned a small stockade. Then he went up the Hockhocking to thefalls, whence he marched to the Scioto, and there entrenched himself ina fortified camp, with breastworks of fallen trees, on the edge of thePickaway plains, not far from the Indian town of Old Chillicothe. Thencehe sent out detachments that destroyed certain of the hostile towns. Hehad with him as scouts many men famous in frontier story, among themGeorge Rogers Clark, Cresap, and Simon Kenton--afterwards the bane ofevery neighboring Indian tribe, and renowned all along the border forhis deeds of desperate prowess, his wonderful adventures, and hishairbreadth escapes. Another, of a very different stamp, was SimonGirty, of evil fame, whom the whole west grew to loathe, with bitterhatred, as "the white renegade. " He was the son of a vicious Irishtrader, who was killed by the Indians; he was adopted by the latter, andgrew up among them, and his daring ferocity and unscrupulous cunningearly made him one of their leaders. [5] At the moment he was servingLord Dunmore and the whites; but he was by tastes, habits, and educationa red man, who felt ill at ease among those of his own color. He soonreturned to the Indians, and dwelt among them ever afterwards, the mostinveterate foe of the whites that was to be found in all the tribes. Helived to be a very old man, and is said to have died fighting hisancient foes and kinsmen, the Americans, in our second war against theBritish. But Lord Dunmore's army was not destined to strike the decisive blow inthe contest. The great Shawnee chief, Cornstalk, was as wary and able ashe was brave. He had from the first opposed the war with the whites;[6]but as he had been unable to prevent it, he was now bent on bringing itto a successful issue. He was greatly outnumbered; but he had at hiscommand over a thousand painted and plumed warriors, the pick of theyoung men of the western tribes, the most daring braves to be foundbetween the Ohio and the Great Lakes. His foes were divided, and hedetermined to strike first at the one who would least suspect a blow, but whose ruin, nevertheless, would involve that of the other. If Lewis'army could be surprised and overwhelmed, the fate of Lord Dunmore'swould be merely a question of days. So without delay, Cornstalk, craftyin council, mighty in battle, and swift to carry out what he hadplanned, led his long files of warriors, with noiseless speed, throughleagues of trackless woodland to the banks of the Ohio. The backwoodsmen who were to form the army of Lewis had begun to gatherat the Levels of Greenbriar before the 1st of September, and by the 7thmost of them were assembled. Altogether the force under Lewis consistedof four commands, as follows: a body of Augusta troops, under Col. Charles Lewis, a brother of the general's;[7] a body of Botetourttroops, under Col. William Fleming;[8] a small independent company, under Col. John Field; and finally the Fincastle men, from the Holston, Clinch, Watauga, and New River[9] settlements, under Col. WilliamChristian. [10] One of Christian's captains was a stout old Marylander, of Welsh blood, named Evan Shelby; and Shelby's son Isaac, [11] astalwart, stern-visaged young man, who afterwards played a veryprominent part on the border, was a subaltern in his company, in whichRobertson likewise served as a sergeant. Although without experience ofdrill, it may be doubted if a braver or physically finer set of men wereever got together on this continent. [12] Among such undisciplined troops it was inevitable that there should beboth delay and insubordination. Nevertheless they behaved a good dealbetter than their commander had expected; and he was much pleased withtheir cheerfulness and their eagerness for action. The Fincastle men, being from the remote settlements, were unable to get together in timeto start with the others; and Col. Field grew jealous of his commanderand decided to march his little company alone. The Indians were hoveringaround the camp, and occasionally shot at and wounded stragglers, orattempted to drive off the pack-horses. The army started in three divisions. The bulk, consisting of Augustamen, under Col. Charles Lewis, marched on September 8th, closelyfollowed by the Botetourt troops under Andrew Lewis himself. [13] Field, with his small company, started off on his own account; but afterbeing out a couple of days, two of his scouts met two Indians, with theresult that a man was killed on each side; after which, profiting by theloss, he swallowed his pride and made haste to join the first division. The Fincastle troops were delayed so long that most of them, with theircommander, were still fifteen miles from the main body the day thebattle was fought; but Captains Shelby and Russell, with parts of theircompanies, went on ahead of the others, and, as will be seen, joinedLewis in time to do their full share of the fighting. Col. Christianhimself only reached the Levels on the afternoon of the day the Augustamen had marched. He was burning with desire to distinguish himself, andhis men were also very eager to have a share in the battle; and hebesought Lewis to let him go along with what troops he had. But he wasrefused permission, whereat he was greatly put out. Lewis found he had more men than he expected, and so left some of theworst troops to garrison the small forts. Just before starting hereceived a letter from the Earl advising, but not commanding, a changein their plans; to this he refused to accede, and was rather displeasedat the proposal, attributing it to the influence of Conolly, whom thebackwoods leaders were growing to distrust. There is not the slightestreason to suppose, however, that he then, or at any time during thecampaign, suspected the Earl of treachery; nor did the latter's conductgive any good ground for such a belief. Nevertheless, this view gainedcredit among the Virginians in later years, when they were greatlyangered by the folly and ferocity of Lord Dunmore's conduct during theearly part of the Revolutionary war, and looked at all his past actswith jaundiced eyes. [14] Lewis' troops formed a typical backwoods army, both officers andsoldiers. They wore fringed hunting-shirts, dyed yellow, brown, white, and even red; quaintly carved shot-bags and powder-horns hung from theirbroad ornamented belts; they had fur caps or soft hats, moccasins, andcoarse woollen leggings reaching half-way up the thigh. [15] Each carriedhis flint-lock, his tomahawk, and scalping-knife. They marched in longfiles with scouts or spies thrown out in front and on the flanks, whileaxe-men went in advance to clear a trail over which they could drive thebeef cattle, and the pack-horses, laden with provisions, blankets, andammunition. They struck out straight through the trackless wilderness, making their road as they went, until on the 21st of the month[16] theyreached the Kanawha, at the mouth of Elk Creek. Here they halted tobuild dug-out canoes; and about this time were overtaken by thecompanies of Russell and Shelby. On October 1st[17] they started todescend the river in twenty-seven canoes, a portion of the army marchingdown along the Indian trail, which followed the base of the hills, instead of the river bank, as it was thus easier to cross the heads ofthe creeks and ravines. [18] They reached the mouth of the river on the 6th, [19] and camped on PointPleasant, the cape of land jutting out between the Ohio and the Kanawha. As a consequence the bloody fight that ensued is sometimes called thebattle of Point Pleasant, and sometimes the battle of the Great Kanawha. Hitherto the Indians had not seriously molested Lewis' men, though theykilled a settler right on their line of march, and managed to drive offsome of the bullocks and pack-horses. [20] The troops, though tired from their journey, were in good spirits, andeager to fight. But they were impatient of control, and were murmuringangrily that there was favoritism shown in the issue of beef. Hearingthis, Lewis ordered all the poorest beeves to be killed first; but thismerely produced an explosion of discontent, and large numbers of the menin mutinous defiance of the orders of their officers began to range thewoods, in couples, to kill game. There was little order in the camp, [21]and small attention was paid to picket and sentinel duty; the army, likea body of Indian warriors, relying for safety mainly upon thesharp-sighted watchfulness of the individual members and the activity ofthe hunting parties. On the 9th Simon Girty[22] arrived in camp bringing a message from LordDunmore, which bade Lewis meet him at the Indian towns near the Pickawayplains. Lewis was by no means pleased at the change, but neverthelessprepared to break camp and march next morning. He had with him at thistime about eleven hundred men. [23] His plans, however, were destined to be rudely forestalled, forCornstalk, coming rapidly through the forest, had reached the Ohio. Thatvery night the Indian chief ferried his men across the river on rafts, six or eight miles above the forks, [24] and by dawn was on the point ofhurling his whole force, of nearly a thousand warriors[25] on the campof his slumbering foes. Before daylight on the 10th small parties of hunters had, as usual, leftLewis' camp. Two of these men, from Russell's company, after having gonesomewhat over a mile, came upon a large party of Indians; one waskilled, and the survivor ran back at full speed to give the alarm, telling those in camp that he had seen five acres of ground covered withIndians as thick as they could stand. [26] Almost immediately afterwardstwo men of Shelby's company, one being no less a person than Robertsonhimself and the other Valentine, a brother of John Sevier, also stumbledupon the advancing Indians; being very wary and active men, they bothescaped, and reached camp almost as soon as the other. Instantly the drums beat to arms, [27] and the backwoodsmen, --lying outin the open, rolled in their blankets, --started from the ground, lookedto their flints and priming, and were ready on the moment. The general, thinking he had only a scouting party to deal with, ordered out Col. Charles Lewis and Col. Fleming, each with one hundred and fifty men. Fleming had the left, and marched up the bank of the Ohio, while Lewis, on the right, kept some little distance inland. They went about half amile. [28] Then, just before sunrise, while it was still dusk, the men incamp, eagerly listening, heard the reports of three guns, immediatelysucceeded by a clash like a peal of thin thunder, as hundreds of riflesrang out together. It was evident that the attack was serious and Col. Field was at once despatched to the front with two hundred men. [29] He came only just in time. At the first fire both of the scouts in frontof the white line had been killed. The attack fell first, and withespecial fury, on the division of Charles Lewis, who himself wasmortally wounded at the very outset; he had not taken a tree, [30] butwas in an open piece of ground, cheering on his men, when he was shot. He stayed with them until the line was formed, and then walked back tocamp unassisted, giving his gun to a man who was near him. His men, whowere drawn up on the high ground skirting Crooked Run, [31] began towaver, but were rallied by Fleming, whose division had been attackedalmost simultaneously, until he too was struck down by a bullet. Theline then gave way, except that some of Fleming's men still held theirown on the left in a patch of rugged ground near the Ohio. At thismoment, however, Colonel Field came up and restored the battle, whilethe backwoodsmen who had been left in camp also began to hurry up totake part in the fight. General Lewis at last, fully awake to thedanger, began to fortify the camp by felling timber so as to form abreastwork running across the point from the Ohio to the Kanawha. Thiswork should have been done before; and through attending to it Lewis wasunable to take any personal part in the battle. Meanwhile the frontiersmen began to push back their foes, led by Col. Field. The latter himself, however, was soon slain; he was at the timebehind a great tree, and was shot by two Indians on his right, while hewas trying to get a shot at another on his left, who was distracting hisattention by mocking and jeering at him. [32] The command then fell onCaptain Evan Shelby, who turned his company over to the charge of hisson, Isaac. The troops fought on steadily, undaunted by the fall oftheir leaders, while the Indians attacked with the utmost skill, caution, and bravery. The fight was a succession of single combats, eachman sheltering himself behind a stump, or rock, or tree-trunk, thesuperiority of the backwoodsmen in the use of the rifle being offset bythe superiority of their foes in the art of hiding and of shieldingthemselves from harm. The hostile lines, though about a mile and aquarter in length, were so close together, being never more than twentyyards apart, that many of the combatants grappled in hand-to-handfighting, and tomahawked or stabbed each other[33] to death. The clatterof the rifles was incessant, while above the din could be heard thecries and groans of the wounded, and the shouts of the combatants, aseach encouraged his own side, or jeered savagely at his adversaries. Thecheers of the whites mingled with the appalling war-whoops and yells oftheir foes. The Indians also called out to the Americans in brokenEnglish, taunting them, and asking them why their fifes were no longerwhistling--for the fight was far too close to permit of any such music. Their headmen walked up and down behind their warriors, exhorting themto go in close, to shoot straight, and to bear themselves well in thefight;[34] while throughout the action the whites opposite Cornstalkcould hear his deep, sonorous voice as he cheered on his braves, andbade them "be strong, be strong. "[35] About noon the Indians tried to get round the flank of the whites, intotheir camp; but this movement was repulsed, and a party of theAmericans[36] followed up their advantage, and running along the banksof the Kanawha out-flanked the enemy in turn. The Indians being pushedvery hard now began to fall back, the best fighters covering theretreat, while the wounded were being carried off; although, --a rarething in Indian battles--they were pressed so close that they were ableto bear away but a portion of their dead. The whites were forced topursue with the greatest caution; for those of them who advancedheedlessly were certain to be ambushed and receive a smart check. Finally, about one o'clock, the Indians, in their retreat, reached avery strong position, where the underbrush was very close and there weremany fallen logs and steep banks. Here they stood resolutely at bay, andthe whites did not dare attack them in such a stronghold. So the actioncame almost to an end; though skirmishing went on until about an hourbefore sunset, the Indians still at times taunting their foes andcalling out to them that they had eleven hundred men as well as thewhites, and that to-morrow they were going to be two thousand strong[37]This was only bravado, however; they had suffered too heavily to renewthe attack, and under cover of darkness they slipped away, and made amost skilful retreat, carrying all their wounded in safety across theOhio. The exhausted Americans, having taken a number of scalps, as wellas forty guns, and many tomahawks[38] and some other plunder, [39]returned to their camp. The battle had been bloody as well as stubborn. The whites, though thevictors, had suffered more than their foes, and indeed had won onlybecause it was against the entire policy of Indian warfare to suffer asevere loss, even if a victory could be gained thereby. Of the whites, some seventy-five men had been killed or mortally wounded, and onehundred and forty severely or slightly wounded, [40] so that they lost afifth of their whole number. The Indians had not lost much more thanhalf as many; about forty warriors were killed outright or died of theirwounds. [41] Among the Indians no chief of importance was slain; whereasthe Americans had seventeen officers killed or wounded, and lost insuccession their second, third, and fourth in command. The victorsburied their own dead and left the bodies of the vanquished to thewolves and ravens. At midnight, after the battle, Col. Christian and hisFincastle men reached the ground. The battle of the Great Kanawha was apurely American victory, for it was fought solely by the backwoodsmenthemselves. Their immense superiority over regular troops in suchcontests can be readily seen when their triumph on this occasion iscompared with the defeats previously suffered by Braddock's grenadiersand Grant's highlanders, at the hands of the same foes. It was purely asoldiers' battle, won by hard individual fighting; there was no displayof generalship, except on Cornstalk's part. [42] It was the most closelycontested of any battle ever fought with the northwestern Indians; andit was the only victory gained over a large body of them by a force butslightly superior in numbers. [43] Both because of the character of thefight itself, and because of the results that flowed from it, it isworthy of being held in especial remembrance. Lewis left his sick and wounded in the camp at the Point, protected by arude breastwork, and with an adequate guard. With the remainder of hisforces, over a thousand strong, he crossed the Ohio, and pushed on tothe Pickaway plains. When but a few miles from the earl's encampment hewas met by a messenger informing him that a treaty of peace was beingnegotiated with the Indians. [44] The backwoodsmen, flushed with success, and angry at their losses, were eager for more bloodshed; and it wasonly with difficulty that they were restrained, and were finally inducedto march homewards, the earl riding down to them and giving his ordersin person. They grumbled angrily against the earl for sending them back, and in later days accused him of treachery for having done so; but hiscourse was undoubtedly proper, for it would have been very difficult toconclude peace in the presence of such fierce and unruly auxiliaries. The spirit of the Indians had been broken by their defeat. Their sternold chief, Cornstalk, alone remained with unshaken heart, resolute tobid defiance to his foes and to fight the war out to the bitter end. Butwhen the council of the headmen and war-chiefs was called it becameevident that his tribesmen would not fight, and even his burningeloquence could not goad the warriors into again trying the hazard ofbattle. They listened unmoved and in sullen silence to the thrilling andimpassioned words with which he urged them to once more march againstthe Long Knives, and if necessary to kill their women and children, andthen themselves die fighting to the last man. At last, when he saw hecould not stir the hearts of his hearers he struck his tomahawk into thewarpost and announced that he himself would go and make peace. At thatthe warriors broke silence, and all grunted out approvingly, ough! ough!ough! and then they instantly sent runners to the earl's army to demanda truce. [45] Accordingly, with all his fellow-chiefs, he went to Lord Dunmore's camp, and there entered into a treaty. The crestfallen Indians assented to allthe terms the conquerors proposed. They agreed to give up all the whiteprisoners and stolen horses in their possession, and to surrender allclaim to the lands south of the Ohio, and they gave hostages as anearnest of their good-faith. [46] But their chief spokesman, Cornstalk, while obliged to assent to these conditions, yet preserved through allthe proceedings a bearing of proud defiance that showed how little thefear of personal consequences influenced his own actions. At the talkshe addressed the white leader with vehement denunciation and reproach, in a tone that seemed rather that of a conqueror than of one of theconquered. Indeed, he himself was not conquered; he felt that histribesmen were craven, but he knew that his own soul feared nothing. TheVirginians, who, like their Indian antagonists, prized skill in oratoryonly less than skill in warfare, were greatly impressed by thechieftain's eloquence, by his command of words, his clear, distinctvoice, his peculiar emphasis, and his singularly grand and majestic, andyet graceful, bearing; they afterwards said that his oratory fullyequalled that of Patrick Henry himself. [47] Every prominent chief but one came to the council. The exception wasLogan, who remained apart in the Mingo village, brooding over hiswrongs, and the vengeance he had taken. His fellows, when questionedabout his absence, answered that he was like a mad dog, whose bristleswere still up, but that they were gradually falling; and when he wasentreated to be present at the meeting he responded that he was awarrior, not a councillor, and would not come. The Mingos, because theyfailed to appear at the treaty, had their camp destroyed and were forcedto give hostages, as the Delawares and Shawnees had done, [48] and Loganhimself finally sullenly acquiesced in, or at least ceased openly tooppose, the peace. But he would not come in person to Lord Dunmore; so the earl was obligedto communicate with him through a messenger, a frontier veteran[49]named John Gibson, who had long lived among the Indians and knewthoroughly both their speech and their manners. [50] To this messengerLogan was willing to talk. Taking him aside, he suddenly addressed himin a speech that will always retain its place as perhaps the finestoutburst of savage eloquence of which we have any authentic record. Themessenger took it down in writing, translating it literally, [51] and, returning to camp, gave it to Lord Dunmore. The earl then read it, inopen council, to the whole backwoods army, including Cresap, Clark, andthe other scouts. The speech, when read, proved to be no message ofpeace, nor an acknowledgment of defeat, but instead, a strangelypathetic recital of his wrongs, and a fierce and exulting justificationof the vengeance he had taken. It ran as follows: "I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabinhungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked and heclothed him not? During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his camp, an advocate for peace. Such was my lovefor the whites that my countrymen pointed as I passed and said, 'Loganis the friend of the white man. ' I had even thought to have lived withyou, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, noteven sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood inthe veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I havesought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For mycountry I rejoice at the beams of peace; but do not harbor a thoughtthat mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn onhis heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one. " The tall frontiersmen, lounging in a circle round about, listened to thereading of the speech with eager interest; rough Indian haters thoughthey were, they were so much impressed by it that in the evening it wasa common topic of conversation over their camp fires, and theycontinually attempted to rehearse it to one another. [52] But they knewthat Greathouse, not Cresap, had been the chief offender in the murderof Logan's family; and when the speech was read, Clark, turning round, jeered at and rallied Cresap as being so great a man that the Indiansput every thing on his shoulders; whereat, Cresap, much angered, sworethat he had a good mind to tomahawk Greathouse for the murder. [53] The speech could not have been very satisfactory to the earl; but atleast it made it evident that Logan did not intend to remain on thewar-path; and so Lord Dunmore marched home with his hostages. On thehomeward march, near the mouth of the River Hockhocking, the officers ofthe army held a notable meeting. They had followed the British earl tobattle; but they were Americans, in warm sympathy with the ContinentalCongress, which was then in session. Fearful lest their countrymen mightnot know that they were at one with them in the struggle of which theshadow was looming up with ever increasing blackness, they passedresolutions which were afterwards published. Their speakers told howthey had lived in the woods for three months, without hearing from theCongress at Philadelphia, nor yet from Boston, where the disturbancesseemed most likely to come to a head. They spoke of their fear lesttheir countrymen might be misled into the belief that this numerous bodyof armed men was hostile or indifferent to the cause of America; andproudly alluded to the fact that they had lived so long without bread orsalt, or shelter at night, and that the troops they led could march andfight as well as any in the world. In their resolutions they professedtheir devotion to their king, to the honor of his crown, and to thedignity of the British empire; but they added that this devotion wouldonly last while the king deigned to rule over a free people, for theirlove for the liberty of America outweighed all other considerations, andthey would exert every power for its defence, not riotously, but whenregularly called forth by the voice of their countrymen. They ended by tendering their thanks to Lord Dunmore for his conduct. Hewas also warmly thanked by the Virginia Legislature, as well as by thefrontiersmen of Fincastle, [54] and he fully deserved their gratitude. The war had been ended in less than six months' time; and its resultswere of the utmost importance. It had been very successful. InBraddock's war, the borderers are estimated to have suffered a loss offifty souls for every Indian slain; in Pontiac's war, they had learnedto defend themselves better, and yet the ratio was probably as ten toone;[55] whereas in this war, if we consider only males of fighting age, it is probable that a good deal more than half as many Indians as whiteswere killed, and even including women and children, the ratio would notrise to more than three to one. Certainly, in all the contests wagedagainst the northwestern Indians during the last half of the eighteenthcentury there was no other where the whites inflicted so great arelative loss on their foes. Its results were most important. It keptthe northwestern tribes quiet for the first two years of theRevolutionary struggle; and above all it rendered possible thesettlement of Kentucky, and therefore the winning of the West. Had itnot been for Lord Dunmore's war, it is more than likely that when thecolonies achieved their freedom they would have found their westernboundary fixed at the Alleghany Mountains. [56] Nor must we permit our sympathy for the foul wrongs of the two greatIndian heroes of the contest to blind us to the fact that the strugglewas precipitated, in the first place, by the outrages of the red men, not the whites; and that the war was not only inevitable, but was alsoin its essence just and righteous on the part of the borderers. Even theunpardonable and hideous atrocity of the murder of Logan's family, wassurpassed in horror by many of the massacres committed by the Indiansabout the same time. The annals of the border are dark and terrible. Among the characters who played the leaders' parts in this short andtragic drama of the backwoods few came to much afterwards. Cresap died abrave Revolutionary soldier. Of Greathouse we know nothing; we can onlyhope that eventually the Indians scalped him. Conolly became a virulenttory, who yet lacked the power to do the evil that he wished. Lewisserved creditably in the Revolution; while at its outbreak Lord Dunmorewas driven from Virginia and disappears from our ken. Proud, gloomyLogan never recovered from the blow that had been dealt him; he drankdeeper and deeper, and became more and more an implacable, moody, andbloodthirsty savage, yet with noble qualities that came to the surfacenow and then. Again and again he wrought havoc among the frontiersettlers; yet we several times hear of his saving the lives ofprisoners. Once he saved Simon Kenton from torture and death, whenGirty, moved by a rare spark of compassion for his former comrade, hadalready tried to do so and failed. At last he perished in a drunkenbrawl by the hand of another Indian. Cornstalk died a grand death, but by an act of cowardly treachery on thepart of his American foes; it is one of the darkest stains on thecheckered pages of frontier history. Early in 1777 he came into thegarrison at Point Pleasant to explain that, while he was anxious to keepat peace, his tribe were bent on going to war; and he frankly added thatof course if they did so he should have to join them. He and three otherIndians, among them his son and the chief Redhawk, who had also been atthe Kanawha battle, were detained as hostages. While they were thusconfined in the fort a member of a company of rangers was killed by theIndians near by; whereupon his comrades, headed by their captain, [57]rushed in furious anger into the fort to slay the hostages. Cornstalkheard them rushing in, and knew that his hour had come; with unmovedcountenance he exhorted his son not to fear, for it was the will of theGreat Spirit that they should die there together; then, as the murderersburst into the room, he quietly rose up to meet them, and fell deadpierced by seven or eight bullets. His son and his comrades werelikewise butchered, and we have no record of any more infamous deed. Though among the whites, the men who took prominent parts in thestruggle never afterwards made any mark, yet it is worth noting that allthe aftertime leaders of the west were engaged in some way in LordDunmore's war. Their fates were various. Boon led the vanguard of thewhite advance across the mountains, wandered his life long through thewilderness, and ended his days, in extreme old age, beyond theMississippi, a backwoods hunter to the last. Shelby won laurels atKing's Mountain, became the first governor of Kentucky, and when an oldman revived the memories of his youth by again leading the western menin battle against the British and Indians. Sevier and Robertson were fora generation the honored chiefs of the southwestern people. Clark, theablest of all, led a short but brilliant career, during which he madethe whole nation his debtor. Then, like Logan, he sank under the curseof drunkenness, --often hardly less dangerous to the white borderer thanto his red enemy, --and passed the remainder of his days in ignoble andslothful retirement. 1. Stewart's Narrative. 2. "Am. Archiv. " Col. Wm. Preston's letter, Sept. 28, 1774. 3. _Do_. , p. 872. 4. Doddridge, 235. 5. See _Mag. Of Am. Hist. _, XV. , 256. 6. De Haas, p. 161. He is a very fair and trustworthy writer; inparticular, as regards Logan's speech and Cresap's conduct. It is to beregretted that Brantz Mayer, in dealing with these latter subjects, could not have approached them with the same desire to be absolutelyimpartial, instead of appearing to act solely as an advocate. 7. His eight captains were George Matthews, Alexander McClannahan, JohnDickinson, John Lewis (son of William), Benjamin Harrison, William Paul, Joseph Haynes, and Samuel Wilson. Hale, "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers, " p. 181. 8. His seven captains were Matthew Arbuckle, John Murray, John Lewis(son of Andrew), James Robertson, Robert McClannahan, James Ward, andJohn Stewart (author of the Narrative). 9. As the Kanawha was sometimes called. 10. Whose five captains were Evan Shelby, Russell, Herbert, Draper, andBuford. 11. Born December 11, 1750, near Hagerstown, Md. 12. Letter of Col. Wm. Preston, September 28, 1774. "Am. Archives. " 13. Letter of one of Lord Dunmore's officers, November 21, 1774. "Am. Archives, " IV. , Vol. I. , p. 1017. Hale gives a minute account of theroute followed; Stewart says they started on the 11th. With the journal of Floyd's expedition, mentioned on a previous page, Ireceived MS. Copies of two letters to Col. William Preston, both datedat Camp Union, at the Great Levels; one, of September 8th from Col. Andrew Lewis, and one of September 7th (9th?) from Col. WilliamChristian. Col. Lewis' letter runs in part: "From Augusta we have 600; of thiscounty [Botetourt] about 400; Major Field is joined with 40.... I havehad less Trouble with the Troops than I expected.... I received a letterfrom his Lordship last Sunday morning which was dated the 30th of Augustat Old Towns, which I take to be Chresops, he then I am told had Col. Stephens and Major Conolly at his Elbow as might easily be discovered bythe Contents of his Letter which expressed his Lordship's warmest wishesthat I would with all the troops from this Quarter join him at the mouthof the little Kanaway, I wrote his Lordship that it was not in my powerto alter our rout.... The Indians wounded a man within two miles ofus ... And wounded another, from this we may expect they will be pickingabout us all the March. " He states that he has more men than heexpected, and will therefore need more provisions, and that he willleave some of his poorest troops to garrison the small fort. Col. Christian's letter states that the Augusta men took with them 400pack-horses, carrying 54, 000 pounds of flour, and 108 beeves, theystarted "yesterday. " Field marched "this evening", Fleming and his 450Botetourt men, with 200 pack-horses, "are going next Monday. " Field hadbrought word that Dunmore expected to be at the mouth of the GreatKanawha "some days after the 20th. " Some Indians had tried to steal anumber of pack-horses, but had been discovered and frightened off. Christian was very much discontented at being bidden to stay behinduntil he could gather 300 men, and bring up the rear, he expresses hisfear that his men will be much exasperated when they learn that they areto stay behind, and reiterates "I would not for all I am worth be behindcrossing the Ohio and that we should miss lending our assistance. " Fieldbrought an account of McDonald's fight (see _ante_, p. 216), hesaid the whites were 400 and the Indians but 30 strong, that the formerhad 4 men killed and 6 wounded, the Indians but 3 or 4 killed and 1captured, and their town was burnt. The number of the Shawnees and theirallies was estimated at 1, 200 warriors that could be put into onebattle. The 400 horses that had started with the Augusta men were toreturn as fast as they could (after reaching the embarkment point, whence the flour was carried in canoes). 14. When the Revolutionary war broke out the Earl not only fought therevolted colonists with all legitimate weapons, but tried to incite theblacks to servile insurrection, and sent agents to bring his old foes, the red men of the forest, down on his old friends, the settlers. Heencouraged piratical and plundering raids, and on the other hand failedto show the courage and daring that are sometimes partial offsets toferocity. But in this war, in 1774, he conducted himself with greatenergy in making preparations, and showed considerable skill as anegotiator in concluding the peace, and apparently went into theconflict with hearty zest and good will. He was evidently muchinfluenced by Conolly, a very weak adviser, however; and his wholecourse betrayed much vacillation, and no generalship. 15. Smyth's "Tour, " II. , p. 179. 16. "Am. Archives, " p. 1017. 17. _Do_. Stewart says they reached the mouth of the Kanawha onOct. 1st; another account says Sept. 30th; but this is an error, asshown both by the "Am. Archives" and by the Campbell MSS. 18. Hale, 182. 19. Campbell MSS. Letter of Isaac Shelby to John Shelby, Oct. 16, 1774. A portion of this letter, unsigned, was printed in "Am. Archives, " p. 1016, and in various newspapers (even at Belfast; _see_ Hale, p. 187, who thinks it was written by Captain Arbuckle). As it is worthpreserving and has never been printed in full I give it in the Appendix. 20. Stewart's Narrative. 21. Smyth, II. , p. 158. He claims to have played a prominent part in thebattle. This is certainly not so, and he may not have been present atall; at least Col. Stewart, who was there and was acquainted with everyone of note in the army, asserts positively that there was no such manalong; nor has any other American account ever mentioned him. Hismilitary knowledge was nil, as may be gathered from his remark, madewhen the defeats of Braddock and Grant were still recent, that Britishregulars with the bayonet were best fitted to oppose Indians. 22. Some accounts say that he was accompanied by Kenton and McCulloch;others state that no messenger arrived until after the battle. But thisis certainly wrong. Shelby's letter shows that the troops learned thegovernor's change of plans before the battle. 23. "Am. Archives, " IV. , Vol. J. , p. 1017; and was joined by Col. Christian's three hundred the day after the battle. 24. Campbell MSS. Letter of Col. William Preston (presumably to PatrickHenry), Oct. 31, 1774. As it is interesting and has never beenpublished, I give it in the Appendix. 25. Many of the white accounts make their number much greater, withoutany authority; Shelby estimates it at between eight hundred and onethousand. Smith, who generally gives the Indian side, says that on thisoccasion they were nearly as numerous as the whites. Smyth, who bitterlyhates the Americans, and always belittles their deeds, puts the numberof Indians at nine hundred; he would certainly make it as small aspossible. So the above estimate is probably pretty near the truth, though it is of course impossible to be accurate. At any rate, it wasthe only important engagement fought by the English or Americans againstthe northwestern Indians in which there was a near approach to equalityof force. 26. Campbell MSS. Shelby's letter. Their names were Mooney and Hickman;the latter was killed. Most historians have confused these two men withthe two others who discovered the Indians at almost the same time. 27. "Am. Archives, " IV. , Vol, I. , p. 1017. 28. _Do_. , p. 1017. Letter from Stanton, Virginia, Nov. 4, 1774, says 3/4 of a mile; Shelby says 1/2 of a mile. 29. _Do_. , Letter of Nov. 17th. 30. The frontier expression for covering one's self behind a tree-trunk. 31. A small stream running into the Kanawha near its mouth. De Haas, p. 151. 32. Campbell MSS. Preston's, letter. 33. "Am. Archives. " Letter of November 4, 1774. 34. Campbell MSS. Preston's letter. 35. Stewart's Narrative. 36. Led by Isaac Shelby, James Stewart, and George Matthews. 37. Campbell MSS. Preston's letter. 38. "Am. Archives" Letter of November 4, 1774. It is doubtful if Loganwas in this fight; the story about Cornstalk killing one of his men whoflinched may or may not be true. 39. Hale, 199, the plunder was afterwards sold at auction for L74 4s. 6d. 40. These are the numbers given by Stewart, but the accounts varygreatly. Monette ("Valley of the Mississippi, ") says 87 killed and 141wounded. The letters written at the time evidently take no account ofany but the badly wounded. Shelby thus makes the killed 55, and thewounded (including the mortally hurt) 68. Another account ("Am. Archives, " p. 1017) says 40 men killed and 96 wounded, 20 odd of whomwere since dead, whilst a foot-note to this letter enumerates 53 deadoutright, and 87 wounded, "some of whom have since died. " It isevidently impossible that the slightly wounded are included in theselists; and in all probability Stewart's account is correct, as he was aneye-witness and participant. 41. Twenty-one were scalped on the field; the bodies of 12 more wereafterwards found behind logs or in holes where they had been lain, and 8eventually died of their wounds. (See "American Archives, " Smith, Hale, De Haas, etc. ) Smith, who wrote from the Indian side, makes their lossonly 28; but this apparently does not include the loss of the westernIndians, the allies of the Shawnees, Mingos, and Delawares. 42. _Smyth_, the Englishman, accuses Lewis of cowardice, anaccusation which deserves no more attention than do the similaraccusations of treachery brought against Dunmore. Brantz Mayer speaks invery hyperbolic terms of the "relentless Lewis, " and the "greatslaughter" of the Indians. 43. Wayne won an equally decisive victory, but he outnumbered his foesthree to one. Bouquet, who was almost beaten, and was saved by theprovincial rangers, was greatly the superior in force, and suffered fourtimes the loss he inflicted. In both cases, especially that of Bouquet, the account of the victor must be received with caution where it dealswith the force and loss of the vanquished. In the same way Shelby andthe other reporters of the Kanawha fight stated that the Indians lostmore heavily than the whites. 44. The stories of how Lewis suspected the earl of treachery, and of howthe backwoodsmen were so exasperated that they wished to kill thelatter, may have some foundation; but are quite as likely to be pureinventions, made up after the Revolutionary war. In De Haas, "TheAmerican Pioneer, " etc. , can be found all kinds of stories, some eventold by members of the Clark and Lewis families, which are meant tocriminate Dunmore, but which make such mistakes in chronology--placingthe battle of Lexington in the year of the Kanawha fight, asserting thatpeace was not made till the following spring, etc. --that they must bedismissed offhand as entirely untrustworthy. 45. Stewart's Narrative. 46. "Am. Archives, " IV. St. Clair's letter, Dec. 4, 1774. Also JeffersonMSS. Dep. Of Wm. Robinson, etc. 47. See De Haas, 162. 48. "Am. Archives, " IV. , Vol. I. , pp. 1013, 1226. 49. John Gibson, afterwards a general in the army of the United States. See Appendix. 50. Jefferson MSS. Statements of John Gibson, etc. ; there is someuncertainty as to whether Logan came up to Gibson at the treaty and drewhim aside, or whether the latter went to seek the former in his wigwam. 51. Jefferson Papers (State Department MSS. ), 5-1-4. Statement of Col. John Gibson to John Anderson, an Indian trader at Pittsburg, in 1774. Anderson had asked him if he had not himself added somewhat to thespeech; he responded that he had not, that it was a literal translationor transcription of Logan's words. 52. Jefferson MSS. Affidavits of Andrew Rogers, Wm. Russell, and otherswho were present. 53. Clark's letter. 54. See De Haas, 167. 55. These are Smith's estimates, derived largely from Indian sources. They are probably excessive, but not very greatly so. 56. It is difficult to understand why some minor historians considerthis war as fruitless. 57. John Hall; it is worth while preserving the name of the ringleaderin so brutal and cowardly a butchery. See Stewart's Narrative. CHAPTER X. BOON AND THE SETTLEMENT OF KENTUCKY, 1775. Lord Dunmore's war, waged by Americans for the good of America, was theopening act in the drama whereof the closing scene was played atYorktown. It made possible the twofold character of the Revolutionarywar, wherein on the one hand the Americans won by conquest andcolonization new lands for their children, and on the other wrought outtheir national independence of the British king. Save for Lord Dunmore'swar we could not have settled beyond the mountains until after we hadended our quarrel with our kinsfolk across the sea. It so cowed thenorthern Indians that for two or three years they made no furtherorganized effort to check the white advance. In consequence, theKentucky pioneers had only to contend with small parties of enemiesuntil time had been given them to become so firmly rooted in the landthat it proved impossible to oust them. Had Cornstalk and hisfellow-chiefs kept their hosts unbroken, they would undoubtedly haveswept Kentucky clear of settlers in 1775, --as was done by the mere rumorof their hostility the preceding summer. Their defeat gave theopportunity for Boon to settle Kentucky, and therefore for Robertson tosettle Middle Tennessee, and for Clark to conquer Illinois and theNorthwest; it was the first in the chain of causes that gave us for ourwestern frontier in 1783 the Mississippi and not the Alleghanies. As already mentioned, the speculative North Carolinian Henderson had forsome time been planning the establishment of a proprietary colony beyondthe mountains, as a bold stroke to reestablish his ruined fortunes; andearly in 1775, as the time seemed favorable, he proceeded to put hisventurous scheme into execution. For years he had been in close businessrelations with Boon; and the latter had attempted to lead a band ofactual settlers to Kentucky in 1773. Naturally, when Henderson wished tofix on a place wherein to plant his colony, he chose the beautiful landwhich the rumor of Boon's discovery had rendered famous all along theborder; and equally naturally he chose the pioneer hunter himself to actas his lieutenant and as the real leader of the expedition. The resultof the joint efforts of these two men was to plant in Kentucky a colonyof picked settlers, backed by such moral and material support as enabledthem to maintain themselves permanently in the land. Boon had not beenthe first to discover Kentucky, nor was he the first to found asettlement therein;[1] but it was his exploration of the land that alonebore lasting fruit, and the settlement he founded was the first thatcontained within itself the elements of permanence and growth. Of course, as in every other settlement of inland America, the especialpoint to be noticed is the individual initiative of the differentsettlers. Neither the royal nor the provincial governments had any thingto do with the various colonies that were planted almost simultaneouslyon the soil of Kentucky. Each little band of pioneers had its ownleaders, and was stirred by its own motives. All had heard, fromdifferent sources, of the beauty and fertility of the land, and as thegreat danger from the Indians was temporarily past, all alike went in totake possession, not only acting without previous agreement, but for themost part being even in ignorance of one another's designs. Yet thedangers surrounding these new-formed and far-off settlements were sonumerous, and of such grave nature, that they could hardly have provedpermanent had it not been for the comparatively well-organizedsettlement of Boon, and for the temporary immunity which Henderson'streaty purchased from the southern Indians. The settlement of Kentucky was a much more adventurous and hazardousproceeding than had been the case with any previous westward extensionof population from the old colonies; because Kentucky, instead ofabutting on already settled districts, was an island in the wilderness, separated by two hundred miles of unpeopled and almost impassable forestfrom even the extreme outposts of the seacoast commonwealths. Hithertoevery new settlement had been made by the simple process of a portion ofthe backwoods pioneers being thrust out in advance of the others, while, nevertheless, keeping in touch with them, and having their rear covered, as it were, by the already colonized country. Now, for the first time, anew community of pioneers sprang up, isolated in the heart of thewilderness, and thrust far beyond the uttermost limits of the oldcolonies, whose solid mass lay along the Atlantic seaboard. The vastbelt of mountainous woodland that lay between was as complete a barrieras if it had been a broad arm of the ocean. The first American incomersto Kentucky were for several years almost cut off from the bulk of theirfellows beyond the forest-clad mountains; much as, thirteen centuriesbefore, their forebears, the first English settlers in Britain, had beencut off from the rest of the low-Dutch folk who continued to dwell onthe eastern coast of the German Ocean. Henderson and those associated with him in his scheme of landspeculation began to open negotiations with the Cherokees as soon as thevictory of the Great Kanawha for the moment lessened the danger to beapprehended from the northwestern Indians. In October, 1774, he andNathaniel Hart, one of his partners in the scheme, journeyed to theOtari towns, and made their proposals. The Indians proceeded verycautiously, deputing one of their number, a chief called the Carpenter, to return with the two white envoys, and examine the goods they proposedto give in exchange. To this Henderson made no objection; on thecontrary, it pleased him, for he was anxious to get an indisputableIndian title to the proposed new colony. The Indian delegate made afavorable report in January, 1775; and then the Overhill Cherokees werebidden to assemble at the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga. The order wasissued by the head-chief, Oconostota, a very old man, renowned for theprowess he had shown in former years when warring against the English. On the 17th of March, Oconostota and two other chiefs, the Raven and theCarpenter, signed the Treaty of the Sycamore Shoals, in the presence andwith the assent of some twelve hundred of their tribe, half of themwarriors; for all who could had come to the treaty grounds. Hendersonthus obtained a grant of all the lands lying along and between theKentucky and the Cumberland rivers. He promptly named the new colonyTransylvania. The purchase money was 10, 000 pounds of lawful Englishmoney; but, of course, the payment was made mainly in merchandise, andnot specie. It took a number of days before the treaty was finallyconcluded; no rum was allowed to be sold, and there was littledrunkenness, but herds of beeves were driven in, that the Indians mightmake a feast. The main opposition to the treaty was made by a chief named DraggingCanoe, who continued for years to be the most inveterate foe of thewhite race to be found among the Cherokees. On the second day of thetalk he spoke strongly against granting the Americans what they asked, pointing out, in words of glowing eloquence, how the Cherokees, who hadonce owned the land down to the sea, had been steadily driven back bythe whites until they had reached the mountains, and warning hiscomrades that they must now put a stop at all hazards to furtherencroachments, under penalty of seeing the loss of their lasthunting-grounds, by which alone their children could live. When he hadfinished his speech he abruptly left the ring of speakers, and thecouncil broke up in confusion. The Indian onlookers were much impressedby what he said; and for some hours the whites were in dismay lest allfurther negotiations should prove fruitless. It was proposed to get thedeed privately; but to this the treaty-makers would not consent, answering that they cared nothing for the treaty unless it was concludedin open council, with the full assent of all the Indians. By muchexertion Dragging Canoe was finally persuaded to come back; the councilwas resumed next day, and finally the grant was made without furtheropposition. The Indians chose their own interpreter; and the treaty wasread aloud and translated, sentence by sentence, before it was signed, on the fourth day of the formal talking. The chiefs undoubtedly knew that they could transfer only a veryimperfect title to the land they thus deeded away. Both Oconostota andDragging Canoe told the white treaty-makers that the land beyond themountains, whither they were going, was a "dark ground, " a "bloodyground"; and warned them that they must go at their own risk, and nothold the Cherokees responsible, for the latter could no longer hold themby the hand. Dragging Canoe especially told Henderson that there was ablack cloud hanging over the land, for it lay in the path of thenorthwestern Indians--who were already at war with the Cherokees, andwould surely show as little mercy to the white men as to the red. Another old chief said to Boon: "Brother, we have given you a fine land, but I believe you will have much trouble in settling it. " What he saidwas true, and the whites were taught by years of long warfare thatKentucky was indeed what the Cherokees called it, a dark and bloodyground. [2] After Henderson's main treaty was concluded, the Watauga Associationentered into another, by which they secured from the Cherokees, for2, 000 pounds sterling, the lands they had already leased. As soon as it became evident that the Indians would consent to thetreaty, Henderson sent Boon ahead with a company of thirty men to cleara trail from the Holston to the Kentucky. [3] This, the first regularpath opened into the wilderness, was long called Boon's trace, andbecame forever famous in Kentucky history as the Wilderness Road, thetrack along which so many tens of thousands travelled while journeyingto their hoped-for homes in the bountiful west. Boon started on March10th with his sturdy band of rifle-bearing axemen, and chopped out anarrow bridle-path--a pony trail, as it would now be called in the west. It led over Cumberland Gap, and crossed Cumberland, Laurel, andRockcastle rivers at fords that were swimming deep in the time offreshets. Where it went through tall, open timber, it was marked byblazes on the tree trunks, while a regular path was cut and trodden outthrough the thickets of underbrush and the dense canebrakes andreed-beds. After a fortnight's hard work the party had almost reached the banks ofthe Kentucky River, and deemed that their chief trials were over. Buthalf an hour before daybreak on the morning of the 25th, as they layround their smouldering camp-fires, they were attacked by some Indians, who killed two of them and wounded a third; the others sprang to arms atonce, and stood their ground without suffering further loss or damagetill it grew light, when the Indians silently drew off. [4] Continuinghis course, Boon reached the Kentucky River, and on April 1st began tobuild Boonsborough, on an open plain where there was a lick with twosulphur springs. Meanwhile other pioneers, as hardy and enterprising as Boon'scompanions, had likewise made up their minds that they would come in topossess the land; and in bands or small parties they had crossed themountains or floated down the Ohio, under the leadership of such men asHarrod, Logan, [5] and the McAfees. [6] But hardly had they built theirslight log-cabins, covered with brush or bark, and broken ground for thecorn-planting, when some small Indian war-parties, including that whichhad attacked Boon's company, appeared among them. Several men were"killed and sculped, " as Boon phrased it; and the panic among the restwas very great, insomuch that many forthwith set out to return. Boon wasnot so easily daunted; and he at once sent a special messenger to hurryforward the main body under Henderson, writing to the latter with quietresolution and much good sense: "My advice to you, sir, is to come or send as soon as possible. Yourcompany is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but arewilling to stay and venture their lives with you, and now is the time toflusterate the intentions of the Indians, and keep the country whilst weare in it. If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case. "[7] Henderson had started off as soon as he had finished the treaty. He tookwagons with him, but was obliged to halt and leave them in Powell'sValley, for beyond that even so skilful a pathfinder and road-maker asBoon had not been able to find or make a way passable for wheels. [8]Accordingly, their goods and implements were placed on pack-horses, andthe company started again. [9] Most fortunately a full account of theirjourney has been kept; for among Henderson's followers at this time wasa man named William Calk, who jotted down in his diary the events ofeach day. [10] It is a short record, but as amusing as it is instructive;for the writer's mind was evidently as vigorous as his language wasterse and untrammelled. He was with a small party, who were going out aspartners; and his journal is a faithful record of all things, great orsmall, that at the time impressed him. The opening entry contains theinformation that "Abram's dog's leg got broke by Drake's dog. " The ownerof the latter beast, by the way, could not have been a pleasantcompanion on a trip of this sort, for elsewhere the writer, who, likemost backwoodsmen, appreciated cleanliness in essentials, records withevident disfavor the fact that "Mr. Drake Bakes bread without washinghis hands. " Every man who has had the misfortune to drive a pack-trainin thick timber, or along a bad trail, will appreciate keenly thefollowing incident, which occurred soon after the party had set out forhome: * * * * * "I turned my hors to drive before me and he got scard ran away threwDown the Saddel Bags and broke three of our powder goards and Abram'sbeast Burst open a walet of corn and lost a good Deal and made aturrabel flustration amongst the Reast of the Horses Drake's mair runagainst a sapling and noct it down we cacht them all again and went onand lodged at John Duncan's. " * * * * * Another entry records the satisfaction of the party when at a log fort(before getting into the wilderness) they procured some good loaf-breadand good whisky. They carried with them seed-corn[11] and "Irish tators" to plant, andfor use on the journey had bacon, and corn-meal which was made eitherinto baked corn-dodgers or else into johnny-cakes, which were simplycooked on a board beside the fire, or else perhaps on a hot stone or inthe ashes. The meal had to be used very sparingly; occasionally a beefwas killed, out of the herd of cattle that accompanied the emigrants;but generally they lived on the game they shot--deer, turkeys, and, whenthey got to Kentucky, buffaloes. Sometimes this was killed as theytravelled; more often the hunters got it by going out in the eveningafter they had pitched camp. The journey was hard and tiresome. At times it rained; and again therewere heavy snow-storms, in one of which an emigrant got lost, and onlyfound his way to camp by the help of a pocket-compass. The mountainswere very steep, and it was painfully laborious work to climb them, while chopping out a way for the pack-train. At night a watch had to bekept for Indians. It was only here and there that the beasts got goodgrazing. Sometimes the horses had their saddles turned while strugglingthrough the woods. But the great difficulty came in crossing the creeks, where the banks were rotten, the bottom bad, or the water deep; then thehorses would get mired down and wet their packs, or they would have tobe swum across while their loads were ferried over on logs. One day, ingoing along a creek, they had to cross it no less than fifty times, by"very bad foards. " On the seventh of April they were met by Boon's runner, bearing tidingsof the loss occasioned by the Indians; and from that time on they metparties of would-be settlers, who, panic-struck by the sudden forays, were fleeing from the country. Henderson's party kept on with goodcourage, and persuaded quite a number of the fugitives to turn back withthem. Some of these men who were thus leaving the country were not doingso because of fright; for many, among them the McAfees, had not broughtout their families, but had simply come to clear the ground, buildcabins, plant corn, and turn some branded cattle loose in the woods, where they were certain to thrive well, winter and summer, on thenourishing cane and wild pea-vine. The men then intended to go back tothe settlements and bring out their wives and children, perhaps not tillthe following year; so that things were in a measure prepared for them, though they were very apt to find that the cattle had been stolen by theIndians, or had strayed too far to be recovered. [12] The bulk of those fleeing, however, were simply frightened out of thecountry. There seems no reason to doubt[13] that the establishment ofthe strong, well-backed settlement of Boonsborough was all thatprevented the abandonment of Kentucky at this time; and when such wasthe effect of a foray by small and scattered war parties of Indians fromtribes nominally at peace with us, [14] it can easily be imagined howhopeless it would have been to have tried to settle the land had therestill been in existence a strong hostile confederacy such as thatpresided over by Cornstalk. Beyond doubt the restless and vigorousfrontiersmen would ultimately have won their way into the covetedwestern lands; yet had it not been for the battle of the Great Kanawha, Boon and Henderson could not, in 1775, have planted their colony inKentucky; and had it not been for Boon and Henderson, it is mostunlikely that the land would have been settled at all until after theRevolutionary war, when perhaps it might have been British soil. Boonwas essentially a type, and possesses his greatest interest for usbecause he represents so well the characteristics as well as thelife-work of his fellow backwoodsmen; still, it is unfair not to bear inmind also the leading part he played and the great services he renderedto the nation. The incomers soon recovered from the fright into which they had beenthrown by the totally unexpected Indian attack; but the revengeful angerit excited in their breasts did not pass away. They came from a classalready embittered by long warfare with their forest foes; they hoardedup their new wrongs in minds burdened with the memories of countlessother outrages; and it is small wonder that repeated and oftenunprovoked treachery at last excited in them a fierce and indiscriminatehostility to all the red-skinned race. They had come to settle on groundto which, as far as it was possible, the Indian title had been by fairtreaty extinguished. They ousted no Indians from the lands they took;they had had neither the chance nor the wish to themselves do wrong; intheir eyes the attack on the part of the Indians was as wanton as it wascruel; and in all probability this view was correct, and theirassailants were actuated more by the desire for scalps and plunder thanby resentment at the occupation of hunting grounds to which they couldhave had little claim. In fact, throughout the history of the discoveryand first settlement of Kentucky, the original outrages and murders werecommitted by the Indians on the whites, and not by the whites on theIndians. In the gloomy and ferocious wars that ensued, the wrongs doneby each side were many and great. Henderson's company came into the beautiful Kentucky country inmid-April, when it looked its best: the trees were in leaf, the airheavy with fragrance, the snowy flowers of the dogwood whitened thewoods, and the banks of the streams burned dull crimson with the wealthof red-bud blossoms. The travellers reached the fort that Boon wasbuilding on the 20th of the month, being welcomed to the protection ofits wooden walls by a volley from twenty or thirty rifles. They at onceset to with a will to finish it, and to make it a strong place of refugeagainst Indian attacks. It was a typical forted village, such as thefrontiersmen built everywhere in the west and southwest during the yearsthat they were pushing their way across the continent in the teeth offierce and harassing warfare; in some features it was not unlike thehamlet-like "tun" in which the forefathers of these same pioneers dwelt, long centuries before, when they still lived by the sluggish waters ofthe lower Rhine, or had just crossed to the eastern coast ofBritain. [15] The fort was in shape a parallelogram, some two hundred and fifty feetlong and half as wide. It was more completely finished than the majorityof its kind, though little or no iron was used in its construction. Ateach corner was a two-storied loop-holed block-house to act as abastion. The stout log-cabins were arranged in straight lines, so thattheir outer sides formed part of the wall, the spaces between them beingfilled with a high stockade, made of heavy squared timbers thrustupright into the ground, and bound together within by a horizontalstringer near the top. They were loop-holed like the block-houses. Theheavy wooden gates, closed with stout bars, were flanked without by theblock-houses and within by small windows cut in the nearest cabins. Thehouses had sharp, sloping roofs, made of huge clapboards, and thesegreat wooden slabs were kept in place by long poles, bound with withesto the rafters. In case of dire need each cabin was separatelydefensible. When danger threatened, the cattle were kept in the openspace in the middle. Three other similar forts or stations were built about the same time asBoonsborough, namely: Harrodstown, Boiling Springs, and St. Asaphs, better known as Logan's Station, from its founder's name. These all layto the southwest, some thirty odd miles from Boonsborough. Every suchfort or station served as the rallying-place for the country roundabout, the stronghold in which the people dwelt during time of danger;and later on, when all danger had long ceased, it often remained inchanged form, growing into the chief town of the district. Each settlerhad his own farm besides, often a long way from the fort, and it was onthis that he usually intended to make his permanent home. This systemenabled the inhabitants to combine for defence, and yet to take up thelarge tracts of four to fourteen hundred acres, [16] to which they wereby law entitled. It permitted them in time of peace to live well apart, with plenty of room between, so that they did not crowd one another--afact much appreciated by men in whose hearts the spirit of extremeindependence and self-reliance was deeply ingrained. Thus the settlerswere scattered over large areas, and, as elsewhere in the southwest, thecounty and not the town became the governmental unit. The citizens evenof the smaller governmental divisions acted through representatives, instead of directly, as in the New England town-meetings. [17] The centreof county government was of course the county court-house. Henderson, having established a land agency at Boonsborough, at onceproceeded to deed to the Transylvania colonists entry certificates ofsurveys of many hundred thousand acres. Most of the colonists wererather doubtful whether these certificates would ultimately prove of anyvalue, and preferred to rest their claims on their original cabinrights; a wise move on their part, though in the end the VirginiaLegislature confirmed Henderson's sales in so far as they had been madeto actual settlers. All the surveying was of course of the very rudestkind. Only a skilled woodsman could undertake the work in such acountry; and accordingly much of it devolved on Boon, who ran the linesas well as he could, and marked the trees with his own initials, eitherby powder or else with his knife. [18] The State could not undertake tomake the surveys itself, so it authorized the individual settler to doso. This greatly promoted the rapid settlement of the country, making itpossible to deal with land as a commodity, and outlining the variousclaims; but the subsequent and inevitable result was that the sons ofthe settlers reaped a crop of endless confusion and litigation. It is worth mentioning that the Transylvania company opened a store atBoonsborough. Powder and lead, the two commodities most in demand, weresold respectively for $2. 66-2/3 and 16-2/3 cents per pound. The paymentwas rarely made in coin; and how high the above prices were may begathered from the fact that ordinary labor was credited at 33-1/3 centsper day while fifty cents a day was paid for ranging, hunting, andworking on the roads. [19] Henderson immediately proceeded to organize the government of hiscolony, and accordingly issued a call for an election of delegates tothe Legislature of Transylvania, each of the four stations mentionedabove sending members. The delegates, seventeen in all, met atBoonsborough and organized the convention on the 23d of May. Theirmeetings were held without the walls of the fort, on a level plain ofwhite clover, under a grand old elm. Beneath its mighty branches ahundred people could without crowding find refuge from the noon-day sun;it was a fit council-house for this pioneer legislature of game huntersand Indian fighters. [20] These weather-beaten backwoods warriors, who held their deliberations inthe open air, showed that they had in them good stuff out of which tobuild a free government. They were men of genuine force of character, and they behaved with a dignity and wisdom that would have well becomeany legislative body. Henderson, on behalf of the proprietors ofTransylvania, addressed them, much as a crown governor would have done. The portion of his address dealing with the destruction of game is worthnoting. Buffalo, elk, and deer had abounded immediately roundBoonsborough when the settlers first arrived, but the slaughter had beenso great that even after the first six weeks the hunters began to findsome difficulty in getting any thing without going off some fifteen ortwenty miles. However, stray buffaloes were still killed near the fortonce or twice a week. [21] Calk in his journal quoted above, in the midstof entries about his domestic work--such as, on April 29th "we git ourhouse kivered with bark and move our things into it at Night and Beginhousekeeping, " and on May 2d, "went and sot in to clearing forcorn, "--mentions occasionally killing deer and turkey; and once, whilelooking for a strayed mare, he saw four "bofelos. " He wounded one, butfailed to get it, with the luck that generally attended backwoodshunters when they for the first time tried their small-bore riflesagainst these huge, shaggy-maned wild cattle. As Henderson pointed out, the game was the sole dependence of the firstsettlers, who, most of the time, lived solely on wild meat, even theparched corn having been exhausted; and without game the new-comerscould not have stayed in the land a week. [22] Accordingly he advised theenactment of game-laws; and he was especially severe in his commentsupon the "foreigners" who came into the country merely to hunt, killingoff the wild beasts, and taking their skins and furs away, for thebenefit of persons not concerned in the settlement. This last point iscurious as showing how instantly and naturally the colonists succeedednot only to the lands of the Indians, but also to their habits ofthought; regarding intrusion by outsiders upon their hunting-groundswith the same jealous dislike so often shown by their red-skinnedpredecessors. Henderson also outlined some of the laws he thought it advisable toenact, and the Legislature followed his advice. They provided for courtsof law, for regulating the militia, for punishing criminals, fixingsheriffs' and clerks' fees, and issuing writs of attachment. [23] One ofthe members was a clergyman: owing to him a law was passed forbiddingprofane swearing or Sabbath-breaking; a puritanic touch which showed themountain rather than the seaboard origin of the men settling Kentucky. The three remaining laws the Legislature enacted were much morecharacteristic, and were all introduced by the two Boons--for SquireBoon was still the companion of his brother. As was fit and proper, itfell to the lot of the greatest of backwoods hunters to propose a schemefor game protection, which the Legislature immediately adopted; and hiswas likewise the "act for preserving the breed of horses, "--for, fromthe very outset, the Kentuckians showed the love for fine horses and forhorse-racing which has ever since distinguished them. Squire Boon wasthe author of a law "to protect the range"; for the preservation of therange or natural pasture over which the branded horses and cattle of thepioneers ranged at will, was as necessary to the welfare of the stock asthe preservation of the game was to the welfare of the men. In Kentuckythe range was excellent, abounding not only in fine grass, but in caneand wild peas, and the animals grazed on it throughout the year. Firessometimes utterly destroyed immense tracts of this pasture, causingheavy loss to the settlers; and one of the first cares of pioneerlegislative bodies was to guard against such accidents. It was likewise stipulated that there should be complete religiousfreedom and toleration for all sects. This seems natural enough now, butin the eighteenth century the precedents were the other way. Kentuckyshowed its essentially American character in nothing more than thediversity of religious belief among the settlers from the very start. They came almost entirely from the backwoods mountaineers of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, among whom the predominant faith hadbeen Presbyterianism; but from the beginning they were occasionallyvisited by Baptist preachers, [24] whose creed spread to the borderssooner than Methodism; and among the original settlers of Harrodsburgwere some Catholic Marylanders. [25] The first service ever held inKentucky was by a clergyman of the Church of England, soon afterHenderson's arrival; but this was merely owing to the presence ofHenderson himself, who, it must be remembered, was not in the least abackwoods product. He stood completely isolated from the otherimmigrants during his brief existence as a pioneer, and had his realrelationship with the old English founders of the proprietary colonies, and with the more modern American land speculators, whose schemes are sooften mentioned during the last half of the eighteenth century. Episcopacy was an exotic in the backwoods; it did not take real root inKentucky till long after that commonwealth had emerged from the pioneerstage. When the Transylvanian Legislature dissolved, never to meet again, Henderson had nearly finished playing his short but important part inthe founding of Kentucky. He was a man of the seacoast regions, who hadlittle in common with the backwoodsmen by whom he was surrounded; hecame from a comparatively old and sober community, and he could notgrapple with his new associates; in his journal he alludes to them as aset of scoundrels who scarcely believed in God or feared the devil. ABritish friend[26] of his, who at this time visited the settlement, alsodescribed the pioneers as being a lawless, narrow-minded, unpolished, and utterly insubordinate set, impatient of all restraint, and relyingin every difficulty upon their individual might; though he grudginglyadmitted that they were frank, hospitable, energetic, daring, andpossessed of much common-sense. Of course it was hopeless to expect thatsuch bold spirits, as they conquered the wilderness, would be content tohold it even at a small quit-rent from Henderson. But the latter'scolony was toppled over by a thrust from without before it had time tobe rent in sunder by violence from within. Transylvania was between two millstones. The settlers revolted againstits authority, and appealed to Virginia; and meanwhile Virginia, claiming the Kentucky country, and North Carolina as mistress of thelands round the Cumberland, proclaimed the purchase of the Transylvanianproprietors null and void as regards themselves, though valid as againstthe Indians. The title conveyed by the latter thus enured to the benefitof the colonies; it having been our policy, both before and since theRevolution, not to permit any of our citizens to individually purchaselands from the savages. Lord Dunmore denounced Henderson and his acts; and it was in vain thatthe Transylvanians appealed to the Continental Congress, asking leave tosend a delegate thereto, and asserting their devotion to the Americancause; for Jefferson and Patrick Henry were members of that body, andthough they agreed with Lord Dunmore in nothing else, were quite asdetermined as he that Kentucky should remain part of Virginia. SoTransylvania's fitful life flickered out of existence; the VirginiaLegislature in 1778, solemnly annulling the title of the company, butvery properly recompensing the originators by the gift of two hundredthousand acres. [27] North Carolina pursued a precisely similar course;and Henderson, after the collapse of his colony, drifts out of history. Boon remained to be for some years one of the Kentucky leaders. Soonafter the fort at Boonsborough was built, he went back to North Carolinafor his family, and in the fall returned, bringing out a band of newsettlers, including twenty-seven "guns"--that is, rifle-bearingmen, --and four women, with their families, the first who came toKentucky, though others shortly followed in their steps. [28] A fewroving hunters and daring pioneer settlers also came to his fort in thefall; among them, the famous scout, Simon Kenton, and John Todd, [29] aman of high and noble character and well-trained mind, who afterwardsfell by Boon's side when in command at the fatal battle of Blue Licks. In this year also Clark[30] and Shelby[31] first came to Kentucky; andmany other men whose names became famous in frontier story, and whosesufferings and long wanderings, whose strength, hardihood, and fiercedaring, whose prowess as Indian fighters and killers of big game, weretold by the firesides of Kentucky to generations born when the elk andthe buffalo had vanished from her borders as completely as the redIndian himself. Each leader gathered round him a little party of men, who helped him build the fort which was to be the stronghold of thedistrict. Among the earliest of these town-builders were Hugh McGarry, James Harrod, and Benjamin Logan. The first named was a coarse, bold, brutal man, always clashing with his associates (he once nearly shotHarrod in a dispute over work). He was as revengeful and foolhardy as hewas daring, but a natural leader in spite of all. Soon after he came toKentucky his son was slain by Indians while out boiling sugar from themaples; and he mercilessly persecuted all redskins for ever after. Harrod and Logan were of far higher character, and superior to him inevery respect. Like so many other backwoodsmen, they were tall, spare, athletic men, with dark hair and grave faces. They were as fearless asthey were tireless, and were beloved by their followers. Harrod finallydied alone in the wilderness, nor was it ever certainly known whether hewas killed by Indian or white man, or perchance by some hunted beast. The old settlers always held up his memory as that of a man ever readyto do a good deed, whether it was to run to the rescue of some oneattacked by Indians, or to hunt up the strayed plough-horse of a brothersettler less skilful as a woodsman; yet he could hardly read or write. Logan was almost as good a woodsman and individual fighter, and inaddition was far better suited to lead men. He was both just andgenerous. His father had died intestate, so that all of his property bylaw came to Logan, who was the eldest son; but the latter at oncedivided it equally with his brothers and sisters. As soon as he came toKentucky he rose to leadership, and remained for many years among theforemost of the commonwealth founders. All this time there penetrated through the sombre forests faint echoesof the strife the men of the seacoast had just begun against the Britishking. The rumors woke to passionate loyalty the hearts of the pioneers;and a roaming party of hunters, when camped on a branch[32] of theElkhorn, by the hut of one of their number, named McConnell, called thespot Lexington, in honor of the memory of the Massachusetts minute-men, about whose death and victory they had just heard. [33] By the end of 1775 the Americans had gained firm foothold in Kentucky. Cabins had been built and clearings made; there were women and childrenin the wooden forts, cattle grazed on the range, and two or threehundred acres of corn had been sown and reaped. There were perhaps somethree hundred men in Kentucky, a hardy, resolute, strenuous band. Theystood shoulder to shoulder in the wilderness, far from all help, surrounded by an overwhelming number of foes. Each day's work wasfraught with danger as they warred with the wild forces from which theywrung their living. Around them on every side lowered the clouds of theimpending death struggle with the savage lords of the neighboring lands. These backwoodsmen greatly resembled one another; their leaders were buttypes of the rank and file, and did not differ so very widely from them;yet two men stand out clearly from their fellows. Above the throng ofwood-choppers, game-hunters, and Indian fighters loom the sinewy figuresof Daniel Boon and George Rogers Clark. 1. The first permanent settlement was Harrodsburg, then calledHarrodstown, founded in 1774, but soon abandoned, and only permanentlyoccupied on March 18, 1775, a fortnight before Boon began the erectionof his fort. 2. The whole account of this treaty is taken from the Jefferson MSS. , 5th Series, Vol. VIII. ; "a copy of the proceedings of the VirginiaConvention, from June 15 to November 19, 1777, in relation to theMemorial of Richard Henderson, and others"; especially from thedepositions of James Robertson, Isaac Shelby, Charles Robertson, Nathaniel Gist, and Thomas Price, who were all present. There is muchinteresting matter aside from the treaty; Simon Girty makes depositionsas to Braddock's defeat and Bouquet's fight; Lewis, Croghan, and othersshow the utter vagueness and conflict of the Indian titles to Kentucky, etc. , etc. Though the Cherokees spoke of the land as a "dark" or"bloody" place or ground, it does not seem that by either of these termsthey referred to the actual meaning of the name Kentucky. One or two ofthe witnesses tried to make out that the treaty was unfairly made; butthe bulk of the evidence is overwhelmingly the other way. Haywood gives a long speech made by Oconostota against the treaty; butthis original report shows that Oconostota favored the treaty from theoutset, and that it was Dragging Canoe who spoke against it. Haywoodwrote fifty years after the event, and gathered many of his facts fromtradition; probably tradition had become confused, and reversed theposition of the two chiefs. Haywood purports to give almost the exactlanguage Oconostota used; but when he is in error even as to who madethe speech, he is exceedingly unlikely to be correct in any thing morethan its general tenor. 3. Then sometimes called the Louisa; a name given it at first by theEnglish explorers, but by great good-fortune not retained. 4. Collins, II. , 498. Letter of Daniel Boon, April 1, 1775. Collins hasdone good work for Kentucky history, having collected a perfect mass ofmaterials of every sort. But he does not discriminate between facts ofundoubted authenticity, and tales resting on the idlest legend; so thathe must be used with caution, and he is, of course, not to be trustedwhere he is biassed by the extreme rancor of his political prejudices. Of the Kentucky historians, Marshall is by far the most brilliant, andMann Butler the most trustworthy and impartial. Both are much betterthan Collins. 5. Benjamin Logan; there were many of the family in Kentucky. It was acommon name along the border; the Indian chief Logan had been namedafter one of the Pennsylvania branch. 6. McAfee MSS. 7. Boon's letter. 8. Richard Henderson's "Journal of an Expedition to Cantucky in 1775"(Collins). 9. April 5th. 10. It is printed in the Filson Club publications; see "The WildernessRoad, " by Thomas Speed, Louisville, Ky. , 1886; one of the best of anexcellent series. 11. It is not necessary to say that "corn" means maize; Americans do notuse the word in the sense in which it is employed in Britain. 12. McAfee MSS. Some of the McAfees returned with Henderson. 13. Boon's letter, Henderson's journal, Calk's diary, McAfee'sautobiography all mention the way in which the early settlers began toswarm out of the country in April, 1775. To judge from their accounts, if the movement had not been checked instantly the country would havebeen depopulated in a fortnight, exactly as in 1774. 14. It must be remembered that the outrages of the Indians this year inKentucky were totally unprovoked; they were on lands where they did notthemselves dwell, and which had been regularly ceded to the whites byall the tribes--Iroquois, Shawnees, Cherokees, etc. --whom the whitescould possibly consider as having any claim to them. The wrath of theKentuckians against all Indians is easily understood. 15. When the block-house and palisade enclosed the farm of a singlesettler the "tun, " in its still earlier sense, was even more nearlyreproduced. 16. Four hundred acres were gained at the price of $2. 50 per 100 acres, by merely building a cabin and raising a crop of corn; and every settlerwith such a "cabin right" had likewise a preemption right to 1, 000 acresadjoining, for a cost that generally approached forty dollars a hundred. 17. In Mr. Phelan's scholarly "History of Tennessee, " pp. 202-204, etc. , there is an admirably clear account of the way in which Tennesseeinstitutions (like those of the rest of the Southwest) have beendirectly and without a break derived from English institutions; whereasmany of those of New England are rather pre-Normanic revivals, curiouslyparalleled in England as it was before the Conquest. 18. Boon's deposition, July 29, 1795. 19. Mann Butler, p. 31. 20. Henderson's Journal. The beauty of the elm impressed him verygreatly. According to the list of names eighteen, not seventeen, memberswere elected; but apparently only seventeen took part in theproceedings. 21. Henderson's Journal. 22. "Our game, the only support of life amongst many of us, and withoutwhich the country would be abandoned ere to-morrow. " Henderson'saddress. 23. Journal of the Proceedings of the House of Delegates orRepresentatives of the Colony of Transylvania. 24. Possibly in 1775, certainly in 1776; MS. Autobiography of Rev. Wm. Hickman. In Durrett's library. 25. "Life of Rev. Charles Nerinckx, " by Rev. Camillus P. Maes, Cincinnati, 1880, p. 67. 26. Smyth, p. 330. 27. Gov. James T. Morehead's "address" at Boonsborough, in 1840(Frankfort, Ky. , 1841). 28. _Do. _, p. 51. Mrs. Boon, Mrs. Denton, Mrs. McGarry, Mrs. Hogan;all were from the North Carolina backwoods; their ancestry is shown bytheir names. They settled in Boonsborough and Harrodsburg. 29. Like Logan he was born in Pennsylvania, of Presbyterian Irish stock. He had received a good education. 30. Morehead, p. 52. 31. Shelby's MS. Autobiography, in Durrett's Library at Louisville. 32. These frontiersmen called a stream a "run, " "branch, " "creek, " or"fork, " but never a "brook, " as in the northeast. 33. "History of Lexington, " G. W. Ranck, Cincinnati, 1872, p. 19. Thetown was not permanently occupied till four years later. CHAPTER XI. IN THE CURRENT OF THE REVOLUTION--THE SOUTHERN BACKWOODSMEN OVERWHELMTHE CHEROKEES, 1776. The great western drift of our people began almost at the moment whenthey became Americans, and ceased to be merely British colonists. Theycrossed the great divide which sundered the springs of the seaboardrivers from the sources of the western waters about the time thatAmerican citizens first publicly acted as American freemen, knittogether by common ties, and with interests no longer akin to those ofthe mother country. The movement which was to make the future nation acontinental power was begun immediately after the hitherto separatecolonies had taken the first step towards solidification. While thecommunities of the sea-coast were yet in a fever heat from the uprisingagainst the stamp tax, the first explorers were toiling painfully toKentucky, and the first settlers were building their palisaded hamletson the banks of the Watauga. The year that saw the first ContinentalCongress saw also the short, grim tragedy of Lord Dunmore's war. Theearly battles of the Revolution were fought while Boon's comrades werelaying the foundations of their commonwealth. Hitherto the two chains of events had been only remotely connected; butin 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence, the strugglebetween the king and his rebellious subjects shook the whole land, andthe men of the western border were drawn headlong into the full currentof revolutionary warfare. From that moment our politics became national, and the fate of each portion of our country was thenceforth in some sortdependent upon the welfare of every other. Each section had its own workto do; the east won independence while the west began to conquer thecontinent. Yet the deeds of each were of vital consequence to the other. Washington's Continentals gave the west its freedom; and took in returnfor themselves and their children a share of the land that had beenconquered and held by the scanty bands of tall backwoodsmen. The backwoodsmen, the men of the up-country, were, as a whole, ardentadherents of the patriot or American side. Yet there were among themmany loyalists or tories; and these tories included in their ranks muchthe greatest portion of the vicious and the disorderly elements. Thiswas the direct reverse of what obtained along portions of the seaboard, where large numbers of the peaceable, well-to-do people stood loyally bythe king. In the up-country, however, the Presbyterian Irish, with theirfellows of Calvinistic stock and faith, formed the back-bone of themoral and order-loving element; and the Presbyterian Irish[1] werealmost to a man staunch and furious upholders of the ContinentalCongress. Naturally, the large bands of murderers, horse-thieves, andother wild outlaws, whom these grim friends of order hunted down withmerciless severity, were glad to throw in their lot with any party thatpromised revenge upon their foes. But of course there were lawlesscharacters on both sides; in certain localities where the crop ofjealousies, always a rank backwoods growth, had been unusually large, and had therefore produced long-standing and bitter feuds, [2] the rivalfamilies espoused opposite sides from sheer vindictive hatred of oneanother. As a result, the struggle in the backwoods between tories andwhigs, king's-men and congress-men, [3] did not merely turn upon thequestions everywhere at stake between the American and British parties. It was also in part a fight between the law-abiding and the lawless, andin part a slaking of savage personal animosities, wherein the borderersglutted their vengeance on one another. They exercised without restraintthe right of private warfare, long abandoned in more civilized regions. It was natural that such a contest should be waged with appallingferocity. Nevertheless this very ferocity was not only inevitable, but it was in acertain sense proper; or, at least, even if many of its manifestationswere blamable, the spirit that lay behind them was right. Thebackwoodsmen were no sentimentalists; they were grim, hard, matter-of-fact men, engaged all their lives long in an unending strugglewith hostile forces, both human and natural; men who in this strugglehad acquired many unamiable qualities, but who had learned likewise toappreciate at their full value the inestimable virtues of courage andcommon-sense. The crisis demanded that they should be both strong andgood; but, above all things, it demanded that they should be strong. Weakness would have ruined them. It was needful that justice shouldstand before mercy; and they could no longer have held their homes, hadthey not put down their foes, of every kind, with an iron hand. They didnot have many theories; but they were too genuinely liberty-loving notto keenly feel that their freedom was jeopardized as much by domesticdisorder as by foreign aggression. The tories were obnoxious under two heads: they were the allies of atyrant who lived beyond the sea, and they were the friends of anarchy athome. They were felt by the frontiersmen to be criminals rather thanordinary foes. They included in their ranks the mass of men who had beenguilty of the two worst frontier crimes--horse-stealing and murder; andtheir own feats were in the eyes of their neighbors in no waydistinguishable from those of other horse-thieves and murderers. Accordingly the backwoodsmen soon grew to regard toryism as merelyanother crime; and the courts sometimes executed equally summary justiceon tory, desperado, and stock-thief, holding each as having forfeitedhis life. [4] The backwoodsmen were engaged in a threefold contest. In the firstplace, they were occasionally, but not often, opposed to the hiredBritish and German soldiers of a foreign king. Next, they were engagedin a fierce civil war with the tories of their own number. Finally, theywere pitted against the Indians, in the ceaseless border struggle of arude, vigorous civilization to overcome an inevitably hostile savagery. The regular British armies, marching to and fro in the course of theirlong campaigns on the seaboard, rarely went far enough back to threatenthe frontiersmen; the latter had to do chiefly with tories led byBritish chiefs, and with Indians instigated by British agents. Soon after the conflict with the revolted colonists became one of armsas well as one of opinions the British began to rouse the Indian tribesto take their part. In the northwest they were at first unsuccessful;the memory of Lord Dunmore's war was still fresh in the minds of thetribes beyond the Ohio, and they remained for the most part neutral. TheShawnees continued even in 1776 to send in to the Americans whiteprisoners collected from among their outlying bands, in accordance withthe terms of the treaty entered into on the Pickaway plains. [5] But the southwestern Indians were not held in check by memories ofrecent defeat, and they were alarmed by the encroachments of the whites. Although the Cherokees had regularly ceded to the Watauga settlers theirland, they still continued jealous of them; and both Creeks andCherokees were much irritated at the conduct of some of the lawlessGeorgian frontiersmen. [6] The colonial authorities tried to put a stopto this lawlessness, and one of the chief offenders was actually seizedand hung in the presence of two Indians. [7] This had a momentary effecton the Creeks, and induced them for the time being to observe a kind ofnominal neutrality, though they still furnished bodies of warriors tohelp the British and Cherokees. [8] The latter, however, who were the nearest neighbors of the Americans, promptly took up the tomahawk at the bidding of the British. The royalagents among these southern Indians had so far successfully[9] followedthe perfectly cold-blooded though perhaps necessary policy of excitingthe tribes to war with one another, in order that they might leave thewhites at peace; but now, as they officially reported to the Britishcommander, General Gage, they deemed this course no longer wise, and, instead of fomenting, they endeavored to allay, the strife between theChickasaws and Creeks, so as to allow the latter to turn their fullstrength against the Georgians. [10] At the same time every effort wasmade to induce the Cherokees to rise, [11] and they were promisedgunpowder, blankets, and the like although some of the promised storeswere seized by the Americans while being forwarded to the Indians. [12] In short, the British were active and successful in rousing the warspirit among Creeks, Cherokees, Chocktaws, and Chickasaws, havingnumerous agents in all these tribes. [13] Their success, and theconsequent ravages of the Indians, maddened the American frontiersmenupon whom the blow fell, and changed their resentment against theBritish king into a deadly and lasting hatred, which their sons andgrandsons inherited. Indian warfare was of such peculiar atrocity thatthe employment of Indians as allies forbade any further hope ofreconciliation. It is not necessary to accept the American estimate ofthe motives inspiring the act in order to sympathize fully with thehorror and anger that it aroused among the frontiersmen. They saw theirhomes destroyed, their wives outraged, their children captured, theirfriends butchered and tortured wholesale by Indians armed with Britishweapons, bribed by British gold, and obeying the orders of Britishagents and commanders. Their stormy anger was not likely to be allayedby the consideration that Congress also had at first made some effort toenlist Indians in the patriot forces, nor were they apt to bear in mindthe fact that the British, instead of being abnormally cruel, were inreality less so than our former French and Spanish opponents. [14] Looking back it is easy to see that the Indians were the natural foes ofthe American people, and therefore the natural allies of the BritishGovernment. They had constantly to fear the advance of the Americans, while from the fur traders, Indian agents, and army officers who alonerepresented Britain, they had nothing but coveted treasures of everykind to expect. They seemed tools forged for the hands of the royalcommanders, whose own people lay far beyond the reach of reprisals inkind; and it was perhaps too much to expect that in that age such toolsshould not be used. [15] We had less temptation to employ them, lessmeans wherewith to pay them, and more cause to be hostile to and dreadthem; and moreover our skirts are not quite clear in the matter, afterall, for we more than once showed a tendency to bid for their support. But, after all is said, the fact remains that we have to deal, not withwhat, under other circumstances, the Americans _might_ have done, but with what the British actually _did;_ and for this there can bemany apologies, but no sufficient excuse. When the commissioners to thesouthern Indians wrote to Lord George Germain, "we have beenindefatigable in our endeavors to keep up a constant succession ofparties of Indians to annoy the rebels, " the writers must have wellknown, what the king's ministers should also have made it their businessto know, that the war-parties whom they thus boasted of continuallysending against the settlements directed their efforts mainly, indeedalmost exclusively, not against bodies of armed men, but against thehusbandmen as they unsuspectingly tilled the fields, and against thewomen and children who cowered helplessly in the log-cabins. [16] All menknew that the prisoners who fell into Indian hands, of whatever age orsex, often suffered a fate hideous and revolting beyond belief andbeyond description. Such a letter as that quoted above makes theadvisers of King George the Third directly responsible for the manifoldand frightful crimes of their red allies. It is small wonder that such a contest should have roused in the breastsof the frontiersmen not only ruthless and undying abhorrence of theIndians, but also a bitterly vindictive feeling of hostility towardsGreat Britain; a feeling that was all-powerful for a generationafterwards, and traces of which linger even to the present day. Moreover, the Indian forays, in some ways, damaged the loyalist cause. The savages had received strict instructions not to molest any of theking's friends;[17] but they were far too intent on plunder and rapineto discriminate between whig and tory. Accordingly their ravages drovethe best tories, who had at first hailed the Indian advance with joy, into the patriot ranks, making the frontier almost solidly whig; savefor the refugees, who were willing to cast in their lot with thesavages. [18] While the Creeks were halting and considering, and while the Choctawsand Chickasaws were being visited by British emissaries, the Cherokeesflung themselves on the frontier folk. They had been short ofammunition; but when the British agents sent them fifty horse-loads by apack-train that was driven through the Creek towns, they no longerhesitated. [19] The agents showed very poor generalship in making themrise so early, when there were no British troops in the southern States, and when the Americans were consequently unhampered and free to dealwith the Indians. [20] Had the rising been put off until a British armywas in Georgia, it might well have proved successful. The Cherokee villages stood in that cluster of high mountain chainswhich mark the ending of the present boundaries of Georgia and bothCarolinas. These provinces lay east and southeast of them. Directlynorth were the forted villages of the Watauga pioneers, in the valley ofthe upper Tennessee, and beyond these again, in the same valley, theVirginian outpost settlements. Virginia, North and South Carolina, andGeorgia were alike threatened by the outbreak, while the Watauga peoplewere certain to be the chief sufferers. The Cherokees were so near thesettlements that their incursions were doubly dangerous. On the otherhand, there was not nearly as much difficulty in dealing them acounter-blow as in the case of the northern Indians, for their towns laythickly together and were comparatively easy of access. Moreover, theywere not rated such formidable fighters. By comparing Lord Dunmore's warin 1774 with this struggle against the Cherokees in 1776, it is easy tosee the difference between a contest against the northern and oneagainst the southern tribes. In 1776 our Indian foes were more numerousthan in 1774, for there were over two thousand Cherokeewarriors--perhaps two thousand five hundred, --assisted by a few Creeksand tories; they were closer to the frontier, and so their ravages weremore serious; but they did not prove such redoubtable foes asCornstalk's warriors, their villages were easier reached, and a moretelling punishment was inflicted. The Cherokees had been showing signs of hostility for some time. Theyhad murdered two Virginians the previous year;[21] and word was broughtto the settlements, early in the summer of '76, that they wereundoubtedly preparing for war, as they were mending guns, makingmoccasins and beating flour for the march. [22] In June their ravagesbegan. [23] The Otari, or Overhill Cherokees, had sent runners to thevalley towns, asking their people to wait until all were ready beforemarching, that the settlements might be struck simultaneously; but someof the young braves among the lower towns could not be restrained, andin consequence the outlying settlers of Georgia and the Carolinas werethe first to be assailed. The main attack was made early in July, the warriors rushing down fromtheir upland fastnesses in fierce and headlong haste, the differentbands marching north, east, and southeast at the same moment. From theHolston to the Tugelou, from southwestern Virginia to northwesternGeorgia, the back-county settlements were instantly wrapped in thesudden horror of savage warfare. The Watauga people, the most exposed of all, received timely warningfrom a friendly squaw, [24] to whom the whites ever after showed respectand gratitude. They at once began to prepare for the stroke; and in allthe western world of woodsmen there were no men better fitted for such adeath grapple. They still formed a typical pioneer community; and theirnumber had been swelled from time to time by the arrival of other boldand restless spirits. Their westernmost settlement this year was inCarter's valley; where four men had cleared a few acres of corn-land, and had hunted buffalo for their winter's meat. [25] As soon as they learned definitely that the Otari warriors, some sevenhundred in number, were marching against them, they took refuge in theirwooden forts or stations. Among the most important of these were the oneat Watauga, in which Sevier and Robertson held command, and anotherknown as Baton's Station, placed just above the forks of theHolston. [26] Some six miles from the latter, near the Long Island or BigIsland of the Holston, lay quite a large tract of level land, coveredwith an open growth of saplings, and known as the Island flats. The Indians were divided into several bands; some of their numbercrossed over into Carter's valley, and after ravaging it, passed on upthe Clinch. The settlers at once gathered in the little stockades; thosewho delayed were surprised by the savages, and were slain as they fled, or else were captured, perhaps to die by torture, --men, women, andchildren alike. The cabins were burnt, the grain destroyed, the cattleand horses driven off, and the sheep and hogs shot down with arrows; theIndians carried bows and arrows for this express purpose, so as to avoidwasting powder and lead. The bolder war-parties, in their search forscalps and plunder, penetrated into Virginia a hundred miles beyond thefrontier, [27] wasting the country with tomahawk and brand up to theSeven-Mile Ford. The roads leading to the wooden forts were crowdedwith settlers, who, in their mortal need of hurry, had barely time tosnatch up a few of the household goods, and, if especially lucky, tomount the women and children on horses; as usual in such a flight, thereoccurred many deeds of cowardly selfishness, offset by many feats ofcourage and self-sacrifice. Once in the fort, the backwoodsmen oftenbanded into parties, and sallied out to fall on the Indians. Sometimesthese parties were worsted; at other times they overcame their foeseither by ambush or in fair fight. One such party from the Wolf Hillsfort killed eleven Indian warriors; and on their return they hung thescalps of their slain foes, as trophies of triumph, from a pole over thefort gate. [28] They were Bible-readers in this fort, and they had theirPresbyterian minister with them, having organized a special party tobring in the books he had left in his cabin; they joined in prayer andthanksgiving for their successes; but this did not hinder them fromscalping the men they killed. They were too well-read in the mercilesswars of the Chosen People to feel the need of sparing the fallen; indeedthey would have been most foolish had they done so; for they werebattling with a heathen enemy more ruthless and terrible than ever wasCanaanite or Philistine. The two largest of the invading Indianbands[29] moved, one by way of the mountains, to fall on the Wataugafort and its neighbors, and the other, led by the great war chief, Dragging Canoe, to lay waste the country guarded by Eaton's Station. The white scouts--trained woodsmen, whose lives had been spent in thechase and in forest warfare--kept the commanders or headmen of the fortswell informed of the Indian advance. As soon as it was known what partwas really threatened, runners were sent to the settlements near by, calling on the riflemen to gather at Eaton's Station; whither theyaccordingly came in small bodies, under their respective militiacaptains. [30] No man was really in command; the senior captain exercised a vague kindof right of advice over the others, and the latter in turn got fromtheir men such obedience as their own personal influence was able toprocure. But the levy, if disorderly, was composed of excellent marksmenand woodsmen, sinewy, hardy, full of fight, and accustomed to acttogether. A council was held, and it was decided not to stay cooped upin the fort, like turkeys in a pen, while the Indians ravaged the fieldsand burnt the homesteads, but to march out at once and break the shockby a counter-stroke. Accordingly, on the morning of the twentieth of July, they filed out ofthe fort, one hundred and seventy strong, and bent their steps towardsthe Island Flats. Well versed in woodland warfare, the frontier riflemenmarched as well as fought on a system of their own, much more effectivefor this purpose than the discipline of European regulars. The men ofthis little levy walked strung out in Indian file, in two parallellines, [31] with scouts in front, and flankers on each side. Marchingthus they could not be surprised, and were ready at any moment to dobattle with the Indians, in open order and taking shelter behind thetrees; while regulars, crowded together, were helpless before thesavages whom the forest screened from view, and who esteemed it an easytask to overcome any number of foes if gathered in a huddle. [32] When near the Flats the whites, walking silently with moccasined feet, came suddenly on a party of twenty Indians, who, on being attacked, fledin the utmost haste, leaving behind ten of their bundles--for thesouthern warriors carried with them, when on the war-path, small bundlescontaining their few necessaries. After this trifling success a council was held, and, as the day wasdrawing to a close, it was decided to return to the fort. Some of themen were dissatisfied with the decision, and there followed an incidentas characteristic in its way as was the bravery with which the battlewas subsequently fought. The discontented soldiers expressed theirfeelings freely, commenting especially upon the supposed lack of courageon the part of one of the captains. The latter, after brooding over thematter until the men had begun to march off the ground towards home, suddenly halted the line in which he was walking, and proceeded toharangue the troops in defence of his own reputation. Apparently no oneinterfered to prevent this remarkable piece of militaryself-justification; the soldiers were evidently accustomed openly tocriticise the conduct of their commanders, while the latter responded inany manner they saw fit. As soon as the address was over, and the linesonce more straightened out, the march was renewed in the original order;and immediately afterwards the scouts brought news that a considerablebody of Indians, misled by their retreat, was running rapidly up toassail their rear. [33] The right file was promptly wheeled to the right and the left to theleft, forming a line of battle a quarter of a mile long, the men takingadvantage of the cover when possible. There was at first some confusionand a momentary panic, which was instantly quelled, the officers andmany of the men joining to encourage and rally the few whom thesuddenness of the attack rendered faint-hearted. The Otari warriors, instead of showing the usual Indian caution, came running on at headlongspeed, believing that the whites were fleeing in terror; while stillsome three hundred yards off[34] they raised the war-whoop and chargedwithout halting, the foremost chiefs hallooing out that the white menwere running, and to come on and scalp them. They were led by DraggingCanoe himself, and were formed very curiously, their centre beingcone-shaped, while their wings were curved outward; apparently theybelieved the white line to be wavering and hoped to break through itsmiddle at the same time that they outflanked it, trusting to a singlefurious onset instead of to their usual tactics. [35] The result showedtheir folly. The frontiersmen on the right and left scattered out stillfarther, so that their line could not be outflanked; and waiting coollytill the Otari were close up, the whites fired into them. The longrifles cracked like four-horse whips; they were held in skilful hands, many of the assailants fell, and the rush was checked at once. A shortfight at close quarters ensued here and there along the line, DraggingCanoe was struck down and severely wounded, and then the Indians fled inthe utmost confusion, every man for himself. Yet they carried off theirwounded and perhaps some of their dead. The whites took thirteen scalps, and of their own number but four were seriously hurt; they also tookmany guns and much plunder. In this battle of the Island Flats[36] the whites were slightlysuperior[37] in number to their foes; and they won without difficulty, inflicting a far heavier loss than they received. In this respect itdiffers markedly from most other Indian fights of the same time; andmany of its particulars render it noteworthy. Moreover, it had a verygood effect, cheering the frontiersmen greatly, and enabling them tomake head against the discouraged Indians. On the same day the Watauga fort[38] was attacked by a large force atsunrise. It was crowded with women and children, [39] but contained onlyforty or fifty men. The latter, however, were not only resolute andwell-armed, but were also on the alert to guard against surprise; theIndians were discovered as they advanced in the gray light, and were atonce beaten back with loss from the loopholed stockade. Robertsoncommanded in the fort, Sevier acting as his lieutenant. Of course, theonly hope of assistance was from Virginia, North Carolina beingseparated from the Watauga people by great mountain chains; and Sevierhad already notified the officers of Fincastle that the Indians wereadvancing. His letter was of laconic brevity, and contained no demandfor help; it was merely a warning that the Indians were undoubtedlyabout to start, and that "they intended to drive the country up to NewRiver before they returned"--so that it behooved the Fincastle men tolook to their own hearthsides. Sevier was a very fearless, self-reliantman, and doubtless felt confident that the settlers themselves couldbeat back their assailants. His forecast proved correct; for theIndians, after maintaining an irregular siege of the fort for some threeweeks, retired, almost at the moment that parties of frontiersmen cameto the rescue from some of the neighboring forts. [40] While the foe was still lurking about the fort the people within wereforced to subsist solely on parched corn; and from time to time some ofthem became so irritated by the irksome monotony of their confinement, that they ventured out heedless of the danger. Three or four of themwere killed by the Indians, and one boy was carried off to one of theirtowns, where he was burnt at the stake; while a woman who was alsocaptured at this time was only saved from a like fate by the exertionsof the same Cherokee squaw already mentioned as warning the settlers. Tradition relates that Sevier, now a young widower, fell in love withthe woman he soon afterwards married during the siege. Her name was KateSherrill. She was a tall girl, brown-haired, comely, lithe and supple"as a hickory sapling. " One day while without the fort she was almostsurprised by some Indians. Running like a deer, she reached thestockade, sprang up so as to catch the top with her hands, and drawingherself over, was caught in Sevier's arms on the other side; through aloop-hole he had already shot the headmost of her pursuers. Soon after the baffled Otari retreated from Robertson's fort the otherwar parties likewise left the settlements. The Watauga men together withthe immediately adjoining Virginian frontiersmen had beaten back theirfoes unaided, save for some powder and lead they had received from theolder settlements; and moreover had inflicted more loss than theysuffered. [41] They had made an exceedingly vigorous and successfulfight. The outlying settlements scattered along the western border of theCarolinas and Georgia had been attacked somewhat earlier; the Cherokeesfrom the lower towns, accompanied by some Creeks and Tories, beginningtheir ravages in the last days of June. [42] A small party of Georgianshad, just previously, made a sudden march into the Cherokee country. They were trying to capture the British agent Cameron, who, beingmarried to an Indian wife, dwelt in her town, and owned many negroes, horses, and cattle. The Cherokees, who had agreed not to interfere, broke faith and surprised the party, killing some and capturing otherswho were tortured to death. [43] The frontiers were soon in a state of wild panic; for the Cherokeeinroad was marked by the usual features. Cattle were driven off, housesburned, plantations laid waste, while the women and children weremassacred indiscriminately with the men. [44] The people fled from theirhomes and crowded into the stockade forts; they were greatly hampered bythe scarcity of guns and ammunition, as much had been given to thetroops called down to the coast by the war with Britain. All thesouthern colonies were maddened by the outbreak; and prepared forimmediate revenge, knowing that if they were quick they would have timeto give the Cherokees a good drubbing before the British couldinterfere. [45] The plan was that they should act together, theVirginians invading the Overhill country at the same time that theforces from North and South Carolina and Georgia destroyed the valleyand lower towns. Thus the Cherokees would be crushed with little danger. It proved impossible, however, to get the attacks made quitesimultaneously. The back districts of North Carolina suffered heavily at the outset;however, the inhabitants showed that they were able to take care ofthemselves. The Cherokees came down the Catawba murdering many people;but most of the whites took refuge in the little forts, where theyeasily withstood the Indian assaults. General Griffith Rutherford raiseda frontier levy and soon relieved the besieged stations. He sent word tothe provincial authorities that if they could only get powder and leadthe men of the Salisbury district were alone quite capable of beatingoff the Indians, but that if it was intended to invade the Cherokeecountry he must also have help from the Hillsborough men. [46] He waspromised assistance, and was told to prepare a force to act on theoffensive with the Virginians and South Carolinians. Before he could get ready the first counter-blow had been struck byGeorgia and South Carolina. Georgia was the weakest of all the colonies, and the part it played in this war was but trifling. She was threatenedby British cruisers along the coast, and by the Tories of Florida; andthere was constant danger of an uprising of the black slaves, whooutnumbered the whites. The vast herds of cattle and great riceplantations of the south offered a tempting bait to every foe. Torieswere numerous in the population, while there were incessant bickeringswith the Creeks, frequently resulting in small local wars, brought on asoften by the faithlessness and brutality of the white borderers as bythe treachery and cruelty of the red. Indeed the Indians were only keptquiet by presents, it being an unhappy feature of the frontier troublesthat while lawless whites could not be prevented from encroaching on theIndian lands, the Indians, in turn could only be kept at peace with thelaw-abiding by being bribed. [47] Only a small number of warriors invaded Georgia. Nevertheless theygreatly harassed the settlers, capturing several families and fightingtwo or three skirmishes with varying results. [48] By the middle of JulyCol. Samuel Jack[49] took the field with a force of two hundred rangers, all young men, the old and infirm being left to guard the forts. TheIndians fled as soon as he had embodied his troops, and towards the endof the month he marched against one or two of their small lower towns, which he burned, destroying the grain and driving off the cattle. Noresistance was offered, and he did not lose a man. The heaviest blow fell on South Carolina, where the Cherokees were ledby Cameron himself, accompanied by most of his tories. Some of hiswarriors came from the lower towns that lay along the Tugelou andKeowee, but most were from the middle towns, in the neighborhood of theTellico, and from the valley towns that lay well to the westward ofthese, among the mountains, along the branches of the Hiawassee andChattahoochee rivers. Falling furiously on the scattered settlers, theykilled them or drove them into the wooden forts, ravaging, burning, andmurdering as elsewhere, and sparing neither age nor sex. Col. AndrewWilliamson was in command of the western districts, and he at once beganto gather together a force, taking his station at Picken's Fort, withforty men, on July 3d. [50] It was with the utmost difficulty that hecould get troops, guns, or ammunition; but his strenuous and unceasingefforts were successful, and his force increased day by day. It is worthnoting that these lowland troops were for the most part armed withsmoothbores, unlike the rifle-bearing mountaineers. As soon as he couldmuster a couple of hundred men[51] he left the fort and advanced towardsthe Indians, making continual halts, [52] so as to allow the numerousvolunteers that were flocking to his standard to reach him. At the sametime the Americans were much encouraged by the repulse of an assaultmade just before daylight on one of the forts. [53] The attacking partywas some two hundred strong, half of them being white men, naked andpainted like the Indians; but after dark, on the evening before theattack, a band of one hundred and fifty American militia, on their wayto join Williamson, entered the fort. The assault was made before dawn;it was promptly repulsed, and at daybreak the enemy fled, havingsuffered some loss; thirteen of the tories were captured, but the morenimble Indians escaped. By the end of July, Williamson had gathered over eleven hundredmilitia[54] (including two small rifle companies), and advanced againstthe Indian towns, sending his spies and scouts before him. On the lastday of the month he made a rapid night march, with three hundred andfifty horsemen, to surprise Cameron, who lay with a party of tories andIndians, encamped at Oconoree Creek, beyond the Cherokee town ofEseneka, which commanded the ford of the river Keowee. The cabins andfenced gardens of the town lay on both sides of the river. Williamsonhad been told by his prisoners that the hither bank was deserted, andadvanced heedlessly, without scouts or flankers. In consequence he fellinto an ambush, for when he reached the first houses, hidden Indianssuddenly fired on him from front and flank. Many horses, including thatof the commander, were shot down, and the startled troops began adisorderly retreat, firing at random. Col. Hammond rallied about twentyof the coolest, and ordering them to reserve their fire, he charged thefence from behind which the heaviest hostile fire came. When up to it, they shot into the dark figures crouching behind it, and jumping overcharged home. The Indians immediately fled, leaving one dead and threewounded in the hands of the whites. The action was over; but theby-no-means-reassured victors had lost five men mortally and thirteenseverely wounded, and were still rather nervous. At daybreak Williamsondestroyed the houses near by, and started to cross the ford. But hismen, in true militia style, had become sulky and mutinous, and refusedto cross, until Col. Hammond swore he would go alone, and plunged intothe river, followed by three volunteers, whereupon the whole armycrowded after. The revulsions in their feelings was instantaneous; onceacross they seemed to have left all fear as well as all prudence behind. On the hither side there had been no getting them to advance; on thefarther there was no keeping them together, and they scatteredeverywhere. Luckily the Indians were too few to retaliate; and besidesthe Cherokees were not good marksmen, using so little powder in theirguns that they made very ineffective weapons. After all the houses hadbeen burned, and some six thousand bushels of corn, besides peas andbeans, destroyed, Williamson returned to his camp. Next day he renewedhis advance, and sent out detachments against all the other lower towns, utterly destroying every one by the middle of August, although notwithout one or two smart skirmishes. [55] His troops were very muchelated, and only the lack of provisions prevented his marching againstthe middle towns. As it was, he retired to refit, leaving a garrison ofsix hundred men at Eseneka, which he christened Fort Rutledge. Thisended the first stage of the retaliatory campaign, undertaken by thewhites in revenge for the outbreak. The South Carolinians, assistedslightly by a small independent command of Georgians, who actedseparately, had destroyed the lower Cherokee towns, at the same timethat the Watauga people repulsed the attack of the Overhill warriors. The second and most important movement was to be made by South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia jointly, each sending a column of twothousand men, [56] the two former against the middle and valley, thelatter against the Overhill towns. If the columns acted together theCherokees would be overwhelmed by a force three times the number of alltheir warriors. The plan succeeded well, although the Virginia divisionwas delayed so that its action, though no less effective, was much laterthan that of the others, and though the latter likewise failed to act inperfect unison. Rutherford and his North Carolinians were the first to take thefield. [57] He had an army of two thousand gunmen, besides pack-horsemenand men to tend the drove of bullocks, together with a few CatawbaIndians, --a total of twenty-four hundred. [58] On September 1st he leftthe head of the Catawba, [59] and the route he followed was long known bythe name of Rutherford's trace. There was not a tent in his army, andbut very few blankets; the pack-horses earned the flour, while the beefwas driven along on the hoof. Officers and men alike wore homespunhunting-shirts trimmed with colored cotton; the cloth was made fromhemp, tow, and wild-nettle bark. He passed over the Blue Ridge at Swananoa Gap, crossed the French Broadat the Warriors' Ford, and then went through the mountains[60] to themiddle towns, a detachment of a thousand men making a forced march inadvance. This detachment was fired at by a small band of Indians from anambush, and one man was wounded in the foot; but no further resistancewas made, the towns being abandoned. [61] The main body coming up, parties of troops were sent out in every direction, and all of themiddle towns were destroyed. Rutherford had expected to meet Williamsonat this place, but the latter did not appear, and so the North Carolinacommander determined to proceed alone against the valley towns along theHiawassee. Taking with him only nine hundred picked men, he attempted tocross the rugged mountain chains which separated him from hisdestination; but he had no guide, and missed the regular pass--afortunate thing for him, as it afterwards turned out, for he thusescaped falling into an ambush of five hundred Cherokees who wereencamped along it. [62] After in vain trying to penetrate the tangle ofgloomy defiles and wooded peaks, he returned to the middle towns atCanucca on September 18th. Here he met Williamson, who had just arrived, having been delayed so that he could not leave Fort Rutledge until the13th. [63] The South Carolinians, two thousand strong, had crossed theBlue Ridge near the sources of the Little Tennessee. While Rutherford rested[64] Williamson, on the 19th, pushed on throughNoewee pass, and fell into the ambush which had been laid for theformer. The pass was a narrow, open valley, walled in by steep and loftymountains. The Indians waited until the troops were struggling up to theoutlet, and then assailed them with a close and deadly fire. Thesurprised soldiers recoiled and fell into confusion; and they were forthe second time saved from disaster by the gallantry of Colonel Hammond, who with voice and action rallied them, endeavoring to keep them firmwhile a detachment was sent to clamber up the rocks and outflank theIndians. At the same time Lieutenant Hampton got twenty men together, out of the rout, and ran forward, calling out: "Loaded guns advance, empty guns fall down and load. " Being joined by some thirty men more hepushed desperately upwards. The Indians fled from the shock; and thearmy thus owed its safety solely to two gallant officers. Of the whitesseventeen were killed and twenty-nine wounded;[65] they took fourteenscalps. [66] Although the distance was but twenty odd miles, it took Williamson fivedays of incredible toil before he reached the valley towns. The troopsshowed the utmost patience, clearing a path for the pack-train along thesheer mountain sides and through the dense, untrodden forests in thevalleys. The trail often wound along cliffs where a single misstep of apack-animal resulted in its being dashed to pieces. But the work, thoughfatiguing, was healthy; it was noticed that during the whole expeditionnot a man was laid up for any length of time by sickness. Rutherford joined Williamson immediately afterwards, and together theyutterly laid waste the valley towns; and then, in the last week ofSeptember, started homewards. All the Cherokee settlements west of theAppalachians had been destroyed from the face of the earth, neithercrops nor cattle being left; and most of the inhabitants were obliged totake refuge with the Creeks. Rutherford reached home in safety, never having experienced any realresistance; he had lost but three men in all. He had killed twelveIndians, and had captured nine more, besides seven whites and fournegroes. He had also taken piles of deerskins, a hundred-weight ofgunpowder and twenty-five hundred pounds of lead; and, moreover, hadwasted and destroyed to his heart's content. [67] Williamson, too, reached home without suffering further damage, enteringFort Rutledge on October 7th. In his two expeditions he had hadninety-four men killed and wounded, but he had done much more harm thanany one else to the Indians. It was said the South Carolinians had takenseventy-five scalps;[68] at any rate, the South Carolina Legislature hadoffered a reward of L75 for every warrior's scalp, as well as L100 forevery Indian, and L80 for every tory or negro, taken prisoner. [69] Butthe troops were forbidden to sell their prisoners as slaves--not aneedless injunction, as is shown by the fact that when it was issuedthere had already been at least one case in Williamson's own army wherea captured Indian was sold into bondage. The Virginian troops had meanwhile been slowly gathering at the GreatIsland of the Holston, under Colonel William Christian, preparatory toassaulting the Overhill Cherokees. While they were assembling theIndians threatened them from time to time; once a small party of bravescrossed the river and killed a soldier near the main post of the army, and also killed a settler; a day or two later another war-party slippedby towards the settlements, but on being pursued by a detachment ofmilitia faced about and returned to their town. [70] On the first ofOctober the army started, two thousand strong, [71] including some troopsfrom North Carolina, and all the gunmen who could be spared from thelittle stockaded hamlets scattered along the Watauga, the Holston, andthe Clinch. Except a small force of horse-riflemen the men were on foot, each with tomahawk, scalping-knife, and long, grooved flint-lock; allwere healthy, well equipped, and in fine spirits, driving theirpack-horses and bullocks with them. Characteristically enough aPresbyterian clergyman, following his backwoods flock, went along withthis expedition as chaplain. The army moved very cautiously, the nightencampments being made behind breastworks of felled timbers. There wastherefore no chance for a surprise; and their great inferiority innumber made it hopeless for the Cherokees to try a fair fight. In theirdespair they asked help from the Creeks; but the latter replied thatthey had plucked the thorn of warfare from their (the Creeks') foot, andwere welcome to keep it. [72] The Virginians came steadily on[73] until they reached the Big Island ofthe French Broad. [74] Here the Cherokees had gathered their warriors, and they sent a tory trader across with a flag of truce. Christian wellknowing that the Virginians greatly outnumbered the Indians, let the mango through his camp at will, [75] and sent him back with word that theCherokee towns were doomed, for that he would surely march to them anddestroy them. That night he left half of his men in camp, lying on theirarms by the watch-fires, while with the others he forded the river belowand came round to surprise the Indian encampment from behind; but hefound that the Indians had fled, for their hearts had become as water, nor did they venture at any time, during this expedition, to molest thewhite forces. Following them up, Christian reached the towns early inNovember, [76] and remained two weeks, sending out parties to burn thecabins and destroy the stores of corn and potatoes. The Indians[77] sentin a flag to treat for peace, surrendering the horses and prisoners theyhad taken, and agreeing to fix a boundary and give up to the settlersthe land they already had, as well as some additional territory. Christian made peace on these terms and ceased his ravages, but heexcepted the town of Tuskega, whose people had burned alive the boytaken captive at Watauga. This town he reduced to ashes. Nor would the chief Dragging Canoe accept peace at all; but gatheringround him the fiercest and most unruly of the young men, he left therest of the tribe and retired to the Chickamauga fastnesses. When the preliminary truce had been made Christian marched his forceshomeward, and disbanded them a fortnight before Christmas, leaving agarrison at Holston, Great Island. During the ensuing spring and summerpeace treaties were definitely concluded between the Upper Cherokees andVirginia and North Carolina at the Great Island of the Holston, [78] andbetween the Lower Cherokees and South Carolina and Georgia at De Witt'sCorners. The Cherokees gave up some of their lands; of the four seacoastprovinces South Carolina gained most, as was proper, for she had doneand suffered most. [79] The Watauga people and the westerners generally were the real gainers bythe war. Had the Watauga settlements been destroyed, they would nolonger have covered the Wilderness Road to Kentucky; and so Kentuckymust perforce have been abandoned. But the followers of Robertson andSevier stood stoutly for their homes; not one of them fled over themountains. The Cherokees had been so roughly handled that for severalyears they did not again go to war as a body; and this not only gave thesettlers a breathing time, but also enabled them to make themselves sostrong that when the struggle was renewed they could easily hold theirown. The war was thus another and important link in the chain of eventsby which the west was won; and had any link in the chain snapped duringthese early years, the peace of 1783 would probably have seen thetrans-Alleghany country in the hands of a non-American power. 1. Mr. Phelan, in his "History of Tennessee, " deserves especial praisefor having so clearly understood the part played by the Scotch-Irish. 2. The Campbell MSS. Contain allusions to various such feuds, andaccounts of the jealousies existing not only between families, butbetween prominent members of the same family. 3. See Milfort, Smyth, etc. , as well as the native writers. 4. Executions for "treason, " murder, and horse-stealing were verycommon. For an instance where the three crimes were treated alike asdeserving the death penalty the perpetrators being hung, see Calendar ofVirginia State Papers, Vol. III. , p. 361. 5. "American Archives, " 4th Series, Vol. VI. , p. 541. But parties ofyoung braves went on the war-path from time to time. 6. _Do. _, Vol III. , p. 790. 7. _Do. _, Vol. VI. , p. 1228. 8. See Milfort, pp. 46, 134, etc. 9. "American Archives, " 4th Series, Vol. I. , p. 1094, for example offight between Choctaws and Creeks. 10. _Do. _, Vol. IV. , p. 317. Letter of Agent John Stuart to GeneralGage, St. Augustine, Oct. 3, 1775. 11. State Department MSS. No. 71, Vol. II. , p. 189. Letter of DavidTaitt, Deputy Superintendent (of British) in Creek Nation. 12. "American Archives, " Vol. III. , p. 218, August 21, 1775. _Do. , _p. 790 September 25, 1775. 13. State Department MSS. , No. 51, Vol. II. , p. 17 (volume of"Intercepted Letters"). Letters of Andrew Rainsford, John Mitchell, andAlex McCullough, to Rt. Hon. Lord George Germain. 14. No body of British troops in the Revolution bore such a dark stainon its laurels as the massacre at Fort William Henry left on the bannersof Montcalm; even the French, not to speak of the Spaniards andMexicans, were to us far more cruel foes than the British, thoughgenerally less formidable. In fact the British, as conquerors and rulersin America, though very disagreeable, have not usually been eitherneedlessly cruel nor (relatively speaking) unjust, and compare ratherfavorably with most other European nations. 15. Though it must be remembered that in our own war with Mexico wedeclined the proffered--and valuable--aid of the Comanches. 16. State Department MSS. "Intercepted Letters, " Pensacola, July 12, 1779. 17. _Do. _ 18. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, I. , 610. 19. Stuart and Cameron; the latter dwelt among them, and excited them towar. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, III. , 649. 20. The only British attempt made at that time against the southerncolonies was in too small force, and failed. 21. "American Archives, " 4th Series, Vol. III. , p. 1112. 22. _Do. , _ 5th Series, Vol. I. , p. III. 23. _Do. , _ 4th Series, Vol. VI. , p. 1229. 24. Her name was Nancy Ward. Campbell MSS. , Haywood, etc. 25. Ramsey, 144. The buffalo were killed (winter of 1775-1776) twelvemiles northeast of Carter's valley. 26. Haywood and his followers erroneously call it Heaton's: in theCampbell MSS. , as well as the "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, I. , p. 464, itis called Eaton's or Amos Eaton's. This is contemporary authority. Otherforts were Evan Shelby's, John Shelby's, Campbell's, the Wommack Fort, etc. 27. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, I. , 973. 28. "American Pioneers, " I. , 534. Letter of Benjamin Sharp, who was inthe fort at the time as a boy fourteen years old. 29. Many writers speak as if all the Indians were in these two bands, which was not so. It is impossible to give their numbers exactly;probably each contained from 150 to 300 warriors. 30. James Thompson, James Shelby, William Buchanan, John Campbell, William Cocke, and Thomas Madison. See their letter of August 2, 1776, "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, I. , 464. Haywood, relying on tradition, saysfive companies gathered; he is invaluable as an authority, but it mustbe kept in mind that he often relies on traditional statement. 31. The report of the six captains says "two divisions"; from Haywood welearn that the two divisions were two lines, evidently marching side byside, there being a right line and a left line. 32. See James Smith, _passim. _ 33. Among the later Campbell MSS. Are a number of copies of paperscontaining traditional accounts of this battle. They are mostly veryincorrect, both as to the numbers and losses of the Indians and whites, and as to the battle itself very little help can be derived from them. 34. Campbell MSS. 35. Campell MSS. 36. Tennessee historians sometimes call it the battle of Long Island;which confuses it with Washington's defeat of about the same date. 37. The captains' report says the Indians were "not inferior" innumbers; they probably put them at a maximum. Haywood and all laterwriters greatly exaggerate the Indian numbers; as also their losses, which are commonly placed at "over 40, " of "26 being left dead on theground. " In reality only 13 were so left; but in the various skirmisheson the Watauga about this time, from the middle of July to the middle ofAugust, the backwoodsmen took in all 26 scalps, and one prisoner("American Archives, " 5th Series, I. , 973). This is probably the originof the "26 dead" story; the "over 40" being merely a flourish. Ramseygives a story about Isaac Shelby rallying the whites to victory, andlater writers of course follow and embellish this; but Shelby's MS. Autobiography (see copy in Col. Durrett's library at Louisville) notonly makes no mention of the battle, but states that Shelby was at thistime in Kentucky; he came back in August or September, and so washundreds of miles from the place when the battle occurred. Ramsey givesa number of anecdotes of ferocious personal encounters that took placeduring the battle. Some of them are of very doubtful value--for instancethat of the man who killed six of the most daring Indians himself (thetotal number killed being only thirteen), and the account of the Indiansall retreating when they saw another of their champions vanquished. Theclimax of absurdity is reached by a recent writer, Mr. Kirke, who, afterembodying in his account all the errors of his predecessors and addingseveral others on his own responsibility, winds up by stating that "twohundred and ten men under Sevier and [Isaac] Shelby ... Beat back ... Fifteen thousand Indians. " These numbers can only be reached bycomparing an exaggerated estimate of all the Cherokees, men, women, andchildren, with the white men encountered by a very small proportion ofthe red warriors in the first two skirmishes. Moreover, as alreadyshown, Shelby was nowhere near the scene of conflict, and Sevier wasacting as Robertson's subaltern. 38. Another fort, called Fort Lee, had been previously held by Sevierbut had been abandoned; see Phelan, p. 42. 39. "American Archives, " 5th Series, I. , 973; 500 women and children. 40. Campbell MSS. Haywood says that the first help came from EvanShelby; Col. Russell, at Baton's Station proving dilatory. In theCampbell MSS. Are some late letters written by sons of the CaptainCampbell who took part in the Island Flats fight, denying thisstatement. 41. "American Archives, " 5th Series, I. , 973. Of the Watauga settlerseighteen men, two women, and several children had been killed; two orthree were taken captive. Of the Indians twenty-six were scalped;doubtless several others were slain. Of course these figures only applyto the Watauga neighborhood. 42. _Do. , _ p 611. 43. "History of Georgia, " Hugh McCall, Savannah, 1816, p. 76. 44. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, I. , 610. 45. _Do. , _ 4th Series, VI, 1228. 46. _Do. , _ 5th Series, I. , 613. 47. _Do. , _ 5th Series, I. , 7, and III. , 649. The Georgiafrontiersmen seem to have been peculiarly brutal in their conduct to theCreeks; but the latter were themselves very little, if at all, better. 48. McCall; five families captured, in three skirmishes eight whiteswere killed and six Indian scalps taken. 49. McCall; the Tennessee historians erroneously assign the command toCol. McBury. 50. "View of South Carolina, " John Drayton, Charleston, 1802, p. 231. Avery good book. 51. More exactly two hundred and twenty-two, on the 8th of July. 52. _E. G. _, at Hogskin Creek and Barker's Creek. 53. Lyndley's Fort, on Rayborn Creek. 54. Eleven hundred and fifty-one, of whom one hundred and thirty wereriflemen. He was camped at Twenty-three Mile Creek. 55. At Tomassee, where he put to flight a body of two or three hundredwarriors, he lost eight killed and fifteen wounded, and at Tugelou, fourwounded. Besides these two towns, he also destroyed Soconee, Keowee, Ostatay, Cherokee, Eustustie, Sugaw Town, and Brass Town. 56. All militia of course, with only the training they had received onthe rare muster days; but a warlike set, utterly unlike ordinarymilitia, and for woodland work against savages in many respects muchsuperior to European regulars. This campaign against the Cherokees wasinfinitely more successful than that waged in 1760 against the same foeby armies of grenadiers and highlanders. 57. That is, after the return of the South Carolinians from theirdestruction of the lower towns. 58. "Historical Sketches of North Carolina, " John H. Wheeler, Phil. , 1851, p. 383. 59. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, Vol. II. , p. 1235. 60. Up Hominy Creek, across the Pigeon, up Richland Creek, acrossTuckaseigee River, over Cowee Mount. 61. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, II. , p. 1235. 62. _Do. _ 63. Drayton. There was a good deal of jealousy between the two armiesand their reports conflict on some points. 64. There is some conflict in the accounts of the destruction of thevalley towns; after carefully comparing the accounts in the "AmericanArchives, " Drayton, White, Ramsey, etc. , I believe that the above issubstantially accurate. However it is impossible to reconcile all of theaccounts of the relative order of Rutherford's and Williamson's marches. 65. Drayton; the "Am. Archives" say only twelve killed and twentywounded. In another skirmish at Cheowee three South Carolinians werekilled. 66. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, II. , p. 1235. 67. _Do. _ 68. _Do. _, p. 990; Drayton puts the total Cherokee loss at twohundred. 69. _Do. _, Vol III. , p. 33. 70. These two events took place on September 26th and 29th; "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, Vol. II. , p. 540. Ramsey is thus wrong in sayingno white was killed on this expedition. 71. McAfee MSS. ; one of the McAfees went along and preserved a roughdiary of dates. 72. "History of Virginia, " John Burke (continued by L. H. Girardin), Petersburg, 1816, p. 176. 73. After camping a few days at Double Springs, the head-waters of LickCreek, to let all the Watauga men come up. 74. They sent spies in advance. The trail led through forests and marshycanebrakes; across Nolichucky, up Long Creek and down Dunplin Creek tothe French Broad. Haywood and Ramsey. 75. McAfee MSS. 76. Nov. 5th. _Do. _ 77. Nov. 8th. _Do. _ 78. The boundary then established between the Cherokees and Wataugapeople was known as Brown's Line. 79. As a very rough guess after a careful examination of all theauthorities, it may be said that in this war somewhat less than twohundred Indians were slain, all warriors. The loss of the whites in warwas probably no greater; but it included about as many more women andchildren. So that perhaps two or three times as many whites as Indianswere killed, counting in every one. CHAPTER XII. GROWTH AND CIVIL ORGANIZATION OF KENTUCKY, 1776. By the end of 1775 Kentucky had been occupied by those who werepermanently to hold it. Stouthearted men, able to keep what they hadgrasped moved in, and took with them their wives and children. There wasalso of course a large shifting element, composing, indeed, the bulk ofthe population: hunters who came out for the season; "cabinners, " or menwho merely came out to build a cabin and partially clear a spot ofground, so as to gain a right to it under the law; surveyors, and thoseadventurers always to be found in a new country, who are too restless, or too timid, or too irresolute to remain. The men with families and the young men who intended to make permanenthomes formed the heart of the community, the only part worth taking intoaccount. There was a steady though thin stream of such immigrants, andthey rapidly built up around them a life not very unlike that which theyhad left behind with their old homes. Even in 1776 there was marryingand giving in marriage, and children were born in Kentucky. Thenew-comers had to settle in forts, where the young men and maidens hadmany chances for courtship. They married early, and were as fruitful asthey were hardy. [1] Most of these marriages were civil contracts, butsome may have been solemnized by clergymen, for the commonwealthreceived from the outset occasional visits from ministers. These ministers belonged to different denominations, but all were sureof a hearing. The backwoodsmen were forced by their surroundings toexercise a grudging charity towards the various forms of religiousbelief entertained among themselves--though they hated and despisedFrench and Spanish Catholics. When off in the wilderness they wereobliged to take a man for what he did, not for what he thought. Ofcourse there were instances to the contrary, and there is an amusing andauthentic story of two hunters, living alone and far from anysettlement, who quarrelled because one was a Catholic and the other aProtestant. The seceder took up his abode in a hollow tree withinspeaking distance of his companion's cabin. Every day on arising theybade each other good-morning; but not another word passed between themfor the many months during which they saw no other white face. [2] Therewas a single serious and important, albeit only partial, exception tothis general rule of charity. After the outbreak of the Revolution, theKentuckians, in common with other backwoodsmen, grew to thoroughlydislike one religious body which they already distrusted; this was theChurch of England, the Episcopal Church. They long regarded it as merelythe persecuting ecclesiastical arm of the British Government. Such ofthem as had been brought up in any faith at all had for the most partoriginally professed some form of Calvinism; they had very probablylearnt their letters from a primer which in one of its rude cutsrepresented John Rogers at the stake, surrounded by his wife and sevenchildren, and in their after lives they were more familiar with the"Pilgrim's Progress" than with any other book save the Bible; so that itwas natural for them to distrust the successors of those who hadpersecuted Rogers and Bunyan. [3] Still, the border communities were, astimes then went very tolerant in religious matters; and of course mostof the men had no chance to display, or indeed to feel, sectarianism ofany kind, for they had no issue to join, and rarely a church about whichto rally. By the time Kentucky was settled the Baptists had begun to make headwayon the frontier, at the expense of the Presbyterians. The roughdemocracy of the border welcomed a sect which was itself essentiallydemocratic. To many of the backwoodsmen's prejudices, notably theirsullen and narrow hostility towards all rank, whether or not based onmerit and learning, the Baptists' creed appealed strongly. Where theirpreachers obtained foothold, it was made a matter of reproach to thePresbyterian clergymen that they had been educated in early life for theministry as for a profession. The love of liberty, and the defiantassertion of equality, so universal in the backwoods, and so excellentin themselves, sometimes took very warped and twisted forms, notablywhen they betrayed the backwoodsmen into the belief that the truedemocratic spirit forbade any exclusive and special training for theprofessions that produce soldiers, statesmen, or ministers. The fact that the Baptist preachers were men exactly similar to theirfellows in all their habits of life, not only gave them a good standingat once, but likewise enabled them very early to visit the farthestsettlements, travelling precisely like other backwoodsmen; and oncethere, each preacher, each earnest professor, doing bold and fearlessmissionary work, became the nucleus round which a little knot of truebelievers gathered. Two or three of them made short visits to Kentuckyduring the first few years of its existence. One, who went thither inthe early spring of 1776, kept a journal of his trip. [4] He travelledover the Wilderness Road with eight other men. Three of them wereBaptists like himself, who prayed every night; and their companions, though they did not take part in the praying, did not interrupt it. Their journey through the melancholy and silent wilderness resembled inits incidents the countless other similar journeys that were made atthat time and later. They suffered from cold and hunger and lack of shelter; they becamefootsore and weary, and worn out with driving the pack-horses. On thetop of the lonely Cumberland Mountains they came upon the wolf-eatenremains of a previous traveller, who had recently been killed byIndians. At another place they met four men returning--cowards, whosehearts had failed them when in sight of the promised land. While on thegreat Indian war-trail they killed a buffalo, and thenceforth lived onits jerked meat. One night the wolves smelt the flesh, and came up tothe camp-fire; the strong hunting-dogs rushed out with clamorous barkingto drive them away, and the sudden alarm for a moment made the sleepywayfarers think that roving Indians had attacked them. When they reachedCrab Orchard their dangers were for the moment past; all travellers grewto regard with affection the station by this little grove of wildapple-trees. It is worthy of note that the early settlers loved to buildtheir homes near these natural orchards, moved by the fragrance andbeauty of the bloom in spring. [5] The tired Baptist was not overpleased with Harrodstown, though he therelistened to the preaching of one of his own sect. [6] He remarked "a poortown it was in those days, " a couple of rows of smoky cabins, tenantedby dirty women and ragged children, while the tall, unkempt frontiersmenlounged about in greasy hunting-shirts, breech-clouts, leggings, andmoccasins. There was little or no corn until the crops were gathered, and, like the rest, he had to learn to eat wild meat without salt. Thesettlers, --as is always the case in frontier towns where the people arewrapped up in their own pursuits and rivalries, and are obliged to talkof one another for lack of outside interests, --were divided bybickering, gossiping jealousies; and at this time they were quarrellingas to whether the Virginian cabin-rights or Henderson's land-grantswould prove valid. As usual, the zealous Baptist preacher found that thewomen were the first to "get religion, " as he phrased it. Sometimestheir husbands likewise came in with them; at other times they remainedindifferent. Often they savagely resented their wives and daughtersbeing converted, visiting on the head of the preacher an anger that didnot always find vent in mere words; for the backwoodsmen had strong, simple natures, powerfully excited for good or evil, and those who werenot God-fearing usually became active and furious opponents of allreligion. It is curious to compare the description of life in a frontier fort asgiven by this undoubtedly prejudiced observer with the equallyprejudiced, but golden- instead of sombre-hued, reminiscences offrontier life, over which the pioneers lovingly lingered in their oldage. To these old men the long-vanished stockades seemed to have held aband of brothers, who were ever generous, hospitable, courteous, andfearless, always ready to help one another, never envious, neverflinching from any foe. [7] Neither account is accurate; but the last isquite as near the truth as the first. On the border, as elsewhere, butwith the different qualities in even bolder contrast, there was muchboth of good and bad, of shiftless viciousness and resolute honesty. Many of the hunters were mere restless wanderers, who soon surrenderedtheir clearings to small farming squatters, but a degree less shiftlessthan themselves; the latter brought the ground a little more undercultivation, and then likewise left it and wandered onwards, givingplace to the third set of frontiersmen, the steady men who had come tostay. But often the first hunters themselves stayed and grew up asfarmers and landed proprietors. [8] Many of the earliest pioneers, including most of their leaders, founded families, which took root inthe land and flourish to this day, the children, grandchildren, andgreat-grandchildren of the old-time Indian fighters becoming Congressmenand judges, and officers in the regular army and in the Federal andConfederate forces during the civil war. [9] In fact the very firstcomers to a wild and dangerous country are apt to be men with finequalities of heart and head; it is not until they have partly tamed theland that the scum of the frontier drifts into it. [10] In 1776, as in after years, there were three routes that were taken byimmigrants to Kentucky. One led by backwoods trails to the Greenbriarsettlements, and thence down the Kanawha to the Ohio;[11] but the travelover this was insignificant compared to that along the others. The tworeally important routes were the Wilderness Road, and that by water, from Fort Pitt down the Ohio River. Those who chose the latter wayembarked in roughly built little flat-boats at Fort Pitt, if they camefrom Pennsylvania, or else at the old Redstone Fort on the Monongahela, if from Maryland or Virginia, and drifted down with the current. Thoughthis was the easiest method, yet the danger from Indians was so verygreat that most immigrants, the Pennsylvanians as well as theMarylanders, Virginians, and North Carolinians, [12] usually wentoverland by the Wilderness Road. This was the trace marked out by Boon, which to the present day remains a monument to his skill as a practicalsurveyor and engineer. Those going along it went on foot, driving theirhorses and cattle. At the last important frontier town they fittedthemselves out with pack-saddles; for in such places two of the leadingindustries were always those of the pack-saddle maker and the artisan indeer leather. When there was need, the pioneer could of course make arough pack-saddle for himself, working it up from two forked branches ofa tree. If several families were together, they moved slowly in truepatriarchal style. The elder boys drove the cattle, which usually headedthe caravan; while the younger children were packed in crates of hickorywithes and slung across the backs of the old quiet horses, or else wereseated safely between the great rolls of bedding that were carried insimilar fashion. The women sometimes rode and sometimes walked, carryingthe babies. The men, rifle on shoulder, drove the pack-train, while someof them walked spread out in front, flank, and rear, to guard againstthe savages. [13] A tent or brush lean-to gave cover at night. Eachmorning the men packed the animals while the women cooked breakfast andmade ready the children. Special care had to be taken not to let theloaded animals brush against the yellow-jacket nests, which were alwaysplentiful along the trail in the fall of the year; for in such a casethe vicious swarms attacked man and beast, producing an immediatestampede, to the great detriment of the packs. [14] In winter the fordsand mountains often became impassable, and trains were kept in one placefor weeks at a time, escaping starvation only by killing the leancattle; for few deer at that season remained in the mountains. Both the water route and the wilderness road were infested by thesavages at all times, and whenever there was open war the sparselysettled regions from which they started were likewise harried. When thenorthwestern tribes threatened Fort Pitt and Fort Henry--or Pittsburgand Wheeling, as they were getting to be called, --they threatened one ofthe two localities which served to cover the communications withKentucky; but it was far more serious when the Holston region wasmenaced, because the land travel was at first much the more important. The early settlers of course had to suffer great hardship even when theyreached Kentucky. The only two implements the men invariably carriedwere the axe and rifle, for they were almost equally proud of theirskill as warriors, hunters, and wood-choppers. Next in importance camethe sickle or scythe. The first three tasks of the pioneer farmer wereto build a cabin, to make a clearing--burning the brush, cutting downthe small trees, and girdling the large--and to plant corn. Until thecrop ripened he hunted steadily, and his family lived on the abundantgame, save for which it would have been wholly impossible to havesettled Kentucky so early. If it was winter-time, however, all the wildmeat was very lean and poor eating, unless by chance a bear was found ina hollow tree, when there was a royal feast, the breast of the wildturkey serving as a substitute for bread. [15] If the men were suddenlycalled away by an Indian inroad, their families sometimes had to livefor days on boiled tops of green nettles. [16] Naturally the childrenwatched the growth of the tasselled corn with hungry eagerness until themilky ears were fit for roasting. When they hardened, the grains werepounded into hominy in the hominy-block, or else ground into meal in therough hand-mill, made of two limestones in a hollow sycamore log. Untilflax could be grown the women were obliged to be content with lint madefrom the bark of dead nettles. This was gathered in the spring-time byall the people of a station acting together, a portion of the menstanding guard while the rest, with the women and children, plucked thedead stalks. The smart girls of Irish ancestry spun many dozen cuts oflinen from this lint, which was as fine as flax but not so strong. [17] Neither hardship nor danger could render the young people downhearted, especially when several families, each containing grown-up sons anddaughters, were living together in almost every fort. The chiefamusements were hunting and dancing. There being no permanent ministers, even the gloomy Calvinism of some of the pioneers was relaxed. Longafterwards one of them wrote, in a spirit of quaint apology, that"dancing was not then considered criminal, "[18] and that it kept up thespirits of the young people, and made them more healthy and happy; andrecalling somewhat uneasily the merriment in the stations, in spite ofthe terrible and interminable Indian warfare, the old moralist feltobliged to condemn it, remarking that, owing to the lack of ministers ofthe gospel, the impressions made by misfortune were not improved. Though obliged to be very careful and to keep their families in forts, and in spite of a number of them being killed by the savages, [19] thesettlers in 1776 were able to wander about and explore the countrythoroughly, [20] making little clearings as the basis of "cabin claims, "and now and then gathering into stations which were for the most partbroken up by the Indians and abandoned. [21] What was much moreimportant, the permanent settlers in the well-established stationsproceeded to organize a civil government. They by this time felt little but contempt for the Henderson orTransylvania government. Having sent a petition against it to theprovincial authorities, they were confident that what faint shadow ofpower it still retained would soon vanish; so they turned theirattention to securing a representation in the Virginia convention. AllKentucky was still considered as a part of Fincastle County, and theinhabitants were therefore unrepresented at the capital. They determinedto remedy this; and after due proclamation, gathered together atHarrodstown early in June, 1776. During five days an election was held, and two delegates were chosen to go to Williamsburg, then the seat ofgovernment. This was done at the suggestion of Clark, who, having spent the winterin Virginia had returned to Kentucky in the spring. He came out aloneand on foot, and by his sudden appearance surprised the settlers not alittle. The first to meet him was a young lad, [22] who had gone a fewmiles out of Harrodstown to turn some horses on the range. The boy hadkilled a teal duck that was feeding in a spring, and was roasting itnicely at a small fire, when he was startled by the approach of a finesoldierly man, who hailed him: "How do you do my little fellow? What isyour name? Ar'n't you afraid of being in the woods by yourself?" Thestranger was evidently hungry, for on being invited to eat he speedilyfinished the entire duck; and when the boy asked his name he answeredthat it was Clark, and that he had come out to see what the bravefellows in Kentucky were doing, and to help them if there was need. Hetook up his temporary abode at Harrodstown--visiting all the forts, however, and being much in the woods by himself, --and his commandingmind and daring, adventurous temper speedily made him, what for tencritical years he remained, the leader among all the bold "hunters ofKentucky"--as the early settlers loved to call themselves. He had advised against delegates to the convention being chosen, thinking that instead the Kentuckians should send accredited agents totreat with the Virginian government. If their terms were not agreed to, he declared that they ought to establish forthwith an independent state;an interesting example of how early the separatist spirit showed itselfin Kentucky. But the rest of the people were unwilling to go quite asfar. They elected two delegates, Clark of course being one. With themthey sent a petition for admission as a separate county. They wereprimarily farmers, hunters, Indian fighters--not scholars; and theirpetition was couched in English that was at times a little crooked; butthe idea at any rate was perfectly straight, and could not bemisunderstood. They announced that if they were admitted they wouldcheerfully cooperate in every measure to secure the public peace andsafety, and at the same time pointed out with marked emphasis "howimpolitical it would be to suffer such a Respectable Body of PrimeRiflemen to remain in a state of neutrality" during the then existingrevolutionary struggle. [23] Armed with this document and their credentials, Clark and his companionset off across the desolate and Indian-haunted mountains. They travelledvery fast, the season was extremely wet, and they did not dare to kindlefires for fear of the Indians; in consequence they suffered tormentsfrom cold, hunger, and especially from "scalded" feet. Yet they hurriedon, and presented their petition to the Governor[24] and Council--theLegislature having adjourned. Clark also asked for five hundred-weightof gunpowder, of which the Kentucky settlement stood in sore andpressing need. This the Council at first refused to give; whereuponClark informed them that if the country was not worth defending, it wasnot worth claiming, making it plain that if the request was not granted, and if Kentucky was forced to assume the burdens of independence, shewould likewise assume its privileges. After this plain statement theCouncil yielded. Clark took the powder down the Ohio River, and got itsafely through to Kentucky; though a party sent under John Todd toconvey it overland from the Limestone Creek was met at the Licking anddefeated by the Indians, Clark's fellow delegate being among the killed. Before returning Clark had attended the fall meeting of the VirginiaLegislature, and in spite of the opposition of Henderson, who waslikewise present, he procured the admission of Kentucky as a separatecounty, with boundaries corresponding to those of the present State. Early in the ensuing year, 1777, the county was accordingly organized;Harrodstown, or Harrodsburg, as it was now beginning to be called, wasmade the county seat, having by this time supplanted Boonsborough inimportance. The court was composed of the six or eight men whom thegovernor of Virginia had commissioned as justices of the peace; theywere empowered to meet monthly to transact necessary business, and had asheriff and clerk. [25] These took care of the internal concerns of thesettlers. To provide for their defence a county lieutenant was created, with the rank of colonel, [26] who forthwith organized a militiaregiment, placing all the citizens, whether permanent residents or not, into companies and battalions. Finally, two burgesses were chosen torepresent the county in the General Assembly of Virginia. [27] In lateryears Daniel Boon himself served as a Kentucky burgess in the VirginiaLegislature;[28] a very different body from the little Transylvanianparliament in which he began his career as a law-maker. The oldbackwoods hero led a strange life: varying his long wanderings andexplorations, his endless campaigns against savage men and savagebeasts, by serving as road-maker, town-builder, and commonwealth-founder, sometimes organizing the frontiersmen for foreign war, and again doinghis share in devising the laws under which they were to live and prosper. But the pioneers were speedily drawn into a life-and-death strugglewhich engrossed their whole attention to the exclusion of all merelycivil matters; a struggle in which their land became in truth what theIndians called it--a dark and bloody ground, a land with blood-stainedrivers. [29] It was impossible long to keep peace on the border between theever-encroaching whites and their fickle and blood-thirsty foes. Thehard, reckless, often brutalized frontiersmen, greedy of land andembittered by the memories of untold injuries, regarded all Indians withsullen enmity, and could not be persuaded to distinguish between thegood and the bad. [30] The central government was as powerless torestrain as to protect these far-off and unruly citizens. On the otherhand, the Indians were as treacherous as they were ferocious; Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, and all. [31] While deceiving the commandants of theposts by peaceful protestations, they would steadily continue theirravages and murders; and while it was easy to persuade a number of thechiefs and warriors of a tribe to enter into a treaty, it was impossibleto make the remainder respect it. [32] The chiefs might be for peace, butthe young braves were always for war, and could not be kept back. [33] In July, 1776, the Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingo chiefs assembled atFort Pitt and declared for neutrality;[34] the Iroquois ambassadors, whowere likewise present, haughtily announced that their tribes wouldpermit neither the British nor the Americans to march an army throughtheir territory. They disclaimed any responsibility for what might bedone by a few wayward young men; and requested the Delawares andShawnees to do as they had promised, and to distribute the Iroquois"talk" among their people. After the Indian fashion, they emphasizedeach point which they wished kept in mind by the presentation of astring of wampum. [35] Yet at this very time a party of Mingos tried to kill the AmericanIndian agents, and were only prevented by Cornstalk, whose noble andfaithful conduct was so soon to be rewarded by his own brutal murder. Moreover, while the Shawnee chief was doing this, some of his warriorsjourneyed down to the Cherokees and gave them the war belt, assuringthem that the Wyandots and Mingos would support them, and that theythemselves had been promised ammunition by the French traders of Detroitand the Illinois. [36] On their return home this party of Shawneesscalped two men in Kentucky near the Big Bone Lick, and captured awoman; but they were pursued by the Kentucky settlers, two were killedand the woman retaken. [37] Throughout the year the outlook continued to grow more and morethreatening. Parties of young men kept making inroads on thesettlements, especially in Kentucky; not only did the Shawnees, Wyandots, Mingos, and Iroquois[38] act thus, but they were even joinedby bands of Ottawas, Pottawatomies, and Chippewas from the lakes, whothus attacked the white settlers long ere the latter had either the willor the chance to hurt them. Until the spring of 1777[39] the outbreak was not general, and it wassupposed that only some three or four hundred warriors had taken up thetomahawk. [40] Yet the outlying settlers were all the time obliged tokeep as sharp a look-out as if engaged in open war. Throughout thesummer of 1776 the Kentucky settlers were continually harassed. Smallparties of Indians were constantly lurking round the forts, to shootdown the men as they hunted or worked in the fields, and to carry offthe women. There was a constant and monotonous succession of unimportantforays and skirmishes. One band of painted marauders carried off Boon's daughter. She was in acanoe with two other girls on the river near Boonsborough when they werepounced on by five Indians. [41] As soon as he heard the news Boon wentin pursuit with a party of seven men from the fort, including the threelovers of the captured girls. After following the trail all of one dayand the greater part of two nights, the pursuers came up with thesavages, and, rushing in, scattered or slew them before they couldeither make resistance or kill their captives. The rescuing party thenreturned in triumph to the fort. Thus for two years the pioneers worked in the wilderness, harassed byunending individual warfare, but not threatened by any formidableattempt to oust them from the lands that they had won. During thisbreathing spell they established civil government, explored the country, planted crops, and built strongholds. Then came the inevitable struggle. When in 1777 the snows began to melt before the lengthening spring days, the riflemen who guarded the log forts were called on to make headagainst a series of resolute efforts to drive them from Kentucky. 1. Imlay, p. 55, estimated that from natural increase the population ofKentucky doubled every fifteen years, --probably an exaggeration. 2. Hale's "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers, " p. 251. 3. "Pioneer Life in Kentucky, " Daniel Drake, Cincinnati, 1870, p. 196(an invaluable work). 4. MS. Autobiography of Rev. William Hickman. He was born in Virginia, February 4, 1747. A copy in Col. Durrett's library at Louisville, Ky. 5. There were at least three such "Crab-Orchard" stations in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The settlers used the word "crab" precisely asShakespeare does. 6. A Mr. Finley. Hickman MS. 7. McAfee MSS. 8. McAfee MSS. 9. Such was the case with the Clarks, Boons, Seviers, Shelbys, Robertsons, Logans, Cockes, Crocketts, etc. ; many of whose descendantsit has been my good-fortune personally to know. 10. This is as true to-day in the far west as it was formerly inKentucky and Tennessee; at least to judge by my own experience in theLittle Missouri region, and in portions of the Kootenai, Coeur d'Alene, and Bighorn countries. 11. McAfee MSS. See also "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers, " p. III. As Mr. Halepoints out, this route, which was travelled by Floyd, Bullitt, theMcAfees, and many others, has not received due attention, even inColonel Speed's invaluable and interesting "Wilderness Road. " 12. Up to 1783 the Kentucky immigrants came from the backwoods ofPennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and were of almostprecisely the same character as those that went to Tennessee. See Imlay, p. 168. At the close of the Revolutionary war, Tennessee and Kentuckywere almost alike in population. But after that time the population ofKentucky rapidly grew varied, and the great immigration of upper-classVirginians gave it a peculiar stamp of its own. By 1796, when Logan wasdefeated for governor, the control of Kentucky had passed out of thehands of the pioneers; whereas in Tennessee the old Indian fighterscontinued to give the tone to the social life of the State, and remainedin control until they died. 13. McAfee MSS. Just as the McAfee family started for Kentucky, the wifeof one of their number, George, was confined. The others had to leaveher; but at the first long halt the husband hurried back, only to meethis wife on the way; for she had ridden after them just three days afterher confinement, taking her baby along. 14. "Pioneer Biography, " James McBride (son of a pioneer who was killedby the Indians in 1789 in Kentucky), p. 183, Cincinnati, 1869. One ofthe excellent series published by Robert Clarke & Co. , to whom Americanhistorians owe a special and unique debt of gratitude. 15. McAfee MSS. 16. McBride, II. , 197. 17. McAfee MSS. 18. _Do. _ 19. Morehead, App. Floyd's letter. 20. They retained few Indian names; Kentucky in this respect differingfrom most other sections of the Union. The names were either taken fromthe explorers, as Floyd's Fork; or from some natural peculiarity, as theLicking, so called from the number of game licks along its borders; orelse they commemorated some incident. On Dreaming Creek Boon fell asleepand dreamed he was stung by yellow-jackets. The Elkhorn was so namedbecause a hunter, having slain a monstrous bull elk, stuck up its hornson a pole at the mouth. At Bloody Run several men were slain. EagleBranch was so called because of the many bald eagles round it. SeeMcAfee MSS. 21. Marshall, 45. 22. Afterwards General William Ray. Butler, p. 37. 23. Petition of the committee of West Fincastle, dated June 20, 1776. Itis printed in Col. John Mason Brown's "Battle of the Blue Licks"pamphlet. 24. Patrick Henry. 25. Among their number were John Todd (likewise chosen burgess--in theseearly days a man of mark often filled several distinct positions at thesame time), Benj. Logan, Richard Galloway, John Bowman, and John Floyd;the latter was an educated Virginian, who was slain by the Indiansbefore his fine natural qualities had time to give him the place hewould otherwise assuredly have reached. 26. The first colonel was John Bowman. 27. John Dodd and Richard Calloway. See Diary of Geo. Rogers Clark, in1776. Given by Morehead, p. 161. 28. Butler, 166. 29. The Iroquois, as well as the Cherokees, used these expressionsconcerning portions of the Ohio valley. Heckewelder, 118. 30. State Department MSS. , No. 147, Vol. VI. , March 15, 1781. 31. As one instance among many see Haldimand MSS. , letter of Lt. Col. Hamilton, August 17, 1778, where Girty reported, on behalf of theDelawares, the tribe least treacherous to the Americans, that even theseIndians were only going in to Fort Pitt and keeping up friendlyrelations with its garrison so as to deceive the whites, and that assoon as their corn was ripe they would move off to the hostile tribes. 32. State Department MSS. , No. 150, Vol. I. , p. 107. Letter of CaptainJohn Doughty. 33. State Department MSS. , No. 150, Vol. I. , p. 115. Examination of JohnLeith. 34. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, Vol. I. , p. 36. 35. "The Olden Time, " Neville B. Craig, II. , p. 115. 36. "Am. Archives, " 5th Series, Vol. I. , p. 111. 37. _Do_. , p. 137. 38. _Do. _, Vol. II. , pp. 516, 1236. 39. When Cornstalk was so foully murdered by the whites; although theoutbreak was then already started. 40. Madison MSS. But both the American statesmen and the Continentalofficers were so deceived by the treacherous misrepresentations of theIndians that they often greatly underestimated the numbers of theIndians on the war-path; curiously enough, their figures are frequentlymuch more erroneous than those of the frontiersmen. Thus the MadisonMSS. And State Department MSS. Contain statements that only a fewhundred northwestern warriors were in the field at the very time thattwo thousand had been fitted out at Detroit to act along the Ohio andWabash; as we learn from De Peyster's letter to Haldimand of May 17, 1780 (in the Haldimand MSS. ). 41. On July 14, 1776. The names of the three girls were Betsy and FannyCallaway and Jemima Boon, See Boon's Narrative, and Butler, who givesthe letter of July 21, 1776, written by Col. John Floyd, one of thepursuing party. The names of the lovers, in their order, were Samuel Henderson (abrother of Richard), John Holder, and Flanders Callaway. Three weeksafter the return to the fort Squire Boon united in marriage the eldestpair of lovers, Samuel Henderson and Betsey Callaway. It was the firstwedding that ever took place in Kentucky. Both the other couples werelikewise married a year or two later. The whole story reads like a page out of one of Cooper's novels. The twoyounger girls gave way to despair when captured, but Betsey Callaway wassure they would be followed and rescued. To mark the line of theirflight she broke off twigs from the bushes, and when threatened with thetomahawk for doing this, she tore off strips from her dress. The Indianscarefully covered their trail, compelling the girls to walk apart, astheir captors did, in the thick cane, and to wade up and down the littlebrooks. Boon started in pursuit the same evening. All next day he followed thetangled trail like a bloodhound, and early the following morning came onthe Indians, camped by a buffalo calf which they had just killed andwere about to cook. The rescue was managed very adroitly, for had anywarning been given the Indians would have instantly killed theircaptives, according to their invariable custom. Boon and Floyd each shotone of the savages, and the remaining three escaped almost naked, without gun, tomahawk, or scalping-knife. The girls were unharmed, forthe Indians rarely molested their captives on the journey to the hometowns, unless their strength gave out, when they were tomahawked withoutmercy. APPENDICES. APPENDIX A--TO CHAPTER IV. It is greatly to be wished that some competent person would write a fulland true history of our national dealings with the Indians. Undoubtedlythe latter have often suffered terrible injustice at our hands. A numberof instances, such as the conduct of the Georgians to the Cherokees inthe early part of the present century, or the whole treatment of ChiefJoseph and his Nez Percés, might be mentioned, which are indelible blotson our fair fame; and yet, in describing our dealings with the red menas a whole, historians do us much less than justice. It was wholly impossible to avoid conflicts with the weaker race, unlesswe were willing to see the American continent fall into the hands ofsome other strong power; and even had we adopted such a ludicrouspolicy, the Indians themselves would have made war upon us. It cannot betoo often insisted that they did not own the land; or, at least, thattheir ownership was merely such as that claimed often by our own whitehunters. If the Indians really owned Kentucky in 1775, then in 1776 itwas the property of Boon and his associates; and to dispossess one partywas as great a wrong as to dispossess the other. To recognize the Indianownership of the limitless prairies and forests of this continent--thatis, to consider the dozen squalid savages who hunted at long intervalsover a territory of a thousand square miles as owning itoutright--necessarily implies a similar recognition of the claims ofevery white hunter, squatter, horse-thief, or wandering cattle-man. Takeas an example the country round the Little Missouri. When thecattle-men, the first actual settlers, came into this land in 1882, itwas already scantily peopled by a few white hunters and trappers. Thelatter were extremely jealous of intrusion; they had held their own inspite of the Indians, and, like the Indians, the inrush of settlers andthe consequent destruction of the game meant their own undoing; also, again like the Indians, they felt that their having hunted over the soilgave them a vague prescriptive right to its sole occupation, and theydid their best to keep actual settlers out. In some cases, to avoiddifficulty, their nominal claims were bought up; generally, and rightly, they were disregarded. Yet they certainly had as good a right to theLittle Missouri country as the Sioux have to most of the land on theirpresent reservations. In fact, the mere statement of the case issufficient to show the absurdity of asserting that the land reallybelonged to the Indians. The different tribes have always been utterlyunable to define their own boundaries. Thus the Delawares and Wyandots, in 1785, though entirely separate nations, claimed and, in a certainsense, occupied almost exactly the same territory. Moreover, it was wholly impossible for our policy to be alwaysconsistent. Nowadays we undoubtedly ought to break up the great Indianreservations, disregard the tribal governments, allot the land inseverally (with, however, only a limited power of alienation), andtreat the Indians as we do other citizens, with certain exceptions, for their sakes as well as ours. But this policy, which it would bewise to follow now, would have been wholly impracticable a centurysince. Our central government was then too weak either effectively tocontrol its own members or adequately to punish aggressions made uponthem; and even if it had been strong, it would probably have provedimpossible to keep entire order over such a vast, sparsely-peopledfrontier, with such turbulent elements on both sides. The Indianscould not be treated as individuals at that time. There was nopossible alternative, therefore, to treating their tribes as nations, exactly as the French and English had done before us. Our difficultieswere partly inherited from these, our predecessors, were partly causedby our own misdeeds, but were mainly the inevitable result of theconditions under which the problem had to be solved; no human wisdomor virtue could have worked out a peaceable solution. As a nation, ourIndian policy is to be blamed, because of the weakness it displayed, because of its shortsightedness, and its occasional leaning to thepolicy of the sentimental humanitarians; and we have often promisedwhat was impossible to perform; but there has been little wilfulwrong-doing. Our government almost always tried to act fairly by thetribes; the governmental agents (some of whom have been dishonest, andothers foolish, but who, as a class, have been greatly traduced), intheir reports, are far more apt to be unjust to the whites than to thereds; and the Federal authorities, though unable to prevent much ofthe injustice, still did check and control the white borderers verymuch more effectually than the Indian sachems and war-chiefscontrolled their young braves. The tribes were warlike andbloodthirsty, jealous of each other and of the whites; they claimedthe land for their hunting grounds, but their claims all conflictedwith one another; their knowledge of their own boundaries was soindefinite that they were always willing, for inadequate compensation, to sell land to which they had merely the vaguest title; and yet, whenonce they had received the goods, were generally reluctant to makeover even what they could; they coveted the goods and scalps of thewhites, and the young warriors were always on the alert to commitoutrages when they could do it with impunity. On the other hand, theevil-disposed whites regarded the Indians as fair game for robbery andviolence of any kind; and the far larger number of well-disposed men, who would not willingly wrong any Indian, were themselves maddened bythe memories of hideous injuries received. They bitterly resented theaction of the government, which, in their eyes, failed to properlyprotect them, and yet sought to keep them out of waste, uncultivatedlands which they did not regard as being any more the property of theIndians than of their own hunters. With the best intentions, it waswholly impossible for any government to evolve order out of such achaos without resort to the ultimate arbitrator--the sword. The purely sentimental historians take no account of the difficultiesunder which we labored, nor of the countless wrongs and provocationswe endured, while grossly magnifying the already lamentably largenumber of injuries for which we really deserve to be held responsible. To get a fair idea of the Indians of the present day, and of ourdealings with them, we have fortunately one or two excellent books, notably "Hunting Grounds of the Great West, " and "Our Wild Indians, "by Col. Richard I. Dodge (Hartford, 1882), and "Massacres of theMountains, " by J. P. Dunn (New York, 1886). As types of the oppositeclass, which are worse than valueless, and which nevertheless mightcause some hasty future historian, unacquainted with the facts, tofall into grievous error, I may mention, "A Century of Dishonor, " byH. H. (Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson), and "Our Indian Wards, " (Geo. W. Manypenny). The latter is a mere spiteful diatribe against variousarmy officers, and neither its manner nor its matter warrants morethan an allusion. Mrs. Jackson's book is capable of doing more harmbecause it is written in good English, and because the author, who hadlived a pure and noble life, was intensely in earnest in what shewrote, and had the most praiseworthy purpose--to prevent ourcommitting any more injustice to the Indians. This was all mostproper; every good man or woman should do whatever is possible to makethe government treat the Indians of the present time in the fairestand most generous spirit, and to provide against any repetition ofsuch outrages as were inflicted upon the Nez Percés and upon part ofthe Cheyennes, or the wrongs with which the civilized nations of theIndian territory are sometimes threatened. The purpose of the book isexcellent, but the spirit in which it is written cannot be called eventechnically honest. As a polemic, it is possible that it did not doharm (though the effect of even a polemic is marred by hystericalindifference to facts. ) As a history it would be beneath criticism, were it not that the high character of the author and her excellentliterary work in other directions have given it a fictitious value andmade it much quoted by the large class of amiable but maudlin fanaticsconcerning whom it may be said that the excellence of their intentionsbut indifferently atones for the invariable folly and ill effect oftheir actions. It is not too much to say that the book is thoroughlyuntrustworthy from cover to cover, and that not a single statement itcontains should be accepted without independent proof; for even thosethat are not absolutely false, are often as bad on account of so muchof the truth having been suppressed. One effect of this is of coursethat the author's recitals of the many real wrongs of Indian tribesutterly fail to impress us, because she lays quite as much stress onthose that are non-existent, and on the equally numerous cases wherethe wrong-doing was wholly the other way. To get an idea of the valueof the work, it is only necessary to compare her statements aboutalmost any tribe with the real facts, choosing at random; forinstance, compare her accounts of the Sioux and the plains tribesgenerally, with those given by Col. Dodge in his two books; or herrecital of the Sandy Creek massacre with the facts as stated by Mr. Dunn--who is apt, if any thing, to lean to the Indian's side. These foolish sentimentalists not only write foul slanders about theirown countrymen, but are themselves the worst possible advisers on anypoint touching Indian management. They would do well to heed GeneralSheridan's bitter words, written when many Easterners were clamoringagainst the army authorities because they took partial vengeance for aseries of brutal outrages: "I do not know how far these humanitariansshould be excused on account of their ignorance; but surely it is theonly excuse that can give a shadow of justification for aiding andabetting such horrid crimes. " APPENDIX B--TO CHAPTER V. In Mr. Shaler's entertaining "History of Kentucky, " there is anaccount of the population of the western frontiers, and Kentucky, interesting because it illustrates some of the popular delusions onthe subject. He speaks (pp. 9, 11, 23) of Kentucky as containing"nearly pure English blood, mainly derived through the old Dominion, and altogether from districts that shared the Virginian conditions. "As much of the blood was Pennsylvanian or North Carolinian, his lastsentence means nothing, unless all the "districts" outside of NewEngland are held to have shared the Virginian conditions. Turning toMarshall (I. , 441) we see that in 1780 about half the people were fromVirginia, Pennsylvania furnishing the next greatest number; and of theVirginians most were from a population much more like that ofPennsylvania than like that of tide-water Virginia; as we learn fromtwenty sources, such as Waddell's "Annals of Augusta County. " Mr. Shaler speaks of the Huguenots and of the Scotch immigrants, who cameover after 1745, but actually makes no mention of the PresbyterianIrish or Scotch Irish, much the most important element in all thewest; in fact, on p. 10, he impliedly excludes any such immigration atall. He greatly underestimates the German element, which was importantin West Virginia. He sums up by stating that the Kentuckians come fromthe "truly British people, " quite a different thing from his statementthat they are "English. " The "truly British people" consists of a conglomerate of as distinctraces as exist anywhere in Aryan Europe. The Erse, Welsh, and Gaelicimmigrants to America are just as distinct from the English, just as"foreign" to them, as are the Scandinavians, Germans, Hollanders, andHuguenots--often more so. Such early families as the Welsh Shelbys, and Gaelic McAfees are no more English than are the Huguenot Seviersor the German Stoners. Even including merely the immigrants from theBritish Isles, the very fact that the Welsh, Irish, and Scotch, in afew generations, fuse with the English instead of each elementremaining separate, makes the American population widely differentfrom that of Britain; exactly as a flask of water is different fromtwo cans of hydrogen and oxygen gas. Mr. Shaler also seems inclined tolook down a little on the Tennesseeans, and to consider theirpopulation as composed in part of inferior elements; but in reality, though there are very marked differences between the two commonwealthsof Kentucky and Tennessee, yet they resemble one another more closely, in blood and manners, than either does any other American State; andboth have too just cause for pride to make it necessary for either tosneer at the other, or indeed at any State of our mighty FederalUnion. In their origin they were precisely alike; but whereas theoriginal pioneers, the hunters and Indian fighters, kept possession ofTennessee as long as they lived, --Jackson, at Sevier's death, takingthe latter's place with even more than his power, --in Kentucky, on theother hand, after twenty years' rule, the first settlers were swampedby the great inrush of immigration, and with the defeat of Logan forgovernor the control passed into the hands of the same class of menthat then ruled Virginia. After that date the "tide-water" stockassumed an importance in Kentucky it never had in Tennessee; and ofcourse the influence of the Scotch-Irish blood was greatly diminished. Mr. Shaler's error is trivial compared to that made by another andeven more brilliant writer. In the "History of the People of theUnited States, " by Professor McMaster (New York, 1887), p. 70, thereis a mistake so glaring that it would not need notice, were it not forthe many excellencies and wide repute of Professor McMaster's book. Hesays that of the immigrants to Kentucky, most had come "from theneighboring States of Carolina and Georgia, " and shows that this isnot a mere slip of the pen, by elaborating the statement in thefollowing paragraphs, again speaking of North and South Carolina andGeorgia as furnishing the colonists to Kentucky. This shows a completemisapprehension not only of the feeding-grounds of the westernemigration, but of the routes it followed, and of the conditions ofthe southern States. South Carolina furnished very few emigrants toKentucky, and Georgia practically none; combined they probably did notfurnish as many as New Jersey or Maryland. Georgia was herself afrontier community; she received instead of sending out immigrants. The bulk of the South Carolina emigration went to Georgia. APPENDIX C--TO CHAPTER VI. OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE, NASHVILLE, TENN. , June 12, 1888. Hon. THEODORE ROOSEVELT, SAGAMORE HILL, LONG ISLAND, N. Y. DEAR SIR: I was born, "raised, " and have always lived in Washington County, E. Tenn. Was born on the "head-waters" of "Boone's Creek, " in saidcounty. I resided for several years in the "Boone's Creek CivilDistrict, " in Washington County (this some "twenty years ago"), withintwo miles of the historic tree in question, on which is carved, "D. Boon cilled bar &c. "; have visited and examined the tree more thanonce. The tree is a beech, still standing, though fast decaying. It islocated some eight miles northeast of Jonesboro, the county seat ofWashington, on the "waters of Boone's Creek, " which creek was namedafter Daniel Boone, and on which (creek) it is certain Daniel Boone"camped" during a winter or two. The tree stands about two miles fromthe spring, where it has always been understood Boone's camp was. Morethan twenty years ago, I have heard old gentlemen (living in theneighborhood of the tree), who were then from fifty to seventy yearsold, assert that the carving was on the tree when they were boys, andthat the tradition in the community was that the inscription was onthe tree when discovered by the first permanent settlers. The postureof the tree is "leaning, " so that a "bar, " or other animal couldascend it without difficulty. While the letters could be clearly traced when I last looked at them, still because of the expansion of the bark, it was difficult, and Iheard old gentlemen years ago remark upon the changed appearance ofthe inscription from what it was when they _first_ knew it. Boone certainly camped for a time under the tree; the creek is namedafter him (has always been known as Boone's Creek); the Civil Districtis named after him, and the post-office also. True, the story as tothe carving is traditionary, but a man had as well question in thatcommunity the authenticity of "Holy Writ, " as the fact that Boonecarved the inscription on that tree. I am very respectfully JOHN ALLISON. APPENDIX D--TO CHAPTER VI. The following copy of an original note of Boon's was sent me by JudgeJohn N. Lea: July the 20th 1786. Sir, The Land has Been Long Survayd and NotKnowing When the Money would be Rady Was the Reason of my notReturning the Works however the may be Returned when you pleas. But Imust have Nother Copy of the Entry as I have lost that I had when Ilost my plating instruments and only have the Short Field Notes. Justthe Corse Distance and Corner trees pray send me Nother Copy that Imay know how to give it the proper bounderry agreeable to the Locationand I Will send the plat to the offis medetly if you chose it, theexpense is as follows Survayer's fees L9 3 8 Ragesters fees 7 14 0 Chanman 8 0 0 purvisions of the tower 2 0 0 -------- L26 17 8 You will also Send a Copy of the agreement betwixt Mr. [illegible]overton and myself Where I Red the warrants. I am, sir, your ombleservant, DANIEL BOONE. APPENDIX E--TO CHAPTER VII. Recently one or two histories of the times and careers of Robertsonand Sevier have been published by "Edmund Kirke, " Mr. James R. Gilmore. They are charmingly written, and are of real service ascalling attention to a neglected portion of our history and making itinteresting. But they entirely fail to discriminate between theprovinces of history and fiction. It is greatly to be regretted thatMr. Gilmore did not employ his powers in writing an avowed historicalnovel treating of the events he discusses; such a work from him wouldhave a permanent value, like Robert L. Kennedy's "Horseshoe Robinson. "In their present form his works cannot be accepted even as offeringmaterial on which to form a judgment, except in so far as they containrepetitions of statements given by Ramsey or Putnam. I say this withreal reluctance, for my relations with Mr. Gilmore personally havebeen pleasant. I was at the outset prepossessed in favor of his books;but as soon as I came to study them I found that (except for what wasdrawn from the printed Tennessee State histories) they were extremelyuntrustworthy. Oral tradition has a certain value of its own, if usedwith great discretion and intelligence; but it is rather startling tofind any one blandly accepting as gospel alleged oral traditionsgathered one hundred and twenty-five years after the event, especiallywhen they relate to such subjects as the losses and numbers of Indianwar parties. No man with the slightest knowledge of frontiersmen orfrontier life could commit such a mistake. If any one wishes to get atthe value of oral tradition of an Indian fight a century old, let himgo out west and collect the stories of Custer's battle, which tookplace only a dozen years ago. I think I have met or heard of fifty"solitary survivors" of Custer's defeat; and I could collect certainlya dozen complete accounts of both it and Reno's fight, each believedby a goodly number of men, and no two relating the story in an evenapproximately similar fashion. Mr. Gilmore apparently accepts all suchaccounts indiscriminately, and embodies them in his narrative withouteven a reference to his authorities. I particularize one or two out ofvery many instances in the chapters dealing with the Cherokee wars. Books founded upon an indiscriminate acceptance of any and all suchtraditions or alleged traditions are a little absurd, unless, asalready said, they are avowedly merely historic novels, when they maybe both useful and interesting. I am obliged to say with genuineregret, after careful examination of Mr. Gilmore's books, that Icannot accept any single unsupported statement they contain as evenrequiring an examination into its probability. I would willingly passthem by without comment, did I not fear that my silence might beconstrued into an acceptance of their truth. Moreover, I notice thatsome writers, like the editors of the "Cyclopedia of AmericanBiography, " seem inclined to take the volumes seriously. APPENDIX F--TO CHAPTER IX. I. (_Campbell MSS. ;_ this letter and the one following are fromcopies, and the spelling etc. , may not be quite as in the originals). CAMP OPPOSITE THE MOUTH OF THE GREAT KENAWAY. October 16--1774. DEAR UNCLE, I gladly embrace this opportunity to acquaint you that we are all hereyet alive through Gods mercies, & I sincerely wish that this may findyou and your family in the station of health that we left you. I neverhad anything worth notice to acquaint you with since I left you tillnow--the express seems to be hurrying, that I cannot write you withthe same coolness and deliberation as I would. We arrived at the mouthof the Canaway, thursday 6th. Octo. And encamped on a fine piece ofground, with an intent to wait for the Governor and his party buthearing that he was going another way we contented ourselves to staythere a few days to rest the troops, &c. Where we looked uponourselves to be in safety till Monday morning the 10th. Instant whentwo of our company went out before day to hunt--to wit Val. Sevier andJames Robinson and discovered a party of Indians. As I expect you willhear something of our battle before you get this, I have here statedthe affair nearly to you: For the satisfaction of the people in your parts in this they have atrue state of the memorable battle fought at the mouth of the GreatCanaway on the 10th. Instant. Monday morning about half an hour beforesunrise, two of Capt. Russells company discovered a large party ofIndians about a mile from camp, one of which men was killed, the othermade his escape & brought in his intelligence. In two or three minutesafter, two of Capt. Shelby's Company came in & confirmed the account, Col. Andrew Lewis being informed thereof immediately ordered Col. Charles Lewis to take the command of 150 men from Augusta and with himwent Capt. Dickison, Capt. Harrison, Capt. Wilson, Capt. John Lewis, from Augusta and Capt. Sockridge which made the first division. Col. Fleming was also ordered to take the command of one hundred and fiftymore, consisting of Battertout, Fincastle & Bedford troops, --viz. , Capt. Buford of Bedford, Capt. Lewis of Battertout, Capt. Shelby &Capt. Russell of Fincastle which made the second division. Col. Lewismarched with his division to the right some distance from the Ohio. Col. Fleming with his division up the bank of the Ohio to the left. Col. Lewis' division had not marched little more than a quarter of amile from camp when about sunrise, an attack was made on the front ofhis division in a most vigorous manner by the united tribesIndians, --Shawnees, Delawares, Mingoes, Taways, and of several othernations, in number not less than eight hundred, and by many thought tobe a thousand. In this heavy attack Col. Charles Lewis received awound which soon after caused his death, and several of his men fellon the spot, --in fact the Augusta division was forced to give way tothe heavy fire of the enemy. In about the second of a minute after theattack on Col. Lewis' division, the enemy engaged of Col. Fleming'sdivision on the ohio and in a short time Col. Fleming received twoballs thro' his left arm and one thro' his breast; and after animatingthe Captains & soldiers in a calm manner to the pursuit of victoryreturned to the camp. The loss of the brave Col's was severely felt bythe officers in particular. But the Augusta troops being shortlyreinforced from camp by Col. Field with his company, together withCapt. M'Dowers, Capt. Matthew's and Capt. Stewart's from Augusta;Capt. John Lewis, Capt. Paulins, Capt. Arbuckle's, and Capt. M'Clannahan's from Battertout. The enemy no longer able to maintaintheir ground was forced to give way till they were in a line with thetroops left in action on branches of ohio by Col. Fleming. In thisprecipitate retreat Col. Field was killed; after which Capt. Shelbywas ordered to take the command. During this time which was till aftertwelve of the clock, the action continued extremely hot, the closeunderwood, many steep banks and logs greatly favored their retreat, and the bravest of their men made the _best_ use of themselves, while others were throwing their dead into the ohio, and carrying offthe wounded. After twelve the action in a small degree abated, butcontinued sharp enough till after one o'clock. Their long retreat gavethem a most advantageous spot of ground; from which it appeared to theofficers so difficult to dislodge them, that it was thought mostadvisable, to stand as the line was then formed, which was about amile and a quarter in length, and had till then sustained a constantand equal weight of fire from wing to wing. It was till half an hourof sunset they continued firing on us, which we returned to theirdisadvantage, at length night coming on they found a safe retreat. They had not the satisfaction of scalping any of our men save one ortwo straglers, whom they killed before the engagement. Many of theirdead they scalped rather than we should have them, but our troopsscalped upwards of twenty of those who were first killed. Its beyond adoubt, their loss in numbers far exceeds ours which is considerable. Field officers killed--Col. Charles Lewis, & Col. John Fields. Fieldofficers wounded--Col. William Fleming;--Capts. Killed, John Murray, Capt. Samuel Wilson, Capt. Robert M'Clannahan, Capt. James Ward. Capts. Wounded--Thomas Buford, John Dickison & John Scidmore. Subalterns killed, Lieutenant Hugh Allen, Ensign Matthew Brackin &Ensign Cundiff; Subalterns wounded, Lieut. Lane, Lieut. Vance, Lieut. Goldman, Lieut. James Robertson; and about 46 killed and 60 wounded. From this sir you may judge that we had a very hard day; its reallyimpossible for me to express or you to conceive the acclamations thatwe were under, --sometimes the hideous cries of the enemy, and thegroans of our wounded men lying around, was enough to shudder thestoutest heart. Its the general opinion of the officers that we shallsoon have another engagement, as we have now got over into the enemy'scountry. We expect to meet the Governor about forty or fifty milesfrom here. Nothing will save us from another battle, unless theyattack the Governors party. Five men that came in dadys (daddy's)company were killed, I don't know that you were acquainted with any ofthem, except Mark Williams who lived with Roger Top. Acquaint Mr. Carmack that his son was slightly wounded through the shoulder and armand that he is in a likely way of recovery. We leave him at the mouthof the Canaway and one very careful hand to take care of him. There isa garrison and three hundred men left at that place, with a surgeon toheal the wounded. We expect to return to the garrison in about 16 daysfrom the Shawny towns. I have nothing more particular to acquaint you with concerning thebattle. As to the country I cannot say much in praise of any that Ihave yet seen. Dady intended writing you, but did not know of theexpress until the time was too short. I have wrote to mammy tho' notso fully to you, as I then expected the express was just going. Weseem to be all in a moving posture, just going from this place, sothat I must conclude, wishing you health and prosperity until I seeyou and your family. In the meantime I am your truly affectionatefriend and humble servant, ISAAC SHELBY. To MR. JOHN SHELBY, Holston River, Fincastle County. Favd. By Mr. Benj. Gray. II. (_Campbell MSS. _) October ye 31st. 1774. DEAR SIR, Being on my way home to Fincastle court, was overtaken this evening byletters from Colo. Christian and other gentlemen on the expedition, giving an account of a battle which was fought between our troops &the enemy Indians, on the 10th instant, in the Fork of the Ohio & theGreat Kanhawa. The particulars of the action, drawn up by Colo. Andr. Lewis I havesent you enclosed, also a return of the killed and wounded, by whichyou will see that we have lost many brave and valiant officers &soldiers, whose loss to their families, as well as to the community, is very great. Colo. Christian with the Fincastle troops, (except the companiescommanded by Capts. Russell & Shelby, who were in the action) were ontheir march; and on the evening of that day, about 15 miles from fieldof battle, heard that the action began in the morning. They marchedhard, and got to the camp about midnight. The cries of the wounded, without any persons of skill or any thing to nourish people in theirunhappy situation, was striking. The Indians had crossed the river onrafts, 6 or 8 miles above the Forks, in the night, and it is believed, intended to attack the camp, had they not been prevented by our menmarching to meet them at the distance of half a mile. It is said theenemy behaved with bravery and great caution, that they frequentlydamned our men for white sons of bitches. Why did they not whistlenow? (alluding to the fifes) & that they would learn them to shoot. The Governor was then at Hockhocking, about 12 or 15 miles below themouth of the Little Kanhawa, from whence he intended to march hisparty to a place called Chillicoffee, about 20 miles farther than thetowns where it was said the Shawneese had assembled with theirfamilies and allies, to make a stand, as they had good houses andplenty of ammunition & provisions & had cleared the woods to a greatdistance from the place. His party who were to march from the camp wasabout 1200, and to join Colo. Lewis' party about 28 miles fromChillicoffee. But whether the action above mentioned would disconcertthis plan or not, I think appears a little uncertain, as there is aprobability that his excellency on hearing the news might, with hisparty, fall down the river and join Colo. Lewis' party and marchtogether against the enemy. They were about building a breastwork at the Forks, & after leaving aproper party to take care of the wounded & the provisions there, thatColo. Lewis could march upwards of a thousand men to join hisLordship, so that the whole when they meet will be about 2200 choicemen. What may be their success God only knows, but it is highlyprobable the matter is decided before this time. Colo. Christian says, from the accounts he had the enemy behaved withinconceivable bravery. The head men walked about in the time ofaction, exhorting their men "to be close, shoot well, be strong offight. " They had parties planted on the opposite side of both riversto shoot our men as they swam over, not doubting, as is supposed, butthey would gain a complete victory. In the evening late they called toour men "that they had 2000 men for them to-morrow, and that they had1100 men now as well as they. " They also made very merry about atreaty. Poor Colo. Charles Lewis was shot on a clear piece of ground, as hehad not taken a tree, encouraging his men to advance. On being woundedhe handed his gun to a person nigh him and retired to the camp, telling his men as he passed "I am wounded but go on and be brave. " Ifthe loss of a good man a sincere friend, and a brave officer, claims atear, he certainly is entitled to it. Colo. Fields was shot at a great tree by two Indians on his right, while one on his left was amusing him with talk and the Colo. Endeavoring to get a shot at him. Besides the loss the troops met with in action by Colo. Fleming whowas obliged to retire from the field, which was very great, thewounded met with the most irreparable loss in an able and skillfulsurgeon. Colo. Christian says that his (Flemings) lungs or part ofthem came out of the wound in his breast but were pushed back; and bythe last part of his letter, which was dated the 16th. Instant, he hassome hopes of his recovery. Thus, sir, I have given you an account of the action from the severalletters I recd. , and have only to add, that Colo. Christian desires meto inform Mrs. Christian of his welfare, which with great pleasure Ido through this channel, and should any further news come, which Imuch expect soon, I shall take the earliest oppy. Of communicating thesame to you. It is believed the troops will surely return in Nov. I write in a hurry and amidst a crowd of inquisitive people, thereforehope you will excuse the inaccuracy of, D'r. Sir, Your sincere well wisher & most obedt. Servt. , WM. PRESTON. P. S. If you please you may give Mr. Purdie a copy of the enclosedpapers, & anything else you may think worthy the notice of the Public. III. LOGAN'S SPEECH. There has been much controversy over the genuineness of Logan'sspeech; but those who have questioned it have done so with singularlylittle reason. In fact its authenticity would never have been impugnedat all had it not (wrongly) blamed Cresap with killing Logan's family. Cresap's defenders, with curious folly, have in consequence thought itnecessary to show, not that Logan was mistaken, but that he neverdelivered the speech at all. The truth seems to be that Cresap, without provocation, but afterbeing incited to war by Conolly's letter, murdered some peacefulIndians, among whom there were certainly some friends and possiblysome relations of Logan (see testimony of Col. Ebenezer Zane, inJefferson's Notes, and "American Pioneer, " I. , 12; also Clark's letterin the Jefferson Papers); but that he had no share in the massacre ofLogan's family at Yellow Creek by Greathouse and his crew two or threedays afterwards. The two massacres occurring so near together, however, produced the impression not only among the Indians but amongmany whites (as shown in the body of this work), that Cresap had beenguilty of both; and this Logan undoubtedly believed, as can be seen bythe letter he wrote and left tied to a war club in a murderedsettler's house. This was an injustice to Cresap; but it was a verynatural mistake on Logan's part. After the speech was recited it attracted much attention; waspublished in newspapers, periodicals, etc. , and was extensivelyquoted. Jefferson, as we learn from his Papers at Washington, took itdown in 1775, getting it from Lord Dunmore's officers, and publishedit in his "Notes, " in 1784; unfortunately he took for granted that itsallegations as regards Cresap were true, and accordingly prefaced itby a very unjust attack on the reputed murderer. Until thirteen yearsafter this publication, and until twenty-three years after the speechhad been published for the first time, no one thought of questioningit. Then Luther Martin, of Maryland, attacked its authenticity, partlybecause he was Cresap's son-in-law, and partly because he was aFederalist and a bitter opponent of Jefferson. Like all of hissuccessors in the same line, he confused two entirely distinct things, viz. , the justice of the charge against Cresap, and the authenticityof Logan's speech. His controversy with Jefferson grew very bitter. Hesucceeded in showing clearly that Cresap was wrongly accused by Logan;he utterly failed to impugn the authenticity of the latter's speech. Jefferson, thanks to a letter he received from Clark, must have knownthat Cresap had been accused wrongly; but he was irritated by thecontroversy, and characteristically refrained in any of hispublications from doing justice to the slandered man's memory. A Mr. Jacobs soon afterwards wrote a life of Cresap, in which heattempted both of the feats aimed at by Martin; it is quite aninteresting production, but exceedingly weak in its arguments. NevilleB. Craig, in the February, 1847, number of _The Olden Time_, ahistorical magazine, followed on the same lines. Finally, BrantzMayer, in his very interesting little book, "Logan and Cresap, " wentover the whole matter in a much fairer manner than his predecessors, but still distinctly as an advocate; for though he collected withgreat industry and gave impartially all the original facts (so thatfrom what he gives alone it is quite possible to prove that the speechis certainly genuine), yet his own conclusions show great bias. Thushe severely rules out any testimony against Cresap that is notabsolutely unquestioned; but admits without hesitation any and everysort of evidence leaning against poor Logan's character or theauthenticity of his speech. He even goes so far (pp. 122, 123) as tosay it is not a "speech" at all, --although it would puzzle a man toknow what else to call it, as he also declares it is not amessage, --and shows the animus of his work by making the gratuitoussuggestion that if Logan made it at all he was probably at the timeexcited "as well by the cruelties he had committed as by liquor. " It is necessary, therefore, to give a brief summary of a portion ofthe evidence in its favor, as well as of all the evidence against it. Jefferson's Notes and Mr. Mayer's book go fully into the matter. The evidence in its favor is as follows: (1. ) Gibson's statement. This is the keystone of the arch. John Gibsonwas a man of note and of unblemished character; he was made a generalby Washington, and held high appointive positions under Madison andJefferson; he was also an Associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleasin Pennsylvania. Throughout his life he bore a reputation for absolutetruthfulness. He was the messenger who went to Logan, heard thespeech, took it down, and gave it to Lord Dunmore. We have hisdeposition, delivered under oath, that "Logan delivered to him thespeech nearly as related by Mr. Jefferson in his Notes, " when the twowere alone together, and that he "on his return to camp delivered thespeech to Lord Dunmore, " and that he also at the time told Logan hewas mistaken about Cresap. Brantz Mayer, who accepts his statement assubstantially true, thinks that he probably only reported the_substance_ of Logan's speech, or so much of it as he couldrecollect; but in the State Department at Washington, among theJefferson Papers (5-1-4), is a statement by John Anderson, a merchantin Fredericksburg, who was an Indian trader at Pittsburg in 1774; hesays that he questioned Gibson as to whether he had not himself addedsomething to the speech, to which Gibson replied that he had notchanged it in any way, but had translated it literally, as well as hecould, though he was unable to come up to the force of the expressionsin the original. This evidence itself is absolutely conclusive, except on thesupposition that Gibson was a malicious and infamous liar. The men whoargue that the speech was fictitious are also obliged to explain whatmotive there could possibly have been for the deception; theyaccordingly advance the theory that it was part of Dunmore's(imaginary) treacherous conduct, as he wished to discredit Cresap, because he knew--apparently by divination--that the latter was goingto be a whig. Even granting the Earl corrupt motives and a propheticsoul, it remains to be explained why he should wish to injure anobscure borderer, whom nobody has ever heard of except in connectionwith Logan; it would have served the purpose quite as well to haveused the equally unknown name of the real offender, Greathouse. Thefabrication of the speech would have been an absolutely motiveless andfoolish transaction; to which Gibson, a pronounced whig, must needshave been a party. This last fact shows that there could have been nointention of using the speech in the British interest. (2) The statement of General George Rogers Clark. (Like the preceding, this can be seen in the Jefferson Papers. ) Clark was present inDunmore's camp at the time. He says: "Logan's speech to Dunmore nowcame forward as related by Mr. Jefferson and was generally believedand indeed not doubted to have been genuine and dictated by Logan. TheArmy knew it was wrong so far as it respected Cresap, and afforded anopportunity of rallying that Gentleman on the subject--I discoveredthat Cresap was displeased and told him that he must be a very greatMan, that the Indians shouldered him with every thing that hadhappened.... Logan is the author of the speech as related by Mr. Jefferson. " Clark's remembrance of his rallying Cresap shows that thespeech contained Cresap's name and that it was read before the army;several other witnesses, whose names are not necessary to mention, simply corroborate Clark's statements, and a large amount of indirectevidence to the same effect could be produced, were there the leastnecessity. (See Jefferson's Notes, "The American Pioneer, " etc. , etc. ) The evidence against the authenticity of the speech, outside of mereconjectures and inuendoes, is as follows: (1) Logan called Cresap a colonel when he was really a captain. Thisinability of an Indian to discriminate accurately between these twotitles of frontier militia officers is actually solemnly broughtforward as telling against the speech. (2) Logan accused Cresap of committing a murder which he had notcommitted. But, as we have already seen, Logan had made the sameaccusation in his unquestionably authentic letter, written previously;and many whites, as well as Indians, thought as Logan did. (3) A Col. Benj. Wilson, who was with Dunmore's army, says that "hedid not hear the charge preferred in Logan's speech against CaptainCresap. " This is mere negative evidence, valueless in any event, anddoubly so in view of Clark's statement. (4) Mr. Neville B. Craig, in _Olden Time_, says in 1847 that"many years before a Mr. James McKee, the brother of Mr. WilliamJohnson's deputy, had told him that he had seen the speech in thehandwriting of one of the Johnsons ... Before it was seen by Logan. "This is a hearsay statement delivered just seventy-three years afterthe event, and it is on its face so wildly improbable as not to needfurther comment, at least until there is some explanation as to whythe Johnsons should have written the speech, how they could possiblyhave gotten it to Logan, and why Gibson should have entered into theconspiracy. (5) A Benjamin Tomlinson testifies that he believes that the speechwas fabricated by Gibson; he hints, but does not frankly assert, thatGibson was not sent after Logan, but that Girty was; and swears thathe heard the speech read three times and that the name of Cresap wasnot mentioned in it. He was said in later life to bear a good reputation; but in hisdeposition he admits under oath that he was present at the YellowCreek murder (_Olden Time_, II. , 61; the editor, by the way, seems to call him alternately Joseph and Benjamin); and he wastherefore an unconvicted criminal, who connived at or participated inone of the most brutal and cowardly deeds ever done on the frontier. His statement as against Gibson's would be worthless anyhow;fortunately his testimony as to the omission of Cresap's name from thespeech is also flatly contradicted by Clark. With the words of twosuch men against his, and bearing in mind that all that he saysagainst the authenticity of the speech itself is confessedly meresupposition on his part, his statement must be promptly set aside asworthless. If true, by the way, it would conflict with (4) Craig'sstatement. This is literally all the "evidence" against the speech. It scarcelyneeds serious discussion; it may be divided into two parts--onecontaining allegations that are silly, and the other those that arediscredited. There is probably very little additional evidence to be obtained, onone side or the other; it is all in, and Logan's speech can beunhesitatingly pronounced authentic. Doubtless there have been verbalalterations in it; there is not extant a report of any famous speechwhich does not probably differ in some way from the words as they wereactually spoken. There is also a good deal of confusion as to whetherthe council took place in the Indian town, or in Dunmore's camp;whether Logan was sought out alone in his hut by Gibson, or came upand drew the latter aside while he was at the council, etc. In thesame way, we have excellent authority for stating that, prior to thebattle of the Great Kanawha, Lewis reached the mouth of that river onOctober 1st, and that he reached it on October 6th; that on the dayof the attack the troops marched from camp a quarter of a mile, andthat they marched three quarters; that the Indians lost more men thanthe whites, and that they lost fewer; that Lewis behaved well, andthat he behaved badly; that the whites lost 140 men, and that theylost 215, etc. , etc. The conflict of evidence as to the dates andaccessory details of Logan's speech is no greater than it is as to thedates and accessory details of the murder by Greathouse, or as to allthe preliminaries of the main battle of the campaign. Coming frombackwoods sources, it is inevitable that we should have confusion onpoints of detail; but as to the main question there seems almost aslittle reason for doubting the authenticity of Logan's speech, as fordoubting the reality of the battle of the Great Kanawha. END OF VOL. I.