;ii 
 
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 ^istixrg ȣ tie (Scmerirait ^lalte Eraite. 
 
 Illustrated by Walter Appleton Clark. 
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 From its Origin to the Present Day. 1775- 
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 "..KOUGK KOtiEKS Cl.AKK. 
 
 From a portrait by Jarvis, said to be from life.
 
 A History 
 
 of th< 
 
 Mississippi Valley 
 
 From its Discovery to the End 
 of Foreign Domination. 
 
 The Narrative of the Founding of an Empire, Shorn of 
 
 Current Myth, and EnHvened by the Thrilling 
 
 Adventures of Discoverers, Pioneers, 
 
 Frontiersmen, Indian Fighters, 
 
 and Home Makers. 
 
 John R. Spears 
 
 Author of''* Oold Diggings of Cape Hortiy" '' History of Our Navy, ^' ''Our 
 Navy in the War with Spain," " The American Slave Trade," etc., etc. 
 
 IN COLLABORATION WITH 
 
 A. H. Clark. 
 
 WITH FACSIMILES, ILLUSTRATIONS OF HISTORIC PLACES, 
 MAPS, AND PORTRAITS. 
 
 New York. 
 
 A. S. Clark, Publisher. 
 
 1903.
 
 Copyright, 1903, by 
 A. S. CI.ARK. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 Press of 
 
 Braun-wrorth & Co. 
 
 Bookbinders and Printers 
 
 Brooklyn, H. Y,
 
 9 1 7, 7 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 TO THE 
 
 Hon. Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 AS A REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN 
 AND HISTORIAN.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This work is to give an account of the things done 
 in the Mississippi Valley during the period of foreign 
 control. It is intended to be a narrative, not a critical, 
 history. The writer has tried to tell about the achieve- 
 ments of the men who traversed the Great Lakes in 
 birch bark canoes, or walked through the passes of the 
 Alleghanies, to reach the Mississippi Valley, and, when 
 there, turned the mighty wilderness into the Garden of 
 the World. 
 
 Naturally the story begins with the heroic French- 
 men who first learned the way to the Great Basin. In 
 the days when the people of Massachusetts were es- 
 tablishing a trading post on the Piscataqua River, New 
 Hampshire, and the Virginians were sending an ex- 
 ploring expedition to learn whether a river flowed into 
 Delaware Bay, Jean Nicolet was making peace with the 
 Indians on the shores of Green Bay, Wisconsin. While 
 the Dutch of New Amsterdam were trading with the 
 Indians at Albany, Grosseilliers and Radisson, paddled 
 up the Ottawa River, (though the region was the haunt 
 of the Iroquois), and carried trade goods to the Sioux 
 on the banks of the Mississippi. When the British 
 were taking New York from the Dutch, La Salle was 
 stretching a line of forts from the St. Lawrence River 
 toward the mouth of the Mississippi. 
 
 Yet the nation from which the intrepid coureurs de
 
 ii Introduction. 
 
 hois and explorers sprang produced also other pioneers 
 whose manner of life was so far removed from that of 
 the woods rangers as to furnish the most striking con- 
 trast known to American history. For those were the 
 days of Louis XIV. and XV., when women who were 
 not queens ruled the Court of France. It was not "the 
 brief season of the Canadian summer, the weary winter, 
 the hazards of the crop," that brought failure to the 
 French settlements. The settlements in Louisiana were 
 in a kindly climate and they stood on the richest soil of 
 the earth. The French failed at the south as well as 
 the north because of the fungi spread by the shadow 
 of the French Court. The beginning of the French 
 Revolution was seen in America when the man with 
 the axe drove the lace-bedecked vagabond carrying a 
 sword from the lands west of the Alleghanies. 
 
 In the meantime, both the French and the British 
 had supplanted, more or less, another race of people — 
 a race of red men known as Indians. In modern times, 
 while the people of the United States have difficult race 
 problems still in hand, it seems worth while remember- 
 ing that because those red men were less developed than 
 the white, they were the wards of the whites. The 
 Indians were children, (they were often called so by 
 the men who knew them best) , and the white men were 
 rightfully their guardians. It was a responsibility that 
 wa'^s ignored and rudely thrust aside, but with such in- 
 finitely distressful results as we shall see. 
 
 The white men found the Indian passing rapidly 
 from the life of a hunter to that of the agriculturist; 
 but instead of aiding in the transition, the whites, by 
 offering to buy furs, turned the red agriculturists back
 
 Introduction. iii 
 
 to the hunter hfe. They did worse; they created a 
 market for human scalps. For one hundred and fifty 
 years the red men were, by every means incited to shed 
 the blood of animals and men ; and then the white man 
 looked upon them with horror and disgust because 
 they were ready to fight for their hunting grounds. 
 
 But while the white race as a whole were cultivat- 
 ing the red thirst for blood, a few white men, known as 
 Quakers and Moravians, were dealing with the red men 
 on an entirely different basis. The Quakers and Mora- 
 vians were subjected to many indignities and even out- 
 rages for their peculiarity of regard for the less de- 
 veloped red men. Historians have not failed to de- 
 nounce them, and frontiersmen have ever groped for 
 words with which to express their disgust when think- 
 ing of "Quaker sentiment." 
 
 But the story of Gnadenhutten, written in blood 
 that will not "out," proves be3^ond doubt or question 
 that the tepees and huts of every red village in the land 
 might have been turned into ''Tents of Grace." 
 
 It is a frightful fact that for every red man slain by 
 by the whites, in the frontier wars, at least three whites 
 were slain by the red. That fact is sufficient to damn 
 the white policy, but it is not all ; for because of the 
 policy that was pursued by those who despised "Qua- 
 ker sentiment," we are even now paying more than ten 
 million dollars a year for the expenses of the Indian 
 Bureau. Yet the fact remains that the cost of convert- 
 ing the Delaware Indians of Gnadenhutten from the 
 red savages, which they had been, to the stump-grub- 
 bing farmers, which they became, was less than the 
 waste of any one of hundreds of Indian raids.
 
 iv Introduction, 
 
 While the people of the United States have the ves- 
 tige of a race problem yet unsolved the story of Gnad- 
 enhutten is the most instructive of all that are known to 
 the annals of America. Let those who, with bobbing 
 heads, mumble some sort of a creed on Sundays, and 
 live the devil knows how the rest of the week, consider 
 it with care, for to them it has a special significance. 
 
 But this is by no means to withhold sympathy from 
 the frontier Americans. Their migration was instinc- 
 tive; it was due to the innate characteristics of a domi- 
 nant race. It was inevitable, and in every way desira- 
 ble. No one has a right to complain because they took 
 the hunting grounds of the red man. The Indian 
 should have been deprived of his hunting grounds to 
 the last acre, with the utmost possible speed, and sup- 
 plied with farms and play grounds instead. It was the 
 manner of taking that cursed the frontiersmen, and 
 they are to be pitied with an infinite pity. The effect 
 of the evil policy on the frontiersmen is the important 
 matter. They were the advance guard of the hosts of 
 civilization and were sent forth to be slaughtered for the 
 salvation and benefit of those who came after. Of 250 
 men in Robertson's Settlement at Nashville, 229 died 
 by violence inside of twelve years. 
 
 In connection with the slaughter of the frontiers- 
 men in the Mississippi Valley it is impossible to ignore 
 the fact that the red men were, during the War of the 
 Revolution and for twelve years after it, sicked on by 
 British officers. That is a story to rouse the indigna- 
 tion of every patriot, and, at first thought, one might 
 say it should be glossed over in this era of growing 
 good feeling between nations. On the other hand,
 
 Introduction. v 
 
 however, one should not forget that to gloss over is to 
 he. Moreover, the story is worth telling to show the 
 tremendous contrast between that era and the present — 
 a contrast that has been made possible by the develop- 
 ment of Christian civilization, and the construction of 
 an American fleet of unequalled war ships. 
 
 And that is to say, indirectly, that nations have al- 
 ways been, and are, bullies. They treat the powerful, 
 and no others, with the kindliest consideration. Near 
 the end of the Eighteenth Century we would not create 
 a navy, but we built a ship of war, ballasted it with sil- 
 ver dollars, and sent it to a ]\Iediterranean pirate to 
 purchase his favor. We permitted ourselves to be 
 blackmailed by African corsairs. And in consequence 
 of our craven spirit, the British held a firm grasp on the 
 territory northwest of the Ohio River; the Spanish 
 held Natchez and our southwest territory ; the French 
 with their privateers and naval ships, swept our com- 
 merce from the West Indies, and all three powers bul- 
 lied and browbeat our Government officials at almost 
 every interchange of communications. The American 
 State Papers are instructive if unpleasant reading. At 
 the beginning of the Twentieth Century we have in 
 hand battleships with broadside guns of seven-inch and 
 eight-inch caliber — battleships that are far and away su- 
 perior to anything conceived elsewhere — and we have 
 unruffled peace, with unopposed progress in the devel- 
 opment of our civilization. 
 
 If we were led by foolish policies in other days, it 
 was because we were foolish, and not because of any 
 lack of examples in right policies. The story of the 
 work of George Rogers Clark in the Illinois country is
 
 vi Introduction. 
 
 one of the most instructive in the war annals of the 
 world. There were two methods of repelling the raids 
 of the enemy in those days. The common way was to 
 build a log fort, and when protected by its walls, to 
 shoot every enemy that came in sight. It was a method 
 that became national. We built forts at the Atlantic 
 ports, and, as late as 1890, we built "coast defence" 
 ships. The forts and coast defence ships were not 
 wholly useless. Like the quills of the porcupine, they 
 could prove very useful, under some circumstances. 
 The porcupine method of repelling an enemy was held 
 in high regard for many years by our people. 
 
 But George Rogers Clark (an American born a 
 hundred years ahead of his time, he), would have none 
 of the porcupine policy. He saw that the way to pro- 
 tect the frontier was to carry the war to the strongholds 
 of the enemy. He took Kaskaskia and Vincennes. He 
 gave the United States the Northwest Territory. He 
 was urgent for men and means with which to take De- 
 troit. Had his requests been heeded the raids on Ken- 
 tucky would have ceased, and there would have been no 
 trouble over the Northwest posts in after years. 
 
 But because Clark's work was ignored, the broad 
 territory which he had won had to be rewon, and 
 "Mad" Anthony Wayne was the man for the day. Of 
 all the brigadiers of the Revolution, he is best worth 
 memory, but it is not on his "mad" charges in the face 
 of the enemy that his fame is grounded. Those, indeed, 
 were splendid, but that parade of his men with their 
 hair neatly powdered before the attack on Stony Point 
 is significant ; so is the further fact that every dog with- 
 in three miles of the Point was killed before the attack.
 
 Introduction. vii 
 
 But of all that this man did, nothing will be remem- 
 bered longer than the fact that when he came to recon- 
 quer the region Clark had won, he trained more than a 
 thousand men of his legion until they could load and fire 
 their rifles with precision while charging at full speed 
 on the enemy. Anthony Wayne zvas the best drill mas- 
 ter the American army ever had. 
 
 As said, this work is to give an account of the things 
 done in the Great Valley, but necessarily a record had 
 to be made of those proceedings elsewhere by which the 
 destinies of the Valley were influenced. The Spanish, 
 who were really the first to see the Valley, and who at 
 the end of the Seven Years War, obtained New Or- 
 leans and the region between the Rockies and the Mis- 
 sissippi, took possession of Natchez and a large section 
 of American soil during the War of the Revolution. 
 They were determined, after the war was ended, not 
 only to hold it, but to grasp all the unsettled part of the 
 Great Valley, regardless of American claims. In this 
 matter the French Government earnestly supported 
 them, and the diplomatic complications that grew out 
 of this condition of affairs, are interesting. In their 
 efforts to "cinch" the territory the Spanish amuse or 
 exasperate the student of history according to his men- 
 tal attitude toward their peculiar characteristics. But 
 the settlers of the Great Valley, in the days of the Span- 
 ish complications, never found the situation amusing, 
 and the fact that the Spanish were not swept out of the 
 Mississippi Valley by a flood tide of indignant back- 
 woodsmen must ever remain a matter of wonder and 
 pride to the American patriot. 
 
 By unwavering persistence the Americans foiled
 
 viii Introduction. 
 
 the Spanish shufflings, evasions and obstinacy, so that a 
 time came when Spain traded the great Louisiana ter- 
 ritory back to France. The day of its salvation was 
 then close at hand. Napoleon ruled France, and for a 
 brief period, he thought to regain for her all the splen- 
 did region on which La Salle had filed the French 
 claim. He bought the Louisiana territory; he thought 
 to take the land east of the Mississippi with an army 
 of 10,000 men. But when the eagle alighted before 
 him with one naked claw representing 30,000 "Prime 
 Riflemen," and the other offering him a purse, his vision 
 was cleared. The transfer of Louisiana to the United 
 States was made through the hatred of the British and 
 the fear of America. He prophesied that the valley of 
 the Mississippi would make the United States a "mar- 
 itime rival" of the British, and a century after his 
 prophesy was made, the greatest transatlantic lines of 
 steamships are controlled by capitalists whose wealth 
 has been drawn from traffic originating in the Great 
 Basin. But, curiously enough, the development which 
 Napoleon hoped for has only served to draw the En- 
 glish-speaking rivals closer together, instead of driving 
 them apart. 
 
 It is a long story, this of the Mississippi Valley, but 
 from the year when Grosseiliers and Radisson first 
 traded for beaver skin on the bank of the upper river, 
 until the day when the Gridiron Flag, hoisted at New 
 Orleans, covered the whole Great Basin, it is a story 
 that can be summed up in one word — JVork. From the 
 first to the last, the men whose names are memorable 
 in the history of the Valley, whether they were traders 
 like the coicreurs de hois looking for profit ; or empire
 
 Introduction. 
 
 IX 
 
 founders, like La Salle, looking for power; or migra- 
 tors, like the hosts that followed the Ohio and the Wil- 
 derness Road, looking for home sites ; or statesmen like 
 Monroe and Livingston, looking for the good of the 
 Nation, all have been men who could and who would 
 work. Work is the one word emblazoned on the es- 
 cutcheon of the people of the Great Basin. 
 
 To show a part of what work has accomplished in 
 the affairs of a mighty region is the chief object of this 
 book, and it is therefore offered to the growing host 
 of good Americans who see clearly that 
 
 "The All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the 
 verb To Do." 

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. On the Brim of the Great Basin i 
 
 II. First Exploration of the Mississippi River 13 
 
 III. La Salle and Louisiana 25 
 
 IV. From La Salle to New Orleans Si 
 
 V. Indians of the Mississippi Valley 75 
 
 VI. Work of the French in the Valley 103 
 
 VII. The French Expelled from the Valley, Part i. . 119 
 
 VIII. The French Expelled from the Valley, Part 2. . 133 
 
 IX. The Spanish IN THE Great Valley I57 
 
 X. PoNTiAc's War as Seen in the Valley 171 
 
 XI. Crossing the Range 183 
 
 XII. Lord Dunmore's War 209 
 
 XIII. The Home Makers IN Kentucky 223 
 
 XIV. On the Frontier during the Revolution 247 
 
 XV. The Work of Geo. Rogers Clark 267 
 
 XVI. As THE War Dragged On 287 
 
 XVII. Gnadenhutten 293 
 
 XVIII. Fighting that Followed Gnadenhutten 303 
 
 XIX. The Frontiersmen at King's Mountain 313 
 
 XX. Frontier Home and Civil Life in War Time 319 
 
 XXI. Fighting to Possess Land Already Won 331 
 
 XXII. In the Southwest after the Revolution 355 
 
 XXIII. The Nation Gets Its Own 369 
 
 XXIV. The Garden of America for Americans Only 379
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Pen and ink sketches, head and tail pieces, chapter headings, 
 both original and reproductions, by Miss E. S. Clark. 
 
 George Rogers Clark Frontispiece 
 
 From a portrait by Jarvis. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Indian Braves in Costume ix 
 
 "Ftotd. Catlin's Indians. 
 
 John Jay (facing) i 
 
 From a portrait by Wilkinson, London, 1783. 
 
 Heading of Chap. I., Indian Throwing Tomahawk ... i 
 
 View of the Three Great Divisions of the United States 8 
 
 River St. Lawrence lo 
 
 River St. Lawrence, showing "La Chine" Rapids, early 
 French settlements, etc. 
 
 Jean Baptiste Talon 12 
 
 From portrait by Hamel. 
 
 Heading of Chap. II., Winter Costume of Indian . . 13 
 
 Eastern Portion of Joliet's Map, 1674 iS 
 
 Central Portion of Joliet's Map, 1674 21 
 
 Marquette's Map, 1681 23 
 
 Block House at Lexington, Ky 24 
 
 Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle (facing) 25 
 
 Heading of Chap. Ill 25 
 
 The building of the "Griffin."
 
 xiv List of Illustrations. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sketch of Niagara River, Showing Ancient Portages . 30 
 
 From "Bouchette British Dominions in North Ameri- 
 ca." 
 
 Fort Niagara 32 
 
 From the "Portfolio," 1813. 
 
 Map of Franquelin 1684 44 
 
 Indian Chief's Headdress 50 
 
 From Catlin's Indians. 
 
 Jean Baptiste le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville (facing) . . 51 
 From an original portrait. 
 
 Heading of Chap. IV 51 
 
 Indian on horseback from Catlin. 
 
 De Lisle, Map of the Course of the Mississippi 1703 . . 52 
 
 Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise De Pompadour. . 56 
 From a portrait by Harding. 
 
 Moll's Map, 1710 58 
 
 Joutel's Map, 1713 65 
 
 Louis XV., King of France 70 
 
 From a contemporary print. 
 
 New Orleans, 1728 73 
 
 Louis XIV., King of France (facing) 75 
 
 From a contemporary portrait. 
 
 Heading of Chap. V 75 
 
 Death of Vincennes. from Bancroft's United States. 
 
 Location of Indian Tribes East of the Mississippi ... 82 
 
 From Bancroft's United States. 
 Indian Mounds in Ohio 84 
 
 From Atwater's Antiquities of Ohio.
 
 List of Illustrations. xv 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ancient Indian Fortifications at Newark, Ohio ... 90 
 From The Family Magazine, 1843. 
 
 A Typical Indian Village 96 
 
 From a painting by Bierstadt. 
 
 John Law, Projector of the Mississippi Scheme (facing) 103 
 
 From a Contemporary print. 
 
 Heading of Chapter VI 103 
 
 A frontier greeting. 
 
 A Portion of Labat's Map, 1722 105 
 
 Tail-Piece, an Indian Visit 118 
 
 King Philip (facing) 119 
 
 From an Original by Paul Revere. 
 
 Heading of Chap. VII iig 
 
 Example of a Log House of the Better Class. 
 
 Map of Celoron's Expedition 128 
 
 Fac-Simile of one of Celoron's Lead Plates 129 
 
 George Washington at Twenty-five Years of Age 
 (facing) 133 
 
 From Irving' s Washington, 1st edition. 
 Heading of Chap. VIIL, Fort Du Quesne 1755 . ... 133 
 Frederick the Great 142 
 
 From the Encylopedia Londinensis. 
 The Braddock Campaign 144 
 
 From Bancroft's United States. 
 
 Fall of Braddock 146 
 
 From "Battles of the United States." 
 
 Scene of Braddock's Defeat 148 
 
 From Irving's Life of Washington, 1st edition.
 
 xvi List of Illustrations. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Tail-Piece, Braddock's Defeat 156 
 
 From a contemporary copper plate, the legend of which 
 describes Braddock as being in the cart, and Washington 
 the figure to the right. 
 
 Hernando De Soto (facing) 157 
 
 From an early portrait. 
 
 Heading of Chap. IX., Fort Pitt, 1759 157 
 
 Don Antonio De Ulloa, Gov. of La., 1764 163 
 
 From an engraving by Scriven. 
 
 Sir William Johnson (facing) 171 
 
 'r' From the London Magazine, 1756. 
 Heading of Chap. X 171 
 
 Modern remains of Fort Pitt. 
 
 Major Robert Rogers, Indian Scout, etc 173 
 
 From a London portrait of 1770. 
 
 Daniel Boone (facing) 183 
 
 From an original portrait by Harding. 
 
 Heading of Chap. XI 183 
 
 Signatures to "Walpole's Grant," afterwards included 
 in the "Ohio Company." 
 
 Map of Ohio Land Grants IQO 
 
 From the map of Lewis, 1796. 
 
 George III., King of England I93 
 
 From a portrait painted in 1760. 
 
 An Indian Surprise 204 
 
 From a painting by F. O. C. Darley. 
 Tail-Piece, Ancient Manner of Loading a Rifle .... 208 
 Simon Kenton, the Companion of Boone (facing) . . . 209 
 
 From a portrait by L. W. Morgan.
 
 List of Illustratiotis. xvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Heading of Chap. XII., Cornstalk's Tomahawk .... 209 
 Which is still preserved. 
 
 Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison's Residence 220 
 
 From an early lithograph. 
 
 IMaj. Gen. William Henry Harrison 220 
 
 From an original portrait by J. R. Lambdin. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin (facing) 223 
 
 From a portrait in the Portfolio, 1818. 
 
 Heading of Chap. XIII., A Call to Arms 223 
 
 A Portion of Filson's Map 1785, Showing Vicinity of 
 Harrodsburg 229 
 
 Another Portion of Filson's Map, Including Lexington 231 
 
 More of Filson's IMap, with Louisville as the Centre . 233 
 
 Andrew Jackson 235 
 
 From a portrait by Jarvis. 
 Mrs. Andrew Jackson 236 
 
 Taken from a portrait, made shortly after ball given in 
 honor of her husband. 
 
 A Hunter Armed with a "Deckhard" Rifle 238 
 
 From an engraving by Sartain. 
 
 Tail-Piece Peace and War 246 
 
 OuTACiTE, A Cherokee Chief (facing) 247 
 
 From Church's Indian Wars. 
 
 Heading of Chap. XIV., Block House at Fort Stanwix 247 
 
 The Massacre of the Family of Johanas Dietz (1775?) . 252 
 From a contemporary broadside. 
 
 George Rogers Clark (facing) 267 
 
 From a portrait from life in possession of Vincennes 
 University, Ind.
 
 xviii List of Illustrations. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Heading of Chap. XV., Fort Wayne in 1794 267 
 
 From a contemporary sketch. 
 
 Col. George Croghan 274 
 
 From the Portfolio. 
 
 Indian Scalp Dance 282 
 
 From The Family Magazine, 1844. 
 
 Col. Francis Vigo 284 
 
 From the Magazine of Western History. 
 
 George Washington at Fifty-six Years of Age (facing) 287 
 From a portrait by Geoffroy, Paris. 
 
 Heading of Chap. XVI., Frontier Block House .... 287 
 
 William Penn 292 
 
 Heading of Chap. XVIL, From West's Painting of the 
 Penn Treaty 293 
 
 Indian Monument at Gnadenhutten 300 
 
 Col. Aaron Ogden (facing) t 303 
 
 From a portrait by A. B. Durand. 
 
 Heading of Chap. XVIII., Fort Lexington in 1782 ... 303 
 
 Now Lexington, Ky. 
 
 York on Lake Ontario in 1812 308 
 
 From a plate in The Portfolio. 
 
 Marquis Cornwallis (facing) 3^2 
 
 From a portrait by Copley. 
 
 Heading of Chap. XIX., Stone Marking Grave of Col. 
 Ferguson at Kings Mountain 3^3 
 
 Plan of the Action at Kings Mountain 316 
 
 From Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee. ^ 
 
 Burial Place of Col. Ferguson 3i8 
 
 From American Historical Record.
 
 List of Illustrations. xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gen. Isaac Shelby (facing) .-...- 319 
 
 From an engraving by Durand. 
 Heading of Chap. XX., Pioneers en Route 319 
 
 Brig. Gen. Anthony Wayne (facing) 331 
 
 Fram a pencil sketch by Col. John Trumbull. 
 Heading of Chapter XXL, Wayne Drilling His Men . 331 
 
 A Portion of the Map of Lewis, Showing Fort Wayne 
 and Vicinity 1706 334 
 
 Marie Antoinette, Queen of France 337 
 
 FVom a contemporary print. 
 Ma J. Gen. Arthur St. Clair 338 
 
 From a drawing by Col. John Trumbull. 
 
 Map of Ohio, made by Gen. Rufus Putnam in 1804 , . . 340 
 
 Another Portion of the Map of Lewis 1796, Showing 
 Position of Various Forts 348 
 
 Battle of Fallen Tjmber 350 
 
 From "Battles of America." 
 
 Plan of the Battle of Fallen Timber 353 
 
 James Madison (facing) 355 
 
 From original portrait by Stuart. 
 
 Heading of Chap. XXH., Fort Washington (Now Cincin- 
 nati) in 1790 355 
 
 Tail-Piece, Niagara Falls from the Earliest Known 
 Print , 368 
 
 William Charles Cole Claiborne (facing) 369 
 
 Heading of Chap. XXHL, Campus Martius, at the Pres- 
 ent Site of Marietta, Ohio 369 
 
 Edmund Charles Genet 370 
 
 From a painting by Fouquet.
 
 XX List of Illustrations. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thomas Pinckney 373 
 
 From The Portfolio. 
 A School Boy's Map of the United States in 1796 . . . 374 
 
 From Morse's Elements of Greography. 
 
 James Edward Oglethorpe 376 
 
 From a contemporary engraving. 
 Tail-Piece, A Possible Picture of Rev. Samuel Doak . 378 
 
 Robert R. Livingston (facing) 379 
 
 From Irving's Life of Washington. 
 
 Heading of Chap. XXIV., The Flag Covers the Entire 
 Valley 379 
 
 Thomas Jefferson 385 
 
 From a plate contemporary with Miss, affairs, 
 
 James Monroe 390 
 
 From a portrait by Vanderlyn. 
 
 Thomas B. Robertson ^ 39^ 
 
 From a portrait by St. Memim. 
 Tail-Piece, "A New Home, Who'll Follow?" .... 401
 
 ^eais nf x^na'ofn, tJbjiugJj bxrmt^ht in nnthnt itags f 
 Cells of a fcto stiixtt iwartSf that fttugltt axtii iticii 
 HJjcrc i»«tg placcii tJtcm^ at titcir raimtrg's siiie ? 
 Clw matt titat is ttot mttttcit bg toJbat Jbc rcaiis, 
 (Lljat takes wat fire at titeir Ijeroit itecits, 
 IH^tthxxirtltg of the Blessings xxf tije brakte, 
 Js tase in kinii, anit bixxn to he a slaiie/^
 
 JwlIN JAY. 
 
 Daniel Webster said of him: "When the spotless ermine of the judicial 
 
 robe fell on John Jay, it touched nothing: less spotless than itself." 
 
 This portrait was engraved by Wilkinson, London, 17S3.
 
 ON THE BRIM OF THE GREAT BASIN. 
 
 The First Coureur-de-Bois and His Fate-^Adventures of 
 Jean Nicokt — An Ambassador with two Pistols — 
 The Courageous Traders Who First Reached the 
 Mississippi — A Trading Station that Was a "First 
 Chance" for Warriors as Well as Peaceful Indians — 
 The Notable Manner in Which the La Chine Rapids 
 Were Named. 
 
 The connected historical story of the Mississippi 
 valley begins wnth the training of the first coiirenr de 
 hois, Etienne Brule, for it was through the enterprising, 
 adventure-loving spirit of this notable class of French- 
 men, the coiireiirs de hois, that civilized people were 
 first led to make permanent settlements within the 
 Great Basin. The Spanish under De Soto had discov- 
 ered, it is true, the Mississippi in 1541 (as shall be told
 
 A History of the 
 
 further on), but nothing came of that expedition save 
 only as the story of it served to inspire one of the great- 
 est of French explorers, more than a hundred years 
 later, the Sieur de la Salle. 
 
 It was Samuel de Champlain who made a coureur 
 de hois of Etienne Brule — who, in fact, originated the 
 coureur de hois system of exploration. Champlain 
 founded the city of Quebec in 1608, making of it, at 
 first, a fur-trading station, but hoping that in the end it 
 would become the capital of a new great French empire. 
 In the year 1609 he discovered Lake Champlain, while 
 on the war path with an Algonquin party, and there, 
 in 1 610, not far from the St. Lawrence, he captured an 
 Iroquois brush fort, and killed all but one of the garri- 
 son that numbered 100. 
 
 In celebrating this victory, of 1610, Iroquet, the In- 
 dian chief, gave a young savage named Savignon to the 
 French as a pledge of future friendship and Champlain 
 in return gave Etienne Brule to Iroquet. 
 
 So far as the records show Etienne Brule was the 
 first Frenchman to join the Sauvagcs — the wild men of 
 America, and fully to adopt their manner of life. He 
 became one of, as well as one with, them, but he was 
 nevertheless a Frenchman still, and kept his eyes open 
 for his own advantage, and for that of his country. He 
 became a woods ranger and trader on his own account, 
 and an interpreter and ambassador among the Indians 
 for the benefit of his countrymen. 
 
 Save only as he showed to Champlain the advan- 
 tage of having men trained in that fashion among the 
 Indians, Etienne Brule did but little to lead his 
 countrymen toward the Mississippi Valley. There is 
 
 2
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 no record of his having so much as heard of the great 
 stream, though he did, very hkely, wander as far west 
 as Lake Superior, for he said he was on the shores of a 
 great lake where native copper was found in nuggets, 
 and he brought a nugget to Quebec to prove the story. 
 He might have accomphshed more, for his enterprise 
 was praiseworthy, but he got in trouble with some Hu- 
 rons, east of Lake Huron, presumably over some red 
 sweetheart, and they killed and ate him. And that was 
 the fate of not a few woods rangers who came after 
 him. 
 
 In the meantime another French youth, Jean Nico- 
 let, had come to join Champlain. He arrived in 1618. 
 Because Brule had been serviceable while living among 
 the Lidians, Champlain determined to give Nicolet a 
 similar training, and for nine years he lived with the 
 Indians to the eastward of Lake Huron, "undergoing 
 such fatigues as none but eye witnesses can conceive; 
 he often passed seven or eight days without food, and 
 once, full seven weeks with no other nourishment than 
 a little bark from the trees," as an old Jesuit "Relation" 
 says. He had there "his own separate cabin and house- 
 hold, and fishing and trading for himself." 
 
 In 1633 Nicolet returned to the St. Lawrence settle- 
 ments, and in 1634 was sent to explore the region be- 
 yond Lake Michigan. The Indians had been telling of 
 the wonders of that country ever since Champlain ar- 
 rived among them, and Nicolet had returned with a 
 fixed belief that either the Chinese or the Japanese came 
 to that country every year to trade. At any rate it was 
 a people, the Indians said, that used huge wooden ca- 
 noes instead of little portable canoes of birch bark, and 
 
 3
 
 A History of the 
 
 the French thought the huge wooden canoes must be 
 ships. 
 
 Nicolet started on July 7, 1634, with a party of In- 
 dians and priests who were bound for Georgian Bay 
 (p. 99, vol. viii., Thwaite's edition of Jesuit "Rela- 
 tions"), and the party was thirty days on the road. 
 
 With seven Huron Indians for company, Nicolet 
 M'ent first to the Sault Sainte Marie, a noted gathering 
 place for western tribes, but finding no Asiatics there, 
 nor any one that looked like them, he paddled around 
 to Green Bay, on the northwest corner of Lake Michi- 
 gan, where a still more populous region was found, be- 
 cause of the wild rice growing in the lakes, and in the 
 still waters beyond. 
 
 Here a real test of Nicolet's ability as an ambassa- 
 dor was to be made. For the Indians were utter stran- 
 gers to him and his Hurons, and their language was 
 wholly different. 
 
 First of all he landed and "fastened two sticks in 
 the earth, and hung gifts thereon, so as to relieve these 
 tribes from the notion of mistaking them for enemies." 
 When the presents had been discovered and carried 
 away, a lone Huron went in search of the tribe to say 
 by the sign language that a man of the people who man- 
 ufactured the presents wished to come and deliver 
 many more things of the same kind. This message was 
 kindly received and "they dispatched several young 
 men to meet the manitouriniou — that is to say, 'the 
 wonderful man.' " 
 
 "The news of Nicolet's coming quickly spread to 
 the villages round about, and there assembled four or 
 five thousand men." Nicolet dressed himself in "a 
 
 4
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 grand robe of China damask, all strewn with flowers 
 and birds of many colors." Then with a pistol in each 
 hand, he approached the great throng, fired off blank 
 cartridges in his weapons, and finally gravely seated 
 himself in the place left vacant for him. 
 
 The "squaws and children fled screaming," but the 
 warriors were so highly pleased that they gave him a 
 feast in which, as he was careful to report, no less than 
 120 beavers were eaten. 
 
 From Green Bay Nicolet went up Fox River to the 
 Mascoutin Indians, whose language he understood. Of 
 them he learned that no Asiatics came to the region. 
 The "strange people" of whom he had heard were 
 Naduesiu (Sioux) Indians, and their large wooden ca- 
 noes were dugouts — big logs cut to canoe shape. They 
 lived on a great river, not a great sea, and the Indians 
 said Nicolet could reach this great river by a journey of 
 three days from where he was then encamped. It is not 
 unreasonable to suppose that Nicolet went on to visit 
 this Sioux tribe, for in the Jesuit "Relation" for 1640, 
 the writei; gives a list of the Indian nations around the 
 upper lakes, which includes the Sioux, and says of the 
 list: 
 
 "Sieur Nicolet has given me the names of these na- 
 tions, zvliich he himself has visited, for the most part in 
 their own country." 
 
 The next to explore the region south and west of 
 Lake Superior were ]\Ienard Chouart des Grosseilliers 
 and Pierre Esprit Radisson. Grosseilliers, as a servant 
 of the Jesuit missionaries, was in 1645, employed 
 among the Hurons near Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. 
 He returned to the St. Lawrence settlements in 1646, 
 
 5
 
 A History of the 
 
 and remained there until 1654, when the call of the 
 wilds — the memory of unrestrained freedom and the 
 beckoning smiles of the Indian maidens — could be no 
 longer resisted. In company with Sieur Radisson, a 
 close personal friend (he had married Radisson's sis- 
 ter), Grosseilliers started for the region where Nicolet 
 had seen 120 beavers served at an impromptu feast. 
 
 This journey was one of the most daring known to 
 the history of exploration in any country. For the 
 Iroquois,, since the days of their defeats by Champlain, 
 had procured (of the Dutch), and learned to use fire 
 arms. With these new weapons they had crossed the 
 lakes and literally swept the Huron and Algonquin vil- 
 lages from the face of the earth. Even the Esquimo on 
 the shores of Hudson's Bay had felt the power of the 
 Iroquois warriors, while the French themselves had 
 been slaughtered beneath the walls built to guard Mon- 
 treal, Three Rivers and Quebec. The whole region 
 between the St. Lawrence and the Laurentian Moun- 
 tains, the Saguenay River and Lake Huron, was, in 
 1654, left to the undisturbed possession of the furry 
 and feathered animals, save only as Iroquois bands con- 
 tinually prowled to and fro along the streams. 
 
 So complete had been the disaster wrought by the 
 Iroquois — so terrified were the Indians of all other 
 tribes — that during the year 1653 not a single skin was 
 brought to Montreal, and "in the Quebec warehouse 
 there is nothing but poverty." 
 
 Nevertheless on August 6, 1654, Grosseilliers and 
 Radisson paddled away from Montreal and disappeared 
 up the Ottawa. The daring of the Yankee pioneers 
 who, like Boone and Robertson, plunged alone into the 
 
 6
 
 A History of the 
 
 wilds has been praised in the highest terms, and with 
 good reason. But the dangers of one man travelHng 
 alone through the forest were far less than those of 
 these two men paddling with trade goods up an open 
 waterway that was the regular highway of the enemy. 
 
 On leaving Montreal, Grosseillier and Radisson 
 promised to return in a year. They failed to do so and, 
 naturally, they were mourned as dead. But at the end 
 of August, 1656, they returned accompanied by fifty 
 canoes laden with furs. "Their arrival," says the Jesuit 
 Relation, "caused the country universal joy," and they 
 "landed amid the stunning noise of cannon." 
 
 In 1659 these two woods rangers went again to the 
 wilds of Lake Superior and they came back safe on 
 August 21, 1660. They had "wintered with the Nation 
 of the Ox" (i. e., the Sioux), and had visited a remnant 
 of the Hurons whom they found living on "a beautiful 
 river, large, wide, deep, and worthy of comparison 
 with our great river St. Lawrence." (vol. xlv., pp. 
 163, 235 ; Thwaite's edition, Jesuit "Relations"). 
 
 Radisson, in an account which was printed after- 
 wards, says: "We zuent to the great river * * * 
 which we believe runs towards Mexico." The "Rela- 
 tions" just quoted adds that "our Frenchmen visited 
 the forty villages of zvhich this (Sioux) nation is com- 
 posed." 
 
 Any unprejudiced reading of these "Relations," and 
 of Radisson's account, shows conclusively that these 
 two intrepid woods rangers were on the Mississippi 
 river. 
 
 From the Jesuit "Relation" of 1656-7 it appears 
 that a Jesuit priest may have passed over the brim of 
 
 7
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 the Mississippi Valley still earlier. This "Relation" re- 
 cords "some peculiarities of the Iroquois country" as 
 observed by Jesuit missionaries sent to the Onondaga 
 region under the lead of Father Francois le Mercier. 
 One of them saw a spring from which flowed a sub- 
 stance that "ignites like brandy, and boils up in bubbles 
 of flame when fire is applied to it. * * * Our sav- 
 ages use it to grease their heads and bodies." It is 
 believed that this was a petroleum spring in Alleghany 
 county, New York, the water of which flows to the 
 Alleghany river. 
 
 In 1665 Father Allouez established a mission at a 
 place called La Pointe, on Lake Superior, near where 
 Ashland, Wisconsin, now stands, and while there he 
 wrote of the great ri\-er under the name it now bears — 
 "Messipi" — that being the Indian word meaning great 
 water. 
 
 And then came La Salle. Rene Robert Cavalier, 
 Sieur de la Salle was born in Rouen, France, on No- 
 vember 21, 1643. He attended a Jesuit school there 
 until 15, and then went to Paris and prepared to join 
 the Order; but after taking preliminary vows left them, 
 and, according to the best authorities, came to Montreal 
 in the spring of 1666. 
 
 IMontreal was then the frontier settlement of New 
 France, and the prowling Iroquois often murdered 
 Frenchmen within the shadows of its forts. Neverthe- 
 less La Salle, having a small capital, bought a tract of 
 land at the head of the rapids now called La Chine. 
 Here he laid out a palisaded village, and built for his 
 own use a comfortable log house. He intended, at that 
 time, to make a considerable settlement and a trading
 
 From JVashir/J ten, -"^Q 
 
 G UXF 
 
 or 
 
 7tf E :s: I c o 
 
 ■/ ' - Hiir Qf THE 
 
 7ir/i£i: GjiBAT DIVISION'S 
 
 OF fKE 
 
 UNITEP STATES. 
 
 20 
 
 3 From LojidoTL
 
 Mississippi Valley, 
 
 his own expenses. He was therefore just the kind of 
 a man that Talon was looking for. 
 
 How La Salle bought an outfit that loaded four 
 canoes, and hired fourteen men, and on July 6, 1669, 
 started for Lake Ontario need not be told in detail. 
 But it is worth mention that at the head of Lake On- 
 tario he met a woods ranger named Louis Joliet who 
 had been hunting for Etienne Brule's copper mine on 
 the shores of Lake Superior. 
 
 The copper mine was not found, but Joliet had come 
 down from Mackinac by way of the Detroit river and 
 Lake Erie, and was the first white man to pass that 
 way. 
 
 From the head of Lake Ontario, La Salle went to 
 Onondaga, where he obtained a guide, and thence to a 
 point on a branch of the Ohio river supposed to be "six 
 or seven leagues from Lake Erie." This he followed 
 into the "the Beautiful River" itself, and eventually 
 reached the falls where Louisville now stands. 
 
 At this point he was obliged to turn back because 
 his men had deserted him. It was an ominous be- 
 ginning of a great life work. 
 
 La Salle's reception when he returned to Montreal 
 alone, was humiliating. In establishing the post at the 
 head of the rapids above Montreal he had incurred 
 the bitter enmity of all the traders doing business from 
 Montreal to Quebec. They cowered in the shadow 
 of the forts; he had dared to build his store leagues 
 away in the wilderness. His bravery made conspicu- 
 ous their cowardice; his position enabled him to se- 
 cure the very cream of the trade. The enmity had been 
 intense, but now, here was the Sieur de la Salle, back 
 
 10
 
 A History of the 
 
 from a voyage in which he had hoped to reach China, 
 baffled, and not with a franc left of all that he had 
 obtained from the sale of his well-located trading sta- 
 tion. The tumble of water over which his lost home 
 looked was the only China he had discovered. It was 
 a good joke on La Salle. They would, and they did, 
 call those rapids China — "La Chine" — to irritate him. 
 And as La Chine they are known to this day. 
 
 Nevertheless, while the traders sneered, Jean Bap- 
 tiste Talon, the intendant, saw that the man who would 
 sink his all in such an expedition, was worthy of con- 
 sideration ; and he enabled the discomfited La Salle 
 to try once more. But for this expedition, few words 
 will suffice. La Salle went up to the head of Lake 
 Michigan and crossed to the water shed of the Mis- 
 sissippi. The account of the journey says he went 
 to a river "which flowed from east to west" — presum- 
 ably the Kankakee. He followed it until it was joined 
 by another river coming from the northwest. This 
 w^as probably the Des Plaines. La Salle, like Grosseil- 
 liers and Radisson, viewed a part of the great valley, 
 but so far he had accomplished nothing toward set- 
 tling it. 
 
 Comparisons are instructive, however odious. Li 
 1634 when Champlain sent Nicolet to visit the Indians 
 on the west side of Lake Michigan, the inhabitants 
 of Massachusetts thought they had shown great en- 
 terprise in establishing a trading station on the Pis- 
 cataqua river where Dover, New Hampshire, now 
 stands; w^hile the Virginia settlers had recently sent 
 an exploring expedition to learn whether a river emp- 
 tied into Delaw'are Bay. 
 
 1 1
 
 JEAN BAPTIST I-: TALCN. 
 Intendant of New France. From the portrait by Hamel.
 
 II 
 
 FIRST EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 The Facts about Joliet's Expedition Down the Mississippi 
 with Father Marquette as Chaplain of the Com- 
 pany — The Kindly Illinois Indians and Their Calu- 
 met — Two Views of a River "Monster" — Tennessee 
 Indians Whom White ]\Ien Had Visited — Fate of 
 the Valiant Quapaws — A Far-Reaching Mishap to 
 Joliet. 
 
 To the honor of Jean Baptiste Talon, Intendant 
 of Canada from 1665 to 1675, (save for a few 
 months), be it remembered that he not only saw the 
 value of the broad western domain w^here Grosseil- 
 lier and Radisson first carried French trade, but he 
 took steps to possess it. 
 
 In 1670, when he sent La Salle on the voyage by 
 the way of Lake INIichigan and the Illinois, toward 
 
 13
 
 A History of the 
 
 the Mississippi, he sent Daumont de Saint-Lusson to 
 Lake Superior to hunt for the copper mine that Jo- 
 het had failed to find, and further than that to take 
 formal possession of the upper lake region in the 
 name of the king. Saint Lusson was in command, but 
 the experienced Joliet was guide, and without mishap 
 they reached the Sault Sainte Marie, erected a cross 
 on a hill, blessed it, sang the Vexilla Regis, planted a 
 cedar post to which was attached a metal plate bear- 
 ing the royal arms, sang the Exaudiat, and then 
 Saint Lusson, with a sword in one hand and a fresh 
 sod in the other, uttered a fierce gust of words by 
 which he said he took possession not only of the up- 
 per great lakes, but of "all countries, rivers, lakes and 
 streams contiguous and adjacent thereunto," includ- 
 ing not only those his countrymen had already dis- 
 covered, but "those which may be discovered here- 
 after." 
 
 This was done on May 5, 1671. It had taken the 
 French government thirty-seven years to follow the 
 trail of Nicolet as far as the Sault Sainte Marie. 
 
 On the return of this party to the lower St. Law- 
 rence, Talon determined on one more exploration of 
 the region; and Louis Joliet was chosen to lead the 
 expedition. 
 
 In order to show that Louis Joliet and not some 
 other man was chosen to lead, we will quote the orig- 
 inal sources of information. It is a matter of great 
 importance because it was this expedition that did 
 first explore the Mississippi. 
 
 Among the Paris documents printed in volume ix. 
 of the "New York Colonial Manuscripts" are found 
 
 14
 
 / 
 
 '^^~«.'- 
 
 '# 
 
 * * 
 
 '«t 
 
 
 ! 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 » 
 
 
 
 .±L 
 
 #^ 
 
 r 
 
 
 . .V 
 
 #
 
 M ississipp i I ^ alley. 
 
 (pp. 90-94) some "Extracts of the Memoirs of Mon- 
 sieur de Frontenac to the Minister," Frontenac be- 
 ing Governor of Canada and Colbert the "minister." 
 On page 92 is this sentence regarding an act of the 
 Governor: "He has hkewise judged it expedient for 
 the service to send Sieur JoHet to the country of the 
 Maskouteins, to discover the South Sea, and the great 
 river they call the Mississippi." 
 
 In volume Iviii. of Thwaite's edition of the Jesuit 
 ^'Relations," pp. 93, 95, is a letter from Father Claude 
 Dablon, the Superior of the Order at Quebec, dated 
 August I, 1674, which says that "two years ago" it 
 was "decided that it was important * * to ascer- 
 tain into what sea falls the great river, about which 
 the Sauvages relate so much. For this purpose they 
 could not have selected a person endowed with bet- 
 ter qualities than is Sieur Joliet, who has travelled 
 much in that region, and has acquitted himself in this 
 task with all the ability that could be desired." 
 
 In the introduction which Father Claude Dablon 
 wrote to jMarquette's journal of this expedition, as 
 printed in the "Relations," vol. lix., pp. 87, 89, are 
 these words: 
 
 "In the year 1673, Monsieur The Count de Fron- 
 tenac, Our Governor, and Monsieur Talon then Our 
 Intendant, Recognizing The Importance of this dis- 
 covery * * * these gentlemen, I say, appointed 
 at the same time for this undertaking Sieur Joliet, 
 whom they considered very fit for so great an enter- 
 prise; and they were well pleased that Father Mar- 
 quette should be of the party." 
 
 Let there be no mistake about Father Marquette. 
 
 15
 
 A History of the 
 
 He was the friend and companion as well as the as- 
 sistant of Joliet. They had often consulted about 
 this expedition before Joliet obtained his com- 
 mission, and it had been fully understood that Joliet 
 should take him along. But one might as well give 
 the credit of the battle of Manila to the chaplain of 
 the flagship as to give IMarquette the credit of the 
 first exploration of the Mississippi River. The man 
 of the expedition was Joliet. And yet a statue has been 
 erected in the capitol at Washington to the honor of 
 the chaplain. 
 
 With his outfit in two canoes, and five able con- 
 reurs de hois to help him, Louis Joliet left Quebec on 
 an unnamed day in the fall of 1672, and on December 
 8 arrived at the mission of St. Ignace, in the strait of 
 Mackinac, where he found Father Marquette and the 
 Indian converts celebrating the feast of the Immacu- 
 late Conception. 
 
 At this mission the winter was passed, because the 
 journey was to be made by water; but on "The 17th 
 of May, 1673, we started," and "the joy that we felt 
 animated our courage and rendered the labor of pad- 
 dling from morning till night agreeable." So wrote 
 Father Marquette. "We were going to seek unknown 
 countries." They crossed Lake Michigan and visited 
 the wild rice Indians on Green Bay, who, when they 
 learned the object of the expedition, "were greatly 
 surprised." The route lay through "Nations who 
 never show mercy to strangers," they said ; moreover 
 "the great river" was full of monsters that destroyed 
 canoes and men together, and there was one particular 
 demon — when the Indians spoke of him the mere 
 
 16
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 thought made them tremble. And then there was the 
 heat. Even if the Frenchmen's medicine enabled 
 them to dodge the devils the heat would kill them 
 without doubt. 
 
 But Joliet had heard Indians talk in that manner 
 before, and he soon passed up the Fox River, and fin- 
 ally reached a village composed of Miamies, Kicka- 
 poes and Mascoutens. A most beautiful country was 
 that around the village. "From an eminence upon 
 which it is placed one beholds on every side prairies, 
 extending further than the eye can see, interspersed 
 with groves or with lofty trees. The soil is very fer- 
 tile and yields much Indian corn. The sauvages ga- 
 ther quantities of plums and grapes." 
 
 It is a far cry to the day of Joliet, but the region 
 is as beautiful and as productive now as when it de- 
 lighted" the eyes of these explorers, for it is that lying 
 west and south of Lake Winnebago. 
 
 The kindly Indians gave the party two guides who 
 showed the way "to the portage of 2,700 paces" to "a 
 river which discharged into the IMississippi," and 
 helped them to carry their canoes across the land. Por- 
 tage City, Wisconsin, a railroad centre of importance, 
 now stands on this crest between the waters of the 
 great lakes and those of the Mississippi. 
 
 After "a new devotion to the blessed Virgin im- 
 maculate," they launched forth on the Wisconsin river, 
 which they called the Meskousing. It was "full of 
 islands covered with vines." The banks were of "fer- 
 tile land, diversified with woods, prairies and hills." 
 There were "oak, walnut and basswood trees." and 
 another kind very interesting to them for it was 
 
 17
 
 A History of the 
 
 "armed with long thorns." And there were the deer, 
 and herds of huge wild "cattle," as they called the 
 buffalo. 
 
 For "40 leagues on this same route," as Marquette 
 estimated the distance, they paddled with the cur- 
 rent, and then "We safely entered Mississippi on the 
 17th of June, with a joy that I cannot express." 
 
 To the right was "a large chain of very high moun- 
 taines," or so they seemed in the sunlit air; to the left 
 were "beautiful lands." The stream was "divided by 
 islands." And as they "gently followed its course" 
 the mountains fell away, the islands became if possible 
 "more beautiful," and "covered with finer trees, while 
 the prairies were fairly covered with deer and Cattle," 
 and the waters swarmed with "bustards and Swans." 
 
 Then there were the monstrous fish, one of which 
 "struck our Canoe with such violence that I thought 
 it was a great tree, about to break the canoe in pieces." 
 
 Quite as interesting if less dangerous was another 
 "monster, with the head of a tiger, a sharp nose like 
 that of a wildcat, with whiskers and straight erect 
 ears," which they saw swimming. 
 
 To the eyes of this wondering Frenchman it was a 
 land of enchanting beauties. For over "one hundred 
 leagues" they paddled "without discovering any thing 
 except animals and birds," but they kept a good look- 
 out, nevertheless, building only small fires when cook- 
 ing their food, (Indian corn, fish and dried meat), 
 and sleeping in their canoes anchored in the river "at 
 some distance from the shore." 
 
 Finally they saw a "somewhat beaten path lead- 
 ing to a fine prairie." This, Joliet and Marquette fol- 
 
 18
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 lowed, leaving the canoes afloat, until they saw three 
 villages, and were so near to one that they could hear 
 the voices of the inhabitants. Then they stopped and 
 shouted as loud as they could. 
 
 At that "the sauvages quickly issued from their 
 cabins," and stopped and gazed for a time in wonder 
 at the white men. Then four old men advanced, two 
 of whom "bore tobacco pipes, finely ornamented and 
 adorned with various feathers. They walked slowly, 
 and raised their pipes toward the sun, without saying 
 a word" — a method of worship not without one com- 
 mendable feature, although Marquette does not say so. 
 
 It was soon learned that these Indians were of the 
 Illinois tribe. They took the strangers to their village, 
 and when the chief met them he held up his hands as 
 if to shade his eyes and said, with a grace that even 
 men of "the most polite nation" could not have ex- 
 ceeded: "How beautiful the sun is, O Frenchmen, 
 when thou comest to visit us! Our village awaits 
 thee, and thou shalt enter all our cabins in peace." 
 
 Learning that the Frenchmen were to explore the 
 full length of the river, these Indians gave them a 
 pipe of peace — the Calumet — which Marquette de- 
 scribes in detail. It had a stone bowl with a reed stem 
 which was ornamented with the most beautiful feath- 
 ers and bird heads obtainable. In their way the 
 Indians used the Calumet, when worshipping the sun, 
 as Father IMarquette used the Host in his church cere- 
 monies. The chief elevated the pipe before the sun 
 and the people as the priest elevated the Host in the 
 communion services. 
 
 The special value of this pipe to the Frenchmen 
 
 19
 
 A History of the 
 
 was in its use as a symbol of peace. They were going 
 into a country where the red inhabitants would drop 
 their weapons, even during the most desperate battle, 
 if the calumet were displayed ; and with this to protect 
 them the explorers left their new friends "at the end of 
 June, about three o'clock in the afternoon." 
 
 Very soon they came to the great Missouri, with 
 its dominating, debris-laden current, and then on a 
 precipice that towered high on the eastern bank — a 
 precipice that by its ''height and length inspired 
 awe" — they found the monsters, the mere thought 
 of which had made the Indians of Green Bay tremble 
 with fear. So terrible were these monsters, says the 
 priest, that they "at first made Us afraid." "They are 
 as large as a calf; they have horns on their heads as 
 large as a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like 
 a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's, a body covered 
 with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around 
 the body, passing above the head and going back be- 
 tween the legs, ending in a Fish's tail." 
 
 However, if afraid of it "at first," Marquette re- 
 covered his courage far enough to make sketches of 
 the monsters, and was even able to praise them, at 
 last, saying, "those two monsters are so well painted 
 that we cannot believe that any sauvage {sauvage, i. e., 
 wild man) is their author." He adds that "green, red 
 and black are the three colors that compose the pic- 
 ture." 
 
 To Joutel, who wrote the story of La Salle's final 
 exploring expedition, these famous monsters were by 
 no means fearsome. His account speaks of them as 
 Marquette's "pretended" monsters, and says that they 
 
 20
 
 ur 
 
 I ; h 
 
 ^ 
 
 /, 
 
 
 y 
 
 i ^. 
 
 (J 
 
 ^1 
 
 # 
 
 # 
 
 >, 
 
 ^ 
 
 f 
 » 
 
 ■^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 #* 
 
 ■#• 
 
 ■'^^l*'^ 
 
 S^-*^ 
 
 
 •n 
 
 r 
 
 1,\* 
 
 ^
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 consist of "two scurvy figures drawn in red, on the flat 
 side of a rock, about ten or twelve feet high, which 
 wants very much of the extraordinary height that Re- 
 lation mentions." 
 
 These pictures were painted on the rocks on the 
 east side of the Mississippi, just above Alton, Illinois. 
 The paint was worn away long ago, and in 1867 the 
 owner of the land was quarrying out the rock to supply 
 the needs of tlie growing community. 
 
 One statement made by ]\Iarquette regarding the 
 Missouri must be considered. He said he learned 
 from the Indians that a stream rising near its source 
 flowed "towards the west where it falls into The sea." 
 He thought it must empty into the Gulf of California. 
 We know now that the head waters of the Platte, a 
 tributary of the Missouri, lie near the head of the 
 Colorado, which flows to the Gulf of California. And 
 at the head of Jackson's Hole, in Wyoming, is a tiny 
 stream called Two-Oceans Creek, which rises high on 
 a mountain, and flows down to a saddle-back ridge 
 where it divides, the one part running down to Snake 
 River, whose waters reach the Pacific, and the other 
 part running down the Missouri, whose waters reach 
 the Gulf of Alexico. 
 
 They found at one point above the Ohio (which 
 appears on his map as the Ouabouskigou), a whirlpool 
 that was dangerous, and that was the "monster" that 
 drowned canoes as well as men; but this expedition 
 crossed it without mishap. 
 
 Below the Ohio the explorers saw, on one unnamed 
 day, some Indians on the east bank of the Mississippi, 
 who were "armed with guns." More interesting still, 
 
 21
 
 A History of the 
 
 when the explorers landed, they found "hatchets, hoes, 
 knives, beads and flasks of double glass, in which they 
 put Their powder." 
 
 "They assured us," writes Marquette, "that they 
 bought Cloth and all other goods from Europeans who 
 lived to The east, that these Europeans had rosaries 
 and pictures ; that they played upon instruments ; that 
 some of them looked like me, and had been received 
 by these sauvages kindly." 
 
 This statement, which is found in Marquette's own 
 story of this exploration (p. 149, vol. lix Thwaite's 
 Jesuit "Relations"), seems plain and easily understood. 
 The fact that the implements made by white men were 
 found in considerable numbers and variety among the 
 Indians confirms the statement. "Europeans (trad- 
 ers) had been received by these sauvages kindly." 
 
 "This news animated our courage, and made us 
 paddle with Fresh ardor," writes Marquette. They 
 passed cottonwood, elm and basswood trees that were 
 "admirable for Their height and thickness." They 
 saw "Quail on the water's edge." They heard the 
 bellow of the buffalo. They killed a paroquet that was 
 very beautiful. And then they "perceived a village on 
 the water's edge called Mitchegamea." 
 
 This is said to have been located at the mouth of 
 the St. Francis River, that empties into the Mississippi 
 near Helena, Arkansas. The people of it were at first 
 hostile. They came well armed to the bank, yelling, 
 the while, in fearsome fashion, embarked in great dug- 
 outs, and surrounded the canoes. They even came 
 swimming to board the Frenchmen, and one warrior 
 hurled his club with deadly force, but when they saw 
 
 22
 
 ^J
 
 Mississippi J ^ alley. 
 
 the calumet their passions passed away instantly, and 
 they conducted the explorers to the shore where a 
 dinner of boiled corn and fish was prepared. 
 
 A most interesting tribe was that. They worshipped 
 the sun because it was a beneficent mystery. They 
 were ruled by a clan supposed to be descended from the 
 sun. They had a temple in which a sacred fire was 
 kept burning. They lived in adobe houses. They cul- 
 tivated the earth successfully. They were valiant war- 
 riors, but they were, at this particular time, in no little 
 trouble because the Illinois Indians from the north, 
 and the tribes east of the Great River, were well sup- 
 plied with guns and often came to the Arkansas region 
 searching for slaves. 
 
 In after years they, too, obtained guns, and then 
 they promptly recovered the standing as warriors, 
 which they had held before their enemies procured 
 guns. Of the Indians of the Mississippi Valley there 
 were no more generous or capable warriors than these. 
 
 Their descendants are now known as the Quapaws, 
 who live on the reservation at the extreme northeast 
 corner of the Indian Territory — a most pitiful rem- 
 nant, that in 1900 numbered 251, chiefly of mixed 
 bloods, of whom twenty-five were "engaged in civil- 
 ized pursuits." 
 
 At a village "8 or 10 leagues lower down," Joliet 
 turned back. He learned that the Gulf of Mexico 
 "could not be more than 2 or 3 days journey" away to 
 the south, but he did not go to it because he feared he 
 would be captured by Spaniards, and thus be unable 
 to make a report of his discoveries. 
 
 He started home on July 17. On the way the 
 23
 
 A History of the 
 
 party passed up the Illinois River, "which greatly 
 shortens our route," as Marquette writes. How they 
 knew that it would shorten their road is not explained. 
 The soil and the beauty of the country, and the wild 
 animals found there aroused the enthusiasm of the 
 travellers. "Even beaver" were found here, and what 
 was better, the portage into the lakes watershed was, 
 in spring and part of the summer, but half a league 
 long. The Indians along the route received them with 
 pleasure and helped them on their way ; and at the end 
 of September they were back in Green Bay. 
 
 It had been a most pleasing and successful voyage 
 thus far, but it was marred by one serious accident ere 
 Joliet reached Quebec. In passing down the St. Law- 
 rence his canoe was upset, and for four hours he 
 fought for his life in the tumbling waters. He finally 
 escaped, but his papers were lost forever. It is chiefly 
 because historians have had to take the story of the 
 exploration from Marquette's account, that the in- 
 trepid leader of the expedition has been usually treated 
 as a mere assistant to the chaplain. 
 
 24
 
 ROBERT CAVELIEK, SIEUR DE LA SALLE.
 
 Ill 
 
 LA SALLE AND LOUISIANA. 
 
 The Splendid Record of the Greatest of French Ex- 
 plorers — The Fort Above Niagara Falls — A Gale that 
 Showed the Metal of One Good Salt-Sea Sailor — 
 Mutinies Under La Salle and Their Origin — At the 
 Mouth of the Mississippi at Last — The Sixth Fort in 
 the Chain — La Salle Received at Court — Assassinated 
 in the Texas Wilderness — The Highest Tributes of 
 Honor Paid to La Salle Found in the Deeds of His 
 Enemies. 
 
 When in the fall of 1672, Joliet started on his ex- 
 pedition to the Mississippi, the unfortunate La Salle 
 was trading on borrowed capital to make a living. He 
 had done nothing better, in the eyes of his country- 
 men, than to throw away an excellent estate and give 
 the derisive name of La Chine to the rapids over which 
 
 25
 
 A History of the 
 
 that estate looked. He had done worse, in fact, ac- 
 cording to their thinking, for while a Government ex- 
 pedition was on its way to explore the great river, 
 this bankrupt was meditating schemes for colonizing 
 the vast region drained by the stream ! He — La Salle 
 — was to do this! The cackle of his countrymen, as 
 they talked of his audacity in proposing such a work, 
 never reached the stage of the horse laugh — their 
 throats were not built that way — but it was becoming 
 incessant, when it was suddenly cut short and turned 
 into snarls of rage. 
 
 Though a bankrupt, and the laughing stock of the 
 traders sitting beside the forts of Montreal and Que- 
 bec, La Salle had attracted the attention of the new 
 Governor, Count de Frontenac. Frontenac, as a sol- 
 dier, had won by good fighting, the rank of brigadier 
 general when only twenty-six years old. Now, at the 
 age of fifty-two, he had come to Canada bearing laurels 
 but recently earned in Candia. "He was a man of 
 excellent parts," by whatever standard tried — one of 
 the few who raised the French in New France above 
 utter contempt. (Parkman). 
 
 When Frontenac looked over the land he had come 
 to cultivate, he saw, as Intendant Talon had seen, that 
 it was worth while to add the unoccupied land lying 
 to the west and south-west. He saw, too, as Talon 
 had seen less clearly, that among the cackling mass 
 of citizens, La Salle towered high, and "he often took 
 council" of him. To Count Frontenac, the schemes 
 of La Salle v/ere not visionary. They showed the way 
 to add glory to the crown of Louis XIV, and at the 
 same time gain great wealth for the promoters of the 
 
 26
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 scheme — a matter of no small consequence to both 
 Frontenac and La Salle, for both were bankrupts. 
 
 La Salle, backed by Frontenac, purposed building 
 a line of forts from Lake Ontario to the mouth of the 
 Mississippi. It was a magnificent conception for ter- 
 ritorial aggrandizement. He also purposed controlling 
 the trading stations at each fort — to make of them a 
 source of wealth "beyond the dreams of avarice," and 
 to carry on this trade by the way of the Gulf of 
 Mexico. 
 
 When on May 17, 1673, Joliet left Mackinac, bound 
 on the exploring expedition down the Mississippi, 
 La Salle was among the Iroquois inviting them to 
 come to the bay at the northeast corner of Lake On- 
 tario, where Kingston now stands, to meet Count 
 Frontenac, Governor of Canada. They called that bay 
 Cataraqui, then. 
 
 On June 28, about the time that Joliet was leaving 
 the Illinois village at the mouth of the Desmoines, 
 Frontenac left Montreal with "400 men and 120 ca- 
 noes, besides two large flat boats, which he caused to 
 be painted red and blue, with strange devices intended 
 to dazzle the Iroquois by a display of unwonted splen- 
 dor." 
 
 No idle commander was Frontenac. "Without 
 a cloak and drenched to the skin" he directed his men 
 as they toiled, neck deep, up the rapids, or "tracked" 
 along the banks in the midst of pouring rains. 
 
 And then on July 13, while Joliet was among the 
 Arkansas Indians, Frontenac first met the Iroquois. 
 Lines of soldiers — some of them veterans — were sta- 
 tioned from Frontenac's tent to the Indian camp. 
 
 27
 
 A History of the 
 
 Between these lines the sixty chiefs were conducted 
 to the tent, and when they arrived, stohd and self- 
 possessed at they naturally were on such grave occa- 
 sions, they "ejaculated their astonishment" at the gor- 
 geous array of uniforms on the Governor's guards. 
 And they found in the Governor a man with a dignity 
 and a command of language equal to their own, and a 
 graciousness withal that was as winning as his bear- 
 ing was in other ways commanding. 
 
 It has been often said that the the gunshots of 
 Champlain, near Ticonderoga, gained for the French 
 people the everlasting hatred of the Iroquois. It is 
 not true. No white man ever won the hearts of the 
 Iroquois as Frontenac did at Cataraqui, until Sir 
 William Johnson came among them. 
 
 For while he talked to the chiefs in flowing lan- 
 guage, and gave overcoats, and caressed their babies, 
 he built a fort under their eyes without ever exciting 
 a word or a thought of protest. It was the first of 
 the chain of forts that La Salle had planned. At a 
 single stroke Frontenac made peace with these most 
 formidable enemies, and placed French guns where 
 they would command the Indian trade of the great 
 lakes. The further truth is that in the years imme- 
 diately preceding the advent of Frontenac the Iroquois 
 had held no special hatred against the French, but had 
 despised them as easy victims of plundering raids. And 
 it may be added here that the power of the Iroquois 
 nation waned steadily, if slowly, from the day that 
 Frontenac met them. 
 
 Having secured a post on Lake Ontario, Fron- 
 tenac sent La Salle to France. La Salle asked the 
 
 28
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 king for "a. grant in seigniory of Fort Frontenac, for 
 so he called the new post in honor of his patron," and 
 for "a patent of nobility, in consideration of his ser- 
 vices as an explorer." 
 
 Both petitions were granted, and La Salle returned 
 to his new wilderness post a feudal lord, and the head 
 of the best fur trading station in the world. The price 
 he had agreed to pay for these great acquisitions was 
 moderate. He was to return to the king the cost of the 
 fort — 10,000 francs. — maintain a garrison equal to 
 that of Montreal, employ at least fifteen laborers, build 
 a church, support a Recollet friar, form a settlement 
 of friendly Indians, and replace the wooden walls of 
 the fort with stone — all of which he did in good faith. 
 
 But there was an additional cost, not down in the 
 contract, and this he was compelled to pay, even with 
 his heart's blood — the losses and costs due to the envy 
 and malice of those who had sneered and cackled 
 when he was down, and who now writhed and screamed 
 when they found him planted in the current of beaver 
 skins coming from the upper lakes. In establishing 
 this trading station Frontenac and La Salle had taken 
 in as partners a half dozen of rich traders of the St. 
 Lawrence. All Canada besides these and their friends, 
 turned, like Indians in the bush, upon this monopoliz- 
 ing aggregation. 1 
 
 Nor was that all. Frontenac hated the Jesuits. 
 His quarrels with them over matters of precedence in 
 public functions were most virulent, for tliat was the 
 day when Louis XIV ruled "the politest" nation. 
 Frontenac also quarrelled with the seminary priests 
 of Montreal. In all these matters La Salle openly 
 
 29
 
 A History of the 
 
 "declared himself an adherent of the Governor." Time 
 had been when La Salle would avoid trouble by what 
 the French called "address," but now he stood by his 
 patron, man-fashion. And for a time his manliness 
 and abiHty prevailed. 
 
 A settlement came into existence at Cataraqui. 
 Four sailing vessels of from twenty-five to forty tons 
 each, were built to gather furs around the lake. The 
 vast commerce of the great lakes began at Kingston. 
 For the trade on the rivers, canoes were used, and in 
 managing these La Salle's men "were reputed the best 
 in America." His soldiers were well disciplined. His 
 farm hands raised good crops. And the trade of the 
 fort soon amounted to a profit of 25.000 livres a year. 
 
 This success exasperated the opponents of La 
 Salle to the last degree. Nothing but his death would 
 satisfy them, and their efforts to accomplish this were 
 characteristic. One merchant, says Parkman, while 
 pretending friendship, compelled his wife to attempt 
 the act of Potiphar's wife, while he (the merchant), 
 well armed, waited in an adjoining room for a sig- 
 nal. He thought he should have excuse for killing 
 an unarmed man, but La Salle put the woman out 
 of the room at the first advance, and then discovered 
 the scoundrel in waiting outside the door. And an- 
 other pretended friend mixed verdigris and water hem- 
 lock in a salad, of which La Salle ate a portion; but 
 he recovered from the effects of the poison. 
 
 In the meantime the Jesuit missionaries among the 
 Iroquois told them that La Salle was building stone 
 walls at Fort Frontenac in order to make it a base for 
 an aggressive war against the Five Nations. 
 
 30
 
 •)
 
 ARE HERE SHOWN.
 
 -^4^^ 

 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 In the midst of such contests with his enemies, 
 La Salle, not at all daunted or discouraged, went to 
 France once more, obtained a new commission, and 
 came back not only to explore the whole length of the 
 Mississippi, but to build the chain of forts and trad- 
 ing stations already mentioned along the route to the 
 mouth of the Great River. He was particularly anx- 
 ious for an establishment at the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi because he could there rule and trade free from 
 the attacks of the hosts on the St. Lawrence. 
 
 This great work was to be done, however, with- 
 out any financial aid from the government, and one 
 gets a curious view of La Salle's character, and of 
 the business methods of the day, from a statement 
 of the way he raised money for the enterprise. He 
 borrowed ii,ooo livres from a merchant named Fran- 
 cois Plet, agreeing to pay forty per cent interest, and 
 he pledged Fort Frontenac, the magnificent establish- 
 ment yielding 25,000 livres annual income, for the 
 paltry loan of 14,000 livres, on w^hich, presumably, 
 he paid the same deadly rate of interest. 
 
 La Salle returned from France late in 1678. Hav- 
 ing obtained the needed loans he sent fifteen men 
 to the Lake Michigan region to trade with the Indians 
 in order that he might make the money to pay the 
 enormous interest on his loans. On November 18, 
 another party, under an assistant named La Mott 
 sailed for Niagara river (where they arrived on De- 
 cember 6), to build a fort that would control the 
 portage around the Niagara Falls, and a ship with 
 which to navigate the lakes above. 
 
 This fort was the second built according to La 
 31
 
 A History of the 
 
 Salle's plan for adding the Alississippi Valley to the 
 dominions of France. The point selected was at the 
 little hamlet called La Salle opposite Cayuga Island in 
 the Niagara River, The Seneca Indians "betrayed a 
 sullen jealousy." They had been in trade themselves. 
 They were middlemen between the western Indians 
 and the settlements on the Hudson. Among them 
 were two missionaries from Quebec who were sided 
 with the enemies of La Salle, and who did all they 
 could to excite the astute chiefs still further. But 
 La Salle went to the principal village and soothed them 
 into consenting to his work. 
 
 Then a disaster came on the heels of this success. 
 A vessel loaded with rigging for the new ship La Salle 
 was building above the falls was wrecked. It is 
 charged that the pilot wrecked her in the interests 
 of La Salle's enemies, and it is certain that his enemies 
 were eager and unscrupulous, while he never had the 
 skill to bind his men to him. 
 
 Out of the wreck La Salle saved but little. Mean- 
 time his men were in a turmoil. Under the strain 
 La Salle's health failed, but he kept the work moving, 
 being aided by a most capable lieutenant named Tonti, 
 a notable man in a variety of ways — a man who had 
 placed an iron hand on the end of his arm because his 
 natural hand had been shot away in battle, and who 
 had a will to match the new member thus obtained. 
 
 La Salle, being obliged to go back to Ft. Frontenac 
 for more rigging, left Tonti in command. The work 
 went on more smoothly thereafter, for Tonti kept the 
 gang in awe by a free use of his iron fist. 
 
 Accordingly, when the ice broke up in the spring 
 32
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 of 1679, the new ship — the first ever placed on Lake 
 Erie — was launched, and fitted with the rigging and 
 five small cannon which La Salle brought for her. She 
 carried as a figure head a rudely carved grifiin, and 
 she was named the Grifiin, because Frontenac's coat of 
 arms bore a griffin. 
 
 "La Salle had often been heard to say that he 
 would make the griffin fly above the crows" — would 
 "make Frontenac triumph over the Jesuits." He got 
 the ship ready for her voyage, but he had to tell his 
 company, meantime, that all his property in Canada, 
 including Ft. Frontenac, had been seized by his cred- 
 itors, who had become frightened by the persistent 
 rumors kept going by his enemies, that the enterprise 
 was visionary, and that La Salle would never return. 
 Those whom he called "the crows" were enemies not 
 to be despised. 
 
 Though in a most desperate condition of affairs. 
 La Salle pushed on. A storm on Lake Huron fright- 
 ened all hands save one, until they all knelt to pray. 
 But the pilot, — wicked, capable sailor that he was — 
 held her nose to the wind and cursed the sniffling mob 
 that grovelled at the foot of an image of St. Anthony 
 of Padua. 
 
 A Recollet friar, named Louis Hennepin, was chap- 
 lain of the expedition, and its historian. He says 
 he bribed St. Anthony into stilling the tempest, but we 
 will believe that the good salt sea sailor who stood 
 at the helm, brought the Griffin out of the trouble. 
 
 La Salle escaped the gale, but only to find more 
 trouble. IVIackinac was then the resort of the unli- 
 censed traders and courcurs-de-hois who bought and
 
 A History of the 
 
 sold where they could. They carried their furs to 
 Albany quite as often as to Quebec; for Dutch rum 
 would exhilerate as well as French brandy, and Dutch 
 maidens were not to be ignored or despised. Moreover 
 furs bought more of the joys of life in Albany than in 
 Quebec. 
 
 These reckless woods rangers saw that La Salle 
 would interfere with their Albany trade, and probably 
 with their other trade. With one accord, therefore, 
 they conspired to ruin the trade of the fifteen advance 
 agents of La Salle who had stopped there on their 
 way to the tribes furthest west. And they succeeded 
 well. It was a mission station, but it was also a trad- 
 ing station, and the dwelling place of many Indians. 
 "Brandy and squaws abounded," says an old account. 
 Aided by the Indians the courcur-de-hois persuaded 
 several of the fifteen to dispose of La Salle's goods 
 in ways that profited him not a sou. Others took the 
 goods to the wilds and went trading on their own ac- 
 count — stole the goods outright. 
 
 La Salle was anxious to return to Ft. Frontenac, 
 and leave Tonti to go ahead and build a fort among 
 the Illinois Indians, but the desertion of these advance 
 agents compelled him to remain with the expedition 
 to reprieve the loss their treachery had brought upon 
 him. So he sailed over to Green Bay, where he found 
 that an unnamed remnant of his fifteen had been faith- 
 ful, and had collected a "large store of furs." 
 
 Encouraged by this good fortune, for the profit 
 on the furs would partly repair his losses. La Salle 
 took four canoe loads of supplies from the Griffin, and 
 loading her with furs sent her back to Niagara, while 
 
 34
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 he went forward with the four canoes to build a fort 
 among the IlHnois Indians. The Griffin was to bring, 
 for a return cargo, besides ordinary supplies, the rig- 
 ging for another ship which La Salle purposed build- 
 ing for use on the Mississippi. 
 
 On September i8, 1679, the Griffin made sail for 
 the East. La Salle, on the same day, paddled away 
 toward the head of Lake Michigan, and after a jour- 
 ney that was made most woeful by the mutinous con- 
 duct of his men, he reached the St. Joseph's river. 
 
 Because La Salle's men were always mutinous it 
 may be well to consider here the reason for the trouble. 
 The words of the man, uttered when his friends accused 
 him with harshness, tell the whole story. He said : 
 
 "The facility I am said to want is out of place with 
 this sort of people, who are libertines, for the most 
 part ; and to indulge them means to tolerate blasphemy, 
 drunkenness, lewdness and a license incompatible with 
 order. The debaucheries, too common with this rabble, 
 are the source of endless delays and frequent thieving; 
 and finally, / am a Christian, and do not want to bear 
 the burden of their crimes/' 
 
 A chief characteristic of this man is therein por- 
 trayed. He was sincere. 
 
 On reaching the St. Joseph this much harassed, 
 most unhappy but conscience-clear La Salle found 
 relief in the work of building a fort not far from the 
 modern town of St. Joseph, Mich., near the mouth 
 of the stream. It was the third of the line of forts 
 that he intended to stretch to the mouth of the IMissis- 
 sippi. Others had proclaimed the sovereignty of 
 France — had written a title in the air — but La Salle 
 
 35
 
 A History of the 
 
 was taking actual possession, and it was work worth 
 while. 
 
 From this fort, named Miami, La Salle went up 
 the St. Joseph to the site of the present city of South 
 Bend, Indiana, where a portage led him to the Kan- 
 kakee river. It is to be noted that in crossing this 
 portage one of his men tried to shoot La Salle in the 
 back, but was stopped in time. 
 
 On January 5, 1680, the party crossed Peoria Lake 
 and found an Indian village where Peoria, 111., now 
 stands, and with these people — members of the Illinois 
 tribe — La Salle easily made peace. 
 
 And yet, though hundreds of leagues from Que- 
 bec, La Salle found he was not wholly beyond reach 
 of his enemies in that town. While he negotiated for 
 permission to establish a trading station and build a 
 ship, an emissary of the enemy — a chief known as 
 Monso, with five Miamis, came to the village by night, 
 and told the Illinois that La Salle was a spy of the 
 dreaded Iroquois. And still greater trouble followed, 
 when six of his men deserted, and another gave him a 
 dose of poison. 
 
 Nevertheless La Salle persevered. The poison did 
 not kill him. The emissaries of his enemies fled, and he 
 was able to secure the confidence of the Illinois. Then 
 he went to a point below the camp where he found a 
 low hill with a deep ravine on each side, and a marsh, 
 200 yards wide, between it and the river. There he 
 built a stout palisade fort, with musket-proof houses 
 in the angles for his men. For himself and Tonti he 
 provided tents in the open center of the fort. 
 
 Two facts about this fort are remarkable. He 
 36
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 named it Crevecoeur — Broken Heart — and he lived in 
 a tent while he lodged his men in comfortable, musket- 
 proof barracks. Moreover it was the fourth fort in 
 the long line from Montreal. 
 
 And it is not to be forgotten that when the fort 
 was done La Salle began the work of building a forty- 
 ton ship for navigating the Mississippi, and he himself, 
 to animate his men, took hold of the back-breaking 
 whip-saw to cut the logs into planks. It was character- 
 istic of the man. By February i, 1680, the hull of the 
 new ship was half done. 
 
 And all this was done in spite of the fact that 
 nothing had been heard from the Griffin, with her 
 precious cargo of furs to be carried down, and her 
 equally precious up-cargo of rigging that was im- 
 peratively needed for the new ship. For La Salle had 
 determined not only to load this ship with skins on 
 the Mississippi, but to sail in her to France. 
 
 And not only did La Salle keep working on; he 
 sent, on the last day of February, 1680, an expedition 
 to explore the Mississippi from the mouth of the 
 Illinois up, in order that he might learn its resources, 
 and give some of his men the experience necessary to 
 make them pilots. 
 
 Michael Accau was in charge of this expedition, 
 and he was assisted by one Du Gay, but the priest 
 Hennepin was sent along to write the account, and he 
 wrote it as if he was the leader. 
 
 Hennepin's account occupies much space in the 
 histories of the French in America. But the expedition 
 did little that was more important than to visit and 
 name the falls of St. Anthony. Hennepin described 
 
 37
 
 A Hist cry of the 
 
 the country, and the Sioux Indians among whom 
 he was a prisoner for a time, but he strove to obtain 
 honors that he had not earned by asserting that he 
 went to the mouth of the Mississippi, and he is now 
 known to have been a most "impudent Har." (Park- 
 man.) 
 
 Meantime the Griffin with her cargo of rigging for 
 the new ship did not come. La Salle had hoped for 
 her coming even after the lake froze over, but she 
 had gone where he nor "the crows" would ever see 
 her. Her fate is a mystery. Some think she foundered 
 in a gale, others that Indians captured and destroyed 
 her with all hands, and a few supposed that the pilot 
 ran away with her and tried to carry her cargo to 
 the English at Hudson's Bay. But we will not believe 
 that the salt sea sailor who stood firm at the tiller 
 openly cursing the cowards who grovelled in abject 
 terror — we never will believe that such a man was a 
 traitor. The Griffin foundered, with the pilot stand- 
 ing at the tiller, looking the gale in the eye with full 
 confidence that the God of the gale would do what 
 was right. 
 
 Having at last lost all hope of the Griffin, La Salle 
 started (March i, 1680), with five companions back 
 to get another outfit. In that journey wherein the 
 waters were covered with ice "too weak to bear them 
 and too strong to permit them to break a way with 
 their canoes;" where the temperature was often low 
 enough to freeze their clothing stiff as they emerged 
 from a ford ; where they waded day after day through 
 knee-deep crusted snow, there is one memorable fact. 
 La Salle led the way, breaking the path that the 
 
 38
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 journey might be easier for the others. He would 
 never shirk any labor helpful to his purpose. He was, 
 too, a man of such marvelous physical powers that he 
 reached his fort on the Niagara River in good condi- 
 tion, although four of his companions had been obliged 
 to stop by the way, and the last one was left at Niag- 
 ara while La Salle went on. 
 
 La Salle had not only lost the Grififin; a consign- 
 ment of goods worth 22,000 livres, that was on the way 
 to him from France, was lost, through the stranding of 
 the ship. Worse yet, two coureiirs-de-hois brought 
 a letter from Tonti (whom he had left in command at 
 Ft. Crevecoeur), saying that all the garrison but four 
 or five men had mutinied, destroyed the fort and 
 stores, and had fled. 
 
 Nevertheless La Salle enlisted twenty-five new men, 
 obtained another outfit, and in August, 1680, started 
 again. Having learned that several of the mutineers 
 were coming east by the way of the north shore of 
 Lake Erie, and that they had determined to kill him, 
 if they could meet him, La Salle was careful to 
 meet them. Two of them he killed, and the others he 
 sent as prisoners to Montreal. 
 
 Without further incident worth mention La Salle 
 arrived at the point on the Illinois river where Utica 
 now stands; but instead of finding a plain "swarming 
 with wild human life," he found charred remains of 
 burned cabins, and the ground between strewn with the 
 remains of human bodies. Flocks of ravens and buz- 
 zards rose, and "wolves in multitude fled," when he 
 landed. 
 
 The Iroquois had come, (sent by Jesuit priests,. 
 39
 
 A History of the 
 
 Parkman says), and failing to capture as many of 
 the Illinois as they hoped, had not only destroyed the 
 huts and caches, but had ravaged the nearby cemetery, 
 to set up the dry skulls on poles and scatter the other 
 bones to the winds. 
 
 Tonti, and the faithful four or five could not be 
 found. The hull of the new ship was not destroyed, but 
 all the iron bolts and spikes had been carried away. 
 So La Salle turned back to pass the winter at Ft. 
 Miami, on Lake Michigan. 
 
 As a side light on the character of this man La 
 Salle, it must be told that while he was in the midst 
 of his search among the ghastly relics of Iroquois 
 barbarism for traces of his missing friend and com- 
 panion, night came on and an enormous comet was 
 seen flaming in the sky. The pious Increase Mather 
 of Boston on seeing it "thought it fraught with terrific 
 portent to the nations of the earth," and nearly all men 
 cowered at sight of it; but La Salle "coolly noted down 
 the phenomenon as an object of scientific curiosity." 
 
 As a small relief to his ever present burden of 
 disappointment. La Salle found "allies close at hand," 
 during the winter. The Puritans of Massachusetts had 
 fought out King Philip's War, and a band of Abenakis 
 had fled for refuge to the ]\Iiamis of the region where 
 Ft. Miami stood. A small village was close at hand. 
 The New England refugees, "with one voice promised 
 to follow La Salle, asking no recompense but to call 
 him their chief, and yield to him the love and admira- 
 tion which he rarely failed to command from the hero- 
 worshiping race." So says Parkman. Few passages 
 of higher praise can be found in the story of La Salle. 
 
 40
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 It is equally honorable to the refugees. But it does not 
 read so well in the story of the Puritans. 
 
 A treaty pledging the allegiance of the Miamis to 
 the French interests was easily made, but before La 
 Salle could start again for the ]\Iississippi he was 
 obliged to return still once more to the St. Lawrence 
 "to appease his creditors," and "collect his scattered 
 resources." 
 
 "Any one else would have thrown up his hand and 
 abandoned the enterprise; but, far from this, with a 
 firmness and constancy that never had its equal, I 
 saw him more resolved than ever to continue his 
 work," wrote a friend. 
 
 La Salle left Ft. IMiami at the end of May, i68i,and 
 in due time reached Montreal. There, in spite of two 
 years of disaster, and in spite of debts that bore in- 
 terest at forty per cent., he once more obtained the 
 means for a voyage, How it was possible for him to 
 do so under the circumstances is worth considera- 
 tion. The explanation is given in a memoir written by 
 ■La Salle in 1684, and now to be found in vol. ix. pp. 
 216-221, "New York Colonial Documents." It is a 
 statement of the profits made in the trade w^ith the 
 Indians. He says : 
 
 To drive a profitable trade, 20,000 livres must be expended in 
 France in the purchase of the following assortments : 
 
 Five pipes (tonneau) of brandy at the rate of two hundred 
 livres the pipe; five pipes (tonneau) of Wine at 40 li. the pipe; 
 2,000 ells of blue poitou Serge at 2 li. the ell; 1,000 ells of Iro- 
 quois blanketing at 2 li., los. the ell; 1.800 white shirts (chemises) 
 at 30 sous; five hundred pairs stockings at i li., 5s. the pair; 
 2,000 pounds of small kettles at i liv., 5s. the pound; two 
 hundred pounds of large black glass beads at los. the pound ; 
 a thousand axes for the trade at 7 and 8 sous the pound ; 4,000 
 
 41
 
 A History of the 
 
 pounds of powder at lO and 12 sous the pound; 7,000 pounds of 
 ball and 3,000 pounds of lead at 120 liv. the thousand; 1,200 
 guns at 10 liv. each; 2,400 Hattins at 30 sous the dozen; 100 dozen 
 steels (Battcs-feu) at i liv. 5s. the dozen; 50 dozen of large 
 tinned looking glasses (mirrors fer-blanc) at I liv. los. the 
 dozen ; 50 pounds of vermilion at 3s. the pound ; 250 ells of 
 scarlet stuff (ecarlatine) at 4 liv. the ell; and 400 pounds of 
 tobacco at 17 sous. 
 
 These things, carried to the Indians, v^^ill produce as follovi^s : 
 
 They get a pint of brandy for a beaver; and consequently, 
 were only two and a half pipes (tonneau) of it sold, allowing 
 the remainder for the expense of the fort and the pay of the 
 soldiers and sailors to whom it is sold at one hundred sous the 
 quart, the ten barrels, retailing to the Indians at the rate of 
 one hundred quarts to the barrel and of four beavers per quart, 
 would produce four thousand beavers, at four livres a piece, or an 
 equivalent in other peltry, which would amount to sixteen thous- 
 and livres, and leaves, consequently, fifteen thousand livres profit. 
 
 The wine would also serve to pay the expenses of freight and 
 wages at the rate of 40 sous the quart. 
 
 The ell of Poitou serge sells for six francs to the Indians, 
 and that of Iroquois blanketing for eight livres, and consequently 
 on these two articles there would be a profit of thirteen thousand 
 livres. 
 
 The shirts sell for at least one hundred sous, and the stock- 
 ings for eight livres, so that on these two articles there is more 
 than four thousand livres gain. 
 
 Kettles sell at four francs the pound, and consequently there 
 would be 5,5C)0 livres profit on that article. 
 
 Glass beads sell at eight francs the pound, and axes at thirty 
 sous apiece, so that these two articles would leave a profit 
 of two thousand livres. 
 
 Powder sells at 40 sous the pound, and lead at twenty sous, 
 which would make on these two articles over thirteen thousand 
 livres. 
 
 Guns sell at 24 livres each, and therefore would produce 2,400 
 liv. more than their cost. 
 
 Tobacco sells at eight francs per pound, it would therefore 
 give over 2,000 liv. profit. 
 
 On the scarlet stuff (ecarlatine), one-half would be gained, 
 which would be worth one thousand livres. 
 
 42
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 The profit is proportionably greater on the other articles, 
 such as knives, vermilion, steel, etc. 
 
 He showed conclusively that for every franc inves- 
 ted the trade would yield an ecu, or about sixty cents 
 net profit per year, or say, 300 per cent. His Canadian 
 supporters were all practical traders — they knew that 
 he was within the facts in this statement of the profits 
 in the trade with the Indians, and they, of course, en- 
 dorsed it when he sent it to France. 
 
 Accordingly, in September, 1681, he was found in 
 the harbor where Toronto now stands, making the por- 
 tage to Lake Simcoe, in order to go forward via Geor- 
 gian Bay, and while there he wrote : 
 
 "I hope this business will turn out well ; for I have 
 M. de Tonti, who is full of zeal, thirty Frenchmen, all 
 good men, without reckoning such as I cannot trust; 
 and more than 100 Indians, some of them Shawanese 
 and others from New England, all of whom know how 
 to use guns." 
 
 They were at Ft. Miami in December and on the 
 2ist the party began crossing the south end of the lake 
 to the Chicago river. There, where many things are 
 made in this day, they made sleds on which they placed 
 their canoes and baggage, and dragging these, they 
 passed over the route of the great modern drainage 
 canal, and followed down the frozen Illinois till they 
 found open water in Lake Peoria. Here they embarked 
 and on February 6, 1682, floated out on the broad 
 Mississippi. 
 
 It was late in La Salle's day of life, but for a brief 
 time the sun broke through the clouds. For a few 
 days he was to travel with the tide unbuffeted. 
 
 43
 
 A History of the 
 
 On February 24 a landing was made at the Third 
 Chickasaw Bluff, (in the northwestern part of Shelby 
 county, Tennessee), and the party encamped to hunt 
 for game. Here one Pierre Prudhomme was lost in the 
 forest. Signs of Indians had been seen in the vicinity, 
 and because of this fact La Salle with part of his crew 
 built a wooden fort while the others hunted for the lost 
 man. And w^hen he was found at last, his name was 
 given to the fort to commemorate the successful result 
 of the search. This was the fifth fort in the line which 
 La Salle was building between Montreal and the mouth 
 of the Mississippi. 
 
 Again La Salle embarked "and with every stage 
 of his adventurous progress the mystery of this vast 
 new world was more and more unveiled." He met the 
 Arkansas and the Natchez Lidians, and took possession 
 of their lands with the usual ceremonies, while the 
 Indians looked on with pleasure because they did not 
 comprehend the meaning of the ceremonies. 
 
 Then on April 6, 1682, they reached the place where 
 the mighty stream divided itself into three channels 
 and flowed away into the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 For three days the party cruised about the verge of 
 the Gulf and then going to a low dry hillock, on the 
 bank of the river, they erected a wooden column, on 
 which they carved the arms of France, and these words : 
 
 Louis Ic Grand, Rcy dc France et dc Ncvarre, Regne: 
 Le Ncuvicme Avril, 1682. 
 
 Then in the usual form the whole magnificent basin 
 of the Great River was claimed for the crown of "Louis 
 le Grand," and named Louisiana in his honor. 
 
 44
 
 
 .;^-^-;gONVa93- 
 
 FKANQUKLIN S MAP, It
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 La Salle had reached the river's mouth. He was the 
 first to explore the land there, and the first to claim the 
 whole watershed of the great river. He had also built 
 a fort on the bank of the river, and another fort on 
 one of the tributaries. By these things done he had filed 
 in the name of France, a good preliminary claim on 
 the whole magnificent valley. From the oil spring in 
 Alleghany County, New York, to the dividing of the 
 waters of Two Oceans Creek in Wyoming; from the 
 Wisconsin lakes where the honking wild goose nested 
 and the Sioux ranged free, to the tide swept marshes of 
 the Gulf of IMexico, Louis the XIV now reigned by 
 virtue of the work of Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de 
 la Salle. 
 
 Fortunately for American civilization there was 
 no other Frenchman in America equal to this one, and 
 not from all France, was his equal to follow him to 
 America. 
 
 Few words are needed to tell the remainder of the 
 story of La Salle. He returned up the river, and at 
 Starved Rock, on the Illinois, near the modern village 
 of Utica, built another fort which he called St. Louis. 
 It was the sixth of his chain. Here he gathered a colo- 
 ny of Indians of various tribes and granted lands to his 
 followers, as he had a legal right to do. But in the 
 meantime the enemies of the enterprise had succeeded 
 in having Frontenac recalled. A Governor, La Barre, 
 was appointed who antagonized La Salle as much as 
 he could. In desperation La Salle left his colony and 
 went to France. 
 
 There "he found himself famous. He, the poor 
 boy, the ignoble by birth, was presented to Louis XIV 
 
 45
 
 A History of the 
 
 amid all the splendors of the court. That Jupiter among 
 the Kings of the earth had a smile to bestow upon 
 the humble subject who came to deposit at the foot of 
 the throne the title deeds of such broad domains." 
 
 An expedition of four ships was fitted out to make 
 a permanent settlement near the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi. There were material for forts, and men for gar- 
 risons; materials for plantations and men to work 
 them ; a marquis for social elegance and girls to marry 
 the young men — very attractive girls, too, it would 
 seem, for the marquis wanted to marry one of them, 
 later on, in spite of her ignoble birth. 
 
 The ambition of La Salle — the one man who stands 
 forever conspicuous in the New France of his day — 
 seemed realized. 
 
 • Nevertheless the fates had in his hour of triumph, 
 tangled the lines of his life. It was only after much 
 bickering that the expedition sailed. In the West Indies 
 La Salle was stricken with fever, one of his ships was 
 captured by the Spanish and his men were debauched 
 by the buccaneer hordes. Worse yet, when he recovered 
 and sailed on, the squadron overstood the mouth of 
 the Mississippi, and landed in a bay — supposed to be 
 Matagorda — on the coast of Texas. 
 
 La Salle was now, at last, fatally enmeshed. A 
 store ship was stranded and lost because her captain 
 persisted in coming into the harbor under sail contrary 
 to orders. There are good reasons for supposing he 
 deliberately wrecked her. Another small store ship 
 was brought into the harbor, but she, too, was lost. The 
 last one, a frigate, sailed away to seek a harbor with 
 sufficient depth of water in which some needed supplies, 
 
 46
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 then stowed down under all, might be broken out, and 
 brought back to La Salle, but she was unable to re- 
 turn. 
 
 As theretofore, in the face of every discourage- 
 ment. La Salle continued to work. He built his fort 
 and planned his settlement. He went exploring to find 
 at what point the great river entered the bay and 
 learned that the river was nowhere in the region. His 
 people were as a whole the scum of Paris. Many died 
 and the living became mutinous. Their clothes wore 
 out and were replaced by others made of the sails of 
 the last ship that was wrecked. 
 
 Finally at the end of 1686 it was seen that a jour- 
 ney to France for another outfit must be made, else all 
 would die there in the wilderness, and La Salle de- 
 termined to go by the way of Quebec. On January 7, 
 1687, he left his fort with sixteen white men and two 
 Indians, hoping to find his way to the Mississippi, and 
 then by way of the Illinois, where Tonti was yet in 
 command, to the St. Lawrence, He left behind twen- 
 ty people of whom seven were girls who had come hop- 
 ing to find husbands and homes in the New World. 
 
 The company on leaving France had comprised 
 roo soldiers, "thirty volunteers including gentlemen," 
 "several families as well as a number of girls," and six 
 priests. Only thirty-seven, all told, were now left, and 
 seventeen of these, in suits made of skins and old sails, 
 were starting on the long journey to Quebec, though 
 they did not know anything about the country between 
 them and the IMississippi, and had only an indefinite 
 idea of the direction. 
 
 Until the month of ]\Iarch they struggled on their 
 47
 
 A History of the 
 
 way and finally reached the Trinity river. A mutinous 
 spirit had grown steadily, and on March 15, while en- 
 camped on the Trinity, some of the men quarreled over 
 marrow bones and other choice bits of two buffaloes 
 killed by a small hunting party that was camped at 
 some distance from the main body. It was a quarrel, 
 naturally, between men who were friendly to the leader 
 and those who were not, and on the night of the 17th 
 of March the friends of La Salle, (three in number, in- 
 cluding Nika, an Indian,) were murdered while they 
 slept. 
 
 This party should have returned to the main camp 
 on the night of the 17th, and their failure to do so 
 caused La Salle no little uneasiness during the next 
 day. To his Lieutenant, Joutel, a fellow townsman, 
 and the historian of the expedition, La Salle showed a 
 marked "presentiment of what was to take place," as 
 Joutel writes. "He asked me if I had .heard of any 
 machinations against them, or had noticed any bad 
 design." 
 
 On the morning of March 19, 1687, La Salle started 
 to find the wandering hunters. He took with him Fath- 
 er Anastase Douay and an Indian. On the way "he 
 spoke to me of nothing but matters of piety, grace and 
 predestination ; enlarging on the debt he owed to God, 
 who had saved him from so many perils during more 
 than twenty years of travel in America. Suddenly I 
 saw him overwhelmed with a profound sadness, for 
 which he himself could not account. He was so much 
 moved that I scarcely knew him," wrote the priest. 
 
 But that feeling passed wholly away when he ar- 
 rived near the camp of the mutineers. One of them 
 
 48
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 had been placed in view as a decoy while two hid in the 
 grass. The decoy replied "with a tone of studied in- 
 solence" when La Salle hailed him. 
 
 Full of anger La Salle started forward to punish 
 the scoundrel, but when he was passing the ambushed 
 conspirators they fired, and La Salle fell dead, shot 
 through the brain. 
 
 No praise of La Salle is so sincere and emphatic 
 as that of his enemies, unwitting though it has been 
 always. The traders who from the safe shadows of 
 the St. Lawrence forts jeered him; the Jesuits who 
 sent the Iroquois to destroy the Illinois Indians about 
 Fort Crevecoeur ; the assassins who shot him from am- 
 bush — all these stand forth in history and say : 
 
 "There was a man." 
 
 For not one of them, nor all combined, ever dared 
 to oppose him, face to face, man fashion. 
 
 Six of La Salle'spartyofseventeen eventually reach- 
 ed Quebec, whence five sailed to France. Two of the 
 three who ambushed La Salle were shot by their com- 
 panions in a quarrel over the trade goods La Salle had 
 carried, the third lived to reach the Spaniards in Mex- 
 ico. The remainder of the party were nearly all killed 
 by the Indians, but "Gravier's Voyage" as found in 
 the Jesuit "Relations" (vol. Ixv) says that two of 
 them were delivered to the Spaniards and were after- 
 ward able to reach "fort Bilocchi." The fort built by 
 La Salle at IMatagorda Bay was raided by the Indians, 
 and fourteen out of the twenty that remained in it were 
 killed. Two of these who were spared were the child- 
 ren of a man named Talon, and these eventually 
 reached France. 
 
 49
 
 A History of the 
 
 In all fourteen of La Salle's party are accounted 
 for in the settlements of the French, and of these seven 
 returned to France, All the others died on the way or 
 perished in the wilderness. 
 
 50
 
 JEAN BAI'TISIE Lli MljV.NK, SIKUR DK BIENVILLE. 
 Governor of Louisiana, 1718.
 
 IV 
 
 FROM LA SALLE TO NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 Work of a Backwoods Naval Officer — Tales of a Blue 
 Capote, a Piece of Speaking Bark and a Red Tree 
 Trunk — When the Frown of the King's Favorite 
 Sent a Prime Minister Waltzing Into Outer Dark- 
 ness — The Notable Journeys of Henri de Tonti — A 
 Story of Misplaced Love — Starving, Though Lo- 
 cated on the Richest Land in the World — The Found- 
 ing of New Orleans. 
 
 In the journal of the Jesuits for October 26, 1645, 
 is this paragraph : 
 
 An order was given at the same time to Monsieur de Chesne, 
 uncle of Charles le Moyne, for 20 ecus, which we were giving 
 his nephew for four years' service rendered among the Hurons. 
 He was clothed and decently supplied with linen, and was sent 
 to Three Rivers as soldier and interpreter.
 
 A History of the 
 
 This Charles le Moyne, then twenty-one years old, 
 is to be remembered here, because he was afterwards 
 the father of fourteen children, "most of whom achieved 
 distinction in military or civil affairs," and among 
 whom were Iberville and Bienville, who gave to France 
 the undisputed de facto possession of the lower end of 
 the vast territory of the Mississippi Valley, to which 
 the work of La Salle had given her the legal right of 
 pre-emption. If Bienville is to be regarded as "the 
 father of New Orleans," Charles le Moyne was its 
 grandfather. 
 
 La Salle's plans for settling the lower end of the 
 Louisiana territory did not die with him. Tonti, who 
 remained in command at the fort on Starved Rock, on 
 the Illinois, (a "privileged character," he, and "re- 
 spected by Indians and whites"), applied in 1694, for 
 a commission to carry on the work, and failed to get 
 it. Two other officers made further application in 
 1697 without success, but in 1698, when Le Moyne 
 dTberville offered to plant a colony in Louisiana, his 
 plans were accepted. 
 
 For this youth from the backwoods of Canada had 
 become a noted man. He had entered the French navy, 
 and by good work, had risen, until at the end of the 
 Seventeenth Century he ranked as a post captain. 
 While in command of the frigate Pelican, of but 
 forty-four cannon, he met in Hudson's Bay the British 
 frigate Hampshire, of fifty-two guns, the Daring, of 
 thirty-six guns and the Hudson's Bay of thirty-two — 
 a fleet rated at 120 guns to his forty-four. In spite of 
 the odds, this man, who had been trained in the back- 
 woods of North America, cleared for action, ranged up 
 
 52
 
 'il
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 alongside the Hampshire and sank her. Then he cap- 
 tured the Hudson's Bay, and drove the Daring into 
 a flight that behed her name. 
 
 The record says the Hampshire sank because of the 
 shot she received between wind and water. Iber- 
 ville had taught his gunners how to aim their guns, 
 and history shows that naval officers who have done 
 that have achieved, as well as earned, fame whenever 
 opportunity came to them ; it shows further that, with 
 rare exception, only naval officers with backwoods ex- 
 perience have fully understood the value of accuracy 
 of aim. 
 
 And yet the success of Iberville in obtaining a 
 Louisiana commission but deepens the gloom about the 
 heroic figure of La Salle. For the Le Moyne family 
 had been among the most powerful of his opponents. 
 While La Salle's bones lay scattered on the Texan 
 plain, one of his persistent enemies was to reap where 
 he had, by infinite labor and with life itself, prepared 
 the ground and sowed the seed. 
 
 Iberville, in his Louisiana work, had international 
 conditions in his favor. Spain had reached out to settle 
 the Gulf coast, and a company had been formed in 
 London to establish a colony on the Mississippi. A 
 rumor prevailed that a company of Pennsylvanians 
 had settled on the Wabash. The French Government 
 cared very little about the territory for itself, but to 
 prevent its becoming English territory Iberville was 
 sent to colonize it. French jealousy of the English 
 has had much influence on American affairs. 
 
 With the war ships Badine and Marin, and a num- 
 ber of transports, Iberville sailed from Brest on 
 
 53
 
 A History of the 
 
 October 24, 1698. On December 4 he arrived at Cape 
 Francois, San Domingo. There he added some buc- 
 caneers to his crew, (the notable career of the buc- 
 caneers was then just ending), and he was joined by 
 the fifty-gun frigate Francois. 
 
 After saiHng thence along the south side of Cuba 
 and north past Cape San Antonio, the coast of Florida 
 was seen on January 2;^, and on the 26th they dis- 
 covered two Spanish ships in Pensacola harbor. The 
 Spanish "had not been settled [there] for more than 
 three weeks," according to Gravier's Voyage. But the 
 first settlement they made there was in 1696. Leaving 
 the Spaniards unmolested Iberville continued his west- 
 ward course until, on February 10, he furled sail in 
 what is now the well known road behind Ship Island ; 
 and they gave the Island its name because it afforded 
 a safe anchorage. 
 
 From this place Iberville and his men went explor- 
 ing the region in small boats. They found one island 
 well strewn with human bones and named it Massacre 
 Island, but afterwards changed the name to Dauphin. 
 They found another island thickly inhabited by rac- 
 coons and named it Cat Island. 
 
 On March 2 Iberville's boats rowed into a strong 
 current of fresh muddy water sweeping across the 
 salt sea from among the marshes. Up this current 
 the explorers hastened as well as they could, eventually 
 finding banks more or less firm, and finally some In- 
 dians, among whom was one who had a blue hooded 
 cloak. He said a white man had given it to him. 
 At a village of 200 cabins built around a temple, they 
 found a glass bottle left by the man who had owned 
 
 54
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 the blue capote. They saw also a red tree trunk on 
 which the Indians had made rude pictures of a bear 
 and a fish. This red tree marked the boundary between 
 two tribes, and Baton Rouge, (i. e., a red staff or 
 stake used by surveyors) is the name of the city stand- 
 ing where the tree stood. 
 
 On returning down the river Iberville sent his 
 younger brother Bienville back by the main stream, and 
 the young man found an Indian who had a piece of 
 "speaking bark." A most wonderful medicine the In- 
 dian thought it, but Bienville bought it for a hatchet. 
 It was a letter written by Henri de Tonti to La Salle. 
 
 Thirteen years before while in charge of fort St. 
 Louis, on the Illinois, Tonti had heard that La Salle 
 had sailed from France to form a settlement at the 
 mouth of the Mississippi. As soon as possible there- 
 after he started to visit his friend — to travel in a canoe 
 from Utica, Illinois, to the Gulf of Mexico, in spite 
 of the physical hardships and the hostihties of Indians 
 along the route — that he might make a friendly call 
 on an old comrade. He reached the Gulf while La 
 Salle was struggling in the Fates' mesh on the plains 
 of Texas, but there was no way for Tonti to learn 
 where La Salle was, and after a weary wait, he gave 
 the chief of a near-by Indian village some presents, 
 (among the rest the blue capote), and a letter to be 
 delivered to La Salle whenever the expedition should 
 arrive. It is a picture of early life in the great valley 
 that is worth preserving. 
 
 From the Mississippi, Iberville himself returned by 
 the way of Bayou Manchac and Maurepas and Pont- 
 chartrain, naming these lakes as he came. Both lakes 
 
 55
 
 A History of the 
 
 were named for families that produced prime ministers 
 of France. Some Cyclopedias omit the name of Pont- 
 chartrain but all contain that of Maurepas. He was a 
 "nimble old man, who for all emergencies has his light 
 jest; and even in the worst confusion will emerge, 
 cork-like, unsunk," until "fixed in the frost of death," 
 in 1781. His name is "fixed" in the cyclopedias for a 
 number of reasons. He was not only a prime minister 
 of France, but a most capable writer of literature of 
 the class now excluded from the mails. He wrote a 
 description of Madam Pompadour in this vein, and she 
 was so much offended that the king, Louis XV., dis- 
 missed him from of^ce. Recalling the conditions pre- 
 vailing in the court of old France helps toward a com- 
 prehension of the history of New France; to see "a 
 lightly-jesting, lightly-gyrating ]\I. de Maurepas" sent 
 waltzing into outer darkness by the frown of the king's 
 favorite explains much — as shall appear in more detail 
 further on. This is not to say that the lake was named 
 for the "nimble old" Maurepas. It was named for 
 his family. 
 
 It is well to note here that Iberville's instructions 
 commanded him "to seek out diligently the best places 
 for establishing pearl fisheries." He was also to "look 
 for mines," the finding of which would be "the great 
 business." (Parkman) 
 
 Iberville finally settled where Biloxi now stands, 
 choosing that location partly because of the lovely little 
 bay, and partly because the Biloxi Indians (a stray 
 fragment of the great Sioux family), from whom the 
 bay was named, were a very friendly people. "On the 
 east side, at the mouth of the bay, there is a slight swell- 
 
 56
 
 JEANNE ANTOINETTE I'OIbSON, MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 ing of the shore, about four acres square, sloping gent- 
 ly to the woods in the background, and on the right 
 and left of which, two deep ravines run into the bay." 
 Here, in April, 1699, the French built a palisaded fort 
 and log houses. Sieur de Sauville, a brother of Iber- 
 ville, was placed in command, with another brother, 
 Bienville, then a youth of 18, as second, after which 
 Iberville sailed for France to get further supplies and 
 more colonists. 
 
 Bienville was then once more sent exploring the re- 
 gion, and he learned soon that the English from the 
 Atlantic coast were in constant communication with 
 the Chickasaw Indians, the most aggressive tribe of the 
 region. The Chickasaws even came to Lake Pont- 
 chartrain, soon after the French settled at Biloxi, and 
 with the aid of Englishmen fought a battle with other 
 Indians there. It was an ominous piece of news, ex- 
 ceedingly ominous if considered in connection with the 
 English goods that Joliet had found among the Indians 
 on the banks of the Mississippi during his exploration. 
 The tide of English enterprise had risen so high as to 
 find the passes through and around the Alleghany 
 range of mountains. 
 
 A little later Bienville saw some of the English. 
 While floating around the sharp bend of the IMississippi 
 where it passes near to and just west of Lake Borgne 
 he met an English ship commanded by one Louis Bank, 
 (or Bar, as Gayarre writes it). Bank said he was 
 bringing a company of Englishmen and French Hu- 
 guenots to settle on the Mississippi, and that another 
 detachment of the settlers was coming overland from 
 the sea under the guidance of the Chickasaws. Bien- 
 
 57
 
 A History of i]:c 
 
 ville protested. He said that this river valley had been 
 settled by the French for many years, and that a large 
 force was near at hand. In proof of his assertion he 
 called attention to the fact that he was there roaming- 
 about in a row boat. The Englishman blustered a lit- 
 
 Moll's Map of 1710. 
 
 tie but turned back to the Gulf; and that bend in the 
 river has been known as the English Turn ever since. 
 
 When, in the following December, Iberville re- 
 turned and heartl of this incident he immediately de- 
 termined to build a fort on the river bank. Leaving 
 Biloxi on this errand on January 8, 1700, he began 
 work on the fort at a spot about 18 miles below the 
 
 58
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 present site of New Orleans — perhaps on the Scarsdale 
 plantation. He named the fort La Boulaye. 
 
 While engaged in this work Henri de Tonti came 
 paddhng down the river. He was still in command 
 on the Illinois, where he held the privilege of sending 
 two canoe loads of beaver a year to Montreal; but he 
 thought he might find a better market by way of the 
 mouth of the Great River, as La Salle had hoped to do. 
 He had come down to see about the matter. A canoe 
 journey of more than 1,500 miles through the wilder- 
 ness, in the interest of trade, was no more to him than 
 a ten-mile trolley ride is to a modern commercial trav- 
 eller. 
 
 Iberville and Bienville were so glad to meet their 
 old friend that when he started home, three days later, 
 they went along as far as the village of Natchez In- 
 dians, standing where Natchez, Mississippi, is found 
 now. As it happened a thunder storm was raging, 
 when they arrived, and the lighting had just set fire to 
 the temple wherein these Indians worshipped the sun. 
 The Indians were insane with fear and excitement, for 
 they believed the disaster was due to the anger of their 
 god, and to appease him, five infants were thrown alive 
 into the flames, at the commands of the medicine men. 
 The incident seems to have given the Frenchmen a 
 strong prejudice against these Indians. 
 
 In the year of 1700 a notable voyage was 
 made on the Mississippi by one La Sueur, a man 
 who had led an adventurous life on the great 
 lakes, and had come to Louisiana with Iberville 
 in December, 1699. With a felucca, a small two- 
 masted coaster, rigged with lateen sails, and 
 
 59
 
 A History of the 
 
 a crew of 25 men, he made his way up to 
 Lake Pepin. There he built a fort, killed 400 buffaloes, 
 lived on the flesh all winter, drove a good fur trade 
 with the Indians, and carried back a cargo of earth 
 stained blue with silicate of iron, thinking it a valuable 
 ore. It was this blue earth that gave a name to Blue 
 Earth River. And the Sueur's felucca was the first 
 decked and ship-built vessel to make a voyage on the 
 Mississippi. 
 
 In 1 701 Iberville moved the larger part of his col- 
 ony to Mobile Bay (named from a clan of Indians), 
 and placed Bienville in command of the colony, Sau- 
 ville having died meantime. Settlements had already 
 been made on Dauphine and Ship Islands. The Span- 
 ish at Pensacola protested that Florida extended to 
 Mexico, but the matter was referred home to the two 
 Governments, and the Spanish King yielded the land 
 to his uncle, Louis XIV. 
 
 As the King's colony these settlements existed until 
 1 712. For about two-thirds of this time Bienville was 
 Governor and was second in command during the re- 
 mainder of the time. A few extracts from the records 
 will sufficiently portray the ways of life in those days. 
 
 In 1705 the arrival of a party of seventeen Canadi- 
 ans is mentioned in the records as a matter of import- 
 ance because they "came with the intention of making 
 a permanent settlement, and had provided themselves 
 with all the implements of husbandry." All the other 
 settlers had come hoping to get rich quickly and then 
 return to France. It is reasonable to infer that the 
 Canadians raised considerable crops of corn, for In 1706 
 one of Bienville's despatches says: 
 
 60
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 "The males in the colony begin through habit to be 
 reconciled to corn as an article of nourishment; but 
 the females, who are mostly Parisians, have for this 
 kind of food a dogged aversion. Hence they inveigh 
 bitterly against his Grace, the Bishop of Quebec, who, 
 they say, has enticed them away from home under the 
 pretext of sending them to enjoy the milk and honey 
 of the land of promise." 
 
 The usual cargo of a ship from France in this per- 
 iod, contained (to quote from the manifest of one of 
 them), "goods, provisions, ammunition; Flesh-pots of 
 France, rivalling, to a certainty, those of Egypt ; spark- 
 ling wines to cheer the cup ; twenty-three girls to glad- 
 den the heart; five priests to minister to the soul and 
 to bless holy alliances; two sisters of charity to attend 
 on the sick, and seventy-five soldiers for protection 
 against the inroads of the Indians. This was some- 
 thing to be thankful for." (Gayarre). 
 
 As in Canada the Louisiana colony was governed 
 by an Intendant as well as a Governor, the Intendant's 
 chief business being to spy on the deeds of the Govern- 
 or. In a letter dated December 7, 1706, Intendant 
 Nicolas de La Salle says that the Le Moyne brothers 
 were guilty of "every sort of malfeasances and dilapi- 
 dations. They are rogues who pilfer away his majes- 
 ty's goods and effects." 
 
 A partisan of Bienville writes that among men 
 "none was better calculated than La Salle to personate 
 the toad. His mission was to secrete venom. Fat, 
 short, sleek, with bloated features and oily skin. ♦ * * 
 Puffed up in conceit, an eternal smile of contentment 
 was stereotyped on the gross texture of his lips." 
 
 61
 
 A History of the 
 
 The Curate de la Vente, the leader of the priests, 
 was opposed to Bienville, and Bienville wrote that La 
 Vente "has tried to stir up everybody against me by his 
 calumnies, and who, in the meantime, does not blush 
 to keep an open shop, where his mode of trafficking 
 shows that he is a shrewd compound of the Arab and 
 the Jew." 
 
 Even one of Bienville's own family helped to stir 
 up strife. A nephew. Major Boisbriant, fell in love 
 with the lady who was in charge of the girls brought 
 out, at the King's charge, to marry colonists. She re- 
 turned his passion, but Bienville refused to allow them 
 to marry, on the ground that the lady was of a lower 
 social rank. Thereupon the lady wrote the story of 
 her woes to the Colonial Secretary, and ended it by 
 saying: "It is therefore evident that he has not the 
 necessary qualifications to govern this colony." 
 
 It was in the condition of things that the troubles 
 with the Indians should be never ending. The colony 
 was weak in numbers. There were but 279 people all 
 told in 1708 — and yet they were full of arrogance in 
 dealing with the Indians. The Chickasaws, being 
 allies of the English, were steadfast enemies. The 
 Choctaws, as enemies of the Chickasaws, were encour- 
 aged to go hunting both Chickasaws and English, but 
 their friendship was not always to be trusted. The 
 Alibamons (from whom Alabama was named), though 
 nominally at peace, frequently waylaid and murdered 
 the French for the sake of the plunder. And when they 
 heard the French boast of the greatness and pow- 
 er of the French King, these redmen asked with 
 unconcealed contempt, how it happened then 
 
 62
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 that this great king did not send soldiers 
 to avenge the many murderous aggressions under 
 which the colony had suffered. "The very existence 
 of the colony is daily threatened by the Indians," says 
 one account. 
 
 But a worse picture than that remains. In 1709 
 provisions became so scarce that the colonists were 
 reduced to a diet of acorns, and Bienville reported that 
 he had been obliged to send half his soldiers among 
 the Indians because he could not obtain enough food 
 for them in any other way. 
 
 For ten years these people had been in the country. 
 They had come there not merely to man forts but to 
 people the region — to create a new French empire. 
 They were at the gateway of the most wonderful farm- 
 ing region of the world — a valley that can readily sup- 
 port 200,000,000 people. And yet here they were in 
 more desperate straits than the Indians whom they 
 despised. 
 
 Few words suffice to tell of the actual work in the 
 interior of the great valley by the French people. Late 
 in 1702, Juchereau, of Montreal, established a fur- 
 buying station near, if not exactly, where Cairo, III., 
 now stands. He helped to make a profit from copper 
 and lead ores that had been found not far away. In 
 the course of two years he built a tannery, made some 
 leather, shipped out a few furs and accumulated a stock 
 of 30,000 buffalo skins. Then he fled through fear of 
 the Indians, (whom he had wronged, no doubt), leav- 
 ing the huge store of skins to waste. 
 
 Some prospectors went up the Missouri river, in 
 1705, and built a small fort above the Ossages, but 
 
 63
 
 A History of the 
 
 it was afterward abandoned. Explorers went above 
 the Natchitoches on the Red River. The coureurs de 
 hois from the upper lakes region, in some numbers, 
 brought their furs to Mobile, but Bienville himself 
 describes them as Canadian vagabonds leading a wan- 
 dering and licentious life among the Indians, rather 
 than additions to the new settlements. The indefa- 
 tigable Tonti came to live at Mobile, but soon (1702) 
 died of the yellow fever. In short it was, as a whole, 
 a colony of paupers. 
 
 Finding that his politicians were unable to make 
 the colony self-supporting the King, on September 14, 
 1 712, turned it over to Anthony Crozat, a wealthy 
 merchant who undertook the task of managing it on 
 business principles for fifteen years. 
 
 Crozat was to have the exclusive privileges of the 
 Louisiana trade, all mines of precious metals to be dis- 
 covered' were his on payment of a royalty of one- fourth 
 of the yield ; he was permitted to import one ship load 
 of negroes per year; the King was to pay $10,000 a 
 year toward the expenses of the garrison, for nine 
 years. In return Crozat was to send out "two ship 
 loads" of colonists a year, and pay all the expenses 
 above the King's contribution. 
 
 La Mothe Cadillac, who, for a number of years 
 had been the governor of Detroit, (at which point the 
 French located on July 24, 1701), was made governor 
 of Louisiana, where he arrived May 17, 171 3. The 
 instructions from Crozat to Cadillac were brief in sub- 
 stance, if multitudinous in words. He was to search 
 "diligently" for mines, and to open a trade with ]\Iexi- 
 co — with the consent of the authorities, if that were 
 
 64
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 possible, but without it if they refused. He was to 
 trade with the Indians, also, of course. 
 
 From the settling of Biloxi, the French had traded 
 
 A Section of Joutel's Map, 1713. 
 
 with the Spanish of Pensacola, contrary to law, but 
 now smuggling was to be part of the business com- 
 manded by the ruler of Louisiana. 
 
 65
 
 A History of the 
 
 The population at this time, it is said, included 
 one hundred soldiers, seventy-five Canadians in the 
 pay of the King, twenty negro slaves and 300 plain 
 citizens, who were much scattered, owing to the fam- 
 ines that had prevailed. 
 
 Cadillac wrote a frank description of his colony, 
 on January i, 17 14, saying, as quoted by Gayarre: 
 "The inhabitants are the scum and refuse of Canada; 
 ruffians who have thus far cheated the gibbet of its 
 due; vagabonds who are without subordination to the 
 laws, without any respect for religion or the govern- 
 ment; graceless profligates who are so steeped in vice 
 that they prefer the Indian females to French women. 
 * * * But what shall I say of the troops, who are 
 without dicipline, and scattered among the Indians at 
 whose expense they subsist?" 
 
 To learn the ways of life under this commercial 
 regime we need only read the complaints of Governor 
 Cadillac, as set forth in his despatches. He quarrelled 
 with the soldiers because they were "without disci- 
 pline," and with their officers because they refused to 
 apply to the priests for the holy sacrament, "even at 
 Easter." "He complained bitterly of one officer, Capt. 
 Richebourg, of the dragoons, (an officer who came to 
 the colony in the ship with Cadillac) because he "se- 
 duced most of the girls" sent over by the King to be- 
 come wives of the colonists. These girls, Cadillac says, 
 very justly, "ought to have been respected," but he 
 quarrelled with them also, on arrival, because they 
 did not at once find husbands. He says they were 
 left on his hands because of Richebourg, but Duclos, 
 the commissary, whose despatches also show an all- 
 
 66
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 absorbing interest in this matter, wrote that the girls 
 were "so ugly that the inhabitants are in no hurry to 
 take them." 
 
 Then came the priests who "insisted" that he ex- 
 pel out of the colony two women of bad character. "T 
 have refused to do so," he wrote, "because if I sent 
 away all women of loose habits there would be no fe- 
 males left, and this would not meet the views of the 
 government. Besides, one of these girls occupies the 
 position of a servant in the household of the King's 
 commissary, who will, no doubt, reclaim her from her 
 vicious propensities," 
 
 There is but one reason, of course, for making 
 these quotations from the official despatches. It is to 
 show clearly the character of these so-called settlers 
 and their habits of thought while engaged in found- 
 ing a French empire in America. 
 
 However, Cadillac did try to open trade with Mexi- 
 co. In the voyage which Iberville made to Louisiana, 
 in 1699, he brought an adventurous youth named 
 Juchereau de St. Denis. After his arrival, St. Denis 
 was a good soldier. He obeyed orders; avoided the 
 ever present disputes between those over him as much 
 as possible; made friends with the Indians, and went 
 exploring the region west of the Mississippi, especially 
 along the Red River. 
 
 In 1 714, Cadillac sent him to Mexico. He went up 
 the Red River as far as the Natchitoches, and thence 
 struck out on the route to the Spanish settlements ly- 
 ing along the Rio Grande, where he arrived in August. 
 It was an eminently successful expedition, for St. 
 Denis. He fell in love with the daughter of the Span- 
 
 67
 
 A History of the 
 
 ish Governor, was arrested as a smuggler, refused 
 splendid offers to enter the Spanish service, escaped 
 from prison, served as peacemaker between the fron- 
 tier Spaniards and plains Indians, married the lovely 
 senorita, and returned safe to the French settlements. 
 A subsequent expedition made by St. Denis was not 
 so fortunate even for him. He barely escaped from 
 Mexico with his life. Every sou of Crozat's money 
 spent in the two expeditions was lost, and large quan- 
 tities of goods sent out in anticipation of a successful 
 smuggling business were wasted. 
 
 The search for mines had a similar result. As a 
 rule Cadillac employed courcurs dc hois as prospectors, 
 and they proved to be the fore-runners of the "grub 
 stake eaters" of modern days. They accepted their 
 supplies of food and instruments, and going to some 
 favorite Indian village gave their goods to their friends, 
 and remained there until the time came to report pro- 
 gress, when they returned to Cadillac for further sup- 
 plies. 
 
 Lead ore was found in southeastern jNIissouri. The 
 lead and zinc mines in IMissouri have been, and are 
 now, the source of immense wealth. The French be- 
 gan working the "prospect" and established a supply 
 station for the miners, but they were incapable of mak- 
 ing the ore profitable. 
 
 Crozat's commercial agents did something in the 
 way of establishing trading stations. Natchez, ]\Iiss- 
 issippi, and Nashville, Tennessee, have grown where 
 trading stations were built in 17 14. In 171 7 Cadillac 
 sent a force to occupy the land of the Natchitoches 
 Indians, on Red River, and in 17 19 Bernard de la 
 
 68
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Harpe built Fort St. Louis de Carlorette near where 
 Natchitoches now stands. 
 
 Before Cadillac's time (in 1700), a mission for 
 the Illinois Indians had been established where Kaska- 
 skia, 111., now stands. It was in 1717 a considerable 
 settlement. Under the influence of the priests ploughs 
 had been introduced, windmills erected and horsepower 
 tread-mills constructed. 
 
 Crozat finding no returns even from the trade in 
 furs, which lesser merchants had found so profitable, 
 remonstrated, and Cadillac replied : 
 
 "What! Is it expected that for any commercial or 
 profitable purpose boats will ever be able to run up the 
 Mississippi, into the Wabash, the Missouri, or the Red 
 River? One might as well try to bite a slice off the 
 moon." 
 
 One quotation from the despatches will suffice for 
 Cadillac's Indian policy. He wrote: 
 
 "I have persuaded the brother of the great chief 
 of the Choctaws to kill his sovereign, and brother, 
 pledging myself to recognize him as his successor. He 
 did so and came here with an escort of 100 men. I 
 gave him presents and secured from him an advan- 
 tageous peace." 
 
 On June 22, 171 6, Cadillac wrote a despatch say- 
 ing: 
 
 "Decidedly this colony is a monster without head 
 or tail, and its government is a shapeless absurdity." 
 The minister of the colonies department, for a reply, 
 added a postscript to a letter from Crozat, saying: 
 
 "The Governor, La Mothe Cadillac, and the com- 
 missary, Duclos, whose intellects are not equal to the 
 
 69
 
 A History of the 
 
 functions with which His Majesty has instructed them, 
 are dismissed from office." 
 
 On August 13, 1717, Crozat, having concluded that 
 his intellect was not equal to the task of managing 
 Louisiana on business principles, surrendered his con- 
 tract to the King. 
 
 John Law, with his wondrous schemes of finance, 
 then took hold of the colony through what he called 
 the Mississippi company. Law at 23 years of age, fled 
 for his life from England. By his love for deep play 
 and his gallantries "he had squandered a fortune." In 
 a duel he had killed a man — unfairly, it is presumed, — 
 for he was tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged, 
 on a charge of murder. On the continent he intro- 
 duced the game of faro, and won large sums — more 
 than 2,000,000 francs, it is said. He established a 
 private bank in Paris, (May, 1716), that received 
 Government support. Louis XIV. had died on Sept. 
 I, 171 5. Louis XV. was then a child of five years, and 
 the Duke of Orleans ruled as Regent. Louis XIV. had 
 left France with a debt of 80,000,000 livres, while 
 the new ruler could, at best, raise 9,000,000. Law 
 proposed solving the difficulty of paying eighty mil- 
 lions with nine by issuing notes based on the real estate 
 of the nation — a million in paper money for every two 
 millions assessed valuation of the real estate. The 
 scheme was accepted. There was soon an abundance 
 of ''money" in the nation. Prices rose steadily; with 
 each issue of "money" prices rose in geometrical ratio. 
 Fortunes were made in a day. Law became such a 
 favorite with the Regent that he "was admitted into 
 all the licentious privacies of the Palais Royal."
 
 LOUIS XV., KING OF FRANCE.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 On September 6, 171 7, when his schemes were 
 dazzling all France, he floated the Mississippi com- 
 pany. This company was to develop the boundless 
 resources of the great valley — to take up the work in 
 which Crozat had failed. The valley was to be peo- 
 pled ; a great commerce between it and France created ; 
 the smuggling trade with Spanish-America was to be 
 promoted; mines of gold and silver were to be dis- 
 covered and many of those of the Spanish were to be 
 appropriated, while the fur trade, already established, 
 was to be greatly enlarged. And all this for the benefit 
 of Law's bank. England had, just then, a South Sea 
 bubble. That company (it was established in 1710), 
 did not fail until 1720, and it was therefore reaching 
 its greatest reputation when Law floated his Mississippi 
 scheme. Law was familiar with the plans successfully 
 used by the South Sea Company to "boom" their 
 shares, and his Mississippi company was managed in 
 much the same way. 
 
 Pamphlets were distributed setting forth the won- 
 ders of the Mississippi Valley. The deposit that could 
 be filtered from the water of the river yielded gold in 
 immense quantities, said these pamphlets, and bars 
 alleged to be of this gold were placed in the shop win- 
 dows of Paris. The liquid found in the cup of a cer- 
 tain flower, in Louisiana, turned to a diamond in a 
 single night, at a certain season, and diamonds from 
 these flowers, as alleged, were also on exhibition. 
 
 Men of money fought for place in the line when 
 the books of the Mississippi company were opened for 
 subscriptions. 
 
 For a time, too, people — especially those of broken 
 
 71
 
 A History of the 
 
 fortune, and all who were of undue greed — flocked to 
 the company's ships that were sent to the Mississippi ; 
 but this human tide began to ebb within a year; for 
 they learned the truth, on landing, of course, and they 
 found means to tell the facts in France where their 
 stories of hardship were exaggerated as much as the 
 real productiveness of the region had been. 
 
 Then the company, under due license, resorted to 
 press gangs to fill the necessary quota of emigrants. 
 These gangs swept the beggars from the streets, the 
 tramps from the highways, the vile from the houses 
 of correction. With these were taken some whose sole 
 offence was the mistake of having offended people 
 of influence, while others were carried to the shipping 
 ports in order to extort blackmail. 
 
 In spite of these frauds and outrages, however, 
 some real work was done in Louisiana. Even John 
 Law, though a thief and a murderer, was to leave his 
 mark on the Mississippi River. 
 
 When Law's company took charge of Louisiana, 
 Bienville, who was really the only man of notable 
 ability in the colony, was made governor once more, 
 and his first work under his new commission was to 
 be of lasting importance to the Mississippi Valley. 
 
 The fort built by Iberville on the bank of the Missis- 
 sippi had been abandoned. Bienville had wished to 
 build a new one at a point higher up the river, while 
 Cadillac ruled, but Cadillac refused permission. Now 
 Bienville could do as he pleased, and the new fort 
 was at once planned. 
 
 The point at which he determined to build is of 
 special interest. In his travels through the neighbor- 
 
 72
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 hood Bienville had observed that two bayous running 
 from Lake Pontchartrain were "navigable by small 
 sea-going vessels to within a mile of the bank of the 
 
 New Orleans 1728. 
 
 Mississippi." There was an Indian portage from one 
 of these bayous to the great river. Bienville had 
 passed his youth in Canada — he saw that a trading sta- 
 
 73
 
 A History of the 
 
 tion built where this trail reached the Mississippi would 
 have communication with all points on the Great River 
 and its tributaries, and at the same time, would, by the 
 back door of Lake Pontchartram, reach with equal 
 ease the region to the east. A fort there would com- 
 mand the river, and, in a way, Lakes Pontchartrain 
 and Maurepas, and the waters beyond. 
 
 On an unnamed day in February, soon after the 
 ' arrival of his commission, Bienville sent ''twenty-five 
 convicts, and as many carpenters, with some voyageurs 
 from the Illinois," to the river end of that portage trail. 
 A narrow strip of dry land was found there. It ^ lay 
 about ten feet above the ordinary stage of the river 
 surface, but had been formed by deposits of sediment 
 made when the river was flooding high. This bank 
 was plainly subject to overflow, and the slope toward 
 the lake reached the swamp level a mile back of the 
 river. But Bienville was willing to risk the damage 
 that extra high water might do, and the convicts and 
 carpenters he sent there, cleared away the moss- 
 covered trees and underbrush. 
 
 Then they built on the height of land a straggling 
 row of houses having log walls that were not snake 
 proof, bark roofs that were not rain proof and chim- 
 neys—fire places— made of sticks plastered over with 
 thick masses of clay. And to these shelters came 
 "three companies of infantry and a small body of colo- 
 nists," on March 9, 171 8. 
 
 In such fashion was the great city of New Orleans 
 
 founded. 
 
 74
 
 LOUIS XIV., KING OF FRANCE.
 
 V 
 
 INDIANS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 The Pathetic Story of a Race of Children Who Were 
 Taken from Their Play and Set at the Work of 
 Butchers and Scalp Hunters — Indian Motives Com- 
 pared with Those of the Whites — Story of a Kansas 
 Real Estate Agent and Charlie Quapaw — The Mora- 
 vian and the Quaker Methods of Treating Indians 
 Considered — The Most Important Statement in This 
 Book. 
 
 With the founding of the city of New Orleans the 
 movement which was to people the valley of the Missis- 
 sippi with the white race and displace the red men, was 
 fully begim. For while Father Gravier was making 
 ploughs and horse-power tread-mills at Kaskaskia, 
 and Bienville was working after a fashion at New 
 Orleans, the British colonies were spreading to the Alle-
 
 A History of the 
 
 ghanies. Gov. Spotswood of Virginia, with fifty fol- 
 lowers, "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe," and "an 
 abundant variety of liquors" went (1716) to the crest 
 of the Blue Ridge, where with his eyes to the west "he 
 took possession of this place, in the name and for King 
 George the First, drank the King's health in cham- 
 pagne, and fired a volley." From this height, or some 
 other, he saw that "the British plantations are sur- 
 rounded." The French are in position, he said, not on- 
 ly to "engross the whole skin trade," but to "send such 
 bodies of Indians on the back of these plantations'* 
 as might "greatly distress his Majesty's subjects here." 
 
 The remedy for these well-seen evils was to form 
 settlements beyond the range, and in saying so Gov. 
 Spotswood voiced the sentiment of nearly all the think- 
 ing people in the British colonies. 
 
 Therefore mighty hosts were to gather, later on, 
 at the passes of the Alleghanies — mighty, if few by 
 count, and sometimes not well ordered. The volley 
 which Spottswood fired while on the crest of the Blue 
 Ridge, though fired with powder only, and heard no 
 further west than the springs that fed the Shenandoah, 
 — was in a way the first in the conflict that drove 
 the foolish cackling French from their stations in the 
 Great Basin, and with many whirligigs of dust and 
 smoke, swept the red nations into the refuse heaps, 
 unpleasant enough to look at, that we call reservations. 
 
 It seems necessary, therefore, to stop here and con- 
 sider what manner of men these Indians were original- 
 ly; what influence the white men had upon their char- 
 acter; what rights they had in the land, and in what 
 ways and how far their rights were violated. 
 
 76
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 In the days between Champlain's battle on the 
 outlet of Lake Champlain, (1610), and the found- 
 ing of the city of New Orleans, (1718), the important 
 families or "linguistic stocks" of Indians occupying the 
 Iklississippi Valley were the Algonquian, the Siouan, 
 the Iroquoian, the Muskhogean and the Cadoan. They 
 covered the whole region save only for six spots, rel- 
 atively very small, that were occupied by small com- 
 munities, having languages of their own, the remnants, 
 very likely, of ancient tribes that had been reduced to 
 insignificance by the inexorable law of the survival 
 of the fittest. 
 
 The location of these families are shown at a glance 
 in a map prepared by Major J. W. Powell ("Linguistic 
 Stocks of American Indians North of Mexico"). 
 
 Of the different tribes into which the families were 
 divided, some account may be given here. Along the 
 Alleghanies were the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choc- 
 taws and Creeks, though the Creeks were mainly found 
 in what is now Georgia, and had an offshoot in Flori- 
 da, called Seminoles. In 1785 they were supposed to 
 number 70,000 souls. The Cherokees were Iroquoian, 
 the others Muskhogean. One writer believes there were 
 9,500 warriors among the Southern Indians. 
 
 Northwest of the Ohio, in the 18th century, were 
 the Shawanees, Delawares and Miamis, of Algonquian 
 stock, with the Wyandots, (a remnant of the old Hu- 
 rons), and as years passed, many of the Iroquois con- 
 federation who were here called ]\Iingos. Mingled with 
 these, when the whites came to the Ohio, w^ere indi- 
 viduals from further west — Pottawattomies, Ottawas, 
 Chippewas and Foxes. Andrew McFarland Davis, 
 
 77
 
 A History of the 
 
 of the American Antiquarian Society, estimated, (Win- 
 sor's "History of America"), that "there were about 
 35,000 warriors east of the Mississippi, in the United 
 States and across the straits at Detroit," at the time 
 of the war of the Revohition. The Shawnese, at that 
 time, had about 300 warriors, the Delawares 600 and 
 the Wyandotts 200 — ah northwest of the Ohio. The 
 Iroquois had 2,000 warriors. What was known as the 
 "Ottawa Confederation" — a loose aggregation of west- 
 ern tribes — had 8,000 warriors, of whom 3,000 Hved 
 near Detroit," (Winsor). 
 
 Most interesting is a study of the characteristics of 
 the red people as they existed before they came in 
 contact with white men. Let the reader who is not 
 familiar with the matter forget what his school histories 
 taught him, put aside his prejudices, whatever they 
 may be. Above all let him put aside for the present 
 what the men who have lived among modern Indians 
 have to say about them. Parkman, for instance, 
 thought he had learned the characteristics of the abo- 
 rigines by living among a tribe that had been trading 
 with white men for more than 200 years. Let the 
 judgments of such men be put aside, and then consider 
 what the scientific ethnologists have learned and print- 
 ed, after long and patient labor, about the American 
 aborigines. The reader who has seen the modern 
 Indian and like Parkman, has lived among them, should 
 be especially careful not to allow prejudice to influence 
 him. For it has been shown that the dog soup, dirt 
 and carnivorous insects of the wigwam and tepee 
 almost invariably prejudice a clean man's mind so 
 that he is incapable of rendering a fair judgment. 
 
 78
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Scientific investigation has learned first of all that 
 it was not a roaming or nomadic people. It is true 
 that a party of the Siouan people had gone away from 
 the original family home to settle at Biloxi. Another 
 party had become Catawbas living on the east side of 
 the Alleghanies. The Shawnees had lived in various 
 localities. But these were migrations of sedentary 
 people, — migrations due to family quarrels — and were 
 not the wanderings of nomads. The nearest approach 
 to a nomadic life was found on the plains where such 
 tribes as the Pawnees followed migratory herds of buf- 
 falo for limited distances. 
 
 Being sedentary, the tribes were, as a whole, devel- 
 oping into agriculturalists — becoming farmers. "They 
 were fast progressing from the hunter state," says 
 Powell in "Indian Linguistic Families." Corn was the 
 chief of their cultivated foods. In the Jesuit "Rela- 
 tions" one of the missionaries speaks of a Huron chief 
 who had two caches of corn, each containing 125 bush- 
 els. That was in Canada. In the south the corn crop 
 reached tens of thousands of bushels. 
 
 More notable still some of the Indians were on 
 the threshold of taming wild animals for domestic use. 
 The Creeks of each village refrained from hunting 
 over certain tracts of land where products of the forest 
 relished by bears, abounded, until the bears there be- 
 came both fat and tame. Then when meat was needed 
 a bear was quietly killed. Precautions were taken to 
 keep the bears tame, that is to say, and the range well 
 stocked. 
 
 To say that the tribes were sedentary implies that 
 they had dwellings of more or less substantial char- 
 
 79
 
 A History of the 
 
 acter. The Iroquoians and other northern tribes built 
 great shelters of poles covered with bark. The Dacotah 
 Sioux covered the poles with buffalo skins. The 
 Pawnees built houses with sod walls. The Natches and 
 the Ouapaws built houses with a latticed frame covered 
 with adobe clay. The Cherokees and Muskhogean 
 built good log houses. It is a right curious fact that 
 the red men learned to build thick dirt walls to keep 
 out heat before they learned to use such walls to keep 
 out cold. 
 
 Of the Indian canoes and dugouts as means of 
 transportation only mere mention seems necessary. 
 
 The Indian had developed the art of making pot- 
 tery, baskets and cloth. They made sufficient tools of 
 Stone, shells and wood. Some that had native copper 
 had learned to beat it into ornaments with a skill 
 that the whites who first came to America were unable 
 to surpass. They had, indeed, begun to develop the 
 higher talent of the artist and they had made the first 
 steps toward a written language. 
 
 There is, perhaps, nothing more interesting in the 
 story of the red American than the few facts we know 
 about their culture of the higher faculties — their 
 groping after something that was not a necessary of 
 life. 
 
 Consider their first steps in the development of a 
 written language. One may presume that their at- 
 tempts to write out ideas grew out of their sign lan- 
 guage, or were suggested by it. And it is not difficult 
 to think that the sign language was developed before 
 articulate speech. 
 
 Many ideas were conveyed by movements and 
 80
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 postures of the body — by living pictures, that is to 
 say. A Dacotah standing on one bank of a river saw 
 strangers on the further side and held aloft his left 
 hand to ask, "Who are you ?" And one of the strangers 
 put two fingers of each hand up above his head in a 
 way to suggest the sharp, peaked-up ears of the wolf, 
 and thus replied, "We are wolves — Pawnees," 
 
 From making these living pictures it was but a 
 short step, easily taken, to the painting or carving of 
 pictures that would convey ideas. They had learned 
 to paint and carve some pictures of their sign language 
 on their pottery, on wood and on smooth stones. Most 
 remarkable are some of the rock carvings that are yet 
 to be found along the Mississippi and its branches. 
 Pictures of men, beasts, birds, reptiles and insects 
 abound. With these are found pictures of the tracks 
 of men and animals, and of figures and lines oft re- 
 peated that represent nothing to our minds. 
 
 Many essays and books have been written about the 
 picture writing of American Indians — works that 
 usually describe rather than explain the Indian pictures 
 — but some advance in comprehending this red litera- 
 ture has been made by the scientific specialists. Says 
 Mr. James IMooney, ( Seventeenth annual report Bureau 
 of Ethnology) : 
 
 "It is known that our own tribes had various ways of de- 
 picting their mythology, their totems, or isolated facts in the 
 life of individual or nation, but it is only within a few years 
 that it was even suspected that they could have anything like 
 continuous historical records, even in embryo. 
 
 "The fact is nozv established, however, that pictographic 
 records, covering periods of from sixty to perhaps 200 years or 
 more, do or did exist among several tribes, and it is entirely 
 probable that every leading mother tribe had such a record of 
 
 81
 
 A History of the 
 
 its origin and wanderings, the pictured narrative being compiled 
 by the priests and preserved vi^ith sacred care through all the 
 shifting vicissitudes of savage life, until lost or destroyed in the 
 ruin that overwhelmed the native governments at the coming of 
 the white men." 
 
 Time was when all of these tribal histories might 
 have been gathered, or copies made. The white men 
 might have learned exactly what ideas the Indians in- 
 tended to convey when making some of the noted pic- 
 tures now called petrographs. For when the first mis- 
 sionaries and the first traders went among the Indians 
 the art of stone writing was at its best. But because 
 Indian art work or culture was commonly found in 
 connection with Indian religion, our missionaries were 
 shocked by the "idolatrous exhibits," and strove in 
 earnest, well-meaning fashion, to turn the Indian 
 thoughts from pictured totems, and dreams of happy 
 hunting grounds, to a conception of a cubical city 
 built of jewel stones, and having streets paved with 
 gold. 
 
 As for the traders who might have learned some- 
 thing about this latest development of Indian culture — 
 this picture writing — it is enough to say that the one 
 thought constantly animating their minds was to ex- 
 change a pint of rum, or six cents' worth of red paint, 
 for a beaver skin worth ten dollars in the white settle- 
 ments. The poet-naturalist of Concord wrote that 
 "trade curses everything it handles," and no men in 
 the history of civilization and commerce have been so 
 fully engrossed or so utterly degraded and deeply 
 cursed by their trade as those who have dealt with the 
 aboriginal inhabitants of the earth. With them even 
 a thought of fair dealing was, (and is), a manifestation 
 
 82
 
 
 
 s^^>c 

 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 of contemptible weakness; the ability to over reach 
 the sauvage was the only feature of mind worth praise 
 or cultivation. 
 
 In short, through egotistical prejudice and foul 
 greed, we threw away — refused to gather — the full 
 knowledge of how men in the stone age of the world 
 began to develop their higher faculties. 
 
 Nevertheless some knowledge remains. A glance 
 at the arrow heads with notched edges; at the bas- 
 kets and pottery, illuminated with the lightning flashes 
 from the thunder god, and at the ornaments of beaten 
 copper, shows unmistakably that a love of the beautiful 
 was growing among them, and that many of their 
 products portrayed the joy of the artist in his work. 
 
 Consider next the subject of aboriginal warfare. 
 It is in connection with this subject that one needs to 
 forget what his school histories teach him. Says Major 
 Powell in "Indian Linguistic Families"; (p. 39) : 
 
 "Altogether the character of the Indian since the 
 discovery of Columbus has been greatly changed, and 
 he has become far more war-like and predatory. Prior 
 to that time, tribes seem to have lived together in 
 comparative peace, and to have settled their difficulties 
 by treaty methods. Their accumulations were not so 
 great as to be tempting, and their modes of warfare 
 were not exceedingly destructive. * * * Battle for 
 plunder, tribute and conquest was almost unknown. 
 Such intertribal wars as occurred originated from 
 other causes, such as infractions of rights relating to 
 hunting grounds and fisheries, and still oftener preju- 
 dices growing out of their superstitions." 
 
 For the sake of emphasis let this be repeated. 
 83
 
 A History of the 
 
 Of an. 
 
 Fo\m-A ou t\ie Sciota Kavex 
 DISTRICT of CSILICOTB-E. 
 
 Wa,lls ^v^feet in hetjhu 
 
 84
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Although the red men "had not yet entered completely 
 into the agricultural condition," they "were fast pro- 
 gressing from the hunter state." "Battles for plunder, 
 tribute and conquest were almost unknown." 
 
 War never was and never will be advantageous to 
 mankind as a whole, however necessary at times be- 
 tween nations; but for the red men such wars as oc- 
 curred before the whites came were not an unmixed 
 evil. For they fought hand to hand, or at close range; 
 they fought for the love of their country and for glory. 
 Thus they learned to face death with unruffled minds, 
 and to covet something higher than physical wealth. 
 
 Then, too, through wars they built fortifications — 
 they became mound builders, though their mounds 
 were also erected for the purpose of worship. Many 
 earthen forts were found in the Mississippi valley, and 
 we know, now, that it was not some prehistoric tribe 
 of superior intelligence that built them. Nothing 
 proves the white man's lack of intelligent observation 
 so conclusively as does this now abandoned notion 
 about a prehistoric tribe of superior attainments. 
 
 Consider one of these Indian fortifications — that 
 one built where Marietta, Ohio, now stands. There 
 was one square fort, fifty acres in extent (one authori- 
 ty says forty), and another twenty-seven, (or twenty) 
 large. The walls were from twenty to thirty feet wide 
 on the base when surveyed. It is fair to presume that 
 these earth walls were originally surmounted by pali- 
 sades, for wooden forts were common enough. 
 
 There were other \vorks of less extent, in and 
 near these two, including elevated mounds within the 
 squares, a guarded passage way, 680 feet long, to the 
 
 85
 
 A History of the 
 
 Muskingum river, a well-protected cemetery, an en- 
 closed field, a large camp ground, &c. 
 
 At least ten thousand cubic yards of earth were 
 piled into the^walls of the passageway that led down the 
 hillside toward the Muskingum, and how many thou- 
 sands in the remaining walls need not nowbecalculated. 
 What should be considered is the fact that the Indians 
 had neither shovels nor wheel barrows when they built 
 these walls. How many days, therefore, did they la- 
 bor in digging the earth with their rude tools and 
 carrying it up by hand to build those walls ? And yet 
 we have been told in our school histories that the In- 
 dian was by nature lazy! 
 
 Huge mounds were built for graves, as well as 
 for war. The structure that gives its name to Mounds- 
 viHe on the Ohio, is as interesting as any. It is one hun- 
 dred feet in diameter at the base, sixty-eight feet high 
 and fifty-five in diameter at the top. The mound was tun- 
 neled at the surface of the earth, in 1838, and a shaft 
 was sunk from the top down to the tunnel. Thirteen 
 skeletons, with shell beads, copper rings and plates 
 of mica for ornaments, were found in two vaults that 
 had been lined and covered with timbers. 
 
 It is evident that the Indian would work when he 
 had a motive that he considered adequate, but his mo- 
 tives were not always those of the whites. The white 
 man who turned the tunnel in Moundsville mound into 
 a lager-beer saloon, some years ago, was, doubtless, 
 animated by some motives which the red builders of the 
 mound could not have comprehended. And that white 
 man undoubtedly held the entire red race in contempt. 
 
 We have now arrived at what really is the red 
 86
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 man — that is, at the motives that inspired him to ac- 
 tion; for all men should be judged, at last, by their 
 aspirations. 
 
 To learn what the Indian motives were, consider 
 first that every red settlement was literally a communi- 
 ty, especially in the food supply, "The hungry In- 
 dian had but to ask to receive * * * it was his right 
 to demand" a share. 
 
 "Indiscriminate hospitality" followed. We see 
 herein one feature of Indian life that attracted many 
 white men. The white visitors might eat, even though 
 they could not provide food for themselves or others. 
 With men of the habits of thought of the white race, 
 this "indiscriminate hospitality" would, and does, de- 
 stroy industry and thrift. Free food at the kitchen 
 door adds to the number of tramps. It is believed 
 by some philosophers that the selfish love of money — 
 the desire to get rich — is all that sustains the push 
 of enterprise. 
 
 But among the Indians, game was killed and 
 shared, corn was cultivated and shared, and clothing, 
 tools and weapons were made and shared, year after 
 year, without pauperizing the race. The race made 
 progress, in fact, in spite of the influence of a custom 
 that would, it is alleged, pauperize the white race. 
 
 How did it happen, then, that work was done, and 
 progress achieved without the spur of greed? Says 
 Powell: "The peculiar institutions prevailing in this 
 respect gave to each tribe or clan a profound interest 
 in the skill, ability and industry of each member. He 
 was the most valuable person in the community who 
 supplied it with the most of its necessities. For this 
 
 87
 
 A History of the 
 
 reason the successful hunter or fisherman zvas akvays 
 held in high honor, and the woman who gathered great 
 store of seeds, fruits or roots, was one zvho commanded 
 the respect and received the highest approbation of the 
 people. 
 
 A desire for honor among his people was the chief 
 motive that inspired the Indian. And the Jesuits in 
 their "Relations" tell of Indians who, in the pursuit 
 of game, continued the chase until death from ex- 
 haustion overtook them. For the sake of standing 
 zvcll in his community the Indian zvonld sometimes 
 zi'ork till he died. For killing game was unquestion- 
 ably work with the Indians; it required much more 
 strength and endurance than digging ditches or build- 
 ing forts. 
 
 But the common motive of the white man made no 
 appeal to him. 
 
 A Kansas real estate dealer was once good enough 
 to go with the writer of this chapter into the Ouapaw 
 reservation. There, as it happened, we met Ouapaw 
 Charlie, the Indian chief. And as the real estate deal- 
 er and the Indian looked at each other, a feeling of 
 contempt, deep and unrestrained, appeared in the face 
 of the white man, and found expression in his words. 
 That Indian had a thousand acres of the fattest land 
 of America. If he would but cultivate it he might 
 sell the produce for $5,000 a year, clear profit, and 
 rapidly accumulate those evidences of wealth for which 
 the white race strives. But there he lived in a little 
 log hut with its acre or two of corn and vegetables. 
 He killed rabbits, quails and prairie chickens, now 
 and then, and he often fished in the nearby stream: 
 
 88
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 but his food was coarse and his clothing worse. The 
 Kansas man did not beheve God meant that such be- 
 ings should cumber the earth. 
 
 But while the Kansas man talked the Indian gazed 
 back at him with a feeling of contempt equally deep 
 and hearty. The Kansas man had been "booming" a 
 townsite. He had been working day and night. His 
 eyes were red from lack of sleep. His hands trem- 
 bled from nervous exhaustion. The "boom" had "gone 
 broke." Rest and peace were words but dimly under- 
 stood by this feverishly energetic man of business. 
 Could he have come into the possession of Charlie 
 Ouapaw's acres he would have obtained less comfort 
 from them than the Indian did, for he would have 
 surveyed a town site immediately, and started another 
 "boom," with all its deadly nervous exhaustion. 
 
 Ouapaw Charlie was not condemned by this white 
 man for failing to use his abundant leisure in the study 
 of literature, or the study of art, or the study of nat- 
 ure. He was not condemned for any ill use of leisure. 
 He was condemned for having leisure. Why didn't 
 he plow and sow and reap from sun to sun, and do the 
 chores by lantern light? That was the query of the 
 indignant man from Kansas. 
 
 The bald truth is that the Indian's habit of thought 
 was in exact accord with the Christian precept which 
 says; "Having food and raiment be ye therewith con- 
 tent." And he used some of his abundant leisure in 
 ornamenting his weapons, and in making petrographs. 
 
 The Indian government was, perhaps, the loosest 
 bond that ever held peoples together. It was a simple 
 democracy so far as it was like anything called govern- 
 
 89
 
 A History of the 
 
 Andeot Fottificatioes near Newark, Licking Coaotyi Obiftari 
 
 90
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 ment among the whites. Important matters were con- 
 sidered by the whole people in open council, and in 
 these councils the women often had a part, and their 
 advice was considered. The majority of the whole 
 tribe decided to follow this or that course; in many 
 cases a tribe would unanimously agree on some im- 
 portant matter. But when a majority considered one 
 course advisable the minority was free to follow its 
 own course; and even when all were agreed, their 
 fickleness soon divided them. 
 
 As for the chiefs, the whole community constantly 
 weighed the merits of each member of it, and the in- 
 dividual's influence was in exact proportion to his abili- 
 ties. A war chief was an able fighting man ; the sa- 
 chems were the most astute statesmen and diplomats. 
 But the ruler ruled only by influence — by advice and 
 example — not as a despot. Each individual might do 
 as he pleased even to making war when peace had been 
 declared by the chiefs. 
 
 By dwelling on the good qualities only of the In- 
 dian, one easily comes to believe that he was, if a 
 "little lower than the angels," not far from as good as 
 the white man. It is worth while to remember that 
 he was of a lower race — one far less developed than 
 the white race. In ferocity the American Indians were 
 unsurpassed. They continually acted on the theory 
 that "hanging was too good" for certain offences. They 
 burned captured enemies to death, and prolonged the 
 torture. In doing this the}'' were animated by various 
 motives; they did it for revenge and to awe the tribe 
 to which the prisoner belonged, hoping thus to prevent 
 future aggressions in the same direction. 
 
 91
 
 A History of the 
 
 That is to say they tortured a prisoner to death — 
 burned him aHve — in order "to protect their homes." 
 
 They sometimes tortured prisoners at the stake 
 through rehgious motives — as a duty to their gods — 
 but never to make converts, or restrain conscience. 
 
 But behind all these motives was the pleasure which 
 undeveloped men, and degenerates, feel when they see 
 another in pain. As a race these undeveloped men 
 found intense delight in the prolonged suffering of 
 their victims. When La Salle's agents went among 
 the Iroquois to get permission to build a fort at Niaga- 
 ra, a victim was burned by way of entertaining them. 
 
 It is asserted by some writers that ferocity was 
 cultivated as a virtue, and pity condemned as a vice 
 by the Indian. It is certain that in their gatherings 
 each man rose to his feet and boasted of his deeds of 
 prowess — of the scalps he had taken, and the tortures 
 he had inflicted. It was not idle boasting either. The 
 scalps were in evidence, the audience knew the state- 
 ments to be true. And when they approved the boast- 
 ing words the hearts of the boys burned with an eager 
 ambition to do deeds of which they might boast in like 
 manner. Red boys were taught to hunt for scalps. 
 But in the course of nature — of evolution — the har- 
 vesting of corn, and the making of copper ornaments, 
 and the carving of petrographs, were coming to oc- 
 cupy much more time than the gathering of scalps. 
 They were taming themselves while they tamed wolves 
 and made preserves for bears. 
 
 The Indian's idea of love has been much discussed, 
 but we will never doubt that red mothers loved their 
 children as white mothers love theirs. In the rela- 
 
 92
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 tions between the sexes, however, it seems impossible 
 that what we call heroic unselfish love, (such, for in- 
 stance, as Ruskin bore for his unworthy wife), w^as 
 ever known among them. Passion was unrestrained. 
 Indulgence was no cause for shame. The unfaithful 
 wife was sometimes punished. Grosseilliers and Rad- 
 isson "observed with much admiration," says a Jesuit 
 writer, "that one tribe of Indians cut off the noses" of 
 unfaithful wives. The unfaithful man was, of course, 
 never punished. The man without sin could not be 
 found to cast the first stone. The Indians had no con- 
 ception of what we call sexual morality. The girls 
 might do as they pleased. The guests of the tribe — 
 even the white trader who came to swindle them, in 
 after years — received not only his food, but a wife. 
 And when the Indian came to visit the whites he was, 
 at times, not a little astonished and indignant because 
 they were not equally hospitable. In short, the Indians 
 were wholly unmoral in sexual matters. In some 
 tribes they were too vile to be discussed by self re- 
 specting men. 
 
 In other morals they were little better. They would 
 lie for fun, and for gain. It is true that treaties be- 
 tween the whites and the Indians were usually broken 
 by the whites. It would have afflicted an Indian with 
 syncope had he moved swiftly enough to get ahead 
 of the whites in breaking treaties. Nevertheless, it is 
 certain that the aboriginal Indians would strive by 
 lying and deceit to gain advantages over their neigh- 
 bors. And all of this but proves that he was a lower 
 race of men — that is, not so far developed as the whites. 
 
 In religion the Indian believed in many super- 
 93
 
 A History of the 
 
 natural beings or spirits. He did not believe in one 
 supreme Gitche Manitou until the white man came. 
 The early missionaries were led into error, in this 
 matter, by asking leading questions. The religion 
 of the Indian was, in short, a belief in devils — a be- 
 lief quite as sincere and as intelligent as that of Milton, 
 however. Among the Natchez, and apparently among 
 some Arkansas Indians, they had arrived at that state 
 of mental development where men were employed con- 
 tinually as priests. It was a cruel priesthood. The 
 whole system of Indian worship was, essentially, a 
 series of attempts to bribe the gods into granting fa- 
 vors and withholding evils, but their fear of devils 
 was very much stronger and more influential with them 
 than their hope of pleasures. 
 
 Nevertheless, if approached with sympathy, in- 
 stead of prejudice — if the student is not quite sure 
 that he has a monopoly of the knowledge of God — 
 the Indian religions, so far as known, are worth study. 
 The Indians saw in the blossoms of spring "the power 
 that catches out of chaos charcoal, water, lime, or 
 what not, and fastens them down into a given form," 
 and they called that power a spirit. "And we shall 
 not diminish but strengthen our conception of this 
 creative energy by recognizing its presence in lower 
 states of matter than our own," for it is "properly 
 called spirit." He saw that the bird **is little more 
 than a drift of air brought into form by plumes," and 
 that "in the throat of the bird is given the voice of 
 the air," A spirit was made tangible in this drift and 
 voice of air. A god that was not always evil was 
 found "in that running brook of horror on the ground," 
 
 94
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 the serpent. They believed gods move in a mysterious 
 way their wonders to perform, and plant their foot- 
 steps in the sea and ride upon the storm. As they 
 gazed into the glories of the sunset they thought and 
 said they "could almost see, through opening vistas 
 into heaven." And when the milky way lay white 
 across the vault of the purple night they said with 
 hushed voices, "it is the pathway of the departed souls." 
 
 They had an unquestioning faith in the immortality 
 of the soul. Whenever a Natchez chief died, says 
 Father le Petit, (Jesuit Relations, vol. xlviii), "the 
 women (wives) are always strangled to follow (him), 
 except when they have infants at the breast, in which 
 case they continue to live for the purpose of nourish- 
 ing them. And zve often see many zvho endeavor to 
 find nurses, or who themselves strangle their infants 
 so that they shall not lose the right of sacrificing them- 
 selves." Neither by argument or force could the 
 French keep these wives from following their dead 
 chiefs. They had never heard of a city whose walls 
 were made of diamonds and whose streets were paved 
 with gold, but they dreamed of a land where lakes and 
 streams andprairiesand forests and hillsand mountains 
 forever charmed the eye; where the ills of life were un- 
 known; where peace reigned; where friends gathered; 
 where joy was untainted. And to that land they fain 
 would go. 
 
 Unfortunately for the race the Indians saw the 
 work of an evil spirit and nothing else in almost every 
 case of sickness. The work of their medicine men was 
 horrible and destructive. Their practices killed where 
 rational nursing would have saved. The villages of the 
 
 95
 
 'A History of the 
 
 Indians generated diseases because of the utter lack of 
 knowledge of the proper way to dispose of offal. They 
 were inexpressibly filthy. They were worse even than 
 the modern wdiite villagers who dig wells between 
 barns and cesspools, and ascribe the subsequent cases 
 of sickness to the providence of God. 
 
 We think of the Indians as a healthy race, made 
 robust by hardships endured in early life. It is a 
 savage as well as an erroneous idea. The Indian suf- 
 fered hardships and tortures voluntarily in order to 
 toughen his fibre, and such acts helped him mentally, 
 very likely, but they weakened his body. The lack of 
 sanitation, the hardships of unsheltered lives, the prac- 
 tices due to superstition, and famine due to thoughtless 
 Indulgence, were the chief causes of death among the 
 Indians. Inability to cope w^ith disease, and to look 
 ahead to a time wdien food would surely be scarce, were 
 the causes that exterminated some tribes, rather than 
 war — that is to say, in the days before the whites came. 
 Other tribes survived because their habits and practices 
 were less destructive. 
 
 As one reads of the life of the Indians when the 
 wdiites first saw them, and as one gains a knowledge 
 of their lives as seen by whites among them, even in 
 the modern days, it becomes evident that the red men 
 were in many ways merely a human race less de- 
 veloped than the wdiites, and wnth a smaller capacity for 
 self-development. "They are like children," has been 
 said by a thousand white men who knew them well. 
 The w^ords are accurately descriptive. They were, and 
 they are children. In their villages they drummed and 
 sang and danced, day and night ; they played tricks and 
 
 96
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 cracked jokes and told stories that made the audiences 
 shout with laughter. 
 
 To these tribes of undeveloped men — of children — 
 came the whites bringing a book which, they said, 
 (and believed), contained the Word of Life. Two 
 courses were then open to the whites in their treat- 
 ment of the Indians, and very good directions for fol- 
 lowing each course were to be found in their Word of 
 Life. There was the method of dealing with men 
 which was laid down in the Sermon on the Mount. 
 A notable command, (not yet fully comprehended), 
 that was found in connection with the Sermon on the 
 Mount plan said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself," and the context of this command explained 
 that it zn'os to be applied more particularly to inferior 
 people. The white men might have followed this plan, 
 if they had comprehended it, but they didn't compre- 
 hend it. The story of the Son of God coming to the 
 earth to serve beings lower than angels was as pearls 
 under their feet. 
 
 The other plan was found in the account of the 
 Israelitish invasion of Canaan. The whites who came 
 to America comprehended that plan very well, but they 
 didn't adopt that either. They believed themselves 
 the true and only accepted children of God, and that 
 a Canaan was before them, but they could not bring 
 themselves to wage a war of extermination against 
 the red inhabitants. For they had left their homes 
 proclaiming in one way and another that the first ob- 
 ject of their migration was "to preach and baptize 
 into the Christian religion, and by the propagation of 
 the Gospel, to recover out of the armies of the devil, 
 
 97
 
 A History of the 
 
 a number of poor and miserable souls wrapt up unto 
 death in almost invincible ignorance, * * * and to 
 add our myte to the Treasury of Heaven." They did 
 not wish to add their "myte" by immediately exter- 
 minating all the Indians. 
 
 Carlyle said that "true Guidance [is] properly, if 
 he knew it, the prime want of man." It was the prime 
 want of the red men, (and of all undeveloped men), 
 beyond question, and it ought to have been given to 
 him in a way that would have enforced "loving obe- 
 dience." The thought is idle now, but suppose the 
 whites had asked the Indians for pottery or baskets 
 or corn, instead of furs, offering in exchange house- 
 hold implements and tools as well as the harmless if 
 silly mirrors, beads and trinkets. It is almost con- 
 ceivable that all whites, being professed Christians, 
 might have treated all Indians as the Quakers did 
 some, or as the Moravians treated the Delawares in 
 Gnadenhutten, (the story of which shall be told) — 
 might have turned the wildmen into industrious, peace- 
 loving agriculturists, thus deciding the land question 
 before it arose. 
 
 It is conceivable that the whites might have given 
 the Indian herded cattle and tame fowls, in time, and 
 thus have fixed him in his sedentary pursuits, while 
 they promoted his mental powers by a demand for the 
 simple goods and ornaments he was able to make. 
 They might have made a Gnadanhutten of every In- 
 dian village in the land. This is the most important 
 statement in this book. The Moravians took wild 
 Delawares — Indians who lived wild lives, and were, 
 moreover, exasperated at ill treatment received from 
 
 98
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 the whites — and out of them made sober, earnest, 
 stump-grubbing farmers. 
 
 There is even a practical side to this idle fancy. 
 By adopting the Quaker and Moravian ideas, all the 
 merciless slaughter, and, (here we are practical), the 
 greater part of the infinite waste and expense of the 
 Indian wars, would have been saved. We hope that 
 this practical consideration may excuse the mention 
 of such a sentimental proceeding as the application of 
 Christian principals to a business transaction. 
 
 Sad to relate the white man did nothing like this. 
 On the contrary the two white peoples who came to 
 America in the Seventeenth Century utterly checked 
 and turned back the Indian's natural current of evolu- 
 tion. 
 
 In proof of this assertion consider the effect of the 
 rum — how the squaws with trembling limbs hastened 
 to hide all weapons when the trader arrived. Con- 
 sider the smallpox and other diseases which the whites 
 introduced among the red men. 
 
 Consider the effect of what is called the innocent 
 trade that the whites established. The whites offered 
 a variety of goods that were always tempting, and in 
 some cases very useful to the Indians. But the whites 
 wanted furs only in exchange and in order to get the 
 goods offered for furs, the Indians abandoned all other 
 pursuits to go hunting. The Indian had been "fast 
 progressing from the hunter state," but the white de- 
 mand for skins stopped that progress and turned him 
 back to the slaughter of wild beasts. From 1610 until 
 long after the end of the Eighteenth Century the whites 
 assiduously cultivated the fur trade, and then won- 
 
 99
 
 A History of the 
 
 dered why it was the Indians preferred the hunter's 
 life to that of a stump-grubbing farmer! They made 
 liquor the chief article of exchange, and yet the whites 
 — even the historians — were disgusted because the In- 
 dian became a drunken beggar. 
 
 Consider the effect of the guns which were sold 
 to some tribes and not to others. Says the Jesuit Re- 
 lation for 1659-60: 
 
 "The Dutch took possession of these regions and 
 conceived a fondness for the beaver * * * and in 
 order to secure them in greater number they furnished 
 those people with firearms, with which it was easy to 
 conquer; * * * ?V has also put into their heads that 
 idea of sovereign sway to zvhich they aspire, mere bar- 
 barians although they are, with an ambition so lofty." 
 
 But the posession of arms and the greed of domin- 
 ion were only the beginning of the cultivation of the 
 red man's ferocity. In the journal of Father Le 
 Moyne, written while on a mission to the Onondagas, 
 in 1654, he describes at length a speech which he made 
 to the Indians on August 10. This journal can be 
 found in the Jesuit Relation for 1653-54, Thwaite's 
 edition, p. iii. 
 
 'T opened the proceedings with public prayers," 
 says the Father and when that was ended, "I told 
 them that in my speech, I had nineteen words to lay be- 
 fore them." That is, he had nineteen propositions and 
 statements to make, each of which was emphasized by 
 a present. Of the first seven of these, nothing need 
 be said here, but to quote the words of the father, "the 
 purpose of the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh pres- 
 ents was to give each of these Iroquois Nations a 
 
 100
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 hatchet to be used in the new war in which they were 
 engaged with the Cat Nation." 
 
 A white missionary sicked on the Iroquois dogs to 
 devour the unfortunate Eries. And the Abbe Piquet 
 was the most active and the most influential man in 
 Canada in instigating those bootless raids made by the 
 converted Abenakas and IMohawks on the helpless set- 
 tlers of New England previous to 1750. 
 
 Even that does not tell all the story. Read the 
 following from Winsor's "Mississippi Basin," (pp. 
 242-243) : 
 
 "The several governments of the English Colonies," writes 
 Colonel Stoddard at this time (1747) to Governor Shirley, "had 
 for three years been persuading the Iroquois 'into a zcar 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.' * * * This failure of the English to support the 
 Indians in wars which the savages undertook for the defence of 
 the Colonies was nothing new." 
 
 This is a most important matter in any considera- 
 tion of the character of the red Americans. Before 
 the white men came "battle for plunder, tribute and 
 conquest was almost unknown," says Powell, the best 
 authority on the history of the red race. But from the 
 time the whites came until the French rule in America 
 was ended, the most conspicuous feature of the history 
 of the white dealings with the Indians is found in the 
 oft-repeated offers of rewards for scalps. The whites 
 steadily incited the Indians to fight, and buying scalps 
 did not cease until the last remnant of European power 
 was swept from the Mississippi valley. 
 
 One reads much about the wickedness of robbing 
 
 lOI
 
 A History of the 
 
 the Indian of his hunting grounds — as if that were the 
 great wrong done him. It is all nonsense. The one 
 injury done him that is worth remembering — the in- 
 jury that was deadly to the white race as well as to the 
 red — was in persuading him to abandon his self-ac- 
 quired opportunity to develop himself, and go hunting 
 for skins and for scalps. 
 
 The hunting grounds of the Indians should have 
 been taken from him to the last acre. The writers 
 who have bewailed his loss of hunting grounds do but 
 show how much they, not the Indians, are to be pitied. 
 And it is chiefly because the white race is still blind to 
 the real wrong done the red that this wretched story 
 is worth some consideration here. It is never in vain 
 to remember that the whites, while boasting of their 
 Christian religion, sowed saltpetre and sulphur, and 
 were inexorably obliged to reap hell-fire. 
 
 It is a most pathetic story — a story of children ta- 
 ken from peaceable play and set to the bloody work of 
 butchers. And when New Orleans had been settled 
 the time was at hand when the English and the French 
 would grasp each other in mortal combat to determine 
 which should have sole opportunity of robbing the un- 
 fortunates — with such results as we shall see. 
 
 102
 
 JOHN LAW. 
 Projector of the Mississippi Scheme.
 
 VI 
 
 WORK OF THE FRENCH IN THE VALLEY. 
 
 Law's Mississippi Company and Law Himself Did Some- 
 thing — Bienville's Way of "Booming" a Town 
 Site — Character of the French-Americans Described 
 by a Candid Priest — Indians Burned Alive by the 
 French at New Orleans — A Southern Gentleman's 
 Opinion of Such Deeds — Reasons for the French 
 Failure as Colonists Plainly Stated by French Priests 
 and Soldiers. 
 
 Stories of the work of the French in the Mississip- 
 pi Valley, after the founding of New Orleans in 171 8, 
 are by no means uninteresting, nor are they without 
 significance. John Law's company began work very 
 earnestly. In June, after the founding of New Or- 
 leans, three ships brought out "colonists, convicts and 
 troops, in all 800 souls." Of the colonists, 148 were 
 
 103
 
 A History of the 
 
 sent up to Natchitoches, on the Red River; 82 were sent 
 to the Yazoo, and 68 remained in New Orleans. There 
 were, it is seen, only 298 colonists among the "800 
 souls," and Bienville wrote that very few carpenters 
 and plowmen were to be found among the colonists. 
 The number of convicts is not stated, but the fact of 
 their presence is significant. 
 
 In October, 171 9, 200 Germans came to settle on 
 a tract of land, twelve miles square, that belonged to 
 Law. Others followed. It was in making a settle- 
 ment of Germans that Law left a permanent impres- 
 sion on the Mississippi Valley. For these Germans 
 could and would work. When Law, after having 
 flooded France with 3,000,000,000 livres of paper mon- 
 ey, fled for life with only 800 livres in coin, the Ger- 
 mans were evicted from the land he had owned. But 
 other land was given them on the river. There they 
 thrived by good work, and to this day the settlement 
 is known as the German coast. 
 
 Besides the Germans the only valuable accessions 
 to the population in 1719 were 500 negro slaves — the 
 first importation of any size. This is not to commend 
 slavery, but to point out the fact that in such a coun- 
 try as Louisiana was then, any workers were better 
 than idlers. Hard manual labor had to be done in un- 
 healthy localities, and the slaves did it then, and they 
 were found equally serviceable in later years, even 
 though slavery was a curse to the whites in the long 
 run. 
 
 In 1 72 1 Bienville sent surveyors to lay out "a suit- 
 able site for a city worthy to become the capital of 
 Louisiana," and Louisiana in those days included the 
 
 104
 
 M ississipp i J ^ alley . 
 
 A Portion of Labat's AIap, 1722. 
 
 10:
 
 A History of the 
 
 •whole Mississippi valley except some of the extreme 
 upper part which was governed from Canada. He 
 wished to remove the seat of government from Mobile 
 to the new city, but, partly from a love of opposing the 
 Governor, his associates refused to do so. What Bien- 
 ville did at New Orleans, then, is worth remembering. 
 By his orders streets were cut through the brush, and 
 were ditched ; palisades were erected around the town ; 
 a levee was made (the first attempt to confine the Mis- 
 sissippi to its channel), and warehouses were built to 
 accommodate trade. By practical, permanent improve- 
 ments, Bienville brought all the traders of Mobile to 
 the new town site, and the Government officials were 
 obliged to follow to the new center of population. 
 
 In 1724, a company of Jesuits came bringing or- 
 ange trees, fig trees, and indigo plants. They also gave 
 attention to the native myrtle bush that produced a 
 valuable wax. On April 11, 1726, Bienville gave them 
 a tract of land, 3,600 feet front on the river and 9,000 
 feet deep, where now is found the heart of the city, 
 together with enough slaves to work the tract; and 
 here they made a plantation that was in its day a sort 
 of agricultural experiment station and therefore valu- 
 able. 
 
 In 1727, a company of Ursuline nuns came to 
 open a school for girls — the first of the kind in the val- 
 ley — and to attend to the sick in the hospital that was 
 built soon after the settlement was made. A letter 
 written by sister Hochard, of this company, soon after 
 her arrival, contains the following description of life 
 as she saw it in times of plenty among the official and 
 wealthy class in the young city. 
 
 106
 
 Mississippi P^ alley. 
 
 "Although I do not as yet know perfectly the province called 
 Louisiana, still I will attempt, dear father, to give you some 
 details about it. I assure you that I can hardly realize that I 
 am on the banks of the Mississippi, because there is here, in cer- 
 tain things, as much magnificance as in France, and as much 
 politeness and refinement. Gold and velvet stuffs are commonly 
 used, although they cost three times as much as in Rouen. Corn- 
 bread costs ten cents a pound, eggs from forty-five to fifty 
 cents a dozen, milk fifteen cents for a measure that is half 
 that of France. We have pine apples — the most excellent of all 
 fruit — peas and wild beans, watermelons, potatoes, sabotines — 
 which are very much like our gray renette apples — an abund- 
 ance of figs and pecans, walnut and hickory nuts, which, when 
 eaten too green, act as astringents on the throat. There are 
 also pumpkins. I do not speak of many other kinds of fruit of 
 which I have heard, but with which I am still unacquainted. 
 
 "As to meat, we live on wild beef, venison, wild geese and 
 turkey and a sort of swan, hares, chickens, ducks, teals, 
 pheasants, partridges, quails, and other game. The river abounds 
 in monstrously large fishes, among which the sheepshead must 
 be mentioned as excellent ; and we have also rays, carps, and an 
 infinite number of other fishes unknown in France. A great 
 use is made of chocolate and coffee with milk. We eat bread 
 made of half rice and half wheat flour. We have wild grapes 
 larger than those of France. They do not grow in bunches, 
 but are put on the table in plates in the fashion that prunes are 
 served. 
 
 "The dish most in favor is rice boiled in milk, and what is 
 called sagamite, which consists of Indian corn pounded in a 
 mortar and boiled in water with butter or lard. The whole 
 people of Louisiana regard as most excellent this kind of food." 
 (Translated from the Catholic World by Charles Gayarre. Italics 
 not in original.) 
 
 Meantime there was some little growth of popula- 
 tion elsewhere in the valley. In 1720, Major Pierre 
 Dugue Boisbriant, (he whose wish to marry had been 
 thwarted by Bienville), went up the river with 100 
 men and at a point sixteen miles above Kaskaskia 
 built a fort which he named Chartres. The river chan- 
 
 107
 
 A History of the 
 
 nel has changed to and fro since then, but Chartres 
 Landing still perpetuates the memory of this fort. In 
 1721, Kaskaskia became a parish, and in 1722, Bois- 
 briant, who ruled as commandant of the region, is- 
 sued the first land warrant known to the records of 
 what is now the state of Illinois. 
 
 In 1 72 1, a capitalist named Philip Francois Re- 
 nault brought 200 miners and 500 slaves to the point 
 where Galena now stands, and opened the lead mines 
 found there. In this year, also, the Jesuits established 
 a college and monastery at Kaskaskia, and "Fort Char- 
 tres became not only the headquarters of the comman- 
 dant in Upper Louisiana, but the center of life and 
 fashion in the West," as Monette says. 
 
 The details of this "life and fashion," (as he got 
 them from IMartin, Flint and Stoddard), are given by 
 Monette, who, it should be said, is a most sympathetic 
 recorder of the annals of the French in Louisiana. For 
 the sake of comparison with a frontier manner of life 
 to be described in another chapter the following is 
 worth reading: 
 
 "The early French on the Illinois were remarkable 
 for their easy amalgamation in manners and customs 
 and blood" with the red men. "Their villages sprang 
 up in long narrow streets," with each family home- 
 stead so contiguous that the merry and social villagers 
 could carry on their voluble conversation "each from 
 his own balcony." 
 
 "Each homestead was surrounded by its own sepa- 
 rate enclosure of a rude picket fence. The houses were 
 generally one story high, surrounded by sheds (veran- 
 das) or galleries; the walls were constructed of a rude 
 
 108
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 framework, having upright corner posts and studs, 
 connected horizontally by numerous cross ties, not 
 unHke the rounds of a ladder. These [cross ties] 
 served to hold the *cat [straw or moss] and clay' of 
 which the walls were made and rudely plastered by 
 hand. 
 
 "The chimney was made of similar materials, and 
 was formed by four long corner posts, converging at 
 the top to about one-half, or less than the space below." 
 
 A large -field nearby was fenced for the common 
 use of the villagers. "The season for plowing, plant- 
 ing, reaping and other agricultural operations in the 
 'common field' was regulated by special enactments, 
 or by public ordinance, and to take place simultaneous- 
 ly in each village. Even the form and manner of door 
 yards, gardens and stable yards were regulated by 
 special enactment." 
 
 "The winter dress of the men w-as generally a 
 coarse blanket capote drawn over shirt and long vest," 
 which served both as cloak and hat, "for the hood, 
 attached to the collar behind, hung upon the back and 
 shoulders as a cape, and, when desired, it served to 
 cover the whole head from intense cold. In summer, 
 especially among the couriers dc hois, the head was 
 enveloped in a blue handkerchief, turban like." 
 
 A handkerchief of "fancy colors, wreathed with 
 bright colored ribbons, and sometimes flowers, formed 
 the head dress of females on festive occasions." "The 
 old fashioned short jacket and petticoat, varied to suit 
 the diversities of taste, w^as the most common over 
 dress of the w'omen. The feet in winter were pro- 
 tected by Indian moccasins, or the clog shoes; in 
 
 109
 
 A History of the 
 
 summer they were all barefooted, except on festive 
 occasions," when they wore "light moccasins, gor- 
 geously ornamented with brilliants of porcupine quills, 
 shells, beads, lace, ingeniously wrought" over the 
 whole above the sole. 
 
 The traders kept a heterogenous stock of goods 
 in their largest rooms, where the assortment was fully 
 displayed to the gaze of the purchasers. "The young 
 men who wished to see the world sought occupation 
 as voyageurs and their return was greeted with smiling 
 faces, and signalized by balls and dances at which the 
 whole village assembled." 
 
 "The commandants were invested with despotic 
 authority." "Learning and science were terms beyond 
 their comprehension." "The priest was their oracle 
 in matters of learning as well as in the forms and ob- 
 servances of religion." "On politics and the affairs 
 of the nation they never suffered their minds to feel 
 a moment's anxiety." "Day after day passed by in 
 contentment and peaceful indolence." (Italics not in 
 the original.) 
 
 And yet, being agriculturists, they did raise food 
 for export. In 1745 the Illinois country sent 400,000 
 pounds of grain to New Orleans, the French popu- 
 lation being then not far from 900 souls, all told. 
 
 Other villages near Chartres were Prairie du 
 Rocher, with twelve dwelling houses in 1770, and St. 
 Phillippe with sixteen dwellings. Cahokia (called 
 Kaoquias by the French), was at this date a long 
 straggling village of forty-five dwellings and a church. 
 
 A trading post was established at or near the site 
 of New Madrid as early as 1740 (according to tra- 
 
 IIO
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 dition). The region was notable for its number of 
 bears, and the "principal occupation" of the inhabi- 
 tants "was the chase of that animal, and the prepara- 
 tion and sale of bears' oil." Hence the voyageiirs 
 named it "L'Anse de la Graisse" — Grease Bay. 
 
 St. Genevieve was not established in Missouri until 
 about 1755. 
 
 Following the Illinois settlements came the occu- 
 pation of the Wabash country. The Fox Indians 
 living around the Wisconsin River proved implacable 
 enemies to the French, in the Eighteenth century. 
 Neither blandishments, nor attacks that drove them 
 temporarily from their homes, could bring these In- 
 dians to the French interests, and the portages at the 
 Fox River and the Chicago River, and the St. Joseph- 
 Kankakee portage became, in spite of fortified posts, so 
 dangerous that the voyageiirs from the St. Lawrence 
 began, as early as 1705, to use the portage from the 
 Maumee to the Wabash. 
 
 This portage had been avoided in the Seventeenth 
 century because of fear of the Iroquois. The route led 
 up the Maumee to the St. Mary's branch, the present site 
 of Ft. Wayne, Indiana. A portage of three leagues 
 brought the courciirs de hois to a branch of the Wa- 
 bash. According to Father Marest, a stockade was 
 built on the upper Wabash previous to 171 2, but it 
 appears that the route was not popular previous to 
 17 16. The post on the upper Wabash was called 
 Ouiatanon. Lafayette, Ind., stands on the site of 
 Ouiatanon. It stood at the mouth of Little River. In 
 1705 some enterprising coiircurs de hois collected 
 15,000 skins on the Wabash and took them to Mobile, 
 
 III
 
 A History of the 
 
 where they were received joyously, because it was the 
 first arrival from the Wabash. 
 
 The fortified trading post of Vincennes was estab- 
 lished where Vincennes, Indiana, now stands, by i\Ion- 
 sieur Vincennes in 1722. But Vincennes did not be- 
 come a settlement, properly so called, until 1734 or 
 1735, when a number of families made homes there. 
 
 Father du Poisson, describing what he saw in a 
 journey made from New Orleans to the Arkansas, 
 beginning ]\Iay 25, 1727, says (Jesuit Relations, vol. 
 Ixvii) : 
 
 "A tract of land granted by the company of the 
 Indies to a private individual, for the purpose of clear- 
 ing that land and making it valuable, is called a con- 
 cession. * * * 'pi'ig concessionaries are, therefore, 
 the gentlemen of the country. The greater part of 
 them are not people who would leave France, but they 
 equipped vessels and filled them with superintendents, 
 stewards, storekeepers, clerks, and workmen of various 
 trades, with provisions and all kinds of goods. They 
 [these workmen], had to plunge into the woods to set 
 up cabins, to choose their ground, and burn the cane 
 brakes and trees. This beginning seemed very hard 
 to people not at all accustomed to that kind of labor; 
 the superintendents and their subordinates, for the 
 most part, amused themselves in places where a few 
 Frenchmen had already settled, and there they con- 
 sumed their provisions. The work had hardly begun 
 when the concession was ruined; the workmen, ill-paid 
 or ill-fed, refused to work, or himself took his pay; 
 the warehouses were pillaged. Do yon not recognise 
 in this the Frciichinanf" 
 
 112
 
 Mississippi J^allcy. 
 
 "There are also people who have no other occu- 
 pation than that of roving about : ist. The women or 
 girls taken from the hospitals of Paris, or from the 
 Salpetriere, or other places of equally good repute, 
 who find that the laws of marriage are severe, and the 
 management of a house too irksome. A voyage of 
 400 leagues does not terrify these heroines; I already 
 know of two of them whose adventures would furnish 
 materials for a romance. 2nd. The travellers; these 
 for the most part are young men sent to the ]\Iissis- 
 sippi 'for various reasons' by their relatives, or by the 
 law, and who, finding that the land lies too low for 
 digging, prefer to hire themselves to row and ply 
 from once shore to another. 3rd. The hunters,'' who 
 supplied Xew Orleans with dried buffalo meat, skins 
 and bears' oil, a class of men not reprobated by the 
 father, though most of the writers speak harshly of 
 these wood rangers. 
 
 In the course of forty years after Iberville came to 
 Louisiana, the French, by an unhurried progression 
 over easy water routes, made settlements at Natchez; 
 at Natchitoches, on the Red River; on the IMississippi, 
 near the Arkansas ; on the Yazoo ; in the region around 
 Kaskaskia and Fort Chartres (five villages there) ; on 
 the Illinois River above Lake Peoria ; at Vincennes, 
 and near the Wabash-IMaumee portage. 
 
 In all these years they suffered but one serious 
 attack from the Indians, though many small ones were 
 endured. On November 29 (one account says 28), 
 T729, the Natchez arose and wiped out the French in- 
 habitants and garrison at the village of Rosalie that 
 stood where Natchez now stands. Five men escaped, 
 
 113
 
 54 History of the 
 
 and two, a tailor and a wagon maker, with the attrac- 
 tive women, and the children were kept alive. 
 
 Aided by the Choctaws, the French took ample 
 revenge, and Governor Perier wrote on August i, 
 1730, concerning some of the red prisoners captured: 
 
 "Laterly I have burned here four men and two 
 women, and sent the rest to St. Domingo." 
 
 Charles Gayarre, the New Orleans historian, him- 
 self a Frenchman, says of this burning. "It was not 
 only an act of useless cruelty, but of exceedingly bad 
 policy. * * * It must have looked, in the estima- 
 tion of the Indians, as an approval of their national 
 custom. * * * But what is remarkable and char- 
 acteristic is the cool, business-like indifference, and the 
 matter of fact tone with which Governor Perier in- 
 forms his government of the auto-da-fe which has 
 taken place by his orders." 
 
 These words are worth remembering because they 
 show how all Southern gentlemen regard such atro- 
 cities. There is a very great difference between the 
 Southern gentlemen and the upstarts, (sons of former 
 overseers, in many cases), who describe themselves as 
 "leading citizens," and are found heading the mobs 
 that burn negroes alive. 
 
 On November 15, 1731, Law's Mississippi Com- 
 pany took final leave of Louisiana by turning the coun- 
 try over to the King. It is a curious fact in French 
 history that this company continued to exist long after 
 every other scheme planned by Law failed. Being 
 freed from the grasp of private monopoly the young 
 city was now able to open free commerce with the 
 French West Indies and the home country. By the 
 
 114
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 labor of slaves the colonists were producing indigo, 
 rice, tobacco and lumber for export. The tobacco is 
 worth special notice because at a point fifty-five miles 
 above New Orleans a kind of tobacco is yet produced, 
 (400 pounds to the acre, at that), which is famous 
 as Louisiana perique. 
 
 And yet when Bienville left Louisiana in 1743, 
 the whole province had a population of only 4,000 
 French and 2,000 negroes, and but for the supplies 
 of food sent down the river from the Illinois, New 
 Orleans would have been starved from the face of the 
 map. In 1730 Bienville reported that for three months 
 the colonists had "subsisted on the seeds of reeds and 
 wild grass." The Marquis de Vaudreuil, who suc- 
 ceeded Bienville, "notified his home government in 
 1744, that if an importation of flour had not arrived 
 he could not have controlled his famished garrisou." 
 (Winsor.) 
 
 In a letter by Father Vivier, written from the 
 Illinois country, November 17, 1750, he says, "Wheat, 
 as a rule yields only from five to eight fold ; but it must 
 be observed that the lands are tilled in a very careless 
 manner, and that they have never been manured dur- 
 ing the thirty years while they have been cultivated." 
 
 Father Gravier describes one method of curing the 
 sick which he practiced, (Jesuit Relations, vol. Ixv, 
 p. 109) : 
 
 "A small piece of Father Francois Regis's hat, 
 which one of our servants gave me, is the most in- 
 fallible remedy that I know of for curing all kinds of 
 fever." 
 
 Said Bienville in a letter written on April 15, 1735 : 
 115
 
 A History of the 
 
 "I neglect nothing to turn the attention of the in- 
 habitants to agricultural pursuits, but in general they 
 are worthless, lazy, dissolute." And of a company of 
 soldiers that had arrived a short time before writing 
 another letter, he said : 
 
 "There are but one or two men among them whose 
 size is above five feet ; as to the rest, they are under four 
 feet ten inches. With regard to their moral character 
 it is sufficient to state that out of fifty-two, who have 
 lately been sent here, more than one-half have already 
 been whipped for larceny." 
 
 During the summer of 1754, some soldiers of a 
 garrison kept on Cat Island, when exasperated beyond 
 endurance by the cruelty of their commander, killed 
 him, and started through the woods toward South 
 Carolina, but were all captured by Indians sent after 
 them. One killed himself. Two were broken upon the 
 wheel, and one, who was a Swiss from the regiment 
 of Karrer, was placed alive in a wooden cofiin, and by 
 two sergeants sawed in two with a whip saw. 
 
 Father Etienne de Carheil in a letter regarding the 
 work of missionaries at French forts in the interior, 
 (Jesuit Relations, vol. Ixv) says: "These [missions] 
 are reduced to such an extremity that we can no longer 
 maintain them against an infinite multitude of evil 
 acts — acts of brutality and violence; of injustice and 
 impiety; of lewd and shameless conduct." 
 
 As a final view of those Frenchmen who were osten- 
 sibly striving to make a great colony of the IMissis- 
 sippi valley, take this from the "Present State of the 
 Country and Inhabitants, Europeans and Indians, of 
 Louisiana," by "An Officer of New Orleans to his 
 
 116
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Friend at Paris," as translated and printed in London 
 in 1744, (page 11 et seq). 
 
 "Every one studies his own Profit ; the Poor labour 
 for a Week and squander in one day all they have 
 earned in six ; from thence arises the profit of the Pub- 
 lic Houses, which flourish every day. The Rich spend 
 their time in seeing their slaves work to improve their 
 land and get money which they spend in Plays, Balls 
 and Feasts; but the most common pastime of the 
 highest as well as the lowest, and even of the slaves, 
 is Women; so that if there are 500 women, married 
 or unmarried in New Orleans, including all ranks, I 
 don't believe, without exaggeration, that there are ten 
 of them of a blameless character; as for me I know 
 but two of those, and even they are privately talked 
 of. What I say of New Orleans I say of the whole 
 province without being guilty of Slander or Calumny." 
 
 "Laws are observed here much in the same man- 
 ner as in France, or worse. The rich man knows how 
 to procure himself Justice of the Poor, if the affair is to 
 his advantage; but if the poor man is in the right he is 
 obliged to enter into a composition; if the rich is in 
 the wrong the affair is stifled. They deal fairly with 
 such as are very sharp sighted. As the King is 
 at a great distance they make him provide Victuals, 
 Arms and Clothing for troops, which those who keep 
 the offices or magazines sell and put the money in their 
 own pockets; the poor soldier for whom they were 
 designed never so much as seeing them." 
 
 With patient persistence and unsurpassed endurance 
 the austere La Salle staked the trail from Montreal 
 to the mouth of the ^Mississippi. Iberville, a hero of 
 
 117
 
 A History of the 
 
 the French Navy, came to possess the land. The 
 populations that followed were composed of convicts, 
 male and female ; soldiers "under four feet ten inches" 
 in body, mind and morals; colonists whose highest 
 ambition was to find a gold mine, and whose pastime 
 among the "highest as well as the lowest, and even of 
 Slaves, is women." 
 
 The Goths and Vandals who swarmed through the 
 gates of degenerate Rome "did not come a day too 
 soon." The swelling tide from the British colonies 
 that was already trickling through the passes, and wash- 
 ing around the ends of the Alleghany range, had some- 
 thing in it as harsh and bitter as the brine of the sea, 
 but it was to descend on the valley of the great river 
 with the cleansing power of the flood of Noah. 
 
 Ii8
 
 PHILIP, ALIAS MFTACOMF. |-. 
 From the original engraving by Paul Revere.
 
 VII 
 
 THE FRENCH EXPELLED FRO.M THE VALLEY. 
 PART L 
 
 This is to Tell How the Corruption of the French Court 
 Spread Until it Blighted French Trade Among the 
 American Indians and How the French Resorted to 
 Inhuman Warfare to Retain Their Trade — Celeron's 
 Expedition — The Remarkable Attitude of the British 
 Colonists After Celeron's Warning — Work of the 
 British Traders Brings Another French Irruption — 
 First Gun in the War that Ended on the Plains of 
 Abraham. 
 
 The war that destroyed the French power in the 
 Mississippi Valley began, strictly speaking, in an at- 
 tack on Indians, (friendly to the British), who lived 
 on the banks of the Scioto river in the present state 
 of Ohio; it ended, so far as America was concerned, 
 
 119
 
 A History of the 
 
 when Wolfe scaled the Heights of Abraham at Que- 
 bec. But this war was, after all is said, only an 
 outbreak of a chronic state of conflict that had grown 
 out of the earliest efforts of the British to extend 
 their "peaceful commerce" in beaver skins. 
 
 To understand the conditions under which the 
 British colonists drove the French from the Mississippi 
 Valley it is necessary to consider briefly this chronic 
 state of conflict growing out of the competition for 
 furs — especially to consider what the French did in 
 that conflict and their avowed object in fighting. 
 
 As has been noted already, the British were in no 
 degree as venturesome as the French in the fur trade, 
 but the British trade, especially at Albany, grew in 
 spite of the greater enterprise of the French traders. 
 In fact a time came when coureurs-de-bois carried 
 packs of furs down the Mohawk instead of down the 
 St. Lawrence. 
 
 The reason for this growth of trade is readily 
 found. The British undersold the French merchants. 
 As one French merchant said in a letter yet preserved, 
 the Albany traders gave a silver bracelet for two beaver 
 skins where the French trader would have charged 
 ten. 
 
 This difference in price is accounted for by the 
 enormous burden of taxes which the French King 
 laid upon his people, and by the utter dishonesty of 
 the French officials in America. The practices of the 
 French court, so graphically described by Carlyle, nec- 
 essarily spread through all the French domains. "Mon- 
 sieur the Count de Maurepas [the "lightly gyrating" 
 Prime JMinister] is right when he says that the officials 
 
 I20
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 in Canada are looking not for the Western sea but 
 for the sea of beaver," wrote Father Nau, on October 
 
 2, 1735- 
 
 To preserve their fur trade in spite of prices that 
 amounted in a moral point of view to sheer robbery, 
 the French resorted to inhuman warfare. They set 
 the Indians raiding the New England settlements. 
 Said Charlevoix regarding one of these raids: 
 
 "Monsieur de Vaudreuil formed a party of these 
 savages to whom he joined some Frenchmen under 
 the direction of the Sieur de Beaubassin, when they 
 effected some ravages of no great consequence; they 
 killed, however, about 300 men." To this he adds 
 the very significant remark: "The essential point was 
 to commit the Abenakis in such a manner that they 
 could not draw hack." 
 
 The Abenakis, and the Iroquois converts known 
 as the Caughnawagas, (in the Eighteenth Century 
 French diplomacy had fully established priests in the 
 Iroquois villages), were sneaking away from the 
 shadow of the altar to buy goods at Albany; and the 
 French persuaded them to raid the British settlements 
 in New England on the theory that no raider would 
 dare to go to a British town to trade. Every New 
 England settlement within reach was raided by order 
 of the French, and French officers went along to see 
 that the raiding was thoroughly done. Women were 
 slaughtered, parents saw the brains of their babes 
 dashed out against rock or tree, prisoners were tor- 
 tured in ways so shocking that a detailed description 
 cannot now be printed ; and all this was done "to 
 commit the Indians in such fashion that they would 
 
 121
 
 A History of the 
 
 continue to buy French goods at prices rendered ex- 
 cessive by the bald steaHng of which French officials 
 were guilty." 
 
 It was New England alone that suffered from the 
 early raids for the preservation of the French trade. 
 The Caughnawaga Iroquois, (located on the St. Law- 
 rence), could not be trusted to raid toward Albany, 
 because their relatives lived in the Mohawk valley ; and 
 the Abenakis could not be sent there alone because that 
 would rouse the resentment of all the Iroquois. 
 
 In consequence of this freedom from raids, New 
 York's population spread slowly up the Mohawk. 
 The Lutheran Palatines, fleeing from religious perse- 
 cution in Europe, came nearly 3,000 strong, to New 
 York, and were sent by the wily authorities to settle 
 west of Schenectady, because they would serve as a buf- 
 fer in case of French-Indian invasion over the route 
 lying west of the Adirondacks. Their plantations were 
 extended as far as where Rome now stands. Some of 
 them went also to the frontier of Pennsylvania and 
 Virginia. 
 
 In 1727 Governor Burnet, of New York, built at 
 his own expense "a stone house of strength," where 
 Oswego now stands, in order to fend off the French. 
 Here a lively trade was established. 
 
 The French fumed over the advancing settlements 
 of Englishmen, but instead of attacking this "house of 
 strength," they built a trading station where Toronto 
 now stands. 
 
 Meantime, (1726), Joncaire, a Frenchman hving 
 among the Iroquois, had re-established on Niagara 
 River the post La Salle had built, while in 1731 Fort 
 
 122
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Frederick was built at Crown Point, on Lake Cham- 
 plain. Both patriotism and private greed urged the 
 French to establish new posts; for by so doing they 
 hoped to wall in the British, and they knew by expe- 
 rience that every post was a source of wealth to its 
 officers. 
 
 During all the early years of the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury, while British settlers and stations spread west- 
 ward through New York, the British traders of Penn- 
 sylvania, Virginia and the Colonies to the South, had 
 been working across and around the Alleghanies, while 
 their stations were eventually established in the moun- 
 tain passes, and beyond them. Col. Thomas Cresap, 
 whom Winsor calls "a vagrant Yorkshire man, then 
 near forty years old," built, in the winter of 1742-43, 
 a hunting and trading cabin near the upper fork of 
 the Potomac in the extreme west part of what is now 
 Maryland. In 1745 a British trading post was estab- 
 lished on Sandusky Bay, Lake Erie, near the site of 
 the present city of Sandusky, Ohio, and as many as 
 300 traders are said to have gone to the Ohio country 
 every season thereafter, for several years. If anyone 
 wishes a more detailed story of this growth of colonial 
 trade it can be found in Walton's ''Conrad Weiser." 
 
 In 1748, the Ohio company was organized in Vir- 
 ginia for trade and colonization in the Ohio Valley. 
 They applied to the King for a grant of 500,000 acres 
 in that valley, (which Virginia claimed), and they 
 received, by the royal order of May 19, 1749, 200,000, 
 on condition that they settle 100 families on the tract, 
 each year, for seven years, and build a fort to protect 
 them. This done they were to receive an additional 
 
 123
 
 A History of the 
 
 300,000 acres. This company did a little memorable 
 work. They contracted with Col. Thomas Cresap "to 
 lay out and mark a road" from Will's Creek, (now 
 Cumberland, Md.), to the forks of the Ohio. Cresap, 
 with the aid of an Indian named Nemacolin, marked 
 the trees along an old trail that had been occasionally 
 used by the Indians, and created a path fit for sure- 
 footed pack horses. It lay not far from the route of 
 the old National Road, as now found there. 
 
 In 1736, Col. William Mayo from a head spring of 
 the Potomac passed over to the head of a tributary of 
 the Monongahela with a party of surveyors. In 1748,- 
 Dr. Thomas Walker, "a genuine explorer and surveyor, 
 a man of mark," reached the Cumberland River, and 
 in 1750, passed through and named the Cumberland 
 Gap, after the Duke of Cumberland. 
 
 The British population that was crowding west- 
 ward toward the Great Lakes and swelling to the crests 
 of the Alleghanies, occupied a territory of 5 144 16 
 square miles, (Census Report of 1850), and numbered 
 1,160,000. The French who were to try to stop the 
 westward movement of the British, numbered no more 
 than 80,000, and they claimed in addition to all Canada, 
 the entire Mississippi Valley with its area of 1,217,562 
 square miles. If the French were to hold their claims, 
 to the Mississippi Valley, they needed to bestir them- 
 selves — and that they did. 
 
 But before telling what they did to rivet their 
 claims to the Great Basin, it seems worth while to con- 
 sider whether the British ought to have respected the 
 claim of the French. 
 
 The French claim was based on the work of La 
 124
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Salle in discovering the mouth of the Mississippi, 
 and in building forts within the watershed of the Great 
 River. Under the law and practice of nations, this 
 certainly gave them what is now called the right of pre- 
 emption to the whole basin. They had the right to 
 establish a great French colony there. But when that 
 much is conceded, the fact remains that the French 
 nation had failed to do anything in furtherance of 
 this right — they had failed to colonize the region. 
 The widely scattered posts that had been established 
 could no more be called lasting or sufficient "improve- 
 ments on the claim," than the planting of an apple 
 seed would have been, in recent years, sufficient to give 
 an American settler a right to a quarter section of land 
 in Kansas as a timber claim. The Mississippi Valley, 
 with its capacity to support 200,000,000 people, in the 
 middle of the i8th century contained less than 7,000 
 Frenchmen, including slaves; and more than half of 
 these were concentrated around New Orleans. The 
 whole region was an unscarred wilderness. 
 
 Although there were no statutes or treaties that 
 covered the condition of affairs in the Mississippi Val- 
 ley, the French law governing individual settlers at the 
 posts is a strong point to urge against the French claim 
 to the whole valley. To any French settler of good 
 standing in the church the King would concede a 
 reasonable tract of land on condition that he improve 
 it within seven years. If within seven years he failed 
 to improve the claim to the satisfaction of the com- 
 mandant of the post, the land could be taken by another. 
 The Mississippi Valley, in the middle of the Eighteenth 
 Century, was by the French standard, wild land, be- 
 
 125
 
 A History of the 
 
 cause they had not made the proper improvements; 
 and it was therefore open to the claims of whomso- 
 ever would improve it. 
 
 To look at the matter in another point of view, the 
 French were trying to take the wild region for a vast 
 game preserve, wherein to gather furs, while the Brit- 
 ish were trying to get it for home sites. The quarrel 
 was somwhat like that between actual settlers and cat- 
 tlemen on the wild land west of the Mississippi after 
 our Civil war. Exact justice always gave the actual 
 settler his claim wherever he chose to stake it. 
 
 But laying aside all such arguments as these (al- 
 though an international court would consider them), 
 there is one more point to be made for the British, and 
 it is one that is decisive. The argument is as follows : 
 For more than fifty years the French, in order to 
 preserve their trade with the Indians, had deliberately 
 waged an inhuman warfare on the British settlements 
 that were within convenient reach of the French posts. 
 In due time they determined to monopolize the trade 
 of the Mississippi Valley, as they had tried to monopo- 
 lize that of the St. Lawrence. To do that they began 
 attacking the British traders found west of the Alle- 
 ghanies, and then they established forts in that region. 
 The British colonists were fully justified in believing 
 that raiders would be sent from the French posts west 
 of the Alleghanies as they had been sent from the posts 
 on the St. Lawrence. 
 
 It is especially important to note that the raids 
 against New England were not made to preserve Can- 
 ada from invasion ; the British colonies had no thought 
 of pushing settlements to the Canada line at any time 
 
 126
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 before or during these raids. The raids were made 
 solely to protect a trade that in a moral point of view 
 was robbery; and they were made at times when the 
 French and British kings were nominally at peace. 
 Therefore to drive the French from the region west of 
 the Alleghenies was an act of self defence. Let it be 
 repeated for the sake of emphasis, that during fifty 
 years the French had relentlessly pushed their inhuman 
 warfare, and the British were then justified in sweep- 
 ing such neighbors from the continent. 
 
 With his sympathies excited by the magnificent 
 achievements of La Salle, and his prejudices aroused 
 against the British for the arrogance and oppression 
 with which they treated the United States, more than 
 one American writer has said the Mississippi Valley 
 was rightfully the property of the French, and that 
 predatory aggression took it from them. But it is not 
 so. For, even though it be allowed that the Great 
 Basin was rightfully French land, it was not predatory 
 aggression that took it. It was an aggression in self 
 defence. 
 
 In fact, as shall appear, the French shifted the war 
 from New England to a point back of the Alleghanies. 
 They made an attack on British traders who were in 
 the Ohio country, where they had a right to be under 
 the treaty last made by the two nations (Utrecht). It 
 shall further appear that when the British colonies ex- 
 pressed a fear that if French posts were established 
 west of the Alleghanies, the raiding that had been done 
 in New England would be continued in Pennsylvania 
 and Virginia, the fear was fully justified. The truth is 
 that in the state of civilization then prevailing the con- 
 
 127
 
 A History of the 
 
 tinent was not large enough to hold the two peoples, 
 and a war that would expel or subjugate one of them 
 was unavoidable. 
 
 In a larger view this war was but an incident in a 
 prolonged conflict between rival races which is yet 
 waged, though at present not with guns. 
 
 The first French move into the Alleghany region 
 was made in 1749. On June 15 JMonsieur Celoron de 
 Bienville (commonly called Celoron only), left La 
 Chine with a party that included fourteen officers, 
 twenty regular soldiers, 180 Canadians, a band of In- 
 dians, and a priest, all in twenty-three canoes. Going 
 to the mouth of the creek that empties into Lake Erie, 
 near W^estfield, N. Y., they passed over to Lake Chau- 
 tauqua, and thence to the Alleghany river, which they 
 reached on July 29. There Celoron began the particu- 
 lar work of his mission. Drawing his forces up in lines 
 he buried a plate of lead in the south bank, and further 
 down the stream he attached the royal coat of arms 
 (painted on tin), to a tree. After that was done a 
 notary public, brought for the purpose, made a formal 
 written statement of what had been done. 
 
 The lead plate was inscribed as follows (transla- 
 tion by Parkman) : 
 
 Year 1749, in the Reign of Louis Fifteenth, King of France, 
 We, Celoron, commanding the detachment sent by the Marquise 
 de la Galissonniere, commanding general of New France, to 
 restore tranquility in certain villages of these cantons, have buried 
 this plate at the confluence of the Ohio and the Kanaouagon 
 (Conewango), this 29th July, as a token of renewal of posses- 
 sion heretofore taken of the aforesaid River Ohio, of all streams 
 that fall into it, and all lands on both sides to the source of the 
 aforesaid streams, as the preceeding Kings of France have en- 
 
 128
 
 MAI' UK CKLOKON S EXPKUITION, I749.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 joyed or ought to have enjoyed it, and which they have upheld 
 by force of arms and by treaties, notably those of Ryswick, 
 Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 LAN I^^-^Qv DV ■RCCNE DE LOViS XV RO^ 01; ^..f.S: 
 FRANCE /^ mivSCEuORON , COMMANDANT DVN .viRE^vi^^!-;; 
 TACHEHJf^N^.;- ENVOIE ■ PAJR MONSIEVR ; -LE J^^i^ibfi^ ' Cife- 
 CALisSpjqiERE - COMMANDANT..' GENERAL D.Ev, iiX-,-;-/ .■■ ' vt'^.' 
 
 tjonEi^B?-''^rEXMc£. ^■p'ovr ■ feta;biJir^; la TRApviui^ 
 
 DANS' \;i^iM^i^>^ ^it;L A C E S y\^.S^ 
 
 AVqjtS-'^WT^Rfe; . '>C ETT E. Vi/'PLArTVE'^ //iVHE:NT:fl.i5.gt,ftEyi^ '-^iM 
 
 ^^Hk^i-'miU^^AuicHE-ttiA'' i: fc "tr Aau ST :;■ .7: " ' - ■^:'-^^ vji-^i^ ^;K^^ 
 
 pre/'' iJDfi;.;:L,A^ '^■RiviERE " '^OY'O/: aUTREMENT ' BEfAit'^^ii^^ 
 RiviER|:!^::;POVR";MONVHENji -DV: ' RENOVVELLEStiNT . DE|^^ 
 POSSiSSf^U i' HVE ^ N0V5?";:AV0NS *:TRiS s:' DE X^ .. DITT^^ 
 RiviERE'S;:6fY0 ET DE " TOVTES, CELLES ; 3?^ Y .TOK^BWr 
 ET DE VrO:^E=S , LES TEJi^ES I^ZS r,,bE^K -CfSgrES^S^VB^:- 
 AVX ,;50^iRCE5 ;DE5 oiTTES RiviE/l ^VlNSi J^f^^l^^ 
 ioVx'xOYF DV JOVIR LES:- PRECEDE ^TSlvgi^^ ^.^PE f^ANCE ■ 
 3T ,^yitS SisONT MAiNTENV/S.,:PAR,.lLEJ^^^^^^^^^ ■ii.>ETJ;ij. 
 
 PAR LESill- TRAIT TE^S SPEC lAI^EMENT ^ JPAR^i't^^ 
 RISVvicK'^'DVtRCHr ET DAIX' LA ' CHPe-CEE "^V'X'^. ^i:^^^^^^^^ 
 
 ^ ■•.;-^ ■:/:■:' '^t;^*^^..^v\^^'-%;^ 
 
 This Shoves the Inscription on One of the Two Plates 
 Which Have Been Found. 
 
 It was by such idle displays as this that the French 
 then expected to stop the onflow of British settlers. 
 
 Celoron was under orders to expel all British tra- 
 ders that he might find, but the further they travelled 
 down the river, the more threatening became the bear- 
 ing of the Indians, who had found British goods better 
 as well as cheaper than those supplied by the French. 
 
 On reaching the Scioto the expedition turned north, 
 and at the mouth of the Laramie creek had a talk with 
 a chief the French called La Demoiselle, though he 
 was known to the British traders as "Old Britain," 
 because of his friendship for all things British. Old 
 Britain accepted the presents offered, but when asked 
 
 129
 
 A History of the 
 
 to remove his people to their former dwelHng place, 
 near a French post on the Maumee River, he said he 
 would do so "at a more convenient time." What he 
 did do was to increase the population of Pique Town, 
 or Pickawillany, as his village was called, and make 
 it a stronghold for British traders. This village gave 
 its name to the modern town of Piqua, Ohio, which, 
 however, stands some distance south of the mouth of 
 Laramie creek. 
 
 At the head of the Scioto, Celoron burned his ca- 
 noes, and marched overland to the Maumee, whence 
 he returned home by way of the lakes. He had accom- 
 plished nothing but to give the British warning that the 
 French were going to claim everything back of the 
 Alleghany mountains. 
 
 In view of this warning, the attitude of the British 
 colonists in the three years after 1749 was most re- 
 markable. Not only did they ignore the threat of 
 French occupation of the lands claimed by Virginia 
 and Pennsylvania; they even neglected the Indians on 
 those lands, and allowed "the chain of friendship to 
 rust; and then to break." 
 
 Several causes united to create this singular atti- 
 tude. In Pennsylvania the people and the proprietors 
 were quarreling over the expenses incidental to Indian 
 affairs. The assembly wished the proprietors to bear 
 part of the expense and the proprietors refused. It 
 was a question of principle rather than of cash appar- 
 ently, for the Quakers, who refused to vote money 
 when they thought the proprietors ought to give it, 
 were always ready to give liberally, and their time also 
 when treaties were to be held with the Indians. 
 
 130
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 In other colonies, too, the people were too busy 
 with a growing struggle they were maintaining against 
 the encroachments of their governors, to give adequate 
 attention to either the Indians or the French. 
 
 Further than that there were jealousies between the 
 colonies, while the French were one people with a 
 single head, and a single purpose. There were also 
 divisions among the Indians. Time had been when the 
 Iroquois nation controlled all the Indians of the Ohio 
 region, but in the middle of the Eighteenth Century the 
 Delawares were asserting independence once more, and 
 there was talk of making an alliance of the tribes in 
 the West somewhat similar to the confederation of the 
 Six Nations. Even the Iroquois were divided. The 
 Onondagas were selling land to Pennsylvania and ig- 
 noring the Mohawks altogether in the transaction, 
 while the Senecas, the most warlike of the six tribes, 
 having a natural liking for the aggressiveness shown 
 by the French in those days, were, to a large degree, 
 won over to the French interest. 
 
 Nevertheless the British traders kept the grass 
 out of the trails leading to the Ohio country. More 
 than fifty of them were found gathered at Old Bri- 
 tain's, on more than one occasion, and they reached 
 out for the trade of the Indians living with the French 
 on the Wabash, the Maumee and at Detroit. This 
 activity stirred the French to make an advance, in 
 spite of the failure of Celoron's expedition. Comman- 
 dant Raymond, commanding the post on the Maumee, 
 wrote, (quoted by Parkman) : 
 
 "All the tribes who go to the English at Picka- 
 willany come back loaded with gifts. I am too weak 
 
 131
 
 A History of the 
 
 to meet the danger. Instead of twenty men I need 500. 
 * * * If the Enghsh stay in this country we are lost. 
 We must attack and drive them out." The time for 
 something more than an idle display of forms had 
 come. 
 
 An attempt to incite the Indians about Detroit to 
 go on a raid to Old Britain's town developed the 
 fact that they were "touched with disaffection." But 
 Charles Langlade, a French trader at Green Bay, came 
 down to the Maumee with 250 "Christian Ottawas and 
 Ojibwas, and passing through the dense forest, reached 
 Old Britain's town at 9 o'clock on the morning of 
 June 21, 1752. The stockade gates were immediately 
 closed by traders, and a short resistance was made, 
 but the Green Bay Indians triumphed. Two traders 
 escaped. One who was wounded was murdered after 
 the surrender. The Miamis lost fourteen killed and 
 among these was Old Britain. And him the "Christ- 
 ian" Green Bay Indians boiled and ate, while the 
 French looked on without protest, if not with entire 
 approval. 
 
 The Marquis Duquesne de Menneville had just 
 become governor of Canada when the report of Lang- 
 lade's victory reached the St. Lawrence. In spite of 
 the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht he asked the min- 
 ister to pension Langlade. 
 
 The first gun in the war that ended on the Plains 
 of Abraham was fired, with the full approval of the 
 French authorities, by Charles Langlade on the banks 
 of the Scioto. 
 
 132
 
 GEORGE WASH1^GTU.^•. 
 
 This portrait was presented by Washington to his niece in 1757, 
 
 when he was twenty-five years of age. Braddock's defeat 
 
 was in 1755, and the surrender of Fort Duquesne in 1758.
 
 VIII 
 
 THE FRENCH EXPELLED FROM THE VALLEY. 
 PART n. 
 
 When the French, with Their Silks and Velvets, Came 
 to the "Belle Riviere" — Washington's Journey into 
 the Wilderness — Virginia's Efforts to Repel the 
 French — Washington's First Battle — The Power 
 of Madam de Pompadour — The Story of Braddock's 
 Expedition — The French King Approved Indian 
 Raids on the Home-Makers — It Was in Accordance 
 with an Inexorable Law of Nature that the Man 
 with an Axe Should Supplant the Vagabond with a 
 Sword. 
 
 To follow up the successful work of Langlade on 
 the Scioto, Gov. Duquesne, of Canada, determined to 
 occupy all the passes of the Alleghanies, and support 
 them by building a strong fort at the forks of the Ohio. 
 In this plan, contrary to the usual condition of affairs in 
 
 133
 
 A History of the 
 
 Canada, the Governor was heartily supported by the 
 Intendant, Francois Bigot. To estabhsh new posts was 
 to give new opportunities for enriching himself to the 
 Intendant, and Bigot was an official with whom for- 
 gery and perjury, for the concealment of theft, were 
 common acts. 
 
 To further show the character of the Canadian of- 
 ficials it must be said that Governor Duquesne appoint- 
 ed Pierre Paul, Sieur de Marin, (described as a gruff, 
 choleric old man of sixty-three, but full of force and 
 capacity), to lead the new expedition to the Allegha- 
 nies because of the charms of IMadam Marin, who was 
 much younger. At the request of Intendant Bigot the 
 Chevalier Pean was made second in command, and 
 Bigot made the request because Madam Pean was 
 young and charming. 
 
 In the fall of 1752, Marin, with 250 men, went to 
 the bay where Erie, Pennsylvania, now stands, and 
 built a fort of chestnut logs to guard the harbor. A 
 road over a newly-discovered portage was then cut to 
 where Waterford, Pennsylvania, now stands on French 
 creek, a distance of twenty-one miles. Here they built 
 a fort and named it Le Boeuf. 
 
 Over this route they carried their baggage consist- 
 ing of "velvets, silks and other costly articles sold to 
 the king at enormous prices as necessaries of the ex- 
 pedition," and then the force sat down for the winter. 
 
 It was not until the next spring, when reinforce- 
 ments were sent up the lakes to this new post, that the 
 English heard of the new movement. On May 15, 
 1753, Capt. Benjamin Stoddart wrote from Oswego 
 to Col. Johnson saying : "Yesterday passed here thirty 
 
 134
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 odd French canoes, part of an army going to Belle 
 Riviere, to make good their claim there." He thought 
 the whole army numbered 6,000. There were near 
 1,500 all told. 
 
 When the reinforcements reached Le Boeuf they 
 fortified the trail and spent so much time in useless 
 work that they did not reach and fortify the site of 
 Venango, (on the way to the forks of the Ohio), until 
 August. Meantime sickness had appeared among the 
 loitering throng, and so many of them died, (including 
 Marin), that the project of going to the forks that year 
 was abandoned. 
 
 This irruption of the French pleased the Indians, 
 as a whole, in spite of their previous regard for the 
 British traders. The British colonial officials had ne- 
 glected them. The neglect offended them. The 
 French came with a threat of war in one hand and 
 many presents as a reward for help in the other, and 
 the Indians, having the character of children, grasped 
 eagerly at the presents. The old Iroquois chief Half- 
 King went to Marin with a protest, but Iroquois, Dela- 
 wares and Shawnees helped the French carry their 
 goods, (more "velvets, silks and other useless and 
 costly articles"), over the portage, and even the Mi- 
 amis came with the scalps of two British traders. 
 The memory of Old Britain, boiled and eaten, was 
 gone. Pottawattamies and Ojibways also came from 
 the West as a part of the French force. 
 
 In spite of this ominous condition of affairs but 
 one man in the British colonies did anything to avert 
 the danger. Governor Robert Dinwiddle, of Virginia, 
 wrote a letter of inquiry and protest to the commander 
 
 135
 
 A History of the 
 
 of the French forces, (for Virginia claimed all the 
 Ohio region under her charter), and sent it by the 
 Adjutant General of the Virginia militia, George 
 Washington, then twenty-one years old, to the French. 
 Christopher Gist, who had been prospecting the Ohio 
 country in the interests of the Virginia land specula- 
 tors called the Ohio Company, went along as guide. 
 
 The story of this journey into the wilderness — 
 Washington's first notable public service — is told in 
 his journal and has been so often retold that it need 
 not be repeated here in detail. At Venango Wash- 
 ington was received with every form of civility. He 
 noted that at dinner wine was served in abundance, 
 and that the French officers, (the notable Joncaire was 
 in command), drank enough to loosen their tongues. 
 
 "They told me it was their absolute design to take 
 possession of the Ohio, and by G — they would do it," 
 writes Washington. They said also that the British 
 colonies were too slow in making retaliatory move- 
 ments to stop the French. And in this statement the 
 French were very nearly but not quite correct. 
 
 Washington went on to headquarters at Le Boeuf, 
 and delivered (December ii, 1753), his message. He 
 found Legardeur de St. Pierre in command. Le- 
 gardeur replied, "I do not think myself obliged to 
 obey" your summons to leave the country. 
 
 Nevertheless Washington accomplished the chief 
 object of his journey. He learned the French plans, 
 and he brought back a statement of the number of 
 French in the Ohio water shed, and the number of 
 canoes built and building for use in the next forward 
 movement. He also noted that in the forks of the 
 
 136
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Ohio the land lay well for the site of a fort. He reached 
 home in January, 1754. 
 
 In the meantime a letter was received from the 
 British King commanding Dinwiddie *'to drive them 
 (the French) off by force of arms." To obey, how- 
 ever, was to prove a hard task. For, first of all, the 
 colonists were not greatly interested in the matter. 
 Even some Virginians argued that the Great Valley 
 really belonged to the French, while others believed 
 the anxiety of Dinwiddie to drive off the French was 
 due to his interest in the Ohio Company that pur- 
 posed settling lands on the Ohio river. In fact in all 
 the Colonies the one man in official position who would 
 make a definite move to stop the French advance to 
 the forks of the Ohio was Governor Dinwiddie. But 
 for him the French would have established themselves 
 where Pittsburg now stands without any opposition 
 other than written words. And once they had been 
 thus established who can say when or how they would 
 have been routed out? It was fortunate for the fu- 
 ture of the Mississippi valley that Dinwiddie "had 
 enthusiasm, persistence, and a hatred of the French." 
 
 By thorough, enthusiastic and persistent effort, 
 Dinwiddie persuaded his legislature to offer 200,000 
 acres of land west of the Alleghanies to any men who 
 would fight to perfect the title to it. The legislature 
 also voted 10,000 pounds for the purpose of perfect- 
 ing that title. Meantime Dinwiddie raised 300 militia 
 — "raw recruits." Joshua Fry, "bred at Oxford," was 
 made Colonel, Washington was promoted to the rank 
 of Lieutenant Colonel, and with half the force was sent 
 forward to Will's creek, an upper branch of the Po- 
 
 137
 
 A History of the 
 
 tomac, (Cumberland, Maryland). William Trent, a 
 trader, with a gang of backwoodsmen, was w4th Wash- 
 ington, and when Washington stopped, under orders, 
 at Will's creek to build storehouses for a base of sup- 
 plies, Trent's men went on to the forks of the Ohio 
 and began to erect a fort on the point between the 
 rivers. Here the command devolved upon Ensign 
 Ward, who began work on the fort on an unnamed 
 day, early in April, 1754. 
 
 Dinwiddle had hastened forward this force because 
 he believed the French would come down from Ven- 
 ango, early that spring, and his belief proved well 
 founded, for on April 17, six flat boats, carrying eight- 
 een cannon, and 300 canoes, came down the Allegha- 
 ny river, bearing 500 Frenchmen under Captain Claude 
 Pecaudy de Contrecoeur. 
 
 Ward, having but forty men, and an unfinished 
 fort for shelter, was obliged to leave. The French 
 then completed the fort, (it was 120x150 feet large), 
 and armed it with "six pieces of cannon of six, nine 
 of two, and three pound ball." They named the fort 
 Duquesne. 
 
 The station that Washington was building on Will's 
 creek was 140 miles from Fort Duquesne, by the usual 
 trail. At the mouth of Redstone creek, (a branch of 
 the Monongahela ) , a point that was half way between 
 Will's creek and Duquesne, the Ohio Company had 
 built a stone house. Dinwiddle, on hearing of the 
 French arrival at the forks of the Ohio, ordered his 
 forces forward to the stone house on Redstone creek, 
 and Washington at once began to cut out the Old In- 
 dian trail that had been marked by the Ohio Com- 
 
 138
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 pany, and made a wagon road of it. And this "was 
 really the first wagon road into the Great Valley from 
 the Atlantic slope." Traces of this old trail can still 
 be found though it was abandoned in 1818, when the 
 National Road was constructed. 
 
 Late in May, Washington reached a natural open- 
 ing in the woods in the valley of the Youghiogany, 
 known as the Great Meadows, and there he cleared 
 away the brush in front of a small ravine, which he 
 turned into a fortification. Meantime, the French had 
 sent out thirty-three men under Ensign Coulon de Ju- 
 monville, to attack Washington. But, finding his force 
 too small. Jumonville hid in a dense wooded ravine to 
 await reinforcements. While the French lay hid, 
 Washington learned from his old guide, Gist, that the 
 party was out, and determined to defend himself by at- 
 tacking them. The Iroquois Half-King and others of 
 his tribe guided Washington to the ravine on May 28, 
 1754. The French were surprised in their camp. They 
 jumped to get their guns, and Washington ordered 
 his men to fire. Jumonville and nine Frenchmen were 
 killed, (which shows the accuracy of the British- 
 American aim, even though Half-King did claim that 
 his Indians did most of the killing), and twenty-two 
 were captured. One Canadian escaped by running. 
 
 The French who for more than fifty years had been 
 raiding the back settlements of the British colonies, 
 slaughtering women and babies whom they dragged 
 from their beds at night — these Frenchmen called, and 
 yet call, the killing of Jumonville an assassination, 
 They wrote the tale in verse, and they screamed it into 
 all the courts of Europe. 
 
 139
 
 A History of the 
 
 Washington returned to his camp at the Great 
 Meadows, after the attack on Jumonville, and made 
 an entrenchment which he named Fort Necessity. It 
 was on a small branch of the Youghiogany, in Fayette 
 county, Pa., four miles east of Laurel Hill, and 300 
 yards south of the old National Road. Here some re- 
 inforcements joined him, and here Washington learned 
 that he was in supreme command, ( though but twenty- 
 two years old), through the death of Col. Fry. 
 
 On July I, 1754, Washington was attacked by 700 
 Frenchmen and an uncounted number of Indians, un- 
 der the command of Coulon de Villiers, a brother of 
 Coulon de Jumonville. Villiers had come from Canada 
 especially to avenge the ''assassination" of his brother. 
 To defend his fort, Washington had 350 men. 
 
 The French, sheltered by forest trees standing from 
 sixty to 100 yards from the fort, opened fire at 11 
 o'clock in the morning and for nine hours they worked 
 their guns with "zeal and ardor." At the end of that 
 time "the detachment was tired and the Indians sent 
 me word that they would depart next day," as Villiers 
 reported. Moreover, the French ammunition was al- 
 most exhausted. The attack had failed. 
 
 But what he could not get by force of arms, Vil- 
 liers obtained by finesse. "A cessation of arms was 
 proposed to the English," and when the cessation had 
 been accepted, Washington sent his Dutch-French in- 
 terpreter, Van Braam, to learn what the French would 
 propose. 
 
 It was now that French finesse succeeded. The 
 French proposed that the English march out with 
 colors flying and drums beating, and take a swivel with 
 
 140
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 them. The French were to have back the prisoners 
 taken when Jumonville was killed, and Washington 
 was to give two hostages for the fulfillment of this 
 condition. 
 
 This proposal Washington accepted, for he was 
 in straits for food and ammunition and he signed a 
 paper which purported to contain those conditions 
 and nothing else. But the finesse of the French had 
 gone still further. Taking advantage of the ignorance 
 of Van Braam, Capt. Villiers had scrawled the con- 
 ditions in a well-nigh illegible hand, and had inser- 
 ted therein an acknowledgment that Jumonville had 
 been assassinated in the previous fight. This paper was 
 wet and badly blotted, as well as badly written. When 
 he had written it, Villiers read it over to Van Braam, 
 and there is every reason to believe that in so reading 
 it, Villiers used the words "death of Jumonville," in- 
 stead of "assassination of Jumonville." For Major 
 Adam Stephen (second to Washington), in describing 
 the paper says : "No person could read them [the words 
 of the articles of capitulation] , but Van Braam, zuho 
 had heard them from the month of the French officer." 
 
 This acknowledgment, which was in effect a for- 
 gery, was published and screamed throughout all 
 Europe, and the French to this day believe the forged 
 statement. 
 
 In the face of the dangers which threatened them, 
 now that the French were fully seated at the forks 
 of the Ohio, the citizens of seven colonies sent dele- 
 gates to a Congress which met at Albany, and appointed 
 a committee to consider the trouble further. They 
 were still unable to agree to do any real work. 
 
 141
 
 A History of the 
 
 In Europe, the matter received more practical con- 
 sideration. The reader who would like to learn what 
 was done in Europe, in connection with this war, is 
 advised to read Carlyle's "Frederick the Great," first of 
 all. For the war that followed between France and 
 England was a part of the great "Seven Years War," 
 that is so fully treated in Carlyle's "Frederick." And 
 Carlyle is one of the two British writers of the Nine- 
 teenth Century whose works are all worth oft-repeated 
 readings. 
 
 The British King ordered two regiments of red- 
 coated regulars (500 men each) to sail for Virginia, 
 under command of "our trusty and well-beloved Ed- 
 ward Braddock," whose instructions were dated No- 
 vember 25, 1754. These soldiers sailed in January, 
 
 1755- 
 
 On hearing of this move the French government 
 
 ordered 3,000 men to Canada under Baron Dieskau. 
 But as the Rev. Mr. Parkman says, "In France the 
 true ruler was Madam de Pompadour, once the King's 
 mistress, now his procuress, and a sort of feminine 
 prime minister." Men were appointed to office for 
 pleasing her, regardless of their lack of other abilities, 
 and Dieskau did not sail until May 3, 1755. Thus 
 the British had time to learn all about the expedition, 
 and to send a squadron to intercept it. 
 
 Braddock arrived at Hampton, Va., on February 
 20, 1755, and an intercolonial conference was convened 
 on April 14, at Alexandria, where the two regiments 
 were encamped. Here attacks were planned on 
 Acadia, Crown Point, Niagara and Fort Duquesne. 
 Braddock, with his two regiments of regulars, chose 
 
 142
 
 KREUEKICK THE GREAT. 
 From the engraving in the Encyclopedia Londinensis.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 to lead the force against Fort Duquesne. He reached 
 Will's Creek on May lo. Washington, with some 
 hundreds of Colonial militia, had been at work 
 there during the preceding winter, and had built Fort 
 Cumberland where Will's Creek entered the Potomac, 
 (Cumberland, Md.). A month later, June lo, the 
 force moved forward with three hundred axemen, cut- 
 ting a road twelve feet wide ahead of all. There were 
 about 1,200 soldiers in the command, besides officers, 
 teamsters and workmen. The line stretched out to a 
 length of four miles — "a thin, long, party-colored 
 snake, red, blue and brown, trailing through the depth 
 of leaves." They were able to advance but a trifle 
 more than three miles a day. 
 
 On July 7, Braddock with eighty-six officers and 
 1373 men reached Turtle creek, (eight miles from Fort 
 Duquesne), having decided to leave his heavy baggage 
 under a guard in order to advance more rapidly with 
 a fighting force. Here he crossed to the southerly 
 side of the Monongahela, continued down stream, and 
 on the 9th crossed back again by a ford that lay near 
 the dam at the present village of Braddock, Pa. 
 
 At this time Contrecoeur commanded Ft. Duquesne, 
 with a force of something over 250 white men and 
 nearly 800 Indians. The approach of Braddock had 
 created not a little excitement in the fort, and there 
 were two British Colonials there, (James Smith and 
 Robert Strobo), to take note of what was done. The 
 Indians at first refused to fight the British, but when 
 they had seen how the red coats marched in close order, 
 and that it would be possible to shoot them "like 
 pigeons," as one said to Smith, they decided to try it. 
 
 143
 
 A Hist cry of the 
 
 Accordingly, when Capt. Daniel Lienard de Beaujeu 
 was placed in command of the regulars and Canadians, 
 on the 9th, with orders to ambush Braddock at the ford 
 of the Monongahela, the Indians raised the war whoop. 
 
 Barrels of gun powder, bullets and flints, were 
 opened at the fort gate, and the Indians helped them- 
 selves. Beaujeu dressed himself like an Indian, (a 
 common habit of the French at the time), and with 
 108 officers and regulars, 146 Canadians, and 642 In- 
 dians, (one account says 637), he started at 8 o'clock 
 for the ford. It appears, however, that they were in no 
 haste to reach the ford. A man could walk the dis- 
 tance in two hours, but Braddock crossed unmolested 
 at I o'clock. Even when the British sat down and 
 ate a luncheon no attack was made.. But when Brad- 
 dock's advance guard had passed a ravine in the hills 
 a mile from the ford, they met a man ''dressed like 
 an Indian, but wearing a gorget of an officer." This 
 man — Beaujeu, no doubt — stopped at sight of the Brit- 
 ish, gave an Indian war whoop, waved his hat and 
 jumped for a tree. The French regulars, Canadians 
 and Indians were then seen coming behind him. The 
 greater part of the Canadians fled crying, "Sauve qui 
 pent" but the regulars and Indians "treed" themselves, 
 and stood still while the British advance guard fired 
 three almost harmless volleys into the tree trunks — al- 
 most harmless, but not quite, for Beaujeu was killed 
 by the third. 
 
 Then the French and Indians began to shoot from 
 their safe shelters; and the range was short. No 
 braver regular troops than those red coats had ever 
 marched into such a battle, but their bravery was their 
 
 144
 
 BETWEEN WILLS' CREEK £^ MONONGAHELA R IVER, 
 
 THE liRAUDUClC CAMPAIGN.
 
 fl3Vlfl/\J3HA3MOMOM^ >f33n:5 ^t
 
 Mississipp i V alley. 
 
 destruction. They stood in place in solid masses, scorn- 
 ing shelter, and fired back — uselessly as before. But 
 a time soon came when flesh and blood could not 
 stand the unseen death that pelted them from the brush, 
 and they gave way just as Braddock arrived to support 
 them with the main part of his force, shouting, "God 
 save the King." 
 
 The fresh troops, on meeting the retiring vanguard, 
 were thrown into some confusion, but were rallied by 
 their officers, and formed into solid masses ; and there, 
 with few exceptions, they stood, facing the lead-laden 
 storm, and firing back exactly according to the manual. 
 
 The Virginians, almost to a man, took to the trees 
 like Indians. Braddock, with vigorous British pro- 
 fanity, ordered them back into line, and even killed 
 one of them, it is said, with his sword, (see Gordon's 
 "Pennsylvania"). A few of the red coats, who also 
 sought shelter were beaten back into line or killed by 
 the exasperated general. No flinching would be per- 
 mitted by this commander. He crowded them to- 
 gether until they were as close together as wild pigeons 
 on a roost, and they were slaughtered like the pigeons, 
 as the Indians had foreseen. It was an army of 
 disciplined Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotchmen. As 
 firmly as their native islands, they withstood the storm 
 until half their number were down — "stood panting, 
 their foreheads beaded with sweat, loading and firing 
 mechanically," — and then they broke and fled. A mo- 
 ment later Braddock fell, shot through the lungs — 
 "bleeding, gasping, unable even to curse." He was 
 shot down by Thomas Fawcett, whose brother Brad- 
 dock had cut down for seeking a tree, says Gordon. 
 
 145
 
 'A History of the 
 
 The retreat at once became a panic, but Washing- 
 ton, with his sheltered Virginians, covered the flight, 
 and the Indians turned from slaughter to the gather- 
 ing of plunder, and finally went back to Fort Duquesne, 
 "driving before them twelve British regulars, stripped 
 naked, and with their faces painted black." They 
 were to be burned. 
 
 Said James Smith who, from within Ft. Duquesne, 
 saw the victorious mob return : "The savages appeared 
 frantic with joy, dancing, yelling, brandishing their 
 red tomahawks and waving scalps in the air, while the 
 great guns of the fort replied to the incessant discharge 
 of the rifles without. The most melancholy spectacle 
 was the band of prisoners. They appeared dejected and 
 anxious. They were led to the banks of the Alleghany" 
 and there each was "tied to a stake with his hands 
 above his head," and then they were "burned to death." 
 The Frenchmen made no efforts to prevent these tor- 
 tures. There is every reason to suppose that the French 
 approved them. The French had, on several occasions, 
 burned Indians to death, and the instances where any 
 Frenchman actually interfered in behalf of a British 
 prisoner are so rare that one is fully justified in be- 
 lieving that the tortures at Fort Duquesne had their 
 full approval. 
 
 It seems proper, therefore, to call attention to the 
 fact that in all the wars between the British Colonies 
 and the Indians, and between the United States and the 
 Indians, no captured Frenchman was ever burned to 
 death, nor was any captured Indian. Our people saw 
 their wives and children outraged, murdered and tor- 
 tured by the Indians, but there was never a case where 
 
 146
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 our men so degraded themselves as to burn to death 
 one of the inferior race in retahation. One may re- 
 member this with some satisfaction, even in the midst 
 of the unspeakable humiliation which has been brought 
 upon our nation by the burning of members of an in- 
 ferior race during recent years. 
 
 Braddock's wound was mortal. He had faced the 
 enemy he justly despised with vigorous, voluble energy 
 and courage; for four days he faced death with silent 
 resolution. Once, as he recalled the rules his teachers 
 had given him, he said aloud, "Who would have 
 thought?" And then at 8 o'clock in the evening of 
 Sunday, July 13, having seen, at least, that tactics in 
 war, as in all other matters, must be adapted to the 
 circumstances, he said, "We shall know better how 
 to deal with them another time," and then died. 
 
 Out of eighty-six officers in the British force, sixty- 
 three were killed, Washington had two horses shot 
 under him, and several bullets pierced his clothing as 
 he fearlessly exposed himself. Twenty years later, 
 an armed host of Americans who had gathered around 
 the port of Boston and were staggering beneath a bur- 
 den of war that was yet too great for them to carry, 
 remembered that battle on the bank of the IMononga- 
 hela, and sent word to the Continental Congress that 
 they would "rejoice to see this way the beloved Colonel 
 Washington." 
 
 Out of 1373 privates and non-commissioned officers, 
 459 only escaped unhurt. Among those who escaped 
 was a teamster who was to achieve fame in after years. 
 His name was Daniel Boone, and he was then twenty- 
 one years old. 
 
 147
 
 A History of the 
 
 The French had three officers killed and two officers 
 and two cadets wounded. Of their regular privates 
 four were hurt. The Canadians lost five wounded, 
 and the Indians twenty-seven killed and wounded. 
 
 In its immediate result, the victory seemed almost 
 decisive for the French, for the whole frontier, from 
 Pennsylvania south, was left unguarded, and every 
 tribe of red men, save only the well-settled portion 
 of the Iroquois at the eastern end of their "long house," 
 was fully committed to French interests. 
 
 And yet the success of the French here led them 
 ultimately to their downfall. For as soon as they 
 learned that the British w^ere fully defeated, they began 
 raiding the British frontier, and the devilish cruelty 
 of these raids united the colonists and brought them 
 into the field in overwhelming numbers. 
 
 The orders to raid the home makers on the British 
 frontiers were issued in France — "manage on occasions 
 in which there may be acts of violence in such a manner 
 as not to appear the aggressor," said a letter to Du- 
 quesne dated September 6, 1754, but "if you consider 
 it necessary to make the Indians act offensively against 
 the English, his Majesty will approve of your using 
 that expedient." 
 
 As a matter of fact little effort was made to avoid 
 appearing as aggressors. Captain Dumas succeeded 
 Contrecoeur at Fort Duquesne, and he immediately 
 began sending parties of Indians under French officers 
 to raid the Pennsylvania frontiers. In speaking of 
 these raids Father Godfroy Cocquard, S. J., in a letter 
 to his brother, written early in 1757, said: 
 
 "The Indians do not make any prisoners; they 
 148
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 kill all they meet, men, women and children. Every- 
 day f/icy have some in their kettle, and after having 
 abused the zuomen and maidens, they slaughter or burn 
 them." (N. Y. Colonial Manuscripts, vol. x, p. 528.) 
 
 "The upper country Indians have really laid waste 
 Virginia and Pennsylvania," wrote Montcalm in 1756. 
 The Indians on the Upper Lakes heard of the vast 
 amount of plunder gathered when Braddock fell, and 
 they came to get more by raiding the undefended col- 
 onists. 
 
 "In April [1756] there had been in those parts 
 twenty detachments of Delawares and Chauanons 
 [Shawnees] ; these were joined by more than sixty 
 Indians from the Five Iroquois Nations who have com- 
 mitted frightful ravages. The only resource remaining 
 to the inhabitants was to abandon their houses and to 
 remove to the sea coast. Three forts have been burnt, 
 among the rest one containing a garrison of forty- 
 seven men. The garrison was summoned to surrender, 
 but having refused, the fort was set on fire in the night. 
 The garrison attempted to escape, and the Indians gave 
 no quarter," so says "Abstract of Despatches from 
 Canada, Vol. x, N. Y. Colonial Documents. M. Dou- 
 ville comanded the last named assault, and was killedt 
 
 Parkman notes that Dumas gave to each French 
 officer in command of a party of raiders a zvritten order 
 to keep the Indians from torturing prisoners. Park- 
 man thinks these orders were sincerely given. But 
 the student of history may reasonably ask why were the 
 orders written in every case? An officer obeys an 
 oral order as carefully as a written one. One of these 
 written orders was found on Douville whose forces 
 
 149
 
 A History of the 
 
 "gave no quarter." The French commander not only 
 knew that the Indians would give no quarter, but he 
 knew that "every day they have some in their kettles," 
 as Father Cocquard wrote. If the French King, in 
 his orders to Duquesne was careful to say that "acts 
 of violence" must be managed so as not "to appear the 
 aggressor," is it too much to suppose that Dumas was 
 animated by the same regard for appearances, and the 
 same disregard of the infinite horrors of Indian atro- 
 city? 
 
 The extent of the country raided is shown by the 
 fact that on August 2, 1756, the Chevalier Villiers 
 burned the log fort called Grandville on the north bank 
 of the blue Juniata, a mile west of the present town 
 of Lewiston, Mifflin county. Pa. He was but sixty 
 miles from Philadelphia. 
 
 The French officers, in their reports on aggressions 
 very often used the term "disgust the English." What 
 they meant to say was that they believed the raids 
 would intimidate the Colonists — fill them with the 
 sense of inferiority to the French. 
 
 During the years 1756 and 1757, (called by Win- 
 sor the two dismal years), and in a part of 1758, the 
 state of affairs seemed to justify the French hope. To 
 keep back the Indians the Governor of Virginia built 
 a fort, (1756), on the Holston river about thirty miles 
 above the present site of Knoxville. Colonel Bird built 
 another in the same county in 1758. Both were well 
 garrisoned and mounted cannon, but both were 
 whelmed by Indians and the garrisons forced by heavy 
 losses to leave. A line of forts was built along the 
 frontier. At the demand of the backwoodsmen, and in 
 
 150
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 spite of Quaker protests, a reward of 136 Spanish dol- 
 lars was offered for every scalp of a male Indian, over 
 twelve years of age, and fifty dollars for a squaw 
 scalp. "Johi^ Potter, sheriff of Cumberland County, 
 declared that the only way to prevent slaughter and 
 destruction on the frontier was to send a strong force 
 into the center of the Indian stronghold. His wo,^ds 
 are worth further consideration. While it is true that 
 the friendship of the Indians might have been retained 
 had they been treated on all occasions with Quaker 
 kindness and justice, it is equally true that when war 
 i::i^ been precipitated by wrong treatment, the quickest 
 an.l therefore the most merciful way to end it was 
 to send a strong force under a strong man into the 
 center of the Indian country. The advice of John 
 Potter cannot be emphasized too much. If a people 
 are attacked, the best method of self-defence is to strike 
 into the heart of the enemy's country. The Governor 
 of Virginia refused to heed John Potter. He built a 
 chain of forts instead. So the raiding continued un- 
 checked. 
 
 In August, 1756, the French captured Oswego, 
 "using in the operation the cannon Braddock had lost 
 on the Monongahela." On July 6, 1758, Abercrombie 
 was defeated at Ticonderoga. 
 
 Then the bloody tide was turned. At the end of 
 July, Amherst, seconded by "the slender, nervous and 
 almost dying Wolf," captured Louisburg. Coming 
 thence to Lake Champlain, Amherst brought victory 
 with him. Lieutenant Colonel John Bradstreet, with 
 "an amphibious little army" of 3,000 men, crossed Lake 
 Ontario, and captured Fort Frontenac on the morning 
 
 151
 
 A History of the 
 
 of August 26, 1758. Nine armed vessels were in the 
 harbor. Seven of these were destroyed, and two loaded 
 with supplies needed for a new fort building on the 
 site of Oswego, which the French had abandoned. 
 
 By this success Bradstreet gave the French power 
 in the Mississippi Valley a serious wound. Their com- 
 mand over Lake Ontario, and so over their highway 
 from Montreal to the southwest, was gone. Supplies 
 could still be sent up the river from New Orleans, and 
 from Illinois, but the chain of French posts, stretched 
 first by La Salle, was broken. 
 
 Meantime General John Forbes left Philadelphia, 
 (end of June, 1758), with an army to take Fort Du- 
 quesne, and on November 5, he was on Loyal Hannon 
 Creek, in the town of Ligonier, Westmoreland County, 
 Pa., fifty miles from his destination. He had advanced 
 by slow but sure stages ; and having studied well Brad- 
 dock's disaster, he had trained his force, (between 
 6,000 and 7,000 men, of whom 5,000 were from Penn- 
 sylvania, Virginia and South Carolina), to meet the 
 French and Lidians in their own manner of warfare. 
 
 It was an efficient force, but the Quakers of Phila- 
 delphia forestalled it in its work. They opened the 
 way so effectually that Fort Duquesne might have been 
 taken without firing a gun in the whole campaign. And 
 none was fired in the vicinity of the fort. 
 
 That the Quakers had no direct influence on the 
 French scarcely need be said. But while Forbes was 
 on the way west they persuaded the Governor of Penn- 
 sylvania to send Christian Frederick Post, a Moravian 
 preacher, with a pipe of peace from them to the 
 Indians beyond the Ohio. Post had earned the con- 
 
 152
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 fidence of the Indians by his sincerity when a mission- 
 ary among them, but he took his Hfe in his hands 
 when he accepted this task, for it was certain the 
 French would have him assassinated, if possible. How- 
 ever, he reached his red friends in November, and they 
 accepted the pipe of peace the Quakers had sent them. 
 
 Sufficient credit has not been given to this mission 
 of peace, in our histories because, probably, the writers 
 have supposed that Forbes and his force frightened the 
 Indians into submission. But a careful reading of 
 Post's second journal, (see the "Olden Time"), shows 
 clearly, first, that Post was entirely truthful, and, 
 second, that the Indians changed their allegiance from 
 the French to the British (in spite of every opposition 
 on the part of the French officers), because of the 
 message Post carried to them. They did this in the 
 face of the overwhelming defeat of a detachment o£ 
 Forbes's army, 800 strong, under Major Grant, where- 
 in nearly 300 men were lost, (Sept. 15, 1758). 
 
 Forbes, after a council of war, had determined to 
 proceed no further than Loyal Hannon Creek, and he 
 would have persisted in this determination, but for 
 the defection of the Indians from the French interests 
 after they had seen the Quaker pipe of peace. And the 
 French would have stood firm at Fort Duquesne but 
 for this defection. French officers were present at the 
 public councils Post held with the Indians, but on 
 the night of November 22d, 1758, "the Indians danced 
 around the fire until midnight for joy of their brethren, 
 the English coming," and the next day the French 
 gave up hope. 
 
 Returning to Fort Duquesne, on the afternoon of 
 153
 
 A History of the 
 
 the 23d, De Ligneris, who was then in command, and 
 who had been watching Post, prepared his forces for 
 embarkation. All the buildings and the fort were 
 fired. Under the ominous shadow of the smoke the 
 French divided themselves into two companies, and at 
 daylight, one under De Ligneris went up the Alleghany 
 to Venango. The other paddled down the Ohio to 
 Fort Massac, a station not far from the Mississippi, 
 left there a small garrison, and then went on to Fort 
 Chartres. 
 
 On November 25, General Forbes entered Fort 
 Duquesne, and having repaired it, he renamed it Fort 
 Pitt, from which we have the name of the modern 
 city of Pittsburg. 
 
 How the British won at Fort Niagara and at Lake 
 Champlain in 1759; how and why Wolf on the Plains 
 of Abraham said, "Now, God be praised, I will die in 
 peace," need not be recounted here, even though these 
 victories shut out forever the French from the Great 
 Valley which La Salle had given them. But a word 
 regarding French official life in America during the 
 last days will prove instructive. To quote the words 
 of Parkman, ("Wolf and Montcalm") : 
 
 "A contagion of knavery ran through the colony. 
 . Conspicuous among these military thieves 
 was Major Pean. 'La Petite Pean' had married a 
 young wife, famed for beauty, vivacity and wit. Bigot 
 [the Intendant] who was near sixty, became her lover ; 
 and the fortune of Pean was made. ... He had 
 bought as a speculation a large quantity of grain with 
 money of the King, lent him by the Intendant. Bigot 
 then issued an order raising the commodity to a price 
 
 154
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 far above that paid by Pean, who thus made a profit 
 of 50,000 crowns. A few years later his wealth was 
 estimated at from two to four million francs. Madam 
 Pean became a power in Canada, the dispenser of favor 
 and offices. Pean, jilted by his own wife, made pros- 
 perous love to the wife of his partner, Penisseault, and 
 after the war took her with him to France; while the 
 aggrieved husband found consolation in the wives of 
 the small functionaries under his orders." 
 
 And while Wolf was before Quebec, and food was 
 so scarce that the people were placed on a ration of 
 two ounces of bread a day, "fowls by the thousand 
 were fattened on wheat," that Bigot and his followers, 
 male and female, might have delicate food for their 
 carousals. 
 
 After the fall of Quebec, the remainder of this 
 war — the great Seven Years War — was fought out in 
 Europe. In November, 1762, the plenipotentiaries of 
 England, France and Spain, at a meeting in Paris, 
 agreed to make peace. One condition of the treaty 
 was that Canada should be ceded to Great Britain, with 
 all of the French claim east of the IMississippi. Fear- 
 ing that, in the negotiations, he would have to give 
 the whole valley to the British, the French King fore- 
 stalled such a disaster by a secret treaty, (dated Nov. 
 3, 1762), in which he gave to Spain the island on 
 which New Orleans stood, and all the French posses- 
 sions west of the IMississippi. 
 
 Robert Rene Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, by honest 
 work, filed a claim in the name of France, on the broad 
 basin of the Mississippi. Honest work only was needed 
 to secure to that nation the full title in fee simple. But 
 
 155
 
 A History of the 
 
 those whom France sent to complete her title took 
 •for a pattern of life the example found m the Kmg s 
 court From first to last the most excitmg theme 
 among them— the theme that created deadly quarrels 
 most frequently-was the matter of precedence m 
 social and public functions. From the first to the last 
 they sought the sea of beaver instead of the South 
 sea In gathering wealth they flung honor to the 
 winds, where they had any to fling, and when they 
 had accumulated a store, they spent it as their King 
 was spending the whole French nation. It was be- 
 cause the dominant French in America were foul ex- 
 udations of the Court over which the Pompadour ruled, 
 that the French nation was driven across the Atlantic. 
 When ten righteous men could not be found in all the 
 plain, the fire of God swept it. It was in accordance 
 with an inexorable law of nature that the man with 
 the axe should at last supplant the vagabond with the 
 sword. 
 
 156
 
 HKRNANOO DE SOTO. 
 The spelling of his given name is as varied as his biographers
 
 IX 
 
 THE SPANISH IN THE GREAT VALLEY. 
 
 De Soto's Character as a Highway Robber Plainly Des- 
 cribed — Raids through the American Wilderness that 
 turned an Army of Glittering "Knights" into Wilder- 
 ness Tramps — The splendid Courage of an Explorer 
 compared with the stubborn folly of a Highwayman 
 — The first thought of Proclaiming an American 
 Nation — A peep into the Bed Chamber of a French 
 Lady — "Ca ira, les Aristocrates a la Lanterne." 
 
 Brief shall suffice for the story of the first Span- 
 ish expedition to the banks of the Mississippi, for the 
 men in it were animated by the spirit of highway rob- 
 bers, and nothing came of their work. 
 
 It was on April 6, 1538, that Hernando de Soto 
 sailed from Spain on the expedition that led him to 
 the banks of the Mississippi River, and gave him the 
 
 157
 
 A History of the 
 
 credit of being the first more or less civilized man to 
 see the stream and explore any part of the mighty 
 basin. The story of this expedition has fascinated 
 more than one poetic mind. "It was poetry put into 
 action; it was the knight-errantry of the Old World 
 carried into the depths of the American wilderness," 
 says one writer. A calm study of the facts, however, 
 shows that the work was detestable. Hernando de Soto 
 had been a follower of Pizarro, and had enriched him- 
 self by the merciless slaughter and robbery of the Pe- 
 ruvians. Returning to Spain he was greatly honored 
 because of his success, but neither his vanity nor his 
 greed was satisfied. 
 
 "De Soto burned with ambition to signalize him- 
 self equally with Cortez and Pizarro;" the region north 
 of the Gulf of Mexico was the only one left to explore ; 
 this region was supposed to hold as much gold and sil- 
 ver as the countries to the south, and to Florida De 
 Soto would go. 
 
 In all, 1,000 men, of whom 350 were mounted, 
 sailed from Havana on May 12, 1539, to Florida. 
 "They provided everything which the experience of 
 former expeditions could suggest, or avarice or cruelty 
 dictate * * * chains and fetters for the captives, and 
 even blood hounds to assist in drawing them from 
 their hiding places." 
 
 The soldiers were completely covered with armor 
 that was trimmed with gold, and they were armed 
 with swords, spears and cross bows, only eighteen hav- 
 ing arquebusses, as the rude muskets of the period 
 were called. They were gay "as if it had been an ex- 
 cursion of a bridal party." Whether awake or asleep, 
 
 158 
 
 i
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 they dreamed only of finding cities of red men, with 
 gold-filled temples devoted to the worship of the sun. 
 These temples were to be robbed. The red men were 
 to be set to work as slaves in the mines, with armed 
 men to keep them at it, and priests to baptize them as 
 they expired under the lash or by more cruel torture. 
 
 Having landed at Espiritu Santo Bay, Florida, De 
 Soto led his ''steel clad cavaliers" on their "prancing 
 steeds" into the wilderness of Florida. Thereafter, until 
 the spring of 1541, this "glittering host" with their 
 waving plumes ranged the interior in search of gold. 
 The red men were slaughtered in open battle, and by 
 deliberate butchery after they had surrendered as pri- 
 soners. They were maimed and they were tortured, 
 because they had no gold or silver. A thousand, chiefly 
 women and children, were burned alive in a huge pub- 
 lic wigwam at one village, after one battle. But the 
 Indians were not cowed, for they never ceased to hover 
 around and fight back. 
 
 The Spaniards had come to take gold from its 
 rightful owners, but they never saw a color in the pan. 
 Instead of finding gold they lost what they had brought 
 with them. Their waving plumes were broken in the 
 brush. Their glittering armor was rusted in the 
 swamps, and battered by the impetuous red home- 
 defenders. Their clothes were worn out. Their horses 
 were killed. A time came, (it was in the second year), 
 when they were glad to use rawhide shields in place 
 of glittering steel, and the skins of wild animals in 
 place of velvets and laces. With the war whoop of 
 the red man ever sounding in their ears, many of them 
 came at last to long for a speedy return home. 
 
 159
 
 A History of the 
 
 But the vanity of De Soto held them fast. Others 
 might return and admit defeat, not he. The poet says 
 that ambition fired his fortitude, but in' cold fact, it 
 was sheer vanity, what would have been called splen- 
 did courage in an explorer, was stubborn folly in him. 
 The motive made the difference. So he led his droop- 
 ing, fagged followers away from the port, (Bay of 
 Achusi), where ships were awaiting to carry him to 
 Cuba, and continue on through the wilderness. 
 
 It was now that De Soto found the INIississippi. 
 On April 13, 1541, he reached a stream which he 
 named Rio Grande because it was so large — the Mis- 
 sissippi of modern days. Up this stream the expediticai 
 toiled for four days to an open country. There they 
 encamped for twenty days while they built boats to carry 
 them over, and, presumably on May 7, they crossed the 
 river — fought their way across, for armed red men 
 stood on the western bank and came aflCkat tomeet them. 
 
 A local historian (Monette) thinks De Soto crossed 
 "within thirty miles of Helena," but he adds that "the 
 changes of the channel in the lapse of 300 years may 
 have been such as to defy identification." 
 
 From the IMississippi, De Soto marched west and 
 north to a mountainous region — the Ozarks — and then 
 gave up hope. Turning around he came once more 
 to the Great River. He arrived in the spring of 1542, 
 at the village of Guachoya, located on the INIississippi, 
 twenty miles below the Arkansas river. Here, while 
 building vessels, "the incessant fatigue of body and 
 anxiety of mind, together with the influence of climate, 
 brought on a slow, wasting fever; and here, on June 5, 
 1542, De Soto died." 
 
 160
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 It had been the habit of the near by Indians, (Qua- 
 paws they, and a fierce nation when defending their 
 homes), to dig up the body of every buried Spaniard, 
 quarter it and hang the pieces on trees and posts, as 
 a warning to the predaceous host. To save the body 
 of De Soto from such a fate, his followers made a cof- 
 fin of a green oak log, placed the body therein, and, 
 carrying it to the center of the Great River, sank it "in 
 nineteen fathoms of water." 
 
 It was for an end like this that vanity and greed 
 had carried De Soto into the American wilderness. 
 His followers, under Luis de Mascoso, made another 
 trip into the wilds to the west of the river, but re- 
 turned in fewer numbers and with fewer arms and less 
 clothing. No leader now had any thought but to es- 
 cape the wilderness, and building such boats as they 
 could, they launched forth on the Great River, on July 
 2, 1543, a remnant of 350 squalid, ragged wilderness 
 tramps out of the plumed, glittering "knight-errants" 
 that had come to fatten on blood and gold. So they 
 reached Panuco, Mexico, and disappeared in the 
 armies maintained in Spanish America by the throne 
 of Spain. 
 
 If a first view of the mouth of a river gave its 
 water shed to the nation whose explorers obtained 
 such a view, then the IMississippi Valley was right- 
 fully Spain's. Don Alonzo de Pineda discovered the 
 mouth of the stream in 15 19, and named it Espiritu 
 Santo. In 1528 Cabeza de Vaca crossed the river, 
 and then De Soto explored, after a fashion, a consid- 
 erable portion of the valley. Spain might, indeed, have 
 said that De Soto's expedition "took out the first pa- 
 
 161
 
 A History of the 
 
 pers" for a claim, if we may use the homesteader's 
 vernacular. But De Soto's expedition completely sat- 
 isfied the Spanish in one sense; they would have no 
 more of that region for more than lOO years. But it 
 was a copy of the Spanish history of this region that in- 
 spired La Salle in his work. 
 
 When, in November, 1762, the peace commissions 
 gathered at Paris to end the Seven Years War, France 
 was not only anxious to thwart as far as possible the 
 British ambition for territorial expansion, but she was 
 w^illing to get rid of the burden involved in supporting 
 a governor in Louisiana. The last Governor, (Ker- 
 lerec), had used 10,000,000 livres in four years — os- 
 tensibly in preparing for war. Spain therefore once 
 more sent a soldier of repute to the banks of the Mis- 
 sissippi. 
 
 The treaty by which Spain acquired Louisiana was 
 completed on November 13, 1762, but for a time the 
 French retained control, and the people of New Or- 
 leans knew nothing of the transfer. 
 
 It was during this period of Spanish ownership 
 and French control that St. Louis was founded. Pierre 
 Liqueste Lacede obtained a charter which gave "the 
 necessary powers to trade with the "]\Iissouri river In- 
 dians, and "as far north as the river St. Peters." On 
 August 3, 1763, Laclede, with August and Pierre Cho- 
 teau, members of his family, (sons of his mistress), 
 left New Orleans. He reached St. Genevieve on No- 
 vember 3. Finding no houses large enough to hold 
 his goods, he went on to Ft. Chartres, where he re- 
 mained for the winter, spending the time in explor- 
 ing the Mississippi for a site for a trading station. 
 
 162
 
 DON ANTONIO DE ULLOA. 
 Governor of Louisiana, 1764.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 At a distance of eighteen miles below the mouth 
 of the Missouri river he found, on the west bank, "a 
 growth of heavy timber, skirting the river bank, and 
 behind it, at an elevation of some thirty feet," a "beau- 
 tiful expanse of undulating prairie." To this spot he 
 brought his party and possessions on February 15, 
 1764, and laying out a town site, he named it St. Louis. 
 
 Meantime M. D'Abbadie was sent out by the 
 French government to rule New Orleans. He took 
 command June 29, 1763, knowing nothing of the sale 
 to Spain, but during the summer rumors of the sale 
 came and in October the Government confirmed the 
 rumors. Meantime D'Abbadie died and one Aubry 
 succeeded him. 
 
 The French inhabitants were excited and alarmed. 
 Commissioners were sent to Paris to petition for the 
 repurchase of the territory, but in vain. In 1765 a let- 
 ter was received from Don Antonio de Ulloa, a com- 
 modore in the Spanish navy, and a man of letters as 
 well. It was written at Havana, on July loth, and an- 
 nounced that he had been appointed governor and 
 would "soon have the honor" to come and render "all 
 the services the inhabitants may desire." 
 
 He arrived at New Orleans on March 5, 1766. He 
 was a man of learning and an author of wide repute, 
 but he was coldly received. A committee of merchants 
 presented a petition that seemed to Ulloa to be "inso- 
 lent and menacing" in its tone. The superior council, 
 a legislative body, demanded the exhibition of Ulloa's 
 commission. The French troops declined absolutely 
 to enter the Spanish service, although the agreement 
 with Spain had provided that they should do so. 
 
 163
 
 A History of the 
 
 Because of the mutinous spirit of the people "the 
 really mild and liberal Ulloa" did not show his com- 
 mission, or take formal charge of affairs, but man- 
 aged matters as well as he could through Aubry. He 
 began a series of concessions for the benefit of trade. 
 He allowed the French flag to fly. He did more to 
 conciliate the people than he should have done, for 
 his mildness was misunderstood, and as time passed, 
 advantage was taken of it to create an insurrection. 
 "Now it was that a deficiency in habits of mature 
 thought and self-control, and, in that study of recipro- 
 cal justice and natural right, became to the people of 
 New Orleans and Louisiana a calamity." (Cable.) 
 
 On October 25, 1768, a great mob from the Aca- 
 dian and German coasts entered the city. They were 
 armed with fowling pieces, with muskets and all sorts 
 of weapons." The cannon at the gates of the fortifi- 
 cations had been spiked during the night. The people 
 of the city rose in a body. Ulloa and his family were 
 obliged to board a Spanish frigate to escape the mob. 
 The superior council at a meeting, the next day, adopt- 
 ed a report demanding that Ulloa leave the colony, and 
 on October 31, he did leave, "enduring at the last 
 moment the songs and jeers of a throng of night roy- 
 sterers." 
 
 The leaders of the mob at first thought to set up 
 a new nation, and they applied to the British of Pen- 
 sacola for help. But failing to get help they abandoned 
 this early thought of American freedom, and begged 
 Louis XV. to take them back. "Great King, the best 
 of Kings, father and protector of your subjects, deign, 
 sire, to receive into your royal and paternal bosom the 
 
 164
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 children who have no other desire than to die your 
 subjects!" said the petition sent to Paris. Neverthe- 
 less here was the first colony in America that enter- 
 tained the idea of proclaiming her independence. 
 
 But both the thought of liberty, and the petition 
 to "the father and protector of your subjects," failed. 
 On August 1 8, 1769, Don Alexandre O'Reilly, landed 
 at New Orleans with 600 picked soldiers, from a fleet 
 of twenty- four ships, that lay at anchor in the Crescent. 
 The jeers that filled the ears of the departing Ulloa 
 were hushed. In place of them were heard the cheers 
 of the thronging soldiers. But when the flag of France 
 came down, and that of Spain arose, the people wept 
 aloud in spite of bayonets. 
 
 O'Reilly was Irish by birth, but by long training 
 had become a Spaniard in his mental characteristics. 
 He had come to punish the leaders of the insurrection, 
 but he concealed his thoughts. On August 31, he in- 
 vited, with "professions of esteem and friendship," 
 the leaders of the insurrection to attend a levee at his 
 ofiicial residence. They accepted, and "while enjoy- 
 ing the hospitality of his house, were invited by O'Reil- 
 ly himself into an adjoining apartment," where they 
 were arrested by armed soldiers. (Monette.) The 
 men so arrested were Focault, former commissary- 
 general; De Noyant and Boisblanc, of the superior 
 council; La Freniere, attorney-general, and Braud, 
 public printer; Marquis, an officer; Doucet, a lawyer; 
 Villiere, Mazeut and Petit, planters. John and Jo- 
 seph Milhet, Caresse, and W. Poupet, merchants, were 
 arrested several days later. "The trials which followed 
 were hasty, arbitrary and tyranical in the extreme." 
 
 165
 
 A History of the 
 
 De Noyant, La Freniere, ^Marquis, Joseph and Caresse 
 were convicted and sentenced to die, with confiscation 
 of property. They were shot to death on September 28. 
 In connection with the execution of these French 
 mutineers Gayarre gives us an interesting, and per- 
 haps not impertinent peep into the bed chamber of a 
 grand lady of the day. The property of the executed 
 men having been confiscated, an inventory of the house- 
 hold effects of each was taken. In the bed room of 
 Madam Villiere the confiscators found a "cypress bed- 
 stead, three feet wide, by six in length with a mattress 
 of corn shucks and one of feathers on the top; a bol- 
 ster of corn shucks, (split fine and curled, without a 
 doubt), and a coarse cotton counterpane; six chairs 
 of cypress wood, with straw bottoms; some candle 
 sticks with" candles made of the wax of the myrtle 
 bush. It was a bed room in marked contrast to "the 
 hooped petticoat, the brocaded gown, the rich head 
 dress ;" and other fine clothing of the lady. 
 
 O'Reilly came to enforce the submission of the 
 people. His power was ample and his methods ef- 
 fective. Having shot five, he sent four more to Morro 
 Castle, at Havana, where they were imprisoned one 
 year. That ended the insurrection spirit. 
 
 Martin says the population of Louisiana, at this time, 
 was estimated at 13,540 souls. New Orleans held 
 3,190, of whom 1,803 were free whites, 31 free blacks, 
 1,225 slaves. Martin gives St. Louis a population of 
 891, meaning thereby, apparently, the region of which 
 St. Louis was the chief settlement. 
 
 The pictures of life under the early Spanish rule 
 are interesting. "I found the English in complete pos- 
 
 166
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 session of the commerce of the colony. They had in 
 this town their merchants and traders, with open stores 
 and shops, and I can safely assert that they pocketed 
 nine-tenths of the money spent here," reported O'Reil- 
 ly. But he soon "drove off all the English traders," 
 and all other individuals of that nation. 
 
 The British having, meantime, come into control 
 of West Florida, and the east shore of the Mississippi 
 above the Bayou Manchac, and having moreover, the 
 right of free navigation of the big river, had not only 
 established trading posts on their own territory, con- 
 tiguous to the French domain, but during the rule 
 of D'Abbadie and Aubry had entered the city itself, ob- 
 taining permits, no doubt, by bribing the officials. 
 
 When driven out by O'Reilly the British merchants, 
 knowing that they had the right to the free navigation: 
 of the river, built "two large floating ware houses, fit- 
 ted up with counters and shelves, and stocked with as- 
 sorted merchandise" — the first houseboat of the Mis- 
 sissippi known to the record. These were moored at 
 Gretna, opposite the city, a good part of the time, but 
 where poled (pushed), up stream when the exigencies 
 of trade among the "Cajuns" or at the German Coast 
 demanded. "Anything offered in trade was acceptable,, 
 revenue laws were mentioned only in jest, profits were 
 large, credit was free and long, and business was 
 brisk." 
 
 Martin makes an estimate of the business of Louisi- 
 ana province, at this time, and places the annual ex- 
 ports at: Indigo, $100,000; deer skins, $80,000; lum- 
 ber, $50,000; naval stores, (resin, etc.), $12,000; rice, 
 peas and beans, $4,000; tallow, $4,000 — a total of 
 
 167
 
 A History of the 
 
 $250,000. The smuggling trade done with the Span- 
 ish colonies before O'Reilly's time reached $60,000 a 
 year. 
 
 "The indigo of Louisiana was greatly inferior to 
 that of Hispaniola; the planters being quite unskill- 
 ful and inattentive in the manufacture of it." 
 
 The culture of sugar cane, introduced by the Jesuits, 
 had not flourished. A M. Dubreuil, in 1758, had 
 erected a sugar mill in the lower part of the present 
 city, and a cargo of soft sugar was exported to France 
 in 1765. But half of it leaked from the barrels during 
 the voyage, and the sugar made thereafter, for a long 
 time, was consumed at home. 
 
 Some time after O'Reilly arrived at New Orleans, 
 a fleet of transports came up the river bringing 2,600 
 Spanish soldiers. The ships with food supplies failed 
 to arrive in time, and provisions became so scarce that 
 the price of flour quickly rose to $20 a barrel. In 
 this condition of affairs came Oliver Pollock, a Balti- 
 more merchant, with a ship load of flour which he 
 offered to O'Reilly for the use of the soldiers, and the 
 people, at his own price — a notable incident in the his- 
 tory of American commerce. O'Reilly declined to 
 fix the price and Pollock put it at $15. Then O'Reilly 
 bought it and "granted to Pollock the free trade of 
 Louisiana" for life — a privilege worth much more 
 than five dollars per barrel on one cargo of flour. 
 
 O'Reilly sailed from New Orleans on October 29, 
 1770, leaving Louis de Unzaga, with 1,200 soldiers, to 
 rule. O'Reilly having pacified, Unzaga was to concili- 
 ate, the people. How he succeeded he tells in a letter 
 to the Bishop of Cuba (1773), in which he says there 
 
 168
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 are not in New Orleans and its environs 2,000 souls 
 of all professions and conditions. Many Creoles (that 
 is, as Cable says, "the French speaking ruling class"), 
 had emigrated to St. Domingo, taking with them me- 
 chanics and other valuable citizens — a movement 
 which those who lived long enough, greatly regretted, 
 less than twenty years later, when the negroes arose." 
 
 In place of these emigrants came many Spaniards, 
 and in one respect the Spanish families were better 
 for the country than the French had been, for they 
 came to make Louisiana their home, where the French 
 had, to a great extent, looked upon the country as an 
 abiding place where tliose with sufficient influence 
 could accumulate wealth. But not all the French emi- 
 grated, and in consequence two social communities 
 were created in one town — an official Spanish com- 
 munity, and a land-owning, French-speaking aristoc- 
 racy. 
 
 A curious result followed. Many Spanish officials, 
 including Gov. Unzaga, who succeeded him, married 
 French ladies. But "in the society balls when the un- 
 compromising civilian of the one nationality met the 
 equally unyielding military officers of the other, the 
 cotillion was French or Spanish, according to the 
 superior strength of the Creole or Spanish party." 
 And "more than once" there was "actual onset and 
 bloodshed," to determine which was the stronger, with 
 duels a plenty next day. 
 
 Spanish Ursuline nuns, brought from Havana to 
 teach Spanish, "found themselves compelled to teach 
 in French, and to content themselves with the feeble 
 achievement of hearing the Spanish catechism from 
 
 169
 
 A History of the 
 
 girls who recited it with tears rolhng down their 
 cheeks" (Cable). 
 
 "I cannot flatter his majesty so much as to say that 
 the people have ceased to be French at heart," wrote 
 Unzaga in 1773, and Bishop Penalvert in 1795 ^^~ 
 peated the same thought. 
 
 Not only did Unzaga fail to make Spanish of the 
 Creoles; he and his successors failed absolutely to 
 create a colony worth comparison in any respect, save 
 one, with the Anglo-Saxon communities at the North- 
 east. When a stranger passed the thresholds of New 
 Orleans he was "welcomed with such manners as were 
 habitual in the most accomplished court of Europe." 
 In "artificially graceful deportment" (Gayarre), and 
 in that only, this Latin-American colony led all other 
 American colonies. In all practical matters, the Lou- 
 isiana territory was sunk into the rich soil of the valley 
 by its official incubus. 
 
 The local historians tell of the convents, the 
 churches, the hospitals and the fortifications that were 
 built in New Orleans, but the most careful search of 
 all that they have written shows but one indication or 
 promise of the magnificent future that awaited the city. 
 It was this — When the French Republic arose to "fire 
 the Creoles' long-suppressed enthusiasm," the "Mar- 
 seillaise was wildly called for in the theatre ; and in the 
 drinking shops was sung defiantly the song, ' Ca ira — 
 ca ira, les aristocrates a la lanterne.' " A thought — 
 even a hope of self-government, ill-conceived, and 
 dimly seen, indeed, and yet unmistakable, was in the 
 hearts of this people. They were lying in the cradle 
 of a paternal despotism, but by and by they would walk. 
 
 170
 
 X 
 
 PONTIACS WAR AS SEEN IN THE VALLEY. 
 
 The True Cause of Pontiac's War Considered — The Sav- 
 age Victories at Erie, Le Boeuf and Venango — Fort 
 Pitt twice Besieged — Saved by the First Armored 
 War Ship known to American History — The Des- 
 perate Fight at Bushy Run — A Comparison of 
 Losses — The Universal Law of Compensation has 
 been Written in Blood from the Blue Juniata to 
 Jackson's Hole. 
 
 To learn the origin of Pontiac's war, one must go 
 back to the evacuation of Fort Duquesne, November 
 24, 1758, because the Indians began to grow angry 
 very soon after that event; and they were angered 
 because of what followed naturally (alas!) as a result 
 of British domination. As soon as Fort Duquesne 
 came into the possession of the British, the traders 
 
 171
 
 A History of the 
 
 began to stream through the passes. These traders 
 had, in former times, defrauded the Indians by finesse. 
 The French traders had made more than 700 per cent, 
 profit (La Houtan), but both the British and French 
 had always made many presents to the influential mem- 
 bers of the tribes. When the French government could 
 no longer assist the French trader, however, the Brit- 
 ish traders had almost a monopoly of the Indian traffic, 
 and the one brutally odious characteristic of the Anglo- 
 Saxon — his contemptuous disregard of the rights of 
 inferior races — displayed itself. Where the traders 
 had bribed, they now bullied, the Indians. Whom they 
 had caressed, they now kicked from their path. In- 
 stead of adroit swindlers, they became highway rob- 
 bers without masks. 
 
 Even the officers and the soldiers who replaced the 
 French in the frontier posts after the fall of Quebec 
 (1760), forgot, if they ever learned, that soldiers are 
 trained solely to protect the weak. The Indian had 
 been received at the stations with flattery and feasting ; 
 he was now, with undisguised disgust, kicked from the 
 premises. 
 
 This matter seems important because the Indians, 
 as a mass, were not incited to go to war under Pontiac 
 by any encroachment of settlers actually made in the 
 territory France had surrendered. The prime moving 
 cause of this war was the bearing of the traders and 
 soldiers who came to and were stationed among the 
 Indians. Pontiac and his long-headed sachems saw, 
 indeed, that British colonial farmers would follow the 
 soldiers to the British forts, and would there clear 
 away the forests — destroy the hunting grounds — but 
 
 172
 
 MAJOR ROBERT ROGERS. 
 
 From an engrraved 
 
 Indian fighter, ranger, English spy, etc 
 portrait of 1770.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 they were not aroused to a point where they would 
 resent the foreseen intrusion until the aggressive ar- 
 rogance of the British forerunners became unbearable. 
 
 In 1760 Pontiac, the chief of the Ottawas, was 
 willing to be the friend of the British. Major Robert 
 Rogers, while on his way to take over the French forts 
 at Detroit and IMackinac, met Pontiac where Cleve- 
 land, Ohio, now stands. It was a meeting of two able 
 w^arriors. Pontiac, on learning the mission of the 
 British forces, not only bade them go on, but he sent 
 messengers who shielded them from the attack of In- 
 dians along the Detroit river. And that he remained 
 neutral, if not friendly, for some time after the British 
 took possession of all the French forts is manifest from 
 the fact that several small conspiracies were created 
 among the Indians living between the Alleghanies and 
 the Illinois, in which Pontiac did not appear. 
 
 Pontiac might have been made the firm friend of 
 the whites — he would have been made a friend had he 
 been treated with kindly consideration. The histor- 
 ians rail much at the "stubborn Quakers" of Pennsyl- 
 vania for refusing to vote supplies during Pontiac's 
 war, but they omit the fact that if Quakers had been 
 employed to deal with the Western Indians, there 
 would have been no war with Pontiac. The Pontiac 
 war was due to outrageous doings of white men in 
 contact with the red, and the utter neglect of the au- 
 thorities in the seats of government. As the time 
 passed, Pontiac saw the trend of British domination — 
 that the red men were to be subjugated by a race whose 
 arrogance and insolence w^ere unendurable, and then 
 he prepared for war. 
 
 ^73
 
 A History of the 
 
 Pontiac knew that the French had been defeated 
 at Niagara and Quebec, but he did not know that the 
 French nation was staggering to its knees under a 
 weight of corruption too great to be borne. He sup- 
 posed that if the red men were all to unite they would 
 be joined by the French, as of old, and that with one 
 mighty upheaval those united powers could sweep the 
 British into the sea. With shoulders humping and 
 hands chopping the air, the French vehemently en- 
 couraged this view, and Pontiac determined to try. 
 
 The writers speak of this war as Pontiac's "con- 
 spiracy." They call the artifices by which he and his 
 men strove to get advantages over the white soldiers 
 as treachery. In like manner Indian warriors have 
 been styled horse thieves. But remembering that civ- 
 ilized naval officers have disguised warships as mer- 
 chantmen, and that civilized governments, long after 
 Pontiac's death, authorized private armed ships to prey 
 on the unarmed merchantmen of the enemy, we will 
 speak of Pontiac and his men as wild men — savages 
 only. 
 
 How Pontiac fasted and prayed and dreamed 
 dreams ; how he gathered the tribes to a great council, 
 and fired them with his own mad enthusiasm ; how the 
 Frenchmen helped on the combination, and promised 
 to take part in the actual war; how the red sweetheart 
 of the commander at Detroit betrayed the plot in time 
 to save the garrison there ; how Pontiac and his sixty 
 warriors, with sawed off guns under their blankets, and 
 a lie on their lips came to the fort, to stagger with 
 astonishment as they saw the troops under arms and 
 heard the drums roll; how they struck on May lo, 
 
 174
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 1763, nevertheless; and how until October 12, the in- 
 congruous forces were held to the work of besieging 
 the British fort, and finally gave up only when Sir 
 Jeffrey Amherst compelled the French commandant at 
 Fort Chartres to send a message to Detroit calling off 
 the red warriors, can have only mention here. Of 
 the fighting that was done within the watershed of the 
 Ohio, however, some details may be given. 
 
 On May 18, the Indians in a great mob made a 
 furious attack on the fort at Le Beuf (Waterford), 
 Pennsylvania. The assault failed. At night they fired 
 the wooden structure, and then danced before the gate, 
 as they looked to see Ensign Price and his thirteen 
 men come out to die fighting. But Price and his men 
 cut their way through the rear wall and escaped to the 
 woods. By a circuitous route they reached French 
 Creek, and passing down arrived at Venango. 
 
 In place of a stockaded fort they found there a heap 
 of hot ashes and a few smoking logs. A party of 
 Seneca Indians (the Seneca tribe only, of the Six Na- 
 tions, joined Pontiac), had entered the fort professing 
 friendship, and then had tomahawked all the garrison 
 save Lieut. Gordon, commanding. Him they burned 
 in Seneca fashion, keeping him alive for three days. 
 
 By following the river, Price and seven of his men 
 reached Fort Pitt, on May 26. Six had dropped on 
 the trail through exhaustion. On the same day a sol- 
 dier named Gray arrived from Presqu' Isle, (Erie, Pa.), 
 with a story of the slaughter of all but himself and 
 one other man of the garrison there, although the In- 
 dians had promised them a safe conduct to Fort Pitt. 
 
 A day later (May 27, 1763), the Indians were 
 175
 
 A History of the 
 
 prowling around Fort Pitt, killing stragglers. A dele- 
 gation came to the Fort and demanded that it surren- 
 der, promising, the while, a safe conduct to all within 
 its walls to the settlements in Pennsylvania. They 
 pretended to be friendly and anxious only to keep the 
 people in the fort from the hands of Pontiac and his 
 Western Indians, who, they said, were on the way. 
 Capt. Ecuyer thanked them and in return warned them 
 to flee quickly because, he said, an army of 6,000 men 
 was coming to Fort Pitt, and 3,000 more were going 
 up the lakes. 
 
 It is an interesting fact that while the Indians were 
 trying to deceive Ecuyer they were themselves de- 
 ceived, and fled. They went east, instead of west, 
 however, and they ravaged the frontiers, as they had 
 done when incited by the French. Thus they learned 
 that no army was coming to Fort Pitt, and on July 26, 
 they came back to the fort. 
 
 Shingiss (a notable leader). Turtle Heart and 
 another chief were admitted to a conference, when they 
 asked for it; and Shingiss made a speech which un- 
 fortunately has not been preserved — unfortunately 
 because it was a fierce statement of the real wrongs the 
 Indians had suffered at the hands of the whites, with 
 special emphasis on the supposed wrong of taking their 
 hunting grounds. It was a speech to make a patriot 
 wince, but Capt. Ecuyer's reply was still more painful 
 to the patriot heart, for it was a lie. He said the Brit- 
 ish posts were maintained in the Indian country solely 
 to protect the Indians from the French. And yet, 
 while he talked, there were 100 women and children 
 of would be settlers, within the walls of the fort. 
 
 176
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 A siege followed that is memorable for one event. 
 The Indians, by creeping under the shelter of the banks 
 of the streams, found a safe lodgment under the walls 
 of the fort, and were able to shoot flaming arrows to 
 the roofs of the fort buildings in a way that was ex- 
 ceedingly dangerous to the whites. A rude fire engine 
 was constructed, but only constant and most wearying 
 vigilance saved the buildings from destruction; and 
 finally it appeared that the garrison would be ex- 
 hausted by the struggle. 
 
 In this extremity some bright intellect planned 
 relief. A flat boat, with wooden walls that were bullet 
 proof, was built and mounted on rollers. A crew, well 
 supplied, was placed in it, and it was then rushed 
 through a gate and down a steep slope into the Mo- 
 nongahela. The crew then anchored off the point 
 where they could fire through their ports and rake the 
 Indians concealed in little caves under the banks. 
 ''Whereat," as a soldier who was present says, "they 
 set up the most diabolical yells I ever heard, retired 
 up stream, and never again ventured so close to us" 
 in daylight. The success of this, the first armored 
 American warship, was manifest from the first run. 
 
 It is estimated that 20,000 people were driven from 
 their homes in Virginia by the red raiders. In Penn- 
 sylvania the red fire swept eastward until the smoke 
 was seen from the mountains around Carlisle. In 
 Virginia a thousand riflemen were enrolled, and these 
 beat back the raiders. In Pennsylvania, Col. Henry 
 Bouquet, a native of Berne, Switzerland (a soldier 
 of fortune), was placed in command of 500 men, the 
 remains of two regiments of regular troops, and sent 
 
 177
 
 A History of the 
 
 with supplies, toward Fort Pitt. He left Carlisle on 
 July 19, with what seemed a most forlorn hope. For 
 the force was inadequate in number, the soldiers were 
 not frontiersmen, and many of them were sick. But 
 it is recorded of Bouquet that "he was enthusiastic 
 in the study of his profession," and such a leader could 
 not fail altogether. 
 
 Fort Bedford and then Fort Ligonier were reached 
 without mishap. The Indians about each place fled 
 when Bouquet came, but it was only to gather in force 
 further on. 
 
 Leaving Ligonier on August 4, Bouquet camped 
 within eighteen miles of Bushy Run. The next day 
 a forced march was made over a dry trail for seven- 
 teen miles — a distance that was covered by i o'clock 
 in the afternoon — and the tired and thirsty soldiers 
 were hastening forward, hoping for rest and water 
 on the shaded banks of the run, when the brush ahead 
 of the advance guard began to spit flames, and in a 
 few moments the whole force was surrounded by a 
 whooping, merciless horde of Delawares, Shawnees 
 and Mingoes. The Indians that had been foiled at 
 Fort Pitt came to seek revenge on the troops of Bouquet. 
 
 Lining up in a circle around the supplies and bag- 
 gage, the little force of white men stood in their places, 
 and fired back at the gun flashes of the Indians who 
 kept well-hid behind rocks and trees. 
 
 It was a most unequal conflict. The troops by 
 companies charged the concealed Indians, and with the 
 bayonet drove them hither and thither at every charge. 
 Only a temporary relief was thus attained, however, 
 for the Indians turned around and fought with as 
 
 178
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 much determination as ever, the moment the pursuit 
 stopped. But in spite of discouragement; and in spite 
 of fatigue, heat and thirst, the men, inspired by their 
 leader, fought until night came, and then with their 
 mouths as dry as ashes, they took posts as guards, or 
 lay down to sleep around the wounded, who were suf- 
 fering from tortures only a trifle less than the Indians 
 would have inflicted at the stake. It is a story worth 
 telling chiefly because of the magnificent endurance 
 of these men. 
 
 At daylight the Indians came with renewed fury, 
 and then Bouquet provided a trap for them. He or- 
 dered the two companies in advance to fall back hastily 
 as if a retreat of the whole force was contemplated, 
 while he concealed other squads where they could cover 
 Math their muskets the space abandoned. The Indians 
 were deceived, and with yells of joy rushed in a thick 
 mob after the companies that seemed to retreat. At 
 the right moment the ambushed squads opened fire on 
 the flanks of the mob, and then charged them with 
 the bayonet. 
 
 That work won the victory. The Indians fled 
 in a panic, and Bouquet was able to reach Fort Pitt 
 without further mishap. But while the Indians lost 
 near sixty killed, the white force had ii6 privates 
 and eight officers killed. 
 
 The much greater loss of the whites in this vic- 
 tory is worth a word aside. Consider the losses at 
 Venango and Presqu' Isle; consider the losses at the 
 other posts. To these add the losses (nowhere stated, 
 unfortunately), that were suffered during the raids. 
 It is a most important consideration. Definite figures 
 
 179
 
 A History of the 
 
 are unattainable, but Roosevelt says that "in Brad- 
 dock's War the borderers are estimated to have suf- 
 fered a loss of fifty souls for every Indian slain; in 
 Pontiac's war they had learned to defend themselves 
 better, and yet the ratio is probably ten to one." In 
 Lord Dunmore's v^ar the ratio did not rise to more 
 than three whites killed for every Indian life taken, 
 but to sum up all the slaughter of whites, in occupy- 
 ing the Mississippi Valley, it is fair to suppose the 
 losses of the whites out-numbered those of the Indians, 
 by at least four or five to one. The whites paid a 
 frightful price for the negligence and brutal greed they 
 exhibited in dealing with the Indians. The universal 
 law of compensation has been written in blood from 
 the Juniata to Jackson's Hole beside the Tetons. We 
 will but mention the penalty the whites have paid in 
 money — the annual fine, as one may say, that amounted 
 in the year ending June 30, 1900, to $10,175,106.76, 
 that sum being the amount expended for "Indian Af- 
 fairs." 
 
 It was Emerson who wrote an essay on the Uni- 
 versal Law of Compensation, and it was Carlyle who 
 said of a certain part of the great Anglo-Saxon race 
 that they numbered 27,000,000, and were "mostly 
 fools." The truth of this last statement is never plain- 
 er than when considering the story of the Indian — un- 
 less, indeed, it be when considering what our present- 
 day critics say of that dour old Scotchman. 
 
 The relief of Fort Pitt by Bouquet, and the failure 
 of Pontiac at Detroit disposed the Indians to peace, 
 though peace was not made immediately. The raiders 
 in Pennsylvania retired to the Muskingum. A royal 
 
 180
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 proclamation was issued forbidding absolutely all 
 white settlements in the Indian country; forbidding 
 the purchase of Indian lands by private persons, and 
 ordering that all Indian traders take out licenses and 
 give bonds that they would observe certain regula- 
 tions providing for honest dealing with the red men. 
 
 Nevertheless the Indians began the war once more 
 in the spring of 1764. Pontiac besieged Detroit, and 
 the raiders came to the frontier homes with renewed 
 fury. 
 
 Accordingly a force was sent up the great lakes 
 under Col. Bradstreet, who did nothing but allow the 
 Indians to deceive him with idle promises. Another 
 force, under Colonel Bouquet, marched to Fort Pitt. 
 Three wily chiefs came to meet him, bringing such 
 promises as had deceived Bradstreet, but Bouquet ar- 
 rested them as spies, and then sent one home to tell 
 the tribes that only sincerity would save them. As 
 a test of their sincerity he sent two messengers through 
 the wilderness to carry letters to Bradstreet, at Detroit, 
 and he told the Indians that if these messengers did not 
 return safely, at the end of twenty days, the two chiefs 
 held as hostages w^ould be killed. 
 
 Then to emphasize his words, Bouquet marched 
 his whole force, (1,500 men), through the wilderness 
 to the Muskingum River, where he arrived near the 
 middle of October, 1764. There he met the red peace- 
 makers. 
 
 Bouquet was a sincere man, and because he was 
 sincere and firm, the keen-eyed Indians saw their doom, 
 if they failed to obey his will. The terms he imposed 
 upon them were strictly fulfilled — the promises the In- 
 
 181
 
 A History of the 
 
 dians made to him were kept to the last letter, and that 
 is a most important fact in the story of the Indian. A 
 clear-eyed, very bad child was the Indian of 1 764 — bad 
 enough to seek every advantage by indirection, and to 
 revel in cruelty, but clear-eyed enough to know a man 
 at a glance ; and good enough, withal, to meet sincerity 
 with sincere compliance. 
 
 The terms imposed were simple. The Indians were 
 to give up all prisoners, first of all, and then send a 
 deputation of chiefs, fully authorized to make a treaty 
 with Sir William Johnson in the Mohawk Valley. 
 
 The prisoners were promptly delivered, and a most 
 remarkable gathering they made. For some were wild 
 with joy, and others who had become true children of 
 the forest, were sullen and exasperated. There were 
 white wives who, with unspeakable joy, were taken in 
 the arms of their husbands who had come with Bou- 
 quet to find them. There were others who, with downcast 
 eyes, because of half-red children, appealed for pity. 
 There were white girls who were leaving red lovers 
 whom they loved, and with whom they fain would 
 stay, and there were white boys who watched for a 
 chance, sure to come, at last, for a return to the wild 
 free life of the wilderness. But all together were taken 
 to Fort Pitt, and the war was ended. 
 
 The good work of Col. Bouquet, a sincere man, 
 firmly established the British power over the Indians 
 in the Mississippi Valley, and thus opened the way for 
 British settlers. 
 
 182
 
 DANIEL BOONE. 
 From an original portrait by Harding.
 
 XI 
 
 CROSSING THE RANGE. 
 
 The Origin and Character of the Home makers who first 
 Passed the Alleghanies — Cumberland Gap Named — 
 Work of the Ohio Company — George Croghan as an 
 Explorer — Kentucky Purchased from the Iroquois — 
 Washington as a Speculator in Ohio River Lands — 
 Daniel Boone and His Adventures — When the "Di- 
 vine Right of Self Government" was first Exercised 
 West of the Divide — Slaves in Great Demand. 
 
 At the end of Pontiac's war, the British colonists 
 no longer feared either French or the Indians. Their 
 migration across the range was therefore to grow in 
 volume with an increasing ratio from the day peace 
 was announced. But before relating the interesting 
 facts of this migration it is well worth while to con- 
 sider how it happened that such a westward move- 
 
 183
 
 A History of the 
 
 ment came into existence in the first place. Tlie fact 
 is a consideration of the causes of this migration gives 
 one a key to some of the most prominent characteris- 
 tics of the -settlers in the Mississippi Valley — and of 
 their descendants. 
 
 In any study of this matter it is learned first of all 
 that the people who were found flocking to the moun- 
 tain passes were for the greater part, either emigrants, 
 (with little money), from the old country, (or the im- 
 mediate descendants of such emigrants), and they land- 
 ed in ports south of New York. They came from coun- 
 tries where the land was in the possession of the gentry 
 — where the possession of land, in fact, created a class 
 distinction — gave the land owners social superiority. 
 In the old country the emigrants had learned that the 
 possession of land not only gave social elevation ; it was 
 the basis of physical comfort and mental ease. But 
 toil as they might, they could not hope to obtain pos- 
 session of so much as a single acre in the land of their 
 birth. 
 
 Over the sea, however, in America, there was wild 
 free land in breadths beyond their comprehension. It 
 was to be had by any one who would take it and work 
 it, and they came in ship loads to the ports of the colo- 
 nies — 25,000 of them arrived in Delaware Bay, in the 
 course of two years — in order to secure this land. 
 
 They were thinking people or they would not have 
 seen and comprehended the' advantages connected with 
 the ownership of land. They were ambitious, energetic 
 and enterprising, or they never would have left their 
 old homes and surroundings to migrate to a new coun- 
 try. 
 
 184
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 When they landed in America they showed forth 
 other admirable characteristics. There were breadths of 
 unoccupied land — wide breadths a plenty — east of the 
 mountains, but these sturdy migrants would not take 
 it. They landed in the Delaware or the Chesapeake, 
 and a brief examination of the people and the condi- 
 tions along shore showed them that an aristocratic 
 class dominated that region — landed gentry very much 
 like those left behind in the old country, even though 
 there were neither dukes nor lords to be found. Under 
 the gentry in Virginia were negro slaves. Under the 
 gentry in Pennsylvania were a "boorish people — good 
 farmers who cared more for their pigs than their own 
 comfort, uniting thrift with habits that scorned educa- 
 tion." That these migrants would not associate with 
 either the negroes or the boorish people who scorned 
 education was a matter of course. Having no means 
 to buy estates it is plain that they could not have joined 
 the landed gentry, but it is also a fact that they would 
 not have done so even if it had been possible. For in 
 Virginia the dominant people were Episcopalians; in 
 Pennsylvania they were Quakers, and the migrants 
 were Scotch Presbyterians who were ready to give 
 reasons for the faith that was in them. Not all the mi- 
 grants were Scotch Presbyterians, of course. There 
 were some Huguenots and Palitinates, and many were 
 without religious scruples; but the important fact is 
 that these people as a whole were driven by their land 
 hunger and religious peculiarities — by their ambition 
 and their determination to think for themselves — away 
 from the coast, where they landed, to the freedom of 
 the wilds. 
 
 185
 
 A History of the 
 
 And if we look at the American born people, (men 
 like Robertson and Boone), who flocked across the 
 mountains, we will find that the feelings which urged 
 them to seek homes in the wilderness were akin to 
 those of the migrants from over the sea. 
 
 Rightly considered, this westward movement marks 
 one of the most important epochs in the development 
 of the race. The migration was due to the sprouting 
 belief that all men were born free and equal, and were 
 endowed with inalienable rights. It was a manifesta- 
 tion of the spirit that gave the world the American 
 JMation. 
 
 \ ' There was, indeed, one slight obstacle in the way 
 of the home seekers as they toiled through the passes 
 — the King's Proclamation forbidding it, and forbid- 
 ding also all private purchases of lands from the In- 
 dians. The real objects of this proclamation, as ex- 
 plained by Lord Hillsborough, President of the Board 
 of Trade, were as follows: 
 
 "We take leave to remind your Lordships of that principle 
 which was adopted by this Board, and approved and confirmed 
 by his Majesty, immediately after the Treaty of Paris, viz.: 
 the confining the western extent of settlements to such a distance 
 from the seacoast as that those settlements should lie within 
 easy reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom, . . . 
 and also of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction which 
 was conceived to be necessary for the preservation of the colo- 
 nies in due subordination to, and dependence upon, the mother 
 country. And these we apprehend to have been the two capital 
 objects of His Majesty's proclamation of the 7th of October, 
 1763. . . . The great object of colonizing upon the continent 
 of North America has been to improve and extend the com- 
 merce, navigation and manufactures of this kingdom. . . . 
 It does appear to us that the extension of the fur trade depends 
 entirely upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession 
 of their hunting grounds, and that all colonizing does in its 
 
 186
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 nature, and must in its consequences, operate to the prejudice 
 of that branch of commerce. . . Let the savages enjoy their 
 deserts in quiet. Were they driven from their forests the peltry- 
 trade would decrease." 
 
 It had been openly asserted in England that if the 
 Colonies were relieved from the fear of Indian aggres- 
 sions they "would cover the continent, become a great 
 nation, manufacture their own goods, and eventually 
 declare themselves independent." 
 
 In the colonies, however, the proclamation was not 
 taken seriously. It was considered as a collection of 
 soft words intended to allay the irritation of the In- 
 dians. Washington said of it, that it was not intended 
 as a permanent law governing the territory west of 
 the Alleghanies. 
 
 Therefore, obeying the impulse of a dominant race, 
 the British-Americans moved on. We can see now 
 that the race progress through the valley of the Mis- 
 sissippi was inevitable — not to be stopped by any earth- 
 ly power. A little consideration of the history of man 
 shows that the spread of a dominant race is not only 
 inevitable, but that it ought to be so if man is to con- 
 tinue to elevate himself. 
 
 And yet, in spreading through the INIississippi Val- 
 ley — in spreading over every part of the continent, in 
 fact — the white men wronged the red men beyond the 
 power of words to describe, and thereby inevitably 
 injured themselves vastly more than they injured the 
 red men. 
 
 If a brief consideration be given to this matter, 
 it will appear that the spread of the white men over the 
 Great Valley was not necessarily in itself an injury to 
 the Indian. The whites did necessarily take from the 
 
 187
 
 A History of the 
 
 Indian his hunting grounds, but enough has been said, 
 already perhaps, to show that the Indian ought to have 
 been kept out of hunting grounds from the earHest pos- 
 sible moment. 
 
 In short it was not in the taking of lands that the 
 Indian was wronged, it was in the manner of the tak- 
 ing. 
 
 We are venturing once more on an idle speculation, 
 but recalling the fact that at Gnadenhutten (and else- 
 where by the Quakers), wild Indians were turned into 
 peace-loving, stump-grubbing farmers, we can see now 
 that the white men, if united in the project, might have 
 made a Gnadenhutten of every red village on the con- 
 tinent. Let this statement be considered without pre- 
 judice. Bad as the Indians had become after 150 years 
 association with the worst men of the white race, it was 
 possible, by united and sincere efforts, even in 1764, to 
 make a Gnadenhutten of every Indian village in the 
 land. Because the white men were of a superior race, 
 they were the natural guardians of the red men. These 
 words are, perhaps, the mere prating of a sentimental- 
 ist, but because the w^hites were of a superior race, it 
 was their duty to place the red men, at whatever cost, 
 in permanent homes as corn-growers. But they 
 shirked their duty — they refused to take up the "white 
 man's burden" — and they have been compelled to pay 
 for their neglect a price in blood and treasure so great 
 that words are inadequate to tell how great the price 
 is. Indeed, instead of trying to settle the Indians on 
 farm lands, there are records showing that punish- 
 ments were provided for subjugated Indians who failed 
 to bring in certain stated quantities of skins of wild 
 
 188
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 animals. It is a matter worth repeated considerations, 
 when we think of the inferior peoples over whom we 
 are yet guardians. 
 
 But this is not to withhold sympathy from the fron- 
 tier home maker in his battles ; his sufferings were often 
 heartbreaking. He was only fulfilling the destiny of 
 his race, for in him the forward impulse was strongest. 
 The frontiersmen were the instruments by which the 
 race worked out its destiny. It was their part to meet 
 and push on the red men, to endure the hardships of 
 forest life, and to turn the wilderness into home lands 
 for a more (if not wholly), civilized people. They 
 were the advance guard sent ahead of the main army ; 
 they were to be sacrificed — shot down — for the good 
 of the many. How they did their duty shall now be 
 told. 
 
 Few of the explorers need be named. It was in 
 1748 that Dr. Thomas Walker, "surveyor and man of 
 mark," reached the head of Cumberland River, and 
 two years later he passed through the Gap. His party 
 killed "thirteen bufifaloes, eight elks, fifty-three bears, 
 two deer and 150 turkeys." The abundance of all 
 kinds of game found is, perhaps, the most important 
 feature of the story of Walker's expedition, and of 
 others like it; for every frontiersman knew that these 
 wild animals swarmed only where their food was 
 abundant, and that their food was abundant where the 
 land was rich. 
 
 It was in 1749 that the Ohio Company of Virginia, 
 the organization of capitalists already mentioned, who 
 had tried to acquire a half million acres of land on the 
 Ohio River for the purpose of speculation, now did 
 
 189
 
 A History of the 
 
 some work. They employed Col. Thomas Cresap, a 
 frontiersman and trader living on the headwaters of 
 the Potomac, to mark a trail fit for pack horses, from 
 where Cumberland, Md., now stands, over the moun- 
 tains to the forks of the Ohio. A friendly Indian 
 named Nemacolin, who lived with Cresap, did the 
 work. He blazed the trees along the route followed 
 by the Indians when crossing the mountains by that 
 pass; that is the Indian with a tomahawk, cut patches 
 of bark from all the trees along the route. It was this 
 path that was eventually opened as a road fit for 
 wagons by the axemen with Braddock's army, and it 
 was thereafter known as Braddock's Road. The great 
 National Road, made the next century, followed this 
 trail in part. 
 
 On September i6, 1750, Christopher Gist, a not- 
 able Indian trader, was commissioned by the "Ohio 
 Company" to go over the range and prospect for lands 
 on which they could locate their claim for 200,000 
 acres. His journey took him through the central and 
 southern part of the State of Ohio as far as the mouth 
 of the Scioto, whence he crossed to the Kentucky side, 
 went up the Licking, climbed over the divide to the 
 Kentucky River, up which he traveled to the Clinch, 
 and so home by the way of the New River, and the head 
 of the Roanoke. As a result of his explorations, the 
 Ohio Company determined to locate their claims on 
 the south side of the Ohio, and Gist was sent, in April, 
 1752, among the Indians to induce them to move their 
 villages to the lands which the company purposed se- 
 curing from them. In a dim way, this company saw the 
 right method of dealing with the red men. They meant 
 
 190
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 to turn him from a roving to a sedentary life, for the 
 purpose of trade first, of course, but ultimately that 
 he might become an agriculturalist and a citizen. 
 
 Dr. Walker, who named Cumberland Gap for the 
 Duke of Cumberland, explored a part of the Kentucky 
 River in 1758, as agent of a British land company, of 
 which the Duke was chief patron, and he gave this 
 river the name of Louisa in honor of the Duchess — a 
 name that is perpetuated only by the name of the Ken- 
 tucky town of Louisa. 
 
 After this, Virginia sent Joshua Fry, Lunsford 
 Lomax and James Patton, with Gist, to Logstown, 
 when a treaty was made wherein the Indians agreed 
 not to molest any settlements that might be made on 
 the Virginia side of the Ohio. Then Gist was ordered 
 to build a fort and lay out a town site on the Virginia 
 side of the river, two miles below the forks, but before 
 this work was accomplished, the French advent on the 
 head of the river stopped all further progress toward 
 settlement. 
 
 After Pontiac's war ended, and while yet the 
 French were in possession of the Illinois posts, 
 George Croghan, now deputy Indian agent under Sir 
 William Johnson, was sent through the country north- 
 west of the Ohio River to prepare the red men for 
 British domination. It was known to be a dangerous 
 mission, for Pontiac was still alive and unappeased, 
 and the French residents of the region naturally hated 
 the British. 
 
 The party left Fort Pitt on May 15, 1765, and 
 without adventures worth noting here, passed down 
 to the mouth of the Wabash River, where they arrived 
 
 191
 
 A History of the 
 
 on June 6, and camped in a fortification that Croghan 
 supposed to be of Indian origin. There, at dayhght, 
 on the morning of the 8th, they were attacked by a 
 party of Kickapoo and other Wabash Vahey 
 Indians, two white men and three Indians of 
 Croghan's party were killed and everybody else 
 wounded (including Croghan), except two white men 
 and one Indian. The Kickapoos then rushed in and 
 plundered the camp. 
 
 When told that the Iroquois would come to take 
 vengeance, they excused themselves by saying that 
 "the French had spirited them up," and they appeared 
 to be alarmed, but they kept the plunder they had taken. 
 
 After some discussion of the matter, the Kickapoos 
 took Croghan and his party as prisoners to Vincennes, 
 where "about eighty or ninety French families" were 
 "settled on the east side of the river, being one of the 
 finest situations that can be found," to quote one of 
 Croghan's journals. They were "an idle, lazy people, 
 a parcel of renegades from Canada, and much worse 
 than the Indians," in Croghan's opinion. He had little 
 reason to think well of them, for, before Croghan's 
 eyes, they traded baubles and red paint to the Indians 
 for the tools and other valuables of which Croghan 
 had been robbed, including gold and silver coin. One 
 trader sold a pound of vermillion paint for ten of 
 Croghan's half Johannes (a gold coin worth $8.25), 
 and jeered at Croghan after the trade was completed. 
 
 However, Croghan was released, after a time, and 
 was able to hold a number of important councils with 
 the Indians, including one with Pontiac, who then 
 agreed to keep the peace. Pontiac had raged to and 
 
 192
 
 GEORGE III., KING OF ENGLAND. 
 From a portrait made just before his accession to the throne (1760).
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 from Detroit to Ft. Chartres in a vain effort to rouse 
 the Indians and French to make war again. He had 
 "sent an embassy of warriors down the Mississippi, 
 with an immense war-belt, with instructions to show 
 it at every Indian village on the river," and to get aid 
 of the French at New Orleans ; but all in vain, for the 
 French had made peace with the British. It was when 
 this last hope had expired that Pontiac made peace. It 
 was on August 28, 1765, at Detroit, that this council 
 was held, Pontiac made a speech, in which he said: 
 "Father, we have all smoked out of the pipe of peace. 
 It's your children's pipe, and as the war is all over, and 
 the Great Spirit and Giver of Light, who has made the 
 earth and everything therein, has brought us all to- 
 gether * * * I declare to all nations that I had 
 settled my peace with you before I came here." ( N. Y. 
 Colonial Mems., vii., p. 783.) In 1768 the aggres- 
 sive old chief was assassinated near St. Louis by an 
 Illinois Indian who had been hired by a trader named 
 Williams to do the deed. The price paid was a barrel 
 of rum. 
 
 At the treaty meeting which followed the Pontiac 
 war (held by Sir William Johnson, at the German 
 Flats, Herkimer Co., N. Y.), the Indians proposed 
 that the Alleghany River be established as a definite 
 and permanent boundary between the white men and 
 the red. This offer was evaded, but on October 24, 
 1768, delegates from the Six Nations, the Delawares 
 and the Shawnees, met at Ft. Stanwix (Rome, N. Y.), 
 and here a boundary line was agreed upon. It began in 
 the Ohio River at the mouth of the Tennessee, passed 
 up the Ohio to Ft. Pitt, up the Alleghany to Kittan- 
 
 193
 
 A History of the 
 
 ning, and thence across to the Susquehanna. These 
 Indians abandoned all claim on the land lying south 
 and east of that line. The Six Nation deputies signed 
 the treaty for all Indians, but, the Shawnee and Dela- 
 ware chiefs, while orally agreeing to it, held a mental 
 reservation in the matter that was troublesome later. 
 The price paid the Indians for the cession was £ 10,430, 
 7s, 6d — 200 boat loads of goods brought up the Mo- 
 hawk. It was by this payment that the Indian title to 
 Kentucky, a slice of Tennessee, and the Ohio water 
 shed of Virginia was extinguished, save only as the 
 Cherokees claimed part of that region. The Cherokees 
 did not sell out until 1775, though it is worth noting 
 that the Cherokees made a treaty at Hardlabor, S. C, 
 on October 14, 1768, by wdiich they ceded the lands 
 between the Great Kanawha and the Ohio. 
 
 When Pontiac's warriors came to Fort Pitt, 100 
 women and children, the families of home makers, 
 were within, as already noted. When this war ended 
 the blue smoke was already rising serenely from the 
 stick-and-mud chimneys of the cabins they had built 
 at Redstone (now Brownsville, Pa.), on the Monon- 
 gahela. The King's proclamation, limiting the colonial 
 settlements to the slope east of the mountains, had 
 ordered all settlers west of the mountains to return to 
 the east side. The Pennsylvania legislature passed 
 bills for the removal of these settlers, and sent com- 
 missioners to enforce the acts. One bill provided the 
 death penalty for all who should fail to remove as 
 ordered. These acts were passed in sincerity, and the 
 commissioners tried to enforce them. But it was work 
 against a law of nature, and it failed, as all such work 
 
 194
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 must fail. Even the Indians interfered to keep 
 white settlers west of the mountains. 
 
 The purchase of lands by the treaty of Fort Stan- 
 wix (November 5, 1768), was the first act in the 
 gate-opening that let the white settlers legally across 
 the mountains, to make homes in the Ohio Valley. 
 A number of companies were formed, about this time, 
 to acquire lands in the Ohio Valley and people them. 
 Franklin was interested in one. Washington, the Lees, 
 and other prominent people were in another that ab- 
 sorbed the old Ohio company. Not one is worth more 
 than mention here, because none of them accomplished 
 anything beyond advertising the desirability of the 
 lands of the Ohio Valley. Still, the agitation created 
 by the application for grants evolved one practical Act 
 in Council known as the Walpole Grant, by which the 
 King gave, on August 14, 1772, a large tract of land 
 west of the Alleghanies, which w^as to be erected into 
 a new colony. Sir William Johnson, the Indian Agent, 
 was instructed to inform the Indians that a new colony 
 was to be formed in the Ohio Valley. This colony-on- 
 paper (for it was never organized), is commonly called 
 Vandalia. Its capital was to be located on the Great 
 Kanawha. It was to be organized to give a definite 
 western limit to the seaboard colonies that were already 
 in the ferment which led to the War of the Revolution. 
 But before the work of organization could be com- 
 pleted, a plan for placating the French inhabitants of 
 Canada was turned to the purpose of limiting the sea- 
 board colonies. 
 
 The French had petitioned, from time to time, for 
 a restoration of their old-time laws and religious privi- 
 
 195
 
 A History of the 
 
 leges. By an act of Parliament, approved June 22, 
 1774, known as the Quebec Bill, these privileges of 
 law and religion were granted, and a vast region west 
 of the Alleghanies was made a part of the Royal Prov- 
 ince of Quebec. The Bill was to take effect in 1775, 
 but the work of George Rogers Clark in the Revolu- 
 tion, following on Lord Dunmore's war, to be des- 
 cribed further on, ended that business. 
 
 In the meantime (1767 and 1770), Washington 
 had gone down the Ohio twice to prospect for good 
 land, and with such success that he eventually acquired 
 through his claims as a soldier, and by the purchase 
 of other claims, no less than 32,373 acres of land in 
 great plots, besides a small plot of 587 acres located 
 fifteen miles below Wheeling. He had a total water 
 front of sixteen miles on the Ohio, and forty miles 
 on the Great Kanawha. He estimated the value of 
 this land at $3.33 per acre, but it is to be noted that 
 he had great trouble to keep squatters off his holdings. 
 
 But the man whose name is best known in connec- 
 tion with the movement of settlers across the Alle- 
 ghanies was Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone, the fourth 
 son of Squire and Sarah Boone, was born on Novem- 
 ber 2, 1734, in Oley Township, Berkes County, Pa. 
 The father owned 250 acres of land on Owatin Creek, 
 "some eight miles southeast of the present city of Read- 
 ing." (Thwaite's "Daniel Boone.") It was then a 
 frontier region. In 1750 the Boones sold out their 
 holdings In Pennsylvania and moved to the Yadkin 
 Valley, in North Carolina, where they arrived after a 
 leisurely, halting journey, in the fall of 1751. 
 
 On their way they stopped at a small settlement 
 196
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 made on New River, just west of the Alleghany divide, 
 but well within the limits of Virginia. Some Penn- 
 sylvanians had staked claims there in 1748. They had 
 gone at about the time Dr. Walker was exploring the 
 Cumberland Gap, and they made the first settlement 
 west of the divide, though by no means west of the 
 Alleghany mountain system. 
 
 In 1755, Daniel Boone joined as a teamster, a party 
 of neighbors who went up to Pennsylvania, to help 
 Braddock drive the French from the forks of the Ohio. 
 It was during this campaign that young Boone 
 met John Finley. Finley, as a fur buyer, had been in 
 the Kentucky region, and as far down the Ohio at the 
 falls. His stories of the game to be found there greatly 
 interested young Boone, for he was already a notable 
 woodsman and hunter, and his interest was the greater 
 because Finley told him that the Kentucky grounds 
 were to be reached easily by following the well-known 
 buffalo trail through the Cumberland Gap. Accord- 
 ingly, after Boone reached home he extended his hunt- 
 ing trips westward, but it was years before he went to 
 Kentucky, for on reaching home he was married to a 
 handsome, black-eyed Irish girl named Rebecca Bryan. 
 As early as 1760, however, he had hunted on a 
 branch of the Watauga, now called Boone Creek, where 
 a beech tree was marked : 
 
 D. Boon 
 CillED A. Bar on 
 tree 
 in THE 
 yEAR 
 
 1760 
 
 197
 
 A History of the 
 
 In 1 76 1 he accompanied an expedition under Capt. 
 Hugh Waddell that went into the Cherokee country 
 to avenge raids on the whites. In 1766 Benjamin 
 Cutbirth, John Stuart, John Baker and John Ward, all 
 neighbors of Boone on the Yadkin, crossed the Alle- 
 ghanies on an exploring expedition, during which 
 they reached the Mississippi, and this was the first 
 expedition to do that of which there is any record. 
 They gathered a harvest of skins, bear's oil and dried 
 meat, which they sold at good prices in New Orleans. 
 It was the first cargo of Kentucky produce sent down 
 the Great River by British-Americans. 
 
 In the fall of the same year Boone and William 
 Hill "crossed the mountain wall, were in the valleys 
 of the Holsten and the Clinch, and reached the head wa- 
 ters of the West Fork of the Big Sandy," (Thwaites). 
 The winter was passed at a salt lick ten miles west of 
 the site of the modern town of Prestonburg, Kentucky. 
 
 In the autumn of 1768 John Finley came to the 
 Yadkin as a peddler and remained all winter with 
 Boone. Boone had found game a plenty in the water 
 shed of the Big Sandy, but the forest was not to his 
 liking. In talking the matter over with Finley, how- 
 ever, the latter proposed an expedition to the country 
 further west, to be reached by a well-worn buffalo 
 trail through Cumberland Gap, and after the crops had 
 been planted in the spring of 1769, Boone, Finley, John 
 Stuart, Joseph Holden, James Mooney and William 
 Cooley, with the best outfit known to the frontier, went 
 to a tributary of the Kentucky River, called Station 
 Camp Creek, (Estill County, Kentucky), and built a 
 camp. They were there, not as explorers, but as skin 
 
 198
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 hunters. They were very successful until December 22, 
 when Indians captured and robbed them, and then, 
 after warning them to leave the country, set them free. 
 
 All but Boone and Stuart left. These two who 
 remained were afterwards joined by Squire Boone, a 
 brother of Daniel, and Alexander Neely. Eventually, 
 (February, 1770), Stuart failed to return to the Camp 
 — just why is not known, — but Daniel Boone found his 
 skeleton in a hollow sycamore tree five years later. He 
 may have been wounded by Indians from whom he 
 escaped only to die in his hiding place. His skeleton 
 was identified by his powder horn. 
 
 Being frightened by Stuart's disappearance, Neely 
 went home. The Boone brothers remained until May, 
 when Squire went to the settlements with their accumu- 
 lated skins, and Daniel remained alone for three 
 months, sleeping in caves, in the cane-brakes, or wher- 
 ever a good hiding place could be found. After Squire 
 returned with fresh supplies, the brothers killed another 
 lot of skins which Squire carried to the settlements, 
 leaving Daniel alone in the woods once more. In fact 
 it was not until the spring of 1771 that Boone returned 
 home. He had been for two years in the Kentucky 
 wilderness, and had explored the fertile region as far 
 as the falls, (Louisville). 
 
 It was the adventurous spirit of Boone, thus shown, 
 rather than what he accomplished during these two 
 years, that gave him immediate fame. For the Indians, 
 as Boone's experience proved, were hostile, in spite 
 of the treaty of Fort Stanwix. Boone for two years 
 braved their wrath, and for months at a stretch, he 
 was absolutely alone in the wilderness. It was an ad- 
 
 199
 
 A History of the 
 
 venture that made the strongest possible appeal to the 
 daring spirits among the frontiersmen on the east slope 
 of the Alleghanies. That his accounts of the number of 
 wild animals he had seen stirred the people who heard 
 them scarcely need be said. 
 
 Daniel Boone, it may be said here, was the typical 
 frontier explorer, rather than the typical home-builder. 
 He was one of many good explorers. He founded 
 Boonesborough, as the agent of Col. Richard Hender- 
 son, as shall be told further on, but he did not settle 
 down permanently, either as a farmer or a village resi- 
 dent. He moved on, and died at last in Missouri — on 
 the frontier — in 1820 (September 26). As one who 
 blazed the trail he deserves fame. And having found 
 a biographer (John Filson), — a reporter, literally, who 
 took notes at various interviews, and published the 
 story in 1784 — Boone attained the recognition he de- 
 served. 
 
 The home-builders, however, were among, or on, 
 the heels of the explorers, and none of them was more 
 notable than James Robertson. A North Carolinian, 
 he, and his parents were so poor that they had been un- 
 able to send him to school. He could not read or write 
 when he married, but he got a wife who would teach 
 him, and in every way take part in his career. Finding 
 few chances of rising in the world among the settle- 
 ments of North Carolina, Robertson, early in 1770, 
 took his rifle and a bag of corn, and went afoot over 
 the range. 
 
 On reaching Boone's Creek, he found one William 
 Bean making a home. Bean had been of the party in 
 that hunting trip when Boone "CillED A. Bar" in 
 
 200
 
 Mississippi P' alley. 
 
 1760, and had liked the country so well that he had 
 come with his family to make a home there. 
 
 Robertson selected a home site not far from Bean's, 
 cleared a patch, planted it with corn, attended it until 
 ripe, (living, the while, on game), harvested it, and 
 having thus prepared in the wilderness, sufficient food 
 for a small party of friends, as well as for his own fami- 
 ly, he stored it away and went to his home in North 
 Carolina. The next spring, March, 1771, he came back 
 to the Watauga with a party that numbered eighty men, 
 women and children — sixteen families. These people 
 were going into the wilderness, trusting in the corn 
 Robertson had stored, and in their rifles, for their food, 
 until another crop could be harvested. They were look- 
 ing for no other neighbor than William Bean, already 
 there, but as they descended the western side of the 
 range, they found ten cabins scattered along the stream, 
 with men swinging the axe in the forest round about, 
 or planting corn, while the women sang songs over 
 their house work, and the children played at the work 
 of clearing the land by gathering brush and building 
 fires. A party had come from Fairfax County, Vir- 
 ginia, and seldom have home-builders been more joy- 
 fully surprised than those under Robertson. 
 
 This settlement was made near where Elizabeth- 
 town, Carter County, Tenn., now stands. Robert- 
 son's house stood near the head of the long island 
 found there in the Watauga. Though not the first 
 west of the divide, by many years, it was one of the 
 most important in the history of the valley. 
 
 These pioneers had come to make homes about 300 
 miles from the "settlements." They supposed they were 
 
 201
 
 A History of the 
 
 yet in Virginia, but when the Virginia line was sur- 
 veyed out by Anthony Bledsoe, in 1771, they found 
 themselves in a legal no-man's land. For North Caro- 
 lina was then in a state of anarchy, owing to the re- 
 volt of the people against Governor Tryon, and they 
 were beyond the bounds of the lands bought of the 
 Indians at Fort Stanwix. 
 
 Something of the story of this No-Man's settle- 
 ment must be told. The settlers soon found frontier 
 desperadoes coming over the range — men who fled 
 from the old settlements to escape the penalty of crime. 
 
 Loving order and hating anarchy, the settlers got 
 together and exercised the "divine right of self-govern- 
 ment." This right was exercised for four years be- 
 fore the Declaration of Independence. In 1772 they 
 held a convention, signed articles of association for 
 good government, and elected thirteen commissioners 
 to enforce these self-made laws — "the first written 
 compact for civil government west of the Alleghanies." 
 It was an efficient government, too, in spite of the 
 fact that it had no legal existence. It was good, that 
 is to say, because the men who governed were entirely 
 sincere in their desire to promote the public welfare, 
 and they did not mistake selfish or private ends for the 
 public good. To secure order they regarded justice, 
 but not the forms found necessary in older commu- 
 nities. A horse thief, for instance, was hanged four 
 days after his arrest. Enough time was taken to defi- 
 nitely ascertain the facts, but no time was wasted, 
 once the facts were learned. This self-organized gov- 
 ernment, being honestly administered, preserved order 
 and compelled justice in this community in spite of 
 
 202
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 criminals and vagabonds that fled to the mountains 
 from the alongshore settlements. The love of order 
 shown by these frontier home-builders has been deemed 
 worthy of thehighest praise. No one has ever denied the 
 praise due, and no one is likely to do so. But it may 
 be worth while pointing out to the lynch-law loving 
 people of the United States that the praise given to 
 Robertson, Sevier and Campbell has been ill-considered 
 in that it was unmodified. Preserving order by lynch 
 law was praiseworthy only because it was the only 
 resource of the order-loving frontiersmen. Such a use 
 of the rifle or halter was a frightful necessity, and it 
 carried in its wake the long line of disgraceful outrages 
 on human rights that have blackened the history of 
 the Nation since that time. Let it be repeated for the 
 sake of emphasis that the Americans are the only nation 
 of lynchers, because they were obliged, during the Rev- 
 olution, and at times on the frontier, to disregard the 
 forms of Law in the search for Justice; they thus ac- 
 quired the lynching habit. It is because of the success 
 of the Deckhard-rifle government of the early days 
 that we now see mobs of enraged men lynching sup- 
 posed offenders in the midst of communities where the 
 laws might be enforced in orderly fashion. 
 
 It is most important to observe that even when an 
 innocent man is lynched the victim is less to be pitied 
 than the lynchers. For the degradation they inflict 
 upon themselves and the comunity is far worse than 
 death. 
 
 The Watauga people on learning that they were 
 beyond the limits of Virginia, themselves made a treaty 
 with the Cherokees by which they leased the lands they 
 
 203
 
 A History of the 
 
 occupied, thereby evading the king's proclamation, for- 
 bidding the private purchase of Indian lands. But on 
 March 17, 1775, when Henderson bought his Transyl- 
 vania tract of the Cherokees, the Watauga people made 
 another treaty, and bought their tract, paying £2,000 
 in goods for it. It was during those treaty-making 
 days that the leading Cherokee chief, Oconostota, spoke 
 of the Kentucky region as a "dark and bloody ground," 
 and another chief said to Boone: 
 
 "Brother, we have given you a fine land, but I be- 
 lieve you will have much trouble in settling it," (Imlay, 
 p. 361). 
 
 In 1770 Ebenezer, Silas, and Jonathan Zane came 
 to Wheeling Creek, and where the city of Wheeling 
 now stands, made a "tomahawk claim." Blazing a tree 
 they marked on it, (engraved on it with a knife), the 
 extent of land claimed, with its river boundary. There 
 was no law authorizing such an "entry" of land, but 
 it was a method usually (not always), recognized by 
 the home makers, and such claims were commonly made 
 valid by legal process afterwards. The Zane claim 
 was a fine townsite, for to this day it is at the head 
 of deep water navigation on the Ohio. The Zanes 
 were pioneers on that part of the river, and Zanesville, 
 Ohio, perpetuates their memory. 
 
 On October 18, 1770, at Lochabar, the Cherokees 
 signed a treaty locating the Indian boundary line be- 
 tween a spot on the south branch of the Holston, six 
 miles east of Long Island, and the mouth of the Kana- 
 wha, a confirmation of the treaty of 1768. Thereafter 
 the Virginia Legislature offered every actual settler on 
 the western lands, 400 acres of land free, save for the 
 
 204
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 expense of registering the claim, with the privilege of 
 buying i,ooo acres adjoining it, at a price but little 
 above the cost of surveying the claim and filing the 
 papers. 
 
 About this time good inducements were offered to 
 people who would emigrate to the British territory 
 on the lower Mississippi between Natchez and the Man- 
 chac Bayou. To this region went many people, includ- 
 ing not a few New Englanders. They usually passed 
 the Alleghanies in companies to the head waters of 
 the Tennessee, where they usually arrived early in the 
 spring. On the Holston or the Clinch they squatted 
 down and passed the summer in raising corn, hunting 
 and building boats. When the corn was harvested they 
 went afloat with their families and corn; braved the 
 terrors of the Boiling Pot, the Suck and the ]\Iuscle 
 Shoals; fought the Indians as the occasion required; 
 and finally reached the promised land. These were the 
 first house boatmen of the Great Valley, properly so 
 called. The village of Boatyard, in Sullivan County, 
 Tenn., got its name from the fact that it was the point 
 from which most of these voyagers took their depar- 
 ture. 
 
 In 1773 General Lyman, of Connecticut, and some 
 military friends, laid out several additions to the old 
 French settlement at Natchez, and to that point no less 
 than 400 families emigrated during the year named, 
 passing down the Ohio in flat boats, while an unre- 
 corded host traveled by way of Boatyard. 
 
 In February, 1764. Capt. George Johnson arrived 
 at Pensacola to take possession of the Territory which 
 had been acquired by the treaty with France. He 
 
 205
 
 A History of the 
 
 soon sent detachments of soldiers up the Mississippi 
 to Baton Rouge and Natchez. A fort was built on the 
 Bayou Manchac, a short distance from the Missis- 
 sippi, and named Fort Bute, in honor of the Prime 
 Minister, Meantime, on February 27, Major Loftus 
 and a force of 400 men were sent up the river in ten 
 barges rowed by sixteen oars each, to take command 
 of the Illinois country, with head quarters at Fort 
 Chartres. At the end of three weeks the force was 
 toiling around the base of the bluff where Fort Adams 
 landing is now found, (ten miles above the mouth 
 of the Red River), when a host of Tunica or Yazoo 
 Indians attacked them, and inflicted such severe loss 
 that the force turned down the river, abandoning the 
 enterprise. 
 
 On securing peaceable possession of the territory 
 along the lower Mississippi, the British first of all 
 opened a smuggling trade with the people of New 
 Orleans. Fort Bute was built for a smuggling sta- 
 tion, no doubt. Trade flourished so well there that 
 when the Spanish came into power at New Orleans 
 they built a fort opposite and about 400 yards from 
 Fort Bute as a check on the smugglers, though with- 
 out materially hurting the trade. 
 
 The slave trade was the most important branch 
 of the business. The slavers of Newport, Rhode 
 Island, competed with those from Bristol, London 
 and Liverpool, in supplying the demand for ignorant 
 black laborers. Moreover a demand for slaves grew 
 up in the British territory. It is a notable fact that 
 the pioneers of the Ohio watershed hewed their homes 
 out of the solid green woods with their own strong 
 
 206
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 arms, while the lands on the lower Mississippi were 
 developed chiefly by slave labor. The emigrants who 
 made homes below Natchez appear to have been 
 wealthier, as a class, than those locating in Kentucky. 
 Among the old land grants of the time, yet to be 
 found on file in the Natchez district land office, 
 (Washington, Miss.), is one of 25,000 acres to Amos 
 Ogden, dated October 27, 1772. Another for 20,000 
 acres was granted to Thaddeus Lyman, of Connecti- 
 cut. Many others of varying size are to be seen. 
 
 These people cultivated sugar cane and cotton, 
 and lived such quiet lives that no record of their 
 doings is found in history, save only that when the 
 Atlantic colonies revolted under the oppression of the 
 British Government, they remained loyal to the King, 
 but were not sufficiently numerous or aggressive to 
 take any material part in the struggle. 
 
 Fort Chartres was surrendered by the Command- 
 ant, (St. Ange), early in 1765, to Captain Sterling, 
 who came by the way of Detroit. It was then, and 
 continued to be, the head post of all the western ter- 
 ritory while the British ruled there. 
 
 Meantime many surveyors came into the Ohio 
 Valley, among whom none was more notable than 
 Capt. Thomas Bullitt. Bullitt laid out a town, 
 (1773), where Charleston, West Virginia, now stands 
 — an excellent location because at the head of the 
 deep-water navigation of the Great Kanawha. Then 
 he went to the falls of the Ohio, and in August laid 
 out a townsite where Louisville, Ky., has since de- 
 veloped. The first house was built on this site by 
 John Cowan in 1774. 
 
 207
 
 A History of the 
 
 In 1773 James, George and Robert McAfee, with 
 Hancock Taylor, went to the Kentucky River, and on 
 July 16, surveyed a plot of 600 acres where Frank- 
 fort now stands. In 1774 James Harrod with a 
 party of forty men went to the spot where Harrods- 
 burg is found, and beginning on June 16, built 
 a log house — the first house of any kind erected in 
 Kentucky. They also planted corn — made a corn- 
 patch claim — and that was a claim no one would 
 dispute. During that season the woods were full 
 of homeseekers, speculators and surveyors, but an- 
 other Indian war was to interrupt their work, and to 
 that the next chapter shall be given. 
 
 208
 
 SIMON KENT(JN. 
 
 The companion of Boone in many of his enterprises. A portrait 
 from life, by Morgan.
 
 XII 
 
 LORD DUNMORE'S WAR. 
 
 An unfair Distribution of Goods was one Cause of the 
 Trouble — Men who DeHghted, in Murder and Theft 
 — Robbed Soldiers and White Home Makers as well 
 as Indians — Desired an Indian War as an aid in Set- 
 tling a Colony's Boundary — An Official Letter that 
 Turned the White Desperadoes Loose on the In- 
 dians — The Battle of Point Pleasant — The True 
 Story of the Famous Speech of Logan. 
 
 The brief and decisive conflict known as Lord 
 Dunmore's war was brought on partly by the heedless 
 ignorance of the Indian ways which the whites have 
 always displayed, and partly by the devilish depravity 
 of some of the white men on the frontier. At the 
 treaty of Fort Stanwix the wdiites paid $50,000 to 
 
 209
 
 A History of the 
 
 the Indians for the lands on the southerly side of the 
 Ohio River as far as the Tennessee. The goods were 
 delivered to the representative chiefs gathered at Fort 
 Stanwix. The Six Nations chiefs so far dominated 
 at that treaty that they signed it for the Delawares 
 and Shav^nees, and it was therefore but natural that 
 they should dominate in sharing the goods received 
 for the land. To the Delaware and Shawnee chiefs 
 a small portion was given and they went away partly 
 satisfied. When they reached their homes in the Ohio 
 country with their attenuated share of the goods they 
 divided with their immediate relatives and friends. 
 The masses of the Delawares and Shawnees did not 
 get so much as a smell of the Fort Stanwix rum, 
 or more than a long range look at the arms, 
 tools and good cloths dealt out there. The lands, 
 where the buffalo and the deer ranged in herds al- 
 most as tame as the white men's oxen, had been sold; 
 the white man would soon kill off all that game and 
 make farms of the lands, and not one glass bead were 
 the masses of these Indians to get in return. 
 
 The thought of it was maddening. Worse yet, 
 the white man, having spread to the Tennessee, would 
 cross the Ohio as he had crossed the Alleghanies. 
 The Indian foresaw that event very clearly, and even 
 the chiefs who had been bribed at Fort Stanwix soon 
 realized that they had resigned a lasting heritage for 
 goods that, at best, were soon worn out and lost. It 
 was in this kind of bargaining that the whites were 
 heedless. 
 
 Following the Zanes to Wheeling came many peo- 
 ple, of whom the majority were the homemakers whom 
 
 210
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 we cannot sufficiently honor. But along with these 
 came others whom we cannot sufficiently detest. In 
 our later history, when our frontier was far be- 
 yond the Mississippi, the existence of frontier des- 
 peradoes was well known, and vigilance committees 
 were necessary, perhaps, to rid the fair earth of their 
 depraved presence. The existence of this class, when 
 the Ohio country was the frontier, seems not to be 
 so well known, but they were there in force. They 
 were men who sought the frontier because govern- 
 ment among the whites there was about as loose as 
 among the Indians at all times. They not only robbed 
 the white homemakers, but they even formed wide- 
 spread organizations for that purpose. They were 
 so bold, in fact, that they would rob a Government 
 expedition in the wilderness. When in 1785 General 
 Butler went down the Ohio river with a force of 
 national soldiers to establish posts and make a treaty, 
 these desperadoes robbed the expedition. 
 
 "I find we are infested by scoundrels more unruly 
 and unprincipled than the savages, and who wish to 
 frustrate the treaty," wrote Butler in his journal. 
 
 They were men who delighted in theft and murder, 
 and who thrived best when there was open war be- 
 tween the whites and the Indians. But while many 
 of them were lynched for stealing horses from white 
 men, their disregard of Indian rights was considered 
 very lightly by the homemaker who had suffered or 
 seen his neighbor suffer from Indian raids. 
 
 Early in 1774 Virginia's claim to the land in 
 the forks of the Ohio added to the trouble. Dr. John 
 Connelly came to Fort Pitt, (then grown to be quite 
 
 211
 
 A History of the 
 
 a settlement), and as a representative of Lord Dun- 
 more, governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation 
 calling the people there and at Redstone to meet at 
 Fort Pitt and organize themselves as Virginia militia. 
 Connelly was arrested by Arthur St. Clair, who rep- 
 resented Pennsylvania, but a mob gathered in answer 
 to the proclamation, and after drinking freely, fired 
 at an Indian village across the Alleghany. 
 
 When Connelly was released, (on bail), he de- 
 termined to precipitate a war with the Indians because 
 such a war would give excuse for Virginia's governor 
 to call out all the militia, when, with an overwhelming 
 force, he could settle the disputed boundary. To this 
 end, on April 21, 1774, Connelly wrote a circular 
 letter to the white settlers down the Ohio, warning them 
 to prepare for a Shawnee outbreak. 
 
 Coming from a man set in authority, though by 
 unrighteous means, this letter was sufficient for the 
 purpose intended. The peaceable homemakers fled 
 by thousands to Fort Pitt and Redstone for safety. 
 Daniel Boone ranged through Kentucky and warned 
 the people there to fly through the Cumberland Gap. 
 
 But the desperadoes did not flee immediately. In- 
 stead of that they sought for scalps, knowing that the 
 Indians were not expecting trouble, and that attacks 
 could be made in safety on the unsuspicious. 
 
 It was in vain that the trader, George Croghan, 
 then living near Fort Pitt, gave warning. 'There is 
 too great a spirit in the frontier people for killing 
 Indians, and if the assembly gives in to that spirit, no 
 doubt they will soon have a general rupture," instead 
 of a conflict with the Shawnees merely, he said. 
 
 212
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 A copy of Connelly's letter reached the Zane set- 
 tlement at Wheeling, and fell into the hands of Mi- 
 chael Cresap. This Cresap was a son of Col. Thomas 
 Cresap, the "vagrant Yorkshire man" previously men- 
 tioned as a settler in Western Maryland. Young 
 Michael had been trained on the frontier, and had been 
 a trader, like his father ; but he had become bankrupt, 
 and was now on the Ohio, hoping to recruit his for- 
 tunes by land speculations. To Cresap the letter of 
 Connelly was a sufficient warrant for any deed of 
 blood. According to George Rogers Clark, who was 
 present, "the war post was planted, a council called, 
 the letter read, the ceremonies used by the Indians 
 on so important an occasion acted, and war was for- 
 mally declared." 
 
 These civilized white men, before going out to kill 
 Indians, went through with the ceremonies used by 
 Indians. They circled around the war post, and each 
 struck his tomahawk into it, while all gave the war 
 whoop repeatedly. 
 
 Clark adds : "The same evening two scalps were 
 brought into camp." The story of these two scalps 
 is interesting. Word reached the settlement that a 
 canoe with two or three Indians in it was coming down 
 the Ohio. Cresap gathered a party and started up the 
 river in a canoe to meet them, sending another party 
 to lie in ambush in the weeds of the river bank, mean- 
 time. 
 
 This canoe contained a white man named Ste- 
 vens, a friendly Delaware and a friendly Shawnee, all 
 in the employ of a Pittsburg trader named Butler. 
 They were coming dow^n the river to get some furs 
 
 213
 
 A History of the 
 
 belonging to their employer, which had been lost by 
 other employees of the trader in a brawl with a party 
 of Cherokees some days earlier. 
 
 On seeing Cresap's canoe, Stevens thought from 
 the way it was handled that it contained the party of 
 Cherokees that had made trouble on the former occa- 
 sion, and he steered for the bank. This brought his 
 canoe within range of the men Cresap had placed in 
 ambush, and they, although they could see that Ste- 
 phens was a white man, shot the two Indians dead. 
 
 These Indians were murdered on April 26, 1774. 
 On the 27th, (one account says the 26th), a man 
 named McMahon brought word to Cresap that four- 
 teen Indians had passed down the river. Cresap, with 
 a party of fifteen, pursued and overtook them at Grave 
 Creek. Having heard of the aggression of Cresap the 
 day before, the Indians, when Cresap opened fire, re- 
 turned it, and then they fled into the woods, leaving 
 one of their party dead. It appears that others were 
 mortally wounded. Cresap brought but one scalp to 
 Wheeling, but the Indians said afterward that "sev- 
 eral" were killed. George Rogers Clark, then a youth 
 of twenty-one, but afterwards a noted military officer 
 of the frontier, was with Cresap. In after years Clark 
 tried to excuse this attack by saying that these Indians 
 acted in a suspicious manner when going down the 
 river, — that is, they passed on the further side of an 
 island in order to keep clear of the whites; and he 
 adds that "we found a considerable quantity of ammu- 
 nition and other warlike stores," in their canoe when 
 they fled. What Cresap actually did find was "six- 
 teen kegs of rum, two saddles and some bridles," — and 
 
 214
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 nothing more. The idea that Indians would leave am- 
 munition behind on such an occasion is pure nonsense. 
 But even if they had been supplied with enough to 
 leave some behind, the fact would have shown only 
 that they were going hunting. 
 
 On returning to Wheeling, Cresap organized a 
 company to go up the river and attack an Indian vil- 
 lage, under the famous chief Logan, at the mouth of 
 Yellow Creek, opposite a trading station belonging 
 to a man named Joshua Baker. The company marched 
 five miles, and then abandoned the plan for reasons 
 not fully known. Clark's statement that these men 
 "argued the impropriety" of the attack, and abandoned 
 it on humane grounds, is unbelievable. They were 
 frontier toughs, and it is likely that the revulsion of 
 feeling often seen in such characters — a panic of fear 
 following murderous deeds — came upon them. At 
 any rate Cresap and more than half of the gang imme- 
 diately fled to safety at Redstone, on the Monongahela. 
 A few continued on to Baker's, being determined to 
 slaughter the red people at all hazards. A man named 
 Daniel C. Greathouse now took the lead, and gathered 
 a gang of thirty-two. On April 30, he went across to 
 Yellow Creek alone, pretending friendship for, but 
 really to count, the Indians. He found them too nu- 
 merous even for a night attack, although thirty-two 
 white men had been induced by love of blood and the 
 hope of plunder to make the attack. 
 
 While he was still among the Indians a friendly 
 squaw, (a relative of Chief Logan), told Greathouse 
 that her people had heard of the deeds of Cresap, and 
 were meditating revenge. She advised him to leave, 
 
 215
 
 A History of the 
 
 and he did so, after inviting, as he left, a considerable 
 number of Indians to cross to Baker's and get some 
 rum as a treat. 
 
 Accordingly several Indians did cross to Baker's. 
 The accounts vary as to the number, but it appears 
 that four red men, three squaws and a little girl went. 
 Definite statements are made that one of the squaws 
 was Logan's mother, that another squaw, (one who 
 carried the little girl), was his sister, and that one of 
 the red men was his brother. Two Indians got drunk, 
 and two refused to drink, but these two were induced 
 to shoot at a mark, after the other two were helpless. 
 
 When the Indians had fired their guns, and were 
 thus incapable of defending themselves, the thirty-two 
 white men attacked and slaughtered the party all but 
 the child. The man who killed Logan's sister boasted 
 that he shot her at a range of six feet. He was then 
 going to "dash out the child's brains," but on seeing 
 the little thing fall with her mother, "felt some re- 
 morse," and desisted. The Indians over at Yellow 
 Creek, on hearing the reports of guns, sent a canoe 
 with five warriors to learn why the guns were fired. 
 These were ambushed and four, (or perhaps but two), 
 were killed, while another was wounded. 
 
 It was during these days that John Heckwelder and 
 David Zeisberger, Moravian missionaries, animated 
 by a feeling which frontier writers have ever since, 
 with lofty contempt, called "Quaker sentiment," were 
 teaching the Ohio Indians to grub stumps and dig the 
 ground and plant corn, and adopt a new religion — they 
 were building Gnadenhutten, of which something more 
 shall be told. 
 
 216
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Logan had been the friend of the whites, but now 
 the red blood in his veins boiled. Three separate raids 
 were made by parties under him into the Monongahela 
 valley. In the first of these he alone took thirteen 
 scalps. What other raiders did is told only in general 
 terms. It was a war on the Virginians, and the whole 
 Virginia frontier blazed, and ran red with blood, the 
 innocents suffering, as always, for the crimes of des- 
 peradoes, who sneaked away to safety when the danger 
 became great. But when Logan took a prisoner, as 
 happened on one raid, he saved the man from the stake 
 at the risk of his own life. 
 
 But the story of the white treachery is not yet com- 
 plete. The traders then among the Indians fled for 
 their lives and were helped from the country by per- 
 sonal friends among the red men. Some of these 
 friendly Indians went as far as Fort Pitt with the tra- 
 ders. And while these friendly Indians were at Fort 
 Pitt, Connelly tried to imprison them, but Croghan, 
 the trader, foiled him. Then finding that they were 
 getting away, Connelly sent men who waylaid and 
 shot three of them from ambush. 
 
 An old account says that "the character developed" 
 by Connelly on this occasion was such as to draw down 
 "the reproof of Lord Dartmouth." 
 
 The Ohio Indians had been restless for months. 
 They had been expecting large quantities of goods in 
 payment for lands that were to be organized as the 
 colony of Vandalia, and had been disappointed. They 
 were angered because they had been driven from the 
 lands within the forks of the Ohio. They were alarmed 
 and angered by the influx of whites that had followed 
 
 217
 
 A History of the 
 
 the treaty of Fort Stanwix. The devilish work of Con- 
 nelly, Cresap and Greathouse came just at the right 
 time to rouse them to the point where almost to a man 
 they would dig up the hatchet, as Logan had done. 
 
 To meet the overwhelming red force thus turned 
 loose on the Virginia frontier, Gen. Andrew Lewis, 
 wuth 1,100 or 1,200 men (of whom fifty came from the 
 Watauga settlement, under Capt. Evan Shelby), 
 marched from Virginia over the range to and down 
 the Kanawha. Lord Dunmore himself, with another 
 force, announced that he would join Lewis at this 
 point, and the united forces were then to cross the 
 Ohio, and lay desolate the Indian villages. 
 
 When Lewis reached the Ohio, on October 9, 1774, 
 however, Lord Dunmore was nowhere near. Instead 
 of Dunmore came Cornstalk, the Shawanese, with 
 1,000 warriors, to fight these white men on their own 
 ground. Cornstalk had learned Dunmore's plan of 
 bringing the Virginians in two bodies to unite on the 
 Ohio, and, with admirable tactics, determined to attack 
 and destroy the smaller force first. The Indians knew 
 all they needed to know, as they crossed the Ohio above 
 the Kanawha, about the position of the Virginians. 
 The Virginians knew nothing of the coming of the 
 Indians. 
 
 At four o' clock next morning, October 10, the In- 
 dians came gliding through the woods to surprise the 
 white man's camp, and they would have succeeded, but 
 for the lack of discipline in the camp ! The General had 
 ordered the poorest of the cattle, driven along to supply 
 the men with beef, to be killed and served. IMen who 
 didn't like this beef left camp without permission, to 
 
 218
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 go and kill game. Several men were going out hunting 
 in pairs, that morning, before daylight. One pair, 
 whose names were Alooney and Hickman, met the In- 
 dians about a mile from camp, and were fired on. 
 Hickman was killed. At about the same time James 
 Robertson and another Watuga man met the Indians, 
 but both of these escaped, and with ]Mooney ran to 
 camp. 
 
 It was a camp of frontiersmen. They were asleep, 
 but the shouts of the hunters and the rolling of drums 
 brought them to their feet, gun in hand. And leaping _ 
 behind trees and logs they were instantly ready for the 
 conflict. 
 
 It began in the dusk of morning. The commanding 
 general thought only a scouting party had been seen, 
 and sent out a detachment with two scouts leading the 
 way — two to serve as a sacrifice that the men might 
 not be surprised. The two were soon killed. The at- 
 tack on the detachment soon followed. Reinforcements 
 came swiftly to support them, but the Indians took 
 position on a commanding piece of ground, and be- 
 fore the sunlight brightened the tops of the trees, 
 the two hosts were spread out in lines more than a mile 
 long, facing each other at a range that never exceeded 
 twenty yards. They crouched behind trees, and look- 
 ing up or down the line, fired at glimpses of white or 
 red flesh, or coon skin caps or disordered plumes. They 
 leaped from shelter, and with jeers and taunts invited 
 assault, only that the assaulters might be decoyed into 
 exposing themselves to those lying in wait. Indians 
 were never more aggressive in open battle. They re- 
 peatedly called the whites the sons of female dogs, and 
 
 219
 
 A History uf the 
 
 shouted "why don't you whistle now?'^ (referring to 
 the fifes), and "we'll learn you to shoot." They even 
 charged on the whites, singly and in squads, and with 
 knife and tomahawk, fought it out, hand to hand, man 
 fashion. Many men with mortal wounds fought on 
 until death froze the look of hate on their faces. 
 
 And through it all old Cornstalk raged up and 
 down his line, shouting in a voice heard above the roar 
 of guns : 
 
 "Be strong! Be strong!" 
 
 Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison's Residence. 
 (From a Contemporary Print.) 
 
 They were strong. Indians never were braver. 
 Here was the best fight ever made by our red men. 
 Two white colonels were killed and one wounded. The 
 whites became discouraged under the prolonged as- 
 saults of the red men. As the sun went down defeat 
 stared them in the face. 
 
 But when they would have wavered Gen. Lewis 
 sent Capt. Evan Shelby, with his Watauga men, under 
 the bank of the Kanawha to a ravine, through which 
 
 220
 
 MAJ. GE\. WII.I.IAM HKNRY HARRISON. 
 From an i>rii,nnal portrait by Lanibdin
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 they were able to flank and get in rear of the Indians. 
 And then when Shelby opened fire there, the Indians 
 fled in spite of the storming Cornstalk. 
 
 The white men lost seventy-five killed and 140 
 wounded. The Indians lost only thirty-three killed, so 
 far as known, but they were disheartened. 
 
 Among the men who took part in this fight was one 
 Benjamin Harrison, whose name is not unknown to 
 American history. He was a captain under Lewis. 
 Isaac Shelby, afterward Governor of Kentucky, was 
 a lieutenant of the company of Capt. Evan Shelby, his 
 father. James Robertson was a sergeant in this com- 
 pany, and all its members came from the Watauga 
 country. 
 
 Lord Dunmore had taken his force down the Ohio 
 to the Hockhocking River, where he built a wooden 
 fort. Thence, after Lewis won the battle of Point 
 Pleasant (as the fight at the mouth of the Kanawha 
 was called), Dunmore marched to the Scioto, camping 
 on Sippo Creek, about eight miles from the modern 
 town of Westfall, O. There he met Cornstalk and 
 made peace. 
 
 Cornstalk, with all his eloquence, strove to rouse 
 the Indians to another battle. He taunted and im- 
 plored, and finally proposed that they kill their women 
 and children, and then fight until they themselves died 
 free, rather than yield before the advancing whites; 
 but nothing could move them. With the feeling that 
 he was the chief of a band of cowards, he met Dun- 
 more. He accepted Dunmore's terms, but he did it 
 "with words and bearing that roused the admiration 
 even of the Indian haters among the whites." 
 
 221
 
 A History of the 
 
 To this conference Logan refused to come. He 
 "disdained to be seen among the supphants." But he 
 was willing, for the sake of his people, that peace 
 should be made. John Gibson, an interpreter with 
 Lord Dunmore (Gibson was a general in the war of 
 the Revolution), was sent to the Indians, at their re- 
 quest, during the negotiations. Logan met Gibson, 
 took him a little away from the other Indians, sat 
 down among the bushes near the camp, and there, "af- 
 ter shedding abundant tears," dictated the message that 
 is one of the most striking outbursts of red oratory 
 known to the annals of the race : 
 
 "I appeal to any white man to say if ever he en- 
 tered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; 
 if ever he came cold and hungry, and he clothed him 
 not. During the course of the last long and bloody 
 war Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for 
 peace. Such was my love for the whites that my 
 countrymen pointed as they passed and said, 'Logan is 
 the friend of the white men.' I had even thought to 
 have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. 
 Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, murdered 
 all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women 
 or children. There runs not a drop of my blood in 
 the veins of any living creature. This called on me 
 for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. 
 I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country 
 I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a 
 thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never 
 felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. 
 Who is there to mourn for Logan ? Not one." 
 
 222
 
 % "f" 
 
 In^ 
 
 *.J--vfc?H 
 
 PKNJAMIN FKANKLI.N. 
 From a portrait published in the "•Portfolio" in 1818.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE HOME MAKERS IN KENTUCKY. 
 
 The Story of Pennsylvania and Boonesborough — The 
 Frontier Forts and Frontier Houses Described — The 
 Old Fashioned Log-Roning and Other Bees — The 
 Deckhard Rifle — Frontier Clothing — Contrast Be- 
 tween the Dominant People of Louisiana and Those 
 of the Ohio Watershed — A Government Established 
 at Boonesborough. 
 
 When Lord Dunmore dictated peace to the Indians 
 on the bank of the Scioto, he opened wide the road for 
 the home-seekers who had thronged to the passes of 
 the Alleghanies. In cowing the Indians he had 
 strengthened Virginia's claim to lands west of the 
 mountains far more than the Quebec Bill had injured 
 it. The story of the home-makers who came to the wil- 
 derness, after this war ended, is, therefore, now to be 
 told. 
 
 223
 
 A History of the 
 
 And it may be observed that no chapter of Ameri- 
 can history is better worth the attention of young 
 Americans than this, for these home-builders were em- 
 phatically men who could and would zvork — the men 
 after God's own heart, who had learned "the infinite 
 conjugation of the verb to do.'' 
 
 Winsor notes in his "Westward Movement" that 
 25,000 Scotch-Irish Presbyterians arrived in the Del- 
 aware from 1 77 1 to 1773, and he adds that such of 
 this element as came to the frontier had no better use 
 for an Indian than to make of him a target for their 
 rifles. Any study of the history of the region shows 
 that settlers of the Ohio Valley were of Protestant 
 extraction, and to a large extent Presbyterians. It is 
 easy to see, now, that their kind of Presbyterianism, 
 and their other isms, were not like modern views of 
 Christianity. It is a matter worth consideration, be- 
 cause, as Carlyle points out, a man's real creed, the one 
 by which he lives, is the most important fact about him. 
 But if these home-seekers were not men who obeyed 
 the Sermon on the Mount, it p];omotes one's optimism 
 to note that they were distinctly better men than the 
 people who came to Virginia in 1609. They did not 
 profess one thing and do another. They might and 
 they did shoot the red men, but they did not preface 
 the killing by publishing drivel about coming to the 
 frontier "to recover out of the arms of the Devil a num- 
 ber of poore and miserable soules." 
 
 In spite of their professions, the Virginians of 1609 
 had "no talk, no hope, no work, but to dig gold, re- 
 fine gold, loade gold." The emigrant to the Ohio River 
 frontier of Virginia had "no talk, no hope, no work" 
 
 224
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 but to make a home ; and that was the pubHc profession 
 as well as the creed of his heart that he expressed in 
 his daily life. "God never intended this fair land to 
 remain a wilderness," was his oral and written creed, 
 and the one under which he acted. Church rites and 
 ceremonies received very little attention during the 
 days when the "boom was on." 
 
 The home-makers came to the frontier usually in 
 small companies, but sometimes in single families. In- 
 dividual men also came. They selected the bottom 
 lands and low ridges covered over with giant walnuts, 
 maples, oaks, sycamore, shell-bark hickory and other 
 trees known to grow on rich soil, until all readily 
 reached lands of the kind were taken up. The beech 
 grove lands were held in less esteem. 
 
 Consider as a sample, and the best one of many such 
 settlements, the founders of Boonesborough. During 
 the years that Daniel Boone was going to and fro be- 
 tween the hunting grounds of Kentucky and his home 
 on the Yadkin, he was very well acquainted with Col. 
 Richard Henderson, "one of the principal judges in 
 North Carolina, a scholarly, talented man, eminent in 
 the legal profession," (Thwaite's "Boone"). Boone's 
 stories of the game and other evidences of the fertility 
 of the Kentucky soil greatly interested Col. Henderson, 
 and he eventually resolved to establish a colony in the 
 new country. When the company was organized they 
 adopted Transylvania as the name of the colony. After 
 some delays, the chief of which was due to Lord Dun- 
 more's war, a grand council was held (March, 1775,) 
 at Sycamore Shoals, on the Watauga, with i ,200 Cher- 
 okees, who were gathered there by Daniel Boone, as 
 
 225
 
 A History of the 
 
 the agent of the Transylvania Company. When there, 
 the Cherokees, "for $50,000 worth of cloths, clothing, 
 utensils, ornaments and fire arms," ceded to Henderson 
 "all the country lying between the Kentucky and Cum- 
 berland Rivers ; also a path of approach from the east, 
 through Powell's Valley." 
 
 To show how far such bargains benefited the In- 
 dians, Thwaites points out that the goods in bulk 
 "filled a large cabin." When distributed "there was 
 but little for each warrior, and great dissatisfaction 
 arose. One Cherokee, whose portion was a shirt, de- 
 clared that in one day, upon this land, he could have 
 killed deer enough to buy such a garment," and yet the 
 chiefs had given the land away for all time for such a 
 trifling return. It "seemed to him a bad bargain." 
 
 Boone, with near thirty woodmen, was sent from 
 the treaty grounds to clear a path to a spot on the Ken- 
 tucky River. The trail thus made entered Kentucky 
 by the Cumberland Gap, and came to be, at one time, 
 the chief route south of the Ohio River. It was, in fact, 
 traveled by more people, in war times, than the Ohio 
 was. It was called the Wilderness Road. 
 
 As Boone's trail-making party traveled through the 
 woods the rougher obstructions were cleared away in 
 order to make a passable pack-horse route for others 
 who were to come. At night the party slept without 
 sentries, a fact that shows better than any other the 
 intrepidity of their hearts. But one morning a band of 
 Indians charged the camp at daylight, killed a negro 
 slave (a few slaves came thus early to blight the land) 
 and Capt. Twitty, besides wounding Felix Walker. 
 Then the whites rallied and beat off the Indians, and 
 
 226
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 they kept on to the site selected for Boonesborough, 
 in spite of another attack, when two men were killed. 
 
 The site selected, (Big Lick, just below the mouth 
 of Otter Creek), was reached April 6. "The site was 
 a plain on the south side of the Kentucky." As the par- 
 ty entered the natural opening they startled a herd of 
 200 or 300 buffaloes "of all sizes," that "made off 
 from the lick in every direction." 
 
 Naturally, their first care was to provide a shelter 
 — one that would keep out Indian bullets as well as 
 rain and snow. They marked off a rectangular piece 
 of ground 165x250 feet large, and, although they were 
 a long time completing the structure, at each corner 
 of it they built a two-story house of squared logs. The 
 upper story was made to project several feet beyond the 
 walls of the lower, and it was floored with puncheons, 
 (or split planks), thick enough to be bullet proof. In 
 the parts of this floor that projected beyond the lower 
 story they cut holes through which they could shoot 
 down at an enemy beneath, and there were a plenty of 
 port holes in the walls of these houses, to cover the 
 space around and between them. 
 
 Between these corner houses, (called block-houses), 
 and along the lines of the rectangle they built twenty- 
 six log cabins, each about eighteen feet square. The 
 outside wall of each was laid on the line of the rec- 
 tangle, and was built up smooth and solid, (so that no 
 Indian could climb it), to a height of twelve feet. It 
 contained no door, window or other opening. The inner 
 wall was eight feet high, and in this were cut two open- 
 ings for windows, and one for a door. The roof was 
 laid in a single flat slope from the outer to the inner 
 
 227
 
 A History of the 
 
 wall, and was covered at first with bark, but afterwards 
 with long shingles that were held in place with thick 
 poles. 
 
 The rows of cabins did not quite reach the block- 
 houses, a space being left so that if one of the rows 
 was burned, the adjoining block-house, might be saved. 
 But a palisade wall filled these spaces. 
 
 In the center of each of the long sides was a heavy, 
 solid gate. Oneopened toward the river; another inland. 
 The gates were defended by rows of palisades. The 
 loop holes of the block-houses commanded them, and 
 so did loop holes in the adjoining cabins. 
 
 The Indians had but one hope of capturing a fort 
 like that. The roofs were easily fired. 
 
 James Harrod and his associates built a fort like 
 this at Harrodsburg beginning in March, 1775. In fact 
 forts of the kind were scattered all over the region. In 
 Imlay's "Topographical Description of the Western 
 Territory" (published in 1793), is a "Map of Ken- 
 tucky" by John Filson. It shows all the settlements 
 and outlying posts and homes. The fortified stations 
 are represented by marks well worth note. 
 
 But there were also many single cabins built in this 
 region far beyond the protection of the forts. They 
 were without exception of log walls. An ax and an 
 auger were the only tools needed for building such a 
 house. The logs were notched together at the corners. 
 The rafters were held together and to the tops of walls 
 by pegs driven through auger holes. Thick boards 
 called puncheons, were split from logs and laid for 
 floors, if any floor was laid. Round logs served to sup- 
 port such a floor. Doors were made of puncheons also.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 A Portion of Filson's Map of 1785, With Haiirodsbukg. 
 229
 
 'A History of the 
 
 and these were hung on wooden hinges, and barred at 
 night with heavy pieces of timber. The doors were 
 sometimes made in two parts, upper and lower, and it 
 was the custom to open the upper half only, in trouble- 
 some times in answer to a hail, because an enemy could 
 not readily charge over the lower half. Windows were 
 not put in, at first, because the home builder could de- 
 fend but one aperture, but for years after peace came, 
 the only window was a square hole, closed at night by 
 a heavy puncheon shutter. Neither glass nor iron was 
 used in those houses. The huge fireplaces were made 
 of sandstone where it could be found ; elsewhere of split 
 sticks thickly covered with clay. The shingles on the 
 roof were held in place by straight logs laid on each 
 row ; but it should be noted that the log house at first 
 was roofed with bark. Says a journal written by one 
 Calk, of Boone's early settlement, (Roosevelt), "we 
 git our house kivered with bark and move our things 
 into it at Night, and begin Housekeeping." That was 
 on April 29, 1775. 
 
 The spaces between logs were filled with m.oss, or 
 clay or both, but not always. There is a story of a man 
 whose arm was severely bitten by a wolf because, as 
 the hungry beast prowled near the cabin, at night, the 
 man in his sleep happened to thrust his arm not only 
 out of bed, but out through the space between the logs 
 on a level with the bed. Another man lying with his 
 head near such an opening had his scalp badly torn by 
 a wolf. 
 
 In Mansfield's "Life of Dr. Daniel Drake" is a 
 letter written by Drake to describe a Kentucky home 
 built in the forest in 1788. It was one of a group of 
 
 230
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 A Portion of Filson's Map of 1785, With Lexington. 
 231
 
 A History of the • 
 
 five and all were located so that "no house, in the event 
 of being attacked by the Indians, would be unsupported 
 by some other." When the parents of Drake moved 
 into their cabin it was "one story high, without a win- 
 dow, with a door opening to the south, a half finished 
 wooden chimney, and a roof on one side only, but with- 
 out any upper or lower floor." There was a puncheon 
 door, however, and it could be secured by a stout bar. 
 The sills for the floor were also in place, and Drake re- 
 called his playing on the ground between these sills, 
 while the father and mother stepped from one sill to 
 another while arranging their scant household goods. 
 He adds that each cabin had port holes in the walls. 
 They always kept the axe and scythe under the bed to 
 use in case of attack by Indians; and before opening 
 the door in the morning the father always climbed up 
 the log wall to an unchinked crack between the logs 
 through which he peered to see whether any Indians 
 were in waiting to rush into the house when the bar 
 was removed from the door. ' 
 
 For descriptions of the furniture of those homes, 
 the unfailing resource is Dodridge's "Notes." A table 
 was made of split slab and supported by four round 
 legs set in auger holes. Some three-legged stools were 
 made in the same manner. Some pins stuck in the logs 
 at the back of the house supported clapboards which 
 served for shelves for the table furniture. A single 
 fork, placed with its lower end in a hole in the floor,, 
 and the upper end fastened to a joist, served for a 
 bedstead, by placing a pole in the fork with one end 
 through a crack between the logs in the wall. This 
 front pole was crossed by a shorter one within the fork, 
 
 232
 
 M ississippi I 'alley. 
 
 A Portion of Filson's Map of 1785, Showing Louisville.
 
 A History of the 
 
 with its outer end through another crack. From the 
 front pole through a crack between the logs at the end 
 of the house, (split) boards were put on which formed 
 the bottom of the bed. Skins of animals, especially 
 bear skins, made excellent substitutes for blankets. 
 
 A hollowed log — a round-bottomed trough — served 
 for a cradle. They had the rudest furniture ever seen, 
 but also the strongest. Fancy the possibilities before 
 him who was rocked to sleep in a hollow log, and was 
 taught to read, and imbibed ambition, by the flames of 
 a roaring fire-place ! 
 
 The furniture of the table consisted of a few pewter 
 dishes, plates and spoons ; but mostly of wooden bowls, 
 trenchers and noggins, (cups). If these last were 
 scarce, gourds and hard-shelled squashes made up the 
 deficiency. The iron pots, knives and forks were brought 
 from the east side of the mountains on pack horses. 
 When china ware came it was not liked because it dulled 
 the edge of the scalping knife. 
 
 They had neither closets nor trunks. Their cloth- 
 ing hung from pegs driven into the wall. All the pos- 
 sessions of the entire family were under the eye of 
 every visitor. This people did not cultivate the habit 
 of concealment. They were frank and open-hearted. 
 
 But a more important — on the whole probably the 
 most important — feature of the frontier was the bee 
 habit — the custom of gathering in companies whenever 
 opportunity offered. The individual settler girdled 
 the trees on the patch of land he wished to clear, and 
 when they were dead, he felled them. Then by build- 
 ing little fires at intervals of twelve or fifteen feet 
 along the trunks — fires of small sticks, oft replenished, 
 
 234
 
 ANDREW JACKSON. 
 From a portrait by Jarvis, in 1815.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 and held down by a chunk of a log called a nigger- 
 head — the trees were divided into logs. A time came 
 when the whole patch was strewn with charred logs, 
 much too heavy for one man to handle alone readily, 
 even with a team of horses; and yet it was necessary 
 to pile them up and burn them before the land could be 
 cultivated. To get those logs into a heap was the 
 hardest physical toil known to the frontier, and yet for 
 the frontiersmen it was literally a whooping joy. For 
 food in huge quantities (and, if possible, rum in suffi- 
 cient quantities), was procured by the land owner, 
 and then the neighbors — all who lived within twenty 
 miles — were invited to a log rolling bee. A man who 
 was not invited felt seriously offended. By the dozen 
 — sometimes by the score — they came to the new home. 
 Those who could do so brought horses ; some brought 
 oxen, some brought their wives and children. In 
 troops they flocked, to the log-strewn patch, and then 
 with hilarity, energy and muscular exertion never sur- 
 passed, if ever equalled, they dragged and flung the 
 logs into heaps. 
 
 The children piled on the limbs and brush, and 
 bringing brands from the fire-place in the house, started 
 fires whose smoke darkened the heavens. 
 
 At noon the company ate dinner with a relish, now 
 unknown, save only to a few (chosen of God to enjoy 
 life), who sometimes go to the woods. For though 
 only corn bread could be served with the wild meat, 
 they had appetite and freedom from care. 
 
 Nor was that all. Though it was the heaviest of 
 work their muscles were elastic, and as the sun went 
 down behind the forest ; and the squirrels leaped from 
 
 235
 
 A History of the 
 
 tree to tree with mellow crash within sight of the 
 house ; and the cardinal and the oriole and the red start 
 flamed and drifted among the leaves, these men ban- 
 tered each other into wrestling matches and foot races, 
 and the victor in each leaped on a stump, flapped his 
 arms against his sides, and crowed like a rooster. If 
 a fiddle could be had, they ended the lark with a "hoe- 
 down" — a dance that made even the log-walled house 
 tremble. When Jackson, the hero of these backwoods 
 men, had beaten the invader at New Orleans, and the 
 people of the city gathered to do him honor at a grand 
 ball, he — tall and lank, and his wife, short and round — 
 danced what a polished spectator called a "pas dc deux." 
 They danced a backwoods jig to the tune of ''Possum 
 up a Gum Tree" — to the intense delight and admiration 
 of the riflemen who shot the invader out of the swamp. 
 
 At weddings (and there is scant record of unions 
 without weddings), the neighbors made a bee, and 
 built a house for the new couple in the course of a few 
 hours after the ceremony was ended. And at night 
 they put the young couple to bed with many a sly hint, 
 as well as good wish. 
 
 They gathered to husk the corn and to make maple 
 sugar. Whatever could be done well by companies, 
 was done by them in companies. No more indepen- 
 dent or self-reliant individuals were ever seen on our 
 soil than these home-makers who peopled the Ohio 
 watershed, and yet never was a better exhibit of the 
 community spirit seen. Each was entirely able to shift 
 for himself, but out of love for his neighbors, each 
 made haste to lend a hand at every gathering. 
 
 Absolutely necessary to the outfit of every fron- 
 236
 
 iMUS. ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 Born Rachel Donelson, daughter of Col. John Donelson of Virginia. 
 
 In this portrait she wears the head-dress in which she 
 
 appeared at the ball herein described.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 tiersman was the rifle. A gunsmith named Deckhard, 
 living in Lancaster, Pa., at some unnamed period of 
 the border, began making rifles of small bore in place 
 of the smooth-bored musket in common use. The 
 barrel was an iron tube at least thirty inches long, 
 and usually three feet, six inches. The bore was rifled, 
 had twisting grooves cut in it, and the bullet that fit 
 the bore was a round pellet weighing seventy to the 
 pound. In loading the rifle a well-greased linen patch 
 was wrapped around the bullet. The patch fitted into 
 the grooves, and the bullet was not mutilated like the 
 modern rifle projectiles are. It was a remarkably ac- 
 curate weapon, though one requiring more skill than 
 a modern rifle, for, having a flintlock, there was a 
 marked interval between pulling the trigger and the 
 discharge of the bullet, an interval during which the 
 rifle must be held on the target. But the iron-nerved 
 men of the frontier had the skill. They shot running 
 deer at a range of 150 yards. They killed geese and 
 ducks, and even wild pigeons on the wing. Boys of 
 twelve hung their heads in shame if detected in hitting 
 a squirrel in any other part of the body than its head. 
 Though the bullet was small, it was large enough for 
 any game when fired by the men that knew how. One 
 of the Zane brothers, who went with Gen. Butler down 
 the Ohio in 1785, killed a buffalo that Butler called "a 
 real curiosity for size." The animal was more than 
 six feet tall when it stood erect. Its head, cut off with 
 as little of the neck as possible, weighed 135 pounds. 
 
 A time came when the small bullet went out of 
 fashion. Plainsmen, who had horses to ride, wanted 
 a bore that would admit the thumb. But the Ken- 
 
 237
 
 A History of the 
 
 tuckian, who had to "tote" his entire outfit, found the 
 small bullet better ; five hundred rounds of ammunition 
 weighed less than ten pounds. And in these last days 
 the armies of the world are armed once more with 
 small caliber rifles, to the entire vindication of the 
 Boone class of frontiersmen. 
 
 Says Dodridge regarding the clothing: 
 "Amongst those who were much in the habit of 
 going hunting, and going on scouts and campaigns, 
 the dress of the men was partly Indian and partly that 
 of civilized nations. The hunting shirt was universal- 
 ly worn. This was a kind of loose frock, reaching half 
 way down the thighs, with large sleeves, open before, 
 and so wide as to lap over a foot or more when belted. 
 The cape (a wide collar) was large, and sometimes 
 handsomely fringed with a ravelled piece of cloth of 
 different color from that of the hunting shirt itself. 
 The bosom of this dress served as a wallet to hold a 
 chunk of bread cakes, jerk (dried meat), tow for wip- 
 ing the barrel of the rifle, or any other necessary for 
 hunter or warrior. The belt, which was always tied 
 behind, answered several purposes besides that of 
 holding the dress together. In cold weather the mit- 
 tens, and sometimes the bullet bag, occupied the front 
 part of it. To the right side was suspended the toma- 
 hawk, and to the left the scalping knife with its leath- 
 ern sheath. The hunting shirt was generally made of 
 linsey, sometimes of coarse linen, and a few of dressed 
 deer skins. These last were very cold and uncomfort- 
 able in wet weather. The (under) shirt and jacket 
 were of the common fashion. A pair of drawers, or 
 breeches and leggins, were the dress of the thighs and 
 
 238
 
 A HUNTER WITH A DECKHARD RIFLE. 
 Notice length of same.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 legs; moccasins were nicely adapted (fitted) to the 
 ankles and lower parts of the legs by thongs of deer 
 skin, so that no dust, gravel or snow could get within 
 the moccasin. 
 
 "The moccasins in ordinary use cost but a few 
 hours' (say two) labor to make them. This was done 
 by an instrument denominated a moccasin awl, which 
 was made of the back spring of an old clasp knife. 
 This awl, with a buckhorn handle was an appendage 
 of every shot pouch strap, together with a roll of buck- 
 skin for mending the moccasins. This was the labor 
 of almost every evening. They were sewed together 
 and patched with deer skin thongs, or whangs, as they 
 were commonly called. 
 
 "In cold weather the moccasins were stuffed with 
 deer's hair, or dry leaves, so as to keep the feet com- 
 fortably warm ; but in wet weather it was usually said 
 that wearing them was a decent way of going bare- 
 footed, and such was the fact, owing to the spongy 
 texture of the leather of which they were made. 
 
 "Owing to this defective covering of the feet, more 
 than to any other circumstance, the greater number of 
 our hunters and warriors were afflicted with rheuma- 
 tism in their limbs. Of this disease they were all ap- 
 prehensive in cold or wet weather, and therefore al- 
 ways slept with their feet to the fire to prevent or cure 
 it as well as they could. This practice unquestionably 
 had a salutary effect, and prevented many of them be- 
 coming confirmed cripples in early life. 
 
 "In later years of the Indian war our young men 
 became more enamored of the Indian dress through- 
 out, with the exception of the match [watch?] coat. 
 
 239
 
 A History of the 
 
 The drawers were laid aside and the leggins made 
 longer, so as to reach the upper part of the thighs. 
 The Indian breech clout was adopted. This was a 
 piece of linen or cloth nearly a yard long and eight 
 or nine inches broad. This passed under the belt be- 
 fore and behind, leaving the ends for flaps hanging be- 
 fore and behind over the belt. These flaps were some- 
 times ornamented with some kind of coarse embroidery 
 work. To the same belts which secured the breech 
 clouts were attached strings which supported the leg- 
 gins. When this belt, as was often the case, passed 
 over the hunting shirt, the upper part of the thighs 
 and part of the hips were naked." 
 
 The first woman came to Kentucky in 1775. Af- 
 ter building the fort at Boonesborough, Daniel Boone 
 went back to North Carolina, and brought his wife, 
 with Mrs. Denton, Mrs. McGarry and Mrs. Hogan. 
 The journey of the family parties into the wilderness 
 usually began at the Holston region. At Watauga, 
 or some other mountain settlement nearby, the horses 
 were fitted with pack saddles, and the goods of the 
 family were piled on these; for families rarely went 
 by this route into the wilderness unless able to afford 
 horses, either of their own or borrowed. As a rule, 
 cows were driven along as well. The older boys had 
 charge of the cattle. "The younger children were 
 placed in crates of hickory withes and slung across the 
 backs of the old, quiet horses," though some found 
 seats on top of the goods on the pack horses. Some 
 of the women rode, some walked and carried their 
 babies, too. The men, with rifles ready, went scouting 
 through the woods in all directions, and looked after 
 
 240
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 the pack horses as well. One of them was always 
 elected captain of the band. "Special care had to be 
 taken not to let the loaded animals brush against the 
 yellow jacket nests, which were always plentiful along 
 the trail in the fall of the year, for in such cases the 
 vicious swarms attacked men and beasts, producing 
 an immediate stampede" that distributed packs and 
 children in disordered condition all over the region 
 (Roosevelt). 
 
 "The linsey petticoat and bed gown were the uni- 
 versal dress of our women in early times. A small 
 home-made handkerchief" was worn around the neck. 
 "They went barefooted in warm weather, and in cold 
 their feet were covered with moccasins, coarse shoes, 
 or shoe packs" (Dodridge). 
 
 "Until flax could be grown women were obliged 
 to be content with lint made from the bark of dead 
 nettles. This was gathered in the springtime by all 
 the people of a station acting together, a portion of 
 the men standing guard, while the rest, with the 
 women and children, plucked the dead stalks. The 
 smart girls of Irish ancestry spun many dozen cuts of 
 linen from this lint, which was as fine as flax but not 
 so strong" (Roosevelt, quoting from McAfee Mss.). 
 
 For a contrast recall Gayarre's description of 
 French life in Louisiana. The Louisiana houses were 
 not pretentious, but a stranger who "passed their 
 thresholds would have been amazed at being tvelcomed 
 with such manners as zvere habitual in the most pol- 
 ished court of Europe, and entertained by men and 
 women wearing with the utmost ease and grace the 
 elegant costume of the reign of Louis XV. — the pow- 
 
 241
 
 A History of the 
 
 dered head, the silk and gold flowered coat, the lace 
 and frills, the red-heeled shoe, the steel-handled sword, 
 the silver knee-buckles, the high and courteous bearing 
 of the gentlemen; the hoop petticoat, the brocaded 
 gown, the rich head-dress, the stately bow, the slightly 
 rouged cheeks, the artificially graceful deportment 
 and the aristocratic features of the lady." 
 
 A most instructive contrast is that between the 
 dominant people of Louisiana and those of the Ohio 
 watershed; it is a most instructive contrast. On the 
 one hand stands the courtier displaying with ease and 
 grace his lace and frills and red-heeled shoes. On the 
 other stands a man dressed in homespun and swinging 
 an ax. 
 
 The frontier food is not (and it never was) to be 
 passed without consideration. "The articles of (table) 
 furniture corresponded very well with the articles of 
 diet on which they were employed. 'Hog an' hominy* 
 [hominy is corn boiled in lye to remove the hulls, 
 cleaned, and then boiled till soft in pure water] were 
 proverbial for the dish of which they were component 
 parts. Johnny cake [a corruption of journey cake, a 
 kind of corn bread], and pone [another kind of corn 
 bread] , were the only forms of bread in use for break- 
 fast and dinner. At supper milk and mush formed 
 the standard dish. When milk was not plenty, which 
 was often the case, owing to the scarcity of cattle or 
 the want of proper pasturage for them, the substantial 
 dish of hominy had to supply the place of them ; mush 
 was frequently eaten with sweetened water, molasses, 
 bear's oil or the gravy of fried meat. 
 
 "Every family, besides a little garden for the few 
 242
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 vegetables which they cultivated, had another small 
 enclosure, called the 'truck patch,' in which they raised 
 corn for roasting ears, pumpkins, squashes, beans and 
 potatoes. These, in the latter part of the summer and 
 fall, were cooked with their pork, venison and bear 
 meat for dinner, and made very wholesome and well- 
 tasted dishes. The standard dinner for every log-roll- 
 ing, house-raising and harvest day, was pot pie" [boiled 
 meats, such as chickens, grouse, pigeons, veal, or ven- 
 ison with abundant dumplings]. What was left over 
 was served for supper along with milk to drink. Tea 
 and coffee, were, for a long time, unseen. When in- 
 troduced, at last, the men thought such "slops" good 
 enough for women and children. As for themselves 
 they preferred something strong enough "to stick to 
 the ribs." 
 
 Mention has been made of the form of govern- 
 ment organized by the Watauga people. In 1775 there 
 was a similar movement at Boonesborough, Ky. When 
 Col. Richard Henderson was establishing his "Tran- 
 sylvania" colony at Boonesborough, (1775), Lord 
 Dunmore issued a proclamation warning people that 
 the act was contrary to the laws of Virginia, and of 
 the Crown; but Henderson's company followed 
 Daniel Boone to the site of Boonesborough. It was 
 a feudal colony that Henderson purposed organizing — 
 something like the colony that La Salle ruled for a 
 time at Fort Frontenac, and therefore wholly unsuited 
 to Americans — but certificates for more than 500,000 
 acres of land were issued to colonists by Henderson, 
 (whence followed many a law suit). But the act of 
 this company most interesting here is the fact that, 
 
 243
 
 A History of the 
 
 although Henderson did not reach Boonesborough 
 until April 20, he issued a call on May 23d to the set- 
 tlers of the region asking them to send representatives 
 to agree upon some form of government. And the 
 settlers came to answer the call. They had not finished 
 chinking the walls of their log cabins before they ga- 
 thered to establish a system of lawful government. 
 They were to establish 3. system of government; they 
 were not to be ruled over by priest and gold-laced 
 commandant. 
 
 On this primitive legislature the Rev. John Lythe 
 asked a blessing, for a preacher came with the other 
 settlers. The acts passed numbered nine, as follows: 
 To establish courts; to regulate the militia; prescribe 
 punishment for crimes; to prevent profane swearing 
 and Sabbath breaking; providing for writs of attach- 
 ment ; limiting the fees of legal officers ; preserving the 
 right of free pasture on public lands; improving the 
 breed of horses ; for preserving the game. Daniel 
 Boone prepared the statutes relating to the preservation 
 of game, and improving the breed of horses. 
 
 There was a creed worth consideration in every 
 particular, but perhaps the first thought in connection 
 with it is that the very first Kentuckians were full of 
 sporting blood. They would preserve the game and 
 improve the breed of horses. And as a matter of fact 
 a race course was laid out at Shallow Ford Station, 
 in that very year. It is no wonder Kentucky horses are 
 famous. It is to be noted, too, that the game laws were 
 aimed against skin hunters — men who came from the 
 settlements east of the mountains and killed the wild 
 animals for their skins. These home makers claimed 
 
 244
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 the wild animals along with the lands. The admirable 
 non-export laws of many of the states at the present 
 time are founded on that old feeling. 
 
 The colony of Transylvania as a legal organiza- 
 tion failed because the proprietary system was wrong, 
 and because the proprietors did not have a legal title 
 to the lands; but the actual settlers had their titles 
 confirmed, while the company received a grant of 200,- 
 000 acres, located on the Ohio, and the thriving city 
 of Henderson, Ky., perpetuates the name of an enter- 
 prising and heroic, if mistaken frontiersman. 
 
 We get another view of Kentucky life from the 
 records of Henderson's Transylvania company, where- 
 in sales of gunpowder are noted at $2.66 per pound, 
 and lead at 16 2-3. The woods rangers or hunters 
 employed were paid thirty-three cents a day ; and they 
 worked from sunrise to sunset, without a doubt. The 
 modern definition of the word strike was unknown; 
 for every man was man enough to "hoe his own row," 
 regardless of bosses, or unions or trusts or other com- 
 binations made to wring something from an unwilling 
 somebody. 
 
 The fees for acquiring the right to 400 acres of 
 land, under the laws of Virginia amounted to $10, in 
 1775, but the home maker was obliged to build a log 
 house sufficient for a dwelling, and raise and harvest 
 a crop of corn in addition. Having done this he 
 could acquire 1,000 acres more adjoining his first claim, 
 at a cost of $400. 
 
 At the end of 1775 there were 300 men in Ken- 
 tucky, it is said, men who intended to make homes. 
 A breadth of something more than 200 acres of corn 
 
 -AS
 
 A History of the 
 
 had been harvested. The people had abundant food, 
 vigorous health, and hope that amounted to enthusiasm. 
 There was every needed local indication of a splendid 
 development of the new settlements. 
 
 But another war was at hand, and in it these 
 frontiersmen were to have a memorable part. On an 
 unnamed day, while a party of Kentucky hunters 
 camped on a branch of the Elkhorn river near the 
 cabin of a man named McConnel, a messenger brought 
 them a story of trouble between some Massachusetts 
 farmers and a company of British soldiers. The mes- 
 senger said that the farmers were gathered with arms 
 to resist the soldiers. The commander of the soldiers 
 shouted "Disperse, ye villains! Damn you why don't 
 you disperse?" But the men of Massachusetts instead 
 of obeying the profane tyrant, attacked the soldiers 
 and compelled them to fly so swiftly that when rescued 
 by reinforcements from Boston, their tongues [were], 
 hanging out of their mouths like those of dogs after 
 a chase." That was a story to arouse the enthusiasm 
 of every American — and especially of such Americans 
 as these backwoodsmen — and when the tale was ended 
 they named the spot on which they were encamped 
 Lexington. 
 
 246
 
 OUTACITE. 
 
 A Cherokee chief. The reader will note the ar.cient 
 tribal marks upon his face.
 
 XIV 
 
 ON THE FRONTIER DURING THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 Dunmore's Soldiers Declared They Were Ready to Fight 
 for American Liberties — The Responsibility of the 
 British Rulers of All Ranks for the Indian Raids on 
 the Frontier Home-Makers — The Cherokee Outbreak 
 — The First Kentucky Colonel — Pluck of the Fron- 
 tier Girl — Life in Harrodsburg During the War — 
 Boone Captured by the Indians — George Rogers 
 Clark's Memorable Plan for Defending the Settle- 
 ments. 
 
 As the soldiers undei Lord Dunmore marched 
 home from their conquest of the Indians northwest of 
 the Ohio, late in 1774, they paused near the mouth 
 of the Hockhocking river, and the officers gathered 
 and "held a notable meeting." Before entering on 
 this campaign they knew how the people of Massa- 
 
 247
 
 A History of the 
 
 chusetts, when the written law had failed them, had, 
 in the exercise of "the paramount law of self preser- 
 vation," assaulted the British ship Dartmouth, on the 
 night of December i6, 1773, and thrown her cargo 
 of tea into the bay. They had learned further that five 
 acts of brutal oppression had been passed thereafter 
 by parliament, and that a Congress representing the 
 colonies had assembled in Philadelphia to consider 
 the situation. They had followed Dunmore to this war 
 cheerfully. They were well enough satisfied with his 
 work as a leader. They were still cherishing a feeling 
 of loyalty to the King, but their hearts were inspired 
 with the feeling which prompted Patrick Henry to say, 
 "Give me liberty or give me death," and they thought 
 they ought to declare their readiness to fight for 
 American freedom "when regularly called forth by the 
 voice of their countrymen," and to say at the same time 
 that this little backwoods army "could march and 
 fight as well as any in the world." 
 
 Among these officers was Captain Micheal Cresap, 
 whose murderous assaults on Indians in time of peace 
 had brought on the Dunmore war, and he afterward 
 made good these words by fighting in a way that goes 
 far to redeem him in the eyes of most American stu- 
 dents of history. 
 
 The five acts of Parliament that followed immedi- 
 ately on the Massachusetts appeal to the "paramount 
 law of self preservation" provided: That the port of 
 Boston should be closed until Massachusetts paid the 
 owners of the destroyed tea its full value; that the 
 charter of the colony should be annulled and an abso- 
 lute despotism substituted ; that any soldier or revenue 
 
 248
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 officer charged with kilHng a citizen should be tried 
 for the crime in England instead of Massachusetts; 
 that British troops should be quartered thereafter in 
 Boston, and that all of the British territory lying west 
 of the Alleghanies and north of the Ohio river should 
 be added to Canada and "governed by a viceroy with 
 despotic powers." "Such people as should come to live 
 there were to have neither popular meetings, nor ha- 
 beas corpus, nor freedom of the press." 
 
 This last act is known in history as the Quebec Bill. 
 When the King, in 1763, by proclamation, set aside 
 this region as a royal domain in which no land could 
 be purchased from the Indians but by royal authority, 
 it is likely that he was moved chiefly by a desire to 
 save the Indians from imposition, and thus preserve 
 peace with them, no matter what the Board of Trade 
 had in view. But the manifest design of the Quebec 
 Bill was to restrict the territorial limits of the colonies ; 
 and because it reaffirmed, and was based on the old 
 French claim that Canada extended to and included the 
 Ohio Valley, it is naturally the subject of much com- 
 ment among critical historians. But because the cur- 
 rent of events in the Mississippi was not changed by 
 the Quebec Bill, a mere mention of it will suffice here, 
 and this chapter may be devoted wholly to things done. 
 
 It will help to a better comprehension of the things 
 done in the valley to recall the fact that while Hender- 
 son was laying the foundation of his Transylvania col- 
 ony in Kentucky, by buying the land of the Cherokees, 
 (March, 1775), Parliament was raising the number 
 of British regulars stationed in the American colonies 
 to 10,000. In March and April, while Boone was cut- 
 
 249
 
 A History of the 
 
 ting the trail from Cumberland Gap to Boonesborough, 
 Franklin was on his way home from England because 
 he had seen that war could not be averted. It was 
 more than a month after the battle of Lexington, 
 (which occurred on April 19, 1775,) that the fron- 
 tiersmen met at Boonesborough, and established a 
 form of government. 
 
 It is an interesting fact that the rapid growth of 
 population in Kentucky, after Dunmore's war, (1774), 
 was due in part to the migration of Eastern people 
 who were trying to escape the disorders of the grow- 
 ing contest with England. And it is to be noted, by 
 the way, that not a few of these new arrivals were 
 ne'er-do-wells, horse thieves and desperadoes, but in 
 coming west most of these people made a very 
 great mistake, for those that wished to escape war soon 
 found the Indians on their trail, and the desperadoes 
 found that the home makers recognized the right of 
 private war in the interests of order — that disorder 
 would be repressed by the use of noosed ropes or well- 
 aimed rifles. 
 
 This brings us to the most important feature of the 
 American Revolution as seen in the IMississippi Valley 
 — the British use of the Indians. Any attempt to gloss 
 over, or palliate the acts of the British in this matter, 
 even though done to promote international harmony, is 
 but a form of foolish lying; and no good can be pro- 
 moted by a lie. 
 
 The first troubles of the people in the Ohio Valley, 
 as a result of the Revolution, came through the success- 
 ful efforts of the British agents to incite the Indians to 
 attack the home-makers. And their last troubles were 
 
 250
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 due to the same cause. In fact the British made no 
 move in the Great Valley but with the aid of the In- 
 dians. In the present state of civilization, it is diffi- 
 cult for many people to believe these facts, but the 
 truth is that the British authorities, from the King 
 down through the ministers, and the local rulers, to 
 the Tory partisans, deliberately approved the use of 
 Indians. In some cases local officials, gleefully ap- 
 proved, incited and took part in Indian raids wherein 
 women were outraged and murdered, little children 
 were slaughtered, and men were burned at the stake. 
 When Col. Henry Hamilton began his work with the 
 Indians at Detroit, it appears that (to quote Winsor's 
 "Westward Movement," p. iii), he "was acting in 
 anticipation of orders which he had asked of Germain. 
 These, when received, — dated March 26, 1777 — con- 
 formed to Hamilton's suggestions, and directed him to 
 organize Indian raids against the frontier. We have 
 his own statement (made) in the following July, that 
 he had up to that date sent out fifteen distinct parties 
 on such fiendish errands." 
 
 The facts in this matter shall be given as briefly 
 as possible, but to see, first of all, that the humanity 
 of the British in authority was on a level where these 
 things were possible, it is necessary only that the reader 
 recall a few such acts of the British troops in the east 
 as the first foray into Jersey, where they "set fire to 
 farm houses, murdered peaceful citizens and violated 
 women ;" the acts of Gen. Richard Prescott, who, when 
 he took possession of Newport, "encouraged his sol- 
 diers in plundering houses and offering gross insults 
 to ladies ;" the capture of Norfolk where "every house 
 
 251
 
 A History of the 
 
 was burned to the ground, many unarmed citizens 
 were murdered, and delicate ladies were abandoned to 
 the diabolical passions of the soldiery." The quota- 
 tions are from Fiske's "American Revolution," One 
 notable British historian, quoted by Fiske, says dis- 
 tinctly that the Americans would have been justified in 
 refusing to give quarter, when Stony Point was taken, 
 and thereby, as Fiske points out, portrays the level of 
 his own civilization and that of people who approve his 
 words. 
 
 It is now coming to be understood, even among 
 the most obtuse observers in Europe, that American 
 armies have always shown marvelous efficiency, even 
 after brief training, because every man in the ranks has 
 always fully understood the cause of the war in hand, 
 and fully approved the object for which it was waged, 
 and felt and manifested the keenest personal interest 
 in the success of his arms. In other words, American 
 armies have been composed of united thinking men, 
 instead of well-trained, unthinking brutes. But it is 
 not yet understood that this personal knowledge of the 
 causes of the conflict and this personal interest in the 
 result necessarily led to lasting indignation and prej- 
 udice. This is not to commend or even excuse lasting 
 anger and prejudice; it is to deplore them and to point 
 out that these are among the chiefest of the inevitable 
 evils of any war involving a thinking people. It is 
 also worth observing that when the cause of ill-feeling 
 is known, a remedy may often be found. 
 
 Americans came to feel "a deadly and lasting 
 hatred which their sons and grandsons inherited," not 
 because the Indians were employed to fight American 
 
 252
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 soldiers, as when Carlton employed them to fight 
 Arnold on Lake Champlain. Americans did as much. 
 It was because the Indians zvere deliberately sent 
 against zvomen and children. This point is to be most 
 carefully considered. "God and nature hath put into 
 our hands the scalping knife and tomahawk, to torture 
 them into unconditional submission," said the Earl 
 of Suffolk (Almon's Remembrancer, viii., p. 328). 
 A price was put on scalps, and a woman's scalp was 
 purchased as readily as a man's. The Indians received 
 various prices for the scalps brought in, but the white 
 marauders who went on raid with the Indians received 
 "a bounty of 200 acres of land," (Winsor's "Westward 
 Movement," p. 11 1). The British officers, among 
 whom Col. Hamilton, commander at Detroit was most 
 infamous, sent out the Indians for the deliberate and 
 openly-declared purpose of "driving in" the frontier 
 homemakers and depopulating the newly-settled dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 "Hamilton and his subordinates, both red and 
 white, were engaged in what was essentially an effort 
 to exterminate the borderers," says Roosevelt in "Win- 
 ning the West." It was "a war of extermination 
 waged with appalling and horrible cruelty." "It 
 brings out in bold relief the fact that in the West the 
 the War of the Revolution was an effort on the part 
 of Great Britain to stop the westward growth of the 
 English race in America, and to keep the region be- 
 yond the Alleghanies as a region where only savages 
 should dwell." 
 
 "Few, if any, British officers brought themselves 
 so much under severe criticism for inciting savage 
 
 253
 
 A History of the 
 
 barbarities as Governor Hamilton. He sang war 
 songs with the braves, he made gifts to parties return- 
 ing with scalps. * * * His glee at the successful 
 outcome of savage raids was not unshared by many in 
 the royal service," says Winsor in "The Westward 
 Movement," p. 127. 
 
 When Hamilton was captured, he was sent to Vir- 
 ginia, where his conduct was investigated by the Coun- 
 cil of Virginia. In their report the Council say : "The 
 board find that Governor Hamilton gave standing re- 
 wards for scalps, but offered none for prisoners, 
 which induced the Indians, after making the captives 
 carry their baggage into the neighborhood of the fort, 
 there put them to death, and carry in their scalps to 
 the governor, who welcomed their return and suc- 
 cesses by a discharge of cannon." 
 
 This was a judicial investigation made by men who 
 were not frontiersmen, to determine what treatment 
 Hamilton should receive as a prisoner. The evidence 
 of Hamilton's inhumanity led to his imprisonment in 
 irons. 
 
 In order to palliate these admitted facts, some 
 writers note that even Hamilton was in the habit of 
 telling the Indians, as he sent them forth, that they 
 should spare the women and children. There is no 
 doubt that Hamilton did do that, but when these same 
 warriors returned with the blood of women and chil- 
 dren on their tomahawks, Hamilton joined in their 
 rejoicing and rewarded them. 
 
 In view of this rejoicing over the slaughter of the 
 innocents, there can be but one interpreting of his habit 
 of telling the Indians, as he sent them forth, not to kill 
 
 254
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 women and children. He did it for the sole purpose 
 of throwing dust in the eyes of critics who might come, 
 eventually, to call him to account for his barbarity. 
 He was animated by a regard for "appearances," as 
 Dumas was, when in command at Ft. Duquesne. In- 
 stead of his words palliating his conduct, they do but 
 blacken it; for they show his hypocrisy. 
 
 The first outbreak of the savages during the Revo- 
 lution was in June, 1776, when the Cherokees, on 
 receiving jRfty horse loads of ammunition from the 
 British, were induced to go to war. It was an out- 
 break due solely to the desire to ravage the frontier 
 of the Patriots, for there was no British army in the 
 South, at the time, and no success which the Indians 
 could attain would serve in the remotest degree to 
 return the colonists to their allegiance to the King. 
 
 The Cherokees numbered 2,400 warriors at the 
 time, it is said — more than twice the force that Old 
 Cornstalk had in his great fight at Point Pleasant. 
 Dividing this force into large parties (the party that 
 attacked the Watauga settlements numbered 700), they 
 came upon the frontier like packs of wolves. The 
 home-makers fled toward the forted villages, whenever 
 warning came to them in time, but many an unfortun- 
 ate knew nothing of the danger until the painted war- 
 riors were upon him. Cameron, the British agent, and 
 a number of tories were with some of the red bands, 
 but it is likely that their presence added to the horrors 
 of the raids; at any rate the women and children 
 slaughtered outnumbered the men, and many of the 
 men slain were unarmed. That men were burned at 
 the stake scarcely need be said, but it is recorded that 
 
 255
 
 A History of the 
 
 one boy was carried from a Watauga home, and at 
 Tuskega was slowly tortured to death; and a woman 
 would have been served in like manner, but for the 
 humanity of one squaw, known as Nancy Ward, who, 
 having great influence In her tribe, interfered with 
 success. Of the cattle that were killed, homes burned 
 and fields wasted, mere mention is necessary. 
 
 Naturally the first settlers to strike back were those 
 of the Watauga region. While nearly all of the stock- 
 ades in that region had no more than men enough for 
 successful defence, that in Eaton's Station had some 
 to spare, and these could not remain cooped up. Sally- 
 ing out on the morning of July 20, 1776, in a band 
 170 strong, they found a party of Indians near their 
 Island flats, but failed to get even one of them. 
 
 It seemed improbable that any damage could be 
 inflicted on the Indians after they had learned the 
 whites were out, and the whites turned back to the 
 fort. Then the Indians, seeing the whites turn, sup- 
 posed them panic stricken, and raising the war whoop, 
 came in a mass of a hundred or so, led by the famous 
 chief, Dragging Canoe ; they were expecting to slaugh- 
 ter the whole company of whites, but the whites 
 formed in line and allowed the Indians to come until 
 within easy range. Then they opened a shriveling fire 
 which turned the wild war whoops into howls of dis- 
 may. Yet the Indians carried off their wounded 
 (among whom was Dragging Canoe), and presumably 
 most of their dead, for the whites got but thirteen 
 scalps. Four settlers were wounded badly, but none 
 killed. It was one of the rare occasions where the 
 Indian losses exceeded those of the whites. 
 
 256
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 About this time a party from the Wolf Hills Fort 
 took eleven red scalps which they hung above the fort 
 gate, Indian fashion. The Watauga fort, where Rob- 
 ertson and John Sevier were, had no more than fifty 
 men, and remained on the defensive. Some would 
 go forth, however, and three or four were killed, and 
 the boy who was burned at Tuskega, was captured. 
 One girl — Kate Sherrill — "brown haired, comely, tall, 
 lithe and supple," would go down to the stream, one 
 day, and the Indians who were in hiding nearby, 
 dashed forth to capture her. 
 
 It was a most thrilling race, for they headed her 
 away from the gate; but nothing daunted, she ran 
 straight to the palisades, leaped up, caught two pointed 
 tops, and drawing herself up, tumbled over, and 
 dropped into the arms of John Sevier, who had shot 
 her foremost pursuer, meantime, and who was stand- 
 ing ready to catch her. 
 
 Sevier at this time was a widower, and one of the 
 most popular men of the country. Kate was one of 
 the most charming girls of all the mountain region. 
 So John and Kate were married, and the girl who 
 could mount a twelve-foot palisade became the first 
 lady of Tennessee, for Sevier was elected Governor 
 as soon as the State was admitted to the Union. 
 
 One of the most interesting features of frontier 
 life is found in the stories of loves and marriages that 
 followed the gatherings of families into the forts dur- 
 ing the Indian raids — raids that were made to depop- 
 ulate the frontier. 
 
 The raids east of the mountains roused the inhab- 
 itants. The militia were called out by the thousand, 
 
 257
 
 A History of the 
 
 and then in due course the Cherokee towns were raided 
 in turn. And a Cherokee town was not Hke a collec- 
 tion of bark shelters found in the north, for the Chero- 
 kees built good log houses and cultivated large fields. 
 They were civilizing themselves steadily, if slowly, 
 and the return raids made into their country, inflicted 
 such serious damage that the majority of the Chero- 
 kees had to flee for succor to the Creeks and live on 
 charity, during the ensuing winter. They were chas- 
 tised in a way that compelled the clans to keep the 
 peace for several years. 
 
 And yet old Dragging Canoe refused to join in 
 the peace. Going down to the Chickamauga, he gath- 
 ered the outlaws of every clan and tribe of red men, 
 with bloodthirsty desperadoes from among the Tories, 
 and there established a pirate community. In the 
 course of the fighting, however, the Cherokees lost 
 200 men killed, while the whites lost as many men, 
 and more than 200 women and children. 
 
 Meantime the Kentuckians were organizing their 
 country as a county of Virginia. At a gathering in 
 Harrodsburg, in the middle of June, 1776, they elected 
 George Rogers Clark (the youth who had been under 
 Cresap in the murderous attack on Indians below 
 Wheeling, in 1774), and one other man to carry a 
 petition to the Virginia legislature. This petition was 
 dated June 20, 1776, and the most interesting para- 
 graph in it was that which pointed out "how impolitic 
 it would be to suffer such a Respectable Body of 
 Prime Riflemen to remain in a state of neutrality" 
 while the United Colonies were in a desperate struggle 
 for liberty. 
 
 258
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Clark succeded in his mission. Kentucky was ad- 
 mitted as a county, with Harrodsburg as the county 
 town. The miHtia were organized, and John Bowman 
 was placed in command with the rank of colonel — the 
 name of the first Kentucky colonel is, doubtless, a 
 matter of National, if not of world-wide, interest. 
 
 In the meantime, Delaware, Shawnee and Mingo 
 (the Iroquois of the Ohio) chiefs had assembled at 
 the forks of the Ohio, and declared for neutrality in 
 the conflict between the colonies and England, but 
 that was a position they could not hold. Col. Henry 
 Hamilton, with abundant supplies of goods for pres- 
 ents, and money for the purchase of scalps, was at 
 work to incite the Indians to raid the home makers. 
 The colonies had little money for any purpose — they 
 could not compete with this well-supplied official in 
 bargaining for the favor of these red men. Besides 
 the commissioners of Congress were trying to keep 
 them neutral only. Hamilton offered them the still 
 greater delight of shedding the blood of unarmed men, 
 and helpless women and children. After the training 
 which the Indians had received at the hands of the 
 whites, during the preceding 150 years, there could 
 be no question as to the course they would pursue. 
 
 During 1776 small parties of the Ohio Indians 
 began making raids into Kentucky and other parts of 
 the frontier. Numbers of Ottawas, Pottawattomies and 
 Chippewas, the raptores of the Great Lakes, came to 
 the feasts of blood and plunder. 
 
 One story of these raiders in 1776 may be told to 
 show the pluck of the frontier girl. On July 14, five 
 Indians carried off Boone's daughter, Jemima, with 
 
 259
 
 A History of the 
 
 Betsy and Fanny Calloway. The Indians made the 
 girls wade in brooks, and took pains to obliterate the 
 trail in every way, but Betsy Calloway, in spite of 
 the uplifted tomahawks, kept breaking twigs and rip- 
 ping off bits of her dress to catch the eyes of those 
 she knew would follow. And so a party, led by Boone, 
 and including the lovers of the three girls, came upon 
 the Indians, late the next day, as they were preparing 
 to cook a buffalo calf they had killed, and shot two of 
 them. The three who were untouched fled, almost 
 naked and without any weapon, into the forest and 
 escaped. 
 
 The fighting, when a band of 200 Indians came 
 to Wheeling on the morning of September 2, 1777, 
 showed the metal of the frontiersmen. They arrived 
 at daylight, a thick fog aiding them materially. A 
 little later a white man and a negro left the fort to 
 bring in some horses from a pasture. A party of six 
 Indians waylaid the two men and killed one of them. 
 One, it appears, was allowed to escape in order that 
 he might bring out a party to attack the six, with the 
 idea that they were a small band of raiders. Anyway, 
 fifteen men left the fort to hunt the Indians, and before 
 them the six Indians fled until the white men were led 
 into an ambush. Then the Indians in hiding rose up 
 with the war whoop, and closed in. But, although 
 outnumbered more than twelve to one, the trapped 
 men refused to yield. Twelve died fighting, and three 
 escaped by hiding in the brush. A party of twelve 
 that came from the fort to aid the fifteen were also 
 trapped, but of these four escaped to the brush. 
 
 The men now remaining in the fort numbered no 
 260
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 more than fourteen, but the Zane brothers, who were 
 too humane and just to take part in the murders pre- 
 ceding Lord Dunmore's War, were among them. The 
 Indians came to the dwelHngs that stood near the fort 
 and called on the whites to surrender, but the whites 
 replied by firing at every patch of red skin that came 
 in view. The women aided the men by running bul- 
 lets, by cooling the heated guns and even by taking 
 places at the port-holes to fire at the red men. 
 
 Knowing that the force of settlers was small, the 
 Indians came boldly to the fort gate, carrying a log 
 for a battering ram ; but their dash failed because of 
 the deadly aim of the defenders. All that day and the 
 following night the Indians raged vainly around the 
 fort. The next morning a small relief party (thirteen 
 or fifteen men), came to the fort by way of the river, 
 and a little later a party of forty men, led by Major 
 Samuel McCulloch, arrived on horseback. As this 
 party approached the fort, McCulloch was cut off 
 from his men. The Indians were so close to him that 
 the only way of escape led toward the top or crest of 
 a "slipbank," 300 feet high, and steep and rocky. But 
 McCulloch galloped to the brink, and plunging head- 
 long down, he reached the bottom safely and crossed 
 the flats to the fort. The precipice is there yet, but the 
 slope is moderate in these days. 
 
 Harrodsburg was under fire nearly all the summer 
 of 1777, the besieging parties of Indians coming in 
 such quick succession that the people of the neighbor- 
 hood were unable to raise any crops, save a few tur- 
 nips. 
 
 On one occasion the uneasiness of the cattle (cattle 
 261
 
 A History of the 
 
 always showed fear when they smelled Indians), gave 
 them warning, and they were able to attack a party 
 of Indians who were trying to ambush some men at 
 work in a field. Three of the Indians were killed, one 
 by George Rogers Clark, who was in the fort almost 
 all summer. The plunder these Indians left behind 
 was sold at auction for £70. 
 
 The siege here was so close, at times, that the peo- 
 ple were at the point of starvation. The most skillful 
 woodsmen tried sneaking away from the fort at night 
 to get game, but so many were caught and killed, that 
 a time came when no more men could be spared. In 
 this emergency, James Ray, a lad of seventeen years, 
 begged permission to try, and because of a previous 
 adventure, he was allowed to go. In the previous 
 adventure, Ray, with two other boys, had been at 
 work, in a field four miles from the fort, when a pack 
 of forty-seven Indians, under a chief named Black- 
 fish, attacked them. The two boys with Ray were 
 killed, but Ray, in a four-mile race for Hfe, fairly and 
 easily outran the whole pack. The hungry settlers in 
 the fort thought that one who could run as he could 
 might escape; so they let him try for game. 
 
 In the dark hour just before day, this boy led an 
 old horse from the fort into the river, and then by 
 riding continually in the stream or its branches to 
 conceal his trail, he reached safe hunting grounds and 
 killed a load of meat. This he brought to the fort by 
 the same trail, and so succored the famishing garrison. 
 And these expeditions were made time and again with- 
 out the Indians learning anything about them. 
 
 Nevertheless, Ray was at last to have about the 
 262
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 narrowest escape of any of the people in Kentucky. 
 A man named McConnel was out trying his rifle at 
 a mark, with Ray beside him, at a time when the peo- 
 ple supposed no Indians were near. But suddenly a 
 shot from the brush killed McConnel, and then a great 
 body of Indians leaped out to take the boy. 
 
 For 150 yards the boy ran, with the Indians so 
 close to him that the people in the fort were obliged 
 to close the gate lest the Indians enter with him. But 
 as the gate closed, the garrison opened fire, and the 
 Indians stopped, while Ray threw himself flat on the 
 the ground behind a stump, near the bottom log of one 
 of the cabins that formed the fort wall. 
 
 His peril, however, was now greater than before, 
 because, on seeing they could not capture him, the 
 Indians opened fire. To try to rise and run for the 
 gate was but to give the Indians a better chance to 
 kill him, and to lie still was to be reached by a bullet,, 
 sooner or later. 
 
 Nevertheless, his wit was sufficient for the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 "For God's sake, dig a hole under the wall and 
 take me in," he shouted, and in a few minutes the work 
 was done, and he was safe. He lived to be governor 
 of the state. 
 
 It was a perilous summer, but in the course of it^ 
 George Rogers Clark sent two spies among the French 
 of Illinois, and in a diary that he kept is found this 
 entry : 
 
 "July 9 — Lieutenant Linn married, great merri- 
 ment." 
 
 Boone says "Col. Harrod's fort was then defended 
 263
 
 A History of the 
 
 by only sixty-five men, and Boonesborough by twenty- 
 two, there being no more forts or white men in the 
 country, except at the Falls, a considerable distance 
 from these, * * * but a handful to the numerous war- 
 riors that everywhere dispersed through the country." 
 i And yet in spite of the "numerous warriors," a 
 party of forty-five men — home seekers — came in from 
 North Carolina, arriving on July 25, 1777, and a 
 hundred more arrived on August 20. 
 
 Early in 1778, while making salt at the Blue Licks, 
 Daniel Boone and a party were captured by a band 
 of eighty Miamis, and were taken to Detroit. Because 
 Boone was such a famous frontiersman, Hamilton 
 tried to ransom him, but the Indians preferred to 
 adopt him, and thus gave him a chance to escape. 
 
 This chance came just as the Indians were prepar- 
 ing to start in large force on a raid into Kentucky. 
 Boone traveled 160 miles in four days, eating but one 
 meal during the time. Knowing that Boone would 
 prepare the settlements for the attack, the raiders 
 remained at home. 
 
 Boone was raised to the rank of Major in the militia 
 on his return. 
 
 On August 8, 1778, the Indians came to Boones- 
 borough with a force of more than 300 under a French 
 partisan named Daigniau de Quindre. There were 
 eleven other French soldiers of fortune in the band. 
 
 By asking for time in which to consider a demand 
 for surrender, Boone was able to put the fort into good 
 condition, and then he laughed at the simple French- 
 men. In return the Frenchmen persuaded Boone and 
 eight others to come out and meet nine Frenchmen 
 
 264
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 and nine Indians to discuss a treaty of peace. All met 
 unarmed according to agreement, but the Frenchmen 
 and Indians tried to carry off the Kentuckians bare- 
 handed. 
 
 Of course they failed, for no two men of any other 
 race could, (or can), carry off, barehanded, an Ameri- 
 can frontiersman. An effort to run a tunnel under the 
 fort was blocked, and the invaders went away deeply 
 humiliated. Many other stories of raids of similar 
 character are found in the annals, but as they were 
 much alike, and none had any lasting effect on the 
 ultimate isues of the war, no more shall be given here. 
 
 In the meantime the spies sent by George Rogers 
 Clark had returned to Harrodsburg with the news that 
 Kaskaskia and other British posts in the Illinois coun- 
 try were but feebly manned, and that the French popu- 
 lation had very little love for their British rulers, 
 though they had been taught to believe the American 
 frontiersmen, (known, by the way, as the Long 
 Knives), were devils incarnate for fighting, and mon- 
 sters for cruelty and rapacity. 
 
 To Clark this news was most cheering, for he 
 could now see his way to success in an expedition to 
 the Illinois country. Whether or not Clark then saw 
 the tremendous results involved in the capture of the 
 British posts is a question which has been discussed, 
 but this much is undoubted : Clark saw that the way 
 to defend the Kentucky settlements from aggression 
 was to capture the British posts from ivhich the raids 
 were made. One summer passed within the walls of 
 Harrodsburg fort was all of the porcupine style of 
 fighting that he wanted. He determined to fight the 
 
 265
 
 A History of the 
 
 wolves in their dens, and what he accompHshed shall 
 be told in the next chapter. 
 
 But before passing to the achievements of this 
 hero of the frontier it is worth while noting that there 
 were a few wolves among the Americans. While the 
 British were still bargaining with the red men, Old 
 Cornstalk, the red warrior who led his host with con- 
 summate skill at the battle of Point Pleasant, and with 
 his words, "Be strong! Be strong!" gave courage to 
 the weak through all that deadly strife, now favored 
 the Americans by speeches in council ; and in every 
 way possible, he opposed the British agents. Finally, 
 when he saw that he must fail, he went to Fort Ran- 
 dolph, at Point Pleasant, to give the officers there due 
 warning. A young chief named Red Hawk went with 
 him. In spite of Cornstalk's friendly act he was im- 
 prisoned, and when his son Ellinipsico came to learn 
 why the old chief did not return home, he too was 
 held a prisoner. 
 
 The next day after Ellinipsico arrived, two men 
 from the garrison, while hunting on the farther side 
 of the Kanawha, were ambushed by Indians, and one 
 was killed. To avenge the death of this man, the 
 militia ran to the quarters where the unarmed Corn- 
 stalk and his son, and Red Hawk, were confined, work- 
 ing up their passions the while, with shouts and yells. 
 
 The coming rabble frightened the son, but old 
 Cornstalk, whose courage had never faltered, said : 
 
 "My son, the Great Spirit has seen fit that we 
 should die together, and has sent you here to that 
 end. It is His will, and let us submit — it is all for 
 the best." 
 
 266
 
 GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 
 
 From an oil-paintinsj in the possession of Vincennes University, Ind., 
 
 said to be the only portrait from life now in existence.
 
 XV 
 
 THE WORK OF GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 
 
 The Expedition that Acquired for the United States All 
 the Territory Between the Ohio River, the Great 
 Lakes and the Mississippi Was Started on a Cash 
 Capital of £ 1,200 — The Lone Stranger that Stood in 
 the Doorway of the Ball Room at Kaskaskia, and 
 the Effect of His Appearances on the Dancers — A 
 Bit of Acting that Was Far More Effective than 
 Gunshots — A Striking Comparison of the "Hair- 
 Buyer" Hamilton with George Rogers Clark. 
 
 During all the time that George Rogers Clark was 
 planning, in Harrodsburg, his attack on the British 
 posts of the Northwest, he did not give any one so 
 much as a hint of what was on his mind. Even the 
 spies who went to Kaskaskia thought they were making 
 this adventuresome trip in the interests of trade. With 
 
 267
 
 A History of the 
 
 equal reticence he left Harrodsburg on October i, 
 1777, and started alone over the Wilderness Road, to 
 Old Virginia, to obtain men and supplies for the 
 meditated expedition, 
 
 Clark arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia's capital, 
 at an auspicious time. Burgoyne, through the well- 
 laid plans of Schuyler and the hard fighting of Stark, 
 Morgan and Arnold, had been compelled to surrender 
 his entire army, and "things seemed to wear a pleasant 
 aspect," in consequence. 
 
 On December 10, Clark laid his plans before Gover- 
 nor Patrick Henry. The man who had said "Give me 
 liberty or give me death !" was able to appreciate the 
 splendid project, and when Thomas Jefferson, George 
 Mason and George Wythe were called on they also 
 gave it hearty approval. 
 
 Only these men learned that such an expedition was 
 contemplated. Clark was made a Colonel in the Vir- 
 ginia militia, and he received £1,200 in depreciated 
 currency for expenses. An expedition to take posses- 
 sion of all the region between the Ohio, the Great 
 Lakes and the Mississippi was started with a cash cap- 
 ital of £1,200 in depreciated currency! 
 
 If there is anything in history that can convert the 
 fool who says in his heart there is no God, it is the 
 story of the American Revolution. That pitiful sum 
 was sufficient for George Rogers Clark. What he 
 lacked in cash he made up with his youthful energy and 
 hopefulness, for he was only twenty-five years old. 
 Taking his money he went to Pittsburg, authorized to 
 enlist 700 men, ostensibly to defend Kentucky from in- 
 vasion, and with his utmost efforts was able to fill three 
 
 268
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 companies of fifty men each. With these, and the 
 rumor that four companies had been raised in Ken- 
 tucky, he took boats and went down the Ohio River to 
 the Falls, (Louisville), where he landed on Corn 
 Island, May 27, 1778. Instead of four companies, he 
 found less than 100 men, and when, at last, public an- 
 nouncement of the object of the expedition was made, 
 a considerable number of these deserted. 
 
 And yet, after building a fort, Clark divided his 
 force in order to garrison the island and protect some 
 settlers who had come down the river with him to 
 make homes there. He was then able to organize only 
 four companies, each having less than fifty men, for 
 the expedition, (he had 175 men all told) ; but w^ith 
 unsurpassed pluck he launched forth his boats on June 
 24, 1778, just as an eclipse of the sun was coming on, 
 and in the growing darkness they shot the falls and 
 proceeded on their w-ay. The captains of the four 
 companies were John Montgomery, Joseph Bowman, 
 Leonard Helm and William Harrod. 
 
 The river was followed until nine miles below the 
 mouth of the Tennessee, when Clark turned into the 
 mouth of the Massac Creek, that enters the Ohio about 
 200 yards above the "steep, low hill of iron-stained 
 gravel and clay" on which old Fort Massac was built 
 by the French after they were driven from Fort Du- 
 quesne, (Pittsburg) by the Quaker emissary, Fred- 
 erick Post. Fort Massac was in ruins and without 
 garrison when Clark arrived, and he rested for one 
 night beside the creek. Here he was joined by a party 
 of American hunters who, in ranging over the plains 
 of Illinois, had been to Kaskaskia. They told Clark 
 
 269
 
 A History of the 
 
 that Rocheblave, a Frenchman in the British service, 
 had kept the fort at Kaskaskia in good repair, and the 
 mihtia well drilled and ready for a fight. The Missis- 
 sippi was carefully watched, and that the French in- 
 habitants hated and feared the Americans, as the Span- 
 ish-Americans hated the buccaneers — a story that 
 pleased Clark right well. 
 
 Sending out scouts to capture any stragglers from 
 the enemy's camp, and to kill game for the subsistence 
 of his men, (for no pack train encumbered his move- 
 ments), Clark started overland for Kaskaskia, guided 
 by one of the hunters. After winding his way through 
 fifty miles of forest and crossing the grove-marked 
 plains beyond, he reached the bank of Kaskaskia River, 
 three miles from the fort, on the evening of July 4, 
 1778. Here the command hid in the forest on the low 
 grounds until night came, when boats enough were 
 procured at a river-side farm to ferry them across the 
 stream. 
 
 Then dividing the force, a half of the men were 
 sent to form a cordon around the village, so that no one 
 could escape, while Clark led the remainder silently 
 to a covered gateway on the river side of the fort. 
 Fortunately, no sentinel was on guard, and unopposed, 
 Clark led his force within the walls. 
 
 The officials of the post were giving a ball to the 
 inhabitants of the place, that night. A great hall was 
 lighted by many candles, and with torches, here and 
 there, and within were gathered a merry host of Cre- 
 oles, dancing with a glee that was delightful. 
 
 Walking to the door of the hall, Clark stopped and 
 "leaned silently with folded arms against the doorpost, 
 
 270
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 looking at the dancers. An Indian lying on the floor 
 of the entry, gazed intently on the stranger's face, as 
 the Hght from the torches within flickered across it, 
 and suddenly sprang to his feet, uttering the unearthly 
 war whoop. 
 
 "Instantly the dancing ceased ; the women screamed 
 while the men ran towards the door. But Clark, stand- 
 ing unmoved, and with unchanged face, grimly bade 
 them continue their dancing, but to remember that they 
 now danced under Virginia and not Great Britain!" 
 (Roosevelt.) 
 
 And thereafter they never did dance under Great 
 Britain, in that town. For the Americans secured the 
 garrison, including the commander, as Clark gazed on 
 the dancers, and the flag that replaced the British was 
 never lowered. It is plain that Clark understood the 
 French character well when he appeared alone at the 
 door of the ballroom. He could have done nothing else 
 that would have impressed them so deeply. 
 
 All night the backwoods Americans patrolled the 
 dark streets of the town in ominous silence, while the 
 French shivered with fear in their unlighted homes to 
 which they were sent as soon as Clark saw that they 
 would dance no more. The tales of bloody deeds done 
 by merciless backwoodsmen from Kentucky, of which 
 they had heard enough, were remembered in detail. 
 When morning came, the French inhabitants were in 
 a state of mind whereupon a deputation, headed by the 
 priest, (Father Pierre Gibault), waited on Clark to 
 beg for their lives. They said they were "willing to be 
 slaves to save their families." 
 
 At that Clark, who had cultivated their fears by 
 271
 
 A History of the 
 
 night, told the trembHng suppHants that the Americans 
 had come to set them free, not to slaughter or enslave 
 them; and that any who wished to take the oath of 
 allegiance to the United States would thereby become 
 American citizens, with all American privileges, while 
 all who preferred to leave might depart in peace. 
 
 Hardly crediting his own senses, Father Gibault 
 asked whether the Catholic Church could be opened. 
 Clark replied that the American government had noth- 
 ing whatever to do with any religion, save only to 
 protect every man in his right to worship God accord- 
 ing to the dictates of his own conscience. 
 
 The conquest of Kaskaskia was completed by that 
 assurance. The deputation returned "with noisy joy" 
 to the church, where they sang Te Demn, and the peo- 
 ple made haste to swear allegiance to the new flag. 
 Only Rocheblave remained obdurate. He replied with 
 insulting language to an invitation to dine with Clark, 
 and his slaves were sold for £500, (which was dis- 
 tributed as prize money among the soldiers), after 
 which he was sent to Virginia as a prisoner. When 
 there he broke his parole and escaped. Cahokia, the 
 nearby French settlement, was conquered, on the same 
 terms, by merely sending an account of what had been 
 done at Kaskaskia, and Father Gibault volunteered to 
 go to Vincennes and bring it under the flag, a mis- 
 sion in which he succeeded perfectly. 
 
 At once Clark enlisted a considerable body of 
 French youth as militia and spent much time in drilling 
 them and his own men; but a new danger impended 
 in the arrival of a host of red men who came to Caho- 
 kia to learn what had happened, and Clark met them 
 
 272
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 there. They were all from the Great Lakes — Chippe- 
 was, Pottawattomies, Sacs and Foxes — and there was 
 an insolence in the bearing- of a part of them, (known 
 as the Meadow Indians), that might well have alarmed 
 any commander having no more rifles behind him than 
 Clark had. 
 
 But Clark was exactly fitted to handle these wild 
 men without bloodshed. The first open aggression 
 came on the third night, when a party forced them- 
 selves into the house where Clark had his headquarters. 
 But Clark had suspected treachery, and had a force 
 in waiting that promptly captured and ironed the red 
 men. 
 
 The warriors begged for release, saying they 
 were merely trying to see if the French were really 
 friendly to the Americans, but Clark listened with 
 indifference, even when some chief men of other tribes 
 came to beg favor for the prisoners. To make a still 
 deeper impression, Clark "assembled a number of Gen- 
 tlemen and Ladies, and danced nearly the whole night." 
 
 The next day, after some negotiations with the 
 other Indians about the future relations of the various 
 tribes to the "Long Knives," the fettered Indians were 
 brought before the Council. There Clark told them 
 that everybody thought they ought to die for making 
 an attack upon him during the sacred time of council, 
 and that he had fully determined to kill them, but he 
 had learned they were old women and not men, and for 
 their treachery were considered too mean to be killed 
 by a Big Knife. He had therefore decided to take 
 away their masculine garments, clothe them in the 
 appropriate garb of squaws, and then, since women 
 
 2/3
 
 A History of the 
 
 could not hunt, he would give them a plentiful supply 
 of food and send them home. 
 
 The punishment thus awarded them was worse 
 than death to these Indians, and when the irons were 
 taken from them a chief came forward with a belt of 
 wampum and a pipe of peace; but Clark refused to 
 listen to his words, saying that he would not treat with 
 squaws. This impressed the guilty Indians so deeply 
 that after a few minutes consultation, it was decided 
 to offer two of their number as a sacrifice to clear away 
 the disgrace they had brought upon themselves. Two 
 youths volunteered to die for the rest, and walking 
 to the center of the council, they sat down, covered 
 their heads with their blankets, and silently awaited 
 the stroke of the tomahawk. 
 
 The triumph of the Long Knives was now com- 
 pleted. Going to these youths Clark raised them up, 
 and told them he was glad to find that two men and 
 chiefs were to be found among those he had supposed 
 to be squaws only. He was therefore able to treat 
 with the others through them. 
 
 A peace that probably bound all who were present 
 at the council, (though, as usual, not their fellow 
 tribesmen), was concluded, and the name of Clark 
 attained a fame through the Northwest that was better 
 for the preservation of peace than the presence of many 
 soldiers. 
 
 The most trying part of Clark's work, however, 
 was yet to be done. Vincennes had surrendered at the 
 request of Father Gibault, and Captain Leonard Helm 
 had been sent there to take command. The news of all 
 the changes wrought in the Illinois country by Clark's 
 
 274
 
 COL. GEORGE CROGHAN. 
 
 Son of Maj. William Croghan of the Revolution. His mother a 
 
 sister of Gen. George Rogers Clark. Received a medal 
 
 from Congress for distinguished services.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 invasion reached Detroit while Colonel Hamilton was 
 meditating an expedition to the forks of the Ohio, and 
 he at once turned his energies to Vincennes instead. 
 
 Colonel Hamilton himself took command of a force 
 with which, on October y, 1778, he left Detroit, It 
 included thirty-six British regulars under two lieuten- 
 ants, forty-five French volunteers under Captain La- 
 motte, and militiamen that brought his white force 
 up to 179. The Indians at first numbered sixty-nine, 
 but they were afterwards increased to 500. 
 
 Crossing Lake Erie to the Maumee River, Hamil- 
 ton poled up that stream past the site of the present 
 city of Toledo to the carrying place, nine miles long, 
 that crossed the height of land where Fort Wayne, 
 Indiana, now stands. The portages ended in what the 
 French called a flae — or swampy lake, made by a beaver 
 dam across Le Petite Riviere — a tributary of the Wa- 
 bash that had little water in it below the beaver dam. 
 The Indians and whites alike had preserved the 
 beavers living in this flae. By opening the dam a suffi- 
 cient amount of water was released to carry Hamilton's 
 flotilla down to the deep water of the Wabash; and 
 when the expedition was gone the beavers promptly 
 repaired the dam, and filled the lake again, ready for 
 use of the next expedition. 
 
 At this time Capt. Helm, commanding at Vincennes, 
 had but one American in the fort, a private soldier 
 named Moses Henry. He had to depend on the French 
 militia entirely. He had a scouting party of the French 
 up the Wabash, at the time, but Hamilton captured the 
 party, and on December 17, the overwhelming British 
 force entered Vincennes. The poor little Frenchmen 
 
 275
 
 A History of the 
 
 promptly went over to the invaders, and Helm was 
 obliged to surrender. Nevertheless he did it in good 
 frontier style. Placing ''a loaded cannon at the open 
 gate" of the fort, as Hamilton advanced, Capt. Helm 
 stood by the gun with a lighted match, and" com- 
 manded the British to halt. Hamilton demanded the 
 surrender of the garrison. Helm refused and asked 
 for terms. Hamilton replied that they should have the 
 honors of war, and the terms were accepted. The 
 comical aspect of the garrison, consisting of one officer 
 and one soldier, marching out of the fort between lines 
 of disgusted Indians on one side and British soldiers 
 on the other, is happily illustrated in Gay's History of 
 the United States, (Winsor). 
 
 When Hamilton reached Vincennes, Clark had 
 about lOO Americans with whom to hold the Illinois 
 country against this hair-buying invader, who 
 now had a force of more than 600. Had 
 Hamilton been half as courageous and resource- 
 ful as Clark, the British flag w^ould have been 
 flying from every post in the region very 
 quickly. But the fact is Hamilton had been obliged 
 to drive his boats through ice, during his descent of 
 the Wabash, and the winter rains and winds of the 
 regfion had seemed to search the marrow of his bones. 
 A seat by an open fireplace was much more to his 
 liking that an expedition to Kaskaskia. Kaskaskia 
 could wait till the orioles came to weave hanging nests 
 on the tips of the white elm branches. He sent most 
 of his Indians to their wigwams, and most of his militia 
 to Detroit, without even trying to do so much as cut 
 off Clark's communications with Kentucky. He re- 
 
 276
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 tained for a garrison thirty-four British regulars, forty 
 Detroit Frenchmen, and twelve white associates of the 
 Indians — men fit to send on expeditions for scalping 
 women and children. In fact, while Hamilton neg- 
 lected to place a force where Clark's communication 
 with the American settlements would be cut off, he 
 repeatedly sent out bands of Indians in charge of these 
 white men to raid, with fire and scalping knife, such 
 lone home-makers as could be found at work in the 
 wilderness, unsuspicious of danger. In nothing that 
 Col. Hamilton did during the American Revolution is 
 his character more accurately portrayed than in his 
 preferring scalp-hunting raids to a war-like attack on 
 Clark's line of communications. 
 
 And in nothing that Clark ever did was his charac- 
 ter as an American frontiersman set forth better than 
 in his work after Hamilton came to Vincennes. For 
 while Hamilton sat down to plan the uprising of 
 every Indian tribe from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, 
 Clark planned to attack Hamilton. 
 
 Clark saw that he was in great danger at Kaskaskia, 
 and to defend his post he determined to attack the in- 
 vaders zvhile they were yet at Vincennes. He did this 
 in spite of his reasonable belief that the British force 
 far outnumbered his, and in spite of a perilous lack 
 of ammunition. 
 
 A big row boat was built and armed with two 
 four-pounder cannon and two one-pounders — swivels 
 — and manned with forty men. She was named the 
 Willing. Her he sent around by the Ohio to serve 
 as a ferry and a gunboat in the attack. Then he called 
 for volunteers among the Frenchmen, and the boldness 
 
 277
 
 A History of the 
 
 of the plan so roused the enthusiasm of the French 
 girls that scarcely a French young man dared refuse 
 to enlist, and on February 7, 1779, he marched from 
 Kaskaskia at the head of 170 men. 
 
 In the annals of American warfare there are no 
 accounts of such another expedition as this. The 
 weather had turned warm, the snow and ice had melted, 
 and nearly the whole route, 240 miles long, was 
 flooded. 
 
 Clark himself might face a journey like that with 
 composure. With his iron will its hardships might 
 be turned to pleasure, but the appalling task was to 
 make the hardships seem pleasures to his men, of whom 
 many had been induced to enlist by a passing excite- 
 ment. Yet here and elsewhere the man was equal to 
 the occasion. He led the way. He kept many hunters 
 out to bring in game, and he had the game served in 
 banquets. At night they kindled huge fires and feasted 
 and danced and sang songs. 
 
 At the end of the week they reached the Little 
 Wabash and found the country flooded three feet deep 
 far beyond the channel. But a boat was made by hollow- 
 ing out a big log, and some men were ferried across 
 to a place beyond the channel where they could be land- 
 ed in water not more than waist deep. There they built 
 a scaffold on which the baggage was loaded as the pi- 
 rogue brought it over, and finally the pack horses came 
 swimming across. Three days was consumed in cross- 
 ing. The horses were repacked as they stood belly deep 
 beside the scaffold, and then away the command all 
 splashed through water and mud, waist high most of 
 the time. They had found nothing worse than mud 
 
 278
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 for beds, hitherto, but on February 17, when Embar- 
 ras river was reached, they had to huddle on the top 
 of a low hillside that did not afford room for them to 
 make camp. 
 
 To increase their misery, the game had abandoned 
 the overflowed land, and moreover they were so near 
 Vincennes that the firing of a gun was likely to give 
 warning to the British. 
 
 In fact at sunrise on the i8th, they heard the morn- 
 ing gun in Vincennes. The men began making pi- 
 rogues, that day, and for two days they worked on 
 the low ridge of ground. But in the meantime they 
 had no food, and the spirits of the French volunteers 
 sank until they begged Clark to return. However, be- 
 fore the night of the 20th, five Frenchmen from Vin- 
 cennes were captured, and they gave the cheering news 
 that no alarm had been raised in the town. The same 
 day, a hunter, taking chances, killed a deer that gave 
 every body a bit of meat, (the last food they had on 
 the march), and in the morning the force was ferried 
 across the river, leaving the horses behind. 
 
 Having landed on a low mound they set forward, 
 (Clark leading), and marched for three miles through 
 water that was up to their chins, part of the time, 
 while a drummer boy "did good service by making 
 the men laugh with his pranks and his jokes." Then 
 they camped on a low ridge for the night — a most 
 wretched night; though a worse was to come. 
 
 The next morning there was work for the boats, 
 for the men were giving out under their prolonged 
 hardships. The exhausted were put in the boats and 
 then Clark, having painted his face Indian fashion, 
 
 279
 
 A History of the 
 
 gave the war whoop and led the way once more, while 
 some of the bolder men began to sing a favorite song 
 to cheer the others. 
 
 But neither war whoops nor songs could strengthen 
 the famished men, and when at night they came to a 
 ridge six miles from Vincennes many were so weak that 
 they fell to the ground. 
 
 To add to the misery of the starving host, the 
 weather turned cold and ice formed a half inch thick 
 over all the overflowed meadows around them. 
 
 Strange to say, however, no man died, and when 
 daylight came they marched on once more. A prairie 
 four miles wide that was now an ice-covered lake, 
 waist deep, lay before them, but the strong broke the 
 ice for the others, and the boats were paddled to and 
 fro swiftly, to pick up those who fell by the way. A 
 guard of twenty-five men, with orders to put any one 
 to death who might try to desert, brought up the rear. 
 And so they struggled on until an island was reached 
 in the midst of a forest two miles from Vincennes. On 
 the way across, a canoe which some squaws were pad- 
 dling toward the town, was taken, and in it they found 
 a quarter of a buffalo, some buffalo fat, and some corn 
 — enough to make a good soup for all. 
 
 This swallowed, the forces overhauled their rifles 
 and what with the sup of broth, and the prospect of a 
 fight, the little band became as enthusiastic, once more, 
 as it had been at the start. Some scouts sent out 
 brought in a youth from Vincennes, who said that 200 
 Indians had just arrived; the British force was now 
 very much larger than that of Clark. But instead of 
 growing disheartened, Clark became the bolder. He 
 
 280
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 had hoped, thereto fore, to surprise the garrison, but now 
 he determined not only to approach openly, but to re- 
 lease this prisoner with a letter to the people an- 
 nouncing his coming. The friends of the Americans 
 were told to remain in their houses, while others were 
 urged to go into the fort with the "hair-buyer General,'* 
 and "fight like men." 
 
 Resting his men by their fires till sundown, Clark 
 marched from the forest into a prairie in which were a 
 number of low hills and ridges. The prairie was with- 
 in plain view of the settlement, but by waiting until 
 night was at hand, Clark concealed his force. Ham- 
 ilton had seen the camp fires of the previous night, and 
 he had sent out a scouting party, but the country was 
 impassable to such men as they were, and they reported 
 that it was impassable for everybody. Hamilton did 
 not so much as know that the Americans were at hand 
 when Clark marched from the woods. 
 
 But in the meantime the confident words of the let- 
 ter sent to the French inhabitants had turned them to 
 support the Americans, while the letter and extraordin- 
 ary boldness of Clark's raid had turned the hearts of 
 the Indians to water, and they fled; save only a few 
 who determined to join Clark. 
 
 At 7 o'clock on the night of March 23, 1779, Clark 
 entered Vincennes and was welcomed by the Creoles, 
 who first of all gave him a much needed supply of 
 powder and lead. Fifty men were immediately posted 
 as guards, and then the remainder approached the fort 
 and opened fire. 
 
 Clark in his memoirs says that knowing Capt. 
 Helm's habits well, and knowing, too, the building in 
 
 281
 
 A History of the 
 
 which Helm as a prisoner resided, the attacking force 
 was ordered to shoot into the stick and mud chimney 
 of that house in such fashion as to knock a shower of 
 dirt and soot down the chimney. The men did this 
 with glee, and the result was that the tumbling dirt 
 fell into and spoiled a brew of fine toddy which Capt. 
 Helm was preparing as usual for the evening. This 
 story seems incredible and "childish" to one modern 
 writer of repute, but the truth is, it was just what the 
 frontiersmen would have done under the circumstances. 
 I have known the woodsmen of the Maumee swamps 
 to do just such tricks in the days before the civil war. 
 Horse play during a siege may be childish but it is com- 
 mon enough, and not ivithout good effects on the men. 
 
 As soon as daylight permitted, the fire of the back- 
 woodsmen was directed at the loop holes. There were 
 several small cannon and swivels in the upper stories 
 of the block houses on the corners of the forts — enough 
 to knock the village to splinters, in fact — but the Brit- 
 ish could not serve them. The British regulars had 
 courage enough, but the volunteers weakened as they 
 saw man after man shot dead in trying to serve the 
 guns. Here, as usual, the ability to shoot straight was 
 on the American side, and was the chief factor in the 
 fight. 
 
 To Clark's demand for surrender Hamilton re- 
 plied early in the morning by requesting a truce of three 
 days. Clark, of course, refused this, but he took ad- 
 vantage of the interval made by the request to give his 
 men an ample meal — the first they had eaten in six 
 days. 
 
 In the afternoon finding that he was losing men 
 282
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 steadily, while inflicting no apparent damage on the 
 Americans, Hamilton sent word that he would arrange 
 for capitulation, and then he came out and met Clark 
 in the church to discuss the matter. He had terms for 
 surrender already written, but Clark refused them, and 
 in the course of the discussion accused Hamilton of 
 raiding the settlements in order to kill women and 
 children, and said that one reason for rejecting the of- 
 fered terms was to enable the American frontiersmen 
 to take the fort by storm, and lawfully avenge the in- 
 fernal work of the British partisans. To this charge 
 Hamilton said he was not to blame for carrying out 
 the orders of his superiors — a statement that was whol- 
 ly untrue, since he had urged his superiors to adopt 
 the raiding policy. 
 
 Curiously enough while the two officers talked, 
 a party of Indians who had been on a successful raid 
 against the home-makers, came boldly into town, know- 
 ing nothing of the presence of the Americans, and they 
 waved aloft the trophies of their success as they ap- 
 proached. The frontiersmen at once fell upon them, 
 killed two, wounded three and took six alive. The 
 six were then led to a spot on the bank of the river 
 where they were in plain view of the garrison, and 
 were there tomahawked and thrown into the stream. 
 Although this was done whde Hamilton and Clark 
 were in the church, Hamilton afterwards when safe at 
 home, deliberately wrote that Clark wielded the toma- 
 hawk that killed these marauders. 
 
 Eventually, Clark agreed to accept the surrender of 
 the fort on condition that the garrison should become 
 prisoners of war. Then seventy-nine white men 
 
 283
 
 A History of the 
 
 marched out. Of these Clark was obliged to parole 
 all but Hamilton and twenty-seven others, who were 
 sent to Virginia. In Virginia, Hamilton was kept in 
 close confinement, for a long time, because of his 
 "eager zest," as Roosevelt calls it, in the "unmention- 
 able atrocities" of the Indians and Tories whom he sent 
 against the home makers. But, at the request of Wash- 
 ington, who was ever anxious that even such prisoners 
 as Hamilton should be treated mildly, he was released 
 and exchanged. 
 
 The British power had been forever overthrown 
 in the Illinois country. A force that was coming from 
 Detroit with large quantities of supplies and Indian 
 goods, was captured, and the plunder shared among 
 the men of the expedition. A plan for uniting the 
 northern and southern Indians in an effort to annihilate 
 the Americans in the Ohio watershed, on which Ham- 
 ilton had pondered all winter, was ended. 
 
 Clark returned to the Falls of the Ohio, and Vir- 
 ginia eventually gave him and his men 150,000 acres 
 of land on the north side of the falls. The Virginia 
 legislature also thanked him and sent him a sword. 
 
 Work that gave to the United States a territory 
 in every way great enough for a nation in itself was 
 accomplished, although it had not been carried out as 
 fully as Clark planned it. For Clark purposed going 
 to Detroit, and would have succeeded in doing so had 
 men and means been given him. One feature, however, 
 of what he did do remains to be described, and it has 
 been left for the end of the chapter in order to empha- 
 size the difference betwen the heroes and the politi- 
 cians of the American Revolution. 
 
 284
 
 COL. FRANCIS VIGO. 
 
 A firm friend of Gen George Rogers Clark, and who loaned Clark 
 
 ;6i2,ooo for the conduct of his notable expedition.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 The £ 1 ,200 with which George Rogers Clark 
 started for the IlHnois country was necessarily ex- 
 hausted before he had arrived. In his extremity, he 
 borrowed tens of thousands of dollars in coin, at one 
 time and another, of Francois Vigo, a St. Louis trader. 
 A part of this was repaid to Vigo by drafts on Oliver 
 Pollock, the patriotic American merchant of New 
 Orleans, but "when Vigo died at Terre Haute, in 1836, 
 neglected and childless, something like $20,000 (coin) 
 which he had paid to Clark remained unsettled." His 
 heirs strove without success to get this money, until 
 1872, when Congress referred the matter to the Court 
 of Claims, and the Court decided in favor of the heirs. 
 Then Congress appealed the case, though in vain, and 
 in 1876 the country paid $50,000 to the speculators 
 who had bought out the heirs, (Winsor). And Oliver 
 Pollock, whose patriotism brought him to poverty, was 
 treated in the same shameful manner. 
 
 Let the people — the pessimists who think that our 
 legislators in "the old days" were models of honor and 
 virtue — consider well this further fact. In spite of the 
 magnificent service he rendered his country, Clark 
 was unable to obtain a commission in the Continental 
 Army. Congress refused to grant him one. But 
 James Wilkinson, the infamous traitor, having the skill 
 to handle the politicians, became the head of the Ameri- 
 can army. 
 
 285
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 This portrait is by Geoffroy, and published in Paris 
 Washington was then 56 years of age.
 
 XVI 
 
 AS THE WAR DRAGGED ON. 
 
 Aid From the Spaniards at New Orleans — When the 
 Succcessor of Hamilton at Detroit "Expressly Di- 
 rected" the Savages to Make War on the Frontier — 
 Robertson's Settlement on the Site of Nashville — 
 There Were 250 Men in the Company, and 229 of 
 Them Died by Violence Within Twelve Years — 
 Origin of a Small-pox Epidemic Among the Indians 
 — The Pluck of Nancy Gomer. 
 
 An important feature of the Mississippi Valley 
 work during the war of the Revolution was displayed 
 at New Orleans. On January i, 1777, Don Bernado 
 de Galvez became Governor of Louisiana. Though 
 but twenty-one years old, he was a youth of unusual 
 ability and of most remarkable energy. 
 
 As his first important official act, Galvez seized, at 
 287
 
 A History of the 
 
 New Orleans, eleven British ships, all richly laden, 
 and confiscated them. The ships had been allowed to 
 come there by the previous governor, (Unzaga), but 
 their presence was contrary to law. 
 
 Then when Oliver Pollock was appointed agent 
 of the American Congress, a little later, he was per- 
 mitted to buy and ship war materials up the river, and 
 Galvez eventually loaned him $6,000 to forward the 
 business. 
 
 Among the shipments made by Pollock may be 
 mentioned, as a sample of all, 9,000 pounds of powder 
 in 150 kegs which, under the charge of Lieutenant 
 Linn, was conveyed up the river, and delivered to Col. 
 William Crawford, at Wheeling, May 2, 1777. One 
 gets an idea of what delays river commerce suffered, 
 in those days, from the statement that it took Linn 
 more than seven months to make this trip. It was after 
 this perilous journey up the river that Linn went to 
 Harrodsburg where, as Clark's diary noted, he was 
 married with "great merriment." 
 
 In consequence of the up-river trade of the Ameri- 
 cans the British in Florida strengthened their forces 
 along the Bayou Manchac, and the Mississippi, above 
 Spanish Territory. The sloop of war Sylph, with a 
 crew of 150 men was stationed at Manchac, while fifty 
 rangers were camped on shore. The garrison at Nat- 
 chez was maintained by 200 men. These, by the aid 
 of British spies in New Orleans, made the transport 
 of supplies up the river so perilous that Pollock urged 
 Congress to send a force to sweep the river to New 
 Orleans. Congress did not do it, and much trouble fol- 
 lowed the failure to accept Pollock's advice; for Galvez 
 
 288
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 went up the river, after learning that Spain had de- 
 clared war against England, (May 3, 1779), and on 
 September 21, 1779, captured Natchez. The capture 
 of Mobile and Pensacola followed, and thus all the 
 Florida of that day passed under Spanish control. 
 What would have happened had Florida remained 
 under British control is a matter of curious speculation. 
 
 As the time passed in the Ohio valley, it became 
 apparent that George Rogers Clark should have been 
 enabled to go to Detroit. Arent Schuyler de Peyster 
 succeeded Hamilton, at that post, and he sicked on the 
 red blood hounds, as Hamilton had done. 
 
 In an official report to Lord George Germaine, 
 (quoted by Roosevelt), he said: "It would be endless 
 and difficult to enumerate to your Lordship the parties 
 that are continually employed upon the back settle- 
 ments. From the Illinois country to the Frontier of 
 New York there is a continual succession. The per- 
 petual terror and losses of the inhabitants will, I hope, 
 operate powerfully in our favor." 
 
 In connection with this, Roosevelt says, on the au- 
 thority of the original documents now in Canada : 
 "The savages were expressly directed to make war on 
 non-combatants." 
 
 The British were trying to "disgust" the inhabi- 
 tants of the frontier precisely as the French had tried 
 to "disgust" them during the years immediately fol- 
 lowing the defeat of Braddock. 
 
 Books have been filled with the tales of horrors and 
 heroisms that grew out of these raids. One of the 
 most successful was made in June, 1780, by Capt. 
 Henry Bird, who, on the 22d, with 600 Indians and a 
 
 289
 
 A History of the 
 
 few white scalpers, captured Riddle's and Martin's 
 Stations, on the south fork of the Licking, In raising- 
 men for a return raid into Ohio, George Rogers Clark 
 arbitrarily closed the land office at Harrodsburg, and 
 drafted four-fifths of the men who were there to file 
 claims. In this way he secured 970 men, and going 
 to the Indian villages of Chillicothe and Piqua, (Pick- 
 away Towns), he burned them and brought back sev- 
 enteen scalps. The work had no real influence on the 
 conflict, but it seems worth mention because it por- 
 trays the dash of Clark. 
 
 In the meantime, however, the people on the head 
 waters of the Tennessee had done notable work by es- 
 tablishing a settlement on the site of Nashville. One 
 Spencer was the first permanent settler there. He went 
 there early in 1778 with a party of skin hunters, and 
 when the party broke up he and one companion re- 
 mained. Eventually the companion decided to go and 
 Spencer broke his own knife in two in order to give a 
 blade to the companion who had none. To share a 
 knife blade was the final frontier test of friendship. 
 During the ensuing winter Spencer lived in a hollow 
 sycamore tree. 
 
 In 1779 James Robertson, of Watauga, found the 
 deep woods calling him irresistibly, and gathering a 
 company that included Col. John Donelson, whose 
 daughter Rachael became the wife of Andrew Jackson, 
 he went to where Spencer was living and established a 
 settlement. 
 
 The party started in thirty boats down the Holston 
 on December 22, 1779, but the frosts, (that was the 
 "hard winter") held them at Cloud Creek until Febru- 
 
 290
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 ary 2y, 1780. The story of the voyage is remarkable. 
 On a flat boat containing twenty-eight people a number 
 became sick with the small-pox. The boat followed at 
 a considerable distance behind the flotilla. The Indians 
 who watched the expedition from the bank saw this 
 defenceless boat far in the rear and made haste to go 
 out with canoes to attack it. It was an easy victory, for 
 they soon killed or captured all on board, but for 
 months thereafter the small-pox raged among the 
 Creeks and Cherokees, carrying off multitudes. 
 
 At another place the Indians stood on the bluffs 
 and fired on the boats. When the crew of one boat fled 
 below deck a young woman named Nancy Corner took 
 the helm and steered the boat to safety. She did not 
 flinch, even when a bullet pierced her thigh, and it was 
 not till her mother saw blood soaking through her 
 skirts that anyone knew she had been hit. 
 
 The party named their settlement Nashborough 
 after Covernor A. Nash of North Carolina. "Three 
 hundred miles of forest separated it from all neighbor- 
 ly succor," but on May i, 1780, the people gathered and 
 agreed on a form of self government, much like that 
 created by the Watauga people in earlier days. The 
 compact was signed by 250 men, and it is noted that 
 in twelve years from that time no more than twenty 
 of the 250 remained alive, and all but one had died by 
 violence. They were picked off by the Indians here and 
 there, as they hunted for game, or worked in the 
 fields, or went to spring or stream for water. They 
 fell in skirmishes where parties dashed from the fort 
 to wreak vengeance on the red marauders. The whites 
 held th€ land, but they paid a frightful price for it. 
 
 291
 
 WILLIAM PENN. 
 
 From a painting from life, in the possession of tlie Penn. Hist. Soc, 
 made in 1666.
 
 XVII 
 
 GNADENHUTTEN. 
 
 The Most Significant Fact in the History of the Red 
 Americans Is, that a Number of Delawares Who 
 Were as Cruel and Bloodthirsty as Any Others, 
 Were by Patient Efiforts Converted into Christians 
 — Driven from Pennsylvania by White Christians 
 and Received by Red Heathens in Ohio — Slaught- 
 ered as They Sang Their Christian Hymns — The 
 Blackest Crime Known to American History — Fron- 
 tier Desperadoes Inspired by the Thought of Indians 
 Who Would Not Fight. 
 
 Because they were willing to obey the Divine com- 
 mand, "Seek peace and pursue it," the Delaware In- 
 dians, who had been converted by the United Brethren 
 preachers, (and have since been known in history as 
 the Moravian Indians), left their homes among the 
 
 293
 
 A History of the 
 
 whites in western Pennsylvania, in 1772, and re- 
 moved to the wilderness on the Muskingum river. A 
 settlement called Schoenbrunn (Beautiful Spring) 
 was established early in the planting season. In the 
 course of the year another was made nearly ten miles 
 away from Schoenbrunn and named Gnadenhutten, 
 while a third called Salem was built near Gnadenhut- 
 ten. Gnadenhutten means "Tents of Grace." 
 
 The Christian white people had refused to allow 
 the Christian Indians to live in peace in their original 
 homes in Pennsylvania. This is an important state- 
 ment. There is no record that either Christians, or 
 members of churches called Christians, made any open 
 attack on the Moravian Indians, but the white Christ- 
 ians, (excepting the Quakers, of course), made no 
 effort to protect their red brethren in Christ from the 
 assaults of other people, and they are therefore to be 
 held guilty of the crime that drove the red Christians 
 into the wilderness. 
 
 But when the Christian Indians reached the Mus- 
 kingum, the heathen Indians bade them welcome and 
 gave them peace until after the Christian white people 
 became involved in the War of the Revolution. These 
 Indians, who believed the Christian doctrines as 
 taught by the United Brethren, having peace, built 
 excellent houses and good churches. They planted 
 sufficient ground and raised good crops. They pros- 
 pered. They made rapid progress in the simpler arts 
 of civilization. 
 
 It is important to keep in mind that these Mora- 
 vians were able-bodied Delawares, and that before 
 they were converted they had all the superstitions, pro- 
 
 294
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 pensities, instincts and ambitions of other wild, heathen 
 Delawares. They had had as much pleasure in raid- 
 ing their enemies and torturing prisoners at the stake 
 as any other Delawares had. 
 
 Here, then, is the most significant fact in the his- 
 tory of red Americans. By the patient, persistent ef- 
 forts of a few sincere and energetic teachers those wild 
 and cruel hunters had been changed into peace-loving, 
 stump-grubbing farmers. The perfection of this 
 change of ambitions and manners of life is written on 
 the pages of history in words of fire to proclaim for- 
 ever that the infinite pains and sorrows of the Indian 
 wars and raids were all due to the greed and the neg- 
 lect of the white race. IMost short-sighted was the 
 greed, most woeful the neglect. 
 
 "Money talks" much more effectively than either 
 sentiment or religion appeals. Therefore let it be re- 
 membered that the losses inflicted by any one of scores 
 of hundreds of Indian raids amounted to more than the 
 whole expense of converting all these Indians who are 
 now known as Moravians. 
 
 The facts about these Indians were well known on 
 the frontier, and in Lord Dunmore's war they were 
 treated with kindly consideration by both parties to the 
 fighting. But as the war of the Revolution grew hot,, 
 trouble came to the "Tents of Grace." The British 
 officials at Detroit, in their eagerness to incite all In- 
 dians to make war on the American frontier, strove 
 first to bribe these Christian Indians to take up the 
 hatchet. Failing in that, they sicked on the heathen In- 
 dians to destroy the Moravian settlements, and scatter 
 the inhabitants, knowing that a Christian, when hun- 
 
 295
 
 A History of the 
 
 gry and naked, might be more easily persuaded to 
 devilish deeds than when in a home of peace and plenty. 
 White men who called themselves Christians, and who 
 in time of peace would have given money cheerfully 
 in aid of missionary enterprise, were made so brutal 
 by the passions of war that they deliberately plotted 
 to compel by force the Christian Indians into the per- 
 petration of hellish deeds. 
 
 At the behest of the Detroit authorities the savage 
 Indians, when raiding the American settlements, passed 
 by the way of Gnadenhutten — the Tents of Grace — 
 and compelled the peace lovers to entertain and supply 
 them with food. And on returning from raids, care 
 was taken to lay the trail through Gnadenhutten in 
 order to make the suffering Americans believe that the 
 peace lovers had done the mischief. 
 
 But the whites were not deceived. The red Christ- 
 ians and their white teachers soon came to feel a strong 
 sympathy for the raided Americans, and a stronger 
 dislike for the raiding British and Indians. It was 
 impossible to avoid supplying the raiders with food, 
 without a fight, and fight these red Christians would 
 not. But a time came when their humanity bade them 
 to warn the Americans that raids impended, and thus 
 many a woman and many a child escaped to safety who 
 would have been slaughtered by the raiders. 
 
 And this humane work was done at great peril, 
 for the raiders were sure to learn about it, and sooner 
 or later, the humane messengers were sure to be taken 
 and slaughtered. In fact, the savage Delawares came 
 to look upon the Christians as traitors to the tribe, even 
 when the Christians refused to take up the tomahawk. 
 
 296
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 How they felt when they learned that the Christians 
 were warning the whites whenever raids impended 
 may easily be imagined. 
 
 As the dangers of these red Christians became 
 known among the- Americans, efforts were made by the 
 regular army officers to induce them to remove within 
 the American lines. Col. John Gibson, (he who took 
 down the words of the famous chief Logan), comman- 
 ded at Pittsburg, and was particularly earnest in per- 
 suading them. The Wyandotte chief Half King said : 
 
 "Two powerful, angry and merciless gods stand 
 ready, opening their jaws wide against each other; you 
 are sitting down between both, and are thus in danger 
 of being devoured by the teeth of either one or the 
 other, or both. * * * Consider your young people, your 
 wives and your children * * * for here they must 
 perish. I therefore take you by the hand, lift you up, 
 and place you in or near my dwelling, where you will 
 be safe and dwell in peace. * * * Take also your 
 teachers with you, and worship God in the place to 
 which I shall lead you, as you have been accustomed 
 to do." 
 
 Both Col. Gibson and Half King were sincerely de- 
 sirous of protecting these Indians. The red heathen, 
 Half King, was thus kind to them though he knew they 
 had previously warned the whites when red raiders 
 were coming. Gibson was urgent because he knew 
 that the frontier desperadoes were beginning to look 
 toward Gnadenhutten. The fact that the Christian In- 
 dians would not fight was inspiring to the desperadoes. 
 At Gnadenhutten blood might be shed and scalps taken 
 without danger. 
 
 297
 
 A History of the 
 
 But in spite of warning, and in spite of a certain 
 knowledge of impending danger, these Christians re- 
 fused to leave their homes. Their determination, was 
 in the mind of one honored historian, due to their 
 *'blind fatuity." 
 
 This is a matter of the utmost importance. Look 
 at it without prejudice. It was not "blind fatuity." 
 It was not "blind folly," that kept them in their homes. 
 It was a sublime faith in the Christ zvhom they wor- 
 shipped that held them there in spite of danger. There 
 are no stories known to books so touching as those 
 that describe the faith of wild men, red or black. The 
 missionaries and their wards believed that God would 
 protect them. It is a fact worth remembering, es- 
 pecially by those who, once a week, with bobbing heads, 
 mumble some sort of creed, and then live, the devil 
 knows how, the rest of the time. 
 
 Early in September, 1781, a party of British and 
 Indians, numbering 140, led by Simon Girty, came 
 to these settlements and carried away all the Christ- 
 ians to Sandusky. A miserable winter followed, and 
 food became so scarce that many parties of Christ- 
 ians went back to Gnadenhutten to gather corn that 
 had been left standing in the fields. 
 
 In some way the white men of the western coun- 
 ties of Pennsylvania and Virginia learned that these 
 parties of corn gatherers tarried about their fields for 
 days at a stretch, before returning to famine-stricken 
 Sandusky. At Gnadenhutten were Indian men, women 
 and children who would not fight, even if arms were 
 given to them. The opportunity for the cowards and 
 assassins of the frontier had come. Indian scalps 
 
 298
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 could now be obtained without danger to the scalpers. 
 To get the scalps of Indians who would not fight, nine- 
 ty frontiersmen gathered at Mingo Bottom, (two and' 
 a half miles below the modern Steubenville, Ohio), 
 to organize for the raid. It was not an association 
 of frontier outlaws and desperadoes only; men of the 
 first social rank at the frontier were among the number. 
 They met by night to avoid publicity, for they feared 
 that the humane Col. John Gibson, commanding at 
 Pittsburg, would send a squad of regular army sol- 
 diers to stop them. To their thirst for innocent blood 
 they added at the very inception of the movement, de- 
 liberate treachery, for they sent word to those whites 
 who might oppose the raid that the expedition was 
 going to bring the Moravians to Pittsburg for safety. 
 It is important to keep this treachery in mind. 
 
 Col. David Williamson of the Pennsylvania militia 
 eagerly took charge of the raiders. If there were 
 grades of depravity in this gang, Williamson was of the 
 lowest grade. Doddridge, who was Williamson's per- 
 sonal friend, says that naturally Williamson was "not 
 cruel," and that to "murder a prisoner" was against 
 his natural feelings; but he was guilty of "too easy 
 compliance with popular prejudice." 
 
 The fact of the matter is he was a politician of the 
 meanest class, and to curry favor among the most de- 
 graded voters in the region, he smothered his humanity, 
 and took the lead of these raiders. It is not a little 
 shocking to find writers who suppose they help Wil- 
 liamson's case by showing that he was naturally hu- 
 mane. 
 
 Col. John Gibson, who was commanding officer 
 299
 
 A History of the 
 
 at Pittsburg, learned that an expedition was going. 
 He sent orders, imploring messages as well, but was 
 unable to restrain the gang, and he therefore sent a 
 warning to the IMoravians. The Aloravians, however, 
 had faith in their God, and they therefore remained 
 harvesting their corn, for the benefit of their hungry 
 brethren at Sandusky. 
 
 Williamson and his followers started for Gnaden- 
 hutten on the third of March, 1782. A Christian In- 
 dian whom they found in the woods a mile from the 
 settlement, (a half breed, the son of a white Christian 
 named Schebosch), they chopped to pieces while he 
 begged for life. But when they reached Gnadenhutten 
 they went among the harvesters in the most friendly 
 manner, and expressed regret and pity "on account of 
 the mischief done by the British and hostile savages." 
 "They likewise spoke freely" of the Moravian char- 
 acter, and expressed kindly appreciation of the fact 
 that they had "never taken the least share in the war." 
 
 Finally the white men said they had come to con- 
 duct the Moravians to Pittsburg, to get them out of 
 reach of the British and the savages. Feeling grateful 
 for the apparent kindness of these white men the In- 
 dians delivered up such arms and goods as they had, 
 that the whites might care for them, and then went 
 to the woods and brought packages of things that they 
 had concealed there. 
 
 Meantime the whites sent a party over to the nearby 
 Christian settlement called Salem, where other Mora- 
 vians were found and enticed to Gnadenhutten. On the 
 trail, this party of whites "feigned great piety," and 
 discussed Christian doctrine with apparent sincerity. 
 
 300
 
 MONUMENT TO THE INDIANS MURDERED AT GNADENHUTTEN.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Having gathered all the red Christians within reach, 
 together at Gnadenhutten, and having deprived them 
 of every weapon down to their pocket knives, the 
 whites suddenly fell upon them with thongs, and bound 
 them all. 
 
 The white men then gathered in council to deter- 
 mine how to kill the Indians. Eighteen of the ninety 
 were now sick of the part they had taken in the affair, 
 and after protesting against the killing of any of the 
 Christians, left for Pittsburg, taking one Indian boy 
 with them. The other white men gave the Indians 
 until the next day to prepare for death. 
 
 The Indians passed the night in prayer, in singing 
 hymns the missionaries had taught them, and, in spite 
 of their doom, they praised God for His loving kind- 
 ness and blessings. 
 
 When morning came they were all — men, women 
 and children, to the number of ninety-six — bound to- 
 gether by their hands, two and two. A woman called 
 Christina fell on her knees before Colonel Williamson 
 and begged for her life, but the Colonel, with his eyes 
 on the voters around him, told her he could do nothing 
 for her. 
 
 When bound, the men were driven into one house, 
 and the women and children, who numbered thirty- 
 four, were driven into another. Singing and praying 
 aloud all marched to their doom. And when they were 
 within the houses, the white men waiting there, toma- 
 hawked and scalped them. "The voices of singing and 
 of supplication failing one by one, the silence that fell 
 upon the place" at last told when the slaughter was 
 ended. 
 
 301
 
 A History of the 
 
 One lad of fifteen years was so little hurt that he 
 managed to slip his bonds and drop into the cellar, 
 where he lay concealed while the blood ran down be- 
 tween the floor boards in streams. Another boy sur- 
 vived. He was struck on the head with a tomahawk, 
 stunned and scalped, but he lived to describe the hor- 
 rors through which he had passed, although the mob 
 held a jubilee and set fire to the two slaughter houses 
 before they left for home. 
 
 The blackest and most disheartening crime known 
 to American history was the slaughter of the inno- 
 cents at Gnadenhutten — the Tents of Grace. To at- 
 tempt to palliate or extenuate it is to insult the intelli- 
 gence of the reader and to add to his indignation. 
 
 Yet I venture to note that these Indians were not 
 burned alive. It was reserved for degenerates of the 
 end of the Nineteenth Century — members of the white 
 race — to burn at the stake individuals of a less-devel- 
 oped people. 
 
 This is not to express a lack of faith in the devel- 
 opment of Christian civilization, but to point out that 
 many facts indicate a progress of degeneracy among 
 the few, side by side with the progress of enlightened 
 humanity among the many. 
 
 302
 
 COL. AARON OGDEN. 
 
 Aide in the expedition of Gen. John Sullivan against the Indians, etc. 
 Portrait painted and engraved by A. B. Durand.
 
 XVIII 
 
 FIGHTING THAT FOLLOWED GNADENHUTTEN. 
 
 A Second White Raid in Search of Scalps of Indians 
 Who Would Not Fight, and the Result— A Need- 
 less Retreat that Became a Panic — The Whites Who 
 Remained Calm when They Heard of the Slaughter 
 of the Innocents at Gnadenhutten, Felt "a Profound 
 Sensation" when the Story of Crawford's Death 
 Was Told — But only Quakers and Moravians so 
 Much as Observed that Injustice to an Inferior Race 
 Was Unprofitable. 
 
 A peculiarly disheartening feature of the Gnaden- 
 hutten crime is the fact that the white people who were 
 too humane to take part in it were yet unwilling to 
 punish the perpetrators, or even to ostracise them. 
 The scalps of the murdered Christians were flaunted 
 on the streets of Pittsburg. The officers of the Con- 
 
 303
 
 A History of the 
 
 tinental army and some few other leading men, did 
 express their condemnation, but the greater part of 
 the people openly applauded the act. War had gener- 
 ated a species of murderous insanity, even among a 
 people naturally humane, while the naturally vicious 
 were incited to emulation. An expedition of 480 mil- 
 itia men from Pennsylvania and Virginia was organ- 
 ized to go to Sandusky, on Lake Erie, then the tem- 
 porary home of the remaining Christian Delawares. 
 The fact that the Christian Delawares were to be raided 
 was enough to induce many of the Williamson gang 
 to volunteer for this expedition, and others who were 
 emulous of the Williamson reputation, joined in. 
 
 Mingo Bottom, two and a half miles below Steu- 
 benville of the present day, was the place of rendezvous, 
 as on the Gnadenhutten expedition. On arrival there, 
 the forces, according to custom, elected their com- 
 mander. Col. William Crawford and Col. David 
 Williamson were the candidates, and although Craw- 
 ford held a Continental commission, and was a more 
 capable officer, the popularity of Williamson was so 
 great that Crawford won by five votes only. William- 
 son was, therefore, made second in command. Dr. 
 John Knight was the surgeon, and Jonathan Zane one 
 of the guides. 
 
 Starting on May 25th, 1782, the command 
 marched through the (modern) Ohio counties of 
 Jefferson, Harrison, Tuscarawas, Holmes, Ashland, 
 Richland and Crawford, and into Wyandot county, 
 Ohio. The Sandusky River was reached, three miles 
 south of the modern Crestline, on June 2, and the next 
 day camp was made near the modern Wyandot. On 
 
 304
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 the 4th, Upper Sandusky Old Town, an Indian village, 
 was found deserted, but the scouts afterwards dis- 
 covered a band of Indians. 
 
 It was a prairie country, with groves here and 
 there, and the Indians were in a piece of timber on 
 rising ground, since known as Battle Island, about 
 three and a half miles northeast of the modern Upper 
 Sandusky. Simon Girty, Matthew Elliot and Alex- 
 ander McKee, the renegades, were with the Indians 
 (about 200 in number), the chief of whom was Cap- 
 tain Pipe, a noted Delaware. There were also two 
 companies of white men from Detroit, under Captain 
 William Caldwell, in the grove. On the whole, Craw- 
 ford's force was much (perhaps 150) superior in num- 
 ber. 
 
 Though composed, in good part, of the most 
 wretched material, Crawford's command charged on 
 the grove, when ordered, and the Indians fled. But 
 once the command was in the shelter of the trees, they 
 sat down. It was a time for most earnest pursuit of 
 the enemy, but instead of taking any advantage of 
 the gain they had made, these worthless vagabonds 
 allowed the enemy to rally and draw a line around 
 the sheltering grove. 
 
 During that night and all day on the 5th, the In- 
 dians fired from the grass, as opportunity offered, and 
 toward night of the 5th, they were reinforced by 140 
 Shawnees. 
 
 At sight of these fresh warriors, the hearts of the 
 Pittsburg mob turned to water. They still out-num- 
 bered the enemy, but fighting armed warriors was very 
 different from tomahawking bound women and chil- 
 
 305
 
 A History of the 
 
 dren, and at 9 o'clock at night, on the 5th, Crawford 
 formed his men in a body, and began a retreat that 
 quickly degenerated into a panic. Singly and in 
 squads, the whites scattered over the prairie, and it is 
 likely that the whole mob would have been destroyed 
 but for the efforts of a lieutenant known as John Rose^ 
 but who was really Baron de Rosenthal, of Russia. 
 He, by heroic efforts and example, rallied 300, and 
 keeping them in order, beat off the enemy and escaped. 
 Yet even so they would not have escaped but for the 
 eagerness of the Indians in pursuing the stragglers. 
 
 Among the stragglers who very nearly escaped 
 were Col. Crawford and Dr. John Knight. Both of 
 them were captured on the 7th. They were taken to 
 Upper Sandusky (the Old Town), thence to a Dela- 
 ware town on the Tymochtee, and at 4 o'clock on the 
 afternoon of June nth, 1782, Crawford was tied to 
 a stake for torture. He had begged Simon Girty.whom 
 he well knew, to save him, but Girty said it was im- 
 possible. He also implored the Delaware chief, Captain 
 Pipe, to spare his life, or at worst, shoot him. To 
 this, Captain Pipe replied that if Williamson had been 
 taken it might have been done, but the Indians were 
 exasperated by the slaughter at Gnadenhutten, and 
 nothing could now prevent his death by torture. 
 
 Crawford was naked. His hands were bound 
 firmly behind his back, and from the thongs on his 
 wrist a stout rope led to the foot of the post — a sap- 
 ling, peeled down. This rope was long enough to 
 allow him to walk freely around the post. When he 
 was secured, the Indians fired their guns, loaded with 
 powder only, against him till his skin was full of 
 
 306
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 burned powder grains from his feet to his neck. They 
 punched and beat him with blazing faggots from a fire 
 that was some distance from the circle around which 
 he could walk. They showered red coals over him 
 until at every step his feet were placed upon hot em- 
 bers. Finally he fell to the ground, where he was 
 scalped, and then hot coals were piled against the place 
 from which his scalp had been removed. This drove 
 him to his feet once more, but after circling about the 
 post again he fell and expired. 
 
 He had been under torture but two hours. As 
 compared with the Iroquois, who often tortured their 
 victims through three days, these Delawares were mer- 
 ciful. 
 
 Dr. John Knight was a witness of the tragedy. 
 When it was ended he was sent in charge of one Indian 
 toward another village, to be burned, as they told him. 
 But the fact that he was guarded by but one Indian, 
 and that he readily escaped from his guard, makes 
 credible the story that he was allowed to escape in order 
 that he might tell how the red men had avenged the 
 slaughter of Gnadenhutten. 
 
 A stone monument has been erected on the east 
 bank of the Big Tymochtee creek, near Crawford, 
 Wyandot county, Ohio, by the Pioneer Association of 
 the county, to commemorate the death of Crawford. 
 
 It is recorded that the burning of Crawford created 
 "a profound sensation" — "it excited the greatest hor- 
 ror" — throughout the country. The people who had 
 condoned the merciless slaughter of ninety-four inno- 
 cents at Gnadenhutten were horrified to think the In- 
 dians would take revenge on the leader of an ex- 
 
 307
 
 A History of the 
 
 pedition that went to the Sandusky Plains to repeat 
 the work done at Gnadenhutten. 
 
 The burning of Crawford was, however, but the 
 beginning of the revenge taken by the Indians. John 
 Slover, one of the guides, was also captured but es- 
 caped (he rode and ran naked through the wilderness, 
 with no food but berries and two crawfish to Wheel- 
 ing). He was present at several councils of the In- 
 dians where the Gnadenhutten massacre was discussed, 
 and heard the Indians resolve to take no more prisoners 
 while the war lasted. 
 
 A maddened host thereafter swept the whole fron- 
 tier, and parties went well into the interior of Vir- 
 ginia and Pennsylvania, passing between frontier forti- 
 fied posts in order to fall with greater success on un- 
 suspecting farmers. 
 
 Of these raids but one need be described — that at 
 Brayan's Station, standing a few miles northeast of 
 Lexington, Ky., which resulted in the slaughter at Blue 
 Licks. In July the British gathered a body of Indians, 
 and rangers numbering more than a thousand. These 
 under Capt. William Caldwell, who had opposed Craw- 
 ford at Upper Sandusky, started for an attack on 
 Wheeling, Va., but hearing that George Rogers Clark 
 was leading a command into the Indian country, they 
 hastily returned to defend their homes. They learned, 
 later, that the report was false, but the Indians, for the 
 most part, were disbanded. A party of about 300, 
 however, went to Kentucky, and arrived at Bryan's 
 Station, on August i6th, 1782. It appears, however, 
 that some scouts reached that neighborhood on the 
 1 5th, and were discovered by the white lookouts. 
 
 308
 
 3 „ 
 
 O —
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Foreseeing from the actions of the scouts that an 
 attack impended, the first care of the whites was to 
 get a supply of water, and this was obtained by the 
 women and girls, who went to the spring, laughing 
 and chatting, as usual, although they were within 
 range of a number of Indian guns, and knew it. The 
 Indians, being anxious to keep their presence unknown 
 in order to surprise the fort, later on, did not molest 
 the women. 
 
 But when the attack was made early on the i6th, 
 it failed utterly. The Indians tried to decoy out the 
 garrison by sending a small party to feign an attack 
 and retreat on one side while the main body prepared 
 to storm the other. The whites pretended to fall into 
 the trap, and sent a party in pursuit, but the main 
 body of the garrison gathered where the real storm 
 impended, and repulsed it with a deadly volley. 
 
 A rescuing party that was brought by messenger 
 from Lexington was repulsed by the Indians, but when 
 attempts were made to fire the station, during the night 
 of the 1 6th, they failed, and during the next forenoon 
 the Indians withdrew, "angry and sullen at their dis- 
 comfiture." 
 
 In the meantime the settlers from Lexington, and 
 nearby forts, (Bryan's was the frontier settlement), 
 had been gathering, and, 182 in number, they were 
 soon on the Indians' trail. The leaders saw by the 
 tracks that the Indians outnumbered them, but they 
 followed the trail as far as the Blue Licks, on the banks 
 of the Licking River. 
 
 From this point a number of Indians were seen on 
 the rocks, on the further bank, and the settlers gathered 
 
 309
 
 A History of the 
 
 to consider what they should do next. Boone, the 
 ablest fighter of them all, advised that a halt be made 
 until another detachment, coming from Login's Sta- 
 tion, as they knew, should arrive. The men in the com- 
 pany who had been most successful in fighting Indians 
 agreed with Boone, but Major Hugh McGarry, a blat- 
 ant bully, was for crossing immediately. McGarry 
 had been with a successful raid that George Rogers 
 Clark had led to the Indian towns, the previous year, 
 but had well-nigh wrecked it by an insubordinate dash 
 from the main command, while yet it was on the Ohio. 
 His vanity was his most conspicuous characteristic, and 
 to display his physical courage he spurred his horse 
 into the river, waved his hat with a theatrical flourish 
 above his head, and "called on all who were not cow- 
 ards to follow him." 
 
 Of course the others "just had to" follow him. 
 On the further side was an open forest. An advance 
 guard of twenty-five was thrown out ahead. The In- 
 dians were soon seen, and galloping forward till within 
 sixty yards of the enemy, the settlers dismounted. 
 
 Boone, in command of the left wing, opened the 
 fight, and steadily drove the enemy back. But the 
 Kentuckians were outnumbered so greatly that in a 
 few minutes the Indians had killed nearly all the ad- 
 vance guard ; and then they enveloped the right wing, 
 which was crushed in on the center. Col. Trigg, who 
 commanded the right wing, was killed, and a little 
 later. Col. Todd was mortally wounded. As he fell 
 from his horse with the blood gushing from his mouth, 
 a panic seized a majority of the settlers, and almost to 
 a man they fled back to the river. 
 
 310
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 On the home side of the river, some of the men 
 who had wished to wait for reinforcements, made a 
 stand under the lead of a man named Netherland, and, 
 by cool fire, so covered the retreat, that the Indians 
 did not follow up their victory, as they might have 
 done. 
 
 But the Kentuckians had already suffered fright- 
 fully. Out of 182 men who went out into battle, sev- 
 enty were killed during the fight, seven were taken 
 prisoners, and twelve who escaped were badly wound- 
 ed. And that, too, in a fight lasting about five minutes. 
 Ot the seven prisoners, four were burned at the stake 
 to avenge Gnadenhutten — for it must be kept in mind 
 that this raid was one of the many made to avenge 
 Gnadenhutten. One other was condemned to torture, 
 but when the Indians started him running the gauntlet, 
 he turned on the nearest Indian and threw him to the 
 ground. Then he pitched another over his head, 
 after which he leaped on a log, flapped his hands on 
 his sides, and crowed like a rooster. The Indians 
 roared with laughter, and a chief at once adopted him 
 as a son. 
 
 The enemy lost but twelve killed and fourteen 
 wounded, according to their own account, in the entire 
 raid. Of these, they said, seven were killed at the lick. 
 It is reasonable to suppose that more Indians were 
 killed than their report showed, but that was the se- 
 verest blow the Kentucky frontier got in all its history. 
 
 And yet no one, save the unconsidered Quakers 
 and Moravians so much as observed the fact that in- 
 justice to an inferior race was unprofitable to a most 
 frightful degree. 
 
 311
 
 CHARLES CORXWALLIS. (maRijUIS CORNWALLIS). 
 From a portrait by Copley.
 
 XIX 
 
 THE FRONTIERSMEN AT KING'S MOUNTAIN. 
 
 Ferguson said He was in a Place from which all the 
 Rebels outside of Hell" could not drive Him, yet an 
 Inferior Force of Patriots, a Respectable Body of 
 Prime Riflemen from the Holston in the Course of a 
 few Minutes Captured all of His Force, and Killed 
 and Wounded 389 of Them in Doing So — When 
 Clark's Name was as Good as a Thousand Men. 
 
 Although it was fought to the eastward of the Al- 
 leghany divide, the battle of King's Mountain (Octo- 
 ber 7th, 1780), should have mention, because of the 
 part taken by the men from the Holston region, and 
 because it was one of the decisive victories of the war. 
 Until 1778, the Southern States were not molested by 
 the British forces, but late in that year, Lieutenant 
 Colonel Archibald Campbell with 3,500 regulars cap- 
 
 313
 
 A History of the 
 
 tured Savannah. A proclamation outlawing all who 
 would not take up arms under the British standard 
 followed, and soon Georgia was overrun by the British 
 forces. 
 
 On June 13th, the worthless Gates (one of a dis- 
 graceful list, far too long, of American officers who 
 have obtained position by political influence), secured 
 the command of the Southern Department, and was 
 shamefully defeated by Lord Cornwallis at Camden 
 on August 1 6th, 1780. But British success reached 
 flood tide at Camden, and the ebb which began to run 
 at King's Mountain, left the invaders stranded at 
 Yorktown. 
 
 Cornwallis, while yet in South Carolina, detached 
 Major Ferguson "to scout the highlands (even to the 
 divide), and enlist" as many Tories as possible. Fer- 
 guson took 200 British infantry and 1,000 Tories, 
 "whom he drilled until" they were "excellent troops," 
 by the British standard of the day, though they were 
 deficient in one particular, as shall appear. 
 
 But, very unexpectedly, instead of finding Tories 
 flocking to his standard, Ferguson found packs of Pa- 
 triots — "dirty mongrels," he called them — gathering to 
 drive him to cover. In fact the "mongrels" proved 
 such efficient fighters that Ferguson's thoroughbreds 
 were started on the run, and they did not stop until, 
 on October 6, 1780, they were kenneled safely, (as 
 they supposed), on top of King's Mountain. 
 
 "Well, boys, here is a place from which all the 
 rebels outside of hell cannot drive us," said Ferguson, 
 as on the morning of the 7th he surveyed his position. 
 And the facts seemed to warrant his confidence. 
 314
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 He was on a knob of a ridge a half mile long, and 
 1,700 feet high above the sea. The ridge was covered 
 with big pines, and obstructed with huge boulders. 
 His men, now 1,125 J" number, had been trained until 
 they would obey orders. The force that had been 
 chasing him was composed of undisciplined militia. 
 And although Ferguson did not know it, there were 
 not 1,000 of these militia men. On the face of these 
 facts, ignonimous defeat did seem to await the Ameri- 
 can force. 
 
 But there was one factor in the fight on which 
 Ferguson had not counted; two factors, really, re- 
 mained unconsidered. And to this day, in spite of oft 
 repeated demonstrations of the vital importance of the 
 matter, the first factor does not receive the considera- 
 tion it deserves. 
 
 Ferguson had drilled his men until they would 
 obey orders under all circumstances, — a most important 
 matter — but he had overlooked the chief end of soldiers. 
 He did not fully realize that soldiers are enlisted solely 
 to kill other soldiers in battle. He had men who "could 
 march to admiration," but they could not shoot. They 
 were poor marksmen. 
 
 The Americans, to a man, had been trained to see 
 with unwavering eyes through the sights of a rifle, 
 and those of them who, under Shelby, Sevier and Col. 
 William Campbell, had come from the backwoods, 
 carried the Deckhard rifle, with a barrel three feet 
 six inches long, and using a bullet running seventy 
 to the pound — a most deadly weapon. Moreover, 
 though undisciplined militia, and therefore liable to 
 panic, they were now acting on the offensive, and were 
 
 315
 
 A History of the 
 
 angered by the memory of the outrages that had been 
 perpetrated by the British partisans. Ferguson had not 
 considered the anger of these woodsmen. He had 
 not understood the value of marksmanship. 
 
 At 3 o'clock in the afternoon of October 7, the 
 Americans, 1,000 strong, dismounted around the foot 
 of the mountain, and after tying their horses to the 
 trees, looked to the priming of their rifles and prepared 
 to climb three sides of the ridge. The north end was 
 precipitous and was left unconsidered. 
 
 Led by Campbell and Shelby in the center, the 
 Americans climbed up until the British saw them and 
 opened fire, when they deployed behind trees and began 
 to shoot also — continuing to advance, the while, from 
 tree to tree, and rock to rock. The crack of the Ameri- 
 can rifle was soon seen to speak of death to the British,, 
 and Ferguson ordered a charge with bayonets fixed. 
 
 The Americans fell back until the British host was 
 well down the mountain side, when a band of back- 
 woodsmen under Sevier opened fire on the British 
 right flank. 
 
 Instantly the well-disciplined British soldiers turned 
 on Sevier's men, but it was only to find another Ameri- 
 can host firing on them from the rear, while the men 
 under Shelby and Campbell turned on them instantly. 
 
 The British opened fire in return, but because they 
 could not shoot well, they killed Americans only by 
 chance and accident. And seeing that the British fired 
 wildly, the Americans crept nearer, and fired as if 
 at a herd of buffalo. Ferguson came riding a beauti- 
 ful white horse along the crest of the ridge, and with 
 shouts encouraged his men to withstand the Americans. 
 
 316

 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 But he had come within range of men accustomed to 
 kilhng deer on the run. He was shot dead, pierced, 
 it is- said, by no less than six bullets, and falling to the 
 ground, his horse raced wildly down the mountain. 
 
 The end had come, the battle, had been raging 
 only a few minutes, but, brief as the time was, 389 
 of the British had been killed or wounded, out of the 
 1,125 ^^''^t went into battle. Twenty escaped and the 
 rest surrendered. The American loss was but twenty- 
 eight killed, and sixty wounded. 
 
 The victory was the work of what the Kentuck- 
 ians called "a Respectably Body of Prime Riflemen," 
 but to this day our soldiers are drilled by the hour in 
 marching, where a minute is devoted to target practice. 
 
 The battle of King's Mountain freed the Holston 
 region from any fear of Tory invasion; and Yorktown 
 followed on King's Mountain. But it did not free 
 the Holston from Indian depredations. The Chero- 
 kees had been incited by the British agents to renewed 
 activity, while the British overran the country east 
 of the Alleghanies. 
 
 The work that followed was thorough, but monot- 
 onously like that of other attacks on Indian settlements. 
 The white men, with corn, powder and lead only in 
 their pouches, ranged free through the forests. "A 
 thousand cabins were burned, 50,000 bushels of corn 
 destroyed." But the Indians fled before the whites, 
 and but twenty-nine red men were killed in the first 
 raid, and thirty in the second. A third brought in a 
 dozen scalps. But in the meantime so many red women 
 and children had been taken prisoners that the Chero- 
 kees sued for peace. 
 
 3^7
 
 A History of the 
 
 It was in 1780, (May 26), that a party of 1,500 
 Indians and 140 British traders made an attack on 
 St. Louis. They were sent "out by Lt. Gov. Sinclair, 
 of MichiHmacinac, and led by a Sioux chief named 
 Wabasha. The affair lasted only a few hours, and 
 no assault was made on" the fort. A few stragglers 
 were killed and then the force fled back to the north. 
 Nothing of consequence was accomplished, but this 
 assault was to be the first of a series intended to cap- 
 ture New Orleans. The reason for the sudden flight of 
 the Indians is found in the fact that they had learned, 
 during the day, of the arrival of George Rogers Clark 
 with a small body of men. The name of Clark was 
 as good as a thousand ordinary men well armed. 
 
 318
 
 GEN. ISAAC SHELBY. 
 
 His remarkable career cannot be epitomized in this brief space. 
 This portrait is by Durand.
 
 XX 
 
 • FRONTIER HOME AND CIVIL LIFE IN WAR TIME. 
 
 A Memorable Picture in the History of the Mississippi 
 was the Man who Walked Across the Mountains 
 Driving a "Flea-Bitten" Grey Horse Loaded with 
 Books — It was a Poor Man's Country, for No Great- 
 er Capital was Necessary than Enough to Buy an 
 Acre, a Hoe and a Rifle — A Consideration of Things 
 that Shocked European Travellers — One of Col. 
 William Campbell's Busy Sundays, 
 
 Of all the pictures of life on the frontier during 
 the war of the Revolution, none pointed the way of the 
 future Republic in better fashion than that of a young 
 man who came from Princeton, New Jersey, and 
 "walked through Maryland and Virginia, driving be- 
 fore him an old 'flea-bitten' grey horse, loaded zvith a 
 sack fidl of hooks." Samuel Doak was his name, and 
 he was a teacher as well as a preacher. Following the 
 
 319
 
 'A History of the 
 
 blazed trails through the forest-covered mountains, he 
 came at last to Jonesboro, and there settled, and in 
 1777 built a Presbyterian church. Doak believed with 
 his congregation that the red men were heathen who 
 ought to be driven from the fair land, as the heathen 
 were driven from Canaan, and that when red men were 
 killed, their souls went straight to the eternal torment 
 to which they had been ordained from all eternity. 
 Nevertheless he brought to the wilderness "a sack full 
 of books," among which was one containing the Sermon 
 on the Mount; and at worst any books were better 
 than no books. Moreover he built a log school house 
 that grew into Washington College, later on. There 
 were many vagabonds on the frontier — shiftless hunter 
 folks with no ambition beyond a full stomach, but the 
 dominant portion of the people knew well the value of 
 books. That is a matter well worth consideration in 
 connection with the further fact that, as the frontier 
 spread across the continent, school houses were always 
 to be found in the battle line, until a time came when 
 the people made boast that the first brick burned in 
 this or that community were used in building a school 
 house. That sack full of books on a flea-bitten grey 
 horse with Doak afoot in order that the horse might 
 carry a full sack, is a most memorable incident in the 
 life of the Mississippi Valley. 
 
 The winter of 1779-80 was known as "the hard 
 winter," for many years after it had passed. The 
 whites in Kentucky and Tennessee had never seen such 
 prolonged cold weather or such a depth of snow. Cat- 
 tle and horses perished of the cold and starvation. 
 The game became lean. Only scanty crops of corn 
 
 320
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 had been raised, and what was harvested was eaten 
 before spring came. A fort had been erected during the 
 summer of 1779 at the Falls, (Louisville), and stores 
 had been provided for the garrison. Some corn was 
 held there by the merchants, who soon raised the price 
 to $50 a bushel, and eventually to $175, in Continental 
 money, which was worth then, and at that place, not 
 far from twenty-five cents in coin per dollar. The 
 lean breast of turkeys was sliced and eaten in place of 
 bread with the meals of broiled and roasted venison, 
 and the only satisfactory meals known throughout the 
 winter were eaten when some lucky hunter found a 
 bear in its den. For the bears were always fat. 
 
 Following the hard winter of 1779-80, the in- 
 flux of population was extraordinary. No less than 
 "300 large family boats arrived, during the ensuing 
 spring, at the Falls," says Floyd's correspondence, 
 quoted by Butler. Many other people, of course, came 
 by the Wilderness road, through Cumberland Gap. 
 One estimate says that more than 4,000 came in 1780. 
 
 On the whole the influx of people from the settled 
 region east of the mountains is one of the important 
 facts in the history of the Great Valley during the Rev- 
 olution. The Indian raids drove many people from the 
 frontier, but the immigration more than made up for 
 the losses thus sustained. The weaklings who returned 
 filled the East with the tales of the Indian raids, and 
 their stories could scarcely have been exaggerations 
 of the facts, simply because the human mind could 
 scarcely imagine more dangerous conditions, in such 
 a country, than those actually existing there. The 
 life of no white person was safe for a moment when be- 
 
 ^21
 
 A History of the 
 
 yond a fort's walls. The home seekers who came in 
 the 300 family boats knew what they were to face when 
 they left the Monongahela, and many of them began 
 their experiences with red warriors while yet on the 
 river. For the river was haunted by parties of hostile 
 Indians in 1780, and for years after. It was a year 
 later that Colonel Archibald Lochry and his command 
 of 100 men were destroyed by Indians while coming 
 down the river. Nevertheless immigration continued. 
 
 It was a people of the utmost courage, and the 
 dominant portion of them were of the rarest energy. 
 A few slaves were with the emigrants, but it was dis- 
 tinctively a community of people who would work. 
 Owners and slaves swung the axe and the hoe side by 
 side in the forest and field. It was a condition of 
 affairs that could not last long, for slave owners would 
 necessarily come, at last, to look upon physical labor 
 as ignoble; but it is the most important fact in the 
 history of the United States that the Mississippi Val- 
 ley has been prosperous and progressive in proportion 
 to the ivay the dominant people in it have been willing 
 to work. 
 
 We have in these early days of the Twentieth Cen- 
 tury adopted a new Rank (John Paul Jones always 
 spelled rank with a capital R). We call some of our 
 great men Captains of Industry. Carlyle and Ruskin 
 suggested such a Rank long ago, and we have acted 
 on the suggestion. Through luck and longevity a 
 mediocre man may lead all officers in army or navy. 
 A ninny or degenerate may come to the Rank of cap- 
 italist through inheritance. But the Rank of Captain 
 of Industry is the proud title only of him who earns 
 
 322
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 it by honest toil. If a blight fell at any time on any 
 part of the Mississippi Valley, it was because its 
 dominant people came to look upon labor as something 
 to be done by slaves. 
 
 Imlay has told how men with little capital suc- 
 ceeded in those early days. Men with an axe, a hoe 
 and rifle came to Kentucky and succeeded. A sufficient 
 shelter was built with an axe, and the rifle and the 
 forest supplied the food while the trees were chopped 
 from three acres of land. A half acre was planted 
 with garden vegetables and the remainder in corn. 
 Because much time had to be given to hunting, the 
 first crop amounted to no more than seventy bushels of 
 corn, but half that was enough to supply the settler 
 having a family of three with bread for the ensuing 
 year. The remainder found a ready market, though 
 at a low price, while the skins of the animals killed 
 formed the currency of the country. 
 
 When the second season came the clearing was 
 five acres large, and the ensuing crop greater in pro- 
 portion. By this time, too, the industrious man would 
 have established himself among his neighbors so firmly 
 that a cow could be purchased on credit, while the third 
 year saw him driving at least one horse of his own, 
 and a modest fortune was at hand. 
 
 All this supposes that the family escaped an In- 
 dian raid. The common lot was not one of uninter- 
 rupted progress. It often happened that when a man 
 had got his house walls chinked and his roof clap- 
 boarded ; when a cow fed on the luscious cane by the 
 river, chickens clucked and cackled in the yard and 
 the man was guiding a plow behind his first horse, 
 
 323
 
 A History of the 
 
 a party of raiders came to the clearing and wiped out 
 the family and all they had accumulated. 
 
 The instances where some members of the family 
 were slaughtered and some escaped are many, but 
 rarely, if ever, did the raiders fail to burn the cabin 
 and destroy the stock and crops. The present-day read- 
 er notes with a feeling of relief that in this and that 
 raid the Indians were unable to do more than burn a 
 few cabins, but imagine the bitterness of heart with 
 which the home maker returned to his clearing and 
 found that the results of two or three years of the 
 hardest kind of toil and self-denial had been all but 
 wholly destroyed — the clearing only remained. 
 
 Yet the losses, heavy as they were, had some com- 
 pensation in the cultivation of the sturdy qualities of the 
 people. For it zvas a characteristic of the men and 
 women who made the Mississippi Valley to persist. 
 The unsurpassed pluck that made men with mortal 
 wounds use their ebbing strength to give a last blow 
 to the enemy, made the living begin over again and 
 over again, no matter how many times they were 
 ruined. They were of the tribe of John Paul Jones, 
 and when asked if they had surrendered replied in- 
 variably : 
 
 "I have not yet begun the fight." 
 
 Even when unmolested by Indians, the home mak- 
 ers ordinarily had but a poor market for their surplus 
 products. Here is a price list published as late as 1793, 
 when peace was secured and the thronging emigrants 
 consumed nearly all the surplus of the older settlers. 
 
 "Indian corn is from Qd to is per bushel. Beef 
 is from i i-2d to 2d per lb. Veal, 2 i-2d per ditto. 
 
 324
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Mutton, 3d ditto. Pork is from 2d to 2 i-2d per lb. 
 Bacon, 3 i-2d to 4d. Bacon hams from 4d to 5 i-2d. 
 Salt beef, 2d. Hung or dried beef, 3d. Neat's tongues, 
 6d, each. Butter is from 2 i-2d to 3 i-2d per lb. 
 * * * Most people make their own sugar; but when it 
 is sold, the price is from 3d to 4 i-2d per lb." 
 
 In November, 1780, the Virginia Legislature di- 
 vided Kentucky into three counties, Jefferson, Lincoln 
 and Fayette. John Floyd, Benjamin Logan and John 
 Todd were commissioned Colonels for the three coun- 
 ties in the order named, and George Rogers Clark, who 
 was stationed at the Falls, was placed over all, with 
 the rank of Brigadier general. Roosevelt notes that 
 at the first court held, (Harrodsburg), "the first grand 
 jury impanelled presented nine persons for selling 
 liquor, eight for adultery and fornication, and the clerk 
 of Lincoln county for not keeping a table of fees." The 
 first court house and jail were built of logs. 
 
 In 1782, several grist mills had been erected, and 
 it is likely that sprouted corn appeared among the first 
 grists brought to these mills, for distilleries were 
 erected at the same time. 
 
 In 1782 one Jacob Yoder built a flat boat at Red- 
 stone and carried a cargo of whiskey to New Orleans 
 with some profit. It is likely that whiskey was about 
 the first product manufactured for export, and the 
 home demand was not inconsiderable. The fact is 
 the frontier life — the work of chopping trees, and 
 grubbing around stumps, day after day, and living, 
 the while, on plenty of meat and corn bread — created 
 an appetite for liquor. The backwoodsman liked the 
 taste of rum and whiskey, and he also enjoyed the 
 
 325
 
 A History of the 
 
 effect it produced upon him. When Wheeling was 
 besieged in 1782, the garrison narrowly escaped de- 
 struction because nearly all the men went down the 
 river to a place where a keg of rum had been landed 
 and concealed — went there with the deliberate pur- 
 pose of getting hilariously drunk. But they sent out 
 two scouts, as a matter of precaution, and these found 
 signs of danger before the drinking bout was fairly 
 started, and the garrison thus escaped. 
 
 Redstone Old Fort, (Brownsville in 1902), was the 
 starting point of the river navigation in those days. 
 To Redstone came all the overland traffic bound down 
 the river, and the reputation of that town for drunken- 
 ness and debauchery became world wide. Limestone, 
 Ky., (now the orderly Maysville), was also called a 
 tough town. But it must be remembered that the out- 
 laws and ne'er-do-wells that came to the frontier, 
 gravitated to the settlements and gave them evil 
 reputations even when the majority of the inhabitants 
 were reputable people. It was the rule for every man 
 to mind his own business, and in no way meddle with 
 that of others. And what was worse, war — the con- 
 stantly-impending danger — made men reckless, while 
 the idleness due to the necessity of remaining in pali- 
 saded settlements, made any diversion welcome even 
 to sober-minded citizens. They ran races, with bottles 
 of whiskey for prizes. They drank their winnings. 
 They fought each other "rough and tumble." It was 
 not uncommon for a man to lose an eye in one of these 
 rough and tumble fights. If one fighter got a chance 
 he pressed his thumb into the eye of his opponent and 
 literally "gouged" it out. 
 
 326
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Europeans — especially Englishmen — who came to 
 the region as tourists, a little later, were horrified by 
 the sight of such fighting. They said it was utterly 
 barbarous. The civilized way to fight was for the 
 combatants to stick swords into each other. 
 
 On the whole, however, as has been noted, the 
 distinguishing characteristic of the early settlers was 
 the love of order — as it is a distinguishing character- 
 istic to-day. They talked much of their love of liberty. 
 Their orators told them that liberty was the rock-in- 
 place foundation of their prosperity. But now that 
 there is no danger of any well-established republican 
 government reverting to monarchy — now that every 
 American fully comprehends the value of his right to 
 select the hero who is to reign over him — it is worth 
 while to note the influence of order on the prosperity 
 of the people. Order and justice under a despotism are 
 now seen to be better than anarchy, if one has to 
 choose. 
 
 The frontiersmen made stump speeches, (literally 
 from the stump tops), on liberty, but they loved an 
 orderly state of society more than they did liberty! 
 Boone and his associates at Boonesborough ; Robertson, 
 Shelby and Sevier on the Watauga; Robertson, again, 
 and his friends at Nashville, org-anized governments 
 and enacted laws to supply what they saw to be the 
 chief need of the communities they had gathered. And 
 they enforced those laws — preserved order — at the 
 muzzles of Deckhard rifles, with barrels three feet 
 six inches long, and bullets that ran seventy to the 
 pound, though a rawhide halter sometimes took the 
 place of the rifle. 
 
 327
 
 A History of the 
 
 One Sunday, as Col. William Campbell, a leader 
 living at the head of the Tennessee valley, was riding 
 home from Doak's church, he saw a disreputable citizen 
 — a Tory — ride across the trail ahead of him. The 
 Tory refused to stop, when hailed, and at that Camp- 
 bell, who was carrying a baby, handed the child to a 
 servant and dashing after the Tory caught him. 
 »• The court was convened under the nearest tree, and 
 it was proved that the Tory was riding a stolen horse. 
 Such violations of good order could not be endured, 
 and they ceased forever so far as that Tory was con- 
 cerned, for Campbell hanged him to a tree and rode 
 on home with a good appetite for the somewhat be- 
 lated meal. 
 
 And strong as was the liberty among the people 
 there, a time came when, to secure certain other in- 
 terests, many of the population, (including even John 
 Sevier and Robertson), were ready to go over to the 
 Spanish. 
 
 One might dwell on the prowess of many individual 
 woodsmen in their warfare on the enemy. There were 
 Lewis Wetzel and his brothers. There were Samuel 
 Brady and a host of others. These men were counted the 
 heroes of the frontiers, because of the number of 
 scalps they took. These men stood high in the frontier 
 estimation precisely as certain braves stood high in In- 
 dian villages. But these men did infinitely more harm 
 than good to the frontier. They were animated by a de- 
 sire for revenge, and a love of blood. They were de- 
 stroyers, not builders. There was no strategic value in 
 their fighting, while lasting injury was done by their 
 words and example to the young people of the whole re- 
 
 328
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 gion. White boys were taught to hunt Indians as they 
 were taught to hunt bears and wolves. The ambition to 
 parade a scalp was as rampant on the frontier as among 
 the Indian wigwams. The courage and skill of these 
 men, if admirable when properly directed, yet became 
 the bane of the youth of the whole frontier, from the 
 lakes to the Gulf. It was solely because of the bar- 
 barism in the human mind that fighters held social 
 rank then, and hold it now. 
 
 It was on October 17, 1781, (the fourth anniver- 
 sary of Burgoyne's surrender), that Lord Cornwallis 
 hung out the white flag at Yorktown, and when the 
 news reached the prime minister of England he ''walked 
 wildly up and down the room, throwing his arms 
 about, and crying, *Oh God ! It is all over ! It is all over ! 
 It is all over!'" 
 
 Because of the Gnadenhutten outrage, the frontier 
 was yet to be raided worse than ever, and the British 
 at Detroit were to make a last effort to drive the 
 frontier people to the east side of the mountains. But 
 there was no power among either British or Indians to 
 accomplish such a result. The frontier home-maker 
 had a wide-spread footing on the soil, and with his axe 
 he hewed the bounds of the Nation to the Mississippi. 
 
 329
 
 
 BRIG. GEN. ANTHONY WAYNE. 
 
 From a pencil sketch by Col. John Trumbull, of the 
 
 Revolutionary Army.
 
 XXI 
 
 FIGHTING TO POSSESS LAND ALREADY WON. 
 
 Story of the Posts in the Northwest that were Retained 
 by the British after Agreeing to Abandon Them — 
 The Indians Urged to Slaughter the Women and 
 Qiildren of the American Frontier in order to Pro- 
 mote the British Fur Trade — St. Clair's Defeat — 
 "Mad" Anthony Wayne to the Rescue — Wayne's 
 March to the Maumee — The Battle of Fallen Timber 
 — Land of the Mississippi Under the Flag at Last. 
 
 The story of the making of the treaty of peace 
 between Great Britain and the United States, at the 
 end of the War of the Revolution, is one of the most 
 pleasing in the history of the Nation. In April, 1782, 
 Mr. Richard Osw^ald was sent by Shelburne, the Brit- 
 ish Colonial Minister to Paris to consult with Frank- 
 lin. Oswald was one of Franklin's intimate friends. 
 
 331
 
 A History of the 
 
 He had married an American. It was easy for these 
 two men to agree on preHminary matters. John Jay 
 and John Adams went to Paris to assist in the final 
 work. The French minister was eager to confine the 
 new Nation within the Atlantic watershed of the Alle- 
 ghanies, and Congress had instructed the American 
 commissioners to follow his dictation when making 
 peace. But soon after the final negotiations began, we 
 had there "the strange spectacle of the colonies joining 
 with their enemy, the mother country, to circumvent 
 the scheme of their own allies," as "A Century of Amer- 
 ican Diplomacy" says. Shelburne preferred the Ameri- 
 cans to the Spanish for neighbors along the Great 
 Lakes. "He recommended to the British negotiator to 
 so act as 'to regain the affections of the Americans.' " 
 Through the work of George Rogers Clark the Ameri- 
 cans held the Illinois region, and the British negotiator 
 readily acknowledged the right of possession. The 
 fact is, as pointed out by Wharton, "the treaty of 
 peace was not a grant of independence, but was a 
 partition of the Empire." In this "separation" so much 
 of the British Empire as lay within stated bounds was 
 set up as the United States of America. It was a 
 separation that carried with it the old reciprocal rights, 
 and "the idea of a future reciprocity between the two 
 Nations, based on old tradition, as moulded by a mod- 
 ern economical liberalism, was peculiarly attractive to 
 Shelburne," (J. Q. Adams quoted by Wharton): The 
 western limit of the United States was readily placed 
 where the British limit had been,— on the Mississippi. 
 Those who have confidence in the characteristics of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race may well consider what results 
 
 332
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 would have followed if the British had continued to 
 maintain a friendly attitude toward the new Nation. 
 
 But no sooner had the treaty been made than the 
 British began to feel that they had shown weakness in 
 their effort "to regain the affections of the Americans." 
 They were poor losers. In fact they were "welchers." 
 They refused to give up the posts they had agreed to 
 evacuate. Ostensibly the frontier posts were held to 
 compel the Americans to restore the Tories the property 
 that had been confiscated, and to pay certain debts owed 
 by individuals to British merchants. But the real cause 
 was the feeling that they had been too liberal in mak- 
 ing the treaty. "God forbid, if I shall ever have a 
 hand in another peace," wrote Strachey, (an under 
 secretary) who assisted the British commissioner Os- 
 wald in making the treaty. 
 
 The discontent created by the feeling that too much 
 had been conceded was greatly increased by the protests 
 sent home by the fur traders of Canada. In the history 
 of America the fur trade has done at the north what 
 the discovery of gold did at the south. In grasping at 
 the profits of the fur trade, the traders hesitated at no 
 crime, and no outrage on human rights. Under the 
 treaty the British fur traders were to be excluded from 
 the United States territory, and they estimated the trade 
 so to be lost at $450,000 a year. It was in good part 
 to save this part of the fur trade that the frontier posts 
 of the United States were retained by the British after 
 they had agreed to evacuate them. 
 
 But not only were the posts retained. The com- 
 manders of the British garrisons, and the traders who 
 had store houses at every post, continued to urge the 
 
 333
 
 A History of the 
 
 Indians to make forays against the American frontier, 
 much as they had done during the war. The purchase 
 of scalps came to an end, indeed, but in every other 
 way the soldiers and traders constantly incited the In- 
 dians to harass the advancing frontiersmen. The rea- 
 son for this attitude was found in the fact that the fron- 
 tiersmen were home-makers. The British were anxious 
 that the territory northwest of the Ohio should re- 
 main a game preserve where a crop of beaver skins 
 could be gathered every year. Said Sir John Johnson, 
 in a letter to Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief, dated 
 Montreal, 22 February, 1791 : "As you certainly are 
 all free and independent, I think you will have a right 
 to insist upon disposing of whatever lands you judge 
 fit to reserve for the General Confederacy, in whatever 
 manner, and to whomsoever you please. * * * No 
 just right or claim can be supported beyond the line 
 of 1768, and to the western line of the land ceded or 
 sold by the Indians to the states since the war." He 
 adds that in a letter to Lord Dorchester, Governor of 
 Canada, "I took the liberty of saying that the Ameri- 
 cans had no claim to any part of the country beyond 
 the line established in 1768, at Fort Stanwix." 
 
 The chief object of British diplomacy in Canada, 
 at that time, was to wrest the territory northwest of 
 the Ohio from the United States and set it up as the 
 territory of a "General Confederacy" of Indians who 
 were to be, of course, under British protection. And 
 with that end in view, for nearly twelve years the sol- 
 diers and traders at the posts encouraged and fitted out 
 Indian parties that haunted the Ohio river, and lurked 
 in the forests about the cabins of the settlers. 
 
 334
 
 V
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 No details of these raids need be given because they 
 were all alike and similar to those of the war. Children 
 were slaughtered, men were tortured, and every kind 
 of property was destroyed in order to beat back the hu- 
 man tide that was flowing through the passes of the 
 Alleghanies, One authority says that 1,500 people were 
 killed in Kentucky alone, by the Indian raids during 
 the seven years following the treaty of peace with Great 
 Britain, while another authority estimates the total loss 
 of life due to these raids at 5,000. It should be remem- 
 bered, too, that by the treaties of Fort Stanwix, (Oc- 
 tober 3-21, 1784) and Fort Finney, (January 26 — Feb- 
 ruary I, 1786), the Indians had acknowledged the sov- 
 ereignty of the United States over their country. 
 
 For several years the Americans acted only on the 
 defensive or made counter raids that were effective 
 chiefly, if not solely, in glutting some private revenge. 
 
 George Rogers Clark went up to the Wabash coun- 
 try and overawed, for a time, the Indians there, and in 
 the Illinois country. He also confiscated the goods of 
 some Spanish traders in retaliation for seizures of Am- 
 erican flat boats by the Spanish down the Mississippi. 
 Col. Benjamin Logan made a raid up to the Shawnee 
 towns in Ohio, where he took ten scalps and thirty-two 
 prisoners, besides burning 200 cabins and much corn. 
 
 In 1790 Gen. Josiah Harmar with a force of 320 
 regulars and 1,133 militia marched to the site of the 
 modern Ft. Wayne, Indiana. He burned 300 huts and 
 destroyed 20,000 bushels of corn, but he lost 180 men 
 in encounters with the Indians, and instead of inclining 
 the red men to peace he encouraged them to further 
 warfare. And to add to the encouragement of the red 
 
 335
 
 A History of the 
 
 men, the British supphed them with an abundance of 
 ammunition immediately after Harmar's retreat. It is 
 worth noting, too, that Lord Dorchester, Governor of 
 Canada, while issuing- ammunition through the fron- 
 tier posts, on American territory, to the Indians was 
 publicly denying that this had been done. 
 
 Meantime, while frontier guns were accomplishing 
 little or nothing the frontier axe was doing something. 
 A notable tool was the American axe — thin-bladed, 
 long-handled, and light in weight. The best woodsmen, 
 then as now, found that an axe weighing from three 
 and a half to four pounds was just right, and the blade 
 was modeled by smiths who had chopped down trees as 
 well as hammered steel. The American axe has never 
 been equalled. 
 
 With the axe, settlements were made on both sides 
 of the Ohio in spite of raids. In 1785 Fort Harmar was 
 built at the mouth of the Muskingum to restrain the In- 
 dians. On October 27, 1787, the Ohio Company, an 
 aggregation of New England men that included both 
 home-makers and speculators, bought of Congress 964,- 
 285 acres of land opposite Fort Harmar at the junction 
 of the Ohio and Muskingum, (the land lay on the north 
 side of the Ohio), agreeing to pay $642,856.66. Gen. 
 Rufus Putnam was a leader among these home makers. 
 It was a company composed chiefly of soldiers of the 
 Revolution, but there were enough speculators in it to 
 throw a shadow of disrepute over the transaction. The 
 Rev. Manasseh Cutler, a man who "believed, as that 
 sort of man often does, in making his neighbors and 
 those he knew best his associates in any hazardous un- 
 dertaking," (Winsor), was the leader of the specula- 
 
 336
 
 MARIE ANTOINETTE. 
 
 Queen of France, wife of Louis XVI. The town of Marietta, 
 Ohio, was named for this lady.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 tors. He was the man who "worked" Congress for 
 the grant. The total breadth obtained by the specula- 
 tors was 5,000,000 acres, the price of which was to be 
 $3,500,000. The land beyond the grant for the settle- 
 ment of soldiers was to be sold as a speculation, and 
 Cutler in connection with Joel Barlow and Col. William 
 Duer, by means of descriptive circulars that were delib- 
 erately false, sold a considerable breadth to a com- 
 pany of Frenchmen whose misfortunes, after reaching 
 the banks of the Ohio, were great. An interesting and 
 instructive but very unpleasant book might be written 
 on the work of dishonest land speculators in the Miss- 
 issippi Valley. 
 
 On April 2, 1788, Putnam, with a party of survey- 
 ors and engineers, left the Youghiogheny in a bullet 
 proof flat boat, and on the 7th reached Ft. Harmar. 
 They then surveyed the plot purchased of Congress, and 
 built the town of Marietta, Ohio. It is the proud boast 
 of the Marietta people, in these days, (and of all Ohio 
 as well), that the settlers under Putnam brought with 
 them a library. The people of the region have often 
 boasted, also, that the ordinance, (July 13, 1787), for 
 the government of the region northwest of the Ohio, 
 (in the writing and passage of which Cutler was 
 the leading spirit), prohibited slavery. The ordi- 
 nance did not extirpate slavery, as it was supposed to 
 do, but it undoubtedly had much influence in creating a 
 public sentiment againt the detestable instituion. 
 
 Then, too, the men who followed Putnam were for 
 the most part old comrades in arms — men who had 
 fought for the freedom of the Nation in the war of the 
 Revolution. At a time when the demagogues in Ken- 
 
 337
 
 'A History of the 
 
 tucky were telling the home-makers that a separation 
 from the States east of the Alleghanies was necessary 
 for their welfare it was worth while to have a settlement 
 on the Ohio composed of men who had proved their de- 
 votion to the welfare of the whole people. 
 
 Another interesting feature of this settlement is 
 found in the method of dividing the land. Instead of al- 
 lowing the settlers to go into the region and pick out 
 claims which were to be afterwards surveyed, to please 
 the settler, as was done in Kentucky, the whole tract was 
 first surveyed into townships six miles square and each 
 township into sections one mile square. Accordingly 
 when a man located a claim the land taken already had 
 ascertained and definite bounds. There were no over- 
 lapping claims as under the haphazard scheme that had 
 previously prevailed. 
 
 Marietta was settled during a busy season on the 
 Ohio river. The officers at Fort Harmar counted more 
 than 500 flat boats carrying 10,000 emigrants down 
 the Ohio river. 
 
 On July 9, 1788, Gen. Arthur St. Clair, who had 
 seen service under Wolf at Quebec, and had but re- 
 cently been president of Congress, arrived at Marietta, 
 bringing an appointment as Governor of the "North- 
 west Territory." 
 
 Meantime, (May 15, 1788), John Cleve Symmes 
 bought a large tract of land on the Ohio river between 
 the Great and Little Miami rivers; and in July "with 
 fourteen four-horse wagons and sixty persons in his 
 train," he came to his purchase. Among the followers 
 of Symmes was John Filson, a surveyor, who is best 
 known as the reporter who wrote the story of Daniel 
 
 338
 
 
 MAJ. CEN. ARTHUR ST. CI.AIR. 
 From a pencil sketch by Col. John Trumbull.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 Boone. When the company wished a name for the 
 town which they proceeded to lay out, Filson made one. 
 Directly opposite the new town was the mouth of the 
 Licking river. Filson thought that "Town-opposite-the- 
 mouth-of-the-Licking" would be a proper name for the 
 settlement, and he wrote it thus: L for Licking; os 
 for mouth ; anti for opposite, and ville for town, which 
 being combined gave Losantiville. But when St. Clair 
 came to the settlement he determined to bestow on the 
 town the name of the society of the Revolutionary offi- 
 cers, known as the Cincinnati. 
 
 It was on November 4, 1790, that Harmar began his 
 "disorderly retreat" from the Indian country. On Jan- 
 uary 2, 1 79 1, a big party of Indians, Delawares and 
 Wyandottes, attacked a settlement on the Muskingum 
 called Big Bottom, an off-shoot of Gen. Rufus Putnam's 
 Marietta settlement. They killed twelve and carried off 
 four prisoners. On the loth Simon Girty, with 300 
 warriors, appeared at Dunlap Station, near Cincinnati, 
 but accomplished little because aid came from the larger 
 town. In February the Indians swarmed along the Al- 
 leghany river. 
 
 When the news of the first of these raids reached 
 Washington, he notified Congress, (January 24, 1791), 
 and in due course a new expedition, of which Gov. St. 
 Clair was to have charge in person, was authorized. 
 
 Washington believed that this expedition would 
 convince the Indians that the "enmity of the United 
 States is as much to be dreaded as their friendship is 
 to be desired," while Jefferson said, "I hope we shall 
 drub the Indians well this summer, and then change 
 our plan from war to bribery." 
 
 339
 
 A History of the 
 
 Both these expressions are of interest chiefly be- 
 cause it is apparent that neither Jefferson nor Wash- 
 ington saw the strong hand of the British that was 
 pushing the Indians into aggressions. But the strength 
 of that hand appeared nevertheless, further on. 
 
 St. Clair reached Ft. Washington, at Cincinnati, 
 where he was to take charge of the forces for the ex- 
 pedition, in May, 1791, but it was not until October 
 that a number of soldiers deemed adequate for the oc- 
 casion was gathered there. While waiting for the re- 
 inforcements St. Clair fell sick, and so did Gen. Richard 
 Butler, a notable soldier, the second in command. 
 The powder supplied by the swindling, (one ought to 
 say murderous) contractors was bad. The oxen were 
 few in number and too lean in body. Worse yet, the 
 recruits were, with few exceptions, an utterly worthless 
 mob swept from the streets of the seaboard cities. 
 
 However, St. Clair set forth, at last, and on Novem- 
 ber 3, 1 79 1, made camp at a spot where Fort Recovery, 
 Ohio, now stands on a branch of the Wabash river. 
 Little scouting had been done, and no adequate precau- 
 tions to repel an attack were made after pitching the 
 camp. 
 
 Taking advantage of these conditions the Indians, 
 led by Little Turtle, fell upon the camp half an hour 
 before sunrise next day, and by 9 o'clock, the army was 
 in disorderly retreat. The killed numbered 630, the 
 seriously wounded 280, and of 1,400 all told, under St. 
 Clair, "scarce half a hundred were unhurt." 
 
 St. Clair's defeat, in its effect on the American peo- 
 ple, was stupefying, exasperating and conducive to a 
 mental condition not far from imbecility — all accord- 
 
 340
 
 
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 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 ing to the quality of individuals. A few were made 
 firmer in their determination to resist aggression. The 
 exasperated wished to wreck vengeance on St. Clair. 
 The partially-made imbeciles, if they may be called so, 
 demanded negotiations with the victorious red men in 
 order to buy peace of them. Incredible as it may seem, 
 those were the days when the American Congress re- 
 fused to build war ships to protect American commerce, 
 but they did actually build a fine frigate, ballast it with 
 barrels of silver dollars and send it as tribute to an 
 African pirate to purchase his favor. The Jeffersonian 
 policy of "bribery" was fully tried. 
 
 Negotiations were opened with the Indians, through 
 the intervention of the Senecas. Brant, the Mohawk 
 Chief, who was a leader in the council, in a speech some 
 years later, told how the British exerted their influence 
 to defeat the efforts for peace. "To our surprise," he 
 said, "when on the point of entering upon a treaty with 
 the Commissioners, we found that it was opposed by 
 those acting under the British government." 
 
 In fact the Commissioners were treated with marked 
 insolence by Simon Girty, who was interpreter for the 
 Indians. It was a particularly gloomy period on the 
 frontier, for the Spanish still held Natchez, and were 
 grasping for a wide territory in the southwest by means 
 of Indian raids. 
 
 But in the meantime one of the inspiring men of 
 the American army — General Anthony Wayne — "Mad 
 Anthony" — was appointed to command a new expe- 
 dition against the Indians, and there was, at last, hope 
 for peace. 
 
 In the history of the early struggles of the Amer- 
 341
 
 A History of the 
 
 ican people the one man who has not received the full 
 measure of credit due him is Gen. Anthony Wayne. 
 If the average reader be asked what Wayne did to gain 
 fame the reply, quickly given, is that he captured Stony 
 Point. The spectacular dash of the man at Stony Point 
 may well be remembered, for we all love a good leader 
 in the thick of the fight; but the capture of the rocky 
 peninsula below West Point was but a trivial skirmish 
 in comparison with the splendid work he was now to 
 do. Indeed, when rightly considered, the charge up the 
 rocks of the promontory called Stony Point was less 
 significant than the fact that he ordered his command 
 to appear on parade "well powdered" before he started 
 them on their long march through the mountains to 
 reach the point of attack. 
 
 Even Washington, it appears, failed, after the Revo- 
 lution ended, to appreciate all the worth of this most 
 capable brigadier, for when he was going over the 
 names of the men available to retrieve the Ohio country, 
 Wayne was really his second choice. Here is Wash- 
 ington's valuation of "Mad" Anthony Wayne in 1791 : 
 
 "More active and enterprising than judicious and 
 cautious. No economist, it is feared. Open to flattery, 
 vain ; easily imposed upon and liable to be drawn into 
 scrapes." In such words did Washington describe this 
 General, while choosing him for the command. But 
 Hammond, the British minister to the United States, 
 described him as the most active, vigilant, and enter- 
 prising officer in the American army. 
 
 When Wayne reached Pittsburg, and began to pre- 
 pare for the work before him, (June, 1792), the task 
 might well have appalled a man less resourceful. The 
 
 342
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 contractors — they who had supplied St. Clair with pow- 
 der unfit for any purpose — were there, eager for oppor- 
 tunity to fit out the new expedition in like manner. The 
 town contained, as frontier towns have always con- 
 tained, numerous vile resorts to which the recruits were 
 enticed whenever a shilling could be wrung from them. 
 And the recruits were of the quality most easily enticed. 
 Judge Symmes in speaking of the recruits supplied to 
 St. Clair said : 
 
 "Men who are purchased from prisons, wheelbar- 
 rows and brothels at two dollars per month will never 
 answer for fighting Indians." 
 
 It was so. They were utterly worthless in the St. 
 Clair expedition, but now Wayne was supplied with a 
 second szveeping from the "prisons and brothels." By 
 sleepless vigilance Wayne could sift out the unfit pow- 
 der that the contractors wished to foist upon him, but 
 from these unfit, rotten and sick recruits there w^as no 
 escape. 
 
 Moreover, he had to wait for the outcome of the 
 negotiations that had been opened by the commissioners 
 with the exultant Indians — negotiations that were in- 
 cited, not by Christian philanthropy, but by cowardice 
 and penury — an important distinction, by the way, and 
 the reader may well consider for himself the bearing of 
 this distinction on what has been said, hitherto, about 
 the Quaker-Moravian policy of philanthropy toward 
 the Indians, and the Jeffersonian system of "bribery." 
 
 Nevertheless here was the man for the place, and 
 once the choice had been made, he had the full support 
 of Washington, who wrote him "not to be sparing of 
 powder and lead to make his soldiers marksmen." 
 
 343
 
 A History of the 
 
 To get the recruits away from the evil influences of 
 a frontier town a camp was estabHshed on the Ohio, 
 twenty-seven miles below Pittsburg, Officers as well 
 as men were raw, for nearly all of the available experi- 
 enced officers had been killed at St. Clair's defeat ; but 
 at this camp, with unwearied patience, Wayne took his 
 forces in hand, and day by day drilled them till their 
 watery eyes grew clear, their trembling chins grew 
 firm, their backs stiffened and a springing step replaced 
 their slouching gait. 
 
 When this much was done he taught them to play 
 with the bayonet, and then he taught them to shoot. 
 
 The writers of the annals of the Ohio river pioneers 
 tell, with wondering zest, how Lewis Wetzel was able 
 to load his rifle while running at top speed through the 
 forest, and their wonder is justified by the fact. But 
 this Mad Anthony Wayne trained his "boys and mis- 
 creants" from the city slums until he had an army of 
 more than a thousand men who could load their rifles 
 as they ran, with scarce a stop, fire with frontier pre- 
 cision; and run and load and fire again, yelling the 
 while like a legion of demons. They could shoot with 
 precision — could hit a six-inch target at a hundred 
 paces — while marching at quick-step speed, and many 
 of them could do as well on the run. 
 
 The commissioners that had been appointed to ne- 
 gotiate with victorious Indians for a peace reached 
 Niagara in May, 1793, where they met the enemy — a 
 combination of Indian chiefs and British officials. While 
 there they heard fairly accurate accounts of the work 
 Wayne was doing, and after the fashion of peace com- 
 missioners w^ho are appointed at the behest of cow- 
 
 344
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 ardice and penury, they made haste to send protests to 
 Washington. Wayne's successful work with the re- 
 cruits was angering the Indians, said the commissioners, 
 and the British — the British considered such work "un- 
 fair and unwarrantable" ! 
 
 Happily a Washington was at the head of the Amer- 
 ican Government, and Wayne was not restrained in 
 his work as drill master. He moved down the Ohio 
 to Cincinnati, (May, 1793), and from that place he 
 marched (October 7, 1793), to the north with a force 
 of more than 2,000 men. 
 
 The time for a fight was yet a long way off, how- 
 ever. Negotiations inspired by penury and cowardice 
 were yet in hand, and on October 13, Wayne camped 
 for the winter and named the camp Greenville, after 
 his old commander when fighting for liberty in the 
 South ; and Greenville, Ohio, now perpetuates the mem- 
 ory of the camp. 
 
 Having secured the camp, Wayne sent a force for- 
 ward to the field where St. Clair had been defeated, and 
 built Fort Recovery. The Fort was armed with can- 
 non abandoned by St. Clair. 
 
 The effect of all this work upon the enemy, In- 
 dians and British, was notable. As the years had 
 passed, after the signing of the treaty of peace with 
 Great Britain, a new source of trouble had risen. The 
 long reign of corruption in France had culminated in 
 the French Revolution. The war between France and 
 England that followed was unavoidable. With the 
 progress of this war the attitude of the British Gov- 
 ernment toward the United States had steadily grown 
 arrogant. It is important to note that this arrogance 
 
 345
 
 A History of the 
 
 was due, as every one now admits without dispute, to 
 the weakness of the young Repubhc. There is no more 
 important lesson to be learned in history than this, that 
 governments are always devoid of the chivalry that 
 keeps a good fighter from hitting an antagonist when he 
 is down. The British wanted some favors from the 
 Americans — harbors where their warships could refit 
 and dispose of prizes and recruit their crews — but it 
 never occurred to a British statesman to show any less 
 arrogance and antagonism toward the Americans on 
 that account. On the contrary, as said, the arrogance 
 increased. 
 
 While Wayne was at Greenville, Lord Dorchester 
 was Governor of Canada. Lord Dorchester, in other 
 days, had been known as Sir Guy Carleton, and as Sir 
 Guy Carleton while on a victorious march from Canada 
 to the Hudson, had been stopped by a puny force on 
 Lake Champlain under the command of Benedict Ar- 
 nold. 'The face of the enemy" at Lake Champlain had 
 turned him back to Canada. Lord Dorchester had no 
 love for the Americans, and on February lo, 1794, at 
 a council with the Indians hostile to the United States, 
 he said, referring to the American frontier : 
 
 "Children, since my return I find no appearance of 
 a line remains, and from the manner in which the peo- 
 ple of the States push on, and act, and talk, on this side, 
 and from what I learn of their country towards the sea, 
 / shall not be surprised if we are at war with them in 
 the course of the present year; and if so, a line must be 
 drazvn by the warriors. 
 
 "Children: You talk of selling your lands to the 
 State of New York. I have told you there is no line 
 
 346
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 between them and its. I shall acknowledge no lands to 
 be theirs which have been encroached on by them since 
 the year 1783. They broke the peace, and as they kept 
 it not on their part, it doth not bind ours. 
 
 "Children: What further can I say to you? You 
 are witnesses on our parts we have acted in the most 
 peaceable manner, and borne the language and conduct 
 of the people of the United States with patience. But 
 I believe our patience is almost exhausted." 
 
 For years the British had kept the Indians fully 
 supplied with arms for forays against the American 
 frontier, and now that Wayne was pushing forward 
 a well-drilled force, and the Indians needed to be en- 
 couraged to meet it, the Governor of Canada said to 
 them, "I shall not be surprised if we are at war with 
 them in the course of the present year." The Indians 
 who heard those words accepted them as a promise that 
 the British would help with troops as well as with arms 
 and other supplies. Lord Dorchester so intended his 
 words to be understood. 
 
 But the British encouragement did not stop with 
 an implied promise of help. To emphasize the effect 
 of Dorchester's speech, Lieut. Gov. John Graves Sim- 
 coe was sent with three companies of British regulars 
 to the rapids of the Maumee, where a fort was built. 
 It was a deliberate invasion of American territory for 
 the purpose of wresting the Ohio country from the 
 American people, and was therefore a pleasant work 
 for Simcoe, who also hated the Americans. 
 
 The acts of the British authorities had theretofore 
 been characterized by what Roosevelt calls "double 
 dealing" and "smooth duplicity," but they now "began 
 
 347
 
 A History of the 
 
 to adopt that tone of brutal insolence which reflects the 
 general attitude of the British people towards the 
 Americans." 
 
 If the reader thinks this is laying undue stress on 
 the attitude of the British I must apologize by saying 
 that stress seems desirable because of the tremendous 
 contrast afforded when compared with the present 
 (1902) conditions which have been brought about by 
 the advancement of Christian civilization, and the de- 
 velopment of an unequalled fleet of American warships. 
 
 Hammond, the British minister, not only admitted 
 that aggressions had been made by his Government, 
 but he justified them by complaining of American ag- 
 gressions, the chief of which was what he called "the 
 unparallelled insult which has been recently offered at 
 Newport, Rhode Island," wherein the citizens of that 
 town had taken six impressed Americans from the Brit- 
 ish sloop of war Nautilus, by holding her captain a 
 prisoner on shore until he released them. ( See Wait's 
 "Sta^e Papers," vol. ii). To liberate American citi- 
 zens who had been carried by a press gang aboard a 
 British warship, and there compelled to serve as sailors, 
 was Hammond's idea of an "unparalleled insult," and 
 one to justify an armed invasion. 
 
 An impartial reading of the documents of those 
 days shows that war with Great Britain loomed high 
 above the horizon. With a less capable man in Wayne's 
 place the deluge would have fallen upon us. 
 
 That the building of the fort at the foot of the Mau- 
 mee encouraged the Indians is certain, for on June 30, 
 1794, they swarmed down to Fort Recovery. But they 
 were driven back, and Wayne having been reinforced, 
 
 348
 
 6^ ) 
 
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 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 meantime, with i,6oo mounted Kentuckians, he 
 marched to the St. Marys river, a branch of the Mau- 
 mee, and built Fort Adams in what is now Mercer 
 county, Ohio. Thence he marched on through Van 
 Wert and Paulding counties, (the trail could be seen 
 forty years ago), to the junction of the Big Auglaize 
 and the Maumee, where he built Fort Defiance. 
 
 The French had named this tributary of the Mau- 
 mee Au Glaize because of the rich loam of the plains 
 found there. The fields of corn stretched away for 
 miles in all directions, but no night trailing of a maid- 
 en's robe around those fields could save them from the 
 desolating host that had come to them. The corn was 
 in the black silk, but the Indians were to have no green 
 corn dance that year. The fields were laid waste to the 
 last stalk. The Tories and Dorchester and Simcoe were 
 responsible for the ills the Americans had suffered, but 
 the Indians had to bear the burden then, as ever. 
 
 Having destroyed the corn, Wayne marched, 
 August 15 , down the left bank of the Maumee. It 
 was a slow march because Wayne was still willing to 
 grant peace to the Indians. But a delegation of Span- 
 iards from the lower Mississippi came to give heart to 
 the Indians by tales of the uprising of the Southern 
 Indians, and promises of Spanish help. More impor- 
 tant still, the new British fort was close at hand, and 
 the Indians, looking to its garrison for help and succor, 
 scorned the offer. On August 18, Wayne threw up a 
 small earthwork at the head of the rapids of the Mau- 
 mee, at Waterville, Ohio, to secure the baggage and 
 provisions, and on the morning of August 20, 1794, 
 the final advance was made. 
 
 349
 
 A History of the 
 
 Most remarkable was that field of battle. In days 
 not long past, a tornado had come whirling along from 
 the lakes, ripping up the giant forest trees by the roots, 
 and piling them in confused masses, for miles along 
 the river bottom. Behind these tangled heaps of logs 
 — the "Fallen Timbers" — lay the Indians, numbering 
 at the lowest estimate 1,300. With them lay seventy 
 Canadians commanded by Capt. William Caldwell. Had 
 the whole territory been searched no safer ground could 
 have been found for that waiting host of red men. 
 
 To feel his way, Wayne sent a squadron of cavalry 
 against the entanglement, but the horsemen were hurled 
 back with losses that threw them into confusion, and 
 then the supreme moment of the day had come. 
 
 Ordering his infantry to fix bayonets, Wayne 
 stretched a line of them, 900 strong, before the fallen 
 timbers, placed the remainder of the infantry some dis- 
 tance in the rear for a reserve, divided the cavalry into 
 two bodies to turn the Indian flanks, and sounded the 
 charge. 
 
 And as the long roll of the guns began, the battle 
 line dashed forward with blood curdling yells, pitch- 
 forked the enemy from behind the logs, shot them down 
 as they fled, and leaping on in relentless pursuit, loaded 
 and fired, again and again, till they had driven the 
 panic-stricken hosts far beyond the British fort. 
 
 The American loss was 33 killed and 100 wounded, 
 most of whom fell in the preliminary charge of cavalry. 
 The Indian and Tory loss was three times as great. 
 Four British rangers were found dead on the field. 
 
 It was a decisive victory. Not only were the In- 
 dians scattered in a panic, but what was of far greater 
 
 350
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 importance, the battle taught them that they had been 
 meanly deceived by the British. Dorchester, Simcoe 
 and the Tories had sicked them on to ravage the Amer- 
 ican frontier, and then, as they fled for life, shut tight 
 the gates of the fort that had been ostentatiously built 
 for their support. The defeat of St. Clair was, in a way, 
 the worst in the history of our Indian wars ; the victory 
 of Wayne was the most convincing. 
 
 They called the hero of Stony Point and the Mau- 
 mee Rapids, Mad Anthony Wayne. The title was 
 originated by an Irish soldier who had been confined 
 in a guard house at the order of the General, and it 
 was taken up by the people, because of the wild enthusi- 
 asm with which Wayne led his men when the supreme 
 moment of battle came. But observe that when the war 
 of the Revolution impended, he "ransacked history" 
 for accounts of battles that he might learn military 
 tactics, and he gave his days to the training of his neigh- 
 bors. At Stony Point he appealed to the pride of the 
 men by parading them "clean-shaved and with hair well 
 powdered," while the prelaid plans included even the 
 slaughter of the dogs of the region that no yelp should 
 betray the approach of the assaulting host. And last of 
 all, when the honor of the Nation and the integrity of 
 its territory were committed to his care, he took a legion 
 of "boys and miscreants," gathered from the slums of 
 the coast cities, and trained them until their skill 
 equalled if it did not surpass that of the most noted 
 backwoods Indian fighters. His courage and brilliancy 
 in time of battle were unsurpassed, his record as a 
 drill master is unequalled. 
 
 The next day after the battle, called Fallen Tim- 
 351
 
 A History of tlie 
 
 bers because of the place where the Indians hid, the 
 commander of the British fort — one Major Campbell 
 —sent a messenger to ask Wayne "what he meant by 
 such threatening action in sight of His Majesty's flag?" 
 Wayne replied that his "guns talked for him." Then 
 Major Campbell threatened to open fire on Wayne if 
 his men came within range of the fort. It is said that 
 Wayne at once rode to the fort walls in the hope that 
 Campbell would shoot, and thus give ample excuse for 
 an attack; but Campbell became suddenly discreet. 
 
 In these trying conditions, Wayne showed that 
 Washington had been mistaken in thinking him lacking 
 in judicial sense. He swept the ground clean of huts 
 and traders' stores, including Tory McKee's, to the 
 walls of the fort, and then marched up the river de- 
 stroying all Indian property on both sides, until (Sep- 
 tember 17), he reached the junction of the St. Marys 
 and St. Joseph, and there built a fort the memory of 
 which is perpetuated to this day by the vigorous city of 
 Ft. Wayne, Ind. It was a point of great importance, 
 for the new fort commanded the portage of the Wabash. 
 
 For twenty years, — beginning with the days when 
 Connolly, as Lord Dunmore's agent, had created a war 
 with the Indians along the Ohio — the home seekers 
 who had crossed the Alleghanies, had been harassed by 
 red men who were incited to devilish deeds by the Brit- 
 ish, but the end had now come. The British were ready 
 to make a treaty that would avert war, and the Indians 
 were abandoned to their fate. The end for which 
 Washington had hoped when St. Clair marched into 
 the Indian Country was attained by "Mad" Anthony 
 Wayne. The Indians saw that our enmity was as much 
 
 352
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 to be dreaded as our friendship was to be desired. The 
 territory northwest of the Ohio was now definitely 
 opened for settlement, and homemakers soon thronged 
 the shores of Lake Erie as well as the banks of the Ohio. 
 Meantime, while Wayne was yet on the way to the 
 Maumee, Jay had been sent to England to negotiate a 
 treaty. The treaty which he secured was better than 
 war, and that is the best one can say of it, and it was 
 that far desirable only because the news of Wayne's 
 victory arrived in London while Jay was negotiating. 
 By this treaty, concluded November i^, 1794, the 
 British once more agreed to take their soldiers out of 
 American territory, and this time they did as they 
 agreed to do. The treaty threw us into actual if un- 
 declared war with France, but the integrity of the 
 region won by the good work of George Rogers Clark 
 was, at last, definitely and forever secured. • 
 
 353
 
 JAMES MADISON. 
 From the original portrait by Stuart.
 
 XXII 
 
 IN THE SOUTHWEST AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 When the French Government Was Treacherous Toward 
 the United States — PoHtical Work of the Deter- 
 mined, Quick-Witted, Self-Rehant Frontiersmen — 
 In spite of Influential Demagogues the Kentucky 
 Conventions and Proceedings Afforded "a Salutary 
 Precedent" — Kentucky Becomes a State — Tennessee 
 as the State of "Franklin"— "The Territory South 
 of the Ohio River" — The Irritating Work of the 
 Spanish — Wilkinson's Speculations and His Traitor- 
 ous Contracts with the Spanish — Other Sordid 
 Traitors. 
 
 To fully comprehend the things done in the South- 
 west — in the Kentucky and Tennessee region especial- 
 ly — after the Revolution, it is necessary to remember 
 that the people of the frontier had migrated across 
 the mountains to improve their condition. They were, 
 
 355
 
 A History of the 
 
 as a whole, people of small means, who had come to 
 make homes. They had endured, and they were willing 
 to endure, every hardship incident to wilderness life in 
 order to get on in the world. Only determined fortune 
 seekers — men who would not be easily balked when 
 working for any end — would start on such a career, 
 and every day of such a life as they experienced made 
 them the more determined to surmount every obstacle 
 in their way. They were not only the most determined 
 men in the world, but they were among the most active 
 minded. A man who has to learn to dodge bullets by 
 jumping when he sees the flash of the powder, learns 
 also to make decisions quickly on all other matters in 
 which he has a personal interest. And last of all they 
 were entirely self-reliant. It was inevitable that these 
 frontiersmen should "look out for Number i !" when 
 any question of policy arose, and should "do it on the 
 jump." 
 
 It is necessary to remember, further, that these fron- 
 tiersmen had become, perforce, accustomed to take a 
 cross-cut route to order. They were used to what may 
 be called Deckhard-rifle justice. It had been necessary 
 to preserve order on the frontier when the nearest 
 courts of law were hundreds of miles away, and the in- 
 tervening space was a most dangerous wilderness. In 
 the emergency the strong men of the new community 
 compelled all to keep order and deal justly. Where pos- 
 sible the forms of the law were observed, but when an 
 appeal to the forms of law threatened to defeat justice, 
 the forms of the law were swept away. They compre- 
 hended what was afterwards called "the higher law"— 
 the appeal for rights which the forms of law denied, 
 
 356
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 and right they would maintain at the muzzles of their 
 rifles. 
 
 Before this people, the most active-minded and self- 
 reliant people in the world, lay the Mississippi and its 
 navigable tributaries. It was the only outlet by which 
 to convey their surplus products to the markets of the 
 world. They had a "natural right" to absolutely free 
 navigation on its waters to the high seas. In their be- 
 lief (and it was a sincere belief) they would have had 
 a natural right to a free navigation of the river even 
 had a cheaper route to the East been available. They 
 did not use much the term "higher law," but their 
 orators thundered the words "Natural Rights" from 
 every stump-top west of the Alleghanies. 
 
 But at the mouth of the Mississippi the Spaniards 
 were in power, and they were determined, not only to 
 hold the mouth, but to control the entire stream and all 
 the land east of it except certain districts already settled 
 when the Revolution ended. 
 
 People who learn from the school histories that the 
 Battle of Yorktown was won with the aid of French 
 troops, and that Lafayette was a sincere friend of the 
 struggling colonies, think of the French King of that 
 date as also a friend of the Colonies. But only a little 
 further reading is necessary to learn that in spite of the 
 sympathy of the French people, the French government 
 (especially Vergennes, the prime Minister,) was ani- 
 mated solely by a desire to injure the British in what 
 he did to help the Americans. While he was glad to 
 free the British colonies from the British yoke, he was 
 determined to make the new republic a vassal to France, 
 or to disrupt it, and secure the vassalage of a part. 
 
 357
 
 A History of the 
 
 When in 1779 John Jay was selected to go to Spain 
 to secure a recognition of the United States Govern- 
 ment, he learned immediately after arrival that he 
 would not be received unless the sovereignty of Spain 
 over the Mississippi and all its valley (save only the 
 parts actually settled by the Americans) were first 
 conceded. To support this claim the Spanish sent an ex- 
 pedition from St. Louis on January 2, 1781, across the 
 country to a small post on the St. Joseph River (pro- 
 JDably near the site of La Salle's old post). This post 
 was captured, robbed and abandoned in haste. On 
 this "conquest" was based a claim to the Illinois and 
 Wabash country. 
 
 And the French Government, while pretending 
 friendship, sent a special envoy (Luzerne) to the 
 United States, who supported the Spanish claims. 
 
 Weighed down by the enormous debt incurred dur- 
 ing the war, and by adversity on the field of battle, and 
 by the relentless pressure of adroit envoys, Congress 
 yielded, for the time, the exclusive navigation of the 
 ]\Iississippi to Spain (1781), though Spain refused to 
 accept that alone ; and finally, when the end of the war 
 was at hand, Congress instructed the American peace 
 commissioners to follow French dictation in fixing the 
 bounds of the new Nation. 
 
 But when the treaty of peace was made the instruc- 
 tions of Congress were disregarded (Franklin said a 
 man might as well sell the front door of his house as 
 for the United States to abandon the navigation of the 
 Mississippi), and, unknown to the French minister, 
 concluded the agreement which extended the American 
 territory to the Mississippi and the thirty-first parallel. 
 
 358
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 If the British refused to adhere to the bargain, as 
 has just been related, it was certain that Spain, with her 
 clutch on the southwest corner of the American terri- 
 tory, would ignore that bargain altogether. A Spanish 
 General (Galvez) had taken Natchez from the British 
 during a war between Spain and England ; the United 
 States had never had possession of the Natchez terri- 
 tory, the Spanish said, and they held firmly to the 
 claim they had presented to Jay in 1779. 
 
 Under this claim the navigation of the Mississippi 
 was closed. Only by bribing Spanish officials could a 
 flatboat cargo be taken to New Orleans. The stirring 
 settlers west of the Alleghanies were like cattle corralled 
 in a gulch. They could not escape over the mountains, 
 and the Spanish closed the natural outlet. Washington, 
 whose wisdom becomes more manifest as the years 
 pass, was striving to create a way of transporting the 
 Western surplus to the East by improving the water- 
 ways furnished by the Ohio, the Monongahela, and 
 Potomac; but he was a hundred years ahead of his 
 time in his urgency for good roads and cheap transpor- 
 tation. The people west of the Alleghanies were shut 
 in. No markets could be reached. The opening of the 
 Mississippi — a free opportunity to go to market with 
 their surplus products — was necessarily the chief sub- 
 ject of thought and influence west of the Alleghanies. 
 And fortunate it has been for the Nation that this was 
 so. 
 
 The restlessness of the Kentucky people was first 
 manifested in the efforts to establish a state Govern- 
 ment. Conventions were held from time to time, be- 
 ginning on December 2y, 1784, for this purpose. The 
 
 359
 
 A History of the 
 
 proceedings at this convention formed a "salutary pre- 
 cedent," to quote the words of Madison. The people 
 fully appreciated their shut-in condition. They fully 
 understood their natural right to the free navigation of 
 the Mississippi. They knew very well that Congress 
 had been willing to make bargains with Spain detri- 
 mental to their interests. They knew that many people 
 of the seaboard regarded them as communities made 
 up of men little if any better than desperadoes. 
 They knew, further, that the Union was a dry wall — a 
 loose conglomerate — that New York, for instance, was 
 at one time at the point of war with both Connecticut 
 and New Jersey because of New York's tariff laws. 
 There were demagogues a plenty in Kentucky to tell the 
 people all these facts and to exaggerate the evils conse- 
 quent thereon, but the work of the home-makers in 
 their political proceedings, as with their axes, formed 
 a salutary precedent. 
 
 Chief among the demagogues was General James 
 Wilkinson. As an aid to General Gates, he had been 
 guilty of entering into a vile conspiracy against Wash- 
 ington, wholly regardless of the peril of the country, 
 but he was now a citizen of Kentucky, in the salt and 
 skin trade, and looking to the Mississippi and even to 
 the Spanish mines west of it, as means for laying "the 
 foundations of opulence." 
 
 Animated solely by selfish motives, Wilkinson 
 wished to set up an independent state west of the Alle- 
 ghanies, instead of a member of the Union. He soon 
 found that this was going further than the people 
 would follow, but, hoping to create trouble, he led a 
 convention (August, 1785,) to demand a separation 
 
 360
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 from Virginia instead of petitioning for the boon. He 
 was able to exert influence in this matter solely by his 
 ability to exaggerate the evils under which the people 
 labored, but he failed in spite of his influence. Vir- 
 ginia ignored the form of the demand and yielded. 
 
 Delays due to the war with the Indians north of the 
 Ohio prevented a prompt consummation of the work, 
 and Wilkinson again argued for complete national inde- 
 pendence of the region. It was during the days when 
 George Rogers Clark and Benjamin Logan were 
 obliged to raid the Ohio Indians to protect the Ken- 
 tucky settlers, and he naturally found listeners who 
 were indignant because neither the Virginia legislature 
 nor Congress ( Congress was the only National govern- 
 ment then) protected the region. Moreover, there were 
 Spanish aggressions on the south (to be described fur- 
 ther on). Nevertheless the work of the conventions 
 held to organize a state continued to afford a "salutary 
 precedent," and in February, 1791, Congress accepted 
 Kentucky as a member of the Union. 
 
 Meantime the people of the Tennessee region had 
 been engaged in the work of State building, also. In 
 June, 1784, the North Carolina legislature ceded all the 
 lands west of the mountains to Congress. On August 
 27,, delegates from the settlements of the Tennessee met 
 at Jonesboro, organized a convention with John Sevier 
 as president, and then (two-thirds consenting), voted 
 "that they be erected at once into an independent state," 
 an event that was celebrated with "turbulent joy" by 
 the people who had assembled to attend the proceedings. 
 But when a constitutional convention was gathered, in 
 November, the North Carolina assembly had meantime 
 
 361
 
 A History of the 
 
 rescinded the resolution to give the western territory to 
 Congress, and public opinion had so far changed that 
 the convention did nothing. 
 
 Late in 1785, however, another convention was 
 held. These delegates believed that to set up a state 
 government regardless of the legal aspects of the North 
 Carolina control would in some way relieve them of 
 their troubles — would open the Mississippi, for in- 
 stance — and they adopted a constitution. Concern- 
 ing the new state, so-called, that was then organized, 
 two facts are interesting : the so-called state was named 
 Franklin, and it was provided that every office-holder 
 must be a member of the Presbyterian Church. Doak, 
 of Princeton, with his sack full of books, had labored to 
 some purpose. 
 
 North Carolina, however, having rescinded the act 
 giving the Tennessee district to Congress, once more 
 resumed sway over the Tennessee settlements. John 
 Sevier had been elected Governor of the "State" of 
 Franklin, and the organization of districts was com- 
 pleted under his energetic administration, but North 
 Carolina had also a complete set of district and county 
 officials in the same localities, and in the inevitable clash 
 the old State party won, so that Sevier, at last (1788), 
 became a fugitive from the recognized officers of the 
 law. 
 
 Meantime the loose conglomerate called the United 
 States had been fusing into a Nation. On June 21, 
 1788, New Hampshire adopted the Constitution, mak- 
 ing the necessary ninth State, and five days later Vir- 
 ginia followed. In November, 1789, North Carolina 
 joined in, and then, on February 25, 1790, it once more 
 
 362
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 deeded the land west of the mountains to the Nation. 
 On April 2, Congress accepted the gift, and in May 
 established a form of government for "the Territory 
 south of the River Ohio," with William Blount, of 
 North Carolina, as Governor. 
 
 Blount was, on the whole, the man for the place. 
 He was assimilated by the people, so to speak. The 
 work of making the State of Tennessee was done by 
 a convention over which he presided, which met on Jan- 
 uary II, 1796, and published the state constitution on 
 February 6. It is worth while noting that James Rob- 
 ertson, who had helped to make the rifle government 
 of Watauga and Nashville, had a part in framing this 
 constitution, and that Andrew Jackson was also a mem- 
 ber of the convention. 
 
 The work of the Spanish during all this time must 
 now have consideration. In 1784 Don Estevan Miro 
 succeeded Galvez as Governor of New Orleans, and he 
 was as urgent as his King could wish to extend the 
 actual power of Spain over the unsettled part of the 
 Great Valley east of the Mississippi. 
 
 His first move was to unite with Alexander McGil- 
 livray, (a half-breed Creek, whose Scotch father had 
 given him a good education), in the formation of a 
 league of Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees and Chickasaws 
 against the Americans. In May, 1784, Miro, at Mobile 
 and Pensacola, met delegations of the various tribes, 
 and by large subsidies of supplies started them on a 
 desultory system of raiding known as the Oconee war. 
 
 Previous to this time the Americans had opened a 
 trade with the Spanish. Flat-boats had been built, 
 loaded with cured meats, grain, flour, whiskey and furs, 
 
 3^3
 
 A History of the 
 
 and floated to New Orleans. Spanish law forbade the 
 trade, but Spanish officials, for a consideration, encour- 
 aged it more or less, though every speculating boatman 
 was sure to be robbed sooner or later. Miro became 
 active in the system of robbing. 
 
 While Miro urged the Indians to war and destroyed 
 the river traffic of the Americans, Don Diego Gardoqui 
 was sent by the Spanish Government to negotiate a 
 treaty with Congress by which Spain was to control the 
 Mississippi and gain other advantages. He was to 
 offer desirable concessions in trade with Spain, (con- 
 cessions, however, which could be withdrawn at any 
 time), in return for what was demanded in the Great 
 Valley. The seaport merchants were eager to make 
 the treaty, but hearing the turmoil west of the moun- 
 tains — the talk of independence by such men as Wil- 
 kinson, and the just complaints of the producers — Con- 
 gress refused to do anything. 
 
 Of course nothing was done — nothing could be 
 done — to open the Mississippi. In fact, Spanish traders 
 began to spread up the river, and thus several were 
 found at Vincennes when Clark, during a raid on the 
 Indians (August, 1786), arrived there. One of the 
 traders, whose goods Clark confiscated, is said to have 
 lost $10,000. 
 
 Clark's work was illegal, but it was not unprovoked, 
 for many an American had been ruined by Spanish con- 
 fiscations. Clark contemplated a filibuster expedition 
 down the river, at least as far as Natchez, at this time, 
 but nothing was done. 
 
 While Clark contemplated the manful if illegal 
 raid on Natchez, Wilkinson adopted a diplomatic 
 
 364
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 method of freeing trade on the Mississippi that was 
 entirely successful for himself. Going to Natchez (fall 
 of 1786), he established friendly relations with Don 
 Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, the commandant. The next 
 spring he loaded a fleet of flat-boats with "flour, bacon, 
 butter and tobacco," and floating down the rivers, 
 reached New Orleans in June. No Spanish officer 
 molested him, and he sold his produce at a price that 
 yielded him $35,000 profit, after the usual division of 
 spoils with the officials. How great was the price that 
 he paid for immunity may be inferred by the fact that 
 3,000 barrels of flour were shipped to Philadelphia, 
 consigned to Gardoqui, the profits on which made up 
 his share of the plunder. 
 
 But it was not by bribery alone that Wilkinson suc- 
 ceeded. The threat of a raid on Natchez had impressed 
 the Spanish authorities. They knew that on the upper 
 waters lived "a Respectable Body of Prime Riflemen," 
 numbering more than 20,000. If these riflemen were 
 once let loose, a freshet of fire would come down the 
 river, and sweep the Spanish into the Gulf. George 
 Rogers Clark, at Vincennes, was not the only one who 
 had threatened, or was to threaten, such a revenge for 
 injuries suff'ered, and Wilkinson was adroit enough to 
 bribe with one hand while with the other he delicately 
 pointed to the angry hosts of Kentucky and Tennessee. 
 
 Wilkinson went still further, but it is a shameful 
 tale, and need not be elaborated. He sold himself to 
 the Spanish. Plans for delivering the settled, as well 
 as the unsettled, parts of the Great Valley into Spanish 
 control were concerted and placed on paper. These 
 documents are yet in existence, as areletters thatWilkin- 
 
 365
 
 A History of the 
 
 son wrote, and all unite to show his treasonable inten- 
 tions. But worse is yet to be told. To further the plans 
 for rousing the frontiersmen to desperation, Wilkinson 
 advised Miro to set the Southern Indians raiding the 
 home-makers at a time when no raids were to be ex- 
 pected. To further his own sordid schemes, this man 
 strove to desolate the outer line of homes, and to spill 
 the blood of the women and children living in them. 
 
 A number of the most prominent citizens of Ken- 
 tucky became involved in the Spanish conspiracy. John 
 Sevier, when his State of Franklin was going to pieces, 
 offered to throw himself "into the arms of His Spanish 
 Majesty." James Robertson opened negotiations with 
 Miro, and to please the Spaniard, named a district 
 (what was later a county) of Tennessee "Mero." 
 
 One can believe that these men (as they afterwards 
 asserted) had no intention of becoming loyal subjects 
 of Spain. They had, if one may use the slang of to-day, 
 surplus products to burn ; to find a market for these and 
 so realize the financial prosperity for which they had 
 endured the hardships of the wilderness, they were 
 ready to cut loose from the United States and join 
 Spain. But if this had been done they would have 
 served Spain as the Texans served Mexico. 
 
 Wilkinson, Judge Henry Innes and some others 
 were sordid traitors. They accepted Spanish money as 
 the price of efforts to detach the territory west of the 
 mountains from the United States for the benefit of 
 Spain. But more than half of those who talked of 
 uniting with Spain were men who were looking to the 
 ultimate expansion of United States territory by fili- 
 bustering methods. 
 
 366
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 In 1788 Col. George Morgan, of New Jersey, after 
 vainly trying to get from Congress a grant of land for 
 a colony near Kaskaskia, accepted (October 3d) a grant 
 of 12,000,000 acres from the Spanish, to be located 
 around New Madrid. Gardoqui had promoted this 
 scheme to draw off the adventurous from the American 
 frontier. Free transportation down the Ohio and aid 
 in building houses were promised to the emigrants, but 
 no great number of home-makers went across the river. 
 
 It was at this period (the end of 1788) that Col. 
 John Connolly (he who precipitated Lord Dunmore's 
 war) came to Kentucky to see what could be done to 
 turn the discontented frontiersmen toward Canada for 
 relief. The British had planned to send 10,000 men to 
 sweep the Spanish from the Mississippi. If the fron- 
 tiersmen joined in this movement the river would 
 quickly be theirs, and the markets of the world would, 
 under the British flag, be open to them. 
 
 Connolly disclosed the entire plan to Wilkinson. 
 If Wilkinson had unselfishly desired the instant pros- 
 perity of the Mississippi Valley, regardless of the rights 
 of the Union, as he professed, here was a golden oppor- 
 tunity. But sincerity and unselfishness were in no 
 degree qualities of Wilkinson's character, and he would 
 have nothing to do with a people by nature honest. He 
 saw clearly that his personal interests were to be pro- 
 moted best by adhering to the intriguing Spanish ; and 
 he had Connolly mobbed and frightened out of the 
 country. 
 
 As commonly told, the story of the Kentucky and 
 Tennessee region, in the years following the Revolu- 
 tion, is doleful reading. The men most frequently 
 
 3^7
 
 A History of the 
 
 named in the story were sordid and traitorous, but they 
 were not fair representatives of the people as a whole. 
 They were to the whole people as the desperadoes in 
 some frontier towns were to the general populations of 
 those communities. The more one considers the gen- 
 eral character of the frontier home-seekers the more ad- 
 mirable they appear. And even their threats and ram- 
 pant attitude, under the restrictions placed on the com- 
 merce of the Mississippi, were, in the long run, of the 
 utmost benefit to the Nation. For it is absolutely cer- 
 tain that but for their rampant attitude the merchants 
 of the coast cities would have sold the Mississippi for 
 a Spanish song. And how their rampant attitude af- 
 fected the Nation when the French came once more to 
 the Mississippi shall be told in the final chapter. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 36S
 
 WILLIAM CHARLES COLE CLAIBORNE. 
 
 First territorial Governor, as also the first Governor of the State of 
 
 Louisana. One of the Commissioners appointed to take 
 
 possession of Louisiana after its purchase.
 
 XXIII 
 
 THE NATION GETS ITS OWN. 
 
 Speculators in Georgia Land Start the Movement for 
 Ousting the Spanish — The "Inevitable and Irresisti- 
 ble Intrigue of the Spanish Nature"— Citizen Genet 
 and His Mississippi Scheme — The Southern Indians 
 Sent against the Frontier — A Satisfactory Treaty 
 Made, but the Spanish Were Not Willing to Yield 
 the Territory then until a Sufficient Force of Sol- 
 diers to Take It Was on the Ground. 
 
 After the inauguration of Washington, Guardoqui 
 returned to Spain, and the Spanish intrigues degen- 
 erated into a struggle to retain what Spain already held 
 — including Natchez — within the American boundaries, 
 as described in the Treaty with Great Britain. Galvez 
 had conquered Natchez as well as Mobile from the 
 British. No one disputed Spain's right to hold Mobile, 
 
 369
 
 A History of the 
 
 and the Spanish naturally argued that no treaty with 
 Great Britain could give the United States a right to 
 Natchez. In fact it is not wholly unreasonable to sup- 
 pose that when Richard Oswald, the British commis- 
 sioner in the treaty of 1782-83, assigned the 31st par- 
 allel of latitude as the Southern limit of the United 
 States on the Mississippi, he had in mind a future con- 
 flict between Spain and the United States over Natchez 
 — a conflict that might in some way benefit British in- 
 terests. 
 
 A movement that looked to the establishment of 
 American control in the Great Valley down to the 31st 
 parallel was begun in Georgia, the legislature of which 
 sold (December, 1789) large tracts of the land, claimed 
 west of the mountains, to various companies of specula- 
 tors, who were required to defend their titles at their 
 own expense. The South Carolina company, with a 
 grant of 10,000,000 acres, employed one Dr. James 
 O'Fallon as agent and manager. O'Fallon issued cir- 
 culars inviting emigrants, and telling that the plan was 
 to erect the territory to be acquired into an Amer- 
 ican State. At the same time he wrote to Governor 
 Miro, at New Orleans, with a view, as he pretended, 
 of making the grant a Spanish colony. Sevier and 
 Robertson were expected to join in, and Wilkinson 
 wrote to Miro recommending O'Fallon. But O'Fallon 
 indiscreetly said he should have 10,000 of the "Prime 
 Riflemen" of the frontier in his colony, and Miro was 
 unable to grow enthusiastic over the prospect of receiv- 
 ing any such company of emigrants. He did not refuse 
 to receive them, but the scheme failed when Washing- 
 ton learned its object; for he said he would suppress 
 
 Z70
 
 EDMUND CHARLES GENET. 
 Better known as " Citizen Genet." From a painting^ by Fouquet in 1793.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 the expedition by force, and everybody concerned knew 
 that Washington was a square- jawed man. 
 
 After the admission of Kentucky as a member of 
 the Union, (the admission was to date from June i, 
 1792), the loyalty of the Kentuckians was to be no 
 longer doubted, and the "Territory south of the Ohio" 
 having been already organized, the Spanish Minister to 
 the United States intimated (December 6, 1791) that 
 Spain was ready to settle all disputes. 
 
 But, as Winsor says, "it was not long before the 
 inevitable and irrepressible intrigue of the Spanish na- 
 ture began to show itself." Miro was transferred, and 
 Baron Carondelet was brought from Guatamala to New 
 Orleans. Carondelet, to strengthen the Spanish posi- 
 tion, at once started the southern Indians raiding the 
 frontier, as Miro had done, while the negotiations for 
 the settlement of disputed claims were allowed to drag 
 on in the poco tiempo and nianana manner in Spanish 
 affairs. 
 
 Then the shadow of the French Revolution reached 
 out to the United States. "Citizen" Genet was sent 
 over as Minister. He arrived on April 8, 1793. He 
 brought 300 blank army and navy commissions with 
 him, and sent an agent to Kentucky to enlist enough 
 men there to help the French of New Orleans throw 
 off the Spanish yoke. George Rogers Clark was the 
 chosen head of this proposed expedition, although for 
 years he had been a common drunkard. But how much 
 of substance there was to the intrigue appears from the 
 fact that Clark received only $400 cash for the expenses 
 of the 2,000 men he was to organize and conduct down 
 the river. 
 
 371
 
 A History of the 
 
 Carondelet, however, heard that a milHon dollars 
 instead of $400 had been supplied, and in terror he 
 appealed to Governor Simcoe, of Canada, for help in 
 establishing the Spanish power in the Illinois country. 
 Simcoe would have done anything to injure the Ameri- 
 cans, but the request arrived after he had learned that 
 "Mad Anthony" Wayne had trained 1,000 men to load 
 rifles as they ran, and it seemed advisable not to accede 
 to the Spanish appeal. 
 
 However, Washington extinguished the plan. Fort 
 Massac was garrisoned by some of Wayne's men, and 
 Clark's $400 was soon dissipated. Genet, because of his 
 insolence, was deprived of his position as Minister, ( he 
 remained as a private citizen in this country, however) 
 and Jefferson, who had been a blatant supporter of the 
 French revolutionists, was eliminated from Washing- 
 ton's cabinet. 
 
 The cool and righteous course of Washington, how- 
 ever, roused the animosity of the people west of the 
 mountains, who had seen in Genet's scheme a hope of 
 opening the Mississippi. They were roused still further 
 by the raiding Creeks, whom Carondelet was then sub- 
 sidizing to the extent of $55,000 a year, to keep them 
 on the warpath. The trouble with England having 
 been cleared away by Wayne's victory and Jay's treaty, 
 the time for a settlement of the Mississippi question had 
 come. 
 
 The outlook, judged by previous work in that line 
 was not encouraging. "John Jay, who remained long 
 at Madrid during the Revolutionary period, failed even 
 to obtain formal recognition as Minister." The attempt 
 which, as Secretary of State, he afterward made to 
 
 ?>7^
 
 THOMAS PINCKNEY, 
 
 He arranjjed a treaty with Spain in 1794, which secured to the 
 United States the free navigation of the Mississippi River.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 negotiate a treaty in Philadelphia with Gardoqui, the 
 Spanish Minister, also failed. In 1790 Jefferson, then 
 Secretary of State, instructed Mr. Carmichael, the 
 American charge at Madrid, to intimate to Spain that 
 the question of right to navigate the Mississippi must be 
 settled. But this led to no result. In 1791 Mr. Car- 
 michael and Mr. Short, then charge at Paris, were ap- 
 pointed commissioners to negotiate a treaty with Spain, 
 in which provisions should be made for adjusting boun- 
 daries, for recognizing a claim to the right of navigat- 
 ing the INIississippi, and for settling the conditions of 
 commercial intercourse. But Spain, shocked at the ex- 
 ecution of Louis XVI., was turning with a friendly 
 spirit toward England. The relations of the American 
 Government with England were strained, and nothing 
 was effected by the commission." But by 1794 Spain 
 and England had drifted apart, and Jaudenes, the Span- 
 ish Minister to the United States, intimated to Ran- 
 dolph, the Secretary of State, that Spain would negoti- 
 ate with a minister of proper dignity and position" 
 (James B. Angell). 
 
 Accordingly, in the fall of 1794, Thomas Pinckney,. 
 then minister to England, was selected to negotiate a 
 treaty with Spain. But before he could reach Madrid, 
 the Georgia Legislature sold 30,000,000 acres of land 
 lying along the 31st parallel to a company of specula- 
 tors, and this act (known as the Yazoo fraud) encour- 
 aged the Spanish to make one more effort to persuade 
 the Kentuckians to abandon the Union. 
 
 Commandant Gayoso, of Natchez, went North as 
 far as the Chickasaw Bluffs, and after buying a strip of 
 land of the Chickasaw Indians, built a fort there. It 
 
 373
 
 A History of the 
 
 was built where Memphis now stands. Gayoso then 
 went on to New Madrid and opened communications 
 with Wilkinson and others who had been in the in- 
 trigue with Miro. But before anything could be ac- 
 complished by Gayoso, Pinckney negotiated a treaty 
 by which Spain agreed to yield all the territory claimed 
 by the United States. 
 
 Pinckney had reached Madrid on June 28, 1795, 
 but "such were the obstacles and prevarications usually 
 inherent in Spanish diplomacy," (says Winsor), that 
 Pinckney was kept waiting in idleness for four months. 
 At last, as the end of October drew near, Pinckney de- 
 manded his passports and prepared to leave. Then, 
 according to the custom "usually inherent in Spanish 
 diplomacy," the Spaniards became ready for active 
 work, and a satisfactory treaty was written and signed 
 in three days. 
 
 The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate 
 at the end of February, 1796, and was proclaimed on 
 August 2 of the same year. 
 
 This treaty gave the United States the bounds ob- 
 tained under the treaty with Great Britain, and pro- 
 vided for a joint commission to meet at Natchez and 
 survey the line. It also recognized the right of the 
 Americans to navigate the Mississippi freely, and it 
 granted them the right to deposit in New Orleans all 
 goods for export free of duty, and free of all other 
 charges, save a reasonable rent for warehouses. 
 
 The people of the Great Valley now hoped for a 
 speedy ending of their troubles on the rivers ; but even 
 after they had made the treaty the Spanish were yet to 
 shuffle and evade to the utmost limit of human patience. 
 
 374
 
 A schoolboy's map of the united states, in 1796.
 
 Mississippi I 'alley. 
 
 Andrew Ellicott was appointed American commis- 
 sioner to meet the Spanish commissioner and survey the 
 boundary hne from the Mississippi eastward. He left 
 Philadelphia September i6, 1796. He was joined on 
 the Ohio by Lieutenant Piercy S. Pope and a squad of 
 men to serve as a guard in the wilderness. On ap- 
 proaching New Madrid, Ellicott was stopped by the 
 Commandant and a letter was handed him wherein 
 Governor Carondelet of New Orleans ordered him to 
 remain at New Madrid until the Spanish forces had 
 been removed from Natchez, and explained that low 
 water in the river had prevented this removal thereto- 
 fore. 
 
 Ellicott, of course, disregarded the order; what he 
 thought of the untruthful explanation may be imagined. 
 At the Chickasaw Bluffs the Spanish commandant fired 
 a cannon across the course of the flotilla, and when it 
 was brought to, and Ellicott told him about the object 
 of the expedition and the treaty, he expressed "wide- 
 eyed wonder," as if he had never heard of such a mat- 
 ter. 
 
 Two days above Natchez a messenger met Ellicott 
 with a letter wherein Commandant Gayoso explained 
 that the evacuation had not occurred for want of suita- 
 ble vessels. He requested that the American troops re- 
 main at a point sixty miles up the river lest misunder- 
 standings arise between Americans and Spaniards. To 
 this Ellicott agreed, and himself reached Natchez on 
 Febraury 24, 1797. 
 
 To follow in detail the shufflings, the deliberate and 
 oft-repeated falsehoods, and the insolent demands of 
 Gayoso and Carondelet in the days following Ellicott's 
 
 375
 
 A History of the 
 
 arrival, would be needlessly wearisome and exasper- 
 ating to the reader. Any one wishing the details can 
 find them in vol. iii, Waite's "American State Pa- 
 pers." It is enough to say that Gayoso, with profuse 
 professions of friendship, named a date for commen- 
 cing the survey. At the same time, however, he set his 
 soldiers at work strengthening the fort. 
 
 On seeing the men at work on the fort, Ellicott sent 
 for his soldiers. Then the Spanish appealed to the 
 Chickasaws and Choctaws to attack the Americans, 
 but Ellicott secured their neutrality. A story that the 
 British were coming down from Canada to attack New 
 Orleans (Spain was at war with England), was given 
 as a reason for repairing the fort. "The British must 
 be met at Natchez, and repulsed — como siempre!" said 
 the Spaniards. 
 
 In May, 1797, the Spanish surveyor arrived, but 
 Gayoso refused to begin the survey ; in fact he went on 
 strengthening the fort. And at that the citizens of 
 Natchez, (nine-tenths of whom were Anglo-Saxons in 
 blood and despised the Spanish), rose up and took 
 possession of the town. 
 
 With a committee of Americans in charge of Nat- 
 chez, Ellicott waited the movements of the Spanish. 
 Carondelet was transferred and Gayoso thereafter held 
 such power as remained to the Spanish. He removed 
 his headquarters to New Orleans leaving Don Stephen 
 Minor in command of the fort at Natchez. 
 
 The patience of the Administration at Washington 
 during all this time was extraordinary, but it is to be ex- 
 plained in part by the aggressive attitude of France. 
 The French Government -was then sweeping our com- 
 
 376
 
 JAMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE. 
 Founder of the State of Georgia (1733).
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 merce from the West Indies, and was bringing on the 
 actual if undeclared war that gave our new navy its 
 first opportunity to show its quality. A war with one 
 nation at a time was all that the Government wished to 
 support. 
 
 Nevertheless, on May 20, 1797, General Wilkinson, 
 then chief of the army, acting under instructions from 
 the War Department, ordered Capt. Isaac Guion to go 
 with a sufficient force down the river and take posses- 
 sion of the various posts within United States territory. 
 Guion had fought under Montgomery at Quebec, and 
 under Wayne at the Battle of the Fallen Timbers. He 
 was an all-around fighting man, and his reputation was^ 
 not unknown in New Orleans. 
 
 "Events now moved rapidly, as they usually do, 
 when Spanish obstinacy gives way to fear," (Winsor). 
 Orders were issued for the evacuation of the Chicka- 
 saw Bluffs, and a station at the Walnut Hills, (Vicks- 
 burg), and then, on March 30, 1798, "under cover of 
 the night," Minor and his men sneaked away like crim- 
 inals. 
 
 On the morning of March 31, 1798, the American 
 flag floated in the breeze above the fort on the Natchez 
 Bluffs — for the first time. 
 
 For fifteen years — from 1783 to 1798 — the Ameri- 
 can people had endured the buffetings and the aggres- 
 sions of the Governments of Great Britain, France and 
 Spain, — bullies all three, who were willing to take every 
 advantage of the struggling young Republic as long as 
 they felt themselves powerful enough to do so without 
 danger. Worse yet, the Nation had been obliged to 
 struggle under the selfishness and ignorance of its legis- 
 
 377
 
 A History of the 
 
 lators, and (in the West), under the schemes of sorv'.iJ 
 traitors. But the sober, sound sense and unyielding 
 persistence of the home-makers prevailed, and on 
 March 31, 1798, the Gridiron Flag covered the whole 
 Nation. 
 
 378
 
 ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. 
 
 The cession of Louisiana to the United States was greatly 
 aided, if not accomplished througli, his efforts.
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE GARDEN OF AMERICA FOR AMERICANS ONLY. 
 
 Organization of the Mississippi Territory — Throngs of 
 Emigrants Flock to the Region — The Significant 
 Story of Phihp Nolan — Boone as a Spanish Don — 
 The Growth of Trade at New Orleans — Napoleon 
 Sees the Futility of His Scheme for Recovering the 
 Original French Territory in America — He Deter- 
 mines to Give England a Maritime Rival and Suc- 
 ceeds — The Treaty Ratified — When the Gridiron 
 Flag First Covered the Mighty Valley from Brim to 
 Brim. 
 
 Without unnecessary delay, after the flag floated 
 over Natchez, Congress organized (April, 1798), the 
 Mississippi Territory. Winthrop Sargent reached 
 Natchez, charged with the work of organization, on 
 August 6, and Wilkinson, "as general of the American 
 
 379
 
 A History of the 
 
 Army, and bearing in his bosom the secrets that made 
 his prominence a blot both on himself and his govern- 
 ment," came on August 26 with a military force. 
 
 Emigrants followed in numbers. In a letter dated 
 March 2, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following: 
 
 "Mr. Randolph, allured by the immensely profitable 
 culture of cotton, had come to a resolution to go to the 
 Mississippi, and there purchase lands and establish all 
 his negroes in that culture." 
 
 This statement is of interest because Mr. Randolph 
 was a type of the class of emigrants to the Mississippi 
 Territory. They were people of wealth who bought 
 large tracts of land. The development of the Whitney 
 cotton gin, (1793), had made cotton immensely profit- 
 able, and to that crop these planters devoted themselves. 
 
 In the watershed of the Ohio, the men whose only 
 capital was carried in their heads, found their Canaan, 
 and there the growth of population was unprecedented. 
 A thousand flat boats passed down the Ohio in 1796, 
 and it is likely that they carried at least twenty people 
 each, on the average. A regular packet service was es- 
 tablished between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, that year. 
 The boat was fitted with musket proof cabins, and six 
 one-pound swivels were mounted on its bulwarks. It 
 was propelled up stream with oars and sails. 
 
 When Spain as well as England had been thrown 
 out of the United States territory, the hurrying crowds 
 bound west increased still more rapidly. In 1790, Ten- 
 nessee had a population, (U. S. Census report), of 35,- 
 791; in 1800 it had 105,602. Kentucky, in 1790, had 
 73.077; in 1800, it had 220,955. And the stream of 
 immigrants continued increasing in volume as the coun- 
 
 380
 
 I 
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 try filled np. This stream was, in fact, a human fresh- 
 et that spread westward till it reached the Mississippi, 
 and there ceased to flow. A paper levee stopped its 
 progress, for a time, but it did not cease to rise against 
 the paper levee. By a treaty the splendid wild land 
 across the river belonged to Spain, but by the inexor- 
 able law of race progress it belonged to them who 
 would use it. 
 
 In 1800 the freshet topped the levees. Filibuster- 
 ing expeditions crossed the Mississppi to make settle- 
 ments on Spanish land. They were of the class that 
 afterwards settled in Texas and detached that state 
 from Mexico. One Phillip Nolan and a party that 
 made a settlement on the Brazos river, in the fall of 
 1800, passed the winter in catching and training wild 
 horses. It was a legitimate business ; they were at that 
 time harming no one. But they had not observed any 
 of the formalities that Spanish law and custom required 
 of immigrants, and in March a Spanish force, 300 
 strong, surrounded their shanties at daylight. Nolan's 
 party numbered less than thirty. The difference in the 
 forces is significant. It shows how the Spanish re- 
 garded "a Respectable Body of Prime Riflemen." 
 Nolan was killed, and the others were captured and held 
 prisoners in the Mexican settlements for some years af- 
 terward. 
 
 In the meantime some settlers had passed over to the 
 Spanish side of the great river, as prevously told, with 
 the Spanish consent — Daniel Boone among the rest. 
 The public records show that he moved to "(upper) 
 Louisiana before the year 1798; and, on the 24th day of 
 January, 1798, he received from Zenon Trudeau a con- 
 
 381
 
 A History of the 
 
 cession for i,ooo arpents of land, situated in the dis- 
 trict of Femme Osage; had the same surveyed on the 
 9th of January, 1800, and was appointed by Don 
 Charles D. Delassus, (then Lieutenant Governor of 
 Upper Louisiana), Commandant of the Femme Osage 
 District" in Missouri, on June 11. 
 
 But notwithstanding this kindly reception given to 
 Boone, the Spanish were exceedingly jealous of these 
 new settlers. They told each immigrant that while he 
 might hold what religious views he pleased, his children 
 must become Catholics or get out of the country; and 
 the Bishop at New Orleans complained bitterly of this 
 small measure of religious tolerance. . 
 
 Naturally but few of the home-makers migrated to 
 the Spanish domain, and naturally, too, the restless and 
 lawless became the more inclined to go there as filibus- 
 ters. In a small way the old buccaneer spirit prevailed. 
 
 During all this time the commerce of the Mississippi 
 grew with the population. With the opening of trade, 
 after the treaty of 1795, although through shipments 
 were allowed free of duty, thereafter, the custom house 
 receipts of New Orleans, in the ensuing year, were 
 double what they had been in any preceding year. 
 
 How this trade increased may be gathered from the 
 following statement, quoted from Cable's sketch of New 
 Orleans in the U. S. Census report for 1880: 
 
 "In 1790 the port of New Orleans was neither open 
 nor closed. Commerce was possible but dangerous, 
 subject to the corrupt caprices of Spanish commandants 
 and customs officers, and full exasperating uncertain- 
 ties. 
 
 "In 1802, 158 Americans, 104 Spaniards and 3 
 382
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 French merchantmen, [ships of the sea], in all 31,241 
 register tons, sailed from her harbor loaded. * * * 
 34,000 bales of cotton; 4,500 hogsheads of sugar; 800 
 casks — equivalent to 2,000 barrels — of molasses; rice, 
 peltries, indigo, lumber and sundries to the value of 
 $500,000; 50,000 barrels of flour ; 3,000 barrels of beef 
 and pork; 2,000 hogsheads of tobacco, and smaller 
 quantities of corn, butter, hams, meal, lard, staves and 
 cordage passed across the already famous levee." 
 
 But while the merchants west of the Alleghanies 
 were growing rich and the home-builders were not only 
 adding to the comforts of their rude houses, but were 
 reaching a point where luxuries were not unknown, a 
 rumor that Spain had sold the Louisiana Territory to 
 France spread, (1801), over the Great Valley. Ru- 
 mors to this effect had been heard as early as 1797 — 
 unfounded rumors that soon died out — but this time 
 the rumor persisted. And as it gained credence the 
 people became wild with indignation and anger. 
 
 To fully appreciate the excitement thus caused one 
 must recall the course of events in France during the 
 years that had recently passed. For, beginning in 
 1794, the leaders of the mob that had ruled France, 
 during her great revolution, in order to coerce the Uni- 
 ted States into joining France in her wars with the 
 other nations of Europe, and in order to enrich them- 
 selves, had sent out warships, privateers and armed 
 ships without commissions, to prey on American com- 
 merce. These pirates had swept American shipping 
 almost entirely off the high seas. And the story of the 
 "French Spoliations" was as well known in the Miss- 
 issippi as in the coast cities. 
 
 383
 
 A History of the 
 
 Further than that was the fact that the French revo- 
 lution had evolved Napoleon, and he had become the 
 ruler of France under the title of First Consul, (No- 
 vember lo, 1799). Fully realizing that to add to the 
 glory of France was to strengthen his own power, Na- 
 poleon had reached out to grasp the colonial possessions 
 that had been lost before his day. Toussainte I'Over- 
 ture had set up a republic in San Domingo, and had 
 maintained it by force of arms. Late in 1801 Napo- 
 leon sent an army to resubjugate San Domingo and re- 
 duce the negroes to slavery once more. Le Clerc, Na- 
 poleon's brother-in-law, commanded the expedition. In 
 San Domingo, Le Clerc treated the American mer- 
 chants much as he treated the fighting natives ; he con- 
 fiscated their property and thrust them into prison with- 
 out trial or means of redress. The story of Le Clerc's 
 outrages followed the rumors of the French acquisi- 
 tion of Louisiana to the Mississippi Valley. 
 
 The French who had by sheer piracy ruined the 
 American commerce on the high seas, and had robbed 
 and maltreated the Americans in San Domingo, were 
 coming to take possession of Louisiana — of New Or- 
 leans and the mouth of the Mississippi ! There was 
 ample cause for excitement west of the Alleghanies. 
 
 As to the facts at the bottom of the rumors it ap- 
 pears that it was in 1800 that Napoleon first determined 
 to acquire Louisiana, and that in August of that year 
 he sent his confidential friend Alexandre Berthier as 
 minister to Madrid. Berthier negotiated a treaty, dated 
 October i, 1800, by which France was to take Louisiana 
 and Florida, and give in exchange "a kingdom of at 
 least a million people made up of French conquests in 
 
 384
 
 THOMAS JEFFKKSON.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 the north of Italy, over which was to be set the Duke 
 of Parma," son-in-law of the Spanish king, (Hosmer). 
 
 This treaty was not ratified by the king of Spain, 
 but one negotiated by Lucien Bonaparte and dated 
 March 21, 1801, was ratified. It gave Louisiana to the 
 French in exchange for Tuscany, over which the Duke 
 of Parma was to reign as king. Both treaties were 
 negotiated at San Ildefonso, where the Spanish king 
 lived, and the treaty of cession is known by the name of 
 the royal residence. 
 
 At the time the last treaty was made, and while the 
 rumors of it were agitating the people west of the 
 Alleghanies, Thomas Jefferson was President of the 
 United States. Jefferson, if not the originator, was at 
 least the most conspicuous advocate of the porcupine 
 policy of dealing with foreign enemies. In order to 
 command the respect of European nations and to pro- 
 tect American commerce in foreign waters Jefferson 
 built scores of gunboats that were manoeuvred with 
 oars, and confessedly fit for use only in our harbors. 
 Moreover, he had idealized if he had not idolized the 
 French. He had spoken of the excitement raised in the 
 United States when "Citizen" Genet was distributing 
 piratical commissions from Charleston to Philadelphia 
 as a revival of the "spirit of 1776." 
 
 But Jefferson was a politician first of all. Foster, 
 in his "Century of American Diplomacy," says he was 
 the greatest politician the Nation has yet produced. 
 And Jefferson's most enthusiastic supporters were 
 found in the INIississippi Valley. Franklin had said 
 that a man might as well sell his front door as for the 
 United States to give up the right of the free navigation 
 
 385
 
 A History of the 
 
 of the Mississippi, and Jefferson understood very well 
 that the western clamor over the supposed French ac- 
 quisition of Louisiana was not empty declamation; 
 but neither he nor any one else then saw where that 
 oratorical tornado would carry the country. 
 
 What Jefferson did on hearing the clamor was to 
 instruct our Ministers at Paris, London and Madrid 
 to do all they could to prevent the transfer. Eventually 
 the rumors said that Spain had already ceded the ter- 
 ritory to France, and at that Jefferson, in a letter to 
 Robert R. Livingston, American minister to France, 
 dated April i8, 1802, said: 
 
 "There is on the globe one single spot the possessor 
 of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is 
 New Orleans. * * * France placing herself at that 
 door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. * * * 
 Circumstances render it impossible that France and 
 the United States can continue long friends, when 
 they meet in so irritable a position. The day that 
 France takes possession of New Orleans * * * we 
 must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. 
 We must turn all our attentions to a maritime force." 
 
 And then to much talk about friendly relations he 
 added the unmistakable statement that "it is not from 
 a fear of France that we deprecate this measure pro- 
 posed by her." 
 
 Madison, Jefferson's secretary of State, in a letter 
 of instructions to Livingston, said : "The United States 
 would take the most vigorous measures, even though 
 they should involve war, to avert such a calamity" as 
 the cession of Louisiana to France. 
 
 But Jefferson did not really mean it. At heart he 
 386
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 had no intention of fighting to keep the IMississippi. 
 In October, in spite of the manly words quoted, he told 
 Livingston that the French occupation of Louisiana 
 was not "important enough to risk a breach of peace." 
 He had talked and written in brave words merely 
 to humor the people; his words were not sincere. If 
 the simile may be allowed, Jefferson felt himself in 
 charge of a growing kid on which the British lion, 
 the French wolf and the Spanish coyote were looking 
 with hungry eyes. He supposed that if only this kid 
 could be allowed to feed peaceably in the pastures of 
 the world until it was as big and fat — especially as 
 fat — as a kid could become, it would then be entirely 
 safe from the attacks of the lion, the wolf and the 
 coyote. The quantity of the fat was to protect it; 
 and in order that fat might be accumulated as fast 
 as possible the grozvth of horns must be prevented. A 
 hornless goat, rolling fat, was literally Jefferson's ideal 
 representative of a great nation. He did say to the 
 British minister that if we were compelled to draw the 
 sword we would "throw away the scabbard," but he 
 did not mean to draw the sword. A nation whose 
 every effort at home should be devoted to accumulation 
 of "material resources," and whose foreign policy 
 should be regulated by those able to "palliate and en- 
 dure," and, if the full truth be told, those who could 
 purchase favors, — that was the Jefferson ideal. For- 
 tunately the Nation was able to survive the fierce on- 
 slaughts that Jefferson's hornless policy made possible 
 during the first ten years of the Nineteenth Century, 
 and different ideals now prevail. 
 
 In the course of May, 1802, authentic information 
 
 387
 
 A History of the 
 
 reached the United States that Spain had sold out to 
 France. Consequently, during the summer of 1802, 
 Livingston was kept busy trying to purchase New Or- 
 leans and the two Floridas, which, it was rumored, 
 had also been transferred to France, but he could make 
 no progress in his negotiations. Napoleon had ob- 
 tained peace at the treaty of Amiens, March 25, 
 1802, and was contemplating the recovery of all the 
 ancient French rights in America. He supposed that 
 he could readily conquer all the Mississippi Valley, if 
 not Canada, and he ordered an army of 10,000 men, 
 under General Bernadotte, to prepare to sail for New 
 Orleans. General Victor was afterwards (August, 
 1802) substituted for Bernadotte, and the preparations 
 were pressed with enthusiasm during the fall follow- 
 ing Victor's appointment. 
 
 In order to deceive the Americans Napoleon an- 
 nounced that Victor was going to reinforce the French 
 army in San Domingo, but the truth of the matter be- 
 came very well known throughout the United States. 
 The excitement and indignation caused by this knowl- 
 edge were soon to be increased, however, to a far higher 
 pitch. On October 16, 1802, in the midst of the most 
 prosperous shipping season the merchants of the Miss- 
 issippi Valley had ever known, the Spanish Intendant 
 at New Orleans, Don Juan Venturo Morales, ordered 
 that the American right of deposit should thence- 
 forth cease. Foreign commerce, save in Spanish ships 
 only, was to be stopped — this in the face of the fact 
 that a free export trade had been allowed for seven 
 years since the signing of the treaty permitting such 
 commerce. 
 
 388
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 As the report of the order of Morales, in violation 
 of the treaty, spread up the Great Valley, the people 
 almost to a man were found ready to grasp their rifles, 
 three feet and six inches long, and embark for New Or- 
 leans. There was talk of raising enough men in the 
 Mississippi Territory alone to capture New Orleans 
 immediately, and it could have been done easily, had 
 the right leader appeared. 
 
 It was natural that the Americans should suppose 
 that Napoleon had dictated the Morales prohibition of 
 commerce and the American right of deposit at New 
 Orleans. In this it appears they were in error as to the 
 fact, although as to the feeling of Napoleon they were 
 entirely right. Morales had acted on his own impulses. 
 The Governor of New Orleans, (Salcedo Gayoso had 
 died after a drunken spree with Gen. Wilkinson), op- 
 posed the order. The Spanish minister to the United 
 States opposed it with anger. But under Spanish law, 
 Morales could prevail until an order came from the 
 Spanish King. 
 
 With this new aggression to urge him on, Jefferson 
 still baulked at the thought of securing the rights of 
 the Nation by the use of force. He w^as determined 
 not to use force. His message to Congress, read De- 
 cember 15, 1802, "discussed everything except the 
 danger which engrossed men's minds." (Henry 
 Adams's "History of the United States"). "No 
 change" was "deemed necessary in our military es- 
 tablishment," and as for the navy the chief item of 
 new expense recommended was a "dock within which 
 our present vessels may be laid up dry and under 
 cover from the sun." In a special message to Con- 
 
 389
 
 A History of the 
 
 gress on December 22, 1802, he spoke of Morales's 
 act as "the irregular proceeding at New Orleans," and 
 said he had not lost "a moment in causing every step 
 to be taken which the occasion claimed." On January 
 5, 1803, he transmitted to the house, "a statement of 
 the militia" of the various states, (a showing of the 
 mailed fist, that!), and then on the nth, in a special 
 message, he nominated James Monroe as min- 
 ister extraordinary, to act "jointly or either on 
 the death of the other," with Livingston, in or- 
 der to "enter into a treaty or convention with the 
 First Consul of France," for the purchase of New Or- 
 leans and the French territory east of the Mississippi, 
 The nomination was promptly confirmed. 
 
 As Henry Adams has pointed out, Monroe was sent 
 on this special mission, "not so much to purchase New 
 Orleans, as to restore political quiet at home." In his 
 letter asking Monroe to accept the mission, Jefferson 
 said: 
 
 "The agitation of the public mind on occasion of 
 the late suspension of our right of deposit at New Or- 
 leans is extreme. In the western country it is natural 
 and grounded on honest motives. In the Federalists 
 generally, and especially those of Congress, the ob- 
 ject is to force us into war if possible, in order to de- 
 range our finances; or if this cannot be done, to detach 
 the western country to them as their best friends, and 
 ]thus get into power." 
 
 And when the nomination had been confirmed Jef- 
 ferson again wrote to say that "the measure has si- 
 lenced the Federalists here." 
 
 To silence the Federalists was the thought upper- 
 390
 
 JAMKS MONROE. 
 
 The oritrinal portrait by Vanderlyn, from which this was engraved 
 by Duraiid, can be seen in the City Hall, New York.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 most in Jefferson's mind in this crisis brought on by- 
 foreign aggression, and the next thought was to "palH- 
 ate and endure" (letter to Dr. Priestley), the aggres- 
 sion in such a fashion as to soothe his own party. 
 
 Meantime, however. Napoleon's hopes of conquest 
 in America had vanished. Barbe Marbois, one of 
 Napoleon's ministers, had pointed out that to occupy 
 New Orleans was to drive the United States to declare 
 war against France at the first shot of a gun in Eu- 
 rope, and he was ready to ask, as Jefferson had asked, 
 will "a short lived possession" of New Orleans be an 
 equivalent to France "for the transfer of such a weight 
 into the scales of her enemy?" 
 
 Moreover, Napoleon's agents in the United States 
 had repeatedly written him that it would be impossible 
 to accomplish his purpose. The agents knew the num- 
 ber and the quality of the "Prime Riflemen" of the 
 west. They had doubtless heard of the men whom 
 "Mad" Anthony Wayne trained to load rifles while 
 charging the enemy, and if not, they knew that the 
 frontiersmen always shot to kill. Pinchon, the French 
 charge, wrote to Talleyrand to say that "however 
 timid Mr. Jefferson may be, I find [among the people] 
 in general a bad temper as regards us; and I cannot 
 help seeing that there is a tendency toward adopting 
 an irrevocably hostile system." It was clearly seen by 
 the Frenchmen in America that it would be an 
 easy task to raise an army of 30,000 skilled riflemen, 
 west of the Alleghanies, embark them on boats which 
 they were accustomed to handle, and send them, hot 
 for a fight, dowti the river. Napoleon's men, with all 
 their European experience, would find a different kind 
 
 391
 
 A History of the 
 
 of warfare when, after landing in New Orleans, they 
 tried to push up the river in boats, or through the road- 
 less forests and lowlands on either border. 
 
 To such arguments as this, Napoleon, as a states- 
 man, was obliged to give heed. He saw that any 
 force that he could send to New Orleans would be 
 wholly lost to his uses in Europe, and it would ac- 
 complish nothing in America. He saw further that 
 the supremacy of the British naval power on the high 
 seas would prevent his reinforcing New Orleans, in 
 time of war — would even prevent his rescuing the 
 garrison there from certain defeat. He believed that 
 in case of war with England, Louisiana would become 
 a British colony, and a war with England was now 
 seen to be at hand. These considerations prevailed. 
 It is a proof of the wisdom of Napoleon that they did 
 prevail. To his counsellors he said : 
 
 "They [the British], shall not have the Mississippi 
 which they covet. The conquest of Louisiana would 
 be easy, if they only took the trouble to make a descent 
 there. I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of 
 their reach. * * * I think of ceding it to the United 
 States. I can scarcely say that I cede it to them, for 
 it is not yet in our possession. If, however, I leave 
 the least time to our enemies, I shall only transmit an 
 empty title to those republicans whose friendship I 
 seek. They only ask of me one town in Louisiana, 
 but I already consider the colony as entirely lost, and 
 it appears to me that in the hands of their growing 
 power, it will be more useful to the policy and even to 
 the commerce of France than if I should attempt to 
 keep it." 
 
 392
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 When objections were urged he continued : 
 
 "Irresolution and dehberation are no longer in 
 season. I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New 
 Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony with- 
 out any reservation. * * * To attempt obstinately to 
 retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate this 
 affair with the envoys of the United States." 
 
 And when the matter had been fully determined 
 he said : 
 
 "This accession of territory strengthens forever 
 the power of the United States, and / haz'c just given 
 to England a maritime rival that zuill sooner or later 
 humble her pride." 
 
 With American capitalists in control of the leading 
 lines of transatlantic steamships in this present year 
 of 1903, the last statement is of interest. But it is 
 worth noting here that one of Napoleon's ideas in this 
 matter was by no means well founded. He supposed, 
 as he said, that if he tried to occupy the Louisiana 
 territory the British would promptly take it away from 
 him. Curiously enough nearly all American historians 
 have agreed w^ith him. But we will believe that as 
 soon as Napoleon's army had sailed for New Orleans, 
 the "Prime Riflemen" of the West would have gone 
 aboard their fiat boats, and in an irresistible tide would 
 have swept all foreign power from the Great Valley 
 before either French or British could have done so 
 much as to make a landing. Livingston, who had 
 reverence for the eagle, not the porcupine, said : "Only 
 force can give us New Orleans. We must employ 
 force. Let us first get possession of the country and 
 negotiate afterwards." 
 
 393
 
 A History of the 
 
 He understood the beneficent effect of showing the 
 mailed fist at the right time in some kinds of diplo- 
 matic proceedings. It was not necessary to do that on 
 this occasion, but if the necessity had arisen, it would 
 have been done. Let no one think that Great Britain 
 would have forestalled Napoleon at New Orleans, even 
 if the "timid" Mr. Jefferson was President. 
 
 Barbe Marbois was commanded to conduct the 
 negotiations with Livingston and Monroe. He was 
 well acquainted personally with both of them, personal 
 regard smoothed the way, and the negotiations were 
 conducted with unparalleled expedition. Napoleon at 
 first demanded a price that seemed enormous, but he 
 modified his demands to a point where the conditions 
 were written to the satisfaction of both parties. Liv- 
 ingston and Monroe felt that they were stretching 
 their powers to the utmost in buying the whole terri- 
 tory, but there was (fortunately), no time for consul- 
 tation with Jefferson, and a treaty, (dated April 30, 
 1803, though concluded in part as late as May 9), was 
 signed whereby: 
 
 "The First Consul of France, desiring to give to 
 the United States a strong proof of his friendship, doth 
 hereby cede to the United States, in the name of the 
 French Republic, forever and in full sovereignty the 
 said territory" of Louisiana. For this broad territory 
 the United States paid $11,250,000 in six per cent, 
 bonds, and assumed a debt of $3,750,000 due Amer- 
 ican citizens from France, or $15,000,000 all told. 
 
 When Livingston had signed this document, (and 
 his name was the first appended to it), he arose, shook 
 hands with Marbois and Monroe, and said : 
 
 394
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 "We have lived long, but this is the noblest work 
 of our lives." 
 
 The papers reached Washington on July 14, 1803. 
 The treaty attracted the widest attention. No one had 
 foreseen such an outcome of the negotiations. A great 
 number of the people supposed that the Nation had no 
 power under the Constitution to annex foreign terri- 
 tory. Others were opposed to the policy of enlarging 
 the territory of the Nation. Jefferson himself fully 
 believed Congress had no power to annex the purchased 
 territory, and favored passing an amendment to the 
 Constitution to permit it. He thought, too, that the 
 land west of the Mississippi would be useless save as 
 a refuge for the Indians then living in the East. Mon- 
 roe, fearing that he had paid too much for the cession, 
 suggested the sale of "the territory west of the Miss- 
 issippi * * * to some power of Europe whose vicin- 
 ity we should not fear." 
 
 But when a letter was received from Livingston 
 saying that Napoleon might yet undo the work al- 
 ready accomplished, and when this was followed by 
 another letter saying "I most earnestly press you to 
 get the ratification as soon as possible," Jefferson called 
 a special session of Congress. He had written to Sen- 
 ator Breckenridge "The executive * * * have done 
 an act beyond the Constitution," but on the following 
 day he wrote to ask that this letter be suppressed, and 
 added that "we should do sub silentio what shall be 
 found necessary." He would not let his interpretation 
 of the Constitution interfere with a good business prop- 
 osition. 
 
 Congress met on October 17, 1803, and the an- 
 395
 
 A History of the 
 
 nexation of Louisiana was discussed. On October 25, 
 the House resolved, "That provision ought to be made 
 for carrying into effect the treaty." The vote stood 
 ninety to twenty-five. In the Senate a bill, introduced 
 by John Breckenridge, of Kentucky, "to enable the 
 President of the United States to take possession of 
 the territories ceded by France," was passed on Wed- 
 nesday, October 26 ; yeas, twenty-six ; nays, six. This 
 bill was approved October 31, 1803, (annals of Con- 
 gress, i8o3-'o4). 
 
 Foster's "Century of American Diplomacy" sum- 
 marizes the arguments against admission as follows : 
 
 "The boundaries were in dispute and it would prob- 
 ably lead to war — a prediction that was realized some 
 forty years later; the large territory was useless and 
 not wanted; the price was too high — it was equal to 
 433 tons of silver, it would load 866 wagons, extend- 
 ing 51-3 miles, would make a pile of dollars three 
 miles high, equal to 25 ship loads, would provide $3 
 to each man, woman and child in the country." 
 
 Such a vast, unmanageable extent of territory 
 threatened the subversion of the Union, said the leader 
 of the Federalists. 
 
 It may be noted, however, that an argument which 
 was urged against the annexation of the Philippines, 
 in recent years, was not heard in 1803. No one arose 
 to say that the native population of the new territory 
 was sure to flood the old, and by competition cut down 
 the wages of the poor working man. 
 
 To go back a little and take up the thread of events 
 in the Mississippi Valley, it is found that the formal 
 work of transferring Louisiana from Spain to France 
 
 396
 
 THOMAS B. ROBERTSON. 
 
 First Congressman elected from the State of Louisiana, afterward 
 Governor. This portrait is by St. Memim.
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 had been begun before the territory had been sold to 
 the United States. Pierre Clement Laussat, (a man 
 who "could swim well in rough water," he), was sent 
 by Napoleon to New Orleans as civil Governor, and he 
 arrived on March 26, 1803. He knew nothing about 
 the negotiations for a sale to the United States, and 
 his proclamation to the people of the region filled them 
 with "a delirium of extreme felicity," as they said. 
 Some weeks later came the Marquis de Casa Calvo to 
 represent the Spanish King in the transfer. A pro- 
 longed series of public entertainments followed, re- 
 garding which Laussat made this significant remark : 
 
 "The tendency of these festivities was, no doubt, 
 to spread the taste for pleasure and luxury in a colony 
 which being in its nascent state, still needs a great deal 
 of economy and labor." 
 
 Laussat saw dimly why both France and Spain had 
 failed in colonizing the Great Valley. 
 
 While the happy-go-lucky Creoles danced, a ship 
 came from Bordeaux with the news that the territory 
 had been sold to the Americans. It was first to be 
 transferred to France, however, and this was done on 
 November 30. As Miss King says in her New Or- 
 leans, an ''elaborate but uninteresting formality took 
 place." French municipal officers were appointed, and 
 a Creole took command of the militia. 
 
 In the meantime the preparations for annexing the 
 territory had been completed in the United States. 
 Because Spain had protested against the transfer to 
 the United States, (Napoleon had agreed not to sell 
 without Spain's consent), a large body of militia was 
 ordered out along the upper rivers, and flat boats for 
 
 397
 
 A History of the 
 
 their use were provided. A force 500 strong was sent 
 to Natchez. W. C. C. Claiborne, then Governor of 
 Mississippi, and General James Wilkinson, the head 
 of the regular army, were appointed commissioners to 
 receive the Territory at New Orleans. Each of these 
 two men are still well remembered — Claiborne for the 
 skill with which he managed the people of New Or- 
 leans; Wilkinson as one of the most detestable of trait- 
 ors. The commissioners met at Fort Adams, below 
 Natchez, and on December 7, with a sufficient escort 
 of soldiers, began their march to New Orleans. The 
 schooner Bilboa, (chartered for $1,854.18, if any one 
 is anxious for details), floated down the river carrying 
 the baggage. On December 17 the party camped two 
 miles from the city, and two days were then passed in 
 formal visits, and in agreeing on the details of the 
 coming ceremonies. 
 
 December 20 was the day selected for the transfer. 
 As the people of the city of New Orleans awoke on 
 that morning, it was noted as a good omen that "in- 
 stead of the rain and clouds that had attended the 
 Spanish ceremonies, the day dawned clear and bright." 
 At sunrise the French tricolor was spread to the gentle 
 breeze at the top of the tall flag pole that stood in the 
 centre of the Place d'Armes, while the ships at the 
 levee, and at anchor in the stream, were decorated with 
 a great spread of bright bunting. At 9 o'clock the 
 militia began to muster, and at 11 o'clock they 
 marched, with beating drums, into the Place d'Armes. 
 A notable throng gathered about them, and along the 
 street by which the Americans were to come — a throng 
 that included the gentry in their colored silks and 
 
 398
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 velvets, and slaves in osnaburgs; pirates in sea "togs" 
 from the West Indies, and tall, lank backwoodsmen 
 in fringed leather hunting, or red flannel shirts — men 
 of every nation, and men without a country. But 
 gathered at the foot of the flag pole was a band of fifty 
 old French soldiers who, on November 30, had been 
 organized as a guard for the tricolor flag. 
 
 Soon after the local militia had been paraded in 
 line facing the flag pole a gun was fired at the Amer- 
 ican camp to announce that the American forces had 
 started for the city. In due time they reached the 
 Tchoupitoulas gate, where they received a salute of 
 twenty-one guns. Then they marched into the city. 
 
 At the head of the column rode the commissioners. 
 They were followed by "a detachment of dragoons in 
 red uniform, four pieces of artillery, two companies of 
 infantry and one of carbineers." Marching to the cen- 
 tre of the Place d'Armes the column was paraded to 
 face the local militia. Then the commissioners dis- 
 mounted and walked to the Cabildo, or City Hall, 
 where they were received by Laussat, who, with the 
 officers of the municipality, conducted them to the 
 great hall of the building. They found there the most 
 notable citizens of the city. At the head of the hall 
 stood three elevated chairs. In the centre and most 
 elevated of these three Laussat sat down, and placed 
 Claiborne on his right and Wilkinson on his left. The 
 reading of the various commissions, the treaty of ces- 
 sion, etc., followed, and then Laussat gave the keys of 
 the city to Claiborne, and changed seats with him. 
 The citizens who wished to remain in the country 
 were next absolved from their allegiance to France. 
 
 399
 
 A History of the 
 
 Finally Laussat, Claiborne and Wilkinson walked 
 out on a balcony where they could look over the motley 
 throng that had gathered in the Place d'Armes, and 
 away to the decorated shipping in the harbor. The 
 supreme moment of the transfer had now come. As 
 the commissioners appeared on the balcony the sergeant 
 of the old French guard loosened the halliards and be- 
 gan to lower the tricolor. At the same instant an 
 American soldier commenced hoisting the Gridiron 
 Flag. Midway the two flags met, and as they fluttered 
 together for a moment, a single gun was fired. And 
 then, as the two flags were separated, every gun in 
 the city began to fire a national salute; the guns on 
 the shipping joined in; a brass band played "Hail 
 Columbia," while the backwoodsmen and the keelboat- 
 men in their fringed and red flannel shirts, cheered 
 with frantic joy, and leaping up, slapped their hands 
 on their sides and crowed until they were hoarse. But 
 the gentry, in colored satins and laces, wept. 
 
 At the end of August, 1656, those enterprising 
 and courageous Frenchmen — the coiireiirs de hois, 
 known as Grosseilliers and Radisson — men who would 
 and did work according to the powers given them, re- 
 turned to Montreal and reported that they had been 
 on the waters of the Great River. And "their arrival 
 caused the country universal joy." 
 
 On April 9, 1682, La Salle, the greatest of all the 
 French-Americans, a man who worked as few of any 
 nation have done, standing on a sand bar at the mouth 
 of the Great River, proclaimed the sovereignty of his 
 King over all the wondrous unknown valley whose 
 waters flowed at his feet. 
 
 400
 
 Mississippi Valley. 
 
 For 121 years thereafter the flags of foreign na- 
 tions waved above the evergreen slopes that had glad- 
 dened the hearts of those men of deeds. But because 
 a new race had been originated on the American con- 
 tinent — a race of whom it could be said "The thing 
 that is given it to do it can make itself do" — the period 
 of foreign control was limited. With a "blinkard daz- 
 zlement and staggerings to and fro" as "of a man sent 
 on an errand he is too weak for by a path he cannot yet 
 find," this race had reached out and grasped the mighty 
 Valley from brim to brim. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 401
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abenakls Indians, driven from 
 New England, join La Salle, 
 40; persuaded to make war, 
 121. 
 
 Abercrombie defeated, 151. 
 
 Accau, Michael, heads an ex- 
 ploring expedition, 37. 
 
 Adams, John, at peace treaty, 
 332 
 
 Albany, N. Y.. Dutch at, 33-34. 
 
 Alibamons Indians, in Alaba- 
 ma. 62. 
 
 Alleghanies crossed by British 
 settlers, 124; Duquesne forti- 
 fies, 133. 
 
 Alleghany region, French move 
 into. 12S. 
 
 Alleghany Co., N. Y., and river 
 shed visited, 8. 
 
 Allouez, Father, estab. Mission 
 at La Pointe, 8. 
 
 Amherst, Sir Jeffrey, captures 
 Louisburg, 151; in Pontiac's 
 "War, 175. 
 
 Animals of Miss. Valley, 18, 22; 
 Beavers in, 24; abundant, 189. 
 
 Armies, American, efficiency, 252. 
 
 Aubrv, succeeds D'Abbadie, 163; 
 permits British trade in New 
 Orleans, 167. 
 
 Au Glaize river named, 349. 
 
 Badine, Iberville's ship, 53. 
 
 Baker, John. 198. 
 
 Baker, Joshua, attack on Indi- 
 ans, 215. 
 
 Bank. Louis ("Bar"), meets 
 French at English Turn, 57. 
 
 Barlow, Joel, speculator, 337. 
 
 Barre, La antagonizes La Salle, 
 45. 
 
 Baton Rouge, British take pos- 
 session of, 205; named, 55. 
 
 Bean, William, on B o o n e' s 
 Creek, 200. 
 
 Battle Island. Ohio, named, 305. 
 
 Bayou Manchac, named, 55; 
 British at. 288. 
 
 Bears as domestic cattle, 79. 
 Beaubassion, Sieur de, leads 
 
 raid, 121. 
 Beaujeu, Capt. Daniel Lienard 
 
 de, "attacks Braddock. 144. 
 Beavers. 120; eaten in feast, 5. 
 Bernadotte, General Charles, to 
 
 take Miss. Valley. 388. 
 Berthier, Alexander, gets Lou- 
 isiana and Florida for Napol- 
 eon, 384. 
 
 Big Bottom, Pa., attacked, 339. 
 Big Lick, site of Boonesborough, 
 
 227. 
 Bienville, "Father of New Or- 
 leans," 52; buys a letter of 
 Indian, 55; meets English, 58; 
 meets Tonti, 59; time in the 
 Louisiana colony, 60; as to ri- 
 valries, 61; Vente opposes, 62; 
 opposes a marriage, 62; sends 
 soldiers among Indians for 
 food, 63; plans new fort, 72; 
 founds New Orleans, 74; sends 
 surveyors to lay out new cap- 
 ital, 104; opposed, 106; builds 
 first levee, 106; leaves country, 
 115; describes soldiers, 116. 
 Bigot, Francois, character of 
 Intendant, 134; loves Madam 
 Pean, 154. 
 Biloxi, Miss., settled, 56; Sioux 
 
 Indians at, 79. 
 Bilboa, ship, carries commis- 
 sioners, 398. 
 Bird, Colonel, builds fort, 150. 
 Bird, Capt. Henry, raids, 289. 
 Bishop of New Orleans com- 
 plains of tolerance to Protes- 
 tants, 382. 
 Bledsoe. Anthony, surveys Va. 
 
 line, 202. 
 Blount, William, Governor of 
 
 Tennessee, etc., 363. 
 Blue Earth River, named, 60. 
 Blue Licks, Ky., Battle at, 310. 
 Boisbriant, Major Pierre Hugue, 
 falls in love. 62; builds Fort 
 Chartres, 107. 
 Bonaparte, Lucien, makes 
 
 treaty, 385. 
 Boone, Daniel, with Braddock, 
 147; ancestry and early life, 196; 
 story of, 197; crosses mountain 
 wall, 198; Squire joins Daniel, 
 199; typical explorer. 2O0; warns 
 of coming war, 212; in Tran- 
 sylvania. 225; fights Indians, 
 226; brings wife to Boones- 
 borough. 240; prepares game 
 and horse laws. 244: daughter 
 Jemima carried off. 259: at 
 Blue Licks, 264. 310; sees chief 
 need of the country, 327; cross- 
 es the Mississipni, 381; ap- 
 pointed to office, 382. 
 Boone, Squire, brother of Dan- 
 iel, in Kentucky, 199. 
 
 403
 
 Index. 
 
 Boonesborough. Kentucky, 227; 
 first woman at, 240; attacked, 
 264. 
 
 Boston Port closed, 248. 
 
 Bouquet, Col. Henry, commands 
 Colonials, 177; wins Bushy Run 
 fight, 179; forces peace, 181. 
 
 Bowman, John, first Kentucky 
 Colonel, 259. 
 
 Braddock, Edward, sails for 
 America, 142; attacked by 
 French, 144; shot, 145; dies, 147. 
 
 Brady, Samuel, borderer, 328. 
 
 Bradstreet, Lieut. Col. John, 
 takes Fort Frontenac, 151; 
 General, sent against Indians, 
 181. 
 
 Brant, Joseph, 334; tells of 
 British duplicity, 341. 
 
 Brazos river, Nolan on, 381. 
 
 Breckenridge, Senator John, 395; 
 introduces bill to authorize 
 Louisiana treaty, 396. 
 
 Bryan's Station, attack on, 308. 
 
 British, civilization of, 250, et 
 seq.; urge attack on Christian 
 Indians, 295; welchers after the 
 Rev., 333; object in Northwest, 
 334; urge Indians to war, 334; 
 against peace, 341; idea of 
 Wayne's work, 345; attitude 
 toward U. S., 345; betray 
 Indians, 351; impressed by good 
 fighting, 352; plan to raid Mis- 
 sissinpi Valley, 367; get a rival 
 from Napoleon, 393. 
 
 Brule, Etienne, First Coureur 
 de Bois, 1; at Lake copper 
 mines, 3; fate, 3. 
 
 Bryan, Rebecca, Boone's wife, 
 197. 
 
 Buffalo, wild cattle, 18; heard 
 by Joliet, 22; 30,000 skins wast- 
 ed. 63. 
 
 Bullies of the Miss. Valley, 377. 
 
 Bullitt, Capt. Thomas, survey- 
 or in Ohio Valley, 207. 
 
 Burgoyne's surrender, to whom 
 credit is due, 268. 
 
 Burnet, Gov. Wm., founds Os- 
 wego, 122. 
 
 Bushy Run, Penn., battle at, 
 178. 
 
 Butler. General Richard, robbed 
 by desperadoes, 211; killed at 
 St. Clair's defeat, 340. 
 
 Butler, trader, canoes attacked, 
 
 213. 
 Cabins, log, how built, 228. 
 Cadillac, Le Mothe, Gov. of De- 
 troit & Louisiana. 64; com- 
 plains of profligates, 66; tries 
 to promote trade, 67; sends 
 out expeditions, 68; views on 
 trado, Int'ian policy and col- 
 ony, 69; dismissed, 69. 
 
 Cahokia, (Kaoquias) 110; con- 
 quered, 272. 
 
 Cairo, trading station near, 63. 
 
 Caldwell, Capt. William, 305; 
 attacks Bryan's Station, 308; 
 at Fallen Timbers, 350. 
 
 Calk, Journal of, 230. 
 
 Calloway, Betsey & Fanny, 
 captured, 260. 
 
 Calumet, peace pipe given to 
 Joliet, 19; brings peace, 22- 
 23; Indians accept Quakers', 
 153. 
 
 Calvo, Marquis de Casa, repre- 
 sents Spanish at New Orleans 
 transfer, 397. 
 
 Campbell, Colonel Archibald, 
 takes Savannah, 313. 
 Campbell, Col. William, at 
 Kings Mountain, 316; hangs 
 a Tory, 328. 
 
 Campbell, Major, commands a 
 British fort on Maumee, 352. 
 
 Cameron with raiders, 255. 
 
 Canadians, in the South, 60; 
 fought Braddock, 144, 148. 
 
 Canoes and dugouts described, 
 5, 22, 30. 
 
 Carheil, Father Etienne de, de- 
 scribes missions, 116. 
 
 Carmichael, in Spain, 373. 
 
 Carleton, Sir Guy, see Lord 
 Dorchester. 
 
 Carondelet, Baron de, com- 
 mands at New Orleans, starts 
 Indian raids, 371; opposes El- 
 licott, 375; transferred, 376. 
 
 Catholic Church protected, 272; 
 Children must join, 382. 
 
 Cat Island, named, 54; mutiny 
 on, 116. 
 
 Cataraqui, (Kingston, Canada). 
 27; settlement grows at, 30. 
 
 Caughnowagas, 121. 
 
 Celoron, (Monsieur de Bienville) 
 takes possession of Ohio Val- 
 ley, buries plates, etc., 128; 
 meets Old Britain, Indian 
 chief, 129. 
 
 Champlain, Samuel de, sends 
 Brule to the Indians, 2; work 
 in America, 2; influence of his 
 gun over-rated, 28. 
 Champlain. Lake, discovered, 
 fight, etc., 2. 
 
 Charleston, W. Va., laid out, 207. 
 Chesne, Monsieur de, order for 
 
 service among Hurons, 51. 
 Chicago River, La Salle's work 
 on, 43; portage to Fox River, 
 111. 
 Chickasaws and English threat- 
 en French, 57; hunted by Choc- 
 taws, 62; see 'Indian summary, 
 •76 et seq. 
 
 404
 
 Index. 
 
 Chickasaw Bluff, La Salle at, 
 44; Gayoso fortifies, 373; Elli- 
 cott stopped at, 375; Spanish, 
 377. 
 
 Chillicothe, Ohio, raided by 
 Clark, 290. 
 
 China, search for, 4-9. 
 
 Chine, La, rapids, described, 8, 
 9; origin of name, 10, 11; when. 
 Celeron left, 128. 
 
 Choctaw Indians encouraged to 
 hunt other tribes, 62. 
 
 Choteau, August & Pierre, sons 
 of Laclede, 162. 
 
 Christina, Indian woman, begs 
 for life, 301. 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, named, 339. 
 
 Civil Govt. West of Alleghanies, 
 202, 244. 
 
 Claiborne, W. C. C, American 
 Governor of Miss., 398. 
 
 Claims, land entry, made with 
 tomahawk, 204; cost of, 245; 
 at Marietta, 338; French and 
 British opposing, 124. 
 
 Clark, George Rogers, his work, 
 196; at Wheeling, 213; with 
 Cresap, 214; carries petition, 
 258; kills Indian, 262; sends 
 spies to Illinois, 263; method 
 of defending Kentucky, 265; 
 Illinois campaign, 267, et seq.; 
 skill in handling French and 
 Indians, 270, et. seq.; Vin- 
 cennes taken, 274; when the 
 British came to the Wabash, 
 275, et seq.; builds gun boat, 
 277; retakes Vincennes, 281; 
 returns to Falls of Ohio. 284; 
 ill-treatment of, 285; value of 
 work, 332, 353; contemplates 
 raid on Natchez, 364; to aid 
 French schemes, 371. 
 
 Clerc, Leo (brother-in-law of 
 Napoleon), in San Domingo, 
 384. 
 
 Clothing, frontier, 238, 241; Amer- 
 ican and French compared, 
 241-242. 
 
 Cocquard, Father Godfrey, de- 
 scribes French-Indian raids, 
 148. 
 
 Comet, La Salle's view of, com- 
 pared with Mather's, 40. 
 
 Congress at Albany, 141; at Al- 
 exandria, 142. 
 
 Congress, U. S. and Indians 
 and Pirates, 341; accepts lands 
 from States, 363; ratifies pur- 
 chase of Louisiana Ter., 395- 
 396. 
 
 Connelly, Dr. John, makes trou- 
 ble at Pittsburg, 211; tries to 
 Imprison friendly Indians, 217; 
 back to Kentucky, 367. 
 
 Constitution, United States, 
 adopted, 362. 
 
 Contractors, vile thieves, 343. 
 
 Contrecoeur, Capt. Claude Pe- 
 caudy de, takes a fort, 138; 
 commands at Ft. Duquesne, 
 143; .succeeded by Dumas, 148. 
 
 Convicts in colonies, 104. 
 
 Cooley, William, explores Ken- 
 tucky, 198. 
 
 Copper, found by Etienne 
 Brule, 3; search for, 10, 14; 
 Indian use of, 80. 
 
 Corn as a diet, 60, 61; food of 
 the Indians, 79; on frontier, 
 242; price in Hard Winter, 321. 
 
 Cornstalk attacks Virginians, 
 218; at the peace treaty, 221; 
 favors Americans, 266; mur- 
 dered, 266. 
 
 Cornwallis, Lord, whips Gates, 
 314; surrenders, 329. 
 
 Cotton, profitable, 380; cotton- 
 gin, 380. 
 
 Coureurs de bois, first, 1; de- 
 scribed, 3, 33, 34, 68; some en- 
 terprising, 111. 
 
 Cowan, John, first house at 
 i^ouisville, 207. 
 
 Crawford, Col. William, re« 
 ceives ammunition, z88; in raid 
 on Sandusky towns, 304; tor- 
 tured by Indians, 306. 
 
 Creoles, described, 169; migra- 
 tion, 169; and French Repub- 
 lic, 170; untimely dancing of, 
 397. 
 
 Cresap, Michael, needless 
 slaughters of Indians, 213; in 
 Revolution, 248. 
 
 Cresap, Col. Thomas, on Poto- 
 mac, 123; employed by Ohio 
 company, 190. 
 
 Crevecoeur, Fort, 236. 
 
 Crozat, Anthony, controls Lou- 
 isiana, 64; loses money, 68; 
 surrenders Louisiana to King, 
 
 Croghan, George, sent to Indi- 
 ans, 191; warns against attack 
 on Indians, 212; foils Connel- 
 ly. 217. 
 
 Cumberland, Duke of, 124, 191. 
 
 Cumberland River & Gap 
 named, 124. 
 
 Cumberland, Md., trail from, 124. 
 
 Cutbirth, Benjamin, 198. 
 
 Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, secures 
 land grant from Congress, 336, 
 337. 
 
 D'Abbadie, M., sent to New 
 Orleans. 163; permits British 
 trade in New Orleans, 167. 
 
 Dablon, Father Claude, tells or 
 Joliet, 15. 
 
 Daring, frigate, whipped by 
 d' Iberville, 52. 
 
 405
 
 Index. 
 
 Dartmouth, ship, (tea party), 
 248. 
 
 Dauphine Island, named, 54; 
 settled, 60. 
 
 Deckhard rifle, 237; used at 
 King's Mountain, 315; Deck- 
 hard rifle government, 203. 
 
 Delassus, Don Charles D., ap- 
 points Boone to office, 382. 
 
 De Ligneris, leaves Duquesne, 
 154. 
 
 Denis, Juchereau de St., expe- 
 ditions to Mexico, 67, 68. 
 
 De Noyant, arrested, 165. 
 
 Denton, Mrs., one of the first 
 white women in Kentucky, 
 240. 
 
 De Soto, see chapter ix. 
 
 Desperadoes, 211. 
 
 D-s Plaines River, La Salle on, 
 11. 
 
 Detroit, Mich., Clark plans to 
 take, 284. 
 
 Dieskau, Baron, in command of 
 Canada, 142. 
 
 Dinwiddle, Gov. Robert, pro- 
 tests to French, 135; King or- 
 ders him to make war on the 
 French, 137; sends troops to 
 Redstone creek, 138. 
 
 Diplomacy, early Indian, 4. 
 
 Doak. Rev. Samuel, and his 
 books, 319; labors successful, 
 362. 
 
 Doddridge's Notes. 232; opinion 
 of Williamson, 299. 
 
 Donelson, Col. John, goes to 
 site of Nashville, 290. 
 
 Dorchester, Lord, (formerly Sir 
 Guy Carleton) letter to, 334; 
 misrepresentations by, 336; 
 speaks to the Indians, 346; re- 
 sponsible for Indian suffer- 
 ings, 349. 
 
 Douay, Father Anastose. pres- 
 ent at death of La Salle, 48, 
 49. 
 
 Douville's troops gave no quar- 
 ter, 149. 
 
 Drag^ng Canoe, attacks whites, 
 256; refuses peace, 258. 
 
 Dubreuil. A. M., erects sugar 
 mill, 168. 
 
 Duclos, commissary, describes 
 women of Louisiana, 66; dis- 
 missed, 69. 
 
 Duer, Col. "William, speculator, 
 
 337. 
 Dug-out, a Sioux boat, 5. 
 
 Du Gay, assistant of Accau, 37. 
 Dumas, Captain, succeeds Con- 
 trecoeur, 148; gives written 
 orders to prevent torture, 149; 
 like Col. Hamilton, 255. 
 Dunlap Station, Ky., attacked, 
 339. 
 
 Dunmore, Lord, in Indian War, 
 218; makes peace, 221; pro- 
 claims in vain, 243. 
 
 Dunmore's War, 209, et seq. ; 
 action of soldiers at end of, 
 247. 
 
 Duquesne, Marquis de Menne- 
 ville, approves attack on Old 
 Britain, 132; to keep British 
 east of Alleghanies, 133. 
 
 Duquesne. Fort, prisoners burn- 
 ed at, 146; evacuated, 171. 
 
 Dutch, give guns and ideas to 
 Indians, 100. 
 
 Eaton's Station, garrison at- 
 tacks Indians, 256. 
 
 Ecuyer, Captain, deceives In- 
 dians, 176. 
 
 Ellicott, Andrew, American 
 Commissioner to survey line 
 between United States and 
 Spanisli Florida, 375. 
 
 Ellinipsico, killed, 266. 
 
 Elliott, Matthew, Renegade, 305. 
 
 English top the Alleghanies. 57, 
 75; claim the West, 76; cross 
 the Alleghanies. 124; com- 
 pared with French, 124; rights 
 in the Mississippi Valley, 125- 
 126; gain Canada, 155; horri- 
 fied by sight of Yorkshire 
 habit of gouging out eyes, 327. 
 
 English Turn in Mississippi 
 River, named, 58. 
 
 Erie, Penn., (Presqu' Isle), 
 French reach, 134. 
 
 Espiritu Santu, a name of Mis- 
 sissippi River, 161. 
 
 Fallen Timbers, battle of, 350 
 et seq. 
 
 Fawcett, Thomas, kills Brad- 
 dock, 145. 
 
 Feast of 120 beavers, 5; Immac- 
 ulate Conception, 16; Fron- 
 tier, 242. 
 
 Federalists and War, 390. 
 
 Femme Osage district, Missou- 
 ri, 382. 
 
 Ferguson, Major Patrick, finds 
 Patriots, 314; fights at King's 
 Mountain, 315, 317. 
 
 Fillibustering, threatened, 364, 
 371; done, 381. 
 
 Filson, John, map, 228; with 
 Symmes and Boone, 338. 
 
 Finley, John, tells Boone sto- 
 ries' 197; with Boone, 198. 
 
 Florida, De Soto lands in, 158; 
 British in West, 167, 288; Span- 
 ish gain, 289; French gain, 384. 
 
 Floyd, John, Kentucky Colonel, 
 
 325. 
 Pood, frontier, 242; cost of, 324. 
 Forbes, Gen. John, starts for 
 Ft, Duquesne, 152; enters, 154. 
 
 406
 
 Index. 
 
 Forts. Adams. 398; Bute, built, 
 206; British on Maumee, (Mi- 
 ami), 347; Chartres, 107; 
 French at Chartres, 154; Char- 
 tres surrendered, 207; chain 
 of built, 151; Defiance. 349; Du- 
 quesne, built, 134, 138; Fred- 
 erick, at Crown Point, 122; 
 Frontenac, built, 30; the same 
 pledged for debt, 31; seized, 
 33; captured by British, 151; 
 Indian at Marietta, 85; Grand- 
 ville, 150; Great Meadows, 139; 
 La Boulaye, 159; La Boeuf, 
 13-: Massac, 269, 272; Miami, 
 built by La Salle, 36; Mata- 
 gorda Bay, 46; same raided, 
 49; Natchitoches. 68-69; Ne- 
 cessity, 140; New Orleans, 
 first built, 72. 74; Oswego, 122; 
 Pitt, besieged, 175; Redstone, 
 138; St. Louis, 45; Starved 
 Rock. 45; Venango, 135; Wash- 
 ington, 340; Wayne, 352. See 
 chapter on La Salle. 
 
 Fox River, Nicolet up, 5; De- 
 scription of country at head, 
 17; Portage at. 111. 
 
 Frankfort, Kv., founded, 208. 
 
 Franklin, state set up, 362. 
 
 Franklin, Ben., leaves England, 
 250; makes peace treaty, 331, 
 et seq.; his regard for the Mis- 
 sissippi, 358. 
 
 French-Indian war, first gun, 
 132. 
 
 French spoliations, 383-384. 
 
 FVench, (see chapters vi, vii, 
 viii.) treaties with Indians. 2, 
 4, 5; compared with other Na- 
 tions, 6. 7, 11; peace with Ir- 
 oquois, 28; jealousy of English, 
 53; dislike of Americans, 270. 
 
 French Government, attitude 
 toward U. S., 332. 351; plans 
 to take New Orleans from 
 Spanish, 371; buys Louisiana, 
 383, 384; warned by Jefferson, 
 386; sell Louisiana to U. S., 
 394. 
 
 Friendship, frontier test of. 290. 
 
 Frontenac, Monsieur de. Gov. 
 Canada, sends Joliet to Mis- 
 sissippi, 15; described, 26; rec- 
 ognizes La Salle's worth, 26; 
 leaves Montreal to dazzle Iro- 
 quois, 27; sends La Salle to 
 France, 28; hates Jesuits, 29; 
 coat of arms. 32; recalled, 45. 
 
 Frontier life. 107, 108. 
 
 Fry, Joshua, made Colonel, 137; 
 sent to Logstown, 191; death, 
 140. 
 
 F\irniture frontier. 232. 
 
 Galena. 111., founded. 108. 
 
 Galvez. Don Bernado de. Gov. 
 of Louisiana, 287; confiscates 
 
 British ships, 287; loans U. S. 
 $6,000,288; captures Natchez, 289, 
 359, 369; Miro succeeds. 363. 
 
 Game laws, 244. 
 
 Gardoqui, Don Diego, Spanish 
 treaty made by, 364; his bri- 
 bery, 365; plans to draw off 
 American settlers. 367; re- 
 turns to Spain, 369. 
 
 Gates. Gen. Horatio, defeated, 
 314; Wilkinson, his aide, 360. 
 
 Gayarre. Charles, historian, on 
 burning of Indians, 114. 
 
 Gayoso, (Manuel Gayoso de 
 Lemos), and Wilkinson, 365; 
 Commandant at Chicksaw 
 Bluffs, 373; wearisome dilly- 
 ing-dallying, 375; dies after 
 spree, 389. 
 
 Genet, "Citizen," Edmund 
 Charles, comes to U. S.. 371. 
 
 Georgia, movement to control 
 Miss. Valley begun, 370; sells 
 land (Yazoo fraud). 373. 
 
 Georgian Bay visited by Nico- 
 let, 4; La Salle en route to, 
 43. 
 
 Germain, Lord, approved In- 
 dian raids. 289. 
 
 German Coast of Miss. River, 
 104. 
 
 Germans in Miss. Valley, 104. 
 
 Gibault, Father Pierre, begs 
 Clark for life, 271: helps Amer- 
 icans secure Vincennes, 272. 
 
 Gibson, Col., John, interpreter, 
 222; tries to protect Gnaden- 
 hutten Indians, 277. 279. 
 
 Girty. Simon, and Moravians, 
 298; at Crawford's raid, 305; at- 
 tacks Dunlap station, 339. 
 
 Gist, Christopher, with Wash- 
 ington. 136. 139; employed by- 
 Ohio Company, 190; treats with 
 Indians, 191. 
 
 Gnadenhutten, Ohio. 89; Indi- 
 ans at, 188; building of. 216; 
 the storv of. 293; et seq.; ef- 
 fect on Indians, 308-311; effect 
 of, 329. 
 
 Gomer, Nancy, heroine, 291. 
 
 Gordon, Lieut., captured and 
 killed. 175. 
 
 Government, frontier, 244; at 
 Watauga. 201; at Nashbor- 
 ough. 291. 
 
 Grant. Major James, defeated, 
 153. 
 
 Grave Creek. W. Va.. attack 
 on Indians at. 214. 
 
 Gravier. Father, at Kaskaskia, 
 75: manner of curing disease, 
 115. 
 
 Grny. soldier, esoanes. 175. 
 
 Greathouse. Daniel C, leads 
 attif^k. on Indians at Yellow 
 creek, 215. 
 
 407
 
 Index. 
 
 Green Bay, Mich., Nicolet at, 
 5; mentioned, 111. 
 
 Greenville, Ohio, named, 345. 
 
 Gridiron Flag co/ers the Na- 
 tion, 378. 
 
 Griflin, first ship on Lake Erie, 
 32; sails on Lakv^s, 35; lost, 
 37-38. 
 
 Grossellliers, Menard Chouart 
 des, goes with Radisson, into 
 region S. & W. of Lake Su- 
 perior, 5; described, 5, 6, 7; 
 into the Miss. Valley, 7; final 
 word of, 400. 
 
 Guion, Captain Isaac, sent to 
 Miss. Valley, 377. 
 
 Gulf of Mexico, La Salle reach- 
 es, 44. 
 
 Half King, speaks to Gnaden- 
 hutten Indians, 297. 
 
 Hamilton, Col. Henry, instruc- 
 tions to, 251; sends raiders, 
 253; captured, 254; incites In- 
 dians, 259; tries to ransom 
 Boone, 264; goes hunting 
 Clark, 275; takes Vincennes, 
 275; Clark sends him to Vir- 
 ginia, 281. 
 
 Hammond, British Ambassador, 
 describes Wayne, 342; justifieg 
 British aggression, 348. 
 
 Hampshire, ship sunk by Iber- 
 ville, 52, 53. 
 
 "Hard Winter," described, 320, 
 mentioned, 290. 
 
 Harmer, Gen. Josiah, raids In- 
 dians, 335. 
 
 Harpe, Bernard de la, builds 
 Fort St. Louis de Carlorette, 
 69. 
 
 Harrison, Benjamin, at battle 
 of Point Pleasant, 221. 
 
 Harrod, James, founds Harrods- 
 burg, 208. 
 
 Harrodsburg, Ky., become^ 
 county seat, 259; under fire all 
 summer, 261; force at, 263, 264; 
 land office closed by Clark, 
 290; first court at, 325. 
 HeckweldeT, John, Moravian 
 Missionary, 216. 
 
 Helm, Capt. Leonard, at Vin- 
 cennes, 275; bluffs Col. Hamil- 
 ton, 276; joke on, by George 
 Rogers Clark, 281. 
 
 Henderson, Col. Richard, Boone 
 works for, 200; founds Tran- 
 sylvania Co., 225; cause of 
 failure, 245. 
 
 Henderson, Ky., named for Col. 
 Henderson, 245. 
 
 Hennepin, La Salle's Chaplain, 
 and historian of expedition 
 to Miss. River, 33; tries to 
 bribe St. Anthony, 33. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, call to arms, 
 248; approves Clark's expedi' 
 
 tion to Illinois, 268. 
 
 Hickman meets Indians, 219. 
 
 Hill, William, with Boone, 198. 
 
 Hillsborough, Lord, explains 
 King's proclamation regarding 
 Indian land, 186. 
 
 Hogan, Mrs., comes to Boones- 
 borough, 240. 
 
 Homeseekers, fearless of dan- 
 ger, 264. 
 
 House boat, first known on 
 Miss., 167. 
 
 House boatmen, first in Miss. 
 Valley 205. 
 
 Hudson's Bay, (ship), captured 
 by Iberville, 53. 
 
 Huron Indians, guides of Nico- 
 let, 4; around Georgian Bay, 
 5; on Miss. River, 7. 
 
 Iberville, Le Moyne de, offers 
 to plant colony in Louisiana, 
 52; captures British ships in 
 Hudson's Bay, 52; sails from 
 Brest, 53; into Miss. River, 54; 
 names lakes, 55; meets Ton- 
 ti, 59; moves colony to Mo- 
 bile Bay, 60; builds Miss, fort, 
 72. 
 
 Ignace, St., (Village in Michi- 
 gan), mission, Joliet at, 16. 
 
 Illinois Indians, La Salle's peace 
 with, 36. 
 
 Illinois, (state) first land war- 
 rant in, 108; grain from, 110; 
 early settlements, 110. 
 t, Illinois river, route of Joliet's 
 return, 23, 24. 
 
 Independence, first idea of in 
 U. S., 165; and Watauga 
 Govt., 203. 
 
 Indians, (see chapter v.), trea- 
 ty with l^icolet, 4; hostile to 
 Joliet, 22; Fox implacably 
 against the French, 111; in- 
 ternal dissensions, 131; can- 
 nibals, 148, 149; relative losses 
 in wars with whites, 180; how 
 wronged by whites, 187, 188; 
 British and, 250; character 
 shown in dealing with George 
 Rogers Clark, 272, 273; most 
 significant statement made in 
 connection with, 295; faith of, 
 298; smallpox spread among, 
 291. 
 
 Indigo in Louisiana, 167, 168. 
 
 Innes, Judge Henry, a traitor, 
 366. 
 
 Iroquois, raids, 6; check com- 
 merce of French, 6; Fronten- 
 ac and, 27; enmity toward 
 French, 28; sent by Jesuits to 
 destroy fort, 39; see Indian 
 summary, 79. et seq. ; losing 
 grip, 131. 
 
 Iroquet, Indian Chief, treats 
 with Champlain, 2. 
 
 408
 
 Index. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, backwoods 
 hero, dances, 236; his wife 
 Rachael, 290; member of Ten- 
 nessee Convention, 363. 
 Jaudenes, Spanish Minister, 373. 
 Jay, John, peace treaty, 332; 
 sent to make treaty, 353; to 
 Spain, 358; in Spain, 372. 
 Jefferson, Thomas, approves 
 Clark's plans, 269; favors war 
 then bribery, 339; on policy of 
 Bribery, 341; instructions to 
 Spanish, Miss, affairs, 373; 
 tells of Randolph's slaves, 
 380; porcupine policy, 385; our 
 greatest politician, 385; warns 
 France, 386; insincere, 387; In 
 regard to Spanish aggression, 
 289, 290; his uppermost thought, 
 390. 
 Jesuits, quarrel with Fronten- 
 ac, 29, 30; send Iroquois to de- 
 stroy La Salle's fort, 39; in 
 New Orleans, 106. 
 Johnson, Capt. George, to take 
 possession of territory east of 
 the Mississippi, 205. 
 Johnson. Sir William, treaty 
 
 with Indians, 182. 
 Johnson. Sir John, letter to Jo- 
 seph Brant. 334. 
 Joliet, Louis, sent to explore 
 Miss. River, 14; Father Mar- 
 quette was chaplain of the 
 expedition. 15, 16; among Il- 
 linois Indians, 18, 19 ;■ turna 
 toward home, 23; route home, 
 24; loses papers, 24. 
 Joncaire, at, post on Niagara 
 River, 122; receives Washing- 
 ton, 136. 
 Jones, John Paul, writes Rank, 
 
 322; as a fighter, 324. 
 Joutel tells of La Salle, 48. 
 Juchereau, a trader, at Cairo, 
 
 111., 63. 
 Jumonville, Ensign Coulon de, 
 
 fought by Washington, 139. 
 Justice, frontier, 202; to inferi- 
 or race, 311; Deckhard-rifle 
 kind, 356. 
 Kankakee River, La Salle at, 
 
 Kaskaskia, 111., established, 69; 
 becomes parish. 108; college at, 
 108; Clark reaches, 270, 271. 
 
 Kentucky. first cargo from 
 down Miss., 198; "dark and 
 bloody ground," 204; settlers 
 described, 207; early homes in 
 described, 230; organizing set- 
 tlers. 258; raided, 264; suffers 
 at Blue Licks, 311; first Court 
 House and Jail, 325; loyalty, 
 371; Spanish in. 373; popula- 
 tion, (1790-lSOO). 380; Kentucky 
 River settled, 208; first women 
 
 in, 240; first legislature in, 
 244; sporting blood, 244; first 
 race course, 244; early life in, 
 245; cause of rapid growth, 
 250; divided into three coun- 
 ties, 325; progress in, 325; 
 raids after the war, 325; re- 
 inforces Wayne, 349; restless- 
 ness in, 356; to make a Govt., 
 359; Kentucky joins the Union, 
 361; history of, doleful read- 
 ing. 367. 
 
 King's Mountain fight, 311; et 
 seq. 
 
 Kingston, Canada, then Catara- 
 qui, 27; a trading station, 27, 
 29; traflac of lakes begins at, 
 30; vessels at, 30; value to La 
 Salle, 30; base of war, 30. 
 
 Knight, Dr. John, on Craw- 
 ford's raid, 304; captured, 
 306; escapes, 307. 
 
 L'Anse de la Graisse, Missouri, 
 
 La Beuf, Pa., attack on, 175. 
 Laclede, Pierre Liqueste, founds 
 
 St. Louis, 162. 
 Lafayette, Ind.. site of. 111. 
 La Freniere, of New Orleans, 
 
 arrested, 165; executed, 166. 
 Langlade, Charles, leads attack 
 
 on Old Britains Indians, 132. 
 La Mott, La Salle's assistant, 
 
 fort builder, 31. 
 La Salle. Rene Robert Cavalier, 
 Sieur de, origin, 8; establish- 
 es frontier trading station, 8; 
 hears about the Great River, 
 9; fails to find China, 10; into 
 Great Valley, via lake Michi- 
 gan, 11; Frontenac befriends, 
 26, 27; other traders hate, 30; 
 builds fort at Niagara, 31; 
 voyage on upper lakes, 32; et 
 seq.; origin of troubles with 
 coureurs de bois, 35; builds 
 fort Crevecoeur, 36; sends 
 Hennepin to Miss. River. 37; 
 loss of ship Griffin, 38; enmity 
 of Jesuits. 39; not afraid of a 
 comet, 40; tells of profits in 
 Indian trade, 41; down the 
 Miss. River. 43; claims the 
 Great "Valley for France, 44; 
 expedition to Gulf of Mexico, 
 45, et seq.; in Texas, 46, et seq.; 
 murdered. 49. 
 Laussatt. Pierre Clement, civil 
 governor at New Orleans, 397. 
 Law, John, takes hold of Louis- 
 iana, 70; described, 70; floats 
 the Mississippi Co. 71; his 
 Company beeins work in Val- 
 ley, 103. 
 Laws, first in Kentucky, 244. 
 Lead ore, a profit on, 63; found. 
 
 409
 
 Index. 
 
 Lemos, see Gayoso. 
 
 Levee, first built to hold the 
 Miss. River to course, 106. 
 
 Lewis, Gen. Andrew, his for- 
 ces at battle of Point Pleas- 
 ant, 218. 
 
 Lexington, Ky., named in stir- 
 ring fashion, 246. 
 
 Limestone, Ky., (Maysville), 
 when a tough town, 326. 
 
 Linn, Lieutenant, married, 263; 
 voyage up the Miss., 288. 
 
 Little Turtle, whips St. Clair, 340. 
 
 Livingston, Robert R., Jeffer- 
 son writes to, 386; tries to pur- 
 chase Louisiana, 388; said 
 "only force can give us New 
 I Orleans," 393; buys Louisiana, 
 394. 
 
 Lochry, Col. Archibald, com- 
 mand destroyed, 322. 
 
 Logan, Indian Chief, family at- 
 tacked, 215; starts on War 
 Path, 217; famous speech, 222. 
 
 Logan, Benjamin, a Kentucky 
 ^olonel. 325; raids Indians. 335. 
 
 "Log Rolling," described, 235. 
 
 Lomas Lumsford. 191. 
 
 Losantiville, afterward Cincin- 
 nati, 339. 
 
 Losses of the forces on both 
 sides in Indian wars, 179, 180. 
 
 Louisburg captured, 151. 
 
 Louisiana, named, 44; colony in, 
 described, 61 et seq. ; Inten- 
 dant's business in, 61; Indians 
 threaten, 63; starvation in, 63; 
 Crozat in charge of. 64; popu- 
 lation of, 66, 166; state of. 55, 
 115; trade in, 167; Spain ac- 
 quires, 162; French home life in, 
 241; Napoleon secures. 384 et 
 seq: Americans to buy, 390; 
 purchased by Americans, 394; 
 formal work of transfer, 396, 
 397. 
 
 Louisville, La Salle reaches, 10; 
 founded. 207; fort at, 321. 
 
 Louis XIV, acquires pre-emption 
 rights in Miss. Valley, 44; 
 smiles on La Salle, 45, 46. 
 
 Louis XV, inherits bankrupt 
 nation, 70. 
 
 Luzerne, French envoy sent to 
 
 support Spanish claim, 358. 
 Lvman, General Phineas, at 
 Natchez, 205; land grant to, 207. 
 
 Lvnch law on Frontier, 203, 211. 
 Lythe, Rev. John, at primitive 
 
 Legislature, 244. 
 Madison, James, indicates a 
 salutary precedent, 359; letter 
 to Washington, 386. 
 Mailed fist, 290. 
 Marietta, Ohio, Indian mound 
 
 at, 85; built. 337. 
 Marbois, Barbe, notes condi- 
 
 A 
 
 tions in America, 391; conducts 
 negotiations for sale of Louis- 
 iana, 394. 
 
 Marin, Pierre Paul, Sieur de, 
 leads expedition, 134, 135. 
 
 Marin, Iberville's ship, 53. 
 
 Marquette, Father, claims as 
 a discoverer considered, 15, et 
 seq. ; Joutel belittles, 20; his 
 account of Joliet's expedition, 
 24; at St. Ignace, 16. 
 
 Martin's Station, Ky., taken, 
 290. 
 
 Mascoso, Luis de, leads rem- 
 nants of De Soto's band, 161. 
 
 Mason, George, approves 
 Clark's expedition to the Il- 
 linois, 268. 
 
 Massacre Island, named, 54. 
 
 Matagorda Bay, supposed land- 
 ing place of La Salle, 46; fort 
 raided by Spanish, 49. 
 
 Maurepas, Lake named, 55. 
 
 Maurepas, a French statesman 
 and writer, 56. 
 
 Mayo, Col. William, surveyor, 
 124. 
 
 Maysville, Ky., 326. 
 
 McAfee, James, George and 
 Robert, 208. 
 
 McConnel, brings news of war, 
 246; killed, 263. 
 
 McCulloch, Major Samuel, at 
 Wheeling, 261. 
 
 McGary, Mrs., one of women 
 at Boonesborough, 240. 
 
 McGarry, Major Hugh, bully, 
 at Blue Licks, 310. 
 
 McGillivry, Alexander, leads 
 Indians, 363. 
 
 McKee, Alexander, renegade, 
 305; store destroyed, 352. 
 
 Medicine men, 95. 
 
 Memphis, Tenn., fort at, 373. 
 
 Mercier, Father Francois le, 
 leads expedition to Iroquois 
 country, 8. 
 
 Meskousing, now Wisconsin 
 river, 17. 
 
 Miami, Mich., La Salle's fort 
 in. 36 Abnekis flee to, 40; a 
 British fort on Maumee River, 
 347. 
 
 Michigan, region west of visited 
 by Nicolet, 4; La Salle sends 
 men to, 31. 
 
 Milhet, John and Joseph, ar- 
 rested, 165. 
 
 Mingo Bottom, Ohio, raiders 
 gather at. 299. 
 
 Minor, Don Stephen, at Nat- 
 chez, 376; sneaks away, 377. 
 
 Miro, Gov., Don Estevan, at 
 New Orelans, 363; urges In- 
 dians to war, 364; does not 
 enthuse over American sub- 
 jects, 370; transferred, 371. 
 
 TO
 
 Index. 
 
 Mississippi Company, floated, 71; 
 land granted to, 112; begins 
 work, 103; leaves Louisiana, 114. 
 
 Mississippi Territory organized, 
 379; kind of people that went 
 to. 3S0. 
 
 Mississippi River first seen, 1; 
 the search for, 5, 7, 9, 14, 17; 
 visited by Grosseilliers and 
 Radisson, 7; first written men- 
 tion by name, 8; discovered 
 and described, 14; Indians on, 
 19, 21; boats on, 22; La Salle 
 plants forts along, 31; Iber- 
 ville finds. 54; De Soto raid 
 to, 157, et seq.; mouth dis- 
 covered, 161; navigation free 
 to British, 167; bids for settlers 
 on lower, 205; closed to Brit- 
 ish, 287-288; Spanish claim to, 
 358; Spanish close, 359; efforts 
 to open, 362; Franklin's view 
 of, 385. 
 
 Mississippi Valley, Marquette 
 describes, 24; La Salle's plans 
 to acquire, 37; claimed for 
 France, 44; life in old valley, 
 55; Law's descriptions of, 71; 
 French in during 18th Century, 
 125; English gain eastern 
 watershed, 155; war losses in, 
 180; British life in, 184; s ttlers 
 in lower, 207; prosperity in ac- 
 cording to kind of people, 242, 
 322; explorations in, 337; Span- 
 ish in, 363; movement to Ameri- 
 canize, 370; Spain opens, 374; 
 Americans get their own in, 
 377-378; France buys part of, 
 383; prosperity of in 1802, 388; 
 purchased, 395-396; tlie Flag 
 over all, 401. 
 
 Missouri, mines in, 68. 
 
 Missojuri River, reached by Joli- 
 et, 20; described, 20; small fort 
 on, 63. 
 
 Mitchegamea. a village. 22. 
 
 Mobile Bay, visited, named and 
 colonized, 60; traders go to 
 New Orleans. 106. 
 
 Spanish take, 2S9. 
 
 Money, Continental, 321. 
 
 Monroe, James, appointed to 
 make treaty, 390; buys Louisi- 
 ana. 394. 
 
 Monso, Indian chief, enemy of 
 La Salle, 36. 
 
 Monsters on Mississippi, 16, 18, 
 20; whirl-pool, 21. 
 
 Montcalm, Gozon de Saint Ver- 
 an, Louis Joseph, Marquis de, 
 describes Indian doings, 149. 
 
 Montreal, Que., frontier post, 8. 
 
 Morales, Don Juan Venturo, 
 breaks treaty, 388. 
 
 Morgan, Col. George, gets Span- 
 ish grant, 367. 
 
 Mooney, James, 198; meets In- 
 dians, 219. 
 
 Morals, Indian, 93; French, 113, 
 114, 116. 
 
 Moravian Missionaries, deeds, 
 9S; and Ohio Indians, 216; the 
 story of, 293; human wolves 
 among, 300; saw justice, 311. 
 
 Mounds, Indian, 85; saloon in. 
 one, 86. 
 
 Moyne, Charles le, 52. 
 
 Moyne, Father le, speech to 
 Indians, 100. 
 
 Muskingum River, Ohio. Chris- 
 tian settlements on, 294. 
 
 Napoleon, power in France, 38^; 
 idea of the Miss. Valley, 388; 
 gets the true facts, 391; says 
 the right thing, 392; and does 
 it, 394; creates "a British 
 rival," 393. 
 
 Nashborough, Tenn.. govern- 
 ment and life at. 291. 
 
 Nashville. Tenn.. 68, 290. 
 
 Natchez, Miss., (Rosalie) found- 
 ed, 68, 113; wiped out by In- 
 dians, 113; Gen. Lyman and 
 families emigrate, to, 2 5; 
 grants of land at, 207; garri- 
 son at, 288; taken, 2S9, 359; 
 str-iggle to hold, 369; Ellicott 
 and Spanish at, 376; seized by 
 citizens, 376; Spanish leave, 
 American at last, 377. 
 
 Natchez Indians meet La Salle, 
 44; in a panic over storm, 59; 
 see IndiTn summary, 76 et seq. 
 
 Natchitoches, fort at, 68-69; colo- 
 nists a , 103. 
 
 "Natural rights," 357. 
 
 Nau, Father, on "sea of bea- 
 ver," 121. 
 
 Nautilus, ship's captain held, 
 348. 
 
 Neely, Alexander, goes home, 
 199. 
 
 Nemacolin. blazes trail, 190. 
 
 New Hampshire, adopts Consti- 
 tution. 362. 
 
 New Madrid, Missouri, post at. 
 110; land grant at, 367. 
 
 New Orleans, La., founded, 72- 
 74; Law's colonists at, 104; 
 Bienville af. 106; Ursuline Nuns 
 at, 106; described by Sister 
 Hochard, 107; trade freed, 114; 
 ceded to Spain, by FYench, 1.55; 
 transferred. 163; O'Reily at. 
 165; population. 166; ship load 
 of flour at, 168; manners at, 
 170; smugglers in, 206; Jack- 
 son at. 236; British ships seized 
 at, 287; free to Americans by 
 treaty. 374; customs receipts 
 doubled. 382; Jefferson on, 386; 
 ceded to U. S., 393; ceremonies 
 of cession, 398. 
 
 411
 
 Index. 
 
 New York free of raids, 122. 
 
 Nicolet, Jean, Joins Cliamplain, 
 3; life among Indians, 3; ex- 
 plores Lake Michigan region, 
 4, 5. 
 
 Nika, Indian companion of La 
 Salle, murdered, 48. 
 
 Nolan, Philip, killed, 381. 
 
 North Carolina cedes lands to 
 Congress, 361; resumes control, 
 362, adopts Constitution, 362. 
 
 Oconee War, 363. 
 
 O'Fallon, Dr. James, in the Val- 
 ley, 370. 
 
 Ogden, Amos, land grant, 207. 
 
 Ohio Company, formed, 189 et 
 seq.j absorbed, 195. 
 
 Ohio River, (La Belle Rivierre, 
 Ouabouskigou), La Salle vis- 
 its, 11; La Salle passes mouth 
 on Miss., 21; road to forks of, 
 124; Valley claimed by Celor- 
 on, 128; fort at forks of be- 
 gun, 138; Wheeling head of 
 deep water navigation, 204; 
 400 families down in 1773. 205; 
 desperadoes along, 211; people 
 in the valley, 224, 236, 321; dan- 
 ger in, 322; slavery in, 3 3 7; 
 north side opened to settlers, 
 353; type of people in, 380. 
 
 Old Britain. Indian chief. 129; 
 at Piqua, or Pickawillany, 136; 
 defeated and eaten, 132; for- 
 gotten, 135. 
 
 O'Reilly, Don Alexandre, at 
 New Orleans, 165; and Pollock, 
 168; sails away, 168. 
 
 Oswald. Richard, treaty maker, 
 331; far-sighted perhaps, 370. 
 
 Oswego, N. Y., founded, 122; 
 captuied, 151. 
 
 Ouabouskigou, see Ohio river. 
 
 Ouiatanon, Ind., now Lafayette, 
 111. 
 
 Overture, Toussainte 1', at San 
 Domingo, 384. 
 
 Ozarks, (mountains in Missouri), 
 De Soto at, 160. 
 
 Pepin Lake, visited, 60. 
 
 Packet service established on 
 the Ohio, 380. 
 
 Palatines, the buffer settle- 
 ments of, 122. 
 
 Parma, Duke of, 385. 
 
 Pean. Chevalier, husband o f 
 Madam Pean, 134; makes mon- 
 ey, 154. 
 
 Patton, James, 191. 
 
 Pearl fisheries, sought, 56. 
 
 Pelican, d' Iberville's frigate, 52. 
 
 Penalvert, Bishop, 170. 
 
 Penisseault. Maj. husband of 
 Pean's mistress, 155. 
 
 Pennsylvania heard from, 53; 
 quarrels among people, 130; 
 
 staked claims on New River, 
 
 197. 
 Pensacola, Fla., taken, 289. 
 Peoria Lake, reached, by La. 
 
 Salle, 43. 
 Perier, Governor of Louisiana, 
 
 burns Indians, 114. 
 Petit, Father le, in regard to 
 
 Indians, 95. 
 Petroleum, spring described by 
 
 priest, 8. 
 Peyster, Arent Schuyler de, at 
 
 Detroit, 289. 
 Picture Rocks, first seen by 
 
 whites, 20; described by Mar- 
 quette, 20; Joutel at, 20-21. 
 Pickawillany, or Piqua towns, 
 
 130; English win Indians at, ^ 
 
 139: raided by Clark, 290. 
 Pineda, Don Alonzo de, at mouth 
 
 of Miss., 161. 
 Pinchon, on Jefferson and U. S. 
 
 people, 391. 
 Pinckney, Thomas, 373. 
 Pipe, Captain, in Crawford's 
 
 raid, 305, 306. 
 Piquet, Abbe, causes raids, 101. 
 Pittsburg, region claimed b y 
 
 French. 137; Wayne at, 344.. 
 Plet, Francois, lends La Salle 
 
 money, 31. 
 Point Pleasant, (at the junction 
 
 of Ohio River and Great Kana- 
 wha), battle of, 218. 
 Poisson, Father du, describes 
 
 people and country, 112. 
 Pollock, Oliver, flour deal, 168; 
 
 a patriot martyr, 285; permitted 
 
 to send supplies up Miss., 288; 
 
 gives good advice, 288. 
 Pompadour, Madam, angered 
 
 by Maurepas, 56; true ruler of 
 
 France, 142; result of her rule, 
 
 155-156. 
 Ponchartrain, Lake, named, 55. 
 Pontiac, his war, 171. 179; meets 
 
 Croghan, 192; makes peace, 193. 
 Pope Lieut. Piercy S., with El- 
 
 licott, 375. 
 Porcupine Policy, 385. 
 Portage City, Wis., on the old 
 
 carry. 17. 
 Post, Charles Frederick, sent to 
 
 Ohio Indians, 152; secures 
 
 peace, 153. 
 Potomac River, cabin on head 
 
 of, 123. 
 Potter, John, gives good advice, 
 
 151. 
 Poupet, W., merchant, arrested, 
 
 165. 
 Powell. Major J. W., best au- 
 thority on Indian. 101. 
 Prairie du Rocher, 111., 110. 
 Presbyterian Church, Doak's, 
 
 320, 362. 
 
 412
 
 Index. 
 
 Prescott, Gen. Richard, at New- 
 port, 251. 
 
 Presqu' Isle, (Erie, Pa.), 134. 175. 
 
 Prestonburg, Ky., site of one of 
 Boone's camps, 198. 
 
 Price, Ensign, escapes Indians, 
 175. 
 
 Priestly, Dr. Joseph, hears 
 from Jefferson. 391. 
 
 Prisoners burned at New Or- 
 leans by French. 114. 
 
 Prudhomme, Pierre, lost a t 
 Chickasaw Bluffs, 44. 
 
 Puritans, drive out Abenakis, 
 40. 
 
 Putnam, Gen. Rufus, home 
 maker, 336. 
 
 Quakers, send Post to Indians, 
 152; and Pontiac's war, 173; and 
 Moravian Indians, 294; saw 
 justice, 311. 
 
 Quapaw. Indians, 22; their fate, 
 23- seen through a real estate 
 dealer's eyes, 88; and De Soto's 
 band, 161. 
 
 Quebec, founded by Champlam, 
 2- its trade, destroyed by Iro- 
 quois, 6; La Salle goes to, 9; its 
 traders cowardly, 10. 
 
 Quebec Bill, 196. 249. 
 
 Quindre. Daigniau de, attacks 
 Boonesborough, 264. 
 
 Race Course at Shallow Ford 
 Station, 244. . 
 
 Radisson, Pierre Esprit, (with 
 Grosseilliers), 5; final word as 
 to. 400. „ ^ 
 
 Randolph, Edmund, Sec. State, 
 373. 
 
 Ray. James, saves Harrodsburg, 
 262. ^ , 
 
 Raymond, Commandantoi 
 French post on Maumee, 131. 
 
 Red Hawk murdered, 266. 
 
 Red River, fortified, 68. 
 
 Red Stone Old Fort. Pa., 326. 
 
 Renault. Philip Francois, founds 
 
 Galena, 111., 108. ^ ^ 
 
 Richebourg, Capt., profligate. 
 
 Riddle's Station, Ky., taken, 290. 
 
 Riflemen, Prime. 258; at King's 
 Mountain. 315-317; not desirable 
 Spanish subjects, 370. 
 
 Rio Grande, Spanish name Of 
 Mississippi, 160. 
 
 Road, first wagon into the Great 
 Valley, 139. 
 
 Robertson. James, goes over the 
 range, 2O0; leads party to Wa- 
 tauga Riv.. 201; fights at Point 
 Pleasant. 219; at Watauga, 257; 
 goes into the woods, 290; sees 
 need of settlement, 327; ready 
 to join Spanish, 328; helps 
 make Tennessee a state, 363; 
 and the Spanish, 366, 
 
 41 
 
 Rocheblave, a French officer in 
 the British service at Kaskas- 
 kia, 270, 272. 
 Rogers, Major Robert, meets 
 
 Pontiac, 173. 
 Rosalie, (Natchez) attacked, 113. 
 Rosenthal, Baron de, (John 
 Rose), on Crawford's raid. 306. 
 St. Anthony, bribed by Henne- 
 pin. 32. 
 St. Clair. Gen. Arthur, arrests 
 Connelly, 212; at Marietta, 338; 
 to fight Indians,. 339; sick and 
 defeated, 340. 
 St. Francis River, 22. 
 St. Genevieve, Mo., founded, 
 
 111. 
 St. Joseph, Ind., Kankakee por- 
 tage, 111. 
 St. Louis, Mo., founded, 162; 
 riot at, 164; population 1769, 
 166; attacked, 318. 
 Saint-Lusson, Daumont de, sent 
 to lake Superior after copper, 
 14; takes possession of the 
 West, 14. 
 St. Phillippe, 110. 
 St. Pierre Legardeur de, at Le 
 
 Boeuf, 136. 
 Salem, (Ohio) established, 294; 
 
 Indians enticed, 300. 
 San Domingo, French in, 384. 
 Sandusky, Ohio, Moravians at, 
 
 298. 
 Sandusky Bay, Lake Erie, trade 
 
 post on, 123. 
 Sargent. Winthrop, to organize 
 
 territorv, 379. 
 Sault Saint Marie, taken into 
 
 French possession, 14. 
 Sauville, Sieur de, 57. 
 Savannah. Ga., captured, 313. 
 Scalps bought, 101; reward for, 
 151, 253; on Pittsburg streets, 
 303. 
 Schebosch, an Indian, chopped 
 
 to pieces, 300. 
 Schoonbrum, Ohio, established 
 
 by Moravians, 294. 
 Scotch-ilrish Presbyterians in 
 
 Delaware 224. 
 Seneca Indians, in Pontiac s 
 
 War, 175. 
 Sevier, John, on the frontier, 
 257; at King's Mountain, 315; 
 to organize a state wast of 
 Alleghanies, 361; fugitive from 
 justice. 362; willing to join 
 Spanish, 366. 
 Shallow Ford Station, had first 
 
 race course in Kentucky, 244. 
 Shelbv. Isaac, Gov. of Ken., at 
 
 Point Pleasant, 221. 
 Shelby, Capt. Evan. 218; saves 
 day at Point Pleasant, 220; at 
 King's Mountain, 315.
 
 Index. 
 
 Shelbourne, Lord, prefers Ameri- 
 can neighbors, 332. 
 
 Sherrill, Kate, escapes Indians, 
 marries Sevier, 257. 
 
 Ship Island, in Gulf of Mexico, 
 settled, 60. 
 
 Short, William, commissioner to 
 negotiate treaty with Spain, 
 373." 
 
 Simcoe, Lieut. Gov. John 
 Graves, invades U. S., 347; re- 
 sponsible for Indian sufferings, 
 349. 
 
 Simcoe, Lake, on one route to 
 Georgian Bay, 43. 
 
 Sinclair, Lt. Gov., sends to take 
 St. Louis, 318. 
 
 Sioux, (Nation of the Ox), visi- 
 ted by Grosseilliers and Radis- 
 son, 7. 
 
 Slaves, first large importation 
 into Louisana, 104; in New 
 Orleans, 166. 
 
 Slover, John. 308. 
 
 Smallpox, among Indians, curi- 
 ous case, 291. 
 
 Smugglers, 206. 
 
 Smith, James, at Ft. Duquesne, 
 143; describes Braddock's de- 
 feat, 146. 
 
 Soldiers, La Salle's best of the 
 day, 30; Bienville describes, 
 116; a mutiny among, 116. 
 
 South Bend, Ind., site of Fort 
 Miami, 36. 
 
 South Carolina Company, 370. 
 
 South Sea, search for, 15; In- 
 dians tell of a tributary of, 21. 
 
 Spencer first settled at Nash- 
 ville, Tenn., 290. 
 
 Spirit of the American Nation, 
 186. 
 
 Spotswood, Gov., claims the 
 West for English, 75. 
 
 Stanwix, Fort, treaty of, 209. 
 
 Starved Rock, Fort on, 45. 
 
 Station Camp Creek, K y., 
 Boone's skin hunters camp 
 on, 198. 
 
 Stephen. Adam, 141. 
 
 Sterling, Capt., takes possession 
 of Fort Chartresfor British, 207. 
 
 Stephens, a trader, attack on 
 his canoe by Cresap, 213. 
 
 Stoddart, Capt. Benjamin, tella 
 of French expedition, 134. 
 
 Stony Point, the hero of, 342. 
 
 Strachey, British commissioner, 
 in, 1783, found peace-making 
 sad. 333. 
 
 Strobo, Robert, an American 
 prisoner in Fort Duquesne, 143. 
 
 Stuart. John, with Boone, 198; 
 bones found, 199. 
 
 Stump speeches, 327. 
 
 Suffolk, Earl of, advises tor- 
 ture, 253. 
 
 La Sueur comes to Louisiana, 
 59; reaches Lake Pepin, 60. 
 
 Lake Superior visited, 3. 
 
 Sugar, introduction of manufac- 
 turing, 168. 
 
 Sylph, warship at Manchac, 288. 
 
 Symmes, John Cleve, settles 
 Cincinnati, O., 338; on St. 
 Clair's troops 343. 
 
 Talon, Jean Baptiste, "Inten- 
 dant" of Canada, determines 
 to spread French power, 9 
 chooses La Salle to do it, 11 
 sees value of the West, 13 
 sends Daumont de Salnt-Lus- 
 son to Lake Superior to hunt 
 copper, 13-14; chooses Joliet 
 to head Miss, expedition, 14. 
 
 Taylor, Hancock, 208. 
 
 Tea Party, 247. 
 
 Tennessee, state building, 361; 
 troubles of, 361-362; state made, 
 363; population, of (1790-1800), 
 380. 
 
 Tomahawk claim, 204. 
 
 Tonti, Henry de, La Salle's as- 
 sistant, 32; reports mutiny at 
 Fort Crevecoeur, 39; La Salle 
 describes, 43; goes to Gulf in 
 canoe, 55-59. 
 
 Todd. Col., at Blue Licks, 310. 
 
 Toronto, La Salle in its harbor, 
 43; trading station at, 122. 
 
 Traders, daring, 1; jealousy 
 and cowardice, 10; sneer at 
 good work, 11; their one 
 thought, 82; when traders 
 came to Indian camps, 99; 
 stock in trade, 110; British 
 traders, 123; British attacked 
 in Valley, 125; scalps of, 135; 
 English traders at New Or- 
 leans, 166-167; British and In- 
 dians, 172; at Vincennes, 192; 
 helped by Indians, 217; in 
 peace treaty, 333; Spanish tra- 
 ders' goods seized, 335. 
 
 Transylvania Company, 225, 243, 
 245. 
 
 Treaty and treaties— C h a m p- 
 lain's with Iroquois, 2; Nico- 
 let's at Sault Sainte Marie, 4; 
 Joliet with Illinois, 19; Joliet 
 with Quapaws, 23; Frontenac 
 with Iroquois, 28; English and 
 F'rench. 155; by Sir William 
 Johnson. 182; at Logston, 191; 
 at Fort Stanwix, 193, 209; with 
 Cherokees, 194, 203, 204; by 
 Dunmore, 221; Boone's at Syca- 
 more Shoals, 225; at end of 
 American Rev., 331; at Fort 
 Finney, 335; Jay's with Eng- 
 land, 358; U. S. and England, 
 358, 372; with Spain. 374; of 
 Amiens. 388; for purchase of 
 Louisiana, 394-396. 
 
 414
 
 Index. 
 
 Trent, "William, with Washingr- 
 ton, on expedition to build fort 
 at the forks of the Ohio. 138. 
 Trigg, Col., killed, Blue Lacks, 
 
 310. 
 Trinity River, Texas, reached 
 by La Salle, 48. 
 
 Trudeau, Zenon, grants Boone 
 Land in Missouri, 38L 
 
 Tryon, Governor, revolt against, 
 202. 
 
 Twitty, Capt.. killed, 226. 
 
 Two Oceans Creek, 21. 
 
 Union, as dry wall, 360; loose 
 conglomerate solidifying, 362. 
 
 Unzaga. Louis de. in charge at 
 New Orleans, 168; marries 
 FVench lady, 169; permitted 
 British ships at New Orleans, 
 288 
 
 Utica, 111., site of La Salle's fort, 
 45. 
 
 Ursuline Nuns open School at 
 New Orleans. 106; Sister 
 Hochard's description of New 
 Orleans. 106; Spanish Ursuline 
 Nuns, 169. 
 
 Ulloa, Don Antonio de, at New 
 Orleans. 163, et seq. 
 
 Van Braam. "Washingrton's in- 
 terpreter, 140-141. 
 
 Vandalia. a proposed colony 
 west of Alleghanies, 195; In- 
 dians disappointed. 217. 
 
 Vaudreuil, Marquis de, succeeds 
 Bienville, at New Orleans, 115; 
 raids the English, 121. 
 
 Venango, Pa., French start 
 from. 138. 
 
 Vente. Curate de la, a priest 
 leader, 62. 
 
 Vergennes, Count Charles Gra- 
 vier de, French Minister, atti- 
 tude toward U. S., 357. 
 
 Victor, Gen. Claude Perrin, in 
 command of a force that was 
 to conquer Miss. Valley, 388. 
 
 Vigo, Francois, fate of a good 
 American, 285. 
 
 Villier, arrested at New Orleans 
 for treason. 165; Madam Vil- 
 lier, her bed room described. 166. 
 
 Villiers, Coulon de, attacks 
 Washington, 140; bums fort 
 Grandville, 150. 
 
 Vincennes. Ind., established. 112; 
 the French at, 192; surrenders 
 to Clark, 274. 
 
 Virginians, with Braddock. 145; 
 Dunmore's Virginians, 218; as 
 "Long Knives." 265. 
 
 Virginia, thanks Clark, 284; 
 grants Kentuckv's demands, 
 361; adopts Constitution, .362. 
 
 Wabash River. French on. 111 
 et seq,; Croghan visits, 191-192; 
 
 British raid down, 275; Clark's 
 work along, 277 et seq. 
 
 Wabasha, Sioux Chief, 318. 
 Waddell, Capt. Hugh, Leads 
 expedition against Cherokees, 
 198. 
 
 Wages, frontier, 51, 245. 
 
 Walker, Dr. Thomas, 124; 
 reaches head of Cumberland, 
 189. 
 
 Walker, Felix, wounded, 226. 
 
 Walnut Hills, (V i c k s b u r g, 
 Miss.), Spanish leave, 377. 
 
 Walpole grant, 195. 
 
 Ward, John, 198. 
 
 Ward, Nancy, squaw, saves 
 woman, 256. 
 
 Ward. Ensign, begins fort at 
 Forks of Ohio, 138. 
 
 Washington. George, sent to 
 French in Ohio, 136; sent to 
 Will's Creek, with militia. 138; 
 whips Jumonville, 139; attacked 
 by Villiers. 140; surrenders, 141; 
 covers Braddock's retreat. 146; 
 remembered twenty years 
 later, 147; as to King's Proc- 
 lamation. 187; in the Ohio Val- 
 ley, 196; on St. Clair's Expedi- 
 tion, 339; describes Wayne, 
 343; wisdom of. 359; and South 
 Carolina Company. 370; de- 
 feats French plans for raid 
 down Miss. Valley, 372. 
 
 Washington College, Tenn., 
 founded, 320. 
 
 Watauga, Tenn., settlements, a 
 no-man's-land. 201 et seq.; In- 
 dians in, 2,55-256. 
 
 Waterford, Pa., (fort La Beuf), 
 134, 175. 
 
 Wayne, General "Mad An- 
 thony." 341; Washington de- 
 scribes. 345; his men. 343-344; 
 as the right man, 348; destroys 
 Indian corn, 349; at Fallen 
 Timbers, 350; his title "Mad 
 Anthony," etc., 351; garrisons 
 Fort Massac, 372; salutary ex- 
 ample, 391. 
 
 Wetzel, Lewis, borderer, 328; 
 and his rifle, 344. 
 
 Wheeling Creek, the Z a n e s 
 come to, 204; Dunmore's war 
 begins at, 213; attacked, 260; 
 whiskey at, 325. 
 
 Whiskev. first export of K e n- 
 tucky. 325. 
 
 Wilderness road. 226. 
 
 Wilkinson, James, infamous 
 traitor, 285, 360; and Spanish. 
 364-365; and Connolly. 3 6 7; 
 recommends O'Fallon, 370; and 
 Gayoso. 374; sends Guion to 
 take U. S. Territory, from 
 Spanish, 377; at Louisiana 
 transfer, 398. 
 
 415
 
 Index. 
 
 Williamson, Col. David, de- 
 scribed, 299; in Crawford's raid, 
 304. 
 
 Willing, Clark's Gunboat, 277. 
 
 Whitney cotton gin, 380. 
 
 Winnebago lake, Wis., the 
 Country south and west of, 17. 
 
 Wisconsin (Meskousing) River, 
 Joliet reaches, 17. 
 
 Wolf Hills fort, gets scalps, 257. 
 
 Wolf, Gen. James, at Louisburg, 
 151; at Quebec, 154, 155. 
 
 Women, adventurers, on Miss. 
 River, 113; home of wealthy in 
 New Orleans, 166; first in Ken- 
 tucky, 240. 
 
 Wythe, George, a Virginia 
 
 patriot, approves Clark's plan 
 to invade Illinois, 268. 
 
 Yazoo, Miss., Colonists at, 104; 
 Fraud, 373, 
 
 Yellow Creek Massacre, 215. 
 
 Yoder, Jacob, early whiskey 
 dealer, 325. 
 
 Zane, Ebenezer, Silas and Jona- 
 than, to Wheeling, 204; their 
 followers, 210; one of them 
 kills a big buffalo, 237; at the 
 attack on Wheeling, 261; Jona^ 
 than, guide for Crawford's 
 raid, 304. 
 
 Zeisberger, David, Moravian, 
 missionary, 216. 
 
 Zinc Mines, 68. 
 
 416
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOiS-URBANA 
 
 917.7SP3H C002 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY NEW 
 
 3 0112 025336725