gradually westward, and to the close of his long life old Daniel Boone
was ever at the front of their advance, taking his rest at last beyond
the Mississippi. To-day his patient and heroic spirit inspires all
boys, leads every frontiersman, commands the pioneers upon the warrior
trails, the ax-hewn paths, the wilderness roads of marching empire.
XLI
A. D. 1813
ANDREW JACKSON
The Nations were playing a ball game: “Catch!” said France, throwing
the ball to Spain, who muffed it. “Quick!” cried Napoleon, “or England
will get it--catch!” “Caught!” said the first American republic, and
her prize was the valley of the Mississippi.
Soon afterward the United States in the name of freedom joined Napoleon
the Despot at war with Great Britain; and the old lion had a wild beast
fight against a world-at-arms. In our search for great adventure let us
turn to the warmest corner of that world-wide struggle, poor Spanish
Florida.
Here a large Indian nation, once civilized, but now reduced to
savagery, had taken refuge from the Americans; and these people, the
Creeks and Seminoles, fighting for freedom themselves, gave shelter to
runaway slaves from the United States. A few pirates are said to have
lurked there, and some Scottish gentlemen lived with the tribes as
traders. Thanks perhaps to them, Great Britain armed the Creeks, who
ravaged American settlements to the north, and at Fort Minns butchered
four hundred men.
Northward in Tennessee the militia were commanded by Andrew Jackson,
born a frontiersman, but by trade a lawyer, a very valiant man of high
renown, truculent as a bantam.
Without orders he led two thousand, five hundred frontiersmen to avenge
Fort Minns by chasing the Spanish governor (in time of peace) out of
Pensacola, and a British garrison from Fort Barrancas, and then (after
peace was signed) expelled the British from New Orleans, while his
detachment in Florida blew up a fort with two hundred seventy-five
refugees, including the women and children. Such was the auspicious
prelude to Jackson’s war with the Creeks, who were crushed forever at
the battle of Horseshoe Bend.
XLII
A. D. 1836
SAM HOUSTON
Serving in Jackson’s force was young Sam Houston, a hunter and a
pioneer from childhood. Rather than be apprenticed to a trade he ran
away and joined the Cherokees, and as the adopted son of the head chief
became an Indian, except of course during the holidays, when he went to
see his very respectable mother. On one of these visits home he met a
recruiting sergeant, and enlisted for the year of 1812. At the age of
twenty-one he had fought his way up to the rank of ensign, serving with
General Andrew Jackson at the battle of Horseshoe Bend.
The Creeks held a line of breastworks, and the Americans were charging
these works when an arrow struck deep into young Houston’s thigh. He
tried to wrench it out but the barb held, and twice his lieutenant
failed. “Try again,” said Houston, “and if you fail I’ll knock you
down.” The lieutenant pulled out the arrow, and streaming with blood,
the youngster went to a surgeon who dressed his wound. General Jackson
told him not to return to the front, but the lad must needs be at the
head of his men, no matter what the orders.
Hundreds of Creeks had fallen, multitudes were shot or drowned
attempting to swim the river, but still a large party of them held a
part of the breastwork, a sort of roof spanning a gully, from which,
through narrow port-holes, they kept up a murderous fire. Guns could
not be placed to bear on this position, the warriors flatly refused all
terms of surrender, and when Jackson called for a forlorn hope Houston
alone responded. Calling his platoon to follow him he scrambled down
the steep side of the gully, but his men hesitated, and from one of
them he seized a musket with which he led the way. Within five yards
of the Creeks he had turned to rally his platoon for a direct charge
through the port-holes, when two bullets struck his right shoulder. For
the last time he implored his men to charge, then in despair walked
out of range. Many months went by before the three wounds were healed,
but from that time, through very stormy years he had the constant
friendship of his old leader, Andrew Jackson, president of the United
States.
Houston went back to the West and ten years after the battle was
elected general of the Tennessee militia. Indeed there seemed no
limit to his future, and at thirty-five he was governor of the state,
when his wife deserted him, and ugly rumors touched his private life.
Throwing his whole career to the winds he turned Indian, not as a
chief, but as Drunken Sam, the butt of the Cherokees.
It is quite natural for a man to have two characters, the one
commanding while the other rests. Within a few months the eyes of
Houston the American statesman looked out from the painted face of
Drunken Sam, the savage Cherokee. From Arkansas he looked southward
and saw the American frontiersmen, the Texas pioneers, trying to earn
a living under the comic opera government of the Mexicans. They would
soon sweep away that anarchy if only they found a leader, and perhaps
Drunken Sam in his dreams saw Samuel Houston leading the Texas cowboys.
Still dressed as a Cherokee warrior he went to Washington, called on
his old friend President Jackson, begged for a job, talked of the
liberation of Texas--as if the yankees of the North would ever allow
another slave state of the South to enter the Union!
Houston went back to the West and preached the revolt against Mexico.
There we will leave him for a while, to take up the story of old Davy
Crockett.
XLIII
A. D. 1836
DAVY CROCKETT
Far off on his farm in Tennessee, old Davy Crockett heard of the war
for freedom. Fifty years of hunting, trapping and Indian warfare had
not quenched his thirst for adventure, or dulled his love of fun; but
the man had been sent to Washington as a member of congress, and came
home horrified by the corruption of political life. He was angry and in
his wrath took his gun from over the fireplace. He must kill something,
so he went for those Mexicans in the West.
His journey to the seat of war began by steamer down the Mississippi
River, and he took a sudden fancy to a sharper who was cheating the
passengers. He converted Thimblerig to manhood, and the poor fellow,
like a lost dog, followed Davy. So the pair were riding through Texas
when they met a bee hunter, riding in search of wild honey--a gallant
lad in a splendid deerskin dress, who led them to his home. The bee
hunter must join Davy too, but his heart was torn at parting with Kate,
the girl he loved, and he turned in the saddle to cheer her with a
scrap of song for farewell:
“Saddled and bridled, and booted rode he,
A plume in his helmet, a sword at his knee.”
But the girl took up the verse, her song broken with sobbing:
“But toom’ cam’ the saddle, all bluidy to see,
And hame cam’ the steed, but hame never cam’ he.”
There were adventures on the way, for Davy hunted buffalo, fought a
cougar--knife to teeth--and pacified an Indian tribe to get passage.
Then they were joined by a pirate from Lafitte’s wicked crew, and a
young Indian warrior. So, after thrashing a Mexican patrol, the party
galloped into the Alamo, a Texan fortress at San Antonio.
One thousand seven hundred Mexicans had been holding that fort, until
after a hundred and twenty hours fighting, they were captured by two
hundred and sixteen Americans. The Lone Star flag on the Alamo was
defended now by one hundred and fifty white men.
Colonel Travis commanded, and with him was Colonel Bowie, whose broken
sword, used as a dagger, had given the name to the “bowie knife.”
Crockett, with his followers, Thimblerig, the bee hunter, the pirate
and the Indian, were warmly welcomed by the garrison.
February twenty-third, 1836, the Mexican president, Santa Anna, brought
up seventeen hundred men to besiege the Alamo, and Travis sent off the
pirate to ride to Goliad for help.
On the twenty-fourth the bombardment commenced, and thirty cowboys
broke in through the Mexican lines to aid the garrison.
On the twenty-eighth, here is a scrap from Davy’s private diary: “The
settlers are flying ... leaving their possessions to the mercy of the
ruthless invader ... slaughter is indiscriminate, sparing neither age,
sex, nor condition. Buildings have been burned down, farms laid waste
... the enemy draws nigher to the fort.”
On the twenty-ninth: “This business of being shut up makes a man
wolfish--I had a little sport this morning before breakfast. The enemy
had planted a piece of ordnance within gunshot of the fort during
the night, and the first thing in the morning they commenced a brisk
cannonade pointblank against the spot where I was snoring. I turned
out pretty smart and mounted the rampart. The gun was charged again,
a fellow stepped forth to touch her off, but before he could apply
the match I let him have it, and he keeled over. A second stepped up,
snatched the match from the hand of the dying man, but Thimblerig, who
had followed me, handed me his rifle, and the next instant the Mexican
was stretched upon the earth beside the first. A third came up to the
cannon, my companion handed me another gun, and I fixed him off in like
manner. A fourth, then a fifth seized the match, but both met with
the same fate, and then the whole party gave it up as a bad job, and
hurried off to the camp, leaving the cannon ready charged where they
had planted it. I came down, took my bitters and went to breakfast.
Thimblerig told me the place from which I had been firing was one of
the snuggest stands in the whole fort, for he never failed picking off
two or three stragglers before breakfast.”
March third.--“We have given over all hope.”
March fourth.--“Shells have been falling into the fort like hail during
the day, but without effect. About dusk in the evening we observed a
man running toward the fort, pursued by about a dozen Mexican cavalry.
The bee hunter immediately knew him to be the old hunter who had gone
to Goliad, and calling to the two hunters, he sallied out to the relief
of the old man, who was hard pressed. I followed close after. Before
we reached the spot the Mexicans were close on the heels of the old
man who stopped suddenly, turned short upon his pursuers, discharged
his rifle, and one of the enemy fell from his horse. The chase was
renewed, but finding that he would be overtaken and cut to pieces,
he now turned again, and to the amazement of the enemy became the
assailant in turn. He clubbed his gun, and dashed among them like a
wounded tiger, and they fled like sparrows. By this time we reached the
spot, and in the ardor of the moment followed some distance before we
saw that our retreat to the fort was cut off by another detachment of
cavalry. Nothing was to be done but to fight our way through. We were
all of the same mind. ‘Go ahead!’ cried I; and they shouted, ‘Go ahead,
Colonel!’ We dashed among them, and a bloody conflict ensued. They were
about twenty in number, and they stood their ground. After the fight
had continued about five minutes a detachment was seen issuing from the
fort to our relief, and the Mexicans scampered off, leaving eight of
their comrades dead upon the field. But we did not escape unscathed,
for both the pirate and the bee hunter were mortally wounded, and I
received a saber cut across the forehead. The old man died without
speaking, as soon as we entered the fort. We bore my young friend to
his bed, dressed his wounds, and I watched beside him. He lay without
complaint or manifesting pain until about midnight, when he spoke, and
I asked him if he wanted anything.
“‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘Poor Kate!’ His eyes filled with tears as he
continued: ‘Her words were prophetic, Colonel,’ and then he sang in a
low voice.
“‘But toom’ cam’ the saddle, all bluidy to see,
And hame cam’ the steed, but hame never cam’ he.’
“He spoke no more, and a few minutes after, died. Poor Kate! who will
tell this to thee?”
March fifth: “Pop, pop, pop! Bom, bom, bom! throughout the day--no time
for memorandums now--go ahead. Liberty and independence forever!”
[Illustration: DAVID CROCKETT]
* * * * *
So ends Davy’s journal. Before dawn of the sixth a final assault of the
Mexican force carried the lost Alamo, and at sunrise there were only
six of the defenders left alive. Colonel Crockett was found with his
back to the wall, with his broken rifle and his bloody knife. Before
him lay Thimblerig, his dagger to the hilt in a Mexican’s throat, his
death grip fastened in the dead man’s hair.
The six prisoners were brought before Santa Anna, who stood surrounded
by his staff amid the ruins. General Castrillon saluted the president.
“Sir, here are six prisoners I have taken alive; how shall I dispose to
them?”
“Have I not told you before how to dispose of them--why do you bring
them to me?”
The officers of the staff fell upon the prisoners with their swords,
but like a tiger Davy sprang at Santa Anna’s throat. Then he fell with
a dozen swords through his body.
Up with your banner, Freedom.
Thy champions cling to thee.
They’ll follow where’er you lead ’em--
To death or victory.
Up with your banner, Freedom!
Tyrants and slaves are rushing
To tread thee in the dust;
Their blood will soon be gushing
And stain our knives with rust,
But not thy banner, Freedom!
While Stars and Stripes are flying
Our blood we’ll freely shed;
No groan will ’scape the dying,
Seeing thee o’er his head.
Up with your banner, Freedom!
Let us return to Sam Houston. His life of cyclone passions and
whirling change--a white boy turned Indian, then hero of a war against
the redskins; lawyer, commander-in-chief and governor of a state, a
drunken savage, a broken man begging a job at Washington, an obscure
conspirator in Texas--had made him leader of the liberators.
The fall of the Alamo filled the Texans with fury, but when that
was followed by the awful massacre of Goliad they went raving mad.
Houston, their leader, waited for reinforcements until his men wanted
to murder him, but when he marched it was to San Jacinto where, with
eight hundred Texans, he scattered one thousand six hundred Mexicans,
and captured Santa Anna. He was proclaimed president of the Lone Star
republic, which is now the largest star in the American constellation.
XLIV
A. D. 1793
ALEXANDER MACKENZIE
The very greatest events in human annals are those which the historian
forgets to mention. Now for example, in 1638 Louis XIV was born; the
Scots set up their solemn league and covenant; the Turks romped into
poor old Bagdad and wiped out thirty thousand Persians; Van Tromp, the
Dutchman, whopped a Spanish fleet; the English founded Madras, the
corner-stone of our Indian empire; but the real event of the year, the
greatest event of the seventeenth century, was the hat act passed by
the British parliament. Hatters were forbidden to make any hats except
of beaver felt. Henceforth, for two centuries, slouch hats, cocked
hats, top hats, all sorts of hats, were to be made of beaver fur felt,
down to the flat brimmed Stetson hat, which was borrowed from the
cowboys by the Northwest Mounted Police, adopted by the Irregular Horse
of the Empire, and finally copied in rabbit for the Boy Scouts. The
hatter must buy beaver, no matter what the cost, so Europe was stripped
to the last pelt. Then far away to east and west the hunters and
trappers explored from valley to valley. The traders followed, building
forts where they dealt with the hunters and trappers, exchanging
powder and shot, traps and provisions, for furs at so much a “castor”
or beaver skin, and skins were used for money, instead of gold. Then
came the settlers to fill the discovered lands, soldiers to guard them
from attack by savages, judges and hangmen, flag and empire.
The Russian fur trade passed the Ural Hills, explored Siberia and
crossed to Russian America.
Westward the French and British fur trade opened up the length and
breadth of North America.
By the time the hatter invented the imitation “beaver,” our silk hat,
this mad hat trade had pioneered the Russian empire, the United States
and the Dominion of Canada, belting the planet with the white man’s
power.
Now in this monstrous adventure the finest of all the adventurers were
Scotch, and the greatest Scot of them all was Alexander MacKenzie, of
Stornoway, in the Scotch Hebrides. At the age of seventeen he landed in
Montreal, soon after Canada was taken by the British, and he grew up
in the growing fur trade. In those days the Hudson’s Bay Company was a
sleepy old corporation with four forts, but the Nor’westers of Montreal
had the aid of the valiant French Canadian voyageurs as guides and
canoe men in the far wilderness.
Their trade route crossed the upper lakes to Thunder Bay in Lake
Superior, where they built Fort William; thence by Rainy River to the
Lake of the Woods, and Rat Portage; thence up Lake Winnipeg to the
Grand Saskatchewan. There were the forts where buffalo hunters boiled
down pemmican, a sort of pressed beef spiced with service berries, to
feed the northern posts. Northward the long trail, by lake and river,
reached à la Crosse, which gave its name to a famous Indian ball game,
and so to the source of the Churchill River at Lac la Loche, from
whence the Methye portage opened the way into the Great Unknown.
When MacKenzie reached Clear-water River, Mr. Peter Pond of the
Nor’westers had just shot Mr. Ross of the X. Y. Company. MacKenzie
took charge, and he and his cousin moved the trade down to the meeting
of the Athabasca and the Peace, at an inland sea, the Athabasca Lake,
where they built the future capital of the North, Fort Chipewyan. From
here the Slave River ran down to Great Slave Lake, a second inland sea
whose outlet was unknown. MacKenzie found that outlet six miles wide.
The waters teemed with wild fowl, the bush with deer, and the plains on
either side had herds of bison.
MacKenzie took with him four French voyageurs, a German and some
Indians, working them as a rule from three A. M. till dusk, while they
all with one accord shied at the terrors ahead, the cataracts, the
savage tribes, the certainty of starvation. The days lengthened until
there was no night, they passed coal fields on fire which a hundred
years later were still burning, then frozen ground covered with grass
and flowers, where the river parted into three main branches opening on
the coast of an ice-clad sea. The water was still fresh, but there were
seaweeds, they saw whales, the tides would wash the people out of camp,
for this was the Arctic Ocean. So they turned back up that great river
which bears MacKenzie’s name, six thousand miles of navigable waters
draining a land so warm that wheat will ripen on the Arctic circle, a
home for millions of healthy prosperous people in the days to come.
MacKenzie’s second journey was much more difficult, up the Peace River
through the Rocky Mountains, then by a portage to the Fraser Valley,
and down Bad River. All the rivers were bad, but the birch bark canoe,
however much it smashes, can be repaired with fresh sheets of bark,
stuck on with gum from the pine trees. Still, after their canoe was
totally destroyed in Bad River and the stock of bullets went to the
bottom, the Indians sat down and wept, while the Frenchmen, after a
square meal with a lot of rum, patched up the wreck to go on. Far down
the Fraser Valley there is a meadow of tall grass and flowers with
clumps of wild fruit orchard and brier rose, gardens of tiger lilies
and goldenrod. Nobody lived there in my time, but the place is known
as Alexandria in memory of Alexander Mackenzie and of the only moment
in his life when he turned back, beaten. Below Alexandria the Fraser
plunges for two hundred miles through a range of mountains in one long
roaring swoop.
So the explorers, warned by friendly Indians, climbed back up-stream
to the Blackwater River; and if any big game hunter wants to shoot
mosquitoes for their hides that valley would make a first-class hunting
ground. The journey from here to the coast was made afoot with heavy
loads by a broad Indian trail across the coast range to the Bilthqula
River, and here the explorers were the guests of rich powerful tribes.
One young chief unclasped a splendid robe of sea-otter skins, and
threw it around MacKenzie, such a gift as no king could offer now.
They feasted on salmon, service berries in grease, and cakes of inner
hemlock bark sprinkled with oil of salmon, a three-hour banquet,
followed by sleep in beds of furs, and blankets woven from wool of the
mountain sheep. The houses were low-pitched barns of cedar, each large
enough to seat several hundred people, and at the gable end rose a
cedar pole carved in heraldic sculpture gaily painted, with a little
round hole cut through for the front door.
Each canoe was a cedar log hollowed with fire, then spread with boiling
water, a vessel not unlike a gondola. One such canoe, the _Tillicum_,
has made a voyage round the world, but she is small compared with the
larger dugouts up to seven tons burden. An old chief showed MacKenzie a
canoe forty-five feet in length, of four foot beam painted with white
animals on a black hull, and set with ivory of otter teeth. In this
he had made a voyage some years before, when he met white men and saw
ships, most likely those of the great Captain Cook. MacKenzie’s account
of the native doctors describes them to the life as they are to-day.
“They blew on the patient, and then whistled; they rubbed him violently
on the stomach; they thrust their forefingers into his mouth, and
spouted water into his face.” MacKenzie, had he only waited, would have
seen them jump on the patient’s stomach to drive the devils out.
He borrowed canoes for the run down the Bilthqula to Salt Water at the
head of one of British Columbia’s giant fiords. There the explorer
heard that only two moons ago Captain Vancouver’s boats had been in
the inlet. An Indian chief must have been rude, for one officer fired
upon him, while another struck him with the flat of a sword. For this
the chief must needs get even with Alexander MacKenzie as he wandered
about the channels in search of the open sea. He never found the actual
Pacific, but made his final camp upon a rock at the entrance of Cascada
inlet. Here is Vancouver’s description of the place. “The width of the
channel did not anywhere exceed three-quarters of a mile; its shores
were bounded by precipices much more perpendicular than any we had
yet seen during this excursion; and from the summits of the mountains
that overlooked it ... there fell several large cascades. These were
extremely grand, and by much the most tremendous of any we had ever
beheld.”
Those cataracts, like lace, fell from the cornice glaciers through belt
after belt of clouds, to crash through the lower gloom in deafening
thunder upon black abysmal channels. The eagles swirl and circle far
above, the schools of porpoises are cleaving and gleaming through the
white-maned tide. In such a place, beset by hostile Indians, as the
dawn broke the great explorer mixed vermilion and grease to paint upon
the precipice above him:
“Alexander MacKenzie, from Canada by land 22nd July, 1793.”
He had discovered one of the world’s great rivers, and made the first
crossing of North America.
XLV
THE WHITE MAN’S COMING
It is our plain duty here to take up the story of Vancouver, an English
merchant seaman from before the mast, who rose to a captaincy in the
royal navy, and was sent to explore the British Columbian coast. He was
to find “the Straits of Anian leading through Meta Incognita to the
Atlantic,” the famous Northwest passage for which so many hundreds of
explorers gave their lives. His careful survey proved there was no such
strait.
Of course it is our duty to follow Vancouver’s dull and pompous log
book, and show what savage tribes he met with in the wilds. But it will
be much more fun to give the other side, the story of Vancouver’s visit
as told by the Indians whose awful fate it was to be “discovered” by
the white man with his measles, his liquor and his smallpox.