USA > Ohio > Ross County > Chillicothe > Ohio centennial anniversary celebration at Chillicothe, May 20-21, 1903 : under the auspices of the Ohio State Archaelogical and Historical Society : complete proceedings > Part 14
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Licking River was reached. The Kentucky backwoodsmen led by Boone and other veteran Indian fighters rushed to the rescue. It was a fierce and merciless onslaught. The Kentuckians were defeated and routed. Seventy of their number were killed out- right and many captured and later tortured by the Indians. The best and bravest blood of Kentucky had been shed like water. The victorious British and Indians, glutted with vengeance, re- crossed the Ohio, the Canadian rangers returning to Detroit and the Indians dispersing to their forest homes. That was the last and most successful British and Indian invasion of Kentucky. The western settlers were panic stricken, however, and cried aloud for aid from Virginia and Pennsylvania. Again George Rogers Clark emerged from his pioneer home and hurried run- ners over the country summoning the brave and undaunted back- woodsmen for another Ohio raid. In November (1782), the forest freedmen poured forth from the hills and dales south of the Ohio and gathered at the mouth of the Licking. At the head of a thousand and fifty mounted riflemen, Clark crossed the Ohio and struck off northward through the forest to the Miami towns. The Indians were surprised and fled, their towns and crops were destroyed. The Detroit authorities tried to rally the Indians for defence, but to no avail. Captain Benj. Logan, in command of one of Clark's divisions, pushed on to the head of the Miami and burned the post and stores of the British traders. It was a sudden and successful expedition. It lasted but a short time, but it struck dismay to the British at Detroit and Indians in Ohio. It practically ended the British and Indian Revolutionary war in the Ohio country. The incursions of the Indians instigated and directed by the British ceased for a time to harass the frontier settlers. The redmen, aided by the red coats, had been unable to drive the Americans back beyond the Alleghanies. The West was to be American no less than the East. The tide of western immigration began. The Virginian, the Pennsylvanian, the pa- triots of New England, turned their faces toward the "promised land" of the Northwest Territory. But the Ohio settler was not yet to possess his home in peace and security.
By the Treaty of Paris (September 1783) the British ceded their American possessions in the Northwest to the United States.
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But Great Britain retained the occupancy of many of their west- ern posts as a pretense of guarantee. By the peace treaty, it was agreed that the creditors on either side should meet with no law- ful impediment to the recovery of the full value in sterling money of all bona fide debts contracted before the war. Congress was to recommend to the state legislatures provision for the restitu- tion of all estates, rights and properties which had been confis- cated from British subjects, etc .; and there was to be no future (after the peace) confiscation of property because of any part individuals had taken in the war. As an indemnity or security on the American's part to the British government for these agree- ments, Great Britain clung to these posts in the western country. They were: Michillimakinak (Mackinac), Detroit, Niagara, Os- wego, Oswegatchie (Ogdenburg), Point au Fer and Dutchman's Point, Presque Isle (Erie), and (Ohio) posts at the mouth of the Sandusky and Miami (Maumee) Rivers. While the pretense of England for holding these posts was the fulfillment on our side of the treaty, the real causes were desire to retain the ad- vantages these points afforded for British agents to carry on the fur trade and more especially for the purposes of perpetuating from these centers the Indian hostility to the Americans. The British government desired to keep control of and influence over the Indians to the end that the trade (fur) be kept secure in Ca- nadian hands and that in case of war with America or Spain,* the tomahawk and the scalping knife might once more be called into requisition. Great Britain hoped the newly formed league of American states would prove a "rope of sand" and would soon dissolve and an opportunity be afforded to restore the new re- public to colonial dependence. The Indians were assured of the continued friendship and sympathy of their former British pa- trons. They were given to understand that they would be cared for. The Indian with this "moral" support at his back was not
* It will be recalled that the result of the French and Indian War (1756-1763) was that France yielded all her American possessions east of the Mississippi to England. But the French possessions known as. the Louisiana country, west of that river, were ceded to Spain. Spain held the territory until 1800 when it was retroceded to France, from which (under Napoleon) it was purchased (1803) by the United States. for $15,000,000.
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long in renewing his protests at the occupation by the American of his hunting grounds in the Ohio Valley.
In studying the events of western, especially Ohio, history, from now (1783) to the close of the Indian War, 1795, this British background is not to be lost sight of. Indeed it is in evidence until the conclusion of the War of 1812. The cause of liberty triumphant, the Revolutionary soldiers of New Eng- land returned to their homes to exchange their swords for plow- shares and engage in the pursuits of peace. But westward the star of the new republican empire was to take its way. The veterans of the battles from Lexington to Yorktown looked with longing eye to the fertile and picturesque valley of the Ohio. In March, 1786, in the "Bunch of Grapes" tavern, Boston, was born the Ohio Company. The year following, that of 1787, was memorable for the three great enactments of the new government. They were (1) the "Ordinance of 1787" creating the Northwest Territory, and (2) the sale of the apportioned land to the Ohio Company by the Continental Congress in New York, and (3) the adoption of the Federal Constitution by the convention in Phila- delphia. The arrival of the Mayflower at the mouth of the Mus- kingum (April 6, 1788), was the advent of the new civilization for the Northwest Territory. Ohio was settled by the heroes and veterans of the War for Independence. But they did not find a land flowing with milk and honey, nor did each one sit peace- fully under his own vine and fig tree. Rather were they the pathfinders in a dense forest, frequented by wild beasts and in- habited by the fierce redman. These scarred veterans of Bunker Hill, Trenton, Monmouth, Saratoga and a hundred battles for freedom were not yet to enjoy the peace and prosperity their past sufferings and patriotic services deserved. The Ohio Valley had indeed passed to the United States and had been opened to the pilgrims from the land of the early colonies. But the Indians were still in a large measure its occupants and, with no feeble title, its claimants. Not yet was the last enemy of the American, the British, entirely expelled or even completely conquered.
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All along the winding river And adown the shady glen, On the hill and in the valley, The voice of war resounds again.
The British still goaded on the redmen. One of the first duties with which Territorial Governor St. Clair was charged was the negotiation of a treaty of peace with the Ohio Indians. In 1789 at Fort Harmar a treaty was concluded with several tribes located in that vicinity, whereby the Indians relinquished their claims to a large part of Ohio. But only certain tribes entered into that agreement. Many others refused to be bound by it. They de- manded that the whites should retire beyond (south and east) the Ohio. The long Indian War in Ohio ensued; a war in which the savages had the sympathy, and at all times the actual support of the British. The Indian with his prophetic instinct realized that the hour of doom for him was dawning. The curl- ing smoke from the settler's cabin was the pillar of cloud by day and the blazing on the tree trunks by the frontiersman, as he felt his way amid the trackless forest, was the hand-writing on the wall that betokened the rapid but inevitable conquest of the rapacious Saxon over the dogged and daring, but skilless savage. It was the soil of Ohio, the land of the Buckeye, that was to wit- ness the bitter and final conflict between the tribes of the redmen and the intrepid hosts of the pale face. From the days of Pon- tiac's conspiracy (1763) to the last blow of Tecumseh's confed- eracy (1813), for half a century the fair valley of the Ohio was the scene of their tragic and dramatic contest. A struggle for racial supremacy unsurpassed in interest and importance in the annals of nations.
The Indian would not yield his hunting ground nor would he vacate his wigwam. The British beguiled the redmen into the belief that the American had no rights the tribes of the forest were bound to respect. They began at once, urged on by the British agents, to commit depredations and to destroy the property and take the lives of the settlers in Ohio. The darkness of midnight was made lurid by the flames of the burning hut and the stillness of the forest was broken by the rifle crack of the stealthily approaching savage and the groans of the murdered
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frontiersman and the shrieks of his homeless and defenseless wife and children. For seven years the government made every effort to bring the Ohio tribesmen to terms by means of treaties, but without avail. Roused to fury by the steady increase of settle- ments from the East, the Indian would not be placated. He would make no compromise ; he would give no quarter. In his opposition and hostility he was adroitly supported by the British authorities and French-Canadians. Indeed, the Indians were abjectly controlled by Great Britain. Of the innumerable evi- dences of this we note but one or two. In the spring of 1790 Antoine Gamelin was sent by Major Hamtramck, under instruc- tions of Governor St. Clair, to the Miami villages, near the pres- ent site of Ft. Wayne, to treat with the Ouiatenon and Kickapoo Indians. Gamelin says in his journal that after his speech to the Indians a head chief arose and said: "You, Gamelin, my friend and son-in-law, we are pleased to see in our village, and to hear by your mouth, the good words of the great chief. We thought to receive a few words from the French people; but I see the contrary. None but the Big Knife* is sending speeches to us. You know that we can terminate nothing without the consent of our brethren the Miamis. I invite you to proceed to their village, and to speak to them. There is one thing in your speech I do not like ; I will not tell of it; even was I drunk, I would perceive it ; but our elder brethren will certainly take notice of it in your speech. You invite us to stop our young men. It is impossible to do it, being constantly encouraged by the British." Again at the Miami town Gamelin showed the Shawanees and Delawares the treaty concludedt at Fort Harmar by St. Clair and the various tribes. He then says: "Blue Jacket, chief warrior of the Shawa- nees, invited me to go to his house, and told me: 'My friend, by the name and consent of the Shawanees and Delawares, I will speak to you. We are all sensible of your speech, and pleased with it; but, after consultation, we cannot give an answer with- out hearing from our fathert at Detroit; and we are determined
* Meaning the U. S. government. The Indians called the Ameri- cans the "Big Knives" and the "Long Knives," probably because of the swords and bayonets which were the especial weapons of the white men.
+ The treaty was made in January, 1789.
Į British commander.
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to give you back the two branches of wampum, and to send you to Detroit to see and hear the chief, or to stay here twenty nights for to receive his answer.'" Again (on May 3) Gamelin got to the Weas on the Wabash: "They told me that they were waiting for an answer from their eldest brethren. 'We approve very much our brethren for not to give a definite answer, without inform- ing of it all the lake nations ; that Detroit was the place where the fire was lighted; then it ought first to be put out there ; that the English commandant is their father, since he threw down our French father. They could do nothing without his approbation.' "
General Josiah Harmar, a Revolutionary veteran, was ap- pointed commander-in-chief of the United States army Sep- tember 29, 1789, and was at once directed to proceed against the Indians. He centered a force of some fifteen hundred men at Fort Washington (Cincinnati). His army consisted of some three hundred regulars and eleven hundred "militia," which really meant indiscriminate volunteers, mostly from Kentucky, aged men and inexperienced boys, many of whom had never fired a gun; "there were guns without locks and barrels without stocks, borne by men who did not know how to oil a lock or fit a flint." With this "outfit" General Harmar proceeded (September 30, 1790), into the heart of the Indian country, around the head- waters of the Maumee and the Miami. The Indians under the British had made ample preparations for the reception of General Harmar's forces. Arms, ammunition and stores had been issued to the Indians in great abundance by Chief Joseph Brant and Alex- ander McKee, and Captain Bunbury and Silvie of the British troops. The Indians thus equipped in parties of hundreds set out for the Upper Miami towns whither they understood the forces of the United States were bending their course .* The Indians, in far less numbers than the American army, were lead by the renowned Miami chief, Me-che-cannah-quah, better known as Little Tur- tle. By wily strategy he divided Harmar's army and defeated and routed the expedition.
Harmar, chagrined and humiliated, retreated to Fort Wash- ington after suffering great loss of men. It was a stunning blow for the young republic, and created havoc and terror among
*Certificate of Thomas Rhea, Brice's History of Fort Wayne.
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the Ohio settlers. The Indians were highly elated and embold- ened to further and aggressive attacks upon their white enemies. It was now evident to the government that large meas- ures must be taken to establish the authority of the United States among the Indians and protect the Ohio settlements. Washing- ton called Governor St. Clair to Philadelphia, and with the ap- proval of Congress placed him in command of an army to be organized for a new Indian expedition. Meanwhile (June, 1791), General Charles Scott, a revolutionary hero, who had settled in Kentucky, raised a voluntary force of seven hundred and fifty Kentucky recruits, and according to the commands of the gov- ernment, led an expedition from the mouth of the Kentucky River into the Indian Wea towns on the Wabash. Four months later General James Wilkinson, another distinguished Revolution- ary officer, was sent at the head of a like expedition to destroy the towns on the Eel river. With five hundred and twenty-five men, armed and mounted, General Wilkinson proceeded from Fort Washington to the Miami towns and thence to the Indiana Indian towns. These two sudden invasions distracted the Indians in the Eel and Wabash sections, but did not seriously disturb the Ohio tribes which were the most active and bold in their warfare. The raids of Scott and Wilkinson were the outposts of a more formidable undertaking by the government.
October 4, 1791, General St. Clair, at the head of some three thousand troops, hardly better in quality than those under Harmar, set out from Fort Washington. The plan was to proceed north- ward along the present western line of the state and establish a line of forts to be properly maintained as permanent points for military operation and protection. Forts Hamilton, St. Clair and Jefferson, the latter near Greenville, were erected. But when the expedition, now about twenty-five hundred strong, had reached a branch of the Wabash in what is now Mercer County, some thirty miles from Fort Jefferson, it was attacked by an allied force of Indians, fifteen hundred strong, under Little Turtle. It was a desperate, irregular combat, the troops were completely demoralized and panic-stricken, and resorted to "a most igno- minious flight," with the woeful loss of over six hundred killed and two hundred and fifty wounded, a loss equal to that of the
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American army at Germantown, when General Washington suf- fered one of the worst defeats and greatest losses of the Revolu- tion. Great public odium rested on St. Clair, and he asked that a committee be appointed by Congress to investigate his conduct in the battle. It was done and the report fully exonerated him. In all the story of Washington's life there is no more human pas- sage than that which narrates how the news of this calamity was received by him in Philadelphia on a December day while he was at dinner. It is related that on this occasion the usually dignified and impassive father of his country gave way to wrath and - profanity.
In January (1792), following St. Clair's disastrous defeat, General Wilkinson conducted a small command of United States regulars and Kentucky militia from Fort Washington to the bat- tle-ground of St. Clair, a site since known as Ft. Recovery. The object of this expedition was to give decent burial to the bodies of the slain. It was a horrible sight that met the gaze of the soldiers. The bones of the dead were buried in great pits amid the snow and ice of excessively cold weather.
The Indian problem had now become a "burning question" in more senses than one, and there was great danger that the pow- erful Six Nations of the East would join in going upon the war- path. The retention of the posts, the complicity of the British and Canadian agents and the constant intercourse between the garrisons and the Indians was cause for much parleying between the American government and the Britain cabinet. The people of New England, no less than the western settlers, were becom- ing irritable and impatient over the perfidy of Great Britain. An unsuccessful campaign always brings trouble and condemna- tion upon the government. Popular dissent was greatly aroused. The westerners felt sorely aggrieved, and every act of the gen- eral government tending towards conciliation with the British, who were justly charged with inciting the Indians on the frontier, was looked upon with intense disfavor. The condition of affairs tested the sagacity and diplomacy of Washington, the wisdom of Congress and the patience and confidence of the people. It was evident the mutual interests, and indeed, combined efforts of the British and the Indians in Ohio, must be overcome by no inde-
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cisive measures before the Republic could achieve the territorial independence which it was thought had been assured by the Paris treaty of 1783. Washington anxiously scanned the list of his officers for a reliable successor to St. Clair. The choice finally fell upon Anthony Wayne, the dashing, resolute hero of Ticon- deroga, Germantown, Monmouth and the stormer of Stony Point. The appointment caused the British some solicitude. They had heard of Wayne. Upon the announcement of the selection of Wayne, Mr. George Hammond, the British minister to the American government, wrote home that Wayne was "the most active, vigilant and enterprising officer in the American army, but his talents were purely military." Mr. Hammond here in- dulges in some unconscious British humor. It is generally sup -. posed that military talents are the chief qualification for a cam- paign leader. Wayne's were found to be sufficient. If he were "mad" there was method in his madness.
Wayne arrived at Fort Washington, April, 1793, and by October had recruited his army and was ready to move. He cautiously crept his way into the interior as far as Fort Greenville, which he erected, where he spent the winter, and from whence he forwarded a detachment of several hundred men to build Fort Recovery, in commemoration of the defeat of St. Clair at that point. This fortification was attacked by the ad- vancing Indians, one thousand strong, under their puissant gen- eral, Little Turtle, who made a desperate charge only to be repulsed and compelled to retreat .* It was their introduction to Mad Anthony Wayne and their first serious check. In August, 1794, Wayne with his "Legion," as his army was called, reached the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee. Here he established another link in the chain of forts, building a stockade named De- fiance. The Indian allies had concentrated about thirty miles. down the river at the rapids of the Maumee, near the British fort, Miami, one of the retained posts and recently re-occupied by a British garrison from Detroit, under the direction of General John G. Simcoe, lieutenant-governor of Canada.
* In this assault Little Turtle commanded some fifteen hundred In- dians, "assisted as was thought by a number of British agents and a few French-Canadian volunteers." - Brice's Fort Wayne.
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In proof that the impending encounter was to be a battle of the Revolution, the attendant circumstances need only be re- called. This move of General Simcoe was at the express and open commands of Lord Dorchester, governor-general of Canada. Simcoe repaired from Detroit with a strong detachment of troops to the Miami Rapids and proceeded to re-erect the fortress. This act on the part of England created great irritation and indigna- tion among the Americans. President Washington and John Jay, minister to Great Britain, strongly protested to his Majesty's Government at this "open and daring act of the British agents in this country * while they are seducing from our al- liance and endeavoring to remove over the line tribes that have hitherto been kept in peace and friendship with us at heavy ex- pense,
whilst they keep in a state of irritation the tribes who are hostile to us, instigating them to unite in a war against us, furnishing the whole with arms, ammunition and clothing and even provisions to carry on the war." The con- struction of Fort Miami by the British, as was intended, naturally induced the Indians to believe that the British were about to renew their war on the Americans. It also inspired the traders and French-Canadians with the hope of a coming conflict in which the British would regain their lost territory. There is no doubt of the existence of an alliance at the same time between the British and Joseph Brant, the chief of the Mohawks, who also represented the Six Nations. Brant was ambitious to create a great Indian confederacy, be its leader like a second Pontiac, and dictate terms to the white race. About this date also (May, 1794), the Indians of the West had their expectations raised by a deputation from the Spanish settlements on the Mississippi, who declared the Spanish Indians "were on their feet, grasping the tomahawk to strike" the Americans. At all these foreboding signs the alarm among the Americans was great. All elements were massing at the Maumee Rapids, which was only fifty miles from Detroit. The strongest and most important towns of the hos- tile tribes lay about the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers. In the face of these forces the "Black Snake," as the In- dians had already called Wayne, crept cautiously but steadily along. Thus reads the quaint and rare poem of Coffinbery :
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As in the centre of his train,
In moody revery rode Wayne;
His visage scowled as does the storm,
As from his zeal his breast grew warm; And to the braves that circled round Said he, "If still no foe be found 'Tween this and the old British fort,
When there, by George, you shall see sport.
For if the British rascals show The slightest favor to the foe, I'll prostrate all their blasted works,
And cut their throats like bloody Turks.
The devils can't evade our search,
Or yet escape by rapid march,
Unless it be from their protection, Then, blast their hearts, I'll show them action.
Wayne's forces were between two and three thousand in number, by this time well trained, hardened and trusty .* The Indians counted two thousand with three hundred Canadians and British soldiers. In the desire of avoiding the impending bloody encounter, Wayne offered the tribes proposals of peace. Many chiefs, the warriors and statesmen of their people, were present. Blue Jacket, the Shawanee chief, was for war to the bitter end. His people, he argued, had crushed Braddock, Harmar and St. Clair and Wayne's turn was next. The white man must retire beyond the Ohio. Little Turtle, the Miami, was for peace. True, he allowed, they had defeated the other generals of the "long knives" and turned back their expeditions, but Wayne was dif- ferent. In Indian terms the sagacious savage conveyed the idea that at last they were in modern pale face parlance "up against the real thing." He had recently tasted of Wayne's valor. Now they would meet foemen worthy of their steel. But the British had ral- lied the Indian courage and bravado to the highest pitch ; had urged them to confederation and a renewal of their claims for the Ohio country; and had nerved them to unrelenting resistance against the usurping Americans. The British stockade of Fort Miami, like a sheltering shadow, was close at hand, and the Indian cause could not fail. There was no alternative but battle. The field
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