The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources, Part 38

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897. cn
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Boston ; New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
Number of Pages: 622


USA > Mississippi > The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources > Part 38


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436 THE NORTHWEST TRIBES AT LAST DEFEATED.


Congress their aid in two respects to prevent the collapse of the Ohio Company. They represented that during 1791 and 1792 they had spent $11.350 in protecting themselves against the Indians, and they succeeded in indueing the government to assume a part of this. Their other plea touched the impending forfeiture of their lands, for their second payment of $50,000 was dne, and they had nothing with which to pay it. Their difficulty came in the main, as they urged, from their additional purchase of one million five hundred thousand acres, which they asked to be released from, for Colonel Duer and the other "first people," who had agreed to buy it of them, had not done so, and Richard Platt, their treasurer, was in jail, also, with a shortage of $80,000 in his accounts. They asked, also, that the charge for land per acre which had been agreed upon should be redneed, as the government was offering land at lower rates, and they could not compete with it. They made a pitiful plea of the consideration they should experience as pioneers, and it had its effect. But the poor aliens at Gallipolis grubbed on without such consideration. The Indians yelped in their ears, they got no letters from home, and it seemed to their mind a question whether revolutionary France or the " first people of America " were the most to be abhorred. In the spring of 1792, they began to seatter. Some went to Detroit, others fled to Kaskaskia. Those that stayed grew hollow-eyed, nervous, and hungry, while Duer relished his prison fare, and Cutler talked botany with those he met.


While such was the unprosperous outlook to the world, the President and his little cabinet were, during March, 1792, discussing the vexed problems that confronted them. When some one raised the question of employing Indians, Washington replied that they must be with us, or they would be sure to be against us. He would use them as scouts to embarrass the enemy's spies, and prevent their getting near enough to our troops to learn their numbers and purposes.


When Jefferson proposed to build a fort at Presqu'Isle on Lake Erie, - the modern town of Erie, - so as to indicate the American right to the navigation of that lake, and interpose an obstacle thereby to the communication of the Senecas with the western tribes, he opened a question that for two years stood


437


PETER POND.


in the way of pacifying Brant. The project was sure at all times to arouse a disposition in the British "to repel force by force," who looked upon it as fatal to their supremacy in those waters. At this moment, Hamilton and Knox objected to it as likely to hurry the country into a war with England. Washing- ton remarked that the fulfillment of such a plan was best left to a time when the United States eould devote a large force to maintain such a post. Jefferson, in pursuance of his plan, was suggesting at the same time to Hammond that the two countries could agree upon the naval force which was to be kept on the lakes.


The question came up again a little later, when Rufus Putnam, with little regard to available resources, sent in a plan of a line of posts, beginning at Big Beaver Creek, on the Ohio, and extending to Cayahoga Creek. He had traversed the country, and said it was the easiest communication to maintain between the Ohio and the lake, fit for a land carriage throughout, except where a causeway would have to be built through seven or eight miles of swampy land. Such a passage would not, he contended, be subject to the interruption at dry seasons which a water-way was sure to encounter. At the northerly end of this route, where is now the modern Cleveland, he had planned a strong fort and naval rendezvous, as the best point for sending supplies by the cheapest way to the Maumee country : "The sooner we show ourselves on the shores of Lake Erie, the better," he added. Washington easily pushed the plan aside as involving a division of the proposed legionary force, which was not likely to be more than enough for the main stroke farther west, since it was as yet by no means sure that recruits would be found in abundance. Beside, it was certainly Washington's opinion that defensive posts along a line had but little military effect upon such a scattered foe as the Indian tribes.


We have seen that one Peter Pond had within a year or two been trying to gain at the same time the favor of both the British and Americans. He had still more recently tried to reach the west by Niagara, but had been turned back by the British. He now appeared in Philadelphia, and made some startling statements to the government. He assured them that all efforts to establish a peace with the Indians would fail unless they would accept the mediation of England. He professed to


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THE NORTHWEST TRIBES AT LAST DEFEATED.


believe that this would have to be accomplished by a joint com- mission of three, representing respectively the Indians and the two governments, and that when the line of separation was determined, the British would guarantee its preservation to the Indians. Hamilton had little faith in Pond, as he well might have, and there was still less trust in his story of the intention of the British to settle a thousand families in the Illinois coun- try. The idea of British mediation in any way was an ungrate- ful one to the cabinet, and they promptly dismissed it in their counsels. A little later, Morris, in England, heard a rumor of the United States asking England to intercede, and communi- cated it to Washington. He replied with something like indig- nation that any suggestion of it would be promptly dismissed.


As the time approached for the coming of the Senecas to confer with the President and his advisers, it was decided at a cabinet meeting that the Indian embassy "should be well treated, but not over-trusted." Red Jacket and his fellows reached Philadelphia on March 13, 1792, under the escort of Kirkland. It was soon apparent that whatever friendly dispo- sition the visitors might manifest, a prevalence of it among the tribes at home could not be depended upon. Red Jacket, in accounting for this widespread distrust among his people, charged it upon the fact that the Six Nations were not asked to have any hand in the treaty of separation in 1782. He further told Pickering, who conducted most of the conferences with them, that the western Indians did not understand how the British and the Americans, "important and proud as they both were," having made a treaty, did not abide by it. Pickering said that the Miami and Wabash Indians had always been averse to a treaty, while the treaties entered upon with the other tribes were fairly made on both sides, and had been justly kept. The United States having thus acquired lands and made grants of them, they were under the necessity of protecting the grantees. It was said in reply that the agreement at Fort McIntosh was not a fair one, as those who represented the In- dians were not authorized. Further, there had been a studied purpose to exclude the Six Nations from these western treaties. This was, Red Jaeket affirmed, another cause of their grievance.


As was usual in such conferences, both sides uttered their beliefs, and that was about all, except, after Washington had,


439


ANTHONY WAYNE.


on April 25, made them a farewell speech, they had a last session on April 30, 1792, and departed with the promise to send a deputation to the western tribes. Brant, as we have seen, had declined to join in the deliberations, but, on May 27, he wrote to Knox that if later he found the Miamis approved it, he would consider the invitation afresh.


While these interviews with the Senecas were going on, Washington had been running over the names of officers, experienced in the late war, to find a successor to St. Clair. His first choice was Henry Lee of Virginia, and this gentleman desired the appointment ; but he was the junior in rank to those whom Washington wished to make his brigadiers, and the appointment was passed by in avoidanee of resulting jeal- ousies and refusals. Washington confessed he had never been so embarrassed in making any appointments. When the mat- ter was discussed in the cabinet, Jefferson records that the President looked upon Wayne as " brave and nothing else." Washington's studied and written estimate of Wayne, at this time, is fortunately preserved. He considered him " more aetive and enterprising than judieious and cautious. No econo- mist it is feared. Open to flattery, vain ; easily imposed upon and liable to be drawn into serapes." Such a character - and there is no doubt that such was a prevalent opinion of " Mad Anthony " - did not indeed promise well for the critical june- tion at the northwest, with England, if not in open, at least in equivocal relations with the enemy. Lee, when he heard of the result, expressed to the President his surprise, and told him the appointment had, in Virginia, created disgust. The choice was, in faet, not a little influenced by the restrictions of mili- tary etiquette and the necessity of harmonizing interests and seeuring good lieutenants. So in reply to Lee, Washington not so much vindicated his selection, as apologized for it. " Wayne," he wrote, " has many good points as an officer, and it is to be hoped that time, reflection, good advice, and above all a due sense of the importance of the trust will correet his foibles, or east a shade over them." It grew apparent in the next few months that Washington was not without anxiety lest results should reflect on his sagacity, and he kept Knox promptly to the task of eautioning the new commander.


The appointment naturally caused the English some solici-


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THE NORTHWEST TRIBES AT LAST DEFEATED.


tude, considering how easily an Indian war could induce in- advertences that might jeopardize the relations of the two peoples. Hammond wrote of the new leader that he was "the most active. vigilant, and enterprising officer in the American army, but his talents are purely military," and he felt, as he wrote to Simcoe, that Wayne might be tempted to attack the British posts, since success in such an act would be sure to make him the successor of Washington.


The selection of Wilkinson as the first of the four brigadiers was a bolder step, perhaps, than the choice of Wayne. When last heard from he had gone with one hundred and fifty mounted Kentucky volunteers to bury the mutilated dead on St. Clair's bloody field, and the act was one of the daring sort to which Wilkinson was quite equal. Washington, in discuss- ing him in the cabinet, had evidently recalled his dubious career in Kentucky, for Jefferson's summary of the talk makes the President call him " brave, enterprising to excess ; but many unapprovable points in his character." His written estimate avoids this shadow, when he calls Wilkinson "lively, sensible, pompous, and ambitious."


There had been an attempt to give the same rank to Colonel Marinus Willet, an officer of large experience in forest warfare, for he had been with Sullivan and had opposed St. Leger. He, however, shared the doubt of many northern men - being a New Yorker -of the advisability of an Indian war, and refused the appointment. In doing so, he gave an opinion that he had never known it to fail of success, when the Indians were attacked in a charge, with shouts louder than their own yell. Wayne wisely profited, as we shall see, by this veteran's ex- perience.


Meanwhile, to bring the British minister to some distinct expression of opinion as regards the posts, Jefferson on May 29, 1792, intimated to that gentleman that, while in managing with the state governments so complicated a matter as the recovery of the British debts some time must necessarily be consumed, it was a very short business for England to set things right on her side by surrendering the posts, which, as he said in one of his letters, was occasioning daily cost of "blood and treasure " to the United States. The story of the initial infraction of the treaty, whether it was to be charged to Eng-


441


RUFUS PUTNAM.


land or to the States, had become stale, but Jefferson rehearsed it. Hamilton, reverting to the debts, admitted that they were now ouly a question south of the Potomac, and that there were £2,000,000 still due in Virginia. The correspondence shows how the two failed to agree in most points, and that they were at variance on the rights of the British traders to follow their business on American soil. Nothing came of this recrimi- nation, and Hammond alleging that European complications were causing delay in the considerations in London, and other objects coming in view, the matter was for a while dropped.


Putnam, another of the new brigadiers, had been character- ized by Washington as possessing a " strong mind, and as a disereet man. No question has ever been made - that has come to my knowledge - of his want of firmness. In short, there is nothing conspicuous in his character, and he is but little known out of his own State and a narrow circle." Soon after his appointment, he was selected to follow up a mission to the Miamis, which had already been sent forward by a decision of the cabinet. On reaching Pittsburg in June, 1792, he found Wayne there, busily working at the problems before him. Passing down the river, Putnam met at Fort Washington ti- dings of the murder of Captain Alexander Truman, of the First Infantry, and his companions, who had gone ahead to reach the Miamis. After this, it was deemed foolhardy to follow in their track, and on July 5 Putnam sent back to Knox an urgent opinion that an attempt be made to treat with the Wabash In- dians instead. Hamtramck was still in command at Vincennes, but it was Washington's opinion that a negotiator of " more dignified character " should be sent, and Putnam was author- ized to proceed. He engaged Heckewelder, the missionary, to accompany him, and on September 13 they reached Vincennes. Ten days later, they entered upon negotiation, and after three days of belts and speeches, a conclusion was reached, by which the Pottawattamies and other tribes put themselves under the protection of the United States. The great point gained was that it interposed a body of friendly Indians between the hostile Miamis and the southern Indians, who were accustomed to bring their aid, by a detour through the west. Putnam had gone rather farther than the Senate in the end was ready to approve, in that he had guaranteed to these remote tribes the safe possession of their lands.


442 THE NORTHWEST TRIBES AT LAST DEFEATED.


These possible abettors of the Miamis on their western flank being thus placated, much depended, if there was to be peace, on an intercession with the Six Nations to secure their aid on the eastern flank of the Miami confederacy. The vital point in this endeavor was to gain the interest of Brant, who in the winter had declined cooperation, but was later persuaded by Kirkland to resist the dissnasive efforts of Sir John Johnson. Washington records Brant's arrival in Philadelphia on June 20, 1792, not far from the time that the misfortune to Truman was taking place. The President expressed the hope that the government could impress the chieftain with its equitable inten- tions. If Brant's own words can be believed, he was offered a thousand guineas and double the amount he was receiving annually from the British government, if he would adhere to the American side.


During his stay in Philadelphia, Brant dined with the Eng- lish minister, but without causing any comment. The cabinet was pleased with his peaceful disposition, and he promised to go himself to the western allies and intercede for the fulfillment of the Muskingum treaty. This was hopeful, but the expecta- tion was unstable. No sooner, on his return to Niagara, had he come in contact with adverse interests, than he wrote to Knox (July 26, 1792) that he could do nothing at the Maumee council, if the United States insisted upon the Fort Harmar treaty. Three days later, he communicated with McKee, ask- ing if he should carry the American proposition to the Indian 'council. McKee, who informed Simcoe that he had himself urged the Indians to accept a similar restriction of their de- mands, told Brant to go to the council, but to have no hope of getting it to agree to the Fort Harmar line. Simcoe, who was full of the idea that the United States meant to attack the posts, had arrived at Niagara in August, and his views were not modified by what he heard. Brant, falling ill, was obliged to transmit his message by his son.


Some weeks later, in September, 1792, the formal embassy of the Six Nations, in accordance with the agreement of the Senecas in Philadelphia, left Niagara under the lead of Corn- planter and Red Jacket. The council of the Miami eonfed- erates had been going on at the junction of the Anglaize and Manmee, with some interruption, since spring. MeKee and


443


THE INDIAN COUNCIL.


Simon Girty had been much of the time in attendance, dealing out powder and hatchets to the scalping parties, which at inter- vals came and went on their miserable errands.


The Shawnees, prominent in the council, had notified the Six Nations that they would receive no peace proposition except through them, and so the Senecas had come with some expecta- tion of better treatment than they got. Cornplanter and Red Jacket found the smoke of the council fire curling aloft amid the October leaves. Representatives of many tribes, all the way from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior, and even from west of the Mississippi, sat crouched beneath the blue veil that went twisting upward. When the speaker rose, there were sharp lines soon drawn in their opinions. The Shawnees were un- equivocally for war, and the eyes of Simon Girty, the only white man admitted to their conference, gleamed with satisfac- tion. Amid all the tedious and reiterative verbiage customary in such sittings, it was evident that the mission of the Six Nations was unpropitious. When Red Jacket in his speech counseled peace, there were murmurs of distrust. So, after all was said, the urgent appeals of Cornplanter and his followers produced no other result than that the final plunge into general hostility would be delayed till the Six Nations could arrange with the United States for another council at the Maumee rapids in the spring of 1793, if, in the mean while, the federal government would withdraw their troops south of the Ohio.


On the 12th of October, 1792, the council broke up. By the middle of November, Red Jacket was at Buffalo Creek ready to transmit to Philadelphia the decision of the confederated tribes. It was hardly a question with some Mohicans, who had returned from the Maumee with the Senecas, that war was inevitable.


When Brant was in Philadelphia, Washington had forecast the alternative. " If they will not listen to the voice of peace," he said, "the sword must decide the dispute; and we are, though very reluctantly, vigorously preparing to meet the event." These preparations had been going on all summer. Enlist- ments had not been brisk, and Washington had occasion not only to urge more active measures, but to check the enrolling of what he called " boys and miscreants," for St. Clair's expe- rienee was not to be forgotten. The President had watehed


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THE NORTHWEST TRIBES AT LAST DEFEATED.


anxiously the reports of Wayne to the secretary of war. He knew how much success depended upon a well-drilled force, and upon the cordial cooperation of the commander's officers. Knox had told him of the assiduity of Wilkinson, and he took occasion to let that brigadier know how much he appreciated his "zeal and ability." He cautioned Wayne, however he might avoid lavish expenditures in other matters, " not to be sparing of powder and lead to make his soldiers marksmen."


Wayne at one time submitted plans of what Washington called " desultory strokes " upon St. Joseph and Sandusky, as calculated to distract the enemy, and to retaliate for the marand- ing which we have seen McKee and Girty were encouraging at Auglaize. Washington, however, had little commendation for strokes at a venture, which might lose more men than the recruiting could replace. More important, as the President thought, was it to get correct information by scouts, either from the Indians or English, of the force to be encountered, so that when the time came for advancing there might be no groping in the dark. He also felt constrained to counsel a stricter supervision of the contractors at Pittsburg, so that the com- plaints which St. Clair had made might not be repeated. Here was the need of the care of an " economist," for John Pope, a traveler of this time, says that goods of every description are " dearer in Pittsburg than in Kentucky, owing to a combina- tion of scoundrels who infest the place."


All through the summer, the levies, either on their way to , Pittsburg or in camp there, had lost by desertions, and it was too difficult to enroll men to suffer this to go on. So, as the autumn advanced, it was under consideration to move the army onward to some spot better guarded against the chances of escape, and where the surrounding country had the features suited to practice the men in forest paths. Washington had been inclined to divide the force between Cincinnati, Marietta, and some spot not far from Pittsburg, where Wayne himself could remain in easy communication with the government. Finally, however, it was determined to make a winter camp at a point abont twenty-seven miles below Pittsburg, and in No- vember, 1792, we find the President cautioning Wayne against


NOTE. - The map on the opposite page, of Pittsburg and vicinity, is from Victor Collot's Jour- ney in North America, Paris, 1826, Atlas, plate 8.


C


Camp occupied in 1792 by Gen.l Wayne against the Indians .


Seven mile or long Island


6


- Chải tiền


PITTSBURGH


M. Kee's Port


Monongahela.


ogany


446 THE NORTHWEST TRIBES AT LAST DEFEATED.


needless outlay in the barracks. When in the same month Washington met Congress, he confessed that recruiting had so fallen off that some additional stimulus must be devised.


While these military preparations were going on, it remained the policy of the federal government to avert, if possible, the actual clash of arms. The proposition of the Miami confed- eracy at their last council opened the way, and there was the same channel of communication as before in the professed will- ingness of the Six Nations to intercede. Washington had little hope of appeasing the Indians, so long, he said, as they were " under an influence which is hostile to the rising great- ness of these States," as the neighboring British were supposed to be. The intercourse which the members of the government had had with Hammond had not, to say the least, removed the impression of latent hostility, and of a purpose to interpose, if possible, a barrier territory, appertaining to the Indians, by some new disposition of bounds in qualification of the treaty of 1782. Hammond was but a young man, perhaps not as disereet as he should be, and he doubtless had a difficult part to play, and it may be that he did not deserve all the suspicion under which he lay at the time, and which has affected the disposition of American historians since. Jefferson bluntly told him that the publie was not ready to accept his denial of England's com- plicity in the enmity of the Indians ; though in diplomatic def- erenee, the American government might not be so distrustful.


1 In December, 1792, the cabinet had decidedly disclaimed any intention of accepting British mediation. If at that time they had understood Simcoe's character as well as they did later, they might not have agreed to allow his presence at the negoti- ations to be renewed. Simcoe was at the time firm in the belief that the Americans would make the intended conference an oc- easion to assert their rights to the navigation of Lake Erie, by conveying the provisions which their commissioners required over its waters in their own vessels. He accordingly sought instructions as to what conduct he should pursue in maintaining what he called British naval superiority on the lake. Clarke, who was aeting at Quebec in the absence of Dorchester, em- phatically shared Simcoe's views, and the issue was ultimately avoided by a proposal of the Canadian government to furnish what supplies were required.


447


THE AMERICAN COMMISSIONERS.


The President, who had failed to induce Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Charles Thomson, the old clerk of the earlier Congress, to act as commissioners to the Indians, finally selected Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph, and Timothy Pickering. They were confirmed by the Senate, March 1, 1793. It was understood that some $50,000 worth of presents would be put at their disposal, with authority to contribute annually $10,000, beside $2,000 to the head chiefs, as compensation for the accept- ance by the Indians of the terms of the Fort Harmar treaty of 1789. To afford some play in their conciliatory measures, the cabinet had already expressed an opinion that if peace could better be secured by it, the commissioners might consent to a line short of the Fort Harmar line, provided it kept secure all lands which the government had already appropriated, granted, or reserved. This was yielding what the disputed treaty had, in Jefferson's opinion, brought within the American jurisdic- tion, and he alone of the President's advisers contended that the concession was unconstitutional. His alternative was to retain jurisdiction, but to agree not to settle the unappropriated territory. It was his opinion, also, that any line was liable to error of description, because of the insufficient knowledge of the country, and that Hutchins's map, on which the treaty agree- ments had been marked, did not show the lines with any exact- ness, except where the bounds were brought to the Ohio River.




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