1789. Fort Washington founded. 321 Creek, one at the mouth of Meigs Creek, one at Anderson's Bottom, and one at Big Bottom.* Between the Miamies, there was more alarm at this period, but no great amount of actual danger. Upon the 15th of June, news reached Judge Symmes that the Wabash Indians threatened his settlements, and as yet he had received no troops for their defence, except nineteen from the Falls. Before July, however, Major Doughty arrived at the "Slaughter House," and commenced the building of Fort Washington on the site of Losantiville. In relation to the choice of that spot, rather than the one where Symmes proposed to found his great city, Judge Burnet tells the following story: Through the influence of the judge, (Symmes,) the detachment sent by General Harmar, to erect a fort between the Miami rivers, for the protection of the settlers, landed at North Bend. This circumstance induced many of the first emigrants to repair to that place, on account of the expected protection, which the garrison would afford. While the officer commanding the detachment was examining the neighborhood, to select the most eligible spot for a garrison, he became enamored with a beautiful black-eyed female, who happened to be a married woman. The vigilant husband saw his danger, and immediately determined to remove, with his family, to Cincinnati, where he supposed they would be safe from intrusion. As soon as the gallant officer discovered, that the object of his admiration had been removed beyond his reach, he began to think that the Bend was not an advantageous situation for a military work. This opinion he communicated to Judge Symmes, who contended, very strenuously, that it was the most suitable spot in the Miami country; and protested against the removal. The arguments of the judge, however, were not as influential as the sparkling eyes of the fair female, who was then at Cincinnati. To preserve the appearance of consistency, the officer agreed, that he would defer a decision, till he had explored the ground, at and near Cincinnati; and that, if he found it to be less eligible than the Bend, he would return and erect the garrison at the latter place. The visit was quickly made, and resulted in a conviction, that the Bend was not to be compared with Cincinnati. The troops were accordingly removed to that place, and the building of Fort Washington was commenced. This movement, apparently trivial in itself, and certainly produced by a whimsical cause, was attended by results of incalculable importance. It settled the question at once, whether Symmes or Cincinnati, was to be the great commercial town * Harris' Tour, 191, 192. + Symmes' Letters in Cist's Cincinnati, 231. 229. 219. 322 Reason for placing the Fort at Cincinnati. 1789. of the Miami purchase. This anecdote was communicated by Judge Symmes, and is unquestionably authentic. As soon as the troops removed to Cincinnati, and established the garrison, the settlers at the Bend, then more numerous than those at Cincinnati, began to remove; and in two or three years, the Bend was literally deserted, and the idea of establishing a town at that point, was entirely abandoned. Thus, we see, what great results are sometimes produced, by trivial circumstances. The beauty of a female, transferred the commercial emporium of Ohio, from the place where it was commenced, to the place where it now is. Had the black-eyed beauty remained at the Bend, the garrison would have been erected there, population, capital, and business would have centered there, and our city must have been now of comparatively small importance. We suspect the influence of this bright-eyed beauty upon the fate of Cincinnati, is over estimated, however. Upon the 14th of June, before Fort Washington was commenced, and when the only soldiers in the purchase were at North Bend, Symmes writes to Dayton: It is expected, that on the arrival of governor St. Clair, this purchase will be organized into a county: it is therefore of some moment which town shall be made the county town. Losantiville, at present, bids the fairest; it is a most excellent site for a large town, and is at present the most central of any of the inhabited towns; but if Southbend might be finished and occupied, that would be exactly in the centre, and probably would take the lead of the present villages until the city can be made somewhat considerable. This is really a matter of importance to the proprietors, but can only be achieved by their exertions and encouragements. The lands back of Southbend are not very much broken, after you ascend the first hill, and will afford rich supplies for a county town A few troops stationed at Southbend will effect the settlement of this new village in a very short time.t The truth is, that neither the proposed city on the Miami, North Bend or South Bend, could compete, in point of natural advantages, with the plain on which Cincinnati has since arisen; and had Fort Washington been built elsewhere, after the close of the Indian war, nature would have ensured the rapid growth of that point where even the ancient and mysterious dwellers along the Ohio had reared the earthen walls of one of their vastest temples. Transactions Historical Society, Ohio, p. 17. +Cist's Cincinnati, p. 230. See Transactions of Ohio Historical Society, part ii. vol. i. 35-Drake's Picture of Cincinnati, 202. 1790-95. Indian Wars. 323 We have referred to Wilkinson's voyage to New Orleans, in 1787; in January of this year, (1789,) he fitted out twenty-five large boats, some of them carrying three pounders and all of them swivels, manned by 150 men, and loaded with tobacco, flour, and provisions, with which he set sail for the south; - and his lead was soon followed by others. Among the adventurers was Colonel Armstrong of the Cumberland settlements, who sent down six boats, manned by thirty men; these were stopped at Natchez, and the goods being there sold without permission, an officer and fifty soldiers were sent by the Spanish commander to arrest the transgressors. They, meanwhile, had returned within the lines of the United States and refused to be arrested; this led to a contest, in which, as a cotemporary letter states, five Spaniards were killed and twelve wounded.t 1790 to 1795. The most important and interesting events connected with the West, from the commencement of 1790 to the close of 1795, were those growing out of the Indian wars. In order to present them in one unbroken and intelligible story, we shall abandon for a time our division by single years, and relate the events of the six referred to as composing one period. But to render the events of that period distinct, we must recal to our readers some matters that happened long before. And in the first place, we would remind them that the French made no large purchases from the western Indians; so that the treaty of Paris, in 1763, transferred to England only small grants about the various forts, Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, &c. Then followed Pontiac's war and defeat; and then the grant by the Iroquois at Fort Stanwix, in 1768, of the land south of the Ohio; Letter in Carey's Museum for February, 1789, p. 209. 313.-Wilkinson's Memoirs, ii. 113. + Carey's Museum, April, 1789, p. 417. 324 Mode of acquiring Indian lands. 1790-95. and even this grant, it will be remembered, was not respected by those who actually hunted on the grounds transferred.* Next came the war of 1774, Dunmore's war, which terminated without any transfer of the Indian possessions to the whites; and when, at the close of the Revolution, in 1783, Britain made over her western claims to the United States, she made over nothing more than she had received from France, save the title of the Six Nations and the southern savages to a portion of the territory south of the Ohio as against the Miamis, western Delawares, Shawaanese, Wyandots or Hurons, and the tribes still farther north and west, she transferred nothing. But this, apparently, was not the view taken by the Congress of the time; and they, conceiving that they had, under the treaty with England, a full right to all the lands thereby ceded, and regarding the Indian title as forfeited by the hostilities of the Revolution, proceeded, not to buy the lands of the savages, but to grant them peace, and dictate their own terms as to boundaries. In October, 1784, the United States acquired in this way whatever title the Iroquois possessed to the western country, both north and south of the Ohio, by the second treaty of Fort Stanwix; a treaty openly and fairly made, but one the validity of which many of the Iroquois always disputed. The ground of their objection appears to have been, that the treaty was with a part only of the Indian nations, whereas the wish of the natives was, that every act of the States with them, should be as with a confederacy, embracing all the tribes bordering upon the great lakes. Our readers may remember that the instructions given the Indian commissioners in October, 1783, provided for one convention with all the tribes; and that this provision was changed in the following March for one, by which as many separate conventions were to be had, if possible, as there were separate tribes. In pursuance of this last plan, the commissioners, in October, 1784, refused to listen to the proposal which is said then to have been made for one general congress of the northern tribes,§ and in opposition to Brant, Red Jacket and other influential chiefs of the Iroquois, concluded the treaty of Fort *Ante, pp. 110, 121. + See in proof, the Report to Congress of October 15, 1783, (Old Journals, iv. 294;) the instructions to the Indian commissioners, October 15th, 1783, (Secret Journals, i. 257 ;) the various treaties of 1784, 85, and '86 (ante); General Knox's Report of June 15, 1789, (American State Papers, v. 13); and the distinct acknowledgment of the commissioners in 1793, (American State Papers, v. 353.) + Ante p. 259. Ante p. 260. § See post. 1790-95. Indian objections to treaties. 325 Stanwix. Then came the treaty of Fort McIntosh, in January, 1785, with the "Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa and Ottawa nations"-open to the objections above recited, but the validity of which, so far as we know, was never disputed, at least by the Wyandots and Delawares; although the general council of northwestern Indians, representing sixteen tribes,* asserted in 1793, that the treaties of Fort Stanwix, Fort McIntosh and Fort Finney, (mouth of Great Miami) were not only held with separate tribes, but were obtained by intimidation, the red-men having been asked to make treaties of peace, and forced to make cessions of territory. The third treaty made by the United States was with the Shawanese at Fort Finney, in January, 1786; which it will be remembered the Wabash tribes refused to attend. The fourth and fifth, which were acts of confirmation, were made at Fort Harmar, in 1789, one with the Six Nations, and the other with the Wyandots and their associates, namely, the Delawares, Ottawas, Chippeways, Pottawamies, and Sacs. This last, fifth treaty, the confederated nations of the lakes especially refused to acknowledge as binding: their council using in relation to it, in 1793, these words: Brothers: A general council of all the Indian confederacy was held, as you well know, in the fall of the year 1788, at this place; and that general council was invited by your commissioner Governor St. Clair, to meet him for the purpose of holding a treaty, with regard to the lands mentioned by you to have been ceded by the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort McIntosh. Brothers: We are in possession of the speeches and letters which passed on that occasion, between those deputed by the confederate Indians, and Governor St. Clair, the commissioner of the United States. These papers prove that your said commissioner, in the beginning of the year 1789, after having been informed by the general council, of the preceding fall, that no bargain or sale of any part of these Indian lands would be considered as valid or binding, unless agreed to by a general council, nevertheless persisted in collecting together a few chiefs of two or three nations only, and with them held a treaty for the cession of an immense country, in which they were no more interested, than as a branch of the general confederacy, and who were in no manner authorized to make any grant or cession whatever. Brothers: How then was it possible for you to expect to enjoy peace, and quietly to hold these lands, when your commissioner was informed, |