by Allan Eckert
For a long chilling moment the situation hung in balance, and then Greathouse shook his head. “Ain’t worth it,” he growled, then strode over to where his wife was standing and cuffed her. “Git in the boat, woman,” he ordered. “We ain’t stayin’ in no place where they’s Injen lovers.”
[December 31, 1783—Wednesday]
The Revolutionary War was over.
During this year of talks, lengthy negotiations, and the gradual cessation of hostilities, the war had truly ended between the British and the Americans and had almost completely ended between the tribes and the whites in America who had won their freedom and independence. Everyone, Indians and whites alike, was heartily sick and tired of the fighting, which had seemed never-ending.
In May the Congress of the United States of America had resolved upon a program of sending embassies among the tribes under flags of truce and engaging in extensive talks.633 The tribes themselves, though their strength had been greatly weakened by the years of war, nevertheless remained proud people who truly believed that the Americans, in view of the setbacks they had received, had finally given in and that, in effect, though little had really changed as a result of it all, they, the Indians, had won.
Gen. George Rogers Clark, who had so long and so meritoriously served Virginia and the United States on the western frontier, was infuriated when he was summarily dismissed and his commission rescinded. Notification of it was made to him in a terse letter written on July 2 by Virginia Gov. Benjamin Harrison:
The conclusion of the War, and the distressed situation of the State with respect to its finances, call on us to adopt the most prudent economy. It is for this reason alone, I have come to a determination to give over all thoughts for the present of carrying on an offensive war against the Indians, which you will easily perceive will render the services of a general officer in that quarter unnecessary and will, therefore, consider yourself as out of command. But before I take leave of you, I feel myself called on in the most forcible manner to return you my thanks, and those of my Council, for the very great and singular services you have rendered your country, in wresting so great and valuable a territory out of the hands of the British enemy, repelling the attacks of their savage allies, and carrying on successful war in the heart of their country. This tribute of Praise and Thanks so justly due, I am happy to communicate to you as the united voice of the Executive.
I am, with respect, Sir, yours, &c.
B.H.
The Americans, for their part, considered themselves the victors in the war that was winding down, and, with negotiations between the United States and British nearing conclusion, they became extremely aware of the value of what they considered to be their western lands. The principal negotiators of the Paris Treaty being formulated between the British and the United States were, respectively, Richard Oswald and John Adams. It was Commissioner Adams who was the tougher of the two. Where the matter of the western boundary of the United States was concerned, the British intended for it to be—as they had promised their Indian allies—the Ohio River. Adams would have none of that, declaring it had to be the Mississippi to the west and the Great Lakes to the north, or the treaty would not be signed and the war would continue until the British lost their dominion in Canada as well. Oswald eventually acceded to the demand, with no stipulation whatever in regard to the tribes occupying those lands.
There was also little concern given in the negotiations for the Loyalists in America who, by the projected terms of the treaty, would be utterly ruined. During the war large numbers of them had fled their homes in New York, Pennsylvania and elsewhere and taken refuge close to the frontier outposts at either end of Lake Erie, Niagara in the east and Detroit in the west. With the treaty accepted by both sides, those two strongly fortified stations were expected to be surrendered peaceably to the Americans. Both, however, were crowded with British subjects—military, civilian and Loyalist—and they would, Oswald said, require time to remove their possessions and themselves. Smug in the realization he had negotiated the United States into a country half a continent wide, Adams felt he could bend a little in this respect and agreed that those posts were to be turned over to the United States “in due time and with all convenient speed.” It was a very vexing and dangerous nebulosity to have in an all-encompassing treaty of peace.
Conveniently overlooked in all this maneuvering in Paris was the unalterable fact that the British had occupied posts in the Northwest only by permission of the tribes and, in fact, had no true ownership of it. The Americans were quite well aware of this, yet when the British in their negotiations ceded their “claims” to the territory, the United States was only too eager to construe this as meaning that they were now and forever after sole owners of the vast Northwestern Territory.
It was obvious, particularly in the case of Virginia, that there would not be sufficient lands south of the Ohio River to fulfill bounty obligations to Continental and state troops. In a carefully orchestrated move, the Legislature of Virginia empowered its delegates in Congress to “convey, transfer, assign, and make over unto the United States in Congress assembled, for the benefit of said states, all right, title and claim, as well of soil as of jurisdiction, which this Commonwealth has to the territory or tract of country within the limits of the Virginia charter, situate, lying and being to the northwest of the River Ohio.” The fact that these claims were vague in the extreme was of little concern to the Virginians. Connecticut, realizing what was being done by Virginia, very quickly did the same with her charter lands situated within the Ohio country.
With such transference to the federal government having been accomplished, Virginia now turned right around and claimed—and was granted by Congress—the previously stipulated tract of land in the Ohio country from which to bestow land bounties upon those Virginians who had honorably served in the Continental Army. The tract in question was called the Virginia Military Lands, and it was an enormous area, taking in all the country bordered by the Ohio River to the south, the Scioto River to the east and north, where it changed course in central Ohio and headed west, and the Little Miami River to the west. The only portion not bounded by a stream was that between the headwaters of the Little Miami and the Scioto, so a diagonal connecting boundary line was drawn, moving northwest from the headwaters of the Little Miami to those of the Scioto. This tract contained a total of 4,000,200 acres of extremely rich land, which Virginia felt was adequate to satisfy the claims of her troops. Without benefit of being surveyed into townships of regular form, the land was declared open for settlement. This meant that any individual holding a Virginia Military Land Warrant could locate wherever he chose within these boundaries and take up land in any shape that he desired, providing the land had not previously been located by someone else with a similar warrant. No one paid much heed to the fact that settling on such lands would be grossly in violation of preexisting treaties with the Indians. At the same time, Connecticut reaffirmed her northwestern territory along the south shore of Lake Erie, claiming—and being granted by Congress for bounty purposes—over 3,500,000 acres called the Western Reserve Lands.
Everyone agreed that it was time the settlement of the Ohio country began in earnest; everyone, that is, except the thousands of Indians of various tribes who were living on those lands and considered them their own.
Both the Americans and the Indians, during the period of negotiations, had sent word to their respective peoples that a period of truce had been declared preparatory to the peace and that further incursions against the former enemies, by both sides, should cease at once. The Indians lived up to the agreement; the Americans did not. Against governmental edicts prohibiting such activity, a group of Kentuckians early in the summer had taken it upon themselves to cross the Ohio and invade Shawnee territory on a mission to recover horses they claimed the Indians had stolen from them throughout the past years. The mission failed, a few deaths resulted and the war very nearly flared up again as a result of it all; no doubt would hav
e but for the quick action of a few.
Arent de Peyster, the British commander in Detroit, who was now a lieutenant colonel, having been informed of the incident, on July 17 hurriedly wrote to the British military commander, Brig. Gen. Allan Maclean, in which he said, in part:
Runners are just come in from the Indian country with accounts that the Kentuck people had attacked and carried off a number of horses belonging to the Indian hunters, who were hunting on their own grounds at a considerable distance on this side of the Ohio. The Indians, not willing to lose their property, pursued the Virginians, attacked them, killed two men, and had an Indian mortally wounded, who is since dead. I have made every possible inquiry, and can assure you the Kentuckers were the sole aggressors, and I have mentioned the particulars that they may be fairly related, to prevent any misfortunes that might ensue from misapprehensions of these lawless people at Kentuck. The Indians being heartily disposed for peace and friendship with the people on the frontiers of the United States.
Immediately upon receiving the letter from de Peyster, Gen. Maclean had a portion of it carefully copied and sent to the Americans on July 31 with his own letter directed to Col. Marinus Willett:
I have this day received a letter from Lieutenant Colonel De Peyster, the Commanding Officer at Detroit, dated the 17th July, an extract from which letter I take the liberty of enclosing herewith, requesting that you will be pleased to transmit it, and this letter, to his Excellency, General Washington. Trifles may sometimes be the means of doing great mischief, which may be prevented by applying proper remedies in time. On the present occasion, the Virginians at Kentucky have been the aggressors, without any provocation on the part of the Indians, who are well disposed to cultivate peace and friendly intercourse with the people on the frontiers of the United States, provided they are not molested in their property or persons, by a number of people who come to settle at a considerable distance from the frontiers of the United States, that they may not be subjected to the controul of any legal law or government whatever. These lawless people would be glad to bring on an Indian war, to be an excuse for their depredations, and therefore will not scruple to misrepresent this last affair, and endeavor by that means to induce the United States to take up their quarrel. On this account I have thought it my duty to state this matter fairly and candidly, that the unlawful and improper conduct of the Kentuck people may not be a means of involving innocent people in misery and distress.
I have the honor to be, Sir, &c.
Allan Maclean
Col. Marinus Willett
The missives, relayed to George Washington, were very gratifying to him and, even though the peace had not yet been finally concluded in Paris, the general began taking the steps necessary to remove the Indians from the lands that he knew the Americans would soon occupy and in which he himself had a very deep and personal interest in respect to extensive tracts of land he or his agents had already claimed and those he meant yet to claim. He cared not in the least that this was, in view of his position of power and influence in the United States government, a decided conflict of interest. George Washington had been feathering his own personal nest with Indian lands ever since his family first became involved with the Ohio Land Company in 1748, and he did not mean to curtail the activity now, even though he was reputedly the richest man in America at this point.
George Washington had already presented to Congress a written paper, which he called a plan but what was in reality no less than a monumental conspiracy, by which the western lands belonging to the Indians could now most easily, most bloodlessly and least expensively be wrested from them. He suggested, in order to “induce them to relinquish our territories and remove to the illimitable regions of the West,” that the Indians be maneuvered into positions where they had little choice but to sell their lands. Since the expense of a major war could not be shouldered by the young and still newly shaping United States government, he recommended that all efforts should be made to implant as many new settlers as possible on Indian lands. In order to do this, his plan went on, grants of land should be made to veterans of the Revolutionary War from such parcels in Indian territory as the Virginia Military Lands and the Western Reserve Lands—grants that were either free, as bounty for services previously performed, or priced so low that few would be able to pass up the opportunity of buying and settling. George Washington went on to make special mention of the fact that these settlers, being largely veterans of the war and experienced soldiers, might tend to awe the Indians. Even if they did not, his plan continued, and the Indians rose up in arms, these settlers would then make excellent militia to protect the United States claims in the Ohio country.
Washington’s remarkably encompassing plan then pointed out a particular bonus of such settling that might otherwise have escaped the notice of Congress: the fact that in heavily populating the Northwestern Territory, the settlers would soon kill off all the game and make the land so unattractive to the Indians that “they will be as eager to sell as we are to buy.”
He then very meticulously laid out for Congress a blueprint of negotiations for such lands. First, government agents should point out to the Indians that as allies of the British, they had become conquered when the British surrendered and, as a conquered people, they had no land rights or rights of any other kind and therefore could not make demands; yet that the United States, in its generosity, would, if the Indians gave up their alleged claims, pay them a certain amount and also provide them with new lands of their very own farther to the west. In such negotiations, the plan continued, treaty commissioners could promise them that the United States government “will endeavor to restrain our people from hunting or settling” on the new lands that had so generously been given to the tribes. Yet at the same time, already beginning to hedge before the agreement was even made, the plan made it clear that despite the promises made, the restrictions barring settlement on the Indian reserves would be very temporary; that, as always occurred on the frontiers, the bolder of the settlers would begin penetrating and settling the Indians’ territory, and when the Indians complained, as they obviously would, new negotiations could be undertaken and, with careful maneuvering, the tribes would again be forced farther west. Those commissioners who handled the treaties, Washington advised, should acquire the reserved Indian lands as cheaply as possible and, most important, always deal with tribes on an individual basis and reject any attempt on their part to deal with the government as a unified body. By dealing with the tribes individually, he pointed out, there would be a much greater probability of resentment arising between the tribes themselves and a reduced likelihood that they might unite to give greater strength to their demands. The commissioners, Washington added, should also remain aware that circumspection was desirable and that they should not, at any given time, “grasp at too much” lest some form of such unified resentment spring up and balk the westward expansion. As Washington stated it, “There is nothing to be obtained by an Indian war but the soil they live on and this can be obtained by purchase at less expense.” It would be, Washington concluded, “the cheapest and least distressing way of dealing with them.”
Apart from the fact that it was immoral, unethical and actually criminal, this plan placed before the Congress by George Washington was so logical and well laid out that it was immediately accepted practically without opposition and at once put into action. There might be—almost certainly would be—further strife with the Indians, new battles and new wars, but the end result was, with adoption of Washington’s plan, inevitable: Without even realizing it had occurred, the fate of all Indians in the country was sealed. They had lost virtually everything.
A strong sense of discomfiture dawned gradually on the Indians as, in continued talks with both American and British delegates, they realized that their own allies, the British, had sold them out to save their own necks; that the British had not invited any Indian emissaries to the peace talks in Paris, nor given even the least consideration to the red people w
ho had fought hardest, yet the Indians had suffered greatest and had the most to lose—the people whose very homelands were the principal consideration of the talks; and that the British had conceded to the Americans any rights they had to the territory to the north and west of the Ohio River.
At the same time, conceiving that new difficulties would arise between themselves and the Americans in the future, the British embarked on a strong program to convince the Indians that King George was still their greatest friend among the whites and the most concerned for their welfare. As Alexander McKee assured them at a council held at Sandusky Bay, the treaty being hammered out across the great waters in Paris was not meant “to deprive you of an extent of country, of which the right of the soil belongs to you, and is in your hands as sole proprietors. It is important that you realize that the King is still concerned for your happiness and shows this by his continued protection with his red children and our trade with one another, which is important to us both.” As proof of this, he pointed out, were not the British still in their posts at Niagara and Detroit, as well as many at other smaller installations from the head of the St. Lawrence River to Lake Superior and all the way to Prairie du Chien, where the Wisconsin River enters the Mississippi? If the Americans treated the Indians badly, then the King was still in a position to come to their aid and redress the wrongs they were undergoing.
Finally, on September 3, the Treaty of Paris was signed, and the temporary truce while negotiations had been in progress now became a permanent peace. The War of the American Revolution was over, and the greatest losers were the American Indians.
There remained among the tribes, however, keenly perceptive individuals who did not believe the British were still their friends, and particularly among the Miamis, who absolutely refused to agree to any form of peace with the United States and its allies, the Iroquois. Those six tribes had split in their alliances during the war: The Mohawks, Cayugas and Senecas had largely sided with the British, while the Onondagas, Oneidas, and Tuscarawas had finally sided with the Americans. Many of those who had allied themselves to the British were already being given land to reestablish their villages in Canada, since their homelands in New York were lost. But for those who had allied themselves to the Americans, United States commissioners were already coming among them, encouraging them to sell their remaining lands to the United States and offering insulting amounts for such purchase. The Iroquois League bitterness was best expressed by the Seneca chief Sagoyewatha—Red Jacket—who said to the American commissioners: