THE FIGHT FOR THE NORTHWEST
Long before the issue of the military struggle a contest of another
sort for the possession of the Northwest had begun. France and Spain
had entered into the conflict between Great Britain and her American
colonies from no love of the latter, but rather from a desire on the
one hand to humble Great Britain, on the other to advance their own
interests. With the opening of the peace negotiations, therefore, an
effort was made by these countries to limit the boundary of the new
nation on the west to the Allegheny Mountains, and to give the dominant
influence over the vast territory stretching thence to the Mississippi,
together with the exclusive navigation of that stream, to Spain. That
the project failed, and the Mississippi was made the western boundary
of the new nation, was due in part to the shrewdness and persistence of
the American diplomats, in part to the complaisance of Great Britain
herself. Her representatives did not hesitate to reject the temptation
offered of an alliance with the two continental monarchies for the
purpose of advancing their own projects at the expense of her former
colonies, in favor of such a settlement with the latter as would, by
making possible their future development, secure their friendship
and good will. By the terms of the treaty, therefore, the Northwest
was secured to the United States, its boundaries being a middle line
through the Great Lakes, and on the west the Mississippi River.
The prospect thus opened for an early reconciliation between the
mother country and her revolted colonies did not, unfortunately,
materialize. The war had left Great Britain burdened with a vast
debt, her dominion curtailed by more than a million square miles of
her finest territory, her prestige no less seriously damaged, and
her ancient foe across the Channel glorying in the humiliation which
had overtaken her. It was, perhaps, too much to expect, in view of
all these things, that the mother country should at once receive the
disobedient daughter to her bosom, without attempting in any way to
manifest her resentment for the humiliation she had suffered.
Furthermore, conditions in America at the close of the war were such
as to breed irritation and hostility between the two countries. The
Revolution had been in a very real sense a civil war. Upward of
one-third of the American colonists had sided with the British, and
in their ranks were to be found the major portion of the colonists
who were endowed with wealth, good birth, and education. Between
these loyalists, or "Tories," and the "patriots," whose cause had now
triumphed, the most intense feeling of bitterness existed. Even as
wise and conservative a man as Franklin shared the general feeling
of resentment toward the loyalists and was ready to justify the
confiscation of their estates. Yet they had risked their all for the
sake of the mother country, and Great Britain's honor was involved in
securing them against being punished for their loyalty and devotion to
her interests. A futile attempt was made during the peace negotiations
to insure their protection, and its total failure, while natural enough
in view of the circumstances, furnished one of the elements making for
discord later on between the two countries.
There were other causes of discord and, in fact, neither the United
States nor Great Britain honestly tried to fulfil all the obligations
they had entered into. One of the leading sources of trouble pertained
to the situation in the Northwest. Great Britain had agreed to
withdraw her armies from all places in the United States "with all
convenient speed." This obligation was kept elsewhere, but it was
calmly and deliberately broken as far as the northwestern posts
were concerned.[255] The demands of the American government for
evacuation were met by evasion and, later, by open refusal, and even an
explanation of the reasons for this course was long withheld. Finally
the pretense was urged that the posts were being held as a guaranty of
the fulfilment by the Americans of their own treaty obligations. That
we were justly chargeable with failure in this respect is clear; but
it is equally clear that the British determination to retain the posts
antedated our infractions of the treaty, and that the claim that they
were being held because of American violations of the treaty was a
mere afterthought, put forward by way of excuse for a policy in itself
indefensible.
[Footnote 255: The standard study of this subject is McLaughlin's
"Western Posts and the British Debts," in _American Historical
Association, Annual Report_, 1894, 413 ff. See also Roosevelt, _Winning
of the West_, Vol. IV.]
The real reasons for the British policy with reference to the Northwest
were the desire to retain control of the fur trade and of the Indian
tribes of that region. In one sense these two reasons coalesce, but
to some extent they may be distinguished. The fur trade constituted
Canada's chief commercial asset, and the Canadians had looked upon the
concessions contained in the treaty of 1783 as needlessly generous to
the Americans and fatal to their own prosperity. To retain this trade
the Americans must be shut out of the Northwest, and to this end the
posts must be retained. Further than this, it was an obvious fact that
in time of war the Indian would side with the party with whom he traded
in time of peace. By her control of the Indian trade and the exclusion
of the Americans from the Northwest Great Britain assured herself that
in case of a future war with America or Spain the tomahawk and scalping
knife might once more be called into requisition against her enemy.[256]
[Footnote 256: McLaughlin, _op. cit._, 430.]
To these considerations was joined another, which proved potent to
fill the Northwest with strife and bloodshed for a dozen years after
the close of the Revolution. It shortly became the aim of Great
Britain to secure to the powerful tribes in western New York and in
the territory west and north of the Ohio River the retention of their
lands. They would thus serve the purpose of a buffer state between
the United States and Canada, and would, by proper management of the
Indians, render permanent the grip which the Canadian merchants had
on the fur trade. To secure these ends the British sought to keep
the Indians united and to influence them not to yield too readily to
the blandishments or threats of the Americans. The attempt was made
to establish a sort of guardianship over the Indian tribes and to
require that interviews between them and the Americans be held in the
presence of Canadian officials or in places where the British influence
might be made manifest. In all this the home government refrained
from instigating the Indians to war upon the Americans, and steadily
instructed its representatives to encourage them to keep the peace. But
it is none the less true that its attitude toward them was productive
of a state of affairs and an attitude of mind on the part of the
Indians which made war with the Americans inevitable.[257] At last the
British officials lost their earlier solicitude for the preservation
of peace, and in the period immediately preceding Wayne's victory of
1794 they openly encouraged the Indians to make war on the Americans,
and supplied them with the guns, ammunition, and other provisions which
made their long resistance possible.[258]
[Footnote 257: McLaughlin, _op. cit._, 435.]
[Footnote 258: _Ibid._, 436; Roosevelt, _Winning of the West_, Vol. IV,
_passim_.]
We may now turn to a consideration of the relations between the
Americans and the Indians on the northwestern frontier in the period
which falls between the close of the Revolution and the Treaty of
Greenville of 1795. By the close of the Revolution two important steps
had been taken in the direction of opening the Northwest to settlement.
The claims of the various states to a portion or all of this region
had been ceded to the national government, and by the Treaty of Paris
the sovereignty of the United States as against foreign nations had
been recognized. It remained to quiet the Indian title to the lands
in question, and, in this connection, to overcome their opposition to
their settlement by the whites.
Encouraged by the British officials, the Indians at first strenuously
resisted the American claim to sovereignty north and west of the
Ohio River. In the course of a few years, however, various treaties
were entered into between the United States and the different tribes
providing for the cession to the former of lands beyond the Ohio.[259]
Such treaties were made at Fort Mcintosh, January 21, 1785, and at
Fort Finney, January 31, 1786. But only a portion of the tribes
concerned participated in these treaties; those who opposed the
cessions saw in them only an incitement to hostilities. In the summer
of 1786 the disaffected ones gathered in council at Niagara, and an
ineffectual effort was made to unite them in a war upon the Americans.
Meanwhile raiding went on along the border, and Congress was impotent
to protect it by waging war upon the hostile tribes.[260] Thereupon
the Kentuckians to the number of twelve hundred gathered under the
leadership of George Rogers Clark to chastise the tribes on their
own account. But the force was poorly organized. Clark had lost the
qualities of dauntless leadership for which he had been distinguished
a few years before, and the expedition accomplished little or
nothing.[261]
[Footnote 259: For an account of these treaties see Winsor, _Westward
Movement_, 267 ff. The treaties themselves are printed in _American
State Papers, Indian Affairs_, Vol. I, and in the various collections
of treaties between the United States and the Indian tribes.]
[Footnote 260: Winsor, _Westward Movement_, 274.]
[Footnote 261: _Ibid._, 275.]
Meanwhile the rush of settlers into the lands west of the Alleghenies
went on apace. Owing to the Indian menace north of the Ohio, for the
first few years following the close of the Revolution this settlement
was practically confined to the region south of that river. It was only
a question of time, however, when the Indian barrier would be broken
down. The famous ordinance of 1787 made provision for civil government
and for the ultimate formation of states in the Northwest. In the same
year Congress sold to the Ohio Company five million acres of land,
and provision was made for a territorial government, of which General
St. Clair was to become the first chief executive. In 1788 the Ohio
Company formally inaugurated its enterprise by founding Marietta at the
mouth of the Muskingum, and the tide of immigration into the Northwest
may be said to have fairly begun.[262] The opposition of the Indians
was, naturally, not conciliated by these developments. In 1789 St.
Clair negotiated a treaty with certain of the tribes at Fort Harmar,
which, in effect, confirmed the grants to the United States north of
the Ohio which had been made by the treaties of Fort Mcintosh and Fort
Finney.[263] But a large portion of the tribes affected held aloof and
took no part in the treaty.
[Footnote 262: For a description of this movement see _ibid._, chap.
xiv.]
[Footnote 263: Winsor, _op. cit._, 308-10.]
It is clear today, as it was to those actually on the frontier at the
time, that with both parties determined to possess the Northwest war
in earnest between the red men and the white was inevitable. When once
the issue was fairly joined the ultimate outcome could hardly remain a
matter of doubt, yet the government entered upon the war with extreme
reluctance, and only after a flood of appeals from the frontier for
protection had been poured upon it.[264] Several causes operated to
produce this hesitation. The new government, feeble and lacking in
resources, dreaded the expense. The hostile tribes were more numerous
and formidable than any combination the red race had ever yet brought
into the field against the white. They gathered in bodies so large as
fairly to deserve the name of armies, and fought pitched battles with
American armies as large as those commanded by Washington at Trenton or
by Greene at Eutaw Springs.[265] Finally the government was actuated by
an honest desire to promote the welfare of the Indians and to discharge
scrupulously all of its treaty obligations toward them.[266]
[Footnote 264: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 9, 18, 27 _et passim_.]
[Footnote 265: _Ibid._, IV, 17-18.]
[Footnote 266: _Ibid._, 9, 17; see, also, documents pertaining to the
establishment by the government of Indian trading houses, in _American
State Papers, Indian Affairs_, Vols. I and II, _passim_.]
In 1790 the hovering war cloud burst. The Indians forced the issue
by intercepting and plundering the boats conveying settlers down the
Ohio, the main avenue of travel into the western country. In July St.
Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, called upon the state
of Kentucky for troops, authorized the raising of the militia of the
western counties of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and set his own forces
in motion. The main expedition was sent from Fort Washington against
the Miamis, under command of General Harmar.[267] In October he set
out with fourteen hundred men for the hostile villages. Rumor going in
advance multiplied the numbers of his little army, so that the Indians
made no attempt at resistance. The towns at the junction of the St.
Mary's and St. Joseph rivers were found deserted and were destroyed.
At this point Harmar divided his force, sending out detachments in
various directions. These were severely handled, though they inflicted
perhaps an equal loss upon the Indians. The whole body shortly made a
disorderly retreat, and the campaign was ended. No great disaster had
been suffered, but the army had lost two hundred men and the net result
had been a "mortifying failure."
[Footnote 267: For Harmar's expedition see Winsor, _op. cit._, 417-20;
Roosevelt, _op. cit._, 111, 304-10.]
That the Indians were not cowed by Harmar was shown by the prompt
renewal of their marauding expeditions. Early in the year 1791 they
raided the New England settlements near Marietta, killing a dozen
persons and carrying half as many more into captivity.[268] This is
but typical of further raids which continued throughout the winter.
Meanwhile the Americans were preparing another expedition. Washington
asked and received permission from Congress to raise three thousand
troops to be placed under St. Clair's command. To protect the frontier
while this army was being made ready, bodies of rangers composed of the
more capable and daring bordermen were employed.[269] Moving in small
parties and fighting the Indian in his own fashion, they performed
much effective service. In addition to this measure the Kentuckians
were authorized to conduct two raids upon the enemy. Each expedition
consisted of several hundred mounted volunteers under experienced
leaders. Each succeeded in harrying a number of villages, with almost
no loss to the raiders themselves.
[Footnote 268: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 19-20.]
[Footnote 269: _Ibid._, 28-30.]
The gathering-place for St. Clair's expedition was, as in the case
of Harmar, Fort Washington. According to the plan adopted he was to
have here three thousand effective troops by July 10, 1791. But not
until July 15 did the first regiment of three hundred men arrive, and
it was October before he could count two thousand effective men.[270]
From beginning to end, this first great military enterprise of the
new government was woefully mismanaged. The supplies provided were
poor, the commissary department was both inefficient and corrupt,
the commander was sick and incapable, and the troops themselves were
"wretched stuff."[271] Aside from two small regiments of infantry, the
army was composed of six months' levies, and of militia enrolled for
this particular campaign. In its desire to economize Congress had fixed
the net pay of the soldiers at two dollars and ten cents a month. The
judgment passed by one who observed the force that "men who are to be
purchased from prisons, wheelbarrows, and brothels at two dollars a
month will never answer for fighting Indians" was amply justified by
the sequel.[272]
[Footnote 270: Winsor, _op. cit._, 428.]
[Footnote 271: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 30.]
[Footnote 272: Winsor, _op. cit._, 426.]
Early in October the advance began.[273] St. Clair's instructions
required him to establish a permanent fort at the Miami village and
to maintain such a garrison in it as would enable him to detach five
or six hundred men for special service as occasion should require.
He advanced at a snail's pace, the army marching but five or six
miles a day. In this way, stopping now and then to build a fort or
delayed by lack of food, the commander sick, the troops disorderly
and demoralized, with almost no effort to prevent surprise, the army
stumbled northward through the wilderness. At the end of October, with
the enemy in striking distance, some sixty of the militia deserted in a
body, and the unfortunate commander made the fatal blunder of sending
back one of his two regiments of regulars after them.
[Footnote 273: Roosevelt (_Winning of the West_, IV, 30-52) gives a
detailed and graphic account of St. Clair's campaign, with references
to much of the important source material. For St. Clair's official
reports see _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 136-38.]
Perhaps it was just as well, for a larger force would have resulted
only in a greater slaughter. On November 3 the army encamped on a
branch of the Wabash near the middle point of the western boundary
of Ohio. The main body of the army huddled together on the eastern
bank of the stream, while the militia camped on the opposite side.
Shortly after sunrise the next morning the Indians fell in fury upon
this exposed detachment, and a battle ensued similar in character and
in magnitude of horror and disaster to the defeat of the ill-fated
Braddock. Concealed behind logs and trees the savages poured a steady
fire upon the doomed army. The troops drawn up in close array, unable
even to see their foe, fired vain volleys into the forest. A heavy pall
of smoke soon overhung the army, under cover of which the agile savages
darted again and again into the lines of the troops, tomahawking their
chosen victims and slipping deftly away before the enraged but slower
soldiers could retaliate. The officers displayed conspicuous bravery,
encouraging their men and leading them again and again in bayonet
charges against their tormenters. But the savages only retired before
their advance to fall upon them the moment they turned; and at times
the charging parties, isolated from the main body, fought their way
back with difficulty.
A more terrible scene can scarcely be pictured. The bravery and
exertions of the troops were all in vain against such a foe. For two
hours the slaughter went on, while the wounded were gathered to the
center and the officers strove to keep the lines intact. At last the
men became demoralized. In ever larger numbers they deserted their
posts to huddle terror stricken among the wounded. Seeing that all was
lost and that the army could be saved from complete destruction only by
an immediate retreat, St. Clair gathered such fragments of battalions
as he could and ordered a charge to regain the road by which the army
had advanced.
A vigorous charge drove the Indians back beyond the road, and through
the opening the demoralized troops pressed, to use the expressive
phrase of an eye-witness, "like a drove of bullocks."[274] The pursuit
was delayed for a short time, apparently because the Indians failed
at once to grasp the significance of the new movement; they soon
fell upon the rear, however, and slaughtered without hindrance the
terror-stricken fugitives, whose only thought was to get away. In
the mad rout the soldiers, crazed by fear, threw away their weapons
as they ran; the stronger and swifter rode down the weak; while the
slower and the wounded fell to the rear, and by furnishing occupation
for the tomahawk and the scalping knife purchased temporary respite
for their more fortunate comrades. The savages drew off after they had
followed the fleeing mob in this way for about four miles, possibly
because for once they were satiated with slaughter, more probably
because lured by the plunder of the camp. The soldiers continued their
flight for twenty-five miles pursued only by the terrors evoked by
their superheated imagination. At nightfall they streamed into Fort
Jefferson; here some of the wounded who had escaped were left, and the
army continued to flee till Fort Washington, the starting-point of the
campaign, was reached.
[Footnote 274: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 44.]
Thus terminated the most disastrous campaign ever waged by an American
army against the Indians. St. Clair had lost in killed and wounded
over nine hundred men. There were no prisoners, practically, for the
savages slew all but a few of those who fell into their hands. Only
about one-third of St. Clair's men actually engaged in the battle of
the fatal fourth of November escaped uninjured. Yet during the battle
the Americans had scarcely seen the foe. St. Clair, judging from the
destructive rifle fire poured in upon his ranks, reported that he had
been overwhelmed by numbers, but this may well be doubted. Neither the
number nor the loss of the red men is known with any certainty; that
the latter was slight is, however, apparent, and Roosevelt's estimate
that it may not have amounted to one-twentieth that of the whites seems
not at all improbable.[275]
[Footnote 275: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 47.]
Fighting with the victors were two men whom we shall meet again in the
annals of early Chicago. The one was Little Turtle, the famous Miami
chieftain, who is generally supposed to have been the leader of the
Indians this day; the other, his son-in-law, Captain William Wells,
member of a prominent Kentucky family, who had been taken prisoner by
the Indians in boyhood and adopted into the tribe. In this battle he
is said to have slain several of the Americans with his own hand.[276]
Soon after this he abandoned the Indians, and henceforth fought
valiantly in behalf of his native race until he fell gloriously, over
twenty years later, in the Fort Dearborn massacre.
[Footnote 276: _Ibid._, 79.]
The overthrow of St. Clair's army made necessary another campaign
against the triumphant tribesmen unless the United States was to
surrender her pretensions to that sovereignty over the Northwest which
had been recognized in the treaty of 1783. Yet three years now elapsed
before the final blow was struck against the Indian power in this
region. Their easy triumph over St. Clair resulted in a great accession
both to the number and spirit of the warring bands. Encouraged by the
British, whose attitude toward the Americans during this period, as
manifested by such officials as Simcoe and Lord Dorchester, became
increasingly hostile, they maintained the attitude that they had not
by any valid treaty surrendered any portion of the territory north of
the Ohio, and continued to send their war parties in ever-increasing
numbers against the "deluded settlers" of the northwestern frontier.
The United States again tried vainly to secure peace by negotiation.
The sanctity which hedges an ambassador about, familiar even to
savages, was violated in the murder of Colonel Hardin and Major
Trueman, who were sent as envoys to the hostile tribes in the spring
of 1792. Despite this, the effort to bring about a peace was vainly
continued throughout the year 1792 and the spring of 1793.[277] At
last, there being no other alternative, the government made definite
plans for a new campaign.
[Footnote 277: _Ibid._, 52 ff.]
The preparations had already been begun and Anthony Wayne had been
chosen by Washington, though with great reluctance, to succeed St.
Clair as commander.[278] In Washington's opinion he was vain, open to
flattery, easily imposed upon, and "liable to be drawn into scrapes."
In spite of this he was considered the best man available, and his
conduct following his appointment brilliantly refuted the prevalent
opinion of his lack of judgment. If there ever had been ground for
Washington's low opinion of Wayne's prudence, certain it is that he
afforded none by his measures in this crisis in the history of the
Northwest. His bravery was questioned by no one, and he had long been
recognized as the most active and enterprising officer in the army.
[Footnote 278: On the selection of Wayne to succeed St. Clair see
Winsor, _Westward Movement_, 439-40.]
In the autumn of 1792 Wayne established a camp on the Ohio about seven
miles below Pittsburgh, and began the difficult task of organizing
the remnant of St. Clair's army and the new recruits that were being
enlisted into an efficient "legion," which should be able to face the
red foe with some prospect of success.[279] During the winter his
troops, which by springtime numbered twenty-five hundred men, were
drilled incessantly. In May, 1793, he moved down the Ohio to Fort
Washington, near which place he established a camp and called on the
Kentucky volunteers to come to his assistance. The government was still
carrying on futile negotiations with the hostile tribes, and not until
October was Wayne given permission to launch the campaign. He then
advanced about eighty miles north of Cincinnati to a place six miles
beyond Fort Jefferson, where a second winter camp was established to
which he gave the name of Greenville. From this place a detachment was
sent forward to occupy the site of St. Clair's defeat and there build a
post, to which the significant name of Fort Recovery was given.
[Footnote 279: For standard secondary accounts of Wayne's campaign see
Winsor, _op. cit._, chap. xx; Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, chap. ii.
Original documents pertaining to the campaign, including Wayne's report
of the attack on Fort Recovery and the battle of Fallen Timbers, are
printed in _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 487-95. Wayne's
Orderly Book, covering the period from 1792 to 1797, is printed in the
_Michigan Pioneer Collections_, xxxiv, 341-734.]
The winter was spent in further drill, and in perfecting the
preparations for a decisive conflict in the spring. The Indians
harassed the posts, attacking convoys, and killing the commander of
Fort Jefferson within three hundred yards of the fort. Ere spring
the regular troops had developed into a finely drilled army, with
confidence in their leader and in themselves. The natural contempt
of the frontiersman for a regular force, heightened as it was by the
disasters of the army in the last few years, gave way to genuine
admiration for Wayne's troops. The cavalry had been trained to maneuver
over any ground, and the infantry to load while on the run. By constant
practice the soldiers had become as good marksmen as were the frontier
hunters themselves, and Wayne, who had become famous in the Revolution
for his reliance on the bayonet, had imbued his men with his own zeal
for coming to close quarters with the enemy.
Prominent among the causes which had contributed to St. Clair's
overthrow was the absence of an efficient corps of scouts to bring him
information of the enemy's movements and protect his own army against
surprise. The preparation of Wayne in this respect, and the skilful
use which he made of his force of scouts, was in marked contrast to
the course of his unfortunate predecessor. One of the leaders of this
force was William Wells, the son-in-law of Little Turtle, who three
years before had assisted his dusky relative to overthrow St. Clair.
Since then he had rejoined the whites, to whom by reason of his long
life on the frontier, and his intimate acquaintance with the very
Indians against whom Wayne was marching, his services were invaluable.
His scouts covered Wayne's front so effectively that the Indians were
unable to obtain any correct information concerning his numbers or
movements.
On June 30 an assault was made on Fort Recovery by two thousand
Indians, but they were beaten off with considerable loss, which caused
some of them to leave for their homes in despair.[280] On the other
hand, Wayne's forces were augmented by the arrival of General Scott at
the head of sixteen hundred Kentucky mounted volunteers. Having further
deceived the enemy as to his intentions by making demonstrations to
right and left, Wayne marched by a devious route to the Indian villages
at the junction of the Glaize and the Maumee rivers, in the heart of
the hostile country.[281] Here he had hoped to strike a telling blow,
but the timely information of a deserter enabled the Indians to flee
before his arrival. But their villages, stretching for several miles
up and down the river, with cornfields more extensive than Wayne had
ever seen before, "from Canada to Florida," fell into his hands without
striking a blow. He spent some time in building here a strong stockade
fort, which he grimly named Defiance, and in sending a last futile
overture to the Indians for peace. It was now the middle of August, and
on learning of the failure of his embassy, Wayne set forth on the final
stage of his campaign.
[Footnote 280: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XVIII, 444-45.]
[Footnote 281: Wayne to the Secretary of War, August 14, 1794;
_American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 490.]
The defiance to which his fortress gave expression was not directed
against the Indians alone, for the British officials in the Northwest
were now co-operating almost openly with the natives. In February,
1794, in the course of a speech to an Indian delegation. Lord
Dorchester asserted that he would not be surprised if war between his
country and the United States should begin during the year. This speech
caused an immediate furore at Montreal, where it was construed to
indicate that Dorchester had private intelligence which rendered him
confident that such a war would shortly begin.[282] During the ensuing
weeks it was actively circulated among the western tribes,[283] who
were incited to collect their forces and assured that in the event
of war they would have an opportunity to make a new boundary line.
At the same time Simcoe, acting under Dorchester's orders, proceeded
from Detroit to the Rapids of the Maumee, a few miles above the
modern city of Toledo, with three companies of British regulars, and
constructed a fort to serve as an outpost for the defense of Detroit
against Wayne's advance. There is nothing improbable in the assertion
that the Indians were given to understand that its gates would be open
to shelter them, in case of need, from Wayne's army, and it is clear
that both the Indians and the Americans believed that the British
were to all intents and purposes co-operating with the former. Wayne
had learned of Simcoe's advance early in June, and since then he had
received information from his scouts that the British had participated
in the attack on Fort Recovery. It was therefore with the expectation
of having a double foe to deal with that he planted and named Fort
Defiance, preparatory to beginning the descent of the Maumee to the
Rapids, where the British fort was located and near which the Indians
had taken their stand.
[Footnote 282: Michigan Pioneer Collections, XX, 331. For an account
of Dorchester's speech and its results see Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV,
57-60, 62.]
[Footnote 283: See, for example, Lieutenant-colonel Butler's speech to
the chiefs of the Six Nations at Buffalo Creek, in April, 1794, printed
in Michigan Pioneer Collections, XX, 342-43.]
The advance from Fort Defiance was begun on August 15, and three days
later Wayne's army was within striking distance of the enemy. Here a
halt was made and a temporary fortification thrown up. The savages had
elected to defend a place known as Fallen Timbers, where the ground
was thickly strewn with tree trunks as the result of a former tornado.
This furnished an ideal covert for their mode of warfare, and at the
same time, as they believed, rendered it impossible for Wayne's dreaded
cavalry to act. Behind this shelter about two thousand warriors lay on
the morning of August 20 awaiting Wayne's approach. The Indians were
far from confident of repeating their success of three years before
against St. Clair. Little Turtle, the leader on that occasion, had
urged the acceptance of the peace overtures of "the chief who never
sleeps," but in this he was overruled. Already some of the northern
tribes had slunk away, disheartened by their discomfiture at Fort
Recovery. The southern Indians had sent encouraging messages, but
had failed to back them up with their warriors, and the sole hope of
assistance rested with the British, who in similar crises in times gone
by had failed them.[284]
[Footnote 284: Winsor, _Westward Movement_, 457.]
In the ranks of the two armies, about to join combat, were a number
of men who are famous in the history of the Northwest. General Wayne
had acquired fame in the Revolution as a daring leader of men, but
this campaign furnishes the climax of his military career and his
surest claim upon the grateful remembrance of posterity. From the most
unpromising of raw material he had fashioned an army fit to cope with
the red man in his lair, and had imbued it with his own dauntless
confidence and enthusiasm. He had transformed such men as St. Clair had
with difficulty held together in the absence of the enemy, and who had
proved so helpless in his presence, into the peers of the frontiersmen
themselves in marksmanship and dexterity in the saddle; and had made
them submissive to an iron discipline which rendered them immeasurably
superior to the latter for the conduct of a campaign or battle.
On the other side were a score or more of chieftains of varying degrees
of importance and influence. If Little Turtle had favored a fight his
rank and reputation would probably have given him the position of
chief importance. Blue Jacket's advice had prevailed in the council
before the battle, however, and as the result he occupied the position
of commander. Two young men, one in either army, possess a peculiar
interest for us by reason of their later careers. The one, a lieutenant
in Wayne's army and aide-de-camp to the General, William Henry
Harrison; the other, the warrior Tecumseh. Each distinguished himself
according to the fashion of his race for bravery in the battle; each
rose shortly to the position of leader of his race in the Northwest,
and this leadership involved them in a deadly rivalry. In the long
contest between them the red man went down to defeat; his projects for
the resuscitation of his people were forever blasted at Tippecanoe, and
two years later the battle of the Thames marked another victory for
Harrison and Tecumseh's final defeat. For the one the reward was the
Presidency, for the other a ruined people and a nameless grave. Yet who
shall say that, measured by the standards of his race, Tecumseh was not
the equal in greatness and ability of his victorious rival?
At eight o'clock on the morning of August 20 Wayne's legion advanced
in columns in open order, its front, flanks, and rear protected by
detachments of the Kentucky mounted volunteers and of Indians. After
traveling a distance of five miles the mounted battalion in advance
encountered the Indians, disposed in three lines stretching a distance
of two miles at right angles to the river. The Kentuckians were
driven back and the firing became general, but they had accomplished
their purpose of giving the army timely notice of the position of the
savages. Wayne's dispositions were quickly made. The infantry was
drawn up in two lines. The whole force of mounted volunteers was sent
by a circuitous path to turn the right flank of the savages, and the
legionary cavalry under Captain Campbell was ordered to fall upon their
left. At the same time the infantry moved forward with trailed arms
to a bayonet charge, with orders to deliver their fire at close range
after the Indians had been roused from their coverts, and then continue
the charge, so as to give them no opportunity to reload.
The value of the months of careful drilling was now quickly manifested.
Campbell's dragoons plunged forward over the difficult ground and fell
upon the astonished savages, who delivered a single volley and fled.
Campbell was slain and a dozen of his men killed or wounded, but the
cavalry swept on, Lieutenant Covington, who succeeded to the command,
cutting down two of the red men with his own hand. The infantry moved
forward with equal impetuosity, driving the dismayed savages before
them through the thick woods a distance of two miles in less than an
hour. So quickly was the combat over that the second line of infantry
and the Kentucky volunteers, despite their "anxiety" for action, were
unable to reach their positions in time to share in the fight. The
surviving savages and their Canadian allies scattered in flight, the
Americans pursuing them as far as the walls of the British fort. Wayne
reported a loss of one hundred and thirty-three in killed and wounded
and estimated the loss of the enemy at more than double his own. The
woods were strewn for some distance with the dead bodies of the Indians
and their white auxiliaries, the latter armed with British muskets and
bayonets.
The battle over, three days were spent in ravaging the surrounding
fields and villages. The houses and stores of the British traders and
agents shared the fate of the Indian villages, while the garrison
looked on in impotent rage. Fortunately a conflict between the two
armies, the danger of which was very real, was averted, the commanders
contenting themselves with an exchange of verbal hostilities. A week
after the battle the victorious army moved leisurely back to Fort
Defiance, laying waste the villages and cornfields of the savages for a
distance of fifty miles on either side of the Maumee. After two weeks
spent in strengthening the fort, while waiting for supplies from Fort
Recovery, the army moved up the river to the Miami villages at the
mouth of the St. Mary's where Harmar's force had been rebuffed four
years before. Here some weeks were spent in destroying the surrounding
villages and fields and in building a fort which was named for the
commander, Fort Wayne. At the end of October the army retired to
Greenville where it went into winter quarters. Since the opening of the
campaign it had performed "one of the most weighty and important feats
in the winning of the West."[285]
[Footnote 285: Roosevelt, _Winning of the West_, IV, 91.]
The Indians were discouraged by their defeat and their abandonment
by the British. The agents of the latter strove to reanimate them and
prolong hostilities,[286] and for some time the issue was doubtful.
Some of the savages were in favor of continuing the war, but the
majority finally inclined to peace, and in February, 1795, Wayne
entered into a preliminary agreement with a number of the tribes for
the negotiation of a permanent peace on the basis of the terms of the
treaty of Fort Harmar of January, 1789. The tawny diplomats straggled
slowly in to the place appointed for the council. The council fire was
kindled on June 16,[287] but owing to the tardiness of the various
delegations a month elapsed before the formal negotiations were begun.
Three weeks later, on August 10, the treaty was concluded. In all
eleven hundred and thirty warriors had assembled. To the torrent of
savage oratory which their spokesmen poured forth during the weeks of
discussion Wayne replied in kind, showing himself as much at home in
the council chamber as when on the field of battle.
[Footnote 286: Winsor, _op. cit._, 460-61; _American State Papers,
Indian Affairs_, I, 547-58, 568].
[Footnote 287: For Wayne's report of the proceedings attending the
negotiation of the treaty see _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_,
I, 562-83.]
On July 3 Wayne called the chiefs together to explain to them the
significance of the impending celebration of Independence Day, so that
they might not be alarmed when the roar of the big guns should "ascend
into the heavens." Twelve days later the council was formally opened.
Wayne displayed his credentials to the assembled chiefs, explained the
occasion of the meeting, and closed by suggesting an adjournment of two
or three days "to have a little drink" and consider the situation. The
chief issue of the conference was immediately raised by Little Turtle,
who professed ignorance of the treaty of Fort Harmar and denied that
the Miamis had had any part in it. As the negotiations proceeded this
chief strenuously opposed the cessions demanded by Wayne. In a speech
delivered July 22 he expressed his regret over the division of opinion
manifested by the assembled Indians, and claimed for his tribe all of
the territory bounded on the east by a line from Detroit to and down
the Scioto River to its mouth, on the south by the Ohio from this point
to the mouth of the Wabash, and on the west by a line from the mouth of
the Wabash to Chicago. He questioned the good faith of the Americans,
saying they claimed the land in dispute now by cession by the British
in 1783, now by that of the tribes who took part in the treaty of Fort
Harmar. When, five days later, Wayne read the list of reservations
which he proposed to embody in the treaty, including a tract six miles
square "at the Mouth of Chikago River ... where a Fort formerly
stood," Little Turtle answered that his people had never heard of it.
On this particular point the facts of history favored the red man, for
there is no satisfactory evidence that the French had ever had a fort
here. But force and the logic of events favored the white leader, and
in the final draft of the treaty was included the cession of "One piece
of Land Six Miles square at the Mouth of Chickago River emptying into
the Southwest end of Lake Michigan where a fort formerly stood."
Among those most disposed to accept the terms offered by Wayne were the
Wyandots, to whom was intrusted one of the two copies of the treaty
that were engrossed on parchment. Their leader, Tarke, responded to
Little Turtle's reflections upon the cession made at Fort Harmar
and upon those who disagreed with him, with a burst of eloquence
characteristic of Indian oratory and of the figurative language which
it habitually employed. Addressing his "Elder Brother," General Wayne,
he said:
"Now listen to us: The Great Spirit above has appointed this day for us
to meet together. I shall now deliver my sentiments to you, the Fifteen
Fires. I view you lying in a gore of blood; it is me, an Indian, who
has caused it. Our tomahawk yet remains in your head; the English gave
it to me to place there.
"Elder Brother: I now take the tomahawk out of your head; but with so
much care, that you shall not feel pain or injury. I will now tear a
big tree up by the roots, and throw the hatchet into the cavity which
they occupied, where the waters will wash it away where it can never be
found. Now I have buried the hatchet and I expect that none of my color
will ever again find it out....
"Brothers: Listen! I now wipe your body clean from all blood with this
white soft linen [white wampum], and I do it with as much tenderness as
I am capable of. You have appointed this house for the chiefs of the
different tribes to sit in with you, and none but good words ought to
be spoken in it. I swept it clean; nothing impure remains in it....
"Brother: I clear away yon hovering clouds, that we may enjoy a clear,
bright day, and easily see the sun, which the Great Spirit has bestowed
on us, rise and set continually"
The negotiations were at length satisfactorily concluded, and all
professed themselves satisfied with Wayne's demands. The treaty
recognized the American title to the lands north of the Ohio bounded
by a line drawn from the mouth of the Kentucky River to Fort Recovery,
thence in a general easterly direction to the Muskingum, and along this
river and the Cuyahoga to Lake Erie; in addition various reservations,
aside from the one at Chicago, were made, most of them for the
establishment of forts, and the free passage of the rivers and portages
connecting the proposed chain of forts was guaranteed. In Illinois the
grant included reservations at Chicago, at Lake Peoria, and at the
mouth of the Illinois, and the free use of the Chicago Harbor, River,
and Portage, and the Illinois River. On the other hand the Indian title
to the soil was recognized, some twenty thousand dollars worth of
presents were distributed, and the payment to the Indians of annuities
aggregating nine thousand five hundred dollars was promised.
The treaty brought to an end forty years of warfare in the valley of
the Ohio, during which it is estimated five thousand whites were killed
or captured.[288] For three years past the war had cost the government
of the United States over a million dollars a year. The peace which
Wayne brought to the frontier endured for fifteen years, being broken
only by Tecumseh's war, which shortly merged into the greater struggle
between Great Britain and the United States in 1812. By that time the
in-rush of settlers and the passing away of the older generation had
wrought a material change in the condition of the Northwest; so that
the Treaty of Greenville may fairly be said to have endured until the
conditions which called it forth had passed away.
[Footnote 288: Winsor, _op. cit._, 494.]
While Wayne was pushing his campaign against the northwestern Indians,
which the British officials feared would end in their overthrow at
Detroit, Washington dispatched John Jay on a diplomatic mission
to England which was to result in the peaceable surrender of the
northwestern posts. The differences between the two countries which had
arisen from the unfulfilled treaty of 1783 had now become so serious
that there was grave danger of a warlike termination. In the hope of
preventing this calamity, therefore, Washington appointed Jay, in the
spring of 1794, as a special envoy to England to treat of the matters
in dispute.
During the summer the negotiations with the British government went
slowly forward and in November a treaty was concluded. By the Americans
its terms were received with bitter disgust, and there is even yet a
difference of opinion among students over the question of the wisdom
of Jay's conduct of the negotiations. The western Americans were
especially loud in their denunciation of Jay and the treaty.[289]
Yet they obtained by it the surrender of the British posts in the
Northwest, a measure which constituted the logical completion of
Wayne's work and was absolutely essential to the permanence of the
peace so recently established on the frontier. It was stipulated
that the posts should be evacuated on June 1, 1796, and Washington
appropriately appointed Wayne to superintend the taking possession
of them by the United States. As the appointed time drew near the
British were more ready to make the surrender than were the Americans
to receive it. At our own request, therefore, possession was retained
until the arrival of the relieving forces at the various posts. During
the summer and fall the transfers were made, the last post which was
taken over by the Americans being Mackinac in October. Our boundaries
in the Northwest, nominally established by the Treaty of Paris of 1783,
were at last achieved in reality. The Indians had been conquered and
Great Britain had retired; the Northwest was won for the United States.
[Footnote 289: Roosevelt, _op. cit._, IV, 194-97.]