Many of the questions involved in the adjustment of boundaries and

settlement of treaties between the Indians and the British government

survived the Revolution, and reappeared before the United States

Congress in the struggles of land companies for possession of their

alleged purchases.[1337] Through the memorials to Congress presented by

the Illinois and Ouabache Land Company, which are to be found scattered

through the Senate and House documents, as well as in separate tracts,

we learn that in order to sustain the claim of this company it became

important to show that the Six Nations did not own the Wabash region.

For that purpose Deputy-Superintendent Croghan made affidavit that "the

Six Nations claim by right of conquest all the lands on the southeast

side of the river Ohio down to the Cherokee River, and on the west side

of the river down to the Big Miami River."[1338] The king had agreed

with the Indians that his people should not go west of an established

boundary line. He had warned settlers off their lands. The colonists

who were in arms against the king were after the lands, by fair means

or foul. What was considered fair means in those days, and what causes

there were for the exasperation of the Indians, cannot be fully

appreciated unless the subject be followed even beyond the days of the

Revolution.

_The Register of Pennsylvania_[1339] also contains a variety of

material relating to the subject. A number of the early documents will

be found in Hubley's _American Revolution_ (1805).

In making an estimate of the Indian population within the borders of

the United States at this time, I have been obliged to rely largely

upon my own deductions. Bancroft (_United States_, iii. ch. 22), giving

an estimate of the number of Indians east of the Mississippi and south

of the St. Lawrence and the chain of lakes in 1640, says: "We shall

approach, perhaps exceed, a just estimate of their numbers if we allow

... one hundred and eighty thousand souls" (edition of 1841). It will

be observed that the foregoing estimate includes the Canadian Indians.

In the preparation of the estimate which I have given, I have examined

many scattered statements of the number of warriors of the different

tribes, which comprehend different areas within their respective

limits, and which frequently overlap each other. The arbitrary spelling

of Indian names often presents the same name in such different dress

as to make its identification difficult. If we bear in mind that the

name as it appears in print is a phonetic rendering of a word which

from the mouths of different individuals would sound differently to

the same ear, and further, that those who have given us the various

renderings were men of different nationalities and of different

degrees of cultivation, we shall oftentimes be able to recognize

the same tribe in separate statements, under names the spellings of

which at first sight have no seeming identity. As regards this Indian

population, a tabulated statement will he found in Jefferson's _Notes

on the State of Virginia_, which relies upon Croghan, Bouquet, and

Hutchins, supplemented by Dodge and Gallatin. Croghan's estimate will

be found in Proud's _History of Pennsylvania_ (vol. ii. p. 296.)[1340]

Bouquet's estimate will be found in the _Historical Account_ of his

expedition,[1341] headed "Names of different Indian Nations in North

America, with the numbers of their fighting men." Hutchins's estimate

will be found in _An historical narrative and Topographical description

of Louisiana_, by Thomas Hutchins (Philadelphia, 1784, App. iii. p.

65), headed "A list of the different nations and tribes of Indians in

the Northern District of North America, with the number of fighting

men." Sir William Johnson's estimate of the Present State of the

Northern Indians,[1342] made Nov. 18, 1763, will be found in the _Doc.

Hist. of New York_, i. p. 26, and in _N. Y. Col. Docs._, vii. p. 582.

The estimate of Sir James Wright is in the _Georgia Hist. Soc. Coll._

(Savannah, 1873), iii. part 2, p. 169. The synopsis of the Indian

tribes, by Albert Gallatin, is printed in the _Amer. Antiquarian Soc.

Proc._, ii. Still another list was published in _Sketches of the

History, manners, and customs of the North American Indians, with a

plan for their melioration_, by James Buchanan, Esq., his Britannic

majesty's consul for the State of New York (New York, 1824, 2 vols.),

i. ch. xii. pp. 138-39, where it is called "Names of the different

Indian nations hitherto discovered in North America, the situation of

their countries, with the number of their fighting men" (1770-1780).

Buchanan claimed to have received this list from Heckewelder, the

missionary, and it is identical, except for certain palpable errors

in transcribing, with a list in what is now known as Trumbull's

_Indian Wars_, the authorship of which is attributed in the original

edition[1343] to the Rev. James Steward, D. D. Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull,

in reply to a question from me, says the book was "written by Henry

Trumbull, then of Norwich, when about seventeen years old."[1344]

Gilbert Imlay, in _A Topographical Description of the Western Territory

of North America_, etc. (London, 1792, p. 234), gives a list of

Indians on both sides of the Mississippi, and from the Gulf to the St.

Lawrence. This list was made up from "Croghan, Boquet, Carver, Hutchins

and Dodge." The figures that he uses are plainly intended for the

number of the fighting-men, but he puts the total population in this

district at less than 60,000. In a second and a third edition, the list

is modified. He gives twenty-eight tribes east of the Mississippi, and

his calculation of population is based upon 700 to a nation or tribe.

He finds in all 20,000 souls, and "consequently between 4,000 and 5,000

warriors."

I have had occasion in this investigation to examine somewhat the

question of the population west of the Mississippi, for two purposes:

1st, to determine the numbers to be eliminated from some of the

general statements which include tribes whose residence was in the Far

West; and 2d, to test the question of the proportion of warriors to

population. Brackenridge's _Views of Louisiana_[1345] has proved of

especial service for these purposes. There are also some statistics in

Perrin du Lac's _Voyage dans les deux Louisianes_, etc.[1346]

The _Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society_ contain

many estimates of the population of the natives in different parts

of the country, made at different times. Among these an estimate

(1795, p. 99) of the Creeks, Choctaws, Chicasaws, Cherokees, and

Catawbas, furnished by Dr. Ramsay, places their total population

in 1780 at 42,033,—fighting men 13,526. An estimate of the Indian

nations employed by the British in the Revolutionary War, made by

Captain Dalton, superintendent of Indian affairs for the United States

(_Ibid._ x. p. 123), was published in 1783, and gives the number of

men furnished by the tribes as 12,680, of whom the Six Nations proper

contributed 1,580. The Choctaws, Chicasaws, Cherokees, and Creeks

furnished 2,200. The value of this list lies only in the opportunity

which it affords for testing the probable accuracy of some of the

others.[1347]

There is in the _Doc. Hist. of New York_ (i. p. 17) "an enumeration of

the Indian tribes connected with the government of Canada in 1736." It

is difficult, if not impossible, to identify many of the tribes in this

estimate.[1348]

Elias Boudinot, in _A Star in the West; or an humble attempt to

discover the long lost tribes of Israel, preparatory to their return to

their beloved city, Jerusalem_ (1816), devotes a small portion of his

discussion to the question of population (p. 131 _et seq._).[1349]

"A Table of the principal Indian Tribes" was printed in the _American

Pioneer_, a monthly periodical (Cincinnati, i. pp. 257, 408, and ii.

188), where it was credited to Drake's _Indian Biography_; but in fact

it was taken from the _Book of the Indians_ by the same author, which

is prefaced with an alphabetical enumeration of the Indian tribes

and nations. The numbers of the different tribes are given, and the

date of the estimates from which the numbers were derived. Franklin

furnished a partial list of warriors in 1762, which may prove useful

for comparison, and is included by Benjamin Vaughan in the _Political,

Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces, &c., written by Benjamin

Franklin, &c., &c. Now first collected_ (London, 1779).[1350]

Colonel Force, in the _American Archives_, gives a vast amount of

material on the employment of Indians as soldiers by the Americans,

which before had been lost from sight in scattered publications.

The indexes to these volumes do not suitably analyze their

contents. The chief corresponding British repositories are Almon's

_Remembrancer_,[1351] a mine which was worked by all the earlier

writers upon the Revolutionary War, and to-day the original authority

for much of our information; and the _Parliamentary Register_, often

called the _Parliamentary Debates_,[1352]—more specific accounts

of which, as well as of the _Annual Register_, the _Gentleman's

Magazine_, and the _Scots Magazine_, will be found in another place.

All of these help to show us the information upon which the British

public formed their opinions.

The attitude of Congress upon the Indian question has been traced by

means of the _Journals_ and _Secret Journals_ of Congress.[1353]

The fact that the powers conferred upon Carleton for the suppression

of rebellion in the provinces probably influenced opinion somewhat

in the colonies has been already adverted to, as well as the further

fact, shown by extracts from other commissions, etc., that there was no

special meaning to be attached to the language used in the commissions.

That it did have weight and was used as an argument in the discussion

is shown in a review of _The plan of the Colonies, or the charges

brought against them by Lord M——d and others, in a letter to his

Lordship_, printed in _The Monthly Review or Literary Journal_ (liv.,

for 1776, p. 408). "Let him review Gen. Carleton's last commission",

says the writer. "Your Lordship has already seen it once too often.

For what purpose was he authorized to _arm_ the Canadians, and then

to _march_ into any other of the _plantations_, and his majesty's

rebellious subjects there to attack, and, by _God's help, them to

defeat and put to death_? For what purpose did Guy Johnson deliver

black belts to all the Indian tribes in his district, and persuade

them to lift up the hatchet against the white people in the colonies?

The Congress is possessed of those very war-belts; they have a copy

of Governor Carleton's commission; they have long since possessed the

whole plan."

Unfortunately, the chief American compilation, aiming to be a reflex

of current news,—Moore's _Diary of the American Revolution_,—is

singularly deficient in excerpts respecting the opinions on employing

Indians.[1354] There is need of but brief references to the

consideration of the subject among the later writers,—such as Ryerson

in his _Loyalists of America_ (ii. ch. 33); Mahon (ch. 52) and Lecky

(iv. 14), in their respective histories of England. There is special

treatment of the matter by William W. Campbell in "The direct agency

of the English Government in the employment of the Indians in the

Revolutionary War", published in the _New York Hist. Society Proc._

(1845, p. 159).[1355]

Frederic Kidder, in _The Expeditions of Capt. John Lovewell_ (Boston,

1865, p. 114), says: "The last trace of them [the Pequakets] as a tribe

is in a petition to the government of Massachusetts, dated at Fryeburg,

in which they ask for guns, blankets, and ammunition for thirteen

men who are willing to enroll themselves on the patriot side. This

document was indorsed by the proper authorities, and the request was

granted."[1356]

On the 10th of July, 1775, Adjutant-General Gates, at Cambridge, in a

circular letter of instructions for the use of recruiting officers,

says: "You are not to enlist any deserter from the ministerial army,

nor any stroller, negro, or vagabond, or person suspected of being

an enemy to the liberty of America, nor any under 18 years of age."

"You are not to enlist any person who is not an American born, unless

such person has a wife and family, and is a resident in this country"

(Niles's _Principles and Acts_, etc.). Though no mention is made of

Indians, the fact of their not being excepted is often pointed out as

of significance.

Letters in the _N. H. Provincial Papers_[1357] betray the fears,

along the border, of Carleton and Johnson, and reveal the friendly

disposition of the Canadian Indians.

The references for the Kennebec march of Arnold are given in another

chapter; but in _Senter's Journal_, there mentioned, we have the

details of Arnold's interview with the Indians at Sartigan, and of

the inducements which he offered them for enlisting. The fact that

Indians joined the American army at this point is corroborated by Judge

Henry, in his _Account_,[1358] while the topic is also treated in E. M.

Stone's _Invasion of Canada_ (Providence, 1867).

Many of the more important acts and resolves of the several colonies,

apposite to this inquiry, are in the _American Archives_. The

importance which circumstances gave to the position taken by the

Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay causes great interest to

attach to the proceedings of that body. Many conferences between

committees and different Indians were held, the accounts of which

are found in _A Journal of the Honourable House of Representatives

of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. Begun at the

Meeting House in Watertown in the County of Middlesex on Wednesday the

Nineteenth day of July, Anno Domini, 1775_.[1359] These will also be

found in a reprint of the Journals for 1774-1775, entitled _Journals of

each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774-1775_, etc., Boston,

1838.

General Gage, in his letter to Stuart, complained of two things: the

employment of Indians by the rebels and the shooting of his sentries.

It has been shown that the acts of the Massachusetts Bay Provincial

Congress justified his first assertion. As to the second, see

Frothingham's _Siege of Boston_.[1360]

_The Military operations in Eastern Maine and Nova Scotia, during the

revolution, chiefly compiled from the journals and letters of Col.

John Allan_, by Frederic Kidder (Albany, 1867), completes the story of

the attempt to secure the services of the Eastern Indians, and gives

the reasons alleged by the Indians for not complying with the treaty

entered into at Cambridge, to furnish a regiment.[1361]

The events which took place in the Mohawk Valley during the summer

and fall of 1775 were of far-reaching importance. Their history is

recorded in the correspondence of such men as Washington and Schuyler,

in the meetings of local committees, and in conferences with Indians.

Accounts of many of them are to be found in the _N. Y. Col. Docs._ and

in the _American Archives_. There is besides a mass of material in the

possession of scattered families, much of which has been worked over

by local historians.[1362] The most important of all these later works

is the _Life of Joseph Brant (Tha-yen-dan-e-gea), including the Border

Wars of the American Revolution_, etc., by William L. Stone.[1363]

The prodigious labor performed by Colonel Stone in the classification

and orderly arrangement of the immense amount of his material will

be gratefully appreciated by the investigator to-day, even though he

has at command publications by the state and national governments

containing much of the same material. Since Colonel Stone's day other

laborers have been diligently at work in the same field, gleaning facts

and collecting historical material of various kinds. Their work has

revealed some errors in the _Life of Brant_,[1364] which are not of

such importance, however, as to displace the work from its position

as the chief authority on the subject. The habits and modes of life of

the Indians and the organization of the confederacy of the Six Nations

were not understood as thoroughly when Colonel Stone wrote as they are

to-day. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Morgan, in his

_League of the Iroquois_, does not agree with Stone in the assertion

that Brant was the principal war-chief of the confederacy. A portion of

Stone's ground had been earlier covered by William W. Campbell in his

_Annals of Tryon County, or the Border Warfare of New York during the

Revolution_ (N. Y., 1831),[1365] a work still looked upon as authority

upon many points, republished (1849) as _The Border Warfare of New York

during the Revolution, or the Annals of Tryon County_. Another volume

devoted to the same topics, but widely different in character and in

execution, is Jephtha R. Simms's _History of Schoharie County and

Border Wars of New York_ (1845), republished in 1882, with additional

matter, as _The Frontiersmen of New York, showing customs of the

Indians, vicissitudes of the pioneer white settlers, and Border Strife

in two wars, with a great variety of romantic and thrilling stories

never before published_,—both editions showing an industrious care to

amass, with little skill in presentation.

The Revolutionary War divided the councils of the Six Nations. Had

they acted as a unit in favor of the English, the problem would have

been more difficult for the provincials. The friendly warnings of the

Oneidas were of constant use to the Americans throughout the struggle.

Their position materially changed the problem which was set for St.

Leger, and though they did not then act aggressively, their unfriendly

attitude must have caused his retreating column uneasiness. These

Indians were probably of greater service as neutrals—who in that

character were able to penetrate the enemy's country and report what

was going on—than they would have been had they taken up the hatchet

on the American side at the outset. Their attitude was largely due to

the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, the missionary.[1366]

In the account of the border wars, as in all other respects, Lossing's

_Field-Book_ is a useful publication, based upon ordinarily accepted

authorities, with local anecdotes, traditions, and descriptions

interjected by the author.[1367] A contemporary narrative (_Mass. Hist.

Soc. Coll._, ii.), called an "Historical Journal", was necessarily

written without opportunity for critical revision.

We have a narrative of events from the English side in Stedman's

_American War_, where it is said that Montgomery was "joined by

several parties of Indians" (i. p. 133), and that Ethan Allen's party

numbered "about one hundred and fifty men, composed of Americans and

Indians." One inducement for Burgoyne's employment of Indians was "a

well-grounded supposition that if he refused their offers they would

instantly join the Americans." Wyoming, we learn, "fell a sacrifice

to an invasion of the Indians" (ii. p. 73). He speaks of "the Indian

settlements of Unadilla and Anaguago, which were also inhabited by

white people attached to the loyal cause."

Thacher's _Military Journal_, a contemporaneous account of current

events on the American side, as they appeared or as they were told

to the author, is often of help in fixing the date of some event

about which there is a dispute, even when the description itself

of the action is meagre, or consists of mere mention. Thus he puts

the destruction of Cobleskill in 1778, when Campbell says it was in

1779,—an error on the part of the later writer, unless there was

more than one raid upon that insignificant settlement, as stated by

Stone.[1368] Thacher's account of the battle of Oriskany and siege of

Fort Stanwix is brief, but it shows that the first stories about the

affair were quite reasonable.

In the study of the topography, so far as it was known, and of the

geographical nomenclature of the frontier just previous to the outbreak

of the Revolutionary War, the _Memoir upon the late War in North

America_, by M. Pouchot,[1369] will be found very useful.

The story of St. Leger's expedition and the battle of Oriskany,

though told at some length in this chapter as illustrative of border

warfare, is so essential a part of the campaign of Burgoyne that the

critical discussion of the authorities has been, except in some matters

pertaining to the use of Indians, treated rather in connection with the

story of that campaign than here.[1370]

The historical introduction upon Sir John Johnson which Gen. J. Watts

De Peyster contributed to _The Orderly-Book of Sir John Johnson_

(Albany, 1882) indicates a marked change of opinion upon the exploits

of Johnson, as compared with the views which he had expressed in

earlier accounts of the battle of Oriskany published by him in 1859,

1869 (_Hist. Mag._, Jan.), 1878 (_Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Jan.), and

1880. He confesses that an examination of the British accounts has

given him a somewhat enthusiastic admiration for Johnson's methods,

but his repeated study has not yet cleared up all errors.[1371] This

_Orderly-Book_ gives us the movements of Sir John Johnson's command up

to the time that they left Oswego. Through the details for guard and

fatigue duty during the delay at Buck Island we get at the different

commands which formed the expedition. De Peyster and Stone conclude,

from the introduction of a general order for the issue of forty days'

rations for five hundred men, just before leaving Buck Island, that

this determines the number of St. Leger's command, but the evidence is

hardly conclusive.[1372]

In James E. Seaver's _Life of Mary Jemison_ (N. Y., 1856, 4th ed.) we

have the story of the way in which the Senecas bewailed their losses,

given by a woman who had been long among them as captive and adopted

member; and it is on her authority (p. 114) that it is sometimes stated

that the English offered bounties for scalps.[1373] An account of the

exertions of Red Jacket to keep his people out of the conflict will

be found in J. Niles Hubbard's _An account of Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, or Red

Jacket and his People_ (Albany, 1886), ch. 3.

As respects the Minisink massacre, the accounts made public by Brant

were fairly accurate, though they ran some risk in being transmitted

first to Niagara, thence to Quebec, and finally to England. They stand

the test of time better than the American accounts. The Tory organ in

New York, _Rivington's Gazette_, printed the first American accounts,

representing that only thirty escaped from the ambuscade,—a statement

followed in several histories; but the local authorities, on the

strength of investigations made at the time of erecting the monument,

generally agree on the smaller statements of loss.[1374]

The earliest account of the massacre at Wyoming is in a letter written

at Poughkeepsie, July 20, 1778, just after the fugitives had arrived

there,[1375] and this account seems to be largely the source whence

Gordon, Botta,[1376] and Marshall[1377] drew their accounts. Owing

probably to the fact that Marshall cites Ramsay in his footnotes, this

last historian is frequently included with the others in the general

charge of having furnished an exaggerated and erroneous statement

of this deplorable event,[1378] but, in fact, Ramsay is reasonably

accurate, and is free from many of the errors which characterize the

other narratives.[1379]

Hinman's _Connecticut during the Revolution_ contains an account of

the Wyoming massacre, transcribed directly from a contemporaneous

publication. A full account of the massacre will be found in

Girardin's continuation of Burk's _History of Virginia_ (iv. of the

series, p. 314 _et seq._), based upon the shocking tales of the

fugitives. The popular account was repeated in the _History of the

Revolution_ which purported to have been written by Paul Allen.[1380]

Isaac A. Chapman, the first of the local historians to touch the

subject, prepared a manuscript, with a preface dated Wyoming, July

11, 1818; but the book was not published until after his death, as _A

Sketch of the history of Wyoming_[1381] (Wilkesbarre, 1830).

Charles Miner, the first to sift out the errors from the accepted

accounts, after collecting from survivors their personal experiences,

published a series of newspaper sketches which led to his _History of

Wyoming, in a series of letters from Charles Miner to his son, William

Penn Miner, Esq._, etc. (Philadelphia, 1845). He carefully chronicled

the antecedent history of the Connecticut colony, and gave the first

trustworthy detailed account of the invasion, and the articles of

capitulation granted to the several forts by Major John Butler. Mr.

Miner's agent was apparently refused, at the foreign office, London,

a copy of the report of Major Butler. This important document will

be found in _Wyoming, its history, stirring incidents and romantic

adventures_, by George Peck, D. D. (New York, 1858).[1382] The author

says in his preface: "Forty years since we first visited Wyoming, and

from that period we have enjoyed rare advantages for the study of

its history." He gives the report of Zebulon Butler to the board of

war,[1383] dated at Gnadenhütten, July 10, 1778 (p. 49), the report of

Major John Butler to Lieut.-Col. Bolton, dated at Lackuwanak, 8th July,

1778 (p. 52); and there is a thorough résumé of the discussion as to

Brant's presence at Wyoming (pp. 87, 88, 89). The report of Butler to

Bolton was presumably the document which he received through the favor

of Hon. George Bancroft, who cites it (_United States_, x. 138) in his

account of the Wyoming invasion.[1384]

Col. William L. Stone treated the subject in a thorough manner in

_The Poetry and History of Wyoming containing Campbell's Gertrude of

Wyoming, and the History of Wyoming from its discovery to the beginning

of the present century_.[1385] The book has passed through several

editions, and the same historical materials are also used in his _Life

of Brant_.[1386]

The massacre at Cherry Valley has not, like Wyoming, an

especial literature of its own. The event is described in the

_Remembrancer_,[1387] and in all the histories, and is fully treated in

Campbell's _Annals of Tryon County_ (ch. 5), in Simms's _Frontiersmen

of New York_, and in Stone's _Life of Brant_ (i. ch. 17). Both Campbell

and Simms lived in this region, and it was the special field in which

Brant was operating. This particular expedition was not under Brant's

control. He had apparently concluded the season's work and joined

Walter N. Butler's force reluctantly, being jealous of him for having

command of the expedition. At Wyoming the soldiers were massacred,

but the citizens were spared. At Cherry Valley most of the soldiers

escaped, but in the first heat of the attack the citizens were

indiscriminately slaughtered. It would have been better for Brant's

reputation if he had been present at Wyoming rather than at Cherry

Valley,—although so far as his influence is concerned it was evidently

exerted to prevent excesses.[1388]

Among the Sparks MSS. (no. xlvii.) in the Harvard College library,

there are some extracts from the diary of Benjamin Warren, who was in

the fort at Cherry Valley at the time of the attack. He says the attack

on the fort was renewed early on the morning of the 12th, but was

easily repelled.

The _Boston Gazette and Country Journal_ of Dec. 7, 1778,[1389]

contains an account from an officer who was in the fort November

11th, when it was attacked. He says it rained hard that morning. The

enemy "passed by two houses, and lodged themselves in a swamp a small

distance back of Mr. Wells's house, headquarters; half past eleven A.

M. Mr. Hamlin came by and discovered two Indians, who fired upon him

and shot him through the arm. He rode to Mr. Wells's, and acquainted

the colonel, the lieutenant-colonel, major, and adjutant. The two last

(the house at this time being surrounded by Indians) got to the fort

through their fire; the colonel was shot near the fort." The fort was

subjected to a brisk fire for three hours and a half. On the 12th the

enemy collected the cattle, and at sunset left. McKendry's account of

the attack on Fort Alden agrees in substance with that of Benjamin

Warren.[1390]

The expedition of General Sullivan (1779) against the Indian towns

in New York has proved a fertile field for discussion. Its policy

has been assailed; its management condemned; its results belittled.

There is no want of records of occurrences in the campaign,[1391] but

their interpretation has not been settled, and probably never will be.

The account of Gordon is especially bitter against Sullivan, and he

cuts down the number of villages from forty, as given by Sullivan, to

eighteen.[1392]

Thomas C. Amory, in his _Military Services of General Sullivan_, aims

at a vindication of Sullivan by the use of material which was not

known to his detractors, and he has diligently pursued this purpose

elsewhere.[1393] The character of the charges against Sullivan has

been partially indicated in the quotations already given. He has

been attacked because he demanded so many troops for the expedition.

Whether it would have been wise to venture with a smaller force so far

into Indian country, which was within easy supporting distance of the

outposts of the enemy, is a matter of opinion, concerning which no

new facts have been recently brought to light. We know that Sullivan

expected help from the Oneidas which he did not receive, and that

he anticipated that the Indians would receive aid from Niagara, in

which he was agreeably disappointed. I have already stated that in my

judgment he had a right to expect formidable opposition, and the only

explanation of his not meeting with greater resistance is to be found

in the perplexity in Haldimand's mind occasioned by the boats which

Clinton had collected in the Mohawk Valley. On this mental confusion

Sullivan could not have counted.[1394] The number of men demanded by

Sullivan in the preliminary discussions about the campaign was much

larger than the number actually furnished him. It was perhaps not

out of place for him to secure, if he could, a force large enough to

place his campaign beyond failure, but, taking into consideration the

general condition of army matters, the number demanded was entirely

disproportionate to the work to be performed. He wanted 2,500 men to

march up the Susquehanna, and 4,000 men to invade the towns by way of

the Mohawk (F. Moore, _Corresp. of Laurens_, N. Y., 1861, p. 136). In

fact, he had 2,500 men in his own command, and Clinton's force brought

the numbers up to 4,000.[1395] He has been accused of making demands

for supplies which were unreasonable, both as to quality and as to

quantity, and it is evident from Washington's correspondence that

he feared Sullivan was not willing to march light enough for such a

campaign. While Sullivan was not familiar with Indian campaigns, and

perhaps demanded more supplies at the outset than Brodhead, or Clarke,

or Williamson would have asked for, the numbers of his command must not

be forgotten. Nor must the fact be overlooked that the provisions which

were delivered to him proved to have been put up in bad packages, and

had spoiled.[1396]

Sullivan has also been found fault with for not protecting from Indian

raids the neighborhood in which his army was stationed while waiting

for supplies. His action in this respect was deliberate. He was of

opinion that the blows struck along the border during this interval of

time were intended to divert him from the purposes of the campaign,

and that any attempts to check these desultory attacks, by sending out

expeditions here and there, would simply be playing into the enemy's

hands.[1397] The charge of extravagant living during the march seems

absurd. At a time when the army was on half rations and the men were

using ingenious devices to take advantage of the growing crops, he

could hardly have had much opportunity for riotous living. When the

expedition started the corn was green and suitable to roast. As they

advanced it became too mature for this, and the soldiers were compelled

in other ways to prepare it for food.[1398]

Curious differences of opinion prevailed in the several accounts as to

the numbers of the enemy who opposed the army at Newtown. Some of the

accounts place them as low as 700, while others put them as high as

1,500.[1399]

Sullivan has been ridiculed for the language used in describing the

Indian settlements; but his descriptions, though misleading, are the

natural expressions of a man who found in these settlements evidences

of a higher civilization than he had expected. A comparison of the

entries in the various diaries and journals will show that many were

surprised at the excellence of the Indian houses, while others saw only

the discomforts of life under such surroundings.[1400] General Sullivan

has been assailed because he did not attack Niagara. There had been

some discussion about a second campaign against Canada and an attempt

on Niagara, but Washington's correspondence shows that it had been

abandoned in connection with the campaign against the Indian towns,

unless it could be accomplished through the Indians themselves. The

instructions to Sullivan show this,[1401] and a letter from Sullivan,

given in the _Laurens Correspondence_ (p. 141), shows that Sullivan did

not conceive it to be a part of the campaign, even if he had deemed an

attack on Niagara possible.

In his report to the Committee of Congress, January 15, 1776,

Washington discusses the possibilities for the forthcoming

campaign.[1402] For the reduction of Niagara he estimates that an

army of twenty to twenty-one thousand men would be required; thirteen

thousand to remain in the East, and seven or eight thousand to operate

against Niagara. The expenses incident to such a campaign, and the

great number of men required, practically put it out of the question,

and his conclusion was as follows: "It is much to be regretted that

our prospect of any capital offensive operations is so slender that we

seem in a manner to be driven to the necessity of adopting the third

plan,—that is, to remain entirely on the defensive; except such lesser

operations against the Indians as are absolutely necessary to divert

their ravages from us." January 18 he wrote to General Schuyler: "It

has therefore been determined to lay the Niagara expedition entirely

aside for the present, and to content ourselves with some operations on

a smaller scale against the savages and those people who have infested

our frontier the preceding campaign."[1403]

The details of the work performed by the New Jersey contingent have

been fully set forth in _General Maxwell's Brigade of the New Jersey

Continental line in the Expedition against the Indians in the year

1779_. By William S. Stryker, Adjutant-General of New Jersey (Trenton,

1885), a paper read before the New Jersey Historical Society, January

17, 1884.[1404] Various order-books of the campaign have been

preserved.[1405]

_The Centennial Celebration of General Sullivan's Campaign against the

Iroquois in 1779. Held at Waterloo, September 3d, 1879_ (Waterloo,

N. Y., 1880), was edited by Diedrich Willers, Jr., and contains a

carefully prepared and clearly written historical address by the Rev.

David Craft, which the editor calls "the most complete and accurate

history of General Sullivan's campaign which has yet been given to

the public." The diligence of Craft in his search for the sources

of authority for the campaign is shown in his "List of Journals,

Narratives, etc., of the Western Expedition, 1779"[1406] (_Mag. of

Amer. Hist._, iii. 673), in which the titles of nineteen journals,

narratives, etc., which had at that time been published, are given,

with information as to the places of deposit of the MSS., and as to

the newspapers, magazines, or books in which they were published.

The titles and what was known about the places of deposit of eight

journals, etc., which had not been published, and of one journal which

relates to the Onondaga expedition, and which had been published, are

also given.[1407] Of the journals which had not been published when

Craft wrote, three, or portions of three, were used by Gen. John S.

Clark in his account of the Sullivan campaign in the _Collections of

the Cayuga Historical Society, Number One_ (Auburn, 1879,—250 copies),

including the journal of Lieut. John L. Hardenburgh, of the Second

New York Continental Regiment, from May 1 to October 3, 1779, with an

introduction, copious historical notes, and maps of the battlefield

of Newtown and the Groveland ambuscade. General Clark also makes use

of "parts of other journals never before published,"[1408] which give

the work of detachments, thus placing before the reader a complete

account of the whole work of the expedition, in the words of those who

participated in it, together with a list of journals, etc., similar

to that of Craft, but sufficiently different in details to show

independent work.

The remains of Lieutenant Boyd and those who fell with him, in their

desperate attempt to cut their way through the enemy by whom they

were surrounded, were in 1842 removed from their place of burial, and

deposited with appropriate ceremonies at Mount Hope. A collection of

the various proceedings on this occasion was edited by Henry O'Reilly,

as _Notices of Sullivan's Campaign, or the Revolutionary Warfare in

Western New York; embodied in the addresses and documents connected

with the funeral honors rendered to those who fell with the gallant

Boyd in the Genessee Valley, including the remarks of Gov. Seward at

Mount Hope_ (Rochester, 1842).

Brodhead's campaign against the Indian settlements on the Alleghany, in

Western New York and Pennsylvania, was carried out while Sullivan was

on his march. Like Van Schaick's raid on the Onondaga towns, although

independently executed, it formed part of the scheme of the season's

work. In Gay's _Popular History of the United States_ (vol. iv.) there

is a good general account of Sullivan's campaign, but in a note (p. 7)

it is said that "Brodhead's expedition has usually been considered of

little moment, and it has been denied, or doubted, by some writers,

that it ever took place. Its incidents are for the first time collated

and fully told by Obed Edson, in the _Magazine of [Amer.] History_,

for November, 1879." As a matter of fact, however, there has never

been occasion for investigators to doubt that this campaign had taken

place, or to underestimate its value. The report of Brodhead was given

to the public at the time,[1409] and was published in full in the

_Remembrancer_ (ix. p. 152). Washington, in his letter to Lafayette,

which has already been quoted, mentioned the work done by Brodhead with

evident appreciation of its extent and value.[1410]

The details of the Mohawk Valley invasions are given in the works by

Stone, Simms, and Campbell, which have so frequently been quoted,

and in the _Remembrancer_.[1411] The joint expeditions in 1780 were

separately treated by Franklin B. Hough in the _Northern Invasion of

October, 1780_ (New York, 1866,—no. 6 Bradford Club Series; 75 copies

printed). The work is described as "a series of papers relating to the

expedition from Canada under Sir John Johnson and others against the

frontiers of New York, which were supposed to have connection with

Arnold's treason, prepared from the originals, with an introduction

and notes." Reference has already been made to the fact that Hough

differed from Stone as to the cause for the removal of the Oneidas

from their castles in the winter of 1779-1780, and their establishment

near Schenectady. Hough says (p. 32): "Some of the Oneidas evinced

a willingness to join the enemy. To prevent such a misfortune,

four hundred of their people were removed to the neighborhood of

Schenectady, and there supported at public cost." In a note he adds:

"We find nothing among the Clinton Papers to justify the statement of

Colonel Stone[1412] (_Brant_, i. 55) relative to the destruction of the

Oneida settlements by the enemy during the winter of 1779-80, and are

led to believe that the removal of these people to a place of safety in

the interior was a measure of policy rather than of actual necessity

from the presence of the enemy." There is among the _Sparks MSS._

actual evidence that Hough's conclusion was correct. In a letter from

General Haldimand, dated at Quebec, Nov. 2, 1779, he says: "He [Sir

John Johnson] halted at Oswego, with an intention to cut off the Oneida

nation, who have uniformly and obstinately supported and fought for the

rebels, notwithstanding the united remonstrances and threats of the

Five Nations, joined to every effort in our power to reclaim them. In

this he has likewise been disappointed, the Indians of Canada refusing

their assistance", etc.[1413] A letter of Guy Johnson to Lord Germain

makes the same statements.

NOTES.

=A.= OPINIONS OF PROMINENT AMERICANS ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF INDIANS IN

WAR.

IT is not easy to determine the position of prominent individuals on

this question prior to the date when Congress had come to a conclusion.

The passage of the Quebec Bill in 1774, and the ample powers which

were conferred upon Carleton to suppress revolt, had occasioned alarm.

Perhaps the circumstances justified suspicion, but there was no special

cause for it. The language used in Carleton's commission was copied

from the commission of James Murray. If there had been no change of

governors, the powers conferred upon the governor could never have

been supposed to have been specially directed against the rebellious

colonies.[1414] After the outbreak of hostilities, we meet, in the

published correspondence of the day, with occasional expressions of

opinion on the question of employing Indians. It must not be forgotten

that when these letters were written rumors were current that the

English in Canada were endeavoring to secure the services of Indians,

and to the extent that the writers believed these statements their

opinions were doubtless influenced by them. On May 14th, Joseph Warren

wrote to Samuel Adams, saying: "It has been suggested to me that an

application from your Congress to the Six Nations, accompanied with

some presents, might have a very good effect. It appears to me to be

worthy of your attention, etc." (Frothingham's _Warren_). On August

4th, Washington communicated to the President of Congress the opinion

of a Caughnawaga chief, that if an expedition against Canada was

meditated the Indians in that quarter would give all their assistance.

On Sept. 21st, he reported to the honorable Congress that, "encouraged

by the repeated declarations of Canadians and Indians, and urged by

their requests", he had dispatched the Arnold expedition (Sparks's

_Washington_ and his _Corresp. of the Rev._). On August 27th, Schuyler

wrote to Washington that he was informed that "Carleton and his agents

are exerting themselves to procure the savages against us." While he

did not believe that Carleton would be successful except in procuring

some of the remote Indians to act as scouts, he nevertheless added, "I

should, therefore, not hesitate a moment to employ any Indians that

might be willing to join us" (Lossing's _Schuyler_). Judge Drayton,

of South Carolina, on September 25th addressed the Cherokee warriors

at Congaree in the following words: "So should we act to each other

like brothers; so shall we be able to support and assist each other

against our common enemies; so shall we be able to stand together in

perfect safety against the evil men who in the end mean to ruin you,

as well as ourselves, who are their own flesh and blood." In January,

1776, Washington felt that the important moment had arrived when the

Indians must take a side. He knew that if the Indians concerning whom

he wrote did not desire to be idle, they would be "for or against us."

"I am sensible", he added, "that no artifices will be left unessayed

to engage them against us." On April 19th he wrote to the President

of Congress: "In my opinion it will be impossible to keep them in

a state of neutrality; they must, and no doubt soon will, take an

active part either for or against us. I submit to Congress whether

it would not be better immediately to engage them on our side." On

July 13th he reported to the President of Congress that, without

authority from Congress, he had directed Gen. Schuyler to engage the

Six Nations in our interest on the best terms he and his colleagues

could procure. "I trust", he added, "the urgency of the occasion will

justify my proceeding to Congress." On the day of the Declaration of

Independence he again wrote to Congress, submitting the propriety of

engaging the Eastern Indians. Notwithstanding the various arguments

against employing them, John Adams thought "we need not be so delicate

as to refuse the assistance of Indians, provided we cannot keep them

neutral." In June, the Rev. Samuel Kirkland said that the Indians were

generally of opinion that it was impracticable for them to continue

longer in a state of neutrality. Gen. Schuyler, notwithstanding his

early expressions of readiness to "employ any Indians that might be

willing to join us", seemed reluctant, when the time came, to avail

himself of their services. He preferred to get decently rid of the

offer of the Caughnawagas rather than to employ them. As to the Six

Nations, he evidently felt that the utmost to be hoped for was to hold

a portion of them quiet through the influence of such men as Kirkland

and Deane.[1415] Schuyler's labors as Indian commissioner had been

in the direction of neutrality; and even after direct instructions

from Congress to engage the Six Nations on the best terms that could

be procured, he wrote in reply, with evident satisfaction, when the

news of the disaster to our forces in Canada was spread among the

Indians, that "our conduct in demanding a neutrality in all former

treaties has been greatly applauded in all their councils." _The

Life of Jonathan Trumbull, Sen., Governor of Connecticut_, by I. W.

Stuart (Boston, 1859), gives particulars concerning the contact of

this active participant in affairs with some of these questions of

policy. Trumbull, as well as the Massachusetts committeemen, was in

correspondence with Major Brown in Canada, and through him as well

as through them information was conveyed to the Provincial Congress

of Massachusetts Bay of rumors of a projected attempt to recapture

Ticonderoga and Crown Point with a force of regulars and Indians.

=B.= EVENTS AT THE NORTH, NOT CONNECTED WITH THE SIX NATIONS.

Among the Western tribes, the Delawares were divided, but the majority

of the Indians were unfriendly, and completely under the influence

of the English commander at Detroit. At the East the attitude of

the Indians was not so pronounced, and they were slow to move. On

June 20, 1776, Washington wrote to Schuyler that he was "hopeful

the bounty Congress had agreed to allow and would prove a powerful

inducement to engage the Indians in our service." From Schuyler he

learned that "our emissaries among the Indians all agree that it would

be extremely imprudent to take an active part with us, as they think

it would effectually militate the contrary way." The reference in

Washington's letter to bounties applies to the resolution of Congress

to offer bounties, which had passed three days before the letter was

written. With the same prompt attention he wrote to the General Court

of Massachusetts, transmitting the resolve of Congress authorizing

the employment of the Eastern Indians, exactly three days after its

passage; at the same time he solicited the aid of that body in carrying

it into execution. He designated five or six hundred as the number

which he wished to have engaged. On the same day he wrote to the

Continental Congress that he had communicated with the General Court

of Massachusetts Bay, "entreating their exertions to have the Eastern

Indians forthwith engaged and marched to join this army." It appears

from the correspondence and from the proceedings at the conferences

that he had already written a letter to these Indians, and it chanced

that his letter to the Provincial Congress reached Watertown at about

the same time that a delegation from the Eastern Indians reported there

in consequence of his letter to them. When the Indians were called upon

to state by what authority they spoke, they produced the letter from

Washington, leaving it to be inferred that they were accredited upon

their mission in consequence of the letter having been received. At the

conference which was held with them they were full of high-sounding

phrases of friendship. "We shall have nothing to do with Old England",

they said, "and all that we shall worship, or obey, will be Jesus

Christ and George Washington." The report of the conference states that

"a silver gorget and heart, with the king's arms and bust engraved on

them, were delivered to the interpreter to be returned to the Indians.

He presented them to their speaker, but with great vehemence and

displeasure he refused to take them, saying they had nothing to do

with King George and England; whereupon the President told them they

should have a new gorget and heart, with the bust of Gen. Washington

and proper devices to represent the United Colonies." A treaty was

exchanged with these Indians on July 17, 1776, whereby they agreed to

furnish six hundred Indians to a regiment which was to be officered

by the whites, and have in addition to the Indians two hundred and

fifty white soldiers. As a result of all this, the Massachusetts

Council subsequently reported that seven Penobscot Indians, all that

could be procured, were enlisted in October for one year; and in

November, Major Shaw reported with a few Indians who had enlisted in

the Continental service. The Council of Massachusetts Bay expressed

their regrets to Gen. Washington that the major had met with no better

success. Washington's letter to the Eastern nations appears to have

contained advice to them to keep the peace if they concluded it was to

their advantage. These nations afterwards protested that the young men

who in the character of chiefs made the treaty of war acted without

authority, and they therefore returned the treaty. This practically

ended efforts to secure alliance with Eastern Indians. There was

further correspondence between Congress and Washington concerning

the Stockbridge Indians, in which Congress first announced that the

enlistment of these Indians must stop, and then at Washington's request

permitted it to be renewed. Finally Congress was content to instruct

the government agent to engage the friendship of the Eastern Indians,

"and prevent their taking part in the unjust and cruel war against

these United States."

=C.= EVENTS AT THE SOUTH.

The first result of the struggle between Great Britain and the colonies

for the friendship of the Indians was felt in the North at St. John's

and the Cedars. The first aggressive movement within the limits of

the colonies took place in the South. The correspondence of Sir

James Wright traces the progress of events in that department. The

"Liberty People", as he says, asserted in June, 1775, that Stuart was

endeavoring to raise the Cherokees against them, and "all that Stuart

could say would not convince them to the contrary." In July Sir James

heard that the Provincial Congress had agreed to send 2,000 pounds of

gunpowder into the Indian country as a present from the people, "not

from the king, or from the government, or from the superintendent, or

from the traders, but from the people of the province."

[Illustration

NOTE.—Portion of the map in Drayton's _Mem. of the Amer. Rev._,

ii. 343. KEY: Double dotted line shows the march of the army; the

single dotted line shows the march of detachments; the + indicates

battlegrounds.

There is among the Rochambeau maps (no. 36) a small but good plan (5 ×

4 inches), called _An accurate map of North and South Carolina, with

their Indian frontier, showing in a distinct manner all the mountains,

rivers, swamps, marshes, bays, creeks, harbors, sandbanks, coasts, and

soundings, with roads and Indian paths, as well as the boundary of

provincial lines, the several townships and other divisions of the land

in both the provinces,—from actual surveys by Henry Mouzon_. It is the

same map given in Jefferys' _American Atlas_ (1776, no. 23), and was

republished in Paris in 1777 by Le Rouge, and is included in the _Atlas

Amériquain_. The middle, upper, and over-hill towns are given on one of

the sections of Arrowsmith's map (1795-1802), and also upon the _Carte

des Etats-Unis de l'Amérique Septentrionale.—Copiée et Gravée sur

celle d'Arrowsmith, etc., etc. Par P. F. Tardieu_, à Paris, 1808.

Faden issued in 1780 a map of the northern frontiers of Georgia, by

Archibald Campbell.—ED.]

This powder was seized by the royalists, but as an offset the annual

presents of Stuart were seized at Tybee by the "Liberty People." It was

stated that the best friends of Great Britain lived in the back parts

of Carolina and Georgia. If the Indians were put in motion, they, and

not the rebels, would suffer. Nevertheless, the first blow from the

Indians came from that quarter. Early in July, 1776, news was received

at Savannah, at Charleston, and at Fincastle, Va., that the Indians

were at work upon the border, carrying destruction wherever they went.

On the 7th of July, General Lee wrote to the president of the Virginia

Convention that an opportunity offered for a coöperative movement. The

Continental Congress, having received a report of the circumstances

from the president of South Carolina, recommended, on the 30th of July

(1776), the States of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia to afford

all necessary assistance. As soon as the first intelligence of the

outbreak in South Carolina reached Col. Andrew Williamson, who at the

beginning of this campaign apparently ranked as major, he promptly

rallied the inhabitants of the frontier of that State. By the middle

of July he had collected a body of 1,150 volunteers. With this force

he invaded the Indian territory, and during the remainder of the month

of July and the first half of August he was occupied in destroying the

Cherokee lower towns. On his return to his main camp from a raid with a

detachment, about the middle of August, he found that a number of his

men had gone home, and that many of those who remained were suffering

for clothes and other necessaries. He erected a fort at Essenecca,

which he named after President Rutledge, and furloughed a part of his

force until August 28th.

At the same time that the depredations were committed which caused Col.

Williamson to invade the Indian country, the settlements in Virginia

and North Carolina, on the border of what we now know as Tennessee,

were threatened by the Indians. The inhabitants along the border at

once "forted" themselves. A small force collected at Eaton's station

met a party of Indians on the 20th of July, and repulsed them, with a

loss of thirteen of their warriors. Watauga, where 150 persons, of whom

40 were men, had assembled in the fort, was besieged by another band.

The Indians hung about the fort for six days, and skulked in the woods

for a fortnight longer, but left on the approach of a relief column.

Other Indians went up the Holston to Carter's Valley, but accomplished

nothing in that immediate vicinity.[1416] The settlements in Virginia,

in the Clinch Valley and for a long distance from this point, were,

however, raided, and the surrounding country devastated.

Georgia performed her share of the season's work simultaneously with

Colonel Williamson's first raid. An independent command, led by Major

Jack,[1417] operated against the lower towns beyond the Tugaloo, during

the latter part of July.

The work performed by South Carolina and Georgia during the months

of July and August was not considered complete. It was determined

to inflict a blow which would be remembered. About the first of

September Colonel Williamson again marched into the Indian country,

this time at the head of about two thousand men. It was intended that

on an appointed day in September he should effect a junction with

General Rutherford of North Carolina, who at the head of twenty-four

hundred men simultaneously marched from that State. Although the two

columns met in Indian territory, the junction was not effected at

the appointed date, and the work of destroying the middle towns and

valley settlements was independently performed. Virginia sent out an

expedition at the same time against the upper or over-hill towns. This

force, after it was joined by some companies from the northwestern

portion of North Carolina, numbered eighteen hundred men, and was

commanded by Colonel William Christian. The purposes of this expedition

were successfully accomplished.

The South Carolina troops had the misfortune to encounter nearly

all the resistance that was offered by the Indians, and the two

expeditions lost 22 men killed, with 11 men mortally wounded, and

63 men otherwise wounded. They had the satisfaction, however, of

knowing that the joint expedition had thoroughly performed its work.

The Cherokee towns were burned, and the crops of the Indians were

destroyed. The attack by the Indians consolidated the colonists and

aroused their indignation. The Council of South Carolina asserted that

they were now convinced of what they had before but little reason to

doubt, "the indiscriminate atrocity and unrelenting tyranny of the

hand that directs the British war against us." The Assembly spoke of

it as a "barbarous and ungrateful attempt of the Cherokee Indians,

instigated by our British enemies." The Cherokees accepted such terms

of peace as their conquerors allowed. Next year separate treaties were

made between representatives of the tribes and Virginia and North

Carolina, and between other representatives and South Carolina and

Georgia. In the treaty in which South Carolina participated, a portion

of the Indian territory was ceded to that State on the ground of

conquest. For several years thereafter the Indians kept so quiet that

but little was heard from them in that portion of the country. As a

sequel to the campaign it may be noted that, on the 25th of September,

President Rutledge informed the Assembly of South Carolina that Colonel

Williamson desired instructions as to whether the Indians taken

prisoners should become slaves. Such an impression prevailed in camp,

and one prisoner had already been sold as a slave.[1418]

McCall, in his _History of Georgia_, is authority for the statement

that General Rutherford was accompanied on his march by a small band

of Catawba Indians. In Virginia the matter of enlisting Indians

was considered in the Convention, and on the 21st of May, 1776, a

resolution was passed to engage a number of warriors, not to exceed

two hundred. A few days afterward, however, the execution of this

resolution was postponed in such a way as to make it ineffective.

In January, 1777, Col. Nathaniel Gist was authorized by Congress to

raise four companies of rangers, and was instructed to proceed to the

Cherokee or any other nation of Indians, and to attempt to procure a

number of warriors not exceeding five hundred, who were to be equipped

by Congress and receive soldiers' pay.[1419]

We have seen that in 1777 treaties were made with the Cherokees. The

Indians at the Chickamauga settlements, which were clustered along

the Tennessee, below the site of Chattanooga, and near where the

river crosses the state line, had not participated in the treaties.

In the interval between the joint campaign in the fall of 1776 and

the spring of 1779 outrages had been committed by these Indians, and

it was determined to punish them. A thousand volunteers from the back

settlements of North Carolina and Virginia assembled on the banks of

the Holston, in the northeastern part of Tennessee, a few miles above

where Rogersville stands. Of these Col. Evan Shelby had command. They

were joined by a regiment of twelve-months men which belonged to

Colonel Clarke's Illinois expedition. On the 10th of April, 1779, this

force embarked in dug-outs and canoes, descended the rapid running

stream, surprised the Indians, killed a number of them, burned eleven

of their towns, destroyed their provisions, and drove off or killed

their cattle. All this having been accomplished without a battle, the

troops returned.

In 1780 the contribution of men by the border settlements of North

Carolina to the force which fought the battle of King's Mountain left

those settlements exposed to Indian raids. As soon after the battle

as possible some of the men were sent to Watauga. They learned upon

arrival that news had been received of an Indian advance. Col. John

Sevier organized an expedition against the Indians, and marched to meet

them. The number of volunteers thus hastily gathered together reached

about one hundred and seventy. At the end of the second day's march

the Indians were discovered. They retreated, and the next day Sevier

followed them. The customary ambuscade was prepared by the Indians,

but the American leader was too wary to be deceived. On the contrary,

he adopted their own tactics, and defeated them in a brief engagement

at Boyd's Creek, in which twenty-eight Indians were killed. A few days

after this Colonel Sevier was joined by Col. Arthur Campbell, with

troops from Virginia. The united forces amounted to seven hundred

men. They penetrated the country to the southward, burning a number

of Indian towns, and held a council with a large body of Cherokees.

After completing the expedition, a message was sent, on January 4,

1781, to the chiefs and warriors of the Indians. It was signed by Col.

Arthur Campbell, Lieut.-Col. John Sevier, and Joseph Martin, agent and

major of militia, and consisted of a summons to the Indians to send

deputies to negotiate a treaty of peace at the Great Island within two

moons.[1420]

Towards the end of August, 1780, Colonel Williamson and Colonel

Pickens, of South Carolina, raided the Indian territory and destroyed

a large amount of stores. To prevent further depredations, the Indians

were compelled to remove their habitations to the settled towns of the

Creeks.

During the summer of 1781 the Cherokees invaded the settlements on

Indian Creek. Colonel Sevier called for volunteers, and attacked them.

He killed seventeen Indians and put the rest to flight.

Early in 1781 General Greene made a treaty with the Cherokees, by which

they engaged to observe neutrality. This treaty having been violated

by the Indians during the summer, Gen. Andrew Pickens, at the head

of a mounted force of three hundred and ninety-four men, penetrated

to the Cherokee country, burned thirteen towns, killed upwards of

forty Indians, and took a number of prisoners. McCall (_Georgia_, ii.

414) thus summarizes Pickens's method of campaigning: "The general's

whole command could not produce a tent or any other description of

camp equipage. After the small portion of bread which they could

carry in their saddle-bags was exhausted, they lived upon parched

corn, potatoes, peas, and beef without salt, which they collected in

the Indian towns." Soon after this expedition some of the Creeks and

Cherokees again invaded Georgia. They were met beyond Oconee River

by Colonel Clarke and by Col. Robert Anderson, of Pickens's brigade,

and were driven back. Major John Habersham was sent out by Wayne on

an expedition, and his report, Feb. 8, 1782, is in _Hist. Mag._, iv.

129. In February, 1782, Governor Martin addressed a letter to Colonel

Martin and Colonel Sevier, instructing them to drive intruders off the

Cherokee lands.

During the summer of 1782 a body of Indians crossed the State of

Georgia without being discovered, and on the morning of the 24th of

June surprised General Wayne's command. After the first flush of

success attendant upon the surprise had been overcome by the Americans,

they repulsed the Indians, with the loss of fourteen killed, among whom

was one of their chiefs. The kind treatment of some prisoners who were

taken aided in detaching the Indians from the British side.

In September, 1782, the upper-town Cherokees, in a talk, complained

piteously of the intruders upon their lands, and said they had done

nothing to break the last treaty. At the same time, other Indians of

the same tribes began depredations. Colonel Sevier, with one hundred

volunteers, marched into the Indian country, held a conference with the

friendly Indians, and punished those who were hostile by burning their

villages.

The Southern campaigns against the Indians have not been treated as

fully in local and general histories as those against the Northern

tribes. The policy of the several leaders in these campaigns was not

entitled, perhaps, to the same recognition as has been awarded to

that which governed the Sullivan campaign. The several columns from

Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia each burned

Indian towns and devastated Indian crops, but the plan was not directed

by the general in command of the national armies. There have been

but few local historians in the South who have searched for diaries,

journals, and letters containing details of such affairs. At the time

when the centennial anniversaries of these events might fitly have been

celebrated by the publication of such original material as could be

found, there was not the same disposition in the South to be grateful

for the results of the Revolutionary War as then prevailed in the

North. Further than that, the materials from which such contributions

to history are generally made had been scattered and destroyed during

the civil war. For these reasons, the number of books which treat of

the border wars in the South is small.

The most complete accounts of the attacks upon the Cherokee settlements

which have been published are to be found in the histories of

Tennessee. John Haywood's _Civil and Political History of the State

of Tennessee from its earliest Settlement up to the year 1796_, etc.

(Knoxville, 1823), is an extensive collection of facts concerning

the various raids of the Indians and the counter attacks upon their

scattered settlements, which has been freely used by subsequent

writers. J. G. M. Ramsey, in his _Annals of Tennessee to the end of

the eighteenth Century: Comprising its settlement as the Watauga

Association from 1769 to 1777; A part of North Carolina from 1777 to

1784_ (Charlestown, 1853), relies to a great extent upon Haywood, and

acknowledges his obligation by frequent references in his footnotes. In

the preparation of this work, Mr. Ramsey says that he had access to the

journals and papers of his father, a pioneer of the country, and also

to the papers of Sevier, of Shelby, the Blounts, and other public men.

He examined the papers of all the old Franklin Counties and the public

archives at Milledgeville, Raleigh, Richmond, and Nashville.

Haywood says the Georgia expedition was commanded by Col. Leonard

McBury. Ramsey follows Haywood in this regard. All the other accounts

say that Major or Colonel Jack was in command.

The campaign of the Virginia column is briefly described in Girardin's

continuation of Berk's _History of Virginia_.[1421] Brief allusions

to this campaign are made in Wheeler's _Historical Sketches of North

Carolina_, and in Martin's _History of North Carolina_. The story is

more fully told in an _Historical Sketch of the Indian War of 1776_,

by D. L. Swain, which is reprinted from the _North Carolina University

Magazine_ (May, 1852) in the _Historical Magazine_ (Nov., 1867, p.

273). This account states that there were "three armies simultaneously

fitted out by Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina", but

makes no mention of the work which the Georgia contingent had already

performed.

A journal kept during the Williamson expeditions was published in the

_Historical Magazine_, vol. xii. (Oct., 1867, p. 212), by Professor E.

F. Rockwell, of North Carolina, as "Parallel and combined expedition

against the Cherokee Indians in South and North Carolina in 1776." The

writer describes the houses in the Cherokee towns as follows: "Their

dwelling-houses is made some one way and some another. Some is made

with saplings stuck in the ground upright; then laths tide on these

with splits of cane or such like; So with daubing outside and in with

mud merely, they finish a close warm building. They have no chimnies,

and their fires are all in the middle of the houses."

C. L. Hunter, in _Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and

Biographical, illustrating principally the Revolutionary period_, etc.

(Raleigh, 1877), under "General Griffith Rutherford" gives a brief

account of the march against the middle towns, and under "Colonel Isaac

Shelby" he gives a paragraph to the expedition against the Chickamaugas

in 1779.

It has been stated that the Cherokee outbreak in the South was the

first aggressive movement made by the Indians during the Revolutionary

War, and that this fact has caused the joint attack of the colonies to

be noticed in the general histories of the times. It naturally finds

a place in Moultrie's _Memoirs_ and in Ramsay's _South Carolina_,

but without detail. If we turn to Drayton's _Memoirs_ we shall find

an extended account of the expeditions of Colonel Williamson, who

commanded the South Carolina troops, in the summer of 1776, when they

ravaged the Cherokee settlements,—the campaigns being illustrated by

a map of which a fac-simile is given herewith. Several letters are

published in the Appendix as authorities. The movements of Major Jack

in Georgia are given (_Ibid._ p. 313), and some account of the march of

General Rutherford's army from North Carolina and of the attempts at

coöperation. It is stated (_Ibid._ p. 353) that Virginia also raised an

army, but no account of the movement of the troops is given.

The _American Archives_ contain reprints of letters from several points

in the South, which enable us to trace the history of most of these

movements. We have rumors of the outbreak from various places scattered

from Georgia to Virginia; stories of the siege of Watauga and of the

gathering of the Indians in Carter's Valley; accounts of the desolation

along the frontier; of the marches of Rutherford and of Williamson; of

the speech of Rutledge, and of the replies of the Council and of the

Assembly of South Carolina.

The _Remembrancer_ also reprints some of these letters. Drayton, in his

_Memoirs_ (ii. p. 212), says that Col. Bull, in March, 1776, marched

to Savannah with four hundred Carolina troops, "to awe the disaffected,

to support the Continental regulations, and in particular to prevent

the merchant ships from going to sea." These troops were accompanied

by some Georgia militia and by "about seventy men of the Creek and

Euchee Indians." In corroboration of this statement Drayton cites the

_Remembrancer_ (1776, Part ii. pp. 333, 334), where is a letter from

Charleston, which opens, "By a remarkable Providence, the Creek Indians

have engaged in our favour." It then goes on to describe how they

became enraged with the Tories because they destroyed the house of a

white man with whom the Indians were friendly, and adds that "they have

brought down 500, who have killed several men of the fleet."

Another reference to the use of Indians by the Americans will be

found in McCall's _Georgia_ (ii. p. 82), where he says that General

Rutherford was "joined by the Catawba Indians."

Various accounts of events connected with these campaigns will be

found in the _Remembrancer_ (Part ii., 1776, pp. 286, 319-334; and

Part iii., 1776, pp. 50, 252-274, and 275), including a letter, Sept.

4th, which says: "The colonel's (Williamson's) next object will be the

middle towns, where he expects to be joined by General Rutherford with

200 [2,000?] North Carolinians. Colonel Lewis, of Virginia, will go

against the upper or over hill settlements, so that we have no doubt

the savages will be effectually chastised."

The treaty at De Witt's Corner, May 20, 1777, between South Carolina,

Georgia, and the Cherokees was printed in the _Boston Gazette and

Country Journal_, Aug. 18, 1777.

A description of the Cherokee lower towns and of the siege of Watauga

is given by Edmund Kirke (James R. Gilmore) in _Lippincott's Magazine_

(July and August, 1855), in a paper on "The Pioneers of the South

West." Bare mention is made of the fact that Georgia participated in

the campaign of 1776, by Stevens in his _Georgia_, who follows Moultrie

in assigning the command of the Georgia troops to Colonel Jack.

McCall, in his _History of Georgia_, gives a curious account of an

attempt by a party of Americans to penetrate the Indian country and

seize Cameron. Their leader, Capt. James McCall, had with him two

officers, twenty-two Carolinians, and eleven Georgians. They were

suspected by the Indians of treachery, and were themselves attacked.

Their leader was captured and several of the men were killed, but

the greater number escaped, and after severe sufferings reached the

settlements. Drayton (_Memoirs_, ii. 338) states that this expedition

of McCall's was forwarded in consequence of an agreement on the part

of the Cherokees in June to permit the arrest of refugees in their

towns. The attack was therefore a piece of treachery on the part of

the Indians. McCall himself escaped shortly afterward, and joined

the Virginia column of invasion. He again made an attempt to seize

Cameron. This time he reached the Indian town where Cameron had his

headquarters, but the latter had left for Mobile the morning that

Captain McCall arrived at the town. McCall gives an account of a raid

by General Pickens in the fall of 1782. This apparently is the same as

the one described in 1781.

C. C. Jones's _Georgia_ deals with the border wars to about the same

extent as McCall. The precise time of Jack's raid is not given, but

Jones has followed those who have spoken of it as simultaneous with the

joint movement in Virginia and North and South Carolina, among whom we

find Ramsay in his _History of the Revolution of South Carolina_. A

letter to Gov. Bullock, from B. Rea, July 3, 1776 (_Remembrancer_, Part

iii., 1776, p. 50), says: "I shall order the draft that has been made

of this regiment to Broad River and Ogeechee as soon as possible, but

not to go over the line till I receive your excellency's orders, which

I shall wait for with impatience. I shall likewise be glad to know how

far we are to act in concert with the Carolinians, or if we are only to

guard our own frontiers." This shows that troops were put in the field

by Georgia before the question of coöperation was raised, but that it

immediately suggested itself as a possibility.

It will be inferred from what has been said that confusion of dates

as to the movement of the troops exists. McCall tells the story as if

Jack's march in the middle of July were part of a preconcerted plan, in

which South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia participated. Jones,

as has been seen, follows him in this respect. Ramsey, in his _Annals

of Tennessee_, says Christian went into the field on the 1st of August.

Williamson, on his second raid, and Rutherford started out about the

1st of September. Christian's march was evidently in coöperation with

them, and doubtless at the same time, although in Foote's _Sketches

of Virginia_ it is said (pp. 118, 119) that Col. William Christian's

campaign against the Cherokees was in October. It is probable that he

did not return to the settlements until that month.

It is evident that the attack upon the lower towns of the Cherokees

by the Georgia militia was not regarded at the time as a part of the

joint concerted movement. On the 5th of August President Rutledge

issued a proclamation requiring the Legislative Council and General

Assembly to meet at Charleston on the 17th of September, at which time

his excellency congratulated them on the success of the troops under

Colonel Williamson, and added, "It has pleased God to grant very signal

success to their operations; and I hope by his blessings on our arms,

and those of North Carolina and Virginia, from whom I have promises of

aid, an end may soon be put to this war." In the replies of the Council

and of the Assembly recognition is made of the coöperative movements of

the North Carolina and Virginia forces. No reference is made in any of

these proceedings to the Georgia contingent.

The _Boston Gazette and Country Journal_, Sept. 16, 1776, contains an

account of the outbreak in North Carolina, which says: "The ruined

settlers had collected themselves together at different places and

forted themselves: 400 and upwards at Major Shelby's, about the same

number at Captain Campbell's, and a considerable number at Amos

Eaton's." It then describes the relief of Watauga by Colonel Russell

with three hundred men. The acts of these men and the first raid of

Williamson were the spontaneous movements of the frontier inhabitants.

The participation of Georgia was inspired from headquarters at Augusta,

with intelligent comprehension of the value of coöperation. The

campaigns of the month of September were concerted.

The raid of Gen. Andrew Pickens is described in Ramsay's _South

Carolina_ and in Henry Lee's _Memoirs_, the account in the latter

being copied in Cecil B. Hartley's _Heroes and Patriots of the South_

(Philad., 1860). The raid of Col. Arthur Campbell is described in

Girardin's continuation of Burk's _Virginia_ (iv. p. 472). Campbell's

report, in the _Calendar of the State Papers of Virginia_ (i. p. 434),

says that he destroyed upwards of one thousand houses, and not less

than fifty thousand bushels of corn and a large quantity of other

provisions.

=D.= CONNECTICUT SETTLERS IN PENNSYLVANIA.

In 1768, the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania secured an Indian deed

for the territory already claimed by the Susquehanna Company of

Connecticut, and a lease was executed, which vested in certain

enterprising individuals the rights of the Proprietaries to this

region, whether gained by royal grant or by purchase. This was followed

by simultaneous preparation on the part of the Pennsylvanian lessees

and of the Connecticut Company for the occupation by settlers, who

were expected to defend their rights against other claimants. The

Pennsylvanians were first on the ground, and in January, 1769, built a

block-house on the land which had been improved by former Connecticut

settlers. Early in February the first detachment of colonists from

Connecticut arrived, and then began the contest for possession, which

was waged, with success alternating on either side, until the fall of

1771. Houses were burned, crops were laid waste, cattle were driven

off and killed, and there was some bloodshed during the progress of

these hostilities. Proclamations were put forth by the governor of

Pennsylvania, and warrants were issued by the courts of that province

for the arrest of the Connecticut leaders for the crime of arson. The

several military expeditions of the Pennsylvanians were generally

accompanied by a sheriff, whose mission was supposed to be to execute

the laws. The citizens of that province do not appear to have been

in sympathy with the lessees of the Proprietaries. If they had been,

it would have been easy to have crushed the Connecticut colony. This

settlement was not at the outset recognized as a part of Connecticut.

Permission had been given the company to apply to his majesty for

a separate charter. The expectation that an independent government

might perhaps be formed, and the opposition to the movement already

expressed at London, explain the supineness of the mother colony.

The Susquehanna settlement depended for its life upon the efforts

of the company. Five townships were laid out, and liberal offers of

shares in the lands were made to the first settlers in each of them.

Three more townships were subsequently settled on the same plan.

These inducements had attracted settlers in such numbers that the

Pennsylvanian lessees could not dispossess them. In the autumn of

1771 the Pennsylvanians withdrew, leaving the Connecticut colonists,

for the time, in undisturbed possession. Some correspondence followed

between the authorities of the colonies, in which the government of

Pennsylvania sought to ascertain how far the colony of Connecticut

backed up the emigrants; and the governor of that colony in reply

denied having authorized any hostile demonstration, but carefully

avoided saying anything which could be interpreted as a relinquishment

on the part of the colony of its rights under the charter to the land.

During the next two years the settlement, although looked upon by

Pennsylvania as an invasion and not as yet acknowledged by Connecticut,

increased in numbers and prospered. Meetings of the Proprietors were

occasionally held, at which the affairs of the towns were adjusted in

a general way, authority being delegated to a committee of settlers to

act in the intervals between the meetings. In June, 1773, the company

adopted at Hartford a form of government for the settlers, stating

in the preamble that "we have as yet no established civil authority

residing among us in the settlement." In October the Connecticut

Assembly resolved that the colony would "make their claim to these

lands, and in a legal manner support the same." Commissioners were

appointed, and fruitless negotiations were opened with Pennsylvania. In

January, 1774, the territory of Susquehanna Company was incorporated

into the town of Westmoreland, and became temporarily a part of the

county of Litchfield, Connecticut. Almost simultaneously, proclamations

were issued by the governors of the two colonies, each prohibiting

settlements on the disputed territory except under authority of the

colony which he represented. Meantime the settlements in the valley

increased. In September, 1775, about eighty settlers, who had just

arrived on the west branch of the Susquehanna, were attacked by the

Pennsylvania militia. One man was killed; several were wounded; and

the men of the Connecticut party were taken prisoners to Sunbury.

Upon receipt of this news the Continental Congress, in November,

passed resolutions urging the two colonies to take steps to avoid open

hostilities. This was, however, of no effect. Boats from Wyoming,

loaded with the property of settlers, were seized and confiscated at

Fort Augusta. During the fall, extensive preparations were made by

the Pennsylvanians for an invasion of Wyoming, under authority from

Governor Penn, for the purpose of enforcing the laws of Pennsylvania.

In December, Congress expressed the opinion that all appearance of

force ought to stop until the dispute could be decided by law; but

at the time that the resolution expressing this opinion was under

consideration, an army of Pennsylvanians, accompanied by a sheriff,

was already invading the valley. The Connecticut people, having been

forewarned, successfully resisted this military posse. Several lives

were lost in this attempt of the Pennsylvanians to dispossess the

colonists. With this failure the attempts of Pennsylvania to expel the

Connecticut settlers by force ended. The Revolutionary War was now

in progress. Connecticut needed her able-bodied men. She now forbade

further settlement on the disputed territory unless licensed by her

Assembly.

The Trumbull MSS. in possession of the Mass. Hist. Soc. contain copies

of the papers connected with the discussion of the title of the colony

to its settlement in the Susquehanna Valley. There is probably no

single collection of papers so rich in this direction.

=E.= JOURNALS AND DIARIES OF THE SULLIVAN EXPEDITION.

A list of the journals of Sullivan's expedition was prepared by the

writer of this chapter for publication in the _Mass. Hist. Soc.

Proc._, Oct., 1886, and this list in an extended and revised form

was to be appended here; but the repetition is rendered unnecessary

by the publication of an elaborate volume by the State of New York,

_Journals of the military expedition of Major-General John Sullivan

against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779, with records of Centennial

Celebrations_,—compiled by George S. Conover, under the direction

of Frederick Cook, Secretary of State. It reprints, and in some

cases gives for the first time in type, the journals of twenty-six

participants, pertaining either to the main expedition or to that

against the Onondagas. An enumeration is also given of the journals

known to have existed, but no longer to be found.

Appended to the journals are the reports of Sullivan, Brodhead, and a

roster of the expeditionary army. The main historical narrative is an

elaborate account, compacted from four centennial addresses, given by

the Rev. David Craft in 1879, and revised from the original publication

in the _Centennial Proceedings_ of the Waterloo (N. Y.) Library and

Historical Society. In a note it is shown that a collation of all the

journals supports Sullivan's statements in his official report, making

his total loss in the campaign 41 men, while 41 Indian settlements or

towns were destroyed.

The portraits of the book are those of Sullivan (with the spear),

General Clinton (profile), Gansevoort (by Stuart), and Philip Van

Cortlandt. The rest of the volume describes the various centennial

celebrations in 1879, at Elmira, Waterloo, Geneseo, and Aurora, with

the addresses, principal among which is one by Erastus Brooks on

"Indian History and Wars", and another by Major Douglass Campbell on

"The Iroquois and New York's Indian policy."

The maps include one by Gen. John S. Clark of the battlefield of

Newtown (not far from Elmira) and the Chemung Ambuscade; another, by

the same, of the Groveland Ambuscade, near Conesus Lake, and the route

thence to the Genessee; five maps of as many sections of Sullivan's

route, surveyed by Lieutenant Benjamin Lodge, the originals of which

make a part of the collection of maps made by Robert Erskine, the

topographical engineer of the Continental army, and by his successor,

Simeon De Witt, and now in the cabinet of the N. Y. Hist. Society. Gen.

J. S. Clark, in describing these maps, says that the route of Dearborn

on the west side of Cayuga Lake, and General Clinton's descent of the

N. E. branch of the Susquehanna, do not appear to have been surveyed,

but that Clinton's route is well illustrated in a sketch of Col.

William Butler's march (Oct.-Nov., 1778) made by Capt. William Gray,

which is also included in the volume. The five maps above referred to

are reproductions from the originals, with some names added from the

rough preliminary sketches, also preserved in the same collection. A

rough plan of Tioga, in fac-simile of a drawing in the journal of Capt.

Charles Nukerck, is also given.—ED.

=F.= BOUNTIES FOR SCALPS.

It has been stated in the narrative that the colonies themselves were

partially responsible for the low estimate in which Indians were held

by the inhabitants of the frontiers. Bounties had been so frequently

offered for the destruction of wild animals and of Indians that the

border settlers might well infer that the law drew no distinction

between the savage and the brute. Mrs. Jackson, in her _Century of

Dishonor_ (App. p. 406), quotes from Gale's _Upper Mississippi_ (p.

112) a vigorous denunciation of the acts of the governments in granting

bounties for scalps: "In the history of the Indian tribes in the

Northwest, the reader will at once perceive that there was a constant

rivalry between the governments of Great Britain, France, and the

United States as to which of them should secure the services of the

barbarians to scalp their white enemies, while each in turn was the

loudest to denounce the shocking barbarities of such tribes as they

failed to secure in their own service. And the civilized world, aghast

at these horrid recitals, ignores the fact that nearly every important

massacre in the history of North America was organized and directed by

agents of some one of these governments." One or two instances, taken

from the records by way of illustration, will suffice to show how

the settlers along the frontier and legislators reciprocally viewed

this subject. In November, 1724, John Lovewell, Josiah Farwell, and

Jonathan Robbins, presented a "Humble Memorial" to the General Court

of Massachusetts Bay, in which they set forth that they, with forty

or fifty others, were "inclinable to range and keep out in the woods

for several months together, in order to kill and destroy their Indian

enemy, provided they could meet with incouragement suitable." For five

shillings a day, and such other reward as the government should see

cause to give them, they would "employ themselves in Indian hunting

one whole year." On the 17th of November, the General Court by vote

authorized the formation of the company, the men to receive "two

shillings and sixpence per diem, the sum of one hundred pounds for each

male scalp, and the other premiums established by law to volunteers

without pay or subsistence" (Kidder's _Captain John Lovewell_, pp. 11,

12). Col. Johnson, in 1747, was "quite pestered every day with parties

returning with prisoners and scalps, and without a penny to pay them

with" (Stone's _Sir William Johnson_, i. 255, 342). For the outlay made

in this behalf Col. Johnson was ultimately reimbursed by the province

of New York. In the memorial or representation of their case, submitted

by the rioters who murdered the Conestega Indians to the authorities

at Philadelphia, it is written: "Sixthly. In the late Indian war, this

Province, with others of his Majesty's colonies, gave rewards for

Indian scalps, to encourage the seeking them in their own country, as

the most likely means of destroying or reducing them to reason; but no

such encouragement has been given in this war, which has damped the

spirits of many brave men, who are willing to venture their lives in

parties against the enemy. We therefore pray that public rewards may

be proposed for Indian scalps, which may be adequate to the dangers

attending enterprises of this nature." On the 12th of June, 1764, the

authorities of Pennsylvania offered bounties for scalps, presumably in

response to this petition (_Penna. Col. Rec._, ix. 141, 189).

On the 27th of September, 1776, a committee reported to the South

Carolina Assembly, that it was "not advisable to hold Captive Indians

as Slaves, but as an encouragement to those who shall distinguish

themselves in the war against the Cherokees, they recommended

the following rewards, to wit: For every Indian man killed, upon

certificate thereupon given by the Commanding Officer, and the scalp

produced as evidence thereof in Charlestown by the forces in the pay of

the State, seventy-five pounds currency; For every Indian man prisoner

one hundred pounds like money" (_American Archives_, 5th ser., iii. 32).

It is true that bounties had previously been offered in New York for

scalps taken from the "enemy", but at the time of the Revolution

New York and Massachusetts had apparently abandoned the policy of

offering bounties for scalps. Abundant records show that they had been

committed to this policy in earlier times. The Act of Assembly in South

Carolina, the previous legislation in New Hampshire, Massachusetts,

Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia, and the subsequent legislation in

Pennsylvania and Illinois, were directed exclusively against Indians.

_Penna. Colonial Records_ (xii. 311; xii. 632; xiii. 201). _Laws of

the Colonial and State Governments relating to Indians and Indian

Affairs from 1633 to 1831 inclusive, with an appendix containing the

proceedings of the Congress of the Confederation and the laws of

Congress from 1800 to 1830 on the Same Subject_ (Washington city,

1832), p. 239. In the _Pennsylvania Archives_ (iii. p. 199) there

is a curious letter from the superintendent of Indian affairs in

the Southern Department to the governor of Maryland, dated June 30,

1757, in which he says that several of the colonies are becoming fond

of giving large rewards for scalps. If these rewards were confined

to their own people he should consider it laudable, but as they are

offered chiefly to Indians the case is very different. He says the

Indians make several scalps out of one. The Cherokees in particular

make four scalps out of one man killed. "Here are now", he adds,

"twenty scalps hanging out to publick view which are well known to

have been made out of five Frenchmen killed. What a sum (at £50 each)

would they produce if carried to Maryland, where the artifice would not

probably be discovered!" In early times in Maryland, the proof required

from persons who had killed Indians, in order that the reward might

be claimed, was the production of the right ear of the dead Indian.

There was less opportunity to subdivide the ears, and thus multiply

the bounties. The charge that the English paid bounties for scalps

thus found its way naturally into the histories, and the officers who

had been disciplined in the previous wars were probably ready to make

such offers. Doddridge (_Notes_, 274) expresses the belief current on

the frontier when he says, "The English government made allies of as

many of the Indian nations as they could, and they imposed no restraint

on their savage mode of warfare. On the contrary, the commandants at

their posts along our Western frontiers received and paid the Indians

for scalps and prisoners, thus, the skin of a white man's or even a

woman's head served in the hands of the Indian as current coin, which

he exchanged for arms and ammunition, for the further prosecution of

his barbarous warfare." This belief found expression at the time, and

worked its way into print. The _Remembrancer_ gives a letter from

Capt. Joseph Bowman "at a place called Illinois Kaskaskias, upon the

Mississippi", dated July 30, 1778, in which we read: "The Indians

meeting with daily supplies from the British officers, who offer them

large bounties for our scalps" (_Remembrancer_, viii. p. 83). There

is, however, better authority than rumors of this class to justify

those authors who repeat this statement. When Governor Hamilton was

captured at Vincennes, he was sent to Williamsburg, and his conduct was

investigated by the Council of Virginia. In their report the Council

say, "The board find that Governor Hamilton gave standing rewards for

scalps, but offered none for prisoners, which induced the Indians,

after making the captives carry their baggage into the neighborhood

of the fort, there to put them to death, and carry in their scalps to

the governor, who welcomed their return and success by a discharge of

cannon" (_Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of

Thomas Jefferson_, ed. by Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Boston, 1830; 2d

ed., vol. i. p. 456). Thus the official sanction of a board composed of

prominent men of good reputation has been given to the statement. In

weighing the value of this decision we must not forget that Hamilton

was the special object of hatred to the Virginians. Col. George Rogers

Clarke, in an official communication to the governor of Virginia, from

Kaskaskia, Feb. 3, 1779, speaks of "A late meneuv^r of the Famous Hair

Buyer General Henry Hamilton, Esqr., Lieut.-Governour of De Troit",

etc., etc. (_Calendar of the State Papers of Virginia_, p. 315). C.

W. Butterfield edited a reprint of _A Short Biography of John Leith_

(Lancaster, Ohio, 1831) as _Leith's Narrative_ (Cincinnati, 1883), and

in this new edition (p. 39) we find an account of a brutal murder,

by Indians, of a prisoner at Sandusky: "They knocked him down with

tomahawks, cut off his head, and fixed it on a pole erected for the

purpose; when commenced a scene of yelling, dancing, singing, and

rioting." To this part of Leith's narrative the annotator attaches

a note, in which he states that a part of the "importance of this

recital is in a historical sense;" "that captives were brought to the

points contiguous to Detroit, and then tomahawked and scalped, the

direct result of Hamilton's barbarous policy of offering rewards for

scalps, but paying none for prisoners." The language of the note is

ambiguous, but a natural interpretation of its purpose would be that

the statement in the text was relied upon to prove the charges against

Hamilton. I presume this prisoner was scalped,—it would probably have

been recorded by Leith as a remarkable event if he had escaped being

scalped,—but a statement which omits mention of the fact can hardly be

cited as evidence against Hamilton.

The Virginia Council, while they published no evidence bearing upon the

question of Hamilton's buying scalps, were more explicit when it came

to his inciting Indians to acts of war:—

"Williamsburgh, Va. In Council, June 16, 1779. Case of Hamilton,

Dejaine La Mothe." "They find that Hamilton has executed the task

of inciting the Indians to perpetrate their accustomed cruelties on

the citizens of these States, without distinction of age, sex, or

condition, with an eagerness and activity which evince that the general

nature of his charge harmonized with his particular disposition; they

should have been satisfied, from the other testimony adduced, that

these enormities were committed by savages acting under his commission,

but the number of his Proclamations, which at different times were

left in houses, the inhabitants of which were killed or Carried away

by Indians, one of which Proclamations, under the hand and seal of

Governor Hamilton, is in possession of the Board, puts the fact beyond

doubt", etc. (_Remembrancer_, viii. p. 337). "The narrative of the

Capture and treatment of John Dodge by the English at Detroit" was made

public about the same time (_Remembrancer_, viii. p. 73). The portion

of Dodge's story which relates to the reception by Hamilton of Indians

returning with scalps and prisoners, bears a striking resemblance to

the report of the Council. Dodge states that Hamilton become so enraged

at him that the governor "offered £100 for his scalp or his body." In

another place he says: "These sons of Britain offered no reward for

prisoners, but they gave the Indians twenty dollars a scalp", etc.,

etc.; and again: "One of these parties returning with a number of

women and children's scalps and their prisoners, they were met by the

commandant of the fort, and after the usual demonstrations of joy,

delivered their scalps, for which they were paid."

Some correspondence passed between Jefferson and the governor of

Detroit on the question of Hamilton's treatment as a prisoner, in which

Jefferson dwells at length upon Hamilton's responsibility for the acts

of the Indians, but it is to be remarked that no charge is made against

Hamilton of paying bounties for scalps (_Calendar of State Papers

of Virginia_, i. p. 321). Before the British government is finally

convicted of having offered bounties for scalps, it is just that other

evidence should be adduced than such affidavits as that of Moses

Younglove (Campbell, _Tryon County_, 2d ed., p. 116), who swears that

he "was informed by several sergeants-orderly for General St. Leger

that twenty dollars were offered in general orders for every American

scalp." The mere showing of scalps at headquarters does not necessarily

imply that the Indians were to be paid for them (_Ibid._ p. 307).

According to Campbell (_Ibid._ p. 117), Col. Gansevoort, in a letter,

confirms the statement that twenty dollars were offered by St. Leger

for every American scalp. Col. Gansevoort, besieged in Fort Stanwix,

relied of course upon some other person for this statement. It is

probably the Younglove story in another shape. It must not be forgotten

that St. Leger ordered Lt. Bird "not to accept a capitulation, because

the force of whites under Bird's command was not large enough to

restrain the Indians from barbarity and carnage."

It adds little force to the evidence that we find similar allegations

against the British in the class of books represented by Seaver's

_Life of Mary Jemison_ (p. 114), (various editions,—see Field's

_Indian Bibliography_, nos. 1,380-81). In a similar manner, Simms

(_Frontiersmen_, i. p. 10) cites a letter-writer as saying that the

price per scalp was eight dollars; and Jenkins (_Wyoming Memorial_,

p. 151) charges Burgoyne with opening a market for scalps at ten

dollars each. Simms (_Schoharie County_, p. 578) says that a

certificate, signed by John Butler, concerning certain scalps taken by

"Kayingwaarto, the Sanakee chief", was found upon the body of an Indian

killed during the Sullivan campaign. The details of the descriptions

easily enable us to identify the scalps referred to in the certificate.

An excellent local authority (Ketchum's _Buffalo_, i. 327, 329)

analyzes the story thus "Gi-en-gwah-toh in Seneca is identical with

Say-en-qua-ragh-ta in Mohawk, and is another spelling of the name in

the certificate.... It is historically certain that the age, if nothing

else, would preclude the possibility of Sayenquaraghta's being the

person who wounded and scalped Capt. Greg and his corporal near Fort

Stanwix in 1778. And it is equally certain that Sayenquaraghta was not

killed by a scouting party of Sullivan's army in 1779, but was alive

and well at Niagara in 1780, and came to reside at Buffalo Creek in

1781." The incident sought to be identified with this receipt was not

only one of the most striking among the events of the border war, but

the Indian actor appears to have been equally prominent. Butler makes

especial mention of Brant and Kiangarachta—probably the same name

as Gi-en-gwah-toh or Sayenquaraghta—in his account of the battle of

Newtown (_Sparks MSS._).

If we are forced to such evidence as this against the British

government, we unfortunately find ourselves confronted with testimony

of a like character against the Americans. Guy Johnson writes to

Germain (_N. Y. Col. Docs._, viii. 740): "Some of the American

colonies went further by fixing a price for scalps." Again it is said

(_Amer. Archives_, 4th, v. 1102): "Seneca sachems assert that Oneidas

want Butler's scalp, and that General Schuyler offered $250 for his

person or scalp." Thomas Gummersall declared at Staten Island, Aug.

6, 1776 (_Amer. Archives_, 5th, i. 866), that "Mr. Schuyler, a rebel

general, invited Sir John Johnson down, promising him protection, and

at the same time employed the Indian messenger, in case he refused,

to bring his scalp, for which he was to have a reward of one hundred

dollars." It might, perhaps, be claimed that the bounties offered by

South Carolina justified the first of these counter-assertions by the

English, but I presume there would be no hesitation in classing these

statements, as a whole, among those which were especially prepared for

the purpose of influencing public opinion.

Before leaving this subject, the reader may need to be warned against

a fabrication of Franklin, which has deceived many. Sparks speaks of

Franklin "occasionally amusing himself in composing and printing, by

means of a small set of types and a press he had in his house, several

of his light essays, _bagatelles_, or _jeux d'esprit_, written chiefly

for the amusement of his friends. Among these were the following,

printed on a half-sheet of coarse paper, so as to imitate as much as

possible a portion of a Boston newspaper", which he gave out as a

_Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle_ of March 12, 1782.

This pretended newspaper contained what purported to be an extract

from a letter from Captain Gerrish, of the New England militia, dated

Albany, March 7, 1782, which reads as follows: "The peltry taken in

the expedition will, you see, amount to a good deal of money. The

possession of this booty at first gave us pleasure; but we were struck

with horror to find among the packages eight large ones, containing

scalps of our unhappy country-folks, taken prisoners in the three last

years by the Seneka Indians from the inhabitants of the frontiers of

New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and sent by them as a

present to Colonel Haldimand, governor of Canada, in order to be by him

transmitted to England. They were accompanied by the following curious

letter to that gentleman;" which is given under the signature of James

Crawfurd, and affords a detailed account of the contents of each

package. This fictitious Supplement was reprinted as genuine in Almon's

_Remembrancer_. In the first edition of Campbell's _Annals of Tryon

County_ it was printed in the Appendix as genuine, and copied from a

newspaper published in Dutchess County during the Revolution (_Ibid._,

2d ed., 307). It was also reprinted in _Rhode Island Historical Tracts_

(no. 7, p. 94, note I). It was exposed by Sparks, by Parton in his

_Life of Franklin_ (ii. p. 437), by Campbell in his second edition of

the _Annals of Tryon County_, and by Col. Stone in the Introduction

to his _Brant_ (i. p. xvi.). In a note Col. Stone spoke of the document

as "long believed and recently revived and included in several works

of authentic history." There are copies of the original fabrication in

the Stevens Collection of Frankliniana (Dept. of State at Washington;

Stevens's _Hist. Coll._, i. p. 168); and in the Boston Public Library

(_Franklin Collection_, p. 12).