USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Two > Part 10
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Six Nations) when Capt. White Eyes, long since tired of this language, with his usual spirit, and an air of disdain, rose, and replied; that he knew well, that they, the Six Nations, considered his Nation as a conquered People-and their inferiours-'You say' (said he) 'that You had conquered me-that You had cut off my Legs- had put a Petticoat on me, giving me a Hoe and Corn pounder in my hands, saying: now Woman! Your business henceforward shall be, to plant,-hoe Corn, and pound the same for Bread for us Men and Warri- ours!'-'Look!' (continued White Eyes) 'at my Legs! if, as You say You had cut them off, they have grown again to their proper size !- the Petticoat, I have thrown away, and have put on my proper dress !- The Corn hoe and pounder I have exchanged for these fire Arms, and I declare, that I am a Man.'-then waiving his hand in the direction of the Allegheny River, he exclaimed-'and all the Country on the other side of hat River is mine.'"' He used the pronouns I, me, ny and mine, in the Indian sense, meaning his tribe.
Heckewelder comments to the effect, that perhaps so old and daring an address was never made heretofore o any council of Indians, by an Indian chief. These earless denunciations were replied to by Captain 'ipe. The dispute finally created a political schism the Ohio Delawares, the Monseys retiring nearer to ake Erie and taking good care to have the Six Nations, specially the Senecas, informed that they were friendly › the British.
Every article in the treaty at Camp Charlotte in ne Autumn of 1774 was lengthily discussed and passed pon. All articles were finally confirmed and rati-
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fied and says Virgil Lewis, "when this convention adjourned, every Indian nation from the Upper Allegheny to the Falls of the Ohio, and from that river to the Lake Erie-in short every one of the confederated nations of 1771-of those participating in the prelimi- nary treaty of Camp Charlotte, and in the supplemental treaty of Pittsburg-entered into a pledge of peace and friendship, not only to Virginia, but to the New Amsterdam nation as well." How they kept that agreement of peace and friendship will hereafter be related.
About the time of the close of the Pittsburg con ference, Sir Henry Hamilton was, by orders of the Crown, made Lieutenant-Governor and Superintenden at Detroit, reaching that station early in November 1775. Thus the settings are being placed for th drama of the American Revolution in the Ohio country
CHAPTER VII. THE WARPATH OF THE REVOLUTION
L ORD DUNMORE'S War, urged by Americans for the good of America, was the opening act in the drama whereof the closing scene was played at Yorktown." Such are the words of the author of the "Winning of the West." Had Cornstalk and his savage horde defeated the pioneer army of Lewis at Point Pleasant and subse- quently repulsed Dunmore's invasion, the settlement of the Ohio Valley by the eastern and southern colonies would have been greatly delayed if not indeed per- manently thwarted, the territory remaining, after the Revolution, in the possession of England as a dependent portion of Quebec Province.
Dunmore's treaty on the Pickaway Plains at once opened to the Virginians the untrod but fertile fields of Kentucky. As the northern range of the Alle- ghanies was the natural barrier that separated the eastern colonies from the upper Ohio Valley, so the ower or southern stretch of the same range, known as he Cumberland Mountains, blocked the line of migra- ion from Old Virginia to the valleys of the Cumber- and and Tennessee rivers.
But the time had arrived for that barrier to be penetrated. As we have learned, at the treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) the western boundary of the erritory, south of the Ohio, ceded by the Six Nations o the English was to be the Tennessee River. Corn- talk's agreement at Camp Charlotte (1774) confirmed he English to this title so far as the Ohio Indians ould affirm it or grant entry privileges to the Virgin- ins. The latter now had secured "quit-claim deeds" ) their western empire; one from the Iroquois, who
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claimed it by conquest and one from the Ohio Con- federacy, whose tribes had disputed the Iroquois claim.
But the Virginians had still a third claimant to deal with, the Cherokees, who were in possession of the country in question and who would not acknow- ledge the proprietory rights of either the Six Nations or the Ohio Confederacy. This sturdy Cherokee nation practically commanded the paths from Virginia and the Carolinas to the Kentucky country. The result of the Dunmore War opened the door for nego- tiations with the Cherokees, and Dunmore's soldiers had hardly reached their homes, after their campaign to the Pickaway Plains, before the aggressive settlers of the Old Dominion began laying their plans for the western expansion of Virginia.
The chief protagonist in this movement was Richard Henderson, a native of Virginia but at the time in question a resident of North Carolina whither he had moved in 1769 at the age of thirty-five. He was a man of unusual capacity and ambition; a lawyer and an associate justice of the North Carolina Superior Court. For some years he had been in close business relations with Daniel Boone from whom he had learnec of the promising prospects in the Kentucky country Henderson enlisted several associates, among then three brothers, Nathaniel, David and Thomas Hart and formed a colonizing organization styled the Tran sylvania Company. As early as October, 1774, these enterprising colonizers began negotiations with th Cherokees looking to securing from these Indian pos sessors the right of settlement on their lands. I: March, 1775, a great council was held at the Sycamor
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Shoals of the Watauga River, between the colonist company and twelve hundred Cherokees, half of whom were warriors, who had been assembled at the behest of the chiefs Oconostota, Raven and Carpenter.
The proposed purchase by the company was approved by the chiefs just named but opposed by chief Dragging Canoe, who, says Roosevelt, "spoke strongly against granting the Americans what they asked, pointing out, in words of glowing eloquence, how the Cherokees, who had once owned the land down to the sea, had been steadily driven back by the whites until they had reached the mountains, and warning his comrades that they must now put a stop at all hazards to further encroachments, under penalty of seeing the loss of their last hunting-grounds, by which alone their children could live."
But the treaty purchase was concluded and for $50,000 worth of cloths, garments, utensils, ornaments, fire arms, powder, etc., the Indians ceded to Henderson and his partners an immense grant of all lands lying south of the Ohio and between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers,-some eighteen million acres of land-a domain nearly one-half as large as the present state of Kentucky. One old chieftain said to Daniel Boone who was present, "brother, we have given you a fine land, but I believe you will have much trouble in settling it." He spoke truer than he knew. Not only did the proposed settlers find the territory a "dark and bloody ground," because of hostile savages on both sides of the Ohio but in addition Governors Martin of North Carolina and Dunmore of Virginia both issued proclamation against the great purchase as being with-
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out legal sanction from either the English government or the colonial authorities; indeed, Martin designated Henderson and his partners as an "infamous company of Land Pyrates," and Dunmore branded the colony as "one Richard Henderson and other disorderly persons, his associates."
But the "Pyrates" defied all obstacles and proceeded to enter the promised land to which they had acquired such questionable title. Daniel Boone with a party of enlisted backwoodsmen was sent ahead to open the route through the forest to the Kentucky interior and there locate a center for the new colony. The details of this expedition and the experiences and exploits of Boone are admirably related in the recently published volume by H. Addington Bruce, entitled "Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road."
With his little band of path-breakers Boone passed through the famous Cumberland Gap, at the extreme southwestern point or toe of Virginia and amid many difficulties and dangers-two or three being killed by Indians and others of the party being frightened into abandoning the journey-threaded their way through the maze of forest and underbrush, creating that his- toric route, known as Boone's Wilderness Road, which ended on the banks of the Kentucky River at the mouth of Otter Creek. They arrived on this site in April (1775) and here they erected a blockhouse, the first "fort" in Kentucky and opened a land office where deeds were issued by the company as "Proprietors of the Colony of Transylvania." They called this setting of civilization in the heart of savagery, Boonesborough, but it was not the first colonizing nucleus in the Ken-
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tucky country for James Harrod in the year before (1774) had led a party from the banks of the Monon- gahela to a branch of the Salt River, a site fifty miles west of Boonesborough. Harrod's little cluster of cabins was designated as Harrodstown.
There were also one or two other smaller settlements, notably Boiling Spring, a co-settlement with Harrods- town, and St. Asaph, more often known as Logan's Fort, established by Benjamin Logan. These last two-Boiling Spring and Logan's Fort-were not far distant from those already mentioned. Others were soon to spring into being, one deserving special mention, on the headwaters of Licking River, was known at first as Hinkson's, later Ruddell's Station. We need not chronicle the career of these settlements.
Henderson and his leading confreres soon followed Boone's advance guard and in the last week of May, at Boonesborough, was held the first convention, west of the Alleghanies, for the formation of a local govern- ment. There were seventeen or eighteen delegates to this civic assembly,-a constitutional convention- representing each of the four towns, Boonesborough, Harrodstown, Boiling Spring and Logan's Fort. The session was held in the open air "under the budding branches of a gigantic elm, while around their feet sprang the native white clover, as a carpet for their hall of legislation."
Henderson was elected President of the new govern- ment. Daniel Boone proposed laws for the protection of game and improving the breed of horses, the beginning of Kentucky's fame in that respect. Squire Boone, brother of Daniel, submitted laws for preserving the
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cattle ranges. Henderson, who addressed the delegates, "much as a crown governor would have done," sug- gested the laws he thought wise to enact. These provided for courts of justice, for regulating the militia, for punishing criminals, fixing the fees for sheriffs, clerks, etc. The only clergyman member, Rev. John Lythe, an Episcopalian, gave religious coloring to the event by having passed a law forbidding profane swear- ing and Sabbath breaking. This embryo bill of rights also provided for "perfect religious freedom and general toleration," and complete liberty on the part of the settlers to conduct colonial affairs according to their needs.
Such was the romantic inception of the wilderness government of the Transylvania state. But it was short lived, for the backwoods legislature adjourned to meet in the following September (1775), but there is no authentic record of that second meeting. The assembly of Virginia vigorously inhibited the state scheme for Transylvania, the territory of which was then within the far-reaching limits of Fincastle County, Virginia, and hence the Henderson settlement came under the jurisdiction of the House of Burgesses at Richmond. Henderson and his Transylvania legisla- ture then appealed to the Continental Congress for recognition, but their petition met a cold hearing and a definite refusal. Congress was agitated with the affairs of the American Revolution and it was no time to consider the creation of a new proprietary colony.
During the opening years of the American Revolu- tion, 1775 and 1776, the western Indians both north and south of the Ohio, remained in a state of fear and
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doubt. Dunmore's war had temporarily, at least, checked the aggressive hostility of the Shawnees and confederate tribes of Ohio, while the Transylvania Company purchase from the Cherokees quieted the hostility of that warlike nation. Meanwhile both the Crown and Colonial authorities were exerting every effort to respectively secure the alliance of the western tribesmen.
In 1775, that arch-mischief-maker Dr. John Connolly planned a union of the northwestern Indians with the British troops. Under command of Connelly a com- bined force of English and Indians was to rendezvous at Detroit, proceed thence, and after ravaging such frontier settlements as came in their route, the expedi- tion was to enter Eastern Virginia and unite with Lord Dunmore who was then in the British service. In the furtherance of this plan, Connolly, after visiting General Gage at Boston and Lord Dunmore in Virginia, started with concealed instructions from the latter, for Detroit, but in passing through Maryland, his perfidy being suspected, he was arrested and by the authority of the Continental Congress held in close and safe custody in Philadelphia until 1781.
During the latter half of 1775 and the first half of [776, the Ohio Indians remained for the most part nactive, fearing to commit themselves to either side of the contestants in the Revolution. Their sympathy, however, was with the British, for they were smarting inder their defeat at the hands of Andrew Lewis and he humiliation inflicted upon them by Lord Dunmore. Moreover, Hamilton, Commandant at Detroit, and Carleton, Governor-General of Canada, were putting
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forth every inducement to secure and retain the Indian cooperation. Hamilton sang the war-song and fra- ternized familiarly with the Indians and in his dis- patches to his superiors gave them to understand that he would send out parties of Indians "to fall on the scattered settlers on the Ohio and its branches, " and he selected to lead these raids qualified officers "who would be troubled by no compunctions and no emotions of pity in making the work of destruction complete."
Detroit became the great center for tribal gatherings. There a frequent scene was the assembly of "hundreds of painted savages, with uplifted tomahawks, scalping knives in their belts and fusils, lead and flints at hand." All the materials of war were supplied by the British "white father" and all were to be used against the American rebels. Everything that could be done to attach the Indians to the service of the King was done in unstinted manner. "They were coaxed with rum, feasted with oxen roasted whole, alarmed by threats of the destruction of their hunting-ground and supplied with everything that an Indian could desire." Mean. while Carleton was employing similar methods at Montreal, whither the Iroquois and Canadian tribes were constantly summoned and plied with presents and arguments in favor of Great Britain.
On the other hand the Continental Congress at first during this period (1775-6) advocated merely the policy of keeping the Indians in a neutral condition, out o: the contest entirely, and instructions to that effect were early sent to the American Indian commissioners fo: the three departments. But it was soon evident the tribesmen would not sit idly by and hold aloof and a:
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early as April, 1776, Washington, who knew the Indians, and whose keen eyes watched every feature of the Colonial cause, wrote to Congress, saying, as the Indians would soon be engaged either for or against them, he would suggest that they be engaged for the colonies. Congress considered this matter and in June empowered Washington to raise two thousand Indians to be employed in the proposed Canadian campaign, and he was authorized to offer the Indians rewards for prisoners. De Haas in his "Indian Wars," adds that while Congress was offering "their allies of the woods rewards for prisoners, some of the British agents gave hem money for scalps."
The northwestern and the Ohio tribes influenced by England assumed more and more an aggressive hostility ind the entire frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania how became the theatre of renewed Indian depreda- ions. The Revolution in the Ohio Valley was the ierce and sanguinary war of the tomahawk and scalping nife against the rifle of the backwoodsmen. At this period it was estimated that the Indians of New York, Ohio and the vicinity of the lakes could bring ten housand warriors into the field and if they could be roused and united an appalling fate awaited the pioneer patriots of the trans-Alleghany country.
At this juncture (April, 1776) Colonel George Morgan vas appointed Indian agent for the middle department, vith headquarters at Pittsburg. Morgan is described Hildreth's "Pioneer History" as a man of un- heasured activity, great perseverance, and familiar rith the Indian manners and habits.
lia fra di ha th an wh 101 te. ng re pin nd itis til e f don rum rea plic Lea İs trib sen
t fir polic ut t we rs f nt and
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The American Archives report that on Tuesday, June II, 1776, Congress having made an appropriation for presents to be distributed to the Indians, a delega- tion of the latter was received by Congress and "the speech agreed to was delivered as follows:
""'Brothers: We hope the friendship that is between you and us will be firm, and continue as long as the sun shall shine, and the waters run; that we and you may be as one people, and have but one heart, and be kind to one another like brethren.
"'Brothers: The King of Great Britain, hearkening to the evil counsel of some of his foolish young men, is angry with us, because we will not let him take away from us our land, and all that we have, and give it to them, and because we will not do everything that he bids us; and hath hindered his people from bringing goods to us; but we have made provision for getting such a quantity of them, that we hope we shall be able to supply your wants as formerly.
""'Brothers: We shall order all our warriors and young men not to hurt you or any of your kindred. and we hope that you will not suffer any of your young men to join with our enemies, or to do any wrong to us, that nothing may happen to make any quarre. between us.
""'Brothers: We desire you to accept a few neces- saries, which we present you with as tokens of ou: good will toward you.'
"The presents being delivered, the Indian Chie begged leave to give a name to the President; the same being granted, an Onondaga Chief arose and saluted the President by the name of Karanduaan
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r the Great Tree, by which name he informed him the President will be known among the Six Nations."
Meanwhile the Kentucky settlers were hovering lose to their stockades and awaiting anxiously the rend of events.
In the spring of 1776, George Rogers Clark, who had rst visited Boonesborough the year before, joined he settlers on the Kentucky and contributed his ourage and sagacity to the projects of the Transyl- anians. He knew the doubtful value of their Chero- ee title, and the futility of their efforts to get recogni- ion from the Virginia House of Burgesses or from the Continental Congress. He realized that the followers f Boone and Henderson must secure permanency for heir settlements by becoming either an acknowledged ortion of Virginia or an independent commonwealth. In June (1776) a general meeting of these settlers as held at Harrodsburg, previously Harrodstown, at hich convention George Rogers Clark and Gabriel ones were chosen members of the Virginia assembly, nd armed with a petition signed by James Harrod nd eighty-seven other settlers, the two envoys made le long journey over the Wilderness Road to Rich- hond.
The Virginia assembly had adjourned when they rrived at the capital and Patrick Henry, then governor f Virginia, referred the two Kentucky Envoys to the xecutive Council at Williamsburg. Matters lay in beyance till the Virginia assembly met in December, hen Clark and Jones and Henderson and his friends opealed to the legislators for respective recognition. he result was that the Transylvania region was made
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a political part of Virginia to be known as the "county of Kentucky," and Harrodstown, hereafter to be known as Harrodsburg, was made the county seat, having by this time supplanted Boonesborough in importance. With a large consignment of powder. to be used by the Kentucky settlers in their defense against Indian attacks, Clark and party returned by the Ohio River to Harrodsburg.
Through the firmness and tact of Colonel Morgar and the diplomacy and leadership of Major Clark, a: briefly related, a general Indian war on the Ohio frontier had thus far been averted. But the increasing amity of the Ohio tribes only awaited an opportunity for an explosion. Most of the western tribes wer allied with England, but the Shawnees, though neve reconciled to a friendship for the Colonists, had as tribe, since the Dunmore treaty, been held in restrain by the powerful influence of their trusted chief Corn stalk. But at length they too yielded to the poten arguments of the British agents and were preparin to go upon the warpath against the Kentuckians an Virginians. A tragic event let loose the dogs of war
Cornstalk, true to his treaty agreement, solicitou for the honor and welfare of his people, and anxiou to preserve the peace, determined to visit the garriso at Point Pleasant and use his influence to avert th threatened bursting of the storm.
In the spring of 1777, accompanied by the youn Delaware chief Red Hawk, who fought by his side & Point Pleasant, Cornstalk crossed the Ohio and pr sented himself at the quarters of Captain Matthe Arbuckle, commander of Fort Randolph, as the stocl
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.de at Point Pleasant had been named. After a rank statement by the chief that the Shawnees were planning to unite with the northern and western tribes nd inaugurate a merciless frontier war, the news was peedily forwarded to Fort Pitt, then commanded by General Edward Hand; to Fort Henry, at mouth of Wheeling River, formerly known as Fort Fincastle; nd the information was also posted to Richmond, apital of the Virginia government.
Troops were at once raised in Augusta, Bottetourt nd Greenbriar counties. It was proposed to make nother invasion of Ohio Indian country. The plan as for the volunteers from the inland Virginia counties nd the contingent from Fort Pitt to meet at Point 'leasant and thence cross the Ohio for the Indian owns. Meanwhile Cornstalk and Red Hawk had een perfidiously detained at Fort Randolph as hostages or the peaceful behavior of their tribes. Ellinipsico, on of Cornstalk, worried about the fate of his father, ft his Ohio quarters and hastened to Fort Randolph, here he was affectionately received by the great chief, ho was engaged, says Stuart, "at that instant, in he act of delineating a map of the country and the aters between his Shawnee towns and the Miss- sippi, at our request, with chalk upon the floor." That followed is best learned from the account of 'aptain John Stuart, who was an eye witness of the orrifying scene.
On the day following the arrival of Ellinipsico, vo young Virginia volunteers-Hamilton and Gilmore -crossed the Kanawha to hunt deer; on their return ) camp, some Indians, concealed on the further bank
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amongst the weeds, fired on them, killing Gilmore. Soldiers from the fort, sprang into a canoe, hastened to the relief of Hamilton, rescued him and returned with the corpse of Gilmore, covered with blood and scalped. At sight of the mutilated remains, the in- furiated soldiers raised the cry "let us kill the Indian: in the fort," and guns in hand, pale with rage, they rushed into the stockade to wreak their vengeance on Cornstalk and his companions. Captain Arbuckl endeavored to restrain the assailants but in vain The brave chief, at once realized his doom was in evitable and his last words were those of courage t Ellinipsico, "My son," he said, "the great spirit ha seen fit that we should die together and has sent yo here to that end. It is his will and let us submit it is all for the best," and turning his face to his mur derers at the door, he fell without a groan, pierce with seven bullets.
That he had for some time felt premonition of hi fate was evidenced by his speech the day before h. foul taking off; for while conferring with his whit captors in the fort he said, "when I was a young ma and went to war, I thought that might be the las time, and I would return no more. Now I am hej among you; you may kill me if you please; I can d but once; and it is all one to me, now or another time.
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