USA > Ohio > History of the state of Ohio > Part 5
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" Tuesday, 18th December. I acquainted Mr. Croghan and Mr. Montour with my business with the Indians, and talked much of a regulation of trade, with which they were pleased, and treated me well."
" Tuesday, 25th. This being Christmas day, I intended to read prayers, but after inviting some of the white men, they informed each other of my intentions, and being of sev- cral persuasions and few of them inclined to hear any good, they refused to come ; but one Thomas Barney, a blacksmith, who is settled there, went about and talked to them, and then several of the well disposed Indians came freely, being invited by Andrew Montour." Mr. Gist delivered a dis- course, which was interpreted to the Indians, and read the English church service. He then says : "The Indians seem to be well pleased, and came up to me and returned me their thanks and then invited me to live among them," &c.
"Friday, 4th January, 1751. One Taaf, an Indian trader, came to town from near Lake Erie, and informed us that the Wyandots had advised him to keep clear of the Otta- was, (a nation firmly attached to the French, living near the lakes,) and told him that the branches of the lakes were claimed by the French, but that all the branches of the Ohio belonged to them and their brothers, the English, and that the
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GIST'S OHIO DIARY.
French had no business there, and that it was expected that the other part of the Wyandots would desert the French and come over to the English interest, and join their brethren on the Elk Eye creck, and build a strong fort and town there."
"Wednesday, 9th. This day came into town two traders from among the Piquatiners (a tribe of the Tawightecs) and brought news that another English trader was taken pris- oner by the French, and that three French soldiers had deserted and come over to the English, and surrendered themselves to some of the traders of the Picktown, and that the Indians would have put them to death to revenge the taking of our traders; but as the French had surrendered themselves to the English, they would not let the Indians hurt them, but had ordered them to be sent under the care of three of our traders, and delivered at this town to George Croghan."
" Saturday, 12th. Proposed a council-postponed-Indi- ans drunk.
" Monday, 14th. This day George Croghan, by the assistance of Andrew Montour, acquainted the King and council of this nation (presenting them with four strings of wampum) that their Roggony [father] had sent, under care of the Governor of Virginia, their brother, a large present of goods, which were now safe landed in Virginia, and that the governor had sent me to invite them to come and sce him, and partake of their father's charity to all his children on the branches of the Ohio. In answer to which, one of the chiefs stood up and said that their King and all of them thanked their brother, the governor of Virginia, for his carc, and me for bringing them the news; but that they could not give an answer until they had a full and general council of the several nations of Indians, which could not be
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
until next spring; and so the king and council shaking hands with us, we took our leave."
"Tuesday, 15th. We left Muskingum and went west five miles to the White Woman's creek, on which is a small town. This white woman was taken away from New England, when she was not above ten years old by the French Indians. She is now upwards of fifty-has an Indian husband and several children. Her name is Mary Harris. She still remembers they used to be very religious in New England; and won- ders how the white men can be so wicked as she has seen them in the woods."
Having crossed the Licking and Hockhocking, Gist de- scended the east bank of the Scioto, was favorably received at several Delaware villages, and estimated the strength of the tribe at about five hundred fighting men.8 On the 28th, he reached Shawnee town, "situated on both sides of the Ohio, just below the mouth of Scioto creek, and containing about three hundred men. There were about forty houses on the south side of the river, and about a hundred on the north side, with a kind of state house, about ninety feet long, with a tight cover of bark in which councils were held."
Thence on the 12th of February, the party as before enu- merated, crossed to the Great Miami, and were received at the Tawightwi town, which was on the northwest side of the river, and consisted of about four hundred families. The Tawightwi, or Miami Indians, are described as a numerous people, consisting of many different tribes, under the same form of government. A chief of the confederacy was chosen indifferently from the tribes, and at this time, was the king of the Piankeshaws. Gist was kindly received, and notwith- standing four Ottawas were present as envoys from the 8) Scc Appendix, No. III.
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GIST'S CONFERENCE WITH THE MIAMIS.
French, with tempting presents and offers of renewals of friendship, the latter were rejected, and the powerful Miamis gave the English envoy a promise to meet the Virginia com- missioners at Logstown, seventeen miles below Pittsburg, for a general treaty. The scene of this interview was probably at the mouth of Loramies Creek, or just above Piqua.
The king of the Piankeshaws, setting up the English col- ors in the council, as well as the French, rose and replied to the overtures of the Ottawa messengers. "The path to the French is bloody, and was made so by them. We have cleared a road for our brothers, the English, and your fathers have made it foul, and have taken some of our broth- ers prisoners." "This," added the king, " we look upon as done to us," and turning suddenly from them, he strode out of the council. At this the representative of the French, an Ottawa, wept and howled, predicting sorrow for the Miamis.
To the English, the Weas and Piankeshaws, after delib- cration, sent a speech by the great orator of the Weas. " You have taken us by the hand," were his words, " into the great chain of friendship. Therefore we present you with these two bundles of skins to make shoes for your people, and this pipe to smoke in, to assure you our hearts are good towards you, our brothers."
In the presence of the Ottawa ambassadors, the great war chief of the Picqua stood up, and summoning in imagination the French to be present, he spoke-
"Fathers! you have desired we should go home to you, but I tell you it is not our home; for we have made a path to the sun rising, and have been taken by the hand by our brothers, the English, the Six Nations, the Delawares, the Shawanese, and the Wyandots ; and we assure you in that road we will go. And as you threaten us with war in the
3*
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
spring, we tell you, if you are angry, we are ready to receive you, and resolve to die here, before we will go to you. That you may know this to be our mind, we send you this string of black wampum.
" Brothers, the Ottawas, you hear what I say, tell that to your fathers, the French, for that is our mind, and we speak it from our hearts."
" The French colors are taken down," adds Bancroft, " and the Ottawas are dismissed to the French fort of Sandusky."9
On the 1st of March, Gist left on his return by the falls of Ohio, and through the Cumberland mountains, to North Carolina; but in April, 1751, the Miami chiefs were revisited by Croghan, with similar results, as narrated in his published journal.
The Shawanese, found by Gist at the mouth of the Scioto, were lately returned from their southern wanderings, but as the scattered portions of the tribe came to Ohio, they estab- lished themselves higher up the stream and on the waters of the Miami, building several towns.
Having thus generally examined the land upon the Ohio, in November Gist commenced a thorough survey of the tract south of the Ohio, and east of the Kanawha, granted to the Ohio Company, and spent the winter in that labor.
Early in 1752, a settlement of English traders was attempted on the Great Miami, at the mouth of Loramie's Creek. A party of French soldiers having heard of it, came to the Twigtwees or Miamis, and demanded the traders as intruders. The Indians refused-the trading house was destroyed-fourteen natives killed, and the traders were carried into Canada, and some of them, according to one account, burned alive. This fort or trading house, was
9) History of the United States, iv, 81.
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ENGLISH EXPLORATIONS.
called by the English writers Pickawillany. These traders were probably Pennsylvanians, for that State made a gift of condolence to the Twigtwees for those slain in their defence.10
On the 9th June, 1752, Messrs. Fry, Lomax and Patton, Virginia Commissioners, met the Indians at Logstown, four- teen miles below Pittsburg, on the right bank of the Ohio, which had long been a trading point, but had been abandoned by the Indians in 1750. Gist appeared as agent for the Ohio Company. The Commissioners urged a confirmation of the treaty of Lancaster. The Indians claimed that the treaty at Lancaster did not cede any lands west of the war- rior's road, which ran at the foot of the Alleghany ridge. Two old chiefs asked Mr. Gist where the Indians' land lay- for the French claimed all the land on one side of the Ohio river, and the English on the other? Mr. Gist found the question difficult to answer. "However," said the savages, "as the French have already struck the Twigtwees, we shall be pleased to have your assistance and protection, and wish you would build a fort at once at the Fork of the Ohio." The Virginians asked much more, and at length, by bribing one of the Montours to exert his influence, induced the Indians to sign a deed, confirming the Lancaster treaty in its full extent, consenting to a settlement southeast of the Ohio, and guarantying that it should not be disturbed by them.
Hildreth says in 1752, "a band of the Miamis, or Twig- twees, as the English called them, settled at Sandusky,
10) This was in May, 1753. The present to the Miamis was two hundred pounds, besides a grant of six hundred pounds for general distribution among the tribes; but so great was the apprehension of the French, that the money probably was not sent, though Conrad Weiser was dispatched as a messenger in August to learn how things stood. Sparks' Franklin, iii, 219; N. A. Review, xlix, 83.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
having refused to remove to Detroit, and persisting in trade with the English, their village was burned, the English tra- ders were seized, and their merchandize confiscated."11 This is probably an inaccurate version of the affair at Lora- mies or Pickawillany.
Early in 1753, Gist had established a plantation near the Youghiogany, west of Laurel Hill, consisting of cleven fami- lies, but his purpose to lay off a town and fort near the mouth of Chartier's creek, about two miles below the Fork, on the southeast side of the river, was relinquished.
In the summer and fall of 1753, the French landed at Erie, and planted their garrisons at Presq' Isle, Le Boeuf and Vonango.
In November of the same year, George Washington, as the envoy of Virginia, had his unsatisfactory interview of remonstrance with the French commandant.
11) History of the United States, by Richard Hildreth, II, 436.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ASCENDANCY OF FRANCE UPON THIE OHIO.
THE year 1754 may be indicated as the period when the favorable sentiments which Croghan and Gist had ascertained and cultivated among the Ohio Indians, began to change to hostility. It was a year of French activity and English folly. The colonies were alarmed, but inefficient and parsi- monious ; while the French labored zealously to conciliate the Indians by gifts and flatteries. The envoys of the latter did not alarm the savages by any demands-their only object was to conciliate good will. "During the autumn of 1754," says Perkins, "the pleasant Frenchmen were securing the west step by step ; settling Vincennes, gallanting with the Delawares, and coquetting with the Iroquois, who still bal- anced between them and the English. The forests along the Ohio shed their leaves, and the prairies filled the sky with the smoke of their burning ; and along the great rivers, and on the lakes, and amid the pathless woods of the west, no European was seen whose tongue spoke other language than that of France."1
On the other hand, the infatuation of the colonists in seek- ing a grant of extensive tracts, occupied by Ohio Indians, from the Iroquois-the increasing numbers and influence of the Shawanese, who were the hereditary enemies of the English, and whose professions otherwise to Gist were proba- bly hypocritical or mercenary-the failure of the colonies to
1) Perkins' Writings, ii, 280.
(69)
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
continue their donations to the western Indians, while French emissaries swarmed in every village, with gifts of trinkets and exchanges of ammunition and ardent spirits ; and finally the evidences of French activity and strength afforded by the erection of forts at Sandusky, Vincennes, Miamis, Presque Isle, Du Quesne, &c .- all these circumstances conspired to alienate even the Delawares and Miamis from the English, and to make all the tribes either allies or acquiescent specta- tors of the French inroad. The main body of the Wyandots, and the Ottawas, without exception, became the active allies of the French. .
Perhaps no one was more keenly sensitive to the approach- ing danger, and more sagacious in devising means to avert it, than Benjamin Franklin. He was the life and soul of the Albany Congress of 1754, which was summoned to promote the common defence and general welfare of the col- onies, and his writings reflect vividly the weakness of the English counsels as contrasted with his clear perception of the exigencies of the crisis. No western annalist should omit a cordial recognition of Franklin's timely and valuable suggestions on the eve of that momentous struggle which terminated French dominion upon the St. Lawrence and the Ohio.
As is well known, the Albany Convention of 1754, re- sulted in a plan of union, drawn by the sagacious Franklin, which was deemed too loyal to the crown by the colonies, and too democratic by the Court of England, and therefore was universally rejected. There were present delegates from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The Six Nations were also represented by Hendrick, the Mohawk Sachem, and certainly no one was more capable than an Iroquois chieftain to im-
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FRANKLIN UPON COLONIAL UNION.
press upon the delegates the necessity of union. The policy of a confederacy had been the secret of the strength of the Five Nations, and it was a remarkable incident at the council of Lancaster, in 1744, that a recommendation of Union came from Cannastego, one of their orators. At the session of the FOURTH OF JULY, of that year, the eloquent Onon- daga warrior used this language :
" We have one thing further to say, and that is, we hear- tily recommend union and good agreement between you and your brethren. Never disagree, but preserve a strict friend- ship for each other, and thereby you, as well as we, will be- come the stronger.
"Our wise forefathers established union and amity between the Five Nations ; this has made us formidable : this has given us great weight and authority with our neighboring na- tions. We are a powerful confederacy ; and by your observ- ing the same methods which our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh strength and power ; therefore, what- soever befalls you, never fall out with each other."
There are evidences that Franklin's thoughts had been for some time turned to a union of the colonies. He had thrown out hints to that effect in his newspaper. The Pennsylvania Gazette for May 9, 1754, contains an account of the capture by the French of Captain Trent's party, who were erecting a fort (afterwards Fort Du Quesne) at the fork of the Ohio. The article was undoubtedly written by the editor. After narrating the particulars and urging union to resist aggres- sion, he adds : "The confidence of the French in this under- taking seems well grounded in the present disunited state of the British colonies, and the extreme difficulty of bringing so many different governments and assemblies to agree in any speedy and effectual measures for our common defence and
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
security ; while our enemies have the very great advantage of being under one direction, with one council and one purse." At the end of the article is a wood cut, in which is the figure of a snake, separated into parts, to each of which is affixed the initial of one of the colonies, and at the bottom, in larger capitals, the motto, "JOIN OR DIE." It is well known that this device was adopted with considerable effect at the beginning of the Revolution. In some of the news- papers of that day, the mutilated snake makes a conspicuous head-piece, running across the page, and accompanied by the same significant motto.2
Not discouraged by the Albany failure, Franklin persisted in devising other measures of relief for the colonial crisis. He brought forward his "Plan for settling two Western Col- onies in North America, with reasons for the plan," dated 1754, and probably written shortly after the Albany Conven- tion of that year. One of these barrier colonies was to guard the Niagara frontier, and the other to occupy the northern bank of the Ohio. This was to be done by organ- izing a joint stock, one share of which, calling for a blank number of acres, was to be transferred to every settler or subscriber of a given amount of money-by which he antici- pated that sufficient men and means would be collected, " provided only," added the shrewd Franklin, "that the crown would be at the expense of removing the little forts the French have erected in their encroachments on his Ma- jesty's territories, and supporting a strong one near the Falls of Niagara, with a few small armed vessels, or half-galleys to cruise on the lakes."
For the security of the Lake Colony in its infancy, he proposed a temporary fort on French Creek, the principal
2) Sparks' Franklin, iii, 25.
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FRANKLIN'S PLAN OF BORDER COLONIES.
branch of the Alleghany River, but which Franklin calls " Buffalo creek of the Ohio," and " another at the mouth of the Tioga, on the south side of Lake Erie, where a port should be formed and a town erected for the trade of the lakes." I presume that " Tioga " was intended for Cuya- hoga, for he immediately adds, that " the colonists for this settlement might march by land through Pennsylvania."
The next paragraph contains an allusion to Fort Sandusky, which demonstrates that it was founded before 1754 at least.
" The river Scioto, which runs into the Ohio about two hundred miles below Logstown, is supposed the fittest seat of the other colony ; there being for forty miles on each side of it, and quite up to its head, a body of all rich land : the finest spot of its bigness in all North America, and has the particular advantage of sea-coal in plenty (even above ground in two places,) for fuel, when the wood shall be destroyed. This colony would have the trade of the Miamis or Twigh- twces ; and should, at first, have a small fort near Hochockin, at the head of the river, and another near the mouth of the Wabash. Sandusky, (in the earliest edition of Franklin's Works written Sanduski,) a French Fort near the Lake Erie, should also be taken; and all the little French forts south and west of the lakes, quite to the Mississippi, be removed, or taken and garrisoned by the English."
These colonies were to be on the French plan of western colonization, every fort having a small settlement around it, one furnishing protection and the other provisions ; and Franklin assumes that " there are already in all the old col- onies many thousands of families that are ready to swarm, wanting more land," who would be attracted by " the rich- ness and natural advantages of the Ohio country." He opens his essay, indeed, by observing that " the great country 4
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
back of the Appalachian mountains, on both sides of the Ohio and between that river and the lakes, is now well known, both to the English and French, to be one of the finest in North America, for the extreme richness and fertility of the land, the healthy temperature of the air, and mildness of the climate ; the plenty of hunting, fishing and fowling ; the facil- ity of trade with the Indians ; and the vast convenience of inland navigation or water carriage by the lakes and great rivers, many hundreds of leagues around." "From these natural advantages," he predicts "it must undoubtedly (perhaps in less than another century,) become a populous and powerful dominion."
In favor of his project of charters and encouragement to two border colonies, as above sketched, Franklin gives so characteristic an outline of the evils to be prevented, and the benefits to be attained, that we cannot refrain from a quota- tion of some extent :
"The French are now making open encroachments on these territories, in defiance of our known rights ; and if we longer delay to settle that country, and suffer them to possess it, these inconveniencies and mischiefs will probably follow :
1. Our people being confined to the country between the sea and the mountains, cannot much more increase in num- ber : people increasing in proportion to their room and means of subsistence.^
2. The French will increase much more, by that acquired room and plenty of subsistence, and become a great people behind us.
3. Many of our debtors and loose English people, our German servants and slaves, will probably desert to them, and increase their numbers and strength, to the lessening and weakening of ours.
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FRANKLIN'S BORDER COLONIES.
4. They will cut us off from all commerce and alliance with the western Indians, to the great prejudice of Britain, by preventing the sale and consumption of its manufactures.
5. They will, both in time of peace and war, (as they have always done against New England,) set the Indians on to harrass our frontiers, kill and scalp our people, and drive in the advanced settlers ; and so, in preventing our obtaining more subsistence by cultivating of new lands, they discourage our marriages, and keep our people from increasing ; thus (if the expression may be allowed,) killing thousands of our children before they are born.
" If two strong colonies of English were settled between the Ohio and Lake Erie, in the places hereafter to be mentioned, these advantages might be expected :
1. They would be a great security to the frontiers of our other colonies, by preventing the incursions of the French and French Indians of Canada, on the back parts of Pennsyl- vania, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas ; and the fron- tiers of such new colonies would be much more easily defended than those of the colonies last mentioned now can be, as will appear hereafter.
2. The dreaded junction of the French settlements in Canada with those of Louisiana would be prevented.
3. In case of a war, it would be casy, from those new colonies, to annoy Louisiana, by going down the Ohio and the Mississippi ; and the southern part of Canada, by sailing over the lakes, and thereby confine the French within narrow limits.
4. We could secure the friendship and trade of the Miamis or Twigtwees, (a numerous people, consisting of many tribes, inhabiting the country between the west end of Lake Erie and the south end of Lake Huron, [Michigan rather,] and
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
the Ohio,) who are at present dissatisfied with the French and fond of the English, and would gladly encourage and protect an infant English settlement in or near their country, as some of their chiefs have declared to the writer of this memoir. Further, by means of the Lakes, the Ohio and Mississippi, our trade might be extended through a vast country, among many numerous and distant nations, greatly to the benefit of Britain.
5. The settlement of all the intermediate lands, between the present frontiers of our colonies on one side, and the Lakes and Mississippi on the other, would be facilitated and speedily executed, to the great increase of Englishmen, Eng- lish trade, and English power.
"The grants to most of the colonies, are of long narrow slips of land, extending west from the Atlantic to the South Sea. They are much too long for their breadth; the ex- tremes are at too great distance: and therefore unfit to be continued under their present dimensions. Several of the old colonies may conveniently be limited westward by the Alleghany or Apalachian mountains, and new colonies formed west of those mountains."
Tempting as this relic is, we will not further pursue the extract. It is certainly the prophecy of history, and per- haps no passage in the useful life of Franklin, has been more productive of service to his country, than his early labors to unite the colonies. They were the germ of the confederacy of the Revolution, and the Constitution of 1789. The fore- going project was in the alternative-only in case the Albany scheme was not adopted. Both, however, were one genera- tion too soon. These councils were unheeded, and after 1754, the reaction in favor of the French, so extensively prevailed among the Western tribes, for the reasons already
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