Daniel Boone Part 13

There has been transmitted to us a very curious doc.u.ment, giving an account of a speech made by Mr. Dalton, a Government agent, to a council of Indian chiefs, upon the announcement of peace with Great Britain, and their reply. Mr. Dalton said:

"MY CHILDREN,--What I have often told you is now come to pa.s.s. This day I received news from my great chief at the Falls of the Ohio. Peace is made with the enemies of America. The white flesh, the Americans, French, and Spanish, this day smoked out of the peace-pipe. The tomahawk is buried, and they are now friends. I am told the Shawanese, the Delawares, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and all other red flesh, have taken the Long Knife by the hand. They have given up to them the prisoners that were in their hands.

"My children on the Wabash, open your ears and let what I tell you sink into your hearts. You know me. Near twenty years I have been among you.

The Long Knife is my nation. I know their hearts. Peace they carry in one hand and war in the other. I leave you to yourselves to judge.

Consider and now accept the one or the other. We never beg peace of our enemies. If you love your women and children, receive the belt of wampum I present you. Return me my flesh you have in your villages, and the horses you stole from my people in Kentucky. Your corn fields were never disturbed by the Long Knife. Your women and children lived quiet in their houses, while your warriors were killing and robbing my people.

All this you know is the truth.

"This is the last time I shall speak to you. I have waited six moons to hear you speak and to get my people from you. In ten nights I shall leave the Wabash to see my great chief at the Falls of the Ohio, where he will be glad to hear from your own lips what you have to say. Here is tobacco I give you. Smoke and consider what I have said."

Mr. Dalton then presented Piankashaw, the chief of the leading tribe a.s.sembled in council, with a belt of blue and white wampum. Piankashaw received the emblem of peace with much dignity, and replied:

"MY GREAT FATHER THE LONG KNIFE,--You have been many years among us. You have suffered by us. We still hope you will have pity and compa.s.sion upon us, on our women and children. The sun shines on us, and the good news of peace appears in our faces. This is the day of joy to the Wabash Indians. With one tongue we now speak. We accept your peace-belt.

"We received the tomahawk from the English. Poverty forced us to it. We were followed by other tribes. We are sorry for it. To-day we collect the scattered bones of our friends and bury them in one grave. We thus plant the tree of peace, that G.o.d may spread its branches so that we can all be secured from bad weather. Here is the pipe that gives us joy.

Smoke out of it. Our warriors are glad you are the man we present it to.

We have buried the tomahawk, have formed friendship never to be broken, and now we smoke out of your pipe.

"My father, we know that the Great Spirit was angry with us for stealing your horses and attacking your people. He has sent us so much snow and cold weather as to kill your horses with our own. We are a poor people.

We hope G.o.d will help us, and that the Long Knife will have compa.s.sion on our women and children. Your people who are with us are well. We shall collect them when they come in from hunting. All the prisoners taken in Kentucky are alive. We love them, and so do our young women.

Some of your people mend our guns, and others tell us they can make rum out of corn. They are now the same as we. In one moon after this we will take them back to their friends in Kentucky.

"My father, this being the day of joy to the Wabash Indians, we beg a little drop of your milk to let our warriors see that it came from your own breast. We were born and raised in the woods. We could never learn to make rum. G.o.d has made the white men masters of the world."

Having finished his speech, Piankashaw presented Mr. Dalton with three strings of blue and white wampum as the seal of peace. All must observe the strain of despondency which pervades this address, and it is melancholy to notice the imploring tones with which the chief asks for rum, the greatest curse which ever afflicted his people.

The incessant petty warfare waged between vagrant bands of the whites and the Indians, with the outrages perpetrated on either side, created great exasperation. In the year 1784 there were many indications that the Indians were again about to combine in an attack upon the settlements. These stations were widely scattered, greatly exposed, and there were many of them. It was impossible for the pioneers to rally in sufficient strength to protect every position. The savages, emerging unexpectedly from the wilderness, could select their own point of attack, and could thus cause a vast amount of loss and misery. For a long time it had been unsafe for any individual, or even small parties, unless very thoroughly armed, to wander beyond the protection of the forts. Under these circ.u.mstances, a convention was held of the leading men of Kentucky at the Danville Station, to decide what measures to adopt in view of the threatened invasion. It was quite certain that the movement of the savages would be so sudden and impetuous that the settlers would be compelled to rely mainly upon their own resources.

The great State of Virginia, of which Kentucky was but a frontier portion, had become rich and powerful. But many weary leagues intervened, leading through forests and over craggy mountains, between the plains of these distant counties and Richmond, the capital of Virginia. The convention at Danville discussed the question whether it were not safer for them to antic.i.p.ate the Indians, and immediately to send an army for the destruction of their towns and crops north of the Ohio. But here they were embarra.s.sed by the consideration that they had no legal power to make this movement, and that the whole question, momentous as it was and demanding immediate action, must be referred to the State Government, far away beyond the mountains. This involved long delay, and it could hardly be expected that the members of the General Court in their peaceful homes would fully sympathize with the unprotected settlers in their exposure to the tomahawk and the scalping knife.

Several conventions were held, and the question was earnestly discussed whether the interests of Kentucky did not require her separation from the Government of Virginia, and her organization as a self-governing State. The men who had boldly ventured to seek new homes so far beyond the limits of civilization were generally men of great force of character and of political foresight. They had just emerged from the war of the Revolution, during which all the most important questions of civil polity had been thoroughly canva.s.sed. Their meetings were conducted with great dignity and calm deliberation.

On the twenty-third of May, 1785, the convention at Danville pa.s.sed the resolve with great unanimity that Kentucky ought to be separated from Virginia, and received into the American Union, upon the same basis as the other States. Still that they might not act upon a question of so much importance without due deliberation, they referred the subject to another convention to be a.s.sembled at Danville in August. This convention reiterated the resolution of its predecessor; issued a proclamation urging the people everywhere to organise for defence against the Indians, and appointed a delegation of two members to proceed to Richmond, and present their request for a separation to the authorities there.

"The Legislature of Virginia was composed of men too wise not to see that separation was inevitable. Separated from the parent State by distance and by difficulties of communication, in those days most formidable, they saw that Kentuckians would not long submit to be ruled by those whose power was so far removed as to surround every approach to it with the greatest embarra.s.sment. It was, without its wrongs, and tyranny and misgovernment, the repet.i.tion of the circ.u.mstances of the Crown and Colonies; and with good judgment, and as the beautiful language of the Danville convention expressed it, with sole intent to bless its people, they agreed to a dismemberment of its part, to secure the happiness of the whole."[F]

[Footnote F: Daniel Boone, by W. H. Bogart.]

It is not important here to enter into a detail of the various discussions which ensued, and of the measures which were adopted. It is sufficient to say that the communication from Kentucky to the Legislature of Virginia was referred to the ill.u.s.trious John Marshall, then at the commencement of his distinguished career. He gave to the request of the pet.i.tioners his own strong advocacy. The result was, that a decree was pa.s.sed after tedious delays, authorising the formal separation of Kentucky from Virginia. On the fourth of February, 1791, the new State, by earnest recommendation of George Washington, was admitted into the American Union.

It does not appear that Colonel Boone was a member of any of these conventions. He had no taste for the struggles in political a.s.semblies.

He dreaded indeed the speculator, the land jobber, and the intricate decisions of courts, more than the tomahawk of the Indian. And he knew full well that should the hour of action come, he would be one of the first to be summoned to the field. While therefore others of the early pioneers were engaged in these important deliberations, he was quietly pursuing those occupations, congenial to his tastes, of cultivating the farm, or in hunting game in the solitude of the forests. His humble cabin stood upon the banks of the Kentucky River, not far from the station at Boonesborough. And thoroughly acquainted as he was with the habits of the Indians, he felt quite able, in his bullet-proof citadel, to protect himself from any marauding bands which might venture to show themselves so near the fort.

It seems to be the lot of humanity that life should be composed of a series of storms, rising one after another. In the palace and in the cottage, in ancient days and at the present time, we find the sweep of the inexorable law, that man is born to mourn.

"Sorrow is for the sons of men, And weeping for earth's daughters."

The cloud of menaced Indian invasion had pa.s.sed away, when suddenly the sheriff appears in Boone's little cabin, and informs him that his t.i.tle to his land is disputed, and that legal proceedings were commenced against him. Boone could not comprehend this. Kentucky he regarded almost his own by the right of his discovery. He had led the way there.

He had established himself and family in the land, and had defended it from the incursions of the Indians. And now, in his advancing years, to be driven from the few acres he had selected and to which he supposed he had a perfect t.i.tle, seemed to him very unjust indeed. He could not recognise any right in what seemed to him but the quibbles of the lawyers. In his autobiography he wrote in reference to his many painful adventures:

"My footsteps have often been marked with blood. Two darling sons and a brother have I lost by savage hands, which have also taken from me forty valuable horses and abundance of cattle. Many dark and sleepless nights have I been a companion for owls, separated from the cheerful society of men, scorched by the summer's sun, and pinched by the winter's cold, an instrument ordained to settle the wilderness."

Agitated by the thought of the loss of his farm and deeply wounded in his feelings, as though a great wrong had been inflicted upon him, Boone addressed an earnest memorial to the Legislature of Kentucky. In this he stated that immediately after the troubles with the Indians had ceased, he located himself upon lands to which he supposed he had a perfect t.i.tle; that he reared his house and commenced cultivating his fields.

And after briefly enumerating the sacrifices he had made in exploring, settling and defending Kentucky, he said he could not understand the justice of making a set of complicated forms of law, superior to his actual occupancy of the land selected, as he believed when and where it was, it was his unquestioned right to do so.

But the lawyers and the land speculators were too shrewd for the pioneer. Colonel Boone was sued; the question went to the courts which he detested, and Boone lost his farm. It was indeed a very hard case. He had penetrated the country when no other white man trod its soil. He discovered its wonderful resources, and proclaimed them to the world. He had guided settlers into the region, and by his sagacity and courage, had provided for their wants and protected them from the savage. And now in his declining years he found himself driven from his farm, robbed of every acre, a houseless, homeless, impoverished man. The deed was so cruel that thousands since, in reading the recital, have been agitated by the strongest emotions of indignation and grief.

CHAPTER XII.

_Adventures Romantic and Perilous._

The Search for the Horse.--Navigating the Ohio.--Heroism of Mrs.

Rowan.--Lawless Gangs.--Exchange of Prisoners.--Boone Revisits the Home of his Childhood.--The Realms beyond the Mississippi.--Habits of the Hunters.--Corn.--Boone's Journey to the West.

The Indians still continued hostile. The following incident gives one an idea of the nature of the conflict which continued, and of the perils which were encountered.

There was a striving station where a few settlers were collected, at a spot now called State Creek Iron Works. One or two farm-houses were scattered around, but at such a short distance from the fort that their inmates could at once take refuge behind its log walls, in case of alarm. In the month of August, 1786, a young man residing in the fort, by the name of Yates, called at one of these farm-houses and requested a lad, Francis Downing, to accompany him in search of a horse, which had strayed away. The two friends set out together, and after searching the forest in vain, found themselves, the latter part of the afternoon, in a lonely uninhabited valley, nearly seven miles from the fort. Here young Downing became quite alarmed by some indications that Indians were d.o.g.g.i.ng their steps. He communicated his fears to his companion. But Yates, who was several years older than Downing, was an experienced hunter and inured to life in the woods, had become to a certain degree indifferent to danger. He made himself quite merry over his young companion's fears, asking him at what price he was willing to sell his scalp, and offering to insure it for sixpence.

Still Downing was not satisfied, and his alarm increased as he insisted that he occasionally heard the crack of dry twigs behind them, as if broken by some one pursueing. But Yates deriding his fears, pressed on, making the woods resound with a song, to which he gave utterance from unusually full and strong lungs. Downing gradually slackened his pace, and when Yates was some thirty yards in advance of him, sprang into a dense cl.u.s.ter of tall whortleberry bushes, where he was effectually concealed. Scarcely had he done this, when to his great terror he saw two Indians peeping cautiously out of a thick canebrake. Deceived by the song of Yates, who with stentorian lungs was still giving forth his woodland ditty, they supposed both had pa.s.sed. Young Downing thought it impossible but that the savages must have seen him as he concealed himself. Greatly alarmed he raised his gun, intending to shoot one and to trust to his heels for escape from the other.

But his hand was so unsteady that the gun went off before he had taken aim. Terror stricken, he rushed along the path Yates had trod. Yates, alarmed by the report of the gun, came running back. As they met, the two Indians were seen not far from them in hot pursuit. They soon could easily see that the enemy was gaining upon them. In their rapid flight they came to a deep gulley which Yates cleared at a bound, but young Downing failed in the attempt. His breast struck the opposite almost precipitous bank, and he rolled to the bottom of the ditch. Some obstruction in the way prevented the Indians from witnessing the fall of Downing. They continued the pursuit of Yates, crossing the gulley a few yards below where Downing had met his mishap. Thus in less time than we have occupied in the narration, the Indians disappeared in their chase after Yates.

Downing was in great perplexity. He did not dare to creep out of the gulley, lest he should be seen, and as soon as the Indians should perceive that he was not with Yates, as they inevitably would ere long do, they would know that he was left behind, and would turn back for his capture. Unfortunately young Downing had so far lost his presence of mind, that he had failed to reload his gun. Just then he saw one of the savages returning, evidently in search of him. There was no possible resource left but flight. Throwing away his now useless gun, he rushed into the forest with all the speed which terror could inspire. He was but a boy, the full-grown Indian gained rapidly upon him, he could almost strike him with his tomahawk, when they came to an immense tree, blown up by the roots. The boy ran on one side of the trunk and the Indian on the other, towards the immense pile of earth which adhered to the upturned roots.

The boy now gave up all hope in utter despair. It seemed certain that the brawny Indian would get ahead of him and intercept his further flight. But it so happened--was it an accident or was it a Providence--that a she-bear had made her bed directly in the path which the Indian with almost blind eagerness was pursuing. Here the ferocious beast was suckling her cubs. The bear sprang from her lair, and instantly with a terrific hug grasped the savage in her paws. The Indian gave a terrific yell and plunged his knife again and again into the body of the bear. The boy had but one brief glance, as in this b.l.o.o.d.y embrace they rolled over and over on the ground. The boy, praying that the bear might tear the Indian in pieces, added new speed to his flight and reached the fort in safety.

There he found Yates who had arrived but a few moments before him, and who had outrun the other Indian. The next morning a well armed party returned to the tree. Both the bear and the Indian had disappeared.

Probably both had suffered very severely in the conflict, and both had escaped with their lives.

Another incident ill.u.s.trative of these perilous adventures in the now peaceful State of Kentucky. Mr. Rowan, with his own and five other families, left the little hamlet at Louisville to float down the Ohio to Green River, and to ascend that stream, intending to rear their new homes on its fertile and delightful banks. The families were quite comfortably accommodated in a large flat-bottomed boat. Another boat of similar construction conveyed their cattle and sundry articles of household furniture. On the route which they were pursuing, there were then no settlements. The Ohio river and the Green river flowed through unbroken solitudes.

The flat boats had floated down the beautiful Ohio, through scenes of surpa.s.sing loveliness, about one hundred miles, when one night about ten o'clock a prodigious shouting and yelling of Indians was heard some distance farther down the river on the northern sh.o.r.e. Very soon they came in sight of their camp-fires, which were burning very brightly. It was evident that the Indians were having a great carousal rejoicing over some victory. Mr. Rowan immediately ordered the two boats to be lashed firmly together. There were but seven men on board who were capable of making efficient use of the rifle. Plying the oars as vigorously and noiselessly as they could, they endeavored to keep close to the Kentucky sh.o.r.e. And yet they were careful not to approach too near, lest there might be Indians there also. It was evident that there was a large gathering of the Indians on the northern bank, for their camp-fires extended for a distance of nearly half a mile along the river.

As the boats floated noiselessly along in the gloom of the night, under shadow of the cliffs, they were not detected until they were opposite the central fire, whose brilliancy threw a flood of light nearly across the stream. A simultaneous shout greeted this discovery, and with terrific yells the savages rushed to their canoes and commenced a pursuit. The two flat boats rapidly floated beyond the illumination of the fires into the region of midnight darkness. The timid Indians, well acquainted with the white man's unerring aim, pursued cautiously, though their hideous yells resounded along the sh.o.r.es.

Mr. Rowan ordered all on board to keep perfect silence, to conceal themselves as much as possible, and ordered not a gun to be fired till the Indians were so near that the powder of the gun would burn them, thus rendering every shot absolutely certain. The Indians, with their hideous yells, pursued in their canoes until within a hundred yards of the boats. They then seemed simultaneously to have adopted the conviction that the better part of valor was discretion. In the darkness, they could not see the boatmen, who they had no doubt were concealed behind bullet-proof bulwarks. Their birch canoes presented not the slightest obstruction to the pa.s.sage of a rifle ball. Knowing that the flash of a gun from the boat would be certain death to some one of their number, and that thus the boatmen, with the rapidity with which they could load and fire, would destroy a large part of their company before they could hope to capture the flat boats, they hesitated to approach any nearer, but followed in the pursuit for nearly three miles down the river, a.s.sailing the white men only with harmless yells.

The heroic Mrs. Rowan, as she saw the canoes approaching, supposing that the savages would attempt to board the boats, crept quietly around in the darkness, collected all the axes, and placed one by the side of each man, leaning the handle against his knee. While performing this significant act she uttered not a word, but returned to her own seat in silence, retaining a sharp hatchet for herself.

With such determined spirits to a.s.sail, it was well for the savages that they did not approach within arms-length of those whom they were pursuing. They would certainly have met with a b.l.o.o.d.y reception.

The savages at length, despairing of success, relinquished the pursuit and returned to their demoniac orgies around their camp-fires. It was supposed that they had captured a boat which was descending the river the day before, and that their extraordinary revelry was accompanied by the roasting of their captives. A son of Mr. Rowan, but ten years of age, who subsequently became one of the most distinguished men in Kentucky, was present on this occasion. He frequently, in after-years, alluded to the indescribable sensations of sublimity and terror which the scene inspired. The gloom of the night; the solemn flow of the majestic river; the dim view of the forests on either side; the gleam of the camp-fires of the Indians, around which the half-clad savages were dancing in hideous contortions; the unearthly yells in which every demoniac pa.s.sion seemed contending for the mastery; the shout which was given when they discovered the boats beneath the shadows of the opposite cliffs; the pursuit of the canoes with redoubled vehemence of hooting; the rapidity with which, with brawny arms, they paddled their boats to and fro; the breathless silence which pervaded the flat boat while for more than an hour the occupants awaited, momentarily expecting the terrible onset; and above all, the fort.i.tude and heroism displayed by his mother,--all these combined to leave an impression upon the mind of the boy which could never be obliterated. Few will be able to read the record of this adventure without emotion. What then must it have been to have experienced it in bodily presence, and to have shared in all its terrible dangers?