1664.

Colonel Wood's Travels.

43

land, the necessity of taking steps to secure the western lands.* Nothing, however, was done by the government of the mother country, except to take certain diplomatic steps to secure the claim of Britain to those distant and unexplored wildernesses.

England, from the outset, claimed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on the ground that the discovery and possession of the seacoast was a discovery and possession of the country; and, as is well known, her grants to Virginia, Connecticut, and other colonies were through to the South Sea. It was not upon this, however, that Great Britain relied in her contest with France; she had other grounds, namely, actual discovery, and purchase or title of some kind from the Indian owners.

Her claim on the score of actual discovery was poorly supported however, and little insisted on.

"King Charles the First, in the fifth year of his reign (1630,) granted unto Sir Robert Heath, his attorney-general, a patent of all that part of America," which lies between thirty-one and thirty-six degrees north latitude, from sea to sea. Eight years afterwards, Sir Robert conveyed this very handsome property to Lord Maltravers, who was soon, by his father's death, Earl of Arundel. From him, by we know not what course of conveyance, this grant, which formed the Province of Carolana (not Carolina,) came into the hands of Dr. Daniel Coxe, who was, in the opinion of the attorney-general of England, true owner of that Province in the year of D'Iberville's discovery, 1699.†

In support of the English claim, thus originating, we are told by Dr. Coxe, that, from the year 1654 to the year 1664, one "Colonel Wood in Virginia, inhabiting at the Falls of James river, above a hundred miles west of Chesapeake Bay, discovered at several times, several branches of the great rivers, Ohio and Meschasebe." Nay, the Doctor affirms, that he had himself possessed, in past days, the Journal of a Mr. Needham, who was in the Colonel's employ, which Journal, he adds, "is now in the hands of," &c. The Doctor also states, that about the year 1676, he had in his keeping a Journal, written by some one who had gone from the mouth of the Mississippi, up as far as the Yellow or Muddy river, otherwise called Missouri; and he says, this

* Bancroft, iii. 354; Jones's Present State of Virginia, (1724,) 14; Universal History, xl. 192.

+ A Description of the English Province of Carolana, &c., by Daniel Coxe, Esquire. London 1722. pp. 113 et seq.

44

English Discoveries.

1699. Journal, in almost every particular, was confirmed by the late travels. And still further, Dr. Coxe assures us, that, in 1678, "a considerable number of persons went from New England upon discovery, and proceeded so far as New Mexico, one hundred and fifty leagues beyond the river Meschasebe, and, at their return, rendered an account to the government at Boston;" for the truth of all which he calls Governor Dudley, who was still living, as witness. Nor had he been idle himself; "apprehending that the planting of this country would be highly beneficial," he tried to reach it first from Carolina, then from "Pensilvania, by the Susquehannah river," and "many of his people travelled to New Mexico." He had also made discoveries through the great river Ochequiton, or, as we call it, Alabama; and "more to the northwest, beyond the river Meschasebe," had found "a very great sea of fresh water, several thousand miles in circumference,” whence a river ran into the South Sea, about the latitude of fortyfour degrees, and "through this," he adds, "we are assured the English have since entered that great lake."

These various statements are, it must be owned, somewhat startling; but, leaving them undisturbed for the present, we can see clearly the bearing of what follows, namely, that the Doctor, in 1698, fitted out two vessels, well armed and manned, one of which (when, we hear not) entered the Mississippi and ascended it above one hundred miles, and then returned,-wherefore, is not specially stated. This was, doubtless, the corvette which M. Bienville turned out of what he considered French domains; as Charlevoix tells us, that the vessel which Bienville met, was one of two which left England in 1698, armed with thirty-six guns, the same number which Daniel Coxe, the Doctor's son, tells us, were borne by his father's vessels. The English, having thus found their way to the Meschasebe, wished to prosecute the matter, and it was proposed to make there a settlement of the French Huguenots, who had fled to Carolina; but the death of Lord Lonsdale, the chief forwarder of the scheme, put an end to that plan, and we do not learn from Coxe, whose work appeared in 1722, that any further attempts were made by England, whose wars and woes nearer home kept her fully employed.

And now, what are we to say to those bold statements by Coxe; statements contained in his memorial to the King in 1699, and such as could hardly, one would think, be tales a la Hontan? Colonel Wood's adventures are recorded by no other writer, so

1742.

John Howard taken by the French.

45

far as we have read; for, though Hutchins, who was geographer to the United States when the western lands were first surveyed, refers to Wood, and also to one Captain Bolt, who crossed the Alleghanies in 1670, his remarks are very vague, and he gives us no one to look to, as knowing the circumstances. Of the Boston expedition we know still less; the story is repeated from Coxe by various pamphlet writers of those days, when Law's scheme had waked up England to a very decided interest in the West; but all examinations of contemporary writers, and the town records, have as yet failed to lend a single fact in support of this part of the Doctor's tale. While, therefore, there is no doubt that the English, at an early day, had visited the South West, and even had stations on the Tennessee and among the Chickasaws, (see Charlevoix's map,) we cannot, on the other hand, regard the statements made by Coxe as authenticated. Then we have it also from tradition, that in 1742, John Howard crossed the mountains from Virginia, sailed in a canoe made of a buffalo skin down the Ohio, and was taken by the French on the Mississippi;* and this tradition is confirmed by a note, contained in a London edition of Du Pratz, printed in 1774, in which the same facts as to Howard are substantially given being taken from the official report of the Governor of Virginia, at the time of his expedition. But this expedition by Howard, could give England no claim to the West, for he made no settlement, and the whole Ohio valley had doubtless long before been explored by the French † if not the English traders. It is, however, worthy of remembrance, as the earliest visit by an Englishman to the West, which can be considered as distinctly authenticated. Soon after that time, traders undoubtedly began to flock thither from Pennsylvania and Virginia. In 1748, Conrad Weiser, an interpreter, was sent from Philadelphia with presents to the Indians at Logstown, an Indian town upon the Ohio, between Pittsburgh and the Big Beaver creek, and we find the residence of English traders in that neighborhood referred to as of some standing, even then.‡

• Kercheval's Valley of Virginia. p. 67.

+ Trees have been found in Ohio bearing marks of the axe, which, if we may judge by the rings, were made as far back as 1660.—Whittlesey's Discourse 1840, p. 8.

Butler's History of Kentucky, vol. i. second edition, (Introduction xx.) gives the adventures of one Salling in the West, as early as 1730, but his authority is a late work, (Chronicles of Border Warfare,) and the account is merely traditional, we presume; Salling is named in the note to Du Pratz, as having been with Howard in 1742. There are various vague accounts of English in the West, before Howard's voyage. Keating,

46

Lord Howard held a treaty with the Six Nations. 1684. But the great ground whereon the English claimed dominion beyond the Alleghanies, was that the Six Nations* owned the Ohio valley, and had placed it, with their other lands, under the protection of England. As early as 1684, Lord Howard, Governor of Virginia, held a treaty with the Six Nations, at Albany, when, at the request of Colonel Dungan, the Governor of New York, they placed themselves under the protection of the mother country. This was again done in 1701; and, upon the 14th of September, 1726, a formal deed was drawn up, and signed by the chiefs, by which their lands were conveyed to England, in trust, "to be protected and defended by his Majesty, to and for the use of the grantors and their heirs." If, then, the Six Nations had a good claim to the western country, there could be little doubt that England was justified in defending that country against the French, as France, by the treaty of Utrecht, had agreed not to invade the lands of Britain's Indian allies. But this claim of the New York savages has been disputed. Among others General William H. Harrison has attempted to disprove it, and show, that the Miami confederacy of Illinois and Ohio could not have been conquered by the Iroquois. We shall not enter into the controversy; but will only say, that to us the evidence is very strong, that, before 1680, the Six Nations had overrun the western lands, and were dreaded from Lakes Erie and Michigan to the Ohio, in Long's Expedition, speaks of a Colonel Wood, who had been there, beside the one mentioned by Coxe. In a work called "The Contest in America between England and France. By an Impartial Hand. London 1757," we find it stated, that the Indians at Albany, in 1754, acknowledged that the English had been on the Ohio for thirty years. And in a memorial by the British ministry, in 1755, they speak of the West as having been cultivated by England for “above twenty years.” (Sparks' Franklin, vol. iv. p. 330.) Clearer proof still is found in the fact that the Government of Pennsylvania recalled its traders from the Ohio as early as 1732, in consequence of apprehending trouble with the French and Indians. (Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, iii. 476.

* When we first hear of the great northern confederacy, there were five tribes in it; namely, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. Afterwards the Tuscaroras were conquered and taken into the confederacy, and it became the Six Nations. Still later, the Nanticokes, and Tuteloes, came into the union, which was, however, still called the Six Nations, though sometimes the Eight United Nations. This confederacy was by the French called the "Iroquois," by the Dutch "Maquas," by the other Indians "Mengive," and, thence, by the English, "Mingoes." These varied names have produced countless errors, and endless confusion. By many writers we are told of the Iroquois or Mohawks; and the Mingoes of the Ohio are almost always spoken of as a tribe. We have used the terms "Six Nations," and "Iroquois," and now and then "Mingoes," always meaning the whole confederacy.

+ Plain Facts, &c. Philadelphia, 1781. pp. 22, 23.

This may be found at length in Pownall's Administration of the Colonies, fourth edition, London, 1768, p. 269.

[See Harrison's Historical Address, 1837.

1744.

Western Lands claimed by the British.

47

and west to the Mississippi. In 1673, Allouez and Dablon found the Miamis upon Lake Michigan, fearing a visit from the Iroquois,* and from this time forward we hear of them in that far land from all writers, genuine and spurious, as may be easily gathered from what we have said already of Tonti and his wars. We cannot doubt, therefore, that they did overrun the lands claimed by them, and even planted colonies in what is now Ohio; but that they had any claim, which a Christian nation should have recognized, to most of the territory in question, we cannot for a moment think, as for half a century at least it had been under the rule of other tribes, and, when the differences between France and England began, was, with the exception of the lands just above the head of the Ohio, the place of residence and the hunting-ground of other tribes.‡

But some of the western lands were also claimed by the British, as having been actually purchased. This purchase was said to have been made at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1744, when a treaty was held between the colonists and the Six Nations relative to some alleged settlements that had been made upon the Indian lands in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland; and to this treaty, of which we have a very good and graphic account, written by Witham Marshe, who went as secretary with the commissioners for Maryland, we now turn, dwelling upon it somewhat, as a specimen of the mode in which the Indians were treated with. The Maryland, commissioners reached Lancaster upon the 21st of June, before either the governor of Pennsylvania, the Virginia commissioners, or the Indians, had arrived; though all but the natives came that evening.

⚫ The next forenoon wore wearily away, and all were glad to sit down, at one o'clock, to a dinner in the court-house, which the Virginians gave their friends, and from which not many were drawn, even by the coming of the Indians, who came, to the

George Croghan, the Indian agent, took an oath that the Iroquois claimed no farther on the north side of the Ohio than the Great Miami or Stony river; (called also Rocky river, Great Mineami; and Assereniet. Hutchin's Geographical Descriptions, 25. The purport of this oath has been misunderstood, it says nothing of what the Iroquois transferred to England in 1768. See Butler's Kentucky,-5. 6.— Hall's Statistics of the West, Preface, viii. Butler's Chronology, 9.-The oath is given American State Papers, xvii. 110.

+ See Charlevoix, La Hontan, Hennepin, Tonti, &c.

"In 1744, when the Lancaster treaty was held with the Six Nations, some of their number were making war upon the Catawbas."-Marsh's Journal, Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. vii. pp. 190, 191.