USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume One > Part 21
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At a Philadelphia council held some three months before Braddock's defeat the chief of the Caughna- vagas said: "The French and the English are quar- 'eling about our lands and want to engage us in their
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quarrel, but why should we meddle on either side; the English you see, buy our lands from us, piece after piece and though they pay us for it and so get it from us with our own consent yet what they give us is soon spent and gone, and we much straightened for want of our lands. The French take the whole country from us by force, never asking us for our consent, and so between both we shall in a little time have no land. The French now treat us like slaves, and though the English do not, yet when all our lands are gone they will despise us. "
In the autumn of the same year (1755) Governor Morris of Pennsylvania wrote William Johnson, the English superintendent of Indian affairs; "the unhappy defeat of General Braddock has brought an Indian war upon this and the neighboring provinces and from a quarter where it was least expected, I mean the Delawares and Shawnees, from whom we thought there was no danger, as they had the very last year given us assurance of their taking part with us when we should ask them to do so."
At the same time Governor Morris wrote Scarouady, the Oneida half king, demanding that the chief go to the Six Nations and say to them: "Brethren, your cousins, the Delawares, who live at Ohio whom we have hitherto looked upon as our children, whom we nursed and cherished in our bosoms, whom we have supported and with whom we have lived from our infancy in perfect love and tenderness, have in a most cruel manner fallen upon and murdered our inhabitants, people whose houses were always oper to them and who had given them every kind thing
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they asked. It was but the very last year they gave us a friendly meeting, and when they parted with us gave us assurances of their continuing our friends whilst the water should run down the river and we never dreamed that their hearts could be poi- soned by the enemy or the flame of love so soon extinguished in their breasts."
But all efforts to retain the Delawares seemed unavailing for at the Philadelphia council (November, 1755) two Delaware messengers boldly proclaimed: "We, the Delawares of Ohio, do proclaim war against the English. We have been their friends many years, but now have taken up the hatchet against them and we will never make it up with them whilst there is an English man alive." A month later the secretary of the Pennsylvania council, among other things, reported: "All our accounts agree in this, that the French since the defeat of Braddock have gained over to their interests the Delawares, Shawnees and many other Indian nations formerly in our alliance, and they have been prevailed upon to take up arms against us and to join heartily with the French in obtaining possession of all the country between the River Ohio and the River Susquehanna."
The spring of 1756 opened ominously for the English and most hopefully for the French. At this time, in a budget of "dispatches" from Montreal to the gov- ernment at Paris, as printed in the documents relating to the colonial history of New York, the informant reports the news from Fort Duquesne to be: "there have been in these parts [Fort Duquesne] twenty detachments of Delawares and Chouanous [Shawnees];
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these were joined by more than sixty Indians of the Five Iroquois Nations who have committed frightful ravages. The only resource remaining to the inhabit- ants was to abandon their homes and remove to the sea coast. Three forts have been burnt, among the rest one containing a garrison of forty-seven men, which was besieged by a party of forty Indians under command of M. Douville, a colonial [French] cadet. The garrison was summoned to surrender, but having refused, the fort was set on fire in the night; the garrison then attempted to escape, and the "Indians gave no quarter." Another "dispatch" in the same budget gives a report of the French-Indian fighting strength: "we now have on the continent 1000 French, 700 Delawares and Chouanous [Shawnees], besides a number of Illinois, as many as 300 French and Indians under the command of Sieur de Villiers, about 250 Miamis and Outaganous, under M. de Belastre, 300 from Detroit and 700 from Michilmackinac," a total force of 3250, of which more than two-thirds were Indians. Another item forwarded to Paris, in the summer of 1756, states: "Captain Dumas, command- ant at Fort Duquesne, has continually kept parties [Indians] in the field both in Pennsylvania and Virginia, and has placed officers and cadets at the head of some of them." The informer, however, significantly adds that Captain Dumas has advised M. Vaudreuil, "that some of the Indians of the Beautiful River appeared to be relaxing in their zeal but M. de Vaudreuil had no doubt of their soon resuming their original ardor." Monatatootha, speaking for the Delawares and Shaw- nees, said: "Last year the French brought a powerful
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army into our country and soon after the English marched another army, which appeared to us like two clouds hanging over us; we looked on till the battle was over and then we found some of the Six Nations with the French hatchets in their hands killing the English and as we were in strict alliance with the Six Nations, we thought it our duty to do the same, yet we did not immediately strike."
William Johnson wrote the governor of New York, (1756) that the Six Nations were weakening and in fact distressed, some of the western nations having abandoned their allegiance, and the Shawnees and such of the Delawares as live upon the Ohio, who had been subject to the Iroquois "having been set up and supported in an independency" by the French were still continuing hostilities against the people of some of our colonies contrary to the orders of the Six Nations.
As a result of all this the Pennsylvania council reported :
"It appears to us that the Delawares have sold themselves to the French, and are determined to take this opportunity to throw off their subjection and dependency upon the Six Nations, imagining they shall be supported in it by their new masters, else they would not have had the assurance to treat the Six Nations with insolence, as it is well known they have done, even to threaten some of them to their faces to make women of them, if they would not assist them in the war against the English."
The Indian situation was thus developing in the French country, and in the English colonies bordering on the Ohio, when in May, 1756, England declared
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war against France, "and now, " says Parkman, "began the most terrible conflict of the eighteenth century; one that convulsed Europe and shook America, India, the coasts of Africa and the islands of the sea." This war involved a line-up of European nations, perhaps not equalled in modern history until the time of Napo- leon. On the side of England were Prussia, then under the kingship of Frederick the Great, Hanover and several smaller German states; on the side of France were Russia, Austria, Sweden, Saxony and later Spain. In Europe this tremendous contest in which the French allies marshalled 500,000 troops and the English con- testants 250,000, was called the Seven Years War, and at times facetiously "The Women's War, " because three women, Elizabeth of Russia, Maria Theresa of Prussia and La Pompadour of France, controlled respectively, the forces of the three great nations named and these three women were united in a common hatred of the great Frederick of Prussia. The causes, events and results of this European warfaric imbroglio of kings, queens, and knaves are not for us to recount. Although the motives of this war were many, the immediate occasion of it was the contest, in the Ohio Valley, over the possession of the Ohio country. The first fire was struck in the skirmish on the Laurel Hill side between Washington and La Force; the torch that set the world in a flame was ignited on the banks of the Ohio in the battle of Monongahela. It was known in America as "the French and Indian War."
The Indians now became thoroughly aroused to the importance of the coming contest in which their destiny was at stake. The Ohio Indians, who hac
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been shifting toward French affiliation, because of their location in the French territory and because of the apparent greater prospects of the French, and further because they looked for an opportunity to free themselves from the Iroquois domination, now became belligerent in behalf of their chosen side.
Governor Hardy of New York wrote Governor Morris of Pennsylvania: "We have strong reasons to think that the Delawares and Shawnees are our most inveterate enemies, and that they will most likely continue so." This was no news to the provincial governor of Pennsylvania for already he had issued a proclamation of war against the Delawares, who he declared "have been most mischievous and continue to murder and destroy our inhabitants." Their chief center and one of their headquarters for hostile sorties was the Delaware village of Kittanning, called by the French, Attique,-"a populous nest of savages on the Allegheny, between the two French posts of Duquesne and Venango. " Here resided permanently the Indian Chief Jacobs and at times the Delaware Chief Shingas. Here recruits from the Ohio Delawares would be received and hence the marauding and murdering bands would go forth. To break up this rendezvous of the savages, the Pennsylvania authorities sent a force under Colonel John Armstrong, who planned and successfully executed an assault upon the settle- ment, burning the town and killing or dispersing the inhabitants. This was in the fall of 1756.
Following the Armstrong expedition the French commander at Fort Duquesne assembled there a vast number of Indians, representing the Chippewas, Tawas,
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Twightwees, Nottawas, Delawares and Shawnees, with whom he made a friendly treaty. At the same time the provincial council of New York with the aid of William Johnson was striving to hold the Ohio Indians in check, if not in active amity, through the influence of the Six Nations, but the latter were becoming luke- warm and even divided, and Governor Morris was led to say: "the Indians are a most inconstant and unfixed set of mortals and laying aside all treaties, promises and engagements, are always ready to join with the strongest side and no longer there than they have success."
It was evident by this time that the Ohio Indians were to be the active foes of the English. The Dela- wares on the upper Ohio were the chief aggressors, warmly aided by the Shawnees. Under Tedyuskung, -"the healer"-one of the most crafty chiefs of the Pennsylvania Delawares, the Delawares of Ohio and Pennsylvania and several allied tribes, instigated by the French, made incessant attacks upon the white settlers. Again the Pennsylvania council declared war against the Delawares and also against the Shawnees, and three hundred provincial soldiers, under Benjamin Franklin were sent against them. This was followed (July, 1757) by a conference at Easton, at which peace was made with the Pennsylvania Delawares, accepted largely by the latter because it was agreed that the Delawares should cast off "the ignominy of being considered women by the Iroquois," in which assertion of independence they were to be sustained by the English. But this peace treaty displeased the Ohio Delawares and Shawnees and was not accepted
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by them. As Governor Denny expressed it: "The Ohio Indians will say 'we will rather stay where we are; we are on the strongest side now, and will not hazard our lives and families in breaking with the French in favor of the English, who have been beat several times, and are not likely to do anything for themselves.' "
The position of the Ohio Indians at this time was perplexing and not without its pathetic features. It is best portrayed by the speech of Ackowanothio, an old Indian on the Ohio, delivered (1758) in behalf of the Delawares, Shawnees and other Indians living on the waters of that river. We give in full the interpretation by Conrad Weiser as published in the ' Pennsylvania Archives: "Brethren the English, you wonder at our joining with the French in this present war? Why can't you get sober and once think im- partially? Does not the law of nations permit, or rather command us all, to stand upon our guard, in order to preserve our lives, the lives of our wives and children, our property and liberty? Let me tell you that this was our care: have a little patience! I will tell you, Brethren, your nation always showed an eagerness to settle our lands, cunning as they were, they always encouraged a number of poor people to ettle upon our lands : we protested against it several imes, but without any redress or help. We pitied he poor people: we did not care to make use of force, nd indeed some of those people were very good people, nd as hospitable as we Indians, and gave us share of That little they had, and gained our affection for the most part; but after all we lost our hunting ground, or where one of those people settled, like pigeons,
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a thousand more would settle, so that we at last offered to sell it, and received some considerations for it: and so it went on 'till we at last jump'd over Alleghany Hills, and settled on the waters of Ohio. Here we tho't ourselves happy! We had plenty of game, a rich and large country, and a country that the Most High had created for the poor Indians, and not for the White People. O how happy did we live here! but alas! not long. O! your covetousness for land at the risque of so many poor souls, disturb'd our peace again. Who should have thought, that that Great King Over the Water, whom you always recommended as a tender Father of his People, I say, who should have thought that the Great King should have given away that land to a parcel of covetous gentlemen from Virginia, called the Ohio Company, who came immediately and offered to build forts among us, no doubt, to make themselves master of our lands, and make slaves of us. To which we could not agree, notwithstanding their fair words. Onontio our Father, heard this with his own ears, went home and prepared, in his turn, to take our lands from us, as we, or some of us, suspected. He made a procla- mation to us in the following manner: 'Children, the King of England has given your lands on Ohic to a company of wicked men in Virginia, who, I hear are preparing to come and take possession with a strong hand; be on your guard, don't let them make the least settlement on Ohio, they will in a few year: settle the whole; they are as numerous as Muskeeto' and Nitts in the woods; if they get once a fast hold it will not be in your power to drive them away again
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if you think you can't keep them off, tell me so, and I will keep them off.' Brethren, we never liked the French, but some of the Six Nations, in particular some of the Senecas, came with the French and took possession on the heads of Ohio; we did not like it, and therefore sent several messages to them, to turn about and go the way they came, to prevent mischief, but to no purpose. The French being numerous, and supported by the aforesaid Senecas and other Indians, we were obliged to be still, and by their craftiness and presents, we were brought over to their side of the question; but a great number of us stood neuter.
"Now Brethren, when that great General Braddock landed at Virginia with orders from the King of Eng- land, to drive away the French from Ohio, and take possession himself of that fine country for the English; the French did let us know immediately, and told us; Children, now the time is come of which I often told such an army is coming against you, to take your lands from you and make slaves of you. You know the Virginians; they all come with him. If you will stand your ground, I will fight with you for your land, and I don't doubt we will conquer them. The French General's words, by the assistance of priests, had great influence with the Indians on the Ohio, brought the Shawnees over in body to them, they being wrong'd in Carolina, and imprisoned, and had their chief hanged or put to death in a cruel manner. These Shawnees brought over the Delawares to their measures; they, the Delawares, were drove from their lands, it being sold by the Mohocks, &c., to the New
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England people, and just then some of those Delawares came to Wyomock, much incensed against the English, and were easily brought over to the French and Shawnees.
"Now Brethren, all this, with many other abuses we suffered from our Brethren the English, yet our heart is much afflicted; there remains sparks of love in it towards our Brethren the English; were we but sure that you will not take our lands on the Ohio, or the west side of Alleghany Hills from us; we can drive away the French when we please, they have even promised to go off when we pleased, provided we would not suffer the English to take possession of the lands, (for as the French says) we can never drive you off, you are such a numerous people; and that makes us afraid of your army, which should not have come so nigh us, we don't know what to think of it. We sent messages of peace, you received them kindly, and you sent to us messages of peace, we received them also kindly, and sent back again more stronger words. Why did not your army stay at Ray's Town, 'till matters had been settled between us? We still suspect you covet our lands on the Ohio, for you come against us; but we never heard as yet what you intended to do (after you have drove away the French), with the forts and lands on Ohio.
"Brethren, one thing more sticks in our stomach, which is, that we cannot thoroughly believe you that you are in earnest to make peace with us, for when we lived among you, as sometimes it would happen, that our young men stole a horse, kill'd a hog, or did some other mischief, you resented it very highly, we
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were imprisoned &c. Now, we have kill'd and taken so many of your people, will you heartily forgive us and take no revenge on us. Now Brethren, consider all things well, and be assured that we, the Indians, are heartily inclined to make a lasting peace with you." Such was Ackowanothio's remarkable speech.
In their trans-river invasions the savage warriors from Ohio spread consternation and destruction along the paths they trod, committing murder and per- petrating arson and rapine. These wanton raids, many of which are related in Kercheval's "History of the Virginia Valley," have furnished material for innum- erable stories of border adventure and warfare. One in particular, the incidents of which were in the Ohio country, should be briefly retold.
On the Great Kanawha and its tributaries were established some of the earliest settlements of the Ohio Basin by white men other than French. On the (then) New River formed, at the base of the most westerly stretch of the Alleghanies, was a community of a dozen cabins called, from its locator, Draper's Meadows. Mary Draper, daughter of the chief settler, was the heroine of the neighborhood. Her experiences, almost unparalleled in frontier romance, are explicitly set forth by her great grandson, John P. Hale, in his little volume on "Trans-Allegheny Pioneers."
Mary Draper, "could stand and jump straight up hearly as high as her head; she could stand on the ground beside her horse and leap into the saddle inaided," and she could perform many other feats qually surprising and unusual. Her husband, a turdy youth, of the same settlement, was William
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Ingles. For five years the young couple thrived in their primitive home to which had come two little sons, Thomas and George. In the summer of 1755, the day previous to the one on which Braddock plunged to his defeat on the Monongahela, a band of Ohio Shawnees from the Scioto, stealthily approached and surrounded the little bunch of cabins that constituted the Draper's Meadows. Every member of the little colony was either killed, wounded or borne away captive. William Ingles, fortunately absent in the fields, escaped, but his wife, Mary, and the two little sons were made prisoners, as was Mrs. John Draper, Mary's sister-in-law, who was seriously wounded in the arm. The baby of Mrs. Draper was brained against the end of one of the cabin logs, by the Indians, who concluded their depredations by firing the cabins and then starting for their Scioto villages, leading the horses they had stolen loaded with plunder. Mary Ingles and her sister-in-law, Bettie Draper, were permitted to ride the captured horses; the latter woman with a shattered arm; the other about to become a mother. On the night of their third day out, says Mr. Hale, "Mrs. Ingles, far from human habitation. in the wide forest, unbounded by walls, with only the bosom of mother earth for a couch and coverec by the green trees and the blue canopy of heaven with a curtain of black darkness around her, gav birth to an infant daughter." Owing to her perfec physical condition, her robust, out-door life and train ing, she passed through the ordeal, amid such strang surroundings, with almost as little suffering and los of time as one of the Indian squaws might have done
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Next morning she was able to travel and resumed the journey, carrying the little stranger, a veritable child of the forest, in her arms on horseback. The party of captors and captives followed down the New River, along the Bluestone River, crossed Flat Top Mountain and descended Paint Creek to the Great Kanawha. Reaching the Ohio, the Indian band followed its course to their towns at the mouth of the Scioto, which they reached just one month after leaving the scene of the massacre and capture at Draper's Meadows. At the Scioto town much feasting, dancing and jollifying was indulged in as a celebration of the success of the expedition. All the prisoners were compelled to "run the gauntlet," except Mrs. Ingles, who, on account of her weakened condition, which she bore with rare bravery and cheerfulness, was exempted. Bettie Draper, spite of her broken and painful arm, was required to pass the dreadful ordeal of running as best she could down the line, between the two rows of Indians, who, amid laughter and yells, beat her with clubs and sticks, and buffeted her from side to side. Then came the awful moment of apportioning the captives. Mrs. Bettie Draper was taken to an Indian village in the vicinity of (the present) Chillicothe, on the Scioto; Mary Ingles and her babe were retained at the Scioto Shawnee town; Thomas Ingles, aged four, was carried to Detroit; his little brother, George, aged two, was borne away to an unknown locality in the interior. Some French traders, appearing at the Shawnee town where Mary and her baby were held captive, sold the Indians a quantity of check shirting and Mrs. Ingles, an expert
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with the needle, was put to work making check shirts, a most popular garment with the Indian men; "when a shirt would be finished and delivered to its owner, he would stick it on the end of a pole and run through the town yelling 'heap good white squaw.'"
Mary Ingles is often claimed as the "first white woman in Ohio," but that is clearly erroneous. We have already given the story of Mary Harris of "White Woman's Town, " and it is more than likely that many white women preceded her to Ohio, either as captives or possibly as voluntary migrants. But the story of Mary Ingles outstrips that of all others recorded for romantic incidents and almost incredible experiences. She was not only the popular seamstress of the Shaw- nees of the Scioto; through her deftness and apparent eagerness to work for her captors she became valuable as a salt-maker, one who was skillful in boiling the water of the salt spring and extracting the salt. On one occasion, with her babe, she was conducted by an Indian salt-procuring party to the big Bone Lick in Boone County, Kentucky, one hundred and fifty miles below the Scioto and three miles inland from the Ohio. With this party was another captive, an old Dutch woman, to whom Mary Ingles divulged her secret hope of escape and return to her Virginia home. They planned to go together. After many misgivings and heart-rendings Mary determined to leave her babe with her Indian captors. There was no other alternative. To take the little one was certain death for both. Left with the squaws it would probably be cared for. Should the mother escape the little one might later be rescued. The two fugitive women
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