TECUMSEH
Drawn by Robert Eggebrecht, Vincennes, Ind.
Food was scarce at the Miami settlements also, and the Indians were showing increasing signs of resistance to the whites. Several community blockhouses had been built and small parties of troops sent there to guard the settlements and their all-essential crops.
In January, 1790, St. Clair removed to Cincinnati, and Major John Doughty with his troops from Fort Harmar started construction of Fort Washington as headquarters for increasingly necessary western troops. General Josiah Harmar arrived in the fall of that year and took charge of the garrison then comprising 70 men.
Casual readers of history at times marvel at the small size of garrisons and armies used in these hazardous campaigns against the Indians, and thereby incline to minimize the severity of the conflicts. To understand this, it is necessary to realize how few people relatively were in the entire empire of the Northwest; that transportation and communication were so difficult as to make the movements of large bodies of men impossible, even if men had been available; that provisions and supplies could not be moved in quantity and, beyond two or three days’ supply the men could carry, the troops had to live on game and what the wilderness provided; and, lastly, that the Indians were usually small tribes and attacked in relatively small groups.
The protection normally needed was that of small detachments of hardy and fearless men trained to the ways of the woods and the Indians. One of the great problems of the period, as will be seen later, was the militia or volunteers, who, though eager to fight the Indians, were too impetuous, too unfamiliar with discipline, and too likely to decide to return to their homes upon their own initiative.
In October, 1790, a party of immigrants from France—anxious to escape the impending French Revolution—bought lands and settled in the lower part of the Ohio Company Purchase at a village called Gallipolis, or the city of the French. They had been deceived by representatives of the Scioto Purchase, and believed that they were buying a Garden of Eden, where nature provided the necessities of life without labor. For instance, they had been told by agents of the Scioto Company, which will be described later, that candles grew in swamps on their lands (cat tails), and that custard grew on trees (paw paws).