That Dark and Bloody River

by Allan Eckert

  “We are equally surprised,” Tarhe went on, eyes becoming hard and voice cold, “that you seem to take no notice of the ancient council fires kindled by our forefathers, at which places only can the good works of peace be accommodated. When our business is fully settled and we are ready to meet you, then such meeting should be held at the place where our ancestors formerly met to settle matters tending to their welfare and happiness.”

  Tarhe had then gone on to say that the place where such counciling should be held was at the great council fire at Detroit. The American delegates, however, had no wish to hold such a meeting in proximity to the British, whom they suspected would sabotage their efforts among the tribes. They insisted that the general council be held at the mouth of the Great Miami; but that, since the fort they were erecting there for that purpose was not yet completed, they would agree to postpone the opening treaty talks for three months, till the first of January.

  Leaving with no firm answer from the Wyandots, the American delegation then went to Wapatomica to inform the Shawnees of this same decision. The Shawnees were considerably taken aback by the appearance of this American delegation among them, but they agreed to hold an immediate council and listen to what they had to say. It had been then, when the council convened, that the self-important Shawnee subchief named Kekewapilethy—Tame Hawk—had asked permission to speak first. When this request was granted, he rose and, to the chagrin and irritation of the other Shawnees present, made a speech altogether too conciliatory toward the Americans. He strongly urged the young Shawnee warriors to end their raiding, killing and stealing horses and to have pity upon their own women and children by not hindering the good work of peace the Americans were here for at this council.

  As Kekewapilethy spoke, it became clear he was very inclined to attend the proposed treaty talks and wished to grasp the American offerings of peace irrespective of the cost. Since he was an inconsequential chief generally considered to have little of consequence between his ears, his speech astounded them and incurred such great displeasure and remonstrance among the other Shawnees in attendance that he left the council house shamed and petulant before the council was even well begun.

  Next to talk was another Shawnee subchief named Piteosawa, who spoke more truly the feelings of the tribe in general.

  “Brothers of the Thirteen Fires,” he said coldly, “you sent speeches amongst us last year to invite us who are of one color to the council fire you kindled at Fort Stanwix, for the peace and other good things you said you had to offer us. Soon afterward you kindled another council fire at Beaver River, at your Fort McIntosh, to which you also invited us, but to neither of which did we come because you had openly said you would keep some of our chiefs as hostages for the guarantee of our fidelity. But you ought to know this is not the way to make a good or lasting peace—to take our chiefs prisoners and come with soldiers at your backs. This cannot tend to general good between us.

  “You now again,” he went on, “invite us to another council fire at the mouth of the Great Miami. Your messengers have gone through several nations. But we are aware of your design to divide our councils. We are unanimous. And it is not right for you to kindle council fires among brush or nettles. Therefore, we now inform you that if you wish a council with all these many Indian nations, the proper place is at Detroit, the ancient council fire of our forefathers. When we see you there, we will take your hand—but this cannot be sooner than next spring. We must have time to hear from other nations to the westward. Nothing is to be done by us but by general consent; we, the tribes of the northwest, now act and speak like one man.”

  The remainder of the Wapatomica council continued and finally concluded in this vein and, disheartened, the American delegation departed. It was not until late in the year that the Shawnee chiefs found out Kekewapilethy and others had left their villages, at which time the full truth had come out. Catahecassa, Blue Jacket, and the others were thunderstruck when they discovered that before the American commissioners left Wapatomica, Kekewapilethy had secretly gone to them on his own and promised to attend the planned treaty talks in January at the mouth of the Great Miami, told them that he would treat on behalf of the Shawnee tribe and would be very agreeable to whatever terms the Americans proposed.

  This was where he was now and why Blue Jacket’s party had come here to the mouth of the Great Miami to discover what was happening between him and the American commissioners at Fort Finney. Now they had arrived and presented themselves to the American treaty commissioners plenipotentiary, Maj. Gen. Samuel H. Parsons, Col. Richard Butler, and George Rogers Clark. Those commissioners regarded them with dark suspicion, causing many of the whites in attendance to grip their rifles more firmly and surreptitiously check their loads.

  Blue Jacket and his party were escorted to where the talks were being held and were grudgingly invited to visit and observe, but, since they were not part of the Shawnee delegation already involved here, they were told they had no right to speak. Insulted by the restriction, yet not prepared for a full confrontation with the American troops and armed frontiersmen on hand, they acquiesced. They were disconcerted to discover that there were also official deputations here from the other northwestern tribes, despite earlier refusals to attend. Included were Wyandots under Tarhe, Delawares under Buckangehela, Pimoacan, Big Cat and Awuncy, Chippewas under Wafrugahquealied, Ottawas under Nichefrewaw and Nichinesica, and Potawatomies under Nanimisea and Messquagoneke. And here, too, were the 300 Shawnee pacifists that Kekewapilethy had brought with him, most of them women and children who were bundled in skins and blankets against the January cold, but obviously suffering from it and just as obviously very hungry.

  “How does Tame Hawk dare to bring those unfortunates with him and increase their misery?” Chiksika whispered angrily. “What does he hope to get out of this?”

  “He wishes food and warm clothes for his people,” said Moluntha mildly, “which is understandable, but better he should have applied to the rest of the tribe for them. It is a hard winter and none of us has much, but we would gladly have shared with him and them.”

  The talks were continuing and, in whispered discussions with chiefs and warriors who had been there from the beginning, Blue Jacket’s party learned the essence of what had occurred thus far. When Kekewapilethy arrived with his 300 hungry, cold and weary followers, Col. Richard Butler had ordered the firing of a military salute to honor them, at which Kekewapilethy had puffed up with pride. Butler had then begun his talk with Kekewapilethy, and when the subchief proclaimed, “All this land is ours,” and a little later, “God gave us this country,” Butler had become very forceful in his remarks.

  “We plainly tell you, Tame Hawk,” he had retorted, “that this country belongs to the United States! Their blood has defended it and will forever protect it. Their proposals are liberal and just, and you should be thankful for the forgiveness and offers of kindness of the United States.” For the subchief’s acceptance of the proposals, he added, he was prepared to offer peace and immediately give his tattered followers food and blankets.

  Kekewapilethy had come prepared to negotiate and had been confident of his ability to do so to his own honor in the tribe. He had brought with him a black wampum belt, signifying war, and had then withdrawn it from his pouch and placed it on the table, saying with a boldness he did not feel, “You say you have goods for our women and children. You may keep your goods and give them to other nations. We will have none of them.”

  At this the three commissioners had become angry and walked out. On the way George Rogers Clark deliberately knocked the black wampum belt to the floor and stamped upon it. Now, soon after the Blue Jacket party’s arrival, the commissioners, having given Tame Hawk a long period of time to reconsider, returned and Butler spoke.

  “Our offer,” he said firmly, “remains as it was stated to you, and you can take it or leave it, but the destruction of your women and children depends on your present choice.”

  All of Kekew
apilethy’s early display of self-confidence now drained away and he meekly gave in. Butler immediately ordered food distributed to the Shawnee’s followers and presented him as well with enough whiskey for Kekewapilethy and the few adult males in his party to get drunk upon, which they began to do at once.

  The talks were now all but finished. With interpreters relaying their words to various factions almost simultaneously, the commissioners went over the seven articles of the treaty step by step preparatory to the signing. The first article called for three hostages to be delivered up to the commissioners, to be held until all prisoners, white or black, taken during the late war, who were in the possession of the Shawnees and who had been taken by them or any other Indians living in their towns, were restored to the Americans.

  Article two stated that the Shawnees acknowledged the United States to be the sole and absolute sovereign of all the territory ceded to the Americans by the British at their treaty of peace in Paris.

  Article three required that if any Indians committed murder, robbery, or injury against any citizen of the United States, the offenders were to be given up to the officer commanding the nearest American post for trial, and, in like manner, any white guilty of similar crimes against the Indians would similarly be punished according to the laws of the United States.

  The fourth article called for the Shawnees to report any intelligence they gained of other tribes preparing to strike against the United States. Failure to do so would make them be considered as party to such measures, and they would be punished accordingly.

  Article five stated that the United States granted peace to the Shawnees and received them into the favor and protection of the United States.

  Article six was one in which the wording was so confusing that none of the Indians on hand understood it, though they were encouraged in their misunderstanding of it. In its entirety, the article stated:

  The United States do allot to the Shawanese Nation land within their Territory to live in and hunt upon, beginning at the south line of the lands allotted to the Wiandots and Dellawares, at the place where the main branch of the Great Miami intersects with said line, thence down the River Miamis to the fork of that River next below the old Fort which was taken by the French in the year 1752, thence due west to the River de la Pansé, then down that River to the River Wabash, beyond which line none of the citizens of the United States shall settle nor disturb the Shawanese in their settlements and possessions, and the Shawanese do relinquish to the United States all title or pretence of title they ever had on the lands east, west and south of the east, west and south lines before described.

  To all the Indians in attendance, this simply reaffirmed that the Shawnees would continue to live and hunt in their own Ohio territory, with the Ohio River being the border to the south and the territories of the Wyandots, Delawares and Miamis being the border to the north. To the whites, it meant that the Shawnees had ceded all this land east of the Great Miami River and westward to the Wabash to the United States.

  Article seven simply stated that if any citizen of the United States presumed to settle on the lands allotted to the Shawnees by this treaty, he would be put out of the protection of the United States.

  While the commissioners were thus going over the articles of the treaty, old Moluntha went to Kekewapilethy and sat with him for an extended period, conversing. Blue Jacket and the others were certain he was upbraiding the subchief, but they were startled when, as the commissioners finished, he came creakily to his feet and announced that he, as principal chief of the Maykujay Shawnees, along with Kekewapilethy, would be the principal treaty signer for the Shawnees.

  “He has gone mad!” Wasegoboah whispered in amazed alarm to Blue Jacket, who nodded.

  “Can’t we stop him and Kekewapilethy?” Tecumseh asked, deeply concerned.

  “We could and would, if it were necessary,” Blue Jacket murmured, “but it is not. Moluntha no longer heads the Maykujays, and neither of them represents the general council of the Shawnees, so their names on the treaty will have no significance. Both will be reprimanded in council when we return, but for now we will let it be. The Americans have soldiers here who are ready for trouble, which would certainly occur if we were to try that. Our party is too small and the weather too bad to launch an attack on them. But I tell you this: I have never hated the Americans so much as I do this day. They will be destroyed. I will return here in the Green Moon, kill all the soldiers who remain and burn this fort which is such an insult to our dignity and intelligence.”

  One by one the chiefs came forward and made their marks on the copy of the treaty prepared for the specific tribes. As Moluntha prepared to do so on the American treaty with the Shawnees, he made a comment to Commissioner Richard Butler, who nodded and took out a sheet of paper, upon which he wrote something and gave it to the aged chief. Moluntha nodded, folded it and placed it in his pouch.

  Why the chiefs of these other tribes were here and why they were signing their own copies of the treaty made no sense to the visiting Shawnees under Blue Jacket. The territory under discussion belonged to the Shawnees and Miamis, not them. As the signing progressed, first by the Indians, then by the attesting whites and finally by the three commissioners plenipotentiary, Col. Richard Butler became quite affable.654 He chatted with the Indians through interpreters and never corrected their misunderstanding that the Ohio River was still the border between the Shawnees and the whites; in fact, when they remarked uneasily about the two forts the Americans had now built on their territory—this one and the one called Fort Harmar at the mouth of the Muskingum—he blandly reassured them that the purpose of those forts was not for invasion but as guard posts to turn back any whites who might attempt settling in Shawnee territory. He then remarked how delighted he was with the “new and everlasting friendship” sealed this day between the United States and the Shawnees, adding that “differences of opinion” between the two could now at last “be put aside for all time.”

  The paper the doddering Moluntha had received from Col. Butler, which he now showed to Blue Jacket and his party with no small measure of pride, was merely a safe-conduct pass, stating that the bearer, Moluntha, was one of the chiefs who had signed the Great Miami Treaty and that he and his people at Mackachack “have done all in their power to keep the Shawnee from going to war and said Moluntha is included among the friends of the United States, and is therefore in no wise to be molested.” In addition to that paper, Moluntha had been presented with a written copy of the treaty. So, too, had the leaders of the other tribal delegations.

  As the visiting Shawnees mounted their horses to return to the north, all were dismayed at what Kekewapilethy had taken it upon himself to do, and even more disgusted and disheartened with the actions of the lovable old Moluntha, who had for so long been held in respect by all and had become the ideal of so many young Shawnees. Now even Nonhelema, though she had said nothing against her husband, set her lips in a grim line as she helped the old man mount up and then rode close beside him, bringing up the rear of their little party.

  As the ugly little bastion called Fort Finney disappeared from view behind them, Chiksika muttered aloud, “At every contact with them I understand more fully than ever before why my father, Pucksinwah, said never to make peace with the Shemanese, that they only mean to devour our land.”

  Tecumseh growled a sound of agreement, and Blue Jacket looked at them both. “My adopted father, Pucksinwah, was one of the wisest men I ever knew.” He rode for a moment longer in silence and then added, “For a long time we have been making little sidesteps toward a real war with the Shemanese. Today we have taken a great stride in that direction.”

  [February 1, 1786—Wednesday]

  The United States treaty commissioners at Fort Finney breathed a collective sigh of relief that the negotiations with the tribes had finally been completed. They were grateful that George Rogers Clark had been one of their number, since his influence with the Kentuckians was considerable, and i
t was only through Clark’s considerable exertions that extremely detrimental—if not altogether tragic—trouble had been averted. Now, as they prepared to leave Fort Finney and return up the Ohio with some of the troops in three large boats, the leader of the treaty commissioners, Maj. Gen. Samuel H. Parsons, decided that he would leave Maj. Robert Finney in command of the post, aided by Capt. David Zeigler and Lt. Ebenezer Denny, with a garrison of 200 regular troops.

  There were still many details to be taken care of before they could leave but, as these were being seen to, it provided an opportunity for Parsons and his second commissioner, Brig. Gen. Richard Butler, to write their report to Richard Henry Lee, President of the United States Congress, informing him that by the treaty concluded here at Fort Finney, the United States had now acquired full ownership of not only the lands set out by the boundaries of the Fort McIntosh Treaty, but all the lands south and east of the Wabash, which included almost all of the Indian country.655

  [February 9, 1786—Thursday]

  Because of his command of the English language, both written and verbal, Tecumseh, now nearly 18, was summoned this morning to the wegiwa of Moluntha and asked to write a letter to Alexander McKee in Detroit, which Moluntha would dictate. Tecumseh glanced at Nonhelema, and she nodded faintly, so he sat on the stool before a short table and dipped the quill pen into the inkpot. Several sheets of paper were there, and Tecumseh poised himself to write.

  “I’m ready,” he said quietly.

  “ ‘To Colonel McKee,’ ” dictated Moluntha. “ ‘Father. Last fall the Americans, our brethren, called us to the Big Miami.’ ” He stopped, waiting for the young warrior to catch up, and when Tecumseh paused in his writing and looked up, he continued, waiting regularly to give the writer time. “ ‘When we arrived, in January, they told us they had something to communicate for our future welfare and that of our children after us. But, alas, we heard nothing good from them. They told us that our father, the British King, had given us to them, with our lands likewise. Father, the commissioners assured us that everything in the articles that we now send you were agreeable to our best wishes and more generous than we could have expected from them. This induced us to sign the proposals, but we find that we have been ignorant of the real purport of them till we returned here. Our hostages, however, that were detained by them, have escaped and are come home safe. We inform you how they have deceived us, by telling us that the King of Great Britain had ceded the whole country to them. We were not sensible of the error we committed till our friend Elliott explained it to us. Father, we request you will be strong and give us the best advice you are capable of in our present situation. You see, we never have been in more need of your friendship and good offices. We have been cheated by the Americans, who are still striving to work our destruction, and, without your assistance, they may be able to accomplish their end. You have too much wisdom not to be convinced of this truth as well as we are. We earnestly request you will consider, and send us a speedy answer. In the meantime, we salute you and remain your steady friends.’ ”