THE RIVALRY AND DIPLOMACY OF THE FRONTIER
I. THE FIRST GREAT PROBLEMS OF THE INDIANS
From small events in the deep wilderness, human interests were forming
into the flow of incalculable affairs. The Ohio Indians had gathered
in council with their English brethren at Logstown, and entered into a
treaty not to molest any English settlers in the territory claimed by
the Ohio Company. The Six Nations of Iroquois to the northeast had
very haughtily declined to attend the conference. This was because
they were nearer the French and under their influence.
“It is not our custom,” said an Iroquois chief, “to meet to treat of
affairs in the woods and weeds. If the Governor of Virginia wants to
speak with us, we will meet him at Albany, where we expect the
Governor of New York to be present.”
[Illustration: Washington and His Family.]
On the other side, the Ohio Indians sent a protest to the French at
Lake Erie.
“Fathers,” said the messenger, “you are the disturbers of this land by
building towns, and taking the country from us by fraud and force. If
you had come in a peaceable manner, like our brothers, the English, we
should have traded with you as we do with them; but that you should
come and build houses on our land, and take it by force, is what we
cannot submit to. Our brothers, the English, have heard this, and I
now come to tell it to you, for I am not afraid to order you off this
land.”
“Child,” was the reply of the French commander, “you talk foolishly. I
am not afraid of flies and mosquitoes, for such are those who oppose
me. Take back your wampum. I fling it at you.”
It became evident that the French intended to connect Canada with
Louisiana by a chain of forts and so confine the English to the coast
east of the Alleghanies. This meant the ruin of the Ohio Company. A
strong appeal was made to Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia. He was a
stockholder in the Ohio Company and was accordingly a ready listener
to the danger of losing the Ohio country.
Governor Dinwiddie sent a commissioner with a protest to the French,
who were rapidly breaking their way through from Canada, defeating the
hostile Indians, and breaking to pieces their confidence in their
English brothers. Captain Trent was the man selected for this
dangerous and delicate task. He went to Logstown and then on into the
Indian country, where the French had scattered the Indians and
established their authority.
Trent could not see anything to do and he returned home a failure.
This made matters worse, and required a still stronger man, able to
restore the lost confidence of the Indians and to impress the French
with the determination and power of the English. There was only one
man who seemed qualified for such a hazardous undertaking, and he was
only twenty-two years of age. This was George Washington.
He was appointed to the dangerous mission and given full instructions
in writing. With the required equipment, Washington set forth on the
remarkable journey, which was the beginning of his great career as the
maker of a nation. The record of this great adventure belongs to
history and little can be done toward telling any part of it without
telling enough to make a book. The journey contained all the perils of
such a wilderness, the usual intrigues characteristic of the times in
the dealing with the Indians, and the customary experience of frontier
diplomacy between two rival colonies, of which the mother countries
were at peace. But with a thoroughness that was possible only to one
who had made thoroughness an object and a habit of his life,
Washington noted everything he saw among the tribes, at the French
outposts, and at the French headquarters.
Washington had started with his message from Governor Dinwiddie on
October 30, and he returned with the reply, January 16. The long
journey through the trackless forests of the winter wilderness had
been one of almost incredible hardship and peril, where his life many
times appeared hopeless, but he won out and performed his mission. It
is probable that nothing throughout his wonderful career was more
trying to his character or more evidence of his indomitable manhood.
One who was able to perform successfully such a mission, and bring
back such a clear view of the situation, was henceforth to be rated as
one of the worthiest sons of Virginia, and a reliable guardian of her
fortunes.
II. ALARM FOR THE FUTURE
Washington’s journal, covering his journey and his observations, was
printed, and it awakened the colonies to the fact that, if the French
took possession of the Ohio Valley, the English would have no future
beyond the Alleghenies. The French commander’s evasive reply, coupled
with his statement that he was there by his superior’s orders and
would obey them to the letter, made it plain that, however much the
two home countries were at peace, the American colonies would have to
fight for their rights, as they conceived them to be, in these Western
regions. As is to be seen, this colonial English war with the colonial
French was destined to accomplish three far-reaching results. It would
unite the English colonies, it would give them an extended view of
their human rights, and it would develop a leader in George
Washington.
At first the support given the Governor, even in Virginia, was very
meagerly and grudgingly given.
“Those who offered to enlist,” says Washington, “were for the most
part loose, idle persons, without house or home, some without shoes or
stockings, some shirtless, and many without coat or waistcoat.”
One of the French officers had boasted to Washington that the French
would be the first to take possession of the Ohio lands, because the
English were so slow, and it proved true.
Captain Trent had been sent with about fifty men to build a fort at
the fork of the Ohio River, the place recommended by Washington. But,
when it was less than half done, a thousand Frenchmen appeared and
ordered the English fort-builders to leave. They were glad to have
that privilege. A few days after Washington arrived at Will’s creek,
with probably two hundred men, the fort-builders came in and told
their story.
It was known that the French had abundance of war-supplies, could
receive reinforcements on short notice, were already at least five to
one in numbers, and had the assured support of at least six hundred
Indians.
Washington’s men were undisciplined, and Trent’s men being volunteers
for other service were insubordinate. There were no supplies, and
reinforcements were doubtful.
But even in such a forlorn condition, he must be master of the
situation or all would indeed be lost. He decided to fortify the Ohio
Company’s storehouses at Redstone Creek, acquaint the colonies of his
condition and await necessary reinforcements. In this management under
difficulties, he had an experience and training, probably of great
service to his country in the nobler cause of political liberty, that
was destined to be his task for grander years to come.
III. INDIFFERENCE TO GREAT INTERESTS
The wilderness, the Indians, the French, and the slow-moving
management coming from the colonies, offered difficulties almost
insurmountable, and it would take a volume to describe in detail the
conditions and affairs. Even the officers were almost in mutiny over
their pay.
“Let me serve voluntarily,” Washington wrote to the Governor, “and I
will, with the greatest pleasure, devote my services to this
expedition,--but, to be slaving through woods, rocks and mountains for
the shadow of pay, I would rather toil like a day laborer for a
maintenance, if reduced to the necessity, than to serve on such
ignoble terms.”
In a letter to his friend, Colonel Fairfax, in which he preferred to
serve as a volunteer without pay, rather than for what he was getting,
he added, “for the motives that have led me here are pure and noble. I
had no view of acquisition but that of honor, by serving faithfully my
king and my country.”
In the midst of all this dissatisfaction and distress, word came
through Indian scouts that the French were marching to attack him. The
tracks of a scouting party having been discovered, an Indian was put
on the trail and he found the camp of the enemy. Washington
determined to surprise them. He planned to slip up on one side of
them, as his Indian allies did the same on the other side. Between
them he believed he could capture them all. But the sharp watch of the
French caught sight of the English and the forest battle began. One of
Washington’s men had been killed and three wounded in a fifteen
minutes’ battle, when the French, having lost several and becoming
frightened at being between two fires, gave way and ran. They were
soon overtaken and captured, excepting one who escaped and carried the
news to the fort at the forks of the Ohio. Ten of the French had been
killed and one wounded. Twenty-one were prisoners.
Though this battle, as measured in the deeds of other wars, was indeed
a small affair, it was weighty with consequence for the interests of
America. It was Washington’s first experience in battle. In a letter
to one of his brothers, he says, “I heard the bullets whistle, and,
believe me, there is something charming in the sound.”
This statement of a boy, at the age of twenty-two in the first
emotions of military excitement, is hardly to be called mere
rodomontade as Horace Walpole termed it. It is said that George II
remarked, when he was told of this expression used by the young
Virginian commander, “He would not say so, if he had been used to
hear many.” Forty years later, when Washington was President of the
United States of America, he was asked about the so-called charm of
whistling bullets, and he replied, “If I said so, it was when I was
young.”
The victory of this battle, small as it was, aroused the colonists and
held the confidence of the Indians. The Indian chief sent the scalps
of the ten slain soldiers to the different tribes and called on them
to come at once to the help of their brothers, the English.
Washington’s difficulty in getting supplies and in obtaining
reinforcements taxed all his powers and all his stability of
character. There was no doubt that the entire success of the campaign
depended upon his patience and resourceful perseverance. It was making
the twenty-two-year-old gentleman of Mount Vernon and Belvoir very
rapidly into a hardy warrior of the wilderness, and a tactful manager
of men. These qualities were being strengthened for the coming great
day, when there should be a new nation. Doubtless the sordid stupidity
of the colonial governors, in their tardy and meager support of him,
had much to do in preparing the way for ideas of independence and a
self-governing body of States.