Part 5 (1/2)

For a number of years following the revolution, there were those in the east, and especially in New England, who suffered from myopia. They utterly failed to see the future of the republic, or the importance of holding the western country. To them, such men as Harrod and Kenton, Logan and Boone, were ”lawless borderers” and willful aggressors on the rights of the red man. And yet, back of the crowning diplomacy of John Jay, that placed our western frontiers on the banks of the Mississippi, and extended our northern lines to the thread of the lakes, lay the stern resolution of the men of Kentucky and the supreme audacity of the mind of Clark.

From this crucible of fire and blood a great people emerged, hardy, brave, chivalrous, quick to respond to the cries and sufferings of others, but with an iron hate of all things Indian and British stamped eternally in their hearts. Others might be craven, but they were not.

Every savage incursion was answered by a counterstroke. The last red man had not retreated across the Ohio, before the mounted riflemen of Kentucky, leaving old men and boys behind to supply the settlements, and with a little corn meal and jerked venison for their provision, sallied forth to take their vengeance and demolish the Indian towns.

Federal commanders, secretaries of war, even Presidents might remonstrate, but all in vain. They had come forth into the wilderness to form their homes and clear the land, and make way for civilization, and they would not go back. In every family there was the story of a midnight ma.s.sacre, or of a wife or child struck down by the tomahawk, or of a loving father burned at the stake. To plead with men whose souls had been seared by outrage and horror was unavailing. All savages appeared the same to them. They shot without discrimination, and shot to kill. They marched with Clark, they rode with Harmar, and they fought with Wayne and Harrison. In the war of 1812, more than seven thousand Kentuckians took the field. It was, as Butler has aptly termed it, ”a state in arms.” You may call them ”barbarians,” ”rude frontiersmen,” or what you will, but it took men such as these to advance the outposts of the nation and to conquer the west. Strongly, irresistibly, is the soul of the patriot moved by the story of their deeds.

With all its b.l.o.o.d.y toil and suffering, Kentucky grew. After the spring of 1779, when Clark had captured Vincennes, the danger of extermination was over. Following the revolution a strong and ever increasing stream of boats pa.s.sed down the Ohio. The rich lands, the luxuriant pastures, the bounteous harvests of corn and wheat, were great attractions. Josiah Harmar, writing from the mouth of the Muskingum in May, 1787, reports one hundred and seventy-seven boats, two thousand six hundred and eighty-nine men, women and children, one thousand three hundred and thirty-three horses, seven hundred and sixty-six cattle, and one hundred and two wagons, as pa.s.sing that point, bound for Limestone and the rapids at Louisville. On the ninth of December of the same year, he reports one hundred and forty-six boats, three thousand one hundred and ninety-six souls, one thousand three hundred and eighty-one horses, one hundred and sixty-five wagons, one hundred and seventy-one cattle, and two hundred and forty-five sheep as on the way to Kentucky, between the first of June and the date of his communication. In 1790, the first census of the United States showed a population of seventy-three thousand six hundred and seventy-seven. On June 1st, 1792, Kentucky became the fifteenth commonwealth in the federal union; the first of the great states west of the Alleghenies that were to add so much wealth, resource and vital strength to the government of the United States.

CHAPTER X

THE BRITISH POLICIES

_--The British reluctant to surrender the control of the Northwest--their tampering with the Indian tribes._

The seventh article of the definitive treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain in 1783, provided that ”His Britannic Majesty,”

should, with all convenient speed, ”withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets from the said United States, and from every port, place and harbour within the same,” but when demand was made upon General Frederick Haldimand, the British governor of Canada, for the important posts of Niagara, Oswego, Michillimacinac and Detroit, he refused to surrender them up, alleging that he had no explicit orders so to do, and that until he had received such commands, he conceived it to be his duty as a soldier to take no step in that direction. This action of Haldimand was cool and deliberate and received the full and entire approbation of the British cabinet. Tories, and apologists for Great Britain, have written much about a justification for this action, but there is no real justification. Lord Carmarthen, the British secretary of state, afterwards said to John Adams that English creditors had met with unlawful impediments in the collection of their debts, but the real reason why England violated her treaty he did not state. She retained the posts to control the tribes. She looked with covetous eye on the lucrative fur-trade of the northwest territory upon which the commerce of Canada was in great measure dependent, and sooner than resist the entreaties of her merchants and traders, she was willing to embroil a people of her own race and blood, in a series of long and merciless wars with murderous savages. For the fact remains, that if England had promptly surrendered up the posts; had not interfered with our negotiations for peace with the Indian tribes; had refused to encourage any confederacy, and had instructed her commanders to keep their spies and agents out of American territory, the murders on the Ohio, the slaughter of innocents, and the long, costly and b.l.o.o.d.y campaigns in the Indian country might have been avoided.

Nothing can ever extenuate the conduct of England in keeping in her employ and service such men as Alexander McKee, Matthew Elliott and Simon Girty. The chief rendezvous of the tribes after the revolution was at Detroit. Here were located a British garrison and a British Indian agency. This agency, while guarding the trade in peltries, also kept its eye on the fleets that descended the Ohio, on the growing settlements of Kentucky, and warned the Indians against American encroachment. In 1778, and while the revolution was in progress, the missionary John Heckewelder, noted the arrival at Goschochking on the Muskingum, of three renegades and fugitives from Pittsburg. They were McKee, Elliott and Girty. McKee and Elliott had both been traders among the Indians and understood their language. All three had deserted the American cause and were flying into the arms of the British. They told the Delawares and Wyandots, ”That it was the determination of the American people to kill and destroy the whole Indian race, be they friends or foes, and possess themselves of their country; and that, at this time, while they were embodying themselves for the purpose, they were preparing fine sounding speeches to deceive them, that they might with more safety fall upon and murder them. That now was the time, and the only time, for all nations to rise, and turn out to a man against these intruders, and not even suffer them to cross the Ohio, but fall upon them where they should find them; which if not done without delay, their country would be lost to them forever.” The same men were now inculcating the same doctrines at Detroit. They pointed out to the Indians that the Americans were bent on extinguis.h.i.+ng all their council fires with the best blood of the nations; that despite all their fair promises and pretensions, the Americans cared nothing for the tribes, but only for their lands. That England by her treaty had not ceded a foot of the Indian territory to the United States. That all the treaties thus far concluded with the tribes by the Americans, were one-sided and unfair, made at the American forts, and at the cannon's mouth.

A powerful figure now arose among the savages of the north. Joseph Brant was a princ.i.p.al chief of the Mohawk tribe of the Six Nations of New York. His sister Molly was the acknowledged wife of the famous British Indian superintendent, Sir William Johnson. In his youth he had been sent by Johnson to Doctor Wheelock's charity school at Lebanon, Connecticut, where he learned to speak and write English and acquired some knowledge of history and literature. In the war of the revolution the Mohawks sided with England, and Brant was given a colonel's commission. He remained after the war a pensioner of the British government, and General Arthur St. Clair is authority for the statement that he received an annual stipend of four hundred pounds sterling.

The Mohawks had been terribly shattered and broken by the revolution, but they still retained that ascendency among the tribes that resulted from their former bravery and prowess. In the mind of Brant there now dawned the grand scheme of forming a confederacy of all the northwestern tribes to oppose the advance of the American settlements. The first arbitrary a.s.sumptions of the continental congress gave him a great leverage. They had a.s.sumed to exercise an unlimited power of disposal over the Indian lands. The surveyors of the government were advancing west of the Pennsylvania line and staking off the first ranges. Now was the opportune time to fan the flame of savage jealousy, and stand with united front against the foe.

It is probable that Brant took part in the grand council held at Coshocton in 1785, and reported to Captain John Doughty by Alexander McCormick. The account of McCormick relates that there ”were present the chiefs of many nations,” and that ”the object of this council was to unite themselves against the white people.” There was an excited activity on the part of McKee, Elliott, Caldwell and Girty and they were endeavoring to keep the tribes away from the American treaties. The newspapers of London in speaking of Brant's arrival in England in the latter part of the same year, gave accounts of his lately having presided over a ”grand congress of confederate chiefs of the Indian nations in America,” and said that Brant had been appointed to the chief command in the war which the Indians meditated against the United States.

In the month of December, 1785, the distinguished warrior arrived at the British capital. In an age of less duplicity his coming might have excited some feeling of compa.s.sion. He had journeyed three thousand miles across the seas, to see what the great English king could do to restore the broken fortunes of his people. The beautiful valley of the Mohawk was theirs no longer. Their ancient castles and villages had been destroyed, or were in the hands of strangers. All had been lost in the service of the great ”father” across the waters. What would that ”father” now do for his ruined and sorrowing children? He reminded Lord Sidney of the colonial department, that in every war of England with her enemies the Iroquois had fought on her side; that they were struck with astonishment at hearing that they had been entirely forgotten in the treaty of peace, and that they could not believe it possible that they could be so neglected by a nation whom they had served with so much zeal and fidelity. The Americans were surveying the lands north of the Ohio, and Brant now desired to know whether the tribes were still to be regarded as ”His Majesty's faithful allies” and whether they were to have that support and countenance such as old and true friends might expect. In other words, the blunt savage wanted to know whether England would now support the Indian tribes in beginning hostilities against the United States.

The conduct of the British was characteristic. The lands in controversy had just been ceded by solemn treaty to the new republic. To openly espouse the cause of Brant was to declare war. A little finesse must be resorted to in order to evade the leading question, and at the same time hold the tribes. They therefore wined and dined the American chief, and presented him to the king and queen, but promised him nothing. Lord Sidney rained plat.i.tudes. He said the king was always ready to attend to the future welfare of the tribes, and upon every occasion wherein their happiness might be concerned he was ready to give further testimony of his royal favor. He hoped that they might remain united and that their measures might be conducted with temper and moderation. In the meantime, the arts of diplomacy must be employed. The barbarian chief must be bribed with a pension, and covertly used as a tool and instrument of British design.

The great chief then and afterwards entertained misgivings, but he proceeded to play the dupe. In November and December, 1786, he was back in America, and a great council of the northwestern tribes was convened at the Huron village, near the mouth of the Detroit river. Present were the Five Nations, the Hurons or Wyandots, the Delawares, Shawnees, Ottawas, Potawatomi, Miamis, and some scattering bands of the Cherokees.

A letter was here formulated and addressed to the congress of the United States, which at once marks Joseph Brant and the British agents back of him as the originators of the idea that all the Indian lands were held in common by all the tribes, and that no single tribe had the right to alienate. In answer to the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort McIntosh, they alleged that congress had hitherto managed everything in their own way, and had kindled council fires where they thought proper; that they had insisted on holding separate treaties with distinct tribes, and had entirely neglected the Indian plan of a general conference. They held it to be ”indispensably necessary” that any cession of Indian lands should be made in the most public manner, ”and by the united voice of the confederacy;” all partial treaties were void and of no effect. They urged a full meeting and treaty with all the tribes; warned the United States to keep their surveyors and other people from crossing the Ohio, and closed with these words: ”Brothers: It shall not be our fault if the plans which we have suggested to you should not be carried into execution. In that case the event will be very precarious, and if farther ruptures ensue, we hope to be able to exculpate ourselves and shall most a.s.suredly, with our united force, be obliged to defend those rights and privileges which have been transmitted to us by our ancestors; and if we should be thereby reduced to misfortune, the world will pity us when they think of the amicable proposals which we now make to prevent the unnecessary effusion of blood. These are our thoughts and firm resolves, and we earnestly desire that you transmit to us, as soon as possible, your answer, be it what it may.”

Brant's whole scheme of a confederacy among savage tribes was, of course, wild and chimerical. The same savage hate and jealousy which was now directed toward the Americans, would, at the first favorable moment, break out in fiery strifes and dissensions in the Indian camp, and consume any alliance that might be formed. To imagine that the Miami and the Cherokee, the Shawnee and the Delaware, the Iroquois and Wyandot, after centuries of war and bloodshed, could be suddenly brought together in any efficient league or combination, that would withstand the test of time, was vain and foolish. The history of the Indian tribes in America from the days of the Jesuit fathers down to the day of Brant, had shown first one tribe and then another in the ascendency. Never at any time had there been peace and concord. Even within the councils of the same tribe, contentions frequently arose between sachems and chiefs. It is well known that in his later days the Little Turtle was almost universally despised by the other Miami chieftains. A deadly hatred existed between the Cornplanter and Joseph Brant. Tec.u.mseh and Winamac were enemies. Governor Arthur St. Clair, writing to the President of the United States, on May 2, 1789, reported that a jealousy subsisted between the tribes that attended the treaty at Fort Harmar; that they did not consider themselves as one people and that it would not be difficult, if circ.u.mstances required it, ”to set them at deadly variance.”

Equally pretentious was Brant's claim of a common owners.h.i.+p of the Indian lands. The Iroquois themselves had never recognized any such doctrine. In October, 1768, at the English treaty of Fort Stanwix, they had sold to the British government by bargain and sale, a great strip of country south of the Ohio river, and had fixed the line of that stream as the boundary between themselves and the English. At that time they claimed to be the absolute owners of the lands ceded, to the exclusion of all other tribes. At the treaty of Fort Wayne, in 1809, between the United States and the northwestern tribes, the Miamis claimed the absolute fee in all the lands along the Wabash, and refused to cede any territory until a concession to that effect was made by William Henry Harrison. In the instructions of Congress, of date October 26th, 1787, to General Arthur St. Clair, relative to the negotiation of a treaty in the northern department, which were the same instructions governing the negotiations at Fort Harmar in January 1789, specific directions were given to defeat all confederations and combinations among the tribes, for congress clearly saw the British hand behind Brant's proposed league, and knew how futile it was to recognize any such savage alliance.

The British officials were well aware of the shortcomings of Brant's league, but they hailed its advent with delight. If the tribes could be collected together under the shadow of the British forts, and freely plied by the British agents, they could be kept hostile to the American vanguard. If the government of the United States could not acquire a foothold north of the Ohio, the British forts were safe, and the trade in peltries secure. The result of this policy was of course foreseen. It meant war between the United States and the Indian tribes. But in the meantime England would hold the fur-trade. Thus in cold blood and with deliberation did the British rulers pave the way to the coming hostilities.

In November, 1786, Sir Guy Carleton, now Lord Dorchester, arrived at Quebec. Like most of the royal officers of that day he looked with disdain upon the new republic of the United States. It was evident that the old confederation could not be held together much longer. There was constant strife and jealousy between the states. In Ma.s.sachusetts Shays'

rebellion was in progress, which seemed at times to threaten the existence of the commonwealth itself. The courts were occluded, and the administration of justice held in contempt. In the west, the people of Kentucky were embittered toward the states of the Atlantic seaboard.

Their prosperity in great measure depended upon the open navigation of the Mississippi, and a free market at New Orleans. Spain had denied them both, and in the eyes of the Kentuckians congress seemed disposed to let Spain have her own way.

Under all these circ.u.mstances, which appeared to be so inauspicious for the American government, Dorchester determined to keep a most diligent eye on the situation. Spain had the nominal control, at least, of the lands west of the Mississippi. She had designs on the western territory of the United States, and was about to open up an intrigue with James Wilkinson and other treasonable conspirators in Kentucky, who had in mind a separation from the eastern states. To hold the posts within the American territory, was to be on the ground and ready to act, either in the event of a dissolution of the old confederation, or in case of an attempt on the part of Spain to seize any portion of the western country. Added to all this was the imperative necessity, as Dorchester looked at it, of maintaining a ”game preserve” for the western tribes.

If the Americans advanced, the Indian hunting grounds were endangered, and this would result in lessening the profits of the English merchants.

Brant was impatient, but Dorchester, like Lord Sidney, proceeded cautiously. On March 22, 1787, Sir John Johnson, the British Indian superintendent wrote to Brant, expressing his happiness that things had turned out prosperously in the Indian country, and saying that he hoped that the chief's measures might have the effect of preventing the Americans from encroaching on the Indian lands. ”I hope,” he writes, ”in all your decisions you will conduct yourselves with prudence and moderation, having always an eye to the friends.h.i.+p that has so long subsisted between you and the King's subjects, upon whom you alone can and ought to depend. You have no reason to fear any breach of promise on the part of the King. Is he not every year giving you fresh proofs of his friends.h.i.+p? What greater could you expect than is now about to be performed, by giving an ample compensation for your losses, which is yet withheld from us, his subjects? Do not suffer bad men or evil advisors to lead you astray; everything that is reasonable and consistent with the friends.h.i.+p that ought to be preserved between us, will be done for you all. Do not suffer an idea to hold a place in your mind, that it will be for your interests to sit still and see the Americans attempt the posts. It is for your sakes chiefly, if not entirely that we hold them. If you become indifferent about them, they may perhaps be given up; what security would you then have? You would be left at the mercy of a people whose blood calls aloud for revenge.” On May 29th of the same year, Major Matthews of the English army, who had been a.s.signed to the command of the king's forces at Detroit, communicated with Brant from Fort Niagara, expressing the views of Dorchester as follows: ”In the future his Lords.h.i.+p wishes them (the Indians) to act as is best for their interests; he cannot begin a war with the Americans, because some of their people encroach and make depredations upon parts of the Indian country; but they must see it is his Lords.h.i.+p's intention to defend the posts; and while these are preserved, the Indians must find great security therefrom, and consequently the Americans greater difficulty in taking possession of their lands; but should they once become masters of the posts, they will surround the Indians, and accomplish their purposes with little trouble. From a consideration of all which, it therefore remains with the Indians to decide what is most for their own interests, and to let his Lords.h.i.+p know their determination, that he may take measures accordingly; but, whatever their resolution is, it should be taken as by one and the same people, by which means they will be respected and become strong; but if they divide, and act one part against the other, they will become weak, and help to destroy each other. This, my dear Joseph, is the substance of what his Lords.h.i.+p desired me to tell you, and I request that you will give his sentiments that mature consideration which their justice, generosity, and desire to promote the welfare and happiness of the Indians, must appear to all the world to merit.” Thus did this n.o.ble lord, while refraining from making an open and a manly declaration of war, secretly and clandestinely set on these savages; appealing on the one hand to their fear of American encroachment, and urging on the other the security the tribes must feel from the British retention of the frontier posts. In the meantime, he bided that moment, when the weakness of the states or their mutual dissensions would enable him to come out in the open and seize that territory which the king had lately lost. One is reminded of the remarks that Tec.u.mseh made to Governor William Henry Harrison in 1810. ”He said he knew the latter (i. e., the English) were always urging the Indians to war for their advantage, and not to benefit his countrymen; and here he clapped his hands, and imitated a person who halloos at a dog, to set him to fight with another.”