1755-1763.
THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS AT THE CLOSE OF THE FRENCH WAR.
We have already seen how, after the defeat of Braddock, the western tribes
rose with one accord against the English. Then, for the first time,
Pennsylvania felt the scourge of Indian war; and her neighbors, Maryland
and Virginia, shared her misery. Through the autumn of 1755, the storm
raged with devastating fury; but the following year brought some abatement
of its violence. This may be ascribed partly to the interference of the
Iroquois, who, at the instances of Sir William Johnson, urged the
Delawares to lay down the hatchet, and partly to the persuasions of
several prominent men among the Quakers, who, by kind and friendly
treatment, had gained the confidence of the Indians.[136] By these means,
that portion of the Delawares and their kindred tribes who dwelt upon the
Susquehanna, were induced to send a deputation of chiefs to Easton, in the
summer of 1757, to meet the provincial delegates; and here, after much
delay and difficulty, a treaty of peace was concluded.
This treaty, however, did not embrace the Indians of the Ohio, who
comprised the most formidable part of the Delawares and Shawanoes, and who
still continued their murderous attacks. It was not till the summer of
1758, when General Forbes, with a considerable army, was advancing against
Fort du Quesne, that these exasperated savages could be brought to reason.
Well knowing that, should Forbes prove successful, they might expect a
summary chastisement for their misdeeds, they began to waver in their
attachment to the French; and the latter, in the hour of peril, found
themselves threatened with desertion by allies who had shown an ample
alacrity in the season of prosperity. This new tendency of the Ohio
Indians was fostered by a wise step on the part of the English. A man was
found bold and hardy enough to venture into the midst of their villages,
bearing the news of the treaty at Easton, and the approach of Forbes,
coupled with proposals of peace from the governor of Pennsylvania.
This stout-hearted emissary was Christian Frederic Post, a Moravian
missionary, who had long lived with the Indians, had twice married among
them, and, by his upright dealings and plain good sense, had gained their
confidence and esteem. His devout and conscientious spirit, his fidelity
to what he deemed his duty, his imperturbable courage, his prudence and
his address, well fitted him for the critical mission. His journals,
written in a style of quaint simplicity, are full of lively details, and
afford a curious picture of forest life and character. He left
Philadelphia in July, attended by a party of friendly Indians, on whom he
relied for protection. Reaching the Ohio, he found himself beset with
perils from the jealousy and malevolence of the savage warriors, and the
machinations of the French, who would gladly have destroyed him.[137] Yet
he found friends wherever he went, and finally succeeded in convincing
the Indians that their true interest lay in a strict neutrality. When,
therefore, Forbes appeared before Fort du Quesne, the French found
themselves abandoned to their own resources; and, unable to hold their
ground, they retreated down the Ohio, leaving the fort an easy conquest to
the invaders. During the autumn, the Ohio Indians sent their deputies to
Easton, where a great council was held, and a formal peace concluded with
the provinces.[138]
While the friendship of these tribes was thus lost and regained, their
ancient tyrants, the Iroquois, remained in a state of very doubtful
attachment. At the outbreak of the war, they had shown, it is true, many
signs of friendship;[139] but the disasters of the first campaign had
given them a contemptible idea of British prowess. This impression was
deepened, when, in the following year, they saw Oswego taken by the
French, and the British general, Webb, retreat with dastardly haste from
an enemy who did not dream of pursuing him. At this time, some of the
confederates actually took up the hatchet on the side of France, and
there was danger that the rest might follow their example.[140] But now a
new element was infused into the British counsels. The fortunes of the
conflict began to change. Du Quesne and Louisburg were taken, and the
Iroquois conceived a better opinion of the British arms. Their friendship
was no longer a matter of doubt; and in 1760, when Amherst was preparing
to advance on Montreal, the warriors flocked to his camp like vultures to
the carcass. Yet there is little doubt, that, had their sachems and
orators followed the dictates of their cooler judgment, they would not
have aided in destroying Canada; for they could see that in the colonies
of France lay the only barrier against the growing power and ambition of
the English provinces.
The Hurons of Lorette, the Abenakis, and other domiciliated tribes of
Canada, ranged themselves on the side of France throughout the war; and at
its conclusion, they, in common with the Canadians, may be regarded in the
light of a conquered people.
The numerous tribes of the remote west had, with few exceptions, played
the part of active allies of the French; and warriors might be found on
the farthest shores of Lake Superior who garnished their war-dress with
the scalp-locks of murdered Englishmen. With the conquest of Canada, these
tribes subsided into a state of inaction, which was not long to continue.
And now, before launching into the story of the sanguinary war which forms
our proper and immediate theme, it will be well to survey the grand arena
of the strife, the goodly heritage which the wretched tribes of the forest
struggled to retrieve from the hands of the spoiler.
One vast, continuous forest shadowed the fertile soil, covering the land
as the grass covers a garden lawn, sweeping over hill and hollow in
endless undulation, burying mountains in verdure, and mantling brooks and
rivers from the light of day. Green intervals dotted with browsing deer,
and broad plains alive with buffalo, broke the sameness of the woodland
scenery. Unnumbered rivers seamed the forest with their devious windings.
Vast lakes washed its boundaries, where the Indian voyager, in his birch
canoe, could descry no land beyond the world of waters. Yet this prolific
wilderness, teeming with waste fertility, was but a hunting-ground and a
battle-field to a few fierce hordes of savages. Here and there, in some
rich meadow opened to the sun, the Indian squaws turned the black mould
with their rude implements of bone or iron, and sowed their scanty stores
of maize and beans. Human labor drew no other tribute from that
exhaustless soil.
So thin and scattered was the native population, that, even in those parts
which were thought well peopled, one might sometimes journey for days
together through the twilight forest, and meet no human form. Broad tracts
were left in solitude. All Kentucky was a vacant waste, a mere skirmishing
ground for the hostile war-parties of the north and south. A great part of
Upper Canada, of Michigan, and of Illinois, besides other portions of the
west, were tenanted by wild beasts alone. To form a close estimate of the
numbers of the erratic bands who roamed this wilderness would be
impossible; but it may be affirmed that, between the Mississippi on the
west and the ocean on the east, between the Ohio on the south and Lake
Superior on the north, the whole Indian population, at the close of the
French war, did not greatly exceed ten thousand fighting men. Of these,
following the statement of Sir William Johnson, in 1763, the Iroquois had
nineteen hundred and fifty, the Delawares about six hundred, the Shawanoes
about three hundred, the Wyandots about four hundred and fifty, and the
Miami tribes, with their neighbors the Kickapoos, eight hundred; while the
Ottawas, the Ojibwas, and other wandering tribes of the north, defy all
efforts at enumeration.[141]
A close survey of the condition of the tribes at this period will detect
some signs of improvement, but many more of degeneracy and decay. To
commence with the Iroquois, for to them with justice the priority belongs:
Onondaga, the ancient capital of their confederacy, where their
council-fire had burned from immemorial time, was now no longer what it
had been in the days of its greatness, when Count Frontenac had mustered
all Canada to assail it. The thickly clustered dwellings, with their
triple rows of palisades, had vanished. A little stream, twisting along
the valley, choked up with logs and driftwood, and half hidden by woods
and thickets, some forty houses of bark, scattered along its banks, amid
rank grass, neglected clumps of bushes, and ragged patches of corn and
peas,--such was Onondaga when Bartram saw it, and such, no doubt, it
remained at the time of which I write.[142] Conspicuous among the other
structures, and distinguished only by its superior size, stood the great
council-house, whose bark walls had often sheltered the congregated wisdom
of the confederacy, and heard the highest efforts of forest eloquence. The
other villages of the Iroquois resembled Onondaga; for though several were
of larger size, yet none retained those defensive stockades which had once
protected them.[143] From their European neighbors the Iroquois had
borrowed many appliances of comfort and subsistence. Horses, swine, and in
some instances cattle, were to be found among them. Guns and gunpowder
aided them in the chase. Knives, hatchets, kettles, and hoes of iron, had
supplanted their rude household utensils and implements of tillage; but
with all this, English whiskey had more than cancelled every benefit which
English civilization had conferred.
High up the Susquehanna were seated the Nanticokes, Conoys, and Mohicans,
with a portion of the Delawares. Detached bands of the western Iroquois
dwelt upon the head waters of the Alleghany, mingled with their neighbors,
the Delawares, who had several villages upon this stream. The great body
of the latter nation, however, lived upon the Beaver Creeks and the
Muskingum, in numerous scattered towns and hamlets, whose barbarous names
it is useless to record. Squalid log cabins and conical wigwams of bark
were clustered at random, or ranged to form rude streets and squares.
Starveling horses grazed on the neighboring meadows; girls and children
bathed and laughed in the adjacent river; warriors smoked their pipes in
haughty indolence; squaws labored in the cornfields, or brought fagots
from the forest, and shrivelled hags screamed from lodge to lodge. In each
village one large building stood prominent among the rest, devoted to
purposes of public meeting, dances, festivals, and the entertainment of
strangers. Thither the traveller would be conducted, seated on a
bear-skin, and plentifully regaled with hominy and venison.
The Shawanoes had sixteen small villages upon the Scioto and its branches.
Farther towards the west, on the waters of the Wabash and the Maumee,
dwelt the Miamis, who, less exposed, from their position, to the poison of
the whiskey-keg, and the example of debauched traders, retained their
ancient character and customs in greater purity than their eastern
neighbors. This cannot be said of the Illinois, who dwelt near the borders
of the Mississippi, and who, having lived for more than half a century in
close contact with the French, had become a corrupt and degenerate race.
The Wyandots of Sandusky and Detroit far surpassed the surrounding tribes
in energy of character and in social progress. Their log dwellings were
strong and commodious, their agriculture was very considerable, their name
stood high in war and policy, and they were regarded with deference by all
the adjacent Indians. It is needless to pursue farther this catalogue of
tribes, since the position of each will appear hereafter as they advance
in turn upon the stage of action.
The English settlements lay like a narrow strip between the wilderness and
the sea, and, as the sea had its ports, so also the forest had its places
of rendezvous and outfit. Of these, by far the most important in the
northern provinces was the frontier city of Albany. From thence it was
that traders and soldiers, bound to the country of the Iroquois, or the
more distant wilds of the interior, set out upon their arduous journey.
Embarking in a bateau or a canoe, rowed by the hardy men who earned their
livelihood in this service, the traveller would ascend the Mohawk, passing
the old Dutch town of Schenectady, the two seats of Sir William Johnson,
Fort Hunter at the mouth of the Scoharie, and Fort Herkimer at the German
Flats, until he reached Fort Stanwix at the head of the river navigation.
Then crossing over land to Wood Creek, he would follow its tortuous
course, overshadowed by the dense forest on its banks, until he arrived at
the little fortification called the Royal Blockhouse, and the waters of
the Oneida Lake spread before him. Crossing to its western extremity, and
passing under the wooden ramparts of Fort Brewerton, he would descend the
River Oswego to Oswego,[144] on the banks of Lake Ontario. Here the vast
navigation of the Great Lakes would be open before him, interrupted only
by the difficult portage at the Cataract of Niagara.
The chief thoroughfare from the middle colonies to the Indian country was
from Philadelphia westward, across the Alleghanies, to the valley of the
Ohio. Peace was no sooner concluded with the hostile tribes, than the
adventurous fur-traders, careless of risk to life and property, hastened
over the mountains, each eager to be foremost in the wilderness market.
Their merchandise was sometimes carried in wagons as far as the site of
Fort du Quesne, which the English rebuilt after its capture, changing its
name to Fort Pitt. From this point the goods were packed on the backs of
horses, and thus distributed among the various Indian villages. More
commonly, however, the whole journey was performed by means of trains,
or, as they were called, brigades of pack-horses, which, leaving the
frontier settlements, climbed the shadowy heights of the Alleghanies, and
threaded the forests of the Ohio, diving through thickets, and wading over
streams. The men employed in this perilous calling were a rough, bold, and
intractable class, often as fierce and truculent as the Indians
themselves. A blanket coat, or a frock of smoked deer-skin, a rifle on the
shoulder, and a knife and tomahawk in the belt, formed their ordinary
equipment. The principal trader, the owner of the merchandise, would fix
his headquarters at some large Indian town, whence he would despatch his
subordinates to the surrounding villages, with a suitable supply of
blankets and red cloth, guns and hatchets, liquor, tobacco, paint, beads,
and hawks' bells. This wild traffic was liable to every species of
disorder; and it is not to be wondered at that, in a region where law was
unknown, the jealousies of rival traders should become a fruitful source
of broils, robberies, and murders.
In the backwoods, all land travelling was on foot, or on horseback. It was
no easy matter for a novice, embarrassed with his cumbrous gun, to urge
his horse through the thick trunks and undergrowth, or even to ride at
speed along the narrow Indian trails, where at every yard the impending
branches switched him across the face. At night, the camp would be formed
by the side of some rivulet or spring; and, if the traveller was skilful
in the use of his rifle, a haunch of venison would often form his evening
meal. If it rained, a shed of elm or basswood bark was the ready work of
an hour, a pile of evergreen boughs formed a bed, and the saddle or the
knapsack a pillow. A party of Indian wayfarers would often be met
journeying through the forest, a chief, or a warrior, perhaps, with his
squaws and family. The Indians would usually make their camp in the
neighborhood of the white men; and at meal-time the warrior would seldom
fail to seat himself by the traveller's fire, and gaze with solemn gravity
at the viands before him. If, when the repast was over, a fragment of
bread or a cup of coffee should be handed to him, he would receive these
highly prized rarities with an ejaculation of gratitude; for nothing is
more remarkable in the character of this people than the union of
inordinate pride and a generous love of glory with the mendicity of a
beggar or a child.
He who wished to visit the remoter tribes of the Mississippi valley--an
attempt, however, which, until several years after the conquest of Canada,
no Englishman could have made without great risk of losing his
scalp--would find no easier course than to descend the Ohio in a canoe or
bateau. He might float for more than eleven hundred miles down this liquid
highway of the wilderness, and, except the deserted cabins of Logstown, a
little below Fort Pitt, the remnant of a Shawanoe village at the mouth of
the Scioto, and an occasional hamlet or solitary wigwam along the deeply
wooded banks, he would discern no trace of human habitation through all
this vast extent. The body of the Indian population lay to the northward,
about the waters of the tributary streams. It behooved the voyager to
observe a sleepless caution and a hawk-eyed vigilance. Sometimes his
anxious scrutiny would detect a faint blue smoke stealing upward above the
green bosom of the forest, and betraying the encamping place of some
lurking war-party. Then the canoe would be drawn in haste beneath the
overhanging bushes which skirted the shore; nor would the voyage be
resumed until darkness closed, when the little vessel would drift swiftly
and safely by the point of danger.[145]
Within the nominal limits of the Illinois Indians, and towards the
southern extremity of the present state of Illinois, were those isolated
Canadian settlements, which had subsisted here since the latter part of
the preceding century. Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes were the centres
of this scattered population. From Vincennes one might paddle his canoe
northward up the Wabash, until he reached the little wooden fort of
Ouatanon. Thence a path through the woods led to the banks of the Maumee.
Two or three Canadians, or half-breeds, of whom there were numbers about
the fort, would carry the canoe on their shoulders, or, for a bottle of
whiskey, a few Miami Indians might be bribed to undertake the task. On the
Maumee, at the end of the path, stood Fort Miami, near the spot where Fort
Wayne was afterwards built. From this point one might descend the Maumee
to Lake Erie, and visit the neighboring fort of Sandusky, or, if he chose,
steer through the Strait of Detroit, and explore the watery wastes of the
northern lakes, finding occasional harborage at the little military posts
which commanded their important points. Most of these western posts were
transferred to the English, during the autumn of 1760; but the settlements
of the Illinois remained several years longer under French control.
Eastward, on the waters of Lake Erie, and the Alleghany, stood three
small forts, Presqu' Isle, Le B[oe]uf, and Venango, which had passed
into the hands of the English soon after the capture of Fort du Quesne.
The feeble garrisons of all these western posts, exiled from
civilization, lived in the solitude of military hermits. Through the
long, hot days of summer, and the protracted cold of winter, time hung
heavy on their hands. Their resources of employment and recreation were
few and meagre. They found partners in their loneliness among the young
beauties of the Indian camps. They hunted and fished, shot at targets,
and played at games of chance; and when, by good fortune, a traveller
found his way among them, he was greeted with a hearty and open-handed
welcome, and plied with eager questions touching the great world from
which they were banished men. Yet, tedious as it was, their secluded
life was seasoned with stirring danger. The surrounding forests were
peopled with a race dark and subtle as their own sunless mazes. At any
hour, those jealous tribes might raise the war-cry. No human foresight
could predict the sallies of their fierce caprice, and in ceaseless
watching lay the only safety.
When the European and the savage are brought in contact, both are gainers,
and both are losers. The former loses the refinements of civilization, but
he gains, in the rough schooling of the wilderness, a rugged independence,
a self-sustaining energy, and powers of action and perception before
unthought of. The savage gains new means of comfort and support, cloth,
iron, and gunpowder; yet these apparent benefits have often proved but
instruments of ruin. They soon become necessities, and the unhappy hunter,
forgetting the weapons of his fathers, must thenceforth depend on the
white man for ease, happiness, and life itself.
Those rude and hardy men, hunters and traders, scouts and guides, who
ranged the woods beyond the English borders, and formed a connecting link
between barbarism and civilization, have been touched upon already. They
were a distinct, peculiar class, marked with striking contrasts of good
and evil. Many, though by no means all, were coarse, audacious, and
unscrupulous; yet, even in the worst, one might often have found a
vigorous growth of warlike virtues, an iron endurance, an undespairing
courage, a wondrous sagacity, and singular fertility of resource. In them
was renewed, with all its ancient energy, that wild and daring spirit,
that force and hardihood of mind, which marked our barbarous ancestors of
Germany and Norway. These sons of the wilderness still survive. We may
find them to this day, not in the valley of the Ohio, nor on the shores of
the lakes, but far westward on the desert range of the buffalo, and among
the solitudes of Oregon. Even now, while I write, some lonely trapper is
climbing the perilous defiles of the Rocky Mountains, his strong frame
cased in time-worn buck-skin, his rifle griped in his sinewy hand. Keenly
he peers from side to side, lest Blackfoot or Arapahoe should ambuscade
his path. The rough earth is his bed, a morsel of dried meat and a draught
of water are his food and drink, and death and danger his companions. No
anchorite could fare worse, no hero could dare more; yet his wild, hard
life has resistless charms; and, while he can wield a rifle, he will never
leave it. Go with him to the rendezvous, and he is a stoic no more. Here,
rioting among his comrades, his native appetites break loose in mad
excess, in deep carouse, and desperate gaming. Then follow close the
quarrel, the challenge, the fight,--two rusty rifles and fifty yards of
prairie.
The nursling of civilization, placed in the midst of the forest, and
abandoned to his own resources, is helpless as an infant. There is no clew
to the labyrinth. Bewildered and amazed, he circles round and round in
hopeless wanderings. Despair and famine make him their prey, and unless
the birds of heaven minister to his wants, he dies in misery. Not so the
practised woodsman. To him, the forest is a home. It yields him food,
shelter, and raiment, and he threads its trackless depths with undeviating
foot. To lure the game, to circumvent the lurking foe, to guide his course
by the stars, the wind, the streams, or the trees,--such are the arts
which the white man has learned from the red. Often, indeed, the pupil has
outstripped his master. He can hunt as well; he can fight better; and yet
there are niceties of the woodsman's craft in which the white man must
yield the palm to his savage rival. Seldom can he boast, in equal measure,
that subtlety of sense, more akin to the instinct of brutes than to human
reason, which reads the signs of the forest as the scholar reads the
printed page, to which the whistle of a bird can speak clearly as the
tongue of man, and the rustle of a leaf give knowledge of life or
death.[146] With us the name of the savage is a byword of reproach. The
Indian would look with equal scorn on those who, buried in useless lore,
are blind and deaf to the great world of nature.