THE SOUTHWEST TERRITORY, 1788-1790.
Uneasiness in the southwest
During the years 1788 and 1789 there was much disquiet and restlessness
throughout the southwestern territory, the land lying between Kentucky
and the southern Indians. The disturbances caused by the erection of the
state of Franklin were subsiding, the authority of North Carolina was
re-established over the whole territory, and by degrees a more assured
and healthy feeling began to prevail among the settlers; but as yet
their future was by no means certain, nor was their lot irrevocably cast
in with that of their fellows in the other portions of the Union.
As already said, the sense of national unity among the frontiersmen was
small. The men of the Cumberland in writing to the Creeks spoke of the
Franklin people as if they belonged to an entirely distinct nation, and
as if a war with or by one community concerned in no way the other
[Footnote: Robertson MSS. Robertson to McGillivray, Nashville, 1788.
"Those aggressors live in a different state and are governed by
different laws, consequently we are not culpable for their
misconduct."]; while the leaders of Franklin were carrying on with the
Spaniards negotiations quite incompatible with the continued sovereignty
of the United States. Indeed it was some time before the southwestern
people realized that after the Constitution went into effect they had no
authority to negotiate commercial treaties on their own account. Andrew
Jackson, who had recently taken up his abode in the Cumberland country,
was one of the many men who endeavored to convince the Spanish agents
that it would be a good thing for both parties if the Cumberland people
were allowed to trade with the Spaniards; in which event the latter
would of course put a stop to the Indian hostilities. [Footnote:
Tennessee Hist. Soc. MSS. Andrew Jackson to D. Smith, introducing the
Spanish agent, Captain Fargo, Feb. 13, 1789.]
Fear of Indians Strengthens the Federal Bond.
This dangerous loosening of the Federal tie shows that it would
certainly have given way entirely had the population at this time been
scattered over a wider territory. The obstinate and bloody warfare waged
by the Indians against the frontiersmen was in one way of great service
to the nation, for it kept back the frontier, and forced the settlements
to remain more or less compact and in touch with the country behind
them. If the red men had been as weak as, for instance, the
black-fellows of Australia, the settlers would have roamed hither and
thither without regard to them, and would have settled, each man
wherever he liked, across to the Pacific. Moreover the Indians formed
the bulwarks which defended the British and Spanish possessions from the
adventurers of the border; save for the shield thus offered by the
fighting tribes it would have been impossible to bar the frontiersmen
from the territory either to the north or to the south of the boundaries
of the United States.
Congress had tried hard to bring about peace with the southern Indians,
both by sending commissioners to them and by trying to persuade the
three southern States to enter into mutually beneficial treaties with
them. A successful effort was also made to detach the Chickasaws from
the others, and keep them friendly with the United States. Congress as
usual sympathized with the Indians against the intruding whites,
although it was plain that only by warfare could the red men be
permanently subdued. [Footnote: State Dep. MSS., No. 180, p. 66; No.
151, p. 275. Also letters of Richard Winn to Knox, June 25, 1788; James
White to Knox, Aug. 1, 1788; Joseph Martin to Knox, July 25, 1788.]
Sufferings of the Cumberland People.
The Cumberland people felt the full weight of the warfare, the Creeks
being their special enemies. Robertson himself lost a son and a brother
in the various Indian attacks. To him fell the task of trying to put a
stop to the ravages. He was the leader of his people in every way, their
commander in war and their spokesman when they sought peace; and early
in 1788 he wrote a long letter on their behalf to the Creek chief
McGillivray. After disclaiming all responsibility for or connection with
the Franklin men, he said that the settlers for whom he spoke had not
had the most distant idea that any Indians would object to their
settling on the Cumberland, in a country that had been purchased
outright at the Henderson treaty. He further stated that he had believed
the Creek chief would approve of the expedition to punish the marauders
at the Muscle Shell Shoals, inasmuch as the Creeks had repeatedly
assured him that these marauders were refractory people who would pay no
heed to their laws and commands. Robertson knew this to be good point,
for as a matter of fact the Creeks, though pretending to be peaceful,
had made no effort to suppress these banditti, and had resented by force
of arms the destruction of their stronghold. [Footnote: Robertson MSS.
Robertson to McGillivray. Letters already cited.]
Robertson's Letters to the Creek Chief McGillivray
Robertson then came to his personal wrongs. His quaintly worded letter
runs in part: "I had the mortification to see one of my children Killed
and uncommonly Massacred ... from my earliest youth I have endeavored to
arm myself with a sufficient share of Fortitude to meet anything that
Nature might have intended, but to see an innocent child so Uncommonly
Massacred by people who ought to have both sense and bravery has in a
measure unmanned me.... I have always striven to do justice to the red
people; last fall, trusting in Cherokee friendship, I with utmost
difficulty prevented a great army from marching against them. The return
is very inadequate to the services I have rendered them as last summer
they killed an affectionate brother and three days ago an innocent
child." The letter concludes with an emphatic warning that the Indians
must expect heavy chastisement if they do not stop their depredations.
His Letter to Martin.
Robertson looked on his own woes and losses with much of the stoicism
for which his Indian foes were famed. He accepted the fate of his son
with a kind of grim stolidity; and did not let it interfere with his
efforts to bring about a peace. Writing to his friend General Martin, he
said: "On my return home [from the North Carolina Legislature to which
he was a delegate] I found distressing times in the country. A number of
persons have been killed since; among those unfortunate persons were my
third son.... We sent Captains Hackett and Ewing to the Creeks who have
brought very favorable accounts, and we do not doubt but a lasting peace
will be shortly concluded between us and that nation. The Cherokees we
shall flog, if they do not behave well." [Footnote: State Department
MSS., No. 71, vol. ii. Robertson to Martin, Pleasant Grove, May 7,
1788.] He wished to make peace if he could; but if that was impossible,
he was ready to make war with the same stern acceptance of fate.
The letter then goes on to express the opinion that, if Congress does
not take action to bring about a peace, the Creeks will undoubtedly
invade Georgia with some five thousand warriors, for McGillivray has
announced that he will consent to settle the boundary question with
Congress, but will do nothing with Georgia. The letter shows with rather
startling clearness how little Robertson regarded the Cumberland people
and the Georgians as being both in the same nation; he saw nothing
strange in one portion of the country concluding a firm peace with an
enemy who was about to devastate another portion.
Robertson was anxious to encourage immigration, and for this purpose he
had done his best to hurry forward the construction of a road between
the Holston and the Cumberland settlements. In his letter to Martin he
urged him to proclaim to possible settlers the likelihood of peace, and
guaranteed that the road would be ready before winter. It was opened in
the fall; and parties of settlers began to come in over it. To protect
them, the district from time to time raised strong guards of mounted
riflemen to patrol the road, as well as the neighborhood of the
settlements, and to convoy the immigrant companies. To defray the
expenses of the troops, the Cumberland court raised taxes. Exactly as
the Franklin people had taken peltries as the basis for their currency,
so those of the Cumberland, in arranging for payment in kind, chose the
necessaries of life as the best medium of exchange. They enacted that
the tax should be paid one quarter in corn, one half in beef, pork, bear
meat, and venison, one eighth in salt, and one eighth in money.
[Footnote: Ramsey, p. 504.] It was still as easy to shoot bear and deer
as to raise hogs and oxen.
McGillivray's Letter to Robertson.
Robertson wrote several times to McGillivray, alone or in conjunction
with another veteran frontier leader, Col. Anthony Bledsoe. Various
other men of note on the border, both from Virginia and North Carolina,
wrote likewise. To these letters McGillivray responded promptly in a
style rather more polished though less frank than that of his
correspondents. His tone was distinctly more warlike and less
conciliatory than theirs. He avowed, without hesitation, that the Creeks
and not the Americans had been the original aggressors, saying that "my
nation has waged war against your people for several years past; but
that we had no motive of revenge, nor did it proceed from any sense of
injuries sustained from your people, but being warmly attached to the
British and being under their influence our operations were directed by
them against you in common with other Americans." He then acknowledged
that after the close of the war the Americans had sent overtures of
peace, which he had accepted--although as a matter of fact the Creeks
never ceased their ravages,--but complained that Robertson's expedition
against the Muscle Shoals again brought on war. [Footnote: State
Department MSS., No. 71, vol. ii., p. 620. McGillivray to Bledsoe and
Robertson; no date.]
There was, of course, nothing in this complaint of the injustice of
Robertson's expedition, for the Muscle Shoal Indians had been constantly
plundering and murdering before it was planned, and it was undertaken
merely to put a stop to their ravages. However, McGillivray made adroit
use of it. He stated that the expedition itself, carried on, as he
understood it, mainly against the French traders, "was no concern of
ours and would have been entirely disregarded by us; but in the
execution of it some of our people were there, who went as well from
motives of curiosity as to traffic in silverware; and six of whom were
rashly killed by your men" [Footnote: McGillivray's Letter of April 17,
1788, p. 521.]; and inasmuch as these slain men were prominent in
different Creek towns, the deed led to retaliatory raids. But now that
vengeance had been taken, McGillivray declared that a stable peace would
be secured, and he expressed "considerable concern" over the "tragical
end" of Robertson's slain kinsfolk As for the Georgians, he announced
that if they were wise and would agree to an honorable peace he would
bury the red hatchet, and if not then he would march against them
whenever he saw fit. [Footnote: _Do._ p. 625; McGillivray's Letter of
April 15, 1788.] Writing again at the end of the year, he reiterated his
assurances of the peaceful inclinations of the Creeks, though their
troubles with Georgia were still unsettled. [Footnote: Robertson MSS.
McGillivray to Robertson, December 1, 1788. This letter contains the
cautious, non-committal answer to Robertson's letter in which the latter
proposed that Cumberland should be put under Spanish protection; the
letter itself McGillivray had forwarded to the Spaniards.]
Continuance of the Ravages.
Nevertheless these peaceful protestations produced absolutely no effect
upon the Indian ravages, which continued with unabated fury. Many
instances of revolting brutality and aggression by the whites against
the Cherokees took place in Tennessee, both earlier and later than this,
and in eastern Tennessee at this very time; but the Cumberland people,
from the earliest days of their settlement, had not sinned against the
red men, while as regards all the Tennesseans, the Creeks throughout
this period appeared always, and the Cherokees appeared sometimes, as
the wrong-doers, the men who began the long and ferocious wars of
reprisal.
Death of Bledsoe.
Robertson's companion, Bledsoe, was among the many settlers who suffered
death in the summer of 1788. He was roused from sleep by the sound of
his cattle running across the yard in front of the twin log-houses
occupied by himself and his brother and their families. As he opened the
door he was shot by Indians, who were lurking behind the fence, and one
of his hired men was also shot down. [Footnote: Putnam, 298.] The
savages fled, and Bledsoe lived through the night, while the other
inmates of the house kept watch at the loop-holes until day broke and
the fear was passed. Under the laws of North Carolina at that time, all
the lands went to the sons of a man dying intestate, and Bledsoe's
wealth consisted almost exclusively in great tracts of land. As he lay
dying in his cabin, his sister suggested to him that unless he made a
will he would leave his seven daughters penniless; and so the will was
drawn, and the old frontiersman signed it just before he drew his last
breath, leaving each of his children provided with a share of his land.
Robertson Wounded.
In the following year, 1789, Robertson himself had a narrow escape. He
was at work with some of his field hands in a clearing. One man was on
guard and became alarmed at some sound; Robertson snatched up his gun,
and, while he was peering into the woods, the Indians fired on him. He
ran toward the station and escaped, but only at the cost of a bullet
through the foot. Immediately sixty mounted riflemen gathered at
Robertson's station, and set out after the fleeing Indians; but finding
that in the thick wood they did not gain on their foes, and were
hampered by their horses, twenty picked men were sent ahead. Among these
twenty men was fierce, moody young Andrew Jackson. They found the
Indians in camp, at daybreak, but fired from too great a distance; they
killed one, wounded others, and scattered the rest, who left sixteen
guns behind them in their flight. [Footnote: Haywood, 244.]
Wrongs Committed by Both Sides.
During these two years many people were killed, both in the settlements,
on the trail through the woods, and on the Tennessee River, as they
drifted down-stream in their boats. As always in these contests the
innocent suffered with the guilty. The hideous border ruffians, the
brutal men who murdered peaceful Indians in times of truce and butchered
squaws and children in time of war, fared no worse than unoffending
settlers or men of mark who had been staunch friends of the Indian
peoples. The Legislatures of the seaboard States, and Congress itself,
passed laws to punish men who committed outrages on the Indians, but
they could not be executed. Often the border people themselves
interfered to prevent such outrages, or expressed disapproval of them,
and rescued the victims; but they never visited the criminals with the
stern and ruthless punishment which alone would have availed to check
the crimes. For this failure they must receive hearty condemnation, and
be adjudged to have forfeited much of the respect to which they were
otherwise entitled by their strong traits, and their deeds of daring. In
the same way, but to an even greater degree, the peaceful Indians always
failed to punish or restrain their brethren who were bent on murder and
plunder; and the braves who went on the warpath made no discrimination
between good and bad, strong and weak, man and woman, young and old.
One of the sufferers was General Joseph Martin, who had always been a
firm friend of the red race, and had earnestly striven to secure justice
for them. [Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i.
Martin to Knox, Jan. 15, 1789.] He had gone for a few days to his
plantation on the borders of Georgia, and during his visit the place was
attacked by a Creek war party. They drove away his horses and wounded
his overseer; but he managed to get into his house and stood at bay,
shooting one warrior and beating off the others.
Attack on an Emigrant Boat.
Among many attacks on the boats that went down the Tennessee it happens
that a full record has been kept of one. A North Carolinian, named
Brown, had served in the Revolutionary War with the troop of Light-Horse
Harry Lee, and had received in payment a land certificate. Under this
certificate he entered several tracts of western land, including some on
the Cumberland; and in the spring of 1788 he started by boat down the
Tennessee, to take possession of his claims. He took with him his wife
and his seven children; and three or four young men also went along.
When they reached the Chicamauga towns the Indians swarmed out towards
them in canoes. On Brown's boat was a swivel, and with this and the
rifles of the men they might have made good their defence; but as soon
as the Indians saw them preparing for resistance they halted and hailed
the crew, shouting out that they were peaceful and that in consequence
of the recent Holston treaties war had ceased between the white men and
the red. Brown was not used to Indians; he was deceived, and before he
made up his mind what to do, the Indians were alongside, and many of
them came aboard. [Footnote: Narrative of Col. Joseph Brown,
_Southwestern Monthly_, Nashville, 1851, i., p. 14. The story was told
when Brown was a very old man, and doubtless some of the details are
inaccurate.] They then seized the boat and massacred the men, while the
mother and children were taken ashore and hurried off in various
directions by the Indians who claimed to have captured them. One of the
boys, Joseph, long afterwards wrote an account of his captivity. He was
not treated with deliberate cruelty, though he suffered now and then
from the casual barbarity of some of his captors, and toiled like an
ordinary slave. Once he was doomed to death by a party of Indians, who
made him undress, so as to avoid bloodying his clothes; but they
abandoned this purpose through fear of his owner, a half-breed, and a
dreaded warrior, who had killed many whites.
Sevier Secures Release of Prisoners.
After about a year's captivity, Joseph and his mother and sisters were
all released, though at different times. Their release was brought about
by Sevier. When in the fall of 1788 a big band of Creeks and Cherokees
took Gillespie's station, on Little River, a branch of the upper
Tennessee, they carried off over a score of women and children. The four
highest chiefs, headed by one with the appropriate name of Bloody
Fellow, left behind a note addressed to Sevier and Martin, in which they
taunted the whites with their barbarities, and especially with the
murder of the friendly Cherokee chief Tassel, and warned them to move
off the Indian land. [Footnote: Ramsey, 519.] In response Sevier made
one of his swift raids, destroyed an Indian town on the Coosa River, and
took prisoner a large number of Indian women and children. These were
well treated, but were carefully guarded, and were exchanged for the
white women and children who were in captivity among the Indians. The
Browns were among the fortunate people who were thus rescued from the
horrors of Indian slavery. It is small wonder that the rough frontier
people, whose wives and little ones, friends and neighbors, were in such
manner rescued by Nolichucky Jack, should have looked with leniency on
their darling leader's shortcomings, even when these shortcomings took
the form of failure to prevent or punish the massacre of friendly
Indians.
Efforts of the Settlers to Defend Themselves.
The ravages of the Indians were precisely the same in character that
they had always been, and always were until peace was won. There was the
usual endless succession of dwellings burned, horses driven off,
settlers slain while hunting or working, and immigrant parties ambushed
and destroyed; and there was the same ferocious retaliation when
opportunity offered. When Robertson's hopes of peace gave out he took
steps to keep the militia in constant readiness to meet the foe;
for he was the military commander of the district. The county
lieutenants--there were now several counties on the Cumberland--were
ordered to see that their men were well mounted and ready to march at a
moment's notice; and were warned that this was a duty to which they must
attend themselves, and not delegate it to their subalterns. The laws
were to be strictly enforced; and the subalterns were promptly to notify
their men of the time and place to meet. Those who failed to attend
would be fined by court-martial. Frequent private musters were to be
held; and each man was to keep ready a good gun, nine charges of powder
and ball, and a spare flint. It was especially ordered that every
marauding band should be followed; for thus some would be overtaken and
signally punished, which would be a warning to the others. [Footnote:
Robertson MSS., General Orders, April 5, 1789.]
The Creeks and the Georgians.
The wrath of the Creeks was directed chiefly against the Georgians. The
Georgians were pushing steadily westward, and were grasping the Creek
hunting-grounds with ferocious greed. They had repeatedly endeavored to
hold treaties with the Creeks. On each occasion the chiefs and warriors
of a few towns met them, and either declined to do anything, or else
signed an agreement which they had no power to enforce. A sample treaty
of this kind was that entered into at Galphinton in 1785. The Creeks had
been solemnly summoned to meet representatives both of the Federal
Congress and of Georgia; but on the appointed day only two towns out of
a hundred were represented. The Federal Commissioners thereupon declined
to enter into negotiations; but those from Georgia persevered. By
presents and strong drink they procured, and their government eagerly
accepted, a large cession of land to which the two towns in question had
no more title than was vested in all the others.
The treaty was fraudulent. The Georgians knew that the Creeks who signed
it were giving away what they did not possess; while the Indian signers
cared only to get the goods they were offered, and were perfectly
willing to make all kinds of promises, inasmuch as they had no intention
whatever of keeping any of them. The other Creeks immediately repudiated
the transaction, and the war dragged on its course of dismal savagery,
growing fiercer year by year, and being waged on nearly even terms.
[Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., p. 15.]
McGillivray Signs a Treaty of Peace.
Soon after the Constitution went into effect the National Government
made a vigorous effort to conclude peace on a stable basis.
Commissioners were sent to the southern Indians. Under their persuasion
McGillivray and the leading kings and chiefs of the Muscogee confederacy
came to New York and there entered into a solemn treaty. In this treaty
the Creeks acknowledged the United States, to the exclusion of Spain, as
the sole power with which they could treat; they covenanted to keep
faith and friendship with the Americans; and in return for substantial
payments and guaranties they agreed to cede some land to the Georgians,
though less than was claimed under the treaty of Galphinton.
The Creeks Pay No Heed to the Treaty.
This treaty was solemnly entered into by the recognized chiefs and
leaders of the Creeks; and the Americans fondly hoped that it would end
hostilities. It did nothing of the kind. Though the terms were very
favorable to the Indians, so much so as to make the frontiersmen
grumble, the Creeks scornfully repudiated the promises made on their
behalf by their authorized representatives. Their motive in going to
war, and keeping up the war, was not so much anger at the encroachments
of the whites, as the eager thirst for glory, scalps, and plunder, to be
won at the expense of the settlers. The war parties raided the frontier
as freely as ever. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Williamson to Robertson,
Aug. 2, 1789, and Aug. 7, 1790. American State Papers, Indian Affairs,
i., 81. Milfort 131, 142.] The simple truth was that the Creeks could be
kept quiet only when cowed by physical fear. If the white men did not
break the treaties, then the red men did. It is idle to dispute about
the rights or wrongs of the contests. Two peoples, in two stages of
culture which were separated by untold ages, stood face to face; one or
the other had to perish; and the whites went forward from sheer
necessity.
Growth of Immigration.
Throughout these years of Indian warfare the influx of settlers into the
Holston and Cumberland regions steadily continued. Men in search of
homes, or seeking to acquire fortunes by the purchase of wild lands,
came more and more freely to the Cumberland country as the settlers
therein increased in number and became better able to cope with and
repel their savage foes. The settlements on the Holston grew with great
rapidity as soon as the Franklin disturbances were at an end. As the
people increased in military power, they increased also in material
comfort, and political stability. The crude social life deepened and
broadened. Comfortable homes began to appear among the huts and hovels
of the little towns. The outlying settlers still lived in wooden forts
or stations; but where the population was thicker, the terror of the
Indians diminished, and the people lived in the ordinary style of
frontier farmers.
The South-western Territory Organized.
Early in 1790, North Carolina finally ceded, and the National Government
finally accepted, what is now Tennessee; and in May, Congress passed a
law for the government of this Territory Southwest of the River Ohio, as
they chose to call it. This law followed on the general lines of the
Ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwest; but there was
one important difference. North Carolina had made her cession
conditional upon the non-passage of any law tending to emancipate
slaves. At that time such a condition was inevitable; but it doomed the
Southwest to suffer under the curse of negro bondage.
Blount Made Governor.
William Blount of North Carolina was appointed Governor of the
Territory, and at once proceeded to his new home to organize the civil
government. [Footnote: Blount MSS. Biography of Blount, in manuscript,
compiled by one of his descendants from the family papers.] He laid out
Knoxville as his capital, where he built a good house with a lawn in
front. On his recommendation Sevier was appointed Brigadier-General for
the Eastern District and Robertson for the Western; the two districts
known as Washington and Miro respectively.
Blount was the first man of leadership in the West who was of Cavalier
ancestry; for though so much is said of the Cavalier type in the
southern States it was everywhere insignificant in numbers, and
comparatively few of the southern men of mark have belonged to it.
Blount was really of Cavalier blood. He was descended from a Royalist
baronet, who was roughly handled by the Cromwellians, and whose three
sons came to America. One of them settled in North Carolina, near
Albemarle Sound, and from him came the new governor of the southwestern
territory. Blount was a good-looking, well-bred man, with cultivated
tastes; but he was also a man of force and energy, who knew well how to
get on with the backwoodsmen, so that he soon became popular among them.
Retrospect: What had been Accomplished during the Seven Years.
The West had grown with astonishing rapidity during the seven years
following the close of the Revolutionary War. In 1790 there were in
Kentucky nearly seventy-four thousand, and in the Southwest Territory
nearly thirty-six thousand souls. In the Northwest Territory the period
of rapid growth Years had not yet begun, and the old French inhabitants
still formed the majority of the population.
The changes during these seven years had been vital. In the West, as
elsewhere through the Union, the years succeeding the triumphant close
of the Revolution were those which determined whether the victory was or
was not worth winning. To throw off the yoke of the stranger was useless
and worse than useless if we showed ourselves unable to turn to good
account the freedom we had gained. Unless we could build up a great
nation, and unless we possessed the power and self-restraint to frame an
orderly and stable government, and to live under its laws when framed,
the long years of warfare against the armies of the king were wasted and
went for naught.
At the close of the Revolution the West was seething with sedition.
There were three tasks before the Westerners; all three had to be
accomplished, under pain of utter failure. It was their duty to invade
and tame the shaggy wilderness; to drive back the Indians and their
European allies; and to erect free governments which should form parts
of the indissoluble Union. If the spirit of sedition, of lawlessness,
and of wild individualism and separatism had conquered, then our history
would merely have anticipated the dismal tale of the Spanish-American
republics.
Viewed from this standpoint the history of the West during these
eventful years has a special and peculiar interest. The inflow of the
teeming throng of settlers was the most striking feature; but it was no
more important than the half-seen struggle in which the Union party
finally triumphed over the restless strivers for disunion. The extent
and reality of the danger are shown by the numerous separatist
movements. The intrigues in which so many of the leaders engaged with
Spain, for the purpose of setting up barrier states, in some degree
feudatory to the Spaniards; the movement in Kentucky for violent
separation from Virginia, and the more secret movement for separation
from the United States; the turbulent career of the commonwealth of
Franklin; the attitude of isolation of interest from all their neighbors
assumed by the Cumberland settlers:--all these various movements and
attitudes were significant of the looseness of the Federal tie, and were
ominous of the anarchic violence, weakness, and misrule which would have
followed the breaking of that tie.
The career of Franklin gave the clearest glimpse of what might have
been; for it showed the gradual breaking down of law and order, the rise
of factions ready to appeal to arms for success, the bitter broils with
neighboring States, the reckless readiness to provoke war with the
Indians, unheeding their rights or the woes such wars caused other
frontier communities, and finally the entire willingness of the leaders
to seek foreign aid when their cause was declining. Had not the
Constitution been adopted, and a more perfect union been thus called
into being, the history of the state of Franklin would have been
repeated in fifty communities from the Alleghanies to the Pacific coast;
only these little states, instead of dying in the bud, would have gone
through a rank flowering period of bloody and aimless revolutions, of
silly and ferocious warfare against their neighbors, and of degrading
alliance with the foreigner. From these and a hundred other woes the
West no less than the East was saved by the knitting together of the
States into a Nation.
This knitting process passed through its first and most critical stage,
in the West, during the period intervening between the close of the war
for independence, and the year which saw the organization of the
Southwest into a territory ruled under the laws, and by the agent, of
the National Government. During this time no step was taken towards
settling the question of boundary lines with our British and Spanish
neighbors; that remained as it had been, the Americans never abandoning
claims which they had not yet the power to enforce, and which their
antagonists declined to yield. Neither were the Indian wars settled; on
the contrary, they had become steadily more serious, though for the
first time a definite solution was promised by the active interference
of the National Government. But a vast change had been made by the
inflow of population; and an even vaster by the growing solidarity of
the western settlements with one another, and with the Central
Government. The settlement of the Northwest, so different in some of its
characteristics from the settlement of the Southwest, had begun.
Kentucky was about to become a State of the Union. The territories north
and south of it were organized as part of the domain of the United
States. The West was no longer a mere wilderness dotted with cabins and
hamlets, whose backwoods builders were held by but the loosest tie of
allegiance to any government, even their own. It had become an integral
part of the mighty American Republic.
THE END OF VOL. III.
INDEX.
Allen, Ethan, separatist leader;
relations with British authorities.
Army, regular, relations of officers to Kentuckians;
friction with frontiersmen;
distrust of militia;
failure to understand how to fight Indians;
shortcomings of;
superiority to the militia;
further friction with frontiersmen.
Baptist preachers.
Black Wolf, Indian chief, death of.
Bledsoe, Anthony, corresponds with McGillivray;
slain by Indians.
Bloody Fellow, Cherokee chief,
writes note taunting Sevier and Martin.
Blount, William,
Governor of Southwest Territory.
Bolivar, Spanish-American general.
Boone, Daniel, hunter and deputy surveyor;
in Virginia Legislature;
trader;
creed;
keeps faith with Indians.
Borarth, Mrs., feat of, against Indians.
Bradford, John, publisher of _Kentucke Gazette_.
Brady, Sam, feats of;
his scouts formidable fighters.
Brant, Joseph, Iroquois chief.
British, keep country round great lakes;
support Indians against frontiersmen;
deeds of British troops;
foes of frontiersmen.
Brown, John, Kentucky delegate in Congress, allied to Wilkinson;
he and Madison have intercourse with Gardoqui;
letter advising independence for Kentucky;
disunionist, not corrupt;
misrepresents action of Continental Congress.
Brown, Joseph, story of his capture by Indians.
Caldwell, British partisan.
Campbell, Arthur, sides with state of Franklin.
Carondolet, Spanish governor, excites Indians against Americans.
Castleman, Indian fighter.
Cherokees, complain of violation of treaties;
chief killed;
hold council with Franklin people;
hostilities with Franklin;
uneasiness under pressure of borderers;
embroiled with Kentuckians;
outrages against;
butchery of;
war with.
Chickamaugas, a banditti;
ravages by;
beat back Martin's expedition.
Chickasaws, war with Kickapoos;
uneasy over American advance.
Chippewas, thirst for liquor;
wanton outrages by.
Choctaws, alarmed by coming of frontier settlers.
Christian, Col. William, death of.
Clark, George Rogers, closes land office as war measure;
land-poor;
manner of life;
commission to treat with Indians;
encroaches on Indian lands;
believes treaties to be futile;
advocates war;
appealed to by Vincennes Americans;
moves against Indians;
failure of expedition;
experiences of friend in river-trade;
seizes goods of Spanish trader;
back-woodsmen approve this deed;
it is condemned by Federal and Virginian authorities;
his motives suspected;
his acts disapproved by Kentucky Convention;
he writes to Gardoqui proposing to found a colony in Illinois;
friendship for Gibault.
Cocke, William, envoy from state of Franklin;
writes to Benj. Franklin.
Coldwater, Indian town on;
French traders at;
destroyed by Robertson.
Colonies, proposals to found them in Spanish territory;
Colonial systems, varieties of;
United States makes new departure in.
Commerce on Mississippi, peculiarities and dangers of;
profits of;
uncertainties of;
hampered by Spaniards;
extent of.
Conolly attempts intrigue in Kentucky.
Contested election in state of Franklin.
Continental troops, best class of immigrants.
Convention, held at Danville to erect Kentucky into a State;
second convention declares for separate statehood;
third convention;
wrangles with Virginia Legislature;
further conventions.
Cornplanter, the Iroquois, speech and deeds.
Corn Tassel, friendly Cherokee chief, murdered by whites.
Council, of northern Indians at Sandusky.
Creeks, trouble with Georgians;
hostility to Americans;
feudatory to Spaniards;
ravages by;
constant clashing with Georgians;
bad faith towards United States.
Cumberland, river, fertile lands along;
speculation in lands;
settlements in great bend, II;
settlers on, take no share in the Franklin quarrel;
they have slight national feeling;
their currency;
their troubles with Indians;
increase in their numbers.
Cunningham family murdered by Indians.
Cutler, Manasseh, represents Ohio Company before Congress;
perhaps writes draft of ordinance;
visits Ohio.
Dane, Nathan, share in ordinance of 1787.
Delawares, divided councils of.
Detroit, important British post;
life at.
Disunion spirit on frontier;
folly of;
extent in Vermont and Kentucky;
equivocal attitude of disunion leaders;
Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, and Hartford Convention.
Doolin family murdered by Indians.
Dorchester, Lord, rouses Indians against Americans;
his attitude as Governor of Canada.
Elliott, British partisan.
Federal Government treats with Indians.
Filson, John, misadventure of;
goes for help to Louisville.
Fleming, Col. Wm., visits Kentucky;
presides over first Danville Convention.
Frankland, proposal to alter name of Franklin to;
proposed constitution for.
Franklin,
insurrectionary state of, founded;
government and finance;
memorial to Congress;
named after the philosopher;
piratical attitude towards Indians;
friendship for Georgia;
workings of the government;
revolt against;
Virginia unfriendly, but Georgia friendly;
grasps at Indian lands;
war with Indians;
quarrels with North Carolina and the Cherokees;
totters to its fall;
collapse.
French, complaints against Americans;
friendship with Indians.
French towns, chaos in.
French traders
excite Indians against Americans.
Frontier, attracts adventurous spirits;
social characteristics of frontiersmen.
Galvez, victories of;
Viceroy of Mexico.
Game, abundance of, in Kentucky.
Gardoqui, Don Diego, Spanish Minister in New York;
negotiations with Jay;
declines Jay's propositions;
intrigues with separatist leaders;
letter to Robertson;
negotiations with Morgan;
fruitlessness of his diplomacy;
inability to understand Americans;
intercourse with leaders in Congress;
correspondence with Sevier;
sends envoy to Franklin;
negotiations with the Franklin leaders.
Georgia, room for growth within.
Gibault, priest at Cahokia.
Gillespie, Captain, protects Indian prisoner;
his station captured by Indians.
Girty, Simon, British partisan;
ransoms captive.
Grayson, William, share in ordinance.
Hamtranck, expedition against Wabash Indians
Hardin, John, Col., skirmish with Indians;
wounded;
successful foray;
commands militia under Harmar;
is defeated.
Harmar, General, investigates alleged filibustering expedition
from Franklin;
takes possession of French towns;
quarrels with backwoodsmen;
stateliness of life;
foray against Shawnees;
marches against Miami towns;
poor quality of army;
destroys towns;
his detachments defeated;
his retreat.
Hart, Israel, family butchered by Indians.
Henry, Patrick, authorizes Kentuckians to attack Indians;
services of;
hostility to state of Franklin.
Holston, river, settlements on;
trail from these settlements to Cumberland;
rapid growth of settlements.
Hopewell, treaty of.
Houston, Samuel, proposes constitution of Frankland
Illinois, American settlers in the;
quarrels of Americans and creoles;
creoles petition Congress;
relations of both with Federal troops.
Indian fighters.
Indians, futile treaties with;
treachery of;
double dealing of;
wish war;
ravages of;
wrongs committed against;
horrors of warfare with;
terrible qualities of;
wage war of aggression;
attack immigrants;
their ravages;
ravages increase;
varying conditions of warfare against;
further ravages;
attacks on Ohio boats;
extent of damage done by, in Kentucky.
Individual initiative of settlers, chief characteristic of
settlement of Northwest
Innes threatens disunion.
Jackson, Andrew, intercourse with Spanish agents;
share in Indian fighting.
Jay, John, does not realize growth of West;
renders great services to West;
negotiations with Gardoqui;
offers temporary suspension of right to navigate Mississippi;
anger of Westerners at this;
his attitude and advice on subject.
Jefferson, fatuous military judgment of;
wise attitude towards West;
against slavery in Northwest.
Johnson boys, adventure of.
Jonesboro, convention at, declares for independence.
Kenton, Simon, surveyor and hunter;
Indian fighter;
rescues white captives;
leads raids against Indians;
his scout company.
_Kentucky Gazette_.
Kentucky,
great growth of;
good poor man's country;
emigrants to, American, German, Scotch, Irish;
characteristics of people;
their attitude towards Spain;
misery of early settlers;
great change in;
scourged by Indians;
prosperity of;
politics;
movement for separate statehood;
movement compared to that in Franklin;
wrangles with Virginia;
delays in movement;
Kentucky becomes a State.
King, Rufus, opposes slavery in Northwest.
Kirk, John, his family murdered by Indians;
brutal deed of his son.
Lake posts, held by British, importance of, to frontiersmen.
Land claims of States;
differences in substantial value of;
those of Virginia and North Carolina most important;
those of the other States very shadowy;
misconduct of Georgia;
attitude of the non-claimant States;
Continental Congress wrestle with;
question settled by compromise and bargain;
Connecticut's sharp bargain;
small money value of land.
Land companies.
Lands, western, eagerly sought by both settlers and speculators;
intense interest in.
Lee, "Lighthorse Harry," agrees with Jay about Mississippi;
borrows money of Gardoqui.
Lee, Richard Henry, share in ordinance.
Legrace, J. M. P., French commandant at Vincennes.
Lincoln family attacked by Indians.
Logan, Benjamin, protects immigrants;
presides at meeting of Kentucky field officers;
successful raid against Shawnee towns;
fails to enforce discipline;
leads other forays;
prominence of;
takes lead in movement for statehood.
Logan, John, scatters Cherokee war party.
Louisville, population in 1786.
Madison, intercourse with Gardoqui.
Mansker, Indian fighter.
Marshall, Humphrey, historian and Union leader in Kentucky.
Marshall, Thomas, Union leader in Kentucky.
Martin, Alexander, Gov. of North Carolina, corresponds with Sevier.
Martin, Joseph, general and Indian agent;
tries to protect Cherokees;
removes from among them;
his opinion of them;
beaten by Chickamaugas;
his plantation attacked by Creeks.
May, John, Col., visits lands of Ohio Company.
McClure, Mrs., terrible experience of.
McDowell, Col. Samuel, presides over second Danville Convention.
McGarry, foul murder committed by.
McGillivray, Creek chief, correspondence with Robertson;
with Robertson and Bledsoe;
makes groundless complaints;
makes treaty at New York;
this treaty repudiated by Creeks.
Merrill, Mrs. John, her feat against Indians.
Methodism, great advance of.
Miami Company.
Miami Indians, hostile;
expedition against.
Miro, Don Estevan, severity of, towards American traders;
intrigues with separatist leaders;
duplicity of;
correspondence with Wilkinson and Sebastia.
Michilimakinac, British post.
Molunthee, Shawnee chief, advocates peace;
foully murdered by McGarry.
Morgan, Col. George, proposes to form colony in Spanish territory.
Muscle Shoals, failure of settlement at, under claim of Georgia.
Navarro, Martin, Spanish Intendant of Louisiana;
wishes to separate the West from the Union.
Navigation of Mississippi, importance of, to West;
subject of tedious diplomatic negotiations;
excitement over;
right to, asserted by Congress.
New England people, spread north and west;
settle in Northwest.
New Madrid founded.
New York, its people expand within its own boundaries.
Niagara, British post.
Northwest, the, won by nation as a whole;
individual settlers of less consequence than in Southwest.
Ohio Company, formed in 1786;
secures abolition of slavery in Northwest;
purchase of lands on Ohio;
founds town of Marietta;
importance of its action;
contrasts with feats of early pioneers.
Ohio, first permanent settlers in.
Ohio, river, fertile lands along;
speculation in;
river route, chief highway for immigrants;
immense number of immigrants using it.
Ordinance concerning sale of public lands.
Ordinance of 1787, vital to Northwest;
importance of;
its history;
good conduct of Southern States on slavery question;
provisions of ordinance;
articles of compact;
prohibits slavery;
importance of, as state paper;
formulates new departure in colonial system.
Outlaw, backwoods colonel, kills friendly Cherokees.
Patterson, Robert, Colonel, good conduct of.
Patton, skirmish with Indians.
Pickens, Andrew, and his fellow-justices of Abbeville, S. C.,
denounce Franklin men for murder of Cherokees.
Pioneers, changes among;
succession of types among;
characteristics of different types.
Presbyterian ministers.
Putnam, Rufus, one of founders of Ohio.
Robertson, James, attacks Indians at Coldwater;
writes to Illinois about the slain French traders;
and to Delaware;
writes to McGillivray about separation of Southwest from Union;
lack of national feeling;
correspondence about Indians with Miro and Gardoqui;
attends North Carolina Legislature;
son and brother killed by Indians;
letter to McGillivray;
to Martin;
encourages immigration to Cumberland;
wounded by Indians;
commands militia;
brigadier-general.
Scott, Charles, a Kentucky Indian fighter.
Scott, settler, family butchered by Indians.
Sebastian, Judge, in pay of Spaniards;
ally of Wilkinson;
conspires to dismember the Union;
corrupt.
Sectional intolerance.
Separatist spirit, strength of, at different times in
different sections;
leaders of;
similarity to Spanish-American revolutionists;
their evil influence;
partial justification of separatist movement by narrowness of
eastern people;
especially of New Englanders;
examples of this narrowness;
excuses for certain;
separatist leaders;
separatist feeling in Kentucky;
anger of Virginians over;
separatist feeling in West;
separatist movement in West Virginia;
in Kentucky;
failure of movement.
Settlers, character of;
occupation of.
Sevier, James, goes to Gardoqui.
Sevier, John, president of Jonesboro Convention;
Governor of Franklin;
correspondence with Gov. Martin;
and Patrick Henry;
issues manifesto;
rivalry with Tipton;
brawls with Tipton;
asks help of Evan Shelby;
friendly relations with Georgia;
member of Cincinnati;
he and his men compared with bygone colonizers;
leads forays against Indians;
corresponds with Benj. Franklin;
with Shelby;
end of term as governor;
in dire straits;
fight with Tipton's men;
further forays against Indians;
fails to protect Indian prisoners;
reprobated for his failure;
abandoned for moment by frontiersmen;
arrest ordered by Governor of North Carolina;
leads other forays;
is arrested;
escapes;
proceedings against him dropped;
corresponds with Gardoqui;
offers to enter into alliance with Spain;
becomes a Federalist;
destroys Indian town on Coosa;
ransoms captive whites;
made brigadier-general.
Sevier, Valentine, at Muscle Shoals.
Shawnees, hostile;
surrender prisoners;
burn prisoners.
Shelby, Evan, appealed to by state of Franklin;
corresponds with Sevier;
hostile to state of Franklin.
Slavery, negro, in West;
a curse to the whites;
prohibited in Northwest.
Slim Tom, an Indian, brutal murder by.
Spaniards, on southwestern frontier;
their dominion jeopardized by backwoodsmen;
who look at them as the Germans once looked at the Roman Empire;
they recognize the frontiersmen as their special foes;
treachery of;
diplomatic negotiations with;
corruption of officials;
outrages by American and creole traders;
seize goods of Cumberland trader;
dread the backwoodsmen;
try to keep the Indians their allies;
and incite them to war against settlers;
towards whom they behave with shameful duplicity;
religious intolerance of;
expel American traders from among the southern tribes.
St. Clair, Arthur, Governor of Northwest Territory;
christens capital Cincinnati;
his share in governing the Northwest;
holds treaties with Indians.
Sullivan, Daniel, fight with Indians.
Sullivan, John, proposes filibustering expedition.
Symmes, John Cleves, judge in Northwest.
Tennessee, river, rich lands along;
settlements along headwaters of;
immigrant route down;
three counties on, proceed to form new government;
elect delegates to meet at Jonesboro.
Tipton, John, in Jonesboro Convention;
rivalry with Sevier;
revolts against Franklin government;
hostility to Sevier;
defeats Sevier's forces;
captures Sevier.
Treaties, failure of;
violated by Indians.
Trotter, Robert, Col., good conduct of;
misconduct of.
Union, the, immense importance of, to welfare of race;
without its adoption the revolutionary war would have gone for nought;
triumph of Union feeling in West;
western movement in favor of.
Van Swearingen, son killed by Indians.
Vermont, affairs similar to those in Kentucky.
Vigo, Francis, trading on Ohio;
misadventure with Indians.
Vincennes, condition of, in 1786;
anarchy at;
Indians threaten;
garrison established at, by Clark;
citizens surrender charter.
Wabash, American settlers on.
Wabash Indians, hostile;
misconduct of;
treachery of;
harass the Vincennes garrison.
Wabash, river, land speculation.
Wallace, Judge Caleb, position in Kentucky.
War with Indians, unavoidable;
justifiable;
horrible;
importance of.
Washington, wise attitude on Mississippi question.
Watauga, river, settlements along.
Westerners, eagerness of, to acquire Spanish lands.
Wetzel, John, adventure of.
Wetzel, Lewis, brawl with soldiers.
White, James, in pay of Spain;
corrupt;
sent to Franklin by Gardoqui.
Whitley, William, feats against Indians.
Wilderness trail to Kentucky.
Wilkinson, James, his base character;
embarks in river commerce;
corrupt and disloyal negotiations with Spaniards;
influence in Kentucky;
a separatist leader;
proposal to form a barrier state;
hostility to all Spanish schemes save his own;
takes bribes from Spaniards;
his leadership in the disunion movements;
pensioned by Spaniards;
corruption of;
leads Kentucky separatists;
urges violent action;
goes to New Orleans;
returns;
opposes ratification of Federal constitution.
Wyandots, doubtful attitude of;
declare for peace.
Yazoo river, speculation in lands.