USA > Mississippi > A history of the Mississippi valley, from its discovery to the end of foreign domination. The narrative of the founding of an empire, shorn of current myth, and enlivened by the thrilling adventures of discoverers, pioneers, frontiersmen, Indian fighters, and homemakers > Part 13
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In 1760 Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawas, was willing to be the friend of the British. Major Robert Rogers, while on his way to take over the French forts at Detroit and Mackinac, met Pontiac where Cleve- land, Ohio, now stands. It was a meeting of two able warriors. Pontiac, on learning the mission of the British forces, not only bade them go on, but he sent messengers who shielded them from the attack of In- dians along the Detroit river. And that he remained neutral, if not friendly, for some time after the British took possession of all the French forts is manifest from the fact that several small conspiracies were created among the Indians living between the Alleghanies and the Illinois, in which Pontiac did not appear.
Pontiac might have been made the firm friend of the whites-he would have been made a friend had he been treated with kindly consideration. The histor- ians rail much at the "stubborn Quakers" of Pennsyl- vania for refusing to vote supplies during Pontiac's war, but they omit the fact that if Quakers had been employed to deal with the Western Indians, there would have been no war with Pontiac. The Pontiac war was due to outrageous doings of white men in contact with the red, and the utter neglect of the au- thorities in the seats of government. As the time passed, Pontiac saw the trend of British domination- that the red men were to be subjugated by a race whose arrogance and insolence were unendurable, and then he prepared for war.
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Pontiac knew that the French had been defeated at Niagara and Quebec, but he did not know that the French nation was staggering to its knees under a weight of corruption too great to be borne. He sup- posed that if the red men were all to unite they would be joined by the French, as of old, and that with one mighty upheaval those united powers could sweep the British into the sea. With shoulders humping and hands chopping the air, the French vehemently en- couraged this view, and Pontiac determined to try.
The writers speak of this war as Pontiac's "con- spiracy." They call the artifices by which he and his men strove to get advantages over the white soldiers as treachery. In like manner Indian warriors have been styled horse thieves. But remembering that civ- ilized naval officers have disguised warships as mer- chantmen, and that civilized governments, long after Pontiac's death, authorized private armed ships to prey on the unarmed merchantmen of the enemy, we will speak of Pontiac and his men as wild men-savages only.
How Pontiac fasted and prayed and dreamed dreams; how he gathered the tribes to a great council, and fired them with his own mad enthusiasm; how the Frenchmen helped on the combination, and promised to take part in the actual war; how the red sweetheart of the commander at Detroit betrayed the plot in time to save the garrison there; how Pontiac and his sixty warriors, with sawed off guns under their blankets, and a lie on their lips came to the fort, to stagger with astonishment as they saw the troops under arms and heard the drums roll; how they struck on May 10,
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1763, nevertheless; and how until October 12, the in- congruous forces were held to the work of besieging the British fort, and finally gave up only when Sir Jeffrey Amherst compelled the French commandant at Fort Chartres to send a message to Detroit calling off the red warriors, can have only mention here. Of the fighting that was done within the watershed of the Ohio, however, some details may be given.
On May 18, the Indians in a great mob made a furious attack on the fort at Le Beuf (Waterford), Pennsylvania. The assault failed. At night they fired the wooden structure, and then danced before the gate, as they looked to see Ensign Price and his thirteen men come out to die fighting. But Price and his men cut their way through the rear wall and escaped to the woods. By a circuitous route they reached French Creek, and passing down arrived at Venango.
In place of a stockaded fort they found there a heap of hot ashes and a few smoking logs. A party of Seneca Indians (the Seneca tribe only, of the Six Na- tions, joined Pontiac), had entered the fort professing friendship, and then had tomahawked all the garrison save Lieut. Gordon, commanding. Him they burned in Seneca fashion, keeping him alive for three days.
By following the river, Price and seven of his men reached Fort Pitt, on May 26. Six had dropped on the trail through exhaustion. On the same day a sol- dier named Gray arrived from Presqu' Isle, (Erie, Pa.), with a story of the slaughter of all but himself and one other man of the garrison there, although the In- dians had promised them a safe conduct to Fort Pitt.
A day later (May 27, 1763), the Indians were
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prowling around Fort Pitt, killing stragglers. A dele- gation came to the Fort and demanded that it surren- der, promising, the while, a safe conduct to all within its walls to the settlements in Pennsylvania. They pretended to be friendly and anxious only to keep the people in the fort from the hands of Pontiac and his Western Indians, who, they said, were on the way. Capt. Ecuyer thanked them and in return warned them to flee quickly because, he said, an army of 6,000 men was coming to Fort Pitt, and 3,000 more were going up the lakes.
It is an interesting fact that while the Indians were trying to deceive Ecuyer they were themselves de- ceived, and fled. They went east, instead of west, however, and they ravaged the frontiers, as they had done when incited by the French. Thus they learned that no army was coming to Fort Pitt, and on July 26, they came back to the fort.
Shingiss (a notable leader), Turtle Heart and another chief were admitted to a conference, when they asked for it; and Shingiss made a speech which un- fortunately has not been preserved-unfortunately because it was a fierce statement of the real wrongs the Indians had suffered at the hands of the whites, with special emphasis on the supposed wrong of taking their hunting grounds. It was a speech to make a patriot wince, but Capt. Ecuyer's reply was still more painful to the patriot heart, for it was a lie. He said the Brit- ish posts were maintained in the Indian country solely to protect the Indians from the French. And yet, while he talked, there were 100 women and children of would be settlers, within the walls of the fort.
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A siege followed that is memorable for one event. The Indians, by creeping under the shelter of the banks of the streams, found a safe lodgment under the walls of the fort, and were able to shoot flaming arrows to the roofs of the fort buildings in a way that was ex- ceedingly dangerous to the whites. . A rude fire engine was constructed, but only constant and most wearying vigilance saved the buildings from destruction; and finally it appeared that the garrison would be ex- hausted by the struggle.
In this extremity some bright intellect planned relief. A flat boat, with wooden walls that were bullet proof, was built and mounted on rollers. A crew, well supplied, was placed in it, and it was then rushed through a gate and down a steep slope into the Mo- nongahela. The crew then anchored off the point where they could fire through their ports and rake the Indians concealed in little caves under the banks. "Whereat," as a soldier who was present says, "they set up the most diabolical yells I ever heard, retired up stream, and never again ventured so close to us" in daylight. The success of this, the first armored American warship, was manifest from the first run.
It is estimated that 20,000 people were driven from their homes in Virginia by the red raiders. In Penn- sylvania the red fire swept eastward until the smoke was seen from the mountains around Carlisle. In Virginia a thousand riflemen were enrolled, and these beat back the raiders. In Pennsylvania, Col. Henry Bouquet, a native of Berne, Switzerland (a soldier of fortune), was placed in command of 500 men, the remains of two regiments of regular troops, and sent
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with supplies, toward Fort Pitt. He left Carlisle on July 19, with what seemed a most forlorn hope. For the force was inadequate in number, the soldiers were not frontiersmen, and many of them were sick. But it is recorded of Bouquet that "he was enthusiastic in the study of his profession," and such a leader could not fail altogether.
Fort Bedford and then Fort Ligonier were reached without mishap. The Indians about each place fled when Bouquet came, but it was only to gather in force further on.
Leaving Ligonier on August 4, Bouquet camped within eighteen miles of Bushy Run. The next day. a forced march was made over a dry trail for seven- teen miles-a distance that was covered by I o'clock in the afternoon-and the tired and thirsty soldiers were hastening forward, hoping for rest and water on the shaded banks of the run, when the brush ahead of the advance guard began to spit flames, and in a few moments the whole force was surrounded by a whooping, merciless horde of Delawares, Shawnees and Mingoes. The Indians that had been foiled at Fort Pitt came to seek revenge on the troops of Bouquet.
Lining up in a circle around the supplies and bag- gage, the little force of white men stood in their places, and fired back at the gun flashes of the Indians who kept well-hid behind rocks and trees.
It was a most unequal conflict. The troops by companies charged the concealed Indians, and with the bayonet drove them hither and thither at every charge. Only a temporary relief was thus attained, however, for the Indians turned around and fought with as 178
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much determination as ever, the moment the pursuit stopped. But in spite of discouragement ; and in spite of fatigue, heat and thirst, the men, inspired by their leader, fought until night came, and then with their mouths as dry as ashes, they took posts as guards, or lay down to sleep around the wounded, who were suf- fering from tortures only a trifle less than the Indians would have inflicted at the stake. It is a story worth telling chiefly because of the magnificent endurance of these men.
At daylight the Indians came with renewed fury, and then Bouquet provided a trap for them. He or- dered the two companies in advance to fall back hastily as if a retreat of the whole force was contemplated, while he concealed other squads where they could cover with their muskets the space abandoned. The Indians were deceived, and with yells of joy rushed in a thick mob after the companies that seemed to retreat. At the right moment the ambushed squads opened fire on the flanks of the mob, and then charged them with the bayonet.
That work won the victory. The Indians fled in a panic, and Bouquet was able to reach Fort Pitt without further mishap. But while the Indians lost near sixty killed, the white force had 116 privates and eight officers killed.
The much greater loss of the whites in this vic- tory is worth a word aside. Consider the losses at Venango and Presqu' Isle; consider the losses at the other posts. To these add the losses (nowhere stated, unfortunately), that were suffered during the raids. It is a most important consideration. Definite figures
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are unattainable, but Roosevelt says that "in Brad- dock's War the borderers are estimated to have suf- fered a loss of fifty souls for every Indian slain; in Pontiac's war they had learned to defend themselves better, and yet the ratio is probably ten to one." In Lord Dunmore's war the ratio did not rise to more than three whites killed for every Indian life taken, but to sum up all the slaughter of whites, in occupy- ing the Mississippi Valley, it is fair to suppose the losses of the whites out-numbered those of the Indians, by at least four or five to one. The whites paid a frightful price for the negligence and brutal greed they exhibited in dealing with the Indians. The universal law of compensation has been written in blood from the Juniata to Jackson's Hole beside the Tetons. We will but mention the penalty the whites have paid in money-the annual fine, as one may say, that amounted in the year ending June 30, 1900, to $10,175, 106.76, that sum being the amount expended for "Indian Af- fairs."
It was Emerson who wrote an essay on the Uni- versal Law of Compensation, and it was Carlyle who said of a certain part of the great Anglo-Saxon race that they numbered 27,000,000, and were "mostly fools." The truth of this last statement is never plain- er than when considering the story of the Indian-un- less, indeed, it be when considering what our present- day critics say of that dour old Scotchman.
The relief of Fort Pitt by Bouquet, and the failure of Pontiac at Detroit disposed the Indians to peace, though peace was not made immediately. The raiders in Pennsylvania retired to the Muskingum. A royal 180
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proclamation was issued forbidding absolutely all white settlements in the Indian country; forbidding the purchase of Indian lands by private persons, and ordering that all Indian traders take out licenses and give bonds that they would observe certain regula- tions providing for honest dealing with the red men.
Nevertheless the Indians began the war once more in the spring of 1764. Pontiac besieged Detroit, and the raiders came to the frontier homes with renewed fury.
Accordingly a force was sent up the great lakes under Col. Bradstreet, who did nothing but allow the Indians to deceive him with idle promises. Another force, under Colonel Bouquet, marched to Fort Pitt. Three wily chiefs came to meet him, bringing such promises as had deceived Bradstreet, but Bouquet ar- rested them as spies, and then sent one home to tell the tribes that only sincerity would save them. As a test of their sincerity he sent two messengers through the wilderness to carry letters to Bradstreet, at Detroit, and he told the Indians that if these messengers did not return safely, at the end of twenty days, the two chiefs held as hostages would be killed.
Then to emphasize his words, Bouquet marched his whole force, (1,500 men), through the wilderness to the Muskingum River, where he arrived near the middle of October, 1764. There he met the red peace- makers.
Bouquet was a sincere man, and because he was sincere and firm, the keen-eyed Indians saw their doom, if they failed to obey his will. The terms he imposed upon them were strictly fulfilled-the promises the In-
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dians made to him were kept to the last letter, and that is a most important fact in the story of the Indian. A clear-eyed, very bad child was the Indian of 1764-bad enough to seek every advantage by indirection, and to revel in cruelty, but clear-eyed enough to know a man at a glance; and good enough, withal, to meet sincerity with sincere compliance.
The terms imposed were simple. The Indians were to give up all prisoners, first of all, and then send a deputation of chiefs, fully authorized to make a treaty with Sir William Johnson in the Mohawk Valley.
The prisoners were promptly delivered, and a most remarkable gathering they made. For some were wild with joy, and others who had become true children of the forest, were sullen and exasperated. There were white wives who, with unspeakable joy, were taken in the arms of their husbands who had come with Bou- quet tofind them. There were others who, with downcast eyes, because of half-red children, appealed for pity. There were white girls who were leaving red lovers whom they loved, and with whom they fain would stay, and there were white boys who watched for a chance, sure to come, at last, for a return to the wild free life of the wilderness. But all together were taken to Fort Pitt, and the war was ended.
The good work of Col. Bouquet, a sincere man, firmly established the British power over the Indians in the Mississippi Valley, and thus opened the way for British settlers.
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DANIEL BOONE. From an original portrait by Harding.
Thomas Nachole,
Franklin
Jam. Wharton
XI
CROSSING THE RANGE.
The Origin and Character of the Home makers who first Passed the Alleghanies-Cumberland Gap Named- Work of the Ohio Company-George Croghan as an Explorer-Kentucky Purchased from the Iroquois- Washington as a Speculator in Ohio River Lands -- Daniel Boone and His Adventures-When the "Di- vine Right of Self Government" was first Exercised West of the Divide-Slaves in Great Demand.
At the end of Pontiac's war, the British colonists no longer feared either French or the Indians. Their migration across the range was therefore to grow in volume with an increasing ratio from the day peace was announced. But before relating the interesting facts of this migration it is well worth while to con- sider how it happened that such a westward move-
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ment came into existence in the first place. The fact is a consideration of the causes of this migration gives one a key to some of the most prominent characteris- tics of the settlers in the Mississippi Valley-and of their descendants.
In any study of this matter it is learned first of all that the people who were found flocking to the moun- tain passes were for the greater part, either emigrants, (with little money), from the old country, (or the im- mediate descendants of such emigrants), and they land- ed in ports south of New York. They came from coun- tries where the land was in the possession of the gentry -where the possession of land, in fact, created a class distinction-gave the land owners social superiority. In the old country the emigrants had learned that the possession of land not only gave social elevation; it was the basis of physical comfort and mental ease. But toil as they might, they could not hope to obtain pos- session of so much as a single acre in the land of their birth.
Over the sea, however, in America, there was wild free land in breadths beyond their comprehension. It was to be had by any one who would take it and work it, and they came in ship loads to the ports of the colo- nies-25,000 of them arrived in Delaware Bay, in the course of two years-in order to secure this land.
They were thinking people or they would not have seen and comprehended the advantages connected with the ownership of land. They were ambitious, energetic and enterprising, or they never would have left their old homes and surroundings to migrate to a new coun- try.
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When they landed in America they showed forth other admirable characteristics. There were breadths of unoccupied land-wide breadths a plenty-east of the mountains, but these sturdy migrants would not take it. They landed in the Delaware or the Chesapeake, and a brief examination of the people and the condi- tions along shore showed them that an aristocratic class dominated that region-landed gentry very much like those left behind in the old country, even though there were neither dukes nor lords to be found. Under the gentry in Virginia were negro slaves. Under the gentry in Pennsylvania were a "boorish people-good farmers who cared more for their pigs than their own comfort, uniting thrift with habits that scorned educa- tion." That these migrants would not associate with either the negroes or the boorish people who scorned education was a matter of course. Having no means to buy estates it is plain that they could not have joined the landed gentry, but it is also a fact that they would not have done so even if it had been possible. For in Virginia the dominant people were Episcopalians; in Pennsylvania they were Quakers, and the migrants were Scotch Presbyterians who were ready to give reasons for the faith that was in them. Not all the mi- grants were Scotch Presbyterians, of course. There were some Huguenots and Palitinates, and many were without religious scruples; but the important fact is that these people as a whole were driven by their land hunger and religious peculiarities-by their ambition and their determination to think for themselves-away from the coast, where they landed, to the freedom of the wilds.
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And if we look at the American born people, (men like Robertson and Boone), who flocked across the mountains, we will find that the feelings which urged them to seek homes in the wilderness were akin to those of the migrants from over the sea.
Rightly considered, this westward movement marks one of the most important epochs in the development of the race. The migration was due to the sprouting belief that all men were born free and equal, and were endowed with inalienable rights. It was a manifesta- tion of the spirit that gave the world the American Nation.
There was, indeed, one slight obstacle in the way of the home seekers as they toiled through the passes -the King's Proclamation forbidding it, and forbid- ding also all private purchases of lands from the In- dians. The real objects of this proclamation, as ex- plained by Lord Hillsborough, President of the Board of Trade, were as follows:
"We take leave to remind your Lordships of that principle which was adopted by this Board, and approved and confirmed by his Majesty, immediately after the Treaty of Paris, viz .: the confining the western extent of settlements to such a distance from the seacoast as that those settlements should lie within easy reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom, and also of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction which was conceived to be necessary for the preservation of the colo- nies in due subordination to, and dependence upon, the mother country. And these we apprehend to have been the two capital objects of His Majesty's proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763. . . . The great object of colonizing upon the continent of North America has been to improve and extend the com- merce, navigation and manufactures of this kingdom. . It does appear to us that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of their hunting grounds, and that all colonizing does in its
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nature, and must in its consequences, operate to the prejudice of that branch of commerce. . . . Let the savages enjoy their deserts in quiet. Were they driven from their forests the peltry trade would decrease."
It had been openly asserted in England that if the Colonies were relieved from the fear of Indian aggres- sions they "would cover the continent, become a great nation, manufacture their own goods, and eventually declare themselves independent."
In the colonies, however, the proclamation was not taken seriously. It was considered as a collection of soft words intended to allay the irritation of the In- dians. Washington said of it, that it was not intended as a permanent law governing the territory west of the Alleghanies.
Therefore, obeying the impulse of a dominant race, the British-Americans moved on. We can see now that the race progress through the valley of the Mis- sissippi was inevitable-not to be stopped by any earth- ly power. A little consideration of the history of man shows that the spread of a dominant race is not only inevitable, but that it ought to be so if man is to con- tinue to elevate himself.
And yet, in spreading through the Mississippi Val- ley-in spreading over every part of the continent, in fact-the white men wronged the red men beyond the power of words to describe, and thereby inevitably injured themselves vastly more than they injured the red men.
If a brief consideration be given to this matter, it will appear that the spread of the white men over the Great Valley was not necessarily in itself an injury to the Indian. The whites did necessarily take from the
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Indian his hunting grounds, but enough has been said, already perhaps, to show that the Indian ought to have been kept out of hunting grounds from the earliest pos- sible moment.
In short it was not in the taking of lands that the Indian was wronged, it was in the manner of the tak- ing.
We are venturing once more on an idle speculation, but recalling the fact that at Gnadenhutten (and else- where by the Quakers), wild Indians were turned into peace-loving, stump-grubbing farmers, we can see now that the white men, if united in the project, might have made a Gnadenhutten of every red village on the con- tinent. Let this statement be considered without pre- judice. Bad as the Indians had become after 150 years association with the worst men of the white race, it was possible, by united and sincere efforts, even in 1764, to make a Gnadenhutten of every Indian village in the land. Because the white men were of a superior race, they were the natural guardians of the red men. These words are, perhaps, the mere prating of a sentimental- ist, but because the whites were of a superior race, it was their duty to place the red men, at whatever cost, in permanent homes as corn-growers. But they shirked their duty-they refused to take up the "white man's burden"-and they have been compelled to pay for their neglect a price in blood and treasure so great that words are inadequate to tell how great the price is. Indeed, instead of trying to settle the Indians on farm lands, there are records showing that punish- ments were provided for subjugated Indians who failed to bring in certain stated quantities of skins of wild
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