USA > Kentucky > The political beginnings of Kentucky. A narrative of public events bearing on the history of that state up to the time of its admission into the American Union > Part 1
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02303 1948
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Johnmason Brown
Veasey-The Doerr Gallery.
THE
POLITICAL BEGINNINGS .
OF
KENTUCKY.
A NARRATIVE OF PUBLIC EVENTS
BEARING ON THE HISTORY OF THAT STATE UP TO THE TIME OF ITS ADMIS- SION INTO THE AMERICAN UNION.
BY
JOHN MASON BROWN.
LOUISVILLE :
JOHN P. MORTON AND COMPANY,
PRINTERS TO THE FILSON CLUB.
...
.
.
X
1889
J 5883.12 .
1555878
Copyrighted By John R. Morton & Company. 1890
20186 XC
P.20562
1. .
TO
REUBEN T. DURRETT, OF LOUISVILLE, KY.,
Learned beyond all others in the History of Kentucky and the West, this paper is inscribed by his friend,
JOHN MASON BROWN.
LOUISVILLE, KY., NOVEMBER, 1889.
HE HISTORY of the Commonwealth of Kentucky has attracted many pens. Elements of romantic adventure, of frontier life, of peril encountered and overcome, of dar- ing deeds, crowd the story of its earlier years. Universal interest has attached to the names of her pioneers. Their conflict was maintained in an unexplored and scarcely known wilderness. Hundreds of miles of forest and mountain sep- arated them from the settlements on the frontier of the older States from which they went forth, ever westward, to subdue and occupy the plains beyond the Alleghanies. The game that furnished sport and subsistence to the hunter was numerous beyond all former story. It was in kind differ- ent from that which the Atlantic slope afforded. Great bison and tall elks roamed in countless bands.
The Indians, whose hunting ground the new country was, were of higher type than those whom the colonists had encountered at the seaboard. The Shawnees, Wyan- dots, Cherokees, and allied tribes had many warriors whose sagacity in council was not inferior to their bravery in the field. The task before the adventurers in Kentucky was an arduous and a noble one. It was theirs to subdue the wil- derness to civilization, to dispossess a brave and skillful foe,
.
to overcome privation and danger, to create resources that could not else be had, to discipline their own hard and dan- gerous frontier life to the model of self-imposed law, and to evolve from discouragement, neglect, and danger a new State.
Their adventures, attacks, escapes, and wars have been the theme of poem and romance and history; but their serv- ices in the field of political construction, no less prolific of results and equally worthy, have scarce been noticed.
The earlier political history of Kentucky falls naturally into two periods. The first terminates with the admission of the State into the Federal Union, on the Ist of June, 1792, and embraces the purely formative epoch. The second period extends to the close of the alarms that attended Burr's dem- onstrations in the Southwest. Within that epoch (from 1792 to 1807) are included the organization of executive and leg- islative powers, the mission of Power and other Spanish emissaries, and their attempts upon Sebastian, Nicholas, and Murray, the ferment that grew out of the Alien and Sedi- tion laws and excise legislation, the excitement fomented by Genet and other French agents, the remodeling of the con- stitution in 1799, the acquisition of Louisiana, and the arrest and trial of Burr.
Neither space nor leisure is now available for the proper treatment of this second period, for the history of which, however, the writer has collected much material.
It is the design of this paper to trace the political devel- opment that marked the history of Kentucky during that
first period that closed with the establishment of state- hood and admission to membership in the Union, that the memory of the sagacity, patience, and forbearance of the pioneers may be perpetuated along with their better known virtues. Its purpose will be to examine their acts and explore their motives in the light of documentary evi- dence, much of which has been recently unearthed, and which speaks the true contemporary opinion. The lapse of years has cleared the historical atmosphere of many clouds engendered by personal rivalries and political antag- onisms. It is possible now to cite a responsible contempo- rary voucher for almost every important public fact in the earlier history of the State.
To his brethren of the FILSON CLUB the writer wishes here to repeat acknowledgments of co-operation and sym- pathy in his work. Their constant and interested atten- tion, dispassionate examination into the narrated facts, and free and well-informed criticisms upon conclusions drawn from them, have secured for this paper an accuracy and fair- ness that otherwise could not have been hoped for.
THE POLITICAL BEGINNINGS
OF
KENTUCKY.
The Indian Title.
An occupation of one hundred and fifty years had not sufficed to fully people the Atlantic slope of North America. The inhabitants who had pitched their first settlements along the tide-water and the greater rivers were slow to venture back westward to the Appalachian Mountains. They ac- cepted the boundary that nature had raised, and curbed their enterprise within its limits. Beyond the great divide that turned the waters another way lay a country unexplored and as yet uncoveted. The right of discovery under which the seaboard was held extended, as was claimed, westward to the further ocean; but how far this was, or what the claim em- braced, few cared and none knew.
Within the bounds of Virginia's royal charter, directly to the west, and yet separated from the extremest frontier by many miles of impassable mountains, lay the territory now known as Kentucky.
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The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.
It pushed forward into the wilderness like a huge wedge, resting upon Virginia's western line as its base. Its apex reached the Mississippi; its axis was the mid line of the coming nation. Even in savage times it divided the perma- nent possessions of northern and southern Indians. It was the key of all the country between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi.
The ownership of this land, fertile and abounding in game beyond all others, was disputed by powerful tribes and alli- ances. The Cherokees claimed it in great part; the Six Nations asserted that it was entirely theirs. The title was one of arms. The better claim, at least by conquest and use as their hunting ground, seems to have been with the Six Nations. It is from the language of the Iroquois that the name of Kentucky is derived, and from the language of their allied tribes, the Delawares and the Shawnees, comes that other name, "Kuttaawaa," "the great wilderness," used by early explorers interchangeably with the Iroquois "Kentake," "the place of the meadows," " the hunting grounds.""
" John Johnston, long years resident among the Shawnees as their agent, asserts that the word "Kentucky" is Shawnee, signifying "At the head of the river" (Archeo- logia Americana, Vol. I, p. 299), and Dr. D. G. Brinton seems half inclined to attach weight to this explanation. In a letter of 12th August, 1885, commenting upon John- ston's explanation, he writes: "The terminal is no doubt ' aki,' meaning ' land,' ' place,' but I am not able to analyze the root word. There is an Algonkin root, 'kan ' or 'kanat,' meaning ' clear,' 'pure,' and hence in Johnston's sense the word would be 'the place of clear, pure, or spring water,' as contradistinguished from the muddy character of the rivers near their outlets." The derivation does not seem sound or admissible. In the Iroquois tongue "kenta " (abbreviation of "kehenta") signifies " meadow," "prairie," and
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The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.
The title of the Six Nations was asserted and vindicated by them with all the confidence of a dominant people. Their war parties went westward to the Wabash, meeting no ade- quate resistance. Their hunters crossed the Ohio and roamed beyond the Cumberland, and westward to the Tennessee. Within the " Blue Grass" of Kentucky their allies, the Shaw- nees, built their towns, and from the Scioto to Chickamauga extended the great Warriors' Path, their military road against the Cherokees. The validity of the title claimed by the Six
"ke" is the locative particle meaning " place," ""land." The combination " kenta-ke" would indicate " the meadow land," and in a secondary sense the " hunting land" or "hunting grounds," as it was in this luxuriant country of blue grass and tender cane that the best and most abundant game was found. The learned Father Cuoq concurs in this derivation of the word Kentucky, though he does not proceed to the secondary meaning. (Lexique Iroquoise, sub voce KENTA.) The word " kenta," modified by the Mo- hawk tribal dialect into "Genti," is found in the list of the towns of the Wolf clan, where "Gentiyo" is rendered "Beautiful Plain." (Hale, Iroquois Book of Rites, 118, sec. 5.) The Algonkin name of Kentucky was doubtless "kutawa," very accurately trans- lated as "the great wilderness." Its derivation seems to be from "kitchi," otherwise "kit," meaning "great," and "tawa," " space," "interval," "vacancy," or, secondarily, "wilder- ness." (Consult Cuoq, Lexique Algonquine.) The Shawnees, who greatly affected the broad sound of a, used the word " kut-taa-waa," which the Delawares, also of Algonkin stock, pronounced less broadly "kutawa." Dr. Brinton notes the name "kittuwa," other- wise "kuttoowauw," as that given by the Delawares to the Cherokees, adding the remark, "This word I suppose to be derived from the prefix 'kit,' ' great,' and the root 'tawa' (Cree, yette, tawa), ' to open,' whence ' tawatawik,' ' an open,' i. e., 'an uninhabited place,' 'a wilderness' (Zeisberger)." (Brinton, The Lenape, 16.) The suffix wi, meaning people, added to kittawa made the word kittawawi, the name given by the Delawares to the Cherokees as "the people living in the great wilderness." This accords with the fact that the territory of Kentucky was so destitute of fixed towns of Indians that the locality of only two Shawnee settlements can certainly be identified. One was situated at what is now called the Indian Old Fields, on Lulbegrud Creek, in Clark County, whence Chattahecassa (Blackhoof) went to fight at Braddock's defeat, and which place he re- visited in 1816. (Letter of Joseph Ficklin to Schoolcraft, Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, Vol. I, p. 300.) The other was opposite the mouth of the Scioto River in 1756. (Dr. Thomas Walker, Calendar Virginia State Papers, Vol. I, p. 298.) A tradition survives that the Cherokees had a town on the lower waters of the Cumberland, but it had disappeared
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The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.
Nations and the counter-right of the Cherokees became questions of serious public importance at several junctures.
The first foundation of Virginia's claim to western terri- tory lay, of course, in the charter of 1609, without regard to any Indian rights that might interfere with its magnificent grants. But as the thoughts of enterprising men were di- rected westward, the conflict of personal interest made them keenly alive to all that could confirm their pretensions. The validity of the title by conquest, claimed by the Six Nations, enlisted one of Dr. Franklin's ablest efforts in its support.
before that region was explored by the whites. Hon. Charles Anderson, of Eddyville, Ky., has conjecturally located it at or near his plantation of "Kutawa." The Chero- kees, in 1755, had an "out town," which they called "Kittowa" (Fifth Report Ethno- logical Bureau, Smithsonian Institute, p. 143), but there is no clue to its exact location. The old tribal name of the Cherokees appeared again at the beginning of the late civil war. Their predominant sentiment was in favor of the Southern Confederacy. but an opposing party, secretly organized, adhered to the United States. Its membership "was composed principally of full blood Cherokees, and they termed themselves .ki-tu-wha,' a name by which the Cherokees were said to have been known in their ancient confed- erations with other Indian tribes." (Royce, quoting Butler, Fifth Ethnological Report, Smithsonian Institute, 325 .; Much unfounded sentiment and turgid rhetoric has arisen from the mistaken notion that the word Kentucky should be interpreted "The Dark and Bloody Ground." No such translation is warranted. The term " Dark and Bloody Ground" had its origin in the warning given by Dragging Canoe to Henderson at Watauga, in 1775, that the new country was "the bloody ground, and would be dark and difficult to settle." (Deposition of Samuel Wilson, Virginia Calendar State Papers, Vol. I, p. 283.) It seems clear that two Indian names were thus affixed to the great hunting grounds south of the Ohio-one being "Ken-ta-ke," signifying in the Iroquois language "The Hunting Grounds ;" the other, "Kut-tawa," meaning, in Algonkin, "The Great Wilderness." It seems probable that the latter term and its signification- " the great open space"-had some connection with the existence of the so-called " Bar- rens" or treeless areas that lay to the west of Salt River, and upon which countless buffalo and other game grazed. Prof. Shaler thinks that these " Barrens " remained destitute of timber because of the fires kindled by hunting parties, and by which the young shoots were destroyed. A glance at the "unexplored regions" on Barker's map (of 1793) lends force to Prof. Shaler's suggestion.
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The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.
He argued successfully before the Privy Council that the pretensions of a Cherokee claim we're baseless; that the treaty which Stuart had concluded with that tribe in 1768 was a nullity ; that the early writers, like Pownall, had long before asserted "the right of the Five Nation Confederacy to the hunting lands of Ohio, Tecucksuchrondite, and Scan- iaderiada by the conquest they made in subduing the Shao- anoes, Delawares (as we call them), Twightees, and Oilinois;" and that Evans, the cartographer, stated that "the Shawnees, who were formerly one of the most considerable nations of those parts of America, whose seat extended from Kentucky southwestward to the Mississippi, have been subdued by the confederates (or Six Nations), and the country since become their property. No nation held out with greater resolution and bravery; and although they have been scattered in all parts for a while, they are again collected on the Ohio under the dominion of the confederates."
The argument of Dr. Franklin, made in 1772, was chiefly directed to the title of the Six Nations, because, by the treaty of Fort Stanwix, of 1768, the lands which he and his associ- ates asked in grant had been relinquished by the Indians to the Crown." The Walpole grant, which Franklin carried triumphantly through the Privy Council over Lord Hills- borough's opposition, was abandoned as the revolutionary
' Franklin's Works, Vol. IV, p. 302, and following.
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The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.
troubles thickened. Its story must, however, always be one of interest. It was the first attempt at distinctively proprie- tary grant west of the Alleghany Mountains. It substituted defined boundaries for the mere vagaries of the old charter grants. Its 2,400,000 acres were to be included within bound- aries that alarmed Washington, and called forth his warning and remonstrance.' It embraced that part of Kentucky east of a line connecting the mouth of the Scioto and Ouasioto (Cumberland) Gap, and all of Virginia west of the Allegha- nies. The Ohio was its northern line, and it extended south- ward to the latitude of North Carolina.
The Cherokee claim assumed importance when Stuart, in 1768, concluded his treaty with the chiefs of that people. By this treaty it was agreed between Stuart, as His Majesty's Superintendent of Southern Indian affairs, and the Chero- kees, claiming to own the country south of the Ohio, that the western boundary of Virginia should be defined as "extend- ing from the point where the northern line of North Carolina intersects the Cherokee hunting grounds, about thirty-six miles east of Long Island in the Holston River, and thence extending in a direct course north by east to Chiswell's mine on the east bank of the Kanawha River, and thence down that stream to its junction with the Ohio."2
I Washington to Lord Botetourt, 15th April, 1770. Washington's Writings, Vol. II, p. 355.
2 Ramsay's History of Tennessee, 77.
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The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.
The effect of this, if title in the Cherokees were admitted, was to limit Virginia by the Kanawha as a western boundary and destroy the vast claim that rested on the charter of 1609. The Cherokee treaty was concluded by Stuart' on the 14th October, 1768, at Hard Labor, in South Carolina; but already another conference was gathering at Fort Stanwix (now Utica, N. Y.), where, on the 5th November, was concluded that fam- ous cession made by the Six Nations to the British Crown.2
* This Stewart or Stuart has sometimes been confounded with Boone's companion in the wilderness -the first white man killed in Kentucky. He was the grandfather of the well-known John Ross, Head Chief of the Cherokees. (Royce, Fifth Ethnological Report, Smithsonian Institute, 348, note.)
2 The Treaty of Fort Stanwix has well been denominated "the corner-stone of the political relations between the citizens of the United States immediately south of the Ohio and the Indians." It was perhaps suggested by Croghan, the deputy agent of Sir William Johnson, after his expedition of 1765 from Fort Pitt by way of the Ohio and the Wabash to Detroit and Niagara. Or, on the other hand, the journey of Croghan may have been one of observation, preparatory to the treaty negotiations contemplated by Sir William. The list of tribes and their military strength, given by Croghan, indi- cates no occupation of Kentucky. (Butler, History of Kentucky, 470, ed. 1836.) This was an all-important fact for the treaty. The assemblage at Fort Stanwix was one of unusual dignity for the times, and especially for so remote a station. There were present. as the report of the council shows, Sir William Johnson, His Majesty's Superintendent of Indian Affairs; His Excellency William Franklin, Governor of New Jersey; Dr. Thomas Walker, representing the colony of Virginia as Commissioner; Hon. Frederick Smith, Chief Justice of New Jersey; Richard Peters and James Tilghman, members of the Council of Pennsylvania; and George Croghan and Daniel Claus, Deputy Agents of Indian Affairs. Three thousand two hundred warriors of the various tribes of the Six Nations attended, as did all the principal chiefs of the confederation. The narrative of the conference and text of the treaty will be found in the appendix to Butler (Butler, History of Kentucky, p. 472, and following), from which will be seen (what is of interest from the present point of view) that the movement for the cession and treaty was de- liberate on all sides. The Speaker of Assembly and Committee of Correspondence of Pennsylvania instructed Dr. Franklin, the colonial agent at London, the Assembly of Virginia considered the subject, the Indians notified the King's agents that a purchase ought to be made to avoid trouble with unauthorized settlers, and the royal command to call the council was received by Sir William Jolinson early in 1768.
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The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.
The treaty negotiated by Stuart was not attended with the ceremonies, the concourse of numbers, or the dignity of par- ticipants distinguishing that which Sir William Johnson con- cluded with the Six Nations. Nor did it bind so many and so formidable warriors. It alarmed the frontiersmen by including many settlements within territory that it assumed to recognize as belonging to the Cherokees, and guaranteed to them in peaceable possession. It imposed an abrupt boundary upon the colony of Virginia and forbade her westward growth. It was natural that the Cherokee treaty should excite displeasure and arouse opposition. And with the opposition to treaty bound- ary came in easy company a denial of the Cherokee title. That denial came with vigorous utterance from Virginia and her peo- ple. It was indirectly supported by the colonial governments that had joined with Virginia in negotiating the treaty of Fort Stanwix; for the title ceded by the Six Nations was incompat- ible with the Cherokee claim. The Indian signatories at Fort Stan wix were the great chiefs of the Six Confederated Nations, the Mohawks, the Tuscaroras, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas. The head men of the Delawares and Shawnees assented, but were not permitted to sign the treaty because, though recognized as friends and allies, they had been conquered, and owed all to the grace of the Iroquois league."
I The chiefs of the Shawnees and Delawares are named in the preliminaries of the treaty, but are not signatories. Their relation to the dominant tribes was very plainly put by the Onondaga Chief, Canassateego, in the council of 1742. The Delawares had
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The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.
It was over this sense of tribal humiliation that Tecumseh brooded forty years later. One of the chief hopes of his scheme of confederation was to place the Shawnees at the head of a great alliance in the West that should eclipse the power and the fame of the arrogant Six Nations."
There was no political or personal interest to support the pretensions of Stuart's treaty ; its only purpose seems to have been to check violations of the royal proclamation of 1763,
sold certain lands to colonists and attempted to repudiate the bargain. After censuring their bad faith, Canassateego thus reproved the Delawares for their presumption : "But how came you to take upon you to sell land at all? We conquered you; we made women of you. You know you are women, and can no more sell land than women. Nor is it fit you should have the power of selling lands, since you would abuse it. This land that you claim is gone thro' your guts; you have been furnished with cloathes, meat, and drink by the goods paid you for it, and now you want it again, like children, as you are. But what makes you sell land in the dark? Did you ever tell us that you had sold this land ? Did we ever receive any part, even the value of a pipe-shank, from you for it? You have told us a blind story, that you sent a messenger to us to inform us of the sale; but he never came amongst us, nor we never heard any thing about it. .... And for all these reasons we charge you to remove instantly. We don't give you the liberty to think about it. . ... We therefore assign you to two places to go, either to Wyomen or Shamokin. You may go to either of these places, and then we shall have you more under our eye, and shall see how you behave. Don't deliberate, but remove away, and take this belt of wampum." (Colden, History of the Five Nations, Vol. II, p. 36.) Mr. Hale justly remarks that this imperious allocution, which he somewhat softens in his quotation, shows plainly enough the relation in which the two communities stood to one another. (Hale, Iroquois Book of Rites, 93, 94.) " The reflective and original cast of Tecumseh's mind has often been commented upon. He went through a (real or simulated) profound religious experience, and im- pressed his views very earnestly upon his tribe. On 23d March, 1807, three Shakers from Turtle Creek (Ohio), visiting a Shawnee village to inquire into a reported religious movement, found "a large frame house, about 150 by 34 feet in size, surrounded with 50 or 60 smoking cottages." The "big house " was used to " worship the Great Spirit," and the leading men were " Laluetseeka and Tekumtha" (Tecumseh). The Shakers were amazed to find that the Indians had a well-defined creed, based, as they claimed, on direct revelation, and quite similar to the religious views of their own society. McNemar, the Shaker elder at Turtle Creek, formerly a Presbyterian minister,
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The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.
ยท forbidding acquisitions of lands from Indians by private treaty or purchase. The policy of extinguishing the Indian claim by vesting title in the sovereign, and thus compelling the cit- izen to acquire ownership through allegiance, was sufficiently protected by the treaty of Fort Stanwix, and all governmental influence was thrown into the scale for its validity.
Thus it was determined in 1768 that the Indian title to the territory of Kentucky, as far westward as the Tennessee River at least, was in the Six Nations, and that it devolved by treaty upon the King of Great Britain. And the treaty of Fort Stanwix, taken together with the proclamation of 1763,' made it impossible to acquire lands within the great western area save by grant derived directly or mediately from the Crown.
While the disregard into which Stuart's treaty thus fell was fortunate for Virginia, in that the threatened western
gives a very full account of the origin of this religious movement among the Indians, and of their theological notions He illustrates their points of belief by quotations from dialogues with them. (McNemar's Kentucky Revival, etc., III, and following.) Tecumseh had no celebrity at the time of McNemar's writing, and the account can not be suspected of being overdrawn for the purpose of introducing a famous character. McNemar spells Tecumseh's name according to the true Shawnee pronunciation, which always converted the sibilant s into th by lisping. The religious ferment of the Shaw- nees has generally been considered as part of the plan of Tecumseh and his brother The Prophet, to establish their influence. The controversy between Col. James Smith and McNemar on that point is curious, and the publications very rare.
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