The Winning of the West, Volume Four | Page 8

of the Northwestern Territory, the brigadier-general of the troops on the Ohio, the members of the Kentucky Convention, and all the county lieutenants of Kentucky, the lieutenants of the frontier counties of Virginia proper, the representatives from the counties, the field officers of the different districts, the General Assembly of Virginia, all sent bitter complaints and long catalogues of injuries to the President, the Secretary of War, and the two Houses of Congress; complaints which were redoubled after Harmar's failure. With heavy hearts the national authorities prepared for war. [Footnote: American State Papers, IV., pp. 83, 94, 109, and III.]
Raid on the Marietta Settlements.
Their decision was justified by the redoubled fury of the Indian raids during the early part of 1791. Among others the settlements near Marietta were attacked, a day or two after the new year began, in bitter winter weather. A dozen persons, including a woman and two children, were killed, and five men were taken prisoners. The New England settlers, though brave and hardy, were unused to Indian warfare. They were taken completely by surprise, and made no effective resistance; the only Indian hurt was wounded with a hatchet by the wife of a frontier hunter in the employ of the company. [Footnote: "The American Pioneer," II., 110. American State Papers, IV., 122.] There were some twenty-five Indians in the attacking party; they were Wyandots and Delawares, who had been mixing on friendly terms with the settlers throughout the preceding summer, and so knew how best to deliver the assault. The settlers had not only treated these Indians with much kindness, but had never wronged any of the red race; and had been lulled into a foolish feeling of security by the apparent good-will of the treacherous foes. The assault was made in the twilight, on the 2nd of January, the Indians crossing the frozen Muskingum and stealthily approaching a block-house and two or three cabins. The inmates were frying meat for supper, and did not suspect harm, offering food to the Indians; but the latter, once they were within doors, dropped the garb of friendliness, and shot or tomahawked all save a couple of men who escaped and the five who were made prisoners. The captives were all taken to the Miami, or Detroit, and as usual were treated with much kindness and humanity by the British officers and traders with whom they came in contact. McKee, the British Indian agent, who was always ready to incite the savages to war against the Americans as a nation, but who was quite as ready to treat them kindly as individuals, ransomed one prisoner; the latter went to his Massachusetts home to raise the amount of his ransom, and returned to Detroit to refund it to his generous rescuer. Another prisoner was ransomed by a Detroit trader, and worked out his ransom in Detroit itself. Yet another was redeemed from captivity by the famous Iroquois chief Brant, who was ever a terrible and implacable foe, but a great-hearted and kindly victor. The fourth prisoner died; while the Indians took so great a liking to the fifth that they would not let him go, but adopted him into the tribe, made him dress as they did, and, in a spirit of pure friendliness, pierced his ears and nose. After Wayne's treaty he was released, and returned to Marietta to work at his trade as a stone mason, his bored nose and slit ears serving as mementos of his captivity.
Cincinnati Also Suffers.
The squalid little town of Cincinnati also suffered from the Indian war parties in the spring of this year, [Footnote: "American Pioneer," II., 149.] several of the townsmen being killed by the savages, who grew so bold that they lurked through the streets at nights, and lay in ambush in the gardens where the garrison of Fort Washington raised their vegetables. One of the Indian attacks, made upon a little palisaded "station" which had been founded by a man named Dunlop, some seventeen miles from Cincinnati, was noteworthy because of an act of not uncommon cruelty by the Indians. In the station there were some regulars. Aided by the settlers they beat back their foes; whereupon the enraged savages brought one of their prisoners within ear-shot of the walls and tortured him to death. The torture began at midnight, and the screams of the wretched victim were heard until daylight. [Footnote: McBride, I., 88.]
Difficulties Discriminating between Hostile and Friendly Indians.
Until this year the war was not general. One of the most bewildering problems to be solved by the Federal officers on the Ohio was to find out which tribes were friendly and which hostile. Many of the inveterate enemies of the Americans were as forward in professions of friendship as the peaceful Indians, were just as apt to be