\ / -"STaI ^. Z^^\-J>-~-A > M 9-)^ >^'«#W w immm -v^ raHSiiflBB J lUu-V-^^-U^Vfr^ ^^■-^-^ 1697 ? 1763 TUE MISSISSIPPI BASIN BOOK a^I-^J.lissipPl BASIN 3 1153 000H6573 2 ^p Justin QMitiffor. NARRATIVE AND CRITICAL HISTORY OF AMER- ICA. With Bibliographical and Descriptive Essays on its Historical Sources and Authorities. Profusely illus- trated with portraits, maps, facsimiles, etc. Edited by Justin Winsor, Librarian of Harvard University, with the cooperation of a Committee from the Massachusetts Historical Society, and with the aid of other learned Societies. In eight royal 8vo volumes. Each volume, net, iJsSo; sheep, fiet, J6.50; half morocco, net, 57-So- (Sold only by subscription for the entire set.) READER'S HANDBOOK OF THE AMERICAN REV- OLUTION. i6mo, $1.25. WAS SHAKESPEARE SHAPLEIGH? i6mo, rubri- cated parchment paper, 75 cents. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, and how he received and imparted the Spirit of Discovery. With portraits and maps. 8vo, gilt top, J4.00. CARTIER TO FRONTENAC. A Study of Geographical Discovery in the interior of North America, in its his- torical relations, 1534-1700. With full cartographical Illustrations from Contemporary Sources. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00. THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. The Struggle in America be- tween England and France, 1697-1763. With full car- tographical Illustrations from Contemporary Sources. 8vo, gilt top, $4.00. THE WESTV\^ARD MOVEMENT: The Struggle for the Trans-Allegheny Region, 1763-1797. With full carto- graphical Illustrations from Contemporary Sources. Svo, $4.00. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, Boston and New York. d)e jHtssisstppi Basin THE STRUGGLE IN AMERICA BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE 1697—1763 WITH FULL CARTOGRAPHICAL ILLUSTRA- TIONS FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES BY JUSTIN WINSOR BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 189S ■7 Copyright, 1895, Bt JUSTIN "WINSOR. All rights reserved. The River.nde Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company. To CLEMENTS ROBERT MARKHAM, C. B., F. R. S. President of the Royal Geogbaphical Society, London. Dear Mr. Markham, — Such an observer as you are knows how the physiography of a conti- nent influences its history ; how it opens avenues of discovery, directs lines of settlement, and gives to the natural rulers of the earth their coign of vantage. I would not say that there are not other compelling influences ; but no other control is so steady. If we appreciate such a dominating power in subjecting the earth to man's uses, we cannot be far from discerning the pith of history, particvdarly of those periods which show the work of pioneers. The society over which you hold so signal an authority gives itself to the study of geography as elucidating many problems in man's des- tiny. There is, then, a fitness, I trust, in your accepting this homage from one who is enrolled in that society's foreign membership, and also is your friend and servant, Harvard University, March, 1895. CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. CHAPTER I. FAQX The Mississippi Basin at the End of the Seventeenth Cen- tury 1 Illustrations : The Natchez Country, after Danville (1732), 7 ; The Upper Mississippi and the Mille Lacs Region, after Hum- phreys and Abbot (1861), 9 ; The Ohio Basin, after the Same, 19 ; The Green Bay Portage, after Marcel's Reproductions, 23 ; Col- den's Map, showing the Northern Portages, 25 ; The Divide between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin, by Hum- phreys and Abbot, 27 ; The Northern Portages in Joliet's Time, after Marcel's Reproductiom, 28, 29 ; The Heads of the Yellow- stone and Snake Rivers, after Humphreys and Abbot, 31. CHAPTER II. Iberville's Expedition. 1697-1700 33 Illustrations : The Mississippi in La Salle's Time, 34 ; The Gulf Coast defectively mapped (1728), 35 ; Portrait of Iberville, 37 ; Roggeveen's Map of the Gulf Coast (1675), 39 ; The Lower Mississippi Basin, after Humphreys and Abbot (1861), 41 ; Coxe's Map of Carolana (1722), 44, 45 ; Mitchell's Map (1755) of Colonel Welch's Route (1698), 47 ; Danville's Carte de la Louisiane, 49 ; Jefferys' Lower Mississippi (1759), 50 ; Homann's Lower Mississippi with Tonty's Route, 51 ; Jefferys' Map of Fort L'Huillier and the Trail to the Pawnees, 53 ; La Salle's and Iberville's Explorations, 55 ; Portrait of Bienville, 67 ; Danville's Map of the Gulf Coast (1732), 59. CHAPTER III. Throughout the Valley. 1700-1709 61 Illustrations : Delisle's Map of the Gulf Coast, 75 ; Franque- lin's Map of the Mississippi, 77 ; La Potherie's Carte Generalle de la Nouvelle France (1722), 79 ; The Mille Lacs Region, 81 ; La Hontan's Riviere Longue, 82. VI CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. CHAPTER IV. Crozat and Trade. 1710-1719 83 Illustrations : French Soldiers (1710), 84 ; Red River Basin, after Humphreys and Abbot's Basins of the Mississippi (1861), 89 ; Broutiu's Carte des Natchitoches (1722), 91 ; Homann's Map (1720), showing the Routes of St. Denis, 93 ; The Red River Region, after Danville's Louisiane, 95 ; Quivira, etc., by Palairet and Delaroche, 97. CHAPTER V. The Mississippi Bubble. 1714-1720 99 Illustrations : Portrait of John Law, 100 ; Bill of the Banque Royale, 103 ; Country of the Padoucas, etc., 105 ; Law's Map of Louisiana, 107 ; Arms of the Mississippi Company, 107 ; Quinquempoix, 109. CHAPTER VI. The Barriers of Louisiana. 1710-1720 Ill Illustrations : The Upper Mississippi, from the Gentleman's Magazine (1763), 113 ; The Great Lake of the West, from Pop- ple's Map (1732), 113 ; Danville's Map of the Upper Lakes, 117 ; Map of the Illinois Country, 119; Kaskaskia and its Vicin- ity, 121 ; Governor Spotswood's Route to the Valley of Virginia, 129 ; Indian Map of Traders' Paths, 132. CHAPTER VII. Charlevoix and his Observations. 1720-1729 136 Illustrations : Lafitau's Map of North America, 137 ; De Fer's Map of Santa Fd and the Far Country, 139 ; The Missouri and the Country of the Padoucas, by Bowen and Gibson, 140 ; Dr. James Smith's Map of Louisiana, 142, 143 ; Danville's Upper Mississippi, 147 ; Dumont's Plan of New Orleans, 151 ; The Middle Mississippi, by Bowen and Gibson, 153 ; Mitchell's Map of the Cenis' Country, 155. CHAPTER VIII. Along the Appalachians. 1720-1727 160 Illustration : The Indian Trail from the Shenandoah, 169. CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. vii CHAPTER IX. The Rivalries of France, England, and Spain. 1730-1740 . . 171 Illustrations : Keith's Map of Virginia, 181 ; Fort Rosalie and Vicinity, 189. CHAPTER X. The Search for the Sea of the West. 1727-1753 193 Illustrations : JefPerys' Map of V^rendrye's Forts and the River of the West, 195 ; Bowen and Gibson's Sioux Country, (1763), 197 ; Vaugondy's Amerique Septentrionale (1750), 205 ; Buache's Mer de I'Ouest (1752), 207 ; Delisle's Carte d' Ame- rique (1722), 208 ; Buache's Mer de I'Ouest (1752), 209 ; Le Rouge's River of the West (1746), 215. CHAPTER XI. War and Truce. 1741-1748 218 Illustration : Kitchin's Map of the French Settlements (1747), 226, 227. CHAPTER XII. The Portals of the Ohio Valley. 1740-1749 229 Illustrations : Parts of Fry and Jefferson's Map of Virginia, 231, 233, 237; Lewis 'Evans's Map of Pensilvania (1749), 240, 241 ; Evans's Middle British Colonies (1758), 244, 245 ; An- drews's New Map of the United States (1783), 247 ; One of C^loron's Plates, 253 ; Map of C^loron's March, 256, 257. CHAPTER XIII. Louisiana and its Indians. 1743-1757 259 Illustrations : Map of the Erie Portages, 261 ; Adair's Map of the Indian Nations, 262, 263 ; Duniont's Chickasaw and Choc- taw Country, 265 ; Danville's North America, showing Position of Southern Tribes, 267 ; Le Page du Pratz's Map (1757), 269 ; Timberlake's Cherokee Country, 270 ; Indian Map, by Kitchin, of the Cherokee Country, 272, 273 ; Covens and Mortier's Cherokee Country (1758), 275. CHAPTER XIV. Undeclared War. 1750-1754 277 Illustrations : Boundary of Carolina and Virginia, 278 ; Mitchell's Frontier Settlements (1775), 281 ; Colonel Cresap's Vlll CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Map of the Sources of the Potomac, 283 ; Mitchell's Map of the Route of Christopher Gist, 291 ; Danville's Ohio Valley, 295 ; Hutchins's Rapids of the Ohio, 296 ; Howell's Map of the Freuch Creek Route, 297 ; Sketch of the Freuch Creek Route, 298, 299 ; Le Rouge's Map of the Route from Duquesne, 301 ; Evans's Middle British Colonies, corrected by Pownall, 304, 305 ; Part of Fry and Jefferson's Map of Virginia, 313. CHAPTER XV. The Rival Claimants for North America. 1497-1755. . . . 316 Illustrations : Map from the Memoires des Commissaires du Roi (1757), 319, 320, 321 ; Part of Bowen and Gibson's North America (1763), 328, 329 ; Mitchell's Map of the Wabash River (1755), 333. CHAPTER XVI. The Anxieties and Plans of 1754 338 Illustration : Charles Thomson's Map, 346. CHAPTER XVII. The Alleghany Portals. 1755 352 Illustration : Jefferys' Map of Braddock's March, 358, 359. CHAPTER XVIII. Two Dismal Years, 1756, 1757 372 Illustrations : Pouchot's Map of the Frontiers, 375 ; Emanuel Bowen's Map of the Country of the Southern Indians, 383. CHAPTER XIX. The Ohio and St. Lawrence won. 1758-1759 385 Illustrations : Plan of Fort Duquesne, 391 ; Fort Massac and Vicinity, 392 ; The Lower Ohio, 393. CHAPTER XX. The Transition from War to War. 1760-1762 403 CHAPTER XXI. The Treaty of Peace. 1762-1763 415 Illustrations : Jefferys' Map of the Proposed Neutral Territory, 416 ; Jefferys' Map of the Canadian Northwest, 421 ; Part of CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. ix the Map of the Compagnie Franqoise, 423 ; Vander Aa's Canada, 425 ; Map of North America, from the Gentleman's Magazine (December, 1755), 427 ; Jefferys' Map of Lake Win- nipeg and the River of the West, 429. e CHAPTER XXir. The Effect upon the Indians. 1763-1765 432 Illustrations : Map of Bouquet's Campaign in Smith's Histori- cal Account, 435 ; Hutchins's Survey of Bouquet's Route, 436, 437 ; Soull's Map of the Monougahela Valley, 439 ; Portrait of Henry Bouquet, 443. CHAPTER XXIII. Occupation Completed. 1764, 1765 447 Illustrations : Jefferys' Map of the Coast of the Gulf of Mexico (1768), 448, 449 ; Ross's Course of the Mississippi (1775), 450 ; Callot's Town and Fort of Natchez, 451 ; Callot's View of the Fort at Natchez, 453 ; Callot's Map of Kaskaskia and Fort Chartres, 458, 459 ; Thomas Hutchins's Villages in the Illinois Country, 460 ; Ross's Vicinity of Fort Chartres and Kas- kaskia, 461 ; A French House among the Illinois (Callot), 463. Index 465 EXPLORATIONS IN THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. CHAPTEK I. THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. The seventeenth century closed with France prepared to profit by the results and influences of more than a hundred and sixty years of exploration in the interior of North America. On the eastern seaboard of the continent the claims of France arising from the voyage of Verrazano had availed lit- tle, thouo-h Louis XIV. had strenuously asserted them. The rival " ... claimants. The Spaniards of those days guarded their capricious rights from Florida northward. The English, taking advan- tage of the close attention bestowed by France upon intestine affairs during her civil wars, had begun a settlement on the North Carolina coast. This was almost coincident with the de- feat of the Great Armada, that first serious setback to Spanish pride. The century which followed saw the English well estab- lished along the Atlantic shores of North America. In 1688, the revolution which put William of Orange on the English throne opened the way for a long conflict with France, nowhere more warily pursued than in the New World. By the close of the seventeenth century, England was prepared to defend her territorial claims from Spanish Florida on the south, with limits in dispute, to Acadia on the north, where there was a like imcer- tainty of boundary. The English claim thus covered an extent of coast, with an indefinite extension inland, of so varied a climate that the average temperature ranged from 42° to 75° Fahrenheit. In the struggle for the possession of the region about the 2 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. Gulf of St. Lawrence, though France had contested it with The St. England and with Portugal, she had practically ob- ano'iiuT tained the mastery, and now held without dispute son's Bay. ^j^^^^ gTaud uorthcm portal of the continent, so essen- tial in pressing her claim upon the great interior. Farther north, about Hudson's Bay, her rivalry with England was brisk, — for it was necessary there to protect the flank of her main enterprise on the St. Lawrence, — and at the close of the seventeenth century it was at its height. It was a claim for and against, on both sides, stoutly advocated and as stoutly defended. Between the rivals it was not only a question of trade for peltries, vital for France in her system of colonization, but it was to decide with whom rested the coveted chance of finding in those high latitudes the long-sought passage to the western ocean. Already in the closing years of the seventeenth century, the leader whom France had most trusted in this north- ern conflict was gaining skill and hardihood for a career which was soon to be transferred to the mouth of the Mississippi. In 1641, Charles Le Moyne, leaving Dieppe, had come to Quebec to cast his lot for a while with the Jesuits. IbGrvill© and Here he raised up a family of distinguished sons, and the oldest and youngest bore the appellations respec- tively of Iberville and Bienville. The elder was a man of nearly thirty when he appeared in command of an expedition sent from Quebec to attack the remaining English forts on Hudson's Bay. He failed in his purpose, and learning on his way back that the Yankee Phips was in the St. Lawrence (1690), he bore away his ships to France with what plunder he had secured. In the years immediately following, fortune varied in the north, — now the French, now the English, got the ascendency. In the winter of 1694-95, IberviUe gained what had been lost, and a like fortune followed him in a mea- sure in 1697. Stories told by the Indians, and some papers captured by him in Fort Nelson, had inspired him with the hope of finding his way through these northern waters to the great western sea, but in this he failed, leaving the problem to be intermittently attacked with little cessation even to the present day. Rysw^ck. The peace of Ryswick, negotiated in ignorance of the French conquests hereabouts, restored in 1697 to the ENGLISH CHARTERS. 3 English all they had lost about Hudson's Bay, and Iberville was left to final adventures in a new field. The death of Frontenac had deprived Canada of a conspicu- ous leader, and active spirits, subject to the influence of that rugged soldier, turned to other allurements. So Iberville ap- pears on the Mississippi. The charters which the English king had given, while parcel- ing; out the Atlantic seaboard of the present United o -111 If! 1 English otates, carried the bounds ot the several grants west- sea-to-sea ward to the great ocean supposed to lie somewhere beyond the Alleghanies. Though Drake and others had followed the Pacific noi'thward to Upper California, the determination of longitude was still so uncertain that different estimates pre- vailed as to the width of the continent. When the charter of Virginia was confirmed in 1609, there was just dying out a con- ception which had prevailed among geographers, but which the intuitions of Mercator had done much to dispel, that a great western sea approached the Atlantic somewhere midway along its seaboard. This theory had come down from the ^^ _ *' ^ ^ The Sea of voyage of Verrazano. To prove it, various explora- verrazano. tions had been made inland from the ramifying waters of the Chesapeake and the Hudson. It was with this determination in view that Francis I. of France had commissioned Cartier to pierce the continent from the great gulf back of Newfound- land ; and Cartier's success, followed by the later developments made by Champlain, Nicollet, Grosseilliers, and Joliet, had proved on the contrary the extent of the two great interior valleys of North America, and that they stretched over the lati- tudes and longitudes supposed to have been the bed of the Ver- razano Sea. These explorations had also shown how slight a ridge separated the basins of these continental valleys. St. Lus- son and Duluth had gone through the formalities of . ~ T? CI '•'''^ interior taking possession for France of these enormous water- vaueysand sheds near their upper springs, and La Salle had planted the arms of France at the mouth of the Mississippi for a similar purpose. Thus, by 1665, the French had proved the vast westward extent of the St. Lawrence water-system, and had made extremely probable the existence of the Mississippi. The ultimate discovery of this latter basin could not be avoided 4 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. when the English, in 1663, insisted in the charter of Carolina on territorial rights which reached to the New Albion of Drake. This region of the Pacific coast was no longer generally thought to lie just beyond the Alleghanies, as British disregard of for- eign intelligence, exemplified in the Farrer map of 1651, had recently asserted. The principles which underlie the rights of discovery were Rights of su^6 *^ bring these rival claims of sovereignty over discovery. ^j^g samc territory to a sharp encounter, as soon as the French had proved that their lines of exploration crossed these charter bounds of the English. This impending conflict was made inevitable by the passage of Joliet and Marquette down the Great River to the Arkansas, in 1673, and of La Salle to the Gulf of Mexico, in 1681. It was the establishment of military posts throughout this vast valley that eventually brought on a life-struggle between the English and the French. The English pretension was an alleged territorial right derived from charters formulated for the most part when the world was ig- norant of the limits they conveyed. These charter extensions were propped by claims bought from the Iroquois, only less substantial, which prompted England to push her pioneers to- ward the setting sun and athwart the French course. A large part of the history of the Mississippi valley during the eighteenth century is the record of a conflict of races which these opposing claims engendered. The prize contended for was a noble one. In Europe the Alps and in Asia the Himalayas shake off as from Mississippi Central buttresses the streams of human life to a verge of ocean waters. A continental condition that the Old World had not known was now found in this magnificent inte- rior basin, over which the frontiers of a great republic were yet to be rapidly pushed from one mountain wall to and beyond the other. It is a territory in its central water-shed of more than a million square miles, and with its tributary areas of no less than two and a half millions. It is, perhaps, as fertile a space for its size as the globe shows, and capable of supporting two hundred millions of people. It has a breadth of tillable valley remarkably free from impassable mountains, and modern engineering can easily overcome all physical obstacles in the way of a united people holding it. THE GREAT RIVER. 5 It is threaded by a central water-way that begins amid an average temperature o£ 40°, and meets the sea with the mercury at 72°. This lordly current passes through belts of corn, cotton, sugar, and oranges. It is shaded successively by the willow and the sycamore, by the locust, persimmon, and ash, and at last by the bay-tree, the magnolia, and palmetto. With forty or fifty considerable tributaries and a hundred thousand affluent streams in all, the great current carries off to the Gidf a mar- velous precipitation. These water-ways offer sixteen thousand miles of navigable waters, and it has been said that its great body of tributaries is more generally serviceable for trans- port service than that of any other river, except perhaps the Amazon. Vessels of good size are thought to be able to trav- erse at least ten thousand miles of channel for most of the year. The voyager stemming the current from the Gulf must pole his bateau nearly a thousand miles to the Ohio. At the Falls of St. Anthony — the first serious obstruction — he finds himself about seven hundred feet above the sea, and this elevation is more than doubled when he reaches the source of all in Itasca Lake, more than twenty-five hundred miles from the deltas in the Gulf. If he foUow the Missouri from its junc- tion with the main stream, he can reach the Rocky Mountains, near four thousand miles from the sea, and the sinuosities of his course will double the length of his passage. Descending, as was ordinarily done in these early days of the French occupation, from the portages about Lake Michigan, the canoeist found a declination of nearly six hundred feet in twenty-five hundred miles. In the floods of the early summer it took him about a month to make the descent, and hardly less than three months at any time to mount against the stream. A season of freshets would have raised the surface of the Gulf a foot and a quarter but for some oceanic compensations. Moreover, there was something commensurately grand in the surging of this vast current through the years The surging athwart an average width of forty or fifty miles of ^"''■^°*- alluvial bottom, on its way to find the level of the sea. Fran- quelin, in 1684, gave the Taensas lake as immediately opening into the Great River. Iberville, in 1700, found it a league to the west, and Thomassy, in 1859, put it several miles still farther from the main stream. Again, Cahokia was founded 6 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. in 1699, but it was not long before the shifting current left its habitations far inland. Charlevoix, in 1721, speaking of the region about the mouth of the Red River, found evident proof that "the Mississippi casts itself here from the east," — a con- dition to be considered, he thought, in making settlements thereabouts. To counteract these and other hycb-ographical vagaries along the great current and its largest affluent, the government of the United States is now expending five million dollars a year. For over a century after the European contact this great ji,g river had waited for recognition. It sometimes rose discoverers. g£|.y £gg^ ^^ '^g j^g^j^ g^j^j yg^ ^jj-g inimcuse outflow in the Gulf had failed of adequate notice. Pineda, in 1579, did not comprehend it. Twenty years later, De Soto had crossed the river at the Chickasaw bluffs without a suspicion of an immense drainage, of which the consequent cartography took no note. It was not tiU 1673 that Marquette and Joliet found the "great water" of the Indian report, so long familiar, to flow neither into the Gulf of California nor into the Sea of Virginia, but to run south to the wide semi-tropical Gulf. The future of the Great River was now assured. The luckless La Salle had fallen by the assassin's bullet while endeavoring to make it the imposing southern entrance to the interior of the continent. Nature had, indeed, made the entrance from the Gulf more than the portal of a single basin. The south winds of the which are swept in from its tropical waters, uniting with other currents drawn thither from the regions bordering on the Pacific, course northward together to be pre- cipitated at the sources of the Mississippi, Saskatchewan, and Mackenzie rivers. Thence passing up those boreal valleys, reinforced by the Chinooks from the North Pacific, they make the soil fairly tillable almost to the Arctic circle, and agricul- ture profitable as far north as the 62° of latitude. There is another natural cause of the cultivable power of these high latitudes in the depression of the average altitude of the land, as shown in the eight thousand feet of elevation where the Union Pacific Railroad runs, and the four thousand on the line Note. The opposite map is from the Carte de la Louisiane, par le Sieur D'Anville, dressee en mat, 1732; publiee en 1752. It shows the country of the Natchez and Tonicas, and the position at that time of the Lac des Tainsas. tortcU hv Twnte Coupee l^i^ <;«7;rDn^''^»— >>^-ciwr en, mantan. 8 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. of the Canadian Pacific. It has been computed that the de- pression of altitude from Wyoming to the Mackenzie River woidd counteract climatically a northing of thirteen degrees. Furthermore, the greater lengih of sunlight everywhere charac- teristic of high latitudes conduces at least to the rapidity of botanic development. All these causes put spring on the Peace River ahead of that season on the Minnesota, and the ice in the river at Fort Snell- ing near St. Paul is said to break up simultaneously with that at Fort Vermilion in Athabasca. Thus it was in these early days that the buffalo ranged among the copsewood and on the prairie extending from the lower Mississippi to Athabasca. So the great longitudinal trough of North America, with scarce a perceptible divide in some places where the Mississippi and Red River of the North head together, stretches in gradu- ated aspects from the Mexican Gulf nearly to the Great Slave Lake. In this way the enormous interior trough is not confined to the Mississippi, but is increased by something like two mil- lions of square miles of land along the Mackenzie, Saskatche- wan, and Red rivers, which with the Mississippi form an ahnost continuous course of fertilizing water. It was obviously now the mission of France to make this watery portal by the Mexican Gulf for the valley of the Mis- sissippi what French exjilorers had already, a century and a half before, made the St. Lawrence Gulf for the lower basin of the Great Lakes. The French had two rivals to be feared in fulfilling this mis- Rivais of sion, — the Spanish and the English. Spanish I^d The Spaniards had not profited as they might have English. done by the incursions across this lower country made by Narvaez and De Soto ; but they had founded St. Augustine, on the Atlantic coast, in 1565, twenty years and more before the fatal stroke to Spanish prosperity fell in the destruction of the Great Armada. Spain was at that time unquestionably dominant everywhere in this northern continent, and she had not yet begun to fear that the English would in time dispossess her of the New Mexican mines, or that the French in the Illi- nois would get from the Comanches horses bred from Spanish ponies. She had little to dread from Raleigh's colony at Roa- [From Humphreys and Abbot's PaHn of the Mississippi, etc., War Department, 1861 It shows the Mille Lacs region, the upper MissiBsippi basin, and the sources of the Red River of the North.] 10 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. noke, or from the scattered fishing stations of the French about Newfoundland. But when Philip II. died, the time had come for Spain's threatening rivals to contest her claim to American soil. France on her part was not prepared to dispute the rights of Spain west of the Rio Grande del Norte, for the Span- iards asserted that Antoine du Miroir, who had led their explorations from Mexico, had never passed east of that river. Accordingly, from that stream along the coast of the modern Texas and as far east as Pensacola (where Spain had recently settled a colony, in 1696) France claimed that her rights rested upon her discovery of the Mississippi by Joliet, and upon La Salle's coursing along the adjacent coasts. Inland, however, the Spaniards had already gained some knowledge of this Texan region. In 1575, Francisco de Urdi- nola had reconnoitred the upj)er reaches of its rivers, and a hundred years later (1675) an expedition under Fernando del Bisque had again penetrated the country. There seem, indeed, to have been wandering Spanish missionaries at certain points in the country at a later day. What is now San Antonio had formerly been a Spanish military post, and was considered a regidar station of their frontier in 1690, and a number of set- tlers had been gathered there under its protection. The ciu'rent of the Red River offered to the Spaniards another approach on the western flank of the Mississippi ; but Red River. .,,,11 , . , ^ . it would lead them to a low country, without mines, and this characteristic of the lower valley of the Mississippi had long kept that gold-seeking people out, and was likely to continue to do so. The most dangerous rivals of the French were in the east, — English *^6 English dwelling north of the Floridean peninsula, colonies. separated by bounds claimed in 1663 by the English to be the 31° of north latitude, but never settled till the oblit- eration of 1763. Living under their sea^to-sea charters, these English were nevertheless walled in on the Atlantic slope by the Appalachian range. Though in some regions much con- glomerated of stock, they were in the main dominated by immis- takable English principles which the French little understood. This difference of character always kept the two people mutu- ally unattractive. There was a fundament of English policy THE ENGLISH COLONIES. 11 which at first blush seemed to place the English on a better footing' with the aborigines, but events hardly showed a con- stant advantage in it. This was the policy of claiming only sovereignty over the natives' land, and requiring the purchase of the fee before occupancy. The French and the Spaniards, on the other hand, claimed both sovereignty over and the fee in all heathen lands wliich they occupied. The English, moreover, were a trading people in a sense that the French were not. They founded their communities on family life, which bound them to the soil, so that they abided whereon they entered. The practice of the fur trade, the sole support of the French, was opposed to such kind of domesticity. The English, too, had proved themselves a seafaring folk beyond what their rivals on the St. Lawrence were. They had flour- ished on the ocean in spite of a survival of meditevalism in the narrow policy of imperial navigation acts. By this failure of the mother English to recognize a public policy advancing inevitably, the colonies were hardened to ways which eventually deprived England of them. The Dutch, during their rule on Manhattan, had organized an Indian trade in peltries, and the English, who succeeded in their pursuit of the same trade, outbid the French in their own policy. Their rivals in this were touched in their sorest spot. From the beginning this emulation engendered and kept up a sort of guerrilla warfare between the traders of both races. In 1685 Governor Dongan of New York had invited the " Otta- wa was, a people on the back of Maryland, Virginia, and Caro- lina, to come and trade at Albany," and the next year the French captured some Albany traders who had gone to these Indians " on a lake." The British colonists were drawing apart from the feudal and manorial systems of the Old World, as the French were Their not. In New England, the early adoption of the Mo- political saic code had banished primogeniture and entail. The Quakers in Philadelphia had already sounded the knell of slav- ery, and Samuel Sewall, in Boston, was soon to inveigh against it in his Selling of Joseph. The future union of the States was noticeably prefigured in the plans of confederation which William Penn, Lord Culi3epper, and others were considering. The people were everywhere divided into " patriots " and " pre- rogative men." 12 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. The class lists of Harvard, soon to be followed by those of Yale, ranked students by social position, so that a strong infu- sion of Old- World sentiments in family distinctions was still prevailing, but on political questions it was easily remarked that growing convictions were sundering the colonies from the mother country. It was significant of the geographical diver- gencies of these sentiments, that in the sequel the southern gentleman was oftenest to stand for a new future, and the northern to be conservative. To the people of pure English stock other hardy races had been added. Cromwell, through his navy under Blake, other races. .. -,. „ rnco- had prepared the way tor the downiall ot opain ; but he exercised quite another influence on the destiny of America when he sent over the Scotch prisoners captured at Dunbar and Worcester. It was the thrift and premonitions of these exiles which had established at Boston the oldest of American mutual-aid associations, vigorous and rich to-day. The Scotch- Irish which followed later to Pennsylvania, Marjdand, and Vir- ginia, were to make the most enduring of pioneers, and to stamp their virile nature upon the early history of Tennessee and Kentucky. This spirit was in due time to permeate the Great Valley. A body of Germans, sent over by a society in Frank- fort-on-the-Main, had already settled in Pennsylvania and on the tide-waters of the Chesapeake, — redemptioners, for the most part, — who were in fit time to move along the valley of Virginia and play their part in the great western march. It was unfortunate for New York that she did much by her large manorial grants to repel the Germans, who might have pushed her settlements westward much faster than was done. Those who came to seek an independent life in the New World did not take kindly to anything like tenant servility, and sel- dom tarried in a province that denied them the best results of emigration. Such were the peoples kept back for a while from the water- The shed of the Mississippi by a mountain barrier of Appalachians, peculiar impenetrability for one of its climate and height. " The woods of the Appalachian district," says Professor Shaler, a distinguished student of our American physiography, " were in all respects the finest of those found in any region be- yond the tropical parts of the earth." With an undergrowth of TENTATIVE GEOGRAPHY. 13 brushwood and vines they long retarded the English progress to the west, and such was their density that ten to twenty years followed the deforesting before the land became wholly arable. Cartier, in 1535, when he was laying open the great St. Lawrence route into the heart of the continent, saw the ex- treme northern end of this mountain wall in the higlilands of Maine. Four years later (1539), De Soto found that its southern end turned westward in upper Georgia. Mercator, in 1569, using the reports of these two explorers, and observing from the stories of those who had been along the coast that none of the streams entering the Atlan- tic between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Florida flowed in very large volume, was the first to divine the true nature of the Appalachians as a coast range, and he so delineated it on his great mappemonde. That intuitive geographer erred, however, in turning this coast range at its southern end to the west, so as to make it serve the same purpose in shortening the riv- ers which flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. He was led to this mistake by the little importance which Spanish explorers had so far put upon the Mississippi. To the geographical sense there was yet no suspicion that this still obscure river had a volume equal to the water-shed of the larger part of the conti- nent. To Mercator's mind this great inland region — for he had discarded the Verrazano theory — was all one with the basin of the St. Lawrence. The character of the Great Lakes was not yet comprehended, and Champlain had not begun their development. So it seemed natural to Mercator to place the springs of the St. Lawrence in Arizona and make the cen- tral depression of the continent run nearly east and west, rather than north and south. It is curious that so late as the close of the seventeenth cen- tury what was true in Mercator was neglected, and what was false was adopted. The maps of Hennepin, the Frenclunan, and of Edward Wells, the Englishman, fail to delineate any coast range along the Atlantic side, but from upper Georgia they extend a mountain range due west, making only a break in it for the Mississippi. In the seventeenth century, the intercourse of the Iroquois with the French and English had taught these rivals what a commanding position those native confederates held to domi- 14 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. nate the passage to regions beyond them. At the very close of that century, Bellomont, governing New York and New andthe?"*"^ England for the English, had suggested the barring country. ^^^^ ^£ ^j^^ French from the Iroquois country by the occupation of Oswego. Already hamlets were appearing along the Mohawk, and the Palatines of that German stock which was to push up the valley of Virginia were leading the way. The French had got a strong hold upon the Iroquois as early as the middle of the seventeenth century. At its close, Robert Livingston was warning the English that their alliance with the Iroquois would be imperiled if they did not send their own missionaries among them. The New York Assembly tried to checkmate the Jesuits by making it death for a papist to enter their borders. The French acted more adroitly, and on September 8, 1700, deputies of the Iroquois signed, at Mon- treal, the earliest written treaty — not a mere deed of land — between Europeans and the aborigines. Under its terms Jesuit missionaries were once more dispatched to the region south of Ontario and within what New York claimed as a part of her jurisdiction. All these years had shown both to the French and to the English that there was little difficulty in running trails for trade or war from the valley of the Mohawk and Genesee to the springs of the Alleghany River, and leading the way to the Ohio and the Mississippi. The basin of the Ohio, with which there was thus easy con- The Ohio *^^* ^* ^*^ northeastern limit, was the same inviting basin. country which after the American Revolution drew away, under Putnam and Parsons, from the Atlantic States so large a proportion of their best blood. It was an area of more than two hundred thousand square miles, through which the vitalizing river, gathering its affluents along a course of more than a thousand miles, sped on its way with an almost even flow. Only at the modern Louisville was there a fall of some- thing like twelve to fifteen feet in the mile. The ripple on its banks had a far from constant level. It has been known to sink to a depth of a very few feet in its channel and to rise to fourscore and more. Evans, on his maps, puts the ordinary freshet rise at twenty feet, and says that the stream scarcely ever overflows its upright banks. Modern gauges have shown IROQUOIS CONQUESTS. 15 that for about a huudrecl and sixty days in the year boats draw- ing six feet of water can find a free passage. In his day, Evans reckoned that during full water boats could be rowed from Pittsburgh to the sea in sixteen or seventeen days ; and that from Mingo-town, seventy-five miles from the Forks, an ordi- nary stage of the flood would carry a draught of four feet. The river sweeps on amid a variegated flora, and the oak and hick- ory, the maple and black walnut, sheltered in these older days vast herds of buffalo. It was along this valley that the Iroquois in the seventeenth century had pushed their westward conquests. On iroquoja their route they had scattered the Eries dwelling conquests. south of the lake of that name. La Salle had heard of the Ohio through some Senecas who visited Montreal in 1669, and in following its current some years later, he had found that the name of the Iroquois could create alarm even as. far as the Mississippi. At the close of that century these confederated tribes were at the height of their power, — a domination that had taken more than a century and a half in the making. Their influence extended on the east into New England. They were feared at the north in the upper parts of Canada. They were a terror on the Mississippi, and they enforced a savage law as far south as the Potomac. They had nearly scoured away all human life between the Ohio and Lake Erie, so that a territory marked as a vantage-ground for man's endeavor — with its moderate ele- vation separating the streams that were ultimately delivered into the gulfs of St. Lawrence and Mexico — was simply a hunting-ground for their young men, or was continuously trav- ersed by marauding bands of Shawnees. By the close of the seventeenth century, the foes of the Iroquois were gaining courage. It is a traditon gathered by Loskiel that the Dela- wares, fleeing before the whites, now crossed the Alle- The owo ghanies, drove the Cherokees before them, and pushed *"^®^" into the Ohio valley. In 1693, the governor of New York had endeavored in vain to entice the Miamis, bordering on the west- ern end of Lake Erie, to break their bonds with the French. Three years later, by English instigation, the Iroquois advanced against these Miamis, with the Senecas in the van. The con- federates now received their first check. They were defeated 16 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. the next year (1697) and driven back, and ultimately (1702) forced to a peace. At the opening* of the eighteenth century, the Senecas main- Senecasand t^-i^ed the Westernmost outposts of the Iroquois in Mingoes. nortlieastcrn Ohio. Their congeners the Mingoes — as the English called them from a Delaware usage — were in the southeastern parts. Later the Shawnees came back to their old haimts, and some of them settled farther west on the Scioto, leaving their friends the Minnisinks on the forks of the Dela- ware. It has been suggested by Parkman and others that the Shaw- nees were remnants of the devastated Eries; but the evidence is not conclusive. Their villages extended south of the Ohio into Kentucky, perhaps as far as the Savan- nah River, since Delisle placed them there in 1720. The most populous of their towns appear to have been situated on the Shawanee (Cumberland) and the Cherokee (Tennessee) rivers, whence in time the Cherokees and Chickasaws were to push them back. The vagrancy of the Shawnees — Chaouanons, as the French termed them — renders their history the most perplex- ing of all tribes of the Great Valley. We find traces of them as far south as the Gulf shore, and as far east as Pennsylvania and perhaps Virginia. Mr. C. C. Royce, of the Ethnological Bureau at Washington, has tried to trace their wanderings. He is inclined to the Erie theory of their origin, and thinks them not unlikely the " Massawomekes," of whom Captain John Smith, in 1608, heard as living over the mountains " upon a great salt water, which by all likelihood is some great lake, or some inlet of some sea that fitteth into the South Sea." They were thought to make their approach to the tide-water tribes, their enemies, by streams entering Chesapeake Bay from the northwest. When Marquette was at his mission on Lake Superior in 1670, he encountered the Shawnees there, and he knew f x^om the glass beads which they wore that they had traded with the English, then only possible by packmen who had passed the Alleghanies. Again we find Marquette, while on his eventful voyage down the Mississippi three years later, speaking of the Ohio, when he passed its mouth, as coming from the country of the Shaw- THE ALLEGHANY PASSES. 17 nees. At the very close of the century, Father Cosme tells us that the Shawnees were still bartering with the people east of the Alleghanies. Beyond the Scioto lay, as the century went on, the Wyan- dots, — a fragment of the old Huron people, — and neighboring to them were the Ottawas on the Sandusky and the Maumee of the north. As to this eastern affluent of the Mississippi, the French had introduced a confused nomenclature, which needs to ohio and be borne in mind in reading the early narratives, ^^^ash. What they often called the Ouabache (Wabash) was the jsres- ent stream of that name, continued in the modern Ohio below their junction. The Belle Riviere, or the Ohio, was the larger stream above the Wabash, and the name was extended to cover what we now call the Alleghany. James Logan of Pennsyl- vania early (1718) discriminated : " Some call both these rivers [Ohio and AYabash] by the same name, and generally Wabache ; but they ought to be distinguished, because the head of Ohio comes much more easterly [in the Alleghany], extending even to the government of New York." The French and the Dutch had knowledge of this Alleghany ingress into the Ohio regions as early as the middle The AUe- of the seventeenth century, and the English came giiany River later to know it. Champlain had been the first to in- iroquois vade the Iroquois country, the natural gateway to the west. His maps are the earliest we have. The Jesuit mis- sionaries added further information, and the warring inroads of Tracy and Denonville still increased it. But the almost steady adherence of the Iroquois to the English gave these rivals of the French an advantage, increased much in the eighteenth century by the remarkable personal influence of William John- son, when the final struggle came for the possession of the valley. As the English settlements moved back from the sea, all along the Appalachians, it became apparent, from time to time, that there were gaps in the mountains which could be passed, and water-ways beyond to be found which led to the Ohio val- ley. The Pennsylvanians opened such a passage by the west 18 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. branch of the Susquehanna. Evans later describes it as " in- Pennsyiva- terlockcd with brauches of the Alleghany, making a theAUe'ha- portagc of forty miles, and from thence to Shamokin '*'^^- [at the forks of the Susquehanna] the traders are usually seven days coming down with a fresh." One of the legends on Evans's map of 1744 speaks of the Susquehanna as having no "sea navigation" because of its obstructions, but, it adds, " by its length and large branches, communicating with the country beyond the mountains, it makes amends in con- veniences for Indian navigation with canoes." Of the " End- less Mountains " (Appalachians) it further says that " back of Pennsylvania there are a hundred miles right across, scarce an acre of ten of which is capable of culture." There was also from Pennsylvania another portage from the Juniata to other affluents of the Alleghany, a route which knew much devastation in the later wars. The Virginians Ga s in vir- f ouud still shortcr portagcs to the Monongahela and giuia. Ohio from the upper waters of the Potomac, and observers were not slow in discovering that the climate on the two slopes of the mountains was not much changed by the elevation which was to be passed. The passage west in upper Georgia by an almost level route around the mountains had long been known. The information which De Soto had acquired was confirmed by the Spanish miners, who worked here at intervals for a long time after 1560. The Carolina traders, however, did not depend alone on The caroiin- ^^^^ morc practicable route in maintaining their Indian theirTndian traffic. The Carolinian s were a conglomerate people trade. from thc beginning. Beside the pure English, there were strains of other blood, — Scotch and Protestant Irish, Swiss, Palatines, and Dutch, the last coming down from the Iro- quois country after the English occupation. The cultivation of rice was even yet looked upon among them as a staple, and created with the increase of its crops a scattering plantation life, so that towns were not the ride. Trade had already begun with the Cherokees, a race in the south mvich like the Iroquois in the north. Indeed, Horatio Note. The opposite map is from Humphreys and Abbot's Basins of the Mississippi, etc., War Department, 1861. It shows the Ohio basin, and liow the rivers on the southern side of the Ohio are separated by the AUeghanies from the Virginia and Carolina waters. ^A^ 20 THI^ MISSISSIPPI BASIN. Hale and other philologists have seen in the Cherokee tongue certain lino-uistie relations to the lansuao^e of the Iro- Cherokees. o o quois, though there are some investigators who con- nect them rather with the Dacotahs. The Cherokees were a skillful people, made pipes deftly, and constructed mounds of earth. They were much more inclined to agriculture than the tribes which the French had known in Canada, and their sus- tenance depended rather on vegetables and fruits than upon ani- mal fats and oils used in the north. Their villages stretched all alone: the mountains southward, from the headwaters of the Holston and Clinch in Tennessee to the sources of the rivers in Carolina, and they built their lodges on either slope of the Appalachians and in their valleys. De Soto had found them in much the same situation. It is very likely that in the latter half of the seventeenth century the Virginians had some knowledge of their northern villages. In 1690, one Daugherty, a Virginian trader, had gone among them. In 1693, a deputation of their chief men had come to Charleston to ask aid against the Tuscaroras. In May, 1699, Bienville, the French commander on the GuK, reports an attack of Indians on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and among the assailants were some whites ; and he supposes they were English from Carolina. Even as early as La Salle's time, it seemed evident to that explorer that the Enalish in Carolina were sendino- traders over the momitains, for he could not otherwise account for the articles of European make which he found among the Mississippi tribes. The inter-tribal traffic which was carried on by the Yamas- sees on the Savannah, by the Catawbas on the river Indians and of that name, and by the Tuscaroras on the Neuse, with the Indians over the mountains naturally opened traders' trails for the English. Delisle, in his map of 1701, shows the routes of the Carolina traders to the Chickasaws ; in that of 1703 he makes a river, evidently the Tennessee, a thor- oughfare for such trade, and in 1707 he calls it the " Tinnase," making it rise among the Cherokee villages. The Creeks, more easily reached around the southern spurs of the mountains, occupied the territory south and west of the Savannah River and thence to the Mobile, and they included in their tribal associations the Seminoles of THE OCEAN ROUTE. 21 Florida. The line between the Cherokees and the Creeks fol- lowed the Broad River, and ran roughly along the 34° of north latitude. The English were already beginning to establish their factories among this people, and a legend on Mitchell's map (1755) says that such stations are scattered through the country, except among the Alibamons on the Alabama River, who had come under French influence in 1715, though the English had been among them as early as 1687. The " route of Colonel Welch in 1G98," given in the same map as that fol- lowed by the Carolina traders, crossed westward the upper waters of the Appalachicola, past the Alabama and Chickasaw rivers (the main forks of the Mobile), and so reached the coun- try of the Chickasaws. When La Salle turned trader, he was confined in his en- terprise, by royal edict, to those parts of the upper ^^ ^^-^^ ^^j Mississippi valley which did not supply furs to the ^'^''•'^'i^^- Montreal market. Finding the peltries of this region heavy, — for they were largely buffalo-skins, — he had been prompted, after his discovery of the outlet of the Gi'cat River at the south, to organize a plan of shipping his furs down the Mississippi on their way to Europe, rather than to trail them over the north- ern portages on the way to the merchants' ships at Montreal. Apprehensive of English interruption, he had at the same time urged that the eastern tributaries of the Mississippi should be occupied, to close them against any such rivalry. It was left for Iberville to open this ocean route to France. Even after La Salle had reached the Illinois and had begun to covet their trade, the Montreal merchants had been j^^ g^ng ^^^ jealous of the interference which it would cause with ^°"*y- the commerce of the northern Indians. Royal decrees had rec- ognized the diverting of this trade of the Illinois Indians to its natural channel down the Mississippi ; but when La Salle's pa- tent fell to his faithful henchman, the picturesque Tonty with the silver hand, an exception was made in the latter's favor because of his signal services, and he was allowed (1699) to dispatch two canoes and twelve men yearly from the St. Law- rence to his Rock on the Illinois. This indulgence did not long continue, and in 1702 it was withdrawn. Tonty, as we shall see, was thus driven to join Iberville at the mouth of the Mississippi. 22 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. The obstacles of these Canadian routes to the sea were great, involving the passage of divides, which were scattered northern from the extreme end of Lake Superior to the Niag- ara River. To the common apprehension of the aver- age European geographer, these multiplied connections were simply evolved in the conception of a river by which the Mis- sissippi was united with the St. Lawrence. This is seen in the l7itrodicctio in Universam Geoffrajpliiam. of Cluverius, and in an edition published so late as 1729. Even Bowen, the Eng- lish geographer, so late as 1747, makes the Wisconsin River an unbroken link connecting Lake Michigan and the Mississippi. The earliest known of these portages were those farthest away from the Canadian settlements, and principal among them was that starting from the country about Green Bay, where the Winnebagoes, an isolated tribe of the Dacotah stock, first introduced these Iroquois of the west to the early explorers. This carry was known from Indian report to Nicollet as early as 1634, but Joliet was probably the first to pass it, in 1673. It was a somewhat tedious, but not a difficult portage, and it is said that even to-day, in wet seasons, the waters of the approaching streams sometimes mingle. Passing up the Fox River from the Bay, the canoeist traversed Lake Winnebago, along the sites of the now populous towns of Fond du Lac and Oshkosh. Twisting along the upper Fox for sixty or seventy miles, at what is now Portage City, he passed not much over a mile by land to the Wisconsin with its umbra- geous banks and shifting sands. The course of the trader thus threaded the country of the Foxes, a people who were never brought wholly to The Foxes. ' j. i ^ o j succumb to French blandishments, and often rendered this route dangerous and even impassable. They were a tribe who, in alliances with the Dacotahs on the one side and the Chickasaws and Iroquois on the other, did much to resist the westward movements of the French. Driven from this route by Green Bay, the French trader some- Lake times resorted to another carry, at the extreme west- Superior. gj.^ gjj^j q£ Lake Superior, where he entered the St. Louis River, and found himself in that Mille Lacs region, the arena of many a conflict of the Chippeways and Dacotahs. The variegated forests of this passage are still mirrored in its innu- J , hg 1 o H w B w 3 8= M c 1 O s •§ w o< ... H !2! s; g !> g SJ k! '^ ^ ►T3 O p » SO ?2? > '-' 2. ^ 1 JD B 1 >< 1 7 24 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. merable lakes, ponds, and streams, clear and pebbly, and the wild rice rustles as the paddle bends its tottering stalks. It was through such a country that the woodsman sought the upper- most reaches of the MississijDpi, where that river was first seen by Europeans, and whence Duluth, in 1680, had hojjed to find a way to the Gulf of California. Where the pioneer two centuries ago stranded his canoe, the twin cities of an ocean lake now rival Chicago as a distributing centre of produce and trade. Before the end of the seventeenth century, the portages at ^ , the head of Lake Michigan had become the best known Lake c -, . Michigan of all, and there had been a tradino-post for something; portages. ti r» c r^ • • like fifteen years at the Chicago River. What Her- man Moll, the English cartographer, called the " land carriage of Chekakou " is described by James Logan, in a communica- tion which he made in 1718 to the English Board of Trade, as running from the lake three leagues up the river, then a half a league of carriage, then a mile of water, next a small carry, then two miles to the Illinois, and then one hundred and thirty leagues to the Mississippi. But descriptions varied with the seasons. It was usually called a carriage of from four to nine miles, according to the stage of the water. In dry seasons it was even farther, while in wet times it might not be more than a mile ; and, indeed, when the intervening lands were " drowned," it was quite possible to pass in a canoe amid the sedges from Lake Michigan to the Des Plaines, and so to the Illinois and the Mississippi. It is along this route that the drainage canal of the city of Chicago is now constructing for the joint purpose of relieving the city of its sewage and opening a passage for its commerce with the interior. There were other portages south of the Chicago River, and at the southwest corner of the lake by the lesser and greater Cal- umet rivers, by which the Kankakee and Des Plaines branches of the Illinois were sometimes reached. It is not always easy, in the early narratives, to determine which of these portages about Chicago was in particular instances used, and in the maps there is some confusion in the Chekagoua and Calumet rivers. In the southeast angle of the lake was the portage of the St. Joseph River, which La Salle was much accustomed to trav- 26 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. erse. There was by it about four miles of carriage to the Kankakee. The northward current of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, and the southward current of the western shore, naturally made the St. Joseph portage a return route to Canada, and the Chicago an outward one. At a later day, this same river was found to afford a carriage to an upper branch of the Wabash, and it became the principal channel of supplies for the settlers at Vincennes. One can well imagine how this broad prairie land struck the Canadian from his sterile north, — the flower-studded grass of the spring and the tall waving banner- ets of the later season, with the luxury of the river bottoms and their timber margins. There was still a series of portages crowning the narrow strip Lake Erie ®^ *^^® soutlicrn watcr-shcd of Lake Erie, but they were portages. little uscd till the eighteenth century. There is some reason to suppose, from the evidence of Sanson's map, that the Maumee had been explored as early as 1656, and the portage thence to the Wabash had been known to Allouez as early as 1680. A year or two later, La Salle says it is the most direct of all the routes to the Illinois, but too hazardous because of the prowling Iroquois. It remained almost unfrequented be- cause of these confederates till after the settling of Detroit in 1715. By this time the Miarais' confederacy had possessed the region about the affluents of the Wabash, and the three thou- sand warriors which they could put in the field were a check upon the Iroquois. The country was an attractive one, with its undidating landscape of meadow and upland, and streams that alternately lingered in calm repose and twirled with the foam- ing rapid. Animal life was brisk with the deer, the wolf, and the bear. The rivulets were alive with the white swan, the crane, and the heron, springing from the wild rice or settling along the grassy isles. On the gentle slopes of the land one heard the turkey and the quail. It was a meeting-groimd of the savages, and the ashes of their council fires were seen on the knolls. This portage varied with the state of the water from eight or nine miles to even thirty. For two hundred miles downward from the carry the Wabash was more or less interrupted, but Note. The opposite map is from Humphreys and Abbot's Basins of the 3Iississippi, etc., War Department, 1861. It shows the line of the divide intersecting the portages between the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi basins. KilLstinafiJ (in ua axtJ OJ/tni- Jupc ^^^s^^il a. i^o tiuuj umv ^ di J^Uujju'v^ \id^t ^ ^ Ja.Q/6ame, (Hi Gmmma Otddcn/ak ^^ymjiJMi^LaY tuucuvfT-uuietqg- acUfviJfin^o^ /ac dc 'UipiJJina ^'^mzf,- aU£*r^ ,u^ 30 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. beyond that there was about four hundred miles of navigable course for boats not drawing over three feet. Another portage from the Maumee to the west branch of the Big Miami became later the traveled route of the traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia. A short carry from Sandusky to the Scioto became the warpath of the French Indians about the Detroit River against the Choctaws and flat-headed tribes towards Carolina. The portages farther east came into use much later. A short one by way of the Cuyahoga (where Cleveland now stands) led to the upper waters of the Muskingum. That by Presqu' Isle (the modern city of Erie) and French Creek led to the Alle- ghany River, and became eventually the chief approach of the French after they had determined to maintain military posts along the Ohio and bar out the English. It is by the same route to-day that commerce and engineering skill are combining in hope to connect Pittsburgh, the great centre of coal produc- tion, with the Lakes, already coursed with steamers of more than four thousand tons disjolacement. Still more easterly was that to Chautauqua Lake, the source of the Alleghany, but it proved^too rolicb of an incline for transporting heavy supplies. It was also quite possible to pass Lake Onta- fi'om the sourccs of the Genesee to the springs of the no portages. Alleghany, but the route was hardly used except by wanderers and stealthy war parties. The portages from the Iroquois country to the south were mainly of use in passing to the Susquehanna and Delaware. There is a story reported by Begon in a memoir (1716) that The Sea of ^^ early as 1688 the Assiniboine Indians had offered the West. ^.Q conduct a French traveler, De Noyen, by what seems to have been the Minnesota River, over a divide to the Red River of the North, and so to Lake Winnipeg. Thence, the memoir claimed, the way was open to the great Sea of the West, where people rode on horseback. The journey to and from would occupy, he said, five months. These are the earliest inti- mations of an overland discovery of the Pacific, by a definite Note. The map on the preceding pages shows the northern portages as understood at the time of Joliet's discoveries. From Marcel's Reproductions, following a map in the Archives of the Marine at Paris. V^' ""•^^; [From Humphreys and Abbot's Basins of the Mississippi, etc., War Department, 1861. It shows the divide between the Yellowstone River and Snake River.] 32 THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN. course, and the first indication of the passage which was to connect the Great Valley with the Mackenzie basin and the polar sea. In 1695, Le Sueur established a post on the upper Missis- sippi, and acted as a pacificator of the Chippeways and Sioux. In his search at the same time for a copper mine on the Green River, — which was reached by the Minnesota, — he La Sueur, ,,,. ,, it andst. Pe- had, it IS supposcd, been the earliest to know this ter River. «,,,.... amuent or the Mississippi, when he bestowed upon it the name of St. Peter. When, in 1673, Marquette descended the Wisconsin and the The Mis- Mississippi, and was going along with the current in souriBiver, dear Water at a speed of twelve miles an hour, he noticed a great change in the body of the stream, which was produced by the much more rapid influx from the west of a great volume of eddying sediment. He learned from the Indi- ans that this polluting stream was called the Pekitanoiii. At a later day, when the tribe of the Missouris was found to be a leading race among the fourteen nations of savages which inhab- ited the banks of this great river, it was easy for it to become better known as the Missouri, thus distinguishing it as an afflu- ent of the Mississippi, when the volume of its current entitled it, rather than the Mississippi, to be called the principal stream. At this time Marquette indulged the hope that one day he might be permitted to ascend its turbid course and solve the great problem of the west. It was reserved, however, for the eighteenth century to begin the solution of that geographical riddle which was made clear in the nineteenth. It was then found that the springs of the Platte, which fed the Missouri, and its port- wcrc adjaccut to those of the Colorado, which de- *8e8- bouched into the Gulf of California. Other explor- ers discovered that the sources of the Yellowstone opened portages to those of the Snake, while an upper affluent of the Missouri was contiguous to the headwaters of Clark's Fork. The Snake and this fork were ultimately found to pass their united waters into the Columbia, entered from the Pacific for the first time by a Boston ship at the close of the eighteenth century, and draining a country richer and larger than the combined area of the Atlantic seaboard commonwealths from Maine to Virginia. CHAPTER II. Iberville's expedition. 1697-1700. The treaty of Ryswick, in April, 1697, left France m posses- sion of the two great valleys of North America. Tonty was now at his Rock on the Illinois, a sort of privileged charac- ^ ^ . . . Tonty. ter in the valley, respected by Indian and white when- ever they came within his influence. Whoever has followed the career of La Salle needs not to be told of the services of this faithful follower. It was well known how valorously and devotedly he had gone down the Mississippi, hoping to res- cue his bewildered leader, A journal which Tonty had kept, falling into irresponsible hands, had only just been published in Paris, but there was so much of interjected error and foolish untruth in it that the hardy adventurer promptly disowned it. The publication, however, had served to increase his fame in France. Before this he had asked that he might be permitted to follow up the discoveries of La Salle at the mouth of the Great River and confirm its possession to the king, but the man of action was not yet thought to be needed. In October, 1697, Louvigny preferred the same request, and held out the hope of invading Mexico successfully, ^. ... . I. , . Louisiana. from the Mississippi as a base, — a view of the river s usefulness that was not lost a few years later. In December, De Remonville argued in a Memob'e that the development of Louisiana was of great importance to France. He catalogued the variety of products which the country could be made to yield, — game, peltry, wine, silk, and hemp. The territory, he said, was rich in mines. Its oaks could more than supply the royal navy with masts. He pointed out that a colonizing expedition ought to be sent speedily, lest the English should gain posses- sion in advance. Moreover, he added, a considerable military Amewove SEPTENTR rONALE THE MISSISSIPPI. [From a map in the Bibliothgque Nationale, given in Marcel's Reproductions. It was made by the Abb6 Gentil and given to that library in 1713. It shows the early explorations of La SaUe, and represents the knowledge previous to Iberville's voyage.] IBERVILLE. 35 force was necessary to protect the expedition from the English buccaneers, who infested the coast from New York to Florida. He adduced a rumor that the governor of Pennsylvania had already dispatched fifty men to settle on the Wabash (Ohio), ^"^M-i ^->l 1 ^ -^^ ^^^"V-^. ml ^ 1 / ^J;f 1 '''^i^T''^^.^ ^^^ --i. / S^^^ ?s_ ^**'"**' *''**«»-^ V^v^.,w. / ^^fcT^ ^**"""**-|i^^^^^^. ^^^ > ^ '^^9^"^' >> &>-' O^ rpji^ ^cha"^ HOMANN, 1720(7). [Showing the route of Touty from the Chickasaw country.] 52 IBERVILLE'S EXPEDITION. from overflow. The episode of the English ship and the sto- Fort on the ^^^^ ^^ English traders rendered it necessary to be Mississippi, prepared against attempts to eject them, and on this higher land Iberville determined to erect a fort. It was about fifty-four miles from the Gulf, and the site is marked on later maps. It was now January, 1700, and when the palisades were up, jjjjjt Bienville was put in command. In February, while appears. they wcrc still at work on the fort, they were sur- prised by the appearance of Henri de Tonty, who came with boats loaded with peltry and manned by Canadian boatmen. He had left his Rock on the Illinois, and had stopped on the way to trade with the Arkansas Indians. While the tidings which Tonty brought were still fresh, Le Le Sueur's Sucur, witli twcuty mcu and some Indian guides, expedition, started to find his mines of green earth. He was no stranger in the country at the north, having spent six or seven years among the Sioux. During this period he had been a strong advocate of measures to frustrate the English attempts at opening trade along the Ohio. He had taken some chiefs of this distant nation to Quebec, and Frontenac had formally placed the Dacotah tribes under French protection. Concerning the expedition of which Le Sueur was now in charge we have a good account in Penicault's narrative, which is given more consecutively by Margry than in the uncertain English version by French, and this may be supplemented by the memoir of the Chevalier de Beaurain, also given in Margry. There was a new cause for disquiet when the party reaching the Arkansas found a Carolina trader at work. In August, they were at Lake Pepin, and saw the stockade built a few years before by Nicolas Perrot left standing for chance traders to occupy. In September, they had passed the Falls of St. An- thony and entered the St. Peter, now the Minnesota, River. Canoeing into one of its tributaries, the Blue Earth or Green River, as it was indiscriminately called, at a point a little above 44° north latitude, as he supposed it, Le Sueur built a stockade, and called it after the royal farmer-general. Fort I'Huillier. This was in October, 1701. Slaughtering buffalo and freezing the flesh, Le Sueur's men began to lay in provisions. There was need of it, for seven LE SUEUR. 63 Canadian traders soon joined them and spent the winter, de- pending on Le Sueur's stores. The mine they had sought was close by, and they began to work it. Wandering Sioux passed, and they accumulated some skins by barter. When Callieres at Quebec heard of these doings of Le Sueur, by which the trade of the far west was diverted to the Missis- sippi, he wrote complainingly to the ministry, and asked what was to become of poor Canada if such a course was to be per- mitted. It was hard, if not impossible, to enforce edicts in 64 IBERVILLE'S EXPEDITION. the wilderness, and, as Tonty's ventures had shown, trade had ab-eady indicated its future channels. In May, 1701, Le Sueur, loading his canoes with a portion of the green earth which he had dug out, — about four thousand pounds, — descended to the lower stations, leaving a garrison to hold the fort. Misfortune overtook him, and he never saw his fort or his mine again. The Sioux finally drove off his men, and the fort was abandoned. After Le Sueur had started up the river, Iberville proceeded leisurely northward from his fort. Anions: the Bava- Iberville i i i i i i r>n • i • ascends the goulas he Icamcd that the Chickasaws were ffettinsr Mississippi. *? oo nrearms from the iLnglish. It was more than ever apparent, if the colonization upon which he had started was to succeed, that an effort must be made to combine the tribes of the Mississippi in alliance with the French. The passing through the low country with its monotonous canebrakes had The little exhilaration in it, but when the party reached the Natchez. elcvatcd territory of the Natchez, there were new sen- sations in store for them, not only in the air and scenery, but in the character of that people. This tribe were, perhaps, dis- tinctly sun-worshipers, though it is pretty evident from the modern researches that throughout the continent all Indians were accustomed to bend to the supreme orb, as recent scientists turn to it for the origin of light, heat, magnetism, and electri- city. Here, among the sun-worshipers, Iberville found St. Cosme conducting a mission. This j>riest, with Montigny and Davion, formed, as we have seen, the advance-guard of the church, doing from the side of Canada what Iberville was hoping to accomplish from below, so as to secure by the church, as well as by the influence of trade, the control of the valley. The rites of the Natchez, as the French saw them, both at- tracted and repelled them. There was enough of a sort of mock grandeur in them to make theorists associate these children of the sun with the Aztecs, and even with those early peoples of Mexico sometimes termed the Toltecs. There was the same constructive energy in raising earth mounds for their buildings which the native American showed almost everywhere. This Note. The opposite map, from the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, is given in Marcel's Repro- duciions, No. 17. It shows results of the explorations of La Salle, corrected by those of Iberville, s4 i. ^> I ^ ^ f ft ^ + f 56 IBERVILLE'S EXPEDITION. has influenced some etlmologists of a later day to trace a con- nection for them with the so-called mound-builders. Their government had some features which ineluced a belief in the despotism of their headmen, but American Indians were as much committee-ridden as the American people are to-day ; and it is doubtful if their polity varied from that of the rest of the aborigines of the continent in giving a kind of representative character to their civil control. Montigny, whose visit to Biloxi has been already mentioned, had accompanied St. Cosme to this region and was Montigny , . . . i m audtiie conductnig a mission among the iaensas, a tribe upon one of that link of lakes which lay just west of the Mississippi. While Bienville stayed among the Natchez to j)repare an expedition for the Red River, Iberville made Montigny a hurried visit. On his return, he found ontiieRed Bieiiville had his jjarty well organized. Tonty and St. Denis were to accompany him, and the chief object of the undertaking was to reconnoitre the Spanish jjosts in that direction, for as they understood the Indians, these rivals were established up the Red River. It was now March (1700). The country being naturally swampy and the spring not a favorable season, they returned without accomplishing their purpose. They went apparently about a hundred leagues be- yond the Natchitoches, the leading tribe upon the lower parts of the Red River. Tonty soon left his new friends, to go back to the Tonicas with presents. It was now agreed that Tonty and Davion should undertake to keep the Indians on the upper river from forming an English alliance, while Iberville guarded the lower The Indians rivcr with a similar purpose. There was need of pre- at tiie north, cipj^atc actioii at tlic uortli, for the English were be- coming active, since Robert Livingston was striving to bring about the occupation of Detroit as a vantage-ground for forcing a peace between the Iroquois and the western Indians, and in that way to bring them into support of the English schemes. In the Illinois country the dread of the Iroquois had driven Kaskaskia ^^^^ missiou, whcrc Father Pinet had been working, mission. from tlic old Kaskaskia on the Illinois River to the site of the modern town of that name on the peninsula between the Kaskaskia River and the Mississippi, and two miles away THE INDIAN TRADE. 57 fi'om the latter river. This transference, made under Jacques Gravier and Gabriel Marest, had probably been accomiDlished in the autumn o£ 1700. The mission thus became one of the earliest permanent settlements near the banks of the Traffic Great River, within easy support of the increasing on the traffic of the French up and down the stream. This BIENVILLE. [From Margry.] traffic was soon to grow perceptibly under the policy which Callieres, the governor of Canada, was pursuing in consequence of orders from France ; namely, to diminish the number of posts in the western country, so as to avoid the cost of garrisons. It was thought that as a result the peltry would be taken down 58 IBERVILLE'S EXPEDITION. the Lakes to Montreal. As it turned out, the injunction worked quite as much to the advantage of the new trade springing up along the Mississippi, since the bushrangers, pursuing a contra- band trade with the Indians, better escaped police observations by carrying their skins down the Mississippi. All this soon improved the prospects of the new Louisiana colony. It was about this time, also, that Du Charleville, a kinsman of Bienville, sought, as we learn from Le Page du of the Pratz, to extend trade connections farther to the north by following up the Mississippi to its source. The story indicates that, leaving the Illinois, he went up to the Palls of St. Anthony and a hundred leagues beyond. Here he met a party of Sioux hunters, who had some reason for telling him that the distance from the falls to the source was equal to that from the falls to the sea. The exaggeration discouraged him, and the springs of the Great River were for a long period to remain unknown. At the source of the Ohio, the western outposts of the Iro- The quois Confederacy were held by the Senecas, mainly Iroquois. jjj ^]-^g J^i^encli iutcrcsts, while the English supremacy was still maintained among the eastern portion of the league, nearer Albany. These remoter Indians had, in the summer of 1700, been induced through French agency to make peace with the western tribes, not quite in the sjjirit of Livingston's pro- ject, and thi'ough this conciliation there was to be an exchange of prisoners. This bore hard on the Iroquois, as their inces- sant wars had depleted their fighting force, which they had sought to replenish by the adoption of these same prisoners. The result was that the exchange was unequal, since the con- federates could only produce six warriors whom they had not adopted against the much greater number brought down to Montreal by the western tribes. Furthermore, the conference gave Callieres the opportunity which he desired of extolling French faith and denouncing English perfidy, and he made the most of it. He had good abettors in the Jesuits, for whom the way was now clear to settle in the Iroquois country. It was a question how long the Canadian governor could maintain the hold upon the confederates which he flattered himself he had now acquired. cf lO •a a 1-1 o C-I O CO ^ 3 2 5 o O (*-< o a rt 0) Q j: a bo o u fa & 1— > O CJ ■a -u m IS 60 IBERVILLE'S EXPEDITION. This condition of things at the north and northeast and the Iberville purposes of the local governments, as well as the views Mississi 1 entertained at Paris, were important aids to the new trade. movcments on the lower Mississippi. Iberville, as we have seen, had pushed far enough to meet the traders and missionaries coming from the St. Lawrence valley. Moreover, he had derived encouragement from Tonty's conceptions of the drift of trade. He was consequently able, on the same day that Bienville started for the RedTliver, to turn back from the Natchez with some confidence in the future of the Great Valley. When he reached Biloxi, his impressions were again confirmed, since the policy of Callieres was such that Louisiana would get most of the profit. This reassurance came from finding that another party of Canadian rangers had come with peltry for a market, flying from the restrictive measures which the Canadian government was enforcing at Mackinac. Late in May, 1700, Iberville, leaving Bienville to manage the colony, was again on shipboard bound for France, having apparently little apprehension of any trouble with the Spaniards. s aniards at I* "^^^ "®* long, liowevcr, after he had gone before BUoxi. ^jjg governor of Pensacola appeared at Biloxi to pro- test against the French occupation of any territory along the GuK shore. His claim foreboded peril, inasmuch as he asserted that Florida and Mexico were contiguous, and were not to be wedged apart by intruders. He was content at present to couch his protest in words merely. On the return voyage to Pensacola, the Spanish ships were wrecked, and such of the crews as escaped the waves were shortly afterward back in Biloxi, suppliants for relief. CHAPTER III. THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. 1700-1709. Iberville's movements on the lower Mississippi had so much aroused the Illinois tribes that they showed a disposition to move down the river to be nearer the new-comers, oravier and Father Gravier, who had left the Miami mission on ^aakaskia. September 8, 1700, encountered the Kaskaskias, a group of the Illinois, weU on their migrating way ; but he finally prevailed upon their chiefs to stop at the modern Kaskaskia. The priest himself then started down the stream to see what was going on. Some Frenchmen accompanied him in five canoes. They went on, killing buffalo upon the banks and leaving their ^^^^.^^ ^^ carcasses for the wolves. Passing the mouth of the scendsthe '-' , Mississippi. river now called the Ohio, Gravier mentions how that stream, known to him as the Ouabache (Wabash), is formed by three tributaries, the present Wabash, the Ohio (above the confluence of the Wabash), and the affluent which comes from the southeast, upon which live the Shawnees, who trade with the English of Virginia and Carolina. The Indians at this time caUed the main river, debouching into the Mississippi, the Akansea, after a tribe formerly dwelling there, but which was now seated farther down the Mississippi. As Gravier went on, he tells us that he actually boxed the compass with the windings of the current. In one place he found some Mohegans, of that New England race which had fled west after Philip's war, and who had been faithful some years earlier to La Salle. They were still trading their com- modities with the English, and the English guns, which he soon after found among the Akanseas in their new home, told of further inter-tribal traffic, if not of direct contact with the Carolina traders. The priest found among these Akanseas 62 THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. some who recollected the advent of Marquette, then nearly a score of years gone by. The party stopped awhile for a visit to Davion and St. Cosme among the Tonicas, and it was late in November when they left the Natchez. They saw cocks and hens in their villages, and conjectured that the progenitors of these birds had been saved from the wreck of some Christian vessel on the Gulf coast. It was December 17 when the voyagers reached the French fort at Poverty Point, as it has since been called, having been sixty-eight days in coursing the Mississippi from the Illinois to its lower curves. In the following February, while still at Iber- ville's fort, Gravier wrote the letter which is our main authority for his descent of the river, and of which Dr. Shea has given us a translation. In the preference which Gravier expressed for the advantages of Biloxi — which he next visited — we have a premonition of the final abandonment of this desolate Missis- sippi stockade. During the autumn of 1700, and in the following winter, Iberville was in France, considering future plans. 1700-1. .' . * -^ iberviue in He was urgcd to pusli liis explorations westward to- France. . wards New Mexico, and he drew up a plan for reach- ing the Gulf of California. He had his eye, too, on the Spanish fort at Pensacola, — a vision seldom obscured to his successors, — and above all he urged upon Pontchartrain the military defense of the Mississippi banks as making all these projects sure, and as giving a base for a still more important purpose. This was to push the English back upon Carolina and prevent their selling arms to the populous villages of the Cherokees. A population for Louisiana of a hundred and fifty all told, Port at ^^^ ^^ unhealthy camp at Biloxi, — where Sauvole soon Mobile. ({\Q(\_ from the fever — was not promising, unless the home government was prepared to give large succors. At all events, a more salubrious post seemed a necessity, and a site, thought to secure it, was soon found at the head of Mobile Bay. Boisbriant was now sent thither, with a party, to con- struct a fort. Sauvole's death had brought BienviUe from the Mississippi ftervuie ^^^^ ^^ t2^e the general command in the dreary waste Dec^ber of Biloxi, witli its bumiug sands and noxious damps, "'**• and here Iberville found him when, on December 15, TONTY, LE SUEUR, IBERVILLE. 63 1701, accompanied by another brother, Le Moyne de Serigny, he reached the colony. The change to the post at Mobile was at once ordered, but Iberville did not remain to see the new position in complete order, for another hurried visit to France intervened before, in March, 1702, he took again the control, and the course of events once more felt his influence. Tonty had come (March 25, 1702) from the up-country with a band of Choctaws and Chickasaws in his train, ^he Indians and it gave Iberville the opportunity to warn these Freuchand jarring neighbors that the English purposed to stir up ^°g"^^- inter-tribal distrust till they exterminated each other. He urged them to a defensive alliance. At the same time he sent to Quebec to ask for missionaries to be sent among them as the best antidote to English intrigue. Turning to the other hand, he equally sought to work upon the fears of his Spanish neigh- bors by representing to them that the French occupation of this region meant in reality giving the Spaniards a barrier against the English. With complications on all sides, the founder of Louisiana, with his health imdermined, was not destined to see his work completed. His northernmost outpost, Le fortaban- Sueur's Fort d'Huillier, even before Delisle, using, as he says, the memoirs of that adventurer, signified its j)osition on his new map of Louisiana (1703), had been abandoned for fear of the Sioux, and its destitute garrison were just now come to report their failure. It was not a grateful outcome of all Iber- ville's hopes of far-reaching influence throughout the Great Val- ley. Burdened with such disappointment he returned to France, never to see his colony again. Pontchartrain, indeed, iberviue'g recognized his merit, when he made him " Commander ''^^'^ ^^^''^^ of the Colony of the Mississippi," but he felt that the title and the authority failed to carry with it the material aid, in conces- sions of land, in mines, and in negroes, which was necessary to make his control successful. He had intended to return, but the ship on which he was expected in August, 1703, brought word that he was too ill for the voyage. He lived for three years, and died July 9, 1706, at Havana, whither he had gone in command of a fleet for the purpose of driving the English from the West Indies, and harrying the Carolina coast. 64 THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. After the departure of his chief in 1702, Bienville was left to his own resources. The Indians in the up-country command. abovc Mobilc wcre active, and it was thought that the English were inciting the Alibamons to pillage. To chastise them, Bienville, taking Tonty and St. Denis as lieutenants, marched against them. His party suffered much, and o-ot no real help from some Choctaws and Mobilians, who pretended to act as allies. The movement, therefore, failed ; but later he attempted another by water, and succeeded in burn- ing the enemy's camp in the night. Not long after, Bienville determined to abandon the fort on the Mississippi and concentrate his force at Mobile, where Fort St. Louis had already been built, above the modern tions with city. This union of his forces was not made too soon, ' for the tribes north of Mobile were becoming turbu- lent ; and it was convenient, if not just, to charge their imeasi- ness upon English machinations. There was perhaps more certainty in the Spanish intrigues to set the Chickasaws upon the Choctaws, and as the latter were generally inclined to the French interest, Bienville tried to make the two tribes friends as the surest way to gain immunity from the enmity of the Chickasaws. The mediation did not prove long successful, for the Chickasaws found their profit in disposing of Choctaws ^^^ taken in battle as slaves to the Carolinians. Later, EngUsh. when they drove the Tonicas upon the Houmas, there was thought to be another manifestation of English intrigue. Colonel Moore, with a body of Carolinians, was making the English name a dreaded one to every Indian who looked to the French for protection. Distractions like these, as rumors came in, served at least to Life at turu the poor colonists at Mobile from their miseries. Mobile. These were not unmixed with apprehensions all the while lest the English should strike them by sea, supplementing the land attacks upon their Choctaw allies. A vessel arriving with marriageable damsels relieved life somewhat by a month of weddings. The poor craft, however, had touched at San Do- mingo and been infected with yellow fever. The fearful mal- ady soon got a foothold, ^nd among those who succumbed was the valiant Tonty, — not such an end as one woidd wish for his chivalrous nature. The ship which was the source of all these BIENVILLE AND MOBILE. 65 loves and woes had not enough men escaping the fever to navi- gate her away, and some who had come to stay as soldiers, and were sorely needed, were obliged to return as seamen. Cloth- ing ran short, and attempts were made to supply it by spin- ning-bees. New ships would come, but somehow through the weary months the old miseries would recur. There was some relief when Spain became the ally of France in new hostilities, and there was an interchange of French and civilities between Mobile and Pensacola, while certain Spaniards. courteous graces brightened life ; but Bienville never forgot that Pensacola was a threat, though he had the skill to hide his hostile hopes. France had too much to do in Europe to grant the aid that was vital in Louisiana, and immigration did little to repair the losses of the colony. With all such symptoms of decadence, nothing but a united and respected government could give a hopeful turn to affairs, and this was wanting. Commandant and priest disagreed, and violent religious factions arose. Squads of bushrangers came down from the upper coun- try with peltry, but it was rather the promise than the fulfill- ment of trade. La Salle, the commissary, was intractable, and defied Bienville till the commander's life was hardly less unbear- able than that of the meanest hind who slunk away to the Indians to avoid starving. When tidings came in October, 1706, of Iberville's death at Havana, faction became rampant, and before many ... Condition of months had passed Bienville's friends had deserted Mobile. ^ . 1706. him, and the poor man was powerless. The distressed colony possessed now less than three hundred inhabitants, and more than two thirds of these were soldiers and slaves, and nearly all, in some way, were pensioners of the public chest. It was apparent that the enemies of Bienville had triumphed, when orders were received for his recall. Presently, Diron d'Artaguette reached the colony (February, 1708). He was a man fit to shape a policy ; but a treacherous future confronted him, for there were ugly stories in the air of a projected combi- nation of the Cherokees and the Alibamons ajjainst the French and their Mobilian allies. It was of course a disguise for English hostility, or at least was thought so. 66 THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. For some years, tlie rival interests of the French and English The Ohio Centred in the region between the Ohio and the country. Lakcs, wliich ever since the extinction of the Fries by the Iroquois in the middle of the preceding century had been almost untenanted except by savage hunters. Of late, there had been a movement among the aborigines to reoccupy this region. The danger forced the Virginians on the Atlantic slope to push settlements up toward the mountains, so as to hold the Appalachians like a barrier against the threatened and barbarous inroads. The easy portages which connected this Ohio territory with the basin of the St. Lawrence, and the natural tribute which the region could pay to the lower Mississippi, had soon caused an eager rivalry between the governments of Canada and Lou- isiana for its control, and made them suppliants in turn to the home government for the jurisdiction of it. Iberville's policy had far better grounds than that which Cal- iberviUeand litres had demonstrated in the St. Lawrence basin. Cauieres. j^ ^ Communication to the minister at Paris, the Louisiana leader had pointed out the mistakes of the Canadian system in yielding to the hunter and excluding the tiller of the soil. This was a fatal blunder, he contended, if France had any hope of maintaining the country against the English. Iberville's plan for the control of the upper Mississippi basin was to establish posts near the mouths of the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas, and to make these stations permanent centres of French influence. He urged also at a later day to have the tribes of the Illinois settled along the banks of the lower Ohio. All this was a distinct denial of the English claim to this region, and just at the same time Governor Penn was expressing the views of the colonial governors, when he said that " we take the south side of the river [St. Lawrence] and lakes of Canada to be our just and reasonable bounda- ries." Bellomont of New York was also at this time plan- ning a reconnaissance through the Iroquois country along the verge of the Great Valley itself, and gave instructions to that end to Colonel Homer in September, 1700, bidding him par- ticularly " to go and view a well or spring which is eight miles beyond the Sineks' [Senecas'] farther castle, which they have told me blazes up in a flame when a light coal or firebrand is ENGLISH AND FRENCH CLAIMS. 67 put into it." These burning springs ai'e over the divide, and their waters flow into the Alleghany. Meanwhile the rival powers of London and Paris were plan- ning counter movements to secure the aid of the Iro- English and quois for their respective purposes. Robert Living- Counter ston, in May, 1701, while warning the Lords of Trade '=^'"'"^- of the French purpose to " encompass the English " by posses- sion of the Mississippi basin, represented the Iroquois as a " constant barrier of defense between Virginia and Maryland and the French, and by their constant vigilance they had pre- vented the French making any descent that way." He fur- ther reports that the French were using the best artifices they could to weaken this alliance with the English, and complains that the selfish purposes of the Albany tradesmen were a check upon pioneering towards the west, because they thought that their own peltry trade would be intercepted by it. To counteract all such adverse influences, Lieutenant-Gov- ernor Nanfan of New York is said to have entered upon a treaty July 9, 1701, with the confederates at treaty. Albany, by which the region north of the Ohio and stretching to the Mississippi and Illinois rivers was ceded to the English king. The same treaty covered also a similar cession of the territory north of Lake Erie, stretching east to the Ot- tawa. The Iroquois based their right in this northern portion on their driving the Hurons out of it in 1650, and their hold on the southern part to their conquest of the Fries and others at a later period. The whole cession constituted what the Iro- quois called their beaver-hunting grounds. What purports to be this deed of 1701 has been printed in the New York Colo- nial Documents (iv. 908), setting forth that the grantors in return expected " to be protected therein by the crown of Eng- land ; " but there has been a suspicion that the document was in some part at least a device, trumped up at a later day, to ante- date a treaty which the French made at Montreal in the follow- ing August, and it is not easy to see how both can be genuine. The Montreal treaty was made under the treaty. urgent appeal of the Canadian company, who com- plained of the English inroads by the Alleghany and Ohio riv- ers. Callieres, as . has been already indicated, had brought about the conciliation in it of the Iroquois and western tribes, \ 68 THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. and liad bound the confederates by a promise to prevent the erection of English posts throughout their country. The French claimed, and not without warrant, that they had thus made themselves actually the arbiters of the entire Indian question, to which not only the Iroquois but the western Indians were parties. But Indian faith was dependent on annual gratuities, and, as the French soon found, not always sure at that. They had, however, secured what they most needed just at present, and that was the neutrality of the confederates in an impend- ing war with the English. They were not quite as success- ful with their own woodsmen, for the Canadian bushrangers were fully inclined to profit by the better opportunities of trade which were offered at Albany. Bellomont had been petitioned English ^y ^^^o of tlicm to bc allowcd to come to the English FrendT'*"^ mart, and these applicants said they were but the bushrangers, forerunncrs of others, — " thirty brave fellows laden with peltry," as they said ; and one Samuel York, who had been a prisoner in Canada, testified to the eagerness of these north- ern rangers to cast in their lot with the English. When, in September, James the Stuart exile died, and the French king acknowledged the Pretender, war between War. 1702. o o ' England and France was inevitable. King William died in March, 1702 ; Cornbury, the royal governor of New York, arrived in May, but Queen Anne was not proclaimed there till June 17. War meanwhile had been declared on May 4, and when the news of the opening conflict reached Canada, Callieres strengthened the fortifications of Quebec, and set to work at the same time to turn the assured neutrality of the Iroquois into pronounced hostility to the English. Neither he nor Vaudreuil, who upon Callieres's death (1703) became governor, was able to do more than hold the confederates to their neutrality. It was important for England that the union of the French and Spanish crowns should not close the trade of the New World to English merchants ; and it soon became evident that a strug- gle was at hand. The French dreamed of the conquest of New York and Boston, and their emissaries had for some years been clandestinely making maps of the approach by sea to those ports. The English hoped that a small army and a few fri- THE ENGLISH COLONIES. 69 gates would drive the French from Canada, and Dudley was urging such an undertaking upon the Massachusetts Assembly, for it was these Canadian French who stood most in the way of the EngHsh in efforts to penetrate to the Mississippi by the Ohio route. The war meant all this, but even more, to the English colonies ; for it implied a better acquaintance of one colony ■*■ -^ . *' War and the with another, and New England was already, in the EngUsu ^ . colonies. Boston News-Letter (1704), superseding the old man- uscript methods of communicating intelligence from one govern- ment to another. The war was likely also to furnish common opportunities of defying the parliamentary navigation laws. It was the chance to teach the colonists the advantage of making their own woolens, and thus to emancipate them from the domination of the British merchant. It meant still more. Robert Livingston of New York looked "" forward to the time when, if supineness were allowed, the French, " by forts and settlements in the heart of the country and keep- ing a constant correspondence and communication with Misse- sepie," woidd be able " to make daily incursions upon our plan- tations.'' The remedy, to his mind, was some scheme of inter- colonial confederation. Livingston's views were not ^ ^ *= Combury without supporters in Cornbury, the local governor, and and to some extent in a certain royal emissary, Colo- nel Quarry. The chief anxiety, however, of this attentive observer was lest the colonists, in cementing themselves to- gether by common aims, should dare to arrogate to themselves the prerogatives of Parliament. He was pretty sure this was the tendency in the Virginia Assembly. Quarry, nevertheless, was not blinded to the treacherous nature of an Iroquois alli- ance. " They are a very uncertain people to trust to, and do lie under very strong temptation from the French," he said. His remedy in the case was to drive the French from Canada, and he did not think the effort one of insuperable difficulties. It woidd bring to the English, he said, " the whole trade of the main, which will be of vast consequence." He little thought that the project would take sixty years. y While Cornbury and the New Yorkers were thus dreaming of success and laying plots, Vaudreuil kept his trusty lieuten- TO THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. ants among- the Iroquois to watch the intrigues of the English. The Lords of Trade had been for some time urging Queen Anne to send Protestant missionaries among these confeder- The Iroquois r- • • i t • and the ates, as the best means oi cn-cum venting the Jesuits missions. . . p,ir>ii t-»i ?•• now in possession oi the lield. Kobert Livingston at the same time complained that " the Jesuit priests by their insin- uations and false pretenses were decoying a great many of our Indians, and have raised a great faction in their castles [pali- saded villages], and it is feared a great many more will follow imless they have ministers to instruct them in the Christian faith, of which they seem very fond." He adds that French emissaries were among them " all last winter, endeavoring to corrupt their affections from the English, and make ill impres- sions in their minds, to the apparent prejudice of our trade with them, which decays daily more and more." While the Iroquois were uncertain, it was the Canadian policy to spare the New York frontiers ; but there was no hesitancy in harrying the borders of New England, and the story of Deer- field and the ravages of the coast attest their ghastly success. ^ The Senecas, the most westerly of the confederates, soon The west- patclicd up a pcace with the Miamis, and to keep these ern Indians. ^^^ ^^^ morc distant Hurous and Ottawas in subjec- tion, Vaudreuil continued to dispatch to them his quieting mes- sages. These " speeches," nevertheless, had only partial effect. The English influence was not quelled, and the rival suits, as urged by the emissaries from Albany and Quebec, only divided the Miamis. Those who favored the English soon drove away a colony which Juchereau of Montreal had settled near the site of the modern Cairo in Illinois. It had been the purpose of this pioneer to open thereabouts mines of copper and lead, and to establish a barrier against any adventurous English daring to pass that way. It was the determined policy of the Canadian government to Juchereau '8 withdraw f rom the distant west such posts as interfered colonies. ^ff{i\x the bringing of furs to the market farther down the St. Lawrence valley, and it was equally a satisfaction to the royal government to suppress any manufactures which in- fringed the monopoly of the home producers. Juchereau's pro- ceedings were hardly in harmony with such principles, for he not only was gathering skins, but had established a tannery to THE MIAMI TRADE. 71 turn them into leather. The irruption upon him, therefore, of the English faction among the Miamis was not altogether the sacrifice of French interests which it seemed. The English sympathizers among these Indians did not accomplish all that Governor Cornbury had wished, for they failed to carry the tribe as a whole over to the English side. Vaudreuil, though he managed the Indian interests skill- fully, did not hesitate to use coercion with any recalci- •^ XT T 1 1 • /v • 1 Vaudreuil trant tnbe. JNor did his eiiorts to square accounts with and New the English lead him beyond a courteous and seeming willingness to negotiate a peace with Dudley of Massachusetts. These interchanges of diplomatic suavities were protracted through many months, and in 1708, when nothing had come of them, the New England frontiers were again ravaged. Once again aroused, the English compelled the entire Iro- quois confederacy, except the Senecas, to rise against the French, and the Jesuits were at last expelled from their country (1708), never to return. The English emissaries now pushed beyond the Iroquois coun- try, and the Miamis were induced to send some chiefs to Albany and enter into a pact for trade. Five years of strenuous efforts for this object were thus crowned at last with success, ^rade with and Cornbury, in congratulating himself, gave a young *^"^ Miamis. halfbreed, Montour, much of the credit for it. The French showed quite as much evidence of their belief in his agency by compassing his destruction the next year. This traffic with the Miamis was the formal beginning of a reorganized English trade in the northeastern parts of the Great Valley ; but it was destined to be maintained with difficulty against the incessant plottings of the French. Samuel Vetch, an active man, who had been much on the St. Lawrence, picking up information to be useful in case Vetch and of an attack on Quebec, was shortly after (1708) Quebec. in England, urging such an incursion. His pleas were reinforced by Cornbury's representations, and Quarry warned the government that to delay the movement would very likely make it too late. The victories of Marlborough dis- posed the public to the undertaking. The rumors of the inten- tion which reached Quebec induced the Canadians to concen- trate their forces, and this had much to do with their with- drawal from the Iroquois country, as already related. 72 THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. England, as it turned out, found enough to do in Portugal, and the troops which were promised did not come over. The colonial forces lacking this support, the campaign of which so much was expected proved a failure, and the Boston government did not hesitate to believe that the apathy of New York arose from this desire to preserve the Canadian trade. In view of such a fiasco, Jeremy Dummer's ambitious argu- ment, that even Canada of right belonged to the British crown, seemed all the more ridiculous, and served rather to outrage the French than to mollify the disappointment of New England. '^ Better than such pretense and the treaty of 1701 was the sturdy influence of the German Palatines, now begun to be felt along the Mohawk, and still more to be felt when, later on, they constituted the advance-guard of the Teutonic race in pushing towards the headwaters of the Alle- ghany and Mononffahela. There was at the same Swiss. . time a movement of the Swiss to purchase lands "beyond the Potomac and in Virginia," where it was supposed there were mines. We have seen that Livingston, in 1699, had been urging Cadillac Govcmor Bellomout to seize upon the straits at De- De*troit. troit, as the fittest place from which to control trade ^^*^^- with the western Indians. The advantages of tliis post had been equally apparent to Lomothe Cadillac, and he had the spirit to anticipate the English. Cadillac was a Catholic of Franciscan associations, who hated the Jesuits now and in the times to come, and he looked with a sinister eye upon their mission at Mackinac. A Jesuit was assigned to found a mission at the new post ; but Cadillac chose a Recollect for his chaplain. It was thirty years since St. Lusson, with ambitious parade, had formally attached to the French crown all this upper region of the Lakes. The first civil and military government was now to be established in this great domain. In June, 1701, Cadillac left Three Rivers with a hundred soldiers and colonists in twenty-five canoes. He took the Ot- tawa route to hide his movements from the Iroquois. By July 24, the expedition was at the straits, and at the end of August his stockade was completed and named Fort Pontchartrain. The movement raised up enemies hard to conciliate. The VAUDREUIL. 73 Jesuits never liked to have settlements near their missionary- fields. The traders found a diminution of jjrofits, if stores of merchandise were made too accessible to the savage. The oppo- sition of the Canadian packmen before long inured to the ben- efit not only of the English on the Atlantic, but of the French in Louisiana, for it prompted one Jean Pacaud to lease for seventy thousand francs a year the privileges of the old Com- paanie des Indes, out of which was org-anized speedily a new Compagnie du Canada, under a concession of d" Canada. ^ ° 1701. October 31, 1701. The new company thus secured the exclusive trade at Frontenac and Detroit, the latter post deriv- ing no advantage except that the company set up the estab- lishment there and the king maintained the garrison. Cadillac did not hear of this project till the following July \ (1702). He protested, and got some modification of the com- pany's power. He even importuned Pontchartrain for the abol- ishment of the company and a separate government for Detroit. The organization still had enough of prescriptive rights to in- cense the old traders. This class would not have been averse to bring on an Iroquois war, if Detroit was to disappear in the conflict. In this they were at one with the English at Albany, and it is sometimes alleged that a fire in the Detroit stockade was a consequence of English influence. A natural result followed. An illicit traffic in peltries sprung up, and the French down the Mississippi and the English at Albany were soon profiting more than the company. Cadillac was hampered ; but the company was more so. Callieres died, and political power in Canada passed into the hands of Vaudreuil, who was so connected by ties of vaudreuii blood with some of the directors of the new company governor. that the prospect, in Cadillac's eyes, grew gloomier still. The end, however, was nearer than he thought, and Pontchartrain jjroved powerful enough to displace the company. That minis- ter, in June, 1704, wrote from Versailles, placing Cadillac in power, and gave him some good advice to j^onder over. The Jesuits were still a thorn. Cadillac wrote to Pontchar- train that the only way to keep peace with them was cadiiiac in to do their bidding and hold his tongue. If relations p""""- in this way were jarring, it was hopeful to find the western tribes becoming amenable to French influence to such a degree 74 THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. that they were flocking to settle along the straits. Cadillac had need of their attachment before long ; and they served him well Hostile i^ repelling an attack of the Sauks and Foxes. The tribes. hostility of tlicsc warlike allies was and remained a serious impediment to the success of the French about the upper reaches of the Mississippi, and we have already noted how Le Sueur's followers on a branch of the Minnesota were di-iveu away by the Sioux, ever a treacherous foe. The years that ensued under Cadillac's rule at Detroit were passed in continuous efforts to keep peace, with the Ottawas on the one hand, and with the Miamis on the other, who were always watching for opportunities to strike a blow. Detroit failed in the competition with Mackinac as a mart for furs, and the Eng- lish for the most part got the advantage with cheaper goods and better offers of skins. The Albany traders were quite con- tent with profits that were not lessened by the cost of maintain- ing the posts. The Bay of St. Louis or St. Bernard, on the Texan shore, is well round the northwestern curve of the Mexican Gulf, and towards the south. It is the spot where La Salle had sought to found his colony. His belief that he was near a western outlet of the Mississippi influenced the views of Minet, jtg his engineer, in delineating the southern bends of the cartography. Qj-gat Rivcr, and gave Franquelin the incentive to make a false course for its lower current. Even so late as the close of the eighteenth century, we find a survival of La Salle's mistake in the Enrjlisli Pilot (1794), of Mount and Page. It was left for Delisle, opportimely coming forward and proving himself the real founder of modern geographical science, to correct this misconception, but not wholly to eradicate it from the stock notions of the lesser cartographers. Indeed, it is surprising how prevalent the views of half a century before remained with the mere copyists. The maps of Jaillot, De Witt, Schenck, AUard, and Danckerts continued for ten years after the new developments under IberviUe to present the views of Sanson of fifty years aback. Their maps pertinaciously rep- resented incomplete outlines of Lakes Michigan and Superior, unmindful of the explorations of La Salle and the Jesuits. All that stood for the principal affluent of the Mexican Gulf on its BITES FROM PENSACOLA TO THE MOUTHS OF THE MISSISSIPPI. [After DeUsle.] [It shows the site of the old fort on the Mississippi, abandoned for the new one at Mobile.] 76 THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. northern shore was a looped bay with a few short coast streams flowing into it. The general southern direction of the great current as Joliet Maps of the reported it in 1673 was accepted by Hennepin in the Mississippi, dotted line of his honest and early map, but in his later dubious draft, disregarding the surve^'^s of Iberville, if he knew them, Heunepin swung over to the views of Franquelin, and had been preceded in doing so by the Englishman, Edward Wells, in his maps. Another error of a still earlier day, and going back to the remoter Spanish explorations, had caused a confusion between the Bay of Mobile and the indentation of the Gulf shore, of which the Mississippi Sound of our day makes Espiritu ^ part. The name Espiritu Santo, applied in the Santo. early days both to a bay and a river, is not always easy to identify with the modern geography, and we find it, even after the advent of Iberville, sometimes made to do duty for one or the other of such half-in closed stretches of water. It was a relic of the original Spanish domination of the northern shore of the Gulf that their name of Florida continued for some time to apply, even with the French map-makers, to the region extending from the peninsula and St. Augustine to the confines of Mexico. Notwithstanding the claims which Iberville made for Louisiana bordering: here on the Gulf, Delisle, who aU the while was working on that commander's data, continued to apply the name of Florida to the territory between Carolina and Texas. It was left for the Belgian cartographer, Nicolas de Fer, to give the alternative appellation of " Louisiane ou Floride." There was at this time, among the French cartographers, a general agreement that the national claims were French ? iii i ia ii. t^t-, claims and boundcd ou the cast by the Appalachians. De Fer so recognizes the extent of French jurisdiction in his maps, and was even more liberal than Delisle, who at a later day was forced to reclaim for his king a region along the west- ern bounds of New York and Pennsylvania, which he had been content in some of his earlier maps to give to the English. Delisle even then did not attempt to push the French claims beyond the mountains into Carolina; but, for some reason. Note. A portion of Franquelin's map (in the Marine, reproduced by Marcel, No. 40), whicli shows his misconceptions, is opposite. OU ALAC^VvSO^ yj\iuifr> -^^ "N. ATK LATIONS.^ \ OuiGcoufrtoo^' '■Ou DBS bioux DE -^d: SSINIBOUELS V _ O O^r - ^^(L-fTSKITONS i^fil^ron -UT^S SIO Ouicpctoi^JYinqhounatorl .Ocatamcuctorf e*Oi.idacheourutqn • "tp- -^ «»- -S i¥>>«dflJato. i^atTov oil J, - -1 Natio 1$ "'^•^■au„„. NaTI W^AWX^^/ °^ ^^ Pais d^^ Gatacc^ ?t^;rKipappff NaTION Nation :.,^ii;*r, J'^ ■^-W Ilinoi uJc^xiJi .;£/^J^{i'/J^i!/ 78 THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. Schenck, the Dutch map-maker, in reissuing Delisle's map, stretched Florida or Louisiana far up toward the modern Vir- ginia. It shows how diverse interpretations could be put upon the same reports, when Delisle is always correct in making the Ohio and Wabash confluent streams, while De Fer puts them do^vn as parallel affluents of the Mississippi. In his map of the upper Mississippi, published in 1703, Delisle profited by the information collected by Duluth, Perrot, and Le Sueur. Through such channels he obtained the stories of Indians who professed to have followed the Missis- Source of ,. , ^ -i ••-,•-, a t\ • the Missis- sippi to its sourcc, and placed it m latitude 49°, m a marshy region where it was linked with three small lakes, — a configuration which was continued in the maps well down through the century, and misled the American negotia- tors in the treaty of 1782. It was repeated by De Fer, though some contemporary cartographers, like the Dutchman, Schenck, were pretty sure in all their maps to carry the fountains of the great river as high as 54° or 55° north latitude. They had about as little warrant for this as the French traders wander- ing among the Upper Sioux had when they detected Chinese soimds in the savage gutturals. There were stories often repeated by adventurous traders. Trade with ^^^^ t^Q^ Credited to the Indians, which gave hopes that Spaniards, -^cst of tlic Mississippi some productive trade could yet be opened with the Spaniards in New Mexico, and a way be found to a great western-flowing river. From the time when, in 1673, Marquette was inspired with the hope of carrying the gospel westward by the turbid current of the Missouri, there Missouri ^^^^ heen in many an adventurous breast a longing to ^'''^'■- face its unknown dangers. That there was beyond a divide somewhere in these temperate latitudes a j)racticable pas- sage westward was readily accepted. Lugtenberg, in 1700, while illustrating his belief in the peopling of the New World by the Lost Tribes, had imagined a water-way from Lake Superior which connected with the fabled Straits of Aiiian. Delisle had placed a lake near the Missouri, from which the " Meschasipi ou Grande Riviere " flowed west. We know that in 1703 a party left Kaskaskia to follow up the Missouri, but we are ignorant [From La Potherie's Histoire de V Ameriqne, Vlll, showing: how the mouth of the Mississippi was misplaced, forty years after La Salle originated the error.] 80 THROUGHOUT THE VALLEY. of its fate. A year later, some Canadians on that river heard stories of a western stream over the upper divide. In 1705, some miners went up the Missouri, and built a fort on an island above the confluence of the Osage. Bienville soon after heard stories of the possibility of reaching by this route some nations who used horses. Sometimes the stories referred to white men ; and some of Bienville's officers, in 1708 and the year following, were planning an expedition to reach a source of the Missouri which was said to be beyond the three or four hundred leagues already followed without encountering any Spaniards. Somewhere in this upper region it was believed that the Spaniards fomid copper, and there were floating stories that they carried the ore off on pack-mules. Up among the Sioux also the traders understood the Indians to speak of a westward flowins: river. The most distinct of these stories were f oimd in a book which Lahontan. Lahoutau publislicd at The Hague in 1703. This ^"*^^- story-teller claimed that some fifteen years before he had found a stream entering the Mississippi near Lake Pepin, which came from the setting sun. By following its sluggish current he had come to a large lake, lying beneath the moun- tains, and beyond these highlands there were the sources of another river, which could be followed to the Pacific. The statement was specific and gained credence, and the wonders of it had doubtless something to do with causing the multifa- rious publication of the book in French, English, and German, which was put upon the market at The Hague, in London, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Leipzig, for the next eight or ten years. For a while the story prospered, and it gained a quali- fied assent from De Fer. Delisle was inclined to believe it, but at a later day, importimed to discard it, he yielded to the arguments of Bobe against it. Homann, in 1706, puts this " Riviere longue " on his map. The English cartographers, Moll and Senex, gave it full play in their maps, though Senex finally rejected it. The impressions produced by what is now known to have been a studied deceit were hard to dispel, and in certain quarters the illusion did not vanish till the century was near its end. Note. Tlie opposite map, taken from the U. S. Topographical map, of the region west of the Mississippi (1850) shows tlie Mille Lacs region and the continuity of the central trough of North America through the upper Mississippi and the Red River of the North. CHAPTER IV. OROZAT AND TRADE. 1710-1719. It had been determined in Paris to place La Forest in charge at Detroit, and to transfer Cadillac to Louisiana. On cadiiiac May 13, 1710, Pontchartrain notified the new gov- fou^Jana"^ ernor of his appointment. He received the message ^^^*^- through Vaudreuil in September. A man of Cadillac's dispo- sition was neither happy nor at his best under the restraints which he had felt at Detroit. In June, 1711, he was ready for his journey, and asked for an escort. He was obliged, however, to return to France, and reembark for his new post, and vari- ous delays prevented his reaching it before May, 1713. inLouisi- He had left a discouraging prospect at Detroit, and '^"^' ^^^^' the one he found before him on the Gulf was hardly less dis- heartening. The colony had been reduced by disease to scarcely more than four hundred whites and about twenty negro slaves. For two years there had been a succession of miseries. D'Ar- taguette, before his return to France, could do nothing but give the home government good advice ; and it availed little. His better associates had died or returned to Europe. Food was so scarce that the men wandered off among the Indi- condition of ans for a livelihood. The English made an attack on t^e country. Daui^hine Island, and the community was in constant appre- hension of other inroads. They had not infrequent grounds to fear that deserters disclosed their weakness to their enemies. The Choctaws professed to be friendly, but if the Chickasaws and their allies failed of their purpose with these neighbors of the French by friendly solicitation, they were always ready to use the tomahawk, and they trusted to the English leadership in any event. With all these environments of danger and distress, it was 84 CROZAT AND TRADE. not strange the colony suffered from the loss of members, who sought better fortune The Illinois country. sv^,^\. Vinceunes had been founded on Father Mermet, and held out lures for settlers, in these upper regions were beginning to thrive, were increasing about them. There was one at some of its best up the Missis- the Wabash by The missions and habitations St. Joseph's for niinois tribes. FRENCH SOLDIERS, 1710. the Miamis and Pottawattamies. Another was at Peoria ; but the most successful was among the Kaskaskias, at their new settlement near the Mississippi. The effect of this priestly influence had become perceptible among the Illinois Indians, and they had grown far less barbarous than any other tribe. They used ploughs, and in other practices were assuming habits of civilization. The Jesuits taught them the use of windmills, and the Kaskaskias, one of the Illinois tribes, constructed treadmills, and ran them by horses. They obtained these animals by inter-tribal exchanges from a stock reared among the distant Spaniards of New Mexico. The little CADILLAC AND CROZAT. 85 settlement at Kaskaskia quickly took on an air of permanence, and we very soon find that they were adopting permanent land records. All these amenities of life were in sorry contrast to the absence of them near the Giilf, and in D'Artaouette's Louisiana. day that commander had urged a military post on the Ohio, to confront any advance upon Louisiana by the Eng- lish, who might be tempted to take advantage of their weak- ness. The conditions were not changed now that Cadillac held the reins. His petulancy and imperiousness were to prove ill calculated to atone for the defects of his people and the sorrows of their life. When, in May, 1713, La Jonquiere in a fifty-gun ship star- tled Mobile with his booming cannon, there was much beside the new governor, whom he had brought, to arrives. 1713. throw the poor colony into a condition of expecta- tion. There was a new invoice of marriageable damsels for one thing. There were also the tidings of the peace, settled at Utrecht. There was the promise of a fresh policy of trade for the colony, by virtue of a contract signed at Paris, on the 14th of the previous September. This instrument gave to the Sieur Antoine Crozat the right to farm the trade of Louisiana for fifteen years. In the icn- 1 -ici r^ i Crozat and month following the arrival of the news, Crozat s his plans. ° . 1714. agents came to carry out the undertaking. The ter- ritory defined by the document as the field of Crozat's opera- tions gave- the French claim to the limits of Louisiana, and is a starting-point for the pretensions of the French in Lj^j^g ^^ this regard. It is described as including all the ter- ^^o^isiana. ritory between Carolina and New Mexico, while at the same time it extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the Illinois. Its area towards the east included the basin of what was called the Wabash or the St. Jerome, that is, the modern Ohio ; and towards the west it went up the St. Pierre or the Missouri. It made no claim to go beyond the sources of that river, though there has sometimes been a doubt if France, in ceding Louisi- ana in 1803 to the United States, did not touch the Pacific be- tween the bounds of England on the north and Spain on the south. Thus Louisiana, as mapped at this time, took the entire water-shed of the Mississippi, except between the Illinois and 86 CROZAT AND TRADE. the sources of the Great River on its eastern side. At the south it also inckided the valleys of the coast streams which flowed into the Gulf, but it respected the rights of the Spaniards in the southwest, though it was sometimes claimed that the French territorial rights on a more northern parallel stretched to the Gulf of California. There was a disposition, moreover, on the part of the French government at this time not to be too definite in their descrip- tions of limits. A year or two later (January, 1715), Baudot, in charge under Pontchartrain of the colonies, requested Delisle to remove the dots from his map which marked the limits of Louisiana, " as the court wishes it left indefinite, and does not want French maps to be quoted by foreign nations against us." Delisle generally marked the limits of Canada by the divide which bounded the St. Lawrence basin on the south, and drew those of Louisiana by the mountains which on the east confined the streams feeding the Mississippi. There is hardly exact cor- respondence in these respects among any of the contemporary maps delineating the interior of North America. Crozat had in antecedent years been very helpful to the crozat's Frcuch king in replenishing his treasury with gold rights. ^j^jj silver, and that sovereign hoped his subject's pros- perous ways might inure to the benefit of his American prov- ince. He was willing accordingly to give him manifold advan- tages. He allowed him to open mines, with a due reservation of the crown's share ; but he was compelled to recruit the colo- nists, and to send two ships with supplies every year. He was permitted, also, to send a single ship each twelvemonth to the coast of Guinea for negroes. Further, the charter provided that French law and customs should prevail in the province, " with the usages of the mayoralty and shrievalty of Paris." Ci'ozat's agents at once began to establish posts upon all the The country principal rivcrs, and explorers were sent out to search explored. £qj. miucs. Lead ore was found in southeastern Mis- souri, and the miners got their supplies from the Illinois coun- try, where a trading-post was set up. Another station was placed at the modern Natchez, and De La Tour was sent four hundred miles up the Alabama River at the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, to build a stockade, which was named Fort Toulouse. Some of Crozat's traders penetrated to the TREATY OF UTRECHT. 87 Tennessee country, and built (1714) among the Sliawnees a storehouse on a mound near where the modern Nashville stands. An old deserted stockade of the Indians, close by, was occupied as a dwelling. Deerskins and other peltries in large quantities were soon go- ing down the Mississippi. With no competitors in the colony, Crozat counted on large profits. His aims, however, were soon thwarted. The traders got better prices from the English and Spanish, and the skins found their way to Carolina and Pen- sacola. Crozat was soon complaining that the English were seducing the natives from the French interests both on the Red River and on the upper Mississippi. To add to his disappoint- ments, the Spaniards, playing into the hands of the English, warned Crozat' s ships away from their Gulf ports, and the de- mand in that direction for his skins was cut off. A grinding monoj)oly could but create discontent in the province. Before Crozat's plans were fairly organized, the operations of the treaty which had iust broug-ht peace debarred him from the importation of Airicans. Its provisions had, in fact, transferred the control of the slave trade to England, a plan far-reaching enough to make the mother country responsi- ble for the long bondage of the negro in America. The treaty of Utrecht, after a truce which Bolingbroke had made, and which the victories of Marlborough had . Treaty of induced, was signed March 31 (April 11), 1713. utrecht. France did not by it yield all that four years earlier she might have been compelled to grant. At that time the English, who by the treaty had permission for a yearly ship to trade with the Spanish colonies, might very likely have enforced free trade. The South Sea Company might doubtless have secured a monopoly of the Spanish trade in America. Though the treaty when actually negotiated failed in this, it gave England enough to make her at once the first power in Eurojie, — a place which France had held for nearly fifty years. The Pretender was forced out of France, and the Protestant succession in England was recognized. The English king became sovereign of New- foimdland and Acadia. In gaining these provinces, the British negotiators were not as wary as they should have been, since they fixed the bounds of Acadia by its " ancient limits," which 88 CROZAT AND TRADE. had all the vagueness that France delighted in, when she found occasion to define her own boundaries. Nor did it prove wise to leave Cape Breton in the hands of the French. The ques- tions involved were indeed difficult and awkward, but perhaj)s less so than the contention which ensued. Previous to this the French would hardly have admitted that Bounds of *^^® northern bounds of Canada — stiU theirs by the Canada. treaty, and with a population not much over eighteen thousand — stopped short of the north pole. Now the Hud- son Bay Company and the British government got the larger part of the basin of that inland sea. There was at last a defi- nite line, where the French had studiously avoided having one. It ran west from the Labrador coast on latitude 58° 30', but from Lake Mistassin it struck 49°, and so continued westward, — the origin of the line which forms the present boundary of the United States on the north along the westerly half of its extent. On August 18, 1713, Governor Hunter proclaimed the peace at New York, and on September 20 he communicated and the it by mcsscnger to the assembled confederates at Onondaga. He warned them not to intercept the far nations of the Mississippi and the Lakes, coming to trade at Albany. The Indians on their part implored forgiveness for the Tuscaroras, who had been driven north by the Carolinians, and had now become a sixth nation in the Iroquois Confederacy. In the struggle of the French and English for the Missis- sippi valley, the language of the treaty of Utrecht respecting the Iroquois was by interpretation made of large importance in the future. The contracting nations agreed to respect the country of the tribes allied to each, and the Iroquois were taken under the protection of England. It soon became evident that the English intended to assume a protectorate over all the territory which the Iroquois claimed to have sub- subdued by dued. This included the country Ivina: beyond the thelroquois. . ,, , -P,, ... i • i i t • i i i Alleghany Kiver, witlnn which the Iroquois had de- stroyed the Eries, and from which they had driven other tribes, and which in the English interpretation stretched to the line of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. The earliest delineation of such a line we find at a later period, and after the English and French had made preparations for the great struggle. The [From Humphreys and Abbot's Basins of the Mississippi, etc., War Department, 18G1. It shows the Red River basin and its connection with the Texas rivers on the south, and the Canadian and Kansas rivers on the north.] 90 CROZAT AND TRADE. record as it stands, for instance, on Evans's map (1755) is accompanied by a legend : " The author has been something particular in representing the extent of the country of the con- federates, because whatever is such is expressly conceded to the English by treaty with the French." The extent of this claim would bring the Illinois tribes under English jurisdiction, while Theniinois ^^ reality the French were seated among them and and Foxes. \^qI^ their Sympathies. On the other hand, it left the Foxes, or such portion of them as were in Wisconsin, within the French dominion, while they in reality were allies of the Iroquois, and consequently friends of the English, with whom they would trade but for the vexatious interposition of the ubi- quitous French. The Foxes, with all the appliances of savage knavery, had not long before (1712) been forced into an attack on Detroit. The French had in turn repelled the assault by the aid of the Hurons and Ottawas, when Du Boisson, with his sturdy little garrison of twenty men, secured a victory. But neither the French nor the Foxes forgot the event, and the Iroquois were held responsible for inciting the attack. Charlevoix, in com- paring the Foxes to the Iroquois, speaks of them as just " as brave, less politic, much fiercer, and the French have never been able to tame or subdue them." It was one of Crozat's objects to open trade with the Span- iards in New Mexico by an overland westward route. River The French government, as we have seen, had not couii ry. ]^ggj-j over-solicitous about defining very exactly the limits of Louisiana in this direction. They preferred a vague claim, resting upon the acquaintance which La Salle had ac- quired with the country. This explorer had, in 1686, when among the Cenis, cut the royal arms upon a large tree, in token of possession. St. Denis, moreover, had for the last twelve years been making explorations along the valley of the Red River, but without great success. Father de Limoges, as early as 1702, had established a mission among the river tribes. Squads of Canadians were known to have wandered towards New Mex- ico in the hope of finding mines. When the Crozat ride began, it had been reported at Mobile that the Arkansas River had been followed to its source ; but [Broutin's Carte des Natchitoches, 1722, as '•^^^^, reproduced in Thomassy's Geologic pratique i^s« («^'*«' j*"**")^^^/ (/e ia Louisiane.! W^^^' .'Vv ^r , '.'c^/' r ■ ft? rf» J* . ' ' <* '''^' /' ► ■'■(<> A, i*-/r,''. • '■ 5 /if 92 CROZAT AND TRADE. it was scarcely probable at that time. The secrets of the west were indeed still to be probed, and Cadillac was ready to at- tempt it. So St. Denis was dispatched up the Red exploits. River to Natchitoches, whence he struck across the land to the region of the Cenis. Here he took for- mal possession of the country. Finding some savages ready to follow him, he pushed on towards the Rio Grande del Norte. In August, 1714, he found welcome at the mission of Saint Jean-Baptiste, near its banks, which had been founded by the Spaniards. Here St. Denis fell in love with the daughter — or, as some accounts say, the niece — of Raimond, the com- mander of a small body of Spanish troops, stationed there to protect the priests. This officer had already dispatched a mes- senger to headquarters with tidings of this French intruder, when the love affair happened, and rendered the situation rather embarrassing for the vigilant Raimond. After a while St. Denis was sent to the city of Mexico to render an account of himself. Here he agreed to go back with some missionaries to the Texan country, and he faithfully did so, finding it a con- venient opportunity to seek Raimond's post once more and marry his love. This done, he made his way to Mobile, and reported there in August, 1716. The adventure, if it had accomplished little for Louisiana, had satisfied the successful gallant. It had done more for the Spaniards, for it instigated greater alertness to save the Texan country for his Catholic majesty. The Spaniards had, in the days of La Salle, set up a claim that the inlet in which he had Baye de St. l^iiilt liis f ort, somctimcs called the Baye de St. Ber- La Harje!"*^ nard or St. Louis, or the Baye du Saint Esprit, was ^'^^^- quite within the Spanish boimds. The question of ownership was now manifestly to be determined by actual oc- cupation. The Spaniards had already placed a force among the Cenis to secure that position, and they were only waiting the coming of the annual fleet from Spain to have an available force to send to the bay. They hoped by its possession to con- trol the Indian trade along the rivers which have their outlets in its waters. The Spaniards dallied, and had done nothing when, in Au- gust, 1718, the directors of the Company of the West ordered that the bay shoidd be seized. This was followed in November HOMANN, 1720 (?). [It shows the routes of St. Denis.] 94 CROZAT AND TRADE. by a royal order, wliicli further commanded that force should be used to retain possession if the Spaniards interfered. Mar- gry gives a relation of one Simars de Belle-isle, who claims that in 1719 he had been shipwrecked near the bay, and had been kept in captivity by the Indians. But such chance adventures served little more than to keep the French claim in mind, till in August, 1721, La Harpe was sent with instructions from Bienville to occupy the bay. He found the natives hostile, and the difficulties of maintaining a post so far from succor were so great that, on La Harpe's report, Bienville, in December, announced that the post had been abandoned. There were still those, however, who held that this was the true ingress to the Texan country, and Margry gives us a document in which Der- banne regrets that St. Bernard's Bay had not been the chief port of the province instead of Mobile. He claimed that the Spaniards had so alienated the savages about the bay that the French could easily ally them against their rivals. The river approach to this disputed Texan territory was more promisino-. In October, 1716, St. Denis, now in Mo- st. Deuis ; ° . 1 • • I 1 1 on the Red bile, and tornimg a partnership with others, bought a River. 1716. . „ , p ^ , txt- i large quantity oi goods from Crozat s stores. W ith a train carrying these supplies, he made a new move up the Red River. At Christmas he was among the Cenis, and found the Spaniards in possession. In the spring of 1717, he reached the mission where he had met his Spanish bride, and thence he passed on to the city of Mexico to reclaim some of his goods, which had been seized. St. Denis was a man of vain manners and heady temper, and soon found himself in a Spanish prison. In December he was released ; but his tongue was too free for his safety, and his wife's friends helped him escape the country. During the next spring (1719) he found his way to Isle Dauphine. Meanwhile Cadillac, fearing that the Spaniards would be Natchi- before him, sent a force to occupy Natchitoches is- toches. 1717. i^j^^ ij^ ^i^g ^^^i j^-^g^, (January, 1717). Cadillac felt it a matter of life and death to maintain this station, and he wrote full of gloomy forebodings lest the Spaniards should force the French back here. He was equally apprehensive that Spaniards *^® English On the east would dislodge his interior set- at Adaes. tlcmcuts and leave the French little beyond Isle Dau- THE RED RIVER. 95 phine. The Spaniards, on their part, had stoutly taken post at Adaes, and this outpost of the Spanish and that of the French at Natchitoches faced each other across a broad interval. The Spanish government hoped to recruit their settlement from the Canaries ; but few emigrants came. THE RED RIVER REGION. [From Danville's Louisiane (Venice).] It was soon apparent that Natchitoches was not well situ- ated to allure the Spanish trade, and so, to picket the ^a Harpe country beyond and open more direct communication, Red River La Harpe was sent out with a small force. He had a «<>"°*ry wide region to traverse, and the country was infested with 96 CROZAT AND TRADE. hordes of hostile savages, so that the transportation of merchan- dise and treasure was dangerous. La Harpe was armed with a letter from Bienville, addressed to the Spanish governor, in which the French commander declared it his wish to live in amity with his Spanish neighbors. Early in 1719, La Harpe built Fort St. Louis de Carlorette, not far from Natchitoches. Thus securing a new fortified base, he pushed toward the up- river tribes, hoping to make new alliances with them. He had heard of the Padoucas, said to be seated near the and Gran spriugs of the Arkausas, Red, and Colorado rivers, and he was in hopes to reach their country. Just where the sources of the Colorado might lie was not so certain as of the other rivers, but it seemed probable that the whole region, assigned in common report to the Padoucas, was the country which the map-makers had long designated as Gran Quivira. Efforts to reach this country which lay beyond the Panis (Paw- nees) were still going on by way of the Missouri. The English geographer, Herman Moll, in a map of this time (1720) had put a legend upon this region to indicate that " many wander- ins: nations of Indians are at the head of these rivers, who use horses and trade with the French and Spaniards." There had been enough chance contact with this people for La Harpe to know them to be powerful, counting something like two thou- sand horsemen. The Spaniards under De Soto had first en- countered them, and they were said to adorn their persons with gold and silver ornaments, which, as well as their horses, they had obtained from the Spaniards. La Harpe's party went on under great difficulties. The car- ries were swampy and infested with noxious animals. At last he reached the Nassonites, and began a fort among them, as he had been instructed to do. In June (1719) he received from the Spanish governor a reply to Bienville's letter, which he had dispatched in April, while among the Cenis. This answer resented the French invasion of Spanish territory. La Harpe, in his rejoinder, referred to the prior occupation of Texas by La Salle, and the later explorations of St. Denis. Further, he argued that there was no question about the French rights to the Mississippi basin, and the Nassonites, among whom the French were now sojourning, were dwellers on an affluent of the Great River. THE EXTREME WEST. [From a map by Palairet, improved by Delaroche, after Danville, Mitchell, and Bellin. It shows " Quivira ; " the " River of the West ; " the supposed connection of the Mississippi and Red River of the North ; the country of the Padoucas, Panis, etc.] 98 CROZAT AND TRADE. Not deterred by the Spanish protests, La Harpe, getting some horses from the Indians, still pushed on, and The Arkan- sas River. September 3, he found himself beside the Arkansas River. A part of his purpose had been to discover the sources of the Red and Arkansas rivers, but in this he had failed. He learned that other Spanish settlements were higher up the Arkansas, and he believed that both rivers rose some- where in New Mexico. With this information or impression, he began his backward journey. mines in Illinois. 1714-15. CHAPTER V. THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 1714-1720. " Cadillac always says the opposite of what he believes," said Bienville, who had scant respect for his superior. The governor found others could practice the same art. cadiuacand Towards the end of 1714, he received from the lUi- f^^^m nois what was represented to be ore from mines of that region. Shortly afterwards, Cadillac was on his way up the river to inspect the wonderful deposits. It proved a deceit, and the specimen of silver had been carried there from New Mex- ico. After an absence of nearly a year, Cadillac returned to Mobile in October, 1715. Louis XIV. had died a few weeks before, and France was left with an enormous debt. There was need of eighty xhe debt of million livres to meet the obligations, and the royal ^'■^"'^®- treasury could only command about nine millions. Mines or something else were needed, and the possibilities of Louisiana were soon to be made the most of by an extraordinary per- sonage. John Law stands in European history as the creator of one of the most marvelous crazes ever known. This strange manifestation was as much a wonder to Law's and ws contemporaries as it is to us. A tract (1720) pur- porting to emanate from an Englishman in the colonies, and reflecting upon the consequences of the French occupation of the Great Valley, speaks of Law's success, before he reached the precipice, as " one of the most prodigious events of any age," and sniffs at the skeptics. A Scotchman, extremely nimble of mind, but destitute of sane principles, nurtured a rake and a gambler, Law had fled- 100 THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. from London to Amsterdam to avoid arrest. Here his quick perceptions seized on some methods which he observed in the bank of Amsterdam as affording such great and possible de- velopments as are ever attractive to those holding vagabondish JOHN LAW. [From Ife/ Groote Tafereel, etc.] notions of finance. He accordingly laid before the Scottish parliament a plan for alluring his countrymen to the glorious capabilities of paper money. The canny Scots were not so easily captured, and he fell back to his old ways and sunk himself once more in dissipation. His hour was not yet come. Meanwhile the leaders of Louisiana, ignorant of what was in store, had enough to occupy their attention. The flat-headed Choctaws, instigated by Bienville, had Events in Louisiana. THE FIRST NATCHEZ WAR. 101 pillaged some English traders, and brought them to Mobile. The French at this time had become particularly anxious over the increase of the English trade, and had been much alarmed with reports of what Young and other English emissaries were doing along the Mississippi banks to gain the sympathy of the natives. The action of the Choctaws was simply an effort to show their steadfastness to the French interests. To keep all this region under closer surveillance, the French authorities had already given orders to construct some new stockades, — one above Mobile, another near the Natchez, and a third at the mouth of the Ohio. Bienville was making ready to go up to the Natchez when word reached him of the fearful devastation which that tribe was making: among; the French, trustfully scattered in their neighborhood. It was the beginnmg or the ruthless Natchez wars, and with the Natchez. we have the story in the narratives of Richebourg and Penicault. It should be remembered that both of these chron- iclers are partisans of Bienville in his quarrels with Cadillac. They both say that what had angered the tribe was the gov- ernor's impidsive rejection of the Natchez calumet, offered to him while passing up and down the Mississippi in his recent search for mines. Crozat in France sided with the enemies of Cadillac, and set in motion the influence which soon led to his recall. Bienville started up the river with such a force as the governor would spare. All overtures of atonement which the Natchez offered him were rejected, unless they were accompanied by the surrender of the murderers or their heads. His persistence prevailed ; obedience was rendered, and he even got their help in building a stockade to awe them for the future, yg^ This was the beginning of Fort Rosalie, the earliest '^°'*''^i'®- permanent station of the French in the Great Valley south of Kaskaskia. BienA^ille, on his return to Mobile, learned of Cadillac's recall. A new governor, L'Epinay, was to be sent out, but until he arrived Bienville held the chief power. This con- Bienviue trol lasted from October, 1716, till March, 1717, when SLt L'Epinay came, in company with some soldiers and ^'^^''-^'^• emigrants. He had instructions to carry out stringently the monopoly of Crozat. 102 THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. Louisiana had now a population of about seven hundred, for Crozat had done little to increase their numbers. He had neglected even to augment the laboring population by the importation of blacks. The agricidtural condition of the province had not, therefore, improved, and Crozat was in real- ity bankrupt after four years of unsuccessful commercial effort. Crozat sur- The rcucwed instructions to L'Epinay had been charter. merely a last gasp of power. Indeed, Crozat was ^^^^" already prepared to seek relief by surrendering his charter, and this he actually did in August, 1717, before he could have known anything of the effect of his last injunctions. All the privileges which Crozat had enjoyed were now vested in a new organization known as " The Company of the West," or more popularly as " The Mississippi Com- Company of ... the West or pauy." Tlii^ bodv rcccivcd its charter September 6, Mississippi t-^'L^ ."l , ni-T^i Company. 1717. Its Capital stock was fixed in December at a hundred million livres. It was expected to restore the shattered finances of the kingdom by funding as 7'entes the outstanding Billets d'' Etat^ the government guaranteeing four per cent, on its capital. This was to be Law's opportunity. An engrossing search for mines was no longer to imperil the Bienville prosperity of Louisiana, and the Spaniards were to be ofTh?""^ suffered to get on as best they coidd without the aid company. q£ freuch trade. Bienville was understood to repre- sent the best spirit in the province, which was to do for Louisi- ana what the Canadian leaders had failed to effect for Canada, — develop its agriculture and at the same time work its mines. In being constituted by the company the governor - general, Bienville felt that he was now to have his opportunity to make manifest" the possibilities of the province. Through him the company could regulate all civil matters ; could build forts and arm vessels for its defense. It was claimed that frigates of thirty guns could patrol the Mississippi for six hundred leagues. This new life for Louisiana had a lease of twenty-five years, and it was to be invigorated by bringing into the country six thousand whites and half as many blacks. In five years the company did actually send over seven thousand settlers beside six hundred slaves from Guinea. Law had already attracted the attention of the Regent, and was given the chief control of the company. If inevitable dis- JOHN LAW. 103 aster overtook his stultified adherents in Europe, Louisiana at least ffot a start in somethino- like the rioht direc- TT 1 1 • 1 1 TP p 1 1 Law's influ- tion. Under these impulses the life oi the colony ence in IT i>i i» Louisiana. besfan to assume the character which comes trom set- tied labor, and lost many of the haphazard turns which come from vagrancy. About sixteen months before the new company received its charter. Law had opened in Paris (May 2, 1716) L^win a private bank of issue, which the government had ^"'^' ^^^^" favored as a means of absorbing in its capital seventy-five per 104 THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. cent, in its Billets cVEtat. Law treated it as an experiment, hoping by his success to induce the government to make it a royal bank. The forming of the new company was an oppor- tune help to that end, and Law's position in it served to make it subservient to the wider interests of the kingdom. The main thing was to populate Louisiana, and create an apparent prosperity by numbers and labor on the soil. Concessions rrii- i 'Pii cf i i of land in lo tliis end conccssious oi land were ottered to those Louisiana. i i i i i i • t who could send out settlers, and as a greater induce- ment to speculation the grantees were not required to accom- pany the immigrants. Law himself received a tract on the Arkansas River, and agreed to send out fifteen hundred per- sons. Unluckily, neither he nor others were compelled to be careful in choosing tenants. So we find a good part of the comers for a while to be vagrants and criminals, but on May 9, 1720, an order was issued forbidding such recklessness. There was no lack of general interest in these measures, and one finds occasionally in cartographical collections a " Cours du Maps of Mississippi ou Saint Louis," as the map was called, Louisiana, prepared in 1718, to abet the fever, at the command of the company, by a leading geographer, Nicolas de Fer. Across the English Channel there was an echoing furor, and an old plate of John Senex's " Map of North America " was revamped to meet the demand for information about the new El Dorado. It was inscribed to Law. Herman Moll, the ris- ing English cartographer, inserted (1720) in his map a legend athwart the trans-Mississippi region, saying that " this country is full of mines." At a later day, 1755, Mitchell, in his great map made in the English interests when the final struggle was impending, recalled the fever in the legend : " Mines of Mara- meg, which gave rise to the famous Mississippi scheme, 1719." Early in February, 1718, three ships sent by the Company of Ships the West arrived at Dauphine Island. They brought arrive. 1718. ^^ Bienvillc a commission, giving him the authority of commandant. There were already movements in progress for new surveys of the mouth of the Mississippi, so as to establish an entrance from the Gulf more practicable than that by way of Lake Pontchartrain. Bienville, with his new powers, now sent a party to clear the ground for a trading-post at a spot on the river about a hundred miles from the Gulf, which had -sfP-"' f<'- ..L^^- ^*ri [This map is from Bowen and Gibson's North America, London, 1763, showing tlie country of tlie Black Padoucas, the Osages, and the alleged mining region upon which Law and his followers based their expectations of wealth.] 106 THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. already attracted the commandant's attention. This was on a New Or- curvG of the shore where the banks were about ten leans. 1718. fgg|. a^^Qve the stream. Back from this the land fell off, and when it reached Lake Pontchartrain there was but lit- tle to prevent its waters breaking- over the swampy margin. It was nevertheless the most inviting site in the almost universal morass which lined the course of the river. The storehouses and traders' cabins with clay chimneys which soon showed them- selves were the beginning of the destined city of New Orleans. While everything was yet crude and unfinished, some ves- sels sent by the Mississippi Company landed in this infant colony (March 9) three companies of infantry and a small body of colonists. In August, three hundred more settlers came, and they were soon scattered uj) the river on the various conces- sions. Two men, to whose care in chronicling events we owe much of our knowledge of these early days in Louisiana, were among these grantees. One was Benard de la Harpe, who had a grant on the Red River, and who has left us a jour- and nal of events. The other was Le Page du Pratz, who settled near the Natchez, where he lived for eight years, and gathered much curious information from the Lidians. All this he gave to the world in a Histoire de la Louisiane forty years later (1758). In March, 1719, five hundred negroes were landed ; in the following October, a large body of Alsatians and other Germans arrived, a portion of whom at least had been sent by Law as settlers upon his own grants. If these developments prom- ised well, a check to them was already prepared in a war with Quadruple Spain. In August, 1718, the representatives of Eng- wM witii^"*^ land, France, Holland, and the Empire had formed a Spam. 1(18. quadruple alliance, with the avowed purpose of uphold- ing the treaty of Utrecht and forcing Spain into an observance of its provisions. A declaration of war against Spain proved necessary, and on December 17 (January 9, 1719, New Style), hostilities were decided upon. The news reached Mobile in April, and Bienville at once organized a force to surprise Pen- sacola. After a brief investment by sea and land, Pensacola iii i ^ • tt taken and he took the placc and sent the prisoners to Havana. The Spaniards seized the ships which had brought the prisoners, and during the summer returned and retook the LAW'S LOUISIANA. [From Hel Groote Tafereel der Dwansheid, etc. Amster- dam, 1720.] 108 THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. town. They tried at the same time to make an impression on the French post at Dauphine Island, but the opjiortune arri- val of some ships from France completed the discomfiture of the assailants, and they withdrew. It was again Bienville's turn, and Pensacola once more fell, into his hands in Septem- ber, 1719. When Philip, the Spanish king, succumbed and joined the alliance, and there was peace in 1721, Pensacola was confirmed at last to its Spanish founders. Meanwhile, Law's projects were ripening for good, as every- L^^,g body seemed to think, — at least for everybody's Company. individual good, if not for the public good. The Re- gent, then in power, placed all sorts of privileges in the extended hands of Law. The shares of his company became so buoyant in the market that nobody dreamed of a precipice. The old stories of mines in Louisiana were revived, and their sites were figured, as we have seen, in the maps. Ingots were produced at the mint in evidence, — coming from Mexico, very likely. The one thing more for Law to do was to get all the money in France into a bank of royal jDrestige. Then loans would no longer be necessary. Interest and taxation would disappear. Both crown and people woidd happily discover that true credit is what the state gains by an excess of paper over bullion. On January 1, 1719, such a state of financial bliss came in with the new year. The Banque Generale of the Scotch Royaie. prophct became the Banque Royale of France, with the Regent for sole proprietor. A few days later (Jan- uary 5), Law was proclaimed its director. He was allowed to make an unlimited circulation of notes, and the Company of the West existed to work them off. He was permitted to put a tariff upon all things bought and sold. In this way everything was absorbed by it. In May, it was known in Louisiana that the Company of the West had engulfed the Companies of the East, and the Indies, bcforc lonsT the colony was directed to receive more 1719. . . paper and pay for it with all the coin it had. In June, 1719, the conglomerated companies took the name of the Company of the Indies, while the frenzy still grew on the Paris exchange. In July, the profits of the mint were added to its Note. The opposite view of Quinquempoix is from Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid, etc. Amsterdam, 1720. 110 THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. resources, and this privilege was to run for nine years. The stock gave a new bound upward, only to be temporarily de- pressed, upon a rumor of Law's illness. An installment plan was introduced, and so the circle of victims was inordinately widened. By the end of the year (1719), there were half a million foreigners gesticidating in the streets of Paris, eager for something. " Paris," says the English pamphleteer already cited, " like the temple of Fortune among the heathen, is resorted to by innumerable crowds of every nation, quality, and condi- tion, and the dirty kennel of Quinquempoix has for some time been more frequented than the Royal Exchange of London." The capital stock, increased to six hundred thousand shares, rose to fifteen thousand francs a share and even higher, — some thousands per cent, advance in the end. It came to be known that three thousand millions of livres were borne on the face of its aggregated paper. In January, 1720, Law became comptroller-general of the kingdom. In February, the company absorbed the comptroller- Banquc Royalc with all its privileges. The entire money power of the country was now at Law's dis- posal, and every tax came into his hands. But the fabric had begun to totter. Law was at his wits' end to keep this from being known. In May, he tried a hazardous expedient, and issued a royal decree to reduce values. Within a week he saw he had made a blunder, and the decree was revoked. It proved too late. Shrinking hope had succeeded to buoyant exhilaration. Law worried through the summer and autumn, uncertain how to turn. By December, he was sure that no Law one could be longer deceived. He put eight hundred disappears. Jiyres in his pocket one day and disappeared. The end had come. As soon as the news of Law's flight reached Louisiana Germans in (Ju"e, 1721), the Germans who had been sent to oc- Louisiana. cupy his couccssiou bccamc alarmed, and in the follow- ing November Charlevoix saw their deserted villages. To pacify them, a new grant was made by the authorities, twenty miles up the river from New Orleans, and wljat is to-day known as the " German Coast " along the stream marks where they set- tled. They began a new industry in supj)lying vegetables for the young capital of the province. CHAPTER VI. THE BARRIERS OF LOUISIANA. 1710-1720. If La Harpe and St. Denis liad failed in finding in the southwest an overland way to the South Sea, there was a vague hope that it might yet be revealed in the and a pas- northwest. If Lahontan's story of his Ri\dere Longue western was now generally discredited, since Delisle, the lead- ing geographer of France, had pronounced against it, there were, however, still a few credulous cartographers, like Homann of Nuremberg, and Moll the English map-maker, who placed it on their maps. The common opinion among those interested in this problem of a western way to the Pacific pointed rather to the Missouri, or perhaps to some way from Lake Superior by a higher latitude. It was a report that explorers had gone four hundred leagues up the Missouri without encountering any Spaniards, but that a hundred leagues farther tribes were reached who were warring with them. It was a natural appre- hension that Spanish success in an Indian war in this direction might enable these rivals to slip in before the French in this western route. Cadillac shared this fear, and was watchful to report all rumors from the far country to his superiors at Paris. A priest at Versailles, Father Bobe, who had a correspondent at Mobile, was acting just now as an intermediary between Baudot, one of the secretaries of Pontchartrain, and Bob^and Delisle the cartographer, in the rectification of the ^^"^'^■ latter 's maps. He tells the geographer that his letters from Louisiana speak of a populous country, which the Spaniards had discovered, towards the western sea, and suggests that Bourbonia would be a good name for it on the maps. In October, 1717, the Sieur Hubert made a report to the minister of the marine upon an alleged route by the Missouri, 112 THE BARRIERS OF LOUISIANA. through a rich mining" country, and he supposed it to lead to a mountain barrier, where the springs of eastern and western flowing rivers could not be far apart. The notion was not a novel one, but it had always been veiled in conjecture. Delisle and others put near the eastern edges of their maps a lake, with an outlet towards the Pacific, but they avoided any direct presentation towards the west of the mouth of such rivers. Intimations in the book which Tonty discarded, and in the Carolana of Coxe, had more or less familiarized the reading public with like notions, which were soon to be reinforced in the great English map of Popple. Bourgmont, a trader who had been for fifteen years traffick- ing on the Missouri, was responsible for a story that the Panis (Pawnees) and their kindred in the remote west were trading with other peoples living about a great lake. This far-away race were represented as small of stature and dressed like Europeans. There was a suspicion that they might prove to be Chinese. It was thought by some to be a favorable condition of a route The Mis- ^y *^i^ Missouri, that the tribes along its current were represented to be more tractable than Indians gen- erally were, while more to the north the mutual hos- tilities of the Sioux and Christineaux rendered exploring pe- culiarly dangerous. Begon, the Canadian Intendant, informed (October 11, 1718) the Paris government that all hopes of a successful search for the western sea must be abandoned unless these savages could be forced into peace with each other. In a memorial which was prejjared at Paris in 1718, outlin- ing a plan for giving Louisiana a dominating position in North America, it was made a part of the means to that end that the mines on the Missouri should be worked, and commerce with Mexico established from that base. Inasmuch, it went on to say, as the Missouri has one branch leading to the South Sea, trade can also be opened with Japan and China. In the summer and autumn of 1719, there were two adven- turers, incited by such stories as these, endeavoring on the to discovcr the meaning of them. One, La Harr)e, Missouri. -i -\r' • • • • a •! n had gone up the Mississippi in August with a small escort, and was soon among the Osages on the Missouri, finding Note. The opposite cut is a section of Popple's great Map of the British Empire in America (1732), sliowing the supposed lake and its outlet towards the west. souri route to the west em sea. ^VOU^X^, )*1^ ;.»^* 7?. ol! the x^ T2sr o jr-s ' ,K-<-!-d iii'i' cut come to possess themselves or lands claimed in opposition to the charter of Penn. These lands were held to be within the sea-to-sea rights as established by the Connecticut charter of 1662, and beyond the interjected claim of the Duke of York along the Hudson, granted by his royal brother in THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. 167 1664 and 1674. These interlopers, as Penn's people thought them, were a sturdy race, later to be heard from. The Delawares, once the savage denizens of this region, had already begun to follow the flying game over the mountains, and had found new hunting-grounds on Delaware the Ohio. The Pennsylvania packmen were not far Pennsyiva- behind, and they soon encountered on the Alleghany the French traders. The two rivals were each anxious to dis- cover the other's routes and purposes, and the secretary of Pennsylvania, in his reports to the Lords of Trade, was com- plaining that the French were pressing even within the limits of the province's charter. As to the more remote regions beyond the forks of the Ohio, New York was ali-eady pressing her claims derived uieohio from the Iroquois, in order to keep out the traders of ""^siou. the other colonies. She held that the parliamentary acts of 1624, 1664, and 1681, which made this region crown lands, were enough, even without her Iroquois claim, to bar them out. But the urgent question, after all, was whether the activity of the French was not of itself enough to keep the English out. Coxe was expressing the fear that the better knowledge which the French possessed of the mountain passes might, " in con- junction with the French of the Meschacebe," enable them to " insult and harass these colonies." There was one favorable condition, however, — favorable, as he thought, to the British, in that the Chicazas (Chickasaws) were " good friends of the English." Their country extended to the Mississippi, and took in the valley of the Tennessee, which, as we have seen, was often marked in contemporary maps as the traders' route. It was ten years since, from one of the passes of the Blue Ridge, Spotswood, with his Knights of the Golden pirgt set- Horseshoe, had looked down into the valley of the shinandoah Shenandoah. If we may safely accept the story, the ^^^''• first settler on the river-bank of that leafy basin came in 1726, when a Welshman, Morgan by name, built a house beyond the Blue Ridge. It is possible that, about the same time, some Germans from Germanna, in the lower country of Virginia, where Spotswood had seated a colony of that people, had also made an entrance into the valley. Two adventurers, Mackey 168 ALONG THE APPALACHIANS. and Sailing, are reported to have wandered before this through Mackey and ^^^ vallej. Sailing was captured by the Cherokees, Sailing. ^^^ ^g^g \\e\(\. by them for some years as a prisoner. Experiencing a variety of vicissitudes, he was passed from them to Kaskaskia, thence to the Spaniards, and again to the French in Canada. After an absence of six years, he joined the Eng- lish once more in New York. The Cherokees, the cause of such trials, dominated all this Tjjg western region south of the Iroquois and west of the and th^^^^ mountains. They had, in 1721, ceded to the Carolini- traders. ^^^ ^ tract lying east of the Alleghanies and between the Edisto and Congaree rivers, — the earliest English acqui- sition from them, stretching up the Carolina streams. The paths of the traders who sought the Cherokee villages from Virginia and the Carolinas united in what is now the extreme northwest of South Carolina among the broken hills of the southern end of the Alleghanies. The Virginians already, in 1728, had a considerable pack-horse traffic with the Cherokees along this path, and there had been an intermittent trade with them car- ried on by the Carolinians for three quarters of a century. Coxe, in 1722, speaks of their centre of trade being only sixty miles distant from the Carolina outposts, and says that the English are " always very kindly entertained by them." But the French were not altogether deficient in influence among them, and both the Cherokees and Creeks were at times objects of solicitude in Carolina. The trail from Virginia was a circuitous one. William Byrd The Virginia ^f Wcstovcr speaks of its five hundred miles as most Byrd^of likely almost double the necessary distance if the As- westover. gembly would but order surveys to see if it could be shortened. Byrd's History of the Dividing Line is one of the few readable accounts which have come down to us of the life and sights of this period. He expresses the inquisitiveness of an active mind when he says, "It is strange that our woodsmen have not had curiosity enough to inform themselves more ex- actly of [this region] ; and it is stranger still that the govern- ment has never thought it worth while [to incur] the expense of making an accurate survey of the mountains, that we might be masters of that natural fortification before the French, who in some places have settlements not very distant from it." It CAROLINA. 169 was rather striking- how, in all such statements, what was known to the traders entered so little into the sum of the common knowledge pertaining to the mountains and to what they shut off. [From JefFerys' American Atlas, showing the Indian trail from the Shenandoah country to the Cherokee country. Tooley's Creek is the head of the Holston River.] Joshua Gee, in his tract on the English trade, speaks of Carolina as " a noble colony, the most improvable of joshua Gee any of our colonies;" but he regards it as "liable to oi^carouna. be overrun by the French and Spaniards for want of a suf- ficient protection." Referring to the French encroachments 170 ALONG THE APPALACHIANS, beyond the mountains, he adds : "If we have any sense of the value of that commodious tract of land, it ought to put us upon securing to ourselves such excellent colonies which may, if properly improved, bring this nation a very great treasure ; and at least build some forts on the Appalachian Mountains, to secure us the rights of the mines contained in them ; to protect the Indian and skin trade ; and to preserve the navigation to ourselves of those great rivers which have their fountains in the said hills, and empty themselves through Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, etc., into the Virginia Sea." In 1721, it was estimated that lying between Carolina and the French on the Alabama and Mississippi there were southern Something over nine thousand Indian warriors, of whom nearly thirty-five hundred formerly traded with the English, but were now drawn into the French interests. The French were likewise thought to be in a fair way to win over about two thousand who were now neutral. Against about fifty-four hundred who either were at present or were likely to become hostile, the English could count on the friendship of nearly four thousand Cherokees dwelling along the Appala- chians. The danger to Carolina lay in the opportunity which the Dangers of rivcrs cast of the mountains offered for hostile de- caroima. sceuts if the Clicrokees ceased to form a barrier. The greater danger was by the Altamaha. This risk had been represented to the Board of Trade, and they had urged the government to dispatch troops to Charleston and to build forts on the rivers. After Pensacola had been finally confirmed to Spain, in 1721, it was held in Carolina that the French could find an easy route from Mobile north till they struck and then de- scended the Altamaha. If they should do this, " it would be the most fatal blow yet to his Majesty's interests." CHAPTER IX. THE RIV ALKIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. 1730-1740. In 1730, Montesquieu had predicted that England would be the earliest of the western nations to be abandoned by her colonies. He little anticipated that France would colonies in in reality be the first to be bereft of hers. Just at a time when France had determined to restrict the English to the seaward slope of the Appalachians, in the hope of sharing the greater sj^aces of the New World with Spain, his Catholic majesty and the English king were formulating policies which were to deprive those monarchs of their American de- ^he sugar pendencies. It was the production of sugar which *'^'^®" was to be used in these magisterial ways. Joshua Gee, a con- temporary English economist, was in 1731 urging upon his government to follow the French practice of sending vagrants to the colonies, since by the " incredible numbers " of them which France had sent to the Mississippi she had established a successful rivalry in the exportation of sugar. " If once the French can bring their settlements," he adds, "to bear upon the back of ours, along that most fertile valley which is watered with the river Overbachee [Wabash] and the great river Ohio, we may expect they will gain a great part of the tobacco trade also." It was observed in London that the non-resident planters of the British Sugar Islands in the West Indies were accustomed to spend money lavishly. The inference was natural that to foster the production of that staple woidd bring more money still to the mother country. The result was the passage of par- liamentary measures which, in aiding the sugar planters, bore hard on the Atlantic colonies, since the West Indies trade of Boston and Philadelphia was thereby forced to make a circuit 172 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. through the British islands for the benefit of the English mer- chants. The colonial merchants were too active and The English i . i • Pariiment the Atlantic coast too long to insure an exact or even colonial general compliance with such restrictive measures, commerce. . . • . rri but any coercive attempt was an irritation. The Viscount Bury and other apologists have asserted that imperial orders, the subject of colonial jeers, and with difficulty en- forced, could not have been oppressive ; but they forget that vexatious and inoperative legislation is sometimes the most irritating. The liquor question in our recent sociological days Is one The influ- mainly of domestic concern ; but in the eighteenth cen- ence of rum. ^^^^.y ^^ ^j^'g continent it affected the destiny of peo- ples. In the rival designs for the possession of the Great Valley, rum — and largely New England rum — played an important jjart. It was more than a calumet in the intercourse of white and savage. Western progress as tracked by successive pur- chases of lands was a chronicle of rum. " Plenty of wine and punch was given to the Indians," is the usual accompaniment of a deed. Not a victory but the pale-face and his red ally quaffed a glass. " You tell us you have beat the French," said a sachem. "If so you must have taken a great deal of rum from them, and can better spare us some of that hot liquor to make us rejoice with you in the victory." The record reads: "The governor and commissioners ordered a dram of rum to be given to each, in a small dram-glass, which the governor called a French glass." The record of a later day says that the In- dians found the French glasses " unfortunate," referring to their diminutive size. " We now desire you will give us some in English glasses," said the unsated savage. The governor turned it to good account : " We are glad to hear you have such a dislike for what is French. They cheat you in your glasses as well as in everything else." The entry closes with the statement that they all had some rum " in some middle- sized glasses." A French Jesuit complained that an Indian would be bap- tized ten times a day for a pint of brandy. " All the imhajDpi- ness that befalls you," said the governor of Pennsylvania at an Indian council, " is generally owing to the abuse of that destructive liquor, rum, of which you are so fond ; " but there THE TRADE IN RUM. 173 was very little beyond futile injunctions to prevent the mischiev- ous trader carrying it to the Indian villages. Even in their councils, when the chiefs reprehended the traffic and its effect upon their wayward youngsters, and solemnly vowed to break every cask brought over the mountains, they were seldom averse to being refreshed at the trading-house. Indeed, there were laws of trade that no righteous indignation of white or savage could stay, for by such laws the Indian got more rum for his skins from the English than he could get of brandy from the French. Conrad Weiser at one time told the Indians on the Ohio, who were complaining that the English traders brought rum to their villages, that they themselves " sent down their skins by the traders to buy rum. You go yourselves down and bring back horse-loads of strong liquor. Beside this you never agree about it. One will have it ; the other won't have it, — though there are very few of these last ; and a third says, We will have it cheaper. This last we believe speaks out of his heart," and the recorder adds, " Here they laughed." Rum, in fact, was the main prop of the English trade, and the distiller- ies of New England got their full share of the profit. It mat- tered little whether the Yankee product passed up the Hudson to Albany, and so clandestinely reached the merchants of Mon- treal and competed with French brandy ; or by an alternative channel found its way to the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay, and the pack-horse of the trader bore it over the AUeghanies. There were passages farther south perhaps more effective. " A great part of the molasses from the Dutch and French islands," says a contemporary tract, " imported into Rhode Island, Mas- sachusetts Bay, etc., is distilled into rum and afterwards shipped by them into Virginia, Carolina," etc. In this traffic the dis- tillers of New England were using yearly some twenty thousand hogsheads of molasses. To conform to the law passed in the interests of the Sugar Islands, and ship it through English ports, with increased cost of duties and transportation, was a burden, when not shirked, well calculated to make the mei-chants of Boston and Newjjort uneasy. The fact was that besides being a primary cause of western progress, rum was likely to prove a contingent influence for American independence. The more rum the more beaver, and when the British Parlia- The beaver ment listened to Old-Country felt-makers and made *'^^^^- 174 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. it punishable for the colonists to wear any covering but those furnished by the English furriers, we find hats and rum work- ing out the great problem together. Parliament was making these two products lawful commodities only by their going through England. It would have been hard to patrol the Alle- ghanies with excisemen ; and skins and rum passed and repassed, and there was free trade across the mountain barrier, while it was embarrassed on the coast. Nothing at the north was shaping this traffic in the colonial interests more than the English post at Oswego, and Oswego and ii-r->ii ^ Fort Fred- nothing angcrcd the J^rench more than the mamte- erick. 1731. c i • t -, i i i t-^ nance ot that station. In order to checkmate the Eng- lish, and to place themselves in the line of communication between Albany and Montreal, the French now advanced along Lake Champlain. We have seen that under the French claims the southern bounds of Canada ran west from the mouth of the Kennebec, and this threw Champlain almost entirely within their limits. Crown Point, or, as the French termed it, Scalp Point, thus became for the first time a prize in the rival con- tentions of French and English, when the Canadians began here, in 1731, the erection of Fort Frederick. This post, accord- ingly, was a direct threat against the Iroquois, who laid claim to the region of the lake, and a danger to the English, who saw in it a possible movement which hazarded the connection of New England and New York. Late in the summer of 1731, two Dutchmen came to Albany from Canada, and reported the prog- ress of the fort. They added that in the spring the French intended to take possession of Irondequoit Bay, on the southern side of Ontario, and so flank Oswego on the west as Fort Fred- erick did on the east. Nothing had of late occurred to arouse the English more. French Logaii scut from Pennsylvania his signal of alarm to Lak"%°ham- Parliament. Rip van Dam in New York appealed plain. £qj, support on the one hand to Belcher of Massachu- setts, and on the other to Gordon of Pennsylvania. Protests were made in Paris by the British ambassador. Nevertheless, the work at Crown Point went on. There was planted at the same time through the adjacent country by manorial grants a feudal sj)irit, contrary to English habit. The region was laid THE SHAWNEES. 175 out in seigneuries, parceled out without recompense in a coun- try that the Iroquois called their own, while the English claimed it under the treaty of Utrecht, as being within their jurisdiction. These surveys laid the foundations of disputes of title which it fell to New York to settle in vindication of her own right after the treaty of Paris in 1763. The alarm at the English agitation threw Canada into solici- tude lest the occupation of Crown Point should incite new attacks upon the St. Lawrence. The English, however, had enough to do elsewhere, and the French were suffered to go on strengthening their post, and finally (1737) to put an armed sloop on the lake. It was nearly ten years from the date of the first occupation of Crown Point before Fort Frederick was pronounced complete. The disposition of the Shawnees had become a growing fac- tor in the problem of western progress for the Eng- ^j^g lish. These Indians — or such of them as were not sbawnees. nomadic — had lived for some time, while their villages were on the Susquehanna, in a sort of subjection to the Iroquois. During this period the confederates watched their wards from Shamokin, at the forks of that river, where they kept a repre- sentative chieftain to control them. The Shawnees later claimed that they were forced across the AUeghanies because they would not join the confederates in war against the English. They were certainly restless in being what was termed " j)etticoated " by the Iroquois, and so sought friendly relations with some Delawares whom they found living on the waters of the Alle- ghany. This took place in 1732, a period of jDcace flecked with a cloud of danger on Lake Champlain. The French, meanwhile, were assuring the Shawnees in their new Ohio home that the hatchet was buried. In May, 1732, Edmund Cartlidge wrote from the Alleghany valley to Gov- ernor Gordon of Pennsylvania : " The French seem very kind and courteous for the present ; but how long it may hold I know not. The French coming to settle here, there is more necessity for the better regidation of the Indian trade, for the French will take all advantages against us to insinuate with the Indians in order to lessen their esteem for us." When the Shawnees, in September, 1732, sent a deputation to Philadel- 176 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. phia, and its members were asked why their tribe had crossed the mountains, and why their chief went so often to Montreal, they protested it was with no evil intent towards the English. That the Shawnees did go to the French, the Pennsylvania traders were sure. These mongrel packmen made the syivauia most of tlic peaceful times, and were now swarming over the barrier ridges to pursue a trade always more or less nefarious. It was their custom to give the savages large credit in the autumn. When they exacted payment in the spring, a winter of rum-drinking had brought the poor debtors nigh unto destitution. This "trusting" process was so common hereabouts that, according to a memorial of some traders who had suffered by French blandishments interfering with the spring payments, it was termed " Alleghany ing " the poor Indians. These traders were at this day reporting that the French were building a log fort near the Ohio, and a certain Canadian, Cavelier by name, was said to come year after year among the tribes on the Alleghany to entice them to trade with Montreal. The Iroquois, through that portion of them dwelling on the The Ohio, and known as Mingoes, were another source Mingoes. q£ troublc to the English, who trusted the Shawnees. The Mingoes had i. full share of the Iroquois longing for room, and were determined to push the Shawnees south of the Ohio.' The Shawnees had long been wanderers, and they were not much averse to getting beyond the scrutiny of their quondam masters. The French met the Mingoes, as they had met the Shawnees, with fair speeches ; but the Iroquois were little inclined to brook the presence of the French as far east as the Alleghany, and the French saw in this Mingo aversion the instigation of the English. The ultimate question for the rival whites, as well as for the intermediary natives, was : Who should supply the rum to the distant Ottawas and Miamis ? — and the better bargains at Oswego were sure to tell. It was not long after this that Hocquart, the intendant of Canada, in a memoir which he prepared on the state and the of that couutry, acknowledged that this trading advan- tage of the English was beyond question. Oswego, he said, was getting the lion's share of the furs from Lake Su- THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. 177 perior, Mackinac, and Green Bay. The Sioux country, which was now become the principal source of supply, was also a tributary of the English post. There was nothing for the French to do but to outwit their rivals, as they had often done in more artful diplomacy with the Indians. English folly could certainly be counted on in the match, when such iniquities as " The Walking Purchase " of the Pennsylvanians were gloried in. The French were already benefiting themselves by their diplomatic skill. Beauharnois had a conference in 1734 with the Onondagas from the heart of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Wabash Indians were welcoming the French among them. Vincennes was becoming a settled post, with Louis St. Ange in command of its garrison. This was something to compensate the decadence of the French allies farther west, for the Illinois, from a powerful tribe as the French first found them, had been reduced to scarce six hundred fighting men. Thomas Salmon, in his Observations, accounted the French wise in the quiet which they kept " before their designs irondequoit are ripe for execution." The French threat of flank- ^^y- ing Oswego at Irondequoit, though for a long time impending, had never been put in action, and by 1737, the English asked the Senecas, living adjacent thereto, for permission to possess and fortify the same bay. To this end the New York legisla- ture made an appropriation to buy the site of the fort, and later it was thus acquired. The Indians on the Alleghany, meanwhile, were as quiet as Salmon thought the French to be, and when some stragglers were reported among them, showing- white scalps, they hastened to relieve themselves of the impu- tation of hostility by telling the governor of Pennsylvania that the mischief-makers were wicked vagrants from the far Mississippi. For fifteen or twenty years the valley of Virginia had been looked into from the gaps of the Blue Ridge. Occa- sionally, hunter or trader had descended from the of Virginia. passes and found the fords of the Shenandoah. But no settlement up to 1730 had, beyond question, been made along its meadows, nor a single tract of its umbrageous paradise been cleared. This year, Governor Gooch issued a warrant for forty thousand acres in the lower parts of the vaUey to John 178 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. and Isaac Vanmeter. The next year (1731), they sold their rights to one Joist Hite of Pennsylvania, and in 1732 Hite set- tled near the site of the future Winchester (founded in 1752). If the claims of Morgan, already mentioned in the preceding chapter, be rejected, Hite is thought to have been the first white settler in the valley of the Shenandoah, and he was instrumen- tal in leading thither sixteen families from Pennsylvania. The early immigrants of the valley were a mixed concourse of hardy people. Among them was a part of that and Ger- Scotch-Irish iuflux which was animating the colonial blood in Jersey, and indeed all along the Atlantic coast it brought in the martial spirit of Bothwell Bridge. There were also many of those Rhinelanders and Palatines who had flocked into New York, Pennsylvania, and Carolina, fugi- tives from the horrors which the Thirty Years' War had visited upon the Germans. They had fled from sumptuary laws and official extortions, — symptoms of that same desjsotism which, nearly a half century later, sent regiments of Hessians and Brunswickers to these same American wilds, when finally those of them who abided here became the stanchest adherents of the Federal Constitution. These Germans were in their own way a merry, hearty people, calculated to make the life of a pioneer as buoyant as a certain sluggishness would permit. Some among them, particularly those lingering by the Potomac, were Catholic, tributary to the only organization in America before the Revo- lution which publicly celebrated mass, — the isolated Roman Church in Philadelphia, — and they were never quite free from the suspicion of their neighbors lest their religious sympathies might too easily affiliate them with the French. The French Huguenots, as a part of the un-English popu- lation, had no such doubts cast upon their sincerity. They had long ago weakened France, and had been denied the chance of strengthening Canada. From Boston to Charleston they were giving a rich strain to the conglomerate races of the seaboard. Some of them were among the first settlers of what is now Augusta, and they did their full share in creating a race of valiant first-goers in the wilderness. The modern local antiquaries of this region are not in full accord as to dates and details of these first comers in the valley of Virginia ; but it seems certain that all or nearly all came up BEVERLY MANOR. 179 the valley from Pennsylvania, after crossing the Potomac. It was later when others from the tidewaters of Virginia crossed the Blue Ridoe. In the absence of surveys, m the vaiiey . of Virginia. the lands were occupied m large part at a venture, — a slight cabin, a few hills of corn, or trees blazed along a sup- posed boundary, constituting all the act of possession. The settlement at the modern Woodstock (1734) was in the same year in which all the country west of the Blue Ridge was set up as the county of Orange, extending west "to the utmost bounds of Virginia," according to her sea-to-sea charter. Dur- ing the next few years (1735-1740), the tide moved up the valley to where the sources of the Roanoke and James interlace with those of the Kanawha. It was a region where a single rain-cloud might in a few hours feed, on the one hand, the foun- tains of the Atlantic streams, and on the other those of the Great Valley. In 1735-36, Colonel James Patton, one of the North of Ireland stock, received a grant of 120,000 acres not far from pattonand where Staunton now is. John Sailing, whom we have ^*^^"s- already mentioned as a captive of the Cherokees, borne through the Cumberland Gap, after six years of wandering had returned to Virginia, and in 1736 he had settled at the forks of the James west of the Blue Ridge. In September of the same year, Governor Gooch, in pm-suance of an Order in Council jj^nor of and in the royal name, created the manor of Beverly ^^^^^'y- on the Sherando (Shenandoah). Its precise limits of 118,491 acres signify a supposably careful acquaintance with the coun- try. Indeed, the local names of landmarks defining the bounds of this grant indicate that the region had become more or less familiar. There were, apparently, squatters here and there throughout its extent. The chief patentee was William Beverly, a son of that historian of the name who had been a sharer in the adventurous merriments of Spotswood a score of years be- fore. This manor lay in the upper valley, where Staunton now stands. Beverly soon bought out his copartners and began settling families. Gooch, in the same year (1736), made a grant of land higher up the valley to one Benjamin Borden. In 1736, Colonel William Mayo and a party of surveyors followed the Potomac up to one of its springs, and discovered other waters not far off flowing westward into the Mononga- 180 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. hela. The search for river sources fell in with the habit of making^ s^rants between rivers, and these orants were Colonel ,. . ? ° , . „ IT . , . Mayo at the limited, iiD their valleys, by lines connectino- their forks of the • t J ' J _ & Potomac. springs. It was a custom that gave rise to many dis- putes in these early apportionments of land, arising from a difference of claim as to what constituted a source, par- ticularly in case of alternative forks. In this way the grant The Fairfax m^dc to Lord Fairfax of a territory between the Raj)- grant. pahanuock and the Potomac, with bounds at the west defined by the shortest distance between their respective foun- tains, helped materially the settlement of the Beverly manor. His lordship claimed that such a western line for his grant threw the lower parts of the Shenandoah valley within his domain ; but the running of that line depended on which was taken as the source of the Potomac, the fountain of the north or of the south of its upper branches. Fairfax and those who dis- puted his claim naturally stood respectively for that interpreta- tion which increased their lands. The dispute was a long one, and for fifty years served to render the titles in the lower parts of the valley uncertain, and this drove settlers farther south, where no such rival claimants contended. The decision was ultimately against the Fairfaxes (1786). In much the same way, north of the Potomac, the boundary disputes between Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, complicating the service of writs, had a tendency to prevent settlers lingering on their way to the valley of Virginia. The valley had been for years the stamping-ground of the The valley a Chcrokecs and Catawbas going north, and of the Dela- warpath. warcs and Iroquois ranging south in counter raids, with a fearful energy that the English, who counted aU as allies against the French, often endeavored to assuage. Washington speaks of encountering such war parties when he was surveying for Lord Fairfax in the valley. The Iroquois, in some of these incursions, thinking to secure immunity from English molesta- tion farther south, sometimes tried to get from the frontier officers of Virginia a certificate of the confederates' good inten- tions toward the whites. The practice did not serve to soften the southern Indians, and it became necessary to break up this hostile habit. To hold the valley free from such conflicts fell in large part to the Scotch-Irish, who had been for some years 182 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. coming in from Pennsylvania, and proving themselves the virile race which later represented Virginia in the campaign of Braddock and at Point Pleasant. When Governor Gooch, in 1738, assured to this people liberty of conscience, a new incentive was given to their im- Western extent of migration, and the valley began to be dotted with ham- lets. This increase needed new legislation for local government, and all the territory of the Virginia charter west of the Blue Ridsre was divided into the two counties of Augusta and Frederick, the latter covering the northerly extension to " the utmost limits of Virginia." This act, under the existing pretensions of Virginia, carried her jurisdiction at least to the Mississippi, while to the northwest it included the western parts of Pennsylvania, and gave cause for a long contention with that province. It is quite possible that previous to 1740 there had been an occasional straggler who had crossed the western range Early ®~ . . * EngUsh on of the Appalachians in some other pursuit than trade the Ohio. i i o . „ or the chase. Durveyors and men " prospectnig may have gone this way in an adventurous spirit. Mitchell, the geographer of a somewhat later day, tells us that he had seen the journals of some Virginia surveyors who had crossed the gaps and followed down Wood River to the Ohio, and had then passed down to New Orleans. He professes to have made from these itineraries a draft of the country which these pioneers had traversed ; but the supporters of England's claim to prior- ity over the French in Mitchell's time are often open to the sus- picion of making a case against her rivals by all sorts of possi- bilities stated as facts. At all events, the knowledge which the English had at this time of the trans- Alleghany region must have been very defective. Thomas Salmon, who was now sup- plying (1736) the popular demand in England for geograph- ical knowledge, seemed to comprehend that the headwaters of the York, Potomac, James, and Rappahannock, as he ex- pressed it, " locked within each other, as are also the heads of several other rivers, that rise in the same mountains and run toward the west." But when he undertakes to describe this distant region of western-flowing rivers, he manifests a surpris- ing ignorance of what the French geographers had published. THE CHEROKEES. 183 " On the west side of the mountains," he says, " are a great many lakes of which the French are in possession, as 't is said, but these have not a communication with each other or with the river St. Lawrence, as is commonly reported." Even the great English map of Popple in 1732 displays little knowledge of any development beyond that represented by Delisle some fifteen years earlier. Farther south, the Cherokees were still the bulwark of Caro- lina. In 1729, word had reached Engiand that the . . T T r< TheChero- French had succeeded in detachins; these Indians from keesaudthe p Caroliniaus. the British interests, and that with the Creeks they were rendering trade beyond the mountains insecure. It needed a bold stroke to break this savage pact, and bring the Chero- kees back to the English allegiance. The man for it was found. A Scotch baronet, Sir Alexander Cuming, sirAiexan- now a man of about forty, who had been interested in *^^^ Cummg. Berkeley's scheme of an Indian college at Bermuda, was sent hither to prepare the way for a revival of this over-hill trade. With a train which he gathered at Charleston he started on his perilous mission. The account of his journey which we have was brought to light by the late Samuel G. Drake in 1872, and presents a picture of the undaunted Scotchman moving through the hostile countr}^ like a potentate, overawing village after village by his daring, and forcing the recalcitrant sav- ages to bend the knee in acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the British king. This, day after day, is the story of his prog- ress between March 13, 1730, when he set out, and his return to Charleston, April 20, when he had accomplished a . . p n 1 1 1 •! TT 1 1 Treaty with Circuitous tour oi nve hundred miles. He brousfht the ciiero- kees. 1730. back with him several headmen of the Cherokee vil- lages, and took them to England to verify by a treaty at White- hall, on September 7, 1730, an agreement which he had made with the tribe. " The chain of friendship," says this London document, " be- tween King George and the Cherokee Indians is like the sun, which shines both here and also upon the great mountains where they live, and equally warms the hearts of the English and the Indians." This warmth induced them to grant to the whites the right to build habitations and forts among them. They 184 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. promised also not to trade and not to have other intercourse with any but the English. Of the condition of the Cherokees at this time we have an extended statement by James Adair, a trader for many Thecondi- tt • i • c tion of the years among them. He is, however, an unsatisfactory guide for the sequence of events, as he gives few dates, and those confused. When he began to trade among the Cher- okees, about 1735, he reckoned that they had nearly six thou- sand warriors. His wanderings took him as well among the Creeks and Choctaws, and he saw everywhere the evidence of their descent from the lost tribes of Israel ! Two years after Cuming's expedition over the mountains, the Th hart r ^^S^^^l^ government reenforced their sea-to-sea claims "^Georgia, by the Georgia charter of June 9, 1732. This docu- ment was a distinct threat to the French, or at least they considered it such, since it was but the beginning of a push westward around the southernmost edge of the AUegha- nies. By this, it was seen, the English might hope to reach the Mississippi and sever Louisiana from Canada. It was quite as distinct a challenge to the Spaniards, when the trustees of the new province sought to push against the Floridian frontier fresh settlements of whatever persecuted people they could drag from the debtors' jails in England or gather in the mountains of the Tyrol. The bounds of Georgia were the Savannah River on the one hand and the Altamaha on the other, and from their respective sources the lines were to run due west to the Pacific or " South Seas," cutting athwart the French on the Mississippi. It was apparent that, in parting with something of her territory to the new proprietors, South Carolina had secured a bulwark against the Spaniards, as well as against any hostile Indians coming round the southern verge of the Appalachians. Her dangers were now to be expected solely through the gaps toward the modern State of Tennessee from the Indians in the French alli- ance. It was the object of Oglethorpe, at the head of the Georgian settlements, to bring these tribes into friendly rela- tions with the new province. The next year (1733) we find him compacting with the Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Choctaws, enlarging the English sovereignty and placating the savasre nature. THE CAROLINA BARRIER. 185 This movement by Oglethorpe was easily an affront to the French, and for some years it was a varying struggle between the English and these rivals on the Missis- and the .ITT , -r . , Freuch. sippi to secure the Indian sympathy, it was a trial of English pluck and French blandishments. Adair says that it was about this time (1736) that the French seriously began to think of walling the English in by the Appalachians. Along this southern stretch of those mountains, the help of the Cherokees was essential to that end. The English saw, as the French did, that this tribe held with the Catawbas cherokees, the key to the situation. To make them allies in au^^Jrof*' fullest symi3athy, it was necessary to force them into '^"°'^" harmony with their old foes, the Iroquois. In 1737, Conrad Weiser was bending his skillful energies to bring about the reconciliation of the northern confederates and the Catawbas. It is to be feared there was quite as much need of a similar spirit of concord among the whites of the Atlantic intercolonial colonies, for intercolonial forbearance had little stead- Jealousies. iness. The Carolina traders complained that the Georgian authorities taxed them for a passage across the Savannah on their way to the Cherokees, and in other respects the peojile of one province or another found their neighbors a burden. We find the average English notion of these Carolina barrier hills in what Salmon was writing at this time in his salmon's efforts to enhance their glories in the eyes of stay-at- ^"^^^^' home Britons. He speaks of " glittering sands being frequently washed down," while acknowledging scant acquaintance with a region»where there are no towns or settlements, and no in- habitants, as he says, but wild beasts. " Our people only pass over the mountains when they go to traffic with the Indians near the banks of the Mississippi." Counting little on the intervention of the French, he supposes that there may come a rupture with the Spaniards. If this shoidd happen, he sees nothing " to prevent our passing the mountains and possessing ourselves of the mines of St. Barbe, if we make the Indians of those countries our friends, who are frequently at war with tlie Spaniards. ... If we suffer [he adds] the French to build forts and fix themselves on the Mississippi or in the neighborhood of the Appalachian Mountains, they will not only be in a con- 186 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. dition to invade and harass our plantations from north to south, but will possess themselves of the mines there, . . . which will render that nation more formidable even in Europe than it is at present. ... It is to be wished, therefore, that Spain and England would in turn understand their mutual interest, and enter into a defensive alliance in America, at least since the French can only be defeated in their ambitious and covetous views by the united forces of Great Britain and Spain." This was a welcome complement to the pet scheme of France to unite with Spain and drive the English from the continent. Neither scheme looked promising. The English merchants England and fretted uudcr the vigilance of Spain in thwarting their Spain. smuggling trade with the Spanish islands. Spain saw the same contraband trade successful enough to lessen her commerce, and she was stirred to greater vigilance. This in- creased the British discontent, and Pope and Johnson made the most they could of it in indignant verse, aimed to overthrow an inert ministry. In January, 1739, Walpole made a convention with Spain, and commissioners were named to settle the boun- dary disputes of Georgia and Florida. All this simply delayed, but did not prevent war, and on June 15, 1739, Newcastle no- tified the colonial governors that hostilities with Spain were renewed, and authorized them to seize Spanish property and issue letters of marque. It was not till September that Oglethorpe heard of the actual declaration of war. He strove at once to make land and tlic Crccks as good a barrier against the Spaniards as ^^'° the Cherokees were towards the French. He agreed with the Creeks for cessions of their lands on the Savannah as far as the Ogeechee and along the coast to the St. John's River, and so inland as far as the tides went. The savages further agreed to bar out the Spanish. In June, 1740, the English had pushed well into Florida, and were before St. Augustine. Here Oglethorpe suffered from the defection of some of his followers, and was obliged to withdraw. The Moravians whom he had called from Germany, and who had begun to set up missions among the Creeks, revolted at the war, and rather than take part in it turned north to confront later conflicts in Pennsylvania. The campaign closed with the Spaniards likely to hold their own on their side of the Great Valley. THE NATCHEZ WAR. 187 Of the tribes to the east of the lower Mississippi, the Chick- asaws were accounted — if Charlevoix reflects the gen- rphe eral view — the "bravest of the Louisiana Indians." Chickasaws. Allied with the English, they had provoked in many ways the enmity of the French ; but their allegiance was somewhat in- constant, and their attacks occasionally were directed against the English. Whichever way their hostile frenzy turned them, those who felt the weight of their resentment, whether English or French, charged the mischief on the instigation of the other, and very likely with entire justice. Lying two hundred miles west of their main comitry were the Chickasaws' friends, the Natchez, bordering on ^he the Mississippi. Tliis inter-tribal friendship had for N^*<=i>e^- a long time rendered the situation of Fort Rosalie a source of anxiety to the French. It ought to have opened the eyes of its commandant to the precarious peace of the little colony clus- tered about the fort; but he was an imperious and heedless man, and his character hastened the crisis. The Choctaws, a treacherous people, ostensibly friendly to the French, had secretly agreed with the Natchez and The Yazoos to rise upon the French and destroy them. It ^an**^^ w^as the part assigned to the Choctaws to attack New ^'^29-1731. Orleans. The Natchez, being impatient, anticipated the ap- pointed day, and so the plot failed of its full effect. They fell, November 28, 1729, on the defenseless colonists in and near Fort Rosalie, and massacred nearly all. A single fugitive reached New Orleans, and his bewildered story created the utmost consternation. The Choctaws had recently made warm protestation of fidel- ity, and this had blinded the people in that town to the danger which their insecurity invited. The precipitancy of the attack at Fort Rosalie proved their protection, for by it they were forewarned and escaped like horrors. Excepting a small com- motion occasioned by the Yazoos on the Washita, beyond the Mississippi, the sudden outburst of the Natchez failed of sup- port elsewhere. The French showed their energy in moving toward the Natchez to avenge the massacre. The Choctaws, still professing friendship, were the first on the spot ; but were soon joined by a force from New Orleans. The Natchez yielded their 188 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. ground, and, leaving some white prisoners behind, fled across the Mississippi. They were pursued, but only their women fell into the hands of the French. A kind of guerrilla war lasted for a year, and when Perier brought it to a close (Jan- uary 1, 1731) he found himself possessed of nearly five hun- dred captive Indians, who were sold as slaves in the San Domingo market. There is some question as to the place where the Natchez made their last stand, supposed to be about forty miles northwest of Fort Rosalie. Some contend that it was near the modern Lake Lovelace. The outbreak had shown the necessity of improving the New Orleans dcf cuscs of Ncw Orlcaus, and Perier began to dig a fortified. moat arouud the town, and to plan forts at several points on the river. There was great need of it, for the rem- nant of the Natchez were active, now falling upon the friendly Tonicas, and now attacking French barges as they struggled up the river, carrying supplies to the upper settlements. A part of the tribe sought refuge among the Chickasaws, and there nurtured their revengeful spirit. This Natchez war was the first serious hostile encounter which the Louisianians had had. The depletion of ingYnyew Ncw Orleans, by sending its available adults to man r eana. ^^^ ^^^ posts, cxposcd tlic towu to tlic dangers of a servile insurrection. Nothing but good luck and prompt action, whereby a dozen of black ringleaders were hanged, prevented other scenes of horror in a colony where out of seven thousand souls nearly a third were black and in bondage. The cost of the war and the uncertainty attending it had discouraged the Company of the Indies. Other pany oTthe schcmcs f or profit in Asia and Africa were by contrast up its chit- far more promising for the company's capital. For this cause their interest slackened, and Louisiana got less and less of their attention. The discontent culminated, January 33, 1731, in a surrender of the company's charter to the king. Louisiana, thus freed from a depressing monopoly and become a royal province, could not be worse off than she had been, and might be better. So the colonists waited develop- ments. The king. May 7, 1732, organized a council of government, and 190 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. recalling Perier for promotion, sent back Bienville to his old Bienville post. Unfortunately, little was done to improve the governor of character of the emig-ration which followed, and New Louisiana. ■-' ' 1732. Orleans received a fresh accession of the lazy andi vicious, — poor material with which to recuperate its energies. All this was not promising for the serious work which Bien- ville soon took in hand. This was to demand of the the'chieka- Cliickasaws the surrender of the Natchez fugitives. The governor by gifts sought to gain over the Choctaws for a united campaign against these harborers of the enemy. As the trading-path went, the Chickasaw country was a hundred and sixty miles to the north of the Choctaw villages, between the upper forks of the Mobile River. The march thither was a more laborious one for the French than for their savage allies ; but there was the prospect of plundering the English traders domesticated among the Chickasaws, and this was lure enough for both. The Chickasaws were known to belong to the savage league which was imperiling the passage of the Mississippi, and Bienville saw no alternative but the trial of war. The Choctaws were not quick to respond to the French en- treaties, though they at last yielded. It took time to lay such plans of cooperation that a supporting army could be brought from the Illinois country for a simultaneous attack. Mean- while, it was determined that Bienville should advance from the south by way of the Mobile and Tombigbee rivers. On April 1, 1736, Bienville's army left Mobile Fort in thirty piraguas and as many bateaux. In three weeks, they were at Tombigbee, where a fort had already been built, and where the Choctaws, coming across the country, joined them. In a month more, they had gone as far as their boats would carry them ; and at this point, seven leagues from the nearest Chicka- saw village, they built a palisade to protect their boats, and moved on by land. On reaching the Chickasaw village, they saw the English flag flying above the defenses, and recognized some Carolina traders on the ramparts. The attack which was made on May 26 was vigorously re- pelled by the Chickasaws. Firing from pits, they reserved their volleys till the French were close upon them. This method of defense may have given rise to stories, later common, THE CHICKASAW WAR. 191 that the Chickasaws lived in holes like weasels, as we some- times find it stated on legends in contemporary maps. Fifty of the assailants are said to have fallen at the first dis- charge from the fort, and thirty at the second. The Choctaws who accompanied the French are variously stated to have been from six hundred to twice as many in number, and, like all sav- ages, they lost heart rapidly under the steady repulse. So the French, niunbering perhaps five hundred, were soon left to themselves, in a condition not much more sanguine than the Choctaw fugitives. All the French plans, indeed, had miscar- ried. The attack had been set down for May 10, when it was supposed the forces from the Illinois would be in position to assault simidtaneously on the north. Bienville had been de- layed by rain, and had been obliged to tarry at intervals to build ovens and bake bread. He was accordingly a fortnight and more behind time. He had heard rumors which led him to suspect that D'Artaguette, commanding this northern party, was in position ; but he does not seem to have had confirmation of the story before he himself was obliged to retreat. The fact was that D'Artaguette, leading some four hundred French and Indians, was not pleased with Bienville's orders to make haste slowly, so as not to be ahead of guette's the attack on the south. When he came upon the northern villages of the Chickasaws, he unadvisedly rushed to an attack. The onset was a failure. The commander was cap- tured, and his Indians fled. The victor secured a supply of powder, and captured some of Bienville's orders, which the English traders deciphered. So the movements on the south were anticipated, and the governor more easily foiled in his attack. Bienville returned to New Orleans with his bedraggled and downcast followers as best he could. He was as de- Bienviiie termined, however, as before to punish the foe ; but fo^rnew it took three years to complete his new preparations. <=^™P''"sn. Meanwhile, he kept parties of Choctaws and Illinois skirring along the trails of the English traders to intercept their sup- plies. Other parties were sent to explore different paths of approach to the Chickasaws, so as to find the best. It was finally determined to try that which followed the Mississippi and the Yazoo. Making a new treaty with the Choctaws, to 192 RIVALRIES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND SPAIN. get what help he could from their four thousand warriors, he established a base near the modern Memphis. He built here Fort Assumption, and waited the accumulation of supplies from the Illinois country, as well as the coming of troops from France. These, to the number of seven hundred, arrived in 1739. Delays brought the usual embarrassments. Horses and cattle strayed off. Provisions were lavishly consumed. The Indians deserted. It took at last three months to open the roads necessary for the march back from the river. The Illinois colonists had responded generously, and Buisson- A peace foi- ni^re and Longueil had come with a good following lows. 1740. fj-Qjjj Fort Chartres. So Bienville found he was ready to start, in March, 1740, with about twelve hundred whites and twice as many Indians. Celoron, come from Canada, was sent ahead with a force fitted to try the temper of the enemy. The Chickasaws took alarm, and were induced to send their chiefs to Fort Assmnption. A peace followed, and by April 1, 1740, Bienville was able to boast of success, and returned to New Orleans. It seemed for a while as if France was assured of a future in the Great Valley, and Enoiand and Spain were to be The pros- ./ ' ^ o x pectsof kept afar. St. Denis had already confronted and warned the Spaniards on the Red River, and England had nowhere got a footing beyond the AUeghanies. Signs of material prosperity were soon apparent in the French capital on the Mississippi. The rice and tobacco of Louisiana began to find a market in Europe, and timber was sent to the West Indies. But provisions came mostly from the Illinois, and the peace with the Chickasaws was not so effective but that courage was requisite to defend the barges passing up and down with their burdens. It was not a satisfactory sign, for it meant that the English were still stirring the Chickasaws to break their peace with the French, and to offer a bar at every point to any inter- course by land as well as by water from the Gulf to the Ohio. CHAPTEE X. THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. 1727-1753. Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de Verendrye, was a man approachino^ fifty years of asre when he attracted . T TT 1 <• 1 V.5rendrye. notice as a discoverer. He was the son or the gov- ernor of Three Rivers, and was born in that town. His career had been somewhat varied. He had done his part in ravag- ing the New England frontiers, and he had campaigned as a soldier-of-fortune in Flanders, where once he had been left for dead on the battlefield. Verendrye had been placed in charge of a fort on Lake Nipi- gon, north of Lake Superior, in 1727, where he heard the Indians tell their stock stories of a westward-run- Nipigon. 1727. ning river, with its ebb and flow, and a great salt lake at its mouth. These tales soon gave him an ambition to lay open the secrets of the continent which lay hidden toward the set- ting sun. He left his post to go east, in order to bring his plans before the government at Quebec. He sought to represent the danger of allowing the English — as old rivals of the French for the Indian trade — to take the lead in the possession of this remote region. It was in the spring of 1728, when going east, that he met Father Guignas at Mackinac, and found him fully believing in a discoverable way to the western ocean. He also feU in with Father Degonnor. This priest had been for a while at Lake Pepin, as the spiritual head of a post established by Beauhar- nois. It was a part of a project of that governor to capture the trade and sympathies of the Sioux, in the hope of securing their assistance in a westward movement from that point. To this end a fort had been lately built on that lake. It was one of the most exposed positions on the 194 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. frontiers, and ever since the French had known its neighbor- hood, they had had strange vicissitudes in all their efforts to make it a trading-post. Floods and attacks had incessantly followed its founding. For the next ten years, the post was to be the centre of intermittent activity against hostile Indians, who came in the main from the region of Green Bay. The dan- ger became eventually (1737) so great that Legai-deur de St. Pierre, then in command, had found it prudent to fire the fort and escape. We shall see that at a later day it was to devolve upon St. Pieri'e to be the successor of the discoverer whose career we have now entered ujjon. Verendrye's new acquaintance, the priest from Lake Pepin, was ambitious of further duty in even more exposed positions, and the two determined to ask the French government to found a post and maintain a mission among the Assiniboines. This northern tribe, denizens of what is now Manitoba, is sup- posed to have been an offshoot of the Dacotah stock. Their name as just given is in accordance with the designation be- stowed by the French rather than the English, and this diver- sity of ear has supplied a great variety of forms to their tribal appellation. It was Verendrye's belief, and Beauharnois shared it, that the chances of finding a good route towards the west were better here than from Lake Pepin. They counted, not very wisely, on finding these northern Indians more placable than the treacherous Sioux. The rovers of the remotest frontiers had never ceased to be animated by a hope of discovering the great western sea. While at Lake Nipigon, Verendrye had often questioned the Indians, and Pako, a chief, had told him of a great lake to- ward the declining day, which poured its waters in western three different directions, — one outlet being to Hud- '^'^^' son's Bay, another toward the Mississippi, and the last westward, with an ebb and flow of the stream in the direction of a great salt sea, where there were villages of a dwarfish race. In confirmation of all which Verendrye pro- duced a map of an Indian guide, Otchaga, which, in the inter- pretation of Danville a few years later, was a premonition of the Lake of the Woods, with a western-flowing outlet. These stories of an ocean-side folk far to the west were of 196 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. course nothing- but rehabilitations of many old fables, such as Sagard, a hundred years before, had repeated. The English were being regaled with them at this same time on Hudson's Bay. La France, a half-breed Indian, told Arthur Dobbs, now in that region, that in 1726 he had gone with a party to the western sea, where he had seen large black fish sporting in the waves. It was here that he and his companions had attacked a town, and none of the assailers but himself had escaped to tell the story. Ellis, another frequenter of Hudson's Bay, a few years later, reports it a common belief among the tribes that there were rivers flowing west to a great ocean far away to the sunsetting, where ships sailed, and men wore beards. Such were among the stories that in the autumn of 1729 A mid-conti- could bc citcd iu proof of water-ways to this distant nentaisea. ^^^^ j^ jg copious to uotc liow a belief in some cen- tral water basin, connecting with all the great oceans surround- ing North America, afforded a leading feature of the exj)eri- mental geography of the continent. Two centuries before, such a faith had encouraged Cartier to leave the salt tide of the St. Lawrence in the hope of finding a central fresh-water sea. Modern geographers find that like physical conditions are im- possible in normal circumstances ; but in the eighteenth cen- tury, they were relied upon and exemplified by Bellin and the leading cartographers, to solve the riddle of. a trans-continental water-way. It was Verendrye's belief that this lake of multiple outpours v^rendrye's could be readied in twenty days from Nipigon, and that views. ^j^ expedition starting from Montreal in May might arrive there in September. Verendrye's representations at Quebec, and, through the governor, at Paris, were not received with confidence sufficient to induce the government to embark any capital in the scheme. The king, however, was quite will- ing to grant a monopoly of the fur trade in this wild region, if Verendrye could induce some merchants to aid him in an outfit. The result was the formation of a new company for trading with the Sioux and other Indians of this region. Note. The opposite map is from Bowen and Gibson's North America, published by Sayer and Bennett, Loudon, ITtiS. It shows tiie Sioux country and the upper waters of the Mississippi River, and the portage connecting Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods, wliich was later forgotten. The dotted line " settled by Commissaries " is that of the southern bounds of th« Hudson Bay Company, "after the treaty of Utrecht." 198 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. On May 19, 1731, Verendrye signed an agreement with some Verendrye's Montreal traders, under which they furnished his andde^w- equipment. His party comprised the leader's three ture. 1731. gQ^g^ ^ Jcsuit missiouary. Father Messager, and some Canadian boatmen and hunters. On June 8, 1731, the canoes left Montreal on a long and perilous journey. Verendrye's pur- pose was to take possession of the new country for his royal master, to find a way to the Pacific if possible, and to support himself meanwhile by hunting and trading for furs, while he afforded a profit to his backers if he could. By midsummer, he was on Lake Superior. He avoided all On Lake Communication with the Sieur La Ronde, who was Superior. then at La Pointe, seeking for copper, and sailing a forty-ton bark, — the first on the lake. Late in August, Veren- drye crossed the portage farther north, but his men were more or less mutinous, and hampered his movements. Having sent forward an exploring party, he wintered on Pigeon River, and built a stockade to guard his supplies and to afford a base for future advances. His first object was to discover if Lake Ouinipigon (Winnipeg), of which he had reports showing it to be an expansion of the great western water-way, offered a suitable field for settlements. In May, 1732, the exploring party came back from Rainy Lake, and early in June, Veren- drye started on, leaving some portion of his followers to hold his fort of St. Pierre. By July, he had passed beyond Rainy At the Lake L^kc, and had built Fort St. Charles on the west woodl ^^^^ ^^ *^^^ Lake of the Woods ; and here he wintered 1732-33. (1732-33). From this point he dispatched some canoes back to Montreal, with peltries. He sent at the same time such reports as he could give of his progress, and in the autumn (September, 1733) some supplies reached him, for- warded by his Montreal supporters. Beauharnois continued to manifest interest in the expedition, as his correspondence with the home government shows. The letters from Verendrye which reached the governor from time to time, detailing the party's hardships and the death of Veren- drye's nephew. La Jemeraye, who had led the exploring party, gave him little encouragement to hope that his solicitations to the Paris government to come to Verendrye's assistance would be effective ; and they were not. VERENDRYE'S FORTS. 199 In the spring- of 1734, Verendrye sent one of his sons to build Fort Maurepas just where the river, flowing- LakeWinni- west from the Lake of the Woods, entered the larger p^^' Lake Winnipeg. It was another of the various stockades which Verendrye within a few years scattered about the coun- try to secure better possession and to increase the trade. In August, 1734, Verendrye and one of his sons returned to Montreal, to give his personal influence to the business side of his undertaking. His stay was not long, and in June, 1735, we find him again turning to the west, and by September he had reached Fort St. Charles (Lake of the Woods), to ^^t the Lake find its garrison ahnost prostrate from famine. The woods. perils of the undertaking were increasing, and for ^"^• many months it is a story of disheartenment and misery, in- cluding the loss of a son in an attack by the Sioux upon one of his roving parties. The disasters of 1737, both in the Disasters. loss of men and stores, so discouraged the adventurer ^^^^" that we find him in October advising the minister that he must abandon his whole project. The next year (1738), his spirits recovered, and he was eagerly questioning the Assiniboines and Cristineaux, stories. another tribe of the neighborhood, as to more distant ^"^^" parts. He heard stories of walled towns farther down this supposable westward flowing river, with white inhabitants ; but they were without firearms. These peoples were said to work in iron, however, and an Indian said he had killed one of them, who was cased in iron. These savage informants all told of a people upon the Mis- souri, known as the Mandans, who lived on the path to the dis- tant sea, and who could probably show the way thither. The Mandans, then, must be found. In the summer of 1738, Verendrye left Fort Maurepas, and passing up the Red River at the southern end of Lake Winni- peg, turned into the Assiniboine. Here he built a new stock- ade, calling it Fort De La Reine (October, 1738), at Fort De La a point where a portage led to Lake Manitoba. Some ^®'°^' ^^^" days later (October 18), with a party of twenty hired men and thirty others, including some Indians, he began his march to- ward the valley of the Missouri, reaching, after a journey of about twenty-six leagues, his first obstacle in what was proba- 200 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. bly Turtle Mountain. From the time when Joliet and Mar- quette, nearly seventy years before, remarked upon the great volume of water which fed the Mississippi from this turbid The northwestern affluent, the hope had not been aban- Missouri. doned that the Missouri might jarove the chief chan- nel to the western sea. It came to be believed that it could be followed toward the west a distance corresponding to the practicable ascent of the Ohio toward the east. Mitchell, on his map, records this as a current opinion. The French had from time to time explored it, led by reports of silver mines, and by stories of the access thereto which the Spaniards got by some of its southern branches. While Verendrye was travers- ing its upper reaches, other French were now exploring from its main stream toward New Mexico. Two Frenchmen, French ex- pioration Mallet by name, and one, at least, a priest, in 1739 fol- spaniards. lowcd up the Plattc, and by its southern fork reached 1739. the plains of Colorado. Passing the upper Arkansas, they were at Santa Fe in July, and tarried through the winter. In the spring (May, 1740), their party divided, and while some went across the plains to the Panis (Pawnees), others coursed down the Arkansas to the Mississippi. Their reports induced Bienville to suspect that the regions they had traversed were parts of China, — a curious survival of the old Asiatic theory of the continent, — and accordingly he sent an exploring party up the Canadian fork of the Arkansas. It accomplished nothing. Meanwhile, Verendrye was having startling experiences among The Man- ^ people wliosc unwoutcd customs observed by later dans. 1738. explorcrs gavc rise to a theoiy, welcomed by the Welsh, that in the Mandans were to be found some of the de- scendants of the hapless companions of Prince Madoc. Veren- drye first encountered this people on November 28, 1738, and on December 3 he entered their village. His narrative shows that he was struck among his hosts with a physiognomy which was not Indian, and with a mixture of light and dark in their complexions, the women particularly having in many cases almost flaxen hair. He observed, too, that their method of fortifying their village was not one which he had seen among other tribes. These Mandans told the new-comers that a day's journey off there were white men who were habitual horsemen, and who THE MANDAN VILLAGE. 201 were incased in metal when they fought, — and he naturally thought of Spaniards from New Mexico. Verendrye's sojourn among this interesting people was but short, but he lost no time in taking formal possession of their country in the king's name. He left two men among them to learn their language, and to discover, if possible, who these work- ers in metal were. After having suffered, as he says, more fatigue and wretchedness throughout his journey than he had ever before experienced, he reached La Reine on his return in February, 1739. The men whom he had left behind joined him at La Reine in September, and had a new story to tell him. While they were in the Mandan village, some of a tribe farther west had come to trade there. These strangers reported that white and bearded men lived near their home. They called them pale faces, and said that the}^ built forts of brick and stone and mounted cannon on them. They prayed with books, worshiped the cross, cultivated gardens, and garnered grain, used oxen and horses, wore clothes of cotton, and strapped soles to their feet. Their habitations stood by a large sea, which rose and fell, and whose waters could not be drunk. It was wondered if they were Spaniards upon the Gulf of California. The documents printed by Margry give but scant knowledge of the experiences of these two years ; but Brymner has well supplied the want in the journal, kept by Verendrye, which is printed in the Report of the Dominion Archives for 1889. The fatigues of the expedition had told upon the leader, and he spent a part of the winter and spring of 1739 at La Reine, exhausted in body and troubled in mind. In April, ^ake Mani- he sent his son to explore the portage toward Lake lasLltche.^* Manitoba, and upon that water the yoimger Veren- ^'''°' ^"^^' drye constructed Fort Dauphin, and then pushed on to explore the Saskatchewan region. This period of activity was followed by one of doubt and ex- haustion. In October, 1739, some supplies reached La Reine, but Verendrye found it necessary to go back to Montreal to secure what merchandise was needed for traffic. Reaching the settlements, he found his affairs in a rueful condition : he was 40,000 livres in debt, and a defendant in the courts. His commercial backers were exacting, and his business rivals in the peltry trade harassed him. Beauharnois was almost alone active in his behalf. 202 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. Afterwards, in 1741, Verendrye joined his companions at the V6rendrye'8 wcst. In the spHng of 1742, he sent his two surviving weTtward. ^^us to renew the western search. They left La Reine ^^■^^^ on April 20, and proceeding up the Assiniboine and Souris rivers, passed on (Jvily 23) in a west-southwest course over a rolling prairie to the Mandan towns, seeing no one for twenty days. On August 11, they reached some hills. It is now supposed that these elevations were the Powder River range sep- arating the forks of the Little Missouri, a southern affluent of the greater river. To inquiries after the sea, the wanderers got the same answer, which led them on from one tribe to another, each referring them to the one beyond. None had seen this great water ; but later they found a tribe who had captured some Snake Indians, and these prisoners reported it lying still farther west. A war party, preparing for an attack on these same Snakes, opened the way for a further advance, and the brothers went on. It was the 1st of January, 1743, when these two sons of They see Vcrendryc saw what was perhaps the Big Horn Range, janua^'"!' ^^ outlyiug buttrcss of the Rocky Mountains, run- 1743. ning athwart the sources of the Yellowstone, and lying a hundred miles or more east of the Yellowstone Park. Their narrative does not indicate that the sight was in any way a striking one, and there has been doubt expressed as to the iden- tification of the actual summits which were seen. One of the brothers went with the advancing war party to the foot of these mountains, which were " well wooded and very high," as he describes them (Januaiy 8). He little dreamed that beyond them, and beyond the Snakes, lay eight hundred miles or more of mountain and declivity, stretching to the coveted sea. The conclusion reached by Professor Whitney in his study of the problem is that the explorers " may have been within one or two hundred miles of Snake River, Here they heard accounts of the missions of the Spaniard in California, which contained enough of truthful items to prove beyond doubt that there had been communication across the country between the Pacific coast and the upper Missouri region." Parkman's study of their route gives much the same conclusions as reached by the present writer, but he thinks it not unlikely that the explorers may also have pushed somewhat beyond this mountain barrier VERENDRYE'S LAST YEARS. 203 of the Big Horn. Their narrative tells lis that they reached, at all events, the Snake village which they searched for, but found it abandoned. Thus balked in their purpose, the party, with their white companions, turned back, and left the great barrier of the Rockies unsealed. In the spring of 1743, the young Verendryes were back on the banks of the Missouri, and here, amid a tribe — very spring. likely one of the bands of the Sioux — they buried a ^^^^- leaden plate, engraved with the royal arms. Turning up the Missouri, by the middle of May they were again among the Mandans. Here they found a party of Assiniboines traveling east, and falling in with their train on July 2, 1743, they later reached La Heine, having been absent about fifteen months. This period of venturesome exploration stands out amid the dreary monotony of Verendrye's misfortunes. Five or six years of life remained to him, but they were bar- later years. 1743-1749. ren in results and harassing in incidents. He tried to get the minister to listen to tales of what he had done. He recounted to him the story of the posts he had established, and outlined the promise of further discoveries, but it was the ap- peal of a wearied and poverty-stricken adventurer, and made little impression. At one time he was relieved of command, and then later sent back to try once more ; but nothing came of it. His sons went to Quebec, seeking to gain the attention of the government, or to incite the cupidity of the merchants, but in vain. Kalm, the Swedish traveler, met V^rendrye in his last year, and records something of what he learned from him. The re- tired leader told him that he had in some places observed fur- rows in the soil which indicated that a people advanced enough to use ploughs had once been in occupation. He had found, he said, monumental stones, generally without inscriptions, but in one case there were " Tartar characters," but no one could tell their origin. Kalm makes no mention of any mountains, as figuring in Verendrye's story. This is the more singular, be- cause V^rendrye knew the Indian map by Otchago, which often figures in contemporary, accounts, and which designates what we now know as the Rocky Mountains, as the " Mountains of Bright Stones." 204 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. The elder Verendrye died at Three Rivers on December 6, 1749, and on February 27 following, La Jonquiere, dies^ Sue- wlio was now governor of Canada, wrote to the minis- ifegardeM tcr at Paris that Legardeur de St. Pierre had been selected to follow up the discoveries of the dead hero. It was evident that La Jonquiere was determined to institute La Jon- ^ ^^6W control of this western search, for the younger toiwestern Vereudryc had in vain sought to be ajspointed to search. carry on the work which his father had enjoined upon him. By the influence of Galissonniere, the cross of St. Louis had been indeed bestowed on the elder discoverer, but this availed little. The new governor had his own plans, and it has been suspected that they involved commercial interests to be shared in common with Bigot, the new intendant, and St. Pierre himself. The governor was by no means sure that Verendrye's search had been in the best direction. He accordingly instructed the Sieur Marin, commanding at Green Bay, to go to the source of the Mississippi, and discover if there was not over the divide " rivers flowing into the western sea." La Jonquiere reported these orders to the minister in October, 1750. The region of many lakes, margined by the birch, maple, and pine, with wild rice plentiful in the glades, which is The source , , , i • t i i of the Mis- now kuowu to gather the multiplied waters that unite to form the Great River, had once been the home of the Dacotahs, but now for twenty years these savages had been scattered before the Chippeways. It was many years yet before the hydrographical relations of the region were to be all under- various stood. Vaugoudy was at this very time (1750) mak- conjectures. -j^^ tlicse fouutains of the Mississippi the same with those that supplied the smaller affluent of Lake Winnipeg. Bellin, another leading French cartographer, from the period he made the maps for Charlevoix's journal, had advocated various notions, wild to us, of the hydrography of this interior region. He had contended that the " Mer de I'Ouest " lay not more than three hundred leagues west of Lake Superior, and thought it highly probable that there were connecting waters, rendering easy a passage from one to the other. With this propensity to find interlinking natural canals, Bellin now curiously compli- cates the question of the source of the Mississippi. In his map of 1755, he connects Lake Winnipeg by a continuous LAKE WINNIPEG. 205 channel with the Mississippi, through an intervening link which he calls the " Riviere Rouge," saying that " the course of it is little known." He places the springs of the Mississippi not in "Winnipeg or beyond, but on a lateral affluent of this same mysterious river. This " Riviere Rouge " is made one with the "Assiniboils " just before it reaches " Lac Ouinipigon," and the [From Vaugondy's Amerique Septentrionale, 1750, showing the Mississippi rising in the "L. Assinipoils."] " Riviere des Assiniboils " is supposed to be the stream " by which one is believed to go to the sea of the west." Any one, therefore, could at that day appeal to Le Neptune Fraiigois, in which Bellin's map appeared, as authority for a supposed passage from the Gulf of Mexico, through the Mississippi and connecting streams, to Lake Winnipeg, from which there were 206 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. water-ways to the Pacific and to Hudson's Bay, — a fair ex- position of the geographical delusion clinging about an imag- ined interior basin, with its multiplied outlets. Mitchell, the leading British geographer of the day, is less imaginative in saying that the Mississippi had been ascended to about 45° north latitude, and that its source was supposed to be in 50° of latitude, while in its longitude it lay about mid- way across the continent. Jefferys, the rival of Mitchell, places the source more nearly in 45°, while Danville, in France, puts it at 46°. There is no record of what Marin discovered, but it was given out that his purpose was ultimately to unite with St. Pierre at some point on the Pacific. The movement under St. Pierre began in June, 1750. We St Pierre. ^^^ enabled to follow him by a journal which he drew 1750. ^p^ g^j^^l which is printed both by Margry and Brym- ner. The expedition was absent three years, but accomplished little, though its leader had had many years' experience in wood- ranging, and came of a forest-loving race, for he was a great- grandson of that Jean Nicollet who had got the first intimations of the Mississippi. St. Pierre lost time at the start by trying without avail to compose a peace between the Rainy Lake In- dians and the Sioux. He was later impeded by the hardships of his travel and by the treachery of the Assiniboines. He pro- ceeded himself no farther than Fort La Reine on the Assiniboine. He had determined, on any northern march, to avoid Hudson's Bay by turning to the west, and thereby to find, as he thought, the sources of the Missouri, so that its current might be made use of in transporting his supplies. It was Verendrye's mistake, he contended, in not clinging to that river "by which some settled peoples could be reached, and no other than the Span- iards." It was in this direction that St. Pierre did all that was re- TheSas- markablc in his three years' absence. He sent his expioreT" lieutenant, the Chevalier de Niverville, to command a '^''^^- party starting (May 29, 1751) for the Saskatchewan. Some portion of it ascended that river — called by them Pas- koya — " aux montagnes des Roches, — the earliest use, in Kingsford's opinion, of the appellation Rocky to any part of the great range. They built Fort La Jonquiere, three hundi-ed ST. PIERRE AT LA REINE. 207 miles above the river's mouth, but only to abandon it and fall back to La Reine. St. Pierre, finding- further progress in this direction deranged by continued inter-tribal hostilities among — aue. d'un. itimpie, trait, ft la^JJIer ejft ia3jee- erL cotuetw a eatt- . EssAl drntei CylRTE que^ N^- GinUamne Detsle Pf Ge^arraphc a et de' Udcctdetmey des Scie^nce^r avaitiainb a scnv Me:moirey pre*rente- cv lev Cent J^LeA JTE I^OtTEST. Ammpoiis C AK A [Taken from the Memoire presented to the Academy of Sciences at Paris by Buache, August 9, 1752.] the savages, — the most perfidious, as he claimed, which he had ever encountered, — lingered on at La Reine, seeking in one way and another to prevent his expedition being an absolute failure. In his talks with the Indians, one old man told him of people, " not quite so white as the French," living in the west, " where 208 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. the sun sets in the month of June," which he considered to be in a west-northwest direction. " It is certain," he says, " that there are civilized people, not unknown to the English, in this distant region, and I have myself seen the horses and saddles obtained there by the Indians." He found it impossible to induce the natives to furnish an escort thither, because, as DELISLE, 1722. [From his Carte d^Amerique (Paris), showing a river running west, near the source of the Mis- sissippi.] he says, they feared the revenge of the English at Hudson's Bay. " It is evident, then," he adds, " that so long at Hudson's as tlicsc Indians trade with the English, there is no hope of succeeding in finding a western sea. If there were no English settlements at Hudson's Bay, all would be easy." He finally dispatched a body of Indians, without any French in company, to this western settlement, and gave them a let- ter to its commandant ; but he never heard more of the party, — a disappearance which he again laid to dread of the English. [Philippe Buache's idea of the Sea of the West, with approaches from the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, in a map presented to the Acad, des Sciences, August, 1752, and given in Expose des decouvertes au nord de la grand mer, par PhUippe Buache, September 2, 1755. 210 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. There was a fresh revival of the English interest just now, in the navigation of Hudson's Bay. Parliament had, in 1745, offered a reward of <£20,000 to induce a discovery of the north- west passage, and it had been found that it was j)racticable for ships of the company to go in and out of the bay in a single season without wintering. This all meant for the French an eager rivalry in the fur trade to the northwest of Lake Supe- rior. St. Pierre remained at La Reine till February, 1752. He AtLaReine. ^^^^ ^^ times good grounds for fearing the worst, for ^'^^'^- the Indians were not infrequently insolent and blood- thirsty. Abandoning the post, he returned to the settlements, At Quebec. ^^^ ^^ October, 1753, was at Quebec. The best he 1753. could report to Duquesne, now in command, was the story of a remote and miknown settlement, such as the old Indian had told it. Rumors which Niverville had gathered near the mountains seemed to confirm it, though the lieutenant added that the Indians from whom he had learned the tale distinctly averred that these unknown traders were not English, and did not have firearms, — the latter want being a usual concomitant of the story. Just as the long movement undertaken by Verendrye and St. Monracht- Pierre for a quarter of a century had proved abortive, ^P^- and had served little purpose beyond familiarizing the public with repeated if not idle stories of a western sea and its civilized coast people, came the publication in Paris of the story of Moncacht-Ape. This new revelation of a supposable but imaginary configuration of the Pacific coast line unsettled for a while the soberer sense of geographers. The story of Moncacht-Ape — " one who destroys obstacles and overcomes fatigues," as the name is said to signify — is that of a Yazoo Indian, who, about the year 1700, traversed the continent, and came back to tell the story. His recital, as we have it, was made about the year 1725, when he was old and garrulous ; and Le Page du Pratz, then a French settler near the Natchez, listened to it. It ran thus : — Impelled to travel in search of information about the origin of his race, and easily severing home ties because he had lost wife and children, Moncacht-Ape went among the Chickasaws, MONCACHT-APE. 211 * * making his inquiries. Getting- no satisfaction here, and possessed of a vague notion that the east must be the cradle of his people, he started toward the sunrise. In the story of his experiences in this direction we recognize some knowledge, by hearsay at least, of the Falls of Niagara, and some apprehension of the extraordinary tides of the Bay of Fundy. Not finding his question answered at the east, Moncacht-Ape determined to try the west. The narrative now carries him north to the Ohio River, which he crossed. Tracking a prairie land, he passed the Mississippi near the mouth of the Missouri, and gives a recognizable de- scription of the commingling of the waters of the two great rivers. He followed up the Missouri to a tribe of that name, where he wintered and learned their language. He speaks of finding large herds of buffalo. In the spring, he started up the river again, and among the Canzes (Kansas) he first learned of a divide, beyond which a inver would be found flowing west. The Missouri Indians had told him to follow up their river for a single moon, and then to diverge to the north, where, after several days' journeying, he would reach a western-flowing river. It happened that he was not forced to find his way alone. He chanced upon a camp of Otters, as the tribe was called, who took him up to a place whence a nine days' march carried the party to a turning-point. Here bending their course north, after five days they reached the river that flowed west, upon which, farther down, these Otters lived. In descending this river, oiu- wanderer had the company of some Otters for eighteen days. After this he proceeded alone in a dug-out to a village, where he tarried for the winter to learn the language spoken by a people farther on, which these new friends could teach him. In the following spring, he went on to a tribe who wore long hair. A blind old chief among them. Big Roebuck, was kind to him and promised him an equally good reception from the tribes beyond, if he woidd only say that Big Roebuck was his friend. If one confidently seeks to identify his landmarks, he was now well down the Columbia River. When about a day's journey from the sea, he began to hear stories of a strange people who annually came to the coast in ships. They were represented as white, bearded, and clothed. Their sole purpose of coming 212 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. if was to secure yellow dye-wood, which had a disagreeable odor. Though they had guns which made a great noise, they withdrew if confronted by Indians more numerous than they were. The natives had sometimes struggled with these visitors, and the strangers had occasionally carried off some of the Indian wo- men, but had never captured any men, — so one form of the narrative says. The Indians had never succeeded in taking any of these strange comers either dead or alive. The identification of localities fails here, for there are no such dye-woods on the Oregon coast, nor is any tree of a single kind so universally prevalent in that region that, if entirely destroyed, the country would be treeless, — as is one of the statements of the story. Moncacht-Ape arrived on the coast at a time when the neighboring Indians were gathering for a concerted attack ou these strangers, who were soon expected to make their annual appearance. When the ship appeared, its people occupied three days in filling water-casks " similar to those in which the French put fire-water." After this they scattered to fell the dye-wood trees. The savages now attacked them, and killed eleven before they reembarked. This gave the narrator an opportunity to examine the slain. On two only did he find guns with powder and ball. Their bodies were thick and short ; their skin white ; their heads heavy, and wound with cloth ; their hair cropped except on the middle of the crown ; their garments of a soft stuff, and their leggings and shoes one piece, and too small for Moncacht-Ape to wear. It was the evident intention of the story-teller to convey the impression that the visitors were an Oriental people. After this conflict, the rover went north along the coast till he found the days were growing longer. When he had learned that still farther on the land was " cut through from north to south," he only expressed what European geographers had fig- ured ever since Bering, in 1741, had finally proved the proxim- ity of the American and Asiatic shores. Of Moncacht-Ape's return to the Mississippi valley we have no particulars, but he is reported as saying that though he had been absent five years, he could go over the same route again in thirty-two moons. We have the story in two forms, — first as published by MONCACHT-APE. 213 Dumont in his 3/emolrcs de la Loidsiane (Paris, 1753), in whicli he professes to have known the Indian, whose ordinary name among his people was " The Interpreter," in recognition of his mastery of tongues. Dumont acknowledges that he got the story from Le Page du Pratz, who published it later, also at Paris, in 1758, in his Histoire de la Louisiane. Le j^ p^g^ ^^ Page, then, is the source of the story. He had come ^^^^^' to Louisiana in 1718, and remained there, chiefly near the Natchez, till 1734. He had been a wanderer, was of an inquisi- tive turn of mind, and a theorist by impulse. He was, more- over, interested in discussing the origin of the American Indians. This led him to much converse with those among the savages who were intelligent, and he seemed to think that the Yazoos were jsarticularly noteworthy in those habits in which they showed a difference from their neighbors. This readily accounts for the special intercourse with one of that tribe, who had, or was represented as having, similar tastes. Such was the repu- tation of Moncacht-Ape. At the time when Dumont got the story from Le Page, if we can rely upon the way in which Dumont tells it, Le Page made it in the ending quite different from the shape in which he later published it himself. Le Page must have been in France when Dumont printed his version as professedly de- rived from Le Page, and yet we have no protest from the original narrator that his recital had been changed. The difference in the two texts is that Dumont omits some part of the details of the bearded men, and makes DiffcrGUCBS Moncacht-Ape learn of the other details only by hear- m the texts say, since a hostile tribe had prevented his actually getting to the coast. So far as the story had influence in later years, the ending as given by Le Page seems to have prevailed. It Transmis- was made to enter into the considerations affecting s[ory°to''° the probability of a northwest passage, and Samuel '^.ter times. Engle, a few years later, in 1765, discusses it and marks the supposed course of the Indians in a map. In 1777, Moncacht's farthest point is put down on a map published in a French encyclopaedia. In 1829, the tale was translated in the Proceed- ings of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, and during the discussion of the Oregon dispute between England 214 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. and the United States, Greenliow refers to the story, not with- out an inclination to believe it. It got for the first time what may be called a scientific treatment when Quatref ages, in the Revue d' Anthroiiologie^ in 1881, attracted by its ethnological interest, unwaveringly accepted it as an honest recital. Still later, Mr. Hubert Howe Bancroft, in repeating the story, is much inclined to accept the same conclusion. A weightier A M Da- judgment on its credibility seems, however, to have vis's views, ijggjj reached by Mr. Andrew McFarland Davis in his reexamination of it after Quatrefages's essay. This critic, on various grounds, pronounces it to be of the class of fictions of which Defoe's Apimrition of Mrs. Veal is a conspicuous example. He judges that the change in the termination which Le Page finally gave to the tale arose from a necessity to save it from the discredit into which, in its original form, it would The sea of havc fallen at a time when the new notions of Delisle the west. ^^^ Buachc rcspcctiug a sea of the west were dis- placing the earlier drafts of the western coast lines. Dumont had given his adhesion to the newer views. There is no occasion in the present chapter to go into the details of the stories, now discredited, of Admiral Fonte and Maldonado, who were said to have made inland discoveries by water on the northwest coast in the region where we now know the basin of the Colmnbia to be in part. These stories showed the coast hereabouts to have been intersected by large inland seas opening on the west to the Pacific, and affording passages on the east to Hudson's Bay and other waters of the Supposabie Atlantic system. The wish to find such a transverse cartography, passage, beginning with the supposabie Straits of Anian in the sixteenth century, had never ceased to guide car- tographers to point out the way in which it might exist, if they coidd not say that it did exist. Bellin had, as we have seen, in these middle days of the eighteenth century (1743), connected Lake Superior — which he was inclined to put too far north by ten degrees — by a water-way with the Pacific, and a little later (1755), when the new views were overtopping the old, he conjec- tured that over the mountains there might be a possible nearly landlocked sea of the west. Le Rouge, another French map- maker, made a similar westward connection for the Great Lakes in 1746. RIVER OF THE WEST. [From L'Amerique, par le Sieur le Rouge, suivant le R. P. Charlevoix, etc., Paris, 1746.] 216 THE SEARCH FOR THE SEA OF THE WEST. It was shortly after 1750 that the theory of these great inland seas and the story of De Fonte captured the leading Buache, French geographer, Delisle, whose maps gained cur- e erys, e c. ^^^^^ ^^^^ Central Europc by the republications of Covens and Mortier at Amsterdam. The most ardent advo- cate of these views, however, was Philippe Buache, and some of his maps are a marvel of reticulated waters. The English geographer Jefferys was tainted with the rest, but he was more content to connect in his own mind Lake Winnipeg with the alleged inland discoveries of Aguilar from the west. This erratic belief died hard, and lingered on in the maps till well toward the beginning of the present century. In the Paris Atlas Moderne of 1762 and 1771 it was simplified but still existed, as it did in the Atlas Nouveau of 1779 and 1782. It was evident, with the view of the Pacific coast then pre- Their effect vailiug, that the simple north and south trend and the aSdhif'^^^ Columbia valley of the Moncacht-Ape story coidd story. jjQ^ stand, and Le Page was forced either to abandon it, or join the opponents of the new theories. He did the last, and, as Mr. Davis thinks, attributed to the Indian some supposed experiences on the coast, the better to maintain his narrative. With the breaking out of the war, which was opened by Washington in 1754, and on the withdrawal of western tiufweft" garrisons beyond what was sufficient to hold vital points, there was no favorable opportunity during the rest of the eighteenth century to pursue the discoveries in the direction of Verendrye's farther quest. The last scheme on record was probably an expedition recommended in 1753 by Colonel Joshua Fry to Governor Dinwiddle, in which one already known to us, Dr. Thomas Walker, " a person of fortune and great activity," as the governor calls him, was to have the com- mand. The plan was to cross the Alleghanies and discover the hidden water-way to the great sea. The impending war prevented the expedition starting, but the chances of success as they lay in the popular mind are well expressed in a letter of the Huguenot, James Maury, written in Virginia in 1756 : " When it is considered how far the eastern branches of that immense river, Mississippi, extend eastward, and how near they come to the navigable, or rather canoeable parts of the rivers MONCACHT-APE. 217 which empty themselves into the sea that washes our shores to the east, it seems highly probably that its western branches reach as far the other way, and make as near approaches to rivers emptying themselves into the ocean west of us, the Pacific Ocean, across which [approaches] a short and easy com- munication, short in comparison with the present route thither, opens itself to the navigator from that shore of the continent with the Eastern Indies." He then goes on to show how the stories which Coxe had published thirty years before, of early English adventurers, in the upper Mississippi basin, were hav- ing their influence in confusing the common belief. "One of the branches of the Mississippi, Coxe followed through its vari- ous meanders for seven hundred miles (which I believe is called Missouri by the natives, or Red River from the color of its waters), and then received intelligence from the natives that its head-springs interlocked on a neighboring mountain with the head-springs of another river to the westward of these same mountains, discharging itself into a large lake called Thoyago, which pours its waters through a large navigable river into a boundless sea, where they told him they had seen prodigious large canoes, with three masts and men almost as fair as himself." Then making a palpable reference to the Moncacht-Ape story, he adds : " As I have read a history of the travels of an Indian towards those regions, as well as those of Mr. Coxe, the reports of the natives to both of them as to the large canoes are so simi- lar that I perhaps may confound one with the other." Maury next says that the only copy of Coxe's " very scarce " book which he has heard of in Virginia was seen by him at Colonel Fry's house, and this leads him to suspect that Coxe's stories had incited Fry's scheme of western exploration, to which ref- erence has just been made. Maury tells us further that prepa- rations had been attentively made by Walker, so as to reach an estimate of the expense, when the outbreak of hostilities occurred. There were some reasons, even after the project had been abandoned, for concealing the purpose from the French, and Maury informs his correspondent that " in case the shij) I write by should be taken, the person to whom I have recom- mended this packet has instruction to throw it overboard in time." CHAPTER XI. WAR AISTD TRUCE. 1741-1748. In the war with Spain, England had suffered in America more than her foes. Vernon's unfortunate attack on England and Cartagcua (1741) had carried to the grave nine out of ^*™ ten of the contingent which the colonies had added to the attacking force. The loss was not great in a population now approaching a million ; but it was discouraging. The eleven colonial newspapers published along the Atlantic sea- Govemor board kept the mishaps from being forgotten. Shir- shiiiey. jgy. ^^^ been made governor of Massachusetts Bay, — a popular man, at a time when popularity was to count much. He was destined to become conspicuous, and though not greatly more than respectable in ability, he had some qualities which the colonies were to prize in the near future. Parliament had at last recognized the necessity of amalga- mating the vast alien population which had doubled the num- bers on the seaboard in a little more than a score of and years. It provided in 1740 that Protestants who had been seven years in the colonies could be naturalized, but in New England the law had little effect. The religious dis- tinction was significant. France and Spain as Catholic powers were pressing hard on the colonial frontiers. Local legislation in New England had long nurtured Protestant antipathies, and there was a gleesome joy among the Boston people when Fleet the printer printed — as the story goes — some popular ballads on the blank side of a bull of Pope Urban, of which a New bale had been captured in a Spanish prize. The New England metropolis was now in her proudest days, if the pinnacle to which commerce may lift a town determines that comparative preeminence. In 1741, there were forty top- THE SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE. 219 sail vessels on the stocks in Boston shipyards, and this meant an active leadership in all places where there was trade by sea. There was no enemy of England in the Gulf of St. Lawrence or on the Spanish main which the privateers of New England did not reach. The forests of New Hampshire afforded the best masts that a royal frigate could have. In every eligible harbor about the gulf of Maine they were building ships for the Brit- ish navy and barkentines for the English merchants. It was in New England that the crown had its best compacted body of subjects. They constituted perhaps two fifths of all that were living on the Atlantic slope, and rarely had a people developed in a more seK-contained way. They had , 1 . 1 1 1 • /• • • 1 The spirit of long been ui the habit or setting up pretensions that indepen- ill became dependent colonies. They were conscious, too, of a certain sympathy for these aspirations which were now and then manifested in the advanced sentiments of wary Eng- lishmen. Murray the lawyer, later to be famous as Lord Mans- field, was becoming known in his opinions upon an ominous constitutional question. He held that the king, and not Parlia- ment, could compel a colony to tax itself for the benefit of the whole. Samuel Adams, prefiguring the colonial claim, was selecting for his graduating thesis at Harvard : " Whether it be lawful to resist superior magistrates, if the Commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved." Kahn, the German traveler, shows us how, a little later, he was conscious that this feeling, which Samuel Adams's youthful ebullitions indicated, so pervaded the colonies that he felt it was only the necessity of combining against the French which could insure continued dependence on the mother country. Joshua Gee had already thought it worth his while to array the risks in order to disprove them. " Some gentlemen," he had said, "assert that if we encourage the plantations they will grow rich and set up for themselves and cast off the English government." But he looked to the diverse interests and jeal- ousies of the several colonies to preserve their dependence on the mother country. It was these disunited interests which made the Indians liken the colonies to a chain of sand, and Gee spoke of these mutual antipathies as making the colonies " like a bold and rapid river, which, though resistless when inclosed in one channel, is yet easily resistible when subdivided into 220 WAR AND TRUCE. several inferior streams." This disagreement among the several Lack of colonial governments had indeed become notorious. the Engii'sh ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ almost if not quite impossible to induce colonies. ^j^g southcm colouics to share the cost borne by New- York and New England in confronting, for the benefit of all, the French from Canada. No one perceived this lack of ad- hesion more clearly than the Indians, and there was a touch of satire in the Iroquois when they advised the English to act in such concert as their confederacy was accustomed to do. This was the condition of the British colonies, when a turn War de- ^^^ Europcau politics disclosed a new drama both in ciared. 1744. ^j^^ Qj^j ^rQ^ld aud the Ncw. The English colonies, with all their repellent forces mutually exerted, had become prosperous in trade, and perhaps the more so because of an ill- concealed zest in thwarting the restraints of the navigation laws imposed upon them. This was in their enterprises by sea ; those by land were making the French believe that the English activity threatened the complete absorption of the western fur trade. Golden, in preparing a new edition (1742) of his History of the Five Nations^ had the distinct purpose " of drawing the attention of the ministry and Parliament to the interests of North America in respect to the fur trade, and the encroach- ments which the French are daily making on our trade and set- tlements." At the same time Clinton was urging the occupa- tion of Irondequoit Bay and Crown Point. All this had thrown the French into a sort of desperation, when their antagonism was intensified by the declaration of war in Europe. Henry Pelham was now the prime minister of England. Dettingen had been fought in June, 1743. There was no know- ing what the Pretender might attempt. It was necessary to keep faith with Austria and the other supporters of the Prag- matic Sanction, and this brought England into opposition to France. The French promptly declared war, March 15, 1744, and England accepted the challenge on April 11. Beaviharnois, the Canadian governor, anticipating war, had already reinforced Crown Point, Fort Frontenac, and Niagara. He had for the coming struggle perhaps six hmidred regulars and some fifteen thousand Canadian militia all told. Such a force could be successfully met only by some concert of action among the OSWEGO ABANDONED, 221 English, aud Governor Clinton was urging, with little chance of success, a union of the colonies. The word that hostilities were determined upon reached Can- ada in the spring of 1744 : but it was not till June 1 that thev knew it in Boston. This priority of in- hostiities reach formation gave the French some advantage, and they America. profited by it in Acadia, They were hardly prepared to spring upon Oswego in this same interval, though the Eng- lish later wondered they had not, after it began to be feared that the war was going to jeopardize the trade at that post. The stockade there had been suffered to decay, and two years before it was pronoimced defenseless. Governor Clarke, in 1743, had feared for it even before war was declared, and in urging the home government to protect it better, he had pictured to them the disaster which would follow its fall, and particularly the alienation of the Iroquois. Now upon the French being earlier informed than the English of the declaration of war, the confederates had been promptly notified by messengers from Quebec, who told the Indians to expect a sharp contest and an easy victory for the French. Before the summer was OswecTO far advanced, the English traders at Oswego became abandoned alarmed and abandoned it in a body. Governor Clin- ton, when he heard of this rapid desertion, dreaded its effect upon the western Indians, who had been so securely held by the opportunities of trade which Oswego offered. Both French and English hastened to send emissaries among the confeder- ates, the one to use the flight of the traders, " cowards as they are," as signs of the failing fortunes of the English, and the other to try, but unsuccessfully, to induce these Indians to hold that post against the French, till a garrison could be sent there. So the summer and autumn (1744) passed, and the hostile forces had not confronted one another in the field. Meanwhile, there was far from confidence in the authorities at Quebec, who were anxiously looking for Boston privateers in the St. Lawrence. The next year, 1745, the New England militia under Pep- perrell, aided by some royal ships under Sir Peter War- ren, made a lucky stroke at Louisbourg. Shirley, Louisbourg. whose energy and luck had conduced to this yeoman victory, wrote to the Earl of Newcastle that the capture of Louisbourg had secured the Newfoundland fisheries and estab- 222 WAR AND TRUCE. lished a nursery for seamen. These things, he contended, made the way easy to master the northern parts of America, if their success were promptly followed up by an invasion of Canada. The conquest of the west was to be made by fighting a battle in the north. New England and New York took the campaign in hand, and troops were raised. Newcastle promised to support invasion of them with a fleet. While these preparations were making, there were vexatious raids all along the New England frontiers, and Fort Massachusetts was taken. The main energy of suffering New England was directed to rein- forcing Clinton for an advance on Crown Point and Montreal. The New York governor had sore need of all the comfort which New York Ncw England could give him. His assembly were politics. stubborn in their opposition to liis plans. The prov- ince had a chief justice in De Lancey who, in efforts to embar- rass the chief magistrate, knew how to smirch his robes with a politician's touch. These intestine quarrels demoralized the militia and disconcerted the neighboring confederates. It gave the French new opportunities, and as Franklin, a looker-on, said of the Indians, the English could afford " to spare no arti- fice, pains, or expense to gain them." To add to the discouragement, the English fleet, expected at Boston, never appeared. Instead of the stir of alarmed. Warlike preparation which Boston had hoped for in her harbor, the town was thrown into consternation from an expected attack. Shirley, in September, 1746, learned that a French fleet under Admiral D'Anville was at sea with orders to attack Boston and recover Louisbourg. The troops sent to Clinton were hurriedly returned to defend the coast. D'Anville's ships were happily scattered in a storm, and Boston breathed freer. Both sides had failed of their purpose, and the western ques- tion had not been helped to a solution. There was a suspicion that the backwardness of the home government in not sending a fleet was due to an apprehension that another success like Louisbouro- mioht brino- the colonies to an inordinate sense of their importance. Those who wished to keep the friendship of the Iroquois and the more distant tribes had more pressing GALISSONNIERE 223 apprehensions in that, as Conrad Weiser expressed it, the fail- ure of the expedition to Canada "had done a great deal of hurt, since no man is able to excuse it to the Indians." Weiser had never doubted the Iroquois neutrality, but he had jjeutrai all along maintained that they could not be urged to Iroquois, active hostilities against the French, and the untoward cam- paign had rendered, to some, even their neutrality uncertaiuo One thing, however, had happened on which the English had reason to depend. A band of Chickasaws had come north eager to WTeak vengeance on the French for some affront which had been put upon their tribe. This opjjortunity for the English had influenced the Senecas, usually much inclined to the French, to hold back from aiding them. With all this inaction, the trans-AUeghany question grew more and more complicated for the English, when a coWen's new embarrassment unexpectedly occurred in the luck- f^oits^"^ less phrasing of the title of a new edition of Colden's ®'^' ^''^^• book on the Five Nations, which was again reprinted in London in 1747. This was a statement that the " Six Nations lived in Canada," which the French eagerly seized upon as an acknow- ledgment that the Iroquois country, south of Ontario, was within the bounds of Canada. / There came a vigorous spirit to the French at Quebec, in the person of their new governor, Galissonniere, who ar- oaiisson- rived there September 19, 1747, to assume command Canada. over the fifty thousand people of the St. Lawrence ^'^^"' valley. He was not attractive in person ; in fact, he was de- formed. His mind, however, was as alert, and his impidses were as steady, as was befitting a commander facing great odds. He had a firm purpose to check the English wherever he coidd find them throughout either the St. Lawrence or the Mississij)pi valley. He felt equal to the task everywhere except by sea, and he was anxious lest Quebec should be attacked by an Eng- lish fleet. So, when he learned of Shirley's hope to make a winter attack on Crown Point, it caused him little apprehen- sion, for he knew New York had no desire to undertake the task. He was not quite prepared to plunge upon Oswego, now reoccupied by the English, but he sought to intercept its trade by founding Fort Kouille at the modern Toronto. 224 WAR AND TRUCE. The spring and summer of 1748 were rife with rumors of peace, and William Johnson was exerting himself Johnson and i r\ ^ £ •^ i • w the Iroquois, amoug the Ououdagas to toil the persistent ettorts of the French to gain them over in a body. The con- federates were, in July, brought to a coimcil at Albany and urged to expel the French emissaries among them, and to desist from their incursions against the western tribes. Weiser was sent among these Ohio Indians to warn them against too much confidence in any peace which the French prom- Weiserand . 4-r>i . . ,, i the Ohio iscd. " A J^ rciich peace is a very uncertain one, he Indians. i i i mi i • i i • • told them. " ihey keep it no longer than their inter- est permits. The French king's people have been almost starved in Old France, and our wise people are of the opinion that after their belly is full again, they will once more quarrel and raise a war." It was a weighty prophecy. The French had among them in Canada another person who Abb6 was quite as vigilant and far-seeing as Galissonniere, Piquet. g^j-^^ ^jjjg ^^g^g ^Yie Abbe Piquet, now a man of forty. The governor had already asked (October, 1747) the minister to give him a pension for the zeal with which he had planned and instigated more than one hostile raid upon the English borders. The main object of this wary man was to break the alliance of the Iroquois with the English. Already, at Caugh- nawaga, near Montreal, about three hundred Mohawks and Oneidas had been drawn away from their own country to form a settlement. To make similar drafts upon the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas was Piquet's immediate purpose, and in September, 1748, he set out from Quebec with the intention of selecting the fittest site for a mission. Not long after, Galis- sonniere succeeded in drawing deputies from the confederates to Quebec, and put to them the crucial question of their fealty to the English. " We hold our lands of Heaven," they said, " and have never ceded any." The French had longed for just such an asseveration to meet the claims of the Iroquois sub- jection, now constantly advanced by the English. But this and all other questions in dispute between the two crowns were studiously ignored by the diplomats who Aix-ia-cha- had lust succccded in patchins^ up a truce in which peUe. 1748. *" ^ . neither j^arty had any confidence. This truce, called PIQUET AND LA PRESENTATION. 225 the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, consummated October 7, 1748, was proclaimed in Montreal July 27, 1749, but it had been known in Boston in the previous May, — a new instance of the disad- vantage to Canada, during- a large part of the year, in being- shut off from communication with France by an ice-locked river. The peace broke up the alliance of England and Austria. It secured for England a renewal of her profits in the West India slave trade. It restored to France all that she had lost at Louis- bourg and elsewhere. The claims of the French against the pretensions of the English sea-to-sea charters were left untouched, and the dispute over the barrier of the Appalachians remained unsettled. No one understood this dubious outcome of the war better than the little humpbacked governor at Quebec. He knew that it gave to his countrymen a breathing-time, so that they might the better prepare for the final struggle in the Great Valley. He began now, with a finer appreciation of the true 1 . . . . T PI- 1 Galisson- colonizmo- spirit than any oi his predecessors, except, mere and the ^ ^11.1111 , . , Ohio valley. perhaps, Champlam, had had, to urge upon the minis- ters the sending of sturdy peasants to occupy the Ohio valley. But he asked in vain, while in the same hour the flower of France, in her Huguenots, were being hunted down and allowed no asylum even in her colonies. Piquet's aims were, in some sense, the complement of those of Galissonniere, and he had now selected a spot for his mission at La Presentation, near the site of the future La Presen- Ogdensburg on the St. Lawrence. The position was well chosen, since it covered the Indian trails both north and south of Lake Ontario. It was further well placed in being- at the mouth of a stream which had its source near the Mohawks, and which was a ready route for their canoes to the St. Law- rence. The Mohawks, being i3erhaps the most persistent in the English interest of all the confederates, soon fell upon the little post (November, 1749). This led to a reinforcement, and the missionary was aided by the Quebec government to construct a palisade, mount a few guns, and build magazines and a mill. In a year or two, Piquet saw a colony of eager converts clustered around him. The civil authorities found in this mission of the church a new help to divert the Indian trade from Oswego, since it added another station on the way to Montreal. li(feoAl'ii Coxjnhi'y of -j^ jNipifsing- lioaAan. Afeg-.'/VT- OecT //'/^ ^ Ji(^4fi£r, Jf^/f»in ZtOTicior^ 228 WAR AND TRUCE. To increase his dependents, Piquet later (June, 1751) made the circuit of Lake Ontario in a boat to pick up adherents, and they in the end became so numerous — chiefly Onondagas and Cayugas — that at times he successfully disputed the influence of William Johnson among those tribes. Bigot, who had come to the colony as intendant, encouraged the undertaking as affording a base for a future attack on Oswego, " a post the most pernicious to France that the English could erect." But Bigot's influence was one of peril, as the sequel showed. He reflected, in these later years of the French power, the brilliant frivolities, the whimsical ca- prices, the mischief and vanity into which French history was transformed by Louis XV. and the Pompadour. Voltaire and Po^gj, f,f Montesquieu were unheeded ; but, nevertheless, France France. ^^^ g^'jj imposing, and the Bourbons as a family were powerful. France could lay one hand on India, and as yet the other covered the major part of North America. Her military prowess had failed rather in her officers than in her men. The king made bureaucracy a potent agency, and it cared as little for the nobles as it did for the rabble. Such were France and New France when the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle left both mother country and province with a struggle to come. On the whole, England could face this coming trial with little Condition of Confidence. Her army and navy gave small hope. England. There was but scant virility in her social conditions. Mediocrity and corruption were hardly less patent than they were on the other side of the Channel. Scandal and turpitude easily made heroes. Gossip was deadly. Beau Nash was as baleful, though in a different way, as John Law had been in Paris. The clergy were menial. Highwaymen had their Lives written. The royal family was bickering like the common herd. But William Pitt was ripening. CHAPTEK XII. THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. 1740-1749. Already, by 1740, in the valley of Virginia, In addition to the patents of Beverly and Borden, various small 1 .7 ' Valley of grants had been made by Governor Blair. Log dwell- Virginia. ings were springing up here and there as the Seotch- ■ Irish and Germans spread along the banks of the Shenandoah. The valley was spotted with tomahawk claims, as squatters' rights were termed, traceable for years by the lighter color of the wound made by the woodsman's hatchet on the boundary trees. There were no wagon roads as yet, but bridle paths went from house to house, and led up to the eastern passes, where the buffalo had once made their traces. Hither, on court days, the frontiers- men went to the more civilized centres toward the rivers which flowed into the Chesapeake, where along their banks an Angli- can governing clan held the country. The best traveled trail came from the north, and crossing the Fluvanna, a headstream of the James, foimd its way by the defile of the Staunton River, and then turned south. It next passed the Dan, and came to the Yadkin, a river which, rising in North Carolina, joins the Pedee and then seeks the ocean. Colonel Abraham Wood had led an expedition up the Dan, a branch of the Roanoke, in 1744. Passing the Blue Ridge by what came to be known as Wood's Gap, he Abraham followed on the other side a stream which flowed into Kanawha. the New River, and thus opened one of the upper routes to the Kanawha, an affluent of the Ohio. It was twenty years before this that Joshua Gee had urged the planting of colonies beyond these mountains, but only now, in 1748, was a way opened to induce the earliest English settlement, with do- mestic life, beyond the Alleghanies. 230 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. The Lords of Trade had urged the Privy Coimcil to author- ize the governor of Viroinia to make "rants of land Settlers in , ,. t . ^r- • • i i i- • i the valley of in this direction. Virginia had at this time about eighty-two thousand inhabitants ; but only a few hun- dred had as yet made a movement into the Shenandoah valley, and there was just now a purpose shown to cross the inner chain of the Appalachians, There had already been grants of land made beyond the mountains to Dr. Thomas expiora- Walker, Colonel James Wood, Colonel James Patton, and others ; and Walker organized a party to make explorations thitherward. They entered Powell's valley near Laurel Ridge, and pushed westward beyond the sources of the Clinch River. They were mindful enough of the proud duke who had crushed the Scots' rebellion, to place the name of Cumberland on the gap and river, which they were the first to find. They turned northeast and reached the springs of the Big Sandy River, passed on to the Louisa Fork, and then wended their way eastward to New River. Walker was enabled thus to be of assistance to Evans in the mapping of this region at a later day. The result of this movement was the incor- Loyal Land , • -i a Company. poratiou of tlic Loyal Land Company in June, 1749, which had a grant of eight hundred thousand acres above the North Carolina line and west of the mountains. In the November following. Governor Lee of Virginia informed Governor Harrison of Pennsylvania of these and other grants, and of his purpose to assist the pioneers in establishing a settle- ment and building a fort. He at the same time complained of the traders of Pennsylvania, who incited the Indians to mis- chief. He added that in view of the threatening attitude of France, it behooved both provinces to stand united in making this western progress. On the divide between the upper waters of the Roanoke and Draper's ^^w Rivcr was a beautiful intervale, the pasturing Meadows. grouud of large game, known as Draper's Meadows. The local antiquaries hold that shortly after the return of Walker's party, the Inglis family and others passed over to the New River side of the divide and formed a settlement. It was here, in 1749, that the house of Adam Harmon was attacked by the Indians, the earliest instance of such devastation west of the mountains. The Draper's Meadows settlement lay to the 232 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. north of the line run in 1749 by Colonel Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, — father of Thomas, — which separated Virginia from Carolina, and was not yet carried farther west, athwart the sources of the Tennessee. More to the north, and well within the valley of Virginia, there were at the same time other and unknown wanderers, The Green- Pushing aloug bcyoud the springs of the James and brier River, g^ossing the height of land which brought them upon the river later known as the Greenbrier, — opening still another route to the Kanawha and the Ohio. We have seen that far- ther down the Shenandoah and beyond a transverse line which connected the sources of the Rappahannock and the Potomac, Fairfax ^^^ manor of Lord Fairfax stretched across the valley, manor. While tlicsc piouccrs farther south were working westward, the young George Washington, dragging a survey- or's chain, was wandering over the five or six million acres which constituted this nobleman's estate. The youthful sur- veyor says he was struck " with the trees and richness of the land," during his summer's work in marking out the spaces of this vast domain. The English claim toward the west, based on their sea-to-sea charters, was at best illusory, but in New York, in Vir- Bea-to-sea giuia, and in the colonies farther south, it nevertheless western was of coustant interest as the warrant for this western progress. Massachusetts was to find a like interest be- fore the century closed, — as Connecticut was finding one even now, — but in this earlier half of the century New England was thinking more of what might come from a western trade than from jurisdiction which she could not enforce. It is noticeable that Dr. Douglass of Boston, when he wrote on the subject, was quite content with the line of the Appalachians, if the trade with the Chickasaws and Cherokees could only be assured. Another Bostonian, Dr. Franklin, now became prominent in Pennsylvania politics, and a resident of a province which had a definite western limit by charter had much less difficulty than a Virginian would have felt in coming to the conclusion that, after all, these sea-to-sea charters were awkward, and the AUe- NoTE. The opposite map is from Fry and Jefferson's Map of Virginia, 1751. It shows the lower Shenandoah, the Fairfax residence, and the wagon road from Philadelphia. 234 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. ghanies were a natural limit to the Atlantic colonies. But he by no means denied the right of the crown to the trans- Alle- ghany region. He was indeed a strenuous advocate views on the of ucw colouics, with ucw bouuds, bcyoud the moun- tains, to be maintained as barriers against the French. To those who would listen, he pictured the vast fertility of these distant valleys and the alluring possibilities of a great system of inland navigation. He saw no reason why, in a century, this vast area of the Ohio and beyond might not become a populous domain " either to England or to France." He was alarmed at the French encroachments upon it, and advocated, as we shall see, the setting up of two strong English colonies between Lake Erie and the Ohio, so as to protect the back settlements of Penn- sylvania, Virginia, and Carolina, and also to prevent " the dreaded junction of Canada and Louisiana." The English had for a time found it more profitable to base other claims, as we have already mentioned and shall more fully explain in another chapter, upon the surrender by the Iroquois of jurisdiction over a vast western country. It is quite uncertain if the confederates understood this concession as the English did, and the latter claimed that the French had unconditionally recognized this acquired right in the treaty of Utrecht (1713) ; but the French professed certainly Iroquois to think othcrwisc. Coldeu had set forth this Anglo- Iroquois claim as based on the conquest of the country by the confederates " about the year 1666," when, " amply sup- plied by the English with firearms, they gave a full swing to their warlike genius and carried their arms as far south as Carolina, and as far west as the river Mississippi, over a vast country, which extended twelve hundred miles in length from north to south, and about six hundred in breadth, where they entirely destroyed whole nations, of whom there are no accounts remaining among the English." When, in 1755, the English were fairly embarked in their final struggle with France, Mitchell, the geographer, claimed that " the Six Nations have extended their territory to the river Illinois ever since 1672, when they subdued and incorporated the ancient Chaouanons [Shawnees]. . . . Beside which they exercise a right of con- quest over the Illinois and all the Mississippi, as far as they ex- tend. This was confirmed by their own claims to possession in TREATY OF LANCASTER. 235 1742 [at the treaty in Philadelphia], and none have ever thought fit to dispute thoni. . . . The Ohio Indians are a mixed tribe of the several Indians of our colonies, settled here under the Six Nations, who have always been in alliance and subject to the English." ^ There was an unfortunate encounter of the Virginia militia with the Iroquois in the valley of the Shenandoah in virRinians 1742, which for a while boded mischief. The confed- iroquoL. erates claimed a reserved right to a passage south for ^^^"' their war parties against the Catawbas, along the most westerly wall of the mountains, and had demanded that the English refrain from settling along that trail. This had been agreed to by Spotswood, in consideration of their warriors not attempt- ing to follow their older path on the eastern side of the valley. The promise had not been kept, and a skirmish occurred. The Virginians claimed that the Iroquois had agreed (1741) not to molest the Catawbas, and but for their failure to keep their promise, there would have been no difficulty. The confederates replied that the Catawbas had not come to them to confirm the peace, as the English had promised they would, but had sent taunting messages. The encoimter destroyed confidence on both sides, and the Indians sent messengers to the Ottawas asking them to join in resisting the English if they sought to avenge their loss. The Virginians, however, preferred to allay the feeling by giving some presents. Underlying it all, however, was a deeper question, which pertained to the rights of the Iroquois to be compensated by the English for the occupation of these mountainous regions. The confederates had already been thinking of the French as a resort in case of need. Governor Clarke was reporting how " complacent these Indians now were to the French, but only through fear, knowing them to be a treacherous and enterpris- ing people."' To settle this question of compensation, and to elicit further confirmation of the savages' friendship and land ces- sions, the English had determined vipon a new confer- Lancaster. ence. All the confederated tribes, except the Mohawks, met at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with the commissioners from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The meetings began on 236 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. June 22, and were continued to July 4, 1744. Conrad Weiser The Mon- "^^^ present as the principal interpreter for the English, tours. \^yy^ ^]jg Indians had a witness in Madam Montour, the half-breed captive of the Indians, who was now a woman of sixty. Her usual attendant, her son Andrew, was now absent, on the warpath against the Catawbas, by whom his father had been killed a few years before. The commissioners from Virginia professed to the Indians The Indian *^^^ thcsc wcstcm lauds wcrc without occupants when the^Eugiiah t^^y fi^^* knew them. They added that the English claims. king "held Virginia by right of conquest, and the bounds of that conquest to the westward is the great sea." The Iroquois's answer had the dignity of truth and good man- ners : " Though great things are well remembered among us, yet we don't remember that we were ever conquered by the great king [of England], or that we have been employed by that great king to conquer others. If it was so, it was beyond our memory." It is safe to say it is beyond the cognizance of the historian, who knows that truth is not necessarily an essen- tial of a treaty-speech. " All the world knows," exclaimed a chief, " that we conquered these lands, and if ever the Virginians get a good title to them they must get it through us." When the Maryland commissioners claimed that they had owned their lands a hundred years, an Iroquois chief laughed, and said his people had owned them for much longer than a hundred years, and it was these Potomac lands which they asked pay for. The conference ended in the payment of X400 by the English, Deed given ^^^ ^^^ dccds werc passcd for an indefinite extent of by Indians, territory west of the Alleghanies. Both savage and white knew perfectly well that the title they passed and received was a dubious one, for it was contested by other tribes of Indi- ans, as well as by the French. It answered, however, the Eng- lish purpose to have their right substantiated against their rivals by documentary records of some sort. Note. The map on the opposite page is from Fry and Jefferson's 3Iap of Virginia, showing Beverly manor and the upper valley of the Shenandoah. To the right of the dotted " Boundary Line " is Lord Fairfax's manor, embracing the lower valley of the Shenandoah. The river sources near the " Calf-pasture " are those of the upper aflBuents of the James River, beyond the Blue Ridge. The road allowed by the Indians at the treaty of Lancaster in 1744, beginning in Virginia, followed down the Shenandoah valley and passed on to Philadelphia. 238 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. The treaty also confirmed to them the right to a great wagon Road and road, Starting from Philadelphia, and passing through *"■*"• Lancaster and York to the Potomac at Williams's Ferry. Thence it ran up the valley of Virginia to Winchester, and then followed an Indian trail still farther south. The Virginia commissioners, in presenting their case, traced The Virginia hack their alliance with the Indians to treaties fifty- demands, eight and seventy years earlier, " when we and you became brethren." There are two passages in the speeches that were interchanged which are significant in the English mouth, and pathetic in the savage. The commissioners reminded them that the tribes had agreed, in a treaty with Governor Spotswood, not to come east of the mountains, while the Virginians on their part pledged themselves not to let these tidewater Indians pass the other way ; but the commissioners added that this could be no bar to the English themselves passing west. The Indians in reply referred to their concessions of land, and said, with an emotion easily understood: "What little we have gained from selling the land goes soon away ; but the land which you gain lasts forever ! " This meeting at Lancaster was the first considerable confer- Pennsyi- cucc that had been held in Pennsylvania. It showed vania. j^^^ ^^ Quaker province had come into prominence in its rivalry with New York. The over-mountain trade was making the Pennsylvania settlements prosperous. Lancaster had a population busy in the making of pack-saddles. The Germans now far outnumbered the original English stock, and they had been largely recruited, as we have seen, from the dis- contented Palatines of the Mohawk. A pampldeteer of the day reflected a current opinion when he spoke of this accession of aliens as " a happy event, which no nation except England ever met with, in having the power to raise a great empire in America without draining the country of its useful subjects." These Pennsylvania Dutch, as they were colloquially called, had come from countries where the roads were good. They had accordingly given to the highways of their new home a part of the excellence they had been accustomed to in the Old World. These roads all converged from the west upon Philadelphia, now a town of thirteen thousand souls. Thither the traders' wagons came from the Indian country, bringing peltry and news. THE PENNSYLVANIA PASSES. 239 The most important position in this country for communicat- ing with the distant tribes was at the forks of the shamokin,- Susquehanna, whence the Ohio trail ran up the west tlj® sub^ue- brauch, and crossing the mountains reached Kittan- ^^'^^' ning on the Alleghany. Here at Shamokin, as the forks were called, lived Shikelliniy, an Oneida chief, — father of Logan, later celebrated, — who, in the name of the Iroquois, exercised a sort of lordship over the tribes hereabouts tributary to the Iroquois. He had acquired a good name with the English as a gracious mediator, and when he died, December 17, 1748, Zeis- berger and his Moravians tenderly buried him. A scandalous act of Thomas Penn some years back (1737) had asserted inordinate claims to land by virtue of The walking what was known as the " Walking Purchase." The P"''«'^^»«- extent of the concession was dependent on the distance a man could walk in a day and a half by an honest tramp. By trick and sly advantages practiced by Penn's agents, the j.i,g Delawares' favorite haunts were brought within this ^^'^^^'^s. English acquisition. The poor creatures persisted in retaining occupancy of their ovni, and Penn called upon the Iroquois to eject them, which in subserviency they did. A part of this distressed people then scattered into the Wyoming valley, whence they drove out some ubiquitous Shawnees, who hap- pened to be there. They were in turn pushed out by the Eng- lish, and in 1740 they had resolved to cross the mountains and join the Wyandots on the Muskingum. Other portions of the Delawares lingered upon the Juniata, among some -rijg other Shawnees who were seated there as tributaries •'™'^*^- of the Iroquois ; but it was not long before the confederates complained to the governor of Pennsylvania that English set- tlers were crowding these dependents, and that the English agents who were sent to dislodge the settlers had become so enchanted with the country as to become settlers there them- selves. The increasing trade by which Pennsylvania was profiting carried with it all the demoralizing influences of a , 11 ifi -nr PI 1 "^^^ traders, tramc beyond the reach of law. Many of the traders Note. The map on the following pages is a part of A Map of Pensilvania, New Jersey, New York, and the Three Delaware Counties, by Lewis Evans, MDCCXLIX, >%/"»,■■ ;5». ^' S=» "-.''» '""u. ' \ ^ Iff ^ "iiiiiiiiiii'iiiii"""' 242 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. deserved the name which Franklin gave them, of being " the most vicious and abandoned wretches of our nation." The gov- ernor of the province had more than once, in reference to these fellows, warned the assembly that it might become necessary to prohibit individual ventures in this traffic and make it a government monopoly. The savages had come to believe, under the pernicious habits prevailing, that the white man's religion was rum and debauchery. When the New Engiander, Sargeant of Stockbridge, had come among them, the Indians had scorned the instruction which he offered. It was apt to be thus that the English trader blasted the hopes of the Protestant mission- 2ixy. It was as a ride otherwise with the influence of the French and the trader on the mission of the Jesuit and Capuchin, priests. Still, Catholicism as well as Protestantism was not without trial in the presence of the bushrangers of either nation. Franklin recognized this difficulty when he proposed to hold the tribes in the English interest by a trained militia, so as to protect both white and savage from the evils of the frontier. The Quaker assembly of Pennsylvania had persistently opposed all military legislation, and Franklin effectively answered their arguments in his Plain Truth (1746). The Germans, who had no aversion to powder, were fast becoming a power of Pennsyi- in the asscmbly, and in the dozen years following, and under renewed stress of danger, something like fifty stockades were built along the Pennsylvania borders. But dread of danger had long called for vigilance in a community that could perpetrate a "Walking Purchase." The story of that disgraceful deceit was spread easily among indignant tribes, and was known beyond the mountains. In November, 1747, an attempt was made to soothe a deputation of chiefs from the Ohio tribes, in a conference at Philadelphia. These Indians were bold enough to tell the commissioners that if they pitted the tribes against the French on the Ohio, the least they could do was to aid them in the imposed task. This failure and the of the Euglisli to support the Indians in wars which the savages undertook for the defense of the colonies was nothing new. The constancy of support which, under similar circumstances, the French afforded their Indian allies had not a little to do with the way in which the French for many years combated so successfully the far more numerous THE TWIGHTWEES. 243 English. " The several governments of the English colonies," writes Colonel Stoddard at this time (1747) to Governor Shir- ley, had for three years been persuading the Iroquois " into a war wherein they had not any concern but to serve their friends, and they have left their hunting and other means of living and exposed themselves and families for our sakes," only to be left in the lurch. It was scarcely better for the colonial soldiers, in the neglect they suffered from the provincial assemblies. Stod- dard adds : Colonel Johnson and his friends " waste their sub- stance " in paying for the equipments of their warriors. The Indians did not fail to observe this selfishness of the colonial legislatures. Joshua Gee had offered some very good advice when he said, " If our people cannot come up to the engaging ways the French use with the Indians, at least good manners should be shown to them." There was, in some respects, a surprising sense of forgiveness in the Indian for all such slights, and the English knew the soothing efficacy of rum and strouds. The colonists brought about a new conference at Lancaster in July, 1748, The Twight- when the Twightwees — as the Miamis were called by Mk^^ the English — committed themselves to an English ^'^'^^• alliance for the first time. This, as we shall see, effectually established the English traders on the Wabash, where they had had a precarious traffic since 1723. The packmen of Pennsylvania and Virginia now pushed boldly into the Ohio valley. Those from the Quaker ^he Penn- province had some advantage over their rivals in a route to the better route, for, leaving Philadelphia, there was a *'^'°- wagon road through Lancaster to Harris's Ferry (Harrisburg) , and a bridle path thence to Will's Creek on the Potomac, from which the path was continued by an Indian trail to the forks of the Ohio (Pittsburgh). From this point there was another Indian path to the Miamis' towns. On the west branch of the Susqvie- hanna, from a point known as the Great Island, Indian paths ran also in different directions, and one crossed the mountains to the Alleghany. A late writer has said that, at many places in the mountains, these beaten tracks can still be seen. Note. The opposite maps on the succeeding pages are parts of Lewis Evans's Middle British Colonies as reissued in London by Jefferys in 1758, " with some improvements by 1. Gibson." It shows the traders' routes north of the Oliio and the position of the Indian settlements. jL A 1^ E# T/ic- C onf e derate s ./ornh 246 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. This treaty of 1748 was a substantial triumph for the Eug- The Wabash 1^^^' ^^ *^^^ westem Confederacy on the Wabash had Indians. been playing fast and loose with the French for many years. They had granted land to them for the Vincennes colony in 1742, and the Piankashaw branch of the Miamis, who lived near that post, had generally kept on good terms with the French. The feelings of this tribal section of the confederacy were, however, an exception to the general aversion to the French, which was shared by the Miamis proper, the Eel River tribe, and the AVeas. In 1744, it had looked as if the French had bound the whole league to a devastating war upon the English, upon the assurance which Beauharnois had given them that the English coidd not depend on the assistance of the Iroquois. When this project failed, it had seemed to Vaudreuil at New Orleans, who counted on the Miamis' country for a large part The French ^f his f urs and suppHes, that it was essential for the on the Ohio, french to build a fort on the Wabash fifteen leagues from its mouth, if the English were to be kept away. There was some difference of opinion as to the best site for such a stock- ade. To some it seemed as if a point on the Ohio opposite the Cherokee (Tennessee) River was the better place, not only to thwart an English advance, but to hold back both the Chero- kees and Chickasaws, and preserve the navigation of the ^lis- sissippi to the French. Others looked upon the neighborhood of the falls of the Ohio (Louisville), as being the more suitable spot. With a conviction that some such defense must be under- taken, Vaudreuil first ^Tote to the minister of the marine, No- vember 4, 1745, and often later during a year and more he was repeating the same warnings. He thought that such a fort for preserving the communications of Canada with the Mississippi coidd best be supplemented by a pact with the Shawnees, which would turn that tribe against the English. In this opinion The Shaw- ^^ was Supported l)y the advocacy of Beauharnois on ^^^^- the part of Canada, who urged that the Shawnees should not only be alienated from the English, but that they should be domiciled about Detroit. The Shawnees, at this time, or some part of them at least, were in a measure inter- posed between the Senecas and Miamis, and they had tried to draw to the Ohio the lingering Delawares on the Susque- hanna. Bellin's map (1744) puts their main vdlages north of THE INDIAN PATHS IN OHIO. [From Andrews's A'ew Map of the United Stales, London, 1783.] 248 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. the Ohio and above the mouth of the Kanawha. Just after this, they began to move west into the Scioto country, and some of them pushed as far as the valley of the Wabash. Here they came more within the control of the French, and could be better played oif against the English influence, which by this time was likely to be increased with the neighboring Miamis. Adair tells us that a Frenchman, Shartel, as he calls him, was the agent to carry the Shawnees finally over to the French, in the year before the Lancaster agreement of 1748. That chronicler adds that this negotiator was helped in the matter by " the supine conduct of the Pennsylvania government." The French had need of the Shawnee alliance. In 1745, Sandusky Euglisli traders were at Sandusky Bay erecting houses Bay. 1745. £q^. ^i^gj^ goods, j)erhaps the first English structures in the jjresent State of Ohio. Some Hurons had wandered thither the year before (1744) from the vicinity of Detroit, and were not averse to receiving the flatteries of the English. Not one of them was more disposed to the English than Nicholas, a chief among them. In June, 1747, some French who happened to come into the neio'hborhood were killed. When the commander at Detroit heard of it, he demanded the murderers, and insisted that the English traders should be driven away. It was the Nicholas. opportunity of Nicholas. He had of late been urging upon his neighbors, the Ottawas, to unite in a plot of his people, in which the Miamis should join, in order to attack Detroit and pillage its storehouses. The conspiracy grew, and all but the Illinois tribes were finally brought to promise assist- ance, when a squaw, overhearing the councils, revealed the scheme to a priest, and Longueil heard of it in the summer of 1747. The Hurons cabined about Detroit fled, and the plot lost impetus. There was a murder here and there, and Nicho- las seized Fort Miami at the confluence of the St. Joseph and St. Mary rivers. The pact was loosened, and the seventeen tribes which had conspired together began to fall off. By Sep- tember (1747), reinforcements had reached Detroit from Mon- treal, and Nicholas lost heart. During the winter, the French rebuilt (February, 1748) the fort on the Miami, and ordered the English out of the valley. Shortly after, Nicholas disap- peared from Sandusky, and Conrad Weiser later learned at GEORGE CROGHAN. 249 Logstown that a hundred fighting Hurons (Wyandots) were coming to put themselves under English protection. By June, the members of the league were nearly all restored to the favor of the French. But the danger was not passed. In October (1748), the commandant at Detroit was again counseled to be wary and prevent the English getting a lodgment in the Ohio country. He was told to exert force if need be, though peace ostensibly existed. This hostile combination having failed, the Miarais alone threw themselves into the English interest, and the rj,,,g treaty of Lancaster (July, 1745), as already men- ^^"^'s- tioned, was brought about. The subsequent active disaffection of the Miamis, and the new intrusion of the English packmen, was the subject of Sieur Raymond's reports the following year (1749). The Pennsylvania and Virginia people were now founding their most advanced post (1748) at Picka- pickawii- willany on the Big Miami, one hundred and fifty miles ^^^^' ^^^^' up the stream from the Ohio. It was estimated at this time that during a single season some three hundred English traders were leading their pack-horses and dragging their bateaux over the mountain passes into the Ohio valley. No man was so conspicuous among them as George Croghan. He was an Irishman, who had been for several years George trading along the shores of Lake Erie, learning the ^'■°s'^*°- Indian tongue and becoming acquainted with the geography of the region. The southern shore of Lake Erie was the last of any of the borders of the Great Lakes to come siwreof to the knowledge of the map-makers. Bellin, who made Charlevoix's maps, knew nothing of it, nor was it compre- hended by Celoron, whose expedition we shall soon follow. When Conrad Weiser recommended the Pennsylvania gov- ernment to employ Croghan as an official almoner to the tribes of this lake-shore region, he was the best available man to coun- teract the French slyness in "speaking underground." An honest man, as Weiser termed him, Croghan recognized certain tricks in the French methods of trade, which he felt the Eng- lish might well learn to copy. He held the opinion that in this as in other intercourse with the savages, the French, better than the English, knew how to manage their peculiarities. Equally conspicuous with Croghan, if indeed not more so, from his con- 250 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. stant employment as a public interpreter, was Croghan's spon- conrad ^°^'' Weiser himseK. The government of Pennsyl- weiser. yania in particular largely depended on him to gather tidings of what was going on among the Indians ; and his cor- respondence with Peters, the secretary of that province, shows how vigilant in this respect he was. No one knew better than he how the Six Nations held the balance of power, not only among the savages farther west, who waited their motions, but also in the counter movements of the French and English. When New York began to convert its temporary structure at Oswego into a stone fort, it was the French distrust as of the Iroquois which restrained the Canadians from attacking it. When the English sought to occupy Irondequoit Bay, it was an intimation from the confederates that Oswego and Niagara were near enough together for rivals, that made the New Yorkers desist. These mutual distrusts were no doubt complicated by the clandestine trade between Albany and the St. Lawrence, which neither j)arty wished to put to a hazard. Peter Kalm, who had some experience with these sly hucksters on the Hudson, felt they were sharp enough The Albany ^^ vxAw a Jcw ; and John Reinhold Forster, his Eng- traders. Y\^\\ editor, would soften the charge by thinking it arose from the ancient sj^mpathy of the Swedes for the French. Despite this mutual wariness, Beauharnois succeeded in draw- ing the confederates to a conference in the summer of 1745 ; but it did not prevent retaliatory raids, stirred up by Piquet on one side, and conducted by the Mohawks on the other. But the struggle was soon to be transferred to the Ohio. The Ohio The English made the first movement in 1748 south country. q£ ^j^^^ rivcr ; the French followed the next year north of it. The projection of the Ohio Company in 1748 was in the in- terests of Virginia, whose traders hoped by the facili- company. tics of watcr Carriage between the Potomac and east- ern branches of the Ohio to attain an advantage over the Pennsylvanians. The movement was supported by the leaders of the tidewater gentry, and an application for a grant of five hundred thousand acres south of the Ohio, and between the Monongahela and the Kanawha, was made by their London agent, John Hanbury. His petition was supported by the Board THOMAS CRESAP. 251 of Trade on the ground that such a grant would consolidate trade for the English, and give them advantages over the French, — arguments that prevailed with them at this period , but were not much thought of when, twenty years later, these western settlements might, in the board's judgment, prove to be inde- pendent of the manufactures of the mother country. On May 19, 1749, a royal order awarded two hundred thou- sand acres of those asked for, with a ten years' freedom from rent, on condition that a hundred families were settled upon them within seven years, and a fort built and maintained. This complied with, the full grant of half a million acres would be made. Accordingly, the orders were delivered to Governor Nelson on July 12, 1749. Some years before this, in 1742-43, a vagrant Yorkshireman, Colonel Thomas Cresap, then near forty years old, had xhomas built " a hunting and trading cabin " near the upper- *^''^^'^p- most fork of the Potomac, — the earliest permanent settler in western Maryland. His abode was near an old Shawnee town, and its position is shown in Mitchell's map (1755). Previous to this he had lived on the Pennsylvania side of the line, and Evans in his map indicates the spot. Cresap was a man not imsuited to the rough and boisterous phases of a frontier life, and had joined in the somewhat hazardous border difficulties between these provinces so conspicuously that he had become well known, and was turned to in any troublesome venture. He was therefore just the man for the company to employ to open a way to their new domain, and it was through his rude surveying efforts that a track was run across the divide and into the company's grant, pretty much in the same direction as later developed in Braddock's road. The company had relied in part upon the Pennsylvania Germans to make up the quota of a hundred families. The proprietors, however, held to their ancient ways, and fastened Episcopal tithes upon the soil. The Germans loathed such a vassalage and held back. It seemed then, for the present at least, that the scheme was to fail. It had certainly ^he French gone far enough to arouse the French, who saw in it owo*^^ a new assertion of the old doctrine of the sea-to-sea <^°™pa°y- charters, and Dumas in a Ilemoire expressed the government's anxiety : " Every man of sense who is conversant with the 252 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. manner in which war can be carried on in that country will ao-ree with me that all the resources of the state will never pre- serve Canada, if the English are once settled at the heads of these western rivers." No one saw this better than Galissonniere, and he determined on a movement to the Ohio. His purpose was soon nierrand divined at Albany, and Johnson sent messengers to expemtion. the tribcs along that river warning them of a French ^^^^' inroad. Clinton, in June, 1749, sent word to the gov- ernor of Pennsylvania that some New Englanders, coming from Canada, reported a force of a thousand men preparing to go to the Ohio. Croghan was at once instructed to send out scouts to discover the truth. The fact was that on June 15, 1749, Bienville de Celoron had left Montreal, under instructions from Galissonniere, to traverse the Ohio region, take formal possession at points, discover the temper of the natives, and drive off the English traders. Jbncaire, the son of a French officer by a Seneca mother, who was to the French what William Johnson was to the English, — the best man they had to guide the Indian will, — was put in the van. As one of the incised plates, recording the French occupation, and intended for burial along the route, fell into Johnson's hands, he was possessed very soon of the object of the expedition ; and it has been surmised, and was believed by Johnson, that this plate was stolen from Joncaire while among the Senecas. Celoron did not have anything like the force which the New c«oron's England men had reported, for beside his officers he route. j^g^^ Qjjiy twenty French soldiers, a hundred and more voyageurs, and thirty Indians, Iroquois and Abenakis. The party turned in from Lake Erie at the portage which rises a thousand feet in eight miles to Lake Chautauqua. This was the most difficult of all the Erie portages, and was found so wearisome that it was usually neglected for that of Presqu' Isle, by the modern city of Erie. At the end of July, the expedition was fairly embarked on the Alleghany, and passed down the Ohio. What Celoron in his itinerary calls " the finest place on the river " was a Delaware village, probably at the forks of the Ohio, where the historic Fort Duquesne later stood. At Logs- town, somewhat farther down the main stream, Celoron had an interview with the Indians, and told them that they might make CELORON. 253 the most of this year's hunting-, in order to pay their English debts, for it was the last year the English would be allowed on the river, — a speech received with contempt according to the English report. The French commander says he was struck with the way in U H r b b ^ h. H >d > n trl >)d > " o ^ ^ ^ — ^ y •> "z ^ r^ ^ •T''^ r* ij > Z M t^ M 2 H n pj jj ^ ~'5 ^ H w o 2 ii ^ "S2:o^>yWnOrtt^ 3-Hr, ^ . 05 — p] ^ r,- 2 r v^ > ^ > f^ tn H H —•ri 5d HO H ^ E^ < -^ 5 2 < ^ <^ S tt H] rrt pi which the savages were mixed in their villages, — Iroquois, Shawnees, Loups, Delawares, Miamis being often domiciled together ; and all, as he was troubled to find, much English more inclined to the English than to his own people. *'^'^®''^- He found traces of English packmen everywhere. Some of them had entered the valley, as he found, by the Kanawha, 254 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. which was mainly the route for the Carolina traders. He makes the usual observation that the cheapness of the English goods made the greater attraction of their traffickers, and he intimates a belief that they purposely sold at a loss, in order to gain the Indians' allegiance, while the English government made good the deficiency. Here and there, generally at river mouths, Celoron buried his His buried inciscd platcs. Their inscriptions were much the plates. same : " We have placed this plate here as a memo- rial of the establishment of our power in the territory which is claimed by us on the river Ohio and throughout its tribu- taries to their sources, and confirmed to us by the treaties of Kyswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle." One or two of these plates have since been unearthed. That which was buried near the mouth of the Muskingum was found by some boys in the early years of this century. It was protruding from a bank which had been washed by the current. The youngsters melted a part of it to make bullets, and the remaining fragment is now preserved in the collection of the American Antiquarian Soci- ety at Worcester, Massachusetts. Another was discovered near the mouth of the Kanawha in 1846. In August, as Celoron tells us, the party met a band of six English, who had fifty horses and one hundred and traders fifty balcs of fur. They were returning from a suc- cessful trafficking tour, and were bound for Philadel- ])hia. The French leader warned them, in writing, to withdraw from the valley and not to return. They replied, either " through fear or otherwise," that they would not come back. He sent by them, writing the letter among the Shawnees, August 16, a message to Governor Harrison, asking him to prohibit such trespasses in the future, as the French would be compelled to expel them by force if necessary, should they encounter them. He had soon an occasion to dispatch a like missive to the gov- ernor of Carolina by some traders from that province. Burying his last plate at the mouth of the Great Miami (Ri- viere a la Roche), Celoron turned up that stream at the end of August. Here, as elsewhere, he found that the Indians kept aloof, and the Miamis even rejected his offer of powder and ball. There were English traders close by, but being wai-ned, they kej)t out of sight. By September 20 the French had ascended C EL OR ON. 255 the river so far that there was no longer sufficient water for the canoes. They accordingly burned them, with all else that was too burdensome for a land journey, and, procuring horses from the Indians, struck across the country one hundred and twenty-five miles to the Maumee, reaching it on September 25. Here Celoron found a French fort, with a small garrison com- manded by Raymond. Fortunately we are aided all along Celoron's route by docu- ments, pointing out landmarks. The leader's journal c^ioron's is preserved in the Archives of the Marine at Paris, ^^^^^'^^l """^ and has been printed by Margry. It was first brought «''''"p«'«>"=ip- to the notice of American students in an essay, with an ab- stract, by the late O. H. Marshall of Buffalo, and is now in- cluded in his Historical Writings. A fuller translation has been printed in the Catholic Historical Researches,, 1885-86. Father Bonnecamps, a Jesuit, was a professor of mathematics and hydrography at the College of Quebec, and accompanied the expedition. He made a map and kept a journal, also preserved in the Marine, and first brought to our attention by Marshall. These three documents make an all-sufficient account of what was done. The remainder of Celoron's journey has little to interest us. He kept in the van with his Frenchmen, and reached Detroit on October 6, and there waited for his Indians to come up. On November 9, he was again in Montreal, having lost on the way but a single man, who was drowned. Hendrick the Mohawk soon learned from the St. Lawrence settlements enough to make him believe that the ex- pedition was looked upon as a failure, and so he tionafaii- reported to Colonel Johnson. Celoron himself does not disguise his disappointment : " All I need say is that these Indian nations are not kindly disposed to the French, and are wholly friends of the English," and he believed the secret of it lay in their better inducements for trade. He had seen it conspicuously on the Big Miami at the mouth of Loraine Creek, where the new English post of Pickawillany stood. It was much the same everywhere, as he believed, along the twelve hundred leagues of his travel, — much the same among the Delawares on the Muskingum, among the Shawnees on the Scioto, and among the Wyandots on the Sandusky. 256 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. The news of the failure spread rapidly among the English, and in October Governor Harrison was assured of it by ru- mors from over the mountains, and commu- nicated them to Clinton of New York. Scouts which the Pennsylvania governor sent along the Frenchman's track made the same report. Galissonniere, who had hoped so much from the undertaking, was no longer in nierere- Qucbcc to fccl the discouragemcut. tembe'r/ He had bccu summoned home to take part in the diplomatic confer- ences, and left Quebec in September, 1749. He had felt from the first that there was little chance of averting a protracted war with the English. It had, indeed, only been delayed by the peace of 1748, as already signified in the preceding chapter. He was succeeded by Admiral Jonquiere, who had had Jonquiere . , -, . . i • succeeds. rather rough experiences m reaching his post. He had been in D'An- ville's fleet, which the storms had scattered so fortunately for the Bostonians. He was again at sea bound for Quebec in 1747, when he was captured by the English. Liberated by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, he had at last succeeded, in August, 1749, in reaching his government, and it was to him that Celoron now made his report. But while English influence was found by Celoron to be everywhere active along the Ohio, there was one of the approaches to the Ohio valley where English pioneers were pro- vokins: discontent. This was in the valley of the Juniata, which the Iro- quois had reserved as a hunting- ground for their dependents. The Senecas objected to the squatters, who were marking their "tomahawk claims" well up the valley and even over the passes. " The Indians," wrote Conrad Weiser, who never The Juniata valley. CfiLORON'S MARCH. [Taken from King's Ohio.'] 258 THE PORTALS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. failed in honest convictions as to tlie Indian rights, " are very uneasy about the white people settling beyond the Endless Mountains on the Juniata, on Sherman's Creek, etc. They tell me that above thirty families are settled upon Indian lands this spring" (1749). The Moravians under Zinzendorf, who had left Georgia on the breaking out of the Spanish war, had come into Pennsylvania some years before this, and set up their tabernacle at Bethlehem. Thence they were sending their mis- sionaries towards the Wyoming country, — the first whites seen in that region, — and feeling their way even over the mountains, nearer the New York line. CHAPTER XIII. LOUISIANA AND ITS INDIANS. 1743-1757. It was in 1743 that Bienville, now a man of sixty-two, wearied with buffeting events and enemies, and not well satis- BienviUe fied with all that fortune had bestowed upon him, byTaif-**^ resigned his command in Louisiana. In May, he was '^''^"''- ^'^'^■ succeeded by the Marquis de Vaudreuil. The province then contained, it was reckoned, about six thousand inhabitants not of native stock, — two thirds of these were French, the rest mainly negroes. There was some political corruption in the government, and New Orleans was far from having ^^^ become the place which Bienville had figured in his 0''^^*°«- dreams. Still, there was a growing air of briskness about it, and its commerce outward to Europe and the West Indies, and within toward the Indian country and up the river, was begin- ning to be considerable. The territory immediately dependent on the lower Mississippi hardly afforded as yet adequate sup- plies of food, and Vaudreuil notified his home government, in 1744, that if an importation of flour had not arrived, he could not have controlled his famished garrison. The fact was that, for a while, Louisiana existed only because the Illinois country coidd send down the necessary food. There were at this time two thousand, possibly nearer three thousand, whites in the Illinois settlements of Kaskas- ^he iiunois kia, St. Philippe, Cahokia, and Prairie du Rocher. Life ^°^°^y- in these communities was certainly picturesque, and the poetic temperament might consider it Arcadian. It was to a certain extent contented, for ignorance and self-indulgence are not wholly hostile to a life of complacency. They got a sufficient support from the soil, and cared very little for the mines which had 260 LOUISIANA AND ITS INDIANS. earlier attracted attention. We see in their church registers how they were baptized and married, and the Jesuit mission gave them something to which they coidd cling. They had, to share their labor, a number of horses secured from a Spanish stock which had been passed beyond New Mexico from tribe to tribe. Traders came and went among them, and gave their women the opportunity to buy the gewgaws which both pleased them and doubtless lightened the burdens of life. The men built barges. Filled with flour and pork, one could see, in the proper season, no inconsiderable flotillas push out into the stream, perhaps uniting from the different settlements in one compact body. They carried life and merriment as with New they started down to New Orleans. Such a combin- ing of boats was far more necessary than mere com- panionship required, for they sometimes encountered predatory bands of savages along the lower country. Starting in Decem- ber, as was usual, their lading was disposed of by February. The adventurers then filled their bateaux with cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, and entered upon the tedious ascent. Carrying ropes ahead to be tied to trees on the bank, and pulling their boats against the current by relay after relay, and sometimes poling in the shallows, they made the wearisome homeward voyage. Vaudreuil, at New Orleans, had begun with somewhat lordly The social social aiuis. He wished the official circle which sur- we of°New^^ rouudcd liiui to have some of the splendors and pleas- orieans. ^^.gg ^-f ^ little court. He did not see as weU as others saw the rather incongruous exhibition which the manners of Paris made in the swampy little town. The commerce of the place enlivened the humble life, and an occasional arrival of "casket girls" stirred the domestic passions. With it all, Vaudreuil had his share of anxieties. There was always the fear of the interruption of his supplies from the up-country ; if not by Indian interference, it might come from the inevitable, ubiquitous English. To maintain his communications with Canada by the portages of the St. Lawrence valley was an in- cessant solicitude. At one time, while Berthelot was command- NoTE. The opposite map is from Tfie Middle Stales, by James Russell, which appeared in Win- terbotham's America, and shows the portages. 262 LOUISIANA AND ITS INDIANS. ing on the Illinois, that officer was wholly cut off from tidings from New Orleans. Ignorant of political condi- tions and reduced in stores, Berthelot had been forced to draw in his little force and concen- trate it at Kaskas- kia. The Indian na- Native tives through- tribes. Q^^ ^jj^g prov- ince were a con- stant perplexity. The tribes of the Illinois, which, at the time of the treaty of Utrecht, had been steadfastly French in sympathy and a foil to the Foxes, always Foxes, , „ „ , Sioux, the toe oi the Sauks. Til French, had of late years been moving south and east. They were even opening trade with the English, and welcoming the Carolinian packmen coming by the Cher- okee Kiver. This rendered the upper Note. The annexed map is from James Adair's History of the American Indians, Lou- don, 1775, showing the posi- tions of the tribos. 264 LOUISIANA AND ITS INDIANS. communications by the river all the more insecure, and threat- ened the access to Detroit. Farther north there was still danger from the Sioux. They had forced the evacuation of the fort on Lake Pepin. They were constantly threatening to make concerted action with the Foxes. This ferocious little band always stood ready to join the Sioux if forced to flee their country. They were equally ready to give themselves over to the Iroquois. Since they had dwindled so much in numbers, what was left of them maintained a rather fitful amalgamation with the Sauks. In 1746, their levying of toll upon the traders who took the portage from Green Bay became so onerous a tax upon this body that the traders united under a leader named Morand and attacked the Foxes. Their onset was so furious that the Indians abandoned the country and settled on the Wisconsin, about twenty miles from its mouth, only to be further attacked and pursued. The fear after this that they woidd make common cause with the Sioux was a source of continvial anxiety to the French. These proceedings had done something to make Green Bay attractive for settlers, and the Langlades, who were at The Lang- , . . ■, ,. (. -ttt. • •■> lades at this poiut the earlicst occupants oi Vv isconsin sou, soon gathered a little colony about them. The father, Augustine, had come there from Mackinac, where he had been a trader, and his son Charles, now a youth of twenty-two, more than half Indian in spirit, and quite half in blood, was preparing for a career which made him conspicuous in the great struggle at a later day. Even on Lake Superior the insidious English had inspirited the Chippeways (O jib ways) against the French, and on Lake ^^^ tlius from bcyoud the remotest portage of the Great upenor. Yj^^gy there came reports to disquiet the governor in his southern capital. The most perplexing rumors were from south of the Ohio, where the Choctaws and Chickasaws were diligently chickasaws, played off again st each other by the rival whites. Adair tells us that the French at Tumbikpe (Tombig- bee) were the instigators of the Choctaw irruptions. This tribe made the most extortionate demands for gifts as the price of immunity from their hostility. The same writer says the French were penurious as compared with the English in bestowing such THE CHOCTAWS. 265 gratuities. The English were at intervals successful in sowing dissensions among the Chootaws, and then it would happen that for a while some portions of that tribe would espouse the Eng- lish interests, and even make hostile demonstration against those who adhered to the French. This at one period went so far that there was apprehension at New Orleans that an Angio- Choctaw invasion was in store for them. DUMONT'S MAP OF THE CmCKASAW AND CHOCTAW COUNTRY. 266 LOUISIANA AND ITS INDIANS. Adair had opened trade with the Chickasaw s in 1744, and at this time he encountered French emissaries seeking to arouse them against the English, on the plea that the Carolinians would overrun their country in their progress toward the Mississippi. The Chickasaws and Creeks were usually proof against French persuasions, and we find them making raids upon the French villages wherever exposed beyond support. In retaliation, such Indians as the French could control were sent to storm the traders' houses among those tribes and make off with the plun- der. Adair speaks of conducting a party of Chickasaws to Charleston, on one occasion, to keep alive their sympathy for the English. The French never succeeded in getting a successful hold upon Cherokees ^^^ Chcrokccs, much Icss upon the Catawbas, who were Catawbas. ^^q^q completely within the influence of the Carolini- ans and Virginians. A clearly defined trading-path ran south from Petersburg in Virginia and, crossing the Roanoke, extended well into the circle of Cherokee and Catawba villages. After Fort Augusta was built in 1740, the Cherokees began to mark out bridle paths toward it from their villages, and the trade in deerskins flourished. The Catawbas, more than the Cherokees, were a constant source of uneasiness to the English, not from any fear of French intrigue, but from the inveterate enmity of this tribe for the northern allies of the English, the equally irrepressible Iroquois. Conrad Weiser, who could compare the singularly well-balanced checks of the New York confederates in their tribal councils, speaks of the Catawbas as " an irregidar people, with no coun- cil, — the richest and greatest among them calling himself king." The English endeavors to bring these allies, north and south, into friendly union and to calm their mutual passions were met by accusation, the one upon the other. The Hostilities . » -fr- • • i r with the valley ot Virginia, long atter a certain permanence was secured for its settlements, was disturbed by the passing of their warring parties, bent on mischief. Washing- ton, when he was surveying for Lord Fairfax along the lower parts of the Shenandoah, tells us that he sometimes encountered these devastating hordes. Note. The map on the opposite page is from Sayer and Jefferys' reproduction of Danville's North America (London), sliowing the positions of the southern Indians. 268 LOUISIANA AND ITS INDIANS. By the middle of the century (1750) the French in Louisi- DiBtricts of ^^^ Were well intrenched outside New Orleans, in at Louisiana, j^^^g^ eight districts. Not far from the capital they had a post and settlement at Point Coupee on the Mississijjpi, below the Red River. They maintained a post at Natchi- toches toward the Spanish frontier in New Mexico. They had another at Natchez, and still another near the mouth of the Arkansas. There were also settlements dependent on Fort Illinois Chartres in the Illinois country, the best compacted country. ^^ ^^l the occupied regions, numbering at this time, as was computed, eleven hundred whites, three hundred negroes, and about sixty Indian bondmen. This estimate did not in- clude those settlements above Peoria accounted a part of Canada, nor those settlers on the Wabash similarly classed. Beside three native villages near Fort Chartres, with about three hundred warriors, — for the Illinois tribes had been re- duced by migrations, — there were, not far away, five distinct French commmiities : that at Kahokia, below the modern St. Louis ; one at St. Philippe, above Fort Chartres ; the parent village at Kaskaskia ; and another gathering at Prairie du Ro- cher. Still another, but west of the Mississippi, was that at Ste. Genevieve. A new commander was soon to appear at the fort, Macarty by name ; and with him was to come Saussier, an engineer, prepared to strengthen the ramparts of Fort Chartres in the near future, the last hold of the French in the Great Valley. Besides these centres there were garrisons at Mobile, at Tombeckbe (Tombigbee), and at Alibamons on the garrisons, Alabama. In this enumeration no reference has been Mobile, etc. , i i • <>, • made to more or less temporary and snirtmg groups of shanties, which the traders had scattered near the centres of the Indian population. Vaudreuil counted on the influence which the post at Tom- beckbe among the Choctaws would have in keeping that tribe active in the French interest against the Chickasaws and the English. In this way he hoped to preserve the communications of Mobile with the regions dependent on it. From the Tom- beckbe mixed parties of the French and Choctaws could go by canoe within seven or eight leagues of the Chickasaws. There were also trails practicable for light guns toward the region LE PAGE DU PRATZ'S MAP, 1757. a:> 5 ,_, .2 M t Q >^ -3 ■& ce o T) 7^ s CD c« ^ .§ s' o H ^ a t^ "5 o ^ S a s o fe 3 o CAROLINA. 271 frequented by the Carolinians. Nevertheless, a French and Indian invasion of the Atlantic slope beyond the Carolina fron- tier was hardly yet thought of. It followed a year or two later, in 1753, when the English and Irish — for large numbers of Ulstermen had been settling in Carolina — were pressing the Chickasaws upon the French. The community at New Orleans was indebted to the Jesuits for the first introduction (1751) of the sugar cane products of from San Domingo, though it was to be a dozen years Louisiana. . ^ . . . , , „ or more before the cultivation increased enough tor exportation. The growth of tobacco and rice was fostered, and cotton was becoming a productive crop, owing to a rude kind of gin of native origin, used in separating the seeds. In February, 1753, Kerlerec, a naval officer, succeeded Kerierec Vaudrcuil as govcmor. His policy soon manifested vlfudreuu. itsclf. He rcduccd expenses by cutting down the ^'^' armed service, and made up for it by paying court to the Choctaws, to induce them to fight his battles. The Carolinians were improving their position. In a treaty at Albany, in 1751, the differences which their im- mediate neighbors, the Catawbas, had had with the Iroquois were composed. This allied tribe was thus freed for service with the English. The governor of Carolina now pushed his jurisdiction quite up to the mountains, and bargained with the native owners for land between the Savannah and Wateree rivers. This carried the English settlers well up to the sources of the Congaree, which ran midway between the bounding rivers. The governor of North Carolina was not to extend his government for some years yet beyond the Catawba River and the mountains north of it. But he was urging upon the Lords of Trade the seizure of the Alleghany gaps as the only measure to prevent further invasion by the French (1754). The commissioners of this province, with Peter Randolph and William Byrd, sent by Virginia, had, in* February, 1756, Note. The map on the two following pages is from the London Magazine, Feb. 1760. It was engraved by T. Kitchin "from an Indian draught." The river called the " Mississipi " is really the Ohio,and Its two affluents are the Tennessee (" a branch of the Mississipi ") and the Cumberland (" Clierokees or Hogohegee R."). It illustrates an account of Gov. Littleton's expe- dition brought "by the last ship from South Carolina." ^»^k r^MrJilS ClIEROKEBTNATii I ft ^ifVfM\Thcff trre^it(4Med en Tat ^ Xcnidoit^f.i'r : ^. >>^ '"-^^.C^^ /TV/A/ i/ih^ it irc/cffi' f//e^}»i'^'a-m/, i/u'ifi-> "^^^J^efVfttea/t/ ffkC^Mi^ Old Ji^fioioe \o V .(ycafin ^€/i^ ^ ^fM,aitJtu£iait Jfnu^Ai. t^T.Uiii/uH,. 274 LOUISIANA AND ITS INDIANS. brought the Cherokees and Catawbas into new treaty relations, Fort Lou- ^^^ ^s a result Fort Loudoun was built at the junc- doun. 1756. ^j^j-^ q£ ^j^g TelHco and Tennessee rivers. In June, a force from Virginia was marching to erect a stockade and to take the earliest military possession for the English of what is now the State of Tennessee. As this fort would relieve the Cherokees from maintaining a force at home to hold the French in check, these Indians had agreed to furnish five hundred war- riors to aid the English in the war, which we shall later see was now raging at the north. Thus the new fort was thought to be able to counteract any French attempt upon the constancy of the Cherokees. In fact, it gave the English a strong in- trenchment, one hundred and fifty miles beyond their most advanced settlement. It was not long before Dinwiddie was complaining that the Indians had not furnished their promised quota. The war had already been begun in Virginia. As a result, at the extreme east the treacherous Acadians, rebelling at an enforced subjection, and having been the first at Chiegnecto to shed blood, had at last been forcibly ejected from their country. The English had borne for ten years the risks of the ill-concealed enmity of this priest-ridden people. As early as 1746, Knowles, the governor of Louis- bourg, had foreseen the inevitable necessity of some drastic measure to subdue their treachery. The French Neutrals — as these Acadians were called — had now, since 1755, been deported and scattered along the Atlantic coast of the English colonies. While some who were landed at southern ports had tried to work their way inland to the French flag at Duquesne, others had coasted back to the north in hopes to reach their old homes. Still others had sought the cover of the old banner at New Orleans, and, settling along the Mississippi above that town, had established their new villages on what is known to this day as the Acadian coast. Conrad Weiser, in 1755, was reporting from the Chickasaws The French that the French were generally hated by the southern southern tribcs, and the Chickasaws knew enough of the French *"^^^- and Choctaw hostility to make their testimony em- phatic ; but it was always too much to expect constancy of any Indian, and the Creeks were at intervals won over to the Choc- THE CHEROKEE S. 275 taws' side and against the English. Pownall at this day (1756) pictures the Creeks as debauched by the enemy and alienated beyond recovery, and in 1757 Colonel Bouquet was put in command of some two thousand hastily armed militia to de- THE CHEROKEE COUNTRY. [From a Carte de la Loiiisiane, etc., Covens et Mortier, 1758.] fend the frontiers. In July we find him, from his headquarters at Charleston, urging the commander at Fort Loudoun to send Indian scouts toward the French settlements, and in August he reports that one of his own scouts had brought in word that the 276 LOUISIANA AND ITS INDIANS. French were building a new fort on the Ohio. Similar intelli- gence reached Fort Cumberland at the same time, where the Cherokee contingent sent to help the English was quartered. Hearing also that the French had succeeded in turning the Ca- tawbas against their tribe, and fearing for their villages, these Cherokees stampeded for their own country. The possibilities The English ^f au iutcr-tribal struggle between these old allies of anxious. ^]^g English caused much trepidation, and Governor Lyttleton of Carolina was preparing for the worst. It was not impossible that while the Choctaws and Catawbas ravaged his frontiers, the enemy might send from Hispaniola a naval force to attack Charleston by sea. But we need to see how the war had already begun and was progressing in the north. While the French were centring their resources on the upper Ohio, Kerlerec, in 1757, tells us that he had not had any communication with France for two years ; and Louisiana was hardly of immediate interest to France during the remaining years of the war. CHAPTER XIV. UNDECLARED WAR. 1750-1754. The expedition of C^loron had been a distinct enunciation of the French purpose to maintain — war or no war — their hold upon the Ohio valley. The burying of expedition. plates at the mouths of the tributaries of the river had evinced a claim to the side valleys as well as the main stream, as indeed the inscriptions on the plates asserted. The English were no longer in doubt of this purpose after they had secured one of the plates, which was obtained " by some artifice." Johnson, as we have seen, notified the Ohio tribes of this French movement, and his own Indians promised to send a belt " through all the nations as far as the Ohio River, that they may immediately know the vile designs of the French." We have seen how the English interests profited, and the French prospects waned, as the result of this warning. It has been said that in the previous year the Ohio Company had received their grant. Now, while Celoron was on his march, the Virginia council, on July 12, 1749, au- yeysmade thorized the Loyal Company to survey their eight hun- country. dred thousand acres, preparatory to seating families in these western parts. The bounds were to be north of the Fry and Jefferson line, and Dr. Thomas Walker, whom we have already encountered on an earlier exploration, was sent with a squad of surveyors to define the metes. In March, 1750, he passed into the Shenandoah valley. Crossing the site of the modern Staunton, he went over the Alleghanies, and striking New River, followed it to Walker's Creek, now so- Valuer's called. Taking this stream on his way, he next crossed «=''pe<5'*'"'°- to the head of Clinch River and entered Cumberland Gap. The region which he now entered was hardly yet alive with the 278 UNDECLARED WAR. variegated blooms of the full spring, but its stately trees and blue-grass meadows, the haunts of the buffalo and the deer, were already basking in the promise of the new year. The wandering pioneers fol- lowed up the Cumberland River, and finding a spot to their liking, they cleared the ground and built a house, fin- ishing it on April 25. This was in all likelihood the ear- liest structure for man's use in what is now Kentucky, though it is possible that the French may have earlier erect- ed a cabin opposite the mouth of the Scioto. Walker's journal of this expedition re- mained in manuscript till 1888, when it was printed at Boston under the editing of William Cabell Rives. This settlement long remained a solitary post, and is found laid down in the maps shortly after it was occupied. First house in Ken- tucky. ^ Traders' routes in the Ohio coun- try. The traders' routes in the Ohio valley, at this time or shortly after, were farther north. A wagon road from Philadelphia reached the upper Potomac at Watkins's [After a sketch in a letter of Peter Fontame, Ferry, and a trail proceeded •^"^-'' ^' ^^^^' ^''®" "* ^^* Memoirs of a Hu- , "^ PI. guenot Family, p. 35G.] thence to one of the tributary valleys of the Ohio, beyond the divide. The Ohio Company BOUNDARY DISPUTES. 279 opened in 1753 a trail from Will's Creek on the Potomac, where its factor had established a storehouse in 1749. This path — later to be made a wagon road by Washington — passed the head of the south branch of the Potomac, and descended on the other side of the gap to the forks of the Youghiogheny, and so on to the mouth of the Monongahela. These routes took the passers away from the haunts of the French till they struck the Ohio itself. It was not so with the trails still farther north, which, after passing the mountains, came to the Alleghany or one of its eastern branches, where the English packmen were likely to fall in with the French coming from Lake Erie or the Seneca country. The objective point of all these routes, English and French, was the forks of the Ohio, where the Alleghany and ^j^g ^^^^^ ^^ Monongahela met. The site of the modern Pitts- *i'eO'"o- burgh, occupied at this time by an Indian village of twenty wigwams, with fifty or more people living there, was thus a position vital to whomsoever possessed the Ohio valley, and the predestined scene of an obstinate but wavering conflict. The conditions of this coming struggle were in geographical connections favorable to the English ; but not so in Boimdar all other respects. An unfortunate dispute between viTwa**^ Virginia and Pennsylvania as to their bounds did ^d^^pe^^' much to dispirit settlers and sow dissensions among ^yivania. them. Pennsylvania claimed that the charter given to Penn carried her limits beyond the forks, much as the modern State is bounded, though a longitudinal five degrees west of the Dela- ware River was not easily computed in view of the crooked course of that river. But Virginia, then and long afterward grasping in her territorial claims, denied it. She pressed a vague demand to an indefinite northwestern extension, which stretched her newly created county of Augusta to the Missis- sippi and even beyond, " up into the land throughout west and northwest." She was quite ready to call all settlers inhabiting this bountiful domain and up to 40° north latitude her loyal people. By another claim, Virginia was equally at variance with Maryland, and she would restrict both that province and Pennsylvania by a meridian which cut the source of the Poto- mac. Since this river had two upper branches, meridian lines cutting the springs of each gave a considerable triangle of 280 UNDECLARED WAR. intermediate territory, which the rival provinces disputed about, each naturally standing by that meridian which increased its own limits of jurisdiction. All such disputes embarrass settlements, and the country toward the forks of the Ohio had not failed to suffer from this cause. In time it became further apparent that it was the in- terest of leading Virginians to give a personal advocacy to the claim of their province because it improved the rights of the Ohio Company, and Pennsylvanians thought that something of the undue precipitancy of Virginia in pressing her demands even to the verge of actual war betokened such selfish and indi- vidual interests. So matters of this kind served to alienate these neighboring provinces from a common object, while their rivals, the French, in their movements toward the Ohio, were certain to act with a single purpose. The other colonies saw this, and Governor Glen of South Carolina had not hesitated to offer a warning rebuke. Pennsylvania, in her contest with the French, had an active Geor e guardian of her interests in George Croghan, whose and^Penn- scrviccs iu bchalf of the province were long and duti- syivania. f^^j jjg claimed at a later day that he had never asked from the province any remuneration for his time, in all that he did to keep the Indians fast to the English policy, be- yond being recompensed for the hire of horses used in running Colonel wii- cxprcsses. Croghan and Colonel William Trent were liam Trent, brothcrs-in-law, and had recently formed a partnership in the fur trade. They clearly saw that the protection of that trade required the English to fortify themselves at the forks of the Ohio. To this end they gained the consent of the Indians, and asked the Pennsylvania Assembly to order a stockade built there. The project, though backed by the Proprietary, failed of support in that Quaker body, and nothing was done, though the assembly had organized two counties in this western region which had claims to be defended, — York County, organized in the southwestern part of the province in 1749 ; and Cumberland County, taking all lands within her bounds west and north of York County and west of the Susquehanna, which had just been set up (1750). Note. The opposite map is from MitcheU's Map of the British Colonies (1775). It shows Walker's and other frontier English settlements, and the traders' routes in eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. 282 UNDECLARED WAR. Virginia, as represented in the Ohio Company, moved Gist sent promptly. On September 16, 1750, Christopher Gist owo Com- received his instructions from the company's agents, pany. 1750. gy ^j^ese ordsrs he was to go as far as the faUs of the Ohio, observe all passes, make note of the tribes on the way and compute their numbers, and look out for good level lauds fit to be selected under their grant. Gist started from' Colonel Cresap's on October 31, 1750. His journal has been preserved, as published by Governor Pownall in his Topographical Description of North America (London, 1776), and his route is pricked on the English maps of Mitchell and Evans. Gist was at Logstown on November 25, where he learned that George Croghan and Andrew Montour, sent out by Pennsylvania, had a little earlier passed that way. The exact position of tliis trading-post, Logstown, is in some dispute. It was seventeen or eighteen miles below the Logstown. n 1 -IT p T^ forks, near the modern town oi Economy, but whether on the north or south side of the river is in doubt. It was very likely on both sides, or at least some of its buildings may have been on each bank. The principal settlement was perhaps on the north side, where it is placed by Mitchell, Evans, Kalm, Christian Post, and Hutchins. Croghan, in 1765, places it on the south side ; and Arthur Lee, in 1784, speaks of it as " for- merly a settlement on both sides of the river." Gist reached the Muskingum River on December 14, and saw Gist at the ^^^ English flag flying above Croghan's house. Here December™' ^^ fouud somc Wyaudots, divided in their interests ^^^' between the English and French, perhaps a hundred families of them, a fragment of the ancient Hurons. They had been recently admitted to the Miami confederacy, and were now scattered in their villages along the southern shore of Lake Erie, between points marked by the modern Cleveland and Sandusky Tolcdo. They were centred about Sandusky Bay, and ^^^- this region, judging from a legend on Mitchell's map, was regarded by the English as the chief point of Indian interest. Gist had no reason to complain of his reception. Here he Croghan and ovcrtook Croghau, the idol of the Scotch-Irish traders, Montour. ^^^ ^^^ g^ Companion whom Croghan had, almost as conspicuous as Croghan himself in this wilderness life, and [Colonel Thomas Cresap'e manuscript map of the sources of the Potomac, following a sketch in Sharpens Correspondence, vol. i. p. 72 (in Maryland Archives, vol. vi.). It shows the divide between the Potomac and the Monongahela and the line of Fairfax manor, running from the source of the North Branch.] 284 UNDECLARED WAR. more picturesque. This brisk personage was Andrew Montour, whom we have already spoken o£ as on the warpath against the Catawbas. These Indians, some years before, had slain his father, Big Tree, an Oneida chief. Montour had a European face, derived from his French half-breed mother, but it was greased and painted like a savage's ; and his garb was decked out with tinkling spangles. These three men — Gist, Cro- ghan, and Montour — were an interesting group, and the history of this frontier period was not a little shaped by each and all of them. Gist now passed to a village on the Hockhocking, and later to a Delaware town on the Scioto. Here he struck across the country to the Big Miami, where, at the mouth of Loramie Creek, one hundred and fifty miles up the stream from the Pickawii- Ohio, he founded the post of Picktown, or Pickawil- lany. lany, then the most remote western station of the English, maintained in hardy defiance of the French at De- troit. This trading-post was surrounded by about four hundred Indian families, forming a settlement known as Tawixtwi. It was presided over by the head chief of the Miamis. The store- houses had been built, as we have seen, in the autumn of 1750, and the Pennsylvanians had gained the Indians' assent by a free distribution of gifts made at the hands of Croghan and Montour. Gist found about fifty English packmen gathered here, and with their backing he had little difficulty in making a treaty with the Indians assembled there. Some Ottawas had been sent from Detroit in the French interest, to prevent such a treaty, but the Miamis scoffed at their interference. The French and their allies did not forget it, and during the fol- lowing winter they kiUed fifty of the Miamis. The Ottawas, however, were far from as constant as the French would have them, and these deserters occasionally came into the Miami town, which the French always approached with great risks. Galissonni^re, as we have seen, felt, before he was recalled, Gaiisson- ^^^^ ^^^ situatiou iu this Ohio region was becoming the'^ohkf grave, and the home government had evinced little region. interest in his scheme of settling French peasants thfereabouts. In December, 1750, he had warned the ministry that the communications .of Canada and Louisiana were in danger. To Champigny it seemed as if the dominance of DETROIT AND NIAGARA. 285 trade over agriculture was sure to lead to evil, and Galissoimiere forebodingly pointed to the farming and home life of the Eng- lish and the growth which it prompted, as likely in the end to wrest the western country from the control of the French. If the English coidd only make and keep a gap in the chain of the Fi-ench posts southward to the Mississippi, they would, as he thought, have every advantage in alienating the Indians still adhering to the French. In this manner, these rivals would open their way to Louisiana and ultimately to Mexico. Such were the views which Galissonniere was now urging in Paris, and he had the sympathy of his successor, Jonquiere, in Quebec. There were two places in the western country the possession of which was necessary to the French cause : one was Detroit and Detroit, the other was Niagara. m^-g^x^. Celoron had been put in command at the straits in 1750. Here the Bourbon flag was flying from a palisaded town, and on either hand, up and down the Detroit River, for seven or eight miles, numerous Indian villages were scattered. The fixed population of the post was, perhaps, five hundred, but including the dependent tribes, the whole number of souls under French control was about twenty-five himdred. The savage part of this motley assemblage was essentially nomadic. Some bands of the Hurons still left there were soon to follow their brothers to the southern shore of Lake Erie, to be better known there as Wyandots. Here they were to become neighbors to the Ottawas already cabined in that region. The French of the straits were making the best of a rather dull life. A few families had come there to get the bounties which were promised ; but on the whole, young men predomi- nated, and there were few girls to make them wives. Such was the place held, now by the French and later by the English, in the hope of controlling the destinies of the Ohio valley. Forbes at Duquesne in 1758, and Wayne at the Fallen Tim- bers in 1794, were at a still later day to change its masters, with the doAAaifall successively of the French and English flags. The main channel of communication from Detroit southward was by Fort Miami at the confluence of the St. Joseph 11 -HT • 11 101 Communica- and the Maumee rivers, and thence to the Shawnee tionsof town at the mouth of the Scioto, the modern Ports- 286 UNDECLARED WAR. mouth. A second trail ran from Fort Miami to Fort Ouiata- non on the Wabash. In this direction the French government had strengthened their position by grants of land, the titles to which were not all extinguished till a century and more later. The more direct route into the Ohio valley from Montreal The Niagara ^as of coursc f roui the Niagara post, and so on to the route. more easterly portages of Lake Erie. We have seen that Celoron in 1749 had gone by Lake Chautauqua. A better route was now recognized as passing by Presqu' Isle. The safety of these passages depended upon the temper of the Iro- quois, and both English and French had efficient and wily agents to employ among them, in William Johnson Johnson and and Joucairc. The Irish squire of the Mohawk was quite the equal of the Frenchman in the arts which allured the savage. Johnson had been made a member of the New York council in May, 1750, and he told his associates that declared hostilities would be more tolerable than the uncertain- ties of the game of bribery, which both French and English were now playing. " I can at any time get an Indian to kill any man by paying him a small matter," he said. " Going on in this manner is worse than open war." The fact was that what one side did the other must do, and there seemed no remedy as long as peace ostensibly lasted. Jonquiere was not only sending warning letters to Governor Theiro- Clinton, while the English government was entering quois. counter protests in Paris, but the Canadian governor was instructing his emissaries to win over the Cayugas. As the season went on, Conrad Weiser discovered through his spies that the Senecas were in the same way being roused to attack the English on the Ohio. The French priests were doing their part, and it was reported they were making converts by the hun- dred among the Onondagas. The results of all these agencies were enough to make Jonquiere confident. " The English in- terests among the Six Nations can be of no consideration any longer," he said. " The Indians speak with contempt of the New York and Albany people, and much the same of the rest of the English colonies." Amid all this supposed defection of the Iroquois, the English still held fast to Oswego, and its increasing trade swego. sliowed that the French traffic was proportionately PIQUET. 287 decreasing, and that the founding of Fort Rouille (Toronto) had not done what was hoped for. It was evident that Oswego must fall, or at least its capture be attempted by the French, as a first act of declared hostilities. Galissonniere, in Paris, was urging preparations for it. So Jon- quiei'C was instructed to stir up the Iroquois to attempt its de- struction. He was cautioned to be polite in aU his intercourse with the English, so as not to disclose his purpose. No business could better suit Piquet, the Jesuit master of La Presentation (Ogdensburg). The government at Que- bec had for some time supplied him with clothing, arms, and ammunition, to win the confederates and to get their consent to build a fort at Irondequoit. This priest, saint or rascal as he was to one and another, was a man of energetic purpose, fertile in devices, and he had completely won the admiration of both the civil and ecclesiastical rulers at Quebec. He is said to have boasted that his services did more for France than troops or money. His ardor was sometimes ques- tionable, at least, when his garb as a priest became the cloak of a skulking enemy. It was he who was now to do service in reconnoitring Oswego. He discovered that there were hills on all sides to command it, — a fact not lost upon Montcalm a few years later. He was aware that the secret of Oswego as a trading-post depended upon the fact that two beaver-skins would buy as good a brace- let at Oswego as ten at Niagara. There was cause for alarm at Albany, when it was learned that the French had really secured command of Lake Ontario by launching a three-masted vessel at Fort onLakr*' Frontenac. This ugly fact was one of the points which came up in July, 1751, at a conference which Clinton had called at Albany. The purpose of the meeting was to form some alliance among the colonies, if possible, conference. and a league with the Six Nations. The only colonies which responded were Massachusetts and South Carolina, — the latter for the first time brought to an acknowledgment of her joint interests with New York. The southern province's present object was to mediate between the Catawbas and the iroquoisand Iroquois. The reconciliation of these tribes had long Catawbas. been desired, and often attempted, as their enmity was awkward 288 UNDECLARED WAR. for tlie colonies north and south, considering that both were friendly to their immediate English neighbors. The contests of these foes usually taking place in Virginia, the government of that province had an almost equal interest in the pacification of the combatants. Colonel Lee of Virginia had already tried within a year or two to see what effect a bestowal of gifts on each would do. Governor Glen of Carolina had only recently been complaining that the Senecas, on pretense of warring on the Catawbas, were plundering the whites of his province. The Senecas had replied that if the Catawbas would send some chief men to Albany, they would confirm a peace. This brought about the meeting at Albany under consideration, when the grounds of reconciliation were accepted by both tribes, the Catawbas agreeing to restore their Iroquois prisoners. Farther than this, Clinton got little satisfaction out of the conference, and he grew to feel that nothing but compulsory legislation on the part of Parliament could ever bring the colonies into a pact for common defense. Jonquiere, at Quebec, was hardly less uneasy than his antag- onist at Albany. He felt that the government at and'cihr Paris, in requiring him to drive the English from the Ohio, was putting a task upon him difficult, if not impossible, to accomjjlish, unless he could be reinforced by royal troops ; and he could get no promise of these. He therefore asked to be recalled. Meanwhile, the news from the Ohio was disquieting. Small- Affairs on pox had broken out among the French, and there was the Ohio. great scarcity in their supplies. Longueil reported that if the disease would only seize the rebel tribes about them, it would be " fully as good as an army." Lingeris at Ouiatanon sent word that the best he could do with the Kicka- poos and Maseoutins was to keep them neutral. " They were nourishing vipers," as Vaudreuil sent word from New Orleans, if they persisted in harboring the English traders. It looked as if everything was going so far wrong that it is Jonquiere ^^^^ woudcr that Jonquicrc desired a quieter life. Be- dies. 1752. gi(jgg^ jjg ^^s uow a man of seventy-seven, and could ill bear the strain. It happened that before he could be re- lieved, he suddenly died in the spring of 1752 (March 6), not in the best of humor with a people that believed stories of his CHRISTOPHER GIST. 289 corruption and saw evidence of liis nepotism. He sank amid the last solemnities of his religion, but his detractors said that with all his riches he died amid the smoking glare of tallow dips, his parsimony even in that hour forbidding the cost of wax. Longueil, who was in authority at Montreal, hastened to Quebec to take the reins of power during the interregnum. We left Gist at Pickawillany, and need to follow him farther. He was impressed with what he deemed the power . Gist at of the Miamis or Twightwees, as, following the Eng- Pickawii- lish habit, he called them. " They are accounted the tiie Twight- most powerful people to the westward of the English settlements," he says; "at present very well affected toward the English and fond of their alliance with them." They had sought this connection by breaking with the French and pass- ing over the Wabash. Gist's course from this point would, according to his instruc- tions, have taken him to the falls of the Ohio, but rumors reached him of parties of French lingering in that region, and he thought it j)rudent to retrace his steps in part, so as to de- scend the Scioto. At its mouth he found a colony of Shawnees, living in what was usually called the Lower Shawnee shawnees of town. This village had not been long established, but "'^ ^"''*''- it had already become a station for traders. It was about two hundred and seventy miles from Philadelphia as the Pennsylva- nia packmen commonly went. The Shawnees at this time were partly at least reclaimed from the French interests, which they had embraced in the last war. Gist had now in his circuitous route come in contact with all the great divisions of the Ohio tribes, and for the Tiieowo most part he felt that the English could depend upon *"^^^' them in the coming struggle. Governor Hamilton of Pennsyl- vania had already, through his scouts, come to this conclusion, and had communicated it to Clinton in May, 1750. Later in the year, Croghan was on the Ohio, reporting that the French were trying to persuade the Indians to let them build a fort. The Indians on their part were warning the English that war must come, and that they should be prepared for it by building a fort themselves. Croghan's j^lan was to induce the Shawnees and Twightwees to move farther up the Ohio, so as to 290 UNDECLARED WAR. be nearer English support. He was confident the Wyandots toward Lake Erie would stand firm. In the following April (1751), the Indians in a conference with Croghan prepared a distinct request to the Pennsylvania authorities to fortify the forks of the Ohio for the protection of them and the English traders. A few weeks later, Croghan and Montour confronted the French agents at Logstown, each distributing presents to the Indians. There was such decided success on the part of the English in this rivalry that Joncaire apologized to Croghan for the necessity, in obedience to his orders, of attempting to diminish the English influence. Croghan speaks highly of Montour's aid in this work : " He is very capable of doing busi- ness, and is looked upon by all the Indians as one of their chiefs." Unfortunately for the English, the Delawares and Iroquois — who occupied the eastern and southeastern parts of wares and what is uow the State of Ohio, and were thus inter- roquois. p^gg^j bctwccn the Wyandots, Miamis, and Shawnees, and the English f i^ontiers — were the least to be trusted in the coming emergency. The Delawares were nowhere gathered in compact settlements, and had not forgotten the treatment which they had received from the Pennsylvanians in being ejected from the Susquehanna regions. Gist says that the Delaware town on the east side of the Scioto was the farthest west of these wandering people. They had about five hundred warriors, and in Gist's judgment could be depended upon. By this time more of the Iroquois were living on the upper Ohio than were left in their original country in New York, and in Weiser's opinion it was quite uncertain how they would turn when pressed to take sides, — especially the Mingoes, a branch of the Senecas, who were prominent in this region. This Lower Shawnee town, where Gist now crossed the Ohio, is described a few years later by Mitchell as having Shawnee " an English factory, and being by water four hun- dred miles from the forks of the Ohio." It was on March 13, 1751, that Gist thus entered upon the Kentucky territory. With the aid of a compass, he records his courses carefully, and we easily follow his further progress. He went Note. Tlie opposite map is from Mitchell's Map of the British Colonies (1775), showing Gist's route south of the Ohio River. t^t'A. I ■ k ^ '^7h, Ji M t^'l v* '^i Ctt 292 UNDECLARED WAR. lip the Licking, crossed the divide to the Kentucky River, passed up that stream, and went eastward to the head of the Clinch River. Thence passing New River, he went over the mountains to the springs of the Roanoke, — thus in part re- versing the route of Walker, — and completed in May, 1751, his protracted journey of about twelve hundred miles. He found on his return to Virginia that the Ohio Company Qigj.g had planned other work for him, and on July 16, its expedition, agcnts gavc him new instructions. He was, this time, 1751-52. ^Q gjjjj ^ good passage from Will's Creek to the Mo- nongahela, whence he was to course the south bank of the Ohio to the Big Kanawha, which he was to ascend in search of good lands. On November 4, he was on his way. Leaving the com- pany's storehouse at Will's Creek, he found a new gap to the Monongahela, nearer than that used by the traders, which led him to the middle fork of the Youghiogheny. He was ab- sent on this second quest till March, 1752, and upon his re- port being made, the company in October petitioned the gov- ernor to be allowed to take up two hundred thousand acres on the south side of the Ohio. Other grants having already been made in this region, there were difficulties which the company sought to surmount by promising to settle upon their lands two hundred families more than they had before agreed, and to build The Ohio ^^ additional fort. Upon this a way was found to andXe"^ yield, and the petition was granted. In April, 1752, Indians. Qjg^ ^^^^ ggjj^ amoug the Indians once more, this time to induce them to take land within the company's grant, and by living among the white settlers to form a mutual support against the French. The Virginians were thus outdoing the Pennsylvanians in offers of alliance, for when, just before this (February, 1752), the Indians had asked Hamilton to assist them against the French, the governor had been obliged to acknowledge (April 24) that " those who have the disposition of the public money are entirely averse " to affording such help. This meant that the Quaker element in Pennsylvania still held the political ascendency in its assembly. With ail this lack of concert on the English part, the French The French had uot as yct succcedcd in Undermining the English despondent, influence ; and when in April Longueil was possessed CONFERENCE AT LOGS TOWN. 293 of Jonquiere's power, he complained that he was invested with the government " under very unfortunate circumstances." " The English," he adds, " look with longing eyes both on the lands of the Beautifid Eiver [Ohio] and generally on all that vast country." Joncaire's reports had disheartened him. The Piankashaws had declared against the French, he learned, and nothing could save the Ohio country but to throw into it a sufficient force. As the summer came on, the Virginians were again astir. Gist, with Colonel Trent and others, met the Indians at . Conference Logstown in the latter part of May, and the meeting atLogstown. was prolonged till toward the middle of June (1752). It was the object of the Ohio Company to get the tribes to con- firm the cessions which the Indians had made at Lancaster in 1744. They soon encountered opposition from the Shaw- nees and Mingoes, but with the assistance of Croghan and Montour, representing the interests of Pennsylvania, the dis- affected tribes yielded, and between June 9 and 13 difficulties were composed, and a deed was finally passed. The Indians at the same time agreed not to molest the Virginia settlers on the south side of the Ohio. They also, recounting the neglect by Pennsylvania of their request, repeated to the Virginia govern- ment their wish to have an English fort at the forks of the Ohio. The way was now opened for settlers to push down the Mo- nongahela, and twelve families were soon picking- out 1-1 1 1 -11 /-I • . 1 Settlers on their home lots along its banks. Cjist was instructed the Monon- 1 (• 1 If r^-i ' gahela. to lay out a town and tort at the mouth of Chartier s Creek, four miles below the forks, while Trent, laden with messages and gifts, was sent forward to the Miamis' country to confirm the alliance of these western tribes. He found the con- ditions here far from as satisfactory as he had left them near the forks. A season of disquietude among the French, when their traders had been pushed back toward Detroit, had been fol- pj^jj^. lowed in the early summer of 1752 by an organized at- Stacked. tack on the English post at Pickawillany. The act was ^'^^"' simply necessary, if the French were to maintain their position at Detroit. The half-breed, Charles Langlade, had come from Mackinac with a following of Ottawas and Chippeways, and he 294 UNDECLARED WAR. was equal to the emergency. Celoron found in him an active lieu- tenant, and with a force of about two hundred and forty French and Indians, Langlade fell upon the Miami town, and savage and English trader fled before him. By this attack, the valleys of the Maumee and Miami were delivered from the presence of the pestilent English. The legend on Evans's later map says that it was this success which prompted the French to under- take their ambitious scheme of establishing armed posts through- out the Ohio valley, and so finally provoked the armed outbreak under Washington. Meanwhile the movements of the rival powers in Europe were bringing the conflict nearer. Charles Townshend was Portents in Europe, urging (1752) Warlike measures in the English Com- mons. Bigot, the Canadian iutendant, was pressing like measures on the Paris ministry. In July, the Marquis Duquesne Duqucsue de Mennevillc had reached Quebec, reliev- m Quebec. |jjg. Lougucil of his temporary command. His in- structions recapitidated the old story of La Salle's discovery of the Mississippi, as a warrant for the French claims, and in the main he was authorized to carry out the projects which Galis- sonniere had advocated. The government fairly acknowledged that their past policy of inciting one tribe against another had failed, and there was no resort now but to exert a direct force themselves. Canada, at this time, could muster about thirteen thousand militia, and Duquesne ordered stated drills among them. He also put in as good condition as possible the small body of regular troops which were scattered in the various gar- risons. The strategic point seemed for the present to be among the The Miamia Miamis. In the spring of 1753, Joncaire was at work French. *^^^ amoug them, and they soon sued for peace. The as- ^^^^' semblies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, anticipating this defection, had bestirred themselves, and had ordered Trent and Montour to carry gratuities to these western tribes. It was too late, however, to regain them. The French had accom- plished their purpose. Note. The map on the opposite page is from Sayer and Jefferys' reproduction of Danville's North America (London), showing the geography of the Ohio valley as understood in the middle of the eighteenth century. '"^-4. ^i^ 296 UNDECLARED WAR. It was now evident that the English must direct their close Forks of the attention upon the forks of the Ohio. Dinwiddie had ^^°" already, in December, 1752, appealed to the Board of Trade for aid in establishing some forts on the Ohio. He had '""^,^411 ^4* I. ^?' ^l^^^^'^ w/ f^'j^-;^. /' = L- ^ \- 1.« 'I "^ s ^ '^ f^ '1^'^ [From Hutchins's Topographical Description of Virginia, London, 1778.] also asked for twenty or thirty small cannon. He informed the board that a practicable road, made by the Indians, already ex- isted, by which with only eighty miles of land-carriage such guns coidd be carried from the head of the Potomac to a branch THE FRENCH CREEK ROUTE. [From Howell's Map of Pennsylvania, 1791.] PITT Note. This and the opposite map (continuing this one at the top) are from an original contempo- rary sketch, reproduced in the Aspinwall Papers, in 4 3fass. Hist. Coll., vol. ix. p. 302. It shows the usual route from Fort Pitt to Venango, Le Boeuf, and Presqu' Isle. The capital letters are ex- plained in a key giving the width of the various streams, to which the letters are attached. The key adds : " Opposite Venango the river is 200 yards wide ; tlie mouth of French Creek 100 yards wide ; a wagon road may be made over any of the hills." 300 UNDECLARED WAR. of the Ohio. It was reckoned that from Will's Creek on the Potomac, over the divide to the Monongahela, and so on to the forks of the Ohio, was a distance of one hundred and eight miles. It was a pressing question whether the French or English Routes to would first get to the forks in force. The English the forks. must rcach it by a course of more than a hundred miles from the Potomac, or by two hundred from Philadelphia. The Pennsylvanians maintained a good road to Will's Creek, but from this point it was necessary to foUow the Virginia route to the Monongahela. They had, however, an independent trail for horses, which foUowed up the Susquehanna and ran for sixty-seven miles over the mountains, and reached the Alleghany about twelve miles above the forks. Once at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela, the The Ohio positiou was a commanding one, well worth the strug- vaUey. g]g ^^ acquire it. The Ohio lay in front, with a water- shed along its main stream, and branches of over two hundred thousand square miles, with about five thousand miles of navi- gable water. The current moved at three miles an hour in its ordinary flow. The banks were well elevated, with bluffs occasionally rising to two hundred and fifty and sometimes to six hundred feet, and there was throughout most of its course an agreeable absence of " drowned lands." The meandering chan- nel made a distance not much short of a thousand miles in reaching the Mississippi, while as the bird flies the distance was shortened by a third. This was the natural highway for a great people. In the autumn of 1752, Marin was sent by Duquesne to be- gin fortifiying the line of march which Celoron had expedition, followcd in 1749. Leaving Niagara, the leading de- tachment of three hundred men began to build a fort at Chautauqua Creek, but when Marin himself came up with the main body, he disapproved the position and moved on to Presqu' Isle. Here he cut a road, twenty-one miles long, through a level tract of country to the Kiviere aux Boeufs. This road is still in use, the local antiquaries say, for a distance of seven Port miles south of Erie; and as late as 1825, cannon- Le Boeuf. \)2,\[?, and othcr military relics were occasionally found along its route. Within the limits of the modern Waterford MARIN'S EXPEDITION. 301 (Pa.) lie built a stockade, and called it Fort Le BcEuf. It was on the west branch of French Creek, and was the first armed station of the French in the northeastern parts of the Great Valley. Thus much had apparently been accomplished without the [From the Amirique Septentrionale, par Mitchel, Paris : par Le Rouge, 1777 : corrigee en 1776 par M. Hawkins. It shows the routes from Duquesne. The most westerly fort on Lake Erie is "Sandoski, bati par les Fran, en 1751."] English getting any definite knowledge of the movement. In the following spring (April 20, 1753), Johnson learned by run- ners from Onondaga that there was a force oatherino- T-. -o 1 . 1 1 1 . 1 ^ The French at Jbort rrontenac, which he suspected was intended rehiforced. for the Ohio. It was in fact reinforcements which were to join Marin's advance already there. On May 14, 302 UNDECLARED WAR. thirty-three canoes of this force were seen to pass Oswego, and on the next day Captain Stoddart notified Johnson of the event, but grossly exaggerated the numbers, when he represented that this hostile movement was carried on with six thousand men. He added that the Indians accompanying the French were taken as hunters, and had refused to be combatants against the English. In May, Governor Hamilton was aroused, and urged the Pennsylvania Assembly to succor the Indians on the Alle- ghany, so as to prevent their being overcome by the French. Messengers conveying tidings of the danger were disjDatched both to the Maryland authorities and to the Ohio Indians. Some of these had already made protests to the French commanders, but they got nothing but defiant answers. The Half-King, a local Mingo chief, sent messengers to the settlements for arms ; while, on the other hand, Marin found no difficulty in getting the aid of Delawares, Shawnees, and Senecas, to furnish men and horses to carry his supplies over the portage. The nearest English at this time, except wandering traders, were at Logstown on the Ohio, a score of miles below the forks. Croghan, foreseeing danger, had before this advised the Pennsylvania authorities to stockade this post, and to compel the traders to keep within it and not heedlessly wander about. When the news of this threatening movement reached the English ministry, Holderness at once instructed the Pennsyl- vania governor to use force, if necessary, to expel the French from "the undoubted limits of his Majesty's dominions." But before this injunction was received, Franklin and others met a Conference deputation of Ohio Indians in council (September, sepSer, 1753) at Carlisle (Pa.). The representation of these "^^" Indian delegates was that their permission to the English to occupy the forks had drawn upon them the enmity of the French. They averred that they had already three times protested against their movements in French Creek, but they had got no satisfaction. The French had assured them that they intended in all events to fortify Venango, the Forks, Logs- town, and Beaver Creek, and that nothing could prevent it. Upon this presentation of the French purpose, Croghan sug- gested, and the Indians m-ged, that the English at once develop WASHINGTON AT LE BCEUF. 303 and strengthen their trading-posts at Logstown, the mouth of the Kanawha, and at the forks. If the English would do so, the Indians promised to come to those posts for their traf- ficking. Already, in August, Colonel Trent had been sent by the Vir- ginia authorities to look over the ground at the forks, and select a site for the proposed stockade. While he was return- ing to tidewater to make report, the Mingo Half- TheHaif- King, who had been with him, went on to Le Boeuf , ^'bifged by to renew the protest to Marin. This native chief later ^^''"'" gave Washington an account of the stern way in which the French officer received him. " I will go down the river, and I loill build upon it," was all the answer he got. Marin was doubtless satisfied from the HaK-King's bearing that the French advance under himself would be resisted, but fate had deter- mined that another leader should bear the brunt of ^^^-^ ^^^^ the conflict. In October, Marin died at his post ; but ^53°''^'^' it was not till December that Legardeur de St. Pierre, ^1 st*pre'rre who was just back from his search for the western succeeds. sea, and appointed to succeed Marin, arrived at his post. He came to a diminished garrison, for a considerable part of the force had been sent back to Montreal, where they could be better supported during the winter. The ajDpearance of these on their return convinced Duquesne that Marin had been wise in not pushing on too rapidly, for the fatigues of the campaign had borne heavily upon them. He wi'ote of them, that to have tried to reach the Mississippi would only have choked the river with their dead bodies. The return of this detachment had been observed from Oswego, and in ignorance of its meaning. Gov- ernor de Lancey was encouraged to think the danger was over. When Trent gave his report to Dinwiddie, that governor de- termined to make a formal demand upon the French Washington to withdraw. He prepared the necessary letter, and LTBouf. selected Washington, then adjutant-general of the ^^^^" Virginia forces, to deliver it. His instructions, dated October 30, 1753, were to proceed to Logstown, and ask of the Half-King a safe-conduct to the French post. He was to deliver Dinwid- dle's letter, and make all the observations he could respecting the numbers of the French and their communications with Canada. .jihumw IIIMIIIIIH - iniifiMm III .2 ■^ 3 -o ^o U! _- g H 306 UNDECLARED WAR. This undertaking of the young Virginian was trying in its His journal mature, and promised to be exhausting amid the rigors and map. q£ December. Fortunately, we have the messenger's journal, which was printed at Williamsburg shortly after his return. When reprinted in London, the next year, it was ac- companied by a map, based upon that of Bellin, given in Charle- voix, at this time nearly ten years old, but still much better than any which the English had yet produced. Bellin had been the earliest to trace with approximate accuracy the course of "L'Oio," for it had not been unusual — as seen, for instance, in the Dutch maps of Vander Aa — to make the Ouabache (Wabash) and the Ohio parallel streams. The course of the Ohio, as given by Evans, had been somewhat changed by Gist, but his corrections had not yet been embodied in any of the maps. At Will's Creek on the Potomac, November 14, Washington found Gist, who joined him, and two days later the party had passed the divide and was at the big forks of the Youghiogheny. A few days afterward, they swam their horses over the Alle- ghany near its mouth, and hurried On to Logstown. Here Washington conferred with the Half-King, and learned how roughly that chief had been treated by Marin. He also had an interview with some French deserters, who had come up from New Orleans on a flotilla with stores. He eagerly ques- tioned them about the French posts on the Mississippi. There were a hundred miles yet to travel before reaching Le Boeuf ; but at V enanjjo Washington got some relief Venango. ' . . ^ . , * °. from an irksome joui'ney, m the courtesies which Jon- caire ofPered him. This assiduous Frenchman was now occu- pying the house of John Frazier, a Scotch trader and gunsmith, who had lived here for some years, but had just been driven off by Joncaire's pai-ty, the van of the French expedition. Above the cabin of the fugitive, Joncaire now displayed the flag of the Bourbons. Within, there was a comfortable fire and a generous board, and Joncaire, as we have seen in his interview with Croghan, had all the courtesy which belonged to his French half-breed nature. This and liberal potations induced mutual confidence, and before the hour for parting came, Washington had possessed himself fully of the purposes of the French. That these purposes were stubborn Washington learned on THE OHIO COMPANY. 307 tlie 11th, when he reached the fort at Le Boeuf. Gist records that they were received " with a great deal of complai- sance," for St. Pierre had all the politeness of his race. "Washington presented Dinwiddie's letter, and three days later the French commander placed in the young adjutant's hands a reply as uncompromising as a determined purpose could make it. A journey back more perilous than the coming was before the little embassy. By the middle of January, 1754, Washing- ton was again in Williamsburg. Washington's report convinced Dinwiddie that there was no resort left but force. The instructions of Holderness were timely. Following up the minister's advice, the become Lords of Trade had, on September 18, 1753, coun- seled the colonies to aim at concerted action, and in December Johnson told the authorities of New York that the Indians were right in predicting French success miless the English bestirred themselves. Dinwiddie acknowledged that if the French suc- ceeded for a while in holding the Ohio valley, they could intro- duce settlers to make their hold effective, for a much more attractive climate and soil than Canada possessed would invite them to the valley. The Dinwiddie correspondence shows how expresses were speeding up and down the Atlantic coast carrying urgent appeals to the other governors to come to his assistance. The several assemblies, however, were little inclined to commit them- selves to an unknown task, particularly as the feeling was grow- ing that Dinwiddie's aims were rather political and personal than patriotic. It was thought that to advance the The Ohio interests of the Ohio Company was not worth the risk Company. of a harrowing border war. ContreccEur, a little later, when he summoned the paltry band of English at the forks, was not unaware of this feeling. " Your schemes," he says to the rep- resentatives of Virginia, " are contrived only by a company which hath the interests of trade more in view than to maintain the union and harmony existing between the crowns of Great Britain and France," — and there was truth in his words. The Indians drew their conclusions from the way in which Virginia was pushing ahead. Croghan discovered that j^e urgency it was believed among them that the apathy of Penn- vi*gfuia sylvania was likely to leave France and Virginia alone '®^*^'^'"^- 308 UNDECLARED WAR. to divide the Indian country between them, and he warned the colonial powers that if they suffered the Shawnees to want for ammunition, the French would surely gain them. To Dinwiddie's mind, it was little short of treason for a Vir- ginian to defend, as some were doing, the French interpretation of the rights of discovery. When his House of Burgesses, a little later, proved obdurate, and would not grant him subsi- dies, but professed much loyalty, he bitterly told them that their " ardent zeal was only an unavailing flourish of words." Either a like defection or indifference prevailed outside of New York's Virginia. New York was seldom as vigilant as she apathy. might bc. Wlicu matters looked badly a year and more before, Hendrick, the Mohawk chief, taunted her people for sitting in peace at Albany, while their Indian neighbors were pressing a common foe. It took all of Johnson's adroitness to heal these sores of the Indians. " You may rest contented," they finally said, " that we will protect the ti*ee which you have replanted, from the high winds of Canada." Now, when De Lancey was urging his assembly to stand by Virginia, it agreed to double the garrison at Oswego, and even do something more, but in no wise to give an adequate assistance. It even doubted whether the French occupation on the Alleghany was any en- croachment on his majesty's territory. Governor Glen of South Carolina was indifferent enough to The feeling pooh-pooh at tlic iudiguaut activity of the Virginia and'pTnn-'' govcmor, but Diuwiddic rejoiced that the Cherokees syivania. ^^^ Catawbas wcrc not disinclined to defend their Ohio hunting-grounds. The governor of Pennsylvania was not without sympathy ; but his assembly could hardly be depended upon. The Proprietary stood ready to assist Virginia in fortify- ing the forks, but he cautiously wished it to be understood that he did not acknowledge thereby any territorial rights of that province about the forks. It seemed, therefore, if there were to be war, that it rested with Dinwiddie to begin it ; and he determined to take Dinwiddie's , . , ^j • i c ttt i • i warmeas- the risk. It was evident from Washmgtons report that the French intended with the spring to advance upon the forks, and had gathered a large number of canoes for the purpose. There were also rumors that a great body of Chippeways and Ottawas were on the way to assist them. WASHINGTON'S FIRST CAMPAIGN. 309 Crosrhan heard from a Chickasaw that the French had a force of a thousand men gathered at the falls of the Ohio, and that they were prepared to give aid. French deserters re})orted that a large contingent of French troops had arrived in Quebec, and in January, 1754, Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania was passing the story south. Dinwiddie felt that the time was come. The task before him was a burdensome one, and the home gov- ernment looked to hmi in the emei'gency. This Virginia governor once in a while hurt his prospects by an imperious air. He was occasionally unstable : but 111 1 • • T 1 1 c 1 Dinwiddie he had enthusiasm, persistency, and a hatred or the and his French. These latter qualities got some satisfaction at last, when he brought his assembly to the pitch of voting X10,000 for the emergency, and it was induced to offer boun- ties of land to those who would come forward in arms. There- fore Dinwiddie issued a proclamation, agreeing to divide two hundred thousand acres of this disputed territory among those who would defend it. This happened in February, 1754. While this was taking place at Williamsburg, Trent, who had been sent with a fatigue party to the forks, placed the stockade first post of a stockade on the spot on February 17. f^k"" Feb^^ Rumors that the French were coming soon reached the '^^^^^ ^^^* little party, and a messenger was dispatched to Dinwiddie for help. During March, Dinwiddie was busy organizing a regiment to be sent to occupy the fort. He placed it under the Washington command of Colonel Fry, whom we have already en- toward The countered as a surveyor, and Washington was com- *°'"^^' missioned as the lieutenant-colonel. With such companies as were ready, Washington went forward to meet Trent's call for assistance. We should have esSeellent material for following this first campaign of the great Virginian, and the later ones of the French war, in his letters and journals, if they ton's French had come down to us as he wrote them. Unfortu- nately, such of Washington's letters of these eventful years as are derived from his letter-books were revised by him at a later period, and in a way to obscure the ardor and change the natu- ral expression of the young officer, since the wisdom and expe- rience of riper years was made to overlay the spontaneity of 310 UNDECLARED WAR. youth. The care which Washington took of his papers showed his appreciation of documentary records, but his stilting of the unstudied effusions of his earlier days showed also his essential lack of the historical spirit. It is an added misfortune that some of Washington's editors have further diminished the rep- resentative value of his writings. It is a satisfaction that Dr. and early Toucr and othcrs have had a proper appreciation of journals. ^j^g couditiou iu print which should attach to a per- sonal document, and so far as possible Washington's earlier jour- nals are now readily accessible in a satisfactory shape. This cannot be true, however, of the itinerary which he kept during the venturesome experiences of the summer and autumn of 1754. This journal, falling into the enemy's hands, was pub- lished in Paris in a French version, and later re-Englished by another hand. It was thus subjected to changes, omissions, and insertions which, by Washington's own testimony, largely in- validate it as evidence. It is in these perverted forms only that we have it. When Washington started out in March, 1754, Dinwiddle was Dinwiddle's Urging the authorities of New York and Massachusetts hopes. ^Q organize a counter movement against Canada, in order to prevent the sending of reinforcements to the Ohio. The appeal, however, was not heeded, though in April Dinwid- dle was hopeful that a diversion would be made by way of the Kennebec. Thus Washington's party was left to its own devices. " It will be easier to prevent the French settling than to dislodge them when settled," wrote Dinwiddle to Sharpe of Maryland ; and this was the task in hand. It was no small one if the stories of French deserters, which were being sent south from Philadelphia, were true. One such represented that there were twelve hundred in garrison at Presqu' Isle, and five hundred at Le Boeuf. On April 9, Washington met an express from the forks, informing him that the force there was in hourly capwred'by expectation of an attack from eight hundred French. Eleven days later, reports reached him (April 20) that the French had captured the unfinished fort. Washington was at Will's Creek on the 22d, when Ensign Ward, who had surrendered the works, appeared and told his story. THE FORKS OF THE OHIO. 311 The French from Le Boeuf had passed Venango, where Washington had seen Joncaire, and where, near Fra- p^rt zier's house, the French had built a fort during the M»«i>=»"it- winter, which had been named Fort Machault, in honor of one of the favorites of the Pompadour. It was situated within the limits of the modern town of Franklin in Pennsylvania. De- scending the Alleghany, Contrecoeur, who commanded the detachment, had appeared before the English at the forks. Trent, the commander of the post, in terror or bewilderment, had gone away, and his lieutenant had also left his post to see his family, living not far distant. This gave the command of the working party to Ensign Ward. When the French leader demanded his surrender, the ensign, at the Half-King's sugges- tion, pleaded his inferior rank, and asked that a reply might be delayed till the return of his superior officers. The plea was fu- tile. Ward could but surrender, and now, five days ward's later, — the surrender having been made on the 17th, Ap^i n^*^' — Washington was listening to the terms by which the ^^^*' fort and a score or two of men passed into Contrecoeur's hands. The prisoners had been allowed by him to depart. There is no indisputable enumeration of the attacking force, except that they had eighteen small cannon. It was beyond question very greatly superior to Ward's. The hour was cer- tainly passed for succor, but Washington knew that he was ex- pected to prove his mettle. He sent forward a party to repair the road which Cresap had blazed over the mountains Washington to the Ked Stone Creek on the Monongahela, where ^'^^^nces. the Ohio Company had recently erected a storehouse. Thus was made what was really the first wagon road into the Great Valley, from the Atlantic slope. It was later used in part by Braddock, and continued to be a thoroughfare till 1818, when the National Road was constructed in the same general direction. The line of the original highway can still be traced, or was to be traced, as late as 1877, when Lowdermilk, the local historian, followed it. On April 29, Washington started from Will's Creek with his main body of one himdred and fifty men. On May 9, he was at Little Meadows, on a tributary of the Youghiogheny. This was well within the valley, and at a later day was part of a property which Washington acquired. Here he erected some 312 UNDECLARED WAR. slight protection for his supplies. Three days later, he met Gist, who told him he had seen tracks of a French force thereabouts. The Indian Half-King, who was hovering in the neighborhood, sent word to Washington that a French party lay concealed not far off, — a force under Jumonville, which Contrecoeur had sent out three days before to patrol the country and warn off any English to be found, Washington and the Indian chief now jumonvuie Diet, and on consultation it was determined to attack attacked. ^^ Frcuch. The Virginian commander had at this time no knowledge of the purpose of Jumonville, and after Washington's impetuosity the following day led him to an as- sault, in which the French leader was killed and most of his thirty-three followers were slain or captured, the English com- mander was put to some awkwardness in justifying his action. Jumonville had started out with a large force, but a part had been sent back to Duquesne, as Contrecoeur now called the fort at the forks. It was the tracks of this returning force which Gist had observed. On Jumonville's person was found a summons which he was instructed to serve on any English he might meet. In this summons Contrecoeur said to whoever should receive it that " the sale of lands on the Ohio River by the Indians has given you so weak a title that I shall be obliged to repel force by force." It proved that Washington in at- tacking had only anticipated an assault from Jumonville, who was simply waiting reinforcements. Two days later, Washing- ton (May 30) dispatched his prisoners to Winchester, and fearing a retaliatory attack from Contrecoeur, who is supposed to have had not far from a thousand men at his disposal, began to intrench. He was conscious that, in case of a parley, he was not well equipped in an interpreter, and in a few days wrote to Dinwiddie, asking that Andrew Montour might be Washington ^cut to him. Armed supports began to reach him, supreme ^^^^ aftcr a wliilc lic learned of the death of Colonel command. Fry, wlio was ou his way to join the advance body. This gave the supreme command to Washington. Note. The map on the opposite page is from Fry and Jefferson's Map of Virginia, showing Lord Fairfax's manor, the dotted line running southeast from the "Springhead" of the North Fork of the Potomac giving the direction of the southern boundary of the manor, toward the Shenandoah valley. Tlie " Springhead " is shown as contiguous to the source of the Mononga- hela. The road from Fort Necessity (on Red Stone Creek, a branch of the Monongaliela) runs to the fort and storehouse at the moutli of Will's Creek. Farther down the Potomac, near the mouth of the South Fork, is Colonel Cresap's settlement. Christopher Gist's abode is in the north- west corner of the map, on the road from Will's Creek to the forks of the Ohio. 314 UNDECLARED WAR. While the intrenching was going on, rumors came of an ap- proaching foe. At the same time about forty Indians gathered in the camj), including, beside some Iroquois, a number of Loups (Delawares) and Shawnees. Washington had every reason to believe that some of these were spies. He tried to deceive such in his representations, and on the 27th he made his last entries in the journal whose history we have traced. In 1752, Gist, as the result of his explorations for the Ohio Company, had begun a settlement ten miles from the Monon- gahela, on what is now Mount Braddock, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Here, on June 28, Gist gave Washington the first explicit information he had had of a French force marching against him. The Virginian at first resolved to concentrate his men here and await an attack ; but his second thoughts prompted him to fall back to Great Meadows and strengthen the breast- work which he had already begun at that place. He had but two wagons and a few pack-horses to carry his intrenching tools, but he could trundle on their own wheels his nine small swivel four-pounders. The distance back to Fort Necessity, as this intrenchment was called, was thirteen miles, and in his advance, Washington clearing the road as he went, he had taken as many to*Fort^ days. He now occupied but two days on the return Necessity, march, but his men were almost overcome by the work. His supplies were scant, and even the expresses he sent back for relief made a welcome diminution of the mouths he had to feed. He had, perhaps, three hundred men in all, not counting a Carolina company which had joined him. Contrecoeur's whole force by this time had increased to about two thousand, and of these a party of some six or eight hundred was now ap- proaching. The usual story is, that the Chevalier de Villiers, a brother of Jumonville, was at Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi, when word reached him of the death of his brother. The time was certainly scant for the news to traverse the length of the Ohio and the avenger of Jumonville to return ; and it is much more likely, as better authorities say, that the tidings found him in Montreal. At all events, Villiers reached Duquesne on June 16, and learned that Contrecoeur had organized a force to attack Washington. In a day or two it started under Villiers's com- mand. WASHINGTON SURRENDERS. 315 About eleven o'clock in the forenoon of July 3, 1754, Wash- ington, at Fort Necessity, saw the enemy advancing through the mist, along the road which he had so attack, laboriously made. The Virginians opened upon the foe at long range, with their little swivels, but without much effect. The Half -King, who was in the fort, was dissatisfied. He thought that Washington had not sufficiently intrenched himself, and that had he more effectively barricaded his force, he might have held out. The opposing force was certainly much larger than Washington's command, though perhaps not twelve hundred or even a thousand, as some testimony makes it. Adam Stephens's narrative gives Washington but two hundred and eighty-four men, and they were probably much less fresh than the French. The little fort is described as being " half leg deep of mud." Desultory firing was kept up the rest of the day, through a dismal rain, vmtil in the evening Villiers sent an officer to demand a parley. The Virginians by this time had lost in killed and woimded about eighty. Washing- ton now had sore need of an interpreter like Montour. There was in his force a German, Jacob van Braam, who knew little English and no more French. It had become evident that Washington coidd not successfidly repel an assaidt, and he de- cided to obtain the best terms he could. By the light of a tallow candle in the misty rain, Van Braam and the French came to an agreement under Washington's directions. The terms secured for the vanquished the honors of war, the destruc- tion instead of the surrender of the swivels, and the giving of hostages for the return of the prisoners taken in the fight with Jumonville, — a provision that Dinwiddie stubbornly refused to carry out. On July 4, 1754, Washington and his little army marched out of his breastworks, and five days later the Virgin- /-^ 1 r\ ^ n A ^ i Washington lans were at Will s Creek. On the 24th, the news surrenders, . 1 mi T 1 July- 17^- was known in Montreal, ihus were the northeast- ern tributaries of the Great Valley abandoned by the English. CHAPTER XV. THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS FOR NORTH AMERICA. 1497-1755. In considering the respective claims of the English and French to North America, it must be remembered that the con- flict of rights is not only one on identical lines arising from discovery, but one also on opposed lines arising from different conceptions of the rights of discovery. The claims are also represented by contrary methods and purposes in enforcing them. The French, in the time of Francis I. and later, claimed the new continent by reason of Verrazano's voyage along its Atlan- tic coast. The claim, however, was not made good by perma- nent occupation anywhere along the seaboard of the present United States. Moreover, the English, under the Cabots, had sailed along this coast nearly thirty years before. Still, it was almost a cen- tury after those voyagers before the English government, urged by the spirit which Hakluyt and Dr. Dee were fostering, awoke to the opportunity, and began seriously to base rights upon the Cabot voyages. The French, at a later day, sought to discredit this English claim, on the ground that the Cabots were private adventurers and could establish no national pretensions. The English pointedly replied that their Henry VII. had given the Cabots patents which reserved to the crown dominion over any lands which were discovered. This reply was triumphant so far as it went, but it still left the question aside, whether The French ,. ■ -i • i , j ,i -j^- and EngUsh coast discovery carried rights to the interior, par- ticularly if such inland regions drained to another sea. The English attempt in the latter part of the sixteenth century, under Raleigh's influence, to occupy Roanoke Island and adjacent regions, but without definite extension westward, PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA. 317 was in due time followed by successive royal patents and char- ters, beginning in 1606 and ending in 1665, which ajipropriated the hospitable parts of the continent stretching from the Atlan- tic to the Pacific. For a north and south extension these grants ahnost exactly covered the whole length of the Mississippi, since the parallel of 48°, which formed the northern limit, and that of 29°, which made the southern, were respectively a little north of the source of the Great River and just seaward of its deltas. The charter of Acadia, granted by the French king three years before the first of the English grants, covered the coast from latitude 40° to 46°, and was thus embraced in the preten- sions of the English king, but his rival refrained from giving any westward extension, beyond what was implied in " the lands, shores, and countries of Acadia and other neighboring lands." It is interesting to determine what, during this period of sixty years, mainly in the first half of the seventeenth century, were the notions, shared by the English king and his advisers, of the extent of this munificent domain, with which he and they were so free. A few years before the first of these grants was made to the Plymouth Company in 1606, Hakluyt had laid before supposed the world, in Molineaux's great mappemonde, the North Imer- ripest English ideas of the New World, and these gave "^*' a breadth to North America not much different from what it was in reality. The Pacific coast line, however, was not car- ried above Drake's New Albion, our modern Upper California. This left the question still undetermined, if one could not travel on a higher parallel dryshod to Asia, as Thomas Morton, later a settler on Boston Bay, imagined he could. Molineaux gives no conception of the physical distribution of mountain and valley in this vast area, further than to bulk the Great Lakes into a single inland sea. The notion of an immense interior valley, corresponding in some extent to our Mississippi basin, which Mercator forty years before had divined, had not yet impressed the British mind. Mercator, indeed, had mis- conceived it, in that he joined the Mississippi and St. Law- rence basins together by obliterating the divide between them. In this way he made his great continental river rise in Arizona 318 THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS FOR NORTH AMERICA. and sweep northeast, and join the great current speeding to the Gulf o£ St. Lawrence, Here, then, in the adequate breadth of the continent, as Mercator and Molineaux drew it, is conclusive evidence that the royal giver of these vast areas had, or could have had, something like a proper notion of the extent of his munificent gifts. At the date of the last of these charters, in 1665, Cartier and his successors had for a hundred and thirty years been endeavoring to measure the breadth of the continent by the way of the St. Lawrence an^ the Great Lakes. They sought to prove by inland routes whether the estimated longi- tude of New Albion had been accurate or not. There had, it is true, been some vacillation of belief meanwhile. One thing had been accomplished to clarify the notions respecting these great interior spaces. The belief of Mercator had given way to the expectation of finding a large river, flowing in a southerly direction, whose springs were separated from those of the St. Lawrence by a dividing ridge. It was not yet determined where the outlet of this great river was. Was it on the Atlan- tic side of Florida, as a long stretch up the coast from the peninsula was at that time called? "Was it in the Gulf of Mexico, identifying it with the stream in which De Soto had been buried ? Was it in the Gulf of California, making it an extension of the Colorado River ? Each of these views had its advocates among the French, who had already learned something of the upper reaches of both the Ohio and Mississippi. It was left for Joliet and Marquette, a few years later, not to discover the Mississippi, but to reach the truth of its flow, and for La Salle to confirm it. These latter explorations of the priest and trader gave the The Missis- Frcnch such rights as came from traversing through- Bippi valley. ^^^ ^.j^g water- ways which led with slight interruption from the water back of Newfoundland to the Mexican gulf. In due time this Immense valley of the Mississippi was entered by the British traders, as they discovered pass after pass through the mountain barrier all the way from New York to Carolina. The French, indeed, had permanent settlements among the Illi- nois and on the lower Mississippi, but In other parts of the Great Valley there Is little doubt that wandering Britons were quite as familiar to the Indians as the French trader or adven- turer. If the evidence is not to be disputed, there was among THEIR CLAIMS FORMULATED. 319 these hardy British adventurers a certain John Howard, who was, perhaps, the first, on the English part, to travel the whole course of one of the great ramifications of the valley. It was in 1742 that he passed from the upper waters of the James over the mountains to New Eiver, by which he reached the Ohio, Descending this main affluent, he was floating down the Missis- sippi itself when he was captured by some French and Indians and conveyed to New Orleans. An air of circumstantiality is given to the expedition in the journal of John Peter Salley, who was one of Howard's companions. Fry, in his report to the Ohio Company at a later day, made something of this ex- ploit as crediting the English with an early acquaintance with the Great Valley. The most western settlements of the Vir- ginians are marked in Evans's map of 1755 as that of J. Keeney at the junction of Greenbrier and New rivers, and Stahlmaker's house on the middle fork of the Holston River. These isolated outposts of the English were an exception to their habit of making one settlement support another. The English alleged, as set forth by Mitchell, that the French planted their posts " straggling up and down in remote and uncultivated deserts, in order thereby to seem to occupy a greater extent of territory, while in effect they hardly occupy any at aU." The claims, then, of these rival contestants for the trans-Alle- ghany region, as they respectively advanced them at the time, may be thus put : — The English pretended to have secured their rights by a west-^ ward extension from the regions of their coast occu- pation, and down to 1763 they stubbornly maintained the rival this claim, though forced to strengthen it, first, by alleging certain sporadic, and sometimes doubtful and even dis- proved, wanderings of their people beyond the mountains ; and second, by deriving an additional advantage from professed rights ceded to them by the Iroquois. / When the main grants to the Plymouth and London com- NoTE. The following map is from the 3Iemoires des Commissaires du Roi, etc., Paris, 1757, and represents what the French understood to be the pretensions of the English sea-to-sea cliar- ters. The heavy black lines indicate the north and south limits of Virginia and New England (1620) ; the heavy dots the 1662 charter of Carolina ; the lighter dots the extended Carolina charter of 1665 ; and the fine parallel lines the Georgia charter of 1732. The map also shows the supposed connection of the Mississippi and Lake Winnipeg. 322 THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS FOR NORTH AMERICA. panies were suj)ersedecl by less extensive allotments, this same sea-to-sea extension was constantly reinforced as far as itera- tion could do it. The provincial charter of Massachusetts, for instance, in confirming the earlier bounds, carried her limits west toward the South Sea. That of Virginia did the same, but with so clumsy a definition that the claims of Massachusetts and Virginia collided in the Ohio valley and beyond. The Congress at Albany, in 1754, reaffirmed this westward extension, but allowed that it had been modified north of the St. Lawrence only by concession to Canada under the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. A similar ground was assumed by Shirley at Paris, in 1755, when he met the French commissioners in an endeavor to reconcile their respective claims. The French, on the contrary, derived their rights, in their opinion, from having been the first to traverse the Great Valley, and because they had made settlements at a few points ; and still more because they possessed and had settled a.bout the mouth of the Great River. It was their contention that such a possession of the mouth of a main stream gave them jurisdic- tion over its entire water-shed in the interior, just as their pos- session of the outlet of the St. Lawrence gave to France the control of its entire basin. Upon this principle, Louis XIV. had made his concession to Crozat for monoijolizing the trade of the Great VaUey. These two grounds of national rights, the one arising from the possession of the coast and the other from occuj)ation of a river mouth, were consequently at variance with each other. They were both in themselves preposterous, in the opinions of adver- saries, and both claimants were forced to abate their preten- sions. The English eventually conceded to France all west of the Mississippi. France by the arbitrament of war yielded, to one people or another, the water-sheds of both the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, just as the United States at a later day, making a like claim for the entire valley of the Columbia Eiver through the discovery of its mouth, were forced to be content with but a portion of their demand. There was another difference in the claims of the two con- testants which particularly affected their respective relations with the original occupants of the Great VaUey. RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS. 323 The French asserted possession against the heathen, but cared little for the territory except to preserve it for pgg ^^^ the fur trade. They were not, consequently, despoil- 3""8diction. ers of the savages' himting-grounds. One to three square miles was estimated as each Indian's requirement for the chase. But, nevertheless, they seized such points as they wished, without thought of recompensing the savage owners. This prerogative of free appropriation the French persistently guarded. When, in 1751, La Jonquiere told the tribes on the Ohio that the French would not occupy their lands without their permission, he was rebuked by his home government, and Duquesne, his successor, was enjoined to imdo the impression which La Jon- quiere had conveyed to the savages. On the other hand, the English pioneers, by their charters and patents, got a jurisdiction over, but not a fee in, the lands conveyed. In the practice which England established, or pro- fessed to establish, occupation could follow only upon the extin- guishment by purchase or treaty of the native title. Thus the Indian had exemj^lified to him, by these intruders, two diverse policies. He was inclined to the French ^he Indians policy because it did not disturb his life, and drive him rivli*pou- away from his ancestral hunting-grounds. Duquesne *^"^^' was wont to tell the Indians that the French placing a fort on the tribe's lands did not mean the felling of forest and planting of fields, as it did with the English ; but that the French fort became only a convenient hunting-lodge for the Indian, with undisturbed game about it. The Indian was inclined to the English policy because it showed a recognition of his right to the soil, for which he could get cloth and trinkets and rum, if he chose to sell it. But he soon found that the clothes which he obtained wore out, the liquor was gone, and the baubles were worthless. The trans- action, forced upon him quite as often as voluntarily assumed, was almost sure to leave him for a heritage a contiguous settle- ment of farmholders, who felled the forests and drove away his buffalo. The savage was naturally much perplexed, between these rival methods, in determining which was most for his advantage. Accordingly, we find the aboriginal hordes over vast regions 324 THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS FOR NORTH AMERICA. divided in allegiance, some pref ei-ring tlie Fi-encli and others the English, and neither part by any means constant to one side or the other. Moreover, these two diverse policies meant a good deal to such disputants in the trial of strength between them. The French knew they were greatly inferior in numbers, but they counted on a better organization and a single responsible head, which induced celerity of movement, and this went a great way in overcoming their rival's weight of numbers. Joncaire boasted of this to Washington, when as a Virginian messenger he went to carry the warning of Dinwiddle. Pownall under- stood it, when he said that Canada did not consist of farms and settlements, as the English colonies did, but of forts and soldiers. " The English cannot settle and fight too," he adds. " They can fight as well as the French, but they must give over set- tling." Thus the two people, seeking to make the New World tributary to the Old, sought to help their rival claims by gain- ing over these native arbiters. It was soon seen that success for the one side or the other depended largely on holding the Indians fast in allegiance. The savage is always impressed by prowess. For many years, the French claimed his admiration through their military suc- cess, and the English often lost it by lack of such success. In personal dealing with the Indian, the French always had the advantage. They were better masters of wiles. They knew better how to mould the savage passions to their own purposes. With it all, they were always tactful, which the English were far from being. William Johnson, the astutest manager of the Indians the English ever had, knew this thoroughly, and per- sistently tried to teach his countrymen the virtue of tact. It was not unrecognized among his contemporaries that Johnson's alliance with a sister of Brant, a Mohawk chief, had much to do with his influence among the Iroquois. " General Johnson's success," wrote Peter Fontaine, " was owing under God to his fidelity to the Indians and his generous conduct to his Indian wife, by whom he hath several hopefid sons, who are all war captains, the bulwark with him of the Five Nations, and loyal subjects to their another country." This Huguenot, Fontaine, traced much of the misery of frontier life to the failure of the English to emulate the French in intermar- THE IROQUOIS. 325 rying with the natives, and he, curiously rather than accurately, refers the absence of the custom to an early incident in Vir- ginia history ; " for when our wise politicians heard that Kolfe had married Pocahontas, it was deliberated in council whether he had not committed high treason by marrying an Indian princess ; and had not some troubles intervened which put a stop to the inquiry, the poor man might have been hanged up for doing the most just, the most natural, the most generous and politic action that ever was done this side of the water. This put an effectual stop to all intermarriages afterwards." Both French and English were not slow in discovering that among the American tribes the Iroquois were the chief The arbiters of savage destiny in North America. The ^'^*«i"°'^- struggle of each rival was to secure the help of these doughty confederates. In the early years of the European occupation, the Dutch j)ropitiated the Iroquois and the French provoked them. The English succeeded to the policy of the Hollanders, and the French long felt the enmity which Champlain had en- gendered. The Dutch and English could give more and better merchandise for a beaver-skin, and this told in the rivalry, not only for the friendship of the Iroquois, but for that of other and more distant tribes. This was a decided gain to the Eng- lish and as decided a loss to the French, and no one knew it better than the losing party. Throughout the dire struggle, the English never ceased for any long period to keep substantial hold of the Iroquois. There were defections. Some portions of the Oneidas and Mo- hawks were gained by the Jesuits, who settled their neophytes near Montreal. The Senecas were much inclined to be inde- pendent, and the French possession of Niagara and the arts of Joncaire helped their uncertainty. Every tribe of the United Council at Onondaga had times of indecision. But, on the whole, the English were conspicuously helped by the Iroquois allegiance, and they early used it to give new force to their claim for a westward extension. The country which the Iro- quois originally occupied was that portion of the State of New York south of its great lake, and their tribes were scattered through the valley of the Mohawk, along the water-shed of On- tario, and throughout the country holding the springs of the 326 THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS FOR NORTH AMERICA. Susquehanna and the Alleghany. From the days of John Smith, the Susquehanna had been an inviting entrance to the interior from the Chesapeake, and Champlain's deputy, in 1615, had found that it afforded a route to the sea from the Iroquois country. It was a dispute between the French and the English which of the two peoples first penetrated this Iroquois country. La Jonquiere, in 1751, claimed the priority for the French. There can be little question, however, that whatever right followed upon priority belonged to the Dutch, and by inheritance to the English. This was always the claim at Albany, and when the French seized upon Niagara, the English pronoimced it an encroachment upon the Iroquois country, as, indeed, Charlevoix acknowledged it was. At the same time, the French contended that it was a part of the St. Lawrence valley, which was theirs by virtue of Cartier's and later discoveries. On this ground they also claimed the valley of Lake Champlain, and had ad- vanced to Crown Point in occupying it, though the Iroquois considered it within their bounds. So when the English seized Oswego, it was in the French view an usurpation of their rights, " the most flagrant and most pernicious to Canada." This sweeping assertion, transformed to a direct statement, meant that the possession of Oswego gave the English a superior hold on the Indians. It also offered them a chance to intercept the Indians in their trading jour- neys to Montreal. This advantage, as already indicated, was rendered greater by the English ability to give for two skins at Oswego as much as the French offered for ten at Niagara. De Lancey looked upon the English ability to do this as the strong- est tie by which they retained the Indians in their alliance. " Oswego," said the French, "gives us all the evils, without the advantages of war." Duquesne, in August, 1755, confessed that it was nothing but a lack of pretext which prevented his attacking this English post. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the Iroquois The Iroquois ^y couqucsts had pushed a sort of feudal sway far conquests, beyoud their ancestral homes. They had destroyed the Hurons in the country west of the Ottawa. They had ex- terminated the Eries south of the lake of that name, and had THE IROQUOIS CONQUESTS. 327 pushed their conquests at least as far as the Scioto, and held in vassalage the tribes still farther west. They even at times kept their enemies in terror well up to the Mississippi. Some- what in the same way they had caused their primacy to be felt along the Susquehanna. Their war parties were known to keep the fruitful region south of the Ohio in almost absolute desolation. The area included in these conquests is, perhaps, a moderate estimate of what the English meant by the Iroquois claim. As early as 1697, the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, in formulating the English rights to sovereignty over the Iroquois, asserted something larger in saying that these confederates held " in tributaiy subjection all the neighboring Indians, and went sometimes as far as the South Sea, the Northwest Passage, and Florida, as well as over that part of the coimtry now called Canada." Mitchell, in 1755, claimed that by the conquest of the Shawnees in 1672, the Iroquois acquired whatever title the original occupiers of the Ohio valley had, and that their con- quest of the Illinois carried their rights beyond the Mississippi. The English turned these Iroquois conquests to their advan- tage by assuming that the regions covered by this supremacy fell to their jurisdiction as one of the considerations of their alliance with the confederates. This pretension, in its most arrogant form, allowed there was no territory not under Iro- quois control east of the Mississippi, unless it was the region of the south, where, with equal complacency, the English used their friendship with the Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Creeks to cover aD the territory of the modern Gidf States, with a bordering region north of them. In Huske's English map of 1755, even this territory of the southern tribes is made tribu- tary to the Iroquois, as well as all east of the Mississippi and the Illinois and Lake Michigan, and of a line thence to the upper waters of the Ottawa. Note. The map on the following pages is from Bowen" and Gibson's Xorth America, London, 1763. The upper section shows the country of the Illinois, Mascoutins, Miamis, Twightwees, all a part of the conquered country of the Iroquois, wliich is made to extend from the northern shore of Lake Huron to We.st Florida, its western limits being defined by the Mississippi as far north as the Illinois, along which the "pecked line" runs to Lake Michigan and then north, so as to include the " Messesagues " on the northern shore of Lake Huron. The under section shows the basin of the Ohio, and places the position of the Chickasaws and Catawbas. The present Tennessee River (called here Cherakee, etc.) was the route of the Cherokees from the mountains to the Mississippi, but the origin of placing on maps their country along its course was the desire to profit by an alleged claim for that tribe, pressed by their English allies, to strengthen the English claim to a westward extension. 330 THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS FOR NORTH AMERICA. In pushing their conquests to the Illinois, the Iroquois claimed, „ ,. , as Pownall tells us, that they warred upon these dis- The Engbsh . claim. tant savages because it was necessary to protect the beaver, which the Illinois were exterminating. There was little reason for so benign an excuse, for the ravages of the con- federates were simply prompted by an inherent martial spirit. So distinguished a student of their career as Mr. Horatio Hale is inclined to give them a conspicuously beneficent character, which, however, hardly met the approval of a more famous stu- dent, the late Francis Parkman. This Iroquois-English claim had distinguished advocates in Golden, Franklin, and Pownall, but there was some abatement at times in its pretensions. Sir William Johnson, in 1763, traced the line of this dependent country along the Blue Ridge, back of Virginia to the head of the Kentucky River ; down that current to the Ohio above the falls ; thence to the south end of Lake Michigan ; along its eastern shore to Mackinac ; and north- east to the Ottawa, and down that river to the St. Lawrence. The right of the English king to such a territory as this dated back, as the English claimed, to an alleged deed of sale in 1701, when the Iroquois ceded these hunting-grounds to English jurisdiction, in addition to their ancestral lands. It was, as they claimed, a title supplementing that of their sea-to-sea char- ters. When the French cited the treaty of Ryswick (1697) as giving them sway over the river basins where they held the mouths, and claimed this as paramount to any rights the Iroquois could bestow, the English fell back on these territorial charters as the most ancient and valid claim of all. If the English charter claims were preposterous, this supple- mental one was, in even some part of contemporary opinion, equally impudent and presumptuous. There was by no means an im divided sentiment among the colonists upon this point ; and history has few more signal instances of tergiversation than when, at a later day, the English government virtually acknow- ledged the justice of the French claim in urging the passage (1774) of the Quebec Bill. " We went to war," said Towns- hend, in the debates on this bill, " calling it Virginia, which you now claim as Canada." We read in Franklin's statement, in 1765, before the Stamp Act Committee, that the Virginia Assembly seriously questioned THE TREATY OF UTRECHT. 331 the right of the king to the territory in dispute. George Cro- ghan, on the contrary, in a communication to Secretary Peters of Pennsylvania, wondered how anybody coukl doubt that the French on the Alleghany were encroaching upon the charter limits of Pennsylvania. The French were more unanimous in their view ; but it was only gradually that they worked up to a full expression of it. Bellin, the map-maker for Charlevoix, had drawn in his early drafts the limits of New France more modestly than the French government grew to maintain, and he was soon instructed to fashion his maps to their largest claims. In like manner the earliest English map-makers slowly came to the pitch of audacity which the politicians stood for, and Bollan, in 1748, complained that Popple (1732), Keith (1733), Oldmixon (1741), MoU (at several dates), and Bowen (1747) had been recusant to English interests. It was not till Mitchell produced his map in 1755 that the most ardent claimant for English rights was satisfied. The instructions of Duquesne, in 1752, say that " 't is certain that the Iroquois have no rights on the Ohio, and the xhe French pretended rights thi'ough them of the English is a •*®"'^^- chimera." In the negotiations of the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, the English had succeeded in getting an admission from the French which required all the resources of French diplo- macy to qualify. This was an acknowledgment of the English sovereignty over the Iroquois. The French at a later day, when they felt better able to enforce their views, sniffed at the obli- gation, and called the phrase " a simple enunciation " in words of no binding significance, — a summary way of looking at an obligation which could demolish any contract. When they condescended to explain what they sniffed at, they insisted that the Iroquois themselves never acknowledged such a subjection. Sir William Johnson was frank enough to call the connection of the English and Iroquois one of alliance rather than sub- jection. The French further pointed out what was true, that the Iroquois did not always consider it necessary to consult the English when making treaties or declaring war. Again, when forced to other explanations, the French maintained that the subjection of the Iroquois in their persons did not carry sover- 332 THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS FOR NORTH AMERICA. elgiity over their lands. If it did, they said, the Iroquois who occupy lands at Caughuawaga would be equally subject in land and person, and that would involve the absurdity of yield- ing to the English jurisdiction territory at the very gates of Montreal. There was another clause in this treaty of Utrecht which the The Indian Frcncli werc hard put to interpret to their advan- trade. tagc. This was the clause by which the French ac- knowledged the English right to trade with all Indians. The minutes of instruction given to Duquesne show how this was interpreted. " The English may pretend that we are bound by the treaty of Utrecht to permit the Indians to trade with them ; but it is sure that nothing Can oblige us to allow this trade on our own lands." This, in the light of the French claim to the water-sheds of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, would debar the English from trading at Oswego and on the Ohio. In 1726, by a treaty made on September 14, and which Gov- ernor Pownall prints in his Adininistration of the Colonies^ the English had secured a fresh recognition by the Iroquois of their guardianship over them. By this compact the Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas, falling in with the concessions of the Mohawks and Oneidas in 1684, surrendered a tract from Os- wego to Cuyahoga (Cleveland), with an extent inland of sixty miles. A score of years and more passed thereafter before the French became fully sensible that they must forcibly contest their claim to the Ohio. By this time their plan had fully ripened of connecting Canada and Louisiana by a chain of posts, and of keeping the English on the seaward side of the Alle- ghanies. In this, they were convinced, lay a riper future for New France rather than in crossing the Mississippi and dis- puting sovereignty with the Spaniard. This accomplished, they hoped to offer a barrier against the English effective enough to prevent their wresting from Spain the silver mines beyond the Mississippi. The French had always claimed priority on the Ohio, and when Celoron was sent in 1749 to take formal possession Note. The opposite map is from Mitchell's Map of the British Colonies (1755). It shows the Wabash country, and gives the contemporary claims as to the Iroquois rights. 334 THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS FOR NORTH AMERICA. along its banks, by hanging royal insignia on trees and bury- On the i'^S graven plates in the soil, that officer professedly *^^'°' made " a renewal of possession of the Ohio and all its affluents," — a possession originally established " by arms and treaties, particularly those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la- Chapelle." There was urgency for such a " renewal," for Ce- loron found that the English were already in possession of the country, so far as the friendly sanction of the natives signified it. Thus, the Iroquois claim to that extent had proved effec- tive, and Golden has distinctly expounded it in his History of the Five Nations. It was also clearly traced in maps by Jefferys in 1753, and by Mitchell and Huske in 1755. It was, therefore, a necessity for the French to use force, if they were to make good their claims by holding the valley. Accordingly, we find, in 1751, La Jonquiere instructed " to drive from the Beautiful River [Ohio] any European foreigners, and in a manner of expulsion which should make them lose all taste for trying to return." With the usual French diplomatic reservation, that governor was further enjoined " to observe, not- withstanding, the cautions practicable in such matters." There is a Memoire of 1751 which sets forth the French anxiety lest the English, by securing a post on the Ohio, should be able to keep the Indians in alienation from the French. Such English success would mean a danger to French commu- nications with the settlers on the Mississippi, who stood in par- ticular need of Canadian assistance in the war which was waged against them by the Carolina Indians, instigated by the English there. Without such a bar to their progress as the French possession of the Ohio, the English could easily advance, not only upon the French posts among the Illinois, but they could endanger the portage of the Miami, which was the best route from Canada, and which if lost might involve the abandonment of Detroit. The conclusion of this complaint is twofold : Detroit must be strengthened by a farming population about it for its support, in order to preserve it as the best place to overawe the con- tinent. The Illinois counti*y must be protected; its buffalo trade fostered ; that animal's wool made marketable ; and the custom of salting its flesh prevail so that the necessity of de- pending on Martinico for meat be avoided. NEGOTIATIONS. 335 The movement of the French on the Alleghany in 1754 had put an end to temporizing. Albemarle, who was Eng- -^^^ ^-^^ land's ambassador at Paris, was a butterfly and a '^^*"'*' reprobate, and he was little calculated to mend matters, now easily slipping from bad to worse. A tough and sturdy young Yankee, then keeping school in Worcester, Mass., John Adams by name, represented the rising impatience of the colonists, who had not forgotten their yeoman service at Louisbourg. He looked forward to the complete expulsion of "the turbulent Gallicks I " The year 1755 opened with events moving rapidly. In Jan- uary, France proposed to leave matters as they were and let commissioners settle the dispute in details. England in re- sponse fell back on the treaty of Utrecht. In February, France proposed as a substitute that all east of the mountains should belong to England, and all west of the Alleghany River and north of the Ohio should fall to France. This left as neutral territory the slope from the mountains to the Alleghany and the region south of the Ohio. In March, England assented to this, provided the French woidd destroy their posts on the Alleghany and Ohio. This would make a break in the French cordon con- necting Canada with the Mississippi, and would give the English an advantage in the control of the neutral country. So France refused the terms. In June, England again resorted to the conditions of Utrecht, and insisted on the validity of the Iro- quois claim. France reiterated her denial of such a claim as regards the territory, but acknowledged it in respect to persons of the confederates. England insisted, as well she might, that this was not the interpretation put upon similar provisions in other treaties. Her ministers now reminded Braddock of this provision in the treaty of 1726, and instructed him to act accord- ingly. This brought the business to the pitch of war, though both sides hesitated to make a declaration. Galissonniere held it to be the testimony of aU maps that France was right in her claim, and her possession of what she strove for was now to be settled by sterner methods. Danville and the other French map-makers had been brought to representations that kept Galissonniere's statement true. The English cartographers had done equally oiuocoim- weU for their side, and MitcheU could be cited to ad- '^^' 336 THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS FOR NORTH AMERICA. vantage. His Map of the British and French Dominions in North America was based on documents which the English Board of Trade thought best enforced their claim, and the pub- lication, when made, in 1755, was dedicated to their secretary. In an accompanying text the English claim was pushed to its utmost, and every old story was revamped which served to bolster pretensions of the English preceding the French in exploring the country, reviving the antiquated boast that New Engianders had even preceded the French in crossing the Mis- sissippi, and had really furnished the guides for La Salle's discoveries. Perhaps the best knowledge which was attainable at this day of the valley of the Ohio had been reached by Christopher Gist, who, in his wandering, had corrected the supposed curves and trends of that river. Lewis Evans, in June, 1750, made his proposals to visit and map the country under disguise as a trader, and in the pay of the province of Pennsylvania. His map of the British 3Iiddle Colonies was published at Phila- delphia just in time to be of use to Braddock. Washington later said of it that, " considering the early period, it was done with amazing exactness." The governor of Pennsylvania was satisfied that Evans had mapped the Alleghanies correctly, and contended that this new draft showed how much would be lost if the English made these mountains their bounds. Of the country in dispute, Evans's map in one of its legends represents : " Were nothing at stake," it reads, " between the crown of Great Britain and France but the lands in the Ohio, we may reckon it as great a prize as has ever been contended for between two nations, for this country is of that vast extent westward as to exceed in good land all the European dominions of Great Britain, France, and Spain, and which are almost destitute of inhabitants. It is impossible to conceive, had his Majesty been made acquainted with its value and great impor- tance, and the huge strides the French have been making for several years past in their encroachments on his dominions, that his Majesty would sacrifice one of the best gems in his crown to their usurpation and boundless ambition." The opinion of James Maury, that whoever was left at the end of the war in possession of the Lakes and the Ohio would control the continent, was not, at this time, an unfamiliar one THE RESULTS. 337 in the public mind. It was, moreover, not unconnected with the belief that in the time to come a route west by the Hudson or the Potomac, connecting- with these vaster water-ways of the interior, would make some point on the Atlantic coast " the grand emporium of all East Indian commodities." We have lived to see the prophecy verified, but by other agencies. CHAPTER XVI. THE ANXIETY AND PLANS OF 1754. War existed, and there had been no declaration of hostilities. In the autumn of 1754, there was anxiety all along the barrier country. Of the 190,000 whites now composing the population of Population Pennsylvania, more than half were Germans. They vai^a°°^^' were a gregarious, industrious people. They had been sc^Jteh"^' little accustomed in their European past to the kind EugUsh. q£ freedom which they enjoyed in the American wilds. They brought with them to the New World the homely life of the Old. Their existence was invested with a certain pictur- esqueness of light and shade, in the broidery which the modern student calls folk-lore. It rendered them superstitious rather than imaginative. Franklin could give them no more attrac- tive name than " Palatine boors," for they had mainly come from the Palatinate. As compared with the English and Scotch, they had little of that adventurous hardihood which subdues the earth under all conditions. The Scotch particularly had been far less soli- citous about the soil they sought. Boswell tells us that when Arthur Lee once spoke of a colony of Scotch in Virginia, who had settled upon a sterile tract, Dr. Johnson assured him that the Scotch would not know the land to be barren. If the Germans had better instincts as agriculturists, they were far less prompt to defend their lands than their Scotch neighbors. Sharpe of Maryland said they were too apathetic to bestir themselves against an enemy, unless war was at their very doors. As settlers, therefore, side by side with the Scotch-Irish, the confused mixture of blood formed an incongruous commu- nity when to the German phlegm was added the passionate temper and immovable prejudice of the Celt. This ethnic in- compatibility had indeed become so obvious, that of late those DINWIDDIE. 339 who controlled the settling immigrants in the province had en- deavored to keep the Teutonic element as much as possible in the east, letting the more active Scotch-Irish appropriate the country toward the west. There were political considerations also which obtruded upon the prudent, when it was considered what violent German haters of papists the Scotch were, and what unbending anl^the*'^ sectaries the German Catholics were. Dinwiddle, a ^'^™'='»- Scot himself, expressed solicitude at this influx of German Cath- olics, and Franklin discloses a prevalent fear when he says : "The French, who watch all advantages, are now themselves making a German settlement back of us in the Illinois country, and by means of these Germans they may in time come to an understanding with ours ; and indeed, in the last war, our Germans showed a general disposition that seemed to bode us no good." At Fredericton, on the Maryland frontier, a Ger- man colony had been recently increased by many French from Alsace and Lorraine, not without raising a suspicion that some of them taken prisoners by the French from the Ohio would prove useful to the foe as informers and spies upon the English. In fact, there had already begun to be the apprehension, which Burke later expresses, that Pennsylvania at least might be eventually lost to the English by the vast preponderance of its alien races. It had been a condition of Washington's capitulation at Fort Necessity that the English would not for a year erect T ./t 1 ^1 . Dinwiddie any buildings on the western slope oi the mountains, and the Dinwiddie, with the same blunt indifference to obliga- tions which made him abandon the hostages which Washington gave, had no intention to abide by such terms. His self-will was gi-eater when he heard by rumor that the French intended to build forts on the Greenbrier, Holston, and New rivers in what is now eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. The story went that they intended to bring up for this purpose a force from the Mississippi. Sharpe had heard similar reports, and was transmitting them to Calvert, his English master. All this served to irritate Dinwiddie, and he gave his House of Bur- gesses a touch of his spleen when he prorogued them on Sep- tember 5. " I thank God," he said, " I have never before 340 THE ANXIETY AND PLANS OF 1754. had to do with such wrong-headed people." The fact was, they had pointedly foiled him in some of his plans, particularly in refusing to support parties of observation, which the governor had wished to send toward Duquesne, so as to be ready for prompt action in the spring, before Contrecoeur could be rein- forced. Dinwiddle, though of a stubborn and rather narrow nature, was by no means destitute of prevision, and had a clear percep- tion of what the maintenance of English power on the Ohio demanded. While he was endeavoring to force or cajole his assembly into action, he was communicating with De Lancey of New York, and with no very clear sense of the geographi- cal possibilities, was expecting him to prevent relief j)arties of the French passing Oswego. Tiirning to his nearer neighbor, Sharpe of Maryland, he urged him to occupy one of the moun- tain passes and stand ready at that point to push a force into the valley at a moment to be agreed upon. It was Sharjoe's be- lief that the weather would prevent the French reinforcement reaching Contrecoeur before the beginning of April, and that to secure a pass was about all that could be done. Croghan had already reported on the information of an Indian that re- cruits were even thus early coming to Fort Duquense at the rate of two hundred a day. " This Indian is to be believed, if there can be any credit given to what an Indian says," was Croghan' s assurance. As the autumn advanced (1754), the feeling improved. A Western ^^^ families at Draper's Meadows — the modern Av°t^mn°*^' Smithfield — had ventured to push forward and settle 1754. west of New River. The House of Burgesses in Octo- ber voted X20,000, and Dinwiddle took courage. Sharpe was besrinnino- also to take heart. He even cherished a scheme of a winter attack on Duquesne, with the hope of seizing an island near by and fortifying it as a base for further operations in the spring. The stories which he heard of the French intention of harrying the frontier during the winter made him more eager. In December, he wrote to Dinwiddie that eleven hundred French and seventy Adirondacks were already at Duquesne, while a force said to nmnber four hundred French and two hundred Caughnawagas and Ottawas were preparing to join them. He had also heard that three hundred French families were taking THE HALF-KING. 341 home lots among the Twightwees at the remoter end of Lake Erie. The governor of Pennsylvania was repeating similar stories to his assembly, hoping thereby to lift them from their apathy. The entire force of French now available for the next campaign was thought to be two thousand, white and red. With such stories the public mind was filled. But the Quaker and German elements in Pennsylvania listened with little emotion, and the assembly, or at least some part of it, dared to inquire if the Indians did not own this territory, which they were asked to protect. At least, they said, it concerned the king and not them, for the Board of Trade map showed that it was beyond their charter bounds. The signs of a violent rupture with the Delawares, Shawnees, and Munseys were becoming apparent. We possess Rupture with in Charles Thomson's Enquiry a dispassionate contem- t^^e Indians. porary account of the colonial tergiversations which had pro- voked these tribes. The friends of colonial honor cannot to-day read it with complacency, nor without a measure of sympathy with Teedyuscung, the chieftain, who was endeavoring to right the native wrongs. At this juncture, the Indian leader called the Half -King died, and the English lost in him a good Haif-King mediator. His dying was attributed to what was ^^^^' called " French witchcraft ; " but Governor Morris discredited the charge, and with good reason. The last scene occurred at Paxton on October 4, 1754, and Croghan was soon recording that he was endeavoring " to wipe away the Indian tears by presents to the amount of £20." Governor Morris was having quite as weary a time with the Pennsylvania Assembly as Dinwiddie had had with his TT' T c • 1 • T 1 • ThePenn- burgesses. His distant iriends commiserated him. syivania Shirley wrote from Boston : " I have no leaf in my book for managing a Quaker Assembly. If I had it should be at your service." His predecessor Thomas, now at Antigua, wrote : " You must either drive the French back to their lakes or they will drive you into the sea ; and if the northern colonies do not speedily unite they will carry their point " in securing an Atlan- tic port. For years the French had longed for this T,,e French Atlantic harbor to relieve their wintry imprisonment AUantSs on the ice-bound St. Lawrence. Morris was perhaps p°''*" 342 THE ANXIETY AND PLANS OF 1754. less inclined than the neighboring governors to belittle the ob- stacles in view, for he rather credulously believed that the French had already gathered five or six thousand regulars at Duquesne. Croghan was sending him word that the and the Ohio Indians were ready to assist an English expedi- tion, but they would only do so on the English supply- ing clothing and other necessaries to their squaws and cliildren. Croghan seemed loth to believe that the dissatisfaction of the Indians was widespread ; but he was conscious that the French blandishments had done much. No doubt a part of the savage uneasiness was traceable to the backwardness of the English movements, for the Indian is taken with quick and bold deter- mination. Accordingly, Croghan urged upon the Pennsylvania authorities to draw the tribes over the mountains and settle them along the Susquehanna, where they could be more easily Conrad watchcd and supported. Conrad Weiser had already Weiser. bccu Working to this end among the Ohio Indians, and had counseled them to settle at Aughwick, east of the divide. He quickly formulated for the governor a speech in which the sav- ages were told that " after the king of Great Britain had tried all fair means to remove the French from their Ohio forts, he would take his foes by the arm and fling them across the lake where they came from." In December (1754), notwithstanding a speech " calculated to rouse his assembly from their supineness," Mor- Pennsylva- . _^. .ti*. ■, iii nia votes ns wrotc to Dmwiddic that he had not been able to induce them to vote a single farthing ; but within ten days he adds a postscript, to say that the legislature had at last voted <£5000 " to help his Majesty's forces." Farther south, the governor of North Carolina was waxing North caro- Warm in his dealings with his assembly. He told "°^" them that the French, being unable in Europe to over- power the House of Austria, had turned to America in the hopes of dividing its magnificent spaces with Spain for the benefit of the House of Bourbon. He had much to say of " hellish missionaries " stirring up the Indians ; of the seizing of strategic points on the Ohio and Mississippi, and of " schemes hatched in hell and supported by the court of Rome." He ended by an appeal to the colonies to unite and drive their foes to " inhospitable Canada and the hot sands of Louisiana." THE CONGRESS OF ALBANY. 343 Early in the summer of 1754, it was hoped that a movement had been inaugurated which woukl have brought a Hopes of more confident spirit to grace the closing year. This Engii"?.*^* was to follow the fruition of a scheme for unitina: the <=°^°'"e8- English colonies in a political bond. For a long time, schemes of imion had been in the air, and they embodied a general pro- pitiation of the Indians and a combination to check the French. The proposers generally had small thought of the effect which such a union might have on the mother country, but the home government could hardly be counted upon for a like indifference. To manage the Indians as the custom went required money and the practice of some virtues, with a due appor- tionment of the vices of deceit and cajolery. Neither ment of the French nor English lacked in a selfish emulation in these respects. Governor Osborne of New York had, in 1753, brought over from England thirty silver medals, showing the stolid head of George III. By using these to decorate the lead- ing chiefs of the Iroquois and remoter tribes, it was hoped to appease them. There was need of this, especially among the Onondagas and Senecas, whom the French were craftily en- ticing. On the other hand, Duquesne and Piquet were by no means sure of all the vagrants who had sought the mission of La Presentation, since among the seeming neophytes they much suspected there were spies of the English. In the autumn of 1753, the governor of New York had received a circular from the home government, directing him ^ congress to call a meeting of commissioners fi'om the several *^^'®^' colonies at Albany to take existing affairs under consideration. Governor Shirley of Massachusetts had come back Governor from Europe after his futile services in Paris in try- ^'"''^^y- ing to settle differences with the French. He had brought with him a young Catholic wife, daughter of his landlady in Paris, to introduce her with considerable hazard into the conservative social circles of Boston. This town had, indeed, lost a good deal of its Puritanic rigor, but it had gained little in admiration of " French Papists," There was some fear that Shirley's ad- herence to Protestant and English views might prove to be somewhat weakened. It did not take long, it proved, to dispel the suspicion, and it seems to have been at Shirley's instigation 344 THE ANXIETY AND PLANS OF 175^. that these orders for the Albany convocation were issued. Among the colonists there grew a prevalent opinion that if any union was consummated, Shirley was the fittest man to preside over it. The meeting was fixed for June 14, 1754, but it was the 19th The con- bcforc the delegates assembled. They came from Aibln^* New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Con- june, 1754. ^ecticut, Ncw York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Conspicuous among them was William Johnson of New York, whose success in dealing with the Indians was everywhere recog- nized. Not less influential was Thomas Hutchinson of Massa- chusetts, a stickler for the royal prerogative, but who deserved well of his province for having led it out of the sloughs of an irredeemable paper currency. Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island and Roger Wolcott of Connecticut were men of mark. Most conspicuous of all, however, was Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. The questions before them were manifold, and that of concili- Questions atiug the Indians was to many minds paramount. The considered. Lords of Trade had not long before administered a rebuke to the New York Assembly for its neglect of oppor- tunities to this end. This neglect was now showing fruits in the unamiable mood which the assembled Indians evinced. Promises had been given out that there would be a distribution of gifts, which was usually sure to increase the savage follow- ing in case of conferences. The announcement, however, had had no very marked effect at this time, and the commissioners reckoned it a "melancholy consideration " that scarce a hundred and fifty Indians appeared. But there was a conspicuous chief- tain among them in Hendrick the Mohawk, whose eloquence made a mark. " You have thrown us behind your backs," said the savage to the assembly, " and disregard us, whereas the thTMohawk Frcuch are a subtle and vigilant people, ever using ^eech-^"^ their utmost endeavor to seduce our people." The ma ers. Mohawk spokcsmau tavinted the English with not get- ting new permissions to build in the Indian territory, as they had done when they built their trading-house at Oswego. He told them they were women in not preparing, like the French, for the inevitable war. ^•^'i-'^^'^^' [From Charles Thomson's Enquiry, etc.] 346 THE ANXIETY AND PLANS OF 1754. Other chiefs did not avoid a plain truth when they charged the traders at Albany with selling powder and ball to the French, to be used against the English and their Indian allies on the Ohio. The traders at Oswego, they further alleged, were supplying the Montreal merchants with goods to sell to the remoter tribes. These allegations were truer than the Eng- lish would acknowledge. Nor would they allow that the lands wrested by jjrofessed treaty from the Shawnees and Delawares were attained by artifice, and without the knowledge of the tribes on the soil. This violated territory lay westward of a line running from Shamokin — the forks of the Susquehanna — in a northwest by north direction to Lake Erie. It was thus the intention of the buyers to secure an Indian fee in what remained unpur- chased of the charter limits of Pennsylvania, though no consid- eration was to be given till it was taken up by settlements, section by section. The grant was made under deceit and pressure by unauthorized representatives of the Six Nations, and covered lands to which other tribes had a better right. The Disputed fraud was so transparent that the Iroquois Grand land titles. (Jouucil at Ououdaga refused to confirm it. This injus- tice had led to the confederated movement under Teedyuscung, and Johnson urged that nothing short of a revocation of the claim could assuage the savage irritation at the despoilment. This was complicated with other claims, by which Connecticut Connecticut bccamc the rival of Pennsylvania under her sea-to-sea claims. charter, as against the interposed grant to William Penn. To a similar interposed grant to the Duke of York, Connecticut had bowed without much difficulty ; but she had, in 1753, chartered the Susquehanna Company, with seven hun- dred members, mostly her own people. They were to take possession of the Wyoming lands within the Pennsylvania lim- its, but not as yet occupied by that province. Governor Ham- ilton had made a protest to the governor of Connecticut, and had asked Johnson to interfere, when it became evident that the agents of the Susquehanna Company were going to take advantage of the assembly of tribes at Albany to consummate a purchase of the Indian title. These agents succeeded in get- ting the Indians to sign a cession on July 11, and if the Penn- sylvania representatives are to be believed, it was done by mak- FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 347 ius: the grantors drunk, an act not more nefarious than some of their own performances when the Quaker province, or its mas- ters, coveted the Indian lands. This transfer, the ground of long litigation between the two claimants, included the Wyo- ming valley, and extended westward to the sources of the Alle- ghany, and stretched from latitude 41° to 42°. Thus the Indian problem, by the cupidity of distant Con- necticut, was becoming more embarrassing on the Ohio, through the forced immigration of the Pennsylvania Indians over the eastern barrier of the Great Valley. The settling of the vexed question of the relations with the savages was closely connected with that other prob- union of lem which the conference was more confidently ex- coiontel"*^ pected to solve, and this was the presenting of an p'^°p°^«"^- indomitable front to the French by the banding together of the Atlantic colonies. It is not easy to reach a positive conclusion as to the numeri- cal strength of the rivals now struggling to usurp con- j^j^^i trol of a continent. It is certain that the French- p°p"1^«°°«- were far more homogeneous ; in fact, they were almost perfectly so. The English colonies, on the other hand, had been the refuge of the hunted Huguenot and the down-trodden German. There were few of the uneasy hordes of Europe which had not sent over their discontents. It is probable that the popidation of the Atlantic slope subject to the British monarch reached some twelve or thirteen hundred thousand, and possibly it may have reached a million and a half. The French, in all their posts and settlements from Acadia to the Mexican gulf, num- bered not over ninety thousand, perhaps not more than eighty, of which there may have been twenty-five thousand too far distant from the Ohio country to be of much account in the struggle. These remoter settlements were near the St. Law- rence and Mexican gidfs. With this great disparity between the two peoples, the French had relied on a unity of organization and celerity of movement to make them oftener than otherwise, in the past, superior to their rivals. To offset this, the English had found the alliance of the Indians not always sure, and sometimes treacherous. The last resort was to make a combination of power which could be 348 THE ANXIETY AND PLANS OF 175^. wielded witli something of the singleness of purpose which had so long served the French. Franklin easily led the deliberations of the congress in this Frankiia's Tcspect. He did not decry the English rights under theTon^^ '° their sea-to-sea charters ; but he saw the practical gress. disadvantages of these illimitable western extensions with a comparatively contracted front on the coast. The shape of these colonies, he said, was " inconvenient for the common purposes of government," and he urged that the Alleghanies be accepted at once as the western bounds of the existing colonies. He urges the This was to pavc the way for new colonies to be set barrie"^ *'^ up as military barriers beyond the mountains, — bul- coiomes. warks, indeed, against the French. He had first learned in Boston, thirty years before, how to use the press in fashion- ing public opinion, and it served him now. He advocated in a pamphlet the planting of one of these colonies on Lake Erie, Pownaii's ^^^ t^6 other on the Ohio. Governor Pownall's views, views. g^g later developed, were much the same in spirit ; but while he centred the western defense in a single colony, — pre- ferably an Indian one dependent on the English, — he urged a second on the upper Connecticut as needful for the protection of New England. But Franklin's desire for a double colony to the west was to make them converge like a wedge, and cleave the French cordon of posts which united Canada and the Mis- sissippi. Of these two barrier colonies, he would have the one on Lake Erie depend for supplies on Pennsylvania by the passes to the Alleghany River, while the other, on the Ohio near the Scioto, would naturally maintain its communications by the Kanawha with Virginia. The scheme also involved a good fort at Niagara and a flotilla on the Lakes, so as to maintain an ingress by the Iroquois country. The evil of allowing the French to succeed in their plans Franklin's appealed to Franklin strongly on the social side. He views. could but think that developed French colonies over the mountains would be sure to offer an asylum to outcasts and runaway servants from the English, and inci"ease an inim- ical and neighboring population. He wrote to Whitefield that he hoped he might be able, if his plan succeeded, to settle a religious and industrious people in these colonial outposts, RESULTS OF THE CONGRESS. 349 and to bring a new and healthy influenee upon the Indians. The packmen, he contended, had so far proved a vicious company, and demoralized the tribes by carrying as servants into the wilderness a multitude of transported Irish and other convicts. Not much that was better coiUd be said of and fron- many of the frontiersmen in their isolated cabins. tiersuen. It was apparent that Franklin's plan of barrier colonies promised more effective administration than any other Franklin's yet advanced. A scheme which Archibald Kennedy p°a^ns ccm- had suggested in 1752 was deficient in concentrated *''^^*®'^- force. He would have allotment of the over-mountain lands made by established proportions among the existing colonies. He proposed to lay out the territory in townships after the New England pattern. They were to be large enough to sup- port sixty families each, with occasional forts for protection, while the Indian trade should be regulated by a general au- thority. But all such western combinations were necessarily subordinated to a comprehensive plan, by which the entire Atlantic seaboard could act in harmony for military results. Dinwiddle was in favor of two unions, one at the north, the other at the south. Few, however, could see that the protec- tion of western pioneers coald be so well assured by any sever- ance of the colonies as by some grand union of them all. Franklin's ideas on the whole prevailed, and the proposed union gave its government the power to regulate the Indian trade ; to buy for the crown all lands not within the bounds of estab- lished colonies, " or that shall not be within their bounds when some of them are reduced to more convenient dimensions ; " to make new settlements on such lands by grants in the king's name, reserving a quit-rent to the crown for the general treas- ury ; and to make statutes for such settlements till the crown shall form them into particular governments. Protracted sessions of the congress brought about at last a unanimous acceptance of these measures, though there was undoubted lukewarmness on the part of some of the members, particvilarly those of Connecticut. The document was finally signed on July 4, 1754, just at a date when Washington, under the capitulation of Fort Necessitv, was withdrawinsf the English flas; from the agreed upon, ■^. , . ^ July 4, 1754, very territory they were seeking to preserve. 350 THE ANXIETY AND PLANS OF 1754. The members went to their respective homes, and submitted but finaUy *^® measure to their several assemblies. Every colony coioi^es aud I'^jected it. De Lancey sent it to the Lords of Trade, king. ^jjQ \^[^ j^^ October 29, befoi'e the king, without com- ment. Here, also, it was rejected. The colonial assemblies thought that the commissioners had failed in making a strong union, and had erred in placing the royal prerogative in suffi- cient subordination. The king in council thought the union ominously powerful, and that the plan boded no good for the royal authority. The prerogative party in the colonies found a spokesman in Governor Morris, who wrote to the Earl of Hali- fax : " The plan is very inadequate, and his Majesty and minis- ters were to have less power in the united legislature than they have in the several separate ones, which might answer some purposes here, but would not have answered the ends of govern- ment, or at all contributed to have kept these provinces in that dependence upon the mother country, so necessary for the inter- ests of both." So no one in the end profited by the labor of the congress. Those who were prophetic might discern that it harbingered those other and more directly fateful convocations of 1765 and 1774. Franklin took the failure characteristically : " The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan makes me suspect it was really the true medium." The king, in rejecting the plan, had in fact stood for English rather than colonial interests. Franklin told the truth bluntly, eleven years later, when he underwent his examination before the Stamp Act Franklin's . . _^ . ,, , later testi- committec. " As to the Ohio, he said, " the contest began there about your right of trading in the Indian country, a right you had by the treaty of Utrecht, which the French infringed. They seized the traders and their goods, which were your manufactures. They took a fort which a company of your merchants and their factors and correspond- ents [Dinwiddie acted under orders from England] had erected there to secure that trade. . . . The trade with the Indians, though carried on in America, is not an American interest. It is a British interest, carried on with British manufactures, for the profit of British merchants and manufacturers. Therefore the war, commenced for the defense of a territory of the crown THE ALBANY PLAN. 351 [Nova Scotia] and for the defense of a trade purely British, was really a British war." Nevertheless, the colonists were the principal sufferers, and this rejection of the Albany plan preserved to their Advantage to enemies their old advantage. The French still stood "y^^'^^^ec^ their former chances of brightening- the Indian chain *'°°" of friendship and severing the English rope of sand. The set- back did not diminish Franklin's hope that the destinies of North America were yet to be settled by an English-speaking people, and the question was now to be solved over the moun- tains in efforts to hold and pass beyond, in military array, the two chief eastern portals of the Great Valley. CHAPTER XVII. THE ALLEGHANY PORTALS. 1755. In a paper which William Johnson laid before the Albany Johnson's congress, he had hinted at a more systematic use of u^g^the t^® S^^ Nations in thwarting the French schemes. Iroquois. jjg ^g^g jjQ^ skillful at composition, and one is some- what puzzled at his lack of precision. His plan was to possess their counsel and interests in the completest manner by plant- ing military posts everywhere among them. He advised par- ticularly making the most of the advantages which the English already had at Oswego, as a place of watch and ward. It was here, too, that the English could easiest subject the Iro- quois and the more distant tribes to the influence of gifts. He counted upon what he felt sure was the fact, namely, that the tribes preferred to have the English rather than the French obtain a footing in the Ohio coimtry ; and that the Senecas and Onondagas were most likely to be approached by the French agents, and should be overawed in the first instance by forts placed among them. As opportunity offered, he con- tended that the English supervision should be pushed toward Detroit. When it became evident, toward autumn, that the plan of A campaign uuiou deviscd at Albany was to be set aside, there expected. ^^^g little chancc for cautionary provisions to take new forms before a rumor came over the sea that the govern- ment had made up its mind to strike some sort of a blow, with two regiments of regulars that were to be ordered from Ireland to America. It was very likely now that measures more active and comprehensive than Johnson had outlined were to consti- tute the plan for a new campaign. Dinwiddle, when he heard these reports, was quite as much THE TRADERS. 353 perplexed to provide for this royal force, in victualing and transportation, as he had been with his assembly's apathy. His neighbor, Governor Sharpe, who had had a sort of transient leadership in military matters, was by no means certain that regidar troops could be trusted in a forest campaign, with such adept woodsmen on the other side as the French* possessed. Besides, there was evident uneasiness among the fron- Temper of tier savages, and no one could say what they aimed at. *^® savages. The French custom of buying prisoners from the Indians made hunting the English quite as exciting as, and more profitable than, chasing game. The bad faith of the Pennsylvanians in their treaties was, in Johnson's opinion, accountable in part for the savage vindictiveness. Conrad Weiser, who was not a bad judge of the Indian temper, did not share the apprehension of Johnson, and he felt certain that the French could not com- mand entire obedience from the tribes when the outbreak came. If the French on the Ohio were to encounter any such treachery from the natives, the English had had their share of perfidy in the Acadians, a race far removed from that guileless simplicity which attracts the poet's verse. Still, as ever, the French could be trusted in the trial of blan- dishments. " The American strength of France," says an Eng- lish observer of the time, "compared with ours, is quite con- temptible in all respects but one, and that is the wisdom and prudence with which it is directed." It is very clear that the French had a marked advantage in the far French greater loyalty of their backwoods traders, and we encounter in the contemporary reports of the French officials but few instances of distrust of their packmen, lest they convey intelligence to the enemy. Dinwiddle was quite sure the English plans were sometimes betrayed by the English traders ; and Sharpe was as confident that the colonies could not be depended upon to garrison the forks of the Ohio, if they should be retaken. The reason of his distrust was that the average provincial felt that any success against the French in- ured to the benefit of the British merchant rather than to the interests of his own life. So, with the failure at Albany, and with the environment of distrust and solicitude, the new year (1755) came on. The 354 THE ALLEGHANY PORTALS. Shawnees were active along the border, and it became necessary to make a show at least of vigilance, if the contagion neesraid of their temerity was not to spread to the Susque- the borders. , i oi i i hanna and ohenandoah. Dinwiddie accordingly dispatched Major Andrew Lewis, with a force composed partly of rangers and partly of Cherokees, to patrol the frontiers. For this and other service the Virginia burgesses had, as we have seen, made a grant the preceding October. No other assembly was as active, and what Pennsyl- vania did a little later depended on the exertions of Franklin. Authority had come for raising two American regiments in Shirley's ^^^® crown's pay, but as the colonels designated were perreii'^'s Shirley and Pepperrell, both carrying after ten years regiments. ^]-^g laurcls of Louisbourg, it was likely the recruiting would have to be done in New England. The most that Din- widdie could hope was that these Koyal Americans would be used in a diversion from the north toward Canada, so as to prevent any large reinforcement being sent to Duquesne. The tidings which reached Virginia from the south were not Carolina ^^ hclpful. Govcmor Glcu of Carolina was looking threatened. ^^^ j^q^ work aloiig liis owu frontiers, and told Din- widdie that the attack on Virginia would be a feint, while the greater force of the enemy would ascend the Tennessee and overrun Carolina. Dinwiddie felt he needed all the help he could get, if Contrecceur had, as he supposed, already assembled sixteen hundred men at the forks. During January (1755), it became known in Virginia that Braddock to General Edward Brad dock, who had received his command. instructious in November, had been selected for the American command. At the time that this intelligence was fresh in Virginia, Braddock's ship was leaving the English coast. The two cabinets on each side of the English andEnghsh Channel had been trying to find out each what the other really meant behind the outward craft which cloaked their designs. A certain Irish medical man, settled in London, probed, as it proved, the cabinet secrets in London bet- ter for France than any one could do in Paris for the English ministry. It was professed that Braddock had no purpose to be hostile in America unless attacked. The French were likewise equipping an armament for equally innocent ends, as was rep- BRADDOCK'S CAMPAIGN. 355 I'esented. It was the real purpose of the French to gain as much time as they could, and so they shuffled in diplomatic phrases. Just at the time when Braddock was landing at Hampton in Virginia, Machaidt was writing to Duquesne that the French king was persuaded the English did not intend to come to a rupture, but if they did attack, it would be on the Ohio. The Canadian governor was warned to be prepared to repel force by force, but not to strike the invader until he had been sum- moned. Further reinforcement with Bigot and Vaudreuil would not be long behind. Before the end of March, Braddock's two regiments had joined him, and their movements were begun. Din- widdie and Sharpe had already got the campaign plan of 1 ici' T ^ • ^ ' .. -»y. campaign. planned tor him, and their objective jioint was JNiagara, certainly for the French the best entrance to the Ohio country. Fort Duquesne was to fall as a matter of course, and then Braddock was to advance up the Alleghany, take the forts on the way to Presqu' Isle, and proceed to Niagara. Thence he was to skirt Ontario to Oswego, where Shirley and Pepperrell were to join him in an advance on Crown Point. But Braddock was determined to parcel out the glory rather than monopolize it. In order to arrange some concerted action, he summoned on March 10 a meeting of the colonial governors. Dinwiddie, meanwhile, was trying to enlist the Indians, j,^^ Indians and Braddock himself wrote to Morris of Pennsylva- '^"•'^used. nia, in the hopes that the tribes in that province who had lived on the Ohio would consent to join him. The southern Indians proved averse to joining the expedition, and Dinwiddie charged their defection upon French emissaries, though not unlikely they shared Governor Glen's apprehension of raids upon their own territory. It curiously happened that Dinwiddle's effort to enlist such aid, coming to the knowledge of the Six Nations, they also held back, and gave for a reason the fear of awaking broils with their old southern enemies, if they embarked on the same campaign with them. So it seemed likely that Braddock was not to profit much, if at all, by the Indian aid. It has been affirmed that he showed that he despised their assistance, and so alienated them. That he put little dependence on them was very likely true, but he certainly endeavored to do his best to placate them, though he had little success. The few who joined 356 THE ALLEGHANY PORTALS. him stole away when he wanted them most. " One needs the patience of an angel to get on with them," he said, and the historical student who to-day tries to fathom their natures in the wearisome records of Indian councils which he finds, for instance, in the Pennsylvania Archives^ may well wonder if anybody who treated with them had any patience left. Un- foi"tunately one cannot have a much better opinion of the whites with whom the Indians dealt. It was on April 14 that the governors met the English gen- eral at Alexandria. The outcome of their deliberation was a plan to give simultaneous alarm at all the points which Dinwid- dle and Sharpe had wished to attack in succession. Braddock was to march upon Duquesne, Shirlej'^ upon Niagara, and Johnson upon Crown Point, while New England was to keep the Acadians too busy for them to afford any help farther west. If all went well, it was thought not unlikely that Braddock, meeting Shirley and Pepperrell at Niagara, would be able to go to Johnson's assistance if it was needed. The character of Braddock, moulded by more than forty Braddock's years' servicc in the Coldstream Guai-ds, was hardly character. suited to the environments of the wilderness. He was only lately become a major-general, having been gazetted a few months before he was assigned to the American field. Those who knew him best never doubted his courage or his routine skill as a soldier, but they knew him to be desperately immoral, easily brutal, and obstinate in his opinions. A variety of wit- nesses of his disposition have left us the mosaics of his charac- ter. Walpole and Mistress Bellamy gossip about him as they knew him in England. Shirley, his secretary, had no admira- tion for him. Washington saw his failings. Franklin thought him disqualified for his task. The Virginians found him impe- rious, and thought him little open to the experience of woods- men. He somehow easily wounded the sensibilities of the colo- nists, and it was found difficult, with such a man in command, to hold the English in the Virginia regiment to the coming task. They did not see with complacency " raw, surly, and tyrannical Scots," who were creatures of Braddock, taking the places which belonged to them. Maury evidently refers to Braddock when he speaks of the rudeness and insolence of an officer of rank which were not resented because of the common cause. BRADDOCK'S CAMPAIGN. 357 There was certainly much in what Braddock had to encoun- ter to disgust an officer accustomed, as he was, to rigid disci- pline and accountability, and it should serve in some degree to exculpate him. lie could ill brook any comparison of the fron- tier ranger with his redcoats. The refusal of the Pennsylva- nians to make his efforts easier was very trying, and he would doubtless have been hardly better satisfied with Ncav Eng- land men, who seemed at a distance to be his ideal of what provincials should be. It has been the custom of American writers to charge the dreadful miscarriage of the campaign upon this haughty and untactful general, and he very likely de- serves a large share of the blame. Kingsford, the latest and best Canadian historian, has pushed his defense of Braddock as far as it will bear, if not farther, in denying that he alienated the Indians, and in insisting that the regulars behaved as well in the fight as the Virginians. In Pennsylvania the Quakers and Germans united to defeat all measures that would sustain the alien general, and it was only the personal exertions of Franklin, in ma and the gathering pack-horses and wagons, that produced any assistance at all. In May, 1755, Contrecceur had completed the defense of Duquesne. He had made a log fort, with walls sixteen feet thick. Trunks of trees were placed transversely, at du- with a parapet above. A ditch lined the walls where *^"^*°®' the confluent streams did not protect it. Braddock was now at Will's Creek on the Potomac. Wash- ington had joined him (May 16) on a special invita- tion to act as aide. The Virginia Assembly had at wm-s last been brought to regard the support of the cam- paign as incumbent on them as Britons. Here at Fort Cumberland the route to be pursued became a question. Early in the year, the governor of Penn- Braddock's sylvania had directed the survey of a road over the '°"'^' western mountains of that province ; but it jjrogressed slowly, and was finally stopped when Braddock no longer needed it. It was an easier route than that to the Mononjrahela, and throusfh a country affording better supplies ; but other reasons prevailed, and the passage to the Youghiogheny, which Washington had ^ SO . . . oa p cq P.CO 9 S "m .2 03 a „HrlO S 'rt ■§ .fa . . ^ £ .fe o " ,C ^"^ mI^^-S S) ^ S fl . o .9 a ^ J S 05 'p .= 3 gW rt eiawares. fiendish fury from hamlet to hamlet. Andrew Montour was sent to the Great Island on the west branch of the Susque- hanna to appease the Indians, and forestall the French in their evident purpose to seize Shamokin (now Sunbury) and make it the centre of French influence in this region. Conrad Weiser had his scouts out to watch their movements, and at one time he reported that with their French allies, not less devilish than they, fifteen hundred savages were pouring upon the side valleys along the Juniata and the west branches of the Susquehanna. Among the Mohawks, Johnson was endeavoring to ^he iro- make the Iroquois maintain their supremacy over 'i""'^' these Alleghany tribes and check their incursions, but with little 366 THE ALLEGHANY PORTALS. success ; nor was he more prosperous in trying to make the ren- egade neophytes at Caughnawaga remain neutral. The protection of the border in Pennsylvania was much com- plicated by an untimely quarrel of the assembly with p^nnsyiva^ the Proprietaries of the province. These grandsons ^^' of William Penn had few of his winning traits. The peaceful tenets of the Quakers were also hard to overcome. " There is so great a majority of Quakers in the house," wrote Governor Morris, " that no warlike preparations are to be ex- pected from them, being, as they pretend, contrary to their prin- ciples ; " and it seemed for a while as if the Scotch-Irish and the Germans among them, who constituted the adventurous settlers of the west, were to be left to their fate by the sluggish Quakers of the east. Franklin suspected " that the defense of The Quaker ^hc couutry was uot disagrccablc to any of them, pro- eiement. yidcd tlicy wcrc uot required to assist in it." He gives us an amusing instance of the way in which they finally con- sented to participate in the common zeal, by voting allowances " for wheat and other grain," whose kernels they expected to be interpreted to mean powder. As matters grew worse, the assem- bly was at last induced to grant, " as aid to the crown," an appro- priation of fifty thousand pounds to be assessed as a tax on all estates. The Proprietaries demurred, as this would with the include their own reserved territory within the prov- ince. The assembly would not retreat, and it was finally compromised by placing the Proprietaries' liability at five thousand pounds. But there was something more than money necessary, and Franklin was doing the best he could to arouse a martial spirit. In November, when even New Jersey, east of the Delaware, had become uneasy, and the mayor and j)rincipal citizens of Phila- delphia were not without apprehension, as new incursions were reported from the north, Franklin was enabled to overcome the Quaker repugnance and secure the passage in the nia militia asscuibly of a militia act of no great stringency. If any still held that the trans- Alleghany country, being the crown's, was no concern of theirs, they could agree with Franklin that now, at least, the colony itself was attacked. It was no longer a question of protecting British trade, but of the WILLFAM SHIRLEY. 3G7 preservation of tlieir own lives. They saw all this in the flocks of settlers coming into York from the distant and demoralized Cumberland County, and in the bewildered families , . , -»Tr • 1 • (• 1 • Frontier aet- whicn VV eiser was conduetmq; from over the mountains tiers driven back within the protecting lines of the inner forts. The valley of the Juniata had become almost entirely deserted. Maury tells us that it was short work in these painf id months to withdraw the border settlements a hundred and fifty miles, thus interposing a desert on the English side of the Alleghany portals. We have seen that while Braddock was following the Monon- gahela, it had been expected that along the shores of the Lakes other aggressive movements would secure an paign'at the entrance to the Ohio valley in the north. As early as January, 1755, Shirley had matured plans for attacking Crown Point and invading Canada, — a scheme which would have seriously afPected the French purpose on the Ohio. He presented this scheme to the council at Alexandria, which modified it so far as to divide the movement, Johnson undertak- ing the attack along Lake Champlain, while Shirley himself was to assault Niagara! Shirley's route lay from Albany Niagara to Schenectady, up the Mohawk by boat, making a ™^"^*=«*i- portage at Fort Stanwix to Wood's Creek. Thence he was to find his way to Oswego by the traders' route, and on the lake he was to gather a flotilla and skirt the shore to Niagara. Shirley and Johnson were at Albany when the news of Brad- dock's defeat reached them, and fearing its effect upon their own men, they tried for a while to conceal the tidings. The death of Braddock had made Shirley the ranking officer on the continent, but he did not receive his new commission till the season's work was at an end. His elevation was not fortu- nate, and Hutchinson tells us that " friends saw the Shirley's risk he was running, and wished he had contented '^^^''^'^^c'e''. himself with a civic station." His friends were wise. His career had been a striking, and in many ways a successful one, and he shared with Pepperrell the glories of Louisbourg. His diplomatic career at Paris had brought him credit, and he had been linked with his Louisbourg associate as the two native leaders for the royal American regiments. His merits, how- ever, were those of a politician, and not of a soldier. In some 368 THE ALLEGHANY PORTALS. ways he " knew how to stoop to what he understood," and he had faculties which gained the respect of Franklin, but at the same time there was a certain light air about him which Parkman calls " an element of boyishness." His career has never been adequately studied. Unfortunately, he and Johnson were not in accord, and mu- tual jealousies perplexed their common aims. Johnson His disputes , p i • ' ^1 ,i i -i i with John- spokc oi his rival s " causeless jealousy and unmer- ited resentment," and wrote bitter complaints to the Lords of Trade. On the whole, Shirley, who had pushed John- son into the paths of military glory, secures our sympathy in the quarrel, though he was less prudent than usual in inter- andDe fcriug with Johuson's power as superintendent of Lancey. ^j^g Indians. De Lancey, a politician of a type pro- duced by evil days, did also what he could to embitter Shirley's existence. It was in March (1755) that the English government an- French and Qounced in Parliament that a French war was inevita- pr"e|arations ^^^' I* ^^^ Icamcd that the French were equipping for war, g^ large naval force at Brest and Rochelle, and that an attendant fleet of transports was to carry an army under Dies- kau to Quebec. It mattered little that the two countries were preserving the formal intercourse of peace, and on April 27, Admiral Boscawen, possessed of an understanding of the cabi- net's wishes, rather than committed to instructions, put to sea in order to intercept the French armament. A week later (May 3), the French fleet was on its way, taking not only the new gen- eral, but a new governor, Vaudreuil, to succeed Duquesne. Two only of the French ships fell into Boscawen's hands. Conse- quently, by June 19, the safe arrival of the rest of the fleet added three thousand French regidars to the thousand already at Quebec. This made a pretty effective addition to the eight thousand militia which Canada was drilling for the campaign. During the spring, Johnson was doing the best he could to hold the Iroquois steady in their allegiance, and no and the doubt Spending wisely the ten thousand pounds with roquois. -^yhich hc had been intrusted for that purpose. In this business he was at his best, and his twenty years in the Mohawk country looking after the landed interests of his uncle, BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE. 369 Sir Peter Warren, — the same who commanded the fleet that helped Pepperrell at Louisbom-g, — had thoroughly schooled him in the arts o£ Indian diplomacy. During the summer at Albany, he had been busy organizing the forces which he was to lead against Crown Point. General Phineas Lyman, of Connecticut, his second Point expe- in command, had built a fort at the carrying place towards the lake, and this post was made the base of opera- tions. There were among Johnson's other trusted lieutenants not a few who were later famous in this and the Revolution- ary war, — Israel Putnam, John Stark, Seth Pomeroy, and Ephraim Williams among them. Dieskau moved up Lake Champlain, and was preparing to attack the fort which Lyman had built. It was now Septem- ber (1755), and the impending struggle was to decide if the English were to be driven back to Schenectady and Albany by a disaster equal to that by which they had recoiled to Fort Cumberland on the Potomac. Hendricks, the Mohawk, and Williams, the founder of the college of that name, were in command of a flying camp, watch- ing the French advance. The French planned an ambush and enticed this too unwary body into it. The suffering of the de- ceived party was for a while much like that which Braddock had experienced on the Monongahela, ♦but a vigilant woods- man, Nathan Whiting of Connecticut, finally extricated the English, after Williams and the friendly chief had fallen. Whiting did more, for he managed to keep the eager foe suffi- ciently long in restraint for Johnson, who was near the head of Lake George, to build a barricade of wagons and boats. It was in an onset against this improvised bulwark that the French general soon found his match. The re- Lake pulse was steady and vigorous. Johnson was early wounded and borne fi-om the field. Lyman, who succeeded to the command, turned the repulse into a rout. Dieskau was left on the field sorely but not mortally wounded, but the great body of his troops managed to fly beyond pursuit. Johnson's opportunity was to have permitted so good a leader as Lyman had proved himself to be to deal a finishing joh^son and stroke by advancing upon the disorganized fugitives, ^y™''"- Perhaps he turned from the chance through something like 370 THE ALLEGHANY PORTALS. that jealousy which he saw so readily in Shirley. Lyman's friends long contended that it was a base spirit in Johnson which prompted him later to take Lyman's name from the defensive works which the Connecticut soldier had built, and bestow upon it that of Fort Edward. Johnson's friends assert that it was more prudent for him to give over a pursuit and fortify the head of the lake by building what became known as Fort William Henry. This defense was placed so as to guard what Johnson now rechristened Lake George, after the English king, an appellation which easily supplanted the original name given by the French. Here, on September 11, he held a conference with the In- dians, and for some weeks he was busy with these holds a interviews, giving time for the French to strengthen September' thcmselvcs at Ticoudcroga. The two armies were thus 11 1755. . . left facing each other in intrenchments, from the opposite ends of the lake, but on November 27 Johnson with- winter drcw the main part of his forces to Albany for winter quarters. quarters. The battle of Lake George, if not all that it might have Johnson a bccu, was a chccry contrast to the miserable failure baronet. near Fort Duquesne, and Johnson was the fortunate recipient of a baronetcy and a grant of five thousand pounds. Shirley's friends claimed that this money was simply subtracted from the grant which Parliament had made for the war, and so diminished the resources which could give it vigor. Meanwhile, Shirley had reaped no laurels for his military Shirley's ambition. Bi-addock's papers, taken in the fight, had failure. rcvcalcd Sliii'lcy's intended attack on Niagara, and though there were many delays in the movements of Contre- coeur, from his needless fear of Dunbar and from his intercepted communications, Shirley was so conscious that the French could effectually reinforce the point of his intended attack that he became timid. In August, he learned from spies that no troops had yet arrived at Niagara from Duquesne. He dallied at Oswego till the season of gales on the lake was impending, and on September 27 he and his council of war decided to abandon the campaign. In October, Shirley and his men were back in Albany. A DISASTROUS YEAR. 371 A hesitating action, induced very likely in part by the unsym- pathetic relations of the two northern commanders, and in- creased, it is probable, from the setback which Braddock had received, and from the dilatory support of the colonial legisla- tures, had made the year, on the whole, a disastrous The year one for the English. The French, with the aim of f^lXe""^ driving their enemies out of the two great valleys, had ^"gi'^h. practically succeeded. The little hamlet at Draper's Meadows and the posts at Lake George and Oswego still indeed remained in English hands ; but there was little hope now of barrier col- onies, and a plan which Samuel Hazard outlined, and which the Connecticut assembly fostered, of a new colony beyond the con- fines of Pennsylvania, and extending beyond the Mississippi, vanished in the air. Franklin's hopes of a Pennsylvania col- ony on Lake Erie, and a Virginia one by the Ohio, had passed into the limbo of forgotten things. The forty miles' breadth of bottom lands which lined the course of the Scioto was to be left to blossom under a new government in the next century. CHAPTER XVIII. TWO DISMAL YEARS, 1756, 1757. The year 1756 opened with the French holding the English Plans for a ^* arm's length from the sources of the Ohio. Early paign.'*'" ^^ December (1755), Shirley had been confirmed in 1756. jjjg position as commander-in-chief by the receipt of his commission. A few days later, he held a council of war at New York, and laid before it the royal instructions. These outlined a plan of campaign not greatly unlike that of the pre- vious year, which had so woefully miscarried. Troops were to be gathered at Will's Creek, to confront the force which it was supposed France would send up the Mississippi to defend Duquesne. Indeed, Franldin, who had now been commissioned to defend the frontiers of Pennsylvania, was confident that the main French purpose was to carry the war into that province. Another army was to gain Niagara and the Lakes and secure this entrance to the Ohio valley, while ships were to be built to patrol Lake Ontario. Shirley pointed out that Oswego must be held at all hazards, for he, better than those to whom he later resigned the control, understood how it was the key of the Oswego. northern route. He anticipated perfectly just what 175G. jjjj^i happen, — that its fall would push the English frontiers back upon Schenectady, if not upon Albany. To re- tain Oswego meant to Shirley an attack on Frontenac, which his displacement put off for two years. Success at Frontenac was to be followed by a movement upon Mackinac, and Shirley estimated that a force of six thousand men would carry out this part of the campaign. Half as many, with the aid of the south- ern Indians, he thought would secure Duquesne ; and another six thousand were enough to succeed at Crown Point. New England would take care of a feint upon Quebec by the Chau- diere, for which two thousand troops would suffice. The scheme was brilliant enough to animate Shirley's martial THE FRONTIERS. 373 ambition, and Governor Belcher might well hope, if it were successful, that " Canada would be rooted out." To organize such a complicated undertaking kept Shirley busy for the winter in Boston, while his old rival, Johnson, act- ing under Shirley's instructions, was endeavoring to check the Indian ravages which still continued along the Susque- hanna and the Juniata. Franklin, at the same time, Penns^yiVa^ had every occasion for his activity in pushing forward defenders and their supplies. Teedyuscung, the Delaware leader, was still defiant, and nothing that Johnson could do was able for a time to induce the Iroquois to interpose as a shield for the whites. The Senecas absolutely refused, and the Delawares were satisfied with the opportunity of unpetticoating themselves, as their Indian phraseology went. The jheDeia- spring, with its uncertainties, led the Pennsylvania ^^"^^war. government to a declaration of war, while Teedyuscung main- tained himself, both with the Six Nations and the English, in a way to show how he stood on a vantage-ground. The Pennsylvania government, despite the lukewarmness of ' the Quaker assembly, established a line of palisaded frontier posts from the Delaware to the new road which had ^°'^*^" /^ been opened to the mountains. About eight hundred men were scattered among these forts as garrisons, while patrols were kept skirring about in the interspaces. As a sort of base for these operations, a new fort was built at Shamokin, where the two main branches of the Susquehanna met. These enterprises had about used up the sixty thousand pounds raised on the credit of the province. They had also given the Delawai-es new grounds for apprehensions lest these military structures had put new liens on their territory. It was a current belief that this fresh discontent was fostered " by vile, rascally deserters, Irish Roman Catholics, who were employed by the French." Along the Potomac and south of it, Sharpe and Dinwiddle were scheming to keep up the courage of the people. The conditions were not inspiring. There was a space land and ' of two hundred miles between the tolerably settled frontiers. 1756 tidewater countiy and the scattered hamlets of a fron- tier three hundred miles in extent. Here Washington was try- ing to organize a defense against a persistent horde of invaders. 374 TWO DISMAL YEARS, 1756, 1757. He was only able to promise his i-angers and garrisons eight- pence a day against the eighteenpence which the same service received in Pennsylvania. Such a disparity of remuneration Dinwiddle's ^^^ ^^^ prcvcut Diuwiddic wishing that the Pennsyl- views. vanians would become as ardent bushfighters as his Virginians. Nevertheless, the 173,318 whites in Dinwiddie's province did far less than his zeal wished of them. He himself labored to hold the Cherokees fast in their alliance. It had long been a pet belief of the Virginian governor that a line of fortified posts from Crown Point to the Creek country was of the first importance, and he would have them built and main- tained by a tax imposed by Parliament. The Albany plan of union having failed, Pennsylvania had taken up the undertaking on her own soil, under Franklin's urgency. It had been found that the Indians had learned from the French the art of firing stockades. So Sharpe of Maryland had continued the line be- FortFred- youd Fort Cumberland by planting Fort Frederick erick. 1756. ^^ ^j^g North Mountain, near the Potomac, and spent something like a thousand pounds in making it of masonry, — not altogether without inciting charges of extravagance. There were two hundred men put in it, and an equal number of men The Virginia I'angiug bcyoud it. On the Virginia border. Wash- forts. 1756. i^o;ton had been instructed to run a line of stockaded posts, twenty or thirty miles apart, southward from Fort Din- widdie, to depend on a fortified magazine, which, during the summer, he built at Winchester. These forts were convenient rally ing-points ; but they were much too far asunder to guard the contiguous valleys from hostile depredators. In February, Dinwiddie was hoping that Shirley's plan of an advance from Fort Cumberland would be attempted. prepara-^ He was Urging Morris of Pennsylvania, now occupied with establishing his fortified barriers, to place one of them at least beyond the mountains. Washington, taking ad- vantage of a lull in the enemy's movements, had gone to Bos- ton to consult with Shirley. He was directed on his way back to confer with Morris in Philadelphia, and see if some plan of concerted action among the southern colonies could not be en- tered upon. Shirley figured out what the quota of these colo- nies would be under the schedule of 1754, and found it to be 7,284 men. Of these he thought 4,000 might, with the aid of a THE FRONTIERS. [From Pouchot's Memoire de la derniere Guerre.] 376 TWO DISMAL YEARS, 1756, 1757. thousand Cherokees be employed against Fort Duquesne, while the rest would do better service north in severing the French communications with the Ohio. Dinwiddie was at the same time urging upon the Lords of Trade his plan of fortifying the mountain passes. No peace could be had, he was sure, till the French were expelled from the Ohio, and he recommended that a Protestant colony should be maintained as a barrier on the Ohio lands. The German and Irish Roman Catholics of Pennsylvania and Maryland were seldom in his mind but as hostile aliens. It was reckoned that at this time there were twelve hundred Catholics in Pennsylvania of an age to take the sacraments. In March, Shirley had commissioned Sharpe to head an at- Attack t^ck on the forks of the Ohio, or at least to make a Du^esne? divcrsion in that direction. The movement gave Din- 1756. widdie encouragement in his despondency, for he was eager for something to be done, and yet was not confident of success. He feared that Dumas, now in charge of Duquesne, had been reinforced from the Mississippi, and some time later was reporting that a thousand men had come to its assistance from the Wabash. Still, an advance would create a diversion, which would prevent Dumas's aiding Niagara, and leave the northern task easier. Dumas was doing his best to conceal his condition by keeping his raiders busy, and Sharpe was con- stantly hearing of their pushing in between the Pennsylvania forts so as to ravage his own borders. His scouts, forty miles Indian rav- bcyoud Fort Cumberland, were encountering the enc- ages. 1756. jjiies' rangers. The savage rancor of these French Indians had already driven the pioneers back from the South Mountain, and left the German settlements exposed. This was the condition of things, with no organized movement made on the English part, when news of the fall of Oswego came in September. It was at once feared it might be the signal for a fresh advance in force from the Ohio. While these alternating scenes of trepidation and prepara- tion were following each other east of the AUeghanies, the English made two really aggressive movements beyond their passes, but neither of them effected a lodgment in the Great VaUey. KITTANNING ATTACKED. 377 In April, Andrew Lewis led a body of Virginians and Chero- kees against the Shawnee towns, two hundred and ^ , -J7-. . . . rn Lewis's ex- fiftv miles beyond the Virginia frontiers, ihe party pedition p ^ nil • 111 against the was absent for a month. Ihey experienced bad suawnees. weather, and lost their provisions in crossing a stream. In its main purpose Lewis failed of success, but he captured some vagabond French. They were supposed to be a party of the exiled Acadians, who were trying to find their way from the coast to Duquesne. On the return march, his Cherokees, weary of foot, seized some horses belonging to frontiersmen. This was viewed as an outrage, and the Indians were promptly punished, but at the risk of their alliance. Late in August, Colonel John Armstrong started from Fort Shirley with a body of Pennsylvanians, and crossing Armstrong the mountains fell upon Kittanning, the rallying-point tSin'^^g.^'^ of the hostile Delawares, situated on the Alleghany. ^^^' Armstrong devastated the settlement, rescued a few English whom the Indians held as prisoners, and safely returned. He had delivered a scourging blow, but it had small effect upon the progress of events, except that it taught the enemy that there were blows to take as well as to give. The French ac- counts slur the matter, but the English thought it quite equal in boldness and celerity to the raids of the French. It gave occasion for Dinwiddle to offer congratulation to Governor Denny, very shortly after his succeeding to Morris in the execu- tive office of Pennsylvania. During the summer, the French on the Ohio had been pre- paring for the worst. In the spring, Vaudreuil con- gratulated himself particularly in being able to pro- provisioned. vision Duquesne from New Orleans and the Illinois. Though this involved tugging at tow-ropes and poling bateaux against the current, it was less laborious than attempting such succor from the St. Lawrence. Vaudreuil recognized the risks from flanking parties of the English at the rapids near the modern Louisville, which necessitated a wearisome portage, and he considered that, to secure the transit, a fort at that point was necessary. Thus sure of his supplies, Dumas, the commander at the forks, pursued a policy of harrying the English to keep them 378 TWO DISMAL YEARS, 1756, 1757. busy. He was conscious that his own defenses could not stand Dumas anx- ^^ attack o£ avtillcry, if the enemy were given time ious. 1756. f^j, g^^gj^ aj^ assault. Fearing lest tliis was intended, he was alert to discover any purpose of the kind, and kept out his patrols in the direction of Fort Cumberland, whence the blow must come. It was on such a scouting party that Celoron, who had buried the plates on the Ohio, was killed during the summer. Dumas had found that he must satisfy liimself with the moral rather than with the physical help which had his^^dMs. been sent to Canada in the spring. The reinforce- ment which had reached Quebec in May had brought Montcalm, Levis, Bourlamaque, and Bougainville, but the troops were assigned to the more vital points of Frontenac, Ti- conderoga, and Niagara, — the latter particularly. As Vau- dreuil expressed it, the chief interest of the French lay here, for with Niagara wrested from them, Duquesne was but a bur- den. Weiser, the Pennsylvania agent, was confident that at one time Dumas had not more than two hundred men with him ; but his flying squads were abundantly supplying him with scalps, as he assured his superior at Quebec. The general course of the war during the year had afforded Shirley re- little comfort to the English. The ministry, under called. 1756. qqJqp ^f \^\^ being able to give them advice, had recalled Shirley in the spring, and the intimation which was given of a new military leader caused Morris to think that the interest of the war was likely to centre in America. Shirley had already suspected that he was to be superseded, but it was not till June, after he had got his plans well matured, had placed General Winslow of Massachusetts in command of the chief army of invasion, and had had a struggle with the intrigues of Johnson and his cabal, that he received his definite orders. Some of the better men, like Livingston and Franklin, had not lost confidence in Shii-ley, and received the intelligence with regret, though Franklin thought that Shirley was little averse to the relief. Webb and Abercrombie had come in command, advaucc of the supreme commander, but on July 23 Shirley received his immediate successor in New York. This irritating and irritable nobleman, the Earl of Loudoun, OSWEGO AND CARILLON. 379 lost no time in advising the colonial governors of his arrival. Shirley outlined his plan for the campaign, and the earl promptly countermanded Shirley's orders. There was indeed a new aspect to the war. The diplomats of England and France had dotted their polite caps, and in May and June re- ^a^ Re- spectively the two countries had declared war. Gov- ^^^'^^'^- ^"^'^■ ernor Hardy received the word at Albany four days after Lou- domi's arrival. The news reached Dinwiddie in Williamsburs: on August 7, and Washington knew it at Winchester on the 17th. Meanwhile, there had been a glimmer of good fortune, owing to Shirley's prevision. He had recruited a body of whalemen from New England, and put them under the command of Lieu- tenant-Colonel Bradstreet, to man a flotilla of bateaux and protect the communications with Oswego. In success. July, this amphibious little army had valiantly de- feated a body of French who were trying to interrupt those communications. This success availed little, however, for a few weeks later the spirited Montcalm had invested the forts at Oswego, and was using upon them the batteries which Brad- dock had lost on the Monongahela. By the middle of August, the post was in French hands. The result takes os-^ might have been different if Loudoun had followed Shirley's advice and thrown two regiments into the forts. As it was, the French success virtually settled the year's campaign. It alarmed the English at Albany enough to paralyze their other movements. It released Montcalm so that he hastened to Carillon f Ticonderosra) and kept watch upon Wins- 1 -!-, Vtt- 1 T^ TTr- 1 1 • 1 • Montcalm at low at Fort William Henry. VV ith this obstruction cariiion. of the English plans the season ended. The result of all was that the French had maintained themselves on Lake Champlain, and had obtained a footing on the southern shore of Ontario, strengthening the barrier in this direction against the English advance into the Great Valley. If Shirley had been shelved, his rival had been given no new chance of martial distinction. Johnson had indeed ^ , Johuson been put to the service in which he shone most, brings '^ . . I Teedyuscung There had been for a lonff time ominous rumors that over to the . . T English. the Six Nations were treating with the French, and 380 TWO DISMAL YEARS, 1756, 1757. had gone over to the enemy. By an adroit bearing, Johnson was at last in a position to treat at Onondaga with the con- currence of Teedyuscung, and on July 21 the Iroquois and the Delawares were brought round to the English interests at a conference, which was strengthened by later conciliations at German Flats in August and September. Meanwhile, the Delaware chieftain was negotiating an inde- TheDeia- peudeut Understanding with the Pennsylvanians at the^pemisyi- Eastou. They might have made a peace, as it looked, vamaus. j£ Loudouu had uot interfered on the ground that Sir William alone was authorized to make Indian treaties. This interruption came at a time when it was looking black on the Pennsylvania border. Fort Granville, one of the exposed stockades, had been taken (July 30), and it seemed as if the frontiers were recoiling everywhere, and communica- syivania tious with Forts Lyttlctou and Shirley were growing precarious. The war appeared to be assuming fresh violence, and it must be met ; but after a while a lull came, and the public mind adjusted itself to new movements when the assembly, after much persuasion, had made an appropriation of thirty thousand pounds, " for the king's use," as their language of subterfuge put it. George Croghan, whose trading interest had suffered by the George ^VSLT, was relieved from the immediate perils of bank- Croghan. puptcy by the Pennsylvania Assembly in their anxiety to have so influential a friend sent among the Indians along the frontier. He had not disappointed expectation, unless in the lavish use which he made of the money appropriated for appeas- ing the Indians. The government of the province did not treat him in just the spirit he thought he deserved, and he resigned his commission. It seemed a fortunate thing, both for the crown and his province, when Johnson recognized his value, and some months later, on November 24, made Croghan his deputy in the management of the savages in Pennsylvania and on the Ohio. The events of the next year (1757) were even more discour- aging for the English. There had been quiet along the borders of Pennsylvania and Virginia during the winter ; but in the early spring rumors were rife of a gathering of French at Fort THE INDIANS. 381 Machault (Venango) for an attack on Shamokin. The French, however, were too much engrossed with a counter- shamokin. solicitude, for any such desperate purpose. Vaudreuil, ^^^^- in April, was issuing anxious orders and urging De Ligneris, now in command at Duquesne, to strengthen that post. An extreme scarcity of provisions prevailed in Canada. The posts on the Ohio so suffered from this cause that the men were scattered to pick up subsistence. Later in the spring and in the early simimer, rumors of a French advance thick- -pe&Ts. of a ened along the frontiers, and the nimble scouts kept vance!'^'^ the borderers anxious. Discordant stories about the ^^^"^^ force which De Ligneris had with him probably arose from liis habit of sending out his scalping parties in a body, to be broken up when well within the enemy's borders. These par- ties coming and going kept the force in the fort inconstant in numbers, and this accounts for the irreconcilable figures which were from time to time reported to Sharpe or Dinwiddie. Occasionally there were stories of flotillas from the Mississippi bringing munitions and men to the French. Whenever a French prisoner was taken, he was pretty sure to magnify such recruiting. These exaggerations served to dismay the English, particularly if the prisoner could add that parties from the Illinois had come in to De Ligneris, besides occasional squads of Cherokees and Creeks. Such was the summer's history, — rumor and counter-rumor ; and it ran well on into the autumn. By October, however, it was feared that the French successes at the north had given them the opportunity to hurry forward a contingent from Niag- ara, which rendered an advance from the Ohio more than prob- able. Upon such recurrent reports the garrison at Fort Cum- berland was astir. The Indians, usually friendly. The south- had become emboldened. The Cherokees and Cataw- "^^ Indians. bas were wandering about in a sulking mood, and in some places the neighboring Indians had proved so unruly that the militia was made ready for an emergency. The same untoward condition of the English projects at the north had fostered fresh discontent among the Six The north- Nations and the dependent Delawares. The fleeting ^"^ Indians. months make a long record of conferences which only post- poned the end. The Iroquois could not, or would not, restrain 382 TWO DISMAL YEARS, 1756, 1757. their young warriors from scalping expeditions. Johnson la- bored with the Shawnee and Delaware embassies with little effect. The Senecas and Cayugas were unmistakably hostile, and interposed to prevent the Delawares of the Ohio from uniting with their Susquehanna brothers in any peaceful plan. By midsummer, Johnson began to have some success in keeping a part, at least, of the tribes in a neutral disposition. His immediate neighbors, the Mohawks, with the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, were more easily held. His deputy, Croghan, had at the same time a passing success with Teedyuscung, who, " considering how he loved Teedyus- stroug liquor, behaved very well." Croghan managed during the summer, by wheedling the Delawares and cajoling the Senecas, to bring that wary chieftain into one of those intermittent spasms of peace which the Indians were prompt to exhibit to those who would pay for it. They were always pretty sure to leave their brothers on the Ohio untram- meled for other negotiations of a like kind. Much the same sort of truce was purchased for a while with the Cherokees. Any successful negotiation with the savages was at such a Pitt in period remarkable, and testified to the skill of Johnson power. ^^^ j^-g deputies. Pitt, of whom no one had greater expectations than himself, had, indeed, in the early summer, come into power ; but hardly in time to effect much change in the American plans before another season. These were still Loudoun's doomed to mismanagement through the fussy imbecil- pians. j^y q£ Loudoun. Early in the spring, the colonial gov- ernors, meeting him at Philadelphia, had learned that his mili- tary strategy was centred in a movement north, in connection with another toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It was appar- ent that the passes of the Alleghanies were to be left to their fate, a scant protective force looking out for the border as well as it could. The actual campaign opened in March with a bit of good j^i^a„d luck for the English. Eigaud, a brother of Vaudreuil, Forfwn- and distrusted by Montcalm, was foiled in an attempt liam Henry. ^^ surprisc Fort William Henry by stealing upon it over the frozen lake. Meanwhile, Loudoun sailed away from New York to do great things at Louisbourg. While he was NOTB. The opposite map is Emanuel Bowen's map of the country of tlie southern Indians, 17G4. 384 TWO DISMAL YEARS, 1756, 1757. gone, Montcalm, by a clever bit of strategy, got between Fort Edward and Fort William Henry. There was small skill and less courage in Webb, who was in Fort Edward. He had an opportunity to act with spirit, and chose to be pusillanimous. He played into Montcalm's hands, and advised the commanding Fort wu- officer at the lake to surrender. The red flag came fLX^Tu-^ down on August 9, to be followed by a revolting mas- gust, 1*57. gacre, perpetrated upon the disarmed garrison by the savage auxiliaries, which included a body of Miamis and some western Indians led by Charles de Langlade. The young John Adams, when he heard of it and of Lou- doun's panicky return from his bootless errand, likened the royal generals to millstones hung about the colonial neck. The seaboard, up and down, got the dismal news in August, and everybody brooded upon the disasters. CHAPTEE XIX. THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. 1758-1759. The winter of 1757-58 in Canada was one of ill-advised con- fidence and sravetv. For two years the French had Winter held their own and more. Success brought its har- 1757-58. . " . . French and pies, and peculation had rotted the commissariats. English The falsities of life were sapping the future. During the same season, among the English, there was need of buoyant prophecy to keep off grim despair. Two years of miserable conduct of affairs had done their work. Amid the depression, there was a latent hope of something better in a winter expedition ; but such woodsmen as Croghan shrunk from the wild rigors of the northern winter, and had little faith that officers of European habits could endure the suffering. Pow- nall wrote to Pitt that nothing but an overwhelming force thrown into Canada could turn the tide. That minis- Pitt. ter, already addressing himself to the military prob- lem, had wisely propitiated the provincials by removing dis- criminations which had favored the royal commission, and by making the provincial a sharer of the advantages of his rank. If Pitt had been as wise in selecting the leader to be trusted, all would very likely have been well ; but when he Abercrom- chose Abercrombie to lead, and gave him his appoint- generaL^" ment at the very end of the woeful year of 1757, he ^^^^' rounded out its record of disaster. The plans for the new year were not much different from what had long been the mil- itary scheme. Fort Duquesne was restored to the prominence of a goal, as it had been m Braddock s year, campaign. and General John Forbes was selected for its reduc- tion. This was the extreme western flank of a comprehensive plan, which left to Amherst and WoKe the movement on the 386 THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. eastern flank in an attack on Louisbourg, while Abercrombie, with Lord Howe as second, was to advance upon Ticonderoga and Crown Point. By July, the campaign was at an end, as far as these latter movements were concerned. The rather sluggish te- CapeBre- uacity of Amhcrst had gained Cape Breton, from which he returned to Boston, to start at once for Al- bany to support the central army, after its great catastrophe. The weakness, if not poltroonery, of Aberci'ombie had made the fifteen thousand men who had with flaunting parade floated down Lake George struggle back from Ticonderoga We's defeat, two tliousaud Icss, after having inflicted only a fifth of that loss on the French. Amherst met a dispir- ited army, which had lost its idol. Lord Howe, in a futile skir- mish, and found Abercrombie undone. It was apparent that the catastrophe must be neutralized elsewhere. In August, the current changed. Bradstreet, who had in the Bradstreet p^Gvious year managed his whaleboat men so adroitly Frontenac. ^u the Ouondaga, had unexpectedly slipped across the ^^^^- lake to Fort Frontenac. He had with him three thou- sand men, and when it became known down the St. Lawrence that the fort with all its guns, provisions, and goods was lost, and that the nine vessels in its harbor with their armaments were captured, there was reason for consternation, for it meant to the French that the command of the lake was gone, and no supplies could be got through to Niagara and Duquesne. What to do was a difficult problem, and Vaudreuil and Montcalm, never in harmony, were more than ever disagreed. It the fall of was already feared that Duquesne had been taken. " It is idle to flatter ourselves any longer," was the talk. " Canada is lost, if peace is not made this winter. The English have sixty thousand regulars and provincials in Amer- ica. We have not five thousand. The English colonies can furnish two hundred thousand men ; Canada at the best can supply only about ten thousand, and with it all the Indians are everywhere turning against us." There may have been more discouragement than truth in such figures, but they were dis- heartening in any event. We turn now to consider the direct assault of the English FORBES'S CAMPAIGN. 387 upon the defenses of the Ohio. The pacification of the In- dians in this region before Forbes began to move was porbes's ad- of great importance. To do this fell largely to the ^''"'^®" ^^^^■ assiduity of Croghan. He had in the previous December com- plained of the way in which the Quakers were encouraging the savage discontent. '' They mvist be mad," he said. Their conduct was having its effect through the win- and the in- ter, and the French at Duquesne were not without know- ledge of it. In January, Sharpe had heard that De Ligneris had from two to three hundred men in the fort, who were by relays working on a stronger post over the river, " a small dis- tance above." While this was going on, he kept out about six hundred Indians, and it was mainly through them and their scouting that the French commander was able to report to Vau- dreuil how the Pennsylvania borderers were clustering about their forts for protection. The southern Indians were restless also, and Fort Chissel was built to overawe them. This was at a point over jjj^ g^^^jj. the divide from the valley of Virginia and near the ^'^ ludians. New River, where the trails from Philadelpliia and Richmond met and advanced two hundred miles farther to Cum- 11 -, r^ Fort Chissel. berland (jrap. Dviring March, it seemed as if Teedyuscung was to fall into one of his intermittent moods of quiet. The farmers of Penn- sylvania were not so easily satisfied as the savage. They had not been paid for their assistance in helping Braddock move his army, and Sharpe bluntly told Forbes, now in Philadelphia, that he must supply ready cash if anything was to be done. Forbes, a man of imperturbable energy, passed the spring in Philadelphia, giving what strength he had — for he was a sick man — to the task of organizing his army. He Phiiadei- had some good lieutenants in Bouquet and others, but officers. . . . . . 1758 Washington, who joined him, did not wholly possess his confidence, and he found that Grant, who commanded some Highland Scots, was not to be trusted. His commissary, Sir John Sinclair, was not a fortunate choice. One hardly knows whether he was imbecile or simply vexatious. The service of his department in supplying stores and securing transportation was doubtless a trying one. The country people were provok- ing, and the friendly Indians tedious in negotiation. Forbes 388 THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. himself, generally temperate in his utterance, was prompted at times to berate the dilatory and self-seeking Pennsylvania boor. The force which was gathering for Forbes was heterogeneous His force. cuough. Bcsidc the Highlanders, there was a body of royal Americans — mainly German-Americans — and whatever jjrovincial rangers and militiamen could be got together by robbing the garrisons of the frontiers from the Susquehanna to the Altamaha. It was the last of June when Forbes himself left Philadelphia, Forbes's ^^^ ^^ ^^^ wcakncss he had to be borne in a litter. route. 'j'jjg question of the ultimate route over the mountains was one in which Forbes and Bouquet differed from Washing- ton. The Virginian argued ardently for the Braddock route, because it was already opened, and its difficulties were under- stood and could be met. The alternative passage, which would lead the army by Carlisle, Bedford, and so on to the Pennsyl- vania passes, was shorter, and woidd have to be made ready. Bouquet talked over the advantages of each with Washington, but neither could convince the other. Bouquet thought the Virginia colonel " had no idea of the difference between a party and an army." There were very likely some counter-views based upon the future trade of the rival provinces. Virginia did not care to have a better road for trading purposes opened north of the Potomac to increase the facilities of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was not content to be dependent on one south of it, constructed for the behoof of Virginia. Whatever the inner secrets. Bouquet prevailed, and Forbes was to advance over the Pennsylvania passes. In July, Major Armstrong, with his pioneers, was hewing trees and leveling obstructions. Grant with his Highlanders and Lewis with a body of provincials fol- lowed for support. In August, General Forbes had not gone on farther than Car- Forbes at Hsle, and here he learned by letter from Abercrombie carusie. himself of his rueful failure. The fallen soldier was as confused in his recital as he could well be, though he coidd not disguise what seemed to have been an irretrievable disas- ter. There was more comfort in the story of Amherst's success at Louisbourg, which came about the same time, and Forbes caused the camp to make merry over it. The general's health, meanwhile, was the subject of grave GRANT'S DEFEAT. 389 apprehension. Some days lie gained apparently ; on others he grew worse ; but he was patient. Though this ad- j-orbes's vance of his army seemed slow, he was satisfied with ''«*i*'>- it, for postponed action was, as he felt, the best disorganizer of the Indian allies of the French. Impatience always loosens the Indian bonds. Forbes was accordingly anxious to give, by delay, more time for this influence to work. It was a sad mischance for the French that some one of their emissaries at Detroit had spread the report that the 1 .,.,,. , The French Iroquois were doomed to be annihilated, in order to aud the remove the great bulwark of the English. The boast reached the Delawares, and had already been repeated to the Senecas. It was just one of those blunders that Johnson was on the watch for, and he used the story to great advantage. Not uninfluenced by it, Teedyuscung was also quieted on the Susquehanna. With this influence at work, affecting the French interests, there was a chance for a skillful and courageous Eng- ^ . . ° C. F. Post lish asrent to do ffood deeds among the Ohio tribes, ontheohio. 1758 Governor Denny found the best man for the task in Christian Frederick Post, an honest and fearless Moravian, who had for years familiarized himself with the savages, and married two wives among them. He kept a journal on his expedition, and we can follow him step by step, only to be captivated by the guileless simplicity and straightforward confidence of the man. He left Philadelphia on July 15, and on September 9 he had turned homeward. In less than two months he had accom- plished his purpose of making the Ohio Indians ready to give a welcome to the army led by Forbes. The warriors protected Post even in going boldly into the French camps at Venango and the forks. It was some days after Post had started homeward, when Grant marched his Highlanders rapidly ahead of his (j^ant's de- support into the vicinity of Duquesne. He was seem- *®**- ^'^• ingly actuated by the hope of making a sudden capture of the fort. " His thirst for fame," said his general later, " brought on his own perdition." The French sallied from their defenses (September 15), and of his eight hundred jDlaidsmen, Grant left three hundred on the field. His defeated force then re- 390 THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. treated upon the supports. It was a stupid act, and when, two months later, the news of it reached Montcalm, he thought Du- quesne had been saved for a time, even though the difficulties of succoring it might compel its abandonment in the spring. This heady venture of Grant had its bad effect on the Indi- indian con- ^^^' ^^^ *^® Pcnnsjlvanians entered upon a new con- Eastoif ^oc- ference at Easton in October with a certain disadvan- tober, 1758. tagc. They went farther, however, than some of the over-mountain land companies were inclined to allow. They pledged faith to the Indians that the trans-AUeghany spaces should be sacred to the savage for his hunting-ground, and no La^^^ one should occupy them except with the tribes' permis- compames. gjon. There were at this time at least three million acres of these very lands alienated to different companies. Only recently the Greenbrier Company had patented a hundred thousand acres on the river of that name. There were of course rival claims in behalf of more than one colony for these western wilds ; but it was the misfortune of the Indian never quite to comprehend the white man's rivalries. Post was again sent out with a new wampum belt which ex- pressed this immunity for the Indian lands. He now Post's second added to his earlier success in winning the hesitating mission. o a tribes. After this, Forbes had little to fear from the Indians, and Forbes at whcu he reached Loyalhannon in October, where Bou- nor^^'octo- <1^6t ^^^ formed a camp, he sent forward a messenger ber, 1758. ^^ warn the Indians to keep west of the Alleghany, lest they should be involved in the battle which was to come. While the camp was at Loyalhannon, the enemy's scouts hung about, and at one time ventured upon an attack, but without success. The weather, however, was bad, making the roads heavy, and the advance was delayed. The poor general, up and down with his malady, was now within fifty miles of his goal. He waited till the 18tli of November, and then, taking twenty- five hundred picked troops in light marching order, he pushed rapidly ahead, himself still borne by his men. His van was startled on the 24th by a heavy, rumbling sound, long-drawn out. Presently, his pioneers came upon the stark bodies of the slain Highlanders of Grant, and a ghastly row of heads was stuck on poles along the way. The sight inflamed the passions FORT DUQUESNE. 391 FORT DUQUESNE. [From the Pennsylvania Archives, 1790, App. p. 430.] of the men, but when the fort was reached there was no one upon whom to wreak vengeance. The dull boom had accom- panied the blowing^ up of the fort, and its garrison ^ . , . Duquesne was in flight. The English had marched an average destroyed. of ten miles a day, and it was November 25 when they entered the ruined fort. On the 26th, Forbes wrote to Governor Denny, announcing that he had invited the headmen of the Indians to a conference, and he hoped " in a few words 392 THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. and in a few days to make everything easy. I shall then set out [he adds] to kiss your hands, if I have strength left to carry Pittsbur h ^^ through the journey." This uuquailing hero hut- named. ^g^j jjjg jjjgjj about the grouud, called the spot Pitts- Ciunl) erlfi FORT MASSAC AND VICINITY. [From the general map of the Ohio in Callot's Atlas, 1826.] burgh, after the great minister, and placing Lieutenant-Colonel Mercer in command, left for Pliiladelphia. The fugitive French went off in detachments. De Ligneris led the best fighting material to Fort Machault at tivesfrom Vcuaugo, and soon after began to send out his emis- uquesne. ^^^\^^ ^^ ^^^ \)2^ the Indians. Aubry conducted the THE LOWER OHIO. [Showing Fort Massac and the mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. From Callot'i Atlas, PI. xi.] 394 THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. rest in boats down the Ohio. Thirty or more miles before the Mississippi was reached, this officer stopped to rehabilitate an old stockade known as Fort Massac. Placing a garrison in it, he went on, bearing most of his cannon, and finally found rest at Fort Chartres. Forbes reached Philadelphia, but did not long survive. In March, 1759, he died, with the satisfaction that he had done in his feebleness a heroic action, and had restored the red flag to the Great Valley. " The capture of Louisbourg is the more striking," said Bouquet, " but the capture of Du- quesne is the more important." The English hold on the Ohio had been secured ; it was yet to be gained on the St. Lawrence. There was little doubt from the beginning that the cam- Campaign paign of 1759 would paralyze the military power of the of 1759. French and render easy its ultimate destruction. The only hope of Montcalm was that a defeat in Canada would not carry the surrender of Louisiana. He hoped it might leave debatable the country of the Illinois, which had been alternately considered a part of Canada and of Louisiana. There was at one time a chance that Louisiana could be saved by landing a French force in Carolina to divert the English attention from a northern campaign. It was a belief that if this incursion failed to maintain itself, it could fight long enough to work its way to the Mississippi, and so unite with any remnant that might be left of the Canadian defenders. But the plan was too hazard- ous, and the record of the project is of interest only as a symp- tom of desperation. At the end of the last campaign, Vaudreuil had warned the home government of the inevitable catastrophe if be^r^let Francc did not succor her colony. With a popula- *^^^' tion of 82,000, and only 20,000 able to bear arms, — militia, woodsmen, and Indians, — Canada could not exj^ect to maintain the unequal contest. Langlade might indeed bring a hundred or two of the western Indians to the rescue, The Indians. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^-^^ ^^^j^^ defection of the Mia- mis ? Except the Delawares, there seemed hardly a prominent tribe left to be involved in this final struggle, which had not been swung over to the English side. AMHERST'S CAMPAIGN. 395 lu their intestine affairs the Canadians were no more for- tunate. The governor and Montcalm had never intestine agreed, and now that they were on the brink of ruin, Canada*?^ their disputes grew hotter, Bougainville had been ^'^^■ sent over to France to represent the gravity of the situation, and in the spring of 1759 he had returned without a word of encouragement. There were no soldiers to be spared for the colony. If there were and they were sent over, they would be intercepted by the English fleet. If this should not happen, they could not be provisioned. Such were the disheartening alternatives. The only ray of better fortune was that the gov- ernment had recognized the necessity of placing Montcalm in an independent position as the military leader, and when Bou- gainville delivered to that gallant soldier this new commission, it was the only hope with which he was charged. " Our gen- eral would like to multiply us and send us everywhere," was the feeling ; but with Quebec, Niagara, and the Ohio to defend, and with forces insufficient for the defense of any one of them, the struggle could not last long. " Canada will be taken," wrote Montcalm on April 12, " this campaign, or assuredly during the next, if there be not some unforeseen good luck, or a power- ful diversion by sea against the English colonies, or some gross blunders on the part of the enemy." In the same letter he charges the French commissaries on the Ohio as disturbing by their peculations the relations with the Indians. " If the Indi- ans had a fourth part of what is supposed to be expended for them, the king would have all of them on his side, the English none." With the English there was as much confidence as there was disheartenment on the side of the French. In Europe, j^^ English England's ally, Frederick of Prussia, had indeed passed <'<"»fi*^'^°t- the bounds of success, and was desponding at the turn of affairs ; but Pitt felt that the war was to be won in America. On December 29, 1758, he had outlined the campaign to Amherst, who was to do the work, or at least to be held i-espon- sible for it. lie himself was to take charofe of the ciiarge. 1759. direct northern attack by Lake Champlain. By the end of June, he was at Lake George with eleven thousand men, half regidars. After beginning a fort, he started with a flotilla down the lake on July 21. Bourlamaque retired before him 396 THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. from Ticonderoga and Crown Point. The modern tourist sees to-day at Crown Point the heavy ruins of the fort and barracks which Amherst tarried to build. He was timing his progress to join before Quebec an auxiliary force ascending the St. Law- rence. Of this army he had been anxiously awaiting intelli- gence, but the scouts whom he had sent north were foiled, and had escaped capture by flying down the Connecticut valley. There was another but very circuitous way to learn how Wolfe, in charge of this other force, had succeeded, and to convey to him the story of Amherst's own progress. This was by dispatching a messenger to Boston, who should then reach Quebec by the Kennebec and Chaudiere valleys, — the route by which Arnold conducted his unfortunate expedition sixteen years later. From Crown Point Amherst sent such a messenger to say that he was preparing the flotilla in which he expected to advance against the French vessels, which were at Isle aux Noix. There was a long delay in getting this armament ready, and when everything was prepared in October, Amherst feared the autumnal storms and never started. The French, however, blew up their vessels, rendering easier the next year's advance by that way. If the campaign had accomplished nothing more than the commander-in-chief had carried out, Pitt might well have won- dered if hopes and outlay had been repaid. Fortunately, the campaign had been decided at Quebec and Niagara, on the two flanks. The lesser of these two auxiliary movements reacted on the greater, and we need to follow them both connectedly. Wolfe's campaign. In May, Wolfc was at Halifax making his preparations. He next transferred his force to Louisbourg, having three brigadiers under him, — Monckton, Townshend, and Mur- ray. During June, the fleet of Admiral Saunders conveyed Wolfe's transports up the St. Lawrence. Montcalm, with his army in Quebec and along the river be- low the town, was preparing for the attack, with about fourteen thousand men of all sorts and over a hundred guns. He had some armed boats and had improvised fire-ships, which in the end failed of their purpose in several trials against the English vessels. Vaudreuil, still obstinate, knew that Wolfe had landed nine thousand men on the island of Orleans, and he thwarted NIAGARA ATTACKED. 397 Montcalm's purpose to fortify Point Ldvis, opposite the city, on the south side of the St. Lawrence. This mischance Wolfe took advantage of, and seized that commanding ground, so necessary to his fleet. The movement was in some respects a hazardous one, for it divided his army, and placed a deep river between the two parts ; but he knew that his own fleet controlled that river. This naval supremacy again induced him to make a third division, and place a force on the northern shore of the river, below the Falls of Montmorency. While the situation on the St. Lawrence was thus in a considerable degree one of peril, events happening at Niagara had decided the fate of the Ohio country. We must glance at them before showing their effects both on Wolfe and Mont- calm. It was the English plan to save the Ohio at Niagara. Mili- tary critics have sometimes urged that the force sent • TVT- 1111 *v • T^« attack against Niagara could have been more enective as a on Niagara. part of Amherst's army, but it is doubtful if that gen- eral could have gained celerity by an increase of force. If he was capable of such acceleration, it is possible the capture of Montreal might have taken place a year earlier, and the battle of Ste. Foy been avoided. It would have risked, however, the hold that Forbes had secured on the Ohio, and perhaps have aided that escape to Louisiana which was the ultimate hope of the Canadians. In March, 1759, Bouquet had succeeded in temporary com- mand of the department, which included the Ohio, , , Bouquet's pending the arrival of Stanwix, who had been ordered command, to Philadelphia. There were about a thousand men at the forks, and it was quite possible that the French, if bound to recover it, could bring a much larger force against it. What policy to pursue, if attacked. Bouquet and Amherst were not agreed upon. Bouquet was for retreating before an attack in force ; Amherst for acting defensively till the post could be relieved from Fort Ligonier and the other Pennsylvania stock- ades. In April, all was quiet along the Alleghany, but before the month closed, the governor of Pennsylvania thought it pru- dent to send the Moravian, Post, to the Senecas to see if any mischief was hatching. That the French had intended to regain the forks seems cer- 398 THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. tain, as Croghan believed, but the English advance toward Ni- The French agara had disconcerted their plans, and by early July Aiteglwnyl^^ it had been necessary, under orders, for the French ■'^^^- to abandon the Alleghany in the hope of aiding in the defense of Niagara. The river was too low to transport the heavy stores, and they were sacrificed. Svich portions as were not acceptable to the Indians were piled in the fort at Venango, and the whole was fired. The boats that had been prepared for a descent upon Fort Pitt were destroyed, and their swivels were buried. The fugitive garrison made its way by Le Boeuf, where a similar destruction took place, to Presqu' Isle, and there a new surprise awaited them. Prideaux, one of Amherst's brigadiers, keeping his communi- cations open through Oswego, — which La Corne vainly attacked. tried to dcstroy, — had advanced upon Niagara in force, while Pouchot, the commander of that fort, was awaiting reinforcements from the western posts. Prideaux be- ing killed early in the attack, the command fell to his second in authority. Sir William Johnson, who completed the estab- lishment of the besieging lines. Hearing now of the approach of Aubry and De Ligneris with the western party, Johnson promptly passed up the river to confront them. It happened that the same day saw the fort surrendered, and its succoring force hurled back by Johnson. The fugitives fled to Presqu' Isle, where they were joined by those who had abandoned Venango. The united bodies continued their flight to Detroit. Niagara, the long-coveted entrance to the Ohio valley, was Wolfe and ^^w iu the hands of the victor, and Fort Pitt was safe. at^Quebec. Such wcrc the tidiugs which in these midsummer days ^'^^^- reached the rival generals on the St. Lawrence, and were a cheer to one and disheartenment to the other. The effect on Wolfe was to spur him on to greater risks. He sent a frigate to run by the batteries of Cape Diamond, while his men dragged boats overland from Point Levis, and embarked above under the protection of the frigate. This was a fourth partition of his army, and the risks were quite commensurate with the stakes. The desperation of Montcalm, to whom the tidings of Niagara had also come, was equaled only by that of Wolfe. Both commanders were playing their game at fearful odds ; and WOLFE AT QUEBEC. 399 but for his isolation, the French general might very well expect a victory as Frontenac did, when the fleet of Phips dotted the broad basin before him. The season was rapidly slijjping away. Montcalm was perhaps losing the most by the delay, but nei- ther the spirit of the English general nor the constancy of his troops could endure much longer without a trial of arms. He hoped to force an engagement near the Montmorency, but his effort failed. He withdrew his men at this point, and it was done with great good luck. Almost aimlessly, or at least without knowing precisely how to emjjloy them, Wolfe pushed larger bodies of men up the river, and Admiral Holmes, with a part of the fleet, went up to support them. Bougainville was pa- trolling the river bank above the town, watching the enemy, and covering supply-trains that descended to Montcalm and the town. He had about fifteen hundred men with him. Ad- miral Holmes had a grim satisfaction in seeing these devoted Frenchmen grow footsore and weary, as he let his ships float carelessly up and down with the tide, while Bougainville fol- lowed abreast to prevent a landing. All the while, Montcalm had Levis out, with another flying body of troops, to watch for Amherst, who was expected to be plodding down from Three Rivers instead of building barracks at Crown Point. By Au- gust, the French general, learning the truth about Amherst, was relieved of maintaining this wearisome watch. It was not far from the first of September when Wolfe also learned of Am- herst's position by the arrival of the messenger from the Ken- nebec. The news was not encouraging, and it was apparent that if Quebec was to be taken, Amherst could have no hand in it. The weary weeks that had passed bid fair to be followed by as many more, closing with the failure of accomplishing anything before preparation must be made to escape an ice- bound river. But suddenly a crisis was precipitated. Wolfe, doubtfid how to turn, was one day scanning through a glass from Point Levis the opposite precipice. There was a fair field for an encounter above ; but the sheer and rugged steep above the water seemed to offer no chance whereby to gain the top. His scrutiny at last revealed what looked like a ravine, cutting into the precipice, and worn by the rains. He conjectured that it probably gave chances for a foothold. The French seemingly recognized the chance it offered to the enemy, 400 THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. but deemed it small, for, as Wolfe counted the tents of the guard at the head of the ravine, he saw that the force was scant. One Stobo, a provincial, who had been a captive in Quebec and had escaped, confirmed Wolfe's supposition as to the prac- ticability of the ascent, if the men had bold leaders. Two things favored a movement by this ravine. Bougain- ville, who was likely to confront the attempt if openly made, was easily carried up the river, out of support of its French de- fenders, by the oft-tried manoeuvre of Holmes, whose ship under a favoring wind could be borne bej'ond the strength of the rising tide. The other advantage was fortunately revealed to Wolfe, when he learned that Bougainville was intending to send down a flotilla of supply-boats to the beleaguered town the first dark night, trusting to the deep shadows of the bank concealing them from the watchful English. The French guards and batteries along the shore were informed of the project, and would have their suspicions quelled at any similar procession of boats. Wolfe therefore determined to anticipate the French project. Arranging that Saunders with his ships below the town should divert attention by feigning an attack on Beauport, a suburb below the St. Charles, Wolfe was ready when the darkness deepened to shove his boats, with their thirty-six hundred men, directly under the bank. The long file of boats moved silently down, and every hail from the shore was treacherously answered, so that not a suspicion was aroused. The ravine was reached and his van was at the summit before the alarm was puins^f sounded. A foothold secured, details were sent up Abraham. ^^^^ ^ .^^^ ^^ capturc the guus that might annoy the rear portion of his flotilla, and this prompt action secured for Wolfe a position on the field with all the troops which he had intended to handle. Montcalm's headquarters were across the St. Charles, this minor stream forming with the St. Lawrence the promontory of Quebec, and when the day dawned, the red line of the British, stretched across the plain, was conspicuous beyond the valley to the startled gaze of the French. Montcalm saw that a crisis had come. To allow Quebec to be taken by assault on its land side would insure the turning of its captured guns upon his own camp. It has been held that Montcalm's safer course would have been to throw reinforcements into the town, and while it MURRAY AT QUEBEC. 401 stood the attack, to worry the English flanks. Such a plan did not well suit the celerity and pluck of such a soldier as Mont- calm, and he adopted the bolder alternative of fighting, line against line, before the gates of the town. Both sides thus cast the die, and at ten o'clock in the morn- ino- the hostile lines were advancing: face to face. The , , ... -, 1 -r< 1 Tl'e battle. clash was a brier one. Just as the J^rench were re- coiling before the British impact, WoKe was stricken down by a bullet, and died. The surging mass of the French was rolling back upon the gates, when Montcalm also fell. He was carried into the town to die. The French fell back within the walls and secured the gates. After a while the tumult had reached Bougainville, who hur- ried back to fall upon the English ; but the rearguard under Townshend presented so solid a front that the French thought it prudent to retire. The English thus had opportunity without further molestation to secure their position before the town. They passed the succeeding night in making preparation. The morning revealed that the troops which Vaudreuil vaudreuii had kept with him beyond the St. Charles had fled in ^®®' the dark, leaving their tents standing. The fugitives made a forced march to Cape Jacques Cartier, thirty miles up the St. Lawrence. Here, as if chagrined at his precipitancy, the gov- ernor sought to lead his men back ; but he learned on the way tha.t Ramezay had surrendered Quebec, and the British were now everywhere in possession. Thus, on the 13th of September, fifteen minutes of heady and riskf ul conflict on the Plains of Abraham had practi- The vaueys cally settled the fate of the St. Lawrence valley. We sained. have seen that a combat, not much longer protracted, coming in the nick of time, had near Niagara determined the future of the Ohio basin. The campaign had been epochal. Munitions were thrown into Quebec, Murray was placed in command, and by the middle of October Saunders, anxious to get his ships out of the river before the ice commanding formed, sailed away, bearing the body of WoKe. The victory of the Plains of Abraham had indicated, but did not constitute, the end. Before another English fleet with rein- forcement returned in the spring of 1760, the English garrison in the town had been put to severe trials. A luckless battle 402 THE OHIO AND ST. LAWRENCE WON. had taken place at Ste. Foy, one of the suburbs in which Mur- Battie of ^^7 ^^^ taken risks, which came near causing a re- ste. Foy. deeming success for the French, since but for the opportune appearance of the English fleet, as the spring opened, Quebec might have again been under the French flag. CHAPTER XX. THE TRANSITION FROM WAR TO WAR. 1760-1762. When, on May 9, 1760, the leading ship of an English fleet hove in sight from the citadel of Quebec, Murray saw that he was not to suffer all the evils which his ill-advised and head- long onset at Ste. Foy might well have prepared for him. Levis, who, having pushed his opponent within the walls of Quebec, was now keeping up an artillery duel with from before the town, saw with dismay the English ships destroy and scatter his auxiliary force upon the river. He accordingly fled with precipitation, leaving guns and stores behind him. He had inflicted upon Murray the loss of about a third of the English force, and he now found himself hurrying to Montreal, painfully conscious that his own sacrifices had gained him little beside the well-earned laurels of Ste. Foy. Pitt had hardly counted on such folly as Murray had shown, but the fleet which he had ordered up the river at . 11.11 Ti"® ''*™" as early a moment as the ice would permit showed paignof ■"■ 1760. his purposes to make the success of Wolfe some- thing more than a barren "victory. The minister now looked to Amherst to sweep the remaining French from the valley. That commander was already laying liis plans to converge upon Montreal with all the forces at his disposal, and in April he had instructed Monckton at Pittsburgh to make sure of his communications with Niagara, and then to send forward to that post a force sufficient to hold it, so that its regular garri- son could join the general advance upon the St. Lawrence. It was evident that Vaudreuil and Levis were now segregat- ing all available forces at Montreal. They were keep- ^he French ing out small corps of observation down the river and p^*°*" toward Lake Champlain, and were determined to stand on 404 THE TRANSITION FROM WAR TO WAR. the defensive as long as they could, in the hope that the Eng- lish combinations would miscarry, or some blunder be made by which the French could profit. The English plan of closing in upon Montreal upon three sides was pretty sure, if well timed, to force its surrender ; but the chances of war are always open to an alert antagonist held at bay, and watching for breaks in his adversary's plans. Amherst, himself commanding one of these aggressive forces, Amherst's ^^^ rcndczvouscd at Oswego about eleven thousand plans. men, including a force of Indians under Johnson. Amherst's part was to advance through the Thousand Islands, capture Fort Levis near the head of the rapids, and approach Montreal on the up-river side. Murray was to advance from Quebec with twenty-five hundred men, strengthened with a force of thirteen hundred, which Lord Rollo had brought from Louisbourg. The third army, which was to advance north upon Lake Champlain, had had the way opened for it the pre- vious season when the threatening front of Amherst had forced the French to burn a part, at least, of their flotilla. These lesser movements were reasonably well timed. Bour- lamaque, who was watching Murray, fell back as that English officer advanced, and Haviland, commanding on Lake Cham- plain, easily forced Bougainville down the Sorel. These two French forces found no difficulty in joining Vaudreuil in Mon- treal, so that the way was clear for Murray and Haviland to put themselves into communication. When all this was done, Amherst had not yet appeared above the town. The interval was seized by the French to send off Langlade in charge of two companies of English deserters. His instructions were to lead them west and send them down to New Orleans, out of reach of the enemy in the event of disaster. The French now in and about Montreal numbered, all told. The French scarccly morc than twenty -five hundred effectives, in Montreal, ^j^i^ g^^jj^ g, force there was little chance in measur- ing strength in the open field with Murray and Haviland, while Amherst was close at hand. The French accordingly abided developments. There was not long to wait. Amherst soon arrived, and, joining all the forces, he held an army of seven- teen thousand men in his circumjacent lines. There was some hesitation on the part of Vaudreuil in approaching his doom, OCCUPYING THE WEST. 405 mainly for the sake of show ; but on September 8, the capitula- tion was sifjned. It gave up not only Montreal, but ,, „ 1 1 . 1 1 • All 1 Montreal all Canada and its de])entloncies. All troops, wner- and Canada . . surrendered. ever they were stationed, were to become prisoners September of war, later to be transported to j ranee in iiritish ships. The exercise of the Catholic religion was guaranteed, and private property was to be respected. Vaudreuil had con- tended for the preservation of the French code ; but Amherst was stubborn, and English law was hereafter to govern the con- quered territory. The British general did not forget the sad experience of his government with the Acadians, and the folly of anything short of an absolute dominion was not to be re- peated. So something like sixty-five thousand French were at a moment swimg beneath the folds of the banner of St. George, as subjects of George the Second. The news did not reach England in time to gratify the old king, who had in- George ii. trusted so much to Pitt. On October 25, George had October, swooned in his bedchamber, and fallen against a chest ^^^' of drawers. Thus he died. The tidings did not reach Boston till December. Precisely what the area was that Vaudreuil's capitulation covered very likely neither he nor Amherst cared to j^^g^ ^f the determine too exactly. At all events, the terms given <=o° « . W^W Pi I 5 4 « "^ - « i #^ ^ Note. The cut on the opposite page attaches to this one at the left hand edge. 438 THE EFFECT UPON THE INDIANS. all along the Pennsylvania borders. Early in June, Croglian, then at Carlisle, reported that the Delawares, who had been waiting developments, had gone over to the enemy. It was Croghan's belief that the French were the real in- stigators of this outbreak, not so much with the hope of mak- ing it successful as with the expectation that the beaten savages would seek an asylum under the Bourbon flag beyond the Mis- sissippi. They could thus sustain the trade they were trying to build up by wresting much of it from the English. In June, a pack of huddled settlers were crouching before an attack upon Fort Ligonier, and Fort Bedford was preparing for the worst. The lesser posts near Fort Cumberland were pouring their people into that refuge. Bouquet, now in Philadelphia, heard of the rising, but the stories were so contradictory that he was perplexed what to believe. Amherst thought it nothing but a rash attempt of the Senecas. By June 12, both Bouquet and the general had found that they must accept the worst. Croghan, at Fort Bedford, while communication was cut with Fort Pitt, believed this latter Forts post to be invested. The truth was that on the next taken. ^^j after Croghan wrote, Le Boeuf had been aban- doned (June 18). Presqu' Isle and Venango were also taken, and their garrisons massacred. On June 23 and 24, a sharp attack had been made on Fort Pitt itself, but without success. During Jnly, Bouquet was struggling to organize a relieving force, but he found the loss of Presqu' Isle had disarranged his plans, and the occupation of the passes by the enemy prevented his getting needful information of their movements. To harass him further, the Pennsylvania authorities, who had gathered a force for the borders, refused to put it under his control. Marching from Carlisle, Bouquet was attacked at Edge Hill, near Bushy Run, twenty-six miles from Fort Pitt, and Bushy whcrc he suffered a loss of sixty men. He had gained some advantages, chiefly by the good behavior of the forty-second regiment. They had shown that regulars could meet the savage with his own tactics. At the day's close, Bou- quet had written to Amherst, not in the best of spirits, regret- ting that his train prevented his following up what advantages he had gained, and expecting the battle to be renewed in the morning. The day brought the savage host once more upon him. [From the 3fap of Pennsylranin , chiefly from (he Map of W. Snill, J 770 (London : Sayer and Bennett, 1775), showing the place of Bouquet's fight. Croghan calls Scull's map a deception, and says that Fort Pitt was put in it tliirteen miles farther north than its actual situation, in order to place it on the same parallel witli tlie bend in the Delaware at Easton, and so bring it witliin the five degrees west from that river which constitute the western extension of Pennsylvania under the charter.] 440 THE EFFECT UPON THE INDIANS. He now found it to consist of Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingoes. He lured them into a disordered onset by a feigned retreat, and then turned and completely routed them. His loss for the two days was one hundred and fifteen, and on August 11 he was at Fort Pitt, which had successfully stood a siege of five days. Here he wrote to Amherst that his two days' fight- ing at Edge Hill had given the savages the " most complete defeat they had ever received in the woods." It had indeed cleared the country of every foe between the settlements and Fort Pitt. Later, in September, Bouquet reported to Governor Hamilton that the Indians were stunned by their defeat, and later still, as the influence of his movement became more ap- parent, he was confident that with seven hundred men he could drive the enemy beyond the Mississippi. The campaign for the season was evidently over, but there was no hope that the next year would not reveal the necessity of vigorous action. Johnson told Amherst that the French would no doubt continue to supply the Indians with ammuni- tion, by way of the Mississippi, and would in the mean whUe engross the western trade by the same channel. This induced the general to instruct the commander at Mobile to prevent, if possible, any such help from the side of the Gulf. During the autumn, there were small packs of Indians spreading dismay along the Virginia borders, but at the north Croghan reported that all was quiet, except among the Senecas. The result of the summer's hostilities was in a measure assur- The resvdts ^^a' There was no longer doubt that the strongest force which could be raised would be necessary for the next year's work ; but that an adequate force, directed by such ability as Bouquet had shown, could successfully en- counter the savages in the woods seemed to have been made certain by what that officer had already done. There was, indeed, a wide field to regain. Detroit and Fort Pitt had alone braved the attacks upon them. Green Bay and Sault Ste. Marie had been abandoned. The garrison at Mack- inac had been massacred. When, in August, the survivors of the most western stations reached Montreal, not a British flag was left flying west of Detroit. The forts at Sandusky, Miami, St. Joseph, Ouiatanon, Presqu' Isle, and Venango had all been captured by the conspirators. of the summer's war. BRADSTREET'S MOVEMENTS. 441 The news of the proclamation of October 7 was not received till it had become necessary to suppress rather than Theprocia- pacify the Indians, and it was likely to have little ef- octob"r°7, feet, except upon the whites. In November, Amherst ^'''^• had sailed from New York for England, and the command in America now devolved on Thomas Gage. He had re- . ,, , TT- 1 Gage com' centlvbeen in authority at Montreal. His plans were mander-in- . . .... clxief. soon laid for pushing forces into the Mississippi re- gion, using both Fort Pitt and Mobile as his bases. But he soon found his hands full of other duties. Late in January, 1764, he wrote to Bouquet to come to New York and determine upon plans for the summer's cam- campaign paign. By April, the plans were well in hand. Gage °* ^'^• had put Bouquet in charge of all forces in Philadelphia and south of it, and had urged the governors of Virginia and Mary- land to put their local militia under his direction. To prepare the way for a northern advance, Jolinson, on April 3, brought the Senecas to a peace, by which the ^he north- crown secured a large tract of land on the Niagara uLder^^^'^^ River. This opened a route toward Sandusky by ^""^^d^t'eet. the southern shore of Lake Erie, and this part of the western advance was intrusted to the command of Colonel Bradstreet. He took along with him a force sufficient to give the Indians the effective chastisement which was expected of him. Brad- street had enlisted a contingent of French Canadians in the hope to convince the Indians of the hopelessness of a French defection. He lingered at Niagara in order to protect John- son, who was still negotiating with the neighboring tribes, and in August pushed on to Erie. At Presqu' Isle, on August 12, evidently in the expectation of reaping the glory of closing the war, he agreed to Bradstreet'a a peace with an irresponsible party of Slia\vnees and *'"®^*y- Delawares. These scheming savages had planned to quiet Bradstreet by some sort of treaty, while their confederates far- ther south were to gain time for renewed excesses along the bor- der. By the pliant terms of the treaty, the Indians ceded the existing posts, and granted sites for any others which the Eng- lish might find it desirable to build. The whites were to have adjacent tillage lands, extending as far as a cannon-shot could reach. The savages gave hostages, and promised to deliver all 442 THE EFFECT UPON THE INDIANS. murderers of the English at Fort Pitt, and within twenty-five days to surrender at Sandusky all prisoners then in their hands. On Bradstreet's pushing on to Sandusky, there were no signs of the expected prisoners. The Indians, pursuing their beguil- ing policy, promised more definite agreements at Detroit. Ar- rived here, the little army relieved the weary garrison, and sent forward detachments to take possession of Mackinac, the Bradstreet Sault, and Grccn Bay. On September 10, Bradstreet at Detroit, arranged a new conference ; but Pontiac was sulking at the Maumee rapids, and would not come to it. Those who came made a feeble outward show of submission, which satisfied Bradstreet, and then he started east. On August 23, Grant, at Fort Pitt, had heard of the Erie treaty, and dispatched messengers at once to Gage Gage disap- ^ ' ± o o proves the and to BouQuct. Neither of these officers approved treaty. it, and each was confident that Bradstreet had been too precipitate in coming to even a promise of peace till the Indians had felt the blow which it was the purpose of Gage to give them. It was September 2 when Gage received the news, and he immediately sent orders to Bradstreet to quit parleying with the Delawares, for they were still ravaging the frontiers. Meanwhile, Bouquet, who had also heard of the treaty, hoped the tidings would not be confirmed, and was pushing on into the wilderness in disregard of it, but quite ready to find occasion to punish the tribes for any breach of its provisions on their part. He thought the fact that the Senecas had submitted was more likely to awe the Delawares than this trumped-up treaty was to mollify them. Bouquet was not a man of dallying compunctions. He had Bouquet and u^gcd the Penusylvauians to employ dogs to track the his advance, gavagcs, if the provincc would not help him with men. He had given out that with three or four hundred good woods- men, he could burn every Indian village in the Ohio country. No matter what spirit he showed, the neighboring governments were slow in coming^ to his aid. He had found himself held back by this apathy, with the mountains still before him, when he supposed Bradstreet was punishing the Wyandots and Dela- wares in the region of Sandusky. It was not till the 1st of October that Bouquet crossed the BOUQUET. 443 Ohio, with a definite purpose of forcing a peace of his own im- posing which should relieve the regions east and south of the Ohio of the tribes, and preserve the navigation of the Ohio itself. He had advanced into tho "Mnslvin2,'uni vrillcv, when, on HENRY BOUQUET. the 17th of November, the Indians hovering about thought it wise to sue for peace. Bouquet would make no terms until every prisoner among them was surrendered. It took nearly a month to gather in these unfortunates. One among the forest exiles had given birth the previous spring to offspring supposed to be the first white child born in what is now the State of Ohio. 444 THE EFFECT UPON THE INDIANS. Having imposed his terms, Bouquet broke up his camp on the 18th, and ten days later was at Fort Pitt. Not long vfew Xthe afterwards, Sir William Johnson congratulated him campaign. ^^ j^.^ succcss. " Nothing but penetrating into their country coidd have done it," said the Indian agent. There was some disposition on the part of the Shawnees, backed by French influence and strengthened by French sup- plies, to hold out ; but the pressure of the Iroquois finally brought them to terms. During December, Bouquet sent off messengers from Fort Loudon to inform the governors of the nearer provinces of the peace. Gage promptly approved the treaty, and advised Bouquet to do what he could to appease Pontiac. There was not a force available to make a successful march to the Illinois, and Gage had been for some time suspi- cious of St. Ange's influence in that region. He accordingly directed Bouquet to get a Shawnee escort for a messenger to the Illinois, in anticipation of detaching a sufficient force later, to occupy the posts still in the hands of the French. The out- come of this intention will appear in the final chapter. The results of Bouquet's treaty were for the next ten years far from satisfactory, but it does not concern us here Bouquet's to cutcr upou the details of the irrepressible irritation treaty. ^^ hoth. red man and white. It led to the treaty at Fort Stanwix, and the practical annulment of the king's procla- mation, before the strife of the colonies with the mother coun- try broke up all restraints. One result of the Bouquet treaty was to draw the savages still more from the occupancy of the regions south of the Ohio, and facilitate the settling a few years later of what are now the States of Kentucky and Tennessee. Very soon after Bouquet's conference, the last of the Shawnees who lingered in that country crossed the Ohio. Another result was the sending of Croghan to England, at the instance of Sir William Johnson, to advise with the government. Croghan recommended that a line be drawn from the head of the Dela- ware to the mouth of the Ohio, so as to reserve for an Indian hunting-ground all to the north and west, while a fair purchase was made of all territory between such a line and the settle- ments. The recommendation resulted in a plan devised at Fort Stanwix four years later. By that time, Pontiac and the west- THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT. 445 ern chiefs had presented themselves at Oswego, where Johnson had concluded a treaty with them. This harmonized interests pretty well at the north ; but the troubles in Virginia kept on, and were only turned to new chan- nels by the outbreak of the Revolution. The exhaustion of the tidewater soils, incident upon the culture of tobacco, had always incited a movement westward to find new ground, and this played not an unimportant part in the earlier advance to and jj,g veestern beyond the mountains at the south, compared with the nortHnd* movement at the north. This southern exodus was *°""'" painfully restrained at times by the barbarous inroads along the frontiers, and we have the testimony of Maury, the Huguenot, that this unsettled condition of life was starting emi- Virginians gration from Virginia into the more southern colonies, ™°^^ ^°""'' where a quieter existence seemed to be assured by the inter- posed barrier formed by the Cherokees and Catawbas. Maury tells us that three hundred persons passed in one week by Bed- ford Court House into Carolina, and in October, 1764, he says that five thousand crossed by the Goochland Court House on the same errand. But the movement was by no means confined to a southerly direction. The trader had long since become familiar with the mountain passes, and the pioneer was sure to succeed to the trader's routes. The Moravians were opening the way. Already, in 1761, the missionary, Post, had penetrated ansinthe" to an upper branch of the Muskingum, and built him a cabin there on the north side of the Tuscarawas Creek, — in what is now Stark County. It was probably the first white man's house in the wilds of Ohio. The British Parliament soon after, in 1763, passed a law for the naturalization of Protestant foreigners who had served in the royal army in America, and had bought land and ^^^^^^ ^^j^. settled. This gave a new strength to the alien popula- '■^^^^e'^- tion, and it proved impossible to restrain them within the limits imposed by the proclamation of 1763. The routes which had been opened over the mountains by Forbes yond the and Braddock were dotted with the moving wagons. It has been estimated that from 1765 to 1768 some thirty thou- sand whites settled beyond the mountains. 446 THE EFFECT UPON THE INDIANS. This had not been done without spasmodic efforts on the part o£ the king's officers to stop it. Repeated instructions were sent to the colonial governors to interpose restraints. Threats had been made to leave all adventurous and law-breaking set- tlers to the mercy of the Indians, if they persisted in entering the crown lands. Nothing of threat or prohibition had much effect. Soldiers were sent to eject such settlers on Red Stone Creek and the Cheat River, but the dispossessed squatters soon returned to their old haunts in larger numbers, recruited among •their friends. Even Washington sent out his agents and sur- veyors through the Ohio region, who picked out desirable tracts, and blazed their bounds. It was his intention to patent them, as soon as the restrictions of the proclamation became, as every one foresaw they must become, a fruitless provision. The story of this occupation, and the movements in which Franklin took a leading part to bring these Ohio regions within the range of civilized prosperity, with a promise finally realized by a free people, belongs rather to another volume than the pres- ent. It only remains now to show how the western posts came finally into the victor's hands. CHAPTEK XXIII. OCCUPATION COMPLETED. 1764, 1765. While New Orleans and Louisiana were still lingering de- ceitfully under the flag of France, the doom of the xhe Jesuits Jesuits had been decreed in Paris. This religious '^°^^^^- order had with a remarkable prescience marked out both in the upper and the lower basins of the Mississippi what those regions could do for mankind. They had introduced the sugar cane at the south and planted wheat in the Illinois country. The Superior Council of the province had already much re- stricted their powers, when a general decree in Paris jjut an end to their work everywhere in the French dominions. It meant that the marvelous power of the Jesuit in regidating intercourse with the savage along the Great River must come, for the present at least, to an end. The settlements at Kaskaskia and in the upper country had been what the Jesuits had made them. The treaty of 1763 had drawn a sharp and natural line of demarcation between the English and the French, The treaty along the channel of the Mississippi. This meant a tteselt*-*^ distinct abandonment upon the part of the British ^^a claim. government of the old sea-to-sea claim of the early English charters. The idea of such abandonment was not a grateful one to many of the English patentees. They held that by the treaty the claim suffered only a suspension, and not a dissolu- tion. A variety of j^amphlets was sprung upon the public to enforce this view. They made the most they could of what they alleged was the avoidance by England in the treaty to guarantee to France the possession of the trans-Mississippi country. To strengthen the territorial pretension of these -S ///if '^ \ ^ / - a \- / \ * \ ^ llri / ^ f ^ s. / ^ 1 \!^P/1 U* " ^ /^ y^ \ x/ / V&C (yW ^ /^ A \^ x^^ ■ / i/p^ y^^^ 1 . f ^v^ / '• ^^\ '•■ S \ n ^ y^ / >s^ ,' ^ ^r v^^_ f-* \^^ 1 / 1 L, V'^'^ / .■» ^ «j ^.^^ JlP'^'^ \S i/<^3 ^^^^ ' / «> ^N, ^^. z^;:^ ^-^j/vT/^w^ ^ ' / iyK\ ^*^^^^^^^^^^^W2^8l_ ^ /' / ' /f ^ V^^*^^^^^ '^~'~— — -. / / ^^J^^ ^''"^^^-^""^ A^ H v:^ '^'p/^ v\/ "^ "/ ^ / f -- "^•---^^ - .3^^^^"^^^^^ / ''i / |\ / "^^Te^^ V^ \ * / i / ^"^'^^^ y^ y /' / 'O ■ /\ >s ■C^ / ^A| ^^'^ / \ / /I y^ \ ^ -rLk^^^'^^/ ^^}\X 1^ y ; "^^^^^^^^^T^ — \/^-^)cS^'S^ \ y^ >-A; {Tj^Mi^mxy ~— ^^-' jl ^^""""^^-s^/ nm\> tic «/Jo' '' /"''^ ^\ \ ^ -^ sS^^"^ _ / 1 1'/^mJS^, !.' \ V" "^ Ti 3 1 SI ^ /-^ V i ^^'^^*-<^ki-'^f«^^r^.'i^ 1W^2 v.^ ^ /\ Note. A part of Jefferys' map, 1768, allowing the vicinity of New Orleans and the Gulf coast. The section on the opposite page attaches to this part on the left hand. i/i^ZlUle^ (^idf [From The Course of the Mississippi, hy Lieutenant Ross, improved from the Surveys of the French, London, 1775. It shows the point where Loftus was driven back.] [From CaUot's ^/^a*, PI. 34.] 452 OCCUPATION COMPLETED. pamphleteers, it was necessary to depend upon English explora- tions as well as upon the right to issue the sea-to-sea charters. Story after story of early wanderings of the English along and beyond the Mississippi were rehabilitated in the public mind. Such were the unsupported narrative of the adventures of Colonel Wood in 1654 and 1664. The discredited journals and maps given by the younger Coxe, which carried in 1676 the roving explorers sent out by the father up the Mississippi to the Missouri, were once more cited. The fabulous party of New Englanders who went overland to New Mexico in 1678, and whose guides were represented as afterward leading La Salle down the Great River, was again created as a veritable record. But the ambitious and seductive pretense availed nothing, and the bounds of Carolana, like those of Virginia and the other colonies having a western extension, were clipped at the Mis- sissippi forever. England thus not only abrogated her sea-to- sea claims, but the short-sightedness which made crown lands of her acquisitions beyond the Alleghanies laid open the way for the new Republic in 1782, by virtue of having wrested them from the crown itself, to include them in its nascent realm. It was in 1764 that efforts were first made by the English to Carolinians ^^^ posscssiou of the left bank of the Mississippi. Rouge?" ^^ *^^* year, some wanderers from Roanoke in North ^'^^- Carolina came to Baton Rouge and entered upon a contraband trade with the French. In the previous February, The English Major Arthur Loftus, with about four hundred Eng- onthe^*'^'^ lish troops, which had come from Mobile, already Mississippi. ^;aken possession of, entered the Mississippi, with the purpose of proceeding to the upper waters and receiving the surrender of Fort Chartres and the other French posts. On February 27, the detachment of Loftus left New Orleans in the ascent. Some weeks later, on May 20, the flotilla, which was making a laborious progress, was suddenly attacked at Davion's Bluff (Fort Adams). The English, surprised, were driven back with a small loss. There is some reason to believe that this attack, made by the Indians, had been encouraged by French residents, though the French officers in authority are o r-, W 454 OCCUPATION COMPLETED. probably to be exonerated. Loftiis, however, and his officers remained convinced of such connivance. The spot where it occurred was two hundred and forty miles from New Orleans, as is indicated in a map of the Mississippi made in a later ascent by Lieutenant Ross of the thirty-fourth regiment, in which is marked the place " where the Twenty-second regiment was driven back by the Tonicas." Andrew Ellicott also marks it in a map which accompanies his more recent journal. A few weeks later, Neyon de Villiers, who commanded at Fort Chartres, summoning St. Anee from the Wa- st. Ange . ° * at Fort bash, left that officer in charge, and started down the Chartres. ...... „„ ° Mississippi with six officers, over sixty soldiers, and about eighty French residents in his train. He reached New Orleans on July 2, finding the French still in control, and with no suspicion of the sudden shock which they were to experience three months later (October, 1764), when the provisions of the secret Fontainebleau treaty became known. A letter from the The secret Frcuch king, dated in April, had revealed their des- vulge^dHy ^^^J- D'Abadic, now in the governorship in suc- octote*^^' cession to Kerlerec, had been in office since June, 1764. 1763. He was a man who soon commanded respect by his uprightness, but the execrable condition of the finances of the province had proved too much for even an able adminis- trator, and he was beginning to lose ground in health and spirits under the pressure of his duties. Champigny tells us how dis- heartening and even appalling an effect the news which D'Aba- die was compelled to disclose had made upon a community who could but feel that they had been betrayed in exigencies which little concerned them. D'Abadie suffered mortification and a revulsion of feelings with the rest, and did not live to turn the province over to the Spanish governor, whom he was instructed to receive. He died, weighed down and disconsolate, dies;Vuoa ou February 4, 1765; and it was not tiU March, comes. 1760^ that Ulloa, the Spanish representative, arrived in the river, to treat with Aubry, the successor of D'Abadie, for the surrender of the province. This change of destiny, which fell with so distressing a blow upon D'Abadie and the faithful Louisianians, came also like a blight to a people who had shown in many ways their devotion to the Bourbon crown of France. ENGLISH AND FRENCH TRADERS. 455 Early in 17G5, some of the restless and wandering Acadians, now for ten years unwelcome and unwilling denizens Acadians in along the Atlantic seaboard, had begun to arrive in Lo'»siana. New Orleans. These and later comers in part took up their home lots along the reaches of the river still known as the " Cajean Coast." They had left the English colonies with the hope of living once more under the French flag ; but found they had come to a distracted land. Others, already planning for the change, were stopped by hearing of the new conditions, and, turning to seek other asylums, found their way to San Domingo, Cayenne, and even to France and Corsica. Some of these same exiles, who had started west to descend the Missis- sippi, met the disastrous news at Detroit, and tarried there, where they are still represented by descendants. Since the promulgation of the proclamation of 1763, there had been an increasing disaffection among the Eng- English lish traders in finding themselves debarred from traffic the'^tiew^"*^ beyond the Mississippi. In what were now the crown conditions. lands, wars and removals had sensibly thinned the native popu- lation, and it had become evident that the future of the Indian trade must be west of the Great River. The tidings of the Spanish accession to this distant territory, in that it opened new channels for English enterprise, and was not likely to cul- tivate the same degree of rivalry as with the French, came with new encouragements to the trader. We find this expressed in a letter of February 26, 1765, from Governor Dobbs of North Carolina, one of the last he wrote, for he expired about a month later (March 28). The English can now extend, he says in effect, their trade beyond the Mississippi, and reach the Span- iards of new and old Mexico, " by pushing on our discoverers and traders by the Missouri and the rivers west of the Missis- sippi," and so secure "' an open trade to the westward Ameri- can ocean." The gain, however, was not to be all on French one side, for both Spanish and French traders were ortiirMfs^* pushing east of the Mississippi, and were carrying off ®'»^'pp'- furs from points within sixty miles of Detroit, and Kaskaskia was filled with goods from New Orleans. It was evident that the English, if they would retain the Indian trade, could not long delay possession of this Illinois 456 OCCUPATION COMPLETED. and Wabash country. The approach was now to be made over- land from the east. We have seen that Gage, at the sent over- end of Bouquet's campaign, had instructed that offi- cer to send messengers to the Illinois. Early in 1765, Lieutenant Fraser had been dispatched from Fort Pitt to pre- pare the tribes and the French for the English force which was to follow. He reached the Illinois villages, where the Fraser sent French traders conspired to take his life. He owed his deliverance to Pontiac, now disposed to make his peace with the inevitable masters. Fleeing finally in disguise, Fraser left the field open by descending in June to New Orleans. The mission was soon to be pursued by a different man, for the lot had fallen to George Croghan, the best choice ghan sent possiblc, and f avorcd by Bouquet, though he was not in all ways above suspicion when the Indian trade was in question. Under instructions from Sir William Johnson, Cro- ghan left Fort Pitt about the middle of May, 1765. He had two boats, with several white companions. A small party of Delawares, Shawnees, and Iroquois soon joined him. He went prepared to note the country and plot the windings of the Ohio. The early geographers of this valley owed something to him, though his scale of distances proved subject to considerable errors. Fortunately, his journal has been preserved, and we can see in his narrative how the river banks were at this time alive with the buffalo and other wild game. Croghan had sent out messengers to summon the French traders to meet him at the mouth of the Scioto and take the oath of allegiance, and the Indians helped to bring them in. By the 6th of June, he was at the mouth of the Wabash, where he found the Indians less tractable than the Shawnees had been higher up the valley. He now dispatched messengers to St. Ange to warn him of his approach ; but his advance was brought suddenly to a stop. On the morning of June poos attack. 8, a body of Kickapoos and Mascoutins, on the pre- tense that his Indians were Cherokees, attacked and captured him. The savages carried their prisoner to Vincennes, and arrived there on the 15th. Croghan reports this town to have at the time some eighty French habitations (occupied, to his eyes. FORT CHARTRES OCCUPIED. 457 by an idle and lazy population), with Indian huts scattered among them. Croghan himself was treated with respect, and was sent up the river to Ouiatanon, where he was released. Here he received a letter from St. Ange, promising a courteous TT T» • 1 J Treaty at reception, rle now met i:^ontiac, and at a concourse the Maumee of the neighboring tribes held at Ouiatanon, Croghan speedily brought them to terms. The Twightwees gave up their English prisoners, and hoisted the English flag upon the banks of the St. Joseph, a branch of the Maumee. That the Indians of the upper Ohio valley had already succumbed seemed to help Croghan with the more distant tribes, and Pontiac's good offices became important. Croghan, in the report which he made to Johnson, spoke of the Ottawa chief as " a shrewd, sensible Indian of few words, who commands more respect among his own nation than any Indian I ever saw." Croghan adds that Pontiac seemed to understand the late contest as a " beaver war," stirred up for profit. The chief spoke for peace, but he demanded jjowder and lead for his peo- ple, and begged that they might be dismissed with a plenty of rum ! It was further the opinion of Croghan that the French hold upon the Indians was still strong, and that the English must not expect a speedy revulsion in their favor. Croghan made concessions enough to accomplish his purpose, and early in August started down the Mamnee in the croghanin confident expectation that the march of the English, ^^'^''oit. later on, to Fort Chartres would be permitted without restraint. On the 17th, he was at Detroit, and repeated his success with the new savage hordes which greeted him there, and then, secur- ing Pontiac's promise to seal the peace with Johnson at Oswego, he started for Niagara. Croghan's report being made. Captain Thomas Stirling started from Fort Pitt with a hundred and twenty Highland- ers, and, meeting with no obstructions, the expedition marches reached Fort Chartres, and on October 10, in the pres- ence of Stirling and his Black Watch regiment, the French flag was hauled down, and St. Ange gave up his authority. There was not now a Bourbon symbol flying anywhere chartres throughout the English conquest. The threats of October io, resistance wliich early in the spring the adjacent '-W^i FORT CHARTRES AND KASKASKIA. [From Lieutenant Ross's Course of the Mississippi, improved from Surveys of the French, London, 1775.] 462 OCCUPATION COMPLETED. tribes were making had been succeeded by the same quiet submission wliicli Croghan had compelled on the Maumee. Gage had prepared a proclamation, which was now issued by the English commander. It assured the French of lish proc- security in their religion, and gave them opportunity to retire with their property to New Orleans, or else- where if they desired. If they remained, they were promised the same protection that was accorded to British subjects. There were some thousand French whom these provisions af- fected. A considerable proportion followed St. Ange across the Mississippi, when he moved his headquarters to St. Louis. A few British families succeeded to some of the farms that had been thus abandoned. Two years later, it was estimated that half the French settlers had crossed the river, and that depart or there wcre something over two thousand left on Eng- lish soil, of whom three fourths were along the Mis- sissippi, and a quarter remained on the Wabash. It is supposed that at this time hardly haK as many French occupied these new settlements, and they were mostly within the limits of the mod- ern State of Missouri. Stirling having thus secured quiet possession, his force was after a while, in December, 1765, strengthened by the arrival of British *^^^ thirty-fourth regiment under Major Farmer, com- ceud'thr i"^ ^P *1^® river from the Gulf. There had been some Mississippi, apprehension that these troops might suffer like those under Loftus ; but precautions had been taken. Stuart, the In- dian agent in the south, had propitiated the Chickasaws by gifts, and parties of that tribe not only scoured the country along the river on the flanks of the flotilla which carried the troops, but a body of their hunters kept the little army supplied with game. There had been some fear that perhaps the minor tribes along the river would yield to French intrigue, and harass the British, but the Choctaws restrained them. The Arkansas on the west- ern bank proved also friendly, and Stuart indulged a hope that their peaceable disposition might yet conduce to their crossing the river. With them, the Natchez, and the Alibamons, the English miglit command some six hundred warriors to protect the free navigation of the Mississippi. While these precautions had made the movements of the troops safe in the lower valley. 2 W B o ^ o 2 H 464 OCCUPATION COMPLETED. a body of Cherokees had been sent to the Illinois country, where their motions proved a distraction to the French and Indians. With these plans for protecting its flanks, the English regiment at last, after a toilsome passage of five months and more, entered quietly within the defenses at Fort Chartres, and the English possession of the country was completed. INDEX. Aberckombie, sent to America, 385 ; to attack Tieonderoga, 38G ; his de- feat, 386. Acadia, French claims to, 160, 161 ; charter, 317 ; acquired by England, 87, 420. Acadians, 274 ; in Louisiana, 274 ; per- fidy of, 353 ; New England to occupy their attention, 356 ; a party of them captured, 377 ; in Louisiana, 455 ; in Detroit, 455. Acansia River, 75. See Aacantia ; Iber- ville River. Adair, James, American Indians, 248, 262 ; his map, 262, 263 ; among the Chickasaws, 266. Adams, John, on the French, 335 ; on Loudoun, 384. Adams, Samuel, 219. Adayes, 94, 95, 154, 155. Aguilar, 216. Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty, 224, 3-34. Akansea River, 61. See Arkansas. Akanseas, 61. Alabama River, 21, 41 ; post on, 86, 421. Albany, traders of, 67, 68, 74, 88, 125, 126, 164, 165, 346; treaty at, 165; clandestine trade with Quebec, 250 ; conference (1751), 287 ; congress (1754), 343 ; plan of congress rejected, 350. Albemarle, Lord, ambassador to Paris, 335. Alibamons, 21, 64, 65, 153, 268 ; friendly to the English, 462. AUard, 74. Alleghany River, the route to the Ohio country, 14, 17, 30, 279 ; mapped, 345 ; abandoned by the French, 398. AUouez, 26. Altamaha River, 135, 170. American Antiquarian Society, 254. Amherst, General Jeffery, attacks Cape Breton, 386 ; leads the new campaign, 395 ; at Lake George, 395 ; at Crown Point, 396 ; sends a messenger to Wolfe, 396 ; expected at Quebec, 399 ; his advance on Montreal, 403 ; his force, 404 ; announces peace, 419 ; and the Pontiac war, 438 ; returns to England, 441. Andrews,' New Map (1783), 247. Anian, Straits of, 77, 214, 426. Anne, Queen, succeeds, 68. Appalachians, as a barrier, 12, 122, 131 ; gaps, 17 ; maps, 19 ; as a boundary, 76, 143 ; mines, 134 ; English lack of knowledge of, 161 ; Byrd's view of, 168. Appalachicola River, 21, 143. Arkansas Indians, peaceful, 462. Arkansas River, 90, 98, 105, 156 ; Law's grant, 104 ; post at its mouth, 156. See Akansea River. Armstrong, Colonel John, attacks Kit- tanning, 377. Armstrong, Major, pioneer for Forbes, 388. Artaguette, Diron d', 65, 85 ; leaves Louisiana, 83 ; beaten by the Chicka- saws, 191. Ascantia River, 40, 42, 49. See Acansia. Ascension Bay, 448. Ashby's Gap, 233. Aspinwali papers, 299. Assiniboine Indians, 30; (Assiniboils), 97 ; (Asinipoils), 147 ; mission, 194 ; various forms of the name, 194 ; and the western way, 199, 203 ; the tribe, 205 ; their treachery, 206 ; their coim- try, 215. Assiniboine River, mapped, 195, 205. Atchison, 144. Adas Moderne, 216. Atlas Nouveau, 216. Aubry leaves Duquesne, 392 ; defeated by Johnson, 398. Aubry, governor of Louisiana, 454. Aughwick, 342, ,345. Augusta (Va.), 178. AzUia, 135. Balize, fort at, 154. Bancroft, H. H., and Moncacht-Apd, 214. Baton Rouge, 7, 40 ; English at (1764), 452. Bayagoulas, 37, 38, 40, 44, 49, 448. 466 INDEX. Baye de St. Bernard, 92 ; abandoned, 94. Baye de St. Esprit, 92, Baye de St. Louis, 92, 142, .321. Beauharnois, puts vessels on Lake Onta- rio, 165 ; and western discovery, 193, 198 ; and V^rendrye, 201 ; preparing for war, 220 ; Indian conference, 250. Beaujeu at Duquesne, 301 ; killed, 362. Beaurain, Chevalier de, 52. Beaver, extermination of, 329. Beaver Creek, 299, 301, 436. Beaver's Town, 261. Bedford, Duke of, 420. Begon, Memoire, 30 ; the intendant of Canada, 112, 165. Belcher, Governor of Massachusetts, 174. Bellestre at Detroit, 406. BeUin, and the western water-way, 106 ; his hydrographical theories, 204, 214 ; his maps, 246, 249 ; his map used by Washington, 306; and the French claim, 330. Bellomont, Governor, 14, 66, 68. Bering's Straits, 212. Berkeley, Bishop, 162. Berthelot in the Illinois, 260, 262. Bethlehem (Pa.) 258. Beverly, Robert, 129. Beverly, WUliam, 170. Beverly manor, 179, 229, 237. Bienville, his parentage, 2 ; on the Mis- sissippi, 38 ; his character, 42 ; com- missioned, 48 ; at Fort Laboulaye, 52 ; portrait, 57 ; at BUoxi, 62 ; at- tacks the Alibamons, 64 ; his enemies, 65 ; quarrels with Cadillac, 101 ; at- tacks the Natchez, 101 ; builds Fort Rosalie, 101 ; governor of the Com- pany of the West, 102 ; receives his commission, 104 ; attacks Pensacola, 106 ; New Orleans his capital, 154 ; protests against Spanish encroach- ments, 154 ; attacks the Natchez, 157 ; returns to France, 157 ; reinstated in Louisiana, 190 ; campaigns against the Chiekasaws, 191 ; sends a party up the Arkansas, 200 ; retires, 259. Big Horn range, 202. Big Miami River, 30. See Miami. Big Roebuck, 211. Big Sandy River, 2.30. Big Tree, Oneida chief, 284. Bigot and St. Pierre, 204 ; intendant at Quebec, 228 ; urging war, 294. Biloxi, 62 ; Indians, 37 ; settlement, 42 ; life at, 43 ; position, 59, 75, 423, 448. Bisque, F. del, 10. Black Watch Regiment, 457. Blair, governor of Virginia, 229. Blue Ridge, 129. Bob^, and the Lahontan story, 80 ; and Deltsle, 111; on a western way, 114; Memoire, 160 ; views as to the French claims, 161. Boisbriant, P. D., 62 ; commands in Illi- nois, 120 ; fears the English advance, 149 ; at New Orleans, 157. BoUan, on the English claim, 331. Bolt, Captain, in the Ohio country, 421. Bonneearaps, his map, 255-257. Boone, Daniel, crosses the mountains, 410. Borden, Benjamin, 179. Borden grant, 229. Boseawen, Admiral, 368. Boston, threatened by the French, 68, 222 ; its condition, 218. Boston News-Letter, 69. Bougainville at Quebec, 378 ; returns from France, 395 ; at Quebec, 399 ; on Lake Champlain, 404. Bourbonia, 111. Bourgmont (Bourmont, Boismont, Bour- nion), 112; on the Missouri, 141; among the Padoucas, 144. Bourlamaque at Quebec, 378 ; retires before Amherst, 396 ; at Montreal, 404. Bouquet, Colonel, in the south, 275 ; disagrees with Washington as to the route to be followed against Du- quesne, 388 ; commanding on the Ohio, 397 ; at Fort Pitt, 409 ; warned of war with Spain, 413 ; in the Pontiac war, 438 ; Edge Hill battle, 438 ; in command at Philadelphia, 441 ; his character, 442 ; portrait, 443 ; makes peace, 443. Bowen, Emanuel, maps, 22 ; map of the southern Indian country, 383 ; on the source of the Mississippi, 424, 426. Bowen and Gibson's North America, 105, 140, 152, 196, 327-329; on the English claim, 331. Braddoek, General Edward, his in- structions, 335 ; sent to America, 354 ; plan of his campaign, 355 ; meets the colonial governors, 355, 356 ; his treatment of the Indians, .355 ; his character, 356 ; Washington joins him, 3.57; his route, 311, 357, 439; map of his march, 358, 359; his force, 3()0; receives express from Brad- street, 361 ; his defeat, 362 ; his losses, 363 ; map of the battle, 439. Bradstreet, Lieutenant-Colonel, defeats the French, 379 ; takes Fort Fronte- nac, 38(i ; colonel in command of an expedition, 441 ; makes a treaty at Presqu' Isle, 441 ; rebuked for it, 442. Brant, Joseph, 324. Brattleboro' (Vt.), 162. Broad River, 21. INDEX. 467 Broutin, Carte des Natchitoches, 91. Bryinner, Doug-las, Beports, 201. Biiache. maps the He'd, of the West, 207, 20',), 21(j; on the source of the Missis- sippi, 424. Buccaneers, .')•"). Buffaloes, S, 1."); in Ohio, 120,148, 150, 450; in Virginia, 128, 220; trade in their furs, 'e, 195. Fort Kouill^, 223. 287. Fort «t. Charles, 195, 198, 199. Fort St. Fraiiqois, 205, 2()9. Fort St. Jean Baptiste, 91, 156. Fort St. Joseph, 117, 119, 329. Fort St. Louis (Mobile), 04, 75, 413. Fort St. Louis de Calorette, 90. Fort St. Pierre, 198, 321. Fort Santa Kosa, 449. Fort Shirley, 380. Fort Snelling, 8, 9. Fort Stanwix, treaty, 444. Fort Ticondero<;a, the French at, 370. Fort Tonibigbee, 202. Fort Toulouse, 86, 153, 321. Fort Vermilion, 8. Fort Williain Henry, 370 ; threatened, 382 ; surrendered, 383 ; massacre, 383. Fox River, French post at mouth, 144. Foxes (Indians), 22, 43, 74, 90; attack Detroit, 90; friends of the English, 118; hostile, 144; pacificated, 145; marauding, 145 ; ferocious, 2()4. France, her claims from exploration, 1, 254, 31(( ; acts of possession, 3; her rivals, 8; war with England (1702), 68 ; costume of her soldiers (1710), 84 ; loses her ascendency by the treaty of Utrecht, 87 ; Louis XIV. leaves the country in great debt, 99; facsimile of bill of the Banque Royale. 103, 108 ; her power over the Indians, IK) ; surpassed by the English in trade, 116; bad colonizer, llti; peace with Spain, 152 ; would divide America with Spain, 160 ; at war with Eng- land (1744), 220; her settlements in America, map of, 220, 227 ; her con- dition, 228 ; her fiu' trade, 323 ; free appropriation of land, 323 ; to inter- pose between the English and Spanish, 332 ; diplomatic relations with Eng- land (1755), 334; desires an Atlantic harbor, 341 ; her subjects in America, population, 347 ; her traders faithful, .353 ; declares war, 379 ; her traders compared with the English, 408 ; ne- gotiates for peace, 415 ; proposes a neutral territory west of the moun- tains, 416; treaty with Spain at Fon- tainebleau, 418 ; encroachments in America, 421 ; her failure in colonies, 430. Franklin, Benjamin, The New England Courant, 102; on the Iroquois aid, 222 ; in Pennsylvania politics, 232 ; his Plain Truth, 242 ; holds council with the Indians, 302 ; on the German Catholics, 339; at the Albany con- gress, 344, 348 ; uses the press, 348 ; his plan of barrier colonies over the mountains, 348 ; on the failure of the Albany plan, 350 ; his testimony be- fore the Stamp Act Committee, 330, 350 ; his activity in Pennsylvania, 354, 300 ; assists Braddock, 357 ; to defend Pennsylvania, 372 ; on the re- tention of Canada, 417, 419 ; and the Ohio region, 44(5. Franklin (Pa.), 311. Franquelin, 74, 76; facsimile of map, 77. Eraser, Lieutenant, 456. Frazier, John, 30(5. Frederick of Prussia, 395. French Creek, 30, 297, 298, 301. French Margarets, 244, 305. French neutrals. See Acadians. Frontiers, evils of the, 242 ; vagrants of the, 409. Fry, Colonel Joshua, and the western quest, 216; in command of Virginia regiment, 309; dies, 312. Fry and Jefferson, Map of Virginia, 231, 233, 236, 237, 312 ; line run by them, 232. Gage, Thomas, with Braddock, 362 ; at Montreal, 420 ; succeeds Amherst, 441 ; plans campaign with Bouquet, 441 ; proclamation to the French on the Illinois, 462. Galena, mines, 122. Galissonni^re and V^rendrye, 204 ; in Quebec, 223; to colonize the Ohio, 225 ; sends an expedition to the Ohio, 252 ; recalled to France, 256 ; fearful of the English on the Ohio, 284 ; on the English encroachments, 335. Galphin, George, 4ll. Gates, Horatio, with Braddock, 362. Gee, Joshua, on the English trade, 169, 219, 229, 243. Genesee River, 30. Gentil, Abb^. 33. George II., died, 405. George III., proclamation (1763), 428. Georgia, Spanish mines in, 18 ; charter, 184; .settlers, 184; bounds, 184, 319- 321,428. German Catholics in America, 339. German Flats, 164. Germanna, 107, 181. Germans in America, 12; in Louisiana, 106, 110, 154; in Virginia, 128, 129, 107, 178 ; on the Missouri, 141 ; in Pennsylvania, 238, 242, 251, 338, 376. Gibson, I., 243. Gi-st, Christopher, sent out by the Ohio Company, 282 ; his journal, 282 ; on 472 INDEX. the Scioto, 288 ; his route in Ken- tucky, 290, 291, 304 ; sent out again, 292 ; meets Indians at Logstown, 293 ; maps the Ohio, 304 ; with Washing- ton, 306; his house, 312; his settle- ment, 314, 358 ; on the Ohio, 330. Gladwin, at Detroit, 413 ; expecting an Indian outbreak, 434. Glen, governor of South Carolina, 280, 288, 308, 354. Gooch, governor of Virginia, makes grants, 177, 179. Gordon, governor of Pennsylvania, 174. Grafe, L. de, 36. Graffenreid, De, 128. Gran Quivira, 96. Grant, General, with Forbes, 388 ; de- feated, 389 ; sent against the Chero- kees, 411 ; at Fort Pitt, 442. Gravier, Jacques, 57, 61. Great Lakes, undeveloped geography, 13 ; water-shed, 27. Great Meadows, 439. Great Miami River, 254. See Big Miami, and Miami. Great Slave Lake, 8. Green Bay, 116; portage, 21, 29, 118, 119,145; map, 22, 29; deserted, 120, 144, 440 ; settlers, 264. Green earth, 48, 52. Green River, 19, 32, 52. Greenbrier Company, 390. Greenbrier River, 232. Greenhow on the Oregon question, 214. Grimaldi, Spanish minister, 418. Guadeloupe compared with Canada, 417. Guest's house, 439. See Gist. Guignas, Father, at Lake Pepin, 145, 193. Guinea, negroes from, 154. Hakluyt, 316. Hale, Horatio, 20, 330. Half -King, a Mingo chief, 302 ; protests to Marin, 303 ; meets Washington, 306 ; at the forks, 311 ; at Fort Neces- sity, 315 ; dies, 341. Hanbury, John, London merchant, 251, 360. Hardy, Governor, 379. Harmon, Adam, 230. Harris's Ferry, 240, 243. Harvard College, class rank, 12. Hat-making, 174. Haviland, General, 404. Hawkins, corrects Mitchell's map, 301. Hazard, Samuel, 371. Heath, Sir Robert, 46. Heathcote, Colonel, 124. Hendrick, the Mohawk, 255, 308; at the Albany Congress, 344 ; in the Lake George campaign, 369. Hennepin, his maps, 13, 76 ; his men- dacity, 38, 43, 76. Henry, Alexander, at Mackinac, 407. Hill, General, 123. Hillsborough and the proclamation (1763), 431. Hite, Joist, 178. Hockhocking, 244, 305, 329. Hocquart, 176. Holmes, Admiral, 399. Holston River, 19, 231. Homann, 148 ; maps, 51, 93 ; and the Lahontan story, 80, 111 ; makes Lake Winnipeg the source of the Mississippi, 115. Hopkins, Stephen, 344. Horses, procured by the French from the Spanish, 84. Houmas, 38, 40, 44, 49, 64, 107, 448. Howard, John, 319. Howe, Lord, killed, 386. Howells, Map of Pennsylvania, 297. Hubert, Sieur, 111, 154. Hudson Bay Company, 88 ; bounds, 196. Hudson's Bay, French and English rivalry, 2 ; English, established here by the peace of Utrecht, seek to push west, 115 ; English at, 196, 208 ; map, 421. Huguenots, 178, 225. Humphreys and Abbot's map (1861), 9, 19, 27, 31, 41, 89. Hunter, Robert, governor of New York and Virginia, 88, 123. Hurons, 285 ; near Sandusky, 248 ; de- stroyed, 326. Huske, map of the English colonies, 327. Hutchins, Thomas, on St. Louis, 433 ; map of Bouquet's march, 436, 437 ; map of the Illinois region, 460. Hutchinson, Thomas, at the Albany Congress, 344. Iberville, his parentage, 2 ; at Hudson's Bay, 2 ; seeks a way to the Pacific, 2 ; his expedition to the Mississippi, 33, 36 ; relations with Pontchartrain, 35 ; portrait, 37 ; enters the Mis- sissippi, 38 ; reports to Pontchartrain, 43 ; returns, 48 ; on the Mississippi, 54 ; explorations mapped, 54, .55 ; confidence in the Great Valley's future, 60 ; returns to France, 60 ; in Paris, planning explorations toward Califor- nia, 62 ; at Biloxi, 63 ; his plans, 66 ; dies, 63. Iberville River, 424, 448. See Acansia ; Ascantia. Illinois country, a part of New France, 116; map, 119, 121, 142, 148; an- nexed to Louisiana, 120, 148 ; bounds, 148 ; furnishing provisions to Loui- siana, 192; an Indian country, 113, 295, 329 ; population, 259, 268, 462 ; INDEX. 473 life there, 250, 2()0; number of French, 407 ; tlie country should be bought, 4.S2 ; wheat eultuiv, 447 ; English attempts to occupy the coun- try, 4.")(i ; Gage's proclamation, 4t)2 ; some French remove, 402 ; French house, 4();>. Illinois Indians, moving south, Gl, 2G2 ; Christianized, 84, 157 ; claimed to be within the Iroquois conquests, 90, 327, 3:53 ; friends of the French, 118 ; depleted, 177. Illinois River, 24 ; mapped, 28. Indians, numbers in the south, 170; '■ AUeghanied," 176; their paths in the Ohio country, 132, 247 ; Adair's history and his map, 262, 263 ; at the south, 26(i ; their league, 305 ; as affected respectively by the English and French policies, 323, 343 ; gained by the better trade of the English, 326, 350 ; sell prisoners, 353 ; and Braddock's expedition, 355 ; tedious in negotiations, 356 ; their hunting- grounds, 407, 432 ; protected by proc- lamation, 430 ; becoming incensed, 433 ; policy of gifts to them, 433 ; a reservation for them, 444. Inglis family, 230. Innes, Colonel, 364. Irish in Carolina, 271. See Scotch-Irish. Irondequoit Bay, 174, 177, 250, 287. Iroquois, their commanding position, 13 ; their power, 15 ; meet the Mi- amis, 15 ; map, 25 ; at Lake Michi- gan, 43 ; and the western Indians, 56, 58, 67 ; and the Jesuits, 58, 70 ; sought by English and French, 67 ; treaty (1701), 67; their beaver-hunt- ing grounds, 67, 90, 148 ; treaty with French at Montreal, ()7 ; alli- ances, 69 ; Jesuits and Protestant mis- sionaries, 70 ; Jesuits expelled, 71 ; the treaty of Utrecht, 88, 125, 160; relations with the French, 118 ; a bar- rier, 122; warriors, decorated by Gov- ernor Hunter, 124 ; the French in the Onondaga country, 124 ; ready to as- sist the English, 125 ; divided between French and English interests, 125 ; trails, 1 25 ; Tuscaroras join them, 133; raiding south, 133; their tribal grounds, 1»')1 , agree to keep their raids north of the Potomac, 1(53 ; con- firm grants north of Lake Erie, 165 ; grant lands on Ontario, 165 ; on the Ohio, 1 76 ; disconcerted at the Eng- lish failure to attack Canada, 223 ; neutrality, 223 ; council at Albany (1748), 224 ; at Quebec, 224 ; attacked in the valley of Virginia, 235 ; war- ring against the Catawbas, 235, 266, 287 ; claim compensation for lands, 235 ; drive out the Delawares, 239 ; seven tribes, 244, 245 ; in the Ohio country, 15, 290 ; their domination, 325 ; generiilly friends of the English, 325; their country, 17, 325; whether entered first by French or English, 326; claimed by French and English, 326 ; their conquests, 15, 234, 290, 326-328, 333 ; difterent views of its bounds, 330 ; deed of 1701, 330 ; their persons, not their land, subject to England in the French view, 332 ; treaty of 1726, 332 ; cede tract on Ontario and Erie, 332 ; decline to join in Braddock's campaign, 355 ; uneasy after Brad- dock's defeat, 365 ; brought over to the English, 380; conferences, 381; their doom announced by the French, 389 ; their warriors, 414. Itasca Lake, 5, 9. Jackson River, 365. Jaillot, 74, 115, 148 ; erroneous maps, 116. James River, source, 129, 181. Janvier, map, 415. Japan, way toward, 112. Jefferson, Peter, 232. Jefferys, Thomas, Course of the Missis- sippi, -iO; American Atlas, 169; map of V^rendrye's explorations, 195 ; on the Sea of the West, 216 ; map of pro- posed neutral territory, 416 ; map (1760), 421 ; on the source of the Mis- sissippi, 206, 424 ; connects Lake Win- nipeg with the Pacific, 426 ; map of New Albion, 429 ; map of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, 448, 449. Jesuits, warned out of New York, 14 ; among the Iroquois, 58 ; expelled, 71 ; jealous of traders, 73 ; and Cadillac, 73 ; and the Indians, 84, 124, 157 ; at New Orleans, 1.58 ; improve agricul- ture, 158; in Louisiana, 271; ex- pelled from French territory, 447. Johnson, Sir William, 17 ; among the Onondagas, 224, 228 ; arms his adher- ents, 243 ; gets one of Celeron's plates, 252 ; among the Iroquois, 286 ; news of Marin's expedition, 301 ; as man- ager of the Indians, 324 ; his Molly Brant, 324 ; on the Iroquois conquests, 330; on the Iroquois alliance, 331, 352 ; at the Albany congress, 344 ; restraining the Iroquois, 368 ; prepar- ing for a campaign, 369 ; wounded at Lake George, 369; made a baronet, 370 ; treats with Teedyuscung, 379 ; at Niagara, 398 ; tact with the savage, 308, 407 ; with the Indians at Detroit, 412 ; alarmed, 413 ; urges a property line to protect them, 432 ; makes peace with the Senecas, 441 ; makes 474 INDEX. treaty with Pontiac, 445 ; sends Cro- ghan west, 456. Joliet, 4, 6, 22, 318. Joncaire among the Onondagas, 125, 163 ; his influence, 124 ; at Niagara, 125, 126 ; on the Alleghany Kiver, 150 ; accompanies Celeron, 252 ; among the Iroquois, 286 ; at Logstown, 290 ; receives Washington at Venango, 306. Jonqui^re, La, governor of Canada, 85, 204, 223, 256 ; his instructions, 334 ; in Quebec, 285, 288 ; warning Clin- ton, 286 ; asks to be recalled, 288 ; dies, 288. Juchereau of Montreal, 70. Jumonville attacked, 312. Juniata River, 239, 241 ; portages, 18, 127 ; trouble in the valley, 256 ; de- serted, 367 ; map, 345. Kahokia, 121, 268. See Cahokia. Kalm, Peter, sees V^rendrye, 203 ; his views, 219 ; on the Albany traders, 250. Kanawha River, 19, 229 ; route of the Carolina traders, 254 ; map, 304. Kankakee River, 24. Kansas Indians, 140, 211. Kansas River, a barrier against the Spaniards, 141. Kaskaskia, 56, 61, 84, 301 ; becomes a parish, 122 ; receives slaves, 122 ; de- scribed by Charlevoix, 146, 150 ; ear- liest land warrant, 146 ; miners, 122, 146 ; Berthelot at, 262 ; and the Jesu- its, 447 ; French goods in, 455 ; map of the vicinity, 121, 459-461. Keeney, J., 319. Keith, governor of Pennsylvania, 127, 163 ; on the English claim, 331. Kelly, a trader, 272. Kennedy, Archibald, scheme of frontier colonies, 349. Kentucky, earliest house in, 279 ; region uninhabited, 326. Kentucky River, 19, 292, 304. Ker, John, of Kersland, Memoirs^ 158. Kerlerec, 271, 276, 454. Kickapoos, 107, 119, 144, 288; their country (Quicapous), 329 ; waylay Croghan, 45(). Kill Buck Town, 261. Kingsford, William, on Braddock, 357 ; on Pontiac, 40(5. Kitchin, Thomas, map of the French settlements, 226, 227; of Cherokee country, 272, 273 ; map (1763), 428. Kittanning, 239, 301 ; Delawares at, 365. Knowles, governor of Louisbourg, 274. La Corne, 398. La Forest, 83. La France (an Indian), 196. La Harpe, Benard de, arrives, 106 ; at the Baye de St. Bernard, 94, 152 ; in the Red River country, 95 ; exploring the Mississippi, 112; on Charlevoix, 138 ; anxious about English encroach- ments, 149 ; on the Arkansas River, 156. La Jemeraye, 198. La Jonqui^re. See Jonqui^re. La Noiie, 157. La Pointe, 198. La Potherie, Histoire de P Amerique, its map, 79. La Presentation, 225. La Ronde, 198. La Salle, 4, 20, 24, 26, 74, 318 ; on the Ohio, 15 ; tender, 21 ; his explora- tions, 34, 54 ; his Mohegans, 61 ; his ex- plorations the basis of French claims, 90 ; killed, 6, 155 ; alleged New Eng- landers with, 336 ; on the Mississippi, 452. Laclede, founds St. Louis, 4-33. Lafitau, Mceurs des Sauvages, 137 ; his Carte de V Amerique, 137. Lahontan, 161 ; and his books, 80 ; his lake, 80 ; fate of his story, 80 ; his Riviere Longue mapped, 82, 113, 424; discredited. 111. Lake of the Assinipoiles (Winnipeg), 115. Lake Borgne, 49, 50. Lake Champlain, occupied by the French, 174. Lake Chautauqua, 252. Lake of the Christineaux, 1 15. See Lake of the Woods. Lake Erie, map, 25, 27-29, 226, 244, 245, 256, 425 ; portages, 26, 244, 245, 247,261; southern shore, 120, 249; proposed fort on, 127 ; map, 143. Lake George, 370 ; Amherst on, 395. Lake Huron, map, 25, 117, 119, 226, 425. Lake Lovelace, 188. Lake Manitoba, 199. Lake Maurepas, 49. Lake Michigan, portages, 24 ; currents, 26; map, 27-29, 117, 119, 205, 226, 425. Lake Nepissing, 428. Lake Nipigon, V^rendrye at, 193 ; posi- tion, 195. Lake Ontario, French vessels on, 126, 165, 287 ; English lands on, 165 ; map, 25, 227, 425. Lake Pepin, 9, 52, 144, 145, 147 ; mis- sion, 193; fort, 194, 264; position, 197. Lake Pontchartrain, 42, 49, 50; map, 423, 448. Lake Superior, portages, 22 ; early map. INDEX. 475 28, 29, 117, 119, 205, 226, 321, 425; outlet to the west, 77, 115 ; vessel on, 198 ; English post on, 41;). Lake Winnipeg, 97, 1 15, loO, 148; sup- posed connection with the Mississippi, 114, 205, o21, 42(> ; on the western route, 198,199,215; connecting with the Pacific, 21(), 429. Lake of the Woods (Christineaux), 115, 194, 197, 198. Lancaster, treaty (1744), 2;}5 ; road agreed upon, 237 ; pack-saddles made there, 2o8; conference (1748), 24o. Langlade, Charles, 2(14; at Green Bay, 2(>4 ; attacks Pickawillany, 293 ; at Duqiiesne, odl ; at Fort William Henry, 884 ; leaves Montreal, 404. Laurel Creek, 231. Laurel Hill, 439. Laurel Ridge, 230. Law, John, and his career, 99 ; portrait, 100 ; his opportunity, 102 ; the Mis- sissippi Company, 102 ; sends over set- tlers, 106; on the top of the wave, 108; Banque Royale, 108,110; Com- pany of the Indies, 108 ; Quinqnem- poix, 108, 109 ; flees, 110 ; grant on the Arkansas, 156. L'Epinay, an-ives in Louisiana, 101. Le Blond de la Tour, 154. Le Page du Pratz, arrives, lOG ; Histoire de la Louisiane, 106, 213; and Mon- cacht-Ap^, 210 ; his map, 269. Le Rouge and the Sea of the West, 214 ; his map, 215; edits Mitchell's map, 301. Le yueur, his expedition north, 32, 48, 52. Lead mines, 86, 121. /See Mines. Lee, Arthur, 338. Lee, Colonel, of Virginia, 288. Lee, governor of Virginia, 230. Lemaire, IKi. Lemoyne, Charles, 2. Lettres Edifiantes, 120. Ldvis, at Quebec, 378 ; defeats Murray, . ,. 403. Lewis, Major Andrew, on the frontiers, 354 ; attacks the Shawnees, 377. Lewis, Captain, l%5. Licking River, 292. Lignery, De, and the Foxes, 144, 146. Limoges, Father de, 90. Lingeris, at Ouiatanon, 288 ; at Du- quesne, 380, 387 ; flies, 392 ; defeated by Johnson, 398. Little Meadows, 211 ; owned by Wash- ington, 311. Livingston, Robert, 14, 56, 67, 69, 72. Loftus, Major, driven back, 450, 452. Logan (Indian), 239. Logan, James, of Pennsylvania, 17, 24, 124, 125, 166, 174. Logstown, 247,252, 261,301, 436; its position, 282 ; treaty at, 293 ; Croghan urges its strengthening, 302 ; Wash- ington at, 306. Longueil and the Chickasaw war, 192 ; in power, 289, 293. Loramie Creek, 284. Loudoun, Earl of, arrives, 378 ; incom- petent, 382 ; would attack Louis- bourg, 382. Louis XIV., dies, 99,116. Louis XV., 228. Louisa Fork, 230. Louisbourg taken (1745), 221 ; restored to France (1748), 225 ; attacked by Wolfe, 386. Louisiana, Danville's map, 6 ; capabili- ties, 33 ; mapped, 34, 142, 143 ; popu- lation, 62, 65, 83, 102, 151, 157, 188, 259, 421 ; disordered life, 65 ; limits, 78 ; defined in Crozat's grant, 85 ; Cadillac, governor, s:j ; marriageable g^rls arrive, 85 ; bounds kept vague by the French, 86 ; stockades built, 100; under Law's Mississippi Company, 102 ; settlers and slaves arrive, 102, 106 ; land concessions, 104 ; troops arrive, 106 ; Germans arrive, 106 ; supposed mines, 108 ; news of Law's flight arrives, 110; its barriers. 111; becoming- formidable to the English, 134 ; northern bounds indefinite, 146 ; claims the Wabash eovmtry against Canada, 149 ; neglected by France, 152; vagrants in, 171; Natchez war, 188 ; becomes a royal province, 1S8 ; Vaudreuil in command, 259 ; Du- mont's map, 265 ; districted, 268 ; sugar cane introduced, 271 ; Kerlereo governor, 272 ; shut off from France, 276 ; inciting the Indians against Car- olina, 411 ; transferred to Spain, 418; map made for the Compagnie Fran- gaise, 423 ; cession to Spain made known, 454 ; UUoa arrives, 454 ; Aca- dians arrive, 455. Louisville rapids, 14. Loups. See Delawares. Louvigny, 33 ; sent against the Foxes, 118. Lowdermilk, 311. Loyal Land Company, 2.30, 277. Loyalhannon, 375 ; Forbes at, 390. Lugtenberg, 78. Lyman, General Phineas, in the Lake George campaign, 369. Lyttleton, Governor, his expedition against the Indians, 272, 276 ; attacks the Cherokees, 411. Macarty, 268. Mackav, 168. MacKeUer, Patrick, 362. 476 INDEX. Mackenzie River, 8, 32. Mackinac, its trade, 74 ; post, 118; sur- renders, 407 ; massacre at, 440 ; Indi- ans, 164. Madoc, Prince, 200. Maldonado, 214. Mallet, 200. Maltravers, Lord, 46. Mandaus, 109; described, 200, 203; their river, 97, 195, 426. Marameg- mines, 104, 105. Marcel, Reproductions, 23, 28, 29. Marest, Gabriel, 57. Margry's Collection, 52, 255 ; on V^ren- drye's explorations, 201. Marin, Sieur, at Green Bay, 204 ; sent to the Ohio, 300 ; dies, 303. Marquette, 4, 5, 16, 318, 321 ; recol- lected, ()2 ; belief in a westward way by the Missouri, 78. Marshall, O. H., Historical Writings, 255. Maryland, and the treaty of Lancaster, 236 ; boundary disputes, 279 ; French settlers in, 339 ; raided, 376. Maseoutius, 117, 144, 288 ; their country, 329 ; waylay Croghan, 456. Massachusetts, provincial charter, 322. Massawomekes, 16. Massonites, 156. Matagorda, 152. Mauniee River, 26, 30 ; portage, 118, 119, 149; English traders, 120; fort on the, 255 ; earlier called Miami, which see. Maury, James, and the Sea of the West, 216 ; on the Ohio country, 336. Mayo, Colonel William, 179. McGilwray, Lachlan, 411. McKee, Alexander, 413. McKee. Thomas, 345. MeUo, Portuguese minister, 420. Membr^, journal, 40. Memoires des Commissaires du Boi, 319. Mercator, 3 ; and the Appalachians, 13 ; his physiography of North America, 317. Mercer, Lieutenant-Colonel, at Pitts- burgh, 392. Mermet, Father, 84, 128. Messager, Father, 198. Mexico, Gulf of, defective cartography, 35, 38 ; modern map, 41 ; early maps, 44, 45, 51, 55, 59 ; mapped by Franque- lin, 77 ; in La Potherie's map, 79. Miami River, 19, 247 ; portage, 334 ; later called Maumee, which see. Miami confederacy, 26, 282. Miamis, 15, 84, 143 ; make peace with the Senecas, 70 ; divided between English and French, 70 ; send embassy to Albany, 71 ; English traders among, 149 ; called Twightwees, 243 ; alli- ance with the English, 243 ; hostile toward the French, 246 ; villages, 247 ; restored to English favor, 249 ; reject C^loron's advances, 254 ; attacked by the French, 284 ; sue for peace, 294 ; their country, 295, 305, 329. Michigan peninsula, 25 ; supervised from Detroit, 116; the supposed physio- graphy, 116; badly mapped, 116, 117, 119. Mille Lacs, 9, 22, 80 ; mapped, 81. Mines, 86 ; copper, 70; lead, 70, 86, 121, 147 ; in Illinois, 120 ; in the Appa- lachians, 134; near Kaskaskia, 146. See Silver Mines. Minet, 74. Mingoes, 16 ; on the Ohio, 176 ; their town, 247, 261 ; a branch of the Sene- cas, 290 ; their origin, 413. Minnesota River, 8, 9, 30, 32, 52. MLunisinks, 16. Minquaas, 333. Miquelon, 420. Miroir, A. du, 10. Mississippi Company, 102 ; map of Lou- isiana and seal, 107. Mississippi River, its existence suspected, 3, 318 ; its character and extent, 5 ; duration of passage up and down, 5 ; its surging, 5 ; its importance slowly recognized, 6, 13 ; mapped, 7, 34, 44. 51, 55, 79, 107, 121, 142, 147, 153, 208. 215, 226, 262, 265, 267, 321, 328, 329 ; map of its sources, 34, 77, 79, 107, 425 ; English Turn, 45, 49, 50, 75,423, 448 ; alleged visit of the English(1676), 46 ; mouths, 50, 51, 55, 318 ; Fort La- boulaye built, 52 ; its source conjec- tured and sought, 58, 78, 137, 197, 204, 206, 424, 427 ; Franquelin's map, 77 ; erroneous course, 79 ; called St. Louis, 95 ; the" German coast," 110 ; a route west from its source supposed, 114 ; different views of its source, 114; source in Lake Winnipeg, 115, 319, 320 ; upper parts within the Virginia charter, 127, 128 ; called Mischacebe, 135 ; absence of luissions on the lower river, 157 ; alleged early English vis- itors, 217 ; its channel the English bounds imder the treaty of Paris, 422 ; navigation free under the treaty, 424 ; connects with Hudson's Bay, 426 ; connects with the Pacific, 426 ; in relation to the Pontiac war, 440 ; Jeffery's map of the lower parts (1768), 448 ; map by Lieutenant Ross, 450 ; " Cajean coast," 455 ; Callot's map, 458 ; Indians quiet, 462. Mississippi Sound, 42. Mississippi valley at the end of the sev- teenth century, 1 ; its character and extent, 4 ; its upper parts, 9 ; entered by English traders, 318. INDEX. 477 Missouri River, its length, 5 ; heads of, map, 31 ; seeu by Marquette, 'i'l ; divides of, 'i'l; mapped, aJi, Hi], 2U5, 321; as a westward way, 78, 200; fort on, 80 ; its source sought, 80 ; called !St. Pierre, 85 ; source unknown, 97, 140 ; tribes on the upper courses, 111 ; alleged route to the Pacific, 111, 112,20(5; mines, 112; base of traffic with Mexico, 112; branch leading to- ward the South Sea, 1 12 ; explored by La Harpe, 114 ; by Du Tisne, 114 ; confluence with the Mississippi, map, 121 ; source near the Pacific, 137, 138, 426 ; to be defended against the Span- ish, 141 ; Germans on the river, 141 ; grants on the river, 141 ; traversed by Moncaeht-Ap^, 211. Missouris (Indians), 32. Mitchell, John, ou the Mississippi source, 206; on the Iroquois claim, 234, 331, 335 ; his British Colonies (1755), 104, 154, 155, 280, 332, 336. Mobile and its communications, 268 ; English at, 440. Mobile Bay, 59 ; selected for a post, 62 ; occupied, 64 ; life, 64 ; map, 75, 423, 449 ; confused mapping, 76. Mobile River, 21, 51. Mobiliaus, (34. Alohawk River, 72 ; Palatines on, 14 ; trails along, 14. Mohawks, chiefs go to England, 124 ; at Caughnawaga, 224 ; attack La Pre- sentation, 225. Mohegans, 162 ; on the Mississippi, 61. Mohickans, 333. Mohoning, 261. Moingoua River, 53, 113, 140, 205, 262. Molineaux mappemonde, 317. Moll, Herman, 24, 148 ; and the Lahon- tan story, SO, 111 ; his maps, 96, 104, 163 ; map shows Indian trails, 132 ; and the English claims, 161, 330, 331. Moncacht-Ap^, story of, 210. Monckton, General, 396 ; at Pittsburgh, 403, 405 ; commands the southern de- pai-tment, 409, 410. Monongahela River, 18 ; settlers on, 293, 358, 359 ; interlopers on, 410 ; map, 439. Monopolies, 118. Montcalm at Quebec, 378 ; takes Os- wego, 379 ; at Ticonderoga, 379 ; de- spairs of success, .'594 ; disputes with Vaudreuil, 395 ; made military head, 395 ; awaiting attack, 396 ; killed, 401. Montesquieu, 171. 228. Montgomery, Sir Robert, his grant, 134. Moutigny, 43, 56. Montour, Andrew, 71, 236 ; in the Ohio country, 282, 284, 290; needed by Washington, 312 ; trying to appease the Indians, 365. Montour, Madame, 124, 236. Montreal, treaty at (1701), 14, 67; held by Vaudreuil, 404 ; surrendered, 404. Moore, Colonel, and Carolina forces, 64 ; campaign against the Tuscaroras, 133. Morand attacks the Foxes, 264. Moravians migrate from Georgia to Pennsylvania, 1S6, 258; settlement, 261 ; moving west, 445. Morgan, settler on the Shenandoah, 167. Morris, Governor, and the PeniLsylvania assembly, 341 ; on the Albany plan, 350. Mortar, the, a Creek Indian, 411. Morton, Thomas, 317. Mount and Page's English Pilot, 74. Mount Braddock, 314. Mountains of Bright Stones, 97, 195. Munseys, 341. Murray (Lord Mansfield), 219. Murray, General, 396 ; in Quebec, 401, 403 ; advancing on Montreal, 404. Muskingum River, 19, 30, 239, 245, 247, 305, 329, 437. Nanfan, Lieutenant-Governor, 67. Nash, Beau, 228. Nashville, 87. Nassonites, 96. Natchez Indians, 142, 268 ; their coun- try, 7, 54, 95, 187; wars with the French,^10l, 187 ; misplaced in Law's map, 107 ; tradeis among, 133 ; Charle- voix at, 150, 157; destroyed, 153; attacked, 157 ; plan of town and fort, 451. Natchitoches, 56, 95, 153, 268, 269, 321 ; occupied by the French, 94 ; garrison at, 154. Navigation laws, 69, 172. . Nelson, governor of Virginia, 251. Neptune Fratiqaise, 205, 426. Neuse River, 133. New Albion, 317,429. New England, frontiers ravaged, 70, 71, 1()4, 222 ; relations with the English occupation of the Ohio region, 122 ; rising feelings of independence, 162 ; her people in Pennsylvania, 166; trade in rum, 173 ; privateers, 219 ; popidation, 219; her western trade, 232 ; alleged explorers of the Missis- sippi from, 336. New Hampshire forests, 219. New Mexico trade, 78. New Orleans, portage at, 38 ; site, 42, 49, 104 ; Charlevoix describes it, 150 ; Dumont's plan, 151; laid out, 154; described, 158 ; Ursulines arrive, 158 ; defenses improved, 18S ; servile in- surrection, 188 ; becoming prosperous, 478 INDEX. 192 ; its appearance, 259 ; depends on the Dlinois for food, 259 ; its life under Vaudreuil, 260 ; fears of an at- tack, 2(;4. New River, 169, 229, 231 ; source of, 278 ; mapped, 291. New York, manors in, 12 ; Jesuits warned off, 14; spared and New England ravaged, 70 ; and the Cana- dian trade, 71 ; threatened by the French, 68 ; charged with being neu- tral, 123 ; charged with indifference to Iroquois ravages on the other colo- nies, 133 ; claims on the Ohio, 167 ; its legislature opposes Clinton, 222 ; her apathy, 308. Newcastle, Earl of, 222. Niagara, French post at, 125, 164 ; strengthened, 165 ; as a French post, 286 ; threatened by Shirley, 367 ; its importance, 378 ; attacked, 397 ; cap- tured, 398. Niagara River, English acquire land on, 441. Nicholas, a Huron chief, his conspiracy, 248. Nicollet, Jean, 22, 206. Niverville, Chevalier de, 206,210. North America, estimated width, 3 ; its central trough, 6 ; its physiography misconceived by Mercator, 13 ; La Potherie's map, 79 ; Lafitau's map, 137 ; Bowen and Gibson's map, 152 ; map (1755), 427. North Carolina, English in, 1 ; its assembly urged to support the war, 342. Northwest passage, 421 ; English pre- mium offered for its discovery, 210; probability of it, 213. Noyen, De, 30. Ochagach. See Otehaga. Ocmulgee River, 135. Oconee River, 135. Ogdensburg, 225. Oglethorpe, making pacts with the In- dians, 184. Ohio, State of, first white child born in, 444 ; first white man's house in, 445. Ohio Company, 2.50, 280; receives its grant, 277 ; sends out Gist, 282, 292 ; petitions for a location, 292 ; and the war, 307 ; its storehouse at Red Stone Creek, 311 ; favored by Newcastle, 360 ; seeking Bouquet's influence, 409. Ohio River, character of its basin, 14; its freshets, 14 ; Iroquois on the, 15 ; Shawnees and Cherokees, 15 ; con- founded with the Wabash, 17 ; ap- proach by the Alleghany, 17 ; modern map of the basin, 19 ; maps, 28, 29, 34, 294, 328 ; early reports of Eng- lish settlers, 35 ; observed by Gravier, 61 ; called Akansea, 61 ; its northern banks, Qi) ; the country sought by Canada and Louisiana, 66 ; claimed by the English, 66 ; burning springs, 67 ; English trade, 71 ; sometimes mapped as a separate stream from the Wa- bash, 78 ; called St. Jerome, 85 ; called Alleghany, 119 ; buffalo com- mon, 120 ; English traders, 125, 249 ; called Wabash, 143 ; Charlevoix praises its fertility, 148 ; the French approach, 149 ; its mouth observed by Charlevoix, 150 ; project of Galissou- ni^re to settle peasants thereon, 225 ; Franklin's prophecy, 234 ; Indians, 234 ; Evans's map, 244, 245 ; the straight reach, 245 ; Indian trails, 247 ; Delaware village at the forks, 252 ; the tribes much mixed, 253 ; traders' routes, 278 ; forks of, 279, 296 ; the Indians to be trusted, 289 ; map of its rapids, 297 ; struggle for the forks, 300 ; advantages of the position, 300 ; character of the river, 300 ; the French purpose to occupy, 302 ; Gist's re-survey, 304, 306, 336 ; rapids, 304, 377; elephant's bones found, 304; in Bellin's map, 306 ; stockade begun at the forks, 309 ; captured by the French, 310 ; English factories on the tributaries, 328 ; priority on its banks claimed by the French, 332 ; Indians described on Mitchell's map, 333 ; Evans's proposal to visit it, 336 ; his account of it, 3;!6 ; visited by Colonel Wood and Captain Bolt, 421 ; French residents, 432 ; surveyed by Croghan, 456. Ojibways. See Chippeways. Oldmixon on the English claim, 331. Oneidas at Caxighnawaga, 224. Onondagas, 228, 286 ; conference with Beauharnois, 177 ; and the French, 352. Orme, Captain, 364. Osages, 105, 114; entrapped the Span- iards, 141 ; their country, 205, 208. Osborne, governor of New York, 343. Oswego, occupation suggested by Bello- mont, 14 ; Burnet takes possession, 126 ; trade at, 163, 174 ; diplomacy over, 164 ; strengthened, 165 ; getting most of the Indian trade, 176 ; in danger, 221 ; reoccupied by the Eng- lish, 223 ; feared by the French, 228 ; rebuilt of stone, 250 ; held by the English, 28() ; attack threatened, 286 ; reconnoitred by Piquet, 287 ; seized by the English, 326 ; traders, 346 ; impor- tance of, to the English, 352, 372; taken, 376, 379 ; treaty with Pontiac, 445. INDEX. 479 Otchaga, 194, 105. Otochita, 77. Ottagamis. See Outagamis. Ottawas. 17, 808; near Detroit, 120; in Ohio, -'47, 284, 28.J ; numbers, 414. Ottei-s (Indians), 211. Ouabache, 17. See Wabash. Ouachipiianes, 1SJ5. Ouiatanon, 149 ; Croghan at, 457. Ouicapoux, 77. Outixgaiuis, 119, 147. See Foxes. Pacaud, Jean, 73. Padoucas, 53, 9(5, 97, 105, 114, 140, 144 ; their country, 208. Pako, 195. Palairet's map, 97, 426. Palatines, 338 : on the Mohawk, 14; in New York, 72 ; arrive, 125, 120 ; mov- ing west, 1()4 ; leave the Mohawk for Pennsylvania, 106. Panis (Pawnees), .53, 77, 96, 97, 112, 114, 139, 140, 142. Paris, frenzied under Law's rule, 110; treaty of (1763), 420; and the trans- Mississippi country, 447. Parkman, Francis, 202 ; Half Century of Conflict, 158 ; on the Iroquois, 330 ; estimate of the number of Indians, 414 ; on the Pontiac war, 435. Paseagoulas, 48, 59, 75. Patton, Colonel James, 179, 230. Pawlev, Colonel, 272. Pawnees' country, 113, 200, 207, 208, 425. See Panis. Peace River, 8. Pedee River, 229. Pekitanoiii, 32. Pelham. Henry, 220. Penicault, 3(), 52, 101, 141. Penn, Thomas, 2.39. Peim, William, 11. Pennsylvania, her frontiers, 127 ; Penn's grant, 127 ; traders on the Ohio, 149, 243 ; Scotch-Irish in, 1()6 ; Quakers outnumbered, l(i6 ; traders on the 'Alleghany, 167 ; borders encroached upon by the French, 167 ; traders complained of, 230 ; become prom- inent, 238 ; her Dutch population, 238 ; traders, 239, 254 ; Evans's map (1749), 239 ; anti-war assembly, 242 ; frontiers fortified, 242 ; trails from. 243, 300 ; Moravians, 258 ; boundarv disputes, 279 ; refuses to fortify the forks of the Ohio, 280; York County, 280 ; Cumberland Coun- ty, 280 ; still opposing assistance to the Indians against the French, 292 ; aroused, 302 ; instructed to use force against the French, 302 ; assembly not to be depended upon, 308 ; popu- lation, 338 ; more than half Germans, 338 ; the Scotch, 338 ; aliens prepon- derate, 339 ; assembly uncertain, 341 ; at last votes aid for the war, 342 ; their bad faith, 353 ; not helping Braddock, 357 ; tlie borders after Braddock's defeat, 365 ; apathetic Quakers, 366 ; assembly votes money, 36() ; militia act, 3(!6 ; war with the Delawares, 373 ; establishes a line of frontier posts, 373 ; Catholics in, 376 ; treaty Avith the Delawares, 380 ; bor- ders raided, 387 ; farmers exacting, 387, 388 ; authorities embarrass Bou- quet, -t38. Pensacola founded, 10 ; seen by Iber- ville, 36 ; by Bienville, 43 ; site, 75, 449; taken and retaken, 106, 108; misplaced in Law's maji, 107 ; con- firmed to Spain, 170. Peoria, 84. Pepperrell, Sir William, at Louisbourg, 221 ; colonel of the Royal Americans, 354. P^rier, Ren^ Boucher de la, at Lake Pepin, 145 ; ordered to repel the Eng- lish, 149 ; at New Orleans, 157 ; the Natchez war, 188 ; recalled, 190. Perrot, 52, 78, 118. Petroleum, 245. Philadelphia, treaty at, 235, 252 ; trails from, south, 238, 240. Philip II. (Spain), dies, 10. Pineda, 6. Piankashaws, 119, 246, 293. Picka^villany founded, 247, 249, 255, 284, 329 ; destroyed, 293. See Pick- town. Picktown. See Pickawillany. Pigeon River, 198. Pinet, 56. Pitt, William, 228 ; in power, 382 ; ap- points Abercrombie, 385 ; planning a new campaign, 395; the victory at Quebec, 403 ; resigns, 417 ; on the terms of peace, 418. Pittsburgh, 279 ; named, 392. Piquet, Abb^, his zeal, 224 ; at La Pre- sentation, 225, 287 ; seeking recruits, 228 ; stirring up the tribes, 250 ; Ids character, 287 ; fearing spies, 343. Platte River, 32, 200. Pocahontas, 325. Point Couple, 268. Pomeroy, Seth, 369. Pompadour, 228. Pontchartrain and the Compagnie des Indes, 73 ; and Cadillac, 84. Pontiac at Duquesne, 361 ; did he meet Rogers ? 406 ; his conspiracy, 414, 434 ; map, 435-4.")7 ; in council, 434 ; at the Maumee rapids, 442 ; disposed to peace, 456; meets Croghan, 457; his character, 457. 480 INDEX. Popple, his great map, 112, 183 ; his lake with east and west outlets, 11:^, 113 ; on the English claim, 381. Port Royal (Acadia), attacked, 123. Portages, between the St. Lawrence and Mississippi basins, 22 ; of the Erie basin, 261. Post, C. F., sent to the Ohio Indians, 389 ; sent to the Senecas, 397 ; Mora- vian missionary, 445. Potomac River portages, 18; supposed source, 127 ; map, 233 ; sources, 283 ; its branches mapped, 313. Pottawattamies, 84, 119, 434. Pouchot, M^jftOiVe, etc., 375 ; at Niagara, 398. Poverty Point, 62. Powell's Valley, 230. Powder River Mountains, 202. Pownall, Thomas, map, 119; Topograph- ical Description of North America, 282 ; improves Evans's map, 304 ; Admin- istration of the Colonies, 332 ; plan of barrier colonies, 348 ; urges a strong attack on Canada, 385 ; on the source of the Mississippi, 424. Pragmatic sanction, 220. Prairie du Rocher, 268. Presqu' Isle, 30; route, 286, 297-300; 299, its position, 375 ; taken, 438. Prideaux, at Niagara, 398. Puants, Baye des, 23, 116. Putnam, Israel, 369. Quadruple alliance, 106. Quarry, Colonel, 69, 71. Quatrefages, on Moncaeht-Ap^, 214. Quebec, merchants at, 122; in danger, 221, 223; attacked by Wolfe, 396; surrendered, 401 ; its bounds under the proclamation (1763), 428. Quebec Bill, 330. Queen AUiquipa, 359. Quinipissas, 40. Quinquempoix, 108-110. Quivira, 97. See Gran Quivira. Raimond, 92. -See Raymond. Rainy Lake, 198. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 316. Ramezay, 401. Randolph, Peter, 271. Rapidan River, 129. Rappahannock River, 181. Raudot, 86, 111. Raymond, Sieur, 249. Red Lake, 9. Red River, 40 ; mapped, 7, 95, 153 ; and the Spaniards, 10 ; its basin, 89, 95 ; explored by St. Denis, 90, 92 ; Natchi- toches occupied, 94 ; explored by La Harpe, 96 ; mouth, 450. Red River of the North, 8,30,80, 81,82, 97, 195 ; connected with the Missis- sippi, 426. Red Stone Creek, 311, 358, 446. Remonville, De, 33. Renard, 141. Renault, P. F., 122. Rice culture, 18, 192 ; in Louisiana, 271. Richebourg, 101. Rigaud threatens Fort William Henry, 382. Rio Grande del Norte, 10, 92, 138. River of the West, suspected, 78, 80, 97, 112, 114, 130, 138, 142, 193, 207, 208, 424, 426, 427, 429; found by Mon- cacht-Ap^, 211 ; mapped, 215. Rives, WilHam C, 278. Riviere aux boeufs, 300. Riviere Longue of Lahontan, 82 ; dis- credited, 112. 4 ; follows up V^rendrye's quest, 204, 206 ; his journal, 206 ; at Quebec, 210 ; sent to the Ohio, 303 ; receives Washington, 307. St. Pierre Island, 420. St. Pierre River (Missouri), 85. Ste. Foy, battle, 402, 403. Ste. Genevieve, 268, 459, 460. Salley, Peter John, 319. Sailing, John, 168, 179. Salmon, Thomas, Observations, 177, 182, 185. Salt works on the Mississippi, 459-461. San Antonio, Texas, 10. Sandusky, 30, 244, 247 ; portage, 120 ; English at, 248; position, 261, 301, 329 ; a chief centre of Indian influ- ence, 282 ; in the Pontiac war, 435. Sanson, maps, 26, 74. Santa F4, 138 ; its position, 139 ; Mal- let at, 200. Sargeant, missionary, 242. Saskatchewan River, 8, 201, 206. Sauks, 74, 118, 264. Sault Ste. Marie, 361 ; abandoned, 440. Saunders, Admiral, 396, 400 ; carries Wolfe's body to England, 401. Saussier, 268. Sauvole, 42, 48 ; died, 62. Sayer and Jefferys' maps, 117 ; repro- duce DanviUe's North America, 147. Scalp Point, 174. Schenck, 74, 78. Schuyler, governor of New York, 125 ; takes Mohawks to England, 124. Scioto River, 19, 244 ; portage, 30 ; differ- ent surveys, 305. Scotch in America, 12 ; in Pennsylvania, 338. Scotch-Irish in America, 12 ; in Penn- sylvania, 12(j; in Maine, 126; large arrivals, 16() ; in Virginia, 178, 180. Scull, Williani, Map of Pennsylvania, 439. Sea of the West, 30, 204, 214 ; the search for, 193 ; mapped, 320. Sea-to-sea charters, 3. See England. Seigneuries on Lake Champlain, 175. Seminoles, 20. Senecas, 15, 58, 125 ; and the French, 286, 352; and the Catawbas, 287: make peace with the Miamis, 70 ; neu- tral, 223 ; object to settlers on the Juniata, 256; aggressive, 41.3; and the Pontiac war, 4;j4 ; uneasy, 440 ; make peace, 441. Senex, John, and the Lahonbtn story, 80 ; his Map of North America, 104, 116 ; on the Ohio region, 148 ; his maps, 163. Serigny, 63. Sewall, Samuel, 11. Shaler, Prof. N. S., 12. Shamokin, 18, 175, 239, 241, 345,346; threatened, 365, 380 ; fort built, 373. Shanopin's town, 359. Sharpe, Governor, taking courage, 340 ; exercising military control, 353 ; sends out scouts, 376. Shartel, 248. tthawnees, marauders, 15, 354 ; in Ohio, 16, 148, 149 ; vagrants, 16 ; French trade with, 87 ; in the Virginia valley, 128 ; called Chaouanons, 143 ; their temper, 175 ; petticoated, 175 ; visit- ing the French, 176 ; conquered by the Iroquois, 175, 234, 327, 333; driven by Delawares, 239 ; sought by the French, 246, 308 ; join them, 248 ; their villages, 255 ; position, 263 ; in the Lower Shawnee town, 244, 288, 290, 304 their country, 328 ; rupture with, 341 ; attacked by Lewis, 377 ; leave the region south of the Ohio, 444 ; holding out in the Pontiac war, 444. Shea, J. G., 62. Shenandoah River, 130 ; first settlers on, 178 ; mapped, 181 ; raided, 365. Sherman's Creek, 258. Shikellimy, 239 ; his cabin, 240. Shining Mountains, 426. See Rocky Moim tains. Ship Island, 30, 59, 75, 423, 448. Shippenburg, 240. Shirley, William, governor of Massachu- setts, 218 ; on the capture of Louis- bourg, 221 ; anxious for Boston, 222 ; would attack Crown Point, 223 ; at Paris, 322 ; unduly suspected of Cath- olic sympathies, 343 ; colonel of Royal Americans, 354 ; anxious over Brad- dock's plans, 300 ; his son killed, 362 ; planning to attack Niagara, 367 ; rank- ing officer on the Continent, 367 ; his career, 367 ; disagrees with Johnson, 368 ; gives up the Niagara campaign, 370 ; commissioned as commander-in- chief, 372 ; plans a campaign for 1756, 372 ; receives Washington in Boston, 374 ; recalled to England, 378. Shute, governor of Massachusetts, 126. Siette, De, 144, 145. Silver mines, 99, 200. See Mines. Simars de Belle-isle, 94. Sinclair, Sir John, 387. Sioux, 32, 53, 58, 63, 74, 144 ; at Que- 482 INDEX. bee, 52; their country, 77, 80, 113, 195, 197, 205, 208, 215, 425 ; war with the Christineaux, 112 ; tell of a west- ern way, 114, 115 ; pestilent, 115, 118; Charlevoix urges that missions be established among them, 138 ; mis- sions to, 144 ; at Lake Pepin, 145 ; furnish furs, 176 ; trading with, 196 ; and the Rainy Lake Indians, 206 ; dangerous, 264. See Dacotahs. Six Nations. See Iroquois. Slave trade, 87. Slavery, 11. Smith, Historical Account, 435. Smith, Dr. James, Some Considerations, etc., 141. Smith, Captain John, 16. Snake Indians, 202 ; then- country, 195. Snake River, 202 ; map, 31. Soto, De, 6, 13, 18, 20, 96, 105. Souris River, 201. South Carolina becomes a royal province, 135. South Sea Company, 87, 161. Spaniards in Florida, 1 ; rivals of the French, 8 ; protest against French oc- cupation of the Gulf shore, 60 ; allies of the French, 64 ; on the Missouri, 80; war declared upon (1718), 106; make peace (1721), 108, 152 ; trade among the Panis, 139 ; a fatal allure- ment to the French, 155 ; approached by the French, 200 ; thwarting Eng- lish merchants in the West Indies, 186 ; war with England, 412 ; receive Louisiana, 418 ; cede Florida, 420. Spanish Armada, 1, 8. Spotswood, Governor, 127 ; urging the occupation of the Erie country, 12U ; ignorant of the French movements, 128 ; his Knights of the Golden Horse- shoe, 129 ; and the Iroquois, 163. Stahlmaker, 319. Stair, Earl of, 162. Stanwix, General, at Philadelphia, 397. Stark, John, 369. Staunton (Va.), 179. Staunton River, 229. Stephen, Adam, 315. Stirling, Captain Thomas, leads a force west, 457. Stobo, 400. Stoddard, Colonel, 243. Stoddart, Captain, 302. Stuart, gains over the Cherokees, 462. Sugar, 171, 271, 418, 447. Sugar Loaf Mountain, 128. Sunbury (Pa.), 365. Surg^res, Chevalier de, 36, 42. Susquehanna Company, 346. Susquehanna River, an approach to the Alleghany, 18 ; portages, 127 ; forks of, 239 ; map, 240 ; Great Island, 243 ; and the Iroquois, 326 ; tribes of, 833 ; map, 345. Swift Run Gap, 129. Swiss in Virginia, 72 ; in Carolina, 132 ; in Louisiana, 154. Taensas Lake, 5, 450 ; mapped, 7 ; In- dians, 40, 43, 56, 95. Tallapoosa River, 86. Tanneries, 71. Tartan inscriptions, 203. Tawixtwi, 201, 284, 305. Teedyuscung, 341, 346; defiant, 373; brought over to the English, 379, 382, 387, 389. Tellieo River, 272. Tennessee River, 16, 19, 20, 132, 143 ; valley, 167 ; map, 272, 27^. Texas, occupied by Spain, 10 ; disputed by the French, 92, 96 ; coast, 74. Thomassy, Geologic de la Louisiane, 91. Thomson, Charles, his Enquiry, etc., 341 ; his map, 345. Thoyago, 217. Ticonderoga, attacked by Abercrombie, 386. Timber trade in Louisiana, 192. Tiniberlake, Lieutenant, 412 ; map of Cherokee country, 270. Tintons, 77. Tionontatecaga, 131, 143. Tobacco in Louisiana, 271 ; trade, 171, 192 ; culture, 445. Tom's town, 437. ■ Tombigbee River, 41, 190 ; French at, 264, 268, 269. Tonacaras, 114. Toner, Dr., edits Washington's journals, 310. Tonicas, 7, 40, 43, 56, 62, 64, 95, 153, 450, 454 ; attacked by the Natchez, 188. Tonty, Henri de, at his Rock, 21 ; in the valley, 33 ; his journal, 33 ; on the river, 38, 40, 42 ; his letter found, 42 ; his popularity, 43 ; his route to Biloxi, 50 ; reaches Fort Laboulaye, 52 ; ac- companies Iberville, 56 ; at Mobile, 63 ; with Bienville, 64 ; dies, 64. Tooley's Creek, 169, 231. Toronto, 223, 287 ; site occupied, 126. Toulouse, Count of, 136. Townshend, Charles, 294. To^vnshend, General, 396. Trent, Captain WUliam, 280 ; colonel at Logstown, 293 ; sent to the Miamis, 293 ; at the forks of the Ohio, 303, 309. Turgot, 162. Turtle Creek, 359. Turtle Mountain, 200. Tuscarawas Creek, 445. Tuscarora hills, 240. Tuscaroras, 20, 132, 134, 245, 437 ; join the Iroquois confederacy, 88. INDEX. 483 Twightwees, 243, 289, 29o^ 418 ; French aiuung, o41 ; surrenders English prison- ers, 457. Ulloa, reaches Louisiana, 454. Unieoriia, 1 14. Urban, Pope, alleged bull, 218. Urdinola, F. de, 10. Ursulines in New Orleans, 158. Utrecht, treaty, 85, 87, 160, 165 ; pro- claimed, 88; war to uphold it (1718), 10() ; affecting the Iroquois, 124, 234 ; on tlie Iiuliiin trade, 165 ; concession of the English, 322 ; and French, 331 ; the riglit to trade with the Indians, 332 ; rights on the Ohio, 334. Valverde, 114. Van Braam, Jacob, 315. Van Dam, Kip, 174. Vauder Aa, 115; on the source of the Mississippi, 424—426. Vanmeter grants, 178. V.arennes. See V^rendrye. Vaudreuil, governor of Canada, 68- 71, 73 ; points out a way to the west, 115; disputes with Boisbriant, 148; attacking the New England frontiers, 164 ; dies, 164 ; in Louisiana, 251) ; his court at New Orleans, 260 ; in Que- bec, 368 ; provisions Duquesne, 377 ; thwarts Montcalm, 396 ; flies from Quebec, 401 ; at Montreal, 403. Vaugondy on the Mississippi sources, 204 ; Amtrique Septentrionale, 205. .Venango, 298 ; Washington at, 306 ; Fort Machault, .311 ; burnt, 398 ; taken, 438. See Fort Machault. V^rendrye, ISieur de, his career, 193 ; position of his forts, 195 ; his equip- ment, 198 ; his journal, 201 ; in debt, 201 ; his sons, 203 ; his last years, 203 ; dies, 204. Vernon, Admiral, 218. Verrazano, his voyage, 1, 316, 421 ; his sea, 3. Vestal's Gap, 233. Vetch, Samuel, 71, 123. Villiei-s, Chevalier de, attacks Washing- ton, 314, 315. Villiers, Neyon de, 454. Vincennes (town). 26, 84, 118, 149, 177, 246 ; population, 456. Vincennes, Monsieur, 149. Virginia, traders among the Cherokees, 20 ; pushing toward the Alleghanies, 66 ; Spotswood, governor, 127 ; val- ley of Virginia, 177 ; looked into, 128 ; Germans, 128, 129 ; trade with Cher- okees. 168 ; trails from, 168, 169 ; Cherokees tramp through the valley, 180 ; Keith's map, 181 ; new western countries, 182 ; her people on the Ohio, 182; grants in the valley, 177, 229; roads, 229 ; population, 128, 230, 374 ; the Carolina line, 232 ; claims land against the Iroquois, 236 ; her de- mands at Lanciister, 238 ; patli to the Cherokees, 2(5(i ; Carolina line mapped, 278 ; disputes over bounds, 180, 279 ; Augusta County, 279 ; suffered from the counter-raids of Iroquois and Ca- tawbas, 287 ; active on the Ohio, 307 ; Dinwiddle and the burgesses, 308 ; votes £ 10,000, 309 ; most western set- tlement, 319 ; early charter limits, 127, 319-321 ; later limits, 322 ; Scotch set- tlers, 338 ; burgesses vote money, 309, 340 ; support Braddock, 357 ; fron- tiers threatened. 373 ; stockades on the frontiers, 374 ; discontent with Bouquet, 410 ; emigration south, 445. Voltaire, 228. Wabash River, 17, 19 ; portage, 26 ; called St. Jerome, 85, 329 ; Fort Oui- a;:anon, 120, 246 ; Indians warned by the French against the Englisli traders, 128 ; French and English dis- pute over, 148, 158 ; fort needed, 149 ; called Overbachee, 171 ; English trad- ers on, 149, 243 ; French grants, 286 ; mapped, 333 ; French remaining, 462. Walker, Sir Ilovenden, his failure in the St. Lawrence, 123. Walker, Dr. Thomas, and the western quest, 216 ; has grants beyond the mountains, 230 ; crosses the moun- tains, 277 ; his journal, 278 ; his set- tlement, 281, 295, 328, 416; on the Tennessee, 411. Walker's Creek, 277. Walking Purchase, 177, 239, 242. Walpole, Sir Robert, convention with Spain, 186. Ward, Ensign, 111, 310. Warren, Sir Peter, 221, 368. Washington, George, surveying for Lord Fairfax, 180, 232, 266 ; sent by Din- widdle to the French, 303 ; his jour- nal and map, 306 ; at Le Boeuf, 307 ; lieutenant-colonel, 309 ; his letters revised, 309 ; infornaed by Gist of a French force, 312 ; succeeds Fry in command, 312 ; at Fort Necessity, 314 ; his capitulation, 314, 339 ; with Brad- dock, 357 ; his horse killed, 362 ; commands in the valley of V^irginia, 3(i5 ; building stockades on the fron- tiers, 374 ; in Boston, 374 ; consulting in Philadelphia, 374 ; and Forbes's route, 388 ; and the proclamation (1763), 430; selecting lands on the Ohio, 44(5. Washita River, 187. Watauga River, 410. 484 INDEX. Wateiford, Pennsylvania, 300. Watkins Ferry, 233, 278. Weas, 246. Weiser, Conrad, on the Mohawk, 12.5 ; in Pennsylvania, 166 ; mediator, 185 ; on the Ohio (1748), 224; at the Lancas- ter treaty, 236 ; at Logstown, 248 ; his character, 250 ; on the Catawbas, 266 ; observing- the Senecas, 286 ; the Ohio Indians, 342 ; not confident in the Indian defection, 353 ; watching the frontiers, 365 ; dies, 408. Welch, Colonel, explorations, 21, 46, 47. Wells, Edward, his maps, 13, 76. Wendell, Jacob, 162. West Indies, sugar islands, 171. Wheat in Illinois, 447. White Woman's Creek, 437. Whitefield and barrier colonies, 348. Whiting, Nathan, 369. Whitney, Josiah D., 202. William, king of England, dies, 68. William's Ferry, 233, 238. William's Gap, 233. Williams, Ephraim, 369. Will's Creek, 112, 243; traUfrom, 279; map, 358. Winchester (Va.), 178,374. Winnebagoes, 22, 115. Winslow, General John, 378. Winterbotham, America, 260. Wisconsin River, misconceived, 22 ; port- age, 21, 29, 107, 145. Wolcott, Roger, 344. Wolfe, General James, at Louisbourg, 396 ; before Quebec, 397, 398 ; on the Plains of Abraham, 400 ; killed, 401. Wood, Colonel Abraham, his expedition, 229 ; in the Ohio country, 421 ; on the Mississippi, 452. Wood, Colonel James, 230. Wood's Gap, 229. Woodstock (Va.), 179. Wyandots, 17, 239 ; their villages, 244, 247, 255 ; divided between French and English, 282 ; branch of Hurons, 285 ; their country, 305 ; surly, 412. See Hurons. Wyoming, 241, 258, 345; Connecticut claims, 346, 347. Yadkin River, 229,331. Yamassees, 20, 132 ; war, 133. Yazoo Indians, 187, 210, 213. Yazoo River, 41, 44, 153. Yellowstone River, divide, 31, 202. York, Samuel, 68. York (Pa.), 240. Youghiogheny River, 279, 292 ; map, 358, 359, 439. Young, an Englishman, beyond the Mississippi, 133. Zeisberger, 239. Zenger, 125. Zinzendorf , 258.