In March, 1782, the frontier settlers, without provocation and in cold blood, butchered nearly a hundred "Christian Indians" in the Moravian mission settlements on the Muskingum. These Indians, under the instruction of their teachers, had adopted the habits and pursuits of civilized life, and were non-resistant in their principles. Their villages, Schönbrun, Gnadenhütten, and Salem, were regularly laid out, with houses and chapels built of squared logs and having shingled roofs. They had farms yielding abundant crops, and schools where the children were educated. Visitors from Western tribes far and near came to look upon the strange sight, and verify the reports which had reached them of the happiness and prosperity of the "Christian Indians." The number of converts had increased so rapidly that good Father David Zeisberger and his assistant, John Heckewelder, the missionaries, believed that the whole Delaware tribe would soon come under their influence.[1538]
With the outbreak of the American Revolution the troubles of these gentle missionaries and their converts began. They were between two raging fires. Their peace principles forbade their engaging in the conflict or favoring either side, although their sympathies, which they could not express, were with the Americans. As a natural consequence of their neutrality, they fell under the suspicion and hatred of both parties. The British at Detroit were eager to secure all the Ohio tribes in their interest, and the missionaries made the Delawares pledge themselves to remain neutral. It was also suspected, and it was doubtless true, that the Moravians gave information to the Americans as to the movements of hostile tribes. The British, therefore, were of the opinion that the Moravian settlements were in secret alliance with the enemy, and they resolved to break up the settlements and remove the inhabitants to Sandusky.[1539] On the other hand, the settlers on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia hated the "Christian Indians", first, and chiefly, because they were Indians; and secondly, because they allowed the Wyandots to come among them, and had fed and hospitably treated other hostile tribes which had made raids on the white settlements. In the autumn of 1781 Colonel David Williamson raised a company of volunteers in western Pennsylvania to visit the Moravian towns and remove the inhabitants to Fort Pitt; but in the execution of the scheme he was anticipated by the British and their Indian allies, the Shawanese,[1540] Wyandots, and Hurons, who were there before him. On August 10, 1781, one Matthew Elliott, in the service of the governor of Detroit, and Half-King, a chief of the Hurons, appeared at Gnadenhütten with three hundred whites and Indians flying the British flag. Without offering personal violence, they urged the missionaries and converts to abandon the Muskingum country, and place themselves under the protection of the British at Sandusky, on the ground that they were in constant peril from the white settlers on the border. Having declined the offer of British protection, their fears were appealed to, their cattle were shot, and their houses ravaged by the Indians. Worn out by fear and persecution, on September 11th they turned their unwilling steps from the valley of the Muskingum towards Sandusky, under the charge of their uninvited escorts.[1541] Having reached their destination, the missionaries were sent to Detroit to answer before the governor to charges made against them, and were acquitted.[1542]
During the winter the captives at Sandusky suffered from want of proper shelter and food, and a party of a hundred went back to the deserted villages to gather corn which had been left standing in the fields. A report of their return reached the white settlements, and Colonel Williamson, without any civil or military authority, again picked up a company of volunteers and started for the Muskingum country. On his former expedition he brought back several Indians whom the British party had overlooked, and after the form of a trial at Fort Pitt they were released. The colonel was blamed by the people that he had not shot the Indians at sight. Arriving at the deserted towns, he found the "Christian Indians" harvesting their corn and suspecting no danger. He told them that he had come to remove them to Fort Pitt, and ordered them to a building, where they were confined. A vote was then taken by his men, whether the prisoners should be taken to Fort Pitt or put to death. Only eighteen voted to spare their lives. The captives were informed of their fate, and were told that, "inasmuch as they were Christians, they would be given one night to prepare for death in a Christian manner." In the morning they were tomahawked and butchered in the most shocking manner. "Thus", said Loskei, the Moravian bishop, "ninety-six persons magnified the name of the Lord by patiently meeting a cruel death."[1543]
Another expedition, known as the "Crawford Campaign", was forthwith organized, the purpose of which was to exterminate the Wyandots and the Moravian Delawares on the Sandusky, and to give no quarter to any Indian. Colonel Williamson was again the chief organizer, and probably the same men were enlisted who had disgraced themselves on the Muskingum. Colonel William Crawford,[1544] who had seen much service in the Continental army, was put in command, much against his wishes, and Williamson was second in rank. On May 25, 1782, four hundred well equipped and mounted backwoodsmen, breathing vengeance against the red men, started out from Mingo Bottom, on the Ohio, for the Sandusky country, a journey of one hundred and fifty miles. Nineteen days later a remnant of them returned to the same spot, a defeated and demoralized rabble, with a loss of seventy killed, wounded, and missing. The Indians knew their plans, and had time to summon the neighboring tribes and to procure British soldiers and artillery from Detroit. Two battles were fought, in which they were outnumbered and outgeneralled, and it was fortunate that any of them escaped. Stragglers came in daily, reporting the sufferings and cruel tortures they had undergone, but none of them could report the fate of Colonel Crawford. He was captured, and the barbarity of the Indian mind exhausted itself in the ingenuity of the tortures with which he was put to death.[1545]
On May 26, 1780, a raid was made on the Spanish post of St. Louis by a party of fifteen hundred Indians and a hundred and forty English and Canadian traders, fitted out by Lieutenant-Governor Sinclair, of Michilimacinac, and led by a Sioux chief named Wabasha. The affair lasted only a few hours, and no assault was made on the fortified enclosure; but a considerable number of persons found on their farms or intercepted outside of the palisades were shot or captured. A portion of the party crossed the Mississippi and made a similar raid on Cahokia. They all then left for their northern homes as rapidly as they came,—some by way of the Wisconsin and Fox rivers, and others by way of the Illinois River to Chicago, where Sinclair had two vessels awaiting them.
This affair has been the occasion of many conflicting statements[1546] as to the time it occurred, the number of persons killed and captured, and how it happened that so large a body of Indians in the British service came so far and did so little which was warlike. It has been often asserted, and as often denied, that George Rogers Clark, at the request of the Spanish commandant, was at St. Louis at the time of the incursion, or so near as to render efficient service. The purpose and character of this expedition, and the causes of its failure, are explained by contemporary documents[1547] recently published, which were not accessible to earlier writers. It was a part of a much larger scheme ordered, and perhaps devised, by the cabinet in London, to capture New Orleans and all the Spanish posts west of the Mississippi and the Illinois country.[1548]
On May 8, 1779, Spain declared war against Great Britain, and on July 8 authorized her American subjects to make war upon Natchez and other English posts on the east bank of the Mississippi.[1549] On June 17, Lord George Germain, secretary for the colonies, wrote to General Haldimand, informing him that Spain had declared war, and that hostilities were to begin at once; and he was ordered to attack New Orleans and reduce the Spanish posts on the Mississippi.[1550] These orders were issued in a circular letter sent to all the Western governors. Sinclair acknowledged the circular February 17, 1780, and informed the general that he had taken steps to engage the Sioux and other tribes west of the Mississippi for the expedition.[1551] De Peyster at Detroit wrote to Haldimand, March 8, that he had taken measures "to facilitate Sinclair's movements on the Mississippi, and be of use to Brigadier Campbell, if he has not already taken New Orleans. The Wabash Indians will amuse Clark at the Falls of the Ohio."[1552] The general scheme here touched upon was, that General Campbell, stationed at Pensacola, should, with a British fleet and army, come up the Mississippi to Natchez, and there meet the Indian expedition sent by Sinclair down the western bank of the river, which was under instructions to capture and destroy the Spanish posts on its way. The united forces were then to expel the Spaniards from all their settlements on the lower Mississippi. The scheme miscarried. Governor Galvez, of New Orleans, a person of great ability and energy, no sooner heard of the declaration of war against Great Britain than he raised a fleet and army to capture the British posts on the Mississippi; and in September, 1779, the forts at Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez, with their garrisons, surrendered to him. He took also eight English vessels employed in transport service, and in carrying the supply of provisions to Pensacola.[1553] Galvez next turned his attention to Mobile, which he captured March 14, 1780; and then to Pensacola, which surrendered May 9, 1781. Brigadier Campbell, therefore, in May, 1780, was otherwise engaged than in executing the splendid scheme which had been assigned to him by the British cabinet and his superior officer, General Haldimand.[1554]