The Creeks and the Georgians.
The wrath of the Creeks was directed chiefly against the Georgians. The Georgians were pushing steadily westward, and were grasping the Creek hunting-grounds with ferocious greed. They had repeatedly endeavored to hold treaties with the Creeks. On each occasion the chiefs and warriors of a few towns met them, and either declined to do anything, or else signed an agreement which they had no power to enforce. A sample treaty of this kind was that entered into at Galphinton in 1785. The Creeks had been solemnly summoned to meet representatives both of the Federal Congress and of Georgia; but on the appointed day only two towns out of a hundred were represented. The Federal Commissioners thereupon declined to enter into negotiations; but those from Georgia persevered. By presents and strong drink they procured, and their government eagerly accepted, a large cession of land to which the two towns in question had no more title than was vested in all the others.
The treaty was fraudulent. The Georgians knew that the Creeks who signed it were giving away what they did not possess; while the Indian signers cared only to get the goods they were offered, and were perfectly willing to make all kinds of promises, inasmuch as they had no intention whatever of keeping any of them. The other Creeks immediately repudiated the transaction, and the war dragged on its course of dismal savagery, growing fiercer year by year, and being waged on nearly even terms. [Footnote: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. i., p. 15.]
McGillivray Signs a Treaty of Peace.
Soon after the Constitution went into effect the National Government made a vigorous effort to conclude peace on a stable basis. Commissioners were sent to the southern Indians. Under their persuasion McGillivray and the leading kings and chiefs of the Muscogee confederacy came to New York and there entered into a solemn treaty. In this treaty the Creeks acknowledged the United States, to the exclusion of Spain, as the sole power with which they could treat; they covenanted to keep faith and friendship with the Americans; and in return for substantial payments and guaranties they agreed to cede some land to the Georgians, though less than was claimed under the treaty of Galphinton.
The Creeks Pay No Heed to the Treaty.
This treaty was solemnly entered into by the recognized chiefs and leaders of the Creeks; and the Americans fondly hoped that it would end hostilities. It did nothing of the kind. Though the terms were very favorable to the Indians, so much so as to make the frontiersmen grumble, the Creeks scornfully repudiated the promises made on their behalf by their authorized representatives. Their motive in going to war, and keeping up the war, was not so much anger at the encroachments of the whites, as the eager thirst for glory, scalps, and plunder, to be won at the expense of the settlers. The war parties raided the frontier as freely as ever. [Footnote: Robertson MSS., Williamson to Robertson, Aug. 2, 1789, and Aug. 7, 1790. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, i., 81. Milfort 131, 142.] The simple truth was that the Creeks could be kept quiet only when cowed by physical fear. If the white men did not break the treaties, then the red men did. It is idle to dispute about the rights or wrongs of the contests. Two peoples, in two stages of culture which were separated by untold ages, stood face to face; one or the other had to perish; and the whites went forward from sheer necessity.
Growth of Immigration.
Throughout these years of Indian warfare the influx of settlers into the Holston and Cumberland regions steadily continued. Men in search of homes, or seeking to acquire fortunes by the purchase of wild lands, came more and more freely to the Cumberland country as the settlers therein increased in number and became better able to cope with and repel their savage foes. The settlements on the Holston grew with great rapidity as soon as the Franklin disturbances were at an end. As the people increased in military power, they increased also in material comfort, and political stability. The crude social life deepened and broadened. Comfortable homes began to appear among the huts and hovels of the little towns. The outlying settlers still lived in wooden forts or stations; but where the population was thicker, the terror of the Indians diminished, and the people lived in the ordinary style of frontier farmers.
The South-western Territory Organized.
Early in 1790, North Carolina finally ceded, and the National Government finally accepted, what is now Tennessee; and in May, Congress passed a law for the government of this Territory Southwest of the River Ohio, as they chose to call it. This law followed on the general lines of the Ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwest; but there was one important difference. North Carolina had made her cession conditional upon the non-passage of any law tending to emancipate slaves. At that time such a condition was inevitable; but it doomed the Southwest to suffer under the curse of negro bondage.
Blount Made Governor.
William Blount of North Carolina was appointed Governor of the Territory, and at once proceeded to his new home to organize the civil government. [Footnote: Blount MSS. Biography of Blount, in manuscript, compiled by one of his descendants from the family papers.] He laid out Knoxville as his capital, where he built a good house with a lawn in front. On his recommendation Sevier was appointed Brigadier-General for the Eastern District and Robertson for the Western; the two districts known as Washington and Miro respectively.
Blount was the first man of leadership in the West who was of Cavalier ancestry; for though so much is said of the Cavalier type in the southern States it was everywhere insignificant in numbers, and comparatively few of the southern men of mark have belonged to it. Blount was really of Cavalier blood. He was descended from a Royalist baronet, who was roughly handled by the Cromwellians, and whose three sons came to America. One of them settled in North Carolina, near Albemarle Sound, and from him came the new governor of the southwestern territory. Blount was a good-looking, well-bred man, with cultivated tastes; but he was also a man of force and energy, who knew well how to get on with the backwoodsmen, so that he soon became popular among them.
Retrospect: What had been Accomplished during the Seven Years.
The West had grown with astonishing rapidity during the seven years following the close of the Revolutionary War. In 1790 there were in Kentucky nearly seventy-four thousand, and in the Southwest Territory nearly thirty-six thousand souls. In the Northwest Territory the period of rapid growth Years had not yet begun, and the old French inhabitants still formed the majority of the population.
The changes during these seven years had been vital. In the West, as elsewhere through the Union, the years succeeding the triumphant close of the Revolution were those which determined whether the victory was or was not worth winning. To throw off the yoke of the stranger was useless and worse than useless if we showed ourselves unable to turn to good account the freedom we had gained. Unless we could build up a great nation, and unless we possessed the power and self-restraint to frame an orderly and stable government, and to live under its laws when framed, the long years of warfare against the armies of the king were wasted and went for naught.
At the close of the Revolution the West was seething with sedition. There were three tasks before the Westerners; all three had to be accomplished, under pain of utter failure. It was their duty to invade and tame the shaggy wilderness; to drive back the Indians and their European allies; and to erect free governments which should form parts of the indissoluble Union. If the spirit of sedition, of lawlessness, and of wild individualism and separatism had conquered, then our history would merely have anticipated the dismal tale of the Spanish-American republics.
Viewed from this standpoint the history of the West during these eventful years has a special and peculiar interest. The inflow of the teeming throng of settlers was the most striking feature; but it was no more important than the half-seen struggle in which the Union party finally triumphed over the restless strivers for disunion. The extent and reality of the danger are shown by the numerous separatist movements. The intrigues in which so many of the leaders engaged with Spain, for the purpose of setting up barrier states, in some degree feudatory to the Spaniards; the movement in Kentucky for violent separation from Virginia, and the more secret movement for separation from the United States; the turbulent career of the commonwealth of Franklin; the attitude of isolation of interest from all their neighbors assumed by the Cumberland settlers:—all these various movements and attitudes were significant of the looseness of the Federal tie, and were ominous of the anarchic violence, weakness, and misrule which would have followed the breaking of that tie.
The career of Franklin gave the clearest glimpse of what might have been; for it showed the gradual breaking down of law and order, the rise of factions ready to appeal to arms for success, the bitter broils with neighboring States, the reckless readiness to provoke war with the Indians, unheeding their rights or the woes such wars caused other frontier communities, and finally the entire willingness of the leaders to seek foreign aid when their cause was declining. Had not the Constitution been adopted, and a more perfect union been thus called into being, the history of the state of Franklin would have been repeated in fifty communities from the Alleghanies to the Pacific coast; only these little states, instead of dying in the bud, would have gone through a rank flowering period of bloody and aimless revolutions, of silly and ferocious warfare against their neighbors, and of degrading alliance with the foreigner. From these and a hundred other woes the West no less than the East was saved by the knitting together of the States into a Nation.
This knitting process passed through its first and most critical stage, in the West, during the period intervening between the close of the war for independence, and the year which saw the organization of the Southwest into a territory ruled under the laws, and by the agent, of the National Government. During this time no step was taken towards settling the question of boundary lines with our British and Spanish neighbors; that remained as it had been, the Americans never abandoning claims which they had not yet the power to enforce, and which their antagonists declined to yield. Neither were the Indian wars settled; on the contrary, they had become steadily more serious, though for the first time a definite solution was promised by the active interference of the National Government. But a vast change had been made by the inflow of population; and an even vaster by the growing solidarity of the western settlements with one another, and with the Central Government. The settlement of the Northwest, so different in some of its characteristics from the settlement of the Southwest, had begun. Kentucky was about to become a State of the Union. The territories north and south of it were organized as part of the domain of the United States. The West was no longer a mere wilderness dotted with cabins and hamlets, whose backwoods builders were held by but the loosest tie of allegiance to any government, even their own. It had become an integral part of the mighty American Republic.
Allen, Ethan, separatist leader; relations with British authorities. Army, regular, relations of officers to Kentuckians; friction with frontiersmen; distrust of militia; failure to understand how to fight Indians; shortcomings of; superiority to the militia; further friction with frontiersmen. Baptist preachers. Black Wolf, Indian chief, death of. Bledsoe, Anthony, corresponds with McGillivray; slain by Indians. Bloody Fellow, Cherokee chief, writes note taunting Sevier and Martin. Blount, William, Governor of Southwest Territory. Bolivar, Spanish-American general. Boone, Daniel, hunter and deputy surveyor; in Virginia Legislature; trader; creed; keeps faith with Indians. Borarth, Mrs., feat of, against Indians. Bradford, John, publisher ofKentucke Gazette. Brady, Sam, feats of; his scouts formidable fighters. Brant, Joseph, Iroquois chief. British, keep country round great lakes; support Indians against frontiersmen; deeds of British troops; foes of frontiersmen. Brown, John, Kentucky delegate in Congress, allied to Wilkinson; he and Madison have intercourse with Gardoqui; letter advising independence for Kentucky; disunionist, not corrupt; misrepresents action of Continental Congress. Brown, Joseph, story of his capture by Indians. Caldwell, British partisan. Campbell, Arthur, sides with state of Franklin. Carondolet, Spanish governor, excites Indians against Americans. Castleman, Indian fighter. Cherokees, complain of violation of treaties; chief killed; hold council with Franklin people; hostilities with Franklin; uneasiness under pressure of borderers; embroiled with Kentuckians; outrages against; butchery of; war with. Chickamaugas, a banditti; ravages by; beat back Martin's expedition. Chickasaws, war with Kickapoos; uneasy over American advance. Chippewas, thirst for liquor; wanton outrages by. Choctaws, alarmed by coming of frontier settlers. Christian, Col. William, death of. Clark, George Rogers, closes land office as war measure; land-poor; manner of life; commission to treat with Indians; encroaches on Indian lands; believes treaties to be futile; advocates war; appealed to by Vincennes Americans; moves against Indians; failure of expedition; experiences of friend in river-trade; seizes goods of Spanish trader; back-woodsmen approve this deed; it is condemned by Federal and Virginian authorities; his motives suspected; his acts disapproved by Kentucky Convention; he writes to Gardoqui proposing to found a colony in Illinois; friendship for Gibault. Cocke, William, envoy from state of Franklin; writes to Benj. Franklin. Coldwater, Indian town on; French traders at; destroyed by Robertson. Colonies, proposals to found them in Spanish territory; Colonial systems, varieties of; United States makes new departure in. Commerce on Mississippi, peculiarities and dangers of; profits of; uncertainties of; hampered by Spaniards; extent of. Conolly attempts intrigue in Kentucky. Contested election in state of Franklin. Continental troops, best class of immigrants. Convention, held at Danville to erect Kentucky into a State; second convention declares for separate statehood; third convention; wrangles with Virginia Legislature; further conventions. Cornplanter, the Iroquois, speech and deeds. Corn Tassel, friendly Cherokee chief, murdered by whites. Council, of northern Indians at Sandusky. Creeks, trouble with Georgians; hostility to Americans; feudatory to Spaniards; ravages by; constant clashing with Georgians; bad faith towards United States. Cumberland, river, fertile lands along; speculation in lands; settlements in great bend, II; settlers on, take no share in the Franklin quarrel; they have slight national feeling; their currency; their troubles with Indians; increase in their numbers. Cunningham family murdered by Indians. Cutler, Manasseh, represents Ohio Company before Congress; perhaps writes draft of ordinance; visits Ohio. Dane, Nathan, share in ordinance of 1787. Delawares, divided councils of. Detroit, important British post; life at. Disunion spirit on frontier; folly of; extent in Vermont and Kentucky; equivocal attitude of disunion leaders; Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, and Hartford Convention. Doolin family murdered by Indians. Dorchester, Lord, rouses Indians against Americans; his attitude as Governor of Canada. Elliott, British partisan. Federal Government treats with Indians. Filson, John, misadventure of; goes for help to Louisville. Fleming, Col. Wm., visits Kentucky; presides over first Danville Convention. Frankland, proposal to alter name of Franklin to; proposed constitution for. Franklin, insurrectionary state of, founded; government and finance; memorial to Congress; named after the philosopher; piratical attitude towards Indians; friendship for Georgia; workings of the government; revolt against; Virginia unfriendly, but Georgia friendly; grasps at Indian lands; war with Indians; quarrels with North Carolina and the Cherokees; totters to its fall; collapse. French, complaints against Americans; friendship with Indians. French towns, chaos in. French traders excite Indians against Americans. Frontier, attracts adventurous spirits; social characteristics of frontiersmen. Galvez, victories of; Viceroy of Mexico. Game, abundance of, in Kentucky. Gardoqui, Don Diego, Spanish Minister in New York; negotiations with Jay; declines Jay's propositions; intrigues with separatist leaders; letter to Robertson; negotiations with Morgan; fruitlessness of his diplomacy; inability to understand Americans; intercourse with leaders in Congress; correspondence with Sevier; sends envoy to Franklin; negotiations with the Franklin leaders. Georgia, room for growth within. Gibault, priest at Cahokia. Gillespie, Captain, protects Indian prisoner; his station captured by Indians. Girty, Simon, British partisan; ransoms captive. Grayson, William, share in ordinance. Hamtranck, expedition against Wabash Indians Hardin, John, Col., skirmish with Indians; wounded; successful foray; commands militia under Harmar; is defeated. Harmar, General, investigates alleged filibustering expedition from Franklin; takes possession of French towns; quarrels with backwoodsmen; stateliness of life; foray against Shawnees; marches against Miami towns; poor quality of army; destroys towns; his detachments defeated; his retreat. Hart, Israel, family butchered by Indians. Henry, Patrick, authorizes Kentuckians to attack Indians; services of; hostility to state of Franklin. Holston, river, settlements on; trail from these settlements to Cumberland; rapid growth of settlements. Hopewell, treaty of. Houston, Samuel, proposes constitution of Frankland Illinois, American settlers in the; quarrels of Americans and creoles; creoles petition Congress; relations of both with Federal troops. Indian fighters. Indians, futile treaties with; treachery of; double dealing of; wish war; ravages of; wrongs committed against; horrors of warfare with; terrible qualities of; wage war of aggression; attack immigrants; their ravages; ravages increase; varying conditions of warfare against; further ravages; attacks on Ohio boats; extent of damage done by, in Kentucky. Individual initiative of settlers, chief characteristic of settlement of Northwest Innes threatens disunion. Jackson, Andrew, intercourse with Spanish agents; share in Indian fighting. Jay, John, does not realize growth of West; renders great services to West; negotiations with Gardoqui; offers temporary suspension of right to navigate Mississippi; anger of Westerners at this; his attitude and advice on subject. Jefferson, fatuous military judgment of; wise attitude towards West; against slavery in Northwest. Johnson boys, adventure of. Jonesboro, convention at, declares for independence. Kenton, Simon, surveyor and hunter; Indian fighter; rescues white captives; leads raids against Indians; his scout company.Kentucky Gazette. Kentucky, great growth of; good poor man's country; emigrants to, American, German, Scotch, Irish; characteristics of people; their attitude towards Spain; misery of early settlers; great change in; scourged by Indians; prosperity of; politics; movement for separate statehood; movement compared to that in Franklin; wrangles with Virginia; delays in movement; Kentucky becomes a State. King, Rufus, opposes slavery in Northwest. Kirk, John, his family murdered by Indians; brutal deed of his son. Lake posts, held by British, importance of, to frontiersmen. Land claims of States; differences in substantial value of; those of Virginia and North Carolina most important; those of the other States very shadowy; misconduct of Georgia; attitude of the non-claimant States; Continental Congress wrestle with; question settled by compromise and bargain; Connecticut's sharp bargain; small money value of land. Land companies. Lands, western, eagerly sought by both settlers and speculators; intense interest in. Lee, "Lighthorse Harry," agrees with Jay about Mississippi; borrows money of Gardoqui. Lee, Richard Henry, share in ordinance. Legrace, J. M. P., French commandant at Vincennes. Lincoln family attacked by Indians. Logan, Benjamin, protects immigrants; presides at meeting of Kentucky field officers; successful raid against Shawnee towns; fails to enforce discipline; leads other forays; prominence of; takes lead in movement for statehood. Logan, John, scatters Cherokee war party. Louisville, population in 1786. Madison, intercourse with Gardoqui. Mansker, Indian fighter. Marshall, Humphrey, historian and Union leader in Kentucky. Marshall, Thomas, Union leader in Kentucky. Martin, Alexander, Gov. of North Carolina, corresponds with Sevier. Martin, Joseph, general and Indian agent; tries to protect Cherokees; removes from among them; his opinion of them; beaten by Chickamaugas; his plantation attacked by Creeks. May, John, Col., visits lands of Ohio Company. McClure, Mrs., terrible experience of. McDowell, Col. Samuel, presides over second Danville Convention. McGarry, foul murder committed by. McGillivray, Creek chief, correspondence with Robertson; with Robertson and Bledsoe; makes groundless complaints; makes treaty at New York; this treaty repudiated by Creeks. Merrill, Mrs. John, her feat against Indians. Methodism, great advance of. Miami Company. Miami Indians, hostile; expedition against. Miro, Don Estevan, severity of, towards American traders; intrigues with separatist leaders; duplicity of; correspondence with Wilkinson and Sebastia. Michilimakinac, British post. Molunthee, Shawnee chief, advocates peace; foully murdered by McGarry. Morgan, Col. George, proposes to form colony in Spanish territory. Muscle Shoals, failure of settlement at, under claim of Georgia. Navarro, Martin, Spanish Intendant of Louisiana; wishes to separate the West from the Union. Navigation of Mississippi, importance of, to West; subject of tedious diplomatic negotiations; excitement over; right to, asserted by Congress. New England people, spread north and west; settle in Northwest. New Madrid founded. New York, its people expand within its own boundaries. Niagara, British post. Northwest, the, won by nation as a whole; individual settlers of less consequence than in Southwest. Ohio Company, formed in 1786; secures abolition of slavery in Northwest; purchase of lands on Ohio; founds town of Marietta; importance of its action; contrasts with feats of early pioneers. Ohio, first permanent settlers in. Ohio, river, fertile lands along; speculation in; river route, chief highway for immigrants; immense number of immigrants using it. Ordinance concerning sale of public lands. Ordinance of 1787, vital to Northwest; importance of; its history; good conduct of Southern States on slavery question; provisions of ordinance; articles of compact; prohibits slavery; importance of, as state paper; formulates new departure in colonial system. Outlaw, backwoods colonel, kills friendly Cherokees. Patterson, Robert, Colonel, good conduct of. Patton, skirmish with Indians. Pickens, Andrew, and his fellow-justices of Abbeville, S. C., denounce Franklin men for murder of Cherokees. Pioneers, changes among; succession of types among; characteristics of different types. Presbyterian ministers. Putnam, Rufus, one of founders of Ohio. Robertson, James, attacks Indians at Coldwater; writes to Illinois about the slain French traders; and to Delaware; writes to McGillivray about separation of Southwest from Union; lack of national feeling; correspondence about Indians with Miro and Gardoqui; attends North Carolina Legislature; son and brother killed by Indians; letter to McGillivray; to Martin; encourages immigration to Cumberland; wounded by Indians; commands militia; brigadier-general. Scott, Charles, a Kentucky Indian fighter. Scott, settler, family butchered by Indians. Sebastian, Judge, in pay of Spaniards; ally of Wilkinson; conspires to dismember the Union; corrupt. Sectional intolerance. Separatist spirit, strength of, at different times in different sections; leaders of; similarity to Spanish-American revolutionists; their evil influence; partial justification of separatist movement by narrowness of eastern people; especially of New Englanders; examples of this narrowness; excuses for certain; separatist leaders; separatist feeling in Kentucky; anger of Virginians over; separatist feeling in West; separatist movement in West Virginia; in Kentucky; failure of movement. Settlers, character of; occupation of. Sevier, James, goes to Gardoqui. Sevier, John, president of Jonesboro Convention; Governor of Franklin; correspondence with Gov. Martin; and Patrick Henry; issues manifesto; rivalry with Tipton; brawls with Tipton; asks help of Evan Shelby; friendly relations with Georgia; member of Cincinnati; he and his men compared with bygone colonizers; leads forays against Indians; corresponds with Benj. Franklin; with Shelby; end of term as governor; in dire straits; fight with Tipton's men; further forays against Indians; fails to protect Indian prisoners; reprobated for his failure; abandoned for moment by frontiersmen; arrest ordered by Governor of North Carolina; leads other forays; is arrested; escapes; proceedings against him dropped; corresponds with Gardoqui; offers to enter into alliance with Spain; becomes a Federalist; destroys Indian town on Coosa; ransoms captive whites; made brigadier-general. Sevier, Valentine, at Muscle Shoals. Shawnees, hostile; surrender prisoners; burn prisoners. Shelby, Evan, appealed to by state of Franklin; corresponds with Sevier; hostile to state of Franklin. Slavery, negro, in West; a curse to the whites; prohibited in Northwest. Slim Tom, an Indian, brutal murder by. Spaniards, on southwestern frontier; their dominion jeopardized by backwoodsmen; who look at them as the Germans once looked at the Roman Empire; they recognize the frontiersmen as their special foes; treachery of; diplomatic negotiations with; corruption of officials; outrages by American and creole traders; seize goods of Cumberland trader; dread the backwoodsmen; try to keep the Indians their allies; and incite them to war against settlers; towards whom they behave with shameful duplicity; religious intolerance of; expel American traders from among the southern tribes. St. Clair, Arthur, Governor of Northwest Territory; christens capital Cincinnati; his share in governing the Northwest; holds treaties with Indians. Sullivan, Daniel, fight with Indians. Sullivan, John, proposes filibustering expedition. Symmes, John Cleves, judge in Northwest. Tennessee, river, rich lands along; settlements along headwaters of; immigrant route down; three counties on, proceed to form new government; elect delegates to meet at Jonesboro. Tipton, John, in Jonesboro Convention; rivalry with Sevier; revolts against Franklin government; hostility to Sevier; defeats Sevier's forces; captures Sevier. Treaties, failure of; violated by Indians. Trotter, Robert, Col., good conduct of; misconduct of. Union, the, immense importance of, to welfare of race; without its adoption the revolutionary war would have gone for nought; triumph of Union feeling in West; western movement in favor of. Van Swearingen, son killed by Indians. Vermont, affairs similar to those in Kentucky. Vigo, Francis, trading on Ohio; misadventure with Indians. Vincennes, condition of, in 1786; anarchy at; Indians threaten; garrison established at, by Clark; citizens surrender charter. Wabash, American settlers on. Wabash Indians, hostile; misconduct of; treachery of; harass the Vincennes garrison. Wabash, river, land speculation. Wallace, Judge Caleb, position in Kentucky. War with Indians, unavoidable; justifiable; horrible; importance of. Washington, wise attitude on Mississippi question. Watauga, river, settlements along. Westerners, eagerness of, to acquire Spanish lands. Wetzel, John, adventure of. Wetzel, Lewis, brawl with soldiers. White, James, in pay of Spain; corrupt; sent to Franklin by Gardoqui. Whitley, William, feats against Indians. Wilderness trail to Kentucky. Wilkinson, James, his base character; embarks in river commerce; corrupt and disloyal negotiations with Spaniards; influence in Kentucky; a separatist leader; proposal to form a barrier state; hostility to all Spanish schemes save his own; takes bribes from Spaniards; his leadership in the disunion movements; pensioned by Spaniards; corruption of; leads Kentucky separatists; urges violent action; goes to New Orleans; returns; opposes ratification of Federal constitution. Wyandots, doubtful attitude of; declare for peace. Yazoo river, speculation in lands.