Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1, Part 8

Author: Greve, Charles Theodore, b. 1863. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1020

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By the treaty of Easton with the Pennsylvania Delawares in the autumn of 1756, an agreement was reached that settlers should not pass the mountains. The spaces beyond the Alleghanies were to be kept sacred for the hunting grounds of the red men and no one should occupy them except with the permission of the tribes thent- selves. At this very time three millions of acres of this land had been sold to different companies.

At Fort Pitt in 1760 leave was obtained to build posts within the Indian country, each post to have enough ground about it to raise corn and vegetables for the use of the garrison.

After the siege of Detroit was raised in 1764, a treaty was made at the council held there in which took part the Ottawas, Ojibwas, Potta-

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI

wattamies, Miamis, Sacs and Wyandots, which was simply a treaty of peace and to relinquish the title to the English post and the territory around them for the distance of a cannon shot and recognize the sovereignty of the English.

The celebrated peace made by Bouquet with the tribes along the Muskingum, the Delawares, the Senecas and Shawanees was in 1764.

In the spring of the following year in accord- ance with the promise made to Bouquet, the tribes of the West entered into a treaty with Sir William Johnson at the German Flats, New York. The Indians at this time desired to fix the Western boundary at the Allegheny River but Johnson pleaded lack of authority and the con- troversy remained unsettled.

The treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 was prob- ably the first to fix boundaries of any definiteness. It is described at length in another chapter.

The treaty of Lochavar made two years after the Stanwix treaty recognized a title in the Southern Indians to certain lands covered by the grant made by the Northern Indians but this did not serve to bother the settlers whose con- science was quieted by the alleged Iroquois title.

The treaty of Camp Charlotte in 1774 prac- tically concluded Dunmore's War.

The treaty of the Watauga branch of the Hol- ston River in March, 1775, was with the Cherokee Indians and transferred certain lands south of the Ohio to the Transylvania Company. This included about half of the modern State of Ken- tucky and part of Tennessee lying near the south- erly bend of the Cumberland. It was bounded by the Kentucky, Holston, Cumberland and Ohio rivers and included a territory of about eighteen millions of acres.

A conference with the Western Indians at- tended by the Delawares, Scnecas and Shawanees was held at Pittsburg in October, 1775. The Indians were divided in their views with relation to the dissension of the Americans and English and at this time one of their chieftains, Captain White Eyes ever a friend of the Americans, as- serted the independence of the Delawarcs and denied the claim of the Iroquois to rule his peo- ple. The English faction was led by the celc- brated Captain Pipe.

The Delawares however headed by White Eyes, Pipe and Kill-Buck formed a treaty of peace at Fort Pitt in September, 1778, with the Virginians.

At Fort Stanwix in 1784, the Six Nations under the leadership of Cornplanter and Red Jacket met Richard Butler, Oliver Wolcott and

Arthur Lee. This was the first recognition by the Indians of the new republic. Despite the re- luctance of the Indian chiefs, the treaty was signed which virtually extinguished the Indian title to the lands lying north and west of the Ohio both in Pennsylvania and in New York.

The pretension of the Six Nations to sell these lands over which they in fact had no control for years angered the Western tribes and it be- came necessary to quiet them. This was done in the treaties made at Fort McIntosh and Fort Finney .~ At Fort McIntosh near the mouth of Beaver creek, thirty miles below Fort Pitt the American commissioners, George Rogers Clark, Samucl H. Parsons and Isaac Lane met representatives of the Wyandots, Delawares, Chippewas and Ottawas. By the treaty which was agreed upon, January 1, 1785, a section was reserved for the Indians in the northwestern part of Ohio and all the lands east and south and west of the lines bounding this section were acknowledged by the Indians of the conference to belong to the United States.

The Shawanees on the Scioto had kept aloof from the treaty at Fort McIntosh and for their benefit a conference was held at Fort Finney at the mouth of the Great Miami. The commis- sioncrs here were Gen. George Rogers Clark, Gen. Richard Butler and Gen. Samuel H. Par- sons. On January 31, 1786, a treaty was con- cluded here by which the Shawanees agrecd to practically the same terms as those incorporated in the treaty at Fort McIntosh. The Shawanees agreed to confine themselves in the territory be- tween the Great Miami and the Wabash. From this time until the actual settlement in the Ohio country the Indians avoided making any further treaties.

St. Clair in the summer of 1788 made an ef- fort to negotiate a treaty and finally succeeded in gathering the warrior chieftains at Fort Har- mar in September. Negotiations were delayed by the slowness by which the representatives of the tribes came in. Among the Six Nations Brant and McKce used all their influence to prevent a conference; however St. Clair suc- ceeded in January, 1789,` in negotiating two treaties. The first was with the Six Nations, except the Mohawks who had withdrawn witli Brant to Detroit, and confirmed the cessions made at Fort Stanwix in 178.4. The other was with the Wyandots and other Western tribes and confined the grants at Fort McIntoshi and Fort Finney in 1785. These treaties of Fort Harmar were the most important to the settlers as they

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assured to them the lands just opened by the grants from Congress northwest of the Ohio. It was the delay in the negotiations at Fort Har- mar that on the one hand kept Symmes so long at Limestone and that on the other occupied the attention of the Indians so that there was com- paratively little annoyance from them at the time of the landings at Columbia, Yeatman's Cove and North Bend.

On September 27, 1792, Rufus Putnam having reached Vincennes, met thirty-one chiefs includ- ing the various tribes of Miamis and Illinois Indians and concluded a treaty of peace which however the Senate refused to ratify because of its guaranty to the Indians of their lands.

The treaty of Greenville in 1795 came as the conclusion of Wayne's campaign and practically reaffirmed the former treaties of Fort Harmar.

The treaties after Greenville were quite nu- merous and as a result little by little all claim of the Indians to any, of the land now in the State of Ohio was surrendered.

The Miamis, by the Greenville treaty and a treaty later in 1809, ceded their lands between the Wabash and the Ohio State line. They did not join the alliance proposed by Tecumseh but did finally enlist against the Americans in the War of 1812 and attacked a detachment of Gen- eral Harrison's army commanded by Lieutenant- Colonel Campbell. They were defeated and sued for peace in a final treaty which was concluded with them September 8, 1815, by which time their numbers had very much decreased as a re- sult of their wars and their drunkenness.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY. CARTIER TO PONTIAC.

THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH EXPLORATIONS-ROBERT CAVELIER, SIEUR DE LA SALLE-KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN HORSESHOE-CELORON DE BIENVILLE-CHRISTOPHER GIST-GEORGE WASHINGTON -THE ENGLISH SUPREMACY -- PONTIAC'S CONSPIRACY.

THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH EXPLORATIONS.

The history of any particular place or people is an integral part of the history of the world. The course of human events is one connected whole, and at no point in the development of the race can the narrator content himself with saying that here begins the history of the particular epoch he is about to describe. This is particu- larly true in the case of the history of the Amer- ican people or any community of that people made up as it is of settlers from all parts of the world driven from their homes by various reasons of expediency differing in almost every individual case. Separated as were the original settle- ments both by time and distance, distinct as were their forms of government and modes of life and manner of thought, they soon touched at many points and finally merged into a united whole sharing in the resultant body the different tendencies that characterize the constituent parts and showing new peculiarities as developed by local conditions of the differing environment.

In the case of a city such as Cincinnati it is a very simple matter for the chronicler to state that it was first settled in 1788, received its pres- ent name in 1790, was created a township in 1701, was incorporated as a village in 1802, and became a city in 1819, from which time it has continued to flourish in population, business wealth and culture, until the present day. Such a bare recital of chronological details would have the sole merit of accuracy which is the

great desideratum of modern historical work but it would be of but little value or interest. From such details one would learn nothing of the con- dition and causes that led to the settlement of the city, the influences that surrounded its early life and molded its subsequent character, nor any adequate explanation of its present high position in the world of business, art and letters. To understand properly the history of the foun- dation and development of such a city it is neces- sary to consider somewhat the events that pre- ceded,-not only those belonging geographically to its immediate vieinity but many that both in point of time and locality scem at first sight a trifle remote.

The carly history of the site of Cincinnati and its neighborhood is intimately connected with the history of the great struggle for colonial possession that so involved three great nations of Europe. France was the first great explorer and trader, England a century later began her policy of colonization while Spain ever jealously viewed the great waterways. To quote from a recent writer, Charles Moore :

" France discovered and occupied the North- " west ; but England included that region be- 'tween the infinite parallels bounding on the " north and the south the colonies of Virginia. " Massachusetts, and Connecticut. It was not " until a full century after France had estab- " lished her trade from the St. Lawrence to the " Mississippi that the English Colonies, as their

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population increased, began to plan the occu- pation of the valley of the Ohio. Virginia hav- `ing crossed the Alleghanies, came into collision :

יי with France and was driven back. England " took up the quarrel on behalf of her colonial "rights; and at the end of the French and In- " dian War, New France -- the picturesque, ro- "mantic, extravagant, squalid New France- " disappeared from the map of North America. " Next, England undertook to keep her own " subjects from settling and civilizing the North- west ; and for the annihilation of the British posts, the occupants of that country entered 'into the most far-reaching and distinctive In- " dian conspiracy known to this land. No sooner " were the savages subdued than the War of the " Revolution led to the conquest of the North- " west by Virginia, and during eight years petty ." warfare was carried on by the Indians and " British against the Americans. Maryland con- " ditioned her entrance into the Confederation " of the States upon the cession to the general " government of the claims of the individual "colonies to the Northwestern lands, and the 'makers of the treaty of 1783 succeeded in draw- "ing the boundary lines of the new nation " through the middle of the Great Lakes and of "the Mississippi. Then the Congress of the " Confederation gave to this first territorial 'ex- pansion of the nation a charter of freedom " and progress never before equalled among men ; " and under this Ordinance of 1787, New Eng- " land men and ideas became the dominating force " from the Ohio to Lake Erie. The advent of " the settlers brought about Indian wars, fought " by the United States against savages fed, " clothed and armed by England that nation hav- "ing, for the purposes of its fur trade, made " excuse to retain the Northwestern posts. Un- " der the provisions of the treaty of 1795, how- " ever, the posts were surrendered, and Great " Britain retired across the border, there to " nurse grievances that were to find vent in the " War of 1812.

" We have been accustomed to regard the " Northwest as a wilderness that grew into civil- "ization by some vital force within itself. Sueli "however was far from being the case. The " name of Michilimackinac was a familiar word "in the cabinets of European monarchs before " it was known to the people dwelling along the " Atlantic; the foundation of Detroit was de- " creed in the councils of France and the rela- " tions of the Jesuit missions in the Northwest

" were eagerly read even by the polite society " of Paris. England, however, was compara- " tively ignorant of the Western Country; but Spain was not without ambition to control its "waterways. In our own land, the makers of the " Republic were also the makers of the North- " west. In its defense Washington first learned "the art of war; Franklin realized its possi- " bilities, and interested himself in its develop- 'ment; Patrick Henry planned with George " Rogers Clark for its conquest; John Jay and " Franklin and John Adams drew about it the " lines of the United States; Thomas Jefferson "bestowed upon it the inestimable boon of free- " dom; Washington's chief of engineers led its " first settlers, and Mad,Anthony Wayne subdued "its savage inhabitants, and received the sur- "render of its frontier posts.

" Many races united to people and to build up " the Northwest; and many interests were in " conflict. The story is one of warfare, of cruelty "and of barbarism." (The Northwest under Three Flags, pp. 19-21.)

It would be impossible, and it is not desirable in a work of this character to give any detailed account of the events epitomized in the foregoing extract. A brief résumé of some of the signifi- cant features of the early explorations is import- ant however in order to make clear the proper relations of things.

The French exploration and occupation can be dismissed with little discussion for, important as was the part of France in the development of the Northwest as a whole, Cincinnati to a less degree than almost any other of the older cities of the West was affected directly by French contact.

Strangely enough Lake Erie and the Olio River as well as the land that intervened were of all the Western country the last explored and the least known to the French. In 1534 Cartier had advanced up the St. Lawrence to within sight of Anticosti and in the following year he ascended to the sites of Quebec and Montreal. then flourishing Indian villages. He returned again in 1541 the year that the Mississippi was discovered by the Spaniards under De Soto. It was not however until 1608 that Champlain be- gan the settlement of Quebec and in the follow- ing year he entered the lake that bears his name and in an encounter with the Iroquois gave that tribe its first experience with gunpowder, there- by winning the everlasting emity of that power- ful confederacy for the French. Two years

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI

later (1611) he began the building of Place Royale, the modern city of Montreal. The absurd lies of an ambitious adventurer, Vignau, directed the course of French exploration by way of the Ottawa River rather than the St. Lawrence and as a result Georgian Bay a part of Lake Huron was the first of the great lakes to become known to the adventurous Champlain who skirted its shores and visited the seat of the Hurons in 1615. From this point he crossed to Lake Ontario and after sailing to the opposite shore, struck inland until he reached Oneida Lake in the heart of the Iroquois country. He wintered with the Hurons finally returning by way of Lake Huron and the Ottawa.

Brulé detaching himself from Champlain's party descended the Susquehanna to the sea. This "dauntless woodsman and pioneer of pio- neers" the first white man to pass beyond Lake Huron returned from a long journey in 1629 with some copper from Lake Superior which he described as very large and emptying into Lake Huron by a fall (Sault Ste. Marie).

In 1634 Jean Nicolet started from Quebec carrying with him a gorgeous "robe of Chinese damask embroidered with birds and flowers" as an ambassador from Champlain to a "strange people without hair or beard who came from the West" whom he might not unnaturally (accord- ing to Parkman) have supposed to be Chinese or Japanese. They were in fact the Winneba- goes living near the head of Green Bay, and to reach them he passed over the waters of Lake Michigan. When he neared the town "he put on his robe of damask, and advanced to meet the ex- pectant crowd with a pistol in each hand. The squaws and children fled, screaming that it was a manito, or spirit, armed with thunder and lightning; but the chiefs and warriors regaled him with so bountiful a hospitality that a hun- dred and twenty beavers were devoured at a sin- gle feast." He ascended the Fox River and turned back when he had almost reached the "Father of Waters" which he supposed from the Indian tales to be the ocean and not the Missis- sippi. Seven years later Charles' Raymbault and Isaac Jogues skirted the northern shores of Lake Huron and preached to the Indians at the outlet of Lake Superior. Then the terrible Iroquois war, which furnishes the text of so many of Parkman's eloquent pages, stopped all exploration for a time and it was not until 1654 that Radis- son and Groseilliers, fur traders and brothers- in-law, made the circuit of Lake Huron, passing through the Straits of Mackinac, and winteres

near Green Bay. Radisson declares that they reached the Forked River,-so called "because it has two branches, the one towards the west, the other towards the south, which, we believe runs toward Mexico" which Parkman thinks points to the Mississippi and its great confluent the Missouri. This statement is doubted how- ever.

In this same year Father LeMoyne visited Onondaga the seat of the council fire of the Iroquois and was well received and the next year established a mission there under the charge of the Jesuit Fathers Chaumonot and Dablon.

ROBERT CAVELIER, SIEUR DE LA SALLE.

An exploring trip that is of the greatest inter- est is that of Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. As it is claimed for him that he discovered the Ohio River in 1669 and descended it as far as the rapids at Louisville and possibly to a point beyond its confluence with the Mississippi, he is (if this claim be true) probably the first white man whose eyes ever fell upon the land where now the city of Cincinnati stands. Rufus

King seems to discredit this story (Ohio, p. 38) but Parkman gives it as well worthy of belief. Mr. Winsor reviews the discussion at length. (Nar. & Crit. Hist., Vol. 4, pp. 206-207 et seq.)

Parkman bases his belief upon an anonymous paper purporting to be a history of LaSalle taken from the lips of the great explorer himself. La- Salle who had obtained a granit just above Mon- treal was visited by some Senecas who told him of a river called the Ohio (or beautiful river) which rose in their country and flowed into the sea at a point distant an eight or nine months' journey. This LaSalle took to be the Western passage to China and he soon started on an ex- pedition with two priests Dollier and Galinée, accompanied by twenty-one others with seven canoes. After thirty-five days they reached Irondequoit Bay on the south side of Lake O11- tario. At a Seneca village not far distant they were overwhelmed by the native hospitality, be- ing fed upon the flesh of dogs and boiled maize seasoned with oil made from nuts and sunflower seeds. Here too they witnessed the killing by torture at the stake of a prisoner, a young In- dian. They could get no guides, but were told that if they persevered in their attempt to go to the Ohio, the Indians there would surely kill thein. Leaving the Senecas they coasted thie south shore of the lake, passing within the sound of Niagara's roar and reached a friendly Indian

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

village a few miles north of the present town of Hamilton. They were about to set out with a Shawanee guide who was to take them to the Ohio in six weeks when they heard of the pres- ence of another Frenchman in a neighboring village. This proved to be Joliet, who had just passed over the waters of Lake Erie and who persuaded the priests to abandon the Ohio trip for one to the upper lakes. (Lake Erie ap- pears on Sanson's map of 1656.) It is at this point that the story of the anonymous manu- script becomes important. It relates that after separating from the priests, LaSalle continued his journey to Onondaga, thence to a point six or seven leagues distant from Lake Erie, and continued until he came upon the rapids at Louis- ville. At length his men abandoned him and he retraced his steps. LaSalle in a memoir af- terwards addressed to Count Frontenac states that he discovered "la grande rivière d'Ohio" and followed it to the falls after passing another quite large river which comes into it from the north which Parkman conjectures was either the Miami or Scioto. Parkman concludes "that he discovered the Ohio may then be regarded as established" and in all probability the Illinois also. (LaSalle etc., Chap. 2.)

LaSalle's claim to the discovery of the Mis- sissippi is not generally received however 'and that honor is accorded to Joliet and Marquette who floating down the Wisconsin on June 17, 1673 entered the great and mysterious river, lost to history since the burial of De Soto a hundred and thirty-one years before. The Ohio is men- tioned by them as coming from the country of the Shawanees. It was but eight years later, 1681, that the intrepid LaSalle explored the Mis- sissippi from above the Missouri to its junction with the gulf, passing and noting the mouth of the Ohio ( spoken of as the Wabash) on his way. On April 9, 1682 he raised a column in sight of the gulf inscribed with the arms of France and the name of the King and after the chanting of the "Te Deum" and amidst the firing of muskets, he took possession in the name of Louis the Four- teenth of the country (designating it as Louisi- ana) from the Ohio to the gulf.

In the later expedition projected for the pur- pose of extending a line of French forts from the mouth of the great river to the Canadian fron- tier and thus make sure this great basin for his master, LaSalle met with misfortune and death by the hand of an assassin. In this same year (1687) Tonti and DuLhut intercepted and cap- tured the English party under McGregor on its

way to attack DuLhut's settlement at the head of St. Clair River. This was Fort St. Joseph which had been established the previous year. This exploit was the most serious setback to the Eng- lish that they had received.

This expedition of McGregor's was in reality a trading venture, the result of the success of New York traders at Mackinac the summer be- fore in the absence of the French garrison. These adventurous English, with their cheap goods and large stock of rum, completely swept the Chippewa Indian market and had retired with their booty before the French could return.

This encounter which resulted so disastrously for the English was their first real conflict with the French in that section of the West. . The century closed with the French in control of the countries watered by the lakes and the Missis- sippi, Ohio and Wabash rivers. For forty years or more, to quote Mr. King, darkness visible hung over the beautiful region lying fallow be- tween the lake and the Ohio. The French coureurs de bois worked their way along the south shore of Lake Erie and up the Sandusky and Maumee rivers seeking the Wabash and Ohio, but they formed no settlements.

In 1701 Cadillac, the inveterate rival of the Jesuits and foe of the Iroquois, founded Detroit, building a strong stockade of wooden pickets and with bastions at the four angles, and stake houses within.

Just a year before Gravier passing the mouth of the Ohio, known to him as the Ouabache ( Wa- bash) mentions that it is formed by three tribu- taries, the present Wabash, the Ohio (above the confluence of the Wabash) and the river from the Southeast upon which live the Shawanees who trade with the English of Virginia and Carolina. On the map of Gentil presented to the Bibliotheque Nationale in 1713, the Ohio is put down as the Onabache ( Wabash). The English too used this name. The Wabash was the pres- ent stream of that name and the part of the Ohio below it. Above the Wabashı extending to the sources of the Allegheny was La Belle Riviere or the Oyo (Ohio). The Indians called the main river, between the mouth of the Wabash and the Mississippi, the Akansea. As early as 1697 De Remonville, in a memorial to the Frenchi ministry upon the importance of colonizing to keep out the English, reports a rumor that the Governor of Pennsylvania had despatched fifty men to settle upon the Wabash or Ohio whichi imust be considered as a distinct threat to the French control of the Mississippi.

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Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1, Part 8

Author: Greve, Charles Theodore, b. 1863. cn Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1020

Author: Greve, Charles Theodore, b. 1863. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1020