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H. O. dedicates his " New and Correct Map of the Trading Part of the West Indies, including the Seat of War between Great Britain and Spain, likewise the British Empire in America" etc. etc. to the Honble Edward Vernon, Vice Admiral of the Blue and Commander in the West Indies, which post the Admiral held in 1740. An advertisement on this map, concerning some other publications by H. O., is dated March 25, 174I.
The Nation of Chat lives still on the south shore of Lake Erie, and the Salt river, as the Ohio is called, rises in their territory. It receives the Ou- bach from the north-east and the Hogohegee with
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In Colonial Days.
an affluent, called the Illinos R., from the south- east.
" The Modern Gazetteer " by Mr. Salmon, London, 1746, says, the " Hohio is a river in North America, which rises in the Apalachian Mts. near the confines of Carolina and Virginia and running south-west falls into the Mississippi and is by some reckoned the principal stream, which forms the Mississippi."
When we consider the frequent intercourse be- tween the two capitals, London and Paris, which must have made the English familiar not only with French fashions, but also with French literary and scientific works, we cannot help wondering at the slowness, with which the English grasped French geographical information. They waited until 1752. In the said year appeared "North America, per- formed under the patronage of Louis, Duke of Orleans, first Prince of the Blood, by the Sieur d'Anville," greatly improved by Mr. Bolton." We learn from it, that the Oyo or Bell or Allegany river has as tributaries the St Jerome or Ouabach, the Old Chaouanon, the Cherakee and several smaller ones. The Monongahela and Great Kan- awha are unknown. An English fort is located on the Cherakee, where the Pelesipi enters from the north-east, an "ancient fort" at the mouth of the Ohio.
A "Map of the British Empire in America" by Henry Popple, 1756, demonstrates a most lamenta-
*Jean B. d'Anville was Royal Geographer of France in 1718; he died 1782.
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The Ohio Valley
ble confusion in British geographical knowledge of America. The Cat Nation, destroyed about one hundred years before, is still existing. La Rivière aux Boeufs, now French Creek, enters the Ohio from the east-south-east coming out of a name- less lake. The Monongahela and Kanawha are not known. The Cherakee is called, as on an English edition of d'Anville, the Hogohegee. Near the mouth of the Pelesipi we read, that there is "a fit place for an English factory," and we find again the " Old Fort" at the mouth of the Ohio.
Dr. Edmund Halley, Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, published a new edition of Popple's map under the title of "Nouvelle Carte Particulière de l'Amerique " without date. His "improvements " on Popple are, that he shortens the Ohio, which rises in the present State of that name, and that the sources of the Hogohegee are "little known."
The " New and Accurate Map of the English Em- pire in North America," by a Society of Anti-Galli- cans, 1755, tells us, that " Walkers, an English settle- ment" had existence in the forks at the head of the Cumberland river in 1750 and that the mouths of the Ohio and of the Ouabache were guarded by French forts.
The French and Indian war, which ended the French claims to the Ohio valley, was productive of a number of maps on both sides, of which only a few English prints will be mentioned here.
John Huske's " New and Accurate Map of North
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In Colonial Days.
America (wherein the errors of all preceding British, French and Dutch maps respecting the rights of Great Britain * * are corrected), London, 1755, gives us the names of the French trading posts and stations.
Of "A Map of the British Colonies in North America, with the roads
* " by Dr. John Mitchell, F. R. S., London, 1755, the New York his- torian, Smith, says: "Dr. Mitchell's map is the only authentic one extant. None of the rest concerning America have passed under the examination or re- ceived the sanction of any public board and they generally copy the French." But if, with our present knowledge of geography, we look upon this " only au- thentic " map, we discover, that the Ohio rises not far south-west from Oswego. It gives us, however, the location of English settlements and posts in the Ohio valley and must, therefore, be considered as a valuable source of information by the historical stu- dent. Thus we find an "English Settlement" on Shenango or Cheninque creek, another at Venango; Allegany above Fort du Cane (Du Quesne) has also an English settlement in the Old Shawnoe Town. At the mouth of the Scioto or Chianotho is an Eng- lish factory. The falls of the Ohio, " passable up or down in canoes," are six miles long, 300 miles from Shawnoe, at the mouth of the Scioto, and the same distance by water from the Mississippi. On the Beaver creek, entering the Ohio near Logstown, is Owendoes, "the first settlement on the Ohio, " and
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The Ohio Valley
below it, Kuskuskies, "the Chief Town of the Six Nations on the Ohio" and an English factory. A similar factory is established on the Muskingum.
The Great Miami river is guarded, 150 miles from its mouth, by an English fort "established 1748, the Extent of English Settlements."
The country on the Kanawha near the Carolina boundary is "well settled," and near the head of this river we discover a settlement, the German origin of which its name "Freydeck " betrays.
Walkers, near the head of the Cumberland, is the "Extent of English Settlements in 1750." At Tel-" lico, between the Tanassee and Euphasee branches of the Hogohogee, is an English factory, while the country along the Holston branch of the same river is "settled."
A "Chart of the Atlantic Ocean with the British, French and Spanish Settlements in North America and the West Indies" by T. Jefferys, is given in two parts, of which the first shows, that the French claimed all the territory west of an almost straight line from Crown Point in New York to Pensacola bay in Florida, while Part II shows the propositions, made in 1761 by M. de Bussy, in regard to a bound- ary line, including a neutral territory, which was to divide the French from the English dominions. This neutral district begins at the head of the Ohio and includes the land on the north shore of Lake Erie and the present State of West Virginia with Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, but does
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In Colonial Days.
not comprise the left side of the Ohio in these parts.
Contemporaneous English knowledge of American geography is best illustrated in the paper from the Sparks Collection in Harvard Library, mentioned above, in Appendix C.
CHAPTER III.
THE INDIANS OF THE OHIO VALLEY.
Gallatin in his "Synopsis of Indian Tribes" dis- tributes the Indians, in whom we are interested on this occasion, as follows in the year 1600 :
The Wyandots and the Neuter Nation live be- tween the Lakes Ontario and Erie on the south and Lake Huron with the Ottawa river on the north. On the southern shore of Ontario and Erie we find the Five Nations, west of them along the Allegany river the Andastes, and close upon the Lake Erie the Erigas. These Iroquois tribes, just mentioned, appear upon Gallatin's map like an island in the sur- rounding sea of Algonquin tribes, who are divided into Miamis on the east side of the Wabash river, Piankishaws,* south of them, but north of the Ohio; Shawanoes along and east of the Cumber- land but south of the Ohio, the Chicasaws on the lower Tennessee, the Cherokees on the upper part of the river, as far as the Carolinas, form the southern contingent of the aborigines under consideration.
The American Antiquarian, published at Cleve- land, the old Indian Cayuhaga, brings in its num- ber for April, 1879, an article by Mr. C. C. Bald-
* Piankashas, Peanguichias, Pianquichias.
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The Ohio Valley in Colonial Days.
win on "Early Indian Migration in Ohio," with a map, giving the location of tribes in 1600. Accord- ing to this map the Andastes are on the Susque -. hannah, the Eries on the upper Allegany, Shawnoes on both sides of the Ohio, from near the head of Monongahela to the little Miami, the Cherokees are relegated to the mountains, from which the Great Kanawha comes, the Illinois take the place of the Miamis and Piankashaws on the east side of the Wabash, extending to the north side of the Ohio, the Miamis have been moved to the Miami river of Lake Erie or Maumee, as now called, and the Arkan- sas live east of the Mississippi, along the Cumber- land and Tennessee rivers, west and north-west of the Cherokees. I shall not attempt to prove or dis- prove the correctness of either Mr. Gallatin or Mr. Baldwin, but the following pages will bring the his- tory of the Indians, as told by eye witnesses of and actors in the Colonial drama. The localities occu- pied by Indian tribes before they came into contact with Europeans cannot interest us so very much at this day, and I will, therefore, take the reader to the first graphic record, which gives us any knowledge of some of them. That is Champlain's Map of 1632, on which the " Hirocois" are placed south of Lake Ontario, on the head waters of a stream running from north to south into the Rivière des Trettes, to- day the Hudson. South-south-west of them live the Carantouanons on the head of Susquehannah, west- ward we come to the Antouoronons at the head of
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The Ohio Valley
Lake Ontario. On the south side of the unduly lengthened Niagara river la Nation neutre is seated, and adjoining them on the west are Les gens de feu, Assistagueronons, or the Cat Nation. In the center of the present State of Ohio, with rivers all running northward, lives a nameless nation, où il y a quan- tité de beuffles (where plenty of buffaloes are found). So far extended Champlain's knowledge. Creux- ius, who next, in 1660, attempted to enlighten his countrymen on the geography of the New World by a map, accompanying his Historia Canadensis, gives apparently correct locations to Five Nations of New York from the eastern end of Lake Erie to the Mohawk and Delaware rivers, both issuing from a small lake. At the west end he places the Natio Felium, the Cat Nation, while gens neutra, has emigrated to the north-west of Lake Ontario. According to No. 3 of the Parkman Collection of Maps, mentioned before, the Antouaronons, nation detruite, sat on the north shore of Lake Erie; the Pouteatamis (Poutowatomies) occupy the north-west corner of it and the country along Niagara river is in the hands of the Gantastogeronons, "ce qui en éloigne les Iroquois" (which keeps away the Iro- quois). South of the Ohio and within a short dis- tance of it is the lake Onia-sont, around which the Oniasont-Keronons live .-
To begin the detailed survey of the Indians of the Ohio Valley with the Five Nations, who played such an important part in the Colonial history of New
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In Colonial Days.
York, may appear to many a reader an unwarranted diversion. But if the same reader remembers, that the war-cry of the Mohawks and their fellow clans struck terror into the hearts of the Hurons in Can- ada, of the Miamis of Ohio and Illinois, of the Cha- ouanons of Kentucky and Tennessee, and of the Cherokees and Chicasaws of Carolina, not to speak of the eastern tribes, this diversion will be found excusable.
When this powerful nation first came in contact with European settlers, they occupied the territory from Lake Champlain in the east to and along part of the southern shore of Lake Erie on the west. John Smith of Virginia knew them as the Massawomecks in 1608, and we are told by Father Ragueneau in his Relations of 1618, that when the Hurons sent agents to ask the Andastes in Pennsyl- vania for help against the Five Nations, these mes- sengers had to make a detour through Western Ohio, in order to escape falling into the clutches of their enemies. Next to them on the west lived the Eries and Neutrals, who were completely extin- guished by the Five Nations, although they belonged apparently to the same distinctive branch of Indian nationality, to the Iroquois. After having thoroughly decimated the fur-bearing animals in their own coun- try and in the territory of their immediate western neighbors and kinsmen, the Five Nations extended their hunting expeditions still further west and reached thus the Mississippi in a manner, which Mr.
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The Ohio Valley
Parkman, in his "Discovery of the Great West," has so graphically described. In their warfare against the Illinois tribes, they knew how to make allies of the Miamis, sitting between the Illinois and the Eries. The Jesuit Relations of 1654 inform us that in May of that year some Onnontaehronons (Onondagas) came to Montreal to return some French prisoners in their hands. With their sixteenth string of wampum they told Onontio: "Our young men will no longer fight against the French ; but as they are too great warriors to do any thing else, we let you know that we shall carry our arms against the Eriehronons (Cat Nation) ; this summer we'll lead an army against them. The earth shall tremble on that side, while every thing is quiet here." This war, thus announced, settled the fate of the Eries, as an independent tribe, and another war, begun two years later, in 1656, but lasting sixteen years, until 1672, nearly wiped out another tribe of the Ohio Valley. A treaty between the Five Nations and the French, ratified by the Senecas in May, 1666, men- tioned this tribe, the Andastes, Andastaeronons or Guyandots as seated on the Alleghany and Ohio. Their chief town is supposed to have been near Pittsburgh .*
In the same year, 1672, the Five Nations subdued and incorporated the Chaouanons, or Shawanoes, who, according to Mitchell, were the original propri- etors of the country west of the Alleghanies.
*N. Y. Col. Docts., III, 125.
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In Colonial Days.
The efforts, successfully made by the Five Nations to push westward, did not please the French, for these Indians, still faithful to Corlear and Quidor, * brought the English to the western lakes, and after extinguishing the Cat Nations, made war upon the Chichtaghicks (Twightwees) and other nations, who yielded the most profitable trade to the French.
In consequence of all these wars upon their own race the Five Nations claimed, in 1701, possession by inheritance from their ancestors, who held by right of conquest from the Aragaritkas (Hurons), the land west and north-west from Albany, begin- ning on the north-west side of Cadaraqui (Ontario) lake and including all the waste land between Otta- wawa lake (Lake Huron) and Sahsquage (Swege, Erie) lake, and " runs until it butts upon the Twitch- wichs (Miamis), and is bounded on the right hand (west) by a place called Quadoge, containing in length about 800 miles and in breadth 400 miles, in- cluding the country where the beavers, the deers, elks and such beasts keep, and the place called Ti- engsachrondio, alias Fort de Tret (Detroit), or Wawyachtenoch, and so runs round the lake of Swege till you come to a place called Oniadaronda- quat (Irondequoit), which is about twenty miles from the Sinnekes castle " ..
* Names given to the Governor of New York: Corlear, after Arent van Corlear, and Quidor, after Peter Schuyler, both highly esteemed by the Five Nations.
+ Chicago, see Mitchell's Map of North America, 1755, and Map in Charlevoix.
# N. Y. Col. Hist., IV, 108.
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The Ohio Valley
This quit-claim of 1701 was not considered quite sufficient authority by the Government of New York to prevent the French from getting a foothold in the territory of the Five Nations and from building a fort at Niagara. Governor Burnet, therefore, urged them at a conference, held at Albany, September 14, 1726, to fulfill their promise of 1701, which was to submit and give up all their hunting country to the King of England and to sign a deed for it. Then, the Governor told them, England could defend them against the French and secure to them a quiet enjoy- ment of their own lands. The sachems of the Sen- ecas, Cayugas and Onondagas signed then for themselves a deed of trust to King George for the country from Salmon river, in Oswego county, N. Y., west to Cleveland, Ohio, and sixty miles to the south of this east and west line .*
Neither the treaty of 1701 was called a deed of sale, a conveyance, or whatever legal term may be applied to ceding the rights of property in land, nor the deed of trust made in 1 726. Apparently neither the Five Nations nor the Colonial authorities con- sidered it so, for in November, 1763, Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Northern Department, writes to the Lords of Trade and Plantations :+ "They (the Five Nations) claim by right of conquest all the country, including the Ohio, along the great ridge of Blue mountains at the
* N. Y. Col. Hist., V, 800, and MSS. Parchment, State Library, Albany. + Ib. VII, 573.
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In Colonial Days.
back of Virginia; thence to the head of Kentucky river and down the same to the Ohio above the rifts; thence northerly to the south end of Lake Michigan; then along the east shore to Missillimackinack ; thence easterly across the north end of Lake Huron to Ottawa river and Island of Montreal ... Their claim to the Ohio and thence to the lakes is not in the least disputed by the Shawanese, Delawares and others, who never transacted any sales of land or other matters without their consent."
In their intercourse with the French these same Indians, either as separate tribes or as a confedera- tion, asserted their claim to the Ohio lands,* and in 1781, Croghan, for many years Indian agent under Sir William Johnson, confirmed this claim of the Five Nations to the Ohio territory on the south side as far as the Cherokee river and on the north-west side as far as the Big Miami. We must, therefore, admit the Five Nations of New York Indians as an important factor in the Indian history of the Ohio Valley.
Almost equally important or at least as frequently mentioned in official reports of the period is the tribe of the Shawanese (Chaouanons of the French).
Readers, who have made a study of Indian lan- guages, may be able to tell, whether the name of the Shawangunk or Showangunk mountains in Ulster county, New York, has been derived from this tribe, which was first brought to notice by de Laet, the
* See Instructions to Du Quesne, N. Y. Col., Hist., X, 244.
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The Ohio Valley
historian of New Netherland, in 1632, who following some reports places them on both sides of the Dela- ware river in the neighborhood of the Capitanasses tribe, mentioned on the Carte Figurative of 1616. Next we read the name in the account of Lederer's travels from Virginia to the west of Carolina in 1669 and 1670. He calls a river coming from near Lake Ashley the Rorenock or Shawan .* A few years later Joliet published his map of 1673-4, showing his discoveries on the Mississippi and we find the Chaouanons south of the Ohio along the greater river as far south as the mouth of the Basire or Arkansas river. The investigator of Shawanese mi- grations cannot fail to be puzzled by Joliet, for on his "Carte Générale" we see the Chaouanons with fifteen villages placed into the Ohio valley, but as the river is not carried as far east, as where the name of this tribe occurs, it is impossible to tell on which side of the river the villages were situated. The above-mentioned map, No. 3 of the Parkman collec- tion, places them north of the Ohio and the tribe of the Illinois south of it, while Joliet's map gives to the latter what we must consider their true location west of and near to Lake Michigan and north of the river named after them.
A map of Delislet (1707) calls a tributary of the Wabash " Rivière des Indiens, par ce que les Chaou-
* Sketch of his map in Hawk's North Carolina, II, 52.
t In the Amsterdam (1707) edition of Garcilasso de la Vegas Histoire des Incas et de la conquête de la Floride, vol. II; reproduced in French's His- torical Collections of Louisiana.
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In Colonial Days.
anons y habitent" (because the Ch. live here), while the present Pedee (?) is called R. des Chaouanons and a village of this tribe is marked, as lying on both sides of it. Another settlement of the same tribe is to be found on the Alabama river.
According to a map, mentioned in a previous chapter,* they lived on a tributary of the Akansea Septentrionale, which is really the Ohio, while the country at the heads of the Alabama and Apalach- icola rivers is called "Pays des Chaouanons." The map of 1740-41, dedicated to Admiral Edward Ver- non, places this tribe on the south side of the Hogo- hegee, while d'Anville's map, improved by Mr. Bolton, locates them in 1752 above Fort DuQuesne, and a German edition of the same map by d'Anville, published in 1756, has moved them to the mouth of the Scioto or Sikoder. In the " Conspiracy of Pon- tiac,"+ Mr. Parkman says of the Shawnees : "Their eccentric wanderings, their sudden appearances and disappearances, perplex the antiquary and defy re- search." According to Joliet, they were on the Ohio in 1673. Ten years later, 1683, La Salle, the discov- erer, writes,¿ that the Chacanons, Chaskpés and Ouabans, have at his solicitations abandoned the Spanish trade and eight or nine villages, occupied by them, for the purpose of joining the French inter- est and settling near Fort St Louis on the upper
* Carte de la Nouv. France, widow Jo. van Keulen.
+ I, 32.
# N. Y. Col. Hist., IX, 799.
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The Ohio Valley
Illinois river. Franquelin's map of 1688, mentions in that vicinity the Ouabans and Chaskpés, but no Chaouanons.
At a conference, held by the French with the Five Nations at Kayahoge, now called Cleveland, Ohio, in 1684, the Indians gave as one reason for their war against the Twightwees or Chictaghicks, that these latter had brought the Satanas (Sawanons, Chaou- anons of the French, Shawanoes, Shawnees of the English) into their country to assist them in their struggle and armed them. The war was disastrous to the western nations and others in the interest of the French, for the Five Nations added to the popu- lation of their castles a large number of prisoners, taken from the Shawanoes .*
In August, 1692, the then Commander-in-Chief of New York, Major Ingoldsby, was informed that Sat- taras Indians, late in war with the Five Nations, had come, numbering 100 warriors, as far as the Dela- ware river, to negotiate a peace with the New York Indians. It was considered that such a peace would vastly contribute to their Majesties' interest, as then the Five Nations could more forcibly wage war on the French, while a war with the more distant Sha- wanoes "much diverted and hindered them in their efforts against Canada."+
The Council of New York ordered, that Capt. Arent Schuyler should forthwith be dispatched to
* Colden, Five Nations.
+ N. Y. Council Minutes, MSS., VI, 115.
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In Colonial Days.
these Indians with two belts of wampum in order to conduct them safely to the city of New York, and seven days later Capt. Schuyler had so far accom- plished his task, that he could present himself be- fore Governor and Council with the Far Indians, called the Showannes, and some Senecas, who had traveled amongst them for nine years. The chief of these Senecas, Malisit, reported that on his way toward his former home on Lake Ontario, he had met Monsieur Tonty, captain of a French castle at the head of the lakes ; that Tonty had asked whither he was going, and upon Malisit's reply " Home," had said, " What need you return there, I have killed your father, the Corlear, your brethren and relations, and burnt all the country ? Tarry with me and I'll give you my laced coat." The Seneca may have known by experience, how much reliance he could place on a Frenchman's report and promise and con- tinued on his way with his Shawanoe companions, who wanted first to see the country, new to them, and open the path, promising to come the next year in greater numbers and with more of the rich pro- ducts of their country.
Malisit confirmed these promises with a beaver coat, but he had not considered, what his tribal brothers would say to this plan of opening a direct intercourse between their enemies, the Shawnees, and their friends, the English. As soon as the news of these intentions reached the villages of the Five Nations, they informed Governor Fletcher through
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The Ohio Valley
the Mayor of Albany, that a treaty, as proposed, could not be made without their consent and only in their presence. Their jealousy was cleverly appeased by a message from Fletcher,* and in a conference held with them in July, 1693, they said : " We are glad that the Shawanoes, who were our enemies, have made their application to you last fall for pro- tection, and that you sent them hither (to Albany) to make peace with us."+
This seems to have been the first contact, which the English colonists had with the distant tribe from the south-western corner of the Ohio valley, although we must consider as simultaneous an application made to Governor Fletcher in September, 1692, by some Hudson River Indians, who had long been absent from their native haunts, and lived among the Show- anees. In an audience with the Governor and Council of New York, they set forth " that they had long been absent from their native country, and did desire to be kindly received, as they in former days received the Christians, when they first came to America, -- they pray the same likewise in behalf of the strange Indians they have brought along with them. They add, moreover, that they are now come to their own river and those Far Indians have accompanied them by the Great God's protection ; they are poor, but come to renew the covenant-chain with Corlear, the Mohawks and Five Nations, and
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