The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume II Part 7

"Under date of the 27th of July, 1776, General Washington wrote to Congress," says Mr. Allen, "expressing respectful anxiety that the Stockbridge Indians shall be employed, and remarks that they were dissatisfied at not being included in the late order for enlisting their people, and had inquired the cause of General Putman.

"The reasons he a.s.signs for recommending their employment are such as have influenced, and probably determined, the Americans from that time to the termination of the last war (1812-1815) with Great Britain--that is, the impossibility of keeping them neutral; the fear of their joining the enemy; while the customs of savage warfare are so repulsive to all the feelings of humanity and pride of the soldier, that it would seem no palliation could be received for the crime of having sanctioned them by example. Indians are active and serviceable when properly employed. They are the best defence against Indians. Acquainted from their birth with wiles and stratagems, they can trace the enemy, and tell its numbers, its footsteps, when the eye of the white man cannot discover a trace; and the moving of gra.s.s or rushes, which would be unregarded by a regular soldier, as the natural effect of winds, leads the Indian to be prepared for an ambush. The certainty that Indians can be restrained when it is wished, reconciles the opposite contradictions which are so often seen between the complaints made by the Americans that the enemy employed savages, at the very moment that they also employed them."[79]

It is thus clear that both parties courted the co-operation of the Indians, and employed them to the utmost of their power; and therefore one party has no just ground of reproach against or advantage over the other party for the inhuman policy of enlisting the Indians in their cause, though the British had larger means and greater facilities in securing this savage co-operation.

It has been alleged, and no doubt truly, that the American commanders restrained the cruel and plundering propensities of the Indians, and the English commanders did the same; but neither the English nor the Americans were always able to control their Indian allies on or after the day of battle. American writers have, however, charged the outrages of the Indians in the English army, and scouting parties, to the sanction of the British generals,[80] and the prompting of the British Loyalists, and some English writers have reiterated the charge. The employment of the Indians at all was against the judgment of both General Burgoyne and Sir Guy Carleton,[81] and only submitted to in obedience to the King's authority. As early as the 11th of July, 1776, Burgoyne (while pursuing his enterprise from Montreal to Albany) complains as follows of the conduct of the Indians to the Secretary of State: "Confidentially to your Lordship, I may acknowledge that in several instances I have found the Indians little more than a name. If, under the management of their conductors, they are indulged for interested reasons in all the caprices and humours of spoiled children like them, they grow more unreasonable and importunate upon every new favour. Were they left to themselves, enormities too horrid to think of would ensue; guilty and innocent, women and infants, would be a common prey."[82]

While the Indians were an inc.u.mbrance to Burgoyne's army during his whole campaign, and forsook him in the eventful hour when he most needed them, their barbarities contributed greatly to swell the revolutionary army, and to alienate great numbers of Loyalists, weakening Burgoyne's army in the very country where he expected most support from the inhabitants, and giving the American general, Gates, a great preponderance of strength over him--the army of Burgoyne being reduced to 3,500 men fit for actual service, while that of Gates was increased to upwards of 16,000 fit for actual service.[83]

But if the British exceeded the Americans in gaining the greater part of the Indians to their cause, and the corresponding disgrace and disadvantage of their accompanying the army, the Americans far outdid the English and the Indians themselves in the work of desolation and destruction. Dr. Ramsay remarks:

"The undisturbed tranquillity which took place in South Carolina and the adjacent States after the British had failed in their designs against them in the spring and summer of 1776, gave an opportunity of carrying war into the Indian country. This was done, not so much to punish what was past, as to prevent all future co-operation between the Indians and British in that quarter. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia sent about the same time a considerable force, which traversed the Indian settlements, burned their towns, and destroyed their fields of corn. Above 500 of the Cherokees were obliged, from want of provisions, to take refuge in Florida, and were fed at the expense of the British Government."[84]

It is to be observed that this was not an invasion of the white settlements by the Indians, but an invasion of the Indian settlements by the whites; it was a "carrying war into the Indian country;" it was not provoked by the Indians, but "was done to prevent all future co-operation between the Indians and British in that quarter." Yet this war of _invasion_, this war of _precaution_, was also a war more destructive to the Indians than any which they, even under the French, had inflicted on the white colonists; for not an Indian cornfield was left undestroyed, nor an Indian habitation unconsumed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 70: The royal historian, Dr. Andrews, says:

"The colonies were particularly exasperated at the introduction of foreign troops into this quarrel. They looked upon this measure as an unanswerable proof that all regard for their character as Englishmen was fled, and that Great Britain viewed them as strangers, whom, if she could not conquer and enslave, she was determined to destroy. This persuasion excited their most violent indignation; they considered themselves as abandoned to plunder and ma.s.sacre, and that Britain was unfeelingly bent on their ruin, by whatsoever means she could compa.s.s it.

"While the colonists represented this measure in so sanguinary a light, it was depicted at home in the same colour by their partisans. It was even reprobated by many individuals who were not averse to the other parts of the Ministerial plan, but who could not bring themselves to approve of the interference of foreign mercenaries in our domestic feuds.

"It was not only throughout the public at large this measure occasioned so much discontent; after having in Parliament undergone the keenest censure of the Opposition, it fell under the displeasure of a considerable number of those who sided with the Minister and were generally used to support the measures of Government; but on this occasion they loudly dissented from them. Several quitted the House without voting; others, who voted in his favour, obliged him previously to give them an a.s.surance that he would remove all their doubts and scruples, and satisfy them clearly on this subject." (Dr. Andrews'

History of the Late War, Vol. II., Chap. xviii., pp. 76, 77.)]

[Footnote 71: "The employment of foreign troops to reduce America was an object animadverted upon by the Opposition with peculiar violence and indignation. This, indeed, of all the Ministerial measures, met with the most acrimonious notice both in and out of Parliament. * * Foreigners said the Opposition were now taught that Britain, with all its boasted greatness, could not find people at home to fight its battles. * * Who could behold so disgraceful a measure without feeling for that loss of national honour which it must occasion? * * But exclusive of the disgrace entailed upon our character, the danger of the system was no less apparent. What reason had we to trust an army of foreigners, who could possibly harbour no motives of enmity to the people against whom they were to be employed? The country where these foreigners were to wage war for us, was precisely that to which we had so often enticed numbers to emigrate from their native homes by promises of more _ease_ and happiness than they could enjoy in their own country. * * Of all the measures that had been taken against the Americans, that of hiring foreigners to invade their country had given the highest offence.

British soldiers, though acting in the capacity of foes, still retained the feelings of countrymen, and would not shed blood without some compunction. They were born and bred in a country noted for humanity, and the const.i.tution of which inculcated mildness. But the Hessians were of a ferocious disposition; educated under a despotic Government, they knew no rights but those of force. They carried destruction wherever they were masters, plundering all before them without distinction, and committing the most barbarous ravages.

"They had, it was said, been told before their departure from Germany that they were to be put in possession of the lands of those whom they conquered, and they were full of this expectation at their arrival. But upon discovering their mistake, they resolved, however, to make themselves amends by appropriating whatever they could lay their hands upon. * * The conduct of the Hessians was extremely offensive to the British commanders, but they were too powerful a body to restrain by compulsion, as they composed almost one-half of the army.

Notwithstanding the prudence and steadiness with which General Howe conducted himself upon this emergency, it was not possible to restrain their excesses, nor even prevent them from spreading among the English troops in a degree to which they would not have certainly been carried had they not such examples for a plea.

"The depredations of the Hessians grew at last, it was said, so enormous, that the spoils they were loaded with became an absolute inc.u.mbrance to them, and a frequent impediment to the discharge of their military duties.

"The desolation of the Jerseys was one of the consequences of this spirit of rapine. The Americans who adhered to Britain attributed to it the subsequent decline of the British cause in these and other parts. As the devastation was extended indiscriminately to friend and foe, it equally exasperated both parties; it confirmed the enmity of the one, and raised up a new enemy in the other; and it injured the British interest in all the colonies." (Dr. Andrews' History of the Late War, Vol. II., Chaps. xvii. and xxii., pp. 53, 54-268, 269.)

Dr. Andrews adds, in another place, that--

"The resentment occasioned by the depredations that had been carried on in the Jerseys had left few, if any, friends to Britain in that province. The dread of seeing those plunderers return, who had spared neither friend nor foe, rendered all parties averse to the cause in which they were employed. To this it was owing that their motions were observed with such extreme vigilance, that they stood little or no chance of succeeding in any of their enterprises. So many had suffered through them, that there was no deficiency of spies to give instant information of whatever they were suspected to have in view; and as much mischief was done them by such as acted secretly from motives of private revenge, as by those who took an open part against them in the field."

(Dr. Andrews' History of the American War, etc., Vol. II., Chap, xxiii., pp. 301, 302.)]

[Footnote 72: "At the north, the King called to mind that he might 'rely upon the attachment of his faithful allies, the Six Nations of Indians,'

and he turned to them for immediate a.s.sistance. To insure the fulfilment of his wishes, the order to engage them was sent directly in his name to the unscrupulous Indian agent, Guy Johnson, whose functions were made independent of Carleton. 'Lose no time,' it was said; 'induce them to take up the hatchet against his Majesty's rebellious subjects in America. It is a service of very great importance; fail not to exert every effort that may tend to accomplish it; use the utmost diligence and activity.'" (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VII., Chap. x.x.xiii., p. 349.)]

[Footnote 73: Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap.

xix., pp. 320, 321.

"It was unfortunate for the colonies that since the peace of Paris, 1763, the transactions with the Indians had been mostly carried on by superintendents appointed and paid by the King of Great Britain. These being under obligations to the Crown, and expectants of further favours from it, generally used their influence with the Indians in behalf of the mother country and against the colonies. * * The Americans were not unmindful of the savages on their frontier. They appointed commissioners to explain to them the grounds of their dispute, and to cultivate their friendship by treaties and presents. They first sought to persuade the Indians to join them against Great Britain, but having failed in that, they endeavoured to persuade the Indians that the quarrel was by no means relative to them, and that therefore they should take part with neither side.

"For the greater convenience of managing the intercourse between the colonies and the Indians, the latter were divided into three departments--the northern, southern, and middle--and commissioners were appointed for each. Congress also resolved to import and distribute among them a suitable a.s.sortment of goods, to the amount of 40,000 sterling, on account of the United States; but this was not executed."

(Dr. Ramsay's History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xix., p.

321.)]

[Footnote 74: "Anxious (1775, October) to relieve St. John's, Carleton, after the capture of Allen, succeeded in a.s.sembling about nine hundred Canadians at Montreal; but a want of mutual confidence, and the certainty that the inhabitants generally favoured the Americans, dispirited them, and they disappeared by desertions thirty or forty of a night, till he was left almost as forlorn as before. The Indians, too, he found of little service; 'they were easily dejected, and chose to be of the strongest side, so that when they were most wanted they vanished'. But history must preserve the fact that though often urged to let them loose on the rebel provinces, in his detestation of cruelty he would not suffer a savage to pa.s.s the frontier." (Bancroft's History of the United States, Vol. VIII., Chap. lii., p. 186.)]

[Footnote 75: "Reading at the present day, we can see how the pa.s.sionate and declamatory rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence has left its stain to this hour on most of the political writing and oratory of America, and may wish that the birth of a nation had not been screamed into the world after this fashion. Nothing could have been easier than, in the like rhetorical language, to draw up a list of lawlessness and utter outrage committed by the colonists. Some of the charges will not bear examination.

"For instance, the aid of the Indians had been willingly accepted by the colonists in the Canadian expedition since September, 1775; the general question of their employment had been considered by Washington in conference with a Committee of Congress and delegates of New England Governments in October of the same year; and the main objection which Washington and other officers urged against it, as shown by a letter of his to General Schuyler, January 27, 1776, and the answer from the latter, was that of expense. He had, nevertheless (April 19, 1776), advised Congress 'to engage them on our side,' as 'they must, and no doubt soon will, take an active part either for or against us;' and the Congress itself had, on June 3rd--not a month before the Declaration of Independence was actually accepted--pa.s.sed a resolution to raise 2,000 Indians for the Canadian service, which, shortly afterwards, was extended by another (referred to in a letter of Washington's of June 20), authorizing General Washington to employ such Indians as he should take into the service in any place where he might think that they would be most useful, and to offer them bounties, not indeed for scalps, but for every officer and soldier of the King's troops whom they might capture in the Indian country or on the frontiers of the colonies. When all this had been done, it needed the forgetfulness and the blind hypocrisy of pa.s.sion to denounce the King to the world for having 'endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages;' yet the American people have never had the self-respect to erase this charge from a doc.u.ment generally printed in the fore-front of their Const.i.tution and Laws, and with which every schoolboy is sedulously made familiar.

"Perhaps, indeed, it would have been otherwise had not the charge been one which circ.u.mstances appeared to confirm. For, in fact, owing to causes already indicated, the Americans never could make friends of the Indians in the contest, and consequently the 'merciless savages'

continue in history to figure on the side of the British. Who could wonder at it? At the date of the Declaration of Independence, the Indian child had only just reached man's estate, who in the year of his birth might have escaped being a victim to the bounty of 20, held out for the scalp of every Indian woman and child, by Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1775, whilst one of 40 had been offered for that of his father, raised in 1776 to 300. It did not require the retentive memory of the redskin to make him look with suspicion on solicitations of friendship from men who might have been parties to such schemes of extermination to his race." (The Ludlow's History of the War of Independence, 1777-1783, Chap. v., pp.

124-126.)

"But Jefferson's violent pamphlet should, in fact, be looked upon less as a Declaration of Independence than as a Declaration of War--less as an a.s.sertion of right than as a cry of defiance uttered in the hour of grave peril, and in the face of a formidable foe."--_Ib._, p. 126.]

[Footnote 76: Some of the members of Congress were, at times, not so reticent as their oaths of secrecy required, and the squabbles of Conference became known abroad. It is a curious ill.u.s.tration of the dignity and character of a body, when the least publication of its proceedings becomes its disgrace.

"In those days (1779), far unlike our own, the Congress resembled a Committee or a Junta, much rather than a chamber of debate. The speeches, it is said, were all in the style of private conversation.

There were never more than forty members present, often no more than twenty. These small numbers, however, by no means ensured harmony, nor precluded violent and unseemly quarrels, rumours of which were not slow in pa.s.sing the Atlantic. 'For G.o.d's sake,' thus wrote La Fayette from France, 'for G.o.d's sake, prevent the Congress from disputing loudly together. Nothing so much hurts the interest and reputation of America.'

Thus the object of concealment, unless, perhaps, for private purposes, was most imperfectly attained, although, in name at least, the deliberations of Congress at this time were secret. Historically, even the Journal which they kept gives little light as to their true proceedings. An American gentleman, who has studied that doc.u.ment with care, laments that it is 'painfully meagre, the object being apparently to record as little as possible.'" (Lord Mahon's History of England, Vol. VII., Chap. lviii., pp. 420, 421; quoting as his authority, "Letter of La Fayette to Washington, June 12, 1779," and "Life of President Reed," by Mr. Wm. Reed, Vol. II., p. 18.)]

[Footnote 77: Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol. VII., Chap, lii., pp. 52, 53.]

[Footnote 78: This letter, dated Concord, April 4, 1775, may be seen at length in the Appendix to Sparks' edition of Washington's Writings, Vol.

III., p. 495. The letter, it will be seen, was written a fortnight before the affair of Concord and Lexington, which took place the 19th of April, when the first blood was shed in the revolution.]

[Footnote 79: Allen's History of the American Revolution, Vol. I., Chap, xiv., pp. 423, 424.

"Lord Suffolk, in his speech (in reply to Lord Chatham), undertook to defend the employment of the savages. 'The Congress,' he said, 'endeavoured to bring the Indians over to their side, and if we had not employed them they would most certainly have acted against us.' This statement, which at the time was doubted or denied, has been, it must be owned, in no small degree borne out by doc.u.ments that have subsequently come to light. Even several months later, we find Congress in treaty to engage several parties of Indians in their service." (Lord Mahon's History, etc., Vol. VII., Chap. lvi., p. 305.)

"See Washington's Writings, Vol. V., p. 273, and Appendix to Vol. III., p. 494. 'Divesting them,' says Washington, 'of the savage customs exercised in their wars against each other, I think they may be made of excellent use as scouts and light troops, mixed with our own parties.'

But what more did the English ever design or desire?" (Lord Mahon's History, etc., Vol. VII., Chap. lvi., p. 305.)]

[Footnote 80: Even so amiable and generous a man as Burgoyne did not escape these imputations. "It may well be imagined that while Burgoyne was advancing, declamations against his and the Indians' cruelty (for no distinction was admitted) were rife on the American side. By such means, and still more, perhaps, by the natural spirit of a free-born people when threatened with invasion, a resolute energy against Burgoyne was roused in the New England States."--_Ib._, p. 261.]

[Footnote 81: "Carleton from the first abhorred the measure of employing the Indians, which he was yet constrained to promote." (Bancroft, Vol.

VII., p. 119.)]

[Footnote 82: Quoted in Lord Mahon's History, Vol. VII., Chap. lvi., p.

259. After quoting this letter, Lord Mahon adds:

"It is due to Burgoyne to state, that from the first he had made most strenuous exertions, both by word and deed, to prevent any such enormities. The testimony, for example, of his aide-de-camp, Lord Petersham, when examined before the House of Commons, is clear and precise upon that point. (See Burgoyne's Narrative and Collection of Doc.u.ments, pp. 65, 66, second edition.) But in spite of all restraints, the cruel temper and lawless habits of these savages would sometimes burst forth--sometimes not more fatally to their enemies than to their friends. The tragical fate of Miss MacRea raised one loud cry of indignation on both sides of the Atlantic. This lady, in the bloom of youth and beauty, the daughter of an American Loyalist, was betrothed to an officer in the British provincial troops. Anxious for her security, the officer engaged some Indians to escort her from her home and convey her to the British camp, where the marriage would be solemnized. As a further precaution, he promised to reward the person who should bring her safe to him with a barrel of rum. But this very precaution, as it seemed to be, was the cause of the disaster which ensued. Two of the Indians who took charge of her began a quarrel on the way, as to which of them should first present her to the bridegroom. Each was eager for the rum; each resolute that his companion should not receive it in his place. At last one of them in sudden fury raised his tomahawk, struck Miss MacRea upon the head, and laid her a corpse at his feet. General Burgoyne at this news displayed his utmost resentment and concern. He compelled the Indians to deliver up the murderer, and designed to put him to death. He was only induced to spare his life upon the Indians agreeing to terms which the General thought would be more effectual than any execution, in deterring them from similar barbarities. Deterred, indeed, they were. But when they found themselves precluded from their expected delights of plundering and scalping, they began to desert and go home. Of nearly five hundred who at the outset had joined Burgoyne, less than threescore at last remained beneath his banner."--_Ib._, pp.

259-261.

At the first general encampment of Burgoyne's army on the western side of Lake Champlain, he met a deputation of the Indians in alliance with Great Britain, and made an animated speech to them. "He exhorted them to behave with courage and fidelity to their friends, and to avoid all barbarity towards their enemies. He entreated them to be particularly careful in distinguishing between the adherents and foes to the British nation. He earnestly requested that they would put none to death but such as actually opposed them with arms in their hands, and to spare old men, women, children, and prisoners; to scalp only such as they had killed in action, and to treat compa.s.sionately the wounded and dying. He promised them a reward for every prisoner they brought in, but a.s.sured them he would look narrowly into every demand for scalps." (Dr. Andrews'

History of the Late War, Vol. II., Chap, xxviii., p. 383.)]

[Footnote 83: "The apprehensions of those who had been averse to the employment of the Indians in the British army began to be justified.