LOGAN THE GREAT MINGO (1725-1774)
AND THE EVIL DAYS THAT CAME UPON HIM
During the French-and-Indian war with England, and during the war waged
by Pontiac, there was one prominent chief who did not take up the
hatchet. His name was the English one of John Logan. He was a Mingo,
or Iroquois, of a Cayuga band that had drifted south into east central
Pennsylvania.
There Chief Shikellemus, his father, had settled and had proved himself
a firm friend of the whites. Old Shikellemus invited the Moravian
missionaries to take refuge on his lands. He spoke good English. He
acted as agent between his people and the Province of Pennsylvania. He
was hospitable and shrewd, and ever refused to touch liquor because, as
he said, he "did not wish to become a fool."
His house was elevated on stilts, as protection against the "big
drunks."
About 1725, a second son was born to him and his wife, and named
Tah-gah-jute, meaning "His-eye-lashes-stick-out," or, "Open-eyes." In
admiration of his good friend James Logan, of Philadelphia, secretary
of Pennsylvania, and sometimes acting governor, Chief Shikellemus gave
little Tah-gah-jute the English name of Logan.
As "John Logan" he was known to the settlers.
The wise and upright Shikellemus died--"in the fear of the Lord." His
people scattered wider. Logan his son moved westward, to the Shawnee
and Delaware country of Pennsylvania.
Here he married a Shawnee girl. He set up housekeeping and traded
venison and skins with the white settlers, for powder, ball, and sugar
and flour.
The tide of white blood was surging ever farther into the west, and the
Indians' hunting grounds. Many of the Indians grew uneasy. Pontiac's
Bloody Belt passed from village to village, but the weary and nervous
traveler was always welcome at the cabin of Logan, "friend of the white
man."
A white hunter, Brown, trailing bear in the Pennsylvania timber, laid
aside his rifle and stooped to drink at a spring. Suddenly he saw
mirrored in the clear water the tall figure of an armed Indian,
watching him. Up he sprang, leaped for his gun, leveled it--but the
Indian smiled, knocked the priming from his own gun, and extended his
hand.
This was Logan--"the best specimen of humanity I ever met with, red or
white," wrote Brown. "He could speak a little English, and told me
there was another white hunter a little way down the stream, and guided
me to his camp."
Other stories of Logan's kindnesses to the whites in his country are
told. In the latter part of 1763, a party of white settlers had broken
in upon the refuge of twenty Conestoga Iroquois, in southern
Pennsylvania, and killed every one. The Conestogas were kin to the
other Mingos; but Logan made no war talk about it.
Simon Kenton, one of the most famous scouts of Daniel Boone's time in
Kentucky and Ohio, says that his form was "striking and manly," his
countenance "calm and noble."
Although Logan started out to walk the straight path of peace, sore
days were ahead of him. He moved westward again in 1770, erected a
cabin at the mouth of Beaver Creek, on the Ohio side of the Ohio River
about half way between Pittsburg of Pennsylvania and Wheeling of West
Virginia.
His cabin was kept wide open. Everybody spoke well of Logan. He
removed once more. The new cabin, "home of the white man," was built
on the Sciota River of central Ohio, among the Shawnees of Chief
Cornstalk's tribe. He and Chief Cornstalk were close friends. They
both stood out for peace. But Cornstalk had been a war chief also,
during the Pontiac up-rising. He and his warriors had obeyed the
Bloody Belt. His name, Cornstalk, meant that he was the support of the
Shawnee nation.
Now the evil days of Logan were close at hand.
Since the treaty signed with the twenty-two tribes of Pontiac, in 1765,
there had been general peace between the red men and the white men in
America. This peace was not to continue.
For instance, Bald Eagle, a friendly old Delaware chief, who frequently
came in, by canoe, to trade for tobacco and sugar, was killed, without
cause, by three white men, in southern Pennsylvania. They propped him,
sitting, in the stern of his canoe, thrust a piece of journey-cake, or
corn-bread, into his mouth, and set him afloat down the stream. Many
settlers who knew him well saw him pass and wondered why he did not
stop for a visit. Finally he was found to be dead, and was brought
ashore for burial.
There were bad Indians, too, who murdered and stole. For this, the
good Indians suffered. Western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio were a
wild and lawless country.
Up to 1774 these tit-for-tats had not brought on war. But the French
of Canada and the Great Lakes country still secretly urged the Indians
to drive out the settlers. The Americans were becoming annoyed by the
harsh laws of the English king. There were English officials who
desired an Indian war. That would give the Colonists something else to
think about.
Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, was one of these officials.
He had claim to land extending into Pennsylvania; Fort Pitt, at present
Pittsburg, was garrisoned by Virginia troops, and he wanted to keep
them there, to help his land schemes.
April 25, 1774, he issued a proclamation calling upon the commander at
Fort Pitt to be ready to repel the Indians. The commander called on
the border settlers.
There was great excitement. Almost at once the peace chain that Logan
had received from his father Shikellemus was broken. He and his wife
and relatives, and a number of Shawnees and Delawares, were encamped
along Yellow Creek. This emptied into the Ohio River a few miles below
Beaver Creek, his former home.
On the very day after the commander at Fort Pitt had issued his notice
to the border people to arm, from Wheeling, on the Ohio in West
Virginia, Captain Michael Cresap led a party of militia and
frontiersmen to hunt Indians.
They promptly killed two friendly Shawnees at Pipe Creek, fourteen
miles below Wheeling. The Shawnees had no time in which to make
resistance. The next Indians who were attacked, fired back; one white
man was wounded. Among the Indians killed in these two meetings was a
relative of Logan.
Captain Cresap started north to wipe out Chief Logan's camp. He well
knew that as soon as the word of the killings reached the camp, trouble
might break. On the way his heart failed him. He was a hot-headed
man, he hated Indians--but he balked at shooting women and children.
So he turned aside, with his party.
There were white men not so particular as he. On Baker's Bottom,
opposite the mouth of Yellow Creek, lived Joshua Baker, whose principal
business was that of selling rum to the Indians. In the same
settlement lived Daniel Greathouse--"a ruffian in human shape," and an
enemy to all Indians.
Greathouse, too, was inspired to "strike the post," in the worst Indian
fashion. He gathered thirty-two whites, and hid them in Baker's house.
He feared that the Logan camp had heard of the Cresap killings, so he
crossed over the river, to investigate.
A friendly squaw warned him to go back, or he might be harmed, for the
camp was very angry. Back he went. Because he was afraid to attack
the camp with his thirty-two men, he invited the Indians over, to drink
"peace" with him. He was a rum seller, himself.
On April 30, they came. First a canoe containing six warriors, Logan's
sister, another woman, and a little girl. The warriors were made
drunk, and all but the little girl were butchered.
Across the river Logan heard the shooting. He sent two men in a canoe
to find out what was the matter. They were killed. A larger canoe was
sent. It was ambushed and the survivors fled back to the camp.
Now Logan learned that his sister and brother had been murdered. They
were the last of his blood relatives. That was his reward for having
remained the friend of the white man. That was his reward for having
opened his cabin to the white wayfarer. He went bad, himself. He saw
only red, and he vowed vengeance. A bitter wrath turned his heart
sour. He felt that he must grasp the hatchet, buried so long ago by
his father Shikellemus.
The war spirit blazed high among whites and reds on the frontier. The
whites accused the Indians of many thoughts and deeds--some false, some
true. The Indians accused the whites of many deeds--mainly true.
Block-houses were hastily erected, for the protection of settlers.
Governor Dunmore of Virginia called out troops in earnest. "Dunmore's
War" as well as "Cresap's War" was this named.
The Shawnees, the Delawares, the Mingo Cayugas, the Wyandot Hurons,
held councils in their Scioto River country of central Ohio. Belts
were sent to the Miamis on the west and the Senecas on the east. There
were debates upon striking the Long Knives, as the Virginians were
called.
These Long Knife Americans had crossed the rivers and the mountains,
were possessing themselves of Ohio, and even of Kentucky; much blood
had been shed, and the wiser heads among the tribes did not know
exactly what to do about it.
The great Cornstalk, loved chief of the Shawnees, and now fifty years
in age, lifted his voice for peace. He could see no good in a war
against the Americans. Logan, gnawed by his own wrongs, remained apart
and said little. But the Americans struck first.
Hoping to keep the Indians at home, in June four hundred border men
were ordered by Governor Dunmore of Virginia to attack the villages in
Ohio. They marched west across country until in southern Ohio they
destroyed two Shawnee towns.
The light-skinned Shawnees were known as the fiercest, most stubborn
fighters among all the Algonquins between the Alleghanies and the
Mississippi River. Now their hot natures burst. Chief Cornstalk
yielded.
"It is well," he said. "If you go to war, then I will lead you. If we
fight at all, we must fight together."
But of the Indians it was Logan who first struck the Long Knives. With
only seven warriors he suddenly appeared in Virginia itself. This was
Long Knife country. Here, July 12, he fell upon William Robinson,
Thomas Hellen and Coleman Brown, three settlers who were gathering flax
in their field.
Brown died under the first volley; Hellen and Robinson ran hard.
Hellen was an old man, and easily caught, but William Robinson was
young and strong. Dodging and legging, he had almost reached the
timber. Hearing loud shouting, with English words, behind him, and
fearing a rifle bullet, he turned his head and lunged full tilt into a
tree. Down he dropped, stunned.
After a bit he came to. He was lying, securely tied, hands and feet.
Logan was sitting quietly beside him, waiting for him to waken. The
old man Hellen had not been harmed, either. Logan's party took their
two captives to Logan's town in Ohio--treated them kindly on the way.
"What will be done to us at your town?" asked Robinson.
"You will be made to run the gauntlet," answered Logan. "But if you
listen to my words, you will not be hurt. You must break through the
lines and run to the council house. When you are in the council house,
you will be safe. That will end the gauntlet."
Approaching the Mingo and Shawnee towns, Logan uttered a terrific
scalp-halloo, as signal of success. Warriors hastened out. The
gauntlet was formed. This was two lines of warriors, squaws and
children, armed with sticks, clubs and switches. Through the long,
narrow, living aisle the two prisoners had to make their way.
Remembering Logan's advice, Robinson charged aside, broke through, and
raced for the council house. All out of breath, he reached it ahead of
his howling pursuers. No Indian dared to attack him there. It was
sanctuary.
Poor old Mr. Hellen failed. The lines were stout, the clubs and
switches blinded him; before he had reached the council house a
war-club struck him helpless. He might have been beaten to death had
not Robinson bravely grabbed him and dragged him in.
He had won his life, and was adopted into an Indian family. Now the
Indians were angry with Robinson. They decided to burn him at the
stake.
"Have no fear. You shall not die," asserted Logan.
But matters looked bad. He was tied to the stake. While he stood
there, with the squaws howling around him, he heard Logan speak,
appealing for his life.
"The most powerful orator I've ever listened to," afterward said
Robinson. "His gestures and face were wonderful!"
The warriors still called for fire. The torch was ready, when Logan
sprang angrily forward. With his own hatchet he cut the ropes, and
marching the white captive through the mob landed him in the lodge of
an old squaw. Few chiefs would have dared an act like this, to save
merely a white man, and an enemy.
However, Logan was not yet done. Thirteen of his people, he claimed,
had been killed by the whites; and thirteen white scalps should pay.
Just before he set out on the war-path again, he brought to William
Robinson a goose-quill and some gun-powder.
He bade Robinson sharpen the quill, and with gunpowder-and-water for
ink write a letter.
Captain Cresap:
What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white people
killed my kin at Conestoga, a great while ago, and I thought nothing of
that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took my cousin
prisoner. Then I thought I must kill, too; and I have been three times
to war since; but all the Indians are not angry, only myself.
July 21, 1774. CAPTAIN JOHN LOGAN.
This note was carried clear down into western Virginia, as if to show
how far Logan could reach. It was found tied to a war-club and left at
a plundered settler's cabin.
Logan never would believe but that Michael Cresap had killed the
warriors and women at Yellow Creek. When Captain Cresap heard of this
note, and that he was blamed, he said that he would like to sink his
tomahawk in Daniel Greathouse's head!
Chief Logan was not long in getting his thirteen scalps.
"Now," he announced, "I am satisfied. My relations have been paid for.
I will sit still."
He was not to sit still yet. The hands of the Shawnees grasped the
hatchet very firmly. Forty scalps at a time had been hung in the
Shawnee lodges, but the spirits of their fathers and the ashes of their
towns called for more. The Delawares had not taken payment enough for
the scalp of old Bald Eagle. The Senecas remembered that many years
ago eight of their warriors were attacked by one hundred and fifty Long
Knife soldiers. The Mingos had not forgotten the massacre of the
Conestogas. The Wyandots were red, and hated the white face in the
east.
These nations formed the league of the Northern Confederacy, to defend
themselves. Cornstalk the Shawnee was chosen head chief.