It may readily be conceived that an excitement thus increasing from day to day, and thus rapidly extending the circle of its influence, would not long be confined to measures of remonstrance and petition. Most unfortunate was it, therefore, that, just at this conjuncture, while all sagacious men saw by the shadows what events were coming, and all good men were solicitous for the preservation of the character and augmentation of the physical strength of the country, a small band of bad ones adopted a course well fitted to awaken the jealousy of the whole Indian race, and exasperate a portion of them to the highest pitch of anger and revenge. It was evident that the Colonies were about to measure swords with one of the strongest powers in Christendom, and to strike for freedom. True wisdom, therefore, required that the clouds of Indians darkening more than a thousand miles of our border, and in the North forming an intermediate power between our own settlements and the country of the anticipated foe, should be at least conciliated into neutrality, if not courted into an alliance. But a contrary course was taken by some of the frontier-men of Virginia, and a hostile feeling awakened by a succession of outrages, unprovoked and more cruel than savages, as such, could have committed. The well-informed reader will at once anticipate that reference is now had to the hostilities upon the North-western frontier of Virginia, commonly known as Cresap's War, from the agency of a subaltern officer of that name, whose wanton cruelty provoked it, and one striking event of which has rendered every American ear familiar with the name of Logan, the celebrated "Mingo Chief." [FN]
[FN] Mingo, Mengwe, Maquas, and Iroquois, are all only different names applied to the Six Nations.
The wars and the conquests of the Six Nations had been the cause of transplanting many families, among whom were some of distinction, over the countries subjected to their arms. Among these was the family of Logan, the son of Shikellimus, [FN] a distinguished Cayuga sachem, who had removed from the particular location of his own tribe, to Shamokin, or Conestoga, within the borders of Pennsylvania, where he executed the duties of principal chief of those of the Six Nations residing on the Susquehanna. He was a man of consequence and humanity, and one of the earliest to encourage the introduction of Christianity by Count Zinzendorf. He was a great friend to the celebrated James Logan, who accompanied William Penn on his last voyage to America, and who subsequently became distinguished in the colony for his learning and benevolence. Hence the name of the famous son of Shikellimus, so closely identified with the scenes about to be described.
[FN] Shikellimus was a contemporary of the famous Cannassatego, and is known in Colden's History of the Six Nations by the different names of Skickcalamy, Shicalamy, and Shick Calamy.—Drake.
Logan had removed from his father's lodge at Shamokin to the Shawanese country on the Ohio, where he had become a chief. He was a friend of the white men, and one of the noblest of his race; not only by right of birth, but in consideration of his own character. During the Indian wars connected with the contest with France, which were continued for a considerable time after the conquest of Canada, he took no part, save in the character of a peace-maker.
The circumstances which transformed this good and just man from a sincere friend into a bitter foe, will appear in the following narrative:—It happened in April or May of 1774, that a party of land-jobbers, while engaged in exploring lands near the Ohio river, were robbed, or pretended to have been robbed, of a number of horses by the Indians. The leader of the land-jobbers was Captain Michael Cresap. Alarmed at the depredation upon their property, or affecting to be so, Cresap and his party determined to make war upon the Indians, without investigation, and irrespective, as a matter of course, of the guilt or innocence of those whom they should attack. On the same day, falling in with two Indians, Cresap and his men killed them. Hearing, moreover, of a still larger party of Indians encamped at some distance below the site of the present town of Wheeling, the white barbarians proceeded thither, and after winning the confidence of the sons of the forest by pretended friendship, fell upon and slaughtered several of their number, among whom were a part of the family of the white man's friend—Logan. [FN]
[FN] Doddridge, in his History of the Indian Wars, states that no evidence of the imputed theft was ever adduced; and affirms his belief that the report was false, and the Indians innocent, even of a comparatively minor trespass.