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In their efforts to secure an Indian alliance, the English had many advantages. Although Sir William Johnson died suddenly in June, 1774, his son-in-law, Col Guy Johnson, had succeeded him as Superintendent. His influence, and that of Sir William's son and heir, John Johnson, were hostile to the colonies, and with them cooperated the celebrated Joseph Brant. Such powerful advocacy was seconded by liberal presents, and the English emissaries practiced with equal suc- cess the artful tactics by which the French effected the pow- erful combination of 1755, the first fruits of which was the defeat of Braddock. On the other hand, the Americans were poor and distressed to provide means for the army of Washington, and the Indians were prompt to perceive the disadvantageous contrast. Besides, the Americans were the immediate aggressors on the hunting domains of the savages, and their expulsion, with English aid, seemed practicable and in all respects desirable.
The battle of Lexington was fought on the 20th of June, 1775. In July, of that year, Col. Guy Johnson held a Congress at Oswego with thirteen hundred and forty war- riors, and thenceforth all the Six Nations, except the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, were in close alliance with the British. Joseph Brant, at the head of his fierce Mohawks, was fore- most in the league.
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CONTINENTAL INDIAN DEPARTMENT.
How was it in the valley of the Ohio ? Dr. John Con- nolly, whose forcible occupation of Pittsburgh the year before we have noticed, determined to show his loyalty to the crown of England, by effecting a union of the northwestern Indians with British troops, and, leading them from Detroit, traverse the frontiers to eastern Virginia, where it was arranged that he should join Lord Dunmore. But Connolly, on his return from a visit to Gen. Gage at Boston, where this scheme was unquestionably concocted, was arrested at Hagarstown, Mary- land, and detained a close prisoner until 1781. Thus, at the outset, the west was fortunate in its relief from the in- trigues of an active and unscrupulous partizan of the British crown.2
Detroit soon became a centre of British influence, but it is a remarkable coincidence that the efforts of officers and agents stationed there to array the Indian tribes against the Americans, encountered an obstacle similar to the disagree- ment of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras to the confederacy of the New York tribes. A majority of the Delawares, and a numerous party of the Shawanese, were in favor of neutrality in the puzzling contest between the colonies and Great Britain. To strengthen, and, if possible, extend this disposition, Con- gress, in July, 1775, organized three Indian departments ; a northern one, including the Six Nations and all north and east of them, to the charge of which Gen. Schuyler, Oliver Wolcott and three others were appointed ; a middle depart- ment, including the western Indians, who were to be looked to by Messrs. Franklin, Henry and Wilson ; and a southern department, including all the tribes south of Kentucky, over which commissioners were to preside under the appointment of the South Carolina Committee of Safety. The commis-
2) Sce Appendix No. VI, for further particulars of Connolly's scheme.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
sioners were to keep a close watch upon the nations in their several departments, and upon the king's superintendents among them. These officers they were to seize, if they had reason to think them engaged in stirring up the natives against the colonies, and in all ways were to seek to keep them out of the contest. A series of conferences was held, and Heckewelder has preserved in his narrative a report of the talk at Pittsburgh in October or November, which the Delaware chiefs carried back to the Muskingum :3
" The commissioners, having first informed the chiefs that disputes had arisen between the king of England and the people of this country, and that their quarreling with each other, could not affect them in any wise, provided they did not interfere and take a part in it, they next proceeded to state the cause from whence the dispute had originated, calling the same a family dispute, a quarrel between a parent and his child, which they described as follows : 'Suppose a father had a little son whom he loved and indulged while young, but growing up to be a youth, began to think of having some help from him, and making up a small pack, he bid him carry it for him. The boy cheerfully takes this pack up, following his father with it. The father finding the boy willing and obedient, continues in this way ; and as the boy grows stronger, so the father makes the pack in proportion larger,-yet as long as the boy is able to carry the pack, he does so without grumbling. At length, however, the boy having arrived at manhood, while the father is making up the pack for him, in comes a person of an evil disposition and learning who was to be the carrier of the pack, advises the father to make it heavier, for surely the son is able to carry a large pack. The father listening rather to the bad adviser,
3) Heckewelder's Narrative of Indian Missions, 136, et seq.
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INDIAN CONFERENCE AT PITTSBURGH.
than his own judgment and the feelings of tenderness, follows the advice of the hard-hearted adviser, and makes up a heavy load for his son to carry. The son now grown up, examining the weight of the load he is to carry, addresses the parent in these words : 'Dear father, this pack is too heavy for me to carry, do pray lighten it; I am willing to do what I can, but am unable to carry this load.' The father's heart by this time having become hardened, and the bad adviser calling to him to whip him if he disobeys and refuses to carry the pack, now in a peremptory tone, orders his son to take up the pack and carry it off, or he will whip him ; and already takes up a stick to beat him. 'So,' says the son, 'am I to be served thus, for not doing what I am unable to do ? Well, if entreaties avail nothing with you, father, and it is to be decided by blows, whether I am able or not to carry a pack so heavy, then I have no other choice left me, but of resisting your unreasonable demand by my strength ; and thus, by strik- ing each other, learn who is the strongest.'" The foregoing parable was intended to make the colonial dispute clear to the savage pack-carriers, and was probably concocted by that adept in allegory, Benjamin Franklin. It was not unappre- ciated by those to whom it was directed.
This Pittsburg conference was attended by Delawares, Senecas, and a portion of the Shawanese. One of the Dela- ware chiefs, Captain White Eyes, boldly advocated the Amer- ican cause, to the great annoyance of some Senecas, who were in the British interest, and had come to Pittsburg to induce the Delawares to follow the example of the New York tribes. These Seneca Indians reminded White Eyes, in a haughty tone, that the Delawares were subordinate to the Six Nations, when Captain White Eyes, (as reported by Heckewelder,) " long since tired of this language, with his usual spirit and
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
an air of disdain, rose and said, 'he well knew that the Six Nations considered his nation as a conquered people, and their inferiors.' 'You say (said he) that you had conquered me,4 that you had cut off my legs-had put a petticoat on me, giving me a hoe and cornpounder in my hands, saying, Now woman ! your business henceforward shall be to plant and hoe corn, and pound the same for bread for us men and war- riors. 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 own 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 Alle- ghany River, he exclaimed, 'and all the country on the other side of that river is mine.' "
This spirited declaration by White Eyes was seized as a pretext for a separation of the war party among the Delawares, who were mostly the Monsie or Wolf tribe. These, led by the Monsie chief, Newalike, and Captain Pipe, left the Mus- kingum, where the peace chiefs lived, and withdrew towards Lake Erie, into the more immediate vicinity of the English and their allies. The Delaware chiefs, who sustained White Eyes' course in the council, were, Netawatwes, who was de- posed by Col. Bouquet because he refused to attend the con- ferences on Muskingum in 1764, and whose son and nephew had been recently converted to Christianity, Gelelemend or Killbuck, and Machingwi Puschiis or Big Cat and others, who (says Heckewelder,) did every thing in their power to preserve peace among the nations, by sending embassies, and exhorting them not to take up the hatchet, or to join
4) It must be remarked that the Indian orators always speak in the singu- lar number, though meaning the nation.
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MISSIONARY INFLUENCE.
either side, to which, however, the Sandusky Wyandots in- solently replied, " that they advised their cousins, the Dela- wares, to keep good shoes in readiness to join the warriors." This message being returned to them by the Delaware coun- cil, with the admonition "to set down and reflect on the misery they had brought upon themselves by taking an active part in the late war between the English and the French," was also carried to the Wyandots near Detroit, but having been delivered by White Eyes in the presence of the English Governor, the latter treated the Delaware deputies with much indignity.
Another Delaware chief, whose influence was decidedly for peace, was Welapachtschiechen,5 or Captain John. He was from the Hockhocking, and had been detained as a pris- oner at Fort Pitt by Col. Bouquet, but in April, 1776, was converted to Christianity, and declined his chiefship.
Heckewelder enumerates the Christian Indians at the close of 1775, as four hundred and fourteen persons, and there is no doubt that we owe to their pacific principles and example, that the powerful Delaware tribe, with the excep- tions already mentioned, were restrained from joining the hostile league, which soon embraced all the Ohio Indians, except a few Shawanese. It was the influence of a mission- ary, Kirkland, which concluded the treaty at German Flats on the 28th of June, 1775, by which the Oneidas and Tus- caroras gave to the Americans their pledge of neutrality ;6 and on the western border, it was a missionary, Zeisberger, who, by his timely colonization of the Muskingum in 1772,
5) Meaning " erect posture."
6) James Dean, the founder of Westmoreland, Oncida county, New York, no less than Samuel Kirkland, was influential in securing the friendship of the Oneidas. We have compiled (Appendix No. VII,) the allusions to his efforts and adventures, which occur in the American Archives. fourth series
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
was indirectly influential, three years afterwards, in remov- ing the keystone of a hostile league of all the tribes from the Cherokees to the Chippewas, against the struggling colo- nies. It is our firm belief, that if God had not placed those devoted messengers of the gospel in the interior of New York, and on the Muskingum of central Ohio, respectively, at the precise period, and in the precise circumstances of the case, that an indomitable host of Indian warriors would have penetrated to the heart of the Atlantic States, simultaneously with the lowest depression of the American army. At a later period, even the Delawares were swept into the vortex of hostilities, but fortunately the French alliance had then been consummated, invigorating the army and the country- the rumor of which was most potential upon the Indian tribes and European colonists of the Wabash, the Illinois, the Mis- sissippi, and even the lakes.
If we mistake not, Samuel Kirkland sleeps in the valley of the Oriskany, and the grave of David Zeisberger is visible near the Muskingum-spots alike worthy of patriotic com- memoration. Few who bore arms in the revolutionary strug- gle, contributed more than they to its fortunate progress and consummation.
Fortunately also for the United States, Col. George Mor- gan of Princeton, New Jersey, was appointed Indian agent for the middle department, with his headquarters at Pitts- burgh, in April, 1776. He is described in Hildreth's Pio- neer History, as "a man of unwearied activity, great perse- verance, and familiar with the Indian manners and habits ; having for several years had charge of a trading post in the Illinois, after that country was given up by the French, which was owned by a commercial house in Philadelphia. His frank manners, soldierly bearing, generosity, and, above
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COL. GEORGE MORGAN'S INDIAN AGENCY.
all, his strict honesty in all his dealings with them, won their fullest confidence; and no white man was ever more highly esteemed than was Col. Morgan, by all the savages who had any intercourse with him. He was a native of Philadelphia, and at the time of his appointment, held the post of Colonel in the army of the United States." As we shall see here- after, this praise is not exaggerated. The Delawares gave the name of Tamenend to Col. Morgan, which, according to Heckewelder, was the highest praise they could confer.
For nearly two years, the judicious and conciliatory course of Morgan prevented a general attack upon the frontier. It was a gloomy period, nevertheless, but marked by more apprehension of danger, than was in fact experienced. The friendly dispositions of the Delawares and some of the Shaw- anese and Wyandots, led them to advise the agent at Pitts- burgh, of the hostile expeditions from the vicinity of Detroit and Lake Erie, and vigilant measures in abandoning or pro- tecting an exposed situation, were usually successful. It was known that the British were making extraordinary efforts to mature a formidable Indian campaign, but the explosion yet lingered. Still there were not wanting instances of savage barbarity, which suggested measures of retribution, and in the spring of 1777, Patrick Henry, then governor of Vir- ginia, had resolved to send an expedition under the command of Col. David Shepherd, and Maj. Henry Taylor, to invade the country west of the Ohio, and especially to chastise a mongrel band of Indians, only sixty or eighty in number, whose village on the head waters of the Scioto was called Pluggy's Town, from the name of their chief. Governor Henry, in a letter to Col. Morgan, dated March 12, 1777, was explicit in thus defining the destination of the party, which was to consist of three hundred men. The Wyandots
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
were not yet in arms, though understood to be fully commit- ted to Governor Hamilton of Detroit. But the agent at Pittsburgh, even then, was conscious that the utmost circum- spection was requisite, or calamitous consequences would be precipitated, and, jointly with John Nevill, he replied in terms, of which an extract will forcibly indicate the feverish condition of the border. After assuring Gov. Henry that the most effectual measures to aid the expedition, if under- taken, should be pursued, Colonel Morgan and his colleague added:
" We nevertheless wish we were left more at liberty to exercise our judgments, or to take advice on the expediency and practicability of the undertaking at this critical time : for although we are persuaded, from what has already passed between Col. Morgan and our allies, the Delawares and Shaw- anese, that they would wish us success therein ; yet we ap- prehend the inevitable consequences of this expedition will be a general Indian war, which we are persuaded it is the inter- est of the State at this time to avoid, even by the mortifying means of liberal donations to certain leading men among the nations, as well as by calling them again to a general treaty. And if the State of Pennsylvania should judge it prudent to take some steps to gratify the Six Nations in regard to the encroachments made on their lands on the northwestern frontier of that State, of which they have so repeatedly com- plained, we hope and believe it would have a salutary effect. The settlement of the lands on the Ohio, below the Kenhawa and at Kentucky, gives the western nations great uneasiness. How far the State of Virginia may judge it wise to withdraw or confine those settlements for a certain term of years or dur- ing the British war, is too delicate a matter for us to give an opinion ; but we have reason to think that the measures we
271
MURDER OF CORNSTALK.
have (though perhaps out of the strict line of our duty) pre- sumed to hint at, would not only tend greatly to the happiness of this country, but to the interest of the whole State ; more especially if measures can be taken to treat the different nations in all respects with justice, humanity, and hospitality ; for which purpose, and to punish robberies and murders com- mitted on any of our allies, some wholesome orders or acts of government may possibly be necessary ; for parties have been formed to massacre some who have come to visit us in a friendly manner, and others who have been hunting on their own lands, the known friends to the commonwealth. These steps, if continued, will deprive us of all our Indian allies, and multiply our enemies. Even the spies who have been employed by the county-lieutenants of Monongahela and Ohio, seem to have gone on this plan, with a premeditated design to involve us in a general Indian war ; for on the 13th of March, at day-break, five or six of these spies fired on three Delaware Indians on this side the Delaware town, between that and Wheeling, and out of the country or track of our enemies. Luckily all the Indians escaped, only one of them was wounded, and that slightly in the wrist."
Col. Morgan, in the same letter, anticipates no attack from Detroit or Sandusky, there being no garrison at the latter place, and but sixty-six soldiers at Detroit, from whence by land to Fort Pitt is near three hundred miles, impassable by artillery, and all that country (he is) told could not furnish to an enemy of one thousand men, sufficient provisions or horses, for such an expedition.
If the Shawanese, or any portion of the tribe, were dis- posed to be allies of the Americans, as Morgan intimates, an event soon occurred, which extinguished any such sentiment. The revolutionary annals of the Ohio valley have many dark
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
stains, but none of deeper dye than the massacre of the heroic Cornstalk. That magnanimous chief, after the treaty of 1774 with Dunmore, had been the steadfast friend of neutrality among the belligerent whites. Perhaps he had the sagacity to perceive that the future of his race could not be altered by any issue of the controversy-that the rapacity of Euro- peans, not of a party, was the proper object of patriotic dread. In the spring of 1777, Cornstalk, accompanied by Red Hawk (the reader will remember the Shawanese orator at the council held by Col. Bouquet, in 1764,) came on a friendly visit to the fort at Point Pleasant, communicated the hostile disposition among the Ohio tribes, and expressed his sorrow that the Shawanese nation, except himself and his tribe, were determined to espouse the British side, and his apprehension that he and his people would be compelled to go with the stream, unless the Long Knives could protect them.
Upon receiving this information, the commander of the garrison, Captain Arbuckle, seized upon Cornstalk and his companion as hostages for the peaceful conduct of his nation, and set about availing himself of the advantage he had gained by his suggestions. During his captivity, Cornstalk held frequent conversations with the officers, and took pleasure in describing to them the geography of the west, then little known. One afternoon, while he was engaged in drawing on the floor a map of the Missouri territory, its water courses and mountains, a halloo was heard from the forest, which he recognized as the voice of his son, Ellinipsico, a young war- rior, whose courage and address were almost as celebrated as his own. Ellinipsico entered the fort and embraced his father most affectionately, having been uneasy at his long absence, and come hither in search of him.
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MURDER OF CORNSTALK.
The day after his arrival, two men belonging to the fort, whose names were Hamilton and Gilmore, crossed the Ken- hawa, intending to hunt in the woods beyond it. On their return from hunting, some Indians, who had come to view the position at the Point, concealed themselves in the weeds near the mouth of the Kenhawa, and killed Gilmore while endeavoring to pass them. Col. Stewart (who was at the post in the character of a volunteer) was standing on the opposite bank of the river at the time, and was surprised that a gun had been fired so near the fort in violation of orders.
Hamilton ran down the bank, and cried out that Gilmore was killed. Captain Hall commanded the company to which Gilmore belonged. His men leaped into a canoe and has- tened to the relief of Hamilton. They brought the body of Gilmore, weltering in blood and the head scalped, across the river. The canoe had scarcely reached the shore, when the cry was raised, "Kill the red dogs in the fort!" Captain Hall placed himself in front of his soldiers, and they ascended the river's bank, pale with rage, and carrying their loaded firelocks in their hands. Colonel Stewart and Captain Ar- buckle exerted themselves in vain to dissuade the men, exas- perated to madness by the spectacle of Gilmore's corpse, from the cruel deed which they contemplated. They cocked their guns, threatening those gentlemen with instant death if they did not desist, and rushed into the fort.
The interpreter's wife, who had been a captive among the Indians, and felt an affection for them, ran to their cabin and informed them that Hall's soldiers were advancing, with the intention of taking their lives, because they believed that the Indians who killed Gilmore had come with Cornstalk's son on the preceding day. This the young man solemnly
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
denied, declaring that he had come alone, and with the sole object of seeking his father. When the soldiers came within hearing, the young warrior appeared agitated. Cornstalk encouraged him to meet his fate composedly, and said to him, "My son, the Great Spirit has sent you here that we may die together." He turned to meet his murderers the next instant, and receiving seven bullets in his body, expired without a groan.
When Cornstalk had fallen, Ellinipsico continued still and passive, not even raising himself from his seat. He met death in that position with the utmost calmness. The Red Hawk made an attempt to climb the chimney, but fell by the fire of some of Hall's men.
The day before his death, Cornstalk had been present at a council of the officers, and had spoken to them on the subject of the war, with his own peculiar eloquence. In the course of his remarks, he expressed something like a pre- sentiment of his fate ; "When I was young," he said, " and went out to war, I often thought each would be my last adventure, and I should return no more. I still lived. Now I am in the midst of you, and if you choose, you may kill me. I can die but once. It is alike to me whether now or hereafter."
His atrocious murder was dearly expiated. The warlike Shawanese were thenceforth the foremost in excursions upon the frontier, particularly the scattered and exposed stations of Kentucky.
CHAPTER XVIII.
BORDER WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.
WE have forborne, with some effort of self-denial, to enlarge upon the early explorations and occupation of Kentucky by the whites. We have paused on the margin of the Ohio as the boundary of our subject, as well as of the state whose introductory annals constitute our special theme; but with a full consciousness of the fascinating interest which invests pioneer life in Kentucky. The solitary wanderings of Boone and Kenton as early as 1769, in the valleys of the Kentucky and Licking, where immense herds of buffalo sought the Saline springs-the adventures of Knox and his band of forty hunters who crossed the Appalachian chain in 1770, and explored the wild and broken region lying upon the northern boundaries of Tennessee-Boone's repulse by the Indians, when, in 1773, he attempted to remove five families besides his own, from the Yadkin in North Carolina to the banks of the Kentucky-the settlements of the McAfees, Thomas Bullett, Hancock, Taylor, James Douglas, Colonel Floyd and others also in 1772-the foundation of Harrods- burg by the solitary log cabin of James Harrod in 1774- the claim of Richard Henderson to the lands lying between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers, by a grant from the Cherokee Indians, and under which, notwithstanding the protest of Virginia afterwards successfully enforced, the col- ony of Transylvania was organized on the 23d of May, 1775 -the arrival of four American women, Mrs. Boone, Mrs.
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