Volume III Part 3 (2/2)
After any Indian stroke the men of the neighborhood would gather under their local militia officers, and, unless the Indians had too long a start, would endeavor to overtake them, and either avenge the slain or rescue the prisoners. In the more exposed settlements bands of rangers were kept continually patrolling the woods. Every man of note in the c.u.mberland country took part in this duty. In Kentucky the county lieutenants and their subordinates were always on the lookout. Logan paid especial heed to the protection of the immigrants who came in over the Wilderness Road. Kenton's spy company watched the Ohio, and continually crossed it on the track of marauding parties, and, though very often baffled, yet Kenton and his men succeeded again and again in rescuing hapless women and children, or in scattering--although usually with small loss--war parties bound against the settlements.
Feats of an Indian Fighter
One of the best known Indian fighters in Kentucky was William Whitley, who lived at Walnut Flat, some five miles from Crab Orchard. He had come to Kentucky soon after its settlement, and by his energy and ability had acquired property and leaders.h.i.+p, though of unknown ancestry and without education. He was a stalwart man, skilled in the use of arms, jovial and fearless; the backwoods fighters followed him readily, and he loved battle; he took part in innumerable Indian expeditions, and in his old age was killed fighting against Tec.u.mseh at the battle of the Thames. In 1786 or '87 he built the first brick house ever built in Kentucky. It was a very handsome house for those days, every step in the hall stairway having carved upon it the head of an eagle bearing in its beak an olive branch. Each story was high, and the windows were placed very high from the ground, to prevent the Indians from shooting through them at the occupants. The gla.s.s was brought from Virginia by pack train. He feasted royally the hands who put up the house; and to pay for the whiskey they drank he had to sell one of his farms.
In 1785 (the year of the above recited ravages on the upper Ohio in the neighborhood of Wheeling), Colonel Whitley led his rangers, once and again, against marauding Indians. In January he followed a war party, rescued a captive white man, and took prisoner an Indian who was afterwards killed by one of the militia--”a cowardly fellow,” says Whitley. In October a party of immigrants, led by a man named McClure, who had just come over the Wilderness trace, were set upon at dawn by Indians, not far from Whitley's house; two of the men were killed. Mrs.
McClure got away at first, and ran two hundred yards, taking her four children with her; in the gloom they would all have escaped had not the smallest child kept crying. This led the Indians to them. Three of the children were tomahawked at once; next morning the fourth shared the same fate. The mother was forced to cook breakfast for her captors at the fire before which the scalps were drying. She was then placed on a half-broken horse and led off with them. When word of the disaster was brought to Whitley's, he was not at home, but his wife, a worthy helpmeet, immediately sent for him, and meanwhile sent word to his company. On his return he was able to take the trail at once with twenty-one riflemen, as true as steel. Following hard, but with stealth equal to their own, he overtook the Indians at sundown on the second day, and fell on them in their camp. Most of them escaped through the thick forest, but he killed two, rescued six prisoners, and captured sixteen horses and much plunder.
Ten days after this another party of immigrants, led by a man named Moore, were attacked on the Wilderness Road and nine persons killed.
Whitley raised thirty of his horse-riflemen, and, guessing from the movements of the Indians that they were following the war trace northward, he marched with all speed to reach it at some point ahead of them, and succeeded. Finding they had not pa.s.sed he turned and went south, and in a thick canebrake met his foes face to face. The whites were spread out in line, while the Indians, twenty in number, came on in single file, all on horseback. The cane was so dense that the two parties were not ten steps apart when they saw one another. At the first fire the Indians, taken utterly unaware, broke and fled, leaving eight of their number dead; and the victors also took twenty-eight horses.
[Footnote: Draper MSS. Whitley's MSS. Narrative, apparently dictated some time after the events described. It differs somewhat from the printed account in Collins.]
Death of Black Wolf and Col. Christian
In the following spring another noted Indian fighter, less lucky than Whitley, was killed while leading one of these scouting parties. Early in 1786, the Indians began to commit and Col. numerous depredations in Kentucky, and the alarm and anger of the inhabitants became great.
[Footnote: Draper MSS. Clark Papers, _pa.s.sim_ for 1786. Wm. Finney to G.
R. Clark, March 24 and 26, 1786. Also Wm. Croghan to G. R. Clark, Nov.
3, and Nov. 16, 1785.] In April, a large party of savages under a chief named Black Wolf, made a raid along Beargra.s.s. Col. William Christian, a very gallant and honorable man, was in command of the neighboring militia. At once, as was his wont, he raised a band of twenty men, and followed the plunderers across the Ohio. Riding well in advance of his followers, with but three men in company with him, he overtook the three rearmost Indians, among whom was Black Wolf. The struggle was momentary but b.l.o.o.d.y. All three Indians were killed, but Colonel Christian and one of his captains were also slain. [Footnote: State Department MSS. Papers Continental Congress. Sam McDowell to Governor of Virginia, April 18, 1786. John May to _Do._, April 19, 1786. Clark MSS. Bradford's Notes on Kentucky. John Clark to Johnathan Clark, April 21, 1786.]
Anger of the Kentuckians.
The Kentuckians were by this time thoroughly roused, and were bent on making a retaliatory expedition in force. They felt that the efforts made by Congress to preserve peace by treaties, at which the Indians were loaded with presents, merely resulted in making them think that the whites were afraid of them, and that if they wished gifts all they had to do was to go to war. [Footnote: Draper MSS. Jon. Clark Papers. John Clark to Johnathan Clark, March 29, 1786. Also, G. R. Clark to J. Clark, April 20, 1788.] The only effective way to deal with the Indians was to strike them in their own country, not to try to parry the strokes they themselves dealt. Clark, who knew the savages well, scoffed at the idea that a vigorous blow, driven well home, would rouse them to desperation; he realized that, formidable though they were in actual battle, and still more in plundering raid, they were not of the temper to hazard all on the fate of war, or to stand heavy punishment, and that they would yield very quickly, when once they were convinced that unless they did so they and their families would perish by famine or the sword. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No. 56, p. 282. G. R. Clark to R. H. Lee.] At this time he estimated that some fifteen hundred warriors were on the war-path and that they were likely to be joined by many others.
Anarchy on the Wabash.
The condition of affairs at the French towns of the Illinois and Wabash afforded another strong reason for war, or at least for decided measures of some kind. Almost absolute anarchy reigned in these towns. The French inhabitants had become profoundly discontented with the United States Government. This was natural, for they were neither kept in order nor protected, in spite of their pet.i.tions to Congress that some stable government might be established. [Footnote: State Department MSS., No.
30, p. 453, Dec. 8, 1784. Also p. 443, Nov. 10, 1784. Draper MSS. J.
Edgar to G. R. Clark, Oct. 23, 1786.] The quarrels between the French and the intruding American settlers had very nearly reached the point of a race war; and the Americans were further menaced by the Indians. These latter were on fairly good terms with the French, many of whom had intermarried with them, and lived as they did; although the French families of the better cla.s.s were numerous, and had attained to what was for the frontier a high standard of comfort and refinement.
Quarrels between French and Americans.
The French complained with reason of the lawless and violent character of many of the American new-comers, and also of the fact that already speculators were trying by fraud and foul means to purchase large tracts of land, not for settlement, but to hold until it should rise in value.
On the other hand, the Americans complained no less bitterly of the French, as a fickle, treacherous, undisciplined race, in close alliance with the Indians, and needing to be ruled with a rod of iron. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 56. J. Edgar to G. R. Clark, Nov. 7, 1785. Draper MSS. Pet.i.tion of Americans of Vincennes to Congress, June I, 1786.] It is impossible to reconcile the accounts the two parties gave of one another's deeds; doubtless neither side was guiltless of grave wrongdoing. So great was Clark's reputation for probity and leaders.h.i.+p that both sides wrote him urgently, requesting that he would come to them and relieve their distress. [Footnote: Draper MSS. Pet.i.tion to G. R.
Clark from Inhabitants of Vincennes, March 16, 1786.] One of the most fruitful sources of broils and quarrels was the liquor trade with the Indians. The rougher among the new-comers embarked eagerly in this harmful and disreputable business, and the low-cla.s.s French followed their example. The commandant, Monsieur J. M. P. Legrace, and the Creole court forbade this trade; a decision which was just and righteous, but excited much indignation, as the other inhabitants believed that the members of the court themselves followed it in secret. [Footnote: Do., John Filson; MS. Journey of Two Voyages, etc.]
In 1786 the ravages of the Indians grew so serious, and the losses of the Americans near Vincennes became so great, that they abandoned their outlying farms, and came into the town. [Footnote: Do., Moses Henry to G.
R. Clark, June 7, 1786.] Vincennes then consisted of upwards of three hundred houses. The Americans numbered some sixty families, and had built an American quarter, with a strong blockhouse. They only ventured out to till their cornfields in bodies of armed men, while the French worked their lands singly and unarmed.
Indians Attack Americans.
The Indians came freely into the French quarter of the town, and even sold to the inhabitants plunder taken from the Americans; and when complaint of this was made to the Creole magistrates, they paid no heed.
One of the men who suffered at the hands of the savages was a wandering schoolmaster, named John Filson, [Footnote: _Do_., John Small to G. R.
Clark, June 23, 1786.] the first historian of Kentucky, and the man who took down, and put into his own quaint and absurdly stilted English, Boone's so-called ”autobiography.” Filson, having drifted west, had travelled up and down the Ohio and Wabash by canoe and boat. He was much struck with the abundance of game of all kinds which he saw on the northwestern side of the Ohio, and especially by the herds of buffaloes which lay on the sand-bars; his party lived on the flesh of bears, deer, wild turkeys, c.o.o.ns, and water-turtles. In 1785 the Indians whom he met seemed friendly; but on June 2, 1786, while on the Wabash, his canoe was attacked by the savages, and two of his men were slain. He himself escaped with difficulty, and reached Vincennes after an exhausting journey, but having kept possession of his ”two small trunks.”
[Footnote: _Do_., Filson's Journal.]
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