USA > Mississippi > The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51
Carver himself explored but a single one of the western affluents of the Mississippi, and that was the St. Peter, as the Minnesota was then called. It was on this water among the Sioux of the plains that he passed the winter of 1766, and he says he found that the French had prejudiced that tribe against the English. Of the physiography of the more distant west, he gives us some hints as he got them from the savages, the marked feature of which is unbounded plains " which probably terminate on the coast of the Pacific." The spur of the Rocky Mountains discovered by Vérendrye is, to Carver's mind, nothing but an isolated "mountain of bright stones " lying north of the river of the west. It was in a lake near this mountain that he makes the Assiniboils River rise, which, flowing to Lake Winnipeg, is next carried on with a divided current, the one to Hudson's Bay and the other to Lake Superior. He hears of natives, living beyond this mountain, small of stature, using vessels of gold, and suggesting an emigration north from Mex- ico. With a mixed burden on his mind of speculation and knowledge, and having failed to receive the goods from Maek- inac which he expected, Carver, in the summer of 1767, began to retrace his steps. After lingering some time at Lake Pepin he sought the Chippewa River, and ascending it, crossed a port- age which took him by a descending stream to Lake Superior near its western end. Carver's observations put Lake Supe- rior between 46° and 49° north latitude, not far from its true position, a correction of earlier English maps by something
tory
Cul.63
Forts
m R
YES'
**
SOUTH
Chili
Allan R
Toilet. Alban Ft
WALES
-
Úta
cialit
Supe
OTTAWAS
Ranke
Ontari
Tin
;IF
YOMIFBIGAMIES
of d Andym
L Tipm
STINY
Flineid R
Tit Winst
OR 01
Viale
:11
4
Francis R
of Choler
T
Akanstas
.1
OM TH
Akmise Thanh Creek Indians
R
Vatadus
Blac
CARVER'S COLONIES.
[From a "New Map of North America, 1778," in Jonathan Carver's Trorels through tl. Interior Parts of North America, London, 1781. It shows also the connection of Lake Super with the Lake of the Woods and Hudson's Bay (James's Bay). ]
Charlien
A'Shade
T
11
Bri
CHIPEWAY
Michigan
otiz
=
hogy Chica Saws
106
THE FORTUNES OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
like eight degrees, while Kitchin, who a few years later, in 1774 and before Carver's maps were published, was out by nearly ten degrees, - both carrying the water by so much too far to the north. In contour and detail there had been up to this time no map of this lake so accurate as its first survey made by the Jesuits a century before. All the intervening maps had shown many islands spotting its surface. In Carver's time a similar ignorance of the interior spaces of the lake prevailed. It was due, perhaps, to the barkentines of the French keeping near the shores, and to the Indians' dread of enchantments with which they supposed such islands to be invested.
Passing through the Sault Ste. Marie in October, 1767, Carver moved eastward by the lakes, and after an absence of two years and five months reached Boston in October, 1768, having traversed, as he reekoned, a course of near seven thou- sand miles. He tells us that an English gentleman, Richard Whitworth, became so interested in the traveler's views of the way to find a passage from the Mississippi to the Pacific that, in 1774, he nearly perfected arrangements for doing it, in company with Carver himself and a party of fifty or sixty men, when the opening scenes of the Revolutionary War put a stop to the enterprise. A proposition made by Bernard Romans, in 1773, met with a like discouragement. Carver's narrative was not published till ten years later, in 1778, when his recital found neither England nor her colonies in any better position to profit by his experiences.
While Carver's book was still in mannseript, and he had been seeking government employ as an Indian agent in the region west of Lake Huron, the future of the Mississippi had been eonsigned to other hands than his prospective colonists of the eleven provinces.
Spain still controlled the French of Louisiana. In New Orleans this alien power had proved vexations. In the upper parts of the valley the French had no love for the English; but it was a question whether the Spanish rule was not annoying enough sometimes to give some hope to Gage that a part, at least, of those who had fled across the river might return to the English. A few years after the English commanding general had expressed this anticipation, the progress of the American
107
ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND SPAIN.
revolt had interjected a vigilant power in the young confeder- ation between the English on the one side and the French and Spanish on the other. Such conditions foreboded a new struggle for the possession of the Mississippi and its eastern affluents, but with complications greater than had attended the conflict which was ended by the Peace of Paris in 1763. It was once more a question, who should control or share the vast country lying between the Appalachians and the Great River? Each power entered upon the struggle with its own purpose. In the north, England early (1774) attempted a preemption of the region above the Ohio through the Quebec Bill. France at once saw that the terms of that legislation recognized her own long-defended claim to include that territory within the bounds of Canada. It was plainly to be seen that such an acknowledg- ment might make it easier for France to wrest that country in its entirety from the grasp of England, if the fortunes of war should lay open to her the chances of a diplomatic triumph over England. In the south there were the rival interests of England and Spain. The possession of West Florida and New Orleans respectively brought these two powers into a dangerous contiguity. Events seemed tending to bring on a conflict, either at New Orleans or higher up the river. It was a question for the young Republic, if in these opposing interests, north and south, she could make good her territorial rights beyond the Alleghanies, to an extent equal to what, as colonies, she had contended for, and which the treaty of 1763 had recognized.
All these complications involved the relations of the American people not only to England, which was trying to subjugate them, but also to France, which was expected to assist them. It was a matter of more serious concern that the rulers of France had no intention of resisting England for any other purpose than re- venge and profit to France. The relations of the young Repub- lic to Spain were more embarrassing, for any assistance from that country depended upon the Bourbon compact between France and Spain proving broad enough to force the latter country into a war with England for the behoof of France in America. In this event, a common hostility to England might league the American republic and the Spanish monarchy.
In this impending struggle for the line of the Mississippi, as bounding the nascent commonwealth, America had military
108
THE FORTUNES OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
resources almost ludicrously inadequate, and success was only to be acquired by using this Bourbon rivalry of England in such a way as would protect American interests.
Oliver Pollock, a native of Pennsylvania of Irish stock, had gone as a young man to Havana to engage in business, and removed, when he was about thirty years old, to New Orleans in 1767. Two years later, when O'Reilly took possession and the number of his troops produced a famine, this American merchant received a cargo of flour from Baltimore.
Prices of cereals were ruling high ; but Pollock saw his opportunity, and publicly sold his produce at from half to two thirds of the current rates. The Spanish government marked its gratitude by giving Pollock a license of free trade with the colony for the rest of his life. The concession gave him a standing in New Orleans, which was of importance for Pollock's countrymen in the approaching crisis.
The Spanish authorities at this time were strengthening the ramparts of New Orleans, and were bringing succor nearer by opening a new route to Mexico, for it had not escaped them that England only needed a pretext to capture New Orleans if she could. The English reciprocated the anxiety, and found the Spanish possession of Havana a constant menace to Pen- sacola. Haldimand, when commanding at this latter post, had been made aware by Gage, writing from his New York head- quarters, that it was wise never to let slip the purpose of seiz- ing New Orleans, if opportunity offered. The canalization of the Iberville had not indeed proved a prosperous scheme for diverting trade to Florida, and the navigation of the Missis- sippi was but a vexations privilege to the English. When there had been, in 1770, a passing diplomatic flurry with Spain, over the Falkland Islands, Gage had cautioned Haldimand to be prepared for a hostile movement, if there was any oppor- tune turn of the negotiations. It had long been Gage's plan for stopping the clandestine traffic across the river by holding its mouth, which he contended was the only way in which the trade of the river could properly be developed in the English interest.
NOTE. - The opposite map is a section from a "Carte de la Floride, etc., pour le service des vaisseaux du Roi, par ordre de M. de Sartine, conseiller d'Etat, 1778," and shows Haldimand's Iberville route.
I. d'The vite
Baton Rouge ou Commerce L'Bior en
visoturco dans
Tanacido
Thinkin®
d. Ther ville
Petits Houmas
Lat Midurepas
Den Villages
Howuras R. Oustup YP.
Pontchartrain
viwage abandonne
5 chet te
Houmas gar.
les Rouges .
Colaspassar
Bayagoulas
les Allemands
Carlstairs
Lac
Vacherie
Borgne
des
Chet
Petits Colapirra
ple aux Herbes 12
nữ mboày
Laince str Outardes Panne's Bay
les.
Brister
Rin ..
Detour" a"Fr
do Natoulagoa
FILM!
Lac
Bavadoulas
toFourche
4 Paffe à Gur 4
110
THE FORTUNES OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
Much to the discontent of the British settlers at Natchez and elsewhere, he had refused, with New Orleans in Spanish hands, to maintain armed posts for their protection.
The English possessions in West Florida, as the bounds of that province had been defined, included the country about Natchez. The population in this region had been increasing since 1770. Some of the French in Louisiana, disaffected by the Spanish rule, had passed over the river to the English side ; but the greater part of the increase had been emigrants from east of the Appalachians. Some had come from Pennsylvania and Jersey ; others from Virginia and Carolina; but larger numbers had come from Connecticut, turning a current of emi- gration which, under more favorable circumstances, might have settled the Wyoming valley in Pennsylvania. General Phineas Lyman, whom we have seen in London a few years before unsuccessfully urging the formation of a colony in the Illinois country, had returned to New England in the faith that a grant which he had urged for the soldiers of the late. war would be made on the lower Mississippi, under royal orders to the gov- ernor of West Florida. He had in December, 1772, asked Dart- mouth to encourage their plan. With this expectation he had induced a body of "military adventurers " at Hartford to order a reconnoissance of their proposed home, and in 1773, Lyman and party sailed from New York for Pensacola. Here they found that no royal instructions had been received. Pending the expected arrival of sueh, Rufus Putnam, as topographer, headed a party to explore the Mississippi as far north as the Yazoo. The wished-for orders still not coming, the proposing settlers agreed to purchase a tract of land on easy terms. The result was that several hundred families, in May, 1776, came out from New England, only to find that even this arrange- ment had been forbidden by orders from England. So the struggling settlers found that they must shift for themselves. There were some among them who scantily sympathized with the political revolt in New England, and Lyman himself had congratulated the ministry that the "spirit of Boston " was not spreading. The new homes, which they too rosily pie- tured, were destined, they thought, to give them a release from the turmoil they had left. There was, however, enough of the revolutionary fervor of the Atlantic seaboard in others who had
111
HAMILTON'S RAIDS.
settled there to make an important factor in shaping the des- tiny of this southern region.
We have seen that Hamilton at Detroit had had some suc- cess in counteracting the influence of Morgan among the north- ern tribes. Though the Delawares had mainly rejected his hatchet, the Shawnees and Wyandots had generally accepted it. A comparison of dates seems to show that Hamilton was acting in anticipation of orders which he had asked of Ger- main. These, when received (dated March 26, 1777), conformed to Hamilton's suggestions, and directed him to organize Indian raids against the American frontiers. We have his own state- ment, in the following July, that he had up to that date sent out fifteen distinct parties on such fiendish errands. The purpose of the minister was that those loyal to the crown among the frontier folk should be gathered in bands, and should be encour- aged by a bounty of two hundred acres to each to aid in these marauding exploits. Dunmore had made out a list of such loyal adherents, as known to him, which Germain transmitted to Hamilton. The purpose of all this deviltry, except so far as they hoped to profit by the savage sympathy, was to distract the attention of Congress and diminish the numbers of Wash- ington's main army.
The Kentucky posts, with a population, perhaps, of six hun- dred, and only a half of them arms-bearing, had grown confident in their seclusion. Morgan, who was now commanding at Fort Pitt, had represented to headquarters in January, 1777, that if militia were drafted to take the place of the garrisons at Forts Pitt and Randolph, the regular companies doing duty there could be sent to reinforce the eastern army. Such self-reliance gave Hamilton what he thought an opportunity. Some two hundred of his Indians crossed the Ohio. One horde unsne- cessfully attacked Harrodsburg (March, 1777), the garrison re- ceiving a few hours' warning. Another, consisting of about a hundred warriors, was repulsed at Boonesborongh (April 24). Before May was passed, they again fell upon the stockade which Boone had erected, and began on May 30 a more protracted siege of Logan's Fort, - the modern Standford, - which ended only with the relief which Colonel Bowman and a hundred Virginians brought to it in August, as he was scouring the
112
THE FORTUNES OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
country in search of the foe. The Indians contrived to con- vey Hamilton's proclamation to repentant rebels, by leaving it on the body of a man whom they had killed outside the fort.
By the first of June, 1777, Hamilton at Detroit and General Edward Hand at Pittsburg - now in command of the western frontier - were each developing their counter movements for the summer's campaign.
The Americans had begun preparations in the spring by send- ing Philadelphia boat-builders to the Monongahela, to make ready some bateanx. Early in the summer, American agents at the Holston River had sought to protect the valley approaches on that side by a paet with the southern Indians. The main outposts of Pittsburg, subject to Hand's control, were Fort Randolph on Point Pleasant at the mouth of the Kanawha, and Fort Henry at the modern Wheeling. Two hundred and fifty men of Colonel Wood's regiment were garrisoning these posts. Of the neighboring Indians only the Delawares con- tinned friendly, and they were kept in restraint largely through the influence of Zeisberger, the Moravian.
The English were fortunate in holding Niagara, a position which, as Hutchins said of it, " secured a greater number of communications through a large country than probably any ,other pass in interior America," and it was here, just at this turn of affairs, that the Indians were gathering to assist St. Leger, in that attempt to aid Burgoyne which was foiled at Oriskany. Detroit, however, was the chief strategie point for the English ; and Hamilton, now in command there, was later put, by orders from England, in chief control of the military affairs in the Ohio valley. His main business was to harass the frontiers, open communication with Stuart at the south, and watch the Spaniards beyond the Mississippi. His outposts were at Sandusky and about the headwaters of the Scioto, and he had sneceeded, as we have said, in banding the Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingoes in the British interest.
It was Hamilton's purpose, if possible, to organize a corps of chasseurs from the French settlers within his control, and to officer them from their own people. An English officer, Abbott by name, was early in the season started towards Vin-
113
ROCHEBLAVE.
cennes, with some such purpose. When he crossed the portage of the Maumee, he found five hundred Indians there ready for their savage raids. In the absence of any troops to support him, Abbott, who had reached his post on May 19, found that he had to yield to their exorbitant demands, and in July (1777), while he was stockading Vincennes, he found it necessary to bind the French settlers by an oath and forego the chasseurs. The other purpose of intercepting the American supplies by the river seemed hardly more promising. The eannon which he mounted were sent to him by the commander at Fort Gage in the Illinois country, to which the armament of Fort Chartres had been removed in 1772. This officer was Rocheblave, who had been for some time busy watching the Spanish at St. Louis, and trying to divine a purpose on their part which in his imagination took many shapes. He tried at times to induce the Kickapoos to unravel it, but it did not comfort him to find that these Indians were receiving messages from the " Boston- nais," as they called the Americans, and were communicating them to the Spaniards. Upon the Foxes both he and the Span- ish governor played their wiles in the effort to gain them, and to the savages' advantage, no doubt. The Ottawas were urged to receive Spanish favors, so that they could fathom, by the op- portunities which dependence could offer, the plots at St. Louis. Rocheblave seems to have made the best impression upon a vagrant horde of the Delawares, who frequented his post, and he reported that he felt he could depend upon them. But the belts which he found passing between the rebels and Spaniards on the one side, and the savages on the other, were a constant riddle to him. He had heard, moreover, that the Spanish com- mander had spoken knowingly of something that was to happen when the maize grew to be eighteen inches high. Certain French officers, too, were known to have Spanish commissions, and he found that, despite his endeavors, French aid was ena- bling the Americans to run supplies up the river.
During all this Hamilton had submitted to Carleton a plan for attacking New Orleans ; but Carleton was cautious, and warned him not to be too provoking with his neighbors, but rather to be prepared to resist any attack from them. Hamilton replied that the Spanish hostility was confirmed, and they had begun to seize English vessels at New Orleans.
114
THE FORTUNES OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
While the season closed at Kaskaskia with Rocheblave dream- ing of a Spanish conquest and a governorship at New Orleans, some bloody work was going on around the little fort near Wheeling Creek. This stoekade had been known as Fort Fin- castle, till lately being improved (1776), it was renamed Fort Henry, after Patrick Henry, now governor of Virginia. Gen- eral Hand had not succeeded in raising the two thousand men which he had hoped for his campaign, and with no more than eight hundred men on his rolls he had not felt strong enough to take the aggressive during the summer, and had accordingly kept himself rather on the defensive. He was, moreover, not quite sure of certain men who were about him. One of them, Alexander McKee, who had been deputy Indian agent under Sir William Johnson, was put under oath to have " no communication with the British." Simon Girty, who had also been arrested, had been wily enough to reestablish himself in Hand's opinion. Girty had for some time absented himself, but in August some friendly Moravian Indians had come in, bringing word that Girty was leading a force thither, and that Fort Henry was to be the point of attack. This defense was an oblong stockade in open ground, inclosing about half an acre of ground, bastioned, and supplied with water. The occu- pants of the surrounding village were still in their cabins out- side the walls ; but scouts were out, and they had passed a quiet summer. As the season closed, confidence had been so far restored that some of the militia had gone home, and only two companies, of not over forty men in all, remained under Colonel David Shepherd. Hand did what he could to cover the inhab- itants before the stroke came. During the night of August 31, from two hundred to four hundred of Hamilton's Indians - accounts differ - ambushed themselves near by, and threw the community into confusion the next morning by a sudden ap- proach. There was time enough, however, to enable the out- side settlers to get within the defenses before the attack began. The garrison made some hazardous sallies, much to its loss of numbers ; but they served to keep the assailers at bay. The leader of the enemy, finding his followers discouraged, turned to destroying what he could in the surrounding village. Suc- cor for the besieged arriving, he disappeared with his savages in the forest. There is a good deal of confusion in the accounts
115
EVENTS OF 1777.
which have come down to us, and though Wither says that Girty was the leader of the assault, it is by no means certain that he was present at all.
The whole region was soon alarmed, and Hand, uncertain for a while whether to make counter incursions, at last drew in the men from his lesser outposts. Kittanning, for one, was abandoned, and the season in this part of the valley ended with little hope.
The neighboring Delawares had proved steadfast, but a band of Shawnees adhering to Cornstalk had wavered. That leader and some of his people a little later ventured to Fort Randolph, where some militia, aroused by recent atrocities, ensnared and murdered them. It was hopeless to keep any of the Shawnces neutral after this.
The campaign of 1777, in Washington's loss of Philadelphia, had not been propitious for those struggling beyond the moun- tains, who were thus cut off from their main seaboard connec- tions ; but the defeat of St. Leger and the surrender of Bur- goyne at the north had happily intervened to put a new aspect upon the contest of the trans-Alleghany country, where so much desultory warfare had of late confused the outcome.
CHAPTER VIII.
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK, ARBITER AND SUPPLIANT.
1776-1779.
IN the early part of 1776, George Rogers Clark had cast his lot among the Kentuckians. He found them living amid dan- gers and stirred by political unrest. Virginia, as the parent colony, was too remote to afford them protection. There were ugly rumors of savage contests in store for them through the concerted action of the British commanders at Detroit and Pensacola. There were those on the frontiers-and it suited Clark's nature to be in sympathy - who would not shrink from the responsibility of independent action; but a soberer judgment prevailed, and it was decided not to take any decisive step before the authorities at Williamsburg were informed of the situation. On July 17, 1776, delegates from these forest communities met at Harrodsburg and chose Clark and another to undertake such an embassy. The people had already, on , June 20, drawn up a memorial, in which they affirmed that the " prime riflemen " of Kentucky were not a body whose aid should be declined in troublous times. They recognized that the colonies were drifting towards that independence of whose declaration it was too early then for them to have heard. The delegates found difficulty, without intimating an alternative of their own independence, to make the council listen to their demands for powder; but Patrick Henry, then governor, as well as Jefferson, George Mason, and George Wythe, threw a strong influence in favor of the frontiers, and the grant was made. On August 2, the Assembly was induced to declare the sovereignty of Virginia over the Kentucky region, and her purpose to protect it. Later, the legislature, on December 7, created the county of Kentucky.
During the spring of 1777, the tidings from the Indian country north of the Ohio had alarmed Colonel Crawford at
117
CLARK'S PLANS.
Fort Pitt. When the summer opened, Clark sent two young hunters to make their way to the Illinois settlements, and to discover the situation there. They reported on their return (June 22) that the French were in the main quiet in their villages, and that only a few of their young men were partici- pating in the British and savage raids, which were directed from Detroit. These centres of the French population were, however, used as starting-places of these marauding parties. Clark was fired by these reports with a purpose to attempt the conquest of this region, and on October 1 he again left Har- rodsburg for the Virginia capital. He tells us that he met on his way many adventurers struggling through the wilderness to find new homes. When he reached Williamsburg, he found the community rejoicing over the surrender of Burgoyne, - a good omen that gave him increased enthusiasm.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.