by Allan Eckert
Bad as those matters were, they were not the most terrible. The worst was the Shemanese themselves who, while floating down the great river, would shoot to kill whenever any Indian appeared on the Ohio shore. Nine Shawnee warriors had been slain in this way since the Hunger Moon—February—and four Shawnee hunters who had crossed into the Kan-tuck-kee lands to get meat for their families had never returned. Shemanese were landing on the Shawnees’ own Ohio shore and attempting to build cabins and then growing angry when told they could not do so. As Chief Outhowwa Shokka put it:
“They insult us and our wives and our children and our way of life. We are losing our dignity, our self-respect. Why must it be we who must turn our backs and walk away when it is we who are injured? Why may we not, as we always have, repay in kind for what we receive at the hands of our enemies?”
Hokolesqua was next-to-last speaker, and as principal chief of the tribe, his words would carry great weight among those present. The honor of speaking last, however, would go to the chief whose village was hosting this council, Chiungalla. Now, at last, it was Hokolesqua’s time to speak. He knew many of his people placed the blame for these problems at his feet, since he had been the one most responsible for the Camp Charlotte agreement with Dunmore. His voice was heavy with sadness as it filled the huge council house.
“It is a bad time for us, yes, and as your chief, the fire in my breast wishes to burst forth in vengeance for those injuries that have been committed against us. I hold back in this desire for I have given my word,” he looked around sternly, “as have many of you here, that we will remain at peace. Do not think now, or ever! that Hokolesqua so advises through fear, except that it is fear that our nation will perish. If once again we war with the Shemanese, it will be the beginning of our end. The white man is like the worm who, when cut in half, does not die but merely becomes two. For each one that is killed, two or three or even four rise to take his place. As the treaty last autumn opened the dam to let the whites down the river in a flood, so warfare against them will be opening the dam to permit them to flood into our country here and take it from us.”
He sighed and shook his head. “It is no easy matter to bear the injuries being turned upon us. Yet it may be that if these injuries can be borne for a while more, a better relationship will come and we will be able to live with the whites as neighbors.”
Older chiefs of the Maykujay, Peckuwe and Thawegila septs nodded in approval of these words, but an undertone of exasperation and anger arose from the younger chiefs and warriors, particularly those of the Kispokotha and Chalahgawtha septs. Hokolesqua waited patiently until the disturbance abated and then continued:
“My young men are hard to hold and want to strike back when struck and it is not in my heart to tell them they are wrong. They are not wrong! But look deep into your hearts, each of you, and ask if any personal insult or injury is worth the destruction of our nation, which retaliation must surely bring.”
He returned to his place beside Chiungalla and sat down as the host chief rose to speak. Because Chiungalla was peace chief of the tribe, it was expected that this burly, barrel-chested, middle-aged chief would concur with Hokolesqua’s sentiments, but he surprised them. There was a large roseate scar on his right breast, and he tapped it with his forefinger.
“This is my memory,” he said slowly. “It tells me that no white man can be trusted at any time, any place. It tells me that when I accepted injury and insult from the white man, believing it would not happen again, it became worse than before. The Shawnee must live in dignity; he must not only demand respect of others, white or Indian, but even more important, he must retain his self-respect and he can never do this by turning his back on injury and insult.” He tapped the scar again and added, “My memory tells me this.”
A loud murmuring of approval arose, and he waited until it faded away before continuing. “I do not say we should make war unless war is visited upon us, but I do say we must protect ourselves. If our men are killed, we must kill. If our buffalo and elk are destroyed, then so must the cattle of the whites be destroyed and their horses taken away. If our woods are cut and our fields burned, then so must the cabins of the whites be burned. Only in this way will the Shemanese know that we will not allow our country to be ravished and they will think well on it before giving us further injury.”
There was general approval for what Chiungalla said, but there was equally a recognition of the logic in what Hokolesqua had said and, even more, a strong and sobering memory of the words spoken earlier in this council by the principal chief of the Thawegilas, Kikusgowlowa, who was also oldest of the Shawnee chiefs. His long white hair flowed over his shoulders and framed his incredibly wrinkled face as he had spoken in a strong and passionate voice:
“The septs have always been joined together closely in all important phases of Shawnee life; yet, I tell you now, the Thawegilas have seen their last war with the Shemanese. If once more the tomahawk is struck into the war post, the Thawegilas will leave the Shawnee nation and cross the great-grandmother of rivers to the west, never to return.”
The council ended as so many others had in the past: with nothing truly resolved and the whole situation in a delicate balance.
The problems the Virginians were having with their governor and his henchman at Fort Pitt, John Connolly, had finally reached a conclusion that was allowing everyone to draw breaths of relief. Lord Dunmore, shortly after his return to Williamsburg, was given a perfunctory vote of thanks from the House of Burgesses for his “valuable services” in the campaign just ended. But Dunmore, still rankled over the Fort Gower resolution—and according to many, over the fact that the army of Gen. Lewis had not been annihilated at Point Pleasant—quickly ordered the cessation of all work on the under-construction fortification at Point Pleasant and the disbanding of the garrison there under Capt. Matthew Arbuckle. The order was not obeyed.
As spring approached and matters further degenerated between the colonists and the King, Dunmore began taking steps that caused Virginians to seethe with fury. Immediately following the Battle of Lexington, he initiated proceedings against Thomas Jefferson on charges of treason and secretly had all the gunpowder stored in the Williamsburg magazine taken to a British vessel lying at anchor off Yorktown. He then announced that if any sign of insurrection became apparent in the colony, he would set Williamsburg afire and reduce it to a pile of ashes. Patrick Henry raised a force of volunteers and confronted Dunmore, demanding he return the powder. Lord Dunmore refused to do so, but he did pay for it, then turned right around and issued a proclamation declaring that Patrick Henry and his followers were rebels.
Within another week he had sent his own family to safety aboard one of the British vessels. He then issued another proclamation granting protection to all Tories and freedom to all slaves who would support himself and the King of England. He sent a message to John Connolly, including a full commission to him as colonel instead of the brevet rank, and instructed him to enlist the aid of whatever militia commanders he could, through the use of large rewards. Connolly was also instructed to form an alliance with the Indians, assemble his forces at Fort Pitt and march them through Virginia to Williamsburg to assist him in the establishment of martial law.
Before Connolly could do so, however, he was arrested by officials of Pennsylvania and taken in irons to Fort Ligonier. In retaliation, three Pennsylvania magistrates in Pittsburgh were arrested and taken in irons to Wheeling. It was a stand-off, and before long the prisoners on both sides were released. Connolly returned to Fort Pitt.
In Williamsburg, Dunmore finally realized the growing momentum of the revolutionaries was more than he could withstand; he abdicated his office and then had the British man-of-war H.M.S. Fowey transport him to Norfolk, Virginia’s largest town and most important port. Upon his arrival he burned the entire town.
As soon as it became known that Lord Dunmore had fled, the Assembly reformed, declared the office of governor vacant and gave themselves, for the
first time, absolute home rule.261 The Virginians, furious at Dunmore’s actions, petitioned that the name of Dunmore County be abolished. This was done immediately, and the name was changed to Shenandoah County. The Virginia Convention then raised nine regiments, called the Virginia Line, and sent two companies of 100 men each to garrison Fort Pitt and a company of 25 men to Fort Fincastle at Wheeling. Now a colonel, William Crawford was given command of the Thirteenth Regiment, and his friend, John Knight, enlisted in that unit. Knight, having by this time worked off his indenture to Crawford, was now calling himself Dr. John Knight because he had studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen before coming to America as a stowaway.
A strong force was mounted under Gen. Andrew Lewis and advanced against Dunmore, who had taken refuge with the fleet at Gwynn Island in Chesapeake Bay. When they found him, Lewis himself fired the first gun. The fight was short but harsh, and the British fleet quickly fled with heavy losses. Lord Dunmore decided he would not return to Virginia.
By this time John Connolly, having failed to raise the force Dunmore had requested, left Fort Pitt for the east, and he, to the great joy of virtually everyone on the frontier, would not be returning to Fort Pitt.262
[October 26, 1775—Thursday]
Capt. Michael Cresap had been living in New York City since shortly after Dunmore’s War. A year ago, when Dunmore’s army had been disbanded after returning across the Ohio River, Cresap had wasted no time leaving the frontier again, convinced that if he remained, he would eventually encounter John Gibson, who would live up to his threat and kill him. But though Cresap escaped death at the hands of Gibson, he didn’t escape it in another way. Just over a week ago, at age 32, he contracted smallpox and four days ago he died. Yesterday he was buried with military honors.
And today, in a cabin on Harmon’s Creek, 24 miles above Wheeling, another man died—this one of measles—but there was no military funeral for him. His name was Daniel Greathouse, brother of Jacob.
[July 4, 1776—Thursday]
Even though everyone in America knew that a war of revolution had been going on for over 14 months, it was still simply a war being carried on by colonists against their British government. It was time for them to unshackle themselves from this connection, and a major step in that direction had occurred during the June session of the Continental Congress, when Richard Henry Lee presented a momentous resolution:
“Resolved: that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.” John Adams immediately seconded it, and a committee of five delegates was chosen to draw up a declaration embodying that resolution. Those five were Robert R. Livingston of New York, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, John Adams of Massachusetts and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, but it was Jefferson who did the greatest amount of work.
Today that Declaration of Independence was read, and immediately John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, signed his name in a very bold hand that, as Hancock put it, “the King of England can read without spectacles.” In rapid succession the other delegates signed their names, and the document became official. The 13 colonies had now become independent states—assuming they could successfully defend this declaration.
America went wild with joy at throwing off the ties that had bound them to mother England. At the Pennsylvania Statehouse in Philadelphia, the great bell was pealed with such vigor that it cracked, and in New York City patriots gleefully pulled down the gilded lead statue of George III and melted it into bullets. On the upper Ohio, Fort Fincastle at Wheeling was immediately renamed Fort Henry, after Patrick Henry.
Without delay, a call was issued to enlarge George Washington’s Continental Army as well as the various state militias. As an inducement to enlistment in their states, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia promised to those who would volunteer and serve, bounties of land in the northwestern wilderness included in their original charters—land situated in the Ohio country. They did not dwell on the fact that the land in question was presently occupied by Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Miamis, Potawatomies and Ottawas.
There was an immediate outcry from the remaining ten states; they protested, not that the land to be doled out through bounties belonged to these tribes, but rather that their own charters did not include large chunks of the unappropriated western lands. They insisted that if they were to give their services and shed their blood in this revolution, those western lands should be appropriated by the Congress for the benefit of all the states, according to population.
Congress agreed and urged those states owning these unappropriated western lands to make liberal concessions of them for the common benefit. It was the only fair thing to do, and Virginia led the field by initiating action to cede her lands north of the Ohio—on condition that if her lands south of that river proved insufficient to satisfy bounties for her own troops, the deficiency was to be made up from her lands north of the Ohio, situated between the Little Miami and Scioto rivers—territory that was the homeland of the Shawnees.
[May 31, 1777—Saturday]
In the 11 months that had passed since the colonies declared their independence, the Revolutionary War had become very hot in the east, but those Americans on the Ohio River frontier were faced with matters of more immediate concern. Ever more parties of Mingoes and Wyandots were making hit-and-run raids against the settlers, and each such attack was worse than the one preceding it. Now even the Delawares, who had for so long adamantly remained neutral, began sending out raiders, no longer willing to turn away when their people were insulted or physically abused or even murdered along the shores of the great river. But what had begun as raids by small groups were lately escalating into full-scale war parties, and suddenly more whites than Indians were being killed from well up the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers all the way down to the mouth of the Ohio.
During the preceding late summer, commissioners had been sent to Fort Pitt in an effort to bring the Indians to council and work out a new peace, but they were signally unsuccessful. British agents headquartered at Detroit had begun actively moving about among the tribes, instigating retaliation against the Americans for the injuries suffered. The Potawatomies, Ottawas and Wyandots, in council with Detroit’s commander, Col. Henry Hamilton, who was also lieutenant governor of Canada, had already pledged alliance with the British. The Delawares seemed on the verge of doing so as the council continued and a large number of Chippewas were on their way down to Detroit from the upper regions of the Michigan country. All these tribesmen gathered in council were disturbed that the Shawnees were not represented here beyond a small handful of delegates. Runners were sent to Wapatomica, Mackachack, Chalahgawtha, Kispoko Town and Hokolesqua’s Town, besieging the Shawnees with pleas to forget the Camp Charlotte agreement, since it had never been formalized into a treaty and the whites had never paid the slightest attention to it anyway. Still, Hokolesqua refused: He had given his word on behalf of the Shawnees, and until it was no longer even remotely possible for him to honor that word, he would not commit his tribe to war.
The chain of events that transpired, however, finally overruled him. In January, the number-two war chief of the Shawnees, Plukkemehnotee—called Pluggy by the whites—led a sizable party from Kispoko Town down the Scioto River and across the Ohio River and quickly killed two settlers they encountered, then moved on to attack McClelland’s Station. George McClelland was killed in that attack, but so, too, was Plukkemehnotee, at which the Shawnee party withdrew.
Plukkemehnotee had been a lifelong friend of Chiungalla, and when the latter learned of the death, he could no longer restrain his anger. Hokolesqua was still at his village on Scippo Creek at this time, and without his knowledge or approval, Chiungalla called a council at Chalahgawtha.
“The death of Plukkemehnotee,” he told the large assemblage, “is an unspeakable affront to our tribe and, to me, an act that cries in my heart for vengeance. I wish for two hundred brave and experienced warriors t
o join me. I will lead them from this village and intend to destroy every white settlement in our Kan-tuck-kee hunting grounds.”
Winter was not normally the season to launch a war party, but what Chiungalla asked was exactly what the young warriors had yearned for, and he had no trouble assembling his force. Accompanied by some British from Detroit and a number of warriors who joined them from other tribes, he led them to Kentucky, where they made a series of fierce assaults against the settlements. Surviving whites abandoned their weak stations and fled to Harrodsburg, Boonesboro or Benjamin Logan’s sturdy little St. Asaph’s Station, and soon these three were the only settlements remaining in Kentucky. Chiungalla struck these final three places repeatedly, placing Harrodsburg and St. Asaph’s under a prolonged siege and putting Boonesboro under siege three different times over a period of several months. Numerous men were killed on both sides, especially among the whites, but it would have been much worse for the settlers had nature not taken a hand. After months of being hampered by severe cold weather and storms, Chiungalla finally called off the major attacks and, leaving a large number of warriors behind to continue harassing the Shemanese in Kentucky, led a portion of his men back across the Ohio.263