Of his large arm the mouldering bone."—Bryant.
You have read, said General Lawrence to his children, of the numerous ancient forts and mounds found in different parts of the now populous state of Ohio. Some incidents which I shall relate, have rendered most of them, to me, subjects of great interest.
I was subordinate to General Rufus Putnam, when he gave directions for the first settlement of Marietta, by a colony from New-England, in 1788. Ohio, you know, at that time was called a district, including the present territories of Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana, and owned by the general government—Virginia having ceded it, seven years before, to the United States, reserving only some tracts of land as military bounties for such officers and soldiers as had been distinguished in the reduction of the British forts on the Ohio river.
The Chippewas, Miamis, Wyandots,[1] and other native tribes, looked, as they well might, with jealous eyes on the annual encroachments of the whites upon their hunting-grounds. It is true that they reluctantly receded as we advanced, but it was under the stern law of necessity, not a free-will abdication. I cannot, and do not, pretend to excuse the selfish rapacity with which many of our ancestors, throughout the whole country, seized on the soil of the aborigines;[2] that is an account which it is not our business to settle, though we cannot read the true page of our history without a crimsoning blush of shame.
I remember an act of cold-blooded wickedness, perpetrated by our people in Ohio about this period, which I never could either palliate or forgive. There was a small encampment of the Wyandots a few miles from where some of our emigrants had settled. They were soon apprised of the neighbourhood of the new residents, and came over to view their works, sometimes three, four, or more, together.
For some time all things went on well;—and I have thought, with the excellent Heckewelder,[3] that they need never have done otherwise, had the whites been just and true to their duty. "They are remarkable," says he, "for their domestic and social virtues, and know how to practice that precept which we so well teach in theory, viz. 'To love their neighbour as themselves.'"
"The Indians," says one of our early and most respectable historians, "on their first acquaintance with the whites, proved themselves kind, generous, and hospitable, so long as they were treated with justice and humanity. But so they were not long, and the consequences are well known to all. In the particular case of the Wyandots I was unfortunately witness—first to the imprudence, and then to the wickedness of my countrymen."
Evident symptoms of dissatisfaction appeared whenever they afterward met. Our company began seriously to fear an attack, (no wonder, they had given provocation,) and accordingly laid a plan for cutting off the Indians at once, instead of attempting a reconciliation, though I own the latter would not have been easily effected. The great fault of the Indian is his thirst for revenge, which, when injured, he will always seek.
The purpose of the whites was carried into effect one night, after they had freely supplied the unfortunate Wyandots with rum. All fell of this portion of the tribe, save two or three children, who were saved by one of the party, more humane than his companions, and an Indian youth, of about fifteen years of age, called Tecumsoit, and also often known by the proud appellation of "the Eagle of the West," for thus early did he discover traits of remarkable strength and courage. He fought boldly and long, when his people were sacrificed almost unresistingly around him, and fled only when so wounded that he could do no more. He fled—but in the hope of returning in power, and making perfect his dreadful vengeance. His purpose was frustrated but by the constant watchfulness of the military force which we were compelled to station wherever there were any white settlements.
Near Marietta, as I have told you, are remains of ancient fortifications and mounds, in which the Indians deposited their dead.