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 17
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A HUNTER WITH A DECKHARD RIFLE. Notice length of same.
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legs; moccasins were nicely adapted (fitted) to the ankles and lower parts of the legs by thongs of deer skin, so that no dust, gravel or snow could get within the moccasin.
"The moccasins in ordinary use cost but a few hours' (say two) labor to make them. This was done by an instrument denominated a moccasin awl, which was made of the back spring of an old clasp knife. This awl, with a buckhorn handle was an appendage of every shot pouch strap, together with a roll of buck- skin for mending the moccasins. This was the labor of almost every evening. They were sewed together and patched with deer skin thongs, or whangs, as they were commonly called.
"In cold weather the moccasins were stuffed with deer's hair, or dry leaves, so as to keep the feet com- fortably warm; but in wet weather it was usually said that wearing them was a decent way of going bare- footed, and such was the fact, owing to the spongy texture of the leather of which they were made.
"Owing to this defective covering of the feet, more than to any other circumstance, the greater number of our hunters and warriors were afflicted with rheuma- tism in their limbs. Of this disease they were all ap- prehensive in cold or wet weather, and therefore al- ways slept with their feet to the fire to prevent or cure it as well as they could. This practice unquestionably had a salutary effect, and prevented many of them be- coming confirmed cripples in early life.
"In later years of the Indian war our young men became more enamored of the Indian dress through- out, with the exception of the match [watch?] coat.
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The drawers were laid aside and the leggins made longer, so as to reach the upper part of the thighs. The Indian breech clout was adopted. This was a piece of linen or cloth nearly a yard long and eight or nine inches broad. This passed under the belt be- fore and behind, leaving the ends for flaps hanging be- fore and behind over the belt. These flaps were some- times ornamented with some kind of coarse embroidery work. To the same belts which secured the breech clouts were attached strings which supported the leg- gins. When this belt, as was often the case, passed over the hunting shirt, the upper part of the thighs and part of the hips were naked."
The first woman came to Kentucky in 1775. Af- ter building the fort at Boonesborough, Daniel Boone went back to North Carolina, and brought his wife, with Mrs. Denton, Mrs. McGarry and Mrs. Hogan. The journey of the family parties into the wilderness usually began at the Holston region. At Watauga, or some other mountain settlement nearby, the horses were fitted with pack saddles, and the goods of the family were piled on these; for families rarely went by this route into the wilderness unless able to afford horses, either of their own or borrowed. As a rule, cows were driven along as well. The older boys had charge of the cattle. "The younger children were placed in crates of hickory withes and slung across the backs of the old, quiet horses," though some found seats on top of the goods on the pack horses. Some of the women rode, some walked and carried their babies, too. The men, with rifles ready, went scouting through the woods in all directions, and looked after
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the pack horses as well. One of them was always elected captain of the band. "Special care had to be taken not to let the loaded animals brush against the yellow jacket nests, which were always plentiful along the trail in the fall of the year, for in such cases the vicious swarms attacked men and beasts, producing an immediate stampede" that distributed packs and children in disordered condition all over the region (Roosevelt).
"The linsey petticoat and bed gown were the uni- versal dress of our women in early times. A small home-made handkerchief" was worn around the neck. "They went barefooted in warm weather, and in cold their feet were covered with moccasins, coarse shoes, or shoe packs" (Dodridge).
"Until flax could be grown women were obliged to be content with lint made from the bark of dead nettles. This was gathered in the springtime by all the people of a station acting together, a portion of the men standing guard, while the rest, with the women and children, plucked the dead stalks. The smart girls of Irish ancestry spun many dozen cuts of linen from this lint, which was as fine as flax but not so strong" (Roosevelt, quoting from McAfee Mss.).
For a contrast recall Gayarre's description of French life in Louisiana. The Louisiana houses were not pretentious, but a stranger who "passed their thresholds would have been amazed at being welcomed with such manners as were habitual in the most pol- ished court of Europe, and entertained by men and women wearing with the utmost ease and grace the elegant costume of the reign of Louis XV .- the pow-
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dered head, the silk and gold flowered coat, the lace and frills, the red-heeled shoe, the steel-handled sword, the silver knee-buckles, the high and courteous bearing of the gentlemen; the hoop petticoat, the brocaded gown, the rich head-dress, the stately bow, the slightly rouged cheeks, the artificially graceful deportment and the aristocratic features of the lady."
A most instructive contrast is that between the dominant people of Louisiana and those of the Ohio watershed; it is a most instructive contrast. On the one hand stands the courtier displaying with ease and grace his lace and frills and red-heeled shoes. On the other stands a man dressed in homespun and swinging an ax.
The frontier food is not (and it never was) to be passed without consideration. "The articles of (table) furniture corresponded very well with the articles of diet on which they were employed. 'Hog an' hominy' [hominy is corn boiled in lye to remove the hulls, cleaned, and then boiled till soft in pure water] were proverbial for the dish of which they were component parts. Johnny cake [a corruption of journey cake, a kind of corn bread], and pone [another kind of corn bread], were the only forms of bread in use for break- fast and dinner. At supper milk and mush formed the standard dish. When milk was not plenty, which was often the case, owing to the scarcity of cattle or the want of proper pasturage for them, the substantial dish of hominy had to supply the place of them; mush was frequently eaten with sweetened water, molasses, bear's oil or the gravy of fried meat.
"Every family, besides a little garden for the few
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vegetables which they cultivated, had another small enclosure, called the 'truck patch,' in which they raised corn for roasting ears, pumpkins, squashes, beans and potatoes. These, in the latter part of the summer and fall, were cooked with their pork, venison and bear meat for dinner, and made very wholesome and well- tasted dishes. The standard dinner for every log-roll- ing, house-raising and harvest day, was pot pie" [boiled meats, such as chickens, grouse, pigeons, veal, or ven- ison with abundant dumplings]. What was left over was served for supper along with milk to drink. Tea and coffee, were, for a long time, unseen. When in- troduced, at last, the men thought such "slops" good enough for women and children. As for themselves they preferred something strong enough "to stick to the ribs."
Mention has been made of the form of govern- ment organized by the Watauga people. In 1775 there was a similar movement at Boonesborough, Ky. When Col. Richard Henderson was establishing his "Tran- sylvania" colony at Boonesborough, (1775), Lord Dunmore issued a proclamation warning people that the act was contrary to the laws of Virginia, and of the Crown; but Henderson's company followed Daniel Boone to the site of Boonesborough. It was a feudal colony that Henderson purposed organizing- something like the colony that La Salle ruled for a time at Fort Frontenac, and therefore wholly unsuited to Americans-but certificates for more than 500,000 acres of land were issued to colonists by Henderson, (whence followed many a law suit). But the act of this company most interesting here is the fact that,
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although Henderson did not reach Boonesborough until April 20, he issued a call on May 23d to the set- tlers of the region asking them to send representatives to agree upon some form of government. And the settlers came to answer the call. They had not finished chinking the walls of their log cabins before they ga- thered to establish a system of lawful government. They were to establish a system of government ; they were not to be ruled over by priest and gold-laced commandant.
On this primitive legislature the Rev. John Lythe asked a blessing, for a preacher came with the other settlers. The acts passed numbered nine, as follows : To establish courts; to regulate the militia; prescribe punishment for crimes; to prevent profane swearing and Sabbath breaking; providing for writs of attach- ment ; limiting the fees of legal officers; preserving the right of free pasture on public lands; improving the breed of horses; for preserving the game. Daniel Boone prepared the statutes relating to the preservation of game, and improving the breed of horses.
There was a creed worth consideration in every particular, but perhaps the first thought in connection with it is that the very first Kentuckians were full of sporting blood. They would preserve the game and improve the breed of horses. And as a matter of fact a race course was laid out at Shallow Ford Station, in that very year. It is no wonder Kentucky horses are famous. It is to be noted, too, that the game laws were aimed against skin hunters-men who came from the settlements east of the mountains and killed the wild animals for their skins. These home makers claimed
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the wild animals along with the lands. The admirable non-export laws of many of the states at the present time are founded on that old feeling.
The colony of Transylvania as a legal organiza- tion failed because the proprietary system was wrong, and because the proprietors did not have a legal title to the lands; but the actual settlers had their titles confirmed, while the company received a grant of 200,- 000 acres, located on the Ohio, and the thriving city of Henderson, Ky., perpetuates the name of an enter- prising and heroic, if mistaken frontiersman.
We get another view of Kentucky life from the records of Henderson's Transylvania company, where- in sales of gunpowder are noted at $2.66 per pound, and lead at 16 2-3. The woods rangers or hunters employed were paid thirty-three cents a day; and they worked from sunrise to sunset, without a doubt. The modern definition of the word strike was unknown; for every man was man enough to "hoe his own row," regardless of bosses, or unions or trusts or other com- binations made to wring something from an unwilling somebody.
The fees for acquiring the right to 400 acres of land, under the laws of Virginia amounted to $10, in 1775, but the home maker was obliged to build a log house sufficient for a dwelling, and raise and harvest a crop of corn in addition. Having done this he could acquire 1,000 acres more adjoining his first claim, at a cost of $400.
At the end of 1775 there were 300 men in Ken- tucky, it is said, men who intended to make homes. A breadth of something more than 200 acres of corn
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had been harvested. The people had abundant food, vigorous health, and hope that amounted to enthusiasm. There was every needed local indication of a splendid development of the new settlements.
But another war was at hand, and in it these frontiersmen were to have a memorable part. On an unnamed day, while a party of Kentucky hunters camped on a branch of the Elkhorn river near the cabin of a man named McConnel, a messenger brought them a story of trouble between some Massachusetts farmers and a company of British soldiers. The mes- senger said that the farmers were gathered with arms to resist the soldiers. The commander of the soldiers shouted "Disperse, ye villains! Damn you why don't you disperse ?" But the men of Massachusetts instead of obeying the profane tyrant, attacked the soldiers and compelled them to fly so swiftly that when rescued by reinforcements from Boston, their tongues [were], hanging out of their mouths like those of dogs after a chase." That was a story to arouse the enthusiasm of every American-and especially of such Americans as these backwoodsmen-and when the tale was ended they named the spot on which they were encamped Lexington.
4
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OUTACITE.
A Cherokee chief. The reader will note the ancient tribal marks upon his face.
XIV
ON THE FRONTIER DURING THE REVOLUTION.
Dunmore's Soldiers Declared They Were Ready to Fight for American Liberties-The Responsibility of the British Rulers of All Ranks for the Indian Raids on the Frontier Home-Makers-The Cherokee Outbreak -The First Kentucky Colonel-Pluck of the Fron- tier Girl-Life in Harrodsburg During the War- Boone Captured by the Indians-George Rogers Clark's Memorable Plan for Defending the Settle- ments.
As the soldiers under Lord Dunmore marched home from their conquest of the Indians northwest of the Ohio, late in 1774, they paused near the mouth of the Hockhocking river, and the officers gathered and "held a notable meeting." Before entering on this campaign they knew how the people of Massa-
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chusetts, when the written law had failed them, had, in the exercise of "the paramount law of self preser- vation," assaulted the British ship Dartmouth, on the night of December 16, 1773, and thrown her cargo of tea into the bay. They had learned further that five acts of brutal oppression had been passed thereafter by parliament, and that a Congress representing the
colonies had assembled in Philadelphia to consider the situation. They had followed Dunmore to this war cheerfully. They were well enough satisfied with his work as a leader. They were still cherishing a feeling of loyalty to the King, but their hearts were inspired with the feeling which prompted Patrick Henry to say, "Give me liberty or give me death," and they thought they ought to declare their readiness to fight for American freedom "when regularly called forth by the voice of their countrymen," and to say at the same time that this little backwoods army "could march and fight as well as any in the world."
Among these officers was Captain Micheal Cresap, whose murderous assaults on Indians in time of peace had brought on the Dunmore war, and he afterward made good these words by fighting in a way that goes far to redeem him in the eyes of most American stu- dents of history.
The five acts of Parliament that followed immedi- ately on the Massachusetts appeal to the "paramount law of self preservation" provided : That the port of Boston should be closed until Massachusetts paid the owners of the destroyed tea its full value; that the charter of the colony should be annulled and an abso- lute despotism substituted; that any soldier or revenue
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officer charged with killing a citizen should be tried for the crime in England instead of Massachusetts; that British troops should be quartered thereafter in Boston, and that all of the British territory lying west of the Alleghanies and north of the Ohio river should be added to Canada and "governed by a viceroy with despotic powers." "Such people as should come to live there were to have neither popular meetings, nor ha- beas corpus, nor freedom of the press."
This last act is known in history as the Quebec Bill. When the King, in 1763, by proclamation, set aside this region as a royal domain in which no land could be purchased from the Indians but by royal authority, it is likely that he was moved chiefly by a desire to save the Indians from imposition, and thus preserve peace with them, no matter what the Board of Trade had in view. But the manifest design of the Quebec Bill was to restrict the territorial limits of the colonies; and because it reaffirmed, and was based on the old French claim that Canada extended to and included the Ohio Valley, it is naturally the subject of much com- ment among critical historians. But because the cur- rent of events in the Mississippi was not changed by the Quebec Bill, a mere mention of it will suffice here, and this chapter may be devoted wholly to things done.
It will help to a better comprehension of the things done in the valley to recall the fact that while Hender- son was laying the foundation of his Transylvania col- ony in Kentucky, by buying the land of the Cherokees, (March, 1775), Parliament was raising the number of British regulars stationed in the American colonies to 10,000. In March and April, while Boone was cut-
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ting the trail from Cumberland Gap to Boonesborough, Franklin was on his way home from England because he had seen that war could not be averted. It was more than a month after the battle of Lexington, (which occurred on April 19, 1775,) that the fron- tiersmen met at Boonesborough, and established a form of government.
It is an interesting fact that the rapid growth of population in Kentucky, after Dunmore's war, (1774), was due in part to the migration of Eastern people who were trying to escape the disorders of the grow- ing contest with England. And it is to be noted, by the way, that not a few of these new arrivals were ne'er-do-wells, horse thieves and desperadoes, but in coming west most of these people made a very great mistake, for those that wished to escape war soon found the Indians on their trail, and the desperadoes found that the home makers recognized the right of private war in the interests of order-that disorder would be repressed by the use of noosed ropes or well- aimed rifles.
This brings us to the most important feature of the American Revolution as seen in the Mississippi Valley -the British use of the Indians. Any attempt to gloss over, or palliate the acts of the British in this matter, even though done to promote international harmony, is but a form of foolish lying; and no good can be pro- moted by a lie.
The first troubles of the people in the Ohio Valley, as a result of the Revolution, came through the success- ful efforts of the British agents to incite the Indians to attack the home-makers. And their last troubles were
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due to the same cause. In fact the British made no move in the Great Valley but with the aid of the In- dians. In the present state of civilization, it is diffi- cult for many people to believe these facts, but the truth is that the British authorities, from the King down through the ministers, and the local rulers, to the Tory partisans, deliberately approved the use of Indians. In some cases local officials, gleefully ap- proved, incited and took part in Indian raids wherein women were outraged and murdered, little children were slaughtered, and men were burned at the stake. When Col. Henry Hamilton began his work with the Indians at Detroit, it appears that (to quote Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. III), he "was acting in anticipation of orders which he had asked of Germain. These, when received,-dated March 26, 1777-con- formed to Hamilton's suggestions, and directed him to organize Indian raids against the frontier. We have his own statement (made) in the following July, that he had up to that date sent out fifteen distinct parties on such fiendish errands."
The facts in this matter shall be given as briefly as possible, but to see, first of all, that the humanity of the British in authority was on a level where these things were possible, it is necessary only that the reader recall a few such acts of the British troops in the east as the first foray into Jersey, where they "set fire to farm houses, murdered peaceful citizens and violated women;" the acts of Gen. Richard Prescott, who, when he took possession of Newport, "encouraged his sol- diers in plundering houses and offering gross insults to ladies ;" the capture of Norfolk where "every house
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was burned to the ground, many unarmed citizens were murdered, and delicate ladies were abandoned to the diabolical passions of the soldiery." The quota- tions are from Fiske's "American Revolution." One notable British historian, quoted by Fiske, says dis- tinctly that the Americans would have been justified in refusing to give quarter, when Stony Point was taken, and thereby, as Fiske points out, portrays the level of his own civilization and that of people who approve his words.
It is now coming to be understood, even among the most obtuse observers in Europe, that American armies have always shown marvelous efficiency, even after brief training, because every man in the ranks has always fully understood the cause of the war in hand, and fully approved the object for which it was waged, and felt and manifested the keenest personal interest in the success of his arms. In other words, American armies have been composed of united thinking men, instead of well-trained, unthinking brutes. But it is not yet understood that this personal knowledge of the causes of the conflict and this personal interest in the result necessarily led to lasting indignation and prej- udice. This is not to commend or even excuse lasting anger and prejudice; it is to deplore them and to point out that these are among the chiefest of the inevitable evils of any war involving a thinking people. It is also worth observing that when the cause of ill-feeling is known, a remedy may often be found.
Americans came to feel "a deadly and lasting hatred which their sons and grandsons inherited," not because the Indians were employed to fight American
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THE above Engraving exhibits a view of the massacre of the family of JOHANAS DEITZ, which took place in the time of the American Revolution, near a place called the BEAVER DAM, some twenty miles west of Albany; the particulars of which are set forth in the following pamphlet. The horses, baggage and Indians as grouped above, show them moving off from the scene of devastation and murder, while the buildings, a log house, log barn, and out houses of the same description. are on fire; the flames of which are seen bursting out from the windows, roofs, doors, &c. The two boys and Captain Deitz, are seen in the forcground; as also an Indian having the eight scalps of such as they had killed, strung out at full length on a stick.
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soldiers, as when Carlton employed them to fight Arnold on Lake Champlain. Americans did as much. It was because the Indians were deliberately sent against women and children. This point is to be most carefully considered. "God and nature hath put into our hands the scalping knife and tomahawk, to torture them into unconditional submission," said the Earl of Suffolk (Almon's Remembrancer, viii., p. 328). A price was put on scalps, and a woman's scalp was purchased as readily as a man's. The Indians received various prices for the scalps brought in, but the white marauders who went on raid with the Indians received "a bounty of 200 acres of land," (Winsor's "Westward Movement," p. III). The British officers, among whom Col. Hamilton, commander at Detroit was most infamous, sent out the Indians for the deliberate and openly-declared purpose of "driving in" the frontier homemakers and depopulating the newly-settled dis- tricts.
"Hamilton and his subordinates. both red and white, were engaged in what was essentially an effort to exterminate the borderers," says Roosevelt in "Win- ning the West." It was "a war of extermination waged with appalling and horrible cruelty." "It brings out in bold relief the fact that in the West the the War of the Revolution was an effort on the part of Great Britain to stop the westward growth of the English race in America, and to keep the region be- yond the Alleghanies as a region where only savages should dwell."
"Few, if any, British officers brought themselves so much under severe criticism for inciting savage
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barbarities as Governor Hamilton. He sang war songs with the braves, he made gifts to parties return- ing with scalps. His glee at the successful outcome of savage raids was not unshared by many in the royal service," says Winsor in "The Westward Movement," p. 127.
When Hamilton was captured, he was sent to Vir- ginia, where his conduct was investigated by the Coun- cil of Virginia. In their report the Council say: "The board find that Governor Hamilton gave standing re- wards for scalps, but offered none for prisoners, which induced the Indians, after making the captives carry their baggage into the neighborhood of the fort, there put them to death, and carry in their scalps to the governor, who welcomed their return and suc- cesses by a discharge of cannon."
This was a judicial investigation made by men who were not frontiersmen, to determine what treatment Hamilton should receive as a prisoner. The evidence of Hamilton's inhumanity led to his imprisonment in irons.
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