Chapter VIII (1)

THE INDIANS AND THE BORDER WARFARE OF THE REVOLUTION.

BY ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS,

_American Antiquarian Society._

THE peace which followed the quelling of the Pontiac war gave opportunities for settlements to be pushed westward. The population on the border, rendered lawless by environment, was not likely to observe treaties. Fear of the Indians was more potent to restrain these restless men than dread of punishment by colonial authorities. Conflicts of colonial jurisdiction and disputed land claims added to the chronic confusion of the situation.

It needed all the tact and discretion of which that remarkable man, Sir William Johnson, was master to prevent outbreaks, and the danger was not over until the boundaries were adjusted with the Six Nations and other Indians, at Fort Stanwix, in 1768. There was far more cause for complaint against the English on the part of the tribes whom Sir William was able to control than on the part of the Senecas, who, in September, 1763, had surprised and scalped a working party with their guard. Encroachment upon their lands had also irritated the Mohawks, who particularly resented an attempt of a Connecticut company to colonize the valley of the Susquehanna. Early in the spring of 1763, the Connecticut company sought to secure Sir William's influence with the Indians in quieting the company's title, which was based upon the Connecticut charter and upon alleged Indian deeds. The company failed in this, as well as in an attempt to negotiate with the confederacy. The Indians, instead of granting a deed, sent to Connecticut a delegation of Mohawks, accompanied by Guy Johnson, to represent to the governor of that colony the peril with which further attempts at colonization would be attended.[1260] These efforts arrested the movements of the company, and for the time immigration was checked. They were not early enough, however, to prevent one of those horrible attacks which stand out in our memories as types of Indian warfare and which in the minds of many readers obscure all other conceptions of Indian character. A number of families had already settled in this region, under the auspices of the Connecticut company, and had built themselves homes near the present site of Wilkesbarré. On October 15, 1763, they were suddenly attacked by Indians, and one woman and nine men were killed and scalped. The rest of the inhabitants fled to the mountains, and such as did not perish worked their way through the wilderness to the nearest settlements. Their villages were destroyed, their cattle killed, and their crops laid waste. Avenging expeditions were promptly organized in Pennsylvania. One marched to the Delaware town at Wyoming, but found it deserted. Another laid waste the Delaware and Munsee towns on the west branch of the Susquehanna.

The Moravian Indians at Wyoming, who had taken no part in the massacre of the Connecticut settlers, removed for safety to Gnadenhütten, whence they were taken to Philadelphia for greater security. At Paxton, Pennsylvania, the inhabitants assembled secretly, and attacked a settlement of the harmless Conestogoes. The cause for this wicked slaughter has never been clearly explained,[1261] but the subsequent memorials of the rioters seem to indicate that it was part of a general plan to exterminate the Indians. Whatever the motive, popular approval was strong enough to shield the perpetrators of such shameless deeds.[1262] The entire band of the Conestogoes was exterminated,[1263] and their town was destroyed. The first attack was made on them on the night of the 14th of December, when this band of murderers surrounding the town, killed all who happened to be there. Those Indians who were absent took refuge in Lancaster, where they were lodged in a public building, spoken of by some as the workhouse, by some as the jail. On the 27th, their enemies followed them to this refuge, and in cold blood slaughtered them all, men, women, and children, indiscriminately.

The Moravian Indians, who had taken refuge at Philadelphia, were next threatened by the rioters, who marched towards that place with the avowed intention of killing them also. The provincial authorities appealed to General Gage for help, but before his reply reached them they sought to throw the Indians upon New York for protection. It happened that a company of regulars was about to march from Philadelphia for New York, and under their escort the Indians were dispatched, with intention to place them under charge of Sir William Johnson. The New York authorities refused, however, to permit the Indians to enter that province. Meantime General Gage placed troops at the disposal of Governor Penn. The Indians were conducted back to Philadelphia, and orders were given to repel by force any attack. The rioters again approached Philadelphia, but were dissuaded from attack, and Pennsylvania was spared the shame of further atrocities by the "Paxton Boys."

After this excitement was over the labors of Sir William Johnson to prevent renewed conflict were still constant. He complained, in his correspondence,[1264] of murders, robberies, and encroachments on the rights and possessions of the natives. The frontier inhabitants, according to him, thought themselves at liberty to make settlements where they pleased. He lost heart, while on the other hand the settlers openly bade defiance to authority. In 1766 he wrote: "Murders are now daily committed on the frontiers, and I fear that an Indian war is inevitable." In January, 1767, he announced that Colonel Cresap, of Maryland, himself held a treaty some time during the last year with several warriors of the Six Nations, who passed that way, and who were persuaded to grant to him a considerable tract of land down the Ohio toward Green-Brier. With prophetic instinct, Sir William added: "If this be true, it will be productive of dangerous consequences." A large part of Johnson's time was spent in protecting the Indians from such fraudulent conveyances of their land as were made through transfers where there was but a shadow of title, through forgeries, and through deeds executed without proper formalities, under circumstances which would prevent recognition of the transaction by the tribes. Many deeds, which upon the face seemed properly executed, were secured from the signers when they were so completely intoxicated that they were ignorant what they were doing. Others conveyed by metes and bounds an extent of territory far exceeding the intention of the grantors. No transfer of land made by a band of warriors, on the war-path or on a hunting expedition, would have been recognized by the confederacy. Sir William himself said: "A sachem of each tribe is a necessary party to a fair conveyance, and such sachem affixes the mark of the tribe thereto, as a public seal of a corporation." The title to the land was supposed to be in all. Even the women had a voice in transfers by bargain and sale.[1265] It was one of the principal occupations of Sir William Johnson's life to adjust difficulties arising out of transfers, such as the one to Cresap, of which he had heard, and in which he saw the seeds of future trouble, if it should prove to be true. In his review of the trade and affairs of the Indians in the northern district of America, he recapitulates the wrongs of the Indian.[1266]

Life in the midst of such impending dangers bred contempt for authority, even on the part of men who were well disposed. The strong arm of the government was but feebly felt in the distant bottoms in the western parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, which settlers were beginning to appropriate to their own use. The inhabitants of the frontiers were a law unto themselves, and sometimes unto the authorities. Men who diligently read their Bibles and pondered over the teachings of the gospels could tear scalps from the heads of Indians. The government was powerless to protect the frontiers except through the agency of volunteers, and they in turn were able at any moment seriously to complicate the situation. In the organization of companies of rangers the weakness of the government was exposed, and through them the independence of the settlers was developed. Such companies frequently adopted Indian costumes, painted their faces, and manœuvred by Indian tactics. The habits of the Indian more than the civilization they had left, influenced their modes of life. They attacked for revenge, and were barbarous because the savages were. In the case of the Indians such methods in warfare came by inheritance. They were modified somewhat by the spirit of the missionaries, and however cruel they may have been, they were at any rate absolutely free from assaults on woman's chastity. In the case of the settlers, the promptings of civilization were disregarded, and it would seem as if the system of bounties for scalps had taught them to regard the Indian as on the level of a brute. Nevertheless, the rule had exceptions; and it would not be just to paint all the settlers along the borders in these repulsive colors, or to believe that there was a universal desire for the extermination of the Indians.

NOTE.—This map was found in MS. among a collection of maps and charts which were presented to the New York State library by Obadiah Rich, of London. It had been sent to Lord Hillsborough in 1771, accompanying a memorial concerning the Iroquois, prepared by the Rev. Charles Inglis, of Trinity Church, New York city, who had endeavored to christianize them. This paper was subsequently recovered from the descendants of Dr. Inglis in Nova Scotia, and is printed in the _Doc. Hist. N. Y._ (quarto), iv. p. 661, accompanied by an engraved copy of Johnson's map, of which a reduction is given herewith. The map is also given in Pearson's _Schenectady Patent_, 1883, p. 433; in Hough's edition of Pouchot, ii. 148.

In _N. Y. Col. Docs._, viii. 136, Guy Johnson's map, showing the line fixed at Fort Stanwix, Nov., 1768, is given as copied from the original in Sir William Johnson's letter, Nov. 18, 1768, to Hillsborough, preserved in the State Paper Office. In _Ibid._ viii. 31, is a copy of the map annexed to the Report and Representation of the Board of Trade, March 7, 1768, showing the line of the bounds with the Indians. Cf. on this line _Doc. Hist. N. Y._, i. 587; _N. Y. Col. Docs._, viii. 110; _New Jersey Archives_, x. 55, 95; Mill's _Bounds of Ontario_, p. 21; _Olden Time_, i. 399; Schweinitz's _Zeisberger_, ch. xviii.; _View of the title to Indiana_ (1776; see Hildeburn's _Bibliog._, no. 3,490). Respecting the territory of the Oneidas, see _Magazine of American History_, Oct., 1885, p. 387, where the accuracy of the map in Morgan's _League of the Iroquois_ is questioned.—ED.]

This hazardous contact of Indian and border settler stretched along a doubtful line which extended from Oneida Lake to the central part of the valley of the Ohio. In 1768 the boundaries were adjusted at Fort Stanwix, between representatives of the English government, on the one part, and the Six Nations, the Delawares, the Shawanese, the Mingoes of Ohio, and other dependent tribes, on the other. A deed of the land to the east and south of a line which ran from a point just west of Fort Stanwix south to the Susquehanna, thence up the West Branch and across to Kittanning on the Alleghany, thence down that river and the Ohio to the mouth of the Tennessee, was then duly executed to the king of England. An exception from its terms was made of the land occupied by the Mohawks, whose settlements were all to the east of the agreed boundary line. The hunting-grounds comprised within the limits of the States of Kentucky and Tennessee were claimed by the Six Nations as conquered territory, and they paid no regard to the claims of the Cherokees, who had arranged a boundary with Stuart, the Indian agent, to a part at least of the same region, the northern termination of which was the mouth of the Kanawha River. It was understood by the Indians that no white man was to settle to the west of the line agreed upon.[1267]

The far-reaching influence of the Indian superintendents restrained this aboriginal population from violent outbreak from 1764 until the collision at Point Pleasant, Virginia, in 1774. This was undoubtedly precipitated by atrocities committed upon the Indians in the Ohio Valley, near Wheeling. Underlying the immediate causes for irritation during this period were reasons for complaint, revealed in the correspondence of Sir William Johnson, which would probably have led to warfare at an early date. Among these was the influx of settlers upon the hunting-grounds of the Indians, where, regardless of treaties, the land across the Ohio was parcelled out in "tomahawk improvements", as the squatter rights of the day were denominated. These proceedings attracted the attention of General Gage, and on the 8th of August, 1772, he issued a proclamation, calling attention to the fact that some persons had "undertaken to make settlements beyond the boundaries fixed by treaties made with the Indian nations", "where they lead a wandering life, without government and without laws", "causing infinite disturbance." Such persons were ordered to "quit these countries instantly and without delay, and to retire at their choice into some one of the colonies of his majesty." The peace which was negotiated by Lord Dunmore brought but little quiet to the settlers on the border. Indian raids were frequent, and the details of their horrors are sickening, but the loss of life by these raids has been greatly exaggerated. The Indians seldom ventured beyond the region which was scantily peopled. The watchfulness of the settlers, and their promptness to assemble and pursue, averted many disasters. At such a time Virginia and Pennsylvania were wrangling over the right to grant patents for land, the settlement of which had so much to do with the uneasiness of the Indians.[1268]

In New York, settlements were more compact. Rights of territory were better defined and better understood. Indian lands had been better protected there from direct invasion and from fraudulent transfer. Danger from trespass was better appreciated. The Indians themselves, being under the personal oversight of their superintendent, were better controlled. His immediate presence made him more useful in the adjustment of disputes without resort to the tomahawk. The frontier patriots of Tryon County, "unlike the rude inhabitants of most frontier settlements", are stated by a careful student of the records to have been "scrupulous in their devotion to the supremacy of the laws." The confederacy of the Six Nations, as a whole, had not participated in the events in the valley of the Ohio, but they shared with their dependants and allies in the uneasiness caused by such aggressions upon Indian territory. Some of their warriors had taken part in the Virginia war, and the "temper of the whole Indian race, with the exception of the Oneidas, was soured by these occurrences of the year 1774." The first official labors of importance which devolved upon Colonel Guy Johnson, who, after the death of Sir William Johnson in 1774, had been appointed to the office of superintendent, were to check the resentment of the Six Nations.[1269] His success in those labors showed that he had inherited, by virtue of his office, some of the respect and affection which the natives had lavished upon his predecessor.

Such was the condition of affairs when Washington took command of the army, in July, 1775, with instructions not to disband any of the forces already raised, until further directions from Congress. It is not probable that all the members of the Congress were aware of the full meaning of these instructions. There were among the men whom Washington was thus instructed not to discharge a number of Indians regularly enlisted as minute-men. Had the question of employing Indians been submitted to Congress at that time, it would probably have been answered in the negative; but it had already been settled by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay when they accepted the services of Indians.[1270]

On the first day of April, 1775, the Committee on the State of the Province reported to that congress a resolve beginning with these words: "Whereas a number of Indians, natives of the town of Stockbridge, have enlisted as minute-men." A committee was next appointed to draft a letter to the Rev. Mr. Kirkland,[1271] and to frame an address to the chief of the Mohawk tribes. The letter requests Mr. Kirkland to use his influence with the Six Nations "to join with us in the defence of our rights;" but if he could not "prevail with them to take an active part in this glorious cause", he was "at least to engage them to stand neuter." The address calls upon the Indians to "whet their hatchet, and be prepared to defend our liberties and lives."

It is evident that the Stockbridge Indians were further importuned,[1272] for on the 11th of April their chief sachem answered a communication from the President of the Provincial Congress (the contents of which can only be conjectured) by offering to visit the Six Nations and find out how they stood. "If I find that they are against you", he said, "I will try and turn their minds."... "One thing I ask of you, if you send for me to fight, that you will let me fight in my own Indian way." The Massachusetts Congress also tried to draw recruits from the Indians of Nova Scotia, and addressed them on the 15th of May, 1775,[1273] as their "friends and good brothers;" adding as an inducement for their enlistment that "the Indians at Stockbridge all join with us, and some of their men have enlisted as soldiers." Captain John Lane was sent down among these Eastern Indians to raise one company of their men, "to join with us in the war with your and our enemies." Nothing, however, resulted from this, except the arrival in June of Captain Lane with one chief and three young men, and at a later date the execution of a barren treaty.[1274] In addition to these efforts put forth by the Provincial Congress, attempts were early made in the same direction by provincial officers;[1275] and thus by general or special effort at the very beginning of the war, the Americans secured the services of such Indians as were willing to enlist, and the English followed so close in their steps as to confound, to the casual observer of their mutual criminations, the evidence of priority. The Indians engaged upon the American side produced no material influence upon military movements. Their presence in camp has been ignored by many writers. The responsibility for the intention is the same as if the effort had been successful. It must, however, be remembered that small bodies of Indians, serving with whites, were controllable and easily restrained from excesses. After the evacuation of Boston, the tide of events changed the field of war, and altered the composition of the troops. The army began to assume a national aspect. The voice of Massachusetts was no longer pre-eminent in military affairs.

The Continental Congress contained representatives of other colonies who keenly felt the dangers from the use of Indians by the enemy. The expressions of opinion in that body were, therefore, much more conservative than in the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay. On the 18th of May it appears by the _Journals_ that indubitable evidence of a design formed by the British ministry of making an invasion had been received. In June, according to the _Secret Journals_, Governor Carleton was making preparation to invade the colonies, and was "instigating the Indian nations to take up the hatchet against them." On the 30th the Committee on Indian Affairs was instructed "to prepare proper talks to the several tribes of Indians for engaging the continuance of their friendship to us, and neutrality in our present unhappy dispute with Great Britain." On the 1st of July there is a hint of a possible change of position shown in the passage of a resolution, "that in case any agent of the ministry shall induce any Indian tribes, or any of them, to commit actual hostilities against these colonies, or to enter into an offensive alliance with the British troops, thereupon the colonies ought to avail themselves of an alliance with such Indian nations as will enter into the same, to oppose such British troops and their allies." The statement that Carleton was instigating the Indians to "fall upon us" was repeated July 6th.[1276] On July 12th the Committee on Indian Affairs recommended that the country be divided into three Indian departments, and that commissioners be appointed, with power to "treat with the Indians in their respective departments, in the name and on behalf of the United Colonies, in order to preserve peace and friendship with the said Indians, and to prevent their taking any part in the present commotion." This recommendation was adopted. On July 13th, a formal speech was addressed to the Six Confederate Nations, urging them to keep peace. On the 17th the commissioners were recommended to employ Mr. Kirkland, in order to secure the friendship of the Indians and continue them in a state of neutrality. On July 21st a plan of confederation was submitted to Congress by Franklin, in which "a perpetual alliance, offensive and defensive", was proposed, "to be entered into as soon as may be with the Six Nations." On December 2d it was resolved that the Indians of the St. Francis, Penobscot, Stockbridge, and St. John and other tribes may be called on in case of real necessity, and that giving them presents is suitable and proper. On March 8, 1776, the growing disposition to make use of Indians found expression in a resolve "that Indians be not employed as soldiers in the armies of the United Colonies, before the tribes to which they belong shall, in a national council, held in the customary manner, have consented thereto, nor then without express approbation of Congress." On May 25th the opposition seems to have been completely overcome, when Congress resolved "that it is highly expedient to engage the Indians in the service of the United Colonies."[1277] On June 3d authority was conferred upon General Washington to employ in Canada a number of Indians, not exceeding two thousand; and on the 6th instructions were given to the standing Committee on Indian Affairs to devise ways and means for carrying into effect the resolution of the 3d. Meantime the news of the disaster at the Cedars was received, and its circumstances impelled Congress to special efforts in behalf of the colonies. On June 14th the commissioners of the Northern Department were instructed to "engage the Six Nations in our interest, on the best terms that can be procured." On the 17th, the restriction in the resolution of the 3d, which limited to Canada the use of the Indians to be raised, was removed, and the general was permitted to employ them in any place where he should judge they would be most useful. He was further authorized "to offer a reward of one hundred dollars for every commissioned officer, and thirty dollars for every private soldier of the king's troops, that they should take prisoners in the Indian country, or on the frontiers of these colonies." The days of irresolution were over. Congress was now irrevocably committed to the proposition of permitting the general commanding the armies to take what advantage he could of Indian auxiliaries, and to offer them bounties for prisoners. The next utterance of Congress on this subject is to be found in the Declaration of Independence, in which the king is arraigned because "he has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions." This was closely followed by a resolution on July 8th, authorizing Washington to call forth and engage the Indians of the St. John, Nova Scotia, and Penobscot tribes. The address to the people of Great Britain was adopted the same day. The address to the people of Ireland, in which it is asserted that "the wild and barbarous savages of the wilderness have been solicited by gifts to take up the hatchet against us, and instigated to deluge our settlements with the blood of defenceless women and children", was agreed to July 28, 1776.[1278] After this, the acts and resolutions of Congress were consistent with the resolution in which they declared that it was highly expedient to employ the Indians. Instructions were given from time to time to secure the greatest advantage out of the services of the Indians, in behalf of the country which was now struggling for independence; and in 1779 it was resolved that twelve blank commissions be furnished the commissioners of the Northern Department for the appointment of as many Indians, the name and the rank of each commission to be filled at the discretion of the commissioners.[1279]

The English approached the question differently; and there can be but little doubt that the proposition to use Indian warriors was more shocking to the cultivated Englishman, who was in no danger from their barbarous excesses, than to the American of corresponding attainments, whose life had been spent in close contact with men to whom such incidents had been every-day experiences. The fierce invectives of Chatham,[1280] in 1777, against the ministry for having enlisted the services of Indians, were founded on a proper estimate of the responsibilities of an invading army. Lord North recognized this distinction when, in 1775, he said that Carleton raised Indians only for purposes of defence. Military men knew that the natives, who had taken part in every war in America between the French and the English, must inevitably be drawn into any protracted contest between Great Britain and the colonies. It could be foreseen that, if the English retained Canada and Detroit, operations would be conducted by way of Lake Champlain, Oswego, and Detroit, which would involve the use of Indian territory. If any inference could be drawn from the past, no armed occupation of strategic positions within Indian territory, and no use of the rivers and natural highways of the back country for military purposes during a time of actual war, could be made without collision with the natives, unless such occupation and use was by their consent. Such consent could only be gained by alliance. General Gage and Lord Dunmore, both in close contact with the situation, placed their opinions on record soon after hostilities broke out. On June, 12, 1775, Gage wrote to Lord Dartmouth: "I hear that the rebels, after surprising Ticonderoga, made incursions and commenced hostilities upon the frontier of the province of Quebec, which will justify General Carleton to raise bodies of Canadians and Indians to attack them in return; and we need not be tender of calling on the savages, as the rebels here have shown us the example, by bringing as many Indians down here as they could collect." Lord Dunmore, whose indiscretions and brutality were so serviceable in stamping out loyalty among men of wealth and intelligence in Virginia, sought no justification in the example of the rebels. He wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth, on May 1st, that he hoped "to be able to collect from among Indians, negroes, and other persons a force sufficient, if not to subdue rebellion, at least to defend government;" and in the fall of the same year he endeavored to carry out his policy.[1281] Carleton was apparently averse to the employment of Indians in aggressive movements. At any rate, he took refuge behind his orders, which did not permit him "to act out of the line of the province."

Colonel Guy Johnson was the object of much suspicion during the months of May and June, 1775. He repudiated with vigor the position which these suspicions attributed to him, and said that he could not sufficiently express his surprise at those who had, either through malice or ignorance, misconstrued his intentions, and supposed him capable of setting Indians on the peaceable inhabitants of Tryon County. He was a servant of the king and an ardent loyalist. From the mere performance of his official duties he was necessarily an object of suspicion to the Americans. He was the person who furnished the natives with supplies. "We get our things from the superintendent. If our ammunition is stopped we shall distrust you", said an Indian speaker to the delegates from Albany and Tryon counties. These supplies were furnished by the king to those whom he termed his allies. It was evident that the king would not continue to furnish supplies, if their only effect was to keep the neighboring Indians on good terms with colonists who, while claiming to be loyal subjects, were actually in arms against his government. As the distributer of supplies, the safety of the superintendent was of great importance to the natives, and a rumor that the "Bostonians" contemplated seizing his person[1282] caused the Indians much alarm. Whether Johnson believed this rumor or not, he fortified his house. This act, as well as his sudden removal to Fort Stanwix, and thence to Oswego,—at both of which places he held conferences with Indians,—increased the numbers who doubted the sincerity of his statements. Yet even here, after these suspicious movements, he protested to the Provincial Congress of New York against the charges brought against him: "I trust I shall always manifest more humanity than to promote the destruction of the innocent inhabitants of a colony to which I have been always warmly attached." The conference at Oswego caused alarm to the inhabitants of Tryon County, and the air was filled with rumors of Indian invasion. Colonel Johnson reported to Dartmouth that he left home the last of May, "having received secret instructions from General Gage", and that he "assembled 1,458 Indians at Ontario,[1283] and adjusted matters with them in such a manner that they agreed to defend the communications and assist his majesty's troops in their operations." At the Albany conference the Indians were interrogated about the proceedings at Oswego, and repeatedly asserted that the superintendent's advice to them was to preserve neutrality.[1284] The statements made by the Indians at the conferences were generally to be relied upon. Johnson's language has perhaps been misunderstood. The assistance "to his majesty's troops in their operations" may have been limited to the agreement to defend the communications, the military value of which Johnson appreciated, but the full effect of an agreement to defend which the Indians did not comprehend. In the middle of July, Johnson arrived at Montreal, and another conference was held with 1,664 Indians, at which their services were secured for the king. Brant, who was present, afterwards said: "We immediately commenced in good earnest, and did our utmost during the war."

In the South, John Stuart, the Indian superintendent of that department, was also an object of suspicion. At a hint from friends he fled from Charleston to Savannah, and in turn to St. Augustine. From this spot, on July 18th, he wrote to the Committee of Safety of Charleston, asserting that he had never received any orders from his superiors "which, by the most tortured suspicion, could be interpreted to stir up or employ the Indians to fall upon the frontier inhabitants, or to take any part in the disputes between Great Britain and the colonies."[1285] A few weeks later he received from Gage a letter written just before that officer left Boston, the vindictiveness of which was probably prompted by anger. This letter contained instructions to "improve a correspondence with the Indians to the greatest advantage, and even when opportunity offers make them take arms against his majesty's enemies, and distress them all in your power; for no terms are now to be kept with them; they have brought down all the savages they could against us here, who, with their riflemen, are continually firing on our advanced sentries;[1286] in short, no time should be lost to distress a set of people so wantonly rebellious."[1287] Stuart apparently proceeded to carry out what he conceived to be the desires of his superior officer, and, in a letter of October 3d, reported progress.

From England instructions were forwarded on July 5, 1775, by Lord Dartmouth to Colonel Johnson, "to keep the Indians in such a state of affection and attachment to the king as that his majesty may rely upon their assistance in any case in which it may be necessary." On the 24th Dartmouth wrote: "The intelligence his majesty has received of the rebels having excited the Indians to take a part, and of their having actually engaged a body of them in arms to support their rebellion, justifies the resolution his majesty has taken of requiring the assistance of his faithful adherents, the Six Nations. It is, therefore, his majesty's pleasure that you do lose no time in taking such steps as may induce them to take up the hatchet against his majesty's rebellious subjects in America, and to engage them in his majesty's service, upon such plan as shall be suggested by General Gage." This work Johnson had already accomplished even before the instructions of July 24th were written. In the fall of the same year that Dartmouth thus placed the British government on record as willing to employ Indians in the war, without other restrictions than such as were to be suggested by General Gage, the Earl of Shelburne, on information received, attacked the administration. "The Indians had been tampered with", he said. "A trial of skill had been made to let the savages on the back settlements loose on provincial subjects. Barbarous as was the measure and cowardly as was the attempt, it had failed." This was on November 10th. Ten days later Lord North asserted that, "as to the means of conducting the war, there was never any idea of employing the negroes or the Indians, until the Americans themselves had first applied to them; that General Carleton did then apply to them; and even then it was only for the defence of his own province." Lord North was not well informed on proceedings in the colonies.

The attitude assumed by the British government in the order of July 24th represented the position which was retained during the remainder of the war. From Halifax, on June 7, 1776, General Howe assured Lord George Germain that his best endeavors would be used to engage the Indians of the Six Nations, and he hoped by the influence of Colonel Guy Johnson to make them useful. Notwithstanding the fact that the intercepted correspondence between General Gage and John Stuart, the superintendent, had been in possession of the Americans for some months, Henry Stuart, a deputy of his brother, on May 18, 1776, asserted that it was not the design of his majesty "to set his friends and allies on his liege subjects." This was probably true, but there were a number of inhabitants of the Southern colonies who could hardly have been classified as "liege subjects" at that time, to whom this announcement could not have conveyed much satisfaction. From an intercepted letter from the same source a scheme for co-operating with the fleet when it should appear on the coast, by marching troops from Florida in concert with a force composed of Creeks and Cherokees, to the frontiers of North and South Carolina, was made public. In the fall of 1776 Lord George Germain forwarded a supply of presents to the Indians, and called the attention of the generals in command to the necessity of securing their services. In November, 1777, the Earl of Suffolk justified the alliance with the Indians on two grounds: "one as necessary in fact, the other as allowable on principle; for, first, the Americans endeavored to raise them on their side, and would gain them if we did not; and next, it was allowable, and perfectly justifiable, to use every means that God and nature had put in our hands."[1288] This avowal called forth from the Earl of Chatham a fierce denunciation of its author.

In the review which has been submitted of the acts and opinions, official and personal, on both sides the ocean, concerning the employment of the Indians in the Revolutionary War, the actors have been allowed to speak for themselves as nearly as possible. If we follow the order of events, we can see that the flaming rhetoric of the address of the Continental Congress to the people of Ireland, and the caustic arraignment of the king of Great Britain in the Declaration of Independence, were calculated to produce an erroneous impression as to the American position upon the subject. With the publication, which afterwards took place, of the correspondence of prominent men of the times, and of official documents from state and national archives, this became evident. Sparks, in his _Washington_,[1289] says: "It has been usual in America to represent the English as much the most censurable on this score in the Revolutionary War; and if we estimate the amount of deserved censure by the effect produced, this opinion is no doubt correct. But such is not the equitable mode of judging on the subject, since the principle and intention are chiefly concerned, and not the policy of the measure nor the success of the execution. Taken on this ground, historical justice must award the Americans a due share of the blame." We may complain of the brutal eagerness of Lord Dunmore to sustain his official position at any expense to his people; we may hold up for abhorrence the vindictive nature of the orders transmitted by General Gage; we may point out the disingenuous evasions or downright falsehoods of Colonel Guy Johnson; but we must accept responsibility for the enlistment, before the battle of Lexington, of the Stockbridge Indians by the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay. We may claim with apparent justice that the Continental Congress was reluctant to employ Indians; yet we cannot undertake to reconcile the resolutions of that Congress on May 25 and on June 17, 1776, with the indignation against Great Britain, expressed so shortly afterward in the Declaration of Independence and the Address to the people of Ireland, for doing what Congress, by resolutions of previous date, had first declared to be highly expedient, and then had specifically ordered to be done.

The examination which has heretofore been made of the position of the colonies on the question of the employment of Indians as soldiers has already brought to light some of the events requiring notice which took place in the Northern Department. The few Mohegans, whose unfortunate enlistment as minute-men furnished argument for Gage "that the colonies were collecting all the Indians that they could", were practically the only Indians the colonies found ready to take up arms in their behalf. During the summer and autumn of 1775 Washington was much encouraged by reports of the friendly disposition of the Eastern and Canadian Indians. He was visited at Cambridge by delegations from the Penobscot, the St. Francis, and the Caughnawaga tribes, who in friendly talks conveyed the impression that they favored the colonies. The Six Nations were sorely perplexed and divided in their councils.[1290] The residence of the superintendent among them, his power as the distributer of gifts, the traditional respect and affection that they had for his predecessor, and, above all, the active agency of Joseph Brant, the Mohawk chief, whom the superintendent adroitly engaged as his private secretary, all conspired to take them over to the enemy.

This portrait of Brant, "from an original drawing in the possession of James Boswell, Esq.", is engraved in the _London Mag._, July, 1776. It is reëngraved in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, ii. 345.—ED.]

It is surprising that any influences could have overcome, even partially, this combination of circumstances in favor of the English; but, as it proved, the personal attachment of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras for Kirkland the missionary, and Dean the interpreter, was powerful enough, when exerted in favor of neutrality, to prevent the greater part of those tribes from following their brethren. Various conferences were held during the summer between delegations of whites and representatives of the Eastern tribes of the confederacy, in all of which those Indians who participated professed their willingness to remain neutral.[1291] In the autumn of 1775 the Indian commissioners of the Northern Department held a preliminary conference at German Flats, and thereafter a formal conference at Albany, at which the peace-speech of Congress was presented to the Six Nations, or rather to that part of the confederacy which was represented at the conference.[1292] An agreement of neutrality was entered into, but its value was greatly diminished by the fact that in the preliminary speeches the Indians insisted upon the necessity of keeping open their communications. This meant that they would regard the occupation of Fort Stanwix as an invasion of their rights.[1293] While these proceedings were going on, some of the Indians who had accompanied Guy Johnson to Montreal returned to their homes. When Dean, under orders from the commissioners, went out to explain to the tribes the nature of the Albany treaty, he met these Indians from Montreal. He says they were members of the Cayuga, Mohawk, and Seneca tribes, and they informed their brethren that they had taken up the hatchet at Montreal against the colonies. The Indians who had been at Albany were displeased at this, and their influence so far prevailed that the famous war-belt delivered by Guy Johnson was surrendered to General Schuyler on the 12th of December at Albany.[1294]

In the Mohawk Valley, the departure of Guy Johnson, in the summer of 1775, left Sir John Johnson the most prominent royalist, and at the same time the most conspicuous friend of the Indians, in that region. He was surrounded by several hundred Scotch Highlanders, who were devoted to him personally, and followed his lead in politics. Early in January, 1776, General Schuyler received orders to proceed to Johnstown, apprehend Sir John, and disarm his followers. In carrying out these orders the jealousy of the Indians had to be considered. Conferences were held with them. They tried to dissuade the general from invading the valley with an armed force, but he carefully explained to them the situation, and insisted upon advancing.

Stone gives two portraits of Brant: one in his younger days, after a picture belonging to the Earl of Warwick, and painted by G. Romney; the other after a painting by Catlin, following an original by E. Ames, and representing him at a later age.

The younger of these two is herewith given. (Cf. J. C. Smith's _Brit. Mez. Portraits_, iii. 1306; and McKenney and Hall's _Indian Tribes_, vol. ii.) Cf. also J. N. Hubbard's _Sa-go-ye-wat-ha_ (Albany, 1886), p. 88.—ED.]

The Indians were, however, invited to be present at the conference with Sir John. As a result of the expedition, the Highlanders were disarmed and Sir John was arrested and paroled. In May, it being reported that Sir John was not observing his parole, a second expedition was dispatched to Johnson Hall.[1295] Without waiting to be arrested, Sir John fled to Canada with a numerous body of followers, and shortly thereafter entered the English army. It was in this same month that the affair of the Cedars took place. Here, for the first time, Joseph Brant—_Tha-yen-dan-e-gea_—appeared in the field against the colonies. As a youth he had been placed at the school for the instruction of Indians, which was conducted by the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, afterwards president of Dartmouth College. Brant is said to have been a man of good personal appearance and of great physical courage. Enough of his life had been spent among the whites to make him feel at ease in European costume, and to fit him to enter society without fear of transgressing ordinary rules of etiquette. As the private secretary of Guy Johnson, he had followed the superintendent to Montreal. From that point he went to England, where he was received with consideration. After a brief stay he returned to Canada, arriving in time to participate, while his memory of British adulation was still fresh,[1296] in the joint attack of the British troops and Indians on the Americans at the Cedars.[1297]

The necessity for occupying Fort Stanwix became early apparent to the Americans, and was the subject of frequent correspondence. This fort was at the carrying-place between Lake Ontario and the Mohawk,[1298] and from this post, on September 23, 1776, Colonel Dayton wrote that "Indian rumors report Colonel Johnson at Oswego with a large force."[1299] The alarm was, however, premature.

In the spring of 1777[1300] intelligence reached the Tryon County committee of the march of Brant, with a large body of warriors, across the country from Canada to the region where the Susquehanna River crosses the line between New York and Pennsylvania. Considerable restlessness was also noted at this time among the Tories. The presence of this large force of Indians under Brant caused great uneasiness to the settlers, and in June General Herkimer, with about three hundred of the militia, marched to Unadilla. Then followed one of the most singular incidents, as the story is generally told, of the whole border war. Herkimer's whole proceedings up to this point were aggressive. He had ventured with an armed force into Indian country. Upon his application, a co-operative force under Colonel Van Schaick was dispatched to Cherry Valley. The presence of Brant in the vicinity with a large body of followers was known, and Brant had already avowed his loyalty to the king. Yet after a conference, to which Brant came with evident reluctance, and at which he made a display of the force with him in such a way as to make Herkimer's followers uneasy, the meeting terminated without apparent result, unless Brant's renewed assertion of loyalty may be so regarded.[1301] Very soon after this a conference was held at Oswego between the officers of the British Indian Department and the Six Nations, at which the greater part of the latter were secured for the service of the king, and the lines were finally drawn between them and those members of the confederacy who were disposed either to maintain neutrality or who actually favored the American side.

While these events were occurring, Burgoyne had started upon his march by way of Lake Champlain, confident that he could without difficulty effect a junction with the British force from New York. Lieutenant Hadden mentions that Burgoyne said at an early date in the campaign that "a thousand savages brought into the field cost more than twenty thousand men." What confidence he had in his allies at the start diminished as he advanced. On the 11th of July he wrote 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",—a name which he sought by a proclamation to make a terror; but in doing so he gave his adversaries ground for holding him responsible for such enormities as the murder of Miss McCrea,[1302] and for refusing to believe his indignant denials. His doubts of the value of the Indians as soldiers were soon verified. They could scout and forage, but at Bennington they were useless. They, in turn, finding that Burgoyne endeavored to restrain them in their customary methods of warfare, and that there was but little opportunity for plunder, began to drop away. At the most critical period of the campaign they deserted in large numbers, and could not be prevailed upon to return. Their presence, far from proving a terror to the provincials, consolidated and thus strengthened them, while on the other hand it undoubtedly led the English to overestimate their own strength.[1303]

By orders from London, dated March 26, 1777, the advance of Burgoyne was supported by a simultaneous movement by way of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario. Lieutenant-Colonel Barry St. Leger, made a brigadier for the purpose, led a force of about 650 regulars, Hessians, Canadians, and Tories, with upwards of 800 Indians, as stated by Colonel Claus, who had charge of them.

After the cut in Stone's _Brant_, i. 219, following the original draft found in St. Leger's baggage. Cf. Lossing's _Field-Book_, i. 241.—ED.]

This command, bearing a few six-pounders, three-pounders, and cohorns, marched from Oswego, in the latter part of July, for the valley of the Mohawk. Unusual precautions were taken to protect the flanks by Indians, and the way was led by scouts. The Oneidas gave the Americans ample warning. Fort Stanwix was at the time under the command of Colonel Gansevoort, with Colonel Marinus Willett as second,—both excellent officers. The regular garrison consisted of 550 men, who were poorly supplied with provisions and munitions of war. Indians infested the woods during the summer, and several atrocious murders were committed, even near the fort. On August 2d, a reinforcement of 200 men reached the garrison, with two bateaux loaded with stores. The supplies had been barely taken into the fort when St. Leger's advanced guard appeared. The increased garrison had now six weeks' provisions and an abundance of ammunition for small arms, but only nine rounds a day for the cannon for the same period. During the summer the garrison had partly repaired the fort, and had felled trees along the banks of Wood Creek, so as to impede navigation.

News was conveyed to St. Leger of the approach of the reinforcement, convoying supplies for the garrison. In the hopes of intercepting them he authorized Lieutenant Bird to invest the place with the advanced guard, at the same time adding to Bird's command a body of Indians under Brant. Thinking perhaps that the garrison might offer to surrender upon the approach of the investing force, he instructed Lieutenant Bird not to accept a capitulation, but to await the approach of the main body of troops; saying, "This is not to take any honor out of a young soldier's hands, but by the presence of the troops to prevent the barbarity and carnage which will ever obtain where Indians make so superior a part of a detachment." On the 3d of August, St. Leger arrived with the greater part of his force, himself taking charge of operations which had been begun by Lieutenant Bird on the 2d. Wood Creek had been "most effectually choaked up", as St. Leger termed it, by the garrison of the fort; consequently he could not at once bring forward his artillery and stores. He forwarded to the garrison copies of a proclamation similar in tenor to that issued by Burgoyne, and on the 4th completely invested the fort and began the siege. Instead of the unfinished work which he says he had been led to expect, he found it "a respectable fortress, strongly garrisoned with 700 men, and demanding for its speedy subjection a train of artillery of which he was not master."

After a picture by Stuart as engraved by Prud'homme. Cf. Stone's _Brant_, i. 209; and his _Campaign of Burgoyne_, p. 221; Lossing's _Field-Book_, i. 240.—ED.]

The torpor of the inhabitants of Tryon County had excited indignation at Kingston and at Albany. Under the pressure of an invading force, the people responded to the call of General Herkimer, and that officer soon found himself at the head of about 700 men.[1304] Among them were a small number of Oneida Indians. On the 4th of August this assemblage of men from the frontier moved forward from Fort Dayton at German Flats, where they had gathered together, and on the 5th encamped near Oriskany. From this point a message was sent to Colonel Gansevoort reporting their approach, and asking him to announce his knowledge of the fact by three rapid discharges of cannon. The messengers did not succeed in entering the fort until the morning of the 6th between ten and eleven o'clock. The three guns which were intended to communicate to Herkimer the intelligence that the garrison knew of his approach, were then fired at the fort. Herkimer's men were, however, too impatient to wait for co-operation on the part of the garrison. At that hour they had already advanced between two and three miles from their camp, and were engaged with the enemy. In justice to Herkimer, it must be said that he endeavored to prevent the advance, but it was evident from the temper of his men that if he had not consented to move he would have lost their confidence.