RED MAN AGAINST WHITE MAN
The borderers in the Valley of Virginia and on the western highlands of
the Carolinas were largely engaged in raising horses, cattle, sheep, and
hogs, which grazed at will upon the broad slopes of the eastern
foot-hills of the Alleghanies, most of them being in as wild a state as
the great roving herds now to be seen upon the semi-arid plains of the
far West. Indeed, there are some strong points of resemblance between
the life of the frontier herdsman of the middle of the eighteenth
century and that of the "cow" ranchers of our own day, although the most
primitive conditions now existing would have seemed princely to Daniel
Boone. The annual round-up, the branding of young stock, the sometimes
deadly disputes between herdsmen, and the autumnal drive to market, are
features in common.
With the settlement of the valleys and the steady increase in the
herds, it was necessary each season to find new pastures. Thus the
herdsmen pushed farther and farther into the wilderness to the south and
west, and actually crossed the mountains at many points. Even before the
arrival of the Boones, the Bryans had frequently, toward the end of
summer, as the lower pastures thinned, driven their stock to a distance
of sixty and seventy miles to green valleys lying between the western
buttresses of the mountain wall.
This gradual pressure upon the hunting-grounds of the Cherokees and the
Catawbas was not unnoticed by the tribesmen. There had long been heard
deep mutterings, especially by the former, who were well-disposed toward
the ever-meddling French; but until the year of Daniel Boone's wedding
the southern frontiers had not known an Indian uprising.
The year previous (1755) the Cherokees had given reluctant permission to
the whites to build two posts in their country for the protection of the
frontiers against the French, who, with their Indian allies, were
continually active against the New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia
frontiers, and were known to be attempting the corruption of the
Southern Indians. Fort Prince George was accordingly erected upon the
Savannah River, and Fort Loudon upon the Tennessee. In 1756 Fort Dobbs
was constructed a short distance south of the South Fork of the Yadkin.
These three centers of refuge were upon the extreme southwestern borders
of the English colonies.
These "forts" of the American border would have proved slight defenses
in the presence of an enemy armed with even the lightest artillery, but
were generally sufficient to withstand a foe possessing only muskets and
rifles. Fort Dobbs was an oblong space forty-three by fifty-three feet,
girt by walls about twelve feet high, consisting of double rows of logs
standing on end; earth dug from the ditch which surrounded the fort was
piled against the feet of these palisades, inside and out, to steady
them; they were fastened to one another by wooden pins, and their tops
were sharpened so as to impede those who might seek to climb over. At
the angles of the stockade were blockhouses three stories high, each
story projecting about eighteen inches beyond the one beneath; there
were openings in the floors of the two upper stories to enable the
defenders to fire down upon an enemy which sought to enter below. Along
the inside of one, or perhaps two, of the four walls of the stockade was
a range of cabins--or rather, one long cabin with log partitions--with
the slope of the roof turned inward to the square; this furnished a
platform for the garrison, who, protected by the rampart of pointed
logs, could fire into the attacking party. Other platforms were
bracketed against the walls not backed by cabins. There was a large
double gate made of thick slabs and so situated as to be guarded by the
blockhouses on either corner; this was the main entrance, but another
and smaller gate furnished a rear exit to and entrance from the spring
hard by. Blockhouses, cabins, and walls were all amply provided with
port-holes; Fort Dobbs had capacity for a hundred men-at-arms to fire at
one volley. Destructive fusillades could be maintained from within, and
everywhere the walls were bullet-proof; but good marksmen in the
attacking force could work great havoc by firing through the port-holes,
and thus quietly picking off those who chanced to be in range.
Fortunately for the whites few Indians became so expert as this.
Upon the arrival of breathless messengers bringing news of the approach
of hostile Indians, the men, women, and children of a wide district
would flock into such a fort as this. "I well remember," says Dr.
Doddridge in his Notes on Virginia, "that when a little boy the family
were sometimes waked up in the dead of night by an express with a report
that the Indians were at hand. The express came softly to the door or
back window, and by gentle tapping waked the family; this was easily
done, as an habitual fear made us ever watchful and sensible to the
slightest alarm. The whole family were instantly in motion: my father
seized his gun and other implements of war; my stepmother waked up and
dressed the children as well as she could; and being myself the oldest
of the children, I had to take my share of the burthens to be carried
to the fort. There was no possibility of getting a horse in the night to
aid us in removing to the fort; besides the little children, we caught
up what articles of clothing and provisions we could get hold of in the
dark, for we durst not light a candle or even stir the fire. All this
was done with the utmost despatch and the silence of death; the greatest
care was taken not to awaken the youngest child; to the rest it was
enough to say _Indian_, and not a whimper was heard afterwards. Thus it
often happened that the whole number of families belonging to a fort,
who were in the evening at their homes, were all in their little
fortress before the dawn of the next morning. In the course of the
succeeding day their household furniture was brought in by parties of
the men under arms."
The large public frontier forts, such as we have described, did not
house all of the backwoodsmen. There were some who, either because of
great distance or other reasons, erected their own private defenses; or,
in many cases, several isolated families united in such a structure.
Often these were but single blockhouses, with a few outlying cabins. It
was difficult to induce some of the more venturesome folk to enter the
forts unless Indians were actually in the settlement; they took great
risks in order to care for their crops and stock until the last moment;
and, soon tiring of the monotony of life within the fort cabins, would
often leave the refuge before the danger was really over. "Such
families," reports Doddridge, "gave no small amount of trouble by
creating frequent necessities of sending runners to warn them of their
danger, and sometimes parties of our men to protect them during their
removal."
For the first few years Fort Dobbs was but little used. There was,
however, much uneasiness. The year 1757 had, all along the line, been
disastrous to English arms in the North, and the Cherokees became
increasingly insolent. The next year they committed several deadly
assaults in the Valley of Virginia, but themselves suffered greatly in
return. The French, at last driven from Fort Duquesne (Pittsburg), had
retreated down the Ohio River to Fort Massac, in southern Illinois, and
sent their emissaries far and near to stir up the Indians west of the
mountains. The following April (1759) the Yadkin and Catawba Valleys
were raided by the Cherokees, with the usual results of ruined crops,
burned farm-buildings, and murdered households; not a few of the
borderers being carried off as prisoners into the Indian country, there
generally to suffer either slavery or slow death from the most horrid
forms of torture. The Catawbas, meanwhile, remained faithful to their
white friends.
Until this outbreak the Carolinas had prospered greatly. Hundreds of
settlers had poured in from the more exposed northern valleys, and the
western uplands were now rapidly being dotted over with clearings and
log cabins. The Indian forays at once created a general panic throughout
this region, heretofore considered safe. Most of the Yadkin families,
together with English fur-traders who hurried in from the woods, huddled
within the walls either of Fort Dobbs or of small neighborhood forts
hastily constructed; but many others, in their fright, fled with all
their possessions to settlements on or near the Atlantic coast.
Among the latter were old Squire Boone and his wife, Daniel and Rebecca,
with their two sons,[5] and several other families of Bryans and Boones,
although some of both names preferred to remain at Fort Dobbs. The
fugitives scattered to various parts of Virginia and Maryland--Squire
going to Georgetown, now in the District of Columbia, where he lived for
three years and then returned to the Yadkin; while Daniel's family went
in their two-horse wagon to Culpeper County, in eastern Virginia. The
settlers there employed him with his wagon in hauling tobacco to
Fredericksburg, the nearest market-town.
The April forays created almost as much consternation at Charleston as
on the Yadkin. Governor Lyttleton, of South Carolina, sent out fifteen
hundred men to overcome the Cherokees, who now pretended to be grieved
at the acts of their young hot-bloods and patched up a peace.
Fur-traders, eager to renew their profitable barter, hastened back into
the western forests. But very soon their confidence was shattered, for
the Indians again dug up the tomahawk. Their war-parties infested every
road and trail; most of the traders, with trains of packhorses to carry
their goods and furs, fell an easy prey to their forest customers; and
Forts Loudon, Dobbs, and Prince George were besieged. By January (1760)
the entire southwest border was once more a scene of carnage.
Captain Waddell, our old friend of Braddock's campaign, commanded at
Fort Dobbs, with several Bryans and Boones in his little garrison. Here
the Cherokees were repulsed with great loss. At Fort Prince George the
country round about was sadly harried by the enemy, who finally
withdrew. Fort Loudon, however, had one of the saddest experiences in
the thrilling annals of the frontier.
In April General Amherst, of the British Army, sent Colonel Montgomery
against the Cherokees with a formidable column composed of twelve
hundred regular troops--among them six hundred kilted Highlanders--to
whom were attached seven hundred Carolina backwoods rangers under
Waddell, with some Catawba allies. They laid waste with fire and sword
all the Cherokee villages on the Keowee and Tennessee Rivers, including
the growing crops and magazines of corn. The soldiers killed seventy
Indians, captured forty prisoners, and reduced the greater part of the
tribe to the verge of starvation.
The Cherokees were good fighters, and soon had their revenge. On the
morning of the twenty-seventh of June the army was proceeding along a
rough road on the southern bank of the Little Tennessee, where on one
side is a sheer descent to the stream, on the other a lofty cliff. Here
it was ambuscaded by over six hundred savage warriors under the noted
chief Silouee. In the course of an engagement lasting several hours the
whites lost twenty killed and sixty wounded, and the Cherokee casualties
were perhaps greater. Montgomery desperately beat his way to a level
tract, but in the night hastily withdrew, and did not stop until he
reached Charleston. Despite the entreaties of the Assembly, he at once
retired to the North with his little army, and left the frontiers of
Carolina open to the assaults of the merciless foe.
The siege of Fort Loudon was now pushed by the Cherokees with vigor. It
had already withstood several desperate and protracted assaults. But the
garrison contrived to exist for several months, almost wholly upon the
active sympathy of several Indian women who were married to frontiersmen
shut up within the walls. The dusky wives frequently contrived to
smuggle food into the fort despite the protests of the Indian leaders.
Women, however, despite popular notions to the contrary, have a powerful
influence in Indian camps; and they but laughed the chiefs to scorn,
saying that they would suffer death rather than refuse assistance to
their white husbands.
This relief, however, furnished but a precarious existence. Receiving no
help from the settlements, which were cut off from communication with
them, and weak from irregular food, the garrison finally surrendered on
promise of a safe-conduct to their fellows in the East. Early in the
morning of August ninth they marched out--men, women, and children to
the number of several hundred--leaving behind them their cannon,
ammunition, and spare arms. The next day, upon their sorry march, they
were set upon by a bloodthirsty mob of seven hundred Cherokees. Many
were killed outright, others surrendered merely to meet torture and
death. Finally, after several hours of horror, a friendly chief
succeeded, by browbeating his people and by subterfuge, in saving the
lives of about two hundred persons, who in due time and after great
suffering, reached the relief party which had for several months been
making its way thither from Virginia; but it had been delayed by storms
and high water in the mountain streams, and was now seeking needed rest
in a camp at the head of the Holston. It is recorded that during the
heartrending melee several other Indians risked their lives for white
friends, performing deeds of heroism which deserve to be remembered.
Although New France was now tottering to its fall, the French officers
at Fort Massac still continued, with their limited resources, to keep
alive the Cherokee war spirit. French outrages occurred throughout the
autumn and early winter of 1760. At nearly all of the forts, large and
small, skirmishes took place, some of these giving occasion for
exhibitions of rare enterprise and courage on the part of the garrisons,
women and men alike.
During the winter, the governors of Virginia, North Carolina, and South
Carolina agreed upon a joint campaign against the hostiles. The southern
column, comprising twenty-six hundred men, chiefly Highlanders, was
under Lieutenant-Colonel James Grant. Starting early in June, they
carried with them seven hundred packhorses, four hundred head of cattle,
and a large train of baggage and supplies. Their route from Fort Prince
George to the lower and middle Cherokee towns on the Little Tennessee
lay through a rough, mountainous country; high water, storms, intensely
warm weather, the lack of tents, and bruises from rocks and briers,
caused the troops to suffer greatly. After heavy losses from ambuscades
in narrow defiles, they finally reached their destination, and spent a
month in burning and ravaging fifteen or more large villages and
fourteen hundred acres of growing corn, and in driving five thousand
men, women, and children into the hills to starve. Wrote one of the
pious participators in this terrible work of devastation: "Heaven has
blest us with the greatest success; we have finished our business as
completely as the most sanguine of us could have wished." The Cherokees,
completely crushed, humbly begged for peace, which was granted upon
liberal terms and proved to be permanent.
The northern column was composed of backwoodsmen from Virginia and North
Carolina, under Colonel William Byrd, an experienced campaigner. Byrd
was much hampered for both men and supplies, and accomplished little. He
appears to have largely spent his time in making roads and building
blockhouses--laborious methods ill-fitted for Indian warfare, and loudly
criticized by Waddell, who joined him with a regiment of five hundred
North Carolinians, among whom was Daniel Boone, now returned to the
Yadkin. Waddell and Boone had experienced the folly of this sort of
thing in Braddock's ill-fated campaign. As a result of dissatisfaction,
Byrd resigned, and Colonel Stephen succeeded him. The force, now
composed of about twelve hundred men, pushed on to the Long Island of
Holston River, where they were met by four hundred Cherokees, who,
brought to their knees by Grant, likewise sought peace from Stephen.
Articles were accordingly signed on the nineteenth of November. The
North Carolina men returned home; but a portion of the Virginia regiment
remained as a winter garrison for Fort Robinson, as the new fort at Long
Island was called.
Now that the Yadkin region has, after its sad experience, been blessed
with a promise of peace, we may well pause, briefly to consider the
ethics of border warfare. This life-history will, to its close, have
much to do with Indian forays and white reprisals, and it is well that
we should consider them dispassionately.
The Cherokees were conducting a warfare in defense of their villages,
fields, and hunting-grounds, which were being rapidly destroyed by the
inrush of white settlers, who seemed to think that the Indians had no
rights worth consideration. Encouraged by the French, who deemed the
English intruders on lands which they had first explored, the American
aborigines seriously thought that they might stem the tide of English
settlement. It was impossible that they should win, for civilization has
in such cases ever triumphed over savagery; but that they should make
the attempt was to be expected from a high-spirited race trained to war.
We can but sympathize with and honor them for making their several stout
stands against the European wave which was ultimately to sweep them from
their native land.[6] King Philip, Opecancano, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Red
Jacket, Sitting Bull, Captain Jack, were types of successive leaders
who, at various stages of our growth westward, have stood as bravely as
any Spartan hero to contest our all-conquering advance.
It is the time-honored custom of historians of the frontier to consider
Indians as all wrong and whites as all right; and that, of course, was
the opinion of the borderers themselves--of Daniel Boone and all the men
of his day. But we are now far enough removed from these events, and the
fierce passions they engendered, to see them more clearly. The Indian
was a savage and fought like a savage--cruel, bloodthirsty, unrelenting,
treacherous, seldom a respecter of childhood, of age, or of women. But
one can not read closely the chronicles of border warfare without
discovering that civilized men at times could, in fighting savages,
descend quite as low in the scale as they, in bloodthirstiness and
treachery. Some of the most atrocious acts in the pioneer history of
Kentucky and the Middle West were performed by whites; and some of the
most Christianlike deeds--there were many such on both sides--were
those of painted savages.
It is needless to blame either of the contending races; their conflict
was inevitable. The frontiersman was generally unlettered, and used,
without ceremony, to overcoming the obstacles which nature set in his
path; one more patient could not have tamed the wilderness as quickly as
he. His children often rose to high positions as scholars, statesmen,
and diplomats. But he himself was a diamond in the rough, and not
accustomed to nice ethical distinctions. To his mind the Indian was an
inferior being, if not a child of Satan; he was not making the best use
of the soil; his customs and habits of thought were such as to repel the
British mind, however much they may have attracted the French. The
tribesmen, whom the pioneer could not and would not understand, stood in
his way, hence must be made to go or to die in his tracks. When the
savage, quick to resentment, struck back, the turbulent passions of the
overbearing white were aroused, and with compound interest he repaid
the blow. Upon the theory that the devil must be fought with fire, the
borderer not seldom adopted methods of reprisal that outdid the savage
in brutality.
The red man fighting, after his own wild standards, for all that he held
most dear, and the white man, who brooks no opposition from an inferior
race, hitting back with a fury sometimes increased by fear--such, in
brief, is the blood-stained history of the American border.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] The children of Daniel Boone were as follows: James (born in 1757),
Israel (1759), Susannah (1760), Jemima (1762), Lavinia (1766), Rebecca
(1768), Daniel Morgan (1769), John B. (1773), and Nathan (1780). The
four daughters all married and died in Kentucky. The two eldest sons
were killed by Indians, the three younger emigrated to Missouri.
[6] "I had rather receive the blessing of one poor Cherokee, as he casts
his last look back upon his country, for having, though in vain,
attempted to prevent his banishment, than to sleep beneath the marble of
all the Caesars."--_Extract from a speech of Theodore Frelinghuysen, of
New Jersey, delivered in the United States Senate, April 7, 1830._
"I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be
civilized."--_John Stuart Mill._