USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 23
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The fishery question was disposed of by granting the Americans the right to fish where they pleased. Next, as to indemnifying tories for the loss of their property, either by the ravages of war, or the confiscation of their estates, the American Commissioners suggested that it would be equally reasonable for the English to make good the private damage their armies did to American
249
The Treaty under Consideration.
patriots during their various invasions. This unanswer- able argument settled that point in favor of the Amer- icans.
Lastly came the boundary question, which was a far more circumstantial affair, and presents one of the most complex conditions of diplomacy ever recorded in history.
Spain was then a powerful nation, and was allied to France by the closest relations of mutual interest, as each was under the rule of a Bourbon. The English wished to retain all the territory described in the Quebec bill of 1774, which made the Ohio river the southern line of Canada.
Meantime the Count de Aranda, the Spanish Min- ister, asserted the claim of Spain to all the territory between the Mississippi river and Alleghany mountains.
At this juncture Mr. Jay, with his usual penetration, made the discovery that France was secretly using her influence in favor of the Spanish claim. The case was now daily becoming more complicated, and the Ameri- can Commissioners, after some weeks of delay, availed themselves of England's willingness to concede the boundary of the Mississippi, and signed the definitive treaty with her to this effect, without consulting either the French or Spanish Ministers. Had the signing of the treaty hung on the pleasure of Spain till her con- sent was obtained to making the Mississippi the west- ern boundary of the United States, it would never have been signed, and it is highly probable that England would not have conceded this point, if the Spanish claim had not presented obstacles in the way of her retaining the territory in question, even if the Ameri- cans relinquished it, her fighting force being too nearly exhausted at that time, while that of Spain was in full tide of power. This consideration, in addition to the American rights by virtue of Clark's conquest, settled the destiny of the Northwest, by placing it under the new flag of the United States. It will thus be seen that this result grew out of a rare combination of con- tingent conditions, the miscarriage of any one of which would have defeated its accomplishment.
250
Jay's Masterly Diplomacy.
John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and Henry Laurens were the Commissioners on the part of the United States to negotiate the peace-all able men, perhaps the best fitted for the work of any the country afforded. Mr. Jay, in particular, distinguished himself by his penetration into the mazes of European diplo- macy, and proved himself more than a match for the Commissioners of England, Spain and France, though they had grown gray in such service, while he had no other qualifications but his master-mind and his un- shaken purpose. The King of England empowered Richard Oswald to act with the Commissioners on the part of "The Colonies or Plantations, or any body or bodies, corporate or politic, assembly or assemblies, or description of men, or person or persons whatsoever," and to "negotiate a peace or truce with the said Colo- nies or Plantations, or any of them, or any part or parts thereof." Count Vergennes, the French Commissioner, advised that these powers and forms were sufficient to meet the exigency, and Franklin, in his loyalty to French honor, at first coincided with him. But Jay positively refused to negotiate on any basis that did not establish
the equality of the Commissioners of both countries as a starting point. "That the treaty must be the con- sequence of independence, and not independence the consequence of treaty." Franklin and his other con- stituents soon saw the importance of this position, and they all united with him in the tenacity with which he insisted on it. Whereupon Mr. Oswald, not without some embarrassment, reluctantly exhibited his secret instructions, authorizing him in case "The American Commissioners are not at liberty to treat in any terms short of independence, you are to declare to them that you have authority to make that concession." The Commissioners then proceeded to business, which had not progressed far till Mr. Jay learned with surprise and indignation, that Count de Aranda, the Spanish Com- missioner, demanded the abandonment of the Missis-
sippi on the part of the United States as a western boundary. Nor was this policy confined to the Spanish court, as there was convincing evidence to Mr. Jay
251
The Treaty Ratified.
that France secretly encouraged Spain in this demand. Franklin at first would not believe it; but Adams, after canvassing the matter, coincided with Jay, and Frank- lin and Laurens were soon forced into the same con- viction by the accumulating evidence in its favor. Under these circumstances, the American Commissioners signed the treaty of peace with the English, without the knowledge of the French court, as soon as the required terms were agreed to. The provisional treaty was signed at Paris, the 30th November, 1782-on the part of America by Messrs. Franklin, Adams, Laurens and Jay; and, on the part of Great Britian, by Mr. Richard Oswald, Lord Shelburne being still at the head of affairs in that country. The preliminary articles, being ratified, within the term specified, by the respec- tive governments, the definitive treaty of peace, sub- stantially a copy of the provisional one, was signed- for America, by Messrs. Franklin, Adams and Jay, and for England, by Mr. David Hartley, at Paris, the 3d September, 1783. This treaty was unanimously ratified by Congress, on the 14th of February, 1784 .* And, on the same day, they unanimously issued a recommendation to the States in pursuance of the stipulations of the 5th article. Hostilities ceased, by proclamation, in April of the preceding year. The British minister refused to insert an article into the treaty on the subject of commerce.
Some censure on the part of France and Spain followed, but no serious rupture from any quarter, for the following reasons: England saw the impossi- bility of retaining the valley of the Mississippi her- self, when both Spain and France opposed it. France had then just begun to feel the premonitory symptoms of the fearful revolution which soon fol- lowed, and Spain had neither friendship nor honor in the issue, but she did make a vigorous protest against the terms of the treaty. Her future action for years afterward was in line with this policy, and even gave
* It is worthy of remark that on this critical occasion, England pre- ferred that the United States should own this territory instead of Spain, whose traditional policy has always been adverse to British commercial interests, and, it may be added, to political and religious status.
1
252
Letter of Hon. James Ross.
good evidence that she expected to conquer this country, or at least to force its inhabitants into seces- sion from the eastern states, and form an independent confederacy.
As a means to this end, Spain closed the commerce of the Mississippi river to the settlers of its upper waters, and went so far as to build forts on its eastern banks.
A few years later her designs were made manifest when she secretly sent emissaries to offer to certain persons who represented the country in question, the free navigation of the Mississippi, providing the North- western settlements, including Kentucky, would secede from the eastern states either as a separate confederacy .or join their fortunes with Spain. Baron de Carondalet, the Spanish Governor of Louisiana, sent Thomas Powers, General de Collot and Warin, on this mission,
James McHenry, Secretary of War, soon obtained a rumor of this Spanish movement and warned the author- ities against them. General St. Clair, who had just been appointed Governor of Detroit, apprised of this, wrote the following letter to Hon. James Ross, Sept. 6th, 1796.
"General Victor Collot has left the country after making, it is said, an accurate survey of the Ohio, and sounding its depths in a number of places. He was stopped at Fort Massac and his papers examined by the commanding officer. Another matter has happened that will, I suppose, make some noise. A certain Mr. Powers was met as he was ascending the Ohio by an officer, Lieutenant Steele (who it is said was imprudent enough to tell him he was sent for the express purpose, by General Wayne), who stopped him, broke open his letters, examined them and his other papers, and took away with him such as he thought proper."
Prominent men in Kentucky, Detroit and other places were secretly approached on the subject, among whom were Aaron Burr and General Wilkinson, both of whom were subsequently tried for treason, but acquitted for lack of positive evidence.
CHAPTER XI.
Characteristics and Costume of the Virginia Border Men and the New England Pioneers-The Ohio Company Formed-Marietta Settled-Cession of the Northwest to the United States-Congressional Legislation on the Ordinance of 1787-Symes' Purchase-Columbia, North Bend and Cincinnati Settled-Emigration in Arks-The British on the Lakes-Their Relations with the Indians-St. Clair Arrives at Marietta as Governor of the Northwest Territory-Courts Estab- lished-Harmer Invades the Indian Country-The French and Indian Villages on the Wabash Destroyed.
Hitherto the Virginia ranger, among whom were a few backwoods Pennsylvanians, were the only Anglo- Americans who had crossed the Ohio river.
These men had been trained amidst the toils and excitements of camp life from infancy. The crack of the rifle was a familiar sound to them, and the Indian war-whoop not an infrequent one.
Their character was molded from two extremes. The first and fundamental one was the high-bred civilization of their fathers, and the other was the influence which their collision with the savages had exerted over them. This had stimulated their heroic virtues, and also whetted their revenge to a wiry edge.
Into the wilderness they had marched-their feet clad with moccasins, after the Indian pattern-their hunting shirts faced with a fringe, and sometimes orna- mented with wild-cats' paws for epaulettes. The inevitable leathern belt which they wore was as heavy as a horse's surcingle of modern days, and from it
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254
The Ohio Company Formed.
depended sockets for a tomahawk, a large knife and a pistol. A heavy rifle, bullet pouch and powder horn completed their outfit.
Such were the men whose vaulting ambition in mak- ing the conquest of the country beyond the Ohio had wrenched away the jewel which the heroic Wolfe in his dying moments, on the Heights of Abraham, had bequeathed to the English crown.
Another element now comes to the scene. The New Englander has heard of these fertile valleys, and comes to see them. He is dressed in a blue-black broadcloth coat, with a velvet collar stiffened with buck- ram, and projecting its inflexible form above the nape of his neck, often coming in collision with the rim of his bell-crowned hat as he throws his head back with an air of conscious dignity, neither constrained nor ostentatious. His vest reaches the entire length of his body, but is cut back, leaving angular flaps at the extremities. His feet are shod with ponderous boots, imparting steadfastness rather than elasticity to his gait.
By these men were formed in June, 1786, a corpora- tion called The Ohio Company. It was composed of officers and soldiers from New England, who had served with honor in the war of the revolution. On the 23d of November, 1787, the stockholders in this company met at Bracket's Tavern, in Boston, and voted to send a corps of forty-eight men to the mouth of the Muskingum river, make a survey of public lands, for a settlement, cut away the forests, for a field, and make other preparations for the colony.
The wood choppers were to receive $4.00, and the surveyors $27.00 per month while in actual service, and General Rufus Putnam, the venerable Superintendent, was to receive $40.00 per month .*
The party landed in flat boats at the mouth of the Muskingum, the 7th of April, 1788, and began to lay out a town which they first named Adelphi, but subse- quently changed the name to Marietta, in honor of Marie Antoinette, the fair Queen of France, whose
* Hildreth's Pioneer Hist., p. 202.
MARIETTA IN 1788.
256
The Several Conquests of the Northwest.
supreme influence in the French court had been used in behalf of Franklin's mission there in 1778, to secure the acknowledgment of American independence.
The New England element was here planted for the first time beyond the Ohio, and here it ever retained its foothold. But ere its destined influence was to make itself widely known and felt, the third and last conquest of the country was to be made.
The first conquest had been made from the French, in the French and Indian war, which gave the country to the English. The second by the Virginians under Clark, which had given the country to the United States. But in both of these conquests the natives of the soil saw no infringements of their rights, nor were there any in theory. They had been invited to take part in both of them, and had done so under an impres- sion that the nation to whom they had allied them- selves would protect them in their natural rights to the soil. But as ill fortune would have it, for them, they had fought on the losing side, first for the French against the English, and next, chiefly against the Americans during the revolutionary war, and had drawn upon themselves the resentment of the Virginians and Pennsylvanians, and the Kentucky pioneers, who were now beginning to settle that infant state. At no distant day a collision was inevitable between them and the Anglo-Americans, which was not to be confined to the border, but to be carried into the forest recesses, where the ownership of the soil was to be decided by the rifle, tomahawk and scalping knife, in a series of campaigns, on a far grander scale than any which had yet been witnessed in the American forest.
Before an account of this is told, let us consider the conditions by which the Northwest was endowed with the American principles and came under the general control of Congress.
The great Northwest as known in history, became the property of the United States at the treaty of peace that sheathed the sword of the American revolution in 1783. Even before the war had ended, Silas Dean had called the attention of Congress to its domain,
47
SYLVANIA
45
MICHIGANIA
CHÉRRONESUS
43
METROPOTAMIA!
ASSENISIPIA
PENNSYLVANIA
41
WASHINGTON
ILLINOIA
SARATOGA
MARYLAND
39
POLYPOTAMIA
PELISIPIA
G.Kenawha VIRGINIA R.
N. CAROLINA
*35
1
S. CAROLINA
33
GEORGIA
31
MAP NO. I.
DIVISION OF THE WEST BY CONGRESS. PLAN OF MARCH IST, 1784.
Meridian of the Falls of the Ohio
Kenawha Meridian
:37
258
Deed of Cession of 1784.
as a means of paying the debts contracted to carry it on.
When, after a tenacious strain in diplomacy, it became ours by treaty, the practical work began, by which it was to be decorated with statehood. It was a difficult and circumstantial piece of work for the Con- tinental Congress to undertake, which had not yet formulated the principles of our Declaration of Inde- pendence into law.
The substance of these principles was in the sense of the people, and out of this substance grew the con- stitution of 1790, until which time, though independ- ent, we were not a nation in form and unity. Pend- ing this interim, the Northwest was to be engrafted on the thirteen states, not unconditionally, but with guar- antees for civil and religious liberty; nor did these wise provisions stop here ; African slavery was forbidden, although it was then legal in the thirteen old states as an inheritance from the mother country.
Other questions came up, vital to freedom, in its broad sense, one of which was the entailment of estates, which issue was disposed of by dividing them equally between son and daughter, instead of giving the whole to the oldest son, according to English law.
To lay these foundations on which states were to be built up west of the Ohio, was to anticipate the work to be done in the formation of the constitution itself, with- out which the war of the late revolution would have been a waste of the most precious blood ever spilt in defense of human rights.
March Ist, 1784, the State of Virginia executed the deed of cession of the Northwest Territory to the United States, and on the same day a committee of delegates reported a plan for its temporary government, of which Thomas Jefferson was chairman. A division of the entire western portion of the United States territory was pro- posed, of which Map No. I, on page 257, is a record.
This plan was not satisfactory, and on the 23d of the succeeding month another outline sketch was made with names of the new states omitted, and discretionary limits of proposed states south of the Ohio river, shown by dotted lines.
45
43
PENNSYLVANIA
41°
1
MARYLAND
39
Meridian of the Falls of the Ohio
Kenawha Meridian
R.
G.Kenawha
¥37
N. CAROLINA
35°
'S. CAROLINA
33°
GEORGIA
31°
MAP NO. 2.
DIVISION OF THE WEST IN THE ORDINANCE OF APRIL 23D, 1784.
VIRGINIA
260
Division of the Northwest.
The reason why these lines divided no territory south of the thirty-first parallel was because Spain then owned the country between this line and the Gulf.
July 7th, 1786, a plan for the division of the North- west Territory only, as shown on Map No. 3, was pro . posed and accepted by Congress, and on July 13th, 1787, an ordinance passed making this a law.
It was by virtue of Virginia's first steps taken to wrest this territory from the French that she built her claim to it, but when this claim had to be submitted to the anticipated constitutional test, by which the states were to be bound together, her statesmen were quick to see that it was invalid, and relinquished it. New York and Massachusetts had lesser claims of the same kind, but promptly gave them up. Had no state presented any claim to this territory the action of Con- gress, in preparing it for statehood, would have been the same, with the proviso "that the necessary and reasonable expenses incurred by Virginia, in subduing any British posts, or in maintaining forts and garrisons within, and for the defense, or in acquiring any part of, the territory so ceded or relinquished, shall be fully reimbursed by the United States. That the French and Canadian inhabitants, and other settlers of the Kaskaskias, Post Vincennes, and the neighboring villages, who have professed themselves citizens of Virginia, shall have their possessions and titles con- firmed to them, and be protected in the enjoyment of their rights and liberties. That a quantity not exceed- ing 150,000 acres of land, promised by Virginia, shall be allowed and granted to the then Colonel, now Gen- eral George Rogers Clark, and to the officers and soldiers of his regiment, who marched with him when the posts of Kaskaskia and Vincennes were reduced, and to the officers and soldiers that have been since incorporated into the said regiment, to be laid off in one tract, the length of which not to exceed double the breadth, in such place on the northwest side of the Ohio, as a majority of the officers shall choose."*
* This reservation was laid off on the borders of the Ohio river, adjacent to the falls; and the tract was called the "Illinois Grant," or "Clark's Grant."
Do
5
4
O
Wabash Meridian
2
Miami Meridian
R.
1
3
R.
G. Miami
Wabash
MAP NO 3. DIVISION OF THE NORTHWEST, JULY 7TH, 1786.
262
Contingent Legislation.
The reason why such action was then necessary, was because we were not under the guide of a constitution. Since this instrument has become the law of the land, new territories are made into states under its general binding force without special legislation, except as in the case of Missouri, and contingent upon its admission by compromise with a right as to slavery (then ques- tionable), Nebraska and Kansas. Besides the above states requiring special legislation for admission, the territory of Utah, owing to her offensive social laws, presented a case in which the central constitutional power of the nation subordinated the single state to its fiat in accordance with the moral popular will.
Here it is proper to state that some able jurists claimed that Utah had a constitutional right to demand statehood, notwithstanding her offensive social laws; but whether this is true or not, the unwritten law of propriety and consistency interposed objections to her admission, till she came into court with clean hands-to use a metaphor. Similar requisitions are in store for territory lately conquered from Spain ere baptism with statehood.
The general principles established by the Continental Congress in its evolutionary legislation for the admission of states in the Northwest Territory, have neither been impaired nor infringed upon by special legislation, except to meet transient emergencies in the cases of the states just mentioned. In 1830 a dispute arose between the states of Ohio and Michigan; it was settled by Congress in 1836, which set off a portion of northeast- ern Wisconsin, giving it to Michigan for concessions made to Ohio. In 1818 the northern limits of Illinois were removed to the forty-second parallel, to give the state a frontage on Lake Michigan. This was done by the influence of Nathaniel Pope, the reasons for which are fully given in Ford's History of Illinois.
The 20th day of May, 1785, Congress passed an ordinance for the survey and disposition of that portion of the territory which had been purchased by treaty from the Indian inhabitants. For carrying this ordin- ance into effect one surveyor was appointed from each
263
Public Surveys Begun.
of the states, and placed under the direction of Thomas Hutchins, the geographer of the United States. The territory was to be surveyed into townships of six miles square, by lines running due north and south, and others crossing these at right angles. "The first line running north and south, as aforesaid, shall begin on the river Ohio, at a point that shall be found to be north from the western termination of a line which has been run as the southern boundary of the state of Pennsylvania; and the first line running east and west shall begin at the same point and shall extend throughout the whole territory." The townships were to be numbered from south to north, beginning with No. I, and the ranges to be distinguished by their progressive numbers to the westward; the first range, extending from the Ohio to Lake Erie, being marked No. I.
The geographer was to attend personally to running the first east and west line, and to take the latitude of the extremes of the first north and south line, and of the mouths of the principal rivers. Seven ranges of townships, in the direction from south to north, were ordered to be first surveyed, and plats thereof trans- mitted to the board of treasury, and so of every succeed- ing seven ranges that should be surveyed.
After these lands had been advertised for sale, they were to be sold at a rate of not less than one dollar per acre, with an addition of the expenses of survey, estimated at thirty-six dollars a. township. Four lots, numbered 8, II, 26 and 29, were reserved for the United States, out of every township. These lots were mile squares of 640 acres. Lot No. 16 was reserved for the benefit of schools within the township.
The states of New York, Massachusetts and Con- necticut, by virtue of colonial services during French occupation, respectively claimed lands lying north of the river Ohio and west and northwest of the western boundary of Pennsylvania. The claim of New York was, however, transferred to the United States, by a deed of cession, executed in Congress on the Ist day of March, 1781. The claim of the state of Massachusetts was assigned to the United States on the 19th day of
264
St. Clair Appointed Governor.
April, 1785; and on the 13th day of September, 1786, the state of Connecticut transferred to the United States her claim to lands in the West, reserving a tract of about 3,000,000 of acres, bounded on the north by Lake Erie, on the south by the forty-first degree of north latitude, and extending westwardly 120 miles. from the western boundary of Pennsylvania. This tract was called the Western Reserve of Connecticut.
In the month of October, 1786, the legislature of that state ordered a part of the tract, lying east of the river Cuyahoga, to be surveyed, and opened an office for the sale of the lands. In 1792, a tract containing about 500, 000 acres of land, lying in the western part of the reservation, was granted by Connecticut to certain citizens of that state as a compensation for property burned and destroyed in the towns of New London, New Haven, Fairfield and Norwalk by the British troops in the course of the revolutionary war. The tract thus granted was called the Fire Lands. On the 30th of May, 1800, the jurisdictional claims of the state of Connecticut to all the territory called the Western Reserve of Connecticut, was surrendered to the United States. These various cessions included all the claims held by old colonial charters to any western lands, all of which being transferred to the United States, it only remained to extinguish the Indian title, in order to possess the country.
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