Genet had previously attempted; rather Spain was to be convinced that it was to the common interest to cede it to France.48 In the spring of 1796, Adet, who had succeeded Fauchet as French minister to the United States, sent as his chief agent into the West, General Collot. This was another effort to detach the people west of the Alleghenies from the United States with the ultimate hope of joining them to Louisiana under France. He was instructed to call to the attention of the Western leaders again the fact "that the interests of the eastern and western parts of the United States were in collision, that the period was not distant when a separation must take place, and the range of mountains on this side of the Ohio was the natural boundary of the new government, and that in the event of separation the western people ought to look to France as their natural ally and protector." 49 Collot was also to make a military reconnaissance, and while doing so to influence the people as much as possible by advocating the election of Jefferson to the presidency. He passed into Kentucky and saw John Breckinridge and others. But the United States issued orders to Governor St. Clair of the Northwest Territory to arrest Collot and any other spies he could.50 Collot's adventure never produced any tangible results.

In October, 1796, Spain declared war on England, and immediately the protection of Louisiana became the concern of the Spanish officials. For a time they feared that a British expedition might march down from Canada, and it was partly due to this fear that Spain had refused to carry out her treaty obligations to the United States, by evacuating the post of Natchez.

To add another element to the criss-cross of intrigue going on in the West at this time, William Blount of Tennessee, and others, including a Colonel Whitley of Kentucky, were plotting with the Cherokee Indians to attack New Orleans in the interests of the British who were to send a fleet up the Mississippi to subjugate Louisiana.51 This plot was soon exposed and Blount was expelled from the United States Senate.

With the failure of their different schemes, the various foreign nations largely ceased their efforts at further interference with the territorial integrity of the United States. Proof indisputable was gradually dawning upon them that the West was now past the stage when such things were possible. Washington, in his Farewell Address in September, 1796, offered the West wise counsel. He recalled to the East that it “had good markets in the West for the commodities which it brings from abroad or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets, for its own productions to the weight, influence and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate or unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious."

He declared that the inhabitants of the Western country had seen "in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties,

that with Great Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them every thing they could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were procured? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such they are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them with aliens ?" 52

Kentucky was yet to have more excitements on Western rights and territory, and was still to run the hazards of another grandiloquent Western Scheme; but the danger that Washington's sound advice, which was largely unnecessary, would be disregarded was small,53

52 Spark, Writings of Washington, XII, 219, 221.

53 Thus it will be seen, in all the Spanish intrigues, Kentucky was made the pivot around which all their plots revolved. There was no political entity west of the Alleghanies with which they would deal, or which possessed such a commanding influence, and to the firm position taken by the Kentucky leaders may be credited that solidarity that marked the first years of our National existence.

CHAPTER XXXIII

CONQUERING THE NORTHWEST INDIANS: THE CAMPAIGNS OF HARMAR, ST. CLAIR, AND WAYNE

The influx of settlers into the West carried with it a thousand possibilities for hostilities between the whites and Indians. The recent campaigns of Clark, Logan, and others, instead of having settled anything, had in fact aggravated the situation. Hostilities had never ceased from the days. of the Revolution; the indulging animosities were those that grew out of two peoples attempting to possess themselves of the same country. The immediate causes and course of this intermittent warfare varied little throughout the whole period. A marauding band of Indians attacked a cabin or a small group of settlers, and carried away a few scalps, a prisoner or two, and drove away all the horses they could secure. The news spread, and soon a small company of frontiersmen were on their trail. Often they were overtaken, a fight ensued with the result that a few Indians were made to pay with their lives, and the horses and prisoners generally recovered. This led to a retaliation, and thus the process continued.

These raids came from the South as well as from the North. The Cherokees made forays into Kentucky in the Southeastern mountains, where they waylaid the immigrants coming in over the Wilderness Road. The greatest dangers, however, lay in the regions north of the Ohio. The Kentuckians in 1787 engaged in no less than four punitive expeditions against the various tribes of Indians: John Logan went against the Chicamaugas into Tennessee; Colonel Robert Todd marched on the Scioto tribes; Major Oldham led a company up the Wabash; and Captain Hardin engaged tribes in other regions. Such expeditions were generally the result of spontaneous uprisings of incensed settlers; and hence were little different from private warfare. And even when they had the aid and official sanction of the county lieutenants, their character was little changed in the eyes of the Virginia government and of the United States. The impetuosity and effectiveness of the Kentuckians in their counter raids brought forth reprimands and criticisms from both of these sources.

In 1787, Edmund Randolph, Governor of Virginia, wrote Harry Innes the attorney-general for the District, that he "had reason to believe that the late Hostilities committed upon the Indians, have roused their resentment. It is the duty of Government to prevent and punish, if possible all unjust violences. I beg leave therefore to urge you to institute the proper legal inquiries for vindicating the infractions of peace." 2 Innes and other Kentuckians had previously shown their attitude on the subject in connection with the demand from Virginia that Clark should be punished for his expedition against the Wabash tribes in the previous year. It was difficult for the Kentuckians to understand why they were not to be allowed to protect themselves, especially so since Virginia and the National Government in their belief showed little interest in affording that protection.

1 Green, Spanish Conspiracy, 84, 85. Harry Innes to Edmund Randolph, July 21, 1787. Innes MSS., Vol. 19, No. 39. Dated May 1.

But reprimands and demands for punishing the offenders had little. effect. An Indian attack south of the Ohio almost invariably carried with it a return visit from the Kentuckians. In 1790, the Governor of Virginia, Beverly Randolph, addressed the county lieutenants of Nelson County, declaring that news had reached him of an invasion carried on against the friendly tribes north of the Ohio. "As conduct like this is highly dishonorable to our national Character, and will, eventually, draw upon individual delinquents, the punishment due to such offenses, it becomes our duty to enjoin you, to exert your Authority to prevent any attempts of this kind in the future." He gave explicit instructions that under no circumstances should another expedition be carried into the regions north of the Ohio.3

The Federal Government had been lately exerting itself toward composing the Indian difficulties, and it was with considerable impatience that it saw the Kentuckians upsetting all of its plans. In July, 1787, Congress ordered the Superintendent of Indian Affairs or Harmar to repair to the Indian country and find out the difficulties between the Wabash Indians, Shawnees, and other tribes with the Kentuckians, and to conclude a treaty if possible. It also ordered a strategic grouping of United States troops on the frontier, and called for one thousand Kentucky militia to join the regulars. This make-shift of concluding treaties with the Indians was kept up for almost a hundred years to follow, before the Federal Government was persuaded that the policy would not work. Outside of the practice of treaty-making, the United States Government had no Indian policy then or for many years afterwards. Plans and policies were various; and whatever so-called policy existing at any given time was not likely to last long. In 1790, John Brown wrote Innes of a plan that had been suggested to him. In the first place the United States should increase its power and prestige in the eyes of the Indians as well as the Western settlers by increasing the number of military posts and regular troops along the Ohio. Persistent efforts should be made to bring all of the Indian tribes into treaty relations with the Federal Government. Then trade should be established with them "under proper regulations & upon such liberal principles as to supply them with goods & upon better terms than they can procure from the British or Spaniards & thus establish peace upon the foundation of Interest and friendly intercourse." 5

The feeling of the Federal Government and of Kentucky on the question of protection from the Indians had long been divergent-even from the end of the Revolution. To the Kentuckians the reminiscences of the former in affording that protection was proof sufficient that it would retard the development of the West as much as possible. The lack of protection from Virginia, as before noted, had been one of the major complaints of the Kentuckians against the Virginia authorities, and a principal cause for their desire for separation. In 1787, the Virginia governor was informed by his attorney-general for the District of Kentucky, Innes, that the Indians were so intolerable that Kentucky would likely revolt and become independent, "for, under the present system, we can not exert our strength, neither does Congress seem disposed to protect us." 7

Innes, who was the chief spokesman for Kentucky on the question of Indian protection, was a bitter critic of the policy the Federal Government was pursuing. In a communication to John Brown in 1788, who 3 Innes MSS., Vol. 19, No. 112. Dated March 10.

4 Innes MSS., Vol. 19, No. 109.

5 Innes MSS., Vol. 19, No. 6. Dated April 27.

On this subject see K. W. Calgrove, The Attitude of Congress toward the Pioneers of the West from 1789 to 1820 (N. MP., N. D.), 89, 114. Also see Innes to John Breckinridge, Dec. 7, 1787, in Innes MSS., Vol. 28.

7 Green, Spanish Conspiracy, 85. Dated July 21.

was at this time Kentucky's representative in Congress, he spoke of the feeble efforts of the United States in protecting the frontier, which consisted chiefly of paper promises. "Do these resolutions & instructions on paper secure the lives and property of our citizens-," he asked. "Doth the sending of those official papers afford us Protection-Hath any measures been adopted by Congress since the Peace with Great Britain to restrain the merciless savages?" He declared that the lives of hundreds of people had been lost and thousands of pounds of property destroyed. "The first principle of Society is mutual protection. This we have never received from any quarter-Not even an aiding hand from Congress the Supreme Executive of the Union, whose troops under proper regulations might have secured to us, Peace and Happiness, & incurred no more expense than they now daily do lying in idleness in detached posts on the Ohio. The position of troops on the Ohio, and the conduct of the commander seem only to evince to us that those troops never were intended for our protection, but to prevent Settlements on the Federal lands." 8

The Federal authorities were not slow in blaming the Kentuckians as being the chief offenders. This attitude was largely based on reports from the United States Indian agents who were accused by the Kentuckians of being notoriously unjust and hostile to the Western settlers, dealing in misinformation from every angle. The Indians, themselves, also told their "Great Father" stories of the ferocious Kentuckians, whom they feared above all other frontiersmen. The chief of the Wabash and Illinois Indians informed Jefferson that "Your people of Kentucky are like mosquitos, and try to destroy the red men. The red men are like mosquitos also, and try to injure the people of Kentucky." Some time later the same tribes referred again to their fears of the Kentuckians in one of their "talks": "Father,-We fear the Kentuckians. They are not content to come on our lands to hunt on them, to steal and destroy our stocks, as the Shawnees and the Delawares do, but they go further, and abuse our persons. Forbid them to do so." 10

He

Supplied with charges both from the Indians as well as from the Indian agents the Federal authorities were inclined to side against the Kentuckians, especially in the case of the Wabash tribes. Secretary Knox informed Washington in 1789 that there had been no peace between these tribes and the Kentuckians since the end of the Revolution. charged that "The injuries and murders have been so reciprocal, that it would be a point of critical investigation to know on which side they have been the greatest." He accused the Kentuckians of making no distinction between friendly Indians and hostile ones. "Some of the inhabitants of Kentucky," he declared, "during the year past, roused by recents injuries, made an incursion into the Wabash country, and, possessing an equal aversion to all bearing the name Indians, they destroyed a number of peaceable Piankeshaws, who prided themselves in their attachment to the United States." 11

It cannot be said that all Kentuckians held that the Indians had no rights to lands, and that they should be dealt with best by being extirpated. The Danville Political Club debated in the very midst of these Indian hostilities: "Is the exclusive right of the Indian tribes to the extent of territory claimed by them founded on the laws of nature and of nations, and can they consistent with said laws be divested of such right without their consent?" This group of Kentucky statesmen declared that the 8 Innes MSS., Vol. 19, No. 1. Dated April 4.

9 Letter from Innes to Henry Knox, Secretary of War, July 9, 1790. Ibid.,

No. 114.

10 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Library Edition), XVI, 379. Dated Feb. 1, 1791, and Feb. 1, 1793, respectively.

11 American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 13. Dated June 15. Doubtless a reference to Hardin's expedition in the summer of 1788 up the Wabash.