USA > Ohio > The Ohio Valley in colonial days > Part 12
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* North of the Ohio.
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ders, of which the Indians principally complain grow to an enormity, that threatens us with fresh wars."
The warlike attitude of the Indians threatened danger not only to the settlers within the territory, ceded by them, but also to the surveying parties, sent out by the Governor far beyond the limits thereof. They had to be protected or at least must be warned of the danger threatening them and here we must retrace our steps to the settlement on Clinch river, where Daniel Boone and his party had retreated after the failure of their expedition in 1773. For, although it is not intended here to write a biography of Boone, however worthy a subject he is of one, we must recur to him again, as the history of his wanderings is more or less also the Colonial history of Kentucky, of the " Dark and Bloody Ground."
His former exploits as an intrepid pioneer had gradually become known to Governor and Council of Virginia, and when the question of warning their sub- ordinates, the surveyors way out west, came up before them, they decided to employ Boone as the most trustworthy messenger. He undertook the service expected from him and set out on his journey with only one companion, Michael Stoner. Stoner was, like Boone, a pioneer and had already traversed part of the new country, having hunted on the Cum- berland river. The two intrepid messengers reached the surveying camp at the falls of the Ohio and suc- ceeded in piloting the threatened party safely back to less dangerous regions. Very little is known of this
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In Colonial Days.
remarkable journey of 800 miles in sixty-two days. Boone speaks modestly of it and affirms that " many difficulties " were encountered. Tradition has, of course, so much more to tell about it. A party, be- longing to the Harrod company was attacked by Indians, and tells the story, that one of the men in his fright, having succeeded to make his escape in a canoe, paddled down the Ohio, down the Mississippi and returned to his home in Pennsylvania or Vir- ginia by way of the Gulf and Atlantic ocean.
One of the results of this journey may be learned from the following certificate, issued to Stoner : " Michael Stoner this day appeared and claimed a right to a settlement and preemption to a tract of land lying on Stoner's Fork,* a branch of the South Fork of Licking, about 12 miles above Licking sta- tion,t by making corn in the country in the year 1775 and improving the said land in the year 1776; satisfactory proof being made to the Court, they are of opinion, that the said Stoner had a right to a set- tlement of 400 acres of land, including the above mentioned improvements and a preemption of 1000 acres adjoining the same and that a certificate issue accordingly."
Boone's successful performance earned him the thanks of Lord Dunmore in the shape of a military commission, by virtue of which he was "ordered to take command of three garrisons" on the frontier.
* Now Stoner's creek, Bourbon county, Kentucky.
+ In Morgan county, Kentucky.
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In this capacity he took part in the battle at Point Pleasant on the 10th of October, 1774, which secured peace for the settlers on ceded territory. But this Indian war had not taught any more respect for treaties, made with the Indians, nor shown to would- be settlers on Indian lands, how dangerous such at- tempts would be.
Governor Morehead tells of the next attempt :* " In the autumn of the year 1774 there originated in North Carolina one of the most extraordinary schemes of ambition and speculation, which was ex- hibited in an age pregnant with such events. Eight private gentlemen - Richard Henderson, William Johnston, Nathaniel Hart, John Tuttrel, David Hart, John Williams, James Hogg and Leonard Henley Bullock - contrived the project of purchasing a large tract of country in the West from the Cherokee In- dians and provisionary arrangements were made, with a view to the accomplishment of their object, for a treaty to be held with them in the ensuing year. This was the celebrated Transylvania Company, which formed so singular a connection with our early annals. In March 1775 Col. Henderson, on behalf of his asso- ciates, met the chiefs of the Cherokees, attended by I200 warriors, at a fort on the Watauga, the south- eastern branch of the Holston River. A council was held, the terms were discussed, the purchase was consummated - including the whole tract of country between the Cumberland and Kentucky Rivers."
* First settlement of Kentucky, 1740, quoted above.
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In Colonial Days.
But the purchase, thus made, was not a legal one. Both the Colonies, Virginia and North Carolina, claiming by their charters jurisdiction as far as the Mississippi and therefore including this tract, had at different times enacted laws which, though not as stringent as the New York laws on that subject, made a direct conveyance of land from the Indian to the white man void .* This principle was re-affirmed in the Constitutions, which the two Colonies adopted on entering the Union of the States : "No purchase of land shall be made of the Indian natives but on be- half of the public by authority of the General As- sembly."
Doctor O. F. D. Smyth, traveling through Vir- ginia as agent for Lord Dunmore, throws the light of cotemporaneous opinion on this gigantic land-job- bery of Henderson : "Under pretence of viewing some back lands, he [Henderson] privately went out to the Cherokee nation of Indians and for an insig- nificant consideration (only ten wagons loaded with cheap goods, some fire arms and spirituous liquors), made a purchase from the chiefs of the nation of a vast tract of territory, equal in extent to a kingdom and in the excellence of climate and soil, extent of its rivers and beautiful elegance of situations inferior to none in the universe. A domain of no less than 100 miles square, situated on the back or interior
* William W. Hening, Statutes of Virginia, I, 391, 396, 468; II, 139; Johns Hopkins University Studies, III, 123, and Iredell Laws of North Caro- lina, I, 32, Chap. LIX.
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part of Virginia and of North and South Carolina ; comprehending the rivers Kentucky, Cherokee [Cum- berland] and Ohio, besides a variety of inferior rivu- lets. ... This transaction he kept a profound secret, until such time as he obtained the final ratification of the whole nation in form. Then he immediately in- vited settlers from all the Provinces, offering them lands on the most advantageous terms and proposing to them, likewise, to form a government and a legis- lature of their own, such as might be most convenient to their particular circumstances of settlement. . . . Mr. Henderson by this means established a new colony, numerous and respectable, of which he him- self was virtually proprietor as well as Governor, and indeed Legislature also .... In vain did the different Governors fulminate their proclamations of outlawry against him and his people; in vain did they offer rewards for apprehending him and forbid every person from joining or repairing to his settle- ment ; under the sanction and authority of a general law that renders the formal assent of the Governors and Assemblies of the different Provinces absolutely necessary to vindicate the purchase of any lands from the Indian nations. For this instance being the act of the Indians themselves, they defended him and his colony, being in fact as a bulwark and barrier between Virginia as well as North and South Caro- lina, and him; his territory lying to the westward of their nation."* Henderson's scheme failed and the
O. F. D. Smyth, Travels in Virginia, 1773.
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Commonwealth of " Transylvania " had only a short existence. He had not thought it necessary to in- quire, whether the Cherokees, from whom he bought this territory, had a right and title to it. At the time when they made over to Henderson the great domain of Transylvania they lived in towns, either on the head waters of the Savannah river, the Keowee and Tugelo, or on the Tennessee, above the mouth of the Holston. They occupied as hunting grounds the counties of Franklin and Elbert in Georgia, the western counties of South Carolina, North Carolina and of Virginia ; they would occasionally go down the Tennessee, but very rarely on the Cumberland, and when they visited this river they considered themselves as hunting on grounds not their own. On the other hand the Chickasaws, as Governor Blount of the South-West Territory* says, lived for a long time on the north side of the Tennessee, at least fifty miles lower down the river, than the lowest Cherokee town, and the greatest contiguity to hunting grounds, as well as the prior use of them, is the best claim Indians can establish to them. At a treaty between the Cherokees and Governor Blount, representing the United States, made on Long Island of Holston river, a Cherokee chief said to Henderson : "You, Carolina Dick, have deceived your people ; you told them, we sold you the Cumberland lands ; we only sold you our claim ; they belong to our brothers, the Chickasaws, as far as the head waters of Duck and
* American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 433.
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Elk Rivers." Daniel Boone was employed by Hen- derson in carrying out the plans for organizing this new Colony. He was assigned to the command of a company sent "to mark out a road in the best passage from the settlement, through the wilderness to Kentucky." Boone pushed this work rapidly, so that on the Ist of April, 1775 he had reached the place where the first fort in the present State of Ken- tucky was erected, and could begin to lay the founda- tion of Boonesborough .* Henderson joined Boone in the new village and opened a land office, disposing of over half a million of acres in a short time, for which only questionable titles could be given in the name of "The Proprietors of the Colony of Tran- sylvania in America." Other settlements sprung up in the new Colony - Harrodsburgh, Boiling Spring and St. Asaph's - which formed a legislature to meet at Boonesborough in 1775.
The battles of Lexington and Concord were fought ; and the shot which was soon to be " heard around the world " echoed in the woods of Kentucky. The days of Colonial Kentucky were numbered as the few inhabitants joined their kinsmen along the seaboard in throwing off the dominion of England, and Henderson was obliged to give up his scheme of establishing a separate and independent government similar to the other British Colonies. He addressed a memorial to the Continental Congress in 1775,
* Madison county, Kentucky.
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asking that Transylvania might be added to the United Colonies, rising against English tyranny.
In going south from Kentucky we come to the upper intervales of the Ohio Valley, to Tennessee. As Rafinesque* claims that Kentucky was discov- ered by Colonel Wood in 1654, so Ramseyt thinks it possible, that Fernando de Soto, on the march which he made in 1539 from Florida to the Missis- sippi, may have passed through Tennessee. But we must leave such speculations to special investigators and will here confine ourselves to documentary evi- dences, although maps of the sixteenth century indicate some vague knowledge of the country between the Mississippi and the Atlantic ocean .¿ A map of de l'Isle§ shows de Soto to have come to the head waters of the Tennessee river.
The first Europeans, whom we positively know to have been in the Tennessee country, came by way of New Orleans up the Mississippi. M. de Crozat
* Marshall, History of Kentucky.
+ Annals of Tennessee, 26.
¿ I. Americae pars borealis, Florida, Baccalaos, Canada, Corterealis a Cor- nelio de Judaeis in lucem edita, 1593, has two rivers, both starting under the 40th degree N. L., one from the west, the other from the east, which after running under the same degree join and immediately separate, to flow par- allel to each other into the gulf. 2. In the Wytfliet Map of 1597, already mentioned, very similar to No. I. 3. The De Bry Map of 1596, has the Mississippi and a tributary running from the east fairly correct. 4. Quadus, in his "Geographisches Handbook " (Geographical Handbook), 1600, fol- lows Judaeus.
§ Amsterdam edition of Garcilasso de la Vega's Histoire des Incas et de la conquête de la Floride, 1707. Other maps of the route are given by Rye (in Hakluyt), McCulloch (Antiquarian Researches in America, Baltimore, 1829), and by J. C. Breevort (in Smith's Narratives of Hernando de Soto).
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had obtained a grant of the exclusive trade in the territory of Louisiana from the French King* and established in 1714 a trading store, under charge of M. Charleville, " upon a mound near the present site of Nashville, on the west side of the Cumberland river, near French Lick creek, and about seventy yards from each stream."+
Hunters and traders of both the French and the English nationalities must have resorted to the country east of the Mississippi. In 1718 the French could describe the road taken by the Indians of Michigan and Lake Huron, "when going to war with the Flatheads and other nations toward Carolina, such as the Cheraquis, residing on the river Casqui- nampot and the Chaoanons."S They had also a fort on Tennessee soil, Fort Assomption, though not in the Ohio Valley. Fort Assomption on Chickasaw bluff, where Memphis now stands, formed a link in the chain of footholds, more or less fortified, which the French had established for securing the communi- cation between Canada and New Orleans. But from an English source we have, for a wonder, the most complete description of the country given in these days :
" The great nation of the Chicazaws [Chicka- saws ] whose country extends above forty leagues to the river of the Cheraquees, which we shall describe
* N. Y. Col. Hist., IX, 671.
+ Ramsey, Annals, 45.
# Old name of the Tennessee river, de Lisle's map.
§ N. Y. Col. Hist., IX, 886.
In Colonial Days. 209
when we come to discourse of the great river Hohio. Thirty leagues higher on the East side is the opening of a river that proceeds out of a lake twenty miles long, which is about ten miles from the Mescha- cebe. Into this lake empty themselves four large rivers. The most northerly, which comes from the North East is called Ouabachicou or Ouabache, upon which dwelt the nations Chachakingua, Pepepicokia, Peanguichia. The next South of this is the vast river Hohio, which comes from the back of New York, Maryland and Virginia, and is navigable for 600 miles. Hohio in the Indian language signifies the fair river ; and certainly it runs from its heads through the most beautiful fertile countries in the universe and is formed by the confluence of ten or twelve rivers and innumerable rivulets. A town set- tled upon this lake or the entrance of the river Hohio thereinto, would have communication with a most lovely fruitful country 600 miles square. Formerly, divers nations dwelt on this river, as the Chawanoes, a mighty and very populous people, who had above fifty towns and many other nations, who were totally destroyed or driven out of their country by the Irocois, this river being their usual road, when they make war upon the nations who lie to the South or to the West.
" South of the Hohio is another river, which about thirty leagues above the lake is divided into two branches ; the northerly is called Ouespere, the south- erly the Black River; there are very few people upon
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either, they having been destroyed or driven away by the aforementioned Irocois. The heads of this river proceed from the West side of the vast ridge of mountains which run on the back of Carolina, Vir- ginia and Maryland; on whose opposite or East side are the sources of the great river Potomack. . .. The mountains afford a short passage or communication between those two rivers, which the Indians are well acquainted with. .. .
" The most southerly of the above said four rivers, which enter into the lake, is a river some call Kasqui, so named from a nation inhabiting a little above its mouth ; others call it the Cusates or the river of the Cheraquees, a mighty nation, among whom it has its chief fountains ; it comes from the South-East and its heads are among the mountains, which separate this country from Carolina, and is the great road of the traders from thence to the Meschacebe and intermediate places."*
To counteract the French influences among the Indians, Sir Alexander Cumming started in 1730, to hold a conference with all the chiefs of the Cherokee townst at Nequassee, on the Hiawassee river,¿ at which Moytoy of Telliquo§ was appointed head chief of the Cherokee Indians. Moytoy had the crown brought from the village of Tenassee on the Little Tennessee river and presented it to the English Com-
* Daniel Coxe, Description of Carolina, 1722.
+ See Appendix E.
# A small tributary of the Tennessee.
§ Probably the modern Tellico.
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In Colonial Days.
missioner, Sir Alexander Cumming, in token of his submission. Upon his advice some chiefs of the tribe were sent to England and did homage there to King George .* English state-craft appears not to have been able to secure by treaty permanent immunity from Indian invasions. A memorial from the Governor, the President of the Council and the Speaker of the As- sembly of South Carolina sent to King George in 1734, says : " The Cherokee nation has lately become very insolent to our traders, and we beg leave to in- form Your Majesty that the building and mounting some forts among them may keep them steady in their fidelity to us and that the means of the province are inadequate to its defence."+ But it took the English government twenty-two years to arrive at a decision in this matter, when the Earl of Loudon, commanding the Royal troops in America, and Gov- ernor Dinwiddie of Virginia, sent Andrew Lewis to build a fort on Tennessee river near the head of navi- gation and about thirty miles from the present city of Knoxville. The erection of this fort, Fort Lou- don, although at all times a place very difficult and in case of an Indian war, impossible to reach with supplies, had the hearty approval of the Cherokees, who, says Haywood,¿ " invited artizans into Fort Loudon by donations of land, which they caused to be signed by their own chief and, in one instance, by
§ Hewitt, History of South Carolina, II, 5.
+ Ib., II, 37.
+ Haywood, Civil History of Tennessee, p. 28.
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Gov. Dobbs of North Carolina." Colonel Byrd, of Virginia, marched into the country in 1758, and built Fort Chissel, garrisoning it with part of his regi- ment. Another fort was established by him on the north bank of the Holston river. These forts and the garrisons in them seemed to make the country desirable for permanent settlement and people began to stream in; when estranged from their allegiance to the English by dexterous French agents, the Cherokees commenced again hostilities. The ensuing war was bitter and disastrous; the only white settle- ment within the boundaries of the present State of Tennessee, around Fort Loudon, was entirely broken up, and quiet was only restored when, in 1761, the Cherokees, much weakened, sued for peace and en- tered into a new treaty of amity with the Colonial troops. Either the expedition of Colonel Bouquet, spoken of in a former chapter, had an effect on the Indians south of the Ohio, or the absence of settle- ments, to be plundered, kept them on their good be- havior, and the parties of hunters and explorers, who began to traverse the country in every direction had no cause to complain of the treatment by the abo- riginal inhabitants. But no new farms were made until 1768, when ten families came from near the present Raleigh, North Carolina, and established themselves on the Watauga .* Other people from North Caro. lina and Virginia followed, and "about the years 1768, 1769 and 1770, such was the reigning fashion
* A branch of the Holston.
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In Colonial Days.
of the time as eminently promoted the emigration of its people from North Carolina."* The same causes, which induced Daniel Boone to remove from the Yadkin, made a body of the North Carolinians rise, under the name of Regulators, against the oppression of Royal officials, and when defeated in a fight on the Alamance creek,t some of them fled to the fast- nesses on the Holston river. The taxation of the people had become so unbearable, that the land-owner had to seek new fields in which to repair his broken fortunes, and the poorer classes were compelled to go somewhere in search of independence and a respect- able existence. These were powerful incentives and the people obeyed them by streaming into the country west of the mountains.
At the head of the little Colony, formed on the Watauga, was James Robertson, who distinguished himself during the war of the Revolution and became in many ways closely identified with the history of the State of Tennessee. The new settlement in- creased rapidly in population, and within three years was able to muster about three hundred men able to bear arms.
The policy of a government will gradually warp the intellect of the people. As the British govern- ment claimed to be the owner of all lands east of the Mississippi by the conquest of the French, without consideration for Indian rights, so this settlement on
* Haywood, p. 39.
+ Runs into Haw river, North Carolina.
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the Watauga found itself on Indian territory as tres- passers. For the treaty, made between Virginia and the Cherokees, established the boundary line from White Top mountain westward to Holston river, on a parallel of about 36º N. L. Alexander Cameron the Deputy Agent of Indian Affairs residing among the Cherokees was, therefore, only fulfilling his duty when he ordered the settlers to move off. But some of the Cherokees expressed a desire that the tres- passers might be permitted to remain, provided they would make no further encroachments.
The settlers took advantage of this favorable and friendly disposition shown by the owners of the land. They deputed James Robertson and John Bean, in 1771, to treat with their landlords on a basis of accommodation and amicable intercourse. The nego- tiations resulted in a lease for eight years, for although unwilling to give up their lands for no equivalent, they consented to lease all the country along the waters of the Watauga for a stipulated amount of merchandise, muskets and other Indian goods. The next year a similar settlement was made on the Noli- chuky river, under like circumstances, by Jacob Brown, and two other families from North Carolina. The sums paid out under the above conditions were recovered by sales of land to new comers and thus a nursery of population was planted in East Ten- nessee.
To our modern mind the situation of these pioneers of European civilization in the heart of the great
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In Colonial Days.
American wilderness offers a most romantic picture. They were far removed from the parent provinces, separated from them by trackless forests and high mountain ranges ; their governments could neither control nor protect them and had most likely forgot- ten their very existence. It was almost a repetition of the story told by the Good Book of Adam and Eve in Paradise. And this story happened not much more than 100 years ago.
Apparently the peaceful spirit of Paradise pervaded the new settlements, for we hear of no discords among the inhabitants and of no hostile encounters with the Indians.
The rapid increase of population told the leading men on the Watauga and on the Nolichuky, that a code of laws was indispensable for the maintenance of this no less remarkable, than beneficial condition. It was drawn up to be signed by every individual. If any one should refuse, he was to be debarred from its benefits, but every settler signed it. The new laws provided for the election of magistrates, called trustees, by whom all controversies were to be de- cided conformably to the written code. Thus organ- ized, their affairs continued prosperous till the commencement of the war for Independence. The population had then increased to such an extent, that about 800 riflemen could join their friends in the con- test for liberty.
The settling of West Tennessee falls into a period a few years later and therefore is not to be treated of
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here. But like that of East Tennessee it was full of incidents, which compel our admiration for the courage and astuteness of the men who followed the advice of the late Horace Greeley, " Go West, young man," before it was given. They were surrounded by so many concentric circles of danger and perplexities, that human assistance was out of the question. Their nearest neighbors, at Lexington, were 200 miles away and scarce able to protect themselves. The settlement at Holston was 300 miles from them and no roads led there. But notwithstanding these diffi- culties they were preserved and prospered and are now a rich and vigorous people.
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