The Tribes Hold Councils at Detroit.

In the fall of 1776 it became evident that a formidable Indian war was impending.  At Detroit great councils were held by all the northwestern tribes, to whom the Six Nations sent the white belt of peace, that they might cease their feuds and join against the Americans.  The later councils were summoned by Henry Hamilton, the British lieutenant-governor of the northwestern region, whose head-quarters were at Detroit.  He was an ambitious, energetic, unscrupulous man, of bold character, who wielded great influence over the Indians; and the conduct of the war in the west, as well as the entire management of frontier affairs, was intrusted to him by the British Government. He had been ordered to enlist the Indians on the British side, and have them ready to act against the Americans in the spring; and accordingly he gathered the tribes together.  He himself took part in the war-talks, plying the Indians with presents and fire-water no less than with speeches and promises.  The headmen of the different tribes, as they grew excited, passed one another black, red or bloody, and tomahawk belts, as tokens of the vengeance to be taken on their white foes.  One Delaware chief still held out for neutrality, announcing that if he had to side with either set of combatants it would be with the “buckskins,” or backwoodsmen, and not with the red-coats; but the bulk of the warriors sympathized with the Half King of the Wyandots when he said that the Long Knives had for years interfered with the Indians’ hunting, and that now at last it was the Indians’ turn to threaten revenge.

    Lt-Gov.  Henry Hamilton.  Scalp Buying.

Hamilton was for the next two years the mainspring of Indian hostility to the Americans in the northwest.  From the beginning he had been anxious to employ the savages against the settlers, and when the home government bade him hire them he soon proved himself very expert, as well as very ruthless, in their use. He rapidly acquired the venomous hatred of the backwoodsmen, who held him in peculiar abhorrence, and nicknamed him the “hair-buyer” general, asserting that he put a price on the scalps of the Americans.  This allegation may have been untrue as affecting Hamilton personally; he always endeavored to get the war parties to bring in prisoners, and behaved well to the captives when they were in his power; nor is there any direct evidence that he himself paid out money for scalps.  But scalps were certainly bought and paid for at Detroit; and the commandant himself was accustomed to receive them with formal solemnity at the councils held to greet the war parties when they returned from successful raids. The only way to keep the friendship of the Indians was continually to give them presents; these presents were naturally given to the most successful warriors; and the scalps were the only safe proofs of a warrior’s success.  Doubtless the commandant and the higher British officers generally treated the Americans humanely when they were brought into contact with them; and it is not likely that they knew, or were willing to know, exactly what the savages did in all cases.  But they at least connived at the measures of their subordinates.  These were hardened, embittered, men who paid for the zeal of their Indian allies accordingly as they received tangible proof thereof; in other words, they hired them to murder non-combatants as well as soldiers, and paid for each life, of any sort, that was taken.  The fault lay primarily with the British Government, and with those of its advisers who, like Hamilton, advocated the employment of the savages.  They thereby became participants in the crimes committed; and it was idle folly for them to prate about having bidden the savages be merciful.  The sin consisted in having let them loose on the borders; once they were let loose it was absolutely impossible to control them.  Moreover, the British sinned against knowledge; for some of their highest and most trusted officers on the frontier had written those in supreme command, relating the cruelties practised by the Indians upon the defenceless, and urging that they should not be made allies, but rather that their neutrality only should be secured. The average American backwoodsman was quite as brutal and inconsiderate a victor as the average British officer; in fact, he was in all likelihood the less humane of the two; but the Englishman deliberately made the deeds of the savage his own.  Making all allowance for the strait in which the British found themselves, and admitting that much can be said against their accusers, the fact remains that they urged on hordes of savages to slaughter men, women, and children along the entire frontier; and for this there must ever rest a dark stain on their national history.

Hamilton organized a troop of white rangers from among the French, British, and Tories at Detroit.  They acted as allies of the Indians, and furnished leaders to them.  Three of these leaders were the tories McKee, Elliot, and Girty, who had fled together from Pittsburg [Footnote:  Haldimand mss.  Hamilton’s letter, April 25. 1778.  “April the 20th-Edward Hayle (who had undertaken to carry a letter from me to the Moravian Minister at Kushayhking) returned, having executed his commission ­he brought me a letter & newspapers from Mr. McKee who was Indian Agent for the Crown and has been a long time in the hands of the Rebels at Fort Pitt, at length has found means to make his escape with three other men, two of the name of Girty (mentioned in Lord Dunmore’s list) interpreters & Matthew Elliott the young man who was last summer sent down from this place a prisoner. ­This last person I am informed has been at New York since he left Quebec, and probably finding the change in affairs unfavourable to the Rebels, has slipp’d away to make his peace here.

“23d ­Hayle went off again to conduct them all safe through the Villages having a letter & Wampum for that purpose.  Alexander McKee is a man of good character, and has great influence with the Shawanese is well acquainted with the country & can probably give some useful intelligence, he will probably reach this place in a few days.”] they all three warred against their countrymen with determined ferocity.  Girty won the widest fame on the border by his cunning and cruelty; but he was really a less able foe than the two others.  McKee in particular showed himself a fairly good commander of Indians and irregular troops; as did likewise an Englishman named Caldwell, and two French partisans, De Quindre and Lamothe, who were hearty supporters of the British.

    The British Begin a War of Extermination.

Hamilton and his subordinates, both red and white, were engaged in what was essentially an effort to exterminate the borderers.  They were not endeavoring merely to defeat the armed bodies of the enemy.  They were explicitly bidden by those in supreme command to push back the frontier, to expel the settlers from the country.  Hamilton himself had been ordered by his immediate official superior to assail the borders of Pennsylvania and Virginia with his savages, to destroy the crops and buildings of the settlers who had advanced beyond the mountains, and to give to his Indian allies, ­the Hurons, Shawnees, and other tribes, ­all the land of which they thus took possession. With such allies as Hamilton had this order was tantamount to proclaiming a war of extermination, waged with appalling and horrible cruelty against the settlers, of all ages and sexes.  It brings out in bold relief the fact that in the west the war of the Revolution was an effort on the part of Great Britain to stop the westward growth of the English race in America, and to keep the region beyond the Alleghanies as a region where only savages should dwell.

    All the Northwestern Tribes go to War.

All through the winter of ’76-77 the northwestern Indians were preparing to take up the tomahawk.  Runners were sent through the leafless, frozen woods from one to another of their winter camps.  In each bleak, frail village, each snow-hidden cluster of bark wigwams, the painted, half-naked warriors danced the war dance, and sang the war song, beating the ground with their war clubs and keeping time with their feet to the rhythmic chant as they moved in rings round the peeled post, into which they struck their hatchets.  The hereditary sachems, the peace chiefs, could no longer control the young men.  The braves made ready their weapons and battle gear; their bodies were painted red and black, the plumes of the war eagle were braided into their long scalp locks, and some put on necklaces of bears’ claws, and head-dresses made of panther skin, or of the shaggy and horned frontlet of the buffalo.

Before the snow was off the ground the war parties crossed the Ohio and fell on the frontiers from the Monongahela and Kanawha to the Kentucky.

On the Pennsylvanian and Virginian frontiers the panic was tremendous.  The people fled into the already existing forts, or hastily built others; where there were but two or three families in a place, they merely gathered into block-houses ­stout log-cabins two stories high, with loop-holed walls, and the upper story projecting a little over the lower.  The savages, well armed with weapons supplied them from the British arsenals on the Great Lakes, spread over the country; and there ensued all the horrors incident to a war waged as relentlessly against the most helpless non-combatants as against the armed soldiers in the field.  Block-houses were surprised and burnt; bodies of militia were ambushed and destroyed.  The settlers were shot down as they sat by their hearth-stones in the evening, or ploughed the ground during the day; the lurking Indians crept up and killed them while they still-hunted the deer, or while they lay in wait for the elk beside the well-beaten game trails.

The captured women and little ones were driven off to the far interior.  The weak among them, the young children, and the women heavy with child, were tomahawked and scalped as soon as their steps faltered.  The able-bodied, who could stand the terrible fatigue, and reached their journey’s end, suffered various fates.  Some were burned at the stake, others were sold to the French or British traders, and long afterwards made their escape, or were ransomed by their relatives.  Still others were kept in the Indian camps, the women becoming the slaves or wives of the warriors, while the children were adopted into the tribe, and grew up precisely like their little red-skinned playmates.  Sometimes, when they had come to full growth, they rejoined the whites; but generally they were enthralled by the wild freedom and fascination of their forest life, and never forsook their adopted tribesmen, remaining inveterate foes of their own color.  Among the ever-recurring:  tragedies of the frontier, not the least sorrowful was the recovery of these long-missing children by their parents, only to find that they had lost all remembrance of and love for their father and mother, and had become irreclaimable savages, who eagerly grasped the first chance to flee from the intolerable irksomeness and restraint of civilized life.

    The Attack on Wheeling.

Among others, the stockade at Wheeling was attacked by two or three hundred Indians; with them came a party of Detroit Rangers, marshalled by drum and fife, and carrying the British colors. Most of the men inside the fort were drawn out by a stratagem, fell into an ambuscade, and were slain; but the remainder made good the defence, helped by the women, who ran the lead into bullets, cooled and loaded the guns, and even, when the rush was made, assisted to repel it by firing through the loopholes.  After making a determined effort to storm the stockade, in which some of the boldest warriors were slain while trying in vain to batter down the gates with heavy timbers, the baffled Indians were obliged to retire discomfited.  The siege was chiefly memorable because of an incident which is to this day a staple theme for story-telling in the cabins of the mountaineers.  One of the leading men of the neighborhood was Major Samuel McColloch, renowned along the border as the chief in a family famous for its Indian fighters, the dread and terror of the savages, many of whose most noted warriors he slew, and at whose hands he himself, in the end, met his death.  When Wheeling was invested, he tried to break into it, riding a favorite old white horse.  But the Indians intercepted him, and hemmed him in on the brink of an almost perpendicular slope, some three hundred feet high.  So sheer was the descent that they did not dream any horse could go down it, and instead of shooting they advanced to capture the man whom they hated.  McColloch had no thought of surrendering, to die by fire at the stake, and he had as little hope of resistance against so many foes.  Wheeling short round, he sat back in the saddle, shifted his rifle into his right hand, reined in his steed, and spurred him over the brink.  The old horse never faltered, but plunged headlong down the steep, boulder-covered, cliff-broken slope.  Good luck, aided by the wonderful skill of the rider and the marvellous strength and sure-footedness of his steed, rewarded, as it deserved, one of the most daring feats of horsemanship of which we have any authentic record.  There was a crash, the shock of a heavy body, half springing, half falling, a scramble among loose rocks, and the snapping of saplings and bushes; and in another moment the awe-struck Indians above saw their unharmed foe, galloping his gallant white horse in safety across the plain.  To this day the place is known by the name of McColloch’s leap.

In Virginia and Pennsylvania the Indian outrages meant only the harassing of the borderers; in Kentucky they threatened the complete destruction of the vanguard of the white advance and, therefore the stoppage of all settlement west of the Alleghanies until after the Revolutionary war, when very possibly the soil might not have been ours to settle.  Fortunately Hamilton did not yet realize the importance of the Kentucky settlements, nor the necessity of crushing them, and during 1777 the war bands organized at Detroit were sent against the country round Pittsburg; while the feeble forts in the far western wilderness were only troubled by smaller war parties raised among the tribes on their own account.  A strong expedition, led by Hamilton in person, would doubtless at this time have crushed them.

    The Struggle in Kentucky.

As it was, there were still so few whites in Kentucky that they were greatly outnumbered by the invading Indians.  They were, in consequence, unable to meet the enemy in the open field, and gathered in their stations or forted villages.  Therefore the early conflicts, for the most part, took the form of sieges of these wooden forts.  Such sieges, had little in common with the corresponding operations of civilized armies.  The Indians usually tried to surprise a fort; if they failed, they occasionally tried to carry it by open assault, or by setting fire to it, but very rarely, indeed, beleaguered it in form.  For this they lacked both the discipline and the commissariat.  Accordingly, if their first rush miscarried, they usually dispersed in the woods to hunt, or look for small parties of whites; always, however, leaving some of their number to hover round the fort and watch any thing that took place.  Masters in the art of hiding, and able to conceal themselves behind a bush, a stone, or a tuft of weeds, they skulked round the gate before dawn, to shoot the white sentinels; or they ambushed the springs, and killed those who came for water; they slaughtered all of the cattle that had not been driven in, and any one venturing incautiously beyond the walls was certain to be waylaid and murdered.  Those who were thus hemmed in the fort were obliged to get game on which to live; the hunters accordingly were accustomed to leave before daybreak, travel eight or ten miles, hunt all day at the risk of their lives, and return after dark.  Being of course the picked men of the garrison, they often eluded the Indians, or slew them if an encounter took place, but very frequently indeed they were themselves slain.  The Indians always trusted greatly to wiles and feints to draw their foes into their power.  As ever in this woodland fighting, their superiority in hiding, or taking advantage of cover, counterbalanced the superiority of the whites as marksmen; and their war parties were thus at least a match, man against man, for the Kentuckians, though the latter, together with the Watauga men, were the best woodsmen and fighters of the frontier.  Only a very few of the whites became, like Boon and Kenton, able to beat the best of the savages at their own game.

The innumerable sieges that took place during the long years of Indian warfare differed in detail, but generally closely resembled one another as regards the main points.  Those that occurred in 1777 may be considered as samples of the rest; and accounts of these have been preserved by the two chief actors, Boon and Clark.

    Boonsborough Attacked.

Boonsborough, which was held by twenty-two riflemen, was attacked twice, once in April and again in July, on each occasion by a party of fifty or a hundred warriors. The first time the garrison was taken by surprise; one man lost his scalp, and four were wounded, including Boon himself, who had been commissioned as captain in the county militia. The Indians promptly withdrew when they found they could not carry the fort by a sudden assault.  On the second occasion the whites were on their guard, and though they had one man killed and two wounded (leaving but thirteen unhurt men in the fort), they easily beat off the assailants, and slew half a dozen of them.  This time the Indians stayed round two days, keeping up a heavy fire, under cover of which they several times tried to burn the fort.

    Logan’s Adventures.

Logan’sstation at St. Asaphs was likewise attacked; it was held by only fifteen gunmen.  When the attack was made the women, guarded by part of the men, were milking the cows outside the fort.  The Indians fired at them from the thick cane that still stood near-by, killing one man and wounding two others, one mortally. The party, of course, fled to the fort, and on looking back they saw their mortally wounded friend weltering on the ground.  His wife and family were within the walls; through the loopholes they could see him yet alive, and exposed every moment to death.  So great was the danger that the men refused to go out to his rescue, whereupon Logan alone opened the gate, bounded out, and seizing the wounded man in his arms, carried him back unharmed through a shower of bullets.  The Indians continued to lurk around the neighborhood, and the ammunition grew very scarce.  Thereupon Logan took two companions and left the fort at night to go to the distant settlements on the Holston, where he might get powder and lead.  He knew that the Indians were watching the wilderness road, and trusting to his own hardiness and consummate woodcraft, he struck straight out across the cliff-broken, wood-covered mountains, sleeping wherever night overtook him, and travelling all day long with the tireless speed of a wolf. He returned with the needed stores in ten days from the time he set out.  These tided the people over the warm months.

In the fall, when the hickories had turned yellow and the oaks deep red, during the weeks of still, hazy weather that mark the Indian summer, their favorite hunting season, the savages again filled the land, and Logan was obliged to repeat his perilous journey. He also continually led small bands of his followers against the Indian war ­and hunting-parties, sometimes surprising and dispersing them, and harassing them greatly.  Moreover he hunted steadily throughout the year to keep the station in meat, for the most skilful hunters were, in those days of scarcity, obliged to spend much of their time in the chase.  Once, while at a noted game lick, waiting for deer, he was surprised by the Indians, and by their fire was wounded in the breast and had his right arm broken.  Nevertheless he sprang on his horse and escaped, though the savages were so close that one, leaping at him, for a moment grasped the tail of the horse.  Every one of these pioneer leaders, from Clark and Boon to Sevier and Robertson, was required constantly to expose his life; each lost sons or brothers at the hands of the Indians, and each thinned the ranks of the enemy with his own rifle.  In such a primitive state of society the man who led others was expected to show strength of body no less than strength of mind and heart; he depended upon his physical prowess almost as much as upon craft, courage, and headwork.  The founder and head of each little community needed not only a shrewd brain and commanding temper, but also the thews and training to make him excel as woodsman and hunter, and the heart and eye to enable him to stand foremost in every Indian battle.

    Clark Shares in the Defense of Kentucky.

Clark spent most of the year at Harrodstown, taking part in the defence of Kentucky.  All the while he was revolving in his bold, ambitious heart a scheme for the conquest of the Illinois country, and he sent scouts thither to spy out the land and report to him what they saw.  The Indians lurked round Harrodstown throughout the summer; and Clark and his companions were engaged in constant skirmishes with them.  Once, warned by the uneasy restlessness of the cattle (who were sure to betray the presence of Indians if they got sight or smell of them), they were able to surround a party of ten or twelve, who were hidden in a tall clump of weeds.  The savages were intent on cutting off some whites who were working in a turnip patch two hundred yards from the fort; Clark’s party killed three ­he himself killing one, ­wounded another, and sold the plunder they took, at auction, for seventy pounds.  At other times the skirmishes resulted differently, as on the occasion chronicled by Clark in his diary, when they “went out to hunt Indians; one wounded Squire Boon and escaped.”

The corn was brought in from the cribs under guard; one day while shelling a quantity, a body of thirty-seven whites were attacked, and seven were killed or wounded, though the Indians were beaten off and two scalps taken.  In spite of this constant warfare the fields near the forts were gradually cleared, and planted with corn, pumpkins, and melons; and marrying and mirth-making went on within the walls.  One of Clark’s scouts, shortly after returning from the Illinois, got married, doubtless feeling he deserved some reward for the hardships he had suffered; on the wedding night Clark remarks that there was “great merriment.”  The rare and infrequent expresses from Pittsburg or Williamsburg brought letters telling of Washington’s campaigns, which Clark read with absorbed interest.  On the first of October, having matured his plans for the Illinois campaign, he left for Virginia, to see if he could get the government to help him put them into execution.

    The Holston men Help Kentucky.

During the summer parties of backwoods militia from the Holston settlements ­both Virginians and Carolinians ­came out to help the Kentuckians in their struggle against the Indians; but they only stayed a few weeks, and then returned home.  In the fall, however, several companies of immigrants came out across the mountains; and at the same time the small parties of hunters succeeded in pretty well clearing the woods of Indians.  Many of the lesser camps and stations had been broken up, and at the end of the year there remained only four ­Boonsborough, Harrodstown, Logan’s station at St. Asaphs, and McGarry’s, at the Shawnee Springs.  They contained in all some five or six hundred permanent settlers, nearly half of them being able-bodied riflemen.

    Boon Captured.

Early in 1778 a severe calamity befell the settlements.  In January Boon went, with twenty-nine other men, to the Blue Licks to make salt for the different garrisons ­for hitherto this necessary of life had been brought in, at great trouble and expense, from the settlements. The following month, having sent three men back with loads of salt, he and all the others were surprised and captured by a party of eighty or ninety Miamis, led by two Frenchmen, named Baubin and Lorimer. When surrounded, so that there was no hope of escape, Boon agreed that all should surrender on condition of being well treated.  The Indians on this occasion loyally kept faith.  The two Frenchmen were anxious to improve their capture by attacking Boonsborough; but the fickle savages were satisfied with their success, and insisted on returning to their villages.  Boon was taken, first to Old Chillicothe, the chief Shawnee town on the Little Miami, and then to Detroit, where Hamilton and the other Englishmen treated him well, and tried to ransom him for a hundred pounds sterling.  However, the Indians had become very much attached to him, and refused the ransom, taking their prisoner back to Chillicothe.  Here he was adopted into the tribe, and remained for two months, winning the good-will of the Shawnees by his cheerfulness and his skill as a hunter, and being careful not to rouse their jealousy by any too great display of skill at the shooting-matches.

Hamilton was urging the Indians to repeat their ravages of the preceding year; Mingos, Shawnees, Delawares, and Miamis came to Detroit, bringing scalps and prisoners.  A great council was held at that post early in June. All the northwestern tribes took part, and they received war-belts from the Iroquois and messages calling on them to rise as one man.  They determined forthwith to fall on the frontier in force.  By their war parties, and the accompanying bands of tories, Hamilton sent placards to be distributed among the frontiersmen, endeavoring both by threat and by promise of reward, to make them desert the patriot cause.

    Boon Escapes and Makes a Foray.

In June a large war party gathered at Chillicothe to march against Boonsborough, and Boon determined to escape at all hazards, so that he might warn his mends.  One morning before sunrise he eluded the vigilance of his Indian companions and started straight through the woods for his home where he arrived in four days, having had but one meal during the whole journey of a hundred and sixty miles.

On reaching Boonsborough he at once set about putting the fort in good condition; and being tried by court-martial for the capture at the Blue Licks, he was not only acquitted but was raised to the rank of major.  His escape had probably disconcerted the Indian war party, for no immediate attack was made on the fort.  After waiting until August he got tired of the inaction, and made a foray into the Indian country himself with nineteen men, defeating a small party of his foes on the Sciota.  At the same time he learned that the main body of the Miamis had at last marched against Boonsborough.  Instantly he retraced his steps with all possible speed, passed by the Indians, and reached the threatened fort a day before they did.

    Boonsborough again Beseiged.

On the eighth day of the month the savages appeared before the stockade.  They were between three and four hundred in number, Shawnees and Miamis, and were led by Captain Daigniau de Quindre, a noted Detroit partisan; with him were eleven other Frenchmen, besides the Indian chiefs.  They marched into view with British and French colors flying, and formally summoned the little wooden fort to surrender in the name of his Britannic Majesty.  The negotiations that followed showed, on the part of both whites and reds, a curious mixture of barbarian cunning and barbarian childishness; the account reads as if it were a page of Graeco-Trojan diplomacy. Boon first got a respite of two days to consider de Quindre’s request, and occupied the time in getting the horses and cattle into the fort.  At the end of the two days the Frenchman came in person to the walls to hear the answer to his proposition; whereupon Boon jeered at him for his simplicity, thanking him in the name of the defenders for having given them time to prepare for defence, and telling him that now they laughed at his attack.  De Quindre, mortified at being so easily outwitted, set a trap in his turn for Boon.  He assured the latter that his orders from Detroit were to capture, not to destroy, the garrison, and proposed that nine of their number should come out and hold a treaty.  The terms of the treaty are not mentioned; apparently it was to be one of neutrality, Boonsborough acting as if it were a little independent and sovereign commonwealth, making peace on its own account with a particular set of foes.  At any rate, de Quindre agreed to march his forces peaceably off when it was concluded.

Boon accepted the proposition, but, being suspicious of the good-faith of his opponents, insisted upon the conference being held within sixty yards of the fort.  After the treaty was concluded the Indians proposed to shake hands with the nine white treaty-makers, and promptly grappled them. However, the borderers wrested themselves free, and fled to the fort under a heavy fire, which wounded one of their number.

The Indians then attacked the fort, surrounding it on every side and keeping up a constant fire at the loop-holes.  The whites replied in kind, but the combatants were so well covered that little damage was done.  At night the Indians pitched torches of cane and hickory bark against the stockade, in the vain effort to set it on fire, and de Quindre tried to undermine the walls, starting from the water mark.  But Boon discovered the attempt, and sunk a trench as a countermine.  Then de Quindre gave up and retreated on August 20th, after nine days’ fighting, in which the whites had but two killed and four wounded; nor was the loss of the Indians much heavier.

This was the last siege of Boonsborough.  Had de Quindre succeeded he might very probably have swept the whites from Kentucky; but he failed, and Boon’s successful resistance, taken together with the outcome of Clark’s operations at the same time, ensured the permanency of the American occupation.  The old-settled region lying around the original stations, or forts, was never afterwards seriously endangered by Indian invasion.

    Ferocious Individual Warfare.

The savages continued to annoy the border throughout the year 1778.  The extent of their ravages can be seen from the fact that, during the summer months those around Detroit alone brought in to Hamilton eighty-one scalps and thirty-four prisoners, seventeen of whom they surrendered to the British, keeping the others either to make them slaves or else to put them to death with torture.  During the fall they confined themselves mainly to watching the Ohio and the Wilderness road, and harassing the immigrants who passed along them.

Boon, as usual, roamed restlessly over the country, spying out and harrying the Indian war parties, and often making it his business to meet the incoming bands of settlers, and to protect and guide them on the way to their intended homes. When not on other duty he hunted steadily, for game was still plentiful in Kentucky, though fast diminishing owing to the wanton slaughter made by some of the more reckless hunters. He met with many adventures, still handed down by tradition, in the chase of panther, wolf, and bear, of buffalo, elk, and deer.  The latter he killed only when their hides and meat were needed, while he followed unceasingly the dangerous beasts of prey, as being enemies of the settlers.

Throughout these years the obscure strife, made up of the individual contests of frontiersman and Indian, went on almost without a break.  The sieges, surprises, and skirmishes in which large bands took part were chronicled; but there is little reference in the books to the countless conflicts wherein only one or two men on a side were engaged.  The west could never have been conquered, in the teeth of so formidable and ruthless a foe, had it not been for the personal prowess of the pioneers themselves.  Their natural courage and hardihood, and their long training in forest warfare, made them able to hold their own and to advance step by step, where a peaceable population would have been instantly butchered or driven off.  No regular army could have done what they did.  Only trained woodsmen could have led the white advance into the vast forest-clad regions, out of which so many fair States have been hewn.  The ordinary regular soldier was almost as helpless before the Indians in the woods as he would have been if blindfolded and opposed to an antagonist whose eyes were left uncovered.

Much the greatest loss, both to Indians and whites, was caused by this unending personal warfare.  Every hunter, almost every settler, was always in imminent danger of Indian attack, and in return was ever ready, either alone or with one or two companions, to make excursions against the tribes for scalps and horses.  One or two of Simon Kenton’s experiences during this year may be mentioned less for their own sake than as examples of innumerable similar deeds that were done, and woes that were suffered, in the course of the ceaseless struggle.

    Simon Kenton’s Adventures.

Kenton was a tall, fair-haired man of wonderful strength and agility; famous as a runner and wrestler, an unerring shot, and a perfect woodsman.  Like so many of these early Indian fighters, he was not at all bloodthirsty.  He was a pleasant, friendly, and obliging companion; and it was hard to rouse him to wrath.  When once aroused, however, few were so hardy as not to quail before the terrible fury of his anger.  He was so honest and unsuspecting that he was very easily cheated by sharpers; and he died a poor man.  He was a staunch friend and follower of Boon’s. and about Indian warfare; but he is a very inaccurate and untrustworthy writer; he could not even copy a printed narrative correctly (see his account of Slover’s and McKnight’s adventures), and his tales about Kenton must be accepted rather as showing the adventures incident to the life of a peculiarly daring Indian fighter than as being specifically and chronologically correct in Kenton’s individual case.  Once, in a fight outside the stockade at Boonsborough, he saved the life of his leader by shooting an Indian who was on the point of tomahawking him.  Boon was a man of few words, cold and grave, accustomed to every kind of risk and hairbreadth escape, and as little apt to praise the deeds of others as he was to mention his own; but on this occasion he broke through his usual taciturnity to express his thanks for Kenton’s help and his admiration for Kenton himself.

Kenton went with his captain on the expedition to the Scioto.  Pushing ahead of the rest, he was attracted by the sound of laughter in a canebrake.  Hiding himself, he soon saw two Indians approach, both riding on one small pony, and chatting and laughing together in great good-humor.  Aiming carefully, he brought down both at once, one dead and the other severely wounded.  As he rushed up to finish his work, his quick ears caught a rustle in the cane, and looking around he saw two more Indians aiming at him.  A rapid spring to one side on his part made both balls miss.  Other Indians came up; but, at the same time, Boon and his companions appeared, running as fast as they could while still keeping sheltered.  A brisk skirmish followed, the Indians retreated, and Kenton got the coveted scalp.  When Boon returned to the fort, Kenton stayed behind with another man and succeeded in stealing four good horses, which he brought back in triumph.

Much pleased with his success he shortly made another raid into the Indian country, this time with two companions.  They succeeded in driving off a whole band of one hundred and sixty horses, which they brought in safety to the banks of the Ohio.  But a strong wind was blowing, and the river was so rough that in spite of all their efforts they could not get the horses to cross; as soon as they were beyond their depth the beasts would turn round and swim back.  The reckless adventurers could not make up their minds to leave the booty; and stayed so long, waiting for a lull in the gale, and wasting their time in trying to get the horses to take to the water in spite of the waves, that the pursuing Indians came up and surprised them.  Their guns had become wet and useless; and no resistance could be made.  One of them was killed, another escaped, and Kenton himself was captured.

The Indians asked him if “Captain Boon” had sent him to steal horses; and when he answered frankly that the stealing was his own idea, they forthwith proceeded to beat him lustily with their ramrods, at the same time showering on him epithets that showed they had at least learned the profanity of the traders.  They staked him out at night, tied so that he could move neither hand nor foot; and during the day he was bound on an unbroken horse, with his hands tied behind him so that he could not protect his face from the trees and bushes.  This was repeated every day.  After three days he reached the town of Chillicothe, stiff, sore, and bleeding.

Next morning he was led out to run the gauntlet.  A row of men, women, and boys, a quarter of a mile long, was formed, each with a tomahawk, switch, or club; at the end of the line was an Indian with a big drum, and beyond this was the council-house, which, if he reached, would for the time being protect him.  The moment for starting arrived; the big drum was beaten; and Kenton sprang forward in the race. Keeping his wits about him he suddenly turned to one side and darted off with the whole tribe after him.  His wonderful speed and activity enabled him to keep ahead, and to dodge those who got in his way, and by a sudden double he rushed through an opening in the crowd, and reached the council-house, having been struck but three or four blows.

He was not further molested that evening.  Next morning a council was held to decide whether he should be immediately burnt at the stake, or should first be led round to the different villages.  The warriors sat in a ring to pass judgment, passing the war club from one to another; those who passed it in silence thereby voted in favor of sparing the prisoner for the moment, while those who struck it violently on the ground thus indicated their belief that he should be immediately put to death.  The former prevailed, and Kenton was led from town to town.  At each place he was tied to the stake, to be switched and beaten by the women and boys; or else was forced to run the gauntlet, while sand was thrown in his eyes and guns loaded with powder fired against his body to burn his flesh.

Once, while on the march, he made a bold rush for liberty, all unarmed though he was; breaking out of the line and running into the forest.  His speed was so great and his wind so good that he fairly outran his pursuers; but by ill-luck, when almost exhausted, he came against another party of Indians.  After this he abandoned himself to despair.  He was often terribly abused by his captors; once one of them cut his shoulder open with an axe, breaking the bone.

His face was painted black, the death color, and he was twice sentenced to be burned alive, at the Pickaway Plains and at Sandusky.  But each time he was saved at the last moment, once through a sudden spasm of mercy on the part of the renegade Girty, his old companion in arms at the time of Lord Dunmore’s war, and again by the powerful intercession of the great Mingo chief, Logan.  At last, after having run the gauntlet eight times and been thrice tied to the stake, he was ransomed by some traders.  They hoped to get valuable information from him about the border forts, and took him to Detroit.  Here he stayed until his battered, wounded body was healed.  Then he determined to escape, and formed his plan in concert with two other Kentuckians, who had been in Boon’s party that was captured at the Blue Licks.  They managed to secure some guns, got safely off, and came straight down through the great forests to the Ohio, reaching their homes in safety.

Boon and Kenton have always been favorite heroes of frontier story, ­as much so as ever were Robin Hood and Little John in England.  Both lived to a great age, and did and saw many strange things, and in the backwoods cabins the tale of their deeds has been handed down in traditional form from father to son and to son’s son.  They were known to be honest, fearless, adventurous, mighty men of their hands; fond of long, lonely wanderings; renowned as woodsmen and riflemen, as hunters and Indian fighters.  In course of time it naturally came about that all notable incidents of the chase and woodland warfare were incorporated into their lives by the story-tellers.  The facts were altered and added to by tradition year after year; so that the two old frontier warriors already stand in that misty group of heroes whose rightful title to fame has been partly overclouded by the haze of their mythical glories and achievements.