VIBY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR
Tanacharison’s hunting cabin was on Little Beaver Creek, fifteen miles down the Ohio. When the Hunter found him in the morning, he was in no hurry to meet Washington.
“Instead of sending us a principal man,” he said, “the Governor of Virginia sends a boy without experience to talk with chiefs. I am Half-King and wish to talk with Assaragoa himself. He rules Virginia, and I rule my country. It is not dignified for me to run at the call of a boy. But I will go up during the day, when I have finished my business here.”
So it was not until the middle of the afternoon that Tanacharison arrived in Logstown. He went to his own house, to change his clothes. But George Washington acted sensibly. Pretty soon he came to the house with John Davidson, who spoke Iroquois dialects, and after greeting Tanacharison he said:
“I am arrived at Logstown from your brother the Governor of Virginia, to talk with the Mingo, the Delaware, the Shawnee, the Wyandot. If Tanacharison, who is Half-King, will come to my tent, we can speak there in private away from the ears of women and children.”
Tanacharison looked Washington up and down.
“That is well said,” he answered. “You are young, but you have wisdom. This boy may come, to be present in case I do not understand. You know him. He is my son.”
Therefore the Hunter went with Tanacharison and Washington to Washington’s tent, and they sat down.
“I am told,” said Washington, “that you went, yourself, to the French chief at the Lakes, and commanded him to leave. As I am going there too, I should like to know what your words were to him and what his words were to you, and what the distance is, so that I may know how to act.”
“When I went, the distance was shorter,” replied the Half-King. “You are too late in the year to get there easily. The snows and rains have swollen the rivers and made many great bogs. The first fort is at least six nights’ sleeps by best travel.”
“Nevertheless, I am going,” said Washington. “Those are my orders from the Governor.”
“Me the French insulted. You they will laugh at, and think to fool, because you have no beard,” objected Tanacharison.
“If they think I am not worthy of notice,” Washington said quietly, “then they will not watch me and I can look about and see what they have.”
“Wah!” Half-King uttered. “The other man was a coward. You are no coward. I see you will go to the French chief.”
“If my brother will tell me what he said to the French chief and what the French chief answered, I will listen,” Washington prompted.
“The French chief treated me like a dog,” declared Tanacharison, growing angry. “He has since died; now there is another, and what his mind is I do not know. I went alone to see the first, who commanded last summer. I took the speech belt of friendship left us by Captain Joncaire. Instead of being politeand receiving me like a chief, the Frenchman sat down while I stood and he asked me who I was and what was my business there. I said to him:
“‘Father, a long time ago you set before the Six Nations a basin with the leg of a beaver, and bade us eat in peace and plenty; and if any person disturbed us, we should drive him out.’
“‘Now, father it is you who are disturbing us, by coming and building on our lands, and taking it away.’
“‘Father,’ I said, ‘a long time ago we kindled a fire for you at a place called Montreal, where you were to stay. I now ask you to go to that place, for this is our land and not yours.’
“‘Father,’ I said, ‘if you had come peaceably, like our brothers the English, you could have traded with us like they do. But to come and build houses without our permission and take our land by force we cannot allow.’
“‘Father,’ I said, ‘you and the English are white. We live in a country between; the land does not belong to either of you. Now I ask you to go out. I am saying the same to our brothers the English, and we will see which of you will pay attention and deserve sharing with us. I am here to say this to you, for I am not afraid to order you off our land.’ Then I handed the wampum belt to him, that he might know we were done with him.”
“Those were good words,” Washington nodded gravely. “What did he reply?”
“He said to me, speaking very rudely: ‘My child, I do not know this wampum with which you order me away. You need not speak, for I will not hear you. I am not afraid of flies or mosquitoes, such asIndians are. Down the river I will go and build upon it. If the river is blocked I am strong enough to burst it open and tread everybody under my feet.’
“Then he threw the speech belt in my face, and he said, laughing at me:
“‘Child, you talk foolish. You say this land belongs to you, but there is not so much as the black of your nail yours. I saw that land before the Six Nations took it from the Shawnees. With lead I went down and took possession of that river. It is my land and I will have it, no matter who tries to stand against me. If you will be ruled by me you will get kindness, but not otherwise.’
“He spoke angrily, with a red face,” Tanacharison continued. “So I took the speech belt and came home. You had better think a while before you go, for you will be treated with rudeness.”
“My chief the Governor of Virginia has ordered me to travel straight to the French and give the French chief a letter,” said Washington. “There I will go!”
“What is in the letter?” Tanacharison asked.
“It is a letter of much importance to us all,” said Washington. “And by this string of wampum Assaragoa asks you, his brothers, for young men who will go with me by the shortest road, and hunt for meat, and help me against the French Indians who have taken up the hatchet.”
“All this must come before the council tomorrow,” answered Tanacharison, “when the chiefs of the Shawnee and the Delaware will be present. But we should like to know your business with the French chief, and what the English intend to do. Do the English claim this land north of the river?”
“The first thing to do is to get rid of the French,” said Washington.
“That is so,” agreed Tanacharison, growing angry again. “Now I will show you where those French forts are.”
Then Tanacharison took a bit of charcoal from the fire, and a strip of bark from a log, and drew pictures.
“The trail to the north is this way,” he said. “In so many sleeps,” and he six times made the motion of drawing a blanket over his face, “we come to this place named Venango. It stands where the River of the Buffalo empties into the River Allegheny. The French under Captain Joncaire have seized it. And by six more sleeps, up at the other end of the River of the Buffalo, is the second French fort, where the head captain lives. There is a third fort farther on, at the Lake Erie, but you will not need to go to it, I think.”
The council with Washington was held the next morning, and much was said. But this did not finish matters. The Mingo speech belt from the French was down at Tanacharison’s hunting cabin. The Shawnees had a speech belt and so had the Delawares, and these were to be thrown at the French. Besides, the Shawnee chiefs from Sonnioto down the river had not yet come for council; they would not arrive until after two days.
“This cannot be done in a hurry,” the Half-King said to Washington. “I have sent to the Shawnees, for their belt and two young men to go with you. I have ordered Shingis to his town, to bring the Delaware belt and two young men to go with you. When the French see that you have Mingo, Shawneeand Delaware with you, they will know who are your friends.”
But King Shingis did not come back. He pretended that his wife was sick, and that all his young men were out hunting. The Delaware speech belt, he said, was up at Venango, with the Delawares there; and he sent a string of wampum which would order the Venango Delaware chief to take the belt on to the principal French fort.
Scarouady declared that old Shingis was afraid. The Delawares all were suspicious yet. The Shawnees stayed away. The Wyandots said:
“Where are the presents the Ohio Company should send us, if we are to help fight the French? If the French are driven off who will protect us from the English?”
And the Mingos said:
“We do not know what this Washington wishes with the French. What will the English of Virginia do? They can build a trading house with guns, but we will not have our lands stolen from us.”
Washington had been in Logstown seven days. Then Tanacharison decided not to wait any longer for the Shawnees and the Delawares. This night he said to Washington:
“We will start for the French fort in the morning, two hours after sunrise. I will go, and we will take Juskakaka to speak for us, and White Thunder who is Keeper of the Wampum; and of all my young men I can find only Guyasuta. But he is active and a brave warrior. Scarouady will stay here to command in my absence.”
Then Washington said, through John Davidson:
“I hear your boy is rightly named the Hunter.He looks like a strong boy, and I see he is a smart boy. It is well that he learn what he can, in the company of chiefs. Let us take him to find the game.”
“Wah!” uttered Tanacharison, as if pleased. “Yes, he is a fine hunter. There is no better. He also knows the English tongue and the French tongue, and may be useful. We will take him.”
When Robert heard this from Christopher Gist, he, too, was pleased. He felt warmly toward George Washington the American.