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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01202 8434 mu
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BORDER WARFARE IN~ PENNSYLVANIA
DURING THE REVOLUTION
Presented to the Faculty of the University of Pennsylvania
By LEWIS S. SHIMMELL
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of Doctor of Philosophy
HARRISBURG, PA. R. L. MYERS & COMPANY 1901 .
Border Warfare in Pennsylvania
DURING THE REVOLUTION
1652488
L. S. SHIMMELL, Ph. D.
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COPYRIGHT 1901 BY L. S. SHIMMELL
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
I. A War for Territory 1-4
II. Management of Indian Affairs.
1. In the Colonies. 4-6
2. In Pennsylvania 6-8
III. Indian Difficulties in Pennsylvania before the Revolution.
1. Earliest Disputes, 1722-1737 8-12
2. The Walking Purchase 12-14
3. In the Juniata Valley 14-17
4. The Albany Purchase 17-20
5. The Fort Stanwix Purchase 20 -- 21
IV. British Intrigues with the Indians, 1774-1775.
1. Lord Dunmore and Dr. Connelly's Plot ..... 21-27
2. British Indian Agents 27-29
V. Alliances with the Indians.
1. Instructions from the English Ministry ... 29-32
2. Action of the Continental Congress. ... 32-36
VI. British and American Experience with the In- dians as Allies 36-39
VII. Conditions Adverse to Defense.
1. Extent of Frontiers 39-40
2. Territorial Disputes. 40-41
3. Diversity of Political and Religious Opin- ion. 42-44
VIII. The Militia.
1. In Colonial Times 45-46
2. From 1775-1777. 46-48
3. The Law of 1777 48-51
IX. In the Year 1775* 51-53
1. Around Fort Pitt.
2. On the West Branch.
3. On the North Branch.
4. In the Delaware Valley.
X. In the Year 1776 54-68
XI. In the Year 1777 69-81
XII. In the Year 1778 82-103
XIII. In the Year 1779 104-116
XIV. In the Year 1780 116-121
XV. In the Year 1781 122-132
XVI. In the Year 1782. 133-139
XVII. In the Year 1783.
1. Savages Renew Hostilities 142
2. Peace Measures by Congress. 143-144
XVIII. In the Year 1784-85.
1. Peace Commissioners Finally Act. 145-149
. Pennsylvania's Commission 150
XIX. The Beginning of "the Winning of the West" ... 151-153
*NOTE .- In the treatment of the Border Warfare on the subsequent pages, the same geographical ontline has been followed each year as is found in the year 1775.
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Border Warfare in Pennsylvania during the Revolution.
W HETHER the English Colonies in America would have escaped the horrors of two decades of border warfare, had not the royal arms of France been nailed to trees in the Ohio Valley nor the monogram of King George been pasted on Colonial documents of business, is of course problematical. It is especially so in Pennsylvania, where Indian wars had been unknown before the middle of the 18th century. Yet it is fair to presume that the one great cause of Indian hostility everywhere-extension of white settlements -would have brought the tomahawk and scalping knife to the frontier of Pennsylvania had there been no French or Revolutionary War. It is true, the French incited the Indians to aggression after the peace of Aix la Chapelle ; but those intrigues succeeded by rea- son of the hope held out that the hunting grounds usurped by the English should be restored. While Christian Fred- erick Post was on his mission, 1758, of withdrawing the Ohio Indians from the French interest, the chiefs said to him at Fort Duquesne1 :
"Before you came they had all agreed together to go and join the French, but since they have seen you they all draw back, tho' we have great reason to believe you intend to drive us away and settle the country, or else why do you come to fight in the land that God has given us."
Post replied that the English did not intend to take the land from them, but only to drive the French away. They said they knew better ; that they were informed so by one
1 Thompson's Alienation of the Indians, p. 153-154.
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of the greatest English traders and some justices of the peace ; and that the French told them much the same thing, namely :
" That the English intend to destroy us and take our lands from us, but that they are come only to defend us and our lands." The chiefs further said to Post :
" "Tis plain that you white people are the cause of this war ; why don't you and the French fight in the old country, and on the sea ? Why do you come to fight on our land ? This makes everybody believe you want to take the land from us by force, and settle it."
If other evidence were needed to prove that the In- dians allied themselves with the French after 1750, largely because they hoped thereby to repress the tide of English occupation beyond the Alleghenies, it could be found in Pontiac's conspiracy. Pontiac's conspiracy had various causes1 ; but what contributed most to the growing dis- content after the French were defeated in America, was the Indian belief that the English would cut them off entirely and possess themselves of their country.2 The Delawares and the Shawanese, the ancient friends of Wil- liam Penn, in particular, had been roused to the highest pitch of exasperation by the white settlements fast extend- ing up the Susquehanna and to the Alleghenies, eating away the forest like a spreading canker. The Yankees from Connecticut, by their threatened occupation of the Wyoming Valley, gave great umbrage to the Six Nations. 3 The erection of the frontier forts had given offense, too, and the Six Nations asked to have them pulled down, and kicked out of the way. 4 At a conference in Philadelphia, August, 1761, an Iroquois Sachem said :
1 "Ponteach " in Appendix B, Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac.
2 Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac. p. 156.
3 Minutes of the Conference of the Six Nations at Hartford, 1763.
4 Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac, p. 157.
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Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
"We, your brethren of the Six Nations, are penned up like hogs. There are forts all around us, and, therefore, we are ap- prehensive that death is coming upon us." 1
Pontiac's war was a struggle of life and death. 2 The English were to be defeated and the way stopped, so that they could not return upon the Indians' land. The en- croachment upon his lands was always uppermost in the Red Man's mind when he thought of going on the war path against the English ; and no doubt the scalping-knife, the tomahawk and the firebrand would have brought terror and suffering to the frontier of Pennsylvania if the wily Frenchman had not egged the Indian on, and made him his ally during ten long years of border warfare.
Lord Dunmore's war, in 1774, again, points to the probability that the frontiersmen would have had to fight for their lives and homes once more, if the American Colo- nies had not revolted against England. An Indian war was inevitable ; diplomacy was no longer possible. There may have been minor causes, but they were not sufficient in themselves. The main cause was the influx of settlers upon the hunting grounds of the Indians. General Gage, in 1772, had issued a proclamation against settlements beyond the boundaries fixed by treaties made with the Indian Nations, to avoid " causing infinite disturbances." We have the testimony of Logan that even the murders of Yellow Creek, wrongly supposed to have been committed by Captain Michael Cresap, of Redstone (from which error Dunmore's War is also called Cresap's War), did not cause the war of 1774. He said in the following July3 : "The Indians are not angry on account of these murders, but only myself." The Indians, regarding the settlements
1 Parkman's Pontiac's Conspiracy, p. 157.
2 Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac, p. 179.
3 Withet's Chronicles of Border Warfare, p. 138.
che
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Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
in Southwestern Pennsylvania as the hive from which the adventurers to Kentucky swarmed, directed their opera- tions against this part of the frontier in 1774. In fact, the war, which was then commenced, and carried on with but little intermission up to the treaty of Fort Greenville, by Wayne, in 1795, was a war to prevent the further exten- sion of settlements by the whites. The Red Man had his own cause during all the years of the Revolution. He was not an ally of the English by virtue of the ancient friendship of the Iroquois, nor was he a hireling like the Hessian, fighting for a stipend. On the other hand, the Americans fought two wars at one and the same time-a war for independence and a war for territory. In the lat- ter phase of the Revolution, Virginia and Pennsylvania were especially interested, and they bore the brunt of it. Virginia fought for what the logic of events did not con- firm, and Pennsylvania for what her charter guaranteed. Whether the Revolution had come later or not at all, the Indians would have attacked and ravished the frontier before relinquishing the hunting grounds set apart by the King of Great Britain.
During the earlier Colonial period, beginning with the first scattered and independent settlements, from Acadia to Florida, and ending as the wars with France began- each isolated group of Colonists was of necessity left to its own methods and policy in the intercourse and treat- ment of the natives. There was, of course, the same ulti- mate reference to British sovereignty as in other Colonial affairs ; and instructions were given from time to time as to ways of dealing with the Indians. 1 But each Colony had to meet its own straits and emergencies.2 The help and interference from England grew as the strife with
1 Hart's Contemporaries, vol. 1. p. 186 ; Preston's Documents, p. 34.
2 Charter to William Penn, section 16.
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Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
France waxed hotter. Pennsylvania being remote from the seat of the first wars with the French, had sole con- trol of its relations with the Indians until 1754. In that year, Governor Hamilton in common with all the other Governors in America received a letter from the Lords of Trade, recommending " that all the provinces be (if prac- ticable) comprised in one general treaty to be made in his Majesty's Name, it appearing to their Lordships that the Practice of each Province making a separate treaty for itself in its own Name, is very improper, and attended with great inconveniences to his Majesty's service."1 Such concerted action seemed wise to the Lords of Trade, because it had been tried on former occasions among some of the Colonies. However, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania did not approve very heartily of holding their treaties with the Indians at Albany ; but because all the Colonies were invited, they agreed that the Governor might send commissioners if he thought it were of interest and advantage to the Province. 2 One year later, Sir Wil- liam Johnson was made superintendent of Indian Affairs, with full power to treat with the Six Nations, and to se- cure them and their allies to the British interest. John- son's management of his office gave great satisfaction ; and to set at rest the opposition he met from Governor Shirly, of Massachusetts, he received a commission, in 1756, from the Crown, as "Colonel, Agent and Sole Super- intendent of all the affairs of the Six Nations and other Northern Indians. '' 3 At the same time instructions came from the ministry forbidding each northern province to transact any business with Indians. Johnson now had the entire management of the Indian relations in his hands,
1 Votes of the Assembly, p. 279-280.
2 Ibid, p. 286.
3 Stone's Life and Times of Sir William Johnson, vol. 1, p. 540.
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Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
"and with no subornation but to London." Indian trea- ties in Pennsylvania and important conferences were thereafter attended by the King's superintendent or his deputy.
As long as the founder of Pennsylvania had lived, or dur- ing the first forty years of the time while the Province was the principal party, actor and contributor of ways and means in the management of Indian affairs, there is no record of any great dissatisfaction. Naturally, there was distrust at first ;1 but it was soon replaced by confidence founded in honest trade, friendly intercourse and equal rights.2 Penn's concession of the same rights to the heathen in the ownership of land as the Christians enjoyed, was the key to his whole Indian policy. The general theory of those times, originated by the Pope, was that no heathen people could acquire a title to land except to occupy it for hunt- ing and fishing and temporary abode as long as the Chris- tians did not want it. While the Spaniards applied this theory to the letter, resorting to force and bloodshed when resistance was offered, the English, as a rule, paid a nom- inal price for the land and avoided conquest if possible. However, there were exceptions to this rule in some of the English colonies. A large part of New England was conquered from the Indians. 3 One of the causes of Roger Williams' banishment, was his criticism of the Massachu- setts authorities for their failure to pay for Indian lands. He held that the King could not grant land before it had been bought from the Indians. Penn held the same views as Williams, and paid the Indians for every foot of land before he sold it to the settlers. By the feudal powers conferred upon him as the lord of a huge fief, he might
1 Penn's Letter to the Society of Free Traders, section 23.
2 Peun's Conditions or Concessions, sections 12-15.
3 Palfrey's History of New England, vol. 3, pp. 137-138.
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Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
have wrested the soil from the savages by force and estab- lished his title in blood. Instead, he secured it by treaties in the peaceful shades of the forest, sanctified by the in- cense from the calumet of peace.
It has been claimed that undue praise is bestowed upon Penn's Indian policy-that the New Englanders had paid for their lands fifty years before, 1 that the Bishop of Lon- don advised Penn to do it in bis province, 2 that the pacific policy of the Quakers made this course necessary, that it succeeded because the surrounding Indians, being vassals, were debarred by their conquerors from the use of arms, and that Penn paid twice for his lands in order to secure the good-will of both slave and master-once to the Iro- quois, who claimed by right of conquest, and once to the Delawares, who claimed by right of occupation. But no matter how much is due to others and to fortuitous cir- cumstances, William Penn was the Hamlet in it all. For the era of absolute peace lasted only a short time after Penn's death. With the year 1722, Indian complaints concerning land transactions began to appear on the official records of Pennsylvania. Governor Keith, hearing that some Marylanders intended to take up land west of the Sus- quehanna by virtue of Baltimore's charter, hastily had some land surveyed there for himself. When the Indians learned of this, they desired to know whether the Governor's sur- vey would not occasion the immediate settlement of all that side of the river. They were assured that the Gov- ernor had taken up the land solely to prevent others from going there. As to his own right of land west of the Susquehanna, the Indians were referred to the purchase which William Penn had made of Governor Dongan, or New York, 1696. This transaction, made in England,
1 Bancroft, vol. 2, p. 98.
2 Penn's Letter to the Ministry, August 14, 1683.
40
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Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
conveyed to Penn all the land between the northern and southern boundaries of Pennsylvania, lying on both sides of the Susquehanna. However, the Susquehanna In- dians, in 1700, complained to Penn that the Five Nations had not consulted them in the sale to Dongan, and they made the same complaint to Governor Keith, in 1722. Here appears, for the first time, the difficulty which Penn- sylvania experienced on account of the dominion which the Iroquois claimed over the native tribes of the Province. Keith was also reminded of a promise Penn had made in 1700, that the land should be common among the English and the Indians. Keith's reply1-" . . only I have heard further that when he was so good to tell your peo- ple, that notwithstanding that purchase, the lands should still be in common, you answered, that a very little land would serve you, "etc .- was quitepropheticofthe Indian's fate. To strengthen his claim to the survey made across the Susquehanna, Keith went to Albany the same year and had the Five Nations confirm the grant obtained through Governor Dongan. Yet five years afterwards some chiefs of the Five Nations came to Philadelphia and wanted to sell the same lands again. 2
The conference at Philadelphia, in 1727, was the first at which serious difficulties appear on the minutes of the Provincial Council. 3 They were in the form of petitions from "ye back inhabitors" for protection against "ye Ingeans," and of complaints by the Indians against the frontier settlers. The Indians complained that "many sorts of traders came among them, both Indians and Eng- lish, who all cheat them, and though they get their skins
1 Smith's Laws, vol. 2. p. 112.
2 Colonial Records, vol. 3, p. 271.
3 Colonial Records, vol. 3, pp. 274-275, and Pennsylvania Archives, vol. 3, pp. 204-213.
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Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
they give them very little in pay, not enough to secure. powder and shot to hunt with and get more." The traders, they said, had but little of these, but instead brought rum, which they sold very dear, three and four times more than it was worth. They also took notice that the French and English (reference is here to New York) raised forts among them, and that great numbers of people are sent thither, the meaning of which they did not under- stand, but feared it boded evil. They also desired that no settlements be made up the Susquehanna higher than Paxtang, and that no rum be sold there, that being the road by which their people went out to war, nor at Alle- gheny. The Governor and Council replied that while there was great talk of war in Europe, the English and French were on the same side. As to trade, they knew it was the method of all that follow it to buy as cheap and sell as dear as possible ; every man must make the best bargain he can, and be on his guard. The answer to the complaint about the sale of rum was on a par with the one about trading-evasive and unsatisfactory.
This same complaint had been made in 1722: "The Indians could live contentedly and grow rich if it were not for the quantities of rum that is suffered to come among them, contrary to what William Penn promised them." As to the forts, the Indians were assured that the English were their constant friends, and they need therefore have no fears. Of those built by the French, the Governor and Council had no knowledge. The set- tlements above Paxtang were made contrary to law, it was admitted ; but they were excused with an " of course, as the young people grow up they will spread, yet not very speedily." The Governor further promised to " give orders to them all to be civil to those of the Five Nations as they pass that way, and the sale of rum shall be pro-
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10 Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
hibited there and at Allegheny, but the woods are so thick and dark we cannot see what is done in them."
The following year, another conference was held at Philadelphia. French intrigues began to show thet- selves, 1 but the field of operation was yet too far removed from Philadelphia to receive much attention. The greatest difficulty was trespass upon lands not purchased from the Indians. Addressing himself to James Logan, a Dela- ware chief said, that he was growing old, and was troubled to see the Christians settle on lands for which the Indians had never been paid, that his children might wonder to see all their fathers' land gone without any money for it, that this might occasion a difference between his children and the English. The Delaware chief had reference specially to the Tulpehockin lands now in Berks county, which had been occupied by the connivance of Governor Keith, but without the consent of the Proprietors. A colony of Germans from New York, friends and associates of Conrad Weiser, afterwards the famous Indian Agent of the Province, had invaded the lands and actually aided andabetted the destruction of the Indians' crops. 2 James Logan promised to make the matter satisfactory, and The In- asked the Indians not to injure the Palatines.
dians acquiesced, but the lands on the Tulpehockin were not deeded and paid for until 1733. This violation of the well-settled policy of William Penn brought about the first collision between the Indians and the frontiersmen. 3 It gave the French their first good chance to intrigue with the savages of Pennsylvania ; + and was the entering wedge to the alienation of the natives, "who," as Governor
1 Colonial Records, vol. 3, pp. 295-293.
2 Colonial Records, vol. 3, p. 324
3 Gordon's Proclamation, Colonial Records, vol. 3, p. 307.
4 Colonial Records, vol. 3, pp. 438-452.
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Gordon said, speaking in his proclamation of May 16th, 1728, about former treaties, " have not been guilty of any failure or breach on their parts of the said treaty."
The deed releasing the Tulpehockin lands embraced none of the lands in the Delaware basin, where the set- tlements at the Minisinks, nearly forty miles above the Leckey Hills, caused great discontent. Here a warrant for 10,000 acres had been secured by William Allen, a great land dealer, from William Penn, grandson of the founder, about the same time1 that the Germans came to Tulpehockin. Allen chose a tract in the vicinity of the present town of Stroudsburg, and sold it to such as would settle it. According to the Rolls-office of Bucks county, 2 a tract sold to one Depue actually included a Shawanese town, and another an island belonging to the same tribe. About this time, too, the Proprietary offered to dispose of lands by lottery, which the lucky ones were allowed to lay out anywhere except on Proprietary and settlers' claims. To assist the adventurers in the choice of good lands, several tracts were laid out in the Forks of the Delaware. Though the lottery did not fill, and therefore was not drawn, the tickets sold became rights, by virtue of which the tracts in the Forks of the Delaware were quickly taken up and settled by the Scotch-Irish.
These transactions provoked the Indians. Seeing them- selves deprived of their lands without any consideration, they complained loudly, and even began to threaten. After several ineffectual attempts in 1734-35 to compose the clamors of the Delawares, the Proprietary complained of them to the Five Nations. In 1736, deputies of these arrived in Philadelphia. After a week's deliberation, in the course of which complaint was made against the Del-
1 Smith's Laws, vol. 2, p. 114.
2 Thompson's Alienation of the Indians, p. 29.
12 Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
awares, a treaty was ratified by which all the lands be- tween the mouth of the Susquehanna and the Kittatinny Hills were released. By the deed itself, 1 it appears that the extent of land eastward was "as far as the heads of the branches or springs which run in the said Susque- hanna ;" and therefore it did not give any color of right for settling the lands in the Forks of the Delaware. Wherefore, to correct this defect, some of the Indians who visited Conrad Weiser on their way home were induced at Tulpehockin, 2 eleven days after the public treaty had been ended, 3 to sign a piece of writing declaring that their intention in the deed was to release all the lands between the Susquehanna and the Delaware as far north as the Kittatinny Mountains. The extent of land conveyed by the second instrument was double that described in the deed ; yet for the farther grant there was no considera- tion.
It seems that the Proprietary themselves did not think that the Six Nations could convey lands east of the tribu- taries of the Susquehanna ; for eight months later, August 25, 1737, they procured a release from the Delawares for at least a part of these lands. This release was the famous walking purchase, or the confirmation of a sup- posed deed of 1686. The Indians having no recollection of any such deed, and there being no record of it on the rolls, it took considerable persuasion to make them be- lieve that the deed was genuine. It is certain that no such original deed was in existence at the treaty of Easton, in 1757.4 The tract of land as described in it, and as con- firmed in 1737, began " on a line drawn from a certain
1 Smith's Laws, vol. 2, p. 115.
2 Thompson's Alienation of the Indians, p. 115.
3 Ibid, p. 32.
4 Smith's Laws, vol. 2, p. 111.
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Border Warfare in Pennsylvania.
spruce tree on the river Delaware by a west-north west course to Neshaminy creek, from thence back into the woods as far as a man could go in a day and a half . and from thence to the aforesaid river Delaware, and so down the courses of the river to the first-mentioned spruce tree. " 1 The Indians knew nothing about the surveyor's chain, and so the deeds call for the measurement of lands by walking or riding. The walk was accordingly made ; but it only increased the dissatisfaction of the Indians. It extended about thirty miles beyond the Lechay Hills. over the Kittatinny Mountains, and included the best lands in the Forks of the Delaware. When the line was drawn to the Delaware, from the point reached by the walk, instead of drawing it directly to the river, it was slanted northward, so as to include the valuable Minisink Flats. The Indians complained that the walkers selected by the Proprietary ran instead of walked ; at least they could not keep up. Furthermore, their expectation was that the walk would be made parallel to the course of the Delaware. That the walking purchase was a fraud can- not be denied. It sank deep into the Indian heart, and was never forgotten. The Delawares were driven from the English interest into that of the French, who stood ready to increase the dissatisfaction.
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