First as to the mission of peace. In December, 1790, the Cornplanter and other chiefs of the Seneca tribe, being in Philadelphia, "measures were taken to impress them with the moderation of the United States, as it respected the war with the western Indians; that the coercive measures against them had been the consequence of their refusal to listen to the invitations of peace, and a continuance of their depredations on the frontiers." The Cornplanter seemed to be favorably impressed. On the twelfth of March, Colonel Thomas Proctor, as the agent and representative of the United States government, was sent forward to the Seneca towns. His instructions from the secretary of war were, to induce the Cornplanter and as many of the other chiefs of the Senecas as possible, to go with him as messengers of peace to the Miami and Wabash Indians. They were first to repair to Sandusky on Lake Erie, and there hold a conference with the Delaware and Wyandot tribes who were inclined to be friendly. Later they were to go directly to the Miami village at Kekionga, there to assemble the Miami confederates, and induce them to go to Fort Washington at Cincinnati, and enter into a treaty of peace with General St. Clair.
On the twenty-seventh of April, Proctor arrived at Buffalo Creek, six miles from Fort Erie, situated on the north side of the lake, and twenty-five miles distant from Fort Niagara on the south shore of Lake Ontario. Both posts were held by the British. Here he found the Farmer's Brother, Red Jacket, and practically all of the Iroquois chieftains under the influence of the British officers. The Farmer's Brother, "was fully regimented as a colonel, red faced with blue, as belonging to some royal regiment, and equipped with a pair of the best epaulets." The Indians had practically given up hunting and were being directly fed and supported out of the English store-houses. From the very beginning, Red Jacket and the Farmer's Brother questioned his credentials. Proctor learned from a French trader, that about seven days prior to his arrival, Colonel Butler of the British Indian department and Joseph Brant had been in the village. They had told the Senecas to pay no attention to Proctor's talk, and to give him no aid in going to the Miamis, for they would all be killed.
In two or three days Proctor succeeded in getting the Indians into a council. He argued that it was the duty of all men, red or white, to warn the Miamis to discontinue their thefts and murders, before a decisive blow should be "levelled at them" by the United States. The lives of hundreds of their fellow men might thus be saved. He invited them to bring forward any gentleman of veracity to examine his papers, or to hear his speeches. In answer to this, Red Jacket proposed that the council fire be removed to Fort Niagara, so that all proceedings might take place under the eyes of the British counsellors. Proctor would not assent to this course, but indicated that he had no objection to the British officers being present. They were accordingly sent for, but in the meantime the Farmer's Brother and other British adherents were telling the Indians that Proctor proposed taking them to the "verge of the ocean" and that the treaty grounds were twelve months' journey away.
Shortly afterwards Colonel Butler with a staff of British army officers came into camp. Butler was bold, and told the Indians in Proctor's presence that Colonel Joseph Brant, of Grand River, and Alexander McKee, the British agent of Indian affairs at Detroit, were now preparing to go among the Indians at war with the Americans, "to know what their intentions were, whether for war or for peace;" that nothing must be done until their return, for should any embassy be undertaken, this would certainly bring down the wrath of war upon themselves, and result in the death of all, for the Miamis were angry with them already.
A strange event now happened. The Iroquois women suddenly appeared in the Indian councils and seconded the pleas of the American peace commissioner. Seated with the Indian chiefs, they easily swung the scales, and carried the day. Red Jacket and other chiefs and warriors were appointed to accompany Proctor to the west. But the English now played their final trump card. On the fifth of May, Proctor had written to Colonel Gordon, the British commandant at Niagara, to obtain permission to freight one of the schooners on Lake Erie, to transport the American envoy and such Indian chiefs as might accompany him, to Sandusky. He now received a cold and insolent answer that at once blasted all his hopes. Gordon refused to regard Proctor "in any other light than a private agent," and peremptorily refused to let him charter any of the craft upon the lake. This made the contemplated mission impossible.
Let us now see what Alexander McKee and Joseph Brant were doing in the west. Shortly before Proctor's arrival at Buffalo Creek, Brant had received private instructions from British headquarters to set out for the Grand River, and to go from thence to Detroit. It appears that shortly after Harmar's defeat, the confederated nations of the Chippewas, Potawatomi, Hurons, Shawnees, Delawares, Ottawas, and Miamis, together with the Mohawks, had sent a deputation of their chiefs to the headquarters of Lord Dorchester at Quebec, to sound him on the proposition as to what aid or assistance they might expect in the event of a continuance of the war. They also demanded to know whether the British had, by the treaty of peace, given away any of their lands to the Americans. Dorchester, while hostile to the new republic, and firmly resolved to hold the posts, was not ready as yet to come out in the open. He informed the tribes that the line marked out in the treaty of peace, "implied no more than that beyond that line the King, their father, would not extend his interference;" that the king only retained possession of the posts until such time as all the differences between him and the United States should be settled; that in making peace, the king had not given away any of their lands, "inasmuch as the King never had any right to their lands, other than to such as had been fairly ceded by themselves, with their own free consent, by public convention and sale. * * * * In conclusion, he assured the deputation, that although the Indians had their friendship and good will, the Provincial Government, had no power to embark in a war with the United States, and could only defend themselves if attacked."
In strange contradiction to the Canadian governor's words, Alexander McKee came to the Rapids of the Miami in the month of April to hold a council with the Wabash confederates. Thither came Brant, summoned from Buffalo Creek. McKee waited three months for the gathering of the tribes, but about July first they were all assembled. "Not only the Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas, Potawatomis and others," says Roosevelt, "who had openly taken the hatchet against the Americans, but also representatives of the Six Nations, and tribes of savages from lands so remote that they carried no guns; but warred with bows, spears, and tomahawks, and were clad in buffalo-robes instead of blankets. McKee in his speech to them did not incite them to war. On the contrary, he advised them, in guarded language, to make peace with the United States; but only upon terms consistent with their "honor and interest." He assured them that, whatever they did, he wished to know what they desired; and that the sole purpose of the British was to promote the welfare of the confederated Indians. Such very cautious advice was not of a kind to promote peace; and the goods furnished the savages at the council included not only cattle, corn and tobacco, but also quantities of powder and balls." England was determined that the Miami chieftains should command the valleys of the Wabash and the Maumee, and while breathing forth accents to deceive the credulous, were arming the red men with the instruments of war.
On the sixteenth of May, the American prisoner, Thomas Rhea, captured by a party of Delawares and "Munsees" arrives at Sandusky. An Indian captain is there with one hundred and fifty warriors. Parties are coming in daily with prisoners and scalps. Alarm comes in on the twenty-fourth of May that a large body of American troops in three columns are moving towards the Miami towns. The Indians burn their houses and move to Roche de Bout, on the Maumee. Here are Colonels Joseph Brant and Alexander McKee, with Captains Bunbury and Silvie, of the British troops. They are living in clever cabins built by the Potawatomi and other Indians, eighteen miles above Lake Erie. They have great stores of corn, pork, peas and other provisions, which, together with arms and ammunition, they are daily issuing to the Indians. Savages are coming in in parties of one, two, three, four and five hundred at a time, and receiving supplies from McKee, and going up the Maumee to the Miami villages. Pirogues, loaded with the munitions of war are being rowed up the same stream by French-Canadians. They are preparing for an American attack.
Rhea hears some things. While he is on the Maumee he tells Colonel McKee and other British officers that he has seen Colonel Thomas Proctor on his way to the Senecas and has talked with him. That Proctor told him he was on his way to Sandusky and the Miami villages, and that he expected the Cornplanter to accompany him and bring about peace; that he (Proctor), expected to get shipping at Fort Erie, The British officers who hear these things, say that if they were at Lake Erie, Proctor would get no shipping. The Mohawks and other Indians declare that if Proctor, or any other Yankee messenger, arrives, he will not carry back any message. Simon Girty and one Pat Hill assert, that Proctor should never return, even if he had a hundred Senecas with him.
On the ninth of March, 1791, the secretary of war issued orders to General Charles Scott of Kentucky, to lead an expedition against the Wea or Ouiatenon towns on the Wabash. The expedition was not to proceed until the tenth day of May, as hopes were entertained that Proctor might negotiate a peace. The force to be employed was to consist of seven hundred and fifty mounted volunteers, including officers. All Indians who ceased to resist were to be spared. Women and children, and as many warriors as possible, were to be taken prisoners, but treated with humanity.