History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I, Part 2

Author: Drury, Augustus Waldo, 1851-1935; S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, pub
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 966

USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 2

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The advance of the whites to the west found in that region three general divisions of Indians-the northwestern, prevailingly Algonquin, the southern or Appalachian and the northeastern or Iroquois, the last two being well known in their relations to earlier settlements. The southern Indians consisted of five loose confederacies : Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Cherokees. They numbered, perhaps, fifteen thousand warriors, the whole number being four or five times as many. Their northern boundary was along the Cumber- land river, earlier called the Cherokee river. In the settling of Kentucky and Tennessee they proved to be dangerous neighbors and in their alliances with northern Indians they became a general menace.

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

The Iroquois were the famous Five Nations, situated in New York, but ex- tending into Pennsylvania and also into Canada. They were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. About 1714 the Tuscaroras were added, thus completing the confederacy of the Six Nations. Some of the Iro- quois extended some distance along the southern shore of Lake Erie. Others extended south as far as the Ohio river. Some of these combining with reckless adventurers of other tribes became the Mingoes. Our chief interest lies in the northwestern Indians-especially the Delawares, the Shawnees, the Miami con- federation and the Wyandots or Hurons, their Algonquin neighbors. Other tribes to the west and north need not be mentioned in a general reference to the north- western Indians. Their combined numbers have been roughly placed at fifty thou- sand, the warriors being about one-fifth that number.

At the time when the white man came the Indians were not dwelling along the larger rivers as their ancestors generations before had done. Lodgments on the rivers were temporary or exceptional. Thus we have the strange fact of a territory hundreds of miles north and south, and east and west, including large parts of the present states of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Vir- ginia, unoccupied save by wandering or hunting parties of Indians, and this in a small part of the year. While jealousies and animosities might keep the three great confederacies of Indians apart, the intervening solitude was their great hunting ground, and their battle ground as well. From this Kentucky was well named the "dark and bloody ground."

In no other country to which the white man has gone have the native peo- ple been able to raise up a stronger barrier than that which was raised up in the northwest by the Indians. They were in the hunting and fishing stage, though here and there large fields of corn were planted. Their hunting gave them a preparation as warriors, as did also their tribal wars. They were apt in form- ing alliances and swiftly traversed great distances. The forests were their natural defense.

The breadth of knowledge and intercourse on the part of the Indians is a constant source of surprise. The knowledge of the Indian pointed the way to the Ohio and the Mississippi. The rude inhabitant of the Illinois country launched his light canoe for a journey to the mouth of the Mississippi and an aged chief in the western forest was able to speak of his early experience by the rivers in Florida. Their great solitudes brought distant places together as the wide seas now make civilized men in every part of the world near neighbors.

ERA OF THE WHITE MAN.

The era of the white man in America is comparatively short. Christopher Columbus, an Italian, bearing a commission from Spain, discovered the New World in 1492. Five years later the Cabots, likewise Italians, sailing under an English commission, first reached the main land. Happily the continent was that of North America. The French were represented in 1524 by Verrazzani and in 1534 by Cartier, the former an Italian. The Dutch and Swedish flags came also. While these did not long remain, the blood and institutions for

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

which they stood left a lasting contribution. The great claimant nations for the New World were those first referred to-Spain, England and France.

In a local history the sphere occupied is at once large and small. In har- mony with this though we may start with Dayton as a center, and with Mont- gomery county as a larger center. We extend our view to southwestern Ohio, and then to all Ohio. We are then compelled to look at the northwestern terri- tory and finally to New France, especially that part of it lying east of the Mississippi river. A knowledge of the English colonies will for the most part be taken for granted, yet again and again they must come into mention. Like- wise must come now and then before our eyes the courts of Europe playing for the stakes of a continent.

THE FRENCH.

In the proud days of Louis Fourteenth and Louis Fifteenth, France claimed a territory in North America vastly exceeding that controlled by the English. New France included the valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, in- cluding, of course, the Ohio Valley, thus embracing the western parts of New York and Pennsylvania and all of West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The English colonies were hemmed in by Acadia on the north, the Alleghenies on the west and French Florida on the south. Well may it have been for the English that they were thus held together, were to be welded together in the forge of common struggle and suffering.

The vast pretensions of the French had been slowly built up. Cartier after discovering the mouth of the St. Lawrence in 1534, ascended in the following year that mighty river. A lull followed, because what the French were seek- ing was gold, or a new way to India, the land of gold. In 1604 they made their first permanent settlement, established the colony of Acadia. In 1608 Cham- plain, one of the most capable and active of the agents of France, founded the city of Quebec. He, however, by impolitic attacks on the powerful Five Na- tions made these tribes the allies of the English and a long continued barrier to the designs and operations of the French south of the St. Lawrence.

From this and other causes they now all the more hastened their course up the St. Lawrence, through and beyond the great lakes. Men like Brulé and Nicolet, trained to the life and habits of the Indians by actually living among them could penetrate to any part of the land. The zealous priest was anxious to win disciples from among the red men and was sought by the explorer and trader as a companion. The strongest impulse came, however. from the avarice of the fur trader. While gold had not been discovered, it was found that the fur trade could be made to yield a vast profit. Trade monopolies were created, the traders distributed themselves everywhere and the Indians, to their dis- advantage, were turned from their growing sedentary ways, to a decided devo- tion to hunting and trapping.

Seeking to solve the mysteries of the continent and desirous of obtaining more territory for the crown of France, La Salle, statesman, soldier, and Chris- tian, as he called himself, set out to discover the great river to the south of which he had heard. Casting his bark on the head waters of an unknown

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

stream he was carried down to the Ohio, the Beautiful River of the Indians, and was carried on down to the falls where Louisville now stands. Thus was the Ohio river discovered in 1669.

Joliet and the good priest, Father Marquette, going down the Wisconsin river discovered the Mississippi river in 1673. Seven years later La Salle sent an expedition to explore further the Mississippi. The expedition proceeded up the river as far as the falls of St. Anthony, but the historian of the expedition, the vain and unveracious friar, Hennepin claimed also that the Mississippi was explored to its mouth. The honor of this great exploration was reserved for La Salle himself. In 1682 he passed down the great river to its mouth. He erected one fort on the bank of the Mississippi, having previously built a fort on one of its tributaries, five in all between Montreal and the mouth of the Mississippi.

The French went on with their enterprises, chiefly in trading with the In- dians, but also in establishing a limited number of settlements. One was on the Mississippi, in the Illinois country at the close of the seventeenth and the begin- ning of the eighteenth century. In 1699 a settlement was made on the lower Mis- sissippi, and in 1701 Detroit was founded. Outside of Canada, our concern is chiefly with these three settlements. As yet clashing with the English was mostly due to conflicts in Europe giving rise to what were called in America King Wil- liam's war and Queen Ann's war, which seriously involved the New England col- onies. The French did not hesitate to employ the Indians against the English set- tlements. Nor was their use of the Indians in this way confined to the times of de- clared war. It was rather a part of settled policy.

The most serious conflicts, however, were not reached until English settlers passing the Alleghenies began to establish homes in the Ohio valley. About 1740 the contest was already becoming tense. In 1748 the Ohio Company was formed, looking to settlements more especially south of the Ohio river. Possibly the peace of Aix-la-chapelle in 1748 may have put new resolution into the French.

CELORON'S EXPEDITION.

Certain it is that the expedition of Céloron in 1749 was destined to have far-reaching consequences. Celoron was instructed to traverse the Ohio re- gion, take formal possession and drive off the English traders. English traders had occupied the country for about fifty years and were prepared to give the Indians much better terms as they did not have to divide their profits with monopolistic companies as did the French traders. Céloron had with him, be- sides his officers twenty French soldiers, more than a hundred adventurers at- tached as assistants, and thirty Indians. The company dragged their canoes and stores over the steep portage from Lake Erie to Chautauqua Lake and thence proceeded by the Allegheny river to carry out their commission. Céloron noticed the splendid position at the forks of the Ohio, buried incised lead plates at the mouths of various rivers as a memorial of the establishment of French power in the valley of the Ohio. The last plate was buried at the mouth of the Great Miami. The entire expedition ascended the Miami in their long, light canoes, called bateaux. At Pickawillany, they burned their canoes and what else was

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

too burdensome for a land journey, secured horses for the officers from the Indians, and proceeded to the Maumee, and at length completed their journey by reaching Montreal.

Citizens of Dayton cannot fail to feel a deep interest in this voyage up the Miami of this large company of Frenchmen, the first white men who have left a record of actual presence in the locality which they now fondly call their own. Local interest also attaches to the presence and experiences of the expedition at the Indian town of Pickawillany, a few miles north of the present Piqua. They called the Great Miami river, as was usual with the French at that time, the Rivière à la Roche. The account of the burial of the leaden places is given by Céloron in his journal as follows: "Buried on the point formed by the inter- section of the right bank of the Ohio with the left bank of the Rivière à la Roche, August 31, 1749." This plate has not been discovered. September Ist, they launched their little fleet of "bark gondolas" for the journey up the Great Miami. On account of the low stage of the river caused by the summer drought, the assent was toilsome, requiring probably the use of poles as well as oars. One-half of the company walked on the shore in order that the freighted ca- noes might be able to pass shallows and rapids. On the 13th of September the little company reached Pickawillany just below the mouth of Loramie Creek, where there was a settlement of English traders, sometimes called the oldest English settlement in Ohio. They sought to secure the favor of the old Miami chief, called by Céloron, the Demoiselle, but generally called Old Britain be- cause of his favor for the English. They tried to persuade the Indians to return to Kiskakon, an Indian village probably occupying the site of Fort Wayne, but were put off with vague promises. The French rested here a week and then destroyed their canoes and proceeded to the Maumee, reckoning the distance fifty leagues and allotting themselves five and one-half days for its accomplishment.

We now approach the great struggle between the French and the English for supremacy in America. We must first notice the growing power and de- mands of the English. It suffices here to state that soon will disappear from the map of North America "New France-the picturesque, romantic, extrava- gant, squalid, New France."

THE ENGLISH.

By the English we first mean people of the Anglo-Saxon stock, or descend- ants of the same, who came to this country from England. But we mean also the Hollander, the German, the Scotch-Irish and every other person or people that between the Alleghenies and the sea had come, under the impress of the English language and English institutions. The German has been fully recog- nized, but the Scotch-Irish have not, either as to their numbers or as to the im- portant part that they have played. This has been explained on the ground that while they were content in making the history, it was others who wrote the history. Froude points out that in two years following certain persecu- tions in Ireland "thirty thousand Protestants left Ulster for a land, where there was no legal robbery and where those who sow the seed could reap the harvest."

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

After a brief period of quiet the persecution again began in 1729 and for twenty years twelve thousand people annually came from Ulster to America. A large proportion of these people gradually worked their way to the western frontier. By their rugged strength, love of independence and religious conviction they became a great factor in the shaping of the west and of the east as well. They were mainly Presbyterians.

The English were prominent and successful as traders among the Indians. While concerned with finding profitable trade with distant tribes of Indians, they left no accounts of their travels and experiences. But they did help greatly to bring on the conflict with the French. The latter could not endure competi- tion in what with them was almost their sole object of desire-the profits of the fur trade. Moreover the English were home-seekers, home-builders. This like- wise would defeat the objects of the French. The opportunities which the English sought could not be had on the lands east of the Alleghenies. The grant to Penn included land beyond the mountains. Six colonies were given charters, extending their bounds to the western ocean. The western lands to the most serious intents and purposes were lying idle. Why should not the needy home-seekers occupy them?

TRIUMPH OVER THE FRENCH.

The most immediate events precipitating the final desperate struggle be- tween France and England for supremacy in America took place in the Indian town of Piqua (Pickawillany) a few miles north of the present town of that name in Ohio. This town of the Miami Indians was one of the largest and strongest in the northwest. It was a great center for the English traders, some- times fifty being here present at one time. A well built fort stood in connec- tion with it. Some are disposed to claim that this place should rank as the first settlement of the English in Ohio. The Indians maintained a strong friendship for the English. Céloron in his visit in 1749 was unable to change their atti- tude. Christopher Gist who visited the town in 175I testifies to the firm friend- ship for the English. So desperate was the case for the French that in 1752 they sent a large force of French and Indians to destroy the town and fort. The attack came as a surprise. Fourteen Miamis and one trader were killed. The chief, known as Old Britain was killed and eaten. The trading house was plundered and five traders were carried away prisoners. Encouraged by this success the French began to plan larger enterprises. Certain it is that the English cabinet in declaring the responsibility of the French for beginning hostilities was accustomed to refer to the attack on the Miami fort. The war that followed was the only war that resulted from disputes in America and em- braced Europe in its scope. The going over of the majority of the Indian tribes to the French, causing the war to be called the French and Indian war; the struggles at the forks of the Ohio; the defeat of Braddock ; the reviving fortune of the English ; and the driving of the French from the continent of North America-all these are to be taken note of, though they cannot be described here. By a hasty transfer in 1762 the territory west of the Mississippi was ceded to

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

Spain. All east of the Mississippi and all Canada became, in 1763, the posses- sion of Great Britain and, it may be said, of her colonies.

The causes leading to the removal of the name of France from the map of North America are entitled to our consideration. According to the prin- ciples accepted by "Christian nations" the rights of the French to the largest part of the territory claimed by them were well founded. They were the dis- coverers and they had taken important steps in occupancy. Yet as time passed and larger opportunities came they failed to complete their title by proper use and occupancy. The middle of the eighteenth century, the Mississippi valley contained less than seven thousand Frenchmen, including slaves, and more than half of these were centered about New Orleans. All of "New France," with its almost continental extent, had a French population of less than eighty thousand. France cared for nothing but the profits of the fur trade and to secure these it was her settled policy to use the tomahawk of the savages to hold back the English settlers. Though, like Spain, she claimed to hold the land in fee as well as by sovereignty, she was usually able to retain the support of the Indians against the English, who recognized an Indian title to the soil. The attitude of the Indians was not much changed even by the poorer inducements offered by the French trader due to the grinding French monopolies. This friendliness was due chiefly to two causes, the opportunity for plunder en- couraged by the French and the fact that the French were not home-builders and would not likely occupy the land. If use of land under the conditions of civilization is an element in title, evidently the French title was defective, if it had not indeed lapsed. The failure of France in colonizing was due to the ab- sence of population and genius for this work, and the incredible corruption, levity and burden of debt in the home country.

PONTIAC'S WAR.

An afterpiece of the French and Indian war was the war incited and directed by the great abilities of Pontiac, a chief of the Ottawas. Many of the British posts were taken and many trading stations between the Ohio and Lake Erie were destroyed. The war closed with the successful expedition of General Bouquet into the region of the Muskingum in 1764.

SETTLEMENTS OPPOSED.

After the triumphant close of the French and Indian war in which the colonists fought along side the British regulars it would have been thought that the home government would have shown some sympathy for the aspira- tion of the colonists to make settlements in the valleys beyond the mountains.

Great Britain, however, was not disposed to take her colonies into account. The British king issued a proclamation forbidding the English colonists to oc- cupy lands west of the mountains, these lands being reserved for the Indians. The real purpose of the proclamation was set forth in the words of Lord Hills- borough, the president of the Board of Trade. He stated the objects of the British policy to be "the confining of the western extent of settlements to such

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

a distance from the seacoast as that the settlements should lie within easy reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom * * * and also of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction which was conceived to be necessary for the preserva- tion of the colonies in due subordination to and dependence upon the mother country." He further stated that "the great object of colonizing upon the continent of North America has been to improve and extend the commerce, navigation and manufacture of this kingdom * * and that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of their hunting grounds." These sentences speak volumes as to the selfish and blind policy of Great Britain and go a great way in explaining events that later took place.

The British authorities were induced so far to modify their attitude that they consented that a treaty with the Indians might be made by which a strip of land south of the Ohio and west to the Kanahwa might be opened to settle- ment, but the colonial negotiators found reason to enlarge the bounds so as to include the territory of the state of Kentucky. This was by the treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 in which the Iroquois yielded their own shadowy title and the more real title of other tribes as well.

LORD DUNMORE'S WAR.

Indian outrages led to Lord Dunmore's war, the field being both banks of the Ohio. The Indians were defeated and accepted the terms of peace offered by the English. An important result of this campaign was that it strengthened the claim of the colonies upon the western territory. The same year that marked the success of Lord Dunmore's expedition, marked also the adoption by the British parliament of the Quebec bill by which the authority of the Quebec government was extended to the Mississippi on the west and the Ohio on the south, thus placing a barrier athwart the natural line of development of the colonies and supplying one of the causes leading to the Revolution.

THE REVOLUTION.

From some of the histories of the Revolutionary war it would be thought that the west had no part in that great struggle. To the contrary, the land policy of the British government and the Quebec Act did much to precipitate the con- flict, which might be said to have continued in the west from Lord Dunmore's war to the final surrender of the British posts by the treaty of 1794, a period of twenty years. It was now the turn of the British to take the place of the French in employing the Indians against the settlements, the conditions being largely similar. The villages of the Indians were for the most part far from the exposed frontier of the colonial settlements and plundering and massacres could be carried on with slight likelihood of punishment. In some cases the British sought to save appearances by issuing instructions which were not expected to be carried out. The American congress authorized the employment of Indians against British and Indian forces, though not against settlements, yet almost no use was made of the authorization. The reason for naming Lord Dunmore's

DAYTON AND MONTGOMERY COUNTY

campaign of 1774 as the beginning struggle of the Revolution is that he, being the royal governor of Virginia and a strong Tory at heart, was believed to have received instructions while at Wheeling to patch up such a treaty with the Indians as would incline them to the British interest in the impending con- flict between the colonies and the mother country. This was the belief of Washington. The wing of the army under the command of General Lewis that fought the victorious battle at Point Pleasant was made up altogether of Virginia volunteers, as was also the wing under the immediate command of Lord Dunmore. Before disbanding, the officers under Lord Dunmore held a meeting in which they declared their allegiance to the king of England "whilst His Majesty delights to rule over a brave and free people." They also de- clared "but as the love of liberty and attachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every other consideration, we resolve that- we will exert every power within us for the defense of American liberty and for the support of her just rights and privileges."

The British movements of the war in the west were directed chiefly from Detroit, while those of the Americans were directed chiefly from Fort Pitt. Fort Henry (Wheeling) was twice attacked by Indians but escaped capture. In 1778 Fort Laurens was established by the Americans on the Tuscarawas as a means of overawing the Indians and as a half-way step toward Detroit, but after great hardships it was abandoned. In 1782 Colonel Crawford, leading an expedition against the Delaware and Wyandot Indians, was defeated, him- self being captured and burnt at the stake. In the same year the Americans under Colonel Williamson had wantonly massacred the Christian Indians at Gnadenhütten, as before the Indian chief, Cornstalk, had been treacherously slain at Point Pleasant.

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History of the city of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Volume I, Part 2

Author: Drury, Augustus Waldo, 1851-1935; S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, pub Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 966

Author: Drury, Augustus Waldo, 1851-1935; S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, pub
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago : S. J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 966