CHAPTER XII.
CLOSING MILITARY OPERATIONS IN THE WEST.
With this chapter we close the historical details, by
bringing down the settlement of the country to 1795. Some
of the chapters immediately preceding, would seem to come
more appropriately under the head of Part VI., but constituting
as they do, connecting links in the history and settlement
of the west, it was deemed inexpedient to separate
them; and thus they are given in regular historical and chronological
order. That part of our work which we have distinctly
classified as "Indian Wars," is designed alone to
embrace the incidents of border life in Western Virginia, and
the territory immediately adjacent.
By the treaty of Fort Stanwix, concluded October 22,
1784, between the United States and hostile tribes of the
Iroquois,[79]
all the claim of the great Northern Confederacy to
lands lying west of the western boundary of Pennsylvania
became extinguished. It now remained to treat with the
Western Indians, to secure the United States' title to the
great expanse of country lying west of the Iroquois possessions.
The Commissioners for this purpose were Arthur Lee,
Richard Butler, and George Rogers Clark. This Board
organized at Fort McIntosh, (Beaver,) January 21, 1785.
The Indians represented were the Wyandots, Delawares,
Chippeways, and Ottoways, and of the native Commissioners
there assembled to treat, was the celebrated war chief of the
Delawares, Buckongahelas.
[80]
The third article of the treaty
agreed upon defined the limits of the country ceded, as follows:
Art. 3. The boundary line between the United States and
the Wyandot and Delaware nations, shall begin at the mouth
of the river Cayahoga, and run thence, up the said river, to
the portage between that and the Tuscarawas branch of the
Muskingum; then, down the said branch, to the forks at the
crossing place above Fort Lawrence, [Laurens;] then, westerly,
to the portage of the Big Miami, which runs into the
Ohio, at the mouth of which branch the fort stood which was
taken by the French in one thousand seven hundred and fifty-two;
then, along the said portage, to the Great Miami or
Ome river, and down the south-east side of the same to its
mouth; thence, along the south shore of Lake Erie, to the
mouth of Cayahoga, where it began.
Such were the first steps taken for securing to the United
States the Indian title to the vast realm lying beyond the
Ohio.
Hostilities still continuing on the part of the Indians, and
the west having suffered greatly, Congress authorized the
President, September 29, 1789, to call out the militia to protect
the frontier, and break the power of the savages. On
the 6th of October, President Washington directed General
St. Clair, then Governor of the North-West Territory, to draw
fifteen hundred men from the western counties of Virginia
and Pennsylvania, and proceed directly against the towns of
the hostile tribes on the Maumee. In obedience to his instructions,
Governor St. Clair called upon Virginia (July 15,
1790,) for her quota,[81]
which was furnished in due time;
and his army, numbering nearly twenty-four hundred men,
marched from Fort Washington (Cincinnati,) in the fall of
1791. On the morning of the 4th of November, the Indians
attacked him in great force, totally routing the American
army, with an immense loss of life and property. General
Butler, and upward of six hundred men were killed.
This was a terrible blow to the west; and the savages,
inflated with success, overspread the country, sending death
into almost every settlement.
Washington, determined to subdue the savages, now urged
forward the vigorous prosecution of the war; but various obstacles
prevented a speedy organization of a force sufficient
to strike an efficient blow. It was not until the spring of
1794, that an army, strong enough for the purpose, could be
organized. This force, consisting of two thousand regular
troops, and fifteen hundred mounted volunteers from Kentucky,
assembled at Greenville, under the command of General
Anthony Wayne, a bold, energetic and determined officer,
in whom Washington reposed every confidence.
On the 20th of August, General Wayne encountered the
enemy at the foot of the rapids on the Maumee, and after a
short, but most deadly conflict, the Indians fled the field with
great loss, and in utter confusion.
This brilliant victory brought the savages to terms, and
soon after, a permanent treaty was negotiated at Greenville,
between eleven of the most powerful north-western tribes, and
the "thirteen fires," as these wild men called the United
States. This treaty confirmed the boundary established at
Fort McIntosh, and extended westward from Loramie to
Fort Recovery, and thence south-west to the mouth of Kentucky
river. Now terminated the long and sanguinary struggle
between the whites and Indians on the western frontier,
a war which had raged with almost unabated fury for more
than twenty years, involving a sacrifice of life, and consequent
amount of misery, scarcely to be comprehended.
