Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 6 (of 8) / The United States of North America, Part I

by Unknown

CHAPTER VIII.

THE INDIANS AND THE BORDER WARFARE OF THE REVOLUTION.

BY ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS,

American Antiquarian Society.

THE peace which followed the quelling of the Pontiac war gave opportunities for settlements to be pushed westward. The population on the border, rendered lawless by environment, was not likely to observe treaties. Fear of the Indians was more potent to restrain these restless men than dread of punishment by colonial authorities. Conflicts of colonial jurisdiction and disputed land claims added to the chronic confusion of the situation.

It needed all the tact and discretion of which that remarkable man, Sir William Johnson, was master to prevent outbreaks, and the danger was not over until the boundaries were adjusted with the Six Nations and other Indians, at Fort Stanwix, in 1768. There was far more cause for complaint against the English on the part of the tribes whom Sir William was able to control than on the part of the Senecas, who, in September, 1763, had surprised and scalped a working party with their guard. Encroachment upon their lands had also irritated the Mohawks, who particularly resented an attempt of a Connecticut company to colonize the valley of the Susquehanna. Early in the spring of 1763, the Connecticut company sought to secure Sir William's influence with the Indians in quieting the company's title, which was based upon the Connecticut charter and upon alleged Indian deeds. The company failed in this, as well as in an attempt to negotiate with the confederacy. The Indians, instead of granting a deed, sent to Connecticut a delegation of Mohawks, accompanied by Guy Johnson, to represent to the governor of that colony the peril with which further attempts at colonization would be attended.[1260] These efforts arrested the movements of the company, and for the time immigration was checked. They were not early enough, however, to prevent one of those horrible attacks which stand out in our memories as types of Indian warfare and which in the minds of many readers obscure all other conceptions of Indian character. A number of families had already settled in this region, under the auspices of the Connecticut company, and had built themselves homes near the present site of Wilkesbarré. On October 15, 1763, they were suddenly attacked by Indians, and one woman and nine men were killed and scalped. The rest of the inhabitants fled to the mountains, and such as did not perish worked their way through the wilderness to the nearest settlements. Their villages were destroyed, their cattle killed, and their crops laid waste. Avenging expeditions were promptly organized in Pennsylvania. One marched to the Delaware town at Wyoming, but found it deserted. Another laid waste the Delaware and Munsee towns on the west branch of the Susquehanna.

The Moravian Indians at Wyoming, who had taken no part in the massacre of the Connecticut settlers, removed for safety to Gnadenhütten, whence they were taken to Philadelphia for greater security. At Paxton, Pennsylvania, the inhabitants assembled secretly, and attacked a settlement of the harmless Conestogoes. The cause for this wicked slaughter has never been clearly explained,[1261] but the subsequent memorials of the rioters seem to indicate that it was part of a general plan to exterminate the Indians. Whatever the motive, popular approval was strong enough to shield the perpetrators of such shameless deeds.[1262] The entire band of the Conestogoes was exterminated,[1263] and their town was destroyed. The first attack was made on them on the night of the 14th of December, when this band of murderers surrounding the town, killed all who happened to be there. Those Indians who were absent took refuge in Lancaster, where they were lodged in a public building, spoken of by some as the workhouse, by some as the jail. On the 27th, their enemies followed them to this refuge, and in cold blood slaughtered them all, men, women, and children, indiscriminately.

The Moravian Indians, who had taken refuge at Philadelphia, were next threatened by the rioters, who marched towards that place with the avowed intention of killing them also. The provincial authorities appealed to General Gage for help, but before his reply reached them they sought to throw the Indians upon New York for protection. It happened that a company of regulars was about to march from Philadelphia for New York, and under their escort the Indians were dispatched, with intention to place them under charge of Sir William Johnson. The New York authorities refused, however, to permit the Indians to enter that province. Meantime General Gage placed troops at the disposal of Governor Penn. The Indians were conducted back to Philadelphia, and orders were given to repel by force any attack. The rioters again approached Philadelphia, but were dissuaded from attack, and Pennsylvania was spared the shame of further atrocities by the "Paxton Boys."

After this excitement was over the labors of Sir William Johnson to prevent renewed conflict were still constant. He complained, in his correspondence,[1264] of murders, robberies, and encroachments on the rights and possessions of the natives. The frontier inhabitants, according to him, thought themselves at liberty to make settlements where they pleased. He lost heart, while on the other hand the settlers openly bade defiance to authority. In 1766 he wrote: "Murders are now daily committed on the frontiers, and I fear that an Indian war is inevitable." In January, 1767, he announced that Colonel Cresap, of Maryland, himself held a treaty some time during the last year with several warriors of the Six Nations, who passed that way, and who were persuaded to grant to him a considerable tract of land down the Ohio toward Green-Brier. With prophetic instinct, Sir William added: "If this be true, it will be productive of dangerous consequences." A large part of Johnson's time was spent in protecting the Indians from such fraudulent conveyances of their land as were made through transfers where there was but a shadow of title, through forgeries, and through deeds executed without proper formalities, under circumstances which would prevent recognition of the transaction by the tribes. Many deeds, which upon the face seemed properly executed, were secured from the signers when they were so completely intoxicated that they were ignorant what they were doing. Others conveyed by metes and bounds an extent of territory far exceeding the intention of the grantors. No transfer of land made by a band of warriors, on the war-path or on a hunting expedition, would have been recognized by the confederacy. Sir William himself said: "A sachem of each tribe is a necessary party to a fair conveyance, and such sachem affixes the mark of the tribe thereto, as a public seal of a corporation." The title to the land was supposed to be in all. Even the women had a voice in transfers by bargain and sale.[1265] It was one of the principal occupations of Sir William Johnson's life to adjust difficulties arising out of transfers, such as the one to Cresap, of which he had heard, and in which he saw the seeds of future trouble, if it should prove to be true. In his review of the trade and affairs of the Indians in the northern district of America, he recapitulates the wrongs of the Indian.[1266]

Life in the midst of such impending dangers bred contempt for authority, even on the part of men who were well disposed. The strong arm of the government was but feebly felt in the distant bottoms in the western parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, which settlers were beginning to appropriate to their own use. The inhabitants of the frontiers were a law unto themselves, and sometimes unto the authorities. Men who diligently read their Bibles and pondered over the teachings of the gospels could tear scalps from the heads of Indians. The government was powerless to protect the frontiers except through the agency of volunteers, and they in turn were able at any moment seriously to complicate the situation. In the organization of companies of rangers the weakness of the government was exposed, and through them the independence of the settlers was developed. Such companies frequently adopted Indian costumes, painted their faces, and manœuvred by Indian tactics. The habits of the Indian more than the civilization they had left, influenced their modes of life. They attacked for revenge, and were barbarous because the savages were. In the case of the Indians such methods in warfare came by inheritance. They were modified somewhat by the spirit of the missionaries, and however cruel they may have been, they were at any rate absolutely free from assaults on woman's chastity. In the case of the settlers, the promptings of civilization were disregarded, and it would seem as if the system of bounties for scalps had taught them to regard the Indian as on the level of a brute. Nevertheless, the rule had exceptions; and it would not be just to paint all the settlers along the borders in these repulsive colors, or to believe that there was a universal desire for the extermination of the Indians.

Note.—This map was found in MS. among a collection of maps and charts which were presented to the New York State library by Obadiah Rich, of London. It had been sent to Lord Hillsborough in 1771, accompanying a memorial concerning the Iroquois, prepared by the Rev. Charles Inglis, of Trinity Church, New York city, who had endeavored to christianize them. This paper was subsequently recovered from the descendants of Dr. Inglis in Nova Scotia, and is printed in the Doc. Hist. N. Y. (quarto), iv. p. 661, accompanied by an engraved copy of Johnson's map, of which a reduction is given herewith. The map is also given in Pearson's Schenectady Patent, 1883, p. 433; in Hough's edition of Pouchot, ii. 148.

In N. Y. Col. Docs., viii. 136, Guy Johnson's map, showing the line fixed at Fort Stanwix, Nov., 1768, is given as copied from the original in Sir William Johnson's letter, Nov. 18, 1768, to Hillsborough, preserved in the State Paper Office. In Ibid. viii. 31, is a copy of the map annexed to the Report and Representation of the Board of Trade, March 7, 1768, showing the line of the bounds with the Indians. Cf. on this line Doc. Hist. N. Y., i. 587; N. Y. Col. Docs., viii. 110; New Jersey Archives, x. 55, 95; Mill's Bounds of Ontario, p. 21; Olden Time, i. 399; Schweinitz's Zeisberger, ch. xviii.; View of the title to Indiana (1776; see Hildeburn's Bibliog., no. 3,490). Respecting the territory of the Oneidas, see Magazine of American History, Oct., 1885, p. 387, where the accuracy of the map in Morgan's League of the Iroquois is questioned.—Ed.

This hazardous contact of Indian and border settler stretched along a doubtful line which extended from Oneida Lake to the central part of the valley of the Ohio. In 1768 the boundaries were adjusted at Fort Stanwix, between representatives of the English government, on the one part, and the Six Nations, the Delawares, the Shawanese, the Mingoes of Ohio, and other dependent tribes, on the other. A deed of the land to the east and south of a line which ran from a point just west of Fort Stanwix south to the Susquehanna, thence up the West Branch and across to Kittanning on the Alleghany, thence down that river and the Ohio to the mouth of the Tennessee, was then duly executed to the king of England. An exception from its terms was made of the land occupied by the Mohawks, whose settlements were all to the east of the agreed boundary line. The hunting-grounds comprised within the limits of the States of Kentucky and Tennessee were claimed by the Six Nations as conquered territory, and they paid no regard to the claims of the Cherokees, who had arranged a boundary with Stuart, the Indian agent, to a part at least of the same region, the northern termination of which was the mouth of the Kanawha River. It was understood by the Indians that no white man was to settle to the west of the line agreed upon.[1267]

The far-reaching influence of the Indian superintendents restrained this aboriginal population from violent outbreak from 1764 until the collision at Point Pleasant, Virginia, in 1774. This was undoubtedly precipitated by atrocities committed upon the Indians in the Ohio Valley, near Wheeling. Underlying the immediate causes for irritation during this period were reasons for complaint, revealed in the correspondence of Sir William Johnson, which would probably have led to warfare at an early date. Among these was the influx of settlers upon the hunting-grounds of the Indians, where, regardless of treaties, the land across the Ohio was parcelled out in "tomahawk improvements", as the squatter rights of the day were denominated. These proceedings attracted the attention of General Gage, and on the 8th of August, 1772, he issued a proclamation, calling attention to the fact that some persons had "undertaken to make settlements beyond the boundaries fixed by treaties made with the Indian nations", "where they lead a wandering life, without government and without laws", "causing infinite disturbance." Such persons were ordered to "quit these countries instantly and without delay, and to retire at their choice into some one of the colonies of his majesty." The peace which was negotiated by Lord Dunmore brought but little quiet to the settlers on the border. Indian raids were frequent, and the details of their horrors are sickening, but the loss of life by these raids has been greatly exaggerated. The Indians seldom ventured beyond the region which was scantily peopled. The watchfulness of the settlers, and their promptness to assemble and pursue, averted many disasters. At such a time Virginia and Pennsylvania were wrangling over the right to grant patents for land, the settlement of which had so much to do with the uneasiness of the Indians.[1268]

In New York, settlements were more compact. Rights of territory were better defined and better understood. Indian lands had been better protected there from direct invasion and from fraudulent transfer. Danger from trespass was better appreciated. The Indians themselves, being under the personal oversight of their superintendent, were better controlled. His immediate presence made him more useful in the adjustment of disputes without resort to the tomahawk. The frontier patriots of Tryon County, "unlike the rude inhabitants of most frontier settlements", are stated by a careful student of the records to have been "scrupulous in their devotion to the supremacy of the laws." The confederacy of the Six Nations, as a whole, had not participated in the events in the valley of the Ohio, but they shared with their dependants and allies in the uneasiness caused by such aggressions upon Indian territory. Some of their warriors had taken part in the Virginia war, and the "temper of the whole Indian race, with the exception of the Oneidas, was soured by these occurrences of the year 1774." The first official labors of importance which devolved upon Colonel Guy Johnson, who, after the death of Sir William Johnson in 1774, had been appointed to the office of superintendent, were to check the resentment of the Six Nations.[1269] His success in those labors showed that he had inherited, by virtue of his office, some of the respect and affection which the natives had lavished upon his predecessor.

Such was the condition of affairs when Washington took command of the army, in July, 1775, with instructions not to disband any of the forces already raised, until further directions from Congress. It is not probable that all the members of the Congress were aware of the full meaning of these instructions. There were among the men whom Washington was thus instructed not to discharge a number of Indians regularly enlisted as minute-men. Had the question of employing Indians been submitted to Congress at that time, it would probably have been answered in the negative; but it had already been settled by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay when they accepted the services of Indians.[1270]

On the first day of April, 1775, the Committee on the State of the Province reported to that congress a resolve beginning with these words: "Whereas a number of Indians, natives of the town of Stockbridge, have enlisted as minute-men." A committee was next appointed to draft a letter to the Rev. Mr. Kirkland,[1271] and to frame an address to the chief of the Mohawk tribes. The letter requests Mr. Kirkland to use his influence with the Six Nations "to join with us in the defence of our rights;" but if he could not "prevail with them to take an active part in this glorious cause", he was "at least to engage them to stand neuter." The address calls upon the Indians to "whet their hatchet, and be prepared to defend our liberties and lives."

It is evident that the Stockbridge Indians were further importuned,[1272] for on the 11th of April their chief sachem answered a communication from the President of the Provincial Congress (the contents of which can only be conjectured) by offering to visit the Six Nations and find out how they stood. "If I find that they are against you", he said, "I will try and turn their minds."... "One thing I ask of you, if you send for me to fight, that you will let me fight in my own Indian way." The Massachusetts Congress also tried to draw recruits from the Indians of Nova Scotia, and addressed them on the 15th of May, 1775,[1273] as their "friends and good brothers;" adding as an inducement for their enlistment that "the Indians at Stockbridge all join with us, and some of their men have enlisted as soldiers." Captain John Lane was sent down among these Eastern Indians to raise one company of their men, "to join with us in the war with your and our enemies." Nothing, however, resulted from this, except the arrival in June of Captain Lane with one chief and three young men, and at a later date the execution of a barren treaty.[1274] In addition to these efforts put forth by the Provincial Congress, attempts were early made in the same direction by provincial officers;[1275] and thus by general or special effort at the very beginning of the war, the Americans secured the services of such Indians as were willing to enlist, and the English followed so close in their steps as to confound, to the casual observer of their mutual criminations, the evidence of priority. The Indians engaged upon the American side produced no material influence upon military movements. Their presence in camp has been ignored by many writers. The responsibility for the intention is the same as if the effort had been successful. It must, however, be remembered that small bodies of Indians, serving with whites, were controllable and easily restrained from excesses. After the evacuation of Boston, the tide of events changed the field of war, and altered the composition of the troops. The army began to assume a national aspect. The voice of Massachusetts was no longer pre-eminent in military affairs.

The Continental Congress contained representatives of other colonies who keenly felt the dangers from the use of Indians by the enemy. The expressions of opinion in that body were, therefore, much more conservative than in the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay. On the 18th of May it appears by the Journals that indubitable evidence of a design formed by the British ministry of making an invasion had been received. In June, according to the Secret Journals, Governor Carleton was making preparation to invade the colonies, and was "instigating the Indian nations to take up the hatchet against them." On the 30th the Committee on Indian Affairs was instructed "to prepare proper talks to the several tribes of Indians for engaging the continuance of their friendship to us, and neutrality in our present unhappy dispute with Great Britain." On the 1st of July there is a hint of a possible change of position shown in the passage of a resolution, "that in case any agent of the ministry shall induce any Indian tribes, or any of them, to commit actual hostilities against these colonies, or to enter into an offensive alliance with the British troops, thereupon the colonies ought to avail themselves of an alliance with such Indian nations as will enter into the same, to oppose such British troops and their allies." The statement that Carleton was instigating the Indians to "fall upon us" was repeated July 6th.[1276] On July 12th the Committee on Indian Affairs recommended that the country be divided into three Indian departments, and that commissioners be appointed, with power to "treat with the Indians in their respective departments, in the name and on behalf of the United Colonies, in order to preserve peace and friendship with the said Indians, and to prevent their taking any part in the present commotion." This recommendation was adopted. On July 13th, a formal speech was addressed to the Six Confederate Nations, urging them to keep peace. On the 17th the commissioners were recommended to employ Mr. Kirkland, in order to secure the friendship of the Indians and continue them in a state of neutrality. On July 21st a plan of confederation was submitted to Congress by Franklin, in which "a perpetual alliance, offensive and defensive", was proposed, "to be entered into as soon as may be with the Six Nations." On December 2d it was resolved that the Indians of the St. Francis, Penobscot, Stockbridge, and St. John and other tribes may be called on in case of real necessity, and that giving them presents is suitable and proper. On March 8, 1776, the growing disposition to make use of Indians found expression in a resolve "that Indians be not employed as soldiers in the armies of the United Colonies, before the tribes to which they belong shall, in a national council, held in the customary manner, have consented thereto, nor then without express approbation of Congress." On May 25th the opposition seems to have been completely overcome, when Congress resolved "that it is highly expedient to engage the Indians in the service of the United Colonies."[1277] On June 3d authority was conferred upon General Washington to employ in Canada a number of Indians, not exceeding two thousand; and on the 6th instructions were given to the standing Committee on Indian Affairs to devise ways and means for carrying into effect the resolution of the 3d. Meantime the news of the disaster at the Cedars was received, and its circumstances impelled Congress to special efforts in behalf of the colonies. On June 14th the commissioners of the Northern Department were instructed to "engage the Six Nations in our interest, on the best terms that can be procured." On the 17th, the restriction in the resolution of the 3d, which limited to Canada the use of the Indians to be raised, was removed, and the general was permitted to employ them in any place where he should judge they would be most useful. He was further authorized "to offer a reward of one hundred dollars for every commissioned officer, and thirty dollars for every private soldier of the king's troops, that they should take prisoners in the Indian country, or on the frontiers of these colonies." The days of irresolution were over. Congress was now irrevocably committed to the proposition of permitting the general commanding the armies to take what advantage he could of Indian auxiliaries, and to offer them bounties for prisoners. The next utterance of Congress on this subject is to be found in the Declaration of Independence, in which the king is arraigned because "he has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions." This was closely followed by a resolution on July 8th, authorizing Washington to call forth and engage the Indians of the St. John, Nova Scotia, and Penobscot tribes. The address to the people of Great Britain was adopted the same day. The address to the people of Ireland, in which it is asserted that "the wild and barbarous savages of the wilderness have been solicited by gifts to take up the hatchet against us, and instigated to deluge our settlements with the blood of defenceless women and children", was agreed to July 28, 1776.[1278] After this, the acts and resolutions of Congress were consistent with the resolution in which they declared that it was highly expedient to employ the Indians. Instructions were given from time to time to secure the greatest advantage out of the services of the Indians, in behalf of the country which was now struggling for independence; and in 1779 it was resolved that twelve blank commissions be furnished the commissioners of the Northern Department for the appointment of as many Indians, the name and the rank of each commission to be filled at the discretion of the commissioners.[1279]

The English approached the question differently; and there can be but little doubt that the proposition to use Indian warriors was more shocking to the cultivated Englishman, who was in no danger from their barbarous excesses, than to the American of corresponding attainments, whose life had been spent in close contact with men to whom such incidents had been every-day experiences. The fierce invectives of Chatham,[1280] in 1777, against the ministry for having enlisted the services of Indians, were founded on a proper estimate of the responsibilities of an invading army. Lord North recognized this distinction when, in 1775, he said that Carleton raised Indians only for purposes of defence. Military men knew that the natives, who had taken part in every war in America between the French and the English, must inevitably be drawn into any protracted contest between Great Britain and the colonies. It could be foreseen that, if the English retained Canada and Detroit, operations would be conducted by way of Lake Champlain, Oswego, and Detroit, which would involve the use of Indian territory. If any inference could be drawn from the past, no armed occupation of strategic positions within Indian territory, and no use of the rivers and natural highways of the back country for military purposes during a time of actual war, could be made without collision with the natives, unless such occupation and use was by their consent. Such consent could only be gained by alliance. General Gage and Lord Dunmore, both in close contact with the situation, placed their opinions on record soon after hostilities broke out. On June, 12, 1775, Gage wrote to Lord Dartmouth: "I hear that the rebels, after surprising Ticonderoga, made incursions and commenced hostilities upon the frontier of the province of Quebec, which will justify General Carleton to raise bodies of Canadians and Indians to attack them in return; and we need not be tender of calling on the savages, as the rebels here have shown us the example, by bringing as many Indians down here as they could collect." Lord Dunmore, whose indiscretions and brutality were so serviceable in stamping out loyalty among men of wealth and intelligence in Virginia, sought no justification in the example of the rebels. He wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth, on May 1st, that he hoped "to be able to collect from among Indians, negroes, and other persons a force sufficient, if not to subdue rebellion, at least to defend government;" and in the fall of the same year he endeavored to carry out his policy.[1281] Carleton was apparently averse to the employment of Indians in aggressive movements. At any rate, he took refuge behind his orders, which did not permit him "to act out of the line of the province."

Colonel Guy Johnson was the object of much suspicion during the months of May and June, 1775. He repudiated with vigor the position which these suspicions attributed to him, and said that he could not sufficiently express his surprise at those who had, either through malice or ignorance, misconstrued his intentions, and supposed him capable of setting Indians on the peaceable inhabitants of Tryon County. He was a servant of the king and an ardent loyalist. From the mere performance of his official duties he was necessarily an object of suspicion to the Americans. He was the person who furnished the natives with supplies. "We get our things from the superintendent. If our ammunition is stopped we shall distrust you", said an Indian speaker to the delegates from Albany and Tryon counties. These supplies were furnished by the king to those whom he termed his allies. It was evident that the king would not continue to furnish supplies, if their only effect was to keep the neighboring Indians on good terms with colonists who, while claiming to be loyal subjects, were actually in arms against his government. As the distributer of supplies, the safety of the superintendent was of great importance to the natives, and a rumor that the "Bostonians" contemplated seizing his person[1282] caused the Indians much alarm. Whether Johnson believed this rumor or not, he fortified his house. This act, as well as his sudden removal to Fort Stanwix, and thence to Oswego,—at both of which places he held conferences with Indians,—increased the numbers who doubted the sincerity of his statements. Yet even here, after these suspicious movements, he protested to the Provincial Congress of New York against the charges brought against him: "I trust I shall always manifest more humanity than to promote the destruction of the innocent inhabitants of a colony to which I have been always warmly attached." The conference at Oswego caused alarm to the inhabitants of Tryon County, and the air was filled with rumors of Indian invasion. Colonel Johnson reported to Dartmouth that he left home the last of May, "having received secret instructions from General Gage", and that he "assembled 1,458 Indians at Ontario,[1283] and adjusted matters with them in such a manner that they agreed to defend the communications and assist his majesty's troops in their operations." At the Albany conference the Indians were interrogated about the proceedings at Oswego, and repeatedly asserted that the superintendent's advice to them was to preserve neutrality.[1284] The statements made by the Indians at the conferences were generally to be relied upon. Johnson's language has perhaps been misunderstood. The assistance "to his majesty's troops in their operations" may have been limited to the agreement to defend the communications, the military value of which Johnson appreciated, but the full effect of an agreement to defend which the Indians did not comprehend. In the middle of July, Johnson arrived at Montreal, and another conference was held with 1,664 Indians, at which their services were secured for the king. Brant, who was present, afterwards said: "We immediately commenced in good earnest, and did our utmost during the war."

In the South, John Stuart, the Indian superintendent of that department, was also an object of suspicion. At a hint from friends he fled from Charleston to Savannah, and in turn to St. Augustine. From this spot, on July 18th, he wrote to the Committee of Safety of Charleston, asserting that he had never received any orders from his superiors "which, by the most tortured suspicion, could be interpreted to stir up or employ the Indians to fall upon the frontier inhabitants, or to take any part in the disputes between Great Britain and the colonies."[1285] A few weeks later he received from Gage a letter written just before that officer left Boston, the vindictiveness of which was probably prompted by anger. This letter contained instructions to "improve a correspondence with the Indians to the greatest advantage, and even when opportunity offers make them take arms against his majesty's enemies, and distress them all in your power; for no terms are now to be kept with them; they have brought down all the savages they could against us here, who, with their riflemen, are continually firing on our advanced sentries;[1286] in short, no time should be lost to distress a set of people so wantonly rebellious."[1287] Stuart apparently proceeded to carry out what he conceived to be the desires of his superior officer, and, in a letter of October 3d, reported progress.

From England instructions were forwarded on July 5, 1775, by Lord Dartmouth to Colonel Johnson, "to keep the Indians in such a state of affection and attachment to the king as that his majesty may rely upon their assistance in any case in which it may be necessary." On the 24th Dartmouth wrote: "The intelligence his majesty has received of the rebels having excited the Indians to take a part, and of their having actually engaged a body of them in arms to support their rebellion, justifies the resolution his majesty has taken of requiring the assistance of his faithful adherents, the Six Nations. It is, therefore, his majesty's pleasure that you do lose no time in taking such steps as may induce them to take up the hatchet against his majesty's rebellious subjects in America, and to engage them in his majesty's service, upon such plan as shall be suggested by General Gage." This work Johnson had already accomplished even before the instructions of July 24th were written. In the fall of the same year that Dartmouth thus placed the British government on record as willing to employ Indians in the war, without other restrictions than such as were to be suggested by General Gage, the Earl of Shelburne, on information received, attacked the administration. "The Indians had been tampered with", he said. "A trial of skill had been made to let the savages on the back settlements loose on provincial subjects. Barbarous as was the measure and cowardly as was the attempt, it had failed." This was on November 10th. Ten days later Lord North asserted that, "as to the means of conducting the war, there was never any idea of employing the negroes or the Indians, until the Americans themselves had first applied to them; that General Carleton did then apply to them; and even then it was only for the defence of his own province." Lord North was not well informed on proceedings in the colonies.

The attitude assumed by the British government in the order of July 24th represented the position which was retained during the remainder of the war. From Halifax, on June 7, 1776, General Howe assured Lord George Germain that his best endeavors would be used to engage the Indians of the Six Nations, and he hoped by the influence of Colonel Guy Johnson to make them useful. Notwithstanding the fact that the intercepted correspondence between General Gage and John Stuart, the superintendent, had been in possession of the Americans for some months, Henry Stuart, a deputy of his brother, on May 18, 1776, asserted that it was not the design of his majesty "to set his friends and allies on his liege subjects." This was probably true, but there were a number of inhabitants of the Southern colonies who could hardly have been classified as "liege subjects" at that time, to whom this announcement could not have conveyed much satisfaction. From an intercepted letter from the same source a scheme for co-operating with the fleet when it should appear on the coast, by marching troops from Florida in concert with a force composed of Creeks and Cherokees, to the frontiers of North and South Carolina, was made public. In the fall of 1776 Lord George Germain forwarded a supply of presents to the Indians, and called the attention of the generals in command to the necessity of securing their services. In November, 1777, the Earl of Suffolk justified the alliance with the Indians on two grounds: "one as necessary in fact, the other as allowable on principle; for, first, the Americans endeavored to raise them on their side, and would gain them if we did not; and next, it was allowable, and perfectly justifiable, to use every means that God and nature had put in our hands."[1288] This avowal called forth from the Earl of Chatham a fierce denunciation of its author.

In the review which has been submitted of the acts and opinions, official and personal, on both sides the ocean, concerning the employment of the Indians in the Revolutionary War, the actors have been allowed to speak for themselves as nearly as possible. If we follow the order of events, we can see that the flaming rhetoric of the address of the Continental Congress to the people of Ireland, and the caustic arraignment of the king of Great Britain in the Declaration of Independence, were calculated to produce an erroneous impression as to the American position upon the subject. With the publication, which afterwards took place, of the correspondence of prominent men of the times, and of official documents from state and national archives, this became evident. Sparks, in his Washington,[1289] says: "It has been usual in America to represent the English as much the most censurable on this score in the Revolutionary War; and if we estimate the amount of deserved censure by the effect produced, this opinion is no doubt correct. But such is not the equitable mode of judging on the subject, since the principle and intention are chiefly concerned, and not the policy of the measure nor the success of the execution. Taken on this ground, historical justice must award the Americans a due share of the blame." We may complain of the brutal eagerness of Lord Dunmore to sustain his official position at any expense to his people; we may hold up for abhorrence the vindictive nature of the orders transmitted by General Gage; we may point out the disingenuous evasions or downright falsehoods of Colonel Guy Johnson; but we must accept responsibility for the enlistment, before the battle of Lexington, of the Stockbridge Indians by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay. We may claim with apparent justice that the Continental Congress was reluctant to employ Indians; yet we cannot undertake to reconcile the resolutions of that Congress on May 25 and on June 17, 1776, with the indignation against Great Britain, expressed so shortly afterward in the Declaration of Independence and the Address to the people of Ireland, for doing what Congress, by resolutions of previous date, had first declared to be highly expedient, and then had specifically ordered to be done.

The examination which has heretofore been made of the position of the colonies on the question of the employment of Indians as soldiers has already brought to light some of the events requiring notice which took place in the Northern Department. The few Mohegans, whose unfortunate enlistment as minute-men furnished argument for Gage "that the colonies were collecting all the Indians that they could", were practically the only Indians the colonies found ready to take up arms in their behalf. During the summer and autumn of 1775 Washington was much encouraged by reports of the friendly disposition of the Eastern and Canadian Indians. He was visited at Cambridge by delegations from the Penobscot, the St. Francis, and the Caughnawaga tribes, who in friendly talks conveyed the impression that they favored the colonies. The Six Nations were sorely perplexed and divided in their councils.[1290] The residence of the superintendent among them, his power as the distributer of gifts, the traditional respect and affection that they had for his predecessor, and, above all, the active agency of Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief, whom the superintendent adroitly engaged as his private secretary, all conspired to take them over to the enemy.

JOSEPH THAYENDANEGEA.

This portrait of Brant, "from an original drawing in the possession of James Boswell, Esq.", is engraved in the London Mag., July, 1776. It is reëngraved in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., ii. 345.—Ed.

It is surprising that any influences could have overcome, even partially, this combination of circumstances in favor of the English; but, as it proved, the personal attachment of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras for Kirkland the missionary, and Dean the interpreter, was powerful enough, when exerted in favor of neutrality, to prevent the greater part of those tribes from following their brethren. Various conferences were held during the summer between delegations of whites and representatives of the Eastern tribes of the confederacy, in all of which those Indians who participated professed their willingness to remain neutral.[1291] In the autumn of 1775 the Indian commissioners of the Northern Department held a preliminary conference at German Flats, and thereafter a formal conference at Albany, at which the peace-speech of Congress was presented to the Six Nations, or rather to that part of the confederacy which was represented at the conference.[1292] An agreement of neutrality was entered into, but its value was greatly diminished by the fact that in the preliminary speeches the Indians insisted upon the necessity of keeping open their communications. This meant that they would regard the occupation of Fort Stanwix as an invasion of their rights.[1293] While these proceedings were going on, some of the Indians who had accompanied Guy Johnson to Montreal returned to their homes. When Dean, under orders from the commissioners, went out to explain to the tribes the nature of the Albany treaty, he met these Indians from Montreal. He says they were members of the Cayuga, Mohawk, and Seneca tribes, and they informed their brethren that they had taken up the hatchet at Montreal against the colonies. The Indians who had been at Albany were displeased at this, and their influence so far prevailed that the famous war-belt delivered by Guy Johnson was surrendered to General Schuyler on the 12th of December at Albany.[1294]

In the Mohawk Valley, the departure of Guy Johnson, in the summer of 1775, left Sir John Johnson the most prominent royalist, and at the same time the most conspicuous friend of the Indians, in that region. He was surrounded by several hundred Scotch Highlanders, who were devoted to him personally, and followed his lead in politics. Early in January, 1776, General Schuyler received orders to proceed to Johnstown, apprehend Sir John, and disarm his followers. In carrying out these orders the jealousy of the Indians had to be considered. Conferences were held with them. They tried to dissuade the general from invading the valley with an armed force, but he carefully explained to them the situation, and insisted upon advancing.

BRANT.

Stone gives two portraits of Brant: one in his younger days, after a picture belonging to the Earl of Warwick, and painted by G. Romney; the other after a painting by Catlin, following an original by E. Ames, and representing him at a later age.

The younger of these two is herewith given. (Cf. J. C. Smith's Brit. Mez. Portraits, iii. 1306; and McKenney and Hall's Indian Tribes, vol. ii.) Cf. also J. N. Hubbard's Sa-go-ye-wat-ha (Albany, 1886), p. 88.—Ed.]

The Indians were, however, invited to be present at the conference with Sir John. As a result of the expedition, the Highlanders were disarmed and Sir John was arrested and paroled. In May, it being reported that Sir John was not observing his parole, a second expedition was dispatched to Johnson Hall.[1295] Without waiting to be arrested, Sir John fled to Canada with a numerous body of followers, and shortly thereafter entered the English army. It was in this same month that the affair of the Cedars took place. Here, for the first time, Joseph Brant—Tha-yen-dan-e-gea—appeared in the field against the colonies. As a youth he had been placed at the school for the instruction of Indians, which was conducted by the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, afterwards president of Dartmouth College. Brant is said to have been a man of good personal appearance and of great physical courage. Enough of his life had been spent among the whites to make him feel at ease in European costume, and to fit him to enter society without fear of transgressing ordinary rules of etiquette. As the private secretary of Guy Johnson, he had followed the superintendent to Montreal. From that point he went to England, where he was received with consideration. After a brief stay he returned to Canada, arriving in time to participate, while his memory of British adulation was still fresh,[1296] in the joint attack of the British troops and Indians on the Americans at the Cedars.[1297]

The necessity for occupying Fort Stanwix became early apparent to the Americans, and was the subject of frequent correspondence. This fort was at the carrying-place between Lake Ontario and the Mohawk,[1298] and from this post, on September 23, 1776, Colonel Dayton wrote that "Indian rumors report Colonel Johnson at Oswego with a large force."[1299] The alarm was, however, premature.

In the spring of 1777[1300] intelligence reached the Tryon County committee of the march of Brant, with a large body of warriors, across the country from Canada to the region where the Susquehanna River crosses the line between New York and Pennsylvania. Considerable restlessness was also noted at this time among the Tories. The presence of this large force of Indians under Brant caused great uneasiness to the settlers, and in June General Herkimer, with about three hundred of the militia, marched to Unadilla. Then followed one of the most singular incidents, as the story is generally told, of the whole border war. Herkimer's whole proceedings up to this point were aggressive. He had ventured with an armed force into Indian country. Upon his application, a co-operative force under Colonel Van Schaick was dispatched to Cherry Valley. The presence of Brant in the vicinity with a large body of followers was known, and Brant had already avowed his loyalty to the king. Yet after a conference, to which Brant came with evident reluctance, and at which he made a display of the force with him in such a way as to make Herkimer's followers uneasy, the meeting terminated without apparent result, unless Brant's renewed assertion of loyalty may be so regarded.[1301] Very soon after this a conference was held at Oswego between the officers of the British Indian Department and the Six Nations, at which the greater part of the latter were secured for the service of the king, and the lines were finally drawn between them and those members of the confederacy who were disposed either to maintain neutrality or who actually favored the American side.

While these events were occurring, Burgoyne had started upon his march by way of Lake Champlain, confident that he could without difficulty effect a junction with the British force from New York. Lieutenant Hadden mentions that Burgoyne said at an early date in the campaign that "a thousand savages brought into the field cost more than twenty thousand men." What confidence he had in his allies at the start diminished as he advanced. On the 11th of July he wrote to the secretary of state "Confidentially to your lordship, I may acknowledge that in several instances I have found the Indians little more than a name",—a name which he sought by a proclamation to make a terror; but in doing so he gave his adversaries ground for holding him responsible for such enormities as the murder of Miss McCrea,[1302] and for refusing to believe his indignant denials. His doubts of the value of the Indians as soldiers were soon verified. They could scout and forage, but at Bennington they were useless. They, in turn, finding that Burgoyne endeavored to restrain them in their customary methods of warfare, and that there was but little opportunity for plunder, began to drop away. At the most critical period of the campaign they deserted in large numbers, and could not be prevailed upon to return. Their presence, far from proving a terror to the provincials, consolidated and thus strengthened them, while on the other hand it undoubtedly led the English to overestimate their own strength.[1303]

By orders from London, dated March 26, 1777, the advance of Burgoyne was supported by a simultaneous movement by way of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario. Lieutenant-Colonel Barry St. Leger, made a brigadier for the purpose, led a force of about 650 regulars, Hessians, Canadians, and Tories, with upwards of 800 Indians, as stated by Colonel Claus, who had charge of them.

ST. LEGER'S ORDER OF MARCH.

After the cut in Stone's Brant, i. 219, following the original draft found in St. Leger's baggage. Cf. Lossing's Field-Book, i. 241.—Ed.

This command, bearing a few six-pounders, three-pounders, and cohorns, marched from Oswego, in the latter part of July, for the valley of the Mohawk. Unusual precautions were taken to protect the flanks by Indians, and the way was led by scouts. The Oneidas gave the Americans ample warning. Fort Stanwix was at the time under the command of Colonel Gansevoort, with Colonel Marinus Willett as second,—both excellent officers. The regular garrison consisted of 550 men, who were poorly supplied with provisions and munitions of war. Indians infested the woods during the summer, and several atrocious murders were committed, even near the fort. On August 2d, a reinforcement of 200 men reached the garrison, with two bateaux loaded with stores. The supplies had been barely taken into the fort when St. Leger's advanced guard appeared. The increased garrison had now six weeks' provisions and an abundance of ammunition for small arms, but only nine rounds a day for the cannon for the same period. During the summer the garrison had partly repaired the fort, and had felled trees along the banks of Wood Creek, so as to impede navigation.

News was conveyed to St. Leger of the approach of the reinforcement, convoying supplies for the garrison. In the hopes of intercepting them he authorized Lieutenant Bird to invest the place with the advanced guard, at the same time adding to Bird's command a body of Indians under Brant. Thinking perhaps that the garrison might offer to surrender upon the approach of the investing force, he instructed Lieutenant Bird not to accept a capitulation, but to await the approach of the main body of troops; saying, "This is not to take any honor out of a young soldier's hands, but by the presence of the troops to prevent the barbarity and carnage which will ever obtain where Indians make so superior a part of a detachment." On the 3d of August, St. Leger arrived with the greater part of his force, himself taking charge of operations which had been begun by Lieutenant Bird on the 2d. Wood Creek had been "most effectually choaked up", as St. Leger termed it, by the garrison of the fort; consequently he could not at once bring forward his artillery and stores. He forwarded to the garrison copies of a proclamation similar in tenor to that issued by Burgoyne, and on the 4th completely invested the fort and began the siege. Instead of the unfinished work which he says he had been led to expect, he found it "a respectable fortress, strongly garrisoned with 700 men, and demanding for its speedy subjection a train of artillery of which he was not master."

PETER GANSEVOORT.

After a picture by Stuart as engraved by Prud'homme. Cf. Stone's Brant, i. 209; and his Campaign of Burgoyne, p. 221; Lossing's Field-Book, i. 240.—Ed.

The torpor of the inhabitants of Tryon County had excited indignation at Kingston and at Albany. Under the pressure of an invading force, the people responded to the call of General Herkimer, and that officer soon found himself at the head of about 700 men.[1304] Among them were a small number of Oneida Indians. On the 4th of August this assemblage of men from the frontier moved forward from Fort Dayton at German Flats, where they had gathered together, and on the 5th encamped near Oriskany. From this point a message was sent to Colonel Gansevoort reporting their approach, and asking him to announce his knowledge of the fact by three rapid discharges of cannon. The messengers did not succeed in entering the fort until the morning of the 6th between ten and eleven o'clock. The three guns which were intended to communicate to Herkimer the intelligence that the garrison knew of his approach, were then fired at the fort. Herkimer's men were, however, too impatient to wait for co-operation on the part of the garrison. At that hour they had already advanced between two and three miles from their camp, and were engaged with the enemy. In justice to Herkimer, it must be said that he endeavored to prevent the advance, but it was evident from the temper of his men that if he had not consented to move he would have lost their confidence.

At the time of Herkimer's approach, St. Leger was but poorly prepared for an engagement. The garrison and the relief column together were equal in number to St. Leger's total force. The passage of the creek had been so completely blocked that 110 men were nine days in freeing it from obstruction. To get his artillery and stores forward, St. Leger was obliged to clear a path or roadway sixteen miles in length. He had but 250 soldiers on duty at the camp when the news reached him that the Americans were advancing. From these he could spare but 80 men to co-operate with 400 Indians in an ambuscade which was prepared for Herkimer. Sir John Johnson commanded 50 of these, and was posted, for the purpose of checking the column, on the road over which the Americans were advancing. It was intended that the Indians and a small party of rangers under Colonel Butler, who concealed themselves in the woods by the sides of the road, should, when Sir John had performed his part of the work, pour in their fire from all sides. At ten o'clock on the morning of the 6th, the approach of the unsuspecting and undisciplined American troops, with their wagons, was heard by the Tories and Indians in their place of concealment. The presence of the enemy was first revealed to the Americans by a volley from the impetuous Indians, who could not restrain themselves long enough for the perfect development of the plan, but opened fire before the head of the column had reached Sir John Johnson's post, and before the rear guard, with the wagons, had completely entered the fatal circle. Had the regiment which composed the rear guard been made up of men accustomed to warfare, they might even then have done good service in behalf of the surprised column. Unfortunately, those who could get away fled, leaving their companions to their fate. The returns show that even this regiment suffered severely in the engagement. A desultory combat followed, in which each of the entrapped Americans fought for himself, taking advantage of whatever opportunities offered for defence. The remnant of the surprised and disordered troops, thus brought to bay, proved formidable opponents, and punished severely the Indians, who bore the brunt of the fighting. Quite early in the action several of the American officers were killed or wounded. General Herkimer was shot through the leg, and his horse was killed. The saddle was removed from the animal and placed at the foot of a tree. Upon this the disabled general was seated by his men, and by his coolness and indifference to suffering and to danger won their respect. A heavy shower, which interrupted the progress of the battle, afforded opportunity for the Americans to arrange for co-operation. After the shower was over, the contest was renewed, and, according to the American accounts, fresh troops from the English camp participated. Local annals are filled with tales of feats of valor and vindictiveness which characterized this portion of the combat. At length the Indians, wearied with the protracted contest, and disheartened by the loss of several of their warriors, left the field. The English troops closely followed them. A diversion made by the garrison probably hastened the retreat. During this action the American loss was, according to their own accounts, about two hundred killed and nearly as many wounded and prisoners. The British loss was stated by themselves to have been not over six killed and four wounded. From the same source we learn that the Indians lost thirty-three killed and about as many wounded.

THE BUTLER BADGE.

Note.—The above cut of a brass emblem worn by Butler's men follows one in Simms's Frontiersmen of New York, ii. 68, drawn from a sample ploughed up in Otsego County;—Ed.

After the shower which checked the battle at Oriskany was over, Colonel Willett, at the head of two hundred and fifty men, with a three-pound carronade, sallied forth from the fort. The camp was almost entirely unprotected. Lieutenant Bird, who was in charge of the portion which Willett attacked, had received information that Sir John Johnson needed succor, and had abandoned his post and marched towards Oriskany. Colonel Willett penetrated the camp, secured a large quantity of guns, ammunition, Indian weapons, blankets, etc., captured nearly all the books and papers of the expedition, evaded an attempt on the part of St. Leger to cut off his retreat, and safely effected his return to the fort with all his plunder, without losing a man.[1305] The Indians, before going out to fight, had stripped themselves nearly naked. On their return to camp they found neither clothing, tents, nor blankets. Thus ended the day. The relief party under Herkimer was shattered. The fort was still besieged, and the besiegers had now opportunity to open their communications; but their camp had been rifled, and their Indian allies, discouraged by their losses, had no further interest in the siege, and began to think of home. St. Leger sought to secure a capitulation on the ground of the defeat of Herkimer, and caused the captured militia to write accounts setting forth the strength of his force and the excellence of his artillery; but Gansevoort was firm. The argument that the English would be unable to restrain the Indians from barbarities if the siege were protracted was also spurned by the garrison. Failing in this direct attempt upon their fears, an effort was made to reach them through the people of the county. A proclamation was put forth by Sir John Johnson, D. W. Claus, and John Butler as superintendents. This also was of no effect. It being desirable to communicate with Albany, Colonel Willett and Major Stockwell penetrated through the enemy's camp by night, and proceeded on foot through the woods to Fort Dayton. From that point Colonel Willett went to Albany. He found that General Arnold had already been ordered to relieve the fort. The siege, notwithstanding the fact that the artillery was of little avail, was continued until the 23d of August. The garrison, ignorant of the fate of Colonel Willett and Major Stockwell, were in grave doubts as to how long they could hold out. On the 23d, the enemy suddenly abandoned their camp, leaving a great quantity of material behind. The retreat was precipitated by false intelligence which Arnold caused to be conveyed to the English camp. St. Leger evidently suspected the ruse, but was unable to prevent its effects.

The gallant Herkimer did not long survive the battle. A simple, unlettered man, without experience in leading troops, he paid the penalty of his mistakes at Oriskany with his life. His intrepidity during the action and the coolness with which he faced death convinced his followers of his dauntless courage, and his loss was deeply felt.

The Indians, in their resentment for the severe losses with which they had met, murdered several of the American prisoners. They also burned one of the Oneida settlements, destroyed the crops, and killed or drove away the cattle belonging to the village. Colonel Butler, in his report to Sir Guy Carleton concerning affairs at Fort Stanwix, coolly says, "Many of the latter [prisoners] were, conformable to the Indian custom, afterwards killed." On the retreat the Indians became uncontrollable, and robbed the English officers. In the words of St. Leger, they "became more formidable than the enemy we had to expect."

The failure of St. Leger and the capitulation of Burgoyne placed the affairs of the colonies in such position that Congress deemed it worth while to renew negotiations with the Indians. The time seemed opportune for securing the services of the Six Nations, and the commissioners were, on the 3d of December, 1777, instructed "to urge them to some decisive enterprise which will effectually tie them to our cause." On the 4th the commissioners were authorized to expend $15,000 as a reward to the Indians for reducing Niagara. In February, 1778, they were instructed to speak to the Indians "in language becoming the representatives of free, sovereign, and independent States." "Whether it would be prudent to insist upon the Indians taking an active part in behalf of these States" would depend upon the temper in which they should appear to be. Action upon that point was submitted to the discretion of the commissioners. The temper of the Senecas was found to be far from favorable; and instead of attending the conference, they sent a message expressing surprise that while the tomahawk was still sticking in their heads, and they were still grieving for the loss of their friends at Oriskany, the commissioners should think of inviting them to a treaty. On March 4th, Washington was empowered by Congress, if he should think it prudent and proper, to employ in the service of the United States a body of Indians, not exceeding five hundred. On the 7th, Colonel Nathaniel Gist was instructed to enlist Indians on the borders of Virginia and North Carolina, not to exceed two hundred in number. On June 11th, Congress recommended aggressive warfare, being satisfied, from the presence of British agents among the Indians, that the cruel war had been "industriously instigated" and was still being "prosecuted with unrelenting perseverance by principal officers in the service of the king of Great Britain."

In 1778, according to the plan of campaign as given by Guy Johnson in his correspondence, the English forces on the western borders of New York were divided into two bodies: one, consisting of Indians under Brant, to operate in New York, while Deputy Superintendent Butler with the other should penetrate the settled district on the Susquehanna. Brant, who, according to Colonel Claus, "had shown himself to be the most faithful and zealous subject his majesty could have in America", did his work unsparingly, and ruin marked his track. In the valley of the upper Mohawk and the Schoharie nothing but the garrison-houses escaped, and labor was only possible in the field when muskets were within easy reach. Occasionally blows were struck at the larger settlements. In the last of May, Brant, with about three hundred and fifty Indians, destroyed a number of houses in the Cobleskill Valley, and routed, with severe loss, a militia company which attempted to pursue him.[1306] In June, the little town of Springfield, at the head of Otsego Lake, was burned. Such of the men as did not take flight were seized as prisoners. The women and children were not injured. During the same month, Sir John Johnson, with a company of loyalists, made a sudden descent upon the Mohawk Valley, the scene of their former homes, and took a number of citizens prisoners.

In July, 1778, the threatened attack on Wyoming took place. This region was at that time formally incorporated as the county of Westmoreland of the colony of Connecticut. This result had been accomplished by the persistence of the emigrants, under most discouraging circumstances and at the expense of some bloodshed. In the fall of 1776, two companies, on the Continental establishment, had been raised in the valley, in pursuance of a resolution of Congress, and were shortly thereafter ordered to join General Washington.[1307] Several stockaded forts had been built during the summer at different points. The withdrawal of so large a proportion of the able-bodied men as had been enlisted in the Continental service threw upon the old men who were left behind the duty of guarding the forts. Repeated alarms, during the summer of 1777, compelled the young men to scour the woods, but their vigilance did not prevent some prisoners being taken by the Indians. In March, 1778, another military company was organized, by authority of Congress, to be employed for home defence. In May, attacks were made upon the scouting parties by Indians, who were the forerunners of an invading army. The exposed situation of the settlement, the prosperity of the inhabitants, and the loyalty with which they had responded to the call for troops, demanded consideration from Connecticut, to whose quota the companies had been credited, and from Congress, in whose armies they had been incorporated; but no help came. On June 30th, an armed labor party of eight men, which went out from the upper fort, was attacked by Major Butler, who with a force estimated by the American commander in his report at eight hundred men, Tories and Indians in equal numbers, had arrived in the valley. This estimate was not far from correct; but if we may judge from other raiding forces during the war, the proportion of whites is too large, for only a few local Tories had joined Butler. The little forts at the upper end of the valley offered no resistance to the invaders.

On July 3d, there were collected at "Forty Fort", on the banks of the river, about three miles above Wilkesbarré, two hundred and thirty Americans, organized in six companies (one of them being the company authorized by Congress for home defence), and commanded by Colonel Zebulon Butler, a resident in the valley and an officer in the Continental army. It was determined, after deliberation, to give battle. In the afternoon of that day, this body of volunteers, their number being swelled to nearly three hundred by the addition of old men and boys, marched up the valley. The invaders had set fire to the forts of which they were in possession. This perplexed the Americans, as was intended, and they pressed on towards the spot selected by the English officer for giving battle. This was reached about four in the afternoon, and the attack was at once made by the Americans, who fired rapidly in platoons. The British line wavered, but a flanking fire from a body of Indians concealed in the woods settled the fate of the day against the Americans. They were thrown into confusion. No efforts of their officers could rally them while exposed to a fire which in a short time brought down every captain in the band. The Indians now cut off the retreat of the panic-stricken men, and pressed them towards the river. All who could saved their lives by flight. Of the three hundred who went out that morning from Forty Fort, the names are recorded of one hundred and sixty-two officers and men killed in the action or in the massacre which followed. Major Butler, the British officer in command, reported the taking of "two hundred and twenty-seven scalps" "and only five prisoners." Such was the exasperation of the Indians, according to him, that it was with difficulty he saved these few. He gives the English loss at two whites killed and eight Indians wounded.[1308]

During the night the worst passions of the Indians seem to have been aroused in revenge for Oriskany. Incredible tales are told of the inhumanity of the Tories. These measures of vengeance fell exclusively upon those who participated in the battle, for all women and children were spared.

As soon as the extent of the disaster was made known, the inhabitants of the lower part of the valley deserted their homes, and fled in the direction of the nearest settlements. Few stayed behind who had strength and opportunity to escape. In their flight many of the fugitives neglected to provide themselves with provisions, and much suffering and some loss of life ensued. The fugitives from the field of battle took refuge in the forts lower down the valley. The next day, Colonel Zebulon Butler, with the remnants of the company for home defence, consisting of only fourteen men, escaped from the valley. Colonel Denison, in charge of Forty Fort, negotiated with Major Butler the terms of capitulation which were ultimately signed. In these it was agreed that the inhabitants should occupy their farms peaceably, and their lives should be preserved "intire and unhurt." With the exception that Butler executed a British deserter whom he found among the prisoners, no lives were taken at that time. Shortly thereafter, the Indians began to plunder, and the English commander, to his chagrin, found himself unable to check them. Miner even goes so far as to say that he promised to pay for the property thus lost. Finding his commands disregarded, Butler mustered his forces and withdrew, without visiting the lower part of the valley. The greater part of the Indians went with him, but enough remained to continue the devastation, while a few murders committed by straggling parties of Indians ended the tragedy. The whole valley was left a scene of desolation. In August the American forces returned, and a few settlers came back and endeavored to save some of their crops, but occasional surprises by Indians warned them that the region was still unsafe. In September, Colonel Hartley marched with one hundred and thirty men against the Indian towns of Tioga and Sheshequin, and broke up those settlements.

Brant, meanwhile, had not been idle. On July 18th he burned a little settlement about six miles from German Flats, called Andrustown. In the latter part of August, German Flats, a settlement containing thirty-four houses, was destroyed and the cattle were driven away. Only two lives were lost, the inhabitants having taken refuge in Fort Dayton. The rapine was not, however, all on one side. From Schoharie an American expedition under Colonel William Butler threaded its way through the woods, forded the flooded streams, and destroyed the Indian town of Oquaga, and on their return burned the Tory settlement and the grist and saw mills at Unadilla.

In the spring of 1778, General Lafayette ordered a fort to be built at Cherry Valley, and this post was afterwards garrisoned by the Continental regiment under Colonel Ichabod Alden. During the fall, information of a positive character was conveyed to Colonel Alden that the place was threatened. Some of the officers of the garrison were accustomed to sleep outside the fort, and notwithstanding the warning, this practice was continued. Neither Alden nor his men were familiar with Indian warfare. The citizens wished to move their effects into the fort, but Colonel Alden quieted them by saying that he had good scouts out, who would give timely warning. One of these scouting parties, through carelessness, was captured on the night of November 10th, and by this means the enemy learned the exact condition of affairs. The invading force is said to have consisted of two hundred whites and about five hundred Indians, the whole under command of Captain Walter N. Butler. This officer had been arrested as a spy near Fort Stanwix during the siege, and had been condemned to death, but had been reprieved, and had escaped from custody. He had with him a body of Senecas, besides Brant and his Mohawks. The night after the capture of the scouting party, the enemy encamped near the village. On the morning of the 11th, under cover of a heavy rain, they penetrated a swamp in the rear of the house used as headquarters, where they concealed themselves, awaiting a favorable opportunity for attack. Chance favored the garrison, and gave them a brief warning. A resident of the valley, on the way to the village, at about half past eleven o'clock discovered two Indians, and was fired upon by them.

From the Gesch. der Kriege in und ausser Europa, Dreyzehnter Theil, Nürnberg, 1778. The original of this design was a print published in London, Aug. 22, 1776. Reproductions of it will be found in Irving's Washington, quarto ed., vol. iii.; E. M. Stone's Our French Allies, p.76; T. C. Amory's Sullivan. Cf. also Murray's Impartial History, p. 241; Jones's Campaign for the Conquest of Canada, p. 88; Lossing's Field-Book, i. 272.

For a view of Gen. Sullivan's house at Durham, N. H., with a paper on its associations, see Granite Monthly, v. 18, 80. For his family, see N. E. H. and Gen. Reg., 1865, p. 304.—Ed.

Although wounded, he was able to reach headquarters in advance of the enemy, and give the alarm. The regimental officers hastened towards the fort, and some of them succeeded in reaching it before the Indians surrounded it. Colonel Alden was one of the first victims of his own infatuation, having been shot while trying to reach the fort. For three hours and a half the enemy protracted their efforts to capture the post. Sixteen Continental soldiers were killed during the attack on the village, and thirty-two of the inhabitants, principally women and children, were massacred. Some of the murders were committed under circumstances of peculiar barbarism, in which whites competed with Indians. The houses, barns, and out-houses of the settlement were burned. The garrison, although too weak to attack the enemy, was strong enough to defend the fort. The enemy having completed the work of destruction as far as they could, retired, but made a feeble renewal of the attack on the 12th. This was easily repelled, and they then devoted themselves to collecting the cattle belonging to the villagers. The greater part of the prisoners who had been captured were liberated on the 12th, and permitted to return to the settlement. In setting them free, Captain Butler entered into a correspondence with General Schuyler, in which he endeavored to relieve himself from responsibility for the massacre. Brant also denied responsibility for it. Butler in his letter asserted that at Wyoming "not a man, woman, or child was hurt after capitulation, or a woman or child before it." If we admit the disclaimers of the Butlers, father and son, the fact still remains that they headed raiding parties, where plunder and destruction of property were the main purposes of the expeditions, and where the massacre of the inhabitants was one of the possibilities of success. Strip from the stories of Wyoming the exaggerations of the frightened refugees, the brutal massacre of the prisoners remains. The mercy which was extended to the prisoners at Cherry Valley merely reduces the number of horrors which were committed there. The massacre still stands out conspicuously as the most shocking in its details of any event in this region during the Revolution. Fortunately for the memory of Sir John Johnson, notwithstanding his prominence as the scourge of the Mohawk Valley during the war, his name is not associated with either of these events.

On March 6, 1779, Washington, acting under instructions from Congress, "to take effectual measures for the protection of the inhabitants and the chastisement of the Indians", tendered to General Gates the command of an expedition "to carry war into the heart of the country of the Six Nations, to cut off their settlements, destroy their next year's crops, and do every other mischief which time and circumstances will permit." This offer Gates declined, and on March 31st General Sullivan was appointed to the command. He was to lay waste all the Indian settlements in the most effectual manner, "that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed." Sullivan was to assemble his forces in Pennsylvania. General James Clinton was to assemble a force in the Mohawk Valley. In all the preliminary discussions of the campaign it was contemplated to make the main advance by way of the Mohawk. This idea was, however, abandoned, and it was arranged that Clinton should cross over to the Susquehanna River, and by that route effect a junction with Sullivan. As a preliminary to the campaign, Colonel Van Schaick, on the 18th of April, left Fort Stanwix at the head of five hundred and fifty-eight men, including officers, and made a sudden descent upon the Onondaga towns. The expedition was completely successful, and on the 24th Van Schaick was back at the fort, and able to report that this work of destruction and plunder had been accomplished, with the loss of only one man. On June 16th, General Clinton arrived at Canajoharie, where he found about fifteen hundred troops. From that point over two hundred boats and three months' provisions for the command were transported over the hills to Lake Otsego. On June 30th, Clinton reported to Sullivan that this transfer had been accomplished, and that he was now ready to come down the river. Here he remained with his troops until August 9th, awaiting orders. Meantime he constructed a dam across the outlet of the lake, by means of which he raised the water about a foot.

By the latter part of June the troops which were under Sullivan's immediate command had assembled in the Wyoming Valley. They numbered, on the 21st of July, 2,312 rank and file. They remained in this valley, awaiting the arrival of stores, until the last day of July, when marching orders were issued. During this period of idleness the troops at Wyoming and at Lake Otsego chafed at their inaction. The enemy continued the policy of desultory attacks and devastating raids, some of which were committed in close proximity to the American encampments. In May, at Fantinekill and at Woodstock, in Ulster County, New York, houses were destroyed, cattle killed, and prisoners taken. On the night of July 19th, Brant, with a force one third white and two thirds Indians, variously estimated at from ninety to one hundred and sixty men, made a descent upon the Minisink settlement. The citizens and militia of Goshen marched next day in pursuit, and were joined on the 21st by a small detachment of the Warwick militia, the whole number being, according to Colonel Hathorn, who took command, one hundred and twenty. On the 22d they overtook Brant, were completely outwitted by him, and were defeated, with a loss of forty-four killed.

In Pennsylvania several outrages were committed in the immediate vicinity of Sullivan's army. On July 28th Freeland's fort, on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, was taken by the enemy, and a small detachment sent from Northumberland for its relief was badly cut up. Neither Clinton nor Sullivan were diverted from the purposes of the campaign by these forays. The Oneidas had agreed to join Clinton, but were prevented by a threatening message from General Haldimand. They excused themselves to the American general on the ground that they feared an attack on their castles, should they assist in the campaign. Their defection had no influence upon operations. On the 13th Sullivan destroyed the Indian town of Chemung, and then fortified a post at a narrow point on the peninsula, a short distance above the junction of the Tioga and Susquehanna. Clinton, on receipt of orders to advance, destroyed the dam at the foot of the lake on the 9th, and successfully embarked his bateaux on the flood of his own creating. On the 22d the junction of the two columns was effected. On the 26th the united forces moved forward, and on the 29th encountered the enemy under the Butlers, McDonnell, and Brant at Newtown, five miles from Elmira. Here the enemy had selected a spot on rising ground which commanded the road, and had thrown up a rude breastwork of logs. Some attempt had been made to conceal it by placing before it brush and young trees. Here they were apparently prepared to make a stand. General Poor was dispatched with his brigade to gain a hill to the right, and from thence to attack the enemy's left flank. After allowing some time for Poor to reach his destination, Sullivan opened with his artillery. Poor met with resistance, but when he had forced his way to a position which became threatening to the enemy, they abandoned their whole line.[1309] On the 30th Sullivan proposed to his men, as provisions were short, that they should go on half rations, trusting to the country to furnish them the rest. This was readily agreed to. The baggage and heavy guns were sent back, and on the 31st the column advanced, taking for campaign artillery four light three-pounders and a small howitzer. The main army marched down the east side of Seneca Lake to its outlet, destroying villages, cornfields, and orchards on the way. From the foot of the lake a party was sent down the Seneca River towards Lake Cayuga to destroy a town, and another was sent a short distance up Lake Seneca, on the west side, for the same purpose. From the foot of this lake the main army moved westward, skirting the northern ends of lakes Canandaigua, Honeyoye, and Hemlock, destroying as it moved. Then it bore to the southwest, and passed the southern end of Lake Conesus. On the 14th of September, about sunset, the expedition arrived at the great castle of the Senecas, on the west side of the Genessee River, and on the opposite side of the valley from the site of Geneseo. On the evening of the 12th, as the army approached this region, Sullivan ordered a scouting party to be sent out. It was his intention that only five or six men should go, but the officer in charge of the party, Lieutenant Thomas Boyd, took with him twenty-six men, including the Indian guides. In the darkness, Boyd unconsciously passed the encampment of Butler and his force, who were ambushed near Lake Conesus, waiting for Sullivan. On the morning of the 13th, Boyd, having reconnoitred an Indian town, sent word to camp by two of his men, and halted where he intended to await the approach of the army. While waiting here, some Indians were discovered by the party, whom Boyd indiscreetly pursued. By this means his force was led directly into the power of Butler, whose men completely surrounded the Americans and opened fire upon them. Nerved to desperation, a gallant attempt was made by the devoted band to break through the enemy's lines. In this attempt eight of them succeeded. Fifteen of the party were killed. Two, Boyd and his sergeant, were captured. The two captives were taken to Seneca Castle, or "little Beard's town", and honored for their brave defence with tortures of unusual cruelty. The "western door of the Long House", as this place was termed by the Indians, consisted of one hundred and twenty-eight houses, some of which were well built. The gardens were filled with corn and vegetables. All these were destroyed; and on the 15th the army, having completed its work, began its return march. Sullivan had, on the outward march, dispatched a messenger from Catharine's town to the Oneidas, calling upon them to furnish him with some warriors. At Kanadasaga, near the foot of Lake Seneca, on his return, he received a message from them, explaining why their warriors had failed him, and putting in a plea for mercy in behalf of the Cayugas. He accepted their excuses, but paid no attention to their requests. From Kanadasaga he sent Colonel Smith, with a command, to complete the destruction on the west side of Lake Seneca. He also detached Colonel Gansevoort, with one hundred and five men, with instructions to proceed to Albany, and on the way to destroy the lower Mohawk Castle. Through motives of policy, the latter part of this order was not carried out to the letter. A detachment was also sent out to destroy the towns on the eastern side of Lake Cayuga. On the 21st another detachment was dispatched, with orders to lay waste the towns on the western side of Lake Cayuga, and to intercept the Cayugas if they should attempt to escape the officer who had gone up on the other side of the lake. The rest of the army then marched south, between Seneca and Cayuga lakes. When they reached the valley of the Tioga, an expedition was sent up that river on an errand of destruction. On the 28th these several detachments, with the exception of Gansevoort's, had all rejoined the main column, having accomplished their work without resistance. They were then met by a supply of provisions from Tioga. The work of destroying Indian towns and crops was finished. Fort Sullivan, near the junction of the rivers, was abandoned and razed. The army descended the Susquehanna to Wyoming, which place they reached October 7th. By the route which they took, the distance marched by the army, in going from Wyoming to Seneca Castle, was two hundred and fifteen miles, all of it in Indian country, without a road over which a wagon could be transported. Forty Indian towns were destroyed. Some of them were insignificant. Several had from twenty to thirty houses. One had one hundred and twenty-eight houses. Colonel Gansevoort, speaking of the lower Mohawk Castle, said: "It is remarked that these Indians live much better than most of the Mohawk families. Their houses were well furnished with all necessary household utensils, and a great plenty of grain." The excellent construction of some of the houses of the Seneca and Cayuga villages was a source of surprise to the invaders. They marvelled at the well-conditioned orchards, the cultivated gardens, and the extensive cornfields. They left behind them, on the sites of these villages, smoking ruins and blighted vegetation. Notwithstanding the fact that the expedition was delayed so long waiting for stores, it was undertaken with the certainty that there was not enough on hand for the purpose, if the army was to rely upon what was supplied. General Sullivan was compelled to march thus or not at all. In numbers the troops fell short of what had been counted on. They met with no opposition worthy of note. The losses during the campaign, by accident, by sickness, and in the field, amounted to only forty. They could not have foreseen that General Haldimand would be so completely bewildered as to their intentions, and that he would refuse to believe that they could purpose invading this region, until too late to render the Indians assistance.[1310] The greater part of the warriors of the Six Nations were in the field on the side of the English. It was but reasonable to anticipate that the Indians would receive aid from their allies in defence of the Indian country. Everything militated against the probability of the expedition being able to accomplish its work with such ease. The expedition was too large to treat the question of supplies in the same way that an ordinary raiding party would have done. Through the delays in procuring supplies, it was prosecuted at a time when the army could subsist partially upon the growing crops. Had Sullivan started when he expected, he must have depended upon his train. Otherwise the Indians could easily have destroyed their stores and impeded the progress of the army.[1311]

As a part of the original scheme, a simultaneous movement from Fort Pitt against the Indian towns on the Alleghany was ordered. The difficulty of communication between the two forces led to the abandonment of all idea of co-operation. Colonel Brodhead, who had charge of the movement on the Alleghany, was left to pursue his own course. On August 11th he left Pittsburgh at the head of six hundred and five rank and file, with one month's provisions. With this force he proceeded up the river by boat to Mahoning; there the stores were loaded on pack-horses, and the march was begun. On the way to the Indian towns the advance guard came in contact with a party of between thirty and forty warriors, whom they put to flight. The detachment marched for a distance of about two hundred miles from Pittsburgh, and destroyed the Indian settlements along the Alleghany extending for eight miles, and consisting of one hundred and thirty houses. The growing crops and provisions were ruined. This extraordinary march was made without the loss of a single man, and without meeting any warriors except the party already mentioned.

On October 20, 1779, Washington wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette, saying: "General Sullivan has completed the entire destruction of the country of the Six Nations, driven all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, out of it, and is at Easton on his return." He further said that Colonel Brodhead had inflicted similar chastisement on the "Mingo and Muncey tribes", living on the Alleghany, French Creek, and other waters of the Ohio. Washington concluded with these words: "These unexpected and severe strokes have disconcerted, humbled, and distressed the Indians exceedingly, and will, I am persuaded, be productive of great good; as they are undeniable proofs to them that Great Britain cannot protect them, and that it is in our power to chastise them whenever their hostile conduct deserves it."[1312] The cruel steps taken against the Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas were probably justifiable as war measures. War against these Indians without the adoption of their own tactics could only be prosecuted at a great disadvantage.[1313] The destruction of their homes and the consequent removal of the natives to a point more distant from the American settlements, together with the necessity thus thrown upon the British government of providing for their allies, undoubtedly affected the aggressive power of the Indians and diminished the value of their alliance. But if it was expected that raids upon the border settlements would be stopped by this campaign, then the authorities must have been disappointed. The border knew no peace until the war was ended.

The Indians, driven out of their own country and left without shelter and without food, took refuge at Niagara for the winter. The Oneidas feared an attack, and abandoned their castles. About four hundred of them placed themselves under the protection of the government at Schenectady. In April, 1780, the settlement at Harpersfield was destroyed, and a scouting party of Americans which happened to be in the neighborhood was captured. Repeated blows were struck at the scattered, poorly defended settlements along the border. The lower Mohawk was invaded by a force under Sir John Johnson, and the local histories, in their records of the work of the summer of 1780, have a melancholy monotony of conflagration and plunder. In August the settlement at Canajoharie was laid waste by Brant, and several small settlements adjacent to Canajoharie, and at Norman's Kill, not far from Albany, were ravaged. From the valley of the Mohawk the enemy moved southward, destroying a number of houses and capturing prisoners in Schoharie Valley. In October, 1780, Schoharie Valley was again ravaged, this time from the south, by an invading force of about one thousand in all, under Sir John Johnson, which consisted of Tories, together with Brant and his Mohawks, and Cornplanter with a body of Senecas. They had, by way of artillery, two small mortars and a brass three-pounder.[1314] There were three forts in the valley, in which the inhabitants took refuge. The invaders did not succeed in capturing either of the forts, and the loss of life in them was small, but they left scarcely a building standing in the whole valley.

After thoroughly completing the work of destruction in Schoharie Valley, the invaders proceeded to the valley of the Mohawk, and ravaged the country on the north side of the Mohawk from Caughnawaga to Stone Arabia and Palatine. A little force from Stone Arabia, acting, it is supposed, under a promise of support from General Van Rensselaer, undertook to check them. The general had collected some of the militia, and was to fall upon the rear of the enemy. The promised support was not furnished. Colonel Brown, who led the attacking party, was killed, and his followers were badly cut to pieces. After this encounter Sir John's forces renewed their work of destroying property in the neighborhood of Stone Arabia, and then moved slowly up the river, ravaging the country as they went. The invaders were followed by the Americans, whose numbers increased as they moved, until they were numerically stronger than the enemy. There were some Oneidas with the Americans, under command of one of their own number holding a commission from the Continental Congress as lieutenant-colonel. On the afternoon of October 20th, just at nightfall, a skirmish took place between the two commands at the spot selected by Sir John for his evening bivouac. It was soon terminated by the increasing darkness, of which the Americans took advantage to withdraw to a camping place about three miles back, and the invaders, availing themselves of the opportunity, hurriedly sought the woods. During their flight the enemy captured a party of Americans which had been dispatched to destroy their boats.[1315] After this raid the upper Mohawk Valley and the Schoharie Valley rivalled in their desolation the region of the lakes which had been invaded by Sullivan the preceding year. Numbers of prisoners had been carried off during these raids, some of whom were liberated shortly after capture. Others were detained till the close of the war. In one instance a child was returned by Brant, with a letter, in which he said "I do not make war upon women and children. I am sorry to say that I have those with me in the service who are more savage than the savages themselves."

Simultaneously with the operations in the Mohawk Valley, the enemy ascended Lake Champlain and captured Forts Ann and George. Portions of Kingsbury, Queensbury, and Fort Edward were burned. A branch of this expedition destroyed the settlement at Ballston. At the same time, a party of about two hundred, chiefly Indians, under Major Haughton of the 53d, left Canada, and destroyed several houses in the upper part of the Connecticut Valley, and carried off thirty-two inhabitants as prisoners.[1316]

The work of retribution on the part of the Indians did not stop with what has been recorded. Even during the succeeding winter Brant was on the war-path, appearing now here and now there in the Mohawk country cutting off stragglers and detached parties. Great difficulty was experienced in furnishing the garrisons at the outposts with provisions. Distress ensued, and there was serious danger that the outlying defences could not be maintained. Fort Stanwix was badly damaged in May, 1781, both by flood and by fire, and in consequence the post was shortly afterward abandoned. The command of the Mohawk Valley was this season assigned to Colonel Willett. He carefully acquainted himself with its condition, and infused a portion of his own active spirit into the management of affairs. Very shortly after he assumed command, on June 30th, Currietown, a village near the mouth of the Schoharie, was destroyed. With a small force, Willett pursued the raiders, overtook them, and routed them with severe loss. In July, Colonel Willett wrote that the number of men in Tryon County liable to bear arms did not exceed eight hundred. At the beginning of the war the enrolled militia numbered 2,500 men. He accounted for this reduction by supposing that one third had been killed or made prisoners, one third had gone over to the enemy, and one third had abandoned the country. Indeed, life in the valley had become almost unendurable. The only places of safety were within the walls of the stockaded forts which were scattered through the region. All through the summer of 1781 detachments of the enemy struck blows at different points along the border. The most conspicuous of these desultory acts of devastation was the destruction of the little town of Wawarsing. Unsuccessful efforts were made this season to seize the persons of both General Gansevoort and General Schuyler. The active movements of the year closed with a foray on the Mohawk by Sir John Johnson and Major Walter N. Butler, in the latter part of October. When the Americans learned the approach of the invaders, Colonel Willett gathered a force together, with which, although inferior in numbers to the enemy, he attacked them at Johnstown. The varying fortunes of the day were, on the whole, with the Americans. The enemy fled, after dark, to the woods. Willett followed them for some days, and had a collision with their rear guard, in which the notorious Major Walter N. Butler was shot through the head and left on the field.[1317] The difficulties of the military as well as the political situation had been greatly complicated this summer by the menacing aspect of the British forces on Lake Champlain, and doubts as to the fidelity of certain of the leaders in Vermont, whose hostility to the threatened extension of the authority of New York over the inchoate State had been pronounced in terms of bitter earnest.

During the summer of 1782, although the frontiers of New York were not altogether quiet, the scene of activity in border warfare was transferred further west. There were none of the organized raids of the enemy in the valleys of the Mohawk and Schoharie, with which the inhabitants had become so familiar.

In February, 1783, the last movement of the war on the border took place in this region. It was an attempt by Colonel Willett to surprise the garrison at Oswego. A forced march of a night and a day was made through the trackless forests, on the snow, from the Mohawk Valley to the vicinity of the fort. Then preparations for the assault were made, but when the column advanced the guide became confused and lost his way. As surprise was essential for success, the attempt was abandoned. Willett and his men found their way back as best they could, enduring on the return march intense suffering from fatigue, cold, and exposure. Colonel Willett then proceeded to Albany, at which place he arrived in time to hear peace proclaimed.

The story of this chapter opened with the determination of a boundary line between the king of Great Britain and his allies. It closes with an assurance on the part of the Continental Congress, which is intended to pacify the Indians, that, "as the country is large enough to contain and support us all, and as we are disposed to be kind to them, to supply their wants, and to partake of their trade, we, from these considerations and from motives of compassion, draw a veil over what is passed, and will establish a boundary line between them and us, beyond which we will restrain our citizens from hunting and settling, and within which the Indians shall not come, but for the purpose of trading, treating, or other business equally unexceptionable."[1318] The discussion of how far the kindly spirit which pervades these promises has been maintained in subsequent dealings with the Indians does not fall within the subject of this chapter.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

THE relations of the Indians to the British government and to the colonies during the period immediately preceding the Revolutionary War, is readily studied in The life and times of Sir William Johnson, Bart., by William L. Stone (Albany, 1865, in 2 vols.[1319]), which was intended to form a part of a history of the relations of the Iroquois to current events. Stone completed but two volumes of the series, the Life of Brant and the Life of Red Jacket. The Life of Sir William Johnson, being incomplete at the time of his death, was finished and published by his son, of the same name.[1320] The book for awhile stood alone in its detailed treatment of the official relations and dealings of the superintendent with the Indians. Later publications have infringed somewhat upon its monopoly.

The Pennsylvania Archives, and the Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, commonly cited as "Colonial Records", lay bare the secrets of the province, and furnish authentic information upon many points which prior to their publication were obscure.[1321]

The documentary publications of the State of New York are for the purposes of this chapter of even more value than those of Pennsylvania. They contain many official papers from the hands of Sir William Johnson, and letters from Guy Johnson, Daniel Claus, and Generals Carleton and Haldimand, treating of Indian affairs. Some of these documents help us materially in the study of the situation. The history of the publications known as the N. Y. Colonial Documents and Documentary History of N. Y. is told elsewhere;[1322] but the Journals of the Provincial Congress are of peculiar use in the present inquiry.[1323] Such of the conferences, treaties, and agreements with Indians on the part of the colonies, the Continental Congress, and the government of the United States as have been printed, are scattered through a variety of publications.[1324]

The literature of border life, from which the habits and methods of life of the frontier inhabitants may be drawn, is too extensive to permit any attempt at an exhaustive recapitulation of titles. Especial use has been made in this chapter of Dr. Joseph Doddridge's Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars,[1325] perhaps the most valuable of the many works upon this subject. Notwithstanding the sufferings from Indian raids which Dr. Doddridge himself endured, he deals fairly with the subject of border warfare, and candidly admits the terrible responsibility of the whites for counter outrages. He draws a vivid picture of the lack of law on the frontier, aggravated as it was by the conflicts of colonies. "In the section of the country where my father lived", he says, "there was for many years after the settlement of the country neither law nor gospel. Our want of legal government was owing to the uncertainty whether we belonged to Virginia or Pennsylvania." "Thus it happened that during a long period we knew nothing of courts, lawyers, magistrates, sheriffs, or constables." "Every one was, therefore, at liberty to do whatever was right in his own eyes."

In An Account of the remarkable occurrences in the life and travels of Col. James Smith, etc., etc.,[1326] the author unconsciously gives us a picture of the lawlessness of frontier life and the power of the volunteers. The story is told in a simple manner, and the narrative is full of interest. The rare Chronicles of Border Warfare, by Alexander S. Withers (Clarksburg, Va., 1831), is a recognized authority, and is frequently quoted. It was reproduced in substantial form in Pritt's Border Life of Olden Times,[1327] a compilation of reprints of volumes, narratives and statements relating to border life. The relations of the Indians to current events are also to be traced in Gale's Upper Mississippi, etc.,[1328] and in Ketchum's History of Buffalo.[1329] The latter work covers much of the ground which Col. Stone had preëmpted. The materials are well arranged, the views of the author are clearly presented, and as a result the volumes form a valuable contribution to the history of the Indians.[1330] Many details will be found collected in Drake's Book of the Indians.[1331]

James Handasyd Perkins was a careful student of the early history of the country, and contributed many articles to the periodical literature of his day on the subject of Indian history and border warfare, which have been collected.[1332] The compiler of Annals of the West,[1333] in the preface to the third edition of that work, says: "The first edition was issued at Cincinnati, where he (the compiler) was assisted by the lamented James H. Perkins, a gentleman highly competent for the task." In the second edition of the Annals "the editor had the valuable assistance of Rev. J. M. Peck, a gentleman whose long residence in the far West, and familiarity with the history of those portions of the work less elaborately treated of in the first edition, rendered him admirably qualified for the undertaking." This work, in its chronological arrangement of events, touches upon a portion of the ground covered by this chapter. In 1791, J. Long published in London a volume entitled Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter, etc. Long arrived at Montreal in 1768. His occupation for the next seven years made him familiar with frontier life and Indian ways. He volunteered in 1775 with the Indians who entered the English service, and was at Isle au Noix with a few Mohawks on the occasion of their collision with the Americans. He also served a short time with the regulars. He states intelligently the value of the alliance of the Six Nations to the English.

Wills de Haas, in his Indian Wars of Western Virginia,[1334] has devoted one chapter to "Land Companies",[1335] and another to the "Employment of Indians as Allies." His treatment of these topics is brief, but the chapters contain much more information on the subjects than can generally be obtained from American histories.

In Fugitive Essays, etc., by Charles Whittlesey (Hudson, Ohio, 1852), an article is reproduced from the January number (1845) of the Western Literary Journal and Review, entitled "Indian history: their relations to us at the time of the American Revolution", which is well worth examination.

The Calendar of the Virginia State Papers and other Manuscripts, 1652-1781 (Richmond, 1875),[1336] though meagre as a whole, is particularly full on the subject of the encroachments of individuals and companies on Indian lands. Among these papers is the deposition of Patrick Henry, setting forth that he felt compelled to withdraw from all connection with land schemes, when, as a member of Congress, he found himself in a position where he might be called upon to act as a judge in matters in which he was directly interested. It may be inferred from what he says that there were among his associates some who were not so scrupulous.

Many of the questions involved in the adjustment of boundaries and settlement of treaties between the Indians and the British government survived the Revolution, and reappeared before the United States Congress in the struggles of land companies for possession of their alleged purchases.[1337] Through the memorials to Congress presented by the Illinois and Ouabache Land Company, which are to be found scattered through the Senate and House documents, as well as in separate tracts, we learn that in order to sustain the claim of this company it became important to show that the Six Nations did not own the Wabash region. For that purpose Deputy-Superintendent Croghan made affidavit that "the Six Nations claim by right of conquest all the lands on the southeast side of the river Ohio down to the Cherokee River, and on the west side of the river down to the Big Miami River."[1338] The king had agreed with the Indians that his people should not go west of an established boundary line. He had warned settlers off their lands. The colonists who were in arms against the king were after the lands, by fair means or foul. What was considered fair means in those days, and what causes there were for the exasperation of the Indians, cannot be fully appreciated unless the subject be followed even beyond the days of the Revolution.

The Register of Pennsylvania[1339] also contains a variety of material relating to the subject. A number of the early documents will be found in Hubley's American Revolution (1805).

In making an estimate of the Indian population within the borders of the United States at this time, I have been obliged to rely largely upon my own deductions. Bancroft (United States, iii. ch. 22), giving an estimate of the number of Indians east of the Mississippi and south of the St. Lawrence and the chain of lakes in 1640, says: "We shall approach, perhaps exceed, a just estimate of their numbers if we allow ... one hundred and eighty thousand souls" (edition of 1841). It will be observed that the foregoing estimate includes the Canadian Indians. In the preparation of the estimate which I have given, I have examined many scattered statements of the number of warriors of the different tribes, which comprehend different areas within their respective limits, and which frequently overlap each other. The arbitrary spelling of Indian names often presents the same name in such different dress as to make its identification difficult. If we bear in mind that the name as it appears in print is a phonetic rendering of a word which from the mouths of different individuals would sound differently to the same ear, and further, that those who have given us the various renderings were men of different nationalities and of different degrees of cultivation, we shall oftentimes be able to recognize the same tribe in separate statements, under names the spellings of which at first sight have no seeming identity. As regards this Indian population, a tabulated statement will he found in Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, which relies upon Croghan, Bouquet, and Hutchins, supplemented by Dodge and Gallatin. Croghan's estimate will be found in Proud's History of Pennsylvania (vol. ii. p. 296.)[1340] Bouquet's estimate will be found in the Historical Account of his expedition,[1341] headed "Names of different Indian Nations in North America, with the numbers of their fighting men." Hutchins's estimate will be found in An historical narrative and Topographical description of Louisiana, by Thomas Hutchins (Philadelphia, 1784, App. iii. p. 65), headed "A list of the different nations and tribes of Indians in the Northern District of North America, with the number of fighting men." Sir William Johnson's estimate of the Present State of the Northern Indians,[1342] made Nov. 18, 1763, will be found in the Doc. Hist. of New York, i. p. 26, and in N. Y. Col. Docs., vii. p. 582.

The estimate of Sir James Wright is in the Georgia Hist. Soc. Coll. (Savannah, 1873), iii. part 2, p. 169. The synopsis of the Indian tribes, by Albert Gallatin, is printed in the Amer. Antiquarian Soc. Proc., ii. Still another list was published in Sketches of the History, manners, and customs of the North American Indians, with a plan for their melioration, by James Buchanan, Esq., his Britannic majesty's consul for the State of New York (New York, 1824, 2 vols.), i. ch. xii. pp. 138-39, where it is called "Names of the different Indian nations hitherto discovered in North America, the situation of their countries, with the number of their fighting men" (1770-1780).

Buchanan claimed to have received this list from Heckewelder, the missionary, and it is identical, except for certain palpable errors in transcribing, with a list in what is now known as Trumbull's Indian Wars, the authorship of which is attributed in the original edition[1343] to the Rev. James Steward, D. D. Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, in reply to a question from me, says the book was "written by Henry Trumbull, then of Norwich, when about seventeen years old."[1344]

Gilbert Imlay, in A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America, etc. (London, 1792, p. 234), gives a list of Indians on both sides of the Mississippi, and from the Gulf to the St. Lawrence. This list was made up from "Croghan, Boquet, Carver, Hutchins and Dodge." The figures that he uses are plainly intended for the number of the fighting-men, but he puts the total population in this district at less than 60,000. In a second and a third edition, the list is modified. He gives twenty-eight tribes east of the Mississippi, and his calculation of population is based upon 700 to a nation or tribe. He finds in all 20,000 souls, and "consequently between 4,000 and 5,000 warriors."

I have had occasion in this investigation to examine somewhat the question of the population west of the Mississippi, for two purposes: 1st, to determine the numbers to be eliminated from some of the general statements which include tribes whose residence was in the Far West; and 2d, to test the question of the proportion of warriors to population. Brackenridge's Views of Louisiana[1345] has proved of especial service for these purposes. There are also some statistics in Perrin du Lac's Voyage dans les deux Louisianes, etc.[1346]

The Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society contain many estimates of the population of the natives in different parts of the country, made at different times. Among these an estimate (1795, p. 99) of the Creeks, Choctaws, Chicasaws, Cherokees, and Catawbas, furnished by Dr. Ramsay, places their total population in 1780 at 42,033,—fighting men 13,526. An estimate of the Indian nations employed by the British in the Revolutionary War, made by Captain Dalton, superintendent of Indian affairs for the United States (Ibid. x. p. 123), was published in 1783, and gives the number of men furnished by the tribes as 12,680, of whom the Six Nations proper contributed 1,580. The Choctaws, Chicasaws, Cherokees, and Creeks furnished 2,200. The value of this list lies only in the opportunity which it affords for testing the probable accuracy of some of the others.[1347]

There is in the Doc. Hist. of New York (i. p. 17) "an enumeration of the Indian tribes connected with the government of Canada in 1736." It is difficult, if not impossible, to identify many of the tribes in this estimate.[1348]

Elias Boudinot, in A Star in the West; or an humble attempt to discover the long lost tribes of Israel, preparatory to their return to their beloved city, Jerusalem (1816), devotes a small portion of his discussion to the question of population (p. 131 et seq.).[1349]

"A Table of the principal Indian Tribes" was printed in the American Pioneer, a monthly periodical (Cincinnati, i. pp. 257, 408, and ii. 188), where it was credited to Drake's Indian Biography; but in fact it was taken from the Book of the Indians by the same author, which is prefaced with an alphabetical enumeration of the Indian tribes and nations. The numbers of the different tribes are given, and the date of the estimates from which the numbers were derived. Franklin furnished a partial list of warriors in 1762, which may prove useful for comparison, and is included by Benjamin Vaughan in the Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces, &c., written by Benjamin Franklin, &c., &c. Now first collected (London, 1779).[1350]

Colonel Force, in the American Archives, gives a vast amount of material on the employment of Indians as soldiers by the Americans, which before had been lost from sight in scattered publications. The indexes to these volumes do not suitably analyze their contents. The chief corresponding British repositories are Almon's Remembrancer,[1351] a mine which was worked by all the earlier writers upon the Revolutionary War, and to-day the original authority for much of our information; and the Parliamentary Register, often called the Parliamentary Debates,[1352]—more specific accounts of which, as well as of the Annual Register, the Gentleman's Magazine, and the Scots Magazine, will be found in another place. All of these help to show us the information upon which the British public formed their opinions.

The attitude of Congress upon the Indian question has been traced by means of the Journals and Secret Journals of Congress.[1353]

The fact that the powers conferred upon Carleton for the suppression of rebellion in the provinces probably influenced opinion somewhat in the colonies has been already adverted to, as well as the further fact, shown by extracts from other commissions, etc., that there was no special meaning to be attached to the language used in the commissions. That it did have weight and was used as an argument in the discussion is shown in a review of The plan of the Colonies, or the charges brought against them by Lord M——d and others, in a letter to his Lordship, printed in The Monthly Review or Literary Journal (liv., for 1776, p. 408). "Let him review Gen. Carleton's last commission", says the writer. "Your Lordship has already seen it once too often. For what purpose was he authorized to arm the Canadians, and then to march into any other of the plantations, and his majesty's rebellious subjects there to attack, and, by God's help, them to defeat and put to death? For what purpose did Guy Johnson deliver black belts to all the Indian tribes in his district, and persuade them to lift up the hatchet against the white people in the colonies? The Congress is possessed of those very war-belts; they have a copy of Governor Carleton's commission; they have long since possessed the whole plan."

Unfortunately, the chief American compilation, aiming to be a reflex of current news,—Moore's Diary of the American Revolution,—is singularly deficient in excerpts respecting the opinions on employing Indians.[1354] There is need of but brief references to the consideration of the subject among the later writers,—such as Ryerson in his Loyalists of America (ii. ch. 33); Mahon (ch. 52) and Lecky (iv. 14), in their respective histories of England. There is special treatment of the matter by William W. Campbell in "The direct agency of the English Government in the employment of the Indians in the Revolutionary War", published in the New York Hist. Society Proc. (1845, p. 159).[1355]

Frederic Kidder, in The Expeditions of Capt. John Lovewell (Boston, 1865, p. 114), says: "The last trace of them [the Pequakets] as a tribe is in a petition to the government of Massachusetts, dated at Fryeburg, in which they ask for guns, blankets, and ammunition for thirteen men who are willing to enroll themselves on the patriot side. This document was indorsed by the proper authorities, and the request was granted."[1356]

On the 10th of July, 1775, Adjutant-General Gates, at Cambridge, in a circular letter of instructions for the use of recruiting officers, says: "You are not to enlist any deserter from the ministerial army, nor any stroller, negro, or vagabond, or person suspected of being an enemy to the liberty of America, nor any under 18 years of age." "You are not to enlist any person who is not an American born, unless such person has a wife and family, and is a resident in this country" (Niles's Principles and Acts, etc.). Though no mention is made of Indians, the fact of their not being excepted is often pointed out as of significance.

Letters in the N. H. Provincial Papers[1357] betray the fears, along the border, of Carleton and Johnson, and reveal the friendly disposition of the Canadian Indians.

The references for the Kennebec march of Arnold are given in another chapter; but in Senter's Journal, there mentioned, we have the details of Arnold's interview with the Indians at Sartigan, and of the inducements which he offered them for enlisting. The fact that Indians joined the American army at this point is corroborated by Judge Henry, in his Account,[1358] while the topic is also treated in E. M. Stone's Invasion of Canada (Providence, 1867).

Many of the more important acts and resolves of the several colonies, apposite to this inquiry, are in the American Archives. The importance which circumstances gave to the position taken by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay causes great interest to attach to the proceedings of that body. Many conferences between committees and different Indians were held, the accounts of which are found in A Journal of the Honourable House of Representatives of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. Begun at the Meeting House in Watertown in the County of Middlesex on Wednesday the Nineteenth day of July, Anno Domini, 1775.[1359] These will also be found in a reprint of the Journals for 1774-1775, entitled Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774-1775, etc., Boston, 1838.

General Gage, in his letter to Stuart, complained of two things: the employment of Indians by the rebels and the shooting of his sentries. It has been shown that the acts of the Massachusetts Bay Provincial Congress justified his first assertion. As to the second, see Frothingham's Siege of Boston.[1360]

The Military operations in Eastern Maine and Nova Scotia, during the revolution, chiefly compiled from the journals and letters of Col. John Allan, by Frederic Kidder (Albany, 1867), completes the story of the attempt to secure the services of the Eastern Indians, and gives the reasons alleged by the Indians for not complying with the treaty entered into at Cambridge, to furnish a regiment.[1361]

The events which took place in the Mohawk Valley during the summer and fall of 1775 were of far-reaching importance. Their history is recorded in the correspondence of such men as Washington and Schuyler, in the meetings of local committees, and in conferences with Indians. Accounts of many of them are to be found in the N. Y. Col. Docs. and in the American Archives. There is besides a mass of material in the possession of scattered families, much of which has been worked over by local historians.[1362] The most important of all these later works is the Life of Joseph Brant (Tha-yen-dan-e-gea), including the Border Wars of the American Revolution, etc., by William L. Stone.[1363]

The prodigious labor performed by Colonel Stone in the classification and orderly arrangement of the immense amount of his material will be gratefully appreciated by the investigator to-day, even though he has at command publications by the state and national governments containing much of the same material. Since Colonel Stone's day other laborers have been diligently at work in the same field, gleaning facts and collecting historical material of various kinds. Their work has revealed some errors in the Life of Brant,[1364] which are not of such importance, however, as to displace the work from its position as the chief authority on the subject. The habits and modes of life of the Indians and the organization of the confederacy of the Six Nations were not understood as thoroughly when Colonel Stone wrote as they are to-day. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Morgan, in his League of the Iroquois, does not agree with Stone in the assertion that Brant was the principal war-chief of the confederacy. A portion of Stone's ground had been earlier covered by William W. Campbell in his Annals of Tryon County, or the Border Warfare of New York during the Revolution (N. Y., 1831),[1365] a work still looked upon as authority upon many points, republished (1849) as The Border Warfare of New York during the Revolution, or the Annals of Tryon County. Another volume devoted to the same topics, but widely different in character and in execution, is Jephtha R. Simms's History of Schoharie County and Border Wars of New York (1845), republished in 1882, with additional matter, as The Frontiersmen of New York, showing customs of the Indians, vicissitudes of the pioneer white settlers, and Border Strife in two wars, with a great variety of romantic and thrilling stories never before published,—both editions showing an industrious care to amass, with little skill in presentation.

The Revolutionary War divided the councils of the Six Nations. Had they acted as a unit in favor of the English, the problem would have been more difficult for the provincials. The friendly warnings of the Oneidas were of constant use to the Americans throughout the struggle. Their position materially changed the problem which was set for St. Leger, and though they did not then act aggressively, their unfriendly attitude must have caused his retreating column uneasiness. These Indians were probably of greater service as neutrals—who in that character were able to penetrate the enemy's country and report what was going on—than they would have been had they taken up the hatchet on the American side at the outset. Their attitude was largely due to the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, the missionary.[1366]

In the account of the border wars, as in all other respects, Lossing's Field-Book is a useful publication, based upon ordinarily accepted authorities, with local anecdotes, traditions, and descriptions interjected by the author.[1367] A contemporary narrative (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., ii.), called an "Historical Journal", was necessarily written without opportunity for critical revision.

We have a narrative of events from the English side in Stedman's American War, where it is said that Montgomery was "joined by several parties of Indians" (i. p. 133), and that Ethan Allen's party numbered "about one hundred and fifty men, composed of Americans and Indians." One inducement for Burgoyne's employment of Indians was "a well-grounded supposition that if he refused their offers they would instantly join the Americans." Wyoming, we learn, "fell a sacrifice to an invasion of the Indians" (ii. p. 73). He speaks of "the Indian settlements of Unadilla and Anaguago, which were also inhabited by white people attached to the loyal cause."

Thacher's Military Journal, a contemporaneous account of current events on the American side, as they appeared or as they were told to the author, is often of help in fixing the date of some event about which there is a dispute, even when the description itself of the action is meagre, or consists of mere mention. Thus he puts the destruction of Cobleskill in 1778, when Campbell says it was in 1779,—an error on the part of the later writer, unless there was more than one raid upon that insignificant settlement, as stated by Stone.[1368] Thacher's account of the battle of Oriskany and siege of Fort Stanwix is brief, but it shows that the first stories about the affair were quite reasonable.

In the study of the topography, so far as it was known, and of the geographical nomenclature of the frontier just previous to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the Memoir upon the late War in North America, by M. Pouchot,[1369] will be found very useful.

The story of St. Leger's expedition and the battle of Oriskany, though told at some length in this chapter as illustrative of border warfare, is so essential a part of the campaign of Burgoyne that the critical discussion of the authorities has been, except in some matters pertaining to the use of Indians, treated rather in connection with the story of that campaign than here.[1370]

The historical introduction upon Sir John Johnson which Gen. J. Watts De Peyster contributed to The Orderly-Book of Sir John Johnson (Albany, 1882) indicates a marked change of opinion upon the exploits of Johnson, as compared with the views which he had expressed in earlier accounts of the battle of Oriskany published by him in 1859, 1869 (Hist. Mag., Jan.), 1878 (Mag. of Amer. Hist., Jan.), and 1880. He confesses that an examination of the British accounts has given him a somewhat enthusiastic admiration for Johnson's methods, but his repeated study has not yet cleared up all errors.[1371] This Orderly-Book gives us the movements of Sir John Johnson's command up to the time that they left Oswego. Through the details for guard and fatigue duty during the delay at Buck Island we get at the different commands which formed the expedition. De Peyster and Stone conclude, from the introduction of a general order for the issue of forty days' rations for five hundred men, just before leaving Buck Island, that this determines the number of St. Leger's command, but the evidence is hardly conclusive.[1372]

In James E. Seaver's Life of Mary Jemison (N. Y., 1856, 4th ed.) we have the story of the way in which the Senecas bewailed their losses, given by a woman who had been long among them as captive and adopted member; and it is on her authority (p. 114) that it is sometimes stated that the English offered bounties for scalps.[1373] An account of the exertions of Red Jacket to keep his people out of the conflict will be found in J. Niles Hubbard's An account of Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, or Red Jacket and his People (Albany, 1886), ch. 3.

As respects the Minisink massacre, the accounts made public by Brant were fairly accurate, though they ran some risk in being transmitted first to Niagara, thence to Quebec, and finally to England. They stand the test of time better than the American accounts. The Tory organ in New York, Rivington's Gazette, printed the first American accounts, representing that only thirty escaped from the ambuscade,—a statement followed in several histories; but the local authorities, on the strength of investigations made at the time of erecting the monument, generally agree on the smaller statements of loss.[1374]

The earliest account of the massacre at Wyoming is in a letter written at Poughkeepsie, July 20, 1778, just after the fugitives had arrived there,[1375] and this account seems to be largely the source whence Gordon, Botta,[1376] and Marshall[1377] drew their accounts. Owing probably to the fact that Marshall cites Ramsay in his footnotes, this last historian is frequently included with the others in the general charge of having furnished an exaggerated and erroneous statement of this deplorable event,[1378] but, in fact, Ramsay is reasonably accurate, and is free from many of the errors which characterize the other narratives.[1379]

Hinman's Connecticut during the Revolution contains an account of the Wyoming massacre, transcribed directly from a contemporaneous publication. A full account of the massacre will be found in Girardin's continuation of Burk's History of Virginia (iv. of the series, p. 314 et seq.), based upon the shocking tales of the fugitives. The popular account was repeated in the History of the Revolution which purported to have been written by Paul Allen.[1380]

Isaac A. Chapman, the first of the local historians to touch the subject, prepared a manuscript, with a preface dated Wyoming, July 11, 1818; but the book was not published until after his death, as A Sketch of the history of Wyoming[1381] (Wilkesbarre, 1830).

Charles Miner, the first to sift out the errors from the accepted accounts, after collecting from survivors their personal experiences, published a series of newspaper sketches which led to his History of Wyoming, in a series of letters from Charles Miner to his son, William Penn Miner, Esq., etc. (Philadelphia, 1845). He carefully chronicled the antecedent history of the Connecticut colony, and gave the first trustworthy detailed account of the invasion, and the articles of capitulation granted to the several forts by Major John Butler. Mr. Miner's agent was apparently refused, at the foreign office, London, a copy of the report of Major Butler. This important document will be found in Wyoming, its history, stirring incidents and romantic adventures, by George Peck, D. D. (New York, 1858).[1382] The author says in his preface: "Forty years since we first visited Wyoming, and from that period we have enjoyed rare advantages for the study of its history." He gives the report of Zebulon Butler to the board of war,[1383] dated at Gnadenhütten, July 10, 1778 (p. 49), the report of Major John Butler to Lieut.-Col. Bolton, dated at Lackuwanak, 8th July, 1778 (p. 52); and there is a thorough résumé of the discussion as to Brant's presence at Wyoming (pp. 87, 88, 89). The report of Butler to Bolton was presumably the document which he received through the favor of Hon. George Bancroft, who cites it (United States, x. 138) in his account of the Wyoming invasion.[1384]

Col. William L. Stone treated the subject in a thorough manner in The Poetry and History of Wyoming containing Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming, and the History of Wyoming from its discovery to the beginning of the present century.[1385] The book has passed through several editions, and the same historical materials are also used in his Life of Brant.[1386]

The massacre at Cherry Valley has not, like Wyoming, an especial literature of its own. The event is described in the Remembrancer,[1387] and in all the histories, and is fully treated in Campbell's Annals of Tryon County (ch. 5), in Simms's Frontiersmen of New York, and in Stone's Life of Brant (i. ch. 17). Both Campbell and Simms lived in this region, and it was the special field in which Brant was operating. This particular expedition was not under Brant's control. He had apparently concluded the season's work and joined Walter N. Butler's force reluctantly, being jealous of him for having command of the expedition. At Wyoming the soldiers were massacred, but the citizens were spared. At Cherry Valley most of the soldiers escaped, but in the first heat of the attack the citizens were indiscriminately slaughtered. It would have been better for Brant's reputation if he had been present at Wyoming rather than at Cherry Valley,—although so far as his influence is concerned it was evidently exerted to prevent excesses.[1388]

Among the Sparks MSS. (no. xlvii.) in the Harvard College library, there are some extracts from the diary of Benjamin Warren, who was in the fort at Cherry Valley at the time of the attack. He says the attack on the fort was renewed early on the morning of the 12th, but was easily repelled.

The Boston Gazette and Country Journal of Dec. 7, 1778,[1389] contains an account from an officer who was in the fort November 11th, when it was attacked. He says it rained hard that morning. The enemy "passed by two houses, and lodged themselves in a swamp a small distance back of Mr. Wells's house, headquarters; half past eleven A. M. Mr. Hamlin came by and discovered two Indians, who fired upon him and shot him through the arm. He rode to Mr. Wells's, and acquainted the colonel, the lieutenant-colonel, major, and adjutant. The two last (the house at this time being surrounded by Indians) got to the fort through their fire; the colonel was shot near the fort." The fort was subjected to a brisk fire for three hours and a half. On the 12th the enemy collected the cattle, and at sunset left. McKendry's account of the attack on Fort Alden agrees in substance with that of Benjamin Warren.[1390]

The expedition of General Sullivan (1779) against the Indian towns in New York has proved a fertile field for discussion. Its policy has been assailed; its management condemned; its results belittled. There is no want of records of occurrences in the campaign,[1391] but their interpretation has not been settled, and probably never will be. The account of Gordon is especially bitter against Sullivan, and he cuts down the number of villages from forty, as given by Sullivan, to eighteen.[1392]

Thomas C. Amory, in his Military Services of General Sullivan, aims at a vindication of Sullivan by the use of material which was not known to his detractors, and he has diligently pursued this purpose elsewhere.[1393] The character of the charges against Sullivan has been partially indicated in the quotations already given. He has been attacked because he demanded so many troops for the expedition. Whether it would have been wise to venture with a smaller force so far into Indian country, which was within easy supporting distance of the outposts of the enemy, is a matter of opinion, concerning which no new facts have been recently brought to light. We know that Sullivan expected help from the Oneidas which he did not receive, and that he anticipated that the Indians would receive aid from Niagara, in which he was agreeably disappointed. I have already stated that in my judgment he had a right to expect formidable opposition, and the only explanation of his not meeting with greater resistance is to be found in the perplexity in Haldimand's mind occasioned by the boats which Clinton had collected in the Mohawk Valley. On this mental confusion Sullivan could not have counted.[1394] The number of men demanded by Sullivan in the preliminary discussions about the campaign was much larger than the number actually furnished him. It was perhaps not out of place for him to secure, if he could, a force large enough to place his campaign beyond failure, but, taking into consideration the general condition of army matters, the number demanded was entirely disproportionate to the work to be performed. He wanted 2,500 men to march up the Susquehanna, and 4,000 men to invade the towns by way of the Mohawk (F. Moore, Corresp. of Laurens, N. Y., 1861, p. 136). In fact, he had 2,500 men in his own command, and Clinton's force brought the numbers up to 4,000.[1395] He has been accused of making demands for supplies which were unreasonable, both as to quality and as to quantity, and it is evident from Washington's correspondence that he feared Sullivan was not willing to march light enough for such a campaign. While Sullivan was not familiar with Indian campaigns, and perhaps demanded more supplies at the outset than Brodhead, or Clarke, or Williamson would have asked for, the numbers of his command must not be forgotten. Nor must the fact be overlooked that the provisions which were delivered to him proved to have been put up in bad packages, and had spoiled.[1396]

Sullivan has also been found fault with for not protecting from Indian raids the neighborhood in which his army was stationed while waiting for supplies. His action in this respect was deliberate. He was of opinion that the blows struck along the border during this interval of time were intended to divert him from the purposes of the campaign, and that any attempts to check these desultory attacks, by sending out expeditions here and there, would simply be playing into the enemy's hands.[1397] The charge of extravagant living during the march seems absurd. At a time when the army was on half rations and the men were using ingenious devices to take advantage of the growing crops, he could hardly have had much opportunity for riotous living. When the expedition started the corn was green and suitable to roast. As they advanced it became too mature for this, and the soldiers were compelled in other ways to prepare it for food.[1398]

Curious differences of opinion prevailed in the several accounts as to the numbers of the enemy who opposed the army at Newtown. Some of the accounts place them as low as 700, while others put them as high as 1,500.[1399]

Sullivan has been ridiculed for the language used in describing the Indian settlements; but his descriptions, though misleading, are the natural expressions of a man who found in these settlements evidences of a higher civilization than he had expected. A comparison of the entries in the various diaries and journals will show that many were surprised at the excellence of the Indian houses, while others saw only the discomforts of life under such surroundings.[1400] General Sullivan has been assailed because he did not attack Niagara. There had been some discussion about a second campaign against Canada and an attempt on Niagara, but Washington's correspondence shows that it had been abandoned in connection with the campaign against the Indian towns, unless it could be accomplished through the Indians themselves. The instructions to Sullivan show this,[1401] and a letter from Sullivan, given in the Laurens Correspondence (p. 141), shows that Sullivan did not conceive it to be a part of the campaign, even if he had deemed an attack on Niagara possible.

In his report to the Committee of Congress, January 15, 1776, Washington discusses the possibilities for the forthcoming campaign.[1402] For the reduction of Niagara he estimates that an army of twenty to twenty-one thousand men would be required; thirteen thousand to remain in the East, and seven or eight thousand to operate against Niagara. The expenses incident to such a campaign, and the great number of men required, practically put it out of the question, and his conclusion was as follows: "It is much to be regretted that our prospect of any capital offensive operations is so slender that we seem in a manner to be driven to the necessity of adopting the third plan,—that is, to remain entirely on the defensive; except such lesser operations against the Indians as are absolutely necessary to divert their ravages from us." January 18 he wrote to General Schuyler: "It has therefore been determined to lay the Niagara expedition entirely aside for the present, and to content ourselves with some operations on a smaller scale against the savages and those people who have infested our frontier the preceding campaign."[1403]

The details of the work performed by the New Jersey contingent have been fully set forth in General Maxwell's Brigade of the New Jersey Continental line in the Expedition against the Indians in the year 1779. By William S. Stryker, Adjutant-General of New Jersey (Trenton, 1885), a paper read before the New Jersey Historical Society, January 17, 1884.[1404] Various order-books of the campaign have been preserved.[1405]

The Centennial Celebration of General Sullivan's Campaign against the Iroquois in 1779. Held at Waterloo, September 3d, 1879 (Waterloo, N. Y., 1880), was edited by Diedrich Willers, Jr., and contains a carefully prepared and clearly written historical address by the Rev. David Craft, which the editor calls "the most complete and accurate history of General Sullivan's campaign which has yet been given to the public." The diligence of Craft in his search for the sources of authority for the campaign is shown in his "List of Journals, Narratives, etc., of the Western Expedition, 1779"[1406] (Mag. of Amer. Hist., iii. 673), in which the titles of nineteen journals, narratives, etc., which had at that time been published, are given, with information as to the places of deposit of the MSS., and as to the newspapers, magazines, or books in which they were published. The titles and what was known about the places of deposit of eight journals, etc., which had not been published, and of one journal which relates to the Onondaga expedition, and which had been published, are also given.[1407] Of the journals which had not been published when Craft wrote, three, or portions of three, were used by Gen. John S. Clark in his account of the Sullivan campaign in the Collections of the Cayuga Historical Society, Number One (Auburn, 1879,—250 copies), including the journal of Lieut. John L. Hardenburgh, of the Second New York Continental Regiment, from May 1 to October 3, 1779, with an introduction, copious historical notes, and maps of the battlefield of Newtown and the Groveland ambuscade. General Clark also makes use of "parts of other journals never before published,"[1408] which give the work of detachments, thus placing before the reader a complete account of the whole work of the expedition, in the words of those who participated in it, together with a list of journals, etc., similar to that of Craft, but sufficiently different in details to show independent work.

The remains of Lieutenant Boyd and those who fell with him, in their desperate attempt to cut their way through the enemy by whom they were surrounded, were in 1842 removed from their place of burial, and deposited with appropriate ceremonies at Mount Hope. A collection of the various proceedings on this occasion was edited by Henry O'Reilly, as Notices of Sullivan's Campaign, or the Revolutionary Warfare in Western New York; embodied in the addresses and documents connected with the funeral honors rendered to those who fell with the gallant Boyd in the Genessee Valley, including the remarks of Gov. Seward at Mount Hope (Rochester, 1842).

Brodhead's campaign against the Indian settlements on the Alleghany, in Western New York and Pennsylvania, was carried out while Sullivan was on his march. Like Van Schaick's raid on the Onondaga towns, although independently executed, it formed part of the scheme of the season's work. In Gay's Popular History of the United States (vol. iv.) there is a good general account of Sullivan's campaign, but in a note (p. 7) it is said that "Brodhead's expedition has usually been considered of little moment, and it has been denied, or doubted, by some writers, that it ever took place. Its incidents are for the first time collated and fully told by Obed Edson, in the Magazine of [Amer.] History, for November, 1879." As a matter of fact, however, there has never been occasion for investigators to doubt that this campaign had taken place, or to underestimate its value. The report of Brodhead was given to the public at the time,[1409] and was published in full in the Remembrancer (ix. p. 152). Washington, in his letter to Lafayette, which has already been quoted, mentioned the work done by Brodhead with evident appreciation of its extent and value.[1410]

The details of the Mohawk Valley invasions are given in the works by Stone, Simms, and Campbell, which have so frequently been quoted, and in the Remembrancer.[1411] The joint expeditions in 1780 were separately treated by Franklin B. Hough in the Northern Invasion of October, 1780 (New York, 1866,—no. 6 Bradford Club Series; 75 copies printed). The work is described as "a series of papers relating to the expedition from Canada under Sir John Johnson and others against the frontiers of New York, which were supposed to have connection with Arnold's treason, prepared from the originals, with an introduction and notes." Reference has already been made to the fact that Hough differed from Stone as to the cause for the removal of the Oneidas from their castles in the winter of 1779-1780, and their establishment near Schenectady. Hough says (p. 32): "Some of the Oneidas evinced a willingness to join the enemy. To prevent such a misfortune, four hundred of their people were removed to the neighborhood of Schenectady, and there supported at public cost." In a note he adds: "We find nothing among the Clinton Papers to justify the statement of Colonel Stone[1412] (Brant, i. 55) relative to the destruction of the Oneida settlements by the enemy during the winter of 1779-80, and are led to believe that the removal of these people to a place of safety in the interior was a measure of policy rather than of actual necessity from the presence of the enemy." There is among the Sparks MSS. actual evidence that Hough's conclusion was correct. In a letter from General Haldimand, dated at Quebec, Nov. 2, 1779, he says: "He [Sir John Johnson] halted at Oswego, with an intention to cut off the Oneida nation, who have uniformly and obstinately supported and fought for the rebels, notwithstanding the united remonstrances and threats of the Five Nations, joined to every effort in our power to reclaim them. In this he has likewise been disappointed, the Indians of Canada refusing their assistance", etc.[1413] A letter of Guy Johnson to Lord Germain makes the same statements.

[NOTES.]

A. OPINIONS OF PROMINENT AMERICANS ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF INDIANS IN WAR.

It is not easy to determine the position of prominent individuals on this question prior to the date when Congress had come to a conclusion. The passage of the Quebec Bill in 1774, and the ample powers which were conferred upon Carleton to suppress revolt, had occasioned alarm. Perhaps the circumstances justified suspicion, but there was no special cause for it. The language used in Carleton's commission was copied from the commission of James Murray. If there had been no change of governors, the powers conferred upon the governor could never have been supposed to have been specially directed against the rebellious colonies.[1414] After the outbreak of hostilities, we meet, in the published correspondence of the day, with occasional expressions of opinion on the question of employing Indians. It must not be forgotten that when these letters were written rumors were current that the English in Canada were endeavoring to secure the services of Indians, and to the extent that the writers believed these statements their opinions were doubtless influenced by them. On May 14th, Joseph Warren wrote to Samuel Adams, saying: "It has been suggested to me that an application from your Congress to the Six Nations, accompanied with some presents, might have a very good effect. It appears to me to be worthy of your attention, etc." (Frothingham's Warren). On August 4th, Washington communicated to the President of Congress the opinion of a Caughnawaga chief, that if an expedition against Canada was meditated the Indians in that quarter would give all their assistance. On Sept. 21st, he reported to the honorable Congress that, "encouraged by the repeated declarations of Canadians and Indians, and urged by their requests", he had dispatched the Arnold expedition (Sparks's Washington and his Corresp. of the Rev.). On August 27th, Schuyler wrote to Washington that he was informed that "Carleton and his agents are exerting themselves to procure the savages against us." While he did not believe that Carleton would be successful except in procuring some of the remote Indians to act as scouts, he nevertheless added, "I should, therefore, not hesitate a moment to employ any Indians that might be willing to join us" (Lossing's Schuyler). Judge Drayton, of South Carolina, on September 25th addressed the Cherokee warriors at Congaree in the following words: "So should we act to each other like brothers; so shall we be able to support and assist each other against our common enemies; so shall we be able to stand together in perfect safety against the evil men who in the end mean to ruin you, as well as ourselves, who are their own flesh and blood." In January, 1776, Washington felt that the important moment had arrived when the Indians must take a side. He knew that if the Indians concerning whom he wrote did not desire to be idle, they would be "for or against us." "I am sensible", he added, "that no artifices will be left unessayed to engage them against us." On April 19th he wrote to the President of Congress: "In my opinion it will be impossible to keep them in a state of neutrality; they must, and no doubt soon will, take an active part either for or against us. I submit to Congress whether it would not be better immediately to engage them on our side." On July 13th he reported to the President of Congress that, without authority from Congress, he had directed Gen. Schuyler to engage the Six Nations in our interest on the best terms he and his colleagues could procure. "I trust", he added, "the urgency of the occasion will justify my proceeding to Congress." On the day of the Declaration of Independence he again wrote to Congress, submitting the propriety of engaging the Eastern Indians. Notwithstanding the various arguments against employing them, John Adams thought "we need not be so delicate as to refuse the assistance of Indians, provided we cannot keep them neutral." In June, the Rev. Samuel Kirkland said that the Indians were generally of opinion that it was impracticable for them to continue longer in a state of neutrality. Gen. Schuyler, notwithstanding his early expressions of readiness to "employ any Indians that might be willing to join us", seemed reluctant, when the time came, to avail himself of their services. He preferred to get decently rid of the offer of the Caughnawagas rather than to employ them. As to the Six Nations, he evidently felt that the utmost to be hoped for was to hold a portion of them quiet through the influence of such men as Kirkland and Deane.[1415] Schuyler's labors as Indian commissioner had been in the direction of neutrality; and even after direct instructions from Congress to engage the Six Nations on the best terms that could be procured, he wrote in reply, with evident satisfaction, when the news of the disaster to our forces in Canada was spread among the Indians, that "our conduct in demanding a neutrality in all former treaties has been greatly applauded in all their councils." The Life of Jonathan Trumbull, Sen., Governor of Connecticut, by I. W. Stuart (Boston, 1859), gives particulars concerning the contact of this active participant in affairs with some of these questions of policy. Trumbull, as well as the Massachusetts committeemen, was in correspondence with Major Brown in Canada, and through him as well as through them information was conveyed to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay of rumors of a projected attempt to recapture Ticonderoga and Crown Point with a force of regulars and Indians.

B. EVENTS AT THE NORTH, NOT CONNECTED WITH THE SIX NATIONS.

Among the Western tribes, the Delawares were divided, but the majority of the Indians were unfriendly, and completely under the influence of the English commander at Detroit. At the East the attitude of the Indians was not so pronounced, and they were slow to move. On June 20, 1776, Washington wrote to Schuyler that he was "hopeful the bounty Congress had agreed to allow and would prove a powerful inducement to engage the Indians in our service." From Schuyler he learned that "our emissaries among the Indians all agree that it would be extremely imprudent to take an active part with us, as they think it would effectually militate the contrary way." The reference in Washington's letter to bounties applies to the resolution of Congress to offer bounties, which had passed three days before the letter was written. With the same prompt attention he wrote to the General Court of Massachusetts, transmitting the resolve of Congress authorizing the employment of the Eastern Indians, exactly three days after its passage; at the same time he solicited the aid of that body in carrying it into execution. He designated five or six hundred as the number which he wished to have engaged. On the same day he wrote to the Continental Congress that he had communicated with the General Court of Massachusetts Bay, "entreating their exertions to have the Eastern Indians forthwith engaged and marched to join this army." It appears from the correspondence and from the proceedings at the conferences that he had already written a letter to these Indians, and it chanced that his letter to the Provincial Congress reached Watertown at about the same time that a delegation from the Eastern Indians reported there in consequence of his letter to them. When the Indians were called upon to state by what authority they spoke, they produced the letter from Washington, leaving it to be inferred that they were accredited upon their mission in consequence of the letter having been received. At the conference which was held with them they were full of high-sounding phrases of friendship. "We shall have nothing to do with Old England", they said, "and all that we shall worship, or obey, will be Jesus Christ and George Washington." The report of the conference states that "a silver gorget and heart, with the king's arms and bust engraved on them, were delivered to the interpreter to be returned to the Indians. He presented them to their speaker, but with great vehemence and displeasure he refused to take them, saying they had nothing to do with King George and England; whereupon the President told them they should have a new gorget and heart, with the bust of Gen. Washington and proper devices to represent the United Colonies." A treaty was exchanged with these Indians on July 17, 1776, whereby they agreed to furnish six hundred Indians to a regiment which was to be officered by the whites, and have in addition to the Indians two hundred and fifty white soldiers. As a result of all this, the Massachusetts Council subsequently reported that seven Penobscot Indians, all that could be procured, were enlisted in October for one year; and in November, Major Shaw reported with a few Indians who had enlisted in the Continental service. The Council of Massachusetts Bay expressed their regrets to Gen. Washington that the major had met with no better success. Washington's letter to the Eastern nations appears to have contained advice to them to keep the peace if they concluded it was to their advantage. These nations afterwards protested that the young men who in the character of chiefs made the treaty of war acted without authority, and they therefore returned the treaty. This practically ended efforts to secure alliance with Eastern Indians. There was further correspondence between Congress and Washington concerning the Stockbridge Indians, in which Congress first announced that the enlistment of these Indians must stop, and then at Washington's request permitted it to be renewed. Finally Congress was content to instruct the government agent to engage the friendship of the Eastern Indians, "and prevent their taking part in the unjust and cruel war against these United States."

C. EVENTS AT THE SOUTH.

The first result of the struggle between Great Britain and the colonies for the friendship of the Indians was felt in the North at St. John's and the Cedars. The first aggressive movement within the limits of the colonies took place in the South. The correspondence of Sir James Wright traces the progress of events in that department. The "Liberty People", as he says, asserted in June, 1775, that Stuart was endeavoring to raise the Cherokees against them, and "all that Stuart could say would not convince them to the contrary." In July Sir James heard that the Provincial Congress had agreed to send 2,000 pounds of gunpowder into the Indian country as a present from the people, "not from the king, or from the government, or from the superintendent, or from the traders, but from the people of the province."

Note.—Portion of the map in Drayton's Mem. of the Amer. Rev., ii. 343. Key: Double dotted line shows the march of the army; the single dotted line shows the march of detachments; the + indicates battlegrounds.

There is among the Rochambeau maps (no. 36) a small but good plan (5 × 4 inches), called An accurate map of North and South Carolina, with their Indian frontier, showing in a distinct manner all the mountains, rivers, swamps, marshes, bays, creeks, harbors, sandbanks, coasts, and soundings, with roads and Indian paths, as well as the boundary of provincial lines, the several townships and other divisions of the land in both the provinces,—from actual surveys by Henry Mouzon. It is the same map given in Jefferys' American Atlas (1776, no. 23), and was republished in Paris in 1777 by Le Rouge, and is included in the Atlas Amériquain. The middle, upper, and over-hill towns are given on one of the sections of Arrowsmith's map (1795-1802), and also upon the Carte des Etats-Unis de l'Amérique Septentrionale.—Copiée et Gravée sur celle d'Arrowsmith, etc., etc. Par P. F. Tardieu, à Paris, 1808.

Faden issued in 1780 a map of the northern frontiers of Georgia, by Archibald Campbell.—Ed.

This powder was seized by the royalists, but as an offset the annual presents of Stuart were seized at Tybee by the "Liberty People." It was stated that the best friends of Great Britain lived in the back parts of Carolina and Georgia. If the Indians were put in motion, they, and not the rebels, would suffer. Nevertheless, the first blow from the Indians came from that quarter. Early in July, 1776, news was received at Savannah, at Charleston, and at Fincastle, Va., that the Indians were at work upon the border, carrying destruction wherever they went. On the 7th of July, General Lee wrote to the president of the Virginia Convention that an opportunity offered for a coöperative movement. The Continental Congress, having received a report of the circumstances from the president of South Carolina, recommended, on the 30th of July (1776), the States of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia to afford all necessary assistance. As soon as the first intelligence of the outbreak in South Carolina reached Col. Andrew Williamson, who at the beginning of this campaign apparently ranked as major, he promptly rallied the inhabitants of the frontier of that State. By the middle of July he had collected a body of 1,150 volunteers. With this force he invaded the Indian territory, and during the remainder of the month of July and the first half of August he was occupied in destroying the Cherokee lower towns. On his return to his main camp from a raid with a detachment, about the middle of August, he found that a number of his men had gone home, and that many of those who remained were suffering for clothes and other necessaries. He erected a fort at Essenecca, which he named after President Rutledge, and furloughed a part of his force until August 28th.

At the same time that the depredations were committed which caused Col. Williamson to invade the Indian country, the settlements in Virginia and North Carolina, on the border of what we now know as Tennessee, were threatened by the Indians. The inhabitants along the border at once "forted" themselves. A small force collected at Eaton's station met a party of Indians on the 20th of July, and repulsed them, with a loss of thirteen of their warriors. Watauga, where 150 persons, of whom 40 were men, had assembled in the fort, was besieged by another band. The Indians hung about the fort for six days, and skulked in the woods for a fortnight longer, but left on the approach of a relief column. Other Indians went up the Holston to Carter's Valley, but accomplished nothing in that immediate vicinity.[1416] The settlements in Virginia, in the Clinch Valley and for a long distance from this point, were, however, raided, and the surrounding country devastated.

Georgia performed her share of the season's work simultaneously with Colonel Williamson's first raid. An independent command, led by Major Jack,[1417] operated against the lower towns beyond the Tugaloo, during the latter part of July.

The work performed by South Carolina and Georgia during the months of July and August was not considered complete. It was determined to inflict a blow which would be remembered. About the first of September Colonel Williamson again marched into the Indian country, this time at the head of about two thousand men. It was intended that on an appointed day in September he should effect a junction with General Rutherford of North Carolina, who at the head of twenty-four hundred men simultaneously marched from that State. Although the two columns met in Indian territory, the junction was not effected at the appointed date, and the work of destroying the middle towns and valley settlements was independently performed. Virginia sent out an expedition at the same time against the upper or over-hill towns. This force, after it was joined by some companies from the northwestern portion of North Carolina, numbered eighteen hundred men, and was commanded by Colonel William Christian. The purposes of this expedition were successfully accomplished.

The South Carolina troops had the misfortune to encounter nearly all the resistance that was offered by the Indians, and the two expeditions lost 22 men killed, with 11 men mortally wounded, and 63 men otherwise wounded. They had the satisfaction, however, of knowing that the joint expedition had thoroughly performed its work. The Cherokee towns were burned, and the crops of the Indians were destroyed. The attack by the Indians consolidated the colonists and aroused their indignation. The Council of South Carolina asserted that they were now convinced of what they had before but little reason to doubt, "the indiscriminate atrocity and unrelenting tyranny of the hand that directs the British war against us." The Assembly spoke of it as a "barbarous and ungrateful attempt of the Cherokee Indians, instigated by our British enemies." The Cherokees accepted such terms of peace as their conquerors allowed. Next year separate treaties were made between representatives of the tribes and Virginia and North Carolina, and between other representatives and South Carolina and Georgia. In the treaty in which South Carolina participated, a portion of the Indian territory was ceded to that State on the ground of conquest. For several years thereafter the Indians kept so quiet that but little was heard from them in that portion of the country. As a sequel to the campaign it may be noted that, on the 25th of September, President Rutledge informed the Assembly of South Carolina that Colonel Williamson desired instructions as to whether the Indians taken prisoners should become slaves. Such an impression prevailed in camp, and one prisoner had already been sold as a slave.[1418]

McCall, in his History of Georgia, is authority for the statement that General Rutherford was accompanied on his march by a small band of Catawba Indians. In Virginia the matter of enlisting Indians was considered in the Convention, and on the 21st of May, 1776, a resolution was passed to engage a number of warriors, not to exceed two hundred. A few days afterward, however, the execution of this resolution was postponed in such a way as to make it ineffective.

In January, 1777, Col. Nathaniel Gist was authorized by Congress to raise four companies of rangers, and was instructed to proceed to the Cherokee or any other nation of Indians, and to attempt to procure a number of warriors not exceeding five hundred, who were to be equipped by Congress and receive soldiers' pay.[1419]

We have seen that in 1777 treaties were made with the Cherokees. The Indians at the Chickamauga settlements, which were clustered along the Tennessee, below the site of Chattanooga, and near where the river crosses the state line, had not participated in the treaties. In the interval between the joint campaign in the fall of 1776 and the spring of 1779 outrages had been committed by these Indians, and it was determined to punish them. A thousand volunteers from the back settlements of North Carolina and Virginia assembled on the banks of the Holston, in the northeastern part of Tennessee, a few miles above where Rogersville stands. Of these Col. Evan Shelby had command. They were joined by a regiment of twelve-months men which belonged to Colonel Clarke's Illinois expedition. On the 10th of April, 1779, this force embarked in dug-outs and canoes, descended the rapid running stream, surprised the Indians, killed a number of them, burned eleven of their towns, destroyed their provisions, and drove off or killed their cattle. All this having been accomplished without a battle, the troops returned.

In 1780 the contribution of men by the border settlements of North Carolina to the force which fought the battle of King's Mountain left those settlements exposed to Indian raids. As soon after the battle as possible some of the men were sent to Watauga. They learned upon arrival that news had been received of an Indian advance. Col. John Sevier organized an expedition against the Indians, and marched to meet them. The number of volunteers thus hastily gathered together reached about one hundred and seventy. At the end of the second day's march the Indians were discovered. They retreated, and the next day Sevier followed them. The customary ambuscade was prepared by the Indians, but the American leader was too wary to be deceived. On the contrary, he adopted their own tactics, and defeated them in a brief engagement at Boyd's Creek, in which twenty-eight Indians were killed. A few days after this Colonel Sevier was joined by Col. Arthur Campbell, with troops from Virginia. The united forces amounted to seven hundred men. They penetrated the country to the southward, burning a number of Indian towns, and held a council with a large body of Cherokees. After completing the expedition, a message was sent, on January 4, 1781, to the chiefs and warriors of the Indians. It was signed by Col. Arthur Campbell, Lieut.-Col. John Sevier, and Joseph Martin, agent and major of militia, and consisted of a summons to the Indians to send deputies to negotiate a treaty of peace at the Great Island within two moons.[1420]

Towards the end of August, 1780, Colonel Williamson and Colonel Pickens, of South Carolina, raided the Indian territory and destroyed a large amount of stores. To prevent further depredations, the Indians were compelled to remove their habitations to the settled towns of the Creeks.

During the summer of 1781 the Cherokees invaded the settlements on Indian Creek. Colonel Sevier called for volunteers, and attacked them. He killed seventeen Indians and put the rest to flight.

Early in 1781 General Greene made a treaty with the Cherokees, by which they engaged to observe neutrality. This treaty having been violated by the Indians during the summer, Gen. Andrew Pickens, at the head of a mounted force of three hundred and ninety-four men, penetrated to the Cherokee country, burned thirteen towns, killed upwards of forty Indians, and took a number of prisoners. McCall (Georgia, ii. 414) thus summarizes Pickens's method of campaigning: "The general's whole command could not produce a tent or any other description of camp equipage. After the small portion of bread which they could carry in their saddle-bags was exhausted, they lived upon parched corn, potatoes, peas, and beef without salt, which they collected in the Indian towns." Soon after this expedition some of the Creeks and Cherokees again invaded Georgia. They were met beyond Oconee River by Colonel Clarke and by Col. Robert Anderson, of Pickens's brigade, and were driven back. Major John Habersham was sent out by Wayne on an expedition, and his report, Feb. 8, 1782, is in Hist. Mag., iv. 129. In February, 1782, Governor Martin addressed a letter to Colonel Martin and Colonel Sevier, instructing them to drive intruders off the Cherokee lands.

During the summer of 1782 a body of Indians crossed the State of Georgia without being discovered, and on the morning of the 24th of June surprised General Wayne's command. After the first flush of success attendant upon the surprise had been overcome by the Americans, they repulsed the Indians, with the loss of fourteen killed, among whom was one of their chiefs. The kind treatment of some prisoners who were taken aided in detaching the Indians from the British side.

In September, 1782, the upper-town Cherokees, in a talk, complained piteously of the intruders upon their lands, and said they had done nothing to break the last treaty. At the same time, other Indians of the same tribes began depredations. Colonel Sevier, with one hundred volunteers, marched into the Indian country, held a conference with the friendly Indians, and punished those who were hostile by burning their villages.

The Southern campaigns against the Indians have not been treated as fully in local and general histories as those against the Northern tribes. The policy of the several leaders in these campaigns was not entitled, perhaps, to the same recognition as has been awarded to that which governed the Sullivan campaign. The several columns from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia each burned Indian towns and devastated Indian crops, but the plan was not directed by the general in command of the national armies. There have been but few local historians in the South who have searched for diaries, journals, and letters containing details of such affairs. At the time when the centennial anniversaries of these events might fitly have been celebrated by the publication of such original material as could be found, there was not the same disposition in the South to be grateful for the results of the Revolutionary War as then prevailed in the North. Further than that, the materials from which such contributions to history are generally made had been scattered and destroyed during the civil war. For these reasons, the number of books which treat of the border wars in the South is small.

The most complete accounts of the attacks upon the Cherokee settlements which have been published are to be found in the histories of Tennessee. John Haywood's Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from its earliest Settlement up to the year 1796, etc. (Knoxville, 1823), is an extensive collection of facts concerning the various raids of the Indians and the counter attacks upon their scattered settlements, which has been freely used by subsequent writers. J. G. M. Ramsey, in his Annals of Tennessee to the end of the eighteenth Century: Comprising its settlement as the Watauga Association from 1769 to 1777; A part of North Carolina from 1777 to 1784 (Charlestown, 1853), relies to a great extent upon Haywood, and acknowledges his obligation by frequent references in his footnotes. In the preparation of this work, Mr. Ramsey says that he had access to the journals and papers of his father, a pioneer of the country, and also to the papers of Sevier, of Shelby, the Blounts, and other public men. He examined the papers of all the old Franklin Counties and the public archives at Milledgeville, Raleigh, Richmond, and Nashville.

Haywood says the Georgia expedition was commanded by Col. Leonard McBury. Ramsey follows Haywood in this regard. All the other accounts say that Major or Colonel Jack was in command.

The campaign of the Virginia column is briefly described in Girardin's continuation of Berk's History of Virginia.[1421] Brief allusions to this campaign are made in Wheeler's Historical Sketches of North Carolina, and in Martin's History of North Carolina. The story is more fully told in an Historical Sketch of the Indian War of 1776, by D. L. Swain, which is reprinted from the North Carolina University Magazine (May, 1852) in the Historical Magazine (Nov., 1867, p. 273). This account states that there were "three armies simultaneously fitted out by Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina", but makes no mention of the work which the Georgia contingent had already performed.

A journal kept during the Williamson expeditions was published in the Historical Magazine, vol. xii. (Oct., 1867, p. 212), by Professor E. F. Rockwell, of North Carolina, as "Parallel and combined expedition against the Cherokee Indians in South and North Carolina in 1776." The writer describes the houses in the Cherokee towns as follows: "Their dwelling-houses is made some one way and some another. Some is made with saplings stuck in the ground upright; then laths tide on these with splits of cane or such like; So with daubing outside and in with mud merely, they finish a close warm building. They have no chimnies, and their fires are all in the middle of the houses."

C. L. Hunter, in Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, illustrating principally the Revolutionary period, etc. (Raleigh, 1877), under "General Griffith Rutherford" gives a brief account of the march against the middle towns, and under "Colonel Isaac Shelby" he gives a paragraph to the expedition against the Chickamaugas in 1779.

It has been stated that the Cherokee outbreak in the South was the first aggressive movement made by the Indians during the Revolutionary War, and that this fact has caused the joint attack of the colonies to be noticed in the general histories of the times. It naturally finds a place in Moultrie's Memoirs and in Ramsay's South Carolina, but without detail. If we turn to Drayton's Memoirs we shall find an extended account of the expeditions of Colonel Williamson, who commanded the South Carolina troops, in the summer of 1776, when they ravaged the Cherokee settlements,—the campaigns being illustrated by a map of which a fac-simile is given herewith. Several letters are published in the Appendix as authorities. The movements of Major Jack in Georgia are given (Ibid. p. 313), and some account of the march of General Rutherford's army from North Carolina and of the attempts at coöperation. It is stated (Ibid. p. 353) that Virginia also raised an army, but no account of the movement of the troops is given.

The American Archives contain reprints of letters from several points in the South, which enable us to trace the history of most of these movements. We have rumors of the outbreak from various places scattered from Georgia to Virginia; stories of the siege of Watauga and of the gathering of the Indians in Carter's Valley; accounts of the desolation along the frontier; of the marches of Rutherford and of Williamson; of the speech of Rutledge, and of the replies of the Council and of the Assembly of South Carolina.

The Remembrancer also reprints some of these letters. Drayton, in his Memoirs (ii. p. 212), says that Col. Bull, in March, 1776, marched to Savannah with four hundred Carolina troops, "to awe the disaffected, to support the Continental regulations, and in particular to prevent the merchant ships from going to sea." These troops were accompanied by some Georgia militia and by "about seventy men of the Creek and Euchee Indians." In corroboration of this statement Drayton cites the Remembrancer (1776, Part ii. pp. 333, 334), where is a letter from Charleston, which opens, "By a remarkable Providence, the Creek Indians have engaged in our favour." It then goes on to describe how they became enraged with the Tories because they destroyed the house of a white man with whom the Indians were friendly, and adds that "they have brought down 500, who have killed several men of the fleet."

Another reference to the use of Indians by the Americans will be found in McCall's Georgia (ii. p. 82), where he says that General Rutherford was "joined by the Catawba Indians."

Various accounts of events connected with these campaigns will be found in the Remembrancer (Part ii., 1776, pp. 286, 319-334; and Part iii., 1776, pp. 50, 252-274, and 275), including a letter, Sept. 4th, which says: "The colonel's (Williamson's) next object will be the middle towns, where he expects to be joined by General Rutherford with 200 [2,000?] North Carolinians. Colonel Lewis, of Virginia, will go against the upper or over hill settlements, so that we have no doubt the savages will be effectually chastised."

The treaty at De Witt's Corner, May 20, 1777, between South Carolina, Georgia, and the Cherokees was printed in the Boston Gazette and Country Journal, Aug. 18, 1777.

A description of the Cherokee lower towns and of the siege of Watauga is given by Edmund Kirke (James R. Gilmore) in Lippincott's Magazine (July and August, 1855), in a paper on "The Pioneers of the South West." Bare mention is made of the fact that Georgia participated in the campaign of 1776, by Stevens in his Georgia, who follows Moultrie in assigning the command of the Georgia troops to Colonel Jack.

McCall, in his History of Georgia, gives a curious account of an attempt by a party of Americans to penetrate the Indian country and seize Cameron. Their leader, Capt. James McCall, had with him two officers, twenty-two Carolinians, and eleven Georgians. They were suspected by the Indians of treachery, and were themselves attacked. Their leader was captured and several of the men were killed, but the greater number escaped, and after severe sufferings reached the settlements. Drayton (Memoirs, ii. 338) states that this expedition of McCall's was forwarded in consequence of an agreement on the part of the Cherokees in June to permit the arrest of refugees in their towns. The attack was therefore a piece of treachery on the part of the Indians. McCall himself escaped shortly afterward, and joined the Virginia column of invasion. He again made an attempt to seize Cameron. This time he reached the Indian town where Cameron had his headquarters, but the latter had left for Mobile the morning that Captain McCall arrived at the town. McCall gives an account of a raid by General Pickens in the fall of 1782. This apparently is the same as the one described in 1781.

C. C. Jones's Georgia deals with the border wars to about the same extent as McCall. The precise time of Jack's raid is not given, but Jones has followed those who have spoken of it as simultaneous with the joint movement in Virginia and North and South Carolina, among whom we find Ramsay in his History of the Revolution of South Carolina. A letter to Gov. Bullock, from B. Rea, July 3, 1776 (Remembrancer, Part iii., 1776, p. 50), says: "I shall order the draft that has been made of this regiment to Broad River and Ogeechee as soon as possible, but not to go over the line till I receive your excellency's orders, which I shall wait for with impatience. I shall likewise be glad to know how far we are to act in concert with the Carolinians, or if we are only to guard our own frontiers." This shows that troops were put in the field by Georgia before the question of coöperation was raised, but that it immediately suggested itself as a possibility.

It will be inferred from what has been said that confusion of dates as to the movement of the troops exists. McCall tells the story as if Jack's march in the middle of July were part of a preconcerted plan, in which South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia participated. Jones, as has been seen, follows him in this respect. Ramsey, in his Annals of Tennessee, says Christian went into the field on the 1st of August. Williamson, on his second raid, and Rutherford started out about the 1st of September. Christian's march was evidently in coöperation with them, and doubtless at the same time, although in Foote's Sketches of Virginia it is said (pp. 118, 119) that Col. William Christian's campaign against the Cherokees was in October. It is probable that he did not return to the settlements until that month.

It is evident that the attack upon the lower towns of the Cherokees by the Georgia militia was not regarded at the time as a part of the joint concerted movement. On the 5th of August President Rutledge issued a proclamation requiring the Legislative Council and General Assembly to meet at Charleston on the 17th of September, at which time his excellency congratulated them on the success of the troops under Colonel Williamson, and added, "It has pleased God to grant very signal success to their operations; and I hope by his blessings on our arms, and those of North Carolina and Virginia, from whom I have promises of aid, an end may soon be put to this war." In the replies of the Council and of the Assembly recognition is made of the coöperative movements of the North Carolina and Virginia forces. No reference is made in any of these proceedings to the Georgia contingent.

The Boston Gazette and Country Journal, Sept. 16, 1776, contains an account of the outbreak in North Carolina, which says: "The ruined settlers had collected themselves together at different places and forted themselves: 400 and upwards at Major Shelby's, about the same number at Captain Campbell's, and a considerable number at Amos Eaton's." It then describes the relief of Watauga by Colonel Russell with three hundred men. The acts of these men and the first raid of Williamson were the spontaneous movements of the frontier inhabitants. The participation of Georgia was inspired from headquarters at Augusta, with intelligent comprehension of the value of coöperation. The campaigns of the month of September were concerted.

The raid of Gen. Andrew Pickens is described in Ramsay's South Carolina and in Henry Lee's Memoirs, the account in the latter being copied in Cecil B. Hartley's Heroes and Patriots of the South (Philad., 1860). The raid of Col. Arthur Campbell is described in Girardin's continuation of Burk's Virginia (iv. p. 472). Campbell's report, in the Calendar of the State Papers of Virginia (i. p. 434), says that he destroyed upwards of one thousand houses, and not less than fifty thousand bushels of corn and a large quantity of other provisions.

D. CONNECTICUT SETTLERS IN PENNSYLVANIA.

In 1768, the Proprietaries of Pennsylvania secured an Indian deed for the territory already claimed by the Susquehanna Company of Connecticut, and a lease was executed, which vested in certain enterprising individuals the rights of the Proprietaries to this region, whether gained by royal grant or by purchase. This was followed by simultaneous preparation on the part of the Pennsylvanian lessees and of the Connecticut Company for the occupation by settlers, who were expected to defend their rights against other claimants. The Pennsylvanians were first on the ground, and in January, 1769, built a block-house on the land which had been improved by former Connecticut settlers. Early in February the first detachment of colonists from Connecticut arrived, and then began the contest for possession, which was waged, with success alternating on either side, until the fall of 1771. Houses were burned, crops were laid waste, cattle were driven off and killed, and there was some bloodshed during the progress of these hostilities. Proclamations were put forth by the governor of Pennsylvania, and warrants were issued by the courts of that province for the arrest of the Connecticut leaders for the crime of arson. The several military expeditions of the Pennsylvanians were generally accompanied by a sheriff, whose mission was supposed to be to execute the laws. The citizens of that province do not appear to have been in sympathy with the lessees of the Proprietaries. If they had been, it would have been easy to have crushed the Connecticut colony. This settlement was not at the outset recognized as a part of Connecticut. Permission had been given the company to apply to his majesty for a separate charter. The expectation that an independent government might perhaps be formed, and the opposition to the movement already expressed at London, explain the supineness of the mother colony. The Susquehanna settlement depended for its life upon the efforts of the company. Five townships were laid out, and liberal offers of shares in the lands were made to the first settlers in each of them. Three more townships were subsequently settled on the same plan. These inducements had attracted settlers in such numbers that the Pennsylvanian lessees could not dispossess them. In the autumn of 1771 the Pennsylvanians withdrew, leaving the Connecticut colonists, for the time, in undisturbed possession. Some correspondence followed between the authorities of the colonies, in which the government of Pennsylvania sought to ascertain how far the colony of Connecticut backed up the emigrants; and the governor of that colony in reply denied having authorized any hostile demonstration, but carefully avoided saying anything which could be interpreted as a relinquishment on the part of the colony of its rights under the charter to the land. During the next two years the settlement, although looked upon by Pennsylvania as an invasion and not as yet acknowledged by Connecticut, increased in numbers and prospered. Meetings of the Proprietors were occasionally held, at which the affairs of the towns were adjusted in a general way, authority being delegated to a committee of settlers to act in the intervals between the meetings. In June, 1773, the company adopted at Hartford a form of government for the settlers, stating in the preamble that "we have as yet no established civil authority residing among us in the settlement." In October the Connecticut Assembly resolved that the colony would "make their claim to these lands, and in a legal manner support the same." Commissioners were appointed, and fruitless negotiations were opened with Pennsylvania. In January, 1774, the territory of Susquehanna Company was incorporated into the town of Westmoreland, and became temporarily a part of the county of Litchfield, Connecticut. Almost simultaneously, proclamations were issued by the governors of the two colonies, each prohibiting settlements on the disputed territory except under authority of the colony which he represented. Meantime the settlements in the valley increased. In September, 1775, about eighty settlers, who had just arrived on the west branch of the Susquehanna, were attacked by the Pennsylvania militia. One man was killed; several were wounded; and the men of the Connecticut party were taken prisoners to Sunbury. Upon receipt of this news the Continental Congress, in November, passed resolutions urging the two colonies to take steps to avoid open hostilities. This was, however, of no effect. Boats from Wyoming, loaded with the property of settlers, were seized and confiscated at Fort Augusta. During the fall, extensive preparations were made by the Pennsylvanians for an invasion of Wyoming, under authority from Governor Penn, for the purpose of enforcing the laws of Pennsylvania. In December, Congress expressed the opinion that all appearance of force ought to stop until the dispute could be decided by law; but at the time that the resolution expressing this opinion was under consideration, an army of Pennsylvanians, accompanied by a sheriff, was already invading the valley. The Connecticut people, having been forewarned, successfully resisted this military posse. Several lives were lost in this attempt of the Pennsylvanians to dispossess the colonists. With this failure the attempts of Pennsylvania to expel the Connecticut settlers by force ended. The Revolutionary War was now in progress. Connecticut needed her able-bodied men. She now forbade further settlement on the disputed territory unless licensed by her Assembly.

The Trumbull MSS. in possession of the Mass. Hist. Soc. contain copies of the papers connected with the discussion of the title of the colony to its settlement in the Susquehanna Valley. There is probably no single collection of papers so rich in this direction.

E. JOURNALS AND DIARIES OF THE SULLIVAN EXPEDITION.

A list of the journals of Sullivan's expedition was prepared by the writer of this chapter for publication in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Oct., 1886, and this list in an extended and revised form was to be appended here; but the repetition is rendered unnecessary by the publication of an elaborate volume by the State of New York, Journals of the military expedition of Major-General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779, with records of Centennial Celebrations,—compiled by George S. Conover, under the direction of Frederick Cook, Secretary of State. It reprints, and in some cases gives for the first time in type, the journals of twenty-six participants, pertaining either to the main expedition or to that against the Onondagas. An enumeration is also given of the journals known to have existed, but no longer to be found.

Appended to the journals are the reports of Sullivan, Brodhead, and a roster of the expeditionary army. The main historical narrative is an elaborate account, compacted from four centennial addresses, given by the Rev. David Craft in 1879, and revised from the original publication in the Centennial Proceedings of the Waterloo (N. Y.) Library and Historical Society. In a note it is shown that a collation of all the journals supports Sullivan's statements in his official report, making his total loss in the campaign 41 men, while 41 Indian settlements or towns were destroyed.

The portraits of the book are those of Sullivan (with the spear), General Clinton (profile), Gansevoort (by Stuart), and Philip Van Cortlandt. The rest of the volume describes the various centennial celebrations in 1879, at Elmira, Waterloo, Geneseo, and Aurora, with the addresses, principal among which is one by Erastus Brooks on "Indian History and Wars", and another by Major Douglass Campbell on "The Iroquois and New York's Indian policy."

The maps include one by Gen. John S. Clark of the battlefield of Newtown (not far from Elmira) and the Chemung Ambuscade; another, by the same, of the Groveland Ambuscade, near Conesus Lake, and the route thence to the Genessee; five maps of as many sections of Sullivan's route, surveyed by Lieutenant Benjamin Lodge, the originals of which make a part of the collection of maps made by Robert Erskine, the topographical engineer of the Continental army, and by his successor, Simeon De Witt, and now in the cabinet of the N. Y. Hist. Society. Gen. J. S. Clark, in describing these maps, says that the route of Dearborn on the west side of Cayuga Lake, and General Clinton's descent of the N. E. branch of the Susquehanna, do not appear to have been surveyed, but that Clinton's route is well illustrated in a sketch of Col. William Butler's march (Oct.-Nov., 1778) made by Capt. William Gray, which is also included in the volume. The five maps above referred to are reproductions from the originals, with some names added from the rough preliminary sketches, also preserved in the same collection. A rough plan of Tioga, in fac-simile of a drawing in the journal of Capt. Charles Nukerck, is also given.—Ed.

F. BOUNTIES FOR SCALPS.

It has been stated in the narrative that the colonies themselves were partially responsible for the low estimate in which Indians were held by the inhabitants of the frontiers. Bounties had been so frequently offered for the destruction of wild animals and of Indians that the border settlers might well infer that the law drew no distinction between the savage and the brute. Mrs. Jackson, in her Century of Dishonor (App. p. 406), quotes from Gale's Upper Mississippi (p. 112) a vigorous denunciation of the acts of the governments in granting bounties for scalps: "In the history of the Indian tribes in the Northwest, the reader will at once perceive that there was a constant rivalry between the governments of Great Britain, France, and the United States as to which of them should secure the services of the barbarians to scalp their white enemies, while each in turn was the loudest to denounce the shocking barbarities of such tribes as they failed to secure in their own service. And the civilized world, aghast at these horrid recitals, ignores the fact that nearly every important massacre in the history of North America was organized and directed by agents of some one of these governments." One or two instances, taken from the records by way of illustration, will suffice to show how the settlers along the frontier and legislators reciprocally viewed this subject. In November, 1724, John Lovewell, Josiah Farwell, and Jonathan Robbins, presented a "Humble Memorial" to the General Court of Massachusetts Bay, in which they set forth that they, with forty or fifty others, were "inclinable to range and keep out in the woods for several months together, in order to kill and destroy their Indian enemy, provided they could meet with incouragement suitable." For five shillings a day, and such other reward as the government should see cause to give them, they would "employ themselves in Indian hunting one whole year." On the 17th of November, the General Court by vote authorized the formation of the company, the men to receive "two shillings and sixpence per diem, the sum of one hundred pounds for each male scalp, and the other premiums established by law to volunteers without pay or subsistence" (Kidder's Captain John Lovewell, pp. 11, 12). Col. Johnson, in 1747, was "quite pestered every day with parties returning with prisoners and scalps, and without a penny to pay them with" (Stone's Sir William Johnson, i. 255, 342). For the outlay made in this behalf Col. Johnson was ultimately reimbursed by the province of New York. In the memorial or representation of their case, submitted by the rioters who murdered the Conestega Indians to the authorities at Philadelphia, it is written: "Sixthly. In the late Indian war, this Province, with others of his Majesty's colonies, gave rewards for Indian scalps, to encourage the seeking them in their own country, as the most likely means of destroying or reducing them to reason; but no such encouragement has been given in this war, which has damped the spirits of many brave men, who are willing to venture their lives in parties against the enemy. We therefore pray that public rewards may be proposed for Indian scalps, which may be adequate to the dangers attending enterprises of this nature." On the 12th of June, 1764, the authorities of Pennsylvania offered bounties for scalps, presumably in response to this petition (Penna. Col. Rec., ix. 141, 189).

On the 27th of September, 1776, a committee reported to the South Carolina Assembly, that it was "not advisable to hold Captive Indians as Slaves, but as an encouragement to those who shall distinguish themselves in the war against the Cherokees, they recommended the following rewards, to wit: For every Indian man killed, upon certificate thereupon given by the Commanding Officer, and the scalp produced as evidence thereof in Charlestown by the forces in the pay of the State, seventy-five pounds currency; For every Indian man prisoner one hundred pounds like money" (American Archives, 5th ser., iii. 32).

It is true that bounties had previously been offered in New York for scalps taken from the "enemy", but at the time of the Revolution New York and Massachusetts had apparently abandoned the policy of offering bounties for scalps. Abundant records show that they had been committed to this policy in earlier times. The Act of Assembly in South Carolina, the previous legislation in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia, and the subsequent legislation in Pennsylvania and Illinois, were directed exclusively against Indians. Penna. Colonial Records (xii. 311; xii. 632; xiii. 201). Laws of the Colonial and State Governments relating to Indians and Indian Affairs from 1633 to 1831 inclusive, with an appendix containing the proceedings of the Congress of the Confederation and the laws of Congress from 1800 to 1830 on the Same Subject (Washington city, 1832), p. 239. In the Pennsylvania Archives (iii. p. 199) there is a curious letter from the superintendent of Indian affairs in the Southern Department to the governor of Maryland, dated June 30, 1757, in which he says that several of the colonies are becoming fond of giving large rewards for scalps. If these rewards were confined to their own people he should consider it laudable, but as they are offered chiefly to Indians the case is very different. He says the Indians make several scalps out of one. The Cherokees in particular make four scalps out of one man killed. "Here are now", he adds, "twenty scalps hanging out to publick view which are well known to have been made out of five Frenchmen killed. What a sum (at £50 each) would they produce if carried to Maryland, where the artifice would not probably be discovered!" In early times in Maryland, the proof required from persons who had killed Indians, in order that the reward might be claimed, was the production of the right ear of the dead Indian. There was less opportunity to subdivide the ears, and thus multiply the bounties. The charge that the English paid bounties for scalps thus found its way naturally into the histories, and the officers who had been disciplined in the previous wars were probably ready to make such offers. Doddridge (Notes, 274) expresses the belief current on the frontier when he says, "The English government made allies of as many of the Indian nations as they could, and they imposed no restraint on their savage mode of warfare. On the contrary, the commandants at their posts along our Western frontiers received and paid the Indians for scalps and prisoners, thus, the skin of a white man's or even a woman's head served in the hands of the Indian as current coin, which he exchanged for arms and ammunition, for the further prosecution of his barbarous warfare." This belief found expression at the time, and worked its way into print. The Remembrancer gives a letter from Capt. Joseph Bowman "at a place called Illinois Kaskaskias, upon the Mississippi", dated July 30, 1778, in which we read: "The Indians meeting with daily supplies from the British officers, who offer them large bounties for our scalps" (Remembrancer, viii. p. 83). There is, however, better authority than rumors of this class to justify those authors who repeat this statement. When Governor Hamilton was captured at Vincennes, he was sent to Williamsburg, and his conduct was investigated by the Council of Virginia. In their report the Council say, "The board find that Governor Hamilton gave standing rewards 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 to put them to death, and carry in their scalps to the governor, who welcomed their return and success by a discharge of cannon" (Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Boston, 1830; 2d ed., vol. i. p. 456). Thus the official sanction of a board composed of prominent men of good reputation has been given to the statement. In weighing the value of this decision we must not forget that Hamilton was the special object of hatred to the Virginians. Col. George Rogers Clarke, in an official communication to the governor of Virginia, from Kaskaskia, Feb. 3, 1779, speaks of "A late meneuv^r of the Famous Hair Buyer General Henry Hamilton, Esqr., Lieut.-Governour of De Troit", etc., etc. (Calendar of the State Papers of Virginia, p. 315). C. W. Butterfield edited a reprint of A Short Biography of John Leith (Lancaster, Ohio, 1831) as Leith's Narrative (Cincinnati, 1883), and in this new edition (p. 39) we find an account of a brutal murder, by Indians, of a prisoner at Sandusky: "They knocked him down with tomahawks, cut off his head, and fixed it on a pole erected for the purpose; when commenced a scene of yelling, dancing, singing, and rioting." To this part of Leith's narrative the annotator attaches a note, in which he states that a part of the "importance of this recital is in a historical sense;" "that captives were brought to the points contiguous to Detroit, and then tomahawked and scalped, the direct result of Hamilton's barbarous policy of offering rewards for scalps, but paying none for prisoners." The language of the note is ambiguous, but a natural interpretation of its purpose would be that the statement in the text was relied upon to prove the charges against Hamilton. I presume this prisoner was scalped,—it would probably have been recorded by Leith as a remarkable event if he had escaped being scalped,—but a statement which omits mention of the fact can hardly be cited as evidence against Hamilton.

The Virginia Council, while they published no evidence bearing upon the question of Hamilton's buying scalps, were more explicit when it came to his inciting Indians to acts of war:—

"Williamsburgh, Va. In Council, June 16, 1779. Case of Hamilton, Dejaine La Mothe." "They find that Hamilton has executed the task of inciting the Indians to perpetrate their accustomed cruelties on the citizens of these States, without distinction of age, sex, or condition, with an eagerness and activity which evince that the general nature of his charge harmonized with his particular disposition; they should have been satisfied, from the other testimony adduced, that these enormities were committed by savages acting under his commission, but the number of his Proclamations, which at different times were left in houses, the inhabitants of which were killed or Carried away by Indians, one of which Proclamations, under the hand and seal of Governor Hamilton, is in possession of the Board, puts the fact beyond doubt", etc. (Remembrancer, viii. p. 337). "The narrative of the Capture and treatment of John Dodge by the English at Detroit" was made public about the same time (Remembrancer, viii. p. 73). The portion of Dodge's story which relates to the reception by Hamilton of Indians returning with scalps and prisoners, bears a striking resemblance to the report of the Council. Dodge states that Hamilton become so enraged at him that the governor "offered £100 for his scalp or his body." In another place he says: "These sons of Britain offered no reward for prisoners, but they gave the Indians twenty dollars a scalp", etc., etc.; and again: "One of these parties returning with a number of women and children's scalps and their prisoners, they were met by the commandant of the fort, and after the usual demonstrations of joy, delivered their scalps, for which they were paid."

Some correspondence passed between Jefferson and the governor of Detroit on the question of Hamilton's treatment as a prisoner, in which Jefferson dwells at length upon Hamilton's responsibility for the acts of the Indians, but it is to be remarked that no charge is made against Hamilton of paying bounties for scalps (Calendar of State Papers of Virginia, i. p. 321). Before the British government is finally convicted of having offered bounties for scalps, it is just that other evidence should be adduced than such affidavits as that of Moses Younglove (Campbell, Tryon County, 2d ed., p. 116), who swears that he "was informed by several sergeants-orderly for General St. Leger that twenty dollars were offered in general orders for every American scalp." The mere showing of scalps at headquarters does not necessarily imply that the Indians were to be paid for them (Ibid. p. 307). According to Campbell (Ibid. p. 117), Col. Gansevoort, in a letter, confirms the statement that twenty dollars were offered by St. Leger for every American scalp. Col. Gansevoort, besieged in Fort Stanwix, relied of course upon some other person for this statement. It is probably the Younglove story in another shape. It must not be forgotten that St. Leger ordered Lt. Bird "not to accept a capitulation, because the force of whites under Bird's command was not large enough to restrain the Indians from barbarity and carnage."

It adds little force to the evidence that we find similar allegations against the British in the class of books represented by Seaver's Life of Mary Jemison (p. 114), (various editions,—see Field's Indian Bibliography, nos. 1,380-81). In a similar manner, Simms (Frontiersmen, i. p. 10) cites a letter-writer as saying that the price per scalp was eight dollars; and Jenkins (Wyoming Memorial, p. 151) charges Burgoyne with opening a market for scalps at ten dollars each. Simms (Schoharie County, p. 578) says that a certificate, signed by John Butler, concerning certain scalps taken by "Kayingwaarto, the Sanakee chief", was found upon the body of an Indian killed during the Sullivan campaign. The details of the descriptions easily enable us to identify the scalps referred to in the certificate. An excellent local authority (Ketchum's Buffalo, i. 327, 329) analyzes the story thus "Gi-en-gwah-toh in Seneca is identical with Say-en-qua-ragh-ta in Mohawk, and is another spelling of the name in the certificate.... It is historically certain that the age, if nothing else, would preclude the possibility of Sayenquaraghta's being the person who wounded and scalped Capt. Greg and his corporal near Fort Stanwix in 1778. And it is equally certain that Sayenquaraghta was not killed by a scouting party of Sullivan's army in 1779, but was alive and well at Niagara in 1780, and came to reside at Buffalo Creek in 1781." The incident sought to be identified with this receipt was not only one of the most striking among the events of the border war, but the Indian actor appears to have been equally prominent. Butler makes especial mention of Brant and Kiangarachta—probably the same name as Gi-en-gwah-toh or Sayenquaraghta—in his account of the battle of Newtown (Sparks MSS.).

If we are forced to such evidence as this against the British government, we unfortunately find ourselves confronted with testimony of a like character against the Americans. Guy Johnson writes to Germain (N. Y. Col. Docs., viii. 740): "Some of the American colonies went further by fixing a price for scalps." Again it is said (Amer. Archives, 4th, v. 1102): "Seneca sachems assert that Oneidas want Butler's scalp, and that General Schuyler offered $250 for his person or scalp." Thomas Gummersall declared at Staten Island, Aug. 6, 1776 (Amer. Archives, 5th, i. 866), that "Mr. Schuyler, a rebel general, invited Sir John Johnson down, promising him protection, and at the same time employed the Indian messenger, in case he refused, to bring his scalp, for which he was to have a reward of one hundred dollars." It might, perhaps, be claimed that the bounties offered by South Carolina justified the first of these counter-assertions by the English, but I presume there would be no hesitation in classing these statements, as a whole, among those which were especially prepared for the purpose of influencing public opinion.

Before leaving this subject, the reader may need to be warned against a fabrication of Franklin, which has deceived many. Sparks speaks of Franklin "occasionally amusing himself in composing and printing, by means of a small set of types and a press he had in his house, several of his light essays, bagatelles, or jeux d'esprit, written chiefly for the amusement of his friends. Among these were the following, printed on a half-sheet of coarse paper, so as to imitate as much as possible a portion of a Boston newspaper", which he gave out as a Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle of March 12, 1782. This pretended newspaper contained what purported to be an extract from a letter from Captain Gerrish, of the New England militia, dated Albany, March 7, 1782, which reads as follows: "The peltry taken in the expedition will, you see, amount to a good deal of money. The possession of this booty at first gave us pleasure; but we were struck with horror to find among the packages eight large ones, containing scalps of our unhappy country-folks, taken prisoners in the three last years by the Seneka Indians from the inhabitants of the frontiers of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and sent by them as a present to Colonel Haldimand, governor of Canada, in order to be by him transmitted to England. They were accompanied by the following curious letter to that gentleman;" which is given under the signature of James Crawfurd, and affords a detailed account of the contents of each package. This fictitious Supplement was reprinted as genuine in Almon's Remembrancer. In the first edition of Campbell's Annals of Tryon County it was printed in the Appendix as genuine, and copied from a newspaper published in Dutchess County during the Revolution (Ibid., 2d ed., 307). It was also reprinted in Rhode Island Historical Tracts (no. 7, p. 94, note I). It was exposed by Sparks, by Parton in his Life of Franklin (ii. p. 437), by Campbell in his second edition of the Annals of Tryon County, and by Col. Stone in the Introduction to his Brant (i. p. xvi.). In a note Col. Stone spoke of the document as "long believed and recently revived and included in several works of authentic history." There are copies of the original fabrication in the Stevens Collection of Frankliniana (Dept. of State at Washington; Stevens's Hist. Coll., i. p. 168); and in the Boston Public Library (Franklin Collection, p. 12).

---