CHAPTER II.

INDIAN WARFARE, AND ITS EFFECTS UPON THE FRONTIER people. -EMINENT PIONEERS OF KENTUCKY.—a.d. 1775 TO 1794. Argument.-Man in his natural Condition the Creature of Circumstances, in Habits, Feeling, and Character.-The hostile Attitude and Jealousy of the Six Nations.Their Neutrality secured by "Treaty of German Flats," in 1776.—Indians paid to violate treaty Stipulations by the British Commissioners at Oswego in 1777, and take up Arms against the frontier People.-The frontier People become daring and vindictive. Influence of Indian Warfare upon Manners and Usages of the Whites.Compelled to adopt the Indian Revenge.-Volunteer Defense of the West.-Person. al Characteristics of frontier Soldiers.- Athletic Form and Strength.-Patience of Toil and Privation.-Recuperative Powers of the System.-State of Feeling on the Frontiers.-Exterminating Policy of Indians.-Cruelty of British Tories.-Spirit of Revenge in the People.-Their domestic Enjoyments.-Indian scalping Parties on the Frontier. Their cautious and destructive Movements.-Renegade white Men associated with Indians.

Indian Implements of War.-The Rifle.-The Scalping-knife.-Tomahawk-Battleax.-War-club.-Declaration of War.-Torture.-Running the Gantlet.-Torture at the Stake by Fire.

Eminent Pioneers of Kentucky.-1. Daniel Boone.-His Nativity and early Habits.Personal Traits of Character.-His first Acquaintance with Kentucky in 1769 and 1771.-At Watauga in 1775.-Opens a Road from Holston to Kentucky River.Captain at Boonesborough until 1778.-Captured by Indians at Blue Licks.-His Captivity and Escape.-An active Defender of Kentucky until 1783.-Abandons Kentucky in 1800.-Settles in Missouri.-His Remains and those of his Wife removed to Kentucky in 1845.-2. Simon Kenton.-His Character as a fearless Pioneer.-Nativity and Early Habits.-Youthful Indiscretion and subsequent Hardships. -A Hunter in Kentucky.-A Hunter in Western Virginia.-Attached to Dunmore's Army.-Becomes "a Hunter of Kentucky."-His personal Appearance at the Age of twenty-one Years.-His benevolent Disposition.-Attached to Kentucky Stations. -Accompanies Colonel Clark to Kaskaskia.-Returns to Harrod's Station.-Visits the Paint Creek Towns.-Captured by Indians.-Wild Horse Torture.-Divers Tortures and Punishments suffered during his Captivity. Sold in Detroit.-Escapes to Kentucky. Serves under Colonel Clark in 1780 and 1782.-An active partisan Warrior until 1792.-Encounters Tecumseh.-Serves in Wayne's Army.-Abandons Kentucky in 1802.-Removes to Ohio.-Serves under Colonel Shelby in 1813.-Died in 1836.-3. Robert Patterson.-Nativity, early Life, and Habits.-Serves in Dunmore's Army. A prominent Pioneer of Kentucky in 1776.-Erects a Station on the Site of Lexington in 1779.-Active Defender of Kentucky during the Indian War.-4. Major George Rogers Clark.-His early frontier Services.-His Character and Military Genius. Superintends the Defense of Kentucky from 1776 to 1782.-Reduction of British Posts in 1778, 1779.

[A.D. 1775.] MAN is the creature of the moral and physical circumstances with which he is surrounded. As these vary, or as any peculiar circumstances predominate, so will be the physical development, and the moral and social character. Labor, toil, and constant exposure to hardships and dangers, give strength and firmness to the muscles, and develop the full stature of the body. Men accustomed from youth to brave

every danger from man and beast, exposed to the constant inroads and assaults of the savages, compelled to be on the alert at all times and places, in order to prevent surprise and death, and often driven by necessity and imminent danger to engage in fearful encounters with the wily Indian in defense of their families or friends, of necessity became bold, fearless, and implacable, eager only for vengeance or victory, whether gained by open war or stratagem.

Contending with civilized foes, man becomes imbued with all the feelings and principles of enlightened warfare, as practiced by civilized nations; but contending with the naked savage in his native forests and mountain defiles, he necessarily becomes assimilated in feelings, habits, and customs, and is compelled to meet all the savage wiles and artifices with similar caution and circumspection; he is likewise compelled to adopt their policy of extermination toward their enemies.

As a beautiful writer has observed, "The success of the early adventurers to the West is almost a miracle in colonization. Nation has heretofore precipitated itself upon nation, conquered the occupants of the soil, and seized upon their possessions; but in this case isolated emigrants, without the benefit of military or civil organization, relying upon their own bravery and skill, and with such assistance from men equally daring as accident might furnish, seized and held an extensive country, and laid the foundation of powerful states. The waste of life by incessant war was more than supplied by a constant stream of new-comers, until the aboriginal race, weakened and discouraged by contending with enemies whom no disaster or defeat. appeared to diminish or dishearten, gave up in despair, and attempted by peace to save themselves from extermination."*

The Indians, at the close of Lord Dunmore's war, had been compelled to yield to the demands of the whites, and to acknowledge the Ohio River as the western boundary of the white settlements. The hostilities which had terminated with the treaty of Camp Charlotte had served only to renew the feelings of mutual enmity between the white man and the savage. These feelings of mutual enmity and jealousy were but imperfectly satisfied on either side by that treaty, for the royal governor had an eye to future events which were likely to transpire between the mother country and the colonies. Thus,

* Kendall's Life of Jackson, p. 80.

in 1776, there existed between the frontier people and the savages a feeling of mutual jealousy and mutual suspicion, which was only restrained for a time by the proclamation of the gov

ernor.

Many permanent settlements had been established on the banks of the Ohio, above Wheeling, and on many of the tributaries of the Kenhawa and Kentucky Rivers. The Indians looked upon all these advances with a jealous eye, but their remonstrances were disregarded; and when they found, year after year, that these settlements continued to increase, and that with every increase came additional claims for lands still further west, the jealousy of the savage ripened into settled revenge, and a fixed determination to arrest the white man's ad

vance.

The wars which had raged from 1755 to 1764 had roused up the whole northwestern tribes to the importance of protecting their country from the white man's grasp. After a delusive calm of ten years, the advances under Lord Dunmore's administration had roused the Indians again to a general war, and their hostility to the whites was only quieted by another delusive peace, which had been entered into by the royal governor in view of ulterior arrangements, in case the colonial disturbances should result in open war.

[A.D. 1776.] Such was the state of Indian feeling at the opening of the Revolutionary war; the Indians were content to remain quiet and see the mother country destroy her own colonies, which had been so annoying to their peace and security. Yet the active part taken by the colonists in the war under Lord Dunmore was such as to leave no good will for them in the breast of the Indian, and they could scarcely desire the colonists to be triumphant. The colonists, however, in contending with the mother country, desired no contest with the Indian; yet, having rendered themselves obnoxious to the Indian resentment by their former efforts in favor of Great Britain for the occupancy of the West, it was deemed expedient by Congress to conciliate the Six Nations, and secure their neutrality by formal treaty.

To this end, provision had been made for a treaty early in the summer of 1776, and General Schuyler, duly authorized and provided, repaired to the "German Flats," where, early in June, the chiefs, warriors, and sachems of the Six Nations.

were assembled in council. After due negotiation, a treaty was formed and signed on the 14th of June, 1776, in which the Indians stipulated to observe a strict neutrality in the war which had been commenced by England. Such was the relation existing between the Six Nations and the United States in the early part of the Revolutionary war. But British rapacity, intolerance, and barbarism could not tolerate such a state of neutrality.

[A.D. 1777.] "About one year afterward, a messenger from the British commissioners arrived among the Indian tribes, requesting all the Indians to attend a grand council to be held soon at Oswego, on Lake Ontario. The council convened, and the British commissioners informed the chiefs that the object in calling a council of the Six Nations was to engage their assistance in subduing the rebels, the people of the States, who had risen up against the good king, their master, and were about to rob him of a great part of his possessions. The commissioners added, that they would amply reward the Indians for all their services.*

"The chiefs then informed the commissioners of the nature and extent of the treaty into which they had entered with the people of the States the year before; informing them, also, that they should not violate it now by taking up the hatchet against them. The commissioners continued their entreaties without success until they addressed their avarice and their appetites. They told the Indians that the people of the States were few in number, and easily subdued; and that, on account of their disobedience to the king, they justly merited all the punishment which white men and Indians could possibly inflict upon them. They added, that the king was rich and powerful, both in subjects and money; that his rum was as plenty as the water in Lake Ontario; that his men were as numerous as the sands on the lake shore; that if the Indians would assist in the war until the close, as the friends of the king, they should never want for money or goods." "Upon such persuasion, the chiefs at length concluded a treaty with the British commissioners, in which, for certain considerations stipulated, they agreed to take up arms against the rebels, and continue in his majesty's service until they were subdued.”

* See Narrative of the White Woman, and quoted by Mr. Buckingham, the English traveler, as unquestionable historical truth.-Travels in America, vol. ii., p. 179–183. VOL. II.-C

As soon as the treaty was concluded, the commissioners made a present to each Indian, consisting of one suit of clothes, a brass. kettle, a gun, a tomahawk, a scalping-knife, a quantity of powder and lead, and one piece of gold, promising likewise a bounty on every scalp which should be brought in. Such is the price of blood and rapine with Great Britain.

In a few weeks the warriors, "full of fire and war, and anxious to encounter their enemies," sallied forth against the unsuspecting settlements of New York and Pennsylvania, and their deeds were inscribed with the scalping-knife in characters of blood upon the fields of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, along the banks of the Mohawk, and in the Valley of the Susquehanna, in massacres unparalleled in the history of Indian warfare.* Thus began the Indian war of the Revolution, prompted, sustained, and encouraged by British gold and British rum.

At the same time, orders were issued to Sir John Stewart, his majesty's agent for southern Indian affairs, commanding him to stir up the Cherokees against the frontier settlements of Virginia and the two Carolinas, occupying the territory drained by the sources of the Holston, Broad, Tugeloo, and French Broad.

The flame of Indian war was lighted up simultaneously west of the mountains and against all the settlements upon the waters of the Ohio. These feeble settlements, remote from the dense population and from succor, without defense or support, were thrown, as an isolated portion of the States, entirely upon their own resources for the support of their families in the wilderness, and for the protection of their homes and lives from savage massacre and rapine. Unprovided with the means of regular warfare, they were compelled to associate for mutual protection and defense with the limited means at command. Surrounded by hostile savages in every quarter, whose secret approaches and whose vengeance none could foresee or know, they were compelled to depend upon their own courage and energy of character in order to maintain an existence against the exterminating warfare of these allies of the British king. The mode of Indian warfare itself suggested their only course. To protect themselves from midnight slaughter, they were compelled to secure themselves in forts and stations, where the women and children could enjoy comparative security, while the men, armed always in the Indian manner, went out to meet

* See Buckingham's Travels in the United States, vol. ii., p. 179–183.