down their arms as they had been after the French War. In each case they
fought the victors, as far as they could get at them in the persons
of the hapless backwoodsmen and their wives and children. These
backwoodsmen did not change greatly, in their way of life, during that
long Indian war of forty years. They were of the hardy English, Welsh,
and Scotch-Irish stock which a generation or two in the wilderness had
toughened and strengthened. They had not yet ciphered it out that one
red hunter and trapper must waste the fifty thousand acres which
would support the families of a hundred white farmers in comfort and
prosperity; but they knew that to the westward there was a region, vast
and rich beyond anything words could say, and they longed to possess
it, with a hunger that was sometimes a pitiless greed, and always a
resistless desire. Yet it was not until the French gave up this region
that they could even venture lawlessly into it, and it was not until it
fell from Great Britain to the new power of the United States that the
borderers began openly to press into the backwoods, singly as hunters
and trappers, in families as neighborhoods as the founders of villages
and towns. The pioneers felt that they were going to take their own
wherever they found it, from the savages who could not and would not use
it, and they were right, for the land truly belongs to him who will use
it. The savages felt that the pioneers were coming to take their own
from them, for in their way they were using the land; and they were
right, too. All that is left for us to ask at this late day is which
could use the land best and most; and there can hardly be any doubt of
the answer.
[Illustration: Pioneers 049L]
To understand the situation clearly, the reader must keep in mind
certain dates. Céloron de Bienville visited the Miamis in 1749, and
the French kept the Ohio Indians on the warpath against the English
settlements to the eastward until 1763, when they gave up the West to
Great Britain. Then, until 1775, the savages alone fought the settlers
as the subjects of the English king. The Revolutionary War broke out,
and the Indians became the allies of the British. Then, in 1783, their
country was given up to the United States, and they still fought their
old enemies, who had not changed their nature by changing their name to
Americans. In 1794, the great battle of Fallen Timbers was fought on the
banks of the Maumee, and the long struggle was ended.
It had grown more and more fierce and cruel as time passed, and only
three years before General Wayne won his lasting victory, General St.
Clair had suffered his terrible defeat by the Indians. Through this
defeat, the power of the whites in the West was shaken as it had never
been before; the savages were filled with pride and hope by the greatest
triumph they had achieved over their enemies; and all the settlements in
the Northwestern Territory were endangered.
Perhaps I had better say seemed endangered. The Indians were really less
to be feared than at any time before. They were weaker, and the whites
were stronger. They were striving against destiny; and though their fate
was sealed with the blood of their enemies, their fate was sealed. All
the chances that had favored them had favored them in vain, and neither
their wily courage nor their pitiless despair availed them against the
people who outnumbered them, as the stems of the harvest field outnumber
the trees of the forest.
V. THE CAPTIVITY OF JAMES SMITH
The stories of captivity among the Ohio Indians during the war that
ended in 1794 would of themselves fill a much larger book than this is
meant to be. Most of them were never set down, but some of them were
very thrillingly told, and others very touchingly, either by the
captives themselves, or by such of their friends as were better able to
write them out. One, at least, is charming, and the narrative of
Colonel James Smith deserves a chapter by itself, not only because it is
charming, but because it shows the Indians in a truer and kindlier light
than they were often able to show themselves.
Smith was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, which in 1737 was the
frontier of the white settlement, and he was taken prisoner in 1755, by
a small party of Delawares, near Bedford, while he was helping to cut a
road for the passage of General Braddock’s ill-fated expedition against
the French. The Indians hurried from the English border, and forced him
to run with them nearly the whole way to Fort Duquesne, which afterwards
became Fort Pitt, and is now Pittsburg. A large body of savages was
encamped outside the post, and there Smith expected to be burned to
death with the tortures he afterwards saw inflicted upon many other
prisoners; but he was only made to run the gantlet. Two lines of Indians
were drawn up, with sticks in their hands, and Smith dashed at the top
of his speed between their ranks. He was cruelly beaten, and before he
reached the goal he fell senseless. When he came to himself he was in
the hands of a French surgeon. He was well cared for, and he lived in
hopes of rescue by Braddock’s army, which was marching against Fort
Duquesne in greater force than had ever been sent into the wilderness.
But while he was still so broken and bruised as to be scarcely able to
walk, the Indians came in with plunder and prisoners from the scene of
their bloody victory over the British troops.
A little later, Smith’s captors claimed him from the French, and carried
him to an Indian town on the Muskingum. The day after their arrival a
number of the Indians came to him, and one of them began to pull out his
hair, dipping his fingers in ashes to get a better hold, and plucking it
away hair by hair till it was all gone except a lock on the crown. This
they plaited with strings of beadwork and silver brooches, and then they
bored his ears and nose and put rings in them. They painted his face
and body in different colors, hung a band of wampum about his neck, and
fitted his arm with bracelets of silver. An old chief led him into
the street of the village, and gave the alarm halloo, when all the
Delawares, Caughnewagas, and Mohicans of the place came running, and
formed round the chief, who held Smith by the hand, and made them a long
speech. He then gave Smith over to three young squaws, who pulled him
into the river waist-deep, and made signs to him that he should plunge
his head into the water. But Smith’s head was full of the tortures of
the prisoners whom he had seen burnt at Fort Duquesne; he believed
all these ceremonies were the preparations for his death, and he would
neither duck.
He struggled with them, amidst the shouts and laughter of the Indians on
the shore, until one of them managed to say in English, “No hurt you,”
when he suffered them to plunge him under the water and rub at him as
long as they chose.
[Illustration: Indian baptism of James Smith 053]
By this means they washed away his white blood, and he was adopted into
the tribe in place of a great chief who had lately died. He seems never
to have known why this honor was done him; but he was then a lusty young
fellow of eighteen who might well have taken the fancy of some of his
captors; and he probably fell into their hands at a moment which their
superstition rendered fortunate for him.
When the squaws had done with him, he was taken up into the council
house of the village, where he was dressed in a new ruffled shirt,
leggins trimmed with ribbons and wrought with beads, and moccasins
embroidered with porcupine quills. His face was painted afresh, and his
scalp lock tied up with red feathers; he was given a pipe and tobacco
pouch and seated upon a bear skin, while one of the chiefs addressed him
in the presence of the assembled warriors. “My son,” so the speech was
interpreted to Smith, “you are now flesh of our flesh and bone of our
bone. You are taken into the Caughnewaga nation, and initiated into a
warlike tribe; you are adopted into a great family... in the room and
place of a great man. After what has passed this day, you are now one
of us by an old strong law and custom. My son, you have now nothing to
fear; we are now under the same obligations to love, support, and defend
you, that we are to love and defend one another; therefore you are to
consider yourself as one of our people.”
A grand feast of boiled venison and green corn followed, and Smith took
part in it on the same terms as all the rest of his tribe and family. In
due time he found out that no word the chief had addressed him was
idly spoken, and he began to live the life of the savages like one of
themselves, under the affectionate care and constant instruction of his
brethren. He was given a gun, at first, and sent to hunt turkeys, but he
came upon the trace of buffalo, and was lured on by the hope of larger
game, and so lost his way. The Indians found him again easily enough,
but as a punishment for his rashness his gun was taken from him, and for
two years he was allowed to carry only a bow and arrows. Once when the
hunters had killed a bear and he went out with a party to bring in the
meat, Smith complained of the weight of his load; the Indians laughed at
him, and to shame him they gave part of his burden to a young squaw
who already had as much as he to carry. At another time, he went to the
fields with some other young men to watch the squaws hoeing corn; one of
these challenged him to take her hoe, and he did so, and hoed for some
time with the women. They were delighted and praised his skill, but when
he came back to the village, the old chiefs rebuked him, telling him
that he was adopted in the place of a great man, and it was unworthy of
him to hoe corn like a squaw.
Smith owns that he never gave them a chance to chide him a second time
for such unseemly behavior. After that he left all the hard work to the
squaws like a true Indian, and guarded his dignity as a hunter. He was
never trusted, or at least he was never asked, to take part in any of
the forays against the white frontier, when from time to time parties
were sent to the Pennsylvania borders to take scalps and steal horses.
It was a sorrowful thing for him when his savage brethren set forth on
these errands of theft and murder among his kindred by race, and it was
long before he could make the least show of returning their affection.
It was not until they gave him back some books which they had brought
him from other prisoners, but had then taken from him for some caprice,
that he says he felt his heart warm towards them. They pretended that
the books had been lost, but declared that they were glad they had been
found, for they knew that he was grieved at the loss of them. “Though
they had been exceedingly kind to me,” he says, “I still as before
detested them, on account of the barbarity I beheld after Braddock’s
defeat. Neither had I ever before pretended kindness, or expressed
myself in a friendly manner; but now I began to excuse the Indians on
account of their want of information.”
The family which Smith had been taken into did not stay long in the
Muskingum country, but began the wandering life of the hunters and
trappers, working northward mostly, and visiting the shores and waters
of Lake Erie. It was all very pleasant and full of a wild charm while
the fine weather lasted, especially for the men, who had nothing to do
but to bring in the game and fish for the squaws to cook and care for.
The squaws made the sugar in the spring; they felled the trees and
fashioned from the barks the troughs to catch the maple sap, which they
boiled down into sugar; they planted and tended the fields of corn and
beans; they did everything that was like work, indoors and out, and
the men did nothing that was not like play or war. While their plenty
lasted, it was for all; when the dearth came, every one shared it.
But in this free, sylvan life there was the grace of an unstinted
hospitality. The stranger was pressed to make the lodge of his host his
home, and he was given the best of his store. One day when his Indian
brother came in from the hunt, Smith told him that a passing Wyandot had
visited their camp, and he had given him roast venison. “And I suppose
you gave him also sugar and bear’s oil to eat with his venison?” Smith
confessed that as the sugar and bear’s oil were in the canoe, he did not
go for them. His brother told him he had behaved just like a Dutchman,
and he asked, “Do you not know that when strangers come to our camp we
are to give them the best we have?” Smith owned that he had been wrong,
and then his brother excused him because he was so young; but he bade
him learn to behave like a warrior, and do great things, and never be
caught in any such mean actions again.
The Indians were as prompt to praise and reward what they thought fine
in him, as to rebuke what they deemed unworthy; and the second winter
that they spent in Northern Ohio, they gave him a gun again for the
courage and endurance he twice showed when he had lost his way from
camp. Once when he was caught in a heavy storm of snow; he passed the
night in the hollow of a tree, which he made snug by blocking it up with
brush and pieces of wood, and by chopping the rotten inside of the trunk
with his hatchet until he had a soft, warm bed. Another time, when he
was looking at his beaver traps he was overtaken by the dark, and kept
himself from freezing by dancing and shouting till daylight. His Indian
friends honored him for his wise behavior, and as they had now beaver
skins enough, they carried them to the French post at Detroit, where
they bought a gun for him. They bought for themselves a keg of brandy,
and they paid Smith the compliment, when he refused to drink, of making
him one of the guards set over the drinkers to keep them from killing
one another. He helped bring them safely through their debauch, but
nothing could prevent their spending all they had got for their beaver
skins in more and more brandy. Then they went back sick and sorry to the
woods again.
The family Smith was taken into was honored for its uncommon virtue and
wisdom. His two brothers, Tontileaugo and Tecaughretanego were men of
great sense, with good heads and good hearts. They treated Smith with
the greatest love and patience, and took him to task with affectionate
mildness when he transgressed the laws of taste or feeling. The Indians
all despised the white settlers, whom they thought stupid and cowardly,
and they expected to drive them beyond the sea. They despised them for
their impiety, and Tecaughretanego once said to Smith, “As you have
lived with the white people, you have not had the same advantage of
knowing that the Great Being above feeds his people and gives them their
meat in due season, as we Indians have, who are wonderfully supplied,
and that so frequently that it is evidently the hand of the Great
Owaneeyo that doeth this; whereas the white people have commonly large
flocks of tame cattle, that they can kill when they please, and also
their barns and cribs filled with grain, and therefore have not the same
opportunity of seeing and knowing that they are supported by the ruler
of Heaven and Earth.”
At this time the Indians were suffering from the famine that their waste
and improvidence had brought upon them; and perhaps Smith might have
said something on the white man’s side. But he had nothing to say when
rebuked for smiling at Tecaughretanego’s sacrifice of the last leaf of
his tobacco to the Great Spirit “Brother, I have something to say to
you, and I hope you will not be offended when I tell you of your faults.
You know that when you were reading your books, I would not let the boys
or any one disturb you; but now when I was praying I saw you laughing.
I do not think you look upon praying as a foolish thing; I believe you
pray yourself. But perhaps you think my mode or manner of prayer
foolish; if so, you ought in a friendly manner to instruct me, and not
make sport of sacred things.”
[Illustration: An Indian Prayer 059L]
The prayer which Tecaughretanego thought ought to have escaped Smith’s
derision was one which he made after he began to get well from a long
sickness; and it was certainly very quaint; but if the Father of all
listens most kindly to those children of his who come to him simply
and humbly, he could not have been displeased with this old Indian’s
petition.
“Oh, Great Being, I thank thee that I have obtained the use of my legs
again, that I am now able to walk about and kill turkeys without feeling
exquisite pain and misery: I know that thou art a hearer and a helper,
and therefore I will call upon thee. _Oh, ho, ho, ho!_ grant that my
ankles and knees may be right well, and that I may be able not only to
walk, but to run and to jump as I did last fall. _Oh, ho, ho, ho!_
grant that on this voyage we may frequently kill bears, as they may be
crossing the Scioto and Sandusky. _Oh, ho, ho, ho!_ grant that we may
kill plenty of turkeys along the banks, to stew with our bear meat. _Oh,
ho, ho, ho!_ grant that rain may come to raise the Olentangy about two
or three feet, that we may cross in safety down to the Scioto, without
danger of our canoe being wrecked on the rocks. And now, oh, Great
Being, thou knowest how matters stand--thou knowest that I am a great
lover of tobacco, and that though I know not when I may get any more,
I now make a present of the last I have unto thee, as a free burnt
offering. Therefore I request that thou wilt hear and grant these
requests, and I thy servant will return thee thanks, and love thee for
thy gifts.”
Smith tells us that a few days after Tecaughretanego made his prayer and
offered up his tobacco, rain came and raised the Olentangy high enough
to let them pass safely into the Scioto. He does not say whether he
thought this was the effect of the old Indian’s piety, but he always
speaks reverently of Tecaughretanego’s religion. He is careful to
impress the reader again and again with the importance of the Indian
family he had been taken into, and with the wisdom as well as the
goodness of Tecaughretanego, who held some such place among the Ottawas,
he says, as Socrates held among the Athenians. He was against the
Indians’ taking part in the war between the French and English; he
believed they ought to leave these to fight out their own quarrels;
and in all the affairs of his people, he favored justice, truth, and
honesty. The Indians, indeed, never stole from one another, but they
thought it quite right to rob even their French allies; and it will help
us to a real understanding of their principles, if we remember that the
good and wise Tecaughretanego is never shown as rebuking the cruelty
and treachery of the war parties in their attacks on the English
settlements. The Indian’s virtues are always for his own tribe; outside
of it, all the crimes are virtues, and it is right to lie, to cheat,
to steal, to kill; as it was with our own ancestors when they lived as
tribes.
Smith was always treated like one of themselves by his Indian brothers,
and he had a deep affection for them. Once, in a time of famine, when
Tecaughretanego lay helpless in his cabin, suffering patiently with
the rheumatism which crippled him, Smith hunted two whole days without
killing any game, and then came home faint with hunger and fatigue.
Tecaughretanego bade his little son bring him a broth which the boy had
made with some wildcat bones left by the buzzards near the camp, and
when Smith had eaten he rebuked him for his despair, and charged him
never again to doubt that God would care for him, because God always
cared for those children of his who trusted in him, as the Indians did,
while the white men trusted in themselves. The next day Smith went out
again, but the noise made by the snow crust breaking under his feet
frightened the deer he saw, and he could not get a shot at them.
Suddenly, he felt that he could bear his captivity no longer, and he
resolved to try and make his way back to Pennsylvania. The Indians might
kill him, long before he could reach home; but if he staid, he must die
of hunger. He hurried ten or twelve miles eastward, when he came upon
fresh buffalo tracks, and soon caught sight of the buffalo. He shot one
of them, but he could not stop to cook the meat, and he ate it almost
raw. Then the thought of the old man and little child whom he had left
starving in the cabin behind him became too much for him. He remembered
what Tecaughretanego had said of God’s care for those who trusted in
him; and he packed up all the meat he could carry, and went back to the
camp. The boy ate ravenously of the half-raw meat, as Smith had done,
but the old man waited patiently till it was well boiled. “Let it be
done enough,” he said, when Smith wished to take off the kettle too
soon; and when they had all satisfied their hunger, he made Smith
a speech upon the duty of receiving the bounty of Owaneeyo with
thankfulness. After this, Smith seems to have had no farther thoughts
of running away, and he made no attempt to escape until he had been four
years in captivity. He was then at Caughnewaga, the old Indian village
which the traveler may still see from his steamboat on the St. Lawrence
River near Montreal. He had come to this place with Tecaughretanego and
his little son in an elm-bark canoe, all the way from Detroit; and now,
hearing that a French ship was at Montreal with English prisoners of
war, he stole away from the Indians and got on board with the rest. The
prisoners were shortly afterwards exchanged, and Smith got home to his
friends early in 1760. They had never known whether he had been killed
or captured, and they were overjoyed to see him, though they found him
quite like an Indian in his walk and bearing.
He married, and settled down on a farm, but he was soon in arms against
the Indians. He served as a lieutenant in Bouquet’s expedition, and
became a colonel of the Revolutionary army. After the war he took his
family to Kentucky, where he lived until he died in 1812. The Indians
left him unmolested in his reading or writing while he was among
them, and he had kept a journal, which he wrote out in the delightful
narrative of his captivity, first published in 1799. He modestly says in
his preface that the chief use he hopes for it is from his observations
on Indian warfare; but these have long ceased to be of practical value,
while his pictures of Indian life and his studies of Indian character
have a charm that will always last.
VI. THE CAPTIVITY OF BOONE AND KENTON.
Colonel Smith was not the first whose captivity was passed in the
Ohio country, but there is no record of any earlier captivity, though
hundreds of captives were given up to Bouquet by the Indians. In spite
of the treaties and promises on both sides, the fighting went on, and
the wilderness was soon again the prison of the white people whom the
savages had torn from their homes. The Ohio tribes harassed the outlying
settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia, whose borders widened westward
with every year; but they were above all incensed against the pioneers
of Kentucky. Ohio was their home; there they had their camps and towns;
there they held their councils and festivals; there they buried their
dead and guarded their graves. But Kentucky was the pleasance of all the
nations, the hunting ground kept free by common consent, and left to the
herds of deer, elk, and buffalo, which ranged the woods and savannas,
and increased for the common use. When the white men discovered this
hunter’s paradise, and began to come back with their families and waste
the game and fell the trees and plow the wild meadows, no wonder the
Indians were furious, and made Kentucky the Dark and Bloody Ground for
the enemies of their whole race, which they had already made it for one
another in the conflicts between the hunting parties of rival tribes.
It maddened them to find the cabins and the forts of the settlers in the
sacred region where no red man dare pitch his wigwam; and they made a
fierce and pitiless effort to drive out the invaders.