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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3073-0.txt b/3073-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..946d05e --- /dev/null +++ b/3073-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7091 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pioneers of the Old Southwest, by +Constance Lindsay Skinner. + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it +under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +Title: Pioneers of the Old Southwest + +A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, +Volume 18 of The Chronicles of America Series + +Author: Constance Lindsay Skinner +Release Date: February 21, 2009 [EBook #3073] +Last Updated: November 18, 2016 +Language: English +Character set encoding: UTF-8. + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's University, Alev +Akman, Doris Ringbloom, David Widger, and Robert Homa. + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST *** +Pioneers of the Old Southwest + +By Constance Lindsay Skinner + +A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground + +Volume 18 of the +Chronicles of America Series +∴ +Allen Johnson, Editor +Assistant Editors +Gerhard R. Lomer +Charles W. Jefferys + +Textbook Edition + +New Haven: Yale University Press +Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. +London: Humphrey Milford +Oxford University Press +1919 + + +Copyright, 1919 +by Yale University Press + + + + + + +Acknowledgment. + +This narrative is founded largely on original sources--on the writings +and journals of pioneers and contemporary observers, such as Doddridge +and Adair, and on the public documents of the period as printed in the +Colonial Records and in the American Archives. But the author is, +nevertheless, greatly indebted to the researches of other writers, whose +works are cited in the Bibliographical Note. The author's thanks are +due, also, to Dr. Archibald Henderson, of the University of North +Carolina, for his kindness in reading the proofs of this book for +comparison with his own extended collection of unpublished manuscripts +relating to the period. + +C. L. S. + +April, 1919. + + + +Contents. +Pioneers of the Old Southwest +Chapter Chapter Title Page + Preface vii + I. The Tread Of Pioneers 1 + II. Folkways 31 + III. The Trader 52 + IV. The Passing Of The French Peril 75 + V. Boone, The Wanderer 90 + VI. The Fight For Kentucky 104 + VII. The Dark And Bloody Ground 129 +VIII. Tennessee 157 + IX. King's Mountain 195 + X. Sevier, The Statemaker 226 + XI. Boone's Last Days 272 + Bibliographical Note 287 + Index 293 + + +PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST + +∴ +CHAPTER I. + +The Tread Of Pioneers + +The Ulster Presbyterians, or "Scotch-Irish," to whom history has +ascribed the dominant rôle among the pioneer folk of the Old Southwest, +began their migrations to America in the latter years of the seventeenth +century. It is not known with certainty precisely when or where the +first immigrants of their race arrived in this country, but soon after +1680 they were to be found in several of the colonies. It was not long, +indeed, before they were entering in numbers at the port of Philadelphia +and were making Pennsylvania the chief center of their activities in the +New World. By 1726 they had established settlements in several counties +behind Philadelphia. Ten years later they had begun their great trek +southward through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and on to the Yadkin +Valley of North Carolina. There they met others of their own race--bold +men like themselves, hungry after land--who were coming in through +Charleston and pushing their way up the rivers from the seacoast to the +"Back Country," in search of homes. + +These Ulstermen did not come to the New World as novices in the shaping +of society; they had already made history. Their ostensible object in +America was to obtain land, but, like most external aims, it was +secondary to a deeper purpose. What had sent the Ulstermen to America +was a passion for a whole freedom. They were lusty men, shrewd and +courageous, zealous to the death for an ideal and withal so practical to +the moment in business that it soon came to be commonly reported of them +that "they kept the Sabbath and everything else they could lay their +hands on," though it is but fair to them to add that this phrase is +current wherever Scots dwell. They had contested in Parliament and with +arms for their own form of worship and for their civil rights. They were +already frontiersmen, trained in the hardihood and craft of border +warfare through years of guerrilla fighting with the Irish Celts. They +had pitted and proved their strength against a wilderness; they had +reclaimed the North of Ireland from desolation. For the time, many of +them were educated men; under the regulations of the Presbyterian Church +every child was taught to read at an early age, since no person could be +admitted to the privileges of the Church who did not both understand and +approve the Presbyterian constitution and discipline. They were brought +up on the Bible and on the writings of their famous pastors, one of +whom, as early as 1650, had given utterance to the democratic doctrine +that "men are called to the magistracy by the suffrage of the people +whom they govern, and for men to assume unto themselves power is mere +tyranny and unjust usurpation." In subscribing to this doctrine and in +resisting to the hilt all efforts of successive English kings to +interfere in the election of their pastors, the Scots of Ulster had +already declared for democracy. + +It was shortly after James VI of Scotland became James I of England and +while the English were founding Jamestown that the Scots had first +occupied Ulster; but the true origin of the Ulster Plantation lies +further back, in the reign of Henry VIII, in the days of the English +Reformation. In Henry's Irish realm the Reformation, though proclaimed +by royal authority, had never been accomplished; and Henry's more famous +daughter, Elizabeth, had conceived the plan, later to be carried out by +James, of planting colonies of Protestants in Ireland to promote loyalty +in that rebellious land. Six counties, comprising half a million acres, +formed the Ulster Plantation. The great majority of the colonists sent +thither by James were Scotch Lowlanders, but among them were many +English and a smaller number of Highlanders. These three peoples from +the island of Britain brought forth, through intermarriage, the Ulster +Scots. + +The reign of Charles I had inaugurated for the Ulstermen an era of +persecution. Charles practically suppressed the Presbyterian religion in +Ireland. His son, Charles II, struck at Ireland in 1666 through its +cattle trade, by prohibiting the exportation of beef to England and +Scotland. The Navigation Acts, excluding Ireland from direct trade with +the colonies, ruined Irish commerce, while Corporation Acts and Test +Acts requiring conformity with the practices of the Church of England +bore heavily on the Ulster Presbyterians. + +It was largely by refugees from religious persecution that America in +the beginning was colonized. But religious persecution was only one of +the influences which shaped the course and formed the character of the +Ulster Scots. In Ulster, whither they had originally been transplanted +by James to found a loyal province in the midst of the King's enemies, +they had done their work too well and had waxed too powerful for the +comfort of later monarchs. The first attacks upon them struck at their +religion; but the subsequent legislative acts which successively ruined +the woolen trade, barred nonconformists from public office, stifled +Irish commerce, pronounced non-Episcopal marriages irregular, and +instituted heavy taxation and high rentals for the land their fathers +had made productive--these were blows dealt chiefly for the political +and commercial ends of favored classes in England. + +These attacks, aimed through his religious conscience at the sources of +his livelihood, made the Ulster Scot perforce what he was--a zealot as a +citizen and a zealot as a merchant no less than as a Presbyterian. +Thanks to his persecutors, he made a religion of everything he undertook +and regarded his civil rights as divine rights. Thus out of persecution +emerged a type of man who was high-principled and narrow, strong and +violent, as tenacious of his own rights as he was blind often to the +rights of others, acquisitive yet self-sacrificing, but most of all +fearless, confident of his own power, determined to have and to hold. + +Twenty thousand Ulstermen, it is estimated, left Ireland for America in +the first three decades of the eighteenth century. More than six +thousand of them are known to have entered Pennsylvania in 1729 alone, +and twenty years later they numbered one-quarter of that colony's +population. During the five years preceding the Revolutionary War more +than thirty thousand Ulstermen crossed the ocean and arrived in America +just in time and in just the right frame of mind to return King George's +compliment in kind, by helping to deprive him of his American estates, a +domain very much larger than the acres of Ulster. They fully justified +the fears of the good bishop who wrote Lord Dartmouth, Secretary for the +Colonies, that he trembled for the peace of the King's overseas realm, +since these thousands of "phanatical and hungry Republicans" had sailed +for America. + +The Ulstermen who entered by Charleston were known to the inhabitants of +the tidewater regions as the "Scotch-Irish." Those who came from the +north, lured southward by the offer of cheap lands, were called the +"Pennsylvania Irish." Both were, however, of the same race--a race twice +expatriated, first from Scotland and then from Ireland, and stripped of +all that it had won throughout more than a century of persecution. To +these exiles the Back Country of North Carolina, with its cheap and even +free tracts lying far from the seat of government, must have seemed not +only the Land of Promise but the Land of Last Chance. Here they must +strike their roots into the sod with such interlocking strength that no +cataclysm of tyranny should ever dislodge them--or they must accept the +fate dealt out to them by their former persecutors and become a tribe of +nomads and serfs. But to these Ulster immigrants such a choice was no +choice at all. They knew themselves strong men, who had made the most of +opportunity despite almost superhuman obstacles. The drumming of their +feet along the banks of the Shenandoah, or up the rivers from +Charleston, and on through the broad sweep of the Yadkin Valley, was a +conquering people's challenge to the Wilderness which lay sleeping like +an unready sentinel at the gates of their Future. + +It is maintained still by many, however often disputed, that the +Ulstermen were the first to declare for American Independence, as in the +Old Country they were the first to demand the separation of Church and +State. A Declaration of Independence is said to have been drawn up and +signed in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on May 20, 1775. ¹ However +that may be, it is certain that these Mecklenburg Protestants had +received special schooling in the doctrine of independence. They had in +their midst for eight years (1758-66) the Reverend Alexander Craighead, +a Presbyterian minister who, for his "republican doctrines" expressed in +a pamphlet, had been disowned by the Pennsylvania Synod acting on the +Governor's protest, and so persecuted in Virginia that he had at last +fled to the North Carolina Back Country. There, during the remaining +years of his life, as the sole preacher and teacher in the settlements +between the Yadkin and the Catawba rivers he found willing soil in which +to sow the seeds of Liberty. + +¹ See Hoyt, The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence; and American +Archives, Fourth Series. vol. II, p. 855. + +There was another branch of the Scottish race which helped to people the +Back Country. The Highlanders, whose loyalty to their oath made them +fight on the King's side in the Revolutionary War, have been somewhat +overlooked in history. Tradition, handed down among the transplanted +clans--who, for the most part, spoke only Gaelic for a generation and +wrote nothing--and latterly recorded by one or two of their descendants, +supplies us with all we are now able to learn of the early coming of the +Gaels to Carolina. It would seem that their first immigration to America +in small bands took place after the suppression of the Jacobite rising +in 1715--when Highlanders fled in numbers also to France--for by 1729 +there was a settlement of them on the Cape Fear River. We know, too, +that in 1748 it was charged against Gabriel Johnston, Governor of North +Carolina from 1734 to 1752, that he had shown no joy over the King's +"glorious victory of Culloden" and that "he had appointed one William +McGregor, who had been in the Rebellion in the year 1715 a Justice of +the Peace during the last Rebellion [1745] and was not himself without +suspicion of disaffection to His Majesty's Government." It is indeed +possible that Gabriel Johnston, formerly a professor at St. Andrew's +University, had himself not always been a stranger to the kilt. He +induced large numbers of Highlanders to come to America and probably +influenced the second George to moderate his treatment of the vanquished +Gaels in the Old Country and permit their emigration to the New World. + +In contrast with the Ulstermen, whose secular ideals were dictated by +the forms of their Church, these Scots adhered still to the tribal or +clan system, although they, too, in the majority, were Presbyterians, +with a minority of Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. In the Scotch +Highlands they had occupied small holdings on the land under the sway of +their chief, or Head of the Clan, to whom they were bound by blood and +fealty but to whom they paid no rentals. The position of the Head of the +Clan was hereditary, but no heir was bold enough to step forward into +that position until he had performed some deed of worth. They were +principally herders, their chief stock being the famous small black +cattle of the Highlands. Their wars with each other were cattle raids. +Only in war, however, did the Gael lay hands on his neighbor's goods. +There were no highwaymen and housebreakers in the Highlands. No Highland +mansion, cot, or barn was ever locked. Theft and the breaking of an +oath, sins against man's honor, were held in such abhorrence that no one +guilty of them could remain among his clansmen in the beloved glens. +These Highlanders were a race of tall, robust men, who lived simply and +frugally and slept on the heath among their flocks in all weathers, with +no other covering from rain and snow than their plaidies. It is reported +of the Laird of Keppoch, who was leading his clan to war in winter time, +that his men were divided as to the propriety of following him further +because he rolled a snowball to rest his head upon when he lay down. +"Now we despair of victory," they said, "since our leader has become so +effeminate he cannot sleep without a pillow!" ¹ + +¹ MacLean, An Historical Account of the Settlement of Scotch Highlanders +in America. + +The "King's glorious victory of Culloden" was followed by a policy of +extermination carried on by the orders and under the personal direction +of the Duke of Cumberland. When King George at last restrained his son +from his orgy of blood, he offered the Gaels their lives and exile to +America on condition of their taking the full oath of allegiance. The +majority accepted his terms, for not only were their lives forfeit but +their crops and cattle had been destroyed and the holdings on which +their ancestors had lived for many centuries taken from them. The +descriptions of the scenes attending their leave-taking of the hills and +glens they loved with such passionate fervor are among the most pathetic +in history. Strong men who had met the ravage of a brutal sword without +weakening abandoned themselves to the agony of sorrow. They kissed the +walls of their houses. They flung themselves on the ground and embraced +the sod upon which they had walked in freedom. They called their broken +farewells to the peaks and lochs of the land they were never again to +see; and, as they turned their backs and filed down through the passes, +their pipers played the dirge for the dead. + +Such was the character, such the deep feeling, of the race which entered +North Carolina from the coast and pushed up into the wilderness about +the headwaters of Cape Fear River. Tradition indicates that these +hillsmen sought the interior because the grass and pea vine which +overgrew the inner country stretching towards the mountains provided +excellent fodder for the cattle which some of the chiefs are said to +have brought with them. These Gaelic herders, perhaps in negligible +numbers, were in the Yadkin Valley before 1730, possibly even ten years +earlier. In 1739 Neil MacNeill of Kintyre brought over a shipload of +Gaels to rejoin his kinsman, Hector MacNeill, called Bluff Hector from +his residence near the bluffs at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville. Some of +these immigrants went on to the Yadkin, we are told, to unite with +others of their clan who had been for some time in that district. The +exact time of the first Highlander on the Yadkin cannot be ascertained, +as there were no court records and the offices of the land companies +were not then open for the sale of these remote regions. But by 1753 +there were not less than four thousand Gaels in Cumberland County, where +they occupied the chief magisterial posts; and they were already +spreading over the lands now comprised within Moore, Anson, Richmond, +Robeson, Bladen, and Sampson counties. In these counties Gaelic was as +commonly heard as English. + +In the years immediately preceding the Revolution and even in 1776 +itself they came in increasing numbers. They knew nothing of the +smoldering fire just about to break into flames in the country of their +choice, but the Royal Governor, Josiah Martin, knew that Highland arms +would soon be needed by His Majesty. He knew something of Highland +honor, too; for he would not let the Gaels proceed after their landing +until they had bound themselves by oath to support the Government of +King George. So it was that the unfortunate Highlanders found +themselves, according to their strict code of honor, forced to wield +arms against the very Americans who had received and befriended +them--and for the crowned brother of a prince whose name is execrated to +this day in Highland song and story! + +They were led by Allan MacDonald of Kingsborough; and tradition gives us +a stirring picture of Allan's wife--the famous Flora MacDonald, who in +Scotland had protected the Young Pretender in his flight--making an +impassioned address in Gaelic to the Highland soldiers and urging them +on to die for honor's sake. When this Highland force was conquered by +the Americans, the large majority willingly bound themselves not to +fight further against the American cause and were set at liberty. Many +of them felt that, by offering their lives to the swords of the +Americans, they had canceled their obligation to King George and were +now free to draw their swords again and, this time, in accordance with +their sympathies; so they went over to the American side and fought +gallantly for independence. + +Although the brave glory of this pioneer age shines so brightly on the +Lion Rampant of Caledonia, not to Scots alone does that whole glory +belong. The second largest racial stream which flowed into the Back +Country of Virginia and North Carolina was German. Most of these Germans +went down from Pennsylvania and were generally called "Pennsylvania +Dutch," an incorrect rendering of Pennsylvänische Deutsche. The upper +Shenandoah Valley was settled almost entirely by Germans. They were +members of the Lutheran, German Reformed, and Moravian churches. The +cause which sent vast numbers of this sturdy people across the ocean, +during the first years of the eighteenth century, was religious +persecution. By statute and by sword the Roman Catholic powers of +Austria sought to wipe out the Salzburg Lutherans and the Moravian +followers of John Huss. In that region of the Rhine country known in +those days as the German Palatinate, now a part of Bavaria, Protestants +were being massacred by the troops of Louis of France, then engaged in +the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13) and in the zealous effort to +extirpate heretics from the soil of Europe. In 1708, by proclamation, +Good Queen Anne offered protection to the persecuted Palatines and +invited them to her dominions. Twelve thousand of them went to England, +where they were warmly received by the English. But it was no slight +task to settle twelve thousand immigrants of an alien speech in England +and enable them to become independent and self-supporting. A better +solution of their problem lay in the Western World. The Germans needed +homes and the Queen's overseas dominions needed colonists. They were +settled at first along the Hudson, and eventually many of them took up +lands in the fertile valley of the Mohawk. + +For fifty years or more German and Austrian Protestants poured into +America. In Pennsylvania their influx averaged about fifteen hundred a +year, and that colony became the distributing center for the German race +in America. By 1727, Adam Müller and his little company had established +the first white settlement in the Valley of Virginia. In 1732 Joist +Heydt went south from York, Pennsylvania, and settled on the Opequan +Creek at or near the site of the present city of Winchester. + +The life of Count Zinzendorf, called "the Apostle," one of the leaders +of the Moravian immigrants, glows like a star out of those dark and +troublous times. Of high birth and gentle nurture, he forsook whatever +of ease his station promised him and fitted himself for evangelical +work. In 1741 he visited the Wyoming Valley to bring his religion to the +Delawares and Shawanoes. He was not of those picturesque Captains of the +Lord who bore their muskets on their shoulders when they went forth to +preach. Armored only with the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, +and the sword of the spirit, his feet "shod with the preparation of the +gospel of peace," he went out into the country of these bloodthirsty +tribes and told them that he had come to them in their darkness to teach +the love of the Christ which lighteth the world. The Indians received +him suspiciously. One day while he sat in his tent writing, some +Delawares drew near to slay him and were about to strike when they saw +two deadly snakes crawl in from the opposite side of the tent, move +directly towards the Apostle, and pass harmlessly over his body. +Thereafter they regarded him as under spiritual protection. Indeed so +widespread was his good fame among the tribes that for some years all +Moravian settlements along the borders were unmolested. Painted savages +passed through on their way to war with enemy bands or to raid the +border, but for the sake of one consecrated spirit, whom they had seen +death avoid, they spared the lives and goods of his fellow believers. +When Zinzendorf departed a year later, his mantle fell on David +Zeisberger, who lived the love he taught for over fifty years and +converted many savages. Zeisberger was taken before the Governor and +army heads at Philadelphia, who had only too good reason to be +suspicious of priestly counsels in the tents of Shem: but he was able to +impress white men no less than simple savages with the nobility of the +doctrine he had learned from the Apostle. + +In 1751 the Moravian Brotherhood purchased one hundred thousand acres in +North Carolina from Lord Granville. Bishop Spangenburg was commissioned +to survey this large acreage, which was situated in the present county +of Forsyth east of the Yadkin, and which is historically listed as the +Wachovia Tract. In 1753, twelve Brethren left the Moravian settlements +of Bethlehem and Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, and journeyed southward to +begin the founding of a colony on their new land. Brother Adam Grube, +one of the twelve, kept a diary of the events of this expedition. ¹ + +¹ This diary is printed in full in Travels in the American Colonies +edited by N. D. Mereness. + +Honor to whom honor is due. We have paid it, in some measure, to the +primitive Gaels of the Highlands for their warrior strength and their +fealty, and to the enlightened Scots of Ulster for their enterprise and +for their sacrifice unto blood that free conscience and just laws might +promote the progress and safeguard the intercourse of their kind. Now +let us take up for a moment Brother Grube's Journal even as we welcome, +perhaps the more gratefully, the mild light of evening after the +flooding sun, or as our hearts, when too strongly stirred by the deeds +of men, turn for rest to the serene faith and the naïve speech of little +children. + +The twelve, we learn, were under the leadership of one of their number, +Brother Gottlob. Their earliest alarms on the march were not caused, as +we might expect, by anticipations of the painted Cherokee, but by +encounters with the strenuous "Irish." One of these came and laid +himself to sleep beside the Brethren's camp fire on their first night +out, after they had sung their evening hymn and eleven had stretched +themselves on the earth for slumber, while Brother Gottlob, their +leader, hanging his hammock between two trees, ascended--not only in +spirit--a little higher than his charges, and "rested well in it." +Though the alarming Irishman did not disturb them, the Brethren's doubts +of that race continued, for Brother Grube wrote on the 14th of October: +"About four in the morning we set up our tent, going four miles beyond +Carl Isles [Carlisle, seventeen miles southwest of Harrisburg] so as not +to be too near the Irish Presbyterians. After breakfast the Brethren +shaved and then we rested under our tent.... People who were staying at +the Tavern came to see what kind of folk we were.... Br Gottlob held the +evening service and then we lay down around our cheerful fire, and Br +Gottlob in his hammock." Two other jottings give us a racial +kaleidoscope of the settlers and wayfarers of that time. On one day the +Brethren bought "some hay from a Swiss," later "some kraut from a German +which tasted very good to us"; and presently "an Englishman came by and +drank a cup of tea with us and was very grateful for it." Frequently the +little band paused while some of the Brethren went off to the farms +along the route to help "cut hay." These kindly acts were usually repaid +with gifts of food or produce. + +One day while on the march they halted at a tavern and farm in +Shenandoah Valley kept by a man whose name Brother Grube wrote down as +"Severe." Since we know that Brother Grube's spelling of names other +than German requires editing, we venture to hazard a guess that the name +he attempted to set down as it sounded to him was Sevier. And we wonder +if, in his brief sojourn, he saw a lad of eight years, slim, tall, and +blond, with daring and mischievous blue eyes, and a certain curve of the +lips that threatened havoc in the hearts of both sexes when he should be +a man and reach out with swift hands and reckless will for his desires. +If he saw this lad, he beheld John Sevier, later to become one of the +most picturesque and beloved heroes of the Old Southwest. + +Hardships abounded on the Brethren's journey, but faith and the +Christian's joy, which no man taketh from him, met and surmounted them. +"Three and a half miles beyond, the road forked.... We took the right +hand road but found no water for ten miles. It grew late and we had to +drive five miles into the night to find a stoppingplace." Two of the +Brethren went ahead "to seek out the road" through the darkened +wilderness. There were rough hills in the way; and, the horses being +exhausted, "Brethren had to help push." But, in due season, "Br +Nathanael held evening prayer and then we slept in the care of Jesus," +with Brother Gottlob as usual in his hammock. Three days later the +record runs: "Toward evening we saw Jeams River, the road to it ran down +so very steep a hill that we fastened a small tree to the back of our +wagon, locked the wheels, and the Brethren held back by the tree with +all their might." Even then the wagon went down so fast that most of the +Brethren lost their footing and rolled and tumbled pell-mell. But Faith +makes little of such mishaps: "No harm was done and we thanked the Lord +that he had so graciously protected us, for it looked dangerous and we +thought at times that it could not possibly be done without accident but +we got down safely... we were all very tired and sleepy and let the +angels be our guard during the night." Rains fell in torrents, making +streams almost impassable and drenching the little band to the skin. The +hammock was empty one night, for they had to spend the dark hours +trench-digging about their tent to keep it from being washed away. Two +days later (the 10th of November) the weather cleared and "we spent most +of the day drying our blankets and mending and darning our stockings." +They also bought supplies from settlers who, as Brother Grube observed +without irony, + +are glad we have to remain here so long and that it means money for +them. In the afternoon we held a little Lovefeast and rested our souls +in the loving sacrifice of Jesus, wishing for beloved Brethren in +Bethlehem and that they and we might live ever close to Him.... +Nov. 16. We rose early to ford the river. The bank was so steep that we +hung a tree behind the wagon, fastening it in such a way that we could +quickly release it when the wagon reached the water. The current was +very swift and the lead horses were carried down a bit with it. The +water just missed running into the wagon but we came safely to the other +bank, which however we could not climb but had to take half the things +out of the wagon, tie ropes to the axle on which we could pull, help our +horses which were quite stiff, and so we brought our ark again to dry +land. + +On the evening of the 17th of November the twelve arrived safely on +their land on the "Etkin" (Yadkin), having been six weeks on the march. +They found with joy that, as ever, the Lord had provided for them. This +time the gift was a deserted cabin, "large enough that we could all lie +down around the walls. We at once made preparation for a little +Lovefeast and rejoiced heartily with one another." + +In the deserted log cabin, which, to their faith, seemed as one of those +mansions "not built with hands" and descended miraculously from the +heavens, they held their Lovefeast, while wolves padded and howled about +the walls; and in that Pentacostal hour the tongue of fire descended +upon Brother Gottlob, so that he made a new song unto the Lord. Who +shall venture to say it is not better worth preserving than many a +classic? + + We hold arrival Lovefeast here + In Carolina land, + A company of Brethren true, + A little Pilgrim-Band, + Called by the Lord to be of those + Who through the whole world go, + To bear Him witness everywhere + And nought but Jesus know. + +Then, we are told, the Brethren lay down to rest and "Br Gottlob hung +his hammock above our heads"--as was most fitting on this of all nights; +for is not the Poet's place always just a little nearer to the stars? + +The pioneers did not always travel in groups. There were families who +set off alone. One of these now claims our attention, for there was a +lad in this family whose name and deeds were to sound like a ballad of +romance from out the dusty pages of history. This family's name was +Boone. + +Neither Scots nor Germans can claim Daniel Boone; he was in blood a +blend of English and Welsh; in character wholly English. His grandfather +George Boone was born in 1666 in the hamlet of Stoak, near Exeter in +Devonshire. George Boone was a weaver by trade and a Quaker by religion. +In England in his time the Quakers were oppressed, and George Boone +therefore sought information of William Penn, his coreligionist, +regarding the colony which Penn had established in America. In 1712 he +sent his three elder children, George, Sarah, and Squire, to spy out the +land. Sarah and Squire remained in Pennsylvania, while their brother +returned to England with glowing reports. On August 17, 1717, George +Boone, his wife, and the rest of his children journeyed to Bristol and +sailed for Philadelphia, arriving there on the 10th of October. The +Boones went first to Abingdon, the Quaker farmers' community. Later they +moved to the northwestern frontier hamlet of North Wales, a Welsh +community which, a few years previously, had turned Quaker. Sarah Boone +married a German named Jacob Stover, who had settled in Oley Township, +Berks County. In 1718 George Boone took up four hundred acres in Oley, +or, to be exact, in the subdivision later called Exeter, and there he +lived in his log cabin until 1744, when he died at the age of +seventy-eight. He left eight children, fifty-two grandchildren, and ten +great-grandchildren, seventy descendants in all--English, German, Welsh, +and Scotch-Irish blended into one family of Americans. ¹ + +¹ R. G. Thwaites, Daniel Boone, p. 5. + +Among the Welsh Quakers was a family of Morgans. In 1720 Squire Boone +married Sarah Morgan. Ten years later he obtained 250 acres in Oley on +Owatin Creek, eight miles southeast of the present city of Reading; and +here, in 1734, Daniel Boone was born, the fourth son and sixth child of +Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone. Daniel Boone therefore was a son of the +frontier. In his childhood he became familiar with hunters and with +Indians, for even the red men came often in friendly fashion to his +grandfather's house. Squire Boone enlarged his farm by thrift. He +continued at his trade of weaving and kept five or six looms going, +making homespun cloth for the market and his neighbors. + +Daniel's father owned grazing grounds several miles north of the +homestead and each season he sent his stock to the range. Sarah Boone +and her little Daniel drove the cows. From early spring till late +autumn, mother and son lived in a rustic cabin alone on the frontier. A +rude dairy house stood over a cool spring, and here Sarah Boone made her +butter and cheese. Daniel, aged ten at this time, watched the herds; at +sunset he drove them to the cabin for milking, and locked them in the +cowpens at night. + +He was not allowed firearms at that age, so he shaped for himself a +weapon that served him well. This was a slender smoothly shaved sapling +with a small bunch of gnarled roots at one end. So expert was he in the +launching of this primitive spear that he easily brought down birds and +small game. When he reached his twelfth year, his father bought him a +rifle; and he soon became a crack shot. A year later we find him setting +off on the autumn hunt--after driving the cattle in for the winter--with +all the keenness and courage of a man twice his thirteen years. His +rifle enabled him to return with meat for the family and skins to be +traded in Philadelphia. When he was fourteen his brother Sam married +Sarah Day, an intelligent young Quakeress who took a special interest in +her young brother-in-law and taught him "the rudiments of three R's." + +The Boones were prosperous and happy in Oley and it may be wondered why +they left their farms and their looms, both of which were profitable, +and set their faces towards the Unknown. It is recorded that, though the +Boones were Quakers, they were of a high mettle and were not +infrequently dealt with by the Meeting. Two of Squire Boone's children +married "worldlings"--non-Quakers--and were in consequence "disowned" by +the Society. In defiance of his sect, which strove to make him sever all +connection with his unruly offspring, Squire Boone refused to shut his +doors on the son and the daughter who had scandalized local Quakerdom. +The Society of Friends thereupon expelled him. This occurred apparently +during the winter of 1748-49. In the spring of 1750 we see the whole +Boone family (save two sons) with their wives and children, their +household goods and their stock, on the great highway, bound for a land +where the hot heart and the belligerent spirit shall not be held amiss. + +Southward through the Shenandoah goes the Boone caravan. The women and +children usually sit in the wagons. The men march ahead or alongside, +keeping a keen eye open for Indian or other enemy in the wild, their +rifles under arm or over the shoulder. Squire Boone, who has done with +Quakerdom and is leading all that he holds dear out to larger horizons, +is ahead of the line, as we picture him, ready to meet first whatever +danger may assail his tribe. He is a strong wiry man of rather small +stature, with ruddy complexion, red hair, and gray eyes. Somewhere in +the line, together, we think, are the mother and son who have herded +cattle and companioned each other through long months in the cabin on +the frontier. We do not think of this woman as riding in the wagon, +though she may have done so, but prefer to picture her, with her tall +robust body, her black hair, and her black eyes--with the s udden Welsh +snap in them--walking as sturdily as any of her sons. + +If Daniel be beside her, what does she see when she looks at him? A lad +well set up but not overtall for his sixteen years, perhaps--for +"eye-witnesses" differ in their estimates of Daniel Boone's height--or +possibly taller than he looks, because his figure has the forest +hunter's natural slant forward and the droop of the neck of one who must +watch his path sometimes in order to tread silently. It is Squire +Boone's blood which shows in his ruddy face--which would be fair but for +its tan--and in the English cut of feature, the straw-colored eyebrows, +and the blue eyes. But his Welsh mother's legacy is seen in the black +hair that hangs long and loose in the hunter's fashion to his shoulders. +We can think of Daniel Boone only as exhilarated by this plunge into the +Wild. He sees ahead--the days of his great explorations and warfare, the +discovery of Kentucky? Not at all. This is a boy of sixteen in love with +his rifle. He looks ahead to vistas of forest filled with deer and to +skies clouded with flocks of wild turkeys. In that dream there is +happiness enough for Daniel Boone. Indeed, for himself, even in later +life, he asked little, if any more. He trudges on blithely, whistling. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Folkways + +These migrations into the inland valleys of the Old South mark the first +great westward thrust of the American frontier. Thus the beginnings of +the westward movement disclose to us a feature characteristic also of +the later migrations which flung the frontier over the Appalachians, +across the Mississippi, and finally to the shores of the Pacific. The +pioneers, instead of moving westward by slow degrees, subduing the +wilderness as they went, overleaped great spaces and planted themselves +beyond, out of contact with the life they had left behind. Thus +separated by hundreds of miles of intervening wilderness from the more +civilized communities, the conquerors of the first American "West," +prototypes of the conquerors of succeeding "Wests," inevitably struck +out their own ways of life and developed their own customs. It would be +difficult, indeed, to find anywhere a more remarkable contrast in +contemporary folkways than that presented by the two great community +groups of the South--the inland or piedmont settlements, called the Back +Country, and the lowland towns and plantations along the seaboard. + +The older society of the seaboard towns, as events were soon to prove, +was not less independent in its ideals than the frontier society of the +Back Country; but it was aristocratic in tone and feeling. Its leaders +were the landed gentry--men of elegance, and not far behind their +European contemporaries in the culture of the day. They were rich, +without effort, both from their plantations, where black slaves and +indentured servants labored, and from their coastwise and overseas +trade. Their battles with forest and red man were long past. They had +leisure for diversions such as the chase, the breeding and racing of +thoroughbred horses, the dance, high play with dice and card, +cockfighting, the gallantry of love, and the skill of the rapier. Law +and politics drew their soberer minds. + +Very different were the conditions which confronted the pioneers in the +first American "West." There every jewel of promise was ringed round +with hostility. The cheap land the pioneer had purchased at a nominal +price, or the free land he had taken by "tomahawk claim"--that is by +cutting his name into the bark of a deadened tree, usually beside a +spring--supported a forest of tall trunks and interlacing leafage. The +long grass and weeds which covered the ground in a wealth of natural +pasturage harbored the poisonous copperhead and the rattlesnake and, +being shaded by the overhead foliage, they held the heavy dews and bred +swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, and big flies which tortured both men and +cattle. To protect the cattle and horses from the attacks of these pests +the settlers were obliged to build large "smudges"--fires of green +timber--against the wind. The animals soon learned to back up into the +dense smoke and to move from one grazing spot to another as the wind +changed. But useful as were the green timber fires that rolled their +smoke on the wind to save the stock, they were at the same time a menace +to the pioneer, for they proclaimed to roving bands of Cherokees that a +further encroachment on their territory had been made by their most +hated enemies--the men who felled the hunter's forest. Many an outpost +pioneer who had made the long hard journey by sea and land from the old +world of persecution to this new country of freedom, dropped from the +red man's shot ere he had hewn the threshold of his home, leaving his +wife and children to the unrecorded mercy of his slayer. + +Those more fortunate pioneers who settled in groups won the first heat +in the battle with the wilderness through massed effort under wariness. +They made their clearings in the forest, built their cabins and +stockades, and planted their cornfields, while lookouts kept watch and +rifles were stacked within easy reach. Every special task, such as a +"raising," as cabin building was called, was undertaken by the community +chiefly because the Indian danger necessitated swift building and made +group action imperative. But the stanch heart is ever the glad heart. +Nothing in this frontier history impresses us more than the joy of the +pioneer at his labors. His determined optimism turned danger's dictation +into an occasion for jollity. On the appointed day for the "raising," +the neighbors would come, riding or afoot, to the newcomer's +holding--the men with their rifles and axes, the women with their pots +and kettles. Every child toddled along, too, helping to carry the wooden +dishes and spoons. These free givers of labor had something of the +Oriental's notion of the sacred ratification of friendship by a feast. + +The usual dimensions of a cabin were sixteen by twenty feet. The timber +for the building, having been already cut, lay at hand--logs of hickory, +oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon. To make the foundations, the men +seized four of the thickest logs, laid them in place, and notched and +grooved and hammered them into as close a clinch as if they had grown +so. The wood must grip by its own substance alone to hold up the +pioneer's dwelling, for there was not an iron nail to be had in the +whole of the Back Country. Logs laid upon the foundation logs and +notched into each other at the four corners formed the walls; and, when +these stood at seven feet, the builders laid parallel timbers and +puncheons to make both flooring and ceiling. The ridgepole of the roof +was supported by two crotched trees and the roofing was made of logs and +wooden slabs. The crevices of the walls were packed close with red clay +and moss. Lastly, spaces for a door and windows were cut out. The door +was made thick and heavy to withstand the Indian's rush. And the +windowpanes? They were of paper treated with hog's fat or bear's grease. + +When the sun stood overhead, the women would give the welcome call of +"Dinner!" Their morning had not been less busy than the men's. They had +baked corn cakes on hot stones, roasted bear or pork, or broiled venison +steaks; and--above all and first of all--they had concocted the great +"stew pie" without which a raising could hardly take place. This was a +disputatious mixture of deer, hog, and bear--animals which, in life, +would surely have companioned each other as ill! It was made in +sufficient quantity to last over for supper when the day's labor was +done. At supper the men took their ease on the ground, but with their +rifles always in reach. If the cabin just raised by their efforts stood +in the Yadkin, within sight of the great mountains the pioneers were one +day to cross, perhaps a sudden bird note warning from the lookout, +hidden in the brush, would bring the builders with a leap to their feet. +It might be only a hunting band of friendly Catawbas that passed, or a +lone Cherokee who knew that this was not his hour. If the latter, we +can, in imagination, see him look once at the new house on his hunting +pasture, slacken rein for a moment in front of the group of families, +lift his hand in sign of peace, and silently go his way hillward. As he +vanishes into the shadows, the crimson sun, sinking into the unknown +wilderness beyond the mountains, pours its last glow on the roof of the +cabin and on the group near its walls. With unfelt fingers, subtly, it +puts the red touch of the West in the faces of the men--who have just +declared, through the building of a cabin, that here is Journey's End +and their abiding place. + +There were community holidays among these pioneers as well as labor +days, especially in the fruit season; and there were flower-picking +excursions in the warm spring days. Early in April the service berry +bush gleamed starrily along the watercourses, its hardy white blooms +defying winter's lingering look. This bush--or tree, indeed, since it is +not afraid to rear its slender trunk as high as cherry or crab +apple--might well be considered emblematic of the frontier spirit in +those regions where the white silence covers the earth for several +months and shuts the lonely homesteader in upon himself. From the +pioneer time of the Old Southwest to the last frontier of the Far North +today, the service berry is cherished alike by white men and Indians; +and the red men have woven about it some of their prettiest legends. +When June had ripened the tree's blue-black berries, the Back Country +folk went out in parties to gather them. Though the service berry was a +food staple on the frontier and its gathering a matter of household +economy, the folk made their berry-picking jaunt a gala occasion. The +women and children with pots and baskets--the young girls vying with +each other, under the eyes of the youths, as to who could strip boughs +the fastest--plucked gayly while the men, rifles in hand, kept guard. +For these happy summer days were also the red man's scalping days and, +at any moment, the chatter of the picnickers might be interrupted by the +chilling war whoop. When that sound was heard, the berry pickers raced +for the fort. The wild fruits--strawberries, service berries, cherries, +plums, crab apples--were, however, too necessary a part of the pioneer's +meager diet to be left unplucked out of fear of an Indian attack. +Another day would see the same group out again. The children would keep +closer to their mothers, no doubt; and the laughter of the young girls +would be more subdued, even if their coquetry lacked nothing of its +former effectiveness. Early marriages were the rule in the Back Country +and betrothals were frequently plighted at these berry pickings. + +As we consider the descriptions of the frontiersman left for us by +travelers of his own day, we are not more interested in his battles with +wilderness and Indian than in the visible effects of both wilderness and +Indian upon him. His countenance and bearing still show the European, +but the European greatly altered by savage contact. The red peril, +indeed, influenced every side of frontier life. The bands of women and +children at the harvestings, the log rollings, and the house raisings, +were not there merely to lighten the men's work by their laughter and +love-making. It was not safe for them to remain in the cabins, for, to +the Indian, the cabin thus boldly thrust upon his immemorial hunting +grounds was only a secondary evil; the greater evil was the white man's +family, bespeaking the increase of the dreaded palefaces. The Indian +peril trained the pioneers to alertness, shaped them as warriors and +hunters, suggested the fashion of their dress, knit their families into +clans and the clans into a tribe wherein all were of one spirit in the +protection of each and all and a unit of hate against their common +enemy. + +Too often the fields which the pioneer planted with corn were harvested +by the Indian with fire. The hardest privations suffered by farmers and +stock were due to the settlers having to flee to the forts, leaving to +Indian devastation the crops on which their sustenance mainly depended. +Sometimes, fortunately, the warning came in time for the frontiersman to +collect his goods and chattels in his wagon and to round up his live +stock and drive them safely into the common fortified enclosure. At +others, the tap of the "express"--as the herald of Indian danger was +called--at night on the windowpane and the low word whispered hastily, +ere the "express" ran on to the next abode, meant that the Indians had +surprised the outlying cabins of the settlement. + +The forts were built as centrally as possible in the scattered +settlements. They consisted of cabins, blockhouses, and stockades. A +range of cabins often formed one side of a fort. The walls on the +outside were ten or twelve feet high with roofs sloping inward. The +blockhouses built at the angles of the fort projected two feet or so +beyond the outer walls of the cabins and stockades, and were fitted with +portholes for the watchers and the marksmen. The entrance to the fort +was a large folding gate of thick slabs. It was always on the side +nearest the spring. The whole structure of the fort was bullet-proof and +was erected without an iron nail or spike. In the border wars these +forts withstood all attacks. The savages, having proved that they could +not storm them, generally laid siege and waited for thirst to compel a +sortie. But the crafty besieger was as often outwitted by the equally +cunning defender. Some daring soul, with silent feet and perhaps with +naked body painted in Indian fashion, would drop from the wall under +cover of the night, pass among the foemen to the spring, and return to +the fort with water. + +Into the pioneer's phrase-making the Indian influence penetrated so that +he named seasons for his foe. So thoroughly has the term "Indian +Summer," now to us redolent of charm, become disassociated from its +origins that it gives us a shock to be reminded that to these Back +Country folk the balmy days following on the cold snap meant the season +when the red men would come back for a last murderous raid on the +settlements before winter should seal up the land. The "Powwowing Days" +were the mellow days in the latter part of February, when the red men in +council made their medicine and learned of their redder gods whether or +no they should take the warpath when the sap pulsed the trees into leaf. +Even the children at their play acknowledged the red-skinned +schoolmaster, for their chief games were a training in his woodcraft and +in the use of his weapons. Tomahawk-throwing was a favorite sport +because of its gruesome practical purposes. The boys must learn to gauge +the tomahawk's revolutions by the distance of the throw so as to bury +the blade in its objective. Swift running and high jumping through the +brush and fallen timber were sports that taught agility in escape. The +boys learned to shoot accurately the long rifles of their time, with a +log or a forked stick for a rest, and a moss pad under the barrel to +keep it from jerking and spoiling the aim. They wrestled with each +other, mastered the tricks of throwing an opponent, and learned the +scalp hold instead of the toe hold. It was part of their education to +imitate the noises of every bird and beast of the forest. So they +learned to lure the turkey within range, or by the bleat of a fawn to +bring her dam to the rifle. A well-simulated wolf's howl would call +forth a response and so inform the lone hunter of the vicinity of the +pack. This forest speech was not only the language of diplomacy in the +hunting season; it was the borderer's secret code in war. Stray Indians +put themselves in touch again with the band by turkey calls in the +daytime and by owl or wolf notes at night. The frontiersmen used the +same means to trick the Indian band into betraying the place of its +ambuscade, or to lure the strays, unwitting, within reach of the knife. + +In that age, before the forests had given place to farms and cities and +when the sun had but slight acquaintance with the sod, the summers were +cool and the winters long and cold in the Back Country. Sometimes in +September severe frosts destroyed the corn. The first light powdering +called "hunting snows" fell in October, and then the men of the Back +Country set out on the chase. Their object was meat--buffalo, deer, elk, +bear--for the winter larder, and skins to send out in the spring by +pack-horses to the coast in trade for iron, steel, and salt. The +rainfall in North Carolina was much heavier than in Virginia and, from +autumn into early winter, the Yadkin forests were sheeted with rain; but +wet weather, so far from deterring the hunter, aided him to the kill. In +blowing rain, he knew he would find the deer herding in the sheltered +places on the hillsides. In windless rain, he knew that his quarry +ranged the open woods and the high places. The fair play of the pioneer +held it a great disgrace to kill a deer in winter when the heavy frost +had crusted the deep snow. On the crust men and wolves could travel with +ease, but the deer's sharp hoofs pierced through and made him +defenseless. Wolves and dogs destroyed great quantities of deer caught +in this way; and men who shot deer under these conditions were +considered no huntsmen. There was, indeed, a practical side to this +chivalry of the chase, for meat and pelt were both poor at this season; +but the true hunter also obeyed the finer tenet of his code, for he +would go to the rescue of deer caught in the crusts--and he killed many +a wolf sliding over the ice to an easy meal. + +The community moral code of the frontier was brief and rigorous. What it +lacked of the "whereas" and "inasmuch" of legal ink it made up in sound +hickory. In fact, when we review the activities of this solid yet +elastic wood in the moral, social, and economic phases of Back Country +life, we are moved to wonder if the pioneers would have been the same +race of men had they been nurtured beneath a less strenuous and +adaptable vegetation! The hickory gave the frontiersman wood for all +implements and furnishings where the demand was equally for lightness, +strength, and elasticity. It provided his straight logs for building, +his block mortars--hollowed by fire and stone--for corn-grinding, his +solid plain furniture, his axles, rifle butts, ax handles, and so forth. +It supplied his magic wand for the searching out of iniquity in the +junior members of his household, and his most cogent argument, as a +citizen, in convincing the slothful, the blasphemous, or the dishonest +adult whose errors disturbed communal harmony. Its nuts fed his hogs. +Before he raised stock, the unripe hickory nuts, crushed for their white +liquid, supplied him with butter for his corn bread and helped out his +store of bear's fat. Both the name and the knowledge of the uses of this +tree came to the earliest pioneers through contact with the red man, +whose hunting bow and fishing spear and the hobbles for his horses were +fashioned of the "pohickory" tree. The Indian women first made pohickory +butter, and the wise old men of the Cherokee towns, so we are told, +first applied the pohickory rod to the vanity of youth! + +A glance at the interior of a log cabin in the Back Country of Virginia +or North Carolina would show, in primitive design, what is, perhaps, +after all the perfect home--a place where the personal life and the work +life are united and where nothing futile finds space. Every object in +the cabin was practical and had been made by hand on the spot to answer +a need. Besides the chairs hewn from hickory blocks, there were others +made of slabs set on three legs. A large slab or two with four legs +served as a movable table; the permanent table was built against the +wall, its outer edge held up by two sticks. The low bed was built into +the wall in the same way and softened for slumber by a mattress of pine +needles, chaff, or dried moss. In the best light from the greased paper +windowpanes stood the spinning wheel and loom, on which the housewife +made cloth for the family's garments. Over the fireplace or beside the +doorway, and suspended usually on stags' antlers, hung the firearms and +the yellow powderhorns, the latter often carved in Indian fashion with +scenes of the hunt or war. On a shelf or on pegs were the wooden spoons, +plates, bowls, and noggins. Also near the fireplace, which was made of +large flat stones with a mud-plastered log chimney, stood the grinding +block for making hominy. If it were an evening in early spring, the men +of the household would be tanning and dressing deerskins to be sent out +with the trade caravan, while the women sewed, made moccasins or mended +them, in the light of pine knots or candles of bear's grease. The larger +children might be weaving cradles for the babies, Indian fashion, out of +hickory twigs; and there would surely be a sound of whetting steel, for +scalping knives and tomahawks must be kept keen-tempered now that the +days have come when the red gods whisper their chant of war through the +young leafage. + +The Back Country folk, as they came from several countries, generally +settled in national groups, each preserving its own speech and its own +religion, each approaching frontier life through its own native +temperament. And the frontier met each and all alike, with the same need +and the same menace, and molded them after one general pattern. If the +cabin stood in a typical Virginian settlement where the folk were of +English stock, it may be that the dulcimer and some old love song of the +homeland enlivened the work--or perhaps chairs were pushed back and +young people danced the country dances of the homeland and the Virginia +Reel, for these Virginian English were merry folk, and their religion +did not frown upon the dance. In a cabin on the Shenandoah or the upper +Yadkin the German tongue clicked away over the evening dish of kraut or +sounded more sedately in a Lutheran hymn; while from some herder's hut +on the lower Yadkin the wild note of the bagpipes or of the ancient +four-stringed harp mingled with the Gaelic speech. + +Among the homes in the Shenandoah where old England's ways prevailed, +none was gayer than the tavern kept by the man whom the good Moravian +Brother called "Severe." There perhaps the feasting celebrated the +nuptials of John Sevier, who was barely past his seventeenth birthday +when he took to himself a wife. Or perhaps the dancing, in moccasined +feet on the puncheon flooring, was a ceremonial to usher into Back +Country life the new municipality John had just organized, for John at +nineteen had taken his earliest step towards his larger career, which we +shall follow later on, as the architect of the first little governments +beyond the mountains. + +In the Boone home on the Yadkin, we may guess that the talk was solely +of the hunt, unless young Daniel had already become possessed of his +first compass and was studying its ways. On such an evening, while the +red afterglow lingered, he might be mending a passing trader's firearms +by the fires of the primitive forge his father had set up near the +trading path running from Hillsborough to the Catawba towns. It was said +by the local nimrods that none could doctor a sick rifle better than +young Daniel Boone, already the master huntsman of them all. And perhaps +some trader's tale, told when the caravan halted for the night, kindled +the youth's first desire to penetrate the mountain-guarded wilderness, +for the tales of these Romanies of commerce were as the very badge of +their free-masonry, and entry money at the doors of strangers. + +Out on the border's edge, heedless of the shadow of the mountains +looming between the newly built cabin and that western land where they +and their kind were to write the fame of the Ulster Scot in a shining +script that time cannot dull, there might sit a group of stern-faced +men, all deep in discussion of some point of spiritual doctrine or of +the temporal rights of men. Yet, in every cabin, whatever the national +differences, the setting was the same. The spirit of the frontier was +modeling out of old clay a new Adam to answer the needs of a new earth. + +It would be far less than just to leave the Back Country folk without +further reference to the devoted labors of their clergy. In the earliest +days the settlers were cut off from their church systems; the pious had +to maintain their piety unaided, except in the rare cases where a pastor +accompanied a group of settlers of his denomination into the wilds. One +of the first ministers who fared into the Back Country to remind the +Ulster Presbyterians of their spiritual duties was the Reverend Hugh +McAden of Philadelphia. He made long itineraries under the greatest +hardships, in constant danger from Indians and wild beasts, carrying the +counsel of godliness to the far scattered flock. Among the Highland +settlements the Reverend James Campbell for thirty years traveled about, +preaching each Sunday at some gathering point a sermon in both English +and Gaelic. A little later, in the Yadkin Valley, after Craighead's day +there arose a small school of Presbyterian ministers whose zeal and +fearlessness in the cause of religion and of just government had an +influence on the frontiersmen that can hardly be overestimated. + +But, in the beginning, the pioneer encountered the savagery of border +life, grappled with it, and reacted to it without guidance from other +mentor than his own instincts. His need was still the primal threefold +need--family, sustenance, and safe sleep when the day's work was done. +We who look back with thoughtful eyes upon the frontiersman--all links +of contact with his racial past severed, at grips with destruction in +the contenting of his needs--see something more, something larger, than +he saw in the log cabin raised by his hands, its structure held together +solely by his close grooving and fitting of its own strength. Though the +walls he built for himself have gone with his own dust back to the +earth, the symbol he erected for us stands. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +The Trader + +The trader was the first pathfinder. His caravans began the change of +purpose that was to come to the Indian warrior's route, turning it +slowly into the beaten track of communication and commerce. The +settlers, the rangers, the surveyors, went westward over the trails +which he had blazed for them years before. Their enduring works are +commemorated in the cities and farms which today lie along every ancient +border line; but of their forerunner's hazardous Indian trade nothing +remains. Let us therefore pay a moment's homage here to the trader, who +first--to borrow a phrase from Indian speech--made white for peace the +red trails of war. + +He was the first cattleman of the Old Southwest. Fifty years before John +Findlay, ¹ one of this class of pioneers, led Daniel Boone through +Cumberland Gap, the trader's bands of horses roamed the western slopes +of the Appalachian Mountains and his cattle grazed among the deer on the +green banks of the old Cherokee (Tennessee) River. He was the pioneer +settler beyond the high hills; for he built, in the center of the Indian +towns, the first white man's cabin--with its larger annex, the trading +house--and dwelt there during the greater part of the year. He was +America's first magnate of international commerce. His furs--for which +he paid in guns, knives, ammunition, vermilion paint, mirrors, and +cloth--lined kings' mantles, and hatted the Lords of Trade as they +strode to their council chamber in London to discuss his business and to +pass those regulations which might have seriously hampered him but for +his resourcefulness in circumventing them! + +¹ The name is spelled in various ways: Findlay, Finlay, Findley. + +He was the first frontier warrior, for he either fought off or fell +before small parties of hostile Indians who, in the interest of the +Spanish or French, raided his pack-horse caravans on the march. Often, +too, side by side with the red brothers of his adoption, he fought in +the intertribal wars. His was the first educative and civilizing +influence in the Indian towns. He endeavored to cure the Indians of +their favorite midsummer madness, war, by inducing them to raise stock +and poultry and improve their corn, squash, and pea gardens. It is not +necessary to impute to him philanthropic motives. He was a practical man +and he saw that war hurt his trade: it endangered his summer caravans +and hampered the autumn hunt for deerskins. + +In the earliest days of the eighteenth century, when the colonists of +Virginia and the Carolinas were only a handful, it was the trader who +defeated each successive attempt of French and Spanish agents to weld +the tribes into a confederacy for the annihilation of the English +settlements. The English trader did his share to prevent what is now the +United States from becoming a part of a Latin empire and to save it for +a race having the Anglo-Saxon ideal and speaking the English tongue. + +The colonial records of the period contain items which, taken singly, +make small impression on the casual reader but which, listed together, +throw a strong light on the past and bring that mercenary figure, the +trader, into so bold a relief that the design verges on the heroic. If +we wonder, for instance, why the Scotch Highlanders who settled in the +wilds at the headwaters of the Cape Fear River, about 1729, and were +later followed by Welsh and Huguenots, met with no opposition from the +Indians, the mystery is solved when we discover, almost by accident, a +few printed lines which record that, in 1700, the hostile natives on the +Cape Fear were subdued to the English and brought into friendly alliance +with them by Colonel William Bull, a trader. We read further and learn +that the Spaniards in Florida had long endeavored to unite the tribes in +Spanish and French territory against the English and that the influence +of traders prevented the consummation. The Spaniards, in 1702, had +prepared to invade English territory with nine hundred Indians. The plot +was discovered by Creek Indians and disclosed to their friends, the +traders, who immediately gathered together five hundred warriors, +marched swiftly to meet the invaders, and utterly routed them. Again, +when the Indians, incited by the Spanish at St. Augustine, rose against +the English in 1715, and the Yamasi Massacre occurred in South Carolina, +it was due to the traders that some of the settlements at least were not +wholly unprepared to defend themselves. + +The early English trader was generally an intelligent man; sometimes +educated, nearly always fearless and resourceful. He knew the one sure +basis on which men of alien blood and far separated stages of moral and +intellectual development can meet in understanding--namely, the truth of +the spoken word. He recognized honor as the bond of trade and the warp +and woof of human intercourse. The uncorrupted savage also had his plain +interpretation of the true word in the mouths of men, and a name for it. +He called it the "Old Beloved Speech"; and he gave his confidence to the +man who spoke this speech even in the close barter for furs. + +We shall find it worth while to refer to the map of America as it was in +the early days of the colonial fur trade, about the beginning of the +eighteenth century. A narrow strip of loosely strung English settlements +stretched from the north border of New England to the Florida line. +North Florida was Spanish territory. On the far distant southwestern +borders of the English colonies were the southern possessions of France. +The French sphere of influence extended up the Mississippi, and thence +by way of rivers and the Great Lakes to its base in Canada on the +borders of New England and New York. In South Carolina dwelt the Yamasi +tribe of about three thousand warriors, their chief towns only sixty or +eighty miles distant from the Spanish town of St. Augustine. On the +west, about the same distance northeast of New Orleans, in what is now +Alabama and Georgia, lay the Creek nation. There French garrisons held +Mobile and Fort Alabama. The Creeks at this time numbered over four +thousand warriors. The lands of the Choctaws, a tribe of even larger +fighting strength, began two hundred miles north of New Orleans and +extended along the Mississippi. A hundred and sixty miles northeast of +the Choctaw towns were the Chickasaws, the bravest and most successful +warriors of all the tribes south of the Iroquois. The Cherokees, in part +seated within the Carolinas, on the upper courses of the Savannah River, +mustered over six thousand men at arms. East of them were the Catawba +towns. North of them were the Shawanoes and Delawares, in easy +communication with the tribes of Canada. Still farther north, along the +Mohawk and other rivers joining with the Hudson and Lake Ontario stood +the "long houses" of the fiercest and most warlike of all the savages, +the Iroquois or Six Nations. + +The Indians along the English borders outnumbered the colonists perhaps +ten to one. If the Spanish and the French had succeeded in the +conspiracy to unite on their side all the tribes, a red billow of +tomahawk wielders would have engulfed and extinguished the English +settlements. The French, it is true, made allies of the Shawanoes, the +Delawares, the Choctaws, and a strong faction of the Creeks; and they +finally won over the Cherokees after courting them for more than twenty +years. But the Creeks in part, the powerful Chickasaws, and the Iroquois +Confederacy, or Six Nations, remained loyal to the English. In both +North and South it was the influence of the traders that kept these red +tribes on the English side. The Iroquois were held loyal by Sir William +Johnson and his deputy, George Croghan, the "King of Traders." The +Chickasaws followed their "best-beloved" trader, James Adair; and among +the Creeks another trader, Lachlan McGillivray, wielded a potent +influence. + +Lachlan McGillivray was a Highlander. He landed in Charleston in 1735 at +the age of sixteen and presently joined a trader's caravan as pack-horse +boy. A few years later he married a woman of the Creeks. On many +occasions he defeated French and Spanish plots with the Creeks for the +extermination of the colonists in Georgia and South Carolina. His action +in the final war with the French (1760), when the Indian terror was +raging, is typical. News came that four thousand Creek warriors, +reinforced by French Choctaws, were about to fall on the southern +settlements. At the risk of their lives, McGillivray and another trader +named Galphin hurried from Charleston to their trading house on the +Georgia frontier. Thither they invited several hundred Creek warriors, +feasted and housed them for several days, and finally won them from +their purpose. McGillivray had a brilliant son, Alexander, who about +this time became a chief in his mother's nation--perhaps on this very +occasion, as it was an Indian custom, in making a brotherhood pact, to +send a son to dwell in the brother's house. We shall meet that son again +as the Chief of the Creeks and the terrible scourge of Georgia and +Tennessee in the dark days of the Revolutionary War. + +The bold deeds of the early traders, if all were to be told, would +require a book as long as the huge volume written by James Adair, the +"English Chickasaw." Adair was an Englishman who entered the Indian +trade in 1785 and launched upon the long and dangerous trail from +Charleston to the upper towns of the Cherokees, situated in the present +Monroe County, Tennessee. Thus he was one of the earliest pioneers of +the Old Southwest; and he was Tennessee's first author. "I am well +acquainted," he says, "with near two thousand miles of the American +continent"--a statement which gives one some idea of an early trader's +enterprise, hardihood, and peril. Adair's "two thousand miles" were +twisting Indian trails and paths he slashed out for himself through +uninhabited wilds, for when not engaged in trade, hunting, literature, +or war, it pleased him to make solitary trips of exploration. These seem +to have led him chiefly northward through the Appalachians, of which he +must have been one of the first white explorers. + +A many-sided man was James Adair--cultured, for his style suffers not by +comparison with other writers of his day, no stranger to Latin and +Greek, and not ignorant of Hebrew, which he studied to assist him in +setting forth his ethnological theory that the American Indians were the +descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Before we dismiss his +theory with a smile, let us remember that he had not at his disposal the +data now available which reveal points of likeness in custom, language +formation, and symbolism among almost all primitive peoples. The +formidable title-page of his book in itself suggests an author keenly +observant, accurate as to detail, and possessed of a versatile and +substantial mind. Most of the pages were written in the towns of the +Chickasaws, with whom he lived "as a friend and brother," but from whose +"natural jealousy" and "prying disposition" he was obliged to conceal +his papers. "Never," he assures us, "was a literary work begun and +carried on with more disadvantages!" + +Despite these disabilities the author wrote a book of absorbing +interest. His intimate sympathetic pictures of Indian life as it was +before the tribes had been conquered are richly valuable to the lover of +native lore and to the student of the history of white settlement. The +author believes, as he must, in the supremacy of his own race, but he +nevertheless presents the Indians' side of the argument as no man could +who had not made himself one of them. He thereby adds interest to those +fierce struggles which took place along the border; for he shows us the +red warrior not as a mere brute with a tomahawk but as a human creature +with an ideal of his own, albeit an ideal that must give place to a +better. Even in view of the red man's hideous methods of battle and +inhuman treatment of captives, we cannot ponder unmoved Adair's +description of his preparations for war--the fasting, the abstention +from all family intercourse, and the purification rites and prayers for +three days in the house set apart, while the women, who might not come +close to their men in this fateful hour, stood throughout the night till +dawn chanting before the door. Another poetic touch the author gives us, +from the Cherokee--or Cheerake as he spells it--explaining that the +root, chee-ra, means fire. A Cherokee never extinguished fire save on +the occasion of a death, when he thrust a burning torch into the water +and said, Neetah intahah--"the days appointed him were finished." The +warrior slain in battle was held to have been balanced by death and it +was said of him that "he was weighed on the path and made light." Adair +writes that the Cherokees, until corrupted by French agents and by the +later class of traders who poured rum among them like water, were +honest, industrious, and friendly. They were ready to meet the white man +with their customary phrase of good will: "I shall firmly shake hands +with your speech." He was intimately associated with this tribe from +1735 to 1744, when he diverted his activities to the Chickasaws. + +It was from the Cherokees' chief town, Great Telliko, in the +Appalachians, that Adair explored the mountains. He describes the pass +through the chain which was used by the Indians and which, from his +outline of it, was probably the Cumberland Gap. He relates many +incidents of the struggle with the French--manifestations even in this +remote wilderness of the vast conflict that was being waged for the New +World by two imperial nations of the Old. + +Adair undertook, at the solicitation of Governor Glen of South Carolina, +the dangerous task of opening up trade with the Choctaws, a tribe +mustering upwards of five thousand warriors who were wholly in the +French interest. Their country lay in what is now the State of +Mississippi along the great river, some seven hundred miles west and +southwest of Charleston. After passing the friendly Creek towns the +trail led on for 150 miles through what was practically the enemy's +country. Adair, owing to what he likes to term his "usual good fortune," +reached the Choctaw country safely and by his adroitness and substantial +presents won the friendship of the influential chief, Red Shoe, whom he +found in a receptive mood, owing to a French agent's breach of +hospitality involving Red Shoe's favorite wife. Adair thus created a +large pro-English faction among the Choctaws, and his success seriously +impaired French prestige with all the southwestern tribes. Several times +French Choctaws bribed to murder him, waylaid Adair on the trail--twice +when he was alone--only to be baffled by the imperturbable +self-possession and alert wit which never failed him in emergencies. + +Winning a Choctaw trade cost Adair, besides attacks on his life, £2200, +for which he was never reimbursed, notwithstanding Governor Glen's +agreement with him. And, on his return to Charleston, while the Governor +was detaining him "on one pretext or another," he found that a new +expedition, which the Governor was favoring for reasons of his own, had +set out to capture his Chickasaw trade and gather in "the expected great +crop of deerskins and beaver... before I could possibly return to the +Chikkasah Country." Nothing daunted, however, the hardy trader set out +alone. + +In the severity of winter, frost, snow, hail and heavy rains succeed +each other in these climes, so that I partly rode and partly swam to the +Chikkasah country; for not expecting to stay long below [in Charleston] +I took no leathern canoe. Many of the broad, deep creeks... had now +overflowed their banks, ran at a rapid rate and were unpassable to any +but desperate people:... the rivers and swamps were dreadful by rafts of +timber driving down the former and the great fallen trees floating in +the latter.... Being forced to wade deep through cane swamps or woody +thickets, it proved very troublesome to keep my firearms dry on which, +as a second means, my life depended. + +Nevertheless Adair defeated the Governor's attempt to steal his trade, +and later on published the whole story in the Charleston press and sent +in a statement of his claims to the Assembly, with frank observations on +His Excellency himself. We gather that his bold disregard of High +Personages set all Charleston in an uproar! + +Adair is tantalizingly modest about his own deeds. He devotes pages to +prove that an Indian rite agrees with the Book of Leviticus but only a +paragraph to an exploit of courage and endurance such as that ride and +swim for the Indian trade. We have to read between the lines to find the +man; but he well repays the search. Briefly, incidentally, he mentions +that on one trip he was captured by the French, who were so, + +well acquainted with the great damages I had done to them and feared +others I might occasion, as to confine me a close prisoner... in the +Alebahma garrison. They were fully resolved to have sent me down to +Mobile or New Orleans as a capital criminal to be hanged... but I +doubted not of being able to extricate myself some way or other. They +appointed double centries over me for some days before I was to be sent +down in the French King's large boat. They were strongly charged against +laying down their weapons or suffering any hostile thing to be in the +place where I was kept, as they deemed me capable of any mischief.... +About an hour before we were to set off by water I escaped from them by +land.... I took through the middle of the low land covered with briers +at full speed. I heard the French clattering on horseback along the +path... and the howling savages pursuing..., but my usual good fortune +enabled me to leave them far enough behind.... + +One feels that a few of the pages given up to Leviticus might well have +been devoted to a detailed account of this escape from "double centries" +and a fortified garrison, and the plunge through the tangled wilds, by a +man without gun or knife or supplies, and who for days dared not show +himself upon the trail. + +There is too much of "my usual good fortune" in Adair's narrative; such +luck as his argues for extraordinary resources in the man. Sometimes we +discover only through one phrase on a page that he must himself have +been the hero of an event he relates in the third person. This seems to +be the case in the affair of Priber, which was the worst of those +"damages" Adair did to the French. Priber was "a gentleman of curious +and speculative temper" sent by the French in 1736 to Great Telliko to +win the Cherokees to their interest. At this time Adair was trading with +the Cherokees. He relates that Priber, + +more effectually to answer the design of his commission... ate, drank, +slept, danced, dressed, and painted himself with the Indians, so that it +was not easy to distinguish him from the natives,--he married also with +them, and being endued with a strong understanding and retentive memory +he soon learned their dialect, and by gradual advances impressed them +with a very ill opinion of the English, representing them as fraudulent, +avaritious and encroaching people; he at the same time inflated the +artless savages with a prodigious high opinion of their own importance +in the American scale of power.... Having thus infected them... he +easily formed them into a nominal republican government--crowned their +old Archi-magus emperor after a pleasing new savage form, and invented a +variety of high-sounding titles for all the members of his imperial +majesty's red court. + +Priber cemented the Cherokee empire "by slow but sure degrees to the +very great danger of our southern colonies." His position was that of +Secretary of State and as such, with a studiedly provocative arrogance, +he carried on correspondence with the British authorities. The colonial +Government seems, on this occasion, to have listened to the traders and +to have realized that Priber was a danger, for soldiers were sent to +take him prisoner. The Cherokees, however, had so firmly "shaked hands" +with their Secretary's admired discourse that they threatened to take +the warpath if their beloved man were annoyed, and the soldiers went +home without him--to the great hurt of English prestige. The Cherokee +empire had now endured for five years and was about to rise "into a far +greater state of puissance by the acquisition of the Muskohge, Chocktaw +and the Western Mississippi Indians," when fortunately for the history +of British colonization in America, "an accident befell the Secretary." + +It is in connection with this "accident" that the reader suspects the +modest but resourceful Adair of conniving with Fate. Since the military +had failed and the Government dared not again employ force, other means +must be found; the trader provided them. The Secretary with his Cherokee +bodyguard journeyed south on his mission to the Creeks. Secure, as he +supposed, he lodged overnight in an Indian town. But there a company of +English traders took him into custody, along with his bundle of +manuscripts presumably intended for the French commandant at Fort +Alabama, and handed him over to the Governor of Georgia, who imprisoned +him and kept him out of mischief till he died. + +As a Briton, Adair contributed to Priber's fate; and as such he approves +it. As a scholar with philosophical and ethnological leanings, however, +he deplores it, and hopes that Priber's valuable manuscripts may "escape +the despoiling hands of military power." Priber had spent his leisure in +compiling a Cherokee dictionary; Adair's occupation, while domiciled in +his winter house in Great Telliko, was the writing of his Indian +Appendix to the Pentateuch. As became brothers in science, they had +exchanged notes, so we gather from Adair's references to conversations +and correspondence. Adair's difficulties as an author, however, had been +increased by a treacherous lapse from professional etiquette on the part +of the Secretary: "He told them [the Indians] that in the very same +manner as he was their great Secretary, I was the devil's clerk, or an +accursed one who marked on paper the bad speech of the evil ones of +darkness." On his own part Adair admits that his object in this +correspondence was to trap the Secretary into something more serious +than literary errata. That is, he admits it by implication; he says the +Secretary "feared" it. During the years of their duel, Adair apparently +knew that the scholarly compiler of the Cherokee dictionary was secretly +inciting members of this particular Lost Tribe to tomahawk the +discoverer of their biblical origin; and Priber, it would seem, knew +that he knew! + +Adair shows, inferentially, that land encroachment was not the sole +cause of those Indian wars with which we shall deal in a later chapter. +The earliest causes were the instigations of the French and the rewards +which they offered for English scalps. But equally provocative of Indian +rancor were the acts of sometimes merely stupid, sometimes dishonest, +officials; the worst of these, Adair considered, was the cheapening of +the trade through the granting of general licenses. + +Formerly each trader had a license for two [Indian] towns.... At my +first setting out among them, a number of traders... journeyed through +our various nations in different companies and were generally men of +worth; of course they would have a living price for their goods, which +they carried on horseback to the remote Indian countries at very great +expences.... [The Indians] were kept under proper restraint, were easy +in their minds and peaceable on account of the plain, honest lessons +daily inculcated on them... but according to the present unwise plan, +two and even three Arablike peddlars sculk about in one of those +villages... who are generally the dregs and offs-courings of our +climes... by inebriating the Indians with their nominally prohibited and +poisoning spirits, they purchase the necessaries of life at four and +five hundred per cent cheaper than the orderly traders.... Instead of +showing good examples of moral conduct, beside the other part of life, +they instruct the unknowing and imitating savages in many diabolical +lessons of obscenity and blasphemy. + +In these statements, contemporary records bear him out. There is no +sadder reading than the many pleas addressed by the Indian chiefs to +various officials to stop the importation of liquor into their country, +alleging the debauchment of their young men and warning the white man, +with whom they desired to be friends, that in an Indian drink and blood +lust quickly combined. + +Adair's book was published in London in 1775. He wrote it to be read by +Englishmen as well as Americans; and some of his reflections on liberty, +justice, and Anglo-Saxon unity would not sound unworthily today. His +sympathies were with "the principles of our Magna Charta Americana"; but +he thought the threatened division of the English-speaking peoples the +greatest evil that could befall civilization. His voluminous work +discloses a man not only of wide mental outlook but a practical man with +a sense of commercial values. Yet, instead of making a career for +himself among his own caste, he made his home for over thirty years in +the Chickasaw towns; and it is plain that, with the exception of some of +his older brother traders, he preferred the Chickasaw to any other +society. + +The complete explanation of such men as Adair we need not expect to find +stated anywhere--not even in and between the lines of his book. The +conventionalist would seek it in moral obliquity; the radical, in a +temperament that is irked by the superficialities that comprise so large +a part of conventional standards. The reason for his being what he was +is almost the only thing Adair did not analyze in his book. Perhaps, to +him, it was self evident. We may let it be so to us, and see it most +clearly presented in a picture composed from some of his brief sketches: +A land of grass and green shade inset with bright waters, where deer and +domestic cattle herded together along the banks; a circling group of +houses, their white-clayed walls sparkling under the sun's rays, and, +within and without, the movement of "a friendly and sagacious people," +who "kindly treated and watchfully guarded" their white brother in peace +and war, and who conversed daily with him in the Old Beloved Speech +learned first of Nature. "Like towers in cities beyond the common size +of those of the Indians" rose the winter and summer houses and the huge +trading house which the tribe had built for their best beloved friend in +the town's center, because there he would be safest from attack. On the +rafters hung the smoked and barbecued delicacies taken in the hunt and +prepared for him by his red servants, who were also his comrades at home +and on the dangerous trail. "Beloved old women" kept an eye on his small +sons, put to drowse on panther skins so that they might grow up brave +warriors. Nothing was there of artifice or pretense, only "the needful +things to make a reasonable life happy." All was as primitive, naive, +and contented as the woman whose outline is given once in a few strokes, +proudly and gayly penciled: "I have the pleasure of writing this by the +side of a Chikkasah female, as great a princess as ever lived among the +ancient Peruvians or Mexicans, and she bids me be sure not to mark the +paper wrong after the manner of most of the traders; otherwise it will +spoil the making good bread or homony!" + +His final chapter is the last news of James Adair, type of the earliest +trader. Did his bold attacks on corrupt officials and rum peddlers--made +publicly before Assemblies and in print--raise for him a dense cloud of +enmity that dropped oblivion on his memory? Perhaps. But, in truth, his +own book is all the history of him we need. It is the record of a man. +He lived a full life and served his day; and it matters not that a mist +envelops the place where unafraid he met the Last Enemy, was "weighed on +the path and made light." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +The Passing Of The French Peril + +The great pile of the Appalachian peaks was not the only barrier which +held back the settler with his plough and his rifle from following the +trader's tinkling caravans into the valleys beyond. Over the hills the +French were lords of the land. The frontiersman had already felt their +enmity through the torch and tomahawk of their savage allies. By his own +strength alone he could not cope with the power entrenched beyond the +hills; so he halted. But that power, by its unachievable desire to be +overlord of two hemispheres, was itself to precipitate events which +would open the westward road. + +The recurring hour in the cycle of history, when the issue of Autocracy +against Democracy cleaves the world, struck for the men of the +eighteenth century as the second half of that century dawned. In our own +day, happily, that issue has been perceived by the rank and file of the +people. In those darker days, as France and England grappled in that +conflict of systems which culminated in the Seven Years' War, the +fundamental principles at stake were clear to only a handful of thinking +men. + +But abstractions, whether clear or obscure, do not cause ambassadors to +demand their passports. The declaration of war awaits the overt act. +Behold, then, how great a matter is kindled by a little fire! The casus +belli between France and England in the Seven Years' War--the war which +humbled France in Europe and lost her India and Canada--had to do with a +small log fort built by a few Virginians in 1754 at the Forks of the +Ohio River and wrested from them in the same year by a company of +Frenchmen from Canada. + +The French claimed the valley of the Ohio as their territory; the +English claimed it as theirs. The dispute was of long standing. The +French claim was based on discovery; the English claim, on the +sea-to-sea charters of Virginia and other colonies and on treaties with +the Six Nations. The French refused to admit the right of the Six +Nations to dispose of the territory. The English were inclined to +maintain the validity of their treaties with the Indians. Especially was +Virginia so inclined, for a large share of the Ohio lay within her +chartered domain. + +The quarrel had entered its acute phase in 1749, when both the rival +claimants took action to assert their sovereignty. The Governor of +Canada sent an envoy, Céloron de Blainville, with soldiers, to take +formal possession of the Ohio for the King of France. In the same year +the English organized in Virginia the Ohio Company for the colonization +of the same country; and summoned Christopher Gist, explorer, trader, +and guide, from his home on the Yadkin and dispatched him to survey the +land. + +Then appeared on the scene that extraordinary man, Robert Dinwiddie, +Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, erstwhile citizen of Glasgow. His +correspondence from Virginia during his seven years' tenure of office +(1751-58) depicts the man with a vividness surpassing paint. He was as +honest as the day--as honest as he was fearless and fussy. But he had no +patience; he wanted things done and done at once, and his way was the +way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't think at +all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course +continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie +had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his addresses, +perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, bristled with +satirical thrusts at his opponents. If he had spelled out in full all +the words he was so eager to write, he would have been obliged to lessen +his output; so he used a shorthand system of his own, peculiar enough to +be remarkable even though abbreviations were the rule in that day. Even +the dignity of Kings he sacrificed to speed, and we find "His Majesty" +abbreviated to "H M'y"; yet a smaller luminary known as "His Honor" +fares better, losing only the last letter--"His Hono." "Ho." stands for +"house" and "yt" for "that," "what," "it," and "anything else," as +convenient. Many of his letters wind up with "I am ve'y much fatig'd." +We know that he must have been! + +It was a formidable task that confronted Dinwiddie--to possess and +defend the Ohio. Christopher Gist returned in 1751, having surveyed the +valley for the Ohio Company as far as the Scioto and Miami rivers, and +in the following year the survey was ratified by the Indians. The +Company's men were busy blazing trails through the territory and +building fortified posts. But the French dominated the territory. They +had built and occupied with troops Fort Le Bœuf on French Creek, a +stream flowing into the Allegheny. We may imagine Dinwiddie's rage at +this violation of British soil by French soldiers and how he must have +sputtered to the young George Washington, when he summoned that officer +and made him the bearer of a letter to the French commander at Fort Le +Bœuf, to demand that French troops be at once withdrawn from the Ohio. + +Washington made the journey to Fort Le Bœuf in December, 1753, but the +mission of course proved fruitless. Dinwiddie then wrote to London +urging that a force be sent over to help the colonies maintain their +rights and, under orders from the Crown, suggested by himself, he wrote +to the governors of all the other colonies to join with Virginia in +raising troops to settle the ownership of the disputed territory. From +Governor Dobbs of North Carolina he received an immediate response. By +means of logic, sarcasm, and the entire force of his prerogatives, +Dinwiddie secured from his own balking Assembly £10,000 with which to +raise troops. From Maryland he obtained nothing. There were three +prominent Marylanders in the Ohio Company, but--or because of this--the +Maryland Assembly voted down the measure for a military appropriation. +On June 18, 1754, Dinwiddie wrote, with unusually full spelling for him: + +I am perswaded had His Majesty's Com'ds to the other Colonies been duely +obey'd, and the necessary Assistance given by them, the Fr. wou'd have +long ago have been oblig'd entirely to have evacuated their usurp'd +Possession of the King's Lands, instead of w'ch they are daily becoming +more formidable, whilst every Gov't except No. Caro. has amus'd me with +Expectations that have proved fruitless, and at length refuse to give +any Supply, unless in such a manner as must render it ineffectual. + +This saddened mood with its deliberate penmanship did not last long. +Presently Dinwiddie was making a Round Robin of himself in another +series of letters to Governors, Councilors, and Assemblymen, frantically +beseeching them for "H. M'y's hono." and their own, and, if not, for +"post'r'ty," to rise against the cruel French whose Indians were +harrying the borders again and "Basely, like Virmin, stealing and +carrying off the helpless infant"--as nice a simile, by the way, as any +Sheridan ever put into the mouth of Mrs. Malaprop. + +Dinwiddie saw his desires thwarted on every hand by the selfish spirit +of localism and jealousy which was more rife in America in those days +than it is today. Though the phrase "capitalistic war" had not yet been +coined, the great issues of English civilization on this continent were +befogged, for the majority in the colonies, by the trivial fact that the +shareholders in the Ohio Company stood to win by a vigorous prosecution +of the war and to lose if it were not prosecuted at all. The irascible +Governor, however, proceeded with such men and means as he could obtain. + +And now in the summer of 1754 came the "overt act" which precipitated +the inevitable war. The key to the valley of the Ohio was the tongue of +land at the Forks, where the Allegheny and the Monongahela join their +waters in the Beautiful River. This site--today Pittsburgh--if occupied +and held by either nation would give that nation the command of the +Ohio. Occupied it was for a brief hour by a small party of Virginians, +under Captain William Trent; but no sooner had they erected on the spot +a crude fort than the French descended upon them. What happened then all +the world knows: how the French built on the captured site their great +Fort Duquesne; how George Washington with an armed force, sent by +Dinwiddie to recapture the place, encountered French and Indians at +Great Meadows and built Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to +surrender; how in the next year (1755) General Braddock arrived from +across the sea and set out to take Fort Duquesne, only to meet on the +way the disaster called "Braddock's Defeat"; and how, before another +year had passed, the Seven Years' War was raging in Europe, and England +was allied with the enemies of France. + +From the midst of the debacle of Braddock's defeat rises the figure of +the young Washington. Twenty-three he was then, tall and spare and +hardbodied from a life spent largely in the open. When Braddock fell, +this Washington appeared. Reckless of the enemy's bullets, which spanged +about him and pierced his clothes, he dashed up and down the lines in an +effort to rally the panic-stricken redcoats. He was too late to save the +day, but not to save a remnant of the army and bring out his own +Virginians in good order. Whether among the stay-at-homes and voters of +credits there were some who would have ascribed Washington's conduct on +that day to the fact that his brothers were large shareholders in the +Ohio Company and that Fort Duquesne was their personal property or +"private interest," history does not say. We may suppose so. + +North Carolina, the one colony which had not "amus'd" the Governor of +Virginia "with Expectations that proved fruitless," had voted £12,000 +for the war and had raised two companies of troops. One of these, under +Edward Brice Dobbs, son of Governor Dobbs, marched with Braddock; and in +that company as wagoner went Daniel Boone, then in his twenty-second +year. Of Boone's part in Braddock's campaign nothing more is recorded +save that on the march he made friends with John Findlay, the trader, +his future guide into Kentucky; and that, on the day of the defeat, when +his wagons were surrounded, he escaped by slashing the harness, leaping +on the back of one of his horses, and dashing into the forest. + +Meanwhile the southern tribes along the border were comparatively quiet. +That they well knew a colossal struggle between the two white races was +pending and were predisposed to ally themselves with the stronger is not +to be doubted. French influence had long been sifting through the +formidable Cherokee nation, which still, however, held true in the main +to its treaties with the English. It was the policy of the Governors of +Virginia and North Carolina to induce the Cherokees to enter strongly +into the war as allies of the English. Their efforts came to nothing +chiefly because of the purely local and suicidal Indian policy of +Governor Glen of South Carolina. There had been some dispute between +Glen and Dinwiddie as to the right of Virginia to trade with the +Cherokees; and Glen had sent to the tribes letters calculated to sow +distrust of all other aspirants for Indian favor, even promising that +certain settlers in the Back Country of North Carolina should be removed +and their holdings restored to the Indians. These letters caused great +indignation in North Carolina, when they came to light, and had the +worst possible effect upon Indian relations. The Indians now inclined +their ear to the French who, though fewer than the English, were at +least united in purpose. + +Governor Glen took this inauspicious moment to hold high festival with +the Cherokees. It was the last year of his administration and apparently +he hoped to win promotion to some higher post by showing his +achievements for the fur trade and in the matter of new land acquired. +He plied the Cherokees with drink and induced them to make formal +submission and to cede all their lands to the Crown. When the chiefs +recovered their sobriety, they were filled with rage at what had been +done, and they remembered how the French had told them that the English +intended to make slaves of all the Indians and to steal their lands. The +situation was complicated by another incident. Several Cherokee warriors +returning from the Ohio, whither they had gone to fight for the British, +were slain by frontiersmen. The tribe, in accordance with existing +agreements, applied to Virginia for redress--but received none. + +There was thus plenty of powder for an explosion. Governor Lyttleton, +Glen's successor, at last flung the torch into the magazine. He seized, +as hostages, a number of friendly chiefs who were coming to Charleston +to offer tokens of good will and forced them to march under guard on a +military tour which the Governor was making (1759) with intent to +overawe the savages. When this expedition reached Prince George, on the +upper waters of the Savannah, the Indian hostages were confined within +the fort; and the Governor, satisfied with the result of his maneuver +departed south for Charleston. Then followed a tragedy. Some Indian +friends of the imprisoned chiefs attacked the fort, and the commander, a +popular young officer, was treacherously killed during a parley. The +infuriated frontiersmen within the fort fell upon the hostages and slew +them all--twenty-six chiefs--and the Indian war was on. + +If all were to be told of the struggle which followed in the Back +Country, the story could not be contained in this book. Many brave and +resourceful men went out against the savages. We can afford only a +passing glance at one of them. Hugh Waddell of North Carolina was the +most brilliant of all the frontier fighters in that war. He was a young +Ulsterman from County Down, a born soldier, with a special genius for +fighting Indians, although he did not grow up on the border, for he +arrived in North Carolina in 1753, at the age of nineteen. He was +appointed by Governor Dobbs to command the second company which North +Carolina had raised for the war, a force of 450 rangers to protect the +border counties; and he presently became the most conspicuous military +figure in the colony. As to his personality, we have only a few meager +details, with a portrait that suggests plainly enough those qualities of +boldness and craft which characterized his tactics. Governor Dobbs +appears to have had a special love towards Hugh, whose family he had +known in Ireland, for an undercurrent of almost fatherly pride is to be +found in the old Governor's reports to the Assembly concerning Waddell's +exploits. + +The terror raged for nearly three years. Cabins and fields were burned, +and women and children were slaughtered or dragged away captives. Not +only did immigration cease but many hardy settlers fled from the +country. At length, after horrors indescribable and great toll of life, +the Cherokees gave up the struggle. Their towns were invaded and laid +waste by imperial and colonial troops, and they could do nothing but +make peace. In 1761 they signed a treaty with the English to hold "while +rivers flow and grasses grow and sun and moon endure." + +In the previous year (1760) the imperial war had run its course in +America. New France lay prostrate, and the English were supreme not only +on the Ohio but on the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. Louisbourg, +Quebec, Montreal, Oswego, Niagara, Duquesne, Detroit--all were in +English hands. + +Hugh Waddell and his rangers, besides serving with distinction in the +Indian war, had taken part in the capture of Fort Duquesne. This feat +had been accomplished in 1758 by an expedition under General Forbes. The +troops made a terrible march over a new route, cutting a road as they +went. It was November when they approached their objective. The wastes +of snow and their diminished supplies caused such depression among the +men that the officers called a halt to discuss whether or not to proceed +toward Fort Duquesne, where they believed the French to be concentrated +in force. Extravagant sums in guineas were named as suitable reward for +any man who would stalk and catch a French Indian and learn from him the +real conditions inside the fort. The honor, if not the guineas, fell to +John Rogers, one of Waddell's rangers. From the Indian it was learned +that the French had already gone, leaving behind only a few of their +number. As the English drew near, they found that the garrison had blown +up the magazine, set fire to the fort, and made off. + +Thus, while New France was already tottering, but nearly two years +before the final capitulation at Montreal, the English again became +masters of the Ohio Company's land--masters of the Forks of the Ohio. +This time they were there to stay. Where the walls of Fort Duquesne had +crumbled in the fire Fort Pitt was to rise, proudly bearing the name of +England's Great Commoner who had directed English arms to victory on +three continents. + +With France expelled and the Indians deprived of their white allies, the +westward path lay open to the pioneers, even though the red man himself +would rise again and again in vain endeavor to bar the way. So a new era +begins, the era of exploration for definite purpose, the era of +commonwealth building. In entering on it, we part with the earliest +pioneer--the trader, who first opened the road for both the lone home +seeker and the great land company. He dwindles now to the mere barterer +and so--save for a few chance glimpses--slips out of sight, for his +brave days as Imperial Scout are done. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Boone, The Wanderer + +What thoughts filled Daniel Boone's mind as he was returning from +Braddock's disastrous campaign in 1755 we may only conjecture. Perhaps +he was planning a career of soldiering, for in later years he was to +distinguish himself as a frontier commander in both defense and attack. +Or it may be that his heart was full of the wondrous tales told him by +the trader, John Findlay, of that Hunter's Canaan, Kentucky, where +buffalo and deer roamed in thousands. Perhaps he meant to set out ere +long in search of the great adventure of his dreams, despite the +terrible dangers of trail making across the zones of war into the +unknown. + +However that may be, Boone straightway followed neither of these +possible plans on his return to the Yadkin but halted for a different +adventure. There, a rifle shot's distance from his threshold, was +offered him the oldest and sweetest of all hazards to the daring. He was +twenty-two, strong and comely and a whole man; and therefore he was in +no mind to refuse what life held out to him in the person of Rebecca +Bryan. Rebecca was the daughter of Joseph Bryan, who had come to the +Yadkin from Pennsylvania some time before the Boones; and she was in her +seventeenth year. + +Writers of an earlier and more sentimental period than ours have +endeavored to supply, from the saccharine stores of their fancy, the +romantic episodes connected with Boone's wooing which history has +omitted to record. Hence the tale that the young hunter, walking abroad +in the spring gloaming, saw Mistress Rebecca's large dark eyes shining +in the dusk of the forest, mistook them for a deer's eyes and shot--his +aim on this occasion fortunately being bad! But if Boone's rifle was +missing its mark at ten paces, Cupid's dart was speeding home. So runs +the story concocted a hundred years later by some gentle scribe ignorant +alike of game seasons, the habits of hunters, and the way of a man with +a maid in a primitive world. + +Daniel and Rebecca were married in the spring of 1756. Squire Boone, in +his capacity as justice of the peace, tied the knot; and in a smallcabin +built upon his spacious lands the young couple set up housekeeping. Here +Daniel's first two sons were born. In the third year of his marriage, +when the second child was a babe in arms, Daniel removed with his wife +and their young and precious family to Culpeper County in eastern +Virginia, for the border was going through its darkest days of the +French and Indian War. During the next two or three years we find him in +Virginia engaged as a wagoner, hauling tobacco in season; but back on +the border with his rifle, after the harvest, aiding in defense against +the Indians. In 1759 he purchased from his father a lot on Sugar Tree +Creek, a tributary of Dutchman's Creek (Davie County, North Carolina) +and built thereon a cabin for himself. The date when he brought his wife +and children to live in their new abode on the border is not recorded. +It was probably some time after the close of the Indian War. Of Boone +himself during these years we have but scant information. We hear of him +again in Virginia and also as a member of the pack-horse caravan which +brought into the Back Country the various necessaries for the settlers. +We know, too, that in the fall of 1760 he was on a lone hunting trip in +the mountains west of the Yadkin; for until a few years ago there might +be seen, still standing on the banks of Boone's Creek (a small tributary +of the Watauga) in eastern Tennessee, a tree bearing the legend, "D Boon +cilled A BAR on this tree 1760." Boone was always fond of carving his +exploits on trees, and his wanderings have been traced largely by his +arboreal publications. In the next year (1761) he went with Waddell's +rangers when they marched with the army to the final subjugation of the +Cherokee. + +That Boone and his family were back on the border in the new cabin +shortly after the end of the war, we gather from the fact that in 1764 +he took his little son James, aged seven, on one of his long hunting +excursions. From this time dates the intimate comradeship of father and +son through all the perils of the wilderness, a comradeship to come to +its tragic end ten years later when, as we shall see, the +seventeen-year-old lad fell under the red man's tomahawk as his father +was leading the first settlers towards Kentucky. In the cold nights of +the open camp, as Daniel and James lay under the frosty stars, the +father kept the boy warm snuggled to his breast under the broad flap of +his hunting shirt. Sometimes the two were away from home for months +together, and Daniel declared little James to be as good a woodsman as +his father. + +Meanwhile fascinating accounts of the new land of Florida, ceded to +Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, had leaked into the Back +Country; and in the winter of 1765 Boone set off southward on horseback +with seven companions. Colonel James Grant, with whose army Boone had +fought in 1761, had been appointed Governor of the new colony and was +offering generous inducements to settlers. The party traveled along the +borders of South Carolina and Georgia. No doubt they made the greater +part of their way over the old Traders' Trace, the "whitened" warpath; +and they suffered severe hardships. Game became scarcer as they +proceeded. Once they were nigh to perishing of starvation and were saved +from that fate only through chance meeting with a band of Indians who, +seeing their plight, made camp and shared their food with +them--according to the Indian code in time of peace. + +Boone's party explored Florida from St. Augustine to Pensacola, and +Daniel became sufficiently enamored of the tropical south to purchase +there land and a house. His wife, however, was unwilling to go to +Florida, and she was not long in convincing the hunter that he would +soon tire of a gameless country. A gameless country! Perhaps this was +the very thought which turned the wanderer's desires again towards the +land of Kentucky. ¹ The silencing of the enemy's whisper in the Cherokee +camps had opened the border forests once more to the nomadic rifleman. +Boone was not alone in the desire to seek out what lay beyond. His +brother-in-law, John Stewart, and a nephew by marriage, Benjamin +Cutbirth, or Cutbird, with two other young men, John Baker and James +Ward, in 1766 crossed the Appalachian Mountains, probably by stumbling +upon the Indian trail winding from base to summit and from peak to base +again over this part of the great hill barrier. They eventually reached +the Mississippi River and, having taken a good quantity of peltry on the +way, they launched upon the stream and came in time to New Orleans, +where they made a satisfactory trade of their furs. + +¹ Kentucky, from Ken-ta-ke, an Iroquois word meaning "the place of old +fields." Adair calls the territory "the old fields." The Indians +apparently used the word "old," as we do, in a sense of endearment and +possession as well as relative to age. + +Boone was fired anew by descriptions of this successful feat, in which +two of his kinsmen had participated. He could no longer be held back. He +must find the magic door that led through the vast mountain wall into +Kentucky--Kentucky, with its green prairies where the buffalo and deer +were as "ten thousand thousand cattle feeding" in the wilds, and where +the balmy air vibrated with the music of innumerable wings. + +Accordingly, in the autumn of 1767, Boone began his quest of the +delectable country in the company of his friend, William Hill, who had +been with him in Florida. Autumn was the season of departure on all +forest excursions, because by that time the summer crops had been +gathered in and the day of the deer had come. By hunting, the explorers +must feed themselves on their travels and with deerskins and furs they +must on their return recompense those who had supplied their outfit. +Boone, the incessant but not always lucky wanderer, was in these years +ever in debt for an outfit. + +Boone and Hill made their way over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies +and crossed the Holston and Clinch rivers. Then they came upon the west +fork of the Big Sandy and, believing that it would lead them to the +Ohio, they continued for at least a hundred miles to the westward. Here +they found a buffalo trace, one of the many beaten out by the herds in +their passage to the salt springs, and they followed it into what is now +Floyd County in eastern Kentucky. But this was not the prairie land +described by Findlay; it was rough and hilly and so overgrown with +laurel as to be almost impenetrable. They therefore wended their way +back towards the river, doubtless erected the usual hunter's camp of +skins or blankets and branches, and spent the winter in hunting and +trapping. Spring found them returning to their homes on the Yadkin with +a fair winter's haul. + +Such urgent desire as Boone's, however, was not to be defeated. The next +year brought him his great opportunity. John Findlay came to the Yadkin +with a horse pack of needles and linen and peddler's wares to tempt the +slim purses of the Back Country folk. The two erstwhile comrades in arms +were overjoyed to encounter each other again, and Findlay spent the +winter of 1768-69 in Boone's cabin. While the snow lay deep outside and +good-smelling logs crackled on the hearth, they planned an expedition +into Kentucky through the Gap where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky +touch one another, which Findlay felt confident he could find. Findlay +had learned of this route from cross-mountain traders in 1753, when he +had descended the Ohio to the site of Louisville, whence he had gone +with some Shawanoes as a prisoner to their town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki +or Blue Licks. ¹ + +¹ Hanna, The Wilderness Trail, vol. II, pp. 215-16. + +On the first day of May, 1769, Boone and Findlay, accompanied by John +Stewart and three other venturesome spirits, Joseph Holden, James +Mooney, and William Cooley, took horse for the fabled land. Passing +through the Cumberland Gap, they built their first camp in Kentucky on +the Red Lick fork of Station Camp Creek. + +This camp was their base of operations. From it, usually in couples, we +infer, the explorers branched out to hunt and to take their observations +of the country. Here also they prepared the deer and buffalo meat for +the winter, dried or smoked the geese they shot in superabundance, made +the tallow and oil needed to keep their weapons in trim, their leather +soft, and their kits waterproof. Their first ill luck befell them in +December when Boone and Stewart were captured by a band of Shawanoes who +were returning from their autumn hunt on Green River. The Indians +compelled the two white men to show them the location of their camp, +took possession of all it contained in skins and furs and also helped +themselves to the horses. They left the explorers with just enough meat +and ammunition to provide for their journey homeward, and told them to +depart and not to intrude again on the red men's hunting grounds. Having +given this pointed warning, the Shawanoes rode on northward towards +their towns beyond the Ohio. On foot, swiftly and craftily, Boone and +his brother-in-law trailed the band for two days. They came upon the +camp in dead of night, recaptured their horses, and fled. But this was a +game in which the Indians themselves excelled, and at this date the +Shawanoes had an advantage over Boone in their thorough knowledge of the +territory; so that within forty-eight hours the white men were once more +prisoners. After they had amused themselves by making Boone caper about +with a horse bell on his neck, while they jeered at him in broken +English, "Steal horse, eh?" the Shawanoes turned north again, this time +taking the two unfortunate hunters with them. Boone and Stewart escaped, +one day on the march, by a plunge into the thick tall canebrake. Though +the Indians did not attempt to follow them through the mazes of the +cane, the situation of the two hunters, without weapons or food, was +serious enough. When they found Station Camp deserted and realized that +their four companions had given them up for dead or lost and had set off +on the trail for home, even such intrepid souls as theirs may have felt +fear. They raced on in pursuit and fortunately fell in not only with +their party but with Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, and Alexander +Neely, who had brought in fresh supplies of rifles, ammunition, flour, +and horses. + +After this lucky encounter the group separated. Findlay was ill, and +Holden, Mooney, and Cooley had had their fill of Kentucky; but Squire, +Neely, Stewart, and Daniel were ready for more adventures. Daniel, too, +felt under the positive necessity of putting in another year at hunting +and trapping in order to discharge his debts and provide for his family. +Near the mouth of Red River the new party built their station camp. +Here, in idle hours, Neely read aloud from a copy of Gulliver's Travels +to entertain the hunters while they dressed their deerskins or tinkered +their weapons. In honor of the "Lorbrulgrud" of the book, though with a +pronunciation all their own, they christened the nearest creek; and as +"Lulbegrud Creek" it is still known. + +Before the end of the winter the two Boones were alone in the +wilderness. Their brother-in-law, Stewart, had disappeared; and Neely, +discouraged by this tragic event, had returned to the Yadkin. In May, +Squire Boone fared forth, taking with him the season's catch of beaver, +otter, and deerskins to exchange in the North Carolinian trading houses +for more supplies; and Daniel was left solitary in Kentucky. + +Now followed those lonely explorations which gave Daniel Boone his +special fame above all Kentucky's pioneers. He was by no means the first +white man to enter Kentucky; and when he did enter, it was as one of a +party, under another man's guidance--if we except his former +disappointing journey into the laurel thickets of Floyd County. But +these others, barring Stewart, who fell there, turned back when they met +with loss and hardship and measured the certain risks against the +possible gains. Boone, the man of imagination, turned to wild earth as +to his kin. His genius lay in the sense of oneness he felt with his +wilderness environment. An instinct he had which these other men, as +courageous perhaps as he, did not possess. + +Never in all the times when he was alone in the woods and had no other +man's safety or counsel to consider, did he suffer ill fortune. The +nearest approach to trouble that befell him when alone occurred one day +during this summer when some Indians emerged from their green shelter +and found him, off guard for the moment, standing on a cliff gazing with +rapture over the vast rolling stretches of Kentucky. He was apparently +cut off from escape, for the savages were on three sides, advancing +without haste to take him, meanwhile greeting him with mock amity. Over +the cliff leaped Boone and into the outspread arms of a friendly maple, +whose top bloomed green about sixty feet below the cliff's rim, and left +his would-be captors on the height above, grunting their amazement. + +During this summer Boone journeyed through the valleys of the Kentucky +and the Licking. He followed the buffalo traces to the two Blue Licks +and saw the enormous herds licking up the salt earth, a darkly ruddy +moving mass of beasts whose numbers could not be counted. For many miles +he wound along the Ohio, as far as the Falls. He also found the Big Bone +Lick with its mammoth fossils. + +In July, 1770, Daniel returned to the Red River camp and there met +Squire Boone with another pack of supplies. The two brothers continued +their hunting and exploration together for some months, chiefly in +Jessamine County, where two caves still bear Boone's name. In that +winter they even braved the Green River ground, whence had come the +hunting Shawanoes who had taken Daniel's first fruits a year before. In +the same year (1770) there had come into Kentucky from the Yadkin +another party of hunters, called, from their lengthy sojourn in the +twilight zone, the Long Hunters. One of these, Gasper Mansker, +afterwards related how the Long Hunters were startled one day by hearing +sounds such as no buffalo or turkey ever made, and how Mansker himself +stole silently under cover of the trees towards the place whence the +strange noises came, and descried Daniel Boone prone on his back with a +deerskin under him, his famous tall black hat beside him and his mouth +opened wide in joyous but apparently none too tuneful song. This +incident gives a true character touch. It is not recorded of any of the +men who turned back that they sang alone in the wilderness. + +In March, 1771, the two Boones started homeward, their horses bearing +the rich harvest of furs and deerskins which was to clear Daniel of debt +and to insure the comfort of the family he had not seen for two years. +But again evil fortune met them, this time in the very gates--for in the +Cumberland Gap they were suddenly surrounded by Indians who took +everything from them, leaving them neither guns nor horses. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +The Fight For Kentucky + +When Boone returned home he found the Back Country of North Carolina in +the throes of the Regulation Movement. This movement, which had arisen +first from the colonists' need to police their settlements, had more +recently assumed a political character. The Regulators were now in +conflict with the authorities, because the frontier folk were suffering +through excessive taxes, extortionate fees, dishonest land titles, and +the corruption of the courts. In May, 1771, the conflict lost its +quasi-civil nature. The Regulators resorted to arms and were defeated by +the forces under Governor Tryon in the Battle of the Alamance. + +The Regulation Movement, which we shall follow in more detail further +on, was a culmination of those causes of unrest which turned men +westward. To escape from oppression and to acquire land beyond the +bounds of tyranny became the earnest desire of independent spirits +throughout the Back Country. But there was another and more potent +reason why the country east of the mountains no longer contented Boone. +Hunting and trapping were Boone's chief means of livelihood. In those +days, deerskins sold for a dollar a skin to the traders at the Forks or +in Hillsborough; beaver at about two dollars and a half, and otter at +from three to five dollars. A pack-horse could carry a load of one +hundred dressed deerskins, and, as currency was scarce, a hundred +dollars was wealth. Game was fast disappearing from the Yadkin. To Boone +above all men, then, Kentucky beckoned. When he returned in the spring +of 1771 from his explorations, it was with the resolve to take his +family at once into the great game country and to persuade some of his +friends to join in this hazard of new fortunes. + +The perils of such a venture, only conjectural to us at this distance, +he knew well; but in him there was nothing that shrank from danger, +though he did not court it after the rash manner of many of his +compeers. Neither reckless nor riotous, Boone was never found among +those who opposed violence to authority, even unjust authority; nor was +he ever guilty of the savagery which characterized much of the +retaliatory warfare of that period when frenzied white men bettered the +red man's instruction. In him, courage was illumined with tenderness and +made equable by self-control. Yet, though he was no fiery zealot like +the Ulstermen who were to follow him along the path he had made and who +loved and revered him perhaps because he was so different from +themselves, Boone nevertheless had his own religion. It was a simple +faith best summed up perhaps by himself in his old age when he said that +he had been only an instrument in the hand of God to open the wilderness +to settlement. + +Two years passed before Boone could muster a company of colonists for +the dangerous and delectable land. The dishonesty practiced by Lord +Granville's agents in the matter of deeds had made it difficult for +Daniel and his friends to dispose of their acreage. When at last in the +spring of 1773 the Wanderer was prepared to depart, he was again +delayed; this time by the arrival of a little son to whom was given the +name of John. By September, however, even this latest addition to the +party was ready for travel; and that month saw the Boones with a small +caravan of families journeying towards Powell's Valley, whence the +Warrior's Path took its way through Cumberland Gap. At this point on the +march they were to be joined by William Russell, a famous pioneer, from +the Clinch River, with his family and a few neighbors, and by some of +Rebecca Boone's kinsmen, the Bryans, from the lower Yadkin, with a +company of forty men. + +Of Rebecca Boone history tells us too little--only that she was born a +Bryan, was of low stature and dark eyed, that she bore her husband ten +children, and lived beside him to old age. Except on his hunts and +explorations, she went with him from one cabined home to another, always +deeper into the wilds. There are no portraits of her. We can see her +only as a shadowy figure moving along the wilderness trails beside the +man who accepted his destiny of God to be a way-shower for those of +lesser faith. + +He tires not forever on his leagues of march +Because her feet are set to his footprints, +And the gleam of her bare hand slants across his shoulder. + +Boone halted his company on Walden Mountain over Powell's Valley to +await the Bryan contingent and dispatched two young men under the +leadership of his son James, then in his seventeenth year, to notify +Russell of the party's arrival. As the boys were returning with +Russell's son, also a stripling, two of his slaves, and some white +laborers, they missed the path and went into camp for the night. When +dawn broke, disclosing the sleepers, a small war band of Shawanoes, who +had been spying on Boone and his party, fell upon them and slaughtered +them. Only one of Russell's slaves and a laborer escaped. The tragedy +seems augmented by the fact that the point where the boys lost the trail +and made their night quarters was hardly three miles from the main +camp--to which an hour later came the two survivors with their gloomy +tidings. Terror now took hold of the little band of emigrants, and there +were loud outcries for turning back. The Bryans, who had arrived +meanwhile, also advised retreat, saying that the "signs" about the scene +of blood indicated an Indian uprising. Daniel carried the scalped body +of his son, the boy-comrade of his happy hunts, to the camp and buried +it there at the beginning of the trail. His voice alone urged that they +go on. + +Fortunately indeed, as events turned out, Boone was overruled, and the +expedition was abandoned. The Bryan party and the others from North +Carolina went back to the Yadkin. Boone himself with his family +accompanied Russell to the Clinch settlement, where he erected a +temporary cabin on the farm of one of the settlers, and then set out +alone on the chase to earn provision for his wife and children through +the winter. + +Those who prophesied an Indian war were not mistaken. When the snowy +hunting season had passed and the "Powwowing Days" were come, the Indian +war drum rattled in the medicine house from the borders of Pennsylvania +to those of Carolina. The causes of the strife for which the red men +were making ready must be briefly noted to help us form a just opinion +of the deeds that followed. Early writers have usually represented the +frontiersmen as saints in buckskin and the Indians as fiends without the +shadow of a claim on either the land or humanity. Many later writers +have merely reversed the shield. The truth is that the Indians and the +borderers reacted upon each other to the hurt of both. Paradoxically, +they grew like enough to hate one another with a savage hatred--and both +wanted the land. + +Land! Land! was the slogan of all sorts and conditions of men. Tidewater +officials held solemn powwows with the chiefs, gave wampum strings, and +forthwith incorporated. ¹ Chiefs blessed their white brothers who had +"forever brightened the chain of friendship," departed home, and +proceeded to brighten the blades of their tomahawks and to await, not +long, the opportunity to use them on casual hunters who carried in their +kits the compass, the "land-stealer." Usually the surveying hunter was a +borderer; and on him the tomahawk descended with an accelerated gusto. +Private citizens also formed land companies and sent out surveyors, +regardless of treaties. Bold frontiersmen went into No Man's Land and +staked out their claims. In the very year when disaster turned the Boone +party back, James Harrod had entered Kentucky from Pennsylvania and had +marked the site of a settlement. + +¹ The activities of the great land companies are described in Alvord's +exhaustive work, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics. + +Ten years earlier (1763), the King had issued the famous and much +misunderstood Proclamation restricting his "loving subjects" from the +lands west of the mountains. The colonists interpreted this document as +a tyrannous curtailment of their liberties for the benefit of the fur +trade. We know now that the portion of this Proclamation relating to +western settlement was a wise provision designed to protect the settlers +on the frontier by allaying the suspicions of the Indians, who viewed +with apprehension the triumphal occupation of that vast territory from +Canada to the Gulf of Mexico by the colonizing English. By seeking to +compel all land purchase to be made through the Crown, it was designed +likewise to protect the Indians from "whisky purchase," and to make +impossible the transfer of their lands except with consent of the Indian +Council, or full quota of headmen, whose joint action alone conveyed +what the tribes considered to be legal title. Sales made according to +this form, Sir William Johnson declared to the Lords of Trade, he had +never known to be repudiated by the Indians. This paragraph of the +Proclamation was in substance an embodiment of Johnson's suggestions to +the Lords of Trade. Its purpose was square dealing and pacification; and +shrewd men such as Washington recognized that it was not intended as a +final check to expansion. "A temporary expedient to quiet the minds of +the Indians," Washington called it, and then himself went out along the +Great Kanawha and into Kentucky, surveying land. + +It will be asked what had become of the Ohio Company of Virginia and +that fort at the Forks of the Ohio, once a bone of contention between +France and England. Fort Pitt, as it was now called, had fallen foul of +another dispute, this time between Virginia and Pennsylvania. Virginia +claimed that the far western corner of her boundary ascended just far +enough north to take in Fort Pitt. Pennsylvania asserted that it did +nothing of the sort. The Ohio Company had meanwhile been merged into the +Walpole Company. George Croghan, at Fort Pitt, was the Company's agent +and as such was accused by Pennsylvania of favoring from ulterior +motives the claims of Virginia. Hotheads in both colonies asseverated +that the Indians were secretly being stirred up in connection with the +boundary disputes. If it does not very clearly appear how an Indian +rising would have settled the ownership of Fort Pitt, it is evident +enough where the interests of Virginia and Pennsylvania clashed. +Virginia wanted land for settlement and speculation; Pennsylvania wanted +the Indians left in possession for the benefit of the fur trade. So far +from stirring up the Indians, as his enemies declared, Croghan was as +usual giving away all his substance to keep them quiet. ¹ Indeed, during +this summer of 1774, eleven hundred Indians were encamped about Fort +Pitt visiting him. + +¹ The suspicion that Croghan and Lord Dunmore, the Governor of Virginia, +were instigating the war appears to have arisen out of the conduct of +Dr. John Connolly, Dunmore's agent and Croghan's nephew. Croghan had +induced the Shawanoes to bring under escort to Fort Pitt certain English +traders resident in the Indian towns. The escort was fired on by +militiamen under command of Connolly, who also issued a proclamation +declaring a state of war to exist. Connolly, however, probably acted on +his own initiative. He was interested in land on his own behalf and was +by no means the only man at that time who was ready to commit outrages +on Indians in order to obtain it. As Croghan lamented, there was "too +great a spirit in the frontier people for killing Indians." + +Two hundred thousand acres in the West--Kentucky and West Virginia--had +been promised to the colonial officers and soldiers who fought in the +Seven Years' War. But after making the Proclamation the British +Government had delayed issuing the patents. Washington interested +himself in trying to secure them; and Lord Dunmore, who also had caught +the "land-fever," ² prodded the British authorities but won only rebuke +for his inconvenient activities. Insistent, however, Dunmore sent out +parties of surveyors to fix the bounds of the soldiers' claims. James +Harrod, Captain Thomas Bullitt, Hancock Taylor, and three McAfee +brothers entered Kentucky, by the Ohio, under Dunmore's orders. John +Floyd went in by the Kanawha as Washington's agent. A bird's-eye view of +that period would disclose to us very few indeed of His Majesty's loving +subjects who were paying any attention to his proclamation. Early in +1774, Harrod began the building of cabins and a fort, and planted corn +on the site of Harrodsburg. Thus to him and not to Boone fell the honor +of founding the first permanent white settlement in Kentucky. + +² See Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics, vol. II, pp. +191-94. + +When summer came, its thick verdure proffering ambuscade, the air hung +tense along the border. Traders had sent in word that Shawanoes, +Delawares, Mingos, Wyandots, and Cherokees were refusing all other +exchange than rifles, ammunition, knives, and hatchets. White men were +shot down in their fields from ambush. Dead Indians lay among their own +young corn, their scalp locks taken. There were men of both races who +wanted war and meant to have it--and with it the land. + +Lord Dunmore, the Governor, resolved that, if war were inevitable, it +should be fought out in the Indian country. With this intent, he wrote +to Colonel Andrew Lewis of Botetourt County, Commander of the Southwest +Militia, instructing him to raise a respectable body of troops and "join +me either at the mouth of the Great Kanawha or Wheeling, or such other +part of the Ohio as may be most convenient for you to meet me." The +Governor himself with a force of twelve hundred proceeded to Fort Pitt, +where Croghan, as we have seen, was extending his hospitality to eleven +hundred warriors from the disaffected tribes. + +On receipt of the Governor's letter, Andrew Lewis sent out expresses to +his brother Colonel Charles Lewis, County Lieutenant of Augusta, and to +Colonel William Preston, County Lieutenant of Fincastle, to raise men +and bring them with all speed to the rendezvous at Camp Union +(Lewisburg) on the Big Levels of the Greenbrier (West Virginia). Andrew +Lewis summoned these officers to an expedition for "reducing our +inveterate enemies to reason." Preston called for volunteers to take +advantage of "the opportunity we have so long wished for... this useless +People may now at last be Oblidged to abandon their country." These men +were among not only the bravest but the best of their time; but this was +their view of the Indian and his alleged rights. To eliminate this +"useless people," inveterate enemies of the white race, was, as they saw +it, a political necessity and a religious duty. And we today who profit +by their deeds dare not condemn them. + +Fervor less solemn was aroused in other quarters by Dunmore's call to +arms. At Wheeling, some eighty or ninety young adventurers, in charge of +Captain Michael Cresap of Maryland, were waiting for the freshets to +sweep them down the Ohio into Kentucky. When the news reached them, they +greeted it with the wild monotone chant and the ceremonies preliminary +to Indian warfare. They planted the war pole, stripped and painted +themselves, and starting the war dance called on Cresap to be their +"white leader." The captain, however, declined; but in that wild +circling line was one who was a white leader indeed. He was a +sandy-haired boy of twenty--one of the bold race of English Virginians, +rugged and of fiery countenance, with blue eyes intense of glance and +deep set under a high brow that, while modeled for power, seemed +threatened in its promise by the too sensitive chiseling of his lips. +With every nerve straining for the fray, with thudding of feet and +crooning of the blood song, he wheeled with those other mad spirits +round the war pole till the set of sun closed the rites. "That evening +two scalps were brought into camp," so a letter of his reads. Does the +bold savage color of this picture affright us? Would we veil it? Then we +should lose something of the true lineaments of George Rogers Clark, +who, within four short years, was to lead a tiny army of tattered and +starving backwoodsmen, ashamed to quail where he never flinched, through +barrens and icy floods to the conquest of Illinois for the United +States. + +Though Cresap had rejected the rôle of "white leader," he did not escape +the touch of infamy. "Cresap's War" was the name the Indians gave to the +bloody encounters between small parties of whites and Indians, which +followed on that war dance and scalping, during the summer months. One +of these encounters must be detailed here because history has assigned +it as the immediate cause of Dunmore's War. + +Greathouse, Sapperton, and King, three traders who had a post on Yellow +Creek, a tributary of the Ohio fifty miles below Pittsburgh, invited +several Indians from across the stream to come and drink with them and +their friends. Among the Indians were two or three men of importance in +the Mingo tribe. There were also some women, one of whom was the Indian +wife of Colonel John Gibson, an educated man who had distinguished +himself as a soldier with Forbes in 1758. That the Indians came in amity +and apprehended no treachery was proved by the presence of the women. +Gibson's wife carried her half-caste baby in her shawl. The disreputable +traders plied their guests with drink to the point of intoxication and +then murdered them. King shot the first man and, when he fell, cut his +throat, saying that he had served many a deer in that fashion. Gibson's +Indian wife fled and was shot down in the clearing. A man followed to +dispatch her and her baby. She held the child up to him pleading, with +her last breath, that he would spare it because it was not Indian but +"one of yours." The mother dead, the child was later sent to Gibson. +Twelve Indians in all were killed. + +Meanwhile Croghan had persuaded the Iroquois to peace. With the help of +David Zeisberger, the Moravian missionary, and White Eyes, a Delaware +chief, he and Dunmore had won over the Delaware warriors. In the +Cherokee councils, Oconostota demanded that the treaty of peace signed +in 1761 be kept. The Shawanoes, however, led by Cornstalk, were +implacable; and they had as allies the Ottawas and Mingos, who had +entered the council with them. + +A famous chief of the day and one of great influence over the Indians, +and also among the white officials who dealt with Indian affairs, was +Tach-nech-dor-us, or Branching Oak of the Forest, a Mingo who had taken +the name of Logan out of compliment to James Logan of Pennsylvania. +Chief Logan had recently met with so much reproach from his red brothers +for his loyalty to the whites that he had departed from the Mingo town +at Yellow Creek. But, learning that his tribe had determined to assist +the Shawanoes and had already taken some white scalps, he repaired to +the place where the Mingos were holding their war council to exert his +powers for peace. There, in presence of the warriors, after swaying them +from their purpose by those oratorical gifts which gave him his +influence and his renown, he took the war hatchet that had already +killed, and buried it in proof that vengeance was appeased. Upon this +scene there entered a Mingo from Yellow Creek with the news of the +murders committed there by the three traders. The Indian whose throat +had been slit as King had served deer was Logan's brother. Another man +slain was his kinsman. The woman with the baby was his sister. Logan +tore up from the earth the bloody tomahawk and, raising it above his +head, swore that he would not rest till he had taken ten white lives to +pay for each one of his kin. Again the Mingo warriors declared for war +and this time were not dissuaded. But Logan did not join this red army. +He went out alone to wreak his vengeance, slaying and scalping. + +Meanwhile Dunmore prepared to push the war with the utmost vigor. His +first concern was to recall the surveying parties from Kentucky, and for +so hazardous an errand he needed the services of a man whose endurance, +speed, and woodcraft were equal to those of any Indian scout afoot. +Through Colonel Preston, his orders were conveyed to Daniel Boone, for +Boone's fame had now spread from the border to the tidewater regions. It +was stated that "Boone would lose no time," and "if they are alive, it +is indisputable but Boone must find them." + +So Boone set out in company with Michael Stoner, another expert +woodsman. His general instructions were to go down the Kentucky River to +Preston's Salt Lick and across country to the Falls of the Ohio, and +thence home by Gaspar's Lick on the Cumberland River. Indian war parties +were moving under cover across "the Dark and Bloody Ground" to surround +the various groups of surveyors still at large and to exterminate them. +Boone made his journey successfully. He found John Floyd, who was +surveying for Washington; he sped up to where Harrod and his band were +building cabins and sent them out, just in time as it happened; he +reached all the outposts of Thomas Bullitt's party, only one of whom +fell a victim to the foe; ¹ and, undetected by the Indians, he brought +himself and Stoner home in safety, after covering eight hundred miles in +sixty-one days. + +¹ Hancock Taylor, who delayed in getting out of the country and was cut +off. + +Harrod and his homesteaders immediately enlisted in the army. How eager +Boone was to go with the forces under Lewis is seen in the official +correspondence relative to Dunmore's War. Floyd wanted Boone's help in +raising a company: "Captain Bledsoe says that Boone has more [influence] +than any man now disengaged; and you know what Boone has done for me... +for which reason I love the man." Even the border, it would seem, had +its species of pacifists who were willing to let others take risks for +them, for men hung back from recruiting, and desertions were the order +of the day. Major Arthur Campbell hit upon a solution of the +difficulties in West Fincastle. He was convinced that Boone could raise +a company and hold the men loyal. And Boone did. + +For some reason, however, Daniel's desire to march with the army was +denied. Perhaps it was because just such a man as he--and, indeed, there +was no other--was needed to guard the settlement. Presently he was put +in command of Moore's Fort in Clinch Valley, and his "diligence" +received official approbation. A little later the inhabitants of the +valley sent out a petition to have Boone made a "captain" and given +supreme command of the lower forts. The settlers demanded Boone's +promotion for their own security. + +The land it is good, it is just to our mind, +Each will have his part if his Lordship be kind, +The Ohio once ours, we'll live at our ease, +With a bottle and glass to drink when we please. + +So sang the army poet, thus giving voice, as bards should ever do, to +the theme nearest the hearts of his hearers--in this case, Land! +Presumably his ditty was composed on the eve of the march from +Lewisburg, for it is found in a soldier's diary. + +On the evening of October 9, 1774, Andrew Lewis with his force of eleven +hundred frontiersmen was encamped on Point Pleasant at the junction of +the Great Kanawha with the Ohio. Dunmore in the meantime had led his +forces into Ohio and had erected Fort Gower at the mouth of the +Hockhocking River, where he waited for word from Andrew Lewis. ¹ + +¹ It has been customary to ascribe to Lord Dunmore motives of treachery +in failing to make connections with Lewis; but no real evidence has been +advanced to support any of the charges made against him by local +historians. The charges were, as Theodore Roosevelt says, "an +afterthought." Dunmore was a King's man in the Revolution; and yet in +March, 1775, the Convention of the Colony of Virginia, assembled in +opposition to the royal party, resolved: "The most cordial thanks of the +people of this colony are a tribute justly due to our worthy Governor, +Lord Dunmore, for his truly noble, wise, and spirited conduct which at +once evinces his Excellency's attention to the true interests of this +colony, and a zeal in the executive department which no dangers can +divert, or difficulties hinder, from achieving the most important +services to the people who have the happiness to live under his +administration." (See American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. II, p. +170.) Similar resolutions were passed by his officers on the march home +from Ohio; at the same time, the officers passed resolutions in sympathy +with the American cause. Yet it was Andrew Lewis who later drove Dunmore +from Virginia. Well might Dunmore exclaim, "That it should ever come to +this!" + +The movements of the two armies were being observed by scouts from the +force of red warriors gathered in Ohio under the great leader of the +Shawanoes. Cornstalk purposed to isolate the two armies of his enemy and +to crush them in turn before they could come together. His first move +was to launch an attack on Lewis at Point Pleasant. In the dark of +night, Cornstalk's Indians crossed the Ohio on rafts, intending to +surprise the white man's camp at dawn. They would have succeeded but for +the chance that three or four of the frontiersmen, who had risen before +daybreak to hunt, came upon the Indians creeping towards the camp. Shots +were exchanged. An Indian and a white man dropped. The firing roused the +camp. Three hundred men in two lines under Charles Lewis and William +Fleming sallied forth expecting to engage the vanguard of the enemy but +encountered almost the whole force of from eight hundred to a thousand +Indians before the rest of the army could come into action. Both +officers were wounded, Charles Lewis fatally. The battle, which +continued from dawn until an hour before sunset, was the bloodiest in +Virginia's long series of Indian wars. The frontiersmen fought as such +men ever fought--with the daring, bravery, swiftness of attack, and +skill in taking cover which were the tactics of their day, even as at a +later time many of these same men fought at King's Mountain and in +Illinois the battles that did so much to turn the tide in the +Revolution. ² + +² With Andrew Lewis on this day were Isaac Shelby and William Campbell, +the victorious leaders at King's Mountain, James Robertson, the "father +of Tennessee," Valentine Sevier, Daniel Morgan, hero of the Cowpens, +Major Arthur Campbell, Benjamin Logan, Anthony Bledsoe, and Simon +Kenton. With Dunmore's force were Adam Stephen, who distinguished +himself at the Brandywine, George Rogers Clark, John Stuart, already +noted through the Cherokee wars, and John Montgomery, later one of +Clark's four captains in Illinois. The two last mentioned were +Highlanders. Clark's Illinois force was largely recruited from the +troops who fought at Point Pleasant. + +Colonel Preston wrote to Patrick Henry that the enemy behaved with +"inconceivable bravery," the head men walking about in the time of +action exhorting their men to "lie close, shoot well, be strong, and +fight." The Shawanoes ran up to the muzzles of the English guns, +disputing every foot of ground. Both sides knew well what they were +fighting for--the rich land held in a semicircle by the Beautiful River. + +Shortly before sundown the Indians, mistaking a flank movement by +Shelby's contingent for the arrival of reinforcements, retreated across +the Ohio. Many of their most noted warriors had fallen and among them +the Shawano chief, Puck-e-shin-wa, father of a famous son, Tecumseh. ¹ +Yet they were unwilling to accept defeat. When they heard that Dunmore +was now marching overland to cut them off from their towns, their fury +blazed anew. "Shall we first kill all our women and children and then +fight till we ourselves are slain?" Cornstalk, in irony, demanded of +them; "No? Then I will go and make peace." + +¹ Thwaites, Documentary History of Dunmore's War. + +By the treaty compacted between the chiefs and Lord Dunmore, the Indians +gave up all claim to the lands south of the Ohio, even for hunting, and +agreed to allow boats to pass unmolested. In this treaty the Mingos +refused to join, and a detachment of Dunmore's troops made a punitive +expedition to their towns. Some discord arose between Dunmore and +Lewis's frontier forces because, since the Shawanoes had made peace, the +Governor would not allow the frontiersmen to destroy the Shawano towns. + +Of all the chiefs, Logan alone still held aloof. Major Gibson undertook +to fetch him, but Logan refused to come to the treaty grounds. He sent +by Gibson the short speech which has lived as an example of the best +Indian oratory: + +I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry +and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed +him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan +remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for +the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said, "Logan is +the friend of the white men." I had even thought to have lived with you +but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in +cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even +sparing my women and children. There remains not a drop of my blood in +the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have +sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance: for my +country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought +that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on +his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one. ¹ + +¹ Some writers have questioned the authenticity of Logan's speech, +inclining to think that Gibson himself composed it, partly because of +the biblical suggestion in the first few lines. That Gibson gave +biblical phraseology to these lines is apparent, though, as Adair points +out there are many examples of similitude in Indian and biblical +expression. But the thought is Indian and relates to the first article +of the Indian's creed, namely, to share his food with the needy. "There +remains not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature" is a +truly Indian lament. Evidently the final four lines of the speech are +the most literally translated, for they have the form and the primitive +rhythmic beat which a student of Indian poetry quickly recognizes. The +authenticity of the speech, as well as the innocence of Cresap, whom +Logan mistakenly accused, was vouched for by George Rogers Clark in a +letter to Dr. Samuel Brown dated June 17, 1798. See Jefferson papers, +Series 5, quoted by English, Conquest of the Country Northwest of the +River Ohio, vol. II. p. 1029. + +By rivers and trails, in large and small companies, started home the +army that had won the land. The West Fincastle troops, from the lower +settlements of the Clinch and Holston valleys, were to return by the +Kentucky River, while those from the upper valley would take the shorter +way up Sandy Creek. To keep them in provisions during the journey it was +ordered that hunters be sent out along these routes to kill and barbecue +meat and place it on scaffolds at appropriate spots. + +The way home by the Kentucky was a long road for weary and wounded men +with hunger gnawing under their belts. We know who swung out along the +trail to provide for that little band, "dressed in deerskins colored +black, and his hair plaited and bobbed up." It was Daniel Boone--now, by +popular demand, Captain Boone--just "discharged from Service," since the +valley forts needed him no longer. Once more only a hunter, he went his +way over Walden Mountain--past his son's grave marking the place where +he had been turned back--to serve the men who had opened the gates. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +The Dark And Bloody Ground + +With the coming of spring Daniel Boone's desire, so long cherished and +deferred, to make a way for his neighbors through the wilderness was to +be fulfilled at last. But ere his ax could slash the thickets from the +homeseekers' path, more than two hundred settlers had entered Kentucky +by the northern waterways. Eighty or more of these settled at +Harrodsburg, where Harrod was laying out his town on a generous plan, +with "in-lots" of half an acre and "out-lots" of larger size. Among +those associated with Harrod was George Rogers Clark, who had surveyed +claims for himself during the year before the war. + +While over two hundred colonists were picking out home sites wherever +their pleasure or prudence dictated, a gigantic land promotion +scheme--involving the very tracts where they were sowing their first +corn--was being set afoot in North Carolina by a body of men who figure +in the early history of Kentucky as the Transylvania Company. The leader +of this organization was Judge Richard Henderson. ¹ Judge Henderson +dreamed a big dream. His castle in the air had imperial proportions. He +resolved, in short, to purchase from the Cherokee Indians the larger +part of Kentucky and to establish there a colony after the manner and +the economic form of the English Lords Proprietors, whose day in America +was so nearly done. Though in the light of history the plan loses none +of its dramatic features, it shows the practical defects that must +surely have prevented its realization. Like many another Cæsar hungering +for empire and staking all to win it, the prospective lord of Kentucky, +as we shall see, had left the human equation out of his calculations. + +¹ Richard Henderson (1734-1785) was the son of the High Sheriff of +Granville County. At first an assistant to his father, he studied law +and soon achieved a reputation by the brilliance of his mind and the +magnetism of his personality. As presiding Judge at Hillsborough he had +come into conflict with the violent element among the Regulators, who +had driven him from the court and burned his house and barns. For some +time prior to his elevation to the bench, he had been engaged in land +speculations. One of Boone's biographers suggests that Boone may have +been secretly acting as Henderson's agent during his first lonely +explorations of Kentucky. However this may be, it does not appear that +Boone and his Yadkin neighbors were acting with Henderson when in +September, 1773, they made their first attempt to enter Kentucky as +settlers. + +Richard Henderson had known Daniel Boone on the Yadkin; and it was +Boone's detailed reports of the marvelous richness and beauty of +Kentucky which had inspired him to formulate his gigantic scheme and had +enabled him also to win to his support several men of prominence in the +Back Country. To sound the Cherokees regarding the purchase and to +arrange, if possible, for a conference, Henderson dispatched Boone to +the Indian towns in the early days of 1775. + +Since we have just learned that Dunmore's War compelled the Shawanoes +and their allies to relinquish their right to Kentucky, that, both +before and after that event, government surveyors were in the territory +surveying for the soldiers' claims, and that private individuals had +already laid out town sites and staked holdings, it may be asked what +right of ownership the Cherokees possessed in Kentucky, that Henderson +desired to purchase it of them. The Indian title to Kentucky seems to +have been hardly less vague to the red men than it was to the whites. +Several of the nations had laid claim to the territory. As late as 1753, +it will be remembered, the Shawanoes had occupied a town at Blue Licks, +for John Findlay had been taken there by some of them. But, before +Findlay guided Boone through the Gap in 1769, the Shawanoes had been +driven out by the Iroquois, who claimed suzerainty over them as well as +over the Cherokees. In 1768, the Iroquois had ceded Kentucky to the +British Crown by the treaty of Fort Stanwix; whereupon the Cherokees had +protested so vociferously that the Crown's Indian agent, to quiet them, +had signed a collateral agreement with them. Though claimed by many, +Kentucky was by common consent not inhabited by any of the tribes. It +was the great Middle Ground where the Indians hunted. It was the +Warriors' Path over which they rode from north and south to slaughter +and where many of their fiercest encounters took place. However shadowy +the title which Henderson purposed to buy, there was one all-sufficing +reason why he must come to terms with the Cherokees: their northernmost +towns in Tennessee lay only fifty or sixty miles below Cumberland Gap +and hence commanded the route over which he must lead colonists into his +empire beyond the hills. + +The conference took place early in March, 1775, at the Sycamore Shoals +of the Watauga River. Twelve hundred Indians, led by their "town +chiefs"--among whom were the old warrior and the old statesman of their +nation, Oconostota and Attakullakulla--came to the treaty grounds and +were received by Henderson and his associates and several hundred white +men who were eager for a chance to settle on new lands. Though Boone was +now on his way into Kentucky for the Transylvania Company, other border +leaders of renown or with their fame still to win were present, and +among them James Robertson, of serious mien, and that blond gay knight +in buckskin, John Sevier. + +It is a dramatic picture we evolve for ourselves from the meager +narratives of this event--a mass of painted Indians moving through the +sycamores by the bright water, to come presently into a tense, immobile +semicircle before the large group of armed frontiersmen seated or +standing about Richard Henderson, the man with the imperial dream, the +ready speaker whose flashing eyes and glowing oratory won the hearts of +all who came under their sway. What though the Cherokee title be a +flimsy one at best and the price offered for it a bagatelle! The spirit +of Forward March! is there in that great canvas framed by forest and +sky. The somber note that tones its lustrous color, as by a sweep of the +brush, is the figure of the Chickamaugan chief, Dragging Canoe, warrior +and seer and hater of white men, who urges his tribesmen against the +sale and, when they will not hearken, springs from their midst into the +clear space before Henderson and his band of pioneers and, pointing with +uplifted arm, warns them that a dark cloud hangs over the land the white +man covets which to the red man has long been a bloody ground. ¹ + +¹ This utterance of Dragging Canoe's is generally supposed to be the +origin of the descriptive phrase applied to Kentucky--"the Dark and +Bloody Ground." See Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, vol. I, p.229. + +The purchase, finally consummated, included the country lying between +the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers--almost all the present State of +Kentucky, with the adjacent land watered by the Cumberland River and its +tributaries, except certain lands previously leased by the Indians to +the Watauga Colony. The tract comprised about twenty million acres and +extended into Tennessee. + +Daniel Boone's work was to cut out a road for the wagons of the +Transylvania Company's colonists to pass over. This was to be done by +slashing away the briers and underbrush hedging the narrow Warriors' +Path that made a direct northward line from Cumberland Gap to the Ohio +bank, opposite the mouth of the Scioto River. Just prior to the +conference Boone and "thirty guns" had set forth from the Holston to +prepare the road and to build a fort on whatever site he should select. + +By April, Henderson and his first group of tenants were on the trail. In +Powell's Valley they came up with a party of Virginians Kentucky bound, +led by Benjamin Logan; and the two bands joined together for the march. +They had not gone far when they heard disquieting news. After leaving +Martin's Station, at the gates of his new domain, Henderson received a +letter from Boone telling of an attack by Indians, in which two of his +men had been killed, but "we stood on the ground and guarded our baggage +till the day and lost nothing." ¹ These tidings, indicating that despite +treaties and sales, the savages were again on the warpath, might well +alarm Henderson's colonists. While they halted, some indecisive, others +frankly for retreat, there appeared a company of men making all haste +out of Kentucky because of Indian unrest. Six of these Henderson +persuaded to turn again and go in with him; but this addition hardly +offset the loss of those members of his party who thought it too +perilous to proceed. Henderson's own courage did not falter. He had +staked his all on this stupendous venture and for him it was forward to +wealth and glory or retreat into poverty and eclipse. Boone, in the +heart of the danger, was making the same stand. "If we give way to them +[the Indians] now," he wrote, "it will ever be the case." + +¹ Bogart, Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky, p. 121. + +Signs of discord other than Indian opposition met Henderson as he +resolutely pushed on. His conversations with some of the fugitives from +Kentucky disclosed the first indications of the storm that was to blow +away the empire he was going in to found. He told them that the claims +they had staked in Kentucky would not hold good with the Transylvania +Company. Whereupon James McAfee, who was leading a group of returning +men, stated his opinion that the Transylvania Company's claim would not +hold good with Virginia. After the parley, three of McAfee's brothers +turned back and went with Henderson's party, but whether with intent to +join his colony or to make good their own claims is not apparent. +Benjamin Logan continued amicably with Henderson on the march but did +not recognize him as Lord Proprietor of Kentucky. He left the +Transylvania caravan shortly after entering the territory, branched off +in the direction of Harrodsburg, and founded St. Asaph's Station, in the +present Lincoln County, independently of Henderson though the site lay +within Henderson's purchase. + +Notwithstanding delays and apprehensions, Henderson and his colonists +finally reached Boone's Fort, which Daniel and his "thirty +guns"--lacking two since the Indian encounter--had erected at the mouth +of Otter Creek. + +An attractive buoyancy of temperament is revealed in Henderson's +description in his journal of a giant elm with tall straight trunk and +even foliage that shaded a space of one hundred feet. Instantly he chose +this "divine elm" as the council chamber of Transylvania. Under its +leafage he read the constitution of the new colony. It would be too +great a stretch of fancy to call it a democratic document, for it was +not that, except in deft phrases. Power was certainly declared to be +vested in the people; but the substance of power remained in the hands +of the Proprietors. + +Terms for land grants were generous enough in the beginning, although +Henderson made the fatal mistake of demanding quitrents--one of the +causes of dissatisfaction which had led to the Regulators' rising in +North Carolina. In September he augmented this error by more than +doubling the price of land, adding a fee of eight shillings for +surveying, and reserving to the Proprietors one-half of all gold, +silver, lead, and sulphur found on the land. No land near sulphur +springs or showing evidences of metals was to be granted to settlers. +Moreover, at the Company's store the prices charged for lead were said +to be too high--lead being necessary for hunting, and hunting being the +only means of procuring food--while the wages of labor, as fixed by the +Company, were too low. These terms bore too heavily on poor men who were +risking their lives in the colony. + +Hence newcomers passed by Boonesborough, as the Transylvania settlement +was presently called, and went elsewhere. They settled on Henderson's +land but refused his terms. They joined in their sympathies with James +Harrod, who, having established Harrodsburg in the previous year at the +invitation of Virginia, was not in the humor to acknowledge Henderson's +claim or to pay him tribute. All were willing to combine with the +Transylvania Company for defense, and to enforce law they would unite in +bonds of brotherhood in Kentucky, even as they had been one with each +other on the earlier frontier now left behind them. But they would call +no man master; they had done with feudalism. That Henderson should not +have foreseen this, especially after the upheaval in North Carolina, +proves him, in spite of all his brilliant gifts, to have been a man out +of touch with the spirit of the time. + +The war of the Revolution broke forth and the Indians descended upon the +Kentucky stations. Defense was the one problem in all minds, and defense +required powder and lead in plenty. The Transylvania Company was not +able to provide the means of defense against the hordes of savages whom +Henry Hamilton, the British Governor at Detroit, was sending to make war +on the frontiers. Practical men like Harrod and George Rogers +Clark--who, if not a practical man in his own interests, was a most +practical soldier--saw that unification of interests within the +territory with the backing of either Virginia or Congress was necessary. +Clark personally would have preferred to see the settlers combine as a +freemen's state. It was plain that they would not combine and stake +their lives as a unit to hold Kentucky for the benefit of the +Transylvania Company, whose authority some of the most prominent men in +the territory had refused to recognize. The Proprietary of Transylvania +could continue to exist only to the danger of every life in Kentucky. + +While the Proprietors sent a delegate to the Continental Congress to win +official recognition for Transylvania, eighty-four men at Harrodsburg +drew up a petition addressed to Virginia stating their doubts of the +legality of Henderson's title and requesting Virginia to assert her +authority according to the stipulations of her charter. That defense was +the primary and essential motive of the Harrodsburg Remonstrance seems +plain, for when George Rogers Clark set off on foot with one companion +to lay the document before the Virginian authorities, he also went to +plead for a load of powder. In his account of that hazardous journey, as +a matter of fact, he makes scant reference to Transylvania, except to +say that the greed of the Proprietors would soon bring the colony to its +end, but shows that his mind was seldom off the powder. It is a detail +of history that the Continental Congress refused to seat the delegate +from Transylvania. Henderson himself went to Virginia to make the fight +for his land before the Assembly. ¹ + +¹ In 1778 Virginia disallowed Henderson's title but granted him two +hundred thousand acres between the Green and Kentucky rivers for his +trouble and expense in opening up the country. + +The magnetic center of Boonesborough's life was the lovable and +unassuming Daniel Boone. Soon after the building of the fort Daniel had +brought in his wife and family. He used often to state with a mild pride +that his wife and daughters were the first white women to stand on the +banks of the Kentucky River. That pride had not been unmixed with +anxiety; his daughter Jemima and two daughters of his friend, Richard +Galloway, while boating on the river had been captured by Shawanoes and +carried off. Boone, accompanied by the girls' lovers and by John Floyd +(eager to repay his debt of life-saving to Boone) had pursued them, +tracing the way the captors had taken by broken twigs and scraps of +dress goods which one of the girls had contrived to leave in their path, +had come on the Indians unawares, killed them, and recovered the three +girls unhurt. + +In the summer of 1776, Virginia took official note of "Captain Boone of +Boonesborough," for she sent him a small supply of powder. The men of +the little colony, which had begun so pretentiously with its +constitution and assembly, were now obliged to put all other plans aside +and to concentrate on the question of food and defense. There was a +dangerous scarcity of powder and lead. The nearest points at which these +necessaries could be procured were the Watauga and Holston River +settlements, which were themselves none too well stocked. Harrod and +Logan, some time in 1777, reached the Watauga fort with three or four +pack-horses and filled their packs from Sevier's store; but, as they +neared home, they were detected by red scouts and Logan was badly +wounded before he and Harrod were able to drive their precious load +safely through the gates at Harrodsburg. In the autumn of 1777, Clark, +with a boatload of ammunition, reached Maysville on the Ohio, having +successfully run the gauntlet between banks in possession of the foe. He +had wrested the powder and lead from the Virginia Council by threats to +the effect that if Virginia was so willing to lose Kentucky--for of +course "a country not worth defending is not worth claiming"--he and his +fellows were quite ready to take Kentucky for themselves and to hold it +with their swords against all comers, Virginia included. By even such +cogent reasoning had he convinced the Council--which had tried to hedge +by expressing doubts that Virginia would receive the Kentucky settlers +as "citizens of the State"--that it would be cheaper to give him the +powder. + +Because so many settlers had fled and the others had come closer +together for their common good, Harrodsburg and Boonesborough were now +the only occupied posts in Kentucky. Other settlements, once thriving, +were abandoned; and, under the terror, the Wild reclaimed them. In +April, 1777, Boonesborough underwent its first siege. Boone, leading a +sortie, was shot and he fell with a shattered ankle. An Indian rushed +upon him and was swinging the tomahawk over him when Simon Kenton, giant +frontiersman and hero of many daring deeds, rushed forward, shot the +Indian, threw Boone across his back, and fought his way desperately to +safety. It was some months ere Boone was his nimble self again. But +though he could not "stand up to the guns," he directed all operations +from his cabin. + +The next year Boone was ready for new ventures growing from the +settlers' needs. Salt was necessary to preserve meat through the summer. +Accordingly Boone and twenty-seven men went up to the Blue Licks in +February, 1778, to replenish their supply by the simple process of +boiling the salt water of the Licks till the saline particles adhered to +the kettles. Boone was returning alone, with a pack-horse load of salt +and game, when a blinding snowstorm overtook him and hid from view four +stealthy Shawanoes on his trail. He was seized and carried to a camp of +120 warriors led by the French Canadian, Dequindre, and James and George +Girty, two white renegades. Among the Indians were some of those who had +captured him on his first exploring trip through Kentucky and whom he +had twice given the slip. Their hilarity was unbounded. Boone quickly +learned that this band was on its way to surprise Boonesborough. It was +a season when Indian attacks were not expected; nearly threescore of the +men were at the salt spring and, to make matters worse, the walls of the +new fort where the settlers and their families had gathered were as yet +completed on only three sides. Boonesborough was, in short, well-nigh +defenseless. To turn the Indians from their purpose, Boone conceived the +desperate scheme of offering to lead them to the salt makers' camp with +the assurance that he and his companions were willing to join the tribe. +He understood Indians well enough to feel sure that once possessed of +nearly thirty prisoners, the Shawanoes would not trouble further about +Boonesborough but would hasten to make a triumphal entry into their own +towns. That some, perhaps all, of the white men would assuredly die, he +knew well; but it was the only way to save the women and children in +Boonesborough. In spite of Dequindre and the Girtys, who were leading a +military expedition for the reduction of a fort, the Shawanoes fell in +with the suggestion. When they had taken their prisoners, the more +bloodthirsty warriors in the band wanted to tomahawk them all on the +spot. By his diplomatic discourse, however, Boone dissuaded them, for +the time being at least, and the whole company set off for the towns on +the Little Miami. + +The weather became severe, very little game crossed their route, and for +days they subsisted on slippery elm bark. The lovers of blood did not +hold back their scalping knives and several of the prisoners perished; +but Black Fish, the chief then of most power in Shawanoe councils, +adopted Boone as his son, and gave him the name of Sheltowee, or Big +Turtle. Though watched zealously to prevent escape, Big Turtle was +treated with every consideration and honor; and, as we would say today, +he played the game. He entered into the Indian life with apparent zest, +took part in hunts and sports and the races and shooting matches in +which the Indians delighted, but he was always careful not to outrun or +outshoot his opponents. Black Fish took him to Detroit when some of the +tribe escorted the remainder of the prisoners to the British post. There +he met Governor Hamilton and, in the hope of obtaining his liberty, he +led that dignitary to believe that he and the other people of +Boonesborough were eager to move to Detroit and take refuge under the +British flag. ¹ It is said that Boone always carried in a wallet round +his neck the King's commission given him in Dunmore's War; and that he +exhibited it to Hamilton to bear out his story. Hamilton sought to +ransom him from the Indians, but Black Fish would not surrender his new +son. The Governor gave Boone a pony, with saddle and trappings, and +other presents, including trinkets to be used in procuring his needs and +possibly his liberty from the Shawanoes. + +¹ So well did Boone play his part that he aroused suspicion even in +those who knew him best. After his return to Boonesborough his old +friend, Calloway, formally accused him of treachery on two counts: that +Boone had betrayed the salt makers to the Indians and had planned to +betray Boonesborough to the British. Boone was tried and acquitted. His +simple explanation of his acts satisfied the court-martial and made him +a greater hero than ever among the frontier folk. + +Black Fish then took his son home to Chillicothe. Here Boone found +Delawares and Mingos assembling with the main body of the Shawanoe +warriors. The war belt was being carried through the Ohio country. Again +Boonesborough and Harrodsburg were to be the first settlements attacked. +To escape and give warning was now the one purpose that obsessed Boone. +He redoubled his efforts to throw the Indians off their guard. He sang +and whistled blithely about the camp at the mouth of the Scioto River, +whither he had accompanied his Indian father to help in the salt +boiling. In short, he seemed so very happy that one day Black Fish took +his eye off him for a few moments to watch the passing of a flock of +turkeys. Big Turtle passed with the flock, leaving no trace. To his +lamenting parent it must have seemed as though he had vanished into the +air. Daniel crossed the Ohio and ran the 160 miles to Boonesborough in +four days, during which time he had only one meal, from a buffalo he +shot at the Blue Licks. When he reached the fort after an absence of +nearly five months, he found that his wife had given him up for dead and +had returned to the Yadkin. + +Boone now began with all speed to direct preparations to withstand a +siege. Owing to the Indian's leisurely system of councils and ceremonies +before taking the warpath, it was not until the first week in September +that Black Fish's painted warriors, with some Frenchmen under Dequindre, +appeared before Boonesborough. Nine days the siege lasted and was the +longest in border history. Dequindre, seeing that the fort might not be +taken, resorted to trickery. He requested Boone and a few of his men to +come out for a parley, saying that his orders from Hamilton were to +protect the lives of the Americans as far as possible. Boone's friend, +Calloway, urged against acceptance of the apparently benign proposal +which was made, so Dequindre averred, for "bienfaisance et humanité." +But the words were the words of a white man, and Boone hearkened to +them. With eight of the garrison he went out to the parley. After a long +talk in which good will was expressed on both sides, it was suggested by +Black Fish that they all shake hands and, as there were so many more +Indians than white men, two Indians should, of course, shake hands with +one white man, each grasping one of his hands. The moment that their +hands gripped, the trick was clear, for the Indians exerted their +strength to drag off the white men. Desperate scuffling ensued in which +the whites with difficulty freed themselves and ran for the fort. +Calloway had prepared for emergencies. The pursuing Indians were met +with a deadly fire. After a defeated attempt to mine the fort the enemy +withdrew. + +The successful defense of Boonesborough was an achievement of national +importance, for had Boonesborough fallen, Harrodsburg alone could not +have stood. The Indians under the British would have overrun Kentucky; +and George Rogers Clark--whose base for his Illinois operations was the +Kentucky forts--could not have made the campaigns which wrested the +Northwest from the control of Great Britain. + +Again Virginia took official note of Captain Boone when in 1779 the +Legislature established Boonesborough "a town for the reception of +traders" and appointed Boone himself one of the trustees to attend to +the sale and registration of lots. An odd office that was for Daniel, +who never learned to attend to the registration of his own; he declined +it. His name appears again, however, a little later when Virginia made +the whole of Kentucky one of her counties with the following officers: +Colonel David Robinson, County Lieutenant; George Rogers Clark, Anthony +Bledsoe, and John Bowman, Majors; Daniel Boone, James Harrod, Benjamin +Logan, and John Todd, Captains. + +Boonesborough's successful resistance caused land speculators as well as +prospective settlers to take heart of grace. Parties made their way to +Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, and even to the Falls of the Ohio, where +Clark's fort and blockhouses now stood. In the summer of 1779 Clark had +erected on the Kentucky side of the river a large fort which became the +nucleus of the town of Louisville. Here, while he was eating his heart +out with impatience for money and men to enable him to march to the +attack of Detroit, as he had planned, he amused himself by drawing up +plans for a city. He laid out private sections and public parks and +contemplated the bringing in of families only to inhabit his city, for, +oddly enough, he who never married was going to make short shift of mere +bachelors in his City Beautiful. Between pen scratches, no doubt, he +looked out frequently upon the river to descry if possible a boatload of +ammunition or the banners of the troops he had been promised. + +When neither appeared, he gave up the idea of Detroit and set about +erecting defenses on the southern border, for the Choctaws and +Cherokees, united under a white leader named Colbert, were threatening +Kentucky by way of the Mississippi. He built in 1780 Fort Jefferson in +what is now Ballard County, and had barely completed the new post and +garrisoned it with about thirty men when it was besieged by Colbert and +his savages. The Indians, assaulting by night, were lured into a +position directly before a cannon which poured lead into a mass of them. +The remainder fled in terror from the vicinity of the fort; but Colbert +succeeded in rallying them and was returning to the attack when he +suddenly encountered Clark with a company of men and was forced to +abandon his enterprise. + +Clark knew that the Ohio Indians would come down on the settlements +again during the summer and that to meet their onslaughts every man in +Kentucky would be required. He learned that there was a new influx of +land seekers over the Wilderness Road and that speculators were doing a +thriving business in Harrodsburg; so, leaving his company to protect +Fort Jefferson, he took two men with him and started across the wilds on +foot for Harrodsburg. To evade the notice of the Indian bands which were +moving about the country the three stripped and painted themselves as +warriors and donned the feathered headdress. So successful was their +disguise that they were fired on by a party of surveyors near the +outskirts of Harrodsburg. + +The records do not state what were the sensations of certain speculators +in a land office in Harrodsburg when a blue-eyed savage in a war bonnet +sprang through the doorway and, with uplifted weapon, declared the +office closed; but we get a hint of the power of Clark's personality and +of his genius for dominating men from the terse report that he +"enrolled" the speculators. He was informed that another party of men, +more nervous than these, was now on its way out of Kentucky. In haste he +dispatched a dozen frontiersmen to cut the party off at Crab Orchard and +take away the gun of every man who refused to turn back and do his bit +for Kentucky. To Clark a man was a gun, and he meant that every gun +should do its duty. + +The leaders and pioneers of the Dark and Bloody Ground were now +warriors, all under Clark's command, while for two years longer the Red +Terror ranged Kentucky, falling with savage force now here, now there. +In the first battle of 1780, at the Blue Licks, Daniel's brother, Edward +Boone, was killed and scalped. Later on in the war his second son, +Israel, suffered a like fate. The toll of life among the settlers was +heavy. Many of the best-known border leaders were slain. Food and powder +often ran short. Corn might be planted, but whether it would be +harvested or not the planters never knew; and the hunter's rifle shot, +necessary though it was, proved only too often an invitation to the +lurking foe. But sometimes, through all the dangers of forest and trail, +Daniel Boone slipped away silently to Harrodsburg to confer with Clark; +or Clark himself, in the Indian guise that suited the wild man in him +not ill, made his way to and from the garrisons which looked to him for +everything. + +Twice Clark gathered together the "guns" of Kentucky and, marching north +into the enemy's country, swept down upon the Indian towns of Piqua and +Chillicothe and razed them. In 1782, in the second of these enterprises, +his cousin, Joseph Rogers, who had been taken prisoner and adopted by +the Indians and then wore Indian garb, was shot down by one of Clark's +men. On this expedition Boone and Harrod are said to have accompanied +Clark. + +The ever present terror and horror of those days, especially of the two +years preceding this expedition, are vividly suggested by the quaint +remark of an old woman who had lived through them, as recorded for us by +a traveler. The most beautiful sight she had seen in Kentucky, she said, +was a young man dying a natural death in his bed. Dead but unmarred by +hatchet or scalping knife, he was so rare and comely a picture that the +women of the post sat up all night looking at him. + +But, we ask, what golden emoluments were showered by a grateful country +on the men who thus held the land through those years of want and war, +and saved an empire for the Union? What practical recognition was there +of these brave and unselfish men who daily risked their lives and faced +the stealth and cruelty lurking in the wilderness ways? There is meager +eloquence in the records. Here, for instance, is a letter from George +Rogers Clark to the Governor of Virginia, dated May 27, 1783: + +Sir. Nothing but necessity could induce me to make the following request +to Your Excellency, which is to grant me a small sum of money on +account; as I can assure you, Sir, that I am exceedingly distressed for +the want of necessary clothing etc and don't know any channel through +which I could procure any except of the Executive. The State I believe +will fall considerably in my debt. Any supplies which Your Excellency +favors me with might be deducted out of my accounts. ¹ + +¹ Calendar of Virginia State Papers, vol. III, p. 487. + +Clark had spent all his own substance and all else he could beg, +borrow--or appropriate--in the conquest of Illinois and the defense of +Kentucky. His only reward from Virginia was a grant of land from which +he realized nothing, and dismissal from her service when she needed him +no longer. + +All that Clark had asked for himself was a commission in the Continental +Army. This was denied him, as it appears now, not through his own +errors, which had not at that time taken hold on him, but through the +influence of powerful enemies. It is said that both Spain and England, +seeing a great soldier without service for his sword, made him offers, +which he refused. As long as any acreage remained to him on which to +raise money, he continued to pay the debts he had contracted to finance +his expeditions, and in this course he had the assistance of his +youngest brother, William, to whom he assigned his Indiana grant. + +His health impaired by hardship and exposure and his heart broken by his +country's indifference, Clark sank into alcoholic excesses. In his +sixtieth year, just six years before his death, and when he was a +helpless paralytic, he was granted a pension of four hundred dollars. +There is a ring of bitter irony in the words with which he accepted the +sword sent him by Virginia in his crippled old age: "When Virginia +needed a sword I gave her one." He died near Louisville on February 13, +1818. + +Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. But even before Kentucky +became a State her affairs, particularly as to land, were arranged, let +us say, on a practical business basis. Then it was discovered that +Daniel Boone had no legal claim to any foot of ground in Kentucky. +Daniel owned nothing but the clothes he wore; and for those--as well as +for much powder, lead, food, and such trifles--he was heavily in debt. + +So, in 1788, Daniel Boone put the list of his debts in his wallet, +gathered his wife and his younger sons about him, and, shouldering his +hunter's rifle, once more turned towards the wilds. The country of the +Great Kanawha in West Virginia was still a wilderness, and a hunter and +trapper might, in some years, earn enough to pay his debts. For others, +now, the paths he had hewn and made safe; for Boone once more the +wilderness road. + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Tennessee + +Indian law, tradition, and even superstition had shaped the conditions +which the pioneers faced when they crossed the mountains. This savage +inheritance had decreed that Kentucky should be a dark and bloody +ground, fostering no life but that of four-footed beasts, its fertile +sod never to stir with the green push of the corn. And so the white men +who went into Kentucky to build and to plant went as warriors go, and +for every cabin they erected they battled as warriors to hold a fort. In +the first years they planted little corn and reaped less, for it may be +said that their rifles were never out of their hands. We have seen how +stations were built and abandoned until but two stood. Untiring +vigilance and ceaseless warfare were the price paid by the first +Kentuckians ere they turned the Indian's place of desolation and death +into a land productive and a living habitation. + +Herein lies the difference, slight apparently, yet significant, between +the first Kentucky and the first Tennessee ¹ colonies. Within the memory +of the Indians only one tribe had ever attempted to make their home in +Kentucky--a tribe of the fighting Shawanoes--and they had been terribly +chastised for their temerity. But Tennessee was the home of the +Cherokees, and at Chickasaw Bluffs (Memphis) began the southward trail +to the principal towns of the Chickasaws. By the red man's fiat, then, +human life might abide in Tennessee, though not in Kentucky, and it +followed that in seasons of peace the frontiersmen might settle in +Tennessee. So it was that as early as 1757, before the great Cherokee +war, a company of Virginians under Andrew Lewis had, on an invitation +from the Indians, erected Fort Loudon near Great Telliko, the Cherokees' +principal town, and that, after the treaty of peace in 1761, Waddell and +his rangers of North Carolina had erected a fort on the Holston. + +¹ Tennessee. The name, Ten-as-se, appears on Adair's map as one of the +old Cherokee towns. Apparently neither the meaning nor the reason why +the colonists called both state and river by this name has been handed +down to us. + +Though Fort Loudon had fallen tragically during the war, and though +Waddell's fort had been abandoned, neither was without influence in the +colonization of Tennessee, for some of the men who built these forts +drifted back a year or two later and set up the first cabins on the +Holston. These earliest settlements, thin and scattered, did not +survive; but in 1768 the same settlers or others of their +kind--discharged militiamen from Back Country regiments--once more made +homes on the Holston. They were joined by a few families from near the +present Raleigh, North Carolina, who had despaired of seeing justice +done to the tenants on the mismanaged estates of Lord Granville. About +the same time there was erected the first cabin on the Watauga River, as +is generally believed, by a man of the name of William Bean (or Been), +hunter and frontier soldier from Pittsylvania County, Virginia. This +man, who had hunted on the Watauga with Daniel Boone in 1760, chose as +the site of his dwelling the place of the old hunting camp near the +mouth of Boone's Creek. He soon began to have neighbors. + +Meanwhile the Regulation Movement stirred the Back Country of both the +Carolinas. In 1768, the year in which William Bean built his cabin on +the bank of the Watauga, five hundred armed Regulators in North +Carolina, aroused by irregularities in the conduct of public office, +gathered to assert their displeasure, but dispersed peaceably on receipt +of word from Governor Tryon that he had ordered the prosecution of any +officer found guilty of extortion. Edmund Fanning, the most hated of +Lord Granville's agents, though convicted, escaped punishment. Enraged +at this miscarriage of justice, the Regulators began a system of +terrorization by taking possession of the court, presided over by +Richard Henderson. The judge himself was obliged to slip out by a back +way to avoid personal injury. The Regulators burned his house and +stable. They meted out mob treatment likewise to William Hooper, later +one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. + +Two elements, with antithetical aims, had been at work in the +Regulation; and the unfortunate failure of justice in the case of +Fanning had given the corrupt element its opportunity to seize control. +In the petitions addressed to Governor Tryon by the leaders of the +movement in its earlier stages the aims of liberty-loving thinkers are +traceable. It is worthy of note that they included in their demands +articles which are now constitutional. They desired that "suffrage be +given by ticket and ballot"; that the mode of taxation be altered, and +each person be taxed in proportion to the profits arising from his +estate; that judges and clerks be given salaries instead of perquisites +and fees. They likewise petitioned for repeal of the act prohibiting +dissenting ministers from celebrating the rites of matrimony. The +establishment of these reforms, the petitioners of the Regulation +concluded, would "conciliate" their minds to "every just measure of +government, and would make the laws what the Constitution ever designed +they should be, their protection and not their bane." Herein clearly +enough we can discern the thought and the phraseology of the Ulster +Presbyterians. + +But a change took place in both leaders and methods. During the +Regulators' career of violence they were under the sway of an agitator +named Hermon Husband. This demagogue was reported to have been expelled +from the Quaker Society for cause; it is on record that he was expelled +from the North Carolina Assembly because a vicious anonymous letter was +traced to him. He deserted his dupes just before the shots cracked at +Alamance Creek and fled from the colony. He was afterwards apprehended +in Pennsylvania for complicity in the Whisky Insurrection. + +Four of the leading Presbyterian ministers of the Back Country issued a +letter in condemnation of the Regulators. One of these ministers was the +famous David Caldwell, son-in-law of the Reverend Alexander Craighead, +and a man who knew the difference between liberty and license and who +proved himself the bravest of patriots in the War of Independence. The +records of the time contain sworn testimony against the Regulators by +Waightstill Avery, a signer of the Mecklenburg Resolves, who later +presided honorably over courts in the western circuit of Tennessee; and +there is evidence indicating Jacobite and French intrigue. That Governor +Tryon recognized a hidden hand at work seems clearly revealed in his +proclamation addressed to those "whose understandings have been run away +with and whose passions have been led in captivity by some evil +designing men who, actuated by cowardice and a sense of that Publick +Justice which is due to their Crimes, have obscured themselves from +Publick view." What the Assembly thought of the Regulators was expressed +in 1770 in a drastic bill which so shocked the authorities in England +that instructions were sent forbidding any Governor to approve such a +bill in future, declaring it "a disgrace to the British Statute Books." + +On May 16, 1771, some two thousand Regulators were precipitated by +Husband into the Battle of Alamance, which took place in a district +settled largely by a rough and ignorant type of Germans, many of whom +Husband had lured to swell his mob. Opposed to him were eleven hundred +of Governor Tryon's troops, officered by such patriots as Griffith +Rutherford, Hugh Waddell, and Francis Nash. During an hour's engagement +about twenty Regulators were killed, while the Governor's troops had +nine killed and sixty-one wounded. Six of the leaders were hanged. The +rest took the oath of allegiance which Tryon administered. + +It has been said about the Regulators that they were not cast down by +their defeat at Alamance but "like the mammoth, they shook the bolt from +their brow and crossed the mountains," but such flowery phrases do not +seem to have been inspired by facts. Nor do the records show that +"fifteen hundred Regulators" arrived at Watauga in 1771, as has also +been stated. Nor are the names of the leaders of the Regulation to be +found in the list of signatures affixed to the one "state paper" of +Watauga which was preserved and written into historic annals. Nor yet do +those names appear on the roster of the Watauga and Holston men who, in +1774, fought with Shelby under Andrew Lewis in the Battle of Point +Pleasant. The Boones and the Bryans, the Robertsons, the Seviers, the +Shelbys, the men who opened up the West and shaped the destiny of its +inhabitants, were genuine freemen, with a sense of law and order as +inseparable from liberty. They would follow a Washington but not a +Hermon Husband. + +James Hunter, whose signature leads on all Regulation manifestoes just +prior to the Battle of Alamance, was a sycophant of Husband, to whom he +addressed fulsome letters; and in the real battle for democracy--the War +of Independence--he was a Tory. The Colonial Records show that those +who, "like the mammoth," shook from them the ethical restraints which +make man superior to the giant beast, and who later bolted into the +mountains, contributed chiefly the lawlessness that harassed the new +settlements. They were the banditti and, in 1776, the Tories of the +western hills; they pillaged the homes of the men who were fighting for +the democratic ideal. + +It was not the Regulation Movement which turned westward the makers of +the Old Southwest, but the free and enterprising spirit of the age. It +was emphatically an age of doers; and if men who felt the constructive +urge in them might not lay hold on conditions where they were and +reshape them, then they must go forward seeking that environment which +would give their genius its opportunity. + +Of such adventurous spirits was James Robertson, a Virginian born of +Ulster Scot parentage, and a resident of (the present) Wake County, +North Carolina, since his boyhood. Robertson was twenty-eight years old +when, in 1770, he rode over the hills to Watauga. We can imagine him as +he was then, for the portrait taken much later in life shows the type of +face that does not change. It is a high type combining the best +qualities of his race. Intelligence, strength of purpose, fortitude, and +moral power are there; they impress us at the first glance. At +twenty-eight he must have been a serious young man, little given to +laughter; indeed, spontaneity is perhaps the only good trait we miss in +studying his face. He was a thinker who had not yet found his purpose--a +thinker in leash, for at this time James Robertson could neither read +nor write. + +At Watauga, Robertson lived for a while in the cabin of a man named +Honeycut. He chose land for himself and, in accordance with the custom +of the time, sealed his right to it by planting corn. He remained to +harvest his first crop and then set off to gather his family and some of +his friends together and escort them to the new country. But on the way +he missed the trail and wandered for a fortnight in the mountains. The +heavy rains ruined his powder so that he could not hunt; for food he had +only berries and nuts. At one place, where steep bluffs opposed him, he +was obliged to abandon his horse and scale the mountain side on foot. He +was in extremity when he chanced upon two huntsmen who gave him food and +set him on the trail. If this experience proves his lack of the hunter's +instinct and the woodsman's resourcefulness which Boone possessed, it +proves also his special qualities of perseverance and endurance which +were to reach their zenith in his successful struggle to colonize and +hold western Tennessee. He returned to Watauga in the following spring +(1771) with his family and a small group of colonists. Robertson's wife +was an educated woman and under her instruction he now began to study. + +Next year a young Virginian from the Shenandoah Valley rode on down +Holston Valley on a hunting and exploring trip and loitered at Watauga. +Here he found not only a new settlement but an independent government in +the making; and forthwith he determined to have a part in both. This +young Virginian had already shown the inclination of a political +colonist, for in the Shenandoah Valley he had, at the age of nineteen, +laid out the town of New Market (which exists to this day) and had +directed its municipal affairs and invited and fostered its clergy. This +young Virginian--born on September 23, 1745, and so in 1772 twenty-seven +years of age--was John Sevier, that John Sevier whose monument now +towers from its site in Knoxville to testify of both the wild and the +great deeds of old Tennessee's beloved knight. Like Robertson, Sevier +hastened home and removed his whole family, including his wife and +children, his parents and his brothers and sisters, to this new haven of +freedom at Watauga. + +The friendship formed between Robertson and Sevier in these first years +of their work together was never broken, yet two more opposite types +could hardly have been brought together. Robertson was a man of humble +origin, unlettered, not a dour Scot but a solemn one. Sevier was +cavalier as well as frontiersman. On his father's side he was of the +patrician family of Xavier in France. His progenitors, having become +Huguenots, had taken refuge in England, where the name Xavier was +finally changed to Sevier. John Sevier's mother was an Englishwoman. +Some years before his birth his parents had emigrated to the Shenandoah +Valley. Thus it happened that John Sevier, who mingled good English +blood with the blue blood of old France, was born an American and grew +up a frontier hunter and soldier. He stood about five feet nine from his +moccasins to his crown of light brown hair. He was well-proportioned and +as graceful of body as he was hard-muscled and swift. His chin was firm, +his nose of a Roman cast, his mouth well-shaped, its slightly full lips +slanting in a smile that would not be repressed. Under the high, finely +modeled brow, small keen dark blue eyes sparkled with health, with +intelligence, and with the man's joy in life. + +John Sevier indeed cannot be listed as a type; he was individual. There +is no other character like him in border annals. He was cavalier and +prince in his leadership of men; he had their homage. Yet he knew how to +be comrade and brother to the lowliest. He won and held the confidence +and friendship of the serious-minded Robertson no less than the idolatry +of the wildest spirits on the frontier throughout the forty-three years +of the spectacular career which began for him on the day he brought his +tribe to Watauga. In his time he wore the governor's purple; and a +portrait painted of him shows how well this descendant of the noble +Xaviers could fit himself to the dignity and formal habiliments of +state; Yet in the fringed deerskin of frontier garb, he was fleeter on +the warpath than the Indians who fled before him; and he could outride +and outshoot--and, it is said, outswear--the best and the worst of the +men who followed him. Perhaps the lurking smile on John Sevier's face +was a flicker of mirth that there should be found any man, red or white, +with temerity enough to try conclusions with him. None ever did, +successfully. + +The historians of Tennessee state that the Wataugans formed their +government in 1772 and that Sevier was one of its five commissioners. +Yet, as Sevier did not settle in Tennessee before 1773, it is possible +that the Watauga Association was not formed until then. Unhappily the +written constitution of the little commonwealth was not preserved; but +it is known that, following the Ulsterman's ideal, manhood suffrage and +religious independence were two of its provisions. The commissioners +enlisted a militia and they recorded deeds for land, issued marriage +licenses, and tried offenders against the law. They believed themselves +to be within the boundaries of Virginia and therefore adopted the laws +of that State for their guidance. They had numerous offenders to deal +with, for men fleeing from debt or from the consequence of crime sought +the new settlements just across the mountains as a safe and adjacent +harbor. The attempt of these men to pursue their lawlessness in Watauga +was one reason why the Wataugans organized a government. + +When the line was run between Virginia and North Carolina beyond +the mountains, Watauga was discovered to be south of Virginia's limits +and hence on Indian lands. This was in conflict with the King's +Proclamation, and Alexander Cameron, British agent to the Cherokees, +accordingly ordered the encroaching settlers to depart. The Indians, +however, desired them to remain. But since it was illegal to purchase +Indian lands, Robertson negotiated a lease for ten years. In 1775, when +Henderson made his purchase from the Cherokees, at Sycamore Shoals on +the Watauga, Robertson and Sevier, who were present at the sale with +other Watauga commissioners, followed Henderson's example and bought +outright the lands they desired to include in Watauga's domain. In 1776 +they petitioned North Carolina for "annexation." As they were already +within North Carolina's bounds, it was recognition rather than +annexation which they sought. This petition, which is the only Wataugan +document to survive, is undated but marked as received in August, 1776. +It is in Sevier's handwriting and its style suggests that it was +composed by him, for in its manner of expression it has much in common +with many later papers from his pen. That Wataugans were a law-loving +community and had formed their government for the purpose of making law +respected is reiterated throughout the document. As showing the quality +of these first western statemakers, two paragraphs are quoted: + +Finding ourselves on the frontiers, and being apprehensive that for want +of proper legislature we might become a shelter for such as endeavored +to defraud their creditors; considering also the necessity of recording +deeds, wills, and doing other public business; we, by consent of the +people, formed a court for the purposes above mentioned, taking, by +desire of our constituents, the Virginia laws for our guide, so near as +the situation of affairs would permit. This was intended for ourselves, +and was done by consent of every individual. + +The petition goes on to state that, among their measures for upholding +law, the Wataugans had enlisted "a company of fine riflemen" and put +them under command of "Captain James Robertson." + +We... thought proper to station them on our frontiers in defense of the +common cause, at the expense and risque of our own private fortunes, +till farther public orders, which we flatter ourselves will give no +offense.... We pray your mature and deliberate consideration in our +behalf, that you may annex us to your Province (whether as county, +district, or other division) in such manner as may enable us to share in +the glorious cause of Liberty: enforce our laws under authority and in +every respect become the best members of society; and for ourselves and +our constituents we hope we may venture to assure you that we shall +adhere strictly to your determinations, and that nothing will be lacking +or anything neglected that may add weight (in the civil or military +establishments) to the glorious cause in which we are now struggling, or +contribute to the welfare of our own or ages yet to come. + +One hundred and thirteen names are signed to the document. In the +following year (1777) North Carolina erected her overhill territory into +Washington County. The Governor appointed justices of the peace and +militia officers who in the following year organized the new county and +its courts. And so Watauga's independent government, begun in the spirit +of true liberty, came as lawfully to its end. + +But for nearly three years before their political status was thus +determined, the Wataugans were sharing "in the glorious cause of +Liberty" by defending their settlements against Indian attacks. While +the majority of the young Cherokee warriors were among their enemies, +their chief battles were fought with those from the Chickamaugan towns +on the Tennessee River, under the leadership of Dragging Canoe. The +Chickamaugans embraced the more vicious and bloodthirsty Cherokees, with +a mixture of Creeks and bad whites, who, driven from every law-abiding +community, had cast in their lot with this tribe. The exact number of +white thieves and murderers who had found harbor in the Indian towns +during a score or more of years is not known; but the letters of the +Indian agents, preserved in the records, would indicate that there were +a good many of them. They were fit allies for Dragging Canoe; their +hatred of those from whom their own degeneracy had separated them was +not less than his. + +In July, 1776, John Sevier wrote to the Virginia Committee as follows: + +Dear Gentlemen: Isaac Thomas, William Falling, Jaret Williams and one +more have this moment come in by making their escape from the Indians +and say six hundred Indians and whites were to start for this fort and +intend to drive the country up to New River before they return. + +Thus was heralded the beginning of a savage warfare which kept the +borderers engaged for years. + +It has been a tradition of the chroniclers that Isaac Thomas received a +timely warning from Nancy Ward, a half-caste Cherokee prophetess who +often showed her good will towards the whites; and that the Indians were +roused to battle by Alexander Cameron and John Stuart, the British +agents or superintendents among the overhill tribes. There was a letter +bearing Cameron's name stating that fifteen hundred savages from the +Cherokee and Creek nations were to join with British troops landed at +Pensacola in an expedition against the southern frontier colonies. This +letter was brought to Watauga at dead of night by a masked man who +slipped it through a window and rode away. Apparently John Sevier did +not believe the military information contained in the mysterious +missive, for he communicated nothing of it to the Virginia Committee. In +recent years the facts have come to light. This mysterious letter and +others of a similar tenor bearing forged signatures are cited in a +report by the British Agent, John Stuart, to his Government. It appears +that such inflammatory missives had been industriously scattered through +the back settlements of both Carolinas. There are also letters from +Stuart to Lord Dartmouth, dated a year earlier, urging that something be +done immediately to counteract rumors set afloat that the British were +endeavoring to instigate both the Indians and the negroes to attack the +Americans. + +Now it is, of course, an established fact that both the British and the +American armies used Indians in the War of Independence, even as both +together had used them against the French and the Spanish and their +allied Indians. It was inevitable that the Indians should participate in +any severe conflict between the whites. They were a numerous and a +warlike people and, from their point of view, they had more at stake +than the alien whites who were contesting for control of the red man's +continent. Both British and Americans have been blamed for "half-hearted +attempts to keep the Indians neutral." The truth is that each side +strove to enlist the Indians--to be used, if needed later, as warriors. +Massacre was no part of this policy, though it may have been +countenanced by individual officers in both camps. But it is obvious +that, once the Indians took the warpath, they were to be restrained by +no power and, no matter under whose nominal command, they would carry on +warfare by their own methods. ¹ + +¹ "There is little doubt that either side, British or Americans, stood +ready to enlist the Indians. Already before Boston the Americans had had +the help of the Stockbridge tribe. Washington found the service +committed to the practise when he arrived at Cambridge early in July. +Dunmore had taken the initiative in securing such allies, at least is +purpose; but the insurgent Virginians had had of late more direct +contact with the tribes and were now striving to secure them but with +little success." The Westward Movement, by Justin Winsor, p. 87. +General Ethan Allen of Vermont, as his letters show, sent emissaries +into Canada in an endeavor to enlist the French Canadians and the +Canadian Indians against the British in Canada. See American Archives, +Fourth Series, vol. II, p. 714. The British General Gage wrote to Lord +Dartmouth from Boston, June 12, 1775: "We need not be tender of calling +on the Savages as the rebels have shown us the example, by bringing as +many Indians down against us as they could collect." American Archives, +Fourth Series, vol. ii, p. 967. +In a letter to Lord Germain, dated August 23, 1776, John Stuart wrote: +"Although Mr. Cameron was in constant danger of assassination and the +Indians were threatened with invasion should they dare to protect him, +yet he still found means to prevent their falling on the settlement." +See North Carolina Colonial Records, vol. X, pp. 608 and 763. Proof that +the British agents had succeeded in keeping the Cherokee neutral till +the summer of 1776 is found in the instructions, dated the 7th of July, +to Major Winston from President Rutledge of South Carolina, regarding +the Cherokees, that they must be forced to give up the British agents +and "instead of remaining in a State of Neutrality with respect to +British Forces they must take part with us against them." See North +Carolina Colonial Records, vol. X, p. 658. + +Whatever may have been the case elsewhere, the attacks on the Watauga +and Holston settlements were not instigated by British agents. It was +not Nancy Ward but Henry Stuart, John Stuart's deputy, who sent Isaac +Thomas to warn the settlers. In their efforts to keep the friendship of +the red men, the British and the Americans were providing them with +powder and lead. The Indians had run short of ammunition and, since +hunting was their only means of livelihood, they must shoot or starve. +South Carolina sent the Cherokees a large supply of powder and lead +which was captured en route by Tories. About the same time Henry Stuart +set out from Pensacola with another consignment from the British. His +report to Lord Germain of his arrival in the Chickamaugan towns and of +what took place there just prior to the raids on the Tennessee +settlements is one of the most illuminating as well as one of the most +dramatic papers in the collected records of that time. ¹ + +¹ North Carolina Colonial Records, vol. X, pp. 763-785. + +Stuart's first act was secretly to send out Thomas, the trader, to warn +the settlers of their peril, for a small war party of braves was even +then concluding the preliminary war ceremonies. The reason for this +Indian alarm and projected excursion was the fact that the settlers had +built one fort at least on the Indian lands. Stuart finally persuaded +the Indians to remain at peace until he could write to the settlers +stating the grievances and asking for negotiations. The letters were to +be carried by Thomas on his return. + +But no sooner was Thomas on his way again with the letters than there +arrived a deputation of warriors from the Northern tribes--from "the +Confederate nations, the Mohawks, Ottawas, Nantucas, Shawanoes and +Delawares"--fourteen men in all, who entered the council hall of the Old +Beloved Town of Chota with their faces painted black and the war belt +carried before them. They said that they had been seventy days on their +journey. Everywhere along their way they had seen houses and forts +springing up like weeds across the green sod of their hunting lands. +Where once were great herds of deer and buffalo, they had watched +thousands of men at arms preparing for war. So many now were the white +warriors and their women and children that the red men had been obliged +to travel a great way on the other side of the Ohio and to make a detour +of nearly three hundred miles to avoid being seen. Even on this outlying +route they had crossed the fresh tracks of a great body of people with +horses and cattle going still further towards the setting sun. But their +cries were not to be in vain; for "their fathers, the French" had heard +them and had promised to aid them if they would now strike as one for +their lands. + +After this preamble the deputy of the Mohawks rose. He said that some +American people had made war on one of their towns and had seized the +son of their Great Beloved Man, Sir William Johnson, imprisoned him, and +put him to a cruel death; this crime demanded a great vengeance and they +would not cease until they had taken it. One after another the fourteen +delegates rose and made their "talks" and presented their wampum strings +to Dragging Canoe. The last to speak was a chief of the Shawanoes. He +also declared that "their fathers, the French," who had been so long +dead, were "alive again," that they had supplied them plentifully with +arms and ammunition and had promised to assist them in driving out the +Americans and in reclaiming their country. Now all the Northern tribes +were joined in one for this great purpose; and they themselves were on +their way to all the Southern tribes and had resolved that, if any tribe +refused to join, they would fall upon and extirpate that tribe, after +having overcome the whites. At the conclusion of his oration the +Shawanoe presented the war belt--nine feet of six-inch wide purple +wampum spattered with vermilion--to Dragging Canoe, who held it extended +between his two hands, in silence, and waited. Presently rose a headman +whose wife had been a member of Sir William Johnson's household. He laid +his hand on the belt and sang the war song. One by one, then, chiefs and +warriors rose, laid hold of the great belt and chanted the war song. +Only the older men, made wise by many defeats, sat still in their +places, mute and dejected. "After that day every young fellow's face in +the overhills towns appeared blackened and nothing was now talked of but +war." + +Stuart reports that "all the white men" in the tribe also laid hands on +the belt. Dragging Canoe then demanded that Cameron and Stuart come +forward and take hold of the war belt--"which we refused." Despite the +offense their refusal gave--and it would seem a dangerous time to give +such offense--Cameron delivered a "strong talk" for peace, warning the +Cherokees of what must surely be the end of the rashness they +contemplated. Stuart informed the chief that if the Indians persisted in +attacking the settlements with out waiting for answers to his letters, +he would not remain with them any longer or bring them any more +ammunition. He went to his house and made ready to leave on the +following day. Early the next morning Dragging Canoe appeared at his +door and told him that the Indians were now very angry about the letters +he had written, which could only have put the settlers on their guard; +and that if any white man attempted to leave the nation "they had +determined to follow him but not to bring him back." Dragging Canoe had +painted his face black to carry this message. Thomas now returned with +an answer from "the West Fincastle men," which was so unsatisfactory to +the tribe that war ceremonies were immediately begun. Stuart and Cameron +could no longer influence the Indians. "All that could now be done was +to give them strict charge not to pass the Boundary Line, not to injure +any of the King's faithful subjects, not to Kill any women and +children"; and to threaten to "stop all ammunition" if they did not obey +these orders. + +The major part of the Watauga militia went out to meet the Indians and +defeated a large advance force at Long Island Flats on the Holston. The +Watauga fort, where many of the settlers had taken refuge, contained +forty fighting men under Robertson and Sevier. As Indians usually +retreated and waited for a while after a defeat, those within the fort +took it for granted that no immediate attack was to be expected; and the +women went out at daybreak into the fields to milk the cows. Suddenly +the war whoop shrilled from the edge of the clearing. Red warriors +leaped from the green skirting of the forest. The women ran for the +fort. Quickly the heavy gates swung to and the dropped bar secured them. +Only then did the watchmen discover that one woman had been shut out. +She was a young woman nearing her twenties and, if legend has reported +her truly, "Bonnie Kate Sherrill" was a beauty. Through a porthole +Sevier saw her running towards the shut gates, dodging and darting, her +brown hair blowing from the wind of her race for life--and offering far +too rich a prize to the yelling fiends who dashed after her. Sevier +coolly shot the foremost of her pursuers, then sprang upon the wall, +caught up Bonnie Kate, and tossed her inside to safety. And legend says +further that when, after Sevier's brief widowerhood, she became his +wife, four years later, Bonnie Kate was wont to say that she would be +willing to run another such race any day to have another such +introduction! + +There were no casualties within the fort and, after three hours, the foe +withdrew, leaving several of their warriors slain. + +In the excursions against the Indians which followed this opening of +hostilities Sevier won his first fame as an "Indian fighter"--the fame +later crystallized in the phrase "thirty-five battles, thirty-five +victories." His method was to take a very small company of the hardiest +and swiftest horsemen--men who could keep their seat and endurance, and +horses that could keep their feet and their speed, on any steep of the +mountains no matter how tangled and rough the going might be--swoop down +upon war camp, or town, and go through it with rifle and hatchet and +fire, then dash homeward at the same pace before the enemy had begun to +consider whether to follow him or not. In all his "thirty-five battles" +it is said he lost not more than fifty men. + +The Cherokees made peace in 1777, after about a year of almost +continuous warfare, the treaty being concluded on their side by the old +chiefs who had never countenanced the war. Dragging Canoe refused to +take part, but he was rendered innocuous for the time being by the +destruction of several of the Chickamaugan villages. James Robertson now +went to Chota as Indian agent for North Carolina. So fast was population +growing, owing to the opening of a wagon road into Burke County, North +Carolina, that Washington County was divided. John Sevier became Colonel +of Washington and Isaac Shelby Colonel of the newly erected Sullivan +County. Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee, was laid out as the +county seat of Washington; and in the same year (1778) Sevier moved to +the bank of the Nolichucky River, so-called after the Indian name of +this dashing sparkling stream, meaning rapid or precipitous. Thus the +nickname given John Sevier by his devotees had a dual application. He +was well called Nolichucky Jack. + +When Virginia annulled Richard Henderson's immense purchase but allowed +him a large tract on the Cumberland, she by no means discouraged that +intrepid pioneer. Henderson's tenure of Kentucky had been brief, but not +unprofitable in experience. He had learned that colonies must be treated +with less commercial pressure and with more regard to individual +liberty, if they were to be held loyal either to a King beyond the water +or to an uncrowned leader nearer at hand. He had been making his plans +for colonization of that portion of the Transylvania purchase which lay +within the bounds of North Carolina along the Cumberland and choosing +his men to lay the foundations of his projected settlement in what was +then a wholly uninhabited country; and he had decided on generous terms, +such as ten dollars a thousand acres for land, the certificate of +purchase to entitle the holder to further proceedings in the land office +without extra fees. + +To head an enterprise of such danger and hardship Henderson required a +man of more than mere courage; a man of resource, of stability, of +proven powers, one whom other men would follow and obey with confidence. +So it was that James Robertson was chosen to lead the first white +settlers into middle Tennessee. He set out in February, 1779, +accompanied by his brother, Mark Robertson, several other white men, and +a negro, to select a site for settlement and to plant corn. Meanwhile +another small party led by Gaspar Mansker had arrived. As the boundary +line between Virginia and North Carolina had not been run to this point, +Robertson believed that the site he had chosen lay within Virginia and +was in the disposal of General Clark. To protect the settlers, +therefore, he journeyed into the Illinois country to purchase cabin +rights from Clark, but there he was evidently convinced that the site on +the Cumberland would be found to lie within North Carolina. He returned +to Watauga to lead a party of settlers into the new territory, towards +which they set out in October. After crossing the mountain chain through +Cumberland Gap, the party followed Boone's road--the Warriors' Path--for +some distance and then made their own trail southwestward through the +wilderness to the bluffs on the Cumberland, where they built cabins to +house them against one of the coldest winters ever experienced in that +county. So were laid the first foundations of the present city of +Nashville, at first named Nashborough by Robertson. ¹ On the way, +Robertson had fallen in with a party of men and families bound for +Kentucky and had persuaded them to accompany his little band to the +Cumberland. Robertson's own wife and children, as well as the families +of his party, had been left to follow in the second expedition, which +was to be made by water under the command of Captain John Donelson. + +¹ In honor of General Francis Nash, of North Carolina, who was mortally +wounded at Germantown, 1777. + +The little fleet of boats containing the settlers, their families, and +all their household goods, was to start from Fort Patrick Henry, near +Long Island in the Holston River, to float down into the Tennessee and +along the 652 miles of that widely wandering stream to the Ohio, and +then to proceed up the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland and up the +Cumberland until Robertson's station should appear--a journey, as it +turned out, of some nine hundred miles through unknown country and on +waters at any rate for the greater part never before navigated by white +men. + +Journal of a voyage, intended by God's permission, in the good boat +Adventure is the title of the log book in which Captain Donelson entered +the events of the four months' journey. Only a few pages endured to be +put into print: but those few tell a tale of hazard and courage that +seems complete. Could a lengthier narrative, even if enriched with +literary art and fancy, bring before us more vividly than do the simple +entries of Donelson's log the spirit of the men and the women who won +the West? If so little personal detail is recorded of the pioneer men of +that day that we must deduce what they were from what they did, what do +we know of their unfailing comrades, the pioneer women? Only that they +were there and that they shared in every test of courage and endurance, +save the march of troops and the hunt. Donelson's Journal therefore has +a special value, because in its terse account of Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. +Peyton it depicts unforgettably the quality of pioneer womanhood. ¹ + +¹ This Journal is printed in Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee. + +December 22nd, 1779. Took our departure from the fort and fell down the +river to the mouth of Reedy Creek where we were stopped by the fall of +water and most excessive hard frost. + +Perhaps part of the Journal was lost, or perhaps the "excessive hard +frost" of that severe winter, when it is said even droves of wild game +perished, prevented the boats from going on, for the next entry is dated +the 27th of February. On this date the Adventure and two other boats +grounded and lay on the shoals all that afternoon and the succeeding +night "in much distress." + +March 2nd. Rain about half the day.... Mr. Henry's boat being driven on +the point of an island by the force of the current was sunk, the whole +cargo much damaged and the crew's lives much endangered, which +occasioned the whole fleet to put on shore and go to their +assistance.... +Monday 6th. Got under way before sunrise; the morning proving very +foggy, many of the fleet were much bogged--about 10 o'clock lay by for +them; when collected, proceeded down. Camped on the north shore, where +Captain Hutching's negro man died, being much frosted in his feet and +legs, of which he died. +Tuesday, 7th. Got under way very early; the day proving very windy, a S. +S. W., and the river being wide occasioned a high sea, insomuch that +some of the smaller crafts were in danger; therefore came to at the +uppermost Chiccamauga town, which was then evacuated, where we lay by +that afternoon and camped that night. The wife of Ephraim Peyton was +here delivered of a child. Mr. Peyton has gone through by land with +Captain Robertson. +Wednesday 8th... proceed down to an Indian village which was +inhabited... they insisted on us to come ashore, called us brothers, and +showed other signs of friendship.... And here we must regret the +unfortunate death of young Mr. Payne, on board Captain Blakemore's boat, +who was mortally wounded by reason of the boat running too near the +northern shore opposite the town, where some of the enemy lay concealed; +and the more tragical misfortune of poor Stuart, his family and friends, +to the number of twenty-eight persons. This man had embarked with us for +the Western country, but his family being diseased with the small pox, +it was agreed upon between him and the company that he should keep at +some distance in the rear, for fear of the infection spreading, and he +was warned each night when the encampment should take place by the sound +of a horn.... The Indians having now collected to a considerable number, +observing his helpless situation singled off from the rest of the fleet, +intercepted him and killed and took prisoners the whole crew...; their +cries were distinctly heard.... + +After describing a running fight with Indians stationed on the bluffs on +both shores where the river narrowed to half its width and boiled +through a canyon, the entry for the day concludes: "Jennings's boat is +missing." + +Friday 10th. This morning about 4 o'clock we were surprised by the cries +of "help poor Jennings" at some distance in the rear. He had discovered +us by our fires and came up in the most wretched condition. He states +that as soon as the Indians discovered his situation [his boat had run +on a rock] they turned their whole attention to him and kept up a most +galling fire at his boat. He ordered his wife, a son nearly grown, a +young man who accompanies them and his negro man and woman, to throw all +his goods into the river to lighten their boat for the purpose of +getting her off; himself returning their fire as well as he could, being +a good soldier and an excellent marksman. But before they had +accomplished their object, his son, the young man and the negro, jumped +out of the boat and left.... Mrs. Jennings, however, and the negro +woman, succeeded in unloading the boat, but chiefly by the exertions of +Mrs. Jennings who got out of the boat and shoved her off, but was near +falling a victim to her own intrepidity on account of the boat starting +so suddenly as soon as loosened from the rock. Upon examination he +appears to have made a wonderful escape for his boat is pierced in +numberless places with bullets. It is to be remarked that Mrs. Peyton, +who was the night before delivered of an infant, which was unfortunately +killed upon the hurry and confusion consequent upon such a disaster, +assisted them, being frequently exposed to wet and cold.... Their +clothes were very much cut with bullets, especially Mrs. Jennings's. + +Of the three men who deserted, while the women stood by under fire, the +negro was drowned and Jennings's son and the other young man were +captured by the Chickamaugans. The latter was burned at the stake. Young +Jennings was to have shared the same fate; but a trader in the village, +learning that the boy was known to John Sevier, ransomed him by a large +payment of goods, as a return for an act of kindness Sevier had once +done to him. + +Sunday 12th.... After running until about 10 o'clock came in sight of +the Muscle Shoals. Halted on the northern shore at the appearance of the +shoals, in order to search for the signs Captain James Robertson was to +make for us at that place... that it was practicable for us to go across +by land... we can find none--from which we conclude that it would not be +prudent to make the attempt and are determined, knowing ourselves in +such imminent danger, to pursue our journey down the river.... When we +approached them [the Shoals] they had a dreadful appearance.... The +water being high made a terrible roaring, which could be heard at some +distance, among the driftwood heaped frightfully upon the points of the +islands, the current running in every possible direction. Here we did +not know how soon we should be dashed to pieces and all our troubles +ended at once. Our boats frequently dragged on the bottom and appeared +constantly in danger of striking. They warped as much as in a rough sea. +But by the hand of Providence we are now preserved from this danger +also. I know not the length of this wonderful shoal; it had been +represented to me to be twenty-five or thirty miles. If so, we must have +descended very rapidly, as indeed we did, for we passed it in about +three hours. + +On the twentieth the little fleet arrived at the mouth of the Tennessee +and the voyagers landed on the bank of the Ohio. + +Our situation here is truly disagreeable. The river is very high and the +current rapid, our boats not constructed for the purpose of stemming a +rapid stream, our provisions exhausted, the crews almost worn down with +hunger and fatigue, and know not what distance we have to go or what +time it will take us to our place of destination. The scene is rendered +still more melancholy as several boats will not attempt to ascend the +rapid current. Some intend to descend the Mississippi to Natchez; others +are bound for the Illinois--among the rest my son-in-law and daughter. +We now part, perhaps to meet no more, for I am determined to pursue my +course, happen what will. +Tuesday 21st. Set out and on this day labored very hard and got but +little way.... Passed the two following days as the former, suffering +much from hunger and fatigue. +Friday 24th. About three o'clock came to the mouth of a river which I +thought was the Cumberland. Some of the company declared it could not +be--it was so much smaller than was expected.... We determined however +to make the trial, pushed up some distance and encamped for the night. +Saturday 25th. Today we are much encouraged; the river grows wider;... +we are now convinced it is the Cumberland.... +Sunday 26th... procured some buffalo meat; though poor it was palatable. +Friday 31st... met with Colonel Richard Henderson, who is running the +line between Virginia and North Carolina. At this meeting we were much +rejoiced. He gave us every information we wished, and further informed +us that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped +at the Falls of Ohio for the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are +now without bread and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve +life.... +Monday, April 24th. This day we arrived at our journey's end at the Big +Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of finding Captain Robertson and +his company. It is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to +restore to him and others their families and friends, who were entrusted +to our care, and who, sometime since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting +again.... + +Past the camps of the Chickamaugans--who were retreating farther and +farther down the twisting flood, seeking a last standing ground in the +giant caves by the Tennessee--these white voyagers had steered their +pirogues. Near Robertson's station, where they landed after having +traversed the triangle of the three great rivers which enclose the +larger part of western Tennessee, stood a crumbling trading house +marking the defeat of a Frenchman who had, one time, sailed in from the +Ohio to establish an outpost of his nation there. At a little distance +were the ruins of a rude fort cast up by the Cherokees in the days when +the redoubtable Chickasaws had driven them from the pleasant shores of +the western waters. Under the towering forest growth lay vast burial +mounds and the sunken foundations of walled towns, telling of a departed +race which had once flashed its rude paddles and had its dream of +permanence along the courses of these great waterways. Now another tribe +had come to dream that dream anew. Already its primitive keels had +traced the opening lines of its history on the face of the immemorial +rivers. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +King's Mountain + +About the time when James Robertson went from Watauga to fling out the +frontier line three hundred miles farther westward, the British took +Savannah. In 1780 they took Charleston and Augusta, and overran Georgia. +Augusta was the point where the old trading path forked north and west, +and it was the key to the Back Country and the overhill domain. In +Georgia and the Back Country of South Carolina there were many Tories +ready to rally to the King's standard whenever a King's officer should +carry it through their midst. A large number of these Tories were +Scotch, chiefly from the Highlands. In fact, as we have seen, Scotch +blood predominated among the racial streams in the Back Country from +Georgia to Pennsylvania. Now, to insure a triumphant march northward for +Cornwallis and his royal troops, these sons of Scotland must be gathered +together, the loyal encouraged and those of rebellious tendencies +converted, and they must be drilled and turned to account. This task, if +it were to be accomplished successfully, must be entrusted to an officer +with positive qualifications, one who would command respect, whose +personal address would attract men and disarm opposition, and especially +one who could go as a Scot among his own clan. Cornwallis found his man +in Major Patrick Ferguson. + +Ferguson was a Highlander, a son of Lord Pitfour of Aberdeen, and +thirty-six years of age. He was of short stature for a Highlander--about +five feet eight--lean and dark, with straight black hair. He had a +serious unhandsome countenance which, at casual glance, might not arrest +attention; but when he spoke he became magnetic, by reason of the +intelligence and innate force that gleamed in his eyes and the +convincing sincerity of his manner. He was admired and respected by his +brother officers and by the commanders under whom he had served, and he +was loved by his men. + +He had seen his first service in the Seven Years' War, having joined the +British army in Flanders at the age of fifteen; and he had early +distinguished himself for courage and coolness. In 1768, as a captain of +infantry, he quelled an insurrection of the natives on the island of St. +Vincent in the West Indies. Later, at Woolwich, he took up the +scientific study of his profession of arms. He not only became a crack +shot, but he invented a new type of rifle which he could load at the +breach without ramrod and so quickly as to fire seven times in a minute. +Generals and statesmen attended his exhibitions of shooting; and even +the King rode over at the head of his guards to watch Ferguson rapidly +loading and firing. + +In America under Cornwallis, Ferguson had the reputation of being the +best shot in the army; and it was soon said that, in his quickness at +loading and firing, he excelled the most expert American frontiersman. +Eyewitnesses have left their testimony that, seeing a bird alight on a +bough or rail, he would drop his bridle rein, draw his pistol, toss it +in the air, catch and aim it as it fell, and shoot the bird's head off. +He was given command of a corps of picked riflemen; and in the Battle of +the Brandywine in 1777 he rendered services which won acclaim from the +whole army. For the honor of that day's service to his King, Ferguson +paid what from him, with his passion for the rifle, must have been the +dearest price that could have been demanded. His right arm was +shattered, and for the remaining three years of his short life it hung +useless at his side. Yet he took up swordplay and attained a remarkable +degree of skill as a left-handed swordsman. + +Such was Ferguson, the soldier. What of the man? For he has been +pictured as a wolf and a fiend and a coward by early chroniclers, who +evidently felt that they were adding to the virtue of those who fought +in defense of liberty by representing all their foes as personally +odious. We can read his quality of manhood in a few lines of the letter +he sent to his kinsman, the noted Dr. Adam Ferguson, about an incident +that occurred at Chads Ford. As he was lying with his men in the woods, +in front of Knyphausen's army, so he relates, he saw two American +officers ride out. He describes their dress minutely. One was in hussar +uniform. The other was in a dark green and blue uniform with a high +cocked hat and was mounted on a bay horse: + +I ordered three good shots to steal near to and fire at them; but the +idea disgusting me, I recalled the order. The hussar in retiring made a +circuit, but the other passed within a hundred yards of us, upon which I +advanced from the wood towards him. Upon my calling he stopped; but +after looking at me he proceeded. I again drew his attention and made +signs to him to stop, levelling my piece at him; but he slowly cantered +away. As I was within that distance, at which, in the quickest firing, I +could have lodged half a dozen balls in or about him before he was out +of my reach, I had only to determine. But it was not pleasant to fire at +the back of an unoffending individual who was acquitting himself very +coolly of his duty--so I let him alone. The day after, I had been +telling this story to some wounded officers, who lay in the same room +with me, when one of the surgeons who had been dressing the wounded +rebel officers came in and told us that they had been informing him that +General Washington was all the morning with the light troops, and only +attended by a French officer in hussar dress, he himself dressed and +mounted in every point as above described. I am not sorry that I did not +know at the time who it was. ¹ + +¹ Doubt that the officer in question was Washington was expressed by +James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper stated that Major De Lancey his +father-in-law, was binding Ferguson's arm at the time when the two +officers were seen and Ferguson recalled the order to fire, and that De +Lancey said he believed the officer was Count Pulaski. But, as Ferguson, +according to his own account, "leveled his piece" at the officer, his +arm evidently was not wounded until later in the day. The probability is +that Ferguson's version, written in a private letter to his relative, is +correct as to the facts, whatever may be conjectured as to the identity +of the officer. See Draper's King's Mountain and its Heroes, pp. 52-54. + +Ferguson had his code towards the foe's women also. On one occasion when +he was assisting in an action carried out by Hessians and Dragoons, he +learned that some American women had been shamefully maltreated. He went +in a white fury to the colonel in command, and demanded that the men who +had so disgraced their uniforms instantly be put to death. + +In rallying the loyalists of the Back Country of Georgia and the +Carolinas, Ferguson was very successful. He was presently in command of +a thousand or more men, including small detachments of loyalists from +New York and New Jersey, under American-born officers such as De Peyster +and Allaire. There were good honest men among the loyalists and there +were also rough and vicious men out for spoils--which was true as well +of the Whigs or Patriots from the same counties. Among the rough element +were Tory banditti from the overmountain region. It is to be gathered +from Ferguson's records that he did not think any too highly of some of +his new recruits, but he set to work with all energy to make them +useful. + +The American Patriots hastily prepared to oppose him. Colonel Charles +McDowell of Burke County, North Carolina, with a small force of militia +was just south of the line at a point on the Broad River when he heard +that Ferguson was sweeping on northward. In haste he sent a call for +help across the mountains to Sevier and Shelby. Sevier had his hands +full at Watauga, but he dispatched two hundred of his troops; and Isaac +Shelby, with a similar force from Sullivan County crossed the mountains +to McDowell's assistance. These "overmountain men" or "backwater men," +as they were called east of the hills, were trained in Sevier's method +of Indian warfare--the secret approach through the dark, the swift dash, +and the swifter flight. "Fight strong and run away fast" was the Indian +motto, as their women had often been heard to call it after the red men +as they ran yelling to fall on the whites. The frontiersmen had adapted +the motto to fit their case, as they had also made their own the Indian +tactics of ambuscade and surprise attacks at dawn. To sleep, or ride if +needs must, by night, and to fight by day and make off, was to them a +reasonable soldier's life. + +But Ferguson was a night marauder. The terror of his name, which grew +among the Whigs of the Back Country until the wildest legends about his +ferocity were current, was due chiefly to a habit he had of pouncing on +his foes in the middle of the night and pulling them out of bed to give +fight or die. It was generally both fight and die, for these dark +adventures of his were particularly successful. Ferguson knew no +neutrals or conscientious objectors; any man who would not carry arms +for the King was a traitor, and his life and goods were forfeit. A +report of his reads: "The attack being made at night, no quarter could +be given." Hence his wolfish fame. "Werewolf" would have been a fit name +for him for, though he was a wolf at night, in the daylight he was a man +and, as we have seen, a chivalrous one. + +In the guerrilla fighting that went on for a brief time between the +overmountain men and various detachments of Ferguson's forces, sometimes +one side, sometimes the other, won the heat. But the field remained +open. Neither side could claim the mastery. In a minor engagement fought +at Musgrove's Mill on the Enoree, Shelby's command came off victor and +was about to pursue the enemy towards Ninety-Six when a messenger from +McDowell galloped madly into camp with word of General Gates's crushing +defeat at Camden. This was a warning for Shelby's guerrillas to flee as +birds to their mountains, or Ferguson would cut them off from the north +and wedge them in between his own force and the victorious Cornwallis. +McDowell's men, also on the run for safety, joined them. For forty-eight +hours without food or rest they rode a race with Ferguson, who kept hard +on their trail until they disappeared into the mystery of the winding +mountain paths they alone knew. + +Ferguson reached the gap where they had swerved into the towering hills +only half an hour after their horses' hoofs had pounded across it. Here +he turned back. His troops were exhausted from the all-night ride and, +in any case, there were not enough of them to enable him to cross the +mountains and give the Watauga men battle on their own ground with a +fair promise of victory. So keeping east of the hills but still close to +them, Ferguson turned into Burke County, North Carolina. He sat him down +in Gilbert Town (present Lincolnton, Lincoln County) at the foot of the +Blue Ridge and indited a letter to the "Back Water Men," telling them +that if they did not lay down their arms and return to their rightful +allegiance, he would come over their hills and raze their settlements +and hang their leaders. He paroled a kinsman of Shelby's, whom he had +taken prisoner in the chase, and sent him home with the letter. Then he +set about his usual business of gathering up Tories and making soldiers +of them, and of hunting down rebels. + +One of the "rebels" was a certain Captain Lytle. When Ferguson drew up +at Lytle's door, Lytle had already made his escape; but Mrs. Lytle was +there. She was a very handsome woman and she had dressed herself in her +best to receive Ferguson, who was reported a gallant as well as a wolf. +After a few spirited passages between the lady in the doorway and the +officer on the white horse before it, the latter advised Mrs. Lytle to +use her influence to bring her husband back to his duty. She became +grave then and answered that her husband would never turn traitor to his +country Ferguson frowned at the word "traitor," but presently he said: +"Madam, I admire you as the handsomest woman I have seen in North +Carolina. I even half way admire your zeal in a bad cause. But take my +word for it, the rebellion has had its day and is now virtually put +down. Give my regards to Captain Lytle and tell him to come in. He will +not be asked to compromise his honor. His verbal pledge not again to +take up arms against the King is all that will be asked of him." ¹ + +¹ Draper, King's Mountain and its Heroes, pp. 151-53. + +This was another phase of the character of the one-armed Highlander +whose final challenge to the back water men was now being considered in +every log cabin beyond the hills. A man who would not shoot an enemy in +the back, who was ready to put the same faith in another soldier's honor +which he knew was due to his own, yet in battle a wolfish fighter who +leaped through the dark to give no quarter and to take none--he was fit +challenger to those other mountaineers who also had a chivalry of their +own, albeit they too were wolves of war. + +When Shelby on the Holston received Ferguson's pungent letter, he flung +himself on his horse and rode posthaste to Watauga to consult with +Sevier. He found the bank of the Nolichucky teeming with merrymakers. +Nolichucky Jack was giving an immense barbecue and a horse race. Without +letting the festival crowd have an inkling of the serious nature of +Shelby's errand, the two men drew apart to confer. It is said to have +been Sevier's idea that they should muster the forces of the western +country and go in search of Ferguson ere the latter should be able to +get sufficient reinforcements to cross the mountains. Sevier, like +Ferguson, always preferred to seek his foe, knowing well the advantage +of the offensive. Messengers were sent to Colonel William Campbell of +the Virginia settlements on the Clinch, asking his aid. Campbell at +first refused, thinking it better to fortify the positions they held and +let Ferguson come and put the mountains between himself and Cornwallis. +On receipt of a second message, however, he concurred. The call to arms +was heard up and down the valleys, and the frontiersmen poured into +Watauga. The overhill men were augmented by McDowell's troops from Burke +County, who had dashed over the mountains a few weeks before in their +escape from Ferguson. + +At daybreak on the 26th of September they mustered at the Sycamore +Shoals on the Watauga, over a thousand strong. It was a different +picture they made from that other great gathering at the same spot when +Henderson had made his purchase in money of the Dark and Bloody Ground, +and Sevier and Robertson had bought for the Wataugans this strip of +Tennessee. There were no Indians in this picture. Dragging Canoe, who +had uttered his bloody prophecy, had by these very men been driven far +south into the caves of the Tennessee River. But the Indian prophecy +still hung over them, and in this day with a heavier menace. Not with +money, now, were they to seal their purchase of the free land by the +western waters. There had been no women in that other picture, only the +white men who were going forward to open the way and the red men who +were retreating. But in this picture there were women--wives and +children, mothers, sisters, and sweethearts. All the women of the +settlement were there at this daybreak muster to cheer on their way the +men who were going out to battle that they might keep the way of liberty +open not for men only but for women and children also. And the battle to +which the men were now going forth must be fought against Back Country +men of their own stripe under a leader who, in other circumstances, +might well have been one of themselves--a primitive spirit of hardy +mountain stock, who, having once taken his stand, would not barter and +would not retreat. + +"With the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" cried their pastor, the +Reverend Samuel Doak, with upraised hands, as the mountaineers swung +into their saddles. And it is said that all the women took up his words +and cried again and again, "With the sword of the Lord and of our +Gideons!" To the shouts of their women, as bugles on the wind of dawn, +the buckskin-shirted army dashed out upon the mountain trail. + +The warriors' equipment included rifles and ammunition, tomahawks, +knives, shot pouches, a knapsack, and a blanket for each man. Their +uniforms were leggings, breeches, and long loose shirts of gayly fringed +deerskin, or of the linsey-woolsey spun by their women. Their hunting +shirts were bound in at the waist by bright-colored linsey sashes tied +behind in a bow. They wore moccasins for footgear, and on their heads +high fur or deerskin caps trimmed with colored bands of raveled cloth. +Around their necks hung their powder-horns ornamented with their own +rude carvings. + +On the first day they drove along with them a number of beeves but, +finding that the cattle impeded the march, they left them behind on the +mountain side. Their provisions thereafter were wild game and the small +supply each man carried of mixed corn meal and maple sugar. For drink, +they had the hill streams. + +They passed upward between Roan and Yellow mountains to the top of the +range. Here, on the bald summit, where the loose snow lay to their +ankles, they halted for drill and rifle practice. When Sevier called up +his men, he discovered that two were missing. He suspected at once that +they had slipped away to carry warning to Ferguson, for Watauga was +known to be infested with Tories. Two problems now confronted the +mountaineers. They must increase the speed of their march, so that +Ferguson should not have time to get reinforcements from Cornwallis; and +they must make that extra speed by another trail than they had intended +taking so that they themselves could not be intercepted before they had +picked up the Back Country militia under Colonels Cleveland, Hampbright, +Chronicle, and Williams, who were moving to join them. We are not told +who took the lead when they left the known trail, but we may suppose it +was Sevier and his Wataugans, for the making of new warpaths and wild +riding were two of the things which distinguished Nolichucky Jack's +leadership. Down the steep side of the mountain, finding their way as +they plunged, went the overhill men. They crossed the Blue Ridge at +Gillespie's Gap and pushed on to Quaker Meadows, where Colonel Cleveland +with 350 men swung into their column. Along their route, the Back +Country Patriots with their rifles came out from the little hamlets and +the farms and joined them. + +They now had an army of perhaps fifteen hundred men but no commanding +officer. Thus far, on the march, the four colonels had conferred +together and agreed as to procedure; or, in reality, the influence of +Sevier and Shelby, who had planned the enterprise and who seem always to +have acted in unison, had swayed the others. It would be, however, +manifestly improper to go into battle without a real general. Something +must be done. McDowell volunteered to carry a letter explaining their +need to General Gates, who had escaped with some of his staff into North +Carolina and was not far off. It then occurred to Sevier and Shelby, +evidently for the first time, that Gates, on receiving such a request, +might well ask why the Governor of North Carolina, as the military head +of the State, had not provided a commander. The truth is that Sevier and +Shelby had been so busy drumming up the militia and planning their +campaign that they had found no time to consult the Governor. Moreover, +the means whereby the expedition had been financed might not have +appealed to the chief executive. After finding it impossible to raise +sufficient funds on his personal credit, Sevier had appropriated the +entry money in the government land office to the business in hand--with +the good will of the entry taker, who was a patriotic man, although, as +he had pointed out, he could not, officially, hand over the money. +Things being as they were, no doubt Nolichucky Jack felt that an +interview with the Governor had better be deferred until after the +capture of Ferguson. Hence the tenor of this communication to General +Gates: + +As we have at this time called out our militia without any orders from +the Executive of our different States and with the view of expelling the +Enemy out of this part of the Country, we think such a body of men +worthy of your attention and would request you to send a General Officer +immediately to take the command.... All our Troops being Militia and but +little acquainted with discipline, we could wish him to be a Gentleman +of address, and able to keep up a proper discipline without disgusting +*the soldiery. + +For some unknown reason--unless it might be the wording of this +letter!--no officer was sent in reply. Shelby then suggested that, since +all the officers but Campbell were North Carolinians and, therefore, no +one of them could be promoted without arousing the jealousy of the +others, Campbell, as the only Virginian, was the appropriate choice. The +sweet reasonableness of selecting a commander from such a motive +appealed to all, and Campbell became a general in fact if not in name! +Shelby's principal aim, however, had been to get rid of McDowell, who, +as their senior, would naturally expect to command and whom he +considered "too far advanced in life and too inactive" for such an +enterprise. At this time McDowell must have been nearly thirty-nine; and +Shelby, who was just thirty, wisely refused to risk the campaign under a +general who was in his dotage! + +News of the frontiersmen's approach, with their augmented force, now +numbering between sixteen and eighteen hundred, had reached Ferguson by +the two Tories who had deserted from Sevier's troops. Ferguson thereupon +had made all haste out of Gilbert Town and was marching southward to get +in touch with Cornwallis. His force was much reduced, as some of his men +were in pursuit of Elijah Clarke towards Augusta and a number of his +other Tories were on furlough. As he passed through the Back Country he +posted a notice calling on the loyalists to join him. If the +overmountain men felt that they were out on a wolf hunt, Ferguson's +proclamation shows what the wolf thought of his hunters. + +To the Inhabitants of North Carolina. + +Gentlemen: Unless you wish to be eat up by an innundation of barbarians, +who have begun by murdering an unarmed son before the aged father, and +afterwards lopped off his arms, and who by their shocking cruelties and +irregularities give the best proof of their cowardice and want of +discipline: I say if you wish to be pinioned, robbed and murdered, and +see your wives and daughters in four days, abused by the dregs of +mankind--in short if you wish to deserve to live and bear the name of +men, grasp your arms in a moment and run to camp. +The Back Water men have crossed the mountains: McDowell, Hampton, +Shelby, and Cleveland are at their head, so that you know what you have +to depend upon. If you choose to be degraded forever and ever by a set +of mongrels, say so at once, and let your women turn their backs upon +you, and look out for real men to protect them. + +Pat. Ferguson, Major 71st Regiment. ¹ + +¹ Draper, King's Mountain and its Heroes, p. 204. + +Ferguson's force has been estimated at about eleven hundred men, but it +is likely that this estimate does not take the absentees into +consideration. In the diary of Lieutenant Allaire, one of his officers, +the number is given as only eight hundred. Because of the state of his +army, chroniclers have found Ferguson's movements, after leaving Gilbert +Town, difficult to explain. It has been pointed out that he could easily +have escaped, for he had plenty of time, and Charlotte, Cornwallis's +headquarters, was only sixty miles distant. We have seen something of +Ferguson's quality, however, and we may simply take it that he did not +want to escape. He had been planning to cross the high hills--to him, +the Highlander, no barrier but a challenge--to fight these men. Now that +they had taken the initiative he would not show them his back. He craved +the battle. So he sent out runners to the main army and rode on along +the eastern base of the mountains, seeking a favorable site to go into +camp and wait for Cornwallis's aid. On the 6th of October he reached the +southern end of the King's Mountain ridge, in South Carolina, about half +a mile south of the northern boundary. Here a rocky, semi-isolated spur +juts out from the ridge, its summit--a table-land about six hundred +yards long and one hundred and twenty wide at its northern end--rising +not more than sixty feet above the surrounding country. On the summit +Ferguson pitched his camp. + +The hill was a natural fortress, its sides forested, its bald top +protected by rocks and bowlders. All the approaches led through dense +forest. An enemy force, passing through the immediate, wooded territory, +might easily fail to discover a small army nesting sixty feet above the +shrouding leafage. Word was evidently brought to Ferguson here, telling +him the now augmented number of his foe, for he dispatched another +emissary to Cornwallis with a letter stating the number of his own +troops and urging full and immediate assistance. + +Meanwhile the frontiersmen had halted at the Cowpens. There they feasted +royally off roasted cattle and corn belonging to the loyalist who owned +the Cowpens. It is said that they mowed his fifty acres of corn in an +hour. And here one of their spies, in the assumed rôle of a Tory, +learned Ferguson's plans, his approximate force, his route, and his +system of communication with Cornwallis. The officers now held council +and determined to take a detachment of the hardiest and fleetest +horsemen and sweep down on the enemy before aid could reach him. About +nine o'clock that evening, according to Shelby's report, 910 mounted men +set off at full speed, leaving the main body of horse and foot to follow +after at their best pace. + +Rain poured down on them all that night as they rode. At daybreak they +crossed the Broad at Cherokee Ford and dashed on in the drenching rain +all the forenoon. They kept their firearms and powder dry by wrapping +them in their knapsacks, blankets, and hunting shirts. The downpour had +so churned up the soil that many of the horses mired, but they were +pulled out and whipped forward again. The wild horsemen made no halt for +food or rest. Within two miles of King's Mountain they captured +Ferguson's messenger with the letter that told of his desperate +situation. They asked this man how they should know Ferguson. He told +them that Ferguson was in full uniform but wore a checkered shirt or +dust cloak over it. This was not the only messenger of Ferguson's who +failed to carry through. The men he had sent out previously had been +followed and, to escape capture or death, they had been obliged to lie +in hiding, so that they did not reach Cornwallis until the day of the +battle. + +At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th of October, the +overmountain men were in the forest at the base of the hill. The rain +had ceased and the sun was shining. They dismounted and tethered their +steaming horses. Orders were given that every man was to "throw the +priming out of his pan, pick his touchhole, prime anew, examine bullets +and see that everything was in readiness for battle." The plan of battle +agreed on was to surround the hill, hold the enemy on the top and, +themselves screened by the trees, keep pouring in their fire. There was +a good chance that most of the answering fire would go over their heads. + +As Shelby's men crossed a gap in the woods, the outposts on the hill +discovered their presence and sounded the alarm. Ferguson sprang to +horse, blowing his silver whistle to call his men to attack. His +riflemen poured fire into Shelby's contingent, but meanwhile the +frontiersmen on the other sides were creeping up, and presently a circle +of fire burst upon the hill. With fixed bayonets, some of Ferguson's men +charged down the face of the slope, against the advancing foe, only to +be shot in the back as they charged. Still time and time again they +charged; the overhill men reeled and retreated; but always their +comrades took toll with their rifles; Ferguson's men, preparing for a +mounted charge, were shot even as they swung to their saddles. Ferguson, +with his customary indifference to danger, rode up and down in front of +his line blowing his whistle to encourage his men. "Huzza, brave boys! +The day is our own!" Thus he was heard to shout above the triumphant war +whoops of the circling foe, surging higher and higher about the hill. + +But there were others in his band who knew the fight was lost. The +overmountain men saw two white handkerchiefs, affixed to bayonets, +raised above the rocks; and then they saw Ferguson dash by and slash +them down with his sword. Two horses were shot under Ferguson in the +latter part of the action; but he mounted a third and rode again into +the thick of the fray. + +Suddenly the cry spread among the attacking troops that the British +officer, Tarleton, had come to Ferguson's rescue; and the mountaineers +began to give way. But it was only the galloping horses of their own +comrades; Tarleton had not come. Nolichucky Jack spurred out in front of +his men and rode along the line. Fired by his courage they sounded the +war whoop again and renewed the attack with fury. + +"These are the same yelling devils that were at Musgrove's Mill," said +Captain De Peyster to Ferguson. + +Now Shelby and Sevier, leading his Wataugans, had reached the summit. +The firing circle pressed in. The buckskin-shirted warriors leaped the +rocky barriers, swinging their tomahawks and long knives. Again the +white handkerchiefs fluttered. Ferguson saw that the morale of his +troops was shattered. + +"Surrender," De Peyster, his second in command, begged of him. + +"Surrender to those damned banditti? Never!" + +Ferguson turned his horse's head downhill and charged into the +Wataugans, hacking right and left with his sword till it was broken at +the hilt. A dozen rifles were leveled at him. An iron muzzle pushed at +his breast, but the powder flashed in the pan. He swerved and struck at +the rifleman with his broken hilt. But the other guns aimed at him +spoke; and Ferguson's body jerked from the saddle pierced by eight +bullets. Men seized the bridle of the frenzied horse, plunging on with +his dead master dragging from the stirrup. + +The battle had lasted less than an hour. After Ferguson fell, De Peyster +advanced with a white flag and surrendered his sword to Campbell. Other +white flags waved along the hilltop. But the killing did not yet cease. +It is said that many of the mountaineers did not know the significance +of the white flag. Sevier's sixteen-year-old son, having heard that his +father had fallen, kept on furiously loading and firing until presently +he saw Sevier ride in among the troops and command them to stop shooting +men who had surrendered and thrown down their arms. + +The victors made a bonfire of the enemy's baggage wagons and supplies. +Then they killed some of his beeves and cooked them; they had had +neither food nor sleep for eighteen hours. They dug shallow trenches for +the dead and scattered the loose earth over them. Ferguson's body, +stripped of its uniform and boots and wrapped in a beef hide, was thrown +into one of these ditches by the men detailed to the burial work, while +the officers divided his personal effects among themselves. + +The triumphant army turned homeward as the dusk descended. The uninjured +prisoners and the wounded who were able to walk were marched off +carrying their empty firearms. The badly wounded were left lying where +they had fallen. + +At Bickerstaff's Old Fields in Rutherford County the frontiersmen +halted; and here they selected thirty of their prisoners to be hanged. +They swung them aloft, by torchlight, three at a time, until nine had +gone to their last account. Then Sevier interposed; and, with Shelby's +added authority, saved the other twenty-one. Among those who thus +weighted the gallows tree were some of the Tory brigands from Watauga; +but not all the victims were of this character. Some of the troops would +have wreaked vengeance on the two Tories from Sevier's command who had +betrayed their army plans to Ferguson; but Sevier claimed them as under +his jurisdiction and refused consent. Nolichucky Jack dealt humanely by +his foes. To the coarse and brutish Cleveland, now astride of Ferguson's +horse and wearing his sash, and to the three hundred who followed him, +may no doubt be laid the worst excesses of the battle's afterpiece. + +Victors and vanquished drove on in the dark, close to the great flank of +hills. From where King's Mountain, strewn with dead and dying, reared +its black shape like some rudely hewn tomb of a primordial age when +titans strove together, perhaps to the ears of the marching men came +faintly through the night's stillness the howl of a wolf and the +answering chorus of the pack. For the wolves came down to King's +Mountain from all the surrounding hills, following the scent of blood, +and made their lair where the Werewolf had fallen. The scene of the +mountaineers' victory, which marked the turn of the tide for the +Revolution, became for years the chief resort of wolf hunters from both +the Carolinas. + +The importance of the overmountain men's victory lay in what it achieved +for the cause of Independence. King's Mountain was the prelude to +Cornwallis's defeat. It heartened the Southern Patriots, until then cast +down by Gates's disaster. To the British the death of Ferguson was an +irreparable loss because of its depressing effect on the Back Country +Tories. King's Mountain, indeed, broke the Tory spirit. Seven days after +the battle General Nathanael Greene succeeded to the command of the +Southern Patriot army which Gates had led to defeat. Greene's genius met +the rising tide of the Patriots' courage and hope and took it at the +flood. His strategy, in dividing his army and thereby compelling the +division of Cornwallis's force, led to Daniel Morgan's victory at the +Cowpens, in the Back Country of South Carolina, on January 17, +1781--another frontiersmen's triumph. Though the British won the next +engagement between Greene and Cornwallis--the battle of Guilford Court +House in the North Carolina Back Country, on the 15th of March--Greene +made them pay so dearly for their victory that Tarleton called it "the +pledge of ultimate defeat"; and, three days later, Cornwallis was +retreating towards Wilmington. In a sense, then, King's Mountain was the +pivot of the war's revolving stage, which swung the British from their +succession of victories towards the surrender at Yorktown. + +Shelby, Campbell, and Cleveland escorted the prisoners to Virginia. +Sevier, with his men, rode home to Watauga. When the prisoners had been +delivered to the authorities in Virginia, the Holston men also turned +homeward through the hills. Their route lay down through the Clinch and +Holston valleys to the settlement at the base of the mountains. Sevier +and his Wataugans had gone by Gillespie's Gap, over the pathway that +hung like a narrow ribbon about the breast of Roan Mountain, lifting its +crest in dignified isolation sixty-three hundred feet above the levels. +The "Unakas" was the name the Cherokees had given to those white men who +first invaded their hills; and the Unakas is the name that white men at +last gave to the mountain. + +Great companies of men were to come over the mountain paths on their way +to the Mississippi country and beyond; and with them, as we know, were +to go many of these mountain men, to pass away with their customs in the +transformations that come with progress. But there were others who clung +to these hills. They were of several stocks--English, Scotch, +Highlanders, Ulstermen, who mingled by marriage and sometimes took their +mates from among the handsome maids of the Cherokees. They spread from +the Unakas of Tennessee into the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky; and +they have remained to this day what they were then, a primitive folk of +strong and fiery men and brave women living as their forefathers of +Watauga and Holston lived. In the log cabins in those mountains today +are heard the same ballads, sung still to the dulcimer, that entertained +the earliest settlers. The women still turn the old-fashioned spinning +wheels. The code of the men is still the code learned perhaps from the +Gaels--the code of the oath and the feud and the open door to the +stranger. Or were these, the ethical tenets of almost all uncorrupted +primitive tribes, transmitted from the Indian strain and association? +Their young people marry at boy and girl ages, as the pioneers did, and +their wedding festivities are the same as those which made rejoicing at +the first marriage in Watauga. Their common speech today contains words +that have been obsolete in England for a hundred years. + +Thrice have the mountain men come down again from their fastnesses to +war for America since the day of King's Mountain and thrice they have +acquitted themselves so that their deeds are noted in history. A +souvenir of their part in the War of 1812 at the Battle of the Thames is +kept in one of the favorite names for mountain girls--"Lake Erie." In +the Civil War many volunteers from the free, non-slaveholding mountain +regions of Kentucky and Tennessee joined the Union Army, and it is said +that they exceeded all others in stature and physical development. And +in our own day their sons again came down from the mountains to carry +the torch of Liberty overseas, and to show the white stars in their flag +side by side with the ancient cross in the flag of England against which +their forefathers fought. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Sevier, The Statemaker + +After King's Mountain, Sevier reached home just in time to fend off a +Cherokee attack on Watauga. Again warning had come to the settlements +that the Indians were about to descend upon them. Sevier set out at once +to meet the red invaders. Learning from his scouts that the Indians were +near he went into ambush with his troops disposed in the figure of a +half-moon, the favorite Indian formation. He then sent out a small body +of men to fire on the Indians and make a scampering retreat, to lure the +enemy on. The maneuver was so well planned and the ground so well chosen +that the Indian war party would probably have been annihilated but for +the delay of an officer at one horn of the half-moon in bringing his +troops into play. Through the gap thus made the Indians escaped, with a +loss of seventeen of their number. The delinquent officer was Jonathan +Tipton, younger brother of Colonel John Tipton, of whom we shall hear +later. It is possible that from this event dates the Tiptons' feud with +Sevier, which supplies one of the breeziest pages in the story of early +Tennessee. + +Not content with putting the marauders to flight, Sevier pressed on +after them, burned several of the upper towns, and took prisoner a +number of women and children, thus putting the red warriors to the depth +of shame, for the Indians never deserted their women in battle. The +chiefs at once sued for peace. But they had made peace often before. +Sevier drove down upon the Hiwassee towns, meanwhile proclaiming that +those among the tribe who were friendly might send their families to the +white settlement, where they would be fed and cared for until a sound +peace should be assured. He also threatened to continue to make war +until his enemies were wiped out, their town sites a heap of blackened +ruins, and their whole country in possession of the whites, unless they +bound themselves to an enduring peace. + +Having compelled the submission of the Otari and Hiwassee towns, yet +finding that depredations still continued, Sevier determined to invade +the group of towns hidden in the mountain fastnesses near the headwaters +of the Little Tennessee where, deeming themselves inaccessible except by +their own trail, the Cherokees freely plotted mischief and sent out +raiding parties. These hill towns lay in the high gorges of the Great +Smoky Mountains, 150 miles distant. No one in Watauga had ever been in +them except Thomas, the trader, who, however, had reached them from the +eastern side of the mountains. With no knowledge of the Indians' path +and without a guide, yet nothing daunted, Sevier, late in the summer of +1781 headed his force into the mountains. So steep were some of the +slopes they scaled that the men were obliged to dismount and help their +horses up. Unexpectedly to themselves perhaps, as well as to the +Indians, they descended one morning on a group of villages and destroyed +them. Before the fleeing savages could rally, the mountaineers had +plunged up the steeps again. Sevier then turned southward into Georgia +and inflicted a severe castigation on the tribes along the Coosa River. + +When, after thirty days of warfare and mad riding, Sevier arrived at his +Bonnie Kate's door on the Nolichucky, he found a messenger from General +Greene calling on him for immediate assistance to cut off Cornwallis +from his expected retreat through North Carolina. Again he set out, and +with two hundred men crossed the mountains and made all speed to +Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, where he learned that Cornwallis had +surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. Under Greene's orders he +turned south to the Santee to assist a fellow scion of the Huguenots, +General Francis Marion, in the pursuit of Stuart's Britishers. Having +driven Stuart into Charleston, Sevier and his active Wataugans returned +home, now perhaps looking forward to a rest, which they had surely +earned. Once more, however, they were hailed with alarming news. +Dragging Canoe had come to life again and was emerging from the caves of +the Tennessee with a substantial force of Chickamaugan warriors. Again +the Wataugans, augmented by a detachment from Sullivan County, galloped +forth, met the red warriors, chastised them heavily, put them to rout, +burned their dwellings and provender, and drove them back into their +hiding places. For some time after this, the Indians dipped not into the +black paint pots of war but were content to streak their humbled +countenances with the vermilion of beauty and innocence. + +It should be chronicled that Sevier, assisted possibly by other +Wataugans, eventually returned to the State of North Carolina the money +which he had forcibly borrowed to finance the King's Mountain +expedition; and that neither he nor Shelby received any pay for their +services, nor asked it. Before Shelby left the Holston in 1782 and moved +to Kentucky, of which State he was to become the first Governor, the +Assembly of North Carolina passed a resolution of gratitude to the +overmountain men in general, and to Sevier and Shelby in particular, for +their "very generous and patriotic services" with which the "General +Assembly of this State are feelingly impressed." The resolution +concluded by urging the recipients of the Assembly's acknowledgments to +"continue" in their noble course. In view of what followed, this +resolution is interesting! + +For some time the overhill pioneers had been growing dissatisfied with +the treatment they were receiving from the State, which on the plea of +poverty had refused to establish a Superior Court for them and to +appoint a prosecutor. As a result, crime was on the increase, and the +law-abiding were deprived of the proper legal means to check the +lawless. In 1784 when the western soldiers' claims began to reach the +Assembly, there to be scrutinized by unkindly eyes, the dissatisfaction +increased. The breasts of the mountain men--the men who had made that +spectacular ride to bring Ferguson to his end--were kindled with hot +indignation when they heard that they had been publicly assailed as +grasping persons who seized on every pretense to "fabricate demands +against the Government." Nor were those fiery breasts cooled by further +plaints to the effect that the "industry and property" of those east of +the hills were "becoming the funds appropriated to discharge the debts" +of the Westerners. They might with justice have asked what the industry +and property of the Easterners were worth on that day when the overhill +men drilled in the snows on the high peak of Yellow Mountain and looked +down on Burke County overrun by Ferguson's Tories, and beyond, to +Charlotte, where lay Cornwallis. + +The North Carolina Assembly did not confine itself to impolite remarks. +It proceeded to get rid of what it deemed western rapacity by ceding the +whole overmountain territory to the United States, with the proviso that +Congress must accept the gift within twelve months. And after passing +the Cession Act, North Carolina closed the land office in the undesired +domain and nullified all entries made after May 25, 1784. The Cession +Act also enabled the State to evade its obligations to the Cherokees in +the matter of an expensive consignment of goods to pay for new lands. + +This clever stroke of the Assembly's brought about immediate +consequences in the region beyond the hills. The Cherokees, who knew +nothing about the Assembly's system of political economy but who found +their own provokingly upset by the non-arrival of the promised goods, +began again to darken the mixture in their paint pots; and they dug up +the war hatchet, never indeed so deeply patted down under the dust that +it could not be unearthed by a stub of the toe. Needless to say, it was +not the thrifty and distant Easterners who felt their anger, but the +nearby settlements. + +As for the white overhill dwellers, the last straw had been laid on +their backs; and it felt like a hickory log. No sooner had the Assembly +adjourned than the men of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties, +which comprised the settled portion of what is now east Tennessee, +elected delegates to convene for the purpose of discussing the formation +of a new State. They could assert that they were not acting illegally, +for in her first constitution North Carolina had made provision for a +State beyond the mountains. And necessity compelled them to take steps +for their protection. Some of them, and Sevier was of the number, +doubted if Congress would accept the costly gift; and the majority +realized that during the twelve months which were allowed for the +decision they would have no protection from either North Carolina or +Congress and would not be able to command their own resources. + +In August, 1784, the delegates met at Jonesborough and passed +preliminary resolutions, and then adjourned to meet later in the year. +The news was soon disseminated through North Carolina and the Assembly +convened in October and hastily repealed the Cession Act, voted to +establish the District of Washington out of the four counties, and sent +word of the altered policy to Sevier, with a commission for himself as +Brigadier General. From the steps of the improvised convention hall, +before which the delegates had gathered, Sevier read the Assembly's +message and advised his neighbors to proceed no further, since North +Carolina had of her own accord redressed all their grievances. But for +once Nolichucky Jack's followers refused to follow. The adventure too +greatly appealed. Obliged to choose between North Carolina and his own +people, Sevier's hesitation was short. The State of Frankland, or Land +of the Free, was formed; and Nolichucky Jack was elevated to the office +of Governor--with a yearly salary of two hundred mink skins. + +Perhaps John Tipton had hoped to head the new State, for he had been one +of its prime movers and was a delegate to this convention. But when the +man whom he hated--apparently for no reason except that other men loved +him--assented to the people's will and was appointed to the highest post +within their gift, Tipton withdrew, disavowing all connection with +Frankland and affirming his loyalty to North Carolina. From this time +on, the feud was an open one. + +That brief and now forgotten State, Frankland, the Land of the Free, +which bequeathed its name as an appellation for America, was founded as +Watauga had been founded--to meet the practical needs and aspirations of +its people. It will be remembered that one of the things written by +Sevier into the only Watauga document extant was that they desired to +become "in every way the best members of society." Frankland's aims, as +recorded, included the intent to "improve agriculture, perfect +manufacturing, encourage literature and every thing truly laudable." + +The constitution of Frankland, agreed to on the 14th of November, 1785, +appeals to us today rather by its spirit than by its practical +provisions. "This State shall be called the Commonwealth of Frankland +and shall be governed by a General Assembly of the representatives of +the freemen of the same, a Governor and Council, and proper courts of +justice.... The supreme legislative power shall be vested in a single +House of Representatives of the freemen of the commonwealth of +Frankland. The House of Representatives of the freemen of the State +shall consist of persons most noted for wisdom and virtue." + +In these exalted desires of the primitive men who held by their rifles +and hatchets the land by the western waters, we see the influence of the +Reverend Samuel Doak, their pastor, who founded the first church and the +first school beyond the great hills. Early in the life of Watauga he had +come thither from Princeton, a zealous and broadminded young man, and a +sturdy one, too, for he came on foot driving before him a mule laden +with books. Legend credits another minister, the Reverend Samuel +Houston, with suggesting the name of Frankland, after he had opened the +Convention with prayer. It is not surprising to learn that this +glorified constitution was presently put aside in favor of one modeled +on that of North Carolina. + +Sevier persuaded the more radical members of the community to abandon +their extreme views and to adopt the laws of North Carolina. However +lawless his acts as Governor of a bolting colony may appear, Sevier was +essentially a constructive force. His purposes were right, and small +motives are not discernible in his record. He might reasonably urge that +the Franklanders had only followed the example of North Carolina and the +other American States in seceding from the parent body, and for similar +causes, for the State's system of taxation had long borne heavily on the +overhill men. + +The whole transmontane populace welcomed Frankland with enthusiasm. +Major Arthur Campbell, of the Virginian settlements, on the Holston, was +eager to join. Sevier and his Assembly took the necessary steps to +receive the overhill Virginians, provided that the transfer of +allegiance could be made with Virginia's consent. Meanwhile he replied +in a dignified manner to the pained and menacing expostulations of North +Carolina's Governor. North Carolina was bidden to remember the epithets +her assemblymen had hurled at the Westerners, which they themselves had +by no means forgotten. And was it any wonder that they now doubted the +love the parent State professed to feel for them? As for the puerile +threat of blood, had their quality really so soon become obliterated +from the memory of North Carolina? At this sort of writing, Sevier, who +always pulsed hot with emotion and who had a pretty knack in turning a +phrase, was more than a match for the Governor of North Carolina, whose +prerogatives he had usurped. + +The overmountain men no longer needed to complain bitterly of the lack +of legal machinery to keep them "the best members of society." They now +had courts to spare. Frankland had its courts, its judges, its +legislative body, its land office--in fact, a full governmental +equipment. North Carolina also performed all the natural functions of +political organism, within the western territory. Sevier appointed one +David Campbell a judge. Campbell held court in Jonesborough. Ten miles +away, in Buffalo, Colonel John Tipton presided for North Carolina. It +happened frequently that officers and attendants of the rival law courts +met, as they pursued their duties, and whenever they met they fought. +The post of sheriff--or sheriffs, for of course there were two--was +filled by the biggest and heaviest man and the hardest hitter in the +ranks of the warring factions. A favorite game was raiding each other's +courts and carrying off the records. Frankland sent William Cocke, later +the first senator from Tennessee, to Congress with a memorial, asking +Congress to accept the territory North Carolina had offered and to +receive it into the Union as a separate State. Congress ignored the +plea. It began to appear that North Carolina would be victor in the end; +and so there were defections among the Franklanders. Sevier wrote to +Benjamin Franklin asking his aid in establishing the status of +Frankland; and, with a graceful flourish of his ready pen, changed the +new State's name to Franklin by way of reinforcing his arguments. But +the old philosopher, more expert than Sevier in diplomatic calligraphy, +only acknowledged the compliment and advised the State of Franklin to +make peace with North Carolina. + +Sevier then appealed for aid and recognition to the Governor of Georgia, +who had previously appointed him Brigadier General of militia. But the +Governor of Georgia also avoided giving the recognition requested, +though he earnestly besought Sevier to come down and settle the Creeks +for him. There were others who sent pleas to Sevier, the warrior, to +save them from the savages. One of the writers who addressed him did not +fear to say "Your Excellency," nor to accord Nolichucky Jack the whole +dignity of the purple in appealing to him as the only man possessing the +will and the power to prevent the isolated settlements on the Cumberland +from being wiped out. That writer was his old friend, James Robertson. + +In 1787, while Sevier was on the frontier of Greene County, defending it +from Indians, the legal forces of North Carolina swooped down on his +estate and took possession of his negroes. It was Tipton who represented +the law; and Tipton carried off the Governor's slaves to his own estate. +When Nolichucky Jack came home and found that his enemy had stripped +him, he was in a towering rage. With a body of his troops and one small +cannon, he marched to Tipton's house and besieged it, threatening a +bombardment. He did not, however, fire into the dwelling, though he +placed some shots about it and in the extreme corners. This opéra bouffe +siege endured for several days, until Tipton was reinforced by some of +his own clique. Then Tipton sallied forth and attacked the besiegers, +who hastily scattered rather than engage in a sanguinary fight with +their neighbors. Tipton captured Sevier's two elder sons and was only +strained from hanging them on being informed that two of his own sons +were at that moment in Sevier's hands. + +In March, 1788, the State of Franklin went into eclipse. Sevier was +overthrown by the authorities of North Carolina. Most of the officials +who had served under him were soothed by being reappointed to their old +positions. Tipton's star was now in the ascendant, for his enemy was to +be made the vicarious sacrifice for the sins of all whom he had "led +astray." Presently David Campbell, still graciously permitted to preside +over the Superior Court, received from the Governor of North Carolina +the following letter: + +Sir: It has been represented to the Executive that John Sevier, who +style's himself Captain-General of the State of Franklin, has been +guilty of high treason in levying troops to oppose the laws and +government of the State.... You will issue your warrant to apprehend the +said John Sevier, and in case he cannot be sufficiently secured for +trial in the District of Washington, order him to be committed to the +public gaol. + +The judge's authority was to be exercised after he had examined the +"affidavits of credible persons." Campbell's judicial opinion seems to +have been that any affidavit against "the said John Sevier" could not be +made by a "credible person." He refused to issue the warrant. Tipton's +friend, Spencer, who had been North Carolina's judge of the Superior +Court in the West and who was sharing that honor now with Campbell, +issued the warrant and sent Tipton to make the arrest. + +Sevier was at the Widow Brown's inn with some of his men when Tipton at +last came up with him. It was early morning. Tipton and his posse were +about to enter when the portly and dauntless widow, surmising their +errand, drew her chair into the doorway, plumped herself down in it, and +refused to budge for all the writs in North Carolina. Tipton blustered +and the widow rocked. The altercation awakened Sevier. He dressed +hurriedly and came down. As soon as he presented himself on the porch, +Tipton thrust his pistol against his body, evidently with intent to fire +if Sevier made signs of resistance. Sevier's furious followers were not +disposed to let him be taken without a fight, but he admonished them to +respect the law, and requested that they would inform Bonnie Kate of his +predicament. Then, debonair as ever, with perhaps a tinge of contempt at +the corners of his mouth, he held out his wrists for the manacles which +Tipton insisted on fastening upon them. + +It was not likely that any jail in the western country could hold +Nolichucky Jack overnight. Tipton feared a riot; and it was decided to +send the prisoner for incarceration and trial to Morgantown in North +Carolina, just over the hills. + +Tipton did not accompany the guards he sent with Sevier. It was stated +and commonly believed that he had given instructions of which the +honorable men among his friends were ignorant. When the party entered +the mountains, two of the guards were to lag behind with the prisoner, +till the others were out of sight on the twisting trail. Then one of the +two was to kill Sevier and assert that he had done it because Sevier had +attempted to escape. It fell out almost as planned, except that the +other guard warned Sevier of the fate in store for him and gave him a +chance to flee. In plunging down the mountain, Sevier's horse was +entangled in a thicket. The would-be murderer overtook him and fired; +but here again fate had interposed for her favorite. The ball had +dropped out of the assassin's pistol. So Sevier reached Morgantown in +safety and was deposited in care of the sheriff, who was doubtless +cautioned to take a good look at the prisoner and know him for a +dangerous and a daring man. + +There is a story to the effect that, when Sevier was arraigned in the +courthouse at Morgantown and presently dashed through the door and away +on a racer that had been brought up by some of his friends, among those +who witnessed the proceedings was a young Ulster Scot named Andrew +Jackson; and that on this occasion these two men, later to become foes, +first saw each other. Jackson may have been in Morgantown at the time, +though this is disputed; but the rest of the tale is pure legend +invented by some one whose love of the spectacular led him far from the +facts. The facts are less theatrical but much more dramatic. Sevier was +not arraigned at all, for no court was sitting in Morgantown at the +time. ¹ The sheriff to whom he was delivered did not need to look twice +at him to know him for a daring man. He had served with him at King's +Mountain. He struck off his handcuffs and set him at liberty at once. +Perhaps he also notified General Charles McDowell at his home in Quaker +Meadows of the presence of a distinguished guest in Burke County, for +McDowell and his brother Joseph, another officer of militia, quickly +appeared and went on Sevier's bond. Nolichucky Jack was presently +holding a court of his own in the tavern, with North Carolina's men at +arms--as many as were within call--drinking his health. So his sons and +a company of his Wataugans found him, when they rode into Morgantown to +give evidence in his behalf--with their rifles. Since none now disputed +the way with him, Sevier turned homeward with his cavalcade, McDowell +and his men accompanying him as far as the pass in the hills. + +¹ Statement by John Sevier, Junior, in the Draper MSS., quoted by +Turner, Life of General John Sevier, p. 182. + +No further attempt was made to try John Sevier for treason, either west +or east of the mountains. In November, however, the Assembly passed the +Pardon Act, and thereby granted absolution to every one who had been +associated with the State of Franklin, except John Sevier. In a clause +said to have been introduced by Tipton, now a senator, or suggested by +him, John Sevier was debarred forever from "the enjoyment of any office +of profit or honor or trust in the State of North Carolina." + +The overhill men in Greene County took due note of the Assembly's fiat +and at the next election sent Sevier to the North Carolina Senate. +Nolichucky Jack, whose demeanor was never so decorous as when the +ill-considered actions of those in authority had made him appear to have +circumvented the law, considerately waited outside until the House had +lifted the ban--which it did perforce and by a large majority, despite +Tipton's opposition--and then took his seat on the senatorial bench +beside his enemy. The records show that he was reinstated as Brigadier +General of the Western Counties and also appointed at the head of the +Committee on Indian Affairs. + +Not only in the region about Watauga did the pioneers of Tennessee +endure the throes of danger and strife during these years. The little +settlements on the Cumberland, which were scattered over a short +distance of about twenty-five or thirty miles and had a frontier line of +two hundred miles, were terribly afflicted. Their nearest white +neighbors among the Kentucky settlers were one hundred and fifty miles +away; and through the cruelest years these could render no aid--could +not, indeed, hold their own stations. The Kentuckians, as we have seen, +were bottled up in Harrodsburg and Boonesborough; and, while the +northern Indians led by Girty and Dequindre darkened the Bloody Ground +anew, the Cumberlanders were making a desperate stand against the +Chickasaws and the Creeks. So terrible was their situation that panic +took hold on them, and they would have fled but for the influence of +Robertson. He may have put the question to them in the biblical words, +"Whither shall I flee?" For they were surrounded, and those who did +attempt to escape were "weighed on the path and made light." Robertson +knew that their only chance of survival was to stand their ground. The +greater risks he was willing to take in person, for it was he who made +trips to Boonesborough and Harrodsburg for a share of the powder and +lead which John Sevier was sending into Kentucky from time to time. In +the stress of conflict Robertson bore his full share of grief, for his +two elder sons and his brother fell. He himself was often near to death. +One day he was cut off in the fields and was shot in the foot as he ran, +yet he managed to reach shelter. There is a story that, in an attack +during one of his absences, the Indians forced the outer gate of the +fort and Mrs. Robertson went out of her cabin, firing, and let loose a +band of the savage dogs which the settlers kept for their protection, +and so drove out the invaders. + +The Chickasaws were loyal to the treaty they had made with the British +in the early days of James Adair's association with them. They were +friends to England's friends and foes to her foes. While they resented +the new settlements made on land they considered theirs, they signed a +peace with Robertson at the conclusion of the War of Independence. They +kept their word with him as they had kept it with the British. +Furthermore, their chief, Opimingo or the Mountain Leader, gave +Robertson his assistance against the Creeks and the Choctaws and, in so +far as he understood its workings, informed him of the new Spanish and +French conspiracy, which we now come to consider. So once again the +Chickasaws were servants of destiny to the English-speaking race, for +again they drove the wedge of their honor into an Indian solidarity +welded with European gold. + +Since it was generally believed at that date that the tribes were +instigated to war by the British and supplied by them with their +ammunition, savage inroads were expected to cease with the signing of +peace. But Indian warfare not only continued; it increased. In the last +two years of the Revolution, when the British were driven from the Back +Country of the Carolinas and could no longer reach the tribes with +consignments of firearms and powder, it should have been evident that +the Indians had other sources of supply and other allies, for they +lacked nothing which could aid them in their efforts to exterminate the +settlers of Tennessee. + +Neither France nor Spain wished to see an English-speaking republic +based on ideals of democracy successfully established in America. Though +in the Revolutionary War, France was a close ally of the Americans and +Spain something more than a nominal one, the secret diplomacy of the +courts of the Bourbon cousins ill matched with their open professions. +Both cousins hated England. The American colonies, smarting under +injustice, had offered a field for their revenge. But hatred of England +was not the only reason why activities had been set afoot to increase +the discord which should finally separate the colonies from Great +Britain and leave the destiny of the colonies to be decided by the House +of Bourbon. Spain saw in the Americans, with their English modes of +thought, a menace to her authority in her own colonies on both the +northern and southern continents. This menace would not be stilled but +augmented if the colonies should be established as a republic. Such an +example might be too readily followed. Though France had, by a secret +treaty in 1762, made over to Spain the province of Louisiana, she was +not unmindful of the Bourbon motto, "He who attacks the Crown of one +attacks the other." And she saw her chance to deal a crippling blow at +England's prestige and commerce. + +In 1764, the French Minister, Choiseul, had sent a secret agent, named +Pontleroy, to America to assist in making trouble and to watch for any +signs that might be turned to the advantage of les duex couronnes. +Evidently Pontleroy's reports were encouraging for, in 1768, Johann +Kalb--the same Kalb who fell at Camden in 1780--arrived in Philadelphia +to enlarge the good work. He was not only, like several of the foreign +officers in the War of Independence, a spy for his Government, but he +was also the special emissary of one Comte de Broglie who, after the +colonies had broken with the mother country, was to put himself at the +head of American affairs. This Broglie had been for years one of Louis +XV's chief agents in subterranean diplomacy, and it is not to be +supposed that he was going to attempt the stupendous task of controlling +America's destiny without substantial backing. Spain had been advised +meanwhile to rule her new Louisiana territory with great liberality--in +fact, to let it shine as a republic before the yearning eyes of the +oppressed Americans, so that the English colonists would arise and cast +off their fetters. Once the colonies had freed themselves from England's +protecting arm, it would be a simple matter for the Bourbons to gather +them in like so many little lost chicks from a rainy yard. The +intrigants of autocratic systems have never been able to understand that +the urge of the spirit of independence in men is not primarily to break +shackles but to stand alone and that the breaking of bonds is incidental +to the true demonstration of freedom. The Bourbons and their agents were +no more nor less blind to the great principle stirring the hearts of men +in their day than were the Prussianized hosts over a hundred years later +who, having themselves no acquaintance with the law of liberty, could +not foresee that half a world would rise in arms to maintain that law. + +When the War of Independence had ended, the French Minister, Vergennes, +and the Spanish Minister, Floridablanca, secretly worked in unison to +prevent England's recognition of the new republic; and Floridablanca in +1782 even offered to assist England if she would make further efforts to +subdue her "rebel subjects." Both Latin powers had their own axes to +grind, and America was to tend the grindstone. France looked for +recovery of her old prestige in Europe and expected to supersede England +in commerce. She would do this, in the beginning, chiefly through +control of America and of America's commerce. Vergennes therefore sought +not only to dictate the final terms of peace but also to say what the +American commissioners should and should not demand. Of the latter +gentlemen he said that they possessed caractères peu maniables! In +writing to Luzerne, the French Ambassador in Philadelphia, on October +14, 1782, Vergennes said: "it behooves us to leave them [the American +commissioners] to their illusions, to do everything that can make them +fancy that we share them, and undertake only to defeat any attempts to +which those illusions might carry them if our coöperation is required." +Among these "illusions" were America's desires in regard to the +fisheries and to the western territory. Concerning the West, Vergennes +had written to Luzerne, as early as July 18, 1780: "At the moment when +the revolution broke out, the limits of the Thirteen States did not +reach the River [Mississippi] and it would be absurd for them to claim +the rights of England, a power whose rule they had abjured." By the +secret treaty with Spain, furthermore, France had agreed to continue the +war until Gibraltar should be taken, and--if the British should be +driven from Newfoundland--to share the fisheries only with Spain, and to +support Spain in demanding that the Thirteen States renounce all +territory west of the Alleghanies. The American States must by no means +achieve a genuine independence but must feel the need of sureties, +allies, and protection. ¹ + +¹ See John Jay, On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1783 as Illustrated by +the Secret Correspondence of France and England, New York, 1888. + +So intent was Vergennes on these aims that he sent a secret emissary to +England to further them there. This act of his perhaps gave the first +inkling to the English statesmen ² that American and French desires were +not identical and hastened England's recognition of American +independence and her agreement to American demands in regard to the +western territory. When, to his amazement, Vergennes learned that +England had acceded to all America's demands, he said that England had +"bought the peace" rather than made it. The policy of Vergennes in +regard to America was not unjustly pronounced by a later French +statesman "a vile speculation" + +² "Your Lordship was well founded in your suspicion that the granting of +independence to America as a previous measure is a point which the +French have by no means at heart and perhaps are entirely averse from." +Letter from Fitzherbert to Grantham, September 3, 1782. + +Through England's unexpected action, then, the Bourbon cousins had +forever lost their opportunity to dominate the young but spent and +war-weakened Republic, or to use America as a catspaw to snatch English +commerce for France. It was plain, too, that any frank move of the sort +would range the English alongside of their American kinsmen. Since +American Independence was an accomplished fact and therefore could no +longer be prevented, the present object of the Bourbon cousins was to +restrict it. The Appalachian Mountains should be the western limits of +the new nation. Therefore the settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee must +be broken up, or the settlers must be induced to secede from the Union +and raise the Spanish banner. The latter alternative was held to be +preferable. To bring it about the same methods were to be continued +which had been used prior to and during the war--namely, the use of +agents provocateurs to corrupt the ignorant and incite the lawless, the +instigation of Indian massacres to daunt the brave, and the distribution +of gold to buy the avaricious. + +As her final and supreme means of coercion, Spain refused to America the +right of navigation on the Mississippi and so deprived the Westerners of +a market for their produce. The Northern States, having no immediate use +for the Mississippi, were willing to placate Spain by acknowledging her +monopoly of the great waterway. But Virginia and North Carolina were +determined that America should not, by congressional enactment, +surrender her "natural right"; and they cited the proposed legislation +as their reason for refusing to ratify the Constitution. "The act which +abandons it [the right of navigation] is an act of separation between +the eastern and western country," Jefferson realized at last. "An act of +separation"--that point had long been very clear to the Latin sachems of +the Mississippi Valley! + +Bounded as they were on one side by the precipitous mountains and on the +other by the southward flow of the Mississippi and its tributary, the +Ohio, the trappers and growers of corn in Kentucky and western Tennessee +regarded New Orleans as their logical market, as the wide waters were +their natural route. If market and route were to be closed to them, +their commercial advancement was something less than a dream. + +In 1785, Don Estevan Miró, a gentleman of artful and winning address, +became Governor of Louisiana and fountainhead of the propaganda. He +wrote benign and brotherly epistles to James Robertson of the Cumberland +and to His Excellency of Franklin, suggesting that to be of service to +them was his dearest aim in life; and at the same time he kept the +southern Indians continually on the warpath. When Robertson wrote to him +of the Creek and Cherokee depredations, with a hint that the Spanish +might have some responsibility in the matter, Miró replied by offering +the Cumberlander a safe home on Spanish territory with freedom of +religion and no taxes. He disclaimed stirring up the Indians. He had, in +fact, advised Mr. McGillivray, chief of the Creeks, to make peace. He +would try again what he could do with Mr. McGillivray. As to the +Cherokees, they resided in a very distant territory and he was not +acquainted with them; he might have added that he did not need to be: +his friend McGillivray was the potent personality among the Southern +tribes. + +In Alexander McGillivray, Miró found a weapon fashioned to his hand. If +the Creek chieftain's figure might stand as the symbol of treachery, it +is none the less one of the most picturesque and pathetic in our early +annals. McGillivray, it will be remembered, was the son of Adair's +friend Lachlan McGillivray, the trader, and a Creek woman whose sire had +been a French officer. A brilliant and beautiful youth, he had given his +father a pride in him which is generally denied to the fathers of sons +with Indian blood in them. The Highland trader had spared nothing in his +son's education and had placed him, after his school days, in the +business office of the large trading establishment of which he himself +was a member. At about the age of seventeen Alexander had become a +chieftain in his mother's nation; and doubtless it is he who appears +shortly afterwards in the Colonial Records as the White Leader whose +influence is seen to have been at work for friendship between the +colonists and the tribes. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Lachlan +McGillivray, like many of the old traders who had served British +interests so long and so faithfully, held to the British cause. Georgia +confiscated all his property and Lachlan fled to Scotland. For this, his +son hated the people of Georgia with a perfect hatred. He remembered how +often his father's courage alone had stood between those same people and +the warlike Creeks. He could recall the few days in 1760 when Lachlan +and his fellow trader, Galphin, at the risk of their lives had braved +the Creek warriors--already painted for war and on the march--and so had +saved the settlements of the Back Country from extermination. He looked +upon the men of Georgia as an Indian regards those who forget either a +blood gift or a blood vengeance. And he embraced the whole American +nation in his hatred for their sakes. + +In 1776 Alexander McGillivray was in his early thirties--the exact date +of his birth is uncertain. ¹ He had, we are told, the tall, sturdy, but +spare physique of the Gael, with a countenance of Indian color though +not of Indian cast. His overhanging brows made more striking his very +large and luminous dark eyes. He bore himself with great dignity; his +voice was soft, his manner gentle. He might have been supposed to be +some Latin courtier but for the barbaric display of his dress and his +ornaments. He possessed extraordinary personal magnetism, and his power +extended beyond the Creek nation to the Choctaws and Chickasaws and the +Southern Cherokees. He had long been wooed by the Louisiana authorities, +but there is no evidence that he had made alliance with them prior to +the Revolution. + +¹ Probably about 1741 or 1742. Some writers give 1739 and others 1746. +His father landed in Charleston, Pickett (History of Alabama) says, in +1735, and was then only sixteen. + +Early in the war he joined the British, received a colonel's commission, +and led his formidable Creeks against the people of Georgia. When the +British were driven from the Back Countries, McGillivray, in his British +uniform, went on with the war. When the British made peace, McGillivray +exchanged his British uniform for a Spanish one and went on with the +war. In later days, when he had forced Congress to pay him for his +father's confiscated property and had made peace, he wore the uniform of +an American Brigadier General; but he did not keep the peace, never +having intended to keep it. It was not until he had seen the Spanish +plots collapse and had realized that the Americans were to dominate the +land, that the White Leader ceased from war and urged the youths of his +tribe to adopt American civilization. + +Spent from hate and wasted with dissipation, he retired at last to the +spot where Lachlan had set up his first Creek home. Here he lived his +few remaining days in a house which he built on the site of the old +ruined cabin about which still stood the little grove of apple trees his +father had planted. He died at the age of fifty of a fever contracted +while he was on a business errand in Pensacola. Among those who visited +him in his last years, one has left this description of him: +"Dissipation has sapped a constitution originally delicate and feeble. +He possesses an atticism of diction aided by a liberal education, a +great fund of wit and humor meliorated by a perfect good nature and +politeness." Set beside that kindly picture this rough etching by James +Robertson: "The biggest devil among them [the Spaniards] is the half +Spaniard, half Frenchman, half Scotchman and altogether Creek scoundrel, +McGillivray." + +How indefatigably McGillivray did his work we know from the bloody +annals of the years which followed the British-American peace, when the +men of the Cumberland and of Franklin were on the defensive continually. +How cleverly Miró played his personal rôle we discover in the letters +addressed to him by Sevier and Robertson. These letters show that, as +far as words go at any rate, the founders of Tennessee were willing to +negotiate with Spain. In a letter dated September 12, 1788, Sevier +offered himself and his tottering State of Franklin to the Spanish King. +This offer may have been made to gain a respite, or it may have been +genuine. The situation in the Tennessee settlements was truly desperate, +for neither North Carolina nor Congress apparently cared in the least +what befell them or how soon. North Carolina indeed was in an anomalous +position, as she had not yet ratified the Federal Constitution. If +Franklin went out of existence and the territory which it included +became again part of North Carolina, Sevier knew that a large part of +the newly settled country would, under North Carolina's treaties, revert +to the Indians. That meant ruin to large numbers of those who had put +their faith in his star, or else it meant renewed conflict either with +the Indians or with the parent State. The probabilities aria that Sevier +hoped to play the Spaniards against the Easterners who, even while +denying the Westerners' contention that the mountains were a "natural" +barrier between them, were making of them a barrier of indifference. It +would seem so, because, although this was the very aim of all Miró's +activities so that, had he been assured of the sincerity of the offer, +he must have grasped at it, yet nothing definite was done. And Sevier +was presently informing Shelby, now in Kentucky, that there was a +Spanish plot afoot to seize the western country. + +Miró had other agents besides McGillivray--who, by the way, was costing +Spain, for his own services and those of four tribes aggregating over +six thousand warriors, a sum of fifty-five thousand dollars a year. +McGillivray did very well as superintendent of massacres; but the +Spaniard required a different type of man, an American who enjoyed his +country's trust, to bring the larger plan to fruition. Miró found that +man in General James Wilkinson, lately of the Continental Army and now a +resident of Kentucky, which territory Wilkinson undertook to deliver to +Spain, for a price. In 1787 Wilkinson secretly took the oath of +allegiance to Spain and is listed in the files of the Spanish secret +service, appropriately, as "Number Thirteen." He was indeed the +thirteenth at table, the Judas at the feast. Somewhat under middle +height, Wilkinson was handsome, graceful, and remarkably magnetic. Of a +good, if rather impoverished, Maryland family, he was well educated and +widely read for the times. With a brilliant and versatile +intellectuality and ready gifts as a speaker, he swayed men easily. He +was a bold soldier and was endowed with physical courage, though when +engaged in personal contests he seldom exerted it--preferring the red +tongue of slander or the hired assassin's shot from behind cover. His +record fails to disclose one commendable trait. He was inordinately +avaricious, but love of money was not his whole motive force: he had a +spirit so jealous and malignant that he hated to the death another man's +good. He seemed to divine instantly wherein other men were weak and to +understand the speediest and best means of suborning them to his own +interests--or of destroying them. + +Wilkinson was able to lure a number of Kentuckians into the separatist +movement. George Rogers Clark seriously disturbed the arch plotter by +seizing a Spanish trader's store wherewith to pay his soldiers, whom +Virginia had omitted to recompense. This act aroused the suspicions of +the Spanish, either as to Number Thirteen's perfect loyalty or as to his +ability to deliver the western country. In 1786, when Clark led two +thousand men against the Ohio Indians in his last and his only +unsuccessful campaign, Wilkinson had already settled himself near the +Falls (Louisville) and had looked about for mischief which he might do +for profit. Whether his influence had anything to do with what amounted +virtually to a mutiny among Clark's forces is not ascertainable; but, +for a disinterested onlooker, he was overswift to spread the news of +Clark's debacle and to declare gleefully that Clark's sun of military +glory had now forever set. It is also known that he later served other +generals treacherously in Indian expeditions and that he intrigued with +Mad Anthony Wayne's Kentucky troops against their commander. + +Spain did not wish to see the Indians crushed; and Wilkinson himself +both hated and feared any other officer's prestige. How long he had been +in foreign pay we can only conjecture, for, several years before he +transplanted his activities to Kentucky, he had been one of a cabal +against Washington. Not only his ambitions but his nature must +inevitably have brought him to the death-battle with George Rogers +Clark. As a military leader, Clark had genius, and soldiering was his +passion. In nature, he was open, frank, and bold to make foes if he +scorned a man's way as ignoble or dishonest. Wilkinson suavely set about +scheming for Clark's ruin. His communication or memorial to the Virginia +Assembly--signed by himself and a number of his friends--villifying +Clark, ended Clark's chances for the commission in the Continental Army +which he craved. It was Wilkinson who made public an incriminating +letter which had Clark's signature attached and which Clark said he had +never seen. It is to be supposed that Number Thirteen was responsible +also for the malevolent anonymous letter accusing Clark of drunkenness +and scheming which, so strangely, found its way into the Calendar of +State Papers of Virginia. ¹ As a result, Clark was censured by Virginia. +Thereupon he petitioned for a Court of Inquiry, but this was not +granted. Wilkinson had to get rid of Clark; for if Clark, with his +military gifts and his power over men, had been elevated to a position +of command under the smile of the Government, there would have been +small opportunity for James Wilkinson to lead the Kentuckians and to +gather in Spanish gold. So the machinations of one of the vilest +traitors who ever sold his country were employed to bring about the +stultification and hence the downfall of a great servant. + +¹ See Thomas M. Greene's The Spanish Conspiracy, p. 72, footnote. It is +possible that Wilkinson's intrigues provide data for a new biography of +Clark which may recast in some measure the accepted view of Clark at +this period. + +Wilkinson's chief aids were the Irishmen, O'Fallon, Nolan, and Powers. +Through Nolan, he also vended Spanish secrets. He sold, indeed, whatever +and whomever he could get his price for. So clever was he that he +escaped detection, though he was obliged to remove some suspicions. He +succeeded Wayne as commander of the regular army in 1796. He was one of +the commissioners to receive Louisiana when the Purchase was arranged in +1803. He was still on the Spanish pay roll at that time. Wilkinson's +true record came to light only when the Spanish archives were opened to +investigators. + +There were British agents also in the Old Southwest, for the +dissatisfaction of the Western men inspired in Englishmen the hope of +recovering the Mississippi Basin. Lord Dorchester, Governor of Canada, +wrote to the British Government that he had been approached by important +Westerners; but he received advice from England to move slowly. For +complicity in the British schemes, William Blount, who was first +territorial Governor of Tennessee and later a senator from that State, +was expelled from the Senate. + +Surely there was never a more elaborate network of plots that came to +nothing! The concession to Americans in 1796 of the right of navigation +on the Mississippi brought an end to the scheming. + +In the same year Tennessee was admitted to the Union, and John Sevier +was elected Governor. Sevier's popularity was undiminished, though there +were at this time some sixty thousand souls in Tennessee, many of whom +were late comers who had not known him in his heyday. His old power to +win men to him must have been as strong as ever, for it is recorded that +he had only to enter a political meeting--no matter whose--for the crowd +to cheer him and shout for him to "give them a talk." + +This adulation of Sevier still annoyed a few men who had ambitions of +their own. Among these was Andrew Jackson, who had come to Jonesborough +in 1788, just after the collapse of the State of Franklin. He was +twenty-one at that time, and he is said to have entered Jonesborough +riding a fine racer and leading another, with a pack of hunting dogs +baying or nosing along after him. A court record dated May 12, 1788, +avers that "Andrew Jackson, Esq. came into Court and produced a licence +as an Attorney With A Certificate sufficiently Attested of his Taking +the Oath Necessary to said office and Was admitted to Practiss as an +Attorney in the County Courts." Jackson made no history in old Watauga +during that year. Next year he moved to Nashville, and one year later, +when the Superior Court was established (1790), he became prosecuting +attorney. + +The feud between Jackson and Sevier began about the time that Tennessee +entered the Union. Jackson, then twenty-nine, was defeated for the post +of Major General of the Militia through the influence which Sevier +exercised against him, and it seems that Jackson never forgave this +opposition to his ambitions. By the close of Sevier's third term, +however, in 1802, when Archibald Roane became Governor, the post of +Major General was again vacant. Both Sevier and Jackson offered +themselves for it, and Jackson was elected by the deciding vote of the +Governor, the military vote having resulted in a tie. A strong current +of influence had now set in against Sevier and involved charges against +his honor. His old enemy Tipton was still active. The basis of the +charges was a file of papers from the entry-taker's office which a +friend of Tipton's had laid before the Governor, with an affidavit to +the effect that the papers were fraudulent. Both the Governor and +Jackson believed the charges. When we consider what system or lack of +system of land laws and land entries obtained in Watauga and such +primitive communities--when a patch of corn sealed a right and claims +were made by notching trees with tomahawks--we may imagine that a file +from the land office might appear easily enough to smirch a landholder's +integrity. The scandal was, of course, used in an attempt to ruin +Sevier's candidacy for a fourth term as Governor and to make certain +Roane's reëlection. To this end Jackson bent all his energies but +without success. Nolichucky Jack was elected, for the fourth time, as +Governor of Tennessee. + +Not long after his inauguration, Sevier met Jackson in Knoxville, where +Jackson was holding court. The charges against Sevier were then being +made the subject of legislative investigation instituted by Tipton, and +Jackson had published a letter in the Knoxville Gazette supporting them. +At the sight of Jackson, Sevier flew into a rage, and a fiery +altercation ensued. The two men were only restrained from leaping on +each other by the intervention of friends. The next day Jackson sent +Sevier a challenge which Sevier accepted, but with the stipulation that +the duel take place outside the State. Jackson insisted on fighting in +Knoxville, where the insult had been offered. Sevier refused. "I have +some respect," he wrote, "for the laws of the State over which I have +the honor to preside, although you, a judge, appear to have none." No +duel followed; but, after some further billets-doux, Jackson published +Sevier as "a base coward and poltroon. He will basely insult but has not +the courage to repair the wound." Again they met, by accident, and +Jackson rushed upon Sevier with his cane. Sevier dismounted and drew his +pistol but made no move to fire. Jackson, thereupon, also drew his +weapon. Once more friends interfered. It is presumable that neither +really desired the duel. By killing Nolichucky Jack, Jackson would have +ended his own career in Tennessee--if Sevier's tribe of sons had not, by +a swifter means, ended it for him. At this date Jackson was thirty-six. +Sevier was fifty-eight; and he had seventeen children. + +The charges against Sevier, though pressed with all the force that his +enemies could bring to bear, came to nothing. He remained the Governor +of Tennessee for another six years--the three terms in eight years +allowed by the constitution. In 1811 he was sent to Congress for the +second time, as he had represented the Territory there twenty years +earlier. He was returned again in 1813. At the conclusion of his term in +1815 he went into the Creek country as commissioner to determine the +Creek boundaries, and here, far from his Bonnie Kate and his tribe, he +died of fever at the age of seventy. His body was buried with full +military honors at Tuckabatchee, one of the Creek towns. In 1889, +Sevier's remains were removed to Knoxville and a high marble spire was +raised above them. + +His Indian enemies forgave the chastisement he had inflicted on them and +honored him. In times of peace they would come to him frequently for +advice. And in his latter days, the chiefs would make state visits to +his home on the Nolichucky River. "John Sevier is a good man"--so +declared the Cherokee, Old Tassel, making himself the spokesman of +history. + +Sevier had survived his old friend, co-founder with him of Watauga, by +one year. James Robertson had died in 1814 at the age of seventy-two, +among the Chickasaws, and his body, like that of his fellow pioneer, was +buried in an Indian town and lay there until 1825, when it was removed +to Nashville. + +What of the red tribes who had fought these great pioneers for the wide +land of the Old Southwest and who in the end had received their dust and +treasured it with honor in the little soil remaining to them? Always the +new boundary lines drew closer in, and the red men's foothold narrowed +before the pushing tread of the whites. The day came soon when there was +no longer room for them in the land of their fathers. But far off across +the great river there was a land the white men did not covet yet. +Thither at last the tribes--Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and +Creek--took their way. With wives and children, maids and youths, the +old and the young, with all their goods, their cattle and horses, in the +company of a regiment of American troops, they--like the white men who +had superseded them--turned westward. In their faces also was the red +color of the west, but not newly there. From the beginning of their +race, Destiny had painted them with the hue of the brief hour of the +dying sun. + + + + + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Boone's Last Days + +One spring day in 1799, there might have been observed a great stir +through the valley of the Kanawha. With the dawn, men were ahorse, and +women, too. Wagons crowded with human freight wheeled over the rough +country, and boats, large and small, were afloat on the streams which +pour into the Great Kanawha and at length mingle with the Ohio at Point +Pleasant, where the battle was fought which opened the gates of +Kentucky. + +Some of the travelers poured into the little settlement at the junction +of the Elk and the Kanawha, where Charleston now lies. Others, who had +been later in starting or had come from a greater distance, gathered +along the banks of the Kanawha. At last shouts from those stationed +farthest up the stream echoed down the valley and told the rest that +what they had come out to see was at hand. + +Several pirogues drifted into view on the river, now brightening in the +sunshine. In the vessels were men and their families; bales and bundles +and pieces of household furnishings, heaped to the gunwale; a few cattle +and horses standing patiently. But it was for one man above all that the +eager eyes of the settlers were watching, and him they saw clearly as +his boat swung by--a tall figure, erect and powerful, his keen friendly +blue eyes undimmed and his ruddy face unlined by time, though sixty-five +winters had frosted his black hair. + +For a decade these settlers had known Daniel Boone, as storekeeper, as +surveyor, as guide and soldier. They had eaten of the game he killed and +lavishly distributed. And they too--like the folk of Clinch Valley in +the year of Dunmore's War--had petitioned Virginia to bestow military +rank upon their protector. "Lieutenant Colonel" had been his title among +them, by their demand. Once indeed he had represented them in the +Virginia Assembly and, for that purpose, trudged to Richmond with rifle +and hunting dog. Not interested in the Legislature's proceedings, he +left early in the session and tramped home again. + +But not even the esteem of friends and neighbors could hold the great +hunter when the deer had fled. So Daniel Boone was now on his way +westward to Missouri, to a new land of fabled herds and wide spaces, +where the hunter's gun might speak its one word with authority and where +the soul of a silent and fearless man might find its true abode in +Nature's solitude. Waving his last farewells, he floated past the little +groups--till their shouts of good will were long silenced, and his fleet +swung out upon the Ohio. + +As Boone sailed on down the Beautiful River which forms the northern +boundary of Kentucky, old friends and newcomers who had only heard his +fame rode from far and near to greet and godspeed him on his way. +Sometimes he paused for a day with them. Once at least--this was in +Cincinnati where he was taking on supplies--some one asked him why, at +his age, he was leaving the settled country to dare the frontier once +more. + +"Too crowded," he answered; "I want more elbow-room!" + +Boone settled at the Femme Osage Creek on the Missouri River, +twenty-five miles above St. Charles, where the Missouri flows into the +Mississippi. There were four other Kentucky families at La Charette, as +the French inhabitants called the post, but these were the only +Americans. The Spanish authorities granted Boone 840 acres of land, and +here Daniel built the last cabin home he was to erect for himself and +his Rebecca. + +The region pleased him immensely. The governmental system, for instance, +was wholly to his mind. Taxes were infinitesimal. There were no +elections, assemblies, or the like. A single magistrate, or Syndic, +decided all disputes and made the few regulations and enforced them. +There were no land speculators, no dry-mouthed sons of the commercial +Tantalus, athirst for profits. Boone used to say that his first years in +Missouri were the happiest of his life, with the exception of his first +long hunt in Kentucky. + +In 1800 he was appointed Syndic of the district of Femme Osage, which +office he filled for four years, until Louisiana became American +territory. He was held in high esteem as a magistrate because of his +just and wise treatment of his flock, who brought him all their small +bickerings to settle. He had no use for legal procedure, would not +listen to any nice subtleties, saying that he did not care anything at +all about the evidence, what he wanted was the truth. His favorite +penalty for offenders was the hickory rod "well laid on." Often he +decided that both parties in a suit were equally to blame and chastised +them both alike. When in March, 1804, the American Commissioner received +Louisiana for the United States, Delassus, Lieutenant Governor of Upper +Louisiana, reporting on the various officials in the territory, wrote of +the Femme Osage Syndic: "Mr. Boone, a respectable old man, just and +impartial, he has already, since I appointed him, offered his +resignation owing to his infirmities. Believing I know his probity, I +have induced him to remain, in view of my confidence in him, for the +public good." ¹ + +¹ Thwaites, Daniel Boone. To this and other biographies of Boone, cited +in the Bibliographical Note at the end of this volume, the author is +indebted for the material contained in this chapter. + +Daniel, no doubt supposing that a Syndic's rights were inviolable, had +neglected to apply to the Governor at New Orleans for a ratification of +his grant. He was therefore dispossessed. Not until 1810, and after he +had enlisted the Kentucky Legislature in his behalf, did he succeed in +inducing Congress to restore his land. The Kentucky Legislature's +resolution was adopted because of "the many eminent services rendered by +Colonel Boone in exploring and settling the western country, from which +great advantages have resulted not only to the State but to the country +in general, and that from circumstances over which he had no control he +is now reduced to poverty; not having so far as appears an acre of land +out of the vast territory he has been a great instrument in peopling." +Daniel was seventy-six then; so it was late in the day for him to have +his first experience of justice in the matter of land. Perhaps it +pleased him, however, to hear that, in confirming his grant, Congress +had designated him as "the man who has opened the way for millions of +his fellow-men." + +The "infirmities" which had caused the good Syndic to seek relief from +political cares must have been purely magisterial. The hunter could have +been very little affected by them, for as soon as he was freed from his +duties Boone took up again the silent challenge of the forest. Usually +one or two of his sons or his son-in-law, Flanders Calloway, accompanied +him, but sometimes his only companions were an old Indian and his +hunting dog. On one of his hunting trips he explored a part of Kansas; +and in 1814, when he was eighty, he hunted big game in the Yellowstone +where again his heart rejoiced over great herds as in the days of his +first lone wanderings in the Blue Grass country. At last, with the +proceeds of these expeditions he was able to pay the debts he had left +behind in Kentucky thirty years before. The story runs that Daniel had +only fifty cents remaining when all the claims had been settled, but so +contented was he to be able to look an honest man in the face that he +was in no disposition to murmur over his poverty. + +When after a long and happy life his wife died in 1813, Boone lived with +one or other of his sons ¹ and sometimes with Flanders Calloway. Nathan +Boone, with whom Daniel chiefly made his home, built what is said to +have been the first stone house in Missouri. Evidently the old pioneer +disapproved of stone houses and of the "luxuries" in furnishings which +were then becoming possible to the new generation, for one of his +biographers speaks of visiting him in a log addition to his son's house; +and when Chester Harding, the painter, visited him in 1819 for the +purpose of doing his portrait, he found Boone dwelling in a small log +cabin in Nathan's yard. When Harding entered, Boone was broiling a +venison steak on the end of his ramrod. During the sitting, one day, +Harding asked Boone if he had ever been lost in the woods when on his +long hunts in the wilderness. + +¹ Boone's son Nathan won distinction in the War of 1812 and entered the +regular army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Daniel Morgan +Boone is said to have been the first settler in Kansas (1827). One of +Daniel's grandsons, bearing the name of Albert Gallatin Boone, was a +pioneer of Colorado and was to the forefront in Rocky Mountain +exploration. Another grandson was the scout, Kit Carson, who led Frémont +to California. + +"No, I never got lost," Boone replied reflectively, "but I was +bewildered once for three days." Though now having reached the age of +eighty-five, Daniel was intensely interested in California and was +enthusiastic to make the journey thither next spring and so to flee once +more from the civilization which had crept westward along his path. The +resolute opposition of his sons, however, prevented the attempt. + +A few men who sought out Boone in his old age have left us brief +accounts of their impressions. Among these was Audubon. "The stature and +general appearance of this wanderer of the western forests," the +naturalist wrote, "approached the gigantic. His chest was broad, and +prominent; his muscular powers displayed themselves in every limb; his +countenance gave indication of his great courage, enterprise and +perseverance; and, when he spoke, the very motion of his lips brought +the impression that whatever he uttered could not be otherwise than +strictly true." + +Audubon spent a night under Boone's roof. He related afterwards that the +old hunter, having removed his hunting shirt, spread his blankets on the +floor and lay down there to sleep, saying that he found it more +comfortable than a bed. A striking sketch of Boone is contained in a few +lines penned by one of his earliest biographers: "He had what +phrenologists would have considered a model head--with a forehead +peculiarly high, noble and bold, thin compressed lips, a mild clear blue +eye, a large and prominent chin and a general expression of countenance +in which fearlessness and courage sat enthroned and which told the +beholder at a glance what he had been and was formed to be." In +criticizing the various portraits of Daniel, the same writer says: "They +want the high port and noble daring of his countenance.... Never was old +age more green, or gray hairs more graceful. His high, calm, bold +forehead seemed converted by years into iron." + +Although we are indebted to these and other early chroniclers for many +details of Boone's life, there was one event which none of his +biographers has related; yet we know that it must have taken place. Even +the bare indication of it is found only in the narrative of the +adventures of two other explorers. + +It was in the winter of 1803 that these two men came to Boone's +Settlement, as La Charette was now generally called. They had planned to +make their winter camp there, for in the spring, when the Missouri rose +to the flood, they and their company of frontiersmen were to take their +way up that uncharted stream and over plains and mountains in quest of +the Pacific Ocean. They were refused permission by the Spanish +authorities to camp at Boone's Settlement; so they lay through the +winter some forty miles distant on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, +across from the mouth of the Missouri. Since the records are silent, we +are free to picture as we choose their coming to the settlement during +the winter and again in the spring, for we know that they came. + +We can imagine, for instance, the stir they made in La Charette on some +sparkling day when the frost bit and the crusty snow sent up a dancing +haze of diamond points. We can see the friendly French habitants staring +after the two young leaders and their men--all mere boys, though they +were also husky, seasoned frontiersmen--with their bronzed faces of +English cast, as in their gayly fringed deerskins they swaggered through +the hamlet to pay their respects to the Syndic. We may think of that +dignitary as smoking his pipe before his fireplace, perhaps; or making +out, in his fantastic spelling, a record of his primitive court--for +instance, that he had on that day given Pierre a dozen hickory thwacks, +"well laid on," for starting a brawl with Antoine, and had bestowed the +same upon Antoine for continuing the brawl with Pierre. A knock at the +door would bring the amiable invitation to enter, and the two young men +would step across his threshold, while their followers crowded about the +open door and hailed the old pathfinder. + +One of the two leaders--the dark slender man with a subtle touch of the +dreamer in his resolute face--was a stranger; but the other, with the +more practical mien and the shock of hair that gave him the name of Red +Head among the tribes, Boone had known as a lad in Kentucky. To Daniel +and this young visitor the encounter would be a simple meeting of +friends, heightened in pleasure and interest somewhat, naturally, by the +adventure in prospect. But to us there is something vast in the thought +of Daniel Boone, on his last frontier, grasping the hands of William +Clark and Meriwether Lewis. + +As for the rough and hearty mob at the door, Daniel must have known not +a few of them well; though they had been children in the days when he +and William Clark's brother strove for Kentucky. It seems fitting that +the soldiers with this expedition should have come from the garrison at +Kaskaskia; since the taking of that fort in 1778 by George Rogers Clark +had opened the western way from the boundaries of Kentucky to the +Mississippi. And among the young Kentuckians enlisted by William Clark +were sons of the sturdy fighters of still an earlier border line, Clinch +and Holston Valley men who had adventured under another Lewis at Point +Pleasant. Daniel would recognize in these--such as Charles Floyd--the +young kinsmen of his old-time comrades whom he had preserved from +starvation in the Kentucky wilderness by the kill from his rifle as they +made their long march home after Dunmore's War. + +In May, Lewis and Clark's pirogues ascended the Missouri and the leaders +and men of the expedition spent another day in La Charette. Once again, +at least, Daniel was to watch the westward departure of pioneers. In +1811, when the Astorians passed, one of their number pointed to the +immobile figure of "an old man on the bank, who, he said, was Daniel +Boone." + +Sometimes the aged pioneer's mind cast forward to his last journey, for +which his advancing years were preparing him. He wrote on the subject to +a sister, in 1816, revealing in a few simple lines that the faith +whereby he had crossed, if not more literally removed, mountains was a +fixed star, and that he looked ahead fearlessly to the dark trail he +must tread by its single gleam. Autumn was tinting the forest and the +tang he loved was in the air when the great hunter passed. The date of +Boone's death is given as September 26, 1820. He was in his eighty-sixth +year. Unburdened by the pangs of disease he went out serenely, by the +gentle marches of sleep, into the new country. + +The convention for drafting the constitution of Missouri, in session at +St. Louis, adjourned for the day, and for twenty days thereafter the +members wore crape on their arms as a further mark of respect for the +great pioneer. Daniel was laid by Rebecca's side, on the bank of Teugue +Creek, about a mile from the Missouri River. In 1845, the Missouri +legislators hearkened to oft-repeated pleas from Kentucky and +surrendered the remains of the pioneer couple. Their bones lie now in +Frankfort, the capital of the once Dark and Bloody Ground, and in 1880 a +monument was raised over them. + +To us it seems rather that Kentucky itself is Boone's monument; even as +those other great corn States, Illinois and Indiana, are Clark's. There, +these two servants unafraid, who sacrificed without measure in the +wintry winds of man's ingratitude, are each year memorialized anew; when +the earth in summer--the season when the red man slaughtered--lifts up +the full grain in the ear, the life-giving corn; and when autumn smiles +in golden peace over the stubble fields, where the reaping and binding +machines have hummed a nation's harvest song. + + + + +Bibliographical Note + +The Races And Their Migration + +C. A. Hanna, The Scotch-Irish, 2 vols. New York, 1902. A very full if +somewhat over-enthusiastic study. + +H. J. Ford, The Scotch-Irish in America. Princeton, 1915. Excellent. + +A. G. Spangenberg, Extracts from his Journal of travels in North +Carolina, 1752. Publication of the Southern History Association. Vol. I, +1897. + +A. B. Faust, The German Element in the United States, 2 vols. (1909). + +J. P. MacLean, An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch +Highlanders in America (1900). + +S. H. Cobb, The Story of the Palatines (1897). + +N. D. Mereness (editor), Travels in the American Colonies. New York, +1916. This collection contains the diary of the Moravian Brethren cited +in the first chapter of the present volume. + +Life In The Back Country + +Joseph Doddridge, Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of the +Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania, from 1763 to 1783. Albany, +1876. An intimate description of the daily life of the early settlers in +the Back Country by one of themselves. + +J. F. D. Smyth, Tour in the United States of America, 2 vols. London, +1784. Minute descriptions of the Back Country and interesting pictures +of the life of the settlers; biased as to political views by Royalist +sympathies. + +William H. Foote, Sketches of North Carolina, New York, 1846. See Foote +also for history of the first Presbyterian ministers in the Back +Country. As to political history, inaccurate. + +Early History And Exploration + +J. S. Bassett (editor), The Writings of Colonel William Byrd of +Westover. New York, 1901. A contemporary record of early Virginia. + +Thomas Walker, Journal of an Exploration in the Spring of the Year 1750. +Boston, 1888. The record of his travels by the discoverer of Cumberland +Gap. + +William M. Darlington (editor), Christopher Gist's Journals. Pittsburgh, +1893. Contains Gist's account of his surveys for the Ohio Company, 1750. + +C. A. Hanna, The Wilderness Trail, 2 vols. New York, 1911. An exhaustive +work of research, with full accounts of Croghan and Findlay. See also +Croghan's and Johnson's correspondence in vol. VII, New York Colonial +Records. + +James Adair, The History of the American Indians, etc. London, 1775. The +personal record of a trader who was one of the earliest explorers of the +Alleghanies and of the Mississippi region east of the river; a +many-sided work, intensely interesting. + +C. W. Alvord, The Genesis of the Proclamation of 1763. Reprinted from +Canadian Archives Report, 1906. A new and authoritative interpretation. +In this connection see also the correspondence between Sir William +Johnson and the Lords of Trade in vol. VII of New York Colonial Records. + +Justin Winsor, The Mississippi Basin. The Struggle in America between +England and France. Cambridge, 1895. Presents the results of exhaustive +research and the coördination of facts by an historian of broad +intellect and vision. + +Colonial and State Records of North Carolina. 30 vols. The chief +fountain source of the early history of North Carolina and Tennessee. + +W. H. Hoyt, The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. New York, 1907. +This book presents the view generally adopted by historians, that the +alleged Declaration of May 20, 1775, is spurious. + +Justin Winsor (editor), Narrative and Critical History of America. 8 +vols. (1884-1889). Also The Westward Movement. Cambridge, 1897. Both +works of incalculable value to the student. + +C. W. Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics. 2 vols. +Cleveland, 1917. A profound work of great value to students. + +Kentucky + +R. G. Thwaites and L. P. Kellogg (editors), Documentary History of +Dunmore's War, 1774. Compiled from the Draper Manuscripts in the library +of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Madison, 1905. A collection of +interesting and valuable documents with a suggestive introduction. + +R. G. Thwaites, Daniel Boone. New York, 1902. A short and accurate +narrative of Boone's life and adventures compiled from the Draper +Manuscripts and from earlier printed biographies. + +John P. Hale, Daniel Boone, Some Facts and Incidents not Hitherto +Published. A pamphlet giving an account of Boone in West Virginia. +Printed at Wheeling, West Virginia. Undated. + +Timothy Flint, The First White Man of the West or the Life and Exploits +of Colonel Dan'l Boone. Cincinnati, 1854. Valuable only as regards +Boone's later years. + +John S. C. Abbott, Daniel Boone, the Pioneer of Kentucky. New York, +1872. Fairly accurate throughout. + +J. M. Peck, Daniel Boone (in Sparks, Library of American Biography. +Boston, 1847). + +William Henry Bogart. Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky. New +York, 1856. + +William Hayden English, Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River +Ohio, 1778-1783, and Life of General George Rogers Clark, 2 vols. +Indianapolis, 1896. An accurate and valuable work for which the author +has made painstaking research among printed and unprinted documents. +Contains Clark's own account of his campaigns, letters he wrote on +public and personal matters, and also letters from contemporaries in +defense of his reputation. + +Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, 4 vols. New York, +1889-1896. A vigorous and spirited narrative. + +Tennessee + +J. G. M. Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee. Charleston, 1853. John +Haywood, The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee. +Nashville, 1891. (Reprint from 1828.) These works, with the North +Carolina Colonial Records, are the source books of early Tennessee. In +statistics, such as numbers of Indians and other foes defeated by +Tennessee heroes, not reliable. Incorrect as to causes of Indian wars +during the Revolution. On this subject see letters and reports by John +and Henry Stuart in North Carolina Colonial Records, vol. X; and letters +by General Gage and letters and proclamation by General Ethan Allen in +American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. II, and by President Rutledge of +South Carolina in North Carolina Colonial Records, vol. X. See also +Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement. + +J. Allison, Dropped Stitches in Tennessee History. Nashville, 1897. +Contains interesting matter relative to Andrew Jackson in his younger +days as well as about other striking figures of the time. + +F. M. Turner, The Life of General John Sevier. New York, 1910. A fairly +accurate narrative of events in which Sevier participated, compiled from +the Draper Manuscripts. + +A. W. Putnam, History of Middle Tennessee, or Life and Times of General +James Robertson. Nashville, 1859. A rambling lengthy narrative +containing some interesting material and much that is unreliable. Its +worst fault is distortion through sentimentality, and indulgence in the +habit of putting the author's rodomontades into the mouths of Robertson +and other characters. + +J. S. Bassett, Regulators of North Carolina, in Report of the American +Historical Association, 1894. + +L. C. Draper, King's Mountain and its Heroes. Cincinnati, 1881. The +source book on this event. Contains interesting biographical material +about the men engaged in the battle. + +French And Spanish Intrigues + +Henry Doniol, Histoire de la participation de la France á +l'établissement des États-Unis d'Amérique, 5 vols. Paris, 1886-1892. A +complete exposition of the French and Spanish policy towards America +during the Revolutionary Period. + +Manuel Serrano y Sanz, El brigadier Jaime Wilkinson y sus tratos con +España para la independencia del Kentucky, años 1787 á 1797. Madrid, +1915. A Spanish view of Wilkinson's intrigues with Spain, based on +letters and reports in the Spanish Archives. + +Thomas Marshall Green, The Spanish Conspiracy. Cincinnati, 1891. A good +local account, from American sources. The best material on this subject +is found in Justin Winsor's The Westward Movement and Narrative and +Critical History because there viewed against a broad historical +background. See Winsor also for the Latin intrigues in Tennessee. For +material on Alexander McGillivray see the American Archives and the +Colonial Records of Georgia. + +Edward S. Corwin, French Policy and the American Alliance of 1778. +Princeton, 1916. Deals chiefly with the commercial aspects of French +policy and should be read in conjunction with Winsor, Jay, and +Fitzmaurice's Life of William, Earl of Shelburne. 3 vols. London, 1875. + +John Jay, On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-83 as Illustrated by the +Secret Correspondence of France and England. New York, 1888. A paper +read before the American Historical Association, May 23, 1887. + + + + + + +INDEX + + +A. + +Abingdon (Penn.), Boone family at, 25. +Adair, James, pioneer trader, 59-74, 158 (note). +Alabama, Creek nation in, 57, 68. +Alamance, Battle of the, 104. +Allaire, Lieutenant, officer under Ferguson, 200, 213. +Allen, General Ethan, tries to enlist Indian aid in Canada, 176 (note). +Alvord, C. W., The Mississippi Valley in British Politics, cited, 110 +(note), 113 (note). +American Archives, cited, 8 (note), 123 (note), 176 (note). +Anne, Queen, invites Palatines to England, 15. +"Apostle, The," Count Zinzendorf, Moravian leader, 16-17. +Attakullakulla, Cherokee statesman, 188. +Audubon, J. J., and Boone, 279-280. +Avery, Waightstill, 162. + + +B. + +Baker, John, companion to Boone, 95. +Bean (or Been), William, erects first cabin on Watauga River, 159. +Beautiful River, 125, 274. +Big Bone Lick, Boone finds, 102. +Big Turtle, name given Boone by Indians, 145. +Black Fish, Shawanoe chief, 145, 146, 147, 148. +Bledsoe, Captain Anthony, 121, 125 (note), 149. +Blount, William, Governor of Tennessee, 265. +Blue Licks (Ky.), 97, 102, 143; battle at, 152. +Bluff Hector, nickname for Hector MacNeill, 12. +Bogart, W. H., Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky, cited, 135 +(note). +Boone, Albert Gallatin, grandson of Daniel, 278 (note). +Boone, Daniel, nationality, 24-25; family, 24-26, 27-28; born (1734), +26; early life, 26-27; journey to North Carolina, 29-30; home on the +Yadkin, 48; Findlay and, 52-53, 83, 90, 97, 98, 100, 131-132; in +Braddock's campaign, 83; marriage, 90-91; in Virginia, 92; removes to +North Carolina, 92; carving on tree, 93; with Waddell's rangers, 93; +travels to Florida, 94; first expedition into Kentucky, 95-97; second +Kentucky expedition, 97-103; lonely explorations, 101-102; personal +characteristics, 105-106; removes family to Powell's Valley, 106-109; +part in Dunmore's war, 120-122, 128; and Henderson's venture, 129, 130 +(note), 131, 133, 134-136; at Boonesborough, 140-141, 143, 147-149; +captured by Indians, 144-147; adopted by Indian chief, 145; and +Hamilton, 145-146; goes to West Virginia, 156; last days, 273 et seq.. +Boone, Daniel Morgan, son of Daniel, 278 (note). +Boone, Edward, brother of Daniel, 152. +Boone, George, grandfather of Daniel, 24-25. +Boone, George, Jr., uncle of Daniel, 25. +Boone, Israel, second son of Daniel, 152. +Boone, James, eldest son of Daniel, 93, 107-108. +Boone, Jemima, daughter of Daniel, 141. +Boone, John, son of Daniel, 106. +Boone, Nathan, son of Daniel, 278. +Boone, Rebecca, wife of Daniel, 91, 107, 278. +Boone, Sam, brother of Daniel, 27. +Boone, Sarah, daughter of George, 25. +Boone, Sarah Morgan, mother of Daniel, 26, 28-29. +Boone, Squire, brother of Daniel, 100, 102. +Boone, Squire, father of Daniel, 25, 91; marriage, 26; expelled from +Society of Friends, 28; leaves Pennsylvania, 28-29. +Boone's Fort, 137. +Boone's Settlement (La Charette), 280-281; see also La Charette. +Boonesborough, Transylvania settlement, 138, 142, 245; Boone in, +140-141, 143, 148-149; Indian attacks on, 146-148; Robertson goes to, +246. +Bowman, John, 149. +"Braddock's Defeat," 82. +Branching Oak of the Forest (Tach-nech-dor-us), Indian chief, 119. +Brandywine, Battle of, Ferguson in, 197. +Broglie, Comte de, French agent in America, 249. +Brown, Widow, at whose inn Sevier is arrested, 241. +Brown, Dr. Samuel, Clark's letter to, 127 (note). +Bryan, Joseph, father of Rebecca Boone, 91. +Bryan, Rebecca, marries Daniel Boone, 91; see also Boone, Rebecca. +Bryan party on expedition to Kentucky, 107, 108. +Buffalo (Tenn.), Court at, 257. +Bull, Colonel William, pioneer trader, 55. +Bullitt, Captain Thomas, 113, 121. + + +C. + +Caldwell, David, Presbyterian minister, 162. +Calloway, Flanders, son-in-law of Daniel Boone, 277, 278. +Calloway, Richard, daughters captured by Indians, 141; accuses Boone of +treachery, 146 (note). +Cameron, Alexander, British agent to Cherokees, 170, 174, 176 (note). +Camp Union (Lewisburg), rendezvous for expedition in Dunmore's War, 115. +Campbell, Major Arthur, 121-122, 125 (note), 236. +Campbell, David, judge in Tennessee, 237, 240. +Campbell, Rev. James, 50. +Campbell, Colond William, at battle of Point Pleasant, 124 (note); and +King's Mountain, 205, 211, 219, 222. +Carolinas, Cherokees in, 57; Regulation Movement in, 159-164; see also +North Carolina, South Carolina. +Carson, Kit, grandson of Daniel Boone, 278 (note). +Catawba Indians, 56, 57. +Céloron de Blainville, 77. +Chads Ford, Ferguson's account of incident at, 198-199. +Charleston (S. C), Scotch-Irish in, 6. +Cherokee Indians, in the Yadkin, 36; location and number, 57; and Adair, +58-74; customs, 62; and French, 66-68; Priber compiles dictionary, 69; +in French and Indian Wars, 83-87; Indian policy of South Carolina, +84-86; treaty with English (1761), 87, 118; trouble in Kentucky, 114; +Henderson purchases land from, 130-133; in Tennessee, 158, 228, 255; +South Carolina sends ammunition to, 177; peace made (1777), 183; attack +Watauga, 226-227, 228; North Carolina and, 232; McGillivray and, 257; +forced westward, 271. +Chickamaugan Indians, 173. +Chickasaw Indians, location, 57; Adair and, 58, 59, 62, 72-73, 246; in +Tennessee, 158; McGillivray and, 257; forced westward, 271. +Chillicothe, Indian town, 146, 153. +Choctaw Indians, location, 57; and French, 58; Adair and, 63; +McGillivray and, 257; forced westward, 271. +Choiseul, Étienne François, Duc de, French Minister, 249. +Chota, deputation of Indians at, 178; Robertson as Indian agent at, 183. +Chronicle, Colonel, 209. +Civil War, part of mountaineers in, 224. +Clark, G. R., 283, 285; in "Cresap's War," 116-117; with Dunmore's +forces, 125 (note); and Chief Logan, 127 (note); at Harrodsburg, 129, +139, 151-152; and Harrodsburg Remonstrance, 140; brings ammunition from +Virginia, 142; made a major, 149; founds Louisville, 150; builds Fort +Jefferson, 150; war on Indians, 153, 262; letter to Governor of +Virginia, 154; later life, 155; death (1818), 155; and Wilkinson, +262-264; personal characteristics, 263. +Clark, William, brother of G. R., 155; Lewis and, 282. +Clark, Elijah, 212. +Cleveland, Colonel, at King's Mountain, 209, 220, 222. +Cocke, William, 238. +Colbert, white leader of Indians, 150-151. +Connolly, Dr. John, Dunmore's agent, 113 (note). +Cooley, William, accompanies Boone to Kentucky, 98, 100. +Cooper, J. F., on Ferguson's story of Washington, 199 (note). +Cornstalk, Shawanoe chief, 118, 123-124, 126. +Cornwallis, Edward, 195, 196, 202, 213, 214, 222, 228, 229. +Corporation Acts, 4. +Cowpens, frontiersmen at, 215; Morgan's victory at, 222. +Craighead, Rev. Alexander, Presbyterian minister, 8, 162. +Creek Indians, disclose Spanish plot, 55; location, 57; and McGillivray, +58-59, 255-256; forced westward, 271. +Cresap, Captain Michael, of Maryland, 116, 117, 127. +"Cresap's War," 117. +Croghan, George, "King of Traders," 58, 112-113, 115, 118. +Cross Creek (Fayetteville), MacNeill at, 12. +Culloden, victory of, 9, 11. +Cumberland, Duke of, directs extermination of Gaels, 11. +Cumberland Gap, Findlay leads Boone through, 52-53; Boone robbed in, +103. +Cutbirth (or Cutbird), Benjamin, nephew of Daniel Boone, 95. + + +D. + +Dartmouth, Lord, Secretary for the Colonies, letters to, 6, 175, 176 +(note). +Day, Sarah, marries Sam Boone, 27. +De Lancey, Major, father-in-law of J. F. Cooper, 199 (note). +De Peyster, Captain, officer under Ferguson, 200, 218, 219. +Delassus, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Louisiana, 276. +Delaware Indians, 178; location, 57; and French, 58; and Dunmore's War, +114, 118. +Dequindre, French Canadian leader of Indian band, 143, 147-148. +Detroit, in hands of English, 87; Boone at, 145-146. +Dinwiddie, Robert, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, 77-80, 81. +Doak, Rev. Samuel, 207, 235. +Dobbs, Arthur, Governor of North Carolina, 79, 86. +Dobbs, E. D., son of Governor, 83. +Donelson, Captain John, 186; Journal, 187-193. +Dorchester, Lord, Governor of Canada, 265. +Dragging Canoe, Chickamaugan chief, 133-134, 173, 179, 180, 181, 183, +206, 229. +Draper, L. C., King's Mountain and its Heroes, cited, 199 (note), 204 +(note), 213 (note). +Dunmore, Lord, Governor of Virginia, 112 (note), 113, 114-116, 118, 120, +123, 125, 126, 176 (note). +Dunmore's War, 114 et seq. +Duquesne, Fort, 81, 82, 87, 88. + + +E. + +English, W. H., Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio, +cited, 127 (note). + + +F. + +Falling, William, 173. +Fanning, Edmund, agent of Lord Granville, 160. +Femme Osage Creek, Boone settles at, 274-275. +Femme Osage Syndic, 275-277. +Ferguson, Dr. Adam, letter to, 196. +Ferguson, Major Patrick, as a soldier, 196-198; as a man, 198-200; +commands loyalists in Back Country, 200-206, 211; at King's Mountain, +212-220; death, 219-220, 221. +Findlay, John, pioneer trader, and Daniel Boone, 52, 83, 90, 97, 98, +100, 131-132; in Braddock's campaign, 83; captured by Shawanoes, 97, +131. +Fitzherbert, letter quoted, 252 (note). +Fleming, William, 124. +Florida, Spanish and Indians in, 55, 56; Boone explores, 94. +Floridablanca, Spanish Minister, 250. +Floyd, John, Washington's agent, 113-114; and Boone, 121, 141. +Forbes, General, expedition in 1759, 87. +France, Highlanders flee to, 9; and Indians, 53, 54, 58, 178-179; +possessions in America, 56, 57; Adair's account of struggles with +French, 63; Priber sent by, 66-70; French and Indian Wars, 750 et seq.; +attitude toward American independence, 248-253. +Frankfort (Ky.), Daniel Boone's grave in, 284. +Frankland, State of, 234-238; see also Franklin, State of. +Franklin, Benjamin, 238. +Franklin, State of, 238, 240, 259, 260, 266; see also Frankland, State +of. +Frémont, J. C, 278 (note). +French and Indian Wars, 75 et seq. +Friends, Society of, expel Squire Boone, 28. +Furniture of the pioneers, 45-46. + + +G. + +Gaels, see Highlanders. +Gage, General Thomas, quoted, 176 (note). +Galphin, pioneer trader, 59, 256. +Gates, General, 202, 210, 221. +Gazette, Knoxville, Jackson's letter in, 268. +Georgia, Creek nation in, 57; Tories in, 195; and State of Franklin, +238; and McGillivray, 256-257, 258. +Germain, Lord, and Stuart, 176 (note), 177. +German Palatinate, persecution of Protestants in, 15. +German Reformed Church, 15. +Germans, in Virginia and North Carolina, 14-15; as immigrants, 16. +Gibson, Major, 126. +Gibson, Colonel John, 117-118. +Girty, George, 143. +Girty, James, 143. +Gist, Christopher, 77, 78. +Glen, Governor of South Carolina, 63, 64; Indian policy, 84. +Gottlob, Brother, Moravian leader, 19, 21, 23, 24. +Gower, Fort, 123. +Grant, Colonel James, 94. +Grantham, Lord, letter to, 252 (note). +Granville, Lord, Proprietor in North Carolina, Moravians purchase land +from, 18; agents oppress people, 104, 159. +Great Meadows, Washington at, 81. +Great Telliko, Cherokee town, 62, 66, 69, 158. +Great War, part of mountaineers in, 224-225. +Greathouse, trader, 117. +Greene, General Nathanael, 221-222. +Greene, T. M., The Spanish Conspiracy, cited, 264 (note). +Grube, Adam, Moravian Brother, 18; Journal, 19-24. +Guilford Court House, battle of, 222. + + +H. + +Hamilton, Henry, British Governor at Detroit, 139, 145-146. +Hampbright, Colonel, 209. +Hanna, C. A., The Wilderness Trail, cited, 97 (note). +Harding, Chester, and Boone, 278-279. +Harrod, James, 139; establishes first settlement in Kentucky, 110, 114, +121, 129; as surveyor, 113; and Henderson, 138; goes to Watauga for +supplies, 141-142; made a Captain, 149; accompanies Clark, 153. +Harrodsburg, 136, 142, 149, 153, 245, 246; founded, 114, 129; +Remonstrance, 140, 151; Indian attacks on, 146. +Henderson, Judge Richard, leader of Transylvania Company, 130-140, 160, +184-185; Donelson's party meets, 193. +Henry, Patrick, Preston writes to, 125. +Heydt, Joist, 16. +Highlanders, in Revolutionary War, 8, 13-14; in North Carolina, 9; clan +system, 10; characteristics, 10-12; and Indians, 54-55; see also +Scotch-Irish. +Hill, William, 96. +Holden, Joseph, 98, 100. +Holston River settlement, 141, 158, 159, 168, 176. +Honeycut, pioneer at Watauga, 165. +Hooper, William, 160. +Houston, Rev. Samuel, 235. +Hoyt, W. H., The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, cited, 8 +(note). +Huguenots in America, 54. +Hunter, James, 164. +Husband, Hermon, 161, 163, 164. + + +I. + +Illinois, Clark's troops, 124, 125 (note), 283; Robertson journeys to, +185; and Clark, 285. +"Indian Summer," origin of term, 41. +Indiana and Clark, 285. +Indians, relation to white men in West, 38-48; use of hickory, 45; and +the traders, 52 et seq.; and French, 53, 54, 58, 178-179; and Spanish, +53, 54, 55, 255; Boone and, 101-102; 103; Dunmore's War, 114 et seq.; +"Cresap's War." 117; treachery toward, 117-118 purchase of land from, +131-134; trouble in Kentucky, 135-136, 139, 143, 152-153; see also names +of tribes. +Ireland, Scotch-Irish from, 6; see also Ulster Plantation. +Iroquois Indians, location, 57; loyalty to English, 58; Croghan and, +118; cede Kentucky to British, 132; see also Six Nations. + + +J. + +Jackson, Andrew, 243, 266. +Jay, John, On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1788 as illustrated by the +Secret Correspondence of France and England, cited, 252 (note). +Jefferson, Thomas, and navigation of Mississippi River, 254. +Jefferson, Fort, 150, 151. +Jennings, Mrs., Donelson's account of, 188, 190, 191. +Johnson, Sir William, and Iroquois Indians, 58, 179; and sale of Indian +land, 111. +Johnston, Gabriel, Governor of North Carolina, 9. +Jonesborough (Tenn.), county seat of Washington, 184; delegates meet to +form State, 233; court at, 237; Andrew Jackson at, 266. + + +K. + +Kalb, Johann, French agent in America, 249. +Kansas, Daniel Boone in, 277. +Kenton, Simon, 125 (note), 143. +Kentucky, meaning of name, 95 (note); Boone's first expedition to, +95-97; expedition of Boone and Findlay into, 97-103; settlement and +Indian troubles, 104-156; admitted as State (1792), 156; and Mississippi +River, 254; as Boone's monument, 284; bibliography, 289-290. +Keppoch, Laird of, legend concerning, 11. +King, trader, 117, 118. +King's Mountain, Battle of, 214-221. +Knoxville (Tenn.), Sevier and Jackson in, 268; Sevier buried in, +269-270. + + +L. + +La Charette (Mo.), Boone at, 274-275, 281; see also Boone's Settlement. +Le Bœuf, Fort, 79. +Lewis, Colonel Andrew, 114-115, 122-123, 124 (note), 158. +Lewis, Colonel Charles, 115, 124. +Lewis, Meriwether, 282, 283. +Logan, Mingo chief Tach-nech-dor-us, 119, 120, 126-127. +Logan, Benjamin, 125 (note), 135, 136, 141-142, 149. +Long Hunters, 103. +Loudon, Fort, 158. +Louisbourg in hands of English, 87. +Louisville, Findlay reaches site of, 97; Clark founds, 150; Wilkinson +at, 262. +Lulbegrud Creek, 100. +Lutheran Church, 15. +Luzerne, French Ambassador at Philadelphia, 251. +Lytle, Captain, 203-204. +Lytle, Mrs., and Ferguson, 204. +Lyttleton, Governor of South Carolina, 85. + + +M. + +McAden, Rev. Hugh, of Philadelphia, 50. +McAfee, James, 136. +McAfee brothers, 113, 136. +McDowell, Colonel Charles, 200-201, 202, 206, 210, 211-212, 213, 243. +McDowell, Joseph, 243. +McGillivray, Alexander, Creek chief, 59, 255-261. +McGillivray, Lachlan, father of Alexander, 58-59, 256, 257. +McGregor, William, 9. +Macdonald, Allan, of Kingsborough, 14. +MacDonald, Flora, 14. +MacLean, J. P., An Historical Account of the Settlement of Scotch +Highlanders in America, cited, 11 (note). +MacNeill, Hector, (Bluff Hector), 12. +MacNeill, Neil, of Kintyre, 12. +Mansker, Gasper, 103, 185. +Marion, General Francis, 229. +Martin, Josiah, Royal Governor of North Carolina, 13. +Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, 8. +Mereness, N. D., ed., Travels in the American Colonies, cited, 18 +(note). +Mingo Indians, 114, 117, 118, 119-120, 126. +Miró, Don Estevan, Governor of Louisiana, 254-255, 259, 260-261. +Mississippi (State), Choctaws in, 63. +Mississippi River, French territory on, 56; Choctaws on, 57; Stewart's +party reaches, 95; Spain refuses right of navigation of, 253-254. +Missouri, Boone settles in, 274; Boone dies in, 284. +Mobile, French hold, 57. +Mohawk Indians, 178, 179. +Montgomery, John, 125 (note). +Montreal in hands of English, 87. +Mooney, James, 98, 100. +Moore's Fort, Boone commands, 122. +Moravians, 15, 16-24. +Morgan, David, 125 (note), 222. +Morgan, Sarah, marries Squire Boone, 26; see also Boone, Sarah Morgan. +Morgantown (N. C), Sevier sent to, 242-244. +Mountain Leader (Opimingo), Indian chief, 247. +Mountaineers of the South, 223-224. +Müller, Adam, 16. +Musgrove's Mill, engagement at, 202. + + +N. + +Nantuca Indians, deputation of warriors from, arrive at Chota, 178. +Nash, General Francis, 163, 186 (note). +Nashborough, Nashville first named, 186. +Nashville, founded, 186; Andrew Jackson at, 266; Robertson buried at, +270. +Nathanael, Brother, one of the Moravian Brethren, 21. +Navigation Acts and Ireland, 4. +Necessity, Fort, 81. +Neely, Alexander, 100. +New France, 87, 88. +New Market (Va.), Sevier founds, 167. +Nolan, aids Wilkinson, 264. +"Nolichucky Jack," nickname of John Sevier, 184; see also Sevier. +North Carolina, Scotch-Irish in, 7; Craighead in, 8; Highlanders in, +12-13; Moravians in, 18; journey of Moravian Brethren into, 19-24; +rainfall, 43; pioneer homes in, 45-47; in French and Indian Wars, 82-83, +86; Indian policy, 83-84; Daniel Boone in, 92; Regulation Movement, 104, +137, 159-164; Transylvania Company formed in, 129-130; emigrants go to +Tennessee, 159; Robertson from, 165; boundary line, 170, 185, 186; +Watauga petitions for annexation, 171-172; erects Washington County, +172; Colonial Records, cited, 176 (note), 177 (note); sends out +Robertson as Indian agent, 183; Ferguson in, 203; Ferguson's +proclamation to, 212-213; Cornwallis expected to retreat through, 228; +resolution of gratitude to overmountain men, 230; cedes overmountain +territory to United States, 231-233; and State of Frankland, 234, +236-237, 238; and Sevier, 239, 240-245; and State of Franklin, 240; and +Tennessee settlements, 259-260. +North Wales (Penn.), Boone family in, 25. + + +O. + +Oconostota, Cherokee chief, 118, 132. +O'Fallon aids Wilkinson, 264. +Ohio, Clark against Indians of, 151, 153. +Ohio Company, 77, 78, 81, 111-112. +Old Tassel, Cherokee Indian, 270. +Oley Township, Berks County (Penn.), George Boone at, 25, 26. +Opimingo (Mountain Leader), Chickasaw chief, 247. +Oswego in hands of English, 87. +Ottawa Indians, 118, 178. + + +P. + +Palatines, see Germans. +Paris, Treaty of (1763), 94. +Patrick Henry, Fort, 186. +Penn, William, Boone seeks information from, 25. +Pennsylvania, Scotch-Irish in, 1, 6; Germans in, 15, 16; Boone family +in, 25-28; disputes Fort Pitt with Virginia, 112. +"Pennsylvania Dutch," 15. +"Pennsylvania Irish," 6. +Peyton, Ephraim, one of Donelson's party, 189. +Peyton, Mrs. Ephraim, Donelson's account of, 188, 189, 190. +Philadelphia, Boone family reaches, 25. +Pickett, History of Alabama, cited, 257 (note). +Piqua, Indian town, 153. +Pitfour, Lord, of Aberdeen, 196. +Pitt, Fort, 88, 112-113, 115. +Pittsburgh site a crucial point in 1754, 81. +Point Pleasant, Battle of, 123-124, 164, 272. +Pontleroy, French secret agent in America, 249. +Powell's Valley, 135; Boone's journey to, 106, 107. +"Powwowing Days," 41. +Presbyterian Church, and Scotch-Irish, 3, Charles I suppresses, 4. +Preston, Colonel William, 115, 120, 125. +Priber, French agent to Cherokees, 66-70. +Proclamation of 1763, 110-111, 113, 170. +Puck-e-shin-wa, Shawanoe chief, 125. +Pulaski, Count, 199 (note). + + +Q. + +Quaker Meadows, Sevier's troops at, 209. +Quakers, see Friends, Society of. + + +R. + +Red Shoe, Choctaw chief, 63. +Regulation Movement, 104, 137, 159-164; Revolutionary War, Highlanders +in, 13-14; Indian raids in Kentucky, 139; King's Mountain, 195 et seq.; +attitude of France and Spain in, 248 et seq. +Roane, Archibald, Governor of Tennessee, 267. +Robertson, James, "father of Tennessee," 124-125 (note), 133; at +Watauga, 165-166, 170, 181; personal characteristics, 165; and Sevier, +167, 239; commands Wataugans, 172; Indian agent at Chota, 183; leads +settlers into middle Tennessee, 185; founds Nashville, 186; and +Ferguson, 195; and Indian war, 246, 255; characterizes McGillivray, 259; +death (1814), 270. +Robertson, Mrs. James, 246. +Robertson, Mark, 185. +Robinson, Colonel David, 149. +Rogers, John, 88. +Rogers, Joseph, 153. +Roosevelt, Theodore, The Winning of the West, cited, 134 (note). +Russell, William, 107, death of his son, 108. +Rutherford, Griffith, 163. +Rutledge, John, President of South Carolina, 176 (note). + + +S. + +St. Asaph's Station founded, 136. +St. Augustine, Spanish at, 55, 56. +St. Vincent, Island of, Ferguson on, 197. +Sapperton, trader, 117. +Scotch-Irish, as immigrants, 1-2, 6; characteristics, 2-3, 5-6; +religion, 3, 4; persecution of, 4-5; and American Independence, 7-8; +bibliography, 287; see also Highlanders. +Seven Years' War, casus belli, 76; in Europe, 82; land promised to +soldiers of, 118; Ferguson in, 196. +Sevier, John, 133; probably seen by Brother Grube, 20-21; marriage, 48; +at Watauga, 166-167, 169, 170, 171; and New Market, 167; and Robertson, +167, 168, 239; personal characteristics, 168-169; writes Virginia +Committee, 173-174; and Indian troubles, 174, 181-183, 226-228; and +"Bonnie Kate," 182; nicknamed "Nolichucky Jack," 184; and King's +Mountain, 200-201, 205-206, 208 et seq.; as a statesman, 226 et seq.; +feud with Tipton, 227, 234, 239-240, 241, 267; elected Governor of +Tennessee, 265; and Jackson, 266-269; death (1815), 269. +Sevier, John, Jr., 243 (note). +Sevier, Valentine, 125 (note). +Shawanoe Indians, 178; location, 57; and French, 58; Findlay a prisoner +of, 97; and Boone, 98-99, 108, 143-148; war with, 114, 118, 123-126; +relinquish right to Kentucky, 131; capture girls from Boonesborough, +141. +Shelby, Isaac, at battle of Point Pleasant, 124 (note); Colonel of +Sullivan, 184; at King's Mountain, 200 et seq.; moves to Kentucky, 230. +Sheltowee (Big Turtle), name given to Boone by Indians, 145. +Sherrill, Bonnie Kate, wife of John Sevier, 182. +Six Nations, right to dispose of territory, 76; see also Iroquois +Indians. +Social customs, of seaboard towns, 32; of pioneers, 32 et seq. +South Carolina, Yamasi Indians in, 56; and Cherokees, 177; Tories in, +195; see also Carolinas. +Spain, and Indians, 53, 54, 55; attitude toward American independence, +248-255; plots against United States, 255-265; State of Franklin and, +259. +Spangenburg, Bishop, 18. +Spanish Succession, War of (1701-13), 15. +Spencer, Judge, issues warrant for Sevier, 241. +Stanwix, Fort, treaty of (1768), 132. +Stephen, Adam, Boone, 125 (note). +Stewart, John, brother-in-law of Daniel Boone, 95, 98, 100. +Stoner, Michael, 120, 121. +Stover, Jacob, husband of Sarah Boone, 25. +Stuart, Henry, deputy Indian agent, 177. +Stuart, John, with Dunmore's forces, Boone, 125 (note); British agent, +174, 176 (note); in Revolution, 229. +Sullivan County, formed from Washington County, 184; troops in, 201. +Sycamore Shoals, conference with Indians at (1775), 132-134, 170; troops +mustered at, 206. + + +T. + +Tach-nech-dor-us (Branching Oak of the Forest), Mingo chief, see Logan. +Tarleton, Sir Banastre, British officer, 218. +Taylor, Hancock, 113, 121 (note). +Tecumseh, 125. +Tennessee, 157 et seq., 259; name, 158 (note); and Mississippi River +navigation, 254; admitted as State (1796), 265; bibliography, 290-291; +see also Frankland, Franklin, Watauga. +Test Acts, 4. +Thomas, Isaac, trader, 173, 174, 177, 178, 228. +Thwaites, R. G., Daniel Boone, cited, 25 (note), 276 (note); Documentary +History of Dunmore's War, cited, 125 (note). +Tipton, Colond John, feud with Sevier, 227, 234, 239-240, 241, 267; +judge for North Carolina, 237. +Tipton, Jonathan, 226-227. +Todd, John, 149. +Tories, 195. +Traders among the pioneers, 52 et seq. Traders' Trace, 94. +Transylvania Company, 130-140. +Trent, Captain William, 81. +Tryon, William, Governor of North Carolina, 104, 169. +Tuckabatchee, Creek town, Sevier buried at, 269. +Turner, F. M., Life of General John Sevier, cited, 243 (note). + + +U. + +Ulster Plantation, 3-4. +Ulstermen, see Scotch-Irish. + + +V. + +Vergennes, Charles Gravier, Comte de, French Minister, 250, 251, 252. +Virginia, claim to the Ohio, 76-77; Indian policy, 83; Indians apply for +redress to, 85; Daniel Boone in, 92; disputes Fort Pitt with +Pennsylvania, 112; Harrodsburg Remonstrance, 140; Clark and, 140, 142; +and Boone, 141; and Mississippi River navigation, 254. +Virginia, Valley of, Müller's settlement in, 16. + + +W. + +Wachovia Tract, 18. +Waddell, Hugh, of North Carolina, in French and Indian wars, 86, 87; +erects fort on Holston, 158; and Regulation Movement, 163. +Walpole Company, 112. +War of 1812, part of mountaineers in, 224. +Ward, James, 95. +Ward, Nancy, half-caste Cherokee prophetess, 174, 177. +Warriors' Path, 107, 132, 134, 186. +Washington, George, journeys to Fort Le Bœuf, 79; at Great Meadows, 81; +"Braddock's Defeat," 82; surveys in Kentucky, 111; tries to secure land +patents for soldiers, 113; and Indian allies, 176 (note); Ferguson's +story of, 179. +Washington, District of, 233. +Washington County, erected by North Carolina, 172; divided, 184. +Watauga Colony, lands leased to, 134; Harrod and Logan get supplies +from, 141-142; William Bean builds first cabin, 159; and Regulators, +163; Robertson at, 165-166, 170, 181; Sevier at, 166-167, 169, 200; +found to be on Indian lands, 170; petitions North Carolina for +annexation, 171-172; made into Washington County, 172; Indian attacks +on, 176, 181-183; and King's Mountain, 200-201, 205; see also Frankland, +Franklin, Tennessee. +Wayne, Mad Anthony, 263. +Welsh in America, 54. +Wheeling (W. Va.), as rendezvous for troops, 115; Cresap at, 116. +White Eyes, Delaware chief, 118. +Wilkinson, General James, 261-265. +Williams, Colonel, 209. +Williams, Jaret, 173. +Winchester, German settlement near, 16. +Winsor, Justin, The Westward Movement, quoted, 176 (note). +Winston, Major, 176 (note). +Woolwich, Ferguson studies at, 197. +Wyandot Indians, 114. + + +Y. + +Yadkin Valley, Scotch-Irish in, 7; Craighead in, 8; Highlanders in, +12-13; Moravians in, 23; life in, 36, 47; hunting, 43, 105; Boone's home +in, 48, 90, 97; Presbyterian ministers in, 50. +Yamasi, Indians, 56; Massacre, 55. +Yellowstone, Daniel Boone in, 277. +Yorktown, Cornwallis surrenders at, 229. + + +Z. + +Zeisberger, David, Moravian missionary, 17-18, 118. +Zinzendorf, Count (the Apostle), Moravian leader, 16-17. + + + + +The Chronicles of America Series + + 1. The Red Man's Continent + by Ellsworth Huntington + 2. The Spanish Conquerors + by Irving Berdine Richman + 3. Elizabethan Sea-Dogs + by William Charles Henry Wood + 4. The Crusaders of New France + by William Bennett Munro + 5. Pioneers of the Old South + by Mary Johnson + 6. The Fathers of New England + by Charles McLean Andrews + 7. Dutch and English on the Hudson + by Maud Wilder Goodwin + 8. The Quaker Colonies + by Sydney George Fisher + 9. Colonial Folkways + by Charles McLean Andrews +10. The Conquest of New France + by George McKinnon Wrong +11. The Eve of the Revolution + by Carl Lotus Becker +12. Washington and His Comrades in Arms + by George McKinnon Wrong +13. The Fathers of the Constitution + by Max Farrand +14. Washington and His Colleagues + by Henry Jones Ford +15. Jefferson and his Colleagues + by Allen Johnson +16. John Marshall and the Constitution + by Edward Samuel Corwin +17. The Fight for a Free Sea + by Ralph Delahaye Paine +18. Pioneers of the Old Southwest + by Constance Lindsay Skinner +19. The Old Northwest + by Frederic Austin Ogg +20. The Reign of Andrew Jackson + by Frederic Austin Ogg +21. The Paths of Inland Commerce + by Archer Butler Hulbert +22. Adventurers of Oregon + by Constance Lindsay Skinner +23. The Spanish Borderlands + by Herbert Eugene Bolton +24. Texas and the Mexican War + by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson +25. The Forty-Niners + by Stewart Edward White +26. The Passing of the Frontier + by Emerson Hough +27. The Cotton Kingdom + by William E. Dodd +28. The Anti-Slavery Crusade + by Jesse Macy +29. Abraham Lincoln and the Union + by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson +30. The Day of the Confederacy + by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson +31. Captains of the Civil War + by William Charles Henry Wood +32. The Sequel of Appomattox + by Walter Lynwood Fleming +33. The American Spirit in Education + by Edwin E. Slosson +34. The American Spirit in Literature + by Bliss Perry +35. Our Foreigners + by Samuel Peter Orth +36. The Old Merchant Marine + by Ralph Delahaye Paine +37. The Age of Invention + by Holland Thompson +38. The Railroad Builders + by John Moody +39. The Age of Big Business + by Burton Jesse Hendrick +40. The Armies of Labor + by Samuel Peter Orth +41. The Masters of Capital + by John Moody +42. The New South + by Holland Thompson +43. The Boss and the Machine + by Samuel Peter Orth +44. The Cleveland Era + by Henry Jones Ford +45. The Agrarian Crusade + by Solon Justus Buck +46. The Path of Empire + by Carl Russell Fish +47. Theodore Roosevelt and His Times + by Harold Howland +48. Woodrow Wilson and the World War + by Charles Seymour +49. The Canadian Dominion + by Oscar D. Skelton +50. The Hispanic Nations of the New World + by William R. Shepherd + + + + + +Transcriber Notes + +The author spelled powderhorns on Page 46, but used a hyphen for +powder-horns on Page 208. The inconsistencies were retained. + +On Page 58 and Page 142 the word pack-horse was hyphenated between two +lines. Since the author wrote pack-horse five times in the middle of a +sentence, with the hyphen, and did not write packhorse, both words were +transcribed pack-horse. + +On Page 119, Tach-nech-dor-us was hyphenated between two lines. We +transcribed the name with hyphens after each syllable, Tach-nech-dor-us, +just as was done in the index. + +The author referred to the back water men on Page 204. On Page 201, the +"backwater men" were quoted. Major Patrick Ferguson capitalized Back +Water, separated the syllables by a space, but alternately capitalized +Men on Page 203, while not doing so in his proclamation presented on +Page 213. In the same chapter, there were four different spellings for +the same word, which we retained, and only point out to indicate that +this is not an error in transcription. + +On Page 299 in the index, changed the spelling of Opomingo to Opimingo +to match the spelling in the text, for the index entry: Mountain Leader +(Opomingo). + + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST +*** + +***** This file should be named 3073-h.htm or 3073-h.zip ***** + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/7/3073/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org +</p> + +<p class="no-space-bottom"> +Title: Pioneers of the Old Southwest</p> +<p class="nice-left-margin no-space-top no-space-bottom"> + A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway,<br /> + Volume 18 of The Chronicles of America Series</p> +<p class="no-space-top"> +Author: Constance Lindsay Skinner<br /> +Release Date: February 21, 2009 [EBook #3073]<br /> +Last Updated: November 18, 2016<br /> +Language: English<br /> +Character set encoding: UTF-8. <br /> +</p> + +<p> +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's +University, Alev Akman, Doris Ringbloom, David Widger, and Robert Homa. +</p> + +<p class="bold double-space-top quad-space-bottom"> +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST *** +</p> +</div> + + + +<div id="titlepage"> + <h1>Pioneers of the Old Southwest</h1> + <p class="author">By Constance Lindsay Skinner</p> + <p class="book-subtitle">A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground</p> + <p> + Volume 18 of the<br /> + Chronicles of America Series <br /> + ∴<br /> + Allen Johnson, Editor<br /> + Assistant Editors<br /> + Gerhard R. Lomer <br /> + Charles W. Jefferys + </p> + <hr class="tiny" /> + <p> + <i>Textbook Edition</i><br /><br /> + </p> + <p class="small"> + New Haven: Yale University Press<br /> + Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co.<br /> + London: Humphrey Milford<br /> + Oxford University Press<br /> + 1919 + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <p class="small"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">ii</a></span> + Copyright, 1919<br /> + by Yale University Press <br /> + </p> +</div> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a></span> + <a name="Preface" id="Preface"></a> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">Acknowledgment.</a> + </h2> + <p> + This narrative is founded largely on original sources—on the + writings and journals of pioneers and contemporary observers, such as + Doddridge and Adair, and on the public documents of the period as printed + in the Colonial Records and in the American Archives. But the author is, + nevertheless, greatly indebted to the researches of other writers, whose + works are cited in the Bibliographical Note. The author's thanks are due, + also, to Dr. Archibald Henderson, of the University of North Carolina, for + his kindness in reading the proofs of this book for comparison with his + own extended collection of unpublished manuscripts relating to the period. + </p> + <p> + C. L. S. + </p> + <p> + April, 1919. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + + + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span> + <a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a> + </p> + <h2>Contents.</h2> + <table class="toc" summary="Table of Contents for Pioneers of the Old Southwest"> +<caption>Pioneers of the Old Southwest</caption> +<thead> +<tr> +<th>Chapter</th> +<th>Chapter Title</th> +<th>Page</th> +</tr> +</thead> +<tbody> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="smcap">Preface</td> + <td><a href="#Preface">vii</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>I.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Tread Of Pioneers</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter01">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>II.</td> + <td class="smcap">Folkways</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter02">31</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>III.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Trader</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter03">52</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>IV.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Passing Of The French Peril</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter04">75</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>V.</td> + <td class="smcap">Boone, The Wanderer</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter05">90</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VI.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Fight For Kentucky</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter06">104</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VII.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Dark And Bloody Ground</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter07">129</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VIII.</td> + <td class="smcap">Tennessee</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter08">157</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>IX.</td> + <td class="smcap">King's Mountain</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter09">195</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>X.</td> + <td class="smcap">Sevier, The Statemaker</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter10">226</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XI.</td> + <td class="smcap">Boone's Last Days</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter11">272</a></td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="smcap">Bibliographical Note</td> + <td><a href="#Biblio">287</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="smcap">Index</td> + <td><a href="#indexChapter">293</a></td> + </tr> +</tbody> +</table> + + + <p><br /></p> + + + + <hr /> + + <div id="start-of-book"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_001" id="Page_001">1</a></span> + <a name="Chapter01" id="Chapter01"></a> + PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST + </p> + <p class="xlarge single-space-top"> + ∴ + </p> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER I.</a> + </h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Tread Of Pioneers</p> + + + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">The</span> Ulster Presbyterians, or “Scotch-Irish,” + to whom history has ascribed the dominant rôle among the pioneer + folk of the Old Southwest, began their migrations to America in the latter + years of the seventeenth century. It is not known with certainty precisely + when or where the first immigrants of their race arrived in this country, + but soon after 1680 they were to be found in several of the colonies. It + was not long, indeed, before they were entering in numbers at the port of + Philadelphia and were making Pennsylvania the chief center of their + activities in the New World. By 1726 they had established settlements in + several counties behind Philadelphia. Ten years later they had begun their + great trek southward through + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_002" id="Page_002">2</a></span> + the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and on to the + Yadkin Valley of North Carolina. There they met others of their own race—bold + men like themselves, hungry after land—who were coming in through + Charleston and pushing their way up the rivers from the seacoast to the + “Back Country,” in search of homes. + </p> + <p> + These Ulstermen did not come to the New World as novices in the shaping of + society; they had already made history. Their ostensible object in America + was to obtain land, but, like most external aims, it was secondary to a + deeper purpose. What had sent the Ulstermen to America was a passion for a + whole freedom. They were lusty men, shrewd and courageous, zealous to the + death for an ideal and withal so practical to the moment in business that + it soon came to be commonly reported of them that “they kept the Sabbath + and everything else they could lay their hands on,” though it is but + fair to them to add that this phrase is current wherever Scots dwell. They + had contested in Parliament and with arms for their own form of worship + and for their civil rights. They were already frontiersmen, trained in the + hardihood and craft of border warfare through years of guerrilla fighting + with the Irish Celts. They had pitted and proved + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_003" id="Page_003">3</a></span> + their strength against a + wilderness; they had reclaimed the North of Ireland from desolation. For + the time, many of them were educated men; under the regulations of the + Presbyterian Church every child was taught to read at an early age, since + no person could be admitted to the privileges of the Church who did not + both understand and approve the Presbyterian constitution and discipline. + They were brought up on the Bible and on the writings of their famous + pastors, one of whom, as early as 1650, had given utterance to the + democratic doctrine that "men are called to the magistracy by the suffrage + of the people whom they govern, and for men to assume unto themselves + power is mere tyranny and unjust usurpation." In subscribing to this + doctrine and in resisting to the hilt all efforts of successive English + kings to interfere in the election of their pastors, the Scots of Ulster + had already declared for democracy. + </p> + <p> + It was shortly after James VI of Scotland became James I of England and + while the English were founding Jamestown that the Scots had first + occupied Ulster; but the true origin of the Ulster Plantation lies further + back, in the reign of Henry VIII, in the days of the English Reformation. + In Henry's Irish realm the Reformation, though + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_004" id="Page_004">4</a></span> + proclaimed by royal authority, had + never been accomplished; and Henry's more famous daughter, Elizabeth, had + conceived the plan, later to be carried out by James, of planting colonies + of Protestants in Ireland to promote loyalty in that rebellious land. Six + counties, comprising half a million acres, formed the Ulster Plantation. + The great majority of the colonists sent thither by James were Scotch + Lowlanders, but among them were many English and a smaller number of + Highlanders. These three peoples from the island of Britain brought forth, + through intermarriage, the Ulster Scots. + </p> + <p> + The reign of Charles I had inaugurated for the Ulstermen an era of + persecution. Charles practically suppressed the Presbyterian religion in + Ireland. His son, Charles II, struck at Ireland in 1666 through its cattle + trade, by prohibiting the exportation of beef to England and Scotland. The + Navigation Acts, excluding Ireland from direct trade with the colonies, + ruined Irish commerce, while Corporation Acts and Test Acts requiring + conformity with the practices of the Church of England bore heavily on the + Ulster Presbyterians. + </p> + <p> + It was largely by refugees from religious persecution that America in the + beginning was colonized. But religious persecution was only one of the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_005" id="Page_005">5</a></span> + influences which shaped the course and formed the character of the Ulster + Scots. In Ulster, whither they had originally been transplanted by James + to found a loyal province in the midst of the King's enemies, they had + done their work too well and had waxed too powerful for the comfort of + later monarchs. The first attacks upon them struck at their religion; but + the subsequent legislative acts which successively ruined the woolen + trade, barred nonconformists from public office, stifled Irish commerce, + pronounced non-Episcopal marriages irregular, and instituted heavy + taxation and high rentals for the land their fathers had made + productive—these were blows dealt chiefly for the political and + commercial ends of favored classes in England. + </p> + <p> + These attacks, aimed through his religious conscience at the sources of + his livelihood, made the Ulster Scot perforce what he was—a zealot + as a citizen and a zealot as a merchant no less than as a Presbyterian. + Thanks to his persecutors, he made a religion of everything he undertook + and regarded his civil rights as divine rights. Thus out of persecution + emerged a type of man who was high-principled and narrow, strong and + violent, as tenacious of his own rights as he was blind often to the + rights of others, acquisitive yet self-sacrificing, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_006" id="Page_006">6</a></span> + but most of all fearless, confident of his own power, determined to have + and to hold. + </p> + <p> + Twenty thousand Ulstermen, it is estimated, left Ireland for America in + the first three decades of the eighteenth century. More than six thousand + of them are known to have entered Pennsylvania in 1729 alone, and twenty + years later they numbered one-quarter of that colony's population. During + the five years preceding the Revolutionary War more than thirty thousand + Ulstermen crossed the ocean and arrived in America just in time and in + just the right frame of mind to return King George's compliment in kind, + by helping to deprive him of his American estates, a domain very much + larger than the acres of Ulster. They fully justified the fears of the + good bishop who wrote Lord Dartmouth, Secretary for the Colonies, that he + trembled for the peace of the King's overseas realm, since these thousands + of “phanatical and hungry Republicans” had sailed for America. + </p> + <p> + The Ulstermen who entered by Charleston were known to the inhabitants of + the tidewater regions as the “Scotch-Irish.” Those who came from the + north, lured southward by the offer of cheap lands, were called the “Pennsylvania + Irish.” Both were, however, of the same race—a race twice + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_007" id="Page_007">7</a></span> + expatriated, + first from Scotland and then from Ireland, and stripped of all that it had + won throughout more than a century of persecution. To these exiles the + Back Country of North Carolina, with its cheap and even free tracts lying + far from the seat of government, must have seemed not only the Land of + Promise but the Land of Last Chance. Here they must strike their roots + into the sod with such interlocking strength that no cataclysm of tyranny + should ever dislodge them—or they must accept the fate dealt out to + them by their former persecutors and become a tribe of nomads and serfs. + But to these Ulster immigrants such a choice was no choice at all. They + knew themselves strong men, who had made the most of opportunity despite + almost superhuman obstacles. The drumming of their feet along the banks of + the Shenandoah, or up the rivers from Charleston, and on through the broad + sweep of the Yadkin Valley, was a conquering people's challenge to the + Wilderness which lay sleeping like an unready sentinel at the gates of + their Future. + </p> + <p> + It is maintained still by many, however often disputed, that the Ulstermen + were the first to declare for American Independence, as in the Old Country + they were the first to demand the separation of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_008" id="Page_008">8</a></span> + Church and State. A Declaration of + Independence is said to have been drawn up and signed in Mecklenburg + County, North Carolina, on May 20, 1775. ¹ However that may be, it is + certain that these Mecklenburg Protestants had received special schooling + in the doctrine of independence. They had in their midst for eight years + (1758-66) the Reverend Alexander Craighead, a Presbyterian minister who, + for his “republican doctrines” expressed in a pamphlet, had been + disowned by the Pennsylvania Synod acting on the Governor's protest, and + so persecuted in Virginia that he had at last fled to the North Carolina + Back Country. There, during the remaining years of his life, as the sole + preacher and teacher in the settlements between the Yadkin and the Catawba + rivers he found willing soil in which to sow the seeds of Liberty. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_8-1" name="footer_8-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_008">¹</a> + See Hoyt, <i>The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence</i>; and <i>American + Archives,</i> Fourth Series. vol. II, p. 855. + </p> + </div> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + There was another branch of the Scottish race which helped to people the + Back Country. The Highlanders, whose loyalty to their oath made them fight + on the King's side in the Revolutionary War, have been somewhat overlooked + in history. Tradition, handed down among the transplanted + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_009" id="Page_009">9</a></span> + clans—who, + for the most part, spoke only Gaelic for a generation and wrote nothing—and + latterly recorded by one or two of their descendants, supplies us with all + we are now able to learn of the early coming of the Gaels to Carolina. It + would seem that their first immigration to America in small bands took + place after the suppression of the Jacobite rising in 1715—when + Highlanders fled in numbers also to France—for by 1729 there was a + settlement of them on the Cape Fear River. We know, too, that in 1748 it + was charged against Gabriel Johnston, Governor of North Carolina from 1734 + to 1752, that he had shown no joy over the King's “glorious victory of + Culloden” and that “he had appointed one William McGregor, who had + been in the Rebellion in the year 1715 a Justice of the Peace during the + last Rebellion [1745] and was not himself without suspicion of + disaffection to His Majesty's Government.” It is indeed possible that + Gabriel Johnston, formerly a professor at St. Andrew's University, had + himself not always been a stranger to the kilt. He induced large numbers + of Highlanders to come to America and probably influenced the second + George to moderate his treatment of the vanquished Gaels in the Old + Country and permit their emigration to the New World. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_010" id="Page_010">10</a></span> In + contrast with the Ulstermen, whose secular ideals were dictated by the + forms of their Church, these Scots adhered still to the tribal or clan + system, although they, too, in the majority, were Presbyterians, with a + minority of Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. In the Scotch Highlands + they had occupied small holdings on the land under the sway of their + chief, or Head of the Clan, to whom they were bound by blood and fealty + but to whom they paid no rentals. The position of the Head of the Clan was + hereditary, but no heir was bold enough to step forward into that position + until he had performed some deed of worth. They were principally herders, + their chief stock being the famous small black cattle of the Highlands. + Their wars with each other were cattle raids. Only in war, however, did + the Gael lay hands on his neighbor's goods. There were no highwaymen and + housebreakers in the Highlands. No Highland mansion, cot, or barn was ever + locked. Theft and the breaking of an oath, sins against man's honor, were + held in such abhorrence that no one guilty of them could remain among his + clansmen in the beloved glens. These Highlanders were a race of tall, + robust men, who lived simply and frugally and slept on the heath among + their flocks in all weathers, with no + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_011" id="Page_011">11</a></span> + other covering from rain and + snow than their plaidies. It is reported of the Laird of Keppoch, who was + leading his clan to war in winter time, that his men were divided as to + the propriety of following him further because he rolled a snowball to + rest his head upon when he lay down. “Now we despair of victory,” + they said, “since our leader has become so effeminate he cannot sleep + without a pillow!” ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_11-1" name="footer_11-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_011">¹</a> + MacLean, <i>An Historical Account of the + Settlement of Scotch Highlanders in America.</i> + </p> + </div> + <p> + The “King's glorious victory of Culloden” was followed by a policy of + extermination carried on by the orders and under the personal direction of + the Duke of Cumberland. When King George at last restrained his son from + his orgy of blood, he offered the Gaels their lives and exile to America + on condition of their taking the full oath of allegiance. The majority + accepted his terms, for not only were their lives forfeit but their crops + and cattle had been destroyed and the holdings on which their ancestors + had lived for many centuries taken from them. The descriptions of the + scenes attending their leave-taking of the hills and glens they loved with + such passionate fervor are among the most pathetic in history. Strong men + who had met the ravage of a brutal sword without weakening + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_012" id="Page_012">12</a></span> + abandoned + themselves to the agony of sorrow. They kissed the walls of their houses. + They flung themselves on the ground and embraced the sod upon which they + had walked in freedom. They called their broken farewells to the peaks and + lochs of the land they were never again to see; and, as they turned their + backs and filed down through the passes, their pipers played the dirge for + the dead. + </p> + <p> + Such was the character, such the deep feeling, of the race which entered + North Carolina from the coast and pushed up into the wilderness about the + headwaters of Cape Fear River. Tradition indicates that these hillsmen + sought the interior because the grass and pea vine which overgrew the + inner country stretching towards the mountains provided excellent fodder + for the cattle which some of the chiefs are said to have brought with + them. These Gaelic herders, perhaps in negligible numbers, were in the + Yadkin Valley before 1730, possibly even ten years earlier. In 1739 Neil + MacNeill of Kintyre brought over a shipload of Gaels to rejoin his + kinsman, Hector MacNeill, called Bluff Hector from his residence near the + bluffs at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville. Some of these immigrants went on + to the Yadkin, we are told, to unite with others of their clan who had + been for some time in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_013" id="Page_013">13</a></span> + that district. The exact time of the first Highlander on the Yadkin cannot + be ascertained, as there were no court records and the offices of the land + companies were not then open for the sale of these remote regions. But by + 1753 there were not less than four thousand Gaels in Cumberland County, + where they occupied the chief magisterial posts; and they were already + spreading over the lands now comprised within Moore, Anson, Richmond, + Robeson, Bladen, and Sampson counties. In these counties Gaelic was as + commonly heard as English. + </p> + <p> + In the years immediately preceding the Revolution and even in 1776 itself + they came in increasing numbers. They knew nothing of the smoldering fire + just about to break into flames in the country of their choice, but the + Royal Governor, Josiah Martin, knew that Highland arms would soon be + needed by His Majesty. He knew something of Highland honor, too; for he + would not let the Gaels proceed after their landing until they had bound + themselves by oath to support the Government of King George. So it was + that the unfortunate Highlanders found themselves, according to their + strict code of honor, forced to wield arms against the very Americans who + had received and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_014" id="Page_014">14</a></span> + befriended them—and for the crowned brother of a prince whose name + is execrated to this day in Highland song and story! + </p> + <p> + They were led by Allan MacDonald of Kingsborough; and tradition gives us a + stirring picture of Allan's wife—the famous Flora MacDonald, who in + Scotland had protected the Young Pretender in his flight—making an + impassioned address in Gaelic to the Highland soldiers and urging them on + to die for honor's sake. When this Highland force was conquered by the + Americans, the large majority willingly bound themselves not to fight + further against the American cause and were set at liberty. Many of them + felt that, by offering their lives to the swords of the Americans, they + had canceled their obligation to King George and were now free to draw + their swords again and, this time, in accordance with their sympathies; so + they went over to the American side and fought gallantly for independence. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Although the brave glory of this pioneer age shines so brightly on the + Lion Rampant of Caledonia, not to Scots alone does that whole glory + belong. The second largest racial stream which flowed into the Back + Country of Virginia and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_015" id="Page_015">15</a></span> + North Carolina was German. Most of these + Germans went down from Pennsylvania and were generally called “Pennsylvania + Dutch,” an incorrect rendering of <i>Pennsylvänische Deutsche</i>. + The upper Shenandoah Valley was settled almost entirely by Germans. They + were members of the Lutheran, German Reformed, and Moravian churches. The + cause which sent vast numbers of this sturdy people across the ocean, + during the first years of the eighteenth century, was religious + persecution. By statute and by sword the Roman Catholic powers of Austria + sought to wipe out the Salzburg Lutherans and the Moravian followers of + John Huss. In that region of the Rhine country known in those days as the + German Palatinate, now a part of Bavaria, Protestants were being massacred + by the troops of Louis of France, then engaged in the War of the Spanish + Succession (1701-13) and in the zealous effort to extirpate heretics from + the soil of Europe. In 1708, by proclamation, Good Queen Anne offered + protection to the persecuted Palatines and invited them to her dominions. + Twelve thousand of them went to England, where they were warmly received + by the English. But it was no slight task to settle twelve thousand + immigrants of an alien speech in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_016" id="Page_016">16</a></span> + England and enable them to become independent + and self-supporting. A better solution of their problem lay in the Western + World. The Germans needed homes and the Queen's overseas dominions needed + colonists. They were settled at first along the Hudson, and eventually + many of them took up lands in the fertile valley of the Mohawk. + </p> + <p> + For fifty years or more German and Austrian Protestants poured into + America. In Pennsylvania their influx averaged about fifteen hundred a + year, and that colony became the distributing center for the German race + in America. By 1727, Adam Müller and his little company had + established the first white settlement in the Valley of Virginia. In 1732 + Joist Heydt went south from York, Pennsylvania, and settled on the Opequan + Creek at or near the site of the present city of Winchester. + </p> + <p> + The life of Count Zinzendorf, called “the Apostle,” one of the + leaders of the Moravian immigrants, glows like a star out of those dark + and troublous times. Of high birth and gentle nurture, he forsook whatever + of ease his station promised him and fitted himself for evangelical work. + In 1741 he visited the Wyoming Valley to bring his religion to the + Delawares and Shawanoes. He was not of those picturesque Captains of the + Lord who + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_017" id="Page_017">17</a></span> + bore their muskets on their shoulders when they went forth to preach. + Armored only with the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the + sword of the spirit, his feet “shod with the preparation of the gospel + of peace,” he went out into the country of these bloodthirsty tribes + and told them that he had come to them in their darkness to teach the love + of the Christ which lighteth the world. The Indians received him + suspiciously. One day while he sat in his tent writing, some Delawares + drew near to slay him and were about to strike when they saw two deadly + snakes crawl in from the opposite side of the tent, move directly towards + the Apostle, and pass harmlessly over his body. Thereafter they regarded + him as under spiritual protection. Indeed so widespread was his good fame + among the tribes that for some years all Moravian settlements along the + borders were unmolested. Painted savages passed through on their way to + war with enemy bands or to raid the border, but for the sake of one + consecrated spirit, whom they had seen death avoid, they spared the lives + and goods of his fellow believers. When Zinzendorf departed a year later, + his mantle fell on David Zeisberger, who lived the love he taught for over + fifty years and converted many savages. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_018" id="Page_018">18</a></span> + Zeisberger was taken before the + Governor and army heads at Philadelphia, who had only too good reason to + be suspicious of priestly counsels in the tents of Shem: but he was able + to impress white men no less than simple savages with the nobility of the + doctrine he had learned from the Apostle. + </p> + <p> + In 1751 the Moravian Brotherhood purchased one hundred thousand acres in + North Carolina from Lord Granville. Bishop Spangenburg was commissioned to + survey this large acreage, which was situated in the present county of + Forsyth east of the Yadkin, and which is historically listed as the + Wachovia Tract. In 1753, twelve Brethren left the Moravian settlements of + Bethlehem and Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, and journeyed southward to begin + the founding of a colony on their new land. Brother Adam Grube, one of the + twelve, kept a diary of the events of this expedition. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_18-1" name="footer_18-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_018">¹</a> + This diary is printed in full in <i>Travels in + the American Colonies</i> edited by N. D. Mereness. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Honor to whom honor is due. We have paid it, in some measure, to the + primitive Gaels of the Highlands for their warrior strength and their + fealty, and to the enlightened Scots of Ulster for their enterprise and + for their sacrifice unto blood that free conscience and just laws might + promote the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_019" id="Page_019">19</a></span> + progress and safeguard the intercourse of their kind. Now let us take up + for a moment Brother Grube's <i>Journal</i> even as we welcome, perhaps + the more gratefully, the mild light of evening after the flooding sun, or + as our hearts, when too strongly stirred by the deeds of men, turn for + rest to the serene faith and the naïve speech of little children. + </p> + <p> + The twelve, we learn, were under the leadership of one of their number, + Brother Gottlob. Their earliest alarms on the march were not caused, as we + might expect, by anticipations of the painted Cherokee, but by encounters + with the strenuous “Irish.” One of these came and laid himself to + sleep beside the Brethren's camp fire on their first night out, after they + had sung their evening hymn and eleven had stretched themselves on the + earth for slumber, while Brother Gottlob, their leader, hanging his + hammock between two trees, ascended—not only in spirit—a + little higher than his charges, and “rested well in it.” Though the + alarming Irishman did not disturb them, the Brethren's doubts of that race + continued, for Brother Grube wrote on the 14th of October: “About four + in the morning we set up our tent, going four miles beyond Carl Isles + [Carlisle, seventeen miles southwest of Harrisburg] so as not to be too + near the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_020" id="Page_020">20</a></span> + Irish Presbyterians. After breakfast the Brethren shaved and then we + rested under our tent.… People who were staying at the Tavern came + to see what kind of folk we were.… Br Gottlob held the evening + service and then we lay down around our cheerful fire, and Br Gottlob in + his hammock.” Two other jottings give us a racial kaleidoscope of the + settlers and wayfarers of that time. On one day the Brethren bought “some + hay from a Swiss,” later “some kraut from a German which tasted very + good to us”; and presently “an Englishman came by and drank a cup of + tea with us and was very grateful for it.” Frequently the little band + paused while some of the Brethren went off to the farms along the route to + help “cut hay.” These kindly acts were usually repaid with gifts of + food or produce. + </p> + <p> + One day while on the march they halted at a tavern and farm in Shenandoah + Valley kept by a man whose name Brother Grube wrote down as “Severe.” + Since we know that Brother Grube's spelling of names other than German + requires editing, we venture to hazard a guess that the name he attempted + to set down as it sounded to him was Sevier. And we wonder if, in his + brief sojourn, he saw a lad of eight years, slim, tall, and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_021" id="Page_021">21</a></span> + blond, with + daring and mischievous blue eyes, and a certain curve of the lips that + threatened havoc in the hearts of both sexes when he should be a man and + reach out with swift hands and reckless will for his desires. If he saw + this lad, he beheld John Sevier, later to become one of the most + picturesque and beloved heroes of the Old Southwest. + </p> + <p> + Hardships abounded on the Brethren's journey, but faith and the + Christian's joy, which no man taketh from him, met and surmounted them. “Three + and a half miles beyond, the road forked.… We took the right hand + road but found no water for ten miles. It grew late and we had to drive + five miles into the night to find a stoppingplace.” Two of the Brethren + went ahead “to seek out the road” through the darkened wilderness. + There were rough hills in the way; and, the horses being exhausted, “Brethren + had to help push.” But, in due season, “Br Nathanael held evening + prayer and then we slept in the care of Jesus,” with Brother Gottlob as + usual in his hammock. Three days later the record runs: “Toward evening + we saw Jeams River, the road to it ran down so very steep a hill that we + fastened a small tree to the back of our wagon, locked the wheels, and the + Brethren held back by the tree with all their + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_022" id="Page_022">22</a></span> + might.” Even then the wagon + went down so fast that most of the Brethren lost their footing and rolled + and tumbled pell-mell. But Faith makes little of such mishaps: “No harm + was done and we thanked the Lord that he had so graciously protected us, + for it looked dangerous and we thought at times that it could not possibly + be done without accident but we got down safely… we were all very + tired and sleepy and let the angels be our guard during the night.” + Rains fell in torrents, making streams almost impassable and drenching the + little band to the skin. The hammock was empty one night, for they had to + spend the dark hours trench-digging about their tent to keep it from being + washed away. Two days later (the 10th of November) the weather cleared and + “we spent most of the day drying our blankets and mending and darning + our stockings.” They also bought supplies from settlers who, as Brother + Grube observed without irony, + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + are glad we have to remain here so long and that it means money for + them. In the afternoon we held a little Lovefeast and rested our souls + in the loving sacrifice of Jesus, wishing for beloved Brethren in + Bethlehem and that they and we might live ever close to Him.… + <br /> Nov. 16. We rose early to ford the river. The bank was so steep + that we hung a tree behind the wagon, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_023" id="Page_023">23</a></span> + fastening it in such a way + that we could quickly release it when the wagon reached the water. The + current was very swift and the lead horses were carried down a bit with + it. The water just missed running into the wagon but we came safely to + the other bank, which however we could not climb but had to take half + the things out of the wagon, tie ropes to the axle on which we could + pull, help our horses which were quite stiff, and so we brought our ark + again to dry land. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + On the evening of the 17th of November the twelve arrived safely on their + land on the “Etkin” (Yadkin), having been six weeks on the march. + They found with joy that, as ever, the Lord had provided for them. This + time the gift was a deserted cabin, “large enough that we could all lie + down around the walls. We at once made preparation for a little Lovefeast + and rejoiced heartily with one another.” + </p> + <p> + In the deserted log cabin, which, to their faith, seemed as one of those + mansions “not built with hands” and descended miraculously from the + heavens, they held their Lovefeast, while wolves padded and howled about + the walls; and in that Pentacostal hour the tongue of fire descended upon + Brother Gottlob, so that he made a new song unto the Lord. Who shall + venture to say it is not better worth preserving than many a classic? + </p> + <div class="poem1"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_024" id="Page_024">24</a></span> + <p class="poem1 padding20">We hold arrival Lovefeast here</p> + <p class="poem2 padding20">In Carolina land,</p> + <p class="poem1 padding20">A company of Brethren true,</p> + <p class="poem2 padding20">A little Pilgrim-Band,</p> + <p class="poem1 padding20">Called by the Lord to be of those</p> + <p class="poem2 padding20">Who through the whole world go,</p> + <p class="poem1 padding20">To bear Him witness everywhere </p> + <p class="poem2 padding20"> And nought but Jesus know.</p> + </div> + + <p class="noindent"> + Then, we are told, the Brethren lay down to rest and “<em>Br Gottlob + hung his hammock above our heads</em>”—as was most fitting on + this of all nights; for is not the Poet's place always just a little + nearer to the stars? + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + The pioneers did not always travel in groups. There were families who set + off alone. One of these now claims our attention, for there was a lad in + this family whose name and deeds were to sound like a ballad of romance + from out the dusty pages of history. This family's name was Boone. + </p> + <p> + Neither Scots nor Germans can claim Daniel Boone; he was in blood a blend + of English and Welsh; in character wholly English. His grandfather George + Boone was born in 1666 in the hamlet of Stoak, near Exeter in Devonshire. + George Boone was a weaver by trade and a Quaker by religion. In England in + his time the Quakers were + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_025" id="Page_025">25</a></span> + oppressed, and George Boone therefore sought + information of William Penn, his coreligionist, regarding the colony which + Penn had established in America. In 1712 he sent his three elder children, + George, Sarah, and Squire, to spy out the land. Sarah and Squire remained + in Pennsylvania, while their brother returned to England with glowing + reports. On August 17, 1717, George Boone, his wife, and the rest of his + children journeyed to Bristol and sailed for Philadelphia, arriving there + on the 10th of October. The Boones went first to Abingdon, the Quaker + farmers' community. Later they moved to the northwestern frontier hamlet + of North Wales, a Welsh community which, a few years previously, had + turned Quaker. Sarah Boone married a German named Jacob Stover, who had + settled in Oley Township, Berks County. In 1718 George Boone took up four + hundred acres in Oley, or, to be exact, in the subdivision later called + Exeter, and there he lived in his log cabin until 1744, when he died at + the age of seventy-eight. He left eight children, fifty-two grandchildren, + and ten great-grandchildren, seventy descendants in all—English, + German, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish blended into one family of Americans. + ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_25-1" name="footer_25-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_025">¹</a> + R. G. Thwaites, <i>Daniel Boone</i>, p. 5. + </p> + </div> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_026" id="Page_026">26</a></span> Among + the Welsh Quakers was a family of Morgans. In 1720 Squire Boone married + Sarah Morgan. Ten years later he obtained 250 acres in Oley on Owatin + Creek, eight miles southeast of the present city of Reading; and here, in + 1734, Daniel Boone was born, the fourth son and sixth child of Squire and + Sarah Morgan Boone. Daniel Boone therefore was a son of the frontier. In + his childhood he became familiar with hunters and with Indians, for even + the red men came often in friendly fashion to his grandfather's house. + Squire Boone enlarged his farm by thrift. He continued at his trade of + weaving and kept five or six looms going, making homespun cloth for the + market and his neighbors. + </p> + <p> + Daniel's father owned grazing grounds several miles north of the homestead + and each season he sent his stock to the range. Sarah Boone and her little + Daniel drove the cows. From early spring till late autumn, mother and son + lived in a rustic cabin alone on the frontier. A rude dairy house stood + over a cool spring, and here Sarah Boone made her butter and cheese. + Daniel, aged ten at this time, watched the herds; at sunset he drove them + to the cabin for milking, and locked them in the cowpens at night. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_027" id="Page_027">27</a></span> He was + not allowed firearms at that age, so he shaped for himself a weapon that + served him well. This was a slender smoothly shaved sapling with a small + bunch of gnarled roots at one end. So expert was he in the launching of + this primitive spear that he easily brought down birds and small game. + When he reached his twelfth year, his father bought him a rifle; and he + soon became a crack shot. A year later we find him setting off on the + autumn hunt—after driving the cattle in for the winter—with + all the keenness and courage of a man twice his thirteen years. His rifle + enabled him to return with meat for the family and skins to be traded in + Philadelphia. When he was fourteen his brother Sam married Sarah Day, an + intelligent young Quakeress who took a special interest in her young + brother-in-law and taught him “the rudiments of three R's.” + </p> + <p> + The Boones were prosperous and happy in Oley and it may be wondered why + they left their farms and their looms, both of which were profitable, and + set their faces towards the Unknown. It is recorded that, though the + Boones were Quakers, they were of a high mettle and were not infrequently + dealt with by the Meeting. Two of Squire Boone's children married + “worldlings”—non-Quakers—and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_028" id="Page_028">28</a></span> + were in consequence “disowned” by the Society. In defiance of + his sect, which strove to make him sever all connection with his unruly + offspring, Squire Boone refused to shut his doors on the son and the + daughter who had scandalized local Quakerdom. The Society of Friends + thereupon expelled him. This occurred apparently during the winter of + 1748-49. In the spring of 1750 we see the whole Boone family (save two + sons) with their wives and children, their household goods and their + stock, on the great highway, bound for a land where the hot heart and the + belligerent spirit shall not be held amiss. + </p> + <p> + Southward through the Shenandoah goes the Boone caravan. The women and + children usually sit in the wagons. The men march ahead or alongside, + keeping a keen eye open for Indian or other enemy in the wild, their + rifles under arm or over the shoulder. Squire Boone, who has done with + Quakerdom and is leading all that he holds dear out to larger horizons, is + ahead of the line, as we picture him, ready to meet first whatever danger + may assail his tribe. He is a strong wiry man of rather small stature, + with ruddy complexion, red hair, and gray eyes. Somewhere in the line, + together, we think, are the mother and son who have + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_029" id="Page_029">29</a></span> + herded cattle and companioned each other through long months in the + cabin on the frontier. We do not think of this woman as riding in the + wagon, though she may have done so, but prefer to picture her, with her + tall robust body, her black hair, and her black eyes—with the s + udden Welsh snap in them—walking as sturdily as any of her sons. + </p> + <p> + If Daniel be beside her, what does she see when she looks at him? A lad + well set up but not overtall for his sixteen years, perhaps—for + “eye-witnesses” differ in their estimates of Daniel Boone's + height—or possibly taller than he looks, because his figure has the + forest hunter's natural slant forward and the droop of the neck of one who + must watch his path sometimes in order to tread silently. It is Squire + Boone's blood which shows in his ruddy face—which would be fair + but for its tan—and in the English cut of feature, the + straw-colored eyebrows, and the blue eyes. But his Welsh mother's legacy + is seen in the black hair that hangs long and loose in the hunter's + fashion to his shoulders. We can think of Daniel Boone only as + exhilarated by this plunge into the Wild. He sees ahead—the days of + his great explorations and warfare, the discovery of Kentucky? Not at + all. This is a boy of sixteen in love with his rifle. He looks ahead to + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_030" id="Page_030">30</a></span> + vistas of forest filled with deer and to skies clouded with flocks of wild + turkeys. In that dream there is happiness enough for Daniel Boone. Indeed, + for himself, even in later life, he asked little, if any more. He trudges + on blithely, whistling. + </p> + + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter02" id="Chapter02"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_031" id="Page_031">31</a></span><br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER II.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">Folkways</p> + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">These</span> migrations into the inland valleys of the + Old South mark the first great westward thrust of the American frontier. + Thus the beginnings of the westward movement disclose to us a feature + characteristic also of the later migrations which flung the frontier over + the Appalachians, across the Mississippi, and finally to the shores of the + Pacific. The pioneers, instead of moving westward by slow degrees, + subduing the wilderness as they went, overleaped great spaces and planted + themselves beyond, out of contact with the life they had left behind. Thus + separated by hundreds of miles of intervening wilderness from the more + civilized communities, the conquerors of the first American + “West,” prototypes of the conquerors of succeeding + “Wests,” inevitably struck out their own ways of life and + developed their own customs. It would be difficult, indeed, to find + anywhere a more + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_032" id="Page_032">32</a></span> + remarkable contrast in contemporary folkways than that presented by the + two great community groups of the South—the inland or piedmont + settlements, called the Back Country, and the lowland towns and + plantations along the seaboard. + </p> + <p> + The older society of the seaboard towns, as events were soon to prove, was + not less independent in its ideals than the frontier society of the Back + Country; but it was aristocratic in tone and feeling. Its leaders were the + landed gentry—men of elegance, and not far behind their European + contemporaries in the culture of the day. They were rich, without effort, + both from their plantations, where black slaves and indentured servants + labored, and from their coastwise and overseas trade. Their battles with + forest and red man were long past. They had leisure for diversions such as + the chase, the breeding and racing of thoroughbred horses, the dance, high + play with dice and card, cockfighting, the gallantry of love, and the + skill of the rapier. Law and politics drew their soberer minds. + </p> + <p> + Very different were the conditions which confronted the pioneers in the + first American “West.” There every jewel of promise was ringed + round with hostility. The cheap land the pioneer had purchased at a + nominal price, or the free land + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_033" id="Page_033">33</a></span> + he had taken by “tomahawk claim”—that + is by cutting his name into the bark of a deadened tree, usually beside a + spring—supported a forest of tall trunks and interlacing leafage. + The long grass and weeds which covered the ground in a wealth of natural + pasturage harbored the poisonous copperhead and the rattlesnake and, being + shaded by the overhead foliage, they held the heavy dews and bred swarms + of mosquitoes, gnats, and big flies which tortured both men and cattle. To + protect the cattle and horses from the attacks of these pests the settlers + were obliged to build large "smudges"—fires of green timber—against + the wind. The animals soon learned to back up into the dense smoke and to + move from one grazing spot to another as the wind changed. But useful as + were the green timber fires that rolled their smoke on the wind to save + the stock, they were at the same time a menace to the pioneer, for they + proclaimed to roving bands of Cherokees that a further encroachment on + their territory had been made by their most hated enemies—the men + who felled the hunter's forest. Many an outpost pioneer who had made the + long hard journey by sea and land from the old world of persecution to + this new country of freedom, dropped from the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_034" id="Page_034">34</a></span> + red man's shot ere he had hewn the threshold of his home, leaving his + wife and children to the unrecorded mercy of his slayer. + </p> + <p> + Those more fortunate pioneers who settled in groups won the first heat in + the battle with the wilderness through massed effort under wariness. They + made their clearings in the forest, built their cabins and stockades, and + planted their cornfields, while lookouts kept watch and rifles were + stacked within easy reach. Every special task, such as a “raising,” + as cabin building was called, was undertaken by the community chiefly + because the Indian danger necessitated swift building and made group + action imperative. But the stanch heart is ever the glad heart. Nothing in + this frontier history impresses us more than the joy of the pioneer at his + labors. His determined optimism turned danger's dictation into an occasion + for jollity. On the appointed day for the “raising,” the neighbors + would come, riding or afoot, to the newcomer's holding—the men with + their rifles and axes, the women with their pots and kettles. Every child + toddled along, too, helping to carry the wooden dishes and spoons. These + free givers of labor had something of the Oriental's notion of the sacred + ratification of friendship by a feast. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_035" id="Page_035">35</a></span> + The usual dimensions of a cabin were sixteen by twenty feet. The timber + for the building, having been already cut, lay at hand—logs of + hickory, oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon. To make the foundations, + the men seized four of the thickest logs, laid them in place, and notched + and grooved and hammered them into as close a clinch as if they had grown + so. The wood must grip by its own substance alone to hold up the pioneer's + dwelling, for there was not an iron nail to be had in the whole of the + Back Country. Logs laid upon the foundation logs and notched into each + other at the four corners formed the walls; and, when these stood at seven + feet, the builders laid parallel timbers and puncheons to make both + flooring and ceiling. The ridgepole of the roof was supported by two + crotched trees and the roofing was made of logs and wooden slabs. The + crevices of the walls were packed close with red clay and moss. Lastly, + spaces for a door and windows were cut out. The door was made thick and + heavy to withstand the Indian's rush. And the windowpanes? They were of + paper treated with hog's fat or bear's grease. + </p> + <p> + When the sun stood overhead, the women would give the welcome call of + “Dinner!” Their morning had not been less busy than the + men's. They + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_036" id="Page_036">36</a></span> + had baked corn cakes on hot stones, roasted bear or pork, or broiled + venison steaks; and—above all and first of all—they had + concocted the great “stew pie” without which a raising + could hardly take place. This was a disputatious mixture of deer, hog, + and bear—animals which, in life, would surely have companioned + each other as ill! It was made in sufficient + quantity to last over for supper when the day's labor was done. At supper + the men took their ease on the ground, but with their rifles always in + reach. If the cabin just raised by their efforts stood in the Yadkin, + within sight of the great mountains the pioneers were one day to cross, + perhaps a sudden bird note warning from the lookout, hidden in the brush, + would bring the builders with a leap to their feet. It might be only a + hunting band of friendly Catawbas that passed, or a lone Cherokee who knew + that this was not his hour. If the latter, we can, in imagination, see him + look once at the new house on his hunting pasture, slacken rein for a + moment in front of the group of families, lift his hand in sign of peace, + and silently go his way hillward. As he vanishes into the shadows, the + crimson sun, sinking into the unknown wilderness beyond the mountains, + pours its last glow on the roof of the cabin and on the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_037" id="Page_037">37</a></span> + group near its walls. With unfelt fingers, subtly, it puts the red touch + of the West in the faces of the men—who have just declared, through + the building of a cabin, that here is Journey's End and their abiding + place. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + There were community holidays among these pioneers as well as labor days, + especially in the fruit season; and there were flower-picking excursions + in the warm spring days. Early in April the service berry bush gleamed + starrily along the watercourses, its hardy white blooms defying winter's + lingering look. This bush—or tree, indeed, since it is not afraid to + rear its slender trunk as high as cherry or crab apple—might well be + considered emblematic of the frontier spirit in those regions where the + white silence covers the earth for several months and shuts the lonely + homesteader in upon himself. From the pioneer time of the Old Southwest to + the last frontier of the Far North today, the service berry is cherished + alike by white men and Indians; and the red men have woven about it some + of their prettiest legends. When June had ripened the tree's blue-black + berries, the Back Country folk went out in parties to gather them. Though + the service berry was a + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_038" id="Page_038">38</a></span> + food staple on the frontier and its gathering a + matter of household economy, the folk made their berry-picking jaunt a + gala occasion. The women and children with pots and baskets—the + young girls vying with each other, under the eyes of the youths, as to who + could strip boughs the fastest—plucked gayly while the men, rifles + in hand, kept guard. For these happy summer days were also the red man's + scalping days and, at any moment, the chatter of the picnickers might be + interrupted by the chilling war whoop. When that sound was heard, the + berry pickers raced for the fort. The wild fruits—strawberries, + service berries, cherries, plums, crab apples—were, however, too + necessary a part of the pioneer's meager diet to be left unplucked out of + fear of an Indian attack. Another day would see the same group out again. + The children would keep closer to their mothers, no doubt; and the + laughter of the young girls would be more subdued, even if their coquetry + lacked nothing of its former effectiveness. Early marriages were the rule + in the Back Country and betrothals were frequently plighted at these berry + pickings. + </p> + <p> + As we consider the descriptions of the frontiersman left for us by + travelers of his own day, we are not more interested in his battles with + wilderness + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_039" id="Page_039">39</a></span> + and Indian than in the visible effects of both wilderness and Indian upon + him. His countenance and bearing still show the European, but the European + greatly altered by savage contact. The red peril, indeed, influenced every + side of frontier life. The bands of women and children at the harvestings, + the log rollings, and the house raisings, were not there merely to lighten + the men's work by their laughter and love-making. It was not safe for them + to remain in the cabins, for, to the Indian, the cabin thus boldly thrust + upon his immemorial hunting grounds was only a secondary evil; the greater + evil was the white man's family, bespeaking the increase of the dreaded + palefaces. The Indian peril trained the pioneers to alertness, shaped them + as warriors and hunters, suggested the fashion of their dress, knit their + families into clans and the clans into a tribe wherein all were of one + spirit in the protection of each and all and a unit of hate against their + common enemy. + </p> + <p> + Too often the fields which the pioneer planted with corn were harvested by + the Indian with fire. The hardest privations suffered by farmers and stock + were due to the settlers having to flee to the forts, leaving to Indian + devastation the crops on which their sustenance mainly depended. + Sometimes, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_040" id="Page_040">40</a></span> + fortunately, the warning came in time for the frontiersman to collect his + goods and chattels in his wagon and to round up his live stock and drive + them safely into the common fortified enclosure. At others, the tap of the + “express”—as the herald of Indian danger was + called—at night on the windowpane and the low word whispered + hastily, ere the “express” ran on to the next abode, meant + that the Indians had surprised the outlying cabins of the settlement. + </p> + <p> + The forts were built as centrally as possible in the scattered + settlements. They consisted of cabins, blockhouses, and stockades. A range + of cabins often formed one side of a fort. The walls on the outside were + ten or twelve feet high with roofs sloping inward. The blockhouses built + at the angles of the fort projected two feet or so beyond the outer walls + of the cabins and stockades, and were fitted with portholes for the + watchers and the marksmen. The entrance to the fort was a large folding + gate of thick slabs. It was always on the side nearest the spring. The + whole structure of the fort was bullet-proof and was erected without an + iron nail or spike. In the border wars these forts withstood all attacks. + The savages, having proved that they could not storm them, generally + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_041" id="Page_041">41</a></span> + laid siege + and waited for thirst to compel a sortie. But the crafty besieger was as + often outwitted by the equally cunning defender. Some daring soul, with + silent feet and perhaps with naked body painted in Indian fashion, would + drop from the wall under cover of the night, pass among the foemen to the + spring, and return to the fort with water. + </p> + <p> + Into the pioneer's phrase-making the Indian influence penetrated so that + he named seasons for his foe. So thoroughly has the term “Indian + Summer,” now to us redolent of charm, become disassociated from its + origins that it gives us a shock to be reminded that to these Back Country + folk the balmy days following on the cold snap meant the season when the + red men would come back for a last murderous raid on the settlements + before winter should seal up the land. The “Powwowing Days” + were the mellow days in the latter part of February, when the red men in + council made their medicine and learned of their redder gods whether or no + they should take the warpath when the sap pulsed the trees into leaf. Even + the children at their play acknowledged the red-skinned schoolmaster, for + their chief games were a training in his woodcraft and in the use of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_042" id="Page_042">42</a></span> his weapons. + Tomahawk-throwing was a favorite sport because of its gruesome practical + purposes. The boys must learn to gauge the tomahawk's revolutions by the + distance of the throw so as to bury the blade in its objective. Swift + running and high jumping through the brush and fallen timber were sports + that taught agility in escape. The boys learned to shoot accurately the + long rifles of their time, with a log or a forked stick for a rest, and a + moss pad under the barrel to keep it from jerking and spoiling the aim. + They wrestled with each other, mastered the tricks of throwing an + opponent, and learned the scalp hold instead of the toe hold. It was part + of their education to imitate the noises of every bird and beast of the + forest. So they learned to lure the turkey within range, or by the bleat + of a fawn to bring her dam to the rifle. A well-simulated wolf's howl + would call forth a response and so inform the lone hunter of the vicinity + of the pack. This forest speech was not only the language of diplomacy in + the hunting season; it was the borderer's secret code in war. Stray + Indians put themselves in touch again with the band by turkey calls in the + daytime and by owl or wolf notes at night. The frontiersmen used the same + means to trick the Indian band into + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_043" id="Page_043">43</a></span> + betraying the place of its ambuscade, or to + lure the strays, unwitting, within reach of the knife. + </p> + <p> + In that age, before the forests had given place to farms and cities and + when the sun had but slight acquaintance with the sod, the summers were + cool and the winters long and cold in the Back Country. Sometimes in + September severe frosts destroyed the corn. The first light powdering + called “hunting snows” fell in October, and then the men of the Back + Country set out on the chase. Their object was meat—buffalo, deer, + elk, bear—for the winter larder, and skins to send out in the spring + by pack-horses to the coast in trade for iron, steel, and salt. The + rainfall in North Carolina was much heavier than in Virginia and, from + autumn into early winter, the Yadkin forests were sheeted with rain; but + wet weather, so far from deterring the hunter, aided him to the kill. In + blowing rain, he knew he would find the deer herding in the sheltered + places on the hillsides. In windless rain, he knew that his quarry ranged + the open woods and the high places. The fair play of the pioneer held it a + great disgrace to kill a deer in winter when the heavy frost had crusted + the deep snow. On the crust men and wolves could travel with ease, but the + deer's sharp hoofs pierced through and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_044" id="Page_044">44</a></span> + made him defenseless. Wolves and + dogs destroyed great quantities of deer caught in this way; and men who + shot deer under these conditions were considered no huntsmen. There was, + indeed, a practical side to this chivalry of the chase, for meat and pelt + were both poor at this season; but the true hunter also obeyed the finer + tenet of his code, for he would go to the rescue of deer caught in the + crusts—and he killed many a wolf sliding over the ice to an easy + meal. + </p> + <p> + The community moral code of the frontier was brief and rigorous. What it + lacked of the “whereas” and “inasmuch” of legal + ink it made up in sound hickory. In fact, when we review the activities + of this solid yet elastic wood in the moral, social, and economic phases + of Back Country life, we are moved to wonder if the pioneers would have + been the same race of men had they been nurtured beneath a less strenuous + and adaptable vegetation! The hickory gave the frontiersman wood for all + implements and furnishings where the demand was equally for lightness, + strength, and elasticity. It provided his straight logs for building, his + block mortars—hollowed by fire and stone—for corn-grinding, + his solid plain furniture, his axles, rifle butts, ax handles, and so + forth. It supplied + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_045" id="Page_045">45</a></span> his magic + wand for the searching out of iniquity in the junior members of his + household, and his most cogent argument, as a citizen, in convincing the + slothful, the blasphemous, or the dishonest adult whose errors disturbed + communal harmony. Its nuts fed his hogs. Before he raised stock, the + unripe hickory nuts, crushed for their white liquid, supplied him with + butter for his corn bread and helped out his store of bear's fat. Both the + name and the knowledge of the uses of this tree came to the earliest + pioneers through contact with the red man, whose hunting bow and fishing + spear and the hobbles for his horses were fashioned of the “pohickory” + tree. The Indian women first made pohickory butter, and the wise old men + of the Cherokee towns, so we are told, first applied the pohickory rod to + the vanity of youth! + </p> + <p> + A glance at the interior of a log cabin in the Back Country of Virginia or + North Carolina would show, in primitive design, what is, perhaps, after + all the perfect home—a place where the personal life and the work + life are united and where nothing futile finds space. Every object in the + cabin was practical and had been made by hand on the spot to answer a + need. Besides the chairs hewn from hickory blocks, there were others made + of slabs + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_046" id="Page_046">46</a></span> + set on three legs. A large slab or two with four legs served as a movable + table; the permanent table was built against the wall, its outer edge held + up by two sticks. The low bed was built into the wall in the same way and + softened for slumber by a mattress of pine needles, chaff, or dried moss. + In the best light from the greased paper windowpanes stood the spinning + wheel and loom, on which the housewife made cloth for the family's + garments. Over the fireplace or beside the doorway, and suspended usually + on stags' antlers, hung the firearms and the yellow powderhorns, the + latter often carved in Indian fashion with scenes of the hunt or war. On + a shelf or on pegs were the wooden spoons, plates, bowls, and noggins. + Also near the fireplace, which was made of large flat stones with a + mud-plastered log chimney, stood the grinding block for making hominy. + If it were an evening in early spring, the men of the household would be + tanning and dressing deerskins to be sent out with the trade caravan, + while the women sewed, made moccasins or mended them, in the light of pine + knots or candles of bear's grease. The larger children might be weaving + cradles for the babies, Indian fashion, out of hickory twigs; and there + would surely be a sound of whetting steel, for scalping + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_047" id="Page_047">47</a></span> + knives and tomahawks must be kept keen-tempered + now that the days have come when the red gods whisper their chant of war + through the young leafage. + </p> + <p> + The Back Country folk, as they came from several countries, generally + settled in national groups, each preserving its own speech and its own + religion, each approaching frontier life through its own native + temperament. And the frontier met each and all alike, with the same need + and the same menace, and molded them after one general pattern. If the + cabin stood in a typical Virginian settlement where the folk were of + English stock, it may be that the dulcimer and some old love song of the + homeland enlivened the work—or perhaps chairs were pushed back and + young people danced the country dances of the homeland and the Virginia + Reel, for these Virginian English were merry folk, and their religion did + not frown upon the dance. In a cabin on the Shenandoah or the upper Yadkin + the German tongue clicked away over the evening dish of kraut or sounded + more sedately in a Lutheran hymn; while from some herder's hut on the + lower Yadkin the wild note of the bagpipes or of the ancient four-stringed + harp mingled with the Gaelic speech. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_048" id="Page_048">48</a></span> Among + the homes in the Shenandoah where old England's ways prevailed, none was + gayer than the tavern kept by the man whom the good Moravian Brother + called “Severe.” There perhaps the feasting celebrated the nuptials + of John Sevier, who was barely past his seventeenth birthday when he took + to himself a wife. Or perhaps the dancing, in moccasined feet on the + puncheon flooring, was a ceremonial to usher into Back Country life the + new municipality John had just organized, for John at nineteen had taken + his earliest step towards his larger career, which we shall follow later + on, as the architect of the first little governments beyond the mountains. + </p> + <p> + In the Boone home on the Yadkin, we may guess that the talk was solely of + the hunt, unless young Daniel had already become possessed of his first + compass and was studying its ways. On such an evening, while the red + afterglow lingered, he might be mending a passing trader's firearms by the + fires of the primitive forge his father had set up near the trading path + running from Hillsborough to the Catawba towns. It was said by the local + nimrods that none could doctor a sick rifle better than young Daniel + Boone, already the master huntsman of them all. And perhaps some trader's + tale, told + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_049" id="Page_049">49</a></span> + when the caravan halted for the night, kindled the youth's first desire to + penetrate the mountain-guarded wilderness, for the tales of these Romanies + of commerce were as the very badge of their free-masonry, and entry money + at the doors of strangers. + </p> + <p> + Out on the border's edge, heedless of the shadow of the mountains looming + between the newly built cabin and that western land where they and their + kind were to write the fame of the Ulster Scot in a shining script that + time cannot dull, there might sit a group of stern-faced men, all deep in + discussion of some point of spiritual doctrine or of the temporal rights + of men. Yet, in every cabin, whatever the national differences, the + setting was the same. The spirit of the frontier was modeling out of old + clay a new Adam to answer the needs of a new earth. + </p> + <p> + It would be far less than just to leave the Back Country folk without + further reference to the devoted labors of their clergy. In the earliest + days the settlers were cut off from their church systems; the pious had to + maintain their piety unaided, except in the rare cases where a pastor + accompanied a group of settlers of his denomination into the wilds. One of + the first ministers who fared into + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_050" id="Page_050">50</a></span> + the Back Country to remind the Ulster + Presbyterians of their spiritual duties was the Reverend Hugh McAden of + Philadelphia. He made long itineraries under the greatest hardships, in + constant danger from Indians and wild beasts, carrying the counsel of + godliness to the far scattered flock. Among the Highland settlements the + Reverend James Campbell for thirty years traveled about, preaching each + Sunday at some gathering point a sermon in both English and Gaelic. A + little later, in the Yadkin Valley, after Craighead's day there arose a + small school of Presbyterian ministers whose zeal and fearlessness in the + cause of religion and of just government had an influence on the + frontiersmen that can hardly be overestimated. + </p> + <p> + But, in the beginning, the pioneer encountered the savagery of border + life, grappled with it, and reacted to it without guidance from other + mentor than his own instincts. His need was still the primal threefold + need—family, sustenance, and safe sleep when the day's work was + done. We who look back with thoughtful eyes upon the frontiersman—all + links of contact with his racial past severed, at grips with destruction + in the contenting of his needs—see something more, something + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_051" id="Page_051">51</a></span> larger, than + he saw in the log cabin raised by his hands, its structure held together + solely by his close grooving and fitting of its own strength. Though the + walls he built for himself have gone with his own dust back to the earth, + the symbol he erected for us stands. + </p> + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter03" id="Chapter03"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_052" id="Page_052">52</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER III.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">The Trader</p> + + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">The</span> trader was the first pathfinder. His + caravans began the change of purpose that was to come to the Indian + warrior's route, turning it slowly into the beaten track of communication + and commerce. The settlers, the rangers, the surveyors, went westward over + the trails which he had blazed for them years before. Their enduring works + are commemorated in the cities and farms which today lie along every + ancient border line; but of their forerunner's hazardous Indian trade + nothing remains. Let us therefore pay a moment's homage here to the + trader, who first—to borrow a phrase from Indian speech—made + white for peace the red trails of war. + </p> + <p> + <a name="Page_052-T1" id="Page_052-T1"></a> He was the first cattleman of + the Old Southwest. Fifty years before John Findlay, ¹ one of this + class of pioneers, led Daniel Boone through Cumberland + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_053" id="Page_053">53</a></span> Gap, the + trader's bands of horses roamed the western slopes of the Appalachian + Mountains and his cattle grazed among the deer on the green banks of the + old Cherokee (Tennessee) River. He was the pioneer settler beyond the high + hills; for he built, in the center of the Indian towns, the first white + man's cabin—with its larger annex, the trading house—and dwelt + there during the greater part of the year. He was America's first magnate + of international commerce. His furs—for which he paid in guns, + knives, ammunition, vermilion paint, mirrors, and cloth—lined kings' + mantles, and hatted the Lords of Trade as they strode to their council + chamber in London to discuss his business and to pass those regulations + which might have seriously hampered him but for his resourcefulness in + circumventing them! + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_52-1" name="footer_52-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_052-T1">¹</a> + The name is spelled in various ways: + Findlay, Finlay, Findley. + </p> + </div> + <p> + He was the first frontier warrior, for he either fought off or fell before + small parties of hostile Indians who, in the interest of the Spanish or + French, raided his pack-horse caravans on the march. Often, too, side by + side with the red brothers of his adoption, he fought in the intertribal + wars. His was the first educative and civilizing influence in the Indian + towns. He endeavored to cure the Indians of their favorite midsummer + madness, war, by inducing + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_054" id="Page_054">54</a></span> + them to raise stock and poultry and improve + their corn, squash, and pea gardens. It is not necessary to impute to him + philanthropic motives. He was a practical man and he saw that war hurt his + trade: it endangered his summer caravans and hampered the autumn hunt for + deerskins. + </p> + <p> + In the earliest days of the eighteenth century, when the colonists of + Virginia and the Carolinas were only a handful, it was the trader who + defeated each successive attempt of French and Spanish agents to weld the + tribes into a confederacy for the annihilation of the English settlements. + The English trader did his share to prevent what is now the United States + from becoming a part of a Latin empire and to save it for a race having + the Anglo-Saxon ideal and speaking the English tongue. + </p> + <p> + The colonial records of the period contain items which, taken singly, make + small impression on the casual reader but which, listed together, throw a + strong light on the past and bring that mercenary figure, the trader, into + so bold a relief that the design verges on the heroic. If we wonder, for + instance, why the Scotch Highlanders who settled in the wilds at the + headwaters of the Cape Fear River, about 1729, and were later followed by + Welsh and Huguenots, met with no opposition + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_055" id="Page_055">55</a></span> + from the Indians, the mystery is + solved when we discover, almost by accident, a few printed lines which + record that, in 1700, the hostile natives on the Cape Fear were subdued to + the English and brought into friendly alliance with them by Colonel + William Bull, a trader. We read further and learn that the Spaniards in + Florida had long endeavored to unite the tribes in Spanish and French + territory against the English and that the influence of traders prevented + the consummation. The Spaniards, in 1702, had prepared to invade English + territory with nine hundred Indians. The plot was discovered by Creek + Indians and disclosed to their friends, the traders, who immediately + gathered together five hundred warriors, marched swiftly to meet the + invaders, and utterly routed them. Again, when the Indians, incited by the + Spanish at St. Augustine, rose against the English in 1715, and the Yamasi + Massacre occurred in South Carolina, it was due to the traders that some + of the settlements at least were not wholly unprepared to defend + themselves. + </p> + <p> + The early English trader was generally an intelligent man; sometimes + educated, nearly always fearless and resourceful. He knew the one sure + basis on which men of alien blood and far separated + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_056" id="Page_056">56</a></span> + stages of moral and intellectual + development can meet in understanding—namely, the truth of the + spoken word. He recognized honor as the bond of trade and the warp and + woof of human intercourse. The uncorrupted savage also had his plain + interpretation of the true word in the mouths of men, and a name for it. + He called it the “Old Beloved Speech”; and he gave his confidence to + the man who spoke this speech even in the close barter for furs. + </p> + <p> + We shall find it worth while to refer to the map of America as it was in + the early days of the colonial fur trade, about the beginning of the + eighteenth century. A narrow strip of loosely strung English settlements + stretched from the north border of New England to the Florida line. North + Florida was Spanish territory. On the far distant southwestern borders of + the English colonies were the southern possessions of France. The French + sphere of influence extended up the Mississippi, and thence by way of + rivers and the Great Lakes to its base in Canada on the borders of New + England and New York. In South Carolina dwelt the Yamasi tribe of about + three thousand warriors, their chief towns only sixty or eighty miles + distant from the Spanish town of St. Augustine. On the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_057" id="Page_057">57</a></span> + west, about + the same distance northeast of New Orleans, in what is now Alabama and + Georgia, lay the Creek nation. There French garrisons held Mobile and Fort + Alabama. The Creeks at this time numbered over four thousand warriors. The + lands of the Choctaws, a tribe of even larger fighting strength, began two + hundred miles north of New Orleans and extended along the Mississippi. A + hundred and sixty miles northeast of the Choctaw towns were the + Chickasaws, the bravest and most successful warriors of all the tribes + south of the Iroquois. The Cherokees, in part seated within the Carolinas, + on the upper courses of the Savannah River, mustered over six thousand men + at arms. East of them were the Catawba towns. North of them were the + Shawanoes and Delawares, in easy communication with the tribes of Canada. + Still farther north, along the Mohawk and other rivers joining with the + Hudson and Lake Ontario stood the “long houses” of the fiercest and + most warlike of all the savages, the Iroquois or Six Nations. + </p> + <p> + The Indians along the English borders outnumbered the colonists perhaps + ten to one. If the Spanish and the French had succeeded in the conspiracy + to unite on their side all the tribes, a red billow of tomahawk wielders + would have engulfed + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_058" id="Page_058">58</a></span> + and extinguished the English settlements. The French, it is true, made + allies of the Shawanoes, the Delawares, the Choctaws, and a strong faction + of the Creeks; and they finally won over the Cherokees after courting them + for more than twenty years. But the Creeks in part, the powerful + Chickasaws, and the Iroquois Confederacy, or Six Nations, remained loyal + to the English. In both North and South it was the influence of the + traders that kept these red tribes on the English side. The Iroquois were + held loyal by Sir William Johnson and his deputy, George Croghan, the “King + of Traders.” The Chickasaws followed their “best-beloved” trader, + James Adair; and among the Creeks another trader, Lachlan McGillivray, + wielded a potent influence. + </p> + <p> + <a name="Page_058-T1" id="Page_058-T1"></a> Lachlan McGillivray was a + Highlander. He landed in Charleston in 1735 at the age of sixteen and + presently joined a trader's caravan as pack-horse boy. + A few years later he married + a woman of the Creeks. On many occasions he defeated French and Spanish + plots with the Creeks for the extermination of the colonists in Georgia + and South Carolina. His action in the final war with the French (1760), + when the Indian terror was raging, is typical. News came that four + thousand + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_059" id="Page_059">59</a></span> + Creek warriors, reinforced by French Choctaws, were about to fall on the + southern settlements. At the risk of their lives, McGillivray and another + trader named Galphin hurried from Charleston to their trading house on the + Georgia frontier. Thither they invited several hundred Creek warriors, + feasted and housed them for several days, and finally won them from their + purpose. McGillivray had a brilliant son, Alexander, who about this time + became a chief in his mother's nation—perhaps on this very occasion, + as it was an Indian custom, in making a brotherhood pact, to send a son to + dwell in the brother's house. We shall meet that son again as the Chief of + the Creeks and the terrible scourge of Georgia and Tennessee in the dark + days of the Revolutionary War. + </p> + <p> + The bold deeds of the early traders, if all were to be told, would require + a book as long as the huge volume written by James Adair, the “English + Chickasaw.” Adair was an Englishman who entered the Indian trade in + 1785 and launched upon the long and dangerous trail from Charleston to the + upper towns of the Cherokees, situated in the present Monroe County, + Tennessee. Thus he was one of the earliest pioneers of the Old Southwest; + and he was Tennessee's first author. “I + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_060" id="Page_060">60</a></span> + am well acquainted,” he says, + “with near two thousand miles of the American continent”—a + statement which gives one some idea of an early trader's enterprise, + hardihood, and peril. Adair's “two thousand miles” were twisting + Indian trails and paths he slashed out for himself through uninhabited + wilds, for when not engaged in trade, hunting, literature, or war, it + pleased him to make solitary trips of exploration. These seem to have led + him chiefly northward through the Appalachians, of which he must have been + one of the first white explorers. + </p> + <p> + A many-sided man was James Adair—cultured, for his style suffers not + by comparison with other writers of his day, no stranger to Latin and + Greek, and not ignorant of Hebrew, which he studied to assist him in + setting forth his ethnological theory that the American Indians were the + descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Before we dismiss his theory + with a smile, let us remember that he had not at his disposal the data now + available which reveal points of likeness in custom, language formation, + and symbolism among almost all primitive peoples. The formidable + title-page of his book in itself suggests an author keenly observant, + accurate as to detail, and possessed of a + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_061" id="Page_061">61</a></span> + versatile and substantial mind. + Most of the pages were written in the towns of the Chickasaws, with whom + he lived “as a friend and brother,” but from whose “natural + jealousy” and “prying disposition” he was obliged to conceal his + papers. “Never,” he assures us, “was a literary work begun and + carried on with more disadvantages!” + </p> + <p> + Despite these disabilities the author wrote a book of absorbing interest. + His intimate sympathetic pictures of Indian life as it was before the + tribes had been conquered are richly valuable to the lover of native lore + and to the student of the history of white settlement. The author + believes, as he must, in the supremacy of his own race, but he + nevertheless presents the Indians' side of the argument as no man could + who had not made himself one of them. He thereby adds interest to those + fierce struggles which took place along the border; for he shows us the + red warrior not as a mere brute with a tomahawk but as a human creature + with an ideal of his own, albeit an ideal that must give place to a + better. Even in view of the red man's hideous methods of battle and + inhuman treatment of captives, we cannot ponder unmoved Adair's + description of his preparations for war—the fasting, the abstention + from all family + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_062" id="Page_062">62</a></span> + intercourse, and the purification rites and prayers for three days in the + house set apart, while the women, who might not come close to their men in + this fateful hour, stood throughout the night till dawn chanting before + the door. Another poetic touch the author gives us, from the Cherokee—or + Cheerake as he spells it—explaining that the root, chee-ra, means + fire. A Cherokee never extinguished fire save on the occasion of a death, + when he thrust a burning torch into the water and said, <i>Neetah intahah</i>—“the + days appointed him were finished.” The warrior slain in battle was held + to have been balanced by death and it was said of him that “he was + weighed on the path and made light.” Adair writes that the Cherokees, + until corrupted by French agents and by the later class of traders who + poured rum among them like water, were honest, industrious, and friendly. + They were ready to meet the white man with their customary phrase of good + will: “I shall firmly shake hands with your speech.” He was + intimately associated with this tribe from 1735 to 1744, when he diverted + his activities to the Chickasaws. + </p> + <p> + It was from the Cherokees' chief town, Great Telliko, in the Appalachians, + that Adair explored the mountains. He describes the pass through the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_063" id="Page_063">63</a></span> chain which + was used by the Indians and which, from his outline of it, was probably + the Cumberland Gap. He relates many incidents of the struggle with the + French—manifestations even in this remote wilderness of the vast + conflict that was being waged for the New World by two imperial nations of + the Old. + </p> + <p> + Adair undertook, at the solicitation of Governor Glen of South Carolina, + the dangerous task of opening up trade with the Choctaws, a tribe + mustering upwards of five thousand warriors who were wholly in the French + interest. Their country lay in what is now the State of Mississippi along + the great river, some seven hundred miles west and southwest of + Charleston. After passing the friendly Creek towns the trail led on for + 150 miles through what was practically the enemy's country. Adair, owing + to what he likes to term his “usual good fortune,” reached the + Choctaw country safely and by his adroitness and substantial presents won + the friendship of the influential chief, Red Shoe, whom he found in a + receptive mood, owing to a French agent's breach of hospitality involving + Red Shoe's favorite wife. Adair thus created a large pro-English faction + among the Choctaws, and his success seriously impaired French prestige + with all + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_064" id="Page_064">64</a></span> + the southwestern tribes. Several times French Choctaws bribed to murder + him, waylaid Adair on the trail—twice when he was alone—only + to be baffled by the imperturbable self-possession and alert wit which + never failed him in emergencies. + </p> + <p> + Winning a Choctaw trade cost Adair, besides attacks on his life, £2200, + for which he was never reimbursed, notwithstanding Governor Glen's + agreement with him. And, on his return to Charleston, while the Governor + was detaining him “on one pretext or another,” he found that a new + expedition, which the Governor was favoring for reasons of his own, had + set out to capture his Chickasaw trade and gather in “the expected great + crop of deerskins and beaver… before I could possibly return to the + Chikkasah Country.” Nothing daunted, however, the hardy trader set out + alone. + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + In the severity of winter, frost, snow, hail and heavy rains succeed + each other in these climes, so that I partly rode and partly swam to the + Chikkasah country; for not expecting to stay long below [in Charleston] + I took no leathern canoe. Many of the broad, deep creeks… had now + overflowed their banks, ran at a rapid rate and were unpassable to any + but <em>desperate people:</em>… the rivers and swamps were + dreadful by rafts of timber driving down the former and the great fallen + trees floating in the latter.… Being forced to wade deep through + cane swamps or woody thickets, it proved very + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_065" id="Page_065">65</a></span> + troublesome to keep my + firearms dry on which, as a second means, my life depended. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Nevertheless Adair defeated the Governor's attempt to steal his trade, and + later on published the whole story in the Charleston press and sent in a + statement of his claims to the Assembly, with frank observations on His + Excellency himself. We gather that his bold disregard of High Personages + set all Charleston in an uproar! + </p> + <p> + Adair is tantalizingly modest about his own deeds. He devotes pages to + prove that an Indian rite agrees with the Book of Leviticus but only a + paragraph to an exploit of courage and endurance such as that ride and + swim for the Indian trade. We have to read between the lines to find the + man; but he well repays the search. Briefly, incidentally, he mentions + that on one trip he was captured by the French, who were so, + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + well acquainted with the great damages I had done to them and feared + others I might occasion, as to confine me a close prisoner… in + the Alebahma garrison. They were fully resolved to have sent me down to + Mobile or New Orleans as a capital criminal to be hanged… <em>but + I doubted not of being able to extricate myself some way or other.</em> + They appointed double centries over me for some days before I was to be + sent down in the French King's large boat. They were strongly charged + against + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_066" id="Page_066">66</a></span> + laying down their weapons or suffering any hostile thing to be in the + place where I was kept, as they deemed me capable of any mischief.… + About an hour before we were to set off by water I escaped from them by + land.… I took through the middle of the low land covered with + briers at full speed. I heard the French clattering on horseback along + the path… and the howling savages pursuing…, but <em>my + usual good fortune</em> enabled me to leave them far enough behind.… + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + One feels that a few of the pages given up to Leviticus might well have + been devoted to a detailed account of this escape from “double centries” + and a fortified garrison, and the plunge through the tangled wilds, by a + man without gun or knife or supplies, and who for days dared not show + himself upon the trail. + </p> + <p> + There is too much of “my usual good fortune” in Adair's narrative; + such luck as his argues for extraordinary resources in the man. Sometimes + we discover only through one phrase on a page that he must himself have + been the hero of an event he relates in the third person. This seems to be + the case in the affair of Priber, which was the worst of those “damages” + Adair did to the French. Priber was “a gentleman of curious and + speculative temper” sent by the French in 1736 to Great Telliko to win + the Cherokees to their interest. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_067" id="Page_067">67</a></span> + At this time Adair was trading with the + Cherokees. He relates that Priber, + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + more effectually to answer the design of his commission… ate, + drank, slept, danced, dressed, and painted himself with the Indians, so + that it was not easy to distinguish him from the natives,—he + married also with them, and being endued with a strong understanding and + retentive memory he soon learned their dialect, and by gradual advances + impressed them with a very ill opinion of the English, representing them + as fraudulent, avaritious and encroaching people; he at the same time + inflated the artless savages with a prodigious high opinion of their own + importance in the American scale of power.… Having thus infected + them… he easily formed them into a nominal republican government—crowned + their old Archi-magus emperor after a pleasing new savage form, and + invented a variety of high-sounding titles for all the members of his + imperial majesty's red court. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Priber cemented the Cherokee empire “by slow but sure degrees to the + very great danger of our southern colonies.” His position was that of + Secretary of State and as such, with a studiedly provocative arrogance, he + carried on correspondence with the British authorities. The colonial + Government seems, on this occasion, to have listened to the traders and to + have realized that Priber was a danger, for soldiers were sent to take him + prisoner. The Cherokees, however, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_068" id="Page_068">68</a></span> + had so firmly “shaked hands” with their + Secretary's admired discourse that they threatened to take the warpath if + their beloved man were annoyed, and the soldiers went home without him—to + the great hurt of English prestige. The Cherokee empire had now endured + for five years and was about to rise “into a far greater state of + puissance by the acquisition of the Muskohge, Chocktaw and the Western + Mississippi Indians,” when fortunately for the history of British + colonization in America, “an accident befell the Secretary.” + </p> + <p> + It is in connection with this “accident” that the reader suspects the + modest but resourceful Adair of conniving with Fate. Since the military + had failed and the Government dared not again employ force, other means + must be found; the trader provided them. The Secretary with his Cherokee + bodyguard journeyed south on his mission to the Creeks. Secure, as he + supposed, he lodged overnight in an Indian town. But there a company of + English traders took him into custody, along with his bundle of + manuscripts presumably intended for the French commandant at Fort Alabama, + and handed him over to the Governor of Georgia, who imprisoned him and + kept him out of mischief till he died. + </p> + <p> + As a Briton, Adair contributed to Priber's fate; + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_069" id="Page_069">69</a></span> + and as such he approves it. As a + scholar with philosophical and ethnological leanings, however, he deplores + it, and hopes that Priber's valuable manuscripts may “escape the + despoiling hands of military power.” Priber had spent his leisure in + compiling a Cherokee dictionary; Adair's occupation, while domiciled in + his winter house in Great Telliko, was the writing of his Indian Appendix + to the Pentateuch. As became brothers in science, they had exchanged + notes, so we gather from Adair's references to conversations and + correspondence. Adair's difficulties as an author, however, had been + increased by a treacherous lapse from professional etiquette on the part + of the Secretary: “He told them [the Indians] that in the very same + manner as he was their great Secretary, I was the devil's clerk, or an + accursed one who marked on paper the bad speech of the evil ones of + darkness.” On his own part Adair admits that his object in this + correspondence was to trap the Secretary into something more serious than + literary errata. That is, he admits it by implication; he says the + Secretary “feared” it. During the years of their duel, Adair + apparently knew that the scholarly compiler of the Cherokee dictionary was + secretly inciting members of this particular Lost Tribe to tomahawk the + discoverer of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_070" id="Page_070">70</a></span> + their biblical origin; and Priber, it would seem, knew that he knew! + </p> + <p> + Adair shows, inferentially, that land encroachment was not the sole cause + of those Indian wars with which we shall deal in a later chapter. The + earliest causes were the instigations of the French and the rewards which + they offered for English scalps. But equally provocative of Indian rancor + were the acts of sometimes merely stupid, sometimes dishonest, officials; + the worst of these, Adair considered, was the cheapening of the trade + through the granting of general licenses. + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noident"> + Formerly each trader had a license for two [Indian] towns.… At my + first setting out among them, a number of traders… journeyed + through our various nations in different companies and were generally + men of worth; of course they would have a living price for their goods, + which they carried on horseback to the remote Indian countries at very + great expences.… [The Indians] were kept under proper restraint, + were easy in their minds and peaceable on account of the plain, honest + lessons daily inculcated on them… but according to the present + unwise plan, two and even three Arablike peddlars sculk about in one of + those villages… who are generally the dregs and offs-courings of + our climes… by inebriating the Indians with their nominally + prohibited and poisoning spirits, they purchase the necessaries of life + at four and five hundred per cent + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_071" id="Page_071">71</a></span> + cheaper than the orderly traders.… + Instead of showing good examples of moral conduct, beside the other part + of life, they instruct the unknowing and imitating savages in many + diabolical lessons of obscenity and blasphemy. + </p> + </blockquote> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + In these statements, contemporary records bear him out. There is no sadder + reading than the many pleas addressed by the Indian chiefs to various + officials to stop the importation of liquor into their country, alleging + the debauchment of their young men and warning the white man, with whom + they desired to be friends, that in an Indian drink and blood lust quickly + combined. + </p> + <p> + Adair's book was published in London in 1775. He wrote it to be read by + Englishmen as well as Americans; and some of his reflections on liberty, + justice, and Anglo-Saxon unity would not sound unworthily today. His + sympathies were with “the principles of our Magna Charta Americana”; + but he thought the threatened division of the English-speaking peoples the + greatest evil that could befall civilization. His voluminous work + discloses a man not only of wide mental outlook but a practical man with a + sense of commercial values. Yet, instead of making a career for himself + among his own caste, he made his home for over thirty years + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_072" id="Page_072">72</a></span> in the + Chickasaw towns; and it is plain that, with the exception of some of his + older brother traders, he preferred the Chickasaw to any other society. + </p> + <p> + The complete explanation of such men as Adair we need not expect to find + stated anywhere—not even in and between the lines of his book. The + conventionalist would seek it in moral obliquity; the radical, in a + temperament that is irked by the superficialities that comprise so large a + part of conventional standards. The reason for his being what he was is + almost the only thing Adair did not analyze in his book. Perhaps, to him, + it was self evident. We may let it be so to us, and see it most clearly + presented in a picture composed from some of his brief sketches: A land of + grass and green shade inset with bright waters, where deer and domestic + cattle herded together along the banks; a circling group of houses, their + white-clayed walls sparkling under the sun's rays, and, within and + without, the movement of “a friendly and sagacious people,” who “kindly + treated and watchfully guarded” their white brother in peace and war, + and who conversed daily with him in the Old Beloved Speech learned first + of Nature. “Like towers in cities beyond the common size of those of the + Indians” rose the winter and summer houses + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_073" id="Page_073">73</a></span> + and the huge trading house which + the tribe had built for their best beloved friend in the town's center, + because there he would be safest from attack. On the rafters hung the + smoked and barbecued delicacies taken in the hunt and prepared for him by + his red servants, who were also his comrades at home and on the dangerous + trail. “Beloved old women” kept an eye on his small sons, put to + drowse on panther skins so that they might grow up brave warriors. Nothing + was there of artifice or pretense, only “the needful things to make a + reasonable life happy.” All was as primitive, naive, and contented as + the woman whose outline is given once in a few strokes, proudly and gayly + penciled: “I have the pleasure of writing this by the side of a + Chikkasah female, as great a princess as ever lived among the ancient + Peruvians or Mexicans, and she bids me be sure not to mark the paper wrong + after the manner of most of the traders; otherwise it will spoil the + making good bread or homony!” + </p> + <p> + His final chapter is the last news of James Adair, type of the earliest + trader. Did his bold attacks on corrupt officials and rum peddlers—made + publicly before Assemblies and in print—raise for him a dense cloud + of enmity that dropped oblivion + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_074" id="Page_074">74</a></span> + on his memory? Perhaps. But, in truth, his own + book is all the history of him we need. It is the record of a man. He + lived a full life and served his day; and it matters not that a mist + envelops the place where unafraid he met the Last Enemy, was “weighed on + the path and made light.” + </p> + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter04" id="Chapter04"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_075" id="Page_075">75</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER IV.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">The Passing Of The French Peril</p> + + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">The</span> great pile of the Appalachian peaks was not + the only barrier which held back the settler with his plough and his rifle + from following the trader's tinkling caravans into the valleys beyond. + Over the hills the French were lords of the land. The frontiersman had + already felt their enmity through the torch and tomahawk of their savage + allies. By his own strength alone he could not cope with the power + entrenched beyond the hills; so he halted. But that power, by its + unachievable desire to be overlord of two hemispheres, was itself to + precipitate events which would open the westward road. + </p> + <p> + The recurring hour in the cycle of history, when the issue of Autocracy + against Democracy cleaves the world, struck for the men of the eighteenth + century as the second half of that century dawned. In our own day, + happily, that issue has been perceived by the rank and file of the people. + In + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_076" id="Page_076">76</a></span> + those darker days, as France and England grappled in that conflict of + systems which culminated in the Seven Years' War, the fundamental + principles at stake were clear to only a handful of thinking men. + </p> + <p> + But abstractions, whether clear or obscure, do not cause ambassadors to + demand their passports. The declaration of war awaits the overt act. + Behold, then, how great a matter is kindled by a little fire! The <i>casus + belli</i> between France and England in the Seven Years' War—the war + which humbled France in Europe and lost her India and Canada—had to + do with a small log fort built by a few Virginians in 1754 at the Forks of + the Ohio River and wrested from them in the same year by a company of + Frenchmen from Canada. + </p> + <p> + The French claimed the valley of the Ohio as their territory; the English + claimed it as theirs. The dispute was of long standing. The French claim + was based on discovery; the English claim, on the sea-to-sea charters of + Virginia and other colonies and on treaties with the Six Nations. The + French refused to admit the right of the Six Nations to dispose of the + territory. The English were inclined to maintain the validity of their + treaties with the Indians. Especially was Virginia so + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_077" id="Page_077">77</a></span> + inclined, for a large share of + the Ohio lay within her chartered domain. + </p> + <p> + The quarrel had entered its acute phase in 1749, when both the rival + claimants took action to assert their sovereignty. The Governor of Canada + sent an envoy, Céloron de Blainville, with soldiers, to take formal + possession of the Ohio for the King of France. In the same year the + English organized in Virginia the Ohio Company for the colonization of the + same country; and summoned Christopher Gist, explorer, trader, and guide, + from his home on the Yadkin and dispatched him to survey the land. + </p> + <p> + Then appeared on the scene that extraordinary man, Robert Dinwiddie, + Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, erstwhile citizen of Glasgow. His + correspondence from Virginia during his seven years' tenure of office + (1751-58) depicts the man with a vividness surpassing paint. He was as + honest as the day—as honest as he was fearless and fussy. But he had + no patience; he wanted things done and done at once, and his way was <em>the</em> + way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't <em>think</em> + at all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course + continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_078" id="Page_078">78</a></span> + Dinwiddie had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his + addresses, perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, bristled with + satirical thrusts at his opponents. If he had spelled out in full all the + words he was so eager to write, he would have been obliged to lessen his + output; so he used a shorthand system of his own, peculiar enough to be + remarkable even though abbreviations were the rule in that day. Even the + dignity of Kings he sacrificed to speed, and we find “His + Majesty” abbreviated to “H M'y”; yet a smaller luminary + known as “His Honor” fares better, losing only the last + letter—“His Hono.” “Ho.” stands for + “house” and “yt” for “that,” + “what,” “it,” and “anything else,” + as convenient. Many of his letters wind up with “I am ve'y much + fatig'd.” We know that he must have been! + </p> + <p> + It was a formidable task that confronted Dinwiddie—to possess and + defend the Ohio. Christopher Gist returned in 1751, having surveyed the + valley for the Ohio Company as far as the Scioto and Miami rivers, and in + the following year the survey was ratified by the Indians. The Company's + men were busy blazing trails through the territory and building fortified + posts. But the French dominated the territory. They had built + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_079" id="Page_079">79</a></span> and occupied + with troops Fort Le Bœuf on French Creek, a stream flowing into the + Allegheny. We may imagine Dinwiddie's rage at this violation of British + soil by French soldiers and how he must have sputtered to the young George + Washington, when he summoned that officer and made him the bearer of a + letter to the French commander at Fort Le Bœuf, to demand that + French troops be at once withdrawn from the Ohio. + </p> + <p> + Washington made the journey to Fort Le Bœuf in December, 1753, but + the mission of course proved fruitless. Dinwiddie then wrote to London + urging that a force be sent over to help the colonies maintain their + rights and, under orders from the Crown, suggested by himself, he wrote to + the governors of all the other colonies to join with Virginia in raising + troops to settle the ownership of the disputed territory. From Governor + Dobbs of North Carolina he received an immediate response. By means of + logic, sarcasm, and the entire force of his prerogatives, Dinwiddie + secured from his own balking Assembly £10,000 with which to raise + troops. From Maryland he obtained nothing. There were three prominent + Marylanders in the Ohio Company, but—or because of this—the + Maryland Assembly voted down the measure for + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_080" id="Page_080">80</a></span> + a military appropriation. On + June 18, 1754, Dinwiddie wrote, with unusually full spelling for him: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + I am perswaded had His Majesty's Com'ds to the other Colonies been duely + obey'd, and the necessary Assistance given by them, the Fr. wou'd have + long ago have been oblig'd entirely to have evacuated their usurp'd + Possession of the King's Lands, instead of w'ch they are daily becoming + more formidable, whilst every Gov't except No. Caro. has amus'd me with + Expectations that have proved fruitless, and at length refuse to give + any Supply, unless in such a manner as must render it ineffectual. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + This saddened mood with its deliberate penmanship did not last long. + Presently Dinwiddie was making a Round Robin of himself in another series + of letters to Governors, Councilors, and Assemblymen, frantically + beseeching them for “H. M'y's hono.” and their own, and, if not, for + “post'r'ty,” to rise against the cruel French whose Indians were + harrying the borders again and “Basely, like Virmin, stealing and + carrying off the helpless infant”—as nice a simile, by the way, + as any Sheridan ever put into the mouth of Mrs. Malaprop. + </p> + <p> + Dinwiddie saw his desires thwarted on every hand by the selfish spirit of + localism and jealousy which was more rife in America in those days than it + is today. Though the phrase “capitalistic war” + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_081" id="Page_081">81</a></span> + had not yet been coined, the + great issues of English civilization on this continent were befogged, for + the majority in the colonies, by the trivial fact that the shareholders in + the Ohio Company stood to win by a vigorous prosecution of the war and to + lose if it were not prosecuted at all. The irascible Governor, however, + proceeded with such men and means as he could obtain. + </p> + <p> + And now in the summer of 1754 came the “overt act” which precipitated + the inevitable war. The key to the valley of the Ohio was the tongue of + land at the Forks, where the Allegheny and the Monongahela join their + waters in the Beautiful River. This site—today Pittsburgh—if + occupied and held by either nation would give that nation the command of + the Ohio. Occupied it was for a brief hour by a small party of Virginians, + under Captain William Trent; but no sooner had they erected on the spot a + crude fort than the French descended upon them. What happened then all the + world knows: how the French built on the captured site their great Fort + Duquesne; how George Washington with an armed force, sent by Dinwiddie to + recapture the place, encountered French and Indians at Great Meadows and + built Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to surrender; + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_082" id="Page_082">82</a></span> + how in the next year (1755) General Braddock arrived from across the sea + and set out to take Fort Duquesne, only to meet on the way the disaster + called “Braddock's Defeat”; and how, before another year had + passed, the Seven Years' War was raging in Europe, and England was allied + with the enemies of France. + </p> + <p> + From the midst of the debacle of Braddock's defeat rises the figure of the + young Washington. Twenty-three he was then, tall and spare and hardbodied + from a life spent largely in the open. When Braddock fell, this Washington + appeared. Reckless of the enemy's bullets, which spanged about him and + pierced his clothes, he dashed up and down the lines in an effort to rally + the panic-stricken redcoats. He was too late to save the day, but not to + save a remnant of the army and bring out his own Virginians in good order. + Whether among the stay-at-homes and voters of credits there were some who + would have ascribed Washington's conduct on that day to the fact that his + brothers were large shareholders in the Ohio Company and that Fort + Duquesne was their personal property or "private interest," history does + not say. We may suppose so. + </p> + <p> + North Carolina, the one colony which had not + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_083" id="Page_083">83</a></span> + “amus'd” the Governor of Virginia “with Expectations + that proved fruitless,” had voted £12,000 for the war and had + raised two companies of troops. One of these, under Edward Brice Dobbs, + son of Governor Dobbs, marched with Braddock; and in that company as + wagoner went Daniel Boone, then in his twenty-second year. Of Boone's part + in Braddock's campaign nothing more is recorded save that on the march he + made friends with John Findlay, the trader, his future guide into + Kentucky; and that, on the day of the defeat, when his wagons were + surrounded, he escaped by slashing the harness, leaping on the back of one + of his horses, and dashing into the forest. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Meanwhile the southern tribes along the border were comparatively quiet. + That they well knew a colossal struggle between the two white races was + pending and were predisposed to ally themselves with the stronger is not + to be doubted. French influence had long been sifting through the + formidable Cherokee nation, which still, however, held true in the main to + its treaties with the English. It was the policy of the Governors of + Virginia and North Carolina to induce the Cherokees to enter strongly into + the war as allies of the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_084" id="Page_084">84</a></span> + English. Their efforts came to nothing chiefly + because of the purely local and suicidal Indian policy of Governor Glen of + South Carolina. There had been some dispute between Glen and Dinwiddie as + to the right of Virginia to trade with the Cherokees; and Glen had sent to + the tribes letters calculated to sow distrust of all other aspirants for + Indian favor, even promising that certain settlers in the Back Country of + North Carolina should be removed and their holdings restored to the + Indians. These letters caused great indignation in North Carolina, when + they came to light, and had the worst possible effect upon Indian + relations. The Indians now inclined their ear to the French who, though + fewer than the English, were at least united in purpose. + </p> + <p> + Governor Glen took this inauspicious moment to hold high festival with the + Cherokees. It was the last year of his administration and apparently he + hoped to win promotion to some higher post by showing his achievements for + the fur trade and in the matter of new land acquired. He plied the + Cherokees with drink and induced them to make formal submission and to + cede all their lands to the Crown. When the chiefs recovered their + sobriety, they were filled with rage at what had been done, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_085" id="Page_085">85</a></span> and they + remembered how the French had told them that the English intended to make + slaves of all the Indians and to steal their lands. The situation was + complicated by another incident. Several Cherokee warriors returning from + the Ohio, whither they had gone to fight for the British, were slain by + frontiersmen. The tribe, in accordance with existing agreements, applied + to Virginia for redress—but received none. + </p> + <p> + There was thus plenty of powder for an explosion. Governor Lyttleton, + Glen's successor, at last flung the torch into the magazine. He seized, as + hostages, a number of friendly chiefs who were coming to Charleston to + offer tokens of good will and forced them to march under guard on a + military tour which the Governor was making (1759) with intent to overawe + the savages. When this expedition reached Prince George, on the upper + waters of the Savannah, the Indian hostages were confined within the fort; + and the Governor, satisfied with the result of his maneuver departed south + for Charleston. Then followed a tragedy. Some Indian friends of the + imprisoned chiefs attacked the fort, and the commander, a popular young + officer, was treacherously killed during a parley. The infuriated + frontiersmen within the fort fell upon the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_086" id="Page_086">86</a></span> + hostages and slew them all—twenty-six + chiefs—and the Indian war was on. + </p> + <p> + If all were to be told of the struggle which followed in the Back Country, + the story could not be contained in this book. Many brave and resourceful + men went out against the savages. We can afford only a passing glance at + one of them. Hugh Waddell of North Carolina was the most brilliant of all + the frontier fighters in that war. He was a young Ulsterman from County + Down, a born soldier, with a special genius for fighting Indians, although + he did not grow up on the border, for he arrived in North Carolina in + 1753, at the age of nineteen. He was appointed by Governor Dobbs to + command the second company which North Carolina had raised for the war, a + force of 450 rangers to protect the border counties; and he presently + became the most conspicuous military figure in the colony. As to his + personality, we have only a few meager details, with a portrait that + suggests plainly enough those qualities of boldness and craft which + characterized his tactics. Governor Dobbs appears to have had a special + love towards Hugh, whose family he had known in Ireland, for an + undercurrent of almost fatherly pride is to be found in the old Governor's + reports to the Assembly concerning Waddell's exploits. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_087" id="Page_087">87</a></span> The + terror raged for nearly three years. Cabins and fields were burned, and + women and children were slaughtered or dragged away captives. Not only did + immigration cease but many hardy settlers fled from the country. At + length, after horrors indescribable and great toll of life, the Cherokees + gave up the struggle. Their towns were invaded and laid waste by imperial + and colonial troops, and they could do nothing but make peace. In 1761 + they signed a treaty with the English to hold “while rivers flow and + grasses grow and sun and moon endure.” + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + In the previous year (1760) the imperial war had run its course in + America. New France lay prostrate, and the English were supreme not only + on the Ohio but on the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. Louisbourg, + Quebec, Montreal, Oswego, Niagara, Duquesne, Detroit—all were in + English hands. + </p> + <p> + Hugh Waddell and his rangers, besides serving with distinction in the + Indian war, had taken part in the capture of Fort Duquesne. This feat had + been accomplished in 1758 by an expedition under General Forbes. The + troops made a terrible march over a new route, cutting a road as they + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_088" id="Page_088">88</a></span> went. + It was November when they approached their objective. The wastes of snow + and their diminished supplies caused such depression among the men that + the officers called a halt to discuss whether or not to proceed toward + Fort Duquesne, where they believed the French to be concentrated in force. + Extravagant sums in guineas were named as suitable reward for any man who + would stalk and catch a French Indian and learn from him the real + conditions inside the fort. The honor, if not the guineas, fell to John + Rogers, one of Waddell's rangers. From the Indian it was learned that the + French had already gone, leaving behind only a few of their number. As the + English drew near, they found that the garrison had blown up the magazine, + set fire to the fort, and made off. + </p> + <p> + Thus, while New France was already tottering, but nearly two years before + the final capitulation at Montreal, the English again became masters of + the Ohio Company's land—masters of the Forks of the Ohio. This time + they were there to stay. Where the walls of Fort Duquesne had crumbled in + the fire Fort Pitt was to rise, proudly bearing the name of England's + Great Commoner who had directed English arms to victory on three + continents. + </p> + <p> + With France expelled and the Indians deprived + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_089" id="Page_089">89</a></span> + of their white allies, the + westward path lay open to the pioneers, even though the red man himself + would rise again and again in vain endeavor to bar the way. So a new era + begins, the era of exploration for definite purpose, the era of + commonwealth building. In entering on it, we part with the earliest + pioneer—the trader, who first opened the road for both the lone home + seeker and the great land company. He dwindles now to the mere barterer + and so—save for a few chance glimpses—slips out of sight, for + his brave days as Imperial Scout are done. + </p> + + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter05" id="Chapter05"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_090" id="Page_090">90</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER V.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">Boone, The Wanderer</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">What</span> thoughts filled Daniel Boone's mind as he + was returning from Braddock's disastrous campaign in 1755 we may only + conjecture. Perhaps he was planning a career of soldiering, for in later + years he was to distinguish himself as a frontier commander in both + defense and attack. Or it may be that his heart was full of the wondrous + tales told him by the trader, John Findlay, of that Hunter's Canaan, + Kentucky, where buffalo and deer roamed in thousands. Perhaps he meant to + set out ere long in search of the great adventure of his dreams, despite + the terrible dangers of trail making across the zones of war into the + unknown. + </p> + <p> + However that may be, Boone straightway followed neither of these possible + plans on his return to the Yadkin but halted for a different adventure. + There, a rifle shot's distance from his threshold, was offered him the + oldest and sweetest of all + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_091" id="Page_091">91</a></span> + hazards to the daring. He was twenty-two, + strong and comely and a whole man; and therefore he was in no mind to + refuse what life held out to him in the person of Rebecca Bryan. Rebecca + was the daughter of Joseph Bryan, who had come to the Yadkin from + Pennsylvania some time before the Boones; and she was in her seventeenth + year. + </p> + <p> + Writers of an earlier and more sentimental period than ours have + endeavored to supply, from the saccharine stores of their fancy, the + romantic episodes connected with Boone's wooing which history has omitted + to record. Hence the tale that the young hunter, walking abroad in the + spring gloaming, saw Mistress Rebecca's large dark eyes shining in the + dusk of the forest, mistook them for a deer's eyes and shot—his aim + on this occasion fortunately being bad! But if Boone's rifle was missing + its mark at ten paces, Cupid's dart was speeding home. So runs the story + concocted a hundred years later by some gentle scribe ignorant alike of + game seasons, the habits of hunters, and the way of a man with a maid in a + primitive world. + </p> + <p> + Daniel and Rebecca were married in the spring of 1756. Squire Boone, in + his capacity as justice of the peace, tied the knot; and in a small cabin + built upon his spacious lands the young couple + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_092" id="Page_092">92</a></span> + set up housekeeping. Here + Daniel's first two sons were born. In the third year of his marriage, when + the second child was a babe in arms, Daniel removed with his wife and + their young and precious family to Culpeper County in eastern Virginia, + for the border was going through its darkest days of the French and Indian + War. During the next two or three years we find him in Virginia engaged as + a wagoner, hauling tobacco in season; but back on the border with his + rifle, after the harvest, aiding in defense against the Indians. In 1759 + he purchased from his father a lot on Sugar Tree Creek, a tributary of + Dutchman's Creek (Davie County, North Carolina) and built thereon a cabin + for himself. The date when he brought his wife and children to live in + their new abode on the border is not recorded. It was probably some time + after the close of the Indian War. Of Boone himself during these years we + have but scant information. We hear of him again in Virginia and also as a + member of the pack-horse caravan which brought into the Back Country the + various necessaries for the settlers. We know, too, that in the fall of + 1760 he was on a lone hunting trip in the mountains west of the Yadkin; + for until a few years ago there might be seen, still standing on the banks + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_093" id="Page_093">93</a></span> of + Boone's Creek (a small tributary of the Watauga) in eastern Tennessee, a + tree bearing the legend, “D Boon cilled A BAR on this tree 1760.” + Boone was always fond of carving his exploits on trees, and his wanderings + have been traced largely by his arboreal publications. In the next year + (1761) he went with Waddell's rangers when they marched with the army to + the final subjugation of the Cherokee. + </p> + <p> + That Boone and his family were back on the border in the new cabin shortly + after the end of the war, we gather from the fact that in 1764 he took his + little son James, aged seven, on one of his long hunting excursions. From + this time dates the intimate comradeship of father and son through all the + perils of the wilderness, a comradeship to come to its tragic end ten + years later when, as we shall see, the seventeen-year-old lad fell under + the red man's tomahawk as his father was leading the first settlers + towards Kentucky. In the cold nights of the open camp, as Daniel and James + lay under the frosty stars, the father kept the boy warm snuggled to his + breast under the broad flap of his hunting shirt. Sometimes the two were + away from home for months together, and Daniel declared little James to be + as good a woodsman as his father. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_094" id="Page_094">94</a></span> + Meanwhile fascinating accounts of the new land of Florida, ceded to + Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, had leaked into the Back Country; + and in the winter of 1765 Boone set off southward on horseback with seven + companions. Colonel James Grant, with whose army Boone had fought in 1761, + had been appointed Governor of the new colony and was offering generous + inducements to settlers. The party traveled along the borders of South + Carolina and Georgia. No doubt they made the greater part of their way + over the old Traders' Trace, the “whitened” warpath; and they + suffered severe hardships. Game became scarcer as they proceeded. Once + they were nigh to perishing of starvation and were saved from that fate + only through chance meeting with a band of Indians who, seeing their + plight, made camp and shared their food with them—according to the + Indian code in time of peace. + </p> + <p> + Boone's party explored Florida from St. Augustine to Pensacola, and Daniel + became sufficiently enamored of the tropical south to purchase there land + and a house. His wife, however, was unwilling to go to Florida, and she + was not long in convincing the hunter that he would soon tire of a + gameless country. A gameless country! Perhaps + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_095" id="Page_095">95</a></span> + this was the very thought which + turned the wanderer's desires again towards the land of Kentucky. ¹ + The silencing of the enemy's whisper in the Cherokee camps had opened the + border forests once more to the nomadic rifleman. Boone was not alone in + the desire to seek out what lay beyond. His brother-in-law, John Stewart, + and a nephew by marriage, Benjamin Cutbirth, or Cutbird, with two other + young men, John Baker and James Ward, in 1766 crossed the Appalachian + Mountains, probably by stumbling upon the Indian trail winding from base + to summit and from peak to base again over this part of the great hill + barrier. They eventually reached the Mississippi River and, having taken a + good quantity of peltry on the way, they launched upon the stream and came + in time to New Orleans, where they made a satisfactory trade of their + furs. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_95-1" name="footer_95-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_095">¹</a> + Kentucky, from Ken-ta-ke, an Iroquois word + meaning “the place of old fields.” Adair calls the territory “the + old fields.” The Indians apparently used the word “old,” as we do, + in a sense of endearment and possession as well as relative to age. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Boone was fired anew by descriptions of this successful feat, in which two + of his kinsmen had participated. He could no longer be held back. He must + find the magic door that led through the vast mountain wall into Kentucky—Kentucky, + with its green prairies where the buffalo and deer + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_096" id="Page_096">96</a></span> + were as “ten thousand thousand + cattle feeding” in the wilds, and where the balmy air vibrated with the + music of innumerable wings. + </p> + <p> + Accordingly, in the autumn of 1767, Boone began his quest of the + delectable country in the company of his friend, William Hill, who had + been with him in Florida. Autumn was the season of departure on all forest + excursions, because by that time the summer crops had been gathered in and + the day of the deer had come. By hunting, the explorers must feed + themselves on their travels and with deerskins and furs they must on their + return recompense those who had supplied their outfit. Boone, the + incessant but not always lucky wanderer, was in these years ever in debt + for an outfit. + </p> + <p> + Boone and Hill made their way over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies and + crossed the Holston and Clinch rivers. Then they came upon the west fork + of the Big Sandy and, believing that it would lead them to the Ohio, they + continued for at least a hundred miles to the westward. Here they found a + buffalo trace, one of the many beaten out by the herds in their passage to + the salt springs, and they followed it into what is now Floyd County in + eastern Kentucky. But this was not the prairie land described by Findlay; + it was rough and hilly + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_097" id="Page_097">97</a></span> + and so overgrown with laurel as to be almost impenetrable. They therefore + wended their way back towards the river, doubtless erected the usual + hunter's camp of skins or blankets and branches, and spent the winter in + hunting and trapping. Spring found them returning to their homes on the + Yadkin with a fair winter's haul. + </p> + <p> + <a name="Page_097-T1" id="Page_097-T1"></a> Such urgent desire as Boone's, + however, was not to be defeated. The next year brought him his great + opportunity. John Findlay came to the Yadkin with a horse pack of needles + and linen and peddler's wares to tempt the slim purses of the Back Country + folk. The two erstwhile comrades in arms were overjoyed to encounter each + other again, and Findlay spent the winter of 1768-69 in Boone's cabin. + While the snow lay deep outside and good-smelling logs crackled on the + hearth, they planned an expedition into Kentucky through the Gap where + Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky touch one another, which Findlay felt + confident he could find. Findlay had learned of this route from + cross-mountain traders in 1753, when he had descended the Ohio to the site + of Louisville, whence he had gone with some Shawanoes as a prisoner to + their town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki or Blue Licks. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_97-1" name="footer_97-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_097-T1">¹</a> + Hanna, <i>The Wilderness Trail,</i> vol. II, pp. 215-16. + </p> + </div> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_098" id="Page_098">98</a></span> On the + first day of May, 1769, Boone and Findlay, accompanied by John Stewart and + three other venturesome spirits, Joseph Holden, James Mooney, and William + Cooley, took horse for the fabled land. Passing through the Cumberland + Gap, they built their first camp in Kentucky on the Red Lick fork of + Station Camp Creek. + </p> + <p> + This camp was their base of operations. From it, usually in couples, we + infer, the explorers branched out to hunt and to take their observations + of the country. Here also they prepared the deer and buffalo meat for the + winter, dried or smoked the geese they shot in superabundance, made the + tallow and oil needed to keep their weapons in trim, their leather soft, + and their kits waterproof. Their first ill luck befell them in December + when Boone and Stewart were captured by a band of Shawanoes who were + returning from their autumn hunt on Green River. The Indians compelled the + two white men to show them the location of their camp, took possession of + all it contained in skins and furs and also helped themselves to the + horses. They left the explorers with just enough meat and ammunition to + provide for their journey homeward, and told them to depart and not to + intrude again on the red men's hunting + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_099" id="Page_099">99</a></span> + grounds. Having given this + pointed warning, the Shawanoes rode on northward towards their towns + beyond the Ohio. On foot, swiftly and craftily, Boone and his + brother-in-law trailed the band for two days. They came upon the camp in + dead of night, recaptured their horses, and fled. But this was a game in + which the Indians themselves excelled, and at this date the Shawanoes had + an advantage over Boone in their thorough knowledge of the territory; so + that within forty-eight hours the white men were once more prisoners. + After they had amused themselves by making Boone caper about with a horse + bell on his neck, while they jeered at him in broken English, “Steal + horse, eh?” the Shawanoes turned north again, this time taking the two + unfortunate hunters with them. Boone and Stewart escaped, one day on the + march, by a plunge into the thick tall canebrake. Though the Indians did + not attempt to follow them through the mazes of the cane, the situation of + the two hunters, without weapons or food, was serious enough. When they + found Station Camp deserted and realized that their four companions had + given them up for dead or lost and had set off on the trail for home, even + such intrepid souls as theirs may have felt fear. They raced on in pursuit + and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> + fortunately fell in not only with their party but with Squire Boone, + Daniel's brother, and Alexander Neely, who had brought in fresh supplies + of rifles, ammunition, flour, and horses. + </p> + <p> + After this lucky encounter the group separated. Findlay was ill, and + Holden, Mooney, and Cooley had had their fill of Kentucky; but Squire, + Neely, Stewart, and Daniel were ready for more adventures. Daniel, too, + felt under the positive necessity of putting in another year at hunting + and trapping in order to discharge his debts and provide for his family. + Near the mouth of Red River the new party built their station camp. Here, + in idle hours, Neely read aloud from a copy of <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> + to entertain the hunters while they dressed their deerskins or tinkered + their weapons. In honor of the “Lorbrulgrud” of the book, though with + a pronunciation all their own, they christened the nearest creek; and as + “Lulbegrud Creek” it is still known. + </p> + <p> + Before the end of the winter the two Boones were alone in the wilderness. + Their brother-in-law, Stewart, had disappeared; and Neely, discouraged by + this tragic event, had returned to the Yadkin. In May, Squire Boone fared + forth, taking with him the season's catch of beaver, otter, and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> deerskins + to exchange in the North Carolinian trading houses for more supplies; and + Daniel was left solitary in Kentucky. + </p> + <p> + Now followed those lonely explorations which gave Daniel Boone his special + fame above all Kentucky's pioneers. He was by no means the first white man + to enter Kentucky; and when he did enter, it was as one of a party, under + another man's guidance—if we except his former disappointing journey + into the laurel thickets of Floyd County. But these others, barring + Stewart, who fell there, turned back when they met with loss and hardship + and measured the certain risks against the possible gains. Boone, the man + of imagination, turned to wild earth as to his kin. His genius lay in the + sense of oneness he felt with his wilderness environment. An instinct he + had which these other men, as courageous perhaps as he, did not possess. + </p> + <p> + Never in all the times when he was alone in the woods and had no other + man's safety or counsel to consider, did he suffer ill fortune. The + nearest approach to trouble that befell him when alone occurred one day + during this summer when some Indians emerged from their green shelter and + found him, off guard for the moment, standing on a cliff gazing with + rapture over the vast rolling + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> + stretches of Kentucky. He was apparently cut + off from escape, for the savages were on three sides, advancing without + haste to take him, meanwhile greeting him with mock amity. Over the cliff + leaped Boone and into the outspread arms of a friendly maple, whose top + bloomed green about sixty feet below the cliff's rim, and left his + would-be captors on the height above, grunting their amazement. + </p> + <p> + During this summer Boone journeyed through the valleys of the Kentucky and + the Licking. He followed the buffalo traces to the two Blue Licks and saw + the enormous herds licking up the salt earth, a darkly ruddy moving mass + of beasts whose numbers could not be counted. For many miles he wound + along the Ohio, as far as the Falls. He also found the Big Bone Lick with + its mammoth fossils. + </p> + <p> + In July, 1770, Daniel returned to the Red River camp and there met Squire + Boone with another pack of supplies. The two brothers continued their + hunting and exploration together for some months, chiefly in Jessamine + County, where two caves still bear Boone's name. In that winter they even + braved the Green River ground, whence had come the hunting Shawanoes who + had taken Daniel's + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> + first fruits a year before. In the same year (1770) there had come into + Kentucky from the Yadkin another party of hunters, called, from their + lengthy sojourn in the twilight zone, the Long Hunters. One of these, + Gasper Mansker, afterwards related how the Long Hunters were startled one + day by hearing sounds such as no buffalo or turkey ever made, and how + Mansker himself stole silently under cover of the trees towards the place + whence the strange noises came, and descried Daniel Boone prone on his + back with a deerskin under him, his famous tall black hat beside him and + his mouth opened wide in joyous but apparently none too tuneful song. This + incident gives a true character touch. It is not recorded of any of the + men who turned back that they sang alone in the wilderness. + </p> + <p> + In March, 1771, the two Boones started homeward, their horses bearing the + rich harvest of furs and deerskins which was to clear Daniel of debt and + to insure the comfort of the family he had not seen for two years. But + again evil fortune met them, this time in the very gates—for in the + Cumberland Gap they were suddenly surrounded by Indians who took + everything from them, leaving them neither guns nor horses. + </p> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter06" id="Chapter06"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER VI.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">The Fight For Kentucky</p> + + + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">When</span> Boone returned home he found the Back + Country of North Carolina in the throes of the Regulation Movement. This + movement, which had arisen first from the colonists' need to police their + settlements, had more recently assumed a political character. The + Regulators were now in conflict with the authorities, because the frontier + folk were suffering through excessive taxes, extortionate fees, dishonest + land titles, and the corruption of the courts. In May, 1771, the conflict + lost its quasi-civil nature. The Regulators resorted to arms and were + defeated by the forces under Governor Tryon in the Battle of the Alamance. + </p> + <p> + The Regulation Movement, which we shall follow in more detail further on, + was a culmination of those causes of unrest which turned men westward. To + escape from oppression and to acquire land + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> + beyond the bounds of tyranny + became the earnest desire of independent spirits throughout the Back + Country. But there was another and more potent reason why the country east + of the mountains no longer contented Boone. Hunting and trapping were + Boone's chief means of livelihood. In those days, deerskins sold for a + dollar a skin to the traders at the Forks or in Hillsborough; beaver at + about two dollars and a half, and otter at from three to five dollars. A + pack-horse could carry a load of one hundred dressed deerskins, and, as + currency was scarce, a hundred dollars was wealth. Game was fast + disappearing from the Yadkin. To Boone above all men, then, Kentucky + beckoned. When he returned in the spring of 1771 from his explorations, it + was with the resolve to take his family at once into the great game + country and to persuade some of his friends to join in this hazard of new + fortunes. + </p> + <p> + The perils of such a venture, only conjectural to us at this distance, he + knew well; but in him there was nothing that shrank from danger, though he + did not court it after the rash manner of many of his compeers. Neither + reckless nor riotous, Boone was never found among those who opposed + violence to authority, even unjust authority; nor was + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> + he ever guilty of the + savagery which characterized much of the retaliatory warfare of that + period when frenzied white men bettered the red man's instruction. In him, + courage was illumined with tenderness and made equable by self-control. + Yet, though he was no fiery zealot like the Ulstermen who were to follow + him along the path he had made and who loved and revered him perhaps + because he was so different from themselves, Boone nevertheless had his + own religion. It was a simple faith best summed up perhaps by himself in + his old age when he said that he had been only an instrument in the hand + of God to open the wilderness to settlement. + </p> + <p> + Two years passed before Boone could muster a company of colonists for the + dangerous and delectable land. The dishonesty practiced by Lord + Granville's agents in the matter of deeds had made it difficult for Daniel + and his friends to dispose of their acreage. When at last in the spring of + 1773 the Wanderer was prepared to depart, he was again delayed; this time + by the arrival of a little son to whom was given the name of John. By + September, however, even this latest addition to the party was ready for + travel; and that month saw the Boones with a small caravan of families + journeying towards Powell's Valley, whence the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> + Warrior's Path took its way + through Cumberland Gap. At this point on the march they were to be joined + by William Russell, a famous pioneer, from the Clinch River, with his + family and a few neighbors, and by some of Rebecca Boone's kinsmen, the + Bryans, from the lower Yadkin, with a company of forty men. + </p> + <p> + Of Rebecca Boone history tells us too little—only that she was born + a Bryan, was of low stature and dark eyed, that she bore her husband ten + children, and lived beside him to old age. Except on his hunts and + explorations, she went with him from one cabined home to another, always + deeper into the wilds. There are no portraits of her. We can see her only + as a shadowy figure moving along the wilderness trails beside the man who + accepted his destiny of God to be a way-shower for those of lesser faith. + </p> + + <div class="poem1"> + <p class="poem1">He tires not forever on his leagues of march</p> + <p class="poem1">Because her feet are set to his footprints,</p> + <p class="poem1">And the gleam of her bare hand slants across his + shoulder.</p> + </div> + + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Boone halted his company on Walden Mountain over Powell's Valley to await + the Bryan contingent and dispatched two young men under the leadership of + his son James, then in his seventeenth year, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> + to notify Russell of the + party's arrival. As the boys were returning with Russell's son, also a + stripling, two of his slaves, and some white laborers, they missed the + path and went into camp for the night. When dawn broke, disclosing the + sleepers, a small war band of Shawanoes, who had been spying on Boone and + his party, fell upon them and slaughtered them. Only one of Russell's + slaves and a laborer escaped. The tragedy seems augmented by the fact that + the point where the boys lost the trail and made their night quarters was + hardly three miles from the main camp—to which an hour later came + the two survivors with their gloomy tidings. Terror now took hold of the + little band of emigrants, and there were loud outcries for turning back. + The Bryans, who had arrived meanwhile, also advised retreat, saying that + the “signs” about the scene of blood indicated an Indian uprising. + Daniel carried the scalped body of his son, the boy-comrade of his happy + hunts, to the camp and buried it there at the beginning of the trail. His + voice alone urged that they go on. + </p> + <p> + Fortunately indeed, as events turned out, Boone was overruled, and the + expedition was abandoned. The Bryan party and the others from North + Carolina went back to the Yadkin. Boone himself with + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> his family accompanied + Russell to the Clinch settlement, where he erected a temporary cabin on + the farm of one of the settlers, and then set out alone on the chase to + earn provision for his wife and children through the winter. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Those who prophesied an Indian war were not mistaken. When the snowy + hunting season had passed and the “Powwowing Days” were come, the + Indian war drum rattled in the medicine house from the borders of + Pennsylvania to those of Carolina. The causes of the strife for which the + red men were making ready must be briefly noted to help us form a just + opinion of the deeds that followed. Early writers have usually represented + the frontiersmen as saints in buckskin and the Indians as fiends without + the shadow of a claim on either the land or humanity. Many later writers + have merely reversed the shield. The truth is that the Indians and the + borderers reacted upon each other to the hurt of both. Paradoxically, they + grew like enough to hate one another with a savage hatred—and both + wanted the land. + </p> + <p> + Land! Land! was the slogan of all sorts and conditions of men. Tidewater + officials held solemn powwows with the chiefs, gave wampum strings, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> and + forthwith incorporated. ¹ Chiefs blessed their white brothers who had + “forever brightened the chain of friendship,” departed home, and + proceeded to brighten the blades of their tomahawks and to await, not + long, the opportunity to use them on casual hunters who carried in their + kits the compass, the “land-stealer.” Usually the surveying hunter + was a borderer; and on him the tomahawk descended with an accelerated + gusto. Private citizens also formed land companies and sent out surveyors, + regardless of treaties. Bold frontiersmen went into No Man's Land and + staked out their claims. In the very year when disaster turned the Boone + party back, James Harrod had entered Kentucky from Pennsylvania and had + marked the site of a settlement. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_110-1" name="footer_110-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_110">¹</a> + The activities of the great land companies are + described in Alvord's exhaustive work, <i>The Mississippi Valley in + British Politics.</i> + </p> + </div> + <p> + Ten years earlier (1763), the King had issued the famous and much + misunderstood Proclamation restricting his “loving subjects” from the + lands west of the mountains. The colonists interpreted this document as a + tyrannous curtailment of their liberties for the benefit of the fur trade. + We know now that the portion of this Proclamation relating to western + settlement was a wise provision + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> + designed to protect the settlers on the + frontier by allaying the suspicions of the Indians, who viewed with + apprehension the triumphal occupation of that vast territory from Canada + to the Gulf of Mexico by the colonizing English. By seeking to compel all + land purchase to be made through the Crown, it was designed likewise to + protect the Indians from “whisky purchase,” and to make impossible + the transfer of their lands except with consent of the Indian Council, or + full quota of headmen, whose joint action alone conveyed what the tribes + considered to be legal title. Sales made according to this form, Sir + William Johnson declared to the Lords of Trade, he had never known to be + repudiated by the Indians. This paragraph of the Proclamation was in + substance an embodiment of Johnson's suggestions to the Lords of Trade. + Its purpose was square dealing and pacification; and shrewd men such as + Washington recognized that it was not intended as a final check to + expansion. “A temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians,” + Washington called it, and then himself went out along the Great Kanawha + and into Kentucky, surveying land. + </p> + <p> + It will be asked what had become of the Ohio Company of Virginia and that + fort at the Forks of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> + the Ohio, once a bone of contention between France and England. Fort Pitt, + as it was now called, had fallen foul of another dispute, this time + between Virginia and Pennsylvania. Virginia claimed that the far western + corner of her boundary ascended just far enough north to take in Fort + Pitt. Pennsylvania asserted that it did nothing of the sort. The Ohio + Company had meanwhile been merged into the Walpole Company. George + Croghan, at Fort Pitt, was the Company's agent and as such was accused by + Pennsylvania of favoring from ulterior motives the claims of Virginia. + Hotheads in both colonies asseverated that the Indians were secretly being + stirred up in connection with the boundary disputes. If it does not very + clearly appear how an Indian rising would have settled the ownership of + Fort Pitt, it is evident enough where the interests of Virginia and + Pennsylvania clashed. Virginia wanted land for settlement and speculation; + Pennsylvania wanted the Indians left in possession for the benefit of the + fur trade. So far from stirring up the Indians, as his enemies declared, + Croghan was as usual giving away all his substance to keep them quiet. + ¹ Indeed, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> + during this summer of 1774, eleven hundred Indians were encamped about + Fort Pitt visiting him. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_113-1" name="footer_113-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_113">¹</a> + The suspicion that Croghan and Lord Dunmore, + the Governor of Virginia, were instigating the war appears to have arisen + out of the conduct of Dr. John Connolly, Dunmore's agent and Croghan's + nephew. Croghan had induced the Shawanoes to bring under escort to Fort + Pitt certain English traders resident in the Indian towns. The escort was + fired on by militiamen under command of Connolly, who also issued a + proclamation declaring a state of war to exist. Connolly, however, + probably acted on his own initiative. He was interested in land on his own + behalf and was by no means the only man at that time who was ready to + commit outrages on Indians in order to obtain it. As Croghan lamented, + there was “too great a spirit in the frontier people for killing + Indians.” + </p> + </div> + <p> + <a name="Page_113-T2" id="Page_113-T2"></a> Two hundred thousand acres in + the West—Kentucky and West Virginia—had been promised to the + colonial officers and soldiers who fought in the Seven Years' War. But + after making the Proclamation the British Government had delayed issuing + the patents. Washington interested himself in trying to secure them; and + Lord Dunmore, who also had caught the “land-fever,” ² + prodded the British authorities but won only rebuke for his inconvenient + activities. Insistent, however, Dunmore sent out parties of surveyors to + fix the bounds of the soldiers' claims. James Harrod, Captain Thomas + Bullitt, Hancock Taylor, and three McAfee brothers entered Kentucky, by + the Ohio, under Dunmore's orders. John Floyd went in by + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span> + the Kanawha as Washington's + agent. A bird's-eye view of that period would disclose to us very few + indeed of His Majesty's loving subjects who were paying any attention to + his proclamation. Early in 1774, Harrod began the building of cabins and a + fort, and planted corn on the site of Harrodsburg. Thus to him and not to + Boone fell the honor of founding the first permanent white settlement in + Kentucky. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_113-2" name="footer_113-2"></a> + <a href="#Page_113-T2">²</a> + See Alvord, <i>The Mississippi Valley in + British Politics,</i> vol. II, pp. 191-94. + </p> + </div> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + When summer came, its thick verdure proffering ambuscade, the air hung + tense along the border. Traders had sent in word that Shawanoes, + Delawares, Mingos, Wyandots, and Cherokees were refusing all other + exchange than rifles, ammunition, knives, and hatchets. White men were + shot down in their fields from ambush. Dead Indians lay among their own + young corn, their scalp locks taken. There were men of both races who + wanted war and meant to have it—and with it the land. + </p> + <p> + Lord Dunmore, the Governor, resolved that, if war were inevitable, it + should be fought out in the Indian country. With this intent, he wrote to + Colonel Andrew Lewis of Botetourt County, Commander of the Southwest + Militia, instructing him + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> + to raise a respectable body of troops and “join + me either at the mouth of the Great Kanawha or Wheeling, or such other + part of the Ohio as may be most convenient for you to meet me.” The + Governor himself with a force of twelve hundred proceeded to Fort Pitt, + where Croghan, as we have seen, was extending his hospitality to eleven + hundred warriors from the disaffected tribes. + </p> + <p> + On receipt of the Governor's letter, Andrew Lewis sent out expresses to + his brother Colonel Charles Lewis, County Lieutenant of Augusta, and to + Colonel William Preston, County Lieutenant of Fincastle, to raise men and + bring them with all speed to the rendezvous at Camp Union (Lewisburg) on + the Big Levels of the Greenbrier (West Virginia). Andrew Lewis summoned + these officers to an expedition for “reducing our inveterate enemies to + reason.” Preston called for volunteers to take advantage of “the + opportunity we have so long wished for… this useless People may now + at last be Oblidged to abandon their country.” These men were among not + only the bravest but the best of their time; but this was their view of + the Indian and his alleged rights. To eliminate this “useless people,” + inveterate enemies of the white race, was, as they saw it, a political + necessity + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> + and a religious duty. And we today who profit by their deeds dare not + condemn them. + </p> + <p> + Fervor less solemn was aroused in other quarters by Dunmore's call to + arms. At Wheeling, some eighty or ninety young adventurers, in charge of + Captain Michael Cresap of Maryland, were waiting for the freshets to sweep + them down the Ohio into Kentucky. When the news reached them, they greeted + it with the wild monotone chant and the ceremonies preliminary to Indian + warfare. They planted the war pole, stripped and painted themselves, and + starting the war dance called on Cresap to be their “white leader.” + The captain, however, declined; but in that wild circling line was one who + was a white leader indeed. He was a sandy-haired boy of twenty—one + of the bold race of English Virginians, rugged and of fiery countenance, + with blue eyes intense of glance and deep set under a high brow that, + while modeled for power, seemed threatened in its promise by the too + sensitive chiseling of his lips. With every nerve straining for the fray, + with thudding of feet and crooning of the blood song, he wheeled with + those other mad spirits round the war pole till the set of sun closed the + rites. “That evening two scalps were brought into camp,” so a letter + of his reads. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> + Does the bold savage color of this picture affright us? Would we veil it? + Then we should lose something of the true lineaments of George Rogers + Clark, who, within four short years, was to lead a tiny army of tattered + and starving backwoodsmen, ashamed to quail where he never flinched, + through barrens and icy floods to the conquest of Illinois for the United + States. + </p> + <p> + Though Cresap had rejected the rôle of “white leader,” he did + not escape the touch of infamy. “Cresap's War” was the name the + Indians gave to the bloody encounters between small parties of whites and + Indians, which followed on that war dance and scalping, during the summer + months. One of these encounters must be detailed here because history has + assigned it as the immediate cause of Dunmore's War. + </p> + <p> + Greathouse, Sapperton, and King, three traders who had a post on Yellow + Creek, a tributary of the Ohio fifty miles below Pittsburgh, invited + several Indians from across the stream to come and drink with them and + their friends. Among the Indians were two or three men of importance in + the Mingo tribe. There were also some women, one of whom was the Indian + wife of Colonel John Gibson, an educated man who had distinguished himself + as <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span> a + soldier with Forbes in 1758. That the Indians came in amity and + apprehended no treachery was proved by the presence of the women. Gibson's + wife carried her half-caste baby in her shawl. The disreputable traders + plied their guests with drink to the point of intoxication and then + murdered them. King shot the first man and, when he fell, cut his throat, + saying that he had served many a deer in that fashion. Gibson's Indian + wife fled and was shot down in the clearing. A man followed to dispatch + her and her baby. She held the child up to him pleading, with her last + breath, that he would spare it because it was not Indian but “one of + yours.” The mother dead, the child was later sent to Gibson. Twelve + Indians in all were killed. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile Croghan had persuaded the Iroquois to peace. With the help of + David Zeisberger, the Moravian missionary, and White Eyes, a Delaware + chief, he and Dunmore had won over the Delaware warriors. In the Cherokee + councils, Oconostota demanded that the treaty of peace signed in 1761 be + kept. The Shawanoes, however, led by Cornstalk, were implacable; and they + had as allies the Ottawas and Mingos, who had entered the council with + them. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> A + famous chief of the day and one of great influence over the Indians, and + also among the white officials who dealt with Indian affairs, was + Tach-nech-dor-us, or + Branching Oak of the Forest, a Mingo who had taken the name of Logan out + of compliment to James Logan of Pennsylvania. Chief Logan had recently met + with so much reproach from his red brothers for his loyalty to the whites + that he had departed from the Mingo town at Yellow Creek. But, learning + that his tribe had determined to assist the Shawanoes and had already + taken some white scalps, he repaired to the place where the Mingos were + holding their war council to exert his powers for peace. There, in + presence of the warriors, after swaying them from their purpose by those + oratorical gifts which gave him his influence and his renown, he took the + war hatchet that had already killed, and buried it in proof that vengeance + was appeased. Upon this scene there entered a Mingo from Yellow Creek with + the news of the murders committed there by the three traders. The Indian + whose throat had been slit as King had served deer was Logan's brother. + Another man slain was his kinsman. The woman with the baby was his sister. + Logan tore up from the earth the bloody tomahawk and, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> raising it above his head, + swore that he would not rest till he had taken ten white lives to pay for + each one of his kin. Again the Mingo warriors declared for war and this + time were not dissuaded. But Logan did not join this red army. He went out + alone to wreak his vengeance, slaying and scalping. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Meanwhile Dunmore prepared to push the war with the utmost vigor. His + first concern was to recall the surveying parties from Kentucky, and for + so hazardous an errand he needed the services of a man whose endurance, + speed, and woodcraft were equal to those of any Indian scout afoot. + Through Colonel Preston, his orders were conveyed to Daniel Boone, for + Boone's fame had now spread from the border to the tidewater regions. It + was stated that “Boone would lose no time,” and “if they are alive, + it is indisputable but Boone must find them.” + </p> + <p> + So Boone set out in company with Michael Stoner, another expert woodsman. + His general instructions were to go down the Kentucky River to Preston's + Salt Lick and across country to the Falls of the Ohio, and thence home by + Gaspar's Lick on the Cumberland River. Indian war parties were moving + under cover across “the Dark + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> + and Bloody Ground” to surround the various + groups of surveyors still at large and to exterminate them. Boone made his + journey successfully. He found John Floyd, who was surveying for + Washington; he sped up to where Harrod and his band were building cabins + and sent them out, just in time as it happened; he reached all the + outposts of Thomas Bullitt's party, only one of whom fell a victim to the + foe; ¹ and, undetected by the Indians, he brought himself and Stoner + home in safety, after covering eight hundred miles in sixty-one days. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_121-1" name="footer_121-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_121">¹</a> + Hancock Taylor, who delayed in getting out of + the country and was cut off. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Harrod and his homesteaders immediately enlisted in the army. How eager + Boone was to go with the forces under Lewis is seen in the official + correspondence relative to Dunmore's War. Floyd wanted Boone's help in + raising a company: “Captain Bledsoe says that Boone has more [influence] + than any man now disengaged; and you know what Boone has done for me… + for which reason I love the man.” Even the border, it would seem, had + its species of pacifists who were willing to let others take risks for + them, for men hung back from recruiting, and desertions were the order of + the day. Major Arthur Campbell hit upon a solution + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> + of the difficulties in West Fincastle. He was convinced that Boone could + raise a company and hold the men loyal. And Boone did. + </p> + <p> + For some reason, however, Daniel's desire to march with the army was + denied. Perhaps it was because just such a man as he—and, indeed, + there was no other—was needed to guard the settlement. Presently he + was put in command of Moore's Fort in Clinch Valley, and his “diligence” + received official approbation. A little later the inhabitants of the + valley sent out a petition to have Boone made a “captain” and given + supreme command of the lower forts. The settlers demanded Boone's + promotion for their own security. + </p> + <div class="poem1"> + <p class="poem1">The land it is good, it is just to our mind,</p> + <p class="poem1">Each will have his part if his Lordship be kind, </p> + <p class="poem1">The Ohio once ours, we'll live at our ease,</p> + <p class="poem1">With a bottle and glass to drink when we please.</p> + </div> + <p> + So sang the army poet, thus giving voice, as bards should ever do, to the + theme nearest the hearts of his hearers—in this case, Land! + Presumably his ditty was composed on the eve of the march from Lewisburg, + for it is found in a soldier's diary. + </p> + <p> + On the evening of October 9, 1774, Andrew Lewis with his force of eleven + hundred frontiersmen + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> + was encamped on Point Pleasant at the junction of the Great Kanawha with + the Ohio. Dunmore in the meantime had led his forces into Ohio and had + erected Fort Gower at the mouth of the Hockhocking River, where he waited + for word from Andrew Lewis. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_123-1" name="footer_123-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_123">¹</a> + It has been customary to ascribe to Lord + Dunmore motives of treachery in failing to make connections with Lewis; + but no real evidence has been advanced to support any of the charges made + against him by local historians. The charges were, as Theodore Roosevelt + says, “an afterthought.” Dunmore was a King's man in the Revolution; + and yet in March, 1775, the Convention of the Colony of Virginia, + assembled in opposition to the royal party, resolved: “The most cordial + thanks of the people of this colony are a tribute justly due to our worthy + Governor, Lord Dunmore, for his truly noble, wise, and spirited conduct + which at once evinces his Excellency's attention to the true interests of + this colony, and a zeal in the executive department which no dangers can + divert, or difficulties hinder, from achieving the most important services + to the people who have the happiness to live under his administration.” + (See <i>American Archives,</i> Fourth Series, vol. II, p. 170.) Similar + resolutions were passed by his officers on the march home from Ohio; at + the same time, the officers passed resolutions in sympathy with the + American cause. Yet it was Andrew Lewis who later drove Dunmore from + Virginia. Well might Dunmore exclaim, “That it should ever come to this!” + </p> + </div> + <p> + The movements of the two armies were being observed by scouts from the + force of red warriors gathered in Ohio under the great leader of the + Shawanoes. Cornstalk purposed to isolate the two armies of his enemy and + to crush them in turn before they could come together. His first move was + to launch an attack on Lewis at Point + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> + Pleasant. In the dark of + night, Cornstalk's Indians crossed the Ohio on rafts, intending to + surprise the white man's camp at dawn. They would have succeeded but for + the chance that three or four of the frontiersmen, who had risen before + daybreak to hunt, came upon the Indians creeping towards the camp. Shots + were exchanged. An Indian and a white man dropped. The firing roused the + camp. Three hundred men in two lines under Charles Lewis and William + Fleming sallied forth expecting to engage the vanguard of the enemy but + encountered almost the whole force of from eight hundred to a thousand + Indians before the rest of the army could come into action. Both officers + were wounded, Charles Lewis fatally. The battle, which continued from dawn + until an hour before sunset, was the bloodiest in Virginia's long series + of Indian wars. The frontiersmen fought as such men ever fought—with + the daring, bravery, swiftness of attack, and skill in taking cover which + were the tactics of their day, even as at a later time many of these same + men fought at King's Mountain and in Illinois the battles that did so much + to turn the tide in the Revolution. ² + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_124-2" name="footer_124-2"></a> + <a href="#Page_124">²</a> + With Andrew Lewis on this day were Isaac + Shelby and William Campbell, the victorious leaders at King's Mountain, + James Robertson, the “father of Tennessee,” Valentine Sevier, Daniel + Morgan, hero of the Cowpens, Major Arthur Campbell, Benjamin Logan, + Anthony Bledsoe, and Simon Kenton. With Dunmore's force were Adam Stephen, + who distinguished himself at the Brandywine, George Rogers Clark, John + Stuart, already noted through the Cherokee wars, and John Montgomery, + later one of Clark's four captains in Illinois. The two last mentioned + were Highlanders. Clark's Illinois force was largely recruited from the + troops who fought at Point Pleasant. + </p> + </div> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> + Colonel Preston wrote to Patrick Henry that the enemy behaved with “inconceivable + bravery,” the head men walking about in the time of action exhorting + their men to “lie close, shoot well, be strong, and fight.” The + Shawanoes ran up to the muzzles of the English guns, disputing every foot + of ground. Both sides knew well what they were fighting for—the rich + land held in a semicircle by the Beautiful River. + </p> + <p> + <a name="Page_126-T1" id="Page_126-T1"></a> Shortly before sundown the + Indians, mistaking a flank movement by Shelby's contingent for the arrival + of reinforcements, retreated across the Ohio. Many of their most noted + warriors had fallen and among them the Shawano chief, Puck-e-shin-wa, + father of a famous son, Tecumseh. ¹ Yet they were unwilling to accept + defeat. When they heard that Dunmore was now marching overland to cut them + off from their towns, their fury blazed anew. “Shall we first kill all + our women and children and then + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> + fight till we ourselves are slain?” + Cornstalk, in irony, demanded of them; “No? Then I will go and make + peace.” + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_126-1" name="footer_126-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_126-T1">¹</a> + Thwaites, <i>Documentary History of Dunmore's War.</i> + </p> + </div> + <p> + By the treaty compacted between the chiefs and Lord Dunmore, the Indians + gave up all claim to the lands south of the Ohio, even for hunting, and + agreed to allow boats to pass unmolested. In this treaty the Mingos + refused to join, and a detachment of Dunmore's troops made a punitive + expedition to their towns. Some discord arose between Dunmore and Lewis's + frontier forces because, since the Shawanoes had made peace, the Governor + would not allow the frontiersmen to destroy the Shawano towns. + </p> + <p> + Of all the chiefs, Logan alone still held aloof. Major Gibson undertook to + fetch him, but Logan refused to come to the treaty grounds. He sent by + Gibson the short speech which has lived as an example of the best Indian + oratory: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry + and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed + him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan + remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for + the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said, “Logan + is the friend of the white men.” I had even thought to have lived + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> + with you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last + spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of + Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There remains not a drop + of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for + revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my + vengeance: for my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not + harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He + will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for + Logan? Not one. ¹ + </p> + </blockquote> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_127-1" name="footer_127-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_127">¹</a> + Some writers have questioned the authenticity + of Logan's speech, inclining to think that Gibson himself composed it, + partly because of the biblical suggestion in the first few lines. That + Gibson gave biblical phraseology to these lines is apparent, though, as + Adair points out there are many examples of similitude in Indian and + biblical expression. But the thought is Indian and relates to the first + article of the Indian's creed, namely, to share his food with the needy. + “There remains not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living + creature” is a truly Indian lament. Evidently the final four lines of + the speech are the most literally translated, for they have the form and + the primitive rhythmic beat which a student of Indian poetry quickly + recognizes. The authenticity of the speech, as well as the innocence of + Cresap, whom Logan mistakenly accused, was vouched for by George Rogers + Clark in a letter to Dr. Samuel Brown dated June 17, 1798. See Jefferson + papers, Series 5, quoted by English, <i>Conquest of the Country Northwest + of the River Ohio,</i> vol. II. p. 1029. + </p> + </div> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + By rivers and trails, in large and small companies, started home the army + that had won the land. The West Fincastle troops, from the lower + settlements of the Clinch and Holston valleys, were to return by the + Kentucky River, while those from + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span> + the upper valley would take the shorter way + up Sandy Creek. To keep them in provisions during the journey it was + ordered that hunters be sent out along these routes to kill and barbecue + meat and place it on scaffolds at appropriate spots. + </p> + <p> + The way home by the Kentucky was a long road for weary and wounded men + with hunger gnawing under their belts. We know who swung out along the + trail to provide for that little band, “dressed in deerskins colored + black, and his hair plaited and bobbed up.” It was Daniel Boone—now, + by popular demand, Captain Boone—just “discharged from Service,” + since the valley forts needed him no longer. Once more only a hunter, he + went his way over Walden Mountain—past his son's grave marking the + place where <em>he</em> had been turned back—to serve the men who + had opened the gates. + </p> + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter07" id="Chapter07"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER VII.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">The Dark And Bloody Ground</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">With</span> the coming of spring Daniel Boone's + desire, so long cherished and deferred, to make a way for his neighbors + through the wilderness was to be fulfilled at last. But ere his ax could + slash the thickets from the homeseekers' path, more than two hundred + settlers had entered Kentucky by the northern waterways. Eighty or more of + these settled at Harrodsburg, where Harrod was laying out his town on a + generous plan, with “in-lots” of half an acre and + “out-lots” of larger size. Among those associated with Harrod + was George Rogers Clark, who had surveyed claims for himself during the + year before the war. + </p> + <p> + While over two hundred colonists were picking out home sites wherever + their pleasure or prudence dictated, a gigantic land promotion + scheme—involving the very tracts where they were sowing their first + corn—was being set afoot in North + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> + Carolina by a body of men who figure in the early history of Kentucky as + the Transylvania Company. The leader of this organization was Judge + Richard Henderson. ¹ Judge Henderson dreamed a big dream. His castle + in the air had imperial proportions. He resolved, in short, to purchase + from the Cherokee Indians the larger part of Kentucky and to establish + there a colony after the manner and the economic form of the English Lords + Proprietors, whose day in America was so nearly done. Though in the light + of history the plan loses none of its dramatic features, it shows the + practical defects that must surely have prevented its realization. Like + many another Cæsar hungering for empire and staking all to win it, + the prospective lord of Kentucky, as we shall see, had left the human + equation out of his calculations. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_130-1" name="footer_130-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_130">¹</a> + Richard Henderson (1734-1785) was the son of + the High Sheriff of Granville County. At first an assistant to his father, + he studied law and soon achieved a reputation by the brilliance of his + mind and the magnetism of his personality. As presiding Judge at + Hillsborough he had come into conflict with the violent element among the + Regulators, who had driven him from the court and burned his house and + barns. For some time prior to his elevation to the bench, he had been + engaged in land speculations. One of Boone's biographers suggests that + Boone may have been secretly acting as Henderson's agent during his first + lonely explorations of Kentucky. However this may be, it does not appear + that Boone and his Yadkin neighbors were acting with Henderson when in + September, 1773, they made their first attempt to enter Kentucky as + settlers. + </p> + </div> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> + Richard Henderson had known Daniel Boone on the Yadkin; and it was Boone's + detailed reports of the marvelous richness and beauty of Kentucky which + had inspired him to formulate his gigantic scheme and had enabled him also + to win to his support several men of prominence in the Back Country. To + sound the Cherokees regarding the purchase and to arrange, if possible, + for a conference, Henderson dispatched Boone to the Indian towns in the + early days of 1775. + </p> + <p> + Since we have just learned that Dunmore's War compelled the Shawanoes and + their allies to relinquish their right to Kentucky, that, both before and + after that event, government surveyors were in the territory surveying for + the soldiers' claims, and that private individuals had already laid out + town sites and staked holdings, it may be asked what right of ownership + the Cherokees possessed in Kentucky, that Henderson desired to purchase it + of them. The Indian title to Kentucky seems to have been hardly less vague + to the red men than it was to the whites. Several of the nations had laid + claim to the territory. As late as 1753, it will be remembered, the + Shawanoes had occupied a town at Blue Licks, for John Findlay had been + taken there by some of them. But, before Findlay + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> + guided Boone through the Gap + in 1769, the Shawanoes had been driven out by the Iroquois, who claimed + suzerainty over them as well as over the Cherokees. In 1768, the Iroquois + had ceded Kentucky to the British Crown by the treaty of Fort Stanwix; + whereupon the Cherokees had protested so vociferously that the Crown's + Indian agent, to quiet them, had signed a collateral agreement with them. + Though claimed by many, Kentucky was by common consent not inhabited by + any of the tribes. It was the great Middle Ground where the Indians + hunted. It was the Warriors' Path over which they rode from north and + south to slaughter and where many of their fiercest encounters took place. + However shadowy the title which Henderson purposed to buy, there was one + all-sufficing reason why he must come to terms with the Cherokees: their + northernmost towns in Tennessee lay only fifty or sixty miles below + Cumberland Gap and hence commanded the route over which he must lead + colonists into his empire beyond the hills. + </p> + <p> + The conference took place early in March, 1775, at the Sycamore Shoals of + the Watauga River. Twelve hundred Indians, led by their + “town chiefs”—among whom were the old warrior and the + old statesman of their nation, Oconostota and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> + Attakullakulla—came to the treaty grounds and were received by + Henderson and his associates and several hundred white men who were eager + for a chance to settle on new lands. Though Boone was now on his way into + Kentucky for the Transylvania Company, other border leaders of renown or + with their fame still to win were present, and among them James Robertson, + of serious mien, and that blond gay knight in buckskin, John Sevier. + </p> + <p> + It is a dramatic picture we evolve for ourselves from the meager + narratives of this event—a mass of painted Indians moving through + the sycamores by the bright water, to come presently into a tense, + immobile semicircle before the large group of armed frontiersmen seated or + standing about Richard Henderson, the man with the imperial dream, the + ready speaker whose flashing eyes and glowing oratory won the hearts of + all who came under their sway. What though the Cherokee title be a flimsy + one at best and the price offered for it a bagatelle! The spirit of + Forward March! is there in that great canvas framed by forest and sky. The + somber note that tones its lustrous color, as by a sweep of the brush, is + the figure of the Chickamaugan chief, Dragging Canoe, warrior and seer and + hater of white men, who urges his tribesmen against the sale and, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> + when they + will not hearken, springs from their midst into the clear space before + Henderson and his band of pioneers and, pointing with uplifted arm, warns + them that a dark cloud hangs over the land the white man covets which to + the red man has long been a bloody ground. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_134-1" name="footer_134-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_134">¹</a> + This utterance of Dragging Canoe's is + generally supposed to be the origin of the descriptive phrase applied to + Kentucky—“the Dark and Bloody Ground.” See Roosevelt, + <i>The Winning of the West,</i> vol. I, p.229. + </p> + </div> + <p> + The purchase, finally consummated, included the country lying between the + Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers—almost all the present State of + Kentucky, with the adjacent land watered by the Cumberland River and its + tributaries, except certain lands previously leased by the Indians to the + Watauga Colony. The tract comprised about twenty million acres and + extended into Tennessee. + </p> + <p> + Daniel Boone's work was to cut out a road for the wagons of the + Transylvania Company's colonists to pass over. This was to be done by + slashing away the briers and underbrush hedging the narrow Warriors' Path + that made a direct northward line from Cumberland Gap to the Ohio bank, + opposite the mouth of the Scioto River. Just prior to the conference Boone + and “thirty guns” had set forth from the Holston to prepare the road + and to build a fort on whatever site he should select. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> By + April, Henderson and his first group of tenants were on the trail. In + Powell's Valley they came up with a party of Virginians Kentucky bound, + led by Benjamin Logan; and the two bands joined together for the march. + They had not gone far when they heard disquieting news. After leaving + Martin's Station, at the gates of his new domain, Henderson received a + letter from Boone telling of an attack by Indians, in which two of his men + had been killed, but “we stood on the ground and guarded our baggage + till the day and lost nothing.” ¹ These tidings, indicating that + despite treaties and sales, the savages were again on the warpath, might + well alarm Henderson's colonists. While they halted, some indecisive, + others frankly for retreat, there appeared a company of men making all + haste out of Kentucky because of Indian unrest. Six of these Henderson + persuaded to turn again and go in with him; but this addition hardly + offset the loss of those members of his party who thought it too perilous + to proceed. Henderson's own courage did not falter. He had staked his all + on this stupendous venture and for him it was forward to wealth and glory + or retreat into poverty and eclipse. Boone, in the heart of the danger, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> was + making the same stand. “If we give way to them [the Indians] now,” he + wrote, “it will ever be the case.” + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_136-1" name="footer_136-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_136">¹</a> + Bogart, <i>Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky, p. 121.</i> + </p> + </div> + <p> + Signs of discord other than Indian opposition met Henderson as he + resolutely pushed on. His conversations with some of the fugitives from + Kentucky disclosed the first indications of the storm that was to blow + away the empire he was going in to found. He told them that the claims + they had staked in Kentucky would not hold good with the Transylvania + Company. Whereupon James McAfee, who was leading a group of returning men, + stated his opinion that the Transylvania Company's claim would not hold + good with Virginia. After the parley, three of McAfee's brothers turned + back and went with Henderson's party, but whether with intent to join his + colony or to make good their own claims is not apparent. Benjamin Logan + continued amicably with Henderson on the march but did not recognize him + as Lord Proprietor of Kentucky. He left the Transylvania caravan shortly + after entering the territory, branched off in the direction of + Harrodsburg, and founded St. Asaph's Station, in the present Lincoln + County, independently of Henderson though the site lay within Henderson's + purchase. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> + Notwithstanding delays and apprehensions, Henderson and his colonists + finally reached Boone's Fort, which Daniel and his “thirty + guns”—lacking two since the Indian encounter—had + erected at the mouth of Otter Creek. + </p> + <p> + An attractive buoyancy of temperament is revealed in Henderson's + description in his journal of a giant elm with tall straight trunk and + even foliage that shaded a space of one hundred feet. Instantly he chose + this "divine elm" as the council chamber of Transylvania. Under its + leafage he read the constitution of the new colony. It would be too great + a stretch of fancy to call it a democratic document, for it was not that, + except in deft phrases. Power was certainly declared to be vested in the + people; but the substance of power remained in the hands of the + Proprietors. + </p> + <p> + Terms for land grants were generous enough in the beginning, although + Henderson made the fatal mistake of demanding quitrents—one of the + causes of dissatisfaction which had led to the Regulators' rising in North + Carolina. In September he augmented this error by more than doubling the + price of land, adding a fee of eight shillings for surveying, and + reserving to the Proprietors one-half of all gold, silver, lead, and + sulphur found on + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> + the land. No land near sulphur springs or showing evidences of metals was + to be granted to settlers. Moreover, at the Company's store the prices + charged for lead were said to be too high—lead being necessary for + hunting, and hunting being the only means of procuring food—while + the wages of labor, as fixed by the Company, were too low. These terms + bore too heavily on poor men who were risking their lives in the colony. + </p> + <p> + Hence newcomers passed by Boonesborough, as the Transylvania settlement + was presently called, and went elsewhere. They settled on Henderson's land + but refused his terms. They joined in their sympathies with James Harrod, + who, having established Harrodsburg in the previous year at the invitation + of Virginia, was not in the humor to acknowledge Henderson's claim or to + pay him tribute. All were willing to combine with the Transylvania Company + for defense, and to enforce law they would unite in bonds of brotherhood + in Kentucky, even as they had been one with each other on the earlier + frontier now left behind them. But they would call no man master; they had + done with feudalism. That Henderson should not have foreseen this, + especially after the upheaval in North Carolina, proves him, in spite of + all his brilliant + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> + gifts, to have been a man out of touch with the spirit of the time. + </p> + <p> + The war of the Revolution broke forth and the Indians descended upon the + Kentucky stations. Defense was the one problem in all minds, and defense + required powder and lead in plenty. The Transylvania Company was not able + to provide the means of defense against the hordes of savages whom Henry + Hamilton, the British Governor at Detroit, was sending to make war on the + frontiers. Practical men like Harrod and George Rogers Clark—who, if + not a practical man in his own interests, was a most practical soldier—saw + that unification of interests within the territory with the backing of + either Virginia or Congress was necessary. Clark personally would have + preferred to see the settlers combine as a freemen's state. It was plain + that they would not combine and stake their lives as a unit to hold + Kentucky for the benefit of the Transylvania Company, whose authority some + of the most prominent men in the territory had refused to recognize. The + Proprietary of Transylvania could continue to exist only to the danger of + every life in Kentucky. + </p> + <p> + While the Proprietors sent a delegate to the Continental Congress to win + official recognition for + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> + Transylvania, eighty-four men at Harrodsburg + drew up a petition addressed to Virginia stating their doubts of the + legality of Henderson's title and requesting Virginia to assert her + authority according to the stipulations of her charter. That defense was + the primary and essential motive of the Harrodsburg Remonstrance seems + plain, for when George Rogers Clark set off on foot with one companion to + lay the document before the Virginian authorities, he also went to plead + for a load of powder. In his account of that hazardous journey, as a + matter of fact, he makes scant reference to Transylvania, except to say + that the greed of the Proprietors would soon bring the colony to its end, + but shows that his mind was seldom off the powder. It is a detail of + history that the Continental Congress refused to seat the delegate from + Transylvania. Henderson himself went to Virginia to make the fight for his + land before the Assembly. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_140-1" name="footer_140-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_140">¹</a> + In 1778 Virginia disallowed Henderson's title + but granted him two hundred thousand acres between the Green and Kentucky + rivers for his trouble and expense in opening up the country. + </p> + </div> + <p> + The magnetic center of Boonesborough's life was the lovable and unassuming + Daniel Boone. Soon after the building of the fort Daniel had brought in + his wife and family. He used often to + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> + state with a mild pride that + his wife and daughters were the first white women to stand on the banks of + the Kentucky River. That pride had not been unmixed with anxiety; his + daughter Jemima and two daughters of his friend, Richard Galloway, while + boating on the river had been captured by Shawanoes and carried off. + Boone, accompanied by the girls' lovers and by John Floyd (eager to repay + his debt of life-saving to Boone) had pursued them, tracing the way the + captors had taken by broken twigs and scraps of dress goods which one of + the girls had contrived to leave in their path, had come on the Indians + unawares, killed them, and recovered the three girls unhurt. + </p> + <p> + In the summer of 1776, Virginia took official note of “Captain Boone of + Boonesborough,” for she sent him a small supply of powder. The men of + the little colony, which had begun so pretentiously with its constitution + and assembly, were now obliged to put all other plans aside and to + concentrate on the question of food and defense. There was a dangerous + scarcity of powder and lead. The nearest points at which these necessaries + could be procured were the Watauga and Holston River settlements, which + were themselves none too well stocked. Harrod and Logan, some time in + 1777, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> + reached the Watauga fort with three or four pack-horses and filled their packs from + Sevier's store; but, as they neared home, they were detected by red scouts + and Logan was badly wounded before he and Harrod were able to drive their + precious load safely through the gates at Harrodsburg. In the autumn of + 1777, Clark, with a boatload of ammunition, reached Maysville on the Ohio, + having successfully run the gauntlet between banks in possession of the + foe. He had wrested the powder and lead from the Virginia Council by + threats to the effect that if Virginia was so willing to lose Kentucky—for + of course “a country not worth defending is not worth claiming”—he + and his fellows were quite ready to take Kentucky for themselves and to + hold it with their swords against all comers, Virginia included. By even + such cogent reasoning had he convinced the Council—which had tried + to hedge by expressing doubts that Virginia would receive the Kentucky + settlers as “citizens of the State”—that it would be cheaper to + give him the powder. + </p> + <p> + Because so many settlers had fled and the others had come closer together + for their common good, Harrodsburg and Boonesborough were now the only + occupied posts in Kentucky. Other settlements, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span> + once thriving, were abandoned; and, under the terror, the Wild reclaimed + them. In April, 1777, Boonesborough underwent its first siege. Boone, + leading a sortie, was shot and he fell with a shattered ankle. An Indian + rushed upon him and was swinging the tomahawk over him when Simon Kenton, + giant frontiersman and hero of many daring deeds, rushed forward, shot + the Indian, threw Boone across his back, and fought his way desperately + to safety. It was some months ere Boone was his nimble self again. But + though he could not “stand up to the guns,” he directed all + operations from his cabin. + </p> + <p> + The next year Boone was ready for new ventures growing from the settlers' + needs. Salt was necessary to preserve meat through the summer. Accordingly + Boone and twenty-seven men went up to the Blue Licks in February, 1778, to + replenish their supply by the simple process of boiling the salt water of + the Licks till the saline particles adhered to the kettles. Boone was + returning alone, with a pack-horse load of salt and game, when a blinding + snowstorm overtook him and hid from view four stealthy Shawanoes on his + trail. He was seized and carried to a camp of 120 warriors led by the + French Canadian, Dequindre, and James and George Girty, two white + renegades. Among the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span> + Indians were some of those who had captured him on his first exploring + trip through Kentucky and whom he had twice given the slip. Their hilarity + was unbounded. Boone quickly learned that this band was on its way to + surprise Boonesborough. It was a season when Indian attacks were not + expected; nearly threescore of the men were at the salt spring and, to + make matters worse, the walls of the new fort where the settlers and their + families had gathered were as yet completed on only three sides. + Boonesborough was, in short, well-nigh defenseless. To turn the Indians + from their purpose, Boone conceived the desperate scheme of offering to + lead them to the salt makers' camp with the assurance that he and his + companions were willing to join the tribe. He understood Indians well + enough to feel sure that once possessed of nearly thirty prisoners, the + Shawanoes would not trouble further about Boonesborough but would hasten + to make a triumphal entry into their own towns. That some, perhaps all, of + the white men would assuredly die, he knew well; but it was the only way + to save the women and children in Boonesborough. In spite of Dequindre and + the Girtys, who were leading a military expedition for the reduction of a + fort, the Shawanoes fell in with the suggestion. When they + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> + had taken + their prisoners, the more bloodthirsty warriors in the band wanted to + tomahawk them all on the spot. By his diplomatic discourse, however, Boone + dissuaded them, for the time being at least, and the whole company set off + for the towns on the Little Miami. + </p> + <p> + The weather became severe, very little game crossed their route, and for + days they subsisted on slippery elm bark. The lovers of blood did not hold + back their scalping knives and several of the prisoners perished; but + Black Fish, the chief then of most power in Shawanoe councils, adopted + Boone as his son, and gave him the name of Sheltowee, or Big Turtle. + Though watched zealously to prevent escape, Big Turtle was treated with + every consideration and honor; and, as we would say today, he played the + game. He entered into the Indian life with apparent zest, took part in + hunts and sports and the races and shooting matches in which the Indians + delighted, but he was always careful not to outrun or outshoot his + opponents. Black Fish took him to Detroit when some of the tribe escorted + the remainder of the prisoners to the British post. There he met Governor + Hamilton and, in the hope of obtaining his liberty, he led that dignitary + to believe that he + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> + and the other people of Boonesborough were eager to move to Detroit and + take refuge under the British flag. ¹ It is said that Boone always + carried in a wallet round his neck the King's commission given him in + Dunmore's War; and that he exhibited it to Hamilton to bear out his story. + Hamilton sought to ransom him from the Indians, but Black Fish would not + surrender his new son. The Governor gave Boone a pony, with saddle and + trappings, and other presents, including trinkets to be used in procuring + his needs and possibly his liberty from the Shawanoes. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_146-1" name="footer_146-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_146">¹</a> + So well did Boone play his part that he + aroused suspicion even in those who knew him best. After his return to + Boonesborough his old friend, Calloway, formally accused him of treachery + on two counts: that Boone had betrayed the salt makers to the Indians and + had planned to betray Boonesborough to the British. Boone was tried and + acquitted. His simple explanation of his acts satisfied the court-martial + and made him a greater hero than ever among the frontier folk. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Black Fish then took his son home to Chillicothe. Here Boone found + Delawares and Mingos assembling with the main body of the Shawanoe + warriors. The war belt was being carried through the Ohio country. Again + Boonesborough and Harrodsburg were to be the first settlements attacked. + To escape and give warning was now the one purpose that obsessed Boone. He + redoubled his efforts to + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> + throw the Indians off their guard. He sang + and whistled blithely about the camp at the mouth of the Scioto River, + whither he had accompanied his Indian father to help in the salt boiling. + In short, he seemed so very happy that one day Black Fish took his eye off + him for a few moments to watch the passing of a flock of turkeys. Big + Turtle passed with the flock, leaving no trace. To his lamenting parent it + must have seemed as though he had vanished into the air. Daniel crossed + the Ohio and ran the 160 miles to Boonesborough in four days, during which + time he had only one meal, from a buffalo he shot at the Blue Licks. When + he reached the fort after an absence of nearly five months, he found that + his wife had given him up for dead and had returned to the Yadkin. + </p> + <p> + Boone now began with all speed to direct preparations to withstand a + siege. Owing to the Indian's leisurely system of councils and ceremonies + before taking the warpath, it was not until the first week in September + that Black Fish's painted warriors, with some Frenchmen under Dequindre, + appeared before Boonesborough. Nine days the siege lasted and was the + longest in border history. Dequindre, seeing that the fort might not be + taken, resorted to trickery. He requested Boone + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> + and a few of his men to come + out for a parley, saying that his orders from Hamilton were to protect the + lives of the Americans as far as possible. Boone's friend, Calloway, urged + against acceptance of the apparently benign proposal which was made, so + Dequindre averred, for “bienfaisance et humanité.” But the + words were the words of a white man, and Boone hearkened to them. With + eight of the garrison he went out to the parley. After a long talk in + which good will was expressed on both sides, it was suggested by Black + Fish that they all shake hands and, as there were so many more Indians + than white men, two Indians should, of course, shake hands with one white + man, each grasping one of his hands. The moment that their hands gripped, + the trick was clear, for the Indians exerted their strength to drag off + the white men. Desperate scuffling ensued in which the whites with + difficulty freed themselves and ran for the fort. Calloway had prepared + for emergencies. The pursuing Indians were met with a deadly fire. After a + defeated attempt to mine the fort the enemy withdrew. + </p> + <p> + The successful defense of Boonesborough was an achievement of national + importance, for had Boonesborough fallen, Harrodsburg alone could + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> + not have + stood. The Indians under the British would have overrun Kentucky; and + George Rogers Clark—whose base for his Illinois operations was the + Kentucky forts—could not have made the campaigns which wrested the + Northwest from the control of Great Britain. + </p> + <p> + Again Virginia took official note of Captain Boone when in 1779 the + Legislature established Boonesborough “a town for the reception of + traders” and appointed Boone himself one of the trustees to attend to + the sale and registration of lots. An odd office that was for Daniel, who + never learned to attend to the registration of his own; he declined it. + His name appears again, however, a little later when Virginia made the + whole of Kentucky one of her counties with the following officers: Colonel + David Robinson, County Lieutenant; George Rogers Clark, Anthony Bledsoe, + and John Bowman, Majors; Daniel Boone, James Harrod, Benjamin Logan, and + John Todd, Captains. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Boonesborough's successful resistance caused land speculators as well as + prospective settlers to take heart of grace. Parties made their way to + Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, and even to the Falls of the Ohio, where + Clark's fort and blockhouses now + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> + stood. In the summer of 1779 Clark had + erected on the Kentucky side of the river a large fort which became the + nucleus of the town of Louisville. Here, while he was eating his heart out + with impatience for money and men to enable him to march to the attack of + Detroit, as he had planned, he amused himself by drawing up plans for a + city. He laid out private sections and public parks and contemplated the + bringing in of families only to inhabit his city, for, oddly enough, he + who never married was going to make short shift of mere bachelors in his + City Beautiful. Between pen scratches, no doubt, he looked out frequently + upon the river to descry if possible a boatload of ammunition or the + banners of the troops he had been promised. + </p> + <p> + When neither appeared, he gave up the idea of Detroit and set about + erecting defenses on the southern border, for the Choctaws and Cherokees, + united under a white leader named Colbert, were threatening Kentucky by + way of the Mississippi. He built in 1780 Fort Jefferson in what is now + Ballard County, and had barely completed the new post and garrisoned it + with about thirty men when it was besieged by Colbert and his savages. The + Indians, assaulting by night, were lured into + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> + a position directly before a + cannon which poured lead into a mass of them. The remainder fled in terror + from the vicinity of the fort; but Colbert succeeded in rallying them and + was returning to the attack when he suddenly encountered Clark with a + company of men and was forced to abandon his enterprise. + </p> + <p> + Clark knew that the Ohio Indians would come down on the settlements again + during the summer and that to meet their onslaughts every man in Kentucky + would be required. He learned that there was a new influx of land seekers + over the Wilderness Road and that speculators were doing a thriving + business in Harrodsburg; so, leaving his company to protect Fort + Jefferson, he took two men with him and started across the wilds on foot + for Harrodsburg. To evade the notice of the Indian bands which were moving + about the country the three stripped and painted themselves as warriors + and donned the feathered headdress. So successful was their disguise that + they were fired on by a party of surveyors near the outskirts of + Harrodsburg. + </p> + <p> + The records do not state what were the sensations of certain speculators + in a land office in Harrodsburg when a blue-eyed savage in a war + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span> + bonnet + sprang through the doorway and, with uplifted weapon, declared the office + closed; but we get a hint of the power of Clark's personality and of his + genius for dominating men from the terse report that he “enrolled” + the speculators. He was informed that another party of men, more nervous + than these, was now on its way out of Kentucky. In haste he dispatched a + dozen frontiersmen to cut the party off at Crab Orchard and take away the + gun of every man who refused to turn back and do his bit for Kentucky. To + Clark a man was a gun, and he meant that every gun should do its duty. + </p> + <p> + The leaders and pioneers of the Dark and Bloody Ground were now warriors, + all under Clark's command, while for two years longer the Red Terror + ranged Kentucky, falling with savage force now here, now there. In the + first battle of 1780, at the Blue Licks, Daniel's brother, Edward Boone, + was killed and scalped. Later on in the war his second son, Israel, + suffered a like fate. The toll of life among the settlers was heavy. Many + of the best-known border leaders were slain. Food and powder often ran + short. Corn might be planted, but whether it would be harvested or not the + planters never knew; and the hunter's rifle shot, necessary + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> + though it + was, proved only too often an invitation to the lurking foe. But + sometimes, through all the dangers of forest and trail, Daniel Boone + slipped away silently to Harrodsburg to confer with Clark; or Clark + himself, in the Indian guise that suited the wild man in him not ill, made + his way to and from the garrisons which looked to him for everything. + </p> + <p> + Twice Clark gathered together the “guns” of Kentucky and, marching + north into the enemy's country, swept down upon the Indian towns of Piqua + and Chillicothe and razed them. In 1782, in the second of these + enterprises, his cousin, Joseph Rogers, who had been taken prisoner and + adopted by the Indians and then wore Indian garb, was shot down by one of + Clark's men. On this expedition Boone and Harrod are said to have + accompanied Clark. + </p> + <p> + The ever present terror and horror of those days, especially of the two + years preceding this expedition, are vividly suggested by the quaint + remark of an old woman who had lived through them, as recorded for us by a + traveler. The most beautiful sight she had seen in Kentucky, she said, was + a young man dying a natural death in his bed. Dead but unmarred by hatchet + or scalping knife, he was + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> + so rare and comely a picture that the women + of the post sat up all night looking at him. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + But, we ask, what golden emoluments were showered by a grateful country on + the men who thus held the land through those years of want and war, and + saved an empire for the Union? What practical recognition was there of + these brave and unselfish men who daily risked their lives and faced the + stealth and cruelty lurking in the wilderness ways? There is meager + eloquence in the records. Here, for instance, is a letter from George + Rogers Clark to the Governor of Virginia, dated May 27, 1783: + </p> + <p> + <a name="Page_154-T1" id="Page_154-T1"></a> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Sir. Nothing but necessity could induce me to make the following request + to Your Excellency, which is to grant me a small sum of money on + account; as I can assure you, Sir, that I am exceedingly distressed for + the want of necessary clothing etc and don't know any channel through + which I could procure any except of the Executive. The State I believe + will fall considerably in my debt. Any supplies which Your Excellency + favors me with might be deducted out of my accounts. ¹ + </p> + </blockquote> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_154-1" name="footer_154-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_154-T1">¹</a> + <i>Calendar of Virginia State Papers,</i> + vol. III, p. 487. + </p> + </div> + <p class="noindent"> + Clark had spent all his own substance and all else he could beg, borrow—or + appropriate—in the conquest of Illinois and the defense of Kentucky. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> His + only reward from Virginia was a grant of land from which he realized + nothing, and dismissal from her service when she needed him no longer. + </p> + <p> + All that Clark had asked for himself was a commission in the Continental + Army. This was denied him, as it appears now, not through his own errors, + which had not at that time taken hold on him, but through the influence of + powerful enemies. It is said that both Spain and England, seeing a great + soldier without service for his sword, made him offers, which he refused. + As long as any acreage remained to him on which to raise money, he + continued to pay the debts he had contracted to finance his expeditions, + and in this course he had the assistance of his youngest brother, William, + to whom he assigned his Indiana grant. + </p> + <p> + His health impaired by hardship and exposure and his heart broken by his + country's indifference, Clark sank into alcoholic excesses. In his + sixtieth year, just six years before his death, and when he was a helpless + paralytic, he was granted a pension of four hundred dollars. There is a + ring of bitter irony in the words with which he accepted the sword sent + him by Virginia in his crippled old age: “When Virginia needed a sword I + gave her one.” He died near Louisville on February 13, 1818. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> + Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. But even before Kentucky + became a State her affairs, particularly as to land, were arranged, let us + say, on a practical business basis. Then it was discovered that Daniel + Boone had no legal claim to any foot of ground in Kentucky. Daniel owned + nothing but the clothes he wore; and for those—as well as for much + powder, lead, food, and such trifles—he was heavily in debt. + </p> + <p> + So, in 1788, Daniel Boone put the list of his debts in his wallet, + gathered his wife and his younger sons about him, and, shouldering his + hunter's rifle, once more turned towards the wilds. The country of the + Great Kanawha in West Virginia was still a wilderness, and a hunter and + trapper might, in some years, earn enough to pay his debts. For others, + now, the paths he had hewn and made safe; for Boone once more the + wilderness road. + </p> + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter08" id="Chapter08"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER VIII.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">Tennessee</p> + + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">Indian</span> law, tradition, and even superstition + had shaped the conditions which the pioneers faced when they crossed the + mountains. This savage inheritance had decreed that Kentucky should be a + dark and bloody ground, fostering no life but that of four-footed beasts, + its fertile sod never to stir with the green push of the corn. And so the + white men who went into Kentucky to build and to plant went as warriors + go, and for every cabin they erected they battled as warriors to hold a + fort. In the first years they planted little corn and reaped less, for it + may be said that their rifles were never out of their hands. We have seen + how stations were built and abandoned until but two stood. Untiring + vigilance and ceaseless warfare were the price paid by the first + Kentuckians ere they turned the Indian's place of desolation and death + into a land productive and a living habitation. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> + Herein lies the difference, slight apparently, yet significant, between + the first Kentucky and the first Tennessee ¹ colonies. Within the + memory of the Indians only one tribe had ever attempted to make their home + in Kentucky—a tribe of the fighting Shawanoes—and they had + been terribly chastised for their temerity. But Tennessee was the home of + the Cherokees, and at Chickasaw Bluffs (Memphis) began the southward trail + to the principal towns of the Chickasaws. By the red man's fiat, then, + human life might abide in Tennessee, though not in Kentucky, and it + followed that in seasons of peace the frontiersmen might settle in + Tennessee. So it was that as early as 1757, before the great Cherokee war, + a company of Virginians under Andrew Lewis had, on an invitation from the + Indians, erected Fort Loudon near Great Telliko, the Cherokees' principal + town, and that, after the treaty of peace in 1761, Waddell and his rangers + of North Carolina had erected a fort on the Holston. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_158-1" name="footer_158-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_158">¹</a> + Tennessee. The name, Ten-as-se, appears on + Adair's map as one of the old Cherokee towns. Apparently neither the + meaning nor the reason why the colonists called both state and river by + this name has been handed down to us. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Though Fort Loudon had fallen tragically during the war, and though + Waddell's fort had been + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> + abandoned, neither was without influence in + the colonization of Tennessee, for some of the men who built these forts + drifted back a year or two later and set up the first cabins on the + Holston. These earliest settlements, thin and scattered, did not survive; + but in 1768 the same settlers or others of their kind—discharged + militiamen from Back Country regiments—once more made homes on the + Holston. They were joined by a few families from near the present Raleigh, + North Carolina, who had despaired of seeing justice done to the tenants on + the mismanaged estates of Lord Granville. About the same time there was + erected the first cabin on the Watauga River, as is generally believed, by + a man of the name of William Bean (or Been), hunter and frontier soldier + from Pittsylvania County, Virginia. This man, who had hunted on the + Watauga with Daniel Boone in 1760, chose as the site of his dwelling the + place of the old hunting camp near the mouth of Boone's Creek. He soon + began to have neighbors. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Meanwhile the Regulation Movement stirred the Back Country of both the + Carolinas. In 1768, the year in which William Bean built his cabin on the + bank of the Watauga, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> + five hundred armed Regulators in North Carolina, aroused by irregularities + in the conduct of public office, gathered to assert their displeasure, but + dispersed peaceably on receipt of word from Governor Tryon that he had + ordered the prosecution of any officer found guilty of extortion. Edmund + Fanning, the most hated of Lord Granville's agents, though convicted, + escaped punishment. Enraged at this miscarriage of justice, the Regulators + began a system of terrorization by taking possession of the court, + presided over by Richard Henderson. The judge himself was obliged to slip + out by a back way to avoid personal injury. The Regulators burned his + house and stable. They meted out mob treatment likewise to William Hooper, + later one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. + </p> + <p> + Two elements, with antithetical aims, had been at work in the Regulation; + and the unfortunate failure of justice in the case of Fanning had given + the corrupt element its opportunity to seize control. In the petitions + addressed to Governor Tryon by the leaders of the movement in its earlier + stages the aims of liberty-loving thinkers are traceable. It is worthy of + note that they included in their demands articles which are now + constitutional. They desired that “suffrage be given by ticket and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> + ballot”; + that the mode of taxation be altered, and each person be taxed in + proportion to the profits arising from his estate; that judges and clerks + be given salaries instead of perquisites and fees. They likewise + petitioned for repeal of the act prohibiting dissenting ministers from + celebrating the rites of matrimony. The establishment of these reforms, + the petitioners of the Regulation concluded, would “conciliate” their + minds to “every just measure of government, and would make the laws what + the Constitution ever designed they should be, their protection and not + their bane.” Herein clearly enough we can discern the thought and the + phraseology of the Ulster Presbyterians. + </p> + <p> + But a change took place in both leaders and methods. During the + Regulators' career of violence they were under the sway of an agitator + named Hermon Husband. This demagogue was reported to have been expelled + from the Quaker Society for cause; it is on record that he was expelled + from the North Carolina Assembly because a vicious anonymous letter was + traced to him. He deserted his dupes just before the shots cracked at + Alamance Creek and fled from the colony. He was afterwards apprehended in + Pennsylvania for complicity in the Whisky Insurrection. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> Four + of the leading Presbyterian ministers of the Back Country issued a letter + in condemnation of the Regulators. One of these ministers was the famous + David Caldwell, son-in-law of the Reverend Alexander Craighead, and a man + who knew the difference between liberty and license and who proved himself + the bravest of patriots in the War of Independence. The records of the + time contain sworn testimony against the Regulators by Waightstill Avery, + a signer of the Mecklenburg Resolves, who later presided honorably over + courts in the western circuit of Tennessee; and there is evidence + indicating Jacobite and French intrigue. That Governor Tryon recognized a + hidden hand at work seems clearly revealed in his proclamation addressed + to those “whose understandings have been run away with and whose + passions have been led in captivity by some evil designing men who, + actuated by cowardice and a sense of that Publick Justice which is due to + their Crimes, have obscured themselves from Publick view.” What the + Assembly thought of the Regulators was expressed in 1770 in a drastic bill + which so shocked the authorities in England that instructions were sent + forbidding any Governor to approve such a bill in future, declaring it “a + disgrace to the British Statute Books.” + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span> On + May 16, 1771, some two thousand Regulators were precipitated by Husband + into the Battle of Alamance, which took place in a district settled + largely by a rough and ignorant type of Germans, many of whom Husband had + lured to swell his mob. Opposed to him were eleven hundred of Governor + Tryon's troops, officered by such patriots as Griffith Rutherford, Hugh + Waddell, and Francis Nash. During an hour's engagement about twenty + Regulators were killed, while the Governor's troops had nine killed and + sixty-one wounded. Six of the leaders were hanged. The rest took the oath + of allegiance which Tryon administered. + </p> + <p> + It has been said about the Regulators that they were not cast down by + their defeat at Alamance but “like the mammoth, they shook the bolt from + their brow and crossed the mountains,” but such flowery phrases do not + seem to have been inspired by facts. Nor do the records show that “fifteen + hundred Regulators” arrived at Watauga in 1771, as has also been + stated. Nor are the names of the leaders of the Regulation to be found in + the list of signatures affixed to the one “state paper” of Watauga + which was preserved and written into historic annals. Nor yet do those + names appear on the roster of the Watauga and Holston men who, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> + in 1774, + fought with Shelby under Andrew Lewis in the Battle of Point Pleasant. The + Boones and the Bryans, the Robertsons, the Seviers, the Shelbys, the men + who opened up the West and shaped the destiny of its inhabitants, were + genuine freemen, with a sense of law and order as inseparable from + liberty. They would follow a Washington but not a Hermon Husband. + </p> + <p> + James Hunter, whose signature leads on all Regulation manifestoes just + prior to the Battle of Alamance, was a sycophant of Husband, to whom he + addressed fulsome letters; and in the real battle for democracy—the + War of Independence—he was a Tory. The Colonial Records show that + those who, “like the mammoth,” shook from them the ethical restraints + which make man superior to the giant beast, and who later bolted into the + mountains, contributed chiefly the lawlessness that harassed the new + settlements. They were the banditti and, in 1776, the Tories of the + western hills; they pillaged the homes of the men who were fighting for + the democratic ideal. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + It was not the Regulation Movement which turned westward the makers of the + Old Southwest, but the free and enterprising spirit of the age. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> It was + emphatically an age of doers; and if men who felt the constructive urge in + them might not lay hold on conditions where they were and reshape them, + then they must go forward seeking that environment which would give their + genius its opportunity. + </p> + <p> + Of such adventurous spirits was James Robertson, a Virginian born of + Ulster Scot parentage, and a resident of (the present) Wake County, North + Carolina, since his boyhood. Robertson was twenty-eight years old when, in + 1770, he rode over the hills to Watauga. We can imagine him as he was + then, for the portrait taken much later in life shows the type of face + that does not change. It is a high type combining the best qualities of + his race. Intelligence, strength of purpose, fortitude, and moral power + are there; they impress us at the first glance. At twenty-eight he must + have been a serious young man, little given to laughter; indeed, + spontaneity is perhaps the only good trait we miss in studying his face. + He was a thinker who had not yet found his purpose—a thinker in + leash, for at this time James Robertson could neither read nor write. + </p> + <p> + At Watauga, Robertson lived for a while in the cabin of a man named + Honeycut. He chose land + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span> + for himself and, in accordance with the + custom of the time, sealed his right to it by planting corn. He remained + to harvest his first crop and then set off to gather his family and some + of his friends together and escort them to the new country. But on the way + he missed the trail and wandered for a fortnight in the mountains. The + heavy rains ruined his powder so that he could not hunt; for food he had + only berries and nuts. At one place, where steep bluffs opposed him, he + was obliged to abandon his horse and scale the mountain side on foot. He + was in extremity when he chanced upon two huntsmen who gave him food and + set him on the trail. If this experience proves his lack of the hunter's + instinct and the woodsman's resourcefulness which Boone possessed, it + proves also his special qualities of perseverance and endurance which were + to reach their zenith in his successful struggle to colonize and hold + western Tennessee. He returned to Watauga in the following spring (1771) + with his family and a small group of colonists. Robertson's wife was an + educated woman and under her instruction he now began to study. + </p> + <p> + Next year a young Virginian from the Shenandoah Valley rode on down + Holston Valley on a hunting and exploring trip and loitered at Watauga. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> Here + he found not only a new settlement but an independent government in the + making; and forthwith he determined to have a part in both. This young + Virginian had already shown the inclination of a political colonist, for + in the Shenandoah Valley he had, at the age of nineteen, laid out the town + of New Market (which exists to this day) and had directed its municipal + affairs and invited and fostered its clergy. This young Virginian—born + on September 23, 1745, and so in 1772 twenty-seven years of age—was + John Sevier, that John Sevier whose monument now towers from its site in + Knoxville to testify of both the wild and the great deeds of old + Tennessee's beloved knight. Like Robertson, Sevier hastened home and + removed his whole family, including his wife and children, his parents and + his brothers and sisters, to this new haven of freedom at Watauga. + </p> + <p> + The friendship formed between Robertson and Sevier in these first years of + their work together was never broken, yet two more opposite types could + hardly have been brought together. Robertson was a man of humble origin, + unlettered, not a dour Scot but a solemn one. Sevier was cavalier as well + as frontiersman. On his father's side he was of the patrician family of + Xavier in France. His + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> + progenitors, having become Huguenots, had + taken refuge in England, where the name Xavier was finally changed to + Sevier. John Sevier's mother was an Englishwoman. Some years before his + birth his parents had emigrated to the Shenandoah Valley. Thus it happened + that John Sevier, who mingled good English blood with the blue blood of + old France, was born an American and grew up a frontier hunter and + soldier. He stood about five feet nine from his moccasins to his crown of + light brown hair. He was well-proportioned and as graceful of body as he + was hard-muscled and swift. His chin was firm, his nose of a Roman cast, + his mouth well-shaped, its slightly full lips slanting in a smile that + would not be repressed. Under the high, finely modeled brow, small keen + dark blue eyes sparkled with health, with intelligence, and with the man's + joy in life. + </p> + <p> + John Sevier indeed cannot be listed as a type; he was individual. There is + no other character like him in border annals. He was cavalier and prince + in his leadership of men; he had their homage. Yet he knew how to be + comrade and brother to the lowliest. He won and held the confidence and + friendship of the serious-minded Robertson no less than the idolatry of + the wildest spirits on the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> + frontier throughout the forty-three years of + the spectacular career which began for him on the day he brought his tribe + to Watauga. In his time he wore the governor's purple; and a portrait + painted of him shows how well this descendant of the noble Xaviers could + fit himself to the dignity and formal habiliments of state; Yet in the + fringed deerskin of frontier garb, he was fleeter on the warpath than the + Indians who fled before him; and he could outride and outshoot—and, + it is said, outswear—the best and the worst of the men who followed + him. Perhaps the lurking smile on John Sevier's face was a flicker of + mirth that there should be found any man, red or white, with temerity + enough to try conclusions with him. None ever did, successfully. + </p> + <p> + The historians of Tennessee state that the Wataugans formed their + government in 1772 and that Sevier was one of its five commissioners. Yet, + as Sevier did not settle in Tennessee before 1773, it is possible that the + Watauga Association was not formed until then. Unhappily the written + constitution of the little commonwealth was not preserved; but it is known + that, following the Ulsterman's ideal, manhood suffrage and religious + independence were two of its provisions. The commissioners enlisted a + militia and they recorded + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> + deeds for land, issued marriage licenses, and + tried offenders against the law. They believed themselves to be within the + boundaries of Virginia and therefore adopted the laws of that State for + their guidance. They had numerous offenders to deal with, for men fleeing + from debt or from the consequence of crime sought the new settlements just + across the mountains as a safe and adjacent harbor. The attempt of these + men to pursue their lawlessness in Watauga was one reason why the + Wataugans organized a government. + </p> + <p> + When the line was run between Virginia and North Carolina beyond the + mountains, Watauga was discovered to be south of Virginia's limits and + hence on Indian lands. This was in conflict with the King's Proclamation, + and Alexander Cameron, British agent to the Cherokees, accordingly ordered + the encroaching settlers to depart. The Indians, however, desired them to + remain. But since it was illegal to purchase Indian lands, Robertson + negotiated a lease for ten years. In 1775, when Henderson made his + purchase from the Cherokees, at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga, Robertson + and Sevier, who were present at the sale with other Watauga commissioners, + followed Henderson's example and bought outright the lands they desired + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span> to + include in Watauga's domain. In 1776 they petitioned North Carolina for “annexation.” + As they were already within North Carolina's bounds, it was recognition + rather than annexation which they sought. This petition, which is the only + Wataugan document to survive, is undated but marked as received in August, + 1776. It is in Sevier's handwriting and its style suggests that it was + composed by him, for in its manner of expression it has much in common + with many later papers from his pen. That Wataugans were a law-loving + community and had formed their government for the purpose of making law + respected is reiterated throughout the document. As showing the quality of + these first western statemakers, two paragraphs are quoted: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p> + Finding ourselves on the frontiers, and being apprehensive that for want + of proper legislature we might become a shelter for such as endeavored + to defraud their creditors; considering also the necessity of recording + deeds, wills, and doing other public business; we, by consent of the + people, formed a court for the purposes above mentioned, taking, by + desire of our constituents, the Virginia laws for our guide, so near as + the situation of affairs would permit. This was intended for ourselves, + and <em>was done by consent of every individual</em>. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + The petition goes on to state that, among their measures for upholding + law, the Wataugans had <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" + id="Page_172">172</a></span> enlisted “a company of fine riflemen” + and put them under command of “Captain James Robertson.” + </p> + <blockquote> + <p> + We… thought proper to station them on our frontiers in defense of + the common cause, at the expense and risque of our own private fortunes, + till farther public orders, which we flatter ourselves will give no + offense.… We pray your mature and deliberate consideration in our + behalf, that you may annex us to your Province (whether as county, + district, or other division) in such manner as may enable us to share in + the glorious cause of Liberty: enforce our laws under authority and in + every respect become the best members of society; and for ourselves and + our constituents we hope we may venture to assure you that we shall + adhere strictly to your determinations, and that nothing will be lacking + or anything neglected that may add weight (in the civil or military + establishments) to the glorious cause in which we are now struggling, or + contribute to the welfare of our own or ages yet to come. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + One hundred and thirteen names are signed to the document. In the + following year (1777) North Carolina erected her overhill territory into + Washington County. The Governor appointed justices of the peace and + militia officers who in the following year organized the new county and + its courts. And so Watauga's independent government, begun in the spirit + of true liberty, came as lawfully to its end. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span> But + for nearly three years before their political status was thus determined, + the Wataugans were sharing “in the glorious cause of Liberty” by + defending their settlements against Indian attacks. While the majority of + the young Cherokee warriors were among their enemies, their chief battles + were fought with those from the Chickamaugan towns on the Tennessee River, + under the leadership of Dragging Canoe. The Chickamaugans embraced the + more vicious and bloodthirsty Cherokees, with a mixture of Creeks and bad + whites, who, driven from every law-abiding community, had cast in their + lot with this tribe. The exact number of white thieves and murderers who + had found harbor in the Indian towns during a score or more of years is + not known; but the letters of the Indian agents, preserved in the records, + would indicate that there were a good many of them. They were fit allies + for Dragging Canoe; their hatred of those from whom their own degeneracy + had separated them was not less than his. + </p> + <p class="noindent"> + In July, 1776, John Sevier wrote to the Virginia Committee as follows: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">Dear Gentlemen</span>: Isaac Thomas, William + Falling, Jaret Williams and one more have this moment come in by making + their escape from the Indians and say six + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> + hundred Indians and whites + were to start for this fort and intend to drive the country up to New + River before they return. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Thus was heralded the beginning of a savage warfare which kept the + borderers engaged for years. + </p> + <p> + It has been a tradition of the chroniclers that Isaac Thomas received a + timely warning from Nancy Ward, a half-caste Cherokee prophetess who often + showed her good will towards the whites; and that the Indians were roused + to battle by Alexander Cameron and John Stuart, the British agents or + superintendents among the overhill tribes. There was a letter bearing + Cameron's name stating that fifteen hundred savages from the Cherokee and + Creek nations were to join with British troops landed at Pensacola in an + expedition against the southern frontier colonies. This letter was brought + to Watauga at dead of night by a masked man who slipped it through a + window and rode away. Apparently John Sevier did not believe the military + information contained in the mysterious missive, for he communicated + nothing of it to the Virginia Committee. In recent years the facts have + come to light. This mysterious letter and others of a similar tenor + bearing forged signatures are cited in a report by the British Agent, John + Stuart, to + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> + his Government. It appears that such inflammatory missives had been + industriously scattered through the back settlements of both Carolinas. + There are also letters from Stuart to Lord Dartmouth, dated a year + earlier, urging that something be done immediately to counteract rumors + set afloat that the British were endeavoring to instigate both the Indians + and the negroes to attack the Americans. + </p> + <p> + Now it is, of course, an established fact that both the British and the + American armies used Indians in the War of Independence, even as both + together had used them against the French and the Spanish and their allied + Indians. It was inevitable that the Indians should participate in any + severe conflict between the whites. They were a numerous and a warlike + people and, from their point of view, they had more at stake than the + alien whites who were contesting for control of the red man's continent. + Both British and Americans have been blamed for “half-hearted attempts + to keep the Indians neutral.” The truth is that each side strove to + enlist the Indians—to be used, if needed later, as warriors. + Massacre was no part of this policy, though it may have been countenanced + by individual officers in both camps. But it is obvious + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> + that, once + the Indians took the warpath, they were to be restrained by no power and, + no matter under whose nominal command, they would carry on warfare by + their own methods. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_176-1" name="footer_176-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_176">¹</a> + “There is little doubt that either side, + British or Americans, stood ready to enlist the Indians. Already before + Boston the Americans had had the help of the Stockbridge tribe. Washington + found the service committed to the practise when he arrived at Cambridge + early in July. Dunmore had taken the initiative in securing such allies, + at least is purpose; but the insurgent Virginians had had of late more + direct contact with the tribes and were now striving to secure them but + with little success.” <i>The Westward Movement,</i> by Justin Winsor, + p. 87. <br /> General Ethan Allen of Vermont, as his letters show, sent + emissaries into Canada in an endeavor to enlist the French Canadians and + the Canadian Indians against the British in Canada. See <i>American + Archives,</i> Fourth Series, vol. II, p. 714. The British General Gage + wrote to Lord Dartmouth from Boston, June 12, 1775: “We need not be + tender of calling on the Savages as the rebels have shown us the example, + by bringing as many Indians down against us as they could collect.” <i>American + Archives,</i> Fourth Series, vol. ii, p. 967. <br /> In a letter to Lord + Germain, dated August 23, 1776, John Stuart wrote: “Although Mr. Cameron + was in constant danger of assassination and the Indians were threatened + with invasion should they dare to protect him, yet he still found means to + prevent their falling on the settlement.” See North Carolina <i>Colonial + Records,</i> vol. X, pp. 608 and 763. Proof that the British agents had + succeeded in keeping the Cherokee neutral till the summer of 1776 is found + in the instructions, dated the 7th of July, to Major Winston from + President Rutledge of South Carolina, regarding the Cherokees, that they + must be forced to give up the British agents and “<em>instead of + remaining in a State of Neutrality</em> with respect to British Forces + they must take part with us against them.” See North Carolina <i>Colonial + Records,</i> vol. X, p. 658. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Whatever may have been the case elsewhere, the attacks on the Watauga and + Holston settlements + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span> + were not instigated by British agents. It was not Nancy Ward but Henry + Stuart, John Stuart's deputy, who sent Isaac Thomas to warn the settlers. + In their efforts to keep the friendship of the red men, the British and + the Americans were providing them with powder and lead. The Indians had + run short of ammunition and, since hunting was their only means of + livelihood, they must shoot or starve. South Carolina sent the Cherokees a + large supply of powder and lead which was captured en route by Tories. + About the same time Henry Stuart set out from Pensacola with another + consignment from the British. His report to Lord Germain of his arrival in + the Chickamaugan towns and of what took place there just prior to the + raids on the Tennessee settlements is one of the most illuminating as well + as one of the most dramatic papers in the collected records of that time. + ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_177-1" name="footer_177-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_177">¹</a> + North Carolina <i>Colonial Records,</i> vol. X, pp. 763-785. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Stuart's first act was secretly to send out Thomas, the trader, to warn + the settlers of their peril, for a small war party of braves was even then + concluding the preliminary war ceremonies. The reason for this Indian + alarm and projected excursion was the fact that the settlers had built one + fort at least on the Indian lands. Stuart finally persuaded the <span + class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> Indians to + remain at peace until he could write to the settlers stating the + grievances and asking for negotiations. The letters were to be carried by + Thomas on his return. + </p> + <p> + But no sooner was Thomas on his way again with the letters than there + arrived a deputation of warriors from the Northern tribes—from “the + Confederate nations, the Mohawks, Ottawas, Nantucas, Shawanoes and + Delawares”—fourteen men in all, who entered the council hall of + the Old Beloved Town of Chota with their faces painted black and the war + belt carried before them. They said that they had been seventy days on + their journey. Everywhere along their way they had seen houses and forts + springing up like weeds across the green sod of their hunting lands. Where + once were great herds of deer and buffalo, they had watched thousands of + men at arms preparing for war. So many now were the white warriors and + their women and children that the red men had been obliged to travel a + great way on the other side of the Ohio and to make a detour of nearly + three hundred miles to avoid being seen. Even on this outlying route they + had crossed the fresh tracks of a great body of people with horses and + cattle going still further towards the setting sun. But their + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> + cries were + not to be in vain; for “their fathers, the French” had heard them and + had promised to aid them if they would now strike as one for their lands. + </p> + <p> + After this preamble the deputy of the Mohawks rose. He said that some + American people had made war on one of their towns and had seized the son + of their Great Beloved Man, Sir William Johnson, imprisoned him, and put + him to a cruel death; this crime demanded a great vengeance and they would + not cease until they had taken it. One after another the fourteen + delegates rose and made their “talks” and presented their wampum + strings to Dragging Canoe. The last to speak was a chief of the Shawanoes. + He also declared that “their fathers, the French,” who had been so + long dead, were “alive again,” that they had supplied them + plentifully with arms and ammunition and had promised to assist them in + driving out the Americans and in reclaiming their country. Now all the + Northern tribes were joined in one for this great purpose; and they + themselves were on their way to all the Southern tribes and had resolved + that, if any tribe refused to join, they would fall upon and extirpate + that tribe, after having overcome the whites. At the conclusion of his + oration the Shawanoe presented the war belt—nine feet of six-inch + wide + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span> + purple wampum spattered with vermilion—to Dragging Canoe, who held + it extended between his two hands, in silence, and waited. Presently rose + a headman whose wife had been a member of Sir William Johnson's household. + He laid his hand on the belt and sang the war song. One by one, then, + chiefs and warriors rose, laid hold of the great belt and chanted the war + song. Only the older men, made wise by many defeats, sat still in their + places, mute and dejected. “After that day every young fellow's face in + the overhills towns appeared blackened and nothing was now talked of but + war.” + </p> + <p> + Stuart reports that “all the white men” in the tribe also laid hands + on the belt. Dragging Canoe then demanded that Cameron and Stuart come + forward and take hold of the war belt—“which we refused.” + Despite the offense their refusal gave—and it would seem a dangerous + time to give such offense—Cameron delivered a “strong talk” for + peace, warning the Cherokees of what must surely be the end of the + rashness they contemplated. Stuart informed the chief that if the Indians + persisted in attacking the settlements with out waiting for answers to his + letters, he would not remain with them any longer or bring them any more + ammunition. He went to his house and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> + made ready to leave on the + following day. Early the next morning Dragging Canoe appeared at his door + and told him that the Indians were now very angry about the letters he had + written, which could only have put the settlers on their guard; and that + if any white man attempted to leave the nation “they had determined to + follow him <em>but not to bring him back.</em>” Dragging Canoe had + painted his face black to carry this message. Thomas now returned with an + answer from “the West Fincastle men,” which was so unsatisfactory to + the tribe that war ceremonies were immediately begun. Stuart and Cameron + could no longer influence the Indians. “All that could now be done was + to give them strict charge not to pass the Boundary Line, not to injure + any of the King's faithful subjects, not to Kill any women and children”; + and to threaten to “stop all ammunition” if they did not obey these + orders. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + The major part of the Watauga militia went out to meet the Indians and + defeated a large advance force at Long Island Flats on the Holston. The + Watauga fort, where many of the settlers had taken refuge, contained forty + fighting men under Robertson and Sevier. As Indians usually retreated and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> + waited for a while after a defeat, those within the fort took it for + granted that no immediate attack was to be expected; and the women went + out at daybreak into the fields to milk the cows. Suddenly the war whoop + shrilled from the edge of the clearing. Red warriors leaped from the green + skirting of the forest. The women ran for the fort. Quickly the heavy + gates swung to and the dropped bar secured them. Only then did the + watchmen discover that one woman had been shut out. She was a young woman + nearing her twenties and, if legend has reported her truly, “Bonnie Kate + Sherrill” was a beauty. Through a porthole Sevier saw her running + towards the shut gates, dodging and darting, her brown hair blowing from + the wind of her race for life—and offering far too rich a prize to + the yelling fiends who dashed after her. Sevier coolly shot the foremost + of her pursuers, then sprang upon the wall, caught up Bonnie Kate, and + tossed her inside to safety. And legend says further that when, after + Sevier's brief widowerhood, she became his wife, four years later, Bonnie + Kate was wont to say that she would be willing to run another such race + any day to have another such introduction! + </p> + <p> + There were no casualties within the fort and, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> + after three hours, the foe + withdrew, leaving several of their warriors slain. + </p> + <p> + In the excursions against the Indians which followed this opening of + hostilities Sevier won his first fame as an “Indian fighter”—the + fame later crystallized in the phrase “thirty-five battles, thirty-five + victories.” His method was to take a very small company of the hardiest + and swiftest horsemen—men who could keep their seat and endurance, + and horses that could keep their feet and their speed, on any steep of the + mountains no matter how tangled and rough the going might be—swoop + down upon war camp, or town, and go through it with rifle and hatchet and + fire, then dash homeward at the same pace before the enemy had begun to + consider whether to follow him or not. In all his “thirty-five battles” + it is said he lost not more than fifty men. + </p> + <p> + The Cherokees made peace in 1777, after about a year of almost continuous + warfare, the treaty being concluded on their side by the old chiefs who + had never countenanced the war. Dragging Canoe refused to take part, but + he was rendered innocuous for the time being by the destruction of several + of the Chickamaugan villages. James Robertson now went to Chota as Indian + agent for North Carolina. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span> + So fast was population growing, owing to the + opening of a wagon road into Burke County, North Carolina, that Washington + County was divided. John Sevier became Colonel of Washington and Isaac + Shelby Colonel of the newly erected Sullivan County. Jonesborough, the + oldest town in Tennessee, was laid out as the county seat of Washington; + and in the same year (1778) Sevier moved to the bank of the Nolichucky + River, so-called after the Indian name of this dashing sparkling stream, + meaning <em>rapid</em> or <em>precipitous</em>. Thus the nickname given + John Sevier by his devotees had a dual application. He was well called + Nolichucky Jack. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + When Virginia annulled Richard Henderson's immense purchase but allowed + him a large tract on the Cumberland, she by no means discouraged that + intrepid pioneer. Henderson's tenure of Kentucky had been brief, but not + unprofitable in experience. He had learned that colonies must be treated + with less commercial pressure and with more regard to individual liberty, + if they were to be held loyal either to a King beyond the water or to an + uncrowned leader nearer at hand. He had been making his plans for + colonization of that portion of the Transylvania purchase which lay within + the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> + bounds of North Carolina along the Cumberland and choosing his men to lay + the foundations of his projected settlement in what was then a wholly + uninhabited country; and he had decided on generous terms, such as ten + dollars a thousand acres for land, the certificate of purchase to entitle + the holder to further proceedings in the land office without extra fees. + </p> + <p> + To head an enterprise of such danger and hardship Henderson required a man + of more than mere courage; a man of resource, of stability, of proven + powers, one whom other men would follow and obey with confidence. So it + was that James Robertson was chosen to lead the first white settlers into + middle Tennessee. He set out in February, 1779, accompanied by his + brother, Mark Robertson, several other white men, and a negro, to select a + site for settlement and to plant corn. Meanwhile another small party led + by Gaspar Mansker had arrived. As the boundary line between Virginia and + North Carolina had not been run to this point, Robertson believed that the + site he had chosen lay within Virginia and was in the disposal of General + Clark. To protect the settlers, therefore, he journeyed into the Illinois + country to purchase cabin rights from Clark, but there he was evidently + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> + convinced that the site on the Cumberland would be found to lie within + North Carolina. He returned to Watauga to lead a party of settlers into + the new territory, towards which they set out in October. After crossing + the mountain chain through Cumberland Gap, the party followed Boone's road—the + Warriors' Path—for some distance and then made their own trail + southwestward through the wilderness to the bluffs on the Cumberland, + where they built cabins to house them against one of the coldest winters + ever experienced in that county. So were laid the first foundations of the + present city of Nashville, at first named Nashborough by Robertson. ¹ + On the way, Robertson had fallen in with a party of men and families bound + for Kentucky and had persuaded them to accompany his little band to the + Cumberland. Robertson's own wife and children, as well as the families of + his party, had been left to follow in the second expedition, which was to + be made by water under the command of Captain John Donelson. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_186-1" name="footer_186-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_186">¹</a> + In honor of General Francis Nash, of North + Carolina, who was mortally wounded at Germantown, 1777. + </p> + </div> + <p> + The little fleet of boats containing the settlers, their families, and all + their household goods, was to start from Fort Patrick Henry, near Long + Island + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> + in the Holston River, to float down into the Tennessee and along the 652 + miles of that widely wandering stream to the Ohio, and then to proceed up + the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland and up the Cumberland until + Robertson's station should appear—a journey, as it turned out, of + some nine hundred miles through unknown country and on waters at any rate + for the greater part never before navigated by white men. + </p> + <p> + <i>Journal of a voyage, intended by God's permission, in the good boat + Adventure</i> is the title of the log book in which Captain Donelson + entered the events of the four months' journey. Only a few pages endured + to be put into print: but those few tell a tale of hazard and courage that + seems complete. Could a lengthier narrative, even if enriched with + literary art and fancy, bring before us more vividly than do the simple + entries of Donelson's log the spirit of the men and the women who won the + West? If so little personal detail is recorded of the pioneer men of that + day that we must deduce what they were from what they did, what do we know + of their unfailing comrades, the pioneer women? Only that they were there + and that they shared in every test of courage and endurance, save the + march of troops and the hunt. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" + id="Page_188">188</a></span> Donelson's <i>Journal</i> therefore has a + special value, because in its terse account of Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. + Peyton it depicts unforgettably the quality of pioneer womanhood. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_188-1" name="footer_188-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_188">¹</a> + This Journal is printed in Ramsey's <i>Annals of Tennessee.</i> + </p> + </div> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + <i>December 22nd, 1779.</i> Took our departure from the fort and fell + down the river to the mouth of Reedy Creek where we were stopped by the + fall of water and most excessive hard frost. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Perhaps part of the <i>Journal</i> was lost, or perhaps the “excessive + hard frost” of that severe winter, when it is said even droves of wild + game perished, prevented the boats from going on, for the next entry is + dated the 27th of February. On this date the <i>Adventure</i> and two + other boats grounded and lay on the shoals all that afternoon and the + succeeding night “in much distress.” + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + <i>March 2nd.</i> Rain about half the day.… Mr. Henry's boat + being driven on the point of an island by the force of the current was + sunk, the whole cargo much damaged and the crew's lives much endangered, + which occasioned the whole fleet to put on shore and go to their + assistance.…<br /> <i>Monday 6th.</i> Got under way before + sunrise; the morning proving very foggy, many of the fleet were much + bogged—about 10 o'clock lay by for them; when + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> + collected, proceeded down. + Camped on the north shore, where Captain Hutching's negro man died, + being much frosted in his feet and legs, of which he died.<br /> <i>Tuesday, + 7th.</i> Got under way very early; the day proving very windy, a S. S. W., + and the river being wide occasioned a high sea, insomuch that some of + the smaller crafts were in danger; therefore came to at the uppermost + Chiccamauga town, which was then evacuated, where we lay by that + afternoon and camped that night. The wife of Ephraim Peyton was here + delivered of a child. Mr. Peyton has gone through by land with Captain + Robertson.<br /> <i>Wednesday 8th</i>… proceed down to an Indian + village which was inhabited… they insisted on us to come ashore, + called us brothers, and showed other signs of friendship.… And + here we must regret the unfortunate death of young Mr. Payne, on board + Captain Blakemore's boat, who was mortally wounded by reason of the boat + running too near the northern shore opposite the town, where some of the + enemy lay concealed; and the more tragical misfortune of poor Stuart, + his family and friends, to the number of twenty-eight persons. This man + had embarked with us for the Western country, but his family being + diseased with the small pox, it was agreed upon between him and the + company that he should keep at some distance in the rear, for fear of + the infection spreading, and he was warned each night when the + encampment should take place by the sound of a horn.… The Indians + having now collected to a considerable number, observing his helpless + situation singled off from the rest of the fleet, intercepted him and + killed and took prisoners the whole crew…; their cries were + distinctly heard.… + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> + After describing a running fight with Indians stationed on the bluffs on + both shores where the river narrowed to half its width and boiled through + a canyon, the entry for the day concludes: “Jennings's boat is missing.” + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + <i>Friday 10th.</i> This morning about 4 o'clock we were surprised by + the cries of “help poor Jennings” at some distance in the rear. He + had discovered us by our fires and came up in the most wretched + condition. He states that as soon as the Indians discovered his + situation [his boat had run on a rock] they turned their whole attention + to him and kept up a most galling fire at his boat. He ordered his wife, + a son nearly grown, a young man who accompanies them and his negro man + and woman, to throw all his goods into the river to lighten their boat + for the purpose of getting her off; himself returning their fire as well + as he could, being a good soldier and an excellent marksman. But before + they had accomplished their object, his son, the young man and the + negro, jumped out of the boat and left.… Mrs. Jennings, however, + and the negro woman, succeeded in unloading the boat, but chiefly by the + exertions of Mrs. Jennings who got out of the boat and shoved her off, + but was near falling a victim to her own intrepidity on account of the + boat starting so suddenly as soon as loosened from the rock. Upon + examination he appears to have made a wonderful escape for his boat is + pierced in numberless places with bullets. It is to be remarked that + Mrs. Peyton, who was the night before delivered of an infant, which was + unfortunately killed upon the hurry and confusion consequent upon such a + disaster, assisted them, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> + being frequently exposed to wet and cold.… + Their clothes were very much cut with bullets, especially Mrs. + Jennings's. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Of the three men who deserted, while the women stood by under fire, the + negro was drowned and Jennings's son and the other young man were captured + by the Chickamaugans. The latter was burned at the stake. Young Jennings + was to have shared the same fate; but a trader in the village, learning + that the boy was known to John Sevier, ransomed him by a large payment of + goods, as a return for an act of kindness Sevier had once done to him. + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + <i>Sunday 12th</i>.… After running until about 10 o'clock came in + sight of the Muscle Shoals. Halted on the northern shore at the + appearance of the shoals, in order to search for the signs Captain James + Robertson was to make for us at that place… that it was + practicable for us to go across by land… we can find none—from + which we conclude that it would not be prudent to make the attempt and + are determined, knowing ourselves in such imminent danger, to pursue our + journey down the river.… When we approached them [the Shoals] + they had a dreadful appearance.… The water being high made a + terrible roaring, which could be heard at some distance, among the + driftwood heaped frightfully upon the points of the islands, the current + running in every possible direction. Here we did not know how soon we + should be dashed to pieces and all our troubles + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> + ended at once. Our boats + frequently dragged on the bottom and appeared constantly in danger of + striking. They warped as much as in a rough sea. But by the hand of + Providence we are now preserved from this danger also. I know not the + length of this wonderful shoal; it had been represented to me to be + twenty-five or thirty miles. If so, we must have descended very rapidly, + as indeed we did, for we passed it in about three hours. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + On the twentieth the little fleet arrived at the mouth of the Tennessee + and the voyagers landed on the bank of the Ohio. + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Our situation here is truly disagreeable. The river is very high and the + current rapid, our boats not constructed for the purpose of stemming a + rapid stream, our provisions exhausted, the crews almost worn down with + hunger and fatigue, and know not what distance we have to go or what + time it will take us to our place of destination. The scene is rendered + still more melancholy as several boats will not attempt to ascend the + rapid current. Some intend to descend the Mississippi to Natchez; others + are bound for the Illinois—among the rest my son-in-law and + daughter. We now part, perhaps to meet no more, for I am determined to + pursue my course, happen what will. <br /> <i>Tuesday 21st.</i> Set out + and on this day labored very hard and got but little way.… Passed + the two following days as the former, suffering much from hunger and + fatigue. <br /> <i>Friday 24th.</i> About three o'clock came to the mouth + of a river which I thought was the Cumberland. Some of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> + the + company declared it could not be—it was so much smaller than was + expected.… We determined however to make the trial, pushed up + some distance and encamped for the night. <br /> <i>Saturday 25th.</i> + Today we are much encouraged; the river grows wider;… we are now + convinced it is the Cumberland.… <br /> <i>Sunday 26th</i>… + procured some buffalo meat; though poor it was palatable. <br /> <i>Friday + 31st</i>… met with Colonel Richard Henderson, who is running the + line between Virginia and North Carolina. At this meeting we were much + rejoiced. He gave us every information we wished, and further informed + us that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped + at the Falls of Ohio for the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are + now without bread and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve + life.… <br /> <i>Monday, April 24th</i>. This day we arrived at + our journey's end at the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of + finding Captain Robertson and his company. It is a source of + satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore to him and others their + families and friends, who were entrusted to our care, and who, sometime + since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting again.… + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + Past the camps of the Chickamaugans—who were retreating farther and + farther down the twisting flood, seeking a last standing ground in the + giant caves by the Tennessee—these white voyagers had steered their + pirogues. Near Robertson's station, where they landed after having + traversed + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> + the triangle of the three great rivers which enclose the larger part of + western Tennessee, stood a crumbling trading house marking the defeat of a + Frenchman who had, one time, sailed in from the Ohio to establish an + outpost of his nation there. At a little distance were the ruins of a rude + fort cast up by the Cherokees in the days when the redoubtable Chickasaws + had driven them from the pleasant shores of the western waters. Under the + towering forest growth lay vast burial mounds and the sunken foundations + of walled towns, telling of a departed race which had once flashed its + rude paddles and had its dream of permanence along the courses of these + great waterways. Now another tribe had come to dream that dream anew. + Already its primitive keels had traced the opening lines of its history on + the face of the immemorial rivers. + </p> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter09" id="Chapter09"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER IX.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">King's Mountain</p> + + + + <p class="noindent"> + About the time when James Robertson went from Watauga to fling out the + frontier line three hundred miles farther westward, the British took + Savannah. In 1780 they took Charleston and Augusta, and overran Georgia. + Augusta was the point where the old trading path forked north and west, + and it was the key to the Back Country and the overhill domain. In Georgia + and the Back Country of South Carolina there were many Tories ready to + rally to the King's standard whenever a King's officer should carry it + through their midst. A large number of these Tories were Scotch, chiefly + from the Highlands. In fact, as we have seen, Scotch blood predominated + among the racial streams in the Back Country from Georgia to Pennsylvania. + Now, to insure a triumphant march northward for Cornwallis and his royal + troops, these sons of Scotland must be gathered together, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span> + the loyal + encouraged and those of rebellious tendencies converted, and they must be + drilled and turned to account. This task, if it were to be accomplished + successfully, must be entrusted to an officer with positive + qualifications, one who would command respect, whose personal address + would attract men and disarm opposition, and especially one who could go + as a Scot among his own clan. Cornwallis found his man in Major Patrick + Ferguson. + </p> + <p> + Ferguson was a Highlander, a son of Lord Pitfour of Aberdeen, and + thirty-six years of age. He was of short stature for a Highlander—about + five feet eight—lean and dark, with straight black hair. He had a + serious unhandsome countenance which, at casual glance, might not arrest + attention; but when he spoke he became magnetic, by reason of the + intelligence and innate force that gleamed in his eyes and the convincing + sincerity of his manner. He was admired and respected by his brother + officers and by the commanders under whom he had served, and he was loved + by his men. + </p> + <p> + He had seen his first service in the Seven Years' War, having joined the + British army in Flanders at the age of fifteen; and he had early + distinguished himself for courage and coolness. In 1768, as a captain of + infantry, he quelled an insurrection of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span> + the natives on the island of + St. Vincent in the West Indies. Later, at Woolwich, he took up the + scientific study of his profession of arms. He not only became a crack + shot, but he invented a new type of rifle which he could load at the + breach without ramrod and so quickly as to fire seven times in a minute. + Generals and statesmen attended his exhibitions of shooting; and even the + King rode over at the head of his guards to watch Ferguson rapidly loading + and firing. + </p> + <p> + In America under Cornwallis, Ferguson had the reputation of being the best + shot in the army; and it was soon said that, in his quickness at loading + and firing, he excelled the most expert American frontiersman. + Eyewitnesses have left their testimony that, seeing a bird alight on a + bough or rail, he would drop his bridle rein, draw his pistol, toss it in + the air, catch and aim it as it fell, and shoot the bird's head off. He + was given command of a corps of picked riflemen; and in the Battle of the + Brandywine in 1777 he rendered services which won acclaim from the whole + army. For the honor of that day's service to his King, Ferguson paid what + from him, with his passion for the rifle, must have been the dearest price + that could have been demanded. His right arm was shattered, and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> + for the + remaining three years of his short life it hung useless at his side. Yet + he took up swordplay and attained a remarkable degree of skill as a + left-handed swordsman. + </p> + <p> + Such was Ferguson, the soldier. What of the man? For he has been pictured + as a wolf and a fiend and a coward by early chroniclers, who evidently + felt that they were adding to the virtue of those who fought in defense of + liberty by representing all their foes as personally odious. We can read + his quality of manhood in a few lines of the letter he sent to his + kinsman, the noted Dr. Adam Ferguson, about an incident that occurred at + Chads Ford. As he was lying with his men in the woods, in front of + Knyphausen's army, so he relates, he saw two American officers ride out. + He describes their dress minutely. One was in hussar uniform. The other + was in a dark green and blue uniform with a high cocked hat and was + mounted on a bay horse: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + I ordered three good shots to steal near to and fire at them; but the + idea disgusting me, I recalled the order. The hussar in retiring made a + circuit, but the other passed within a hundred yards of us, upon which I + advanced from the wood towards him. Upon my calling he stopped; but + after looking at me he proceeded. I again drew his attention and made + signs to him to stop, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> + levelling my piece at him; but he slowly + cantered away. As I was within that distance, at which, in the quickest + firing, I could have lodged half a dozen balls in or about him before he + was out of my reach, I had only to determine. But it was not pleasant to + fire at the back of an unoffending individual who was acquitting himself + very coolly of his duty—so I let him alone. The day after, I had + been telling this story to some wounded officers, who lay in the same + room with me, when one of the surgeons who had been dressing the wounded + rebel officers came in and told us that they had been informing him that + General Washington was all the morning with the light troops, and only + attended by a French officer in hussar dress, he himself dressed and + mounted in every point as above described. <em>I am not sorry that I did + not know at the time who it was.</em> ¹ + </p> + </blockquote> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_199-1" name="footer_199-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_199">¹</a> + Doubt that the officer in question was + Washington was expressed by James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper stated that + Major De Lancey his father-in-law, was binding Ferguson's arm at the time + when the two officers were seen and Ferguson recalled the order to fire, + and that De Lancey said he believed the officer was Count Pulaski. But, as + Ferguson, according to his own account, “leveled his piece” at the + officer, his arm evidently was not wounded until later in the day. The + probability is that Ferguson's version, written in a private letter to his + relative, is correct as to the facts, whatever may be conjectured as to + the identity of the officer. See Draper's <i>King's Mountain and its + Heroes,</i> pp. 52-54. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Ferguson had his code towards the foe's women also. On one occasion when + he was assisting in an action carried out by Hessians and Dragoons, he + learned that some American women had been shamefully maltreated. He went + in a white fury + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> + to the colonel in command, and demanded that the men who had so disgraced + their uniforms instantly be put to death. + </p> + <p> + In rallying the loyalists of the Back Country of Georgia and the + Carolinas, Ferguson was very successful. He was presently in command of a + thousand or more men, including small detachments of loyalists from New + York and New Jersey, under American-born officers such as De Peyster and + Allaire. There were good honest men among the loyalists and there were + also rough and vicious men out for spoils—which was true as well of + the Whigs or Patriots from the same counties. Among the rough element were + Tory banditti from the overmountain region. It is to be gathered from + Ferguson's records that he did not think any too highly of some of his new + recruits, but he set to work with all energy to make them useful. + </p> + <p> + The American Patriots hastily prepared to oppose him. Colonel Charles + McDowell of Burke County, North Carolina, with a small force of militia + was just south of the line at a point on the Broad River when he heard + that Ferguson was sweeping on northward. In haste he sent a call for help + across the mountains to Sevier and Shelby. Sevier had his hands full at + Watauga, but he + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> + dispatched two hundred of his troops; and Isaac Shelby, with a similar + force from Sullivan County crossed the mountains to McDowell's assistance. + These “overmountain men” or “backwater men,” as they were called east + of the hills, were trained in Sevier's method of Indian warfare—the + secret approach through the dark, the swift dash, and the swifter flight. + “Fight strong and run away fast” was the Indian motto, as their women + had often been heard to call it after the red men as they ran yelling to + fall on the whites. The frontiersmen had adapted the motto to fit their + case, as they had also made their own the Indian tactics of ambuscade and + surprise attacks at dawn. To sleep, or ride if needs must, by night, and + to fight by day and make off, was to them a reasonable soldier's life. + </p> + <p> + But Ferguson was a night marauder. The terror of his name, which grew + among the Whigs of the Back Country until the wildest legends about his + ferocity were current, was due chiefly to a habit he had of pouncing on + his foes in the middle of the night and pulling them out of bed to give + fight or die. It was generally both fight and die, for these dark + adventures of his were particularly successful. Ferguson knew no neutrals + or conscientious + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> + objectors; any man who would not carry arms for the King was a traitor, + and his life and goods were forfeit. A report of his reads: “The attack + being made at night, no quarter could be given.” Hence his wolfish + fame. “Werewolf” would have been a fit name for him for, though he + was a wolf at night, in the daylight he was a man and, as we have seen, a + chivalrous one. + </p> + <p> + In the guerrilla fighting that went on for a brief time between the + overmountain men and various detachments of Ferguson's forces, sometimes + one side, sometimes the other, won the heat. But the field remained open. + Neither side could claim the mastery. In a minor engagement fought at + Musgrove's Mill on the Enoree, Shelby's command came off victor and was + about to pursue the enemy towards Ninety-Six when a messenger from + McDowell galloped madly into camp with word of General Gates's crushing + defeat at Camden. This was a warning for Shelby's guerrillas to flee as + birds to their mountains, or Ferguson would cut them off from the north + and wedge them in between his own force and the victorious Cornwallis. + McDowell's men, also on the run for safety, joined them. For forty-eight + hours without food or rest they rode a race with Ferguson, who kept hard + on + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span> + their trail until they disappeared into the mystery of the winding + mountain paths they alone knew. + </p> + <p> + <a name="Page_203-T1" id="Page_203-T1"></a> Ferguson reached the gap where + they had swerved into the towering hills only half an hour after their + horses' hoofs had pounded across it. Here he turned back. His troops were + exhausted from the all-night ride and, in any case, there were not enough + of them to enable him to cross the mountains and give the Watauga men + battle on their own ground with a fair promise of victory. So keeping east + of the hills but still close to them, Ferguson turned into Burke County, + North Carolina. He sat him down in Gilbert Town (present Lincolnton, + Lincoln County) at the foot of the Blue Ridge and indited a letter to the + “Back Water Men,” + telling them that if they did not lay down their arms and return to their + rightful allegiance, he would come over their hills and raze their + settlements and hang their leaders. He paroled a kinsman of Shelby's, whom + he had taken prisoner in the chase, and sent him home with the letter. + Then he set about his usual business of gathering up Tories and making + soldiers of them, and of hunting down rebels. + </p> + <p> + One of the “rebels” was a certain Captain Lytle. When Ferguson + drew up at Lytle's door, Lytle had + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> + already made his escape; but Mrs. Lytle was there. She was a very handsome + woman and she had dressed herself in her best to receive Ferguson, who was + reported a gallant as well as a wolf. After a few spirited passages + between the lady in the doorway and the officer on the white horse before + it, the latter advised Mrs. Lytle to use her influence to bring her + husband back to his duty. She became grave then and answered that her + husband would never turn traitor to his country Ferguson frowned at the + word “traitor,” but presently he said: “Madam, + I admire you as the handsomest woman I have seen in North Carolina. I even + half way admire your zeal in a bad cause. But take my word for it, the + rebellion has had its day and is now virtually put down. Give my regards + to Captain Lytle and tell him to come in. He will not be asked to + compromise his honor. His verbal pledge not again to take up arms against + the King is all that will be asked of him.” ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_204-1" name="footer_204-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_204">¹</a> + Draper, <i>King's Mountain and its Heroes,</i> pp. 151-53. + </p> + </div> + <p> + This was another phase of the character of the one-armed Highlander whose + final challenge to the back water men was now being considered in every + log cabin beyond the hills. A man who would not shoot an enemy in the + back, who was ready to put + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span> + the same faith in another soldier's honor which he knew was due to his + own, yet in battle a wolfish fighter who leaped through the dark to give + no quarter and to take none—he was fit challenger to those other + mountaineers who also had a chivalry of their own, albeit they too were + wolves of war. + </p> + <p> + When Shelby on the Holston received Ferguson's pungent letter, he flung + himself on his horse and rode posthaste to Watauga to consult with Sevier. + He found the bank of the Nolichucky teeming with merrymakers. Nolichucky + Jack was giving an immense barbecue and a horse race. Without letting the + festival crowd have an inkling of the serious nature of Shelby's errand, + the two men drew apart to confer. It is said to have been Sevier's idea + that they should muster the forces of the western country and go in search + of Ferguson ere the latter should be able to get sufficient reinforcements + to cross the mountains. Sevier, like Ferguson, always preferred to seek + his foe, knowing well the advantage of the offensive. Messengers were sent + to Colonel William Campbell of the Virginia settlements on the Clinch, + asking his aid. Campbell at first refused, thinking it better to fortify + the positions they held and let Ferguson + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> + come and put the mountains + between himself and Cornwallis. On receipt of a second message, however, + he concurred. The call to arms was heard up and down the valleys, and the + frontiersmen poured into Watauga. The overhill men were augmented by + McDowell's troops from Burke County, who had dashed over the mountains a + few weeks before in their escape from Ferguson. + </p> + <p> + At daybreak on the 26th of September they mustered at the Sycamore Shoals + on the Watauga, over a thousand strong. It was a different picture they + made from that other great gathering at the same spot when Henderson had + made his purchase in money of the Dark and Bloody Ground, and Sevier and + Robertson had bought for the Wataugans this strip of Tennessee. There were + no Indians in this picture. Dragging Canoe, who had uttered his bloody + prophecy, had by these very men been driven far south into the caves of + the Tennessee River. But the Indian prophecy still hung over them, and in + this day with a heavier menace. Not with money, now, were they to seal + their purchase of the free land by the western waters. There had been no + women in that other picture, only the white men who were going forward to + open the way and the red men who were + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> + retreating. But in this + picture there were women—wives and children, mothers, sisters, and + sweethearts. All the women of the settlement were there at this daybreak + muster to cheer on their way the men who were going out to battle that + they might keep the way of liberty open not for men only but for women and + children also. And the battle to which the men were now going forth must + be fought against Back Country men of their own stripe under a leader who, + in other circumstances, might well have been one of themselves—a + primitive spirit of hardy mountain stock, who, having once taken his + stand, would not barter and would not retreat. + </p> + <p> + “With the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” cried their pastor, the + Reverend Samuel Doak, with upraised hands, as the mountaineers swung into + their saddles. And it is said that all the women took up his words and + cried again and again, “With the sword of the Lord and of our Gideons!” + To the shouts of their women, as bugles on the wind of dawn, the + buckskin-shirted army dashed out upon the mountain trail. + </p> + <p> + The warriors' equipment included rifles and ammunition, tomahawks, knives, + shot pouches, a knapsack, and a blanket for each man. Their uniforms + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span> were + leggings, breeches, and long loose shirts of gayly fringed deerskin, or of + the linsey-woolsey spun by their women. Their hunting shirts were bound in + at the waist by bright-colored linsey sashes tied behind in a bow. They + wore moccasins for footgear, and on their heads high fur or deerskin caps + trimmed with colored bands of raveled cloth. Around their necks hung their + powder-horns ornamented with their own rude carvings. + </p> + <p> + On the first day they drove along with them a number of beeves but, + finding that the cattle impeded the march, they left them behind on the + mountain side. Their provisions thereafter were wild game and the small + supply each man carried of mixed corn meal and maple sugar. For drink, + they had the hill streams. + </p> + <p> + They passed upward between Roan and Yellow mountains to the top of the + range. Here, on the bald summit, where the loose snow lay to their ankles, + they halted for drill and rifle practice. When Sevier called up his men, + he discovered that two were missing. He suspected at once that they had + slipped away to carry warning to Ferguson, for Watauga was known to be + infested with Tories. Two problems now confronted the mountaineers. They + must increase the speed of their march, so + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span> + that Ferguson should not have + time to get reinforcements from Cornwallis; and they must make that extra + speed by another trail than they had intended taking so that they + themselves could not be intercepted before they had picked up the Back + Country militia under Colonels Cleveland, Hampbright, Chronicle, and + Williams, who were moving to join them. We are not told who took the lead + when they left the known trail, but we may suppose it was Sevier and his + Wataugans, for the making of new warpaths and wild riding were two of the + things which distinguished Nolichucky Jack's leadership. Down the steep + side of the mountain, finding their way as they plunged, went the overhill + men. They crossed the Blue Ridge at Gillespie's Gap and pushed on to + Quaker Meadows, where Colonel Cleveland with 350 men swung into their + column. Along their route, the Back Country Patriots with their rifles + came out from the little hamlets and the farms and joined them. + </p> + <p> + They now had an army of perhaps fifteen hundred men but no commanding + officer. Thus far, on the march, the four colonels had conferred together + and agreed as to procedure; or, in reality, the influence of Sevier and + Shelby, who had planned the enterprise and who seem always to + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> + have acted + in unison, had swayed the others. It would be, however, manifestly + improper to go into battle without a real general. Something must be done. + McDowell volunteered to carry a letter explaining their need to General + Gates, who had escaped with some of his staff into North Carolina and was + not far off. It then occurred to Sevier and Shelby, evidently for the + first time, that Gates, on receiving such a request, might well ask why + the Governor of North Carolina, as the military head of the State, had not + provided a commander. The truth is that Sevier and Shelby had been so busy + drumming up the militia and planning their campaign that they had found no + time to consult the Governor. Moreover, the means whereby the expedition + had been financed might not have appealed to the chief executive. After + finding it impossible to raise sufficient funds on his personal credit, + Sevier had appropriated the entry money in the government land office to + the business in hand—with the good will of the entry taker, who was + a patriotic man, although, as he had pointed out, he could not, <em>officially,</em> + hand over the money. Things being as they were, no doubt Nolichucky Jack + felt that an interview with the Governor had better be deferred until + after + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span> + the capture of Ferguson. Hence the tenor of this communication to General + Gates: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + As we have at this time called out our militia without any orders from + the Executive of our different States and with the view of expelling the + Enemy out of this part of the Country, we think such a body of men + worthy of your attention and would request you to send a General Officer + immediately to take the command.… All our Troops being Militia + and but little acquainted with discipline, we could wish him to be a + Gentleman of address, and able to keep up a proper discipline <em>without + disgusting the soldiery.</em> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + For some unknown reason—unless it might be the wording of this + letter!—no officer was sent in reply. Shelby then suggested that, + since all the officers but Campbell were North Carolinians and, therefore, + no one of them could be promoted without arousing the jealousy of the + others, Campbell, as the only Virginian, was the appropriate choice. The + sweet reasonableness of selecting a commander from such a motive appealed + to all, and Campbell became a general in fact if not in name! Shelby's + principal aim, however, had been to get rid of McDowell, who, as their + senior, would naturally expect to command and whom he considered “too + far advanced in life and too inactive” for such an enterprise. At this + time McDowell must have + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> + been nearly thirty-nine; and Shelby, who was + just thirty, wisely refused to risk the campaign under a general who was + in his dotage! + </p> + <p> + News of the frontiersmen's approach, with their augmented force, now + numbering between sixteen and eighteen hundred, had reached Ferguson by + the two Tories who had deserted from Sevier's troops. Ferguson thereupon + had made all haste out of Gilbert Town and was marching southward to get + in touch with Cornwallis. His force was much reduced, as some of his men + were in pursuit of Elijah Clarke towards Augusta and a number of his other + Tories were on furlough. As he passed through the Back Country he posted a + notice calling on the loyalists to join him. If the overmountain men felt + that they were out on a wolf hunt, Ferguson's proclamation shows what the + wolf thought of his hunters. + </p> + <p class="center double-space-top"> + To the Inhabitants of North Carolina. + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>: Unless you wish to be eat up by an + innundation of barbarians, who have begun by murdering an unarmed son + before the aged father, and afterwards lopped off his arms, and who by + their shocking cruelties and irregularities give the best proof of their + cowardice and want of discipline: I say if you wish to be pinioned, + robbed and murdered, and see your wives and daughters in four days, + abused by the dregs of mankind—in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span> + short if you wish to + deserve to live and bear the name of men, grasp your arms in a moment + and run to camp.<br /> The Back Water men have crossed the mountains: + McDowell, Hampton, Shelby, and Cleveland are at their head, so that you + know what you have to depend upon. If you choose to be degraded forever + and ever by a set of mongrels, say so at once, and let your women turn + their backs upon you, and look out for real men to protect them.</p> + <p class="noindent right no-space-top"> + <span class="smcap">Pat. Ferguson</span>, Major 71st Regiment. ¹ + </p> + </blockquote> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_213-1" name="footer_213-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_213">¹</a> + Draper, <i>King's Mountain and its Heroes,</i> p. 204. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Ferguson's force has been estimated at about eleven hundred men, but it is + likely that this estimate does not take the absentees into consideration. + In the diary of Lieutenant Allaire, one of his officers, the number is + given as only eight hundred. Because of the state of his army, chroniclers + have found Ferguson's movements, after leaving Gilbert Town, difficult to + explain. It has been pointed out that he could easily have escaped, for he + had plenty of time, and Charlotte, Cornwallis's headquarters, was only + sixty miles distant. We have seen something of Ferguson's quality, + however, and we may simply take it that he did not want to escape. He had + been planning to cross the high hills—to him, the Highlander, no + barrier but a challenge—to fight these men. Now that they + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> + had taken + the initiative he would not show them his back. He craved the battle. So + he sent out runners to the main army and rode on along the eastern base of + the mountains, seeking a favorable site to go into camp and wait for + Cornwallis's aid. On the 6th of October he reached the southern end of the + King's Mountain ridge, in South Carolina, about half a mile south of the + northern boundary. Here a rocky, semi-isolated spur juts out from the + ridge, its summit—a table-land about six hundred yards long and one + hundred and twenty wide at its northern end—rising not more than + sixty feet above the surrounding country. On the summit Ferguson pitched + his camp. + </p> + <p> + The hill was a natural fortress, its sides forested, its bald top + protected by rocks and bowlders. All the approaches led through dense + forest. An enemy force, passing through the immediate, wooded territory, + might easily fail to discover a small army nesting sixty feet above the + shrouding leafage. Word was evidently brought to Ferguson here, telling + him the now augmented number of his foe, for he dispatched another + emissary to Cornwallis with a letter stating the number of his own troops + and urging full and immediate assistance. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile the frontiersmen had halted at the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span> + Cowpens. There they feasted + royally off roasted cattle and corn belonging to the loyalist who owned + the Cowpens. It is said that they mowed his fifty acres of corn in an + hour. And here one of their spies, in the assumed rôle of a Tory, + learned Ferguson's plans, his approximate force, his route, and his system + of communication with Cornwallis. The officers now held council and + determined to take a detachment of the hardiest and fleetest horsemen and + sweep down on the enemy before aid could reach him. About nine o'clock + that evening, according to Shelby's report, 910 mounted men set off at + full speed, leaving the main body of horse and foot to follow after at + their best pace. + </p> + <p> + Rain poured down on them all that night as they rode. At daybreak they + crossed the Broad at Cherokee Ford and dashed on in the drenching rain all + the forenoon. They kept their firearms and powder dry by wrapping them in + their knapsacks, blankets, and hunting shirts. The downpour had so churned + up the soil that many of the horses mired, but they were pulled out and + whipped forward again. The wild horsemen made no halt for food or rest. + Within two miles of King's Mountain they captured Ferguson's messenger + with the letter that told of his desperate situation. They asked + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> + this man + how they should know Ferguson. He told them that Ferguson was in full + uniform but wore a checkered shirt or dust cloak over it. This was not the + only messenger of Ferguson's who failed to carry through. The men he had + sent out previously had been followed and, to escape capture or death, + they had been obliged to lie in hiding, so that they did not reach + Cornwallis until the day of the battle. + </p> + <p> + At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th of October, the overmountain + men were in the forest at the base of the hill. The rain had ceased and + the sun was shining. They dismounted and tethered their steaming horses. + Orders were given that every man was to “throw the priming out of his + pan, pick his touchhole, prime anew, examine bullets and see that + everything was in readiness for battle.” The plan of battle agreed on + was to surround the hill, hold the enemy on the top and, themselves + screened by the trees, keep pouring in their fire. There was a good chance + that most of the answering fire would go over their heads. + </p> + <p> + As Shelby's men crossed a gap in the woods, the outposts on the hill + discovered their presence and sounded the alarm. Ferguson sprang to horse, + blowing his silver whistle to call his men to attack. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span> His riflemen poured fire into + Shelby's contingent, but meanwhile the frontiersmen on the other sides + were creeping up, and presently a circle of fire burst upon the hill. With + fixed bayonets, some of Ferguson's men charged down the face of the slope, + against the advancing foe, only to be shot in the back as they charged. + Still time and time again they charged; the overhill men reeled and + retreated; but always their comrades took toll with their rifles; + Ferguson's men, preparing for a mounted charge, were shot even as they + swung to their saddles. Ferguson, with his customary indifference to + danger, rode up and down in front of his line blowing his whistle to + encourage his men. “Huzza, brave boys! The day is our own!” Thus he + was heard to shout above the triumphant war whoops of the circling foe, + surging higher and higher about the hill. + </p> + <p> + But there were others in his band who knew the fight was lost. The + overmountain men saw two white handkerchiefs, affixed to bayonets, raised + above the rocks; and then they saw Ferguson dash by and slash them down + with his sword. Two horses were shot under Ferguson in the latter part of + the action; but he mounted a third and rode again into the thick of the + fray. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span> + Suddenly the cry spread among the attacking troops that the British + officer, Tarleton, had come to Ferguson's rescue; and the mountaineers + began to give way. But it was only the galloping horses of their own + comrades; Tarleton had not come. Nolichucky Jack spurred out in front of + his men and rode along the line. Fired by his courage they sounded the war + whoop again and renewed the attack with fury. + </p> + <p> + “These are the same yelling devils that were at Musgrove's Mill,” + said Captain De Peyster to Ferguson. + </p> + <p> + Now Shelby and Sevier, leading his Wataugans, had reached the summit. The + firing circle pressed in. The buckskin-shirted warriors leaped the rocky + barriers, swinging their tomahawks and long knives. Again the white + handkerchiefs fluttered. Ferguson saw that the morale of his troops was + shattered. + </p> + <p> + “Surrender,” De Peyster, his second in command, begged of him. + </p> + <p> + “Surrender to those damned banditti? Never!” + </p> + <p> + Ferguson turned his horse's head downhill and charged into the Wataugans, + hacking right and left with his sword till it was broken at the hilt. A + dozen rifles were leveled at him. An iron muzzle pushed at his breast, but + the powder flashed in the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span> + pan. He swerved and struck at the rifleman + with his broken hilt. But the other guns aimed at him spoke; and + Ferguson's body jerked from the saddle pierced by eight bullets. Men + seized the bridle of the frenzied horse, plunging on with his dead master + dragging from the stirrup. + </p> + <p> + The battle had lasted less than an hour. After Ferguson fell, De Peyster + advanced with a white flag and surrendered his sword to Campbell. Other + white flags waved along the hilltop. But the killing did not yet cease. It + is said that many of the mountaineers did not know the significance of the + white flag. Sevier's sixteen-year-old son, having heard that his father + had fallen, kept on furiously loading and firing until presently he saw + Sevier ride in among the troops and command them to stop shooting men who + had surrendered and thrown down their arms. + </p> + <p> + The victors made a bonfire of the enemy's baggage wagons and supplies. + Then they killed some of his beeves and cooked them; they had had neither + food nor sleep for eighteen hours. They dug shallow trenches for the dead + and scattered the loose earth over them. Ferguson's body, stripped of its + uniform and boots and wrapped in a beef hide, was thrown into one of these + ditches by + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span> + the men detailed to the burial work, while the officers divided his + personal effects among themselves. + </p> + <p> + The triumphant army turned homeward as the dusk descended. The uninjured + prisoners and the wounded who were able to walk were marched off carrying + their empty firearms. The badly wounded were left lying where they had + fallen. + </p> + <p> + At Bickerstaff's Old Fields in Rutherford County the frontiersmen halted; + and here they selected thirty of their prisoners to be hanged. They swung + them aloft, by torchlight, three at a time, until nine had gone to their + last account. Then Sevier interposed; and, with Shelby's added authority, + saved the other twenty-one. Among those who thus weighted the gallows tree + were some of the Tory brigands from Watauga; but not all the victims were + of this character. Some of the troops would have wreaked vengeance on the + two Tories from Sevier's command who had betrayed their army plans to + Ferguson; but Sevier claimed them as under his jurisdiction and refused + consent. Nolichucky Jack dealt humanely by his foes. To the coarse and + brutish Cleveland, now astride of Ferguson's horse and wearing his sash, + and to the three hundred who followed him, may no doubt be laid the worst + excesses of the battle's afterpiece. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span> + Victors and vanquished drove on in the dark, close to the great flank of + hills. From where King's Mountain, strewn with dead and dying, reared its + black shape like some rudely hewn tomb of a primordial age when titans + strove together, perhaps to the ears of the marching men came faintly + through the night's stillness the howl of a wolf and the answering chorus + of the pack. For the wolves came down to King's Mountain from all the + surrounding hills, following the scent of blood, and made their lair where + the Werewolf had fallen. The scene of the mountaineers' victory, which + marked the turn of the tide for the Revolution, became for years the chief + resort of wolf hunters from both the Carolinas. + </p> + <p> + The importance of the overmountain men's victory lay in what it achieved + for the cause of Independence. King's Mountain was the prelude to + Cornwallis's defeat. It heartened the Southern Patriots, until then cast + down by Gates's disaster. To the British the death of Ferguson was an + irreparable loss because of its depressing effect on the Back Country + Tories. King's Mountain, indeed, broke the Tory spirit. Seven days after + the battle General Nathanael Greene succeeded to the command of the + Southern Patriot army which Gates + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span> + had led to defeat. Greene's genius met + the rising tide of the Patriots' courage and hope and took it at the + flood. His strategy, in dividing his army and thereby compelling the + division of Cornwallis's force, led to Daniel Morgan's victory at the + Cowpens, in the Back Country of South Carolina, on January 17, 1781—another + frontiersmen's triumph. Though the British won the next engagement between + Greene and Cornwallis—the battle of Guilford Court House in the + North Carolina Back Country, on the 15th of March—Greene made them + pay so dearly for their victory that Tarleton called it “the pledge of + ultimate defeat”; and, three days later, Cornwallis was retreating + towards Wilmington. In a sense, then, King's Mountain was the pivot of the + war's revolving stage, which swung the British from their succession of + victories towards the surrender at Yorktown. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Shelby, Campbell, and Cleveland escorted the prisoners to Virginia. + Sevier, with his men, rode home to Watauga. When the prisoners had been + delivered to the authorities in Virginia, the Holston men also turned + homeward through the hills. Their route lay down through the Clinch and + Holston valleys to the settlement at the base of the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span> + mountains. Sevier and + his Wataugans had gone by Gillespie's Gap, over the pathway that hung like + a narrow ribbon about the breast of Roan Mountain, lifting its crest in + dignified isolation sixty-three hundred feet above the levels. The “Unakas” + was the name the Cherokees had given to those white men who first invaded + their hills; and the Unakas is the name that white men at last gave to the + mountain. + </p> + <p> + Great companies of men were to come over the mountain paths on their way + to the Mississippi country and beyond; and with them, as we know, were to + go many of these mountain men, to pass away with their customs in the + transformations that come with progress. But there were others who clung + to these hills. They were of several stocks—English, Scotch, + Highlanders, Ulstermen, who mingled by marriage and sometimes took their + mates from among the handsome maids of the Cherokees. They spread from the + Unakas of Tennessee into the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky; and they + have remained to this day what they were then, a primitive folk of strong + and fiery men and brave women living as their forefathers of Watauga and + Holston lived. In the log cabins in those mountains today are heard the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> + same ballads, sung still to the dulcimer, that entertained the earliest + settlers. The women still turn the old-fashioned spinning wheels. The code + of the men is still the code learned perhaps from the Gaels—the code + of the oath and the feud and the open door to the stranger. Or were these, + the ethical tenets of almost all uncorrupted primitive tribes, transmitted + from the Indian strain and association? Their young people marry at boy + and girl ages, as the pioneers did, and their wedding festivities are the + same as those which made rejoicing at the first marriage in Watauga. Their + common speech today contains words that have been obsolete in England for + a hundred years. + </p> + <p> + Thrice have the mountain men come down again from their fastnesses to war + for America since the day of King's Mountain and thrice they have + acquitted themselves so that their deeds are noted in history. A souvenir + of their part in the War of 1812 at the Battle of the Thames is kept in + one of the favorite names for mountain girls—“Lake Erie.” In + the Civil War many volunteers from the free, non-slaveholding mountain + regions of Kentucky and Tennessee joined the Union Army, and it is said + that they exceeded all others in stature and physical development. And in + our own + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span> + day their sons again came down from the mountains to carry the + torch of Liberty overseas, and to show the white stars in their flag side + by side with the ancient cross in the flag of England against which their + forefathers fought. + </p> + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter10" id="Chapter10"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER X.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">Sevier, The Statemaker</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">After</span> King's Mountain, Sevier reached home just + in time to fend off a Cherokee attack on Watauga. Again warning had come + to the settlements that the Indians were about to descend upon them. + Sevier set out at once to meet the red invaders. Learning from his scouts + that the Indians were near he went into ambush with his troops disposed in + the figure of a half-moon, the favorite Indian formation. He then sent out + a small body of men to fire on the Indians and make a scampering retreat, + to lure the enemy on. The maneuver was so well planned and the ground so + well chosen that the Indian war party would probably have been annihilated + but for the delay of an officer at one horn of the half-moon in bringing + his troops into play. Through the gap thus made the Indians escaped, with + a loss of seventeen of their number. The delinquent officer was Jonathan + Tipton, younger brother + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span> + of Colonel John Tipton, of whom we shall hear + later. It is possible that from this event dates the Tiptons' feud with + Sevier, which supplies one of the breeziest pages in the story of early + Tennessee. + </p> + <p> + Not content with putting the marauders to flight, Sevier pressed on after + them, burned several of the upper towns, and took prisoner a number of + women and children, thus putting the red warriors to the depth of shame, + for the Indians never deserted their women in battle. The chiefs at once + sued for peace. But they had made peace often before. Sevier drove down + upon the Hiwassee towns, meanwhile proclaiming that those among the tribe + who were friendly might send their families to the white settlement, where + they would be fed and cared for until a sound peace should be assured. He + also threatened to continue to make war until his enemies were wiped out, + their town sites a heap of blackened ruins, and their whole country in + possession of the whites, unless they bound themselves to an enduring + peace. + </p> + <p> + Having compelled the submission of the Otari and Hiwassee towns, yet + finding that depredations still continued, Sevier determined to invade the + group of towns hidden in the mountain fastnesses near the headwaters of + the Little Tennessee where, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span> + deeming themselves inaccessible except by + their own trail, the Cherokees freely plotted mischief and sent out + raiding parties. These hill towns lay in the high gorges of the Great + Smoky Mountains, 150 miles distant. No one in Watauga had ever been in + them except Thomas, the trader, who, however, had reached them from the + eastern side of the mountains. With no knowledge of the Indians' path and + without a guide, yet nothing daunted, Sevier, late in the summer of 1781 + headed his force into the mountains. So steep were some of the slopes they + scaled that the men were obliged to dismount and help their horses up. + Unexpectedly to themselves perhaps, as well as to the Indians, they + descended one morning on a group of villages and destroyed them. Before + the fleeing savages could rally, the mountaineers had plunged up the + steeps again. Sevier then turned southward into Georgia and inflicted a + severe castigation on the tribes along the Coosa River. + </p> + <p> + When, after thirty days of warfare and mad riding, Sevier arrived at his + Bonnie Kate's door on the Nolichucky, he found a messenger from General + Greene calling on him for immediate assistance to cut off Cornwallis from + his expected retreat through North Carolina. Again he set out, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> + and with + two hundred men crossed the mountains and made all speed to Charlotte, in + Mecklenburg County, where he learned that Cornwallis had surrendered at + Yorktown on October 19, 1781. Under Greene's orders he turned south to the + Santee to assist a fellow scion of the Huguenots, General Francis Marion, + in the pursuit of Stuart's Britishers. Having driven Stuart into + Charleston, Sevier and his active Wataugans returned home, now perhaps + looking forward to a rest, which they had surely earned. Once more, + however, they were hailed with alarming news. Dragging Canoe had come to + life again and was emerging from the caves of the Tennessee with a + substantial force of Chickamaugan warriors. Again the Wataugans, augmented + by a detachment from Sullivan County, galloped forth, met the red + warriors, chastised them heavily, put them to rout, burned their dwellings + and provender, and drove them back into their hiding places. For some time + after this, the Indians dipped not into the black paint pots of war but + were content to streak their humbled countenances with the vermilion of + beauty and innocence. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + It should be chronicled that Sevier, assisted possibly by other Wataugans, + eventually returned + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> + to the State of North Carolina the money which he had forcibly borrowed to + finance the King's Mountain expedition; and that neither he nor Shelby + received any pay for their services, nor asked it. Before Shelby left the + Holston in 1782 and moved to Kentucky, of which State he was to become the + first Governor, the Assembly of North Carolina passed a resolution of + gratitude to the overmountain men in general, and to Sevier and Shelby in + particular, for their “very generous and patriotic services” with + which the “General Assembly of this State are feelingly impressed.” + The resolution concluded by urging the recipients of the Assembly's + acknowledgments to “continue” in their noble course. In view of what + followed, this resolution is interesting! + </p> + <p> + For some time the overhill pioneers had been growing dissatisfied with the + treatment they were receiving from the State, which on the plea of poverty + had refused to establish a Superior Court for them and to appoint a + prosecutor. As a result, crime was on the increase, and the law-abiding + were deprived of the proper legal means to check the lawless. In 1784 when + the western soldiers' claims began to reach the Assembly, there to be + scrutinized by unkindly eyes, the dissatisfaction increased. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span> + The + breasts of the mountain men—the men who had made that spectacular + ride to bring Ferguson to his end—were kindled with hot indignation + when they heard that they had been publicly assailed as grasping persons + who seized on every pretense to “fabricate demands against the + Government.” Nor were those fiery breasts cooled by further plaints to + the effect that the "industry and property" of those east of the hills + were “becoming the funds appropriated to discharge the debts” of the + Westerners. They might with justice have asked what the industry and + property of the Easterners were worth on that day when the overhill men + drilled in the snows on the high peak of Yellow Mountain and looked down + on Burke County overrun by Ferguson's Tories, and beyond, to Charlotte, + where lay Cornwallis. + </p> + <p> + The North Carolina Assembly did not confine itself to impolite remarks. It + proceeded to get rid of what it deemed western rapacity by ceding the + whole overmountain territory to the United States, with the proviso that + Congress must accept the gift within twelve months. And after passing the + Cession Act, North Carolina closed the land office in the undesired domain + and nullified all entries made after May 25, 1784. The Cession Act also + enabled + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span> + the State to evade its obligations to the Cherokees in the matter of an + expensive consignment of goods to pay for new lands. + </p> + <p> + This clever stroke of the Assembly's brought about immediate consequences + in the region beyond the hills. The Cherokees, who knew nothing about the + Assembly's system of political economy but who found their own provokingly + upset by the non-arrival of the promised goods, began again to darken the + mixture in their paint pots; and they dug up the war hatchet, never indeed + so deeply patted down under the dust that it could not be unearthed by a + stub of the toe. Needless to say, it was not the thrifty and distant + Easterners who felt their anger, but the nearby settlements. + </p> + <p> + As for the white overhill dwellers, the last straw had been laid on their + backs; and it felt like a hickory log. No sooner had the Assembly + adjourned than the men of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties, which + comprised the settled portion of what is now east Tennessee, elected + delegates to convene for the purpose of discussing the formation of a new + State. They could assert that they were not acting illegally, for in her + first constitution North Carolina had made provision for a State beyond + the mountains. And necessity + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span> + compelled them to take steps for their + protection. Some of them, and Sevier was of the number, doubted if + Congress would accept the costly gift; and the majority realized that + during the twelve months which were allowed for the decision they would + have no protection from either North Carolina or Congress and would not be + able to command their own resources. + </p> + <p> + In August, 1784, the delegates met at Jonesborough and passed preliminary + resolutions, and then adjourned to meet later in the year. The news was + soon disseminated through North Carolina and the Assembly convened in + October and hastily repealed the Cession Act, voted to establish the + District of Washington out of the four counties, and sent word of the + altered policy to Sevier, with a commission for himself as Brigadier + General. From the steps of the improvised convention hall, before which + the delegates had gathered, Sevier read the Assembly's message and advised + his neighbors to proceed no further, since North Carolina had of her own + accord redressed all their grievances. But for once Nolichucky Jack's + followers refused to follow. The adventure too greatly appealed. Obliged + to choose between North Carolina and his own people, Sevier's hesitation + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> was + short. The State of Frankland, or Land of the Free, was formed; and + Nolichucky Jack was elevated to the office of Governor—with a yearly + salary of two hundred mink skins. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps John Tipton had hoped to head the new State, for he had been one + of its prime movers and was a delegate to this convention. But when the + man whom he hated—apparently for no reason except that other men + loved him—assented to the people's will and was appointed to the + highest post within their gift, Tipton withdrew, disavowing all connection + with Frankland and affirming his loyalty to North Carolina. From this time + on, the feud was an open one. + </p> + <p> + That brief and now forgotten State, Frankland, the Land of the Free, which + bequeathed its name as an appellation for America, was founded as Watauga + had been founded—to meet the practical needs and aspirations of its + people. It will be remembered that one of the things written by Sevier + into the only Watauga document extant was that they desired to become “in + every way the best members of society.” Frankland's aims, as recorded, + included the intent to “improve agriculture, perfect manufacturing, <em>encourage + literature</em> and every thing truly laudable.” + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> The + constitution of Frankland, agreed to on the 14th of November, 1785, + appeals to us today rather by its spirit than by its practical provisions. + “This State shall be called the Commonwealth of Frankland and shall be + governed by a General Assembly of the representatives of the freemen of + the same, a Governor and Council, and proper courts of justice.… + The supreme legislative power shall be vested in a single House of + Representatives of the freemen of the commonwealth of Frankland. The House + of Representatives of the freemen of the State shall consist of persons + most noted for wisdom and virtue.” + </p> + <p> + In these exalted desires of the primitive men who held by their rifles and + hatchets the land by the western waters, we see the influence of the + Reverend Samuel Doak, their pastor, who founded the first church and the + first school beyond the great hills. Early in the life of Watauga he had + come thither from Princeton, a zealous and broadminded young man, and a + sturdy one, too, for he came on foot driving before him a mule laden with + books. Legend credits another minister, the Reverend Samuel Houston, with + suggesting the name of Frankland, after he had opened the Convention with + prayer. It is not surprising to learn that this glorified + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> + constitution was presently put aside in favor of one modeled on that of + North Carolina. + </p> + <p> + Sevier persuaded the more radical members of the community to abandon + their extreme views and to adopt the laws of North Carolina. However + lawless his acts as Governor of a bolting colony may appear, Sevier was + essentially a constructive force. His purposes were right, and small + motives are not discernible in his record. He might reasonably urge that + the Franklanders had only followed the example of North Carolina and the + other American States in seceding from the parent body, and for similar + causes, for the State's system of taxation had long borne heavily on the + overhill men. + </p> + <p> + The whole transmontane populace welcomed Frankland with enthusiasm. Major + Arthur Campbell, of the Virginian settlements, on the Holston, was eager + to join. Sevier and his Assembly took the necessary steps to receive the + overhill Virginians, provided that the transfer of allegiance could be + made with Virginia's consent. Meanwhile he replied in a dignified manner + to the pained and menacing expostulations of North Carolina's Governor. + North Carolina was bidden to remember the epithets her assemblymen had + hurled at the Westerners, which they themselves had by + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> no means + forgotten. And was it any wonder that they now doubted the love the parent + State professed to feel for them? As for the puerile threat of blood, had + their quality really so soon become obliterated from the memory of North + Carolina? At this sort of writing, Sevier, who always pulsed hot with + emotion and who had a pretty knack in turning a phrase, was more than a + match for the Governor of North Carolina, whose prerogatives he had + usurped. + </p> + <p> + The overmountain men no longer needed to complain bitterly of the lack of + legal machinery to keep them “the best members of society.” They now + had courts to spare. Frankland had its courts, its judges, its legislative + body, its land office—in fact, a full governmental equipment. North + Carolina also performed all the natural functions of political organism, + within the western territory. Sevier appointed one David Campbell a judge. + Campbell held court in Jonesborough. Ten miles away, in Buffalo, Colonel + John Tipton presided for North Carolina. It happened frequently that + officers and attendants of the rival law courts met, as they pursued their + duties, and whenever they met they fought. The post of sheriff—or + sheriffs, for of course there were two—was filled by the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span> biggest + and heaviest man and the hardest hitter in the ranks of the warring + factions. A favorite game was raiding each other's courts and carrying off + the records. Frankland sent William Cocke, later the first senator from + Tennessee, to Congress with a memorial, asking Congress to accept the + territory North Carolina had offered and to receive it into the Union as a + separate State. Congress ignored the plea. It began to appear that North + Carolina would be victor in the end; and so there were defections among + the Franklanders. Sevier wrote to Benjamin Franklin asking his aid in + establishing the status of Frankland; and, with a graceful flourish of his + ready pen, changed the new State's name to Franklin by way of reinforcing + his arguments. But the old philosopher, more expert than Sevier in + diplomatic calligraphy, only acknowledged the compliment and advised the + State of Franklin to make peace with North Carolina. + </p> + <p> + Sevier then appealed for aid and recognition to the Governor of Georgia, + who had previously appointed him Brigadier General of militia. But the + Governor of Georgia also avoided giving the recognition requested, though + he earnestly besought Sevier to come down and settle the Creeks for him. + There were others who sent pleas to Sevier, the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span> + warrior, to save them from + the savages. One of the writers who addressed him did not fear to say “Your + Excellency,” nor to accord Nolichucky Jack the whole dignity of the + purple in appealing to him as the only man possessing the will and the + power to prevent the isolated settlements on the Cumberland from being + wiped out. That writer was his old friend, James Robertson. + </p> + <p> + In 1787, while Sevier was on the frontier of Greene County, defending it + from Indians, the legal forces of North Carolina swooped down on his + estate and took possession of his negroes. It was Tipton who represented + the law; and Tipton carried off the Governor's slaves to his own estate. + When Nolichucky Jack came home and found that his enemy had stripped him, + he was in a towering rage. With a body of his troops and one small cannon, + he marched to Tipton's house and besieged it, threatening a bombardment. + He did not, however, fire into the dwelling, though he placed some shots + about it and in the extreme corners. This <i>opéra bouffe</i> siege + endured for several days, until Tipton was reinforced by some of his own + clique. Then Tipton sallied forth and attacked the besiegers, who hastily + scattered rather than engage in a sanguinary fight with their neighbors. + Tipton + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span> + captured Sevier's two elder sons and was only strained from hanging them + on being informed that two of his own sons were at that moment in Sevier's + hands. + </p> + <p> + In March, 1788, the State of Franklin went into eclipse. Sevier was + overthrown by the authorities of North Carolina. Most of the officials who + had served under him were soothed by being reappointed to their old + positions. Tipton's star was now in the ascendant, for his enemy was to be + made the vicarious sacrifice for the sins of all whom he had “led + astray.” Presently David Campbell, still graciously permitted to + preside over the Superior Court, received from the Governor of North + Carolina the following letter: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">Sir</span>: It has been represented to the Executive + that John Sevier, who style's himself Captain-General of the State of + Franklin, has been guilty of high treason in levying troops to oppose + the laws and government of the State.… You will issue your + warrant to apprehend the said John Sevier, and in case he cannot be + sufficiently secured for trial in the District of Washington, order him + to be committed to the public gaol. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + The judge's authority was to be exercised after he had examined the “affidavits + of credible persons.” Campbell's judicial opinion seems to have been + that any affidavit <em>against</em> “the said John + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span> + Sevier” could not be made + by a “credible person.” He refused to issue the warrant. Tipton's + friend, Spencer, who had been North Carolina's judge of the Superior Court + in the West and who was sharing that honor now with Campbell, issued the + warrant and sent Tipton to make the arrest. + </p> + <p> + Sevier was at the Widow Brown's inn with some of his men when Tipton at + last came up with him. It was early morning. Tipton and his posse were + about to enter when the portly and dauntless widow, surmising their + errand, drew her chair into the doorway, plumped herself down in it, and + refused to budge for all the writs in North Carolina. Tipton blustered and + the widow rocked. The altercation awakened Sevier. He dressed hurriedly + and came down. As soon as he presented himself on the porch, Tipton thrust + his pistol against his body, evidently with intent to fire if Sevier made + signs of resistance. Sevier's furious followers were not disposed to let + him be taken without a fight, but he admonished them to respect the law, + and requested that they would inform Bonnie Kate of his predicament. Then, + debonair as ever, with perhaps a tinge of contempt at the corners of his + mouth, he held out his wrists for the manacles which Tipton insisted on + fastening upon them. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span> It + was not likely that any jail in the western country could hold Nolichucky + Jack overnight. Tipton feared a riot; and it was decided to send the + prisoner for incarceration and trial to Morgantown in North Carolina, just + over the hills. + </p> + <p> + Tipton did not accompany the guards he sent with Sevier. It was stated and + commonly believed that he had given instructions of which the honorable + men among his friends were ignorant. When the party entered the mountains, + two of the guards were to lag behind with the prisoner, till the others + were out of sight on the twisting trail. Then one of the two was to kill + Sevier and assert that he had done it because Sevier had attempted to + escape. It fell out almost as planned, except that the other guard warned + Sevier of the fate in store for him and gave him a chance to flee. In + plunging down the mountain, Sevier's horse was entangled in a thicket. The + would-be murderer overtook him and fired; but here again fate had + interposed for her favorite. The ball had dropped out of the assassin's + pistol. So Sevier reached Morgantown in safety and was deposited in care + of the sheriff, who was doubtless cautioned to take a good look at the + prisoner and know him for a dangerous and a daring man. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span> + There is a story to the effect that, when Sevier was arraigned in the + courthouse at Morgantown and presently dashed through the door and away on + a racer that had been brought up by some of his friends, among those who + witnessed the proceedings was a young Ulster Scot named Andrew Jackson; + and that on this occasion these two men, later to become foes, first saw + each other. Jackson may have been in Morgantown at the time, though this + is disputed; but the rest of the tale is pure legend invented by some one + whose love of the spectacular led him far from the facts. The facts are + less theatrical but much more dramatic. Sevier was not arraigned at all, + for no court was sitting in Morgantown at the time. ¹ The sheriff to + whom he was delivered did not need to look twice at him to know him for a + daring man. He had served with him at King's Mountain. He struck off his + handcuffs and set him at liberty at once. Perhaps he also notified General + Charles McDowell at his home in Quaker Meadows of the presence of a + distinguished guest in Burke County, for McDowell and his brother Joseph, + another officer of militia, quickly appeared and went on Sevier's bond. + Nolichucky Jack was + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span> + presently holding a court of his own in the tavern, with North Carolina's + men at arms—as many as were within call—drinking his health. + So his sons and a company of his Wataugans found him, when they rode into + Morgantown to give evidence in his behalf—with their rifles. Since + none now disputed the way with him, Sevier turned homeward with his + cavalcade, McDowell and his men accompanying him as far as the pass in the + hills. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_244-1" name="footer_244-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_244">¹</a> + Statement by John Sevier, Junior, in the + Draper MSS., quoted by Turner, <i>Life of General John Sevier,</i> p. 182. + </p> + </div> + <p> + No further attempt was made to try John Sevier for treason, either west or + east of the mountains. In November, however, the Assembly passed the + Pardon Act, and thereby granted absolution to every one who had been + associated with the State of Franklin, <em>except John Sevier</em>. In a + clause said to have been introduced by Tipton, now a senator, or suggested + by him, John Sevier was debarred forever from “the enjoyment of any + office of profit or honor or trust in the State of North Carolina.” + </p> + <p> + The overhill men in Greene County took due note of the Assembly's fiat and + at the next election sent Sevier to the North Carolina Senate. Nolichucky + Jack, whose demeanor was never so decorous as when the ill-considered + actions of those in authority had made him appear to have circumvented the + law, considerately waited outside until + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> + the House had lifted the ban—which + it did perforce and by a large majority, despite Tipton's opposition—and + then took his seat on the senatorial bench beside his enemy. The records + show that he was reinstated as Brigadier General of the Western Counties + and also appointed at the head of the Committee on Indian Affairs. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Not only in the region about Watauga did the pioneers of Tennessee endure + the throes of danger and strife during these years. The little settlements + on the Cumberland, which were scattered over a short distance of about + twenty-five or thirty miles and had a frontier line of two hundred miles, + were terribly afflicted. Their nearest white neighbors among the Kentucky + settlers were one hundred and fifty miles away; and through the cruelest + years these could render no aid—could not, indeed, hold their own + stations. The Kentuckians, as we have seen, were bottled up in Harrodsburg + and Boonesborough; and, while the northern Indians led by Girty and + Dequindre darkened the Bloody Ground anew, the Cumberlanders were making a + desperate stand against the Chickasaws and the Creeks. So terrible was + their situation that panic took hold on them, and they would have + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span> fled but + for the influence of Robertson. He may have put the question to them in + the biblical words, “Whither shall I flee?” For they were surrounded, + and those who did attempt to escape were “weighed on the path and made + light.” Robertson knew that their only chance of survival was to stand + their ground. The greater risks he was willing to take in person, for it + was he who made trips to Boonesborough and Harrodsburg for a share of the + powder and lead which John Sevier was sending into Kentucky from time to + time. In the stress of conflict Robertson bore his full share of grief, + for his two elder sons and his brother fell. He himself was often near to + death. One day he was cut off in the fields and was shot in the foot as he + ran, yet he managed to reach shelter. There is a story that, in an attack + during one of his absences, the Indians forced the outer gate of the fort + and Mrs. Robertson went out of her cabin, firing, and let loose a band of + the savage dogs which the settlers kept for their protection, and so drove + out the invaders. + </p> + <p> + The Chickasaws were loyal to the treaty they had made with the British in + the early days of James Adair's association with them. They were friends + to England's friends and foes to her foes. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span> + While they resented the new + settlements made on land they considered theirs, they signed a peace with + Robertson at the conclusion of the War of Independence. They kept their + word with him as they had kept it with the British. Furthermore, their + chief, Opimingo or the Mountain Leader, gave Robertson his assistance + against the Creeks and the Choctaws and, in so far as he understood its + workings, informed him of the new Spanish and French conspiracy, which we + now come to consider. So once again the Chickasaws were servants of + destiny to the English-speaking race, for again they drove the wedge of + their honor into an Indian solidarity welded with European gold. + </p> + <p> + Since it was generally believed at that date that the tribes were + instigated to war by the British and supplied by them with their + ammunition, savage inroads were expected to cease with the signing of + peace. But Indian warfare not only continued; it increased. In the last + two years of the Revolution, when the British were driven from the Back + Country of the Carolinas and could no longer reach the tribes with + consignments of firearms and powder, it should have been evident that the + Indians had other sources of supply and other allies, for they lacked + nothing which could aid + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span> + them in their efforts to exterminate the + settlers of Tennessee. + </p> + <p> + Neither France nor Spain wished to see an English-speaking republic based + on ideals of democracy successfully established in America. Though in the + Revolutionary War, France was a close ally of the Americans and Spain + something more than a nominal one, the secret diplomacy of the courts of + the Bourbon cousins ill matched with their open professions. Both cousins + hated England. The American colonies, smarting under injustice, had + offered a field for their revenge. But hatred of England was not the only + reason why activities had been set afoot to increase the discord which + should finally separate the colonies from Great Britain and leave the + destiny of the colonies to be decided by the House of Bourbon. Spain saw + in the Americans, with their English modes of thought, a menace to her + authority in her own colonies on both the northern and southern + continents. This menace would not be stilled but augmented if the colonies + should be established as a republic. Such an example might be too readily + followed. Though France had, by a secret treaty in 1762, made over to + Spain the province of Louisiana, she was not unmindful of the Bourbon + motto, “He who attacks + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span> + the Crown of one attacks the other.” And + she saw her chance to deal a crippling blow at England's prestige and + commerce. + </p> + <p> + In 1764, the French Minister, Choiseul, had sent a secret agent, named + Pontleroy, to America to assist in making trouble and to watch for any + signs that might be turned to the advantage of <i>les duex couronnes</i>. + Evidently Pontleroy's reports were encouraging for, in 1768, Johann Kalb—the + same Kalb who fell at Camden in 1780—arrived in Philadelphia to + enlarge the good work. He was not only, like several of the foreign + officers in the War of Independence, a spy for his Government, but he was + also the special emissary of one Comte de Broglie who, after the colonies + had broken with the mother country, was to put himself at the head of + American affairs. This Broglie had been for years one of Louis XV's chief + agents in subterranean diplomacy, and it is not to be supposed that he was + going to attempt the stupendous task of controlling America's destiny + without substantial backing. Spain had been advised meanwhile to rule her + new Louisiana territory with great liberality—in fact, to let it + shine as a republic before the yearning eyes of the oppressed Americans, + so that the English colonists would arise and cast off + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span> + their + fetters. Once the colonies had freed themselves from England's protecting + arm, it would be a simple matter for the Bourbons to gather them in like + so many little lost chicks from a rainy yard. The intrigants of autocratic + systems have never been able to understand that the urge of the spirit of + independence in men is not primarily to break shackles but to <em>stand + alone</em> and that the breaking of bonds is incidental to the true + demonstration of freedom. The Bourbons and their agents were no more nor + less blind to the great principle stirring the hearts of men in their day + than were the Prussianized hosts over a hundred years later who, having + themselves no acquaintance with the law of liberty, could not foresee that + half a world would rise in arms to maintain that law. + </p> + <p> + When the War of Independence had ended, the French Minister, Vergennes, + and the Spanish Minister, Floridablanca, secretly worked in unison to + prevent England's recognition of the new republic; and Floridablanca in + 1782 even offered to assist England if she would make further efforts to + subdue her “rebel subjects.” Both Latin powers had their own axes to + grind, and America was to tend the grindstone. France looked for recovery + of her old prestige in Europe and expected to supersede + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> + England in + commerce. She would do this, in the beginning, chiefly through control of + America and of America's commerce. Vergennes therefore sought not only to + dictate the final terms of peace but also to say what the American + commissioners should and should not demand. Of the latter gentlemen he + said that they possessed <i>caractères peu maniables!</i> In + writing to Luzerne, the French Ambassador in Philadelphia, on October 14, + 1782, Vergennes said: “it behooves us to leave them [the American + commissioners] to their illusions, to do everything that can make them + fancy that we share them, and undertake only to defeat any attempts to + which those illusions might carry them if our coöperation is + required.” Among these “illusions” were America's desires in + regard to the fisheries and to the western territory. Concerning the West, + Vergennes had written to Luzerne, as early as July 18, 1780: “At the + moment when the revolution broke out, the limits of the Thirteen States + did not reach the River [Mississippi] and it would be absurd for them to + claim the rights of England, a power whose rule they had abjured.” By + the secret treaty with Spain, furthermore, France had agreed to continue + the war until Gibraltar should be taken, and—if the British + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> should be + driven from Newfoundland—to share the fisheries only with Spain, and + to support Spain in demanding that the Thirteen States renounce all + territory west of the Alleghanies. The American States must by no means + achieve a genuine independence but must feel the need of sureties, allies, + and protection. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_252-1" name="footer_252-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_252">¹</a> + See John Jay, <i>On the Peace Negotiations of + 1782-1783 as Illustrated by the Secret Correspondence of France and + England,</i> New York, 1888. + </p> + </div> + <p> + So intent was Vergennes on these aims that he sent a secret emissary to + England to further them there. This act of his perhaps gave the first + inkling to the English statesmen ² that American and French desires + were not identical and hastened England's recognition of American + independence and her agreement to American demands in regard to the + western territory. When, to his amazement, Vergennes learned that England + had acceded to all America's demands, he said that England had “bought + the peace” rather than made it. The policy of Vergennes in regard to + America was not unjustly pronounced by a later French statesman “<em>a + vile speculation</em>” + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_252-2" name="footer_252-2"></a> + <a href="#Page_252">²</a> + “Your Lordship was well founded in your + suspicion that the granting of independence to America as a previous + measure is a point which the French have by no means at heart and perhaps + are entirely averse from.” Letter from Fitzherbert to Grantham, + September 3, 1782. + </p> + </div> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> + Through England's unexpected action, then, the Bourbon cousins had forever + lost their opportunity to dominate the young but spent and war-weakened + Republic, or to use America as a catspaw to snatch English commerce for + France. It was plain, too, that any frank move of the sort would range the + English alongside of their American kinsmen. Since American Independence + was an accomplished fact and therefore could no longer be prevented, the + present object of the Bourbon cousins was to restrict it. The Appalachian + Mountains should be the western limits of the new nation. Therefore the + settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee must be broken up, or the settlers + must be induced to secede from the Union and raise the Spanish banner. The + latter alternative was held to be preferable. To bring it about the same + methods were to be continued which had been used prior to and during the + war—namely, the use of <i>agents provocateurs</i> to corrupt the + ignorant and incite the lawless, the instigation of Indian massacres to + daunt the brave, and the distribution of gold to buy the avaricious. + </p> + <p> + As her final and supreme means of coercion, Spain refused to America the + right of navigation on the Mississippi and so deprived the Westerners + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span> of a + market for their produce. The Northern States, having no immediate use for + the Mississippi, were willing to placate Spain by acknowledging her + monopoly of the great waterway. But Virginia and North Carolina were + determined that America should not, by congressional enactment, surrender + her “natural right”; and they cited the proposed legislation as their + reason for refusing to ratify the Constitution. “The act which abandons + it [the right of navigation] is an act of separation between the eastern + and western country,” Jefferson realized at last. “An act of + separation”—that point had long been very clear to the Latin + sachems of the Mississippi Valley! + </p> + <p> + Bounded as they were on one side by the precipitous mountains and on the + other by the southward flow of the Mississippi and its tributary, the + Ohio, the trappers and growers of corn in Kentucky and western Tennessee + regarded New Orleans as their logical market, as the wide waters were + their natural route. If market and route were to be closed to them, their + commercial advancement was something less than a dream. + </p> + <p> + In 1785, Don Estevan Miró, a gentleman of artful and winning + address, became Governor of Louisiana and fountainhead of the propaganda. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span> He + wrote benign and brotherly epistles to James Robertson of the Cumberland + and to His Excellency of Franklin, suggesting that to be of service to + them was his dearest aim in life; and at the same time he kept the + southern Indians continually on the warpath. When Robertson wrote to him + of the Creek and Cherokee depredations, with a hint that the Spanish might + have some responsibility in the matter, Miró replied by offering + the Cumberlander a safe home on Spanish territory with freedom of religion + and no taxes. He disclaimed stirring up the Indians. He had, in fact, + advised Mr. McGillivray, chief of the Creeks, to make peace. He would try + again what he could do with Mr. McGillivray. As to the Cherokees, they + resided in a very distant territory and he was not acquainted with them; + he might have added that he did not need to be: his friend McGillivray was + the potent personality among the Southern tribes. + </p> + <p> + In Alexander McGillivray, Miró found a weapon fashioned to his + hand. If the Creek chieftain's figure might stand as the symbol of + treachery, it is none the less one of the most picturesque and pathetic in + our early annals. McGillivray, it will be remembered, was the son of + Adair's friend Lachlan McGillivray, the trader, and a Creek woman whose + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> sire + had been a French officer. A brilliant and beautiful youth, he had given + his father a pride in him which is generally denied to the fathers of sons + with Indian blood in them. The Highland trader had spared nothing in his + son's education and had placed him, after his school days, in the business + office of the large trading establishment of which he himself was a + member. At about the age of seventeen Alexander had become a chieftain in + his mother's nation; and doubtless it is he who appears shortly afterwards + in the Colonial Records as the White Leader whose influence is seen to + have been at work for friendship between the colonists and the tribes. + When the Revolutionary War broke out, Lachlan McGillivray, like many of + the old traders who had served British interests so long and so + faithfully, held to the British cause. Georgia confiscated all his + property and Lachlan fled to Scotland. For this, his son hated the people + of Georgia with a perfect hatred. He remembered how often his father's + courage alone had stood between those same people and the warlike Creeks. + He could recall the few days in 1760 when Lachlan and his fellow trader, + Galphin, at the risk of their lives had braved the Creek warriors—already + painted for war and on the march—and so had + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> + saved the settlements of the + Back Country from extermination. He looked upon the men of Georgia as an + Indian regards those who forget either a blood gift or a blood vengeance. + And he embraced the whole American nation in his hatred for their sakes. + </p> + <p> + In 1776 Alexander McGillivray was in his early thirties—the exact + date of his birth is uncertain. ¹ He had, we are told, the tall, + sturdy, but spare physique of the Gael, with a countenance of Indian color + though not of Indian cast. His overhanging brows made more striking his + very large and luminous dark eyes. He bore himself with great dignity; his + voice was soft, his manner gentle. He might have been supposed to be some + Latin courtier but for the barbaric display of his dress and his + ornaments. He possessed extraordinary personal magnetism, and his power + extended beyond the Creek nation to the Choctaws and Chickasaws and the + Southern Cherokees. He had long been wooed by the Louisiana authorities, + but there is no evidence that he had made alliance with them prior to the + Revolution. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_257-1" name="footer_257-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_257">¹</a> + Probably about 1741 or 1742. Some writers give + 1739 and others 1746. His father landed in Charleston, Pickett (<i>History + of Alabama</i>) says, in 1735, and was then only sixteen. + </p> + </div> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span> + Early in the war he joined the British, received a colonel's commission, + and led his formidable Creeks against the people of Georgia. When the + British were driven from the Back Countries, McGillivray, in his British + uniform, went on with the war. When the British made peace, McGillivray + exchanged his British uniform for a Spanish one and went on with the war. + In later days, when he had forced Congress to pay him for his father's + confiscated property and had made peace, he wore the uniform of an + American Brigadier General; but he did not keep the peace, never having + intended to keep it. It was not until he had seen the Spanish plots + collapse and had realized that the Americans were to dominate the land, + that the White Leader ceased from war and urged the youths of his tribe to + adopt American civilization. + </p> + <p> + Spent from hate and wasted with dissipation, he retired at last to the + spot where Lachlan had set up his first Creek home. Here he lived his few + remaining days in a house which he built on the site of the old ruined + cabin about which still stood the little grove of apple trees his father + had planted. He died at the age of fifty of a fever contracted while he + was on a business errand in Pensacola. Among those who visited him in his + last years, one + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> + has left this description of him: “Dissipation has sapped a constitution + originally delicate and feeble. He possesses an atticism of diction aided + by a liberal education, a great fund of wit and humor meliorated by a + perfect good nature and politeness.” Set beside that kindly picture + this rough etching by James Robertson: “The biggest devil among them + [the Spaniards] is the half Spaniard, half Frenchman, half Scotchman and + altogether Creek scoundrel, McGillivray.” + </p> + <p> + How indefatigably McGillivray did his work we know from the bloody annals + of the years which followed the British-American peace, when the men of + the Cumberland and of Franklin were on the defensive continually. How + cleverly Miró played his personal rôle we discover in the + letters addressed to him by Sevier and Robertson. These letters show that, + as far as words go at any rate, the founders of Tennessee were willing to + negotiate with Spain. In a letter dated September 12, 1788, Sevier offered + himself and his tottering State of Franklin to the Spanish King. This + offer may have been made to gain a respite, or it may have been genuine. + The situation in the Tennessee settlements was truly desperate, for + neither North Carolina nor Congress apparently cared in the least + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span> what + befell them or how soon. North Carolina indeed was in an anomalous + position, as she had not yet ratified the Federal Constitution. If + Franklin went out of existence and the territory which it included became + again part of North Carolina, Sevier knew that a large part of the newly + settled country would, under North Carolina's treaties, revert to the + Indians. That meant ruin to large numbers of those who had put their faith + in his star, or else it meant renewed conflict either with the Indians or + with the parent State. The probabilities aria that Sevier hoped to play + the Spaniards against the Easterners who, even while denying the + Westerners' contention that the mountains were a “natural” barrier + between them, were making of them a barrier of indifference. It would seem + so, because, although this was the very aim of all Miró's + activities so that, had he been assured of the sincerity of the offer, he + must have grasped at it, yet nothing definite was done. And Sevier was + presently informing Shelby, now in Kentucky, that there was a Spanish plot + afoot to seize the western country. + </p> + <p> + Miró had other agents besides McGillivray—who, by the way, + was costing Spain, for his own services and those of four tribes + aggregating over + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span> + six thousand warriors, a sum of fifty-five thousand dollars a year. + McGillivray did very well as superintendent of massacres; but the Spaniard + required a different type of man, an American who enjoyed his country's + trust, to bring the larger plan to fruition. Miró found that man in + General James Wilkinson, lately of the Continental Army and now a resident + of Kentucky, which territory Wilkinson undertook to deliver to Spain, for + a price. In 1787 Wilkinson secretly took the oath of allegiance to Spain + and is listed in the files of the Spanish secret service, appropriately, + as “Number Thirteen.” He was indeed the thirteenth at table, the + Judas at the feast. Somewhat under middle height, Wilkinson was handsome, + graceful, and remarkably magnetic. Of a good, if rather impoverished, + Maryland family, he was well educated and widely read for the times. With + a brilliant and versatile intellectuality and ready gifts as a speaker, he + swayed men easily. He was a bold soldier and was endowed with physical + courage, though when engaged in personal contests he seldom exerted it—preferring + the red tongue of slander or the hired assassin's shot from behind cover. + His record fails to disclose one commendable trait. He was inordinately + avaricious, but + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span> + love of money was not his whole motive force: he had a spirit so jealous + and malignant that he hated to the death another man's good. He seemed to + divine instantly wherein other men were weak and to understand the + speediest and best means of suborning them to his own interests—or + of destroying them. + </p> + <p> + Wilkinson was able to lure a number of Kentuckians into the separatist + movement. George Rogers Clark seriously disturbed the arch plotter by + seizing a Spanish trader's store wherewith to pay his soldiers, whom + Virginia had omitted to recompense. This act aroused the suspicions of the + Spanish, either as to Number Thirteen's perfect loyalty or as to his + ability to deliver the western country. In 1786, when Clark led two + thousand men against the Ohio Indians in his last and his only + unsuccessful campaign, Wilkinson had already settled himself near the + Falls (Louisville) and had looked about for mischief which he might do for + profit. Whether his influence had anything to do with what amounted + virtually to a mutiny among Clark's forces is not ascertainable; but, for + a disinterested onlooker, he was overswift to spread the news of Clark's + debacle and to declare gleefully that Clark's sun of military glory had + now forever + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> + set. It is also known that he later served other generals treacherously in + Indian expeditions and that he intrigued with Mad Anthony Wayne's Kentucky + troops against their commander. + </p> + <p> + Spain did not wish to see the Indians crushed; and Wilkinson himself both + hated and feared any other officer's prestige. How long he had been in + foreign pay we can only conjecture, for, several years before he + transplanted his activities to Kentucky, he had been one of a cabal + against Washington. Not only his ambitions but his nature must inevitably + have brought him to the death-battle with George Rogers Clark. As a + military leader, Clark had genius, and soldiering was his passion. In + nature, he was open, frank, and bold to make foes if he scorned a man's + way as ignoble or dishonest. Wilkinson suavely set about scheming for + Clark's ruin. His communication or memorial to the Virginia Assembly—signed + by himself and a number of his friends—villifying Clark, ended + Clark's chances for the commission in the Continental Army which he + craved. It was Wilkinson who made public an incriminating letter which had + Clark's signature attached and which Clark said he had never seen. It is + to be supposed that Number Thirteen was responsible also for + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> + the + malevolent anonymous letter accusing Clark of drunkenness and scheming + which, so strangely, found its way into the Calendar of State Papers of + Virginia. ¹ As a result, Clark was censured by Virginia. Thereupon he + petitioned for a Court of Inquiry, but this was not granted. Wilkinson had + to get rid of Clark; for if Clark, with his military gifts and his power + over men, had been elevated to a position of command under the smile of + the Government, there would have been small opportunity for James + Wilkinson to lead the Kentuckians and to gather in Spanish gold. So the + machinations of one of the vilest traitors who ever sold his country were + employed to bring about the stultification and hence the downfall of a + great servant. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_264-1" name="footer_264-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_264">¹</a> + See Thomas M. Greene's <i>The Spanish + Conspiracy,</i> p. 72, footnote. It is possible that Wilkinson's intrigues + provide data for a new biography of Clark which may recast in some measure + the accepted view of Clark at this period. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Wilkinson's chief aids were the Irishmen, O'Fallon, Nolan, and Powers. + Through Nolan, he also vended Spanish secrets. He sold, indeed, whatever + and whomever he could get his price for. So clever was he that he escaped + detection, though he was obliged to remove some suspicions. He succeeded + Wayne as commander of the regular army in 1796. He was one of the + commissioners + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span> + to receive Louisiana when the Purchase was arranged in 1803. He was still + on the Spanish pay roll at that time. Wilkinson's true record came to + light only when the Spanish archives were opened to investigators. + </p> + <p> + There were British agents also in the Old Southwest, for the + dissatisfaction of the Western men inspired in Englishmen the hope of + recovering the Mississippi Basin. Lord Dorchester, Governor of Canada, + wrote to the British Government that he had been approached by important + Westerners; but he received advice from England to move slowly. For + complicity in the British schemes, William Blount, who was first + territorial Governor of Tennessee and later a senator from that State, was + expelled from the Senate. + </p> + <p> + Surely there was never a more elaborate network of plots that came to + nothing! The concession to Americans in 1796 of the right of navigation on + the Mississippi brought an end to the scheming. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + In the same year Tennessee was admitted to the Union, and John Sevier was + elected Governor. Sevier's popularity was undiminished, though there were + at this time some sixty thousand souls in Tennessee, many of whom were + late comers who + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span> + had not known him in his heyday. His old power to win men to him must have + been as strong as ever, for it is recorded that he had only to enter a + political meeting—no matter whose—for the crowd to cheer him + and shout for him to “give them a talk.” + </p> + <p> + This adulation of Sevier still annoyed a few men who had ambitions of + their own. Among these was Andrew Jackson, who had come to Jonesborough in + 1788, just after the collapse of the State of Franklin. He was twenty-one + at that time, and he is said to have entered Jonesborough riding a fine + racer and leading another, with a pack of hunting dogs baying or nosing + along after him. A court record dated May 12, 1788, avers that “Andrew + Jackson, Esq. came into Court and produced a licence as an Attorney With A + Certificate sufficiently Attested of his Taking the Oath Necessary to said + office and Was admitted to Practiss as an Attorney in the County Courts.” + Jackson made no history in old Watauga during that year. Next year he + moved to Nashville, and one year later, when the Superior Court was + established (1790), he became prosecuting attorney. + </p> + <p> + The feud between Jackson and Sevier began about the time that Tennessee + entered the Union. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span> + Jackson, then twenty-nine, was defeated for the post of Major General of + the Militia through the influence which Sevier exercised against him, and + it seems that Jackson never forgave this opposition to his ambitions. By + the close of Sevier's third term, however, in 1802, when Archibald Roane + became Governor, the post of Major General was again vacant. Both Sevier + and Jackson offered themselves for it, and Jackson was elected by the + deciding vote of the Governor, the military vote having resulted in a tie. + A strong current of influence had now set in against Sevier and involved + charges against his honor. His old enemy Tipton was still active. The + basis of the charges was a file of papers from the entry-taker's office + which a friend of Tipton's had laid before the Governor, with an affidavit + to the effect that the papers were fraudulent. Both the Governor and + Jackson believed the charges. When we consider what system or lack of + system of land laws and land entries obtained in Watauga and such + primitive communities—when a patch of corn sealed a right and claims + were made by notching trees with tomahawks—we may imagine that a + file from the land office might appear easily enough to smirch a + landholder's integrity. The scandal was, of course, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> + used in an attempt to ruin + Sevier's candidacy for a fourth term as Governor and to make certain + Roane's reëlection. To this end Jackson bent all his energies but + without success. Nolichucky Jack was elected, for the fourth time, as + Governor of Tennessee. + </p> + <p> + Not long after his inauguration, Sevier met Jackson in Knoxville, where + Jackson was holding court. The charges against Sevier were then being made + the subject of legislative investigation instituted by Tipton, and Jackson + had published a letter in the Knoxville <i>Gazette</i> supporting them. At + the sight of Jackson, Sevier flew into a rage, and a fiery altercation + ensued. The two men were only restrained from leaping on each other by the + intervention of friends. The next day Jackson sent Sevier a challenge + which Sevier accepted, but with the stipulation that the duel take place + outside the State. Jackson insisted on fighting in Knoxville, where the + insult had been offered. Sevier refused. “I have some respect,” he + wrote, “for the laws of the State over which I have the honor to + preside, although you, a judge, appear to have none.” No duel followed; + but, after some further <i>billets-doux</i>, Jackson published Sevier as + “a base coward and poltroon. He will basely insult but has not + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span> the + courage to repair the wound.” Again they met, by accident, and Jackson + rushed upon Sevier with his cane. Sevier dismounted and drew his pistol + but made no move to fire. Jackson, thereupon, also drew his weapon. Once + more friends interfered. It is presumable that neither really desired the + duel. By killing Nolichucky Jack, Jackson would have ended his own career + in Tennessee—if Sevier's tribe of sons had not, by a swifter means, + ended it for him. At this date Jackson was thirty-six. Sevier was + fifty-eight; and he had seventeen children. + </p> + <p> + The charges against Sevier, though pressed with all the force that his + enemies could bring to bear, came to nothing. He remained the Governor of + Tennessee for another six years—the three terms in eight years + allowed by the constitution. In 1811 he was sent to Congress for the + second time, as he had represented the Territory there twenty years + earlier. He was returned again in 1813. At the conclusion of his term in + 1815 he went into the Creek country as commissioner to determine the Creek + boundaries, and here, far from his Bonnie Kate and his tribe, he died of + fever at the age of seventy. His body was buried with full military honors + at Tuckabatchee, one of the Creek towns. In 1889, Sevier's <span + class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span> remains + were removed to Knoxville and a high marble spire was raised above them. + </p> + <p> + His Indian enemies forgave the chastisement he had inflicted on them and + honored him. In times of peace they would come to him frequently for + advice. And in his latter days, the chiefs would make state visits to his + home on the Nolichucky River. “John Sevier is a good man”—so + declared the Cherokee, Old Tassel, making himself the spokesman of + history. + </p> + <p> + Sevier had survived his old friend, co-founder with him of Watauga, by one + year. James Robertson had died in 1814 at the age of seventy-two, among + the Chickasaws, and his body, like that of his fellow pioneer, was buried + in an Indian town and lay there until 1825, when it was removed to + Nashville. + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + What of the red tribes who had fought these great pioneers for the wide + land of the Old Southwest and who in the end had received their dust and + treasured it with honor in the little soil remaining to them? Always the + new boundary lines drew closer in, and the red men's foothold narrowed + before the pushing tread of the whites. The day came soon when there was + no longer room for + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> + them in the land of their fathers. But far off across the great river + there was a land the white men did not covet yet. Thither at last the + tribes—Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek—took their way. + With wives and children, maids and youths, the old and the young, with all + their goods, their cattle and horses, in the company of a regiment of + American troops, they—like the white men who had superseded them—turned + westward. In their faces also was the red color of the west, but not newly + there. From the beginning of their race, Destiny had painted them with the + hue of the brief hour of the dying sun. + </p> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter11" id="Chapter11"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER XI.</a> + </h2> + <p class="chaptertitle">Boone's Last Days</p> + + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">One</span> spring day in 1799, there might have been + observed a great stir through the valley of the Kanawha. With the dawn, + men were ahorse, and women, too. Wagons crowded with human freight wheeled + over the rough country, and boats, large and small, were afloat on the + streams which pour into the Great Kanawha and at length mingle with the + Ohio at Point Pleasant, where the battle was fought which opened the gates + of Kentucky. + </p> + <p> + Some of the travelers poured into the little settlement at the junction of + the Elk and the Kanawha, where Charleston now lies. Others, who had been + later in starting or had come from a greater distance, gathered along the + banks of the Kanawha. At last shouts from those stationed farthest up the + stream echoed down the valley and told the rest that what they had come + out to see was at hand. + </p> + <p> + Several pirogues drifted into view on the river, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> + now brightening in the + sunshine. In the vessels were men and their families; bales and bundles + and pieces of household furnishings, heaped to the gunwale; a few cattle + and horses standing patiently. But it was for one man above all that the + eager eyes of the settlers were watching, and him they saw clearly as his + boat swung by—a tall figure, erect and powerful, his keen friendly + blue eyes undimmed and his ruddy face unlined by time, though sixty-five + winters had frosted his black hair. + </p> + <p> + For a decade these settlers had known Daniel Boone, as storekeeper, as + surveyor, as guide and soldier. They had eaten of the game he killed and + lavishly distributed. And they too—like the folk of Clinch Valley in + the year of Dunmore's War—had petitioned Virginia to bestow military + rank upon their protector. “Lieutenant Colonel” had been his title + among them, by their demand. Once indeed he had represented them in the + Virginia Assembly and, for that purpose, trudged to Richmond with rifle + and hunting dog. Not interested in the Legislature's proceedings, he left + early in the session and tramped home again. + </p> + <p> + But not even the esteem of friends and neighbors could hold the great + hunter when the deer had fled. So Daniel Boone was now on his way westward + to + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span> + Missouri, to a new land of fabled herds and wide spaces, where the + hunter's gun might speak its one word with authority and where the soul of + a silent and fearless man might find its true abode in Nature's solitude. + Waving his last farewells, he floated past the little groups—till + their shouts of good will were long silenced, and his fleet swung out upon + the Ohio. + </p> + <p> + As Boone sailed on down the Beautiful River which forms the northern + boundary of Kentucky, old friends and newcomers who had only heard his + fame rode from far and near to greet and godspeed him on his way. + Sometimes he paused for a day with them. Once at least—this was in + Cincinnati where he was taking on supplies—some one asked him why, + at his age, he was leaving the settled country to dare the frontier once + more. + </p> + <p> + “Too crowded,” he answered; “I want more elbow-room!” + </p> + <p> + Boone settled at the Femme Osage Creek on the Missouri River, twenty-five + miles above St. Charles, where the Missouri flows into the Mississippi. + There were four other Kentucky families at La Charette, as the French + inhabitants called the post, but these were the only Americans. The + Spanish authorities granted Boone 840 acres of land, and here Daniel + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> built the + last cabin home he was to erect for himself and his Rebecca. + </p> + <p> + The region pleased him immensely. The governmental system, for instance, + was wholly to his mind. Taxes were infinitesimal. There were no elections, + assemblies, or the like. A single magistrate, or Syndic, decided all + disputes and made the few regulations and enforced them. There were no + land speculators, no dry-mouthed sons of the commercial Tantalus, athirst + for profits. Boone used to say that his first years in Missouri were the + happiest of his life, with the exception of his first long hunt in + Kentucky. + </p> + <p> + In 1800 he was appointed Syndic of the district of Femme Osage, which + office he filled for four years, until Louisiana became American + territory. He was held in high esteem as a magistrate because of his just + and wise treatment of his flock, who brought him all their small + bickerings to settle. He had no use for legal procedure, would not listen + to any nice subtleties, saying that he did not care anything at all about + the <em>evidence</em>, what he wanted was the <em>truth</em>. His favorite + penalty for offenders was the hickory rod “well laid on.” Often he + decided that both parties in a suit were equally to blame and chastised + them both alike. When in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> + March, 1804, the American Commissioner + received Louisiana for the United States, Delassus, Lieutenant Governor of + Upper Louisiana, reporting on the various officials in the territory, + wrote of the Femme Osage Syndic: “Mr. Boone, a respectable old man, just + and impartial, he has already, since I appointed him, offered his + resignation owing to his infirmities. Believing I know his probity, I have + induced him to remain, in view of my confidence in him, for the public + good.” ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_276-1" name="footer_276-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_276">¹</a> + Thwaites, <i>Daniel Boone.</i> To this and other + biographies of Boone, cited in the Bibliographical Note at the end of this + volume, the author is indebted for the material contained in this chapter. + </p> + </div> + <p> + Daniel, no doubt supposing that a Syndic's rights were inviolable, had + neglected to apply to the Governor at New Orleans for a ratification of + his grant. He was therefore dispossessed. Not until 1810, and after he had + enlisted the Kentucky Legislature in his behalf, did he succeed in + inducing Congress to restore his land. The Kentucky Legislature's + resolution was adopted because of “the many eminent services rendered by + Colonel Boone in exploring and settling the western country, from which + great advantages have resulted not only to the State but to the country in + general, and that from circumstances over which he had no + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span> control he + is now reduced to poverty; not having so far as appears an acre of land + out of the vast territory he has been a great instrument in peopling.” + Daniel was seventy-six then; so it was late in the day for him to have his + first experience of justice in the matter of land. Perhaps it pleased him, + however, to hear that, in confirming his grant, Congress had designated + him as “the man who has opened the way for millions of his fellow-men.” + </p> + <p> + The “infirmities” which had caused the good Syndic to seek relief + from political cares must have been purely magisterial. The hunter could + have been very little affected by them, for as soon as he was freed from + his duties Boone took up again the silent challenge of the forest. Usually + one or two of his sons or his son-in-law, Flanders Calloway, accompanied + him, but sometimes his only companions were an old Indian and his hunting + dog. On one of his hunting trips he explored a part of Kansas; and in + 1814, when he was eighty, he hunted big game in the Yellowstone where + again his heart rejoiced over great herds as in the days of his first lone + wanderings in the Blue Grass country. At last, with the proceeds of these + expeditions he was able to pay the debts he had left behind in Kentucky + thirty years before. The story runs that + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> + Daniel had only fifty cents + remaining when all the claims had been settled, but so contented was he to + be able to look an honest man in the face that he was in no disposition to + murmur over his poverty. + </p> + <p> + When after a long and happy life his wife died in 1813, Boone lived with + one or other of his sons ¹ and sometimes with Flanders Calloway. + Nathan Boone, with whom Daniel chiefly made his home, built what is said + to have been the first stone house in Missouri. Evidently the old pioneer + disapproved of stone houses and of the “luxuries” in furnishings + which were then becoming possible to the new generation, for one of his + biographers speaks of visiting him in a log addition to his son's house; + and when Chester Harding, the painter, visited him in 1819 for the purpose + of doing his portrait, he found Boone dwelling in a small log cabin in + Nathan's yard. When Harding entered, Boone was broiling a venison steak on + the end of his ramrod. During the sitting, one day, Harding + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span> asked + Boone if he had ever been lost in the woods when on his long hunts in the + wilderness. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p> + <a id="footer_278-1" name="footer_278-1"></a> + <a href="#Page_278">¹</a> + Boone's son Nathan won distinction in the War + of 1812 and entered the regular army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant + Colonel. Daniel Morgan Boone is said to have been the first settler in + Kansas (1827). One of Daniel's grandsons, bearing the name of Albert + Gallatin Boone, was a pioneer of Colorado and was to the forefront in + Rocky Mountain exploration. Another grandson was the scout, Kit Carson, + who led Frémont to California. + </p> + </div> + <p> + “No, I never got lost,” Boone replied reflectively, + “but I was <em>bewildered</em> + once for three days.” Though now having reached the age of eighty-five, + Daniel was intensely interested in California and was enthusiastic to make + the journey thither next spring and so to flee once more from the + civilization which had crept westward along his path. The resolute + opposition of his sons, however, prevented the attempt. + </p> + <p> + A few men who sought out Boone in his old age have left us brief accounts + of their impressions. Among these was Audubon. “The stature and general + appearance of this wanderer of the western forests,” the naturalist + wrote, “approached the gigantic. His chest was broad, and prominent; his + muscular powers displayed themselves in every limb; his countenance gave + indication of his great courage, enterprise and perseverance; and, when he + spoke, the very motion of his lips brought the impression that whatever he + uttered could not be otherwise than strictly true.” + </p> + <p> + Audubon spent a night under Boone's roof. He related afterwards that the + old hunter, having removed his hunting shirt, spread his blankets on the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span> + floor and lay down there to sleep, saying that he found it more + comfortable than a bed. A striking sketch of Boone is contained in a few + lines penned by one of his earliest biographers: “He had what + phrenologists would have considered a model head—with a forehead + peculiarly high, noble and bold, thin compressed lips, a mild clear blue + eye, a large and prominent chin and a general expression of countenance in + which fearlessness and courage sat enthroned and which told the beholder + at a glance what he had been and was formed to be.” In criticizing the + various portraits of Daniel, the same writer says: “They want the high + port and noble daring of his countenance.… Never was old age more + green, or gray hairs more graceful. His high, calm, bold forehead seemed + converted by years into iron.” + </p> + <p> + Although we are indebted to these and other early chroniclers for many + details of Boone's life, there was one event which none of his biographers + has related; yet we know that it must have taken place. Even the bare + indication of it is found only in the narrative of the adventures of two + other explorers. + </p> + <p> + It was in the winter of 1803 that these two men came to Boone's + Settlement, as La Charette was + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span> + now generally called. They had planned to + make their winter camp there, for in the spring, when the Missouri rose to + the flood, they and their company of frontiersmen were to take their way + up that uncharted stream and over plains and mountains in quest of the + Pacific Ocean. They were refused permission by the Spanish authorities to + camp at Boone's Settlement; so they lay through the winter some forty + miles distant on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, across from the + mouth of the Missouri. Since the records are silent, we are free to + picture as we choose their coming to the settlement during the winter and + again in the spring, for we know that they came. + </p> + <p> + We can imagine, for instance, the stir they made in La Charette on some + sparkling day when the frost bit and the crusty snow sent up a dancing + haze of diamond points. We can see the friendly French <i>habitants</i> + staring after the two young leaders and their men—all mere boys, + though they were also husky, seasoned frontiersmen—with their + bronzed faces of English cast, as in their gayly fringed deerskins they + swaggered through the hamlet to pay their respects to the Syndic. We may + think of that dignitary as smoking his pipe before his fireplace, perhaps; + or making out, in his + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> + fantastic spelling, a record of his primitive + court—for instance, that he had on that day given Pierre a dozen + hickory thwacks, “well laid on,” for starting a brawl with Antoine, + and had bestowed the same upon Antoine for continuing the brawl with + Pierre. A knock at the door would bring the amiable invitation to enter, + and the two young men would step across his threshold, while their + followers crowded about the open door and hailed the old pathfinder. + </p> + <p> + One of the two leaders—the dark slender man with a subtle touch of + the dreamer in his resolute face—was a stranger; but the other, with + the more practical mien and the shock of hair that gave him the name of + Red Head among the tribes, Boone had known as a lad in Kentucky. To Daniel + and this young visitor the encounter would be a simple meeting of friends, + heightened in pleasure and interest somewhat, naturally, by the adventure + in prospect. But to us there is something vast in the thought of Daniel + Boone, on his last frontier, grasping the hands of William Clark and + Meriwether Lewis. + </p> + <p> + As for the rough and hearty mob at the door, Daniel must have known not a + few of them well; though they had been children in the days when + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> he and + William Clark's brother strove for Kentucky. It seems fitting that the + soldiers with this expedition should have come from the garrison at + Kaskaskia; since the taking of that fort in 1778 by George Rogers Clark + had opened the western way from the boundaries of Kentucky to the + Mississippi. And among the young Kentuckians enlisted by William Clark + were sons of the sturdy fighters of still an earlier border line, Clinch + and Holston Valley men who had adventured under another Lewis at Point + Pleasant. Daniel would recognize in these—such as Charles Floyd—the + young kinsmen of his old-time comrades whom he had preserved from + starvation in the Kentucky wilderness by the kill from his rifle as they + made their long march home after Dunmore's War. + </p> + <p> + In May, Lewis and Clark's pirogues ascended the Missouri and the leaders + and men of the expedition spent another day in La Charette. Once again, at + least, Daniel was to watch the westward departure of pioneers. In 1811, + when the Astorians passed, one of their number pointed to the immobile + figure of “an old man on the bank, who, he said, was Daniel Boone.” + </p> + <hr class="break" /> + <p> + Sometimes the aged pioneer's mind cast forward + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span> + to his last journey, for + which his advancing years were preparing him. He wrote on the subject to a + sister, in 1816, revealing in a few simple lines that the faith whereby he + had crossed, if not more literally removed, mountains was a fixed star, + and that he looked ahead fearlessly to the dark trail he must tread by its + single gleam. Autumn was tinting the forest and the tang he loved was in + the air when the great hunter passed. The date of Boone's death is given + as September 26, 1820. He was in his eighty-sixth year. Unburdened by the + pangs of disease he went out serenely, by the gentle marches of sleep, + into the new country. + </p> + <p> + The convention for drafting the constitution of Missouri, in session at + St. Louis, adjourned for the day, and for twenty days thereafter the + members wore crape on their arms as a further mark of respect for the + great pioneer. Daniel was laid by Rebecca's side, on the bank of Teugue + Creek, about a mile from the Missouri River. In 1845, the Missouri + legislators hearkened to oft-repeated pleas from Kentucky and surrendered + the remains of the pioneer couple. Their bones lie now in Frankfort, the + capital of the once Dark and Bloody Ground, and in 1880 a monument was + raised over them. + </p> + <p> + To us it seems rather that Kentucky itself is + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> + Boone's monument; even as + those other great corn States, Illinois and Indiana, are Clark's. There, + these two servants unafraid, who sacrificed without measure in the wintry + winds of man's ingratitude, are each year memorialized anew; when the + earth in summer—the season when the red man slaughtered—lifts + up the full grain in the ear, the life-giving corn; and when autumn smiles + in golden peace over the stubble fields, where the reaping and binding + machines have hummed a nation's harvest song. + </p> + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Biblio" id="Biblio"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">Bibliographical Note</a> + </h2> + <p><br /></p> + + + <h3> + The Races And Their Migration + </h3> + <p> + C. A. Hanna, <i>The Scotch-Irish,</i> 2 vols. New York, 1902. A very full + if somewhat over-enthusiastic study. + </p> + <p> + H. J. Ford, <i>The Scotch-Irish in America.</i> Princeton, 1915. + Excellent. + </p> + <p> + A. G. Spangenberg, Extracts from his Journal of travels in North Carolina, + 1752. Publication of the Southern History Association. Vol. I, 1897. + </p> + <p> + A. B. Faust, <i>The German Element in the United States,</i> 2 vols. + (1909). + </p> + <p> + J. P. MacLean, <i>An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch + Highlanders in America</i> (1900). + </p> + <p> + S. H. Cobb, <i>The Story of the Palatines</i> (1897). + </p> + <p> + N. D. Mereness (editor), <i>Travels in the American Colonies.</i> New + York, 1916. This collection contains the diary of the Moravian Brethren + cited in the first chapter of the present volume. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3> + Life In The Back Country + </h3> + <p> + Joseph Doddridge, <i>Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of the + Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania,</i> from 1763 to 1783. Albany, + 1876. An intimate description of the daily life of the early settlers in + the Back Country by one of themselves. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span> J. + F. D. Smyth, <i>Tour in the United States of America,</i> 2 vols. London, + 1784. Minute descriptions of the Back Country and interesting pictures of + the life of the settlers; biased as to political views by Royalist + sympathies. + </p> + <p> + William H. Foote, <i>Sketches of North Carolina,</i> New York, 1846. See + Foote also for history of the first Presbyterian ministers in the Back + Country. As to political history, inaccurate. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3> + Early History And Exploration + </h3> + <p> + J. S. Bassett (editor), <i>The Writings of Colonel William Byrd of + Westover.</i> New York, 1901. A contemporary record of early Virginia. + </p> + <p> + Thomas Walker, <i>Journal of an Exploration in the Spring of the Year + 1750.</i> Boston, 1888. The record of his travels by the discoverer of + Cumberland Gap. + </p> + <p> + William M. Darlington (editor), <i>Christopher Gist's Journals.</i> + Pittsburgh, 1893. Contains Gist's account of his surveys for the Ohio + Company, 1750. + </p> + <p> + C. A. Hanna, <i>The Wilderness Trail,</i> 2 vols. New York, 1911. An + exhaustive work of research, with full accounts of Croghan and Findlay. + See also Croghan's and Johnson's correspondence in vol. VII, New York + Colonial Records. + </p> + <p> + James Adair, <i>The History of the American Indians,</i> etc. London, + 1775. The personal record of a trader who was one of the earliest + explorers of the Alleghanies and of the Mississippi region east of the + river; a many-sided work, intensely interesting. + </p> + <p> + C. W. Alvord, <i>The Genesis of the Proclamation of 1763.</i> Reprinted + from Canadian Archives Report, 1906. A new and authoritative + interpretation. In this connection see also the correspondence between Sir + William <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span> + Johnson and the Lords of Trade in vol. VII of New York Colonial Records. + </p> + <p> + Justin Winsor, <i>The Mississippi Basin. The Struggle in America between + England and France.</i> Cambridge, 1895. Presents the results of + exhaustive research and the coördination of facts by an historian of + broad intellect and vision. + </p> + <p> + <i>Colonial and State Records of North Carolina.</i> 30 vols. The chief + fountain source of the early history of North Carolina and Tennessee. + </p> + <p> + W. H. Hoyt, <i>The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.</i> New York, + 1907. This book presents the view generally adopted by historians, that + the alleged Declaration of May 20, 1775, is spurious. + </p> + <p> + Justin Winsor (editor), <i>Narrative and Critical History of America.</i> + 8 vols. (1884-1889). Also <i>The Westward Movement.</i> Cambridge, 1897. + Both works of incalculable value to the student. + </p> + <p> + C. W. Alvord, <i>The Mississippi Valley in British Politics.</i> 2 vols. + Cleveland, 1917. A profound work of great value to students. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3> + Kentucky + </h3> + <p> + R. G. Thwaites and L. P. Kellogg (editors), <i>Documentary History of + Dunmore's War, 1774.</i> Compiled from the Draper Manuscripts in the + library of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Madison, 1905. A collection + of interesting and valuable documents with a suggestive introduction. + </p> + <p> + R. G. Thwaites, <i>Daniel Boone.</i> New York, 1902. A short and accurate + narrative of Boone's life and adventures compiled from the Draper + Manuscripts and from earlier printed biographies. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> John + P. Hale, <i>Daniel Boone, Some Facts and Incidents not Hitherto Published.</i> + A pamphlet giving an account of Boone in West Virginia. Printed at + Wheeling, West Virginia. Undated. + </p> + <p> + Timothy Flint, <i>The First White Man of the West or the Life and Exploits + of Colonel Dan'l Boone.</i> Cincinnati, 1854. Valuable only as regards + Boone's later years. + </p> + <p> + John S. C. Abbott, <i>Daniel Boone, the Pioneer of Kentucky.</i> New York, + 1872. Fairly accurate throughout. + </p> + <p> + J. M. Peck, <i>Daniel Boone</i> (in Sparks, <i>Library of American + Biography.</i> Boston, 1847). + </p> + <p> + William Henry Bogart. <i>Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky.</i> New + York, 1856. + </p> + <p> + William Hayden English, <i>Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River + Ohio, 1778-1783, and Life of General George Rogers Clark,</i> 2 vols. + Indianapolis, 1896. An accurate and valuable work for which the author has + made painstaking research among printed and unprinted documents. Contains + Clark's own account of his campaigns, letters he wrote on public and + personal matters, and also letters from contemporaries in defense of his + reputation. + </p> + <p> + Theodore Roosevelt, <i>The Winning of the West,</i> 4 vols. New York, + 1889-1896. A vigorous and spirited narrative. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3> + Tennessee + </h3> + <p> + J. G. M. Ramsey, <i>The Annals of Tennessee.</i> Charleston, 1853. John + Haywood, <i>The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee.</i> + Nashville, 1891. (Reprint from 1828.) These works, with the North Carolina + <i>Colonial Records,</i> are the source books of early Tennessee. In + statistics, such as numbers of Indians and other foes defeated by + Tennessee heroes, not <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" + id="Page_291">291</a></span> reliable. Incorrect as to causes of Indian + wars during the Revolution. On this subject see letters and reports by + John and Henry Stuart in North Carolina <i>Colonial Records,</i> vol. X; + and letters by General Gage and letters and proclamation by General Ethan + Allen in American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. II, and by President + Rutledge of South Carolina in North Carolina <i>Colonial Records,</i> vol. + X. See also Justin Winsor, <i>The Westward Movement.</i> + </p> + <p> + J. Allison, <i>Dropped Stitches in Tennessee History.</i> Nashville, 1897. + Contains interesting matter relative to Andrew Jackson in his younger days + as well as about other striking figures of the time. + </p> + <p> + F. M. Turner, <i>The Life of General John Sevier.</i> New York, 1910. A + fairly accurate narrative of events in which Sevier participated, compiled + from the <i>Draper Manuscripts.</i> + </p> + <p> + A. W. Putnam, <i>History of Middle Tennessee, or Life and Times of General + James Robertson.</i> Nashville, 1859. A rambling lengthy narrative + containing some interesting material and much that is unreliable. Its + worst fault is distortion through sentimentality, and indulgence in the + habit of putting the author's rodomontades into the mouths of Robertson + and other characters. + </p> + <p> + J. S. Bassett, <i>Regulators of North Carolina,</i> in Report of the + American Historical Association, 1894. + </p> + <p> + L. C. Draper, <i>King's Mountain and its Heroes.</i> Cincinnati, 1881. The + source book on this event. Contains interesting biographical material + about the men engaged in the battle. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3> + French And Spanish Intrigues + </h3> + <p> + Henry Doniol, <i>Histoire de la participation de la France á + l'établissement des États-Unis d'Amérique,</i> + 5 vols. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span> + Paris, 1886-1892. A complete exposition of the French and Spanish policy + towards America during the Revolutionary Period. + </p> + <p> + Manuel Serrano y Sanz, <i>El brigadier Jaime Wilkinson y sus tratos con + España para la independencia del Kentucky, años 1787 + á 1797.</i> Madrid, 1915. A Spanish view of Wilkinson's intrigues + with Spain, based on letters and reports in the Spanish Archives. + </p> + <p> + Thomas Marshall Green, <i>The Spanish Conspiracy.</i> Cincinnati, 1891. A + good local account, from American sources. The best material on this + subject is found in Justin Winsor's <i>The Westward Movement and Narrative + and Critical History</i> because there viewed against a broad historical + background. See Winsor also for the Latin intrigues in Tennessee. For + material on Alexander McGillivray see the American Archives and the + Colonial Records of Georgia. + </p> + <p> + Edward S. Corwin, <i>French Policy and the American Alliance of 1778.</i> + Princeton, 1916. Deals chiefly with the commercial aspects of French + policy and should be read in conjunction with Winsor, Jay, and + Fitzmaurice's <i>Life of William, Earl of Shelburne.</i> 3 vols. London, + 1875. + </p> + <p> + John Jay, <i>On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-83 as Illustrated by the + Secret Correspondence of France and England.</i> New York, 1888. A paper + read before the American Historical Association, May 23, 1887. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + + + + + + <hr /> + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="indexChapter" id="indexChapter"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">INDEX</a></h2> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <div id="index"> + <h3>A.</h3> + <p> +Abingdon (Penn.), Boone family at, <a href="#Page_025">25</a>.<br /> +Adair, James, pioneer trader, + <a href="#Page_059">59</a>-<a href="#Page_074">74</a>, + <a href="#footer_158-1">158 (note)</a>.<br /> +Alabama, Creek nation in, + <a href="#Page_057">57</a>, <a href="#Page_068">68</a>.<br /> +Alamance, Battle of the, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /> +Allaire, Lieutenant, officer under Ferguson, + <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.<br /> +Allen, General Ethan, + tries to enlist Indian aid in Canada, + <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>.<br /> +Alvord, C. W., + <i>The Mississippi Valley in British Politics</i>, + cited, <a href="#footer_110-1">110 (note)</a>, + <a href="#footer_113-1">113 (note)</a>.<br /> +<i>American Archives</i>, + cited, <a href="#footer_8-1">8 (note)</a>, + <a href="#footer_123-1">123 (note)</a>, + <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>.<br /> +Anne, Queen, invites Palatines to England, <a href="#Page_015">15</a>.<br /> +"Apostle, The," Count Zinzendorf, Moravian leader, + <a href="#Page_016">16</a>-<a href="#Page_017">17</a>.<br /> +Attakullakulla, Cherokee statesman, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.<br /> +Audubon, J. J., and Boone, + <a href="#Page_279">279</a>-<a href="#Page_280">280</a>.<br /> +Avery, Waightstill, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /> + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>B.</h3> + <p> +Baker, John, companion to Boone, <a href="#Page_095">95</a>.<br /> +Bean (or Been), William, + erects first cabin on Watauga River, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br /> +Beautiful River, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.<br /> +Big Bone Lick, Boone finds, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.<br /> +Big Turtle, name given Boone by Indians, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> +Black Fish, Shawanoe chief, + <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, + <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +Bledsoe, Captain Anthony, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, + <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>, + <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br /> +Blount, William, Governor of Tennessee, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.<br /> +Blue Licks (Ky.), <a href="#Page_097">97</a>, + <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>; + battle at, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +Bluff Hector, nickname for Hector MacNeill, <a href="#Page_012">12</a>.<br /> +Bogart, W. H., + <i>Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky</i>, + cited, <a href="#footer_136-1">135 (note)</a>.<br /> +Boone, Albert Gallatin, grandson of Daniel, + <a href="#footer_278-1">278 (note)</a>.<br /> +Boone, Daniel, nationality, + <a href="#Page_024">24</a>-<a href="#Page_025">25</a>; + family, + <a href="#Page_024">24</a>-<a href="#Page_026">26</a>, + <a href="#Page_027">27</a>-<a href="#Page_028">28</a>; + born (1734), <a href="#Page_026">26</a>; + early life, <a href="#Page_026">26</a>-<a href="#Page_027">27</a>; + journey to North Carolina, + <a href="#Page_029">29</a>-<a href="#Page_030">30</a>; + home on the Yadkin, <a href="#Page_048">48</a>; + Findlay and, + <a href="#Page_052">52</a>-<a href="#Page_053">53</a>, + <a href="#Page_083">83</a>, <a href="#Page_090">90</a>, + <a href="#Page_097">97</a>, <a href="#Page_098">98</a>, + <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, + <a href="#Page_131">131</a>-<a href="#Page_132">132</a>; + in Braddock's campaign, <a href="#Page_083">83</a>; + marriage, <a href="#Page_090">90</a>-<a href="#Page_091">91</a>; + in Virginia, <a href="#Page_092">92</a>; + removes to North Carolina, <a href="#Page_092">92</a>; + carving on tree, <a href="#Page_093">93</a>; + with Waddell's rangers, <a href="#Page_093">93</a>; + travels to Florida, <a href="#Page_094">94</a>; + first expedition into Kentucky, + <a href="#Page_095">95</a>-<a href="#Page_097">97</a>; + second Kentucky expedition, + <a href="#Page_097">97</a>-<a href="#Page_103">103</a>; + lonely explorations, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a>; + personal characteristics, + <a href="#Page_105">105</a>-<a href="#Page_106">106</a>; + removes family to Powell's Valley, + <a href="#Page_106">106</a>-<a href="#Page_109">109</a>; + part in Dunmore's war, + <a href="#Page_120">120</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>, + <a href="#Page_128">128</a>; + and Henderson's venture, + <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#footer_130-1">130 (note)</a>, + <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, + <a href="#Page_134">134</a>-<a href="#Page_136">136</a>; + at Boonesborough, + <a href="#Page_140">140</a>-<a href="#Page_141">141</a>, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, + <a href="#Page_147">147</a>-<a href="#Page_149">149</a>; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> + captured by Indians, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>-<a href="#Page_147">147</a>; + adopted by Indian chief, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>; + and Hamilton, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>-<a href="#Page_146">146</a>; + goes to West Virginia, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>; + last days, <a href="#Page_273">273</a> <i>et seq.</i>.<br /> +Boone, Daniel Morgan, son of Daniel, <a href="#footer_278-1">278 (note)</a>. <br /> +Boone, Edward, brother of Daniel, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +Boone, George, grandfather of Daniel, + <a href="#Page_024">24</a>-<a href="#Page_025">25</a>.<br /> +Boone, George, Jr., uncle of Daniel, <a href="#Page_025">25</a>.<br /> +Boone, Israel, second son of Daniel, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> +Boone, James, eldest son of Daniel, <a href="#Page_093">93</a>, + <a href="#Page_107">107</a>-<a href="#Page_108">108</a>.<br /> +Boone, Jemima, daughter of Daniel, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /> +Boone, John, son of Daniel, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br /> +Boone, Nathan, son of Daniel, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br /> +Boone, Rebecca, wife of Daniel, <a href="#Page_091">91</a>, + <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br /> +Boone, Sam, brother of Daniel, <a href="#Page_027">27</a>.<br /> +Boone, Sarah, daughter of George, <a href="#Page_025">25</a>.<br /> +Boone, Sarah Morgan, mother of Daniel, <a href="#Page_026">26</a>, + <a href="#Page_028">28</a>-<a href="#Page_029">29</a>.<br /> +Boone, Squire, brother of Daniel, + <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.<br /> +Boone, Squire, father of Daniel, <a href="#Page_025">25</a>, + <a href="#Page_091">91</a>; + marriage, <a href="#Page_026">26</a>; + expelled from Society of Friends, <a href="#Page_028">28</a>; + leaves Pennsylvania, + <a href="#Page_028">28</a>-<a href="#Page_029">29</a>.<br /> +Boone's Fort, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br /> +Boone's Settlement (La Charette), + <a href="#Page_280">280</a>-<a href="#Page_281">281</a>; + <i>see also</i> La Charette.<br /> +Boonesborough, Transylvania settlement, + <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, + <a href="#Page_245">245</a>; + Boone in, + <a href="#Page_140">140</a>-<a href="#Page_141">141</a>, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, + <a href="#Page_148">148</a>-<a href="#Page_149">149</a>; + Indian attacks on, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a>; + Robertson goes to, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.<br /> +Bowman, John, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br /> +"Braddock's Defeat," <a href="#Page_082">82</a>.<br /> +Branching Oak of the Forest (Tach-nech-dor-us), Indian chief, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.<br /> +Brandywine, Battle of, Ferguson in, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /> +Broglie, Comte de, French agent in America, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.<br /> +Brown, Widow, at whose inn Sevier is arrested, + <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.<br /> +Brown, Dr. Samuel, Clark's letter to, <a href="#footer_127-1">127 (note)</a>.<br /> +Bryan, Joseph, father of Rebecca Boone, <a href="#Page_091">91</a>.<br /> +Bryan, Rebecca, marries Daniel Boone, <a href="#Page_091">91</a>; + <i>see also</i> Boone, Rebecca.<br /> +Bryan party on expedition to Kentucky, + <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.<br /> +Buffalo (Tenn.), Court at, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.<br /> +Bull, Colonel William, pioneer trader, <a href="#Page_055">55</a>.<br /> +Bullitt, Captain Thomas, + <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>C.</h3> + <p> +Caldwell, David, Presbyterian minister, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /> +Calloway, Flanders, son-in-law of Daniel Boone, + <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.<br /> +Calloway, Richard, daughters captured by Indians, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>; + accuses Boone of treachery, <a href="#footer_146-1">146 (note)</a>.<br /> +Cameron, Alexander, British agent to Cherokees, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, + <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>.<br /> +Camp Union (Lewisburg), + rendezvous for expedition in Dunmore's War, + <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.<br /> +Campbell, Major Arthur, + <a href="#Page_121">121</a>-<a href="#Page_122">122</a>, + <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.<br /> +Campbell, David, judge in Tennessee, + <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.<br /> +Campbell, Rev. James, <a href="#Page_050">50</a>.<br /> +Campbell, Colond William, + at battle of Point Pleasant, <a href="#footer_124-2">124 (note)</a>; + and King's Mountain, + <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, + <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +Carolinas, Cherokees in, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + Regulation Movement in, + <a href="#Page_159">159</a>-<a href="#Page_164">164</a>; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span> + <i>see also</i> North Carolina, South Carolina.<br /> +Carson, Kit, grandson of Daniel Boone, + <a href="#footer_278-1">278 (note)</a>.<br /> +Catawba Indians, <a href="#Page_056">56</a>, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>.<br /> +Céloron de Blainville, <a href="#Page_077">77</a>.<br /> +Chads Ford, Ferguson's account of incident at, + <a href="#Page_198">198</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a>.<br /> +Charleston (S. C), Scotch-Irish in, <a href="#Page_006">6</a>.<br /> +Cherokee Indians, in the Yadkin, <a href="#Page_036">36</a>; + location and number, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + and Adair, <a href="#Page_058">58</a>-<a href="#Page_074">74</a>; + customs, <a href="#Page_062">62</a>; + and French, <a href="#Page_066">66</a>-<a href="#Page_068">68</a>; + Priber compiles dictionary, <a href="#Page_069">69</a>; + in French and Indian Wars, + <a href="#Page_083">83</a>-<a href="#Page_087">87</a>; + Indian policy of South Carolina, + <a href="#Page_084">84</a>-<a href="#Page_086">86</a>; + treaty with English (1761), + <a href="#Page_087">87</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>; + trouble in Kentucky, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>; + Henderson purchases land from, + <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_133">133</a>; + in Tennessee, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, + <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>; + South Carolina sends ammunition to, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>; + peace made (1777), <a href="#Page_183">183</a>; + attack Watauga, + <a href="#Page_226">226</a>-<a href="#Page_227">227</a>, + <a href="#Page_228">228</a>; + North Carolina and, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>; + McGillivray and, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>; + forced westward, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /> +Chickamaugan Indians, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br /> +Chickasaw Indians, location, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + Adair and, <a href="#Page_058">58</a>, + <a href="#Page_059">59</a>, <a href="#Page_062">62</a>, + <a href="#Page_072">72</a>-<a href="#Page_073">73</a>, + <a href="#Page_246">246</a>; + in Tennessee, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>; + McGillivray and, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>; + forced westward, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /> +Chillicothe, Indian town, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, + <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /> +Choctaw Indians, location, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + and French, <a href="#Page_058">58</a>; + Adair and, <a href="#Page_063">63</a>; + McGillivray and, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>; + forced westward, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /> +Choiseul, Étienne François, Duc de, + French Minister, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.<br /> +Chota, deputation of Indians at, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>; + Robertson as Indian agent at, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /> +Chronicle, Colonel, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /> +Civil War, part of mountaineers in, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /> +Clark, G. R., <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>; + in "Cresap's War," <a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>; + with Dunmore's forces, <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>; + and Chief Logan, <a href="#footer_127-1">127 (note)</a>; + at Harrodsburg, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, + <a href="#Page_151">151</a>-<a href="#Page_152">152</a>; + and Harrodsburg Remonstrance, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>; + brings ammunition from Virginia, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>; + made a major, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>; + founds Louisville, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>; + builds Fort Jefferson, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>; + war on Indians, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>; + letter to Governor of Virginia, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>; + later life, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>; + death (1818), <a href="#Page_155">155</a>; + and Wilkinson, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>-<a href="#Page_264">264</a>; + personal characteristics, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br /> +Clark, William, brother of G. R., <a href="#Page_155">155</a>; + Lewis and, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>.<br /> +Clark, Elijah, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.<br /> +Cleveland, Colonel, at King's Mountain, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, + <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +Cocke, William, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.<br /> +Colbert, white leader of Indians, + <a href="#Page_150">150</a>-<a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> +Connolly, Dr. John, Dunmore's agent, <a href="#footer_113-1">113 (note)</a>.<br /> +Cooley, William, accompanies Boone to Kentucky, + <a href="#Page_098">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /> +Cooper, J. F., on Ferguson's story of Washington, + <a href="#footer_199-1">199 (note)</a>.<br /> +Cornstalk, Shawanoe chief, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, + <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>, + <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br /> +Cornwallis, Edward, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, + <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, + <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, + <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, + <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +Corporation Acts, <a href="#Page_004">4</a>.<br /> +Cowpens, frontiersmen at, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>; + Morgan's victory at, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +Craighead, Rev. Alexander, Presbyterian minister, + <a href="#Page_008">8</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /> +Creek Indians, disclose Spanish plot, <a href="#Page_055">55</a>; + location, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + and McGillivray, + <a href="#Page_058">58</a>-<a href="#Page_059">59</a>, + <a href="#Page_255">255</a>-<a href="#Page_256">256</a>; + forced westward, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /> +Cresap, Captain Michael, of Maryland, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, + <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> +"Cresap's War," <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br /> +Croghan, George, "King of Traders," <a href="#Page_058">58</a>, + <a href="#Page_112">112</a>-<a href="#Page_113">113</a>, + <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> +Cross Creek (Fayetteville), MacNeill at, <a href="#Page_012">12</a>.<br /> +Culloden, victory of, <a href="#Page_009">9</a>, + <a href="#Page_011">11</a>.<br /> +Cumberland, Duke of, directs extermination of Gaels, + <a href="#Page_011">11</a>.<br /> +Cumberland Gap, Findlay leads Boone through, + <a href="#Page_052">52</a>-<a href="#Page_053">53</a>; + Boone robbed in, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> +Cutbirth (or Cutbird), Benjamin, nephew of Daniel Boone, + <a href="#Page_095">95</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>D.</h3> + <p> +Dartmouth, Lord, Secretary for the Colonies, + letters to, <a href="#Page_006">6</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, + <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>.<br /> +Day, Sarah, marries Sam Boone, <a href="#Page_027">27</a>.<br /> +De Lancey, Major, father-in-law of J. F. Cooper, + <a href="#footer_199-1">199 (note)</a>.<br /> +De Peyster, Captain, officer under Ferguson, + <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, + <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.<br /> +Delassus, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Louisiana, + <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.<br /> +Delaware Indians, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>; + location, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + and French, <a href="#Page_058">58</a>; + and Dunmore's War, + <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +Dequindre, French Canadian leader of Indian band, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, + <a href="#Page_147">147</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +Detroit, in hands of English, <a href="#Page_087">87</a>; + Boone at, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>-<a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br /> +Dinwiddie, Robert, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, + <a href="#Page_077">77</a>-<a href="#Page_080">80</a>, + <a href="#Page_081">81</a>.<br /> +Doak, Rev. Samuel, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, + <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br /> +Dobbs, Arthur, Governor of North Carolina, <a href="#Page_079">79</a>, + <a href="#Page_086">86</a>.<br /> +Dobbs, E. D., son of Governor, <a href="#Page_083">83</a>.<br /> +Donelson, Captain John, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>; + <i>Journal</i>, + <a href="#Page_187">187</a>-<a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /> +Dorchester, Lord, Governor of Canada, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.<br /> +Dragging Canoe, Chickamaugan chief, + <a href="#Page_133">133</a>-<a href="#Page_134">134</a>, + <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, + <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, + <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, + <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +Draper, L. C., <i>King's Mountain and its Heroes</i>, + cited, <a href="#footer_199-1">199 (note)</a>, + <a href="#footer_204-1">204 (note)</a>, + <a href="#footer_213-1">213 (note)</a>.<br /> +Dunmore, Lord, Governor of Virginia, + <a href="#footer_113-1">112 (note)</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, + <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_116">116</a>, + <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, + <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, + <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>.<br /> +Dunmore's War, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>et seq</i>.<br /> +Duquesne, Fort, + <a href="#Page_081">81</a>, <a href="#Page_082">82</a>, + <a href="#Page_087">87</a>, <a href="#Page_088">88</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>E.</h3> + <p> +English, W. H., + <i>Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio</i>, + cited, <a href="#footer_127-1">127 (note)</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>F.</h3> + <p> +Falling, William, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br /> +Fanning, Edmund, agent of Lord Granville, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.<br /> +Femme Osage Creek, Boone settles at, + <a href="#Page_274">274</a>-<a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /> +Femme Osage Syndic, + <a href="#Page_275">275</a>-<a href="#Page_277">277</a>.<br /> +Ferguson, Dr. Adam, letter to, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /> +Ferguson, Major Patrick, as a soldier, + <a href="#Page_196">196</a>-<a href="#Page_198">198</a>; + as a man, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>-<a href="#Page_200">200</a>; + commands loyalists in Back Country, + <a href="#Page_200">200</a>-<a href="#Page_206">206</a>, + <a href="#Page_211">211</a>; + at King's Mountain, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>-<a href="#Page_220">220</a>; + death, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>-<a href="#Page_220">220</a>, + <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +Findlay, John, pioneer trader, and Daniel Boone, + <a href="#Page_052">52</a>, <a href="#Page_083">83</a>, + <a href="#Page_090">90</a>, <a href="#Page_097">97</a>, + <a href="#Page_098">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, + <a href="#Page_131">131</a>-<a href="#Page_132">132</a>; + in Braddock's campaign, <a href="#Page_083">83</a>; + captured by Shawanoes, <a href="#Page_097">97</a>, + <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +Fitzherbert, letter quoted, <a href="#footer_252-1">252 (note)</a>.<br /> +Fleming, William, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.<br /> +Florida, Spanish and Indians in, <a href="#Page_055">55</a>, + <a href="#Page_056">56</a>; + Boone explores, <a href="#Page_094">94</a>.<br /> +Floridablanca, Spanish Minister, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.<br /> +Floyd, John, Washington's agent, + <a href="#Page_113">113</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>; + and Boone, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /> +Forbes, General, expedition in 1759, <a href="#Page_087">87</a>.<br /> +France, Highlanders flee to, <a href="#Page_009">9</a>; + and Indians, <a href="#Page_053">53</a>, + <a href="#Page_054">54</a>, <a href="#Page_058">58</a>, + <a href="#Page_178">178</a>-<a href="#Page_179">179</a>; + possessions in America, <a href="#Page_056">56</a>, + <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + Adair's account of struggles with French, <a href="#Page_063">63</a>; + Priber sent by, <a href="#Page_066">66</a>-<a href="#Page_070">70</a>; + French and Indian Wars, <a href="#Page_075">750</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + attitude toward American independence, + <a href="#Page_248">248</a>-<a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> +Frankfort (Ky.), Daniel Boone's grave in, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.<br /> +Frankland, State of, + <a href="#Page_234">234</a>-<a href="#Page_238">238</a>; + <i>see also</i> Franklin, State of. <br /> +Franklin, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.<br /> +Franklin, State of, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, + <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, + <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>; + <i>see also</i> Frankland, State of.<br /> +Frémont, J. C, <a href="#footer_278-1">278 (note)</a>. <br /> +French and Indian Wars, <a href="#Page_075">75</a> <i>et seq</i>.<br /> +Friends, Society of, expel Squire Boone, <a href="#Page_028">28</a>.<br /> +Furniture of the pioneers, + <a href="#Page_045">45</a>-<a href="#Page_046">46</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>G.</h3> + <p> +Gaels, <i>see</i> Highlanders.<br /> +Gage, General Thomas, quoted, <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>.<br /> +Galphin, pioneer trader, <a href="#Page_059">59</a>, + <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.<br /> +Gates, General, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, + <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +<i>Gazette</i>, Knoxville, Jackson's letter in, + <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.<br /> +Georgia, Creek nation in, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + Tories in, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>; + and State of Franklin, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>; + and McGillivray, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>-<a href="#Page_257">257</a>, + <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.<br /> +Germain, Lord, and Stuart, <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>, + <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /> +German Palatinate, persecution of Protestants in, + <a href="#Page_015">15</a>.<br /> +German Reformed Church, <a href="#Page_015">15</a>.<br /> +Germans, in Virginia and North Carolina, + <a href="#Page_014">14</a>-<a href="#Page_015">15</a>; + as immigrants, <a href="#Page_016">16</a>.<br /> +Gibson, Major, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br /> +Gibson, Colonel John, + <a href="#Page_117">117</a>-<a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +Girty, George, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br /> +Girty, James, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br /> +Gist, Christopher, <a href="#Page_077">77</a>, + <a href="#Page_078">78</a>.<br /> +Glen, Governor of South Carolina, <a href="#Page_063">63</a>, + <a href="#Page_064">64</a>; + Indian policy, <a href="#Page_084">84</a>.<br /> +Gottlob, Brother, Moravian leader, + <a href="#Page_019">19</a>, <a href="#Page_021">21</a>, + <a href="#Page_023">23</a>, <a href="#Page_024">24</a>.<br /> +Gower, Fort, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /> +Grant, Colonel James, <a href="#Page_094">94</a>.<br /> +Grantham, Lord, letter to, <a href="#footer_252-1">252 (note)</a>.<br /> +Granville, Lord, Proprietor in North Carolina, + Moravians purchase land from, <a href="#Page_018">18</a>; + agents oppress people, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, + <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br /> +Great Meadows, Washington at, <a href="#Page_081">81</a>.<br /> +Great Telliko, Cherokee town, + <a href="#Page_062">62</a>, <a href="#Page_066">66</a>, + <a href="#Page_069">69</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br /> +Great War, part of mountaineers in, + <a href="#Page_224">224</a>-<a href="#Page_225">225</a>.<br /> +Greathouse, trader, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br /> +Greene, General Nathanael, + <a href="#Page_221">221</a>-<a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +Greene, T. M., <i>The Spanish Conspiracy</i>, cited, + <a href="#footer_264-1">264 (note)</a>.<br /> +Grube, Adam, Moravian Brother, <a href="#Page_018">18</a>; + <i>Journal</i>, <a href="#Page_019">19</a>-<a href="#Page_024">24</a>.<br /> +Guilford Court House, battle of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>H.</h3> + <p> +Hamilton, Henry, British Governor at Detroit, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, + <a href="#Page_145">145</a>-<a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br /> +Hampbright, Colonel, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /> +Hanna, C. A., <i>The Wilderness Trail</i>, cited, + <a href="#footer_97-1">97 (note)</a>.<br /> +Harding, Chester, and Boone, + <a href="#Page_278">278</a>-<a href="#Page_279">279</a>.<br /> +Harrod, James, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>; + establishes first settlement in Kentucky, + <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, + <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>; + as surveyor, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>; + and Henderson, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>; + goes to Watauga for supplies, + <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>; + made a Captain, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>; + accompanies Clark, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /> +Harrodsburg, + <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, + <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, + <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>; + founded, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>; + Remonstrance, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>; + Indian attacks on, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br /> +Henderson, Judge Richard, + leader of Transylvania Company, + <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>, + <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, + <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-<a href="#Page_185">185</a>; + Donelson's party meets, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /> +Henry, Patrick, Preston writes to, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br /> +Heydt, Joist, <a href="#Page_016">16</a>.<br /> +Highlanders, in Revolutionary War, <a href="#Page_008">8</a>, + <a href="#Page_013">13</a>-<a href="#Page_014">14</a>; + in North Carolina, <a href="#Page_009">9</a>; + clan system, <a href="#Page_010">10</a>; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span> + characteristics, <a href="#Page_010">10</a>-<a href="#Page_012">12</a>; + and Indians, <a href="#Page_054">54</a>-<a href="#Page_055">55</a>; + <i>see also</i> Scotch-Irish. <br /> +Hill, William, <a href="#Page_096">96</a>.<br /> +Holden, Joseph, + <a href="#Page_098">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /> +Holston River settlement, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, + <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, + <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /> +Honeycut, pioneer at Watauga, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /> +Hooper, William, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.<br /> +Houston, Rev. Samuel, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br /> +Hoyt, W. H., <i>The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence</i>, + cited, <a href="#footer_8-1">8 (note)</a>.<br /> +Huguenots in America, <a href="#Page_054">54</a>.<br /> +Hunter, James, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> +Husband, Hermon, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, + <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>I.</h3> + <p> +Illinois, Clark's troops, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, + <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>; + Robertson journeys to, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>; + and Clark, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.<br /> +"Indian Summer," origin of term, <a href="#Page_041">41</a>.<br /> +Indiana and Clark, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.<br /> +Indians, relation to white men in West, + <a href="#Page_038">38</a>-<a href="#Page_048">48</a>; + use of hickory, <a href="#Page_045">45</a>; + and the traders, <a href="#Page_052">52</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + and French, <a href="#Page_053">53</a>, + <a href="#Page_054">54</a>, <a href="#Page_058">58</a>, + <a href="#Page_178">178</a>-<a href="#Page_179">179</a>; + and Spanish, <a href="#Page_053">53</a>, + <a href="#Page_054">54</a>, <a href="#Page_055">55</a>, + <a href="#Page_255">255</a>; + Boone and, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a>; + <a href="#Page_103">103</a>; + Dunmore's War, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + "Cresap's War." <a href="#Page_117">117</a>; + treachery toward, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>-<a href="#Page_118">118</a> + purchase of land from, + <a href="#Page_131">131</a>-<a href="#Page_134">134</a>; + trouble in Kentucky, + <a href="#Page_135">135</a>-<a href="#Page_136">136</a>, + <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, + <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_153">153</a>; + <i>see also</i> names of tribes.<br /> +Ireland, Scotch-Irish from, <a href="#Page_006">6</a>; + <i>see also</i> Ulster Plantation.<br /> +Iroquois Indians, location, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + loyalty to English, <a href="#Page_058">58</a>; + Croghan and, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>; + cede Kentucky to British, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>; + <i>see also</i> Six Nations.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>J.</h3> + <p> +Jackson, Andrew, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.<br /> +Jay, John, <i>On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1788 + as illustrated by the Secret Correspondence of + France and England</i>, cited, + <a href="#footer_252-1">252 (note)</a>.<br /> +Jefferson, Thomas, and navigation of Mississippi River, + <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /> +Jefferson, Fort, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> +Jennings, Mrs., Donelson's account of, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, + <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /> +Johnson, Sir William, and Iroquois Indians, <a href="#Page_058">58</a>, + <a href="#Page_179">179</a>; + and sale of Indian land, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.<br /> +Johnston, Gabriel, Governor of North Carolina, <a href="#Page_009">9</a>.<br /> +Jonesborough (Tenn.), county seat of Washington, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>; + delegates meet to form State, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>; + court at, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>; + Andrew Jackson at, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>K.</h3> + <p> +Kalb, Johann, French agent in America, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.<br /> +Kansas, Daniel Boone in, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.<br /> +Kenton, Simon, <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br /> +Kentucky, meaning of name, <a href="#footer_95-1">95 (note)</a>; + Boone's first expedition to, + <a href="#Page_095">95</a>-<a href="#Page_097">97</a>; + expedition of Boone and Findlay into, + <a href="#Page_097">97</a>-<a href="#Page_103">103</a>; + settlement and Indian troubles, + <a href="#Page_104">104</a>-<a href="#Page_156">156</a>; + admitted as State (1792), <a href="#Page_156">156</a>; + and Mississippi River, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>; + as Boone's monument, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>; + bibliography, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>-<a href="#Page_290">290</a>.<br /> +Keppoch, Laird of, legend concerning, <a href="#Page_011">11</a>.<br /> +King, trader, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +King's Mountain, Battle of, + <a href="#Page_214">214</a>-<a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br /> +Knoxville (Tenn.), Sevier and Jackson in, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>; + Sevier buried in, + <a href="#Page_269">269</a>-<a href="#Page_270">270</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>L.</h3> + <p> +La Charette (Mo.), Boone at, + <a href="#Page_274">274</a>-<a href="#Page_275">275</a>, + <a href="#Page_281">281</a>; + <i>see also</i> Boone's Settlement.<br /> +Le Bœuf, Fort, <a href="#Page_079">79</a>.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> +Lewis, Colonel Andrew, + <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_115">115</a>, + <a href="#Page_122">122</a>-<a href="#Page_123">123</a>, + <a href="#footer_124-2">124 (note)</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br /> +Lewis, Colonel Charles, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, + <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.<br /> +Lewis, Meriwether, + <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.<br /> +Logan, Mingo chief Tach-nech-dor-us, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, + <a href="#Page_126">126</a>-<a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> +Logan, Benjamin, <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>, + <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, + <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, + <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br /> +Long Hunters, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> +Loudon, Fort, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br /> +Louisbourg in hands of English, <a href="#Page_087">87</a>.<br /> +Louisville, Findlay reaches site of, <a href="#Page_097">97</a>; + Clark founds, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>; + Wilkinson at, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.<br /> +Lulbegrud Creek, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /> +Lutheran Church, <a href="#Page_015">15</a>.<br /> +Luzerne, French Ambassador at Philadelphia, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.<br /> +Lytle, Captain, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>-<a href="#Page_204">204</a>.<br /> +Lytle, Mrs., and Ferguson, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.<br /> +Lyttleton, Governor of South Carolina, <a href="#Page_085">85</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>M.</h3> + <p> +McAden, Rev. Hugh, of Philadelphia, <a href="#Page_050">50</a>.<br /> +McAfee, James, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br /> +McAfee brothers, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br /> +McDowell, Colonel Charles, + <a href="#Page_200">200</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a>, + <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, + <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, + <a href="#Page_211">211</a>-<a href="#Page_212">212</a>, + <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.<br /> +McDowell, Joseph, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.<br /> +McGillivray, Alexander, Creek chief, <a href="#Page_059">59</a>, + <a href="#Page_255">255</a>-<a href="#Page_261">261</a>.<br /> +McGillivray, Lachlan, father of Alexander, + <a href="#Page_058">58</a>-<a href="#Page_059">59</a>, + <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.<br /> +McGregor, William, <a href="#Page_009">9</a>.<br /> +Macdonald, Allan, of Kingsborough, <a href="#Page_014">14</a>.<br /> +MacDonald, Flora, <a href="#Page_014">14</a>.<br /> +MacLean, J. P., <i>An Historical Account + of the Settlement of Scotch Highlanders in America</i>, + cited, <a href="#footer_11-1">11 (note)</a>.<br /> +MacNeill, Hector, (Bluff Hector), <a href="#Page_012">12</a>.<br /> +MacNeill, Neil, of Kintyre, <a href="#Page_012">12</a>.<br /> +Mansker, Gasper, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.<br /> +Marion, General Francis, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +Martin, Josiah, Royal Governor of North Carolina, + <a href="#Page_013">13</a>.<br /> +Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_008">8</a>.<br /> +Mereness, N. D., ed., + <i>Travels in the American Colonies</i>, cited, + <a href="#footer_18-1">18 (note)</a>.<br /> +Mingo Indians, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, + <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a>-<a href="#Page_120">120</a>, + <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br /> +Miró, Don Estevan, Governor of Louisiana, + <a href="#Page_254">254</a>-<a href="#Page_255">255</a>, + <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, + <a href="#Page_260">260</a>-<a href="#Page_261">261</a>.<br /> +Mississippi (State), Choctaws in, <a href="#Page_063">63</a>.<br /> +Mississippi River, French territory on, <a href="#Page_056">56</a>; + Choctaws on, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + Stewart's party reaches, <a href="#Page_095">95</a>; + Spain refuses right of navigation of, + <a href="#Page_253">253</a>-<a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /> +Missouri, Boone settles in, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>; + Boone dies in, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>.<br /> +Mobile, French hold, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>.<br /> +Mohawk Indians, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.<br /> +Montgomery, John, <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>.<br /> +Montreal in hands of English, <a href="#Page_087">87</a>.<br /> +Mooney, James, <a href="#Page_098">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /> +Moore's Fort, Boone commands, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /> +Moravians, <a href="#Page_015">15</a>, + <a href="#Page_016">16</a>-<a href="#Page_024">24</a>.<br /> +Morgan, David, <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>, + <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +Morgan, Sarah, marries Squire Boone, <a href="#Page_026">26</a>; + <i>see also</i> Boone, Sarah Morgan. <br /> +Morgantown (N. C), Sevier sent to, + <a href="#Page_242">242</a>-<a href="#Page_244">244</a>.<br /> +Mountain Leader (Opimingo), Indian chief, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.<br /> +Mountaineers of the South, + <a href="#Page_223">223</a>-<a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /> +Müller, Adam, <a href="#Page_016">16</a>.<br /> +Musgrove's Mill, engagement at, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>N.</h3> + <p> +Nantuca Indians, deputation of warriors from, + arrive at Chota, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span> +Nash, General Francis, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, + <a href="#footer_186-1">186 (note)</a>.<br /> +Nashborough, Nashville first named, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> +Nashville, founded, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>; + Andrew Jackson at, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>; + Robertson buried at, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.<br /> +Nathanael, Brother, one of the Moravian Brethren, + <a href="#Page_021">21</a>.<br /> +Navigation Acts and Ireland, <a href="#Page_004">4</a>.<br /> +Necessity, Fort, <a href="#Page_081">81</a>.<br /> +Neely, Alexander, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /> +New France, <a href="#Page_087">87</a>, <a href="#Page_088">88</a>.<br /> +New Market (Va.), Sevier founds, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br /> +Nolan, aids Wilkinson, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br /> +"Nolichucky Jack," nickname of John Sevier, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>; + <i>see also</i> Sevier.<br /> +North Carolina, Scotch-Irish in, <a href="#Page_007">7</a>; + Craighead in, <a href="#Page_008">8</a>; + Highlanders in, <a href="#Page_012">12</a>-<a href="#Page_013">13</a>; + Moravians in, <a href="#Page_018">18</a>; + journey of Moravian Brethren into, + <a href="#Page_019">19</a>-<a href="#Page_024">24</a>; + rainfall, <a href="#Page_043">43</a>; + pioneer homes in, <a href="#Page_045">45</a>-<a href="#Page_047">47</a>; + in French and Indian Wars, + <a href="#Page_082">82</a>-<a href="#Page_083">83</a>, + <a href="#Page_086">86</a>; + Indian policy, <a href="#Page_083">83</a>-<a href="#Page_084">84</a>; + Daniel Boone in, <a href="#Page_092">92</a>; + Regulation Movement, + <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, + <a href="#Page_159">159</a>-<a href="#Page_164">164</a>; + Transylvania Company formed in, + <a href="#Page_129">129</a>-<a href="#Page_130">130</a>; + emigrants go to Tennessee, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>; + Robertson from, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>; + boundary line, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, + <a href="#Page_186">186</a>; + Watauga petitions for annexation, + <a href="#Page_171">171</a>-<a href="#Page_172">172</a>; + erects Washington County, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>; + <i>Colonial Records</i>, cited, <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>, + <a href="#footer_177-1">177 (note)</a>; + sends out Robertson as Indian agent, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>; + Ferguson in, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>; + Ferguson's proclamation to, + <a href="#Page_212">212</a>-<a href="#Page_213">213</a>; + Cornwallis expected to retreat through, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>; + resolution of gratitude to overmountain men, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>; + cedes overmountain territory to United States, 231-233; + and State of Frankland, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, + <a href="#Page_236">236</a>-<a href="#Page_237">237</a>, + <a href="#Page_238">238</a>; + and Sevier, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, + <a href="#Page_240">240</a>-<a href="#Page_245">245</a>; + and State of Franklin, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>; + and Tennessee settlements, + <a href="#Page_259">259</a>-<a href="#Page_260">260</a>.<br /> +North Wales (Penn.), Boone family in, <a href="#Page_025">25</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>O.</h3> + <p> +Oconostota, Cherokee chief, + <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +O'Fallon aids Wilkinson, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br /> +Ohio, Clark against Indians of, + <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /> +Ohio Company, <a href="#Page_077">77</a>, + <a href="#Page_078">78</a>, <a href="#Page_081">81</a>, + <a href="#Page_111">111</a>-<a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /> +Old Tassel, Cherokee Indian, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.<br /> +Oley Township, Berks County (Penn.), + George Boone at, + <a href="#Page_025">25</a>, <a href="#Page_026">26</a>.<br /> +Opimingo (Mountain Leader), + Chickasaw chief, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.<br /> +Oswego in hands of English, <a href="#Page_087">87</a>.<br /> +Ottawa Indians, + <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>P.</h3> + <p> +Palatines, <i>see</i> Germans.<br /> +Paris, Treaty of (1763), <a href="#Page_094">94</a>.<br /> +Patrick Henry, Fort, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> +Penn, William, Boone seeks information from, <a href="#Page_025">25</a>.<br /> +Pennsylvania, Scotch-Irish in, + <a href="#Page_001">1</a>, <a href="#Page_006">6</a>; + Germans in, + <a href="#Page_015">15</a>, <a href="#Page_016">16</a>; + Boone family in, <a href="#Page_025">25</a>-<a href="#Page_028">28</a>; + disputes Fort Pitt with Virginia, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /> +"Pennsylvania Dutch," <a href="#Page_015">15</a>.<br /> +"Pennsylvania Irish," <a href="#Page_006">6</a>.<br /> +Peyton, Ephraim, one of Donelson's party, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> +Peyton, Mrs. Ephraim, + Donelson's account of, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, + <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.<br /> +Philadelphia, Boone family reaches, <a href="#Page_025">25</a>.<br /> +Pickett, <i>History of Alabama</i>, cited, + <a href="#footer_257-1">257 (note)</a>.<br /> +Piqua, Indian town, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /> +Pitfour, Lord, of Aberdeen, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /> +Pitt, Fort, <a href="#Page_088">88</a>, + <a href="#Page_112">112</a>-<a href="#Page_113">113</a>, + <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span> +Pittsburgh site a crucial point in 1754, <a href="#Page_081">81</a>.<br /> +Point Pleasant, Battle of, + <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>, + <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br /> +Pontleroy, French secret agent in America, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.<br /> +Powell's Valley, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>; + Boone's journey to, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, + <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.<br /> +"Powwowing Days," <a href="#Page_041">41</a>.<br /> +Presbyterian Church, and Scotch-Irish, <a href="#Page_003">3</a>, + Charles I suppresses, <a href="#Page_004">4</a>.<br /> +Preston, Colonel William, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, + <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br /> +Priber, French agent to Cherokees, + <a href="#Page_066">66</a>-<a href="#Page_070">70</a>.<br /> +Proclamation of 1763, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a>, + <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.<br /> +Puck-e-shin-wa, Shawanoe chief, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br /> +Pulaski, Count, <a href="#footer_199-1">199 (note)</a>.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>Q.</h3> + <p> +Quaker Meadows, Sevier's troops at, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /> +Quakers, <i>see</i> Friends, Society of.<br /> +</p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>R.</h3> + <p> +Red Shoe, Choctaw chief, <a href="#Page_063">63</a>.<br /> +Regulation Movement, + <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, + <a href="#Page_159">159</a>-<a href="#Page_164">164</a>; +Revolutionary War, Highlanders in, + <a href="#Page_013">13</a>-<a href="#Page_014">14</a>; + Indian raids in Kentucky, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>; + King's Mountain, <a href="#Page_195">195</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + attitude of France and Spain in, + <a href="#Page_248">248</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +Roane, Archibald, Governor of Tennessee, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br /> +Robertson, James, "father of Tennessee," + <a href="#Page_124">124</a>-<a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>, + <a href="#Page_133">133</a>; + at Watauga, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>-<a href="#Page_166">166</a>, + <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>; + personal characteristics, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>; + and Sevier, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>; + commands Wataugans, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>; + Indian agent at Chota, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>; + leads settlers into middle Tennessee, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>; + founds Nashville, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>; + and Ferguson, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>; + and Indian war, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>; + characterizes McGillivray, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>; + death (1814), <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.<br /> +Robertson, Mrs. James, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.<br /> +Robertson, Mark, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.<br /> +Robinson, Colonel David, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br /> +Rogers, John, <a href="#Page_088">88</a>.<br /> +Rogers, Joseph, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.<br /> +Roosevelt, Theodore, <i>The Winning of the West</i>, + cited, <a href="#footer_134-1">134 (note)</a>.<br /> +Russell, William, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, + death of his son, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.<br /> +Rutherford, Griffith, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br /> +Rutledge, John, President of South Carolina, + <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>.<br /> +<br /> + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>S.</h3> + <p> +St. Asaph's Station founded, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br /> +St. Augustine, Spanish at, <a href="#Page_055">55</a>, + <a href="#Page_056">56</a>.<br /> +St. Vincent, Island of, Ferguson on, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /> +Sapperton, trader, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br /> +Scotch-Irish, as immigrants, + <a href="#Page_001">1</a>-<a href="#Page_002">2</a>, + <a href="#Page_006">6</a>; + characteristics, + <a href="#Page_002">2</a>-<a href="#Page_003">3</a>, + <a href="#Page_005">5</a>-<a href="#Page_006">6</a>; + religion, <a href="#Page_003">3</a>, <a href="#Page_004">4</a>; + persecution of, <a href="#Page_004">4</a>-<a href="#Page_005">5</a>; + and American Independence, + <a href="#Page_007">7</a>-<a href="#Page_008">8</a>; + bibliography, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>; + <i>see also</i> Highlanders. <br /> +Seven Years' War, <i>casus belli</i>, <a href="#Page_076">76</a>; + in Europe, <a href="#Page_082">82</a>; + land promised to soldiers of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>; + Ferguson in, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br /> +Sevier, John, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>; + probably seen by Brother Grube, + <a href="#Page_020">20</a>-<a href="#Page_021">21</a>; + marriage, <a href="#Page_048">48</a>; + at Watauga, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>-<a href="#Page_167">167</a>, + <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, + <a href="#Page_171">171</a>; + and New Market, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>; + and Robertson, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, + <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>; + personal characteristics, + <a href="#Page_168">168</a>-<a href="#Page_169">169</a>; + writes Virginia Committee, + <a href="#Page_173">173</a>-<a href="#Page_174">174</a>; + and Indian troubles, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, + <a href="#Page_181">181</a>-<a href="#Page_183">183</a>, + <a href="#Page_226">226</a>-<a href="#Page_228">228</a>; + and "Bonnie Kate," <a href="#Page_182">182</a>; + nicknamed "Nolichucky Jack," <a href="#Page_184">184</a>; + and King's Mountain, + <a href="#Page_200">200</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a>, + <a href="#Page_205">205</a>-<a href="#Page_206">206</a>, + <a href="#Page_208">208</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + as a statesman, <a href="#Page_226">226</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + feud with Tipton, + <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, + <a href="#Page_239">239</a>-<a href="#Page_240">240</a>, + <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>; + elected Governor of Tennessee, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>; + and Jackson, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>-<a href="#Page_269">269</a>; + death (1815), <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span> +Sevier, John, Jr., <a href="#footer_244-1">243 (note)</a>.<br /> +Sevier, Valentine, <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>.<br /> +Shawanoe Indians, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>; + location, <a href="#Page_057">57</a>; + and French, <a href="#Page_058">58</a>; + Findlay a prisoner of, <a href="#Page_097">97</a>; + and Boone, <a href="#Page_098">98</a>-<a href="#Page_099">99</a>, + <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>-<a href="#Page_148">148</a>; + war with, + <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, + <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_126">126</a>; + relinquish right to Kentucky, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>; + capture girls from Boonesborough, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br /> +Shelby, Isaac, at battle of Point Pleasant, + <a href="#footer_124-2">124 (note)</a>; + Colonel of Sullivan, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>; + at King's Mountain, <a href="#Page_200">200</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + moves to Kentucky, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br /> +Sheltowee (Big Turtle), name given to Boone by Indians, + <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> +Sherrill, Bonnie Kate, wife of John Sevier, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.<br /> +Six Nations, right to dispose of territory, <a href="#Page_076">76</a>; + <i>see also</i> Iroquois Indians.<br /> +Social customs, of seaboard towns, <a href="#Page_032">32</a>; + of pioneers, <a href="#Page_032">32</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> +South Carolina, Yamasi Indians in, <a href="#Page_056">56</a>; + and Cherokees, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>; + Tories in, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>; + <i>see also</i> Carolinas. <br /> +Spain, and Indians, <a href="#Page_053">53</a>, + <a href="#Page_054">54</a>, <a href="#Page_055">55</a>; + attitude toward American independence, + <a href="#Page_248">248</a>-<a href="#Page_255">255</a>; + plots against United States, + <a href="#Page_255">255</a>-<a href="#Page_265">265</a>; + State of Franklin and, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.<br /> +Spangenburg, Bishop, <a href="#Page_018">18</a>.<br /> +Spanish Succession, War of (1701-13), <a href="#Page_015">15</a>.<br /> +Spencer, Judge, issues warrant for Sevier, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.<br /> +Stanwix, Fort, treaty of (1768), <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +Stephen, Adam, Boone, <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>.<br /> +Stewart, John, brother-in-law of Daniel Boone, <a href="#Page_095">95</a>, + <a href="#Page_098">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br /> +Stoner, Michael, + <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /> +Stover, Jacob, husband of Sarah Boone, <a href="#Page_025">25</a>.<br /> +Stuart, Henry, deputy Indian agent, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /> +Stuart, John, with Dunmore's forces, Boone, + <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>; + British agent, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, + <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>; + in Revolution, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> +Sullivan County, formed from Washington County, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>; + troops in, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /> +Sycamore Shoals, + conference with Indians at (1775), + <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_134">134</a>, + <a href="#Page_170">170</a>; + troops mustered at, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /> +<br /> + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>T.</h3> + <p> +Tach-nech-dor-us (Branching Oak of the Forest), + Mingo chief, <i>see</i> Logan.<br /> +Tarleton, Sir Banastre, British officer, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.<br /> +Taylor, Hancock, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, + <a href="#footer_121-1">121 (note)</a>.<br /> +Tecumseh, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br /> +Tennessee, <a href="#Page_157">157</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_259">259</a>; + name, <a href="#footer_158-1">158 (note)</a>; + and Mississippi River navigation, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>; + admitted as State (1796), <a href="#Page_265">265</a>; + bibliography, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>-<a href="#Page_291">291</a>; + <i>see also</i> Frankland, Franklin, Watauga.<br /> +Test Acts, <a href="#Page_004">4</a>.<br /> +Thomas, Isaac, trader, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, + <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, + <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.<br /> +Thwaites, R. G., <i>Daniel Boone</i>, cited, + <a href="#footer_25-1">25 (note)</a>, <a href="#footer_276-1">276 (note)</a>; + <i>Documentary History of Dunmore's War</i>, cited, + <a href="#footer_126-1">125 (note)</a>.<br /> +Tipton, Colond John, + feud with Sevier, + <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, + <a href="#Page_239">239</a>-<a href="#Page_240">240</a>, + <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>; + judge for North Carolina, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.<br /> +Tipton, Jonathan, + <a href="#Page_226">226</a>-<a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br /> +Todd, John, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br /> +Tories, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.<br /> +Traders among the pioneers, <a href="#Page_052">52</a> <i>et seq.</i> +Traders' Trace, <a href="#Page_094">94</a>.<br /> +Transylvania Company, + <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /> +Trent, Captain William, <a href="#Page_081">81</a>.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span> +Tryon, William, Governor of North Carolina, + <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> +Tuckabatchee, Creek town, Sevier buried at, + <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.<br /> +Turner, F. M., <i>Life of General John Sevier</i>, + cited, <a href="#footer_244-1">243 (note)</a>.<br /> +<br /> + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>U.</h3> + <p> +Ulster Plantation, <a href="#Page_003">3</a>-<a href="#Page_004">4</a>.<br /> +Ulstermen, <i>see</i> Scotch-Irish. <br /> + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>V.</h3> + <p> +Vergennes, Charles Gravier, Comte de, French Minister, + <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, + <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.<br /> +Virginia, claim to the Ohio, + <a href="#Page_076">76</a>-<a href="#Page_077">77</a>; + Indian policy, <a href="#Page_083">83</a>; + Indians apply for redress to, <a href="#Page_085">85</a>; + Daniel Boone in, <a href="#Page_092">92</a>; + disputes Fort Pitt with Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>; + Harrodsburg Remonstrance, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>; + Clark and, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>; + and Boone, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>; + and Mississippi River navigation, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br /> +Virginia, Valley of, Müller's settlement in, + <a href="#Page_016">16</a>.<br /> +<br /> + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>W.</h3> + <p> +Wachovia Tract, <a href="#Page_018">18</a>.<br /> +Waddell, Hugh, of North Carolina, + in French and Indian wars, + <a href="#Page_086">86</a>, <a href="#Page_087">87</a>; + erects fort on Holston, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>; + and Regulation Movement, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br /> +Walpole Company, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.<br /> +War of 1812, part of mountaineers in, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.<br /> +Ward, James, <a href="#Page_095">95</a>.<br /> +Ward, Nancy, half-caste Cherokee prophetess, + <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /> +Warriors' Path, + <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, + <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> +Washington, George, journeys to Fort Le Bœuf, <a href="#Page_079">79</a>; + at Great Meadows, <a href="#Page_081">81</a>; + "Braddock's Defeat," <a href="#Page_082">82</a>; + surveys in Kentucky, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>; + tries to secure land patents for soldiers, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>; + and Indian allies, <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>; + Ferguson's story of, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.<br /> +Washington, District of, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br /> +Washington County, erected by North Carolina, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>; + divided, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.<br /> +Watauga Colony, lands leased to, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>; + Harrod and Logan get supplies from, + <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>; + William Bean builds first cabin, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>; + and Regulators, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>; + Robertson at, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>-<a href="#Page_166">166</a>, + <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>; + Sevier at, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>-<a href="#Page_167">167</a>, + <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>; + found to be on Indian lands, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>; + petitions North Carolina for annexation, + <a href="#Page_171">171</a>-<a href="#Page_172">172</a>; + made into Washington County, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>; + Indian attacks on, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, + <a href="#Page_181">181</a>-<a href="#Page_183">183</a>; + and King's Mountain, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>-<a href="#Page_201">201</a>, + <a href="#Page_205">205</a>; + <i>see also</i> Frankland, Franklin, Tennessee.<br /> +Wayne, Mad Anthony, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.<br /> +Welsh in America, <a href="#Page_054">54</a>.<br /> +Wheeling (W. Va.), as rendezvous for troops, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>; + Cresap at, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.<br /> +White Eyes, Delaware chief, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> +Wilkinson, General James, + <a href="#Page_261">261</a>-<a href="#Page_265">265</a>.<br /> +Williams, Colonel, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /> +Williams, Jaret, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.<br /> +Winchester, German settlement near, <a href="#Page_016">16</a>.<br /> +Winsor, Justin, <i>The Westward Movement</i>, quoted, + <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>.<br /> +Winston, Major, <a href="#footer_176-1">176 (note)</a>.<br /> +Woolwich, Ferguson studies at, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.<br /> +Wyandot Indians, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /> + <br /> + </p> + <p><br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span> + </p> + <h3>Y.</h3> + <p> +Yadkin Valley, Scotch-Irish in, <a href="#Page_007">7</a>; + Craighead in, <a href="#Page_008">8</a>; + Highlanders in, <a href="#Page_012">12</a>-<a href="#Page_013">13</a>; + Moravians in, <a href="#Page_023">23</a>; + life in, <a href="#Page_036">36</a>, <a href="#Page_047">47</a>; + hunting, <a href="#Page_043">43</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>; + Boone's home in, <a href="#Page_048">48</a>, + <a href="#Page_090">90</a>, <a href="#Page_097">97</a>; + Presbyterian ministers in, <a href="#Page_050">50</a>.<br /> +Yamasi, Indians, <a href="#Page_056">56</a>; + Massacre, <a href="#Page_055">55</a>.<br /> +Yellowstone, Daniel Boone in, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.<br /> +Yorktown, Cornwallis surrenders at, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br /> + <br /> + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>Z.</h3> + <p> + Zeisberger, David, Moravian missionary, + <a href="#Page_017">17</a>-<a href="#Page_018">18</a>, + <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.<br /> + Zinzendorf, Count (the Apostle), Moravian leader, + <a href="#Page_016">16</a>-<a href="#Page_017">17</a>.<br /> + </p> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + + + + + + + + + + + + + <hr /> + <div class="chapterhead"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2><a href="#Contents">The Chronicles of America Series</a></h2> + <ol> + <li>The Red Man's Continent<br /> by Ellsworth Huntington</li> + <li>The Spanish Conquerors<br /> by Irving Berdine Richman</li> + <li>Elizabethan Sea-Dogs<br /> by William Charles Henry Wood</li> + <li>The Crusaders of New France<br /> by William Bennett Munro</li> + <li>Pioneers of the Old South<br /> by Mary Johnson</li> + <li>The Fathers of New England<br /> by Charles McLean Andrews</li> + <li>Dutch and English on the Hudson<br /> by Maud Wilder Goodwin</li> + <li>The Quaker Colonies<br /> by Sydney George Fisher</li> + <li>Colonial Folkways<br /> by Charles McLean Andrews</li> + <li>The Conquest of New France<br /> + by George McKinnon Wrong</li> + <li>The Eve of the Revolution<br /> by Carl Lotus Becker</li> + <li>Washington and His Comrades in Arms<br /> by George McKinnon Wrong</li> + <li>The Fathers of the Constitution<br /> by Max Farrand</li> + <li>Washington and His Colleagues<br /> by Henry Jones Ford</li> + <li>Jefferson and his Colleagues<br /> by Allen Johnson</li> + <li>John Marshall and the Constitution<br /> by Edward Samuel Corwin</li> + <li>The Fight for a Free Sea<br /> by Ralph Delahaye Paine</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Pioneers of the Old Southwest<br /> + by Constance Lindsay Skinner</span></li> + <li>The Old Northwest<br /> by Frederic Austin Ogg</li> + <li>The Reign of Andrew Jackson<br /> by Frederic Austin Ogg</li> + <li>The Paths of Inland Commerce<br /> + by Archer Butler Hulbert</li> + <li>Adventurers of Oregon<br /> by Constance Lindsay Skinner</li> + <li>The Spanish Borderlands<br /> by Herbert Eugene Bolton</li> + <li>Texas and the Mexican War<br /> by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson</li> + <li>The Forty-Niners<br /> by Stewart Edward White</li> + <li>The Passing of the Frontier<br /> by Emerson Hough</li> + <li>The Cotton Kingdom<br /> by William E. Dodd</li> + <li>The Anti-Slavery Crusade<br /> by Jesse Macy</li> + <li>Abraham Lincoln and the Union<br /> by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson</li> + <li>The Day of the Confederacy<br /> by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson</li> + <li>Captains of the Civil War<br /> by William Charles Henry Wood</li> + <li>The Sequel of Appomattox<br /> by Walter Lynwood Fleming</li> + <li>The American Spirit in Education<br /> by Edwin E. Slosson</li> + <li>The American Spirit in Literature<br /> + by Bliss Perry</li> + <li>Our Foreigners<br /> by Samuel Peter Orth</li> + <li>The Old Merchant Marine<br /> by Ralph Delahaye Paine</li> + <li>The Age of Invention<br /> by Holland Thompson</li> + <li>The Railroad Builders<br /> by John Moody</li> + <li>The Age of Big Business<br /> by Burton Jesse Hendrick</li> + <li>The Armies of Labor<br /> by Samuel Peter Orth</li> + <li>The Masters of Capital<br /> by John Moody</li> + <li>The New South<br /> by Holland Thompson</li> + <li>The Boss and the Machine<br /> by Samuel Peter Orth</li> + <li>The Cleveland Era<br /> by Henry Jones Ford</li> + <li>The Agrarian Crusade<br /> by Solon Justus Buck</li> + <li>The Path of Empire<br /> by Carl Russell Fish</li> + <li>Theodore Roosevelt and His Times<br /> by Harold Howland</li> + <li>Woodrow Wilson and the World War<br /> by Charles Seymour</li> + <li>The Canadian Dominion<br /> by Oscar D. Skelton</li> + <li>The Hispanic Nations of the New World<br /> by William R. Shepherd</li> + </ol> + <hr /> + + + + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <br /> + <br /> <br /> <br /> + </div> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">Transcriber Notes</a> + </h2> + + + <p class="noindent"> + The author spelled <i>powderhorns</i> on <a href="#Page_046">Page 46</a>, + but used a hyphen for <i>powder-horns</i> on <a href="#Page_208">Page + 208</a>. The inconsistencies were retained.<br /> + On <a href="#Page_058-T1">Page 58</a> and <a href="#Page_142">Page + 142</a> the word pack-horse was hyphenated between two lines. Since the + author wrote pack-horse five times in the middle of a sentence, with the + hyphen, and did not write packhorse, both words were transcribed + <i>pack-horse</i>.<br /> + On <a href="#Page_119">Page 119</a>, Tach-nech-dor-us was hyphenated + between two lines. We transcribed the name with hyphens after each + syllable, Tach-nech-dor-us, just as was done in the index.<br /> + The author referred to the <i>back water men</i> on + <a href="#footer_204-1">Page 204</a>. On <a href="#Page_201">Page 201</a>, + the <i>“backwater men”</i> were quoted. Major Patrick Ferguson + capitalized Back Water, separated the syllables by a space, but + alternately capitalized Men on <a href="#Page_203-T1">Page 203</a>, while + not doing so in his proclamation presented on <a href="#Page_213">Page + 213</a>. In the same chapter, there were four different spellings for the + same word, which we retained, and only point out to indicate that this + is not an error in transcription.<br /> + On <a href="#Page_299">Page 299</a> in the index, changed the spelling + of Opomingo to Opimingo to match the spelling in the text, for the + index entry: Mountain Leader (Opomingo). + </p> + <p class="quad-space-bottom"><br /></p> + + +<div class="boilerplate"> + +<p class="bold double-space-top"> +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST *** +</p> + +<p class="double-space-top"> +***** This file should be named 3073-h.htm or 3073-h.zip ***** +</p> + +<p class="no-space-bottom"> +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:</p> +<p class="center no-space-top"> + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/7/3073/ +</p> + +<p> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions +will be renamed. +</p> + +<p> +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use +it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +Title: Pioneers of the Old Southwest + A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground + +Author: Constance Lindsay Skinner + +Release Date: February 21, 2009 [EBook #3073] +Last Updated: July 25, 2015 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: windows-1252 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST +*** + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's University, Alev +Akman, Doris Ringbloom, David Widger, and Robert J. Homa + +Pioneers of the Old Southwest + +By Constance Lindsay Skinner + +A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground + +Volume 18 of the Chronicles of America Series + +Allen Johnson, Editor Assistant Editors Gerhard R. Lomer Charles W. +Jefferys + +_Textbook Edition_ + +New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London: +Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press + +Copyright, 1919 by Yale University Press Printed in the U.S.A. + +vii + +Acknowledgment + +This narrative is founded largely on original sources--on the writings +and journals of pioneers and contemporary observers, such as Doddridge +and Adair, and on the public documents of the period as printed in +the Colonial Records and in the American Archives. But the author is, +nevertheless, greatly indebted to the researches of other writers, whose +works are cited in the Bibliographical Note. The author's thanks are +due, also, to Dr. Archibald Henderson, of the University of North +Carolina, for his kindness in reading the proofs of this book for +comparison with his own extended collection of unpublished manuscripts +relating to the period. + +C. L. S. + +April, 1919. + +ix + +Contents + + Chapter I. The Tread Of Pioneers 1 + Chapter II. Folkways 31 + Chapter III. The Trader 52 + Chapter IV. The Passing Of The French Peril 75 + Chapter V. Boone, The Wanderer 90 + Chapter VI. The Fight For Kentucky 104 + Chapter VII. The Dark And Bloody Ground 129 + Chapter VIII. Tennessee 157 + Chapter IX. King's Mountain 195 + Chapter X. Sevier, The Statemaker 266 + Chapter XI. Boone's Last Days 272 + Bibliographical Note 287 + +1 + +PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST + + + + +Chapter I + +The Tread Of Pioneers + +The Ulster Presbyterians, or Scotch-Irish, to whom history has ascribed +the dominant rôle among the pioneer folk of the Old Southwest, began +their migrations to America in the latter years of the seventeenth +century. It is not known with certainty precisely when or where the +first immigrants of their race arrived in this country, but soon after +1680 they were to be found in several of the colonies. It was not long, +indeed, before they were entering in numbers at the port of Philadelphia +and were making Pennsylvania the chief center of their activities in the +New World. By 1726 they had established settlements in several counties +behind Philadelphia. Ten years later they had begun their great trek +southward through 2 the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and on to the +Yadkin Valley of North Carolina. There they met others of their own +race--bold men like themselves, hungry after land--who were coming in +through Charleston and pushing their way up the rivers from the seacoast +to the Back Country, in search of homes. + +These Ulstermen did not come to the New World as novices in the shaping +of society; they had already made history. Their ostensible object +in America was to obtain land, but, like most external aims, it was +secondary to a deeper purpose. What had sent the Ulstermen to America +was a passion for a whole freedom. They were lusty men, shrewd and +courageous, zealous to the death for an ideal and withal so practical to +the moment in business that it soon came to be commonly reported of +them that they kept the Sabbath and everything else they could lay +their hands on, though it is but fair to them to add that this phrase is +current wherever Scots dwell. They had contested in Parliament and with +arms for their own form of worship and for their civil rights. They +were already frontiersmen, trained in the hardihood and craft of border +warfare through years of guerrilla fighting with the Irish Celts. They +had pitted and proved 3 their strength against a wilderness; they had +reclaimed the North of Ireland from desolation. For the time, many of +them were educated men; under the regulations of the Presbyterian Church +every child was taught to read at an early age, since no person could be +admitted to the privileges of the Church who did not both understand and +approve the Presbyterian constitution and discipline. They were brought +up on the Bible and on the writings of their famous pastors, one of +whom, as early as 1650, had given utterance to the democratic doctrine +that "men are called to the magistracy by the suffrage of the people +whom they govern, and for men to assume unto themselves power is mere +tyranny and unjust usurpation." In subscribing to this doctrine and +in resisting to the hilt all efforts of successive English kings to +interfere in the election of their pastors, the Scots of Ulster had +already declared for democracy. + +It was shortly after James VI of Scotland became James I of England +and while the English were founding Jamestown that the Scots had first +occupied Ulster; but the true origin of the Ulster Plantation lies +further back, in the reign of Henry VIII, in the days of the English +Reformation. In Henry's Irish realm the Reformation, though 4 proclaimed +by royal authority, had never been accomplished; and Henry's more famous +daughter, Elizabeth, had conceived the plan, later to be carried out by +James, of planting colonies of Protestants in Ireland to promote loyalty +in that rebellious land. Six counties, comprising half a million acres, +formed the Ulster Plantation. The great majority of the colonists +sent thither by James were Scotch Lowlanders, but among them were many +English and a smaller number of Highlanders. These three peoples from +the island of Britain brought forth, through intermarriage, the Ulster +Scots. + +The reign of Charles I had inaugurated for the Ulstermen an era of +persecution. Charles practically suppressed the Presbyterian religion +in Ireland. His son, Charles II, struck at Ireland in 1666 through its +cattle trade, by prohibiting the exportation of beef to England and +Scotland. The Navigation Acts, excluding Ireland from direct trade with +the colonies, ruined Irish commerce, while Corporation Acts and Test +Acts requiring conformity with the practices of the Church of England +bore heavily on the Ulster Presbyterians. + +It was largely by refugees from religious persecution that America in +the beginning was colonized. But religious persecution was only one of +the 5 influences which shaped the course and formed the character of the +Ulster Scots. In Ulster, whither they had originally been transplanted +by James to found a loyal province in the midst of the King's enemies, +they had done their work too well and had waxed too powerful for the +comfort of later monarchs. The first attacks upon them struck at their +religion; but the subsequent legislative acts which successively ruined +the woolen trade, barred nonconformists from public office, stifled +Irish commerce, pronounced non-Episcopal marriages irregular, and +instituted heavy taxation and high rentals for the land their fathers +had made productive--these were blows dealt chiefly for the political +and commercial ends of favored classes in England. + +These attacks, aimed through his religious conscience at the sources of +his livelihood, made the Ulster Scot perforce what he was--a zealot as +a citizen and a zealot as a merchant no less than as a Presbyterian. +Thanks to his persecutors, he made a religion of everything he undertook +and regarded his civil rights as divine rights. Thus out of persecution +emerged a type of man who was high-principled and narrow, strong and +violent, as tenacious of his own rights as he was blind often to the +rights of others, acquisitive yet self-sacrificing, 6 but most of all +fearless, confident of his own power, determined to have and to hold. + +Twenty thousand Ulstermen, it is estimated, left Ireland for America +in the first three decades of the eighteenth century. More than six +thousand of them are known to have entered Pennsylvania in 1729 alone, +and twenty years later they numbered one-quarter of that colony's +population. During the five years preceding the Revolutionary War more +than thirty thousand Ulstermen crossed the ocean and arrived in America +just in time and in just the right frame of mind to return King George's +compliment in kind, by helping to deprive him of his American estates, +a domain very much larger than the acres of Ulster. They fully justified +the fears of the good bishop who wrote Lord Dartmouth, Secretary for the +Colonies, that he trembled for the peace of the King's overseas realm, +since these thousands of phanatical and hungry Republicans had sailed +for America. + +The Ulstermen who entered by Charleston were known to the inhabitants +of the tidewater regions as the Scotch-Irish. Those who came from the +north, lured southward by the offer of cheap lands, were called the +Pennsylvania Irish. Both were, however, of the same race--a race twice 7 +expatriated, first from Scotland and then from Ireland, and stripped of +all that it had won throughout more than a century of persecution. To +these exiles the Back Country of North Carolina, with its cheap and even +free tracts lying far from the seat of government, must have seemed not +only the Land of Promise but the Land of Last Chance. Here they must +strike their roots into the sod with such interlocking strength that no +cataclysm of tyranny should ever dislodge them--or they must accept the +fate dealt out to them by their former persecutors and become a tribe +of nomads and serfs. But to these Ulster immigrants such a choice was no +choice at all. They knew themselves strong men, who had made the most of +opportunity despite almost superhuman obstacles. The drumming of +their feet along the banks of the Shenandoah, or up the rivers from +Charleston, and on through the broad sweep of the Yadkin Valley, was a +conquering people's challenge to the Wilderness which lay sleeping like +an unready sentinel at the gates of their Future. + +It is maintained still by many, however often disputed, that the +Ulstermen were the first to declare for American Independence, as in the +Old Country they were the first to demand the separation of 8 Church and +State. A Declaration of Independence is said to have been drawn up and +signed in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on May 20, 1775.¹ However +that may be, it is certain that these Mecklenburg Protestants had +received special schooling in the doctrine of independence. They had in +their midst for eight years (1758-66) the Reverend Alexander Craighead, +a Presbyterian minister who, for his republican doctrines expressed in +a pamphlet, had been disowned by the Pennsylvania Synod acting on the +Governor's protest, and so persecuted in Virginia that he had at last +fled to the North Carolina Back Country. There, during the remaining +years of his life, as the sole preacher and teacher in the settlements +between the Yadkin and the Catawba rivers he found willing soil in which +to sow the seeds of Liberty. + +¹ See Hoyt, _The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence_; and _American +Archives,_ Fourth Series. vol. II, p. 855. + +There was another branch of the Scottish race which helped to people +the Back Country. The Highlanders, whose loyalty to their oath made them +fight on the King's side in the Revolutionary War, have been somewhat +overlooked in history. Tradition, handed down among the transplanted 9 +clans--who, for the most part, spoke only Gaelic for a generation and +wrote nothing--and latterly recorded by one or two of their descendants, +supplies us with all we are now able to learn of the early coming of the +Gaels to Carolina. It would seem that their first immigration to America +in small bands took place after the suppression of the Jacobite rising +in 1715--when Highlanders fled in numbers also to France--for by 1729 +there was a settlement of them on the Cape Fear River. We know, too, +that in 1748 it was charged against Gabriel Johnston, Governor of North +Carolina from 1734 to 1752, that he had shown no joy over the King's +glorious victory of Culloden and that he had appointed one William +McGregor, who had been in the Rebellion in the year 1715 a Justice of +the Peace during the last Rebellion [1745] and was not himself without +suspicion of disaffection to His Majesty's Government. It is indeed +possible that Gabriel Johnston, formerly a professor at St. Andrew's +University, had himself not always been a stranger to the kilt. He +induced large numbers of Highlanders to come to America and probably +influenced the second George to moderate his treatment of the vanquished +Gaels in the Old Country and permit their emigration to the New World. + +10 In contrast with the Ulstermen, whose secular ideals were dictated +by the forms of their Church, these Scots adhered still to the tribal +or clan system, although they, too, in the majority, were Presbyterians, +with a minority of Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. In the Scotch +Highlands they had occupied small holdings on the land under the sway of +their chief, or Head of the Clan, to whom they were bound by blood and +fealty but to whom they paid no rentals. The position of the Head of the +Clan was hereditary, but no heir was bold enough to step forward into +that position until he had performed some deed of worth. They were +principally herders, their chief stock being the famous small black +cattle of the Highlands. Their wars with each other were cattle raids. +Only in war, however, did the Gael lay hands on his neighbor's goods. +There were no highwaymen and housebreakers in the Highlands. No Highland +mansion, cot, or barn was ever locked. Theft and the breaking of an +oath, sins against man's honor, were held in such abhorrence that no +one guilty of them could remain among his clansmen in the beloved glens. +These Highlanders were a race of tall, robust men, who lived simply and +frugally and slept on the heath among their flocks in all weathers, +with no 11 other covering from rain and snow than their plaidies. It +is reported of the Laird of Keppoch, who was leading his clan to war in +winter time, that his men were divided as to the propriety of following +him further because he rolled a snowball to rest his head upon when he +lay down. Now we despair of victory, they said, since our leader has +become so effeminate he cannot sleep without a pillow!¹ + +¹ MacLean, _An Historical Account of the Settlement of Scotch +Highlanders in America._ The King's glorious victory of Culloden was +followed by a policy of extermination carried on by the orders and under +the personal direction of the Duke of Cumberland. When King George at +last restrained his son from his orgy of blood, he offered the Gaels +their lives and exile to America on condition of their taking the full +oath of allegiance. The majority accepted his terms, for not only were +their lives forfeit but their crops and cattle had been destroyed and +the holdings on which their ancestors had lived for many centuries taken +from them. The descriptions of the scenes attending their leave-taking +of the hills and glens they loved with such passionate fervor are among +the most pathetic in history. Strong men who had met the ravage of a +brutal sword without weakening 12 abandoned themselves to the agony of +sorrow. They kissed the walls of their houses. They flung themselves on +the ground and embraced the sod upon which they had walked in freedom. +They called their broken farewells to the peaks and lochs of the land +they were never again to see; and, as they turned their backs and filed +down through the passes, their pipers played the dirge for the dead. + +Such was the character, such the deep feeling, of the race which entered +North Carolina from the coast and pushed up into the wilderness about +the headwaters of Cape Fear River. Tradition indicates that these +hillsmen sought the interior because the grass and pea vine which +overgrew the inner country stretching towards the mountains provided +excellent fodder for the cattle which some of the chiefs are said to +have brought with them. These Gaelic herders, perhaps in negligible +numbers, were in the Yadkin Valley before 1730, possibly even ten years +earlier. In 1739 Neil MacNeill of Kintyre brought over a shipload of +Gaels to rejoin his kinsman, Hector MacNeill, called Bluff Hector from +his residence near the bluffs at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville. Some +of these immigrants went on to the Yadkin, we are told, to unite with +others of their clan who had been for some time in 13 that district. The +exact time of the first Highlander on the Yadkin cannot be ascertained, +as there were no court records and the offices of the land companies +were not then open for the sale of these remote regions. But by 1753 +there were not less than four thousand Gaels in Cumberland County, +where they occupied the chief magisterial posts; and they were already +spreading over the lands now comprised within Moore, Anson, Richmond, +Robeson, Bladen, and Sampson counties. In these counties Gaelic was as +commonly heard as English. + +In the years immediately preceding the Revolution and even in 1776 +itself they came in increasing numbers. They knew nothing of the +smoldering fire just about to break into flames in the country of their +choice, but the Royal Governor, Josiah Martin, knew that Highland arms +would soon be needed by His Majesty. He knew something of Highland +honor, too; for he would not let the Gaels proceed after their landing +until they had bound themselves by oath to support the Government +of King George. So it was that the unfortunate Highlanders found +themselves, according to their strict code of honor, forced to wield +arms against the very Americans who had received and 14 befriended +them--and for the crowned brother of a prince whose name is execrated to +this day in Highland song and story! + +They were led by Allan MacDonald of Kingsborough; and tradition gives us +a stirring picture of Allan's wife--the famous Flora MacDonald, who +in Scotland had protected the Young Pretender in his flight--making an +impassioned address in Gaelic to the Highland soldiers and urging them +on to die for honor's sake. When this Highland force was conquered by +the Americans, the large majority willingly bound themselves not to +fight further against the American cause and were set at liberty. +Many of them felt that, by offering their lives to the swords of the +Americans, they had canceled their obligation to King George and were +now free to draw their swords again and, this time, in accordance with +their sympathies; so they went over to the American side and fought +gallantly for independence. + +Although the brave glory of this pioneer age shines so brightly on the +Lion Rampant of Caledonia, not to Scots alone does that whole glory +belong. The second largest racial stream which flowed into the Back +Country of Virginia and 15 North Carolina was German. Most of +these Germans went down from Pennsylvania and were generally called +Pennsylvania Dutch, an incorrect rendering of _Pennsylvänische +Deutsche_. The upper Shenandoah Valley was settled almost entirely +by Germans. They were members of the Lutheran, German Reformed, and +Moravian churches. The cause which sent vast numbers of this sturdy +people across the ocean, during the first years of the eighteenth +century, was religious persecution. By statute and by sword the Roman +Catholic powers of Austria sought to wipe out the Salzburg Lutherans and +the Moravian followers of John Huss. In that region of the Rhine country +known in those days as the German Palatinate, now a part of Bavaria, +Protestants were being massacred by the troops of Louis of France, +then engaged in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13) and in the +zealous effort to extirpate heretics from the soil of Europe. In 1708, +by proclamation, Good Queen Anne offered protection to the persecuted +Palatines and invited them to her dominions. Twelve thousand of them +went to England, where they were warmly received by the English. But +it was no slight task to settle twelve thousand immigrants of an +alien speech in 16 England and enable them to become independent and +self-supporting. A better solution of their problem lay in the Western +World. The Germans needed homes and the Queen's overseas dominions +needed colonists. They were settled at first along the Hudson, and +eventually many of them took up lands in the fertile valley of the +Mohawk. + +For fifty years or more German and Austrian Protestants poured into +America. In Pennsylvania their influx averaged about fifteen hundred a +year, and that colony became the distributing center for the German race +in America. By 1727, Adam Müller and his little company had established +the first white settlement in the Valley of Virginia. In 1732 Joist +Heydt went south from York, Pennsylvania, and settled on the Opequan +Creek at or near the site of the present city of Winchester. + +The life of Count Zinzendorf, called the Apostle, one of the leaders +of the Moravian immigrants, glows like a star out of those dark and +troublous times. Of high birth and gentle nurture, he forsook whatever +of ease his station promised him and fitted himself for evangelical +work. In 1741 he visited the Wyoming Valley to bring his religion to the +Delawares and Shawanoes. He was not of those picturesque Captains of the +Lord who 17 bore their muskets on their shoulders when they went +forth to preach. Armored only with the shield of faith, the helmet +of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, his feet shod with the +preparation of the gospel of peace, he went out into the country of +these bloodthirsty tribes and told them that he had come to them in +their darkness to teach the love of the Christ which lighteth the world. +The Indians received him suspiciously. One day while he sat in his tent +writing, some Delawares drew near to slay him and were about to strike +when they saw two deadly snakes crawl in from the opposite side of the +tent, move directly towards the Apostle, and pass harmlessly over his +body. Thereafter they regarded him as under spiritual protection. Indeed +so widespread was his good fame among the tribes that for some years all +Moravian settlements along the borders were unmolested. Painted savages +passed through on their way to war with enemy bands or to raid the +border, but for the sake of one consecrated spirit, whom they had seen +death avoid, they spared the lives and goods of his fellow believers. +When Zinzendorf departed a year later, his mantle fell on David +Zeisberger, who lived the love he taught for over fifty years and +converted many savages. 18 Zeisberger was taken before the Governor +and army heads at Philadelphia, who had only too good reason to be +suspicious of priestly counsels in the tents of Shem: but he was able to +impress white men no less than simple savages with the nobility of the +doctrine he had learned from the Apostle. + +In 1751 the Moravian Brotherhood purchased one hundred thousand acres in +North Carolina from Lord Granville. Bishop Spangenburg was commissioned +to survey this large acreage, which was situated in the present county +of Forsyth east of the Yadkin, and which is historically listed as the +Wachovia Tract. In 1753, twelve Brethren left the Moravian settlements +of Bethlehem and Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, and journeyed southward to +begin the founding of a colony on their new land. Brother Adam Grube, +one of the twelve, kept a diary of the events of this expedition.¹ + +¹ This diary is printed in full in _Travels in the American Colonies_ +edited by N. D. Mereness. Honor to whom honor is due. We have paid +it, in some measure, to the primitive Gaels of the Highlands for their +warrior strength and their fealty, and to the enlightened Scots of +Ulster for their enterprise and for their sacrifice unto blood that free +conscience and just laws might promote the 19 progress and safeguard +the intercourse of their kind. Now let us take up for a moment Brother +Grube's _Journal_ even as we welcome, perhaps the more gratefully, the +mild light of evening after the flooding sun, or as our hearts, when too +strongly stirred by the deeds of men, turn for rest to the serene faith +and the naïve speech of little children. + +The twelve, we learn, were under the leadership of one of their number, +Brother Gottlob. Their earliest alarms on the march were not caused, +as we might expect, by anticipations of the painted Cherokee, but by +encounters with the strenuous Irish. One of these came and laid himself +to sleep beside the Brethren's camp fire on their first night out, after +they had sung their evening hymn and eleven had stretched themselves on +the earth for slumber, while Brother Gottlob, their leader, hanging his +hammock between two trees, ascended--not only in spirit--a little higher +than his charges, and rested well in it. Though the alarming Irishman +did not disturb them, the Brethren's doubts of that race continued, for +Brother Grube wrote on the 14th of October: About four in the morning we +set up our tent, going four miles beyond Carl Isles [Carlisle, seventeen +miles southwest of Harrisburg] so as not to be too near the 20 Irish +Presbyterians. After breakfast the Brethren shaved and then we rested +under our tent.… People who were staying at the Tavern came to see what +kind of folk we were.… Br Gottlob held the evening service and then we +lay down around our cheerful fire, and Br Gottlob in his hammock. +Two other jottings give us a racial kaleidoscope of the settlers and +wayfarers of that time. On one day the Brethren bought some hay from a +Swiss, later some kraut from a German which tasted very good to us; and +presently an Englishman came by and drank a cup of tea with us and was +very grateful for it. Frequently the little band paused while some of +the Brethren went off to the farms along the route to help cut hay. +These kindly acts were usually repaid with gifts of food or produce. + +One day while on the march they halted at a tavern and farm in +Shenandoah Valley kept by a man whose name Brother Grube wrote down as +Severe. Since we know that Brother Grube's spelling of names other than +German requires editing, we venture to hazard a guess that the name he +attempted to set down as it sounded to him was Sevier. And we wonder if, +in his brief sojourn, he saw a lad of eight years, slim, tall, and 21 +blond, with daring and mischievous blue eyes, and a certain curve of the +lips that threatened havoc in the hearts of both sexes when he should be +a man and reach out with swift hands and reckless will for his desires. +If he saw this lad, he beheld John Sevier, later to become one of the +most picturesque and beloved heroes of the Old Southwest. + +Hardships abounded on the Brethren's journey, but faith and the +Christian's joy, which no man taketh from him, met and surmounted them. +Three and a half miles beyond, the road forked.… We took the right hand +road but found no water for ten miles. It grew late and we had to drive +five miles into the night to find a stoppingplace. Two of the Brethren +went ahead to seek out the road through the darkened wilderness. There +were rough hills in the way; and, the horses being exhausted, Brethren +had to help push. But, in due season, Br Nathanael held evening prayer +and then we slept in the care of Jesus, with Brother Gottlob as usual +in his hammock. Three days later the record runs: Toward evening we +saw Jeams River, the road to it ran down so very steep a hill that we +fastened a small tree to the back of our wagon, locked the wheels, and +the Brethren held back by the tree with all their 22 might. Even then +the wagon went down so fast that most of the Brethren lost their +footing and rolled and tumbled pell-mell. But Faith makes little of +such mishaps: No harm was done and we thanked the Lord that he had so +graciously protected us, for it looked dangerous and we thought at times +that it could not possibly be done without accident but we got down +safely… we were all very tired and sleepy and let the angels be our +guard during the night. Rains fell in torrents, making streams almost +impassable and drenching the little band to the skin. The hammock was +empty one night, for they had to spend the dark hours trench-digging +about their tent to keep it from being washed away. Two days later +(the 10th of November) the weather cleared and we spent most of the day +drying our blankets and mending and darning our stockings. They also +bought supplies from settlers who, as Brother Grube observed without +irony, are glad we have to remain here so long and that it means money +for them. In the afternoon we held a little Lovefeast and rested our +souls in the loving sacrifice of Jesus, wishing for beloved Brethren in +Bethlehem and that they and we might live ever close to Him.… + +Nov. 16. We rose early to ford the river. The bank was so steep that +we hung a tree behind the wagon, 23 fastening it in such a way that we +could quickly release it when the wagon reached the water. The current +was very swift and the lead horses were carried down a bit with it. The +water just missed running into the wagon but we came safely to the other +bank, which however we could not climb but had to take half the things +out of the wagon, tie ropes to the axle on which we could pull, help our +horses which were quite stiff, and so we brought our ark again to dry +land. + +On the evening of the 17th of November the twelve arrived safely on +their land on the Etkin (Yadkin), having been six weeks on the march. +They found with joy that, as ever, the Lord had provided for them. This +time the gift was a deserted cabin, large enough that we could all +lie down around the walls. We at once made preparation for a little +Lovefeast and rejoiced heartily with one another. + +In the deserted log cabin, which, to their faith, seemed as one of +those mansions not built with hands and descended miraculously from the +heavens, they held their Lovefeast, while wolves padded and howled about +the walls; and in that Pentacostal hour the tongue of fire descended +upon Brother Gottlob, so that he made a new song unto the Lord. Who +shall venture to say it is not better worth preserving than many a +classic? + +24 + + We hold arrival Lovefeast here + In Carolina land, + A company of Brethren true, + A little Pilgrim-Band, + Called by the Lord to be of those + Who through the whole world go, + To bear Him witness everywhere + And nought but Jesus know. + +Then, we are told, the Brethren lay down to rest and Br Gottlob hung his +hammock above our heads--as was most fitting on this of all nights; for +is not the Poet's place always just a little nearer to the stars? + +The pioneers did not always travel in groups. There were families who +set off alone. One of these now claims our attention, for there was a +lad in this family whose name and deeds were to sound like a ballad +of romance from out the dusty pages of history. This family's name was +Boone. + +Neither Scots nor Germans can claim Daniel Boone; he was in blood a +blend of English and Welsh; in character wholly English. His grandfather +George Boone was born in 1666 in the hamlet of Stoak, near Exeter in +Devonshire. George Boone was a weaver by trade and a Quaker by religion. +In England in his time the Quakers were 25 oppressed, and George +Boone therefore sought information of William Penn, his coreligionist, +regarding the colony which Penn had established in America. In 1712 he +sent his three elder children, George, Sarah, and Squire, to spy out +the land. Sarah and Squire remained in Pennsylvania, while their brother +returned to England with glowing reports. On August 17, 1717, George +Boone, his wife, and the rest of his children journeyed to Bristol and +sailed for Philadelphia, arriving there on the 10th of October. The +Boones went first to Abingdon, the Quaker farmers' community. Later +they moved to the northwestern frontier hamlet of North Wales, a Welsh +community which, a few years previously, had turned Quaker. Sarah Boone +married a German named Jacob Stover, who had settled in Oley Township, +Berks County. In 1718 George Boone took up four hundred acres in Oley, +or, to be exact, in the subdivision later called Exeter, and there +he lived in his log cabin until 1744, when he died at the age of +seventy-eight. He left eight children, fifty-two grandchildren, and ten +great-grandchildren, seventy descendants in all--English, German, Welsh, +and Scotch-Irish blended into one family of Americans.¹ + +¹ R. G. Thwaites, _Daniel Boone_, p. 5. 26 Among the Welsh Quakers was a +family of Morgans. In 1720 Squire Boone married Sarah Morgan. Ten +years later he obtained 250 acres in Oley on Owatin Creek, eight miles +southeast of the present city of Reading; and here, in 1734, Daniel +Boone was born, the fourth son and sixth child of Squire and Sarah +Morgan Boone. Daniel Boone therefore was a son of the frontier. In his +childhood he became familiar with hunters and with Indians, for even +the red men came often in friendly fashion to his grandfather's house. +Squire Boone enlarged his farm by thrift. He continued at his trade of +weaving and kept five or six looms going, making homespun cloth for the +market and his neighbors. + +Daniel's father owned grazing grounds several miles north of the +homestead and each season he sent his stock to the range. Sarah Boone +and her little Daniel drove the cows. From early spring till late +autumn, mother and son lived in a rustic cabin alone on the frontier. A +rude dairy house stood over a cool spring, and here Sarah Boone made her +butter and cheese. Daniel, aged ten at this time, watched the herds; at +sunset he drove them to the cabin for milking, and locked them in the +cowpens at night. + +27 He was not allowed firearms at that age, so he shaped for himself a +weapon that served him well. This was a slender smoothly shaved sapling +with a small bunch of gnarled roots at one end. So expert was he in the +launching of this primitive spear that he easily brought down birds and +small game. When he reached his twelfth year, his father bought him a +rifle; and he soon became a crack shot. A year later we find him setting +off on the autumn hunt--after driving the cattle in for the winter--with +all the keenness and courage of a man twice his thirteen years. His +rifle enabled him to return with meat for the family and skins to be +traded in Philadelphia. When he was fourteen his brother Sam married +Sarah Day, an intelligent young Quakeress who took a special interest in +her young brother-in-law and taught him the rudiments of three R's. + +The Boones were prosperous and happy in Oley and it may be wondered why +they left their farms and their looms, both of which were profitable, +and set their faces towards the Unknown. It is recorded that, though +the Boones were Quakers, they were of a high mettle and were not +infrequently dealt with by the Meeting. Two of Squire Boone's children +married worldlings--non-Quakers--and 28 were in consequence disowned by +the Society. In defiance of his sect, which strove to make him sever all +connection with his unruly offspring, Squire Boone refused to shut his +doors on the son and the daughter who had scandalized local Quakerdom. +The Society of Friends thereupon expelled him. This occurred apparently +during the winter of 1748-49. In the spring of 1750 we see the whole +Boone family (save two sons) with their wives and children, their +household goods and their stock, on the great highway, bound for a land +where the hot heart and the belligerent spirit shall not be held amiss. + +Southward through the Shenandoah goes the Boone caravan. The women and +children usually sit in the wagons. The men march ahead or alongside, +keeping a keen eye open for Indian or other enemy in the wild, their +rifles under arm or over the shoulder. Squire Boone, who has done with +Quakerdom and is leading all that he holds dear out to larger horizons, +is ahead of the line, as we picture him, ready to meet first whatever +danger may assail his tribe. He is a strong wiry man of rather small +stature, with ruddy complexion, red hair, and gray eyes. Somewhere in +the line, together, we think, are the mother and son who have 29 herded +cattle and companioned each other through long months in the cabin on +the frontier. We do not think of this woman as riding in the wagon, +though she may have done so, but prefer to picture her, with her tall +robust body, her black hair, and her black eyes--with the sudden Welsh +snap in them--walking as sturdily as any of her sons. + +If Daniel be beside her, what does she see when she looks at him? A +lad well set up but not overtall for his sixteen years, perhaps--for +eye-witnesses differ in their estimates of Daniel Boone's height--or +possibly taller than he looks, because his figure has the forest +hunter's natural slant forward and the droop of the neck of one who +must watch his path sometimes in order to tread silently. It is Squire +Boone's blood which shows in his ruddy face--which would be fair but for +its tan--and in the English cut of feature, the straw-colored eyebrows, +and the blue eyes. But his Welsh mother's legacy is seen in the black +hair that hangs long and loose in the hunter's fashion to his shoulders. +We can think of Daniel Boone only as exhilarated by this plunge into the +Wild. He sees ahead--the days of his great explorations and warfare, the +discovery of Kentucky? Not at all. This is a boy of sixteen in love with +his rifle. He looks ahead to 30 vistas of forest filled with deer and +to skies clouded with flocks of wild turkeys. In that dream there is +happiness enough for Daniel Boone. Indeed, for himself, even in later +life, he asked little, if any more. He trudges on blithely, whistling. + +31 + + + + +Chapter II + +Folkways + +These migrations into the inland valleys of the Old South mark the first +great westward thrust of the American frontier. Thus the beginnings of +the westward movement disclose to us a feature characteristic also of +the later migrations which flung the frontier over the Appalachians, +across the Mississippi, and finally to the shores of the Pacific. The +pioneers, instead of moving westward by slow degrees, subduing the +wilderness as they went, overleaped great spaces and planted themselves +beyond, out of contact with the life they had left behind. Thus +separated by hundreds of miles of intervening wilderness from the +more civilized communities, the conquerors of the first American West, +prototypes of the conquerors of succeeding Wests, inevitably struck +out their own ways of life and developed their own customs. It would +be difficult, indeed, to find anywhere a more 32 remarkable contrast +in contemporary folkways than that presented by the two great community +groups of the South--the inland or piedmont settlements, called the Back +Country, and the lowland towns and plantations along the seaboard. + +The older society of the seaboard towns, as events were soon to prove, +was not less independent in its ideals than the frontier society of the +Back Country; but it was aristocratic in tone and feeling. Its leaders +were the landed gentry--men of elegance, and not far behind their +European contemporaries in the culture of the day. They were rich, +without effort, both from their plantations, where black slaves and +indentured servants labored, and from their coastwise and overseas +trade. Their battles with forest and red man were long past. They had +leisure for diversions such as the chase, the breeding and racing +of thoroughbred horses, the dance, high play with dice and card, +cockfighting, the gallantry of love, and the skill of the rapier. Law +and politics drew their soberer minds. + +Very different were the conditions which confronted the pioneers in the +first American West. There every jewel of promise was ringed round with +hostility. The cheap land the pioneer had purchased at a nominal price, +or the free land 33 he had taken by tomahawk claim--that is by +cutting his name into the bark of a deadened tree, usually beside a +spring--supported a forest of tall trunks and interlacing leafage. The +long grass and weeds which covered the ground in a wealth of natural +pasturage harbored the poisonous copperhead and the rattlesnake and, +being shaded by the overhead foliage, they held the heavy dews and bred +swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, and big flies which tortured both men and +cattle. To protect the cattle and horses from the attacks of these +pests the settlers were obliged to build large "smudges"--fires of green +timber--against the wind. The animals soon learned to back up into the +dense smoke and to move from one grazing spot to another as the wind +changed. But useful as were the green timber fires that rolled their +smoke on the wind to save the stock, they were at the same time a menace +to the pioneer, for they proclaimed to roving bands of Cherokees that +a further encroachment on their territory had been made by their most +hated enemies--the men who felled the hunter's forest. Many an outpost +pioneer who had made the long hard journey by sea and land from the old +world of persecution to this new country of freedom, dropped from the +34 red man's shot ere he had hewn the threshold of his home, leaving his +wife and children to the unrecorded mercy of his slayer. + +Those more fortunate pioneers who settled in groups won the first heat +in the battle with the wilderness through massed effort under wariness. +They made their clearings in the forest, built their cabins and +stockades, and planted their cornfields, while lookouts kept watch and +rifles were stacked within easy reach. Every special task, such as a +raising, as cabin building was called, was undertaken by the community +chiefly because the Indian danger necessitated swift building and made +group action imperative. But the stanch heart is ever the glad heart. +Nothing in this frontier history impresses us more than the joy of the +pioneer at his labors. His determined optimism turned danger's dictation +into an occasion for jollity. On the appointed day for the raising, the +neighbors would come, riding or afoot, to the newcomer's holding--the +men with their rifles and axes, the women with their pots and kettles. +Every child toddled along, too, helping to carry the wooden dishes +and spoons. These free givers of labor had something of the Oriental's +notion of the sacred ratification of friendship by a feast. + +35 The usual dimensions of a cabin were sixteen by twenty feet. The +timber for the building, having been already cut, lay at hand--logs of +hickory, oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon. To make the foundations, +the men seized four of the thickest logs, laid them in place, and +notched and grooved and hammered them into as close a clinch as if they +had grown so. The wood must grip by its own substance alone to hold up +the pioneer's dwelling, for there was not an iron nail to be had in +the whole of the Back Country. Logs laid upon the foundation logs and +notched into each other at the four corners formed the walls; and, +when these stood at seven feet, the builders laid parallel timbers and +puncheons to make both flooring and ceiling. The ridgepole of the roof +was supported by two crotched trees and the roofing was made of logs and +wooden slabs. The crevices of the walls were packed close with red clay +and moss. Lastly, spaces for a door and windows were cut out. The +door was made thick and heavy to withstand the Indian's rush. And the +windowpanes? They were of paper treated with hog's fat or bear's grease. + +When the sun stood overhead, the women would give the welcome call of +Dinner! Their morning had not been less busy than the men's. They 36 had +baked corn cakes on hot stones, roasted bear or pork, or broiled venison +steaks; and--above all and first of all--they had concocted the great +stew pie without which a raising could hardly take place. This was a +disputatious mixture of deer, hog, and bear--animals which, in life, +would surely have companioned each other as ill! It was made in +sufficient quantity to last over for supper when the day's labor was +done. At supper the men took their ease on the ground, but with their +rifles always in reach. If the cabin just raised by their efforts stood +in the Yadkin, within sight of the great mountains the pioneers were +one day to cross, perhaps a sudden bird note warning from the lookout, +hidden in the brush, would bring the builders with a leap to their feet. +It might be only a hunting band of friendly Catawbas that passed, or +a lone Cherokee who knew that this was not his hour. If the latter, we +can, in imagination, see him look once at the new house on his hunting +pasture, slacken rein for a moment in front of the group of families, +lift his hand in sign of peace, and silently go his way hillward. As +he vanishes into the shadows, the crimson sun, sinking into the unknown +wilderness beyond the mountains, pours its last glow on the roof of the +cabin and on the 37 group near its walls. With unfelt fingers, subtly, +it puts the red touch of the West in the faces of the men--who have just +declared, through the building of a cabin, that here is Journey's End +and their abiding place. + +There were community holidays among these pioneers as well as labor +days, especially in the fruit season; and there were flower-picking +excursions in the warm spring days. Early in April the service berry +bush gleamed starrily along the watercourses, its hardy white blooms +defying winter's lingering look. This bush--or tree, indeed, since it +is not afraid to rear its slender trunk as high as cherry or crab +apple--might well be considered emblematic of the frontier spirit in +those regions where the white silence covers the earth for several +months and shuts the lonely homesteader in upon himself. From the +pioneer time of the Old Southwest to the last frontier of the Far North +today, the service berry is cherished alike by white men and Indians; +and the red men have woven about it some of their prettiest legends. +When June had ripened the tree's blue-black berries, the Back Country +folk went out in parties to gather them. Though the service berry was a +38 food staple on the frontier and its gathering a matter of household +economy, the folk made their berry-picking jaunt a gala occasion. The +women and children with pots and baskets--the young girls vying with +each other, under the eyes of the youths, as to who could strip boughs +the fastest--plucked gayly while the men, rifles in hand, kept guard. +For these happy summer days were also the red man's scalping days and, +at any moment, the chatter of the picnickers might be interrupted by the +chilling war whoop. When that sound was heard, the berry pickers raced +for the fort. The wild fruits--strawberries, service berries, cherries, +plums, crab apples--were, however, too necessary a part of the pioneer's +meager diet to be left unplucked out of fear of an Indian attack. +Another day would see the same group out again. The children would keep +closer to their mothers, no doubt; and the laughter of the young girls +would be more subdued, even if their coquetry lacked nothing of its +former effectiveness. Early marriages were the rule in the Back Country +and betrothals were frequently plighted at these berry pickings. + +As we consider the descriptions of the frontiersman left for us by +travelers of his own day, we are not more interested in his battles with +wilderness 39 and Indian than in the visible effects of both wilderness +and Indian upon him. His countenance and bearing still show the +European, but the European greatly altered by savage contact. The red +peril, indeed, influenced every side of frontier life. The bands of +women and children at the harvestings, the log rollings, and the house +raisings, were not there merely to lighten the men's work by their +laughter and love-making. It was not safe for them to remain in the +cabins, for, to the Indian, the cabin thus boldly thrust upon his +immemorial hunting grounds was only a secondary evil; the greater evil +was the white man's family, bespeaking the increase of the dreaded +palefaces. The Indian peril trained the pioneers to alertness, shaped +them as warriors and hunters, suggested the fashion of their dress, knit +their families into clans and the clans into a tribe wherein all were of +one spirit in the protection of each and all and a unit of hate against +their common enemy. + +Too often the fields which the pioneer planted with corn were harvested +by the Indian with fire. The hardest privations suffered by farmers and +stock were due to the settlers having to flee to the forts, leaving to +Indian devastation the crops on which their sustenance mainly depended. +Sometimes, 40 fortunately, the warning came in time for the frontiersman +to collect his goods and chattels in his wagon and to round up his live +stock and drive them safely into the common fortified enclosure. At +others, the tap of the express--as the herald of Indian danger was +called--at night on the windowpane and the low word whispered hastily, +ere the express ran on to the next abode, meant that the Indians had +surprised the outlying cabins of the settlement. + +The forts were built as centrally as possible in the scattered +settlements. They consisted of cabins, blockhouses, and stockades. +A range of cabins often formed one side of a fort. The walls on the +outside were ten or twelve feet high with roofs sloping inward. The +blockhouses built at the angles of the fort projected two feet or so +beyond the outer walls of the cabins and stockades, and were fitted with +portholes for the watchers and the marksmen. The entrance to the fort +was a large folding gate of thick slabs. It was always on the side +nearest the spring. The whole structure of the fort was bullet-proof +and was erected without an iron nail or spike. In the border wars these +forts withstood all attacks. The savages, having proved that they could +not storm them, generally 41 laid siege and waited for thirst to compel +a sortie. But the crafty besieger was as often outwitted by the equally +cunning defender. Some daring soul, with silent feet and perhaps with +naked body painted in Indian fashion, would drop from the wall under +cover of the night, pass among the foemen to the spring, and return to +the fort with water. + +Into the pioneer's phrase-making the Indian influence penetrated so that +he named seasons for his foe. So thoroughly has the term Indian Summer, +now to us redolent of charm, become disassociated from its origins that +it gives us a shock to be reminded that to these Back Country folk the +balmy days following on the cold snap meant the season when the red +men would come back for a last murderous raid on the settlements before +winter should seal up the land. The Powwowing Days were the mellow days +in the latter part of February, when the red men in council made their +medicine and learned of their redder gods whether or no they should take +the warpath when the sap pulsed the trees into leaf. Even the children +at their play acknowledged the red-skinned schoolmaster, for their chief +games were a training in his woodcraft and in the use of 42 his weapons. +Tomahawk-throwing was a favorite sport because of its gruesome practical +purposes. The boys must learn to gauge the tomahawk's revolutions by the +distance of the throw so as to bury the blade in its objective. Swift +running and high jumping through the brush and fallen timber were sports +that taught agility in escape. The boys learned to shoot accurately the +long rifles of their time, with a log or a forked stick for a rest, and +a moss pad under the barrel to keep it from jerking and spoiling the +aim. They wrestled with each other, mastered the tricks of throwing an +opponent, and learned the scalp hold instead of the toe hold. It was +part of their education to imitate the noises of every bird and beast of +the forest. So they learned to lure the turkey within range, or by the +bleat of a fawn to bring her dam to the rifle. A well-simulated wolf's +howl would call forth a response and so inform the lone hunter of the +vicinity of the pack. This forest speech was not only the language of +diplomacy in the hunting season; it was the borderer's secret code in +war. Stray Indians put themselves in touch again with the band by turkey +calls in the daytime and by owl or wolf notes at night. The frontiersmen +used the same means to trick the Indian band into 43 betraying the place +of its ambuscade, or to lure the strays, unwitting, within reach of the +knife. + +In that age, before the forests had given place to farms and cities and +when the sun had but slight acquaintance with the sod, the summers were +cool and the winters long and cold in the Back Country. Sometimes in +September severe frosts destroyed the corn. The first light powdering +called hunting snows fell in October, and then the men of the Back +Country set out on the chase. Their object was meat--buffalo, deer, +elk, bear--for the winter larder, and skins to send out in the spring +by pack-horses to the coast in trade for iron, steel, and salt. The +rainfall in North Carolina was much heavier than in Virginia and, from +autumn into early winter, the Yadkin forests were sheeted with rain; but +wet weather, so far from deterring the hunter, aided him to the kill. +In blowing rain, he knew he would find the deer herding in the sheltered +places on the hillsides. In windless rain, he knew that his quarry +ranged the open woods and the high places. The fair play of the pioneer +held it a great disgrace to kill a deer in winter when the heavy frost +had crusted the deep snow. On the crust men and wolves could travel +with ease, but the deer's sharp hoofs pierced through and 44 made him +defenseless. Wolves and dogs destroyed great quantities of deer +caught in this way; and men who shot deer under these conditions were +considered no huntsmen. There was, indeed, a practical side to this +chivalry of the chase, for meat and pelt were both poor at this season; +but the true hunter also obeyed the finer tenet of his code, for he +would go to the rescue of deer caught in the crusts--and he killed many +a wolf sliding over the ice to an easy meal. + +The community moral code of the frontier was brief and rigorous. What +it lacked of the whereas and inasmuch of legal ink it made up in sound +hickory. In fact, when we review the activities of this solid yet +elastic wood in the moral, social, and economic phases of Back Country +life, we are moved to wonder if the pioneers would have been the +same race of men had they been nurtured beneath a less strenuous and +adaptable vegetation! The hickory gave the frontiersman wood for all +implements and furnishings where the demand was equally for lightness, +strength, and elasticity. It provided his straight logs for building, +his block mortars--hollowed by fire and stone--for corn-grinding, his +solid plain furniture, his axles, rifle butts, ax handles, and so forth. +It supplied 45 his magic wand for the searching out of iniquity in the +junior members of his household, and his most cogent argument, as a +citizen, in convincing the slothful, the blasphemous, or the dishonest +adult whose errors disturbed communal harmony. Its nuts fed his hogs. +Before he raised stock, the unripe hickory nuts, crushed for their white +liquid, supplied him with butter for his corn bread and helped out his +store of bear's fat. Both the name and the knowledge of the uses of this +tree came to the earliest pioneers through contact with the red man, +whose hunting bow and fishing spear and the hobbles for his horses were +fashioned of the pohickory tree. The Indian women first made pohickory +butter, and the wise old men of the Cherokee towns, so we are told, +first applied the pohickory rod to the vanity of youth! + +A glance at the interior of a log cabin in the Back Country of Virginia +or North Carolina would show, in primitive design, what is, perhaps, +after all the perfect home--a place where the personal life and the work +life are united and where nothing futile finds space. Every object in +the cabin was practical and had been made by hand on the spot to answer +a need. Besides the chairs hewn from hickory blocks, there were others +made of slabs 46 set on three legs. A large slab or two with four legs +served as a movable table; the permanent table was built against the +wall, its outer edge held up by two sticks. The low bed was built into +the wall in the same way and softened for slumber by a mattress of pine +needles, chaff, or dried moss. In the best light from the greased paper +windowpanes stood the spinning wheel and loom, on which the housewife +made cloth for the family's garments. Over the fireplace or beside the +doorway, and suspended usually on stags' antlers, hung the firearms and +the yellow powderhorns, the latter often carved in Indian fashion with +scenes of the hunt or war. On a shelf or on pegs were the wooden spoons, +plates, bowls, and noggins. Also near the fireplace, which was made of +large flat stones with a mud-plastered log chimney, stood the grinding +block for making hominy. If it were an evening in early spring, the men +of the household would be tanning and dressing deerskins to be sent out +with the trade caravan, while the women sewed, made moccasins or mended +them, in the light of pine knots or candles of bear's grease. The larger +children might be weaving cradles for the babies, Indian fashion, out of +hickory twigs; and there would surely be a sound of whetting steel, for +scalping 47 knives and tomahawks must be kept keen-tempered now that the +days have come when the red gods whisper their chant of war through the +young leafage. + +The Back Country folk, as they came from several countries, generally +settled in national groups, each preserving its own speech and its +own religion, each approaching frontier life through its own native +temperament. And the frontier met each and all alike, with the same need +and the same menace, and molded them after one general pattern. If the +cabin stood in a typical Virginian settlement where the folk were of +English stock, it may be that the dulcimer and some old love song of +the homeland enlivened the work--or perhaps chairs were pushed back and +young people danced the country dances of the homeland and the Virginia +Reel, for these Virginian English were merry folk, and their religion +did not frown upon the dance. In a cabin on the Shenandoah or the upper +Yadkin the German tongue clicked away over the evening dish of kraut or +sounded more sedately in a Lutheran hymn; while from some herder's hut +on the lower Yadkin the wild note of the bagpipes or of the ancient +four-stringed harp mingled with the Gaelic speech. + +48 Among the homes in the Shenandoah where old England's ways prevailed, +none was gayer than the tavern kept by the man whom the good Moravian +Brother called Severe. There perhaps the feasting celebrated the +nuptials of John Sevier, who was barely past his seventeenth birthday +when he took to himself a wife. Or perhaps the dancing, in moccasined +feet on the puncheon flooring, was a ceremonial to usher into Back +Country life the new municipality John had just organized, for John at +nineteen had taken his earliest step towards his larger career, which we +shall follow later on, as the architect of the first little governments +beyond the mountains. + +In the Boone home on the Yadkin, we may guess that the talk was solely +of the hunt, unless young Daniel had already become possessed of his +first compass and was studying its ways. On such an evening, while the +red afterglow lingered, he might be mending a passing trader's firearms +by the fires of the primitive forge his father had set up near the +trading path running from Hillsborough to the Catawba towns. It was said +by the local nimrods that none could doctor a sick rifle better than +young Daniel Boone, already the master huntsman of them all. And perhaps +some trader's tale, told 49 when the caravan halted for the night, +kindled the youth's first desire to penetrate the mountain-guarded +wilderness, for the tales of these Romanies of commerce were as the very +badge of their free-masonry, and entry money at the doors of strangers. + +Out on the border's edge, heedless of the shadow of the mountains +looming between the newly built cabin and that western land where they +and their kind were to write the fame of the Ulster Scot in a shining +script that time cannot dull, there might sit a group of stern-faced +men, all deep in discussion of some point of spiritual doctrine or of +the temporal rights of men. Yet, in every cabin, whatever the national +differences, the setting was the same. The spirit of the frontier was +modeling out of old clay a new Adam to answer the needs of a new earth. + +It would be far less than just to leave the Back Country folk without +further reference to the devoted labors of their clergy. In the earliest +days the settlers were cut off from their church systems; the pious had +to maintain their piety unaided, except in the rare cases where a pastor +accompanied a group of settlers of his denomination into the wilds. One +of the first ministers who fared into 50 the Back Country to remind the +Ulster Presbyterians of their spiritual duties was the Reverend Hugh +McAden of Philadelphia. He made long itineraries under the greatest +hardships, in constant danger from Indians and wild beasts, carrying +the counsel of godliness to the far scattered flock. Among the Highland +settlements the Reverend James Campbell for thirty years traveled about, +preaching each Sunday at some gathering point a sermon in both English +and Gaelic. A little later, in the Yadkin Valley, after Craighead's +day there arose a small school of Presbyterian ministers whose zeal +and fearlessness in the cause of religion and of just government had an +influence on the frontiersmen that can hardly be overestimated. + +But, in the beginning, the pioneer encountered the savagery of border +life, grappled with it, and reacted to it without guidance from other +mentor than his own instincts. His need was still the primal threefold +need--family, sustenance, and safe sleep when the day's work was done. +We who look back with thoughtful eyes upon the frontiersman--all links +of contact with his racial past severed, at grips with destruction in +the contenting of his needs--see something more, something 51 larger, +than he saw in the log cabin raised by his hands, its structure held +together solely by his close grooving and fitting of its own strength. +Though the walls he built for himself have gone with his own dust back +to the earth, the symbol he erected for us stands. + +52 + + + + +Chapter III + +The Trader + +The trader was the first pathfinder. His caravans began the change +of purpose that was to come to the Indian warrior's route, turning +it slowly into the beaten track of communication and commerce. The +settlers, the rangers, the surveyors, went westward over the trails +which he had blazed for them years before. Their enduring works are +commemorated in the cities and farms which today lie along every ancient +border line; but of their forerunner's hazardous Indian trade nothing +remains. Let us therefore pay a moment's homage here to the trader, who +first--to borrow a phrase from Indian speech--made white for peace the +red trails of war. + +He was the first cattleman of the Old Southwest. Fifty years before +John Findlay¹, one of this class of pioneers, led Daniel Boone through +Cumberland 53 Gap, the trader's bands of horses roamed the western +slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and his cattle grazed among the deer +on the green banks of the old Cherokee (Tennessee) River. He was the +pioneer settler beyond the high hills; for he built, in the center of +the Indian towns, the first white man's cabin--with its larger annex, +the trading house--and dwelt there during the greater part of the year. +He was America's first magnate of international commerce. His furs--for +which he paid in guns, knives, ammunition, vermilion paint, mirrors, +and cloth--lined kings' mantles, and hatted the Lords of Trade as they +strode to their council chamber in London to discuss his business and to +pass those regulations which might have seriously hampered him but for +his resourcefulness in circumventing them! + +¹ The name is spelled in various ways: Findlay, Finlay, Findley. He +was the first frontier warrior, for he either fought off or fell before +small parties of hostile Indians who, in the interest of the Spanish or +French, raided his pack-horse caravans on the march. Often, too, side by +side with the red brothers of his adoption, he fought in the intertribal +wars. His was the first educative and civilizing influence in the Indian +towns. He endeavored to cure the Indians of their favorite midsummer +madness, war, by inducing 54 them to raise stock and poultry and improve +their corn, squash, and pea gardens. It is not necessary to impute to +him philanthropic motives. He was a practical man and he saw that war +hurt his trade: it endangered his summer caravans and hampered the +autumn hunt for deerskins. + +In the earliest days of the eighteenth century, when the colonists of +Virginia and the Carolinas were only a handful, it was the trader who +defeated each successive attempt of French and Spanish agents to weld +the tribes into a confederacy for the annihilation of the English +settlements. The English trader did his share to prevent what is now the +United States from becoming a part of a Latin empire and to save it for +a race having the Anglo-Saxon ideal and speaking the English tongue. + +The colonial records of the period contain items which, taken singly, +make small impression on the casual reader but which, listed together, +throw a strong light on the past and bring that mercenary figure, the +trader, into so bold a relief that the design verges on the heroic. If +we wonder, for instance, why the Scotch Highlanders who settled in the +wilds at the headwaters of the Cape Fear River, about 1729, and were +later followed by Welsh and Huguenots, met with no opposition 55 from +the Indians, the mystery is solved when we discover, almost by accident, +a few printed lines which record that, in 1700, the hostile natives +on the Cape Fear were subdued to the English and brought into friendly +alliance with them by Colonel William Bull, a trader. We read further +and learn that the Spaniards in Florida had long endeavored to unite the +tribes in Spanish and French territory against the English and that the +influence of traders prevented the consummation. The Spaniards, in 1702, +had prepared to invade English territory with nine hundred Indians. The +plot was discovered by Creek Indians and disclosed to their friends, +the traders, who immediately gathered together five hundred warriors, +marched swiftly to meet the invaders, and utterly routed them. Again, +when the Indians, incited by the Spanish at St. Augustine, rose against +the English in 1715, and the Yamasi Massacre occurred in South Carolina, +it was due to the traders that some of the settlements at least were not +wholly unprepared to defend themselves. + +The early English trader was generally an intelligent man; sometimes +educated, nearly always fearless and resourceful. He knew the one sure +basis on which men of alien blood and far separated 56 stages of moral +and intellectual development can meet in understanding--namely, the +truth of the spoken word. He recognized honor as the bond of trade and +the warp and woof of human intercourse. The uncorrupted savage also had +his plain interpretation of the true word in the mouths of men, and +a name for it. He called it the Old Beloved Speech; and he gave his +confidence to the man who spoke this speech even in the close barter for +furs. + +We shall find it worth while to refer to the map of America as it was +in the early days of the colonial fur trade, about the beginning of the +eighteenth century. A narrow strip of loosely strung English settlements +stretched from the north border of New England to the Florida line. +North Florida was Spanish territory. On the far distant southwestern +borders of the English colonies were the southern possessions of France. +The French sphere of influence extended up the Mississippi, and thence +by way of rivers and the Great Lakes to its base in Canada on the +borders of New England and New York. In South Carolina dwelt the Yamasi +tribe of about three thousand warriors, their chief towns only sixty or +eighty miles distant from the Spanish town of St. Augustine. On the 57 +west, about the same distance northeast of New Orleans, in what is now +Alabama and Georgia, lay the Creek nation. There French garrisons held +Mobile and Fort Alabama. The Creeks at this time numbered over four +thousand warriors. The lands of the Choctaws, a tribe of even larger +fighting strength, began two hundred miles north of New Orleans and +extended along the Mississippi. A hundred and sixty miles northeast of +the Choctaw towns were the Chickasaws, the bravest and most successful +warriors of all the tribes south of the Iroquois. The Cherokees, in part +seated within the Carolinas, on the upper courses of the Savannah River, +mustered over six thousand men at arms. East of them were the Catawba +towns. North of them were the Shawanoes and Delawares, in easy +communication with the tribes of Canada. Still farther north, along the +Mohawk and other rivers joining with the Hudson and Lake Ontario stood +the long houses of the fiercest and most warlike of all the savages, the +Iroquois or Six Nations. + +The Indians along the English borders outnumbered the colonists +perhaps ten to one. If the Spanish and the French had succeeded in +the conspiracy to unite on their side all the tribes, a red billow of +tomahawk wielders would have engulfed 58 and extinguished the English +settlements. The French, it is true, made allies of the Shawanoes, the +Delawares, the Choctaws, and a strong faction of the Creeks; and they +finally won over the Cherokees after courting them for more than twenty +years. But the Creeks in part, the powerful Chickasaws, and the Iroquois +Confederacy, or Six Nations, remained loyal to the English. In both +North and South it was the influence of the traders that kept these red +tribes on the English side. The Iroquois were held loyal by Sir William +Johnson and his deputy, George Croghan, the King of Traders. The +Chickasaws followed their best-beloved trader, James Adair; and among +the Creeks another trader, Lachlan McGillivray, wielded a potent +influence. + +Lachlan McGillivray was a Highlander. He landed in Charleston in 1735 at +the age of sixteen and presently joined a trader's caravan as pack-horse +boy. A few years later he married a woman of the Creeks. On many +occasions he defeated French and Spanish plots with the Creeks for the +extermination of the colonists in Georgia and South Carolina. His action +in the final war with the French (1760), when the Indian terror was +raging, is typical. News came that four thousand 59 Creek warriors, +reinforced by French Choctaws, were about to fall on the southern +settlements. At the risk of their lives, McGillivray and another trader +named Galphin hurried from Charleston to their trading house on the +Georgia frontier. Thither they invited several hundred Creek warriors, +feasted and housed them for several days, and finally won them from +their purpose. McGillivray had a brilliant son, Alexander, who about +this time became a chief in his mother's nation--perhaps on this very +occasion, as it was an Indian custom, in making a brotherhood pact, to +send a son to dwell in the brother's house. We shall meet that son +again as the Chief of the Creeks and the terrible scourge of Georgia and +Tennessee in the dark days of the Revolutionary War. + +The bold deeds of the early traders, if all were to be told, would +require a book as long as the huge volume written by James Adair, the +English Chickasaw. Adair was an Englishman who entered the Indian trade +in 1785 and launched upon the long and dangerous trail from Charleston +to the upper towns of the Cherokees, situated in the present Monroe +County, Tennessee. Thus he was one of the earliest pioneers of the Old +Southwest; and he was Tennessee's first author. I 60 am well acquainted, +he says, with near two thousand miles of the American continent--a +statement which gives one some idea of an early trader's enterprise, +hardihood, and peril. Adair's two thousand miles were twisting Indian +trails and paths he slashed out for himself through uninhabited wilds, +for when not engaged in trade, hunting, literature, or war, it pleased +him to make solitary trips of exploration. These seem to have led him +chiefly northward through the Appalachians, of which he must have been +one of the first white explorers. + +A many-sided man was James Adair--cultured, for his style suffers not +by comparison with other writers of his day, no stranger to Latin and +Greek, and not ignorant of Hebrew, which he studied to assist him in +setting forth his ethnological theory that the American Indians were +the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Before we dismiss his +theory with a smile, let us remember that he had not at his disposal the +data now available which reveal points of likeness in custom, language +formation, and symbolism among almost all primitive peoples. The +formidable title-page of his book in itself suggests an author keenly +observant, accurate as to detail, and possessed of a 61 versatile and +substantial mind. Most of the pages were written in the towns of the +Chickasaws, with whom he lived as a friend and brother, but from whose +natural jealousy and prying disposition he was obliged to conceal his +papers. Never, he assures us, was a literary work begun and carried on +with more disadvantages! + +Despite these disabilities the author wrote a book of absorbing +interest. His intimate sympathetic pictures of Indian life as it was +before the tribes had been conquered are richly valuable to the lover of +native lore and to the student of the history of white settlement. The +author believes, as he must, in the supremacy of his own race, but he +nevertheless presents the Indians' side of the argument as no man could +who had not made himself one of them. He thereby adds interest to those +fierce struggles which took place along the border; for he shows us the +red warrior not as a mere brute with a tomahawk but as a human creature +with an ideal of his own, albeit an ideal that must give place to a +better. Even in view of the red man's hideous methods of battle +and inhuman treatment of captives, we cannot ponder unmoved Adair's +description of his preparations for war--the fasting, the abstention +from all family 62 intercourse, and the purification rites and prayers +for three days in the house set apart, while the women, who might not +come close to their men in this fateful hour, stood throughout the night +till dawn chanting before the door. Another poetic touch the author +gives us, from the Cherokee--or Cheerake as he spells it--explaining +that the root, chee-ra, means fire. A Cherokee never extinguished fire +save on the occasion of a death, when he thrust a burning torch into the +water and said, _Neetah intahah_--the days appointed him were finished. +The warrior slain in battle was held to have been balanced by death and +it was said of him that he was weighed on the path and made light. Adair +writes that the Cherokees, until corrupted by French agents and by +the later class of traders who poured rum among them like water, were +honest, industrious, and friendly. They were ready to meet the white +man with their customary phrase of good will: I shall firmly shake hands +with your speech. He was intimately associated with this tribe from 1735 +to 1744, when he diverted his activities to the Chickasaws. + +It was from the Cherokees' chief town, Great Telliko, in the +Appalachians, that Adair explored the mountains. He describes the pass +through the 63 chain which was used by the Indians and which, from +his outline of it, was probably the Cumberland Gap. He relates many +incidents of the struggle with the French--manifestations even in this +remote wilderness of the vast conflict that was being waged for the New +World by two imperial nations of the Old. + +Adair undertook, at the solicitation of Governor Glen of South Carolina, +the dangerous task of opening up trade with the Choctaws, a tribe +mustering upwards of five thousand warriors who were wholly in +the French interest. Their country lay in what is now the State of +Mississippi along the great river, some seven hundred miles west and +southwest of Charleston. After passing the friendly Creek towns the +trail led on for 150 miles through what was practically the enemy's +country. Adair, owing to what he likes to term his usual good fortune, +reached the Choctaw country safely and by his adroitness and substantial +presents won the friendship of the influential chief, Red Shoe, whom +he found in a receptive mood, owing to a French agent's breach of +hospitality involving Red Shoe's favorite wife. Adair thus created a +large pro-English faction among the Choctaws, and his success seriously +impaired French prestige with all 64 the southwestern tribes. Several +times French Choctaws bribed to murder him, waylaid Adair on the +trail--twice when he was alone--only to be baffled by the imperturbable +self-possession and alert wit which never failed him in emergencies. + +Winning a Choctaw trade cost Adair, besides attacks on his life, £2200, +for which he was never reimbursed, notwithstanding Governor Glen's +agreement with him. And, on his return to Charleston, while the Governor +was detaining him on one pretext or another, he found that a new +expedition, which the Governor was favoring for reasons of his own, had +set out to capture his Chickasaw trade and gather in the expected great +crop of deerskins and beaver… before I could possibly return to the +Chikkasah Country. Nothing daunted, however, the hardy trader set out +alone. + +In the severity of winter, frost, snow, hail and heavy rains succeed +each other in these climes, so that I partly rode and partly swam to the +Chikkasah country; for not expecting to stay long below [in Charleston] +I took no leathern canoe. Many of the broad, deep creeks… had now +overflowed their banks, ran at a rapid rate and were unpassable to any +but desperate people:… the rivers and swamps were dreadful by rafts of +timber driving down the former and the great fallen trees floating in +the latter.… Being forced to wade deep through cane swamps or woody +thickets, it proved very 65 troublesome to keep my firearms dry on +which, as a second means, my life depended. + +Nevertheless Adair defeated the Governor's attempt to steal his trade, +and later on published the whole story in the Charleston press and sent +in a statement of his claims to the Assembly, with frank observations +on His Excellency himself. We gather that his bold disregard of High +Personages set all Charleston in an uproar! + +Adair is tantalizingly modest about his own deeds. He devotes pages to +prove that an Indian rite agrees with the Book of Leviticus but only a +paragraph to an exploit of courage and endurance such as that ride and +swim for the Indian trade. We have to read between the lines to find the +man; but he well repays the search. Briefly, incidentally, he mentions +that on one trip he was captured by the French, who were so, well +acquainted with the great damages I had done to them and feared others +I might occasion, as to confine me a close prisoner… in the Alebahma +garrison. They were fully resolved to have sent me down to Mobile or New +Orleans as a capital criminal to be hanged… but I doubted not of being +able to extricate myself some way or other. They appointed double +centries over me for some days before I was to be sent down in the +French King's large boat. They were strongly charged against 66 laying +down their weapons or suffering any hostile thing to be in the place +where I was kept, as they deemed me capable of any mischief.… About an +hour before we were to set off by water I escaped from them by land.… +I took through the middle of the low land covered with briers at full +speed. I heard the French clattering on horseback along the path… and +the howling savages pursuing…, but my usual good fortune enabled me to +leave them far enough behind.… + +One feels that a few of the pages given up to Leviticus might well have +been devoted to a detailed account of this escape from double centries +and a fortified garrison, and the plunge through the tangled wilds, by +a man without gun or knife or supplies, and who for days dared not show +himself upon the trail. + +There is too much of my usual good fortune in Adair's narrative; such +luck as his argues for extraordinary resources in the man. Sometimes +we discover only through one phrase on a page that he must himself have +been the hero of an event he relates in the third person. This seems +to be the case in the affair of Priber, which was the worst of those +damages Adair did to the French. Priber was a gentleman of curious and +speculative temper sent by the French in 1736 to Great Telliko to win +the Cherokees to their interest. 67 At this time Adair was trading with +the Cherokees. He relates that Priber, more effectually to answer +the design of his commission… ate, drank, slept, danced, dressed, and +painted himself with the Indians, so that it was not easy to distinguish +him from the natives,--he married also with them, and being endued +with a strong understanding and retentive memory he soon learned their +dialect, and by gradual advances impressed them with a very ill +opinion of the English, representing them as fraudulent, avaritious and +encroaching people; he at the same time inflated the artless savages +with a prodigious high opinion of their own importance in the American +scale of power.… Having thus infected them… he easily formed them into +a nominal republican government--crowned their old Archi-magus +emperor after a pleasing new savage form, and invented a variety of +high-sounding titles for all the members of his imperial majesty's red +court. + +Priber cemented the Cherokee empire by slow but sure degrees to the +very great danger of our southern colonies. His position was that of +Secretary of State and as such, with a studiedly provocative arrogance, +he carried on correspondence with the British authorities. The colonial +Government seems, on this occasion, to have listened to the traders and +to have realized that Priber was a danger, for soldiers were sent to +take him prisoner. The Cherokees, however, 68 had so firmly shaked hands +with their Secretary's admired discourse that they threatened to take +the warpath if their beloved man were annoyed, and the soldiers went +home without him--to the great hurt of English prestige. The Cherokee +empire had now endured for five years and was about to rise into a far +greater state of puissance by the acquisition of the Muskohge, Chocktaw +and the Western Mississippi Indians, when fortunately for the history of +British colonization in America, an accident befell the Secretary. + +It is in connection with this accident that the reader suspects the +modest but resourceful Adair of conniving with Fate. Since the military +had failed and the Government dared not again employ force, other means +must be found; the trader provided them. The Secretary with his Cherokee +bodyguard journeyed south on his mission to the Creeks. Secure, as he +supposed, he lodged overnight in an Indian town. But there a company +of English traders took him into custody, along with his bundle of +manuscripts presumably intended for the French commandant at Fort +Alabama, and handed him over to the Governor of Georgia, who imprisoned +him and kept him out of mischief till he died. + +As a Briton, Adair contributed to Priber's fate; 69 and as such he +approves it. As a scholar with philosophical and ethnological leanings, +however, he deplores it, and hopes that Priber's valuable manuscripts +may escape the despoiling hands of military power. Priber had spent his +leisure in compiling a Cherokee dictionary; Adair's occupation, while +domiciled in his winter house in Great Telliko, was the writing of his +Indian Appendix to the Pentateuch. As became brothers in science, +they had exchanged notes, so we gather from Adair's references to +conversations and correspondence. Adair's difficulties as an author, +however, had been increased by a treacherous lapse from professional +etiquette on the part of the Secretary: He told them [the Indians] +that in the very same manner as he was their great Secretary, I was the +devil's clerk, or an accursed one who marked on paper the bad speech of +the evil ones of darkness. On his own part Adair admits that his object +in this correspondence was to trap the Secretary into something more +serious than literary errata. That is, he admits it by implication; +he says the Secretary feared it. During the years of their duel, Adair +apparently knew that the scholarly compiler of the Cherokee dictionary +was secretly inciting members of this particular Lost Tribe to tomahawk +the discoverer of 70 their biblical origin; and Priber, it would seem, +knew that he knew! + +Adair shows, inferentially, that land encroachment was not the sole +cause of those Indian wars with which we shall deal in a later chapter. +The earliest causes were the instigations of the French and the rewards +which they offered for English scalps. But equally provocative of Indian +rancor were the acts of sometimes merely stupid, sometimes dishonest, +officials; the worst of these, Adair considered, was the cheapening of +the trade through the granting of general licenses. + +Formerly each trader had a license for two [Indian] towns.… At my first +setting out among them, a number of traders… journeyed through our +various nations in different companies and were generally men of worth; +of course they would have a living price for their goods, which they +carried on horseback to the remote Indian countries at very great +expences.… [The Indians] were kept under proper restraint, were easy in +their minds and peaceable on account of the plain, honest lessons daily +inculcated on them… but according to the present unwise plan, two and +even three Arablike peddlars sculk about in one of those villages… who +are generally the dregs and offs-courings of our climes… by inebriating +the Indians with their nominally prohibited and poisoning spirits, they +purchase the necessaries of life at four and five hundred per cent 71 +cheaper than the orderly traders.… Instead of showing good examples +of moral conduct, beside the other part of life, they instruct the +unknowing and imitating savages in many diabolical lessons of obscenity +and blasphemy. + +In these statements, contemporary records bear him out. There is no +sadder reading than the many pleas addressed by the Indian chiefs to +various officials to stop the importation of liquor into their country, +alleging the debauchment of their young men and warning the white man, +with whom they desired to be friends, that in an Indian drink and blood +lust quickly combined. + +Adair's book was published in London in 1775. He wrote it to be read by +Englishmen as well as Americans; and some of his reflections on liberty, +justice, and Anglo-Saxon unity would not sound unworthily today. His +sympathies were with the principles of our Magna Charta Americana; but +he thought the threatened division of the English-speaking peoples +the greatest evil that could befall civilization. His voluminous work +discloses a man not only of wide mental outlook but a practical man +with a sense of commercial values. Yet, instead of making a career for +himself among his own caste, he made his home for over thirty years 72 +in the Chickasaw towns; and it is plain that, with the exception of some +of his older brother traders, he preferred the Chickasaw to any other +society. + +The complete explanation of such men as Adair we need not expect to +find stated anywhere--not even in and between the lines of his book. +The conventionalist would seek it in moral obliquity; the radical, in a +temperament that is irked by the superficialities that comprise so large +a part of conventional standards. The reason for his being what he was +is almost the only thing Adair did not analyze in his book. Perhaps, +to him, it was self evident. We may let it be so to us, and see it most +clearly presented in a picture composed from some of his brief sketches: +A land of grass and green shade inset with bright waters, where deer +and domestic cattle herded together along the banks; a circling group +of houses, their white-clayed walls sparkling under the sun's rays, and, +within and without, the movement of a friendly and sagacious people, who +kindly treated and watchfully guarded their white brother in peace and +war, and who conversed daily with him in the Old Beloved Speech learned +first of Nature. Like towers in cities beyond the common size of those +of the Indians rose the winter and summer houses 73 and the huge trading +house which the tribe had built for their best beloved friend in the +town's center, because there he would be safest from attack. On the +rafters hung the smoked and barbecued delicacies taken in the hunt and +prepared for him by his red servants, who were also his comrades at home +and on the dangerous trail. Beloved old women kept an eye on his small +sons, put to drowse on panther skins so that they might grow up brave +warriors. Nothing was there of artifice or pretense, only the needful +things to make a reasonable life happy. All was as primitive, naive, +and contented as the woman whose outline is given once in a few strokes, +proudly and gayly penciled: I have the pleasure of writing this by the +side of a Chikkasah female, as great a princess as ever lived among the +ancient Peruvians or Mexicans, and she bids me be sure not to mark the +paper wrong after the manner of most of the traders; otherwise it will +spoil the making good bread or homony! + +His final chapter is the last news of James Adair, type of the earliest +trader. Did his bold attacks on corrupt officials and rum peddlers--made +publicly before Assemblies and in print--raise for him a dense cloud of +enmity that dropped oblivion 74 on his memory? Perhaps. But, in truth, +his own book is all the history of him we need. It is the record of a +man. He lived a full life and served his day; and it matters not that +a mist envelops the place where unafraid he met the Last Enemy, was +weighed on the path and made light. + +75 + + + + +Chapter IV + +The Passing Of The French Peril + +The great pile of the Appalachian peaks was not the only barrier which +held back the settler with his plough and his rifle from following the +trader's tinkling caravans into the valleys beyond. Over the hills the +French were lords of the land. The frontiersman had already felt their +enmity through the torch and tomahawk of their savage allies. By his own +strength alone he could not cope with the power entrenched beyond the +hills; so he halted. But that power, by its unachievable desire to be +overlord of two hemispheres, was itself to precipitate events which +would open the westward road. + +The recurring hour in the cycle of history, when the issue of Autocracy +against Democracy cleaves the world, struck for the men of the +eighteenth century as the second half of that century dawned. In our own +day, happily, that issue has been perceived by the rank and file of the +people. In 76 those darker days, as France and England grappled in +that conflict of systems which culminated in the Seven Years' War, the +fundamental principles at stake were clear to only a handful of thinking +men. + +But abstractions, whether clear or obscure, do not cause ambassadors +to demand their passports. The declaration of war awaits the overt act. +Behold, then, how great a matter is kindled by a little fire! The _casus +belli_ between France and England in the Seven Years' War--the war which +humbled France in Europe and lost her India and Canada--had to do with +a small log fort built by a few Virginians in 1754 at the Forks of +the Ohio River and wrested from them in the same year by a company of +Frenchmen from Canada. + +The French claimed the valley of the Ohio as their territory; the +English claimed it as theirs. The dispute was of long standing. +The French claim was based on discovery; the English claim, on the +sea-to-sea charters of Virginia and other colonies and on treaties +with the Six Nations. The French refused to admit the right of the +Six Nations to dispose of the territory. The English were inclined to +maintain the validity of their treaties with the Indians. Especially was +Virginia so 77 inclined, for a large share of the Ohio lay within her +chartered domain. + +The quarrel had entered its acute phase in 1749, when both the rival +claimants took action to assert their sovereignty. The Governor of +Canada sent an envoy, Céloron de Blainville, with soldiers, to take +formal possession of the Ohio for the King of France. In the same year +the English organized in Virginia the Ohio Company for the colonization +of the same country; and summoned Christopher Gist, explorer, trader, +and guide, from his home on the Yadkin and dispatched him to survey the +land. + +Then appeared on the scene that extraordinary man, Robert Dinwiddie, +Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, erstwhile citizen of Glasgow. His +correspondence from Virginia during his seven years' tenure of office +(1751-58) depicts the man with a vividness surpassing paint. He was as +honest as the day--as honest as he was fearless and fussy. But he had +no patience; he wanted things done and done at once, and his way was the +way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't think +at all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course +continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. 78 Dinwiddie +had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his addresses, +perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, bristled with +satirical thrusts at his opponents. If he had spelled out in full all +the words he was so eager to write, he would have been obliged to lessen +his output; so he used a shorthand system of his own, peculiar enough to +be remarkable even though abbreviations were the rule in that day. Even +the dignity of Kings he sacrificed to speed, and we find His Majesty +abbreviated to H M'y; yet a smaller luminary known as His Honor fares +better, losing only the last letter--His Hono. Ho. stands for house and +yt for that, what, it, and anything else, as convenient. Many of his +letters wind up with I am ve'y much fatig'd. We know that he must have +been! + +It was a formidable task that confronted Dinwiddie--to possess and +defend the Ohio. Christopher Gist returned in 1751, having surveyed the +valley for the Ohio Company as far as the Scioto and Miami rivers, +and in the following year the survey was ratified by the Indians. +The Company's men were busy blazing trails through the territory and +building fortified posts. But the French dominated the territory. They +had built 79 and occupied with troops Fort Le Bœuf on French Creek, a +stream flowing into the Allegheny. We may imagine Dinwiddie's rage at +this violation of British soil by French soldiers and how he must have +sputtered to the young George Washington, when he summoned that officer +and made him the bearer of a letter to the French commander at Fort Le +Bœuf, to demand that French troops be at once withdrawn from the Ohio. + +Washington made the journey to Fort Le Bœuf in December, 1753, but +the mission of course proved fruitless. Dinwiddie then wrote to London +urging that a force be sent over to help the colonies maintain their +rights and, under orders from the Crown, suggested by himself, he wrote +to the governors of all the other colonies to join with Virginia in +raising troops to settle the ownership of the disputed territory. From +Governor Dobbs of North Carolina he received an immediate response. +By means of logic, sarcasm, and the entire force of his prerogatives, +Dinwiddie secured from his own balking Assembly £10,000 with which +to raise troops. From Maryland he obtained nothing. There were three +prominent Marylanders in the Ohio Company, but--or because of +this--the Maryland Assembly voted down the measure for 80 a military +appropriation. On June 18, 1754, Dinwiddie wrote, with unusually full +spelling for him: + +I am perswaded had His Majesty's Com'ds to the other Colonies been duely +obey'd, and the necessary Assistance given by them, the Fr. wou'd have +long ago have been oblig'd entirely to have evacuated their usurp'd +Possession of the King's Lands, instead of w'ch they are daily becoming +more formidable, whilst every Gov't except No. Caro. has amus'd me with +Expectations that have proved fruitless, and at length refuse to give +any Supply, unless in such a manner as must render it ineffectual. + +This saddened mood with its deliberate penmanship did not last long. +Presently Dinwiddie was making a Round Robin of himself in another +series of letters to Governors, Councilors, and Assemblymen, frantically +beseeching them for H. M'y's hono. and their own, and, if not, for +post'r'ty, to rise against the cruel French whose Indians were harrying +the borders again and Basely, like Virmin, stealing and carrying off the +helpless infant--as nice a simile, by the way, as any Sheridan ever put +into the mouth of Mrs. Malaprop. + +Dinwiddie saw his desires thwarted on every hand by the selfish spirit +of localism and jealousy which was more rife in America in those days +than it is today. Though the phrase capitalistic war 81 had not yet been +coined, the great issues of English civilization on this continent were +befogged, for the majority in the colonies, by the trivial fact that the +shareholders in the Ohio Company stood to win by a vigorous prosecution +of the war and to lose if it were not prosecuted at all. The irascible +Governor, however, proceeded with such men and means as he could obtain. + +And now in the summer of 1754 came the overt act which precipitated the +inevitable war. The key to the valley of the Ohio was the tongue of land +at the Forks, where the Allegheny and the Monongahela join their waters +in the Beautiful River. This site--today Pittsburgh--if occupied and +held by either nation would give that nation the command of the Ohio. +Occupied it was for a brief hour by a small party of Virginians, under +Captain William Trent; but no sooner had they erected on the spot a +crude fort than the French descended upon them. What happened then all +the world knows: how the French built on the captured site their great +Fort Duquesne; how George Washington with an armed force, sent by +Dinwiddie to recapture the place, encountered French and Indians at +Great Meadows and built Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to +surrender; 82 how in the next year (1755) General Braddock arrived from +across the sea and set out to take Fort Duquesne, only to meet on the +way the disaster called Braddock's Defeat; and how, before another year +had passed, the Seven Years' War was raging in Europe, and England was +allied with the enemies of France. + +From the midst of the debacle of Braddock's defeat rises the figure +of the young Washington. Twenty-three he was then, tall and spare and +hardbodied from a life spent largely in the open. When Braddock fell, +this Washington appeared. Reckless of the enemy's bullets, which spanged +about him and pierced his clothes, he dashed up and down the lines in an +effort to rally the panic-stricken redcoats. He was too late to save +the day, but not to save a remnant of the army and bring out his own +Virginians in good order. Whether among the stay-at-homes and voters of +credits there were some who would have ascribed Washington's conduct on +that day to the fact that his brothers were large shareholders in the +Ohio Company and that Fort Duquesne was their personal property or +"private interest," history does not say. We may suppose so. + +North Carolina, the one colony which had not 83 amus'd the Governor of +Virginia with Expectations that proved fruitless, had voted £12,000 +for the war and had raised two companies of troops. One of these, under +Edward Brice Dobbs, son of Governor Dobbs, marched with Braddock; and +in that company as wagoner went Daniel Boone, then in his twenty-second +year. Of Boone's part in Braddock's campaign nothing more is recorded +save that on the march he made friends with John Findlay, the trader, +his future guide into Kentucky; and that, on the day of the defeat, when +his wagons were surrounded, he escaped by slashing the harness, leaping +on the back of one of his horses, and dashing into the forest. + +Meanwhile the southern tribes along the border were comparatively quiet. +That they well knew a colossal struggle between the two white races was +pending and were predisposed to ally themselves with the stronger is +not to be doubted. French influence had long been sifting through the +formidable Cherokee nation, which still, however, held true in the main +to its treaties with the English. It was the policy of the Governors of +Virginia and North Carolina to induce the Cherokees to enter strongly +into the war as allies of the 84 English. Their efforts came to nothing +chiefly because of the purely local and suicidal Indian policy of +Governor Glen of South Carolina. There had been some dispute between +Glen and Dinwiddie as to the right of Virginia to trade with the +Cherokees; and Glen had sent to the tribes letters calculated to sow +distrust of all other aspirants for Indian favor, even promising that +certain settlers in the Back Country of North Carolina should be removed +and their holdings restored to the Indians. These letters caused great +indignation in North Carolina, when they came to light, and had the +worst possible effect upon Indian relations. The Indians now inclined +their ear to the French who, though fewer than the English, were at +least united in purpose. + +Governor Glen took this inauspicious moment to hold high festival with +the Cherokees. It was the last year of his administration and +apparently he hoped to win promotion to some higher post by showing his +achievements for the fur trade and in the matter of new land acquired. +He plied the Cherokees with drink and induced them to make formal +submission and to cede all their lands to the Crown. When the chiefs +recovered their sobriety, they were filled with rage at what had been +done, 85 and they remembered how the French had told them that the +English intended to make slaves of all the Indians and to steal their +lands. The situation was complicated by another incident. Several +Cherokee warriors returning from the Ohio, whither they had gone +to fight for the British, were slain by frontiersmen. The tribe, +in accordance with existing agreements, applied to Virginia for +redress--but received none. + +There was thus plenty of powder for an explosion. Governor Lyttleton, +Glen's successor, at last flung the torch into the magazine. He seized, +as hostages, a number of friendly chiefs who were coming to Charleston +to offer tokens of good will and forced them to march under guard on +a military tour which the Governor was making (1759) with intent to +overawe the savages. When this expedition reached Prince George, on the +upper waters of the Savannah, the Indian hostages were confined within +the fort; and the Governor, satisfied with the result of his maneuver +departed south for Charleston. Then followed a tragedy. Some Indian +friends of the imprisoned chiefs attacked the fort, and the commander, +a popular young officer, was treacherously killed during a parley. The +infuriated frontiersmen within the fort fell upon the 86 hostages and +slew them all--twenty-six chiefs--and the Indian war was on. + +If all were to be told of the struggle which followed in the Back +Country, the story could not be contained in this book. Many brave +and resourceful men went out against the savages. We can afford only a +passing glance at one of them. Hugh Waddell of North Carolina was the +most brilliant of all the frontier fighters in that war. He was a young +Ulsterman from County Down, a born soldier, with a special genius for +fighting Indians, although he did not grow up on the border, for he +arrived in North Carolina in 1753, at the age of nineteen. He was +appointed by Governor Dobbs to command the second company which North +Carolina had raised for the war, a force of 450 rangers to protect the +border counties; and he presently became the most conspicuous military +figure in the colony. As to his personality, we have only a few meager +details, with a portrait that suggests plainly enough those qualities +of boldness and craft which characterized his tactics. Governor Dobbs +appears to have had a special love towards Hugh, whose family he had +known in Ireland, for an undercurrent of almost fatherly pride is to be +found in the old Governor's reports to the Assembly concerning Waddell's +exploits. + +87 The terror raged for nearly three years. Cabins and fields were +burned, and women and children were slaughtered or dragged away +captives. Not only did immigration cease but many hardy settlers fled +from the country. At length, after horrors indescribable and great toll +of life, the Cherokees gave up the struggle. Their towns were invaded +and laid waste by imperial and colonial troops, and they could do +nothing but make peace. In 1761 they signed a treaty with the English to +hold while rivers flow and grasses grow and sun and moon endure. + +In the previous year (1760) the imperial war had run its course in +America. New France lay prostrate, and the English were supreme not only +on the Ohio but on the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. Louisbourg, +Quebec, Montreal, Oswego, Niagara, Duquesne, Detroit--all were in +English hands. + +Hugh Waddell and his rangers, besides serving with distinction in the +Indian war, had taken part in the capture of Fort Duquesne. This feat +had been accomplished in 1758 by an expedition under General Forbes. The +troops made a terrible march over a new route, cutting a road as they 88 +went. It was November when they approached their objective. The wastes +of snow and their diminished supplies caused such depression among the +men that the officers called a halt to discuss whether or not to proceed +toward Fort Duquesne, where they believed the French to be concentrated +in force. Extravagant sums in guineas were named as suitable reward for +any man who would stalk and catch a French Indian and learn from him the +real conditions inside the fort. The honor, if not the guineas, fell to +John Rogers, one of Waddell's rangers. From the Indian it was learned +that the French had already gone, leaving behind only a few of their +number. As the English drew near, they found that the garrison had blown +up the magazine, set fire to the fort, and made off. + +Thus, while New France was already tottering, but nearly two years +before the final capitulation at Montreal, the English again became +masters of the Ohio Company's land--masters of the Forks of the Ohio. +This time they were there to stay. Where the walls of Fort Duquesne had +crumbled in the fire Fort Pitt was to rise, proudly bearing the name +of England's Great Commoner who had directed English arms to victory on +three continents. + +With France expelled and the Indians deprived 89 of their white allies, +the westward path lay open to the pioneers, even though the red man +himself would rise again and again in vain endeavor to bar the way. So a +new era begins, the era of exploration for definite purpose, the era +of commonwealth building. In entering on it, we part with the earliest +pioneer--the trader, who first opened the road for both the lone home +seeker and the great land company. He dwindles now to the mere barterer +and so--save for a few chance glimpses--slips out of sight, for his +brave days as Imperial Scout are done. + +90 + + + + +Chapter V + +Boone, The Wanderer + +What thoughts filled Daniel Boone's mind as he was returning from +Braddock's disastrous campaign in 1755 we may only conjecture. Perhaps +he was planning a career of soldiering, for in later years he was to +distinguish himself as a frontier commander in both defense and attack. +Or it may be that his heart was full of the wondrous tales told him +by the trader, John Findlay, of that Hunter's Canaan, Kentucky, where +buffalo and deer roamed in thousands. Perhaps he meant to set out +ere long in search of the great adventure of his dreams, despite the +terrible dangers of trail making across the zones of war into the +unknown. + +However that may be, Boone straightway followed neither of these +possible plans on his return to the Yadkin but halted for a different +adventure. There, a rifle shot's distance from his threshold, was +offered him the oldest and sweetest of all 91 hazards to the daring. He +was twenty-two, strong and comely and a whole man; and therefore he was +in no mind to refuse what life held out to him in the person of Rebecca +Bryan. Rebecca was the daughter of Joseph Bryan, who had come to the +Yadkin from Pennsylvania some time before the Boones; and she was in her +seventeenth year. + +Writers of an earlier and more sentimental period than ours have +endeavored to supply, from the saccharine stores of their fancy, the +romantic episodes connected with Boone's wooing which history has +omitted to record. Hence the tale that the young hunter, walking abroad +in the spring gloaming, saw Mistress Rebecca's large dark eyes shining +in the dusk of the forest, mistook them for a deer's eyes and shot--his +aim on this occasion fortunately being bad! But if Boone's rifle was +missing its mark at ten paces, Cupid's dart was speeding home. So runs +the story concocted a hundred years later by some gentle scribe ignorant +alike of game seasons, the habits of hunters, and the way of a man with +a maid in a primitive world. + +Daniel and Rebecca were married in the spring of 1756. Squire Boone, +in his capacity as justice of the peace, tied the knot; and in a +small cabin built upon his spacious lands the young couple 92 set up +housekeeping. Here Daniel's first two sons were born. In the third +year of his marriage, when the second child was a babe in arms, Daniel +removed with his wife and their young and precious family to Culpeper +County in eastern Virginia, for the border was going through its darkest +days of the French and Indian War. During the next two or three years +we find him in Virginia engaged as a wagoner, hauling tobacco in season; +but back on the border with his rifle, after the harvest, aiding in +defense against the Indians. In 1759 he purchased from his father a +lot on Sugar Tree Creek, a tributary of Dutchman's Creek (Davie County, +North Carolina) and built thereon a cabin for himself. The date when he +brought his wife and children to live in their new abode on the border +is not recorded. It was probably some time after the close of the Indian +War. Of Boone himself during these years we have but scant information. +We hear of him again in Virginia and also as a member of the pack-horse +caravan which brought into the Back Country the various necessaries for +the settlers. We know, too, that in the fall of 1760 he was on a lone +hunting trip in the mountains west of the Yadkin; for until a few years +ago there might be seen, still standing on the banks 93 of Boone's Creek +(a small tributary of the Watauga) in eastern Tennessee, a tree bearing +the legend, D Boon cilled A BAR on this tree 1760. Boone was always fond +of carving his exploits on trees, and his wanderings have been traced +largely by his arboreal publications. In the next year (1761) he went +with Waddell's rangers when they marched with the army to the final +subjugation of the Cherokee. + +That Boone and his family were back on the border in the new cabin +shortly after the end of the war, we gather from the fact that in 1764 +he took his little son James, aged seven, on one of his long hunting +excursions. From this time dates the intimate comradeship of father and +son through all the perils of the wilderness, a comradeship to come +to its tragic end ten years later when, as we shall see, the +seventeen-year-old lad fell under the red man's tomahawk as his father +was leading the first settlers towards Kentucky. In the cold nights +of the open camp, as Daniel and James lay under the frosty stars, the +father kept the boy warm snuggled to his breast under the broad flap +of his hunting shirt. Sometimes the two were away from home for months +together, and Daniel declared little James to be as good a woodsman as +his father. + +94 Meanwhile fascinating accounts of the new land of Florida, ceded +to Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, had leaked into the Back +Country; and in the winter of 1765 Boone set off southward on horseback +with seven companions. Colonel James Grant, with whose army Boone had +fought in 1761, had been appointed Governor of the new colony and was +offering generous inducements to settlers. The party traveled along the +borders of South Carolina and Georgia. No doubt they made the greater +part of their way over the old Traders' Trace, the whitened warpath; and +they suffered severe hardships. Game became scarcer as they proceeded. +Once they were nigh to perishing of starvation and were saved from that +fate only through chance meeting with a band of Indians who, seeing +their plight, made camp and shared their food with them--according to +the Indian code in time of peace. + +Boone's party explored Florida from St. Augustine to Pensacola, and +Daniel became sufficiently enamored of the tropical south to purchase +there land and a house. His wife, however, was unwilling to go to +Florida, and she was not long in convincing the hunter that he would +soon tire of a gameless country. A gameless country! Perhaps 95 this was +the very thought which turned the wanderer's desires again towards the +land of Kentucky.¹ The silencing of the enemy's whisper in the Cherokee +camps had opened the border forests once more to the nomadic rifleman. +Boone was not alone in the desire to seek out what lay beyond. His +brother-in-law, John Stewart, and a nephew by marriage, Benjamin +Cutbirth, or Cutbird, with two other young men, John Baker and James +Ward, in 1766 crossed the Appalachian Mountains, probably by stumbling +upon the Indian trail winding from base to summit and from peak to base +again over this part of the great hill barrier. They eventually reached +the Mississippi River and, having taken a good quantity of peltry on +the way, they launched upon the stream and came in time to New Orleans, +where they made a satisfactory trade of their furs. + +¹ Kentucky, from Ken-ta-ke, an Iroquois word meaning the place of old +fields. Adair calls the territory the old fields. The Indians apparently +used the word old, as we do, in a sense of endearment and possession as +well as relative to age. Boone was fired anew by descriptions of this +successful feat, in which two of his kinsmen had participated. He could +no longer be held back. He must find the magic door that led through +the vast mountain wall into Kentucky--Kentucky, with its green prairies +where the buffalo and deer 96 were as ten thousand thousand cattle +feeding in the wilds, and where the balmy air vibrated with the music of +innumerable wings. + +Accordingly, in the autumn of 1767, Boone began his quest of the +delectable country in the company of his friend, William Hill, who had +been with him in Florida. Autumn was the season of departure on all +forest excursions, because by that time the summer crops had been +gathered in and the day of the deer had come. By hunting, the explorers +must feed themselves on their travels and with deerskins and furs they +must on their return recompense those who had supplied their outfit. +Boone, the incessant but not always lucky wanderer, was in these years +ever in debt for an outfit. + +Boone and Hill made their way over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies +and crossed the Holston and Clinch rivers. Then they came upon the west +fork of the Big Sandy and, believing that it would lead them to the +Ohio, they continued for at least a hundred miles to the westward. Here +they found a buffalo trace, one of the many beaten out by the herds in +their passage to the salt springs, and they followed it into what is +now Floyd County in eastern Kentucky. But this was not the prairie land +described by Findlay; it was rough and hilly 97 and so overgrown with +laurel as to be almost impenetrable. They therefore wended their way +back towards the river, doubtless erected the usual hunter's camp of +skins or blankets and branches, and spent the winter in hunting and +trapping. Spring found them returning to their homes on the Yadkin with +a fair winter's haul. + +Such urgent desire as Boone's, however, was not to be defeated. The next +year brought him his great opportunity. John Findlay came to the Yadkin +with a horse pack of needles and linen and peddler's wares to tempt the +slim purses of the Back Country folk. The two erstwhile comrades in +arms were overjoyed to encounter each other again, and Findlay spent the +winter of 1768-69 in Boone's cabin. While the snow lay deep outside and +good-smelling logs crackled on the hearth, they planned an expedition +into Kentucky through the Gap where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky +touch one another, which Findlay felt confident he could find. Findlay +had learned of this route from cross-mountain traders in 1753, when he +had descended the Ohio to the site of Louisville, whence he had gone +with some Shawanoes as a prisoner to their town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki +or Blue Licks.¹ + +¹ Hanna, _The Wilderness Trail,_ vol. II, pp. 215-16. 98 On the first +day of May, 1769, Boone and Findlay, accompanied by John Stewart and +three other venturesome spirits, Joseph Holden, James Mooney, and +William Cooley, took horse for the fabled land. Passing through the +Cumberland Gap, they built their first camp in Kentucky on the Red Lick +fork of Station Camp Creek. + +This camp was their base of operations. From it, usually in couples, we +infer, the explorers branched out to hunt and to take their observations +of the country. Here also they prepared the deer and buffalo meat for +the winter, dried or smoked the geese they shot in superabundance, made +the tallow and oil needed to keep their weapons in trim, their leather +soft, and their kits waterproof. Their first ill luck befell them in +December when Boone and Stewart were captured by a band of Shawanoes +who were returning from their autumn hunt on Green River. The Indians +compelled the two white men to show them the location of their camp, +took possession of all it contained in skins and furs and also helped +themselves to the horses. They left the explorers with just enough meat +and ammunition to provide for their journey homeward, and told them to +depart and not to intrude again on the red men's hunting 99 grounds. +Having given this pointed warning, the Shawanoes rode on northward +towards their towns beyond the Ohio. On foot, swiftly and craftily, +Boone and his brother-in-law trailed the band for two days. They came +upon the camp in dead of night, recaptured their horses, and fled. But +this was a game in which the Indians themselves excelled, and at +this date the Shawanoes had an advantage over Boone in their thorough +knowledge of the territory; so that within forty-eight hours the white +men were once more prisoners. After they had amused themselves by making +Boone caper about with a horse bell on his neck, while they jeered +at him in broken English, Steal horse, eh? the Shawanoes turned north +again, this time taking the two unfortunate hunters with them. Boone and +Stewart escaped, one day on the march, by a plunge into the thick tall +canebrake. Though the Indians did not attempt to follow them through the +mazes of the cane, the situation of the two hunters, without weapons +or food, was serious enough. When they found Station Camp deserted and +realized that their four companions had given them up for dead or lost +and had set off on the trail for home, even such intrepid souls as +theirs may have felt fear. They raced on in pursuit and 100 fortunately +fell in not only with their party but with Squire Boone, Daniel's +brother, and Alexander Neely, who had brought in fresh supplies of +rifles, ammunition, flour, and horses. + +After this lucky encounter the group separated. Findlay was ill, and +Holden, Mooney, and Cooley had had their fill of Kentucky; but Squire, +Neely, Stewart, and Daniel were ready for more adventures. Daniel, too, +felt under the positive necessity of putting in another year at hunting +and trapping in order to discharge his debts and provide for his family. +Near the mouth of Red River the new party built their station camp. +Here, in idle hours, Neely read aloud from a copy of _Gulliver's +Travels_ to entertain the hunters while they dressed their deerskins or +tinkered their weapons. In honor of the Lorbrulgrud of the book, though +with a pronunciation all their own, they christened the nearest creek; +and as Lulbegrud Creek it is still known. + +Before the end of the winter the two Boones were alone in the +wilderness. Their brother-in-law, Stewart, had disappeared; and Neely, +discouraged by this tragic event, had returned to the Yadkin. In May, +Squire Boone fared forth, taking with him the season's catch of beaver, +otter, and 101 deerskins to exchange in the North Carolinian trading +houses for more supplies; and Daniel was left solitary in Kentucky. + +Now followed those lonely explorations which gave Daniel Boone his +special fame above all Kentucky's pioneers. He was by no means the first +white man to enter Kentucky; and when he did enter, it was as one of +a party, under another man's guidance--if we except his former +disappointing journey into the laurel thickets of Floyd County. But +these others, barring Stewart, who fell there, turned back when they +met with loss and hardship and measured the certain risks against the +possible gains. Boone, the man of imagination, turned to wild earth +as to his kin. His genius lay in the sense of oneness he felt with his +wilderness environment. An instinct he had which these other men, as +courageous perhaps as he, did not possess. + +Never in all the times when he was alone in the woods and had no other +man's safety or counsel to consider, did he suffer ill fortune. The +nearest approach to trouble that befell him when alone occurred one day +during this summer when some Indians emerged from their green shelter +and found him, off guard for the moment, standing on a cliff gazing +with rapture over the vast rolling 102 stretches of Kentucky. He was +apparently cut off from escape, for the savages were on three sides, +advancing without haste to take him, meanwhile greeting him with mock +amity. Over the cliff leaped Boone and into the outspread arms of a +friendly maple, whose top bloomed green about sixty feet below the +cliff's rim, and left his would-be captors on the height above, grunting +their amazement. + +During this summer Boone journeyed through the valleys of the Kentucky +and the Licking. He followed the buffalo traces to the two Blue Licks +and saw the enormous herds licking up the salt earth, a darkly ruddy +moving mass of beasts whose numbers could not be counted. For many miles +he wound along the Ohio, as far as the Falls. He also found the Big Bone +Lick with its mammoth fossils. + +In July, 1770, Daniel returned to the Red River camp and there met +Squire Boone with another pack of supplies. The two brothers continued +their hunting and exploration together for some months, chiefly in +Jessamine County, where two caves still bear Boone's name. In that +winter they even braved the Green River ground, whence had come the +hunting Shawanoes who had taken Daniel's 103 first fruits a year before. +In the same year (1770) there had come into Kentucky from the Yadkin +another party of hunters, called, from their lengthy sojourn in +the twilight zone, the Long Hunters. One of these, Gasper Mansker, +afterwards related how the Long Hunters were startled one day by hearing +sounds such as no buffalo or turkey ever made, and how Mansker himself +stole silently under cover of the trees towards the place whence the +strange noises came, and descried Daniel Boone prone on his back with a +deerskin under him, his famous tall black hat beside him and his +mouth opened wide in joyous but apparently none too tuneful song. This +incident gives a true character touch. It is not recorded of any of the +men who turned back that they sang alone in the wilderness. + +In March, 1771, the two Boones started homeward, their horses bearing +the rich harvest of furs and deerskins which was to clear Daniel of debt +and to insure the comfort of the family he had not seen for two years. +But again evil fortune met them, this time in the very gates--for in +the Cumberland Gap they were suddenly surrounded by Indians who took +everything from them, leaving them neither guns nor horses. + +104 + + + + +Chapter VI + +The Fight For Kentucky + +When Boone returned home he found the Back Country of North Carolina in +the throes of the Regulation Movement. This movement, which had arisen +first from the colonists' need to police their settlements, had more +recently assumed a political character. The Regulators were now in +conflict with the authorities, because the frontier folk were suffering +through excessive taxes, extortionate fees, dishonest land titles, +and the corruption of the courts. In May, 1771, the conflict lost its +quasi-civil nature. The Regulators resorted to arms and were defeated by +the forces under Governor Tryon in the Battle of the Alamance. + +The Regulation Movement, which we shall follow in more detail further +on, was a culmination of those causes of unrest which turned men +westward. To escape from oppression and to acquire land 105 beyond +the bounds of tyranny became the earnest desire of independent spirits +throughout the Back Country. But there was another and more potent +reason why the country east of the mountains no longer contented Boone. +Hunting and trapping were Boone's chief means of livelihood. In those +days, deerskins sold for a dollar a skin to the traders at the Forks or +in Hillsborough; beaver at about two dollars and a half, and otter +at from three to five dollars. A pack-horse could carry a load of +one hundred dressed deerskins, and, as currency was scarce, a hundred +dollars was wealth. Game was fast disappearing from the Yadkin. To Boone +above all men, then, Kentucky beckoned. When he returned in the spring +of 1771 from his explorations, it was with the resolve to take his +family at once into the great game country and to persuade some of his +friends to join in this hazard of new fortunes. + +The perils of such a venture, only conjectural to us at this distance, +he knew well; but in him there was nothing that shrank from danger, +though he did not court it after the rash manner of many of his +compeers. Neither reckless nor riotous, Boone was never found among +those who opposed violence to authority, even unjust authority; nor +was 106 he ever guilty of the savagery which characterized much of the +retaliatory warfare of that period when frenzied white men bettered the +red man's instruction. In him, courage was illumined with tenderness and +made equable by self-control. Yet, though he was no fiery zealot like +the Ulstermen who were to follow him along the path he had made and +who loved and revered him perhaps because he was so different from +themselves, Boone nevertheless had his own religion. It was a simple +faith best summed up perhaps by himself in his old age when he said that +he had been only an instrument in the hand of God to open the wilderness +to settlement. + +Two years passed before Boone could muster a company of colonists for +the dangerous and delectable land. The dishonesty practiced by Lord +Granville's agents in the matter of deeds had made it difficult for +Daniel and his friends to dispose of their acreage. When at last in +the spring of 1773 the Wanderer was prepared to depart, he was again +delayed; this time by the arrival of a little son to whom was given the +name of John. By September, however, even this latest addition to the +party was ready for travel; and that month saw the Boones with a small +caravan of families journeying towards Powell's Valley, whence the 107 +Warrior's Path took its way through Cumberland Gap. At this point on the +march they were to be joined by William Russell, a famous pioneer, from +the Clinch River, with his family and a few neighbors, and by some +of Rebecca Boone's kinsmen, the Bryans, from the lower Yadkin, with a +company of forty men. + +Of Rebecca Boone history tells us too little--only that she was born a +Bryan, was of low stature and dark eyed, that she bore her husband +ten children, and lived beside him to old age. Except on his hunts and +explorations, she went with him from one cabined home to another, always +deeper into the wilds. There are no portraits of her. We can see her +only as a shadowy figure moving along the wilderness trails beside the +man who accepted his destiny of God to be a way-shower for those of +lesser faith. + +He tires not forever on his leagues of march Because her feet are set +to his footprints, And the gleam of her bare hand slants across his +shoulder. + +Boone halted his company on Walden Mountain over Powell's Valley to +await the Bryan contingent and dispatched two young men under the +leadership of his son James, then in his seventeenth year, 108 to +notify Russell of the party's arrival. As the boys were returning with +Russell's son, also a stripling, two of his slaves, and some white +laborers, they missed the path and went into camp for the night. When +dawn broke, disclosing the sleepers, a small war band of Shawanoes, who +had been spying on Boone and his party, fell upon them and slaughtered +them. Only one of Russell's slaves and a laborer escaped. The tragedy +seems augmented by the fact that the point where the boys lost the +trail and made their night quarters was hardly three miles from the main +camp--to which an hour later came the two survivors with their gloomy +tidings. Terror now took hold of the little band of emigrants, and +there were loud outcries for turning back. The Bryans, who had arrived +meanwhile, also advised retreat, saying that the signs about the scene +of blood indicated an Indian uprising. Daniel carried the scalped body +of his son, the boy-comrade of his happy hunts, to the camp and buried +it there at the beginning of the trail. His voice alone urged that they +go on. + +Fortunately indeed, as events turned out, Boone was overruled, and the +expedition was abandoned. The Bryan party and the others from North +Carolina went back to the Yadkin. Boone himself with 109 his family +accompanied Russell to the Clinch settlement, where he erected a +temporary cabin on the farm of one of the settlers, and then set out +alone on the chase to earn provision for his wife and children through +the winter. + +Those who prophesied an Indian war were not mistaken. When the snowy +hunting season had passed and the Powwowing Days were come, the Indian +war drum rattled in the medicine house from the borders of Pennsylvania +to those of Carolina. The causes of the strife for which the red men +were making ready must be briefly noted to help us form a just opinion +of the deeds that followed. Early writers have usually represented the +frontiersmen as saints in buckskin and the Indians as fiends without +the shadow of a claim on either the land or humanity. Many later writers +have merely reversed the shield. The truth is that the Indians and the +borderers reacted upon each other to the hurt of both. Paradoxically, +they grew like enough to hate one another with a savage hatred--and both +wanted the land. + +Land! Land! was the slogan of all sorts and conditions of men. Tidewater +officials held solemn powwows with the chiefs, gave wampum strings, 110 +and forthwith incorporated.¹ Chiefs blessed their white brothers who had +forever brightened the chain of friendship, departed home, and proceeded +to brighten the blades of their tomahawks and to await, not long, the +opportunity to use them on casual hunters who carried in their kits the +compass, the land-stealer. Usually the surveying hunter was a borderer; +and on him the tomahawk descended with an accelerated gusto. Private +citizens also formed land companies and sent out surveyors, regardless +of treaties. Bold frontiersmen went into No Man's Land and staked out +their claims. In the very year when disaster turned the Boone party +back, James Harrod had entered Kentucky from Pennsylvania and had marked +the site of a settlement. + +¹ The activities of the great land companies are described in Alvord's +exhaustive work, _The Mississippi Valley in British Politics._ Ten years +earlier (1763), the King had issued the famous and much misunderstood +Proclamation restricting his loving subjects from the lands west of +the mountains. The colonists interpreted this document as a tyrannous +curtailment of their liberties for the benefit of the fur trade. We know +now that the portion of this Proclamation relating to western settlement +was a wise provision 111 designed to protect the settlers on the +frontier by allaying the suspicions of the Indians, who viewed with +apprehension the triumphal occupation of that vast territory from Canada +to the Gulf of Mexico by the colonizing English. By seeking to compel +all land purchase to be made through the Crown, it was designed likewise +to protect the Indians from whisky purchase, and to make impossible the +transfer of their lands except with consent of the Indian Council, or +full quota of headmen, whose joint action alone conveyed what the tribes +considered to be legal title. Sales made according to this form, Sir +William Johnson declared to the Lords of Trade, he had never known to +be repudiated by the Indians. This paragraph of the Proclamation was in +substance an embodiment of Johnson's suggestions to the Lords of Trade. +Its purpose was square dealing and pacification; and shrewd men such +as Washington recognized that it was not intended as a final check to +expansion. A temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians, +Washington called it, and then himself went out along the Great Kanawha +and into Kentucky, surveying land. + +It will be asked what had become of the Ohio Company of Virginia and +that fort at the Forks of 112 the Ohio, once a bone of contention +between France and England. Fort Pitt, as it was now called, had fallen +foul of another dispute, this time between Virginia and Pennsylvania. +Virginia claimed that the far western corner of her boundary ascended +just far enough north to take in Fort Pitt. Pennsylvania asserted that +it did nothing of the sort. The Ohio Company had meanwhile been +merged into the Walpole Company. George Croghan, at Fort Pitt, was the +Company's agent and as such was accused by Pennsylvania of favoring +from ulterior motives the claims of Virginia. Hotheads in both +colonies asseverated that the Indians were secretly being stirred up +in connection with the boundary disputes. If it does not very clearly +appear how an Indian rising would have settled the ownership of +Fort Pitt, it is evident enough where the interests of Virginia +and Pennsylvania clashed. Virginia wanted land for settlement and +speculation; Pennsylvania wanted the Indians left in possession for the +benefit of the fur trade. So far from stirring up the Indians, as his +enemies declared, Croghan was as usual giving away all his substance to +keep them quiet.¹ Indeed, 113 during this summer of 1774, eleven hundred +Indians were encamped about Fort Pitt visiting him. + +¹ The suspicion that Croghan and Lord Dunmore, the Governor of Virginia, +were instigating the war appears to have arisen out of the conduct of +Dr. John Connolly, Dunmore's agent and Croghan's nephew. Croghan had +induced the Shawanoes to bring under escort to Fort Pitt certain +English traders resident in the Indian towns. The escort was fired on +by militiamen under command of Connolly, who also issued a proclamation +declaring a state of war to exist. Connolly, however, probably acted on +his own initiative. He was interested in land on his own behalf and was +by no means the only man at that time who was ready to commit outrages +on Indians in order to obtain it. As Croghan lamented, there was too +great a spirit in the frontier people for killing Indians. Two hundred +thousand acres in the West--Kentucky and West Virginia--had been +promised to the colonial officers and soldiers who fought in the Seven +Years' War. But after making the Proclamation the British Government had +delayed issuing the patents. Washington interested himself in trying +to secure them; and Lord Dunmore, who also had caught the land-fever,² +prodded the British authorities but won only rebuke for his inconvenient +activities. Insistent, however, Dunmore sent out parties of surveyors +to fix the bounds of the soldiers' claims. James Harrod, Captain Thomas +Bullitt, Hancock Taylor, and three McAfee brothers entered Kentucky, by +the Ohio, under Dunmore's orders. John Floyd went in by 114 the Kanawha +as Washington's agent. A bird's-eye view of that period would disclose +to us very few indeed of His Majesty's loving subjects who were paying +any attention to his proclamation. Early in 1774, Harrod began +the building of cabins and a fort, and planted corn on the site of +Harrodsburg. Thus to him and not to Boone fell the honor of founding the +first permanent white settlement in Kentucky. + +² See Alvord, _The Mississippi Valley in British Politics,_ vol. II, pp. +191-94. + +When summer came, its thick verdure proffering ambuscade, the air +hung tense along the border. Traders had sent in word that Shawanoes, +Delawares, Mingos, Wyandots, and Cherokees were refusing all other +exchange than rifles, ammunition, knives, and hatchets. White men were +shot down in their fields from ambush. Dead Indians lay among their own +young corn, their scalp locks taken. There were men of both races who +wanted war and meant to have it--and with it the land. + +Lord Dunmore, the Governor, resolved that, if war were inevitable, it +should be fought out in the Indian country. With this intent, he wrote +to Colonel Andrew Lewis of Botetourt County, Commander of the Southwest +Militia, instructing him 115 to raise a respectable body of troops and +join me either at the mouth of the Great Kanawha or Wheeling, or such +other part of the Ohio as may be most convenient for you to meet me. The +Governor himself with a force of twelve hundred proceeded to Fort Pitt, +where Croghan, as we have seen, was extending his hospitality to eleven +hundred warriors from the disaffected tribes. + +On receipt of the Governor's letter, Andrew Lewis sent out expresses to +his brother Colonel Charles Lewis, County Lieutenant of Augusta, and to +Colonel William Preston, County Lieutenant of Fincastle, to raise +men and bring them with all speed to the rendezvous at Camp Union +(Lewisburg) on the Big Levels of the Greenbrier (West Virginia). +Andrew Lewis summoned these officers to an expedition for reducing our +inveterate enemies to reason. Preston called for volunteers to take +advantage of the opportunity we have so long wished for… this useless +People may now at last be Oblidged to abandon their country. These men +were among not only the bravest but the best of their time; but this +was their view of the Indian and his alleged rights. To eliminate this +useless people, inveterate enemies of the white race, was, as they saw +it, a political necessity 116 and a religious duty. And we today who +profit by their deeds dare not condemn them. + +Fervor less solemn was aroused in other quarters by Dunmore's call to +arms. At Wheeling, some eighty or ninety young adventurers, in charge +of Captain Michael Cresap of Maryland, were waiting for the freshets to +sweep them down the Ohio into Kentucky. When the news reached them, they +greeted it with the wild monotone chant and the ceremonies preliminary +to Indian warfare. They planted the war pole, stripped and painted +themselves, and starting the war dance called on Cresap to be their +white leader. The captain, however, declined; but in that wild circling +line was one who was a white leader indeed. He was a sandy-haired boy of +twenty--one of the bold race of English Virginians, rugged and of fiery +countenance, with blue eyes intense of glance and deep set under a high +brow that, while modeled for power, seemed threatened in its promise by +the too sensitive chiseling of his lips. With every nerve straining +for the fray, with thudding of feet and crooning of the blood song, he +wheeled with those other mad spirits round the war pole till the set of +sun closed the rites. That evening two scalps were brought into camp, +so a letter of his reads. 117 Does the bold savage color of this picture +affright us? Would we veil it? Then we should lose something of the true +lineaments of George Rogers Clark, who, within four short years, was to +lead a tiny army of tattered and starving backwoodsmen, ashamed to quail +where he never flinched, through barrens and icy floods to the conquest +of Illinois for the United States. + +Though Cresap had rejected the rôle of white leader, he did not escape +the touch of infamy. Cresap's War was the name the Indians gave to the +bloody encounters between small parties of whites and Indians, which +followed on that war dance and scalping, during the summer months. One +of these encounters must be detailed here because history has assigned +it as the immediate cause of Dunmore's War. + +Greathouse, Sapperton, and King, three traders who had a post on Yellow +Creek, a tributary of the Ohio fifty miles below Pittsburgh, invited +several Indians from across the stream to come and drink with them and +their friends. Among the Indians were two or three men of importance in +the Mingo tribe. There were also some women, one of whom was the Indian +wife of Colonel John Gibson, an educated man who had distinguished +himself as 118 a soldier with Forbes in 1758. That the Indians came in +amity and apprehended no treachery was proved by the presence of the +women. Gibson's wife carried her half-caste baby in her shawl. The +disreputable traders plied their guests with drink to the point of +intoxication and then murdered them. King shot the first man and, when +he fell, cut his throat, saying that he had served many a deer in that +fashion. Gibson's Indian wife fled and was shot down in the clearing. A +man followed to dispatch her and her baby. She held the child up to him +pleading, with her last breath, that he would spare it because it was +not Indian but one of yours. The mother dead, the child was later sent +to Gibson. Twelve Indians in all were killed. + +Meanwhile Croghan had persuaded the Iroquois to peace. With the help of +David Zeisberger, the Moravian missionary, and White Eyes, a Delaware +chief, he and Dunmore had won over the Delaware warriors. In the +Cherokee councils, Oconostota demanded that the treaty of peace +signed in 1761 be kept. The Shawanoes, however, led by Cornstalk, were +implacable; and they had as allies the Ottawas and Mingos, who had +entered the council with them. + +119 A famous chief of the day and one of great influence over the +Indians, and also among the white officials who dealt with Indian +affairs, was Tach-nech-dor-us, or Branching Oak of the Forest, a Mingo +who had taken the name of Logan out of compliment to James Logan of +Pennsylvania. Chief Logan had recently met with so much reproach from +his red brothers for his loyalty to the whites that he had departed +from the Mingo town at Yellow Creek. But, learning that his tribe had +determined to assist the Shawanoes and had already taken some white +scalps, he repaired to the place where the Mingos were holding their +war council to exert his powers for peace. There, in presence of the +warriors, after swaying them from their purpose by those oratorical +gifts which gave him his influence and his renown, he took the war +hatchet that had already killed, and buried it in proof that vengeance +was appeased. Upon this scene there entered a Mingo from Yellow Creek +with the news of the murders committed there by the three traders. The +Indian whose throat had been slit as King had served deer was Logan's +brother. Another man slain was his kinsman. The woman with the baby was +his sister. Logan tore up from the earth the bloody tomahawk and, 120 +raising it above his head, swore that he would not rest till he had +taken ten white lives to pay for each one of his kin. Again the Mingo +warriors declared for war and this time were not dissuaded. But Logan +did not join this red army. He went out alone to wreak his vengeance, +slaying and scalping. + +Meanwhile Dunmore prepared to push the war with the utmost vigor. His +first concern was to recall the surveying parties from Kentucky, and for +so hazardous an errand he needed the services of a man whose endurance, +speed, and woodcraft were equal to those of any Indian scout afoot. +Through Colonel Preston, his orders were conveyed to Daniel Boone, for +Boone's fame had now spread from the border to the tidewater regions. It +was stated that Boone would lose no time, and if they are alive, it is +indisputable but Boone must find them. + +So Boone set out in company with Michael Stoner, another expert +woodsman. His general instructions were to go down the Kentucky River +to Preston's Salt Lick and across country to the Falls of the Ohio, and +thence home by Gaspar's Lick on the Cumberland River. Indian war +parties were moving under cover across the Dark 121 and Bloody Ground +to surround the various groups of surveyors still at large and to +exterminate them. Boone made his journey successfully. He found John +Floyd, who was surveying for Washington; he sped up to where Harrod +and his band were building cabins and sent them out, just in time as it +happened; he reached all the outposts of Thomas Bullitt's party, only +one of whom fell a victim to the foe¹; and, undetected by the Indians, +he brought himself and Stoner home in safety, after covering eight +hundred miles in sixty-one days. + +¹ Hancock Taylor, who delayed in getting out of the country and was cut +off. Harrod and his homesteaders immediately enlisted in the army. +How eager Boone was to go with the forces under Lewis is seen in the +official correspondence relative to Dunmore's War. Floyd wanted Boone's +help in raising a company: Captain Bledsoe says that Boone has more +[influence] than any man now disengaged; and you know what Boone has +done for me… for which reason I love the man. Even the border, it would +seem, had its species of pacifists who were willing to let others take +risks for them, for men hung back from recruiting, and desertions were +the order of the day. Major Arthur Campbell hit upon a solution 122 of +the difficulties in West Fincastle. He was convinced that Boone could +raise a company and hold the men loyal. And Boone did. + +For some reason, however, Daniel's desire to march with the army was +denied. Perhaps it was because just such a man as he--and, indeed, there +was no other--was needed to guard the settlement. Presently he was put +in command of Moore's Fort in Clinch Valley, and his diligence received +official approbation. A little later the inhabitants of the valley sent +out a petition to have Boone made a captain and given supreme command of +the lower forts. The settlers demanded Boone's promotion for their own +security. + +The land it is good, it is just to our mind, Each will have his part if +his Lordship be kind, The Ohio once ours, we'll live at our ease, With a +bottle and glass to drink when we please. + +So sang the army poet, thus giving voice, as bards should ever do, +to the theme nearest the hearts of his hearers--in this case, Land! +Presumably his ditty was composed on the eve of the march from +Lewisburg, for it is found in a soldier's diary. + +On the evening of October 9, 1774, Andrew Lewis with his force of eleven +hundred frontiersmen 123 was encamped on Point Pleasant at the junction +of the Great Kanawha with the Ohio. Dunmore in the meantime had led +his forces into Ohio and had erected Fort Gower at the mouth of the +Hockhocking River, where he waited for word from Andrew Lewis.¹ + +¹ It has been customary to ascribe to Lord Dunmore motives of treachery +in failing to make connections with Lewis; but no real evidence has +been advanced to support any of the charges made against him by +local historians. The charges were, as Theodore Roosevelt says, an +afterthought. Dunmore was a King's man in the Revolution; and yet in +March, 1775, the Convention of the Colony of Virginia, assembled in +opposition to the royal party, resolved: The most cordial thanks of the +people of this colony are a tribute justly due to our worthy Governor, +Lord Dunmore, for his truly noble, wise, and spirited conduct which at +once evinces his Excellency's attention to the true interests of this +colony, and a zeal in the executive department which no dangers can +divert, or difficulties hinder, from achieving the most important +services to the people who have the happiness to live under his +administration. (See _American Archives,_ Fourth Series, vol. II, p. +170.) Similar resolutions were passed by his officers on the march home +from Ohio; at the same time, the officers passed resolutions in sympathy +with the American cause. Yet it was Andrew Lewis who later drove Dunmore +from Virginia. Well might Dunmore exclaim, That it should ever come to +this! The movements of the two armies were being observed by scouts from +the force of red warriors gathered in Ohio under the great leader of the +Shawanoes. Cornstalk purposed to isolate the two armies of his enemy and +to crush them in turn before they could come together. His first move +was to launch an attack on Lewis at Point 124 Pleasant. In the dark +of night, Cornstalk's Indians crossed the Ohio on rafts, intending to +surprise the white man's camp at dawn. They would have succeeded but for +the chance that three or four of the frontiersmen, who had risen before +daybreak to hunt, came upon the Indians creeping towards the camp. Shots +were exchanged. An Indian and a white man dropped. The firing roused +the camp. Three hundred men in two lines under Charles Lewis and William +Fleming sallied forth expecting to engage the vanguard of the enemy but +encountered almost the whole force of from eight hundred to a thousand +Indians before the rest of the army could come into action. Both +officers were wounded, Charles Lewis fatally. The battle, which +continued from dawn until an hour before sunset, was the bloodiest in +Virginia's long series of Indian wars. The frontiersmen fought as such +men ever fought--with the daring, bravery, swiftness of attack, and +skill in taking cover which were the tactics of their day, even as at +a later time many of these same men fought at King's Mountain and +in Illinois the battles that did so much to turn the tide in the +Revolution.² + +² With Andrew Lewis on this day were Isaac Shelby and William Campbell, +the victorious leaders at King's Mountain, James Robertson, the father +of Tennessee, Valentine Sevier, Daniel Morgan, hero of the Cowpens, +Major Arthur Campbell, Benjamin Logan, Anthony Bledsoe, and Simon +Kenton. With Dunmore's force were Adam Stephen, who distinguished +himself at the Brandywine, George Rogers Clark, John Stuart, already +noted through the Cherokee wars, and John Montgomery, later one +of Clark's four captains in Illinois. The two last mentioned were +Highlanders. Clark's Illinois force was largely recruited from the +troops who fought at Point Pleasant. 125 Colonel Preston wrote to +Patrick Henry that the enemy behaved with inconceivable bravery, the +head men walking about in the time of action exhorting their men to lie +close, shoot well, be strong, and fight. The Shawanoes ran up to the +muzzles of the English guns, disputing every foot of ground. Both +sides knew well what they were fighting for--the rich land held in a +semicircle by the Beautiful River. + +Shortly before sundown the Indians, mistaking a flank movement by +Shelby's contingent for the arrival of reinforcements, retreated across +the Ohio. Many of their most noted warriors had fallen and among them +the Shawano chief, Puck-e-shin-wa, father of a famous son, Tecumseh.¹ +Yet they were unwilling to accept defeat. When they heard that Dunmore +was now marching overland to cut them off from their towns, their fury +blazed anew. Shall we first kill all our women and children and then +126 fight till we ourselves are slain? Cornstalk, in irony, demanded of +them; No? Then I will go and make peace. + +¹ Thwaites, _Documentary History of Dunmore's War._ By the treaty +compacted between the chiefs and Lord Dunmore, the Indians gave up all +claim to the lands south of the Ohio, even for hunting, and agreed to +allow boats to pass unmolested. In this treaty the Mingos refused to +join, and a detachment of Dunmore's troops made a punitive expedition +to their towns. Some discord arose between Dunmore and Lewis's frontier +forces because, since the Shawanoes had made peace, the Governor would +not allow the frontiersmen to destroy the Shawano towns. + +Of all the chiefs, Logan alone still held aloof. Major Gibson undertook +to fetch him, but Logan refused to come to the treaty grounds. He sent +by Gibson the short speech which has lived as an example of the best +Indian oratory: + +I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry +and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed +him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan +remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for +the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said, Logan is +the friend of the white men. I had even thought to have lived 127 with +you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in +cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even +sparing my women and children. There remains not a drop of my blood in +the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have +sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance: for +my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought +that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on +his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.¹ + +¹ Some writers have questioned the authenticity of Logan's speech, +inclining to think that Gibson himself composed it, partly because +of the biblical suggestion in the first few lines. That Gibson gave +biblical phraseology to these lines is apparent, though, as Adair +points out there are many examples of similitude in Indian and biblical +expression. But the thought is Indian and relates to the first article +of the Indian's creed, namely, to share his food with the needy. There +remains not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature is +a truly Indian lament. Evidently the final four lines of the speech are +the most literally translated, for they have the form and the primitive +rhythmic beat which a student of Indian poetry quickly recognizes. The +authenticity of the speech, as well as the innocence of Cresap, whom +Logan mistakenly accused, was vouched for by George Rogers Clark in a +letter to Dr. Samuel Brown dated June 17, 1798. See Jefferson papers, +Series 5, quoted by English, _Conquest of the Country Northwest of the +River Ohio,_ vol. II. p. 1029. + +By rivers and trails, in large and small companies, started home the +army that had won the land. The West Fincastle troops, from the lower +settlements of the Clinch and Holston valleys, were to return by the +Kentucky River, while those from 128 the upper valley would take the +shorter way up Sandy Creek. To keep them in provisions during the +journey it was ordered that hunters be sent out along these routes to +kill and barbecue meat and place it on scaffolds at appropriate spots. + +The way home by the Kentucky was a long road for weary and wounded men +with hunger gnawing under their belts. We know who swung out along the +trail to provide for that little band, dressed in deerskins colored +black, and his hair plaited and bobbed up. It was Daniel Boone--now, by +popular demand, Captain Boone--just discharged from Service, since the +valley forts needed him no longer. Once more only a hunter, he went his +way over Walden Mountain--past his son's grave marking the place where +he had been turned back--to serve the men who had opened the gates. + +129 + + + + +Chapter VII + +The Dark And Bloody Ground + +With the coming of spring Daniel Boone's desire, so long cherished and +deferred, to make a way for his neighbors through the wilderness was to +be fulfilled at last. But ere his ax could slash the thickets from the +homeseekers' path, more than two hundred settlers had entered +Kentucky by the northern waterways. Eighty or more of these settled at +Harrodsburg, where Harrod was laying out his town on a generous plan, +with in-lots of half an acre and out-lots of larger size. Among those +associated with Harrod was George Rogers Clark, who had surveyed claims +for himself during the year before the war. + +While over two hundred colonists were picking out home sites wherever +their pleasure or prudence dictated, a gigantic land promotion +scheme--involving the very tracts where they were sowing their first +corn--was being set afoot in North 130 Carolina by a body of men who +figure in the early history of Kentucky as the Transylvania Company. +The leader of this organization was Judge Richard Henderson.¹ Judge +Henderson dreamed a big dream. His castle in the air had imperial +proportions. He resolved, in short, to purchase from the Cherokee +Indians the larger part of Kentucky and to establish there a colony +after the manner and the economic form of the English Lords Proprietors, +whose day in America was so nearly done. Though in the light of history +the plan loses none of its dramatic features, it shows the practical +defects that must surely have prevented its realization. Like many +another Cæsar hungering for empire and staking all to win it, the +prospective lord of Kentucky, as we shall see, had left the human +equation out of his calculations. + +¹ Richard Henderson (1734-1785) was the son of the High Sheriff of +Granville County. At first an assistant to his father, he studied law +and soon achieved a reputation by the brilliance of his mind and the +magnetism of his personality. As presiding Judge at Hillsborough he had +come into conflict with the violent element among the Regulators, who +had driven him from the court and burned his house and barns. For some +time prior to his elevation to the bench, he had been engaged in land +speculations. One of Boone's biographers suggests that Boone may have +been secretly acting as Henderson's agent during his first lonely +explorations of Kentucky. However this may be, it does not appear +that Boone and his Yadkin neighbors were acting with Henderson when +in September, 1773, they made their first attempt to enter Kentucky as +settlers. 131 Richard Henderson had known Daniel Boone on the Yadkin; +and it was Boone's detailed reports of the marvelous richness and beauty +of Kentucky which had inspired him to formulate his gigantic scheme and +had enabled him also to win to his support several men of prominence in +the Back Country. To sound the Cherokees regarding the purchase and to +arrange, if possible, for a conference, Henderson dispatched Boone to +the Indian towns in the early days of 1775. + +Since we have just learned that Dunmore's War compelled the Shawanoes +and their allies to relinquish their right to Kentucky, that, both +before and after that event, government surveyors were in the territory +surveying for the soldiers' claims, and that private individuals had +already laid out town sites and staked holdings, it may be asked what +right of ownership the Cherokees possessed in Kentucky, that Henderson +desired to purchase it of them. The Indian title to Kentucky seems to +have been hardly less vague to the red men than it was to the whites. +Several of the nations had laid claim to the territory. As late as 1753, +it will be remembered, the Shawanoes had occupied a town at Blue Licks, +for John Findlay had been taken there by some of them. But, before +Findlay 132 guided Boone through the Gap in 1769, the Shawanoes had been +driven out by the Iroquois, who claimed suzerainty over them as well +as over the Cherokees. In 1768, the Iroquois had ceded Kentucky to the +British Crown by the treaty of Fort Stanwix; whereupon the Cherokees had +protested so vociferously that the Crown's Indian agent, to quiet them, +had signed a collateral agreement with them. Though claimed by many, +Kentucky was by common consent not inhabited by any of the tribes. +It was the great Middle Ground where the Indians hunted. It was the +Warriors' Path over which they rode from north and south to slaughter +and where many of their fiercest encounters took place. However shadowy +the title which Henderson purposed to buy, there was one all-sufficing +reason why he must come to terms with the Cherokees: their northernmost +towns in Tennessee lay only fifty or sixty miles below Cumberland Gap +and hence commanded the route over which he must lead colonists into his +empire beyond the hills. + +The conference took place early in March, 1775, at the Sycamore +Shoals of the Watauga River. Twelve hundred Indians, led by their town +chiefs--among whom were the old warrior and the old statesman of their +nation, Oconostota and 133 Attakullakulla--came to the treaty grounds +and were received by Henderson and his associates and several hundred +white men who were eager for a chance to settle on new lands. Though +Boone was now on his way into Kentucky for the Transylvania Company, +other border leaders of renown or with their fame still to win were +present, and among them James Robertson, of serious mien, and that blond +gay knight in buckskin, John Sevier. + +It is a dramatic picture we evolve for ourselves from the meager +narratives of this event--a mass of painted Indians moving through the +sycamores by the bright water, to come presently into a tense, immobile +semicircle before the large group of armed frontiersmen seated or +standing about Richard Henderson, the man with the imperial dream, the +ready speaker whose flashing eyes and glowing oratory won the hearts +of all who came under their sway. What though the Cherokee title be a +flimsy one at best and the price offered for it a bagatelle! The spirit +of Forward March! is there in that great canvas framed by forest and +sky. The somber note that tones its lustrous color, as by a sweep of the +brush, is the figure of the Chickamaugan chief, Dragging Canoe, warrior +and seer and hater of white men, who urges his tribesmen against the +sale and, 134 when they will not hearken, springs from their midst into +the clear space before Henderson and his band of pioneers and, pointing +with uplifted arm, warns them that a dark cloud hangs over the land the +white man covets which to the red man has long been a bloody ground.¹ + +¹ This utterance of Dragging Canoe's is generally supposed to be the +origin of the descriptive phrase applied to Kentucky--the Dark and +Bloody Ground. See Roosevelt, _The Winning of the West,_ vol. I, p.229. +The purchase, finally consummated, included the country lying between +the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers--almost all the present State of +Kentucky, with the adjacent land watered by the Cumberland River and its +tributaries, except certain lands previously leased by the Indians to +the Watauga Colony. The tract comprised about twenty million acres and +extended into Tennessee. + +Daniel Boone's work was to cut out a road for the wagons of the +Transylvania Company's colonists to pass over. This was to be done by +slashing away the briers and underbrush hedging the narrow Warriors' +Path that made a direct northward line from Cumberland Gap to the +Ohio bank, opposite the mouth of the Scioto River. Just prior to the +conference Boone and thirty guns had set forth from the Holston to +prepare the road and to build a fort on whatever site he should select. + +135 By April, Henderson and his first group of tenants were on the +trail. In Powell's Valley they came up with a party of Virginians +Kentucky bound, led by Benjamin Logan; and the two bands joined together +for the march. They had not gone far when they heard disquieting +news. After leaving Martin's Station, at the gates of his new domain, +Henderson received a letter from Boone telling of an attack by Indians, +in which two of his men had been killed, but we stood on the ground +and guarded our baggage till the day and lost nothing.¹ These tidings, +indicating that despite treaties and sales, the savages were again on +the warpath, might well alarm Henderson's colonists. While they halted, +some indecisive, others frankly for retreat, there appeared a company +of men making all haste out of Kentucky because of Indian unrest. Six +of these Henderson persuaded to turn again and go in with him; but +this addition hardly offset the loss of those members of his party who +thought it too perilous to proceed. Henderson's own courage did not +falter. He had staked his all on this stupendous venture and for him +it was forward to wealth and glory or retreat into poverty and eclipse. +Boone, in the heart of the danger, 136 was making the same stand. If we +give way to them [the Indians] now, he wrote, it will ever be the case. + +¹ Bogart, _Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky, p. 121._ Signs +of discord other than Indian opposition met Henderson as he resolutely +pushed on. His conversations with some of the fugitives from Kentucky +disclosed the first indications of the storm that was to blow away the +empire he was going in to found. He told them that the claims they had +staked in Kentucky would not hold good with the Transylvania Company. +Whereupon James McAfee, who was leading a group of returning men, stated +his opinion that the Transylvania Company's claim would not hold good +with Virginia. After the parley, three of McAfee's brothers turned back +and went with Henderson's party, but whether with intent to join his +colony or to make good their own claims is not apparent. Benjamin Logan +continued amicably with Henderson on the march but did not recognize him +as Lord Proprietor of Kentucky. He left the Transylvania caravan +shortly after entering the territory, branched off in the direction of +Harrodsburg, and founded St. Asaph's Station, in the present Lincoln +County, independently of Henderson though the site lay within +Henderson's purchase. + +137 Notwithstanding delays and apprehensions, Henderson and his +colonists finally reached Boone's Fort, which Daniel and his thirty +guns--lacking two since the Indian encounter--had erected at the mouth +of Otter Creek. + +An attractive buoyancy of temperament is revealed in Henderson's +description in his journal of a giant elm with tall straight trunk and +even foliage that shaded a space of one hundred feet. Instantly he chose +this "divine elm" as the council chamber of Transylvania. Under its +leafage he read the constitution of the new colony. It would be too +great a stretch of fancy to call it a democratic document, for it was +not that, except in deft phrases. Power was certainly declared to be +vested in the people; but the substance of power remained in the hands +of the Proprietors. + +Terms for land grants were generous enough in the beginning, although +Henderson made the fatal mistake of demanding quitrents--one of the +causes of dissatisfaction which had led to the Regulators' rising +in North Carolina. In September he augmented this error by more +than doubling the price of land, adding a fee of eight shillings for +surveying, and reserving to the Proprietors one-half of all gold, +silver, lead, and sulphur found on 138 the land. No land near sulphur +springs or showing evidences of metals was to be granted to settlers. +Moreover, at the Company's store the prices charged for lead were said +to be too high--lead being necessary for hunting, and hunting being the +only means of procuring food--while the wages of labor, as fixed by the +Company, were too low. These terms bore too heavily on poor men who were +risking their lives in the colony. + +Hence newcomers passed by Boonesborough, as the Transylvania settlement +was presently called, and went elsewhere. They settled on Henderson's +land but refused his terms. They joined in their sympathies with James +Harrod, who, having established Harrodsburg in the previous year at the +invitation of Virginia, was not in the humor to acknowledge Henderson's +claim or to pay him tribute. All were willing to combine with the +Transylvania Company for defense, and to enforce law they would unite +in bonds of brotherhood in Kentucky, even as they had been one with each +other on the earlier frontier now left behind them. But they would call +no man master; they had done with feudalism. That Henderson should not +have foreseen this, especially after the upheaval in North Carolina, +proves him, in spite of all his brilliant 139 gifts, to have been a man +out of touch with the spirit of the time. + +The war of the Revolution broke forth and the Indians descended upon the +Kentucky stations. Defense was the one problem in all minds, and defense +required powder and lead in plenty. The Transylvania Company was not +able to provide the means of defense against the hordes of savages whom +Henry Hamilton, the British Governor at Detroit, was sending to make +war on the frontiers. Practical men like Harrod and George Rogers +Clark--who, if not a practical man in his own interests, was a most +practical soldier--saw that unification of interests within the +territory with the backing of either Virginia or Congress was necessary. +Clark personally would have preferred to see the settlers combine as +a freemen's state. It was plain that they would not combine and +stake their lives as a unit to hold Kentucky for the benefit of the +Transylvania Company, whose authority some of the most prominent men in +the territory had refused to recognize. The Proprietary of Transylvania +could continue to exist only to the danger of every life in Kentucky. + +While the Proprietors sent a delegate to the Continental Congress to +win official recognition for 140 Transylvania, eighty-four men at +Harrodsburg drew up a petition addressed to Virginia stating their +doubts of the legality of Henderson's title and requesting Virginia to +assert her authority according to the stipulations of her charter. +That defense was the primary and essential motive of the Harrodsburg +Remonstrance seems plain, for when George Rogers Clark set off on foot +with one companion to lay the document before the Virginian authorities, +he also went to plead for a load of powder. In his account of that +hazardous journey, as a matter of fact, he makes scant reference to +Transylvania, except to say that the greed of the Proprietors would soon +bring the colony to its end, but shows that his mind was seldom off the +powder. It is a detail of history that the Continental Congress refused +to seat the delegate from Transylvania. Henderson himself went to +Virginia to make the fight for his land before the Assembly.¹ + +¹ In 1778 Virginia disallowed Henderson's title but granted him two +hundred thousand acres between the Green and Kentucky rivers for his +trouble and expense in opening up the country. The magnetic center of +Boonesborough's life was the lovable and unassuming Daniel Boone. +Soon after the building of the fort Daniel had brought in his wife and +family. He used often to 141 state with a mild pride that his wife +and daughters were the first white women to stand on the banks of +the Kentucky River. That pride had not been unmixed with anxiety; his +daughter Jemima and two daughters of his friend, Richard Galloway, while +boating on the river had been captured by Shawanoes and carried off. +Boone, accompanied by the girls' lovers and by John Floyd (eager to +repay his debt of life-saving to Boone) had pursued them, tracing the +way the captors had taken by broken twigs and scraps of dress goods +which one of the girls had contrived to leave in their path, had come on +the Indians unawares, killed them, and recovered the three girls unhurt. + +In the summer of 1776, Virginia took official note of Captain Boone of +Boonesborough, for she sent him a small supply of powder. The men of the +little colony, which had begun so pretentiously with its constitution +and assembly, were now obliged to put all other plans aside and to +concentrate on the question of food and defense. There was a dangerous +scarcity of powder and lead. The nearest points at which these +necessaries could be procured were the Watauga and Holston River +settlements, which were themselves none too well stocked. Harrod and +Logan, some time in 1777, 142 reached the Watauga fort with three or +four pack-horses and filled their packs from Sevier's store; but, as +they neared home, they were detected by red scouts and Logan was badly +wounded before he and Harrod were able to drive their precious load +safely through the gates at Harrodsburg. In the autumn of 1777, Clark, +with a boatload of ammunition, reached Maysville on the Ohio, having +successfully run the gauntlet between banks in possession of the foe. He +had wrested the powder and lead from the Virginia Council by threats +to the effect that if Virginia was so willing to lose Kentucky--for of +course a country not worth defending is not worth claiming--he and his +fellows were quite ready to take Kentucky for themselves and to hold it +with their swords against all comers, Virginia included. By even such +cogent reasoning had he convinced the Council--which had tried to hedge +by expressing doubts that Virginia would receive the Kentucky settlers +as citizens of the State--that it would be cheaper to give him the +powder. + +Because so many settlers had fled and the others had come closer +together for their common good, Harrodsburg and Boonesborough were +now the only occupied posts in Kentucky. Other settlements, 143 once +thriving, were abandoned; and, under the terror, the Wild reclaimed +them. In April, 1777, Boonesborough underwent its first siege. Boone, +leading a sortie, was shot and he fell with a shattered ankle. An +Indian rushed upon him and was swinging the tomahawk over him when +Simon Kenton, giant frontiersman and hero of many daring deeds, rushed +forward, shot the Indian, threw Boone across his back, and fought his +way desperately to safety. It was some months ere Boone was his nimble +self again. But though he could not stand up to the guns, he directed +all operations from his cabin. + +The next year Boone was ready for new ventures growing from the +settlers' needs. Salt was necessary to preserve meat through the summer. +Accordingly Boone and twenty-seven men went up to the Blue Licks in +February, 1778, to replenish their supply by the simple process of +boiling the salt water of the Licks till the saline particles adhered to +the kettles. Boone was returning alone, with a pack-horse load of salt +and game, when a blinding snowstorm overtook him and hid from view four +stealthy Shawanoes on his trail. He was seized and carried to a camp of +120 warriors led by the French Canadian, Dequindre, and James and George +Girty, two white renegades. Among the 144 Indians were some of those who +had captured him on his first exploring trip through Kentucky and whom +he had twice given the slip. Their hilarity was unbounded. Boone quickly +learned that this band was on its way to surprise Boonesborough. It was +a season when Indian attacks were not expected; nearly threescore of the +men were at the salt spring and, to make matters worse, the walls of the +new fort where the settlers and their families had gathered were as yet +completed on only three sides. Boonesborough was, in short, well-nigh +defenseless. To turn the Indians from their purpose, Boone conceived the +desperate scheme of offering to lead them to the salt makers' camp with +the assurance that he and his companions were willing to join the tribe. +He understood Indians well enough to feel sure that once possessed of +nearly thirty prisoners, the Shawanoes would not trouble further about +Boonesborough but would hasten to make a triumphal entry into their own +towns. That some, perhaps all, of the white men would assuredly die, +he knew well; but it was the only way to save the women and children in +Boonesborough. In spite of Dequindre and the Girtys, who were leading a +military expedition for the reduction of a fort, the Shawanoes fell in +with the suggestion. When they 145 had taken their prisoners, the more +bloodthirsty warriors in the band wanted to tomahawk them all on the +spot. By his diplomatic discourse, however, Boone dissuaded them, for +the time being at least, and the whole company set off for the towns on +the Little Miami. + +The weather became severe, very little game crossed their route, and for +days they subsisted on slippery elm bark. The lovers of blood did not +hold back their scalping knives and several of the prisoners perished; +but Black Fish, the chief then of most power in Shawanoe councils, +adopted Boone as his son, and gave him the name of Sheltowee, or Big +Turtle. Though watched zealously to prevent escape, Big Turtle was +treated with every consideration and honor; and, as we would say today, +he played the game. He entered into the Indian life with apparent zest, +took part in hunts and sports and the races and shooting matches in +which the Indians delighted, but he was always careful not to outrun or +outshoot his opponents. Black Fish took him to Detroit when some of the +tribe escorted the remainder of the prisoners to the British post. There +he met Governor Hamilton and, in the hope of obtaining his liberty, +he led that dignitary to believe that he 146 and the other people of +Boonesborough were eager to move to Detroit and take refuge under the +British flag.¹ It is said that Boone always carried in a wallet round +his neck the King's commission given him in Dunmore's War; and that +he exhibited it to Hamilton to bear out his story. Hamilton sought to +ransom him from the Indians, but Black Fish would not surrender his +new son. The Governor gave Boone a pony, with saddle and trappings, and +other presents, including trinkets to be used in procuring his needs and +possibly his liberty from the Shawanoes. + +¹ So well did Boone play his part that he aroused suspicion even in +those who knew him best. After his return to Boonesborough his old +friend, Calloway, formally accused him of treachery on two counts: that +Boone had betrayed the salt makers to the Indians and had planned to +betray Boonesborough to the British. Boone was tried and acquitted. His +simple explanation of his acts satisfied the court-martial and made him +a greater hero than ever among the frontier folk. Black Fish then took +his son home to Chillicothe. Here Boone found Delawares and Mingos +assembling with the main body of the Shawanoe warriors. The war belt +was being carried through the Ohio country. Again Boonesborough and +Harrodsburg were to be the first settlements attacked. To escape and +give warning was now the one purpose that obsessed Boone. He redoubled +his efforts to 147 throw the Indians off their guard. He sang and +whistled blithely about the camp at the mouth of the Scioto River, +whither he had accompanied his Indian father to help in the salt +boiling. In short, he seemed so very happy that one day Black Fish took +his eye off him for a few moments to watch the passing of a flock of +turkeys. Big Turtle passed with the flock, leaving no trace. To his +lamenting parent it must have seemed as though he had vanished into the +air. Daniel crossed the Ohio and ran the 160 miles to Boonesborough in +four days, during which time he had only one meal, from a buffalo he +shot at the Blue Licks. When he reached the fort after an absence of +nearly five months, he found that his wife had given him up for dead and +had returned to the Yadkin. + +Boone now began with all speed to direct preparations to withstand a +siege. Owing to the Indian's leisurely system of councils and ceremonies +before taking the warpath, it was not until the first week in September +that Black Fish's painted warriors, with some Frenchmen under Dequindre, +appeared before Boonesborough. Nine days the siege lasted and was the +longest in border history. Dequindre, seeing that the fort might not be +taken, resorted to trickery. He requested Boone 148 and a few of his men +to come out for a parley, saying that his orders from Hamilton were to +protect the lives of the Americans as far as possible. Boone's friend, +Calloway, urged against acceptance of the apparently benign proposal +which was made, so Dequindre averred, for bienfaisance et humanité. But +the words were the words of a white man, and Boone hearkened to them. +With eight of the garrison he went out to the parley. After a long talk +in which good will was expressed on both sides, it was suggested by +Black Fish that they all shake hands and, as there were so many more +Indians than white men, two Indians should, of course, shake hands with +one white man, each grasping one of his hands. The moment that their +hands gripped, the trick was clear, for the Indians exerted their +strength to drag off the white men. Desperate scuffling ensued in +which the whites with difficulty freed themselves and ran for the fort. +Calloway had prepared for emergencies. The pursuing Indians were met +with a deadly fire. After a defeated attempt to mine the fort the enemy +withdrew. + +The successful defense of Boonesborough was an achievement of national +importance, for had Boonesborough fallen, Harrodsburg alone could +149 not have stood. The Indians under the British would have overrun +Kentucky; and George Rogers Clark--whose base for his Illinois +operations was the Kentucky forts--could not have made the campaigns +which wrested the Northwest from the control of Great Britain. + +Again Virginia took official note of Captain Boone when in 1779 the +Legislature established Boonesborough a town for the reception of +traders and appointed Boone himself one of the trustees to attend to the +sale and registration of lots. An odd office that was for Daniel, who +never learned to attend to the registration of his own; he declined it. +His name appears again, however, a little later when Virginia made +the whole of Kentucky one of her counties with the following officers: +Colonel David Robinson, County Lieutenant; George Rogers Clark, Anthony +Bledsoe, and John Bowman, Majors; Daniel Boone, James Harrod, Benjamin +Logan, and John Todd, Captains. + +Boonesborough's successful resistance caused land speculators as well as +prospective settlers to take heart of grace. Parties made their way to +Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, and even to the Falls of the Ohio, where +Clark's fort and blockhouses now 150 stood. In the summer of 1779 Clark +had erected on the Kentucky side of the river a large fort which became +the nucleus of the town of Louisville. Here, while he was eating his +heart out with impatience for money and men to enable him to march to +the attack of Detroit, as he had planned, he amused himself by drawing +up plans for a city. He laid out private sections and public parks and +contemplated the bringing in of families only to inhabit his city, for, +oddly enough, he who never married was going to make short shift of mere +bachelors in his City Beautiful. Between pen scratches, no doubt, he +looked out frequently upon the river to descry if possible a boatload of +ammunition or the banners of the troops he had been promised. + +When neither appeared, he gave up the idea of Detroit and set about +erecting defenses on the southern border, for the Choctaws and +Cherokees, united under a white leader named Colbert, were threatening +Kentucky by way of the Mississippi. He built in 1780 Fort Jefferson in +what is now Ballard County, and had barely completed the new post and +garrisoned it with about thirty men when it was besieged by Colbert and +his savages. The Indians, assaulting by night, were lured into 151 a ++position directly before a cannon which poured lead into a mass of +them. The remainder fled in terror from the vicinity of the fort; but +Colbert succeeded in rallying them and was returning to the attack when +he suddenly encountered Clark with a company of men and was forced to +abandon his enterprise. + +Clark knew that the Ohio Indians would come down on the settlements +again during the summer and that to meet their onslaughts every man in +Kentucky would be required. He learned that there was a new influx of +land seekers over the Wilderness Road and that speculators were doing +a thriving business in Harrodsburg; so, leaving his company to protect +Fort Jefferson, he took two men with him and started across the wilds on +foot for Harrodsburg. To evade the notice of the Indian bands which were +moving about the country the three stripped and painted themselves as +warriors and donned the feathered headdress. So successful was their +disguise that they were fired on by a party of surveyors near the +outskirts of Harrodsburg. + +The records do not state what were the sensations of certain speculators +in a land office in Harrodsburg when a blue-eyed savage in a war 152 +bonnet sprang through the doorway and, with uplifted weapon, declared +the office closed; but we get a hint of the power of Clark's personality +and of his genius for dominating men from the terse report that he +enrolled the speculators. He was informed that another party of men, +more nervous than these, was now on its way out of Kentucky. In haste he +dispatched a dozen frontiersmen to cut the party off at Crab Orchard and +take away the gun of every man who refused to turn back and do his bit +for Kentucky. To Clark a man was a gun, and he meant that every gun +should do its duty. + +The leaders and pioneers of the Dark and Bloody Ground were now +warriors, all under Clark's command, while for two years longer the Red +Terror ranged Kentucky, falling with savage force now here, now there. +In the first battle of 1780, at the Blue Licks, Daniel's brother, Edward +Boone, was killed and scalped. Later on in the war his second son, +Israel, suffered a like fate. The toll of life among the settlers was +heavy. Many of the best-known border leaders were slain. Food and +powder often ran short. Corn might be planted, but whether it would be +harvested or not the planters never knew; and the hunter's rifle shot, +necessary 153 though it was, proved only too often an invitation to the +lurking foe. But sometimes, through all the dangers of forest and trail, +Daniel Boone slipped away silently to Harrodsburg to confer with Clark; +or Clark himself, in the Indian guise that suited the wild man in him +not ill, made his way to and from the garrisons which looked to him for +everything. + +Twice Clark gathered together the guns of Kentucky and, marching north +into the enemy's country, swept down upon the Indian towns of Piqua and +Chillicothe and razed them. In 1782, in the second of these enterprises, +his cousin, Joseph Rogers, who had been taken prisoner and adopted by +the Indians and then wore Indian garb, was shot down by one of Clark's +men. On this expedition Boone and Harrod are said to have accompanied +Clark. + +The ever present terror and horror of those days, especially of the two +years preceding this expedition, are vividly suggested by the quaint +remark of an old woman who had lived through them, as recorded for us by +a traveler. The most beautiful sight she had seen in Kentucky, she said, +was a young man dying a natural death in his bed. Dead but unmarred by +hatchet or scalping knife, he was 154 so rare and comely a picture that +the women of the post sat up all night looking at him. + +But, we ask, what golden emoluments were showered by a grateful country +on the men who thus held the land through those years of want and war, +and saved an empire for the Union? What practical recognition was there +of these brave and unselfish men who daily risked their lives and faced +the stealth and cruelty lurking in the wilderness ways? There is meager +eloquence in the records. Here, for instance, is a letter from George +Rogers Clark to the Governor of Virginia, dated May 27, 1783: + +Sir. Nothing but necessity could induce me to make the following +request to Your Excellency, which is to grant me a small sum of money on +account; as I can assure you, Sir, that I am exceedingly distressed for +the want of necessary clothing etc and don't know any channel through +which I could procure any except of the Executive. The State I believe +will fall considerably in my debt. Any supplies which Your Excellency +favors me with might be deducted out of my accounts.¹ + +¹ _Calendar of Virginia State Papers,_ vol. III, p. 487. Clark had +spent all his own substance and all else he could beg, borrow--or +appropriate--in the conquest of Illinois and the defense of Kentucky. +155 His only reward from Virginia was a grant of land from which he +realized nothing, and dismissal from her service when she needed him no +longer. + +All that Clark had asked for himself was a commission in the Continental +Army. This was denied him, as it appears now, not through his own +errors, which had not at that time taken hold on him, but through the +influence of powerful enemies. It is said that both Spain and England, +seeing a great soldier without service for his sword, made him offers, +which he refused. As long as any acreage remained to him on which to +raise money, he continued to pay the debts he had contracted to finance +his expeditions, and in this course he had the assistance of his +youngest brother, William, to whom he assigned his Indiana grant. + +His health impaired by hardship and exposure and his heart broken by +his country's indifference, Clark sank into alcoholic excesses. In +his sixtieth year, just six years before his death, and when he was a +helpless paralytic, he was granted a pension of four hundred dollars. +There is a ring of bitter irony in the words with which he accepted the +sword sent him by Virginia in his crippled old age: When Virginia needed +a sword I gave her one. He died near Louisville on February 13, 1818. + +156 Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. But even before Kentucky +became a State her affairs, particularly as to land, were arranged, +let us say, on a practical business basis. Then it was discovered that +Daniel Boone had no legal claim to any foot of ground in Kentucky. +Daniel owned nothing but the clothes he wore; and for those--as well as +for much powder, lead, food, and such trifles--he was heavily in debt. + +So, in 1788, Daniel Boone put the list of his debts in his wallet, +gathered his wife and his younger sons about him, and, shouldering his +hunter's rifle, once more turned towards the wilds. The country of the +Great Kanawha in West Virginia was still a wilderness, and a hunter and +trapper might, in some years, earn enough to pay his debts. For others, +now, the paths he had hewn and made safe; for Boone once more the +wilderness road. + +157 + + + + +Chapter VIII + +Tennessee + +Indian law, tradition, and even superstition had shaped the conditions +which the pioneers faced when they crossed the mountains. This savage +inheritance had decreed that Kentucky should be a dark and bloody +ground, fostering no life but that of four-footed beasts, its fertile +sod never to stir with the green push of the corn. And so the white men +who went into Kentucky to build and to plant went as warriors go, and +for every cabin they erected they battled as warriors to hold a fort. In +the first years they planted little corn and reaped less, for it may be +said that their rifles were never out of their hands. We have seen +how stations were built and abandoned until but two stood. Untiring +vigilance and ceaseless warfare were the price paid by the first +Kentuckians ere they turned the Indian's place of desolation and death +into a land productive and a living habitation. + +158 Herein lies the difference, slight apparently, yet significant, +between the first Kentucky and the first Tennessee¹ colonies. Within the +memory of the Indians only one tribe had ever attempted to make their +home in Kentucky--a tribe of the fighting Shawanoes--and they had been +terribly chastised for their temerity. But Tennessee was the home of the +Cherokees, and at Chickasaw Bluffs (Memphis) began the southward trail +to the principal towns of the Chickasaws. By the red man's fiat, then, +human life might abide in Tennessee, though not in Kentucky, and it +followed that in seasons of peace the frontiersmen might settle in +Tennessee. So it was that as early as 1757, before the great Cherokee +war, a company of Virginians under Andrew Lewis had, on an invitation +from the Indians, erected Fort Loudon near Great Telliko, the Cherokees' +principal town, and that, after the treaty of peace in 1761, Waddell and +his rangers of North Carolina had erected a fort on the Holston. + +¹ Tennessee. The name, Ten-as-se, appears on Adair's map as one of the +old Cherokee towns. Apparently neither the meaning nor the reason why +the colonists called both state and river by this name has been handed +down to us. Though Fort Loudon had fallen tragically during the war, +and though Waddell's fort had been 159 abandoned, neither was without +influence in the colonization of Tennessee, for some of the men who +built these forts drifted back a year or two later and set up the first +cabins on the Holston. These earliest settlements, thin and scattered, +did not survive; but in 1768 the same settlers or others of their +kind--discharged militiamen from Back Country regiments--once more made +homes on the Holston. They were joined by a few families from near the +present Raleigh, North Carolina, who had despaired of seeing justice +done to the tenants on the mismanaged estates of Lord Granville. About +the same time there was erected the first cabin on the Watauga River, as +is generally believed, by a man of the name of William Bean (or Been), +hunter and frontier soldier from Pittsylvania County, Virginia. This +man, who had hunted on the Watauga with Daniel Boone in 1760, chose +as the site of his dwelling the place of the old hunting camp near the +mouth of Boone's Creek. He soon began to have neighbors. + +Meanwhile the Regulation Movement stirred the Back Country of both the +Carolinas. In 1768, the year in which William Bean built his cabin on +the bank of the Watauga, 160 five hundred armed Regulators in North +Carolina, aroused by irregularities in the conduct of public office, +gathered to assert their displeasure, but dispersed peaceably on receipt +of word from Governor Tryon that he had ordered the prosecution of any +officer found guilty of extortion. Edmund Fanning, the most hated of +Lord Granville's agents, though convicted, escaped punishment. Enraged +at this miscarriage of justice, the Regulators began a system of +terrorization by taking possession of the court, presided over by +Richard Henderson. The judge himself was obliged to slip out by a +back way to avoid personal injury. The Regulators burned his house and +stable. They meted out mob treatment likewise to William Hooper, later +one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. + +Two elements, with antithetical aims, had been at work in the +Regulation; and the unfortunate failure of justice in the case of +Fanning had given the corrupt element its opportunity to seize control. +In the petitions addressed to Governor Tryon by the leaders of the +movement in its earlier stages the aims of liberty-loving thinkers are +traceable. It is worthy of note that they included in their demands +articles which are now constitutional. They desired that "suffrage be +given by ticket and 161 ballot"; that the mode of taxation be altered, +and each person be taxed in proportion to the profits arising from his +estate; that judges and clerks be given salaries instead of perquisites +and fees. They likewise petitioned for repeal of the act prohibiting +dissenting ministers from celebrating the rites of matrimony. The +establishment of these reforms, the petitioners of the Regulation +concluded, would conciliate their minds to every just measure of +government, and would make the laws what the Constitution ever designed +they should be, their protection and not their bane. Herein clearly +enough we can discern the thought and the phraseology of the Ulster +Presbyterians. + +But a change took place in both leaders and methods. During the +Regulators' career of violence they were under the sway of an agitator +named Hermon Husband. This demagogue was reported to have been expelled +from the Quaker Society for cause; it is on record that he was expelled +from the North Carolina Assembly because a vicious anonymous letter was +traced to him. He deserted his dupes just before the shots cracked at +Alamance Creek and fled from the colony. He was afterwards apprehended +in Pennsylvania for complicity in the Whisky Insurrection. + +162 Four of the leading Presbyterian ministers of the Back Country +issued a letter in condemnation of the Regulators. One of these +ministers was the famous David Caldwell, son-in-law of the Reverend +Alexander Craighead, and a man who knew the difference between liberty +and license and who proved himself the bravest of patriots in the War +of Independence. The records of the time contain sworn testimony +against the Regulators by Waightstill Avery, a signer of the Mecklenburg +Resolves, who later presided honorably over courts in the western +circuit of Tennessee; and there is evidence indicating Jacobite and +French intrigue. That Governor Tryon recognized a hidden hand at work +seems clearly revealed in his proclamation addressed to those whose +understandings have been run away with and whose passions have been led +in captivity by some evil designing men who, actuated by cowardice and +a sense of that Publick Justice which is due to their Crimes, have +obscured themselves from Publick view. What the Assembly thought of the +Regulators was expressed in 1770 in a drastic bill which so shocked +the authorities in England that instructions were sent forbidding any +Governor to approve such a bill in future, declaring it a disgrace to +the British Statute Books. + +163 On May 16, 1771, some two thousand Regulators were precipitated +by Husband into the Battle of Alamance, which took place in a district +settled largely by a rough and ignorant type of Germans, many of whom +Husband had lured to swell his mob. Opposed to him were eleven hundred +of Governor Tryon's troops, officered by such patriots as Griffith +Rutherford, Hugh Waddell, and Francis Nash. During an hour's engagement +about twenty Regulators were killed, while the Governor's troops had +nine killed and sixty-one wounded. Six of the leaders were hanged. The +rest took the oath of allegiance which Tryon administered. + +It has been said about the Regulators that they were not cast down by +their defeat at Alamance but like the mammoth, they shook the bolt from +their brow and crossed the mountains, but such flowery phrases do +not seem to have been inspired by facts. Nor do the records show that +fifteen hundred Regulators arrived at Watauga in 1771, as has also been +stated. Nor are the names of the leaders of the Regulation to be found +in the list of signatures affixed to the one state paper of Watauga +which was preserved and written into historic annals. Nor yet do those +names appear on the roster of the Watauga and Holston men who, 164 +in 1774, fought with Shelby under Andrew Lewis in the Battle of Point +Pleasant. The Boones and the Bryans, the Robertsons, the Seviers, the +Shelbys, the men who opened up the West and shaped the destiny of its +inhabitants, were genuine freemen, with a sense of law and order as +inseparable from liberty. They would follow a Washington but not a +Hermon Husband. + +James Hunter, whose signature leads on all Regulation manifestoes just +prior to the Battle of Alamance, was a sycophant of Husband, to whom he +addressed fulsome letters; and in the real battle for democracy--the +War of Independence--he was a Tory. The Colonial Records show that those +who, like the mammoth, shook from them the ethical restraints which +make man superior to the giant beast, and who later bolted into the +mountains, contributed chiefly the lawlessness that harassed the new +settlements. They were the banditti and, in 1776, the Tories of the +western hills; they pillaged the homes of the men who were fighting for +the democratic ideal. + +It was not the Regulation Movement which turned westward the makers of +the Old Southwest, but the free and enterprising spirit of the age. +165 It was emphatically an age of doers; and if men who felt the +constructive urge in them might not lay hold on conditions where +they were and reshape them, then they must go forward seeking that +environment which would give their genius its opportunity. + +Of such adventurous spirits was James Robertson, a Virginian born of +Ulster Scot parentage, and a resident of (the present) Wake County, +North Carolina, since his boyhood. Robertson was twenty-eight years old +when, in 1770, he rode over the hills to Watauga. We can imagine him as +he was then, for the portrait taken much later in life shows the type +of face that does not change. It is a high type combining the best +qualities of his race. Intelligence, strength of purpose, fortitude, +and moral power are there; they impress us at the first glance. At +twenty-eight he must have been a serious young man, little given to +laughter; indeed, spontaneity is perhaps the only good trait we miss in +studying his face. He was a thinker who had not yet found his purpose--a +thinker in leash, for at this time James Robertson could neither read +nor write. + +At Watauga, Robertson lived for a while in the cabin of a man named +Honeycut. He chose land 166 for himself and, in accordance with the +custom of the time, sealed his right to it by planting corn. He remained +to harvest his first crop and then set off to gather his family and some +of his friends together and escort them to the new country. But on the +way he missed the trail and wandered for a fortnight in the mountains. +The heavy rains ruined his powder so that he could not hunt; for food he +had only berries and nuts. At one place, where steep bluffs opposed him, +he was obliged to abandon his horse and scale the mountain side on foot. +He was in extremity when he chanced upon two huntsmen who gave him food +and set him on the trail. If this experience proves his lack of the +hunter's instinct and the woodsman's resourcefulness which Boone +possessed, it proves also his special qualities of perseverance and +endurance which were to reach their zenith in his successful struggle +to colonize and hold western Tennessee. He returned to Watauga in the +following spring (1771) with his family and a small group of colonists. +Robertson's wife was an educated woman and under her instruction he now +began to study. + +Next year a young Virginian from the Shenandoah Valley rode on down +Holston Valley on a hunting and exploring trip and loitered at +Watauga. 167 Here he found not only a new settlement but an independent +government in the making; and forthwith he determined to have a part +in both. This young Virginian had already shown the inclination of a +political colonist, for in the Shenandoah Valley he had, at the age of +nineteen, laid out the town of New Market (which exists to this day) and +had directed its municipal affairs and invited and fostered its clergy. +This young Virginian--born on September 23, 1745, and so in 1772 +twenty-seven years of age--was John Sevier, that John Sevier whose +monument now towers from its site in Knoxville to testify of both +the wild and the great deeds of old Tennessee's beloved knight. Like +Robertson, Sevier hastened home and removed his whole family, including +his wife and children, his parents and his brothers and sisters, to this +new haven of freedom at Watauga. + +The friendship formed between Robertson and Sevier in these first years +of their work together was never broken, yet two more opposite types +could hardly have been brought together. Robertson was a man of humble +origin, unlettered, not a dour Scot but a solemn one. Sevier was +cavalier as well as frontiersman. On his father's side he was of the +patrician family of Xavier in France. His 168 progenitors, having +become Huguenots, had taken refuge in England, where the name Xavier +was finally changed to Sevier. John Sevier's mother was an Englishwoman. +Some years before his birth his parents had emigrated to the Shenandoah +Valley. Thus it happened that John Sevier, who mingled good English +blood with the blue blood of old France, was born an American and grew +up a frontier hunter and soldier. He stood about five feet nine from his +moccasins to his crown of light brown hair. He was well-proportioned and +as graceful of body as he was hard-muscled and swift. His chin was firm, +his nose of a Roman cast, his mouth well-shaped, its slightly full lips +slanting in a smile that would not be repressed. Under the high, finely +modeled brow, small keen dark blue eyes sparkled with health, with +intelligence, and with the man's joy in life. + +John Sevier indeed cannot be listed as a type; he was individual. There +is no other character like him in border annals. He was cavalier and +prince in his leadership of men; he had their homage. Yet he knew how to +be comrade and brother to the lowliest. He won and held the confidence +and friendship of the serious-minded Robertson no less than the idolatry +of the wildest spirits on the 169 frontier throughout the forty-three +years of the spectacular career which began for him on the day he +brought his tribe to Watauga. In his time he wore the governor's purple; +and a portrait painted of him shows how well this descendant of the +noble Xaviers could fit himself to the dignity and formal habiliments of +state; Yet in the fringed deerskin of frontier garb, he was fleeter on +the warpath than the Indians who fled before him; and he could outride +and outshoot--and, it is said, outswear--the best and the worst of the +men who followed him. Perhaps the lurking smile on John Sevier's face +was a flicker of mirth that there should be found any man, red or +white, with temerity enough to try conclusions with him. None ever did, +successfully. + +The historians of Tennessee state that the Wataugans formed their +government in 1772 and that Sevier was one of its five commissioners. +Yet, as Sevier did not settle in Tennessee before 1773, it is possible +that the Watauga Association was not formed until then. Unhappily the +written constitution of the little commonwealth was not preserved; but +it is known that, following the Ulsterman's ideal, manhood suffrage and +religious independence were two of its provisions. The commissioners +enlisted a militia and they recorded 170 deeds for land, issued marriage +licenses, and tried offenders against the law. They believed themselves +to be within the boundaries of Virginia and therefore adopted the laws +of that State for their guidance. They had numerous offenders to deal +with, for men fleeing from debt or from the consequence of crime sought +the new settlements just across the mountains as a safe and adjacent +harbor. The attempt of these men to pursue their lawlessness in Watauga +was one reason why the Wataugans organized a government. + +When the line was run between Virginia and North Carolina beyond the +mountains, Watauga was discovered to be south of Virginia's limits +and hence on Indian lands. This was in conflict with the King's +Proclamation, and Alexander Cameron, British agent to the Cherokees, +accordingly ordered the encroaching settlers to depart. The Indians, +however, desired them to remain. But since it was illegal to purchase +Indian lands, Robertson negotiated a lease for ten years. In 1775, when +Henderson made his purchase from the Cherokees, at Sycamore Shoals on +the Watauga, Robertson and Sevier, who were present at the sale with +other Watauga commissioners, followed Henderson's example and bought +outright the lands they desired 171 to include in Watauga's domain. In +1776 they petitioned North Carolina for annexation. As they were +already within North Carolina's bounds, it was recognition rather than +annexation which they sought. This petition, which is the only Wataugan +document to survive, is undated but marked as received in August, +1776. It is in Sevier's handwriting and its style suggests that it was +composed by him, for in its manner of expression it has much in common +with many later papers from his pen. That Wataugans were a law-loving +community and had formed their government for the purpose of making law +respected is reiterated throughout the document. As showing the quality +of these first western statemakers, two paragraphs are quoted: + +Finding ourselves on the frontiers, and being apprehensive that for want +of proper legislature we might become a shelter for such as endeavored +to defraud their creditors; considering also the necessity of recording +deeds, wills, and doing other public business; we, by consent of the +people, formed a court for the purposes above mentioned, taking, by +desire of our constituents, the Virginia laws for our guide, so near as +the situation of affairs would permit. This was intended for ourselves, +and was done by consent of every individual. + +The petition goes on to state that, among their measures for upholding +law, the Wataugans had 172 enlisted a company of fine riflemen and put +them under command of Captain James Robertson. + +We… thought proper to station them on our frontiers in defense of the +common cause, at the expense and risque of our own private fortunes, +till farther public orders, which we flatter ourselves will give no +offense.… We pray your mature and deliberate consideration in our +behalf, that you may annex us to your Province (whether as county, +district, or other division) in such manner as may enable us to share in +the glorious cause of Liberty: enforce our laws under authority and in +every respect become the best members of society; and for ourselves +and our constituents we hope we may venture to assure you that we shall +adhere strictly to your determinations, and that nothing will be lacking +or anything neglected that may add weight (in the civil or military +establishments) to the glorious cause in which we are now struggling, or +contribute to the welfare of our own or ages yet to come. + +One hundred and thirteen names are signed to the document. In the +following year (1777) North Carolina erected her overhill territory +into Washington County. The Governor appointed justices of the peace and +militia officers who in the following year organized the new county and +its courts. And so Watauga's independent government, begun in the spirit +of true liberty, came as lawfully to its end. + +173 But for nearly three years before their political status was thus +determined, the Wataugans were sharing in the glorious cause of Liberty +by defending their settlements against Indian attacks. While the +majority of the young Cherokee warriors were among their enemies, their +chief battles were fought with those from the Chickamaugan towns on +the Tennessee River, under the leadership of Dragging Canoe. The +Chickamaugans embraced the more vicious and bloodthirsty Cherokees, with +a mixture of Creeks and bad whites, who, driven from every law-abiding +community, had cast in their lot with this tribe. The exact number of +white thieves and murderers who had found harbor in the Indian towns +during a score or more of years is not known; but the letters of the +Indian agents, preserved in the records, would indicate that there were +a good many of them. They were fit allies for Dragging Canoe; their +hatred of those from whom their own degeneracy had separated them was +not less than his. + +In July, 1776, John Sevier wrote to the Virginia Committee as follows: + +Dear Gentlemen: Isaac Thomas, William Falling, Jaret Williams and one +more have this moment come in by making their escape from the Indians +and say six 174 hundred Indians and whites were to start for this fort +and intend to drive the country up to New River before they return. + +Thus was heralded the beginning of a savage warfare which kept the +borderers engaged for years. + +It has been a tradition of the chroniclers that Isaac Thomas received +a timely warning from Nancy Ward, a half-caste Cherokee prophetess who +often showed her good will towards the whites; and that the Indians +were roused to battle by Alexander Cameron and John Stuart, the British +agents or superintendents among the overhill tribes. There was a letter +bearing Cameron's name stating that fifteen hundred savages from the +Cherokee and Creek nations were to join with British troops landed at +Pensacola in an expedition against the southern frontier colonies. +This letter was brought to Watauga at dead of night by a masked man who +slipped it through a window and rode away. Apparently John Sevier +did not believe the military information contained in the mysterious +missive, for he communicated nothing of it to the Virginia Committee. +In recent years the facts have come to light. This mysterious letter +and others of a similar tenor bearing forged signatures are cited in +a report by the British Agent, John Stuart, to 175 his Government. It +appears that such inflammatory missives had been industriously scattered +through the back settlements of both Carolinas. There are also letters +from Stuart to Lord Dartmouth, dated a year earlier, urging that +something be done immediately to counteract rumors set afloat that the +British were endeavoring to instigate both the Indians and the negroes +to attack the Americans. + +Now it is, of course, an established fact that both the British and the +American armies used Indians in the War of Independence, even as both +together had used them against the French and the Spanish and their +allied Indians. It was inevitable that the Indians should participate +in any severe conflict between the whites. They were a numerous and a +warlike people and, from their point of view, they had more at stake +than the alien whites who were contesting for control of the red man's +continent. Both British and Americans have been blamed for half-hearted +attempts to keep the Indians neutral. The truth is that each side +strove to enlist the Indians--to be used, if needed later, as +warriors. Massacre was no part of this policy, though it may have been +countenanced by individual officers in both camps. But it is obvious 176 +that, once the Indians took the warpath, they were to be restrained by +no power and, no matter under whose nominal command, they would carry on +warfare by their own methods.¹ + +¹ There is little doubt that either side, British or Americans, stood +ready to enlist the Indians. Already before Boston the Americans had +had the help of the Stockbridge tribe. Washington found the service +committed to the practise when he arrived at Cambridge early in July. +Dunmore had taken the initiative in securing such allies, at least +is purpose; but the insurgent Virginians had had of late more direct +contact with the tribes and were now striving to secure them but with +little success. _The Westward Movement,_ by Justin Winsor, p. 87. +General Ethan Allen of Vermont, as his letters show, sent emissaries +into Canada in an endeavor to enlist the French Canadians and the +Canadian Indians against the British in Canada. See _American Archives,_ +Fourth Series, vol. II, p. 714. The British General Gage wrote to Lord +Dartmouth from Boston, June 12, 1775: We need not be tender of calling +on the Savages as the rebels have shown us the example, by bringing as +many Indians down against us as they could collect. _American Archives,_ +Fourth Series, vol. ii, p. 967. In a letter to Lord Germain, dated +August 23, 1776, John Stuart wrote: Although Mr. Cameron was in constant +danger of assassination and the Indians were threatened with invasion +should they dare to protect him, yet he still found means to prevent +their falling on the settlement. See North Carolina _Colonial Records,_ +vol. X, pp. 608 and 763. Proof that the British agents had succeeded +in keeping the Cherokee neutral till the summer of 1776 is found in the +instructions, dated the 7th of July, to Major Winston from President +Rutledge of South Carolina, regarding the Cherokees, that they must be +forced to give up the British agents and instead of remaining in a State +of Neutrality with respect to British Forces they must take part with +us against them. See North Carolina _Colonial Records,_ vol. X, p. 658. +Whatever may have been the case elsewhere, the attacks on the Watauga +and Holston settlements 177 were not instigated by British agents. It +was not Nancy Ward but Henry Stuart, John Stuart's deputy, who sent +Isaac Thomas to warn the settlers. In their efforts to keep the +friendship of the red men, the British and the Americans were providing +them with powder and lead. The Indians had run short of ammunition and, +since hunting was their only means of livelihood, they must shoot or +starve. South Carolina sent the Cherokees a large supply of powder and +lead which was captured en route by Tories. About the same time Henry +Stuart set out from Pensacola with another consignment from the British. +His report to Lord Germain of his arrival in the Chickamaugan towns +and of what took place there just prior to the raids on the Tennessee +settlements is one of the most illuminating as well as one of the most +dramatic papers in the collected records of that time.¹ + +¹ North Carolina _Colonial Records,_ vol. X, pp. 763-785. Stuart's first +act was secretly to send out Thomas, the trader, to warn the settlers +of their peril, for a small war party of braves was even then concluding +the preliminary war ceremonies. The reason for this Indian alarm and +projected excursion was the fact that the settlers had built one fort at +least on the Indian lands. Stuart finally persuaded the 178 Indians +to remain at peace until he could write to the settlers stating the +grievances and asking for negotiations. The letters were to be carried +by Thomas on his return. + +But no sooner was Thomas on his way again with the letters than there +arrived a deputation of warriors from the Northern tribes--from the +Confederate nations, the Mohawks, Ottawas, Nantucas, Shawanoes and +Delawares--fourteen men in all, who entered the council hall of the Old +Beloved Town of Chota with their faces painted black and the war belt +carried before them. They said that they had been seventy days on their +journey. Everywhere along their way they had seen houses and forts +springing up like weeds across the green sod of their hunting lands. +Where once were great herds of deer and buffalo, they had watched +thousands of men at arms preparing for war. So many now were the white +warriors and their women and children that the red men had been obliged +to travel a great way on the other side of the Ohio and to make a detour +of nearly three hundred miles to avoid being seen. Even on this outlying +route they had crossed the fresh tracks of a great body of people with +horses and cattle going still further towards the setting sun. But their +179 cries were not to be in vain; for their fathers, the French had +heard them and had promised to aid them if they would now strike as one +for their lands. + +After this preamble the deputy of the Mohawks rose. He said that some +American people had made war on one of their towns and had seized the +son of their Great Beloved Man, Sir William Johnson, imprisoned him, and +put him to a cruel death; this crime demanded a great vengeance and they +would not cease until they had taken it. One after another the fourteen +delegates rose and made their talks and presented their wampum strings +to Dragging Canoe. The last to speak was a chief of the Shawanoes. He +also declared that their fathers, the French, who had been so long dead, +were alive again, that they had supplied them plentifully with arms and +ammunition and had promised to assist them in driving out the Americans +and in reclaiming their country. Now all the Northern tribes were joined +in one for this great purpose; and they themselves were on their way to +all the Southern tribes and had resolved that, if any tribe refused +to join, they would fall upon and extirpate that tribe, after having +overcome the whites. At the conclusion of his oration the Shawanoe +presented the war belt--nine feet of six-inch wide 180 purple wampum +spattered with vermilion--to Dragging Canoe, who held it extended +between his two hands, in silence, and waited. Presently rose a headman +whose wife had been a member of Sir William Johnson's household. He laid +his hand on the belt and sang the war song. One by one, then, chiefs +and warriors rose, laid hold of the great belt and chanted the war +song. Only the older men, made wise by many defeats, sat still in their +places, mute and dejected. After that day every young fellow's face in +the overhills towns appeared blackened and nothing was now talked of but +war. + +Stuart reports that all the white men in the tribe also laid hands on +the belt. Dragging Canoe then demanded that Cameron and Stuart come +forward and take hold of the war belt--which we refused. Despite the +offense their refusal gave--and it would seem a dangerous time to give +such offense--Cameron delivered a strong talk for peace, warning +the Cherokees of what must surely be the end of the rashness they +contemplated. Stuart informed the chief that if the Indians persisted in +attacking the settlements with out waiting for answers to his letters, +he would not remain with them any longer or bring them any more +ammunition. He went to his house and 181 made ready to leave on the +following day. Early the next morning Dragging Canoe appeared at his +door and told him that the Indians were now very angry about the letters +he had written, which could only have put the settlers on their guard; +and that if any white man attempted to leave the nation they had +determined to follow him but not to bring him back. Dragging Canoe had +painted his face black to carry this message. Thomas now returned with +an answer from the West Fincastle men, which was so unsatisfactory to +the tribe that war ceremonies were immediately begun. Stuart and Cameron +could no longer influence the Indians. All that could now be done was to +give them strict charge not to pass the Boundary Line, not to injure any +of the King's faithful subjects, not to Kill any women and children; and +to threaten to stop all ammunition if they did not obey these orders. + +The major part of the Watauga militia went out to meet the Indians and +defeated a large advance force at Long Island Flats on the Holston. The +Watauga fort, where many of the settlers had taken refuge, contained +forty fighting men under Robertson and Sevier. As Indians usually +retreated and 182 waited for a while after a defeat, those within the +fort took it for granted that no immediate attack was to be expected; +and the women went out at daybreak into the fields to milk the cows. +Suddenly the war whoop shrilled from the edge of the clearing. Red +warriors leaped from the green skirting of the forest. The women ran for +the fort. Quickly the heavy gates swung to and the dropped bar secured +them. Only then did the watchmen discover that one woman had been shut +out. She was a young woman nearing her twenties and, if legend has +reported her truly, Bonnie Kate Sherrill was a beauty. Through a +porthole Sevier saw her running towards the shut gates, dodging and +darting, her brown hair blowing from the wind of her race for life--and +offering far too rich a prize to the yelling fiends who dashed after +her. Sevier coolly shot the foremost of her pursuers, then sprang upon +the wall, caught up Bonnie Kate, and tossed her inside to safety. And +legend says further that when, after Sevier's brief widowerhood, she +became his wife, four years later, Bonnie Kate was wont to say that she +would be willing to run another such race any day to have another such +introduction! + +There were no casualties within the fort and, 183 after three hours, the +foe withdrew, leaving several of their warriors slain. + +In the excursions against the Indians which followed this opening of +hostilities Sevier won his first fame as an Indian fighter--the fame +later crystallized in the phrase thirty-five battles, thirty-five +victories. His method was to take a very small company of the hardiest +and swiftest horsemen--men who could keep their seat and endurance, and +horses that could keep their feet and their speed, on any steep of the +mountains no matter how tangled and rough the going might be--swoop down +upon war camp, or town, and go through it with rifle and hatchet and +fire, then dash homeward at the same pace before the enemy had begun to +consider whether to follow him or not. In all his thirty-five battles it +is said he lost not more than fifty men. + +The Cherokees made peace in 1777, after about a year of almost +continuous warfare, the treaty being concluded on their side by the old +chiefs who had never countenanced the war. Dragging Canoe refused to +take part, but he was rendered innocuous for the time being by the +destruction of several of the Chickamaugan villages. James Robertson +now went to Chota as Indian agent for North Carolina. 184 So fast was +population growing, owing to the opening of a wagon road into Burke +County, North Carolina, that Washington County was divided. John Sevier +became Colonel of Washington and Isaac Shelby Colonel of the newly +erected Sullivan County. Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee, was +laid out as the county seat of Washington; and in the same year (1778) +Sevier moved to the bank of the Nolichucky River, so-called after +the Indian name of this dashing sparkling stream, meaning rapid or +precipitous. Thus the nickname given John Sevier by his devotees had a +dual application. He was well called Nolichucky Jack. + +When Virginia annulled Richard Henderson's immense purchase but allowed +him a large tract on the Cumberland, she by no means discouraged that +intrepid pioneer. Henderson's tenure of Kentucky had been brief, but not +unprofitable in experience. He had learned that colonies must be +treated with less commercial pressure and with more regard to individual +liberty, if they were to be held loyal either to a King beyond the water +or to an uncrowned leader nearer at hand. He had been making his plans +for colonization of that portion of the Transylvania purchase which +lay within the 185 bounds of North Carolina along the Cumberland and +choosing his men to lay the foundations of his projected settlement +in what was then a wholly uninhabited country; and he had decided on +generous terms, such as ten dollars a thousand acres for land, the +certificate of purchase to entitle the holder to further proceedings in +the land office without extra fees. + +To head an enterprise of such danger and hardship Henderson required +a man of more than mere courage; a man of resource, of stability, of +proven powers, one whom other men would follow and obey with confidence. +So it was that James Robertson was chosen to lead the first white +settlers into middle Tennessee. He set out in February, 1779, +accompanied by his brother, Mark Robertson, several other white men, and +a negro, to select a site for settlement and to plant corn. Meanwhile +another small party led by Gaspar Mansker had arrived. As the boundary +line between Virginia and North Carolina had not been run to this point, +Robertson believed that the site he had chosen lay within Virginia +and was in the disposal of General Clark. To protect the settlers, +therefore, he journeyed into the Illinois country to purchase cabin +rights from Clark, but there he was evidently 186 convinced that the +site on the Cumberland would be found to lie within North Carolina. He +returned to Watauga to lead a party of settlers into the new territory, +towards which they set out in October. After crossing the mountain chain +through Cumberland Gap, the party followed Boone's road--the Warriors' +Path--for some distance and then made their own trail southwestward +through the wilderness to the bluffs on the Cumberland, where they built +cabins to house them against one of the coldest winters ever experienced +in that county. So were laid the first foundations of the present city +of Nashville, at first named Nashborough by Robertson.¹ On the way, +Robertson had fallen in with a party of men and families bound for +Kentucky and had persuaded them to accompany his little band to the +Cumberland. Robertson's own wife and children, as well as the families +of his party, had been left to follow in the second expedition, which +was to be made by water under the command of Captain John Donelson. + +¹ In honor of General Francis Nash, of North Carolina, who was mortally +wounded at Germantown, 1777. The little fleet of boats containing the +settlers, their families, and all their household goods, was to start +from Fort Patrick Henry, near Long Island 187 in the Holston River, to +float down into the Tennessee and along the 652 miles of that widely +wandering stream to the Ohio, and then to proceed up the Ohio to the +mouth of the Cumberland and up the Cumberland until Robertson's station +should appear--a journey, as it turned out, of some nine hundred miles +through unknown country and on waters at any rate for the greater part +never before navigated by white men. + +_Journal of a voyage, intended by God's permission, in the good boat +Adventure_ is the title of the log book in which Captain Donelson +entered the events of the four months' journey. Only a few pages endured +to be put into print: but those few tell a tale of hazard and courage +that seems complete. Could a lengthier narrative, even if enriched with +literary art and fancy, bring before us more vividly than do the simple +entries of Donelson's log the spirit of the men and the women who won +the West? If so little personal detail is recorded of the pioneer men of +that day that we must deduce what they were from what they did, what do +we know of their unfailing comrades, the pioneer women? Only that they +were there and that they shared in every test of courage and endurance, +save the march of troops and the hunt. 188 Donelson's _Journal_ +therefore has a special value, because in its terse account of Mrs. +Jennings and Mrs. Peyton it depicts unforgettably the quality of pioneer +womanhood.¹ + +¹ This Journal is printed in Ramsey's _Annals of Tennessee._ _December +22nd, 1779._ Took our departure from the fort and fell down the river to +the mouth of Reedy Creek where we were stopped by the fall of water and +most excessive hard frost. + +Perhaps part of the _Journal_ was lost, or perhaps the excessive hard +frost of that severe winter, when it is said even droves of wild game +perished, prevented the boats from going on, for the next entry is dated +the 27th of February. On this date the _Adventure_ and two other boats +grounded and lay on the shoals all that afternoon and the succeeding +night in much distress. + +_March 2nd._ Rain about half the day.… Mr. Henry's boat being driven on +the point of an island by the force of the current was sunk, the +whole cargo much damaged and the crew's lives much endangered, which +occasioned the whole fleet to put on shore and go to their assistance.… +_Monday 6th._ Got under way before sunrise; the morning proving very +foggy, many of the fleet were much bogged--about 10 o'clock lay by for +them; when 189 collected, proceeded down. Camped on the north shore, +where Captain Hutching's negro man died, being much frosted in his feet +and legs, of which he died. _Tuesday, 7th._ Got under way very +early; the day proving very windy, a S.S.W., and the river being wide +occasioned a high sea, insomuch that some of the smaller crafts were in +danger; therefore came to at the uppermost Chiccamauga town, which was +then evacuated, where we lay by that afternoon and camped that night. +The wife of Ephraim Peyton was here delivered of a child. Mr. Peyton has +gone through by land with Captain Robertson. _Wednesday 8th_… proceed +down to an Indian village which was inhabited… they insisted on us to +come ashore, called us brothers, and showed other signs of friendship.… +And here we must regret the unfortunate death of young Mr. Payne, on +board Captain Blakemore's boat, who was mortally wounded by reason of +the boat running too near the northern shore opposite the town, where +some of the enemy lay concealed; and the more tragical misfortune of +poor Stuart, his family and friends, to the number of twenty-eight +persons. This man had embarked with us for the Western country, but his +family being diseased with the small pox, it was agreed upon between him +and the company that he should keep at some distance in the rear, for +fear of the infection spreading, and he was warned each night when the +encampment should take place by the sound of a horn.… The Indians having +now collected to a considerable number, observing his helpless situation +singled off from the rest of the fleet, intercepted him and killed and +took prisoners the whole crew…; their cries were distinctly heard.… + +190 After describing a running fight with Indians stationed on the +bluffs on both shores where the river narrowed to half its width and +boiled through a canyon, the entry for the day concludes: Jennings's +boat is missing. + +_Friday 10th._ This morning about 4 o'clock we were surprised by +the cries of help poor Jennings at some distance in the rear. He had +discovered us by our fires and came up in the most wretched condition. +He states that as soon as the Indians discovered his situation [his boat +had run on a rock] they turned their whole attention to him and kept +up a most galling fire at his boat. He ordered his wife, a son nearly +grown, a young man who accompanies them and his negro man and woman, to +throw all his goods into the river to lighten their boat for the purpose +of getting her off; himself returning their fire as well as he could, +being a good soldier and an excellent marksman. But before they had +accomplished their object, his son, the young man and the negro, jumped +out of the boat and left.… Mrs. Jennings, however, and the negro woman, +succeeded in unloading the boat, but chiefly by the exertions of Mrs. +Jennings who got out of the boat and shoved her off, but was near +falling a victim to her own intrepidity on account of the boat starting +so suddenly as soon as loosened from the rock. Upon examination he +appears to have made a wonderful escape for his boat is pierced in +numberless places with bullets. It is to be remarked that Mrs. Peyton, +who was the night before delivered of an infant, which was unfortunately +killed upon the hurry and confusion consequent upon such a disaster, +assisted them, 191 being frequently exposed to wet and cold.… Their +clothes were very much cut with bullets, especially Mrs. Jennings's. + +Of the three men who deserted, while the women stood by under fire, +the negro was drowned and Jennings's son and the other young man were +captured by the Chickamaugans. The latter was burned at the stake. Young +Jennings was to have shared the same fate; but a trader in the village, +learning that the boy was known to John Sevier, ransomed him by a large +payment of goods, as a return for an act of kindness Sevier had once +done to him. + +_Sunday 12th_.… After running until about 10 o'clock came in sight of +the Muscle Shoals. Halted on the northern shore at the appearance of the +shoals, in order to search for the signs Captain James Robertson was to +make for us at that place… that it was practicable for us to go across +by land… we can find none--from which we conclude that it would not be +prudent to make the attempt and are determined, knowing ourselves in +such imminent danger, to pursue our journey down the river.… When we +approached them [the Shoals] they had a dreadful appearance.… The +water being high made a terrible roaring, which could be heard at some +distance, among the driftwood heaped frightfully upon the points of the +islands, the current running in every possible direction. Here we did +not know how soon we should be dashed to pieces and all our troubles 192 +ended at once. Our boats frequently dragged on the bottom and appeared +constantly in danger of striking. They warped as much as in a rough +sea. But by the hand of Providence we are now preserved from this +danger also. I know not the length of this wonderful shoal; it had been +represented to me to be twenty-five or thirty miles. If so, we must +have descended very rapidly, as indeed we did, for we passed it in about +three hours. + +On the twentieth the little fleet arrived at the mouth of the Tennessee +and the voyagers landed on the bank of the Ohio. + +Our situation here is truly disagreeable. The river is very high and the +current rapid, our boats not constructed for the purpose of stemming a +rapid stream, our provisions exhausted, the crews almost worn down with +hunger and fatigue, and know not what distance we have to go or what +time it will take us to our place of destination. The scene is rendered +still more melancholy as several boats will not attempt to ascend the +rapid current. Some intend to descend the Mississippi to Natchez; others +are bound for the Illinois--among the rest my son-in-law and daughter. +We now part, perhaps to meet no more, for I am determined to pursue +my course, happen what will. _Tuesday 21st._ Set out and on this day +labored very hard and got but little way.… Passed the two following days +as the former, suffering much from hunger and fatigue. _Friday 24th._ +About three o'clock came to the mouth of a river which I thought was the +Cumberland. Some of 193 the company declared it could not be--it was +so much smaller than was expected.… We determined however to make the +trial, pushed up some distance and encamped for the night. _Saturday +25th._ Today we are much encouraged; the river grows wider;… we are now +convinced it is the Cumberland.… _Sunday 26th_… procured some buffalo +meat; though poor it was palatable. _Friday 31st_… met with Colonel +Richard Henderson, who is running the line between Virginia and North +Carolina. At this meeting we were much rejoiced. He gave us every +information we wished, and further informed us that he had purchased a +quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio for +the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are now without bread and are +compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve life.… _Monday, April 24th_. +This day we arrived at our journey's end at the Big Salt Lick, where we +have the pleasure of finding Captain Robertson and his company. It is a +source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to restore to him and others +their families and friends, who were entrusted to our care, and who, +sometime since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting again.… + +Past the camps of the Chickamaugans--who were retreating farther and +farther down the twisting flood, seeking a last standing ground in the +giant caves by the Tennessee--these white voyagers had steered their +pirogues. Near Robertson's station, where they landed after having +traversed 194 the triangle of the three great rivers which enclose +the larger part of western Tennessee, stood a crumbling trading house +marking the defeat of a Frenchman who had, one time, sailed in from the +Ohio to establish an outpost of his nation there. At a little distance +were the ruins of a rude fort cast up by the Cherokees in the days when +the redoubtable Chickasaws had driven them from the pleasant shores of +the western waters. Under the towering forest growth lay vast burial +mounds and the sunken foundations of walled towns, telling of a departed +race which had once flashed its rude paddles and had its dream of +permanence along the courses of these great waterways. Now another +tribe had come to dream that dream anew. Already its primitive keels had +traced the opening lines of its history on the face of the immemorial +rivers. + +195 + + + + +Chapter IX + +King's Mountain + +About the time when James Robertson went from Watauga to fling out the +frontier line three hundred miles farther westward, the British took +Savannah. In 1780 they took Charleston and Augusta, and overran Georgia. +Augusta was the point where the old trading path forked north and west, +and it was the key to the Back Country and the overhill domain. In +Georgia and the Back Country of South Carolina there were many Tories +ready to rally to the King's standard whenever a King's officer should +carry it through their midst. A large number of these Tories were +Scotch, chiefly from the Highlands. In fact, as we have seen, Scotch +blood predominated among the racial streams in the Back Country from +Georgia to Pennsylvania. Now, to insure a triumphant march northward for +Cornwallis and his royal troops, these sons of Scotland must be gathered +together, 196 the loyal encouraged and those of rebellious tendencies +converted, and they must be drilled and turned to account. This task, if +it were to be accomplished successfully, must be entrusted to an officer +with positive qualifications, one who would command respect, whose +personal address would attract men and disarm opposition, and especially +one who could go as a Scot among his own clan. Cornwallis found his man +in Major Patrick Ferguson. + +Ferguson was a Highlander, a son of Lord Pitfour of Aberdeen, and +thirty-six years of age. He was of short stature for a Highlander--about +five feet eight--lean and dark, with straight black hair. He had a +serious unhandsome countenance which, at casual glance, might not +arrest attention; but when he spoke he became magnetic, by reason of +the intelligence and innate force that gleamed in his eyes and the +convincing sincerity of his manner. He was admired and respected by his +brother officers and by the commanders under whom he had served, and he +was loved by his men. + +He had seen his first service in the Seven Years' War, having joined +the British army in Flanders at the age of fifteen; and he had early +distinguished himself for courage and coolness. In 1768, as a captain of +infantry, he quelled an insurrection of 197 the natives on the island +of St. Vincent in the West Indies. Later, at Woolwich, he took up the +scientific study of his profession of arms. He not only became a crack +shot, but he invented a new type of rifle which he could load at the +breach without ramrod and so quickly as to fire seven times in a minute. +Generals and statesmen attended his exhibitions of shooting; and even +the King rode over at the head of his guards to watch Ferguson rapidly +loading and firing. + +In America under Cornwallis, Ferguson had the reputation of being the +best shot in the army; and it was soon said that, in his quickness at +loading and firing, he excelled the most expert American frontiersman. +Eyewitnesses have left their testimony that, seeing a bird alight on a +bough or rail, he would drop his bridle rein, draw his pistol, toss it +in the air, catch and aim it as it fell, and shoot the bird's head off. +He was given command of a corps of picked riflemen; and in the Battle of +the Brandywine in 1777 he rendered services which won acclaim from the +whole army. For the honor of that day's service to his King, Ferguson +paid what from him, with his passion for the rifle, must have been +the dearest price that could have been demanded. His right arm was +shattered, and 198 for the remaining three years of his short life +it hung useless at his side. Yet he took up swordplay and attained a +remarkable degree of skill as a left-handed swordsman. + +Such was Ferguson, the soldier. What of the man? For he has been +pictured as a wolf and a fiend and a coward by early chroniclers, who +evidently felt that they were adding to the virtue of those who fought +in defense of liberty by representing all their foes as personally +odious. We can read his quality of manhood in a few lines of the letter +he sent to his kinsman, the noted Dr. Adam Ferguson, about an incident +that occurred at Chads Ford. As he was lying with his men in the woods, +in front of Knyphausen's army, so he relates, he saw two American +officers ride out. He describes their dress minutely. One was in hussar +uniform. The other was in a dark green and blue uniform with a high +cocked hat and was mounted on a bay horse: + +I ordered three good shots to steal near to and fire at them; but the +idea disgusting me, I recalled the order. The hussar in retiring made a +circuit, but the other passed within a hundred yards of us, upon which +I advanced from the wood towards him. Upon my calling he stopped; but +after looking at me he proceeded. I again drew his attention and made +signs to him to stop, 199 levelling my piece at him; but he slowly +cantered away. As I was within that distance, at which, in the quickest +firing, I could have lodged half a dozen balls in or about him before he +was out of my reach, I had only to determine. But it was not pleasant to +fire at the back of an unoffending individual who was acquitting himself +very coolly of his duty--so I let him alone. The day after, I had been +telling this story to some wounded officers, who lay in the same room +with me, when one of the surgeons who had been dressing the wounded +rebel officers came in and told us that they had been informing him that +General Washington was all the morning with the light troops, and only +attended by a French officer in hussar dress, he himself dressed and +mounted in every point as above described. I am not sorry that I did not +know at the time who it was.¹ + +¹ Doubt that the officer in question was Washington was expressed +by James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper stated that Major De Lancey his +father-in-law, was binding Ferguson's arm at the time when the two +officers were seen and Ferguson recalled the order to fire, and that De +Lancey said he believed the officer was Count Pulaski. But, as Ferguson, +according to his own account, leveled his piece at the officer, his arm +evidently was not wounded until later in the day. The probability is +that Ferguson's version, written in a private letter to his relative, is +correct as to the facts, whatever may be conjectured as to the identity +of the officer. See Draper's _King's Mountain and its Heroes,_ pp. +52-54. Ferguson had his code towards the foe's women also. On one +occasion when he was assisting in an action carried out by Hessians +and Dragoons, he learned that some American women had been shamefully +maltreated. He went in a white fury 200 to the colonel in command, and +demanded that the men who had so disgraced their uniforms instantly be +put to death. + +In rallying the loyalists of the Back Country of Georgia and the +Carolinas, Ferguson was very successful. He was presently in command of +a thousand or more men, including small detachments of loyalists from +New York and New Jersey, under American-born officers such as De Peyster +and Allaire. There were good honest men among the loyalists and there +were also rough and vicious men out for spoils--which was true as well +of the Whigs or Patriots from the same counties. Among the rough element +were Tory banditti from the overmountain region. It is to be gathered +from Ferguson's records that he did not think any too highly of some +of his new recruits, but he set to work with all energy to make them +useful. + +The American Patriots hastily prepared to oppose him. Colonel Charles +McDowell of Burke County, North Carolina, with a small force of militia +was just south of the line at a point on the Broad River when he heard +that Ferguson was sweeping on northward. In haste he sent a call for +help across the mountains to Sevier and Shelby. Sevier had his hands +full at Watauga, but he 201 dispatched two hundred of his troops; and +Isaac Shelby, with a similar force from Sullivan County crossed the +mountains to McDowell's assistance. These overmountain men or backwater +men, as they were called east of the hills, were trained in Sevier's +method of Indian warfare--the secret approach through the dark, the +swift dash, and the swifter flight. Fight strong and run away fast was +the Indian motto, as their women had often been heard to call it after +the red men as they ran yelling to fall on the whites. The frontiersmen +had adapted the motto to fit their case, as they had also made their own +the Indian tactics of ambuscade and surprise attacks at dawn. To sleep, +or ride if needs must, by night, and to fight by day and make off, was +to them a reasonable soldier's life. + +But Ferguson was a night marauder. The terror of his name, which grew +among the Whigs of the Back Country until the wildest legends about his +ferocity were current, was due chiefly to a habit he had of pouncing on +his foes in the middle of the night and pulling them out of bed to +give fight or die. It was generally both fight and die, for these +dark adventures of his were particularly successful. Ferguson knew no +neutrals or conscientious 202 objectors; any man who would not carry +arms for the King was a traitor, and his life and goods were forfeit. A +report of his reads: The attack being made at night, no quarter could be +given. Hence his wolfish fame. Werewolf would have been a fit name for +him for, though he was a wolf at night, in the daylight he was a man +and, as we have seen, a chivalrous one. + +In the guerrilla fighting that went on for a brief time between the +overmountain men and various detachments of Ferguson's forces, sometimes +one side, sometimes the other, won the heat. But the field remained +open. Neither side could claim the mastery. In a minor engagement fought +at Musgrove's Mill on the Enoree, Shelby's command came off victor and +was about to pursue the enemy towards Ninety-Six when a messenger from +McDowell galloped madly into camp with word of General Gates's crushing +defeat at Camden. This was a warning for Shelby's guerrillas to flee as +birds to their mountains, or Ferguson would cut them off from the north +and wedge them in between his own force and the victorious Cornwallis. +McDowell's men, also on the run for safety, joined them. For forty-eight +hours without food or rest they rode a race with Ferguson, who kept +hard on 203 their trail until they disappeared into the mystery of the +winding mountain paths they alone knew. + +Ferguson reached the gap where they had swerved into the towering hills +only half an hour after their horses' hoofs had pounded across it. Here +he turned back. His troops were exhausted from the all-night ride and, +in any case, there were not enough of them to enable him to cross the +mountains and give the Watauga men battle on their own ground with a +fair promise of victory. So keeping east of the hills but still close to +them, Ferguson turned into Burke County, North Carolina. He sat him down +in Gilbert Town (present Lincolnton, Lincoln County) at the foot of the +Blue Ridge and indited a letter to the Back Water Men, telling them +that if they did not lay down their arms and return to their rightful +allegiance, he would come over their hills and raze their settlements +and hang their leaders. He paroled a kinsman of Shelby's, whom he had +taken prisoner in the chase, and sent him home with the letter. Then he +set about his usual business of gathering up Tories and making soldiers +of them, and of hunting down rebels. + +One of the rebels was a certain Captain Lytle. When Ferguson drew up at +Lytle's door, Lytle had 204 already made his escape; but Mrs. Lytle was +there. She was a very handsome woman and she had dressed herself in her +best to receive Ferguson, who was reported a gallant as well as a wolf. +After a few spirited passages between the lady in the doorway and the +officer on the white horse before it, the latter advised Mrs. Lytle +to use her influence to bring her husband back to his duty. She became +grave then and answered that her husband would never turn traitor to his +country. Ferguson frowned at the word traitor, but presently he said: +Madam, I admire you as the handsomest woman I have seen in North +Carolina. I even half way admire your zeal in a bad cause. But take +my word for it, the rebellion has had its day and is now virtually put +down. Give my regards to Captain Lytle and tell him to come in. He will +not be asked to compromise his honor. His verbal pledge not again to +take up arms against the King is all that will be asked of him.¹ + +¹ Draper, _King's Mountain and its Heroes,_ pp. 151-53. This was another +phase of the character of the one-armed Highlander whose final challenge +to the back water men was now being considered in every log cabin beyond +the hills. A man who would not shoot an enemy in the back, who was ready +to put 205 the same faith in another soldier's honor which he knew was +due to his own, yet in battle a wolfish fighter who leaped through the +dark to give no quarter and to take none--he was fit challenger to those +other mountaineers who also had a chivalry of their own, albeit they too +were wolves of war. + +When Shelby on the Holston received Ferguson's pungent letter, he flung +himself on his horse and rode posthaste to Watauga to consult with +Sevier. He found the bank of the Nolichucky teeming with merrymakers. +Nolichucky Jack was giving an immense barbecue and a horse race. Without +letting the festival crowd have an inkling of the serious nature of +Shelby's errand, the two men drew apart to confer. It is said to have +been Sevier's idea that they should muster the forces of the western +country and go in search of Ferguson ere the latter should be able +to get sufficient reinforcements to cross the mountains. Sevier, like +Ferguson, always preferred to seek his foe, knowing well the advantage +of the offensive. Messengers were sent to Colonel William Campbell of +the Virginia settlements on the Clinch, asking his aid. Campbell at +first refused, thinking it better to fortify the positions they held +and let Ferguson 206 come and put the mountains between himself and +Cornwallis. On receipt of a second message, however, he concurred. The +call to arms was heard up and down the valleys, and the frontiersmen +poured into Watauga. The overhill men were augmented by McDowell's +troops from Burke County, who had dashed over the mountains a few weeks +before in their escape from Ferguson. + +At daybreak on the 26th of September they mustered at the Sycamore +Shoals on the Watauga, over a thousand strong. It was a different +picture they made from that other great gathering at the same spot when +Henderson had made his purchase in money of the Dark and Bloody Ground, +and Sevier and Robertson had bought for the Wataugans this strip of +Tennessee. There were no Indians in this picture. Dragging Canoe, who +had uttered his bloody prophecy, had by these very men been driven far +south into the caves of the Tennessee River. But the Indian prophecy +still hung over them, and in this day with a heavier menace. Not with +money, now, were they to seal their purchase of the free land by the +western waters. There had been no women in that other picture, only the +white men who were going forward to open the way and the red men who +were 207 retreating. But in this picture there were women--wives and +children, mothers, sisters, and sweethearts. All the women of the +settlement were there at this daybreak muster to cheer on their way the +men who were going out to battle that they might keep the way of liberty +open not for men only but for women and children also. And the battle to +which the men were now going forth must be fought against Back Country +men of their own stripe under a leader who, in other circumstances, +might well have been one of themselves--a primitive spirit of hardy +mountain stock, who, having once taken his stand, would not barter and +would not retreat. + +With the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon! cried their pastor, the +Reverend Samuel Doak, with upraised hands, as the mountaineers swung +into their saddles. And it is said that all the women took up his +words and cried again and again, With the sword of the Lord and of our +Gideons! To the shouts of their women, as bugles on the wind of dawn, +the buckskin-shirted army dashed out upon the mountain trail. + +The warriors' equipment included rifles and ammunition, tomahawks, +knives, shot pouches, a knapsack, and a blanket for each man. Their +uniforms 208 were leggings, breeches, and long loose shirts of gayly +fringed deerskin, or of the linsey-woolsey spun by their women. Their +hunting shirts were bound in at the waist by bright-colored linsey +sashes tied behind in a bow. They wore moccasins for footgear, and on +their heads high fur or deerskin caps trimmed with colored bands of +raveled cloth. Around their necks hung their powder-horns ornamented +with their own rude carvings. + +On the first day they drove along with them a number of beeves but, +finding that the cattle impeded the march, they left them behind on the +mountain side. Their provisions thereafter were wild game and the small +supply each man carried of mixed corn meal and maple sugar. For drink, +they had the hill streams. + +They passed upward between Roan and Yellow mountains to the top of +the range. Here, on the bald summit, where the loose snow lay to their +ankles, they halted for drill and rifle practice. When Sevier called up +his men, he discovered that two were missing. He suspected at once that +they had slipped away to carry warning to Ferguson, for Watauga was +known to be infested with Tories. Two problems now confronted the +mountaineers. They must increase the speed of their march, so 209 that +Ferguson should not have time to get reinforcements from Cornwallis; and +they must make that extra speed by another trail than they had intended +taking so that they themselves could not be intercepted before they had +picked up the Back Country militia under Colonels Cleveland, Hampbright, +Chronicle, and Williams, who were moving to join them. We are not told +who took the lead when they left the known trail, but we may suppose it +was Sevier and his Wataugans, for the making of new warpaths and wild +riding were two of the things which distinguished Nolichucky Jack's +leadership. Down the steep side of the mountain, finding their way as +they plunged, went the overhill men. They crossed the Blue Ridge at +Gillespie's Gap and pushed on to Quaker Meadows, where Colonel Cleveland +with 350 men swung into their column. Along their route, the Back +Country Patriots with their rifles came out from the little hamlets and +the farms and joined them. + +They now had an army of perhaps fifteen hundred men but no commanding +officer. Thus far, on the march, the four colonels had conferred +together and agreed as to procedure; or, in reality, the influence of +Sevier and Shelby, who had planned the enterprise and who seem always to +210 have acted in unison, had swayed the others. It would be, however, +manifestly improper to go into battle without a real general. Something +must be done. McDowell volunteered to carry a letter explaining their +need to General Gates, who had escaped with some of his staff into North +Carolina and was not far off. It then occurred to Sevier and Shelby, +evidently for the first time, that Gates, on receiving such a request, +might well ask why the Governor of North Carolina, as the military head +of the State, had not provided a commander. The truth is that Sevier +and Shelby had been so busy drumming up the militia and planning their +campaign that they had found no time to consult the Governor. Moreover, +the means whereby the expedition had been financed might not have +appealed to the chief executive. After finding it impossible to raise +sufficient funds on his personal credit, Sevier had appropriated the +entry money in the government land office to the business in hand--with +the good will of the entry taker, who was a patriotic man, although, +as he had pointed out, he could not, officially, hand over the money. +Things being as they were, no doubt Nolichucky Jack felt that an +interview with the Governor had better be deferred until after 211 the +capture of Ferguson. Hence the tenor of this communication to General +Gates: + +As we have at this time called out our militia without any orders from +the Executive of our different States and with the view of expelling +the Enemy out of this part of the Country, we think such a body of men +worthy of your attention and would request you to send a General Officer +immediately to take the command.… All our Troops being Militia and but +little acquainted with discipline, we could wish him to be a Gentleman +of address, and able to keep up a proper discipline without disgusting +the soldiery. + +For some unknown reason--unless it might be the wording of this +letter!--no officer was sent in reply. Shelby then suggested that, since +all the officers but Campbell were North Carolinians and, therefore, +no one of them could be promoted without arousing the jealousy of the +others, Campbell, as the only Virginian, was the appropriate choice. +The sweet reasonableness of selecting a commander from such a motive +appealed to all, and Campbell became a general in fact if not in name! +Shelby's principal aim, however, had been to get rid of McDowell, +who, as their senior, would naturally expect to command and whom +he considered too far advanced in life and too inactive for such an +enterprise. At this time McDowell must have 212 been nearly thirty-nine; +and Shelby, who was just thirty, wisely refused to risk the campaign +under a general who was in his dotage! + +News of the frontiersmen's approach, with their augmented force, now +numbering between sixteen and eighteen hundred, had reached Ferguson by +the two Tories who had deserted from Sevier's troops. Ferguson thereupon +had made all haste out of Gilbert Town and was marching southward to get +in touch with Cornwallis. His force was much reduced, as some of his +men were in pursuit of Elijah Clarke towards Augusta and a number of his +other Tories were on furlough. As he passed through the Back Country +he posted a notice calling on the loyalists to join him. If the +overmountain men felt that they were out on a wolf hunt, Ferguson's +proclamation shows what the wolf thought of his hunters. + +To the Inhabitants of North Carolina. + +Gentlemen: Unless you wish to be eat up by an innundation of barbarians, +who have begun by murdering an unarmed son before the aged father, and +afterwards lopped off his arms, and who by their shocking cruelties +and irregularities give the best proof of their cowardice and want of +discipline: I say if you wish to be pinioned, robbed and murdered, +and see your wives and daughters in four days, abused by the dregs of +mankind--in 213 short if you wish to deserve to live and bear the name +of men, grasp your arms in a moment and run to camp. The Back Water men +have crossed the mountains: McDowell, Hampton, Shelby, and Cleveland +are at their head, so that you know what you have to depend upon. If you +choose to be degraded forever and ever by a set of mongrels, say so at +once, and let your women turn their backs upon you, and look out for +real men to protect them. Pat. Ferguson, Major 71st Regiment.¹ + +¹ Draper, _King's Mountain and its Heroes,_ p. 204. Ferguson's force has +been estimated at about eleven hundred men, but it is likely that this +estimate does not take the absentees into consideration. In the diary +of Lieutenant Allaire, one of his officers, the number is given as only +eight hundred. Because of the state of his army, chroniclers have found +Ferguson's movements, after leaving Gilbert Town, difficult to explain. +It has been pointed out that he could easily have escaped, for he had +plenty of time, and Charlotte, Cornwallis's headquarters, was only sixty +miles distant. We have seen something of Ferguson's quality, however, +and we may simply take it that he did not want to escape. He had been +planning to cross the high hills--to him, the Highlander, no barrier +but a challenge--to fight these men. Now that they 214 had taken the +initiative he would not show them his back. He craved the battle. So he +sent out runners to the main army and rode on along the eastern base +of the mountains, seeking a favorable site to go into camp and wait for +Cornwallis's aid. On the 6th of October he reached the southern end of +the King's Mountain ridge, in South Carolina, about half a mile south +of the northern boundary. Here a rocky, semi-isolated spur juts out from +the ridge, its summit--a table-land about six hundred yards long and one +hundred and twenty wide at its northern end--rising not more than sixty +feet above the surrounding country. On the summit Ferguson pitched his +camp. + +The hill was a natural fortress, its sides forested, its bald top +protected by rocks and bowlders. All the approaches led through dense +forest. An enemy force, passing through the immediate, wooded territory, +might easily fail to discover a small army nesting sixty feet above the +shrouding leafage. Word was evidently brought to Ferguson here, telling +him the now augmented number of his foe, for he dispatched another +emissary to Cornwallis with a letter stating the number of his own +troops and urging full and immediate assistance. + +Meanwhile the frontiersmen had halted at the 215 Cowpens. There they +feasted royally off roasted cattle and corn belonging to the loyalist +who owned the Cowpens. It is said that they mowed his fifty acres of +corn in an hour. And here one of their spies, in the assumed rôle of a +Tory, learned Ferguson's plans, his approximate force, his route, and +his system of communication with Cornwallis. The officers now held +council and determined to take a detachment of the hardiest and fleetest +horsemen and sweep down on the enemy before aid could reach him. About +nine o'clock that evening, according to Shelby's report, 910 mounted men +set off at full speed, leaving the main body of horse and foot to follow +after at their best pace. + +Rain poured down on them all that night as they rode. At daybreak they +crossed the Broad at Cherokee Ford and dashed on in the drenching rain +all the forenoon. They kept their firearms and powder dry by wrapping +them in their knapsacks, blankets, and hunting shirts. The downpour +had so churned up the soil that many of the horses mired, but they were +pulled out and whipped forward again. The wild horsemen made no halt +for food or rest. Within two miles of King's Mountain they captured +Ferguson's messenger with the letter that told of his desperate +situation. They asked 216 this man how they should know Ferguson. He +told them that Ferguson was in full uniform but wore a checkered shirt +or dust cloak over it. This was not the only messenger of Ferguson's +who failed to carry through. The men he had sent out previously had been +followed and, to escape capture or death, they had been obliged to lie +in hiding, so that they did not reach Cornwallis until the day of the +battle. + +At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th of October, the +overmountain men were in the forest at the base of the hill. The rain +had ceased and the sun was shining. They dismounted and tethered their +steaming horses. Orders were given that every man was to throw the +priming out of his pan, pick his touchhole, prime anew, examine bullets +and see that everything was in readiness for battle. The plan of battle +agreed on was to surround the hill, hold the enemy on the top and, +themselves screened by the trees, keep pouring in their fire. There was +a good chance that most of the answering fire would go over their heads. + +As Shelby's men crossed a gap in the woods, the outposts on the hill +discovered their presence and sounded the alarm. Ferguson sprang to +horse, blowing his silver whistle to call his men to attack. 217 +His riflemen poured fire into Shelby's contingent, but meanwhile the +frontiersmen on the other sides were creeping up, and presently a circle +of fire burst upon the hill. With fixed bayonets, some of Ferguson's men +charged down the face of the slope, against the advancing foe, only +to be shot in the back as they charged. Still time and time again +they charged; the overhill men reeled and retreated; but always their +comrades took toll with their rifles; Ferguson's men, preparing for a +mounted charge, were shot even as they swung to their saddles. Ferguson, +with his customary indifference to danger, rode up and down in front of +his line blowing his whistle to encourage his men. Huzza, brave boys! +The day is our own! Thus he was heard to shout above the triumphant war +whoops of the circling foe, surging higher and higher about the hill. + +But there were others in his band who knew the fight was lost. The +overmountain men saw two white handkerchiefs, affixed to bayonets, +raised above the rocks; and then they saw Ferguson dash by and slash +them down with his sword. Two horses were shot under Ferguson in the +latter part of the action; but he mounted a third and rode again into +the thick of the fray. + +218 Suddenly the cry spread among the attacking troops that the British +officer, Tarleton, had come to Ferguson's rescue; and the mountaineers +began to give way. But it was only the galloping horses of their own +comrades; Tarleton had not come. Nolichucky Jack spurred out in front of +his men and rode along the line. Fired by his courage they sounded the +war whoop again and renewed the attack with fury. + +These are the same yelling devils that were at Musgrove's Mill, said +Captain De Peyster to Ferguson. + +Now Shelby and Sevier, leading his Wataugans, had reached the summit. +The firing circle pressed in. The buckskin-shirted warriors leaped the +rocky barriers, swinging their tomahawks and long knives. Again the +white handkerchiefs fluttered. Ferguson saw that the morale of his +troops was shattered. + +Surrender, De Peyster, his second in command, begged of him. + +Surrender to those damned banditti? Never! + +Ferguson turned his horse's head downhill and charged into the +Wataugans, hacking right and left with his sword till it was broken at +the hilt. A dozen rifles were leveled at him. An iron muzzle pushed at +his breast, but the powder flashed in the 219 pan. He swerved and struck +at the rifleman with his broken hilt. But the other guns aimed at him +spoke; and Ferguson's body jerked from the saddle pierced by eight +bullets. Men seized the bridle of the frenzied horse, plunging on with +his dead master dragging from the stirrup. + +The battle had lasted less than an hour. After Ferguson fell, De Peyster +advanced with a white flag and surrendered his sword to Campbell. Other +white flags waved along the hilltop. But the killing did not yet cease. +It is said that many of the mountaineers did not know the significance +of the white flag. Sevier's sixteen-year-old son, having heard that his +father had fallen, kept on furiously loading and firing until presently +he saw Sevier ride in among the troops and command them to stop shooting +men who had surrendered and thrown down their arms. + +The victors made a bonfire of the enemy's baggage wagons and supplies. +Then they killed some of his beeves and cooked them; they had had +neither food nor sleep for eighteen hours. They dug shallow trenches +for the dead and scattered the loose earth over them. Ferguson's body, +stripped of its uniform and boots and wrapped in a beef hide, was thrown +into one of these ditches by 220 the men detailed to the burial work, +while the officers divided his personal effects among themselves. + +The triumphant army turned homeward as the dusk descended. The uninjured +prisoners and the wounded who were able to walk were marched off +carrying their empty firearms. The badly wounded were left lying where +they had fallen. + +At Bickerstaff's Old Fields in Rutherford County the frontiersmen +halted; and here they selected thirty of their prisoners to be hanged. +They swung them aloft, by torchlight, three at a time, until nine had +gone to their last account. Then Sevier interposed; and, with Shelby's +added authority, saved the other twenty-one. Among those who thus +weighted the gallows tree were some of the Tory brigands from Watauga; +but not all the victims were of this character. Some of the troops would +have wreaked vengeance on the two Tories from Sevier's command who had +betrayed their army plans to Ferguson; but Sevier claimed them as under +his jurisdiction and refused consent. Nolichucky Jack dealt humanely by +his foes. To the coarse and brutish Cleveland, now astride of Ferguson's +horse and wearing his sash, and to the three hundred who followed him, +may no doubt be laid the worst excesses of the battle's afterpiece. + +221 Victors and vanquished drove on in the dark, close to the great +flank of hills. From where King's Mountain, strewn with dead and dying, +reared its black shape like some rudely hewn tomb of a primordial age +when titans strove together, perhaps to the ears of the marching men +came faintly through the night's stillness the howl of a wolf and +the answering chorus of the pack. For the wolves came down to King's +Mountain from all the surrounding hills, following the scent of blood, +and made their lair where the Werewolf had fallen. The scene of the +mountaineers' victory, which marked the turn of the tide for the +Revolution, became for years the chief resort of wolf hunters from both +the Carolinas. + +The importance of the overmountain men's victory lay in what it achieved +for the cause of Independence. King's Mountain was the prelude to +Cornwallis's defeat. It heartened the Southern Patriots, until then cast +down by Gates's disaster. To the British the death of Ferguson was an +irreparable loss because of its depressing effect on the Back Country +Tories. King's Mountain, indeed, broke the Tory spirit. Seven days after +the battle General Nathanael Greene succeeded to the command of the +Southern Patriot army which Gates had led to defeat. Greene's genius +met the rising tide of the Patriots' courage and hope and took it at +the flood. His strategy, in dividing his army and thereby compelling the +division of Cornwallis's force, led to Daniel Morgan's victory at +the Cowpens, in the Back Country of South Carolina, on January 17, +1781--another frontiersmen's triumph. Though the British won the next +engagement between Greene and Cornwallis--the battle of Guilford Court +House in the North Carolina Back Country, on the 15th of March--Greene +made them pay so dearly for their victory that Tarleton called it +the pledge of ultimate defeat; and, three days later, Cornwallis was +retreating towards Wilmington. In a sense, then, King's Mountain was the +pivot of the war's revolving stage, which swung the British from their +succession of victories towards the surrender at Yorktown. + +Shelby, Campbell, and Cleveland escorted the prisoners to Virginia. +Sevier, with his men, rode home to Watauga. When the prisoners had been +delivered to the authorities in Virginia, the Holston men also turned +homeward through the hills. Their route lay down through the Clinch and +Holston valleys to the settlement at the base of the mountains. Sevier +and his Wataugans had gone by Gillespie's Gap, over the pathway that +hung like a narrow ribbon about the breast of Roan Mountain, lifting its +crest in dignified isolation sixty-three hundred feet above the levels. +The Unakas was the name the Cherokees had given to those white men who +first invaded their hills; and the Unakas is the name that white men at +last gave to the mountain. + +Great companies of men were to come over the mountain paths on their way +to the Mississippi country and beyond; and with them, as we know, were +to go many of these mountain men, to pass away with their customs in the +transformations that come with progress. But there were others who +clung to these hills. They were of several stocks--English, Scotch, +Highlanders, Ulstermen, who mingled by marriage and sometimes took their +mates from among the handsome maids of the Cherokees. They spread from +the Unakas of Tennessee into the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky; and +they have remained to this day what they were then, a primitive folk +of strong and fiery men and brave women living as their forefathers of +Watauga and Holston lived. In the log cabins in those mountains today +are heard the same ballads, sung still to the dulcimer, that entertained +the earliest settlers. The women still turn the old-fashioned spinning +wheels. The code of the men is still the code learned perhaps from +the Gaels--the code of the oath and the feud and the open door to the +stranger. Or were these, the ethical tenets of almost all uncorrupted +primitive tribes, transmitted from the Indian strain and association? +Their young people marry at boy and girl ages, as the pioneers did, and +their wedding festivities are the same as those which made rejoicing at +the first marriage in Watauga. Their common speech today contains words +that have been obsolete in England for a hundred years. + +Thrice have the mountain men come down again from their fastnesses to +war for America since the day of King's Mountain and thrice they +have acquitted themselves so that their deeds are noted in history. A +souvenir of their part in the War of 1812 at the Battle of the Thames is +kept in one of the favorite names for mountain girls--Lake Erie. In +the Civil War many volunteers from the free, non-slaveholding mountain +regions of Kentucky and Tennessee joined the Union Army, and it is said +that they exceeded all others in stature and physical development. And +in our own day their sons again came down from the mountains to carry +the torch of Liberty overseas, and to show the white stars in their flag +side by side with the ancient cross in the flag of England against which +their forefathers fought. + +226 + + + + +Chapter X + +Sevier, The Statemaker + +After King's Mountain, Sevier reached home just in time to fend off a +Cherokee attack on Watauga. Again warning had come to the settlements +that the Indians were about to descend upon them. Sevier set out at once +to meet the red invaders. Learning from his scouts that the Indians were +near he went into ambush with his troops disposed in the figure of a +half-moon, the favorite Indian formation. He then sent out a small body +of men to fire on the Indians and make a scampering retreat, to lure the +enemy on. The maneuver was so well planned and the ground so well chosen +that the Indian war party would probably have been annihilated but for +the delay of an officer at one horn of the half-moon in bringing his +troops into play. Through the gap thus made the Indians escaped, with a +loss of seventeen of their number. The delinquent officer was Jonathan +Tipton, younger brother 227 of Colonel John Tipton, of whom we shall +hear later. It is possible that from this event dates the Tiptons' feud +with Sevier, which supplies one of the breeziest pages in the story of +early Tennessee. + +Not content with putting the marauders to flight, Sevier pressed on +after them, burned several of the upper towns, and took prisoner a +number of women and children, thus putting the red warriors to the depth +of shame, for the Indians never deserted their women in battle. The +chiefs at once sued for peace. But they had made peace often before. +Sevier drove down upon the Hiwassee towns, meanwhile proclaiming that +those among the tribe who were friendly might send their families to the +white settlement, where they would be fed and cared for until a sound +peace should be assured. He also threatened to continue to make war +until his enemies were wiped out, their town sites a heap of blackened +ruins, and their whole country in possession of the whites, unless they +bound themselves to an enduring peace. + +Having compelled the submission of the Otari and Hiwassee towns, yet +finding that depredations still continued, Sevier determined to invade +the group of towns hidden in the mountain fastnesses near the headwaters +of the Little Tennessee where, 228 deeming themselves inaccessible +except by their own trail, the Cherokees freely plotted mischief and +sent out raiding parties. These hill towns lay in the high gorges of +the Great Smoky Mountains, 150 miles distant. No one in Watauga had ever +been in them except Thomas, the trader, who, however, had reached +them from the eastern side of the mountains. With no knowledge of the +Indians' path and without a guide, yet nothing daunted, Sevier, late in +the summer of 1781 headed his force into the mountains. So steep were +some of the slopes they scaled that the men were obliged to dismount and +help their horses up. Unexpectedly to themselves perhaps, as well as +to the Indians, they descended one morning on a group of villages and +destroyed them. Before the fleeing savages could rally, the mountaineers +had plunged up the steeps again. Sevier then turned southward into +Georgia and inflicted a severe castigation on the tribes along the Coosa +River. + +When, after thirty days of warfare and mad riding, Sevier arrived at his +Bonnie Kate's door on the Nolichucky, he found a messenger from General +Greene calling on him for immediate assistance to cut off Cornwallis +from his expected retreat through North Carolina. Again he set out, 229 +and with two hundred men crossed the mountains and made all speed to +Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, where he learned that Cornwallis had +surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. Under Greene's orders he +turned south to the Santee to assist a fellow scion of the Huguenots, +General Francis Marion, in the pursuit of Stuart's Britishers. Having +driven Stuart into Charleston, Sevier and his active Wataugans returned +home, now perhaps looking forward to a rest, which they had surely +earned. Once more, however, they were hailed with alarming news. +Dragging Canoe had come to life again and was emerging from the caves of +the Tennessee with a substantial force of Chickamaugan warriors. Again +the Wataugans, augmented by a detachment from Sullivan County, galloped +forth, met the red warriors, chastised them heavily, put them to rout, +burned their dwellings and provender, and drove them back into their +hiding places. For some time after this, the Indians dipped not into +the black paint pots of war but were content to streak their humbled +countenances with the vermilion of beauty and innocence. + +It should be chronicled that Sevier, assisted possibly by other +Wataugans, eventually returned 226 to the State of North Carolina the +money which he had forcibly borrowed to finance the King's Mountain +expedition; and that neither he nor Shelby received any pay for their +services, nor asked it. Before Shelby left the Holston in 1782 and moved +to Kentucky, of which State he was to become the first Governor, the +Assembly of North Carolina passed a resolution of gratitude to the +overmountain men in general, and to Sevier and Shelby in particular, +for their very generous and patriotic services with which the General +Assembly of this State are feelingly impressed. The resolution concluded +by urging the recipients of the Assembly's acknowledgments to continue +in their noble course. In view of what followed, this resolution is +interesting! + +For some time the overhill pioneers had been growing dissatisfied with +the treatment they were receiving from the State, which on the plea +of poverty had refused to establish a Superior Court for them and to +appoint a prosecutor. As a result, crime was on the increase, and +the law-abiding were deprived of the proper legal means to check the +lawless. In 1784 when the western soldiers' claims began to reach the +Assembly, there to be scrutinized by unkindly eyes, the dissatisfaction +increased. 231 The breasts of the mountain men--the men who had made +that spectacular ride to bring Ferguson to his end--were kindled with +hot indignation when they heard that they had been publicly assailed +as grasping persons who seized on every pretense to fabricate demands +against the Government. Nor were those fiery breasts cooled by further +plaints to the effect that the "industry and property" of those east of +the hills were becoming the funds appropriated to discharge the debts of +the Westerners. They might with justice have asked what the industry and +property of the Easterners were worth on that day when the overhill men +drilled in the snows on the high peak of Yellow Mountain and looked down +on Burke County overrun by Ferguson's Tories, and beyond, to Charlotte, +where lay Cornwallis. + +The North Carolina Assembly did not confine itself to impolite remarks. +It proceeded to get rid of what it deemed western rapacity by ceding the +whole overmountain territory to the United States, with the proviso that +Congress must accept the gift within twelve months. And after passing +the Cession Act, North Carolina closed the land office in the undesired +domain and nullified all entries made after May 25, 1784. The Cession +Act also enabled 232 the State to evade its obligations to the Cherokees +in the matter of an expensive consignment of goods to pay for new lands. + +This clever stroke of the Assembly's brought about immediate +consequences in the region beyond the hills. The Cherokees, who knew +nothing about the Assembly's system of political economy but who found +their own provokingly upset by the non-arrival of the promised goods, +began again to darken the mixture in their paint pots; and they dug up +the war hatchet, never indeed so deeply patted down under the dust that +it could not be unearthed by a stub of the toe. Needless to say, it was +not the thrifty and distant Easterners who felt their anger, but the +nearby settlements. + +As for the white overhill dwellers, the last straw had been laid on +their backs; and it felt like a hickory log. No sooner had the Assembly +adjourned than the men of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties, +which comprised the settled portion of what is now east Tennessee, +elected delegates to convene for the purpose of discussing the formation +of a new State. They could assert that they were not acting illegally, +for in her first constitution North Carolina had made provision for a +State beyond the mountains. And necessity 233 compelled them to take +steps for their protection. Some of them, and Sevier was of the number, +doubted if Congress would accept the costly gift; and the majority +realized that during the twelve months which were allowed for the +decision they would have no protection from either North Carolina or +Congress and would not be able to command their own resources. + +In August, 1784, the delegates met at Jonesborough and passed +preliminary resolutions, and then adjourned to meet later in the year. +The news was soon disseminated through North Carolina and the Assembly +convened in October and hastily repealed the Cession Act, voted to +establish the District of Washington out of the four counties, and sent +word of the altered policy to Sevier, with a commission for himself as +Brigadier General. From the steps of the improvised convention hall, +before which the delegates had gathered, Sevier read the Assembly's +message and advised his neighbors to proceed no further, since North +Carolina had of her own accord redressed all their grievances. But for +once Nolichucky Jack's followers refused to follow. The adventure too +greatly appealed. Obliged to choose between North Carolina and his own +people, Sevier's hesitation 234 was short. The State of Frankland, or +Land of the Free, was formed; and Nolichucky Jack was elevated to the +office of Governor--with a yearly salary of two hundred mink skins. + +Perhaps John Tipton had hoped to head the new State, for he had been one +of its prime movers and was a delegate to this convention. But when the +man whom he hated--apparently for no reason except that other men loved +him--assented to the people's will and was appointed to the highest +post within their gift, Tipton withdrew, disavowing all connection with +Frankland and affirming his loyalty to North Carolina. From this time +on, the feud was an open one. + +That brief and now forgotten State, Frankland, the Land of the Free, +which bequeathed its name as an appellation for America, was founded as +Watauga had been founded--to meet the practical needs and aspirations +of its people. It will be remembered that one of the things written by +Sevier into the only Watauga document extant was that they desired to +become in every way the best members of society. Frankland's aims, +as recorded, included the intent to improve agriculture, perfect +manufacturing, encourage literature and every thing truly laudable. + +235 The constitution of Frankland, agreed to on the 14th of November, +1785, appeals to us today rather by its spirit than by its practical +provisions. This State shall be called the Commonwealth of Frankland and +shall be governed by a General Assembly of the representatives of +the freemen of the same, a Governor and Council, and proper courts of +justice.… The supreme legislative power shall be vested in a single +House of Representatives of the freemen of the commonwealth of +Frankland. The House of Representatives of the freemen of the State +shall consist of persons most noted for wisdom and virtue. + +In these exalted desires of the primitive men who held by their rifles +and hatchets the land by the western waters, we see the influence of the +Reverend Samuel Doak, their pastor, who founded the first church and the +first school beyond the great hills. Early in the life of Watauga he had +come thither from Princeton, a zealous and broadminded young man, and +a sturdy one, too, for he came on foot driving before him a mule +laden with books. Legend credits another minister, the Reverend Samuel +Houston, with suggesting the name of Frankland, after he had opened +the Convention with prayer. It is not surprising to learn that this +glorified 236 constitution was presently put aside in favor of one +modeled on that of North Carolina. + +Sevier persuaded the more radical members of the community to abandon +their extreme views and to adopt the laws of North Carolina. However +lawless his acts as Governor of a bolting colony may appear, Sevier was +essentially a constructive force. His purposes were right, and small +motives are not discernible in his record. He might reasonably urge that +the Franklanders had only followed the example of North Carolina and the +other American States in seceding from the parent body, and for similar +causes, for the State's system of taxation had long borne heavily on the +overhill men. + +The whole transmontane populace welcomed Frankland with enthusiasm. +Major Arthur Campbell, of the Virginian settlements, on the Holston, +was eager to join. Sevier and his Assembly took the necessary steps +to receive the overhill Virginians, provided that the transfer of +allegiance could be made with Virginia's consent. Meanwhile he replied +in a dignified manner to the pained and menacing expostulations of North +Carolina's Governor. North Carolina was bidden to remember the epithets +her assemblymen had hurled at the Westerners, which they themselves had +by 237 no means forgotten. And was it any wonder that they now doubted +the love the parent State professed to feel for them? As for the puerile +threat of blood, had their quality really so soon become obliterated +from the memory of North Carolina? At this sort of writing, Sevier, who +always pulsed hot with emotion and who had a pretty knack in turning a +phrase, was more than a match for the Governor of North Carolina, whose +prerogatives he had usurped. + +The overmountain men no longer needed to complain bitterly of the lack +of legal machinery to keep them the best members of society. They +now had courts to spare. Frankland had its courts, its judges, its +legislative body, its land office--in fact, a full governmental +equipment. North Carolina also performed all the natural functions of +political organism, within the western territory. Sevier appointed one +David Campbell a judge. Campbell held court in Jonesborough. Ten miles +away, in Buffalo, Colonel John Tipton presided for North Carolina. It +happened frequently that officers and attendants of the rival law courts +met, as they pursued their duties, and whenever they met they fought. +The post of sheriff--or sheriffs, for of course there were two--was +filled by the 238 biggest and heaviest man and the hardest hitter in the +ranks of the warring factions. A favorite game was raiding each other's +courts and carrying off the records. Frankland sent William Cocke, later +the first senator from Tennessee, to Congress with a memorial, asking +Congress to accept the territory North Carolina had offered and to +receive it into the Union as a separate State. Congress ignored the +plea. It began to appear that North Carolina would be victor in the end; +and so there were defections among the Franklanders. Sevier wrote +to Benjamin Franklin asking his aid in establishing the status of +Frankland; and, with a graceful flourish of his ready pen, changed the +new State's name to Franklin by way of reinforcing his arguments. But +the old philosopher, more expert than Sevier in diplomatic calligraphy, +only acknowledged the compliment and advised the State of Franklin to +make peace with North Carolina. + +Sevier then appealed for aid and recognition to the Governor of Georgia, +who had previously appointed him Brigadier General of militia. But +the Governor of Georgia also avoided giving the recognition requested, +though he earnestly besought Sevier to come down and settle the Creeks +for him. There were others who sent pleas to Sevier, the 239 warrior, to +save them from the savages. One of the writers who addressed him did +not fear to say Your Excellency, nor to accord Nolichucky Jack the whole +dignity of the purple in appealing to him as the only man possessing the +will and the power to prevent the isolated settlements on the Cumberland +from being wiped out. That writer was his old friend, James Robertson. + +In 1787, while Sevier was on the frontier of Greene County, defending +it from Indians, the legal forces of North Carolina swooped down on his +estate and took possession of his negroes. It was Tipton who represented +the law; and Tipton carried off the Governor's slaves to his own estate. +When Nolichucky Jack came home and found that his enemy had stripped +him, he was in a towering rage. With a body of his troops and one small +cannon, he marched to Tipton's house and besieged it, threatening a +bombardment. He did not, however, fire into the dwelling, though he +placed some shots about it and in the extreme corners. This _opéra +bouffe_ siege endured for several days, until Tipton was reinforced +by some of his own clique. Then Tipton sallied forth and attacked the +besiegers, who hastily scattered rather than engage in a sanguinary +fight with their neighbors. Tipton 240 captured Sevier's two elder sons +and was only strained from hanging them on being informed that two of +his own sons were at that moment in Sevier's hands. + +In March, 1788, the State of Franklin went into eclipse. Sevier was +overthrown by the authorities of North Carolina. Most of the officials +who had served under him were soothed by being reappointed to their old +positions. Tipton's star was now in the ascendant, for his enemy was +to be made the vicarious sacrifice for the sins of all whom he had led +astray. Presently David Campbell, still graciously permitted to preside +over the Superior Court, received from the Governor of North Carolina +the following letter: + +Sir: It has been represented to the Executive that John Sevier, who +style's himself Captain-General of the State of Franklin, has been +guilty of high treason in levying troops to oppose the laws and +government of the State.… You will issue your warrant to apprehend the +said John Sevier, and in case he cannot be sufficiently secured for +trial in the District of Washington, order him to be committed to the +public gaol. + +The judge's authority was to be exercised after he had examined the +affidavits of credible persons. Campbell's judicial opinion seems to +have been that any affidavit against the said John 241 Sevier could not +be made by a credible person. He refused to issue the warrant. Tipton's +friend, Spencer, who had been North Carolina's judge of the Superior +Court in the West and who was sharing that honor now with Campbell, +issued the warrant and sent Tipton to make the arrest. + +Sevier was at the Widow Brown's inn with some of his men when Tipton at +last came up with him. It was early morning. Tipton and his posse were +about to enter when the portly and dauntless widow, surmising their +errand, drew her chair into the doorway, plumped herself down in it, and +refused to budge for all the writs in North Carolina. Tipton blustered +and the widow rocked. The altercation awakened Sevier. He dressed +hurriedly and came down. As soon as he presented himself on the porch, +Tipton thrust his pistol against his body, evidently with intent to fire +if Sevier made signs of resistance. Sevier's furious followers were not +disposed to let him be taken without a fight, but he admonished them to +respect the law, and requested that they would inform Bonnie Kate of his +predicament. Then, debonair as ever, with perhaps a tinge of contempt at +the corners of his mouth, he held out his wrists for the manacles which +Tipton insisted on fastening upon them. + +242 It was not likely that any jail in the western country could hold +Nolichucky Jack overnight. Tipton feared a riot; and it was decided to +send the prisoner for incarceration and trial to Morgantown in North +Carolina, just over the hills. + +Tipton did not accompany the guards he sent with Sevier. It was stated +and commonly believed that he had given instructions of which the +honorable men among his friends were ignorant. When the party entered +the mountains, two of the guards were to lag behind with the prisoner, +till the others were out of sight on the twisting trail. Then one of the +two was to kill Sevier and assert that he had done it because Sevier +had attempted to escape. It fell out almost as planned, except that the +other guard warned Sevier of the fate in store for him and gave him +a chance to flee. In plunging down the mountain, Sevier's horse was +entangled in a thicket. The would-be murderer overtook him and fired; +but here again fate had interposed for her favorite. The ball had +dropped out of the assassin's pistol. So Sevier reached Morgantown +in safety and was deposited in care of the sheriff, who was doubtless +cautioned to take a good look at the prisoner and know him for a +dangerous and a daring man. + +243 There is a story to the effect that, when Sevier was arraigned in +the courthouse at Morgantown and presently dashed through the door and +away on a racer that had been brought up by some of his friends, among +those who witnessed the proceedings was a young Ulster Scot named Andrew +Jackson; and that on this occasion these two men, later to become foes, +first saw each other. Jackson may have been in Morgantown at the +time, though this is disputed; but the rest of the tale is pure legend +invented by some one whose love of the spectacular led him far from the +facts. The facts are less theatrical but much more dramatic. Sevier +was not arraigned at all, for no court was sitting in Morgantown at the +time.¹ The sheriff to whom he was delivered did not need to look twice +at him to know him for a daring man. He had served with him at King's +Mountain. He struck off his handcuffs and set him at liberty at once. +Perhaps he also notified General Charles McDowell at his home in Quaker +Meadows of the presence of a distinguished guest in Burke County, for +McDowell and his brother Joseph, another officer of militia, quickly +appeared and went on Sevier's bond. Nolichucky Jack was 244 presently +holding a court of his own in the tavern, with North Carolina's men at +arms--as many as were within call--drinking his health. So his sons and +a company of his Wataugans found him, when they rode into Morgantown to +give evidence in his behalf--with their rifles. Since none now disputed +the way with him, Sevier turned homeward with his cavalcade, McDowell +and his men accompanying him as far as the pass in the hills. + +¹ Statement by John Sevier, Junior, in the Draper MSS., quoted by +Turner, _Life of General John Sevier,_ p. 182. No further attempt +was made to try John Sevier for treason, either west or east of the +mountains. In November, however, the Assembly passed the Pardon Act, and +thereby granted absolution to every one who had been associated with +the State of Franklin, except John Sevier. In a clause said to have been +introduced by Tipton, now a senator, or suggested by him, John Sevier +was debarred forever from the enjoyment of any office of profit or honor +or trust in the State of North Carolina. + +The overhill men in Greene County took due note of the Assembly's fiat +and at the next election sent Sevier to the North Carolina Senate. +Nolichucky Jack, whose demeanor was never so decorous as when the +ill-considered actions of those in authority had made him appear to have +circumvented the law, considerately waited outside until 245 the House +had lifted the ban--which it did perforce and by a large majority, +despite Tipton's opposition--and then took his seat on the senatorial +bench beside his enemy. The records show that he was reinstated as +Brigadier General of the Western Counties and also appointed at the head +of the Committee on Indian Affairs. + +Not only in the region about Watauga did the pioneers of Tennessee +endure the throes of danger and strife during these years. The little +settlements on the Cumberland, which were scattered over a short +distance of about twenty-five or thirty miles and had a frontier line +of two hundred miles, were terribly afflicted. Their nearest white +neighbors among the Kentucky settlers were one hundred and fifty miles +away; and through the cruelest years these could render no aid--could +not, indeed, hold their own stations. The Kentuckians, as we have +seen, were bottled up in Harrodsburg and Boonesborough; and, while the +northern Indians led by Girty and Dequindre darkened the Bloody Ground +anew, the Cumberlanders were making a desperate stand against the +Chickasaws and the Creeks. So terrible was their situation that panic +took hold on them, and they would have 246 fled but for the influence of +Robertson. He may have put the question to them in the biblical words, +Whither shall I flee? For they were surrounded, and those who did +attempt to escape were weighed on the path and made light. Robertson +knew that their only chance of survival was to stand their ground. The +greater risks he was willing to take in person, for it was he who made +trips to Boonesborough and Harrodsburg for a share of the powder and +lead which John Sevier was sending into Kentucky from time to time. In +the stress of conflict Robertson bore his full share of grief, for his +two elder sons and his brother fell. He himself was often near to death. +One day he was cut off in the fields and was shot in the foot as he ran, +yet he managed to reach shelter. There is a story that, in an attack +during one of his absences, the Indians forced the outer gate of the +fort and Mrs. Robertson went out of her cabin, firing, and let loose a +band of the savage dogs which the settlers kept for their protection, +and so drove out the invaders. + +The Chickasaws were loyal to the treaty they had made with the British +in the early days of James Adair's association with them. They were +friends to England's friends and foes to her foes. 247 While they +resented the new settlements made on land they considered theirs, +they signed a peace with Robertson at the conclusion of the War of +Independence. They kept their word with him as they had kept it with the +British. Furthermore, their chief, Opimingo or the Mountain Leader, gave +Robertson his assistance against the Creeks and the Choctaws and, in so +far as he understood its workings, informed him of the new Spanish and +French conspiracy, which we now come to consider. So once again the +Chickasaws were servants of destiny to the English-speaking race, for +again they drove the wedge of their honor into an Indian solidarity +welded with European gold. + +Since it was generally believed at that date that the tribes were +instigated to war by the British and supplied by them with their +ammunition, savage inroads were expected to cease with the signing of +peace. But Indian warfare not only continued; it increased. In the last +two years of the Revolution, when the British were driven from the +Back Country of the Carolinas and could no longer reach the tribes with +consignments of firearms and powder, it should have been evident that +the Indians had other sources of supply and other allies, for they +lacked nothing which could aid 248 them in their efforts to exterminate +the settlers of Tennessee. + +Neither France nor Spain wished to see an English-speaking republic +based on ideals of democracy successfully established in America. Though +in the Revolutionary War, France was a close ally of the Americans and +Spain something more than a nominal one, the secret diplomacy of the +courts of the Bourbon cousins ill matched with their open professions. +Both cousins hated England. The American colonies, smarting under +injustice, had offered a field for their revenge. But hatred of England +was not the only reason why activities had been set afoot to increase +the discord which should finally separate the colonies from Great +Britain and leave the destiny of the colonies to be decided by the House +of Bourbon. Spain saw in the Americans, with their English modes of +thought, a menace to her authority in her own colonies on both the +northern and southern continents. This menace would not be stilled but +augmented if the colonies should be established as a republic. Such an +example might be too readily followed. Though France had, by a secret +treaty in 1762, made over to Spain the province of Louisiana, she was +not unmindful of the Bourbon motto, He who attacks 249 the Crown of one +attacks the other. And she saw her chance to deal a crippling blow at +England's prestige and commerce. + +In 1764, the French Minister, Choiseul, had sent a secret agent, named +Pontleroy, to America to assist in making trouble and to watch for any +signs that might be turned to the advantage of _les duex couronnes_. +Evidently Pontleroy's reports were encouraging for, in 1768, Johann +Kalb--the same Kalb who fell at Camden in 1780--arrived in Philadelphia +to enlarge the good work. He was not only, like several of the foreign +officers in the War of Independence, a spy for his Government, but he +was also the special emissary of one Comte de Broglie who, after the +colonies had broken with the mother country, was to put himself at the +head of American affairs. This Broglie had been for years one of +Louis XV's chief agents in subterranean diplomacy, and it is not to be +supposed that he was going to attempt the stupendous task of controlling +America's destiny without substantial backing. Spain had been advised +meanwhile to rule her new Louisiana territory with great liberality--in +fact, to let it shine as a republic before the yearning eyes of the +oppressed Americans, so that the English colonists would arise and +cast off 250 their fetters. Once the colonies had freed themselves from +England's protecting arm, it would be a simple matter for the Bourbons +to gather them in like so many little lost chicks from a rainy yard. The +intrigants of autocratic systems have never been able to understand that +the urge of the spirit of independence in men is not primarily to break +shackles but to stand alone and that the breaking of bonds is incidental +to the true demonstration of freedom. The Bourbons and their agents were +no more nor less blind to the great principle stirring the hearts of men +in their day than were the Prussianized hosts over a hundred years later +who, having themselves no acquaintance with the law of liberty, could +not foresee that half a world would rise in arms to maintain that law. + +When the War of Independence had ended, the French Minister, Vergennes, +and the Spanish Minister, Floridablanca, secretly worked in unison to +prevent England's recognition of the new republic; and Floridablanca in +1782 even offered to assist England if she would make further efforts +to subdue her rebel subjects. Both Latin powers had their own axes +to grind, and America was to tend the grindstone. France looked for +recovery of her old prestige in Europe and expected to supersede 251 +England in commerce. She would do this, in the beginning, chiefly +through control of America and of America's commerce. Vergennes +therefore sought not only to dictate the final terms of peace but also +to say what the American commissioners should and should not demand. +Of the latter gentlemen he said that they possessed _caractères +peu maniables!_ In writing to Luzerne, the French Ambassador in +Philadelphia, on October 14, 1782, Vergennes said: it behooves us +to leave them [the American commissioners] to their illusions, to do +everything that can make them fancy that we share them, and undertake +only to defeat any attempts to which those illusions might carry them +if our coöperation is required. Among these illusions were America's +desires in regard to the fisheries and to the western territory. +Concerning the West, Vergennes had written to Luzerne, as early as July +18, 1780: At the moment when the revolution broke out, the limits of the +Thirteen States did not reach the River [Mississippi] and it would be +absurd for them to claim the rights of England, a power whose rule they +had abjured. By the secret treaty with Spain, furthermore, France had +agreed to continue the war until Gibraltar should be taken, and--if the +British 252 should be driven from Newfoundland--to share the fisheries +only with Spain, and to support Spain in demanding that the Thirteen +States renounce all territory west of the Alleghanies. The American +States must by no means achieve a genuine independence but must feel the +need of sureties, allies, and protection.¹ + +¹ See John Jay, _On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1783 as Illustrated +by the Secret Correspondence of France and England,_ New York, 1888. +So intent was Vergennes on these aims that he sent a secret emissary to +England to further them there. This act of his perhaps gave the first +inkling to the English statesmen² that American and French desires +were not identical and hastened England's recognition of American +independence and her agreement to American demands in regard to the +western territory. When, to his amazement, Vergennes learned that +England had acceded to all America's demands, he said that England had +bought the peace rather than made it. The policy of Vergennes in regard +to America was not unjustly pronounced by a later French statesman a +vile speculation + +² Your Lordship was well founded in your suspicion that the granting +of independence to America as a previous measure is a point which the +French have by no means at heart and perhaps are entirely averse from. +Letter from Fitzherbert to Grantham, September 3, 1782. 253 Through +England's unexpected action, then, the Bourbon cousins had forever +lost their opportunity to dominate the young but spent and war-weakened +Republic, or to use America as a catspaw to snatch English commerce for +France. It was plain, too, that any frank move of the sort would +range the English alongside of their American kinsmen. Since American +Independence was an accomplished fact and therefore could no longer be +prevented, the present object of the Bourbon cousins was to restrict +it. The Appalachian Mountains should be the western limits of the new +nation. Therefore the settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee must be +broken up, or the settlers must be induced to secede from the Union +and raise the Spanish banner. The latter alternative was held to be +preferable. To bring it about the same methods were to be continued +which had been used prior to and during the war--namely, the use of +_agents provocateurs_ to corrupt the ignorant and incite the lawless, +the instigation of Indian massacres to daunt the brave, and the +distribution of gold to buy the avaricious. + +As her final and supreme means of coercion, Spain refused to America the +right of navigation on the Mississippi and so deprived the Westerners +254 of a market for their produce. The Northern States, having no +immediate use for the Mississippi, were willing to placate Spain by +acknowledging her monopoly of the great waterway. But Virginia and +North Carolina were determined that America should not, by congressional +enactment, surrender her natural right; and they cited the proposed +legislation as their reason for refusing to ratify the Constitution. The +act which abandons it [the right of navigation] is an act of separation +between the eastern and western country, Jefferson realized at last. +An act of separation--that point had long been very clear to the Latin +sachems of the Mississippi Valley! + +Bounded as they were on one side by the precipitous mountains and on the +other by the southward flow of the Mississippi and its tributary, the +Ohio, the trappers and growers of corn in Kentucky and western Tennessee +regarded New Orleans as their logical market, as the wide waters were +their natural route. If market and route were to be closed to them, +their commercial advancement was something less than a dream. + +In 1785, Don Estevan Miró, a gentleman of artful and winning address, +became Governor of Louisiana and fountainhead of the propaganda. 255 He +wrote benign and brotherly epistles to James Robertson of the Cumberland +and to His Excellency of Franklin, suggesting that to be of service +to them was his dearest aim in life; and at the same time he kept the +southern Indians continually on the warpath. When Robertson wrote to +him of the Creek and Cherokee depredations, with a hint that the Spanish +might have some responsibility in the matter, Miró replied by offering +the Cumberlander a safe home on Spanish territory with freedom of +religion and no taxes. He disclaimed stirring up the Indians. He had, +in fact, advised Mr. McGillivray, chief of the Creeks, to make peace. +He would try again what he could do with Mr. McGillivray. As to the +Cherokees, they resided in a very distant territory and he was not +acquainted with them; he might have added that he did not need to be: +his friend McGillivray was the potent personality among the Southern +tribes. + +In Alexander McGillivray, Miró found a weapon fashioned to his hand. If +the Creek chieftain's figure might stand as the symbol of treachery, it +is none the less one of the most picturesque and pathetic in our early +annals. McGillivray, it will be remembered, was the son of Adair's +friend Lachlan McGillivray, the trader, and a Creek woman whose 256 sire +had been a French officer. A brilliant and beautiful youth, he had given +his father a pride in him which is generally denied to the fathers of +sons with Indian blood in them. The Highland trader had spared nothing +in his son's education and had placed him, after his school days, in the +business office of the large trading establishment of which he himself +was a member. At about the age of seventeen Alexander had become a +chieftain in his mother's nation; and doubtless it is he who appears +shortly afterwards in the Colonial Records as the White Leader whose +influence is seen to have been at work for friendship between the +colonists and the tribes. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Lachlan +McGillivray, like many of the old traders who had served British +interests so long and so faithfully, held to the British cause. Georgia +confiscated all his property and Lachlan fled to Scotland. For this, his +son hated the people of Georgia with a perfect hatred. He remembered how +often his father's courage alone had stood between those same people and +the warlike Creeks. He could recall the few days in 1760 when Lachlan +and his fellow trader, Galphin, at the risk of their lives had braved +the Creek warriors--already painted for war and on the march--and so +had 257 saved the settlements of the Back Country from extermination. +He looked upon the men of Georgia as an Indian regards those who forget +either a blood gift or a blood vengeance. And he embraced the whole +American nation in his hatred for their sakes. + +In 1776 Alexander McGillivray was in his early thirties--the exact date +of his birth is uncertain.¹ He had, we are told, the tall, sturdy, but +spare physique of the Gael, with a countenance of Indian color though +not of Indian cast. His overhanging brows made more striking his very +large and luminous dark eyes. He bore himself with great dignity; his +voice was soft, his manner gentle. He might have been supposed to be +some Latin courtier but for the barbaric display of his dress and his +ornaments. He possessed extraordinary personal magnetism, and his power +extended beyond the Creek nation to the Choctaws and Chickasaws and the +Southern Cherokees. He had long been wooed by the Louisiana authorities, +but there is no evidence that he had made alliance with them prior to +the Revolution. + +¹ Probably about 1741 or 1742. Some writers give 1739 and others 1746. +His father landed in Charleston, Pickett (_History of Alabama_) says, +in 1735, and was then only sixteen. 258 Early in the war he joined the +British, received a colonel's commission, and led his formidable Creeks +against the people of Georgia. When the British were driven from the +Back Countries, McGillivray, in his British uniform, went on with the +war. When the British made peace, McGillivray exchanged his British +uniform for a Spanish one and went on with the war. In later days, when +he had forced Congress to pay him for his father's confiscated property +and had made peace, he wore the uniform of an American Brigadier +General; but he did not keep the peace, never having intended to keep +it. It was not until he had seen the Spanish plots collapse and had +realized that the Americans were to dominate the land, that the White +Leader ceased from war and urged the youths of his tribe to adopt +American civilization. + +Spent from hate and wasted with dissipation, he retired at last to the +spot where Lachlan had set up his first Creek home. Here he lived his +few remaining days in a house which he built on the site of the old +ruined cabin about which still stood the little grove of apple trees his +father had planted. He died at the age of fifty of a fever contracted +while he was on a business errand in Pensacola. Among those who visited +him in his last years, one 259 has left this description of him: +Dissipation has sapped a constitution originally delicate and feeble. He +possesses an atticism of diction aided by a liberal education, a +great fund of wit and humor meliorated by a perfect good nature and +politeness. Set beside that kindly picture this rough etching by James +Robertson: The biggest devil among them [the Spaniards] is the half +Spaniard, half Frenchman, half Scotchman and altogether Creek scoundrel, +McGillivray. + +How indefatigably McGillivray did his work we know from the bloody +annals of the years which followed the British-American peace, when the +men of the Cumberland and of Franklin were on the defensive continually. +How cleverly Miró played his personal rôle we discover in the letters +addressed to him by Sevier and Robertson. These letters show that, as +far as words go at any rate, the founders of Tennessee were willing +to negotiate with Spain. In a letter dated September 12, 1788, Sevier +offered himself and his tottering State of Franklin to the Spanish King. +This offer may have been made to gain a respite, or it may have been +genuine. The situation in the Tennessee settlements was truly desperate, +for neither North Carolina nor Congress apparently cared in the least +260 what befell them or how soon. North Carolina indeed was in +an anomalous position, as she had not yet ratified the Federal +Constitution. If Franklin went out of existence and the territory which +it included became again part of North Carolina, Sevier knew that a +large part of the newly settled country would, under North Carolina's +treaties, revert to the Indians. That meant ruin to large numbers of +those who had put their faith in his star, or else it meant renewed +conflict either with the Indians or with the parent State. The +probabilities aria that Sevier hoped to play the Spaniards against the +Easterners who, even while denying the Westerners' contention that the +mountains were a natural barrier between them, were making of them a +barrier of indifference. It would seem so, because, although this was +the very aim of all Miró's activities so that, had he been assured of +the sincerity of the offer, he must have grasped at it, yet nothing +definite was done. And Sevier was presently informing Shelby, now in +Kentucky, that there was a Spanish plot afoot to seize the western +country. + +Miró had other agents besides McGillivray--who, by the way, was costing +Spain, for his own services and those of four tribes aggregating over +261 six thousand warriors, a sum of fifty-five thousand dollars a +year. McGillivray did very well as superintendent of massacres; but the +Spaniard required a different type of man, an American who enjoyed his +country's trust, to bring the larger plan to fruition. Miró found that +man in General James Wilkinson, lately of the Continental Army and now a +resident of Kentucky, which territory Wilkinson undertook to deliver +to Spain, for a price. In 1787 Wilkinson secretly took the oath of +allegiance to Spain and is listed in the files of the Spanish secret +service, appropriately, as Number Thirteen. He was indeed the thirteenth +at table, the Judas at the feast. Somewhat under middle height, +Wilkinson was handsome, graceful, and remarkably magnetic. Of a good, +if rather impoverished, Maryland family, he was well educated and widely +read for the times. With a brilliant and versatile intellectuality and +ready gifts as a speaker, he swayed men easily. He was a bold soldier +and was endowed with physical courage, though when engaged in personal +contests he seldom exerted it--preferring the red tongue of slander +or the hired assassin's shot from behind cover. His record fails to +disclose one commendable trait. He was inordinately avaricious, but 262 +love of money was not his whole motive force: he had a spirit so jealous +and malignant that he hated to the death another man's good. He seemed +to divine instantly wherein other men were weak and to understand the +speediest and best means of suborning them to his own interests--or of +destroying them. + +Wilkinson was able to lure a number of Kentuckians into the separatist +movement. George Rogers Clark seriously disturbed the arch plotter by +seizing a Spanish trader's store wherewith to pay his soldiers, whom +Virginia had omitted to recompense. This act aroused the suspicions of +the Spanish, either as to Number Thirteen's perfect loyalty or as to +his ability to deliver the western country. In 1786, when Clark led +two thousand men against the Ohio Indians in his last and his only +unsuccessful campaign, Wilkinson had already settled himself near the +Falls (Louisville) and had looked about for mischief which he might do +for profit. Whether his influence had anything to do with what amounted +virtually to a mutiny among Clark's forces is not ascertainable; but, +for a disinterested onlooker, he was overswift to spread the news of +Clark's debacle and to declare gleefully that Clark's sun of military +glory had now forever 263 set. It is also known that he later served +other generals treacherously in Indian expeditions and that he intrigued +with Mad Anthony Wayne's Kentucky troops against their commander. + +Spain did not wish to see the Indians crushed; and Wilkinson himself +both hated and feared any other officer's prestige. How long he had +been in foreign pay we can only conjecture, for, several years before +he transplanted his activities to Kentucky, he had been one of a +cabal against Washington. Not only his ambitions but his nature must +inevitably have brought him to the death-battle with George Rogers +Clark. As a military leader, Clark had genius, and soldiering was his +passion. In nature, he was open, frank, and bold to make foes if he +scorned a man's way as ignoble or dishonest. Wilkinson suavely set about +scheming for Clark's ruin. His communication or memorial to the Virginia +Assembly--signed by himself and a number of his friends--villifying +Clark, ended Clark's chances for the commission in the Continental +Army which he craved. It was Wilkinson who made public an incriminating +letter which had Clark's signature attached and which Clark said he had +never seen. It is to be supposed that Number Thirteen was responsible +also for 264 the malevolent anonymous letter accusing Clark of +drunkenness and scheming which, so strangely, found its way into the +Calendar of State Papers of Virginia.¹ As a result, Clark was censured +by Virginia. Thereupon he petitioned for a Court of Inquiry, but this +was not granted. Wilkinson had to get rid of Clark; for if Clark, +with his military gifts and his power over men, had been elevated to a +position of command under the smile of the Government, there would have +been small opportunity for James Wilkinson to lead the Kentuckians and +to gather in Spanish gold. So the machinations of one of the vilest +traitors who ever sold his country were employed to bring about the +stultification and hence the downfall of a great servant. + +¹ See Thomas M. Greene's _The Spanish Conspiracy,_ p. 72, footnote. It +is possible that Wilkinson's intrigues provide data for a new biography +of Clark which may recast in some measure the accepted view of Clark at +this period. Wilkinson's chief aids were the Irishmen, O'Fallon, Nolan, +and Powers. Through Nolan, he also vended Spanish secrets. He sold, +indeed, whatever and whomever he could get his price for. So clever +was he that he escaped detection, though he was obliged to remove some +suspicions. He succeeded Wayne as commander of the regular army in +1796. He was one of the commissioners 265 to receive Louisiana when the +Purchase was arranged in 1803. He was still on the Spanish pay roll at +that time. Wilkinson's true record came to light only when the Spanish +archives were opened to investigators. + +There were British agents also in the Old Southwest, for the +dissatisfaction of the Western men inspired in Englishmen the hope of +recovering the Mississippi Basin. Lord Dorchester, Governor of Canada, +wrote to the British Government that he had been approached by important +Westerners; but he received advice from England to move slowly. For +complicity in the British schemes, William Blount, who was first +territorial Governor of Tennessee and later a senator from that State, +was expelled from the Senate. + +Surely there was never a more elaborate network of plots that came to +nothing! The concession to Americans in 1796 of the right of navigation +on the Mississippi brought an end to the scheming. + +In the same year Tennessee was admitted to the Union, and John Sevier +was elected Governor. Sevier's popularity was undiminished, though there +were at this time some sixty thousand souls in Tennessee, many of whom +were late comers who 266 had not known him in his heyday. His old power +to win men to him must have been as strong as ever, for it is recorded +that he had only to enter a political meeting--no matter whose--for the +crowd to cheer him and shout for him to give them a talk. + +This adulation of Sevier still annoyed a few men who had ambitions of +their own. Among these was Andrew Jackson, who had come to Jonesborough +in 1788, just after the collapse of the State of Franklin. He was +twenty-one at that time, and he is said to have entered Jonesborough +riding a fine racer and leading another, with a pack of hunting dogs +baying or nosing along after him. A court record dated May 12, 1788, +avers that Andrew Jackson, Esq. came into Court and produced a licence +as an Attorney With A Certificate sufficiently Attested of his Taking +the Oath Necessary to said office and Was admitted to Practiss as an +Attorney in the County Courts. Jackson made no history in old Watauga +during that year. Next year he moved to Nashville, and one year later, +when the Superior Court was established (1790), he became prosecuting +attorney. + +The feud between Jackson and Sevier began about the time that Tennessee +entered the Union. 267 Jackson, then twenty-nine, was defeated for the +post of Major General of the Militia through the influence which Sevier +exercised against him, and it seems that Jackson never forgave this +opposition to his ambitions. By the close of Sevier's third term, +however, in 1802, when Archibald Roane became Governor, the post +of Major General was again vacant. Both Sevier and Jackson offered +themselves for it, and Jackson was elected by the deciding vote of the +Governor, the military vote having resulted in a tie. A strong current +of influence had now set in against Sevier and involved charges against +his honor. His old enemy Tipton was still active. The basis of the +charges was a file of papers from the entry-taker's office which a +friend of Tipton's had laid before the Governor, with an affidavit +to the effect that the papers were fraudulent. Both the Governor and +Jackson believed the charges. When we consider what system or lack +of system of land laws and land entries obtained in Watauga and such +primitive communities--when a patch of corn sealed a right and claims +were made by notching trees with tomahawks--we may imagine that a file +from the land office might appear easily enough to smirch a landholder's +integrity. The scandal was, of course, 268 used in an attempt to ruin +Sevier's candidacy for a fourth term as Governor and to make certain +Roane's reëlection. To this end Jackson bent all his energies but +without success. Nolichucky Jack was elected, for the fourth time, as +Governor of Tennessee. + +Not long after his inauguration, Sevier met Jackson in Knoxville, where +Jackson was holding court. The charges against Sevier were then being +made the subject of legislative investigation instituted by Tipton, and +Jackson had published a letter in the Knoxville _Gazette_ supporting +them. At the sight of Jackson, Sevier flew into a rage, and a fiery +altercation ensued. The two men were only restrained from leaping on +each other by the intervention of friends. The next day Jackson sent +Sevier a challenge which Sevier accepted, but with the stipulation that +the duel take place outside the State. Jackson insisted on fighting in +Knoxville, where the insult had been offered. Sevier refused. I have +some respect, he wrote, for the laws of the State over which I have the +honor to preside, although you, a judge, appear to have none. No duel +followed; but, after some further _billets-doux_, Jackson published +Sevier as a base coward and poltroon. He will basely insult but has not +269 the courage to repair the wound. Again they met, by accident, and +Jackson rushed upon Sevier with his cane. Sevier dismounted and drew +his pistol but made no move to fire. Jackson, thereupon, also drew his +weapon. Once more friends interfered. It is presumable that neither +really desired the duel. By killing Nolichucky Jack, Jackson would have +ended his own career in Tennessee--if Sevier's tribe of sons had not, by +a swifter means, ended it for him. At this date Jackson was thirty-six. +Sevier was fifty-eight; and he had seventeen children. + +The charges against Sevier, though pressed with all the force that his +enemies could bring to bear, came to nothing. He remained the Governor +of Tennessee for another six years--the three terms in eight years +allowed by the constitution. In 1811 he was sent to Congress for the +second time, as he had represented the Territory there twenty years +earlier. He was returned again in 1813. At the conclusion of his term +in 1815 he went into the Creek country as commissioner to determine the +Creek boundaries, and here, far from his Bonnie Kate and his tribe, +he died of fever at the age of seventy. His body was buried with full +military honors at Tuckabatchee, one of the Creek towns. In 1889, +Sevier's 270 remains were removed to Knoxville and a high marble spire +was raised above them. + +His Indian enemies forgave the chastisement he had inflicted on them +and honored him. In times of peace they would come to him frequently for +advice. And in his latter days, the chiefs would make state visits to +his home on the Nolichucky River. John Sevier is a good man--so declared +the Cherokee, Old Tassel, making himself the spokesman of history. + +Sevier had survived his old friend, co-founder with him of Watauga, by +one year. James Robertson had died in 1814 at the age of seventy-two, +among the Chickasaws, and his body, like that of his fellow pioneer, was +buried in an Indian town and lay there until 1825, when it was removed +to Nashville. + +What of the red tribes who had fought these great pioneers for the wide +land of the Old Southwest and who in the end had received their dust and +treasured it with honor in the little soil remaining to them? Always the +new boundary lines drew closer in, and the red men's foothold narrowed +before the pushing tread of the whites. The day came soon when there was +no longer room for 271 them in the land of their fathers. But far off +across the great river there was a land the white men did not covet +yet. Thither at last the tribes--Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and +Creek--took their way. With wives and children, maids and youths, the +old and the young, with all their goods, their cattle and horses, in the +company of a regiment of American troops, they--like the white men who +had superseded them--turned westward. In their faces also was the red +color of the west, but not newly there. From the beginning of their +race, Destiny had painted them with the hue of the brief hour of the +dying sun. + +272 + + + + +Chapter XI + +Boone's Last Days + +One spring day in 1799, there might have been observed a great stir +through the valley of the Kanawha. With the dawn, men were ahorse, and +women, too. Wagons crowded with human freight wheeled over the rough +country, and boats, large and small, were afloat on the streams which +pour into the Great Kanawha and at length mingle with the Ohio at +Point Pleasant, where the battle was fought which opened the gates of +Kentucky. + +Some of the travelers poured into the little settlement at the junction +of the Elk and the Kanawha, where Charleston now lies. Others, who had +been later in starting or had come from a greater distance, gathered +along the banks of the Kanawha. At last shouts from those stationed +farthest up the stream echoed down the valley and told the rest that +what they had come out to see was at hand. + +Several pirogues drifted into view on the river, 273 now brightening +in the sunshine. In the vessels were men and their families; bales and +bundles and pieces of household furnishings, heaped to the gunwale; a +few cattle and horses standing patiently. But it was for one man above +all that the eager eyes of the settlers were watching, and him they saw +clearly as his boat swung by--a tall figure, erect and powerful, his +keen friendly blue eyes undimmed and his ruddy face unlined by time, +though sixty-five winters had frosted his black hair. + +For a decade these settlers had known Daniel Boone, as storekeeper, as +surveyor, as guide and soldier. They had eaten of the game he killed and +lavishly distributed. And they too--like the folk of Clinch Valley in +the year of Dunmore's War--had petitioned Virginia to bestow military +rank upon their protector. Lieutenant Colonel had been his title among +them, by their demand. Once indeed he had represented them in the +Virginia Assembly and, for that purpose, trudged to Richmond with rifle +and hunting dog. Not interested in the Legislature's proceedings, he +left early in the session and tramped home again. + +But not even the esteem of friends and neighbors could hold the great +hunter when the deer had fled. So Daniel Boone was now on his way +westward to 274 Missouri, to a new land of fabled herds and wide spaces, +where the hunter's gun might speak its one word with authority and +where the soul of a silent and fearless man might find its true abode in +Nature's solitude. Waving his last farewells, he floated past the little +groups--till their shouts of good will were long silenced, and his fleet +swung out upon the Ohio. + +As Boone sailed on down the Beautiful River which forms the northern +boundary of Kentucky, old friends and newcomers who had only heard +his fame rode from far and near to greet and godspeed him on his way. +Sometimes he paused for a day with them. Once at least--this was in +Cincinnati where he was taking on supplies--some one asked him why, at +his age, he was leaving the settled country to dare the frontier once +more. + +Too crowded, he answered; I want more elbow-room! + +Boone settled at the Femme Osage Creek on the Missouri River, +twenty-five miles above St. Charles, where the Missouri flows into the +Mississippi. There were four other Kentucky families at La Charette, +as the French inhabitants called the post, but these were the only +Americans. The Spanish authorities granted Boone 840 acres of land, and +here Daniel 275 built the last cabin home he was to erect for himself +and his Rebecca. + +The region pleased him immensely. The governmental system, for instance, +was wholly to his mind. Taxes were infinitesimal. There were no +elections, assemblies, or the like. A single magistrate, or Syndic, +decided all disputes and made the few regulations and enforced them. +There were no land speculators, no dry-mouthed sons of the commercial +Tantalus, athirst for profits. Boone used to say that his first years in +Missouri were the happiest of his life, with the exception of his first +long hunt in Kentucky. + +In 1800 he was appointed Syndic of the district of Femme Osage, which +office he filled for four years, until Louisiana became American +territory. He was held in high esteem as a magistrate because of his +just and wise treatment of his flock, who brought him all their small +bickerings to settle. He had no use for legal procedure, would not +listen to any nice subtleties, saying that he did not care anything +at all about the evidence, what he wanted was the truth. His favorite +penalty for offenders was the hickory rod well laid on. Often he decided +that both parties in a suit were equally to blame and chastised them +both alike. When in 276 March, 1804, the American Commissioner received +Louisiana for the United States, Delassus, Lieutenant Governor of Upper +Louisiana, reporting on the various officials in the territory, wrote +of the Femme Osage Syndic: Mr. Boone, a respectable old man, just +and impartial, he has already, since I appointed him, offered his +resignation owing to his infirmities. Believing I know his probity, I +have induced him to remain, in view of my confidence in him, for the +public good.¹ + +* Thwaites, _Daniel Boone._ To this and other biographies of Boone, +cited in the Bibliographical Note at the end of this volume, the author +is indebted for the material contained in this chapter. Daniel, no doubt +supposing that a Syndic's rights were inviolable, had neglected to apply +to the Governor at New Orleans for a ratification of his grant. He was +therefore dispossessed. Not until 1810, and after he had enlisted the +Kentucky Legislature in his behalf, did he succeed in inducing Congress +to restore his land. The Kentucky Legislature's resolution was adopted +because of the many eminent services rendered by Colonel Boone in +exploring and settling the western country, from which great advantages +have resulted not only to the State but to the country in general, +and that from circumstances over which he had no 277 control he is now +reduced to poverty; not having so far as appears an acre of land out of +the vast territory he has been a great instrument in peopling. Daniel +was seventy-six then; so it was late in the day for him to have his +first experience of justice in the matter of land. Perhaps it pleased +him, however, to hear that, in confirming his grant, Congress had +designated him as the man who has opened the way for millions of his +fellow-men. + +The infirmities which had caused the good Syndic to seek relief from +political cares must have been purely magisterial. The hunter could have +been very little affected by them, for as soon as he was freed from his +duties Boone took up again the silent challenge of the forest. Usually +one or two of his sons or his son-in-law, Flanders Calloway, accompanied +him, but sometimes his only companions were an old Indian and his +hunting dog. On one of his hunting trips he explored a part of Kansas; +and in 1814, when he was eighty, he hunted big game in the Yellowstone +where again his heart rejoiced over great herds as in the days of his +first lone wanderings in the Blue Grass country. At last, with the +proceeds of these expeditions he was able to pay the debts he had left +behind in Kentucky thirty years before. The story runs that 278 Daniel +had only fifty cents remaining when all the claims had been settled, but +so contented was he to be able to look an honest man in the face that he +was in no disposition to murmur over his poverty. + +When after a long and happy life his wife died in 1813, Boone lived with +one or other of his sons¹ and sometimes with Flanders Calloway. Nathan +Boone, with whom Daniel chiefly made his home, built what is said to +have been the first stone house in Missouri. Evidently the old pioneer +disapproved of stone houses and of the luxuries in furnishings which +were then becoming possible to the new generation, for one of his +biographers speaks of visiting him in a log addition to his son's house; +and when Chester Harding, the painter, visited him in 1819 for the +purpose of doing his portrait, he found Boone dwelling in a small log +cabin in Nathan's yard. When Harding entered, Boone was broiling a +venison steak on the end of his ramrod. During the sitting, one day, +Harding 279 asked Boone if he had ever been lost in the woods when on +his long hunts in the wilderness. + +¹ Boone's son Nathan won distinction in the War of 1812 and entered the +regular army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Daniel Morgan +Boone is said to have been the first settler in Kansas (1827). One of +Daniel's grandsons, bearing the name of Albert Gallatin Boone, was +a pioneer of Colorado and was to the forefront in Rocky Mountain +exploration. Another grandson was the scout, Kit Carson, who led Frémont +to California. No, I never got lost, Boone replied reflectively, but I +was bewildered once for three days. Though now having reached the age +of eighty-five, Daniel was intensely interested in California and was +enthusiastic to make the journey thither next spring and so to flee once +more from the civilization which had crept westward along his path. The +resolute opposition of his sons, however, prevented the attempt. + +A few men who sought out Boone in his old age have left us brief +accounts of their impressions. Among these was Audubon. The stature +and general appearance of this wanderer of the western forests, the +naturalist wrote, approached the gigantic. His chest was broad, and +prominent; his muscular powers displayed themselves in every limb; +his countenance gave indication of his great courage, enterprise and +perseverance; and, when he spoke, the very motion of his lips brought +the impression that whatever he uttered could not be otherwise than +strictly true. + +Audubon spent a night under Boone's roof. He related afterwards that the +old hunter, having removed his hunting shirt, spread his blankets on +the 280 floor and lay down there to sleep, saying that he found it more +comfortable than a bed. A striking sketch of Boone is contained in a +few lines penned by one of his earliest biographers: He had what +phrenologists would have considered a model head--with a forehead +peculiarly high, noble and bold, thin compressed lips, a mild clear blue +eye, a large and prominent chin and a general expression of countenance +in which fearlessness and courage sat enthroned and which told +the beholder at a glance what he had been and was formed to be. In +criticizing the various portraits of Daniel, the same writer says: They +want the high port and noble daring of his countenance.… Never was +old age more green, or gray hairs more graceful. His high, calm, bold +forehead seemed converted by years into iron. + +Although we are indebted to these and other early chroniclers for +many details of Boone's life, there was one event which none of his +biographers has related; yet we know that it must have taken place. +Even the bare indication of it is found only in the narrative of the +adventures of two other explorers. + +It was in the winter of 1803 that these two men came to Boone's +Settlement, as La Charette was 281 now generally called. They had +planned to make their winter camp there, for in the spring, when the +Missouri rose to the flood, they and their company of frontiersmen were +to take their way up that uncharted stream and over plains and mountains +in quest of the Pacific Ocean. They were refused permission by the +Spanish authorities to camp at Boone's Settlement; so they lay through +the winter some forty miles distant on the Illinois side of the +Mississippi, across from the mouth of the Missouri. Since the records +are silent, we are free to picture as we choose their coming to the +settlement during the winter and again in the spring, for we know that +they came. + +We can imagine, for instance, the stir they made in La Charette on some +sparkling day when the frost bit and the crusty snow sent up a dancing +haze of diamond points. We can see the friendly French _habitants_ +staring after the two young leaders and their men--all mere boys, though +they were also husky, seasoned frontiersmen--with their bronzed faces of +English cast, as in their gayly fringed deerskins they swaggered through +the hamlet to pay their respects to the Syndic. We may think of that +dignitary as smoking his pipe before his fireplace, perhaps; or making +out, in his 282 fantastic spelling, a record of his primitive court--for +instance, that he had on that day given Pierre a dozen hickory thwacks, +well laid on, for starting a brawl with Antoine, and had bestowed the +same upon Antoine for continuing the brawl with Pierre. A knock at the +door would bring the amiable invitation to enter, and the two young men +would step across his threshold, while their followers crowded about the +open door and hailed the old pathfinder. + +One of the two leaders--the dark slender man with a subtle touch of the +dreamer in his resolute face--was a stranger; but the other, with the +more practical mien and the shock of hair that gave him the name of Red +Head among the tribes, Boone had known as a lad in Kentucky. To Daniel +and this young visitor the encounter would be a simple meeting of +friends, heightened in pleasure and interest somewhat, naturally, by the +adventure in prospect. But to us there is something vast in the thought +of Daniel Boone, on his last frontier, grasping the hands of William +Clark and Meriwether Lewis. + +As for the rough and hearty mob at the door, Daniel must have known not +a few of them well; though they had been children in the days when 283 +he and William Clark's brother strove for Kentucky. It seems fitting +that the soldiers with this expedition should have come from the +garrison at Kaskaskia; since the taking of that fort in 1778 by George +Rogers Clark had opened the western way from the boundaries of Kentucky +to the Mississippi. And among the young Kentuckians enlisted by William +Clark were sons of the sturdy fighters of still an earlier border line, +Clinch and Holston Valley men who had adventured under another Lewis +at Point Pleasant. Daniel would recognize in these--such as Charles +Floyd--the young kinsmen of his old-time comrades whom he had preserved +from starvation in the Kentucky wilderness by the kill from his rifle as +they made their long march home after Dunmore's War. + +In May, Lewis and Clark's pirogues ascended the Missouri and the leaders +and men of the expedition spent another day in La Charette. Once again, +at least, Daniel was to watch the westward departure of pioneers. In +1811, when the Astorians passed, one of their number pointed to the +immobile figure of an old man on the bank, who, he said, was Daniel +Boone. + +Sometimes the aged pioneer's mind cast forward 284 to his last journey, +for which his advancing years were preparing him. He wrote on the +subject to a sister, in 1816, revealing in a few simple lines that the +faith whereby he had crossed, if not more literally removed, mountains +was a fixed star, and that he looked ahead fearlessly to the dark trail +he must tread by its single gleam. Autumn was tinting the forest and the +tang he loved was in the air when the great hunter passed. The date of +Boone's death is given as September 26, 1820. He was in his eighty-sixth +year. Unburdened by the pangs of disease he went out serenely, by the +gentle marches of sleep, into the new country. + +The convention for drafting the constitution of Missouri, in session +at St. Louis, adjourned for the day, and for twenty days thereafter the +members wore crape on their arms as a further mark of respect for the +great pioneer. Daniel was laid by Rebecca's side, on the bank of Teugue +Creek, about a mile from the Missouri River. In 1845, the Missouri +legislators hearkened to oft-repeated pleas from Kentucky and +surrendered the remains of the pioneer couple. Their bones lie now in +Frankfort, the capital of the once Dark and Bloody Ground, and in 1880 a +monument was raised over them. + +To us it seems rather that Kentucky itself is 285 Boone's monument; even +as those other great corn States, Illinois and Indiana, are Clark's. +There, these two servants unafraid, who sacrificed without measure in +the wintry winds of man's ingratitude, are each year memorialized anew; +when the earth in summer--the season when the red man slaughtered--lifts +up the full grain in the ear, the life-giving corn; and when autumn +smiles in golden peace over the stubble fields, where the reaping and +binding machines have hummed a nation's harvest song. + +287 + +Bibliographical Note + +The Races And Their Migration + +C. A. Hanna, _The Scotch-Irish,_ 2 vols. New York, 1902. A very full if +somewhat over-enthusiastic study. + +H. J. Ford, _The Scotch-Irish in America._ Princeton, 1915. Excellent. + +A. G. Spangenberg, Extracts from his Journal of travels in North +Carolina, 1752. Publication of the Southern History Association. Vol. I, +1897. + +A. B. Faust, _The German Element in the United States,_ 2 vols. (1909). + +J. P. MacLean, _An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch +Highlanders in America_ (1900). + +S. H. Cobb, _The Story of the Palatines_ (1897). + +N. D. Mereness (editor), _Travels in the American Colonies._ New York, +1916. This collection contains the diary of the Moravian Brethren cited +in the first chapter of the present volume. + +Life In The Back Country + +Joseph Doddridge, _Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of the +Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania,_ from 1763 to 1783. Albany, +1876. An intimate description of the daily life of the early settlers in +the Back Country by one of themselves. + +288 J. F. D. Smyth, _Tour in the United States of America,_ 2 vols. +London, 1784. Minute descriptions of the Back Country and interesting +pictures of the life of the settlers; biased as to political views by +Royalist sympathies. + +William H. Foote, _Sketches of North Carolina,_ New York, 1846. See +Foote also for history of the first Presbyterian ministers in the Back +Country. As to political history, inaccurate. + +Early History And Exploration + +J. S. Bassett (editor), _The Writings of Colonel William Byrd of +Westover._ New York, 1901. A contemporary record of early Virginia. + +Thomas Walker, _Journal of an Exploration in the Spring of the Year +1750._ Boston, 1888. The record of his travels by the discoverer of +Cumberland Gap. + +William M. Darlington (editor), _Christopher Gist's Journals._ +Pittsburgh, 1893. Contains Gist's account of his surveys for the Ohio +Company, 1750. + +C. A. Hanna, _The Wilderness Trail,_ 2 vols. New York, 1911. An +exhaustive work of research, with full accounts of Croghan and Findlay. +See also Croghan's and Johnson's correspondence in vol. VII, New York +Colonial Records. + +James Adair, _The History of the American Indians,_ etc. London, 1775. +The personal record of a trader who was one of the earliest explorers +of the Alleghanies and of the Mississippi region east of the river; a +many-sided work, intensely interesting. + +C. W. Alvord, _The Genesis of the Proclamation of 1763._ Reprinted from +Canadian Archives Report, 1906. A new and authoritative interpretation. +In this connection see also the correspondence between Sir William 289 +Johnson and the Lords of Trade in vol. VII of New York Colonial Records. + +Justin Winsor, _The Mississippi Basin. The Struggle in America between +England and France._ Cambridge, 1895. Presents the results of exhaustive +research and the coördination of facts by an historian of broad +intellect and vision. + +_Colonial and State Records of North Carolina._ 30 vols. The chief +fountain source of the early history of North Carolina and Tennessee. + +W. H. Hoyt, _The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence._ New York, +1907. This book presents the view generally adopted by historians, that +the alleged Declaration of May 20, 1775, is spurious. + +Justin Winsor (editor), _Narrative and Critical History of America._ 8 +vols. (1884-1889). Also _The Westward Movement._ Cambridge, 1897. Both +works of incalculable value to the student. + +C. W. Alvord, _The Mississippi Valley in British Politics._ 2 vols. +Cleveland, 1917. A profound work of great value to students. + +Kentucky + +R. G. Thwaites and L. P. Kellogg (editors), _Documentary History of +Dunmore's War, 1774._ Compiled from the Draper Manuscripts in the +library of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Madison, 1905. A collection +of interesting and valuable documents with a suggestive introduction. + +R. G. Thwaites, _Daniel Boone._ New York, 1902. A short and accurate +narrative of Boone's life and adventures compiled from the Draper +Manuscripts and from earlier printed biographies. + +290 John P. Hale, _Daniel Boone, Some Facts and Incidents not Hitherto +Published._ A pamphlet giving an account of Boone in West Virginia. +Printed at Wheeling, West Virginia. Undated. + +Timothy Flint, _The First White Man of the West or the Life and Exploits +of Colonel Dan'l Boone._ Cincinnati, 1854. Valuable only as regards +Boone's later years. + +John S. C. Abbott, _Daniel Boone, the Pioneer of Kentucky._ New York, +1872. Fairly accurate throughout. + +J. M. Peck, _Daniel Boone_ (in Sparks, _Library of American Biography._ +Boston, 1847). + +William Henry Bogart. _Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky._ New +York, 1856. + +William Hayden English, _Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River +Ohio, 1778-1783, and Life of General George Rogers Clark,_ 2 vols. +Indianapolis, 1896. An accurate and valuable work for which the author +has made painstaking research among printed and unprinted documents. +Contains Clark's own account of his campaigns, letters he wrote on +public and personal matters, and also letters from contemporaries in +defense of his reputation. + +Theodore Roosevelt, _The Winning of the West,_ 4 vols. New York, +1889-1896. A vigorous and spirited narrative. + +Tennessee + +J. G. M. Ramsey, _The Annals of Tennessee._ Charleston, 1853. John +Haywood, _The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee._ +Nashville, 1891. (Reprint from 1828.) These works, with the North +Carolina _Colonial Records,_ are the source books of early Tennessee. +In statistics, such as numbers of Indians and other foes defeated by +Tennessee heroes, not 291 reliable. Incorrect as to causes of Indian +wars during the Revolution. On this subject see letters and reports by +John and Henry Stuart in North Carolina _Colonial Records,_ vol. X; and +letters by General Gage and letters and proclamation by General Ethan +Allen in American Archives, Fourth Series, vol. II, and by President +Rutledge of South Carolina in North Carolina _Colonial Records,_ vol. X. +See also Justin Winsor, _The Westward Movement._ + +J. Allison, _Dropped Stitches in Tennessee History._ Nashville, 1897. +Contains interesting matter relative to Andrew Jackson in his younger +days as well as about other striking figures of the time. + +F. M. Turner, _The Life of General John Sevier._ New York, 1910. A +fairly accurate narrative of events in which Sevier participated, +compiled from the _Draper Manuscripts._ + +A. W. Putnam, _History of Middle Tennessee, or Life and Times of +General James Robertson._ Nashville, 1859. A rambling lengthy narrative +containing some interesting material and much that is unreliable. Its +worst fault is distortion through sentimentality, and indulgence in the +habit of putting the author's rodomontades into the mouths of Robertson +and other characters. + +J. S. Bassett, _Regulators of North Carolina,_ in Report of the American +Historical Association, 1894. + +L. C. Draper, _King's Mountain and its Heroes._ Cincinnati, 1881. The +source book on this event. Contains interesting biographical material +about the men engaged in the battle. + +French And Spanish Intrigues + +Henry Doniol, _Histoire de la participation de la France á +l'établissement des États-Unis d'Amérique,_ 5 vols. 292 Paris, +1886-1892. A complete exposition of the French and Spanish policy +towards America during the Revolutionary Period. + +Manuel Serrano y Sanz, _El brigadier Jaime Wilkinson y sus tratos con +España para la independencia del Kentucky, años 1787 á 1797._ Madrid, +1915. A Spanish view of Wilkinson's intrigues with Spain, based on +letters and reports in the Spanish Archives. + +Thomas Marshall Green, _The Spanish Conspiracy._ Cincinnati, 1891. A +good local account, from American sources. The best material on this +subject is found in Justin Winsor's _The Westward Movement and Narrative +and Critical History_ because there viewed against a broad historical +background. See Winsor also for the Latin intrigues in Tennessee. For +material on Alexander McGillivray see the American Archives and the +Colonial Records of Georgia. + +Edward S. Corwin, _French Policy and the American Alliance of 1778._ +Princeton, 1916. Deals chiefly with the commercial aspects of French +policy and should be read in conjunction with Winsor, Jay, and +Fitzmaurice's _Life of William, Earl of Shelburne._ 3 vols. London, +1875. + +John Jay, _On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-83 as Illustrated by the +Secret Correspondence of France and England._ New York, 1888. A paper +read before the American Historical Association, May 23, 1887. + +The Chronicles of America Series + +1. The Red Man's Continent by Ellsworth Huntington 2. The Spanish +Conquerors by Irving Berdine Richman 3. Elizabethan Sea-Dogs by William +Charles Henry Wood 4. The Crusaders of New France by William Bennett +Munro 5. Pioneers of the Old South by Mary Johnson 6. The Fathers of New +England by Charles McLean Andrews 7. Dutch and English on the Hudson by +Maud Wilder Goodwin 8. The Quaker Colonies by Sydney George Fisher 9. +Colonial Folkways by by Charles McLean Andrews 10. The Conquest of New +France by George McKinnon Wrong 11. The Eve of the Revolution by Carl +Lotus Becker 12. Washington and His Comrades in Arms by George McKinnon +Wrong 13. The Fathers of the Constitution by Max Farrand 14. Washington +and His Colleagues by Henry Jones Ford 15. Jefferson and his Colleagues +by Allen Johnson 16. John Marshall and the Constitution by Edward Samuel +Corwin 17. The Fight for a Free Sea by Ralph Delahaye Paine 18. Pioneers +of the Old Southwest by Constance Lindsay Skinner 19. The Old Northwest +by Frederic Austin Ogg 20. The Reign of Andrew Jackson by Frederic +Austin Ogg 21. The Paths of Inland Commerce by Archer Butler Hulbert +22. Adventurers of Oregon by Constance Lindsay Skinner 23. The Spanish +Borderlands by Herbert E. Bolton 24. Texas and the Mexican War by +Nathaniel Wright Stephenson 25. The Forty-Niners by Stewart Edward White +26. The Passing of the Frontier by Emerson Hough 27. The Cotton Kingdom +by William E. Dodd 28. The Anti-Slavery Crusade by Jesse Macy 29. +Abraham Lincoln and the Union by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson 30. The Day +of the Confederacy by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson 31. Captains of the +Civil War by William Charles Henry Wood 32. The Sequel of Appomattox by +Walter Lynwood Fleming 33. The American Spirit in Education by Edwin +E. Slosson 34. The American Spirit in Literature by Bliss Perry 35. Our +Foreigners by Samuel Peter Orth 36. The Old Merchant Marine by Ralph +Delahaye Paine 37. The Age of Invention by Holland Thompson 38. The +Railroad Builders by John Moody 39. The Age of Big Business by Burton +Jesse Hendrick 40. The Armies of Labor by Samuel Peter Orth 41. The +Masters of Capital by John Moody 42. The New South by Holland Thompson +43. The Boss and the Machine by Samuel Peter Orth 44. The Cleveland Era +by Henry Jones Ford 45. The Agrarian Crusade by Solon Justus Buck 46. +The Path of Empire by Carl Russell Fish 47. Theodore Roosevelt and His +Times by Harold Howland 48. Woodrow Wilson and the World War by Charles +Seymour 49. The Canadian Dominion by Oscar D. Skelton 50. The Hispanic +Nations of the New World by William R. Shepherd + +Transcriber Notes + +The author spelled powderhorns on p46, but used a hyphen for +powder-horns on p208. The inconsistencies were retained, and were +entirely a function of the author. On p58 and p142 the word pack-horse +was hyphenated between two lines. Since the author wrote pack-horse five +times in the middle of a sentence, with the hyphen, and did not +write packhorse, both words were transcribed pack-horse. P119 - +Tach-nech-dor-us was hyphenated between two lines, so the name could +have been transcribed Tachnech-dor-us. Wikipedia has an entry on Chief +Logan from the Yellow Creek massacre. The name was spelled without +hyphens, Tachnechdorus. The proper transcription was to place hyphens +after each syllable, Tach-nech-dor-us. The author referred to the +back water men on p204. On p201, the _backwater men_ were quoted. My +interpretation is that the author borrowed that spelling from another +source, without necessarily approving of it. Major Patrick Ferguson +capitalized Back Water, separated the syllables by a space, but +alternately capitalized Men on p203, while not doing so in his +proclamation presented on p213. The Back Water Men and Back Water men of +Ferguson make it four different spellings for the same word in the same +chapter. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pioneers of the Old Southwest, by +Constance Lindsay Skinner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST +*** + +***** This file should be named 3073.txt or 3073.zip ***** This and +all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/7/3073/ + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's University, Alev +Akman, Doris Ringbloom, David Widger, and Robert J. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bfb2cbf --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #3073 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3073) diff --git a/old/2002-02-3073.txt b/old/2002-02-3073.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68cc94c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/2002-02-3073.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6381 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pioneers of the Old Southwest, by +Constance Lindsay Skinner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pioneers of the Old Southwest + A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground + +Author: Constance Lindsay Skinner + +Posting Date: February 21, 2009 [EBook #3073] +Release Date: February, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST *** + + + + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's +University, Alev Akman, and Doris Ringbloom + + + + + + +PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST, + +A CHRONICLE OF THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND + +Volume 18 In The Chronicles Of America Series + + +By Constance Lindsay Skinner + + +Acknowledgment + +This narrative is founded largely on original sources--on the writings +and journals of pioneers and contemporary observers, such as Doddridge +and Adair, and on the public documents of the period as printed in +the Colonial Records and in the American Archives. But the author is, +nevertheless, greatly indebted to the researches of, other writers, +whose works are cited in the Bibliographical Note. The author's thanks +are due, also, to Dr. Archibald Henderson, of the University of North +Carolina, for his kindness in reading the proofs of this book for +comparison with his own extended collection of unpublished manuscripts +relating to the period. + +C. L. S. + +April, 1919. + + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE TREAD OF PIONEERS + II. FOLKWAYS + III. THE TRADER + IV. THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL + V. BOONE, THE WANDERER + VI. THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY + VII. THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND + VIII. TENNESSEE + IX. KING'S MOUNTAIN + X. SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER + XI. BOONE'S LAST DAYS + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + + +PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST + + + +Chapter I. The Tread Of Pioneers + +The Ulster Presbyterians, or "Scotch-Irish," to whom history has +ascribed the dominant role among the pioneer folk of the Old Southwest, +began their migrations to America in the latter years of the seventeenth +century. It is not known with certainty precisely when or where the +first immigrants of their race arrived in this country, but soon after +1680 they were to be found in several of the colonies. It was not long, +indeed, before they were entering in numbers at the port of Philadelphia +and were making Pennsylvania the chief center of their activities in the +New World. By 1726 they had established settlements in several counties +behind Philadelphia. Ten years later they had begun their great trek +southward through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and on to the Yadkin +Valley of North Carolina. There they met others of their own race--bold +men like themselves, hungry after land--who were coming in through +Charleston and pushing their way up the rivers from the seacoast to the +"Back Country," in search of homes. + +These Ulstermen did not come to the New World as novices in the shaping +of society; they had already made history. Their ostensible object +in America was to obtain land, but, like most external aims, it was +secondary to a deeper purpose. What had sent the Ulstermen to America +was a passion for a whole freedom. They were lusty men, shrewd and +courageous, zealous to the death for an ideal and withal so practical to +the moment in business that it soon came to be commonly reported of them +that "they kept the Sabbath and everything else they could lay their +hands on," though it is but fair to them to add that this phrase is +current wherever Scots dwell. They had contested in Parliament and with +arms for their own form of worship and for their civil rights. They +were already frontiersmen, trained in the hardihood and craft of border +warfare through years of guerrilla fighting with the Irish Celts. They +had pitted and proved their strength against a wilderness; they had +reclaimed the North of Ireland from desolation. For the time, many of +them were educated men; under the regulations of the Presbyterian Church +every child was taught to read at an early age, since no person could be +admitted to the privileges of the Church who did not both understand and +approve the Presbyterian constitution and discipline. They were brought +up on the Bible and on the writings of their famous pastors, one of +whom, as early as 1650, had given utterance to the democratic doctrine +that "men are called to the magistracy by the suffrage of the people +whom they govern, and for men to assume unto themselves power is mere +tyranny and unjust usurpation." In subscribing to this doctrine and +in resisting to the hilt all efforts of successive English kings to +interfere in the election of their pastors, the Scots of Ulster had +already declared for democracy. + +It was shortly after James VI of Scotland became James I of England +and while the English were founding Jamestown that the Scots had first +occupied Ulster; but the true origin of the Ulster Plantation lies +further back, in the reign of Henry VIII, in the days of the English +Reformation. In Henry's Irish realm the Reformation, though proclaimed +by royal authority, had never been accomplished; and Henry's more famous +daughter, Elizabeth, had conceived the plan, later to be carried out by +James, of planting colonies of Protestants in Ireland to promote loyalty +in that rebellious land. Six counties, comprising half a million acres, +formed the Ulster Plantation. The great majority of the colonists +sent thither by James were Scotch Lowlanders, but among them were many +English and a smaller number of Highlanders. These three peoples from +the island of Britain brought forth, through intermarriage, the Ulster +Scots. + +The reign of Charles I had inaugurated for the Ulstermen an era of +persecution. Charles practically suppressed the Presbyterian religion +in Ireland. His son, Charles II, struck at Ireland in 1666 through its +cattle trade, by prohibiting the exportation of beef to England and +Scotland. The Navigation Acts, excluding Ireland from direct trade with +the colonies, ruined Irish commerce, while Corporation Acts and Test +Acts requiring conformity with the practices of the Church of England +bore heavily on the Ulster Presbyterians. + +It was largely by refugees from religious persecution that America in +the beginning was colonized. But religious persecution was only one of +the influences which shaped the course and formed the character of the +Ulster Scots. In Ulster, whither they had originally been transplanted +by James to found a loyal province in the midst of the King's enemies, +they had done their work too well and had waxed too powerful for the +comfort of later monarchs. The first attacks upon them struck at their +religion; but the subsequent legislative acts which successively ruined +the woolen trade, barred nonconformists from public office, stifled +Irish commerce, pronounced non-Episcopal marriages irregular, and +instituted heavy taxation and high rentals for the land their fathers +had made productive--these were blows dealt chiefly for the political +and commercial ends of favored classes in England. + +These attacks, aimed through his religious conscience at the sources of +his livelihood, made the Ulster Scot perforce what he was--a zealot as +a citizen and a zealot as a merchant no less than as a Presbyterian. +Thanks to his persecutors, he made a religion of everything he undertook +and regarded his civil rights as divine rights. Thus out of persecution +emerged a type of man who was high-principled and narrow, strong and +violent, as tenacious of his own rights as he was blind often to the +rights of others, acquisitive yet self-sacrificing, but most of all +fearless, confident of his own power, determined to have and to hold. + +Twenty thousand Ulstermen, it is estimated, left Ireland for America +in the first three decades of the eighteenth century. More than six +thousand of them are known to have entered Pennsylvania in 1729 alone, +and twenty years later they numbered one-quarter of that colony's +population. During the five years preceding the Revolutionary War more +than thirty thousand Ulstermen crossed the ocean and arrived in America +just in time and in just the right frame of mind to return King George's +compliment in kind, by helping to deprive him of his American estates, +a domain very much larger than the acres of Ulster. They fully justified +the fears of the good bishop who wrote Lord Dartmouth, Secretary for the +Colonies, that he trembled for the peace of the King's overseas realm, +since these thousands of "phanatical and hungry Republicans" had sailed +for America. + +The Ulstermen who entered by Charleston were known to the inhabitants +of the tidewater regions as the "Scotch-Irish." Those who came from +the north, lured southward by the offer of cheap lands, were called the +"Pennsylvania Irish." Both were, however, of the same race--a race twice +expatriated, first from Scotland and then from Ireland, and stripped of +all that it had won throughout more than a century of persecution. To +these exiles the Back Country of North Carolina, with its cheap and even +free tracts lying far from the seat of government, must have seemed not +only the Land of Promise but the Land of Last Chance. Here they must +strike their roots into the sod with such interlocking strength that no +cataclysm of tyranny should ever dislodge them--or they must accept the +fate dealt out to them by their former persecutors and become a tribe +of nomads and serfs. But to these Ulster immigrants such a choice was no +choice at all. They knew themselves strong men, who had made the most of +opportunity despite almost superhuman obstacles. The drumming of +their feet along the banks of the Shenandoah, or up the rivers from +Charleston, and on through the broad sweep of the Yadkin Valley, was a +conquering people's challenge to the Wilderness which lay sleeping like +an unready sentinel at the gates of their Future. + +It is maintained still by many, however often disputed, that the +Ulstermen were the first to declare for American Independence, as in the +Old Country they were the first to demand the separation of Church and +State. A Declaration of Independence is said to have been drawn up and +signed in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on May 20, 1775. * +However that maybe, it is certain that these Mecklenburg Protestants had +received special schooling in the doctrine of independence. They had in +their midst for eight years (1758-66) the Reverend Alexander Craighead, +a Presbyterian minister who, for his "republican doctrines" expressed +in a pamphlet, had been disowned by the Pennsylvania Synod acting on the +Governor's protest, and so persecuted in Virginia that he had at last +fled to the North Carolina Back Country. There, during the remaining +years of his life, as the sole preacher and teacher in the settlements +between the Yadkin and the Catawba rivers he found willing soil in which +to sow the seeds of Liberty. + + + * See Hoyt, "The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence"; and +"American Archives," Fourth Series. vol. II, p. 855. + + +There was another branch of the Scottish race which helped to people +the Back Country. The Highlanders, whose loyalty to their oath made them +fight on the King's side in the Revolutionary War, have been somewhat +overlooked in history. Tradition, handed down among the transplanted +clans--who, for the most part, spoke only Gaelic for a generation and +wrote nothing--and latterly recorded by one or two of their descendants, +supplies us with all we are now able to learn of the early coming of the +Gaels to Carolina. It would seem that their first immigration to America +in small bands took place after the suppression of the Jacobite rising +in 1715--when Highlanders fled in numbers also to France--for by 1729 +there was a settlement of them on the Cape Fear River. We know, too, +that in 1748 it was charged against Gabriel Johnston, Governor of North +Carolina from 1734 to 1752, that he had shown no joy over the King's +"glorious victory of Culloden" and that "he had appointed one William +McGregor, who had been in the Rebellion in the year 1715 a Justice of +the Peace during the last Rebellion [1745] and was not himself without +suspicion of disaffection to His Majesty's Government." It is indeed +possible that Gabriel Johnston, formerly a professor at St. Andrew's +University, had himself not always been a stranger to the kilt. He +induced large numbers of highlanders to come to America and probably +influenced the second George to moderate his treatment of the vanquished +Gaels in the Old Country and permit their emigration to the New World. + +In contrast with the Ulstermen, whose secular ideals were dictated by +the forms of their Church, these Scots adhered still to the tribal or +clan system, although they, too, in the majority, were Presbyterians, +with a minority of Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. In the Scotch +Highlands they had occupied small holdings on the land under the sway of +their chief, or Head of the Clan, to whom they were bound by blood and +fealty but to whom they paid no rentals. The position of the Head of the +Clan was hereditary, but no heir was bold enough to step forward into +that position until he had performed some deed of worth. They were +principally herders, their chief stock being the famous small black +cattle of the Highlands. Their wars with each other were cattle raids. +Only in war, however, did the Gael lay hands on his neighbor's goods. +There were no highwaymen and housebreakers in the Highlands. No Highland +mansion, cot, or barn was ever locked. Theft and the breaking of an +oath, sins against man's honor, were held in such abhorrence that no +one guilty of them could remain among his clansmen in the beloved glens. +These Highlanders were a race of tall, robust men, who lived simply and +frugally and slept on the heath among their flocks in all weathers, with +no other covering from rain and snow than their plaidies. It is reported +of the Laird of Keppoch, who was leading his clan to war in winter time, +that his men were divided as to the propriety of following him further +because he rolled a snowball to rest his head upon when he lay down. +"Now we despair of victory," they said, "since our leader has become go +effeminate he cannot sleep without a pillow!" * + + + * MacLean, "An Historical Account of the Settlement of Scotch +Highlanders in America." + + +The "King's glorious victory of Culloden" was followed by a policy of +extermination carried on by the orders and under the personal direction +of the Duke of Cumberland. When King George at last restrained his son +from his orgy of blood, he offered the Gaels their lives and exile to +America on condition of their taking the full oath of allegiance. The +majority accepted his terms, for not only were their lives forfeit but +their crops and cattle had been destroyed and the holdings on which +their ancestors had lived for many centuries taken from them. The +descriptions of the scenes attending their leave-taking of the hills and +glens they loved with such passionate fervor are among the most pathetic +in history. Strong men who had met the ravage of a brutal sword without +weakening abandoned themselves to the agony of sorrow. They kissed the +walls of their houses. They flung themselves on the ground and embraced +the sod upon which they had walked in freedom. They called their broken +farewells to the peaks and lochs of the land they were never again to +see; and, as they turned their backs and filed down through the passes, +their pipers played the dirge for the dead. + +Such was the character, such the deep feeling, of the race which entered +North Carolina from the coast and pushed up into the wilderness about +the headwaters of Cape Fear River. Tradition indicates that these +hillsmen sought the interior because the grass and pea vine which +overgrew the innercountry stretching towards the mountains provided +excellent fodder for the cattle which some of the chiefs are said to +have brought with them. These Gaelic herders, perhaps in negligible +numbers, were in the Yadkin Valley before 1730, possibly even ten years +earlier. In 1739 Neil MacNeill of Kintyre brought over a shipload of +Gaels to rejoin his kinsman, Hector MacNeill, called Bluff Hector from +his residence near the bluffs at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville. Some +of these immigrants went on to the Yadkin, we are told, to unite with +others of their clan who had been for some time in that district. The +exact time of the first Highlander on the Yadkin cannot be ascertained, +as there were no court records and the offices of the land companies +were not then open for the sale of these remote regions. But by 1753 +there were not less than four thousand Gaels in Cumberland County, +where they occupied the chief magisterial posts; and they were already +spreading over the lands now comprised within Moore, Anson, Richmond, +Robeson, Bladen, and Sampson counties. In these counties Gaelic was as +commonly heard as English. + +In the years immediately preceding the Revolution and even in 1776 +itself they came in increasing numbers. They knew nothing of the +smoldering fire just about to break into flames in the country of their +choice, but the Royal Governor, Josiah Martin, knew that Highland arms +would soon be ceded by His Majesty. He knew something of Highland honor, +too; for he would not let the Gaels proceed after their landing until +they had bound themselves by oath to support the Government of King +George. So it was that the unfortunate Highlanders found themselves, +according too their strict code of honor, forced to wield arms against +the very Americans who had received and befriended them--and for the +crowned brother of a prince whose name is execrated to this day in +Highland song and story! + +They were led by Allan MacDonald of Kingsborough; and tradition gives us +a stirring picture of Allan's wife--the famous Flora MacDonald, who +in Scotland had protected the Young Pretender in his flight--making an +impassioned address in Gaelic to the Highland soldiers and urging them +on to die for honor's sake. When this Highland force was conquered by +the Americans, the large majority willingly bound themselves not to +fight further against the American cause and were set at liberty. +Many of them felt that, by offering their lives to the swords of the +Americans, they had canceled their obligation to King George and were +now free to draw their swords again and, this time, in accordance with +their sympathies; so they went over to the American side and fought +gallantly for independence. + + +Although the brave glory of this pioneer age shines so brightly on the +Lion Rampant of Caledonia, not to Scots alone does that whole glory +belong. The second largest racial stream which flowed into the Back +Country of Virginia and North Carolina was German. Most of these Germans +went down from Pennsylvania and were generally called "Pennsylvania +Dutch," an incorrect rendering of Pennsylvanische Deutsche. The upper +Shenandoah Valley was settled almost entirely by Germans. They were +members of the Lutheran, German Reformed, and Moravian churches. The +cause which sent vast numbers of this sturdy people across the ocean, +during the first years of the eighteenth century, was religious +persecution. By statute and by word the Roman Catholic powers of Austria +sought to wipe out the Salzburg Lutherans and the Moravian followers of +John Huss. In that region of the Rhine country known in those days as +the German Palatinate, now a part of Bavaria, Protestants were being +massacred by the troops of Louis of France, then engaged in the War of +the Spanish Succession (1701-13) and in the zealous effort to extirpate +heretics from the soil of Europe. In 1708, by proclamation, Good Queen +Anne offered protection to the persecuted Palatines and invited them to +her dominions. Twelve thousand of them went to England, where they were +warmly received by the English. But it was no slight task to settle +twelve thousand immigrants of an alien speech in England and enable them +to become independent and self-supporting. A better solution of their +problem lay in the Western World: The Germans needed homes and the +Queen's overseas dominions needed colonists. They were settled at first +along the Hudson, and eventually many of them took up lands in the +fertile valley of the Mohawk. + +For fifty years or more German and Austrian Protestants poured into +America. In Pennsylvania their influx averaged about fifteen hundred a +year, and that colony became the distributing center for the German race +in America. By 1727, Adam Muller and his little company had established +the first white settlement in the Valley of Virginia. In 1732 Joist +Heydt went south from York, Pennsylvania, and settled on the Opequan +Creek at or near the site of the present city of Winchester. + +The life of Count Zinzendorf, called "the Apostle," one of the leaders +of the Moravian immigrants, glows like a star out of those dark and +troublous times. Of high birth and gentle nurture, he forsook whatever +of ease his station promised him and fitted himsclf for evangelical +work. In 1741 he visited the Wyoming Valley to bring his religion to the +Delawares and Shawanoes. He was not of those picturesque Captains of the +Lord who bore their muskets on their shoulders when they went forth to +preach. Armored only with the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, +and the sword of the spirit, his feet "shod with the preparation of the +gospel of peace," he went out into the country of these bloodthirsty +tribes and told them that he had come to them in their darkness to teach +the love of the Christ which lighteth the world. The Indians received +him suspiciously. One day while he sat in his tent writing, some +Delawares drew near to slay him and were about to strike when they saw +two deadly snakes crawl in from the opposite side of the tent, move +directly towards the Apostle, and pass harmlessly over his body. +Thereafter they regarded him as under spiritual protection. Indeed so +widespread was his good fame among the tribes that for some years all +Moravian settlements along the borders were unmolested. Painted savages +passed through on their way to war with enemy bands or to raid the +border, but for the sake of one consecrated spirit, whom they had seen +death avoid, they spared the lives and goods of his fellow believers. +When Zinzendorf departed a year later, his mantle fell on David +Zeisberger, who lived the love he taught for over fifty years and +converted many savages. Zeisberger was taken before the Governor +and army heads at Philadelphia, who had only too good reason to be +suspicious of priestly counsels in the tents of Shem: but he was able to +impress white men no less than simple savages with the nobility of the +doctrine he had learned from the Apostle. + +In 1751 the Moravian Brotherhood purchased one hundred thousand acres in +North Carolina from Lord Granville. Bishop Spangenburg was commissioned +to survey this large acreage, which was situated in the present county +of Forsyth east of the Yadkin, and which is historically listed as the +Wachovia Tract. In 1753, twelve Brethren left the Moravian settlements +of Bethlehem and Nazareth, in Pennsylvania, and journeyed southward to +begin the founding of a colony on their new land. Brother Adam Grube, +one of the twelve, kept a diary of the events of this expedition. * + + + * This diary is printed in full in "Travels in the American +Colonies." edited by N. D. Mereness. + + +Honor to whom honor is due. We have paid it, in some measure, to the +primitive Gaels of the Highlands for their warrior strength and their +fealty, and to the enlightened Scots of Ulster for their enterprise and +for their sacrifice unto blood that free conscience and just laws might +promote the progress and safeguard the intercourse of their kind. +Now let us take up for a moment Brother Grube's "Journal" even as we +welcome, perhaps the more gratefully, the mild light of evening after +the flooding sun, or as our hearts, when too strongly stirred by the +deeds of men, turn for rest to the serene faith and the naive speech of +little children. + +The twelve, we learn, were under the leadership of one of their number, +Brother Gottlob. Their earliest alarms on the march were not caused, +as we might expect, by anticipations of the painted Cherokee, but +by encounters with the strenuous "Irish." One of these came and laid +himself to sleep beside the Brethren's camp fire on their first night +out, after they had sung their evening hymn and eleven had stretched +themselves on the earth for slumber, while Brother Gottlob, their +leader, hanging his hammock between two trees, ascended--not only in +spirit--a little higher than his charges, and "rested well in it." +Though the alarming Irishman did not disturb them, the Brethren's doubts +of that race continued, for Brother Grube wrote on the 14th of October: +"About four in the morning we set up our tent, going four miles beyond +Carl Isles [Carlisle, seventeen miles southwest of Harrisburg] so as +not to be too near the Irish Presbyterians. After breakfast the Brethren +shaved and then we rested under our tent.... People who were staying at +the Tavern came to see what kind of folk we were.... Br Gottlob held the +evening service and then we lay down around our cheerful fire, and +Br Gottlob in his hammock." Two other jottings give us a racial +kaleidoscope of the settlers and wayfarers of that time. On one day the +Brethren bought "some hay from a Swiss," later "some kraut from a German +which tasted very good to us"; and presently "an Englishman came by and +drank a cup of tea with us and was very grateful for it." Frequently +the little band paused while some of the Brethren went off to the farms +along the route to help "cut hay." These kindly acts were usually repaid +with gifts of food or produce. + +One day while on the march they halted at a tavern and farm in +Shenandoah Valley kept by a man whose name Brother Grube wrote down as +"Severe." Since we know that Brother Grube's spelling of names other +than German requires editing, we venture to hazard a guess that the name +he attempted to set down as it sounded to him was Sevier. And we wonder +if, in his brief sojourn, he saw a lad of eight years, slim, tall, and +blond, with daring and mischievous blue eyes, and a certain, curve +of the lips that threatened havoc in the hearts of both sexes when he +should be a man and reach out with swift hands and reckless will for his +desires. If he saw this lad, he beheld John Sevier, later to become one +of the most picturesque and beloved heroes of the Old Southwest. + +Hardships abounded on the Brethren's journey, but faith and the +Christian's joy, which no man taketh from him, met and surmounted them. +"Three and a half miles beyond, the road forked.... We took the right +hand road but found no water for ten miles. It grew late and we had to +drive five miles into the night to find a stoppingplace." Two of +the Brethren went ahead "to seek out the road" through the darkened +wilderness. There were rough hills in the way; and, the horses being +exhausted, "Brethren had to help push." But, in due season, "Br +Nathanael held evening prayer and then we slept in the care of Jesus," +with Brother Gottlob as usual in his hammock. Three days later the +record runs: "Toward evening we saw Jeams River, the road to it ran down +so very steep a hill that we fastened a small tree to the back of our +wagon, locked the wheels, and the Brethren held back by the tree with +all their might." Even then the wagon went down so fast that most of the +Brethren lost their footing and rolled and tumbled pell-mell. But Faith +makes little of such mishaps: "No harm was done and we thanked the Lord +that he had so graciously protected us, for it looked dangerous and we +thought at times that it could not possibly be done without accident +but we got down safely... we were all very tired and sleepy and let the +angels be our guard during the night." Rains fell in torrents, making +streams almost impassable and drenching the little band to the skin. +The hammock was empty one night, for they had to spend the dark hours +trench-digging about their tent to keep it from being washed away. Two +days later (the 10th of November) the weather cleared and "we spent most +of the day drying our blankets and mending and darning our stockings." +They also bought supplies from settlers who, as Brother Grube observed +without irony, + +"are glad we have to remain here so long and that it means money for +them. In the afternoon we held a little Lovefeast and rested our souls +in the loving sacrifice of Jesus, wishing for beloved Brethren in +Bethlehem and that they and we might live ever close to Him.... Nov. 16. +We rose early to ford the river. The bank was so steep that we hung a +tree behind the wagon, fastening it in such a way that we could quickly +release it when the wagon reached the water. The current was very swift +and the lead horses were carried down a bit with it. The water just +missed running into the wagon but we came safely to the other bank, +which however we could not climb but had to take half the things out of +the wagon, tie ropes to the axle on which we could pull, help our horses +which were quite stiff, and so we brought our ark again to dry land." + +On the evening of the 17th of November the twelve arrived safely on +their land on the "Etkin" (Yadkin), having been six weeks on the march. +They found with joy that, as ever, the Lord had provided for them. This +time the gift was a deserted cabin, "large enough that we could all +lie down around the walls. We at once made preparation for a little +Lovefeast and rejoiced heartily with one another." + +In the deserted log cabin, which, to their faith, seemed as one of those +mansions "not built with hands" and descended miraculously from the +heavens, they held their Lovefeast, while wolves padded and howled about +the walls; and in that Pentacostal hour the tongue of fire descended +upon Brother Gottlob, so that he made a new song unto the Lord. Who +shall venture to say it is not better worth preserving than many a +classic? + +We hold arrival Lovefeast here In Carolina land, +A company of Brethren true, A little Pilgrim-Band, +Called by the Lord to be of those Who through the whole world go, +To bear Him witness everywhere And nought but Jesus know. + +Then, we are told, the Brethren lay down to rest and "Br Gottlob hung +his hammock above our heads"--as was most fitting on this of all nights; +for is not the Poet's place always just a little nearer to the stars? + +The pioneers did not always travel in groups. There were families who +set off alone. One of these now claims our attention, for there was a +lad in this family whose name and deeds were to sound like a ballad +of romance from out the dusty pages of history. This family's name was +Boone. + +Neither Scots nor Germans can claim Daniel Boone; he was in blood a +blend of English and Welsh; in character wholly English. His grandfather +George Boone was born in 1666 in the hamlet of Stoak, near Exeter in +Devonshire. George Boone was a weaver by trade and a Quaker by religion. +In England in his time the Quakers were oppressed, and George Boone +therefore sought information of William Penn, his co-religionist, +regarding the colony which Penn had established in America. In 1712 he +sent his three elder children, George, Sarah, and Squire, to spy out +the land. Sarah and Squire remained in Pennsylvania, while their brother +returned to England with glowing reports. On August 17, 1717, George +Boone, his wife, and the rest of his children journeyed to Bristol and +sailed for Philadelphia, arriving there on the 10th of October. The +Boones went first to Abingdon, the Quaker farmers' community. Later +they moved to the northwestern frontier hamlet of North Wales, a Welsh +community which, a few years previously, had turned Quaker. Sarah Boone +married a German named Jacob Stover, who had settled in Oley Township, +Berks County. In 1718 George Boone took up four hundred acres in Oley, +or, to be exact, in the subdivision later called Exeter, and there +he lived in his log cabin until 1744, when he died at the age of +seventy-eight. He left eight children, fifty-two grandchildren, and ten +greatgrandchildren, seventy descendants in all--English, German, Welsh, +and Scotch-Irish blended into one family of Americans. * + + + * R. G. Thwaites, "Daniel Boone", p. 5. + + +Among the Welsh Quakers was a family of Morgans. In 1720 Squire Boone +married Sarah Morgan. Ten years later he obtained 250 acres in Oley on +Owatin Creek, eight miles southeast of the present city of Reading; and +here, in 1734, Daniel Boone was born, the fourth son and sixth child of +Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone. Daniel Boone therefore was a son of the +frontier. In his childhood he became familiar with hunters and with +Indians, for even the red men came often in friendly fashion to his +grandfather's house. Squire Boone enlarged his farm by thrift. He +continued at his trade of weaving and kept five or six looms going, +making homespun cloth for the market and his neighbors. + +Daniel's father owned grazing grounds several miles north of the +homestead and each season he sent his stock to the range. Sarah Boone +and her little Daniel drove the cows. From early spring till late +autumn, mother and son lived in a rustic cabin alone on the frontier. A +rude dairy house stood over a cool spring, and here Sarah Boone made her +butter and cheese. Daniel, aged ten at this time, watched the herds; at +sunset he drove them to the cabin for milking, and locked them in the +cowpens at night. + +He was not allowed firearms at that age, so he shaped for himself a +weapon that served him well. This was a slender smoothly shaved sapling +with a small bunch of gnarled roots at one end. So expert was he in the +launching of this primitive spear that he easily brought down birds and +small game. When he reached his twelfth year, his father bought him a +rifle; and he soon became a crack shot. A year later we find him setting +off on the autumn hunt--after driving the cattle in for the winter-with +all the keenness and courage of a man twice his thirteen years. His +rifle enabled him to return with meat for the family and skins to be +traded in Philadelphia. When he was fourteen his brother Sam married +Sarah Day, an intelligent young Quakeress who took a special interest in +her young brother-in-law and taught him "the rudiments of three R's." + +The Boones were prosperous and happy in Oley and it may be wondered why +they left their farms and their looms, both of which were profitable, +and set their faces towards the Unknown. It is recorded that, though +the Boones were Quakers, they were of a high mettle and were not +infrequently dealt with by the Meeting. Two of Squire Boone's children +married "worldlings"--non-Quakers--and were in consequence "disowned" by +the Society. In defiance of his sect, which strove to make him sever all +connection with his unruly offspring, Squire Boone refused to shut his +doors on the son and the daughter who had scandalized local Quakerdom. +The Society of Friends thereupon expelled him. This occurred apparently +during the winter of 1748-49. In the spring of 1750 we see the whole +Boone family (save two sons) with their wives and children, their +household goods and their stock, on the great highway, bound for a land +where the hot heart and the belligerent spirit shall not be held amiss. + +Southward through the Shenandoah goes the Boone caravan. The women and +children usually sit in the wagons. The men march ahead or alongside, +keeping a keen eye open for Indian or other enemy in the wild, their +rifles under arm or over the shoulder. Squire Boone, who has done with +Quakerdom and is leading all that he holds dear out to larger horizons, +is ahead of the line, as we picture him, ready to meet first whatever +danger may assail his tribe. He is a strong wiry man of rather small +stature, with ruddy complexion, red hair, and gray eyes. Somewhere in +the line, together, we think, are the mother and son who have herded +cattle and companioned each other through long months in the cabin on +the frontier. We do not think of this woman as riding in the wagon, +though she may have done so, but prefer to picture her, with her tall +robust body, her black hair, and her black eyes--with the sudden Welsh +snap in them--walking as sturdily as any of her sons. + +If Daniel be beside her, what does she see when she looks at him? A +lad well set up but not overtall for his sixteen years, perhaps--for +"eye-witnesses" differ in their estimates of Daniel Boone's height--or +possibly taller than he looks, because his figure has the forest +hunter's natural slant forward and the droop of the neck of one who +must watch his path sometimes in order to tread silently. It is Squire +Boone's blood which shows in his ruddy face--which would be fair but for +its tan--and in the English cut of feature, the straw-colored eyebrows, +and the blue eyes. But his Welsh mother's legacy is seen in the black +hair that hangs long and loose in the hunter's fashion to his shoulders. +We can think of Daniel Boone only as exhilarated by this plunge into the +Wild. He sees ahead--the days of his great explorations and warfare, the +discovery of Kentucky? Not at all. This is a boy of sixteen in love with +his rifle. He looks ahead to vistas of forest filled with deer and +to skies clouded with flocks of wild turkeys. In that dream there is +happiness enough for Daniel Boone. Indeed, for himself, even in later +life, he asked little, if any, more. He trudges on blithely, whistling. + + + +Chapter II. Folkways + +These migrations into the inland valleys of the Old South mark the first +great westward thrust of the American frontier. Thus the beginnings of +the westward movement disclose to us a feature characteristic also of +the later migrations which flung the frontier over the Appalachians, +across the Mississippi, and finally to the shores of the Pacific. The +pioneers, instead of moving westward by slow degrees, subduing the +wilderness as they went, overleaped great spaces and planted themselves +beyond, out of contact with the life they had left behind. Thus +separated by hundreds of miles of intervening wilderness from the more +civilized communities, the conquerors of the first American "West," +prototypes of the conquerors of succeeding "Wests," inevitably struck +out their own ways of life and developed their own customs. It would +be difficult, indeed, to find anywhere a more remarkable contrast in +contemporary folkways than that presented by the two great community +groups of the South--the inland or piedmont settlements, called the Back +Country, and the lowland towns and plantations along the seaboard. + +The older society of the seaboard towns, as events were soon to prove, +was not less independent in its ideals than the frontier society of the +Back Country; but it was aristocratic in tone and feeling. Its leaders +were the landed gentry--men of elegance, and not far behind their +European contemporaries in the culture of the day. They were rich, +without effort, both from their plantations, where black slaves and +indentured servants labored, and from their coastwise and overseas +trade. Their battles with forest and red man were long past. They had +leisure for diversions such as the chase, the breeding and racing +of thoroughbred horses, the dance, high play with dice and card, +cockfighting, the gallantry of love, and the skill of the rapier. Law +and politics drew their soberer minds. + +Very different were the conditions which confronted the pioneers in the +first American "West." There every jewel of promise was ringed round +with hostility. The cheap land the pioneer had purchased at a nominal +price, or the free land he had taken by "tomahawk claim"--that is by +cutting his name into the bark of a deadened tree, usually beside a +spring--supported a forest of tall trunks and interlacing leafage. The +long grass and weeds which covered the ground in a wealth of natural +pasturage harbored the poisonous copperhead and the rattlesnake and, +being shaded by the overhead foliage, they held the heavy dews and bred +swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, and big flies which tortured both men and +cattle. To protect the cattle and horses from the attacks of these +pests the settlers were obliged to build large "smudges"--fires of green +timber--against the wind. The animals soon learned to back up into the +dense smoke and to move from one grazing spot to another as the wind +changed. But useful as were the green timber fires that rolled their +smoke on the wind to save the stock, they were at the same time a menace +to the pioneer, for they proclaimed to roving bands of Cherokees that +a further encroachment on their territory had been made by their most +hated enemies--the men who felled the hunter's forest. Many an outpost +pioneer who had made the long hard journey by sea and land from the old +world of persecution to this new country of freedom, dropped from the +red man's shot ere he had hewn the threshold of his home, leaving his +wife and children to the unrecorded mercy of his slayer. + +Those more fortunate pioneers who settled in groups won the first heat +in the battle with the wilderness through massed effort under wariness. +They made their clearings in the forest, built their cabins and +stockades, and planted their cornfields, while lookouts kept watch and +rifles were stacked within easy reach. Every special task, such as a +"raising," as cabin building was called, was undertaken by the community +chiefly because the Indian danger necessitated swift building and made +group action imperative. But the stanch heart is ever the glad heart. +Nothing in this frontier history impresses us more than the joy of the +pioneer at his labors. His determined optimism turned danger's dictation +into an occasion for jollity. On the appointed day for the "raising," +the neighbors would come, riding or afoot, to the newcomer's +holding--the men with their rifles and axes, the women with their pots +and kettles. Every child toddled along, too, helping to carry the wooden +dishes and spoons. These free givers of labor had something of the +Oriental's notion of the sacred ratification of friendship by a feast. + +The usual dimensions of a cabin were sixteen by twenty feet. The timber +for the building, having been already cut, lay at hand--logs of hickory, +oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon. To make the foundations, the men +seized four of the thickest logs, laid them in place, and notched and +grooved and hammered them into as close a clinch as if they had grown +so. The wood must grip by its own substance alone to hold up the +pioneer's dwelling, for there was not an iron nail to be had in the +whole of the Back Country. Logs laid upon the foundation logs and +notched into each other at the four corners formed the walls; and, +when these stood at seven feet, the builders laid parallel timbers and +puncheons to make both flooring and ceiling. The ridgepole of the roof +was supported by two crotched trees and the roofing was made of logs and +wooden slabs. The crevices of the walls were packed close with red clay +and moss. Lastly, spaces for a door and windows were cut out. The +door was made thick and heavy to withstand the Indian's rush. And the +windowpanes? They were of paper treated with hog's fat or bear's grease. + +When the sun stood overhead, the women would give the welcome call of +"Dinner!" Their morning had not been less busy than the men's. They had +baked corn cakes on hot stones, roasted bear or pork, or broiled venison +steaks; and--above all and first of all--they had concocted the great +"stew pie" without which a raising could hardly take place. This was +a disputatious mixture of deer, hog, and bear--animals which, in +life, would surely have companioned each other as ill! It was made in +sufficient quantity to last over for supper when the day's labor was +done. At supper the men took their ease on the ground, but with their +rifles always in reach. If the cabin just raised by their efforts stood +in the Yadkin, within sight of the great mountains the pioneers were +one day to cross, perhaps a sudden bird note warning from the lookout, +hidden in the brush, would bring the builders with a leap to their feet. +It might be only a hunting band of friendly Catawbas that passed, or +a lone Cherokee who knew that this was not his hour. If the latter, we +can, in imagination, see him look once at the new house on his hunting +pasture, slacken rein for a moment in front of the group of families, +lift his hand in sign of peace, and silently go his way hillward. As +he vanishes into the shadows, the crimson sun, sinking into the unknown +wilderness beyond the mountains, pours its last glow on the roof of the +cabin and on the group near its walls. With unfelt fingers, subtly, it +puts the red touch of the West in the faces of the men--who have just +declared, through the building of a cabin, that here is Journey's End +and their abiding place. + + +There were community holidays among these pioneers as well as labor +days, especially in the fruit season; and there were flower-picking +excursions in the warm spring days. Early in April the service berry +bush gleamed starrily along the watercourses, its hardy white blooms +defying winter's lingering look. This bush--or tree, indeed, since it +is not afraid to rear its slender trunk as high as cherry or crab +apple--might well be considered emblematic of the frontier spirit in +those regions where the white silence covers the earth for several +months and shuts the lonely homesteader in upon himself. From the +pioneer time of the Old Southwest to the last frontier of the Far North +today, the service berry is cherished alike by white men and Indians; +and the red men have woven about it some of their prettiest legends. +When June had ripened the tree's blue-black berries, the Back Country +folk went out in parties to gather them. Though the service berry was +a food staple on the frontier and its gathering a matter of household +economy, the folk made their berry-picking jaunt a gala occasion. The +women and children with pots and baskets--the young girls vying with +each other, under the eyes of the youths, as to who could strip boughs +the fastest--plucked gayly while the men, rifles in hand, kept guard. +For these happy summer days were also the red man's scalping days and, +at any moment, the chatter of the picnickers might be interrupted by the +chilling war whoop. When that sound was heard, the berry pickers raced +for the fort. The wild fruits--strawberries, service berries, cherries, +plums, crab apples--were, however, too necessary a part of the pioneer's +meager diet to be left unplucked out of fear of an Indian attack. +Another day would see the same group out again. The children would keep +closer to their mothers, no doubt; and the laughter of the young girls +would be more subdued, even if their coquetry lacked nothing of its +former effectiveness. Early marriages were the rule in the Back Country +and betrothals were frequently plighted at these berry pickings. + +As we consider the descriptions of the frontiersman left for us by +travelers of his own day, we are not more interested in his battles with +wilderness and Indian than in the visible effects of both wilderness and +Indian upon him. His countenance and bearing still show the European, +but the European greatly altered by savage contact. The red peril, +indeed, influenced every side of frontier life. The bands of women and +children at the harvestings, the log rollings, and the house raisings, +were not there merely to lighten the men's work by their laughter and +love-making. It was not safe for them to remain in the cabins, for, to +the Indian, the cabin thus boldly thrust upon his immemorial hunting +grounds was only a secondary evil; the greater evil was the white man's +family, bespeaking the increase of the dreaded palefaces. The Indian +peril trained the pioneers to alertness, shaped them as warriors and +hunters, suggested the fashion of their dress, knit their families into +clans and the clans into a tribe wherein all were of one spirit in +the protection of each and all and a unit of hate against their common +enemy. + +Too often the fields which the pioneer planted with corn were harvested +by the Indian with fire. The hardest privations suffered by farmers and +stock were due to the settlers having to flee to the forts, leaving to +Indian devastation the crops on which their sustenance mainly, depended. +Sometimes, fortunately, the warning came in time for the frontiersman +to collect his goods and chattels in his wagon and to round up his live +stock and drive them safely into the common fortified enclosure. At +others, the tap of the "express"--as the herald of Indian danger was +called--at night on the windowpane and the low word whispered hastily, +ere the "express" ran on to the next abode, meant that the Indians had +surprised the outlying cabins of the settlement. + +The forts were built as centrally as possible in the scattered +settlements. They consisted of cabins, blockhouses, and stockades. +A range of cabins often formed one side of a fort. The walls on the +outside were ten or twelve feet high with roofs sloping inward. The +blockhouses built at the angles of the fort projected two feet or so +beyond the outer walls of the cabins and stockades, and were fitted with +portholes for the watchers and the marksmen. The entrance to the fort +was a large folding gate of thick slabs. It was always on the side +nearest the spring. The whole structure of the fort was bullet-proof +and was erected without an iron nail or spike. In the border wars these +forts withstood all attacks. The savages, having proved that they could +not storm them, generally laid siege and waited for thirst to compel a +sortie. But the crafty besieger was as often outwitted by the equally +cunning defender. Some daring soul, with silent feet and perhaps with +naked body painted in Indian fashion, would drop from the wall under +cover of the night, pass among the foemen to the spring, and return to +the fort with water. + +Into the pioneer's phrase-making the Indian influence penetrated so +that he named seasons for his foe. So thoroughly has the term "Indian +Summer," now to us redolent of charm, become disassociated from its +origins that it gives us a shock to be reminded that to these Back +Country folk the balmy days following on the cold snap meant the season +when the red men would come back for a last murderous raid on the +settlements before winter should seal up the land. The "Powwowing Days" +were the mellow days in the latter part of February, when the red men in +council made their medicine and learned of their redder gods whether or +no they should take the warpath when the sap pulsed the trees into +leaf. Even the children at their play acknowledged the red-skinned +schoolmaster, for their chief games were a training in his woodcraft +and in the use of his weapons. Tomahawk-throwing was a favorite sport +because of its gruesome practical purposes. The boys must learn to gauge +the tomahawk's revolutions by the distance of the throw so as to bury +the blade in its objective. Swift running and high jumping through the +brush and fallen timber were sports that taught agility in escape. The +boys learned to shoot accurately the long rifles of their time, with +a log or a forked stick for a rest, and a moss pad under the barrel +to keep it from jerking and spoiling the aim. They wrestled with each +other, mastered the tricks of throwing an opponent, and learned the +scalp hold instead of the toe hold. It was part of their education +to imitate the noises of every bird and beast of the forest. So they +learned to lure the turkey within range, or by the bleat of a fawn to +bring her dam to the rifle. A well-simulated wolf's howl would call +forth a response and so inform the lone hunter of the vicinity of the +pack. This forest speech was not only the language of diplomacy in the +hunting season; it was the borderer's secret code in war. Stray Indians +put themselves in touch again with the band by turkey calls in the +daytime and by owl or wolf notes at night. The frontiersmen used the +same means to trick the Indian band into betraying the place of its +ambuscade, or to lure the strays, unwitting, within reach of the knife. + +In that age, before the forests had given place to farms and cities and +when the sun had but slight acquaintance with the sod, the summers were +cool and the winters long and cold in the Back Country. Sometimes in +September severe frosts destroyed the corn. The first light powdering +called "hunting snows" fell in October, and then the men of the Back +Country set out on the chase. Their object was meat--buffalo, deer, +elk, bear-for the winter larder, and skins to send out in the spring +by pack-horses to the coast in trade for iron, steel, and salt. The +rainfall in North Carolina was much heavier than in Virginia and, from +autumn into early winter, the Yadkin forests were sheeted with rain; but +wet weather, so far from deterring the hunter, aided him to the kill. +In blowing rain, he knew he would find the deer herding in the sheltered +places on the hillsides. In windless rain, he knew that his quarry +ranged the open woods and the high places. The fair play of the pioneer +held it a great disgrace to kill a deer in winter when the heavy frost +had crusted the deep snow. On the crust men and wolves could travel +with ease, but the deer's sharp hoofs pierced through and made him +defenseless. Wolves and dogs destroyed great quantities of deer +caught in this way; and men who shot deer under these conditions were +considered no huntsmen. There was, indeed, a practical side to this +chivalry of the chase, for meat and pelt were both poor at this season; +but the true hunter also obeyed the finer tenet of his code, for he +would go to the rescue of deer caught in the crusts--and he killed many +a wolf sliding over the ice to an easy meal. + +The community moral code of the frontier was brief and rigorous. What it +lacked of the "whereas" and "inasmuch" of legal ink it made up in +sound hickory. In fact, when we review the activities of this solid yet +elastic wood in the moral, social, and economic phases of Back Country +life, we are moved to wonder if the pioneers would have been the +same race of men had they been nurtured beneath a less strenuous and +adaptable vegetation! The hickory gave the frontiersman wood for all +implements and furnishings where the demand was equally for lightness, +strength, and elasticity. It provided his straight logs for building, +his block mortars hollowed--by fire and stone--for corn-grinding, his +solid plain furniture, his axles, rifle butts, ax handles, and so forth. +It supplied his magic wand for the searching out of iniquity in the +junior members of his household, and his most cogent argument, as a +citizen, in convincing the slothful, the blasphemous, or the dishonest +adult whose errors disturbed communal harmony. Its nuts fed his hogs. +Before he raised stock, the unripe hickory nuts, crushed for their white +liquid, supplied him with butter for his corn bread and helped out his +store of bear's fat. Both the name and the knowledge of the uses of this +tree came to the earliest pioneers through contact with the red man, +whose hunting bow and fishing spear and the hobbles for his horses were +fashioned of the "pohickory" tree. The Indian women first made pohickory +butter, and the wise old men of the Cherokee towns, so we are told, +first applied the pohickory rod to the vanity of youth! + +A glance at the interior of a log cabin in the Back Country of Virginia +or North Carolina would show, in primitive design, what is, perhaps, +after all the perfect home--a place where the personal life and the work +life are united and where nothing futile finds space. Every object in +the cabin was practical and had been made by hand on the spot to answer +a need. Besides the chairs hewn from hickory blocks, there were others +made of slabs set on three legs. A large slab or two with four legs +served as a movable table; the permanent table was built against the +wall, its outer edge held up by two sticks. The low bed was built into +the wall in the same way and softened for slumber by a mattress of pine +needles, chaff, or dried moss. In the best light from the greased paper +windowpanes stood the spinning wheel and loom, on which the housewife +made cloth for the family's garments. Over the fireplace or beside the +doorway, and suspended usually on stags' antlers, hung the firearms and +the yellow powderhorns, the latter often carved in Indian fashion with +scenes of the hunt or war. On a shelf or on pegs were the wooden spoons, +plates, bowls, and noggins. Also near the fireplace, which was made of +large flat stones with a mud-plastered log chimney, stood the grinding +block for making hominy. If it were an evening in early spring, the men +of the household would be tanning and dressing deerskins to be sent out +with the trade caravan, while the women sewed, made moccasins or mended +them, in the light of pine knots or candles of bear's grease. The larger +children might be weaving cradles for the babies, Indian fashion, out of +hickory twigs; and there would surely be a sound of whetting steel, for +scalping knives and tomahawks must be kept keen-tempered now that the +days have come when the red gods whisper their chant of war through the +young leafage. + +The Back Country folk, as they came from several countries, generally +settled in national groups, each preserving its own speech and its +own religion, each approaching frontier life through its own native +temperament. And the frontier met each and all alike, with the same need +and the same menace, and molded them after one general pattern. If the +cabin stood in a typical Virginian settlement where the folk were of +English stock, it may be that the dulcimer and some old love song of +the homeland enlivened the work--or perhaps chairs were pushed back and +young people danced the country dances of the homeland and the Virginia +Reel, for these Virginian English were merry folk, and their religion +did not frown upon the dance. In a cabin on the Shenandoah or the upper +Yadkin the German tongue clicked away over the evening dish of kraut or +sounded more sedately in a Lutheran hymn; while from some herder's but +on the lower Yadkin the wild note of the bagpipes or of the ancient +four-stringed harp mingled with the Gaelic speech. + +Among the homes in the Shenandoah where old England's ways prevailed, +none was gayer than the tavern kept by the man whom the good Moravian +Brother called "Severe." There perhaps the feasting celebrated the +nuptials of John Sevier, who was barely past his seventeenth birthday +when he took to himself a wife. Or perhaps the dancing, in moccasined +feet on the puncheon flooring, was a ceremonial to usher into Back +Country life the new municipality John had just organized, for John at +nineteen had taken his earliest step towards his larger career, which we +shall follow later on, as the architect of the first little governments +beyond the mountains. + +In the Boone home on the Yadkin, we may guess that the talk was solely +of the hunt, unless young Daniel had already become possessed of his +first compass and was studying its ways. On such an evening, while the +red afterglow lingered, he might be mending a passing trader's firearms +by the fires of the primitive forge his father had set up near the +trading path running from Hillsborough to the Catawba towns. It was said +by the local nimrods that none could doctor a sick rifle better than +young Daniel Boone, already the master huntsman of them all. And perhaps +some trader's tale, told when the caravan halted for the night, kindled +the youth's first desire to penetrate the mountain-guarded wilderness, +for the tales of these Romanies of commerce were as the very badge of +their free-masonry, and entry money at the doors of strangers. + +Out on the border's edge, heedless of the shadow of the mountains +looming between the newly built cabin and that western land where they +and their kind were to write the fame of the Ulster Scot in a shining +script that time cannot dull, there might sit a group of stern-faced +men, all deep in discussion of some point of spiritual doctrine or of +the temporal rights of men. Yet, in every cabin, whatever the national +differences, the setting was the same The spirit of the frontier was +modeling out of old clay a new Adam to answer the needs of a new earth. + +It would be far less than just to leave the Back Country folk without +further reference to the devoted labors of their clergy. In the earliest +days the settlers were cut off from their church systems; the pious had +to maintain their piety unaided, except in the rare cases where a pastor +accompanied a group of settlers of his denomination into the wilds. One +of the first ministers who fared into the Back Country to remind the +Ulster Presbyterians of their spiritual duties was the Reverend Hugh +McAden of Philadelphia. He made long itineraries under the greatest +hardships, in constant danger from Indians and wild beasts, carrying +the counsel of godliness to the far scattered flock. Among the Highland +settlements the Reverend James Campbell for thirty years traveled about, +preaching each Sunday at some gathering point a sermon in both English +and Gaelic. A little later, in the Yadkin Valley, after Craighead's +day there arose a small school of Presbyterian ministers whose zeal +and fearlessness in the cause of religion and of just government had an +influence on the frontiersmen that can hardly be overestimated. + +But, in the beginning, the pioneer encountered the savagery of border +life, grappled with it, and reacted to it without guidance from other +mentor than his own instincts. His need was still the primal threefold +need family, sustenance, and safe sleep when the day's work was done. We +who look back with thoughtful eyes upon the frontiersman--all links of +contact with his racial past severed, at grips with destruction in the +contenting of his needs--see something more, something larger, than he +saw in the log cabin raised by his hands, its structure held together +solely by his close grooving and fitting of its own strength. Though +the walls he built for himself have gone with his own dust back to the +earth, the symbol he erected for us stands. + + + +Chapter III. The Trader + +The trader was the first pathfinder. His caravans began the change +of purpose that was to come to the Indian warrior's route, turning +it slowly into the beaten track of communication and commerce. The +settlers, the rangers, the surveyors, went westward over the trails +which he had blazed for them years before. Their enduring works are +commemorated in the cities and farms which today lie along every ancient +border line; but of their forerunner's hazardous Indian trade nothing +remains. Let us therefore pay a moment's homage here to the trader, who +first--to borrow a phrase from Indian speech--made white for peace the +red trails of war. + +He was the first cattleman of the Old Southwest. Fifty years before +John Findlay, * one of this class of pioneers, led Daniel Boone through +Cumberland Gap, the trader's bands of horses roamed the western slopes +of the Appalachian Mountains and his cattle grazed among the deer on the +green banks of the old Cherokee (Tennessee) River. He was the pioneer +settler beyond the high hills; for he built, in the center of the Indian +towns, the first white man's cabin--with its larger annex, the trading +house--and dwelt there during the greater part of the year. He was +America's first magnate of international commerce. His furs--for which +he paid in guns, knives, ammunition, vermilion paint, mirrors, and +cloth--lined kings' mantles, and hatted the Lords of Trade as they +strode to their council chamber in London to discuss his business and to +pass those regulations which might have seriously hampered him but for +his resourcefulness in circumventing them! + + + * The name is spelled in various ways: Findlay, Finlay, Findley. + + +He was the first frontier warrior, for he either fought off or fell +before small parties of hostile Indians who, in the interest of the +Spanish or French, raided his pack-horse caravans on the march. Often, +too, side by side with the red brothers of his adoption, he fought +in the intertribal wars. His was the first educative and civilizing +influence in the Indian towns. He endeavored to cure the Indians of +their favorite midsummer madness, war, by inducing them to raise stock +and poultry and improve their corn, squash, and pea gardens. It is not +necessary to impute to him philanthropic motives. He was a practical man +and he saw that war hurt his trade: it endangered his summer caravans +and hampered the autumn hunt for deerskins. + +In the earliest days of the eighteenth century, when the colonists of +Virginia and the Carolinas were only a handful, it was the trader who +defeated each successive attempt of French and Spanish agents to weld +the tribes into a confederacy for the annihilation of the English +settlements. The English trader did his share to prevent what is now the +United States from becoming a part of a Latin empire and to save it for +a race having the Anglo-Saxon ideal and speaking the English tongue. + +The colonial records of the period contain items which, taken singly, +make small impression on the casual reader but which, listed together, +throw a strong light on the past and bring that mercenary figure, the +trader, into so bold a relief that the design verges on the heroic. If +we wonder, for instance, why the Scotch Highlanders who settled in the +wilds at the headwaters of the Cape Fear River, about 1729, and were +later followed by Welsh and Huguenots, met with no opposition from the +Indians, the mystery is solved when we discover, almost by accident, a +few printed lines which record that, in 1700, the hostile natives on the +Cape Fear were subdued to the English and brought into friendly alliance +with them by Colonel William Bull, a trader. We read further and learn +that the Spaniards in Florida had long endeavored to unite the tribes in +Spanish and French territory against the English and that the influence +of traders prevented the consummation. The Spaniards, in 1702, had +prepared to invade English territory with nine hundred Indians. The +plot was discovered by Creek Indians and disclosed to their friends, +the traders, who immediately gathered together five hundred warriors, +marched swiftly to meet the invaders, and utterly routed them. Again, +when the Indians, incited by the Spanish at St. Augustine, rose against +the English in 1715, and the Yamasi Massacre occurred in South Carolina, +it was due to the traders that some of the settlements at least were not +wholly unprepared to defend themselves. + +The early English trader was generally an intelligent man; sometimes +educated, nearly always fearless and resourceful. He knew the one sure +basis on which men of alien blood and far separated stages of moral and +intellectual development can meet in understanding--namely, the truth of +the spoken word. He recognized honor as the bond of trade and the warp +and woof of human intercourse. The uncorrupted savage also had his plain +interpretation of the true word in the mouths of men, and a name for it. +He called it the "Old Beloved Speech"; and he gave his confidence to the +man who spoke this speech even in the close barter for furs. + +We shall find it worth while to refer to the map of America as it was +in the early days of the colonial fur trade, about the beginning of the +eighteenth century. A narrow strip of loosely strung English settlements +stretched from the north border of New England to the Florida line. +North Florida was Spanish territory. On the far distant southwestern +borders of the English colonies were the southern possessions of France. +The French sphere of influence extended up the Mississippi, and thence +by way of rivers and the Great Lakes to its base in Canada on the +borders of New England and New York. In South Carolina dwelt the Yamasi +tribe of about three thousand warriors, their chief towns only sixty +or eighty miles distant from the Spanish town of St. Augustine. On the +west, about the same distance northeast of New Orleans, in what is now +Alabama and Georgia, lay the Creek nation. There French garrisons held +Mobile and Fort Alabama. The Creeks at this time numbered over four +thousand warriors. The lands of the Choctaws, a tribe of even larger +fighting strength, began two hundred miles north of New Orleans and +extended along the Mississippi. A hundred and sixty miles northeast of +the Choctaw towns were the Chickasaws, the bravest and most successful +warriors of all the tribes south of the Iroquois. The Cherokees, in part +seated within the Carolinas, on the upper courses of the Savannah River, +mustered over six thousand men at arms. East of them were the Catawba +towns. North of them were the Shawanoes and Delawares, in easy +communication with the tribes of Canada. Still farther north, along the +Mohawk and other rivers joining with the Hudson and Lake Ontario stood +the "long houses" of the fiercest and most warlike of all the savages, +the Iroquois or Six Nations. + +The Indians along the English borders outnumbered the colonists +perhaps ten to one. If the Spanish and the French had succeeded in +the conspiracy to unite on their side all the tribes, a red billow +of tomahawk wielders would have engulfed and extinguished the English +settlements. The French, it is true, made allies of the Shawanoes, the +Delawares, the Choctaws, and a strong faction of the Creeks; and they +finally won over the Cherokees after courting them for more than twenty +years. But the Creeks in part, the powerful Chickasaws, and the Iroquois +Confederacy, or Six Nations, remained loyal to the English. In both +North and South it was the influence of the traders that kept these red +tribes on the English side. The Iroquois were held loyal by Sir William +Johnson and his deputy, George Croghan, the "King of Traders." The +Chickasaws followed their "best-beloved" trader, James Adair; and +among the Creeks another trader, Lachlan McGillivray, wielded a potent +influence. + +Lachlan McGillivray was a Highlander. He landed in Charleston in 1735 at +the age of sixteen and presently joined a trader's caravan as packhorse +boy. A few years later he married a woman of the Creeks. On many +occasions he defeated French and Spanish plots with the Creeks for the +extermination of the colonists in Georgia and South Carolina. His action +in the final war with the French (1760), when the Indian terror was +raging, is typical. News came that four thousand Creek warriors, +reinforced by French Choctaws, were about to fall on the southern +settlements. At the risk of their lives, McGillivray and another trader +named Galphin hurried from Charleston to their trading house on the +Georgia frontier. Thither they invited several hundred Creek warriors, +feasted and housed them for several days, and finally won them from +their purpose. McGillivray had a brilliant son, Alexander, who about +this time became a chief in his mother's nation perhaps on this very +occasion, as it was an Indian custom, in making a brotherhood pact, to +send a son to dwell in the brother's house. We shall meet that son +again as the Chief of the Creeks and the terrible scourge of Georgia and +Tennessee in the dark days of the Revolutionary War. + +The bold deeds of the early traders, if all were to be told, would +require a book as long as the huge volume written by James Adair, the +"English Chickasaw." Adair was an Englishman who entered the Indian +trade in 1785 and launched upon the long and dangerous trail from +Charleston to the upper towns of the Cherokees, situated in the present +Monroe County, Tennessee. Thus he was one of the earliest pioneers +of the Old Southwest; and he was Tennessee's first author. "I am well +acquainted," he says, "with near two thousand miles of the American +continent"--a statement which gives one some idea of an early trader's +enterprise, hardihood, and peril. Adair's "two thousand miles" were +twisting Indian trails and paths he slashed out for himself through +uninhabited wilds, for when not engaged in trade, hunting, literature, +or war, it pleased him to make solitary trips of exploration. These seem +to have led him chiefly northward through the Appalachians, of which he +must have been one of the first white explorers. + +A many-sided man was James Adair--cultured, for his style suffers not +by comparison with other writers of his day, no stranger to Latin and +Greek, and not ignorant of Hebrew, which he studied to assist him in +setting forth his ethnological theory that the American Indians were +the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Before we dismiss his +theory with a smile, let us remember that he had not at his disposal the +data now available which reveal points of likeness in custom, language +formation, and symbolism among almost all primitive peoples. The +formidable title-page of his book in itself suggests an author keenly +observant, accurate as to detail, and possessed of a versatile and +substantial mind. Most of the pages were written in the towns of the +Chickasaws, with whom he lived "as a friend and brother," but from whose +"natural jealousy" and "prying disposition" he was obliged to conceal +his papers. "Never," he assures us, "was a literary work begun and +carried on with more disadvantages!" + +Despite these disabilities the author wrote a book of absorbing +interest. His intimate sympathetic pictures of Indian life as it was +before the tribes had been conquered are richly valuable to the lover of +native lore and to the student of the history of white settlement. The +author believes, as he must, in the supremacy of his own race, but he +nevertheless presents the Indians' side of the argument as no man could +who had not made himself one of them. He thereby adds interest to those +fierce struggles which took place along the border; for he shows us the +red warrior not as a mere brute with a tomahawk but as a human creature +with an ideal of his own, albeit an ideal that must give place to a +better. Even in view of the red man's hideous methods of battle +and inhuman treatment of captives, we cannot ponder unmoved Adair's +description of his preparations for war--the fasting, the abstention +from all family intercourse, and the purification rites and prayers for +three days in the house set apart, while the women, who might not come +close to their men in this fateful hour, stood throughout the night till +dawn chanting before the door. Another poetic touch the author gives +us, from the Cherokee--or Cheerake as he spells it--explaining that the +root, chee-ra, means fire. A Cherokee never extinguished fire save on +the occasion of a death, when he thrust a burning torch into the water +and said, Neetah intahah--"the days appointed him were finished." The +warrior slain in battle was held to have been balanced by death and it +was said of him that "he was weighed on the path and made light." Adair +writes that the Cherokees, until corrupted by French agents and by +the later class of traders who poured rum among them like water, were +honest, industrious, and friendly. They were ready to meet the white +man with their customary phrase of good will "I shall firmly shake hands +with your speech." He was intimately associated with this tribe from +1735 to 1744, when he diverted his activities to the Chickasaws. + +It was from the Cherokees' chief town, Great Telliko, in the +Appalachians, that Adair explored the mountains. He describes the pass +through the chain which was used by the Indians and which, from +his outline of it, was probably the Cumberland Gap. He relates many +incidents of the struggle with the French--manifestations even in this +remote wilderness of the vast conflict that was being waged for the New +World by two imperial nations of the Old. + +Adair undertook, at the solicitation of Governor Glen of South Carolina, +the dangerous task of opening up trade with the Choctaws; a tribe +mustering upwards of five thousand warriors who were wholly in +the French interest. Their country lay in what is now the State of +Mississippi along the great river, some seven hundred miles west and +southwest of Charleston. After passing the friendly Creek towns the +trail led on for 150 miles through what was practically the enemy's +country. Adair, owing to what he likes to term his "usual good fortune," +reached the Choctaw country safely and by his adroitness and substantial +presents won the friendship of the influential chief, Red Shoe, whom +he found in a receptive mood, owing to a French agent's breach of +hospitality involving Red Shoe's favorite wife. Adair thus created a +large proEnglish faction among the Choctaws, and his success seriously +impaired French prestige with all the southwestern tribes. Several times +French Choctaws bribed to murder him, waylaid Adair on the +trail--twice when he was alone--only to be baffled by the imperturbable +self-possession and alert wit which never failed him in emergencies. + +Winning a Choctaw trade cost Adair, besides attacks on his life, 2200 +pounds, for which he was never reimbursed, notwithstanding Governor +Glen's agreement with him. And, on his return to Charleston, while the +Governor was detaining him "on one pretext or another," he found that a +new expedition, which the Governor was favoring for reasons of his own, +had set out to capture his Chickasaw trade and gather in "the expected +great crop of deerskins and beaver... before I could possibly return to +the Chikkasah Country." Nothing daunted, however, the hardy trader set +out alone. + +"In the severity of winter, frost, snow, hail and heavy rains succeed +each other in these climes, so that I partly rode and partly swam to the +Chikkasah country; for not expecting to stay long below [in Charleston] +I took no leathern canoe. Many of the broad, deep creeks... had now +overflowed their banks, ran at a rapid rate and were unpassable to any +but DESPERATE PEOPLE... the rivers and swamps were dreadful by rafts of +timber driving down the former and the great fallen trees floating in +the latter.... Being forced to wade deep through cane swamps or woody +thickets, it proved very troublesome to keep my firearms dry on which, +as a second means, my life depended." + +Nevertheless Adair defeated the Governor's attempt to steal his trade, +and later on published the whole story in the Charleston press and sent +in a statement of his claims to the Assembly, with frank observations +on His Excellency himself. We gather that his bold disregard of High +Personages set all Charleston in an uproar! + +Adair is tantalizingly modest about his own deeds. He devotes pages to +prove that an Indian rite agrees with the Book of Leviticus but only a +paragraph to an exploit of courage and endurance such as that ride and +swim for the Indian trade. We have to read between the lines to find the +man; but he well repays the search. Briefly, incidentally, he mentions +that on one trip he was captured by the French, who were so, + +"well acquainted with the great damages I had done to them and feared +others I might occasion, as to confine me a close prisoner ... in the +Alebahma garrison. They were fully resolved to have sent me down to +Mobile or New Orleans as a capital criminal to be hanged... BUT I DOUBTED +NOT OF BEING ABLE TO EXTRICATE MYSELF SOME WAY OR OTHER. They appointed +double centries over me for some days before I was to be sent down in +the French King's large boat. They were strongly charged against laying +down their weapons or suffering any hostile thing to be in the place +where I was kept, as they deemed me capable of any mischief.... About an +hour before we were to set off by water I escaped from them by land.... +I took through the middle of the low land covered with briers at full +speed. I heard the French clattering on horseback along the path... and +the howling savages pursuing..., but MY USUAL GOOD FORTUNE enabled me to +leave them far enough behind...." + + +One feels that a few of the pages given up to Leviticus might well have +been devoted to a detailed account of this escape from "double centries" +and a fortified garrison, and the plunge through the tangled wilds, by +a man without gun or knife or supplies, and who for days dared not show +himself upon the trail. + +There is too much of "my usual good fortune" in Adair's narrative; such +luck as his argues for extraordinary resources in the man. Sometimes +we discover only through one phrase on a page that he must himself have +been the hero of an event he relates in the third person. This seems +to be the case in the affair of Priber, which was the worst of those +"damages" Adair did to the French. Priber was "a gentleman of curious +and speculative temper" sent by the French in 1786 to Great Telliko to +win the Cherokees to their interest. At this time Adair was trading with +the Cherokees. He relates that Priber, + +"more effectually to answer the design of his commission... ate, drank, +slept, danced, dressed, and painted himself with the Indians, so that it +was not easy to distinguish him from the natives,--he married also with +them, and being endued with a strong understanding and retentive memory +he soon learned their dialect, and by gradual advances impressed them +with a very ill opinion of the English, representing them as fraudulent, +avaritious and encroaching people; he at the same time inflated the +artless savages with a prodigious high opinion of their own importance +in the American scale of power.... Having thus infected them... he easily +formed them into a nominal republican government--crowned their old +Archimagus emperor after a pleasing new savage form, and invented a +variety of high-sounding titles for all the members of his imperial +majesty's red court." + +Priber cemented the Cherokee empire "by slow but sure degrees to the +very great danger of our southern colonies." His position was that of +Secretary of State and as such, with a studiedly provocative arrogance, +he carried on correspondence with the British authorities. The colonial +Government seems, on this occasion, to have listened to the traders and +to have realized that Priber was a danger, for soldiers were sent to +take him prisoner. The Cherokees, however, had so firmly "shaked hands" +with their Secretary's admired discourse that they threatened to take +the warpath if their beloved man were annoyed, and the soldiers went +home without him--to the great hurt of English prestige. The Cherokee +empire had now endured for five years and was about to rise "into a far +greater state of puissance by the acquisition of the Muskohge, Chocktaw +and the Western Mississippi Indians," when fortunately for the history +of British colonization in America, "an accident befell the Secretary." + +It is in connection with this "accident" that the reader suspects the +modest but resourceful Adair of conniving with Fate. Since the military +had failed and the Government dared not again employ force, other means +must be found; the trader provided them. The Secretary with his Cherokee +bodyguard journeyed south on his mission to the Creeks. Secure, as he +supposed, he lodged overnight in an Indian town. But there a company +of English traders took him into custody, along with his bundle of +manuscripts presumably intended for the French commandant at Fort +Alabama, and handed him over to the Governor of Georgia, who imprisoned +him and kept him out of mischief till he died. + +As a Briton, Adair contributed to Priber's fate; and as such he approves +it. As a scholar with philosophical and ethnological leanings, however, +he deplores it, and hopes that Priber's valuable manuscripts may "escape +the despoiling hands of military power." Priber had spent his leisure in +compiling a Cherokee dictionary; Adair's occupation, while domiciled +in his winter house in Great Telliko, was the writing of his Indian +Appendix to the Pentateuch. As became brothers in science, they had +exchanged notes, so we gather from Adair's references to conversations +and correspondence. Adair's difficulties as an author, however, had been +increased by a treacherous lapse from professional etiquette on the +part of the Secretary: "He told them [the Indians] that in the very same +manner as he was their great Secretary, I was the devil's clerk, or +an accursed one who marked on paper the bad speech of the evil ones +of darkness." On his own part Adair admits that his object in this +correspondence was to trap the Secretary into something more serious +than literary errata. That is, he admits it by implication; he says the +Secretary "feared" it. During the years of their duel, Adair apparently +knew that the scholarly compiler of the Cherokee dictionary was +secretly inciting members of this particular Lost Tribe to tomahawk the +discoverer of their biblical origin; and Priber, it would seem, knew +that he knew! + +Adair shows, inferentially, that land encroachment was not the sole +cause of those Indian wars with which we shall deal in a later chapter. +The earliest causes were the instigations of the French and the rewards +which they offered for English scalps. But equally provocative of Indian +rancor were the acts of sometimes merely stupid, sometimes dishonest, +officials; the worst of these, Adair considered, was the cheapening of +the trade through the granting of general licenses. + + +"Formerly each trader had a license for two [Indian] towns.... At my +first setting out among them, a number of traders... journeyed through +our various nations in different companies and were generally men of +worth; of course they would have a living price for their goods, which +they carried on horseback to the remote Indian countries at very great +expences.... [The Indians] were kept under proper restraint, were easy +in their minds and peaceable on account of the plain, honest lessons +daily inculcated on them... but according to the present unwise plan, +two and even three Arablike peddlars sculk about in one of those +villages... who are generally the dregs and offscourings of our +climes... by inebriating the Indians with their nominally prohibited and +poisoning spirits, they purchase the necessaries of life at four and +five hundred per cent cheaper than the orderly traders.... Instead of +showing good examples of moral conduct, beside the other part of life, +they instruct the unknowing and imitating savages in many diabolical +lessons of obscenity and blasphemy." + + +In these statements, contemporary records bear him out. There is no +sadder reading than the many pleas addressed by the Indian chiefs to +various officials to stop the importation of liquor into their country, +alleging the debauchment of their young men and warning the white man, +with whom they desired to be friends, that in an Indian drink and blood +lust quickly combined. + +Adair's book was published in London in 1775. He wrote it to be read by +Englishmen as well as Americans; and some of his reflections on liberty, +justice, and Anglo-Saxon unity would not sound unworthily today. His +sympathies were with "the principles of our Magna Charta Americana"; but +he thought the threatened division of the English-speaking peoples +the greatest evil that could befall civilization. His voluminous work +discloses a man not only of wide mental outlook but a practical man +with a sense of commercial values. Yet, instead of making a career for +himself among his own caste, he made his home for over thirty years in +the Chickasaw towns; and it is plain that, with the exception of some +of his older brother traders, he preferred the Chickasaw to any other +society. + +The complete explanation of such men as Adair we need not expect to +find stated anywhere--not even in and between the lines of his book. +The conventionalist would seek it in moral obliquity; the radical, in a +temperament that is irked by the superficialities that comprise so large +a part of conventional standards. The reason for his being what he was +is almost the only thing Adair did not analyze in his book. Perhaps, +to him, it was self evident. We may let it be so to us, and see it most +clearly presented in a picture composed from some of his brief sketches: +A land of grass and green shade inset with bright waters, where deer +and domestic cattle herded together along the banks; a circling group +of houses, their white-clayed walls sparkling under the sun's rays, and, +within and without, the movement of "a friendly and sagacious people," +who "kindly treated and watchfully guarded" their white brother in peace +and war, and who conversed daily with him in the Old Beloved Speech +learned first of Nature. "Like towers in cities beyond the common size +of those of the Indians" rose the winter and summer houses and the huge +trading house which the tribe had built for their best beloved friend in +the town's center, because there he would be safest from attack. On the +rafters hung the smoked and barbecued delicacies taken in the hunt and +prepared for him by his red servants, who were also his comrades at home +and on the dangerous trail. "Beloved old women" kept an eye on his small +sons, put to drowse on panther skins so that they might grow up brave +warriors. Nothing was there of artifice or pretense, only "the needful +things to make a reasonable life happy." All was as primitive, naive, +and contented as the woman whose outline is given once in a few strokes, +proudly and gayly penciled: "I have the pleasure of writing this by the +side of a Chikkasah female, as great a princess as ever lived among the +ancient Peruvians or Mexicans, and she bids me be sure not to mark the +paper wrong after the manner of most of the traders; otherwise it will +spoil the making good bread or homony!" + +His final chapter is the last news of James Adair, type of the earliest +trader. Did his bold attacks on corrupt officials and rum peddlers--made +publicly before Assemblies and in print--raise for him a dense cloud of +enmity that dropped oblivion on his memory? Perhaps. But, in truth, his +own book is all the history of him we need. It is the record of a man. +He lived a full life and served his day; and it matters not that a mist +envelops the place where unafraid he met the Last Enemy, was "weighed on +the path and made light." + + + +Chapter IV. The Passing Of The French Peril + +The great pile of the Appalachian peaks was not the only barrier which +held back the settler with his plough and his rifle from following the +trader's tinkling caravans into the valleys beyond. Over the hills the +French were lords of the land. The frontiersman had already felt their +enmity through the torch and tomahawk of their savage allies. By his own +strength alone he could not cope with the power entrenched beyond the +hills; so he halted. But that power, by its unachievable desire to be +overlord of two hemispheres, was itself to precipitate events which +would open the westward road. + +The recurring hour in the cycle of history, when the issue of Autocracy +against Democracy cleaves the world, struck for the men of the +eighteenth century as the second half of that century dawned. In our own +day, happily, that issue has been perceived by the rank and file of the +people. In those darker days, as France and England grappled in that +conflict of systems which culminated in the Seven Years' War, the +fundamental principles at stake were clear to only a handful of thinking +men. + +But abstractions, whether clear or obscure, do not cause ambassadors +to demand their passports. The declaration of war awaits the overt act. +Behold, then, how great a matter is kindled by a little fire! The casus +belli between France and England in the Seven Years' War--the war which +humbled France in Europe and lost her India and Canada--had to do with +a small log fort built by a few Virginians in 1754 at the Forks of +the Ohio River and wrested from them in the same year by a company of +Frenchmen from Canada. + +The French claimed the valley of the Ohio as their territory; the +English claimed it as theirs. The dispute was of long standing. The +French claim was based on discovery; the English claim, on the seato-sea +charters of Virginia and other colonies and on treaties with the Six +Nations. The French refused to admit the right of the Six Nations to +dispose of the territory. The English were inclined to maintain the +validity of their treaties with the Indians. Especially was Virginia so +inclined, for a large share of the Ohio lay within her chartered domain. + +The quarrel had entered its acute phase in 1749, when both the rival +claimants took action to assert their sovereignty. The Governor of +Canada sent an envoy, Celoron de Blainville, with soldiers, to take +formal possession of the Ohio for the King of France. In the same year +the English organized in Virginia the Ohio Company for the colonization +of the same country; and summoned Christopher Gist, explorer, trader, +and guide, from his home on the Yadkin and dispatched him to survey the +land. + +Then appeared on the scene that extraordinary man, Robert Dinwiddie, +Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, erstwhile citizen of Glasgow. His +correspondence from Virginia during his seven years' tenure of office +(1751-58) depicts the man with a vividness surpassing paint. He was as +honest as the day--as honest as he was fearless and fussy. But he had +no patience; he wanted things done and done at once, and his way was THE +way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't THINK +at all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course +continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie +had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his addresses, +perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, bristled with +satirical thrusts at his opponents. If he had spelled out in full all +the words he was so eager to write, he would have been obliged to lessen +his output; so he used a shorthand system of his own, peculiar enough to +be remarkable even though abbreviations were the rule in that day. Even +the dignity of Kings he sacrificed to speed, and we find "His Majesty" +abbreviated to "H M'y"; yet a smaller luminary known as "His Honor" +fares better, losing only the last letter--"His Hono." "Ho." stands +for "house" and "yt" for "that," "what," "it," and "anything else," as +convenient. Many of his letters wind up with "I am ve'y much fatig'd." +We know that he must have been! + +It was a formidable task that confronted Dinwiddie--to possess and +defend the Ohio. Christopher Gist returned in 1751, having surveyed the +valley for the Ohio Company as far as the Scioto and Miami rivers, +and in the following year the survey was ratified by the Indians. +The Company's men were busy blazing trails through the territory and +building fortified posts. But the French dominated the territory. They +had built and occupied with troops Fort Le Boeuf on French Creek, a +stream flowing into the Allegheny. We may imagine Dinwiddie's rage at +this violation of British soil by French soldiers and how he must have +sputtered to the young George Washington, when he summoned that officer +and made him the bearer of a letter to the French commander at Fort Le +Boeuf, to demand that French troops be at once withdrawn from the Ohio. + +Washington made the journey to Fort Le Boeuf in December, 1753, but +the mission of course proved fruitless. Dinwiddie then wrote to London +urging that a force be sent over to help the colonies maintain their +rights and, under orders from the Crown, suggested by himself, he wrote +to the governors of all the other colonies to join with Virginia in +raising troops to settle the ownership of the disputed territory. From +Governor Dobbs of North Carolina he received an immediate response. +By means of logic, sarcasm, and the entire force of his prerogatives, +Dinwiddie secured from his own balking Assembly 10,000 pounds with which +to raise troops. From Maryland he obtained nothing. There were three +prominent Marylanders in the Ohio Company, but--or because of this--the +Maryland Assembly voted down the measure for a military appropriation. +On June 18, 1754, Dinwiddie wrote, with unusually full spelling for him: + +"I am perswaded had His Majesty's Com'ds to the other Colonies been +duely obey'd, and the necessary Assistance given by them, the Fr. wou'd +have long ago have been oblig'd entirely to have evacuated their usurp'd +Possession of the King's Lands, instead of w'ch they are daily becoming +more formidable, whilst every Gov't except No. Caro. has amus'd me with +Expectations that have proved fruitless, and at length refuse to give +any Supply, unless in such a manner as must render it ineffectual." + +This saddened mood with its deliberate penmanship did not last long. +Presently Dinwiddie was making a Round Robin of himself in another +series of letters to Governors, Councilors, and Assemblymen, frantically +beseeching them for "H. M'y's hono." and their own, and, if not, +for "post'r'ty," to rise against the cruel French whose Indians were +harrying the borders again and "Basely, like Virmin, stealing and +carrying off the helpless infant"--as nice a simile, by the way, as any +Sheridan ever put into the mouth of Mrs. Malaprop. + +Dinwiddie saw his desires thwarted on every hand by the selfish spirit +of localism and jealousy which was more rife in America in those days +than it is today. Though the phrase "capitalistic war" had not yet been +coined, the great issues of English civilization on this continent were +befogged, for the majority in the colonies, by the trivial fact that the +shareholders in the Ohio Company stood to win by a vigorous prosecution +of the war and to lose if it were not prosecuted at all. The irascible +Governor, however, proceeded with such men and means as he could obtain. + +And now in the summer of 1754 came the "overt act" which precipitated +the inevitable war. The key to the valley of the Ohio was the tongue of +land at the Forks, where the Allegheny and the Monongahela join their +waters in the Beautiful River. This site--today Pittsburgh--if occupied +and held by either nation would give that nation the command of the +Ohio. Occupied it was for a brief hour by a small party of Virginians, +under Captain William Trent; but no sooner had they erected on the spot +a crude fort than the French descended upon them. What happened then all +the world knows: how the French built on the captured site their great +Fort Duquesne; how George Washington with an armed force, sent by +Dinwiddie to recapture the place, encountered French and Indians at +Great Meadows and built Fort Necessity, which he was compelled to +surrender; how in the next year (1755) General Braddock arrived from +across the sea and set out to take Fort Duquesne, only to meet on the +way the disaster called "Braddock's Defeat"; and how, before another +year had passed, the Seven Years' War was raging in Europe, and England +was allied with the enemies of France. + +>From the midst of the debacle of Braddock's defeat rises the figure +of the young Washington. Twenty-three he was then, tall and spare and +hardbodied from a life spent largely in the open. When Braddock fell, +this Washington appeared. Reckless of the enemy's bullets, which spanged +about him and pierced his clothes, he dashed up and down the lines in an +effort to rally the panic-stricken redcoats. He was too late to save +the day, but not to save a remnant of the army and bring out his own +Virginians in good order. Whether among the stay-at-homes and voters of +credits there were some who would have ascribed Washington's conduct on +that day to the fact that his brothers were large shareholders in the +Ohio Company and that Fort Duquesne was their personal property or +"private interest," history does not say. We may suppose so. + +North Carolina, the one colony which had not "amus'd" the Governor of +Virginia "with Expectations that proved fruitless," had voted 12,000 +pounds for the war and had raised two companies of troops. One of these, +under Edward Brice Dobbs, son of Governor Dobbs, marched with +Braddock; and in that company as wagoner went Daniel Boone, then in his +twenty-second year. Of Boone's part in Braddock's campaign nothing more +is recorded save that on the march he made friends with John Findlay, +the trader, his future guide into Kentucky; and that, on the day of +the defeat, when his wagons were surrounded, he escaped by slashing the +harness, leaping on the back of one of his horses, and dashing into the +forest. + + +Meanwhile the southern tribes along the border were comparatively quiet. +That they well knew a colossal struggle between the two white races was +pending and were predisposed to ally themselves with the stronger is +not to be doubted. French influence had long been sifting through the +formidable Cherokee nation, which still, however, held true in the main +to its treaties with the English. It was the policy of the Governors of +Virginia and North Carolina to induce the Cherokees to enter strongly +into the war as allies of the English. Their efforts came to nothing +chiefly because of the purely local and suicidal Indian policy of +Governor Glen of South Carolina. There had been some dispute between +Glen and Dinwiddie as to the right of Virginia to trade with the +Cherokees; and Glen had sent to the tribes letters calculated to sow +distrust of all other aspirants for Indian favor, even promising that +certain settlers in the Back Country of North Carolina should be removed +and their holdings restored to the Indians. These letters caused great +indignation in North Carolina, when they came to light, and had the +worst possible effect upon Indian relations. The Indians now inclined +their ear to the French who, though fewer than the English, were at +least united in purpose. + +Governor Glen took this inauspicious moment to hold high festival with +the Cherokees. It was the last year of his administration and +apparently he hoped to win promotion to some higher post by showing his +achievements for the fur trade and in the matter of new land acquired. +He plied the Cherokees with drink and induced them to make formal +submission and to cede all their lands to the Crown. When the chiefs +recovered their sobriety, they were filled with rage at what had been +done, and they remembered how the French had told them that the English +intended to make slaves of all the Indians and to steal their lands. The +situation was complicated by another incident. Several Cherokee warriors +returning from the Ohio, whither they had gone to fight for the British, +were slain by frontiersmen. The tribe, in accordance with existing +agreements, applied to Virginia for redress--but received none. + +There was thus plenty of powder for an explosion. Governor Lyttleton, +Glen's successor, at last flung the torch into the magazine. He seized, +as hostages, a number of friendly chiefs who were coming to Charleston +to offer tokens of good will and forced them to march under guard on +a military tour which the Governor was making (1759) with intent to +overawe the savages. When this expedition reached Prince George, on the +upper waters of the Savannah, the Indian hostages were confined within +the fort; and the Governor, satisfied with the result of his maneuver +departed south for Charleston. Then followed a tragedy. Some Indian +friends of the imprisoned chiefs attacked the fort, and the commander, +a popular young officer, was treacherously killed during a parley. The +infuriated frontiersmen within the fort fell upon the hostages and slew +them all--twenty-six chiefs--and the Indian war was on. + +If all were to be told of the struggle which followed in the Back +Country, the story could not be contained in this book. Many brave +and resourceful men went out against the savages. We can afford only a +passing glance at one of them. Hugh Waddell of North Carolina was the +most brilliant of all the frontier fighters in that war. He was a young +Ulsterman from County Down, a born soldier, with a special genius for +fighting Indians, although he did not grow up on the border, for he +arrived in North Carolina in 1753, at the age of nineteen. He was +appointed by Governor Dobbs to command the second company which North +Carolina had raised for the war, a force of 450 rangers to protect the +border counties; and he presently became the most conspicuous military +figure in the colony. As to his personality, we have only a few meager +details, with a portrait that suggests plainly enough those qualities +of boldness and craft which characterized his tactics. Governor Dobbs +appears to have had a special love towards Hugh, whose family he had +known in Ireland, for an undercurrent of almost fatherly pride is to be +found in the old Governor's reports to the Assembly concerning Waddell's +exploits. + +The terror raged for nearly three years. Cabins and fields were burned, +and women and children were slaughtered or dragged away captives. +Not only did immigration cease but many hardy settlers fled from the +country. At length, after horrors indescribable and great toll of life, +the Cherokees gave up the struggle. Their towns were invaded and laid +waste by imperial and colonial troops, and they could do nothing but +make peace. In 1761 they signed a treaty with the English to hold "while +rivers flow and grasses grow and sun and moon endure." + + +In the previous year (1760) the imperial war had run its course in +America. New France lay prostrate, and the English were supreme not only +on the Ohio but on the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. Louisbourg, +Quebec, Montreal, Oswego, Niagara, Duquesne, Detroit--all were in +English hands. + +Hugh Waddell and his rangers, besides serving with distinction in the +Indian war, had taken part in the capture of Fort Duquesne. This feat +had been accomplished in 1758 by an expedition under General Forbes. The +troops made a terrible march over a new route, cutting a road as they +went. It was November when they approached their objective. The wastes +of snow and their diminished supplies caused such depression among the +men that the officers called a halt to discuss whether or not to proceed +toward Fort Duquesne, where they believed the French to be concentrated +in force. Extravagant sums in guineas were named as suitable reward for +any man who would stalk and catch a French Indian and learn from him the +real conditions inside the fort. The honor, if not the guineas, fell to +John Rogers, one of Waddell's rangers. From the Indian it was learned +that the French had already gone, leaving behind only a few of their +number. As the English drew near, they found that the garrison had blown +up the magazine, set fire to the fort, and made off. + +Thus, while New France was already tottering, but nearly two years +before the final capitulation at Montreal, the English again became +masters of the Ohio Company's land--masters of the Forks of the Ohio. +This time they were there to stay. Where the walls of Fort Duquesne had +crumbled in the fire Fort Pitt was to rise, proudly bearing the name +of England's Great Commoner who had directed English arms to victory on +three continents. + +With France expelled and the Indians deprived of their white allies, the +westward path lay open to the pioneers, even though the red man himself +would rise again and again in vain endeavor to bar the way. So a new +era begins, the era of exploration for definite purpose, the era of +commonwealth building. In entering on it, we part with the earliest +pioneer--the trader, who first opened the road for both the lone home +seeker and the great land company. He dwindles now to the mere barterer +and so--save for a few chance glimpses--slips out of sight, for his +brave days as Imperial Scout are done. + + + +Chapter V. Boone, The Wanderer + +What thoughts filled Daniel Boone's mind as he was returning from +Braddock's disastrous campaign in 1755 we may only conjecture. Perhaps +he was planning a career of soldiering, for in later years he was to +distinguish himself as a frontier commander in both defense and attack. +Or it may be that his heart was full of the wondrous tales told him +by the trader, John Findlay, of that Hunter's Canaan, Kentucky, where +buffalo and deer roamed in thousands. Perhaps he meant to set out +ere long in search of the great adventure of his dreams, despite the +terrible dangers of trail making across the zones of war into the +unknown. + +However that may be, Boone straightway followed neither of these +possible plans on his return to the Yadkin but halted for a different +adventure. There, a rifle shot's distance from his threshold, was +offered him the oldest and sweetest of all hazards to the daring. He was +twenty-two, strong and comely and a whole man; and therefore he was in +no mind to refuse what life held out to him in the person of Rebecca +Bryan. Rebecca was the daughter of Joseph Bryan, who had come to the +Yadkin from Pennsylvania some time before the Boones; and she was in her +seventeenth year. + +Writers of an earlier and more sentimental period than ours have +endeavored to supply, from the saccharine stores of their fancy, the +romantic episodes connected with Boone's wooing which history has +omitted to record. Hence the tale that the young hunter, walking abroad +in the spring gloaming, saw Mistress Rebecca's large dark eyes shining +in the dusk of the forest, mistook them for a deer's eyes and shot--his +aim on this occasion fortunately being bad! But if Boone's rifle was +missing its mark at ten paces, Cupid's dart was speeding home. So runs +the story concocted a hundred years later by some gentle scribe ignorant +alike of game seasons, the habits of hunters, and the way of a man with +a maid in a primitive world. + +Daniel and Rebecca were married in the spring of 1756. Squire Boone, +in his capacity as justice of the peace, tied the knot; and in a +small cabin built upon his spacious lands the young couple set up +housekeeping. Here Daniel's first two sons were born. In the third +year of his marriage, when the second child was a babe in arms, Daniel +removed with his wife and their young and precious family to Culpeper +County in eastern Virginia, for the border was going through its darkest +days of the French and Indian War. During the next two or three years +we find him in Virginia engaged as a wagoner, hauling tobacco in season; +but back on the border with his rifle, after the harvest, aiding in +defense against the Indians. In 1759 he purchased from his father a +lot on Sugar Tree Creek, a tributary of Dutchman's Creek (Davie County, +North Carolina) and built thereon a cabin for himself. The date when he +brought his wife and children to live in their new abode on the border +is not recorded. It was probably some time after the close of the Indian +War. Of Boone himself during these years we have but scant information. +We hear of him again in Virginia and also as a member of the pack-horse +caravan which brought into the Back Country the various necessaries for +the settlers. We know, too, that in the fall of 1760 he was on a lone +hunting trip in the mountains west of the Yadkin; for until a few years +ago there might be seen, still standing on the banks of Boone's Creek (a +small tributary of the Watauga) in eastern Tennessee, a tree bearing the +legend, "D Boon cilled A BAR on this tree 1760." Boone was always fond +of carving his exploits on trees, and his wanderings have been traced +largely by his arboreal publications. In the next year (1761) he went +with Waddell's rangers when they marched with the army to the final +subjugation of the Cherokee. + +That Boone and his family were back on the border in the new cabin +shortly after the end of the war, we gather from the fact that in 1764 +he took his little son James, aged seven, on one of his long hunting +excursions. From this time dates the intimate comradeship of father and +son through all the perils of the wilderness, a comradeship to come +to its tragic end ten years later when, as we shall see, the +seventeen-year-old lad fell under the red man's tomahawk as his father +was leading the first settlers towards Kentucky. In the cold nights +of the open camp, as Daniel and James lay under the frosty stars, the +father kept the boy warm snuggled to his breast under the broad flap +of his hunting shirt. Sometimes the two were away from home for months +together, and Daniel declared little James to be as good a woodsman as +his father. + +Meanwhile fascinating accounts of the new land of Florida, ceded +to Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, had leaked into the Back +Country; and in the winter of 1765 Boone set off southward on horseback +with, seven companions. Colonel James Grant, with whose army Boone had +fought in 1761, had been appointed Governor of the new colony and was +offering generous inducements to settlers. The party traveled along the +borders of South Carolina and Georgia. No doubt they made the greater +part of their way over the old Traders' Trace, the "whitened" warpath; +and they suffered severe hardships. Game became scarcer as they +proceeded. Once they were nigh to perishing of starvation and were saved +from that fate only through chance meeting with a band of Indians +who, seeing their plight, made camp and shared their food with +them--according to the Indian code in time of peace. + +Boone's party explored Florida from St. Augustine to Pensacola, and +Daniel became sufficiently enamored of the tropical south to purchase +there land and a house. His wife, however, was unwilling to go to +Florida, and she was not long in convincing the hunter that he would +soon tire of a gameless country. A gameless country! Perhaps this was +the very thought which turned the wanderer's desires again towards the +land of Kentucky. * The silencing of the enemy's whisper in the Cherokee +camps had opened the border forests once more to the nomadic rifleman. +Boone was not alone in the desire to seek out what lay beyond. His +brother-in-law, John Stewart, and a nephew by marriage, Benjamin +Cutbirth, or Cutbird, with two other young men, John Baker and James +Ward, in 1766 crossed the Appalachian Mountains, probably by stumbling +upon the Indian trail winding from base to summit and from peak to base +again over this part of the great hill barrier. They eventually reached +the Mississippi River and, having taken a good quantity of peltry on +the way, they launched upon the stream and came in time to New Orleans, +where they made a satisfactory trade of their furs. + + + * Kentucky, from Ken-ta-ke, an Iroquois word meaning "the place +of old fields." Adair calls the territory "the old fields." The Indians +apparently used the word "old," as we do in a sense of endearment and +possession as well as relative to age. + + +Boone was fired anew by descriptions of this successful feat, in which +two of his kinsmen had participated. He could no longer be held back. +He must find the magic door that led through the vast mountain wall into +Kentucky--Kentucky, with its green prairies where the buffalo and deer +were as "ten thousand thousand cattle feeding" in the wilds, and where +the balmy air vibrated with the music of innumerable wings. + +Accordingly, in the autumn of 1767, Boone began his quest of the +delectable country in the company of his friend, William Hill, who had +been with him in Florida. Autumn was the season of departure on all +forest excursions, because by that time the summer crops had been +gathered in and the day of the deer had come. By hunting, the explorers +must feed themselves on their travels and with deerskins and furs they +must on their return recompense those who had supplied their outfit. +Boone, the incessant but not always lucky wanderer, was in these years +ever in debt for an outfit. + +Boone and Hill made their way over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies +and crossed the Holston and Clinch rivers. Then they came upon the west +fork of the Big Sandy and, believing that it would lead them to the +Ohio, they continued for at least a hundred miles to the westward. Here +they found a buffalo trace, one of the many beaten out by the herds in +their passage to the salt springs, and they followed it into what is +now Floyd County in eastern Kentucky. But this was not the prairie +land described by Findlay; it was rough and hilly and so overgrown with +laurel as to be almost impenetrable. They therefore wended their way +back towards the river, doubtless erected the usual hunter's camp of +skins or blankets and branches, and spent the winter in hunting and +trapping. Spring found them returning to their homes on the Yadkin with +a fair winter's haul. + +Such urgent desire as Boone's, however, was not to be defeated. The next +year brought him his great opportunity. John Findlay came to the Yadkin +with a horse pack of needles and linen and peddler's wares to tempt the +slim purses of the Back Country folk. The two erstwhile comrades in +arms were overjoyed to encounter each other again, and Findlay spent the +winter of 1768-69 in Boone's cabin. While the snow lay deep outside and +good-smelling logs crackled on the hearth, they planned an expedition +into Kentucky through the Gap where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky +touch one another, which Findlay felt confident he could find. Findlay +had learned of this route from cross-mountain traders in 1753, when he +had descended the Ohio to the site of Louisville, whence he had gone +with some Shawanoes as a prisoner to their town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki +or Blue Licks. * + + + * Hanna, "The Wilderness Trail," vol. II, pp. 215-16. + +On the first day of May, 1769, Boone and Findlay, accompanied by John +Stewart and three other venturesome spirits, Joseph Holden, James +Mooney, and William Cooley, took horse for the fabled land. Passing +through the Cumberland Gap, they built their first camp in Kentucky on +the Red Lick fork of Station Camp Creek. + +This camp was their base of operations. From it, usually in couples, we +infer, the explorers branched out to hunt and to take their observations +of the country. Here also they prepared the deer and buffalo meat for +the winter, dried or smoked the geese they shot in superabundance, made +the tallow and oil needed to keep their weapons in trim, their leather +soft, and their kits waterproof. Their first ill luck befell them in +December when Boone and Stewart were captured by a band of Shawanoes +who were returning from their autumn hunt on Green River. The Indians +compelled the two white men to show them the location of their camp, +took possession of all it contained in skins and furs and also helped +themselves to the horses. They left the explorers with just enough meat +and ammunition to provide for their journey homeward, and told them to +depart and not to intrude again on the red men's hunting grounds. Having +given this pointed warning, the Shawanoes rode on northward towards +their towns beyond the Ohio. On foot, swiftly and craftily, Boone and +his brother-in-law trailed the band for two days. They came upon the +camp in dead of night, recaptured their horses, and fled. But this was +a game in which the Indians themselves excelled, and at this date the +Shawanoes had an advantage over Boone in their thorough knowledge of the +territory; so that within forty-eight hours the white men were once more +prisoners. After they had amused themselves by making Boone caper +about with a horse bell on his neck, while they jeered at him in broken +English, "Steal horse, eh?" the Shawanoes turned north again, this time +taking the two unfortunate hunters with them. Boone and Stewart escaped, +one day on the march, by a plunge into the thick tall canebrake. Though +the Indians did not attempt to follow them through the mazes of the +cane, the situation of the two hunters, without weapons or food, was +serious enough. When they found Station Camp deserted and realized that +their four companions had given them up for dead or lost and had set off +on the trail for home, even such intrepid souls as theirs may have felt +fear. They raced on in pursuit and fortunately fell in not only with +their party but with Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, and Alexander +Neely, who had brought in fresh supplies of rifles, ammunition, flour, +and horses. + +After this lucky encounter the group separated. Findlay was ill, and +Holden, Mooney, and Cooley had had their fill of Kentucky; but Squire, +Neely, Stewart, and Daniel were ready for more adventures. Daniel, too, +felt under the positive necessity of putting in another year at hunting +and trapping in order to discharge his debts and provide for his family. +Near the mouth of Red River the new party built their station camp. +Here, in idle hours, Neely read aloud from a copy of "Gulliver's +Travels" to entertain the hunters while they dressed their deerskins +or tinkered their weapons. In honor of the "Lorbrulgrud" of the book, +though with a pronunciation all their own, they christened the nearest +creek; and as "Lulbegrud Creek" it is still known. + +Before the end of the winter the two Boones were alone in the +wilderness. Their brother-in-law, Stewart, had disappeared; and Neely, +discouraged by this tragic event, had returned to the Yadkin. In May, +Squire Boone fared forth, taking with him the season's catch of beaver, +otter, and deerskins to exchange in the North Carolinian trading houses +for more supplies; and Daniel was left solitary in Kentucky. + +Now followed those lonely explorations which gave Daniel Boone his +special fame above all Kentucky's pioneers. He was by no means the first +white man to enter Kentucky; and when he did enter, it was as one of +a party, under another man's guidance--if we except his former +disappointing journey into the laurel thickets of Floyd County. But +these others, barring Stewart, who fell there, turned back when they +met with loss and hardship and measured the certain risks against the +possible gains. Boone, the man of imagination, turned to wild earth +as to his kin. His genius lay in the sense of oneness he felt with his +wilderness environment. An instinct he had which these other men, as +courageous perhaps as he, did not possess. + +Never in all the times when he was alone in the woods and had no other +man's safety or counsel to consider, did he suffer ill fortune. The +nearest approach to trouble that befell him when alone occurred one day +during this summer when some Indians emerged from their green shelter +and found him, off guard for the moment, standing on a cliff gazing with +rapture over the vast rolling stretches of Kentucky. He was apparently +cut off from escape, for the savages were on three sides, advancing +without haste to take him, meanwhile greeting him with mock amity. Over +the cliff leaped Boone and into the outspread arms of a friendly maple, +whose top bloomed green about sixty feet below the cliff's rim, and left +his would-be captors on the height above, grunting their amazement. + +During this summer Boone journeyed through the valleys of the Kentucky +and the Licking. He followed the buffalo traces to the two Blue Licks +and saw the enormous herds licking up the salt earth, a darkly ruddy +moving mass of beasts whose numbers could not be counted. For many miles +he wound along the Ohio, as far as the Falls. He also found the Big Bone +Lick with its mammoth fossils. + +In July, 1770, Daniel returned to the Red River camp and there met +Squire Boone with another pack of supplies. The two brothers continued +their hunting and exploration together for some months, chiefly in +Jessamine County, where two caves still bear Boone's name. In that +winter they even braved the Green River ground, whence had come the +hunting Shawanoes who had taken Daniel's first fruits a year before. +In the same year (1770) there had come into Kentucky from the Yadkin +another party of hunters, called, from their lengthy sojourn in +the twilight zone, the Long Hunters. One of these, Gasper Mansker, +afterwards related how the Long Hunters were startled one day by hearing +sounds such as no buffalo or turkey ever made, and how Mansker himself +stole silently under cover of the trees towards the place whence the +strange noises came, and descried Daniel Boone prone on his back with a +deerskin under him, his famous tall black hat beside him and his +mouth opened wide in joyous but apparently none too tuneful song. This +incident gives a true character touch. It is not recorded of any of the +men who turned back that they sang alone in the wilderness. + +In March, 1771, the two Boones started homeward, their horses bearing +the rich harvest of furs and deerskins which was to clear Daniel of debt +and to insure the comfort of the family he had not seen for two years. +But again evil fortune met them, this time in the very gates--for in +the Cumberland Gap they were suddenly surrounded by Indians who took +everything from them, leaving them neither guns nor horses. + + + +Chapter VI. The Fight For Kentucky + +When Boone returned home he found the Back Country of North Carolina in +the throes of the Regulation Movement. This movement, which had arisen +first from the colonists' need to police their settlements, had more +recently assumed a political character. The Regulators were now in +conflict with the authorities, because the frontier folk were suffering +through excessive taxes, extortionate fees, dishonest land titles, +and the corruption of the courts. In May, 1771, the conflict lost its +quasi-civil nature. The Regulators resorted to arms and were defeated by +the forces under Governor Tryon in the Battle of the Alamance. + +The Regulation Movement, which we shall follow in more detail further +on, was a culmination of those causes of unrest which turned men +westward. To escape from oppression and to acquire land beyond the +bounds of tyranny became the earnest desire of independent spirits +throughout the Back Country. But there was another and more potent +reason why the country east of the mountains no longer contented Boone. +Hunting and trapping were Boone's chief means of livelihood. In those +days, deerskins sold for a dollar a skin to the traders at the Forks or +in Hillsborough; beaver at about two dollars and a half, and otter +at from three to five dollars. A pack-horse could carry a load of +one hundred dressed deerskins, and, as currency was scarce, a hundred +dollars was wealth. Game was fast disappearing from the Yadkin. To Boone +above all men, then, Kentucky beckoned. When he returned in the spring +of 1771 from his explorations, it was with the resolve to take his +family at once into the great game country and to persuade some of his +friends to join in this hazard of new fortunes. + +The perils of such a venture, only conjectural to us at this distance, +he knew well; but in him there was nothing that shrank from danger, +though he did not court it after the rash manner of many of his +compeers. Neither reckless nor riotous, Boone was never found among +those who opposed violence to authority, even unjust authority; nor +was he ever guilty of the savagery which characterized much of the +retaliatory warfare of that period when frenzied white men bettered the +red man's instruction. In him, courage was illumined with tenderness and +made equable by self-control. Yet, though he was no fiery zealot like +the Ulstermen who were to follow him along the path he had made and +who loved and revered him perhaps because he was so different from +themselves, Boone nevertheless had his own religion. It was a simple +faith best summed up perhaps by himself in his old age when he said that +he had been only an instrument in the hand of God to open the wilderness +to settlement. + +Two years passed before Boone could muster a company of colonists for +the dangerous and delectable land. The dishonesty practiced by Lord +Granville's agents in the matter of deeds had made it difficult for +Daniel and his friends to dispose of their acreage. When at last in +the spring of 1773 the Wanderer was prepared to depart, he was again +delayed; this time by the arrival of a little son to whom was given the +name of John. By September, however, even this latest addition to the +party was ready for travel; and that month saw the Boones with a small +caravan of families journeying towards Powell's Valley, whence the +Warrior's Path took its way through Cumberland Gap. At this point on the +march they were to be joined by William Russell, a famous pioneer, from +the Clinch River, with his family and a few neighbors, and by some +of Rebecca Boone's kinsmen, the Bryans, from the lower Yadkin, with a +company of forty men. + +Of Rebecca Boone history tells us too little--only that she was born a +Bryan, was of low stature and dark eyed, that she bore her husband +ten children, and lived beside him to old age. Except on his hunts and +explorations, she went with him from one cabined home to another, always +deeper into the wilds. There are no portraits of her. We can see her +only as a shadowy figure moving along the wilderness trails beside the +man who accepted his destiny of God to be a way-shower for those of +lesser faith. + +"He tires not forever on his leagues of march Because her feet are set +to his footprints, And the gleam of her bare hand slants across his +shoulder." + +Boone halted his company on Walden Mountain over Powell's Valley to +await the Bryan contingent and dispatched two young men under the +leadership of his son James, then in his seventeenth year, to notify +Russell of the party's arrival. As the boys were returning with +Russell's son, also a stripling, two of his slaves, and some white +laborers, they missed the path and went into camp for the night. When +dawn broke, disclosing the sleepers, a small war band of Shawanoes, who +had been spying on Boone and his party, fell upon them and slaughtered +them. Only one of Russell's slaves and a laborer escaped. The tragedy +seems augmented by the fact that the point where the boys lost the +trail and made their night quarters was hardly three miles from the main +camp--to which an hour later came the two survivors with their gloomy +tidings. Terror now took hold of the little band of emigrants, and +there were loud outcries for turning back. The Bryans, who had arrived +meanwhile, also advised retreat, saying that the "signs" about the scene +of blood indicated an Indian uprising. Daniel carried the scalped body +of his son, the boy-comrade of his happy hunts, to the camp and buried +it there at the beginning of the trail. His voice alone urged that they +go on. + +Fortunately indeed, as events turned out, Boone was overruled, and the +expedition was abandoned. The Bryan party and the others from North +Carolina went back to the Yadkin. Boone himself with his family +accompanied Russell to the Clinch settlement, where he erected a +temporary cabin on the farm of one of the settlers, and then set out +alone on the chase to earn provision for his wife and children through +the winter. + + +Those who prophesied an Indian war were not mistaken. When the snowy +hunting season had passed and the "Powwowing Days" were come, the Indian +war drum rattled in the medicine house from the borders of Pennsylvania +to those of Carolina. The causes of the strife for which the red men +were making ready must be briefly noted to help us form a just opinion +of the deeds that followed. Early writers have usually represented the +frontiersmen as saints in buckskin and the Indians as fiends without +the shadow of a claim on either the land or humanity. Many later writers +have merely reversed the shield. The truth is that the Indians and the +borderers reacted upon each other to the hurt of both. Paradoxically, +they grew like enough to hate one another with a savage hatred--and both +wanted the land. + +Land! Land! was the slogan of all sorts and conditions of men. Tidewater +officials held solemn powwows with the chiefs, gave wampum strings, and +forthwith incorporated. * Chiefs blessed their white brothers who +had "forever brightened the chain of friendship," departed home, and +proceeded to brighten the blades of their tomahawks and to await, not +long, the opportunity to use them on casual hunters who carried in their +kits the compass, the "land-stealer." Usually the surveying hunter was +a borderer; and on him the tomahawk descended with an accelerated gusto. +Private citizens also formed land companies and sent out surveyors, +regardless of treaties. Bold frontiersmen went into No Man's Land and +staked out their claims. In the very year when disaster turned the Boone +party back, James Harrod had entered Kentucky from Pennsylvania and had +marked the site of a settlement. + + + * The activities of the great land companies are described in +Alvord's exhaustive work, "The Mississippi Valley in British Politics." + + +Ten years earlier (1763), the King had issued the famous and much +misunderstood Proclamation restricting his "loving subjects" from the +lands west of the mountains. The colonists interpreted this document as +a tyrannous curtailment of their liberties for the benefit of the fur +trade. We know now that the portion of this Proclamation relating to +western settlement was a wise provision designed to protect the settlers +on the frontier by allaying the suspicions of the Indians, who viewed +with apprehension the triumphal occupation of that vast territory from +Canada to the Gulf of Mexico by the colonizing English. By seeking to +compel all land purchase to be made through the Crown, it was designed +likewise to protect the Indians from "whisky purchase," and to make +impossible the transfer of their lands except with consent of the Indian +Council, or full quota of headmen, whose joint action alone conveyed +what the tribes considered to be legal title. Sales made according to +this form, Sir William Johnson declared to the Lords of Trade, he had +never known to be repudiated by the Indians. This paragraph of the +Proclamation was in substance an embodiment of Johnson's suggestions to +the Lords of Trade. Its purpose was square dealing and pacification; and +shrewd men such as Washington recognized that it was not intended as a +final check to expansion. "A temporary expedient to quiet the minds of +the Indians," Washington called it, and then himself went out along the +Great Kanawha and into Kentucky, surveying land. + +It will be asked what had become of the Ohio Company of Virginia and +that fort at the Forks of the Ohio; once a bone of contention between +France and England. Fort Pitt, as it was now called, had fallen foul of +another dispute, this time between Virginia and Pennsylvania. Virginia +claimed that the far western corner of her boundary ascended just far +enough north to take in Fort Pitt. Pennsylvania asserted that it did +nothing of the sort. The Ohio Company had meanwhile been merged into the +Walpole Company. George Croghan, at Fort Pitt, was the Company's agent +and as such was accused by Pennsylvania of favoring from ulterior +motives the claims of Virginia. Hotheads in both colonies asseverated +that the Indians were secretly being stirred up in connection with the +boundary disputes. If it does not very clearly appear how an Indian +rising would have settled the ownership of Fort Pitt, it is evident +enough where the interests of Virginia and Pennsylvania clashed. +Virginia wanted land for settlement and speculation; Pennsylvania wanted +the Indians left in possession for the benefit of the fur trade. So far +from stirring up the Indians, as his enemies declared, Croghan was as +usual giving away all his substance to keep them quiet. * Indeed, during +this summer of 1774, eleven hundred Indians were encamped about Fort +Pitt visiting him. + + + * The suspicion that Croghan and Lord Dunmore, the Governor of +Virginia, were instigating the war appears to have arisen out of the +conduct of Dr. John Connolly, Dunmore's agent and Croghan's nephew. +Croghan had induced the Shawanoes to bring under escort to Fort Pitt +certain English traders resident in the Indian towns. The escort was +fired on by militiamen under command of Connolly, who also issued a +proclamation declaring a state of war to exist. Connolly, however, +probably acted on his own initiative. He was interested in land on his +own behalf and was by no means the only man at that time who was +ready to commit outrages on Indians in order to obtain it. As Croghan +lamented, there was "too great a spirit in the frontier people for +killing Indians." + + +Two hundred thousand acres in the West--Kentucky and West Virginia--had +been promised to the colonial officers and soldiers who fought in +the Seven Years' War. But after making the Proclamation the British +Government had delayed issuing the patents. Washington interested +himself in trying to secure them; and Lord Dunmore, who also had caught +the "land-fever," * prodded the British authorities but won only rebuke +for his inconvenient activities. Insistent, however, Dunmore sent out +parties of surveyors to fix the bounds of the soldiers' claims. James +Harrod, Captain Thomas Bullitt, Hancock Taylor, and three McAfee +brothers entered Kentucky, by the Ohio, under Dunmore's orders. John +Floyd went in by the Kanawha as Washington's agent. A bird's-eye view of +that period would disclose to us very few indeed of His Majesty's loving +subjects who were paying any attention to his proclamation. Early in +1774, Harrod began the building of cabins and a fort, and planted corn +on the site of Harrodsburg. Thus to him and not to Boone fell the honor +of founding the first permanent white settlement in Kentucky. + + + * See Alvord, "The Mississippi Valley in British Politics," vol. +II, pp. 191-94. + + +When summer came, its thick verdure proffering ambuscade, the air +hung tense along the border. Traders had sent in word that Shawanoes, +Delawares, Mingos, Wyandots, and Cherokees were refusing all other +exchange than rifles, ammunition, knives, and hatchets. White men were +shot down in their fields from ambush. Dead Indians lay among their own +young corn, their scalp locks taken. There were men of both races who +wanted war and meant to have it--and with it the land. + +Lord Dunmore, the Governor, resolved that, if war were inevitable, it +should be fought out in the Indian country. With this intent, he wrote +to Colonel Andrew Lewis of Botetourt County, Commander of the Southwest +Militia, instructing him to raise a respectable body of troops and "join +me either at the mouth of the Great Kanawha or Wheeling, or such other +part of the Ohio as may be most convenient for you to meet me." The +Governor himself with a force of twelve hundred proceeded to Fort Pitt, +where Croghan, as we have seen, was extending his hospitality to eleven +hundred warriors from the disaffected tribes. + +On receipt of the Governor's letter, Andrew Lewis sent out expresses to +his brother Colonel Charles Lewis, County Lieutenant of Augusta, and to +Colonel William Preston, County Lieutenant of Fincastle, to raise +men and bring them with all speed to the rendezvous at Camp Union +(Lewisburg) on the Big Levels of the Greenbrier (West Virginia). +Andrew Lewis summoned these officers to an expedition for "reducing our +inveterate enemies to reason." Preston called for volunteers to take +advantage of "the opportunity we have so long wished for... this useless +People may now at last be oblidged to abandon their country." These men +were among not only the bravest but the best of their time; but this +was their view of the Indian and his alleged rights. To eliminate this +"useless people," inveterate enemies of the white race, was, as they saw +it, a political necessity and a religious duty. And we today who profit +by their deeds dare not condemn them. + +Fervor less solemn was aroused in other quarters by Dunmore's call to +arms. At Wheeling, some eighty or ninety young adventurers, in charge +of Captain Michael Cresap of Maryland, were waiting for the freshets to +sweep them down the Ohio into Kentucky. When the news reached them, they +greeted it with the wild monotone chant and the ceremonies preliminary +to Indian warfare. They planted the war pole, stripped and painted +themselves, and starting the war dance called on Cresap to be their +"white leader." The captain, however, declined; but in that wild +circling line was one who was a white leader indeed. He was a +sandy-haired boy of twenty--one of the bold race of English Virginians, +rugged and of fiery countenance, with blue eyes intense of glance +and deep set under a high brow that, while modeled for power, seemed +threatened in its promise by the too sensitive chiseling of his lips. +With every nerve straining for the fray, with thudding of feet and +crooning of the blood song, he wheeled with those other mad spirits +round the war pole till the set of sun closed the rites. "That evening +two scalps were brought into camp," so a letter of his reads. Does the +bold savage color of this picture affright us? Would we veil it? Then +we should lose something of the true lineaments of George Rogers Clark, +who, within four short years, was to lead a tiny army of tattered and +starving backwoodsmen, ashamed to quail where he never flinched, through +barrens and icy floods to the conquest of Illinois for the United +States. + +Though Cresap had rejected the role of "white leader," he did not escape +the touch of infamy. "Cresap's War" was the name the Indians gave to +the bloody encounters between small parties of whites and Indians, which +followed on that war dance and scalping, during the summer months. One +of these encounters must be detailed here because history has assigned +it as the immediate cause of Dunmore's War. + +Greathouse, Sapperton, and King, three traders who had a post on Yellow +Creek, a tributary of the Ohio fifty miles below Pittsburgh, invited +several Indians from across the stream to come and drink with them and +their friends. Among the Indians were two or three men of importance in +the Mingo tribe. There were also some women, one of whom was the Indian +wife of Colonel John Gibson, an educated man who had distinguished +himself as a soldier with Forbes in 1768. That the Indians came in amity +and apprehended no treachery was proved by the presence of the women. +Gibson's wife carried her halfcaste baby in her shawl. The disreputable +traders plied their guests with drink to the point of intoxication and +then murdered them. King shot the first man and, when he fell, cut his +throat, saying that he had served many a deer in that fashion. Gibson's +Indian wife fled and was shot down in the clearing. A man followed to +dispatch her and her baby. She held the child up to him pleading, with +her last breath, that he would spare it because it was not Indian but +"one of yours." The mother dead, the child was later sent to Gibson. +Twelve Indians in all were killed. + +Meanwhile Croghan had persuaded the Iroquois to peace. With the help of +David Zeisberger, the Moravian missionary, and White Eyes, a Delaware +chief, he and Dunmore had won over the Delaware warriors. In the +Cherokee councils, Oconostota demanded that the treaty of peace +signed in 1761 be kept. The Shawanoes, however, led by Cornstalk, were +implacable; and they had as allies the Ottawas and Mingos, who had +entered the council with them. + +A famous chief of the day and one of great influence over the Indians, +and also among the white officials who dealt with Indian affairs, was +Tachnech-dor-us, or Branching Oak of the Forest, a Mingo who had taken +the name of Logan out of compliment to James Logan of Pennsylvania. +Chief Logan had recently met with so much reproach from his red brothers +for his loyalty to the whites that he had departed from the Mingo town +at Yellow Creek. But, learning that his tribe had determined to assist +the Shawanoes and had already taken some white scalps, he repaired to +the place where the Mingos were holding their war council to exert his +powers for peace. There, in presence of the warriors, after swaying +them from their purpose by those oratorical gifts which gave him his +influence and his renown, he took the war hatchet that had already +killed, and buried it in proof that vengeance was appeased. Upon this +scene there entered a Mingo from Yellow Creek with the news of the +murders committed there by the three traders. The Indian whose throat +had been slit as King had served deer was Logan's brother. Another man +slain was his kinsman. The woman with the baby was his sister. Logan +tore up from the earth the bloody tomahawk and, raising it above his +head, swore that he would not rest till he had taken ten white lives to +pay for each one of his kin. Again the Mingo warriors declared for war +and this time were not dissuaded. But Logan did not join this red army. +He went out alone to wreak his vengeance, slaying and scalping. + + +Meanwhile Dunmore prepared to push the war with the utmost vigor. His +first concern was to recall the surveying parties from Kentucky, and for +so hazardous an errand he needed the services of a man whose endurance, +speed, and woodcraft were equal to those of any Indian scout afoot. +Through Colonel Preston, his orders were conveyed to Daniel Boone, for +Boone's fame had now spread from the border to the tidewater regions. It +was stated that "Boone would lose no time," and "if they are alive, it +is indisputable but Boone must find them." + +So Boone set out in company with Michael Stoner, another expert +woodsman. His general instructions were to go down the Kentucky River +to Preston's Salt Lick and across country to the Falls of the Ohio, and +thence home by Gaspar's Lick on the Cumberland River. Indian war parties +were moving under cover across "the Dark and Bloody Ground" to surround +the various groups of surveyors still at large and to exterminate +them. Boone made his journey successfully. He found John Floyd, who was +surveying for Washington; he sped up to where Harrod and his band were +building cabins and sent them out, just in time as it happened; he +reached all the outposts of Thomas Bullitt's party, only one of whom +fell a victim to the foe *; and, undetected by the Indians, he brought +himself and Stoner home in safety, after covering eight hundred miles in +sixty-one days. + + + * Hancock Taylor, who delayed in getting out of the country and +was cut off. + + +Harrod and his homesteaders immediately enlisted in the army. How eager +Boone was to go with the forces under Lewis is seen in the official +correspondence relative to Dunmore's War. Floyd wanted Boone's help in +raising a company: "Captain Bledsoe says that Boone has more [influence] +than any man now disengaged; and you know what Boone has done for +me... for which reason I love the man." Even the border, it would seem, +had its species of pacifists who were willing to let others take risks +for them, for men hung back from recruiting, and desertions were the +order of the day. Major Arthur Campbell hit upon a solution of the +difficulties in West Fincastle. He was convinced that Boone could raise +a company and hold the men loyal. And Boone did. + +For some reason, however, Daniel's desire to march with the army was +denied. Perhaps it was because just such a man as he--and, indeed, there +was no other--was needed to guard the settlement. Presently he was +put in command of Moore's Fort in Clinch Valley, and his "diligence" +received official approbation. A little later the inhabitants of the +valley sent out a petition to have Boone made a "captain" and given +supreme command of the lower forts. The settlers demanded Boone's +promotion for their own security. + +"The land it is good, it is just to our mind, Each will have his part if +his Lordship be kind, The Ohio once ours, we'll live at our ease, With a +bottle and glass to drink when we please." + +So sang the army poet, thus giving voice, as bards should ever do, +to the theme nearest the hearts of his hearers--in this case, Land! +Presumably his ditty was composed on the eve of the march from +Lewisburg, for it is found in a soldier's diary. + +On the evening of October 9,1774, Andrew Lewis with his force of eleven +hundred frontiersmen was encamped on Point Pleasant at the junction of +the Great Kanawha with the Ohio. Dunmore in the meantime had led +his forces into Ohio and had erected Fort Gower at the mouth of the +Hockhocking River, where he waited for word from Andrew Lewis. * + + + * It has been customary to ascribe to Lord Dunmore motives of +treachery in failing to make connections with Lewis; but no real +evidence has been advanced to support any of the charges made against +him by local historians. The charges were, as Theodore Roosevelt says, +"an afterthought." Dunmore was a King's man in the Revolution; and yet +in March, 1775, the Convention of the Colony of Virginia, assembled in +opposition to the royal party, resolved: "The most cordial thanks of the +people of this colony are a tribute justly due to our worthy Governor +Lord Dunmore, for his truly noble, wise, and spirited conduct which at +once evinces his Excellency's attention to the true interests of this +colony, and a real in the executive department which no dangers can +divert, or difficulties hinder, from achieving the most important +services to the people who have the happiness to live under his +administration." (See "American Archives," Fourth Series, vol. II, p. +170.) Similar resolutions were passed by his officers on the march home +from Ohio; at the same time, the officers passed resolutions in sympathy +with the American cause. Yet it was Andrew Lewis who later drove Dunmore +from Virginia. Well might Dunmore exclaim, "That it should ever come to +this!" + + +The movements of the two armies were being observed by scouts from the +force of red warriors gathered in Ohio under the great leader of the +Shawanoes. Cornstalk purposed to isolate the two armies of his enemy and +to crush them in turn before they could come together. His first move +was to launch an attack on Lewis at Point Pleasant. In the dark of +night, Cornstalk's Indians crossed the Ohio on rafts, intending to +surprise the white man's camp at dawn. They would have succeeded but for +the chance that three or four of the frontiersmen, who had risen before +daybreak to hunt, came upon the Indians creeping towards the camp. Shots +were exchanged. An Indian and a white man dropped. The firing roused +the camp. Three hundred men in two lines under Charles Lewis and William +Fleming sallied forth expecting to engage the vanguard of the enemy but +encountered almost the whole force of from eight hundred to a thousand +Indians before the rest of the army could come into action. Both +officers were wounded, Charles Lewis fatally. The battle, which +continued from dawn until an hour before sunset, was the bloodiest in +Virginia's long series of Indian wars. The frontiersmen fought as such +men ever fought--with the daring, bravery, swiftness of attack, and +skill in taking cover which were the tactics of their day, even as at +a later time many of these same men fought at King's Mountain and +in Illinois the battles that did so much to turn the tide in the +Revolution. * + + + * With Andrew Lewis on this day were Isaac Shelby and William +Campbell, the victorious leaders at King's Mountain, James Robertson, +the "father of Tennessee," Valentine Sevier, Daniel Morgan, hero of the +Cowpens, Major Arthur Campbell, Benjamin Logan, Anthony Bledsoe, and +Simon Kenton. With Dunmore's force were Adam Stephen, who distinguished +himself at the Brandywine, George Rogers Clark, John Stuart, already +noted through the Cherokee wars, and John Montgomery, later one +of Clark's four captains in Illinois. The two last mentioned were +Highlanders. Clark's Illinois force was largely recruited from the +troops who fought at Point Pleasant. + + +Colonel Preston wrote to Patrick Henry that the enemy behaved with +"inconceivable bravery," the head men walking about in the time of +action exhorting their men to "lie close, shoot well, be strong, +and fight." The Shawanoes ran up to the muzzles of the English guns, +disputing every foot of ground. Both sides knew well what they were +fighting for--the rich land held in a semicircle by the Beautiful River. + +Shortly before sundown the Indians, mistaking a flank movement by +Shelby's contingent for the arrival of reinforcements, retreated across +the Ohio. Many of their most noted warriors had fallen and among them +the Shawano chief, Puck-e-shin-wa, father of a famous son, Tecumseh. * +Yet they were unwilling to accept defeat. When they heard that Dunmore +was now marching overland to cut them off from their towns, their fury +blazed anew. "Shall we first kill all our women and children and then +fight till we ourselves are slain?" Cornstalk, in irony, demanded of +them; "No? Then I will go and make peace." + + + * Thwaites, "Documentary History of Dunmore's War." + + +By the treaty compacted between the chiefs and Lord Dunmore, the Indians +gave up all claim to the lands south of the Ohio, even for hunting, +and agreed to allow boats to pass unmolested. In this treaty the Mingos +refused to join, and a detachment of Dunmore's troops made a punitive +expedition to their towns. Some discord arose between Dunmore and +Lewis's frontier forces because, since the Shawanoes had made peace, the +Governor would not allow the frontiersmen to destroy the Shawano towns. + +Of all the chiefs, Logan alone still held aloof. Major Gibson undertook +to fetch him, but Logan refused to come to the treaty grounds. He sent +by Gibson the short speech which has lived as an example of the best +Indian oratory: + +"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin +hungry and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked and +he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, +Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my +love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed and said, +'Logan is the friend of the white men.' I had even thought to have +lived with you but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the +last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of +Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There remains not a drop +of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for +revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my +vengeance: for my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not +harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. +He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for +Logan? Not one." * + + + * Some writers have questioned the authenticity of Logan's +speech, inclining to think that Gibson himself composed it, partly +because of the biblical suggestion in the first few lines. That Gibson +gave biblical phraseology to these lines is apparent, though, as Adair +points out there are many examples of similitude in Indian and biblical +expression. But the thought is Indian and relates to the first article +of the Indian's creed, namely, to share his food with the needy. "There +remains not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature" is +a truly Indian lament. Evidently the final four lines of the speech are +the most literally translated, for they have the form and the primitive +rhythmic beat which a student of Indian poetry quickly recognizes. The +authenticity of the speech, as well as the innocence of Cresap, whom +Logan mistakenly accused, was vouched for by George Rogers Clark in a +letter to Dr. Samuel Brown dated June 17, 1798. See Jefferson papers, +Series 6, quoted by English, "Conquest of the Country Northwest of the +River Ohio." vol. II. p. 1029. + + +By rivers and trails, in large and small companies, started home the +army that had won the land. The West Fincastle troops, from the lower +settlements of the Clinch and Holston valleys, were to return by the +Kentucky River, while those from the upper valley would take the shorter +way up Sandy Creek. To keep them in provisions during the journey it was +ordered that hunters be sent out along these routes to kill and barbecue +meat and place it on scaffolds at appropriate spots. + +The way home by the Kentucky was a long road for weary and wounded men +with hunger gnawing under their belts. We know who swung out along the +trail to provide for that little band, "dressed in deerskins colored +black, and his hair plaited and bobbed up." It was Daniel Boone--now, by +popular demand, Captain Boone--just "discharged from Service," since the +valley forts needed him no longer. Once more only a hunter, he went his +way over Walden Mountain--past his son's grave marking the place where +HE had been turned back--to serve the men who had opened the gates. + + + +Chapter VII. The Dark And Bloody Ground + +With the coming of spring Daniel Boone's desire, so long cherished and +deferred, to make a way for his neighbors through the wilderness was to +be fulfilled at last. But ere his ax could slash the thickets from the +homeseekers' path, more than two hundred settlers had entered +Kentucky by the northern waterways. Eighty or more of these settled at +Harrodsburg, where Harrod was laying out his town on a generous plan, +with "in-lots" of half an acre and "out-lots" of larger size. Among +those associated with Harrod was George Rogers Clark, who had surveyed +claims for himself during the year before the war. + +While over two hundred colonists were picking out home sites wherever +their pleasure or prudence dictated, a gigantic land promotion +scheme--involving the very tracts where they were sowing their first +corn--was being set afoot in North Carolina by a body of men who figure +in the early history of Kentucky as the Transylvania Company. The leader +of this organization was Judge Richard Henderson. * Judge Henderson +dreamed a big dream. His castle in the air had imperial proportions. +He resolved, in short, to purchase from the Cherokee Indians the larger +part of Kentucky and to establish there a colony after the manner and +the economic form of the English Lords Proprietors, whose day in America +was so nearly done. Though in the light of history the plan loses none +of its dramatic features, it shows the practical defects that must +surely have prevented its realization. Like many another Caesar +hungering for empire and staking all to win it, the prospective lord +of Kentucky, as we shall see, had left the human equation out of his +calculations. + + + * Richard Henderson (1734-1785) was the son of the High Sheriff +of Granville County. At first an assistant to his father, he studied +law and soon achieved a reputation by the brilliance of his mind and the +magnetism of his personality. As presiding Judge at Hillsborough he had +come into conflict with the violent element among the Regulators, who +had driven him from the court and burned his house and barns. For some +time prior to his elevation to the bench, he had been engaged in land +speculations. One of Boone's biographers suggests that Boone may have +been secretly acting as Henderson's agent during his first lonely +explorations of Kentucky. However this may be, it does not appear +that Boone and his Yadkin neighbors were acting with Henderson when +in September, 1773, they made their first attempt to enter Kentucky as +settlers. + + +Richard Henderson had known Daniel Boone on the Yadkin; and it was +Boone's detailed reports of the marvelous richness and beauty of +Kentucky which had inspired him to formulate his gigantic scheme and had +enabled him also to win to his support several men of prominence in +the Back Country. To sound the Cherokees regarding the purchase and to +arrange, if possible, for a conference, Henderson dispatched Boone to +the Indian towns in the early days of 1775. + +Since we have just learned that Dunmore's War compelled the Shawanoes +and their allies to relinquish their right to Kentucky, that, both +before and after that event, government surveyors were in the territory +surveying for the soldiers' claims, and that private individuals had +already laid out town sites and staked holdings, it may be asked what +right of ownership the Cherokees possessed in Kentucky, that Henderson +desired to purchase it of them. The Indian title to Kentucky seems to +have been hardly less vague to the red men than it was to the whites. +Several of the nations had laid claim to the territory. As late as 1753, +it will be remembered, the Shawanoes had occupied a town at Blue Licks, +for John Findlay had been taken there by some of them. But, before +Findlay guided Boone through the Gap in 1769, the Shawanoes had been +driven out by the Iroquois, who claimed suzerainty over them as well +as over the Cherokees. In 1768, the Iroquois had ceded Kentucky to the +British Crown by the treaty of Fort Stanwix; whereupon the Cherokees had +protested so vociferously that the Crown's Indian agent, to quiet them, +had signed a collateral agreement with them. Though claimed by many, +Kentucky was by common consent not inhabited by any of the tribes. +It was the great Middle Ground where the Indians hunted. It was the +Warriors' Path over which they rode from north and south to slaughter +and where many of their fiercest encounters took place. However shadowy +the title which Henderson purposed to buy, there was one all-sufficing +reason why he must come to terms with the Cherokees: their northernmost +towns in Tennessee lay only fifty or sixty miles below Cumberland Gap +and hence commanded the route over which he must lead colonists into his +empire beyond the hills. + +The conference took place early in March, 1775, at the Sycamore Shoals +of the Watauga River. Twelve hundred Indians, led by their "town +chiefs"--among whom were the old warrior and the old statesman of their +nation, Oconostota and Attakullakulla--came to the treaty grounds and +were received by Henderson and his associates and several hundred white +men who were eager for a chance to settle on new lands. Though Boone was +now on his way into Kentucky for the Transylvania Company, other border +leaders of renown or with their fame still to win were present, and +among them James Robertson, of serious mien, and that blond gay knight +in buckskin, John Sevier. + +It is a dramatic picture we evolve for ourselves from the meager +narratives of this event--a mass of painted Indians moving through the +sycamores by the bright water, to come presently into a tense, immobile +semicircle before the large group of armed frontiersmen seated or +standing about Richard Henderson, the man with the imperial dream, the +ready speaker whose flashing eyes and glowing oratory won the hearts +of all who came under their sway. What though the Cherokee title be a +flimsy one at best and the price offered for it a bagatelle! The spirit +of Forward March! is there in that great canvas framed by forest and +sky. The somber note that tones its lustrous color, as by a sweep of the +brush, is the figure of the Chickamaugan chief, Dragging Canoe, warrior +and seer and hater of white men, who urges his tribesmen against the +sale and, when they will not hearken, springs from their midst into the +clear space before Henderson and his band of pioneers and, pointing with +uplifted arm, warns them that a dark cloud hangs over the land the white +man covets which to the red man has long been a bloody ground. * + + + * This utterance of Dragging Canoe's is generally supposed to be +the origin of the descriptive phrase applied to Kentucky--"the Dark and +Bloody Ground." See Roosevelt, "The Winning of the West," vol. I, p.229. + + +The purchase, finally consummated, included the country lying between +the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers almost all the present State of +Kentucky, with the adjacent land watered by the Cumberland River and its +tributaries, except certain lands previously leased by the Indians to +the Watauga Colony. The tract comprised about twenty million acres and +extended into Tennessee. + +Daniel Boone's work was to cut out a road for the wagons of the +Transylvania Company's colonists to pass over. This was to be done by +slashing away the briers and underbrush hedging the narrow Warriors' +Path that made a direct northward line from Cumberland Gap to the +Ohio bank, opposite the mouth of the Scioto River. Just prior to the +conference Boone and "thirty guns" had set forth from the Holston to +prepare the road and to build a fort on whatever site he should select. + +By April, Henderson and his first group of tenants were on the trail. In +Powell's Valley they came up with a party of Virginians Kentucky bound, +led by Benjamin Logan; and the two bands joined together for the march. +They had not gone far when they heard disquieting news. After leaving +Martin's Station, at the gates of his new domain, Henderson received a +letter from Boone telling of an attack by Indians, in which two of his +men had been killed, but "we stood on the ground and guarded our baggage +till the day and lost nothing." * These tidings, indicating that despite +treaties and sales, the savages were again on the warpath, might well +alarm Henderson's colonists. While they halted, some indecisive, others +frankly for retreat, there appeared a company of men making all haste +out of Kentucky because of Indian unrest. Six of these Henderson +persuaded to turn again and go in with him; but this addition hardly +offset the loss of those members of his party who thought it too +perilous to proceed. Henderson's own courage did not falter. He had +staked his all on this stupendous venture and for him it was forward +to wealth and glory or retreat into poverty and eclipse. Boone, in the +heart of the danger, was making the same stand. "If we give way to them +[the Indians] now," he wrote, "it will ever be the case." + + + * Bogart, "Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky." p. 121. + + +Signs of discord other than Indian opposition met Henderson as he +resolutely pushed on. His conversations with some of the fugitives from +Kentucky disclosed the first indications of the storm that was to blow +away the empire he was going in to found. He told them that the claims +they had staked in Kentucky would not hold good with the Transylvania +Company. Whereupon James McAfee, who was leading a group of returning +men, stated his opinion that the Transylvania Company's claim would not +hold good with Virginia. After the parley, three of McAfee's brothers +turned back and went with Henderson's party, but whether with intent +to join his colony or to make good their own claims is not apparent. +Benjamin Logan continued amicably with Henderson on the march but +did not recognize him as Lord Proprietor of Kentucky. He left the +Transylvania caravan shortly after entering the territory, branched off +in the direction of Harrodsburg, and founded St. Asaph's Station, in the +present Lincoln County, independently of Henderson though the site lay +within Henderson's purchase. + +Notwithstanding delays and apprehensions, Henderson and his +colonists finally reached Boone's Fort, which Daniel and his "thirty +guns"--lacking two since the Indian encounter--had erected at the mouth +of Otter Creek. + +An attractive buoyancy of temperament is revealed in Henderson's +description in his journal of a giant elm with tall straight trunk and +even foliage that shaded a space of one hundred feet. Instantly he chose +this "divine elm" as the council chamber of Transylvania. Under its +leafage he read the constitution of the new colony. It would be too +great a stretch of fancy to call it a democratic document, for it was +not that, except in deft phrases. Power was certainly declared to be +vested in the people; but the substance of power remained in the hands +of the Proprietors. + +Terms for land grants were generous enough in the beginning, although +Henderson made the fatal mistake of demanding quitrents--one of the +causes of dissatisfaction which had led to the Regulators' rising +in North Carolina. In September he augmented this error by more +than doubling the price of land, adding a fee of eight shillings for +surveying, and reserving to the Proprietors one-half of all gold, +silver, lead, and sulphur found on the land. No land near sulphur +springs or showing evidences of metals was to be granted to settlers. +Moreover, at the Company's store the prices charged for lead were said +to be too high--lead being necessary for hunting, and hunting being the +only means of procuring food--while the wages of labor, as fixed by the +Company, were too low. These terms bore too heavily on poor men who were +risking their lives in the colony. + +Hence newcomers passed by Boonesborough, as the Transylvania settlement +was presently called, and went elsewhere. They settled on Henderson's +land but refused his terms. They joined in their sympathies with James +Harrod, who, having established Harrodsburg in the previous year at the +invitation of Virginia, was not in the humor to acknowledge Henderson's +claim or to pay him tribute. All were willing to combine with the +Transylvania Company for defense, and to enforce law they would unite +in bonds of brotherhood in Kentucky, even as they had been one with each +other on the earlier frontier now left behind them. But they would call +no man master; they had done with feudalism. That Henderson should not +have foreseen this, especially after the upheaval in North Carolina, +proves him, in spite of all his brilliant gifts, to have been a man out +of touch with the spirit of the time. + +The war of the Revolution broke forth and the Indians descended upon the +Kentucky stations. Defense was the one problem in all minds, and defense +required powder and lead in plenty. The Transylvania Company was not +able to provide the means of defense against the hordes of savages whom +Henry Hamilton, the British Governor at Detroit, was sending to make +war on the frontiers. Practical men like Harrod and George Rogers +Clark--who, if not a practical man in his own interests, was a most +practical soldier--saw that unification of interests within the +territory with the backing of either Virginia or Congress was necessary. +Clark personally would have preferred to see the settlers combine as +a freemen's state. It was plain that they would not combine and +stake their lives as a unit to hold Kentucky for the benefit of the +Transylvania Company, whose authority some of the most prominent men in +the territory had refused to recognize. The Proprietary of Transylvania +could continue to exist only to the danger of every life in Kentucky. + +While the Proprietors sent a delegate to the Continental Congress to win +official recognition for Transylvania, eighty-four men at Harrodsburg +drew up a petition addressed to Virginia stating their doubts of the +legality of Henderson's title and requesting Virginia to assert her +authority according to the stipulations of her charter. That defense was +the primary and essential motive of the Harrodsburg Remonstrance seems +plain, for when George Rogers Clark set off on foot with one companion +to lay the document before the Virginian authorities, he also went to +plead for a load of powder. In his account of that hazardous journey, +as a matter of fact, he makes scant reference to Transylvania, except to +say that the greed of the Proprietors would soon bring the colony to its +end, but shows that his mind was seldom off the powder. It is a detail +of history that the Continental Congress refused to seat the delegate +from Transylvania. Henderson himself went to Virginia to make the fight +for his land before the Assembly. * + + + * In 1778 Virginia disallowed Henderson's title but granted him +two hundred thousand acres between the Green and Kentucky rivers for his +trouble and expense in opening up the country. + + +The magnetic center of Boonesborough's life was the lovable and +unassuming Daniel Boone. Soon after the building of the fort Daniel had +brought in his wife and family. He used often to state with a mild pride +that his wife and daughters were the first white women to stand on +the banks of the Kentucky River. That pride had not been unmixed with +anxiety; his daughter Jemima and two daughters of his friend, Richard +Galloway, while boating on the river had been captured by Shawanoes and +carried off. Boone, accompanied by the girls' lovers and by John Floyd +(eager to repay his debt of life-saving to Boone) had pursued them, +tracing the way the captors had taken by broken twigs and scraps of +dress goods which one of the girls had contrived to leave in their path, +had come on the Indians unawares, killed them, and recovered the three +girls unhurt. + +In the summer of 1776, Virginia took official note of "Captain Boone of +Boonesborough," for she sent him a small supply of powder. The men +of the little colony, which had begun so pretentiously with its +constitution and assembly, were now obliged to put all other plans aside +and to concentrate on the question of food and defense. There was a +dangerous scarcity of powder and lead. The nearest points at which +these necessaries could be procured were the Watauga and Holston River +settlements, which were themselves none too well stocked. Harrod and +Logan, some time in 1777, reached the Watauga fort with three or four +packhorses and filled their packs from Sevier's store; but, as they +neared home, they were detected by red scouts and Logan was badly +wounded before he and Harrod were able to drive their precious load +safely through the gates at Harrodsburg. In the autumn of 1777, Clark, +with a boatload of ammunition, reached Maysville on the Ohio, having +successfully run the gauntlet between banks in possession of the foe. He +had wrested the powder and lead from the Virginia Council by threats +to the effect that if Virginia was so willing to lose Kentucky--for of +course "a country not worth defending is not worth claiming"--he and his +fellows were quite ready to take Kentucky for themselves and to hold it +with their swords against all comers, Virginia included. By even such +cogent reasoning had he convinced the Council--which had tried to hedge +by expressing doubts that Virginia would receive the Kentucky settlers +as "citizens of the State"--that it would be cheaper to give him the +powder. + +Because so many settlers had fled and the others had come closer +together for their common good, Harrodsburg and Boonesborough were now +the only occupied posts in Kentucky. Other settlements, once, thriving, +were abandoned; and, under the terror, the Wild reclaimed them. In +April, 1777, Boonesborough underwent its first siege. Boone, leading a +sortie, was shot and he fell with a shattered ankle. An Indian rushed +upon him and was swinging the tomahawk over him when Simon Kenton, giant +frontiersman and hero of many daring deeds, rushed forward, shot the +Indian, threw Boone across his back, and fought his way desperately +to safety. It was some months ere Boone was his nimble self again. But +though he could not "stand up to the guns," he directed all operations +from his cabin. + +The next year Boone was ready for new ventures growing from the +settlers' needs. Salt was necessary to preserve meat through the summer. +Accordingly Boone and twenty-seven men went up to the Blue Licks in +February, 1778, to replenish their supply by the simple process of +boiling the salt water of the Licks till the saline particles adhered to +the kettles. Boone was returning alone, with a pack-horse load of salt +and game, when a blinding snowstorm overtook him and hid from view four +stealthy Shawanoes on his trail. He was seized and carried to a camp of +120 warriors led by the French Canadian, Dequindre, and James and George +Girty, two white renegades. Among the Indians were some of those who had +captured him on his first exploring trip through Kentucky and whom he +had twice given the slip. Their hilarity was unbounded. Boone quickly +learned that this band was on its way to surprise Boonesborough. It was +a season when Indian attacks were not expected; nearly threescore of the +men were at the salt spring and, to make matters worse, the walls of the +new fort where the settlers and their families had gathered were as yet +completed on only three sides. Boonesborough was, in short, well-nigh +defenseless. To turn the Indians from their purpose, Boone conceived the +desperate scheme of offering to lead them to the salt makers' camp with +the assurance that he and his companions were willing to join the tribe. +He understood Indians well enough to feel sure that once possessed of +nearly thirty prisoners, the Shawanoes would not trouble further about +Boonesborough but would hasten to make a triumphal entry into their own +towns. That some, perhaps all, of the white men would assuredly die, +he knew well; but it was the only way to save the women and children in +Boonesborough. In spite of Dequindre and the Girtys, who were leading a +military expedition for the reduction of a fort, the Shawanoes fell +in with the suggestion. When they had taken their prisoners, the more +bloodthirsty warriors in the band wanted to tomahawk them all on the +spot. By his diplomatic discourse, however, Boone dissuaded them, for +the time being at least, and the whole company set off for the towns on +the Little Miami. + +The weather became severe, very little game crossed their route, and for +days they subsisted on slippery elm bark. The lovers of blood did not +hold back their scalping knives and several of the prisoners perished; +but Black Fish, the chief then of most power in Shawanoe councils, +adopted Boone as his son, and gave him the name of Sheltowee, or Big +Turtle. Though watched zealously to prevent escape, Big Turtle was +treated with every consideration and honor; and, as we would say today, +he played the game. He entered into the Indian life with apparent zest, +took part in hunts and sports and the races and shooting matches in +which the Indians delighted, but he was always careful not to outrun or +outshoot his opponents. Black Fish took him to Detroit when some of the +tribe escorted the remainder of the prisoners to the British post. There +he met Governor Hamilton and, in the hope of obtaining his liberty, +he led that dignitary to believe that he and the other people of +Boonesborough were eager to move to Detroit and take refuge under the +British flag. * It is said that Boone always carried in a wallet round +his neck the King's commission given him in Dunmore's War; and that +he exhibited it to Hamilton to bear out his story. Hamilton sought to +ransom him from the Indians, but Black Fish would not surrender his +new son. The Governor gave Boone a pony, with saddle and trappings, and +other presents, including trinkets to be used in procuring his needs and +possibly his liberty from the Shawanoes. + + + * So well did Boone play his part that he aroused suspicion even +in those who knew him best. After his return to Boonesborough his old +friend, Calloway, formally accused him of treachery on two counts: that +Boone had betrayed the salt makers to the Indians and had planned to +betray Boonesborough to the British. Boone was tried and acquitted. His +simple explanation of his acts satisfied the court-martial and made him +a greater hero than ever among the frontier folk. + + +Black Fish then took his son home to Chillicothe. Here Boone found +Delawares and Mingos assembling with the main body of the Shawanoe +warriors. The war belt was being carried through the Ohio country. Again +Boonesborough and Harrodsburg were to be the first settlements attacked. +To escape and give warning was now the one purpose that obsessed Boone. +He redoubled his efforts to throw the Indians off their guard. He sang +and whistled blithely about the camp at the mouth of the Scioto River, +whither he had accompanied his Indian father to help in the salt +boiling. In short, he seemed so very happy that one day Black Fish took +his eye off him for a few moments to watch the passing of a flock of +turkeys. Big Turtle passed with the flock, leaving no trace. To his +lamenting parent it must have seemed as though he had vanished into the +air. Daniel crossed the Ohio and ran the 160 miles to Boonesborough in +four days, during which time he had only one meal, from a buffalo he +shot at the Blue Licks. When he reached the fort after an absence of +nearly five months, he found that his wife had given him up for dead and +had returned to the Yadkin. + +Boone now began with all speed to direct preparations to withstand a +siege. Owing to the Indian's leisurely system of councils and ceremonies +before taking the warpath, it was not until the first week in September +that Black Fish's painted warriors, with some Frenchmen under Dequindre, +appeared before Boonesborough. Nine days the siege lasted and was the +longest in border history. Dequindre, seeing that the fort might not be +taken, resorted to trickery. He requested Boone and a few of his men +to come out for a parley, saying that his orders from Hamilton were to +protect the lives of the Americans as far as possible. Boone's friend, +Calloway, urged against acceptance of the apparently benign proposal +which was made, so Dequindre averred, for "bienfaisance et humanite." +But the words were the words of a white man, and Boone hearkened to +them. With eight of the garrison he went out to the parley. After a long +talk in which good will was expressed on both sides, it was suggested +by Black Fish that they all shake hands and, as there were so many more +Indians than white men, two Indians should, of course, shake hands with +one white man, each grasping one of his hands. The moment that their +hands gripped, the trick was clear, for the Indians exerted their +strength to drag off the white men. Desperate scuffling ensued in +which the whites with difficulty freed themselves and ran for the fort. +Calloway had prepared for emergencies. The pursuing Indians were met +with a deadly fire. After a defeated attempt to mine the fort the enemy +withdrew. + +The successful defense of Boonesborough was an achievement of national +importance, for had Boonesborough fallen, Harrodsburg alone could not +have stood. The Indians under the British would have overrun Kentucky; +and George Rogers Clark--whose base for his Illinois operations was +the Kentucky forts--could not have made the campaigns which wrested the +Northwest from the control of Great Britain. + +Again Virginia took official note of Captain Boone when in 1779 the +Legislature established Boonesborough "a town for the reception of +traders" and appointed Boone himself one of the trustees to attend to +the sale and registration of lots. An odd office that was for Daniel, +who never learned to attend to the registration of his own; he declined +it. His name appears again, however, a little later when Virginia made +the whole of Kentucky one of her counties with the following officers: +Colonel David Robinson, County Lieutenant; George Rogers Clark, Anthony +Bledsoe, and John Bowman, Majors; Daniel Boone, James Harrod, Benjamin +Logan, and John Todd, Captains. + + +Boonesborough's successful resistance caused land speculators as well as +prospective settlers to take heart of grace. Parties made their way to +Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, and even to the Falls of the Ohio, where +Clark's fort and blockhouses now stood. In the summer of 1779 Clark had +erected on the Kentucky side of the river a large fort which became the +nucleus of the town of Louisville. Here, while he was eating his heart +out with impatience for money and men to enable him to march to the +attack of Detroit, as he had planned, he amused himself by drawing up +plans for a city. He laid out private sections and public parks and +contemplated the bringing in of families only to inhabit his city, for, +oddly enough, he who never married was going to make short shift of mere +bachelors in his City Beautiful. Between pen scratches, no doubt, he +looked out frequently upon the river to descry if possible a boatload of +ammunition or the banners of the troops he had been promised. + +When neither appeared, he gave up the idea of Detroit and set about +erecting defenses on the southern border, for the Choctaws and +Cherokees, united under a white leader named Colbert, were threatening +Kentucky by way of the Mississippi. He built in 1780 Fort Jefferson in +what is now Ballard County, and had barely completed the new post and +garrisoned it with about thirty men when it was besieged by Colbert +and his savages. The Indians, assaulting by night, were lured into a +position directly before a cannon which poured lead into a mass of them. +The remainder fled in terror from the vicinity of the fort; but Colbert +succeeded in rallying them and was returning to the attack when he +suddenly encountered Clark with a company of men and was forced to +abandon his enterprise. + +Clark knew that the Ohio Indians would come down on the settlements +again during the summer and that to meet their onslaughts every man in +Kentucky would be required. He learned that there was a new influx of +land seekers over the Wilderness Road and that speculators were doing +a thriving business in Harrodsburg; so, leaving his company to protect +Fort Jefferson, he took two men with him and started across the wilds on +foot for Harrodsburg. To evade the notice of the Indian bands which were +moving about the country the three stripped and painted themselves as +warriors and donned the feathered headdress. So successful was their +disguise that they were fired on by a party of surveyors near the +outskirts of Harrodsburg. + +The records do not state what were the sensations of certain speculators +in a land office in Harrodsburg when a blue-eyed savage in a war bonnet +sprang through the doorway and, with uplifted weapon, declared the +office closed; but we get a hint of the power of Clark's personality +and of his genius for dominating men from the terse report that he +"enrolled" the speculators. He was informed that another party of men, +more nervous than these, was now on its way out of Kentucky. In haste he +dispatched a dozen frontiersmen to cut the party off at Crab Orchard and +take away the gun of every man who refused to turn back and do his bit +for Kentucky. To Clark a man was a gun, and he meant that every gun +should do its duty. + +The leaders and pioneers of the Dark and Bloody Ground were now +warriors, all under Clark's command, while for two years longer the Red +Terror ranged Kentucky, falling with savage force now here, now there. +In the first battle of 1780, at the Blue Licks, Daniel's brother, Edward +Boone, was killed and scalped. Later on in the war his second son, +Israel, suffered a like fate. The toll of life among the settlers was +heavy. Many of the best-known border leaders were slain. Food and +powder often ran short. Corn might be planted, but whether it would be +harvested or not the planters never knew; and the hunter's rifle shot, +necessary though it was, proved only too often an invitation to the +lurking foe. But sometimes, through all the dangers of forest and trail, +Daniel Boone slipped away silently to Harrodsburg to confer with Clark; +or Clark himself, in the Indian guise that suited the wild man in him +not ill, made his way to and from the garrisons which looked to him for +everything. + +Twice Clark gathered together the "guns" of Kentucky and, marching north +into the enemy's country, swept down upon the Indian towns of Piqua and +Chillicothe and razed them. In 1782, in the second of these enterprises, +his cousin, Joseph Rogers, who had been taken prisoner and adopted by +the Indians and then wore Indian garb, was shot down by one of Clark's +men. On this expedition Boone and Harrod are said to have accompanied +Clark. + +The ever present terror and horror of those days, especially of the two +years preceding this expedition, are vividly suggested by the quaint +remark of an old woman who had lived through them, as recorded for us by +a traveler. The most beautiful sight she had seen in Kentucky, she said, +was a young man dying a natural death in his bed. Dead but unmarred by +hatchet or scalping knife, he was so rare and comely a picture that the +women of the post sat up all night looking at him. + + +But, we ask, what golden emoluments were showered by a grateful country +on the men who thus held the land through those years of want and war, +and saved an empire for the Union? What practical recognition was there +of these brave and unselfish men who daily risked their lives and faced +the stealth and cruelty lurking in the wilderness ways? There is meager +eloquence in the records. Here, for instance, is a letter from George +Rogers Clark to the Governor of Virginia, dated May 27, 1783: + +"Sir. Nothing but necessity could induce me to make the following +request to Your Excellency, which is to grant me a small sum of money on +account; as I can assure you, Sir, that I am exceedingly distressed for +the want of necessary clothing etc and don't know any channel through +which I could procure any except of the Executive. The State I believe +will fall considerably in my debt. Any supplies which Your Excellency +favors me with might be deducted out of my accounts." * + + + * "Calendar of Virginia State Papers," vol. III, p. 487. + + +Clark had spent all his own substance and all else he could beg, +borrow--or appropriate--in the conquest of Illinois and the defense of +Kentucky. His only reward from Virginia was a grant of land from which +he realized nothing, and dismissal from her service when she needed him +no longer. + +All that Clark had asked for himself was a commission in the Continental +Army. This was denied him, as it appears now, not through his own +errors, which had not at that time taken hold on him, but through the +influence of powerful enemies. It is said that both Spain and England, +seeing a great soldier without service for his sword, made him offers, +which he refused. As long as any acreage remained to him on which to +raise money, he continued to pay the debts he had contracted to finance +his expeditions, and in this course he had the assistance of his +youngest brother, William, to whom he assigned his Indiana grant. + +His health impaired by hardship and exposure and his heart broken by +his country's indifference, Clark sank into alcoholic excesses. In +his sixtieth year, just six years before his death, and when he was a +helpless paralytic, he was granted a pension of four hundred dollars. +There is a ring of bitter irony in the words with which he accepted +the sword sent him by Virginia in his crippled old age: "When Virginia +needed a sword I gave her one." He died near Louisville on February 13, +1818. + +Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. But even before Kentucky +became a State her affairs, particularly as to land, were arranged, +let us say, on a practical business basis. Then it was discovered that +Daniel Boone had no legal claim to any foot of ground in Kentucky. +Daniel owned nothing but the clothes he wore; and for those--as well as +for much powder, lead, food, and such trifles--he was heavily in debt. + +So, in 1788, Daniel Boone put the list of his debts in his wallet, +gathered his wife and his younger sons about him, and, shouldering his +hunter's rifle, once more turned towards the wilds. The country of the +Great Kanawha in West Virginia was still a wilderness, and a hunter and +trapper might, in some years, earn enough to pay his debts. For others, +now, the paths he had hewn and made safe; for Boone once more the +wilderness road. + + + +Chapter VIII. Tennessee + +Indian law, tradition, and even superstition had shaped the conditions +which the pioneers faced when they crossed the mountains. This savage +inheritance had decreed that Kentucky should be a dark and bloody +ground, fostering no life but that of four-footed beasts, its fertile +sod never to stir with the green push of the corn. And so the white men +who went into Kentucky to build and to plant went as warriors go, and +for every cabin they erected they battled as warriors to hold a fort. In +the first years they planted little corn and reaped less, for it may be +said that their rifles were never out of their hands. We have seen +how stations were built and abandoned until but two stood. Untiring +vigilance and ceaseless warfare were the price paid by the first +Kentuckians ere they turned the Indian's place of desolation and death +into a land productive and a living habitation. + +Herein lies the difference, slight apparently, yet significant, between +the first Kentucky and the first Tennessee * colonies. Within the memory +of the Indians only one tribe had ever attempted to make their home in +Kentucky--a tribe of the fighting Shawanoes--and they had been terribly +chastised for their temerity. But Tennessee was the home of the +Cherokees, and at Chickasaw Bluffs (Memphis) began the southward trail +to the principal towns of the Chickasaws. By the red man's fiat, then, +human life might abide in Tennessee, though not in Kentucky, and it +followed that in seasons of peace the frontiersmen might settle in +Tennessee. So it was that as early as 1757, before the great Cherokee +war, a company of Virginians under Andrew Lewis had, on an invitation +from the Indians, erected Fort Loudon near Great Telliko, the Cherokees' +principal town, and that, after the treaty of peace in 1761, Waddell and +his rangers of North Carolina had erected a fort on the Holston. + + + * Tennessee. The name, Ten-as-se, appears on Adair's map as one +of the old Cherokee towns. Apparently neither the meaning nor the reason +why the colonists called both state and river by this name has been +handed down to us. + + +Though Fort Loudon had fallen tragically during the war, and though +Waddell's fort had been abandoned, neither was without influence in the +colonization of Tennessee, for some of the men who built these forts +drifted back a year or two later and setup the first cabins on the +Holston. These earliest settlements, thin and scattered, did +not survive; but in 1768 the same settlers or others of their +kind--discharged militiamen from Back Country regiments--once more made +homes on the Holston. They were joined by a few families from near the +present Raleigh, North Carolina, who had despaired of seeing justice +done to the tenants on the mismanaged estates of Lord Granville. About +the same time there was erected the first cabin on the Watauga River, as +is generally believed, by a man of the name of William Bean (or Been), +hunter and frontier soldier from Pittsylvania County, Virginia. This +man, who had hunted on the Watauga with Daniel Boone in 1760, chose +as the site of his dwelling the place of the old hunting camp near the +mouth of Boone's Creek. He soon began to have neighbors. + + +Meanwhile the Regulation Movement stirred the Back Country of both the +Carolinas. In 1768, the year in which William Bean built his cabin +on the bank of the Watauga, five hundred armed Regulators in North +Carolina, aroused by irregularities in the conduct of public office, +gathered to assert their displeasure, but dispersed peaceably on receipt +of word from Governor Tryon that he had ordered the prosecution of any +officer found guilty of extortion. Edmund Fanning, the most hated of +Lord Granville's agents, though convicted, escaped punishment. Enraged +at this miscarriage of justice, the Regulators began a system of +terrorization by taking possession of the court, presided over by +Richard Henderson. The judge himself was obliged to slip out by a +back way to avoid personal injury. The Regulators burned his house and +stable. They meted out mob treatment likewise to William Hooper, later +one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. + +Two elements, with antithetical aims, had been at work in the +Regulation; and the unfortunate failure of justice in the case of +Fanning had given the corrupt element its opportunity to seize control. +In the petitions addressed to Governor Tryon by the leaders of the +movement in its earlier stages the aims of liberty-loving thinkers are +traceable. It is worthy of note that they included in their demands +articles which are now constitutional. They desired that "suffrage be +given by ticket and ballot"; that the mode of taxation be altered, +and each person be taxed in proportion to the profits arising from his +estate; that judges and clerks be given salaries instead of perquisites +and fees. They likewise petitioned for repeal of the act prohibiting +dissenting ministers from celebrating the rites of matrimony. The +establishment of these reforms, the petitioners of the Regulation +concluded, would "conciliate" their minds to "every just measure of +government, and would make the laws what the Constitution ever designed +they should be, their protection and not their bane." Herein clearly +enough we can discern the thought and the phraseology of the Ulster +Presbyterians. + +But a change took place in both leaders and methods. During the +Regulators' career of violence they were under the sway of an agitator +named Hermon Husband. This demagogue was reported to have been expelled +from the Quaker Society for cause; it is on record that he was expelled +from the North Carolina Assembly because a vicious anonymous letter was +traced to him. He deserted his dupes just before the shots cracked at +Alamance Creek and fled from the colony. He was afterwards apprehended +in Pennsylvania for complicity in the Whisky Insurrection. + +Four of the leading Presbyterian ministers of the Back Country issued a +letter in condemnation of the Regulators. One of these ministers was the +famous David Caldwell, son-in-law of the Reverend Alexander Craighead, +and a man who knew the difference between liberty and license and who +proved himself the bravest of patriots in the War of Independence. The +records of the time contain sworn testimony against the Regulators +by Waightstill Avery, a signer of the Mecklenburg Resolves, who later +presided honorably over courts in the western circuit of Tennessee; and +there is evidence indicating Jacobite and French intrigue. That Governor +Tryon recognized a hidden hand at work seems clearly revealed in his +proclamation addressed to those "whose understandings have been run +away with and whose passions have been led in captivity by some evil +designing men who, actuated by cowardice and a sense of that Publick +Justice which is due to their Crimes, have obscured themselves from +Publick view." What the Assembly thought of the Regulators was expressed +in 1770 in a drastic bill which so shocked the authorities in England +that instructions were sent forbidding any Governor to approve such a +bill in future, declaring it "a disgrace to the British Statute Books." + +On May 16, 1771, some two thousand Regulators were precipitated by +Husband into the Battle of Alamance, which took place in a district +settled largely by a rough and ignorant type of Germans, many of whom +Husband had lured to swell his mob. Opposed to him, were eleven hundred +of Governor Tryon's troops, officered by such patriots as Griffith +Rutherford, Hugh Waddell, and Francis Nash. During an hour's engagement +about twenty Regulators were killed, while the Governor's troops had +nine killed and sixty-one wounded. Six of the leaders were hanged. The +rest took the oath of allegiance which Tryon administered. + +It has been said about the Regulators that they were not cast down by +their defeat at Alamance but "like the mammoth, they shook the bolt from +their brow and crossed the mountains," but such flowery phrases do +not seem to have been inspired by facts. Nor do the records show that +"fifteen hundred Regulators" arrived at Watauga in 1771, as has also +been stated. Nor are the names of the leaders of the Regulation to be +found in the list of signatures affixed to the one "state paper" of +Watauga which was preserved and written into historic annals. Nor yet do +those names appear on the roster of the Watauga and Holston men who, +in 1774, fought with Shelby under Andrew Lewis in the Battle of Point +Pleasant. The Boones and the Bryans, the Robertsons, the Seviers, the +Shelbys, the men who opened up the West and shaped the destiny of its +inhabitants, were genuine freemen, with a sense of law and order as +inseparable from liberty. They would follow a Washington but not a +Hermon Husband. + +James Hunter, whose signature leads on all Regulation manifestoes just +prior to the Battle of Alamance, was a sycophant of Husband, to whom he +addressed fulsome letters; and in the real battle for democracy--the +War of Independence--he was a Tory. The Colonial Records show that those +who, "like the mammoth," shook from them the ethical restraints which +make man superior to the giant beast, and who later bolted into the +mountains, contributed chiefly the lawlessness that harassed the new +settlements. They were the banditti and, in 1776, the Tories of the +western hills; they pillaged the homes of the men who were fighting for +the democratic ideal. + +It was not the Regulation Movement which turned westward the makers of +the Old Southwest, but the free and enterprising spirit of the age. It +was emphatically an age of doers; and if men who felt the constructive +urge in them might not lay hold on conditions where they were and +reshape them, then they must go forward seeking that environment which +would give their genius its opportunity. + +Of such adventurous spirits was James Robertson, a Virginian born of +Ulster Scot parentage, and a resident of (the present) Wake County, +North Carolina, since his boyhood. Robertson was twenty-eight years old +when, in 1770, he rode over the hills to Watauga. We can imagine him as +he was then, for the portrait taken much later in life shows the type +of face that does not change. It is a high type combining the best +qualities of his race. Intelligence, strength of purpose, fortitude, +and moral power are there; they impress us at the first glance. At +twenty-eight he must have been a serious young man, little given to +laughter; indeed, spontaneity is perhaps the only good trait we miss in +studying his face. He was a thinker who had not yet found his purpose--a +thinker in leash, for at this time James Robertson could neither read +nor write. + +At Watauga, Robertson lived for a while in the cabin of a man named +Honeycut. He chose land for himself and, in accordance with the custom +of the time, sealed his right to it by planting corn. He remained to +harvest his first crop and then set off to gather his family and some of +his friends together and escort them to the new country. But on the way +he missed the trail and wandered for a fortnight in the mountains. The +heavy rains ruined his powder so that he could not hunt; for food he had +only berries and nuts. At one place, where steep bluffs opposed him, he +was obliged to abandon his horse and scale the mountain side on foot. He +was in extremity when he chanced upon two huntsmen who gave him food and +set him on the trail. If this experience proves his lack of the hunter's +instinct and the woodsman's resourcefulness which Boone possessed, it +proves also his special qualities of perseverance and endurance which +were to reach their zenith in his successful struggle to colonize and +hold western Tennessee. He returned to Watauga in the following spring +(1771) with his family and a small group of colonists. Robertson's wife +was an educated woman and under her instruction he now began to study. + +Next year a young Virginian from the Shenandoah Valley rode on down +Holston Valley on a hunting and exploring trip, and loitered at Watauga. +Here he found not only a new settlement but an independent government +in the making; and forthwith he determined to have a part in both. +This young Virginian had already shown the inclination of a political +colonist, for in the Shenandoah Valley he had, at the age of nineteen, +laid out the town of New Market (which exists to this day) and had +directed its municipal affairs and invited and fostered its clergy. This +young Virginian--born on September 23, 1745, and so in 1772 twenty-seven +years of age--was John Sevier, that John Sevier whose monument now +towers from its site in Knoxville to testify of both the wild and the +great deeds of old Tennessee's beloved knight. Like Robertson, Sevier +hastened home and removed his whole family, including his wife and +children, his parents and his brothers and sisters, to this new haven of +freedom at Watauga. + +The friendship formed between Robertson and Sevier in these first years +of their work together was never broken, yet two more opposite types +could hardly have been brought together. Robertson was a man of humble +origin, unlettered, not a dour Scot but a solemn one. Sevier was +cavalier as well as frontiersman. On his father's side he was of the +patrician family of Xavier in France. His progenitors, having become +Huguenots, had taken refuge in England, where the name Xavier was +finally changed to Sevier. John Sevier's mother was an Englishwoman. +Some years before his birth his parents had emigrated to the Shenandoah +Valley. Thus it happened that John Sevier, who mingled good English +blood with the blue blood of old France, was born an American and grew +up a frontier hunter and soldier. He stood about five feet nine from his +moccasins to his crown of light brown hair. He was well-proportioned and +as graceful of body as he was hard-muscled and swift. His chin was firm, +his nose of a Roman cast, his mouth well-shaped, its slightly full lips +slanting in a smile that would not be repressed. Under the high, finely +modeled brow, small keen dark blue eyes sparkled with health, with +intelligence, and with the man's joy in life. + +John Sevier indeed cannot be listed as a type; he was individual. There +is no other character like him in border annals. He was cavalier and +prince in his leadership of men; he had their homage. Yet he knew how to +be comrade and brother to the lowliest. He won and held the confidence +and friendship of the serious-minded Robertson no less than the idolatry +of the wildest spirits on the frontier throughout the forty-three years +of the spectacular career which began for him on the day he brought +his tribe to Watauga. In his time he wore the governor's purple; and +a portrait painted of him shows how well this descendant of the noble +Xaviers could fit himself to the dignity and formal habiliments of +state; Yet in the fringed deerskin of frontier garb, he was fleeter on +the warpath than the Indians who fled before him; and he could outride +and outshoot--and, it is said, outswear--the best and the worst of the +men who followed him. Perhaps the lurking smile on John Sevier's face +was a flicker of mirth that there should be found any man, red or +white, with temerity enough to try conclusions with him. None ever did, +successfully. + +The historians of Tennessee state that the Wataugans formed their +government in 1772 and that Sevier was one of its five commissioners. +Yet, as Sevier did not settle in Tennessee before 1773, it is possible +that the Watauga Association was not formed until then. Unhappily the +written constitution of the little commonwealth was not preserved; but +it is known that, following the Ulsterman's ideal, manhood suffrage and +religious independence were two of its provisions. The commissioners +enlisted a militia and they recorded deeds for land, issued marriage +licenses, and tried offenders against the law. They believed themselves +to be within the boundaries of Virginia and therefore adopted the laws +of that State for their guidance. They had numerous offenders to deal +with, for men fleeing from debt or from the consequence of crime sought +the new settlements just across the mountains as a safe and adjacent +harbor. The attempt of these men to pursue their lawlessness in Watauga +was one reason why the Wataugans organized a government. + +When the line was run between Virginia and North Carolina beyond the +mountains, Watauga was discovered to be south of Virginia's limits +and hence on Indian lands. This was in conflict with the King's +Proclamation, and Alexander Cameron, British agent to the Cherokees, +accordingly ordered the encroaching settlers to depart. The Indians, +however, desired them to remain. But since it was illegal to purchase +Indian lands, Robertson negotiated a lease for ten years. In 1775, when +Henderson made his purchase from the Cherokees, at Sycamore Shoals on +the Watauga, Robertson and Sevier, who were present at the sale with +other Watauga commissioners, followed Henderson's example and bought +outright the lands they desired to include in Watauga's domain. In 1776 +they petitioned North Carolina for "annexation." As they were already +within North Carolina's bounds, it was recognition rather than +annexation which they sought. This petition, which is the only Wataugan +document to survive, is undated but marked as received in August, +1776. It is in Sevier's handwriting and its style suggests that it was +composed by him, for in its manner of expression it has much in common +with many later papers from his pen. That Wataugans were a law-loving +community and had formed their government for the purpose of making law +respected is reiterated throughout the document. As showing the quality +of these first western statemakers, two paragraphs are quoted: + +"Finding ourselves on the frontiers, and being apprehensive that +for want of proper legislature we might become a shelter for such as +endeavored to defraud their creditors; considering also the necessity of +recording deeds, wills, and doing other public business; we, by consent +of the people, formed a court for the purposes above mentioned, taking, +by desire of our constituents, the Virginia laws for our guide, so +near as the situation of affairs would permit. This was intended for +ourselves, and WAS DONE BY CONSENT OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL." + +The petition goes on to state that, among their measures for upholding +law, the Wataugans had enlisted "a company of fine riflemen" and put +them under command of "Captain James Robertson." + +"We... thought proper to station them on our frontiers in defense of the +common cause, at the expense and risque of our own private fortunes, +till farther public orders, which we flatter ourselves will give no +offense.... We pray your mature and deliberate consideration in our +behalf, that you may annex us to your Province (whether as county, +district, or other division) in such manner as may enable us to share in +the glorious cause of Liberty: enforce our laws under authority and in +every respect become the best members of society; and for ourselves +and our constituents we hope we may venture to assure you that we shall +adhere strictly to your determinations, and that nothing will be lacking +or anything neglected that may add weight (in the civil or military +establishments) to the glorious cause in which we are now struggling, or +contribute to the welfare of our own or ages yet to come." + +One hundred and thirteen names are signed to the document. In the +following year (1777) North Carolina erected her overhill territory +into Washington County. The Governor appointed justices of the peace and +militia officers who in the following year organized the new county and +its courts. And so Watauga's independent government, begun in the spirit +of true liberty, came as lawfully to its end. + +But for nearly three years before their political status was thus +determined, the Wataugans were sharing "in the glorious cause of +Liberty" by defending their settlements against Indian attacks. While +the majority of the young Cherokee warriors were among their enemies, +their chief battles were fought with those from the Chickamaugan towns +on the Tennessee River, under the leadership of Dragging Canoe. The +Chickamaugans embraced the more vicious and bloodthirsty Cherokees, with +a mixture of Creeks and bad whites, who, driven from every law-abiding +community, had cast in their lot with this tribe. The exact number of +white thieves and murderers who had found harbor in the Indian towns +during a score or more of years is not known; but the letters of the +Indian agents, preserved in the records, would indicate that there were +a good many of them. They were fit allies for Dragging Canoe; their +hatred of those from whom their own degeneracy had separated them was +not less than his. + +In July, 1776, John Sevier wrote to the Virginia Committee as follows: + +"Dear Gentlemen: Isaac Thomas, William Falling, Jaret Williams and one +more have this moment come in by making their escape from the Indians +and say six hundred Indians and whites were to start for this fort and +intend to drive the country up to New River before they return." + +Thus was heralded the beginning of a savage warfare which kept the +borderers engaged for years. + +It has been a tradition of the chroniclers that Isaac Thomas received +a timely warning from Nancy Ward, a half-caste Cherokee prophetess who +often showed her good will towards the whites; and that the Indians +were roused to battle by Alexander Cameron and John Stuart, the British +agents or superintendents among the overhill tribes. There was a letter +bearing Cameron's name stating that fifteen hundred savages from the +Cherokee and Creek nations were to join with British troops landed at +Pensacola in an expedition against the southern frontier colonies. +This letter was brought to Watauga at dead of night by a masked man who +slipped it through a window and rode away. Apparently John Sevier +did not believe the military information contained in the mysterious +missive, for he communicated nothing of it to the Virginia Committee. +In recent years the facts have come to light. This mysterious letter +and others of a similar tenor bearing forged signatures are cited in a +report by the British Agent, John Stuart, to his Government. It appears +that such inflammatory missives had been industriously scattered through +the back settlements of both Carolinas. There are also letters from +Stuart to Lord Dartmouth, dated a year earlier, urging that something be +done immediately to counteract rumors set afloat that the British were +endeavoring to instigate both the Indians and the negroes to attack the +Americans. + +Now it is, of course, an established fact that both the British and the +American armies used Indians in the War of Independence, even as both +together had used them against the French and the Spanish and their +allied Indians. It was inevitable that the Indians should participate +in any severe conflict between the whites. They were a numerous and a +warlike people and, from their point of view, they had more at stake +than the alien whites who were contesting for control of the red man's +continent. Both British and Americans have been blamed for "half-hearted +attempts to keep the Indians neutral." The truth is that each side +strove to enlist the Indians--to be used, if needed later, as +warriors. Massacre was no part of this policy, though it may have been +countenanced by individual officers in both camps. But it is obvious +that, once the Indians took the warpath, they were to be restrained by +no power and, no matter under whose nominal command, they would carry on +warfare by their own methods. * + + + * "There is little doubt that either side, British or Americans, +stood ready to enlist the Indians. Already before Boston the Americans +had had the help of the Stockbridge tribe. Washington found the service +committed to the practise when he arrived at Cambridge early in July. +Dunmore had taken the initiative in securing such allies, at least +is purpose; but the insurgent Virginians had had of late more direct +contact with the tribes and were now striving to secure them but with +little success." "The Westward Movement," by Justin Winsor, p. 87. + +General Ethan Allen of Vermont, as his letters show, sent emissaries +into Canada in an endeavor to enlist the French Canadians and the +Canadian Indians against the British in Canada. See "American Archives," +Fourth Series, vol. II, p. 714. The British General Gage wrote to Lord +Dartmouth from Boston, June 18, 1775: "We need not be tender of calling +on the Savages as the rebels have shown us the example, by bringing +as many Indians down against us as they could collect." "American +Archives." Fourth Series, vol. ii, p. 967. + +In a letter to Lord Germain, dated August 23, 1776, John Stuart wrote: +"Although Mr. Cameron was in constant danger of assassination and the +Indians were threatened with invasion should they dare to, protect him, +yet he still found means to prevent their falling on the settlement." +See North Carolina "Colonial Records," vol. X, pp. 608 and 763. Proof +that the British agents had succeeded in keeping the Cherokee neutral +till the summer of 1776 is found in the instructions, dated the 7th +of July, to Major Winston from President Rutledge of South Carolina, +regarding the Cherokees, that they must be forced to give up the British +agents and "INSTEAD OF REMAINING IN A STATE OF NEUTRALITY with respect +to British Forces they must take part with us against them." See North +Carolina "Colonial Records," vol. X, p. 658. + + +Whatever may have been the case elsewhere, the attacks on the Watauga +and Holston settlements were not instigated by British agents. It was +not Nancy Ward but Henry Stuart, John Stuart's deputy, who sent Isaac +Thomas to warn the settlers. In their efforts to keep the friendship +of the red men, the British and the Americans were providing them with +powder and lead. The Indians had run short of ammunition and, since +hunting was their only means of livelihood, they must shoot or starve. +South Carolina sent the Cherokees a large supply of powder and lead +which was captured en route by Tories. About the same time Henry Stuart +set out from Pensacola with another consignment from the British. His +report to Lord Germain of his arrival in the Chickamaugan towns and +of what took place there just prior to the raids on the Tennessee +settlements is one of the most illuminating as well as one of the most +dramatic papers in the collected records of that time. * + + + * North Carolina "Colonial Records," vol. X, pp. 763-785. + + +Stuart's first act was secretly to send out Thomas, the trader, to warn +the settlers of their peril, for a small war party of braves was even +then concluding the preliminary war ceremonies. The reason for this +Indian alarm and projected excursion was the fact that the settlers had +built one fort at least on the Indian lands. Stuart finally persuaded +the Indians to remain at peace until he could write to the settlers +stating the grievances and asking for negotiations. The letters were to +be carried by Thomas on his return. + +But no sooner was Thomas on his way again with the letters than there +arrived a deputation of warriors from the Northern tribes--from "the +Confederate nations, the Mohawks, Ottawas, Nantucas, Shawanoes and +Delawares"--fourteen men in all, who entered the council hall of the Old +Beloved Town of Chota with their faces painted black and the war belt +carried before them. They said that they had been seventy days on their +journey. Everywhere along their way they had seen houses and forts +springing up like, weeds across the green sod of their hunting lands. +Where once were great herds of deer and buffalo, they had watched +thousands of men at arms preparing for war. So many now were the white +warriors and their women and children that the red men had been obliged +to travel a great way on the other side of the Ohio and to make a detour +of nearly three hundred miles to avoid being seen. Even on this outlying +route they had crossed the fresh tracks of a great body of people with +horses and cattle going still further towards the setting sun. But their +cries were not to be in vain; for "their fathers, the French" had heard +them and had promised to aid them if they would now strike as one for +their lands. + +After this preamble the deputy of the Mohawks rose. He said that some +American people had made war on one of their towns and had seized the +son of their Great Beloved Man, Sir William Johnson, imprisoned him, and +put him to a cruel death; this crime demanded a great vengeance and they +would not cease until they had taken it. One after another the fourteen +delegates rose and made their "talks" and presented their wampum strings +to Dragging Canoe. The last to speak was a chief of the Shawanoes. He +also declared that "their fathers, the French," who had been so long +dead, were "alive again," that they had supplied them plentifully with +arms and ammunition and had promised to assist them in driving out the +Americans and in reclaiming their country. Now all the Northern tribes +were joined in one for this great purpose; and they themselves were on +their way to all the Southern tribes and had resolved that, if any tribe +refused to join, they would fall upon and extirpate that tribe, after +having overcome the whites. At the conclusion of his oration the +Shawanoe presented the war belt--nine feet of six-inch wide purple +wampum spattered with vermilion--to Dragging Canoe, who held it extended +between his two hands, in silence, and waited. Presently rose a headman +whose wife had been a member of Sir William Johnson's household. He laid +his hand on the belt and sang the war song. One by one, then, chiefs +and warriors rose, laid hold of the great belt and chanted the war +song. Only the older men, made wise by many defeats, sat still in their +places, mute and dejected. "After that day every young fellow's face in +the overhills towns appeared blackened and nothing was now talked of but +war." + +Stuart reports that "all the white men" in the tribe also laid hands +on the belt. Dragging Canoe then demanded that Cameron and Stuart come +forward and take hold of the war belt--"which we refused." Despite the +offense their refusal gave--and it would seem a dangerous time to give +such offense--Cameron delivered a "strong talk" for peace, warning +the Cherokees of what must surely be the end of the rashness they +contemplated. Stuart informed the chief that if the Indians persisted in +attacking the settlements with out waiting for answers to his letters, +he would not remain with them any longer or bring them any more +ammunition. He went to his house and made ready to leave on the +following day. Early the next morning Dragging Canoe appeared at his +door and told him that the Indians were now very angry about the letters +he had written, which could only have put the settlers on their guard; +and that if any white man attempted to leave the nation "they had +determined to follow him but NOT TO BRING HIM BACK." Dragging Canoe had +painted his face black to carry this message. Thomas now returned with +an answer from "the West Fincastle men," which was so unsatisfactory to +the tribe that war ceremonies were immediately begun. Stuart and Cameron +could no longer influence the Indians. "All that could now be done was +to give them strict charge not to pass the Boundary Line, not to +injure any of the King's faithful subjects, not to kill any women and +children"; and to threaten to "stop all ammunition" if they did not obey +these orders. + + +The major part of the Watauga militia went out to meet the Indians and +defeated a large advance force at Long Island Flats on the Holston. The +Watauga fort, where many of the settlers had taken refuge, contained +forty fighting men under Robertson and Sevier. As Indians usually +retreated and waited for a while after a defeat, those within the fort +took it for granted that no immediate attack was to be expected; and the +women went out at daybreak into the fields to milk the cows. Suddenly +the war whoop shrilled from the edge of the clearing. Red warriors +leaped from the green skirting of the forest. The women ran for the +fort. Quickly the heavy gates swung to and the dropped bar secured them. +Only then did the watchmen discover that one woman had been shut out. +She was a young woman nearing her twenties and, if legend has reported +her truly, "Bonnie Kate Sherrill" was a beauty. Through a porthole +Sevier saw her running towards the shut gates, dodging and darting, her +brown hair blowing from the wind of her race for life--and offering +far too rich a prize to the yelling fiends who dashed after her. Sevier +coolly shot the foremost of her pursuers, then sprang upon the wall, +caught up Bonnie Kate, and tossed her inside to safety. And legend says +further that when, after Sevier's brief widowerhood, she became his +wife, four years later, Bonnie Kate was wont to say that she would +be willing to run another such race any day to have another such +introduction! + +There were no casualties within the fort and, after three hours, the foe +withdrew, leaving several of their warriors slain. + +In the excursions against the Indians which followed this opening of +hostilities Sevier won his first fame as an "Indian fighter"--the fame +later crystallized in the phrase "thirty-five battles, thirty-five +victories." His method was to take a very small company of the hardiest +and swiftest horsemen--men who could keep their seat and endurance, and +horses that could keep their feet and their speed, on any steep of the +mountains no matter how tangled and rough the going might be--swoop down +upon war camp, or town, and go through it with rifle and hatchet and +fire, then dash homeward at the same pace before the enemy had begun to +consider whether to follow him or not. In all his "thirty-five battles" +it is said he lost not more than fifty men. + +The Cherokees made peace in 1777, after about a year of almost +continuous warfare, the treaty being concluded on their side by the old +chiefs who had never countenanced the war. Dragging Canoe refused to +take part, but he was rendered innocuous for the time being by the +destruction of several of the Chickamaugan villages. James Robertson now +went to Chota as Indian agent for North Carolina. So fast was population +growing, owing to the opening of a wagon road into Burke County, North +Carolina, that Washington County was divided. John Sevier became Colonel +of Washington and Isaac Shelby Colonel of the newly erected Sullivan +County. Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee, was laid out as the +county seat of Washington; and in the same year (1778) Sevier moved to +the bank of the Nolichucky River, so-called after the Indian name of +this dashing sparkling stream, meaning rapid or precipitous. Thus the +nickname given John Sevier by his devotees had a dual application. He +was well called Nolichucky Jack. + + +When Virginia annulled Richard Henderson's immense purchase but allowed +him a large tract on the Cumberland, she by no means discouraged that +intrepid pioneer. Henderson's tenure of Kentucky had been brief, but not +unprofitable in experience. He had learned that colonies must be +treated with less commercial pressure and with more regard to individual +liberty, if they were to be held loyal either to a King beyond the water +or to an uncrowned leader nearer at hand. He had been making his plans +for colonization of that portion of the Transylvania purchase which lay +within the bounds of North Carolina along the Cumberland and choosing +his men to lay the foundations of his projected settlement in what was +then a wholly uninhabited country; and he had decided on generous +terms, such as ten dollars a thousand acres for land, the certificate of +purchase to entitle the holder to further proceedings in the land office +without extra fees. To head an enterprise of such danger and hardship +Henderson required a man of more than mere courage; a man of resource, +of stability, of proven powers, one whom other men would follow and obey +with confidence. So it was that James Robertson was chosen to lead the +first white settlers into middle Tennessee. He set out in February, +1779, accompanied by his brother, Mark Robertson, several other white +men, and a negro, to select a site for settlement and to plant corn. +Meanwhile another small party led by Gaspar Mansker had arrived. As the +boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina had not been run to +this point, Robertson believed that the site he had chosen lay within +Virginia and was in the disposal of General Clark. To protect the +settlers, therefore, he journeyed into the Illinois country to purchase +cabin rights from Clark, but there he was evidently convinced that the +site on the Cumberland would be found to lie within North Carolina. He +returned to Watauga to lead a party of settlers into the new territory, +towards which they set out in October. After crossing the mountain chain +through Cumberland Gap, the party followed Boone's road--the Warriors' +Path--for some distance and then made their own trail southwestward +through the wilderness to the bluffs on the Cumberland, where they built +cabins to house them against one of the coldest winters ever experienced +in that county. So were laid the first foundations of the present city +of Nashville, at first named Nashborough by Robertson. * On the way, +Robertson had fallen in with a party of men and families bound for +Kentucky and had persuaded them to accompany his little band to the +Cumberland. Robertson's own wife and children, as well as the families +of his party, had been left to follow in the second expedition, which +was to be made by water under the command of Captain John Donelson. + + + * In honor of General Francis Nash, of North Carolina, who was +mortally wounded at Germantown, 1777. + + +The little fleet of boats containing the settlers, their families, and +all their household goods, was to start from Fort Patrick Henry, near +Long Island in the Holston River, to float down into the Tennessee and +along the 652 miles of that widely wandering stream to the Ohio, and +then to proceed up the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland and up the +Cumberland until Robertson's station should appear--a journey, as it +turned out, of some nine hundred miles through unknown country and on +waters at any rate for the greater part never before navigated by white +men. + +"Journal of a voyage, intended by God's permission, in the good boat +Adventure" is the title of the log book in which Captain Donelson +entered the events of the four months' journey. Only a few pages endured +to be put into print: but those few tell a tale of hazard and courage +that seems complete. Could a lengthier narrative, even if enriched with +literary art and fancy, bring before us more vividly than do the simple +entries of Donelson's log the spirit of the men and the women who won +the West? If so little personal detail is recorded of the pioneer men of +that day that we must deduce what they were from what they did, what do +we know of their unfailing comrades, the pioneer women? Only that they +were there and that they shared in every test of courage and endurance, +save the march of troops and the hunt. Donelson's "Journal" therefore +has a special value, because in its terse account of Mrs. Jennings and +Mrs. Peyton it depicts unforgettably the quality of pioneer womanhood. * + + + * This Journal is printed in Ramsey's "Annals of Tennessee." + + +"December 22nd, 1779. Took our departure from the fort and fell down the +river to the mouth of Reedy Creek where we were stopped by the fall of +water and most excessive hard frost." + + +Perhaps part of the "Journal" was lost, or perhaps the "excessive hard +frost" of that severe winter, when it is said even droves of wild game +perished, prevented the boats, from going on, for the next entry is +dated the 27th of February. On this date the Adventure and two other +boats grounded and lay on the shoals all that afternoon and the +succeeding night "in much distress." + + +"March 2nd. Rain about half the day.... Mr. Henry's boat being driven on +the point of an island by the force of the current was sunk, the +whole cargo much damaged and the crew's lives much endangered, +which occasioned the whole fleet to put on shore and go to their +assistance.... + +"Monday 6th. Got under way before sunrise; the morning proving very +foggy, many of the fleet were much bogged--about 10 o'clock lay by for +them; when collected, proceeded down. Camped on the north shore, where +Captain Hutching's negro man died, being much frosted in his feet and +legs, of which he died. + +"Tuesday, 7th. Got under way very early; the day proving very windy, a +S.S.W., and the river being wide occasioned a high sea, insomuch that +some of the smaller crafts were in danger; therefore came to at the +uppermost Chiccamauga town, which was then evacuated, where we lay by +that afternoon and camped that night. The wife of Ephraim Peyton was +here delivered of a child. Mr. Peyton has gone through by land with +Captain Robertson. + +"Wednesday 8th... proceed down to an Indian village which was +inhabited... they insisted on us to come ashore, called us brothers, +and showed other signs of friendship.... And here we must regret the +unfortunate death of young Mr. Payne, on board Captain Blakemore's boat, +who was mortally wounded by reason of the boat running too near the +northern shore opposite the town, where some of the enemy lay concealed; +and the more tragical misfortune of poor Stuart, his family and friends, +to the number of twenty-eight persons. This man had embarked with us for +the Western country, but his family being diseased with the small pox, +it was agreed upon between him and the company that he should keep at +some distance in the rear, for fear of the infection spreading, and he +was warned each night when the encampment should take place by the sound +of a horn.... The Indians having now collected to a considerable number, +observing his helpless situation singled off from the rest of the fleet, +intercepted him and killed and took prisoners the whole crew...; their +cries were distinctly heard...". + + +After describing a running fight with Indians stationed on the bluffs +on both shores where the river narrowed to half its width and boiled +through a canyon, the entry for the day concludes: "Jennings's boat is +missing." + + +"Friday 10th. This morning about 4 o'clock we were surprised by the +cries of "help poor Jennings" at some distance in the rear. He had +discovered us by our fires and came up in the most wretched condition. +He states that as soon as the Indians discovered his situation [his boat +had run on a rock] they turned their whole attention to him and kept +up a most galling fire at his boat. He ordered his wife, a son nearly +grown, a young man who accompanies them and his negro man and woman, to +throw all his goods into the river to lighten their boat for the purpose +of getting her off; himself returning their fire as well as he could, +being a good soldier and an excellent marksman. But before they had +accomplished their object, his son, the young man and the negro, jumped +out of the boat and left.... Mrs. Jennings, however, and the negro +woman, succeeded in unloading the boat, but chiefly by the exertions of +Mrs. Jennings who got out of the boat and shoved her off, but was near +falling a victim to her own intrepidity on account of the boat starting +so suddenly as soon as loosened from the rock. Upon examination he +appears to have made a wonderful escape for his boat is pierced in +numberless places with bullets. It is to be remarked that Mrs. Peyton, +who was the night before delivered of an infant, which was unfortunately +killed upon the hurry and confusion consequent upon such a disaster, +assisted them, being frequently exposed to wet and cold.... Their +clothes were very much cut with bullets, especially Mrs. Jennings's." + + +Of the three men who deserted, while the women stood by under fire, +the negro was drowned and Jennings's son and the other young man were +captured by the Chickamaugans. The latter was burned at the stake. Young +Jennings was to have shared the same fate; but a trader in the village, +learning that the boy was known to John Sevier, ransomed him by a large +payment of goods, as a return for an act of kindness Sevier had once +done to him. + + +"Sunday 12th.... After running until about 10 o'clock came in sight of +the Muscle Shoals. Halted on the northern shore at the appearance of the +shoals, in order to search for the signs Captain James Robertson was to +make for us at that place... that it was practicable for us to go across +by land... we can find none--from which we conclude that it would not +be prudent to make the attempt and are determined, knowing ourselves in +such imminent danger, to pursue our journey down the river.... When +we approached them [the Shoals] they had a dreadful appearance.... The +water being high made a terrible roaring, which could be heard at some +distance, among the driftwood heaped frightfully upon the points of the +islands, the current running in every possible direction. Here we did +not know how soon we should be dashed to pieces and all our troubles +ended at once... Our boats frequently dragged on the bottom and appeared +constantly in danger of striking. They warped as much as in a rough +sea. But by the hand of Providence we are now preserved from this +danger also. I know not the length of this wonderful shoal; it had been +represented to me to be twenty-five or thirty miles. If so, we must +have descended very rapidly, as indeed we did, for we passed it in about +three hours." + + +On the twentieth the little fleet arrived at the mouth of the Tennessee +and the voyagers landed on the bank of the Ohio. + + +"Our situation here is truly disagreeable. The river is very high and +the current rapid, our boats not constructed for the purpose of stemming +a rapid stream, our provisions exhausted, the crews almost worn down +with hunger and fatigue, and know not what distance we have to go or +what time it will take us to our place of destination. The scene is +rendered still more melancholy as several boats will not attempt to +ascend the rapid current. Some intend to descend the Mississippi to +Natchez; others are bound for the Illinois--among the rest my son-in-law +and daughter. We now part, perhaps to meet no more, for I am determined +to pursue my course, happen what will. + +"Tuesday 21st. Set out and on this day labored very hard and got but +little way.... Passed the two following days as the former, suffering +much from hunger and fatigue. + +"Friday 24th. About three o'clock came to the mouth of a river which I +thought was the Cumberland. Some of the company declared it could not +be--it was so much smaller than was expected.... We determined however +to make the trial, pushed up some distance and encamped for the night. + +"Saturday 25th. Today we are much encouraged; the river grows +wider;... we are now convinced it is the Cumberland.... + +"Sunday 26th... procured some buffalo meat; though poor it was palatable. + +"Friday 31st... met with Colonel Richard Henderson, who is running the +line between Virginia and North Carolina. At this meeting we were much +rejoiced. He gave us every information we wished, and further informed +us that he had purchased a quantity of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped +at the Falls of Ohio for the use of the Cumberland settlement. We are +now without bread and are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve +life.... + +"Monday, April 24th. This day we arrived at our journey's end at the Big +Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of finding Captain Robertson +and his company. It is a source of satisfaction to us to be enabled to +restore to him and others their families and friends, who were entrusted +to our care, and who, sometime since, perhaps, despaired of ever meeting +again...." + + +Past the camps of the Chickamaugans--who were retreating farther and +farther down the twisting flood, seeking a last standing ground in the +giant caves by the Tennessee--these white voyagers had steered their +pirogues. Near Robertson's station, where they landed after having +traversed the triangle of the three great rivers which enclose the +larger part of western Tennessee, stood a crumbling trading house +marking the defeat of a Frenchman who had, one time, sailed in from the +Ohio to establish an outpost of his nation there. At a little distance +were the ruins of a rude fort cast up by the Cherokees in the days when +the redoubtable Chickasaws had driven them from the pleasant shores of +the western waters. Under the towering forest growth lay vast burial +mounds and the sunken foundations of walled towns, telling of a departed +race which had once flashed its rude paddles and had its dream of +permanence along the courses of these great waterways. Now another +tribe had come to dream that dream anew. Already its primitive keels had +traced the opening lines of its history on the face of the immemorial +rivers. + + + +Chapter IX. King's Mountain + +About the time when James Robertson went from Watauga to fling out the +frontier line three hundred miles farther westward, the British took +Savannah. In 1780 they took Charleston and Augusta, and overran Georgia. +Augusta was the point where the old trading path forked north and west, +and it was the key to the Back Country and the overhill domain. In +Georgia and the Back Country of South Carolina there were many Tories +ready to rally to the King's standard whenever a King's officer should +carry it through their midst. A large number of these Tories were +Scotch, chiefly from the Highlands. In fact, as we have seen, Scotch +blood predominated among the racial streams in the Back Country from +Georgia to Pennsylvania. Now, to insure a triumphant march northward for +Cornwallis and his royal troops, these sons of Scotland must be gathered +together, the loyal encouraged and those of rebellious tendencies +converted, and they must be drilled and turned to account. This task, if +it were to be accomplished successfully, must be entrusted to an officer +with positive qualifications, one who would command respect, whose +personal address would attract men and disarm opposition, and especially +one who could go as a Scot among his own clan. Cornwallis found his man +in Major. Patrick Ferguson. + +Ferguson was a Highlander, a son of Lord Pitfour of Aberdeen, and +thirty-six years of age. He was of short stature for a Highlander--about +five feet eight--lean and dark, with straight black hair. He had a +serious unhandsome countenance which, at casual glance, might not +arrest attention; but when he spoke he became magnetic, by reason of +the intelligence and innate force that gleamed in his eyes and the +convincing sincerity of his manner. He was admired and respected by his +brother officers and by the commanders under whom he had served, and he +was loved by his men. + +He had seen his first service in the Seven Years' War, having joined +the British army in Flanders at the age of fifteen; and he had early +distinguished himself for courage and coolness. In 1768, as a captain of +infantry, he quelled an insurrection of the natives on the island of +St. Vincent in the West Indies. Later, at Woolwich, he took up the +scientific study of his profession of arms. He not only became a crack +shot, but he invented a new type of rifle which he could load at the +breach without ramrod and so quickly as to fire seven times in a minute. +Generals and statesmen attended his exhibitions of shooting; and even +the King rode over at the head of his guards to watch Ferguson rapidly +loading and firing. + +In America under Cornwallis, Ferguson had the reputation of being the +best shot in the army; and it was soon said that, in his quickness at +loading and firing, he excelled the most expert American frontiersman. +Eyewitnesses have left their testimony that, seeing a bird alight on a +bough or rail, he would drop his bridle rein, draw his pistol, toss it +in the air, catch and aim it as it fell, and shoot the bird's head off. +He was given command of a corps of picked riflemen; and in the Battle of +the Brandywine in 1777 he rendered services which won acclaim from the +whole army. For the honor of that day's service to his King, Ferguson +paid what from him, with his passion for the rifle, must have been +the dearest price that could have been demanded. His right arm was +shattered, and for the remaining three years of his short life it hung +useless at his side. Yet he took up swordplay and attained a remarkable +degree of skill as a left-handed swordsman. + +Such was Ferguson, the soldier. What of the man? For he has been +pictured as a wolf and a fiend and a coward by early chroniclers, who +evidently felt that they were adding to the virtue of those who fought +in defense of liberty by representing all their foes as personally +odious. We can read his quality of manhood in a few lines of the letter +he sent to his kinsman, the noted Dr. Adam Ferguson, about an incident +that occurred at Chads Ford. As he was lying with his men in the woods, +in front of Knyphausen's army, so he relates, he saw two American +officers ride out. He describes their dress minutely. One was in hussar +uniform. The other was in a dark green and blue uniform with a high +cocked hat and was mounted on a bay horse: + +"I ordered three good shots to steal near to and fire at them; but the +idea disgusting me, I recalled the order. The hussar in retiring made a +circuit, but the other passed within a hundred yards of us, upon which +I advanced from the wood towards him. Upon my calling he stopped; but +after looking at me he proceeded. I again drew his attention and made +signs to him to stop; levelling my piece at him; but he slowly cantered +away. As I was within that distance, at which, in the quickest firing, +I could have lodged half a dozen balls in or about him before he was out +of my reach, I had only to determine. But it was not pleasant to fire +at the back of an unoffending individual who was acquitting himself +very coolly of his duty--so I let him alone. The day after, I had been +telling this story to some wounded officers, who lay in the same room +with me, when one of the surgeons who had been dressing the wounded +rebel officers came in and told us that they had been informing him that +General Washington was all the morning with the light troops, and only +attended by a French officer in hussar dress, he himself dressed and +mounted in every point as above described. I AM NOT SORRY THAT I DID NOT +KNOW AT THE TIME WHO IT WAS." * + + + *Doubt that the officer in question was Washington was expressed +by James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper stated that Major De Lancey, his +father-in-law, was binding Ferguson's arm at the time when the two +officers were seen and Ferguson recalled the order to fire, and that De +Lancey said he believed the officer was Count Pulaski. But, as Ferguson, +according to his own account, "leveled his piece" at the officer, his +arm evidently was not wounded until later in the day. The probability is +that Ferguson's version, written in a private letter to his relative, is +correct as to the facts, whatever may be conjectured as to the identity +of the officer. See Draper's King's "Mountain and its Heroes," pp. +52-54. + + +Ferguson had his code towards the foe's women also. On one occasion when +he was assisting in an action carried out by Hessians and Dragoons, he +learned that some American women had been shamefully maltreated. He went +in a white fury to the colonel in command, and demanded that the men who +had so disgraced their uniforms instantly be put to death. + +In rallying the loyalists of the Back Country of Georgia and the +Carolinas, Ferguson was very successful. He was presently in command of +a thousand or more men, including small detachments of loyalists from +New York and New Jersey, under American-born officers such as De Peyster +and Allaire. There were good honest men among the loyalists and there +were also rough and vicious men out for spoils--which was true as well +of the Whigs or Patriots from the same counties. Among the rough element +were Tory banditti from the overmountain region. It is to be gathered +from Ferguson's records that he did not think any too highly of some +of his new recruits, but he set to work with all energy to make them +useful. + +The American Patriots hastily prepared to oppose him. Colonel Charles +McDowell of Burke County, North Carolina, with a small force of militia +was just south of the line at a point on the Broad River when he heard +that Ferguson was sweeping on northward. In haste he sent a call for +help across the mountains to Sevier and Shelby. Sevier had his hands +full at Watauga, but he dispatched two hundred of his troops; and Isaac +Shelby, with a similar force from Sullivan County crossed the mountains +to McDowell's assistance. These "overmountain men" or "backwater men," +as they were called east of the hills, were trained in Sevier's method +of Indian warfare--the secret approach through the dark, the swift dash, +and the swifter flight. "Fight strong and run away fast" was the Indian +motto, as their women had often been heard to call it after the red men +as they ran yelling to fall on the whites. The frontiersmen had adapted +the motto to fit their case, as they had also made their own the Indian +tactics of ambuscade and surprise attacks at dawn. To sleep, or ride if +needs must, by night, and to fight by day and make off, was to them a +reasonable soldier's life. + +But Ferguson was a night marauder. The terror of his name, which grew +among the Whigs of the Back Country until the wildest legends about his +ferocity were current, was due chiefly to a habit he had of pouncing on +his foes in the middle of the night and pulling them out of bed to +give fight or die. It was generally both fight and die, for these +dark adventures of his were particularly successful. Ferguson knew no +neutrals or conscientious objectors; any man who would not carry arms +for the King was a traitor, and his life and goods were forfeit. A +report of his reads: "The attack being made at night, no quarter could +be given." Hence his wolfish fame. "Werewolf" would have been a fit name +for him for, though he was a wolf at night, in the daylight he was a man +and, as we have seen, a chivalrous one. + +In the guerrilla fighting that went on for a brief time between the +overmountain men and various detachments of Ferguson's forces, sometimes +one side, sometimes the other, won the heat. But the field remained +open. Neither side could claim the mastery. In a minor engagement fought +at Musgrove's Mill on the Enoree, Shelby's command came off victor and +was about to pursue the enemy towards Ninety-Six when a messenger from +McDowell galloped madly into camp with word of General Gates's crushing +defeat at Camden. This was a warning for Shelby's guerrillas to flee as +birds to their mountains, or Ferguson would cut them off from the north +and wedge them in between his own force and the victorious Cornwallis. +McDowell's men, also on the run for safety, joined them. For forty-eight +hours without food or rest they rode a race with Ferguson, who kept hard +on their trail until they disappeared into the mystery of the winding +mountain paths they alone knew. + +Ferguson reached the gap where they had swerved into the towering hills +only half an hour after their horses' hoofs had pounded across it. Here +he turned back. His troops were exhausted from the all-night ride and, +in any case, there were not enough of them to enable him to cross the +mountains and give the Watauga men battle on their own ground with a +fair promise of victory. So keeping east of the hills but still close to +them, Ferguson turned into Burke County, North Carolina. He sat him down +in Gilbert Town (present Lincolnton, Lincoln County) at the foot of the +Blue Ridge and indited a letter to the "Back Water Men," telling them +that if they did not lay down their arms and return to their rightful +allegiance, he would come over their hills and raze their settlements +and hang their leaders. He paroled a kinsman of Shelby's, whom he had +taken prisoner in the chase, and sent him home with the letter. Then he +set about his usual business of gathering up Tories and making soldiers +of them, and of hunting down rebels. + +One of the "rebels" was a certain Captain Lytle. When Ferguson drew up +at Lytle's door, Lytle had already made his escape; but Mrs. Lytle was +there. She was a very handsome woman and she had dressed herself in her +best to receive Ferguson, who was reported a gallant as well as a wolf. +After a few spirited passages between the lady in the doorway and the +officer on the white horse before it, the latter advised Mrs. Lytle +to use her influence to bring her husband back to his duty. She became +grave then and answered that her husband would never turn traitor to his +country. Ferguson frowned at the word "traitor," but presently he +said: "Madam, I admire you as the handsomest woman I have seen in North +Carolina. I even half way admire your zeal in a bad cause. But take +my word for it, the rebellion has had its day and is now virtually put +down. Give my regards to Captain Lytle and tell him to come in. He will +not be asked to compromise his honor. His verbal pledge not again to +take up arms against the King is all that will be asked of him." * + + + * Draper,"King's Mountain and its Heroes," pp. 151-53. + + +This was another phase of the character of the one-armed Highlander +whose final challenge to the backwater men was now being considered in +every log cabin beyond the hills. A man who would not shoot an enemy in +the back, who was ready to put the same faith in another soldier's honor +which he knew was due to his own, yet in battle a wolfish fighter who +leaped through the dark to give no quarter and to take none--he was fit +challenger to those other mountaineers who also had a chivalry of their +own, albeit they too were wolves of war. + +When Shelby on the Holston received Ferguson's pungent letter, he flung +himself on his horse and rode posthaste to Watauga to consult, with +Sevier. He found the bank of the Nolichucky teeming with merrymakers. +Nolichucky Jack was giving an immense barbecue and a horse race. Without +letting the festival crowd have an inkling of the serious nature of +Shelby's errand, the two men drew apart to confer. It is said to have +been Sevier's idea that they should muster the forces of the western +country and go in search of Ferguson ere the latter should be able +to get sufficient reinforcements to cross the mountains. Sevier, like +Ferguson, always preferred to seek his foe, knowing well the advantage +of the offensive. Messengers were sent to Colonel William Campbell of +the Virginia settlements on the Clinch, asking his aid. Campbell at +first refused, thinking it better to fortify the positions they held and +let Ferguson come and put the mountains between himself and Cornwallis. +On receipt of a second message, however, he concurred. The call to arms +was heard up and down the valleys, and the frontiersmen poured into +Watauga. The overhill men were augmented by McDowell's troops from Burke +County, who had dashed over the mountains a few weeks before in their +escape from Ferguson. + +At daybreak on the 26th of September they mustered at the Sycamore +Shoals on the Watauga, over a thousand strong. It was a different +picture they made from that other great gathering at the same spot when +Henderson had made his purchase in money of the Dark and Bloody Ground, +and Sevier and Robertson had bought for the Wataugans this strip of +Tennessee. There were no Indians in this picture. Dragging Canoe, who +had uttered his bloody prophecy, had by these very men been driven far +south into the caves of the Tennessee River. But the Indian prophecy +still hung over them, and in this day with a heavier menace. Not with +money, now, were they to seal their purchase of the free land by the +western waters. There had been no women in that other picture, only the +white men who were going forward to open the way and the red men +who were retreating. But in this picture there were women--wives and +children, mothers, sisters, and sweethearts. All the women of the +settlement were there at this daybreak muster to cheer on their way the +men who were going out to battle that they might keep the way of liberty +open not for men only but for women and children also. And the battle to +which the men were now going forth must be fought against Back Country +men of their own stripe under a leader who, in other circumstances, +might well have been one of themselves--a primitive spirit of hardy +mountain stock, who, having once taken his stand, would not barter and +would not retreat. + +"With the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" cried their pastor, the +Reverend Samuel Doak, with upraised hands, as the mountaineers swung +into their saddles. And it is said that all the women took up his +words and cried again and again, "With the sword of the Lord and of our +Gideons!" To the shouts of their women, as bugles on the wind of dawn, +the buckskin-shirted army dashed out upon the mountain trail. + +The warriors' equipment included rifles and ammunition, tomahawks, +knives, shot pouches, a knapsack, and a blanket for each man. Their +uniforms were leggings, breeches, and long loose shirts of gayly fringed +deerskin, or of the linsey-woolsey spun by their women. Their hunting +shirts were bound in at the waist by bright-colored linsey sashes tied +behind in a bow. They wore moccasins for footgear, and on their heads +high fur or deerskin caps trimmed with colored bands of raveled cloth. +Around their necks hung their powderhorns ornamented with their own rude +carvings. + +On the first day they drove along with them a number of beeves but, +finding that the cattle impeded the march, they left them behind on the +mountain side. Their provisions thereafter were wild game and the small +supply each man carried of mixed corn meal and maple sugar. For drink, +they had the hill streams. + +They passed upward between Roan and Yellow mountains to the top of +the range. Here, on the bald summit, where the loose snow lay to their +ankles, they halted for drill and rifle practice. When Sevier called up +his men, he discovered that two were missing. He suspected at once that +they had slipped away to carry warning to Ferguson, for Watauga was +known to be infested with Tories. Two problems now confronted the +mountaineers. They must increase the speed of their march, so that +Ferguson should not have time to get reinforcements from Cornwallis; and +they must make that extra speed by another trail than they had intended +taking so that they themselves could not be intercepted before they had +picked up the Back Country militia under Colonels Cleveland, Hampbright, +Chronicle, and Williams, who were moving to join them. We are not told +who took the lead when they left the known trail, but we may suppose it +was Sevier and his Wataugans, for the making of new warpaths and wild +riding were two of the things which distinguished Nolichucky Jack's +leadership. Down the steep side of the mountain, finding their way as +they plunged, went the overhill men. They crossed the Blue Ridge at +Gillespie's Gap and pushed on to Quaker Meadows, where Colonel Cleveland +with 350 men swung into their column. Along their route, the Back +Country Patriots with their rifles came out from the little hamlets and +the farms and joined them. + +They now had an army of perhaps fifteen hundred men but no commanding +officer. Thus far, on the march, the four colonels had conferred +together and agreed as to procedure; or, in reality, the influence of +Sevier and Shelby, who had planned the enterprise and who seem always +to have acted in unison, had swayed the others. It would be, however, +manifestly improper to go into battle without a real general. Something +must be done. McDowell volunteered to carry a letter explaining their +need to General Gates, who had escaped with some of his staff into North +Carolina and was not far off. It then occurred to Sevier and Shelby, +evidently for the first time, that Gates, on receiving such a request, +might well ask why the Governor of North Carolina, as the military head +of the State, had not provided a commander. The truth is that Sevier +and Shelby had been so busy drumming up the militia and planning their +campaign that they had found no time to consult the Governor. Moreover, +the means whereby the expedition had been financed might not have +appealed to the chief executive. After finding it impossible to raise +sufficient funds on his personal credit, Sevier had appropriated the +entry money in the government land office to the business in hand--with +the good will of the entry taker, who was a patriotic man, although, +as he had pointed out, he could not, OFFICIALLY, hand over the money. +Things being as they were, no doubt Nolichucky Jack felt that an +interview with the Governor had better be deferred until after the +capture of Ferguson. Hence the tenor of this communication to General +Gates: + +"As we have at this time called out our militia without any orders from +the Executive of our different States and with the view of expelling +the Enemy out of this part of the Country, we think such a body of men +worthy of your attention and would request you to send a General Officer +immediately to take the command.... All our Troops being Militia and but +little acquainted with discipline, we could wish him to be a Gentleman +of address, and able to keep up a proper discipline WITHOUT DISGUSTING +THE SOLDIERY." + +For some unknown reason--unless it might be the wording of this +letter!--no officer was sent in reply. Shelby then suggested that, since +all the officers but Campbell were North Carolinians and, therefore, +no one of them could be promoted without arousing the jealousy of the +others, Campbell, as the only Virginian, was the appropriate choice. +The sweet reasonableness of selecting a commander from such a motive +appealed to all, and Campbell became a general in fact if not in name! +Shelby's principal aim, however, had been to get rid of McDowell, +who, as their senior, would naturally expect to command and whom he +considered "too far advanced in life and too inactive" for such an +enterprise. At this time McDowell must have been nearly thirty-nine; and +Shelby, who was just thirty, wisely refused to risk the campaign under a +general who was in his dotage! + +News of the frontiersmen's approach, with their augmented force, now +numbering between sixteen and eighteen hundred, had reached Ferguson by +the two Tories who had deserted from Sevier's troops. Ferguson thereupon +had made all haste out of Gilbert Town and was marching southward to get +in touch with Cornwallis. His force was much reduced, as some of his +men were in pursuit of Elijah Clarke towards Augusta and a number of his +other Tories were on furlough. As he passed through the Back Country +he posted a notice calling on the loyalists to join him. If the +overmountain men felt that they were out on a wolf hunt, Ferguson's +proclamation shows what the wolf thought of his hunters. + +"To the Inhabitants of North Carolina. + +"Gentlemen: Unless you wish to be eat up by an innundation of +barbarians, who have begun by murdering an unarmed son before the aged +father, and afterwards lopped off his arms, and who by their shocking +cruelties and irregularities give the best proof of their cowardice +and want of discipline: I say if you wish to be pinioned, robbed and +murdered, and see your wives and daughters in four days, abused by the +dregs of mankind--in short if you wish to deserve to live and bear the +name of men, grasp your arms in a moment and run to camp. + +"The Back Water men have crossed the mountains: McDowell, Hampton, +Shelby, and Cleveland are at their head, so that you know what you have +to depend upon. If you choose to be degraded forever and ever by a set +of mongrels, say so at once, and let your women turn their backs upon +you, and look out for real men to protect them. + +"Pat. Ferguson, Major 71st Regiment." * + + + * Draper, "King's Mountain and its Heroes," p. 204. + + +Ferguson's force has been estimated at about eleven hundred men, but +it is likely that this estimate does not take the absentees into +consideration. In the diary of Lieutenant Allaire, one of his officers, +the number is given as only eight hundred. Because of the state of his +army, chroniclers have found Ferguson's movements, after leaving Gilbert +Town, difficult to explain. It has been pointed out that he could easily +have escaped, for he had plenty of time, and Charlotte, Cornwallis's +headquarters, was only sixty miles distant. We have seen something of +Ferguson's quality, however, and we may simply take it that he did not +want to escape. He had been planning to cross the high hills--to him, +the Highlander, no barrier but a challenge--to fight these men. Now that +they had taken the initiative he would not show them his back. He craved +the battle. So he sent out runners to the main army and rode on along +the eastern base of the mountains, seeking a favorable site to go into +camp and wait for Cornwallis's aid. On the 6th of October he reached the +southern end of the King's Mountain ridge, in South Carolina, about half +a mile south of the northern boundary. Here a rocky, semi-isolated spur +juts out from the ridge, its summit--a table-land about six hundred +yards long and one hundred and twenty wide at its northern end--rising +not more than sixty feet above the surrounding country. On the summit +Ferguson pitched his camp. + +The hill was a natural fortress, its sides forested, its bald top +protected by rocks and bowlders. All the approaches led through dense +forest. An enemy force, passing through the immediate, wooded territory, +might easily fail to discover a small army nesting sixty feet above the +shrouding leafage. Word was evidently brought to Ferguson here, telling +him the now augmented number of his foe, for he dispatched another +emissary to Cornwallis with a letter stating the number of his own +troops and urging full and immediate assistance. + +Meanwhile the frontiersmen had halted at the Cowpens. There they feasted +royally off roasted cattle and corn belonging to the loyalist who owned +the Cowpens. It is said that they mowed his fifty acres of corn in +an hour. And here one of their spies, in the assumed role of a Tory, +learned Ferguson's plans, his approximate force, his route, and his +system of communication with Cornwallis. The officers now held council +and determined to take a detachment of the hardiest and fleetest +horsemen and sweep down on the enemy before aid could reach him. About +nine o'clock that evening, according to Shelby's report, 910 mounted men +set off at full speed, leaving the main body of horse and foot to follow +after at their best pace. + +Rain poured down on them all that night as they rode. At daybreak they +crossed the Broad at Cherokee Ford and dashed on in the drenching rain +all the forenoon. They kept their firearms and powder dry by wrapping +them in their knapsacks, blankets, and hunting shirts. The downpour +had so churned up the soil that many of the horses mired, but they were +pulled out and whipped forward again. The wild horsemen made no halt +for food or rest. Within two miles of King's Mountain they captured +Ferguson's messenger with the letter that told of his desperate +situation. They asked this man how they should know Ferguson. He told +them that Ferguson was in full uniform but wore a checkered shirt or +dust cloak over it. This was not the only messenger of Ferguson's who +failed to carry through. The men he had sent out previously had been +followed and, to escape capture or death, they had been obliged to lie +in hiding, so that they did not reach Cornwallis until the day of the +battle. + +At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th of October, the +overmountain men were in the forest at the base of the hill. The rain +had ceased and the sun was shining. They dismounted and tethered their +steaming horses. Orders were given that every man was to "throw the +priming out of his pan, pick his touchhole, prime anew, examine bullets +and see that everything was in readiness for battle." The plan of battle +agreed on was to surround the hill, hold the enemy on the top and, +themselves screened by the trees, keep pouring in their fire. There was +a good chance that most of the answering fire would go over their heads. + +As Shelby's men crossed a gap in the woods, the outposts on the hill +discovered their presence and sounded the alarm. Ferguson sprang +to horse, blowing his silver whistle to call his men to attack. His +riflemen poured fire into Shelby's contingent, but meanwhile the +frontiersmen on the other sides were creeping up, and presently a circle +of fire burst upon the hill. With fixed bayonets, some of Ferguson's men +charged down the face of the slope, against the advancing foe, only +to be shot in the back as they charged. Still time and time again +they charged; the overhill men reeled and retreated; but always their +comrades took toll with their rifles; Ferguson's men, preparing for a +mounted charge, were shot even as they swung to their saddles. Ferguson, +with his customary indifference to danger, rode up and down in front of +his line blowing his whistle to encourage his men. "Huzza, brave boys! +The day is our own!" Thus he was heard to shout above the triumphant war +whoops of the circling foe, surging higher and higher about the hill. + +But there were others in his band who knew the fight was lost. The +overmountain men saw two white handkerchiefs, axed to bayonets, raised +above the rocks; and then they saw Ferguson dash by and slash them down +with his sword. Two horses were shot under Ferguson in the latter part +of the action; but he mounted a third and rode again into the thick of +the fray. Suddenly the cry spread among the attacking troops that +the British officer, Tarleton, had come to Ferguson's rescue; and the +mountaineers began to give way. But it was only the galloping horses of +their own comrades; Tarleton had not come. Nolichucky Jack spurred out +in front of his men and rode along the line. Fired by his courage they +sounded the war whoop again and renewed the attack with fury. + +"These are the same yelling devils that were at Musgrove's Mill," said +Captain De Peyster to Ferguson. + +Now Shelby and Sevier, leading his Wataugans, had reached the summit. +The firing circle pressed in. The buckskin-shirted warriors leaped the +rocky barriers, swinging their tomahawks and long knives. Again the +white handkerchiefs fluttered. Ferguson saw that the morale of his +troops was shattered. + +"Surrender," De Peyster, his second in command, begged of him. + +"Surrender to those damned banditti? Never!" + +Ferguson turned his horse's head downhill and charged into the +Wataugans, hacking right and left with his sword till it was broken at +the hilt. A dozen rifles were leveled at him. An iron muzzle pushed at +his breast, but the powder flashed in the pan. He swerved and struck +at the rifleman with his broken hilt. But the other guns aimed at him +spoke; and Ferguson's body jerked from the saddle pierced by eight +bullets. Men seized the bridle of the frenzied horse, plunging on with +his dead master dragging from the stirrup. + +The battle had lasted less than an hour. After Ferguson fell, De Peyster +advanced with a white flag and surrendered his sword to Campbell. Other +white flags waved along the hilltop. But the killing did not yet cease. +It is said that many of the mountaineers did not know the significance +of the white flag. Sevier's sixteen-year-old son, having heard that his +father had fallen, kept on furiously loading and firing until presently +he saw Sevier ride in among the troops and command them to stop shooting +men who had surrendered and thrown down their arms. + +The victors made a bonfire of the enemy's baggage wagons and supplies. +Then they killed some of his beeves and cooked them; they had had +neither food nor sleep for eighteen hours. They dug shallow trenches +for the dead and scattered the loose earth over them. Ferguson's body, +stripped of its uniform and boots and wrapped in a beef hide, was thrown +into one of these ditches by the men detailed to the burial work, while +the officers divided his personal effects among themselves. + +The triumphant army turned homeward as the dusk descended. The uninjured +prisoners and the wounded who were able to walk were marched off +carrying their empty firearms. The badly wounded were left lying where +they had fallen. + +At Bickerstaff's Old Fields in Rutherford County the frontiersmen +halted; and here they selected thirty of their prisoners to be hanged. +They swung them aloft, by torchlight, three at a time, until nine had +gone to their last account. Then Sevier interposed; and, with Shelby's +added authority, saved the other twenty-one. Among those who thus +weighted the gallows tree were some of the Tory brigands from Watauga; +but not all the victims were of this character. Some of the troops would +have wreaked vengeance on the two Tories from Sevier's command who had +betrayed their army plans to Ferguson; but Sevier claimed them as under +his jurisdiction and refused consent. Nolichucky Jack dealt humanely by +his foes. To the coarse and brutish Cleveland, now astride of Ferguson's +horse and wearing his sash, and to the three hundred who followed him, +may no doubt be laid the worst excesses of the battle's afterpiece. + +Victors and vanquished drove on in the dark, close to the great flank +of hills. From where King's Mountain, strewn with dead and dying, reared +its black shape like some rudely hewn tomb of a primordial age when +titans strove together, perhaps to the ears of the marching men came +faintly through the night's stillness the howl of a wolf and the +answering chorus of the pack. For the wolves came down to King's +Mountain from all the surrounding hills, following the scent of blood, +and made their lair where the Werewolf had fallen. The scene of the +mountaineers' victory, which marked the turn of the tide for the +Revolution, became for years the chief resort of wolf hunters from both +the Carolinas. + +The importance of the overmountain men's victory lay in what it achieved +for the cause of Independence. King's Mountain was the prelude to +Cornwallis's defeat. It heartened the Southern Patriots, until then cast +down by Gates's disaster. To the British the death of Ferguson was an +irreparable loss because of its depressing effect on the Back Country +Tories. Ding's Mountain, indeed, broke the Tory spirit. Seven days after +the battle General Nathanael Greene succeeded to the command of the +Southern Patriot army which Gates had led to defeat. Greene's genius +met the rising tide of the Patriots' courage and hope and took it at +the flood. His strategy, in dividing his army and thereby compelling the +division of Cornwallis's force, led to Daniel Morgan's victory at +the Cowpens, in the Back Country of South Carolina, on January 17, +1781--another frontiersmen's triumph. Though the British won the next +engagement between Greene and Cornwallis--the battle of Guilford Court +House in the North Carolina Back Country, on the 15th of March--Greene +made them pay so dearly for their victory that Tarleton called it "the +pledge of ultimate defeat"; and, three days later, Cornwallis was +retreating towards Wilmington. In a sense, then, King's Mountain was the +pivot of the war's revolving stage, which swung the British from their +succession of victories towards the surrender at Yorktown. + +Shelby, Campbell, and Cleveland escorted the prisoners to Virginia. +Sevier, with his men, rode home to Watauga. When the prisoners had been +delivered to the authorities in Virginia, the Holston men also turned +homeward through the hills. Their route lay down through the Clinch and +Holston valleys to the settlement at the base of the mountains. Sevier +and his Wataugans had gone by Gillespie's Gap, over the pathway that +hung like a narrow ribbon about the breast of Roan Mountain, lifting its +crest in dignified isolation sixty-three hundred feet above the levels. +The "Unakas" was the name the Cherokees had given to those white men who +first invaded their hills; and the Unakas is the name that white men at +last gave to the mountain. + +Great companies of men were to come over the mountain paths on their way +to the Mississippi country and beyond; and with them, as we know, were +to go many of these mountain men, to pass away with their customs in the +transformations that come with progress. But there were others who +clung to these hills. They were of several stocks--English, Scotch, +Highlanders, Ulstermen, who mingled by marriage and sometimes took their +mates from among the handsome maids of the Cherokees. They spread from +the Unakas of Tennessee into the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky; and +they have remained to this day what they were then, a primitive folk +of strong and fiery men and brave women living as their forefathers of +Watauga and Holston lived. In the log cabins in those mountains today +are heard the same ballads, sung still to the dulcimer, that entertained +the earliest settlers. The women still turn the old-fashioned spinning +wheels. The code of the men is still the code learned perhaps from +the Gaels--the code of the oath and the feud and the open door to the +stranger. Or were these, the ethical tenets of almost all uncorrupted +primitive tribes, transmitted from the Indian strain and association? +Their young people marry at boy and girl ages, as the pioneers did, and +their wedding festivities are the same as those which made rejoicing at +the first marriage in Watauga. Their common speech today contains words +that have been obsolete in England for a hundred years. + +Thrice have the mountain men come down again from their fastnesses to +war for America since the day of King's Mountain and thrice they +have acquitted themselves so that their deeds are noted in history. A +souvenir of their part in the War of 1812 at the Battle of the Thames +is kept in one of the favorite names for mountain girls--"Lake Erie." In +the Civil War many volunteers from the free, non-slaveholding mountain +regions of Kentucky and Tennessee joined the Union Army, and it is said +that they exceeded all others in stature and physical development. And +in our own day their sons again came down from the mountains to carry +the torch of Liberty overseas, and to show the white stars in their flag +side by side with the ancient cross in the flag of England against which +their forefathers fought. + + + +Chapter X. Sevier, The Statemaker + +After King's Mountain, Sevier reached home just in time to fend off a +Cherokee attack on Watauga. Again warning had come to the settlements +that the Indians were about to descend upon them. Sevier set out at once +to meet the red invaders. Learning from his scouts that the Indians were +near he went into ambush with his troops disposed in the figure of a +half-moon, the favorite Indian formation. He then sent out a small body +of men to fire on the Indians and make a scampering retreat, to lure the +enemy on. The maneuver was so well planned and the ground so well chosen +that the Indian war party would probably have been annihilated but for +the delay of an officer at one horn of the half-moon in bringing his +troops into play. Through the gap thus made the Indians escaped, with a +loss of seventeen of their number. The delinquent officer was Jonathan +Tipton, younger brother of Colonel John Tipton, of whom we shall hear +later. It is possible that from this event dates the Tiptons' feud with +Sevier, which supplies one of the breeziest pages in the story of early +Tennessee. + +Not content with putting the marauders to flight, Sevier pressed on +after them, burned several of the upper towns, and took prisoner a +number of women and children, thus putting the red warriors to the depth +of shame, for the Indians never deserted their women in battle. The +chiefs at once sued for peace. But they had made peace often before. +Sevier drove down upon the Hiwassee towns, meanwhile proclaiming that +those among the tribe who were friendly might send their families to the +white settlement, where they would be fed and cared for until a sound +peace should be assured. He also threatened to continue to make war +until his enemies were wiped out, their town sites a heap of blackened +ruins, and their whole country in possession of the whites, unless they +bound themselves to an enduring peace. + +Having compelled the submission of the Otari and Hiwassee towns, yet +finding that depredations still continued, Sevier determined to invade +the group of towns hidden in the mountain fastnesses near the headwaters +of the Little Tennessee where, deeming themselves inaccessible except +by their own trail, the Cherokees freely plotted mischief and sent out +raiding parties. These hill towns lay in the high gorges of the Great +Smoky Mountains, 150 miles distant. No one in Watauga had ever been in +them except Thomas, the trader, who, however, had reached them from the +eastern side of the mountains. With no knowledge of the Indians' path +and without a guide, yet nothing daunted, Sevier, late in the summer +of 1781 headed his force into the mountains. So steep were some of the +slopes they scaled that the men were obliged to dismount and help +their horses up. Unexpectedly to themselves perhaps, as well as to the +Indians, they descended one morning on a group of villages and destroyed +them. Before the fleeing savages could rally, the mountaineers had +plunged up the steeps again. Sevier then turned southward into Georgia +and inflicted a severe castigation on the tribes along the Coosa River. + +When, after thirty days of warfare and mad riding, Sevier arrived at his +Bonnie Kate's door on the Nolichucky, he found a messenger from General +Greene calling on him for immediate assistance to cut off Cornwallis +from his expected retreat through North Carolina. Again he set out, +and with two hundred men crossed the mountains and made all speed to +Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, where he learned that Cornwallis had +surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. Under Greene's orders he +turned south to the Santee to assist a fellow scion of the Huguenots, +General Francis Marion, in the pursuit of Stuart's Britishers. Having +driven Stuart into Charleston, Sevier and his active Wataugans returned +home, now perhaps looking forward to a rest, which they had surely +earned. Once more, however, they were hailed with alarming news. +Dragging Canoe had come to life again and was emerging from the caves of +the Tennessee with a substantial force of Chickamaugan warriors. Again +the Wataugans, augmented by a detachment from Sullivan County, galloped +forth, met the red warriors, chastised them heavily, put them to rout, +burned their dwellings and provender, and drove them back into their +hiding places. For some time after this, the Indians dipped not into +the black paint pots of war but were content to streak their humbled +countenances with the vermilion of beauty and innocence. + + +It should be chronicled that Sevier, assisted possibly by other +Wataugans, eventually returned to the State of North Carolina the +money which he had forcibly borrowed to finance the King's Mountain +expedition; and that neither he nor Shelby received any pay for their +services, nor asked it. Before Shelby left the Holston in 1782 and moved +to Kentucky, of which State he was to become the first Governor, the +Assembly of North Carolina passed a resolution of gratitude to the +overmountain men in general, and to Sevier and Shelby in particular, +for their "very generous and patriotic services" with which the +"General Assembly of this State are feelingly impressed." The resolution +concluded by urging the recipients of the Assembly's acknowledgments +to "continue" in their noble course. In view of what followed, this +resolution is interesting! + +For some time the overhill pioneers had been growing dissatisfied with +the treatment they were receiving from the State, which on the plea +of poverty had refused to establish a Superior Court for them and to +appoint a prosecutor. As a result, crime was on the increase, and +the law-abiding were deprived of the proper legal means to check the +lawless. In 1784 when the western soldiers' claims began to reach the +Assembly, there to be scrutinized by unkindly eyes, the dissatisfaction +increased. The breasts of the mountain men--the men who had made that +spectacular ride to bring Ferguson to his end--were kindled with hot +indignation when they heard that they had been publicly assailed as +grasping persons who seized on every pretense to "fabricate demands +against the Government." Nor were those fiery breasts cooled by further +plaints to the effect that the "industry and property" of those east of +the hills were "becoming the funds appropriated to discharge the debts" +of the Westerners. They might with justice have asked what the industry +and property of the Easterners were worth on that day when the overhill +men drilled in the snows on the high peak of Yellow Mountain and looked +down on Burke County overrun by Ferguson's Tories, and beyond, to +Charlotte, where lay Cornwallis. + +The North Carolina Assembly did not confine itself to impolite remarks. +It proceeded to get rid of what it deemed western rapacity by ceding the +whole overmountain territory to the United States, with the proviso that +Congress must accept the gift within twelve months. And after passing +the Cession Act, North Carolina closed the land office in the undesired +domain and nullified all entries made after May 25, 1784. The Cession +Act also enabled the State to evade its obligations to the Cherokees in +the matter of an expensive consignment of goods to pay for new lands. + +This clever stroke of the Assembly's brought about immediate +consequences in the region beyond the hills. The Cherokees, who knew +nothing about the Assembly's system of political economy but who found +their own provokingly upset by the non-arrival of the promised goods, +began again to darken the mixture in their paint pots; and they dug up +the war hatchet, never indeed so deeply patted down under the dust that +it could not be unearthed by a stub of the toe. Needless to say, it was +not the thrifty and distant Easterners who felt their anger, but the +nearby settlements. + +As for the white overhill dwellers, the last straw had been laid on +their backs; and it felt like a hickory log. No sooner had the Assembly +adjourned than the men of Washington, Sullivan, and Greene counties, +which comprised the settled portion of what is now east Tennessee, +elected delegates to convene for the purpose of discussing the formation +of a new State. They could assert that they were not acting illegally, +for in her first constitution North Carolina had made provision for a +State beyond the mountains. And necessity compelled them to take steps +for their protection. Some of them, and Sevier was of the number, +doubted if Congress would accept the costly gift; and the majority +realized that during the twelve months which were allowed for the +decision they would have no protection from either North Carolina or +Congress and would not be able to command their own resources. + +In August, 1784, the delegates met at Jonesborough and passed +preliminary resolutions; and then adjourned to meet later in the year. +The news was soon disseminated through North Carolina and the Assembly +convened in October and hastily repealed the Cession Act, voted to +establish the District of Washington out of the four counties, and sent +word of the altered policy to Sevier, with a commission for himself as +Brigadier General. From the steps of the improvised convention hall, +before which the delegates had gathered, Sevier read the Assembly's +message and advised his neighbors to proceed no further, since North +Carolina had of her own accord redressed all their grievances. But for +once Nolichucky Jack's followers refused to follow. The adventure too +greatly appealed. Obliged to choose between North Carolina and his own +people, Sevier's hesitation was short. The State of Frankland, or Land +of the Free, was formed; and Nolichucky Jack was elevated to the office +of Governor--with a yearly salary of two hundred mink skins. + +Perhaps John Tipton had hoped to head the new State, for he had been one +of its prime movers and was a delegate to this convention. But when the +man whom he hated--apparently for no reason except that other men loved +him--assented to the people's will and was appointed to the highest +post within their gift, Tipton withdrew, disavowing all connection with +Frankland and affirming his loyalty to North Carolina. From this time +on, the feud was an open one. + +That brief and now forgotten State, Frankland, the Land of the Free, +which bequeathed its name as an appellation for America, was founded as +Watauga had been founded--to meet the practical needs and aspirations +of its people. It will be remembered that one of the things written by +Sevier into the only Watauga document extant was that they desired to +become "in every way the best members of society." Frankland's aims, +as recorded, included the intent to "improve agriculture, perfect +manufacturing, ENCOURAGE LITERATURE and every thing truly laudable." + +The constitution of Frankland, agreed to on the 14th of November, +1785, appeals to us today rather by its spirit than by its practical +provisions. "This State shall be called the Commonwealth of Frankland +and shall be governed by a General Assembly of the representatives of +the freemen of the same, a Governor and Council, and proper courts of +justice.... The supreme legislative power shall be vested in a +single House of Representatives of the freemen of the commonwealth of +Frankland. The House of Representatives of the freemen of the State +shall consist of persons most noted for wisdom and virtue." + +In these exalted desires of the primitive men who held by their rifles +and hatchets the land by the western waters, we see the influence of the +Reverend Samuel Doak, their pastor, who founded the first church and the +first school beyond the great hills. Early in the life of Watauga he had +come thither from Princeton, a zealous and broadminded young man, and +a sturdy one, too, for he came on foot driving before him a mule +laden with books. Legend credits another minister, the Reverend Samuel +Houston, with suggesting the name of Frankland, after he had opened +the Convention with prayer. It is not surprising to learn that this +glorified constitution was presently put aside in favor of one modeled +on that of North Carolina. + +Sevier persuaded the more radical members of the community to abandon +their extreme views and to adopt the laws of North Carolina. However +lawless his acts as Governor of a bolting colony may appear, Sevier was +essentially a constructive force. His purposes were right, and small +motives are not discernible in his record. He might reasonably urge that +the Franklanders had only followed the example of North Carolina and the +other American States in seceding from the parent body, and for similar +causes, for the State's system of taxation had long borne heavily on the +overhill men. + +The whole transmontane populace welcomed Frankland with enthusiasm. +Major Arthur Campbell, of the Virginian settlements, on the Holston, +was eager to join. Sevier and his Assembly took the necessary steps +to receive the overhill Virginians, provided that the transfer of +allegiance could be made with Virginia's consent. Meanwhile he replied +in a dignified manner to the pained and menacing expostulations of North +Carolina's Governor. North Carolina was bidden to remember the epithets +her assemblymen had hurled at the Westerners, which they themselves had +by no means forgotten. And was it any wonder that they now doubted the +love the parent State professed to feel for them? As for the puerile +threat of blood, had their quality really so soon become obliterated +from the memory of North Carolina? At this sort of writing, Sevier, who +always pulsed hot with emotion and who had a pretty knack in turning a +phrase, was more than a match for the Governor of North Carolina, whose +prerogatives he had usurped. + +The overmountain men no longer needed to complain bitterly of the lack +of legal machinery to keep them "the best members of society." They +now had courts to spare. Frankland had its courts, its judges, its +legislative body, its land office--in fact, a full governmental +equipment. North Carolina also performed all the natural functions of +political organism, within the western territory. Sevier appointed one +David Campbell a judge. Campbell held court in Jonesborough. Ten miles +away, in Buffalo, Colonel John Tipton presided for North Carolina. It +happened frequently that officers and attendants of the rival law courts +met, as they pursued, their duties, and whenever they met they fought. +The post of sheriff--or sheriffs, for of course there were two--was +filled by the biggest and heaviest man and the hardest hitter in the +ranks of the warring factions. A favorite game was raiding each other's +courts and carrying off the records. Frankland sent William Cocke, later +the first senator from Tennessee, to Congress with a memorial, asking +Congress to accept the territory North Carolina had offered and to +receive it into the Union as a separate State. Congress ignored the +plea. It began to appear that North Carolina would be victor in the end; +and so there were defections among the Franklanders. Sevier wrote +to Benjamin Franklin asking his aid in establishing the status of +Frankland; and, with a graceful flourish of his ready pen, changed the +new State's name to Franklin by way of reinforcing his arguments. But +the old philosopher, more expert than Sevier in diplomatic calligraphy, +only acknowledged the compliment and advised the State of Franklin to +make peace with North Carolina. + +Sevier then appealed for aid and recognition to the Governor of Georgia, +who had previously appointed him Brigadier General of militia. But +the Governor of Georgia also avoided giving the recognition requested, +though he earnestly besought Sevier to come down and settle the Creeks +for him. There were others who sent pleas to Sevier, the warrior, to +save them from the savages. One of the writers who addressed him did not +fear to say "Your Excellency," nor to accord Nolichucky Jack the whole +dignity of the purple in appealing to him as the only man possessing the +will and the power to prevent the isolated settlements on the Cumberland +from being wiped out. That writer was his old friend, James Robertson. + +In 1787, while Sevier was on the frontier of Greene County, defending +it from Indians, the legal forces of North Carolina swooped down on his +estate and took possession of his negroes. It was Tipton who represented +the law; and Tipton carried off the Governor's slaves to his own estate. +When Nolichucky Jack came home and found that his enemy had stripped +him, he was in a towering rage. With a body of his troops and one small +cannon, he marched to Tipton's house and besieged it, threatening a +bombardment. He did not, however, fire into the dwelling, though he +placed some shots about it and in the extreme corners. This opera bouffe +siege endured for several days, until Tipton was reinforced by some of +his own clique. Then Tipton sallied forth and attacked the besiegers, +who hastily scattered rather than engage in a sanguinary fight with +their neighbors. Tipton captured Sevier's two elder sons and was only +strained from hanging them on being informed that two of his own sons +were at that moment in Sevier's hands. + +In March, 1788, the State of Franklin went into eclipse. Sevier was +overthrown by the authorities of North Carolina. Most of the officials +who had served under him were soothed by being reappointed to their old +positions. Tipton's star was now in the ascendant, for his enemy was +to be made the vicarious sacrifice for the sins of all whom he had "led +astray." Presently David Campbell, still graciously permitted to preside +over the Superior Court, received from the Governor of North Carolina +the following letter: + +"Sir: It has been represented to the Executive that John Sevier, who +style's himself Captain-General of the State of Franklin, has been +guilty of high treason in levying troops to oppose the laws and +government of the State.... You will issue your warrant to apprehend +the said John Sevier, and in case he cannot be sufficiently secured for +trial in the District of Washington, order him to be committed to the +public gaol." + + +The judge's authority was to be exercised after he had examined the +"affidavits of credible persons." Campbell's judicial opinion seems to +have been that any affidavit against "the said John Sevier" could not be +made by a "credible person." He refused to issue the warrant. Tipton's +friend, Spencer, who had been North Carolina's judge of the Superior +Court in the West and who was sharing that honor now with Campbell, +issued the warrant and sent Tipton to make the arrest. + +Sevier was at the Widow Brown's inn with some of his men when Tipton at +last came up with him. It was early morning. Tipton and his posse were +about to enter when the portly and dauntless widow, surmising their +errand, drew her chair into the doorway, plumped herself down in it, and +refused to budge for all the writs in North Carolina. Tipton blustered +and the widow rocked. The altercation awakened Sevier. He dressed +hurriedly and came down. As soon as he presented himself on the porch, +Tipton thrust his pistol against his body, evidently with intent to fire +if Sevier made signs of resistance. Sevier's furious followers were not +disposed to let him be taken without a fight, but he admonished them to +respect the law, and requested that they would inform Bonnie Kate of his +predicament. Then, debonair as ever, with perhaps a tinge of contempt at +the corners of his mouth, he held out his wrists for the manacles which +Tipton insisted on fastening upon them. + +It was not likely that any jail in the western country could hold +Nolichucky Jack overnight. Tipton feared a riot; and it was decided to +send the prisoner for incarceration and trial to Morgantown in North +Carolina, just over the hills. + +Tipton did not accompany the guards he sent with Sevier. It was stated +and commonly believed that he had given instructions of which the +honorable men among his friends were ignorant. When the party entered +the mountains, two of the guards were to lag behind with the prisoner, +till the others were out of sight on the twisting trail. Then one of the +two was to kill Sevier and assert that he had done it because Sevier +had attempted to escape. It fell out almost as planned, except that the +other guard warned Sevier of the fate in store for him and gave him +a chance to flee. In plunging down the mountain, Sevier's horse was +entangled in a thicket. The would-be murderer overtook him and fired; +but here again fate had interposed for her favorite. The ball had +dropped out of the assassin's pistol. So Sevier reached Morgantown +in safety and was deposited in care of the sheriff, who was doubtless +cautioned to take a good look at the prisoner and know him for a +dangerous and a daring man. + +There is a story to the effect that, when Sevier was arraigned in the +courthouse at Morgantown and presently dashed through the door and away +on a racer that had been brought up by some of his friends, among those +who witnessed the proceedings was a young Ulster Scot named Andrew +Jackson; and that on this occasion these two men, later to become foes, +first saw each other. Jackson may have been in Morgantown at the +time, though this is disputed; but the rest of the tale is pure legend +invented by some one whose love of the spectacular led him far from the +facts. The facts are less theatrical but much more dramatic. Sevier +was not arraigned at all, for no court was sitting in Morgantown at the +time. * The sheriff to whom he was delivered did not need to look twice +at him to know him for a daring man. He had served with him at King's +Mountain. He struck off his handcuffs and set him at liberty at once. +Perhaps he also notified General Charles McDowell at his home in Quaker +Meadows of the presence of a distinguished guest in Burke County, for +McDowell and his brother Joseph, another officer of militia, quickly +appeared and went on Sevier's bond. Nolichucky Jack was presently +holding a court of his own in the tavern, with North Carolina's men at +arms--as many as were within call--drinking his health. So his sons and +a company of his Wataugans found him, when they rode into Morgantown to +give evidence in his behalf--with their rifles. Since none now disputed +the way with him, Sevier turned homeward with his cavalcade, McDowell +and his men accompanying him as far as the pass in the hills. + + + * Statement by John Sevier, Junior, in the Draper MSS., quoted by +Turner, "Life of General John Sevier," p. 182. + + +No further attempt was made to try John Sevier for treason, either west +or east of the mountains. In November, however, the Assembly passed the +Pardon Act, and thereby granted absolution to every one who had been +associated with the State of Franklin, EXCEPT JOHN SEVIER. In a clause +said to have been introduced by Tipton, now a senator, or suggested by +him, John Sevier was debarred forever from "the enjoyment of any office +of profit or honor or trust in the State of North Carolina." + +The overhill men in Greene County took due note of the Assembly's fiat +and at the next election sent Sevier to the North Carolina Senate. +Nolichucky Jack, whose demeanor was never so decorous as when the +ill-considered actions of those in authority had made him appear to have +circumvented the law, considerately waited outside until the House had +lifted the ban--which it did perforce and by a large majority, despite +Tipton's opposition--and then took his seat on the senatorial bench +beside his enemy. The records show that he was reinstated as Brigadier +General of the Western Counties and also appointed at the head of the +Committee on Indian Affairs. + + +Not only in the region about Watauga did the pioneers of Tennessee +endure the throes of danger and strife during these years. The little +settlements on the Cumberland, which were scattered over a short +distance of about twenty-five or thirty miles and had a frontier line +of two hundred miles, were terribly afflicted. Their nearest white +neighbors among the Kentucky settlers were one hundred and fifty miles +away; and through the cruelest years these could render no aid--could +not, indeed, hold their own stations. The Kentuckians, as we have +seen, were bottled up in Harrodsburg and Boonesborough; and, while the +northern Indians led by Girty and Dequindre darkened the Bloody Ground +anew, the Cumberlanders were making a desperate stand against the +Chickasaws and the Creeks. So terrible was their situation that panic +took hold on them, and they would have fled but for the influence of +Robertson. He may have put the question to them in the biblical words, +"Whither shall I flee?" For they were surrounded, and those who did +attempt to escape were "weighed on the path and made light." Robertson +knew that their only chance of survival was to stand their ground. The +greater risks he was willing to take in person, for it was he who made +trips to Boonesborough and Harrodsburg for a share of the powder and +lead which John Sevier was sending into Kentucky from time to time. In +the stress of conflict Robertson bore his full share of grief, for his +two elder sons and his brother fell. He himself was often near to death. +One day he was cut off in the fields and was shot in the foot as he ran, +yet he managed to reach shelter. There is a story that, in an attack +during one of his absences, the Indians forced the outer gate of the +fort and Mrs. Robertson went out of her cabin, firing, and let loose a +band of the savage dogs which the settlers kept for their protection, +and so drove out the invaders. + +The Chickasaws were loyal to the treaty they had made with the British +in the early days of James Adair's association with them. They were +friends to England's friends and foes to her foes. While they resented +the new settlements made on land they considered theirs, they signed a +peace with Robertson at the conclusion of the War of Independence. +They kept their word with him as they had kept it with the British. +Furthermore, their chief, Opimingo or the Mountain Leader, gave +Robertson his assistance against the Creeks and the Choctaws and, in so +far as he understood its workings, informed him of the new Spanish and +French conspiracy, which we now come to consider. So once again the +Chickasaws were servants of destiny to the English-speaking race, for +again they drove the wedge of their honor into an Indian solidarity +welded with European gold. + +Since it was generally believed at that date that the tribes were +instigated to war by the British and supplied by them with their +ammunition, savage inroads were expected to cease with the signing of +peace. But Indian warfare not only continued; it increased. In the last +two years of the Revolution, when the British were driven from the +Back Country of the Carolinas and could no longer reach the tribes with +consignments of firearms and powder, it should have been evident that +the Indians had other sources of supply and other allies, for they +lacked nothing which could aid them in their efforts to exterminate the +settlers of Tennessee. + +Neither France nor Spain wished to see an English-speaking republic +based on ideals of democracy successfully established in America. Though +in the Revolutionary War, France was a close ally of the Americans and +Spain something more than a nominal one, the secret diplomacy of the +courts of the Bourbon cousins ill matched with their open professions. +Both cousins hated England. The American colonies, smarting under +injustice, had offered a field for their revenge. But hatred of England +was not the only reason why activities had been set afoot to increase +the discord which should finally separate the colonies from Great +Britain and leave the destiny of the colonies to be decided by the House +of Bourbon. Spain saw in the Americans, with their English modes of +thought, a menace to her authority in her own colonies on both the +northern and southern continents. This menace would not be stilled but +augmented if the colonies should be established as a republic. Such an +example might be too readily followed. Though France had, by a secret +treaty in 1762, made over to Spain the province of Louisiana, she was +not unmindful of the Bourbon motto, "He who attacks the Crown of one +attacks the other." And she saw her chance to deal a crippling blow at +England's prestige and commerce. + +In 1764, the French Minister, Choiseul, had sent a secret agent, named +Pontleroy, to America to assist in making trouble and to watch for +any signs that might be turned to the advantage of les duex couronnes. +Evidently Pontleroy's reports were encouraging for, in 1768, Johann +Kalb--the same Kalb who fell at Camden in 1780--arrived in Philadelphia +to enlarge the good work. He was not only, like several of the foreign +officers in the War of Independence, a spy for his Government, but he +was also the special emissary of one Comte de Broglie who, after the +colonies had broken with the mother country, was to put himself at the +head of American affairs. This Broglie had been for years one of +Louis XV's chief agents in subterranean diplomacy, and it is not to be +supposed that he was going to attempt the stupendous task of controlling +America's destiny without substantial backing. Spain had been advised +meanwhile to rule her new Louisiana territory with great liberality--in +fact, to let it shine as a republic before the yearning eyes of the +oppressed Americans, so that the English colonists would arise and cast +off their fetters. Once the colonies had freed themselves from England's +protecting arm, it would be a simple matter for the Bourbons to +gather them in like so many little lost chicks from a rainy yard. The +intrigants of autocratic systems have never been able to understand that +the urge of the spirit of independence in men is not primarily to break +shackles but to STAND ALONE and that the breaking of bonds is incidental +to the true demonstration of freedom. The Bourbons and their agents were +no more nor less blind to the great principle stirring the hearts of men +in their day than were the Prussianized hosts over a hundred years later +who, having themselves no acquaintance with the law of liberty, could +not foresee that half a world would rise in arms to maintain that law. + +When the War of Independence had ended, the French Minister, Vergennes, +and the Spanish Minister, Floridablanca, secretly worked in unison to +prevent England's recognition of the new republic; and Floridablanca in +1782 even offered to assist England if she would make further efforts +to subdue her "rebel subjects." Both Latin powers had their own axes +to grind, and America was to tend the grindstone. France looked for +recovery of her old prestige in Europe and expected to supersede England +in commerce. She would do this, in the beginning, chiefly through +control of America and of America's commerce. Vergennes therefore sought +not only to dictate the final terms of peace but also to say what the +American commissioners should and should not demand. Of the latter +gentlemen he said that they possessed "caracteres peu maniables!" In +writing to Luzerne, the French Ambassador in Philadelphia, on October +14, 1782, Vergennes said: "it behooves us to leave them [the American +commissioners] to their illusions, to do everything that can make them +fancy that we share them, and undertake only to defeat any attempts to +which those illusions might carry them if our cooperation is required." +Among these "illusions" were America's desires in regard to the +fisheries and to the western territory. Concerning the West, Vergennes +had written to Luzerne, as early as July 18, 1780: "At the moment when +the revolution broke out, the limits of the Thirteen States did not +reach the River [Mississippi] and it would be absurd for them to claim +the rights of England, a power whose rule they had abjured." By the +secret treaty with Spain, furthermore, France had agreed to continue +the war until Gibraltar should be taken, and--if the British should be +driven from Newfoundland--to share the fisheries only with Spain, and +to support Spain in demanding that the Thirteen States renounce all +territory west of the Alleghanies. The American States must by no means +achieve a genuine independence but must feel the need of sureties, +allies, and protection. * + + + * See John Jay, "On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1788 as +Illustrated by the Secret Correspondence of France and England," New +York, 1888. + + +So intent was Vergennes on these aims that he sent a secret emissary to +England to further them there. This act of his perhaps gave the first +inkling to the English statesmen * that American and French desires +were not identical and hastened England's recognition of American +independence and her agreement to American demands in regard to the +western territory. When, to his amazement, Vergennes learned that +England had acceded to all America's demands, he said that England +had "bought the peace" rather than made it. The policy of Vergennes +in regard to America was not unjustly pronounced by a later French +statesman "A VILE SPECULATION." + + + * "Your Lordship was well founded in your suspicion that the +granting of independence to America as a previous measure is a point +which the French have by no means at heart and perhaps are entirely +averse from." Letter from Fitzherbert to Grantham, September 3, 1782. + + +Through England's unexpected action, then, the Bourbon cousins had +forever lost their opportunity to dominate the young but spent and +war-weakened Republic, or to use America as a catspaw to snatch English +commerce for France. It was plain, too, that any frank move of the +sort would range the English alongside of their American kinsmen. Since +American Independence was an accomplished fact and therefore could no +longer be prevented, the present object of the Bourbon cousins was to +restrict it. The Appalachian Mountains should be the western limits of +the new nation. Therefore the settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee must +be broken up, or the settlers must be induced to secede from the Union +and raise the Spanish banner. The latter alternative was held to be +preferable. To bring it about the same methods were to be continued +which had been used prior to and during the war--namely, the use of +agents provocateurs to corrupt the ignorant and incite the lawless, the +instigation of Indian massacres to daunt the brave, and the distribution +of gold to buy the avaricious. + +As her final and supreme means of coercion, Spain refused to America the +right of navigation on the Mississippi and so deprived the Westerners of +a market for their produce. The Northern States, having no immediate use +for the Mississippi, were willing to placate Spain by acknowledging her +monopoly of the great waterway. But Virginia and North Carolina +were determined that America should not, by congressional enactment, +surrender her "natural right"; and they cited the proposed legislation +as their reason for refusing to ratify the Constitution. "The act which +abandons it [the right of navigation] is an act of separation between +the eastern and western country," Jefferson realized at last. "An act of +separation"--that point had long been very clear to the Latin sachems of +the Mississippi Valley! + +Bounded as they were on one side by the precipitous mountains and on the +other by the southward flow of the Mississippi and its tributary, the +Ohio, the trappers and growers of corn in Kentucky and western Tennessee +regarded New Orleans as their logical market, as the wide waters were +their natural route. If market and route were to be closed to them, +their commercial advancement was something less than a dream. + +In 1785, Don Estevan Miro, a gentleman of artful and winning address, +became Governor of Louisiana and fountainhead of the propaganda. He +wrote benign and brotherly epistles to James Robertson of the Cumberland +and to His Excellency of Franklin, suggesting that to be of service +to them was his dearest aim in life; and at the same time he kept the +southern Indians continually on the warpath. When Robertson wrote to +him of the Creek and Cherokee depredations, with a hint that the Spanish +might have some responsibility in the matter, Miro replied by offering +the Cumberlander a safe home on Spanish territory with freedom of +religion and no taxes. He disclaimed stirring up the Indians. He had, +in fact, advised Mr McGillivray, chief of the Creeks, to make peace. +He would try again what he could do with Mr. McGillivray. As to the +Cherokees, they resided in a very distant territory and he was not +acquainted with them; he might have added that he did not need to be: +his friend McGillivray was the potent personality among the Southern +tribes. + +In Alexander McGillivray, Miro found a weapon fashioned to his hand. If +the Creek chieftain's figure might stand as the symbol of treachery, it +is none the less one of the most picturesque and pathetic in our early +annals. McGillivray, it will be remembered, was the son of Adair's +friend Lachlan McGillivray, the trader, and a Creek woman whose sire had +been a French officer. A brilliant and beautiful youth, he had given his +father a pride in him which is generally denied to the fathers of sons +with Indian blood in them. The Highland trader had spared nothing in +his son's education and had placed him, after his school days, in the +business office of the large trading establishment of which he himself +was a member. At about the age of seventeen Alexander had become a +chieftain in his mother's nation; and doubtless it is he who appears +shortly afterwards in the Colonial Records as the White Leader whose +influence is seen to have been at work for friendship between the +colonists and the tribes. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Lachlan +McGillivray, like many of the old traders who had served British +interests so long and so faithfully, held to the British cause. Georgia +confiscated all his property and Lachlan fled to Scotland. For this, his +son hated the people of Georgia with a perfect hatred. He remembered how +often his father's courage alone had stood between those same people and +the warlike Creeks. He could recall the few days in 1760 when Lachlan +and his fellow trader, Galphin, at the risk of their lives had braved +the Creek warriors--already painted for war and on the march--and so had +saved the settlements of the Back Country from extermination. He looked +upon the men of Georgia as an Indian regards those who forget either +a blood gift or a blood vengeance. And he embraced the whole American +nation in his hatred for their sakes. + +In 1776 Alexander McGillivray was in his early thirties-the exact date +of his birth is uncertain. * He had, we are told, the tall, sturdy, but +spare physique of the Gael, with a countenance of Indian color though +not of Indian cast. His overhanging brows made more striking his very +large and luminous dark eyes. He bore himself with great dignity; his +voice was soft, his manner gentle. He might have been supposed to be +some Latin courtier but for the barbaric display of his dress and his +ornaments. He possessed extraordinary personal magnetism, and his power +extended beyond the Creek nation to the Choctaws and Chickasaws and the +Southern Cherokees. He had long been wooed by the Louisiana authorities, +but there is no evidence that he had made alliance with them prior to +the Revolution. + + + * Probably about 1741 or 1742. Some writers give 1739 and others +1746. His father landed in Charleston, Pickett ("History of Alabama") +says, in 1735, and was then only sixteen. + + +Early in the war he joined the British, received a colonel's commission, +and led his formidable Creeks against the people of Georgia. When the +British were driven from the Back Countries, McGillivray, in his British +uniform, went on with the war. When the British made peace, McGillivray +exchanged his British uniform for a Spanish one and went on with the +war. In later days, when he had forced Congress to pay him for his +father's confiscated property and had made peace, he wore the uniform +of an American Brigadier General; but he did not keep the peace, never +having intended to keep it. It was not until he had seen the Spanish +plots collapse and had realized that the Americans were to dominate the +land, that the White Leader ceased from war and urged the youths of his +tribe to adopt American civilization. + +Spent from hate and wasted with dissipation, he retired at last to the +spot where Lachlan had set up his first Creek home. Here he lived his +few remaining days in a house which he built on the site of the old +ruined cabin about which still stood the little grove of apple trees his +father had planted. He died at the age of fifty of a fever contracted +while he was on a business errand in Pensacola. Among those who +visited him in his last years, one has left this description of him: +"Dissipation has sapped a constitution originally delicate and feeble. +He possesses an atticism of diction aided by a liberal education, a +great fund of wit and humor meliorated by a perfect good nature and +politeness." Set beside that kindly picture this rough etching by James +Robertson: "The biggest devil among them [the Spaniards] is the half +Spaniard, half Frenchman, half Scotchman and altogether Creek scoundrel, +McGillivray." + +How indefatigably McGillivray did his work we know from the bloody +annals of the years which followed the British-American peace, when the +men of the Cumberland and of Franklin were on the defensive continually. +How cleverly Mire played his personal role we discover in the letters +addressed to him by Sevier and Robertson. These letters show that, as +far as words go at any rate, the founders of Tennessee were willing +to negotiate with Spain. In a letter dated September 12, 1788, Sevier +offered himself and his tottering State of Franklin to the Spanish King. +This offer may have been made to gain a respite, or it may have been +genuine. The situation in the Tennessee settlements was truly desperate, +for neither North Carolina nor Congress apparently cared in the least +what befell them or how soon. North Carolina indeed was in an anomalous +position, as she had not yet ratified the Federal Constitution. If +Franklin went out of existence and the territory which it included +became again part of North Carolina, Sevier knew that a large part of +the newly settled country would, under North Carolina's treaties, revert +to the Indians. That meant ruin to large numbers of those who had put +their faith in his star, or else it meant renewed conflict either with +the Indians or with the parent State. The probabilities aria that Sevier +hoped to play the Spaniards against the Easterners who, even while +denying the Westerners' contention that the mountains were a "natural" +barrier between them, were making of them a barrier of indifference. +It would seem so, because, although this was the very aim of all Miro's +activities so that, had he been assured of the sincerity of the offer, +he must have grasped at it, yet nothing definite was done. And Sevier +was presently informing Shelby, now in Kentucky, that there was a +Spanish plot afoot to seize the western country. + +Miro had other agents besides McGillivray--who, by the way, was costing +Spain, for his own services and those of four tribes aggregating over +six thousand warriors, a sum of fifty-five thousand dollars a year. +McGillivray did very well as superintendent of massacres; but the +Spaniard required a different type of man, an American who enjoyed his +country's trust, to bring the larger plan to fruition. Miro found that +man in General James Wilkinson, lately of the Continental Army and now a +resident of Kentucky, which territory Wilkinson undertook to deliver +to Spain, for a price. In 1787 Wilkinson secretly took the oath of +allegiance to Spain and is listed in the files of the Spanish secret +service, appropriately, as "Number Thirteen." He was indeed the +thirteenth at table, the Judas at the feast. Somewhat under middle +height, Wilkinson was handsome, graceful, and remarkably magnetic. Of a +good, if rather impoverished, Maryland family, he was well educated +and widely read for the times. With a brilliant and versatile +intellectuality and ready gifts as a speaker, he swayed men easily. He +was a bold soldier and was endowed with physical courage, though when +engaged in personal contests he seldom exerted it--preferring the red +tongue of slander or the hired assassin's shot from behind cover. His +record fails to disclose one commendable trait. He was inordinately +avaricious, but love of money was not his whole motive force: he had a +spirit so jealous and malignant that he hated to the death another man's +good. He seemed to divine instantly wherein other men were weak and to +understand the speediest and best means of suborning them to his own +interests--or of destroying them. + +Wilkinson was able to lure a number of Kentuckians into the separatist +movement. George Rogers Clark seriously disturbed the arch plotter by +seizing a Spanish trader's store wherewith to pay his soldiers, whom +Virginia had omitted to recompense. This act aroused the suspicions of +the Spanish, either as to Number Thirteen's perfect loyalty or as to +his ability to deliver the western country. In 1786, when Clark led +two thousand men against the Ohio Indians in his last and his only +unsuccessful campaign, Wilkinson had already settled himself near the +Falls (Louisville) and had looked about for mischief which he might do +for profit. Whether his influence had anything to do with what amounted +virtually to a mutiny among Clark's forces is not ascertainable; but, +for a disinterested onlooker, he was overswift to spread the news of +Clark's debacle and to declare gleefully that Clark's sun of military +glory had now forever set. It is also known that he later served other +generals treacherously in Indian expeditions and that he intrigued with +Mad Anthony Wayne's Kentucky troops against their commander. + +Spain did not wish to see the Indians crushed; and Wilkinson himself +both hated and feared any other officer's prestige. How long he had +been in foreign pay we can only conjecture, for, several years before +he transplanted his activities to Kentucky, he had been one of a +cabal against Washington. Not only his ambitions but his nature must +inevitably have brought him to the death-battle with George Rogers +Clark. As a military leader, Clark had genius, and soldiering was his +passion. In nature, he was open, frank, and bold to make foes if he +scorned a man's way as ignoble or dishonest. Wilkinson suavely set about +scheming for Clark's ruin. His communication or memorial to the Virginia +Assembly--signed by himself and a number of his friends--villifying +Clark, ended Clark's chances for the commission in the Continental +Army which he craved. It was Wilkinson who made public an incriminating +letter which had Clark's signature attached and which Clark said he had +never seen. It is to be supposed that Number Thirteen was responsible +also for the malevolent anonymous letter accusing Clark of drunkenness +and scheming which, so strangely, found its way into the Calendar of +State Papers of Virginia. * As a result, Clark was censured by Virginia. +Thereupon he petitioned for a Court of Inquiry, but this was not +granted. Wilkinson had to get rid of Clark; for if Clark, with his +military gifts and his power over men, had been elevated to a position +of command under the smile of the Government, there would have been +small opportunity for James W Wilkinson to lead the Kentuckians and +to gather in Spanish gold. So the machinations of one of the vilest +traitors who ever sold his country were employed to bring about the +stultification and hence the downfall of a great servant. + + + * See Thomas M. Greene's "The Spanish Conspiracy," p. 78, +footnote. It is possible that Wilkinson's intrigues provide data for +a new biography of Clark which may recast in some measure the accepted +view of Clark at this period. + + +Wilkinson's chief aids were the Irishmen, O'Fallon, Nolan, and Powers. +Through Nolan, he also vended Spanish secrets. He sold, indeed, whatever +and whomever he could get his price for. So clever was he that he +escaped detection, though he was obliged to remove some suspicions. He +succeeded Wayne as commander of the regular army in 1796. He was one of +the commissioners to receive Louisiana when the Purchase was arranged +in 1803. He was still on the Spanish pay roll at that time. Wilkinson's +true record came to light only when the Spanish archives were opened to +investigators. + +There were British agents also in the Old Southwest, for the +dissatisfaction of the Western men inspired in Englishmen the hope of +recovering the Mississippi Basin. Lord Dorchester, Governor of Canada, +wrote to the British Government that he had been approached by important +Westerners; but he received advice from England to move slowly. For +complicity in the British schemes, William Blount, who was first +territorial Governor of Tennessee and later a senator from that State, +was expelled from the Senate. + +Surely there was never a more elaborate network of plots that came to +nothing! The concession to Americans in 1796 of the right of navigation +on the Mississippi brought an end to the scheming. + +In the same year Tennessee was admitted to the Union, and John Sevier +was elected Governor Sevier's popularity was undiminished, though there +were at this time some sixty thousand souls in Tennessee, many of whom +were late comers who had not known him in his heyday. His old power to +win men to him must have been as strong as ever, for it is recorded that +he had only to enter a political meeting--no matter whose--for the crowd +to cheer him and shout for him to "give them a talk." + + +This adulation of Sevier still annoyed a few men who had ambitions of +their own. Among these was Andrew Jackson, who had come to Jonesborough +in 1788, just after the collapse of the State of Franklin. He was +twenty-one at that time, and he is said to have entered Jonesborough +riding a fine racer and leading another, with a pack of hunting dogs +baying or nosing along after him. A court record dated May 12, 1788, +avers that "Andrew Jackson, Esq. came into Court and produced a licence +as an Attorney With A Certificate sufficiently Attested of his Taking +the Oath Necessary to said office and Was admitted to Practiss as an +Attorney in the County Courts." Jackson made no history in old Watauga +during that year. Next year he moved to Nashville, and one year later, +when the Superior Court was established (1790), he became prosecuting +attorney. + +The feud between Jackson and Sevier began about the time that Tennessee +entered the Union. Jackson, then twenty-nine, was defeated for the +post of Major General of the Militia through the influence which Sevier +exercised against him, and it seems that Jackson never forgave this +opposition to his ambitions. By the close of Sevier's third term, +however, in 1802, when Archibald Roane became Governor, the post +of Major General was again vacant. Both Sevier and Jackson offered +themselves for it, and Jackson was elected by the deciding vote of the +Governor, the military vote having resulted in a tie. A strong current +of influence had now set in against Sevier and involved charges against +his honor. His old enemy Tipton was still active. The basis of the +charges was a file of papers from the entry-taker's office which a +friend of Tipton's had laid before the Governor; with an affidavit +to the effect that the papers were fraudulent. Both the Governor and +Jackson believed the charges. When we consider what system or lack +of system of land laws and land entries obtained in Watauga and such: +primitive communities--when a patch of corn sealed a right and claims +were made by notching trees with tomahawks--we may imagine that a file +from the land office might appear easily enough to smirch a landholder's +integrity. The scandal was, of course, used in an attempt to ruin +Sevier's candidacy for a fourth term as Governor and to make certain +Roane's reflection. To this end Jackson bent all his energies but +without success. Nolichucky Jack was elected, for the fourth time, as +Governor of Tennessee. + +Not long after his inauguration, Sevier met Jackson in Knoxville, where +Jackson was holding court. The charges against Sevier were then being +made the subject of legislative investigation instituted by Tipton, and +Jackson had published a letter in the Knoxville "Gazette" supporting +them. At the sight of Jackson, Sevier flew into a rage, and a fiery +altercation ensued. The two men were only restrained from leaping on +each other by the intervention of friends. The next day Jackson sent +Sevier a challenge which Sevier accepted, but with the stipulation that +the duel take place outside the State. Jackson insisted on fighting in +Knoxville, where the insult had been offered. Sevier refused. "I have +some respect," he wrote, "for the laws of the State over which I have +the honor to preside, although you, a judge, appear to have none." No +duel followed; but, after some further billets-doux, Jackson published +Sevier as "a base coward and poltroon. He will basely insult but has +not the courage to repair the wound." Again they met, by accident, and +Jackson rushed upon Sevier with his cane. Sevier dismounted and drew +his pistol but made no move to fire. Jackson, thereupon, also drew his +weapon. Once more friends interfered. It is presumable that neither +really desired the duel. By killing Nolichucky Jack, Jackson would have +ended his own career in Tennessee--if Sevier's tribe of sons had not, by +a swifter means, ended it for him. At this date Jackson was thirty-six. +Sevier was fifty-eight; and he had seventeen children. + +The charges against Sevier, though pressed with all the force that his +enemies could bring to bear, came to nothing. He remained the Governor +of Tennessee for another six years--the three terms in eight years +allowed by the constitution. In 1811 he was sent to Congress for the +second time, as he had represented the Territory there twenty years +earlier. He was returned again in 1813. At the conclusion of his term +in 1815 he went into the Creek country as commissioner to determine the +Creek boundaries, and here, far from his Bonnie Kate and his tribe, +he died of fever at the age of seventy. His body was buried with full +military honors at Tuckabatchee, one of the Creek towns. In 1889, +Sevier's remains were removed to Knoxville and a high marble spire was +raised above them. + +His Indian enemies forgave the chastisement he had inflicted on them +and honored him. In times of peace they would come to him frequently for +advice. And in his latter days, the chiefs would make state visits +to his home on the Nolichucky River. "John Sevier is a good man"--so +declared the Cherokee, Old Tassel, making himself the spokesman of +history. Sevier had survived his old friend, co-founder with him of +Watauga, by one year. James Robertson had died in 1814 at the age of +seventy-two, among the Chickasaws, and his body, like that of his fellow +pioneer, was buried in an Indian town and lay there until 1825, when it +was removed to Nashville. + + +What of the red tribes who had fought these great pioneers for the wide +land of the Old Southwest and who in the end had received their dust and +treasured it with honor in the little soil remaining to them? Always the +new boundary lines drew closer in, and the red men's foothold narrowed +before the pushing tread of the whites. The day came soon when there was +no longer room for them in the land of their fathers. But far off +across the great river there was a land the white men did not covet +yet. Thither at last the tribes--Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and +Creek--took their way. With wives and children, maids and youths, the +old and the young, with all their goods, their cattle and horses, in the +company of a regiment of American troops, they--like the white men who +had superseded them--turned westward. In their faces also was the red +color of the west, but not newly there. From the beginning of their +race, Destiny had painted them with the hue of the brief hour of the +dying sun. + + + +Chapter XI. Boone's Last Days + +One spring day in 1799, there might have been observed a great stir +through the valley of the Kanawha. With the dawn, men were ahorse, and +women, too. Wagons crowded with human freight wheeled over the rough +country, and boats, large and small, were afloat on the streams which +pour into the Great Kanawha and at length mingle with the Ohio at +Point Pleasant, where the battle was fought which opened the gates of +Kentucky. + +Some of the travelers poured into the little settlement at the junction +of the Elk and the Kanawha, where Charleston now lies. Others, who had +been later in starting or had come from a greater distance, gathered +along the banks of the Kanawha. At last shouts from those stationed +farthest up the stream echoed down the valley and told the rest that +what they had come out to see was at hand. + +Several pirogues drifted into view on the river, now brightening in the +sunshine. In the vessels were men and their families; bales and bundles +and pieces of household furnishings, heaped to the gunwale; a few cattle +and horses standing patiently. But it was for one man above all that the +eager eyes of the settlers were watching, and him they saw clearly as +his boat swung by--a tall figure, erect and powerful, his keen friendly +blue eyes undimmed and his ruddy face unlined by time, though sixty-five +winters had frosted his black hair. + +For a decade these settlers had known Daniel Boone, as storekeeper, as +surveyor, as guide and soldier. They had eaten of the game he killed and +lavishly distributed. And they too--like the folk of Clinch Valley in +the year of Dunmore's War--had petitioned Virginia to bestow military +rank upon their protector. "Lieutenant Colonel" had been his title +among them, by their demand. Once indeed he had represented them in the +Virginia Assembly and, for that purpose, trudged to Richmond with rifle +and hunting dog. Not interested in the Legislature's proceedings, he +left early in the session and tramped home again. + +But not even the esteem of friends and neighbors could hold the great +hunter when the deer had fled. So Daniel Boone was now on his way +westward to Missouri, to a new land of fabled herds and wide spaces, +where the hunter's gun might speak its one word with authority and +where the soul of a silent and fearless man might find its true abode in +Nature's solitude. Waving his last farewells, he floated past the little +groups--till their shouts of good will were long silenced, and his fleet +swung out upon the Ohio. + +As Boone sailed on down the Beautiful River which forms the northern +boundary of Kentucky, old friends and newcomers who had only heard +his fame rode from far and near to greet and godspeed him on his way. +Sometimes he paused for a day with them. Once at least--this, was in +Cincinnati where he was taking on supplies--some one asked him why, at +his age, he was leaving the settled country to dare the frontier once +more. + +"Too crowded," he answered; "I want more elbow-room!" + +Boone settled at the Femme Osage Creek on the Missouri River, +twenty-five miles above St. Charles, where the Missouri flows into the +Mississippi. There were four other Kentucky families at La Charette, +as the French inhabitants called the post, but these were the only +Americans. The Spanish authorities granted Boone 840 acres of land, and +here Daniel built the last cabin home he was to erect for himself and +his Rebecca. + +The region pleased him immensely. The governmental system, for instance, +was wholly to his mind. Taxes were infinitesimal. There were no +elections, assemblies, or the like. A single magistrate, or Syndic, +decided all disputes and made the few regulations and enforced them. +There were no land speculators, no dry-mouthed sons of the commercial +Tantalus, athirst for profits. Boone used to say that his first years in +Missouri were the happiest of his life, with the exception of his first +long hunt in Kentucky. + +In 1800 he was appointed Syndic of the district of Femme Osage, which +office he filled for four years, until Louisiana became American +territory. He was held in high esteem as a magistrate because of his +just and wise treatment of his flock, who brought him all their small +bickerings to settle. He had no use for legal procedure, would not +listen to any nice subtleties, saying that he did not care anything +at all about the EVIDENCE, what he wanted was the TRUTH. His favorite +penalty for offenders was the hickory rod "well laid on." Often he +decided that both parties in a suit were equally to blame and chastised +them both alike. When in March, 1804, the American Commissioner received +Louisiana for the United States, Delassus, Lieutenant Governor of Upper +Louisiana, reporting on the various officials in the territory, wrote +of the Femme Osage Syndic: "Mr. Boone, a respectable old man, just +and impartial, he has already, since I appointed him, offered his +resignation owing to his infirmities. Believing I know his probity, +I have induced him to remain, in view of my confidence in him for the +public good." * + + + * Thwaites, "Daniel Boone." To this and other biographies of +Boone, cited in the Bibliographical Note at the end of this volume, the +author is indebted for the material contained in this chapter. + + +Daniel, no doubt supposing that a Syndic's rights were inviolable, had +neglected to apply to the Governor at New Orleans for a ratification of +his grant. He was therefore dispossessed. Not until 1810, and after he +had enlisted the Kentucky Legislature in his behalf, did he succeed +in inducing Congress to restore his land. The Kentucky Legislature's +resolution was adopted because of "the many eminent services rendered by +Colonel Boone in exploring and settling the western country, from which +great advantages have resulted not only to the State but to the country +in general, and that from circumstances over which he had no control he +is now reduced to poverty; not having so far as appears an acre of land +out of the vast territory he has been a great instrument in peopling." +Daniel was seventy-six then; so it was late in the day for him to +have his first experience of justice in the matter of land. Perhaps it +pleased him, however, to hear that, in confirming his grant, Congress +had designated him as "the man who has opened the way for millions of +his fellow-men." + +The "infirmities" which had caused the good Syndic to seek relief from +political cares must have been purely magisterial. The hunter could have +been very little affected by them, for as soon as he was freed from his +duties Boone took up again the silent challenge of the forest. Usually +one or two of his sons or his son-in-law, Flanders Calloway, accompanied +him, but sometimes his only companions were an old Indian and his +hunting dog. On one of his hunting trips he explored a part of Kansas; +and in 1814, when he was eighty, he hunted big game in the Yellowstone +where again his heart rejoiced over great herds as in the days of his +first lone wanderings in the Blue Grass country. At last, with the +proceeds of these expeditions he was able to pay the debts he had left +behind in Kentucky thirty years before. The story runs that Daniel had +only fifty cents remaining when all the claims had been settled, but so +contented was he to be able to look an honest man in the face that he +was in no disposition to murmur over his poverty. + +When after a long and happy life his wife died in 1813, Boone lived with +one or other of his sons * and sometimes with Flanders Calloway. Nathan +Boone, with whom Daniel chiefly made his home, built what is said to +have been the first stone house in Missouri. Evidently the old pioneer +disapproved of stone houses and of the "luxuries" in furnishings which +were then becoming possible to the new generation, for one of his +biographers speaks of visiting him in a log addition to his son's house; +and when Chester Harding, the painter, visited him in 1819 for the +purpose of doing his portrait, he found Boone dwelling in a small log +cabin in Nathan's yard. When Harding entered, Boone was broiling a +venison steak on the end of his ramrod. During the sitting, one day, +Harding asked Boone if he had ever been lost in the woods when on his +long hunts in the wilderness. + + + * Boone's son Nathan won distinction in the War of 1812 and +entered the regular army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. +Daniel Morgan Boone is said to have been the first settler in Kansas +(1827). One of Daniel's grandsons, bearing the name of Albert Gallatin +Boone, was a pioneer of Colorado and was to the forefront in Rocky +Mountain exploration. Another grandson was the scout, Kit Carson, who +led Fremont to California. + + +"No, I never got lost," Boone replied reflectively, "but I was +BEWILDERED once for three days." Though now having reached the age +of eighty-five, Daniel was intensely interested in California and was +enthusiastic to make the journey thither next spring and so to flee once +more from the civilization which had crept westward along his path. The +resolute opposition of his sons, however, prevented the attempt. + +A few men who sought out Boone in his old age have left us brief +accounts of their impressions. Among these was Audubon. "The stature +and general appearance of this wanderer of the western forests," the +naturalist wrote, "approached the gigantic. His chest was broad, and +prominent; his muscular powers displayed themselves in every limb; +his countenance gave indication of his great courage, enterprise and +perseverance; and, when he spoke, the very motion of his lips brought +the impression that whatever he uttered could not be otherwise than +strictly true." + +Audubon spent a night under Boone's roof. He related afterwards that the +old hunter, having removed his hunting shirt, spread his blankets on +the floor and lay down there to sleep, saying that he found it more +comfortable than a bed. A striking sketch of Boone is contained in a +few lines penned by one of his earliest biographers: "He had what +phrenologists would have considered a model head--with a forehead +peculiarly high, noble and bold, thin compressed lips, a mild clear blue +eye, a large and prominent chin and a general expression of countenance +in which fearlessness and courage sat enthroned and which told the +beholder at a glance what he had been and was formed to be." In +criticizing the various portraits of Daniel, the same writer says: "They +want the high port and noble daring of his countenance.... Never was +old age more green, or gray hairs more graceful. His high, calm, bold +forehead seemed converted by years into iron." + +Although we are indebted to these and other early chroniclers for +many details of Boone's life, there was one event which none of his +biographers has related; yet we know that it must have taken place. +Even the bare indication of it is found only in the narrative of the +adventures of two other explorers. + +It was in the winter of 1803 that these two men came to Boone's +Settlement, as La Charette was now generally called. They had planned to +make their winter camp there, for in the spring, when the Missouri rose +to the flood, they and their company of frontiersmen were to take their +way up that uncharted stream and over plains and mountains in quest +of the Pacific Ocean. They were refused permission by the Spanish +authorities to camp at Boone's Settlement; so they lay through the +winter some forty miles distant on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, +across from the mouth of the Missouri. Since the records are silent, we +are free to picture as we choose their coming to the settlement during +the winter and again in the spring, for we know that they came. + +We can imagine, for instance, the stir they made in La Charette on some +sparkling day when the frost bit and the crusty snow sent up a dancing +haze of diamond points. We can see the friendly French habitants staring +after the two young leaders and their men--all mere boys, though they +were also husky, seasoned frontiersmen--with their bronzed faces of +English cast, as in their gayly fringed deerskins they swaggered through +the hamlet to pay their respects to the Syndic. We may think of that +dignitary as smoking his pipe before his fireplace, perhaps; or making +out, in his fantastic spelling, a record of his primitive court--for +instance, that he had on that day given Pierre a dozen hickory thwacks, +"well laid on," for starting a brawl with Antoine, and had bestowed the +same upon Antoine for continuing the brawl with Pierre. A knock at the +door would bring the amiable invitation to enter, and the two young men +would step across his threshold, while their followers crowded about the +open door and hailed the old pathfinder. + +One of the two leaders--the dark slender man with a subtle touch of the +dreamer in his resolute face--was a stranger; but the other, with the +more practical mien and the shock of hair that gave him the name of Red +Head among the tribes, Boone had known as a lad in Kentucky. To Daniel +and this young visitor the encounter would be a simple meeting of +friends, heightened in pleasure and interest somewhat, naturally, by the +adventure in prospect. But to us there is something vast in the thought +of Daniel Boone, on his last frontier, grasping the hands of William +Clark and Meriwether Lewis. + +As for the rough and hearty mob at the door, Daniel must have known not +a few of them well; though they had been children in the days when he +and William Clark's brother strove for Kentucky. It seems fitting that +the soldiers with this expedition should have come from the garrison at +Kaskaskia; since the taking of that fort in 1778 by George Rogers +Clark had opened the western way from the boundaries of Kentucky to the +Mississippi. And among the young Kentuckians enlisted by William Clark +were sons of the sturdy fighters of still an earlier border line, Clinch +and Holston Valley men who had adventured under another Lewis at Point +Pleasant. Daniel would recognize in these--such as Charles Floyd--the +young kinsmen of his old-time comrades whom he had preserved from +starvation in the Kentucky wilderness by the kill from his rifle as they +made their long march home after Dunmore's War. + +In May, Lewis and Clark's pirogues ascended the Missouri and the leaders +and men of the expedition spent another day in La Charette. Once again, +at least, Daniel was to watch the westward departure of pioneers. In +1811, when the Astorians passed, one of their number pointed to the +immobile figure of "an old man on the bank, who, he said, was Daniel +Boone." + +Sometimes the aged pioneer's mind cast forward to his last journey, for +which his advancing years were preparing him. He wrote on the subject +to a sister, in 1816, revealing in a few simple lines that the faith +whereby he had crossed, if not more literally removed, mountains was +a fixed star, and that he looked ahead fearlessly to the dark trail he +must tread by its single gleam. Autumn was tinting the forest and the +tang he loved was in the air when the great hunter passed. The date of +Boone's death is given as September 26, 1820. He was in his eighty-sixth +year. Unburdened by the pangs of disease he went out serenely, by the +gentle marches of sleep, into the new country. + +The convention for drafting the constitution of Missouri, in session +at St. Louis, adjourned for the day, and for twenty days thereafter the +members wore crape on their arms as a further mark of respect for the +great pioneer. Daniel was laid by Rebecca's side, on the bank of Teugue +Creek, about a mile from the Missouri River. In 1845, the Missouri +legislators hearkened to oft-repeated pleas from Kentucky and +surrendered the remains of the pioneer couple. Their bones lie now in +Frankfort, the capital of the once Dark and Bloody Ground, and in 1880 a +monument was raised over them. + +To us it seems rather that Kentucky itself is Boone's monument; even as +those other great corn States, Illinois and Indiana, are Clark's. There, +these two servants unafraid, who sacrificed without measure in the +wintry winds of man's ingratitude, are each year memorialized anew; when +the earth in summer--the season when the red man slaughtered--lifts up +the full grain in the ear, the life giving corn; and when autumn smiles +in golden peace over the stubble fields, where the reaping and binding +machines have hummed a nation's harvest song. + + + +Bibliographical Note + +The Races And Their Migration + +C. A. Hanna, "The Scotch-Irish," 2 vols. New York, 1902. A very full if +somewhat over-enthusiastic study. + +H. J. Ford, "The Scotch-Irish in America." Princeton, 1915. Excellent. + +A. G. Spangenberg, Extracts from his Journal of travels in North +Carolina, 1752. Publication of the Southern History Association. Vol. I, +1897. + +A. B. Faust, "The German Element in the United States," 2 vols. (1909). + +J. P. MacLean, "An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch +Highlanders in America" (1900). + +S. H. Cobb, "The Story of the Palatines" (1897). + +N. D. Mereness (editor), "Travels in the American Colonies." New York, +1916. This collection contains the diary of the Moravian Brethren cited +in the first chapter of the present volume. + +Life In The Back Country + +Joseph Doddridge, "Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of the +Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania," from 1763 to 1783. Albany, +1876. An intimate description of the daily life of the early settlers +in the Back Country by one of themselves. J. F. D. Smyth, "Tour in the +United States of America," 2 vols. London, 1784. Minute descriptions of +the Back Country and interesting pictures of the life of the settlers; +biased as to political views by Royalist sympathies. + +William H. Foote, "Sketches of North Carolina," New York, 1846. See +Foote also for history of the first Presbyterian ministers in the Back +Country. As to political history, inaccurate. + +Early History And Exploration + +J. S. Bassett (editor), "The Writings of Colonel William Byrd of +Westover." New York, 1901. A contemporary record of early Virginia. + +Thomas Walker, "Journal of an Exploration in the Spring of the Year +1750." Boston, 1888. The record of his travels by the discoverer of +Cumberland Gap. + +William M. Darlington (editor), "Christopher Gist's Journals." +Pittsburgh, 1893. Contains Gist's account of his surveys for the Ohio +Company, 1750. + +C. A. Hanna, "The Wilderness Trail," 2 vols. New York, 1911. An +exhaustive work of research, with full accounts of Croghan and Findlay. +See also Croghan's and Johnson's correspondence in vol. VII, New York +Colonial Records. + +James Adair, "The History of the American Indians," etc. London, 1775. +The personal record of a trader who was one of the earliest explorers +of the Alleghanies and of the Mississippi region east of the river; a +many-sided work, intensely interesting. + +C. W. Alvord, "The Genesis of the Proclamation of 1763." Reprinted from +Canadian Archives Report, 1906. A new and authoritative interpretation. +In this connection see also the correspondence between Sir William +Johnson and the Lords of Trade in vol. VII of New York Colonial Records. + +Justin Winsor, "The Mississippi Basin. The Struggle in America between +England and France." Cambridge, 1895. Presents the results of exhaustive +research and the coordination of facts by an historian of broad +intellect and vision. + +"Colonial and State Records of North Carolina." 30 vols. The chief +fountain source of the early history of North Carolina and Tennessee. + +W. H. Hoyt, "The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence." New York, +1907. This book presents the view generally adopted by historians, that +the alleged Declaration of May 20, 1775, is spurious. + +Justin Winsor (editor), "Narrative and Critical History of America." 8 +vols. (1884-1889). Also "The Westward Movement." Cambridge, 1897. Both +works of incalculable value to the student. + +C. W. Alvord, "The Mississippi. Valley in British Politics." 2 vols. +Cleveland, 1917. A profound work of great value to students. + +Kentucky + +R. G. Thwaites and L. P. Kellogg (editors), "Documentary History of +Dunmore's War," 1774. Compiled from the Draper Manuscripts in the +library of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Madison, 1905. A collection +of interesting and valuable documents with a suggestive, introduction. + +R. G. Thwaites, "Daniel Boone." New York, 1902. A short and accurate +narrative of Boone's life and adventures compiled from the Draper +Manuscripts and from earlier printed biographies. + +John P. Hale, "Daniel Boone, Some Facts and Incidents not Hitherto +Published." A pamphlet giving an account of Boone in West Virginia. +Printed at Wheeling, West Virginia. Undated. + +Timothy Flint, "The First White Man of the West or the Life and Exploits +of Colonel Dan'l Boone." Cincinnati, 1854. Valuable only as regards +Boone's later years. + +John S. C. Abbott, "Daniel Boone, the Pioneer of Kentucky." New York, +1872. Fairly accurate throughout. + +J. M. Peck, "Daniel Boone" (in Sparks, "Library of American Biography." +Boston, 1847). + +William Henry Bogart. "Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky." New +York, 1856. + +William Hayden English, "Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River +Ohio, 1778-1783," and "Life of General George Rogers Clark," 2 vols. +Indianapolis, 1896. An accurate and valuable work for which the author +has made painstaking research among printed and unprinted documents. +Contains Clark's own account of his campaigns, letters he wrote on +public and personal matters, and also letters from contemporaries in +defense of his reputation. + +Theodore Roosevelt, "The Winning of the West," 4 vols. New York, +1889-1896. A vigorous and spirited narrative. + +Tennessee + +J. G. M. Ramsey, "The Annals of Tennessee." Charleston, 1853. John +Haywood, "The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee." +Nashville, 1891. + +(Reprint from 1828.) These works, with the North Carolina "Colonial +Records," are the source books of early Tennessee. In statistics, such +as numbers of Indians and other foes defeated by Tennessee heroes, not +reliable. Incorrect as to causes of Indian wars during the Revolution. +On this subject see letters and reports by John and Henry Stuart in +North Carolina "Colonial Records," vol. X; and letters by General +Gage and letters and proclamation by General Ethan Allen in American +Archives, Fourth Series, vol. II, and by President Rutledge of South +Carolina in North Carolina "Colonial Records," vol. X. See also Justin +Winsor, "The Westward Movement." + +J. Allison, "Dropped Stitches in Tennessee History." Nashville, 1897. +Contains interesting matter relative to Andrew Jackson in his younger +days as well as about other striking figures of the time. + +F. M. Turner, "The Life of General John Sevier." New York, 1910. A +fairly accurate narrative of events in which Sevier participated, +compiled from the "Draper Manuscripts." + +A. W. Putnam, "History of Middle Tennessee, or Life and Times of +General James Robertson." Nashville, 1859. A rambling lengthy narrative +containing some interesting material and much that is unreliable. Its +worst fault is distortion through sentimentality, and indulgence in the +habit of putting the author's rodomontades into the mouths of Robertson +and other characters. + +J. S. Bassett, "Regulators of North Carolina," in Report of the American +Historical Association, 1894. + +L. C. Draper, "King's Mountain and its Heroes." Cincinnati, 1881. The +source book on this event. Contains interesting biographical material +about the men engaged in the battle. + + +French And Spanish Intrigues + +Henry Doniol, "Histoire de la participation de la France +de l'etablissement des Etats-Unis d'Amerique," 5 vols. Paris, 1886-1892. +A complete exposition of the French and Spanish policy towards America. +during the Revolutionary Period. + +Manuel Serrano y Sanz, "El brigadier Jaime Wilkinson y sus tratos con +Espana para la independencia del Kentucky, anos 1787 a 1797." Madrid, +1915. A Spanish view of Wilkinson's intrigues with Spain, based on +letters and reports in the Spanish Archives. + +Thomas Marshall Green, "The Spanish Conspiracy." Cincinnati, 1891. A +good local account, from American sources. The best material on this +subject is found in Justin Winsor's "The Westward Movement and Narrative +and Critical History" because there viewed against a broad historical +background. See Winsor also for the Latin intrigues in Tennessee. For +material on Alexander McGillivray see the American Archives and the +Colonial Records of Georgia. + +Edward S. Corwin, "French Policy and the American Alliance of 1778." +Princeton, 1916. Deals chiefly with the commercial aspects of French +policy and should be read in conjunction with Winsor, Jay, and +Fitzmaurice's "Life of William, Earl of Shelburne." 3 vols. London, +1875. + +John Jay, "On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-83 as Illustrated by the +Secret Correspondence of France and England." New York, 1888. A paper +read before the American Historical Association, May 23, 1887. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pioneers of the Old Southwest, by +Constance Lindsay Skinner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIONEERS OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST *** + +***** This file should be named 3073.txt or 3073.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/7/3073/ + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's +University, Alev Akman, and Doris Ringbloom + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.05.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by Doris Ringbloom + + + + + +Title: Pioneers of the Old Southwest, +A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground + +Author: Constance Lindsay Skinner + + + + +This Book, Volume 18 In The Chronicles Of America Series, Allen +Johnson, Editor, Was Donated To Project Gutenberg By The James J. +Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's University; Thanks To Alev Akman. + + + + +Acknowledgment + +This narrative is founded largely on original sources--on the +writings and journals of pioneers and contemporary observers, +such as Doddridge and Adair, and on the public documents of the +period as printed in the Colonial Records and in the American +Archives. But the author is, nevertheless, greatly indebted to +the researches of, other writers, whose works are cited in the +Bibliographical Note. The author's thanks are due, also, to Dr. +Archibald Henderson, of the University of North Carolina, for his +kindness in reading the proofs of this book for comparison with +his own extended collection of unpublished manuscripts relating +to the period. + +C. L. S. + +April, 1919. + + +CONTENTS + +I. THE TREAD OF PIONEERS +II. FOLKWAYS +III. THE TRADER +IV. THE PASSING OF THE FRENCH PERIL +V. BOONE, THE WANDERER +VI. THE FIGHT FOR KENTUCKY +VII. THE DARK AND BLOODY GROUND VIII. TENNESSEE +IX. KING'S MOUNTAIN +X. SEVIER, THE STATEMAKER +XI. BOONE'S LAST DAYS +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + +Pioneers Of The Old Southwest + +Chapter I. The Tread Of Pioneers + +The Ulster Presbyterians, or "Scotch-Irish," to whom history has +ascribed the dominant role among the pioneer folk of the Old +Southwest, began their migrations to America in the latter years +of the seventeenth century. It is not known with certainty +precisely when or where the first immigrants of their race +arrived in this country, but soon after 1680 they were to be +found in several of the colonies. It was not long, indeed, before +they were entering in numbers at the port of Philadelphia and +were making Pennsylvania the chief center of their activities in +the New World. By 1726 they had established settlements in +several counties behind Philadelphia. Ten years later they had +begun their great trek southward through the Shenandoah Valley of +Virginia and on to the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina. There +they met others of their own race--bold men like themselves, +hungry after land--who were coming in through Charleston and +pushing their way up the rivers from the seacoast to the "Back +Country," in search of homes. + +These Ulstermen did not come to the New World as novices in the +shaping of society; they had already made history. Their +ostensible object in America was to obtain land, but, like most +external aims, it was secondary to a deeper purpose. What had +sent the Ulstermen to America was a passion for a whole freedom. +They were lusty men, shrewd and courageous, zealous to the death +for an ideal and withal so practical to the moment in business +that it soon came to be commonly reported of them that "they kept +the Sabbath and everything else they could lay their hands on," +though it is but fair to them to add that this phrase is current +wherever Scots dwell. They had contested in Parliament and with +arms for their own form of worship and for their civil rights. +They were already frontiersmen, trained in the hardihood and +craft of border warfare through years of guerrilla fighting with +the Irish Celts. They had pitted and proved their strength +against a wilderness; they had reclaimed the North of Ireland +from desolation. For the time, many of them were educated men; +under the regulations of the Presbyterian Church every child was +taught to read at an early age, since no person could be admitted +to the privileges of the Church who did not both understand and +approve the Presbyterian constitution and discipline. They were +brought up on the Bible and on the writings of their famous +pastors, one of whom, as early as 1650, had given utterance to +the democratic doctrine that "men are called to the +magistracy by the suffrage of the people whom they govern, and +for men to assume unto themselves power is mere tyranny and +unjust usurpation." In subscribing to this doctrine and in +resisting to the hilt all efforts of successive English kings to +interfere in the election of their pastors, the Scots of Ulster +had already declared for democracy. + +It was shortly after James VI of Scotland became James I of +England and while the English were founding Jamestown that the +Scots had first occupied Ulster; but the true origin of the +Ulster Plantation lies further back, in the reign of Henry VIII, +in the days of the English Reformation. In Henry's Irish realm +the Reformation, though proclaimed by royal authority, had never +been accomplished; and Henry's more famous daughter, Elizabeth, +had conceived the plan, later to be carried out by James, of +planting colonies of Protestants in Ireland to promote loyalty in +that rebellious land. Six counties, comprising half a million +acres, formed the Ulster Plantation. The great majority of the +colonists sent thither by James were Scotch Lowlanders, but among +them were many English and a smaller number of Highlanders. These +three peoples from the island of Britain brought forth, through +intermarriage, the Ulster Scots. + +The reign of Charles I had inaugurated for the Ulstermen an era +of persecution. Charles practically suppressed the Presbyterian +religion in Ireland. His son, Charles II, struck at Ireland in +1666 through its cattle trade, by prohibiting the exportation of +beef to England and Scotland. The Navigation Acts, excluding +Ireland from direct trade with the colonies, ruined Irish +commerce, while Corporation Acts and Test Acts requiring +conformity with the practices of the Church of England bore +heavily on the Ulster Presbyterians. + +It was largely by refugees from religious persecution that +America in the beginning was colonized. But religious persecution +was only one of the influences which shaped the course and formed +the character of the Ulster Scots. In Ulster, whither they had +originally been transplanted by James to found a loyal province +in the midst of the King's enemies, they had done their work too +well and had waxed too powerful for the comfort of later +monarchs. The first attacks upon them struck at their religion; +but the subsequent legislative acts which successively ruined the +woolen trade, barred nonconformists from public office, stifled +Irish commerce, pronounced non-Episcopal marriages irregular, and +instituted heavy taxation and high rentals for the land their +fathers had made productive--these were blows dealt chiefly for +the political and commercial ends of favored classes in England. + +These attacks, aimed through his religious conscience at the +sources of his livelihood, made the Ulster Scot perforce what he +was--a zealot as a citizen and a zealot as a merchant no less +than as a Presbyterian. Thanks to his persecutors, he made a +religion of everything he undertook and regarded his civil rights +as divine rights. Thus out of persecution emerged a type of man +who was high-principled and narrow, strong and violent, as +tenacious of his own rights as he was blind often to the rights +of others, acquisitive yet self-sacrificing, but most of all +fearless, confident of his own power, determined to have and to +hold. + +Twenty thousand Ulstermen, it is estimated, left Ireland for +America in the first three decades of the eighteenth century. +More than six thousand of them are known to have entered +Pennsylvania in 1729 alone, and twenty years later they numbered +one-quarter of that colony's population. During the five years +preceding the Revolutionary War more than thirty thousand +Ulstermen crossed the ocean and arrived in America just in time +and in just the right frame of mind to return King George's +compliment in kind, by helping to deprive him of his American +estates, a domain very much larger than the acres of Ulster. They +fully justified the fears of the good bishop who wrote Lord +Dartmouth, Secretary for the Colonies, that he trembled for the +peace of the King's overseas realm, since these thousands of +"phanatical and hungry Republicans" had sailed for America. + +The Ulstermen who entered by Charleston were known to the +inhabitants of the tidewater regions as the "Scotch-Irish." Those +who came from the north, lured southward by the offer of cheap +lands, were called the "Pennsylvania Irish." Both were, however, +of the same race--a race twice expatriated, first from Scotland +and then from Ireland, and stripped of all that it had won +throughout more than a century of persecution. To these exiles +the Back Country of North Carolina, with its cheap and even free +tracts lying far from the seat of government, must have seemed +not only the Land of Promise but the Land of Last Chance. Here +they must strike their roots into the sod with such interlocking +strength that no cataclysm of tyranny should ever dislodge +them--or they must accept the fate dealt out to them by their +former persecutors and become a tribe of nomads and serfs. But to +these Ulster immigrants such a choice was no choice at all. They +knew themselves strong men, who had made the most of opportunity +despite almost superhuman obstacles. The drumming of their feet +along the banks of the Shenandoah, or up the rivers from +Charleston, and on through the broad sweep of the Yadkin Valley, +was a conquering people's challenge to the Wilderness which lay +sleeping like an unready sentinel at the gates of their Future. + +It is maintained still by many, however often disputed, that the +Ulstermen were the first to declare for American Independence, as +in the Old Country they were the first to demand the separation +of Church and State. A Declaration of Independence is said to +have been drawn up and signed in Mecklenburg County, North +Carolina, on May 20, 1775.* However that maybe, it is certain +that these Mecklenburg Protestants had received special schooling +in the doctrine of independence. They had in their midst for +eight years (1758-66) the Reverend Alexander Craighead, a +Presbyterian minister who, for his "republican doctrines" +expressed in a pamphlet, had been disowned by the Pennsylvania +Synod acting on the Governor's protest, and so persecuted in +Virginia that he had at last fled to the North Carolina Back +Country. There, during the remaining years of his life, as the +sole preacher and teacher in the settlements between the Yadkin +and the Catawba rivers he found willing soil in which to sow the +seeds of Liberty. + +* See Hoyt, "The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence"; and +"American Archives," Fourth Series. vol. II, p. 855. + + +There was another branch of the Scottish race which helped to +people the Back Country. The Highlanders, whose loyalty to their +oath made them fight on the King's side in the Revolutionary War, +have been somewhat overlooked in history. Tradition, handed down +among the transplanted clans--who, for the most part, spoke only +Gaelic for a generation and wrote nothing--and latterly recorded +by one or two of their descendants, supplies us with all we are +now able to learn of the early coming of the Gaels to Carolina. +It would seem that their first immigration to America in small +bands took place after the suppression of the Jacobite rising in +1715--when Highlanders fled in numbers also to France--for by +1729 there was a settlement of them on the Cape Fear River. We +know, too, that in 1748 it was charged against Gabriel Johnston, +Governor of North Carolina from 1734 to 1752, that he had shown +no joy over the King's "glorious victory of Culloden" and that +"he had appointed one William McGregor, who had been in the +Rebellion in the year 1715 a Justice of the Peace during the last +Rebellion [1745] and was not himself without suspicion of +disaffection to His Majesty's Government." It is indeed possible +that Gabriel Johnston, formerly a professor at St. Andrew's +University, had himself not always been a stranger to the kilt. +He induced large numbers of highlanders to come to America and +probably influenced the second George to moderate his treatment +of the vanquished Gaels in the Old Country and permit their +emigration to the New World. + +In contrast with the Ulstermen, whose secular ideals were +dictated by the forms of their Church, these Scots adhered still +to the tribal or clan system, although they, too, in the +majority, were Presbyterians, with a minority of Roman +Catholics and Episcopalians. In the Scotch Highlands they had +occupied small holdings on the land under the sway of their +chief, or Head of the Clan, to whom they were bound by blood and +fealty but to whom they paid no rentals. The position of the Head +of the Clan was hereditary, but no heir was bold enough to step +forward into that position until he had performed some deed of +worth. They were principally herders, their chief stock being the +famous small black cattle of the Highlands. Their wars with each +other were cattle raids. Only in war, however, did the Gael lay +hands on his neighbor's goods. There were no highwaymen and +housebreakers in the Highlands. No Highland mansion, cot, or barn +was ever locked. Theft and the breaking of an oath, sins against +man's honor, were held in such abhorrence that no one guilty of +them could remain among his clansmen in the beloved glens. These +Highlanders were a race of tall, robust men, who lived simply and +frugally and slept on the heath among their flocks in all +weathers, with no other covering from rain and snow than their +plaidies. It is reported of the Laird of Keppoch, who was leading +his clan to war in winter time, that his men were divided as to +the propriety of following him further because he rolled a +snowball to rest his head upon when he lay down. "Now we despair +of victory," they said, "since our leader has become go +effeminate he cannot sleep without a pillow!"* + +* MacLean, "An Historical Account of the Settlement of Scotch +High.landers in America." + + +The "King's glorious victory of Culloden" was followed by a +policy of extermination carried on by the orders and under the +personal direction of the Duke of Cumberland. When King George at +last restrained his son from his orgy of blood, he offered the +Gaels their lives and exile to America on condition of their +taking the full oath of allegiance. The majority accepted his +terms, for not only were their lives forfeit but their crops and +cattle had been destroyed and the holdings on which their +ancestors had lived for many centuries taken from them. The +descriptions of the scenes attending their leave-taking of the +hills and glens they loved with such passionate fervor are among +the most pathetic in history. Strong men who had met the ravage +of a brutal sword without weakening abandoned themselves to the +agony of sorrow. They kissed the walls of their houses. They +flung themselves on the ground and embraced the sod upon which +they had walked in freedom. They called their broken farewells to +the peaks and lochs of the land they were never again to see; +and, as they turned their backs and filed down through the +passes, their pipers played the dirge for the dead. + +Such was the character, such the deep feeling, of the race which +entered North Carolina from the coast and pushed up into the +wilderness about the headwaters of Cape Fear River. Tradition +indicates that these hillsmen sought the interior because the +grass and pea vine which overgrew the innercountry stretching +towards the mountains provided excellent fodder for the cattle +which some of the chiefs are said to have brought with them. +These Gaelic herders, perhaps in negligible numbers, were in the +Yadkin Valley before 1730, possibly even ten years earlier. In +1739 Neil MacNeill of Kintyre brought over a shipload of Gaels to +rejoin his kinsman, Hector MacNeill, called Bluff Hector from his +residence near the bluffs at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville. Some +of these immigrants went on to the Yadkin, we are told, to unite +with others of their clan who had been for some time in that +district. The exact time of the first Highlander on the Yadkin +cannot be ascertained, as there were no court records and the +offices of the land companies were not then open for the sale of +these remote regions. But by 1753 there were not less than four +thousand Gaels in Cumberland County, where they occupied the +chief magisterial posts; and they were already spreading over the +lands now comprised within Moore, Anson, Richmond, Robeson, +Bladen, and Sampson counties. In these counties Gaelic was as +commonly heard as English. + +In the years immediately preceding the Revolution and even in +1776 itself they came in increasing numbers. They knew nothing of +the smoldering fire just about to break into flames in the +country of their choice, but the Royal Governor, Josiah Martin, +knew that Highland arms would soon be ceded by His Majesty. He +knew something of Highland honor, too; for he would not let the +Gaels proceed after their landing until they had bound themselves +by oath to support the Government of King George. So it was that +the unfortunate Highlanders found themselves, according too their +strict code of honor, forced to wield arms against the very +Americans who had received and befriended them--and for the +crowned brother of a prince whose name is execrated to this day +in Highland song and story! + +They were led by Allan MacDonald of Kingsborough; and tradition +gives us a stirring picture of Allan's wife--the famous Flora +MacDonald, who in Scotland had protected the Young Pretender in +his flight--making an impassioned address in Gaelic to the +Highland soldiers and urging them on to die for honor's sake. +When this Highland force was conquered by the Americans, the +large majority willingly bound themselves not to fight further +against the American cause and were set at liberty. Many of them +felt that, by offering their lives to the swords of the +Americans, they had canceled their obligation to King George and +were now free to draw their swords again and, this time, in +accordance with their sympathies; so they went over to the +American side and fought gallantly for independence. + + +Although the brave glory of this pioneer age shines so brightly +on the Lion Rampant of Caledonia, not to Scots alone does that +whole glory belong. The second largest racial stream which flowed +into the Back Country of Virginia and North Carolina was German. +Most of these Germans went down from Pennsylvania and were +generally called "Pennsylvania Dutch," an incorrect rendering of +Pennsylvanische Deutsche. The upper Shenandoah Valley was settled +almost entirely by Germans. They were members of the Lutheran, +German Reformed, and Moravian churches. The cause which sent vast +numbers of this sturdy people across the ocean, during the first +years of the eighteenth century, was religious persecution. By +statute and by word the Roman Catholic powers of Austria sought +to wipe out the Salzburg Lutherans and the Moravian followers of +John Huss. In that region of the Rhine country known in those +days as the German Palatinate, now a part of Bavaria, Protestants +were being massacred by the troops of Louis of France, then +engaged in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13) and in the +zealous effort to extirpate heretics from the soil of Europe. In +1708, by proclamation, Good Queen Anne offered protection to the +persecuted Palatines and invited them to her dominions. Twelve +thousand of them went to England, where they were warmly received +by the English. But it was no slight task to settle twelve +thousand immigrants of an alien speech in England and enable them +to become independent and self-supporting. A better solution of +their problem lay in the Western World: The Germans needed homes +and the Queen's overseas dominions needed colonists. They were +settled at first along the Hudson, and eventually many of them +took up lands in the fertile valley of the Mohawk. + +For fifty years or more German and Austrian Protestants poured +into America. In Pennsylvania their influx averaged about fifteen +hundred a year, and that colony became the distributing center +for the German race in America. By 1727, Adam Muller and his +little company had established the first white settlement in the +Valley of Virginia. In 1732 Joist Heydt went south from York, +Pennsylvania, and settled on the Opequan Creek at or near the +site of the present city of Winchester. + +The life of Count Zinzendorf, called "the Apostle," one of the +leaders of the Moravian immigrants, glows like a star out of +those dark and troublous times. Of high birth and gentle nurture, +he forsook whatever of ease his station promised him and fitted +himsclf for evangelical work. In 1741 he visited the Wyoming +Valley to bring his religion to the Delawares and Shawanoes. He +was not of those picturesque Captains of the Lord who bore their +muskets on their shoulders when they went forth to preach. +Armored only with the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, +and the sword of the spirit, his feet "shod with the preparation +of the gospel of peace," he went out into the country of these +bloodthirsty tribes and told them that he had come to them in +their darkness to teach the love of the Christ which lighteth the +world. The Indians received him suspiciously. One day while he +sat in his tent writing, some Delawares drew near to slay him and +were about to strike when they saw two deadly snakes crawl in +from the opposite side of the tent, move directly towards the +Apostle, and pass harmlessly over his body. Thereafter they +regarded him as under spiritual protection. Indeed so widespread +was his good fame among the tribes that for some years all +Moravian settlements along the borders were unmolested. Painted +savages passed through on their way to war with enemy bands or to +raid the border, but for the sake of one consecrated spirit, whom +they had seen death avoid, they spared the lives and goods of his +fellow believers. When Zinzendorf departed a year later, his +mantle fell on David Zeisberger, who lived the love he taught +for over fifty years and converted many savages. Zeisberger was +taken before the Governor and army heads at Philadelphia, who had +only too good reason to be suspicious of priestly counsels in the +tents of Shem: but he was able to impress white men no less than +simple savages with the nobility of the doctrine he had learned +from the Apostle. + +In 1751 the Moravian Brotherhood purchased one hundred thousand +acres in North Carolina from Lord Granville. Bishop Spangenburg +was commissioned to survey this large acreage, which was situated +in the present county of Forsyth east of the Yadkin, and which is +historically listed as the Wachovia Tract. In 1753, twelve +Brethren left the Moravian settlements of Bethlehem and Nazareth, +in Pennsylvania, and journeyed southward to begin the founding of +a colony on their new land. Brother Adam Grube, one of the +twelve, kept a diary of the events of this expedition.* + +* This diary is printed in full in "Travels in the American +Colonies." edited by N. D. Mereness. + + +Honor to whom honor is due. We have paid it, in some measure, to +the primitive Gaels of the Highlands for their warrior strength +and their fealty, and to the enlightened Scots of Ulster for +their enterprise and for their sacrifice unto blood that free +conscience and just laws might promote the progress and safeguard +the intercourse of their kind. Now let us take up for a moment +Brother Grube's "Journal" even as we welcome, perhaps the more +gratefully, the mild light of evening after the flooding sun, or +as our hearts, when too strongly stirred by the deeds of men, +turn for rest to the serene faith and the naive speech of little +children. + +The twelve, we learn, were under the leadership of one of their +number, Brother Gottlob. Their earliest alarms on the march were +not caused, as we might expect, by anticipations of the painted +Cherokee, but by encounters with the strenuous "Irish." One of +these came and laid himself to sleep beside the Brethren's camp +fire on their first night out, after they had sung their evening +hymn and eleven had stretched themselves on the earth for +slumber, while Brother Gottlob, their leader, hanging his hammock +between two trees, ascended--not only in spirit--a little higher +than his charges, and "rested well in it." Though the alarming +Irishman did not disturb them, the Brethren's doubts of that race +continued, for Brother Grube wrote on the 14th of October: "About +four in the morning we set up our tent, going four miles beyond +Carl Isles [Carlisle, seventeen miles southwest of Harrisburg] so +as not to be too near the Irish Presbyterians. After breakfast +the Brethren shaved and then we rested under our tent.... +People who were staying at the Tavern came to see what kind of +folk we were.... Br Gottlob held the evening service and then +we lay down around our cheerful fire, and Br Gottlob in his +hammock." Two other jottings give us a racial kaleidoscope of the +settlers and wayfarers of that time. On one day the Brethren +bought "some hay from a Swiss," later "some kraut from a German +which tasted very good to us"; and presently "an Englishman came +by and drank a cup of tea with us and was very grateful for it." +Frequently the little band paused while some of the Brethren went +off to the farms along the route to help "cut hay." These kindly +acts were usually repaid with gifts of food or produce. + +One day while on the march they halted at a tavern and farm in +Shenandoah Valley kept by a man whose name Brother Grube wrote +down as "Severe." Since we know that Brother Grube's spelling of +names other than German requires editing, we venture to hazard a +guess that the name he attempted to set down as it sounded to him +was Sevier. And we wonder if, in his brief sojourn, he saw a lad +of eight years, slim, tall, and blond, with daring and +mischievous blue eyes, and a certain, curve of the lips that +threatened havoc in the hearts of both sexes when he should be a +man and reach out with swift hands and reckless will for his +desires. If he saw this lad, he beheld John Sevier, later to +become one of the most picturesque and beloved heroes of the Old +Southwest. + +Hardships abounded on the Brethren's journey, but faith and the +Christian's joy, which no man taketh from him, met and surmounted +them. "Three and a half miles beyond, the road forked.... We +took the right hand road but found no water for ten miles. It +grew late and we had to drive five miles into the night to find a +stoppingplace." Two of the Brethren went ahead "to seek out the +road" through the darkened wilderness. There were rough hills in +the way; and, the horses being exhausted, "Brethren had to help +push." But, in due season, "Br Nathanael held evening prayer and +then we slept in the care of Jesus," with Brother Gottlob as +usual in his hammock. Three days later the record runs: "Toward +evening we saw Jeams River, the road to it ran down so very steep +a hill that we fastened a small tree to the back of our wagon, +locked the wheels, and the Brethren held back by the tree with +all their might." Even then the wagon went down so fast that most +of the Brethren lost their footing and rolled and tumbled +pell-mell. But Faith makes little of such mishaps: "No harm was +done and we thanked the Lord that he had so graciously protected +us, for it looked dangerous and we thought at times that it could +not possibly be done without accident but we got down safely... +we were all very tired and sleepy and let the angels be our +guard during the night." Rains fell in torrents, making streams +almost impassable and drenching the little band to the skin. The +hammock was empty one night, for they had to spend the dark hours +trench-digging about their tent to keep it from being washed +away. Two days later (the 10th of November) the weather cleared +and "we spent most of the day drying our blankets and mending and +darning our stockings." They also bought supplies from settlers +who, as Brother Grube observed without irony, + +"are glad we have to remain here so long and that it means money +for them. In the afternoon we held a little Lovefeast and rested +our souls in the loving sacrifice of Jesus, wishing for beloved +Brethren in Bethlehem and that they and we might live ever close +to Him.... Nov. 16. We rose early to ford the river. The bank +was so steep that we hung a tree behind the wagon, fastening it +in such a way that we could quickly release it when the wagon +reached the water. The current was very swift and the lead horses +were carried down a bit with it. The water just missed running +into the wagon but we came safely to the other bank, which +however we could not climb but had to take half the things out of +the wagon, tie ropes to the axle on which we could pull, help our +horses which were quite stiff, and so we brought our ark again to +dry land." + +On the evening of the 17th of November the twelve arrived safely +on their land on the "Etkin" (Yadkin), having been six weeks on +the march. They found with joy that, as ever, the Lord had +provided for them. This time the gift was a deserted cabin, +"large enough that we could all lie down around the walls. We at +once made preparation for a little Lovefeast and rejoiced +heartily with one another." + +In the deserted log cabin, which, to their faith, seemed as one +of those mansions "not built with hands" and descended +miraculously from the heavens, they held their Lovefeast, while +wolves padded and howled about the walls; and in that Pentacostal +hour the tongue of fire descended upon Brother Gottlob, so that +he made a new song unto the Lord. Who shall venture to say it is +not better worth preserving than many a classic? + +We hold arrival Lovefeast here + In Carolina land, +A company of Brethren true, + A little Pilgrim-Band, +Called by the Lord to be of those + Who through the whole world go, +To bear Him witness everywhere + And nought but Jesus know. + +Then, we are told, the Brethren lay down to rest and "Br Gottlob +hung his hammock above our heads"--as was most fitting on this of +all nights; for is not the Poet's place always just a little +nearer to the stars? + +The pioneers did not always travel in groups. There were families +who set off alone. One of these now claims our attention, for +there was a lad in this family whose name and deeds were to sound +like a ballad of romance from out the dusty pages of history. +This family's name was Boone. + +Neither Scots nor Germans can claim Daniel Boone; he was in blood +a blend of English and Welsh; in character wholly English. His +grandfather George Boone was born in 1666 in the hamlet of Stoak, +near Exeter in Devonshire. George Boone was a weaver by trade and +a Quaker by religion. In England in his time the Quakers were +oppressed, and George Boone therefore sought information of +William Penn, his co-religionist, regarding the colony which Penn +had established in America. In 1712 he sent his three elder +children, George, Sarah, and Squire, to spy out the land. Sarah +and Squire remained in Pennsylvania, while their brother returned +to England with glowing reports. On August 17, 1717, George +Boone, his wife, and the rest of his children journeyed to +Bristol and sailed for Philadelphia, arriving there on the 10th +of October. The Boones went first to Abingdon, the Quaker +farmers' community. Later they moved to the northwestern frontier +hamlet of North Wales, a Welsh community which, a few years +previously, had turned Quaker. Sarah Boone married a German named +Jacob Stover, who had settled in Oley Township, Berks County. In +1718 George Boone took up four hundred acres in Oley, or, to be +exact, in the subdivision later called Exeter, and there he lived +in his log cabin until 1744, when he died at the age of +seventy-eight. He left eight children, fifty-two grandchildren, +and ten greatgrandchildren, seventy descendants in all--English, +German, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish blended into one family of +Americans.* + +* R. G. Thwaites, "Daniel Boone", p. 5. + + +Among the Welsh Quakers was a family of Morgans. In 1720 Squire +Boone married Sarah Morgan. Ten years later he obtained 250 acres +in Oley on Owatin Creek, eight miles southeast of the present +city of Reading; and here, in 1734, Daniel Boone was born, the +fourth son and sixth child of Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone. +Daniel Boone therefore was a son of the frontier. In his +childhood he became familiar with hunters and with Indians, for +even the red men came often in friendly fashion to his +grandfather's house. Squire Boone enlarged his farm by thrift. He +continued at his trade of weaving and kept five or six looms +going, making homespun cloth for the market and his neighbors. + +Daniel's father owned grazing grounds several miles north of the +homestead and each season he sent his stock to the range. Sarah +Boone and her little Daniel drove the cows. From early spring +till late autumn, mother and son lived in a rustic cabin alone on +the frontier. A rude dairy house stood over a cool spring, and +here Sarah Boone made her butter and cheese. Daniel, aged ten at +this time, watched the herds; at sunset he drove them to the +cabin for milking, and locked them in the cowpens at night. + +He was not allowed firearms at that age, so he shaped for himself +a weapon that served him well. This was a slender smoothly shaved +sapling with a small bunch of gnarled roots at one end. So expert +was he in the launching of this primitive spear that he easily +brought down birds and small game. When he reached his twelfth +year, his father bought him a rifle; and he soon became a crack +shot. A year later we find him setting off on the autumn +hunt--after driving the cattle in for the winter-with all the +keenness and courage of a man twice his thirteen years. His rifle +enabled him to return with meat for the family and skins to be +traded in Philadelphia. When he was fourteen his brother Sam +married Sarah Day, an intelligent young Quakeress who took a +special interest in her young brother-in-law and taught him "the +rudiments of three R's." + +The Boones were prosperous and happy in Oley and it may be +wondered why they left their farms and their looms, both of which +were profitable, and set their faces towards the Unknown. It is +recorded that, though the Boones were Quakers, they were of a +high mettle and were not infrequently dealt with by the Meeting. +Two of Squire Boone's children married "worldlings"--non- +Quakers--and were in consequence "disowned" by the Society. In +defiance of his sect, which strove to make him sever all +connection with his unruly offspring, Squire Boone refused to +shut his doors on the son and the daughter who had scandalized +local Quakerdom. The Society of Friends thereupon expelled him. +This occurred apparently during the winter of 1748-49. In the +spring of 1750 we see the whole Boone family (save two sons) with +their wives and children, their household goods and their stock, +on the great highway, bound for a land where the hot heart and +the belligerent spirit shall not be held amiss. + +Southward through the Shenandoah goes the Boone caravan. The +women and children usually sit in the wagons. The men march ahead +or alongside, keeping a keen eye open for Indian or other enemy +in the wild, their rifles under arm or over the shoulder. Squire +Boone, who has done with Quakerdom and is leading all that he +holds dear out to larger horizons, is ahead of the line, as we +picture him, ready to meet first whatever danger may assail his +tribe. He is a strong wiry man of rather small stature, with +ruddy complexion, red hair, and gray eyes. Somewhere in the line, +together, we think, are the mother and son who have herded cattle +and companioned each other through long months in the cabin on +the frontier. We do not think of this woman as riding in the +wagon, though she may have done so, but prefer to picture her, +with her tall robust body, her black hair, and her black +eyes--with the sudden Welsh snap in them--walking as sturdily as +any of her sons. + +If Daniel be beside her, what does she see when she looks at him? +A lad well set up but not overtall for his sixteen years, +perhaps--for "eye-witnesses" differ in their estimates of Daniel +Boone's height--or possibly taller than he looks, because his +figure has the forest hunter's natural slant forward and the +droop of the neck of one who must watch his path sometimes in +order to tread silently. It is Squire Boone's blood which shows +in his ruddy face--which would be fair but for its tan--and in +the English cut of feature, the straw-colored eyebrows, and the +blue eyes. But his Welsh mother's legacy is seen in the black +hair that hangs long and loose in the hunter's fashion to his +shoulders. We can think of Daniel Boone only as exhilarated by +this plunge into the Wild. He sees ahead--the days of his great +explorations and warfare, the discovery of Kentucky? Not at all. +This is a boy of sixteen in love with his rifle. He looks ahead +to vistas of forest filled with deer and to skies clouded with +flocks of wild turkeys. In that dream there is happiness enough +for Daniel Boone. Indeed, for himself, even in later life, he +asked little, if any, more. He trudges on blithely, whistling. + + + +Chapter II. Folkways + +These migrations into the inland valleys of the Old South mark +the first great westward thrust of the American frontier. Thus +the beginnings of the westward movement disclose to us a feature +characteristic also of the later migrations which flung the +frontier over the Appalachians, across the Mississippi, and +finally to the shores of the Pacific. The pioneers, instead of +moving westward by slow degrees, subduing the wilderness as they +went, overleaped great spaces and planted themselves beyond, out +of contact with the life they had left behind. Thus separated by +hundreds of miles of intervening wilderness from the more +civilized communities, the conquerors of the first American +"West," prototypes of the conquerors of succeeding "Wests," +inevitably struck out their own ways of life and developed their +own customs. It would be difficult, indeed, to find anywhere a +more remarkable contrast in contemporary folkways than that +presented by the two great community groups of the South--the +inland or piedmont settlements, called the Back Country, and the +lowland towns and plantations along the seaboard. + +The older society of the seaboard towns, as events were soon to +prove, was not less independent in its ideals than the frontier +society of the Back Country; but it was aristocratic in tone and +feeling. Its leaders were the landed gentry--men of elegance, and +not far behind their European contemporaries in the culture of +the day. They were rich, without effort, both from their +plantations, where black slaves and indentured servants labored, +and from their coastwise and overseas trade. Their battles with +forest and red man were long past. They had leisure for +diversions such as the chase, the breeding and racing of +thoroughbred horses, the dance, high play with dice and card, +cockfighting, the gallantry of love, and the skill of the rapier. +Law and politics drew their soberer minds. + +Very different were the conditions which confronted the pioneers +in the first American "West." There every jewel of promise was +ringed round with hostility. The cheap land the pioneer had +purchased at a nominal price, or the free land he had taken by +"tomahawk claim"--that is by cutting his name into the bark of a +deadened tree, usually beside a spring--supported a forest of +tall trunks and interlacing leafage. The long grass and weeds +which covered the ground in a wealth of natural pasturage +harbored the poisonous copperhead and the rattlesnake and, being +shaded by the overhead foliage, they held the heavy dews and bred +swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, and big flies which tortured both +men and cattle. To protect the cattle and horses from the attacks +of these pests the settlers were obliged to build large +"smudges"--fires of green timber--against the wind. The animals +soon learned to back up into the dense smoke and to move from one +grazing spot to another as the wind changed. But useful as were +the green timber fires that rolled their smoke on the wind to +save the stock, they were at the same time a menace to the +pioneer, for they proclaimed to roving bands of Cherokees that a +further encroachment on their territory had been made by their +most hated enemies--the men who felled the hunter's forest. Many +an outpost pioneer who had made the long hard journey by sea and +land from the old world of persecution to this new country of +freedom, dropped from the red man's shot ere he had hewn the +threshold of his home, leaving his wife and children to the +unrecorded mercy of his slayer. + +Those more fortunate pioneers who settled in groups won the first +heat in the battle with the wilderness through massed effort +under wariness. They made their clearings in the forest, built +their cabins and stockades, and planted their cornfields, while +lookouts kept watch and rifles were stacked within easy reach. +Every special task, such as a "raising," as cabin building was +called, was undertaken by the community chiefly because the +Indian danger necessitated swift building and made group action +imperative. But the stanch heart is ever the glad heart. Nothing +in this frontier history impresses us more than the joy of the +pioneer at his labors. His determined optimism turned danger's +dictation into an occasion for jollity. On the appointed day for +the "raising," the neighbors would come, riding or afoot, to the +newcomer's holding--the men with their rifles and axes, the women +with their pots and kettles. Every child toddled along, too, +helping to carry the wooden dishes and spoons. These free givers +of labor had something of the Oriental's notion of the sacred +ratification of friendship by a feast. + +The usual dimensions of a cabin were sixteen by twenty feet. The +timber for the building, having been already cut, lay at +hand--logs of hickory, oak, young pine, walnut, or persimmon. To +make the foundations, the men seized four of the thickest logs, +laid them in place, and notched and grooved and hammered them +into as close a clinch as if they had grown so. The wood must +grip by its own substance alone to hold up the pioneer's +dwelling, for there was not an iron nail to be had in the whole +of the Back Country. Logs laid upon the foundation logs and +notched into each other at the four corners formed the walls; +and, when these stood at seven feet, the builders laid parallel +timbers and puncheons to make both flooring and ceiling. The +ridgepole of the roof was supported by two crotched trees and the +roofing was made of logs and wooden slabs. The crevices of the +walls were packed close with red clay and moss. Lastly, spaces +for a door and windows were cut out. The door was made thick and +heavy to withstand the Indian's rush. And the windowpanes? They +were of paper treated with hog's fat or bear's grease. + +When the sun stood overhead, the women would give the welcome +call of "Dinner!" Their morning had not been less busy than the +men's. They had baked corn cakes on hot stones, roasted bear or +pork, or broiled venison steaks; and--above all and first of all +--they had concocted the great "stew pie" without which a raising +could hardly take place. This was a disputatious mixture of deer, +hog, and bear--animals which, in life, would surely have +companioned each other as ill! It was made in sufficient quantity +to last over for supper when the day's labor was done. At supper +the men took their ease on the ground, but with their rifles +always in reach. If the cabin just raised by their efforts stood +in the Yadkin, within sight of the great mountains the pioneers +were one day to cross, perhaps a sudden bird note warning from +the lookout, hidden in the brush, would bring the builders with a +leap to their feet. It might be only a hunting band of friendly +Catawbas that passed, or a lone Cherokee who knew that this was +not his hour. If the latter, we can, in imagination, see him look +once at the new house on his hunting pasture, slacken rein for a +moment in front of the group of families, lift his hand in sign +of peace, and silently go his way hillward. As he vanishes into +the shadows, the crimson sun, sinking into the unknown wilderness +beyond the mountains, pours its last glow on the roof of the +cabin and on the group near its walls. With unfelt fingers, +subtly, it puts the red touch of the West in the faces of the +men--who have just declared, through the building of a cabin, +that here is Journey's End and their abiding place. + + +There were community holidays among these pioneers as well as +labor days, especially in the fruit season; and there were +flower-picking excursions in the warm spring days. Early in April +the service berry bush gleamed starrily along the watercourses, +its hardy white blooms defying winter's lingering look. This +bush--or tree, indeed, since it is not afraid to rear its +slender trunk as high as cherry or crab apple--might well be +considered emblematic of the frontier spirit in those regions +where the white silence covers the earth for several months and +shuts the lonely homesteader in upon himself. From the pioneer +time of the Old Southwest to the last frontier of the Far North +today, the service berry is cherished alike by white men and +Indians; and the red men have woven about it some of their +prettiest legends. When June had ripened the tree's blue-black +berries, the Back Country folk went out in parties to gather +them. Though the service berry was a food staple on the frontier +and its gathering a matter of household economy, the folk made +their berry-picking jaunt a gala occasion. The women and children +with pots and baskets--the young girls vying with each other, +under the eyes of the youths, as to who could strip boughs the +fastest--plucked gayly while the men, rifles in hand, kept guard. +For these happy summer days were also the red man's scalping days +and, at any moment, the chatter of the picnickers might be +interrupted by the chilling war whoop. When that sound was heard, +the berry pickers raced for the fort. The wild +fruits--strawberries, service berries, cherries, plums, crab +apples--were, however, too necessary a part of the pioneer's +meager diet to be left unplucked out of fear of an Indian attack. +Another day would see the same group out again. The children +would keep closer to their mothers, no doubt; and the laughter of +the young girls would be more subdued, even if their coquetry +lacked nothing of its former effectiveness. Early marriages were +the rule in the Back Country and betrothals were frequently +plighted at these berry pickings. + +As we consider the descriptions of the frontiersman left for us +by travelers of his own day, we are not more interested in his +battles with wilderness and Indian than in the visible effects of +both wilderness and Indian upon him. His countenance and bearing +still show the European, but the European greatly altered by +savage contact. The red peril, indeed, influenced every side of +frontier life. The bands of women and children at the +harvestings, the log rollings, and the house raisings, were not +there merely to lighten the men's work by their laughter and +love-making. It was not safe for them to remain in the cabins, +for, to the Indian, the cabin thus boldly thrust upon his +immemorial hunting grounds was only a secondary evil; the greater +evil was the white man's family, bespeaking the increase of the +dreaded palefaces. The Indian peril trained the pioneers to +alertness, shaped them as warriors and hunters, suggested the +fashion of their dress, knit their families into clans and the +clans into a tribe wherein all were of one spirit in the +protection of each and all and a unit of hate against their +common enemy. + +Too often the fields which the pioneer planted with corn were +harvested by the Indian with fire. The hardest privations +suffered by farmers and stock were due to the settlers having to +flee to the forts, leaving to Indian devastation the crops on +which their sustenance mainly, depended. Sometimes, fortunately, +the warning came in time for the frontiersman to collect his +goods and chattels in his wagon and to round up his live stock +and drive them safely into the common fortified enclosure. At +others, the tap of the "express"--as the herald of Indian danger +was called--at night on the windowpane and the low word whispered +hastily, ere the "express" ran on to the next abode, meant that +the Indians had surprised the outlying cabins of the settlement. + +The forts were built as centrally as possible in the scattered +settlements. They consisted of cabins, blockhouses, and +stockades. A range of cabins often formed one side of a fort. The +walls on the outside were ten or twelve feet high with roofs +sloping inward. The blockhouses built at the angles of the fort +projected two feet or so beyond the outer walls of the cabins and +stockades, and were fitted with portholes for the watchers and +the marksmen. The entrance to the fort was a large folding gate +of thick slabs. It was always on the side nearest the spring. The +whole structure of the fort was bullet-proof and was erected +without an iron nail or spike. In the border wars these forts +withstood all attacks. The savages, having proved that they could +not storm them, generally laid siege and waited for thirst to +compel a sortie. But the crafty besieger was as often outwitted +by the equally cunning defender. Some daring soul, with silent +feet and perhaps with naked body painted in Indian fashion, would +drop from the wall under cover of the night, pass among the +foemen to the spring, and return to the fort with water. + +Into the pioneer's phrase-making the Indian influence penetrated +so that he named seasons for his foe. So thoroughly has the term +"Indian Summer," now to us redolent of charm, become +disassociated from its origins that it gives us a shock to be +reminded that to these Back Country folk the balmy days following +on the cold snap meant the season when the red men would come +back for a last murderous raid on the settlements before winter +should seal up the land. The "Powwowing Days" were the mellow +days in the latter part of February, when the red men in council +made their medicine and learned of their redder gods whether or +no they should take the warpath when the sap pulsed the trees +into leaf. Even the children at their play acknowledged the +red-skinned schoolmaster, for their chief games were a training +in his woodcraft and in the use of his weapons. Tomahawk-throwing +was a favorite sport because of its gruesome practical purposes. +The boys must learn to gauge the tomahawk's revolutions by the +distance of the throw so as to bury the blade in its objective. +Swift running and high jumping through the brush and fallen +timber were sports that taught agility in escape. The boys +learned to shoot accurately the long rifles of their time, with a +log or a forked stick for a rest, and a moss pad under the barrel +to keep it from jerking and spoiling the aim. They wrestled with +each other, mastered the tricks of throwing an opponent, and +learned the scalp hold instead of the toe hold. It was part of +their education to imitate the noises of every bird and beast of +the forest. So they learned to lure the turkey within range, or +by the bleat of a fawn to bring her dam to the rifle. A +well-simulated wolf's howl would call forth a response and so +inform the lone hunter of the vicinity of the pack. This forest +speech was not only the language of diplomacy in the hunting +season; it was the borderer's secret code in war. Stray Indians +put themselves in touch again with the band by turkey calls in +the daytime and by owl or wolf notes at night. The frontiersmen +used the same means to trick the Indian band into betraying the +place of its ambuscade, or to lure the strays, unwitting, within +reach of the knife. + +In that age, before the forests had given place to farms and +cities and when the sun had but slight acquaintance with the sod, +the summers were cool and the winters long and cold in the Back +Country. Sometimes in September severe frosts destroyed the corn. +The first light powdering called "hunting snows" fell in October, +and then the men of the Back Country set out on the chase. Their +object was meat--buffalo, deer, elk, bear-for the winter larder, +and skins to send out in the spring by pack-horses to the coast +in trade for iron, steel, and salt. The rainfall in North +Carolina was much heavier than in Virginia and, from autumn into +early winter, the Yadkin forests were sheeted with rain; but wet +weather, so far from deterring the hunter, aided him to the kill. +In blowing rain, he knew he would find the deer herding in the +sheltered places on the hillsides. In windless rain, he knew that +his quarry ranged the open woods and the high places. The fair +play of the pioneer held it a great disgrace to kill a deer in +winter when the heavy frost had crusted the deep snow. On the +crust men and wolves could travel with ease, but the deer's sharp +hoofs pierced through and made him defenseless. Wolves and dogs +destroyed great quantities of deer caught in this way; and men +who shot deer under these conditions were considered no huntsmen. +There was, indeed, a practical side to this chivalry of the +chase, for meat and pelt were both poor at this season; but the +true hunter also obeyed the finer tenet of his code, for he would +go to the rescue of deer caught in the crusts--and he killed many +a wolf sliding over the ice to an easy meal. + +The community moral code of the frontier was brief and rigorous. +What it lacked of the "whereas" and "inasmuch" of legal ink it +made up in sound hickory. In fact, when we review the activities +of this solid yet elastic wood in the moral, social, and economic +phases of Back Country life, we are moved to wonder if the +pioneers would have been the same race of men had they been +nurtured beneath a less strenuous and adaptable vegetation! The +hickory gave the frontiersman wood for all implements and +furnishings where the demand was equally for lightness, strength, +and elasticity. It provided his straight logs for building, his +block mortars hollowed--by fire and stone--for corn-grinding, his +solid plain furniture, his axles, rifle butts, ax handles, and so +forth. It supplied his magic wand for the searching out of +iniquity in the junior members of his household, and his most +cogent argument, as a citizen, in convincing the slothful, the +blasphemous, or the dishonest adult whose errors disturbed +communal harmony. Its nuts fed his hogs. Before he raised stock, +the unripe hickory nuts, crushed for their white liquid, supplied +him with butter for his corn bread and helped out his store of +bear's fat. Both the name and the knowledge of the uses of this +tree came to the earliest pioneers through contact with the red +man, whose hunting bow and fishing spear and the hobbles for his +horses were fashioned of the "pohickory" tree. The Indian women +first made pohickory butter, and the wise old men of the Cherokee +towns, so we are told, first applied the pohickory rod to the +vanity of youth! + +A glance at the interior of a log cabin in the Back Country of +Virginia or North Carolina would show, in primitive design, what +is, perhaps, after all the perfect home--a place where the +personal life and the work life are united and where nothing +futile finds space. Every object in the cabin was practical and +had been made by hand on the spot to answer a need. Besides the +chairs hewn from hickory blocks, there were others made of slabs +set on three legs. A large slab or two with four legs served as a +movable table; the permanent table was built against the wall, +its outer edge held up by two sticks. The low bed was built into +the wall in the same way and softened for slumber by a mattress +of pine needles, chaff, or dried moss. In the best light from the +greased paper windowpanes stood the spinning wheel and loom, on +which the housewife made cloth for the family's garments. Over +the fireplace or beside the doorway, and suspended usually on +stags' antlers, hung the firearms and the yellow powderhorns, the +latter often carved in Indian fashion with scenes of the hunt or +war. On a shelf or on pegs were the wooden spoons, plates, bowls, +and noggins. Also near the fireplace, which was made of large +flat stones with a mud-plastered log chimney, stood the grinding +block for making hominy. If it were an evening in early spring, +the men of the household would be tanning and dressing deerskins +to be sent out with the trade caravan, while the women sewed, +made moccasins or mended them, in the light of pine knots or +candles of bear's grease. The larger children might be weaving +cradles for the babies, Indian fashion, out of hickory twigs; and +there would surely be a sound of whetting steel, for scalping +knives and tomahawks must be kept keen-tempered now that the days +have come when the red gods whisper their chant of war through +the young leafage. + +The Back Country folk, as they came from several countries, +generally settled in national groups, each preserving its own +speech and its own religion, each approaching frontier life +through its own native temperament. And the frontier met each and +all alike, with the same need and the same menace, and molded +them after one general pattern. If the cabin stood in a typical +Virginian settlement where the folk were of English stock, it may +be that the dulcimer and some old love song of the homeland +enlivened the work--or perhaps chairs were pushed back and young +people danced the country dances of the homeland and the Virginia +Reel, for these Virginian English were merry folk, and their +religion did not frown upon the dance. In a cabin on the +Shenandoah or the upper Yadkin the German tongue clicked away +over the evening dish of kraut or sounded more sedately in a +Lutheran hymn; while from some herder's but on the lower Yadkin +the wild note of the bagpipes or of the ancient four-stringed +harp mingled with the Gaelic speech. + +Among the homes in the Shenandoah where old England's ways +prevailed, none was gayer than the tavern kept by the man whom +the good Moravian Brother called "Severe." There perhaps the +feasting celebrated the nuptials of John Sevier, who was barely +past his seventeenth birthday when he took to himself a wife. Or +perhaps the dancing, in moccasined feet on the puncheon flooring, +was a ceremonial to usher into Back Country life the new +municipality John had just organized, for John at nineteen had +taken his earliest step towards his larger career, which we shall +follow later on, as the architect of the first little governments +beyond the mountains. + +In the Boone home on the Yadkin, we may guess that the talk was +solely of the hunt, unless young Daniel had already become +possessed of his first compass and was studying its ways. On such +an evening, while the red afterglow lingered, he might be mending +a passing trader's firearms by the fires of the primitive forge +his father had set up near the trading path running from +Hillsborough to the Catawba towns. It was said by the local +nimrods that none could doctor a sick rifle better than young +Daniel Boone, already the master huntsman of them all. And +perhaps some trader's tale, told when the caravan halted for the +night, kindled the youth's first desire to penetrate the +mountain-guarded wilderness, for the tales of these Romanies of +commerce were as the very badge of their free-masonry, and entry +money at the doors of strangers. + +Out on the border's edge, heedless of the shadow of the mountains +looming between the newly built cabin and that western land where +they and their kind were to write the fame of the Ulster Scot in +a shining script that time cannot dull, there might sit a group +of stern-faced men, all deep in discussion of some point of +spiritual doctrine or of the temporal rights of men. Yet, in +every cabin, whatever the national differences, the setting was +the same The spirit of the frontier was modeling out of old clay +a new Adam to answer the needs of a new earth. + +It would be far less than just to leave the Back Country folk +without further reference to the devoted labors of their clergy. +In the earliest days the settlers were cut off from their church +systems; the pious had to maintain their piety unaided, except in +the rare cases where a pastor accompanied a group of settlers of +his denomination into the wilds. One of the first ministers who +fared into the Back Country to remind the Ulster Presbyterians of +their spiritual duties was the Reverend Hugh McAden of +Philadelphia. He made long itineraries under the greatest +hardships, in constant danger from Indians and wild beasts, +carrying the counsel of godliness to the far scattered flock. +Among the Highland settlements the Reverend James Campbell for +thirty years traveled about, preaching each Sunday at some +gathering point a sermon in both English and Gaelic. A little +later, in the Yadkin Valley, after Craighead's day there arose a +small school of Presbyterian ministers whose zeal and +fearlessness in the cause of religion and of just government had +an influence on the frontiersmen that can hardly be +overestimated. + +But, in the beginning, the pioneer encountered the savagery of +border life, grappled with it, and reacted to it without guidance +from other mentor than his own instincts. His need was still the +primal threefold need family, sustenance, and safe sleep when the +day's work was done. We who look back with thoughtful eyes upon +the frontiersman--all links of contact with his racial past +severed, at grips with destruction in the contenting of his +needs--see something more, something larger, than he saw in the +log cabin raised by his hands, its structure held together solely +by his close grooving and fitting of its own strength. Though the +walls he built for himself have gone with his own dust back to +the earth, the symbol he erected for us stands. + + + +Chapter III. The Trader + +The trader was the first pathfinder. His caravans began the +change of purpose that was to come to the Indian warrior's route, +turning it slowly into the beaten track of communication and +commerce. The settlers, the rangers, the surveyors, went westward +over the trails which he had blazed for them years before. Their +enduring works are commemorated in the cities and farms which +today lie along every ancient border line; but of their +forerunner's hazardous Indian trade nothing remains. Let us +therefore pay a moment's homage here to the trader, who first--to +borrow a phrase from Indian speech--made white for peace the red +trails of war. + +He was the first cattleman of the Old Southwest. Fifty years +before John Findlay,* one of this class of pioneers, led Daniel +Boone through Cumberland Gap, the trader's bands of horses roamed +the western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and his cattle +grazed among the deer on the green banks of the old Cherokee +(Tennessee) River. He was the pioneer settler beyond the high +hills; for he built, in the center of the Indian towns, the first +white man's cabin--with its larger annex, the trading house--and +dwelt there during the greater part of the year. He was America's +first magnate of international commerce. His furs--for which he +paid in guns, knives, ammunition, vermilion paint, mirrors, and +cloth--lined kings' mantles, and hatted the Lords of Trade as +they strode to their council chamber in London to discuss his +business and to pass those regulations which might have seriously +hampered him but for his resourcefulness in circumventing them! + +* The name is spelled in various ways: Findlay, Finlay, Findley. + + +He was the first frontier warrior, for he either fought off or +fell before small parties of hostile Indians who, in the interest +of the Spanish or French, raided his pack-horse caravans on the +march. Often, too, side by side with the red brothers of his +adoption, he fought in the intertribal wars. His was the first +educative and civilizing influence in the Indian towns. He +endeavored to cure the Indians of their favorite midsummer +madness, war, by inducing them to raise stock and poultry and +improve their corn, squash, and pea gardens. It is not necessary +to impute to him philanthropic motives. He was a practical man +and he saw that war hurt his trade: it endangered his summer +caravans and hampered the autumn hunt for deerskins. + +In the earliest days of the eighteenth century, when the +colonists of Virginia and the Carolinas were only a handful, it +was the trader who defeated each successive attempt of French and +Spanish agents to weld the tribes into a confederacy for the +annihilation of the English settlements. The English trader did +his share to prevent what is now the United States from becoming +a part of a Latin empire and to save it for a race having the +Anglo-Saxon ideal and speaking the English tongue. + +The colonial records of the period contain items which, taken +singly, make small impression on the casual reader but which, +listed together, throw a strong light on the past and bring that +mercenary figure, the trader, into so bold a relief that the +design verges on the heroic. If we wonder, for instance, why the +Scotch Highlanders who settled in the wilds at the headwaters of +the Cape Fear River, about 1729, and were later followed by Welsh +and Huguenots, met with no opposition from the Indians, the +mystery is solved when we discover, almost by accident, a few +printed lines which record that, in 1700, the hostile natives on +the Cape Fear were subdued to the English and brought into +friendly alliance with them by Colonel William Bull, a trader. We +read further and learn that the Spaniards in Florida had long +endeavored to unite the tribes in Spanish and French territory +against the English and that the influence of traders prevented +the consummation. The Spaniards, in 1702, had prepared to invade +English territory with nine hundred Indians. The plot was +discovered by Creek Indians and disclosed to their friends, the +traders, who immediately gathered together five hundred warriors, +marched swiftly to meet the invaders, and utterly routed them. +Again, when the Indians, incited by the Spanish at St. Augustine, +rose against the English in 1715, and the Yamasi Massacre +occurred in South Carolina, it was due to the traders that some +of the settlements at least were not wholly unprepared to defend +themselves. + +The early English trader was generally an intelligent man; +sometimes educated, nearly always fearless and resourceful. He +knew the one sure basis on which men of alien blood and far +separated stages of moral and intellectual development can meet +in understanding--namely, the truth of the spoken word. He +recognized honor as the bond of trade and the warp and woof of +human intercourse. The uncorrupted savage also had his plain +interpretation of the true word in the mouths of men, and a name +for it. He called it the "Old Beloved Speech"; and he gave his +confidence to the man who spoke this speech even in the close +barter for furs. + +We shall find it worth while to refer to the map of America as it +was in the early days of the colonial fur trade, about the +beginning of the eighteenth century. A narrow strip of loosely +strung English settlements stretched from the north border of New +England to the Florida line. North Florida was Spanish territory. +On the far distant southwestern borders of the English colonies +were the southern possessions of France. The French sphere of +influence extended up the Mississippi, and thence by way of +rivers and the Great Lakes to its base in Canada on the borders +of New England and New York. In South Carolina dwelt the Yamasi +tribe of about three thousand warriors, their chief towns only +sixty or eighty miles distant from the Spanish town of St. +Augustine. On the west, about the same distance northeast of New +Orleans, in what is now Alabama and Georgia, lay the Creek +nation. There French garrisons held Mobile and Fort Alabama. The +Creeks at this time numbered over four thousand warriors. The +lands of the Choctaws, a tribe of even larger fighting strength, +began two hundred miles north of New Orleans and extended along +the Mississippi. A hundred and sixty miles northeast of the +Choctaw towns were the Chickasaws, the bravest and most +successful warriors of all the tribes south of the Iroquois. The +Cherokees, in part seated within the Carolinas, on the upper +courses of the Savannah River, mustered over six thousand men at +arms. East of them were the Catawba towns. North of them were the +Shawanoes and Delawares, in easy communication with the tribes of +Canada. Still farther north, along the Mohawk and other rivers +joining with the Hudson and Lake Ontario stood the "long houses" +of the fiercest and most warlike of all the savages, the Iroquois +or Six Nations. + +The Indians along the English borders outnumbered the colonists +perhaps ten to one. If the Spanish and the French had succeeded +in the conspiracy to unite on their side all the tribes, a red +billow of tomahawk wielders would have engulfed and extinguished +the English settlements. The French, it is true, made allies of +the Shawanoes, the Delawares, the Choctaws, and a strong faction +of the Creeks; and they finally won over the Cherokees after +courting them for more than twenty years. But the Creeks in part, +the powerful Chickasaws, and the Iroquois Confederacy, or Six +Nations, remained loyal to the English. In both North and South +it was the influence of the traders that kept these red tribes on +the English side. The Iroquois were held loyal by Sir William +Johnson and his deputy, George Croghan, the "King of Traders." +The Chickasaws followed their "best-beloved" trader, James Adair; +and among the Creeks another trader, Lachlan McGillivray, wielded +a potent influence. + +Lachlan McGillivray was a Highlander. He landed in Charleston in +1735 at the age of sixteen and presently joined a trader's +caravan as packhorse boy. A few years later he married a woman of +the Creeks. On many occasions he defeated French and Spanish +plots with the Creeks for the extermination of the colonists in +Georgia and South Carolina. His action in the final war with the +French (1760), when the Indian terror was raging, is typical. +News came that four thousand Creek warriors, reinforced by French +Choctaws, were about to fall on the southern settlements. At the +risk of their lives, McGillivray and another trader named Galphin +hurried from Charleston to their trading house on the Georgia +frontier. Thither they invited several hundred Creek warriors, +feasted and housed them for several days, and finally won them +from their purpose. McGillivray had a brilliant son, Alexander, +who about this time became a chief in his mother's nation perhaps +on this very occasion, as it was an Indian custom, in making a +brotherhood pact, to send a son to dwell in the brother's house. +We shall meet that son again as the Chief of the Creeks and the +terrible scourge of Georgia and Tennessee in the dark days of the +Revolutionary War. + +The bold deeds of the early traders, if all were to be told, +would require a book as long as the huge volume written by James +Adair, the "English Chickasaw." Adair was an Englishman who +entered the Indian trade in 1785 and launched upon the long and +dangerous trail from Charleston to the upper towns of the +Cherokees, situated in the present Monroe County, Tennessee. Thus +he was one of the earliest pioneers of the Old Southwest; and he +was Tennessee's first author. "I am well acquainted," he says, +"with near two thousand miles of the American continent"--a +statement which gives one some idea of an early trader's +enterprise, hardihood, and peril. Adair's "two thousand miles" +were twisting Indian trails and paths he slashed out for himself +through uninhabited wilds, for when not engaged in trade, +hunting, literature, or war, it pleased him to make solitary +trips of exploration. These seem to have led him chiefly +northward through the Appalachians, of which he must have been +one of the first white explorers. + +A many-sided man was James Adair--cultured, for his style suffers +not by comparison with other writers of his day, no stranger to +Latin and Greek, and not ignorant of Hebrew, which he studied to +assist him in setting forth his ethnological theory that the +American Indians were the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of +Israel. Before we dismiss his theory with a smile, let us +remember that he had not at his disposal the data now available +which reveal points of likeness in custom, language formation, +and symbolism among almost all primitive peoples. The formidable +title-page of his book in itself suggests an author keenly +observant, accurate as to detail, and possessed of a versatile +and substantial mind. Most of the pages were written in the towns +of the Chickasaws, with whom he lived "as a friend and brother," +but from whose "natural jealousy" and "prying disposition" he was +obliged to conceal his papers. "Never," he assures us, "was a +literary work begun and carried on with more disadvantages!" + +Despite these disabilities the author wrote a book of absorbing +interest. His intimate sympathetic pictures of Indian life as it +was before the tribes had been conquered are richly valuable to +the lover of native lore and to the student of the history of +white settlement. The author believes, as he must, in the +supremacy of his own race, but he nevertheless presents the +Indians' side of the argument as no man could who had not made +himself one of them. He thereby adds interest to those fierce +struggles which took place along the border; for he shows us the +red warrior not as a mere brute with a tomahawk but as a human +creature with an ideal of his own, albeit an ideal that must give +place to a better. Even in view of the red man's hideous methods +of battle and inhuman treatment of captives, we cannot ponder +unmoved Adair's description of his preparations for war--the +fasting, the abstention from all family intercourse, and the +purification rites and prayers for three days in the house set +apart, while the women, who might not come close to their men in +this fateful hour, stood throughout the night till dawn chanting +before the door. Another poetic touch the author gives us, from +the Cherokee--or Cheerake as he spells it--explaining that the +root, chee-ra, means fire. A Cherokee never extinguished fire +save on the occasion of a death, when he thrust a burning torch +into the water and said, Neetah intahah--"the days appointed him +were finished." The warrior slain in battle was held to have been +balanced by death and it was said of him that "he was weighed on +the path and made light." Adair writes that the Cherokees, until +corrupted by French agents and by the later class of traders who +poured rum among them like water, were honest, industrious, and +friendly. They were ready to meet the white man with their +customary phrase of good will "I shall firmly shake hands with +your speech." He was intimately associated with this tribe from +1735 to 1744, when he diverted his activities to the Chickasaws. + +It was from the Cherokees' chief town, Great Telliko, in the +Appalachians, that Adair explored the mountains. He describes the +pass through the chain which was used by the Indians and which, +from his outline of it, was probably the Cumberland Gap. He +relates many incidents of the struggle with the French-- +manifestations even in this remote wilderness of the vast +conflict that was being waged for the New World by two imperial +nations of the Old. + +Adair undertook, at the solicitation of Governor Glen of South +Carolina, the dangerous task of opening up trade with the +Choctaws; a tribe mustering upwards of five thousand warriors who +were wholly in the French interest. Their country lay in what is +now the State of Mississippi along the great river, some seven +hundred miles west and southwest of Charleston. After passing the +friendly Creek towns the trail led on for 150 miles through what +was practically the enemy's country. Adair, owing to what he +likes to term his "usual good fortune," reached the Choctaw +country safely and by his adroitness and substantial presents won +the friendship of the influential chief, Red Shoe, whom he found +in a receptive mood, owing to a French agent's breach of +hospitality involving Red Shoe's favorite wife. Adair thus +created a large proEnglish faction among the Choctaws, and his +success seriously impaired French prestige with all the +southwestern tribes. Several times French Choctaws bribed to +murder him, waylaid Adair on the trail--twice when he was +alone--only to be baffled by the imperturbable self-possession +and alert wit which never failed him in emergencies. + +Winning a Choctaw trade cost Adair, besides attacks on his life, +2200 pounds, for which he was never reimbursed, notwithstanding +Governor Glen's agreement with him. And, on his return to +Charleston, while the Governor was detaining him "on one pretext +or another," he found that a new expedition, which the Governor +was favoring for reasons of his own, had set out to capture his +Chickasaw trade and gather in "the expected great crop of +deerskins and beaver...before I could possibly return to the +Chikkasah Country." Nothing daunted, however, the hardy trader +set out alone. + +"In the severity of winter, frost, snow, hail and heavy rains +succeed each other in these climes, so that I partly rode and +partly swam to the Chikkasah country; for not expecting to stay +long below [in Charleston] I took no leathern canoe. Many of the +broad, deep creeks...had now overflowed their banks, ran at a +rapid rate and were unpassable to any but DESPERATE PEOPLE... +the rivers and swamps were dreadful by rafts of timber driving +down the former and the great fallen trees floating in the +latter.... Being forced to wade deep through cane swamps or woody +thickets, it proved very troublesome to keep my firearms dry on +which, as a second means, my life depended." + +Nevertheless Adair defeated the Governor's attempt to steal his +trade, and later on published the whole story in the Charleston +press and sent in a statement of his claims to the Assembly, with +frank observations on His Excellency himself. We gather that his +bold disregard of High Personages set all Charleston in an +uproar! + +Adair is tantalizingly modest about his own deeds. He devotes +pages to prove that an Indian rite agrees with the Book of +Leviticus but only a paragraph to an exploit of courage and +endurance such as that ride and swim for the Indian trade. We +have to read between the lines to find the man; but he well +repays the search. Briefly, incidentally, he mentions that on one +trip he was captured by the French, who were so + +"well acquainted with the great damages I had done to them and +feared others I might occasion, as to confine me a close prisoner +...in the Alebahma garrison. They were fully resolved to have +sent me down to Mobile or New Orleans as a capital criminal to +be hanged...BUT I DOUBTED NOT OF BEING ABLE TO EXTRICATE +MYSELF SOME WAY OR OTHER. They appointed double centries over me +for some days before I was to be sent down in the French King's +large boat. They were strongly charged against laying down their +weapons or suffering any hostile thing to be in the place where I +was kept, as they deemed me capable of any mischief.... About an +hour before we were to set off by water I escaped from them by +land.... I took through the middle of the low land covered +with briers at full speed. I heard the French clattering on +horseback along the path...and the howling savages pursuing..., +but MY USUAL GOOD FORTUNE enabled me to leave them far +enough behind...." + + +One feels that a few of the pages given up to Leviticus might +well have been devoted to a detailed account of this escape from +"double centries" and a fortified garrison, and the plunge +through the tangled wilds, by a man without gun or knife or +supplies, and who for days dared not show himself upon the trail. + +There is too much of "my usual good fortune" in Adair's +narrative; such luck as his argues for extraordinary resources in +the man. Sometimes we discover only through one phrase on a page +that he must himself have been the hero of an event he relates in +the third person. This seems to be the case in the affair of +Priber, which was the worst of those "damages" Adair did to the +French. Priber was "a gentleman of curious and speculative +temper" sent by the French in 1786 to Great Telliko to win the +Cherokees to their interest. At this time Adair was trading with +the Cherokees. He relates that Priber, + +"more effectually to answer the design of his commission...ate, +drank, slept, danced, dressed, and painted himself with the +Indians, so that it was not easy to distinguish him from the +natives,--he married also with them, and being endued with a +strong understanding and retentive memory he soon learned their +dialect, and by gradual advances impressed them with a very ill +opinion of the English, representing them as fraudulent, +avaritious and encroaching people; he at the same time inflated +the artless savages with a prodigious high opinion of their own +importance in the American scale of power.... Having thus +infected them...he easily formed them into a nominal +republican government--crowned their old Archimagus emperor after +a pleasing new savage form, and invented a variety of +high-sounding titles for all the members of his imperial +majesty's red court." + +Priber cemented the Cherokee empire "by slow but sure degrees to +the very great danger of our southern colonies." His position was +that of Secretary of State and as such, with a studiedly +provocative arrogance, he carried on correspondence with the +British authorities. The colonial Government seems, on this +occasion, to have listened to the traders and to have realized +that Priber was a danger, for soldiers were sent to take him +prisoner. The Cherokees, however, had so firmly "shaked hands" +with their Secretary's admired discourse that they threatened to +take the warpath if their beloved man were annoyed, and the +soldiers went home without him--to the great hurt of English +prestige. The Cherokee empire had now endured for five years and +was about to rise "into a far greater state of puissance by the +acquisition of the Muskohge, Chocktaw and the Western Mississippi +Indians," when fortunately for the history of British +colonization in America, "an accident befell the Secretary." + +It is in connection with this "accident" that the reader suspects +the modest but resourceful Adair of conniving with Fate. Since +the military had failed and the Government dared not again employ +force, other means must be found; the trader provided them. The +Secretary with his Cherokee bodyguard journeyed south on his +mission to the Creeks. Secure, as he supposed, he lodged +overnight in an Indian town. But there a company of English +traders took him into custody, along with his bundle of +manuscripts presumably intended for the French commandant at Fort +Alabama, and handed him over to the Governor of Georgia, who +imprisoned him and kept him out of mischief till he died. + +As a Briton, Adair contributed to Priber's fate; and as such he +approves it. As a scholar with philosophical and ethnological +leanings, however, he deplores it, and hopes that Priber's +valuable manuscripts may "escape the despoiling hands of military +power." Priber had spent his leisure in compiling a Cherokee +dictionary; Adair's occupation, while domiciled in his winter +house in Great Telliko, was the writing of his Indian Appendix to +the Pentateuch. As became brothers in science, they had exchanged +notes, so we gather from Adair's references to conversations and +correspondence. Adair's difficulties as an author, however, had +been increased by a treacherous lapse from professional etiquette +on the part of the Secretary: "He told them [the Indians] that in +the very same manner as he was their great Secretary, I was the +devil's clerk, or an accursed one who marked on paper the bad +speech of the evil ones of darkness." On his own part Adair +admits that his object in this correspondence was to trap the +Secretary into something more serious than literary errata. That +is, he admits it by implication; he says the Secretary "feared" +it. During the years of their duel, Adair apparently knew that the +scholarly compiler of the Cherokee dictionary was secretly +inciting members of this particular Lost Tribe to tomahawk the +discoverer of their biblical origin; and Priber, it would seem, +knew that he knew! + +Adair shows, inferentially, that land encroachment was not the +sole cause of those Indian wars with which we shall deal in a +later chapter. The earliest causes were the instigations of the +French and the rewards which they offered for English scalps. But +equally provocative of Indian rancor were the acts of sometimes +merely stupid, sometimes dishonest, officials; the worst of +these, Adair considered, was the cheapening of the trade through +the granting of general licenses. + + +"Formerly each trader had a license for two [Indian] towns.... +At my first setting out among them, a number of traders... +journeyed through our various nations in different companies and +were generally men of worth; of course they would have a living +price for their goods, which they carried on horseback to the +remote Indian countries at very great expences.... [The +Indians] were kept under proper restraint, were easy in their +minds and peaceable on account of the plain, honest lessons daily +inculcated on them...but according to the present unwise +plan, two and even three Arablike peddlars sculk about in one of +those villages...who are generally the dregs and offscourings +of our climes...by inebriating the Indians with their +nominally prohibited and poisoning spirits, they purchase the +necessaries of life at four and five hundred per cent cheaper +than the orderly traders.... Instead of showing good examples +of moral conduct, beside the other part of life, they instruct +the unknowing and imitating savages in many diabolical lessons of +obscenity and blasphemy." + + +In these statements, contemporary records bear him out. There is +no sadder reading than the many pleas addressed by the Indian +chiefs to various officials to stop the importation of liquor +into their country, alleging the debauchment of their young men +and warning the white man, with whom they desired to be friends, +that in an Indian drink and blood lust quickly combined. + +Adair's book was published in London in 1775. He wrote it to be +read by Englishmen as well as Americans; and some of his +reflections on liberty, justice, and Anglo-Saxon unity would not +sound unworthily today. His sympathies were with "the principles +of our Magna Charta Americana"; but he thought the threatened +division of the English-speaking peoples the greatest evil that +could befall civilization. His voluminous work discloses a man +not only of wide mental outlook but a practical man with a sense +of commercial values. Yet, instead of making a career for +himself among his own caste, he made his home for over thirty +years in the Chickasaw towns; and it is plain that, with the +exception of some of his older brother traders, he preferred the +Chickasaw to any other society. + +The complete explanation of such men as Adair we need not expect +to find stated anywhere--not even in and between the lines of his +book. The conventionalist would seek it in moral obliquity; the +radical, in a temperament that is irked by the superficialities +that comprise so large a part of conventional standards. The +reason for his being what he was is almost the only thing Adair +did not analyze in his book. Perhaps, to him, it was self evident. +We may let it be so to us, and see it most clearly presented in a +picture composed from some of his brief sketches: A land of grass +and green shade inset with bright waters, where deer and domestic +cattle herded together along the banks; a circling group of +houses, their white-clayed walls sparkling under the sun's rays, +and, within and without, the movement of "a friendly and +sagacious people," who "kindly treated and watchfully guarded" +their white brother in peace and war, and who conversed daily +with him in the Old Beloved Speech learned first of Nature. "Like +towers in cities beyond the common size of those of the Indians" +rose the winter and summer houses and the huge trading house +which the tribe had built for their best beloved friend in the +town's center, because there he would be safest from attack. On +the rafters hung the smoked and barbecued delicacies taken in the +hunt and prepared for him by his red servants, who were also his +comrades at home and on the dangerous trail. "Beloved old women" +kept an eye on his small sons, put to drowse on panther skins so +that they might grow up brave warriors. Nothing was there of +artifice or pretense, only "the needful things to make a +reasonable life happy." All was as primitive, naive, and +contented as the woman whose outline is given once in a few +strokes, proudly and gayly penciled: "I have the pleasure of +writing this by the side of a Chikkasah female, as great a +princess as ever lived among the ancient Peruvians or Mexicans, +and she bids me be sure not to mark the paper wrong after the +manner of most of the traders; otherwise it will spoil the making +good bread or homony!" + +His final chapter is the last news of James Adair, type of the +earliest trader. Did his bold attacks on corrupt officials and +rum peddlers--made publicly before Assemblies and in print--raise +for him a dense cloud of enmity that dropped oblivion on his +memory? Perhaps. But, in truth, his own book is all the history +of him we need. It is the record of a man. He lived a full life +and served his day; and it matters not that a mist envelops the +place where unafraid he met the Last Enemy, was "weighed on the +path and made light." + + + +Chapter IV. The Passing Of The French Peril + +The great pile of the Appalachian peaks was not the only barrier +which held back the settler with his plough and his rifle from +following the trader's tinkling caravans into the valleys beyond. +Over the hills the French were lords of the land. The +frontiersman had already felt their enmity through the torch and +tomahawk of their savage allies. By his own strength alone he +could not cope with the power entrenched beyond the hills; so he +halted. But that power, by its unachievable desire to be overlord +of two hemispheres, was itself to precipitate events which would +open the westward road. + +The recurring hour in the cycle of history, when the issue of +Autocracy against Democracy cleaves the world, struck for the men +of the eighteenth century as the second half of that century +dawned. In our own day, happily, that issue has been perceived by +the rank and file of the people. In those darker days, as France +and England grappled in that conflict of systems which culminated +in the Seven Years' War, the fundamental principles at stake were +clear to only a handful of thinking men. + +But abstractions, whether clear or obscure, do not cause +ambassadors to demand their passports. The declaration of war +awaits the overt act. Behold, then, how great a matter is kindled +by a little fire! The casus belli between France and England in +the Seven Years' War--the war which humbled France in Europe and +lost her India and Canada--had to do with a small log fort built +by a few Virginians in 1754 at the Forks of the Ohio River and +wrested from them in the same year by a company of Frenchmen from +Canada. + +The French claimed the valley of the Ohio as their territory; the +English claimed it as theirs. The dispute was of long standing. +The French claim was based on discovery; the English claim, on +the seato-sea charters of Virginia and other colonies and on +treaties with the Six Nations. The French refused to admit the +right of the Six Nations to dispose of the territory. The English +were inclined to maintain the validity of their treaties with the +Indians. Especially was Virginia so inclined, for a large share +of the Ohio lay within her chartered domain. + +The quarrel had entered its acute phase in 1749, when both the +rival claimants took action to assert their sovereignty. The +Governor of Canada sent an envoy, Celoron de Blainville, with +soldiers, to take formal possession of the Ohio for the King of +France. In the same year the English organized in Virginia the +Ohio Company for the colonization of the same country; and +summoned Christopher Gist, explorer, trader, and guide, from his +home on the Yadkin and dispatched him to survey the land. + +Then appeared on the scene that extraordinary man, Robert +Dinwiddie, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, erstwhile citizen of +Glasgow. His correspondence from Virginia during his seven years' +tenure of office (1751-58) depicts the man with a vividness +surpassing paint. He was as honest as the day--as honest as he +was fearless and fussy. But he had no patience; he wanted things +done and done at once, and his way was THE way to do them. People +who did not think as he thought didn't THINK at all. On this +drastic premise he went to work. There was of course continuous +friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie had +all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his +addresses, perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, +bristled with satirical thrusts at his opponents. If he had +spelled out in full all the words he was so eager to write, he +would have been obliged to lessen his output; so he used a +shorthand system of his own, peculiar enough to be remarkable +even though abbreviations were the rule in that day. Even the +dignity of Kings he sacrificed to speed, and we find "His +Majesty" abbreviated to "H M'y"; yet a smaller luminary known as +"His Honor" fares better, losing only the last letter--"His +Hono." "Ho." stands for "house" and "yt" for "that," "what," +"it," and "anything else," as convenient. Many of his letters +wind up with "I am ve'y much fatig'd." We know that he must have +been! + +It was a formidable task that confronted Dinwiddie--to possess +and defend the Ohio. Christopher Gist returned in 1751, having +surveyed the valley for the Ohio Company as far as the Scioto and +Miami rivers, and in the following year the survey was ratified +by the Indians. The Company's men were busy blazing trails +through the territory and building fortified posts. But the +French dominated the territory. They had built and occupied with +troops Fort Le Boeuf on French Creek, a stream flowing into the +Allegheny. We may imagine Dinwiddie's rage at this violation of +British soil by French soldiers and how he must have sputtered to +the young George Washington, when he summoned that officer and +made him the bearer of a letter to the French commander at Fort +Le Boeuf, to demand that French troops be at once withdrawn from +the Ohio. + +Washington made the journey to Fort Le Boeuf in December, 1753, +but the mission of course proved fruitless. Dinwiddie then wrote +to London urging that a force be sent over to help the colonies +maintain their rights and, under orders from the Crown, suggested +by himself, he wrote to the governors of all the other colonies +to join with Virginia in raising troops to settle the ownership +of the disputed territory. From Governor Dobbs of North Carolina +he received an immediate response. By means of logic, sarcasm, +and the entire force of his prerogatives, Dinwiddie secured from +his own balking Assembly 10,000 pounds with which to raise +troops. From Maryland he obtained nothing. There were three +prominent Marylanders in the Ohio Company, but--or because of +this--the Maryland Assembly voted down the measure for a military +appropriation. On June 18, 1754, Dinwiddie wrote, with unusually +full spelling for him: + +"I am perswaded had His Majesty's Com'ds to the other Colonies +been duely obey'd, and the necessary Assistance given by them, +the Fr. wou'd have long ago have been oblig'd entirely to have +evacuated their usurp'd Possession of the King's Lands, instead +of w'ch they are daily becoming more formidable, whilst every +Gov't except No. Caro. has amus'd me with Expectations that have +proved fruitless, and at length refuse to give any Supply, unless +in such a manner as must render it ineffectual." + +This saddened mood with its deliberate penmanship did not last +long. Presently Dinwiddie was making a Round Robin of himself in +another series of letters to Governors, Councilors, and +Assemblymen, frantically beseeching them for "H. M'y's hono." and +their own, and, if not, for "post'r'ty," to rise against the +cruel French whose Indians were harrying the borders again and +"Basely, like Virmin, stealing and carrying off the helpless +infant"--as nice a simile, by the way, as any Sheridan ever put +into the mouth of Mrs. Malaprop. + +Dinwiddie saw his desires thwarted on every hand by the selfish +spirit of localism and jealousy which was more rife in America in +those days than it is today. Though the phrase "capitalistic war" +had not yet been coined, the great issues of English civilization +on this continent were befogged, for the majority in the +colonies, by the trivial fact that the shareholders in the Ohio +Company stood to win by a vigorous prosecution of the war and to +lose if it were not prosecuted at all. The irascible Governor, +however, proceeded with such men and means as he could obtain. + +And now in the summer of 1754 came the "overt act" which +precipitated the inevitable war. The key to the valley of the +Ohio was the tongue of land at the Forks, where the Allegheny and +the Monongahela join their waters in the Beautiful River. This +site--today Pittsburgh--if occupied and held by either nation +would give that nation the command of the Ohio. Occupied it was +for a brief hour by a small party of Virginians, under Captain +William Trent; but no sooner had they erected on the spot a crude +fort than the French descended upon them. What happened then all +the world knows: how the French built on the captured site their +great Fort Duquesne; how George Washington with an armed force, +sent by Dinwiddie to recapture the place, encountered French and +Indians at Great Meadows and built Fort Necessity, which he was +compelled to surrender; how in the next year (1755) General +Braddock arrived from across the sea and set out to take Fort +Duquesne, only to meet on the way the disaster called "Braddock's +Defeat"; and how, before another year had passed, the Seven +Years' War was raging in Europe, and England was allied with the +enemies of France. + +>From the midst of the debacle of Braddock's defeat rises the +figure of the young Washington. Twenty-three he was then, tall +and spare and hardbodied from a life spent largely in the open. +When Braddock fell, this Washington appeared. Reckless of the +enemy's bullets, which spanged about him and pierced his clothes, +he dashed up and down the lines in an effort to rally the +panic-stricken redcoats. He was too late to save the day, but not +to save a remnant of the army and bring out his own Virginians in +good order. Whether among the stay-at-homes and voters of credits +there were some who would have ascribed Washington's conduct on +that day to the fact that his brothers were large shareholders in +the Ohio Company and that Fort Duquesne was their personal +property or "private interest," history does not say. We may +suppose so. + +North Carolina, the one colony which had not "amus'd" the +Governor of Virginia "with Expectations that proved fruitless," +had voted 12,000 pounds for the war and had raised two companies +of troops. One of these, under Edward Brice Dobbs, son of +Governor Dobbs, marched with Braddock; and in that company as +wagoner went Daniel Boone, then in his twenty-second year. Of +Boone's part in Braddock's campaign nothing more is recorded save +that on the march he made friends with John Findlay, the trader, +his future guide into Kentucky; and that, on the day of the +defeat, when his wagons were surrounded, he escaped by slashing +the harness, leaping on the back of one of his horses, and +dashing into the forest. + + +Meanwhile the southern tribes along the border were comparatively +quiet. That they well knew a colossal struggle between the two +white races was pending and were predisposed to ally themselves +with the stronger is not to be doubted. French influence had long +been sifting through the formidable Cherokee nation, which still, +however, held true in the main to its treaties with the English. +It was the policy of the Governors of Virginia and North Carolina +to induce the Cherokees to enter strongly into the war as allies +of the English. Their efforts came to nothing chiefly because of +the purely local and suicidal Indian policy of Governor Glen of +South Carolina. There had been some dispute between Glen and +Dinwiddie as to the right of Virginia to trade with the +Cherokees; and Glen had sent to the tribes letters calculated to +sow distrust of all other aspirants for Indian favor, even +promising that certain settlers in the Back Country of North +Carolina should be removed and their holdings restored to the +Indians. These letters caused great indignation in North +Carolina, when they came to light, and had the worst possible +effect upon Indian relations. The Indians now inclined their ear +to the French who, though fewer than the English, were at least +united in purpose. + +Governor Glen took this inauspicious moment to hold high festival +with the Cherokees. It was the last year of his administration +and apparently he hoped to win promotion to some higher post by +showing his achievements for the fur trade and in the matter of +new land acquired. He plied the Cherokees with drink and induced +them to make formal submission and to cede all their lands to the +Crown. When the chiefs recovered their sobriety, they were filled +with rage at what had been done, and they remembered how the +French had told them that the English intended to make slaves of +all the Indians and to steal their lands. The situation was +complicated by another incident. Several Cherokee warriors +returning from the Ohio, whither they had gone to fight for the +British, were slain by frontiersmen. The tribe, in accordance +with existing agreements, applied to Virginia for redress--but +received none. + +There was thus plenty of powder for an explosion. Governor +Lyttleton, Glen's successor, at last flung the torch into the +magazine. He seized, as hostages, a number of friendly chiefs who +were coming to Charleston to offer tokens of good will and forced +them to march under guard on a military tour which the Governor +was making (1759) with intent to overawe the savages. When this +expedition reached Prince George, on the upper waters of the +Savannah, the Indian hostages were confined within the fort; and +the Governor, satisfied with the result of his maneuver departed +south for Charleston. Then followed a tragedy. Some Indian +friends of the imprisoned chiefs attacked the fort, and the +commander, a popular young officer, was treacherously killed +during a parley. The infuriated frontiersmen within the fort fell +upon the hostages and slew them all--twenty-six chiefs--and the +Indian war was on. + +If all were to be told of the struggle which followed in the Back +Country, the story could not be contained in this book. Many +brave and resourceful men went out against the savages. We can +afford only a passing glance at one of them. Hugh Waddell of +North Carolina was the most brilliant of all the frontier +fighters in that war. He was a young Ulsterman from County Down, +a born soldier, with a special genius for fighting Indians, +although he did not grow up on the border, for he arrived in +North Carolina in 1753, at the age of nineteen. He was appointed +by Governor Dobbs to command the second company which North +Carolina had raised for the war, a force of 450 rangers to +protect the border counties; and he presently became the most +conspicuous military figure in the colony. As to his personality, +we have only a few meager details, with a portrait that suggests +plainly enough those qualities of boldness and craft which +characterized his tactics. Governor Dobbs appears to have had a +special love towards Hugh, whose family he had known in Ireland, +for an undercurrent of almost fatherly pride is to be found in +the old Governor's reports to the Assembly concerning Waddell's +exploits. + +The terror raged for nearly three years. Cabins and fields were +burned, and women and children were slaughtered or dragged away +captives. Not only did immigration cease but many hardy settlers +fled from the country. At length, after horrors indescribable and +great toll of life, the Cherokees gave up the struggle. Their +towns were invaded and laid waste by imperial and colonial +troops, and they could do nothing but make peace. In 1761 they +signed a treaty with the English to hold "while rivers flow and +grasses grow and sun and moon endure." + + +In the previous year (1760) the imperial war had run its course +in America. New France lay prostrate, and the English were +supreme not only on the Ohio but on the St. Lawrence and the +Great Lakes. Louisbourg, Quebec, Montreal, Oswego, Niagara, +Duquesne, Detroit--all were in English hands. + +Hugh Waddell and his rangers, besides serving with distinction in +the Indian war, had taken part in the capture of Fort Duquesne. +This feat had been accomplished in 1758 by an expedition under +General Forbes. The troops made a terrible march over a new +route, cutting a road as they went. It was November when they +approached their objective. The wastes of snow and their +diminished supplies caused such depression among the men that the +officers called a halt to discuss whether or not to proceed +toward Fort Duquesne, where they believed the French to be +concentrated in force. Extravagant sums in guineas were named as +suitable reward for any man who would stalk and catch a French +Indian and learn from him the real conditions inside the fort. +The honor, if not the guineas, fell to John Rogers, one of +Waddell's rangers. From the Indian it was learned that the French +had already gone, leaving behind only a few of their number. As +the English drew near, they found that the garrison had blown up +the magazine, set fire to the fort, and made off. + +Thus, while New France was already tottering, but nearly two +years before the final capitulation at Montreal, the English +again became masters of the Ohio Company's land--masters of the +Forks of the Ohio. This time they were there to stay. Where the +walls of Fort Duquesne had crumbled in the fire Fort Pitt was to +rise, proudly bearing the name of England's Great Commoner who +had directed English arms to victory on three continents. + +With France expelled and the Indians deprived of their white +allies, the westward path lay open to the pioneers, even though +the red man himself would rise again and again in vain endeavor +to bar the way. So a new era begins, the era of exploration for +definite purpose, the era of commonwealth building. In entering +on it, we part with the earliest pioneer--the trader, who first +opened the road for both the lone home seeker and the great land +company. He dwindles now to the mere barterer and so--save for a +few chance glimpses--slips out of sight, for his brave days as +Imperial Scout are done. + + + +Chapter V. Boone, The Wanderer + +What thoughts filled Daniel Boone's mind as he was returning from +Braddock's disastrous campaign in 1755 we may only conjecture. +Perhaps he was planning a career of soldiering, for in later +years he was to distinguish himself as a frontier commander in +both defense and attack. Or it may be that his heart was full of +the wondrous tales told him by the trader, John Findlay, of that +Hunter's Canaan, Kentucky, where buffalo and deer roamed in +thousands. Perhaps he meant to set out ere long in search of the +great adventure of his dreams, despite the terrible dangers of +trail making across the zones of war into the unknown. + +However that may be, Boone straightway followed neither of these +possible plans on his return to the Yadkin but halted for a +different adventure. There, a rifle shot's distance from his +threshold, was offered him the oldest and sweetest of all hazards +to the daring. He was twenty-two, strong and comely and a whole +man; and therefore he was in no mind to refuse what life held out +to him in the person of Rebecca Bryan. Rebecca was the daughter +of Joseph Bryan, who had come to the Yadkin from Pennsylvania +some time before the Boones; and she was in her seventeenth year. + +Writers of an earlier and more sentimental period than ours have +endeavored to supply, from the saccharine stores of their fancy, +the romantic episodes connected with Boone's wooing which history +has omitted to record. Hence the tale that the young hunter, +walking abroad in the spring gloaming, saw Mistress Rebecca's +large dark eyes shining in the dusk of the forest, mistook them +for a deer's eyes and shot--his aim on this occasion fortunately +being bad! But if Boone's rifle was missing its mark at ten +paces, Cupid's dart was speeding home. So runs the story +concocted a hundred years later by some gentle scribe ignorant +alike of game seasons, the habits of hunters, and the way of a +man with a maid in a primitive world. + +Daniel and Rebecca were married in the spring of 1756. Squire +Boone, in his capacity as justice of the peace, tied the knot; +and in a small cabin built upon his spacious lands the young +couple set up housekeeping. Here Daniel's first two sons were +born. In the third year of his marriage, when the second child +was a babe in arms, Daniel removed with his wife and their young +and precious family to Culpeper County in eastern Virginia, for +the border was going through its darkest days of the French and +Indian War. During the next two or three years we find him in +Virginia engaged as a wagoner, hauling tobacco in season; but +back on the border with his rifle, after the harvest, aiding in +defense against the Indians. In 1759 he purchased from his father +a lot on Sugar Tree Creek, a tributary of Dutchman's Creek (Davie +County, North Carolina) and built thereon a cabin for himself. +The date when he brought his wife and children to live in their +new abode on the border is not recorded. It was probably some +time after the close of the Indian War. Of Boone himself during +these years we have but scant information. We hear of him again +in Virginia and also as a member of the pack-horse caravan which +brought into the Back Country the various necessaries for the +settlers. We know, too, that in the fall of 1760 he was on a lone +hunting trip in the mountains west of the Yadkin; for until a few +years ago there might be seen, still standing on the banks of +Boone's Creek (a small tributary of the Watauga) in eastern +Tennessee, a tree bearing the legend, "D Boon cilled A BAR on +this tree 1760." Boone was always fond of carving his exploits on +trees, and his wanderings have been traced largely by his +arboreal publications. In the next year (1761) he went with +Waddell's rangers when they marched with the army to the final +subjugation of the Cherokee. + +That Boone and his family were back on the border in the new +cabin shortly after the end of the war, we gather from the fact +that in 1764 he took his little son James, aged seven, on one of +his long hunting excursions. From this time dates the intimate +comradeship of father and son through all the perils of the +wilderness, a comradeship to come to its tragic end ten years +later when, as we shall see, the seventeen-year-old lad fell +under the red man's tomahawk as his father was leading the first +settlers towards Kentucky. In the cold nights of the open camp, +as Daniel and James lay under the frosty stars, the father kept +the boy warm snuggled to his breast under the broad flap of his +hunting shirt. Sometimes the two were away from home for months +together, and Daniel declared little James to be as good a +woodsman as his father. + +Meanwhile fascinating accounts of the new land of Florida, ceded +to Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, had leaked into the +Back Country; and in the winter of 1765 Boone set off southward +on horseback with, seven companions. Colonel James Grant, with +whose army Boone had fought in 1761, had been appointed Governor +of the new colony and was offering generous inducements to +settlers. The party traveled along the borders of South Carolina +and Georgia. No doubt they made the greater part of their way +over the old Traders' Trace, the "whitened" warpath; and they +suffered severe hardships. Game became scarcer as they proceeded. +Once they were nigh to perishing of starvation and were saved +from that fate only through chance meeting with a band of Indians +who, seeing their plight, made camp and shared their food with +them--according to the Indian code in time of peace. + +Boone's party explored Florida from St. Augustine to Pensacola, +and Daniel became sufficiently enamored of the tropical south to +purchase there land and a house. His wife, however, was unwilling +to go to Florida, and she was not long in convincing the hunter +that he would soon tire of a gameless country. A gameless +country! Perhaps this was the very thought which turned the +wanderer's desires again towards the land of Kentucky.* The +silencing of the enemy's whisper in the Cherokee camps had opened +the border forests once more to the nomadic rifleman. Boone was +not alone in the desire to seek out what lay beyond. His +brother-in-law, John Stewart, and a nephew by marriage, Benjamin +Cutbirth, or Cutbird, with two other young men, John Baker and +James Ward, in 1766 crossed the Appalachian Mountains, probably +by stumbling upon the Indian trail winding from base to summit +and from peak to base again over this part of the great hill +barrier. They eventually reached the Mississippi River and, +having taken a good quantity of peltry on the way, they launched +upon the stream and came in time to New Orleans, where they made +a satisfactory trade of their furs. + +* Kentucky, from Ken-ta-ke, an Iroquois word meaning "the place +of old fields." Adair calls the territory "the old fields." The +Indians apparently used the word "old," as we do in a sense of +endearment and possession as well as relative to age. + + +Boone was fired anew by descriptions of this successful feat, in +which two of his kinsmen had participated. He could no longer be +held back. He must find the magic door that led through the vast +mountain wall into Kentucky--Kentucky, with its green prairies +where the buffalo and deer were as "ten thousand thousand cattle +feeding" in the wilds, and where the balmy air vibrated with the +music of innumerable wings. + +Accordingly, in the autumn of 1767, Boone began his quest of the +delectable country in the company of his friend, William Hill, +who had been with him in Florida. Autumn was the season of +departure on all forest excursions, because by that time the +summer crops had been gathered in and the day of the deer had +come. By hunting, the explorers must feed themselves on their +travels and with deerskins and furs they must on their return +recompense those who had supplied their outfit. Boone, the +incessant but not always lucky wanderer, was in these years ever +in debt for an outfit. + +Boone and Hill made their way over the Blue Ridge and the +Alleghanies and crossed the Holston and Clinch rivers. Then they +came upon the west fork of the Big Sandy and, believing that it +would lead them to the Ohio, they continued for at least a +hundred miles to the westward. Here they found a buffalo trace, +one of the many beaten out by the herds in their passage to the +salt springs, and they followed it into what is now Floyd County +in eastern Kentucky. But this was not the prairie land described +by Findlay; it was rough and hilly and so overgrown with laurel +as to be almost impenetrable. They therefore wended their way +back towards the river, doubtless erected the usual hunter's camp +of skins or blankets and branches, and spent the winter in +hunting and trapping. Spring found them returning to their homes +on the Yadkin with a fair winter's haul. + +Such urgent desire as Boone's, however, was not to be defeated. +The next year brought him his great opportunity. John Findlay +came to the Yadkin with a horse pack of needles and linen and +peddler's wares to tempt the slim purses of the Back Country +folk. The two erstwhile comrades in arms were overjoyed to +encounter each other again, and Findlay spent the winter of +1768-69 in Boone's cabin. While the snow lay deep outside and +good-smelling logs crackled on the hearth, they planned an +expedition into Kentucky through the Gap where Virginia, +Tennessee, and Kentucky touch one another, which Findlay felt +confident he could find. Findlay had learned of this route from +cross-mountain traders in 1753, when he had descended the Ohio to +the site of Louisville, whence he had gone with some Shawanoes as +a prisoner to their town of Es-kip-pa-ki-thi-ki or Blue Licks.* + +* Hanna, "The Wilderness Trail," vol. II, pp. 215-16. + +On the first day of May, 1769, Boone and Findlay, accompanied by +John Stewart and three other venturesome spirits, Joseph Holden, +James Mooney, and William Cooley, took horse for the fabled land. +Passing through the Cumberland Gap, they built their first camp +in Kentucky on the Red Lick fork of Station Camp Creek. + +This camp was their base of operations. From it, usually in +couples, we infer, the explorers branched out to hunt and to take +their observations of the country. Here also they prepared the +deer and buffalo meat for the winter, dried or smoked the geese +they shot in superabundance, made the tallow and oil needed to +keep their weapons in trim, their leather soft, and their kits +waterproof. Their first ill luck befell them in December when +Boone and Stewart were captured by a band of Shawanoes who were +returning from their autumn hunt on Green River. The Indians +compelled the two white men to show them the location of their +camp, took possession of all it contained in skins and furs and +also helped themselves to the horses. They left the explorers +with just enough meat and ammunition to provide for their journey +homeward, and told them to depart and not to intrude again on the +red men's hunting grounds. Having given this pointed warning, the +Shawanoes rode on northward towards their towns beyond the Ohio. +On foot, swiftly and craftily, Boone and his brother-in-law +trailed the band for two days. They came upon the camp in dead of +night, recaptured their horses, and fled. But this was a game in +which the Indians themselves excelled, and at this date the +Shawanoes had an advantage over Boone in their thorough knowledge +of the territory; so that within fortyeight hours the white men +were once more prisoners. After they had amused themselves by +making Boone caper about with a horse bell on his neck, while +they jeered at him in broken English, "Steal horse, eh?" the +Shawanoes turned north again, this time taking the two +unfortunate hunters with them. Boone and Stewart escaped, one day +on the march, by a plunge into the thick tall canebrake. Though +the Indians did not attempt to follow them through the mazes of +the cane, the situation of the two hunters, without weapons or +food, was serious enough. When they found Station Camp deserted +and realized that their four companions had given them up for +dead or lost and had set off on the trail for home, even such +intrepid souls as theirs may have felt fear. They raced on in +pursuit and fortunately fell in not only with their party but +with Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, and Alexander Neely, who had +brought in fresh supplies of rifles, ammunition, flour, and +horses. + +After this lucky encounter the group separated. Findlay was ill, +and Holden, Mooney, and Cooley had had their fill of Kentucky; +but Squire, Neely, Stewart, and Daniel were ready for more +adventures. Daniel, too, felt under the positive necessity of +putting in another year at hunting and trapping in order to +discharge his debts and provide for his family. Near the mouth of +Red River the new party built their station camp. Here, in idle +hours, Neely read aloud from a copy of "Gulliver's Travels" to +entertain the hunters while they dressed their deerskins or +tinkered their weapons. In honor of the "Lorbrulgrud" of the +book, though with a pronunciation all their own, they christened +the nearest creek; and as "Lulbegrud Creek" it is still known. + +Before the end of the winter the two Boones were alone in the +wilderness. Their brother-in-law, Stewart, had disappeared; and +Neely, discouraged by this tragic event, had returned to the +Yadkin. In May, Squire Boone fared forth, taking with him the +season's catch of beaver, otter, and deerskins to exchange in the +North Carolinian trading houses for more supplies; and Daniel was +left solitary in Kentucky. + +Now followed those lonely explorations which gave Daniel Boone +his special fame above all Kentucky's pioneers. He was by no +means the first white man to enter Kentucky; and when he did +enter, it was as one of a party, under another man's guidance--if +we except his former disappointing journey into the laurel +thickets of Floyd County. But these others, barring Stewart, who +fell there, turned back when they met with loss and hardship and +measured the certain risks against the possible gains. Boone, the +man of imagination, turned to wild earth as to his kin. His +genius lay in the sense of oneness he felt with his wilderness +environment. An instinct he had which these other men, as +courageous perhaps as he, did not possess. + +Never in all the times when he was alone in the woods and had no +other man's safety or counsel to consider, did he suffer ill +fortune. The nearest approach to trouble that befell him when +alone occurred one day during this summer when some Indians +emerged from their green shelter and found him, off guard for the +moment, standing on a cliff gazing with rapture over the vast +rolling stretches of Kentucky. He was apparently cut off from +escape, for the savages were on three sides, advancing without +haste to take him, meanwhile greeting him with mock amity. Over +the cliff leaped Boone and into the outspread arms of a friendly +maple, whose top bloomed green about sixty feet below the cliff's +rim, and left his would-be captors on the height above, grunting +their amazement. + +During this summer Boone journeyed through the valleys of the +Kentucky and the Licking. He followed the buffalo traces to the +two Blue Licks and saw the enormous herds licking up the salt +earth, a darkly ruddy moving mass of beasts whose numbers could +not be counted. For many miles he wound along the Ohio, as far as +the Falls. He also found the Big Bone Lick with its mammoth +fossils. + +In July, 1770, Daniel returned to the Red River camp and there +met Squire Boone with another pack of supplies. The two brothers +continued their hunting and exploration together for some months, +chiefly in Jessamine County, where two caves still bear Boone's +name. In that winter they even braved the Green River ground, +whence had come the hunting Shawanoes who had taken Daniel's +first fruits a year before. In the same year (1770) there had +come into Kentucky from the Yadkin another party of hunters, +called, from their lengthy sojourn in the twilight zone, the Long +Hunters. One of these, Gasper Mansker, afterwards related how the +Long Hunters were startled one day by hearing sounds such as no +buffalo or turkey ever made, and how Mansker himself stole +silently under cover of the trees towards the place whence the +strange noises came, and descried Daniel Boone prone on his back +with a deerskin under him, his famous tall black hat beside him +and his mouth opened wide in joyous but apparently none too +tuneful song. This incident gives a true character touch. It is +not recorded of any of the men who turned back that they sang +alone in the wilderness. + +In March, 1771, the two Boones started homeward, their horses +bearing the rich harvest of furs and deerskins which was to clear +Daniel of debt and to insure the comfort of the family he had not +seen for two years. But again evil fortune met them, this time in +the very gates--for in the Cumberland Gap they were suddenly +surrounded by Indians who took everything from them, leaving them +neither guns nor horses. + + + +Chapter VI. The Fight For Kentucky + +When Boone returned home he found the Back Country of North +Carolina in the throes of the Regulation Movement. This movement, +which had arisen first from the colonists' need to police their +settlements, had more recently assumed a political character. The +Regulators were now in conflict with the authorities, because the +frontier folk were suffering through excessive taxes, +extortionate fees, dishonest land titles, and the corruption of +the courts. In May, 1771, the conflict lost its quasi-civil +nature. The Regulators resorted to arms and were defeated by the +forces under Governor Tryon in the Battle of the Alamance. + +The Regulation Movement, which we shall follow in more detail +further on, was a culmination of those causes of unrest which +turned men westward. To escape from oppression and to acquire +land beyond the bounds of tyranny became the earnest desire of +independent spirits throughout the Back Country. But there was +another and more potent reason why the country east of the +mountains no longer contented Boone. Hunting and trapping were +Boone's chief means of livelihood. In those days, deerskins sold +for a dollar a skin to the traders at the Forks or in +Hillsborough; beaver at about two dollars and a half, and otter +at from three to five dollars. A pack-horse could carry a load of +one hundred dressed deerskins, and, as currency was scarce, a +hundred dollars was wealth. Game was fast disappearing from the +Yadkin. To Boone above all men, then, Kentucky beckoned. When he +returned in the spring of 1771 from his explorations, it was with +the resolve to take his family at once into the great game +country and to persuade some of his friends to join in this +hazard of new fortunes. + +The perils of such a venture, only conjectural to us at this +distance, he knew well; but in him there was nothing that shrank +from danger, though he did not court it after the rash manner of +many of his compeers. Neither reckless nor riotous, Boone was +never found among those who opposed violence to authority, even +unjust authority; nor was he ever guilty of the savagery which +characterized much of the retaliatory warfare of that period when +frenzied white men bettered the red man's instruction. In him, +courage was illumined with tenderness and made equable by +self-control. Yet, though he was no fiery zealot like the +Ulstermen who were to follow him along the path he had made and +who loved and revered him perhaps because he was so different +from themselves, Boone nevertheless had his own religion. It was +a simple faith best summed up perhaps by himself in his old age +when he said that he had been only an instrument in the hand of +God to open the wilderness to settlement. + +Two years passed before Boone could muster a company of colonists +for the dangerous and delectable land. The dishonesty practiced +by Lord Granville's agents in the matter of deeds had made it +difficult for Daniel and his friends to dispose of their acreage. +When at last in the spring of 1773 the Wanderer was prepared to +depart, he was again delayed; this time by the arrival of a +little son to whom was given the name of John. By September, +however, even this latest addition to the party was ready for +travel; and that month saw the Boones with a small caravan of +families journeying towards Powell's Valley, whence the Warrior's +Path took its way through Cumberland Gap. At this point on the +march they were to be joined by William Russell, a famous +pioneer, from the Clinch River, with his family and a few +neighbors, and by some of Rebecca Boone's kinsmen, the Bryans, +from the lower Yadkin, with a company of forty men. + +Of Rebecca Boone history tells us too little--only that she was +born a Bryan, was of low stature and dark eyed, that she bore her +husband ten children, and lived beside him to old age. Except on +his hunts and explorations, she went with him from one cabined +home to another, always deeper into the wilds. There are no +portraits of her. We can see her only as a shadowy figure moving +along the wilderness trails beside the man who accepted his +destiny of God to be a way-shower for those of lesser faith. + +"He tires not forever on his leagues of march +Because her feet are set to his footprints, +And the gleam of her bare hand slants across his shoulder." + +Boone halted his company on Walden Mountain over Powell's Valley +to await the Bryan contingent and dispatched two young men under +the leadership of his son James, then in his seventeenth year, to +notify Russell of the party's arrival. As the boys were returning +with Russell's son, also a stripling, two of his slaves, and some +white laborers, they missed the path and went into camp for the +night. When dawn broke, disclosing the sleepers, a small war band +of Shawanoes, who had been spying on Boone and his party, fell +upon them and slaughtered them. Only one of Russell's slaves and +a laborer escaped. The tragedy seems augmented by the fact that +the point where the boys lost the trail and made their night +quarters was hardly three miles from the main camp--to which an +hour later came the two survivors with their gloomy tidings. +Terror now took hold of the little band of emigrants, and there +were loud outcries for turning back. The Bryans, who had arrived +meanwhile, also advised retreat, saying that the "signs" about +the scene of blood indicated an Indian uprising. Daniel carried +the scalped body of his son, the boy-comrade of his happy hunts, +to the camp and buried it there at the beginning of the trail. +His voice alone urged that they go on. + +Fortunately indeed, as events turned out, Boone was overruled, +and the expedition was abandoned. The Bryan party and the others +from North Carolina went back to the Yadkin. Boone himself with +his family accompanied Russell to the Clinch settlement, where he +erected a temporary cabin on the farm of one of the settlers, and +then set out alone on the chase to earn provision for his wife +and children through the winter. + + +Those who prophesied an Indian war were not mistaken. When the +snowy hunting season had passed and the "Powwowing Days" were +come, the Indian war drum rattled in the medicine house from the +borders of Pennsylvania to those of Carolina. The causes of the +strife for which the red men were making ready must be briefly +noted to help us form a just opinion of the deeds that followed. +Early writers have usually represented the frontiersmen as saints +in buckskin and the Indians as fiends without the shadow of a +claim on either the land or humanity. Many later writers have +merely reversed the shield. The truth is that the Indians and the +borderers reacted upon each other to the hurt of both. +Paradoxically, they grew like enough to hate one another with a +savage hatred--and both wanted the land. + +Land! Land! was the slogan of all sorts and conditions of men. +Tidewater officials held solemn powwows with the chiefs, gave +wampum strings, and forthwith incorporated.* Chiefs blessed their +white brothers who had "forever brightened the chain of +friendship," departed home, and proceeded to brighten the blades +of their tomahawks and to await, not long, the opportunity to use +them on casual hunters who carried in their kits the compass, the +"land-stealer." Usually the surveying hunter was a borderer; and +on him the tomahawk descended with an accelerated gusto. Private +citizens also formed land companies and sent out surveyors, +regardless of treaties. Bold frontiersmen went into No Man's Land +and staked out their claims. In the very year when disaster +turned the Boone party back, James Harrod had entered Kentucky +from Pennsylvania and had marked the site of a settlement. + +* The activities of the great land companies are described in +Alvord's exhaustive work, "The Mississippi Valley in British +Politics." + + +Ten years earlier (1763), the King had issued the famous and much +misunderstood Proclamation restricting his "loving subjects" from +the lands west of the mountains. The colonists interpreted this +document as a tyrannous curtailment of their liberties for the +benefit of the fur trade. We know now that the portion of this +Proclamation relating to western settlement was a wise provision +designed to protect the settlers on the frontier by allaying the +suspicions of the Indians, who viewed with apprehension the +triumphal occupation of that vast territory from Canada to the +Gulf of Mexico by the colonizing English. By seeking to compel +all land purchase to be made through the Crown, it was designed +likewise to protect the Indians from "whisky purchase," and to +make impossible the transfer of their lands except with consent +of the Indian Council, or full quota of headmen, whose joint +action alone conveyed what the tribes considered to be legal +title. Sales made according to this form, Sir William Johnson +declared to the Lords of Trade, he had never known to be +repudiated by the Indians. This paragraph of the Proclamation was +in substance an embodiment of Johnson's suggestions to the Lords +of Trade. Its purpose was square dealing and pacification; and +shrewd men such as Washington recognized that it was not intended +as a final check to expansion. "A temporary expedient to quiet +the minds of the Indians," Washington called it, and then himself +went out along the Great Kanawha and into Kentucky, surveying +land. + +It will be asked what had become of the Ohio Company of Virginia +and that fort at the Forks of the Ohio; once a bone of contention +between France and England. Fort Pitt, as it was now called, had +fallen foul of another dispute, this time between Virginia and +Pennsylvania. Virginia claimed that the far western corner of her +boundary ascended just far enough north to take in Fort Pitt. +Pennsylvania asserted that it did nothing of the sort. The Ohio +Company had meanwhile been merged into the Walpole Company. +George Croghan, at Fort Pitt, was the Company's agent and as such +was accused by Pennsylvania of favoring from ulterior motives the +claims of Virginia. Hotheads in both colonies asseverated that +the Indians were secretly being stirred up in connection with the +boundary disputes. If it does not very clearly appear how an +Indian rising would have settled the ownership of Fort Pitt, it +is evident enough where the interests of Virginia and +Pennsylvania clashed. Virginia wanted land for settlement and +speculation; Pennsylvania wanted the Indians left in possession +for the benefit of the fur trade. So far from stirring up the +Indians, as his enemies declared, Croghan was as usual giving +away all his substance to keep them quiet.* Indeed, during this +summer of 1774, eleven hundred Indians were encamped about Fort +Pitt visiting him. + +* The suspicion that Croghan and Lord Dunmore, the Governor of +Virginia, were instigating the war appears to have arisen out of +the conduct of Dr. John Connolly, Dunmore's agent and Croghan's +nephew. Croghan had induced the Shawanoes to bring under escort +to Fort Pitt certain English traders resident in the Indian +towns. The escort was fired on by militiamen under command of +Connolly, who also issued a proclamation declaring a state of war +to exist. Connolly, however, probably acted on his own +initiative. He was interested in land on his own behalf and was +by no means the only man at that time who was ready to commit +outrages on Indians in order to obtain it. As Croghan lamented, +there was "too great a spirit in the frontier people for killing +Indians." + + +Two hundred thousand acres in the West--Kentucky and West +Virginia--had been promised to the colonial officers and soldiers +who fought in the Seven Years' War. But after making the +Proclamation the British Government had delayed issuing the +patents. Washington interested himself in trying to secure them; +and Lord Dunmore, who also had caught the "land-fever,"* prodded +the British authorities but won only rebuke for his inconvenient +activities. Insistent, however, Dunmore sent out parties of +surveyors to fix the bounds of the soldiers' claims. James +Harrod, Captain Thomas Bullitt, Hancock Taylor, and three McAfee +brothers entered Kentucky, by the Ohio, under Dunmore's orders. +John Floyd went in by the Kanawha as Washington's agent. A +bird's-eye view of that period would disclose to us very few +indeed of His Majesty's loving subjects who were paying any +attention to his proclamation. Early in 1774, Harrod began the +building of cabins and a fort, and planted corn on the site of +Harrodsburg. Thus to him and not to Boone fell the honor of +founding the first permanent white settlement in Kentucky + +* See Alvord, "The Mississippi Valley in British Politics," vol. +II, pp. 191-94. + + +When summer came, its thick verdure proffering ambuscade, the air +hung tense along the border. Traders had sent in word that +Shawanoes, Delawares, Mingos, Wyandots, and Cherokees were +refusing all other exchange than rifles, ammunition, knives, and +hatchets. White men were shot down in their fields from ambush. +Dead Indians lay among their own young corn, their scalp locks +taken. There were men of both races who wanted war and meant to +have it--and with it the land. + +Lord Dunmore, the Governor, resolved that, if war were +inevitable, it should be fought out in the Indian country. With +this intent, he wrote to Colonel Andrew Lewis of Botetourt +County, Commander of the Southwest Militia, instructing him to +raise a respectable body of troops and "join me either at the +mouth of the Great Kanawha or Wheeling, or such other part of the +Ohio as may be most convenient for you to meet me." The Governor +himself with a force of twelve hundred proceeded to Fort Pitt, +where Croghan, as we have seen, was extending his hospitality to +eleven hundred warriors from the disaffected tribes. + +On receipt of the Governor's letter, Andrew Lewis sent out +expresses to his brother Colonel Charles Lewis, County Lieutenant +of Augusta, and to Colonel William Preston, County Lieutenant of +Fincastle, to raise men and bring them with all speed to the +rendezvous at Camp Union (Lewisburg) on the Big Levels of the +Greenbrier (West Virginia). Andrew Lewis summoned these officers +to an expedition for "reducing our inveterate enemies to reason." +Preston called for volunteers to take advantage of "the +opportunity we have so long wished for...this useless People +may now at last be oblidged to abandon their country." These men +were among not only the bravest but the best of their time; but +this was their view of the Indian and his alleged rights. To +eliminate this "useless people," inveterate enemies of the white +race, was, as they saw it, a political necessity and a religious +duty. And we today who profit by their deeds dare not condemn +them. + +Fervor less solemn was aroused in other quarters by Dunmore's +call to arms. At Wheeling, some eighty or ninety young +adventurers, in charge of Captain Michael Cresap of Maryland, +were waiting for the freshets to sweep them down the Ohio into +Kentucky. When the news reached them, they greeted it with the +wild monotone chant and the ceremonies preliminary to Indian +warfare. They planted the war pole, stripped and painted +themselves, and starting the war dance called on Cresap to be +their "white leader." The captain, however, declined; but in that +wild circling line was one who was a white leader indeed. He was +a sandy-haired boy of twenty--one of the bold race of English +Virginians, rugged and of fiery countenance, with blue eyes +intense of glance and deep set under a high brow that, while +modeled for power, seemed threatened in its promise by the too +sensitive chiseling of his lips. With every nerve straining for +the fray, with thudding of feet and crooning of the blood song, +he wheeled with those other mad spirits round the war pole till +the set of sun closed the rites. "That evening two scalps were +brought into camp," so a letter of his reads. Does the bold +savage color of this picture affright us? Would we veil it? Then +we should lose something of the true lineaments of George Rogers +Clark, who, within four short years, was to lead a tiny army of +tattered and starving backwoodsmen, ashamed to quail where he +never flinched, through barrens and icy floods to the conquest of +Illinois for the United States. + +Though Cresap had rejected the role of "white leader," he did not +escape the touch of infamy. "Cresap's War" was the name the +Indians gave to the bloody encounters between small parties of +whites and Indians, which followed on that war dance and +scalping, during the summer months. One of these encounters must +be detailed here because history has assigned it as the immediate +cause of Dunmore's War. + +Greathouse, Sapperton, and King, three traders who had a post on +Yellow Creek, a tributary of the Ohio fifty miles below +Pittsburgh, invited several Indians from across the stream to +come and drink with them and their friends. Among the Indians +were two or three men of importance in the Mingo tribe. There +were also some women, one of whom was the Indian wife of Colonel +John Gibson, an educated man who had distinguished himself as a +soldier with Forbes in 1768. That the Indians came in amity and +apprehended no treachery was proved by the presence of the women. +Gibson's wife carried her halfcaste baby in her shawl. The +disreputable traders plied their guests with drink to the point +of intoxication and then murdered them. King shot the first man +and, when he fell, cut his throat, saying that he had served many +a deer in that fashion. Gibson's Indian wife fled and was shot +down in the clearing. A man followed to dispatch her and her +baby. She held the child up to him pleading, with her last +breath, that he would spare it because it was not Indian but "one +of yours." The mother dead, the child was later sent to Gibson. +Twelve Indians in all were killed. + +Meanwhile Croghan had persuaded the Iroquois to peace. With the +help of David Zeisberger, the Moravian missionary, and White +Eyes, a Delaware chief, he and Dunmore had won over the Delaware +warriors. In the Cherokee councils, Oconostota demanded that the +treaty of peace signed in 1761 be kept. The Shawanoes, however, +led by Cornstalk, were implacable; and they had as allies the +Ottawas and Mingos, who had entered the council with them. + +A famous chief of the day and one of great influence over the +Indians, and also among the white officials who dealt with Indian +affairs, was Tachnech-dor-us, or Branching Oak of the Forest, a +Mingo who had taken the name of Logan out of compliment to James +Logan of Pennsylvania. Chief Logan had recently met with so much +reproach from his red brothers for his loyalty to the whites that +he had departed from the Mingo town at Yellow Creek. But, +learning that his tribe had determined to assist the Shawanoes +and had already taken some white scalps, he repaired to the place +where the Mingos were holding their war council to exert his +powers for peace. There, in presence of the warriors, after +swaying them from their purpose by those oratorical gifts which +gave him his influence and his renown, he took the war hatchet +that had already killed, and buried it in proof that vengeance +was appeased. Upon this scene there entered a Mingo from Yellow +Creek with the news of the murders committed there by the three +traders. The Indian whose throat had been slit as King had served +deer was Logan's brother. Another man slain was his kinsman. The +woman with the baby was his sister. Logan tore up from the earth +the bloody tomahawk and, raising it above his head, swore that he +would not rest till he had taken ten white lives to pay for each +one of his kin. Again the Mingo warriors declared for war and +this time were not dissuaded. But Logan did not join this red +army. He went out alone to wreak his vengeance, slaying and +scalping. + + +Meanwhile Dunmore prepared to push the war with the utmost vigor. +His first concern was to recall the surveying parties from +Kentucky, and for so hazardous an errand he needed the services +of a man whose endurance, speed, and woodcraft were equal to +those of any Indian scout afoot. Through Colonel Preston, his +orders were conveyed to Daniel Boone, for Boone's fame had now +spread from the border to the tidewater regions. It was stated +that "Boone would lose no time," and "if they are alive, it is +indisputable but Boone must find them." + +So Boone set out in company with Michael Stoner, another expert +woodsman. His general instructions were to go down the Kentucky +River to Preston's Salt Lick and across country to the Falls of +the Ohio, and thence home by Gaspar's Lick on the Cumberland +River. Indian war parties were moving under cover across "the +Dark and Bloody Ground" to surround the various groups of +surveyors still at large and to exterminate them. Boone made his +journey successfully. He found John Floyd, who was surveying for +Washington; he sped up to where Harrod and his band were building +cabins and sent them out, just in time as it happened; he reached +all the outposts of Thomas Bullitt's party, only one of whom fell +a victim to the foe*; and, undetected by the Indians, he brought +himself and Stoner home in safety, after covering eight hundred +miles in sixty-one days. + +* Hancock Taylor, who delayed in getting out of the country and +was cut off. + + +Harrod and his homesteaders immediately enlisted in the army. How +eager Boone was to go with the forces under Lewis is seen in the +official correspondence relative to Dunmore's War. Floyd wanted +Boone's help in raising a company: "Captain Bledsoe says that +Boone has more [influence] than any man now disengaged; and you +know what Boone has done for me...for which reason I love the +man." Even the border, it would seem, had its species of +pacifists who were willing to let others take risks for them, for +men hung back from recruiting, and desertions were the order of +the day. Major Arthur Campbell hit upon a solution of the +difficulties in West Fincastle. He was convinced that Boone could +raise a company and hold the men loyal. And Boone did. + +For some reason, however, Daniel's desire to march with the army +was denied. Perhaps it was because just such a man as he--and, +indeed, there was no other--was needed to guard the settlement. +Presently he was put in command of Moore's Fort in Clinch Valley, +and his "diligence" received official approbation. A little later +the inhabitants of the valley sent out a petition to have Boone +made a "captain" and given supreme command of the lower forts. +The settlers demanded Boone's promotion for their own security. + +"The land it is good, it is just to our mind, +Each will have his part if his Lordship be kind, +The Ohio once ours, we'll live at our ease, +With a bottle and glass to drink when we please." + +So sang the army poet, thus giving voice, as bards should ever +do, to the theme nearest the hearts of his hearers--in this case, +Land! Presumably his ditty was composed on the eve of the march +from Lewisburg, for it is found in a soldier's diary. + +On the evening of October 9,1774, Andrew Lewis with his force of +eleven hundred frontiersmen was encamped on Point Pleasant at the +junction of the Great Kanawha with the Ohio. Dunmore in the +meantime had led his forces into Ohio and had erected Fort Gower +at the mouth of the Hockhocking River, where he waited for word +from Andrew Lewis.* + +* It has been customary to ascribe to Lord Dunmore motives of +treachery in failing to make connections with Lewis; but no real +evidence has been advanced to support any of the charges made +against him by local historians. The charges were, as Theodore +Roosevelt says, "an afterthought." Dunmore was a King's man in +the Revolution; and yet in March, 1775, the Convention of the +Colony of Virginia, assembled in opposition to the royal party, +resolved: "The most cordial thanks of the people of this colony +are a tribute justly due to our worthy Governor Lord Dunmore, for +his truly noble, wise, and spirited conduct which at once evinces +his Excellency's attention to the true interests of this colony, +and a real in the executive department which no dangers can +divert, or difficulties hinder, from achieving the most important +services to the people who have the happiness to live under his +administration." (See "American Archives," Fourth Series, vol. +II, p. 170.) Similar resolutions were passed by his officers on +the march home from Ohio; at the same time, the officers passed +resolutions in sympathy with the American cause. Yet it was +Andrew Lewis who later drove Dunmore from Virginia. Well might +Dunmore exclaim, "That it should ever come to this!" + + +The movements of the two armies were being observed by scouts +from the force of red warriors gathered in Ohio under the great +leader of the Shawanoes. Cornstalk purposed to isolate the two +armies of his enemy and to crush them in turn before they could +come together. His first move was to launch an attack on Lewis at +Point Pleasant. In the dark of night, Cornstalk's Indians crossed +the Ohio on rafts, intending to surprise the white man's camp at +dawn. They would have succeeded but for the chance that three or +four of the frontiersmen, who had risen before daybreak to hunt, +came upon the Indians creeping towards the camp. Shots were +exchanged. An Indian and a white man dropped. The firing roused +the camp. Three hundred men in two lines under Charles Lewis and +William Fleming sallied forth expecting to engage the vanguard of +the enemy but encountered almost the whole force of from eight +hundred to a thousand Indians before the rest of the army could +come into action. Both officers were wounded, Charles Lewis +fatally. The battle, which continued from dawn until an hour +before sunset, was the bloodiest in Virginia's long series of +Indian wars. The frontiersmen fought as such men ever +fought--with the daring, bravery, swiftness of attack, and skill +in taking cover which were the tactics of their day, even as at a +later time many of these same men fought at King's Mountain and +in Illinois the battles that did so much to turn the tide in the +Revolution.* + +* With Andrew Lewis on this day were Isaac Shelby and William +Campbell, the victorious leaders at King's Mountain, James +Robertson, the "father of Tennessee," Valentine Sevier, Daniel +Morgan, hero of the Cowpens, Major Arthur Campbell, Benjamin +Logan, Anthony Bledsoe, and Simon Kenton. With Dunmore's force +were Adam Stephen, who distinguished himself at the Brandywine, +George Rogers Clark, John Stuart, already noted through the +Cherokee wars, and John Montgomery, later one of Clark's four +captains in Illinois. The two last mentioned were Highlanders. +Clark's Illinois force was largely recruited from the troops who +fought at Point Pleasant. + + +Colonel Preston wrote to Patrick Henry that the enemy behaved +with "inconceivable bravery," the head men walking about in the +time of action exhorting their men to "lie close, shoot well, be +strong, and fight." The Shawanoes ran up to the muzzles of the +English guns, disputing every foot of ground. Both sides knew +well what they were fighting for--the rich land held in a +semicircle by the Beautiful River. + +Shortly before sundown the Indians, mistaking a flank movement by +Shelby's contingent for the arrival of reinforcements, retreated +across the Ohio. Many of their most noted warriors had fallen and +among them the Shawano chief, Puck-e-shin-wa, father of a famous +son, Tecumseh.* Yet they were unwilling to accept defeat. When +they heard that Dunmore was now marching overland to cut them off +from their towns, their fury blazed anew. "Shall we first kill +all our women and children and then fight till we ourselves are +slain?" Cornstalk, in irony, demanded of them; "No? Then I will +go and make peace." + +* Thwaites, "Documentary History of Dunmore's War." + + +By the treaty compacted between the chiefs and Lord Dunmore, the +Indians gave up all claim to the lands south of the Ohio, even +for hunting, and agreed to allow boats to pass unmolested. In +this treaty the Mingos refused to join, and a detachment of +Dunmore's troops made a punitive expedition to their towns. Some +discord arose between Dunmore and Lewis's frontier forces +because, since the Shawanoes had made peace, the Governor would +not allow the frontiersmen to destroy the Shawano towns. + +Of all the chiefs, Logan alone still held aloof. Major Gibson +undertook to fetch him, but Logan refused to come to the treaty +grounds. He sent by Gibson the short speech which has lived as an +example of the best Indian oratory: + +"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's +cabin hungry and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and +naked and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long +and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for +peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed +as they passed and said, 'Logan is the friend of the white men.' +I had even thought to have lived with you but for the injuries of +one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and +unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing +my women and children. There remains not a drop of my blood in +the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. +I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my +vengeance: for my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do +not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never +felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is +there to mourn for Logan? Not one."* + +* Some writers have questioned the authenticity of Logan's +speech, inclining to think that Gibson himself composed it, +partly because of the biblical suggestion in the first few lines. +That Gibson gave biblical phraseology to these lines is apparent, +though, as Adair points out there are many examples of similitude +in Indian and biblical expression. But the thought is Indian and +relates to the first article of the Indian's creed, namely, to +share his food with the needy. "There remains not a drop of my +blood in the veins of any living creature" is a truly Indian +lament. Evidently the final four lines of the speech are the most +literally translated, for they have the form and the primitive +rhythmic beat which a student of Indian poetry quickly recognizes. +The authenticity of the speech, as well as the innocence +of Cresap, whom Logan mistakenly accused, was vouched for by +George Rogers Clark in a letter to Dr. Samuel Brown dated June +17, 1798. See Jefferson papers, Series 6, quoted by English, +"Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio." vol. II. +p. 1029. + + +By rivers and trails, in large and small companies, started home +the army that had won the land. The West Fincastle troops, from +the lower settlements of the Clinch and Holston valleys, were to +return by the Kentucky River, while those from the upper valley +would take the shorter way up Sandy Creek. To keep them in +provisions during the journey it was ordered that hunters be sent +out along these routes to kill and barbecue meat and place it on +scaffolds at appropriate spots. + +The way home by the Kentucky was a long road for weary and +wounded men with hunger gnawing under their belts. We know who +swung out along the trail to provide for that little band, +"dressed in deerskins colored black, and his hair plaited and +bobbed up." It was Daniel Boone--now, by popular demand, Captain +Boone--just "discharged from Service," since the valley forts +needed him no longer. Once more only a hunter, he went his way +over Walden Mountain--past his son's grave marking the place +where HE had been turned back--to serve the men who had opened +the gates. + + + +Chapter VII. The Dark And Bloody Ground + +With the coming of spring Daniel Boone's desire, so long +cherished and deferred, to make a way for his neighbors through +the wilderness was to be fulfilled at last. But ere his ax could +slash the thickets from the homeseekers' path, more than two +hundred settlers had entered Kentucky by the northern waterways. +Eighty or more of these settled at Harrodsburg, where Harrod was +laying out his town on a generous plan, with "in-lots" of half an +acre and "out-lots" of larger size. Among those associated with +Harrod was George Rogers Clark, who had surveyed claims for +himself during the year before the war. + +While over two hundred colonists were picking out home sites +wherever their pleasure or prudence dictated, a gigantic land +promotion scheme--involving the very tracts where they were +sowing their first corn--was being set afoot in North Carolina by +a body of men who figure in the early history of Kentucky as the +Transylvania Company. The leader of this organization was Judge +Richard Henderson.* Judge Henderson dreamed a big dream. His +castle in the air had imperial proportions. He resolved, in +short, to purchase from the Cherokee Indians the larger part of +Kentucky and to establish there a colony after the manner and the +economic form of the English Lords Proprietors, whose day in +America was so nearly done. Though in the light of history the +plan loses none of its dramatic features, it shows the practical +defects that must surely have prevented its realization. Like +many another Caesar hungering for empire and staking all to win +it, the prospective lord of Kentucky, as we shall see, had left +the human equation out of his calculations. + +* Richard Henderson (1734-1785) was the son of the High Sheriff +of Granville County. At first an assistant to his father, he +studied law and soon achieved a reputation by the brilliance of +his mind and the magnetism of his personality. As presiding Judge +at Hillsborough he had come into conflict with the violent +element among the Regulators, who had driven him from the court +and burned his house and barns. For some time prior to his +elevation to the bench, he had been engaged in land speculations. +One of Boone's biographers suggests that Boone may have been +secretly acting as Henderson's agent during his first lonely +explorations of Kentucky. However this may be, it does not appear +that Boone and his Yadkin neighbors were acting with Henderson +when in September, 1773, they made their first attempt to enter +Kentucky as settlers. + + +Richard Henderson had known Daniel Boone on the Yadkin; and it +was Boone's detailed reports of the marvelous richness and beauty +of Kentucky which had inspired him to formulate his gigantic +scheme and had enabled him also to win to his support several men +of prominence in the Back Country. To sound the Cherokees +regarding the purchase and to arrange, if possible, for a +conference, Henderson dispatched Boone to the Indian towns in the +early days of 1775. + +Since we have just learned that Dunmore's War compelled the +Shawanoes and their allies to relinquish their right to Kentucky, +that, both before and after that event, government surveyors were +in the territory surveying for the soldiers' claims, and that +private individuals had already laid out town sites and staked +holdings, it may be asked what right of ownership the Cherokees +possessed in Kentucky, that Henderson desired to purchase it of +them. The Indian title to Kentucky seems to have been hardly less +vague to the red men than it was to the whites. Several of the +nations had laid claim to the territory. As late as 1753, it will +be remembered, the Shawanoes had occupied a town at Blue Licks, +for John Findlay had been taken there by some of them. But, +before Findlay guided Boone through the Gap in 1769, the +Shawanoes had been driven out by the Iroquois, who claimed +suzerainty over them as well as over the Cherokees. In 1768, the +Iroquois had ceded Kentucky to the British Crown by the treaty of +Fort Stanwix; whereupon the Cherokees had protested so +vociferously that the Crown's Indian agent, to quiet them, had +signed a collateral agreement with them. Though claimed by many, +Kentucky was by common consent not inhabited by any of the +tribes. It was the great Middle Ground where the Indians hunted. +It was the Warriors' Path over which they rode from north and +south to slaughter and where many of their fiercest encounters +took place. However shadowy the title which Henderson purposed to +buy, there was one all-sufficing reason why he must come to terms +with the Cherokees: their northernmost towns in Tennessee lay +only fifty or sixty miles below Cumberland Gap and hence +commanded the route over which he must lead colonists into his +empire beyond the hills. + +The conference took place early in March, 1775, at the Sycamore +Shoals of the Watauga River. Twelve hundred Indians, led by their +"town chiefs"--among whom were the old warrior and the old +statesman of their nation, Oconostota and Attakullakulla--came to +the treaty grounds and were received by Henderson and his +associates and several hundred white men who were eager for a +chance to settle on new lands. Though Boone was now on his way +into Kentucky for the Transylvania Company, other border leaders +of renown or with their fame still to win were present, and among +them James Robertson, of serious mien, and that blond gay knight +in buckskin, John Sevier. + +It is a dramatic picture we evolve for ourselves from the meager +narratives of this event--a mass of painted Indians moving +through the sycamores by the bright water, to come presently into +a tense, immobile semicircle before the large group of armed +frontiersmen seated or standing about Richard Henderson, the man +with the imperial dream, the ready speaker whose flashing eyes +and glowing oratory won the hearts of all who came under their +sway. What though the Cherokee title be a flimsy one at best and +the price offered for it a bagatelle! The spirit of Forward +March! is there in that great canvas framed by forest and sky. +The somber note that tones its lustrous color, as by a sweep of +the brush, is the figure of the Chickamaugan chief, Dragging +Canoe, warrior and seer and hater of white men, who urges his +tribesmen against the sale and, when they will not hearken, +springs from their midst into the clear space before Henderson +and his band of pioneers and, pointing with uplifted arm, warns +them that a dark cloud hangs over the land the white man covets +which to the red man has long been a bloody ground.* + +* This utterance of Dragging Canoe's is generally supposed to be +the origin of the descriptive phrase applied to Kentucky--"the +Dark and Bloody Ground." See Roosevelt, "The Winning of the +West," vol. I, p.229. + + +The purchase, finally consummated, included the country lying +between the Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers almost all the present +State of Kentucky, with the adjacent land watered by the +Cumberland River and its tributaries, except certain lands +previously leased by the Indians to the Watauga Colony. The tract +comprised about twenty million acres and extended into Tennessee. + +Daniel Boone's work was to cut out a road for the wagons of the +Transylvania Company's colonists to pass over. This was to be +done by slashing away the briers and underbrush hedging the +narrow Warriors' Path that made a direct northward line from +Cumberland Gap to the Ohio bank, opposite the mouth of the Scioto +River. Just prior to the conference Boone and "thirty guns" had +set forth from the Holston to prepare the road and to build a +fort on whatever site he should select. + +By April, Henderson and his first group of tenants were on the +trail. In Powell's Valley they came up with a party of Virginians +Kentucky bound, led by Benjamin Logan; and the two bands joined +together for the march. They had not gone far when they heard +disquieting news. After leaving Martin's Station, at the gates of +his new domain, Henderson received a letter from Boone telling of +an attack by Indians, in which two of his men had been killed, +but "we stood on the ground and guarded our baggage till the day +and lost nothing."* These tidings, indicating that despite +treaties and sales, the savages were again on the warpath, might +well alarm Henderson's colonists. While they halted, some +indecisive, others frankly for retreat, there appeared a company +of men making all haste out of Kentucky because of Indian unrest. +Six of these Henderson persuaded to turn again and go in with +him; but this addition hardly offset the loss of those members of +his party who thought it too perilous to proceed. Henderson's own +courage did not falter. He had staked his all on this stupendous +venture and for him it was forward to wealth and glory or retreat +into poverty and eclipse. Boone, in the heart of the danger, was +making the same stand. "If we give way to them [the Indians] +now," he wrote, "it will ever be the case." + +* Bogart, "Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky." p. 121. + + +Signs of discord other than Indian opposition met Henderson as he +resolutely pushed on. His conversations with some of the +fugitives from Kentucky disclosed the first indications of the +storm that was to blow away the empire he was going in to found. +He told them that the claims they had staked in Kentucky would +not hold good with the Transylvania Company. Whereupon James +McAfee, who was leading a group of returning men, stated his +opinion that the Transylvania Company's claim would not hold good +with Virginia. After the parley, three of McAfee's brothers +turned back and went with Henderson's party, but whether with +intent to join his colony or to make good their own claims is not +apparent. Benjamin Logan continued amicably with Henderson on the +march but did not recognize him as Lord Proprietor of Kentucky. +He left the Transylvania caravan shortly after entering the +territory, branched off in the direction of Harrodsburg, and +founded St. Asaph's Station, in the present Lincoln County, +independently of Henderson though the site lay within Henderson's +purchase. + +Notwithstanding delays and apprehensions, Henderson and his +colonists finally reached Boone's Fort, which Daniel and his +"thirty guns"--lacking two since the Indian encounter--had +erected at the mouth of Otter Creek. + +An attractive buoyancy of temperament is revealed in Henderson's +description in his journal of a giant elm with tall straight +trunk and even foliage that shaded a space of one hundred feet. +Instantly he chose this "divine elm" as the council chamber of +Transylvania. Under its leafage he read the constitution of the +new colony. It would be too great a stretch of fancy to call it a +democratic document, for it was not that, except in deft phrases. +Power was certainly declared to be vested in the people; but the +substance of power remained in the hands of the Proprietors. + +Terms for land grants were generous enough in the beginning, +although Henderson made the fatal mistake of demanding +quitrents--one of the causes of dissatisfaction which had led to +the Regulators' rising in North Carolina. In September he +augmented this error by more than doubling the price of land, +adding a fee of eight shillings for surveying, and reserving to +the Proprietors one-half of all gold, silver, lead, and sulphur +found on the land. No land near sulphur springs or showing +evidences of metals was to be granted to settlers. Moreover, at +the Company's store the prices charged for lead were said to be +too high--lead being necessary for hunting, and hunting being the +only means of procuring food--while the wages of labor, as fixed +by the Company, were too low. These terms bore too heavily on +poor men who were risking their lives in the colony. + +Hence newcomers passed by Boonesborough, as the Transylvania +settlement was presently called, and went elsewhere. They settled +on Henderson's land but refused his terms. They joined in their +sympathies with James Harrod, who, having established Harrodsburg +in the previous year at the invitation of Virginia, was not in +the humor to acknowledge Henderson's claim or to pay him tribute. +All were willing to combine with the Transylvania Company for +defense, and to enforce law they would unite in bonds of +brotherhood in Kentucky, even as they had been one with each +other on the earlier frontier now left behind them. But they +would call no man master; they had done with feudalism. That +Henderson should not have foreseen this, especially after the +upheaval in North Carolina, proves him, in spite of all his +brilliant gifts, to have been a man out of touch with the spirit +of the time. + +The war of the Revolution broke forth and the Indians descended +upon the Kentucky stations. Defense was the one problem in all +minds, and defense required powder and lead in plenty. The +Transylvania Company was not able to provide the means of defense +against the hordes of savages whom Henry Hamilton, the British +Governor at Detroit, was sending to make war on the frontiers. +Practical men like Harrod and George Rogers Clark--who, if not a +practical man in his own interests, was a most practical +soldier--saw that unification of interests within the territory +with the backing of either Virginia or Congress was necessary. +Clark personally would have preferred to see the settlers combine +as a freemen's state. It was plain that they would not combine +and stake their lives as a unit to hold Kentucky for the benefit +of the Transylvania Company, whose authority some of the most +prominent men in the territory had refused to recognize. The +Proprietary of Transylvania could continue to exist only to the +danger of every life in Kentucky. + +While the Proprietors sent a delegate to the Continental Congress +to win official recognition for Transylvania, eighty-four men at +Harrodsburg drew up a petition addressed to Virginia stating +their doubts of the legality of Henderson's title and requesting +Virginia to assert her authority according to the stipulations of +her charter. That defense was the primary and essential motive of +the Harrodsburg Remonstrance seems plain, for when George Rogers +Clark set off on foot with one companion to lay the document +before the Virginian authorities, he also went to plead for a +load of powder. In his account of that hazardous journey, as a +matter of fact, he makes scant reference to Transylvania, except +to say that the greed of the Proprietors would soon bring the +colony to its end, but shows that his mind was seldom off the +powder. It is a detail of history that the Continental Congress +refused to seat the delegate from Transylvania. Henderson himself +went to Virginia to make the fight for his land before the +Assembly.* + +* In 1778 Virginia disallowed Henderson's title but granted him +two hundred thousand acres between the Green and Kentucky rivers +for his trouble and expense in opening up the country. + + +The magnetic center of Boonesborough's life was the lovable and +unassuming Daniel Boone. Soon after the building of the fort +Daniel had brought in his wife and family. He used often to state +with a mild pride that his wife and daughters were the first +white women to stand on the banks of the Kentucky River. That +pride had not been unmixed with anxiety; his daughter Jemima and +two daughters of his friend, Richard Galloway, while boating on +the river had been captured by Shawanoes and carried off. Boone, +accompanied by the girls' lovers and by John Floyd (eager to +repay his debt of life-saving to Boone) had pursued them, tracing +the way the captors had taken by broken twigs and scraps of dress +goods which one of the girls had contrived to leave in their +path, had come on the Indians unawares, killed them, and +recovered the three girls unhurt. + +In the summer of 1776, Virginia took official note of "Captain +Boone of Boonesborough," for she sent him a small supply of +powder. The men of the little colony, which had begun so +pretentiously with its constitution and assembly, were now +obliged to put all other plans aside and to concentrate on the +question of food and defense. There was a dangerous scarcity of +powder and lead. The nearest points at which these necessaries +could be procured were the Watauga and Holston River settlements, +which were themselves none too well stocked. Harrod and Logan, +some time in 1777, reached the Watauga fort with three or four +packhorses and filled their packs from Sevier's store; but, as +they neared home, they were detected by red scouts and Logan was +badly wounded before he and Harrod were able to drive their +precious load safely through the gates at Harrodsburg. In the +autumn of 1777, Clark, with a boatload of ammunition, reached +Maysville on the Ohio, having successfully run the gauntlet +between banks in possession of the foe. He had wrested the powder +and lead from the Virginia Council by threats to the effect that +if Virginia was so willing to lose Kentucky--for of course "a +country not worth defending is not worth claiming"--he and his +fellows were quite ready to take Kentucky for themselves and to +hold it with their swords against all comers, Virginia included. +By even such cogent reasoning had he convinced the Council--which +had tried to hedge by expressing doubts that Virginia would +receive the Kentucky settlers as "citizens of the State"--that it +would be cheaper to give him the powder. + +Because so many settlers had fled and the others had come closer +together for their common good, Harrodsburg and Boonesborough +were now the only occupied posts in Kentucky. Other settlements, +once, thriving, were abandoned; and, under the terror, the Wild +reclaimed them. In April, 1777, Boonesborough underwent its first +siege. Boone, leading a sortie, was shot and he fell with a +shattered ankle. An Indian rushed upon him and was swinging the +tomahawk over him when Simon Kenton, giant frontiersman and hero +of many daring deeds, rushed forward, shot the Indian, threw +Boone across his back, and fought his way desperately to safety. +It was some months ere Boone was his nimble self again. But +though he could not "stand up to the guns," he directed all +operations from his cabin. + +The next year Boone was ready for new ventures growing from the +settlers' needs. Salt was necessary to preserve meat through the +summer. Accordingly Boone and twenty-seven men went up to the Blue +Licks in February, 1778, to replenish their supply by the simple +process of boiling the salt water of the Licks till the saline +particles adhered to the kettles. Boone was returning alone, with +a pack-horse load of salt and game, when a blinding snowstorm +overtook him and hid from view four stealthy Shawanoes on his +trail. He was seized and carried to a camp of 120 warriors led by +the French Canadian, Dequindre, and James and George Girty, two +white renegades. Among the Indians were some of those who had +captured him on his first exploring trip through Kentucky and +whom he had twice given the slip. Their hilarity was unbounded. +Boone quickly learned that this band was on its way to surprise +Boonesborough. It was a season when Indian attacks were not +expected; nearly threescore of the men were at the salt spring +and, to make matters worse, the walls of the new fort where the +settlers and their families had gathered were as yet completed on +only three sides. Boonesborough was, in short, well-nigh +defenseless. To turn the Indians from their purpose, Boone +conceived the desperate scheme of offering to lead them to the +salt makers' camp with the assurance that he and his companions +were willing to join the tribe. He understood Indians well enough +to feel sure that once possessed of nearly thirty prisoners, the +Shawanoes would not trouble further about Boonesborough but would +hasten to make a triumphal entry into their own towns. That some, +perhaps all, of the white men would assuredly die, he knew well; +but it was the only way to save the women and children in +Boonesborough. In spite of Dequindre and the Girtys, who were +leading a military expedition for the reduction of a fort, the +Shawanoes fell in with the suggestion. When they had taken their +prisoners, the more bloodthirsty warriors in the band wanted to +tomahawk them all on the spot. By his diplomatic discourse, +however, Boone dissuaded them, for the time being at least, and +the whole company set off for the towns on the Little Miami. + +The weather became severe, very little game crossed their route, +and for days they subsisted on slippery elm bark. The lovers of +blood did not hold back their scalping knives and several of the +prisoners perished; but Black Fish, the chief then of most power +in Shawanoe councils, adopted Boone as his son, and gave him the +name of Sheltowee, or Big Turtle. Though watched zealously to +prevent escape, Big Turtle was treated with every consideration +and honor; and, as we would say today, he played the game. He +entered into the Indian life with apparent zest, took part in +hunts and sports and the races and shooting matches in which the +Indians delighted, but he was always careful not to outrun or +outshoot his opponents. Black Fish took him to Detroit when some +of the tribe escorted the remainder of the prisoners to the +British post. There he met Governor Hamilton and, in the hope of +obtaining his liberty, he led that dignitary to believe that he +and the other people of Boonesborough were eager to move to +Detroit and take refuge under the British flag.* It is said that +Boone always carried in a wallet round his neck the King's +commission given him in Dunmore's War; and that he exhibited it +to Hamilton to bear out his story. Hamilton sought to ransom him +from the Indians, but Black Fish would not surrender his new son. +The Governor gave Boone a pony, with saddle and trappings, and +other presents, including trinkets to be used in procuring his +needs and possibly his liberty from the Shawanoes. + +* So well did Boone play his part that he aroused suspicion even +in those who knew him best. After his return to Boonesborough his +old friend, Calloway, formally accused him of treachery on two +counts: that Boone had betrayed the salt makers to the Indians +and had planned to betray Boonesborough to the British. Boone was +tried and acquitted. His simple explanation of his acts satisfied +the court-martial and made him a greater hero than ever among the +frontier folk. + + +Black Fish then took his son home to Chillicothe. Here Boone +found Delawares and Mingos assembling with the main body of the +Shawanoe warriors. The war belt was being carried through the +Ohio country. Again Boonesborough and Harrodsburg were to be the +first settlements attacked. To escape and give warning was now +the one purpose that obsessed Boone. He redoubled his efforts to +throw the Indians off their guard. He sang and whistled blithely +about the camp at the mouth of the Scioto River, whither he had +accompanied his Indian father to help in the salt boiling. In +short, he seemed so very happy that one day Black Fish took his +eye off him for a few moments to watch the passing of a flock of +turkeys. Big Turtle passed with the flock, leaving no trace. To +his lamenting parent it must have seemed as though he had +vanished into the air. Daniel crossed the Ohio and ran the 160 +miles to Boonesborough in four days, during which time he had +only one meal, from a buffalo he shot at the Blue Licks. When he +reached the fort after an absence of nearly five months, he found +that his wife had given him up for dead and had returned to the +Yadkin. + +Boone now began with all speed to direct preparations to +withstand a siege. Owing to the Indian's leisurely system of +councils and ceremonies before taking the warpath, it was not +until the first week in September that Black Fish's painted +warriors, with some Frenchmen under Dequindre, appeared before +Boonesborough. Nine days the siege lasted and was the longest in +border history. Dequindre, seeing that the fort might not be +taken, resorted to trickery. He requested Boone and a few of his +men to come out for a parley, saying that his orders from +Hamilton were to protect the lives of the Americans as far as +possible. Boone's friend, Calloway, urged against acceptance of +the apparently benign proposal which was made, so Dequindre +averred, for "bienfaisance et humanite." But the words were the +words of a white man, and Boone hearkened to them. With eight of +the garrison he went out to the parley. After a long talk in +which good will was expressed on both sides, it was suggested by +Black Fish that they all shake hands and, as there were so many +more Indians than white men, two Indians should, of course, shake +hands with one white man, each grasping one of his hands. The +moment that their hands gripped, the trick was clear, for the +Indians exerted their strength to drag off the white men. +Desperate scuffling ensued in which the whites with difficulty +freed themselves and ran for the fort. Calloway had prepared for +emergencies. The pursuing Indians were met with a deadly fire. +After a defeated attempt to mine the fort the enemy withdrew. + +The successful defense of Boonesborough was an achievement of +national importance, for had Boonesborough fallen, Harrodsburg +alone could not have stood. The Indians under the British would +have overrun Kentucky; and George Rogers Clark--whose base for +his Illinois operations was the Kentucky forts--could not have +made the campaigns which wrested the Northwest from the control +of Great Britain. + +Again Virginia took official note of Captain Boone when in 1779 +the Legislature established Boonesborough "a town for the +reception of traders" and appointed Boone himself one of the +trustees to attend to the sale and registration of lots. An odd +office that was for Daniel, who never learned to attend to the +registration of his own; he declined it. His name appears again, +however, a little later when Virginia made the whole of Kentucky +one of her counties with the following officers: Colonel David +Robinson, County Lieutenant; George Rogers Clark, Anthony +Bledsoe, and John Bowman, Majors; Daniel Boone, James Harrod, +Benjamin Logan, and John Todd, Captains. + + +Boonesborough's successful resistance caused land speculators as +well as prospective settlers to take heart of grace. Parties made +their way to Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, and even to the Falls of +the Ohio, where Clark's fort and blockhouses now stood. In the +summer of 1779 Clark had erected on the Kentucky side of the +river a large fort which became the nucleus of the town of +Louisville. Here, while he was eating his heart out with +impatience for money and men to enable him to march to the attack +of Detroit, as he had planned, he amused himself by drawing up +plans for a city. He laid out private sections and public parks +and contemplated the bringing in of families only to inhabit his +city, for, oddly enough, he who never married was going to make +short shift of mere bachelors in his City Beautiful. Between pen +scratches, no doubt, he looked out frequently upon the river to +descry if possible a boatload of ammunition or the banners of the +troops he had been promised. + +When neither appeared, he gave up the idea of Detroit and set +about erecting defenses on the southern border, for the Choctaws +and Cherokees, united under a white leader named Colbert, were +threatening Kentucky by way of the Mississippi. He built in 1780 +Fort Jefferson in what is now Ballard County, and had barely +completed the new post and garrisoned it with about thirty men +when it was besieged by Colbert and his savages. The Indians, +assaulting by night, were lured into a position directly before a +cannon which poured lead into a mass of them. The remainder fled +in terror from the vicinity of the fort; but Colbert succeeded in +rallying them and was returning to the attack when he suddenly +encountered Clark with a company of men and was forced to abandon +his enterprise. + +Clark knew that the Ohio Indians would come down on the +settlements again during the summer and that to meet their +onslaughts every man in Kentucky would be required. He learned +that there was a new influx of land seekers over the Wilderness +Road and that speculators were doing a thriving business in +Harrodsburg; so, leaving his company to protect Fort Jefferson, +he took two men with him and started across the wilds on foot for +Harrodsburg. To evade the notice of the Indian bands which were +moving about the country the three stripped and painted +themselves as warriors and donned the feathered headdress. So +successful was their disguise that they were fired on by a party +of surveyors near the outskirts of Harrodsburg. + +The records do not state what were the sensations of certain +speculators in a land office in Harrodsburg when a blue-eyed +savage in a war bonnet sprang through the doorway and, with +uplifted weapon, declared the office closed; but we get a hint of +the power of Clark's personality and of his genius for dominating +men from the terse report that he "enrolled" the speculators. He +was informed that another party of men, more nervous than these, +was now on its way out of Kentucky. In haste he dispatched a +dozen frontiersmen to cut the party off at Crab Orchard and take +away the gun of every man who refused to turn back and do his bit +for Kentucky. To Clark a man was a gun, and he meant that every +gun should do its duty. + +The leaders and pioneers of the Dark and Bloody Ground were now +warriors, all under Clark's command, while for two years longer +the Red Terror ranged Kentucky, falling with savage force now +here, now there. In the first battle of 1780, at the Blue Licks, +Daniel's brother, Edward Boone, was killed and scalped. Later on +in the war his second son, Israel, suffered a like fate. The toll +of life among the settlers was heavy. Many of the best-known +border leaders were slain. Food and powder often ran short. Corn +might be planted, but whether it would be harvested or not the +planters never knew; and the hunter's rifle shot, necessary +though it was, proved only too often an invitation to the lurking +foe. But sometimes, through all the dangers of forest and trail, +Daniel Boone slipped away silently to Harrodsburg to confer with +Clark; or Clark himself, in the Indian guise that suited the wild +man in him not ill, made his way to and from the garrisons which +looked to him for everything. + +Twice Clark gathered together the "guns" of Kentucky and, +marching north into the enemy's country, swept down upon the +Indian towns of Piqua and Chillicothe and razed them. In 1782, in +the second of these enterprises, his cousin, Joseph Rogers, who +had been taken prisoner and adopted by the Indians and then wore +Indian garb, was shot down by one of Clark's men. On this +expedition Boone and Harrod are said to have accompanied Clark. + +The ever present terror and horror of those days, especially of +the two years preceding this expedition, are vividly suggested by +the quaint remark of an old woman who had lived through them, as +recorded for us by a traveler. The most beautiful sight she had +seen in Kentucky, she said, was a young man dying a natural death +in his bed. Dead but unmarred by hatchet or scalping knife, he +was so rare and comely a picture that the women of the post sat +up all night looking at him. + + +But, we ask, what golden emoluments were showered by a grateful +country on the men who thus held the land through those years of +want and war, and saved an empire for the Union? What practical +recognition was there of these brave and unselfish men who daily +risked their lives and faced the stealth and cruelty lurking in +the wilderness ways? There is meager eloquence in the records. +Here, for instance, is a letter from George Rogers Clark to the +Governor of Virginia, dated May 27, 1783: + +"Sir. Nothing but necessity could induce me to make the following +request to Your Excellency, which is to grant me a small sum of +money on account; as I can assure you, Sir, that I am exceedingly +distressed for the want of necessary clothing etc and don't know +any channel through which I could procure any except of the +Executive. The State I believe will fall considerably in my debt. +Any supplies which Your Excellency favors me with might be +deducted out of my accounts."* + +* "Calendar of Virginia State Papers," vol. III, p. 487. + + +Clark had spent all his own substance and all else he could beg, +borrow--or appropriate--in the conquest of Illinois and the +defense of Kentucky. His only reward from Virginia was a grant of +land from which he realized nothing, and dismissal from her +service when she needed him no longer. + +All that Clark had asked for himself was a commission in the +Continental Army. This was denied him, as it appears now, not +through his own errors, which had not at that time taken hold on +him, but through the influence of powerful enemies. It is said +that both Spain and England, seeing a great soldier without +service for his sword, made him offers, which he refused. As long +as any acreage remained to him on which to raise money, he +continued to pay the debts he had contracted to finance his +expeditions, and in this course he had the assistance of his +youngest brother, William, to whom he assigned his Indiana grant. + +His health impaired by hardship and exposure and his heart broken +by his country's indifference, Clark sank into alcoholic +excesses. In his sixtieth year, just six years before his death, +and when he was a helpless paralytic, he was granted a pension of +four hundred dollars. There is a ring of bitter irony in the +words with which he accepted the sword sent him by Virginia in +his crippled old age: "When Virginia needed a sword I gave her +one." He died near Louisville on February 13, 1818. + +Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. But even before +Kentucky became a State her affairs, particularly as to land, +were arranged, let us say, on a practical business basis. Then it +was discovered that Daniel Boone had no legal claim to any foot +of ground in Kentucky. Daniel owned nothing but the clothes he +wore; and for those--as well as for much powder, lead, food, and +such trifles--he was heavily in debt. + +So, in 1788, Daniel Boone put the list of his debts in his +wallet, gathered his wife and his younger sons about him, and, +shouldering his hunter's rifle, once more turned towards the +wilds. The country of the Great Kanawha in West Virginia was +still a wilderness, and a hunter and trapper might, in some +years, earn enough to pay his debts. For others, now, the paths +he had hewn and made safe; for Boone once more the wilderness +road. + + + +Chapter VIII. Tennessee + +Indian law, tradition, and even superstition had shaped the +conditions which the pioneers faced when they crossed the +mountains. This savage inheritance had decreed that Kentucky +should be a dark and bloody ground, fostering no life but that of +four-footed beasts, its fertile sod never to stir with the green +push of the corn. And so the white men who went into Kentucky to +build and to plant went as warriors go, and for every cabin they +erected they battled as warriors to hold a fort. In the first +years they planted little corn and reaped less, for it may be +said that their rifles were never out of their hands. We have +seen how stations were built and abandoned until but two stood. +Untiring vigilance and ceaseless warfare were the price paid by +the first Kentuckians ere they turned the Indian's place of +desolation and death into a land productive and a living +habitation. + +Herein lies the difference, slight apparently, yet significant, +between the first Kentucky and the first Tennessee* colonies. +Within the memory of the Indians only one tribe had ever +attempted to make their home in Kentucky--a tribe of the fighting +Shawanoes--and they had been terribly chastised for their +temerity. But Tennessee was the home of the Cherokees, and at +Chickasaw Bluffs (Memphis) began the southward trail to the +principal towns of the Chickasaws. By the red man's fiat, then, +human life might abide in Tennessee, though not in Kentucky, and +it followed that in seasons of peace the frontiersmen might +settle in Tennessee. So it was that as early as 1757, before the +great Cherokee war, a company of Virginians under Andrew Lewis +had, on an invitation from the Indians, erected Fort Loudon near +Great Telliko, the Cherokees' principal town, and that, after the +treaty of peace in 1761, Waddell and his rangers of North +Carolina had erected a fort on the Holston. + +* Tennessee. The name, Ten-as-se, appears on Adair's map as one +of the old Cherokee towns. Apparently neither the meaning nor the +reason why the colonists called both state and river by this name +has been handed down to us. + + +Though Fort Loudon had fallen tragically during the war, and +though Waddell's fort had been abandoned, neither was without +influence in the colonization of Tennessee, for some of the men +who built these forts drifted back a year or two later and setup +the first cabins on the Holston. These earliest settlements, thin +and scattered, did not survive; but in 1768 the same settlers or +others of their kind--discharged militiamen from Back Country +regiments--once more made homes on the Holston. They were joined +by a few families from near the present Raleigh, North Carolina, +who had despaired of seeing justice done to the tenants on the +mismanaged estates of Lord Granville. About the same time there +was erected the first cabin on the Watauga River, as is generally +believed, by a man of the name of William Bean (or Been), hunter +and frontier soldier from Pittsylvania County, Virginia. This +man, who had hunted on the Watauga with Daniel Boone in 1760, +chose as the site of his dwelling the place of the old hunting +camp near the mouth of Boone's Creek. He soon began to have +neighbors. + + +Meanwhile the Regulation Movement stirred the Back Country of +both the Carolinas. In 1768, the year in which William Bean built +his cabin on the bank of the Watauga, five hundred armed +Regulators in North Carolina, aroused by irregularities in the +conduct of public office, gathered to assert their displeasure, +but dispersed peaceably on receipt of word from Governor Tryon +that he had ordered the prosecution of any officer found guilty +of extortion. Edmund Fanning, the most hated of Lord Granville's +agents, though convicted, escaped punishment. Enraged at this +miscarriage of justice, the Regulators began a system of +terrorization by taking possession of the court, presided over by +Richard Henderson. The judge himself was obliged to slip out by a +back way to avoid personal injury. The Regulators burned his +house and stable. They meted out mob treatment likewise to +William Hooper, later one of the signers of the Declaration of +Independence. + +Two elements, with antithetical aims, had been at work in the +Regulation; and the unfortunate failure of justice in the case of +Fanning had given the corrupt element its opportunity to seize +control. In the petitions addressed to Governor Tryon by the +leaders of the movement in its earlier stages the aims of +liberty-loving thinkers are traceable. It is worthy of note that +they included in their demands articles which are now +constitutional. They desired that "suffrage be given by ticket +and ballot"; that the mode of taxation be altered, and each +person be taxed in proportion to the profits arising from his +estate; that judges and clerks be given salaries instead of +perquisites and fees. They likewise petitioned for repeal of the +act prohibiting dissenting ministers from celebrating the rites +of matrimony. The establishment of these reforms, the petitioners +of the Regulation concluded, would "conciliate" their minds to +"every just measure of government, and would make the laws what +the Constitution ever designed they should be, their protection +and not their bane." Herein clearly enough we can discern the +thought and the phraseology of the Ulster Presbyterians. + +But a change took place in both leaders and methods. During the +Regulators' career of violence they were under the sway of an +agitator named Hermon Husband. This demagogue was reported to +have been expelled from the Quaker Society for cause; it is on +record that he was expelled from the North Carolina Assembly +because a vicious anonymous letter was traced to him. He deserted +his dupes just before the shots cracked at Alamance Creek and +fled from the colony. He was afterwards apprehended in +Pennsylvania for complicity in the Whisky Insurrection. + +Four of the leading Presbyterian ministers of the Back Country +issued a letter in condemnation of the Regulators. One of these +ministers was the famous David Caldwell, son-in-law of the +Reverend Alexander Craighead, and a man who knew the difference +between liberty and license and who proved himself the bravest of +patriots in the War of Independence. The records of the time +contain sworn testimony against the Regulators by Waightstill +Avery, a signer of the Mecklenburg Resolves, who later presided +honorably over courts in the western circuit of Tennessee; and +there is evidence indicating Jacobite and French intrigue. That +Governor Tryon recognized a hidden hand at work seems clearly +revealed in his proclamation addressed to those "whose +understandings have been run away with and whose passions have +been led in captivity by some evil designing men who, actuated by +cowardice and a sense of that Publick Justice which is due to +their Crimes, have obscured themselves from Publick view." What +the Assembly thought of the Regulators was expressed in 1770 in a +drastic bill which so shocked the authorities in England that +instructions were sent forbidding any Governor to approve such a +bill in future, declaring it "a disgrace to the British Statute +Books." + +On May 16, 1771, some two thousand Regulators were precipitated +by Husband into the Battle of Alamance, which took place in a +district settled largely by a rough and ignorant type of Germans, +many of whom Husband had lured to swell his mob. Opposed to him, +were eleven hundred of Governor Tryon's troops, officered by such +patriots as Griffith Rutherford, Hugh Waddell, and Francis Nash. +During an hour's engagement about twenty Regulators were killed, +while the Governor's troops had nine killed and sixty-one +wounded. Six of the leaders were hanged. The rest took the oath +of allegiance which Tryon administered. + +It has been said about the Regulators that they were not cast +down by their defeat at Alamance but "like the mammoth, they +shook the bolt from their brow and crossed the mountains," but +such flowery phrases do not seem to have been inspired by facts. +Nor do the records show that "fifteen hundred Regulators" +arrived at Watauga in 1771, as has also been stated. Nor are the +names of the leaders of the Regulation to be found in the list of +signatures affixed to the one "state paper" of Watauga which was +preserved and written into historic annals. Nor yet do those +names appear on the roster of the Watauga and Holston men who, in +1774, fought with Shelby under Andrew Lewis in the Battle of +Point Pleasant. The Boones and the Bryans, the Robertsons, the +Seviers, the Shelbys, the men who opened up the West and shaped +the destiny of its inhabitants, were genuine freemen, with a +sense of law and order as inseparable from liberty. They would +follow a Washington but not a Hermon Husband. + +James Hunter, whose signature leads on all Regulation manifestoes +just prior to the Battle of Alamance, was a sycophant of Husband, +to whom he addressed fulsome letters; and in the real battle for +democracy--the War of Independence--he was a Tory. The Colonial +Records show that those who, "like the mammoth," shook from them +the ethical restraints which make man superior to the giant +beast, and who later bolted into the mountains, contributed +chiefly the lawlessness that harassed the new settlements. They +were the banditti and, in 1776, the Tories of the western hills; +they pillaged the homes of the men who were fighting for the +democratic ideal. + +It was not the Regulation Movement which turned westward the +makers of the Old Southwest, but the free and enterprising spirit +of the age. It was emphatically an age of doers; and if men who +felt the constructive urge in them might not lay hold on +conditions where they were and reshape them, then they must go +forward seeking that environment which would give their genius +its opportunity. + +Of such adventurous spirits was James Robertson, a Virginian born +of Ulster Scot parentage, and a resident of (the present) Wake +County, North Carolina, since his boyhood. Robertson was +twenty-eight years old when, in 1770, he rode over the hills to +Watauga. We can imagine him as he was then, for the portrait +taken much later in life shows the type of face that does not +change. It is a high type combining the best qualities of his +race. Intelligence, strength of purpose, fortitude, and moral +power are there; they impress us at the first glance. At +twenty-eight he must have been a serious young man, little given +to laughter; indeed, spontaneity is perhaps the only good trait +we miss in studying his face. He was a thinker who had not yet +found his purpose--a thinker in leash, for at this time James +Robertson could neither read nor write. + +At Watauga, Robertson lived for a while in the cabin of a man +named Honeycut. He chose land for himself and, in accordance with +the custom of the time, sealed his right to it by planting corn. +He remained to harvest his first crop and then set off to gather +his family and some of his friends together and escort them to +the new country. But on the way he missed the trail and wandered +for a fortnight in the mountains. The heavy rains ruined his +powder so that he could not hunt; for food he had only berries +and nuts. At one place, where steep bluffs opposed him, he was +obliged to abandon his horse and scale the mountain side on foot. +He was in extremity when he chanced upon two huntsmen who gave +him food and set him on the trail. If this experience proves his +lack of the hunter's instinct and the woodsman's resourcefulness +which Boone possessed, it proves also his special qualities of +perseverance and endurance which were to reach their zenith in +his successful struggle to colonize and hold western Tennessee. +He returned to Watauga in the following spring (1771) with his +family and a small group of colonists. Robertson's wife was an +educated woman and under her instruction he now began to study. + +Next year a young Virginian from the Shenandoah Valley rode on +down Holston Valley on a hunting and exploring trip, and loitered +at Watauga. Here he found not only a new settlement but an +independent government in the making; and forthwith he determined +to have a part in both. This young Virginian had already shown +the inclination of a political colonist, for in the Shenandoah +Valley he had, at the age of nineteen, laid out the town of New +Market (which exists to this day) and had directed its municipal +affairs and invited and fostered its clergy. This young +Virginian--born on September 23, 1745, and so in 1772 +twenty-seven years of age--was John Sevier, that John Sevier +whose monument now towers from its site in Knoxville to testify +of both the wild and the great deeds of old Tennessee's beloved +knight. Like Robertson, Sevier hastened home and removed his +whole family, including his wife and children, his parents and +his brothers and sisters, to this new haven of freedom at +Watauga. + +The friendship formed between Robertson and Sevier in these first +years of their work together was never broken, yet two more +opposite types could hardly have been brought together. Robertson +was a man of humble origin, unlettered, not a dour Scot but a +solemn one. Sevier was cavalier as well as frontiersman. On his +father's side he was of the patrician family of Xavier in France. +His progenitors, having become Huguenots, had taken refuge in +England, where the name Xavier was finally changed to Sevier. +John Sevier's mother was an Englishwoman. Some years before his +birth his parents had emigrated to the Shenandoah Valley. Thus it +happened that John Sevier, who mingled good English blood with +the blue blood of old France, was born an American and grew up a +frontier hunter and soldier. He stood about five feet nine from +his moccasins to his crown of light brown hair. He was +well-proportioned and as graceful of body as he was hard-muscled +and swift. His chin was firm, his nose of a Roman cast, his mouth +well-shaped, its slightly full lips slanting in a smile that +would not be repressed. Under the high, finely modeled brow, +small keen dark blue eyes sparkled with health, with +intelligence, and with the man's joy in life. + +John Sevier indeed cannot be listed as a type; he was individual. +There is no other character like him in border annals. He was +cavalier and prince in his leadership of men; he had their +homage. Yet he knew how to be comrade and brother to the +lowliest. He won and held the confidence and friendship of the +serious-minded Robertson no less than the idolatry of the wildest +spirits on the frontier throughout the forty-three years of the +spectacular career which began for him on the day he brought his +tribe to Watauga. In his time he wore the governor's purple; and +a portrait painted of him shows how well this descendant of the +noble Xaviers could fit himself to the dignity and formal +habiliments of state; Yet in the fringed deerskin of frontier +garb, he was fleeter on the warpath than the Indians who fled +before him; and he could outride and outshoot--and, it is said, +outswear--the best and the worst of the men who followed him. +Perhaps the lurking smile on John Sevier's face was a flicker of +mirth that there should be found any man, red or white, with +temerity enough to try conclusions with him. None ever did, +successfully. + +The historians of Tennessee state that the Wataugans formed their +government in 1772 and that Sevier was one of its five +commissioners. Yet, as Sevier did not settle in Tennessee before +1773, it is possible that the Watauga Association was not formed +until then. Unhappily the written constitution of the little +commonwealth was not preserved; but it is known that, following +the Ulsterman's ideal, manhood suffrage and religious +independence were two of its provisions. The commissioners +enlisted a militia and they recorded deeds for land, issued +marriage licenses, and tried offenders against the law. They +believed themselves to be within the boundaries of Virginia and +therefore adopted the laws of that State for their guidance. They +had numerous offenders to deal with, for men fleeing from debt or +from the consequence of crime sought the new settlements just +across the mountains as a safe and adjacent harbor. The attempt +of these men to pursue their lawlessness in Watauga was one +reason why the Wataugans organized a government. + +When the line was run between Virginia and North Carolina beyond +the mountains, Watauga was discovered to be south of Virginia's +limits and hence on Indian lands. This was in conflict with the +King's Proclamation, and Alexander Cameron, British agent to the +Cherokees, accordingly ordered the encroaching settlers to +depart. The Indians, however, desired them to remain. But since +it was illegal to purchase Indian lands, Robertson negotiated a +lease for ten years. In 1775, when Henderson made his purchase +from the Cherokees, at Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga, Robertson +and Sevier, who were present at the sale with other Watauga +commissioners, followed Henderson's example and bought outright +the lands they desired to include in Watauga's domain. In 1776 +they petitioned North Carolina for "annexation." As they were +already within North Carolina's bounds, it was recognition rather +than annexation which they sought. This petition, which is the +only Wataugan document to survive, is undated but marked as +received in August, 1776. It is in Sevier's handwriting and its +style suggests that it was composed by him, for in its manner of +expression it has much in common with many later papers from his +pen. That Wataugans were a law-loving community and had formed +their government for the purpose of making law respected is +reiterated throughout the document. As showing the quality of +these first western statemakers, two paragraphs are quoted: + +"Finding ourselves on the frontiers, and being apprehensive that +for want of proper legislature we might become a shelter for such +as endeavored to defraud their creditors; considering also the +necessity of recording deeds, wills, and doing other public +business; we, by consent of the people, formed a court for the +purposes above mentioned, taking, by desire of our constituents, +the Virginia laws for our guide, so near as the situation of +affairs would permit. This was intended for ourselves, and WAS +DONE BY CONSENT OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL." + +The petition goes on to state that, among their measures for +upholding law, the Wataugans had enlisted "a company of fine +riflemen" and put them under command of "Captain James +Robertson." + +"We...thought proper to station them on our frontiers in +defense of the common cause, at the expense and risque of our own +private fortunes, till farther public orders, which we flatter +ourselves will give no offense.... We pray your mature and +deliberate consideration in our behalf, that you may annex us to +your Province (whether as county, district, or other division) in +such manner as may enable us to share in the glorious cause of +Liberty: enforce our laws under authority and in every respect +become the best members of society; and for ourselves and our +constituents we hope we may venture to assure you that we shall +adhere strictly to your determinations, and that nothing will be +lacking or anything neglected that may add weight (in the civil +or military establishments) to the glorious cause in which we are +now struggling, or contribute to the welfare of our own or ages +yet to come." + +One hundred and thirteen names are signed to the document. In the +following year (1777) North Carolina erected her overhill +territory into Washington County. The Governor appointed justices +of the peace and militia officers who in the following year +organized the new county and its courts. And so Watauga's +independent government, begun in the spirit of true liberty, came +as lawfully to its end. + +But for nearly three years before their political status was thus +determined, the Wataugans were sharing "in the glorious cause of +Liberty" by defending their settlements against Indian attacks. +While the majority of the young Cherokee warriors were among +their enemies, their chief battles were fought with those from +the Chickamaugan towns on the Tennessee River, under the +leadership of Dragging Canoe. The Chickamaugans embraced the more +vicious and bloodthirsty Cherokees, with a mixture of Creeks and +bad whites, who, driven from every law-abiding community, had +cast in their lot with this tribe. The exact number of white +thieves and murderers who had found harbor in the Indian towns +during a score or more of years is not known; but the letters of +the Indian agents, preserved in the records, would indicate that +there were a good many of them. They were fit allies for Dragging +Canoe; their hatred of those from whom their own degeneracy had +separated them was not less than his. + +In July, 1776, John Sevier wrote to the Virginia Committee as +follows: + +"Dear Gentlemen: Isaac Thomas, William Falling, Jaret Williams +and one more have this moment come in by making their escape from +the Indians and say six hundred Indians and whites were to start +for this fort and intend to drive the country up to New River +before they return." + +Thus was heralded the beginning of a savage warfare which kept +the borderers engaged for years. + +It has been a tradition of the chroniclers that Isaac Thomas +received a timely warning from Nancy Ward, a half-caste Cherokee +prophetess who often showed her good will towards the whites; and +that the Indians were roused to battle by Alexander Cameron and +John Stuart, the British agents or superintendents among the +overhill tribes. There was a letter bearing Cameron's name +stating that fifteen hundred savages from the Cherokee and +Creek nations were to join with British troops landed at +Pensacola in an expedition against the southern frontier +colonies. This letter was brought to Watauga at dead of night by +a masked man who slipped it through a window and rode away. +Apparently John Sevier did not believe the military information +contained in the mysterious missive, for he communicated nothing +of it to the Virginia Committee. In recent years the facts have +come to light. This mysterious letter and others of a similar +tenor bearing forged signatures are cited in a report by the +British Agent, John Stuart, to his Government. It appears that +such inflammatory missives had been industriously scattered +through the back settlements of both Carolinas. There are also +letters from Stuart to Lord Dartmouth, dated a year earlier, +urging that something be done immediately to counteract rumors +set afloat that the British were endeavoring to instigate both +the Indians and the negroes to attack the Americans. + +Now it is, of course, an established fact that both the British +and the American armies used Indians in the War of Independence, +even as both together had used them against the French and the +Spanish and their allied Indians. It was inevitable that the +Indians should participate in any severe conflict between the +whites. They were a numerous and a warlike people and, from their +point of view, they had more at stake than the alien whites who +were contesting for control of the red man's continent. Both +British and Americans have been blamed for "half-hearted attempts +to keep the Indians neutral." The truth is that each side strove +to enlist the Indians--to be used, if needed later, as warriors. +Massacre was no part of this policy, though it may have been +countenanced by individual officers in both camps. But it is +obvious that, once the Indians took the warpath, they were to be +restrained by no power and, no matter under whose nominal +command, they would carry on warfare by their own methods.* + +* "There is little doubt that either side, British or Americans, +stood ready to enlist the Indians. Already before Boston the +Americans had had the help of the Stockbridge tribe. Washington +found the service committed to the practise when he arrived at +Cambridge early in July. Dunmore had taken the initiative in +securing such allies, at least is purpose; but the insurgent +Virginians had had of late more direct contact with the tribes +and were now striving to secure them but with little success." +"The Westward Movement," by Justin Winsor, p. 87. + +General Ethan Allen of Vermont, as his letters show, sent +emissaries into Canada in an endeavor to enlist the French +Canadians and the Canadian Indians against the British in Canada. +See "American Archives," Fourth Series, vol. II, p. 714. The +British General Gage wrote to Lord Dartmouth from Boston, June +18, 1775: "We need not be tender of calling on the Savages as the +rebels have shown us the example, by bringing as many Indians +down against us as they could collect." "American Archives." +Fourth Series, vol. ii, p. 967. + +In a letter to Lord Germain, dated August 23, 1776, John Stuart +wrote: "Although Mr. Cameron was in constant danger of +assassination and the Indians were threatened with invasion +should they dare to, protect him, yet he still found means to +prevent their falling on the settlement." See North Carolina +"Colonial Records," vol. X, pp. 608 and 763. Proof that the +British agents had succeeded in keeping the Cherokee neutral till +the summer of 1776 is found in the instructions, dated the 7th of +July, to Major Winston from President Rutledge of South Carolina, +regarding the Cherokees, that they must be forced to give up the +British agents and "INSTEAD OF REMAINING IN A STATE OF NEUTRALITY +with respect to British Forces they must take part with us +against them." See North Carolina "Colonial Records," vol. X, p. +658. + + +Whatever may have been the case elsewhere, the attacks on the +Watauga and Holston settlements were not instigated by British +agents. It was not Nancy Ward but Henry Stuart, John Stuart's +deputy, who sent Isaac Thomas to warn the settlers. In their +efforts to keep the friendship of the red men, the British and +the Americans were providing them with powder and lead. The +Indians had run short of ammunition and, since hunting was their +only means of livelihood, they must shoot or starve. South +Carolina sent the Cherokees a large supply of powder and lead +which was captured en route by Tories. About the same time Henry +Stuart set out from Pensacola with another consignment from the +British. His report to Lord Germain of his arrival in the +Chickamaugan towns and of what took place there just prior to the +raids on the Tennessee settlements is one of the most +illuminating as well as one of the most dramatic papers in the +collected records of that time.* + +* North Carolina "Colonial Records," vol. X, pp. 763-785. + + +Stuart's first act was secretly to send out Thomas, the trader, +to warn the settlers of their peril, for a small war party of +braves was even then concluding the preliminary war ceremonies. +The reason for this Indian alarm and projected excursion was the +fact that the settlers had built one fort at least on the Indian +lands. Stuart finally persuaded the Indians to remain at peace +until he could write to the settlers stating the grievances and +asking for negotiations. The letters were to be carried by Thomas +on his return. + +But no sooner was Thomas on his way again with the letters than +there arrived a deputation of warriors from the Northern +tribes--from "the Confederate nations, the Mohawks, Ottawas, +Nantucas, Shawanoes and Delawares"--fourteen men in all, who +entered the council hall of the Old Beloved Town of Chota with +their faces painted black and the war belt carried before them. +They said that they had been seventy days on their journey. +Everywhere along their way they had seen houses and forts +springing up like, weeds across the green sod of their hunting +lands. Where once were great herds of deer and buffalo, they had +watched thousands of men at arms preparing for war. So many now +were the white warriors and their women and children that the red +men had been obliged to travel a great way on the other side of +the Ohio and to make a detour of nearly three hundred miles to +avoid being seen. Even on this outlying route they had crossed +the fresh tracks of a great body of people with horses and cattle +going still further towards the setting sun. But their cries were +not to be in vain; for "their fathers, the French" had heard them +and had promised to aid them if they would now strike as one for +their lands. + +After this preamble the deputy of the Mohawks rose. He said that +some American people had made war on one of their towns and had +seized the son of their Great Beloved Man, Sir William Johnson, +imprisoned him, and put him to a cruel death; this crime demanded +a great vengeance and they would not cease until they had taken +it. One after another the fourteen delegates rose and made their +"talks" and presented their wampum strings to Dragging Canoe. The +last to speak was a chief of the Shawanoes. He also declared that +"their fathers, the French," who had been so long dead, were +"alive again," that they had supplied them plentifully with arms +and ammunition and had promised to assist them in driving out the +Americans and in reclaiming their country. Now all the Northern +tribes were joined in one for this great purpose; and they +themselves were on their way to all the Southern tribes and had +resolved that, if any tribe refused to join, they would fall upon +and extirpate that tribe, after having overcome the whites. At +the conclusion of his oration the Shawanoe presented the war +belt--nine feet of six-inch wide purple wampum spattered with +vermilion--to Dragging Canoe, who held it extended between his +two hands, in silence, and waited. Presently rose a headman whose +wife had been a member of Sir William Johnson's household. He +laid his hand on the belt and sang the war song. One by one, +then, chiefs and warriors rose, laid hold of the great belt and +chanted the war song. Only the older men, made wise by many +defeats, sat still in their places, mute and dejected. "After +that day every young fellow's face in the overhills towns +appeared blackened and nothing was now talked of but war." + +Stuart reports that "all the white men" in the tribe also laid +hands on the belt. Dragging Canoe then demanded that Cameron and +Stuart come forward and take hold of the war belt--"which we +refused." Despite the offense their refusal gave--and it would +seem a dangerous time to give such offense--Cameron delivered a +"strong talk" for peace, warning the Cherokees of what must +surely be the end of the rashness they contemplated. Stuart +informed the chief that if the Indians persisted in attacking the +settlements with out waiting for answers to his letters, he would +not remain with them any longer or bring them any more +ammunition. He went to his house and made ready to leave on the +following day. Early the next morning Dragging Canoe appeared at +his door and told him that the Indians were now very angry about +the letters he had written, which could only have put the +settlers on their guard; and that if any white man attempted to +leave the nation "they had determined to follow him but NOT TO +BRING HIM BACK." Dragging Canoe had painted his face black to +carry this message. Thomas now returned with an answer from "the +West Fincastle men," which was so unsatisfactory to the tribe +that war ceremonies were immediately begun. Stuart and Cameron +could no longer influence the Indians. "All that could now be +done was to give them strict charge not to pass the Boundary +Line, not to injure any of the King's faithful subjects, not to +kill any women and children"; and to threaten to "stop all +ammunition" if they did not obey these orders. + + +The major part of the Watauga militia went out to meet the +Indians and defeated a large advance force at Long Island Flats +on the Holston. The Watauga fort, where many of the settlers had +taken refuge, contained forty fighting men under Robertson and +Sevier. As Indians usually retreated and waited for a while after +a defeat, those within the fort took it for granted that no +immediate attack was to be expected; and the women went out at +daybreak into the fields to milk the cows. Suddenly the war whoop +shrilled from the edge of the clearing. Red warriors leaped from +the green skirting of the forest. The women ran for the fort. +Quickly the heavy gates swung to and the dropped bar secured +them. Only then did the watchmen discover that one woman had been +shut out. She was a young woman nearing her twenties and, if +legend has reported her truly, "Bonnie Kate Sherrill" was a +beauty. Through a porthole Sevier saw her running towards the +shut gates, dodging and darting, her brown hair blowing from the +wind of her race for life--and offering far too rich a prize to +the yelling fiends who dashed after her. Sevier coolly shot the +foremost of her pursuers, then sprang upon the wall, caught up +Bonnie Kate, and tossed her inside to safety. And legend says +further that when, after Sevier's brief widowerhood, she became +his wife, four years later, Bonnie Kate was wont to say that she +would be willing to run another such race any day to have another +such introduction! + +There were no casualties within the fort and, after three hours, +the foe withdrew, leaving several of their warriors slain. + +In the excursions against the Indians which followed this opening +of hostilities Sevier won his first fame as an "Indian +fighter"--the fame later crystallized in the phrase "thirty-five +battles, thirty-five victories." His method was to take a very +small company of the hardiest and swiftest horsemen--men who +could keep their seat and endurance, and horses that could keep +their feet and their speed, on any steep of the mountains no +matter how tangled and rough the going might be--swoop down upon +war camp, or town, and go through it with rifle and hatchet and +fire, then dash homeward at the same pace before the enemy had +begun to consider whether to follow him or not. In all his +"thirty-five battles" it is said he lost not more than fifty men. + +The Cherokees made peace in 1777, after about a year of almost +continuous warfare, the treaty being concluded on their side by +the old chiefs who had never countenanced the war. Dragging Canoe +refused to take part, but he was rendered innocuous for the time +being by the destruction of several of the Chickamaugan villages. +James Robertson now went to Chota as Indian agent for North +Carolina. So fast was population growing, owing to the opening of +a wagon road into Burke County, North Carolina, that Washington +County was divided. John Sevier became Colonel of Washington and +Isaac Shelby Colonel of the newly erected Sullivan County. +Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee, was laid out as the +county seat of Washington; and in the same year (1778) Sevier +moved to the bank of the Nolichucky River, so-called after the +Indian name of this dashing sparkling stream, meaning rapid or +precipitous. Thus the nickname given John Sevier by his devotees +had a dual application. He was well called Nolichucky Jack. + + +When Virginia annulled Richard Henderson's immense purchase but +allowed him a large tract on the Cumberland, she by no means +discouraged that intrepid pioneer. Henderson's tenure of Kentucky +had been brief, but not unprofitable in experience. He had +learned that colonies must be treated with less commercial +pressure and with more regard to individual liberty, if they were +to be held loyal either to a King beyond the water or to an +uncrowned leader nearer at hand. He had been making his plans for +colonization of that portion of the Transylvania purchase which +lay within the bounds of North Carolina along the Cumberland and +choosing his men to lay the foundations of his projected +settlement in what was then a wholly uninhabited country; and he +had decided on generous terms, such as ten dollars a thousand +acres for land, the certificate of purchase to entitle the holder +to further proceedings in the land office without extra fees. +To head an enterprise of such danger and hardship Henderson +required a man of more than mere courage; a man of resource, of +stability, of proven powers, one whom other men would follow and +obey with confidence. So it was that James Robertson was chosen +to lead the first white settlers into middle Tennessee. He set +out in February, 1779, accompanied by his brother, Mark +Robertson, several other white men, and a negro, to select a site +for settlement and to plant corn. Meanwhile another small party +led by Gaspar Mansker had arrived. As the boundary line between +Virginia and North Carolina had not been run to this point, +Robertson believed that the site he had chosen lay within +Virginia and was in the disposal of General Clark. To protect the +settlers, therefore, he journeyed into the Illinois country to +purchase cabin rights from Clark, but there he was evidently +convinced that the site on the Cumberland would be found to lie +within North Carolina. He returned to Watauga to lead a party of +settlers into the new territory, towards which they set out in +October. After crossing the mountain chain through Cumberland +Gap, the party followed Boone's road--the Warriors' Path--for +some distance and then made their own trail southwestward through +the wilderness to the bluffs on the Cumberland, where they built +cabins to house them against one of the coldest winters ever +experienced in that county. So were laid the first foundations of +the present city of Nashville, at first named Nashborough by +Robertson.* On the way, Robertson had fallen in with a party of +men and families bound for Kentucky and had persuaded them to +accompany his little band to the Cumberland. Robertson's own wife +and children, as well as the families of his party, had been left +to follow in the second expedition, which was to be made by water +under the command of Captain John Donelson. + +* In honor of General Francis Nash, of North Carolina, who was +mortally wounded at Germantown, 1777. + + +The little fleet of boats containing the settlers, their +families, and all their household goods, was to start from Fort +Patrick Henry, near Long Island in the Holston River, to float +down into the Tennessee and along the 652 miles of that widely +wandering stream to the Ohio, and then to proceed up the Ohio to +the mouth of the Cumberland and up the Cumberland until +Robertson's station should appear--a journey, as it turned out, +of some nine hundred miles through unknown country and on waters +at any rate for the greater part never before navigated by white +men. + +"Journal of a voyage, intended by God's permission, in the good +boat Adventure" is the title of the log book in which Captain +Donelson entered the events of the four months' journey. Only a +few pages endured to be put into print: but those few tell a tale +of hazard and courage that seems complete. Could a lengthier +narrative, even if enriched with literary art and fancy, bring +before us more vividly than do the simple entries of Donelson's +log the spirit of the men and the women who won the West? If so +little personal detail is recorded of the pioneer men of that day +that we must deduce what they were from what they did, what do we +know of their unfailing comrades, the pioneer women? Only that +they were there and that they shared in every test of courage and +endurance, save the march of troops and the hunt. Donelson's +"Journal" therefore has a special value, because in its terse +account of Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Peyton it depicts unforgettably +the quality of pioneer womanhood.* + +* This Journal is printed in Ramsey's "Annals of Tennessee." + + +"December 22nd, 1779. Took our departure from the fort and fell +down the river to the mouth of Reedy Creek where we were stopped +by the fall of water and most excessive hard frost." + + +Perhaps part of the "Journal" was lost, or perhaps the "excessive +hard frost" of that severe winter, when it is said even droves of +wild game perished, prevented the boats, from going on, for the +next entry is dated the 27th of February. On this date the +Adventure and two other boats grounded and lay on the shoals all +that afternoon and the succeeding night "in much distress." + + +"March 2nd. Rain about half the day.... Mr. Henry's boat being +driven on the point of an island by the force of the current was +sunk, the whole cargo much damaged and the crew's lives much +endangered, which occasioned the whole fleet to put on shore and +go to their assistance.... + +"Monday 6th. Got under way before sunrise; the morning proving +very foggy, many of the fleet were much bogged--about 10 o'clock +lay by for them; when collected, proceeded down. Camped on the +north shore, where Captain Hutching's negro man died, being much +frosted in his feet and legs, of which he died. + +"Tuesday, 7th. Got under way very early; the day proving very +windy, a S.S.W., and the river being wide occasioned a high sea, +insomuch that some of the smaller crafts were in danger; +therefore came to at the uppermost Chiccamauga town, which was +then evacuated, where we lay by that afternoon and camped that +night. The wife of Ephraim Peyton was here delivered of a child. +Mr. Peyton has gone through by land with Captain Robertson. + +"Wednesday 8th...proceed down to an Indian village which was +inhabited...they insisted on us to come ashore, called us +brothers, and showed other signs of friendship.... And here +we must regret the unfortunate death of young Mr. Payne, on board +Captain Blakemore's boat, who was mortally wounded by reason of +the boat running too near the northern shore opposite the town, +where some of the enemy lay concealed; and the more tragical +misfortune of poor Stuart, his family and friends, to the number +of twenty-eight persons. This man had embarked with us for the +Western country, but his family being diseased with the small +pox, it was agreed upon between him and the company that he +should keep at some distance in the rear, for fear of the +infection spreading, and he was warned each night when the +encampment should take place by the sound of a horn.... The +Indians having now collected to a considerable number, observing +his helpless situation singled off from the rest of the fleet, +intercepted him and killed and took prisoners the whole crew...; +their cries were distinctly heard...". + + +After describing a running fight with Indians stationed on the +bluffs on both shores where the river narrowed to half its width +and boiled through a canyon, the entry for the day concludes: +"Jennings's boat is missing." + + +"Friday 10th. This morning about 4 o'clock we were surprised by +the cries of "help poor Jennings" at some distance in the rear. +He had discovered us by our fires and came up in the most +wretched condition. He states that as soon as the Indians +discovered his situation [his boat had run on a rock] they turned +their whole attention to him and kept up a most galling fire at +his boat. He ordered his wife, a son nearly grown, a young man +who accompanies them and his negro man and woman, to throw all +his goods into the river to lighten their boat for the purpose of +getting her off; himself returning their fire as well as he +could, being a good soldier and an excellent marksman. But before +they had accomplished their object, his son, the young man and +the negro, jumped out of the boat and left.... Mrs. Jennings, +however, and the negro woman, succeeded in unloading the boat, +but chiefly by the exertions of Mrs. Jennings who got out of the +boat and shoved her off, but was near falling a victim to her own +intrepidity on account of the boat starting so suddenly as soon +as loosened from the rock. Upon examination he appears to have +made a wonderful escape for his boat is pierced in numberless +places with bullets. It is to be remarked that Mrs. Peyton, who +was the night before delivered of an infant, which was +unfortunately killed upon the hurry and confusion consequent upon +such a disaster, assisted them, being frequently exposed to wet +and cold.... Their clothes were very much cut with bullets, +especially Mrs. Jennings's." + + +Of the three men who deserted, while the women stood by under +fire, the negro was drowned and Jennings's son and the other +young man were captured by the Chickamaugans. The latter was +burned at the stake. Young Jennings was to have shared the same +fate; but a trader in the village, learning that the boy was +known to John Sevier, ransomed him by a large payment of goods, +as a return for an act of kindness Sevier had once done to him. + + +"Sunday 12th.... After running until about 10 o'clock came in +sight of the Muscle Shoals. Halted on the northern shore at the +appearance of the shoals, in order to search for the signs +Captain James Robertson was to make for us at that place...that +it was practicable for us to go across by land...we can +find none--from which we conclude that it would not be prudent to +make the attempt and are determined, knowing ourselves in such +imminent danger, to pursue our journey down the river.... +When we approached them [the Shoals] they had a dreadful +appearance.... The water being high made a terrible roaring, +which could be heard at some distance, among the driftwood heaped +frightfully upon the points of the islands, the current running +in every. possible direction. Here we did not know how soon we +should be dashed to pieces and all our troubles ended at once... +Our boats frequently dragged on the bottom and appeared +constantly in danger of striking. They warped as much as in a +rough sea. But by the hand of Providence we are now preserved +from this danger also. I know not the length of this wonderful +shoal; it had been represented to me to be twenty-five or thirty +miles. If so, we must have descended very rapidly, as indeed we +did, for we passed it in about three hours." + + +On the twentieth the little fleet arrived at the mouth of the +Tennessee and the voyagers landed on the bank of the Ohio. + + +"Our situation here is truly disagreeable. The river is very high +and the current rapid, our boats not constructed for the purpose +of stemming a rapid stream, our provisions exhausted, the crews +almost worn down with hunger and fatigue, and know not what +distance we have to go or what time it will take us to our place +of destination. The scene is rendered still more melancholy as +several boats will not attempt to ascend the rapid current. Some +intend to descend the Mississippi to Natchez; others are bound +for the Illinois--among the rest my son-in-law and daughter. We +now part, perhaps to meet no more, for I am determined to pursue +my course, happen what will. + +"Tuesday 21st. Set out and on this day labored very hard and got +but little way.... Passed the two following days as the +former, suffering much from hunger and fatigue. + +"Friday 24th. About three o'clock came to the mouth of a river +which I thought was the Cumberland. Some of the company declared +it could not be--it was so much smaller than was expected.... +We determined however to make the trial, pushed up some distance +and encamped for the night. + +"Saturday 25th. Today we are much encouraged; the river grows +wider;...we are now convinced it is the Cumberland.... + +"Sunday 26th...procured some buffalo meat; though poor it was +palatable. + +"Friday 31st...met with Colonel Richard Henderson, who is +running the line between Virginia and North Carolina. At this +meeting we were much rejoiced. He gave us every information we +wished, and further informed us that he had purchased a quantity +of corn in Kentucky, to be shipped at the Falls of Ohio for the +use of the Cumberland settlement. We are now without bread and +are compelled to hunt the buffalo to preserve life.... + +"Monday, April 24th. This day we arrived at our journey's end at +the Big Salt Lick, where we have the pleasure of finding Captain +Robertson and his company. It is a source of satisfaction to us +to be enabled to restore to him and others their families and +friends, who were entrusted to our care, and who, sometime since, +perhaps, despaired of ever meeting again...." + + +Past the camps of the Chickamaugans--who were retreating farther +and farther down the twisting flood, seeking a last standing +ground in the giant caves by the Tennessee--these white voyagers +had steered their pirogues. Near Robertson's station, where they +landed after having traversed the triangle of the three great +rivers which enclose the larger part of western Tennessee, stood +a crumbling trading house marking the defeat of a Frenchman who +had, one time, sailed in from the Ohio to establish an outpost of +his nation there. At a little distance were the ruins of a rude +fort cast up by the Cherokees in the days when the redoubtable +Chickasaws had driven them from the pleasant shores of the +western waters. Under the towering forest growth lay vast burial +mounds and the sunken foundations of walled towns, telling of a +departed race which had once flashed its rude paddles and had its +dream of permanence along the courses of these great waterways. +Now another tribe had come to dream that dream anew. Already its +primitive keels had traced the opening lines of its history on +the face of the immemorial rivers. + + + +Chapter IX. King's Mountain + +About the time when James Robertson went from Watauga to fling +out the frontier line three hundred miles farther westward, the +British took Savannah. In 1780 they took Charleston and Augusta, +and overran Georgia. Augusta was the point where the old trading +path forked north and west, and it was the key to the Back +Country and the overhill domain. In Georgia and the Back Country +of South Carolina there were many Tories ready to rally to the +King's standard whenever a King's officer should carry it through +their midst. A large number of these Tories were Scotch, chiefly +from the Highlands. In fact, as we have seen, Scotch blood +predominated among the racial streams in the Back Country from +Georgia to Pennsylvania. Now, to insure a triumphant march +northward for Cornwallis and his royal troops, these sons of +Scotland must be gathered together, the loyal encouraged and +those of rebellious tendencies converted, and they must be +drilled and turned to account. This task, if it were to be +accomplished successfully, must be entrusted to an offcer with +positive qualifications, one who would command respect, whose +personal address would attract men and disarm opposition, and +especially one who could go as a Scot among his own clan. +Cornwallis found his man in Major. Patrick Ferguson. + +Ferguson was a Highlander, a son of Lord Pitfour of Aberdeen, and +thirty-six years of age. He was of short stature for a +Highlander--about five feet eight--lean and dark, with straight +black hair. He had a serious unhandsome countenance which, at +casual glance, might not arrest attention; but when he spoke he +became magnetic, by reason of the intelligence and innate force +that gleamed in his eyes and the convincing sincerity of his +manner. He was admired and respected by his brother officers and +by the commanders under whom he had served, and he was loved by +his men. + +He had seen his first service in the Seven Years' War, having +joined the British army in Flanders at the age of fifteen; and he +had early distinguished himself for courage and coolness. In +1768, as a captain of infantry, he quelled an insurrection of the +natives on the island of St. Vincent in the West Indies. Later, +at Woolwich, he took up the scientific study of his profession of +arms. He not only became a crack shot, but he invented a new type +of rifle which he could load at the breach without ramrod and so +quickly as to fire seven times in a minute. Generals and +statesmen attended his exhibitions of shooting; and even the King +rode over at the head of his guards to watch Ferguson rapidly +loading and firing. + +In America under Cornwallis, Ferguson had the reputation of being +the best shot in the army; and it was soon said that, in his +quickness at loading and firing, he excelled the most expert +American frontiersman. Eyewitnesses have left their testimony +that, seeing a bird alight on a bough or rail, he would drop his +bridle rein, draw his pistol, toss it in the air, catch and aim +it as it fell, and shoot the bird's head off. He was given +command of a corps of picked riflemen; and in the Battle of the +Brandywine in 1777 he rendered services which won acclaim from +the whole army. For the honor of that day's service to his King, +Ferguson paid what from him, with his passion for the rifle, must +have been the dearest price that could have been demanded. His +right arm was shattered, and for the remaining three years of his +short life it hung useless at his side. Yet he took up swordplay +and attained a remarkable degree of skill as a left-handed +swordsman. + +Such was Ferguson, the soldier. What of the man? For he has been +pictured as a wolf and a fiend and a coward by early chroniclers, +who evidently felt that they were adding to the virtue of those +who fought in defense of liberty by representing all their foes +as personally odious. We can read his quality of manhood in a few +lines of the letter he sent to his kinsman, the noted Dr. Adam +Ferguson, about an incident that occurred at Chads Ford. As he +was lying with his men in the woods, in front of Knyphausen's +army, so he relates, he saw two American officers ride out. He +describes their dress minutely. One was in hussar uniform. The +other was in a dark green and blue uniform with a high cocked hat +and was mounted on a bay horse: + +"I ordered three good shots to steal near to and fire at them; +but the idea disgusting me, I recalled the order. The hussar in +retiring made a circuit, but the other passed within a hundred +yards of us, upon which I advanced from the wood towards him. +Upon my calling he stopped; but after looking at me he proceeded. +I again drew his attention and made signs to him to stop; +levelling my piece at him; but he slowly cantered away. As I was +within that distance, at which, in the quickest firing, I could +have lodged half a dozen balls in or about him before he was out +of my reach, I had only to determine. But it was not pleasant to +fire at the back of an unoffending individual who was acquitting +himself very coolly of his duty--so I let him alone. The day +after, I had been telling this story to some wounded officers, +who lay in the same room with me, when one of the surgeons who +had been dressing the wounded rebel officers came in and told us +that they had been informing him that General Washington was all +the morning with the light troops, and only attended by a French +officer in hussar dress, he himself dressed and mounted in every +point as above described. I AM NOT SORRY THAT I DID NOT KNOW AT +THE TIME WHO IT WAS.* + +*Doubt that the officer in question was Washington was expressed +by James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper stated that Major De Lancey, his +father-in-law, was binding Ferguson's arm at the time when the +two officers were seen and Ferguson recalled the order to fire, +and that De Lancey said he believed the officer was Count +Pulaski. But, as Ferguson, according to his own account, "leveled +his piece" at the officer, his arm evidently was not wounded +until later in the day. The probability is that Ferguson's +version, written in a private letter to his relative, is correct +as to the facts, whatever may be conjectured as to the identity +of the officer. See Draper's King's "Mountain and its Heroes," +pp. 52-54. + + +Ferguson had his code towards the foe's women also. On one +occasion when he was assisting in an action carried out by +Hessians and Dragoons, he learned that some American women had +been shamefully maltreated. He went in a white fury to the +colonel in command, and demanded that the men who had so +disgraced their uniforms instantly be put to death. + +In rallying the loyalists of the Back Country of Georgia and the +Carolinas, Ferguson was very successful. He was presently in +command of a thousand or more men, including small detachments of +loyalists from New York and New Jersey, under American-born +officers such as De Peyster and Allaire. There were good honest +men among the loyalists and there were also rough and vicious men +out for spoils--which was true as well of the Whigs or Patriots +from the same counties. Among the rough element were Tory +banditti from the overmountain region. It is to be gathered from +Ferguson's records that he did not think any too highly of some +of his new recruits, but he set to work with all energy to make +them useful. + +The American Patriots hastily prepared to oppose him. Colonel +Charles McDowell of Burke County, North Carolina, with a small +force of militia was just south of the line at a point on the +Broad River when he heard that Ferguson was sweeping on +northward. In haste he sent a call for help across the mountains +to Sevier and Shelby. Sevier had his hands full at Watauga, but +he dispatched two hundred of his troops; and Isaac Shelby, with a +similar force from Sullivan County crossed the mountains to +McDowell's assistance. These "overmountain men" or "backwater +men," as they were called east of the hills, were trained in +Sevier's method of Indian warfare--the secret approach through +the dark, the swift dash, and the swifter flight. "Fight strong +and run away fast" was the Indian motto, as their women had often +been heard to call it after the red men as they ran yelling to +fall on the whites. The frontiersmen had adapted the motto to fit +their case, as they had also made their own the Indian tactics of +ambuscade and surprise attacks at dawn. To sleep, or ride if +needs must, by night, and to fight by day and make off, was to +them a reasonable soldier's life. + +But Ferguson was a night marauder. The terror of his name, which +grew among the Whigs of the Back Country until the wildest +legends about his ferocity were current, was due chiefly to a +habit he had of pouncing on his foes in the middle of the night +and pulling them out of bed to give fight or die. It was +generally both fight and die, for these dark adventures of his +were particularly successful. Ferguson knew no neutrals or +conscientious objectors; any man who would not carry arms for the +King was a traitor, and his life and goods were forfeit. A report +of his reads: "The attack being made at night, no quarter could +be given." Hence his wolfish fame. "Werewolf " would have been a +fit name for him for, though he was a wolf at night, in the +daylight he was a man and, as we have seen, a chivalrous one. + +In the guerrilla fighting that went on for a brief time between +the overmountain men and various detachments of Ferguson's +forces, sometimes one side, sometimes the other, won the heat. +But the field remained open. Neither side could claim the +mastery. In a minor engagement fought at Musgrove's Mill on the +Enoree, Shelby's command came off victor and was about to pursue +the enemy towards Ninety-Six when a messenger from McDowell +galloped madly into camp with word of General Gates's crushing +defeat at Camden. This was a warning for Shelby's guerrillas to +flee as birds to their mountains, or Ferguson would cut them off +from the north and wedge them in between his own force and the +victorious Cornwallis. McDowell's men, also on the run for +safety, joined them. For forty-eight hours without food or rest +they rode a race with Ferguson, who kept hard on their trail +until they disappeared into the mystery of the winding mountain +paths they alone knew. + +Ferguson reached the gap where they had swerved into the towering +hills only half an hour after their horses' hoofs had pounded +across it. Here he turned back. His troops were exhausted from +the all-night ride and, in any case, there were not enough of +them to enable him to cross the mountains and give the Watauga +men battle on their own ground with a fair promise of victory. So +keeping east of the hills but still close to them, Ferguson +turned into Burke County, North Carolina. He sat him down in +Gilbert Town (present Lincolnton, Lincoln County) at the foot of +the Blue Ridge and indited a letter to the "Back Water Men," +telling them that if they did not lay down their arms and return +to their rightful allegiance, he would come over their hills and +raze their settlements and hang their leaders. He paroled a +kinsman of Shelby's, whom he had taken prisoner in the chase, and +sent him home with the letter. Then he set about his usual +business of gathering up Tories and making soldiers of them, and +of hunting down rebels. + +One of the "rebels" was a certain Captain Lytle. When Ferguson +drew up at Lytle's door, Lytle had already made his escape; but +Mrs. Lytle was there. She was a very handsome woman and she had +dressed herself in her best to receive Ferguson, who was reported +a gallant as well as a wolf. After a few spirited passages +between the lady in the doorway and the officer on the white +horse before it, the latter advised Mrs. Lytle to use her +influence to bring her husband back to his duty. She became grave +then and answered that her husband would never turn traitor to +his country. Ferguson frowned at the word "traitor," but +presently he said: "Madam, I admire you as the handsomest woman I +have seen in North Carolina. I even half way admire your zeal in +a bad cause. But take my word for it, the rebellion has had its +day and is now virtually put down. Give my regards to Captain +Lytle and tell him to come in. He wiil not be asked to compromise +his honor. His verbal pledge not again to take up arms against +the King is all that will be asked of him."* + +* Draper,"King's Mountain and its Heroes," pp. 151-53. + + +This was another phase of the character of the one-armed +Highlander whose final challenge to the backwater men was now +being considered in every log cabin beyond the hills. A man who +would not shoot an enemy in the back, who was ready to put the +same faith in another soldier's honor which he knew was due to +his own, yet in battle a wolfish fighter who leaped through the +dark to give no quarter and to take none--he was fit challenger +to those other mountaineers who also had a chivalry of their own, +albeit they too were wolves of war. + +When Shelby on the Holston received Ferguson's pungent letter, he +flung himself on his horse and rode posthaste to Watauga to +consult, with Sevier. He found the bank of the Nolichucky teeming +with merrymakers. Nolichucky ,Jack was giving an immense barbecue +and a horse race. Without letting the festival crowd have an +inkling of the serious nature of Shelby's errand, the two men +drew apart to confer. It is said to have been Sevier's idea that +they should muster the forces of the western country and go in +search of Ferguson ere the latter should be able to get +sufficient reinforcements to cross the mountains. Sevier, like +Ferguson, always preferred to seek his foe, knowing well the +advantage of the offensive. Messengers were sent to Colonel +William Campbell of the Virginia settlements on the Clinch, +asking his aid. Campbell at first refused, thinking it better to +fortify the positions they held and let Ferguson come and put the +mountains between himself and Cornwallis. On receipt of a second +message, however, he concurred. The call to arms was heard up and +down the valleys, and the frontiersmen poured into Watauga. The +overhill men were augmented by McDowell's troops from Burke +County, who had dashed over the mountains a few weeks before in +their escape from Ferguson. + +At daybreak on the 26th of September they mustered at the +Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga, over a thousand strong. It was a +different picture they made from that other great gathering at +the same spot when Henderson had made his purchase in money of +the Dark and Bloody Ground, and Sevier and Robertson had bought +for the Wataugans this strip of Tennessee. There were no Indians +in this picture. Dragging Canoe, who had uttered his bloody +prophecy, had by these very men been driven far south into the +caves of the Tennessee River. But the Indian prophecy still hung +over them, and in this day with a heavier menace. Not with money, +now, were they to seal their purchase of the free land by the +western waters. There had been no women in that other picture, +only the white men who were going forward to open the way and the +red men who were retreating. But in this picture there were +women--wives and children, mothers, sisters, and sweethearts. All +the women of the settlement were there at this daybreak muster to +cheer on their way the men who were going out to battle that they +might keep the way of liberty open not for men only but for women +and children also. And the battle to which the men were now going +forth must be fought against Back Country men of their own stripe +under a leader who, in other circumstances, might well have been +one of themselves--a primitive spirit of hardy mountain stock, +who, having once taken his stand, would not barter and would not +retreat. + +"With the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" cried their pastor, +the Reverend Samuel Doak, with upraised hands, as the +mountaineers swung into their saddles. And it is said that all +the women took up his words and cried again and again, "With the +sword of the Lord and of our Gideons!" To the shouts of their +women, as bugles on the wind of dawn, the buckskin-shirted army +dashed out upon the mountain trail. + +The warriors' equipment included rifles and ammunition, +tomahawks, knives, shot pouches, a knapsack, and a blanket for +each man. Their uniforms were leggings, breeches, and long loose +shirts of gayly fringed deerskin, or of the linsey-woolsey spun +by their women. Their hunting shirts were bound in at the waist +by bright-colored linsey sashes tied behind in a bow. They wore +moccasins for footgear, and on their heads high fur or deerskin +caps trimmed with colored bands of raveled cloth. Around their +necks hung their powderhorns ornamented with their own rude +carvings. + +On the first day they drove along with them a number of beeves +but, finding that the cattle impeded the march, they left them +behind on the mountain side. Their provisions thereafter were +wild game and the small supply each man carried of mixed corn +meal and maple sugar. For drink, they had the hill streams. + +They passed upward between Roan and Yellow mountains to the top +of the range. Here, on the bald summit, where the loose snow lay +to their ankles, they halted for drill and rifle practice. When +Sevier called up his men, he discovered that two were missing. He +suspected at once that they had slipped away to carry warning to +Ferguson, for Watauga was known to be infested with Tories. Two +problems now confronted the mountaineers. They must increase the +speed of their march, so that Ferguson should not have time to +get reinforcements from Cornwallis; and they must make that extra +speed by another trail than they had intended taking so that they +themselves could not be intercepted before they had picked up the +Back Country militia under Colonels Cleveland, Hampbright, +Chronicle, and Williams, who were moving to join them. We are not +told who took the lead when they left the known trail, but we may +suppose it was Sevier and his Wataugans, for the making of new +warpaths and wild riding were two of the things which +distinguished Nolichucky Jack's leadership. Down the steep side +of the mountain, finding their way as they plunged, went the +overhill men. They crossed the Blue Ridge at Gillespie's Gap and +pushed on to Quaker Meadows, where Colonel Cleveland with 350 men +swung into their column. Along their route, the Back Country +Patriots with their rifles came out from the little hamlets and +the farms and joined them. + +They now had an army of perhaps fifteen hundred men but no +commanding officer. Thus far, on the march, the four colonels had +conferred together and agreed as to procedure; or, in reality, +the influence of Sevier and Shelby, who had planned the +enterprise and who seem always to have acted in unison, had +swayed the others. It would be, however, manifestly improper to +go into battle without a real general. Something must be done. +McDowell volunteered to carry a letter explaining their need to +General Gates, who had escaped with some of his staff into North +Carolina and was not far off. It then occurred to Sevier and +Shelby, evidently for the first time, that Gates, on receiving +such a request, might well ask why the Governor of North +Carolina, as the military head of the State, had not provided a +commander. The truth is that Sevier and Shelby had been so busy +drumming up the militia and planning their campaign that they had +found no time to consult the Governor. Moreover, the means +whereby the expedition had been financed might not have appealed +to the chief executive. After finding it impossible to raise +sufficient funds on his personal credit, Sevier had appropriated +the entry money in the government land office to the business in +hand--with the good will of the entry taker, who was a patriotic +man, although, as he had pointed out, he could not, OFFICIALLY, +hand over the money. Things being as they were, no doubt +Nolichucky Jack felt that an interview with the Governor had +better be deferred until after the capture of Ferguson. Hence the +tenor of this communication to General Gates: + +"As we have at this time called out our militia without any +orders from the Executive of our different States and with the +view of expelling the Enemy out of this part of the Country, we +think such a body of men worthy of your attention and would +request you to send a General Officer immediately to take the +command.... All our Troops being Militia and but little +acquainted with discipline, we could wish him to be a Gentleman +of address, and able to keep up a proper discipline WITHOUT +DISGUSTING THE SOLDIERY." + +For some unknown reason--unless it might be the wording of this +letter!--no officer was sent in reply. Shelby then suggested +that, since all the officers but Campbell were North Carolinians +and, therefore, no one of them could be promoted without arousing +the jealousy of the others, Campbell, as the only Virginian, was +the appropriate choice. The sweet reasonableness of selecting a +commander from such a motive appealed to all, and Campbell became +a general in fact if not in name! Shelby's principal aim, +however, had been to get rid of McDowell, who, as their senior, +would naturally expect to command and whom he considered "too far +advanced in life and too inactive" for such an enterprise. At +this time McDowell must have been nearly thirty-nine; and Shelby, +who was just thirty, wisely refused to risk the campaign under a +general who was in his dotage! + +News of the frontiersmen's approach, with their augmented force, +now numbering between sixteen and eighteen hundred, had reached +Ferguson by the two Tories who had deserted from Sevier's troops. +Ferguson thereupon had made all haste out of Gilbert Town and was +marching southward to get in touch with Cornwallis. His force was +much reduced, as some of his men were in pursuit of Elijah Clarke +towards Augusta and a number of his other Tories were on +furlough. As he passed through the Back Country he posted a +notice calling on the loyalists to join him. If the overmountain +men felt that they were out on a wolf hunt, Ferguson's +proclamation shows what the wolf thought of his hunters. + +"To the Inhabitants of North Carolina. + +"Gentlemen: Unless you wish to be eat up by an innundation of +barbarians, who have begun by murdering an unarmed son before the +aged father, and afterwards lopped off his arms, and who by their +shocking cruelties and irregularities give the best proof of +their cowardice and want of discipline: I say if you wish to be +pinioned, robbed and murdered, and see your wives and daughters +in four days, abused by the dregs of mankind--in short if you +wish to deserve to live and bear the name of men, grasp your arms +in a moment and run to camp. + +"The Back Water men have crossed the mountains: McDowell, +Hampton, Shelby, and Cleveland are at their head, so that you +know what you have to depend upon. If you choose to be degraded +forever and ever by a set of mongrels, say so at once, and let +your women turn their backs upon you, and look out for real men +to protect them. + +"Pat. Ferguson, Major 71st Regiment."* + +* Draper, "King's Mountain and its Heroes," p. 204. + + +Ferguson's force has been estimated at about eleven hundred men, +but it is likely that this estimate does not take the absentees +into consideration. In the diary of Lieutenant Allaire, one of +his officers, the number is given as only eight hundred. Because +of the state of his army, chroniclers have found Ferguson's +movements, after leaving Gilbert Town, difficult to explain. It +has been pointed out that he could easily have escaped, for he +had plenty of time, and Charlotte, Cornwallis's headquarters, was +only sixty miles distant. We have seen something of Ferguson's +quality, however, and we may simply take it that he did not want +to escape. He had been planning to cross the high hills--to him, +the Highlander, no barrier but a challenge--to fight these men. +Now that they had taken the initiative he would not show them his +back. He craved the battle. So he sent out runners to the main +army and rode on along the eastern base of the mountains, seeking +a favorable site to go into camp and wait for Cornwallis's aid. +On the 6th of October he reached the southern end of the King's +Mountain ridge, in South Carolina, about half a mile south of the +northern boundary. Here a rocky, semi-isolated spur juts out from +the ridge, its summit--a table-land about six hundred yards long +and one hundred and twenty wide at its northern end--rising not +more than sixty feet above the surrounding country. On the summit +Ferguson pitched his camp. + +The hill was a natural fortress, its sides forested, its bald top +protected by rocks and bowlders. All the approaches led through +dense forest. An enemy force, passing through the immediate, +wooded territory, might easily fail to discover a small army +nesting sixty feet above the shrouding leafage. Word was +evidently brought to Ferguson here, telling him the now augmented +number of his foe, for he dispatched another emissary to +Cornwallis with a letter stating the number of his own troops and +urging full and immediate assistance. + +Meanwhile the frontiersmen had halted at the Cowpens. There they +feasted royally off roasted cattle and corn belonging to the +loyalist who owned the Cowpens. It is said that they mowed his +fifty acres of corn in an hour. And here one of their spies, in +the assumed role of a Tory, learned Ferguson's plans, his +approximate force, his route, and his system of communication +with Cornwallis. The officers now held council and determined to +take a detachment of the hardiest and fleetest horsemen and sweep +down on the enemy before aid could reach him. About nine o'clock +that evening, according to Shelby's report, 910 mounted men set +off at full speed, leaving the main body of horse and foot to +follow after at their best pace. + +Rain poured down on them all that night as they rode. At daybreak +they crossed the Broad at Cherokee Ford and dashed on in the +drenching rain all the forenoon. They kept their firearms and +powder dry by wrapping them in their knapsacks, blankets, and +hunting shirts. The downpour had so churned up the soil that many +of the horses mired, but they were pulled out and whipped forward +again. The wild horsemen made no halt for food or rest. Within +two miles of King's Mountain they captured Ferguson's messenger +with the letter that told of his desperate situation. They asked +this man how they should know Ferguson. He told them that +Ferguson was in full uniform but wore a checkered shirt or dust +cloak over it. This was not the only messenger of Ferguson's who +failed to carry through. The men he had sent out previously had +been followed and, to escape capture or death, they had been +obliged to lie in hiding, so that they did not reach Cornwallis +until the day of the battle. + +At three o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th of October, the +overmountain men were in the forest at the base of the hill. The +rain had ceased and the sun was shining. They dismounted and +tethered their steaming horses. Orders were given that every man +was to "throw the priming out of his pan, pick his touchhole, +prime anew, examine bullets and see that everything was in +readiness for battle." The plan of battle agreed on was to +surround the hill, hold the enemy on the top and, themselves +screened by the trees, keep pouring in their fire. There was a +good chance that most of the answering fire would go over their +heads. + +As Shelby's men crossed a gap in the woods, the outposts on the +hill discovered their presence and sounded the alarm. Ferguson +sprang to horse, blowing his silver whistle to call his men to +attack. His riflemen poured fire into Shelby's contingent, but +meanwhile the frontiersmen on the other sides were creeping up, +and presently a circle of fire burst upon the hill. With fixed +bayonets, some of Ferguson's men charged down the face of the +slope, against the advancing foe, only to be shot in the back as +they charged. Still time and time again they charged; the +overhill men reeled and retreated; but always their comrades took +toll with their rifles; Ferguson's men, preparing for a mounted +charge, were shot even as they swung to their saddles. Ferguson, +with his customary indifference to danger, rode up and down in +front of his line blowing his whistle to encourage his men. +"Huzza, brave boys! The day is our own!" Thus he was heard to +shout above the triumphant war whoops of the circling foe, +surging higher and higher about the hill. + +But there were others in his band who knew the fight was lost. +The overmountain men saw two white handkerchiefs, axed to +bayonets, raised above the rocks; and then they saw Ferguson dash +by and slash them down with his sword. Two horses were shot under +Ferguson in the latter part of the action; but he mounted a third +and rode again into the thick of the fray. Suddenly the cry +spread among the attacking troops that the British officer, +Tarleton, had come to Ferguson's rescue; and the mountaineers +began to give way. But it was only the galloping horses of their +own comrades; Tarleton had not come. Nolichucky Jack spurred out +in front of his men and rode along the line. Fired by his courage +they sounded the war whoop again and renewed the attack with +fury. + +"These are the same yelling devils that were at Musgrove's Mill," +said Captain De Peyster to Ferguson. + +Now Shelby and Sevier, leading his Wataugans, had reached the +summit. The firing circle pressed in. The buckskin-shirted +warriors leaped the rocky barriers, swinging their tomahawks and +long knives. Again the white handkerchiefs fluttered. Ferguson +saw that the morale of his troops was shattered. + +"Surrender," De Peyster, his second in command, begged of him. + +"Surrender to those damned banditti? Never!" + +Ferguson turned his horse's head downhill and charged into the +Wataugans, hacking right and left with his sword till it was +broken at the hilt. A dozen rifles were leveled at him. An iron +muzzle pushed at his breast, but the powder flashed in the pan. +He swerved and struck at the rifleman with his broken hilt. But +the other guns aimed at him spoke; and Ferguson's body jerked +from the saddle pierced by eight bullets. Men seized the bridle +of the frenzied horse, plunging on with his dead master dragging +from the stirrup. + +The battle had lasted less than an hour. After Ferguson fell, De +Peyster advanced with a white flag and surrendered his sword to +Campbell. Other white flags waved along the hilltop. But the +killing did not yet cease. It is said that many of the +mountaineers did not know the significance of the white flag. +Sevier's sixteen-year-old son, having heard that his father had +fallen, kept on furiously loading and firing until presently he +saw Sevier ride in among the troops and command them to stop +shooting men who had surrendered and thrown down their arms. + +The victors made a bonfire of the enemy's baggage wagons and +supplies. Then they killed some of his beeves and cooked them; +they had had neither food nor sleep for eighteen hours. They dug +shallow trenches for the dead and scattered the loose earth over +them. Ferguson's body, stripped of its uniform and boots and +wrapped in a beef hide, was thrown into one of these ditches by +the men detailed to the burial work, while the officers divided +his personal effects among themselves. + +The triumphant army turned homeward as the dusk descended. The +uninjured prisoners and the wounded who were able to walk were +marched off carrying their empty firearms. The badly wounded were +left lying where they had fallen. + +At Bickerstaff's Old Fields in Rutherford County the frontiersmen +halted; and here they selected thirty of their prisoners to be +hanged. They swung them aloft, by torchlight, three at a time, +until nine had gone to their last account. Then Sevier +interposed; and, with Shelby's added authority, saved the other +twenty-one. Among those who thus weighted the gallows tree were +some of the Tory brigands from Watauga; but not all the victims +were of this character. Some of the troops would have wreaked +vengeance on the two Tories from Sevier's command who had +betrayed their army plans to Ferguson; but Sevier claimed them as +under his jurisdiction and refused consent. Nolichucky Jack dealt +humanely by his foes. To the coarse and brutish Cleveland, now +astride of Ferguson's horse and wearing his sash, and to the +three hundred who followed him, may no doubt be laid the worst +excesses of the battle's afterpiece. + +Victors and vanquished drove on in the dark, close to the great +flank of hills. From where King's Mountain, strewn with dead and +dying, reared its black shape like some rudely hewn tomb of a +primordial age when titans strove together, perhaps to the ears +of the marching men came faintly through the night's stillness +the howl of a wolf and the answering chorus of the pack. For the +wolves came down to King's Mountain from all the surrounding +hills, following the scent of blood, and made their lair where +the Werewolf had fallen. The scene of the mountaineers' victory, +which marked the turn of the tide for the Revolution, became for +years the chief resort of wolf hunters from both the Carolinas. + +The importance of the overmountain men's victory lay in what it +achieved for the cause of Independence. King's Mountain was the +prelude to Cornwallis's defeat. It heartened the Southern +Patriots, until then cast down by Gates's disaster. To the +British the death of Ferguson was an irreparable loss because of +its depressing effect on the Back Country Tories. Ding's +Mountain, indeed, broke the Tory spirit. Seven days after the +battle General Nathanael Greene succeeded to the command of the +Southern Patriot army which Gates had led to defeat. Greene's +genius met the rising tide of the Patriots' courage and hope and +took it at the flood. His strategy, in dividing his army and +thereby compelling the division of Cornwallis's force, led to +Daniel Morgan's victory at the Cowpens, in the Back Country of +South Carolina, on January 17, 1781--another frontiersmen's +triumph. Though the British won the next engagement between +Greene and Cornwallis--the battle of Guilford Court House in the +North Carolina Back Country, on the 15th of March--Greene +madethem pay so dearly for their victory that Tarleton called it +"the pledge of ultimate defeat"; and, three days later, +Cornwallis was retreating towards Wilmington. In a sense, then, +King's Mountain was the pivot of the war's revolving stage, which +swung the British from their succession of victories towards the +surrender at Yorktown. + +Shelby, Campbell, and Cleveland escorted the prisoners to +Virginia. Sevier, with his men, rode home to Watauga. When the +prisoners had been delivered to the authorities in Virginia, the +Holston men also turned homeward through the hills. Their route +lay down through the Clinch and Holston valleys to the settlement +at the base of the mountains. Sevier and his Wataugans had gone +by Gillespie's Gap, over the pathway that hung like a narrow +ribbon about the breast of Roan Mountain, lifting its crest in +dignified isolation sixty-three hundred feet above the levels. +The "Unakas" was the name the Cherokees had given to those white +men who first invaded their hills; and the Unakas is the name +that white men at last gave to the mountain. + +Great companies of men were to come over the mountain paths on +their way to the Mississippi country and beyond; and with them, +as we know, were to go many of these mountain men, to pass away +with their customs in the transformations that come with +progress. But there were others who clung to these hills. They +were of several stocks--English, Scotch, Highlanders, Ulstermen, +who mingled by marriage and sometimes took their mates from among +the handsome maids of the Cherokees. They spread from the Unakas +of Tennessee into the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky; and they +have remained to this day what they were then, a primitive folk +of strong and fiery men and brave women living as their +forefathers of Watauga and Holston lived. In the log cabins in +those mountains today are heard the same ballads, sung still to +the dulcimer, that entertained the earliest settlers. The women +still turn the old-fashioned spinning wheels. The code of the men +is still the code learned perhaps from the Gaels--the code of the +oath and the feud and the open door to the stranger. Or were +these, the ethical tenets of almost all uncorrupted primitive +tribes, transmitted from the Indian strain and association? Their +young people marry at boy and girl ages, as the pioneers did, and +their wedding festivities are the same as those which made +rejoicing at the first marriage in Watauga. Their common speech +today contains words that have been obsolete in England for a +hundred years. + +Thrice have the mountain men come down again from their +fastnesses to war for America since the day of King's Mountain +and thrice they have acquitted themselves so that their deeds are +noted in history. A souvenir of their part in the War of 1812 at +the Battle of the Thames is kept in one of the favorite names for +mountain girls--"Lake Erie." In the Civil War many volunteers +from the free, non-slaveholding mountain regions of Kentucky and +Tennessee joined the Union Army, and it is said that they +exceeded all others in stature and physical development. And in +our own day their sons again came down from the mountains to +carry the torch of Liberty overseas, and to show the white stars +in their flag side by side with the ancient cross in the flag of +England against which their forefathers fought. + + + +Chapter X. Sevier, The Statemaker + +After King's Mountain, Sevier reached home just in time to fend +off a Cherokee attack on Watauga. Again warning had come to the +settlements that the Indians were about to descend upon them. +Sevier set out at once to meet the red invaders. Learning from +his scouts that the Indians were near he went into ambush with +his troops disposed in the figure of a half-moon, the favorite +Indian formation. He then sent out a small body of men to fire on +the Indians and make a scampering retreat, to lure the enemy on. +The maneuver was so well planned and the ground so well chosen +that the Indian war party would probably have been annihilated +but for the delay of an officer at one horn of the half-moon in +bringing his troops into play. Through the gap thus made the +Indians escaped, with a loss of seventeen of their number. The +delinquent officer was Jonathan Tipton, younger brother of +Colonel John Tipton, of whom we shall hear later. It is possible +that from this event dates the Tiptons' feud with Sevier, which +supplies one of the breeziest pages in the story of early +Tennessee. + +Not content with putting the marauders to flight, Sevier pressed +on after them, burned several of the upper towns, and took +prisoner a number of women and children, thus putting the red +warriors to the depth of shame, for the Indians never deserted +their women in battle. The chiefs at once sued for peace. But +they had made peace often before. Sevier drove down upon the +Hiwassee towns, meanwhile proclaiming that those among the tribe +who were friendly might send their families to the white +settlement, where they would be fed and cared for until a sound +peace should be assured. He also threatened to continue to make +war until his enemies were wiped out, their town sites a heap of +blackened ruins, and their whole country in possession of the +whites, unless they bound themselves to an enduring peace. + +Having compelled the submission of the Otari and Hiwassee towns, +yet finding that depredations still continued, Sevier determined +to invade the group of towns hidden in the mountain fastnesses +near the headwaters of the Little Tennessee where, deeming +themselves inaccessible except by their own trail, the Cherokees +freely plotted mischief and sent out raiding parties. These hill +towns lay in the high gorges of the Great Smoky Mountains, 150 +miles distant. No one in Watauga had ever been in them except +Thomas, the trader, who, however, had reached them from the +eastern side of the mountains. With no knowledge of the Indians' +path and without a guide, yet nothing daunted, Sevier, late in +the summer of 1781 headed his force into the mountains. So steep +were some of the slopes they scaled that the men were obliged to +dismount and help their horses up. Unexpectedly to themselves +perhaps, as well as to the Indians, they descended one morning on +a group of villages and destroyed them. Before the fleeing +savages could rally, the mountaineers had plunged up the steeps +again. Sevier then turned southward into Georgia and inflicted a +severe castigation on the tribes along the Coosa River. + +When, after thirty days of warfare and mad riding, Sevier arrived +at his Bonnie Kate's door on the Nolichucky, he found a messenger +from General Greene calling on him for immediate assistance to +cut off Cornwallis from his expected retreat through North +Carolina. Again he set out, and with two hundred men crossed the +mountains and made all speed to Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, +where he learned that Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown on +October 19, 1781. Under Greene's orders he turned south to the +Santee to assist a fellow scion of the Huguenots, General Francis +Marion, in the pursuit of Stuart's Britishers. Having driven +Stuart into Charleston, Sevier and his active Wataugans returned +home, now perhaps looking forward to a rest, which they had +surely earned. Once more, however, they were hailed with alarming +news. Dragging Canoe had come to life again and was emerging from +the caves of the Tennessee with a substantial force of +Chickamaugan warriors. Again the Wataugans, augmented by a +detachment from Sullivan County, galloped forth, met the red +warriors, chastised them heavily, put them to rout, burned their +dwellings and provender, and drove them back into their hiding +places. For some time after this, the Indians dipped not into the +black paint pots of war but were content to streak their humbled +countenances with the vermilion of beauty and innocence. + + +It should be chronicled that Sevier, assisted possibly by other +Wataugans, eventually returned to the State of North Carolina the +money which he had forcibly borrowed to finance the King's +Mountain expedition; and that neither he nor Shelby received any +pay for their services, nor asked it. Before Shelby left the +Holston in 1782 and moved to Kentucky, of which State he was to +become the first Governor, the Assembly of North Carolina passed +a resolution of gratitude to the overmountain men in general, and +to Sevier and Shelby in particular, for their "very generous and +patriotic services" with which the "General Assembly of this +State are feelingly impressed." The resolution concluded by +urging the recipients of the Assembly's acknowledgments to +"continue" in their noble course. In view of what followed, this +resolution is interesting! + +For some time the overhill pioneers had been growing dissatisfied +with the treatment they were receiving from the State, which on +the plea of poverty had refused to establish a Superior Court for +them and to appoint a prosecutor. As a result, crime was on the +increase, and the law-abiding were deprived of the proper legal +means to check the lawless. In 1784 when the western soldiers' +claims began to reach the Assembly, there to be scrutinized by +unkindly eyes, the dissatisfaction increased. The breasts of the +mountain men--the men who had made that spectacular ride to bring +Ferguson to his end--were kindled with hot indignation when they +heard that they had been publicly assailed as grasping persons +who seized on every pretense to "fabricate demands against the +Government." Nor were those fiery breasts cooled by further +plaints to the effect that the "industry and property" of those +east of the hills were "becoming the funds appropriated to +discharge the debts" of the Westerners. They might with justice +have asked what the industry and property of the Easterners were +worth on that day when the overhill men drilled in the snows on +the high peak of Yellow Mountain and looked down on Burke County +overrun by Ferguson's Tories, and beyond, to Charlotte, where lay +Cornwallis. + +The North Carolina Assembly did not confine itself to impolite +remarks. It proceeded to get rid of what it deemed western +rapacity by ceding the whole overmountain territory to the United +States, with the proviso that Congress must accept the gift +within twelve months. And after passing the Cession Act, North +Carolina closed the land office in the undesired domain and +nullified all entries made after May 25, 1784. The Cession Act +also enabled the State to evade its obligations to the Cherokees +in the matter of an expensive consignment of goods to pay for new +lands. + +This clever stroke of the Assembly's brought about immediate +consequences in the region beyond the hills. The Cherokees, who +knew nothing about the Assembly's system of political economy but +who found their own provokingly upset by the non-arrival of the +promised goods, began again to darken the mixture in their paint +pots; and they dug up the war hatchet, never indeed so deeply +patted down under the dust that it could not be unearthed by a +stub of the toe. Needless to say, it was not the thrifty and +distant Easterners who felt their anger, but the nearby +settlements. + +As for the white overhill dwellers, the last straw had been laid +on their backs; and it felt like a hickory log. No sooner had the +Assembly adjourned than the men of Washington, Sullivan, and +Greene counties, which comprised the settled portion of what is +now east Tennessee, elected delegates to convene for the purpose +of discussing the formation of a new State. They could assert +that they were not acting illegally, for in her first +constitution North Carolina had made provision for a State beyond +the mountains. And necessity compelled them to take steps for +their protection. Some of them, and Sevier was of the number, +doubted if Congress would accept the costly gift; and the +majority realized that during the twelve months which were +allowed for the decision they would have no protection from +either North Carolina or Congress and would not be able to +command their own resources. + +In August, 1784, the delegates met at Jonesborough and passed +preliminary resolutions; and then adjourned to meet later in the +year. The news was soon disseminated through North Carolina and +the Assembly convened in October and hastily repealed the Cession +Act, voted to establish the District of Washington out of the +four counties, and sent word of the altered policy to Sevier, +with a commission for himself as Brigadier General. From the +steps of the improvised convention hall, before which the +delegates had gathered, Sevier read the Assembly's message and +advised his neighbors to proceed no further, since North Carolina +had of her own accord redressed all their grievances. But for +once Nolichucky Jack's followers refused to follow. The adventure +too greatly appealed. Obliged to choose between North Carolina +and his own people, Sevier's hesitation was short. The State of +Frankland, or Land of the Free, was formed; and Nolichucky Jack +was elevated to the office of Governor--with a yearly salary of +two hundred mink skins. + +Perhaps John Tipton had hoped to head the new State, for he had +been one of its prime movers and was a delegate to this +convention. But when the man whom he hated--apparently for no +reason except that other men loved him--assented to the people's +will and was appointed to the highest post within their gift, +Tipton withdrew, disavowing all connection with Frankland and +affirming his loyalty to North Carolina. From this time on, the +feud was an open one. + +That brief and now forgotten State, Frankland, the Land of the +Free, which bequeathed its name as an appellation for America, +was founded as Watauga had been founded--to meet the practical +needs and aspirations of its people. It will be remembered that +one of the things written by Sevier into the only Watauga +document extant was that they desired to become "in every way the +best members of society." Frankland's aims, as recorded, included +the intent to "improve agriculture, perfect manufacturing, +ENCOURAGE LITERATURE and every thing truly laudable." + +The constitution of Frankland, agreed to on the 14th of November, +1785, appeals to us today rather by its spirit than by its +practical provisions. "This State shall be called the +Commonwealth of Frankland and shall be governed by a General +Assembly of the representatives of the freemen of the same, a +Governor and Council, and proper courts of justice.... The +supreme legislative power shall be vested in a single House of +Representatives of the freemen of the commonwealth of Frankland. +The House of Representatives of the freemen of the State shall +consist of persons most noted for wisdom and virtue." + +In these exalted desires of the primitive men who held by their +rifles and hatchets the land by the western waters, we see the +influence of the Reverend Samuel Doak, their pastor, who founded +the first church and the first school beyond the great hills. +Early in the life of Watauga he had come thither from Princeton, +a zealous and broadminded young man, and a sturdy one, too, for +he came on foot driving before him a mule laden with books. +Legend credits another minister, the Reverend Samuel Houston, +with suggesting the name of Frankland, after he had opened the +Convention with prayer. It is not surprising to learn that this +glorified constitution was presently put aside in favor of one +modeled on that of North Carolina. + +Sevier persuaded the more radical members of the community to +abandon their extreme views and to adopt the laws of North +Carolina. However lawless his acts as Governor of a bolting +colony may appear, Sevier was essentially a constructive force. +His purposes were right, and small motives are not discernible in +his record. He might reasonably urge that the Franklanders had +only followed the example of North Carolina and the other +American States in seceding from the parent body, and for similar +causes, for the State's system of taxation had long borne heavily +on the overhill men. + +The whole transmontane populace welcomed Frankland with +enthusiasm. Major Arthur Campbell, of the Virginian settlements, +on the Holston, was eager to join. Sevier and his Assembly took +the necessary steps to receive the overhill Virginians, provided +that the transfer of allegiance could be made with Virginia's +consent. Meanwhile he replied in a dignified manner to the pained +and menacing expostulations of North Carolina's Governor. North +Carolina was bidden to remember the epithets her assemblymen had +hurled at the Westerners, which they themselves had by no means +forgotten. And was it any wonder that they now doubted the love +the parent State professed to feel for them? As for the puerile +threat of blood, had their quality really so soon become +obliterated from the memory of North Carolina? At this sort of +writing, Sevier, who always pulsed hot with emotion and who had a +pretty knack in turning a phrase, was more than a match for the +Governor of North Carolina, whose prerogatives he had usurped. + +The overmountain men no longer needed to complain bitterly of the +lack of legal machinery to keep them "the best members of +society." They now had courts to spare. Frankland had its courts, +its judges, its legislative body, its land office--in fact, a +full governmental equipment. North Carolina also performed all +the natural functions of political organism, within the western +territory. Sevier appointed one David Campbell a judge. Campbell +held court in Jonesborough. Ten miles away, in Buffalo, Colonel +John Tipton presided for North Carolina. It happened frequently +that officers and attendants of the rival law courts met, as they +pursued, their duties, and whenever they met they fought. The +post of sheriff--or sheriffs, for of course there were two--was +filled by the biggest and heaviest man and the hardest hitter in +the ranks of the warring factions. A favorite game was raiding +each other's courts and carrying off the records. Frankland sent +William Cocke, later the first senator from Tennessee, to +Congress with a memorial, asking Congress to accept the territory +North Carolina had offered and to receive it into the Union as a +separate State. Congress ignored the plea. It began to appear +that North Carolina would be victor in the end; and so there were +defections among the Franklanders. Sevier wrote to Benjamin +Franklin asking his aid in establishing the status of Frankland; +and, with a graceful flourish of his ready pen, changed the new +State's name to Franklin by way of reinforcing his arguments. But +the old philosopher, more expert than Sevier in diplomatic +calligraphy, only acknowledged the compliment and advised the +State of Franklin to make peace with North Carolina. + +Sevier then appealed for aid and recognition to the Governor of +Georgia, who had previously appointed him Brigadier General of +militia. But the Governor of Georgia also avoided giving the +recognition requested, though he earnestly besought Sevier to +come down and settle the Creeks for him. There were others who +sent pleas to Sevier, the warrior, to save them from the savages. +One of the writers who addressed him did not fear to say "Your +Excellency," nor to accord Nolichucky Jack the whole dignity of +the purple in appealing to him as the only man possessing the +will and the power to prevent the isolated settlements on the +Cumberland from being wiped out. That writer was his old friend, +James Robertson. + +In 1787, while Sevier was on the frontier of Greene County, +defending it from Indians, the legal forces of North Carolina +swooped down on his estate and took possession of his negroes. It +was Tipton who represented the law; and Tipton carried off the +Governor's slaves to his own estate. When Nolichucky Jack came +home and found that his enemy had stripped him, he was in a +towering rage. With a body of his troops and one small cannon, he +marched to Tipton's house and besieged it, threatening a +bombardment. He did not, however, fire into the dwelling, though +he placed some shots about it and in the extreme corners. This +opera bouffe siege endured for several days, until Tipton was +reinforced by some of his own clique. Then Tipton sallied forth +and attacked the besiegers, who hastily scattered rather than +engage in a sanguinary fight with their neighbors. Tipton +captured Sevier's two elder sons and was only strained from +hanging them on being informed that two of his own sons were at +that moment in Sevier's hands. + +In March, 1788, the State of Franklin went into eclipse. Sevier +was overthrown by the authorities of North Carolina. Most of the +officials who had served under him were soothed by being +reappointed to their old positions. Tipton's star was now in the +ascendant, for his enemy was to be made the vicarious sacrifice +for the sins of all whom he had "led astray." Presently David +Campbell, still graciously permitted to preside over the Superior +Court, received from the Governor of North Carolina the following +letter: + +"Sir: It has been represented to the Executive that John Sevier, +who style's himself Captain-General of the State of Franklin, has +been guilty of high treason in levying troops to oppose the laws +and government of the State.... You will issue your warrant to +apprehend the said John Sevier, and in case he cannot be +sufficiently secured for trial in the District of Washington, +order him to be committed to the public gaol." + + +The judge's authority was to be exercised after he had examined +the "affidavits of credible persons." Campbell's judicial opinion +seems to have been that any affidavit against "the said John +Sevier" could not be made by a "credible person." He refused to +issue the warrant. Tipton's friend, Spencer, who had been North +Carolina's judge of the Superior Court in the West and who was +sharing that honor now with Campbell, issued the warrant and sent +Tipton to make the arrest. + +Sevier was at the Widow Brown's inn with some of his men when +Tipton at last came up with him. It was early morning. Tipton and +his posse were about to enter when the portly and dauntless +widow, surmising their errand, drew her chair into the doorway, +plumped herself down in it, and refused to budge for all the +writs in North Carolina. Tipton blustered and the widow rocked. +The altercation awakened Sevier. He dressed hurriedly and came +down. As soon as he presented himself on the porch, Tipton +thrust his pistol against his body, evidently with intent to fire +if Sevier made signs of resistance. Sevier's furious followers +were not disposed to let him be taken without a fight, but he +admonished them to respect the law, and requested that they would +inform Bonnie Kate of his predicament. Then, debonair as ever, +with perhaps a tinge of contempt at the corners of his mouth, he +held out his wrists for the manacles which Tipton insisted on +fastening upon them. + +It was not likely that any jail in the western country could hold +Nolichucky Jack overnight. Tipton feared a riot; and it was +decided to send the prisoner for incarceration and trial to +Morgantown in North Carolina, just over the hills. + +Tipton did not accompany the guards he sent with Sevier. It was +stated and commonly believed that he had given instructions of +which the honorable men among his friends were ignorant. When the +party entered the mountains, two of the guards were to lag behind +with the prisoner, till the others were out of sight on the +twisting trail. Then one of the two was to kill Sevier and assert +that he had done it because Sevier had attempted to escape. It +fell out almost as planned, except that the other guard warned +Sevier of the fate in store for him and gave him a chance to +flee. In plunging down the mountain, Sevier's horse was entangled +in a thicket. The would-be murderer overtook him and fired; but +here again fate had interposed for her favorite. The ball had +dropped out of the assassin's pistol. So Sevier reached +Morgantown in safety and was deposited in care of the sheriff, +who was doubtless cautioned to take a good look at the prisoner +and know him for a dangerous and a daring man. + +There is a story to the effect that, when Sevier was arraigned in +the courthouse at Morgantown and presently dashed through the +door and away on a racer that had been brought up by some of his +friends, among those who witnessed the proceedings was a young +Ulster Scot named Andrew Jackson; and that on this occasion these +two men, later to become foes, first saw each other. Jackson may +have been in Morgantown at the time, though this is disputed; but +the rest of the tale is pure legend invented by some one whose +love of the spectacular led him far from the facts. The facts are +less theatrical but much more dramatic. Sevier was not arraigned +at all, for no court was sitting in Morgantown at the time.* The +sheriff to whom he was delivered did not need to look twice at +him to know him for a daring man. He had served with him at +King's Mountain. He struck off his handcuffs and set him at +liberty at once. Perhaps he also notified General Charles +McDowell at his home in Quaker Meadows of the presence of a +distinguished guest in Burke County, for McDowell and his brother +Joseph, another officer of militia, quickly appeared and went on +Sevier's bond. Nolichucky Jack was presently holding a court of +his own in the tavern, with North Carolina's men at arms--as many +as were within call--drinking his health. So his sons and a +company of his Wataugans found him, when they rode into +Morgantown to give evidence in his behalf--with their rifles. +Since none now disputed the way with him, Sevier turned homeward +with his cavalcade, McDowell and his men accompanying him as far +as the pass in the hills. + +* Statement by John Sevier, Junior, in the Draper MSS., quoted by +Turner, "Life of General John Sevier," p. 182. + + +No further attempt was made to try John Sevier for treason, +either west or east of the mountains. In November, however, the +Assembly passed the Pardon Act, and thereby granted absolution to +every one who had been associated with the State of Franklin, +EXCEPT JOHN SEVIER. In a clause said to have been introduced by +Tipton, now a senator, or suggested by him, John Sevier was +debarred forever from "the enjoyment of any office of profit or +honor or trust in the State of North Carolina." + +The overhill men in Greene County took due note of the Assembly's +fiat and at the next election sent Sevier to the North Carolina +Senate. Nolichucky Jack, whose demeanor was never so decorous as +when the illconsidered actions of those in authority had made him +appear to have circumvented the law, considerately waited outside +until the House had lifted the ban--which it did perforce and by +a large majority, despite Tipton's opposition--and then took his +seat on the senatorial bench beside his enemy. The records show +that he was reinstated as Brigadier General of the Western +Counties and also appointed at the head of the Committee on +Indian Affairs. + + +Not only in the region about Watauga did the pioneers of +Tennessee endure the throes of danger and strife during these +years. The little settlements on the Cumberland, which were +scattered over a short distance of about twenty-five or thirty +miles and had a frontier line of two hundred miles, were terribly +afflicted. Their nearest white neighbors among the Kentucky +settlers were one hundred and fifty miles away; and through the +cruelest years these could render no aid--could not, indeed, hold +their own stations. The Kentuckians, as we have seen, were +bottled up in Harrodsburg and Boonesborough; and, while the +northern Indians led by Girty and Dequindre darkened the Bloody +Ground anew, the Cumberlanders were making a desperate stand +against the Chickasaws and the Creeks. So terrible was their +situation that panic took hold on them, and they would have fled +but for the influence of Robertson. He may have put the question +to them in the biblical words, "Whither shall I flee?" For they +were surrounded, and those who did attempt to escape were +"weighed on the path and made light." Robertson knew that their +only chance of survival was to stand their ground. The greater +risks he was willing to take in person, for it was he who made +trips to Boonesborough and Harrodsburg for a share of the powder +and lead which John Sevier was sending into Kentucky from time to +time. In the stress of conflict Robertson bore his full share of +grief, for his two elder sons and his brother fell. He himself +was often near to death. One day he was cut off in the fields and +was shot in the foot as he ran, yet he managed to reach shelter. +There is a story that, in an attack during one of his absences, +the Indians forced the outer gate of the fort and Mrs. Robertson +went out of her cabin, firing, and let loose a band of the savage +dogs which the settlers kept for their protection, and so drove +out the invaders. + +The Chickasaws were loyal to the treaty they had made with the +British in the early days of James Adair's association with them. +They were friends to England's friends and foes to her foes. +While they resented the new settlements made on land they +considered theirs, they signed a peace with Robertson at the +conclusion of the War of Independence. They kept their word with +him as they had kept it with the British. Furthermore, their +chief, Opimingo or the Mountain Leader, gave Robertson his +assistance against the Creeks and the Choctaws and, in so far as +he understood its workings, informed him of the new Spanish and +French conspiracy, which we now come to consider. So once again +the Chickasaws were servants of destiny to the English-speaking +race, for again they drove the wedge of their honor into an +Indian solidarity welded with European gold. + +Since it was generally believed at that date that the tribes were +instigated to war by the British and supplied by them with their +ammunition, savage inroads were expected to cease with the +signing of peace. But Indian warfare not only continued; it +increased. In the last two years of the Revolution, when the +British were driven from the Back Country of the Carolinas and +could no longer reach the tribes with consignments of firearms +and powder, it should have been evident that the Indians had +other sources of supply and other allies, for they lacked nothing +which could aid them in their efforts to exterminate the settlers +of Tennessee. + +Neither France nor Spain wished to see an English-speaking +republic based on ideals of democracy successfully established in +America. Though in the Revolutionary War, France was a close ally +of the Americans and Spain something more than a nominal one, the +secret diplomacy of the courts of the Bourbon cousins ill matched +with their open professions. Both cousins hated England. The +American colonies, smarting under injustice, had offered a field +for their revenge. But hatred of England was not the only reason +why activities had been set afoot to increase the discord which +should finally separate the colonies from Great Britain and leave +the destiny of the colonies to be decided by the House of +Bourbon. Spain saw in the Americans, with their English modes of +thought, a menace to her authority in her own colonies on both +the northern and southern continents. This menace would not be +stilled but augmented if the colonies should be established as a +republic. Such an example might be too readily followed. Though +France had, by a secret treaty in 1762, made over to Spain the +province of Louisiana, she was not unmindful of the Bourbon +motto, "He who attacks the Crown of one attacks the other." And +she saw her chance to deal a crippling blow at England's prestige +and commerce. + +In 1764, the French Minister, Choiseul, had sent a secret agent, +named Pontleroy, to America to assist in making trouble and to +watch for any signs that might be turned to the advantage of les +duex couronnes. Evidently Pontleroy's reports were encouraging +for, in 1768, Johann Kalb--the same Kalb who fell at Camden in +1780--arrived in Philadelphia to enlarge the good work. He was +not only, like several of the foreign officers in the War of +Independence, a spy for his Government, but he was also the +special emissary of one Comte de Broglie who, after the colonies +had broken with the mother country, was to put himself at the +head of American affairs. This Broglie had been for years one of +Louis XV's chief agents in subterranean diplomacy, and it is not +to be supposed that he was going to attempt the stupendous task +of controlling America's destiny without substantial backing. +Spain had been advised meanwhile to rule her new Louisiana +territory with great liberality--in fact, to let it shine as a +republic before the yearning eyes of the oppressed Americans, so +that the English colonists would arise and cast off their +fetters. Once the colonies had freed themselves from England's +protecting arm, it would be a simple matter for the Bourbons to +gather them in like so many little lost chicks from a rainy yard. +The intrigants of autocratic systems have never been able to +understand that the urge of the spirit of independence in men is +not primarily to break shackles but to STAND ALONE and that the +breaking of bonds is incidental to the true demonstration of +freedom. The Bourbons and their agents were no more nor less +blind to the great principle stirring the hearts of men in their +day than were the Prussianized hosts over a hundred years later +who, having themselves no acquaintance with the law of liberty, +could not foresee that half a world would rise in arms to +maintain that law. + +When the War of Independence had ended, the French Minister, +Vergennes, and the Spanish Minister, Floridablanca, secretly +worked in unison to prevent England's recognition of the new +republic; and Floridablanca in 1782 even offered to assist +England if she would make further efforts to subdue her "rebel +subjects." Both Latin powers had their own axes to grind, and +America was to tend the grindstone. France looked for recovery of +her old prestige in Europe and expected to supersede England in +commerce. She would do this, in the beginning, chiefly through +control of America and of America's commerce. Vergennes therefore +sought not only to dictate the final terms of peace but also to +say what the American commissioners should and should not demand. +Of the latter gentlemen he said that they possessed "caracteres +peu maniables!" In writing to Luzerne, the French Ambassador in +Philadelphia, on October 14, 1782, Vergennes said: "it behooves +us to leave them [the American commissioners] to their illusions, +to do everything that can make them fancy that we share them, and +undertake only to defeat any attempts to which those illusions +might carry them if our cooperation is required." Among these +"illusions" were America's desires in regard to the fisheries and +to the western territory. Concerning the West, Vergennes had +written to Luzerne, as early as July 18, 1780: "At the moment +when the revolution broke out, the limits of the Thirteen States +did not reach the River [Mississippi] and it would be absurd for +them to claim the rights of England, a power whose rule they had +abjured." By the secret treaty with Spain, furthermore, France +had agreed to continue the war until Gibraltar should be taken, +and--if the British should be driven from Newfoundland--to share +the fisheries only with Spain, and to support Spain in demanding +that the Thirteen States renounce all territory west of the +Alleghanies. The American States must by no means achieve a +genuine independence but must feel the need of sureties, allies, +and protection.* + +* See John Jay, "On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1788 as +Illustrated by the Secret Correspondence of France and England," +New York, 1888. + + +So intent was Vergennes on these aims that he sent a secret +emissary to England to further them there. This act of his +perhaps gave the first inkling to the English statesmen* that +American and French desires were not identical and hastened +England's recognition of American independence and her agreement +to American demands in regard to the western territory. When, to +his amazement, Vergennes learned that England had acceded to all +America's demands, he said that England had "bought the peace" +rather than made it. The policy of Vergennes in regard to America +was not unjustly pronounced by a later French statesman "A VILE +SPECULATION." + +* "Your Lordship was well founded in your suspicion that the +granting of independence to America as a previous measure is a +point which the French have by no means at heart and perhaps are +entirely averse from." Letter from Fitzherbert to Grantham, +September 3, 1782. + + +Through England's unexpected action, then, the Bourbon cousins +had forever lost their opportunity to dominate the young but +spent and war-weakened Republic, or to use America as a catspaw +to snatch English commerce for France. It was plain, too, that +any frank move of the sort would range the English alongside of +their American kinsmen. Since American Independence was an +accomplished fact and therefore could no longer be prevented, the +present object of the Bourbon cousins was to restrict it. The +Appalachian Mountains should be the western limits of the new +nation. Therefore the settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee must +be broken up, or the settlers must be induced to secede from the +Union and raise the Spanish banner. The latter alternative was +held to be preferable. To bring it about the same methods were to +be continued which had been used prior to and during the +war--namely, the use of agents provocateurs to corrupt the +ignorant and incite the lawless, the instigation of Indian +massacres to daunt the brave, and the distribution of gold to buy +the avaricious. + +As her final and supreme means of coercion, Spain refused to +America the right of navigation on the Mississippi and so +deprived the Westerners of a market for their produce. The +Northern States, having no immediate use for the Mississippi, +were willing to placate Spain by acknowledging her monopoly of +the great waterway. But Virginia and North Carolina were +determined that America should not, by congressional enactment, +surrender her "natural right"; and they cited the proposed +legislation as their reason for refusing to ratify the +Constitution. "The act which abandons it [the right of +navigation] is an act of separation between the eastern and +western country," Jefferson realized at last. "An act of +separation"--that point had long been very clear to the Latin +sachems of the Mississippi Valley! + +Bounded as they were on one side by the precipitous mountains and +on the other by the southward flow of the Mississippi and its +tributary, the Ohio, the trappers and growers of corn in Kentucky +and western Tennessee regarded New Orleans as their logical +market, as the wide waters were their natural route. If market +and route were to be closed to them, their commercial advancement +was something less than a dream. + +In 1785, Don Estevan Miro, a gentleman of artful and winning +address, became Governor of Louisiana and fountainhead of the +propaganda. He wrote benign and brotherly epistles to James +Robertson of the Cumberland and to His Excellency of Franklin, +suggesting that to be of service to them was his dearest aim in +life; and at the same time he kept the southern Indians +continually on the warpath. When Robertson wrote to him of the +Creek and Cherokee depredations, with a hint that the Spanish +might have some responsibility in the matter, Miro replied by +offering the Cumberlander a safe home on Spanish territory with +freedom of religion and no taxes. He disclaimed stirring up the +Indians. He had, in fact, advised Mr McGillivray, chief of the +Creeks, to make peace. He would try again what he could do with +Mr. McGillivray. As to the Cherokees, they resided in a very +distant territory and he was not acquainted with them; he might +have added that he did not need to be: his friend McGillivray was +the potent personality among the Southern tribes. + +In Alexander McGillivray, Miro found a weapon fashioned to his +hand. If the Creek chieftain's figure might stand as the symbol +of treachery, it is none the less one of the most picturesque and +pathetic in our early annals. McGillivray, it will be remembered, +was the son of Adair's friend Lachlan McGillivray, the trader, +and a Creek woman whose sire had been a French officer. A +brilliant and beautiful youth, he had given his father a pride in +him which is generally denied to the fathers of sons with Indian +blood in them. The Highland trader had spared nothing in his +son's education and had placed him, after his school days, in the +business office of the large trading establishment of which he +himself was a member. At about the age of seventeen Alexander had +become a chieftain in his mother's nation; and doubtless it is he +who appears shortly afterwards in the Colonial Records as the +White Leader whose influence is seen to have been at work for +friendship between the colonists and the tribes. When the +Revolutionary War broke out, Lachlan McGillivray, like many of +the old traders who had served British interests so long and so +faithfully, held to the British cause. Georgia confiscated all +his property and Lachlan fled to Scotland. For this, his son +hated the people of Georgia with a perfect hatred. He remembered +how often his father's courage alone had stood between those same +people and the warlike Creeks. He could recall the few days in +1760 when Lachlan and his fellow trader, Galphin, at the risk of +their lives had braved the Creek warriors--already painted for +war and on the march--and so had saved the settlements of the +Back Country from extermination. He looked upon the men of +Georgia as an Indian regards those who forget either a blood gift +or a blood vengeance. And he embraced the whole American nation +in his hatred for their sakes. + +In 1776 Alexander McGillivray was in his early thirties-the exact +date of his birth is uncertain.* He had, we are told, the tall, +sturdy, but spare physique of the Gael, with a countenance of +Indian color though not of Indian cast. His overhanging brows +made more striking his very large and luminous dark eyes. He bore +himself with great dignity; his voice was soft, his manner +gentle. He might have been supposed to be some Latin courtier but +for the barbaric display of his dress and his ornaments. He +possessed extraordinary personal magnetism, and his power +extended beyond the Creek nation to the Choctaws and Chickasaws +and the Southern Cherokees. He had long been wooed by the +Louisiana authorities, but there is no evidence that he had made +alliance with them prior to the Revolution. + +* Probably about 1741 or 1742. Some writers give 1739 and others +1746. His father landed in Charleston, Pickett ("History of +Alabama") says, in 1735, and was then only sixteen. + + +Early in the war he joined the British, received a colonel's +commission, and led his formidable Creeks against the people of +Georgia. When the British were driven from the Back Countries, +McGillivray, in his British uniform, went on with the war. When +the British made peace, McGillivray exchanged his British uniform +for a Spanish one and went on with the war. In later days, when +he had forced Congress to pay him for his father's confiscated +property and had made peace, he wore the uniform of an American +Brigadier General; but he did not keep the peace, never having +intended to keep it. It was not until he had seen the Spanish +plots collapse and had realized that the Americans were to +dominate the land, that the White Leader ceased from war and +urged the youths of his tribe to adopt American civilization. + +Spent from hate and wasted with dissipation, he retired at last +to the spot where Lachlan had set up his first Creek home. Here +he lived his few remaining days in a house which he built on the +site of the old ruined cabin about which still stood the little +grove of apple trees his father had planted. He died at the age +of fifty of a fever contracted while he was on a business errand +in Pensacola. Among those who visited him in his last years, one +has left this description of him: "Dissipation has sapped a +constitution originally delicate and feeble. He possesses an +atticism of diction aided by a liberal education, a great fund of +wit and humor meliorated by a perfect good nature and +politeness." Set beside that kindly picture this rough etching by +James Robertson: "The biggest devil among them [the Spaniards] is +the half Spaniard, half Frenchman, half Scotchman and altogether +Creek scoundrel, McGillivray." + +How indefatigably McGillivray did his work we know from the +bloody annals of the years which followed the British-American +peace, when the men of the Cumberland and of Franklin were on the +defensive continually. How cleverly Mire played his personal role +we discover in the letters addressed to him by Sevier and +Robertson. These letters show that, as far as words go at any +rate, the founders of Tennessee were willing to negotiate with +Spain. In a letter dated September 12, 1788, Sevier offered +himself and his tottering State of Franklin to the Spanish King. +This offer may have been made to gain a respite, or it may have +been genuine. The situation in the Tennessee settlements was +truly desperate, for neither North Carolina nor Congress +apparently cared in the least what befell them or how soon. North +Carolina indeed was in an anomalous position, as she had not yet +ratified the Federal Constitution. If Franklin went out of +existence and the territory which it included became again part +of North Carolina, Sevier knew that a large part of the newly +settled country would, under North Carolina's treaties, revert to +the Indians. That meant ruin to large numbers of those who had +put their faith in his star, or else it meant renewed conflict +either with the Indians or with the parent State. The +probabilities aria that Sevier hoped to play the Spaniards +against the Easterners who, even while denying the Westerners' +contention that the mountains were a "natural" barrier between +them, were making of them a barrier of indifference. It would +seem so, because, although this was the very aim of all Miro's +activities so that, had he been assured of the sincerity of the +offer, he must have grasped at it, yet nothing definite was done. +And Sevier was presently informing Shelby, now in Kentucky, that +there was a Spanish plot afoot to seize the western country. + +Miro had other agents besides McGillivray--who, by the way, was +costing Spain, for his own services and those of four tribes +aggregating over six thousand warriors, a sum of fifty-five +thousand dollars a year. McGillivray did very well as +superintendent of massacres; but the Spaniard required a +different type of man, an American who enjoyed his country's +trust, to bring the larger plan to fruition. Miro found that man +in General James Wilkinson, lately of the Continental Army and +now a resident of Kentucky, which territory Wilkinson undertook +to deliver to Spain, for a price. In 1787 Wilkinson secretly took +the oath of allegiance to Spain and is listed in the files of the +Spanish secret service, appropriately, as "Number Thirteen." He +was indeed the thirteenth at table, the Judas at the feast. +Somewhat under middle height, Wilkinson was handsome, graceful, +and remarkably magnetic. Of a good, if rather impoverished, +Maryland family, he was well educated and widely read for the +times. With a brilliant and versatile intellectuality and ready +gifts as a speaker, he swayed men easily. He was a bold soldier +and was endowed with physical courage, though when engaged in +personal contests he seldom exerted it--preferring the red tongue +of slander or the hired assassin's shot from behind cover. His +record fails to disclose one commendable trait. He was +inordinately avaricious, but love of money was not his whole +motive force: he had a spirit so jealous and malignant that he +hated to the death another man's good. He seemed to divine +instantly wherein other men were weak and to understand the +speediest and best means of suborning them to his own +interests--or of destroying them. + +Wilkinson was able to lure a number of Kentuckians into the +separatist movement. George Rogers Clark seriously disturbed the +arch plotter by seizing a Spanish trader's store wherewith to pay +his soldiers, whom Virginia had omitted to recompense. This act +aroused the suspicions of the Spanish, either as to Number +Thirteen's perfect loyalty or as to his ability to deliver the +western country. In 1786, when Clark led two thousand men against +the Ohio Indians in his last and his only unsuccessful campaign, +Wilkinson had already settled himself near the Falls (Louisville) +and had looked about for mischief which he might do for profit. +Whether his influence had anything to do with what amounted +virtually to a mutiny among Clark's forces is not ascertainable; +but, for a disinterested onlooker, he was overswift to spread the +news of Clark's debacle and to declare gleefully that Clark's sun +of military glory had now forever set. It is also known that he +later served other generals treacherously in Indian expeditions +and that he intrigued with Mad Anthony Wayne's Kentucky troops +against their commander. + +Spain did not wish to see the Indians crushed; and Wilkinson +himself both hated and feared any other officer's prestige. How +long he had been in foreign pay we can only conjecture, for, +several years before he transplanted his activities to Kentucky, +he had been one of a cabal against Washington. Not only his +ambitions but his nature must inevitably have brought him to the +death-battle with George Rogers Clark. As a military leader, Clark +had genius, and soldiering was his passion. In nature, he was +open, frank, and bold to make foes if he scorned a man's way as +ignoble or dishonest. Wilkinson suavely set about scheming for +Clark's ruin. His communication or memorial to the Virginia +Assembly--signed by himself and a number of his friends +--villifying Clark, ended Clark's chances for the commission in +the Continental Army which he craved. It was Wilkinson who made +public an incriminating letter which had Clark's signature +attached and which Clark said he had never seen. It is to be +supposed that Number Thirteen was responsible also for the +malevolent anonymous letter accusing Clark of drunkenness and +scheming which, so strangely, found its way into the Calendar of +State Papers of Virginia.* As a result, Clark was censured by +Virginia. Thereupon he petitioned for a Court of Inquiry, but +this was not granted. Wilkinson had to get rid of Clark; for if +Clark, with his military gifts and his power over men, had been +elevated to a position of command under the smile of the +Government, there would have been small opportunity for James W +Wilkinson to lead the Kentuckians and to gather in Spanish gold. +So the machinations of one of the vilest traitors who ever sold +his country were employed to bring about the stultification and +hence the downfall of a great servant. + +* See Thomas M. Greene's "The Spanish Conspiracy," p. 78, +footnote. It is possible that Wilkinson's intrigues provide data +for a new biography of Clark which may recast in some measure the +accepted view of Clark at this period. + + +Wilkinson's chief aids were the Irishmen, O'Fallon, Nolan, and +Powers. Through Nolan, he also vended Spanish secrets. He sold, +indeed, whatever and whomever he could get his price for. So +clever was he that he escaped detection, though he was obliged to +remove some suspicions. He succeeded Wayne as commander of the +regular army in 1796. He was one of the commissioners to receive +Louisiana when the Purchase was arranged in 1803. He was still on +the Spanish pay roll at that time. Wilkinson's true record came +to light only when the Spanish archives were opened to +investigators. + +There were British agents also in the Old Southwest, for the +dissatisfaction of the Western men inspired in Englishmen the +hope of recovering the Mississippi Basin. Lord Dorchester, +Governor of Canada, wrote to the British Government that he had +been approached by important Westerners; but he received advice +from England to move slowly. For complicity in the British +schemes, William Blount, who was first territorial Governor of +Tennessee and later a senator from that State, was expelled from +the Senate. + +Surely there was never a more elaborate network of plots that +came to nothing! The concession to Americans in 1796 of the right +of navigation on the Mississippi brought an end to the scheming. + +In the same year Tennessee was admitted to the Union, and John +Sevier was elected Governor Sevier's popularity was +undiminished, though there were at this time some sixty thousand +souls in Tennessee, many of whom were late comers who had not +known him in his heyday. His old power to win men to him must +have been as strong as ever, for it is recorded that he had only +to enter a political meeting--no matter whose--for the crowd to +cheer him and shout for him to "give them a talk." + + +This adulation of Sevier still annoyed a few men who had +ambitions of their own. Among these was Andrew Jackson, who had +come to Jonesborough in 1788, just after the collapse of the +State of Franklin. He was twenty-one at that time, and he is said +to have entered Jonesborough riding a fine racer and leading +another, with a pack of hunting dogs baying or nosing along after +him. A court record dated May 12, 1788, avers that "Andrew +Jackson, Esq. came into Court and produced a licence as an +Attorney With A Certificate sufficiently Attested of his Taking +the Oath Necessary to said office and Was admitted to Practiss as +an Attorney in the County Courts." Jackson made no history in old +Watauga during that year. Next year he moved to Nashville, and +one year later, when the Superior Court was established (1790), +he became prosecuting attorney. + +The feud between Jackson and Sevier began about the time that +Tennessee entered the Union. Jackson, then twenty-nine, was +defeated for the post of Major General of the Militia through the +influence which Sevier exercised against him, and it seems that +Jackson never forgave this opposition to his ambitions. By the +close of Sevier's third term, however, in 1802, when Archibald +Roane became Governor, the post of Major General was again vacant. +Both Sevier and Jackson offered themselves for it, and Jackson +was elected by the deciding vote of the Governor, the military +vote having resulted in a tie. A strong current of influence had +now set in against Sevier and involved charges against his honor. +His old enemy Tipton was still active. The basis of the charges +was a file of papers from the entry-taker's office which a friend +of Tipton's had laid before the Governor; with an affidavit to +the effect that the papers were fraudulent. Both the Governor and +Jackson believed the charges. When we consider what system or +lack of system of land laws and land entries obtained in Watauga +and such: primitive communities--when a patch of corn sealed a +right and claims were made by notching trees with tomahawks--we +may imagine that a file from the land office might appear easily +enough to smirch a landholder's integrity. The scandal was, of +course, used in an attempt to ruin Sevier's candidacy for a +fourth term as Governor and to make certain Roane's reflection. +To this end Jackson bent all his energies but without success. +Nolichucky Jack was elected, for the fourth time, as Governor of +Tennessee. + +Not long after his inauguration, Sevier met Jackson in Knoxville, +where Jackson was holding court. The charges against Sevier were +then being made the subject of legislative investigation +instituted by Tipton, and Jackson had published a letter in the +Knoxville "Gazette" supporting them. At the sight of Jackson, +Sevier flew into a rage, and a fiery altercation ensued. The two +men were only restrained from leaping on each other by the +intervention of friends. The next day Jackson sent Sevier a +challenge which Sevier accepted, but with the stipulation that +the duel take place outside the State. Jackson insisted on +fighting in Knoxville, where the insult had been offered. Sevier +refused. "I have some respect," he wrote, "for the laws of the +State over which I have the honor to preside, although you, a +judge, appear to have none." No duel followed; but, after some +further billets-doux, Jackson published Sevier as "a base coward +and poltroon. He will basely insult but has not the courage to +repair the wound." Again they met, by accident, and Jackson +rushed upon Sevier with his cane. Sevier dismounted and drew his +pistol but made no move to fire. Jackson, thereupon, also drew +his weapon. Once more friends interfered. It is presumable that +neither really desired the duel. By killing Nolichucky Jack, +Jackson would have ended his own career in Tennessee--if Sevier's +tribe of sons had not, by a swifter means, ended it for him. At +this date Jackson was thirty-six. Sevier was fifty-eight; and he +had seventeen children. + +The charges against Sevier, though pressed with all the force +that his enemies could bring to bear, came to nothing. He +remained the Governor of Tennessee for another six years--the +three terms in eight years allowed by the constitution. In 1811 +he was sent to Congress for the second time, as he had +represented the Territory there twenty years earlier. He was +returned again in 1813. At the conclusion of his term in 1815 he +went into the Creek country as commissioner to determine the +Creek boundaries, and here, far from his Bonnie Kate and his +tribe, he died of fever at the age of seventy. His body was +buried with full military honors at Tuckabatchee, one of the +Creek towns. In 1889, Sevier's remains were removed to Knoxville +and a high marble spire was raised above them. + +His Indian enemies forgave the chastisement he had inflicted on +them and honored him. In times of peace they would come to him +frequently for advice. And in his latter days, the chiefs would +make state visits to his home on the Nolichucky River. "John +Sevier is a good man"--so declared the Cherokee, Old Tassel, +making himself the spokesman of history. Sevier had survived his +old friend, co-founder with him of Watauga, by one year. James +Robertson had died in 1814 at the age of seventy-two, among the +Chickasaws, and his body, like that of his fellow pioneer, was +buried in an Indian town and lay there until 1825, when it was +removed to Nashville. + + +What of the red tribes who had fought these great pioneers for +the wide land of the Old Southwest and who in the end had +received their dust and treasured it with honor in the little +soil remaining to them? Always the new boundary lines drew closer +in, and the red men's foothold narrowed before the pushing tread +of the whites. The day came soon when there was no longer room +for them in the land of their fathers. But far off across the +great river there was a land the white men did not covet yet. +Thither at last the tribes--Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and +Creek--took their way. With wives and children, maids and youths, +the old and the young, with all their goods, their cattle and +horses, in the company of a regiment of American troops, +they--like the white men who had superseded them--turned +westward. In their faces also was the red color of the west, but +not newly there. From the beginning of their race, Destiny had +painted them with the hue of the brief hour of the dying sun. + + + +Chapter XI. Boone's Last Days + +One spring day in 1799, there might have been observed a great +stir through the valley of the Kanawha. With the dawn, men were +ahorse, and women, too. Wagons crowded with human freight wheeled +over the rough country, and boats, large and small, were afloat +on the streams which pour into the Great Kanawha and at length +mingle with the Ohio at Point Pleasant, where the battle was +fought which opened the gates of Kentucky. + +Some of the travelers poured into the little settlement at the +junction of the Elk and the Kanawha, where Charleston now lies. +Others, who had been later in starting or had come from a greater +distance, gathered along the banks of the Kanawha. At last shouts +from those stationed farthest up the stream echoed down the +valley and told the rest that what they had come out to see was +at hand. + +Several pirogues drifted into view on the river, now brightening +in the sunshine. In the vessels were men and their families; +bales and bundles and pieces of household furnishings, heaped to +the gunwale; a few cattle and horses standing patiently. But it +was for one man above all that the eager eyes of the settlers +were watching, and him they saw clearly as his boat swung by--a +tall figure, erect and powerful, his keen friendly blue eyes +undimmed and his ruddy face unlined by time, though sixty-five +winters had frosted his black hair. + +For a decade these settlers had known Daniel Boone, as +storekeeper, as surveyor, as guide and soldier. They had eaten of +the game he killed and lavishly distributed. And they too--like +the folk of Clinch Valley in the year of Dunmore's War--had +petitioned Virginia to bestow military rank upon their protector. +"Lieutenant Colonel" had been his title among them, by their +demand. Once indeed he had represented them in the Virginia +Assembly and, for that purpose, trudged to Richmond with rifle +and hunting dog. Not interested in the Legislature's proceedings, +he left early in the session and tramped home again. + +But not even the esteem of friends and neighbors could hold the +great hunter when the deer had fled. So Daniel Boone was now on +his way westward to Missouri, to a new land of fabled herds and +wide spaces, where the hunter's gun might speak its one word with +authority and where the soul of a silent and fearless man might +find its true abode in Nature's solitude. Waving his last +farewells, he floated past the little groups--till their shouts +of good will were long silenced, and his fleet swung out upon +the Ohio. + +As Boone sailed on down the Beautiful River which forms the +northern boundary of Kentucky, old friends and newcomers who had +only heard his fame rode from far and near to greet and godspeed +him on his way. Sometimes he paused for a day with them. Once at +least--this, was in Cincinnati where he was taking on +supplies--some one asked him why, at his age, he was leaving the +settled country to dare the frontier once more. + +"Too crowded," he answered; "I want more elbow-room!" + +Boone settled at the Femme Osage Creek on the Missouri River, +twenty-five miles above St. Charles, where the Missouri flows +into the Mississippi. There were four other Kentucky families at +La Charette, as the French inhabitants called the post, but these +were the only Americans. The Spanish authorities granted Boone +840 acres of land, and here Daniel built the last cabin home he +was to erect for himself and his Rebecca. + +The region pleased him immensely. The governmental system, for +instance, was wholly to his mind. Taxes were infinitesimal. There +were no elections, assemblies, or the like. A single magistrate, +or Syndic, decided all disputes and made the few regulations and +enforced them. There were no land speculators, no dry-mouthed +sons of the commercial Tantalus, athirst for profits. Boone used +to say that his first years in Missouri were the happiest of his +life, with the exception of his first long hunt in Kentucky. + +In 1800 he was appointed Syndic of the district of Femme Osage, +which office he filled for four years, until Louisiana became +American territory. He was held in high esteem as a magistrate +because of his just and wise treatment of his flock, who brought +him all their small bickerings to settle. He had no use for legal +procedure, would not listen to any nice subtleties, saying that +he did not care anything at all about the EVIDENCE, what he +wanted was the TRUTH. His favorite penalty for offenders was the +hickory rod "well laid on." Often he decided that both parties in +a suit were equally to blame and chastised them both alike. When +in March, 1804, the American Commissioner received Louisiana for +the United States, Delassus, Lieutenant Governor of Upper +Louisiana, reporting'on the various officials in the territory, +wrote of the Femme Osage Syndic: "Mr. Boone, a respectable old +man, just and impartial, he has already, since I appointed him, +offered his resignation owing to his infirmities. Believing I +know his probity, I have induced him to remain, in view of my +confidence in him for the public good."* + +*Thwaites, "Daniel Boone. "To this and other biographies of +Boone, cited in the Bibliographical Note at the end of this +volume, the author is indebted for the material contained in this +chapter. + + +Daniel, no doubt supposing that a Syndic's rights were +inviolable, had neglected to apply to the Governor at New Orleans +for a ratification of his grant. He was therefore dispossessed. +Not until 1810, and after he had enlisted the Kentucky +Legislature in his behalf, did he succeed in inducing Congress to +restore his land. The Kentucky Legislature's resolution was +adopted because of "the many eminent services rendered by Colonel +Boone in exploring and settling the western country, from which +great advantages have resulted not only to the State but to the +country in general, and that from circumstances over which he had +no control he is now reduced to poverty; not having so far as +appears an acre of land out of the vast territory he has been a +great instrument in peopling." Daniel was seventy-six then; so it +was late in the day for him to have his first experience of +justice in the matter of land. Perhaps it pleased him, however, +to hear that, in confirming his grant, Congress had designated +him as "the man who has opened the way for millions of his +fellow-men." + +The "infirmities" which had caused the good Syndic to seek relief +from political cares must have been purely magisterial. The +hunter could have been very little affected by them, for as soon +as he was freed from his duties Boone took up again the silent +challenge of the forest. Usually one or two of his sons or his +son-in-law, Flanders Calloway, accompanied him, but sometimes his +only companions were an old Indian and his hunting dog. On one of +his hunting trips he explored a part of Kansas; and in 1814, when +he was eighty, he hunted big game in the Yellowstone where again +his heart rejoiced over great herds as in the days of his first +lone wanderings in the Blue Grass country. At last, with the +proceeds of these expeditions he was able to pay the debts he had +left behind in Kentucky thirty years before. The story runs that +Daniel had only fifty cents remaining when all the claims had +been settled, but so contented was he to be able to look an +honest man in the face that he was in no disposition to murmur +over his poverty. + +When after a long and happy life his wife died in 1813, Boone +lived with one or other of his sons* and sometimes with Flanders +Calloway. Nathan Boone, with whom Daniel chiefly made his home, +built what is said to have been the first stone house in +Missouri. Evidently the old pioneer disapproved of stone houses +and of the "luxuries" in furnishings which were then becoming +possible to the new generation, for one of his biographers speaks +of visiting him in a log addition to his son's house; and when +Chester Harding, the painter, visited him in 1819 for the purpose +of doing his portrait, he found Boone dwelling in a small log +cabin in Nathan's yard. When Harding entered, Boone was broiling +a venison steak on the end of his ramrod. During the sitting, one +day, Harding asked Boone if he had ever been lost in the woods +when on his long hunts in the wilderness. + +* Boone's son Nathan won distinction in the War of 1812 and +entered the regular army, rising to the rank of Lieutenant +Colonel. Daniel Morgan Boone is said to have been the first +settler in Kansas (1827). One of Daniel's grandsons, bearing the +name of Albert Gallatin Boone, was a pioneer of Colorado and was +to the forefront in Rocky Mountain exploration. Another grandson +was the scout, Kit Carson, who led Fremont to California. + + +"No, I never got lost," Boone replied reflectively, "but I was +BEWILDERED once for three days." Though now having reached the +age of eighty-five, Daniel was intensely interested in California +and was enthusiastic to make the journey thither next spring and +so to flee once more from the civilization which had crept +westward along his path. The resolute opposition of his sons, +however, prevented the attempt. + +A few men who sought out Boone in his old age have left us brief +accounts of their impressions. Among these was Audubon. "The +stature and general appearance of this wanderer of the western +forests," the naturalist wrote, "approached the gigantic. His +chest was broad, and prominent; his muscular powers displayed +themselves in every limb; his countenance gave indication of his +great courage, enterprise and perseverance; and, when he spoke, +the very motion of his lips brought the impression that whatever +he uttered could not be otherwise than strictly true." + +Audubon spent a night under Boone's roof. He related afterwards +that the old hunter, having removed his hunting shirt, spread his +blankets on the floor and lay down there to sleep, saying that he +found it more comfortable than a bed. A striking sketch of Boone +is contained in a few lines penned by one of his earliest +biographers: "He had what phrenologists would have considered a +model head--with a forehead peculiarly high, noble and bold, thin +compressed lips, a mild clear blue eye, a large and prominent +chin and a general expression of countenance in which +fearlessness and courage sat enthroned and which told the +beholder at a glance what he had been and was formed to be." In +criticizing the various portraits of Daniel, the same writer +says: "They want the high port and noble daring of his +countenance.... Never was old age more green, or gray hairs +more graceful. His high, calm, bold forehead seemed converted by +years into iron." + +Although we are indebted to these and other early chroniclers for +many details of Boone's life, there was one event which none of +his biographers has related; yet we know that it must have taken +place. Even the bare indication of it is found only in the +narrative of the adventures of two other explorers. + +It was in the winter of 1803 that these two men came to Boone's +Settlement, as La Charette was now generally called. They had +planned to make their winter camp there, for in the spring, when +the Missouri rose to the flood, they and their company of +frontiersmen were to take their way up that uncharted stream and +over plains and mountains in quest of the Pacific Ocean. They +were refused permission by the Spanish authorities to camp at +Boone's Settlement; so they lay through the winter some forty +miles distant on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, across +from the mouth of the Missouri. Since the records are silent, we +are free to picture as we choose their coming to the settlement +during the winter and again in the spring, for we know that they +came. + +We can imagine, for instance, the stir they made in La Charette +on some sparkling day when the frost bit and the crusty snow sent +up a dancing haze of diamond points. We can see the friendly +French habitants staring after the two young leaders and their +men--all mere boys, though they were also husky, seasoned +frontiersmen--with their bronzed faces of English cast, as in +their gayly fringed deerskins they swaggered through the hamlet +to pay their respects to the Syndic. We may think of that +dignitary as smoking his pipe before his fireplace, perhaps; or +making out, in his fantastic spelling, a record of his primitive +court--for instance, that he had on that day given Pierre a dozen +hickory thwacks, "well laid on," for starting a brawl with +Antoine, and had bestowed the same upon Antoine for continuing +the brawl with Pierre. A knock at the door would bring the +amiable invitation to enter, and the two young men would step +across his threshold, while their followers crowded about the +open door and hailed the old pathfinder. + +One of the two leaders--the dark slender man with a subtle touch +of the dreamer in his resolute face--was a stranger; but the +other, with the more practical mien and the shock of hair that +gave him the name of Red Head among the tribes, Boone had known +as a lad in Kentucky. To Daniel and this young visitor the +encounter would be a simple meeting of friends, heightened in +pleasure and interest somewhat, naturally, by the adventure in +prospect. But to us there is something vast in the thought of +Daniel Boone, on his last frontier, grasping the hands of William +Clark and Meriwether Lewis. + +As for the rough and hearty mob at the door, Daniel must have +known not a few of them well; though they had been children in +the days when he and William Clark's brother strove for Kentucky. +It seems fitting that the soldiers with this expedition should +have come from the garrison at Kaskaskia; since the taking of +that fort in 1778 by George Rogers Clark had opened the western +way from the boundaries of Kentucky to the Mississippi. And among +the young Kentuckians enlisted by William Clark were sons of the +sturdy fighters of still an earlier border line, Clinch and +Holston Valley men who had adventured under another Lewis at +Point Pleasant. Daniel would recognize in these--such as Charles +Floyd--the young kinsmen of his old-time comrades whom he had +preserved from starvation in the Kentucky wilderness by the kill +from his rifle as they made their long march home after Dunmore's +War. + +In May, Lewis and Clark's pirogues ascended the Missouri and the +leaders and men of the expedition spent another day in La +Charette. Once again, at least, Daniel was to watch the westward +departure of pioneers. In 1811, when the Astorians passed, one of +their number pointed to the immobile figure of "an old man on the +bank, who, he said, was Daniel Boone." + +Sometimes the aged pioneer's mind cast forward to his last +journey, for which his advancing years were preparing him. He +wrote on the subject to a sister, in 1816, revealing in a few +simple lines that the faith whereby he had crossed, if not more +literally removed, mountains was a fixed star, and that he looked +ahead fearlessly to the dark trail he must tread by its single +gleam. Autumn was tinting the forest and the tang he loved was in +the air when the great hunter passed. The date of Boone's death +is given as September 26, 1820. He was in his eighty-sixth year. +Unburdened by the pangs of disease he went out serenely, by the +gentle marches of sleep, into the new country. + +The convention for drafting the constitution of Missouri, in +session at St. Louis, adjourned for the day, and for twenty days +thereafter the members wore crape on their arms as a further mark +of respect for the great pioneer. Daniel was laid by Rebecca's +side, on the bank of Teugue Creek, about a mile from the Missouri +River. In 1845, the Missouri legislators hearkened to +oft-repeated pleas from Kentucky and surrendered the remains of +the pioneer couple. Their bones lie now in Frankfort, the capital +of the once Dark and Bloody Ground, and in 1880 a monument was +raised over them. + +To us it seems rather that Kentucky itself is Boone's monument; +even as those other great corn States, Illinois and Indiana, are +Clark's. There, these two servants unafraid, who sacrificed +without measure in the wintry winds of man's ingratitude, are +each year memorialized anew; when the earth in summer--the season +when the red man slaughtered--lifts up the full grain in the ear, +the life giving corn; and when autumn smiles in golden peace over +the stubble fields, where the reaping and binding machines have +hummed a nation's harvest song. + + + +Bibliographical Note + +The Races And Their Migration + +C. A. Hanna, "The Scotch-Irish," 2 vols. New York, 1902. A very +full if somewhat over-enthusiastic study. + +H. J. Ford, "The Scotch-Irish in America." Princeton, 1915. +Excellent. + +A. G. Spangenberg, Extracts from his Journal of travels in North +Carolina, 1752. Publication of the Southern History Association. +Vol. I, 1897. + +A. B. Faust, "The German Element in the United States," 2 vols. +(1909). + +J. P. MacLean, "An Historical Account of the Settlements of +Scotch Highlanders in America" (1900). + +S. H. Cobb, "The Story of the Palatines" (1897). + +N. D. Mereness (editor), "Travels in the American Colonies." New +York, 1916. This collection contains the diary of the Moravian +Brethren cited in the first chapter of the present volume. + +Life In The Back Country + +Joseph Doddridge, "Notes on the Settlements and Indian Wars of +the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania," from 1763 to +1783. Albany, 1876. An intimate description of the daily life of +the early settlers in the Back Country by one of themselves. J. +F. D. Smyth, "Tour in the United States of America," 2 vols. +London, 1784. Minute descriptions of the Back Country and +interesting pictures of the life of the settlers; biased as to +political views by Royalist sympathies. + +William H. Foote, "Sketches of North Carolina," New York, 1846. +See Foote also for history of the first Presbyterian ministers in +the Back Country. As to political history, inaccurate. + +Early History And Exploration + +J. S. Bassett (editor), "The Writings of Colonel William Byrd of +Westover." New York, 1901. A contemporary record of early +Virginia. + +Thomas Walker, "Journal of an Exploration in the Spring of the +Year 1750." Boston, 1888. The record of his travels by the +discoverer of Cumberland Gap. + +William M. Darlington (editor), "Christopher Gist's Journals." +Pittsburgh, 1893. Contains Gist's account of his surveys for the +Ohio Company, 1750. + +C. A. Hanna, "The Wilderness Trail," 2 vols. New York, 1911. An +exhaustive work of research, with full accounts of Croghan and +Findlay. See also Croghan's and Johnson's correspondence in vol. +VII, New York Colonial Records. + +James Adair, "The History of the American Indians," etc. London, +1775. The personal record of a trader who was one of the earliest +explorers of the Alleghanies and of the Mississippi region east +of the river; a many-sided work, intensely interesting. + +C. W. Alvord, "The Genesis of the Proclamation of 1763." +Reprinted from Canadian Archives Report, 1906. A new and +authoritative interpretation. In this connection see also the +correspondence between Sir William Johnson and the Lords of Trade +in vol. VII of New York Colonial Records. + +Justin Winsor, "The Mississippi Basin. The Struggle in America +between England and France." Cambridge, 1895. Presents the +results of exhaustive research and the coordination of facts by +an historian of broad intellect and vision. + +"Colonial and State Records of North Carolina. 30 vols. The chief +fountain source of the early history of North Carolina and +Tennessee. + +W. H. Hoyt, "The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence." New +York, 1907. This book presents the view generally adopted by +historians, that the alleged Declaration of May 20, 1775, is +spurious. + +Justin Winsor (editor), "Narrative and Critical History of +America." 8 vols. (1884-1889). Also "The Westward Movement. +"Cambridge, 1897. Both works of incalculable value to the +student. + +C. W. Alvord, "The Mississippi. Valley in British Politics." 2 +vols. Cleveland, 1917. A profound work of great value to +students. + +Kentucky + +R. G. Thwaites and L. P. Kellogg (editors), "Documentary History +of Dunmore's War," 1774. Compiled from the Draper Manuscripts in +the library of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Madison, 1905. A +collection of interesting and valuable documents with a +suggestive, introduction. + +R. G. Thwaites, "Daniel Boone." New York, 1902. A short and +accurate narrative of Boone's life and adventures compiled from +the Draper Manuscripts and from earlier printed biographies. + +John P. Hale, "Daniel Boone, Some Facts and Incidents not +Hitherto Published." A pamphlet giving an account of Boone in +West Virginia. Printed at Wheeling, West Virginia. Undated. + +Timothy Flint, "The First White Man of the West or the Life and +Exploits of Colonel Dan'l Boone." Cincinnati, 1854. Valuable only +as regards Boone's later years. + +John S. C. Abbott, "Daniel Boone, the Pioneer of Kentucky." New +York, 1872. Fairly accurate throughout. + +J. M. Peck, "Daniel Boone" (in Sparks, "Library of American +Biography." Boston, 1847). + +William Henry Bogart. "Daniel Boone and the Hunters of Kentucky." +New York, 1856. + +William Hayden English, "Conquest of the Country Northwest of the +River Ohio, 1778-1783," and "Life of General George Rogers +Clark," 2 vols. Indianapolis, 1896. An accurate and valuable work +for which the author has made painstaking research among printed +and unprinted documents. Contains Clark's own account of his +campaigns, letters he wrote on public and personal matters, and +also letters from contemporaries in defense of his reputation. + +Theodore Roosevelt, "The Winning of the West," 4 vols. New York, +1889-1896. A vigorous and spirited narrative. + +Tennessee + +J. G. M. Ramsey, "The Annals of Tennessee." Charleston, 1853. +John Haywood, "The Civil and Political History of the State of +Tennessee." Nashville, 1891. + +(Reprint from 1828.) These works, with the North Carolina +"Colonial Records," are the source books of early Tennessee. In +statistics, such as numbers of Indians and other foes defeated by +Tennessee heroes, not reliable. Incorrect as to causes of Indian +wars during the Revolution. On this subject see letters and +reports by John and Henry Stuart in North Carolina "Colonial +Records," vol. X; and letters by General Gage and letters and +proclamation by General Ethan Allen in American Archives, Fourth +Series, vol. II, and by President Rutledge of South Carolina in +North Carolina "Colonial Records," vol. X. See also Justin +Winsor, "The Westward Movement." + +J. Allison, "Dropped Stitches in Tennessee History." Nashville, +1897. Contains interesting matter relative to Andrew Jackson in +his younger days as well as about other striking figures of the +time. + +F. M. Turner, "The Life of General John Sevier." New York, 1910. +A fairly accurate narrative of events in which Sevier +participated, compiled from the "Draper Manuscripts." + +A. W. Putnam, "History of Middle Tennessee, or Life and Times of +General James Robertson." Nashville, 1859. A rambling lengthy +narrative containing some interesting material and much that is +unreliable. Its worst fault is distortion through sentimentality, +and indulgence in the habit of putting the author's rodomontades +into the mouths of Robertson and other characters. + +J. S. Bassett, "Regulators of North Carolina," in Report of the +American Historical Association, 1894. + +L. C. Draper, "King's Mountain and its Heroes." Cincinnati, 1881. +The source book on this event. Contains interesting biographical +material about the men engaged in the battle. + + +French And Spanish Intrigues + +Henry Doniol, "Histoire de la participation de la France d +l'etablissement des Etats-Unis d'Amerique," 5 vols. Paris, +1886-1892. A complete exposition of the French and Spanish policy +towards America. during the Revolutionary Period. + +Manuel Serrano y Sanz, "El brigadier Jaime Wilkinson y sus tratos +con Espana para la independencia del Kentucky, anos 1787 a 1797." +Madrid, 1915. A Spanish view of Wilkinson's intrigues with Spain, +based on letters and reports in the Spanish Archives. + +Thomas Marshall Green, "The Spanish Conspiracy." Cincinnati, +1891. A good local account, from American sources. The best +material on this subject is found in Justin Winsor's "The +Westward Movement and Narrative and Critical History" because +there viewed against a broad historical background. See Winsor +also for the Latin intrigues in Tennessee. For material on +Alexander McGillivray see the American Archives and the Colonial +Records of Georgia. + +Edward S. Corwin, "French Policy and the American Alliance of +1778." Princeton, 1916. Deals chiefly with the commercial aspects +of French policy and should be read in conjunction with Winsor, +Jay, and Fitzmaurice's "Life of William, Earl of Shelburne." 3 +vols. London, 1875. + +John Jay, "On the Peace Negotiations of 1782-83 as Illustrated by +the Secret Correspondence of France and England." New York, 1888. +A paper read before the American Historical Association, May 23, 1887. + + + + + +End of Gutenberg's Pioneers of the Old Southwest by Constance Skinner + diff --git a/old/potsw10.zip b/old/potsw10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d26d225 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/potsw10.zip |
