1749-1752
Céleron de Bienville
When the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, the Marquis de la
Galissonière ruled over Canada. Like all the later Canadian governors,
he was a naval officer; and, a few years after, he made himself famous
by a victory, near Minorca, over the English admiral Byng,--an
achievement now remembered chiefly by the fate of the defeated
commander, judicially murdered as the scapegoat of an imbecile ministry.
Galissonière was a humpback; but his deformed person was animated by a
bold spirit and a strong and penetrating intellect. He was the chief
representative of the American policy of France. He felt that, cost what
it might, she must hold fast to Canada, and link her to Louisiana by
chains of forts strong enough to hold back the British colonies, and
cramp their growth by confinement within narrow limits; while French
settlers, sent from the mother-country, should spread and multiply in
the broad valleys of the interior. It is true, he said, that Canada and
her dependencies have always been a burden; but they are necessary as a
barrier against English ambition; and to abandon them is to abandon
ourselves; for if we suffer our enemies to become masters in America,
their trade and naval power will grow to vast proportions, and they will
draw from their colonies a wealth that will make them preponderant in
Europe.[2]
[Footnote 2: La Galissonière, _Mémoire sur les Colonies de la France
dans l'Amêrique septentrionale_.]
The treaty had done nothing to settle the vexed question of boundaries
between France and her rival. It had but staved off the inevitable
conflict. Meanwhile, the English traders were crossing the mountains
from Pennsylvania and Virginia, poaching on the domain which France
claimed as hers, ruining the French fur-trade, seducing the Indian
allies of Canada, and stirring them up against her. Worse still, English
land speculators were beginning to follow. Something must be done, and
that promptly, to drive back the intruders, and vindicate French rights
in the valley of the Ohio. To this end the Governor sent Céloron de
Bienville thither in the summer of 1749.
He was a chevalier de St. Louis and a captain in the colony troops.
Under him went fourteen officers and cadets, twenty soldiers, a hundred
and eighty Canadians, and a band of Indians, all in twenty-three
birch-bark canoes. They left La Chine on the fifteenth of June, and
pushed up the rapids of the St. Lawrence, losing a man and damaging
several canoes on the way. Ten days brought them to the mouth of the
Oswegatchie, where Ogdensburg now stands. Here they found a Sulpitian
priest, Abbé Piquet, busy at building a fort, and lodging for the
present under a shed of bark like an Indian. This enterprising father,
ostensibly a missionary, was in reality a zealous political agent, bent
on winning over the red allies of the English, retrieving French
prestige, and restoring French trade. Thus far he had attracted but two
Iroquois to his new establishment; and these he lent to Céloron.
Reaching Lake Ontario, the party stopped for a time at the French fort
of Frontenac, but avoided the rival English post of Oswego, on the
southern shore, where a trade in beaver skins, disastrous to French
interests, was carried on, and whither many tribes, once faithful to
Canada, now made resort. On the sixth of July Céloron reached Niagara.
This, the most important pass of all the western wilderness, was guarded
by a small fort of palisades on the point where the river joins the
lake. Thence, the party carried their canoes over the portage road by
the cataract, and launched them upon Lake Erie. On the fifteenth they
landed on the lonely shore where the town of Portland now stands; and
for the next seven days were busied in shouldering canoes and baggage up
and down the steep hills, through the dense forest of beech, oak, ash,
and elm, to the waters of Chautauqua Lake, eight or nine miles distant.
Here they embarked again, steering southward over the sunny waters, in
the stillness and solitude of the leafy hills, till they came to the
outlet, and glided down the peaceful current in the shade of the tall
forests that overarched it. This prosperity was short. The stream was
low, in spite of heavy rains that had drenched them on the carrying
place. Father Bonnecamp, chaplain of the expedition, wrote, in his
Journal: "In some places--and they were but too frequent--the water was
only two or three inches deep; and we were reduced to the sad necessity
of dragging our canoes over the sharp pebbles, which, with all our care
and precaution, stripped off large slivers of the bark. At last, tired
and worn, and almost in despair of ever seeing La Belle Rivière, we
entered it at noon of the 29th." The part of the Ohio, or "La Belle
Rivière," which they had thus happily reached, is now called the
Alleghany. The Great West lay outspread before them, a realm of wild and
waste fertility.
French America had two heads,--one among the snows of Canada, and one
among the canebrakes of Louisiana; one communicating with the world
through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the other through the Gulf of
Mexico. These vital points were feebly connected by a chain of military
posts,--slender, and often interrupted,--circling through the wilderness
nearly three thousand miles. Midway between Canada and Louisiana lay the
valley of the Ohio. If the English should seize it, they would sever the
chain of posts, and cut French America asunder. If the French held it,
and entrenched themselves well along its eastern limits, they would shut
their rivals between the Alleghanies and the sea, control all the tribes
of the West, and turn them, in case of war, against the English
borders,--a frightful and insupportable scourge.
The Indian population of the Ohio and its northern tributaries was
relatively considerable. The upper or eastern half of the valley was
occupied by mingled hordes of Delawares, Shawanoes, Wyandots, and
Iroquois, or Indians of the Five Nations, who had migrated thither from
their ancestral abodes within the present limits of the State of New
York, and who were called Mingoes by the English traders. Along with
them were a few wandering Abenakis, Nipissings, and Ottawas. Farther
west, on the waters of the Miami, the Wabash, and other neighboring
streams, was the seat of a confederacy formed of the various bands of
the Miamis and their kindred or affiliated tribes. Still farther west,
towards the Mississippi, were the remnants of the Illinois.
France had done but little to make good her claims to this grand domain.
East of the Miami she had no military post whatever. Westward, on the
Maumee, there was a small wooden fort, another on the St. Joseph, and
two on the Wabash. On the meadows of the Mississippi, in the Illinois
country, stood Fort Chartres,--a much stronger work, and one of the
chief links of the chain that connected Quebec with New Orleans. Its
four stone bastions were impregnable to musketry; and, here in the
depths of the wilderness, there was no fear that cannon would be brought
against it. It was the centre and citadel of a curious little forest
settlement, the only vestige of civilization through all this region. At
Kaskaskia, extended along the borders of the stream, were seventy or
eighty French houses; thirty or forty at Cahokia, opposite the site of
St. Louis; and a few more at the intervening hamlets of St. Philippe and
Prairie à la Roche,--a picturesque but thriftless population, mixed with
Indians, totally ignorant, busied partly with the fur-trade, and partly
with the raising of corn for the market of New Orleans. They
communicated with it by means of a sort of row galley, of eighteen or
twenty oars, which made the voyage twice a year, and usually spent ten
weeks on the return up the river.[3]
[Footnote 3: Gordon, _Journal_, 1766, appended to Pownall,
_Topographical Description_. In the Dépôt des Cartes de la Marine at
Paris, C. 4,040, are two curious maps of the Illinois colony, made a
little after the middle of the century. In 1753 the Marquis Duquesne
denounced the colonists as debauched and lazy.]
The Pope and the Bourbons had claimed this wilderness for seventy years,
and had done scarcely more for it than the Indians, its natural owners.
Of the western tribes, even of those living at the French posts, the
Hurons or Wyandots alone were Christian.[4] The devoted zeal of the
early missionaries and the politic efforts of their successors had
failed alike. The savages of the Ohio and the Mississippi, instead of
being tied to France by the mild bonds of the faith, were now in a state
which the French called defection or revolt; that is, they received and
welcomed the English traders.
[Footnote 4: "De toutes les nations domiciliées dans les postes des pays
d'en haut, il n'y a que les hurons du détroit qui aient embrassé la
Réligion chretienne." _Mémoirs du Roy pour servir d'instruction au S'r.
Marqius de Lajonquière_.]
These traders came in part from Virginia, but chiefly from Pennsylvania.
Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, says of them: "They appear to me to be
in general a set of abandoned wretches;" and Hamilton, governor of
Pennsylvania, replies: "I concur with you in opinion that they are a
very licentious people.[5] Indian traders, of whatever nation, are
rarely models of virtue; and these, without doubt, were rough and
lawless men, with abundant blackguardism and few scruples. Not all of
them, however, are to be thus qualified. Some were of a better stamp;
among whom were Christopher Gist, William Trent, and George Croghan.
These and other chief traders hired men on the frontiers, crossed the
Alleghanies with goods packed on the backs of horses, descended into the
valley of the Ohio, and journeyed from stream to stream and village to
village along the Indian trails, with which all this wilderness was
seamed, and which the traders widened to make them practicable. More
rarely, they carried their goods on horses to the upper waters of the
Ohio, and embarked them in large wooden canoes, in which they descended
the main river, and ascended such of its numerous tributaries as were
navigable. They were bold and enterprising; and French writers, with
alarm and indignation, declare that some of them had crossed the
Mississippi and traded with the distant Osages. It is said that about
three hundred of them came over the mountains every year.
[Footnote 5: _Dinwiddie to Hamilton, 21 May, 1753. Hamilton to
Dinwiddie,--May, 1753._]
On reaching the Alleghany, Céleron de Bienville entered upon the work
assigned him, and began by taking possession of the country. The men
were drawn up in order; Louis XV. was proclaimed lord of all that
region, the arms of France, stamped on a sheet of tin, were nailed to a
tree, a plate of lead was buried at its foot, and the notary of the
expedition drew up a formal act of the whole proceeding. The leaden
plate was inscribed as follows: "Year 1749, in the reign of Louis
Fifteenth, King of France. We, Céleron, commanding the detachment sent
by the Marquis de la Galissonière, commander-general of New France, to
restore tranquillity in certain villages of these cantons, have buried
this plate at the confluence of the Ohio and the Kanaouagon
_[Conewango],_ this 29th July, as a token of renewal of possession
heretofore taken of the aforesaid River Ohio, of all streams that fall
into it, and all lands on both sides to the source of the aforesaid
streams, as the preceding Kings of France have enjoyed or ought to have
enjoyed it, and which they have upheld by force of arms and by treaties,
notably by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle."
This done, the party proceeded on its way, moving downward with the
current, and passing from time to time rough openings in the forest,
with clusters of Indian wigwams, the inmates of which showed a strong
inclination to run off at their approach. To prevent this, Chabert de
Joncaire was sent in advance, as a messenger of peace. He was himself
half Indian, being the son of a French officer and a Seneca squaw,
speaking fluently his maternal tongue, and, like his father, holding an
important place in all dealings between the French and the tribes who
spoke dialects of the Iroquois. On this occasion his success was not
complete. It needed all his art to prevent the alarmed savages from
taking to the woods. Sometimes, however, Céloron succeeded in gaining
an audience; and at a village of Senecas called La Paille Coupée he read
them a message from La Galissonière couched in terms sufficiently
imperative: "My children, since I was at war with the English, I have
learned that they have seduced you; and not content with corrupting your
hearts, have taken advantage of my absence to invade lands which are not
theirs, but mine; and therefore I have resolved to send you Monsieur de
Céloron to tell you my intentions, which are that I will not endure the
English on my land. Listen to me, children; mark well the word that I
send you; follow my advice, and the sky will always be calm and clear
over your villages. I expect from you an answer worthy of true
children." And he urged them to stop all trade with the intruders, and
send them back to whence they came. They promised compliance; "and,"
says the chaplain, Bonnecamp, "we should all have been satisfied if we
had thought them sincere; but nobody doubted that fear had extorted
their answer."
Four leagues below French Creek, by a rock scratched with Indian
hieroglyphics, they buried another leaden plate. Three days after, they
reached the Delaware village of Attiqué, at the site of Kittanning,
whose twenty-two wigwams were all empty, the owners having fled. A
little farther on, at an old abandoned village of Shawanoes, they found
six English traders, whom they warned to begone, and return no more at
their peril. Being helpless to resist, the traders pretended obedience;
and Céloron charged them with a letter to the Governor of Pennsylvania,
in which he declared that he was "greatly surprised" to find Englishmen
trespassing on the domain of France. "I know," concluded the letter,
"that our Commandant-General would be very sorry to be forced to use
violence; but his orders are precise, to leave no foreign traders within
the limits of his government."[6]
[Footnote 6: Céloron, _Journal_. Compare the letter as translated in
_N.Y. Col. Docs_., VI. 532; also _Colonial Records of Pa_., V. 325.]
On the next day they reached a village of Iroquois under a female chief,
called Queen Alequippa by the English, to whom she was devoted. Both
Queen and subjects had fled; but among the deserted wigwams were six
more Englishmen, whom Céloron warned off like the others, and who, like
them, pretended to obey. At a neighboring town they found only two
withered ancients, male and female, whose united ages, in the judgment
of the chaplain, were full two centuries. They passed the site of the
future Pittsburg; and some seventeen miles below approached Chininguée,
called Logstown by the English, one of the chief places on the river.[7]
Both English and French flags were flying over the town, and the
inhabitants, lining the shore, greeted their visitors with a salute of
musketry,--not wholly welcome, as the guns were charged will ball.
Céloron threatened to fire on them if they did not cease. The French
climbed the steep bank, and encamped on the plateau above, betwixt the
forest and the village, which consisted of some fifty cabins and
wigwams, grouped in picturesque squalor, and tenanted by a mixed
population, chiefly of Delawares, Shawanoes, and Mingoes. Here, too,
were gathered many fugitives from the deserted towns above. Céloron
feared a night attack. The camp was encircled by a ring of sentries; the
officers walked the rounds till morning; a part of the men were kept
under arms, and the rest ordered to sleep in their clothes. Joncaire
discovered through some women of his acquaintance that an attack was
intended. Whatever the danger may have been, the precautions of the
French averted it; and instead of a battle, there was a council. Céloron
delivered to the assembled chiefs a message from the Governor more
conciliatory than the former, "Through the love I bear you, my children,
I send you Monsieur de Céloron to open your eyes to the designs of the
English against your lands. The establishments they mean to make, and of
which you are certainly ignorant, tend to your complete ruin. They hide
from you their plans, which are to settle here and drive you away, if I
let them. As a good father who tenderly loves his children, and though
far away from them bears them always in his heart, I must warn you of
the danger that threatens you. The English intend to rob you of your
country; and that they may succeed, they begin by corrupting your minds.
As they mean to seize the Ohio, which belongs to me, I send to warn them
to retire."
[Footnote 7: There was another Chiningué, the Shenango of the English,
on the Alleghany.]
The reply of the chiefs, though sufficiently humble, was not all that
could be wished. They begged that the intruders might stay a little
longer, since the goods they brought were necessary to them. It was in
fact, these goods, cheap, excellent, and abundant as they were, which
formed the only true bond between the English and the Western tribes.
Logstown was one of the chief resorts of the English traders; and at
this moment there were ten of them in the place. Céloron warned them
off. "They agreed," says the chaplain, "to all that was demanded, well
resolved, no doubt, to do the contrary as soon as our backs were
turned."
Having distributed gifts among the Indians, the French proceeded on
their way, and at or near the mouth of Wheeling Creek buried another
plate of lead. They repeated the same ceremony at the mouth of the
Muskingum. Here, half a century later, when this region belonged to the
United States, a party of boys, bathing in the river, saw the plate
protruding from the bank where the freshets had laid it bare, knocked it
down with a long stick, melted half of it into bullets, and gave what
remained to a neighbor from Marietta, who, hearing of this mysterious
relic, inscribed in an unknown tongue, came to rescue it from their
hands.[8] It is now in the cabinet of the American Antiquarian
Society.[9] On the eighteenth of August, Céloron buried yet another
plate, at the mouth of the Great Kenawha. This, too, in the course of a
century, was unearthed by the floods, and was found in 1846 by a boy at
play, by the edge of the water.[10] The inscriptions on all these plates
were much alike, with variations of date and place.
[Footnote 8: O.H. Marshall, in _Magazine of American History, March,_
1878.]
[Footnote 9: For papers relating to it, see _Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soc_.,
II.]
[Footnote 10: For a facsimile of the inscription on this plate, see
_Olden Time,_ I. 288. Céloron calls the Kenawha, _Chinodahichetha_. The
inscriptions as given in his Journal correspond with those on the plates
discovered.]
The weather was by turns rainy and hot; and the men, tired and famished,
were fast falling ill. On the twenty-second they approached Scioto,
called by the French St. Yotoc, or Sinioto, a large Shawanoe town at the
mouth of the river which bears the same name. Greatly doubting what
welcome awaited them, they filled their powderhorns and prepared for the
worst. Joncaire was sent forward to propitiate the inhabitants; but they
shot bullets through the flag that he carried, and surrounded him,
yelling and brandishing their knives. Some were for killing him at once;
others for burning him alive. The interposition of a friendly Iroquois
saved him; and at length they let him go. Céloron was very uneasy at the
reception of his messenger. "I knew," he writes, "the weakness of my
party, two thirds of which were young men who had never left home
before, and would all have run at the sight of ten Indians. Still, there
was nothing for me but to keep on; for I was short of provisions, my
canoes were badly damaged, and I had no pitch or bark to mend them. So I
embarked again, ready for whatever might happen. I had good officers,
and about fifty men who could be trusted."
As they neared the town, the Indians swarmed to the shore, and began the
usual salute of musketry. "They fired," says Céloron, "full a thousand
shots; for the English give them powder for nothing." He prudently
pitched his camp on the farther side of the river, posted guards, and
kept close watch. Each party distrusted and feared the other. At length,
after much ado, many debates, and some threatening movements on the part
of the alarmed and excited Indians, a council took place at the tent of
the French commander; the chiefs apologized for the rough treatment of
Joncaire, and Céloron replied with a rebuke, which would doubtless have
been less mild, had he felt himself stronger. He gave them also a
message from the Governor, modified, apparently, to suit the
circumstances; for while warning them of the wiles of the English, it
gave no hint that the King of France claimed mastery of their lands.
Their answer was vague and unsatisfactory. It was plain that they were
bound to the enemy by interest, if not by sympathy. A party of English
traders were living in the place; and Céloron summoned them to withdraw,
on pain of what might ensue. "My instructions," he says, "enjoined me to
do this, and even to pillage the English; but I was not strong enough;
and as these traders were established in the village and well supported
by the Indians, the attempt would have failed, and put the French to
shame." The assembled chiefs having been regaled with a cup of brandy
each,--the only part of the proceeding which seemed to please
them,--Céloron reimbarked, and continued his voyage.
On the thirtieth they reached the Great Miami, called by the French,
Rivière à la Roche; and here Céloron buried the last of his leaden
plates. They now bade farewell to the Ohio, or, in the words of the
chaplain, to "La Belle Rivière,--that river so little known to the
French, and unfortunately too well known to the English." He speaks of
the multitude of Indian villages on its shores, and still more on its
northern branches. "Each, great or small, has one or more English
traders, and each of these has hired men to carry his furs. Behold,
then, the English well advanced upon our lands, and, what is worse,
under the protection of a crowd of savages whom they have drawn over to
them, and whose number increases daily."
The course of the party lay up the Miami; and they toiled thirteen days
against the shallow current before they reached a village of the Miami
Indians, lately built at the mouth of the rivulet now called Loramie
Creek. Over it ruled a chief to whom the French had given the singular
name of La Demoiselle, but whom the English, whose fast friend he was,
called Old Britain. The English traders who lived here had prudently
withdrawn, leaving only two hired men in the place. The object of
Cèloron was to induce the Demoiselle and his band to leave this new
abode and return to their old villages near the French fort on the
Maumee, where they would be safe from English seduction. To this end, he
called them to a council, gave them ample gifts, and made them an
harangue in the name of the Governor. The Demoiselle took the gifts,
thanked his French father for his good advice, and promised to follow it
at a more convenient time.[11] In vain Céloron insisted that he and his
tribesmen should remove at once. Neither blandishments nor threats would
prevail, and the French commander felt that his negotiation had failed.
[Footnote 11: Céloron, _Journal_. Compare _A Message from the
Twightwees_ (Miamis) in _Colonial Records of Pa_., V. 437, where they
say that they refused the gifts.]
He was not deceived. Far from leaving his village, the Demoiselle, who
was Great Chief of the Miami Confederacy, gathered his followers to the
spot, till, less than two years after the visit of Céloron, its
population had increased eightfold. Pique Town, or Pickawillany, as the
English called it, became one of the greatest Indian towns of the West,
the centre of English trade and influence, and a capital object of
French jealousy.
Céloron burned his shattered canoes, and led his party across the long
and difficult portage to the French post on the Maumee, where he found
Raymond, the commander, and all his men, shivering with fever and ague.
They supplied him with wooden canoes for his voyage down the river; and,
early in October, he reached Lake Erie, where he was detained for a time
by a drunken debauch of his Indians, who are called by the chaplain "a
species of men made to exercise the patience of those who have the
misfortune to travel with them." In a month more he was at Fort
Frontenac; and as he descended thence to Montreal, he stopped at the
Oswegatchie, in obedience to the Governor, who had directed him to
report the progress made by the Sulpitian, Abbé Piquet, at his new
mission. Piquet's new fort had been burned by Indians, prompted, as he
thought, by the English of Oswego; but the priest, buoyant and
undaunted, was still resolute for the glory of God and the confusion of
the heretics.
At length Céloron reached Montreal; and, closing his Journal, wrote
thus: "Father Bonnecamp, who is a Jesuit and a great mathematician,
reckons that we have travelled twelve hundred leagues; I and my officers
think we have travelled more. All I can say is, that the nations of
these countries are very ill-disposed towards the French, and devoted
entirely to the English."[12] If his expedition had done no more, it had
at least revealed clearly the deplorable condition of French interests
in the West.
[Footnote 12: _Journal de la Campagne que moy Céloron, Chevalier de
l'Ordre Royal et Militaire de St. Louis, Capitaine Commandant un
détachement envoyé dans la Belle Rivière par les ordres de M. le Marquis
de La Galissonière_, etc.
_Relation d'un voyage dans la Belle Rivière sous les ordres de M. de
Céloron, par le Père Bonnecamp, en_ 1749.]
While Céloron was warning English traders from the Ohio, a plan was on
foot in Virginia for a new invasion of the French domain. An association
was formed to settle the Ohio country; and a grant of five hundred
thousand acres was procured from the King, on condition that a hundred
families should be established upon it within seven years, a fort built,
and a garrison maintained. The Ohio Company numbered among its members
some of the chief men of Virginia, including two brothers of Washington;
and it had also a London partner, one Hanbury, a person of influence,
who acted as its agent in England. In the year after the expedition of
Céloron, its governing committee sent the trader Christopher Gist to
explore the country and select land. It must be "good level land," wrote
the Committee; "we had rather go quite down to the Mississippi than take
mean, broken land."[13] In November Gist reached Logstown, the Chiningué
of Céleron, where he found what he calls a "parcel of reprobate Indian
traders." Those whom he so stigmatizes were Pennsylvanians, chiefly
Scotch-Irish, between whom and the traders from Virginia there was great
jealousy. Gist was told that he "should never go home safe." He declared
himself the bearer of a message from the King. This imposed respect, and
he was allowed to proceed. At the Wyandot village of Muskingum he found
the trader George Croghan, sent to the Indians by the Governor of
Pennsylvania, to renew the chain of friendship.[14] "Croghan," he says,
"is a mere idol among his countrymen, the Irish traders;" yet they met
amicably, and the Pennsylvanian had with him a companion, Andrew
Montour, the interpreter, who proved of great service to Gist. As
Montour was a conspicuous person in his time, and a type of his class,
he merits a passing notice. He was the reputed grandson of a French
governor and an Indian squaw. His half-breed mother, Catharine Montour,
was a native of Canada, whence she was carried off by the Iroquois, and
adopted by them. She lived in a village at the head of Seneca Lake, and
still held the belief, inculcated by the guides of her youth, that
Christ was a Frenchman crucified by the English.[15] Her son Andrew is
thus described by the Moravian Zinzendorf, who knew him: "His face is
like that of a European, but marked with a broad Indian ring of
bear's-grease and paint drawn completely round it. He wears a coat of
fine cloth of cinnamon color, a black necktie with silver spangles, a
red satin waistcoat, trousers over which hangs his shirt, shoes and
stockings, a hat, and brass ornaments, something like the handle of a
basket, suspended from his ears."[16] He was an excellent interpreter,
and held in high account by his Indian kinsmen.
[Footnote 13: Instructions to Gist, in appendix to Pownall,
_Topographical Description of North America_.]
[Footnote 14: _Mr. Croghan's Transactions with the Indians_, in _N.Y.
Col. Docs.,_ VII. 267; _Croghan to Hamilton, 16 Dec_. 1750.]
[Footnote 15: This is stated by Count Zinzendorf, who visited her among
the Senecas. In a plan of the "Route of the Western Army," made in 1779,
and of which a tracing is before me, the village where she lived is
still called "French Catharine's Town."]
[Footnote 16: Journal of Zinzendorf, quoted in Schweinitz, _Life of
David Zeisberger, 112, note_.]
After leaving Muskingum, Gist, Croghan, and Montour went together to a
village on White Woman's Creek,--so called from one Mary Harris, who
lived here. She was born in New England, was made prisoner when a child
forty years before, and had since dwelt among her captors, finding such
comfort as she might in an Indian husband and a family of young
half-breeds. "She still remembers," says Gist, "that they used to be
very religious in New England, and wonders how white men can be so
wicked as she has seen them in these woods." He and his companions now
journeyed southwestward to the Shawanoe town at the mouth of the
Scioto, where they found a reception very different from that which had
awaited Céloron. Thence they rode northwestward along the forest path
that led to Pickawillany, the Indian town on the upper waters of the
Great Miami. Gist was delighted with the country; and reported to his
employers that "it is fine, rich, level land, well timbered with large
walnut, ash, sugar trees and cherry trees; well watered with a great
number of little streams and rivulets; full of beautiful natural
meadows, with wild rye, blue-grass, and clover, and abounding with
turkeys, deer, elks, and most sorts of game, particularly buffaloes,
thirty or forty of which are frequently seen in one meadow." A little
farther west, on the plains of the Wabash and the Illinois, he would
have found them by thousands.
They crossed the Miami on a raft, their horses swimming after them; and
were met on landing by a crowd of warriors, who, after smoking with
them, escorted them to the neighboring town, where they were greeted by
a fusillade of welcome. "We entered with English colors before us, and
were kindly received by their king, who invited us into his own house
and set our colors upon the top of it; then all the white men and
traders that were there came and welcomed us." This "king" was Old
Britain, or La Demoiselle. Great were the changes here since Céleron, a
year and a half before, had vainly enticed him to change his abode, and
dwell in the shadow of the fleur-de-lis. The town had grown to four
hundred families, or about two thousand souls; and the English traders
had built for themselves and their hosts a fort of pickets, strengthened
with logs.
There was a series of councils in the long house, or town-hall. Croghan
made the Indians a present from the Governor of Pennsylvania; and he and
Gist delivered speeches of friendship and good advice, which the
auditors received with the usual monosyllabic plaudits, ejected from the
depths of their throats. A treaty of peace was solemnly made between the
English and the confederate tribes, and all was serenity and joy; till
four Ottawas, probably from Detroit, arrived with a French flag, a gift
of brandy and tobacco, and a message from the French commandant inviting
the Miamis to visit him. Whereupon the great war-chief rose, and, with
"a fierce tone and very warlike air," said to the envoys: "Brothers the
Ottawas, we let you know, by these four strings of wampum, that we will
not hear anything the French say, nor do anything they bid us." Then
addressing the French as if actually present: "Fathers, we have made a
road to the sun-rising, and have been taken by the hand by our brothers
the English, the Six Nations, the Delawares, Shawanoes, and
Wyandots.[17] We assure you, in that road we will go; and as you
threaten us with war in the spring, we tell you that we are ready to
receive you." Then, turning again to the four envoys: "Brothers the
Ottawas, you hear what I say. Tell that to your fathers the French, for
we speak it from our hearts." The chiefs then took down the French flag
which the Ottawas had planted in the town, and dismissed the envoys with
their answer of defiance.
[Footnote 17: Compare _Message of Miamis and Hurons to the Governor of
Pennsylvania_ in _N.Y. Col. Docs_., VI. 594; and _Report of Croghan_ in
_Colonial Records of Pa_., V. 522, 523.]
On the next day the town-crier came with a message from the Demoiselle,
inviting his English guests to a "feather dance," which Gist thus
describes: "It was performed by three dancing-masters, who were painted
all over of various colors, with long sticks in their hands, upon the
ends of which were fastened long feathers of swans and other birds,
neatly woven in the shape of a fowl's wing; in this disguise they
performed many antic tricks, waving their sticks and feathers about with
great skill, to imitate the flying and fluttering of birds, keeping
exact time with their music." This music was the measured thumping of an
Indian drum. From time to time, a warrior would leap up, and the drum
and the dancers would cease as he struck a post with his tomahawk, and
in a loud voice recounted his exploits. Then the music and the dance
began anew, till another warrior caught the martial fire, and bounded
into the circle to brandish his tomahawk and vaunt his prowess.
On the first of March Gist took leave of Pickawillany, and returned
towards the Ohio. He would have gone to the Falls, where Louisville now
stands, but for a band of French Indians reported to be there, who would
probably have killed him. After visiting a deposit of mammoth bones on
the south shore, long the wonder of the traders, he turned eastward,
crossed with toil and difficulty the mountains about the sources of the
Kenawha, and after an absence of seven months reached his frontier home
on the Yadkin, whence he proceeded to Roanoke with the report of his
journey.[18]
[Footnote 18: _Journal of Christopher Gist_, in appendix to Pownall,
_Topographical Description. Mr. Croghan's Transactions with the Indians_
in _N.Y. Col. Docs_., VII. 267.]
All looked well for the English in the West; but under this fair outside
lurked hidden danger. The Miamis were hearty in the English cause, and
so perhaps were the Shawanoes; but the Delawares had not forgotten the
wrongs that drove them from their old abodes east of the Alleghanies,
while the Mingoes, or emigrant Iroquois, like their brethren of New
York, felt the influence of Joncaire and other French agents, who spared
no efforts to seduce them.[19] Still more baneful to British interests
were the apathy and dissensions of the British colonies themselves. The
Ohio Company had built a trading-house at Will's Creek, a branch of the
Potomac, to which the Indians resorted in great numbers; whereupon the
jealous traders of Pennsylvania told them that the Virginians meant to
steal away their lands. This confirmed what they had been taught by the
French emissaries, whose intrigues it powerfully aided. The governors of
New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia saw the importance of Indian
alliances, and felt their own responsibility in regard to them; but they
could do nothing without their assemblies. Those of New York and
Pennsylvania were largely composed of tradesmen and farmers, absorbed in
local interests, and possessed by two motives,--the saving of the
people's money, and opposition to the governor, who stood for the royal
prerogative. It was Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, who had sent Croghan to
the Miamis to "renew the chain of friendship;" and when the envoy
returned, the Assembly rejected his report. "I was condemned," he says,
"for bringing expense on the Government, and the Indians were
neglected."[20]
[Footnote 19: Joncaire made anti-English speeches to the Ohio Indians
under the eyes of the English themselves, who did not molest him.
_Journal of George Croghan_, 1751, in _Olden Time, I_. 136.]
[Footnote 20: _Mr. Croghan's Transactions with the Indians, N.Y. Col.
Docs.,_ VII. 267.]
In the same year Hamilton again sent him over the mountains, with a
present for the Mingoes and Delawares. Croghan succeeded in persuading
them that it would be for their good if the English should build a
fortified trading-house at the fork of the Ohio, where Pittsburg now
stands; and they made a formal request to the Governor that it should be
built accordingly. But, in the words of Croghan, the Assembly "rejected
the proposal, and condemned me for making such a report." Yet this post
on the Ohio was vital to English interests. Even the Penns,
proprietaries of the province, never lavish of their money, offered four
hundred pounds towards the cost of it, besides a hundred a year towards
its maintenance; but the Assembly would not listen.[21] The Indians were
so well convinced that a strong English trading-station in their country
would add to their safety and comfort, that when Pennsylvania refused
it, they repeated the proposal to Virginia; but here, too, it found for
the present little favor.
[Footnote 21: _Colonial Records of Pa_., V. 515, 529, 547. At a council
at Logstown (1751), the Indians said to Croghan: "The French want to
cheat us out of our country; but we will stop them, and, Brothers the
English, you must help us. We expect that you will build a strong house
on the River Ohio, that in case of war we may have a place to secure our
wives and children, likewise our brothers that come to trade with us."
_Report of Treaty at Logstown, Ibid_., V. 538.]
The question of disputed boundaries had much to do with this most
impolitic inaction. A large part of the valley of the Ohio, including
the site of the proposed establishment, was claimed by both Pennsylvania
and Virginia; and each feared that whatever money it might spend there
would turn to the profit of the other. This was not the only evil that
sprang from uncertain ownership. "Till the line is run between the two
provinces," says Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, "I cannot appoint
magistrates to keep the traders in good order."[22] Hence they did what
they pleased, and often gave umbrage to the Indians. Clinton, of New
York, appealed to his Assembly for means to assist Pennsylvania in
"securing the fidelity of the Indians on the Ohio," and the Assembly
refused.[23] "We will take care of our Indians, and they may take care
of theirs:" such was the spirit of their answer. He wrote to the various
provinces, inviting them to send commissioners to meet the tribes at
Albany, "in order to defeat the designs and intrigues of the French."
All turned a deaf ear except Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South
Carolina, who sent the commissioners, but supplied them very meagrely
with the indispensable presents.[24] Clinton says further: "The Assembly
of this province have not given one farthing for Indian affairs, nor for
a year past have they provided for the subsistence of the garrison at
Oswego, which is the key for the commerce between the colonies and the
inland nations of Indians."[25]
[Footnote 22: _Dinwiddie to the Lords of Trade, 6 Oct_. 1752.]
[Footnote 23: _Journals of New York Assembly_, II. 283, 284. _Colonial
Records of Pa_., V. 466.]
[Footnote 24: _Clinton to Hamilton, 18 Dec. 1750. Clinton to Lords of
Trade, 13 June, 1751; Ibid., 17 July_, 1751.]
[Footnote 25: _Clinton to Bedford, 30 July_, 1750.]
In the heterogeneous structure of the British colonies, their clashing
interests, their internal disputes, and the misplaced economy of
penny-wise and short-sighted assembly-men, lay the hope of France. The
rulers of Canada knew the vast numerical preponderance of their rivals;
but with their centralized organization they felt themselves more than a
match for any one English colony alone. They hoped to wage war under the
guise of peace, and to deal with the enemy in detail; and they at length
perceived that the fork of the Ohio, so strangely neglected by the
English, formed, together with Niagara, the key of the Great West. Could
France hold firmly these two controlling passes, she might almost boast
herself mistress of the continent.
NOTE: The Journal of Céloron (Archives de la Marine) is very long and
circumstantial, including the _procès verbaux_, and reports of councils
with Indians. The Journal of the chaplain, Bonnecamp (Dépôt de la
Marine), is shorter, but is the work of an intelligent and observing
man. The author, a Jesuit, was skilled in mathematics, made daily
observations, and constructed a map of the route, still preserved at the
Dépôt de la Marine. Concurrently with these French narratives, one may
consult the English letters and documents bearing on the same subjects,
in the Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, the Archives of Pennsylvania,
and the Colonial Documents of New York.
Three of Céleron's leaden plates have been found,--the two mentioned in
the text, and another which was never buried, and which the Indians, who
regarded these mysterious tablets as "bad medicine," procured by a trick
from Joncaire, or, according to Governor Clinton, stole from him. A
Cayuga chief brought it to Colonel Johnson, on the Mohawk, who
interpreted the "Devilish writing" in such a manner as best to inspire
horror of French designs.