The westward movement : the colonies and the republic west of the Alleghanies, 1763-1798 with full cartographical illustrations from contemporary sources, Part 40

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 40


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


Major Campbell, in charge of the British fort, sent next day word to Detroit that an action had been fought " almost within reach of the guns of the fort." The same day, August 21, he sent a flag to the American commander, asking what he meant by such threatening action in sight of his Majesty's flag. Wayne at once replied that his guns talked for him, but he rather need- lessly argued the point of the British encroachment in building a post on recognized territory of the United States. He elosed with demanding its surrender. The next day Campbell replied that he could only receive orders to give up the fort from his own superiors, and threatened that if the insult to the British flag was continued, and the Americans came within range of his guns, he would open fire. There was a story started by a traveler, Isaac Weld, a year later, that Wayne rode up to the stoekade with defiant bearing, so as to provoke a discharge, and give him a pretext for attacking. There is no other evidence of such an act. Wayne's last note was to ask the garrison to retire to some post which had existed at the time of the treaty of 1782. He wisely did not try to force such retirement, and Campbell bore himself with like restraint.


Wayne contented himself with destroying the traders' huts in the neighborhood, including those of McKee, without a motion on the part of Campbell. Simcoe is said at a later day to have taken upon himself the credit of preserving the peace, since Dorchester, as he averred, had instructed him to attack Wayne. It is known from a letter to Hammond in September that Dorchester was confident of a conflict, to be brought on by Wayne's attacking the fort.


460


THE NORTHWEST TRIBES AT LAST DEFEATED.


After spending three days in completing the destruction of all property outside the fort, Wayne began a march by easy stages up the river. Hle swept away cornfields for fifty miles on each side of the stream. On reaching Fort Defiance, he put it in better condition for defense, and on August 28 sent off a dispatch to Knox. It was less than a month later that the first rumors of Wayne's success reached Philadelphia, on September 23, in advance of the official tidings.


From Fort Defiance, Wayne continued his march up the Mamnec. He reached the confluence of the St. Mary and St. Joseph on September 17, and by the 22d he had completed Fort Wayne at that strategic point where the portage to the Wabash began. He put Major Hamtramck in command.


Simcoe, immediately upon the result of the campaign being known, had written to Brant that he hoped the Indians would " recover their spirits." He expected now by a conference at Fort Miami to help produce such a reaction. There he met McKee and Brant, and it was thought best to have a larger body in council at the mouth of the Detroit River on October 10.


Meanwhile, Wayne, at his new stockade, was listening to the speeches of other factions of the tribes, who had learned by recent events not to place much confidence in British promises. Not all these speeches were reassuring, for there was occasion- ally a chief who would warm at Wayne's renewed proposals of confirming the treaty of Fort Harmar, and at such occurrences Wayne grew anxious and sent messages to Philadelphia for reinforcements to be ready for any emergency.


The British conference at Detroit River came off as ar- ranged. Simon Girty was present as usual, and helped in the distribution of the British gifts. Simcoe now told the Wyan- dots and the others that they must stand for the Ohio bounds as resolutely as ever, and he promised that if the Americans approached Fort Miami again, they should be fired upon. We have Simcoe's speech and testimony about his advice from those who heard it, and Brant supported his insidious views. He urged the Indians to convey in trust to the British all the land north of the Ohio which was in dispute between them and the Americans, so as to give the British the right to interfere in protecting it. He also treacherously counseled the patching


461


WAYNE AT GREENEVILLE.


up of a temporary truce which would give both the English and the Indians the time for preparation which was needed, so as to renew the war with better promise in the spring.


Such advice, however, failed of the intended effect, and it was soon apparent that Wayne had secured by his victory a vantage- ground that he could use to effect. The Delawares had already approached him, and Dorchester, kept informed by Simcoe of the general disaffection towards English interests which Wayne's diplomacy was increasing, lost no time in informing the Ameri- can general that Grenville and Jay, now negotiating a treaty of pacification in England, had reached a conclusion by which the military conditions should remain for the present unchanged. The fact was that the British government were more desirous of bringing to an end their critical relations with the United States than they were willing to disclose to the American envoy. This growing policy of amity proved a sore grievance to Sim- coe, and he spent his energies during the closing months of 1794 in seeking to prevent such a consummation. He urged that Fort Miami should not be abandoned. He wrote to Ham- mond to stir him to a protest to the federal government against the demeanor of Wayne, who, in gaining the Indian favor, was thwarting some of Simcoe's cherished purposes. He wrote to the Lords of Trade offering them a plan for shutting out trad- er's coming from the American seaboard, by establishing British depots along the portages to the Mississippi valley, and par- ticularly by that at Chicago. He grew suspicious of Brant, and, to prevent his defection, sought permission to offer the Mohawk chief a pension for his family.


All this while, Wayne, who had reached Greeneville early in November, was receiving messages of peace from the same Wy- andots that Simcoe had flattered at the Detroit River, and it was soon known that the tribes who had crossed the Mississippi, to fight under Little Turtle, had recrossed it to Spanish ter- ritory. Wayne's plans for a final settlement in the following season were progressing with few halts. So, as Simcoe showed himself a man grasping at straws, but doomed to disappoint- ment, the year closed with Wayne growing more and more in stature as the arbiter of the red man's future.


CHAPTER XXI.


JAY'S TREATY AND THE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY OF THE NORTIIWEST SECURED.


1794-1796.


LATE in 1793, the British government had shown a dispo- sition to approach the unsettled questions of the treaty of 1782. On December 15, Jefferson stated to Hammond that the American grievances, so far as they related to the western country, were, in the first place, the retention of the posts; next, the extension of British jurisdiction beyond the area of British possessions in 1782; and last, the obstacles placed by the au- thorities in Canada in the way of the American right of navi- gation on the lakes. The solution of these questions at issue was necessarily affected by the attitude which Spain and France were assuming towards the United States, - a discussion cov- ered in other chapters. To side with England, which was a motive charged upon the federalists, was likely to bring on a war with France, in which Spain might or might not be an indifferent spectator, but it was hardly possible that England, , at least, would allow her to remain so. To side with France would inevitably incite hostilities in England, and with Eng- land's coercion Spain was not likely to escape an alliance with her. This was a contingency which the federalists greatly deprecated, and the republicans were hardly ready to force. A. war with England meant, indeed, a chance for privateering, and the starting of such manufactures as would, under the re- strietions growing out of war, be ultimately productive for the North. What a British war meant to the South was a relief from the pressing burden of the English debts, - a certain gain that obscured remoter loss. "The Virginians," said Oliver Wolcott, "in general hate the English because they owe them money. They love the French from consanguinity of charac- ter." Hamilton and the federalist leaders saw in an English


463


JAY SENT TO ENGLAND.


war an almost certain loss of the country north of the Ohio and stretching to the Mississippi, because of the ease with which the Canadian forces could be aided from the West Indies. In such a contingency, all the efforts which Wayne was making to save that region to the Union would avail little against the establishment of that barrier Indian territory, which was Sim- coe's dream. Such loss of territory must also give English merchants the control of the Indian trade, a consideration which had been pressed upon the Board of Trade.


In this complexity of chances there was much diversity of aim, even among those who resented the conduct of England. Jay grasped the situation. "Great Britain has acted unwisely and unjustly," he said (April 10, 1794), "and there is some danger of our acting intemperately." So people were easily grouping into three divisions. First, there were those who were for peace with England at all risks. Then, those who were for war, the sooner the better. Last, those who were irritated to a very frenzy, but were restrained from forcing an outbreak, if it could be avoided.


There was a danger that a prolonged uncertainty would end in war, and Washington, eager to secure peace even at some sacrifice, determined to try the effect of a special envoy to the British court. On April 6, 1794, he sent the name of John Jay to the Senate as such an envoy. Jay had in the past made no hesitation in affirming that the Americans had made the first breach of the treaty of 1782. So both the envoy and the mission were little less than repulsive to the ardent haters of England. With the admirers of France it was questionable if any advance towards England under existing circumstances was not a transgression of the treaty of 1778 with that power, - an obligation which the federalists denied. Randolph, as secretary of state, undertook to explain to Fauchet, the French minister, - and there soon transpired signs of an existing dubious intercourse between the two, - that it was necessary to negotiate with England to avoid a war which the States were not ready to encounter. John Adams, with a politician's eye, was at the same time supposing that the opposition to Jay arose from an apprehension that, if the mission was successful, Jay would be lifted into a dangerous competition with Jefferson.


The most active objection in Congress to confirming the


464


JAY'S TREATY.


mission came from the South. This was largely for the alleged reason that an adjustment would benefit eastern commerce, and embarrass the South still more in the matter of the British debts. There was also a fear that immediate northern interests might be paramount to regaining the posts, and this was the plea of the South to the West for support. In the final vote, seven votes from Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Kentucky, with a single vote from New York, constituted the opposition, while eighteen votes, mainly from the North, secured the mission and committed Jay to a rather harassing task. The result was to thwart a proposed plan, which Madi- son and others had counted on, to extort redress from England. At near the same time, on an appealed case, the Supreme Court had decided that certain aets of the Virginia legislature, in- tended to relicve debtors to English merchants, were unconsti- tutional. Thus the southern project was doubly blocked.


Jay's instructions were signed on May 6, and at this time the federal government knew that Dorchester had made his threatening speech. They had not learned, however, of a result of that speech in the advance of Simcoe upon the Miami. If they had, JJay's instructions might have been more vigorous.


When Jay reached England, on June 8, he suspected that the two countries had only narrowly escaped war, and that Dor- chester and Simcoe, in their recent acts, had been inspired by ministerial views. With better information we may now doubt if he had good grounds for his apprehension, and may rather , believe that the ministry were only too ready for some sort of an accommodation. This appearance, to Jay's mind, arose in part from the fear, which he thought was entertained, that Wayne really intended to attack Detroit; while the more con- ciliatory spirit which he found in Grenville, when he first had his interviews with him, was to be traced to a change in conti- mental affairs, which had suddenly become a cause of alarm to the ministry. Three days later (June 23), Jay learned from Dr. William Gordon, the historian of the American Revolution, then living in England, that the United States must not expect to secure the surrender of the posts. Jay, in reporting Gor- don's views to Washington, confessed that he did not see the insuperable difficulties which alarmed Gordon. A week later (June 27), Jay and Grenville were fairly at their work. By


465


THE TREATY SIGNED.


· the middle of July, they had so advanced in mutual confidences that Jay assured the English minister that Wayne had no in- structions to attack the posts, and Portland communicated the assurance at once (July 15) to Dorchester. Whereupon the two negotiators agreed that there should be nothing done, un- friendly in act, anywhere along the Canadian frontier. Jay so notified Washington on July 21, and the English sent to Dorchester a message which, we have seen, was transmitted from Quebec to Wayne.


After this the interchange of views went slowly on, all tend- ing to establish, at last, a common ground. Jay was some fifteen weeks or more away from his government, counting the out and return voyages. He grew, in his isolation, confident that whatever he did would find inimical critics, and he wrote to the President that he trusted, whatever might happen, to " the wisdom, firmness, and integrity of the government."


There did not grow up in the States much confidence in Jay's accomplishing anything till some time in October, and then the French faction grew certain that he could but sacrifice the honor of the country. These revilers were convinced that Washington had failed to do what he could to rescue Tom Paine from the imprisonment into which Robespierre had thrown him, and that this indifference of the President was due to his fear that England, which hated Paine, might resent any sympathy for him. Under such circumstances, one readily understands why Paine, learning by rumor something of Jay's relations with Grenville, called it " a satire upon the Declaration of Indepen- dence," and such opinions were easily wafted across the waters.


On November 19, Portland wrote to Dorchester that the treaty had been signed, but that its contents would not be divulged till both governments had ratified it. Jay transmitted the same day to Oliver Ellsworth his opinion that he had ex- acted as much as conld be procured. Copies of the treaty were sent off by different vessels on November 20 and 21. The first was thrown overboard at sea to prevent the French capturing it. The other ultimately reached its destination.


The British government, not yet possessed of Fanchet's inter- cepted dispatch, soon to be in their hands, had already taken their measure of Randolph, the American Secretary of State, and, because of his hard denunciations of English action, pro-


466


JAY'S TREATY.


fessed to believe his temper would be inimical to peace, and at once notified Hammond to avoid intercourse with him, to compass his downfall if possible, and to seck Hamilton instead as the means of concerting action for the suppression of Indian hostilities along the frontiers.


Before any of the official communications could reach Phila- delphia, a fast vessel, leaving Ramsgate, had arrived at Cape Ann, bringing word that the treaty had been signed; this was known in Boston on January 29, 1795. Nearly six weeks later, on March 7, the treaty itself was in the hands of Washington, and remained there, a secret possession, shared only by those closest to him, for three months. Jay reached New York on May 28, to find himself chosen governor of New York two days before. Summonses had already been sent for the assembling of the Senate on June 8, to take the treaty into consideration. Fauchet, ignorant of the outburst which his disclosures about Randolph was soon to produce, interceded with the government to prevent the presentation of the treaty to the Senate till his successor, Adet, with the views of the French government on the crisis, could arrive. The new French minister did not reach Philadelphia till June 13. At that time, the treaty was before the Senate, in the usual secret sessions, and that body was known to have assembled in nearly full numbers. There were ruunors of the hard fate which had been planned for it, and the reports did not misrepresent the fact. The opposition was warm. There was no sure index to the ardent discontentsin · local sympathies. Of the western members, Humphrey Mar- shall stood for it; Blount was against it. It was, however, owing to the strennous exertions of Hamilton and Rufus King that the instrument was saved, and then only by accepting an amendment that did not, moreover, particularly concern thie west, but affected the trade with the West Indies. With this change, it took its final stages, on June 24, by a vote of twenty to ten, and on June 26 the Senate adjourned.


The treaty was to have been given to the public on July 1, but the Aurora, a newspaper inimical to the government, secured the substance of it, and printed it in imperfect shape on June 29. Two days later, the genuine text was accessible.


Before considering the uncertainty in Washington's mind whether he should allow it to become a law, it will be well to


467


CANADIAN FUR TRADE.


review at some length such of its provisions as affected the west- . ern country. The agreements respecting the commerce of the seaboard, and the establishment of commissions to adjudicate upon the debt, did not affect the people beyond the mountains except as they in some degree shared in the fortunes of the east. Of the $25,000,000 to be placed as claims against the American debtors, a small part concerned the western people, and little was at stake with them when the whole business of the claims was brought to a close in 1804. In respect to the trade with Canada, the west had a principal interest, for by the provisions of the treaty the eastern merchants were in some measure shut out from it. It was, on the whole, a gain to the west, for it opened the St. Lawrence route to the sea for western produce, with low duties, and none for furs. It also promised that return merchandise could be brought to a large section of the west at less cost than transportation over the mountains would entail. It was Hamilton's opinion, about the rights accorded to the Indian traders to pass the boundary line in either direction for traffic, that the United States would profit more than Canada. He also believed that these provisions blocked "the dangerous project of Great Britain to confine the United States to the Ohio," and that they tended " most power- fully to establish the influence and authority of the general government over the western country." The objection which was pressed was that the Constitution was violated in taking from Congress the right to regulate trade, and vesting it in the treaty-making power. When, later, it was attempted to regu- late this Indian trade another way by Wayne's negotiation, the paramount authority of Jay's treaty was allowed at the instance of Great Britain.


It was, indeed, true at this time, as General Collot, who was a little later inspecting these conditions, saw, that the tribes and fur-bearing animals south of the lakes and east of the Missis- sippi did not constitute the chief resource for what was properly called the fur trade. The favorable conditions were, in fact, to be found west of the Mississippi, in Spanish territory, to which access must be had through what the treaty of 1782 had recog- nized as American territory. It was from this country that the English house of Tode & Co., who had bought the right from the New Orleans government for £20,000, had, by making


468


JAY'S TREATY.


fortified stations along the St. Peter and Des Moines rivers, almost completely driven the Spanish traders, notwithstanding the transporting of furs to New Orleans by the Mississippi was much easier than to take them to Montreal.


The Spanish had kept the Missouri River in their own hands, and, two miles from its mouth, they maintained a trading-post, St. Charles, which, with its hundred and more houses, was the remotest station in this direction. The river, as Collot said, had been explored upward more than six hundred leagues without finding any obstruction. Its current was said to be gentle till it received the Platte, which after their junction forced the stream rapidly along. That French traveler reached the conclusion that the Missouri must rise in a prolongation of the Cordilleras, which Mackenzie had called the Stony Moun- tains, while they were known to the tribes as the Yellow Moun- tains : and these mountains were reported to run parallel to the coast of the South Sea, a hundred or a hundred and twenty leagues distant. The notions then prevailing placed high up on the Missouri the Big Bellies (eight hundred warriors) and just below them the Mandans (three hundred warriors). Their trade was mainly by the Red River to the Indians about Hud- son's Bay; but over the mountains, fifteen to twenty days distant, were the Crows, on a river which communicated with the South Sea.


Of the £19,000 in duties which were paid on American furs in London, a large part came from Spanish Louisiana, and nearly all from west and north of the lakes. This was partly occasioned by the fact that the Spanish traders, so far as they rivaled the English ones, were obliged to draw their supplies from Montreal, which they paid for in peltries. The English were particularly active on the St. Peter and Des Moines, where they came in contaet with the Sioux. To reach the St. Peter the English passed from Lake Superior to the Goddard River, thence by a portage of nine miles to the St. Croix, and so to the Mississippi. They took the Green Bay and Wisconsin River route to reach the "Moins" River, which was of less importance in this trade than the St. Peter. The English had


NOTs. - The map on the opposite page is from Guthrie's New System of Geography m a "Map of the United States agreeable to the Peace of 1783," London, 1785-92. It shows the supposed islands of Lake Superior and the Grand Portage.


A


Woods


R. S! Peter


the Long Lakes


Tyralıus I:


R.S! Peter


Groseillers R.


LA K L matrepas I.


L. Missisagan


FI Royal


I. Philippedux -..


I.Pontefürtrain


E


a


ftern Sioux


Lake R.


dadeba R


Welt B


Apostles


nesunan B.


Great I.


st Marys Falls


S


St Mario


wuakinad-


L AK


Bever


Gr Bay


Quedeba R


. Utarras Lakes R.& Lake


Enscifs R.


Falls


Malaminuan R.


Flarguettes


Mascara


of the Desarl Man !!


one


Inso


R. S.Lewis


SS UP E


L. & H


R I O Preauharnot


Ouabaougetan R


Portage R


R. S.t. Jones


R. Neouissac


B St Charles


Chi P Hoquets B. YouCan. w a


3 Anthony s


LAK


of the


Ft. St Peters destroyd


470


JAY'S TREATY.


made their chief depot of supplies at Mackinac, but now that the treaty was to transfer this post, they were planning to maintain their connection with the trans-Mississippi country from St. Joseph's Island in the channel connecting Lakes Superior and Huron. Thence to Montreal, their usual route had lain by the okl portage to the Ottawa from Lake Huron. Though the portages in this course were numerous, their canoeists could cont more accurately on the time required in reaching Mon- treal by this course than by that of the lakes, since adverse winds on these waters sometimes delayed their boats, and made their arrival too late for shipment to England.


Under these circumstances, and knowing that the surrender of the posts would strengthen the American jurisdiction over the extreme limits of the Republic, Grenville had stubbornly contended for a rectification of the bounds west of Lake Supe- rior, so that the Canadian traders could pass to upper Louisiana over British territory. This question was mated with another, namely, that of the British right to navigate the Mississippi, as provided by the treaty of 1782, and complicated also by the demands of Spain in the same direction.


The treaty of 1782 had drawn the northern boundary line of the United States due west from the Lake of the Woods along the 49th parallel, till it struck the headwaters of the Missis- sippi. The sources of that river, it was now known, were considerably south of that line, and therefore at no point did British territory touch the Mississippi, upon which the treaty gave her the right of navigation ; for while America and Spain held the river at the north, the latter country possessed both banks at its mouth. It was Grenville's claim that since the treaty gave England a right upon the river, she was entitled to a rectification of the boundary so as to assure that right. Jay explained the grant of such a right on the river to have been allowed by the United States because, at the date of the treaty, it was supposed, as the secret article of the treaty indicated, that England, in the general treaty, then soon to follow, would secure, in the acquisition of west Florida, a boundary on the river at the south. That accession of territory not taking place, the Americans claimed that the right of navigating the river either lapsed, or, if it held, it must be considered as exist- ing withont a boundary on the river.




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.