PREPARATORY FAST.
Preparatory to the day on which they expected a general engagement, the Indians, contrary to the usages of most nations, observe a strict fast; nor does this abstinence from all sorts of food diminish their exertions in the field, as from their early infancy they accustom themselves to fasting for long periods together. The day before General Wayne was expected, this ceremony was strictly attended to, and afterwards, having placed themselves in ambush in the woods, they waited for his arrival. He did not, however, come to the ground on the day that they had imagined, from the reports given them by their scouts of his motions, he would have done; but having reason to think he would come on the subsequent day, they did not move from their ambush. The second day passed over without his drawing nearer to them; but fully persuaded that he would come up with them on the next, they still lay concealed in the same place. The third day proved to be extremely rainy and tempestuous; and the scouts having brought word, that from the movements General Wayne had made there was no likelihood of his marching towards them that day, the Indians, now hungry after having fasted for three entire days, determined to rise from their ambush in order to take some refreshment. They accordingly did so, and having no suspicion of an attack, began to eat their food in security.
Before they began to eat, the Indians had divided themselves, I must observe, into three divisions, in order to march to another quarter, where they hoped to surprise the army of the States. In this situation, however, they were themselves surprised by General Wayne. He had received intelligence from his scouts, now equally cunning with those of the Indians, of their proceedings, and having made some motions as if he intended to move to another part of the country, in order to put them off their guard, he suddenly turned, and sent his light horse pouring down on them when they least expected it. The Indians were thrown into confusion, a circumstance which with them never fails to occasion a defeat; they made but a faint resistance, and then fled with precipitancy.
AMERICAN GENERAL.
On his arrival at Philadelphia, in the beginning of the year 1796, I was introduced to General Wayne, and I had then an opportunity of seeing the plan of all his Indian campaigns. A most pompous account was given of this victory, and the plan of it excited, as indeed it well might, the wonder and admiration of all the old officers who saw it. The Indians were represented as drawn up in three lines, one behind the other, and after receiving with firmness the charge of the American army, as endeavouring with great skill and adroitness to turn its flanks, when, by the hidden appearance of the Kentucky riflemen and the light cavalry, they were put to flight. From the regularity with which the Indians fought on this occasion, it was argued that they must doubtless have been conducted by British officers of skill and experience. How absurd this whole plan was, however, was plainly to be deduced from the following circumstance, allowed both by the general and his aides de camp, namely, that during the whole action the American army did not see fifty Indians; and indeed every person who has read an account of the Indians must know that they never come into the field in such regular array, but always fight under covert, behind trees or bushes, in the most irregular manner. Notwithstanding the great pains that were taken formerly, both by the French and English, they never could be brought to fight in any other manner. It was in this manner, and no other, as I heard from several men who were in the action with them, that they fought against General Wayne; each one, as soon as the American troops were descried, instantly sheltered himself, and in retreating they still kept under covert. It was by fighting them also in their own way, and by sending parties of his light troops and cavalry to rout them from their lurking places, that General Wayne defeated them; had he attempted to have drawn up his army in the regular order described in the plan, he could not but have met with the same fate as St. Clair, and general Braddock did on a former occasion.
Between thirty and forty Indians, who had been shot or bayoneted as they attempted to run from one tree to another, were found dead on the field by the American army. It is supposed that many more were killed, but the fact of the matter could never be ascertained by them: a profound silence was observed on the subject by the Indians, so that I never could learn accurately how many of them had fallen; that however is an immaterial circumstance; suffice it to say that the engagement soon induced the Indians to sue for a peace. Commissioners were deputed by the government of the United States to meet their chiefs; the preliminaries were soon arranged, and a treaty was concluded, by which the Indians relinquished a very considerable part of their territory, bordering upon that of the United States.
INDIAN PEACE.
The last and principal ceremony observed by the Indians in concluding a peace, is that of burying the hatchet. When this ceremony came to be performed, one of the chiefs arose, and lamenting that the last peace concluded between them and the people of the States had remained unbroken for so short a time, and expressing his desire that this one should be more lasting, he proposed the tearing up of a large oak that grew before them, and the burying of the hatchet under it, where it would for ever remain at rest. Another chief said, that trees were liable to be levelled by the storms; that at any rate they would decay; and that as they were desirous that a perpetual peace should be established between them and their late enemies, he conceived it would be better to bury the hatchet under the tall mountain which arose behind the wood. A third chief in turn addressed the assembly: “As for me,” said he, “I am but a man, and I have not the strength of the great spirit to tear up the trees of the forest by the roots, or to remove mountains, under which to bury the hatchet; but I propose that the hatchet may be thrown into the deep lake, where no mortal can ever find it, and where it will remain buried for ever.” This proposal was joyfully accepted by the assembly, and the hatchet was in consequence cast with great solemnity into the water. The Indians now tell you, in their figurative language, that there must be peace for ever. “On former times,” say they, “when the hatchet was buried, it was only slightly covered with a little earth and a few leaves, and being always a very troublesome restless creature, it soon contrived to find its way aboveground, where it never failed to occasion great confusion between us and our white brethren, and to knock a great many good people on the head; but now that it has been thrown into the deep lake, it can never do any more mischief amongst us; for it cannot rise of itself to the surface of the lake, and no one can go to the bottom to look for it.” And that there would be a permanent peace between them I have no doubt, provided that the people of the States would observe the articles of the treaty as punctually as the Indians; but it requires little sagacity to predict that this will not be the case, and that ere long the hatchet will be again resumed. Indeed, a little time before we reached Malden, messengers from the southern Indians had arrived to sound the disposition of those who lived near the lake, and try if they were ready and willing to enter into a fresh war. Nor is this eagerness for war to be wondered at, when from the report of the commissioners, who were sent down by the federal government to the new state of Tenassee, in order to put the treaty into effect, and to mark out the boundaries of that state in particular, it appeared that upwards of five thousand people, contrary to the stipulation of the treaty lately entered into with the Indians, had encroached upon, and settled themselves down in Indian territory, which people, the commissioners said, could not be persuaded to return, and in their opinion could not be forced back again into the States without very great difficulty[[15]].
[15]. The substance of this report appeared in an extract of a letter from Lexington, in Kentucky, which I myself saw, and which was published in many of the newspapers in the United States.
REMARKS.