Beginning of the Indian war, 1675.
Such was the governor of Virginia and such the state of things there, when to the many troubles that were goading the people to rebellion the horrors of the tomahawk and scalping-knife were suddenly added. In 1672, after a fearful struggle of twenty years’ duration, the Five Nations of New York had completely overthrown and nearly annihilated their kinsmen the Susquehannocks. The defeated barbarians, slowly retreating southward, roamed on both sides of the Potomac, while parties of the victors, mostly from the Seneca tribe, pursued and harassed them. Early in the summer of 1675 some Algonquins of the Doeg tribe, dwelling in Stafford County, not far from the site of Fredericksburg, got into a dispute with one of the settlers and stole some of his pigs. The thieves were pursued, and in the chase one or two of them were shot. A few days afterward a herdsman was found mortally wounded at the door of his cabin, and said with his dying breath that it was Doegs who had done it. Then the county lieutenant of Stafford turned out with his militia to punish the offenders. This officer was Colonel George Mason, whose cavalry troop had gone down before Cromwell’s resistless blows in the crowning mercy at Worcester. He was great-grandfather of the George Mason who sat in the Federal Convention of 1787. One party of Colonel Mason’s men overtook and slew eleven of the Algonquins, and another party at some distance in the forest had already shot fourteen red men, when a chief came running up to Colonel Mason and told him that these latter were friendly Susquehannocks, and that the murderers of the herdsman were neither Algonquins nor Susquehannocks, but Senecas. The firing was instantly stopped, but the unfortunate affair had evil consequences. Murders by Indians along the Potomac became frequent. The Susquehannocks occupied an old blockhouse on the Maryland side of the river, and a force of Marylanders, commanded by Major Thomas Truman, marched out to dislodge them.
John Washington.
At the request of the Maryland government, Virginia sent a party to coöperate in this task. Its commander bore a name which his great-grandson was to make forever illustrious. Colonel John Washington had come over from England in 1657, with his younger brother Lawrence, and settled in Westmoreland County. He was now forty-four years old, a man of wealth and influence, a leading judge, and member of the House of Burgesses.
The five Susquehannock envoys.
When the Virginia troops crossed the Potomac they found their Maryland allies assembled before the blockhouse, with five Susquehannocks in custody. These Indians were envoys who had come out for a parley, but had apparently taken alarm and sought to escape, whereupon Major Truman seized and detained them until the Virginians should arrive. Then Colonel Washington, with his next in command, Major Isaac Allerton, proceeded to interrogate the Indians, while Major Truman listened in silence. Washington demanded satisfaction for the murders and other outrages committed in Virginia, but the Indians denied everything and declared that their deadly enemies the Senecas were the sole offenders. Washington then asked how it happened that several canoe-loads of beef and pork, stolen from the plantations, had been carried into the Susquehannock fort; was it their foes the Senecas who were thus supplying them with food? And how did it happen that a party of Susquehannocks just captured in Virginia were dressed in the clothes of Englishmen lately murdered? The falsehood was too palpable. The guilt of the Susquehannocks was plain, and they must either make amends or taste the rigours of war.
There can be little doubt that Colonel Washington was right. Then, as always until after 1763, the Long House was from end to end the steadfast ally of the English, and nothing could be more unlikely than that one of its tribes should have been guilty of these murders. It is quite clear that the Susquehannocks lied, with the double purpose of saving themselves and bringing down vengeance upon the Senecas. The first murders had been committed by Algonquins, and evidently the Susquehannocks had joined in the work in retaliation for the unfortunate mistake committed by Colonel Mason’s men.
The killing of the envoys.
At the close of the conference Major Truman called to Colonel Washington, asking if these were not impudent rogues to deny the murders they had done, when at that very moment the corpses of nine of their own tribe were lying unburied at Hurston’s plantation, where in a fight the defenders of the place had just slain them. As the envoys persisted in denying that these dead Indians were Susquehannocks, Washington suggested that they should be taken to Hurston’s and confronted with the bodies. So Truman’s men marched away with the five envoys, and presently put them to death, “wch was occation,” says one of the Virginian witnesses, “yt much amaized & startled us & our Comanders, being a thing yt was never imagined or expected.”[38]
The killing of these envoys was in violation of a rule that holds in all warfare, whether savage or civilized, and Truman was impeached for it in the Maryland assembly; but owing to an obstinate disagreement between the two houses as to the penalty to be inflicted, he escaped without further punishment than the loss of his seat in the council.