The Winning of the West Volume IV Part 6

The Indians Resolve to Treat.

The battle of the Fallen Timbers opened the eyes of the Indians to more facts than one. They saw that they could not stand against the Americans una.s.sisted. Furthermore, they saw that though the British would urge them to fight, and would secretly aid them, yet that in the last resort the King's troops would not come to their help by proceeding to actual war. All their leaders recognized that it was time to make peace. The Americans found an active ally in the French Canadian, Antoine La.s.selle, whom they had captured in the battle. He worked hard to bring about a peace, inducing the Canadian traders to come over to the American side, and making every effort to get the Indians to agree to terms. Being a thrifty soul, he drove a good trade with the savages at the councils, selling them quant.i.ties of liquor.

They Send Amba.s.sadors to Wayne.

In November the Wyandots from Sandusky sent amba.s.sadors to Wayne at Greeneville. Wayne spoke to them with his usual force and frankness. He told them he pitied them for their folly in listening to the British, who were very glad to urge them to fight and to give them ammunition, but who had neither the power nor the inclination to help them when the time of trial came; that hitherto the Indians had felt only the weight of his little finger, but that he would surely destroy all the tribes in the near future if they did not make peace. [Footnote: Canadian Archives, Geo. Ironside to McKee, Dec. 13, 1794.]

The Hurons went away much surprised, and resolved on peace; and the other tribes followed their example. In January, 1795, the Miamis, Chippewas, Sacs, Delawares, Pottawatomies, and Ottawas sent amba.s.sadors to Greeneville and agreed to treat. [Footnote: _Do_., Antoine La.s.selle to Jacques La.s.selle, Jan. 31, 1795.] The Shawnees were bent on continuing the war; but when their allies deserted them they too sent to Greeneville and asked to be included in the peace. [Footnote: _Do_., Letter of Lt.-Col. England, Jan. 30, 1795; also copy of treaty of peace of Feb. 11th.] On February 11th the Shawnees, Delawares, and Miamis formally entered into a preliminary treaty.

Treaty of Greeneville.

This was followed in the summer of 1795 by the formal Treaty of Greeneville, at which Wayne, on behalf of the United States, made a definite peace with all the Northwestern tribes. The sachems, war chiefs, and warriors of the different tribes began to gather early in June; and formal proceedings for a treaty were opened on June 17th. But many of the tribes were slow in coming to the treaty ground, others vacillated in their course, and unforeseen delays arose; so that it was not until August 7th that it was possible to come to a unanimous agreement and ratify the treaty. No less than eleven hundred and thirty Indians were present at the treaty grounds, including a full delegation from every hostile tribe. All solemnly covenanted to keep the peace; and they agreed to surrender to the whites all of what is now southern Ohio and south eastern Indiana, and various reservations elsewhere, as at Fort Wayne, Fort Defiance, Detroit, and Michilimackinac, the lands around the French towns, and the hundred and fifty thousand acres near the Falls of the Ohio which had been allotted to Clark and his soldiers.

The Government, in its turn, acknowledged the Indian t.i.tle to the remaining territory, and agreed to pay the tribes annuities aggregating nine thousand five hundred dollars. All prisoners on both sides were restored. There were interminable harangues and councils while the treaty was pending, the Indians invariably addressing Wayne as Elder Brother, and Wayne in response styling them Younger Brothers. In one speech a Chippewa chief put into terse form the reasons for making the treaty, and for giving the Americans t.i.tle to the land, saying, "Elder Brother, you asked who were the true owners of the land now ceded to the United States. In answer I tell you, if any nations should call themselves the owners of it they would be guilty of falsehood; our claim to it is equal; our Elder Brother has conquered it." [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., 562-583.]

Wayne's Great Achievement.

Wayne had brought peace by the sword. It was the first time the border had been quiet for over a generation; and for fifteen years the quiet lasted unbroken. The credit belongs to Wayne and his army, and to the Government which stood behind both. Because it thus finally stood behind them we can forgive its manifold shortcomings and vacillations, its futile efforts to beg a peace, and its reluctance to go to war. We can forgive all this; but we should not forget it. Americans need to keep in mind the fact that as a nation they have erred far more often in not being willing enough to fight than in being too willing. Once roused, they have always been dangerous and hard-fighting foes; but they have been over-difficult to rouse. Their educated cla.s.ses, in particular, need to be perpetually reminded that, though it is an evil thing to brave a conflict needlessly, or to bully and bl.u.s.ter, it is an even worse thing to flinch from a fight for which there is legitimate provocation, or to live in supine, slothful, unprepared ease, helpless to avenge an injury.

The Misconduct of the British.

The conduct of the Americans in the years which closed with Wayne's treaty did not shine very brightly; but the conduct of the British was black, indeed. On the Northwestern frontier they behaved in a way which can scarcely be too harshly stigmatized. This does not apply to the British civil and military officers at the Lake Posts; for they were merely doing their duty as they saw it, and were fronting their foes bravely, while with loyal zeal they strove to carry out what they understood to be the policy of their superiors. The ultimate responsibility rested with these superiors, the Crown's high advisers, and the King and Parliament they represented. Their treatment both of the Indians, whom they professed to protect, and of the Americans, with whom they professed to be friendly, forms one of the darkest pages in the annals of the British in America. Yet they have been much less severely blamed for their behaviour in this matter, than for far more excusable offences. American historians, for example, usually condemn them without stint because in 1814 the army of Ross and c.o.c.kburn burned and looted the public buildings of Washington; but by rights they should keep all their condemnation for their own country, so far as the taking of Washington is concerned; for the sin of burning a few public buildings is as nothing compared with the cowardly infamy of which the politicians of the stripe of Jefferson and Madison, and the people whom they represented, were guilty in not making ready, by sea and land, to protect their Capital and in not exacting full revenge for its destruction. These facts may with advantage be pondered by those men of the present day who are either so ignorant or of such lukewarm patriotism that they do not wish to see the United States keep prepared for war and show herself willing and able to adopt a vigorous foreign policy whenever there is need of furthering American interests or upholding the honor of the American flag. America is bound scrupulously to respect the rights of the weak; but she is no less bound to make stalwart insistance on her own rights as against the strong.

Their Treachery towards Both the Indians and the Americans.

The count against the British on the Northwestern frontier is, not that they insisted on their rights, but that they were guilty of treachery to both friend and foe. The success of the British was incompatible with the good of mankind in general, and of the English-speaking races in particular; for they strove to prop up savagery, and to bar the westward march of the settler-folk whose destiny it was to make ready the continent for civilization. But the British cannot be seriously blamed because they failed to see this. Their fault lay in their aiding and encouraging savages in a warfare which was necessarily horrible; and still more in their repeated breaches of faith. The horror and the treachery were the inevitable outcome of the policy on which they had embarked; it can never be otherwise when a civilized government endeavors to use, as allies in war, savages whose acts it cannot control and for whose welfare it has no real concern.

Doubtless the statesmen who shaped the policy of Great Britain never deliberately intended to break faith, and never fully realized the awful nature of the Indian warfare for which they were in part responsible; they thought very little of the matter at all in the years which saw the beginning of their stupendous struggle with France. But the acts of their obscure agents on the far interior frontier were rendered necessary and inevitable by their policy. To encourage the Indians to hold their own against the Americans, and to keep back the settlers, meant to encourage a war of savagery against the border vanguard of white civilization; and such a war was sure to teem with fearful deeds.

Moreover, where the interests of the British Crown were so manifold it was idle to expect that the Crown's advisers would treat as of much weight the welfare of the scarcely-known tribes whom their agents had urged to enter a contest which was hopeless except for British a.s.sistance. The British statesmen were engaged in gigantic schemes of warfare and diplomacy; and to them the Indians and the frontiersmen alike were p.a.w.ns on a great chessboard, to be sacrificed whenever necessary. When the British authorities deemed it likely that there would be war with America, the tribes were incited to take up the hatchet; when there seemed a chance of peace with America the deeds of the tribes were disowned; and peace was finally a.s.sured by a cynical abandonment of their red allies. In short, the British, while professing peace with the Americans, treacherously incited the Indians to war against them; and, when it suited their own interests, they treacherously abandoned their Indian allies to the impending ruin.

[Footnote: The ordinary American histories, often so absurdly unjust to England, are right in their treatment of the British actions on the frontier in 1793-94. The ordinary British historians simply ignore the whole affair. As a type of their cla.s.s, Mr. Percy Gregg may be instanced. His "History of the United States" is a silly book; he is often intentionally untruthful, but his chief fault is his complete ignorance of the facts about which he is writing. It is, of course, needless to criticise such writers as Mr. Gregg and his fellows. But it is worth while calling attention to Mr. Goldwin Smith's "The United States," for Mr. Goldwin Smith is a student, and must be taken seriously. He says: "That the British government or anybody by its authority was intriguing with the Indians against the Americans is an a.s.sertion of which there seems to be no proof." If he will examine the Canadian Archives, from which I have quoted, and the authorities which I cite, he will find the proof ready to hand. Prof. A. C. McLaughlin has made a capital study of this question in his pamphlet on "The Western Posts and the British Debts." What he says cannot well be controverted.]

CHAPTER III.

TENNESSEE BECOMES A STATE, 1791-1796.

The Southwestern Territory.

"The Territory of the United States of America South of the River Ohio"

was the official t.i.tle of the tract of land which had been ceded by North Carolina to the United States, and which a few years later became the State of Tennessee. William Blount, the newly appointed Governor, took charge late in 1790. He made a tour of the various counties, as laid out under authority of the State of North Carolina, rechristening them as counties of the Territory, and summoning before him the persons in each county holding commissions from North Carolina, at the respective court-houses, where he formally notified them of the change.

He read to them the act of Congress accepting the cessions of the claims of North Carolina; then he read his own commission from President Washington; and informed them of the provision by North Carolina that Congress should a.s.sume and execute the government of the new Territory "in a manner similar to that which they support northwest of the River Ohio." Following this he formally read the ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory. He commented upon and explained this proclamation, stating that under it the President had appointed the Governor, the Judges, and the Secretary of the new Territory, and that he himself, as Governor, would now appoint the necessary county officers.

Blount Inaugurated as Governor.

Slavery in the New Territory.

The remarkable feature of this address was that he read to the a.s.sembled officers in each county, as part of the law apparently binding upon them, Article 6 of the Ordinance of 1787, which provided that there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the Northwestern Territory. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Journal of Proceedings of William Blount, Esq., Governor in and over the Territory of the United States of America South of the River Ohio, in his executive department, October 23, 1790.] It had been expressly stipulated that this particular provision as regards slavery should not apply to the Southwestern Territory, and of course Blount's omission to mention this fact did not in any way alter the case; but it is a singular thing that he should without comment have read, and his listeners without comment have heard, a recital that slavery was abolished in their territory. It emphasizes the fact that at this time there was throughout the West no very strong feeling on the subject of slavery, and what feeling there was, was if anything hostile. The adventurous backwoods farmers who composed the great ma.s.s of the population in Tennessee, as elsewhere among and west of the Alleghanies, were not a slave-owning people, in the sense that the planters of the seaboard were. They were preeminently folk who did their work with their own hands. Master and man chopped and ploughed and reaped and builded side by side, and even the leaders of the community, the militia generals, the legislators, and the judges, often did their share of farm work, and prided themselves upon their capacity to do it well. They had none of that feeling which makes slave-owners look upon manual labor as a badge of servitude. They were often lazy and shiftless, but they never deified laziness and shiftlessness or made them into a cult. The one thing they prized beyond all others was their personal freedom, the right of the individual to do whatsoever he saw fit. Indeed they often carried this feeling so far as to make them condone gross excesses, rather than insist upon the exercise of even needful authority. They were by no means entirely logical, but they did see and feel that slavery was abhorrent, and that it was utterly inconsistent with the theories of their own social and governmental life. As yet there was no thought of treating slavery as a sacred inst.i.tution, the righteousness of which must not be questioned. At the Fourth of July celebrations toasts such as "The total abolition of slavery" were not uncommon. [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, July 17, 1795, etc. See also issue Jan. 28, 1792.] It was this feeling which prevented any manifestation of surprise at Blount's apparent acquiescence in a section of the ordinance for the government of the Territory which prohibited slavery.

Dulness of the Public Conscience about Slavery.

Nevertheless, though slaves were not numerous, they were far from uncommon, and the moral conscience of the community was not really roused upon the subject. It was hardly possible that it should be roused, for no civilized people who owned African slaves had as yet abolished slavery, and it was too much to hope that the path toward abolition would be pointed out by poor frontiersmen engaged in a life and death struggle with hostile savages. The slaveholders were not interfered with until they gradually grew numerous enough and powerful enough to set the tone of thought, and make it impossible to root out slavery save by outside action.

Blount's First Appointments.

Blount recommended the appointment of Sevier and Robertson as brigadier-generals of militia of the Eastern and Western districts of the Territory, and issued a large number of commissions to the justices of the peace, militia officers, sheriffs, and clerks of the county courts in the different counties. [Footnote: Blount MSS., Journal of the Proceedings, etc.] In his appointments he shrewdly and properly identified himself with the natural leaders of the frontiersmen. He made Sevier and Robertson his right-hand men, and strove always to act in harmony with them, while for the minor military and civil officers he chose the persons whom the frontiersmen themselves desired. In consequence he speedily became a man of great influence for good. The Secretary of the Territory reported to the Federal Government that the effect of Blount's character on the frontiersmen was far greater than was the case with any other man, and that he was able to get them to adhere to the principles of order and to support the laws by his influence in a way which it was hopeless to expect from their own respect for governmental authority. Blount was felt by the frontiersmen to be thoroughly in sympathy with them, to understand and appreciate them, and to be heartily anxious for their welfare; and yet at the same time his influence could be counted upon on the side of order, while the majority of the frontier officials in any time of commotion were apt to remain silent and inactive, or even to express their sympathy with the disorderly element. [Footnote: American State Papers, iv.; Daniel Smith to the Secretary of War, Knoxville, July 19, 1793.]

Blount's Tact in Dealing with Difficulties.

No one but a man of great tact and firmness could have preserved as much order among the frontiersmen as Blount preserved. He was always under fire from both sides. The settlers were continually complaining that they were deserted by the Federal authorities, who favored the Indians, and that Blount himself did not take sufficiently active steps to subdue the savages; while on the other hand the National Administration was continually upbraiding him for being too active against the Indians, and for not keeping the frontiersmen sufficiently peaceable. Under much temptations, and in a situation that would have bewildered any one, Blount steadfastly followed his course of, on the one hand, striving his best to protect the people over whom he was placed as governor, and to repel the savages, while, on the other hand, he suppressed so far as lay in his power, any outbreak against the authorities, and tried to inculcate a feeling of loyalty and respect for the National Government.

[Footnote: Robertson MSS., Blount to Robertson, Feb. 13, 1793.] He did much in creating a strong feeling of attachment to the Union among the rough backwoodsmen with whom he had thrown in his lot.

Treaty of Holston with the Cherokees.

Early in 1791 Blount entered into negotiations with the Cherokees, and when the weather grew warm, he summoned them to a treaty. They met on the Holston, all of the noted Cherokee chiefs and hundreds of their warriors being present, and concluded the treaty of Holston, by which, in consideration of numerous gifts and of an annuity of a thousand (afterwards increased to fifteen hundred) dollars, the Cherokees at last definitely abandoned their disputed claims to the various tracts of land which the whites claimed under various former treaties. By this treaty with the Cherokees, and by the treaty with the Creeks entered into at New York the previous summer, the Indian t.i.tle to most of the present State of Tennessee, was fairly and legally extinguished. However the westernmost part, was still held by the Chickasaws, and certain tracts in the southeast, by the Cherokees; while the Indian hunting grounds in the middle of the territory were thrust in between the groups of settlements on the c.u.mberland and the Holston.

Knoxville Founded.

The "Knoxville Gazette."

On the ground where the treaty was held Blount proceeded to build a little town, which he made the capital of the Territory, and christened Knoxville, in honor of Washington's Secretary of War. At this town there was started, in 1791, under his own supervision, the first newspaper of Tennessee, known as the _Knoxville Gazette_. It was four or five years younger than the only other newspaper of the then far West, the _Kentucky Gazette_. The paper gives an interesting glimpse of many of the social and political conditions of the day. In political tone it showed Blount's influence very strongly, and was markedly in advance of most of the similar papers of the time, including the _Kentucky Gazette_; for it took a firm stand in favor of the National Government, and against every form of disorder, of separatism, or of mob law. As with all of the American papers of the day, even in the backwoods, there was much interest taken in European news, and a prominent position was given to long letters, or extracts from seaboard papers, containing accounts of the operations of the English fleets and the French armies, or of the att.i.tude of the European governments. Like most Americans, the editorial writers of the paper originally sympathized strongly with the French Revolution; but the news of the beheading of Marie Antoinette, and the recital of the atrocities committed in Paris, worked a reaction among those who loved order, and the _Knoxville Gazette_ ranged itself with them, taking for the time being strong grounds against the French, and even incidentally alluding to the Indians as being more blood-thirsty than any man "not a Jacobin." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, March 27, 1794.] The people largely shared these sentiments.

In 1793 at the Fourth of July celebration at Jonesborough there was a public dinner and ball, as there was also at Knoxville; Federal troops were paraded and toasts were drunk to the President, to the Judges of the Supreme Court, to Blount, to General Wayne, to the friendly Chickasaw Indians, to Sevier, to the ladies of the Southwestern Territory, to the American arms, and, finally, "to the true liberties of France and a speedy and just punishment of the murderers of Louis XVI."

The word "Jacobin" was used as a term of reproach for some time.

The "Gazette" Sound in its Politics.

The paper was at first decidedly Federalist in sentiment. No sympathy was expressed with Genet or with the efforts undertaken by the Western allies of the French Minister to organize a force for the conquest of Louisiana; and the Tennessee settlers generally took the side of law and order in the earlier disturbances in which the Federal Government was concerned. At the Fourth of July celebration in Knoxville, in 1795, one of the toasts was "The four western counties of Pennsylvania; may they repent their folly and sin no more"; the Tennesseeans sympathizing as little with the Pennsylvania whiskey revolutionists as four years later they sympathized with the Kentuckians and Virginians in their nullification agitation against the alien and sedition laws.

Its Gradual Change of Tone.

Gradually, however, the tone of the paper changed, as did the tone of the community, at least to the extent of becoming Democratic and anti-Federal; for the people felt that the Easterners did not sympathize with them either in their contests with the Indians or in their desire to control the Mississippi and the farther West. They grew to regard with particular vindictiveness the Federalists,--the aristocrats, as they styled them,--of the Southern seaboard States, notably of Virginia and South Carolina.

One pathetic feature of the paper was the recurrence of advertis.e.m.e.nts by persons whose friends and kinsfolk had been carried off by the Indians, and who anxiously sought any trace of them.

Queer Use of the "Gazette."

But the _Gazette_ was used for the expression of opinions not only by the whites, but occasionally even by an Indian. One of the Cherokee chiefs, the Red Bird, put into the _Gazette_, for two buckskins, a talk to the Cherokee chief of the Upper Towns, in which he especially warned him to leave alone one William c.o.c.ke, "the white man who lived among the mulberry trees," for, said Red Bird, "the mulberry man talks very strong and runs very fast"; this same c.o.c.ke being afterwards one of the first two senators from Tennessee. The Red Bird ended his letter by the expression of the rather quaint wish, "that all the bad people on both sides were laid in the ground, for then there would not be so many mush men trying to make people to believe they were warriors." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, November 3, 1792.]

Efforts to Promote Higher Education.

Blount brought his family to Tennessee at once, and took the lead in trying to build up inst.i.tutions for higher education. After a good deal of difficulty an academy was organized under the t.i.tle of Blount College, and was opened as soon as a sufficient number of pupils could be gotten together; there were already two other colleges in the Territory, Greeneville and Washington, the latter being the academy founded by Doak. Like almost all other inst.i.tutions of learning of the day these three were under clerical control; but Blount College was chartered as a non-denomination inst.i.tution, the first of its kind in the United States. [Footnote: See Edward T. Sanford's "Blount College and the University of Tennessee," p. 13.] The clergyman and the lawyer, with the school-master, were still the typical men of letters in all the frontier communities. The doctor was not yet a prominent feature of life in the backwoods, though there is in the _Gazette_ an advertis.e.m.e.nt of one who announces that he intends to come to practise "with a large stock of genuine medicines." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, June 19, 1794.]

Books of the Backwoods.

The ordinary books were still school books, books of law, and sermons or theological writings. The first books, or pamphlets, published in Eastern Tennessee were brought out about this time at the _Gazette_ office, and bore such t.i.tles as "A Sermon on Psalmody, by Rev. Hezekiah Balch"; "A Discourse by the Rev. Samuel Carrick"; and a legal essay called "Western Justice." [Footnote: _Knoxville Gazette_, Jan. 30 and May 8, 1794.] There was also a slight effort now and then at literature of a lighter kind. The little Western papers, like those in the East, had their poets' corners, often with the heading of "Sacred to the Muses," the poems ranging from "Lines to Myra" and "An Epitaph on John Topham" to "The Pernicious Consequences of Smoking Cigars." In one of the issues of the _Knoxville Gazette_ there is advertised for sale a new song by "a gentleman of Col. McPherson's Blues, on a late Expedition against the Pennsylvania Insurgents"; and also, in rather incongruous juxtaposition, "Toplady's Translation of Zanchi on Predestination."

Settlers Throng into Tennessee.

Settlers were thronging into East Tennessee, and many penetrated even to the Indian-hara.s.sed western district. In travelling to the western parts the immigrants generally banded together in large parties, led by some man of note. Among those who arrived in 1792 was the old North Carolina Indian fighter, General Griffith Rutherford. He wished to settle on the c.u.mberland, and to take thither all his company, with a large number of wagons, and he sent to Blount begging that a road might be cut through the wilderness for the wagons; or, if this could not be done, that some man would blaze the route, "in which case," said he "there would be hands of our own that could cut as fast as wagons could march."

[Footnote: Blount MSS., Rutherford to Blount, May 25, 1792.]