USA > Mississippi > The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources > Part 22
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These outcasts carried into Canada just the blood, hardihood,
243
INDIAN RAIDS.
and courage which were so needed in a new country. From their devotion to an undivided empire, they later assumed the name of United Empire Loyalists, to distinguish them from other settlers. They were a band that the States could ill afford to drive from their society. Not a few of the Americans then felt that these defeated countrymen could have been much better dealt with within the Republic than as refugees in a neighboring land, where they would be stirred by animosities. John Adams said of them: "At home, they would be impotent ; abroad, they are mischievous." No one felt it at the time more warmly than Patrick Henry, who urged that they should be encouraged to settle beyond the Appalachians. "They are," he said in a speech to the Assembly of Virginia, "an enterpris- ing, moneyed people, serviceable in taking off the surplus prod- ucts of our lands." He added that he had no fear that those who had " laid the proud British lion at their feet should now be afraid of his whelps."
While what is now the Province of Ontario was coming into being north of the lakes, there was a parallel movement going on south of Lake Erie, which was in the end to reach a far greater development. Before the tidings of peace had reached this more southern wilderness, and late in the winter of 1782- 83, the frontiersmen and the Shawnees, with other confederated tribes, were still keeping up the hostile counter-movements which had long tracked that country with blood. Hamilton was reaching the conclusion that "the most just and humane way of removing them is by extending our settlements to their neighborhood." The Indians north of the Ohio had not re- ceived from Haldimand the aid for which they had hoped, for the policy of the British made at this time for peace. Never- theless, the old feuds, quite as madly followed by white as by savage, were not to be quelled, and they continued for some years. Judge Innes shows by figures that from 1783 to 1790, at least fifteen hundred frontiersmen were killed in these impla- cable raids, and that twenty thousand horses were stolen from one side or the other. General Irvine, who was watching these lawless actions from Fort Pitt, did his best to prevent settlers passing north of the Ohio, and he believed that nothing but the extirpation of the Indians or driving them beyond the lakes and the Mississippi could ever render this region habitable.
244
THE INSECURITY OF THE NORTHWEST.
This was the condition of that country when American offi- cers, now looking forward to a respite from war, were hoping to provide within it new homes for some part at least of a dis- banded army. This peaceful movement had begun in the spring of 1783, at Newburgh on the Hudson, while Washington was awaiting the official promulgation of peace from Carleton in New York. The movement was at the start in the hands of Gener- als Huntington and Rufus Putnam. On June 16, two hundred and eighty-eight officers of Washington's weary army, mainly New Englanders, petitioned Congress that the lands granted for military service in 1776 should be surveyed in what is now eastern Ohio, so that they could be occupied, and in time con- stitute a separate State of the Union. The lands to which they referred were east of a meridian which left the Ohio twenty- four miles west of the Scioto, and struck northward to the Mau- mee, whence the line followed that stream to Lake Erie. Put- nam bespoke Washington's influence in behalf of the petition, and suggested for the protection of the intended settlements that a chain of forts, twenty miles apart, should be placed on the western bounds of this tract. Washington transmitted to Congress the letter of the officers, with Putnam's letter and his own approval ; but nothing came of the appeal.
Meanwhile, various projects had been broached looking to a more comprehensive appropriation of the region to civilized uses. Jefferson, with the instincts of a politician, was contem- plating the planting of a State on Lake Erie as a northern ap- pendage, which should be offset by a southern one on the Ohio. This was a revival of a project of Franklin some years before. Colonel Pickering, with a northern fervor, was thinking of a State to be set up at once, with a military spirit, and from which slavery should be excluded. On June 5, 1783, Colonel Bland of Virginia introduced in Congress an ordinance for erecting a territory north of the Ohio and dividing it into dis- tricts, with the ultimate purpose of making States of them, when their populations reached two thousand each. This ter- ritory was to be defended by frontier posts, and seminaries of learning were to be encouraged.
While all these measures were thus still inehoate, unauthorized appropriations of the Indian country by reckless parties seemed likely to revive lingering hostilities. To avert this danger, Con-
245
WASHINGTON AND THE WEST.
gress, in September, 1783, issued a proclamation against such unlawful occupation of the Indian lands. This action did little to accomplish its object. We soon find McKee, in September, telling Sir John Johnson that the Sandusky Indians suspect the Americans of a design to encroach upon their tribal lands. The steady flow of settlers across the Ohio did seem to point to such a purpose. Haldimand was confident that these provo- cations would end in a war, which would be ruinous to the sav- age. This meant that the retained posts would be deprived of a natural barrier ; and he accordingly urged Sir John Johnson to inculcate moderation upon the Indians.
With these dangers impending, Washington, on September 7, 1783, recommended in a letter the laying out of two new States in this western region. In language nearly following that of Washington, Congress, on October 15, in preparing the way for the ordinance of the next year, resolved to erect a distinet government north of the Ohio, but at the same time a commit- tee reported to Congress that the Indians were not prepared " to relinquish their territorial claims without further strng- gles," and recommended that emigrants be invited to enter the region east of a line drawn from the mouth of the Great Miami, up that stream, and down the Maumee to Lake Erie. The next month, November, 1783, Washington, in taking leave of the army, pointed to the west as promising a happy asylum for the veteran soldiers, " who, fond of domestic enjoyments, are seek- ing for personal independence."
We need now to consider the existing state of the controversy over the title to these same lands. The steps for a western gov- ernment, both north and south of the Ohio, were doubtless in part owing to a wish to bring Virginia to an unrestricted ces- sion of her alleged or established rights to the country. There had been a memorial addressed to her Assembly in December, 1783, asking to have Kentucky set up as a State, and urging that more States would add to the dignity of the Union. Re- ferring to this desire for self-government, it added, " A fool can put on his clothes better than a wise man can do it for him."
When we consider the almost inexplicable language of the Virginia charter of 1609, it shows how state pride can obscure the mind to find George Mason pronouncing its definition of
246
THE INSECURITY OF THE NORTHWEST.
bounds "intelligible and admitting of natural and easy con- struction." However this may be, Virginia was now content to hold that, defining her limits in her constitution of 1776, and the confederation accepting her adherence, with full knowledge of that constitution, the other States were bound to recognize the eonfederation's declared principle, " that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States." This precluded the Union, it was held, making any demand for cessions. With these convictions, the Virginia Assembly had proved little inelined to brook any opposition, such as Tom Paine had made in his Public Good, when he represented the United States at the peace becoming " heir to an extensive quan- tity of vaeant land " in the west. The Assembly was so in- eensed at Paine for such opinions that it stopped, at the second reading, a bill which had been introduced to compensate him for his services in the Revolution.
Congress had already determined to accept cessions, as it had that of New York, without inquiring into title. A committee had been appointed to look into the terms of the cession pro- posed by Virginia, and on September 13, 1783, this committee had recommended that Congress should accept the Virginia ees- sion, if that State would withdraw the guarantee that Kentucky should be seeured to her. This action was supplemented by an order establishing the undivided sovereignty of the United States over the west. There was little now for recalcitrant Virginia to do but to hasten her aetion. Edmund Randolph had seen the unfortunate predicament into which the State was thrusting herself, and some months before had written (March 22, 1783) to Madison : " I imagine that the power of Congress to accept territory by treaty will not be denied. This will throw a plausibility against us [Virginia] which never before existed in the contest with Congress," - for the treaty of peace had, in fact, buttressed the exclusive claim of the United States. Jefferson, too, was becoming fearful lest Kentucky, applying to be received as a State, would be favored by Congress with bounds stretching east to the Alleghany. This, he felt, would. deprive the parent State of that barrier of " uninhabitable lands " which she ought to have to separate her from a neigh- bor on the west, if Virginia maintained her bounds on the Kanawha.
247
VIRGINIA'S CESSION.
On October 19, 1783, Monroe had written to George Rogers Clark, urging that a new State should be set up with the tradi- tion of Virginia, so that the old commonwealth, now becoming aware of her isolation among her sisters, might have an efficient ally in the federal councils. The pressure had become so great, both within and without, that the next day, October 20, the Assembly authorized her delegates in Congress to make a deed of cession, without the objectionable reservations. This they did March 1, 1784. The instrument provided that "the neces- sary and reasonable expenses," later estimated at £220,000, connected with Clark's conquest and rule in the northwest, should be paid back to Virginia by the United States, if the claims were allowed before September 24, 1788. This had been consented to, not without apprehension that the charges would be inordinate, since few or no vonchers could be produced. This time-limit proved sufficient to protect all claims but Vigo's, for he was at the time beyond notice.
The deed had also made reservation of bounty lands for soldiers. In December, 1778, and again in May, 1779, Vir- ginia had set aside for this purpose a tract in Kentucky, part of which was later found to lie within North Carolina; and to make this loss good, in November, 1781, she had substituted a new tract bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Ten- nessee rivers and by the Carolina line. This embraced nearly 10,000,000 acres, and one third was for the Continental line and two thirds for the state troops. If this did not prove suffi- cient, it was now provided by the deed of cession, in order to satisfy some objectors to a cession, that a tract north of the Ohio and between the Scioto and the Little Miami should be added. There proved to be no objection to these provisions, and Virginia congratulated herself that she had made in the cession " the most magnificent sacrifice upon the altar of public good which was, perhaps, ever recorded in the history of States," since by it she " chiefly paid the bounty claims of all the Conti- mental officers and soldiers of all the old States." This over- elated commonwealth had no apprehension, apparently, that she had been making free with territory to which other States had as good a title as her own or even a better one, though all their titles were poor enough, it must be confessed, compared with that which the treaty of peace had given to the confederation.
248
THIE INSECURITY OF THE NORTHWEST.
A renewed effort upon the part of the Vandalia Company to obtain the recognition of Congress, now that it had acquired this western region, failed of success.
There was one way beyond her ostentatious sacrifice in which Virginia hoped to gain, and that was in the use of her rivers as channels of communication between the seaboard and this western country. Patrick Henry, in one of his speeches in the Virginia Assembly, said : "Cast your eye, sir, over this exten- sive country, and see its soil intersected in every quarter with bold, navigable streams, flowing to the east and to the west, as if the finger of heaven were marking out the course of your settlements, inviting you to enterprise and pointing the way to wealth." There would be the greatest advantage to Vir- ginia, said Washington, "if she would open the avennes to the trade of that country, and embrace the present moment to establish it."
Jefferson, in 1782, in speaking of the Mississippi as likely to be the route outward - but not inward -for the western coun- try, for heavy commodities, looked to the Potomac and the Hudson as lines of communication for the lighter burdens. He had, indeed, in his graphic description of the combined energies of the Potomac and Shenandoah in bursting through the barrier of the Blue Ridge, invested that tidal avenue of Virginia with popular interest. In comparing the rival routes to the coast from Cayahoga, on Lake Erie, Jefferson pointed out that to reach New York by the Mohawk and Hudson required eighty- five portages in eight hundred and twenty-five miles, while it was but four hundred and twenty-five miles to tide-water at Alexandria on the Potomac, with only two portages, and this route, he said at one time, "promises us almost a monopoly of the western and Indian trade." One of these portages was between the Cayahoga and the Beaver, where, as General Hand had informed Jefferson, a canal could be cut, connecting lagoons, in a flat country. The other interruption was between the Ohio valley and the Potomac, where a distance of fifteen to forty miles was to be overcome, "according to the trouble
NOTE. - The opposite map is a section of the " Map of the western part of the territories be- longing to the United States," in George Imlay's Topog. Description, London, 1793. It shows the different routes from Rielnnond and Alexandria over the mountains.
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THE INSECURITY OF THE NORTHWEST.
which shall be taken to approach the two navigations." Wash- ington, two years later, figured it more carefully, when he made. the distance from Fort Pitt to Alexandria three hundred and four miles, including thirty-one miles of land carriage. This was by the Youghiogheny ; but if the course by the Mononga- hela and Cheat River was followed, the distance would be found to be three hundred and sixty-five miles, with a portage of twenty miles.
Beside the rival plan of using the Hudson and the Mohawk, there was still the route from Philadelphia, which was a dis- tance of about three hundred and twenty miles, wholly by land. If water carriage be sought, this communication would be lengthened to four hundred and seventy miles, and would follow the course of the Schuylkill, Susquehanna, and Toby's Creek, the last an affluent of the Ohio. Charles Thomson, the sec- retary of Congress, was direeting attention to two other Penn- sylvania channels. One was to leave Lake Erie at Presqu'Isle, and proceed by the Alleghany and one of its branches to a portage connecting with the Juniata. The other joined Ontario with the east branch of the Delaware, through the Iroquois country. Virginians were aware of the spirit of the Pennsyl- vanians, and Madison wrote to Jefferson that "the efforts of Pennsylvania for the western commerce did eredit to her public councils. The commercial genius of Virginia is too much in its infancy to rival her example."
No one took more interest than Washington in this question of western transit. He expressed himself not without appre- hension lest the new settlements on the Ohio, left alone, would find it for their commercial interests to bind themselves with their British neighbors on the north, and seek an exit for their produce through the St. Lawrence, or with the Spaniards on the west and south, and find an outlet in the Gulf of Mexico. This might happen, he felt, all the more easily because aliens in considerable numbers, bound by no tradition or affinities of blood, were casting in their lots with the people of the remoter frontiers. It was with these fears, and seeking to avert them, that Washington turned to find some practicable communica- tion through the Appalachians. He could but be struek, he said, "with the immense diffusion and importance of the vast
251
WASHINGTON AND THE WEST.
inland navigation of the United States. Would to God," he exclaimed, " that we may have wisdom enough to improve them." Madison looked to this " beneficence of nature " as the sure protection for the evils of an over-extension of territory.
Just after the close of the war, Washington had visited the battlefields along the upper Hudson and the Mohawk, and had been impressed with the capabilities of canalization in that direction, so as to form a western route. He described his course to the Chevalier de Chastellux as " up the Mohawk to Fort Schuyler (formerly Fort Stanwix)," whence he " crossed over to Wood Creek, which empties into Oneida Lake and affords the water communication with Ontario. I then [he adds] traversed the country to the head of the eastern branch of the Susquehanna, and viewed Lake Otsego and the portage between that lake and the Mohawk River at Canajoharie."
Later, when once again in Virginia, in March, 1784, Wash- ington was urged by Jefferson to weigh against these New York rontes the advantages of the course by the Potomac. In the fol- lowing September (1784) Washington, going west to see some of his own lands, - on the Kanawha and the Ohio, which he was yet to hold for ten years and more, - followed the upper Potomac, and made observations of the most accessible ways to reach the waters of the Ohio. On his return, he addressed from Mount Vernon (October 10, 1784) a letter to Benjamin Harrison, then governor of Virginia, in which he said : " It has long been my decided opinion that the shortest, easiest, and least expensive communication with the invaluable and extensive country back of us would be by one or both of the rivers of this State, which have their sources in the Appalachian Moun- tains. Nor am I singular in this opinion. Evans, in his Map and Analysis of the Middle Colonies, which, considering the early period in which they were given to the public, are done with amazing exactness, and Hutchins, since, in his Topograph- ical Description of the Western Country, a good part of which is from actual surveys, are decidedly of the same sentiments, as indeed are all others who have had opportunities and have been at the pains to investigate and consider the subject." Washington then goes on to point out that Detroit is farther from tide-water on the St. Lawrence by one hundred and sixty- eight miles, and on the Hudson by one hundred and seventy-
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THE INSECURITY OF THE NORTHWEST.
six miles, than it is from a port for sea-going vessels on the Potomac. He proceeds to recommend the appointment of a commission to inspect the portages between the Potomac and the waters flowing into the Ohio, as well as to report upon a route by the James and the Great Kanawha, where the overland connection was thought to be about thirty miles. Jefferson had said of the Kanawha, as a suitable avenue for transit, that, rising in North Carolina, it " traversed our whole latitude," and offered to every part of the State "a channel for navigation and commerce to the western country."
Samuel Wharton, in 1770, had said of the Kanawha valley that barges could be easily moved to the falls. "Late discover- ies have proved," he adds, " that a wagon road may be made through the mountain which occasions the falls, and that by a portage of a few miles only a communication can be had be- tween the waters of the Great Kanawha and the James."
Washington closed his letter to Harrison with a reference to a new proposition of propelling vessels by mechanism : " I con- sider Rumsey's discovery for working boats against the stream, by mechanical power principally, as not only a very fortunate invention for these States in general, but as one of those cir- cumstances which have combined to render the present time favorable above all others for fixing, if we are disposed to avail ourselves of them, a large portion of the trade of the western country in the bosom of this State irrevocably."
James Rumsey, to whom Washington referred, was a machin- ist living on the upper Potomac, now a man of little more than forty years, who had exhibited to Washington a month before (September 6) a model of a double boat, which, by the applica- tion of mechanical power to setting poles, was intended "to inake way against a rapid stream by the force of the same stream." This exhibition drew a certificate of approval from Washington (September 7), but Rumsey soon abandoned this device for another, as we shall later see.
NOTE. - The opposite map is Washington's sketch (1784) of the divide between the Potomac and the Youghiogheny, as engraved in U. S. Docs., XIX. Cong., 1st Session, House of Rep., Report, No. 228. The committee making this report point out that the road (dotted line) from Cumber- land to the Youghiogheny is almost precisely the route of the later Cumberland road, and the dotted line A ..... B, across the Dividing Ridge, is almost identical with the recommendation of the government engineers (1826) for the course of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. These corre- spondences the committee consider to be proofs of the insight of this "great and extraordinary
A Hamur alias Ryane Glades. B Archers Spring
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BOTH The pains of contra prepared os present by the I States congress in the late report is perhaps a male lover down than the Listed have A. B as marked on the original map is 1784
Georges Creek
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THE INSECURITY OF THE NORTHWEST.
This letter to Harrison was communicated to the Virginia Assembly, and led to the formation of the James River and Potomac Canal Company. By December, 1784, the project of such an organization was well in hand, and Washington went to Annapolis to consult with the Assembly. Shortly afterwards (Jannary 5, 1785) he wrote, from Mount Vernon, to General Knox that the bills which had been prepared both for the Vir- ginia and for the Maryland legislatures, in which each State had pledged £1,000 to the project, were drafted to his liking. The plan embraced two measures. One was to clear a road, say forty miles in length, from the north branch of the Potomac to Cheat River, an affluent of the Monongahela, - a route which Jefferson considered " the true door to the western commerce." The other scheme was to carry a road from Will's Creek, and connect with the Youghiogheny, another branch of the Monon- gahela. This, however, required the concurrence of Pennsyl- vania, and in December, 1784, the Virginia Assembly had asked of Pennsylvania the privilege of free transit for goods through that government. The Assembly of that State had discovered by a survey that a canal wholly through her own territory, and connecting Philadelphia with the Susquehanna, would require £200,000 for its construction. This large cost inspired Jefferson with the hope that the Youghiogheny route would prevail, and Washington was convinced that this last channel was "the most direct route by which the fur and peltry of the lakes could be transported, while it is," as he added, " exceedingly convenient to the people who inhabit the Ohio (or Alleghany) above Fort Pitt." In anticipation of this route being selected, Brownsville was, in the spring of 1785, regularly laid out on the Monongahela, near Red Stone Old Fort, which had for some years become the usual starting-point for boats carrying emi- grants down the Ohio to Kentucky, and around which landing- place there had grown up a settlement of boat-builders and of traders in supplies.
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