COUNCIL OF THE OHIO TRIBES AT LOGSTOWN--TREATY WITH THE ENGLISH--GIST'S
SETTLEMENT--SPEECHES OF THE HALF-KING AND THE FRENCH COMMANDANT--FRENCH
AGGRESSIONS--THE RUINS OF PIQUA--WASHINGTON SENT ON A MISSION TO THE FRENCH
COMMANDER--JACOB VAN BRAAM, HIS INTERPRETER--CHRISTOPHER GIST, HIS GUIDE--
HALT AT THE CONFLUENCE OF THE MONONGAHELA AND ALLEGANY--PROJECTED FORT--
SHINGISS, A DELAWARE SACHEM--LOGSTOWN--THE HALF KING--INDIAN COUNCILS--
INDIAN DIPLOMACY--RUMORS CONCERNING JONCAIRE--INDIAN ESCORTS--THE
HALF-KING, JESKAKAKE AND WHITE THUNDER.
The meeting of the Ohio tribes, Delawares, Shawnees, and Mingoes, to form a
treaty of alliance with Virginia, took place at Logstown, at the appointed
time. The chiefs of the Six Nations declined to attend. "It is not our
custom," said they proudly, "to meet to treat of affairs in the woods and
weeds. If the Governor of Virginia wants to speak with us, and deliver us a
present from our father (the King), we will meet him at Albany, where we
expect the Governor of New York will be present." [Footnote: Letter of Col.
Johnson to Gov. Clinton.--Doc. Hist. N. Y. ii., 624.]
At Logstown, Colonel Fry and two other commissioners from Virginia,
concluded a treaty with the tribes above named; by which the latter engaged
not to molest any English settlers south of the Ohio. Tanacharisson, the
half-king, now advised that his brothers of Virginia should build a strong
house at the fork of the Monongahela, to resist the designs of the French.
Mr. Gist was accordingly instructed to lay out a town and build a fort at
Chartier's Creek, on the east side of the Ohio, a little below the site of
the present city of Pittsburg. He commenced a settlement, also, in a valley
just beyond Laurel Hill, not far from the Youghiogeny, and prevailed on
eleven families to join him. The Ohio Company, about the same time,
established a trading post, well stocked with English goods, at Wills'
Creek (now the town of Cumberland).
The Ohio tribes were greatly incensed at the aggressions of the French, who
were erecting posts within their territories, and sent deputations to
remonstrate, but without effect. The half-king, as chief of the western
tribes, repaired to the French post on Lake Erie, where he made his
complaint in person.
"Fathers," said he, "you are the disturbers of this land by building towns,
and taking the country from us by fraud and force. We kindled a fire a long
time since at Montreal, where we desired you to stay and not to come and
intrude upon our land. I now advise you to return to that place, for this
land is ours.
"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. Both you and the English are white. We live in a country between
you both; the land belongs to neither of you. The Great Being allotted it
to us as a residence. So, fathers, I desire you, as I have desired our
brothers the English, to withdraw, for I will keep you both at arm's
length. Whichever most regards this request, that side will we stand by and
consider friends. 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," replied the French commandant, "you talk foolishly. You say this
land belongs to you; there is not the black of my nail yours. It is my
land, and I will have it, let who will stand up against me. I am not afraid
of flies and mosquitoes, for as such I consider the Indians. I tell you
that down the river I will go, and build upon it. If it were blocked up I
have forces sufficient to burst it open and trample down all who oppose me.
My force is as the sand upon the sea-shore. Therefore here is your wampum;
I fling it at you."
Tanacharisson returned, wounded at heart, both by the language and the
haughty manner of the French commandant. He saw the ruin impending over his
race, but looked with hope and trust to the English as the power least
disposed to wrong the red man.
French influence was successful in other quarters. Some of the Indians who
had been friendly to the English showed signs of alienation. Others menaced
hostilities. There were reports that the French were ascending the
Mississippi from Louisiana. France, it was said, intended to connect
Louisiana and Canada by a chain of military posts, and hem the English
within the Allegany Mountains.
The Ohio Company complained loudly to the Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia,
the Hon. Robert Dinwiddie, of the hostile conduct of the French and their
Indian allies. They found in Dinwiddie a ready listener; he was a
stockholder in the company.
A commissioner, Captain William Trent, was sent to expostulate with the
French commander on the Ohio for his aggressions on the territory of his
Britannic majesty; he bore presents also of guns, powder, shot, and
clothing for the friendly Indians.
Trent was not a man of the true spirit for a mission to the frontier. He
stopped a short time at Logstown, though the French were one hundred and
fifty miles further up the river, and directed his course to Piqua, the
great town of the Twightwees, where Gist and Croghan had been so well
received by the Miamis, and the French flag struck in the council house.
All now was reversed. The place had been attacked by the French and
Indians; the Miamis defeated with great loss; the English traders taken
prisoners; the Piankesha chief, who had so proudly turned his back upon the
Ottawa ambassadors, had been sacrificed by the hostile savages, and the
French flag hoisted in triumph on the ruins of the town. The whole aspect
of affairs was so threatening on the frontier, that Trent lost heart, and
returned home without accomplishing his errand.
Governor Dinwiddie now looked round for a person more fitted to fulfil a
mission which required physical strength and moral energy; a courage to
cope with savages, and a sagacity to negotiate with white men. Washington
was pointed out as possessed of those requisites. It is true he was not yet
twenty-two years of age, but public confidence in his judgment and
abilities had been manifested a second time, by renewing his appointment of
adjutant-general, and assigning him the northern division. He was
acquainted too with the matters in litigation, having been in the bosom
councils of his deceased brother. His woodland experience fitted him for an
expedition through the wilderness; and his great discretion and
self-command for a negotiation with wily commanders and fickle savages. He
was accordingly chosen for the expedition.
By his letter of instructions he was directed to repair to Logstown, and
hold a communication with Tanacharisson, Monacatoocha, alias Scarooyadi,
the next in command, and the other sachems of the mixed tribes friendly to
the English; inform them of the purport of his errand, and request an
escort to the head-quarters of the French commander. To that commander he
was to deliver his credentials, and the letter of Governor Dinwiddie, and
demand an answer in the name of his Britannic majesty; but not to wait for
it beyond a week. On receiving it, he was to request a sufficient escort to
protect him on his return.
He was, moreover, to acquaint himself with the numbers and force of the
French stationed on the Ohio and in its vicinity; their capability of being
reinforced from Canada; the forts they had erected; where situated, how
garrisoned; the object of their advancing into those parts, and how they
were likely to be supported.
Washington set off from Williamsburg on the 30th of October (1753), the
very day on which he received his credentials. At Fredericksburg he engaged
his old "master of fence," Jacob Van Braam, to accompany him as
interpreter; though it would appear from subsequent circumstances, that the
veteran swordsman was but indifferently versed either in French or English.
Having provided himself at Alexandria with necessaries for the journey, he
proceeded to Winchester, then on the frontier, where he procured horses,
tents, and other travelling equipments, and then pushed on by a road newly
opened to Wills' Creek (town of Cumberland), where he arrived on the 14th
of November.
Here he met with Mr. Gist, the intrepid pioneer, who had explored the Ohio
in the employ of the company, and whom he engaged to accompany and pilot
him in the present expedition. He secured the services also of one John
Davidson as Indian interpreter, and of four frontiersmen, two of whom were
Indian traders. With this little band, and his swordsman and interpreter,
Jacob Van Braam, he set forth on the 15th of November, through a wild
country, rendered almost impassable by recent storms of rain and snow.
At the mouth of Turtle Creek, on the Monongahela, he found John Frazier the
Indian trader, some of whose people, as heretofore stated, had been sent
off prisoners to Canada. Frazier himself had recently been ejected by the
French from the Indian village of Venango, where he had a gunsmith's
establishment. According to his account the French general who had
commanded on this frontier was dead, and the greater part of the forces
were retired into winter quarters.
As the rivers were all swollen so that the horses had to swim them,
Washington sent all the baggage down the Monongahela in a canoe under care
of two of the men, who had orders to meet him at the confluence of that
river with the Allegany, where their united waters form the Ohio.
"As I got down before the canoe," writes he in his journal, "I spent some
time in viewing the rivers, and the land at the Fork, which I think
extremely well situated for a fort, as it has the absolute command of both
rivers. The land at the point is twenty or twenty-five feet above the
common surface of the water, and a considerable bottom of flat, well
timbered land all around it, very convenient for building. The rivers are
each a quarter of a mile or more across, and run here very nearly at right
angles; Allegany bearing north-east, and Monongahela south-east. The former
of these two is a very rapid and swift-running water, the other deep and
still, without any perceptible fall." The Ohio company had intended to
build a fort about two miles from this place, on the south-east side of the
river; but Washington gave the fork the decided preference. French
engineers of experience proved the accuracy of his military eye, by
subsequently choosing it for the site of Fort Duquesne, noted in frontier
history.
In this neighborhood lived Shingiss, the king or chief sachem of the
Delawares. Washington visited him at his village, to invite him to the
council at Logstown. He was one of the greatest warriors of his tribe, and
subsequently took up the hatchet at various times against the English,
though now he seemed favorably disposed, and readily accepted the
invitation.
They arrived at Logstown after sunset on the 24th of November. The
half-king was absent at his hunting lodge on Beaver Creek, about fifteen
miles distant; but Washington had runners sent out to invite him and all
the other chiefs to a grand talk on the following day.
In the morning four French deserters came into the village. They had
deserted from a company of one hundred men, sent up from New Orleans with
eight canoes laden with provisions. Washington drew from them an account of
the French force at New Orleans, and of the forts along the Mississippi,
and at the mouth of the Wabash, by which they kept up a communication with
the lakes; all which he carefully noted down. The deserters were on their
way to Philadelphia, conducted by a Pennsylvania trader.
About three o'clock the half-king arrived. Washington had a private
conversation with him in his tent, through Davidson, the interpreter. He
found him intelligent, patriotic, and proudly tenacious of his territorial
rights. We have already cited from Washington's papers, the account given
by this chief in this conversation, of his interview with the late French
commander. He stated, moreover, that the French had built two forts,
differing in size, but on the same model, a plan of which he gave, of his
own drawing. The largest was on Lake Erie, the other on French Creek,
fifteen miles apart, with a waggon road between them. The nearest and
levellest way to them was now impassable, lying through large and miry
savannas; they would have, therefore, to go by Venango, and it would take
five or six sleeps (or days) of good travelling to reach the nearest fort.
On the following morning at nine o'clock, the chiefs assembled at the
council house; where Washington, according to his instructions, informed
them that he was sent by their brother, the Governor of Virginia, to
deliver to the French commandant a letter of great importance, both to
their brothers the English and to themselves; and that he was to ask their
advice and assistance, and some of their young men to accompany and provide
for him on the way, and be his safeguard against the "French Indians" who
had taken up the hatchet. He concluded by presenting the indispensable
document in Indian diplomacy a string of wampum.
The chiefs, according to etiquette, sat for some moments silent after he
had concluded, as if ruminating on what had been said, or to give him time
for further remark.
The half-king then rose and spoke in behalf of the tribes, assuring him
that they considered the English and themselves brothers, and one people;
and that they intended to return the French the "speech-belts," or wampums,
which the latter had sent them. This, in Indian diplomacy, is a
renunciation of all friendly relations. An escort would be furnished to
Washington composed of Mingoes, Shannoahs, and Delawares, in token of the
love and loyalty of those several tribes; but three days would be required
to prepare for the journey.
Washington remonstrated against such delay; but was informed, that an
affair of such moment, where three speech-belts were to be given up, was
not to be entered into without due consideration. Besides, the young men
who were to form the escort were absent hunting, and the half-king could
not suffer the party to go without sufficient protection. His own French
speech-belt, also, was at his hunting lodge, where he must go in quest of
it. Moreover, the Shannoah chiefs were yet absent and must be waited for.
In short, Washington had his first lesson in Indian diplomacy, which for
punctilio, ceremonial, and secret manoeuvring, is equal at least to that of
civilized life. He soon found that to urge a more speedy departure would be
offensive to Indian dignity and decorum, so he was fain to await the
gathering together of the different chiefs with their speech-belts.
In fact there was some reason for all this caution. Tidings had reached the
sachems that Captain Joncaire had called a meeting at Venango, of the
Mingoes, Delawares, and other tribes, and made them a speech, informing
them that the French, for the present, had gone into winter quarters, but
intended to descend the river in great force, and fight the English in the
spring. He had advised them, therefore, to stand aloof, for should they
interfere, the French and English would join, cut them all off, and divide
their land between them.
With these rumors preying on their minds, the half-king and three other
chiefs waited on Washington in his tent in the evening, and after
representing that they had complied with all the requisitions of the
Governor of Virginia, endeavored to draw from the youthful ambassador the
true purport of his mission to the French commandant. Washington had
anticipated an inquiry of the kind, knowing how natural it was that these
poor people should regard, with anxiety and distrust, every movement of two
formidable powers thus pressing upon them from opposite sides, he managed,
however, to answer them in such a manner as to allay their solicitude
without transcending the bounds of diplomatic secrecy.
After a day or two more of delay and further consultations in the council
house, the chiefs determined that but three of their number should
accompany the mission, as a greater number might awaken the suspicions of
the French. Accordingly, on the 30th of November, Washington set out for
the French post, having his usual party augmented by an Indian hunter, and
being accompanied by the half-king, an old Shannoah sachem named Jeskakake,
and another chief, sometimes called Belt of Wampum, from being the keeper
of the speech-belts, but generally bearing the sounding appellation of
White Thunder.