The history of Detroit and Michigan; or, The metropolis illustrated; a chronological cyclopedia of the past and present, Vol I, Part 55

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Detroit, S. Farmer & co
Number of Pages: 1096

USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > The history of Detroit and Michigan; or, The metropolis illustrated; a chronological cyclopedia of the past and present, Vol I > Part 55

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I have ever been of the opinion that the reduction of the post of Detroit would be the only certain means of giving peace and security to the whole western frontier, and I have constantly kept my eye upon that object ; but such has been the reduced state of our Continental force, and such the low ebb of our funds, especially of late, that I have never had it in my power to make the attempt.

On the following day, however, he gave an order on Colonel Brodhead for artillery, tools, stores, and men to further the project, but apparently the order was neglected, for Clark's forces were left to care for themselves; and on February 7, 1782, General Irvine wrote to Washington from Philadelphia as follows :

The Indians have all left us except ten men, and by the best accounts, are preparing to make a stroke in the spring, either against General Clark at the Rapids or on Fort Pitt ; which, my informant could not with certainty say, but was positive one or the other was intended. I am apprehensive, from the steps taken by the Commandant at Detroit, that something serious is intended. First, thirteen nations of Indians have been treated with in the beginning of November ; and at the conclusion they were directed to keep themselves compact and ready to assemble on short notice. Secondly, the Moravians are carried into captivity, and strictly watched and threatened with severe punishment if they should attempt to give us information of their movements. Thirdly, part of the five nations are assembled at Sandusky.

To carry on the expedition against Detroit would take two thousand men to give a tolerable certainty of success, the time would be three months, and the best season to march from Fort Pitt the first of August, when the waters are low, morasses and soft rich meadows dried up ; by land totally, preferable to any part by water, the enemy having entire command of the lake with armed vessels ; the navigation of rivers uncertain ; besides the number of boats and waste of time would make it more expensive than land carriage. Pack horses to carry provisions would be better and more certain than wagons. One thousand horses would carry flour for two thousand men for three months. Beef must be driven on foot. Twenty-five wagons would carry mili- tary stores sufficient for the train, which should consist of two twelve pounders, two sixes, one three pounder, one eight inch howitzer and one royal.

At least one half should be regular troops, and three months are sufficient to complete the expedition ; then the only difference in the expense will be the transportation of provision and stores ; as acting on the defensive, seven months will be the least, and the same quantity of provision will be consumed, and ammunition wasted. If we act offensively, it will draw the whole attention of the enemy to their own defense, by which our settle- ments will have peace ; and such of the militia as do not go on the expedition will have time to raise crops. On the contrary, continual alarms will keep them from these necessary duties. The garrison at Detroit is three hundred regular troops, the militia (Canadians) from seven hundred to one thousand ; the number of

1 The force that attacked Colonel Lochrey consisted of about six hundred regulars and Indians from Detroit, commanded by Joseph Brant and George Girty.

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Indians that could assemble in ten days' notice to a certain point, about one thousand. Query. Should we be able to take Detroit, shall we hold it ? If not, what advantage will the bare reduction of the place be, if immediately evacuated? Answer. The re- duction of Detroit, in the fall of the year, will prevent an inter- course with the western Indians for a whole year, as it would be late in the succeeding summer before the British could re-establish, during which time we might either open a trade with such savages as would ask for peace, or by frequently penetrating into and establishing posts in their country, oblige them to retire to such a distance as would put it out of their power to harass the back inhabitants. It would be attended with great expense and vast risk to support a garrison at Detroit, as long as the British possess the lower part of Canada, and have the command.

All this planning and corresponding was barren of results, and meantime Clark's forces gradually dwindled away. In November, 1782, he went on an expedition against the Indians in Ohio, destroying their fields and villages, and, in fact, was kept so busy fighting the Indians that the Detroit expedition could not be entered upon. In the fall of 1783 he sent a quantity of provisions by water to Vincennes, and with his force proceeded there by land. General Clark, about this time, became intemperate, and probably owing to this cause three hundred of his force left in a body ; the rest then became discour- aged and returned to Kentucky, and the expedition was abandoned.

All these expeditions, however, and the fact that Governor Hamilton was absent and a prisoner, did not prevent army activities at Detroit.

Early in 1779 troops were requested from Niagara, and on April 15 Colonel Bolton sent fifty of the Eighth Regiment and fifty Rangers to aid in pro- tecting Detroit. They arrived on May 7, and their coming very greatly changed the aspect of affairs. Some citizens were wonderfully elated, and others correspondingly depressed. The barometer of patri- otism was as sensitive here as in any eastern settle- ment, and was watched as carefully.

After Governor Hamilton had left on his expedi- tion, Colonel De Peyster was in daily anticipation of orders to leave Mackinaw for Detroit, and was greatly annoyed that he, a lieutenant-colonel, should be continued at Mackinaw, a comparatively unim- portant post, while Detroit was under command of a captain. However, the order, dated August 29, 1779, finally arrived, and he waited only for the coming of Lieutenant -Governor Patrick Sinclair, who was to have charge of the post. Governor Sinclair arrived at Mackinaw October 4, and in a few days thereafter Colonel De Peyster left for Detroit. This neighborhood, at the time, was liter- ally black with hordes of savage tribes, and in a letter to Colonel Bolton, written July 6, 1780, Colonel De Peyster closes with these words: "I am so hurried with war parties coming in from all quarters that I do not know which way to turn myself." These parties brought in persons of either sex, and

of all ages ; and the details of the forced marches of the sick and infirm, the massacring of troublesome infants, and the presentation of the scalps of the slain, are matters of regular and almost continuous record.

On May 16, 1780, Colonel De Peyster wrote to Colonel Bolton :

The prisoners daily brought in here are part of the thousand families who are flying from the oppression of Congress, in order to add to the number already settled at Kentuck, the finest country for new settlers in America; But it happens, unfortunately for them, to be the Indians best hunting ground, which they will never give up, and, in fact, it is our interest not to let the Vir- ginians, Marylanders, and Pennsylvanians get possession there, lest, in a short time, they become formidable to this post.

A letter written ten days later, to Lieutenant- Governor Sinclair, says :

Every thing is quiet here except the constant noise of the war- drum. All the Seiginies are arrived at the instance of the Shaw- neese and Delawares. More Indians from all quarters than ever known before, and not a drop of rum !

Early in this year, Captain Henry Bird's expedi- tion against Kentucky was fitted out, and on April 12, after an expenditure of nearly $300,000, the force left Detroit. It was made up of both white men and Indians, numbered nearly six hundred per- sons, and, for the first time on such an expedition, cannon were taken. The American spies informed the people of its organization, and fear and dread pervaded the entire West, while the colonists in the East awaited anxiously the record of its doings. On June 22 the force appeared before Ruddle's Station, which surrendered, on condition that the inhabitants be considered prisoners of the British instead of the Indians. Captain Bird, however, was unable to restrain the savages, and men, women, and children were indiscriminately and remorselessly massacred.

The Indians now became refractory, and after the capture of Martin's Station and one other small fort, the force was compelled to return without having accomplished all that had been intended. A letter from Colonel De Peyster to Colonel Bolton, dated Detroit, August 4, 1780, says :

I have the pleasure to acquaint you that Captain Bird arrived here this morning with about one hundred and fifty prisoners, mostly Germans who speak English,- the remainder coming in, for in spite of all his endeavors to prevent it the Indians broke into the forts and seized many. The whole will amount to about three hundred and fifty. *

* * Thirteen* have entered into the Rangers and many more will enter, as the prisoners are greatly fatigued with travelling so far, some sick and some wounded.

P. S. Please excuse the hurry of this letter,- the Indians engross my time. We have more here than enough. Were it not absolutely necessary to keep in with them, they would tire my patience.

The British now became greatly troubled by the attitude of the Delaware Indians. This tribe had

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decided to remain neutral and also sought to restrain other tribes from entering into the contest. The English suspected that the Moravian missionaries, who had a mission among them, were responsible for this action, and therefore looked upon them with disfavor. The Moravians were advised by the Americans to return to Pennsylvania, but they per- sisted in remaining at what they deemed the post of duty. Finally the Americans sought the Delawares as allies in the war ; they not only refused, but the body of the tribe soon after cast in their lot with the English. In order to confirm them in this purpose, Colonel De Peyster determined to remove the mis- sionaries from among them; and in September, 1781, he compelled them to forsake their settlement on the Muskingum. With sad hearts they left their homes and fields, their cattle, their books, and all their household treasures, and, escorted by Indians commanded by English officers, they were marched to Sandusky, where they arrived on the 11th of October, and from there, on October 25, they set out for Detroit. On their arrival here they were at first lodged in the barracks, but in May, 1782, Zeis- berger wrote that they had just

moved out of the barracks into our lodgings near Yankee Hall, close by our house, which has its name from the fact that only prisoners who were brought in by the Indians live there.

An extended account of their arrival and treat- ment while here is given elsewhere.

That they were really favorable to the American cause is evident from a letter of Colonel Brodhead to General Washington, dated December 13, 1779, which states that he relied almost wholly on the Moravians for information from Detroit.

Under the labors of the missionaries many of the Indians had become Christians, and were entirely guiltless of wrong to either British or Americans ; but in those days Indian massacres were so frequent that there was but little sympathy for the red race. Many Americans, exasperated by the outrages of hostile tribes, held all alike guilty, and a body of militia from Washington County, Pennsylvania, commanded by Colonel David Williamson, was raised to proceed against the Delawares. Many of the Christian Indians had meantime returned to their settlements on the Muskingum; and on the arrival of Williamson, on March 8, 1782, these really inoffensive people, who had assembled in two houses, were attacked, and sixty-two grown people and thirty-four children were deliberately massacred by the Americans. One of the blackest crimes of the Revolution was thus perpetrated by colonial militia.

This questionable success of Williamson and the hostility of the Delawares led to the organization of a new expedition, commanded by Colonel William Crawford, who proceeded against them on June 4, 1782. When near what is now Upper Sandusky,

he was met by a party of about two hundred Indians and one hundred of Butler's Rangers from Detroit, under command of Captain William Caldwell. A battle ensued, in which Crawford's forces were vic- torious ; but the next day the British were reinforced with a detachment of Rangers and more Indians, and the Americans retreated. Colonel Crawford became separated from his command, was captured by the Indians, and burned to death on June 11, 1782.

The English were not parties to the burning of Crawford. On August 17, 1782, General Haldimand wrote Colonel De Peyster "regretting the cruelty committed by some of the Indians upon Colonel Crawford, and desiring De Peyster to assure them of his utter abhorrence of such procedure." It is due to Colonel De Peyster to state that he often manifested his disapproval of the cruelties of the Indians, and felt that he had a difficult part to per- form. In a letter, written April 12, 1781, to the Delaware Indians, and contained in his " Miscella- nies," he says :

Send me that little babbling Frenchman named Monsieur Linctot, he who poisons your ears, one of those who says he can amuse you with words only,- send him to me, or be the means of my getting him, and I will then put confidence in you. * * * If you have not an opportunity to bring me the little Frenchman, you may bring me some Virginia prisoners. I am pleased when I see what you call live meat, because I can speak to it and get in- formation. Scalps serve to show that you have seen the enemy, but they are of no use to me. I cannot speak with them. * * *

In another letter, of September 29, 1781, ad- dressed to General Haldimand, and given in "But- terfield's Washington-Irvine Letters " he says :

I have a very difficult card to play at this post and its depend- ences. * * * It is evident that the back settlers will continue to make war upon the Shawanese, Delawares, and Wyandots, even after a truce shall be agreed to between Great Britain and her revolted colonies ; in which case, whilst we continue to support the Indians with troops (which they are calling loud for) or only with arms, ammunition, and necessaries, we shall incur the odium of encouraging incursions into the back settlements ; for it is evi- dent that they will occasionally enter the settlements and bring off prisoners and scalps.

Colonel De Peyster's words were prophetic, for competent authorities estimate that from 1783 to 1790 not less than three thousand persons were scalped or made captives by bands from Detroit. In an article in the North American Review, General Cass says :

When the foraying party returned, they were formally intro- duced to the commanding officer. The scalps were thrown down before him in the Council house, and the principal warrior addressed him in terms like these : "Father, we have done as you directed us ; we have struck your enemies." They were then paid and dismissed, and the scalps were deposited in the cellar of the Council House.1 We have been told by more than one respectable eye-witness that when the charnel-house was cleansed, it was a spectacle upon which the inhabitants gazed with horror.

1 The Moravian Zeisberger was an eye-witness of such scenes. See page 37 of his diary.

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General Cass continues :

We are indebted for the following relation to a respectable gen- tleman of Detroit, James May, Esq., and as it elucidates import- ant traits in the Indian character, and discloses facts not generally known, we shall give it in his own words:

"During the American revolutionary war, when the Indian war-parties approached Detroit, they always gave the war and death whoops, so that the inhabitants, who were acquainted with their customs, knew the number of scalps they had brought and of prisoners they had taken, some time before they had made their appearance. Soon after I arrived in Detroit, the great war party which had captured Ruddle's Station in Kentucky, returned from that expedition. Hearing the usual signals of success, I walked out of town and soon met the party. The squaws and young Indians had ranged themselves on the side of the road, with sticks and clubs, and were whipping the prisoners with great severity. Among these were two young girls, thirteen or fourteen years old, who escaped from the party and ran for protection to me and to a naval officer who was with me. With much trouble and some danger, and after knocking down two of the Indians, we succeeded in rescuing the girls, and fled with them to the Council House. Here they were safe, because this was the goal, where the right of the Indians to beat them ceased. Next morning I received a mes- sage by an orderly-sergeant to wait upon Colonel De Peyster, the commanding officer. I found the naval officer, who was with me the preceding day, already there.

"The Colonel stated that a serious complaint had been preferred against us by McKee, the Indian agent, for interfering with the Indians, and rescuing two of their prisoners. He said the Indians had a right to their own mode of warfare, and that no one should interrupt them ; and after continuing this reproof for some time, he told me, if I ever took such a liberty again, he would send me to Montreal or Quebec.

" The naval officer was still more severely reprimanded, and threatened to have his uniform stripped from his back and to be dismissed from His Majesty's service, if such an incident again occurred. And although I stated to Colonel De Peyster that we saved the lives of the girls at the peril of our own, he abated nothing of his threats or harshness."

In gratifying contrast to the story just narrated is the following account of the treatment of O. M. Spencer, a boy of twelve years and an only son, captured near Cincinnati, on July 7, 1792, and finally taken to Detroit, where he arrived on March 3, 1793, and was delivered to Colonel England. He was treated with great kindness and was committed to the care of Lieutenant André.

Many years after he wrote an account of his capture in which he said :

Mr. Andre immediately took me by the hand and led me to his quarters in the same barracks, only a few doors distant, and re- questing me to sit down, retired from the apartment. In a few minutes a servant entered, and set before me some tea and bread and butter, on which having supped, I arose and was retiring from the table, when two women, who mere curiosity, as I supposed, had kept standing at one end of the room looking at me intently while I was eating, now advanced, and each unceremoniously taking me by the hand, and leading me out of the apartment, conducted me to a chamber. Here, stripping off all but my shirt, carefully throwing my clothes out at a back window, beyond the palisades of the town, and seating me in a large washtub half filled with water, they tore off my shirt, which had fast adhered to the band- age round my shoulder, before I had time to tell them I was wounded, and so suddenly, inflicting for a moment acute pain, as to extort from me a loud scream. Their surprise at this soon ceased when I told them that an Indian had stabbed me in the shoulder;

and when they saw the blood from the open wound running down my back, one of them, alarmed, ran to inform Mr. Andre, the other, with a rag immediately staunching the blood deliberately proceeded to scour my person with soap and water, and by the time the surgeon arrived had effected a complete ablution.

On probing the wound, which he found to be about three inches deep, the surgeon pronounced it to be not dangerous. Fortu- nately, he said, the knife, in entering, had struck the lower pos- terior point of the right shoulder blade, and taken a direction downward ; but had it entered an inch lower or nearer the spine, it would probably have caused death. From the want of clothes, it was late next morning before I could get up, but receiving at length a temporary supply of a roundabout and pantaloons from the wardrobe of Ensign O'Brien (brother of Mrs. England) and a pair of stockings and slippers from one of the women, I made my appearance in the breakfast room, and was introduced to Mrs. Andre, wife of the Lieutenant. She very kindly took my hand, and congratulated me on my deliverance from the Indians, though she could not help smiling at my singular appearance, dressed as I was in clothes which, although they fitted the smallest officer in the garrison, hung like bags on me. * * * She was kind and amiable, as she was handsome and accomplished ; and although quite young, apparently not more than twenty, supplied to me the place of a mother. Her husband, a brother of the unfortunate Major Andre, and one of the handsomest men I ever saw, very affable in his manners, and frank in his disposition, treated me with great kindness ; and after seeing that I was comfortably and indeed genteely dressed, introduced me to the families of Mr. Erskine and Commodore Grant (where I found boys and girls of nearly my own age, who cheerfully associated with me), and took pleasure in showing me the town, the shipping, the fort, and whatever else he thought would afford me gratification.

After a stay of about four weeks, near the end of March young Spencer was sent on the sloop Felicity to Niagara.

Some of the prisoners were allowed to roam at large, and get their living as best they could ; and one of the old account-books of Thomas Smith, a leading merchant in Detroit, shows that several of them obtained goods of various kinds on credit.

Peace was finally declared between England and America, and in theory, if not in fact, "the hatchet was buried." The history of the negotiations for the surrender of Detroit affords a notable illustra- tion of diplomatic delay.

BRITISH AND INDIAN WARS AND FIRST AMERI- CAN OCCUPATION OF DETROIT.

Under the treaties of November 30, 1782, and September 3, 1783, made between England and the United States, it was understood, at least by the American Government, that the country north of the St. Lawrence and the Lakes became part of the United States, and that Detroit was therefore to be given up by the English. In anticipation of its sur- render, and in order to promote friendly feeling with the Indians and secure a cessation of hostili- ties on their part, the Secretary of War, in May, 1783, sent Ephraim Douglass to hold councils with the Indians. His report, contained in the Pennsyl- vania Archives, is as follows :

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PRINCETON, 18th Aug., 1783.

SIR,-

In obedience to the instructions you honored me with on the 5th of May last, I have used every endeavor in my power to exe- cute in the fullest manner your orders. *

* * On the 7th of June I left Fort Pitt, and travelling about two hundred miles by the old trading path, arrived on the 16th at the Delaware and Huron settlements on the Sandusky river. *

* * Captain Pipe, who is the principal man of the nation, received me with every demonstration of joy, * * * but told me, as his nation was not the principal one, nor had voluntarily engaged in the war, it would be proper for me first to communicate my business to the Hurons and Shawnese, and afterward to the Delawares. That he had announced my arrival to the Hurons and expected such of them as were at home would very shortly be over to see and welcome me. This soon happened as he had expected, but as none of their chiefs were present I declined speaking publicly to them, knowing that I could receive no authentic answer, and unwilling to expend unnecessarily the wampum I had prepared for this occasion. I informed them for their satisfaction of the peace with England, and told them that the United States were disposed to be in friendship with Indians also,- desired them to send for their head men, particularly for the Half King (Chief of the Wyandotts, at Brownstown), who was gone to Detroit. * * * They all readily agreed to this proposal and returned to their homes apparently very well satisfied ; but the Hurons nevertheless failed sending to Detroit, partly thro' the want of authority in the old men present, and partly through the assurance of the wife of the Half King, who was confident her husband would be home in two days, and therefore a journey which would require six or seven was altogether un- necessary. *

* * On the evening of the 18th a runner arrived from the Miami with intelligence that Mr. Elliott had received dispatches from Detroit, announcing the arrival of Sir John Johnson at that place ;- that in consequence the chiefs and warriors were desired to repair thither in a few days, where the council would be held with them. They were also directed to take with them the War or Tomahawk Belts, which had been de- livered to them by the King to strike the Americans with. * * * But when they were just ready to mount their horses, they were stopped by the arrival of ten men who preceded a body of sixty other southern Indians, coming upon business from the nations north and east of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. * * * Pipe pressed me to accompany him to Detroit, assuring me that it would be useless to wait the coming of the Indians from the Miami, that they would spend their time in useless counciling there till the Treaty of Detroit would come on, and that if I even could assemble them I could obtain nothing from the interview. That if the Half King was present he would not undertake to give me an answer, without consulting the chiefs of the Huron tribe at Detroit, and that these would determine nothing without first asking the advice of their Father the Commandant. Find- ing that I had little to hope by continuing at Sandusky and likely to effect as little by visiting the Miami if my horses had even been able to have performed the journey, I determined to proceed to Detroit by the nearest route. * * I left Sandusky on the * 3oth accompanied by the Pipe and two other Indians in addition to my former companions and travelled onwards to Detroit till the afternoon of the first of July, when we were met by Mr. Elliott and three other persons from that place, whom the Com- mandant had dispatched for the purpose of conducting us thither. * I continued my journey with my new companion till the 4th, when I arrived at Detroit, where I was received with much politeness and treated with great civility by the Commandant, to whom I delivered your letters, showed your instructions and pressed for an opportunity of communicating them to the Indians as soon as might be. He professed the strongest desire of bringing about a reconciliation between the United States and the several Indian nations, declared that he would willingly promote it all in his power ; but that until he was authorized by his superiors in com- mand, he could not consent that anything should be said to the Indians relative to the boundary of the United States; for though

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The history of Detroit and Michigan; or, The metropolis illustrated; a chronological cyclopedia of the past and present, Vol I, Part 55

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902 Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Detroit, S. Farmer & co Number of Pages: 1096

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Detroit, S. Farmer & co
Number of Pages: 1096